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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hosts of the Lord, by Flora Annie Steel
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: The Hosts of the Lord
+
+Author: Flora Annie Steel
+
+Release Date: June 13, 2012 [EBook #39991]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOSTS OF THE LORD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
+Google Books (the University of California)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://books.google.com/books?id=x2YpAQAAIAAJ
+      (the University of California)
+
+   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        THE HOSTS OF THE LORD
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        THE HOSTS OF THE LORD
+
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                          FLORA ANNIE STEEL
+
+        AUTHOR OF "ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS," "MISS STUART'S
+             LEGACY," "THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               New York
+
+                        THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+                     LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
+
+                                 1900
+
+                        _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           Copyright, 1899,
+                        By FLORA ANNIE STEEL.
+
+
+                           Copyright, 1900,
+                      By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+
+                            Norwood Press
+                 J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
+                         Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER
+
+         I. A Shadow.
+
+        II. "He shall feed his Flock like a Shepherd."
+
+       III. Driftwood.
+
+        IV. Under-currents.
+
+         V. The "Dee-Puk-Rāg."
+
+        VI. Alpha and Omega.
+
+       VII. The World's Desire.
+
+      VIII. Falling Stars.
+
+        IX. Out of the Past.
+
+         X. The Pivots of Life.
+
+        XI. Wheels within Wheels.
+
+       XII. The Church Militant.
+
+      XIII. At the Gates.
+
+       XIV. Miracle Mongers.
+
+        XV. Oh! dem Golden Slippers!
+
+       XVI. Echoes.
+
+      XVII. The Pool of Immortality.
+
+     XVIII. Adrift.
+
+       XIX. Juliet.
+
+        XX. Trapped.
+
+       XXI. Margherita.
+
+      XXII. A Monopoly.
+
+     XXIII. The Search-Light.
+
+      XXIV. Beyond the Shadow.
+
+       XXV. Dawn.
+
+      XXVI. Foiled.
+
+     XXVII. L'Addio del Marito.
+
+    XXVIII. The Truth.
+
+
+
+
+
+                        THE HOSTS OF THE LORD
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Two Bars of Music]
+
+
+
+
+
+                        THE HOSTS OF THE LORD
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+                               A SHADOW
+
+
+"Understand! Of course you don't. I don't, though I've been here two
+years. And what's more, I don't want to," retorted a rather undersized
+Englishman, whose white drill suit made him look like a stem to the
+huge mushroom of a pith hat which he wore. Despite this protection his
+face was brown exceedingly, and faintly wrinkled through sheer exposure
+to sun-bright, sun-dried air. The fact enhanced the monkey type of his
+features, and made his clear, light-blue eyes--so set that they were
+shadowless below and cavernous above--look quite aggressively cool,
+inquisitive, intelligent.
+
+"So long as we don't understand them," he went on, "and they don't
+understand us, we jog along the same path amicably, like--well! like
+the pilgrims to the 'Cradle of the Gods,' and the telegraph-posts to
+the Adjutant General's office up the road yonder--and I'll trouble you
+to cram more space than that between two earthly poles! No! It is when
+we begin to have glimmerings that the deuce and all comes in--" He
+paused in the molten gold of sunlight, which made the yellow sand, the
+corn-coloured tussocks of tiger-grass still yellower and still more
+corn-coloured, to glance round, as if measuring the distance between
+the long, low line of mud enclosure they had left but a few hundred
+yards behind--yet which, already, was losing itself in an illimitable
+sand stretch beyond--and a bigger tuft in the sand stretch ahead; a
+tuft of spear-points and horses, bayonets and men, waiting beside the
+first faint semblance of a reed-paved road. Then he took out his watch.
+Apparently he found leisure at his disposal, for he walked on. "There's
+a nursery rhyme they taught me," he continued, "when my moral nature
+was at the mercy of any fool who chose to take an interest in it--'_But
+if poor Pussy understood, she'd be, indeed, a naughty creature!_' It
+didn't run so consecutively, of course; in fact 'creature' rhymed to
+'teach her'--but I learnt it that way. Children do that sort of thing a
+sight deal oftener than their elders think."
+
+The younger of the two men in uniform with whom he was walking
+laughed--the honest, elated, conscious laugh of one who has not many
+good stories about himself, and happens on an opportunity for telling
+one of them.
+
+"_I_ used to say, '_Six days shalt thy neighbour do all that thou hast
+to do, and the seventh day shalt thou do no manner_--'"
+
+"Shut up, Lance!" interrupted his elder companion with a laugh. "It is
+a ripping excuse for your intolerable laziness, but I don't believe--"
+
+"Fact, I assure you," protested Lance Carlyon aggrievedly, "and
+considering I really thought that was the proper version for ten years
+of my life, I--"
+
+Dr. George Dillon took off his mushroom hat suddenly, and wiped his
+forehead as if to smooth away the wrinkles which his smiles had brought
+to it. "Lordy! It's a queer world," he put in. "There is really no good
+in understanding most things. As for this place--! Great Scott! What
+would happen if my fifteen hundred scoundrels, whom you saw digging
+like babes in the open just now, were to understand that I--one
+Englishman in charge--had virtually no _force majeure_--"
+
+"Don't insult us, Dillon!" remonstrated Captain Vincent Dering, a
+certain swagger underlying his jest. "Eshwara is a garrison town,
+remember, now; I'm commandant, and Carlyon's staff--"
+
+He had, in fact, ridden that morning as far as Dr. Dillon's house in
+charge of a troop of native cavalry and some Sikh pioneers who had gone
+on, under a native officer, to take up their temporary quarters in the
+half-ruined Fort, just beyond the old town of Eshwara. And now, having
+thus secured their breakfasts, he and his lieutenant were on their way
+towards the horses and escort they had bidden await them at the boat
+bridge which lay between them and their destination. For George Dillon
+was in control of a large industrial gaol, whose inmates had for months
+been digging the head works of a canal, which was to take off just
+below the town, on the farther side of the river.
+
+"Are you?" replied the doctor, with a look of pity; "then I hope you'll
+both forget the fact. We've got on all right without you, hitherto. So
+if you'll stick to marking out the Viceroy's camp, and generally
+preparing the way of the Lord-sahib, I'll be obliged to you. By the
+way, is he coming to open the canal on the 10th, really?"
+
+"So they say. That is, if you are ready for the show by then. I believe
+he could put it off till the 11th or 12th. Dashwood said something to
+that effect."
+
+"Then Dashwood's an ass. The 10th is bad enough. The place will be
+filling up even then."
+
+"Filling up! How?"
+
+"Pilgrims. But on the 11th and 12th! By George! you should see them!
+The 'Assyrians came down like a wolf on the fold,' is nothing to it;
+only these are the Hosts of the Lord, I suppose. And so Dashwood
+suggested the 11th or 12th--the _Vaisakh_ festival, did he? Well, he is
+an ass! But that's always the way. We try to understand feelings,
+instead of trying to know facts. However, we shall be ready for the
+opening, never fear. Smith expects his C. S. I. over it, he says, and
+that's enough guarantee. You know Smith, don't you, Dering? Walsall
+Smith--I think his wife said she knew you."
+
+"Yes," he interrupted, with rather unnecessary decision, "Mrs. Walsall
+Smith is a great friend of mine, a very great friend."
+
+"Jolly for you, having friends in Eshwara," assented Lance, in uneasy
+haste. "I suppose they are about the only people here, eh, doctor?" he
+went on, changing the subject; but the latter's clear eyes and brain
+were occupied for a moment in taking stock of Captain Dering's
+singular, if a trifle _voyant_ personal attractions; one of the most
+noticeable of which was the perfect curve of his throat and cheek.
+
+"I beg your pardon--people, did you say?" asked Dr. Dillon, after the
+pause. "Plenty of people, if you count _padrés_--the place swarms with
+missions, you know. But if you mean polo--" He shook his head.
+
+Lance Carlyon's honest young face clouded, then grew cheerful again.
+"Well! there must be a lot of black partridge, and I expect there's
+fish in the river. Besides, it's an awfully picturesque place--By Jove!
+it is, Dering, isn't it?"
+
+They had reached the tuft of spear-points and horses, men and bayonets,
+and before them lay Eshwara, sun-saturate, shadowless, in the April
+noon.
+
+So seen, across the still lagoon of water formed by the junction of the
+two streams, the Hara and the Hari, which edged the low-lying
+triangular spit from which its fortified, temple-set walls rose,
+Eshwara seemed at the very foot of the blue barrier of hill behind it,
+whose serrated edge, paler than the blue sky above it, claimed
+three-quarters of all things visible for this world.
+
+That, indeed, was the noticeable point in the picture presented to the
+eye. As a rule Heaven claims the larger half of all perspectives. Here,
+the three elements, earth, air, water, lay across the view in three
+broad bands of blue, curiously similar in tint; for the sky was pale
+with excess of light, the hills with excess of heat, and the water
+paler than either by reason of a white silt which it brought with it
+from the snows; a white silt which a recent flood had left in a fine
+film upon the sand stretches that showed here and there in the broad
+basin.
+
+"It is a gypsum _detritus_," explained the doctor--"from the 'Cradle of
+the Gods'--the cave, you know, where the rivers rise. The pilgrims go,
+in fact, for this very stuff. Find it in the ice crannies, call it 'the
+clay of immortality,' smear themselves with it, and then die happy, in
+hundreds, of pneumonia! Those are the facts. I don't profess to
+understand them; and as I told you I don't want to. It's dangerous. As
+that cracked old Jesuit, Father Narāyan, admitted, with that
+unfathomable smile of his, when all the other parsons were at me for
+refusing to allow them access to a postulate or a catechumen, or
+someone of that sort, who was sent to my jail '_the Church has always
+admitted the value of invincible ignorance_.'"
+
+"Father Narāyan!" interrupted Lance Carlyon eagerly, "I suppose that's
+the Father Ninian Bruce who has lived here fifty years, and has a sort
+of Begum in tow, a descendant of General Bonaventura's, who was the
+Nawabs' favourite. I want to see that old chap; he must be a character.
+My grandmother, old Lady Carewe, used to tell me about him; long yarns,
+though she hadn't met him since she was in her teens in a convent at
+Rome, and he was father confessor, I suppose--she's a Holy Roman, you
+know, and was a desperate flirt too."
+
+"So am I," said Vincent Dering quickly. "I mean a Catholic--at least my
+people are. So I can tell you one thing, Dillon; Father Ninian isn't a
+Jesuit. I was talking about him at the Club, when I knew I was coming
+here, and Father Delamere was indignant at the idea--said he was a
+disgrace to his cloth."
+
+George Dillon's dry face grew dryer. "Did he, indeed! I quite agree
+that _he_ is, but I didn't think Delamere would have admitted the fact
+himself! As for Pidar Narāyan, as the natives call him, he--he--" here
+the dry face melted. "Bless the man," he continued, and the dry voice
+grew soft, "he thinks he knows more about doctoring than I do, and the
+worst of it is--" here a perfectly charming smile took possession of
+every wrinkle--"he does, in a way; for the natives believe in him, and
+the 'saffron bag' is the best of all remedies. You see, when he was
+younger, he used often to go with the pilgrims and try to pull some of
+the poor devils out of the fire--or rather out of the snow--for the
+'Cradle of the Gods' lies yonder."
+
+He pointed to where, faint and far, a peak showed paler than the rest.
+
+"Why don't they smear themselves here?" asked Lance stolidly.
+
+"Why? Because they don't. Besides, there isn't much to come and go upon
+for a robe of righteousness here. Look! the breeze is blowing it away
+already!"
+
+In truth the sun, which with the other three elements of earth, and
+air, and water, give us, in all religions, the whole spiritual life of
+man,--the world of his probation, the heaven of his hopes, the means of
+his purification, and the fire of his retribution--had scorched the
+fine film to dust, and the wind, blowing where it listed, was sweeping
+it away, leaving the sand stretches unregenerate as ever.
+
+"An extra touch of pipe-clay!" laughed Vincent Dering, dusting his knee
+as he settled himself in his saddle. "Well! good-by, old chap. I shall
+see you again soon, for I shall be coming over to the Smiths' pretty
+often, and I suppose your regiment of ruffians leaves you off duty
+sometimes. Carlyon, make Dillon an honourary member of the headquarters
+mess!"
+
+George Dillon, leaning with his hands in his pockets against the rail
+of the first pontoon, watching the little cavalcade start, nodded.
+"Thanks. I'm over pretty often at the Palace. Pidar Narāyan plays the
+fiddle, and the Begum,--as you call her,--Miss Laila Bonaventura, has a
+voice. Besides, Babylon--I mean Eshwara--amuses me."
+
+"Why Babylon?" asked Captain Dering, stooping to straighten his
+stirrup.
+
+The doctor laughed, as his lounge changed to a start homeward. "Means
+the same thing. Esh-dwarra--or in another tongue, Bab-y-lon,--is 'the
+Gate of God,' though Babylon stands for something else nowadays,
+doesn't it? That's why I say it's never any use to find out the
+meanings of things. They change so. Stick to facts; they don't. Well,
+ta-ta. I'll see you to-morrow, most likely, at the Palace. They have a
+sort of concert-practice-afternoon on Wednesdays--some of the Mission
+ladies sing jollily in parts--and the old man is sure to ask you. He
+sets great store on his ward's position; besides, I told him you were a
+nailer at the piano."
+
+Vincent Dering made a wry face. "The deuce you did! My dear fellow, I
+couldn't play hymn tunes to save my life. I shall refuse."
+
+"Pity," replied Dr. Dillon over his shoulder, as he swung off in
+strides which emphasized the undue shortness of his trousers, "for I
+heard Mrs. Smith say they wanted a good accompanist. She sings
+_alto_--rather well."
+
+"Oh, does she?" said Captain Dering, in a different tone.
+
+As they set their faces different ways, there was a smile on both, but
+the doctor's was scarcely a pleasant one; it would, in fact, have been
+wholly sardonic but for the touch of impatient weariness it brought
+with it.
+
+So, through the sun-bright, sun-dried air, while George Dillon walked
+back to his fifteen hundred malefactors, the little trail of
+spear-points and bayonets, men and horses, drifted at a foot-pace
+across the frail bridge towards the town; drifted unsteadily, the
+yielding boats swaying, the wooden girders giving and groaning over
+their burden. Seen so, with but a plank between it and the milky water
+creased by the faint current, there was something unreal in the gay
+troop of colour and glitter making its way to the quaint, storeyed
+town, ablaze in the sunlight, which turned each golden temple-spike to
+a star. A cool breeze fluttered the lance-pennants, and brought that
+faint film of white to horse and man, warm flesh, and cold steel.
+
+And far away on that pale peak, a little white cloud had rested, hiding
+the "Cradle of the Gods."
+
+"There must be fish here," remarked Lance dogmatically. "I'll get out
+my rods to-morrow and try for a '_mahseer_.'" And the earnestness of
+his face, as he lifted his eyes skyward to watch a couple of
+cormorants, would have suited a knight-errant of old on the quest of
+the Holy Grail.
+
+"It won't be half bad, I expect--for a time, at any-rate," assented
+Vincent Dering, still with that content upon his face. "We will get up
+some fun while the camp is here, of course; and after that--" he
+paused, and the content became greater--"we'll manage for the month or
+so we have to stop. At least I shall."
+
+His voice was soft. He might have been another knight-errant of old,
+riding across to the enchanted castle of his beloved.
+
+"I beg pardon, sir," said a voice behind him; a voice with a strong
+native accent, yet with a curiously English phrasing in it, "but by
+dismounting here you will reach the Fort in a few minutes on foot. The
+road is longer."
+
+Captain Dering turned, as if surprised, to the speaker, a native
+officer who sat his horse at the salute; then smiled, and with a
+clatter of accoutrements slipped to the ground.
+
+"Come along, Carlyon. I was forgetting that Roshan Khān is up to the
+ropes here. You belong to Eshwara, don't you, _risaldar sahib?_"
+
+The man to whom he spoke had slipped from his saddle also, and stood,
+smart as uniform could make him, still as discipline could hold him. He
+was a good-looking young Mahomedan of about thirty, curiously English
+in his movements, curiously native in his exaggeration of martial airs.
+
+"_Huzoor!_" he assented. "We are connected with the late Nawab's
+house."
+
+He spoke with absolute indifference, but Captain Dering, as they left
+the bazaar, which led from the bridge, for a short flight of steps and
+a narrow alley cleaving it's way through crowded, shouldering houses,
+remarked aside:--
+
+"I believe that means he is about the nearest relation left. The
+Colonel, I know, wasn't sure about the wisdom of his coming here; but
+then the Colonel is that sort. So I insisted. One wants somebody who
+can tell you things in a new place. What's that, in there, Roshan?"
+
+They had come to a long, high wall, with trees showing above it, which
+stretched away on their right hand for two or three hundred yards,
+until it ended in an arched tunnel through a massive block of buildings
+at right angles to it.
+
+"The palace garden, sir; and that is the palace. There is no entrance
+this side."
+
+"The women's apartments, I suppose?"
+
+"_Huzoor_," assented Roshan Khān once more. "The Miss _Sahib_ lives
+there now, and the _Padré_ has his chapel there too. The river runs
+along the side, and it is pleasant."
+
+"Pleasant and cool," echoed Lance, as the shadow of the tunnel closed
+in on them. "I'd no idea it was so hot outside. By Jove! what a quaint
+place."
+
+They were emerging on a wide, square courtyard of which the palace
+formed one side, the fort another, a flight of steps leading down to
+the river a third, while the fourth was apparently, a wing of the
+palace. All three walls were absolutely blank save for a low door at
+each of the four corners; and these were, so to speak, connected with
+each other by pathways raised two steps above the rest of the
+courtyard. A similar footpath crossed it in the middle and so completed
+the resemblance to a union-jack; for the pathways were of white marble
+and red Agra stone, the courtyard of purple-blue brick. These paths met
+in a round platform in the centre, where, on a stone carriage, stood an
+old cannon.
+
+"That's a big gun," said Vincent Dering, when, with a quickened clink
+of his spurred steps he had reached it; so, laying his hand lightly on
+the cylinder, he vaulted to it, as on to a horse, and stooped to read
+an inscription on the riveted band about the breech.
+
+"Sanskrit," he said--"that stumps me! it's so confounded straight. Ah!
+here it is in Persian too--that's better."
+
+There was a faint clash of steel on stone, for, as he read the motto
+aloud, Roshan's hand, stiffening on his sword-hilt, made ground and
+scabbard meet.
+
+Captain Dering slipped to his feet again with a laugh.
+
+"'Teacher of religion, and instructor of souls;' that's about a correct
+translation, isn't it, _risaldar sahib?_ Well! I'd back a Maxim against
+old Blunderbore as a missionary agent nowadays. Hullo! they worship it
+still, do they?" He pointed to a faded chaplet of marigolds around the
+muzzle, and a red hand printed on the marble below.
+
+The Mahomedan's face took on the expression of his race and creed; all
+unconsciously, too, he reverted to his own language.
+
+"The idolators do that when they come to bathe; and they give alms to
+the saint, when he is inside."
+
+"Inside!" echoed Captain Dering. "What! Inside the gun?"
+
+Here Lance, who had promptly peered down the muzzle, came up from it
+excitedly, asserting that the saint was there now; he could see the
+brute's fuzzy head half way down, so he must have crawled in feet
+foremost--one of those naked brutes who smeared themselves with ashes,
+to judge by his _chignon_.
+
+"Make a ripping mop," laughed Vincent Dering, after glancing down in
+his turn; "clean the gun nicely,"--then the _insouciance_ of his face
+disappeared, its curves hardened--"and by God! I'll make him. I'm not
+going to have my guns worshipped! eh, Roshan?"
+
+"_Huzoor_," assented the Mahomedan once more, this time joyfully, as--a
+decorous two paces behind--his spurs jingled in harmony with his
+captain's across the raised union-jack towards the river-end of the
+courtyard where, in a projecting bastion right upon the bathing steps,
+the low arched door stood which gave access to the Fort.
+
+In order to reach it they had to pass the solitary visible occupant of
+the wide, sunlit courtyard. This was a man--of what rank, education,
+occupation, none could tell--who having raised a square of
+two-inch-high mud wall between his twice-born purity and the world, was
+preparing his daily food. Naked, save for his waistcloth, and the
+thread of the twice-born over his left shoulder, he was isolated even
+from his kindred. Alone with himself and his God.
+
+Before him in the mud-plastered square, as he sat immovable, was the
+mud fireplace on which his wheaten dough-cake was cooking; beside him
+was a leaf-platter of curds, a brass vessel of milk; a sight to be seen
+a hundred times a day in India; one which should never be forgotten.
+
+The noon was almost shadowless; yet, even so, as he led the way,
+Captain Dering, from sheer habit, swerved to step further from the
+sacred square. Doing so his foot slipped an instant on the lower step.
+He gave an impatient exclamation and passed on. A minute later the door
+of the fort clanged behind the little party, cutting short an English
+laugh.
+
+Then, not till then, the man in that square of purity showed signs of
+life. He rose quietly, almost unconcernedly, took the half-baked cake
+from the embers, the leaf-platter of curds, the vessel of milk, and
+going down to the river's edge, flung his dinner into it, to feed the
+fishes.
+
+In that stumble, the plume-like fringe of Vincent Dering's high peaked
+turban had sent a shadow to overtop the two-inch barrier between one
+man and his fellows.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II
+
+              "HE SHALL FEED HIS FLOCK LIKE A SHEPHERD"
+
+
+The garden of the old palace at Eshwara had been rightly described by
+Roshan Khān as a pleasant place. Longer than it was broad, its shady
+walks and orange groves clung to the river, raised above it by a
+balconied wall against which the current ran dimpling. On two of the
+remaining sides, a twenty-feet high barrier of sheer masonry,
+buttressed and bastioned, blocked out all curious eyes. On the third,
+separating it from the courtyard where the big gun stood, rose the
+palace. Seen thus intimately from within, the latter had changed its
+character. No longer severe, stern, giving a blank stare at the world
+from the narrow slits of infrequent windows, it had grown fanciful,
+almost fantastic, full of canopied turrets and inconsequent little
+latticed retreats.
+
+At least in the two upper storeys; for the lower one was more solid,
+its chief feature being a wide, aisled passage leading right through it
+to a door which gave on the courtyard. Being exactly opposite the one
+in the corner of the Fort bastion on the other side, this door opened,
+as the latter did, on one of the slantwise limbs of the quaint
+union-jack of raised paths which centred in the cannon.
+
+It was not necessary, however, to go round by this in crossing from one
+door to the other, as by keeping to the river steps, you could do so on
+the same level.
+
+In old times the guardians of the frail beauties for whose delectation
+the garden had been made, had lived in the crypt-like vaulted rooms
+which opened out from this aisled passage; so keeping the gate against
+illegal wanderings. Since the only other exit from the garden, save by
+boat, was through the second storey of the women's apartments, and as
+this was by a door leading directly into the royal rooms (which were on
+the other side of the tunnel that gave access to the courtyard, and
+also divided the palace into two portions--male, and female), the
+butterfly prisoners had had no chance of fluttering to strange honey.
+In those days, therefore, the door had always been bolted and barred.
+
+It stood wide open, however, showing a vista of green at the farther
+end of the passage, when Captain Dering and Lance Carlyon came over to
+it in reply to the intimation that Miss Laila Bonaventura was "_At Home
+for music on Wednesday afternoons_," which had been brought to the Fort
+overnight by an old pantaloon. A very old pantaloon with a wizened
+face, a few sparse hairs--dyed flaming red--standing at right angles to
+his cheeks, and a marvellous livery, consisting for the most part of
+yards upon yards of tarnished tinsel cloth, twisted and twined about
+head and waist like Saturn's rings. The oldest of old pantaloons, with
+a back curved by a life-time of obeisances, a toothless mouth, still
+full of sonorous titles, and a wicked old eye, watchful for the least
+want of the master, be it good or evil. A pantaloon, with Heaven knows
+what history of unutterable things hidden in his old brain, such as is
+to be seen, even in these days, lingering round the ruins of a native
+court; a figure despicable enough, yet real; so in a way pathetic, by
+reason of its absolute lack of real interest in things as they are.
+
+And now as the two Englishmen paused,--partly because the swift change
+from the glare without to the gloom within was startling,--this same
+pantaloon, with a white muslin robe superadded to the livery as a badge
+of his dignity as door-keeper, precipitated himself upon them from the
+shadows, with ancient skips of alacrity and loop-like salaams; then
+with crab-like sidlings led the way, the young men following.
+
+"I must have that old chap on paper before I leave," said Vincent
+Dering; "he's too good to be lost."
+
+So, their steps echoing cheerfully with their laughter, they went on
+until, towards the middle of the passage, the aisle to their left
+widened, and through a maze of pillars and arches, a glimpse or two of
+air and sunlight showed sharply.
+
+Lance took a curious step towards them. "Opens on to the river, I
+expect; jolly cool it must be in the hot weather! By Jove! those old
+sinners knew how to be comfortable. Hullo!"--he paused in a sort of
+horror--"I say, Dering! I believe it's a chapel. Yes! it is!" He took
+off his cap instinctively, and moved another step forward to see
+better.
+
+But Captain Dering called impatiently, "Oh, come along, do, Carlyon! I
+didn't promise to go to church! Hymns are bad enough in all
+conscience."
+
+Lance, however, stood rooted to the spot, cap in hand. "Hush!" he said
+in a low voice, "I believe they are having service." As he spoke a
+robed figure showed between the arches against the sunlight beyond
+them; showed with something in its lifted hands, then passed to some
+unseen altar.
+
+"Oh, come along, do! there's a good chap, and let's get out of the
+way," repeated Captain Dering, sharply. "It's Father Narāyan, I
+suppose,--he's as mad as a hatter, and boshes the whole business--at
+least, so Delamere said. I told you we were a bit early, but you would
+start; still it's too bad of the old man to have his chapel in the
+front hall! Come along! and let us wait in the garden--it looks an
+awfully jolly one--awfully--"
+
+He paused, perhaps at the change, this time, from gloom to glare,
+perhaps at the sudden sense of anticipation, the sudden quickening of
+the pulse of life, which made him draw a long breath involuntarily.
+
+It was not unfamiliar to him, that sudden stir of vitality, of
+expectation; and with a curious smile on his face he crossed to the
+edge of the marble plinth on which the passage opened, and leaning over
+the balustrade, looked down to a terrace below, and so on to the garden
+itself.
+
+A perfect wilderness of common flowers, sown broadcast, lay at his
+feet, hemming in a shallow marble tank, which was nearly covered with
+the dewy leaf-cups of the lotus, and set round with mosaic arabesques.
+From this tank two aqueducts led to the edge of the terrace, and ended
+in steep slopes of fretted marble, where cascades had once wimpled and
+dimpled down to the water-maze which lay below--a shiny lake, cobwebbed
+over by narrow marble paths just wide enough for the bare, flying
+feet of a laughing girl. Beyond was scented shade, with glints of
+water-courses gleaming here and there; while here and there came a peep
+of a latticed balcony overhanging the river; a balcony just large
+enough for a laughing girl and her lover.
+
+Yet there was not even a butterfly to be seen hovering over the
+flowers. All was still, all was silent, until Vincent Dering's careless
+laugh echoed through the stillness, the silence.
+
+"Can't you imagine it--all lit up--they used to put coloured lamps
+behind the cascades, I'm told, and play 'Catch who can' up and down
+and all around the place! On the whole I expect they enjoyed
+themselves--better than the type-writing girls of to-day do, for
+instance."
+
+"Got beastly sick of enjoying themselves before they had done with it,
+I expect," replied Lance, succinctly, "especially if there was always
+such a confounded strong smell of orange blossoms. Bah! I'd prefer a
+polecat; but," he gave a distasteful glance at his companion, "I
+believe you like strong scents."
+
+"Why not?" laughed Vincent Dering, drawing out a handkerchief deluged
+with white-rose, and sniffing at it, "it's a harmless taste," here his
+jest passed to earnest, and his eyes took a half soft, half cynical
+expression,--"so's the other, in a way. It isn't altogether despicable
+to let yourself loose in Paradise without an _arričre pensée_ of
+flaming swords. Especially if you can give pleasure to someone else
+thereby. One could act Romeo and Juliet nicely in this garden. And have
+your choice of balconies, too," he continued, returning to jest, "even
+if the young woman--"
+
+He glanced back as if to verify his remark from the _faēade_ of the
+palace, but what he saw behind him brought a sudden straightening of
+his lounge, and rather an elaborate doffing of his sailor hat; for he
+was always a trifle ornate in his courtesy towards women, and the girl
+who stood within a pace or two of him was distinctly attractive,
+if--even at the first glance--a little too bread-and-buttery for his
+taste; too young, too clumsy as to waist, too massive in the contours
+of face and figure. For Captain Vincent Dering's taste had remained
+constant for the last three years to a different type of beauty; a type
+which, for the first time in his life, had made him sentimental,
+romantic, more or less unselfish. Still the girl was handsome, even in
+that babyish frock of starched white muslin, girt about with a yellow
+silk sash. The dress, he told himself,--for he was a connoisseur in
+_chiffons_, and had a pretty turn for painting in addition--would have
+been better soft, and creamy; but thank heaven! the sash was not blue,
+like the marker of the missal she carried in her hand. It might have
+been; for it was impossible to fathom the lack of all sense of fitness
+in some women. Yet the result would have been to take all the ivory
+tints from this girl's complexion, and leave it jaundiced. And the
+ivory was charming.
+
+"I am Miss Bonaventura," she began in a set way, which convinced
+Captain Dering that she had been sent to say those very words, and none
+other; "my guardian, Father Ninian Bruce, will be here directly. Won't
+you come upstairs to the drawing-room? I am sorry we did not know it
+was so late."
+
+"It is our fault; we are disgracefully early," put in Captain Dering.
+"I told Carlyon--" then he paused, feeling curiously at a loss before
+the girl's look of stolid gravity.
+
+"Perhaps your watch is too fast," she suggested, "and then my guardian
+likes to go by the sun. He says it never needs winding up. But I think
+it is inconvenient, when everybody else has a watch. It is always
+better to do as other people do."
+
+Her voice was very sweet and full; but a country-bred accent spoilt its
+beauty, and brought a grimace to Captain Dering's face, as he and his
+companion dutifully followed the speaker up one of the curved flights
+of steps, which led from the plinth to a wide loggia on the second
+storey. Like the room seen through its arches, this was lavishly
+decorated with fragments of looking-glass fashioned into flowing
+designs with gilt stucco. The afternoon sun, at this height shining
+full into the loggia, made it a veritable star chamber.
+
+"What a charming place," went on Captain Dering in his best manner.
+"Doesn't it remind you of the Arabian Nights, Carlyon?"
+
+A sudden vague surprise and interest came to the girl's face,
+lightening it infinitely.
+
+"Have you read the _Alif Laila?_" she asked. "My _moonshi_ brought
+it--I have to learn Urdu, you know, because my guardian thinks I ought
+to be able to speak to the people, as he does--and I wanted to read it,
+because it is my name, you see--Laila--it means 'night,' I believe--but
+my guardian did not wish it. He gave me the 'Mirror of Virtue' instead.
+It is a very, very long--"
+
+Her almost childish garrulity ceased in a faint flush over the ivory of
+her face, and she reverted to her lesson, and her indifference--"The
+other people will be here directly; but they will come from the city,
+across the tunnel, and go straight into the drawing-room. Would you
+like to come in there, or stay here?"
+
+"Oh! stay here, please!" said Vincent, desperately. The young woman was
+getting on his nerves.
+
+"Then perhaps you would like to try the piano?" persisted Miss
+Bonaventura. "My guardian has it brought out here on Wednesday
+afternoons, because it sounds well among the arches. Will you try it?"
+
+Her hand--it was ivory also, Vincent observed, and had long
+filbert-shaped nails--held the cover of the keyboard open stolidly; and
+Lance Carlyon, feeling a bit desperate also, said appealingly:--
+
+"Do, Dering. He is a nailer at the piano, I assure you, Miss
+Bonaventura, and he sings too."
+
+"So my guardian--" she began, when Vincent's patience gave way and,
+with a perfect devil of exasperation roused in him, he sat down on the
+music-stool and with a crash burst into a naughty little love song he
+had picked up at Brindisi on the way out. He did it simply to soothe
+himself; so, to do him justice, he nearly fell off the music-stool in
+horror when, at the refrain of the second verse, a very full round
+_mezzo-soprano_ joined in it with a _verve_ and _abandon_ far exceeding
+his own.
+
+He scarcely knew whether to apologize, or go on; but Miss Bonaventura
+apparently had no doubts. She finished with a gay little _staccato_
+note which would have made her fortune at a music hall, and then turned
+to the accompanist with a smile which showed an absolutely flawless set
+of teeth. "What funny words; but I like them, and the tune too. What is
+it called? I should like to get it and sing it to my guardian."
+
+Vincent, who had begun a stammering regret that he had not remembered
+her nationality, altered his phrase, with a sense of relief, to "You
+know Italian very well, I suppose, Miss Bonaventura?"
+
+She returned to her indifference immediately. "My guardian and I speak
+it. He loves Italy and the Italians. He knew my grandmother there. She
+was a princess; but he never speaks of her, so I don't know very much
+about it. Only Mother at the convent said that my guardian--"
+
+She was off, gaily, on the childishly confidential tack again, when the
+sight of someone coming up the stairs made her veer towards dignity
+once more. "There is my guardian," she said; "he is very sorry to have
+kept you waiting."
+
+Evidently this was the last bit of her lesson, for she closed the piano
+with great decision.
+
+The figure which came slowly towards them was that of a very old man,
+yet one older, by many years, than his looks. For he was still
+straight, save for a slight stoop in the neck; but this, by the
+backward poise of the head thus made necessary to enable his brown eyes
+to meet all things, after their habit, squarely, if softly, gave him an
+air of alertness. He was dressed in an ordinary black _soutane_, but
+wore a fine white embroidered muslin skull-cap, such as natives wear,
+instead of a black one. His grey hair showed, still luxuriant, beneath
+it; and the wide sash of faded lilac silk, with tasselled ends, which
+was tied in a bow about his waist, set off his still slim and still
+graceful figure.
+
+"I hope my little girl has been doing the honours properly," he began,
+pausing a pace or two from the young men, and not offering to shake
+hands; but his voice was a welcome in itself, and had that nameless
+_cachet_ of absolute good breeding which makes offence impossible.
+There was a slight hesitancy in it too, now and again, which was
+overcome by a look that took the listener into its confidence, and
+appealed for friendly forbearance--"but she is only just back from
+school at Calcutta, and the good nuns did not see much company, did
+they, Laila?" Then in an undertone of solicitude he added, in Italian,
+"Didst tell them, _cara mia?_--didst remember it all?"
+
+Laila Bonaventura looked at him with a faint resentment. "I think so,
+guardian," she replied, in English. "Didn't I?"
+
+The last came with such swift, almost savage, challenge of voice and
+eyes, that Vincent Dering, the recipient, felt glad of the diversion
+caused by the arrival, through the drawing-room, of some more guests to
+claim the attention of the host and hostess, and so leave him in peace.
+
+"I say, that girl has got splendid hair, hasn't she?" he said in an
+undertone to Lance, as they stood a little apart, watching the new
+comers.
+
+"That tall one, you mean--don't admire it. Puts me in mind of that
+devil of a chestnut who nearly killed me at polo; a chestnut with white
+stockings; awfully handy, but--"
+
+He paused as Father Ninian came up to them. "You can scarcely know any
+of your neighbours as yet, Captain Dering," began the old man with the
+ceremony of a past age, "so perhaps you will give me the privilege of
+presenting you to some of our good mission ladies."
+
+"Thanks," replied Vincent, hastily. "But I see my old friend, Mrs.
+Walsall Smith, coming in. I must just go and shake hands. But I'm sure
+Carlyon--"
+
+Lance shot a perfectly pathetic glance after his Captain, who moved off
+to meet a delicate-looking fair woman who at that moment came in with
+Dr. Dillon; the latter taken possession of and monopolized by an
+exceedingly pretty child of five, who had evidently inherited her
+mother's fragility.
+
+"Delighted, I'm sure," murmured Lance, following his leader dejectedly.
+
+"Miss Erda Shepherd, Mr. Lancelot--I am right, am I not--Carlyon?"
+
+It was the tall girl with the red-brown hair, of course. She had bronze
+eyebrows, too, and bronze eyes--nice ones. He saw so much as he made
+his bow, while Father Ninian stood looking first at the girl, then at
+the young man; and as he looked his fine old hands were clasped as if
+they held something very precious. It was a habit of his.
+
+"I hope you will like each other," he said in his kind old voice; and
+then, ere he moved away, his hands fell apart for an instant as if
+giving something. "Peace go with you, my children," he said with a
+smile.
+
+Lance felt a queer, unaccustomed thrill travel from the nape of his
+neck to his boots, pausing by the way at his heart. It was an unusual
+method of introduction, certainly; yet somehow it relieved the shyness
+which generally beset him at such functions. He found himself looking
+frankly into the bronze eyes, and something in them made him say,
+almost involuntarily:--
+
+"That was rather a jolly way of beginning to be friends. I mean--" The
+shyness came back with a rush; he blundered horribly.
+
+"Very," put in the girl, interrupting him quite simply. "I hope it will
+be peace. I always hope that. You know I am a missionary."
+
+"Oh," he replied, blankly. "Yes, there are a lot of you--I mean--of
+them, in Eshwara, aren't there?"
+
+Her face set suddenly, her mouth grew almost stern. "Not enough, Mr.
+Carlyon; not half enough," she replied. And the militant ring of her
+voice, belying the peaceful professions of the previous moment, made
+him look at her curiously, recognizing that he had touched some
+quivering nerve of mind. "If you knew Eshwara as I know it," she went
+on, passionately, "you would say so too; I'm sure you would."
+
+The bronze eyes, meeting his blue ones, though they gave nothing back
+but kindly, almost boyish, surprise, seemed satisfied. She turned
+suddenly and stretched her right hand over the river which slipped
+oilily past the wall below, as they stood beside the balustrade of the
+loggia. "Look!" she said, impulsively. "Do you see that straight white
+thing floating down the curve of the current yonder? It isn't a log;
+those others are; plenty of logs come down the rivers from the forests
+in the hills, for they don't catch all, you know, at the government
+wood-station. And so the people here catch the runaways in the
+backwater, and get paid for them. But that--" She paused and her other
+hand gripped the balustrade hard; then she turned back to him with a
+faint apology. "Why should I bother you? Let us talk of something else.
+There is no reason why I should talk of these things to you so soon,
+or, indeed, at all."
+
+"I'd rather you did," he put in quickly. It was the truth. A sudden
+curiosity had come to him, a sudden desire to know more, to think more.
+He was less of a boy than he had been five minutes before. "I--I hope
+you will," he added; "really I do--I--I--" He felt his manhood as he
+had never felt it before, and yet, in a way, he was more forgetful of
+it. The girl opposite him was womanhood incarnate to him, and yet, in
+some mysterious way, beyond it, above it.
+
+"You and I must be about the same age, I expect," he said, with a
+half-perplexed frown, "but you have seen a lot more than I have. I wish
+you'd tell me, please!"
+
+The straight white glint in the water was just disappearing behind one
+of those balconies overhanging the river, where there was only room for
+a pair of lovers.
+
+"It is a dead girl, Mr. Carlyon," she said in a low voice. "She was in
+my school. Her people were very bigoted--Brahmins in a temple--but they
+let her be taught to read, because she was betrothed to an educated
+man. Last year she was married--she was but a child still--and I have
+only seen her once or twice since. Then"--the voice paused a second.
+"She was very frightened, poor little Premi, at what was coming. 'I
+shall die, Miss-_sahib_, I shall surely die,' she said to me the very
+last time I saw her; so I promised--I am a medical missionary, Mr.
+Carlyon. But when the time came, they would not let me in. I--I
+went to the husband--he is an educated man--you may have heard of
+him--Rama-nund, a great speaker,--he writes, too, and all that--but he
+said he was helpless with the women; and I am not sure either if he
+wished it himself--they don't know their own minds. So poor little
+Premi and her baby--Oh!" she broke off with an infinite pain in her
+voice--"it is so hard--so hard for both."
+
+Her face, set riverwards, was soft, yet stern; full of fight, yet full
+of pity, and Lance thought of a virgin martyr in the illustrated 'Lives
+of the Saints' with which his grandmother, Lady Carewe, had been wont
+to still his boyish unrest on Sunday afternoons. Yet there was
+something beyond that self-concentrated devotion in this face;
+something that took him back further still to the days when he had
+sobbed out his childish hurts in his mother's arms.
+
+"She was ill all yesterday and the day before--they told me there was
+no hope of either--they just let them die. And they always put them in
+the river--they have iron rings round their wrists and ankles to
+prevent them coming back to harm the men--" She paused and turned to
+Lance swiftly. "Isn't it true that there are not enough of us--that we
+want more women to teach them what--"
+
+"But I does!" came a high childish treble, forcing itself irresistibly
+even on the attention of these two; "I 'ikes 'oo twenty 'fowsand times
+better than dad, an' I 'ikes Captain Dering ten 'fowsand times better
+too; an' so does 'mum--don't 'oo mummie?"
+
+It was little Gladys Smith, who, clasping both Dr. Dillon's hands in
+hers, had swung herself back from him so as to toss her fair curls from
+her laughing face, as she looked up at him mutinously.
+
+There was an instant's awkward pause, during which the eyes of a man
+and woman met for a second. Met and parted hastily; but not before the
+girl with the yellow silk sash, who stood between them, had looked from
+one to the other with a dim surprise unclosing her red lips, and
+showing the gleam of her white teeth between them.
+
+Then Dr. Dillon said, carelessly, "And you like Akbar Khān better than
+any of us, you young sinner, because he gives you sweeties! Here! Akbar
+Khān, bring the Missy-_baba_ some cream toffee!"
+
+The old pantaloon, who, with his loose coatee removed and a white
+duster tucked into Saturn's waist-ring was now helping to hand round
+coffee and cake, capered up with a voluble, but toothless,--
+
+"_Ger-reeb--pun-wāz!_" (Protector of the Poor.)
+
+Gladys helped herself discriminately, staring at the old servitor the
+while. "But I don't 'ike Akbar Khān. Do I, son of an owl?" she
+continued superbly, in the accurate Urdu which comes so daintily from
+lisping English babies. "Did I not say I would hate thee because thou
+wouldst not tell me why thou didst prostrate thyself before the soldier
+in the courtyard? And the _ayah_ laughed, the base-born! She knew also,
+and would not say, and so did the soldier; so I hate you all!"
+
+She stamped her little foot, and shook her curls defiantly.
+
+"Gladys!" cried her mother, reproachfully.
+
+"Hullo! What's all this about?" laughed Captain Dering, catching the
+child up in his arms. "One of my soldiers insulting you? Who was it?"
+He turned, with the absolute command of his race, to the be-ringed one,
+who stood, full of deprecatory mumblings and salaamings, his hands,
+holding the tray of sweets, trembling visibly.
+
+"Who was it, Khān-_jee?_" asked Father Ninian, in a curiously even
+tone; one which, nevertheless, seemed a compelling one, for a murmured
+name came rapidly, followed by eager explanations.
+
+Father Ninian frowned, and deliberately put on the gold _pince-nez_
+which always hung around his neck. He seldom used it, however, being,
+he would say playfully, in his native Scotch, too "well acquaint" with
+Eshwara and all in it to need such help after fifty years experience.
+So it had come to be an unfailing sign that he was face to face with
+something unexpected, something new. Naturally, therefore, it changed
+the character of his face, bringing back to it a strange look of youth;
+of hope and energy--the look of choice which age has not.
+
+"Roshan Khān," he echoed, "why comes he here?" Then in sudden
+recollection he turned to Vincent Dering. "Of course, he comes with
+you. I knew he was in your regiment, but I did not think."
+
+Captain Dering put down the child gently. "Is there any reason, sir,"
+he asked decisively, "why he should not be here? If so--"
+
+Father Ninian took off his eye-glasses slowly. He was back on familiar
+ground. "No!" he said, with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders;
+"none. He is welcome to come if he likes. He is a fine soldier, Captain
+Dering, and a good fencer."
+
+"The best I have ever come across," put in Lance Carlyon.
+
+Father Ninian laughed, a satisfied, vainglorious little laugh, and
+bowed, with his hand on his heart, in foreign fashion. It seemed almost
+as if something had brought back the manners of a different life.
+
+"His master thanks you," he said gaily. "I taught him; but as Esmond
+said of the _botte de Jesuit_--not all. We craftsmen keep something up
+our sleeve for our own use!"
+
+Lance Carlyon's face grew eager. He had heard of Father Ninian's art
+with the foils, and took his opportunity. "That's what Roshan does to
+me. I took lessons from him, but he licks my head off with tricks.
+Perhaps some day, sir--"
+
+Father Ninian's right hand and wrist, despite their age, flourished
+themselves with marvellous suppleness. "Of a surety! Of a surety," he
+interrupted, still in that gay, almost reckless voice, "and I will
+teach you '_L'Addio del Marito_.' I never taught that to Roshan--it
+does not do for savage natures."
+
+"The husband's good-by! What a funny name," echoed Laila, curiously.
+"Why is it called that, guardian?"
+
+The gaiety left the old man's face.
+
+"Because the thrust is used, _cara mia_," he replied in Italian, and
+his answer came dreamily, half to himself, "when even those who have
+that greatest tie to life prefer to say good-by to it." He paused, then
+went on cheerfully: "But come! Music! Music! We lose time horribly.
+Laila, 'tis your part to begin."
+
+The girl walked stolidly to the piano.
+
+"What shall I sing, guardian?" she asked.
+
+"Sing?" he repeated, reverting once more to Italian, and his voice had
+the dreamy tone in it again; "sing my favourite, child. Something hath
+taken me back to the old days--and sing it well."
+
+Something in the pose of the girl, something in the faint defiance of
+her face as she stood turning over the leaves of the music, attracted
+Vincent Dering's fancy. He moved over to her, and asked if he should
+play her accompaniment.
+
+"If you can," she said, ungraciously.
+
+He smiled. "What is it? Oh!--Handel." He shrugged his shoulders. "Yes!
+I fancy I can play him--he is not very complex."
+
+The next instant he had embarked, with a certain sense of pique lending
+perfection to his phrasing, on the prelude; but perfect as his tone
+was, it seemed to fall dull and dead before the voice which rose and
+echoed into the arches.
+
+
+              "He shall feed His flock like a Shepherd."
+
+
+Pure, peaceful, free from every touch of passion; absolutely, utterly,
+beyond this world and its works, it rose and filled the garden; the
+orange-scented garden with its fretted marble cascades and water-maze,
+where the feet of laughing girls had chased each other, the latticed
+balconies where lovers had sat.
+
+
+             "And He shall gather the lambs in His arms."
+
+
+It floated out over the river where the dead girl had drifted, making a
+light come to a pair of bronze eyes.
+
+
+             "Come unto Him all ye that labor."
+
+
+Out beyond the garden, into the city, a faint far echo of the call made
+men and women pause in the struggle for life, and say, "They are
+singing in the palace."
+
+
+             "And ye shall find rest unto your souls."
+
+
+The promise of all religions, the cry which makes all creeds one, rose
+and fell, as the afternoon sun, shining into the loggia, put a canopy
+of stars above the head of the singer.
+
+Some of the audience said "Thank you," politely when she ended. Vincent
+Dering did not. He stood on one side, and, being musical to the heart's
+core, gave himself the luxury of silence. Only when Father Ninian, ever
+mindful of ceremonies and courtesies, crossed to acknowledge the
+services of the accompanist, he said briefly,--
+
+"Who taught her that?"
+
+The old man looked at him almost wistfully: "I heard her grandmother
+sing it, nearly sixty years ago. I have never forgotten it."
+
+"I do not wonder," said Vincent Dering, and his eyes, forgetful of
+others, followed the girl whose dress ought to have been creamy and
+soft, instead of white and starched.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III
+
+                              DRIFTWOOD
+
+
+The river Hara, after skirting the fort, the bathing-steps below the
+courtyard, the palace, and the palace garden, continued its course,
+still hemmed in to swift current by a high bank on the opposite side,
+and on the near one by a wall set with spiked temples sacred to Siva;
+for Hara is one of his many names. But, on reaching the apex of the
+triangle formed by the city, the banks fell away, the river spread
+itself out to greater rest, until, at the uttermost end of a long spit
+of sandbank and tamarisk, it met the waters of its twin river, the
+Hari, in the broad placid lagoon which lay between Eshwara and the
+south; that is the dry stretch of desert, against whose barrenness
+Western ingenuity--aided by Dr. Dillon's horde of fifteen hundred
+ruffians--had been digging defiance for months. From the spit of sand
+you could see the result. A broad seam on the face of patient Mother
+Earth, a first wrinkle telling of millions to come from the
+ploughshares of men.
+
+As yet, however, the canal was as dry as the desert around it; and was
+to remain so until the great Lord-_sahib_ came in state, on his way to
+the hills, to open the sluices. There was to be a big camp, a big
+function on the occasion, and even sleepy Eshwara felt a vague
+excitement regarding it. For the older men remembered the days when the
+Hosts of the Lord-_sahibs_ had regularly passed through the city, and
+had tales to tell about them; a fact which prevented the coming event
+from being too strange even to be thought about! Then the opening of
+the canal was another disturber of primeval calm. True, the idea of it
+had been with Eshwara ever since the first sod had been turned two
+years before; but now the thing stared it in the face. Within a few
+days the waters of the sacred rivers would have to lie in a new bed.
+Would they like it? Would the gods like it? Would men like it?
+
+Those were the questions being asked from one end of Eshwara to
+another. Even outside it, on the long narrow spit of sand-bank set with
+sparse tussocks of grass and tamarisk which reached beyond the city's
+triangle into the rivers--and where, after a flood, the white gypsum
+silt lay like a robe of righteousness--they were being discussed; for
+the strange race who lived on it, shifting their wigwams of grass to
+the low-lying land opposite when the waters rose, lived by the river;
+by the fish in it, and the logs of wood which came floating down it.
+
+So this question of the canal was in the mind of the naked man, attired
+in the complete suit of blue beads which marks an aboriginal race, who,
+in the dawn following, squatted on the highest curve of the spit. He
+was small, swart to positive inkiness, and his thin legs and arms
+shewed grey lights on their tense muscles, as if these were truly iron.
+Behind him rose a wigwam of reeds, at the entrance to which a spear was
+stuck in the sand in order to display the head of a bottle-nosed
+alligator impaled on its point. At his right hand was a reed basket, a
+rude net of reed twine. In front of him lay one of those small
+shark-like scaleless fishes which the learned call Silurian, and tell
+us are relics of a creation older than ours.
+
+So might the man have been. So might have been the background of sand
+and reed, spear and wigwam, the foreground of net and fish. Yet the
+fisher was not all uncivilized. This little survival of an aboriginal
+race, shifting about in the shifting river-bed, had always had an
+attraction for the Missionaries, who, as a rule, find the inferior
+races easiest to deal with. Gu-gu therefore--his name being as
+primitive as his appearance, since it is the first effort of infant
+tongues--belied his looks. He had at any rate a civilized eye to
+business, a civilized notion of the relations between supply and
+demand, for he shook his head at the customer opposite him.
+
+"Not a cowrie less, Khān-jee. 'Tis the only one in the market, see you;
+besides on this day the '_Missen_' miss comes to us folk, and she never
+haggles. She will pay the five annas gladly to be let read her book to
+my women."
+
+The mumble-apparently a pious aspiration that the Most High would smite
+infidels hip and thigh--was the only recognizable point in the figure
+on the other side of the fish; for Akbar Khān, doorkeeper, messenger,
+assistant waiter, had not only discarded Saturn's rings--the loss of
+which about his head made his baldness something of a shock--but also
+every article of clothing except his waist-cloth. The reason for this
+was, in a way, like many another thing about the old sinner, pathetic.
+Briefly he liked to dissociate his inner self from occupations which he
+considered were beneath the dignity of the Akbar Khān of the past.
+Therefore being, for the nonce, a bazaar coolie in search of fish for
+his master's breakfast, he got up for the part; so finding it, at once,
+easier to forget, and to remember that past.
+
+He mumbled of it as he strenuously opposed the price.
+
+"Everything grows dearer, every day," yawned the aboriginal Gu-gu.
+"Even women, as thou shouldst know."
+
+Akbar Khān clucked a pious denial. "We spread no nets for that game in
+the palace nowadays. Those evil times are gone; we live sober and
+virtuous." The piety held a distinct flavour of regret.
+
+"And as for fish," continued Gu-gu, "they will be dearer ere they are
+cheaper. When the deep water begins to run canalwards, the fish will
+run too. Then good-by to our trade, since the _Huzoors_ allow us
+nothing in their waters without payment."
+
+He whined, however, to the wrong quarter for sympathy, the old
+retainer's views on preserving being absolutely those of a Shropshire
+squire who is also a J. P.
+
+"Neither did we," he replied, indifferently. "Thy like, Gu-gu, would
+have had to bring thy fish to the palace and be satisfied with our
+leavings. Out on thee for an upstart! Take thy four annas, and be
+thankful--slave!"
+
+Gu-gu's ill-tempered face became aggressive. "Not I!--the Miss will
+give it; nay! six, mayhap, since the child is sick, and she will be
+wanting leave to dose it. So--hands off--eunuch!"
+
+The title, once dignified, was opprobrious now, and old Akbar rose in a
+perfect fury, his bald head wobbling, the flaming fringe of red hairs
+about his face giving him a ludicrous resemblance to a toothless old
+man-eating tiger, face to face with his lawful prey, yet unable to
+injure it.
+
+"Oh! for the bastinado!" he stuttered, impotently. "Oh, for the cutting
+off of bodily members! Oh! even, for the tying up of heels, and
+roastings and duckings. But the _Huzoors_ have taken them from us, and
+gifted them to the police, who know not the proper methods. Yāh!
+Gu-gu, had I but had thee fifty years ago!" his anger lessened with
+sheer wistful regret. "Fifty years ago when the Nawab gifted me as
+body-servant to the new _Wazeer_ Bun-avatār[1]-_sahib_ because he
+brought him a bird that would sing of itself from Italy _wilayat_."
+
+"But all birds do that," cavilled Gu-gu, feeling nevertheless a
+reverent curiosity about those legendary days.
+
+Akbar gave a crackling, contemptuous laugh. "Not palace birds! they
+have to be wound up; and Bun-avatār-_sahib_ sent for this across the
+black water. So he kept favour with the Nawab. Birds that sing, and
+flowers that smell, and boxes that make music, and dolls that dance
+when you wind them. Lo! these, Gu-gu, are the pleasures of palaces; but
+how canst thou know, who hast not lived in them even, as I--"
+
+The sense of his own superiority soothed him still more; he squatted
+down again, and hubble-bubbled for a space at the _hookah_ which was an
+integral part of all his impersonations.
+
+"Yea! those were times," he mumbled half to himself. "Even Pidar
+Narāyan--may Heaven protect him--could not say 'please God' to every
+mouthful, as he does now--as we all do now, and rightly, seeing that we
+have grown old." Once more the piety smacked of pity, and the old man,
+finding a listener, went on with a certain gusto. "Look you! he had to
+walk like the tongue among thirty-two teeth in those days, with
+Bun-avatār-_sahib_, my master, like two peas in one pod with the Nawah.
+Except for women. Pidar Narāyan took his way there--mostly!"
+
+The interrupting gurgle of the _hookah_ gave time for an elaborate wink
+of a wicked old eye. Possibly this was due to the smoke, for the old
+voice went on as before almost dolorously.
+
+"He had the money-bags, you see, and looked after the rents. But my
+master, Bun-avatār--lo! thou shouldst have seen him when he came
+first--the picture of a man!--they say he was a prince in his own
+country, but fell into trouble; so came to make his fortune here with
+Pidar Narāyan--was called _Wazeer_. And let me tell thee, Gu-gu, it
+means something to be body-servant to a _Wazeer!_ Lo! to think I might
+have been it still but for that jade, Anāri Begum!"
+
+Despite the epithet, he smiled, and his pipe this time gave out quite a
+chuckling sound.
+
+"As ill to keep within walls as a butterfly!" he muttered. "Up and down
+the garden, in and out the balconies, and the Nawab in two minds to use
+force, or put her in a sack. For she flouted him. The prettiest ones
+play that game for power always, and she was Walidād, her brother's,
+last hope of favour. Walidād, _Kanjara_, who had been king's caterer
+for years before my master, Bun-avatār-_sahib_, came to make all the
+court cry sour buttermilk! Walidād, who had once stood so high, that,
+in a drunken bout, the Nawab promised him his half-sister to wife. And
+he got her too! She wept on her wedding day, but we in the lower storey
+heeded not tears in the upper. For, see you, mine uncle was chief
+eunuch--we kept the honour thus in the family from generation to
+generation--so I was in and out, seeing what went on. Until somehow
+(mine uncle with the bowstring round his neck--as was right, honest
+man--swore he knew not how) Bun-avatār-_sahib_ caught a sight of her!
+Some say it was a plot, from beginning to end, of Walidād's; others
+that _his_ enemies feared lest Anāri should succeed. There be balls
+within balls, even in a plaything, if the workmen are cunning! Anyhow,
+he saw her.
+
+"And I, his body-servant, was able to come and go where Pidar Narāyan
+hath made his church nowadays. But there! what matters it? 'Tis all
+one. Love and the Faith are in and out of men's minds like a shelldrake
+in weedy water; a body cannot tell which way its head may be and which
+its tail! Nevertheless I felt a choke at my throat, Gu-gu, many a time,
+as I waited for him in the boat below the balcony; yet in the end, it
+was not my throat, but mine uncle's. He died in the faith, Gu-gu,
+cursing women. _His head was that way at the last!_--'Tis mostly
+so--_he_--_he_--"
+
+The chuckle of his pipe was fiendish, yet his wizened face was wistful.
+"Still, God knows, one could scarce look on at such a wooing, and not
+beat the drum in time, as musicians to a dancer. And it runs in our
+blood, see you, to watch, and beat the drum. That is our profession;
+and, by mine ancestors! I deemed it enough for mortal man. But
+Bun-avatār-_sahib_, see you, was not of our race. He was of Italy
+_wilayat_ and a prince. So, one day, my liver dissolved hearing that
+the butterfly was over the walls! But, as I said, it was mine uncle's
+neck, not mine. Yet the game ended for me when Bun-avatār-_sahib_
+died."
+
+"They poisoned him, folk say; is't true?" asked Gu-gu. It was a point
+in the oft-told tale which was still discussed by Eshwara gossips.
+
+"That is other folks' news, not mine," replied Akbar, discreetly. "May
+be, may be not. The _Huzoors_, anyhow, sent the Nawab to die in
+Calcutta on a _pinson_[2] for it; but they have ever an excuse to take
+land! Pidar Narāyan had a hard fight to keep Bun-avatār-_sahib's_
+grants--the Nawab was ever generous to his favourites, look you--for
+Anāri Begum's baby; ay! though he showed a writing of marriage, and had
+made the infant Christian after their habit. Still he got them, land
+and palace and all. So I stayed on serving my master's child, and when
+she died, her child, the Miss-_baba_, even to the haggling for fish.
+Lo! slave! it grows late. Give it to me and have done with it--Thou
+wilt not. Oh! for the devil that was in her grandmother Anār to be in
+this Miss-_baba_, and for her to come to Bun-avatār-_sahib's_ rights as
+_Wazeer_--then would there be loppings and--"
+
+"Or if Roshan Khān should come to his," sneered Gu-gu. "The canal
+_sahib's_ ayah was telling me thou didst prostrate thyself in the dust
+as if he were indeed Nawab! Have a care! eunuch-_jee_, the police are
+agog nowadays to find disloyalty even in newspapers."
+
+"May her gossiping tongue be slit!" stuttered the old retainer. "Can a
+body not do obeisance to his masters? For look you, Roshan is true
+grand-nephew to the Nawab through his grandmother, Walidād's wife--ay!
+and for that matter, cousin to the Miss, through Anāri Begum, Walidād's
+sister! I did but welcome him; I did but my duty--I did but show my
+manners--I did but what we have done from generation to generation." He
+moved away muttering, full of virtuous resentment that a suspicion of
+anything save sheer servility should have been imputed to him. After a
+lifetime of trucklings and bootblackings, to be credited with higher
+motives was too bad. To prove his innocence he would that very evening,
+he told himself, seek out Roshan, not at the Fort,--that might be
+misunderstood,--but at his grandmother's. His grandmother, who, though
+she had been upstart Walidād's wife, was still the late Nawab's
+half-sister! His sister!! What could be nearer than that!!!
+
+And he would prostrate himself again, and assure the family of his
+services. _That_ was his birthright.
+
+Meanwhile Gu-gu looked after him, and laughed. He was a clever fellow,
+was Gu-gu, and in a previous generation of scholars had been pet pupil
+in a little school started by another Miss from another _Missen_. He
+had got pennies for attending it, which had come in useful before he
+was big enough to face the river.
+
+But now he was the best man on either the Hara or the Hari, save one.
+And he?
+
+Gu-gu's beady black eyes, watching the curve of the current
+mechanically, gave a sudden flash. He was on his feet in a second.
+There was something dipping, diving, sidling, drifting, out yonder
+which might be secured for his wigwam before anyone else saw it! But
+as, silently, like a seal's, his black head came up from his first
+forge under water which was to give him a fair start from the shore
+without even a splash to attract notice, another black head showed to
+the right of him, a yard or two behind.
+
+But it was _his_ head! Am-ma's head! Am-ma, the frog-like, Am-ma, whose
+wide hands and feet looked as if webbed in the water. Am-ma, the only
+man who could touch him. He set his teeth, gave up silence, and surged
+ahead with an overhand stroke, his hand seeming to clutch and hold the
+water. It was a faster stroke than Am-ma's; for a time the swifter.
+Then with a backward glance he drew a quick breath, knowing it would be
+a race indeed, for the black head had gone, and only a faint wale on
+the smooth water told where his rival, avoiding the slight resistance
+of the air, swam like a fish. Dangerous tactics for most men, ending
+often in a sudden collapse, bleedings from nose and ears, or, at least,
+time lost in coming to the surface. But Am-ma was not as other men.
+Half-witted, except in river lore, uncouth, misshapen, he was
+practically amphibious.
+
+Gu-gu ground his teeth impotently as the faint wale crept up and up.
+The man must have air in his stomach like a fish! Ah! if the river had
+been in flood, if this had been a race with air bladders, indeed,--one
+black head of inflated skin under each arm, and your own in the
+middle--the issue would have been certain; for no one, in the whole
+tribe, knew the backward rip of a knife from below which would leave a
+rival helpless, lopsided, bound to seek safety on shore, so well as
+Gu-gu! But it was not flood time, so he must risk all. Like a porpoise
+at play the curve of his dark back disappeared, and now there were two
+wales upon the water side by side.
+
+And ahead, sidling, dipping, diving to the current was a deodar log
+with the broad arrow of government on it, now visible, now out of
+sight.
+
+It was a question of steering; steering without eyes, steering by
+instinct, steering by sheer experience of logs and their ways, of the
+meeting currents of the two rivers and their ways.
+
+And over against them, to the right across the broad lagoon, were low
+brick buildings, and a horde of fifteen hundred ruffians with fascines
+and earth-baskets finishing a dam that was to alter the currents, and
+protect the canal! They looked like swarming ants in the sunshine.
+
+The wales were neck and neck now, side by side, straight as a die on
+the log. Then suddenly, the right-hand one swerved outward. Only a yard
+or two; a yard or two nearer to the ants in the sunshine.
+
+A second after the log swerved also--swerved to the right. The next,
+two black heads rose silently; but one of them was two yards to the
+left of that dancing, dipping prize!
+
+Gu-gu, breathless as he was, gave an inarticulate cry of rage, and
+shook his fist at the swarming ants. Already their work was altering
+the currents he had known for so long. That it was possible to allow
+for this, as Am-ma had done, did not comfort him. He swam back sulkily,
+his wrath increased by the knowledge one glance had given him, that the
+log on which his rival was paddling to shore triumphantly bore its
+broad arrow so lightly, and so near its end, that a little dexterous
+manipulation would have left the runaway unmarked, and so given its
+captor the right, not merely of ransom, but of sale!
+
+Truly, it was an ill world for the poor!
+
+But Lance Carlyon laughed, as he lounged over his early tea and watched
+the river through his field-glass, in a balcony of the fort, dressed in
+a gorgeous ring-streaked sleeping suit which he could only wear when on
+outpost duty, as the regiment had tabooed it. In truth it made him not
+unlike Tom Sawyer's "Royal Nonsuch."
+
+"The little 'un's got it! I say! Dering, I believe I shall like
+Eshwara. It's--it's--new--don't you know." His eyes rested, as he
+spoke, on the low, bastioned building, all hemmed in by temple spires,
+at the very point of the city's triangle, which Erda Shepherd had told
+him was the mission house. Truly, he thought, she was in the thick of
+it!
+
+"New!" echoed Vincent Dering captiously, "I should have called it old.
+I thought that sort of thing had died with the pagoda tree."
+
+"What sort of thing?"
+
+Vincent nodded towards the palace with an odd, cynical laugh. "That;
+it's ghostly. Doesn't belong to the nineteenth century!"
+
+Lance turned curiously. "I said that to--to Pidar Narāyan--I can't call
+him anything else, somehow--when he was showing me over yesterday.
+And--you know that inscrutable smile of his--he just pointed up to the
+telegraph wires--they go right across the garden you know--and said,
+'There is half the news of half the world over our heads, anyhow.' It
+knocked me over, I tell you, to think of it; and by Jove! Dering, next
+week when the Lord-_sahib_ comes--"
+
+Vincent Dering laughed boisterously. "There'll be the millennium, of
+course. Come along, Lance! It's time we were off to prepare his way.
+Dashwood wants it done A1. They are going to lay on electric light, and
+all that. By the way, Mrs. Smith told me to tell you she expected you
+to breakfast."
+
+Ten minutes afterwards they were riding over the boat bridge to
+superintend the laying out of the Vice-regal camp against the coming of
+the Lord-_sahib_ and his hosts.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV
+
+                            UNDER-CURRENTS
+
+
+Mumtāza Mahal, Roshan Khān's grandmother, lived in a queer little
+backwater of a house which had eddied itself away from the main stream
+of the town, and jammed itself against a wall of the palace as if
+seeking dignity thereby. For all that it belonged irredeemably to the
+city, and to its evil-smelling lanes. The word house, however, is
+misleading to western ears, since this was simply a well-like
+courtyard, with a great wooden bed set in the centre under a miserable
+attempt at a tree which was used as a clothes-peg, a rack for
+saucepans, and a variety of other domestic purposes. It fulfilled them
+to the perfect satisfaction of its proprietress, a roundabout old lady,
+plump as a button-quail, who, when she was not asleep inside the
+arcaded slip of a room on one side, passed her time on the bed in the
+scanty shade, keeping company with a sausage-roll of a pillow and a
+quilt, both covered in faded, greasy silk. As a rule she did nothing
+save eat _pān_; though sometimes, as a favour to Erda Shepherd, who
+came to read to her once a week, she would give a few more stitches to
+a knitted comforter which never seemed to get any longer. It had been
+begun, indeed, under the auspices of another "Miss," who had returned
+to England only to die, as so many do, from exposure, and overwork, and
+homesickness. For the rest, Mumtāza was an arrogant, yet good-natured
+old soul, who, despite those tears on her wedding-day, had kept
+dissolute Walidād under her thumb, and his son also. Therefore, it was
+one of her pet grievances--and she had many--that Roshan, her grandson,
+should have defied her authority and entered the army. The great
+standing grievance, however, was that the "_pinson_" she received from
+Government because her husband had been deported with the Nawab to
+Calcutta, was not so large as one received by a neighbour and gossip
+whose husband had been hanged in the mutiny! The two old ladies came to
+loggerheads over their respective claims once a month, regularly, when
+pay-day came round; Mumtāza asserting shrilly that to die in a strange
+country was more painful than hanging, Ashrāf-un-nissa contending
+roundly that if Walidād had had as much respectful affection for his
+widow as her husband had had for his, he could easily have caused
+himself to be hanged; since he had certainly deserved it.
+
+Whereat there would be war, until some one in the alley, or round the
+corner did something outrageous,--threw slops over some one, or had
+twins, or imported a new mother-in-law! Then, friendly discussion
+becoming a necessity of life, the big wooden bed would once more hold
+two old ladies, two roly-poly bolsters, two quilts--also two tongues!
+But these confined themselves, for a time, to lesser grievances; such
+as the general decadence of the age, manifested by the reluctance of
+young people to obey the old.
+
+There was, however, no sign of displeasure in the reception prepared
+for Roshan, when one afternoon, immediately after his arrival at
+Eshwara, he appeared to prostrate himself at the feet of age; at least
+so he had said in his letter of intimation. Mumtāza Mahal knew her duty
+towards men-folk better than to show temper at once; knew also the
+suffocating effect of ceremonials. So the tarnished treasures of past
+state had been dug out of the mounds of litter heaped up in all four
+corners of the arcaded room, and set about the courtyard. An old
+elephant-housing covered the wooden bed, and to it Roshan was
+conducted: his grandmother, despite her best green satin trousers,
+squatting below, on a mat.
+
+The young soldier felt and looked thoroughly uncomfortable. Out of
+sheer funk of the old lady's remarks if he had appeared in his usual
+_mufti_ of English tweed and a close-fitting turban, he had reverted to
+the airy muslins and embroidered smoking-caps of his forbears. He felt
+chilly, barely decent in them; and, indeed, the whole environment was
+absolutely repugnant to him. His grandmother's tramways could scarcely
+be otherwise to one who had gone ahead by express train like Roshan
+Khān. Thoroughly well-educated, he knew himself to be considered one of
+the smartest native officers in the army. A first-class polo player, a
+fair cricketer, able to handle cue and racket, and without equal at the
+foils, he had for years met Englishmen on equal terms in sporting
+matters. What wonder, then, that he sat looking inexpressibly bored
+beside the _hookah_ which was the pride of his grandmamma's heart, in
+that it had belonged to many dead and gone Nawabs? He was simply
+longing for the solace of a smoke, yet he did not dare to use the
+silver cigarette case with his initials, "R.K." on it, which Lance
+Carlyon had given him at Christmas in return for the fencing lessons.
+Fortunately, however, boredom and yawns are correct during visits of
+ceremony, so Mumtāza Mahal crossed her little fat hands over her little
+fat green-trousered legs, and told herself the lad was improved in both
+manners and looks; was distinctly more like her brother, the late and
+sainted Nawab. The fact emphasized her regret that, after a brilliant
+career in a mission school, a career which must have led to a minor
+clerkship, her grandson should have taken the unheard-of course of
+entering the army! If he could even have gone as the Nawab's
+grand-nephew, with a dozen troopers or so as following, it might have
+been bearable; but, as Walidād's extraction barred all claim to noble
+descent, enlistment meant something very different. The old lady,
+accustomed to obedience all round, when the dreadful defiance had
+occurred, ten years before, had called the stars to witness that it was
+all--that everything was--Pidar Narāyan's fault! And then she had
+fallen a-whimpering, knowing right well that but for the latter's
+intercession, she herself would have had no "_pinson_"; since
+Government bars those who can be proved to be personally implicated in
+evil doings. And now, as she sat looking at her grandson, the same
+conflicting estimates made her irritable. Why had Pidar Narāyan ever
+put his finger in the Eshwara pie? Yet, without him, where would they
+all have been? Still, he need not have taught the lad to fence, and so
+turned him into a mean, common soldier.
+
+Now, whether this was true, whether his skill with the foils had turned
+Roshan's thoughts towards a fighting life, or whether it was simply the
+result of natural aptitudes that way, the choice of professions had
+been wise. His Colonel,--of the old school though he was,--had
+admitted, when pressed, that the young Mahomedan, _given practice_,
+might be able to lead the regiment as well as a fresh-joined English
+subaltern. The newer school, again, playing the _Krieg spiel_ against
+him at Simla, and finding itself in grips with a genuine gift for
+tactics, had shaken its head and confessed the hardship of such a
+talent being barred from finding its proper level. Still it was
+impossible to legislate for exceptions without upsetting the every-day
+army apple-cart.
+
+Roshan himself, being sensible--above all, being of a nation which
+accepts limitations as a law of God--was, as a rule, satisfied with his
+future _risaldar_ majorship, and, if he was lucky, _Aide-de-Camp to the
+Queen_, and a few other titles tacked on to it. Like all natives of
+India he lived largely on the approbation of his immediate superiors,
+and this he had without stint; besides, his whole line of thought had
+become too military for any subversion of rule and discipline to seem
+desirable.
+
+Yet the curb made itself felt sometimes; never more keenly than at his
+grandmother's scornful look, when, in reply to her catechising, he
+named his income.
+
+"Only that! _Bāh!_ Tis the pay of a coolie!"
+
+"'Tis the pay of my rank, anyhow," he replied sulkily, "and I cannot
+expect promotion yet; the rules--"
+
+She waggled her be-veiled, be-jewelled head cunningly. "Rules! What
+have rules to do with favour, either for men or women? Lo! thy
+grand-uncle, the Nawab, gave twice that to a coachman who had one eye
+black and the other blue because he fancied him! So, if thou art in
+favour, as thou sayest, ask for more. The _Huzoors_ will give it,
+sooner than lose thee."
+
+Roshan did not attempt explanation; he simply evaded the point by
+asserting that the pay was sufficient for his wants. In a way it was an
+unfortunate remark, since it precipitated the lecture lurking in the
+old lady's mind.
+
+"And for the wife's that is to come?" she asked, not without
+dignity,--the dignity of age reminding youth that its turn for duty has
+come. "And for the son's that has yet to be born? Why are these old
+arms still empty of thy children, Roshan?"
+
+He had his answer ready; one that had hitherto baulked even the
+matrimonial desires of his mother, who, having gone to live with her
+own people, was backed up by sisters and sisters-in-law.
+
+"Because the Most High decreed freedom for wife and son."
+
+It was true. The wife found for him as a boy had died in child-birth.
+
+But Mumtāza had made up her mind to refuse this excuse any longer.
+Matters were getting desperate. Here was Roshan past thirty, and never
+a child's voice to soothe the passion which seems to come back,
+vicariously, to Indian women in their old age. She had been brooding
+over an appeal ever since she had heard that, after ten years' absence,
+the lad was once more to be within reach of her tongue. So she edged
+closer to him, an almost pathetic authority in her face.
+
+"That is but the skin of the orange, Roshan; I take not that as a gift!
+There be more wives than one, if the one die, even for the _Huzoors_
+whom thou apest. Nay! Light of the house! frown not," she continued, in
+sudden alarm at his look. "I did but mean that thou wert different from
+thy fathers. How canst help it? Think not the old woman cannot
+understand. Was I not young once? Was I not wedded with tears to thy
+grandfather--on whom be peace! So I know the heart hath fancies, and
+thine--listen while I whisper it--is--is for a wife like a _mem!_
+Wherefore not? Thou hast seen and talked with them--they have seemed
+better to thee than a cow of a black girl! What then? Have not _mems_
+married our people ere now? And with thee,"--she looked round quickly,
+to be certain of privacy, then leant closer still,--"with thee it would
+be easy--for there is thy cousin."
+
+"My cousin?" he echoed stupidly.
+
+"Yea! thy cousin, when all is said and done," she repeated, with faint
+scorn. "Is not the Miss at the palace Anāri Begum's granddaughter? Was
+not Anāri Begum thy grandfather's sister? If that is not cousin, what
+is it?"
+
+He had known these facts before, of course, but they had never
+presented themselves to him in this connection. Yet they came
+instantly, accredited by custom. His cousin; if so, his wife, if he
+chose, almost by right. And yet from custom also, he--too sensible not
+to have gauged the vast difference between his position as regards
+Englishmen, and his position as regarded their wives, sisters,
+mothers--was conscious of distinct revolt. "Thou shouldst not say such
+things," he exclaimed almost angrily; "the Miss-_sahib_--"
+
+"Miss-_sahib_ indeed!" interrupted Mumtāza with a forced giggle. "Who
+knows she is that? Not even Pidar Narāyan."
+
+"Wherefore?" asked Roshan coldly. "Her mother was Bonaventura-_sahib's_
+child and heir. That is certain; else the Government would not have
+continued the grants given to him by the Nawab."
+
+An expression of infinite cunning crossed the old lady's face; she
+tucked another budget of _pān_ into her cheek, preparatory to a lengthy
+explanation.
+
+"Not if it was payment for evidence given, by which Government could
+find excuse for seizing the rest, and sending innocent people to die in
+Calcutta? Thou knowest the tale, Roshan? How Pidar Narāyan said no word
+when everyone was searching, after Bun-avatār's death, for Anāri Begum,
+who had disappeared, and how, when the land was being taken, he
+appeared with a baby, a baptized baby, and swore it was Bun-avatār's
+lawful heir--that he himself had married them. Mayhap he did. But, look
+you, Anāri was in the palace _zenāna_ ere she disappeared. Who is to
+say she is not thy cousin twice over?... I say not that she is, look
+you, but who can tell. Yet this is certain, Roshan; she hath Anāri
+Begum's eyes. For I have seen her; but a month ago the Miss who reads
+brought her, not knowing of these tales; for Pidar Narāyan keeps a
+silent tongue. Her name is Laila,[3] and thine Roshan.[4] Is not that a
+fate? and she hath thy grand-aunt's eyes; ay! and thy grandfather's
+land too; for would it not have been Walidād's, if Bun-avatār had not
+ousted him from the _wazeer_-ship with singing birds?"
+
+Roshan Khān stood up feeling as if he was being suffocated. It was ten
+years since he had had experience of the fine-drawn meshes of vague,
+almost useless, conspiracy for which Indian women have such vast
+capability; it was ten years since, with eyes open to his own
+advantage, he had cast in his lot loyally with the Government he
+served. In that time there had not been wanting--there never is in
+India--others, less scrupulous, ready to trade on his connection with a
+dispossessed family, and his possible sense of injustice. He had known
+how to treat them. But this idea bit shrewdly at a feeling which men of
+his stamp have inevitably--the desire for a wife more suitable to their
+own culture than they can hope to find among their own people. He gave
+an uneasy laugh. "These be dreams, indeed, grandmother. To begin with,
+Pidar Narāyan--"
+
+"Pidar Narāyan! Pidar Narāyan!" echoed the old diplomatist tartly, "Art
+turned Hindoo, that thou dost count Narāyan[5] the Creator of all?"
+Then she suddenly clapped her hands together in absolute impatience
+and anger. "Yet is it true. He _is_ the cause of all! But for him
+Bun-avatār would have been as an over-fried fritter, a burst bladder,
+a drum on a hen's back! But for his teaching thee to fence--"
+
+A quick frown came to her hearer's face. "Teaching! Ay! but only enough
+to make me fit for his skill to play with. I know that now. Well! let
+him try it again--" Roshan's sudden fierceness died down to sombre
+discontent--"but that is fool's talk. He is too old. I could not meet
+him on equal terms." He drew himself up proudly; yet he felt a vague
+regret at his own acquired sense of fair play. Below it lay a savagery
+that could rejoice in revenge at any price, and Mumtāza Mahal, watching
+him, thought him still more like his ancestors, and nodded approvingly.
+
+"Think of it, at least, Roshan," she said, "and remember that it is not
+as if the girl were a real _mem_. Pidar Narāyan, for all he is so
+clever, was put to it to find a husband for the mother, the baptized
+baby! He took a poor creature from Martin's school at Lucknow, at last,
+who could not even speak English like a _Huzoor_--"
+
+"Because he was Italian and a Catholic," put in Roshan, then shrugged
+his shoulders impatiently. "But thou canst not understand. 'Tis
+impossible! Dreams, grandmother, dreams!"
+
+"Dreams come true even when forgotten, and torchbearers never see their
+own way," retorted the old lady, ending the discussion with proverbial
+wisdom as a clincher. "So think of it, since thoughts cost nothing, and
+tell no tales."
+
+Roshan felt as if they did the former at any rate, as he strode back
+toward the fort, telling himself he would feel better when he had on
+his uniform once more. This was his _metier_, not marriage. The best
+soldiers, the really great soldiers--he paused, the knowledge that he
+could never rise to real greatness coming to make him clinch his right
+hand as if on his sword-hilt. The tempest of revolt which swept through
+him left him dazed, for he had reasoned the matter out with himself
+thoroughly, and thought he had accepted the situation, thought that he
+had realized that his dignity in the regiment under the present system
+went side by side, and not behind, that of the English officers. Yet
+here he was at the mercy of something too strong for acquired wisdom.
+He walked on faster to escape into a more wholesome environment, and by
+sheer force of will succeeded in driving away all thought of the past
+interview save a triviality. That was the remembrance that her name was
+Laila, his Roshan. Light and Darkness, Day and Night. A fate indeed.
+
+As he passed into the courtyard, however, on his way to the door in the
+river bastion, a group in its centre, round the old gun, brought his
+attention back to realities, and he went towards it, his slipper-shod
+feet making no martial clank, this time, on the union-jack of raised
+paths. The group consisted of half a dozen or so of men listening to
+something which was being declaimed, with much gesticulation, by an
+ash-smeared _jogi_, whose wide-pierced ears, distended by conch-shell
+rings, and transverse bar of white on his forehead, showed him to
+belong to the sect which claims to have transcendental powers.
+
+Apparently he had been making the claim, for a young man, whose costume
+smacked of Western culture, and whose face was acute, litigious,
+interrupted him impatiently.
+
+"Yea, yea; possibly thou couldst come over the obstruction,
+Gorakh-nāth-_jee_; but the question is whether the obstruction be
+legal. Is it not so, Lala Ramanund?"
+
+Lala Ramanund, whose dress was even more Western, and who had a certain
+air of distinction, due, evidently, to position, assented; adding, as a
+rider, and with some contempt, that at present they had only _jogi_
+Gorakh-nāth's word that any interference was intended.
+
+Gorakh-nāth, a tall, muscular man, naked save for his grass-rope
+girdle, his wild hair twined and twisted to a tiara, his wild,
+half-insane eyes telling of drugs, shot a glance of absolute defiance
+at Ramanund. "Thy name, _pundit-jee_, is not likely to give friendly
+witness to mine," he began, alluding to the fact that they were
+respectively called after the founders of their absolutely antagonistic
+sects, "and yet methinks thou couldst, seeing--"
+
+Here Dya Ram, the first speaker, alarmed in his lawyer's soul at the
+militant tone of the _jogi_, suggested hastily that they might inquire,
+say at the gate; or stay! there was the _risaldar_ coming; he must
+know.
+
+Once more, as he listened to the question put to him, the expression of
+his race and creed came to Roshan's face, hiding its culture.
+
+"Of a certainty!" he replied haughtily. "The gun belongs to the Fort.
+It is not to be used as a shelter for--for saints!" His contempt was
+palpable.
+
+"I deny your premise," put in Dya Ram eagerly. "The gun is the people's
+by prescriptive right. I can use it if I choose. The Government
+professes neutrality; therefore, no one has a right to interfere with
+my religion."
+
+Roshan's face was a study. "Lo! Dya Ram, for thou art my old
+class-fellow surely, hast gone back to the old beliefs since the days
+when thou didst sign thyself at the end of thy essays, and in thy
+books, 'Dya Ram, Agnostic'?"
+
+Dya Ram gave an uneasy cough. "It is a question of legality--" he
+began.
+
+"And of money also," put in a new voice cringingly. "The pilgrims come
+hither to see the saint, and then bathe. But if there is no saint, many
+will not come, and I, who have my right on the steps as marker of the
+caste marks--"
+
+"Right!" echoed the Mahomedan curtly. "Have a care, caste-marker, lest
+we do not claim the courtyard also."
+
+Here Ramanund, who had hitherto listened indifferently, took up the
+cudgels. "That can scarcely be, _risaldar-sahib_," he said; "our pious
+folk have come hither to perform their offices since time began."
+
+Gorakh-nāth turned on him at once. "Not so, _Vaishnava!_" he said.
+"Thou and thine know naught of the Beginning of Things. Come to us and
+Holy Shiv-_jee_ for that! Thou art as far from the great wisdom as
+he"--here he pointed wildly to Roshan--"yea! further, despite thy
+pretence of purity! Despite thy hunger yesterday when, returning to thy
+lost faith, thou didst come here to eat as the twice-born should, and a
+shadow fell upon thy food! Despite thy deafness to this world just
+now,"--here he laughed jeeringly,--"which kept thee back from bearing
+witness to my truth, to the truth of Shiv-_jee's_ servant!"
+
+Dya Ram looked at him, then at Ramanund perplexedly. "What means he?"
+he said aside. "Didst thou really come hither?"
+
+"My wife was dying," replied Ramanund in a low, rapid undertone, "and
+I--you understand--there--there is nothing certain, you see--and any
+chance--one goes back at such times--" he broke off almost desperately
+in his confession.
+
+Dya Ram, who had signed himself Agnostic, nodded. He understood what it
+was to be rudderless in a familiar current, and came to the rescue of
+his friend's consistency by asserting that any such decision regarding
+the gun, if one had been made, would certainly be disputed. That he and
+his--though they demurred to its being counted against them for faith
+in the worshipping of mere matter--would, if necessary, carry the case
+to the High Court.
+
+"Carry it to the Court of thy god Indra, if need be, Dya Ram," retorted
+Roshan, and as he strode off he spat deliberately in the dust. That
+also surprised him faintly, for he had thought he had learnt tolerance
+of the _Huzoors_. So, with a frown and yet with relief, he put his hand
+on the latch which would open the way back to a less disturbing
+environment. As he did so, another hand was on it also. The door opened
+from within, and Father Ninian stood on the threshold barring it; but
+barring it with smiles.
+
+"Ah! my pupil," he said in English. "I have been listening to your
+praises from Captain Dering, and from Mr. Carlyon too. He says you are
+the best fencer in the army. You and I must cross foils again sometime,
+eh, my pupil?"
+
+Roshan, as he stepped aside elaborately to let the old man pass, drew
+himself up and saluted.
+
+"If you please, sir; but I have learnt new things since--since those
+days."
+
+His tone made Father Ninian pause to look at him for an instant; then
+he replied, "And I have not forgotten the old; that makes us equal."
+
+Roshan gave a little hard laugh as he went in; if the old man liked to
+think so, let him.
+
+But Father Ninian's face as he passed--a black shadow in the
+sunshine--across the level steps leading down to the river wore a
+wistful smile. Old and new, he thought. New and old. Senseless, useless
+words, fit only for humanity to juggle dreams from, since no man knew
+the unseen beginning, knew the unseen end; knew even his own birth and
+death. In the endless band of life, naught came first, naught last, and
+the things of to-day might be old, the things of yesterday might be
+new.
+
+"_Margherita!_"
+
+The name came soundless to the priest's lips, and a quick flush of
+youth, and hope, and joy seemed to smooth away the wrinkles of his
+face. A faint laugh, a happy laugh, went further towards a hearing than
+the name. It was sixty years ago, nearly, since he had left her. An old
+story indeed, and yet how new. The new wine of it ran in his old veins,
+thrilled to his old brain, and took him back absolutely to a palazzo on
+the outskirts of Rome, with the pale flood of the Tiber flowing beneath
+a marble loggia. He had never looked on running water since without
+remembrance, and now--his feet having led him unconsciously to the
+river's edge--he stood smiling at the pale flood of the Hari. For he
+knew that he had fought a good fight, that he had kept the promise he
+had made in order to still her soul; that he had kept her boy, Pietro
+Bonaventura, so far as he could, from harm, and his child, and his
+child's child, gathering them as lambs into the arms of Holy Church.
+
+And then something in the last thought drove the tender human smile
+from his face. He murmured a "_Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_," bent to
+the stream, and dipping his fingers in it, crossed himself.
+
+"May Shiv-_jee's_ blessing go with his holy water, _Baba-jee_," said a
+voice behind him. It was Gorakh-nāth the _jogi_, who, his sympathizers
+having departed, had come to fill his gourd.
+
+Father Ninian turned; so for a space they stood face to face;
+representatives of the two great supernaturalisms of the world; the one
+which has held the West, the one which has held the East.
+
+The old man's face, at first, returned to kindly human tolerance; for
+his fifty years of Eshwara had widened his sympathies. But, as he stood
+before the _jogi_ it hardened, and the priestly arrogance of the naked
+ash-smeared figure, stretching a right hand in claim over the
+sanctifying power of the river, was reflected in Father Ninian's as he
+spread his left hand upwards, and turned on his heel with the words,
+"_Vade retro Satanas!_"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+                          THE "DEE-PUK-RĀG"
+
+
+"You are tired to death as it is--why should you fuss any more over a
+pack--"
+
+"Ssh! sir; don't talk rubbish. I am all right; and Eugene is so anxious
+everything should be a success that I must. Besides I--I like it."
+
+Mrs. Walsall Smith sent the hostess' gathering smile round her long
+luncheon table, and rose. So did Vincent Dering, who had sat at her
+right hand--a position due to his rank as commandant of Eshwara--and,
+as he did, he drew his chair aside to let the girl on his left pass,
+with his usual somewhat _voyant_ courtesy, though it was only Laila
+Bonaventura. He had met her several times during the past few days, and
+the effect which her singing had made on him had vanished before her
+general failure to interest him in the least. And to-day she actually
+wore a blue sash! In addition she had filled up the time between her
+monosyllables in methodically crumbling her bread and ranging the
+results in a pattern, until the inanity of it had got on his nerves,
+and he had felt inclined to beg her to desist.
+
+And yet, as in passing her black eyes looked into his with one
+curious yet comprehensive flash, a memory of the extreme regularity of
+the curves and lines which had annoyed him, made him--quite
+irrelevantly--wonder hastily if he could have said anything to Muriel
+which--
+
+He broke off in his own thought impatiently, and gave an apologetic
+glance after Mrs. Walsall Smith's fragile figure. There never was
+anything, never! Never a word said, never a deed done, which all the
+world--even Eugene Smith himself--might not hear and know. Vincent
+Dering felt a pulse of sheer virtue as he looked down the long table at
+his host, with the vague irritation which the possessors of women often
+arouse in those who are not their possessors. For Muriel Smith's
+half-playful, half-wistful rejection of sympathy had held that faint
+hint of dutiful martyrdom which seems so purely angelic to selfish
+man--unless he happens to be the wretch who inflicts it!
+
+Curious, he thought; Eugene wasn't much of a gentleman, but he wasn't a
+bad sort, and he was fond of his wife, in a way. Yet he was blind to
+the fact that Muriel was not fit to go trapesing about his blessed old
+canal works with the pack of _padrés_ and people he had got together to
+do honour to his skill. She would do it, of course, and get through
+with it, too! Here he helped himself to a glass of sherry, and felt
+incoherently that she was the dearest and best woman in the world,--the
+one woman in the world, so far as he was concerned.
+
+As he sat between those two empty chairs where those two women, so
+absolutely unlike, had fenced him in on either side, a faint wonder
+tinged his virtue in comparing the last three years with the time
+before it.
+
+If anyone had told him, then, that he would write every day to a woman
+and expect her to write to him without a word or a deed--
+
+"Please, Dering-darlin'," said an imperious small voice, "mum wants
+'oo, 'tos pup'll go off, she says, wis' all a gemplemen, an' she wants
+'oo to go off wis' a ladies!"
+
+"All right, little 'un," he laughed gladly, finishing his sherry at a
+gulp, and, ere catching the little mite in his arms, giving himself
+that smartening pull together which was so characteristic of the man.
+
+He looked very handsome, very happy, as he came up, with Gladys shaking
+her curls at him in outrageous flirtation.
+
+"How kind!" said Muriel. "I don't know what I should do without you."
+
+That was all; but it sent him off in absolute content to tackle the
+stoutest lady in the room.
+
+"If _you_ make the move, Mrs. Campbell," he said diplomatically,
+"everyone will follow, and I know Mrs. Smith is anxious we should
+start, as it will take some time to go round."
+
+"Ay! that it will!" assented the good lady in a mournful Scotch accent.
+"'Deed if it were not for Dr. James--" she glanced fearfully at a tall
+man in a black frock coat--a man whose patriarchal beard had once been
+red and was now the colour of a carpet whisk--who was buttonholing
+Father Ninian; the latter, with his straight slenderness, looking
+almost youthful beside the other's burly bulk.
+
+"I wouldn't go if I didn't want to," put in a sharp-featured lady who
+belonged to another black frock coat--a small one. "You spoil the
+doctor, Mrs. Campbell. As I tell _my_ husband, I yield to him in
+spiritual matters--the mission, you know, and all that; but when it
+comes to realities--the housekeeping, and what we are to eat, and do,
+and that sort of thing--that is my province."
+
+Mrs. Campbell turned her fat good-natured face on her neighbour's
+placidly. "Ay, my dear; but ye didn't promise to be a wife to Dr.
+James, an' I did. So, Captain Dering, if you can find my niece--"
+
+"Miss Shepherd is quite safe, Mrs. Campbell. Carlyon's looking after
+her," interrupted Vincent, feeling another spasm of sheer virtue. He
+had seen the two sitting together at lunch, apparently interested in
+each other, and he had noticed how Lance, on entering the drawing-room,
+had made his way straight to those coils of red-bronze hair which had a
+trick of being the most conspicuous point in any group of which they
+formed part. So Lance would enjoy himself simply; he would not have to
+gain pleasure in complex fashion by dragging about a _posse_ of
+uninteresting old ladies, for the sake of a lady who was neither.
+Vincent's face had a bored look as he began his task by piloting his
+charge into the verandah, and so on into the open.
+
+It was hot work crossing the stretch of sand which lay between the
+bungalow and the red brick abutments of the canal head; but once there,
+with the broad still basin of the united rivers before you, a cool
+breeze blew pleasantly from that blue barrier of hills with the
+gold-spiked temples of Eshwara enamelled against it, and a soft white
+mist hiding the feet of the far-distant snows; so hiding the "Cradle of
+the Gods! The floods had gone, however, and so had the robe of
+righteousness. The sandbanks lay bare, of the earth, earthy. The logs,
+too, were no longer dipping and dancing in the currents. Some were
+piled criss-cross on the spit, awaiting ransomers, and a few lay like
+straight shadows, half in, half out of the receding water.
+
+"A log! not a bit of it!" said someone, stooping for a stone. "Look!"
+
+The missile fell far short of the low streak of sand and shadow, but
+did its work. The shadow disappeared, as a bottle-nosed alligator
+slipped silently into the stream. Most eyes watched it, but Lance
+Carlyon's turned to Erda Shepherd. He had only met her once, casually,
+when he was out fishing on the spit, since the day when Father Ninian
+had introduced them, and they had seen something else in the river that
+was also not a log.
+
+"Do you remember," he began impulsively, "the first time we met?"
+
+A shadow slipped into her limpid bronze eyes also. "Certainly," she
+interrupted coldly. "It is not so very long ago--is it?"
+
+She had fenced with his assumption of friendliness more than once
+already; feeling vexed with herself, the while, that she should do so.
+Since what did it matter? However much she might regret--and she had
+regretted with foolish unseen blushes as she had lain awake at night
+wondering what had possessed her--the almost indecent unveiling of
+realities in that first five minutes, she could not undo it. Besides,
+she had told herself, he had in all probability forgotten it in polo,
+and partridge-shooting, fishing, and such things.
+
+But he had not, apparently; and he parried her fence with a still more
+friendly laugh.
+
+"I didn't mean that, of course; but we won't talk of it, if you'd
+rather not. It isn't a very Mark Tapleyish subject, is it, for an
+afternoon party?"
+
+The blush was to be seen this time. "So I have been thinking myself,
+Mr. Carlyon, ever since last Wednesday," she began, still more coldly,
+"and I am sorry--"
+
+He interrupted her quite cavalierly. "I didn't mean that, either, and
+you know I didn't. However, we'll leave it alone. So you're not coming
+to the ball! Do you know, I think it's an awful pity; I'm sure you'd
+dance beautifully."
+
+She felt outraged, in a way, and yet she smiled. He seemed so much
+younger than she was. Younger; but stronger and more vital. That calm
+assertion, too, that she knew she was playing feminine tricks with him,
+had been manly and dignified to quite a crushing degree. She could not
+help being at once meek and indulgent.
+
+"I don't dance, Mr. Carlyon," she said quietly; adding, as a rider and
+salve to her conscience, "I--I think it wrong."
+
+"I thought you might," he returned, evidently pleased at his own
+acumen, "but I don't see it that way. Of course if--if you go in for
+those ideas, you know, you can make it seem--well--awful low; but I--"
+he paused before even a possible sounding of his own trumpet--"you see
+I think it's awfully jolly; besides, it's such ripping good exercise,
+and I have to be careful, I tell you, not to put on flesh. I ride
+thirteen-four, as it is." His face grew grave over the confession.
+
+"Is that much?" she said, her eyes caught and held by the splendid
+figure beside her. "You are very tall, surely." There was almost a
+pride in her tone, certainly a tenderness.
+
+He shook his head. "Not so tall as my people are generally. We Carlyons
+run to size. My uncle, Sir Lancelot's, six-three, and his son is
+six-four; but he's a bit weedy. So when you're only six-one and a half
+you can't afford to wax fat; you've got to keep the body in subjection.
+That's right, isn't it?" His pride in his Scriptural knowledge made it
+impossible for her to be stern, though she felt she ought to be.
+
+"Quite right, Mr. Carlyon," she assented, hurriedly, "but see! the
+others have gone on, and I don't want to miss--She stumbled, in her
+haste to end the tźte-ą-tźte, on a loose brick, and for an instant was
+over-near the edge of the abutment.
+
+"Take care!" he said, his hand on hers to give support; a cool, strong
+hand, with an insistence in its clasp which seemed to single her out
+from the world to stand so, hand fast in hand. "You were very nearly
+over that time," he said, smilingly, as he released her. "Now let's
+come on, or, as you say, we shall be too late for the fair. Smith's
+going to show off his electric light in the tents, you know."
+
+Perhaps it was the slip which had made her dizzy, but she walked beside
+him feeling as if she were in a dream. And, in truth, the scene which
+grew upon them as they went on had a strange unearthliness and
+unreality. She paused, and gave a little gasp of pleasure and surprise.
+"It seems impossible!" she said. "A week ago, when I was here, it was
+all sand, sand; and now--"
+
+Her eyes met the wide, flower-set walks, the stately white palaces of
+the Vice-regal camp with absolute incredulity. "Did you do all this?"
+she asked, doubtfully. "Why, you've made a new world!" She felt
+inwardly as if he had, somehow, for her.
+
+"Oh! Vincent did a lot of the decorations, you know. He's that sort.
+We--my fellows, I mean, and Dillon's gaol-birds--dug, and did the dirty
+work. But it looks all right, doesn't it?"
+
+It did, indeed,--absolutely and entirely all right. So white, so
+straight, so disciplined; even to the very twist on the tent ropes.
+
+"That peg's out of line," said Lance, pausing suddenly. "Here,
+sergeant!"
+
+A following had gathered in their rear, bringing up the little
+procession of Englishmen and women, with a knot of dark faces, and from
+it a man in dust-coloured drill stepped, and saluted.
+
+"Two inches, or, say, an inch and a half." Erda caught so much in the
+order given as she walked on.
+
+_Two inches, or, say, an inch and a half!_ No more than that wrong in
+this dream city; and over yonder? Her eyes travelled past the snowdrift
+of the camp, rising against the blue background of wide water, to
+Eshwara, rising against its background of blue hill.
+
+"I thought so; a good inch and a half," said Lance exultantly, coming
+up with measured strides. "It makes a lot of difference though."
+
+She looked at him critically. Older by some months than he, full of
+strong character, almost overfull of strong convictions, she was
+yet--as women must be until experience of work-a-day life teaches them,
+as it has taught men, the value of subordination--curiously
+undisciplined, curiously lawless. And this striving after uniformity
+impressed her.
+
+"I suppose you learn that sort of thing in the army," she said, with a
+new respect.
+
+He laughed. "I should think so; buttons and bootlaces all to pattern.
+It's an awful bore, but it keeps things going. Now, here we are! Now,
+you can see properly."
+
+They stood in the centre of the camp, in front of the huge _durbar_
+tent, that wandering throne of an empire fixed and immovable as the
+stars. In front of them, rising out of a wilderness of roses,
+blossoming where nothing but sand had shown since the primeval sea
+receded from the hills, was the flag of that empire, its folds drooping
+round the mast. And beyond it, past the two brass guns pointing down
+the long vista, was an avenue of palms, bordered by green grass and
+beds of flowers, and intersected by broad paths leading back to the
+solid white squares of the tents. At the farther end, a quarter of a
+mile or more from the flagstaff, a triumphal arch at the entrance
+showed, until the palm-leaves cut it short, a legend:
+
+
+                      "WELCOME TO THE LORD----"
+
+
+and above it, far at the feet of those distant snows, lay that wreath
+of white mist hiding the "Cradle of the Gods."
+
+Erda's eyes travelled to it, and from it to the other vistas, similar
+yet smaller, stretching to the right and left of her. Then to the
+orderly rows on rows of tents, looking like solid blocks of marble
+behind her. The whole shut in from the world by a high white wall;
+still, silent, empty, waiting for the Hosts of the Lord. A snow-drift
+facing that mist-drift on the hills. And between them? Eshwara, and all
+that Eshwara held of evil and of good.
+
+The dreaminess left her eyes, startled at a band of dark figures which
+at this moment appeared rounding the corner of a tent--figures in
+scanty striped clothing with a broad arrow on it; figures with shaven,
+close-capped heads and leg irons clanking, as their bare feet threaded
+through the flowers. And behind them, half-hidden, as ever, under his
+mushroom of a hat, came George Dillon. He had noticed, as he passed
+with the others, that the roses were flagging a bit under the hot sun,
+and had gone back to summon a fatigue party of his criminals to water
+them.
+
+"Bring another go, _mate_," he ordered, as the gang, filing past the
+flagstaff, emptied their earthen pots; "then go back to the road. And
+be quick. There's no time to lose. The Lord-_sahib_ comes to-morrow."
+
+They obeyed with grins; and Dr. Dillon, as he paused beside Lance and
+Erda, looked after them approvingly. "They like this better than
+picking oakum, and I've had to set some of 'em to do that, now the
+digging's done. I shall be glad when this show's over, and we move on."
+
+"Move! where?" asked Erda.
+
+"Where there is work to be done, Miss Shepherd. Satan finds mischief,
+you know, especially with his own hands." He paused and smiled.
+"They're a queer lot. Do you know some of them are in a blind funk
+because they think a percentage of them have to be sacrificed before
+the water will run." He grew grave again. "Poor devils!" he added, in a
+softer tone--"as if they hadn't paid tribute already. I lost over a
+hundred last year, what with pneumonia and malaria, but they don't seem
+to count that--that is the will of the gods. But I say, hadn't you
+better be going into the tent if you want to see the light-up? Smith
+went off to his plant five minutes ago with his gang, so it's about
+time."
+
+It was almost pitch dark in the huge tent, and as they slipped in
+through the closed portieres, Vincent Dering's voice called to them.
+
+"Be quick, please; and, Carlyon, tell them to shut down the outer
+screens. We want to have a real flash-up, and I believe we are all here
+now."
+
+Whether that was so or not Erda could not tell. The brief ray of light
+caused by their entrance had only shown her Captain Dering's figure
+beside his hostess, and given her a glimpse of Laila Bonaventura's
+white dress close by. So it was eerie, in a way, to wait in the
+darkness, knowing it to be full of people she knew; yet to have
+consciousness of nothing save their voices, since age, sex, position,
+even race, were alike awaiting this new light which was to make them
+manifest. Perhaps the eeriness struck her companions also, for the
+voices came clearly; not in a babel, but answering each other in the
+listening, waiting silence.
+
+"We are all full of sparks, I assure you, Mrs. Campbell."
+
+"I am weel aware o' it, Doctor Dillon; but it's too much like a brand
+snatched frae the burning to my taste; for Doctor James will have
+it--"
+
+"Undoubtedly, my dear Ann. It appears to me, sir, and I trust it will
+to you, as a most interesting scientific fact, calculated to confound
+those who scoff at the possibility of eternal punishment in a fire that
+is not quenched--"
+
+"Or to comfort those who believe in a cleansing one--who seek a place
+in the crown of stars about their Mother's head--who feel the flame of
+immortality." Its faint hesitancy betrayed this voice, as the dryness
+did the next.
+
+"If I've got to generate my own heaven or hell, I prefer to pass; but
+if one could turn on a fifty-candlepower reflecting lamp during a _post
+mortem_ or a bacillus hunt, it would be useful."
+
+"Yes! Fancy being able to get up at night and see, at once, in all
+corners of the room if there were snakes!"
+
+This brought a laugh till a fragile voice said plaintively, "That's
+just the worst of it. When one begins to see things too clearly, they
+are so apt to be nasty."
+
+"That, my dear Madam, has always appeared to me as an additional
+argument against those who contend that Perfect Wisdom could not wisely
+have produced so imperfect a being as Man."
+
+"Surely, Dr. Campbell," interrupted a tart voice, "the necessity for
+something on which to exercise our faith proves that; but then I am
+only a woman. I confine myself to realities."
+
+"Then what a bore it would be if there were no delusions! By Jove! it
+would be dull. Who is it says the soul of man lies in his imagination?"
+Captain Dering's voice could not be mistaken.
+
+"Just so--and nowhere else."
+
+This came in an aside, and was followed in the same tone by the eager,
+hesitating voice. "Scoffer! When you men of Science spend your lives in
+listening--to the things which cannot be heard--looking for the things
+that cannot be seen-- Ah! doctor!--you can't impose on me. I know
+you--I have seen you."
+
+The very darkness seemed abashed, and there was silence; till a new
+voice, young, full-throated, broke it. "But how can you tell if things
+are nasty till you have seen them--they may be nice. Ah-h-h!"
+
+It had come like a creation, flooding all things with irresistible
+light.
+
+A sort of sigh made itself heard; a sigh of vague relief. "By Jove!"
+said Captain Dering, "it will make a difference to the _durbar_. As a
+rule you can't see the diamonds and jewels; and they are half the
+show."
+
+Palpably there could be no fear of that. To the uttermost corner of the
+vast tent, the pattern of its lining of shawls was visible; each boss
+on the parcel-gilt poles glittered and shone; the very legend round the
+arms of England above the Vice-regal chair stood out clear "_Dieu et
+mon droit_." And the expression on the two groups of dark faces, the
+one which had come by invitation to see, the other which had crept in
+at the further end, could not be mistaken. In the one, indifference
+struggled with curiosity; in the other assent was mingled with awe.
+
+"What are they saying?" asked Lance, who, having come late, stood close
+to the latter group. "Something about _Dee-puk-rāg_. What's that?"
+
+Erda shook her head. "Father Ninian will know--he knows all these
+things--that is why they call him Pidar Narāyan, and let him do
+anything. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't the best way." The last,
+spoken to herself, was interrupted by Father Ninian's echo.
+
+"The _Dee-puk-rāg!_ Why, yes--of course!" He turned to the dark faces
+in sheer delight. "Yea! brothers!" he said in Hindustani, "ye are
+right! It is the _Dee-puk-rāg_--the sign of kingship. Have I not told
+ye always that the Lord is with us--and with you?" Then he turned back
+to his other hearers: "It means the Song of Light--a charm--a spell
+which the great men of old knew. Is it not so, Ramanund?"
+
+A half-reluctant voice from the invited replied, "The ignorant say so,
+sir."
+
+A faintly sarcastic smile came to the fine old face. "And they believe
+its possession marks the born ruler of men--the God-sent guide; since,
+when it is sung, the light comes from the stars to help the world on
+its way--to dispel the darkness! Ah-h-h!"
+
+It had gone! and in the black night which settled blankly on speaker
+and audience, a faint, far cry came from outside. More than one woman's
+voice echoed it with a little startled gasp of suspense.
+
+"It is all right!" called Vincent Dering, "the thing is always popping
+in and out--I've seen it at Euston--it will come back directly." And
+then, in response to something he alone had heard, he whispered, "Don't
+be alarmed; Eugene will set it right in a moment--really--"
+
+As he bent his head a scent of violets--the scent she always
+used--assailed him; and that half-heard appeal--"Oh, what is it,
+Vincent?" seemed still in his ears. Even in the darkness he knew she
+must be close to him. He felt the soft ruffle of the lace about her
+hand upon his wrist. It trembled, surely. Did it? Or was it only
+his own bounding pulse. A sudden imperious desire to know--to be
+certain--swept through him.
+
+Then, with a sort of suffocating rush to heart and brain, came the
+knowledge that his clasp was answered by that small hand--so small, so
+clinging, so trustful--so dear--so absolutely dear--so dear!--so very
+dear!!
+
+As he stood in the darkness, he knew that every mooring was gone, knew
+that this--this thing--would change--must change--the whole position.
+It was a light, indeed; a light showing the way--a different way! A
+sort of fierce exultation took possession of him. He knew, now, that he
+had been dreaming till then; that he had been blind.
+
+"Ah! what a relief! That dreadful darkness was getting on my nerves,"
+said a calm voice coming to him from out of the flood of white light
+which seemed to have rent their hands asunder.
+
+Their hands--when she stood yonder? He turned, bewildered, to find a
+pair of grave black eyes fixed critically on him.
+
+"I--I--he began.
+
+"It doesn't matter," said Laila Bonaventura, with stolid indifference.
+"You thought it was her hand, of course. I quite understand."
+
+Did she? Did--could--anyone? even he himself?
+
+God! How content--how happy he had been--how certain--
+
+"Dillon! Dillon! For God's sake, where's Dillon?" came an excited
+voice, as Eugene Smith burst into the tent, bringing the afternoon
+sunshine to war with that unearthly light. "Come along, man! There's
+been an accident in the workshop! I warned them not to touch--one--a
+mere boy--did. Got startled, I suppose, and fell over--onto the
+circular saw--it was going. His leg--I've tried a _tourniquet_, but I
+can't stop--"
+
+The remainder was inaudible; the caller and the called, followed by
+Vincent, glad of any interruption to the intolerableness of his
+confusion, were already running as for dear life down the palm-set
+avenue towards the canal workshop outside the walls.
+
+That it was for death, however, not life, Dr. Dillon saw at a glance;
+though, without a pause, he knelt down in the fateful, irresistible
+tide of life blood which was ebbing and flowing with such awful
+insistency, and set his teeth in fight.
+
+Yet once he gave an upward glance to the long, low roof so full of
+driving bands and wheels and levers, so full of men's power, so empty
+of men's passion; and then a straight one to the circle of ignorant,
+awe-stricken, dark faces closing in round him. And as he did so, he
+muttered to himself:--
+
+"I wouldn't have had this happen for a thousand pounds--and a
+high-caste man, too!"
+
+Undoubtedly; the sacred thread showed on the shoulder under the broad
+arrow--for the twice-born are twice-born even in gaol.
+
+"Lay him on Mother Earth to die, ye of his caste!" said a voice from
+behind. It was Father Ninian's. His haste had driven the colour from
+his face; he stood breathless, yet calm, his right hand raised. In the
+awestricken circle none stirred; there was no sacred thread upon their
+shoulders.
+
+"Give me a hand, please, Dr. Dillon," said the old man quietly; "he
+will not die easy there." So, between them, they shifted the slight
+figure from the wooden platform on which it had fallen, to the ground
+all sodden and stained with that tide of blood. A faint content seemed
+to come to the half-conscious face; the head nestled itself into the
+soft earth as if to rest.
+
+The circle of dark and white faces fell back alike, leaving the doctor
+and the priest alone with death,--the doctor with both hands detaining
+that ebbing tide of life, the priest with the _viaticum_ of another
+faith on his lips speeding it on its way.
+
+"Lo!" whispered some of the circle. "Hark to his '_Ram Ram!_' He
+knows--Pidar Narāyan knows."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI
+
+                           ALPHA AND OMEGA
+
+
+Am-ma was fishing. Breast deep in the water, which in the early dawn
+stretched like a shining shield to meet the pale primrose vestments of
+the coming day, his bodiless head and shoulders slid sedately over the
+surface like some strange kind of wild-fowl; for his hands, clasped at
+the back of his curly frizz of hair, held the apex of a conical,
+reed-distended net, shaped like a pair of wings. His eyes were closed,
+and, despite all lack of visible movement, the tenseness of every
+muscle, the strained look of every curve, showed that he was on the
+alert for something; that something, being the first hint of possible
+prey sent by his hidden feet as they felt, like hands, over the bottom.
+Felt lightly, buoyantly, with scarce more pressure than the water
+itself, until, at the first suspicion of a fish lying half-buried in
+the sand, they would fling themselves air-wards to change places with
+his head; and that, with the net twirled dexterously above it, would go
+down like an extinguisher over the suspicious ridge or furrow.
+Sometimes--most often, of course,--they proved to be nothing else; but
+sometimes, again, there would be a pause, during which the black legs
+would remain uppermost, and then, once more, the black head would come
+air-wards with a wriggling fish, held, if it happened to be a small
+one, in its white teeth. For Am-ma had not been provided by nature with
+a pouch, like the pelicans who were fishing hard by; and, being
+absolutely destitute of clothing and pockets, had to sidle sedately to
+the bank with each prize before seeking another, since both hands and
+feet were needed for its capture. Otherwise, his method of fishing was
+little removed from the birds,--the net being considered as his beak.
+If anything, it was the more primitive of the two, since the pelicans
+fished in companies, drawing a serried line round each likely shallow;
+whereas Am-ma had all the distrust of his fellow which marks man in his
+earliest development. For, even amongst his kind, Am-ma was held to be
+barbarian; though, Heaven knows! the six or seven millions of wild
+tribes and forest races in India which go to make up its two hundred
+and eighty, are primitive enough. Those six or seven millions, frankly,
+absolutely savage, who, as the census puts it, are 'not to be
+specified'; remaining, as they do, untouched by either the
+civilizations or religions with which they have come in contact. Six or
+seven millions, whose very superstitions are their own monopoly!
+
+Some there were among these fisher folk of Eshwara who, like Gu-gu,
+were faintly leavened with latter-day learning, faintly amenable to
+latter-day standards; but Am-ma's dull brain was satisfied with what it
+had inherited; which included, amongst other things, sight, hearing,
+touch, keen almost beyond belief. So he opened his eyes at a sound
+which, to an ordinary person, would have been as inaudible as the swift
+coming of sunlight in the sky; and his sight told him immediately what
+it was in detail. A canoe was coming down the lagoon with two men in
+it. Now there was only one canoe in Eshwara, and that belonged to
+Pundit Ramanund. He had been over the black water, and learnt, amongst
+a number of other strange new things which were of no use, how to
+paddle a canoe--his own or another's! For what good was a canoe when
+you did not know the sandbanks? And how could you know the sand-banks
+unless you swam over them and dived down to them? Then, if you could do
+that, what was the good of a canoe? An air-bag, or even an earthen pot
+under the pit of your stomach, on which you could lie, was sufficient
+for all practical purposes.
+
+Therefore one of the men Am-ma knew must be Ramanund; the other, by his
+turban, was a Mahomedan. Did _he_ know the sand-banks? Am-ma shaded his
+eyes with one hand, and watched to see. Evidently not; the canoe stuck
+here, there, everywhere, yet still came on slowly. But if the occupants
+wanted--as everybody seemed to want nowadays--to cross over to the
+other side--that other side where the red brick headworks of the canal
+showed like a plinth--to those strange, new white tents where the Lord
+was expected; then they would find the navigation more intricate.
+
+Am-ma being conservative inevitably, smiled at the certainty, closed
+his eyes, and went on fishing; till he opened them again at a shout.
+
+"Which way?" he echoed, his voice sounding hollow from its nearness to
+the water. "By the deep stream, always."
+
+"And which is that, fool?" came Roshan's voice angrily.
+
+"Where there is most water," returned Am-ma calmly. "Cease from
+paddling, and the canoe will tell you without fail. Such things know of
+themselves. They are wise."
+
+"But we want to get over to the camp as quickly as we can," said
+Ramanund, interrupting an impatient retort of Roshan Khān's, with an
+aside to the effect that they had better not alienate their only hope.
+The river was lower than he had expected, or he would never have
+suggested crossing in the boat, as quicker than the bridge; yet there
+was not time to go back.
+
+Am-ma smiled cunningly. "None will get quicker than he can, my masters;
+that much is certain." Being pleased with his own wit, he laughed, and
+kicking up his heels, ducked his head, to come up again a few yards
+nearer in shallower water, where he could stand and salaam.
+
+"The noble people," he said gravely, "must surely follow the stream if
+they go in company; but if they will quit comfort, and wade, carrying
+their boat here and there, I, Am-ma, will show them. But it is
+annoyance. Without going with the stream there is always annoyance."
+
+"It is better than going back or sticking still, anyhow!" remarked
+Roshan Khān to his companion; adding in Hindustani--"Then come
+quick--there is room for thee and thy net, and we will pay thee."
+
+Am-ma shook his head. "There is weight enough for difficulties without
+me, my masters; and here or there is one to a fisher." So saying, he
+closed his net with one dexterous twist, slipped his arms through it so
+that it hung behind his back, and struck across the shallows.
+
+"Yonder is our aim," he said briefly, pointing to a blue thread of
+smoke rising from the water's edge a good way down stream. "They burn a
+dead man there to-day; it is ever a good guide to the living."
+
+"'Twill be the Brahmin lad the _Huzoors_ killed by mistake with their
+_Dee-puk-rāg_. Didst hear the tale?" asked Ramanund. Why, he would have
+been puzzled to tell, since he had no definite desire to foster
+ill-feeling or fear; but it had been the talk of the town till those
+small hours which end gossip, even in India, and the talk had confirmed
+the theory, which so many of his kind hold firmly, if vaguely, that the
+mass of the people feel the English rule to be unjust.
+
+But Am-ma was not of the people. He was of the six million and odd
+barbarians. He turned, showing his broad white teeth in a grin. "Ay!
+'Twas well done. Now, as in old days, folk will know who is true
+leader." There was no doubt, no fear in his mind. Had not his tribe
+always, of old, chosen as its chief and God the man who could hold a
+torch in each hand at arms' length, one lighted, the other unlit, and
+bid the flame pass from one to the other seven times? And as for a
+man's life, was it not always expedient that one should die for the
+people upon occasions?
+
+Ramanund frowned; perhaps because Am-ma concluded by ordering the crew
+out of the boat, and the water was cold. It could scarcely have been
+anything else which brought annoyance, since he, like most of his kind,
+prided himself on being truly a British subject.
+
+So, paddling and pushing, wading, and even carrying, they crossed from
+shallow to shallow, from sand-bank to sand-bank, led by Am-ma, swimming
+and diving like a duck, or walking on ahead unconcernedly, his eyes
+fixed in keen-sighted approval on that group close to the water's edge,
+towards which he steered.
+
+Yet it was a gruesome group, in truth, which circled round that
+solitary and still more gruesome figure in the centre. A figure
+squatting like the rest (since, when wood is dear, funeral piles must
+be restricted) in full view, yet mercifully obscured for the most part
+by the heavy column of smoke which rose straight to a level with the
+leaping flames, then, tilting sideways before the intermittent breeze
+of early dawn, drifted westward, to hide those white tents upon the
+horizon.
+
+"Above or below, fool!" called Ramanund, sharply, as they neared the
+shore. "I am no _Dōm_, like thou, to choose my way among dead men's
+bones."
+
+The allusion to the semi-aboriginal tribe who earn their livelihood by
+streaking the dead, brought a frown this time to Am-ma's face.
+
+"I am no _Dōm_, either," he retorted, "and were I one, thou wouldst be
+glad of my guidance to the fire some day, Pundit-_jee!_" Roshan Khān
+listened with the wholehearted contempt of his race and creed. "Be
+quick, either way," he said, scornfully. "We have bare time, as it is."
+
+Yet he, also, swerved from that gruesome group, which, as the
+two--dressed as Europeans, save for their turbans--stepped ashore and
+hurried off in the direction of the camp, stood up in a linked
+semi-circle to salaam, then squatted again with a clank of leg irons.
+
+Am-ma, his task over, had paused in the deeper water, and was once more
+sidling sedately. The sun had risen with the inconceivable swiftness
+with which it rises from a dead-level, treeless plain, and shone
+reddish-yellow, like a fire, on his wet skin. The shadow of that dense
+column of smoke sidled sedately on the water also, shifting with the
+shifting spirals of the reality.
+
+"Had he spilt blood?" asked Am-ma, suddenly, as that something,
+half-hidden in the smoke, seemed to dissolve, sending a great fountain
+of sparks, bright even in the sunlight, up into the air.
+
+One in the semicircle clucked denial.
+
+"A _jogi_--they say of Gorakh-nāth's monastery--had him for disciple.
+And there was _dhatoora_ in the sweetmeats, for sure. Whether he was
+strangler, God knows! Perhaps. Yet such travellers deserved poison; who
+but a fool trusts a strange hand?"
+
+A big man at the end of the semicircle, who had a sinister face despite
+his good conduct badge, looked round hastily to where, a little
+distance off, the two jail-warders in charge were dividing a smoke on
+the sly with swift mysterious bubblings; then lowered his voice.
+
+"Ay! none but fools; and _he_--" (a nod towards that thing in the
+centre which was now dying down to red embers pointed his meaning) "is
+the first; not the last. I, Gopi, _gosain_,[6] say so. Let fools wait
+and see. Wise men will not."
+
+There was a clank of leg irons as if some stirred uneasily. "Thou canst
+talk," murmured a voice. "When thy 'tucket' (ticket of leave)--God
+knows how got!--is so nigh."
+
+Gopi smiled comfortably. "Ay! To-morrow, and the next day, and the
+next. Then, once more, purification in the Pool of Immortality. Once
+more, sanctification at the 'Cradle of the Gods.'" He cast his eyes
+upwards unctuously, like an Eastern Chadband, so rehearsing the part of
+piety he meant to play once more on his release.
+
+Am-ma nodded his bodiless head cheerfully. "There will be no Pool of
+Immortality for the pilgrims this year. So Gorakh-nāth says. The canal
+will drain the spring. But then, he is angry at being turned out of his
+gun. The people will not give so much--that is it!"
+
+The _gosain's_ face lowered at the news. "Turned out? Who hath done
+it?"
+
+Am-ma's eyes were closed, for his feet had found likely ground; he
+paused a second, tensely alert--
+
+"He who comes," he said, suddenly; "the Master."
+
+As he spoke, the quick thud, followed by a lingering reverberation of
+the first saluting gun, told that the Viceroy of India was entering his
+camp.
+
+"The Lord hath come!" said the circle of prisoners, in awed tones.
+
+All save Gopi, the _gosain_. He sneered. "The Lord-_sahib_. Ay! he may
+be that--but the Master--no!"
+
+Am-ma gave a contented little chuckle.
+
+"He killed _that_, anyhow," he said nodding again, "and he hath the
+_Dee-puk-rāg_. Is not that enough for poor folk?" Then his feet,
+feeling something far out of sight in the still deep waters, came
+air-wards, and his head went down.
+
+When it came up again, the gang of prisoners were being filed back to
+gaol, leaving the still glowing embers of what had been a man to send a
+clear blue smoke into the clear blue sky.
+
+"They have the _Dee-puk-rāg_--that is enough," murmured the fisher to
+himself as he slid with the stream.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII
+
+                          THE WORLD'S DESIRE
+
+
+The Viceroy's camp was no longer a city of dreams.
+
+Its silence had gone, lost in that indefinable sense of sound which
+seems to come from the heart-beats, even, of unseen humanity; and
+the whiteness, the purity of it, was stained and smirched by the
+scarlet-as-sin coatees of the innumerable orderlies, who bustled about
+from tent to tent, with huge files of references, or lingered at the
+tent doors extorting shoe-money from the native visitors, who came in
+shoals to plead for patronage from one or another of the bigwigs
+belonging to the Hosts of the Lord-_sahib_. Groups of these
+petitioners, awaiting their turn for an interview, were to be seen at
+most tents; but they stood in crowds round one, in which the
+Commissioner of the Division was making the final arrangements for the
+coming _durbar_; in consultation with the Under Secretary to Supreme
+Government. It was a difficult task, involving as it did the
+classification of the aristocracy, plutocracy, and democracy of India,
+in one generally satisfactory Court-guide.
+
+"It cann't be done in this wurrld," remarked the Commissioner, in one
+of those suave, plastic, Cork brogues which might be made of Cork
+butter from the softness and lack of friction they bring to the English
+language. "An' what's more the Archangel Gabriel couldn't do it in
+heaven, though he'd have a better chance; for the Cherubim wouldn't be
+wanting seats at all! We are bound to displease somebody, so let's cast
+lots before the Lord; it's Scriptural, annyhow."
+
+The Under Secretary looked a trifle shocked, being unacquainted with
+the Commissioner's methods.
+
+"But we must,"--he began.
+
+The other's keen face looked up from the lists for a second. "Of course
+we must--we govern India practically, by cane-bottomed chairs. Ye
+remember old Gunning. No!--before your time, I expect! Well! he kept
+two hundred miles of North-West frontier as quiet as the grave, for
+five years, by the simple expedient of awarding thirteen seats in his
+divisional _durbar_ to each of his districts, and only taking twelve
+chairs with him into camp. The _māliks_, you see, never could tell
+which would be chosen odd man out, an' the fear of it kept 'em like
+sucking doves."
+
+"Indeed!" remarked the Under Secretary, fidgeting with his lists
+resignedly, for he was under the impression that time was being lost.
+"I'm afraid that sort of thing wouldn't answer nowadays." The elder man
+looked at him gravely; just one short glance, as he dipped his pen in
+the ink and went on writing, revising, referring.
+
+"Not a bit of it! They'd send down to Whiteway Laidlaw's and get
+Austrian bent-wood chairs by value payable parcel post! The Teuton,
+sir, is ruinin' British prestige by cheapenin' the seats of the mighty.
+There! that's done--block A's beautiful entirely. Now for block B.
+Who's your favourite, and why are you backing him?"
+
+Once more the junior appeared a trifle shocked. "With reference to
+Roshan Khān," he began. "His Excellency desired me to ask whether it
+might not be possible to give him a step for being, as it were, in his
+own division. He belongs to Eshwara, I believe."
+
+"The very reason why he cann't get an inch more than his due. But you
+can tell H. E. that I've settled it. I've asked Dering to put him on
+duty, an' when he is in uniform there's no mistaking his place. And
+then we'll ask him in to the reception afterwards with the _sahib
+logue_. Who's your next--Dya Ram! what, the little pleader?--Why the
+blazes should he come to _durbar?_--attorneys don't go to St. James."
+
+"Mr. Cox, the member of parliament--perhaps you may remember him--"
+
+"A little red-haired fellow, was he? who wrote a book about India on
+the back of his two-monthly return ticket?"
+
+"Mr. Cox is a man of great influence with his party, and he supports
+Dya Ram's--"
+
+"Pestilential little fool," interrupted the Commissioner impartially,
+impersonally. "It wouldn't be bad, though--stop his scurrilous tongue
+for a bit. Favour does, you know. But I cann't see my way to it. Old
+Hodinuggur would be refusing his '_atta_ and _pān_[7] again. He did it
+once, ye know, when some low-caste fellow was within sight of him. Said
+he didn't eat with sweepers; and if Crawford--he was Commissioner at
+the time--"
+
+"Yes!" said the Under Secretary, still more resignedly. He had not yet
+grasped the fact that his coadjutor talked while he worked--
+
+"Hadn't been six foot four and broad in proportion," went on his
+tormentor imperturbably, "so that the--let us call them the subsequent
+negotiations--diplomatic negotiations--it sounds well!--didn't reach
+the eye of His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, the Thakoor--one of our
+best men let me tell you--would have got into trouble--more'd have been
+the pity."
+
+"Yes," assented the man of Secretariats, "but about Dya Ram--"
+
+"Dya Ram, is it now? Could we put him in under the head 'benevolence'
+think you? Did he ever vaccinate a baby, or breed a horse, or give
+anything to a female hospital? No! Then the devil fly off with him for
+complicating the problem of British rule in India. Why should he want
+to come to _durbar_ at all? When people change their dress they should
+change their desires, but the only effect our civilization has upon
+some men I know, is to make them want to keep their hat and their boots
+on at the same time! Well, that's done! I've found a place for him
+where Hodinuggur can't see the tail end of him unless he squints.
+Now--who's your next?"
+
+While this sort of thing was going on inside the tent, Dya Ram and the
+Thakoor of Hodinuggur were in full view of each other, outside it. The
+former, having scorned the sinful scarlet coatees even to the point of
+refusing to have his patent leather shoes dusted, was walking up and
+down in English fashion. The latter, in a wonderful parcel-gilt coach,
+was awaiting the effect of his ten-rupee tip with perfect patience and
+serenity; while his retinue, which consisted of a dozen ragged
+retainers carrying lances festooned with tinsel and yaks' tails, stared
+contemptuously at the two sentries pacing up and down below the
+flagstaff; who--to tell truth--seemed so monotonously part of the
+general show as to suggest that they also were under the charge of the
+two yellow-legged policemen who stood on either side of the rose-bed.
+
+It was high noon, and the various departmental gongs had begun to give
+their version of the meridian, with that unbiased disregard for that of
+their neighbours which makes the time of day an absolute uncertainty in
+a big camp. But it was calling time evidently; for two superb
+red-coats, blazoned with gold, appeared in company with two big books
+and a silver inkstand, and disappeared with them into the _durbar_
+tent. And shortly afterwards an _aide-de-camp_ sloped over to it,
+yawning.
+
+Both Dya Ram and the Thakoor knew that this meant preparation for
+those, who, having the _entrée_ to the Government House, had the right
+to put down their names in those big books; but the fact itself
+affected their two types very differently. The old Rajput's visit of
+ceremony was of another sort. He, obeying definite orders, would come
+at a specified time, and get his specified salute with his compeers.
+But Dya Ram was like the wild tribes in one way; he was unspecified! He
+was neither fish nor fowl, flesh nor good red herring.
+
+So, as he watched a young Englishman drive up in a bamboo cart, dash
+into the tent, and dash out again as if the place belonged to him, he
+felt aggrieved. He even went so far as to formulate his grievance in
+mental words, and then these appeared to him so apposite to a leading
+article, that he took out a note-book, and, after some corrections,
+stored away, for future use, the assertion, that '_the time will come
+when the colour of the hand which holds the pen will be no bar to its
+writing its name in the Book of_----?' He did not feel sure of the
+qualitative noun, and after trying Fate, Fame, Life, and Lord, left a
+blank instead.
+
+Meanwhile carriages and dogcarts all of sorts had begun to drive up,
+their occupants disappearing into the tent for a second or two, then
+coming out with the smile of the elect on their faces. Father Ninian
+was one of the first, resplendent in a new _soutane_ and sash, with
+Akbar Khān in his orderly's get-up, oscillating between a palsy of
+delighted servility, and a catalepsy of dignity; the one for his
+superiors, the other for his equals.
+
+And, after a while, in one of those mysteriously nondescript
+four-wheeled vehicles that defy classification, but may be said to come
+under the head "_phitton_" (phaeton) of which mission people seem to
+have a monopoly, came good Mrs. Campbell and her niece, Erda Shepherd;
+the former full of indignant, yet meek alarm, because Dr. James, having
+come across an old friend further down the avenue, had bidden her go on
+and write his name as well as her own.
+
+"I ken weel how it will be," she asserted to her niece, "for I havena
+brought my specs, an' a body cannot but be nervous with a young man in
+a scarlet coat glowering at them! I shall put the doctor into the wrong
+book; for, you see, I canna write the two names ane after the ither
+like a marriage lines; for there is one big bookie for the women, and
+one for the men-folk, like a Puseyite chapel! Ay! an' for the matter o'
+that, like a divorce court--and I sou'd never hear the last o't if I
+evened the doctor to myself!"
+
+"Let me do all three, Auntie," said Erda, with a laugh, as she got out
+of the carriage. "Really, there's no need for you to come,--I'll be
+back in a minute."
+
+The blaze of sunshine blinded her for the darkness of the tent, and she
+could scarcely tell whose hand it was which stretched itself frankly,
+eagerly, for hers as she entered. Yet, even through her glove she knew
+the touch, before Lance Carlyon's voice said joyfully,--
+
+"Come to write your name? I've just written mine. Funny our hitting off
+the same time, isn't it?"
+
+The tone of his voice, joined to that startling recognition of his
+touch--which she could not conceal from herself--made her shrink, as if
+from actual intrusion. "I have to write my uncle's and aunt's first,"
+she said coldly. "There was no use in us _all_ coming in."
+
+She walked on as she spoke to where the two books lay on a sort of
+lectern, while the _aide-de-camp_, seeing the visitor was a lady, came
+forward politely to assist.
+
+"Not that book, Mansfield," remarked Lance, coolly. "Miss Shepherd
+wants--Miss Shepherd, will you allow me to introduce Captain
+Mansfield--to write her uncle's name first."
+
+She looked back at him almost angrily, full of resentment at his
+persistence; but, even in the semi-blindness which was still hers, his
+face showed too kind for that; and as, at that moment, another lady
+came in with a flutter of laces and ribbons to appropriate Captain
+Mansfield's ready services, Erda had to allow Lance to find her a pen.
+
+"That's right! Now for the other book," he said. The _aide-de-camp_ had
+by this time gone to see the laces and ribbons back to their carriage,
+so the two were alone.
+
+"Your aunt's first, you know." There was a suspicion of friendly
+chaff in his tone, this time, but it was gone in a minute as
+he went on quickly--"Erdmuth!--is that your name? Why!--it means
+earth-mood--or--or world's desire, doesn't it?"
+
+She felt herself flush. "I did not know that you were such a German
+scholar," she replied, sarcastically. "Yes! my name is Erdmuth
+Dorothea. I was called so after--after some one you most likely know
+nothing about, Countess Zinzendorf. She was famous enough, though,--"
+she paused, feeling savagely desirous of snubbing him--"But I daresay
+you never even happened to hear of Jean Ziska, Mr. Carlyon?"
+
+He smiled suddenly, broadly. "Jean Ziska!" he echoed. "Rather! We had a
+pony called Ziska at home--a Hungarian--used to eat thistles like a
+donkey!"
+
+He stopped to laugh, and she was about to turn and rend him, when he
+continued, half apologetically, "Of course I have--only the name, you
+see, brought back such jolly old times. Ziska was the beggar who had
+his skin made into a drum when he was dead. I don't expect it's true,
+but it's a fine tale; the drum ecclesiastic with a vengeance, and no
+mistake!"
+
+"Oh! but it is," interrupted the girl, forgetting her annoyance in her
+eagerness. "My grandfather--we are really Moravians, you see, and our
+name should be Schaeffer,--saw it when he was a child. He used to tell
+me that people said if it was beaten, everybody must--"
+
+But Lance's attention had wandered. He was looking at her signature
+with a curious, almost wistful smile. "Erdmuth!" he repeated
+thoughtfully; then turned to her. "I say! you really ought to come to
+the ball with that name--do!"
+
+He was simply, she told herself, the most distractingly irrelevant, yet
+at the same time the most appallingly direct, person she had ever come
+across. "Really, Mr. Carlyon," she began, with such heat that the
+_aide-de-camp_, returning, stared; until Lance coolly asked him if he
+didn't think Miss Shepherd very unkind not to come to the Bachelor's
+Ball? Whereupon he, having by this time had enough of laces and
+ribbons, and begun to recognize a distinct charm in the glistening
+coils of hair, half-hidden by a wide hat, promptly asked her for the
+pleasure of a dance.
+
+Erda looked from one to the other aghast, and to her own intense
+surprise fell back upon the woman's all-embracing excuse, "I--I really
+haven't a dress." It seemed the simplest and easiest.
+
+"Oh! anything does for a fancy ball," persisted Lance, argumentatively,
+as he followed her out. "A tailor in the bazaar would run you up a
+Greek dress in no time, and it would do awfully well. All white, don't
+you know--" his voice slackened and grew soft, as if he saw what he
+described, and the sight made him glad--"all straight folds with a
+little edge of red-gold like--" he paused, then went on boldly--"like
+the sunshine on your hair. And red-gold bracelets high up on your
+arms--and a red-gold apple in your hand--the World's Desire--" He
+stopped abruptly, with a quick catch in his breath, startled at his own
+words.
+
+And she, too, held her breath before the vision; for she saw it also.
+Saw herself, as he had described her, and the glamour of it, the desire
+of it, assailed her, body and soul.
+
+Yet she made a desperate, a passionately resentful effort to ignore
+them. "I didn't know you were so well up in _chiffons_, Mr. Carlyon,"
+she said, with a forced laugh. "Did you ever think of setting up a
+milliner's shop? One is badly needed in Eshwara."
+
+But the glamour of it had come to Lance Carlyon like a revelation, and
+the blood was leaping in his veins. "I will, if you--" he began.
+
+She scarcely recognized his voice in one way. In another she knew it
+must be his; for all the vitality and strength, the single-mindedness
+and simplicity which she had seen in him so often, were crowded into
+it; brought into it by fancy, concentrated by a mere suggestion--of
+herself.
+
+The magic of this seemed to encompass her; she sought shelter from it
+recklessly.
+
+"I?" she interrupted. "I don't go in for that sort of thing,
+Mr. Carlyon. You seem to forget my work--work which I value
+above--milliners! Try Mrs. Smith--there she is coming in her victoria;
+she is one of the best-dressed women I ever saw."
+
+She could not certainly have looked better than she did as, seeing
+Lance Carlyon, she called to him as her carriage drove up.
+
+"Do you know where Captain Dering is? He promised--"
+
+Here Lance, with guilty haste, interrupted her. He was just about to
+drive over and give her a message. Dering had had a touch of fever; he
+had been over at the palace arranging about the Chinese lanterns for
+the decorations till late the evening before, and--
+
+"He might have sent a little sooner," put in Mrs. Smith. "I have been
+waiting; he said he would drive me in his dogcart." There was no
+vexation, only an almost pathetic surprise in her voice; and Lance
+looked guiltier still.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry--it's all my fault--I was late to begin with, and
+then--" He glanced at Erda involuntarily,--compromisingly, it seemed to
+her.
+
+"I am afraid I kept Mr. Carlyon," she said, haughtily; "most
+unwillingly, I assure you. Thanks so much, but I can get in quite well
+by myself."
+
+As she drove off, however, her head was in a whirl; and as, when
+pausing to pick up Dr. Campbell, the whole panorama of the camp, the
+hills behind it, the distant temples of Eshwara, the busy place-seekers
+in the foreground, the scarlet-sin-stains of the _chuprassies'_ coats
+against the dazzling whiteness of the tents, lay before her, one of
+those rare, incomprehensible moods came upon her when the soul retreats
+into its spiritual body, so that the sight grows clear, the touch keen,
+and you can feel the round world spin beneath your feet, see the shadow
+of earth stretching far among the stars.
+
+The World's Desire! What was it?
+
+Brought up to believe that the heart of man--that mainspring of the
+spinning world--was vile, she had never asked herself why this was so.
+She had read the story of Adam and Eve with unquestioning faith, yet
+never sought to know what had changed the good to evil.
+
+But now, as her eyes rested on those far-distant peaks with that faint
+mist about their feet hiding the "Cradle of the Gods," and followed, as
+far as the eye could follow in the nearer hills, the climbing track
+worn by the weariness of that eternal search after righteousness, she
+asked herself what it was which kept mankind so long upon the road;
+asked herself, for the first time, what that first sin had been which
+had lost Paradise.
+
+No lack of desire after salvation, surely. Generation on generation of
+Eastern pilgrims had worn that path out of the sheer rock, had agonized
+after good, and remained evil. A little shudder of memory ran through
+her at the thought--how evil! And now the West, with its white tents,
+its white face, its white creed, had come to show a newer, a better
+way.
+
+Had it? But what had it done for itself? She had worked for two years
+in London ere coming out to India; and another shudder of memory swept
+over her of what she had seen there.
+
+The World's Desire! Lance Carlyon had called her that--a woman with a
+red-gold apple in her hand.
+
+The sound of angry dispute brought her back to realities. They were
+passing out of the camp under the triumphal arch, and one of its
+sentries was barring the entrance of an ash-smeared figure which was
+brandishing a stamped petition paper, as if it had been a card of
+admission, and yelling excitedly for "Justice! justice!"
+
+"It is that pernicious fellow, Gorakh-nāth," remarked Dr. Campbell,
+sententiously. "He wishes, no doubt, to appeal against Captain Dering's
+order, of which I, for one, am heartily glad. A Christian government is
+bound to refuse sanction to the practice of a faith which, it is
+impossible not to see, is degrading in the extreme to those who hold
+it."
+
+Erda's eyes were still clear; clear with what those who do not see,
+call dreams.
+
+"Yet it seeks what we do--peace--forgiveness--the cradle of the
+goodness, the innocence it left behind--somehow."
+
+Dr. James Campbell turned to her in dignified, amazed displeasure. "May
+I ask what has caused--"
+
+"That's easy tellin'," interrupted Mrs. Campbell, comfortably. "It's
+yon hat with feathers, when she is accustomed to a pith one. An' she
+standin' in the sun talkin' to Mr. Carlyon! It's just got to the
+lassie's head. I was the same myself when I was young, Erda; but Dr.
+James thought it a duty--
+
+"And so I do now, my dear," put in her husband. "It is a distinct duty
+on the part of mission workers to take every precaution, and if her
+head is Erda's weak point, I shall warn David--"
+
+Mrs. Campbell nodded hers and smiled, and almost winked. "Oh! Davie
+will take care of her, never fear; he is not a ninny!"
+
+Erda flushed scarlet all over her face and neck. It seemed to her as if
+she had forgotten her cousin, the Reverend David Campbell, altogether.
+And yet she was engaged to be married to him as soon as he returned
+from a well-earned holiday in England.
+
+A swift remorse left her pale again. Davie, who was so much in earnest,
+who looked to her as--as--
+
+That vision of a woman with a red-gold edging to her white robe and a
+red-gold apple in her hand came to send the blood to her face once
+more.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII
+
+                            FALLING STARS
+
+
+The long _durbar_ tent was packed from end to end with the
+cane-bottomed seats of the mighty; and in each sat its appointed
+occupant,--patient, grave, silent.
+
+But in the two rows behind the Viceroy's still empty chair of state the
+Englishmen in political dress or uniform who sat in the front, and the
+Englishwomen in the latest Paris fashions who sat behind, were talking
+and laughing; in a perfectly well-bred way, yet, to the majority of
+those silent spectators, at the expense of decency, since a _durbar_
+is, like a West Indian ball, not for '_talkee_.' There was, however, no
+disapproval on those indifferent dark faces. Such things were part and
+parcel of that general eccentricity of the _Huzoors_, before which it
+behoved calmness to remain calm. Yet those same faces would have been
+quick to notice and resent the faintest breach of etiquette in regard
+to their own treatment, or position. Those being correct, the rest was
+immaterial.
+
+And now, the sudden strains from without of "God Save the Queen" sent
+those talking, laughing rows to their feet silently, with the proud
+alacrity so noticeable in India when the act is a confession of faith,
+indeed! But the mass beyond followed suit obediently, with a starry
+shiver of diamond-flash, a milky way of pearl-shine; for Eugene Smith's
+electric light was working full power.
+
+Finally, as if wafted on the full chords, came a small man, with that
+inevitable look of coming into church which Englishmen consider
+dignity; possibly because public worship is, really, the only function
+in which they are not inwardly ashamed of taking part. The great gold
+chair, the great gold footstool, seemed all too large for everything
+about their occupant, save the diamond star, the ribbon on his breast.
+Yet, in a way, the scene gained by his inadequacy when, after a decent
+pause, a decent silence, he rose, small, insignificant, to give voice
+to Empire--in a strong Scotch accent, it must be admitted, which
+equalled the Commissioner's Irish one, when, its proper exponent, the
+Secretary, having a cold, he read a translation of the Viceroy's
+speech, and his soft brogue ran riot among the clamorous Persian
+vowels.
+
+"_Ai Māhārājāhān, rājāhān, nawābān wā sāhibān ālishān_."
+
+The diamonds and pearls sat too still for play, so the electric light
+contented itself with the white teeth of Englishwomen as they yawned.
+But even these failed it when, the speech ending, that front row began
+its file past; the civilians first, the soldiers next. A quick file, a
+formal bow as a rule; but, every now and again, a pause would come in
+the monotonous string of names, for a few words from the Viceroy,
+and another bow ere the recipient passed on. Muriel Smith, who sat
+behind--the best dressed woman there, as Erda Shepherd had judged
+her--watched her husband's tall gaunt figure approaching, and wondered
+if that pause would come to him. Her heart beat so when it did that she
+could hear nothing except "graciously pleased," "eminent services,"
+"distinguished order"; but a whisper from her neighbor, "All right!
+C. S. I., not C. I. E.," left her sick and faint with relief. Even so,
+her eyes instinctively sought Vincent Dering's sympathy; but he, to her
+surprise, was looking at the tall gaunt man whose face was a "_nunc
+dimittis_" in itself, as he made his way back to his seat, forgetful
+even of his wife.
+
+But he had forgotten her, amid a host of other things, for three whole
+years: forgotten them in a ceaseless effort, an untiring energy. And
+now that the necessity for this was over, sleep and rest were his first
+thoughts. He took both, apparently, in his chair, while the
+Commissioner, causing this time a fresh flashing of jewels, began on a
+fresh string of titles.
+
+"_Sri rāja-i-rājān_,
+_furzund-i-khās-munsoor-i-zamān-māhārāj-dhirāj-rasākh_."
+
+And, as they rolled on, the atom of humanity belonging to them--someone
+in faded brocade, with ropes of ill-shaped pearls and uncut stones
+wound about him, or a jauntier figure fresh and glittering from a
+Calcutta jeweller's shop--would be singled out by its political in
+charge, like a sheep from a flock, and guided dexterously to the
+exactly proper spot in the whole round world wherein obeisance and
+offering could be made with dignity to itself, and the recipient. Then
+it would be swept on, regardless of an invariable desire to break back,
+in an endless circle to its seat, while fresh titles rolled out, and a
+fresh owner was hemmed in and swept forward. For two whole mortal
+hours, this, and nothing but this; with, every now and again, that
+pause for a few words, translated now into Irish-Urdu, producing an
+expression as of a cat licking cream, on a face as it was was hustled
+back, blindly obedient, as sheep are with a collie they know and trust.
+
+So, at last, long after everyone, even Dya Ram--who looked terribly
+disjointed between his frock coat, white tie, grey trousers, and the
+gold mohur which he persisted in holding after native custom in his
+gloved right hand--had passed, the politicals gathered in a knot, like
+church-wardens for the offertory plates, and the distribution of _atta_
+and _pān_, that sacrament of servitude and sovereignty, began. It, too,
+was exactly like an offertory; that is, a languid passing round of a
+plate by an official, and yawns for the rest of the congregation.
+
+Finally, with a vigour savouring--like a voluntary--of relief, the band
+attacked "God Save the Queen" once more, the Viceroy retired, the
+_durbarees_ trooped out, still calm and silent, yet satisfied, and the
+Commissioner, sinking into a vacant seat, said:--
+
+"Thank the Lord! That's over without a hitch. So India's safe for
+another six months at the cost of a trumpery title or two."
+
+"I don't see on what ground," began the Under Secretary, laboriously.
+
+"Then ye don't read your Bible. Didn't Adam, when he was given dominion
+over the lower animals, begin by bestowing names on them? Ah! my dear
+Mrs. Smith, I didn't know ye were so close. A thousand congratulations,
+my dear lady."
+
+"You don't mean it, sir," she interrupted, laughing. "Do you think I
+have forgotten the consolatory verses you wrote me last year when
+Eugene _didn't_ get anything? You are a fraud."
+
+"Not a bit of it; only an Irishman," put in Father Ninian, with an
+almost tender smile for the keen, whimsical face which had been friend
+to him, and foe to him, for many a long year. "Let us have the verses,
+Mrs. Smith."
+
+"Say ye don't remember them, there's a kind soul," urged the
+Commissioner, persuasively.
+
+"But I do:
+
+
+      "I dreamt, and lo, the stars fell from the sky
+         To blaze upon the breasts of naughty men;
+       And as I wondered, came this swift reply:--
+         'Each star is some soul's inmost aim, and when
+           The angels don't approve, it is returned
+           To feed the base-born flame by which it burned.
+         The nice, they keep until--life's struggle striven--
+         The owners find them at the gates of heaven.'"
+
+
+"Striven--heaven!" groaned the Commissioner, amid the clapping of
+hands. "My dear madam, did I commit such a crime--I mean rhyme? But the
+poet's right. Ye can't go wide of the mark, annyhow, even in a song,
+but you're sure to find the fact again in the heart of a friend."
+
+So, with that curiously light-hearted, almost reckless, frivolity of
+Indian society--a not unnatural recoil, perhaps, from the perpetual
+presence of the greatest social problem the world has ever seen, or is
+likely to see, that is, the mutual assimilation of East and West
+without injury to either--the little company of English men and women,
+empire makers and breakers, drifted out into the sunshine, and so on to
+the Viceroy's private enclosure, where the band, weary of national
+anthems, was already at work on a selection of street tunes, beginning
+with "Tommy, make room for your uncle."
+
+So the pageant of power passed into a garden-party, and nothing
+remained to show the hand-grip which had made that garden out of a
+wilderness, to tell of the tireless effort to solve the problem, the
+ceaseless striving to be just, which underlay all the quips and cranks,
+the foibles and follies, of the great camp, save the premature baldness
+of a few heads, as their owners fought desperately at badminton; fought
+to prevent a child's shuttlecock from falling in the wrong court!
+
+A fight which was watched with blank courtesy, as a further exhibition
+of sheer eccentricity, by those of the jewelled and brocaded owners of
+titles who had the _entrée_ to this Holy of Holies.
+
+Roshan Khān, however,--who looked splendid in his uniform,--fought with
+the best; and won, too, though Laila Bonaventura, who played on his
+side, stood still, taking, it is true, the shots which came within
+reach dexterously enough, but never stirring an inch for one beyond.
+And, as he played, the curious chance which had brought him into her
+company made his blood run fast.
+
+Captain Dering had bidden him join the set; bidden him curtly, almost
+savagely, as the best player available, in answer to a challenge from
+Muriel Smith to play her, her husband, and the Commissioner. And this
+challenge had come curtly, also, because Captain Dering was standing
+beside Laila Bonaventura, to whom he had been giving a cup of coffee.
+Not because it gave him pleasure, but from sheer determination not to
+let his mistake in the darkness count for anything. Yet, as the girl's
+hand took the cup from his, he had remembered with a thrill the
+gladness, the content it had brought him. Though he refused to
+acknowledge the fact, the puzzle of this mistake had been his chief
+thought ever since it occurred, and a smouldering resentment regarding
+his past relationship with one who was still to him the best and
+dearest of women was the result. He felt vaguely that she, as well as
+he, ought to have known that their sentiment, their monopoly, as it
+were, of friendship, could only mean--what it had meant to him during
+those few moments of blindness which had, paradoxically, opened his
+eyes. So he had felt bitter, and she had known it instinctively. If she
+had ever faced facts, this alone might have opened her eyes also; but
+she was too good a woman, too helplessly bound by her woman's cult of
+love, to disassociate it from friendship. So, without bringing a doubt
+even, the jealous desire of appropriation which draws a line clear and
+clean as a sword-cut between the two, had risen up in her from the
+absence of the sympathetic look she had expected from Vincent Dering.
+So she had challenged him, and so it came to pass that Roshan Khān
+played badminton with Laila Bonaventura. She took no notice of him
+beyond a casual inspection of his uniform; still the mere fact of being
+her equal within the white lines which separated their badminton court
+from the realities of life seemed a fate. When the game was over, his
+eyes followed her closely, and he, himself, at a respectful distance;
+and as he followed her, his desire to speak to her grew as he pondered
+on his right to do so. After all, as his grandmother had said, she was
+his cousin.
+
+And fate was on his side once more. A well-bred crowding round a table
+where some photographs of the camp were being shown, brought him so
+near her that she caught sight of his yellow, silver-laced uniform
+behind her, and turned quickly. Turned with a look in her big black
+eyes which dazzled him.
+
+It vanished, however, in a second; yet her words, spoken with a faint
+resentment, made the memory of the look give rise to a swift pulse of
+angry suspicion.
+
+"I thought you were Captain Dering," she said. "Why do you wear the
+same uniform? I thought natives couldn't be officers."
+
+The assumption, in his present state of mind, made all his fierce
+temper flash to his face; but ere he could choose English words to
+express it, she laughed, and, after her fashion when amused, became
+confidential. "You are angry at being called a native; but you _are_
+one, aren't you? Then it is so foolish. You are like my guardian. He
+can't bear the bazaar people to call me '_Begum-sahiba_'; but they do
+sometimes, you know, because I own a lot of their houses and lands, and
+my grandmother was a native princess. I know that, though my guardian
+never speaks about it. He is ashamed, I think--like you are. I'm not. I
+didn't choose my grandmother. Why should one fuss about such things? If
+they're true, it can't be helped, and if they're not, what _does_ it
+matter? Besides, it must be rather nice to be a real Begum. You haven't
+seen any, of course; they wouldn't let you, would they? That must be
+horrid. How could you like people if you didn't see them? Besides--"
+she added, with an access of demure, pious conviction, "it would be
+wicked to marry them, you know. You should never marry anyone you don't
+love. Even the Sisters told me that."
+
+Her voice had deepened, broadened; her eyes, occupied with his uniform,
+not his face, had grown soft. Hitherto he had been too much at a loss
+before her sudden garrulity to interrupt; now, that vague suspicion
+recurred, making him feel inclined to say brutally, "I am your cousin;
+I claim you." The very thought of her outraged face attracted him. But
+English words were inadequate for such emotions, so, as he paused, she
+went on:--
+
+"As you are here, I suppose you'll be asked to the ball, also. It is to
+be in my palace, you know, because Captain Dering thinks it the best
+place. He says the gardens will be beautiful all lit up--" She smiled as
+if at some secret mystery, then continued: "Of course, I don't know
+yet; I haven't seen it, but I think it will be lovely. Only I wish my
+dress was different. I am Beatrice--Dante's Beatrice--and I think it
+stupid. But my guardian chose it because--" she smiled again with the
+same secret amusement--"I don't know, of course, but I expect it is
+because my great-grandmother went as Beatrice to some ball long ago. It
+is generally that. I think he must have been in love with her--isn't it
+funny?"
+
+"Laila," came Father Ninian's voice from behind, "I have been looking
+for you everywhere. It is time to go."
+
+His usually kind old face was stern. He gave the curtest of
+recognitions to Roshan Khān, and, as he carried his ward off, said
+sharply, "Who introduced you to that native?"
+
+"No one," she replied, indifferently; "I thought he was Captain Dering;
+their uniforms--" she broke off to add, with more animation, "I do like
+the gold and silver lace. Though of course the jewels, like the rajahs
+wore, look best."
+
+He interrupted her in Italian, giving a quick gesture of dissent. "Say
+not so, _cara mia_, they would look ill on--on Englishmen. And listen,
+child! You should not speak to strangers; and I would rather you did
+not speak to such natives at all. They--cannot understand--quite--for
+they look on women differently from what we do."
+
+Laila's eyes narrowed sullenly. "Very well, guardian," she said
+resignedly, "only I suppose they must know what their women are really
+like--and--perhaps the native ladies prefer it."
+
+The old man looked at her, startled, but said nothing.
+
+When he had gone to find Akbar Khān and the carriage, Vincent Dering,
+seeing her alone, came up--so, at least, he told himself--out of sheer
+politeness, to ask if she wanted anything. Yet something in her face
+sent him beyond mere courtesy at once; something almost childishly
+apparent.
+
+"I'm afraid you haven't been enjoying yourself," he said kindly. "Why
+not? I thought it rather pleasant."
+
+"Very pleasant!" she assented wearily. "Only my guardian has been
+telling me not to do things; and I don't know why, but I always want to
+do them at once--don't you?"
+
+He could not actually deny the fact. "Sometimes. One has to
+pretend--"
+
+She raised her eyes to his blindingly; he caught a glimpse in them of
+the lawless approval Roshan Khān had seen, yet of something else--a
+lawless disdain. "Why must one?" she asked. "I never mean to, never! If
+I want to do a thing I'll do it. I don't mean wicked things, of
+course--" she returned here to demure, almost plaintive piety--"I don't
+want to do them, and nothing can be wrong when it seems right to you,
+and it is real--ever so real, and you give yourself to it, every bit of
+you, without thinking, and--and--ask nothing--nothing at all--"
+
+Her vehemence, her passionate assertion, roused a quick response in
+him. "Would you do that?" he asked, his voice vibrating. "Would
+you--really?"
+
+She smiled slowly. "Of course I don't know," she said, "I haven't tried
+yet; but I never pretend. I don't even pretend to like my dress for the
+ball. It _is_ so stupid."
+
+He felt annoyed at being led into a burst of emotion, and then baulked.
+"You will look charming, I'm sure," he said in his worst manner. "And
+if you don't like it, change to something jolly after supper. Lots of
+people do."
+
+"Will Mrs. Smith?" she asked quickly.
+
+He flushed angrily. "I really don't know," he began. Her eyes were on
+him curiously.
+
+"That's funny," she said. "I thought people--not that it matters," she
+went on, "for I can't. I haven't a dress. Do you know I never have
+anything I really like--never."
+
+The girl's voice was absolutely touching in its listless, dull
+confidence, and he could not help consolation. "You'll have the ball,
+I'm sure; you will enjoy it awfully, and--and you mustn't forget that
+you've given me the second waltz, and the first extra after supper."
+
+She did not answer for a moment. "Have I?" she asked. "I didn't know
+it; but I will. That will be nice. And you are coming to decorate
+to-morrow, aren't you? That will be nice, too."
+
+Her tone lingered in his ears long after she had gone. It was with him
+even when he was driving Mrs. Smith home, and, of course, making up
+their little misunderstanding by the way; possibly, because of this
+making up, since, for the first time, the elaborate _éclaircissement_
+irked him. It seemed so unnecessary unless the whole affair meant
+something, which was quite out of the question.
+
+For instance, when driving Lance Carlyon back to the Fort afterwards he
+did not desire an explanation of the latter's moodiness. When a chum
+was evil-dispositioned, you waited calmly for him to come round. That
+was friendship.
+
+"I'm sorry Miss Shepherd couldn't come," said Lance, suddenly, his eyes
+on that spit of sand, with its hovels and logs, below the town. "I
+wanted her to, awfully, if only because she's never seen a _durbar_;
+but"--he smiled--"I expect someone else wanted her instead. By George!
+Dering, you don't know how that girl works. Sometimes I feel it's a
+shame, and sometimes I think it's splendid--though of course it don't
+matter a dash what I think."
+
+And that--Vincent Dering asked himself--was that love?
+
+Laila Bonaventura's voice came back to make him certain of one thing.
+That would not be her version of the old, old story; and the knowledge
+made him, somehow, more content with his world.
+
+Meanwhile another man in yellow and silver lace was being haunted by a
+girl's voice, which had spoken of things which no decent woman of his
+own race would have mentioned; yet which had spoken to him with an
+equality which no Englishwoman would have allowed herself. And as for
+Englishmen! The recollection of Father Narāyan's face as he carried the
+girl off made Roshan Khān curse under his breath.
+
+But the girl herself had been different. He literally did not know what
+to think; and the desire for someone else's opinion grew so strong
+that, finally, with a curious mixture of reluctance and triumph, he
+forsook the straight road to the Fort, and turned his horse's head
+towards his grandmother's house. She was at least a woman; she might
+understand and judge better than he.
+
+His first sight of her, however, in unprepared toilette, _minus_ the
+green satin trousers which gave such dignity to her rotund little
+figure, _minus_ all pretence at pomp, dirty, untidy, unkempt both in
+her surroundings and herself, made him feel what a fool he was. The
+more so when she began by resenting his summary visitation, especially
+in uniform, which, she asserted, made her feel, even at her age, as if
+she were committing the indiscretion of seeing a stranger!
+
+What could a woman like that know? Yet having come, he might as well go
+through with his errand; so he cut short her upbraidings by saying
+without preamble:
+
+"I have seen my cousin. I spoke to her, and--and she spoke back again."
+
+Mumtāza Mahal looked at him for a moment incredulously, then she
+cracked all her finger joints over his head, or as nearly over it as
+her height would allow.
+
+"Said I not so?" she asked prophetically. "And when will the wedding
+be?"
+
+"Wedding!" he echoed petulantly; "there is no talk of wedding. I have
+but seen her."
+
+"But seen her!" echoed the old lady in her turn. "That came after in my
+time; but God knows how things go nowadays. Then what didst speak
+about?"
+
+He had to give a Bowdlerized version of what had passed; yet, even so,
+Mumtāza Mahal looked shocked. "A bold hussy; but thou wilt bit and
+bridle her."
+
+He burst out angrily--for his own recital had shown him the folly of
+castle-building on so slight a foundation--"I am a fool," he said, "and
+so art thou for all thy years!"
+
+Her little black eyes flashed angrily. "Not I! Did she not say she
+would like to be a _Begum?_ and if that means not--"
+
+"And could I make her one?" he interrupted fiercely. "I--a _risaldar_
+on a bare pittance--with no prospect of rising. Dost dream me Nawab,
+fool?"
+
+The old lady's face grew cunning in a second, the instinctive love of
+intrigue roused by the mere suggestion. She leant towards him eagerly.
+"And wherefore not, Roshan? Are all things fixed? Do rulers never
+change? I live here in a corner, nothing but a poor woman: yet I hear
+more, it seems, than thou dost. I hear of discontent, of desires, of
+things that call for change. But to-day, they spoke of men being killed
+to make light for these infidels, and Gorakh-nāth, _jogi_, hath sworn a
+miracle."
+
+He turned on her with a bitter, reckless laugh. "Is that new? Is there
+not always talk? The wise listen not."
+
+A vast importance, a real dignity came to her in an instant. "If the
+_Huzoors_ had listened to such talk in '57."
+
+A thrill ran through him; the thrill of secret curiosity, almost of
+expectation regarding the great Rebellion from which so many things
+date, which young India always feels in the presence of their elders,
+who passed through it.
+
+"Thou dost know, of course," he said, catching his breath; "thou canst
+remember."
+
+"Ay!" she replied sternly, "and there was no more talk than there is
+now. 'Tis not a question of words. It is fate. Something happens, and
+then--then the _risaldar_ may be Nawab--as his fathers were."
+
+She had gone too far, and recalled him to himself. "Then let us await
+the happening," he said curtly.
+
+"Wait!" echoed the old lady, reverting to the main point. "Thou canst
+not wait. Having gone so far, the negotiations cannot drop. Thou must
+send the gift, and see what comes of it."
+
+"A gift!" he repeated. "What gift, and wherefore?"
+
+Mumtāza Mahal looked round as if for approval, tucked a packet of _pān_
+into her cheek, and chuckled. She was on familiar ground now.
+
+"Leave that to me. I know what girls like. I have them still. Ay! a
+dress that her grandmother wore--good as new, being for a tall
+woman--and jewels. 'Tis no harm, at least, see you; since if they like
+it not, the gift is returned."
+
+He stood doubtful, half pleased, half shocked at the suggestion. She
+could certainly send the things back, and he had many a time seen
+English women wearing native jewelry; ay! and decorating their rooms
+with native dresses. And he could write that they were from her cousin
+and servant.
+
+That would be easier than telling.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX
+
+                           OUT OF THE PAST
+
+
+"I feel as if I had this moment arrived," said Muriel Smith, as she
+looked down into the garden from a balcony which jutted out upon one
+side of the wide flight of marble steps that led upwards to the loggia
+of the palace. "Yet I know I've been here for hours. I wonder when the
+sheer beauty will cease to--to take my breath away. _You_ understand,
+don't you?"
+
+"Yes!" assented Vincent Dering, half grudgingly. He would rather not
+have understood more than others. But he did; that was the worst of it.
+
+He was looking his best in the old cavalry uniform of grey, and silver,
+and cherry colour, all laced, embroidered, and glittering with
+epaulettes, sabretasche, and high stock,--the uniform of a hundred
+years ago, when adventurers ruled half India, and Englishmen were
+demi-gods. It seemed to have brought something of their pride and
+recklessness, something of the dreams they dreamt into his whole
+bearing, as he stood leaning over the balustrade gazing fixedly at the
+scene before him. It was beautiful indeed! Beautiful with that
+unearthly stillness which only comes to illuminations in a windless
+Indian night. The lines on lines, the curves on curves of tiny lights
+which outlined each pillar and arch, each buttress and recess of the
+palace, the battlemented wall of the garden, and the turreted town
+rising above it, were steady as the stars. The fine fret of the acacia
+trees, showing white against the purple of the sky, was still as if
+carved in stone. There was no flicker in the soft radiance, which made
+the solid marble seem translucent, illumined mysteriously from within.
+
+The very shadows slept. Such scented shadows, clinging to the burnished
+orange trees, hidden in the wilderness of roses, dreaming on the
+perfumed cushions of the quaint balconies and cupolas which overhung
+the river.
+
+But _it_ did not sleep. _It_ moved, sliding on and on ceaselessly.
+
+So did the water which dimpled and tinkled--after Heaven only knew
+how many sad years of silence and decorum--over the fretted marble
+water-slides.
+
+How it laughed and babbled to the cunning coloured lights placed behind
+it! And the fountains below, rising out of the water-maze,--where there
+was but room for the flying feet of a laughing girl on the marble
+ledges between the lotus-leaves,--laughed and tinkled, also, as they
+sent showers of diamonds back on the pale blossoms.
+
+The "jewel in the lotus" indeed!
+
+There was no colour to be seen anywhere. Only that soft, steady, white
+radiance, those soft, sleeping, black shadows. Except in the drifting
+water-maze, and the drifting men and women around it.
+
+Restless, both of them; going on and on. Whither, and wherefore? It was
+an idle question, Vincent told himself, if the move brought, as it did
+here, fresh laughter, fresh colour.
+
+"_On such a night did young Lorenzo_," quoted the Commissioner's brogue
+from the flight of steps where, in the guise of a French cook, he was
+fanning Laila Bonaventura, with whom he had been dancing; the latter
+sitting still and silent as the shadow in which she was half hidden. A
+crackling laugh betrayed Dr. Dillon's whereabouts. He was perched on a
+balustrade above, his legs dangling, his trousers, as usual, displaying
+his thin ankles; for he was dressed in his ordinary evening suit.
+
+"And old Lorenzo also," he scoffed. "The disease is nonprotective,
+contagious, and marked by extraordinary vitality in the virus, which
+after long years may spring to fresh life from a dress, a bit of
+ribbon, a lock of hair."
+
+"Oh! have done with such blasphemy!" interrupted the Commissioner,
+joyously, "and me racking me brains which of all the beauties of this
+_hareem_ I'd better fall in love with! Dering, you're a steward, I
+believe. Turn that man out for obtruding the exigencies of everyday
+life--including a swallow-tail coat--into Paradise."
+
+"I've objected already, sir," said Vincent Dering, laughing; "but he
+declares he is a malarial bacillus."
+
+"A what?" remonstrated the brogue.
+
+"A malarial bacillus, sir," explained the doctor; "as I have failed
+hitherto--like everybody else--to recognize the gentleman, even through
+a microscope, I am naturally at sea as to the proper costume. And you
+will, of course, admit the universal rule: 'When in doubt, play a dress
+suit.'"
+
+"By Jove!" ejaculated Lance Carlyon, who, mopping his face, had joined
+the group, "what a ripping idea. Wish I'd thought of it instead of this
+kit." He looked regretfully at his mailed limbs; for he was dressed as
+Lancelot-du-Lac, a costume which had been chosen for him two years
+before, at Simla, by a grass widow who had aspired to the part of
+Guinevere; but who, retiring before the young fellow's absolute
+unconsciousness of her intention, had left him saddled with an
+expensive fancy dress which he felt bound to wear out; for all his
+spare cash was kept for guns and polo ponies.
+
+"I'm glad you didn't, Mr. Carlyon," protested Muriel Smith,
+consolingly. "You look very nice in it. Only those things on your
+legs--I forget the proper name--must be difficult to dance in."
+
+"Greaves--the well-greaved Greeks, me dear madam," put in the
+Commissioner. "Plural of grief. Ah! ye should have seen him come to it
+just now with the general's wife. Your chance of promotion's gone, me
+dear boy--the marble floor resounded."
+
+"Well, it isn't half so inconvenient as my husband's dress, anyhow,"
+continued Mrs. Smith, persisting in her mission of sympathy, when the
+laugh at Lance's expense had subsided.
+
+"That's all you know, my dear," remonstrated Mr. Smith, sleepily, from
+a quiet nook in one corner. "I never said Robinson Crusoe was a good
+dancing dress, but I claim it isn't bad to sleep in, especially out of
+doors. Soft and furry--and--"
+
+His voice sank into dreamful ease.
+
+"And it can claim solitude, anyhow," added the doctor, mournfully.
+"Think of the disgust of an old established microbe, like myself, when
+his swept and garnished home is invaded by a party of seven strange
+devils."
+
+"How rude you are!" exclaimed Mrs. Smith. "Besides, we aren't seven,
+and I believe Robinson Crusoe discovered this island before you did!"
+
+"I think the French cook takes the cake, though," said poor Lance, who
+had been following up his own grievance. "Shirt sleeves must be an
+awful pull when you are dancing with a _burra mem_."[8]
+
+"True for you!" assented the Commissioner, sympathetically. "That's the
+very reason I took to it, me dear boy, when me own merits and me
+advancing years doomed me to all the stout ladies in India. Besides, me
+paper cap rids me of two of me reports anyhow. Ye see I always have to
+wear two caps; one before, and one after supper. Otherwise I find the
+contints get mixed, and make me statements unreliable; and then me
+enemies say it's the champagne. I feel it coming on me now, but--" he
+sprang to his feet, light as a boy--"by a merciful providence there's
+the band at the 'Roast Beef.' Now, are ye coming in to supper with me,
+Mrs. Smith, or are you one of those who have to change their identity?"
+
+"Not I," she declared, taking his arm, "I'm quite content with myself,
+thank you!"
+
+She might well be, since her costume of water-nymph could not have been
+improved upon. It enabled her to show off her long, rippling, pale gold
+hair, and the filmy green and white, the feathery weeds, the iridescent
+shells, matched her delicate face, which seemed almost overweighted by
+her water-lily crown.
+
+"Besides, Undine can always do quick-change artist, and assume a soul,"
+suggested the Commissioner, as he led her off; adding, in mock alarm:
+"Me dear madam! I apologize profoundly. Miss Bonaventura, Captain
+Dering's waiting for you, I'm sure."
+
+Laila, who had risen also, stood silent, looking taller and slimmer
+than usual in her guise of Beatrice. It seemed to have brought out the
+fact that she had some of the best blood of Italy in her veins. Vincent
+Dering had recognized this fact--which Father Ninian had taken care to
+communicate to him as soon as the latter had found out that, nominally
+at any rate, the former was a Roman Catholic, and therefore a possible
+lover--when he had gone up to apologize to the girl for having missed
+that second dance, owing to his duties as steward. The recognition had
+him vaguely sorry for the girl; sorry also for the old man who,
+evidently, dreamt such idle dreams. He did not mean to marry a Begum!
+
+He crossed over to her now, offering his arm, but she refused it,
+saying she did not want supper.
+
+"But you are enjoying yourself, surely?" he said.
+
+"Oh, yes! thank you," she answered; "only it isn't real, of course. It
+doesn't mean anything."
+
+Dr. Dillon, who was within hearing, looked down at her sharply.
+"Perhaps, my dear young lady, it is as well it doesn't. So let us eat,
+drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!"
+
+She looked up at him quite shocked. "Oh! I didn't mean that, of course;
+that is wrong. I only meant that things don't match--the place and the
+people, I mean. Except one or two--those for instance." She pointed out
+Roshan Khān who, dressed as himself, was taking advantage of the
+emptiness of the garden during supper time, to go round it with old
+Akbar Khān as guide, the latter in the wildest antics of alacrity.
+
+"Did you ever see such a funny figure?" continued the girl, with an odd
+little laugh. "He is quite crazy with joy. He told me to-day this was
+the first time for forty years that he had been himself! That he has
+been bewitched."
+
+"I believe I've been bewitched too," said Vincent, suddenly. "Let us
+all go back forty years."
+
+Dr. Dillon swung his feet further over, and dropped to the ground
+almost between them.
+
+"That would effectually annihilate two of the company, and reduce me to
+cutting my teeth; and I want the use of them at supper. Come along and
+have something solid, Miss Bonaventura; there is nothing so
+indigestible as fancy sweets."
+
+But she was firm, and moved away to where a small staircase led from
+the balcony to the upper storey. She did not care for supper, she
+repeated, and she had to mend her dress; someone had trodden on it, and
+she would not be able to dance till it was mended.
+
+"Don't forget ours--the first _extra_," called Vincent after her. She
+turned where the narrow stair, after climbing the outside wall, against
+which it clung like a swallow's nest, ended in the shadow of an
+archway. "I shall be back in plenty of time," she said. Vincent thought
+he had never seen her look so nice, so young, so fresh, so smiling.
+
+"That's a queer girl," remarked the doctor, as he lounged off, "not
+half bad. That is just it, in fact; she is a clear case of atavism, and
+as her ancestors seem to have been either saints or sinners, there you
+are! For it's the same tissue absolutely; indeed, there's precious
+little difference between the two when you come to analyze."
+
+"I never do," interrupted Vincent, shortly. The doctor's cynicism bored
+him, especially here, where a man might at least be allowed to escape
+the brutal realities. Here, where even the houses in the bazaar beyond
+the garden wall--those houses that were by the common light of day so
+squalid, so unsavoury, so full of mean, miserable detail--showed like
+star-palaces against the sky!
+
+A sudden comprehension came to him. How blind of the girl to say all
+this meant nothing! How crassly idiotic of himself to think of going
+back forty years to enjoy this! This was the same yesterday, to-day,
+for ever! It was the love of physical pleasure, the desire to
+appropriate, to have and to hold, which had civilized the world, and
+made man out of a monkey.
+
+"'The Cradle of the Gods,' did you say, my dear lady?" said a courteous
+old voice from the stairs, breaking in on his solitude. "Just so--the
+pilgrims go there every year. It lies--let me see--I think I can point
+it out to you. Ah! Captain Dering!" continued Father Ninian, finding
+the balcony into which he had stepped _en passant_, occupied. "We don't
+disturb you, I hope; but Mrs. Palmer was speaking about the 'Cradle of
+the Gods.' It must lie--don't you think so?--over there." He pointed
+beyond the star-palaces.
+
+"I should fancy so, sir," replied Vincent, "that is about due north."
+
+"Then I am wrong," smiled the old priest; "the cave is northwest, and
+the passage to it is difficult--almost incredibly difficult."
+
+"Yet you have been there several times, haven't you?" said Mrs. Palmer.
+
+Father Ninian shook his head. "Never to the cave itself, madam. I am
+not quite sure whether I ever really meant to go so far,--and bow in
+the House of Rimmon! It would have been interesting no doubt--but--" he
+glanced down almost boyishly at his black _soutane_--"my cloth, my dear
+lady, has to be considered. As a matter of fact, something always
+hindered me. I went as a medicine man, you see; and so many fall
+by the wayside. I wonder, indeed, how any reach it." He paused,
+and a wistful smile made his face look dreamy. "Some say none do. A
+_jogi_--Gorakh-nāth, Captain Dering,--he whom you turned out of the
+gun--claims to be the only man who has ever seen the real cave; the
+rest have seen--_illusion!_" He paused again, and his smile changed.
+"'Tis a claim, madam, made by more than Gorakh-nāth; who, by the way,
+promises to defy you, Captain Dering. Padlock or no padlock, he is to
+get in and out of the gun as he chooses while the pilgrims are here."
+
+Vincent laughed contemptuously. "I don't think miracles go down, even
+in India, nowadays, sir."
+
+The old priest's face grew grave. "I cannot give my assent to that; I
+who have seen the blood of a saint turn crimson and flow. Faith,
+Captain Dering,--that is, the belief of man in a power beyond his
+own,--is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever!"
+
+Vincent Dering bowed politely, and kept his shrug of the shoulders for
+the old man's back, as he followed him upstairs to the supper room.
+
+The same yesterday, to-day, for ever! True, in a way. There were two
+stabilities amid the chances and changes of this mortal life. The
+Garden of the Palace. The Cradle of the Gods. Faith and Love--for it
+came to that in the end.
+
+Here the familiar sight of a ball supper in full swing ended his rare
+reflections, and he slipped into a place beside a lively vivandičre,
+who welcomed him with entreaties to join in a comic opera she was going
+to get up at Simla. The last new rage in London; she had written home
+for the rights.
+
+He was in a new atmosphere in a moment, and straightway forgot the
+garden; forgot everything but that the supper was excellent, his
+companion gay. Even the Commissioner's high voice, as he talked
+nonsense, seemed far from the gravity even of conferring titles, and it
+seemed incredible that the small man who sat surrounded by a host of
+departmental heads was really representing a whole Empire.
+
+When the band downstairs, by beginning on Strauss's "Lovelong livelong
+day," warned him of his engagement to Laila, he passed to it half
+reluctantly. She would be sure to dance badly: that make of girl always
+did. So he was relieved to find the ball room, and the wide loggia into
+which it opened, almost empty. Only a couple or two were spinning
+slowly, idly, in and out of the resounding arches.
+
+He went on, therefore, to the balcony beside the stairs. If the girl
+was there it would be an excuse for sitting out. If not, he could
+always say he had waited for her. Either way, he would have time for a
+cigarette.
+
+As he went down towards it he met Lance Carlyon coming up, and called
+to him: "Supper's A1; so's the wine. It's going awfully well, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Suppose so," replied Lance, "but I'm going to cut. These togs are
+awful; but if I go now I'll have time to change and have a shoot down
+the river. Am-ma says the ducks sit like stones before dawn. They won't
+miss me, as a bachelor, I suppose?"
+
+Vincent looked at him compassionately. "A bachelor," he echoed. "It's
+about your last chance, I take it. However, if you want to kill
+something--it's a common symptom--go! I shall stop till the bitter--or
+sweet--end! One doesn't get into a streak like this once in a blue
+moon! I feel fit for anything."
+
+As he sat down for a smoke in the corner vacated by Robinson Crusoe,
+this feeling was strong upon him, and sent the blood tingling to his
+finger-tips.
+
+The band had by this time ceased piping to unwilling dancers, so the
+still, warm, scented air was left to the tinkling ripple of the water,
+the rippling tinkle of distant voices; for supper had almost emptied
+the garden also. The better for its picturesque effect. Now the
+imagination could people it--as Laila Bonaventura (the girl had sense)
+had phrased it--with figures that matched; real figures.
+
+A chiming silvery clash above him made him turn to look upwards to the
+archway where Laila Bonaventura had disappeared. It would be a bore if
+she were returning to interrupt his cigarette; though, in truth, she
+had been, he remembered, almost attractive.
+
+Almost--
+
+He gave an exclamation, and rose to his feet. She was coming, indeed,
+but not as she had gone.
+
+There is no dress in the world which is at once so dainty and so
+sensuous, as the court dress of a Mahomedan lady, and Laila Bonaventura
+was wearing one as she came slowly down the stairs towards him, a
+radiant white figure against the radiant white marble.
+
+The folds of her long silver-gauze skirt--so cunningly fashioned that
+it trailed in rolling shimmer-crested billows behind her, yet left no
+beauty of her round limbs hidden--clipped her about the waist like a
+serpent's skin. So hiding, yet revealing, was the soft film of fine
+muslin over the scented, ivory-tinted corselet, which fitted close to
+the full curves of her figure. So was it with the silver-streaked veil,
+through which the jewels in her dusky hair, the bracelets on her fair
+arms, shone undimmed. So was it even with the chiming fringes of her
+silver anklets, as they slid merrily to cover and uncover the small
+feet, tucked so carelessly into the little silver-tipped slippers.
+
+To hide and to reveal, that was the note of all!
+
+As she came nearer, too, he saw that her lips were reddened, her dark
+eyes darkened artificially. And yet her face did not correspond to all
+this. It was curiously grave, dignified, almost anxious.
+
+"Do you like it?" she asked, suddenly pausing a pace or two from him to
+stand still, heaped round by those shimmer-crested billows, and so,
+with one hand, gather the straight folds of her veil to curves over her
+arm. As she did so, he saw, with a curious throb at his heart, that her
+wrists were fettered to each other by long trailing chains of scented
+jasmine flowers.
+
+A dainty prisoning indeed! The suggestion of it set his head whirling.
+
+Like it!--His very admiration kept him silent.
+
+"It makes it feel more real," she went on, "don't you think it does?"
+
+Real, or a dream? He did not know which. He felt a fool to stand so
+silent; yet no words--as she would phrase it--came to match. None, at
+least, that he dare use to her unconscious dignity.
+
+"Only I can't dance, you see," she continued, bending to look at the
+billows about her feet. "Besides,"--she looked up suddenly, her whole
+expression changed, she flung her fettered hands forward almost into
+his face. The strings on strings of scented flowers looping themselves
+in ever widening curves, hung like a screen between him and her
+laughter.
+
+"I'm a prisoner--yours, I suppose." He fell back for half a second,
+then caught the hand in his.
+
+And then, in an instant, it came back to him--the measureless glad
+content of that mistake in the dark! He had told himself ever since
+that it had come, then, by mistake--incomprehensible, it is true,
+horrible to a certain extent, but still in error. But this was no
+mistake!
+
+"Yes!--my prisoner," he said. "Come, and sit down, and let us talk." He
+wanted time to think.
+
+She shook her head. "Not here, please! No one is to see me but you,
+only you. That is why I waited till I saw you were alone. I only put it
+on for you to see."
+
+A sudden remembrance of something she had said to him--"When it is
+real, and you give yourself--everything, and ask nothing." The
+certainty that she was doing this now made him say quickly:--
+
+"Don't be afraid--they shall not see. Come, let us go into the
+garden--those balconies by the river--"
+
+She shook her head again.
+
+"They are not safe, and my guardian would be so angry. Though it isn't
+really wrong"--she added, with her odd vein of piety; "but when
+somebody sent me the dress, I thought it would be fun, and I wanted you
+to see."
+
+"Sent you the dress?" he echoed hotly. "Who?"
+
+She looked at him vastly amused. "Are you jealous? But I'm not going to
+tell you. That is just like the novels, isn't it; but what is the use
+of making people angry?"
+
+"How do you know I should be angry," he asked coldly.
+
+She smiled like a Sphinx might smile. "I'm certain. Come! Perhaps I'll
+tell you when we get to a safe place. There's one close by. My guardian
+wouldn't have it lit up because--he always has the same reason for
+everything, you know, and it _is_ so dull--because something happened
+there long ago. As if it mattered!"
+
+As she spoke, they had been passing down the marble steps, her silver
+anklets chiming; and now, as they paused an instant on the edge of the
+water-maze, they chimed still. But to a new, curiously provocative
+measure, and her face, her figure, her very voice, changed as if to
+keep time with it.
+
+"I used to run all over it, in and out, when I was little," she
+chattered mischievously, "and old Akbar used to run after me and
+tumble in! I could do it now, and you could chase me, if I hadn't all
+this-" she gave a little mutinous kick at her sweeping skirt. Then
+suddenly she laughed. "Poor old Akbar! I'd like him to see me, but I
+don't see how it could be managed. And nobody else must--but you. So
+come--come quick!"
+
+She drew him after her by one hand, like a child at play. Across the
+marble plinth, right to the wide arched passage in the lower storey;
+and when, having gained in the race, he would from habit have gone
+straight on towards the courtyard, she pulled him back with a peal of
+laughter.
+
+"Not that way, stupid! Here--it's a dear little balcony all by itself
+with steps down to the river and a boat."
+
+"Perfect!" he exclaimed with an answering laugh, as he disappeared
+after her.
+
+But in that instant's pause two figures had passed into the other end
+of the long passage from the chapel. Two figures, one of which,
+half-disdainfully, half-regretfully, had been going round the beauties
+of the palace; the other, gambolling sideways by reason of its curbing
+deference its urging servility, engaged in garrulous tales of past
+glory.
+
+"Yea! _Ger-eeb-pun-wāz_," it was saying, "Bun-avatār used to meet Anāri
+Begum here. She liked him best in uniform, and she wore--"
+
+It was then that, framed in the distant archway, seen clear against the
+radiance of the garden, that vision of a laughing girl, a flashing
+uniform appeared.
+
+Old Akbar Khān gave a faint mumbling petition to be preserved, and fell
+back, his teeth chattering.
+
+"Anār--Anār--herself," he muttered. "And he--God help us all! Why did
+they light up the garden?"
+
+But Roshan Khān knew better. His eyes were younger. And he had the
+key--the key of that shimmering silver dress.
+
+"Fool!" he said sharply. "They are no ghosts. 'Twas Dering-_sahib_
+and--and--" he gave a bitter laugh--"one of his _mems_. They do such
+things often."
+
+But as he walked on, his hands clenched themselves to the tune of the
+words which sang in his brain, "God smite his soul to hell! God smite
+his soul to hell!"
+
+The two great stabilities, Love of God and Love of woman, had joined
+hands, as they always do.
+
+A formidable combination.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER X
+
+                          THE PIVOTS OF LIFE
+
+
+Lance Carlyon was not, as a rule, given either to loss of spirits or
+temper, yet both were at vanishing-point as he flung off the garb of
+his namesake of the lake; swearing as he did so that he would never
+wear the blessed thing again. It cramped him all over; body and soul.
+And then--for he knew his Tennyson well, as one of his name could
+hardly fail to do--his memory raced swiftly over the love-loyal
+knight's career; until suddenly he laughed at a phrase which had always
+tickled him. "_So groaned Sir Lancelot--not knowing he should die a
+holy man_."
+
+If he had?--what would have been the result? Would he simply have
+refrained from remorseful pain, or from the honour rooted in dishonour
+which caused it?
+
+With a mighty stretch of his sound young muscles at the relief, Lance
+caught up his Indian clubs, and went elaborately, conscientiously,
+through his daily series of exercises before putting on his
+dust-coloured shooting-suit, and swathing himself with the necessary
+plentitude of belts, cartridge-boxes, and gaiters. The latter--being,
+after Indian fashion, simply a couple of bandages neatly twined--were,
+as a matter of fact, much tighter than his discarded greaves; but the
+clip of them about his calves was familiarly reminiscent of many a
+day spent out in the jungle alone, or at most with some companion of
+Am-ma's type. A man whose only claim to be called one in these later
+days was his undoubted dominion over the birds of the air, the fish of
+the sea, the beasts of the field. How jolly it had been! And how the
+deuce could a fellow like Vincent Dering--
+
+Lance, sorting cartridges systematically with an eye to a possible
+snipe, whistled a tune which Vincent was always asked to sing at the
+Smiths', "_Sweet is true love--and sweet is Death_."
+
+Well, he preferred the Death. So, catching up his gun, he made his way
+to the crypt-like flight of steps which, half way down the straight
+river-edged wall of the Fort--between its northern bastion where the
+stream turned hillwards at a sharp angle, and the southern one beside
+the bathing-steps--led to a tiny landing-stage. Here the canoe, which
+he had hired for such excursions from Ramanund (whose last experience
+of boating had rather sickened him of its pleasures), lay moored.
+
+Keeping the paddle ready for steering, he let the stream, which here
+clung swift and smooth to the wall, take him with it; partly because he
+had no wish to be seen by any revellers in the palace. But the sight of
+the latter made him slip the paddle-blade into the sliding water, and
+send the canoe swerving out for a better view.
+
+It was wondrously beautiful, seen from the river, with every line
+and curve of light reflected almost as clear as the reality. The
+sight held his attention, so that he was abreast of the bathing-steps
+ere he remembered his desire for secrecy, and, in his haste, the
+canoe--answering to his swift stroke--almost spun round, bringing him,
+in an instant, within an ace of collision with the hard brick. As it
+was, he heard a faint grating sound.
+
+"By Jove! that was a near shave," he muttered to himself.
+
+Out of the darkness of the courtyard, for the unilluminated block of
+the palace rose between it and the white radiance, came a voice:--
+
+"Is't thou? Hast brought the tool--we must get the job done ere dawn
+and--"
+
+The rest was inaudible as the river slid him on. What were they up to?
+he wondered idly; taking advantage, doubtless, of the absolute
+desertion of the courtyard, the entry to which had been blocked for the
+night, the main entrance to the palace having been prepared for the
+reception of the guests. Were they meddling with the padlock Dering had
+put on the tampion which stopped the muzzle of the old gun? Time to see
+to that in the morning.
+
+He was now steering his way just on the edge of the shadow cast by the
+wall on the water, and in front of him jutted out a balcony smaller
+than the rest, and nearer the river. Those upper ones, he knew, were
+part of the chapel; but this--
+
+He looked at it narrowly, wondering if he had ever noticed it before,
+then let the paddle sink idly across the boat, and sat staring at what
+he saw. Dering, of course! But the woman! Who on earth was she? A
+native? Hardly; and yet he did not remember seeing anyone at the ball
+whose dress was in the least like this; even in the dark it glittered.
+
+"Do you call that love?" came a voice echoing softly over the water. "I
+don't. When I love, I mean to give, not to take; and the more I give,
+the more I'll have to give; because, you see, love will come back--it
+must."
+
+By all that was incomprehensible, Laila Bonaventura! And, if there was
+any certainty in these shadows, Dering's arm--
+
+Phew! Lance knew his Shakespeare also; had, in fact, a curiously
+ingenuous and human acquaintance with even the exact words of the great
+master. So as he drifted on, leaving those two in the balcony, a line
+drifted with him:--
+
+
+                                "She whom I love now
+       Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.
+       The other did not so."
+
+
+He felt a righteous relief at the idea, for he was eminently virtuous.
+Poor old Vincent! This was better than the other--he paused
+doubtfully--Well! different people had different tastes. He, for
+instance, had never admired Mrs. Smith. And then Dering, good chap as
+he was, had, everybody knew, a touch of the tar-brush himself. Only a
+touch, still it made a difference; for one had to consider the
+children. For instance, when _he_ married--Why a vision of a child's
+head he had once seen, far away in the north, covered with soft, waving
+curls of sun-bright red-gold hair, chestnut--yes, chestnut hair, the
+very colour of that beast of a pony who boshed him at polo--should have
+come to him at that moment he did not know; but he fled from it,
+bashful as any girl over her first fancy, and, bending forward, sent
+the canoe racing the foam-bubbles on the swifter current with all the
+strength of his young arms.
+
+That was the mission house, ending the long curve of the city. The
+mission house, where _she_ slept--the boat raced harder here--where
+_she_ lived in the thick of it--God bless her! Here the boat slackened,
+partly because the spit was reached, and in the darkness, made visible
+by that soft white radiance behind him, he must not miss Am-ma's hut.
+Am-ma, who had dominion over wild duck, among other things in that
+munificent gift of the Creator to His own image. Am-ma, who must come
+out and show those who had fallen from their high estate through
+civilization how to lure the birds to their death.
+
+
+      "_Sweet is true Love though given in vain,
+       And sweet is Death which puts an end to pain_."
+
+
+The refrain came back in this connection, and Lance's voice, as he sang
+it, if not musical, held a hint of something beyond the mere maudlin
+expression-stop of the ordinary song-singer.
+
+He need not, he told himself, have feared to overlook Am-ma's wigwam;
+for there, not far from the point of the spit it stood, all lit up;
+circled round closely with a row of little lights like those at the
+palace. Were the primitive folk down here aping their masters and
+having a ball of their own? Smiling at the thought, he ran the canoe on
+shore and walked up to the reed hut. Then he saw that the circle of
+lights was broken by a dark patch. It was Am-ma himself, squatting on
+his heels. To one side of him, firmly fixed in the sand, was a
+freshly-killed crocodile's head, its jaws ingeniously distended by a
+thin cane to which a string was attached. By pulling this the dead
+mouth seemed to open and shut, as the pliant rattan bent under the
+strain and sprang back again. In his other hand he held a bloody spear.
+Despite these fearful preparations, however, the first glimpse of an
+approaching figure set him visibly trembling with fright; until, on its
+coming nearer the lights, he sprang to his feet with a sudden
+blubbering shout of relief.
+
+"I thought--this fool, this atom of dust, thought--the _Huzoor_ was the
+devil!" he explained, capering and chuckling to make much of the joke,
+now that the fear of its being a reality was over.
+
+"The devil!" echoed Lance. "What the dickens should the devil come here
+for?"
+
+Am-ma looked half-grave, half-important. Did not the _Huzoor_ know, he
+explained, that when life was coming into the world, all the demons in
+it wanted to get hold of the new-born thing? Hence the lights, hence
+the crocodile's head and the spear; also his own valiance. Hence, also,
+the impossibility of his accompanying the Presence after duck. If he,
+the father of the thing to be born, was not there to fight the demons,
+what hope could there be for the son?--and here this quaint, broad,
+ugly face grew wistful--for it must be a son, surely, this time. No! he
+had no children; the demons had taken them all, every one; though he
+had left nothing undone, though he had sought out one medicine-man
+after another. What did it matter? he asked pathetically, if the charm
+were of one faith or another, if it brought a child. He had tried all.
+His own and everybody else's. But they all died, the children, girls
+and boys; died when they were born. The demon somehow slipped through
+the lights; the charm was not strong enough; that was all. So this
+time, when he had seen that the _Huzoors_ had the _Dee-puk-rāg_, the
+sign of kings, that they were, indeed, light-bringers, as his people
+had been of old, he had sent for the Miss-_sahiba_, and she had come.
+She was there in the hut, even now, fighting the demons.
+
+Lance gave a quick catch of his breath, and stood silent. Right over
+the miserable reed hut, clear against the violet of the moonless sky,
+rose those palaces of stars lit up for pleasure. It almost seemed to
+him that the slight breeze, which was beginning to whisper of the dawn,
+held in it the faint rhythm of a distant waltz.
+
+And here, at his feet, was this hut, lit up for pain. He heard that
+also, in a faint moan, which sent a shiver through him; the shiver of
+one who finds himself bare of accustomed covering, out in the open, far
+from any shelter from the cold sky.
+
+"Of course you can't come, Am-ma," he said, moving off. "Well! I hope
+the Miss-_sahiba_ will--will keep the devil away. I--I--expect she
+will!"
+
+As he floated a little further down stream, vaguely obeying the
+instructions which Am-ma, regretful for all his anxiety, had shouted
+after him, he told himself that if anybody could, she would. If a
+fellow married her, for instance--
+
+He drew the canoe on to the sand-bank, Am-ma had spoken of, somewhat
+sooner than his directions warranted, in order to stifle thought by
+action. And it needed every sense on the alert to tell in the darkness
+if one was keeping a fairly straight path. That scarcely audible "_lip,
+lip_" on the right meant that the water was close by, running an inch
+or two below a sheer yet crumbling edge of earth. That yielding
+softness on the left meant the ridge of dry sand. His way was between
+the two. Every now and again a watchful quack, a distant flutter, told
+him that the ducks were not far off. And in the east the faintest
+lightening of the purple warned him he was none too soon, since the
+dawn in India comes quickly.
+
+But this must be the place; a sort of bunker right at the end of the
+bank. Here, cuddling down almost luxuriously into loose dry sand, still
+warm from yesterday's sun, he waited for that hint of light in the far
+east to grow strong enough for him to see.
+
+It is always an experience to sit and wait for daylight, ignorant,
+helpless till it comes, of what lies close at hand. Lance Carlyon,
+crouching in that still warm sand, felt a sudden forlornness, a sense
+of having parted with something.
+
+But, almost on the heels of this, came a sense of having found
+something; of strange, quick, new, yet familiar companionship. It
+seemed to him as he watched that faint grey lightening in the far east,
+that he did so, not as Lance Carlyon, but as an atom in the great,
+round, spinning world whose curved edge grew darker against the coming
+light.
+
+He laid his gun beside him, and, kneeling in the soft, still warm sand,
+rested his arms on the edge of the bunker, ears and eyes alert as any
+wild creature's. He could hear the soft rustle of feathers in the dark,
+the soft swish of the water as something stirred in it, the soft sob
+with which an inch or two of that tiny, unseen sand-cliff gave way to
+the stream, the softer gurgle, as of laughter, with which the water
+took its toll of earth.
+
+So, thinking not at all, simply as a sand grain in the sand around him,
+the mystery, the certainty of dawn held him, as it held all things.
+
+The curved line of the world darkened, the shadow of it deepened, as
+the grey of the sky grew tender as the eye of a mother watching her
+child asleep. But only for a space. Then the grey hardened, and a
+trumpet call from a whistling teal told that the great fight of dawn
+had come.
+
+So, for another space, the Dark and the Light faced each other, waiting
+for that second trumpet call.
+
+It came, borne on a faint rustle of wind which crept over the edge of
+the world from the footsteps of the coming day. The shiver of it swept
+through the shadows; they broke into battalions to face the foe. So
+into companies, till, as the red spear-points of the sun showed over
+the horizon, they rallied darkly, desperately, behind each hint of
+rising ground, in each hint of sheltering hollow. Rallied in vain, for
+below the spear-points a glittering curve, as of a golden helmet, came
+resistless.
+
+Then Lance Carlyon stood up, hastily, gun in hand. But he was too late.
+The mystery of Dawn had held him helpless, as it had held the birds;
+and now they, too, were freemen of the conquering day.
+
+He fired a couple of shots after them, more as a salute to the victor
+than in any hope of slaughter; so, with a laugh, turned homeward.
+
+The canoe shot against the stream gaily, but, as he neared the spit, a
+sudden desire to go home by land assailed him. Am-ma could take the
+boat back; there might be a chance of a snipe, in that low-lying bit
+below the mission house, and--
+
+He blushed, even in solitude, at his own moral turpitude. Why not tell
+the truth; to himself, at least?
+
+He found Am-ma, worn out by his night's anxiety, with his head between
+his knees, fast asleep; leaving the crocodile, at the agony point of an
+unending yawn, in sole charge of the little circle of flickering
+lights. Some of them had gone out, the rest looked trumpery in the
+growing blaze of day. But what matter? Since, half an hour before, Erda
+Shepherd had come out of the wigwam with a living child, wrapped quite
+daintily in an orthodox square of new flannel.
+
+"It is a son, Am-ma, and I think it is very like you," she had said,
+with a laugh at the wrinkled, wizened old face peering out at its new
+world.
+
+But Am-ma had grovelled on the ground with tears and cries of
+blubbering joy. He had been right. The _Huzoors_ were kings. They knew
+the _Dee-puk-rāg_. They were the light-bringers, the life-bringers.
+
+He had never asked after his wife, but when Erda had gone inside again,
+he sat, and in his anxiety to keep the devil from those inside, had
+twitched away at his string so fiercely that the crocodile's head lost
+its ferocity in what appeared to be a fit of laughter, until sleep,
+from sheer relief, overtaking the puller, the laugh had ended in that
+steady yawn.
+
+Am-ma was on his feet, alert in a second, however, at Lance's touch,
+like a wild beast.
+
+"'Tis all right, _Huzoor_" he grinned broadly. "'Tis a son." Then once
+again the exuberance of his delight made him grovel in the sand at the
+feet of the Master.
+
+"And the Miss-_sahiba?_ Hath she gone?" asked Lance, blushing once
+more, now that his own self-deception became impossible.
+
+"Nay, she remains inside," asserted Am-ma. But a look which he gave in
+the hut proved him wrong. She must have gone out the other way while he
+slept, he confessed, sheepishly; but there was nothing wrong. The devil
+had not won a way in; both mother and son were dozing peacefully.
+
+Lance, his hope of walking back with Erda gone, felt inclined to take
+to the canoe again. Then a savage desire to kill something, at least,
+suggested the possibility of a snipe in the little swampy bit below the
+city wall, not far from the mission house; so bidding Am-ma take the
+canoe up at his leisure, he walked off, feeling, for him, in a very bad
+temper.
+
+He forgot his quarrel with fate, however, in a second, when, the bit of
+swamp reached, something buzzed up to fall slantwise like a stone;
+something which, on picking it up, he found to be the rare Sabine
+snipe, painted, absolutely beautiful, in its delicate harmony of
+colour. And the luck did not come singly, for from behind a clump of
+tiger-grass came Erda Shepherd, a trifle alarmed at the possibility of
+being shot if she did not show herself.
+
+Lance walked up to her, swiftly, the dead bird in his hand. "You must
+be awfully tired, being up all night," he began--
+
+He had a way of rushing things, Erda thought, which was disconcerting
+when one was anxious to keep on the surface. "And you too, Mr.
+Carlyon," she interrupted; "did you enjoy the ball?" She felt pleased
+at this able evasion.
+
+"Who--I--Oh! dear me, no," he replied, absently; then he smiled. "I
+say, wasn't Am-ma pleased. He slobbered and blubbered with joy all over
+my boots, and yet--" he paused reflectively, "I don't think a little
+Am-ma could be a very pleasing object."
+
+For the life of her she could not help a smile. "It was not," she
+confessed frankly; "in fact I think it was the ugliest baby I ever saw.
+Poor little thing," she added in quick self-reproach. "Anyhow it seemed
+beautiful to them--it is the first--the first that has lived, I mean."
+She pulled up short, wondering what possessed her to be so confidential
+with this strange young man.
+
+"So Am-ma told me," said Lance. "He called you the Life-bringer. It is
+a nice name."
+
+She fought against the tenderness in his tone. "And you are the
+Death-bringer," she retorted lightly, pointing to the painted beauty in
+his hand. "So you and I are at opposite poles, Mr. Carlyon."
+
+He stood looking at her for a moment with a smile. "I don't know, Miss
+Shepherd. '_Death and Birth are the pivots of the Wheel of Life_.' I
+remember reading that, in Sanskrit, when I went up for my higher; for
+I've passed it, you know. I'm really not bad at languages when I try."
+
+It was the first time she had ever heard him claim credit for anything,
+and the fact touched her more than she cared to own. Touched her so
+closely that she sought instantly for cover.
+
+"I wish I were," she said, moving on, though, as she had known he
+would, he moved on also. "I'm afraid I shall find it a great trouble
+having to learn a new one."
+
+"A new one," he echoed quickly, in response to something in her voice.
+"Are you going to leave Eshwara--soon?"
+
+She paused for a moment ere replying. "Sooner than I expected, Mr.
+Carlyon; most likely in a day or two. I don't know whether you have
+heard," she continued, looking him in the face, "but I am engaged to be
+married to my cousin--Dr. Campbell's son--David Campbell. He is a
+missionary--as I am--and--" she hesitated. "He is at home,--or was. We
+did not expect him back for two months, but he has had a good offer of
+a splendid place where there is any amount of work to be done. The
+letter telling us this came yesterday--by the same mail as--as he did.
+He is travelling up country now; and then--"
+
+"And then?" said Lance, quietly. With his gun over his shoulder, he
+looked what he was, a soldier; and since she began to speak, he had,
+insensibly, pulled himself together and fallen into a disciplined
+ordered tread.
+
+"My aunt wants the wedding to be from the mission station in the low
+hills where they go every summer," went on the girl. She was trying not
+to look at her companion, not out of pity, but from dread of her own
+admiration. "So as David"--she felt better after the semi-appropriation
+of the Christian name--"is in a hurry to start, she thought of going
+there as soon as the camp leaves--in a day or two. So--so--we shall not
+see very much more of each other, Mr. Carlyon; shall we?"
+
+He gave her his first look of reproach, being unable, in his absolutely
+honest humility, to conceive of the vague regret which forced her to
+the useless appeal.
+
+"I--I hope you will be very happy," he said, quite simply. "Take care,
+please; that bit is boggier than you think." For the second time in
+their short acquaintance she felt his hand, not as a friend's, but as a
+helper, a protector. This time the blood left her face pale.
+
+"I hope so, Mr. Carlyon," she replied, and her hands clasped themselves
+tightly as if to hold some resolve. "It is what I have always hoped
+for, thought of." Then suddenly she smiled at him almost appealingly.
+"I am a bit of a soldier too, you know--I love the fighting."
+
+"You are in the thick of it here, anyhow," he interrupted, pausing.
+
+They had climbed by a flight of steps through the city wall into the
+small courtyard on which the mission house, which had once been an
+outpost of the Fort, opened on its inner side. The outer, with its wide
+overhanging verandah, forming part of the actual city wall. But the
+remainder of the courtyard was set round by a perfect congeries of
+small temples, each rearing its upright stone spire--the stone of Baal
+worship--about the central tank which occupied the middle of the
+square. It was quite a small tank, and absolutely dry; so that you
+could see the four or five worn stone steps which led down to the patch
+of earth, not six feet square, at the bottom. A dozen or more children,
+boys and girls of the streets, were playing a sort of hop-scotch on
+these steps, and as Lance looked, one of them slipped and fell into
+that patch of earth. In a second the others had quitted their game, and
+fallen pell-mell, too, struggling, kicking, shouting, screaming with
+laughter.
+
+"Is it a game?" he asked, looking at his companion, amused.
+
+"Yes!" she said, suddenly, her face stern as he had seen it that first
+time he met her. "It is the game of Life and Death! That is the 'Pool
+of Immortality,' Mr. Carlyon! The pilgrims come here to bathe--there
+must be a secret siphon somewhere, for the water only comes when it is
+wanted. Three years ago the barriers put up to prevent accidents gave
+way--it was no one's fault. The crowd got in--a man slipped--and--and
+when the police managed to clear the crush--the--the tank was full up
+with dead bodies! The children _play_ at it now!"
+
+But they had spied more amusement, and in another second were hanging
+round Erda's skirts.
+
+"Sing to us, Miss-_sahiba_,--sing to us before you go in."
+
+She looked apologetically at Lance. "I generally do," she began.
+
+He raised his cap, almost obediently, with a brief "Certainly," and
+passed on; but as he left the court on his way to the Fort, the first
+note of her voice made him turn, for a second, to look.
+
+She was seated on the top step of the tank, the children grouped
+inquisitively round her, and she held her head high-almost defiantly.
+
+
+             "_The Son of God goes forth to war,
+              Who follows in His train?_"
+
+
+The words were distinctly audible, following him as he passed on, the
+gun on his shoulder, the dead bird in his hand, and something between
+blessing and cursing in his heart. But above and through all, he seemed
+to hear a never-ceasing voice that said, "_The pivots of Life are Birth
+and Death. Death and Birth_."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI
+
+                         WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS
+
+
+"Half a minute, Dillon!" said the Commissioner abruptly, as the doctor,
+ushered in by a scarlet-sin-stain of an orderly, entered the tent where
+the former was working. "I must attend to these gentlemen first."
+
+These gentlemen were Dya Ram, Ramanund, and a third very different sort
+of person, obtrusively Hindoo in face, figure, attire.
+
+The Commissioner's manner, as he returned to the business in hand,
+changed from careless familiarity to an elaborate courtesy.
+
+"I quite understand, _pundit-sahib_," he said in English to Ramanund,
+"that you are, as you say, actuated by no personal motive. A man of
+your attainments and culture can scarcely feel a keen interest in
+_jogi_ Gorakh-nāth's--that is the name, I think--domicile in a gun
+barrel!"
+
+The sarcasm was lost on the hearer, who smiled, satisfied. "Quite so,
+sir," he replied. "It is merely, as my friend Dya Ram postulates, a
+question as to the legality--"
+
+The Commissioner interrupted him suavely. "In that case it is a matter
+for the courts, surely."
+
+"Unless your Honour should, as magistrate, act under Section 418
+providing for emergencies," began Dya Ram; whereat the official sat
+back in his chair resignedly.
+
+"Of course," he answered, his brogue running riot, as it always did,
+when he was contemptuous, "I have that power. But do ye really think,
+sir, that this present matter is of such paramount importance to the
+stability of the British Empire, that I should be justified in running
+counter to the ordinary course of law and justice?" Here the futility
+of his own sarcasm seemed to come home to him. He paused to consult a
+file, and when he looked up again, he spoke in Hindustani--evidently
+for the benefit of the third party. "There is no record whatever," he
+said briefly, "of any previous claim to the gun. It has been
+worshipped, of course; but that is a different matter. The military
+power has no intention of interfering with this habit. I may add that a
+counter petition, praying me not to allow appeal on the ground that
+this _jogi_ is a man of ill fame, and a public nuisance, has been filed
+by the _mohunt_ (guardian of shrines) at the Pool of Immortality."
+
+The obtrusively Hindoo figure which had remained standing, though his
+companions were seated, here folded his hands as if in prayer, leant
+forward, and began garrulously:--
+
+"_Huzoor_ it is malice--malice of hereditary nature. They hope to gain
+money--"
+
+"Exactly, _Mohunt-jee_; your money! if the pilgrims haven't the
+attraction of a live man in a gun close to your shrine your trade will
+suffer," interrupted the Commissioner, with brutal truth. "I am afraid
+I can do nothing. Of course," he continued, reverting to English, "if
+you bring a suit to claim prescriptive right, you may," here his
+patience gave way finally, "but God bless my soul, gentlemen! Surely
+men like you have something better to do than bolster up your
+countrymen in a preposterous business like this!"
+
+"Pardon me, sir," protested Dya Ram, litigiously, "but if it is
+prescriptive right, vested in citizens, then--"
+
+"Then, sir!" interrupted the stern, high voice, "the British Empire
+will have no choice but to allow _jogi_ Gorakh-nāth to be a
+son-of-a-gun till the day of his death! So good-morning to you;
+unless--" here the suavity returned in full force--"there is any other
+subject you wish to bring forward."
+
+There was not, apparently; and as the trio were ushered out, the
+Commissioner sat still further back in his chair, tilting it with his
+feet against the table, and ran his fingers through his hair in an
+exasperated fashion.
+
+"'Pon my soul, it's inconceivable," he said; then, reaching forward,
+took up a newspaper that was lying on the table, and began to read.
+
+"_If we are asked what we, the educated natives of India, claim, we
+reply boldly, all things that Englishmen of equal culture possess by
+right of birth. We refuse flatly to be lumped in with the crass
+ignorance of our fellow-countrymen who have, alas! not yet risen to a
+pitch of desiring that liberty of which John Stuart Mill speaks in such
+glowing terms in his valuable pamphlet_."
+
+"Hark to that, now!" he commented, flinging the paper back. "That's Mr.
+Dya Ram's last, and it goes on, as per usual, to abuse. They asked me
+to put a name to it, and I've just been telling the confidential
+department that, barring a horrible misuse of synonym, there's no
+sedition, no harm in it whatever! And there isn't, Dillon. The
+son-of-a-gun business is ten times as dangerous. Dering's within his
+rights, but I wish to blazes he'd left the brute alone; or he might
+have put a blank cartridge in and fired a salute by mistake when
+Gorakh-nāth was inside! But ye can't keep the military in subjection.
+The department's aimin' at a fight, and small blame to it! I'm spoiling
+for one myself this instant moment; so come along, doctor, an' let me
+hear what your criminals have to say. There's a pretty sheaf of
+complaints for ye, ye hard-hearted murderin' slave driver!"
+
+He took up a bulky file of papers as he spoke, and passed them to an
+orderly in exchange for his hat, which the man held ready.
+
+"Yes! it's pretty good," assented the doctor, placidly, as, keeping
+step, the two passed out of the tent, so down the palm avenue towards
+the gaol, which the Commissioner was going to inspect. "It comes of
+their being idle. Wait till I get them digging again. I'll work the
+mischief out of them. When are we going on; and where?"
+
+His companion shook his head. "Can't get an answer out of the Public
+Works. Is there anything you would like done, meanwhile?"
+
+Dr. Dillon laughed sardonically. "Pretty considerable, rather! Only it
+would take months to get sanction. But, if you pass it, Smith says he
+could put a wire on from the Fort easily in a day. It would save
+sending by road if there was trouble, and the great thing is to hit
+back as quick as you can. The mutiny taught us that."
+
+"Ay," said the Commissioner, musingly, "that's the straight tip; and
+that's why steam and electricity rule India. One can be ready without
+letting people know. If that had been the case in the mutiny--" he
+shrugged his shoulders, then went on--"these things come so easily; a
+touch starts them; but you mustn't show that you know it. Still, if you
+thought there would be any difficulty--I mean if you mightn't be able
+to hold your own till they came from the Fort--we might make some
+excuse for quartering a troop closer."
+
+Dr. Dillon shook his head. "It isn't worth it. I believe myself they'll
+settle down when that big brute, Gopi, I told you about, gets his
+ticket to-morrow. If I didn't want to get rid of him I'd put him in
+cells for six weeks. And there's a warder, too,--or perhaps more. But
+there's no fear. I could hold the whole 'biz' myself, till the brutes
+managed to get off their leg irons, and as I keep every tool _extra
+mural_, I don't believe there's a bit of iron within the walls--except
+the shackles themselves. So I should have an hour or two, anyhow--"
+
+"Now, here you are," he continued, with pardonable pride, as they
+passed under the mud archway which led into the gaol; a long archway
+with a massive door at either end, tunnelling a square block of
+flat-roofed building. "You'll find everything spick and span, I can
+tell you, for I've been making the beggars polish their own leg irons,
+so as to keep 'em a bit busy."
+
+It was, indeed, spick and span, as only an Indian gaol can be, where
+everything, including the prisoners' beds, is freshly mud-plastered
+every week. Spick and span in a mere monotony of mud and lack of
+colour. The prisoners, fifteen hundred of them or more, stood in four
+long, straight rows, naked save for their waistcloths and the eared
+caps on their shaven heads; their blankets, folded to a small square
+under their feet, giving them a strangely wooden appearance, as if they
+stood on stands, like the figures in Noah's ark.
+
+A couple of policemen fell out and drew their truncheons to walk close
+behind the Commissioner; but Dr. Dillon waved his pair back.
+
+"Never show you expect anything," he said laconically, "and as I've
+always refused a guard, I can't take one now."
+
+Nor was there any apparent need for one. Some faces scowled at him, but
+most were occupied with the Commissioner, who, when a prisoner raised
+his hand, paused to take the written petition which, nine times out of
+ten, was ready for presentation.
+
+"There must be a good many warders in it," remarked the Commissioner,
+dryly. And the doctor nodded.
+
+"Now there's only the hospital," said the latter, when the solitary
+cells had been inspected, the cook room interviewed, and the dinner to
+come tasted. "It won't take you long. There was only one case in this
+morning."
+
+But as they entered the long open ward, like a cloister, mud-plastered
+as all else, but with iron beds looking strangely at variance with
+their surroundings, two of these were occupied, and at one, a hospital
+dresser was standing, looking somewhat scared.
+
+Dr. Dillon gave a hasty exclamation as he stepped up to the bed and
+looked at the sick man.
+
+"When did he come in?" he asked briefly.
+
+"Ten minutes ago, _Huzoor_; the _baboo_ hath given him--"
+
+"Never mind what he hath given him," interrupted the doctor, holding up
+his hand in warning, "go on with it, and tell the _baboo-sahib_ to
+come to me for orders--at once. Now then, sir, that's all--and a bit
+too much too--" he added in a lower voice, as they passed out together,
+"for it's a case of cholera."
+
+The Commissioner looked grave. "That will complicate matters, won't
+it?"
+
+"Can't say. You never can tell. They may take it as a dispensation, or
+there may never be another case. That fellow's done for, anyhow--he'll
+be dead in an hour."
+
+"That's quick, isn't it?" asked his companion, calmly.
+
+"Rather. I've seen a man go out in ten minutes, though. The worst of it
+is," he added, with a frown, "if there really is some conspiracy at the
+bottom of the discontent, it is as likely as not the devils who are
+working it, may take advantage of this--I don't mean of this
+death--_that_ goes without saying. But when cholera is about, poison is
+hard to detect, and even if I stamp out the _disease_, which I mean to
+do, they may simulate it." He bit at his thumbnail viciously as he
+strode on, thinking and muttering. "By God!" he murmured, "if I could
+catch 'em at it! However," he added aloud, "it's no good fussing. If
+the thing comes, it comes, and I've kept you here too long as it is,
+sir. Do you know it's close on half-past ten?"
+
+"Be jabers!" exclaimed the Commissioner, "only twenty minutes to bathe,
+shave, breakfast, and put on me gold lace continuations. Well, ta, ta!
+I'll see you at the show, of course."
+
+Dr. Dillon looked puzzled for an instant; the puzzledom of a man whose
+thoughts are recalled from afar. "The show? Oh, yes! I was forgetting.
+Rather, sir. Why! it is as much my canal as Smith's, for we've done
+every inch of it together; besides, I have got to drive his wife down."
+
+"Where the deuce is Dering?" asked the Commissioner, quite ingenuously;
+but George Dillon flushed up. It was visible even under his
+leather-like tan.
+
+"I really can't say, sir; otherwise engaged, I presume."
+
+His elder turned to him, surprised, yet with instant apology. "I'm
+sorry; I shouldn't have said it; but I really meant nothing."
+
+Dr. Dillon gave a dry, sardonic laugh. "Oh! it is all right, sir. I
+quite believe you didn't. Nobody does mean anything in that sort of
+connection. It's left for the doctors to face facts as they are really;
+and then you call us brutal." He turned back, as he spoke, to the
+hospital.
+
+Half an hour afterwards, however, having in the interim provided for
+every contingency he could foresee, including the bare possibility of
+his carrying infection, he appeared in Mrs. Smith's drawing-room,
+looking--for him--quite smart and spruce; since, as he had said, this
+end to three years' work was an event in his life also.
+
+He found her, dressed in her daintiest, in a rocking-chair; and as he
+entered, his quick trained ear took in the petulance of the recurring
+push of one daintily shod foot. The room was darkened, and full of the
+scent of flowers. It was a familiar room to him, yet he never entered
+it without a glad recognition of the extreme feminine refinement shown
+in its every detail; for its mistress was one of those women whose
+fragility comes less from physical delicacy than from sensitiveness of
+mind.
+
+She was leaning back in her chair listlessly; yet the white ringed
+hands which clasped the fair curls on her forehead showed an almost
+passionate strain of muscle.
+
+"I believe you'll have to go without me," she said, as he approached,
+"I've such a racking headache. I don't believe I can face it--I'm sure
+I can't."
+
+He passed on to her side, and laid his hand on one of hers for an
+instant, while his quick eye took in the details around him. A note had
+slipped from her lap to the floor. It lay face up, and the words "Dear
+Mrs. Smith, so sorry--" showed in Vincent Dering's writing. So, not
+content with the message of excuse sent her by the offender through
+him, she must have written! That was a dangerous development of the
+situation. He stood looking down at her indulgently, as he might on a
+fractious child who did not understand. And she did not--poor soul!
+
+"You're nervous," he said. "Let me give you half a whiskey-and-soda
+before we start. It'll make you all right."
+
+"Nervous!" she echoed irritably, her foot setting her chair a-swing to
+match her tone. "I'm never nervous--you know that is not one of my
+failings--is it?"
+
+"No," he replied, "but you are a bundle of nerves for all that. You
+wouldn't be the woman you are if you weren't. And you are nervous at
+this moment. Nervous, despondent, out of heart. Come! make an effort!"
+
+She gave a petulant little giggle of impatience. "You speak as if I
+were a Mrs. Dombey; but I'm not that sort. Besides, it killed her. I am
+not coming. It doesn't really matter, you know; nobody will miss me--it
+will be all right."
+
+George Dillon, watching her, felt sorry, for once, at the correctness
+of his own diagnosis. He knew her so well that it seemed imperative to
+give her a hint of the reality. The danger of a final _éclaircissement_
+with Captain Dering seemed imminent, and the shock of it might lead to
+anything, if the knowledge of her own weakness came to her in the
+presence of the man she had cheated herself into calling a friend.
+
+"Your husband would. It is a great day for him," he said, laying his
+dexterous surgeon's hand full on the raw. As he expected, the answer
+came passionately, and gave him an opening.
+
+"He! O, he is quite happy as it is! He wouldn't miss me a bit. Why
+should he? I am not complaining, mind you--but why should he? He has
+interests enough without me."
+
+Dr. Dillon deliberately sought for the nearest chair, drew it close,
+and sat down beside his patient in professional fashion, his eyes on
+her face, his hands on his knees.
+
+"My dear lady," he said, "don't talk--excuse me--rubbish. Try and
+remember what women are always forgetting--that they _are_ women, and
+that, while Eve swallowed her portion of the fatal apple, his
+stuck--thank God for it!--in Adam's throat."
+
+She ceased her rocking, to sit and stare at him with a growing
+resentment, which belied the words that came at last, almost sullenly.
+
+"I don't understand what you mean in the very least. What has Eve's
+apple to do with--my headache?"
+
+"A very great deal," he answered coolly, "and with more than your
+headache, which, by the way, is only a symptom, not a cause. The real
+evil is--is something different. If you do not understand--though I
+think you do a little--" she shook her head--"I can only repeat my
+advice about the whiskey-and-soda; for I cannot explain to you crudely
+what I mean."
+
+She interrupted him angrily. "You have no right to hint at things you
+dare not say."
+
+Her very indignation betrayed her, and he smiled kindly. "Perhaps not,"
+he said. Then he paused, hesitated, finally leant nearer, with a look
+of resolve in his queer, intelligent face. "But I will tell you what I
+can do. I can sacrifice my self-respect and tell you a bit of my
+personal history which I never meant you to know, but which may help to
+cure--your headache." His voice, usually so dry, had a softness in it,
+though he went on without the faintest emotion. "Mrs. Smith, I have
+done myself the honour for nearly three years, of considering you as
+near perfection as a woman can he. Allow me to finish, please! I have
+done more. I have been, as the phrase runs, in love with my ideal of
+perfection; but I think you will admit that I have never allowed my
+feelings to give you, myself, or anyone else a--shall we say, a nervous
+headache? Now, after that, don't you think we had better start?"
+
+He rose in quite a matter-of-fact way, took up his hat, and waited for
+her answer.
+
+He had to wait some time, while the petulance of her renewed rocking
+ceased gradually in a determined rhythm, and he felt his courage going
+down to his boots. It was heroic treatment, but she was a healthy
+subject, and her anger would pass. Anything was better than letting her
+perfection suffer.
+
+The even creak of the rocker ended at last, and she rose, as he had
+risen, calmly, and faced him.
+
+"I quite understand now what you meant, Dr. Dillon," she said
+freezingly, "and why you did not care to explain. I shall, of course,
+never be able to forgive you for daring to dream such a thing possible,
+but--"
+
+"But," he interrupted, without a quiver, "you will take that half
+whiskey-and-soda. Here! _qui-hi! Whiskey sharāb belātee pani la'o
+juldi; mem-sahiba jata hai_. (Bring whiskey-and-soda; the _mem_ is
+going.)"
+
+Perhaps the command of that assertion helped her to a decision. At any
+rate she did not countermand it, but spent the rather awkward pause
+which inevitably ensued in a perfect field-day of her hat-pins among
+her curls and veil. Whereat George Dillon, despite a certain bruised
+feeling, smiled, telling himself she was a true woman.
+
+Nevertheless when, as she was stepping into the dogcart, his friendly
+help came necessarily to the fore again, she reverted to her dignified
+resentment. "I ought," she said stiffly, "to have thanked you for--for
+your good opinion of me, and your evident desire to be kind. I do so
+now. But I fear it will be quite impossible for me to forget or forgive
+the delusion."
+
+"That is quite a minor matter," he put in, gleefully. "Now, cheer up,
+Bacilla, you brute, or we shall be late," Bacilla being his term of
+abuse for a pony which required a little stick.
+
+They were only just in time, no more. Five minutes after they had
+joined the company gathered on the red-brick masonry of the canal head,
+under a canopy of waving garlands and gay bunting, with that inevitable
+British flag as the centre of all, the small man with the big star on
+his breast took a step forward, raised a handle, and, as the first
+drops of water trickled through a sluice, declared, in a violent Scotch
+accent, "that the Victoria-Kaiser-i-Hind" canal was open. So, keeping
+time as it were, slowly, majestically, to those (also inevitable)
+strains of "God save the Queen," the outer floodgates swung back,
+allowing the river to have permanent possession during good behaviour,
+of the walled basin between them and the inner ones. Thus, slowly, with
+a gurgling of water seeking its level, the surface rose till the
+half-open sluices in the second gates were reached, and a thin curve
+tipped over to fall with a splash, and send a tiny scout of a stream to
+find out what this new straight road might mean. Only a tiny scout,
+since the earthworks beyond had to be accustomed by degrees to their
+new tenant.
+
+Still the new way was open, and the current of the river hesitated in
+the old one.
+
+"Bravo, Smith!" cried George Dillon, coming round, when the cheering
+and general congratulations were over, to slap his colleague on the
+back, metaphorically and actually. "We've done that; and now perhaps,
+old man, you'll have time for other things."
+
+"Yes," assented the tall, gaunt man, dreamily; "now I shall have time
+to settle that point about the searchlight."
+
+"The what?"
+
+"Search-light. There's been a correspondence in the _Engineer_ about
+it; and as I've all the electric plant here, lying useless, now the
+show's over,--until it's wanted for something else, of course,--I am
+going to see if I can't overcome their difficulty in concentrating all
+the power on a sufficiently narrow area. I believe I know how to do
+it."
+
+George Dillon looked at him with fierce, humorous exasperation.
+"Believe!" he echoed. "I know you can! You are the most intolerably
+circumscribed, self-concentrated, narrow-minded machine of a man I ever
+came across. Heaven help you!"
+
+As he drove Mrs. Smith home again, it was his turn to sit mumchance
+until, womanlike, she relented faintly, and, exaggerating her own
+powers, trusted she had not been, _etc_., though of course, _etc_.--
+
+"Not in the least, thank you," he replied. "I was only meditating if I
+should tell you that I think Eugene has softening of the brain."
+
+"Softening of the brain!" she echoed, horrified. "Oh, doctor, do you
+think it's that?"
+
+"Well, it isn't softening of the heart, anyhow," he said grimly. "But
+I'm not joking. If someone doesn't get a hold on some portion of that
+man--I don't care what it is--heart, brain, stomach, anything--and
+prevent him from killing himself with work, India will lose her best
+engineer. What he wants is someone to--to give him a nervous headache!"
+
+"We will leave that subject alone, please," she said loftily; but when
+her husband joined them in the verandah, she went over ostentatiously
+to him and pinned a carnation in his buttonhole, hoping he would like
+it better than the rose she gave him the day before, which--this was in
+a louder tone for the doctor's benefit--he had forgotten to put in!
+
+"Did I, my dear?" replied her spouse. "Oh, yes! I remember you put it
+in my minim glass because I was working in my shirt-sleeves. Then I
+wanted the glass. So it got withered and the head snapped off."
+
+Dr. Dillon laughed--his usual dry laugh. "That is one of the many
+tragedies which come from the delusion all women have that flowers
+can't be out of place."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XII
+
+                         THE CHURCH MILITANT
+
+
+When Roshan Khān had joined those two great stabilities, Faith and
+Love, into one passionate desire for Vincent Dering's damnation, he had
+meant to follow the English etiquette on such occasions, and keep his
+aspiration to himself.
+
+But it had been impossible for him instantly to rejoin the society in
+which he found himself; that is, a society which shared that
+fundamental crime--which more even than any definite jealousy had
+roused his anger against Captain Dering--of being alien to his creed,
+his customs, his code of conduct towards women. So he had wandered off
+into the garden again, shadowed by old Akbar's incredulity, curiosity,
+and sympathy; until, partly from sheer impatience, but mostly from
+sheer inherited habit of employing such as Akbar Khān in anything
+approaching an intrigue, he had made a clean breast of the situation.
+
+Even the latter, however, had, as it were, shied at the extreme novelty
+of the idea when it was first mooted; but, by degrees, its vast
+possibilities of advantage to faithful old retainers overpowered his
+abject terror at the bare idea of Father Narāyan suspecting such a
+thing. The old master, he told himself, was old, indeed! God only knew
+if he would last a year or a day; therefore it would be well to ensure
+the favour of the new mistress. And there could be no harm in sounding
+her as to what course that favour would follow. One could never tell
+with a woman; and his wicked, experienced old eyes had caught many a
+hint of Anāri Begum in Laila's childhood. Perhaps she had changed since
+she went to Calcutta. He could but try.
+
+So when, on the morning after the ball, Laila, in obedience to her
+pious resolve to do nothing really wrong, had bidden him--with
+threats of vengeance if he betrayed the fact of their having come at
+all--remove and return certain trays of clothes and jewels which had
+been smuggled by someone into her room, he had fallen at her feet,
+confessed falsely that he was the offender, and besought her not to
+impose so unmerited a disgrace on his employer, who had been actuated
+by the ordinary rules of native etiquette which prescribed some
+recognition of his cousin, the head of his family.
+
+Naturally enough, this brought the girl's curiosity, long restless, to
+his aid; and she sat listening to the many things he had to tell her,
+with that faintly mysterious smile of hers. And as she listened, she
+watched a pigeon, all jewelled about its bosom in rainbow hues, and
+with a dainty little pair of silver jingles about its jasper feet,
+which was coquetting and pirouetting to attract the attention of its
+neighbours on the wide marble sill of her latticed window. For Laila
+had a room in the upper storey all painted, carved, and set with little
+balconies, which was worthy of any king's favourite. And Father Ninian,
+mindful lingeringly of the fine ladies' boudoirs of his youth in Rome,
+had filled it, against her return from school, with all the prettiest
+spoils of the palace. Sčvres vases, rare old cabinets, quaint carved
+tables which had been brought thither for the dead Nawabs; treasures
+that were also, inevitably, of the king's-favourite type,--therefore
+unlike the owner of the room, as she sat in her white muslin frock,
+heavy-eyed, almost sallow, from the last night's dissipation.
+
+"So she--my grandmother, you say--was a dancing-girl--a real
+dancing-girl?" Even her surprise and curiosity were listless. Yet the
+next moment, while Akbar was protesting the superiority of Anāri Begum
+over all the dancing-girls of his vast experience, she had burst into a
+sudden laugh, uncovered one of the trays with kicks which sent first
+one, then the other of her bronze slippers flying, seized on a pair of
+silver anklets, and there she was centring a Persian rug spread on the
+marble floor as if she had been born to it. Coquetting, pirouetting,
+with a challenging clash, a half-impudent jerk of the jingles, for all
+the world like the pigeon on the window-sill.
+
+Like something else also; so that old Akbar felt a shiver run through
+him, lest, after all, his first impression should prove right, and this
+be no more than a _simulacrum_,--a ghost, a changeling, come to possess
+the usually indifferent lazy Miss-_baba_. Yet when, all of a sudden,
+she raised her white muslin skirt high in both hands and began to sing,
+at the top of her voice, the wicked little love song which Vincent
+Dering had sung the first day she met him, old Akbar's dread turned to
+sheer wonder. This was not a ghost, but a devil; reckless,
+unrestrained, with a fling of white arms, a kick of white feet, all
+held to rhythm by the outrageous frivolity of the song, until, with
+that last staccato note, she threw herself in a chair, breathless,
+gurgling with laughter and sheer mischief.
+
+"Lo! Akbar," she gasped, "my grandmother never danced like that, did
+she? I don't believe she was my grandmother! I believe you are telling
+stories!"
+
+Akbar looked wise, and thrust out his folded hands in cringing protest.
+"The most noble says true, Anāri Begum never danced thus. But there is
+the grandfather, Bun-avātar-_sahib bahadur_, to be accounted for also."
+
+Laila frowned. The reminder brought back the other side of the story,
+to which she had listened so often from her guardian's lips, while her
+pretended indifference masked a real pride. Of her grandfather's
+gallantry, his good looks, his love of adventure. And of someone else,
+also, who had always had a secret attraction for the girl. That most
+beautiful woman in Rome, the companion of princes, the divine singer,
+the best, the dearest--
+
+Laila's laughter failed her; she rose, and going over to the window
+looked out absently, startling the pigeon into flight. The sun turned
+its breast purple, and green, and gold, as it fluttered down to renew
+its pirouetting on a cupola below, just above the river. And below that
+again was the roof of the balcony where she had sat with Vincent. The
+girl's eyes grew soft. She understood now. That best, that dearest,
+that most beautiful, must have loved her guardian. That was the secret
+of his remembrance. How could one ever forget that one had sat in a
+balcony hand in hand? So content, yet saying so little--only feeling.
+But _he_ had said some things. He had said she was beautiful, that
+she ought always to wear that dress, and she had told him she could
+not,--that she _must_ send it back--that he _must_ learn to like her as
+much in her ordinary clothes--that he would never see her in that dress
+again. But, after all, why not--if--?
+
+She turned suddenly to the go-between. "There is no need to take them
+back to-day," she said, sharply; "but thou canst tell the person who
+sent them--he who claims cousinship--that I will not keep them, that I
+know nothing of them; that he must send and _take_ them away."
+
+Akbar, with an inward determination to do nothing so palpably foolish,
+salaamed down to the ground. The Presence, he said, in doing this
+showed her dignity; it was undoubtedly the right course to pursue. But,
+in the mean time, would the Begum-_sahiba_--she must excuse a tongue
+which could not always bear with the paltry present, which remembered
+the facts of the past, the possibilities of the future--not temper her
+noble severity with the usual courtly favour? Her cousin's grandmother,
+a most virtuous princess, sister to the late Nawab, was still alive.
+Her memory of Bun-avatār-_sahib_ was still so green that doubtless she
+would be able to tell the Begum-_sahiba_ many things of which a mere
+mean slave could not be cognizant. And this most virtuous, most
+interesting one, had long been anxious to return a visit which
+the Begum-_sahiba_ had graciously paid her, in company with a
+_missen_-miss--
+
+"What! That funny old fat woman!" interrupted Laila, with a laugh.
+"That dirty old thing? I remember, she _did_ claim to be a relation of
+the Nawab's. And when I asked her why she wore such dirty clothes she
+was angry, and said she had beautiful ones all tied up in bundles! I
+don't believe she had, though--"
+
+"The dress the Begum-_sahiba_ wore last night is one of them,"
+interrupted Akbar, quietly; "it belonged to Anāri Begum, _Huzoor_, and
+there are plenty more like it. And all are really the _Huzoor's_; no
+one else's." Laila looked down on the trays with a new interest. "Did
+it really belong to--to _her?_" she asked; "and the jewels also?"
+
+"The jewels also. There are plenty of them. And if Anāri Begum was
+really the Begum-_sahiba's_ grandmother, then the jewels are hers by
+right."
+
+"She can come if she wishes," interrupted Laila, impatiently. "I see
+thy craft, Akbar, but I care not for that. Yet it will be fun to
+receive her as--as a Begum. And no harm either, since the _missen_
+ladies receive her, I know, and her like--when they will come! It will
+be at night, of course, to ensure her privacy, so Pidar Narāyan need
+know nothing. Only"--she paused, a change swept over her face, leaving
+it dimpled, cunning, full of mischief and cajolery. "I do naught for
+naught! If I please thee, thou must please me! If thou art their
+messenger, thou must be mine also; or I tell Pidar Narāyan!"
+
+Akbar-_khān's_ wicked old eyes positively leered approval; he waggled
+his head and chuckled. Wherefore not? Was there a better, more careful
+messenger in the world than he, or one more capable of deft arrangings?
+
+"I want none," she put in with a quick distaste, a shrinking from his
+manner. "'Tis but to take a note to Dering-_sahib_; he must know
+somewhat before he comes with the other _sahib logue_ this afternoon.
+There is no arrangement needed, no fuss."
+
+How could there be, she asked herself, as, after the old sinner had
+gone off, charmed at this renewal of a once familiar occupation, she
+sat on the window-sill looking down on the roof of the balcony where
+she had been so content. For what could be simpler than to make it
+quite clear that you were real, that you did not pretend, that you were
+not even afraid? That, briefly, you were not like Mrs. Smith, who took
+so much--one could not help seeing that!--and gave so little--one could
+not help seeing that, also! For what was a "Thanks! many, Captain
+Dering," in return for all the trouble he lavished on her?
+
+So it came to pass that when Vincent Dering went to the palace that
+afternoon, some words were haunting heart and brain, as Juliet's words
+must have haunted Romeo's. No more; no less. But they slid into and
+filled up the blanks between some words of his own which he had spoken
+carelessly, not five minutes before he had first seen Laila, and which
+came back to his memory unbidden. "It isn't altogether despicable to
+let yourself loose in Paradise without an _arričre pensée_ of flaming
+swords, especially if you can give pleasure to someone else thereby!
+One could play Romeo and Juliet in this garden nicely."
+
+Well, he had played it for an hour or two, swept off his feet by
+chance. Whether he would continue to play it was unsettled till her
+note came. That ended his vague reluctance, and he went over to the
+palace, eager as any lover could be for the interview she suggested in
+"_the old place when it grows dusk, and the people will mostly have
+gone_."
+
+For those of the camp who were bound to follow the Viceroy's whim of
+riding by the old road--the pilgrims' road--while the big camp went
+round by the longer, easier route, had promised to look in on the
+palace on their way past it, for a cup of tea, a good-by. Since
+already, the functions over, the dream-city had begun to melt away; the
+Hosts of the Lord-_sahib_ were passing on.
+
+"Glory be!" said the Commissioner with heart-felt gratitude, "we've
+done our worst and leave you to take the consequences. That's sound
+policy. Anyhow, we are ahead of everybody on the road to heaven, and
+the pilgrims will have to swallow the dust of our feet! I wonder how
+they'll like it." He was in wild spirits, like a schoolboy escaped from
+school; yet as he paused to shake hands with Dr. Dillon, he said aside,
+"Any more cases?"
+
+"Two," said the doctor, laconically, "both dead. It is a bad type."
+
+His hearer's face was unmovable as he turned to Mrs. Smith, who stood
+close by. "Good-by, my dear lady," he said cheerfully, "remember me
+house is yours if you, or the child, want it. Doctor, couldn't you
+conscientiously recommend change of air to the hills? Couldn't ye swear
+the close proximity to an open canal and a gaol is unwholesome? If ye
+could, you'd oblige a grass-widower, whose wife is at Baden-Baden--or
+is it Marienbad?--living prodigally, while he has to fill himself with
+husks which no self-respecting swine would eat. Faith, me dear madam,
+I'd bless you if you'd come and kill the cook. It's a woman's work; not
+a man's."
+
+Dr. Dillon, with a quick look, backed him up instantly. "Certainly. I
+told Mrs. Smith a long time ago that she and Gladys had had enough of
+Eshwara. Indeed, as her doctor, she would be doing me a personal favour
+if--"
+
+Muriel Smith swept round on him sharply. She was looking her very best,
+in her very best gown; white, mystic, wonderful, with a faint gleam of
+silver embroidery about waist and hem. And she had been obtrusively,
+unnecessarily friendly with Vincent Dering all the afternoon; even now
+she was standing with him attached to her apron-strings.
+
+"I don't think nervous headaches are dangerous," she said, eying Dr.
+Dillon coolly. "But thanks all the same. I should love to kill
+somebody; even a cook. Perhaps I may, by and by, when _all_ the nice
+people leave. I'm so sorry _you're_ going, but we are still to be quite
+gay, aren't we, Captain Dering? And that reminds me we have to settle
+when that riding party is to come off. Good-by--good-by!" She waved her
+hand to the departing Commissioner, and carried Vincent Dering off,
+with a defiant look at the doctor.
+
+He, knowing her, smiled indulgently; but Father Ninian, who had come
+down to see his guest off, looked after her with a wistful pain in his
+kind old face.
+
+"That is a mistake," he said briefly; then the wistfulness grew into a
+puzzled look, and he added, half to himself, "It need not be, surely;
+there is something wrong. I can't understand--"
+
+Dr. Dillon, catching the end of the remark, gave a cynical laugh and
+turned on his heel. "No one does," he said as he went off. He would not
+discuss her even with dear old Pidar Narāyan. For the rest, though he
+was keen to get back to his jail, he would wait till she tired of her
+game, and then drive her home himself to her idiot of a husband, who
+was too busy over his blessed search-light to see things that were
+going on under his very eyes.
+
+Captain Dering, however, was already impatient. It was growing dusk;
+the shadows were claiming the garden bit by bit, and as the glint left
+the varnished leaves of the orange trees, the white flowers stood out
+like little stars against the gloom and sent a bewildering perfume into
+the darkening air. He could see no hint of Laila anywhere; Laila in
+that detestable white muslin garment which made him long vainly to get
+rid of the surroundings which suited her so ill, drive all that
+civilized crew from the garden, and claim it as his own--and hers! She
+must have gone to the balcony already. She must be waiting for him. And
+yet a soft-heartedness for this other woman with whom he had been
+friends, whom for a few days he had imagined he loved (it had come to
+_this_ now) forbade him from leaving her cavalierly. So it was long
+past dusk, and the short Indian twilight was hovering on the edge of
+night, ere he made his escape; and, full of anxiety lest Laila should
+have lost patience or hope, hurried down to the wide archway, and so,
+by the turn riverwards, to the right, into the balcony. Most girls, he
+told himself, would by this time have taken offence; but she was there.
+
+As he entered, her figure showed dimly against the light beyond.
+
+"I'm afraid I am awfully late," he began, then paused; for, as she
+turned, there was a faint clash of silver, a faint gleam of it too. His
+heart gave a great throb of glad recognition. It was Laila! Laila
+indeed! the Laila of that dream last night. And she had risked _this_
+to please him!
+
+"Are you?" she said. "I thought _I_ was late; for _this_ took time; but
+I wanted to be the same--always the same to you, always--always!"
+
+She stretched her hands to him, but he set them aside, took her in his
+arms, and kissed her passionately.
+
+"Yes! Laila! always Laila--my Laila!"
+
+She gave him back his kisses joyfully. "I knew you would come," she
+said. "Love comes to love, you know."
+
+He called her Juliet then, and many another lover's name. She took them
+all, and gave them back again without reserve, until, as they stood
+there, someone passing outward from the arched passage to the garden,
+paused to listen at the half-heard sound of voices. For Father
+Ninian--who had come down to his own rooms for a pair of foils
+wherewith to give Lance Carlyon a lesson in the "_Addio del Marito_,"
+until Captain Dering should choose to come out of the recesses of the
+garden and allow of their going back to the Fort together--knew of none
+likely to use, or even to be aware of, the balcony. So he turned
+thither curiously, then stood arrested, so that the clash of the foils
+on the stone, as he purposely lowered their points, came as a warning
+to those two that they were observed. Laila, with a catlike
+noiselessness, withdrew in a second. She, a yard or two away, in
+deepest shadow, stood leaning in a careless, easy attitude over the
+balustrade. Her only possibility of escape lay, she felt instinctively,
+in showing no desire to do so. Vincent, for his part, turned to face
+the old priest, prepared to brazen it out; for his blood was running
+like wild-fire in his veins. Yet scarcely so fast as the heart's blood
+had once leapt, and was even now leaping, in the old man who came
+forward, facing him also. Came forward slowly, shortsightedly, a foil
+in each hand. If he had held out one, bade him take the button off and
+fight for his life, Vincent Dering would scarcely have been surprised,
+would almost have been pleased. It would have raised him in his own
+self-esteem. For he knew perfectly well he had no right to be there;
+that, as yet, he was not sure of his own footing.
+
+But Pidar Narāyan did not. He paused, as he generally did, a few paces
+away, a slender, straight shadow in black, girt about with that pale
+sash, on which, and on his pale face, such light as there was fell
+softly. For there was no anger in the latter; only an almost passionate
+regret and pity. Even so, his words startled the young man, who stood
+prepared for defiance.
+
+"Oh! Captain Dering!" he said courteously, "it is you, is it? You have
+found a pleasant place, indeed! But scarcely a very safe one for your
+companion--" he turned to that faint gleam of white and silver in the
+arched shadow.--"The air grows chill, madam, so close to the river," he
+continued, his voice taking a tone almost of command, "and you are
+lightly clad. Will you not be wise, and leave us?"
+
+Vincent's surprise had passed by this time into a rush of vexation,
+almost indignation, for he had grasped the old man's mistake. For an
+instant he felt bound to undeceive him, then the impossibility of doing
+so held him silent, feeling a coward indeed; so, desperately, he could
+only join his voice to Father Ninian's. It seemed the only way out of
+the _impasse_.
+
+"Perhaps you had better go--"
+
+Laila did not need more. Already, under cover of the shadow, she had
+dexterously slipped off her silver jingles, lest they should betray
+what really seemed to her her worst, nay! her only offence;--the taking
+and wearing of Roshan Khān's present. And now, wrapping her veil about
+her like a cloak, gathering her trailing skirts to orthodox length with
+an appalling presence of mind, she was off with just the little uneasy
+laugh which might well befit the situation.
+
+She left her companion bewildered, yet still facing the old man
+recklessly. Since he could not explain, he did not mean to be hectored.
+Yet, once again, the old voice took him unawares.
+
+"Memory plays strange tricks with us at times," it said slowly, but
+with a suggestion of the fateful, hopeless rhythm of a Greek chorus in
+it. "She has taken me back, this evening, nearly sixty long years. The
+river before us is the yellow flood of the Tiber, the woman who has
+just left us is the woman I loved--sixty long years ago--I had kissed
+her, as you have kissed her. I had told her I loved her, as you have
+just told her--and then, like an echo from the river below where a boat
+was moored, came to our ears, the same words, 'I love you.'--They
+were spoken, Captain Dering, by a boy, barely in his teens, to a
+waiting-maid. The boy was her son. She had been married, as they marry
+them in Italy, almost before her girlhood, and I, the boy's tutor, was
+nearer her age than his father--a better man, too, Captain Dering! But
+those words--'I love you'--parted us once, and for all. They mirrored
+the truth for us--the truth of the love which hides in balconies--in
+pleasure boats--" he took a step forward, and his whole presence
+changed. He raised his hand, priest to its finger tips. "Let it mirror
+the truth to you also, my son--leave this poor lady to her duty, as
+I--"
+
+Vincent Dering broke in on him haughtily, his pride in arms, impatience
+at the falseness of his position making him discourteous.
+
+"You don't understand; you are absolutely mistaken--I refuse to
+explain, but I really must ask you not to interfere."
+
+The old man's whole bearing changed again. He drew himself up, and,
+foils in hand, bowed, as fencers do at the salute.
+
+"Were I the lady's husband, sir, I would _make_ you answer. As a priest
+of God, I must warn you that I will speak, if--"
+
+Vincent Dering interrupted him again. "I can't prevent that--but you
+will wrong us--her at any rate--the best, the kindest woman--"
+
+He paused, for Father Ninian had come close, laid a hand on his, and
+the touch seemed to bring silence.
+
+"It is sixty long years, Captain Dering," he said, and his eyes seemed
+to pierce through the darkness, "since I have laid my hand on my
+fellow-men save in the hope of healing. It was a fancy of mine
+after--after we kissed, and parted. But I touch you as a second self, a
+fellow-sinner; for she too was the best--the kindest--" His old voice
+failed.
+
+Despite his anger at the whole miserable mistake, Vincent was touched;
+but despite his emotion, his annoyance strengthened.
+
+"Possibly," he broke in, "but I must really refuse to discuss the
+matter further. Shall we end this, sir,--unless--" he gave a reckless
+laugh and pointed to the foils--"you would like to fight it out?"
+
+Once more Father Ninian bowed, as fencers bow in the salute, the
+priest, the wise counsellor, lost in an older entity than these; in the
+high-born Scotch student, who, for a while, had forgotten his vocation
+to ruffle with the best blood in Italy. "I have not the privilege of
+being the lady's protector," he answered hotly. "If I were,"--He
+paused, then said courteously, "Shall we come upstairs? I came down for
+these foils in order to teach Mr. Carlyon the thrust we spoke of once.
+'_L'Addio del Marito_,' they called it in my youth--I doubt if the name
+has changed now. He will be wondering what has become of me, and--and
+it!"
+
+As Vincent followed him, he felt a thrill at the savageness of the old
+man's tone, and told himself that here was the Church Militant indeed.
+
+He might have said so with still more reason ten minutes after, when
+Father Ninian was left alone. For the hour proved too late for lessons,
+and Lance Carlyon--who had been out of sorts ever since his walk at
+dawn with Erda Shepherd--was obliged to give in to dinner, grumbling
+the while, that Vincent was the worst chum he ever came across. Never
+to be found when he was wanted, then turning up when dear old Pidar
+Narāyan looked as if he could have licked creation.
+
+Possibly Lance might have repeated this assertion, also, with greater
+fervour, could he have been witness to Father Ninian's actions, when,
+his last guest gone, he went to put the foils back in the armoury next
+the chapel.
+
+For he would have seen him, with head bowed over the crossed foils he
+held, repeating a "_mea culpa_" as he passed the altar; but ere the
+second foil matched its fellow on the armoury wall, he would have seen
+as pretty a bit of sword-play as could well be seen. Many a dexterous
+turn of wrist, many a quick imaginary parry, many a sharp _riposte_,
+following each other accurately, as if memory held each attack, each
+defence of an unseen foe; until finally, swift as a flash, would come a
+falter back, as if from a blow, then a thrust forward.
+
+There was a little silver bell--such as men put to a falcon's hood--no
+bigger than a sixpence, shaped like a man's heart, upon the tassel of a
+resting lance beneath the solitary foil. And the tassel swayed gently
+in the cool river breeze.
+
+Yet at each thrust the heart-shaped bell chimed a feeble protest under
+the button of the foil, making the Church Militant smile cheerfully.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII
+
+                             AT THE GATES
+
+
+The darkness which holds the dawn was, as a rule, silent as the grave
+in the sand-stretches beyond the river, where the wide cut of the
+canal, the huge mud-heap of the gaol, with its scattered workshops and
+houses, showed as mere spots and lines on the illimitable plain. But on
+the night after the band had played "God save the Queen," while the
+first drops of sacred water trickled over the chink of the sluice into
+the dry bed of the canal below, its silence was broken by unfamiliar
+sounds.
+
+First of all, by the now ceaseless splash of the thin, glassy curve of
+water on its way to find out this new road to the sea. It had a sort of
+dreamy whisper in it, as if it were telling its first impressions, its
+hopes, its fears, to the river it was leaving behind.
+
+And on this background of ceaseless sound came two others
+intermittently.
+
+The first--a muffled hammering from the darkness which hid the
+Viceroy's camp--told of departure, letting the night know that another
+white-winged tent was flitting, and that the dawn must be prepared to
+find its place empty, the dream-city in ruins, the Hosts of the
+Lord-_sahib_ gone.
+
+The second told of arrival. It was a strange cry, soft, almost
+musical:--
+
+"_Hārā--Hārī--Hārā--Hārī!_"
+
+Then every now and again in a sort of chant: "_Rām--Rām--Sita--Rām!_"
+
+It was the pilgrims' cry, their call on the Creator, the Destroyer,
+their appeal to the godhead in man and woman; for the forerunners of
+the great host to come were already nearing Eshwara on their road to
+the "Cradle of the Gods."
+
+But there was a fourth sound, inaudible--by reason of that ceaseless
+noise of water through the chink of the sluice--except to those close
+by it, like George Dillon, as he stood on the hand-bridge above the
+closed gates looking down idly into the darkness which prevented him
+from seeing the cause of the sound. He had been up all night. On his
+return,--later than he had intended, owing to his determination not to
+be defied by any woman,--he had found that in his absence cholera had
+been hard at its work. So he had buckled to his, expecting one of those
+awful nights which live, even in a doctor's memory, as a horror, as a
+warning to those best fitted to stem the stream of death, that they are
+but straws on its surface.
+
+But he had been mistaken. True, for an hour or so, cases had come in
+quicker than they could be attended to; then, suddenly, they ceased to
+come in at all. That had been eight hours ago. Too short a respite for
+certainty, but Dr. Dillon, being no novice in such work, had his hopes;
+the more so because the disease, from the very outset, had become
+steadily less and less virulent. Even so, seven dead bodies lay
+awaiting the first glint of dawn; therefore, as ill-luck would have it,
+there would be seven columns of smoke on the river's edge for all to
+see!
+
+It was inevitable, however, nor could he do more to prevent others
+coming. So he had been on his way back to his own house for a few
+hours' rest when the dreamy splash of the water made him pause to lean
+over the hand-rail and listen to it, as he finished his cigar in the
+open.
+
+Then it was that he heard a faint tap, tapping, as of a ghostly hand on
+a door. What was it? It was quite distinct, though almost as low as the
+"_lip, lipping_" of the water, made restless by that glassy curve
+against the gates.
+
+A curiosity to know seized on him. There was already a glimmer of dawn
+in the east; he might as well wait and see.
+
+It was not long before a streak of something faintly white made him
+call himself a fool. The cause was a log of wood. He might have thought
+of that. Even that faint setting of a stream towards a new way must
+have drifted it here. The thought made him frown, for this fulfilment
+of the river-people's prophecy was annoying; the more so from its
+absolute unlikelihood. Years might pass without such a chance coming
+again; yet it had come the very first day! It was too bad. The stars in
+their courses were fighting against him. In a pet he threw the remains
+of his cigar from him, and was striding off, when a faint glimmer, as
+of a candle, made him turn sharply and look down whence it came.
+
+The lighted end of his cigar had fallen on something dry, inflammable,
+which had blazed up. But it was only for a second; the next found
+darkness, save for that still, faint, glimmer of white. But the brief
+gleam had told him it was not a log which had drifted astray--
+
+It was a corpse.
+
+That _tap, tapping_ he had heard had been from the dead feet seeking
+vainly to pass through the chink of the sluice, swerving with the side
+current, coming back, again and again. He stood, grasping the rail,
+staring down at the dim outline almost incredulously, and feeling,
+despite himself, a trifle shivery.
+
+Then the remembrance that this was a thing which must be seen by none,
+which somehow, and as quickly as possible, must be set on its right
+road again, made him hurry back to where he knew some coils of rope,
+which had been used for bunting at the ceremony, were lying. Seizing
+one--still gaily decorated--he tied a brick to one end, and hurried
+back to the bridge. By dropping this weighted rope over the dim white
+streak he was able to edge it gradually to one side, until it lay
+moored against the wall of the basin. Kneeling down for a closer look,
+he could see, in the fast-growing light, that it was the corpse of a
+woman. He could even guess the death she died, and if proof was needed,
+it could be found in the hands folded at full stretch down the body;
+the thumbs, pointing upward, linked by an iron ring. To this iron ring
+had been looped a little tuft of the tri-coloured hank of cotton which
+plays so large a part in marriage ceremonial. Dr. Dillon stood up and
+swore under his breath.
+
+The fates were, indeed, inexorable in their spite. Of all things
+unlucky for the changing stream to claim, a corpse seeking union with
+Mother Ganges was the worst; and of all corpses, this--the cursed one,
+which had held two lives and could send one back to haunt men--was the
+worst.
+
+He must get rid of it somehow, if he could.
+
+Fastening the rope, so strangely out of keeping, all hung as it was
+with gay colours, to the iron ring which showed about the ankles, he
+proceeded to tow the body back along the basin, past the first gates,
+and so to the river itself. Thus far was simple. But how was he to get
+it afloat on a current strong enough to sweep it beyond danger of its
+returning to tap at the gates once more?
+
+The dawn was hastening with great leaps of light that shot in broad
+bars from the darkest spot in all the dark horizon; the spot which
+would soon be the brightest, ablaze with the sun himself. Already the
+broad shield of the river was changing its heraldry--the sable was
+turning to steel, sign that the world would side with the light.
+
+What was to be done?
+
+He looked over the wide waste of sand and water, with a perplexity
+which vanished suddenly in a smile, as he caught sight of a round
+shadow like a man's head dipping and dancing on the surface. He walked
+on to the last dry spot of land and shouted--
+
+"Ai! fisherman! Ai! Gu-gu! Am-ma! anybody! Come and earn a gold
+_mohur!_"
+
+It was Am-ma. Luckily, perhaps, since the idea of even towing a dead
+body such as this might have been too much for semi-civilized Gu-gu.
+Am-ma, however, had not ever borrowed his neighbours' superstitions. In
+fact, ever since he, the Miss-_sahiba_ and the _Dee-puk-rāg_ had bested
+the devil between them, he had felt himself to be invulnerable. So, he
+assured Dr. Dillon affably, were the _Huzoors_; therefore he obeyed
+them. Consequently, less than five minutes after the call, with a vague
+wonder as to what sixteen rupees would feel like, all at once, in a
+man's palm, he was heading hard to the nearest stream capable of
+carrying the thing he had in tow back to the path of purification. This
+happened to be towards Eshwara, and beyond a sandy point set with
+tamarisks which jutted out above the canal head. There was, of course,
+a certain stream against him, and to save himself exertion and finish
+the job--as he had agreed to do--before dawn, he swam for the most part
+under water, only coming up, after his habit, for air.
+
+Now it so happened, also, that Gu-gu had thought fit to set nets for
+wild-fowl, and was even now dozing, while he waited for the result, in
+the same tamarisk jungle. But the sound of something swishing through
+the water against the stream roused him in a second, and even without
+the glimpse, which the coming dawn gave him, of a long streak parting
+the river with a curved ripple like the prow of a boat, his experience
+told him what it was sure to be. Briefly, someone of the river
+people,--Am-ma for choice, since who but Am-ma had the luck of such
+things--had happened on the chance of stealing a log from the piles
+about the canal workshops. He was now, after time-honoured precedent,
+towing it to the stream where, having set it adrift, he would recapture
+it, and, of course, claim his reward for so doing!
+
+But two could play that game. When secrecy made it necessary for a
+thief to swim for the most part under water, it was easy to swim under
+water too, across the track of the robber, cut his prize adrift, and
+put your weight on the rope instead.
+
+Then you could either choose revenge, and let an enemy tow you
+home--which was a side-splitting trick,--or you might wait till your
+adversary came up breathless, and dash after the prize yourself. Even
+if you could not secure the whole, half profits were generally
+possible.
+
+Therefore, slipping noiselessly into the stream like an alligator, he
+was off across the track in a second; swimming, of course, under water.
+He came, up once for air, and smiled to see how far he had come; so,
+fearing lest the holder of the unseen tow-rope might chance to come up
+at the same time, his black head went under once more.
+
+When it came up again, it was within a few yards of the long white
+streak. He gave one look at it, let loose a yell of abject terror, and
+almost turning a somersault in his haste to escape, his head went down
+again, his feet went skywards, and though his lungs nearly burst in the
+effort, he came up no more till he felt certain he must have put a
+screen of tamarisk between him and the horror. He had; but his teeth
+chattered, his eyes were half out of his head when he scrambled, hands
+and knees, on to the bank, and lying face down on the dry sand, moaned
+and shuddered. What else could a man do who had seen a cursed corpse
+breasting the stream on its way back to Eshwara? To whose house? That,
+however, was quite a secondary consideration to a man who was already
+as good as dead; since what man had ever survived the sight of a
+_churail?_
+
+The certainty of his own fate, after a while, made him absolutely,
+recklessly, calm. He gathered up his nets, wrung the necks of the few
+birds he had caught pitilessly, and went with them, as usual, to the
+bazaars. Not only for profit, however. Other men should taste of his
+fear. Other men should know that they too might have to die!
+
+Am-ma, meanwhile, having seen nothing when he came up wondering what
+the sound was which had filtered to his ears through the water, had
+gone on his way unwitting, found the stream, cut the corpse adrift
+himself, and gone back to his fishing.
+
+It was not until he also went into the bazaar with his basket, that he
+found it ringing with the direful portent; yet for all that going its
+way buying and selling, squabbling over the uttermost part of a
+farthing; since portents are ever with an Indian bazaar. At first, when
+called upon to verify Gu-gu's story, Am-ma, remembering his promise of
+secrecy, gave it stout denial; but when the real truth of what had
+occurred dawned on his slow brain, the opportunity for piling agony on
+to his rival was too strong for him, and he burst into details, all of
+which made Gu-gu's chance of escape still more remote. The corpse had
+shot after him with a speed only equal to the fire-boats in which the
+_Huzoors_ came across the black water; it had sat up, and beckoned, and
+called "_Gu-gu! Gu-gu!_"
+
+"But if thou hast seen all this, thou, too, must die!" remarked the
+syrup-seller round whose shop the talk was loudest.
+
+Am-ma laughed vaingloriously. "Not I! The devils are afraid of me. See
+you, I have taken the _Huzoors_ for my God; I am on the strong side."
+
+"Hark to him!" jeered another of his own tribe who was also selling
+fish. "He cannot balance his basket on his head, he holds it so high
+since the wood-_sahib_ up the river hath bidden him guide their big
+raft,--as if he was a whit better than the rest of us!"
+
+Am-ma smiled peacefully. "That is true, brother. I go for the raft this
+very day. But I leave a son in my house, if the luck goes against me.
+That is the _Huzoors'_ doing. They have the _Dee-puk-rāg_. They are the
+Light-bringers, the Birth-bringers!"
+
+A tall man, in curiously crumpled clothing, who had just joined the
+group, gave a hollow laugh. "Birth-bringers!" he echoed. "Ay! and
+Death-bringers, too. They took seven in the gaol last night. I have it
+from a sure hand." That might well be, seeing that he was none other
+than the _gosain_ Gopi, who, scarcely an hour agone, had been given his
+ticket-of-leave and the clothes in which he had been convicted two
+years before. They had since then been rolled up, and ticketed with his
+name and number; hence the creases.
+
+"The doctor cuts a hole in their heads," he went on calmly, "takes out
+their brains, and puts the bit back. Then 'tis cholera. That is why
+they burn them in their clothing and their _caps_, so that none may
+see. But they _say_, 'tis for the safety of the living; as if that did
+not lie with the Gods!"
+
+"Hark to him!" said approving voices. "Yea! hark to him, the pious
+one!"
+
+The long bazaar lay flooded with sunshine and life. The quails were
+calling from their hooded cages, the sacred monkeys were chattering
+about the sweetmeat-sellers' shops, men and women were going about
+eager on their own affairs, and a group of schoolboys on their way to a
+mission school came along, their books under their arms,--a quaint
+collection, for the most part. A copy of the Gospels, Sa'adi's
+Gulistan, and the Hitopadesa, certainly; a treatise, in English, on the
+latest theories of mind and matter, equally so; selections from general
+literature, probably; with Burke's speeches and Addison's _Spectator_,
+possibly.
+
+One or two of these boys paused in their school talk to listen, as a
+voice said fearfully:--
+
+"'Twill be for '_momai_' they want them. Folks say they are running
+short of power."
+
+Gopi shook his head. "That may be; but these are to grease the slots of
+the canal sluice; without it, water will not run. One brain--his, that
+they killed with the light--opened it but one inch; as all can see if
+they choose. And these seven will not go far. What matter? There be
+plenty more where they came from."
+
+The gossipers looked at each other. "Yea! that is so. It opens but an
+inch, and there are many prisoners," they said, with that curious
+faculty for giving heart-whole assent to the truthful foundations of a
+lie which makes the latter go so far in India.
+
+The boys went on. There was nothing about the dynamic and hydraulic
+power of a man's brain in their treatises; but, after all, the
+statement was scarcely so strange to ignorance as many another held in
+the books under their arms.
+
+"The times are bad," remarked someone, chiefly to give a fresh fillip
+to the flagging horrors. "They say the 'Pool of Immortality,' will be
+dry to-morrow."
+
+A trail of saffron-robed pilgrims who were passing, under the charge of
+a priest, looked at their guide doubtfully. If this was to be so, what
+was the use of having given him a rupee each to be admitted thereto at
+the most auspicious moment?
+
+"Lo! 'tis easy to father that falsehood!" cried the priest in charge,
+venomously eyeing a similar figure to his own, which was also followed
+patiently, trustfully, by a band of men and women and children, all in
+their saffron robes. "When folks have had their own miracle stopped,
+they would fain stop other folks' also. Have no fear, my children! The
+sacred water will rise as ever, and send your souls blameless to the
+'Cradle of the Gods.'"
+
+It would have been easy enough for his rival to throw doubts on the
+genuineness of the pool miracle, had it been sound policy to do so; but
+before those patient, trustful faces, desirous only to save their souls
+alive at any cost, it was unwise to sap at the foundations of faith. So
+the reply contented itself with assertions that there was no fear
+either, for them. Tampion or no tampion, _jogi_ Gorakh-nāth had
+promised to be inside the gun as ever. And that would be a newer, a
+better, miracle, than any other in Eshwara!
+
+Here a fresh voice put in its word; for the syrup-seller's shop, being
+at one corner of the central square or _chowk_ of four bazaars, no one
+who had any errand of any sort in Eshwara could fail to pass it sooner
+or later. Therefore, Dya Ram and some other pleaders, on their way thus
+early in the morning to the tahsil court, were bound to overhear the
+priest's boast.
+
+"But most undesirable, nevertheless," expostulated Dya Ram, quickly.
+"We have duly appealed against the order to the higher court, and our
+legal course is to await the result."
+
+The priest looked at him, sullenly scornful; for such as he are no
+favourites with the hereditary Levites of India.
+
+"The _jogi_ hath appealed to the Gods," he retorted, "and they will
+give judgment without the help of such as thou, pleader-_jee!_"
+
+"Hark to the pious one!" murmured the crowd again, admiringly
+responsive, as ever, to a hint of religious sentiment.
+
+"But it will confuse issues--it is irregular--and I who drew up the
+petition object _in toto_," began Dya Ram in angry protest, when a
+friend interrupted him consolingly in English.
+
+"True. As it has been said, it is impossible to serve God and Mammon;
+yet seeing that miracles are, as Herbert Spencer proves, _ipsi
+facto_--"
+
+The ludicrous inadequacy of logic to the mental caliber of those around
+him, struck one of the little party of progress keenly, and he broke
+in, as he passed on, "What is the use of combatting such ignorance?
+It is for us--who represent the intellect of India--to pioneer the
+way--"
+
+The rest was lost as the little party went on discussing their own
+position.
+
+"Mayhap 'twas to Ramanund's house the _churail_ was coming; there was
+such a corpse went from it a week or two since; and they return from
+far," said an old man, looking after the last speaker.
+
+Gopi, the _gosain_, laughed. "This one, I'll wager, was sent back
+because of the canal. Mark my words, Mai Gunga will return them all
+now. 'Tis the _Huzoors'_ doing."
+
+A curious shiver ran through the crowd of men. To have your women
+against you, to feel in your heart that they cannot help being
+revengeful, that their blood is on your head, is ever the greatest of
+dreads. And so many lives held the possibility of this revenge.
+
+Am-ma, philosophically seated on the outskirts of the group, trying to
+sell his fish, laughed vaingloriously again.
+
+"Only for fools! The miss-_sahiba_ and the lights, and I, can defy
+devils."
+
+Here he stood up, and, with frightful grimaces of joy and uncouth
+salaams, greeted the appearance of Erda Shepherd, who, in the
+mission-lady's uniform of blouse and skirt, white pith hat, green veil,
+and bag of books, came out of a neighbouring alley.
+
+It was not a becoming dress, Lance Carlyon told himself, as, on his way
+back from escort duty to some lingering bigwig of the camp, he, at the
+same moment, came cantering up the bazaar towards the Fort.
+
+She could not say the same of his. It was the first time she had seen
+him in uniform, and the sight of the scarlet and gold, the buttons, the
+fal-lals generally, took her breath away. There are, in fact, few women
+whom they do not impress.
+
+Yet, curiously enough, her impulse was to pass on without speaking;
+his, to do what he did, namely, pull up, dismount, and shake hands. And
+still more curiously, the reason for both these impulses was the same;
+the presence beside Erda of a tall, rather weedy-looking man, with a
+long, black coat and a long, red beard.
+
+"Let me introduce my cousin, the Reverend David Campbell," said Erda,
+with great dignity, somewhat marred by a fine blush.
+
+"I thought it must be," rejoined Lance, coolly. He might have said he
+was certain of it; that a fellow could scarcely feel a desire to murder
+another fellow at an instant's notice, unless that fellow was your
+rival.
+
+Yet, still more curiously again, this notion of rivalry had come to
+Lance in an instant also. Before he caught sight of Erda and her
+_fiancé_ he would have sworn that though he had been a bit cut up at
+hearing the nicest girl he had ever met was already engaged, he had
+never had the remotest idea of fighting against the fact. But the first
+glance at the two walking together had changed all this. Here by God's
+grace was the one maid for him. And another man had--
+
+Not a bad looking chap, certainly. Better dressed, too, than most
+missionaries. That was because he was fresh out from England. Any fool,
+though, could be that with an English tailor. Yes, not a bad sort; but
+not the sort for _her_.
+
+"You've been out on your rounds, I suppose," he said, pointing to
+Erda's books.
+
+"Yes," answered the Reverend David, with eager assent, and the
+benevolent smile which includes the smiler's own virtue in smiling;
+"and I have been privileged for the first time to see somewhat of the
+noble work Englishwomen are doing for their Indian sisters. It is no
+easy task, Mr. Carlyon, for delicate--"
+
+"I like it," put in Erda, with a faint frown at the missionary-report
+style of her cousin's enthusiasm. "So there is no use wasting your pity
+on me, David."
+
+"Pity!" he echoed, in appropriating approval. "I did not even pity you
+when they called you evil names." Being of the new school of Free
+church ministers, he put all possible ill into ev-il like any
+ritualistic curate.
+
+"Do they call you names?" asked Lance, sharply.
+
+Erda gave a vexed look at her cousin. For the first time in her life
+the militant joy at persecution of the true proselytizer failed her.
+
+"Sometimes, not often," she said, quite apologetically. "They happened
+to do so to-day, and David heard it; there are so many strangers about,
+you see, who don't know me."
+
+"And what did you do?" Lance's eyes were on the Reverend David this
+time.
+
+"Do?" repeated the latter, in faint surprise. "Nothing, of course. We
+missionaries hear such things joyfully--for--for the Work's sake."
+There was dignity in his tone and manner.
+
+"By Jove!" said Lance, softly, under his breath, "if I'd been there,
+there would have been a row. Besides," he added, quite argumentatively,
+"if I believed in my work as you do I'd be hanged if I let anybody
+'_krab_'[9] it--or me--for it's the same thing. Not at least, without
+trying to make 'em answer for it all I know."
+
+The Reverend David Campbell shook his head. "That is not our view.
+Erda, the meeting is at nine, and it is already the half-hour.
+To-morrow, you see, Mr. Carlyon, is our field-day, and we have to
+arrange our forces."
+
+Once more the flavour of the missionary report made Erda shrink, but
+Lance nodded.
+
+"A field-day for most of us. I expect to be in the saddle all day.
+Good-by, Miss Shepherd."
+
+But something in the girl rose up in revolt at parting with him thus.
+When he had been out of sight, she had faced the probability of never
+seeing him any more with equanimity. Now she felt that she must tell
+him she was leaving Eshwara the very next day, or the day after; that
+she must make this a _real_ good-by.
+
+"I have to see another old woman in an alley close by first, David,"
+she said. "You had better go on and let me follow."
+
+Yet when he had gone, after another joyously militant pęan over the
+work, she stood silent. It seemed somehow too sunshiny for words. Then
+she looked up at Lance, and her heart sank. For something in his face
+told her, in an instant, that she had been too long in letting him
+know of her engagement to her cousin. The fact, by rousing her
+indignation,--since it was impossible to go about proclaiming that you
+were not available for idle people to fall in love with,--helped her to
+be hard.
+
+"You need not have been so fierce just now," she said, with an unreal
+little laugh. "People won't have many more chances of calling me names
+in Eshwara. I told you, didn't I, that I was going; but it will be
+sooner than I expected--to-morrow, or next day."
+
+"Then I shan't see you again?" He grasped the meaning to him in an
+instant, and the wondering pain in his voice awoke an echo in her
+heart.
+
+"I suppose so; for Mr. Campbell's appointment will be at the other end
+of India; unless, indeed--" she could not withstand his look--"my Aunt
+has asked a few friends in to tea this afternoon to say good-by. If
+you, or Captain Dering, cared--"
+
+"Of course I'll come," he interrupted quietly. "Now which way are you
+going, for I am going too?"
+
+She looked at him helplessly. "But you can't," she began.
+
+"Oh, yes, I can! I'll finish the smoke you interrupted, while you
+polish off the old lady. They're not going to have a chance of--of
+abusing the _work_ again."
+
+He had a most ingenious way of appealing to her sense of humour, and
+though it was partly at her cousin's expense, she laughed as they set
+off together--a most incongruous couple. He had little time for his
+smoke, however, for he had barely left off watching the point where she
+had disappeared, for any hint of felonious calling of names, when she
+reappeared in company with Father Ninian, the latter looking almost
+pope-like, yet also curiously native, in the white washing _soutane_
+and skull-cap which he invariably wore in his visitations. His face was
+rather stern, and he had his spectacles on.
+
+"Ah! Mr. Carlyon," he said, surprised in his turn, "I am glad. Will you
+take Miss Shepherd home? I want to go over to Dr. Dillon at once: and I
+have advised her not to visit in this quarter to-day. There are many
+lodging houses for the pilgrims, and--"
+
+"Did they call names?" asked Lance, belligerent at once.
+
+The old man looked at him sharply, almost angrily. "No one ever called
+me names, sir; still less a lady who was with me. But excuse me--I am
+pressed for time."
+
+"Now, that's a man!" said Lance, enthusiastically, as he looked after
+the hurrying white figure. The comparison was too obvious.
+
+"Father Ninian is not a missionary," she said coldly. "It is easy for
+him--" she paused, turned to her companion, and held out her hand.
+"Good-by, and thanks; but I really can go home by myself, Mr. Carlyon."
+
+"Good-by," he echoed; then, holding her hand still, a sudden resolve
+seemed to come to him. "But--I should like to tell you something first,
+please."--
+
+She felt her heart beating everywhere but in its proper place.
+
+--"Not that it matters, but I'd like you to know it. I had some news by
+the mail this morning--bad news."
+
+She felt her blood everywhere but in its normal course, now, in sheer
+shame at her own imaginations. "I'm sorry," she murmured.
+
+"So am I," he went on thoughtfully; "though it isn't bad in a way for
+me. Do you remember my telling you about my cousin? a weedy chap,
+six-four. Well, they sent him round the world for his health, and he
+died two months ago, it seems, in Australia. And the shock was too much
+for my uncle; he was an old man, and this was his only son. So--so I am
+Sir Lancelot now. It doesn't make any odds, of course, but I thought I
+should like you to know, first."
+
+She looked up at him as he stood beside her, so tall, so strong, so
+young, so kind; and though she only said, "Thanks, Sir Lancelot, it
+won't make any difference to--to our friendship, I'm sure," she knew in
+her heart of hearts that it did. Though how, she had not yet had time
+to discover.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIV
+
+                           MIRACLE MONGERS
+
+
+Roshan Khān flung his cigarette away, and walked up and down his
+quarters in the Fort like an Englishman; he felt rather like one, also,
+in his vague distaste for something which refused to fit in with his
+previous experiences.
+
+"So she will see my grandmother," he said, at last. "That is a step,
+certainly, but--" he turned quickly to Akbar Khān, "it seems
+impossible!"
+
+The quondam chief-eunuch giggled like a girl. "Nothing is impossible
+with women, oh, Protector of the Poor!" he said; then, with a jaunty
+air of self-satisfaction, went on, "and this dust-like one has
+experience. She will see the female relation to-night after approved
+custom, and, since this is after the habits of the _sahib-logue_, she
+would perhaps see the--the Nawab-_sahib_ tomorrow."
+
+Roshan wheeled again in his walk at both the title and the suggestion,
+half indignantly, yet with a reluctant eagerness. "See--see me! Did she
+say aught of it?"
+
+"A woman's wishes for a lover go not near her tongue, _Huzoor_; they
+keep to her heart," replied Akbar, still with his jaunty craft; "but if
+this visit of the female relation be auspicious, as God send it, then
+there would be no hindrance to the asking; and even if she said nay--"
+
+Something in his hearer's face warned the old sinner he had to do with
+some novel code of conduct, and he paused, while Roshan continued his
+pacing.
+
+He was disturbed beyond bounds. The foolish dream of a foolish old
+woman had come to be so far a reality, that the jealousy which had
+blazed up instinctively at the sight of Laila in that dress--so like a
+woman of his race--alone with a strange man, had come to be deliberate.
+More than once he had felt inclined to tell Pidar Narāyan what he had
+seen, even to write an anonymous letter of warning. He would have done
+so had he seen any subsequent hint of intimacy between these two. But
+he saw none; on the contrary, they seemed to avoid each other in
+public; and though this might be a blind, on the other hand Roshan had
+seen too much of some English women's ways not to know how trivial an
+offence against the proprieties it was to sit out dances in a balcony!
+Undoubtedly, however, this girl, who had taken his presents on the sly,
+who would receive his ambassadress on the sly, was not one whom it was
+necessary to treat with great ceremony. She was what the English
+language called a flirt; his own a stronger term. Not that it mattered,
+since no wife of his would have a chance of amusing herself.
+
+So, after a while, he paused to say--with a scowl for the toothless
+grinning survival of a past society--"I would I knew if it were wise to
+trust thee? Why shouldst thou take the trouble thou dost? What is the
+affair to thee?"
+
+Akbar's face was a study in sheer dignity. "'Tis but my duty, Cherisher
+of the Poor!" he said, almost pathetically. "For what other service
+were such as I am created?"
+
+The hateful tragedy of this confession of degradation passed Roshan by;
+he saw nothing in it but an appeal to facts which gave him confidence.
+
+"Yea!" he said, "I was forgetting. Such arrangings are meat and drink
+to thy sort. So take thy price. It shall be trebled if she bids me see
+her to-morrow, but--" here he laughed, half at himself,--"thou must
+needs work miracles for such favour to come so soon!"
+
+Akbar, as he capered off, the rupees jingling in his pocket, to more
+legitimate and less lucrative pursuits, winked and leered to himself
+over his own surpassing wickedness and wisdom. Miracles! Ay; but it was
+nature worked them, not he. Given youth, proximity, a touch of
+surprise, a flavour of the forbidden, and the result, in his evil
+experience, was sure. In the meantime his part was to keep the ball
+from falling until the players took to playing the game for themselves;
+then the fun was over for the true go-between. He had to take a back
+seat and watch--he! he! he!--the miracle! A pretty miracle, indeed! The
+idea tickled him so that he could not keep it to himself, and as he
+passed through the bazaar, doing his daily marketing, he used his new
+avocation of miracle-monger as a reason for good bargains. The
+shop-keepers, however, shook their heads. Miracles paid the priests,
+and might suit such as he, but for their part they considered that
+there were too many miracles in Eshwara. What was the good of the
+pilgrims coming at all if all their money went to the temples, and they
+had not a pice left for a relic, or even a toy to take home to the
+toddlers whose feet were not yet strong enough for pilgrimage?
+Whereupon they would look discontentedly round the baskets of Brummagen
+brass gods, the Belgian-made rosaries, the patent Swedish self-lighting
+joss sticks, the machine-cut oblation cups, with which almost every
+other shop sought to attract custom. Baskets where a pious pilgrim
+could purchase a whole pantheon, and secure a modicum of divine
+favour--all duly trade-marked by Christians--for a few farthings.
+
+"'Tis not our fault, brother," suggested a decrepit old Brahmin, with a
+wrinkled forehead all seamed with white markings, who--squatted in the
+gutter--was extolling the virtue of the sacred _sālig rāmas_, made
+unblushingly out of the ball stoppers of soda-water bottles, which lay
+exposed for sale on a handkerchief in front of him; a Manchester-made
+handkerchief, printed in the best style with the loves of Krishna. "We
+get no more than in the old days; nay, less. For, see you, the
+third-class ticket takes so much. And that is the _Huzoors'_ fee. They
+send it all over the black water to make a mountain of silver in the
+streets of their big city, London. Oh, pious ones! Buy! Buy a sacred
+sin-expeller!"
+
+The monotonous cry was caused by the appearance of a priest-led band of
+pilgrims; for, as yet, the great throng was not, when the whole narrow
+street would be a sea of heads, when even the saffron robes would be
+lost to sight, and the only thing visible would be the patient, anxious
+faces seeking redemption. That would come on the morrow,--the great
+day.
+
+Meanwhile, reverent eyes turned to the bottle-stoppers, and one or two
+hands wandered to the little hoard set aside for regeneration, which
+was diminishing so rapidly under the claims of chaplets, lights,
+caste-markings, sprinkling, and miracles.
+
+"There be too many, I say," reiterated a radical seller of drugs. "If
+the _Sirkar_ puts a tax on my medicine for the body, why not on thine
+for the soul?"
+
+"Nay, _pinsari-jee!_" chuckled the privileged wit and gossip of the
+bazaar, a cobbler who sat--by reason of his low caste--at a decent
+distance even from the crowd of customers which was awaiting a patch on
+the coverings of feet already worn and weary with their search after
+righteousness; "'tis a miracle when folk buy of you; and that comes not
+too often."
+
+Even the pilgrims laughed; for laughter at a ready gibe comes easily in
+India. Yet they, too, felt inclined to agree with the drug-seller. One
+can get _blasé_ even in miracles.
+
+Therefore, naturally enough, when there was a choice, they chose the
+newest ones. And the newest of all was _jogi_ Gorakh-nāth's promise of
+defying tampions, and locks, and chains, and, as in other years,
+blessing the crowd of worshippers from his self-inflicted penitentiary,
+inside the "_Teacher of Religion_."
+
+And what was more, he had kept his promise. That very dawn, as a kind
+of walk over the course, he had performed the miracle before a select
+band of pilgrims, mostly _jogies_ of his own sect who were now engaged
+in telling the tale to all and sundry in the city. What had occurred
+was briefly this. He had received his followers squatted on the stone
+steps in front of the gun, and had treated them to a dissertation on
+the mysteries of Yoga. Other less eminent practitioners in the art of
+miracles, he said, might have found it necessary to withhold the sight
+of the sacred person from devoted eyes. He, however, meant to show them
+his absolute independence of the body. He would leave it lying there,
+dead, while his soul went inside the gun, and blessed the pious ones.
+Accordingly his jaw had dropped; he had become rigid, callous
+apparently to the prickings of pins with which his assistants strove to
+make him wince, and, just as one of them withdrew a dagger, covered, of
+course, with gore from his very heart, a muffled voice of blessing had
+come from the very bowels of the gun.
+
+If that was not a miracle, what was?
+
+Anyhow, it caught on, so that as the day grew, the growing tide of
+pilgrims passed by the side-shows run in connection with the Pool of
+Immortality by its priests, and drifted off to the opposition show,
+leaving the _impresarios_ behind them in a state of rage and despair.
+Rage, for if this sort of thing continued on the morrow they would lose
+their year's harvest, since the Host of God-seekers were ever the
+natural prey of priests; despair, because exposure of what experience
+told them _must_ be a fraud, would only result in counter exposure.
+There must be honour among thieves to make the profession a lucrative
+one.
+
+So they met in conclave, each with his miserable earnings in his hand,
+to point the dire urgency of action, and agreed on the wisdom of
+finding a cat's-paw to filch their chestnuts from the fire.
+
+Thus it happened that Vincent Dering came over to Lance Carlyon's
+quarters half an hour before the time they had settled to start for the
+mission house, and asked him to look sharp, and send round to Roshan
+Khān to come along also, as he had private information--here, with a
+laugh, he threw a letter on the table--that miracles were being
+illegally performed in cantonments, and he expected some fun. Lance
+laughed also as he read the following:--
+
+"To the Major General commanding. This is to give notice to all
+concerned that illegible miracles is now being performed by bare men in
+belly of great gun, contrary to astringent orders issued by my lord
+god. Therefore your petitioners pray for correct diagnosis of same, and
+removal from Cantonment boundaries with exhibitions not to miracle any
+more."
+
+"By Jove!" he said, "our petitioner is a medical man--hospital dresser,
+I expect. Not to miracle any more!--h'm." His tone changed, his honest
+blue eyes clouded, for, ever since Erda Shepherd had told him what her
+future life was to be, the young fellow had been painfully aware that
+Eshwara had wrought a miracle on him; that he was no longer content to
+take life as he found it; that already he had begun to look forward and
+think of what life would be by and by. "I expect that would be a
+difficulty in Eshwara," he went on; "it's an awful place for upsetting
+the proper odds. Seems to me impossible to--to make a safe book on
+anything."
+
+Vincent Dering shrugged his shoulders. He had been in the highest
+spirits for the last few days. "A safe book! The dullest thing in
+creation. That's why I like Eshwara. As I remember telling you, one
+can't count upon anything in the topsy-turvy place--not even one's
+self. They talk of the mystery of the East! By George! one is in grips
+with it here; so come along, Lance! and remove miracles from Cantonment
+boundaries at any rate!"
+
+They found the union-jack of paths obliterated by an orderly crowd; for
+every hour, almost every minute, of the day had brought fresh units to
+that weary-footed, eager-eyed host of pilgrims. Here and there amongst
+them was to be seen the high-twined, badge-set turban of a policeman,
+ready, truncheon in hand, to assert the rights of law, but not many;
+since the rush of bathers had not yet come, and there was small danger
+to be feared from anything save that keen desire to be cleansed, which
+showed on almost every face. As the two Englishmen entered, however,
+followed by Roshan Khān, on whose features that fierce intolerance of
+his race for idolaters was written clearly, a murmur of tense
+anticipation ran through the packed courtyard. The miracle turn was
+evidently on.
+
+It was. _Jogi_ Gorakh-nāth lay as if dead on the raised stone platform
+in front of the gun, and two assistants were prodding him with pins.
+
+"I've seen that in London," said Vincent, forcing his way rapidly
+through the yielding crowd, "so I can hardly object to it here; but if
+there is hanky-panky with my gun--"
+
+At that instant, a bloody dagger, fresh apparently from the _jogi's_
+heart, was held up, and a curious hush fell on the courtyard. It was
+broken by a muffled voice, unmistakably from within the gun, and that
+was lost in a great roar of applause.
+
+"A miracle! a miracle of the gods!"
+
+Captain Dering, who with the others had now reached the centre, waited
+for the roar to subside a little, and then his voice rose and seemed to
+crush it.
+
+"_Risaldar-sahib_ You have the key of the padlock. Take out the
+tampion, and see who is inside."
+
+As he spoke, his eyes were on the assistants, and something in their
+defiant assurance warned him that he was on the wrong tack, and made
+him cover possible discomfiture with the words,--"If there is no one,
+then someone here has the art of throwing his voice where he will."
+
+As if in assent, the muffled blessing came, louder, this time, from the
+now un-tampioned gun, so that Roshan's face showed somewhat scared, as,
+with a salute, he announced as the result of his inspection, "There is
+no one, sir, I can see clear down the metal, but--but the voice is
+there."
+
+A sound of such fierce approval ran through the crowd who were within
+hearing, that Captain Dering saw instantly that it would not be wise to
+court another failure.
+
+"Close up the gun again," he said loudly. "So long as my orders are not
+disobeyed, and people keep their bodies out of my gun, their voices are
+welcome to it! Come along, Carlyon," he added, in English, "it's
+ventriloquism, of course, and I'd dearly like to catch the beast who
+does it, but we had better leave it alone for the present."
+
+Lance, who, in sudden remembrance of the sound he had heard as he
+drifted past the bathing-steps in his canoe on the night of the dance,
+had been vainly overhauling the padlock and chain for signs of their
+having been tampered with, nodded his head, and let the chain swing
+back on its staple. The sudden jerk threw a new light on the matter.
+For the staple came out, disclosing the fact that it had been neatly
+filed through at the shank, and then replaced by means of a drilled
+hole and a pin.
+
+The proof of tampering was clear, but nothing else.
+
+"I have it," said Lance suddenly coming up with a red but triumphant
+face from a prolonged inspection down the huge muzzle, "they've shoved
+in a false end, and there's someone behind. Roshan! go back and fetch
+me my long gaff, and Roshan--my cleaning rod."
+
+"And tell the guard to come out at once," added Captain Dering, heedful
+of the rising note of movement amongst the crowd, sign that it was
+growing restless.
+
+"Stay! I've got a ripping idea!" cried Lance again, his face all abeam
+with delight--delight so catching that the crowd stilled as he turned
+to it. "Look here," he said confidentially, in Hindustani, "there's a
+boy in this gun. It must be a boy, and rather a small one, for there
+isn't room for anything big. Now isn't there a boy anywhere about the
+same size who'd like to come and draw him? He will be heads this way,
+and you will be able to get a good grip of his hair, and he will get a
+grip of your's, and--and it will be--be jolly!" The untranslatable word
+needed no translation. That something in the perfection of careless
+youth which touches the hearts of all mankind, put Lance and his
+audience in touch instantly.
+
+A group of tall, grave-eyed Sikhs laughed uproariously, and nudged a
+lad beside them. "Go on, brotherling," they said, "thou art the best
+wrestler of the school. Go! show the _Huzoor_ how thou canst hold thine
+own."
+
+It needed no more. "Yea! try thy luck, brotherling," said a dozen
+voices, "and if thou canst not we will find a champion!"
+
+That settled it. Five minutes afterwards Lance Carlyon found himself
+arranging the conditions of the draw, surrounded by half a dozen lads,
+each backed by eager supporters. By this time Roshan had returned, and
+with the aid of the gaff and one of the smallest of the guard, Lance's
+guess had been proved to be true. A neatly fitting disc of metal,
+cup-shaped to increase the resemblance to the end of the barrel had
+been withdrawn, leaving a head visible.
+
+"It is beautifully tousled, and you'll get a good grip," said Lance,
+regretfully, as he helped the Sikh champion into the gun, "but it is
+bigger than I thought for, and you'll have your work cut out for you."
+
+Then ensued the quaintest scene imaginable. The whole crowd, but five
+minutes before ready, almost, to fight for the truth of their miracle,
+were swaying breathless, excited, in sheer childish delight over the
+tussle to expose it.
+
+"Lo! he comes--I see his toes--bravo, Gurdit! Nay, the other hath
+strength left! Sho! sonling, let not go for thy life! That is well
+done--Bravo! Bravo!"
+
+So backwards and forwards, like a terrier and a badger, the draw
+wavered, Lance, watch in hand, calling time.
+
+"Half a minute more! Go it, Gurdit!" he shouted. The encouragement had
+its effect. Gurdit's toes, his ankles, his calves showed beyond the
+gun; only his knees remained, giving him grip still.
+
+"Wait for his knees. Wait till he loses grip!" shouted Lance--"twenty
+seconds more--fifteen, ten--f--there you are! that's it, fair!!"
+
+Fair it was; the knees, pressing outwards steadily, every bronze muscle
+of them showing the strength of the drag, lost grip, and with a great
+yell of delight, half-a-dozen bearded Sikhs had hold of Gurdit's feet
+with such a vigorous pull, that Lance had to shove his knee forward, in
+a hurry, to prevent the boy from falling on his face; since both his
+hands were locked desperately in the tangled hair of a disciple so big
+that he came out of the gun with a cloop like a cork!
+
+"It was the most sporting draw I've seen for years," said Lance
+enthusiastically, when, after much laughter and congratulation, the
+crowd parted with smiles to let the Englishmen pass, "and I'm glad you
+let the beggar off, Dering. It wasn't his fault, and he must have been
+beastly uncomfortable. Now, if you could have quodded the _jogi_--"
+
+"I hope to do that by and by," replied Vincent significantly, "but it
+was just as well the crowd should laugh to-day. These religious
+gatherings are always a bit risky--and, as you know, Dillon is having
+trouble over at the gaol. 'Pon my soul, I don't know which is worst to
+manage--fifteen hundred scoundrels, or a hundred and fifty thousand
+saints."
+
+"A hundred and fifty!" echoed Lance, "will there be as many as that?"
+
+"Quite. So it is as well they should laugh; for even with the extra
+contingent of police we should find it a bit hard to manage them if
+they didn't."
+
+True; but unfortunately the laughter of the many involves the
+discomfiture of the few; and in this case, these were the most
+unscrupulous men in Eshwara.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV
+
+                       OH! DEM GOLDEN SLIPPERS!
+
+
+"If I were a man--I would fight."
+
+The words were spoken by Erda Shepherd as the two young men entered the
+drawing-room of the mission house.
+
+"Let me fight for you!" said Captain Dering, in his most ornate style,
+as, in the pause following on the interruption of their arrival, he
+went forward to shake hands. "My sword is always at the service of the
+ladies."
+
+Then a certain feeling, as of electricity in the air, a certain look on
+the faces round him--for most of the mission workers had already
+arrived--warned him that this was no jesting matter, and he continued
+in better taste, "I trust there is nothing wrong?"
+
+"Wrong!" echoed Erda, who in a mechanical, absolutely indifferent
+manner was shaking hands with Lance; "Yes! grievously wrong!"--her
+voice was almost strident in its decision--"hideously wrong!"
+
+Here Dr. James Campbell, who had been laying down the law to a group of
+other black coats, came up and put the telegram he was holding into
+Captain Dering's hand.
+
+"Perhaps you can explain this," he said severely, "we generally have to
+thank the military authorities for such interference."
+
+"Not in this case, so far as I am concerned," replied Vincent, after a
+glance at the first sentence. Then he read on, everyone else in the
+room silent, expectant.
+
+It was from the Commissioner, saying, that from private information
+given him, he regretted that, in the interests of peace, he must, as
+magistrate, forbid any street preaching or public profession of faith
+during the next two days. Feeling was running high in many ways, and it
+was necessary to be extremely cautious.
+
+"I can assure you, sir," said Vincent, handing back the telegram, "I am
+not the informant. At the same time"--here he faced about to the room
+generally--"I think the Commissioner is right. Our government is
+neutral--"
+
+"Neutral!" interrupted the Reverend David Campbell, whose blonde face
+was flushed with excitement. "If it were neutral we would not complain.
+But does this prohibition extend to the priests of other religions? No!
+a thousand times, no! It is only another instance of the fact, that we,
+who have the strongest claim on a Christian government--"
+
+"Possibly," put in Captain Dering, "but I am only a soldier. I do not
+ask questions. I obey."
+
+"And we are soldiers too," said Dr. Campbell, weightily, "and our
+orders are to be instant in season and out of season."
+
+A little murmur of approval ran through the company. There was a
+militant look on every face, a militant ring in every voice, as they
+discussed what ought to be done. The women workers, with Erda at their
+head, went solid for defiance,--only Mrs. Campbell making the
+reservation "if James approved." So did some of the men, notably David
+Campbell, who passed from one group to another, his pale blue eyes
+a-glisten with enthusiasm.
+
+Erda's followed him with such approval, that Lance crossed over
+pugnaciously to where she stood, with a pretty flush on her cheeks,
+listening.
+
+"It is a pity you haven't got Jean Ziska's drum, Miss Shepherd," he
+said. "By Jove! how you would bang it! Then, right or wrong, there
+would be a high old row, and that would just suit me!"
+
+"There can scarcely, Sir Lancelot,"--she paused on the title with a
+strain after contempt which did not somehow come off,--"be a question
+as to right or wrong in this case."
+
+He gave a kindly, almost indulgent laugh. "There never can be, really,
+of course. One is bound to be right, the other wrong. The mischief is
+to know t'other from which! Now I expect the sixty thousand nobles, and
+the grand-master who were left dead on the field, and the two thousand
+poor devils who got drowned in the river besides, and all the
+others--you know about 'em, of course, and you must admit he was a
+bloodthirsty chap at any rate!--had got a musical instrument of some
+sort, too. You can't fight without a band, Miss Shepherd, specially
+drums and fifes. But Jean Ziska was blind; so he could only hear his
+own music."
+
+"And I hear it, too," she said superbly, with all the more defiance,
+because his words touched her innate sense of justice, as they did so
+often.
+
+As she spoke, the not unusual sound--considering that one side of the
+mission house gave on the city--of a native _tom-tom_ drifted in
+through the open window, causing Lancelot's eyes to brim over with
+smiles.
+
+"That isn't it, anyhow, is it, Miss Shepherd?" he said. "I saw that
+drum-banger as I came past just now--the funniest old dried stick of a
+Brahmin you ever set eyes on. And you know those '_round the mulberry
+bush_,' fairy-ring, endless circles of men and women hand in hand we
+used to cut out of newspaper when we were kids? Well, he was using gilt
+paper, and trying to make a miracle out of the '_biz_'! One god, he
+said, in many; the outline being the same, and the eye of faith
+sufficient to fill in the details of divinity! The people were buying
+them by dozens for the half of nothing. I asked 'em why, and they said
+as toys for their children. So I expect it will be the endless circle
+of boys and girls again--don't you? For, you know," he went on in the
+confidential voice which, dimly, she recognized was for her alone,
+"I've never been able to find out the least difference in kids. I talk
+to the little beggars when I'm out shooting, you know, and--well! the
+boys are just as much boys as I used to be--"
+
+Used to be! Yet once again, for the hundredth time at least since
+they had first met, barely a month ago, his youth, his boyish,
+whole-hearted, healthy zest in life made her eyes soft; made her feel,
+with all the true womanhood in her that, if she ever had a son, she
+prayed he might be like this. And something else she recognized--not
+for the first time, either; namely, that boyish, almost thoughtless as
+he was, puzzling himself not at all with the problems of life, you
+could never dip below the surface without finding him, as it were,
+there before you; finding him clear-eyed, ready to treat the shady side
+of things as he treated the light side; that is, with an absolutely
+limpid honesty.
+
+So, as she stood silent, checked in her desire to check, Father Ninian,
+who had just entered with Laila, came up to greet her, and having done
+so, turned to Lance with kind eyes and voice.
+
+"Captain Dering has just told me that we have to call you Sir Lancelot
+Carlyon. I am sorry for the cause, since your uncle was a man who made
+the world better by being in it;--as--as you will. It is a fine old
+name, Sir Lancelot! It carries with it a fine inheritance of honour;
+therefore I can wish no better wish for the world, as well as for
+yourself, than that you may hand it on to your son. So, peace be with
+you!" His clasped hands unfolded themselves for a space as he passed
+on, leaving those two once more standing together with that sense of
+being singled out for friendship which had come to them in the
+beginning.
+
+And this was to be the end of it? Even to her it seemed impossible. To
+him it made the impossibility certain.
+
+"Miss Shepherd," he said suddenly, "I have something I must say to you
+this afternoon. Come into the verandah, after you have done pouring out
+the tea, and let me say it."
+
+There was so much of command in his voice that she might have resented
+it, had not Father Ninian's voice risen at that moment; firmly, yet
+with its usual faint hesitancy, in words which made everyone in the
+room pause to listen.
+
+"I, and I only, am responsible, Dr. Campbell. I gave the Commissioner
+the information on which he has acted," here he raised his hand against
+interruption. "I have been fifty years at Eshwara; fifty times have I
+seen the pilgrims pass to the 'Cradle of the Gods' listening peacefully
+to your preaching. But this year there is something new." He paused to
+put on his spectacles, yet the keenness they brought to his face was
+dimmed by wistfulness. "I cannot quite tell what it is. There is
+something beyond the things I know, though these are many--small, it is
+true, but cumulative. Still, this is certain; the pulse of the people
+beats irregularly to-day, and that means danger to the body corporate.
+It may pass; yet the faintest stimulus may upset the whole balance of
+the organism. So, my friends, as our cause is eternal, as we have
+time--"
+
+"Time!" interrupted David Campbell, passionately, "but now _is_ the
+appointed time. Think, sir, how many of these poor deluded souls,
+striving after salvation, may die upon the road to their false
+gods--none can know how many better than you, who--"
+
+The old priest looked at the young one with a whole lifetime of sad
+wisdom in his face. "Yes!" he said, softly, "for I am very old. I have
+seen half a world die upon its road to the 'Cradle of the Gods.'
+Die--though we have not the courage to say so,--with their faces set to
+the eternal goal of humanity; to the finding of something we have lost.
+And something keeps us all back. What is it? Have we the secret more
+than they, who say, as we do, that it is sin?"
+
+His voice had fallen into a strangely musical rhythm, so that Dr.
+Campbell's, following it, seemed harsh indeed.
+
+"_We_ know we have. We have the certainty--we are missionaries of that
+certainty--"
+
+"And I--to my shame be it said," interrupted Father Ninian, with a
+curious return to worldly courtesy as he removed his spectacles, "have
+never tried to make a convert; therefore I can scarcely hope to
+persuade you; but if, gentlemen, I might be allowed to talk the matter
+over with you--"
+
+"A most sensible suggestion," assented Dr. Campbell, looking round on
+his younger, less experienced colleagues; "I should be loth to act
+hastily, and give occasion to the scoffer. Mamma, will you send our tea
+into the dining room?"
+
+The pure practicality of the last words seemed to relieve the general
+tension, and Vincent Dering--who had been looking horribly
+bored--seeing the piano open, sat down to it, as the dissentients moved
+off into their cave of Adullam, and began to play, "_La Donna é
+mobile_;" saying, with a laugh:--
+
+"_Cherchez la femme!_ Depend upon it, Mrs. Campbell, there is a woman
+at the bottom of it. I know from personal experience that she is always
+fatal to my peace and pulse on any road."
+
+Erda Shepherd, holding her head very high, crossed over to pour out the
+tea; whereupon Vincent, being mischievously inclined, suddenly changed
+the tune to "Where'er you walk," which he played daintily, purely,
+altogether charmingly, so causing Muriel Smith, who had lately joined
+the party, to relax her faint frown at his remark.
+
+"Miss Shepherd objects," he went on provokingly. "She doesn't believe
+in men fighting for women. She scorned the offer of my sword in
+favour--excuse me for having overheard--of some drum or another. What
+was it, Miss Shepherd? I really only heard Lance say you would like to
+bang it."
+
+Erda flushed all over her face. "I was only alluding to Jean Ziska's
+drum, which was sounded to call the Hosts of the Lord to arms."
+
+Mrs. Campbell gave a fine, hearty shudder. "My dear," she said, "why
+can ye not leave that gruesome tale alone? For it's just an awful tale,
+Mrs. Smith. As if he could not be content with doing his duty in this
+life, but must leave his skin behind for the next generation."
+
+"We have biblical warranty for that sort of thing, Mrs. Campbell," said
+the sharp-voiced lady who owned the small black coat. "Elijah left his
+mantle."
+
+"Hoots!" interrupted Mrs. Campbell, scornfully. "We all have to leave
+our body-wear, but a skin's different altogether. It sou'd just have
+gone to the grave with him, honest man, dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
+I've often heard Dr. James say there was nothing in the world for tying
+the hands o' the leevin' like dead men's dispositions. They're just a
+mortification indeed to a' concerned."
+
+There was always something about the good lady's comfortable
+common-sense which made further discussion difficult, and the talk
+wandered into less rugged paths until, the time for leisure from Erda's
+duties as tea-maker being close at hand, Lance went out deliberately
+into the verandah which overhung the river, or rather the spit of
+sand-bank which jutted out from this, the turning-point of the city's
+triangle. On the right, the wall, set with its temple spires, trended
+away to meet the bridge, on the left to join the line of the palace,
+the bathing-steps, the Fort. In front of him, as he stood leaning over
+the balustrade at the western end of the verandah, lay dull streaks of
+sand, bright gleams of water, and beyond them--dim, mysterious--was the
+great level plain of India, on whose scarce distinguishable edge the
+sun was setting behind a bank of deep purple cloud. It was a long, low,
+almost level bank, outlined sharply against the sea of golden-green
+light above it. There was scarcely a hint of sunset fire save in a
+trailing chain of little fleecy golden flocks, which stretched away
+from the purple of the clouds into the deepening purple of clear sky
+overhead.
+
+Lance, waiting, watched that clear, almost level, outline, until, as
+clouds do when gazed at fixedly, it took shape for him as the body of a
+dead warrior half-covered by a pall. The straight sweep yonder was the
+shield, still held upon the arm, the peak of shadow below it was the
+mailed feet. There was the curve of the throat; the head thrown back;
+the feathery plumes of the helmet. The whole world seemed his bier; the
+stars, just trembling into sight, the watch-lights round it.
+
+"Do you see?" he asked, as Erda joined him. "_From the great deep to
+the great deep he goes_."
+
+She recognized the quotation; and though she had come out full of
+determination to deny the glamour of their mutual comprehension, it
+claimed her in a second.
+
+"Yes!" she answered quickly, and pointing to the trailing drift of
+cloudlets, added, "_bound by gold chains about the feet of God_."
+
+He turned to look at her then, forgetting fancy in a sudden certainty.
+
+"I thought I had something to tell you," he said, "but I think you know
+it already, don't you?"
+
+"Yes!" she answered, held captive still by that inevitable
+understanding. "I think I do."
+
+He paused a moment; then going back to the now fading likeness of that
+dead "King of the Dead," continued: "Then that ends it so--so far as I
+am concerned. But it remains as an excuse for my asking a question.
+Miss Shepherd, why are you going to marry your cousin?"
+
+She had known this was coming. "For a great many reasons," she began
+boldly; then paused, wishing for the first time that these reasons had
+been fewer, feeling that the possession of but _one_ would have made
+speech easier. "To begin with, it has been the dream of my life."
+
+He turned on her with an amaze which was almost ludicrous. "What! to
+marry him?"
+
+She frowned angrily. "No! To work--to help--to give my sympathy--to
+stand hand in hand with someone who, as he does, gives himself, as I
+do, to the great work. To someone whose life will be mine--whom I can
+respect and admire and--and love--in the best sense of the word--" Her
+voice, gaining confidence from its own statements, rose almost
+passionately.
+
+Lance looked at her with his clear eyes, and nodded. "Yes! I quite
+understand. But what has that to do with marrying him? How will
+the--the great Work be furthered by your having to look after the house
+and all that? And it isn't as if you couldn't give the help and
+sympathy without marrying a fellow. Even the love--at least I think so.
+Now, I want to marry you, because--"
+
+"Yes,--" she said severely, as he paused--she felt glad to change
+places with him in the witness box--
+
+"Because, to begin with, it doesn't seem possible for me to live my
+life--I mean my everyday life, trying to rub along, you know, without
+doing any harm; keeping things going as--as my people have always kept
+them, unless you help me. And then--" he paused again--"from the first
+moment I saw you, you reminded me--" he paused so long this time that a
+faint wonder as to what he was going to say next made her heart beat,
+as she watched him leaning over the balcony, looking dreamily at that
+fading likeness of a dead 'King of the Dead.'
+
+"I don't suppose anyone had a happier, jollier childhood than I had,"
+he said suddenly, "though I was an orphan. I lived at Tregarthen, you
+know." He turned to her as he spoke, and smiled. "You should have seen
+my grandfather and grandmother, Miss Shepherd. They were like the
+double Christmas number of an illustrated paper! She used to boast that
+she never saw a naughty child; and she never did, for the dear old lady
+always walked out of the room promptly when we tried it on. I remember
+it used to take the starch out awfully, having no audience. But it was
+the same in everything. It beat even a boy to be really bad in that
+house, somehow. Yes! we had jolly times! You would have liked it--you
+would like it now"--he turned swiftly and held out both hands--"Come to
+it!--Come, and be Lady Carlyon as she was! People may say all that
+means nothing, but it means everything to a woman to be able to count
+on an inheritance like that for her--" he broke off as some of the
+others came out into the balcony, and bending closer to her, went on in
+a low voice, "I've said nothing of my love--you know all that--and I
+think--Yes--" his voice took a note of certainty--"I think you--you like
+me well enough--don't you?"
+
+There was something so truth-compelling in his face, his voice, that
+she felt thankful for the tepid word _like_--
+
+"I like you very much, Sir Lancelot," she said, trying not to let her
+voice betray the absolute tenderness she felt, "but, as you told me
+just now, that is no reason why I should marry you."
+
+"It is at least as good as yours for marrying _him_," he broke in
+quickly. "At least it has to do with you--with me--with our
+happiness--with mine at any rate! Do you remember when you first told
+me your name--The World's Desire I called it--the woman with the
+red-gold hair, the red-gold hem to her garment, the red-gold apple in
+her hand--you are that to me--Erda! give me my heart's desire--"
+
+His voice--low, quick, passionate--thrilled through her. She saw
+herself as she had seen herself then.
+
+"Yes! it has to do with you, with me!" she echoed desperately, "but
+only we two."
+
+"No!--" he interrupted--"with more than that, surely!"
+
+In the pause which followed, one vision faded in another, and her own
+wish, that if she ever had a son he might be as this man, came to make
+her remember Father Ninian's words, "I can wish no better wish for the
+world!"
+
+But Father Ninian could not have said so to her. _She_ could do
+better for the world in the other life, the other work. The very
+self-sacrifice of it attracted her, vague though the sense of that was,
+as yet.
+
+"Sir Lancelot," she said at last, "I am very sensible of the honour--"
+
+"Don't--for heaven's sake," he interrupted. "That is--excuse
+me--bunkum."
+
+She felt glad of the faint resentment which came to her aid. "I am, all
+the same," she continued; "but it is impossible. Perhaps if I did not
+look forward as I do; perhaps if I only sought happiness; but--" she
+clasped her hands tightly and the militant look came back to her
+face--"I am sworn to another work--the noblest work of all--to bring
+light to those that sit in darkness."
+
+Lance gave an odd little laugh, full of bitterness. "You leave me out
+in the black night, anyhow," he said.
+
+True enough, in one way, for the quick dusk had closed in around them;
+but as he spoke, a great white shaft of light like a moon-ray shot,
+almost as if in denial--widening on its way, from the shadowy stretches
+beyond the river; shot waveringly, as if uncertain, until, focussing
+itself full on the verandah, it turned the dusk to day.
+
+"The search-light!" cried Mrs. Smith, clapping her daintily gloved
+little hands. "Eugene will be so pleased. He couldn't positively
+swallow a mouthful at lunch because, when he thought all was right,
+something went wrong. That's why he didn't come, Miss Shepherd," she
+added, for the light had effectually joined the scattered groups into
+one. "I positively couldn't tear him away, but I made him promise to
+turn the thing on here if he succeeded. And he has. Isn't it splendid?"
+
+Mrs. Campbell looked doubtful. "It's just too much like the last day,
+comin' unawares, and makin' a' things manifest, for my taste. An' I
+wonder what Dr. James will say to it?"
+
+"I wonder what the natives will say to it?" said Vincent Dering,
+looking across at Lance.
+
+"Say!" echoed the tart lady. "I know what they should say--that, of
+course, we know a great deal more than they do."
+
+"And, besides," added a new and gushing voice, "it is so beautifully,
+suggestively true. We have the light, we can light them."
+
+"Oh! but that _is_ such a bother," came Laila Bonaventura's
+full-throated tones. "I hate having to see things I don't care to see.
+I much prefer to have my own candle, don't you?"
+
+She had been finding it dull work waiting for her guardian's return
+from the dining room, even though Vincent had, now and again, found
+opportunity for a word or look. He took advantage of one now to say,
+"It will be pleasanter by and by, won't it? We must settle the time
+before you leave."
+
+"What time?" asked Muriel Smith, who happened to overhear his
+undertone. She had been vaguely curious at their apparent avoidance of
+each other, their occasional lapses into familiarity, ever since she
+had challenged them at the Viceroy's party.
+
+"Time!" echoed Vincent, coolly. "Of that new song, of course. Come in,
+Miss Bonaventura, let us decide about it."
+
+The girl swept up her long lashes solemnly. "I should think a twelve
+beat would be best, really. It is safer when there are so many
+accidental notes."
+
+His face, as he led the way to the piano, was a study. If she had lived
+her life in a vaudeville at the _Folies Bergčres_ she could scarcely
+have been more at home in intrigue, yet her absolute sincerity and
+unconsciousness of wrongdoing was as palpable. On the whole, he felt
+vexed; the more so because the vaudeville dialogue proved unnecessary,
+since a sudden concentration of the party to hear the verdict of the
+Adullamites, who at that moment came out of the dining room, would have
+given them ample time for more dignified conversation.
+
+Erda was in the front rank of the eager little crowd, her hopes, her
+enthusiasms, heightened by the deliberate choice she had just made,
+when Dr. Campbell, as the recognized head, began to speak. They had
+come unanimously to the conclusion, he said, that absolute revolt at
+this late hour would be unwise. Whether Father Ninian Bruce was
+justified, by the circumstances, in his adverse report was another
+matter. Personally he denied it; nor did he propose that they should
+sit down quietly under the interference. They were only forbidden to
+preach in Eshwara. Therefore they had come, again unanimously, to the
+resolution of leaving Eshwara for the time in a body. It would be a
+solemn protest; and they could thus render both to Cęsar and to God,
+since they could preach at other pilgrim stations on the road. It would
+be a noble protest which was certain of proving blessed.
+
+The words roused no little enthusiasm, mingled with undoubted relief in
+most cases; but Erda, standing beside her cousin, said in an undertone,
+"Did you assent to that, David?"
+
+"I suggested it," he answered, in a louder voice, not without some
+self-satisfaction. "It appeared to me to meet the exigencies of the
+case admirably, and it will be very useful, let me tell you, at home.
+It will emphasize the difficulties and dangers we have to contend
+against. It will show our meek reasonableness, and then--" he looked
+round with a jubilant smile--"it seems to me such a beautiful idea that
+the only result of this attempt to gag us will be that the thousands of
+poor benighted souls will have a chance of hearing the Truth in many
+places instead of one."
+
+But Erda's voice broke in on the hum of applause almost harshly,
+filling the room with its defiance. "I think it cowardly; I would
+fight--if I were a man."
+
+"You would beat Jean Ziska's drum!" laughed Vincent Dering, rising from
+the music stool where he had been holding Laila's hand under cover of
+the new song,--an occupation which always made him feel as if all the
+wine of life had gone to his head. "You refused my sword just now, Miss
+Shepherd, so I place my drumstick at your disposal."
+
+So, with a reckless gaiety, he seized on a painted tambourine which
+good Mrs. Campbell had hung as an ornament on the wall,--it was
+bedaubed with two white lilies and a butterfly rampant,--and catching
+up a teaspoon from the table, he began to sing in his pretty,
+light-comedy voice, "Oh! dem golden slippers!" while the tambourine,
+under his skilful drumming, throbbed to the words:--
+
+
+             "Golden slippers on a golden stair,
+              Golden slippers on my tired feet,
+              Golden slippers dat we all mus' wear
+              Becos' dey are so sweet."
+
+
+He sang well, he played better; and both voice and drumming echoed out
+through the open windows.
+
+"They are singing in the _missen_," said the people in the courtyard to
+the pilgrims, who were still gathering to the miracles, like moths
+round a candle. "It is not wise to listen; folk become as they are, if
+they do."
+
+Some of the pilgrims laughed and some stopped their ears; but even so,
+the throbbing of the tambourine was in the air.
+
+
+             "Golden slippers on a golden stair,
+              Golden slippers on my tired feet,
+              Golden slippers dat we all mus' wear."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVI
+
+                                ECHOES
+
+
+If the twopenny-halfpenny tambourine--which had been bedaubed with its
+white lilies and rampant butterfly by a suburban maiden lady for a
+mission sale, and, remaining over from that, had been bought in at half
+price by Mrs. Campbell for the adornment of her drawing-room,--had been
+indeed Jean Ziska's famous drum, Eshwara could hardly have been more
+restless than it was on the night after Vincent Dering had sung, "Oh!
+dem golden slippers!" to its accompaniment. The tune had occurred to
+him in an instant, without thought, simply as one he had sung more than
+once when doing bones and tambourine in a nigger troupe at a soldiers'
+sing-song. He had meant nothing by; it and yet the words,
+
+
+             "Golden slippers on a golden stair,
+              Golden slippers dat we'se got to wear,"
+
+
+fitted their environment; that atmosphere of effort after something
+beyond, above the real, the actual; the inevitable climbing of a golden
+stair, the inevitable wearing of the golden shoes, the inevitable
+search after the golden gates which, found, will open upon Paradise.
+True, the Paradise differed to each pair of yearning eyes and weary
+feet; but the longing for it as a personal gain, spiritual or bodily,
+was identical.
+
+For Paradise is the Desire of the World still; whether men find it in
+the good they lost, or the Love which lost it for them.
+
+And in Eshwara that night the desire rose strenuously, militantly.
+
+Erda, packing her boxes in haste, since she and her aunt had arranged
+to start with the others at dawn, felt as if she had, at last, closed
+her hand firmly on the plough. There could be no looking back now. The
+golden slippers were on her feet, the golden stairs before her, the
+golden gates within sight. She had said good-by to Lance without a
+quiver. She even smiled softly, tenderly, as she set an unopened deal
+box to go with her others. It was one which the Reverend David had
+brought with him from England, and which had been made over to her, not
+without nods and winks, smiles and suspicions of tears, from her aunt.
+For it contained the wedding dress. It was a Moravian wedding dress of
+the old style, to suit Erda's fancy; and she had been quite anxious to
+see the delicate white muslin robe and the quaint little cap, with its
+bunch of orange blossoms, which was to mark her as both bride and
+matron. But it had seemed a pity, in careful Mrs. Campbell's opinion,
+to unpack it only to repack it, and run the needless risk of crushing
+its daintiness. So there in its box it lay still, untouched, unseen.
+
+There would be real orange blossoms and to spare, the girl told
+herself with a smile, in the garden at Herrnhut; for so the summer
+resting-place of the mission had been called in deference to the
+Moravian extraction of those who had built it and started the Christian
+settlement in the tiny valley in which it stood. This lay some thirty
+miles up the Hara, beyond the first range of hills; and the river,
+fresh from its mad rush from the snows beyond, ran through it slackly,
+peacefully, before beginning its long, swift, yet smooth, slide down
+the dark ravine which cleft the outer range, until it ended in the
+plains at Eshwara.
+
+It was at Herrnhut that, every year, in turns of two months during the
+hot weather, the missionaries exchanged work in the bazaars for the
+lighter labor of the agricultural settlement. Naturally, therefore, it
+was looked on as a sort of holiday house; but this year it would be
+something more. It would be the headquarters of fight, the centre of
+the resistance which was to use the Commissioner's order to cease
+firing as an excuse for a more determined skirmishing. For it stood
+right on the pilgrims' road. Indeed, Erda and the other rebels would
+have to travel a good eight-and-twenty miles along that very road
+itself before coming to the slack water where they could cross the
+river by a ferry, and finish their journey through the level fields on
+its further side to Herrnhut, with its homelike, peaceful surroundings.
+The memory of them came to Erda, making her sense of that inevitable
+climbing of the golden stair after righteousness more acute; since she
+had to face a good-by to them also. And sooner than she had expected,
+for the breaking up of winter work a week earlier than usual, owing to
+this secular interference, had made David, eager to begin anew, plead
+for a speedier wedding. So there were only two or three days left, at
+most.
+
+The knowledge, however, brought her no doubt; it helped her, rather, to
+a greater certainty.
+
+She had done right. Her feet were indeed upon the golden stair!
+
+And in the other houses of the mission, where everyone was disregarding
+sleep in the striving after something that was more to them than sleep,
+the atmosphere was electric also, the thoughts militant.
+
+So they were in the streets, the alleys of the town; for on the bridge
+of boats--that bridge which spanned the broad expanse of water between
+the city and the great plain of India--the pilgrims were passing, now,
+in an unending stream--to take up their places as near as might be to
+the Pool of Immortality, where, with the dawn, the water would rise
+miraculously for the cleansing of sin.
+
+"_Hārī! Hārā! Hārā! Hārī!_"
+
+The cry was almost incessant, but the eye could see little, for the
+moon was young, the night dark.
+
+"_Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!_"
+
+Hour after hour it came, that cry on the dread Creator, the dread
+Destroyer. Monotonous, patient, almost indifferent, yet absolutely
+insistent.
+
+The golden-shod feet of the pilgrims, after whose souls the
+missionaries yearned, were on the golden stair also, and their golden
+gates would open at the 'Cradle of the Gods'; must open, hidden though
+the goal was by mist when it was day, by darkness when it was night.
+
+What matter if it was hidden? For the gold-shod feet might falter and
+fall ere that goal was reached; but the hidden spring of cleansing at
+the Pool of Immortality was theirs. It would rise at dawn; rise as it
+did always, every year.
+
+"_Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!_"
+
+What matter Birth or Death, if the finding of that lost paradise of
+purity was certain.
+
+Out on the bridge, whence the cry came oftenest, there was no doubt
+regarding this certainty; but as each weary pair of feet stumbled on
+the first stones of the town, it stumbled into an atmosphere in which
+nothing seemed sure, save that there was change; that Eshwara was not
+what it had been.
+
+To begin with, it held soldiers. Wherefore? And why had dead women been
+sent back to it by Mother Ganges to curse the men whose love had killed
+them?
+
+But what wonder, when the very logs, the fishes, were stolen from the
+river nowadays; and from the people also. Then what of this strange new
+light? The light which fed on men's brains!--that came and went at
+pleasure--that was quite small at first, when but seven or eight men
+had been sacrificed, but which, only an hour or so agone, had showed in
+a huge ray, feeling here and there through the darkness for God knows
+what, then settling on it, making it impossible to hide aught, prying
+into the very Holiest of Holies! Had it not shot into Mother Kali's
+very temple, and shown the worshippers that two of her mighty arms were
+stuck on with sealing wax! What God would stand that! And how could the
+very Gods themselves work miracles if everybody could see how they were
+done?
+
+They had already refused to work them for pious _jogi_ Gorakh-nāth.
+What wonder? The Gods did not like laughter, especially the laughter of
+_M'lléchas_.[10]
+
+Therefore, who was to tell if the spring would even rise in the Pool?
+So those who were wise would make certain of at least a modicum of
+salvation, and go straight to the bathing-steps; since the river,
+anyhow, must be there.
+
+This suggestion of a cautious hedge was diligently spread by the
+bathing-_ghat_ priests among the new arrivals; who listened patiently.
+But so they did also to the other priests whose business it was to
+scorn the possibility of failure, and to deny the displeasure of the
+Gods. To say that _jogi_ Gorakh-nāth had been found out by the
+_Huzoors_ in one of his usual tricks; that was all. So that people who
+wanted the genuine article, and a real, good, old crusted miracle, had
+better come as usual to the Pool.
+
+The weary-footed, anxious-eyed climbers of the golden stairs listened
+patiently, silently, even when the antagonists began, in vehement
+quarrel, to bandy threats, and hint at worse portents to come. To their
+experience, their hope, it seemed impossible even to dream their
+pilgrimage in vain. The dawn would show, anyhow. So hour by hour,
+minute by minute, the tide of pilgrims set citywards till it brimmed
+over with faith and hope. And these are dangerous things when charity
+depends on them, and there are antagonistic claims to every alms. So
+Eshwara was restless.
+
+Over in the gaol, also, by which the golden-shod feet passed so closely
+with their heart-stirring cry, it seemed as if Vincent Dering's
+thrumming, following as it did on the heels of Eugene Smith's success
+with the search light, had set what Dr. Dillon called his Hosts of the
+Devil in commotion. Indeed, that thrumming was still going on when
+George Dillon had gone raging over to conjure the experimenter, with
+oaths, to turn off his confounded bull's-eye at once, or the prisoners
+would go out of their judgment with thinking of the number who would
+have to die that night in order to keep up the supply of brain
+power!--just too, as he had been congratulating himself that the
+cholera scare was over. Seventy-two hours, and not a case! It was too
+bad!
+
+Eugene, whom he found on the roof of his house playing with coils,
+batteries, accumulators, had suggested eagerly that if there was real
+trouble, he might end it by turning his light bang on to the gaol, and
+so reducing it to a paralysis of sheer terror. Dr. Dillon, however, had
+sworn violently that he would not have the poor wretches frightened
+unnecessarily, especially when that triumphant cry of those who were
+free to defy the devil by seeking sanctification before death reminded
+them that _they_ could not--that they must die defiled, helpless,
+hopeless! That fear was, he said, in a way dignified, worthy of
+consideration. And he did not anticipate trouble unless there was
+treachery inside or out, though perhaps he might, as a precaution, ask
+Dering for an extra guard. But when the latter happened to come in, as
+Mrs. Smith's escort home, while the doctor was still there, Dr. Dillon
+apparently changed his mind. Anyhow, he pooh-poohed Captain Dering's
+offer to send one, saying, the more you could keep a gaol to yourself
+the better--or for the matter of that anything else! So, with a curt
+good-night to Mrs. Smith, he went back to his work, leaving Vincent to
+remark, carelessly, that Dillon seemed in a bad temper. At which Muriel
+smiled. There was something in the air, she said, conducive to bad
+temper. She, herself, felt she must soon have quarrelled with the
+doctor's assumption of knowing better than anyone else; so it was as
+well he had not stopped to dinner. Her quarrelsomeness did not,
+however, extend to Vincent, who did; indeed, she made herself so
+tenderly charming and unconsciously friendly towards him that he began
+to accuse himself of having been too irresponsive of late. The fact of
+being in love did not preclude friendship for someone else, if, indeed,
+he was really in love with Laila Bonaventura? In one way he knew
+himself to be so; but the idea of treating this love of his on
+conventional lines was still repugnant to him; the thought of her, as
+his wife, barely attractive.
+
+So, after a time spent pleasantly enough for those two, Eugene Smith
+went off to his coils, and accumulators, and batteries, half-sulky,
+half-bored, and wholly ill-used at having to switch off, when he had at
+least half an hour's electricity all ready stored for use.
+
+He was grumbling over this fact when Vincent called good-night to him
+before starting to drive back; and he answered that but for fools, who
+were afraid of going to their proper place, he might have given Dering
+electric light on the road.
+
+"No, thanks!" cried Vincent, gaily, "there's enough electricity in the
+air to-night without that. I believe your machine has leaked, Smith! I
+feel as if I should give out sparks if anyone touched me!"
+
+As he drove across the bridge Eshwara looked as if it were doing that,
+too. There were lights everywhere, twinkling, little, restless lights.
+The very spit, usually dark with the darkness of primitive life after
+sundown, was alive with them; for the pilgrims were camping there, as
+elsewhere. Nor were all the fisher folk abed as usual, for that,
+surely, was one of them paddling up stream on a dug-out,--just under
+the last span of the bridge. He saw the man distinctly, not five yards
+from him in the flash of the lamps as he drove past overhead, and
+wondered what the mischief the fellow was doing at that time of night,
+going up stream.
+
+Something to be ashamed of, no doubt, else why should he have sent the
+dug-out beyond the circle of light with a swift stroke?
+
+Truly Father Ninian was right; Eshwara was not normal. Its pulse beat
+irregularly, and things were going on which should not be going on--
+
+A sudden shame made him glance at the shadowed pile of the palace
+looming above the shadowed town. It was all dark, save for one row of
+restless, twinkling lights. Those were the little latticed windows of
+Laila's sitting-room, that was fit for any king's favourite. He had
+seen it already, might see it again at twelve, if she was in one of her
+reckless moods when she would risk anything for his sake.
+
+Truly! there were things going on!--
+
+But this was between themselves; this could hurt no one. By and by, of
+course, he would insist on a commonplace engagement, and a wedding.
+Yes! a commonplace wedding. He had, despite his vague repugnance to her
+origin, made up his mind to that. No one but an utter cad could take
+what he was taking, and then shake his bridle rein and ride away. But
+for the present, it was the most absolutely perfect bit of romance in
+his whole life. He could not, would not give it up. Laila was right!
+This was the essence. As a rule, people mixed love, diluted it, were
+vaguely ashamed of its absorbing influence. But when you came to
+analyze even the diluted feeling, its virtue lay in this irrational
+content, this desire for nothing better than this best of
+pleasures--this paradise of a woman's or a man's love.
+
+He laughed, suddenly, at the memory of Laila's quick grasp of his
+meaning when Muriel had overheard his remark about the time. Such
+quickness, in the latter, would have made him revolt from it; but with
+Laila it was different. A passionate gratitude to the girl to whom
+fear, remorse, the very possibility of change seemed unknown, rose up
+and claimed him. Dear little girl! She was so absolutely single-minded
+in her love for him. How could anyone expect him to forego the luxury
+of such love yet awhile?
+
+In thinking Laila single-minded, Vincent thought the truth, so far as
+he was concerned. If love, passionate as Juliet's, and far more
+innocent in one way, far more _rusé_ in another, ever existed, hers was
+that love. Nevertheless, its very integrity made her curiously cunning
+in regard to anything which threatened to disturb that idyll in the
+garden. So, at that very moment, when Vincent looked up at her windows
+asserting her absolute lack of pretence and single-mindedness, she was
+pitting her wits against old Akbar Khān in a manner worthy of her
+grandmother, Anāri Begum; since Akbar, far more than her guardian, was
+to be feared. The latter, honest man, went to his bed, beyond the
+chapel, at ten of the clock precisely; but Akbar, who from ancient
+habit was given to prowling about at night, and napping in odd corners,
+had many chances of discovery. During the last few days, however, when
+she, for her own purposes, had let him talk, he had become so garrulous
+regarding his past that she had recognized in him an unscrupulous
+confidant, with whom, in face of the possibility of requiring one, it
+was wise to remain on terms.
+
+So, as she lounged on the sofa, she listened to his endless talk with
+tolerance.
+
+"Nay!" she interrupted at last. "If, as thou sayest she will, she
+brings me more dresses and jewels, she may call me Begum, and hint at
+my being one, really, a thousand times over! Why not? Begum and
+Princess are the same, and my great-grandmother in Italy was that.
+Pidar Narāyan told me so to-day."
+
+The memory of the old man's voice, when, with new-found courage, she
+had questioned him concerning those old days, made her eyes soft. Yes!
+he would, he _must_ understand. So, by and by, when Vincent and she
+were tired of playing Romeo and Juliet (the story of the star-crossed
+lovers had been her only reading since Vincent had taken to quoting so
+much from it) they would make Pidar Narāyan play Friar Laurence, and
+marry them on the sly. That would be so much more amusing than a
+regular wedding. He could not refuse, since he had once loved as she
+loved. You could hear that in his voice; after how many years?--fifty
+or sixty! And the Princess had, of course, loved also in exactly the
+same way. Laila felt sure of it. That curious, inexpressible feeling
+had come to her also. Laila, trying to formulate that feeling, slipping
+her heel idly in and out of her dainty little bronze shoe as she
+lounged, suddenly remembered Vincent's song to the tambourine, and
+laughed. That was it!
+
+
+                  "Golden feet upon a golden stair."
+
+
+That expressed it exactly. Two pair of feet going side by side up a
+golden stair, to golden gates. So contented. Ah, God! how content!
+Seeking something, claiming something, yet still content. That feeling
+came, sometimes, when you were saying your prayers. A sort of yearning
+_for_, a sort of satisfaction _in_, something that was not you; so,
+surely if it came _then_, there could be no harm in it.
+
+Harm! The very sisters allowed that you must love the man you were
+going to marry. And she and Vincent would be married by and by and live
+happily, for that was better than having a "_statue of pure gold_"
+erected to you! In the meantime, secrecy, so long as Vincent wished to
+play Romeo and Juliet, was her cue; therefore, the more she could blind
+old Akbar, the more he could be turned on a wrong track, the better.
+Especially when the turning was so delightfully ridiculous!
+
+She managed, however, not to laugh her childish love of mischief into
+Mumtāza Mahal's very face when, after much shrinking into white sheets
+held up as screens, and quick cuddlings into corners at the faintest
+suspicion of a possible peep, that good lady, in her very, very best
+pink satin continuations, was ushered in through the dark deserted
+passages of the palace, to Laila's boudoir. For, despite the amusement,
+the girl's heart was beating fast with determination to climb her
+golden stairs without interruption. So she allowed herself to be
+_kow-towed_ to, and called Begum-_sahiba_ and she accepted the new
+dress and jewels without protest. Eagerly, in fact, since they were far
+more gorgeous than the first, and caught her taste better. The former,
+indeed, had been Roshan Khān's own choice, dictated by his acquired
+knowledge of the sort of things _mem-sahibs_ admired; these latter were
+her grandmother's, purely, entirely oriental. The difference was great.
+Put briefly, _this_ was the costume in which Anāri Begum had flouted
+the Nawab, the _other_ that in which she had caught Bun-avatār's fancy.
+
+Laila took up one of the heavy, gorgeous, glittering garments. It smelt
+strongly of musk, attar of roses, and jasmin, and she snuffed at it
+with a smile. That was ever so much better than the dull lavender
+water, which was the only scent her guardian said a lady could use.
+Vincent would like that; he, like she did, loved strong scents. If only
+the stupid old frumpish thing would go away in time, she would put on
+that dress at once, and so give him pleasure. That was all her thought.
+
+As she sat, with a happy smile, her face half-buried in a tiny,
+three-cornered corselet of scarlet net embroidered in seed pearls,
+Mumtāza and Akbar Khān winked at each other; and Laila's sharp eyes,
+catching this, brimmed over with laughter. She felt glad the rest of
+her face was hidden, until she was grave enough to reply graciously to
+the hints, the suggestions; for Mumtāza had been bound over by oaths
+not to go too fast, and she obeyed her instructions.
+
+Even so, Akbar Khān, listening with folded hands in a mantis-like
+attitude, his angles all crushed together into humility, wondered if he
+was standing on his head or his heels, as he heard Laila admit,
+gravely, that she was certainly, in a way, the head of the family, in
+that she possessed its land; but that, of course, Roshan was really the
+heir. That it had given her great gratification to see how thoroughly
+he had adopted English ways. That, of course, it would be impossible
+for him to marry an uneducated cow of a girl. Here, for a moment, she
+had relapsed to sincerity in order to remark that it must be impossible
+to love a person you had not seen, and that for her part, she knew in
+an instant if she was going to like or dislike people. If the latter,
+she tried never to see them, really, again. Then, remembering her part,
+she had resumed it hastily by saying that no doubt she would see more
+of her cousin,--who, by the way, was very nice-looking,--in the future,
+as he was quite in society.
+
+Old Mumtāza had hard work at this juncture to prevent herself from
+cracking all her finger-joints over the girl's head for luck, and
+wishing her a numerous offspring; while Akbar gave a gasp that was not
+all pleasure. He felt that he was being rushed, that the crisis might
+come before he was ready for it. At this rate, Pidar Narāyan would have
+no chance of dying. At this rate, Roshan Khān's castle in the air must
+topple over from sheer lack of foundation to such a lofty structure.
+
+As he trotted back beside Mumtāza's curtained _dhooli_ to that little
+parasite of a house against the palace wall, where he knew Roshan was
+waiting for the upshot of the interview, his one consolation was that
+bow-strings were out of fashion!
+
+In truth, there was no more restless man in Eshwara that night than
+Roshan Khān. The desire for this paradise had grown overwhelming, and
+as he listened to his grandmother, while Akbar pointed each triumphant
+appeal of the old lady's with a helpless "_Gereeb-pun-wās_," his face
+grew pale with emotion; until, at the mention of his good looks and
+Laila's desire to see him, he turned fiercely to the go-between, and
+bade him fix a time; the sooner the better!
+
+Akbar felt inclined to tell the truth then. To admit that he had never
+breathed a word of Roshan's pretensions to the Miss-_sahiba_ and that,
+so far, the negotiations only existed in his own imaginings. But the
+look on Roshan's face--he had seen it often in his youth in connection
+with women, and sacks, and bow-strings--reduced him to protestations.
+He would do his best, he said, but with Pidar Narāyan it would be
+difficult to manage.
+
+Roshan strode about the little courtyard like a wild beast in a
+cage, biting his mustache, and thinking. Then he turned to the old
+phrase-monger.
+
+"I have settled it. Before dawn to-morrow--not this dawn, that is too
+nigh on us now--but the next, thou shalt let me into the garden. Thou
+knowest the little balcony which was not lit up? I will stay there,
+waiting, till she come for an early walk among the flowers. That can be
+managed. Then, if the coast is clear, we can meet and talk. If not,
+there is no harm done, for I can slip into the stream and swim back.
+That will be best, since it is not possible by day, and at night the
+_mems_ do not receive visitors, as we do, without reproach."
+
+Roshan's knowledge of etiquette was sound, yet at that very moment
+Laila, ablaze with gold and jewels, was meeting her lover's eyes with a
+happy laugh.
+
+"What's in a dress?" she paraphrased, "it is no part of me!"
+
+Was it not? Never had Vincent seen her look like this; so absolutely
+desirable, so perfectly adorable.
+
+He caught her in his arms and kissed her. The heavy scent upon her
+dress assailed him. She looked up into his eyes and laughed.
+
+"_But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true_," she whispered,
+"_than those who have more cunning to be strange_."
+
+"Juliet!" he whispered back, lost in his own mad passion. "Juliet!"
+
+Their gold-shod feet were upon the golden stairs; the gates of Paradise
+were before them.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII
+
+                       THE POOL OF IMMORTALITY
+
+
+"_Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!_"
+
+The cry was incessant now, for there was a glint of light in the east;
+and the hosts of pilgrims to the 'Cradle of the Gods' were cramming,
+almost to solidity, each street and alley in Eshwara which could be
+said, by however long and tortuous a detour, to give access to that
+small tank where, at dawn, the miraculous waters of cleansing would
+rise, as they always did on this, the great Day of Atonement. In the
+sea of slightly upturned faces, upturned in the vain hope of seeing
+over the heads of those in front, the most noticeable thing was the
+expression of mingled eagerness and patience. And this was most
+noticeable in those who stood nearest to the bamboo railing which had
+been erected (in a square some four feet from the first step downwards)
+as a precaution against a dangerous rush on all sides; and in
+consequence, a dangerous crush on those steep steps. The only entrance
+to them, therefore, was by a sort of double sheep-pen at the end
+nearest the town, by means of which, when the time came, some fifty
+bathers would be admitted to the railed square from the inner pen,
+their places in which would be taken by the fifty in the outer one;
+their places, in turn, being filled by fifty from the general crowd. By
+which double check no more than fifty could stand at one time with no
+barrier between their mortality and immortality! The railing itself was
+guarded every two yards by a yellow-legged constable, and at the
+sheep-pens stood the two European police-officers in whose hands the
+peace and order of the vast crowd lay. Their assistant stood at the
+exit gate at the other end, and their three white helmets showed
+strangely conspicuous amongst the bare or saffron-turbaned heads.
+
+The two at the sheep-pens were talking and laughing to each other as
+Englishmen will before business begins; talking and laughing London
+talk, for one of them was fresh from home furlough, and had only been
+detailed for this special duty, on his way up country.
+
+"Yes! I had a jolly day," he was saying. "The dear old Heath was
+looking just as it always did. It was like being born again to come
+back to the whole caboodle--Aunt Sallies, Tommy Dods, Welshers, and the
+lot--and then the enclosure--" A sudden sway in the crowd made him look
+round hastily at his own. It was all correct; so many yards this way,
+so many that, with yellow legs marking the yards, and those three white
+helmets marking the limits within which regeneration was legal.
+
+The sway ceased. The moment had not yet come, though slowly, surely,
+the light grew, to give the great mass of bronze faces a greyish,
+corpse-like tint, while, half way up the sky behind them, the serrated
+edge of the sacred snows grew pale, and cold, and stern, like the very
+face of Death itself.
+
+"_Hārī! Hārā! Hārā! Hārī!_"
+
+There was a note of anxiety in the cry now; for the shadow thrown by
+the tall houses which hemmed in the wide courtyard was growing paler,
+and in another minute, at most, the twelve-foot square of cleansing
+water, which was all the Gods vouchsafed, must surely begin to rise and
+show at the bottom of those worn stone steps--worn by generations on
+generations of golden-shod feet seeking immortality.
+
+"Stand back, please! Not yet!" came an English voice, inaudible for the
+rhythmic roar of the multitude; but the raised riding whip was
+sufficient. The eagerness died out for a moment from those nearest
+faces, lost in a cheerful obedience, a respectful _salaam_ or two, a
+general acquiescence.
+
+"I wish those devils of priests would turn on the tap," remarked the
+other Englishman with a yawn.
+
+"Yes!" answered the first speaker; "if you are on duty, next year, I'd
+insist on the curtain being rung up at the bill time. It is rough on
+the audience; especially when they don't cat-call!"
+
+He gave an imitation of a London gallery's sign of impatience, which
+made some of the golden-shod ones stare; for the rhythmic roar had died
+down in one of those sudden silences which seize upon humanity even
+when in masses. So that a faint "_rumpa-tum-tum-rumpa-tum-tum_" was
+distinctly audible from far. It was the _tom-tom_ of the old Brahmin,
+whom Lance Carlyon had seen selling the endless circles of cut papers
+as a whole pantheon of Gods.
+
+It is an eminently disturbing sound, that ceaseless, insistent throb of
+a _tom-tom_, which has no end, no beginning; which holds ever in its
+beat the necessity for something more; for another repetition, and yet
+another.
+
+So, on its ceaselessness, broke in again that swaying, pulsing roar of
+many voices.
+
+"_Hārī! Hārā!_ Life-Death-Creator-Destroyer!"
+
+"Something must have gone wrong with the ball-cock, and as usual, the
+plumber will be '_in directly from another little job_,'" said the man
+who had just come out from England, reminiscently. He had gone there to
+settle his wife and bairns in a jerry-built villa near London; so the
+memory of something beyond the iniquities of the plumber--those Borgias
+of modern life, dealing death unchecked, undiscovered--made his eyes
+pass beyond the crowd, pass the spires of the clustered temples, and
+settle on the still dark, western sky, over whose curved edge lay the
+goal of _his_ solitary feet, the end of _his_ pilgrimage, the cradle of
+_his_ divinities.
+
+"Stand back, please! not yet!" came his order again; and once more
+eagerness died down to obedience. Once more that cry on the Creator,
+the Destroyer, ended in that insistent, restless beat of the old
+god-selling Brahmin's drum.
+
+It was a strange scene. Above, was the growing light of day; below, the
+square stone font of immortality, and between them a clamouring crowd,
+a careless few.
+
+And between _them_ what?
+
+A light railing of bamboo, the dignity that doth hedge an empire. That
+was all.
+
+And now, with a sudden access of light, came the quick indrawing breath
+of thousands to voice a sort of sharp, short sob, followed by an
+instant's silence.
+
+Then, long, soft, with the hush in it of some huge wave far out at sea
+which swallows up a lesser one, the out-going breath of those thousands
+voiced a sigh.
+
+For the pool was still empty, though the dawn had come.
+
+Something was wrong.
+
+Seriously wrong, to judge by one English face, as it turned to give a
+look round, then settled on another English face. "There's something
+up--God knows what--the Commissioner feared a row, you know. You'd
+better go to the Fort and ask Dering to send us down every man he can;
+men, you understand, not sabres--as yet. And tell Pidar Narāyan, he's a
+host in himself with these pilgrims,--Ramanund too, you might get
+him,--we want anyone who can help the crowd to keep its temper, though
+I don't expect he'd be much good--and there's no one else. Inspector!"
+here the police officer turned to a silver-laced turban beside the
+outer pen, "leave that in charge of Govinda and Suchet--Stay! Shiv-deo
+will be better; he is a high-caste Brahmin. And you go and send every
+twice-born constable you've got, _and can trust_, to every alley and
+street that leads here; for there will be an awful crush when those
+in front don't move on. And--" he wrinkled his forehead in hasty
+thought--"have we anyone connected with the temple priests, someone
+they can trust? Ah! Annant, of course,--the very man! Send him to find
+out if there is anything really wrong; and--" he lowered his voice, "if
+it is anything to do with the siphon, or whatever it is, get workmen
+and set it straight--pour water down--anything! Only there _must be a
+miracle_. And be quick. If this crowd gets impatient--God help it!"
+
+The last was to himself as he looked round the solid packed mass of
+humanity. There was no sigh of impatience in it as yet; only eagerness.
+
+"And mind," he added, "no truncheons drawn till I myself give the
+order."
+
+The word passed in a low tone round the square of authority, and that
+done, the head of it pulled out his cigar case. He might as well smoke
+while he could.
+
+The crowd watched him, vaguely interested at his lack of interest in
+what was coming, until a faint forward sweep, a half-hearted shout came
+from behind; from those upturned faces which could not even see an
+Englishman lighting his cigar.
+
+"Not yet! Stand back!" said the latter again, as the pressure on the
+sheep pen grew. And they stood back, all save a miserable-looking,
+dirt-clad, wild-eyed mendicant, who had wormed his way to the front,
+and now feared to lose it.
+
+"Lo! brother," said big Govinda, a Sikh from Patiala, as he thrust him
+back gently, "have patience awhile. Give the Gods time. There is not
+water to wash a babe yet."
+
+Shiv-deo, taller even than Govinda, a Saraswati Brahmin, if ever there
+was one, at the other side of the pen, twirled his mustache airily, and
+laughed. "Nay, Govinda," he called, "let the beggar in. He seeks but to
+drown vermin."
+
+The rude jest served its turn, after the manner of policemen's jokes
+all over the world. The crowd close at hand tittered, caught up the
+cue, amused itself with additions; and those behind forgot the great
+question in curiosity. But not for long.
+
+"_Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!_"
+
+The roar of relief rose up tumultuously, the mass of people swayed with
+that curious sidelong motion of a forward crowd, as, in the clear
+light, a trickle of water showed through the crevices of the paving
+stones at the bottom of the tank.
+
+"Look out!" shouted the Englishman; but remonstrance in words was
+useless in that storm of sound. So big Govinda promptly snatched two
+intruders out of his pen, like puppies, by the scruff of their necks,
+one in each hand; and Shiv-deo, choosing out the nearest low-caste man
+unerringly, caught him in his arms like a baby, and literally tossed
+him on to the heads of the crowd, with a shout which, even in that
+uproar, could be heard of some in that nearest crush.
+
+"Brahmins first, washerman! Thy sort can bathe in the suds of our
+clothes!"
+
+And those who heard, ducked, and when the victim--who was _not_ a
+washerman--fell amongst them, hustled and silenced him, and nodded to
+the big man whose claim to dignity was writ so plain upon his face.
+
+But despite ready wit and sheer strength, one determined fellow would
+have made good his entrance, and so served as a bell-wether to that
+overwhelming flock, if a white hand and arm with silver buttons
+on the cuff--holding a silver-mounted hunting-crop, clubbed savagely
+short--had not come down-glinting in the first sunray like a
+sword--clear on the bare head as it ducked under the barrier.
+
+The intruder, a big burly devotee, dropped on his face like a stone;
+then, to the striker's relief, sat up, and apparently howled;
+apparently, because that rhythmic roar smothered all individual sound.
+
+"_Hārā! Hārī! Hārā! Hārī!_"
+
+Suddenly, as it had begun, it stopped; for that faint inrush of water
+had stopped also; stopped, hesitated, then sunk out of sight again with
+a sort of drowning gurgle that came as an accompaniment to the only
+other sound; the insistent throbbing of the old God-maker's drum in the
+distance.
+
+"Not enough pressure!" murmured the police officer to himself, judging
+that an attempt had been made to fill the tank in some new way. Then he
+frowned. There would be pressure enough and to spare among the crowd
+soon, most likely. What could be done to prevent it?
+
+"Halt! by your right--single file!"
+
+The order came, far back, from the widest street, and it was full ten
+minutes ere Lance Carlyon, with a following of Sikh pioneers, armed
+with spades and picks, could edge through the crowd, though it still
+yielded room to authority without a murmur. He had been on his way with
+a fatigue party to finish clearing the camp, when the assistant
+superintendent of police had met him, in the bazaar, and told him he
+was wanted.
+
+"Send four of your men to clear the mud from the crevices of the
+stones," said the police officer, seizing on a possible diversion
+gladly, "it will serve to keep the crowd amused till Dering brings his
+men down."
+
+As the four stalwart pioneers stepped to their work of making miracles,
+a stir of expectation ran through those first rows who could see.
+"Surely," they said to each other, "if the Masters took the job in
+hand, the Gods must needs send the water."
+
+"Of a surety!" said Shiv-deo, catching the comment. "Do not the Gods
+always befriend the bold? Do not we, of Harriana, find the sacred river
+which the devils hid, though we have to dig three-hundred-feet wells to
+find it?"
+
+This allusion to the extraordinarily deep wells dug by the peasantry in
+the almost rainless tract beneath which, so the legend goes, the river
+Saraswati still runs, passed from mouth to mouth consolingly.
+
+Yea, if devils hid water, men found it.
+
+Why not these men? since nothing was impossible to a miracle.
+
+The sun was shining broadly now, as if it had been up for hours, and
+showed, far as the eye could reach down every lane and street and
+alley, nothing but that sea of upturned faces converging to one centre;
+wonderfully still, wonderfully patient.
+
+"I wish someone would stop that cursed drum," said Lance, suddenly,
+"it's enough to give anyone the fidgets. I feel myself--" he broke off,
+and his memory going back to his jesting remark to Erda, his young face
+clouded. Was it possible he should never see her again? Was it possible
+that the Reverend David was to claim his paradise? He felt savage at
+the very thought, impatient, full of an almost righteous anger at
+everything, especially the drum-banger for making such an infernal
+noise.
+
+And now, far back as before, an English voice could be heard giving an
+order. It was to loosen scabbards this time, and the police officer
+looked up hastily. It meant that, for the first time, the crowd must be
+hesitating in its quick obedience to command; perhaps because most of
+the troopers were Mahomedans.
+
+"I hope they'll get through without using them," said the man
+responsible for peace and order, "but, steady! please, in case of a
+rush. Remember that if we yield more foot-room, someone _must_ fall;
+then there will be the devil to pay. At present they are so tight
+packed they can't."
+
+That, indeed, was the position. So long as authority could prevent
+those few yards of clear space about the pool being encroached upon,
+there was safety. So the barrier of men waited anxiously.
+
+But no rush came; the reason of this being made clear when the file of
+troopers appeared, led by old Pidar Narāyan, who had joined the party
+at the crucial moment, and piloted them through the crowd, which gave
+way to his well-known figure with absolute alacrity. He turned at the
+entrance, to hold up his hand in priestly fashion.
+
+"Patience, my children!" he said sternly. "Tarry ye the Lord's leisure!
+Let Him do what seemeth Him good!"
+
+The idea, familiar to the least of them, brought instant assent and a
+sort of relieved sigh from those who heard it. Here was something they
+could understand. A man, set apart from others by his dress, his life,
+his invariable assumption of authority, his unquestioned claim to be
+mediator between the dim, inaccessible Creator and his creatures, to be
+interpreter of the hidden Mind.
+
+But the police officer heaved _his_ sigh of relief over the appearance
+of more matter. His barrier could now be one of men, standing shoulder
+to shoulder.
+
+And such a barrier would soon be needed, since this latest contingent
+brought discouraging news. The priests were helpless. The secret supply
+had somehow been tampered with, but where, not even they could tell
+without help. And though they had sent, long before dawn, to both Am-ma
+and Gu-gu--the only two men likely to know anything or be able to do
+anything--neither could be found.
+
+"And won't be," interrupted Vincent, suddenly remembering, as he
+listened, what he had seen the night before. "They are most likely in
+the plot; one of them, at any rate, was going up the Hāri in a dug-out
+late last night."
+
+"Not Am-ma," put in Lance. "He started before that to go up the Hāra
+and pilot down a raft for the forest officer. I met him as I came back
+to dinner."
+
+"Well, he is not get-at-able anyhow, and that's all we have to
+consider," said the police officer. "Briefly, the miracle is off the
+bill. Now, how the deuce are we to get the audience to go away
+peacefully?"
+
+"Perhaps if I, as a fellow-countryman, and a Brahmin, were to address
+them--" began Ramanund, who had come down with Pidar Narāyan, feeling
+important at being summoned.
+
+The latter turned to the man, whom he knew had long since rejected the
+faith of his fathers, and, so to speak, thrown the Almighty overboard
+to lighten his ship.
+
+"You cannot argue with that, my son!" he said gently, pointing to the
+sea of patient, yet eager, faces. "No one of your sort ever has, in all
+the history of the world. _That_ does not reason. It feels. Show it
+another miracle, and it will worship. Give it a cause, and it will
+espouse it. Give it a lead, and it will follow; but words--never!"
+
+"Well, I hope to God no one will supply it with the wrong lead!" put in
+the police officer. "For the rest, we must hold the fort, I suppose.
+Inspector! when is the show--the miracle, I mean,--supposed to end?"
+
+"Not till sunset, sir," said the man, _salaaming_.
+
+"And it's now about six, I suppose. Eleven hours!" He took out his
+cigar-case and counted. "Yes! I'll last through. Inspector! Close your
+men in, and let them stand at ease. Captain Dering, if you can spare
+yours till then, I shall be obliged."
+
+"Certainly. I left a troop with Roshan Khān, and orders to send word of
+any disturbance; and I wired to Dillon in case--"
+
+Father Ninian shook his head. "There is no fear till this is settled."
+He pointed to the Pool.
+
+And he was right. All through the long hot hours the crowd waited.
+Sometimes the cry, "_Hārā! Hārī!_" burst out, to be followed by a faint
+rush. Sometimes the great mass stood silent, listening to the insistent
+throbbing of the old God-maker's drum in the distance, but through it
+all the note was patience. And it was patience, also, in the square
+enclosure of authority. Sometimes a would-be intruder would be lifted
+like a puppy, and chucked back to his fellows. Once or twice an English
+arm would go up, and come down on some more wilful head; but that was
+all.
+
+And far away at the Fort the gong chimed the hours regularly up to
+twelve, and begun at one again.
+
+But there was no fuss, no noise. The crowd stood their ground, giving
+no inch, and authority stood its ground and yielded none, since in that
+lay safety for all.
+
+So, with a horrible slowness, the day dragged on, until at last the red
+sun sank behind the levels beyond the gaol; and the strain was over!
+
+"I'll take a biscuit in my pocket next time," said the police officer,
+cheerfully, as, bit by bit, the stones of the courtyard began to show
+between the golden-shod feet. "Inspector! send your men to quarters,
+and let them eat their food." Then he walked over and looked down into
+the deep empty tank.
+
+"It might have been full up," he said. "We couldn't have stopped them
+for a moment if they had had any sort of a lead over. And from what you
+told the Commissioner, sir,"--he turned to Father Ninian--"I was afraid
+of one."
+
+The old priest stood watching the crowd disperse for a moment in
+silence.
+
+"So was I," he said, "but I was mistaken, so far. Still, there is
+danger in the air. I feel it. I hear it."
+
+And as he spoke, above the hum of the crowd, silent no longer, rose
+that insistent throbbing of the old God-maker's drum.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XVIII
+
+                                ADRIFT
+
+
+Erda Shepherd stood in her bedroom, under the wood-shingled house at
+Herrnhut, looking at a heap of white muslin and delicate embroideries
+which lay upon her bed.
+
+It was the wedding dress. She had just unpacked it; partly because she
+felt _déc[oe]uvré_, partly in the hope that the sight of it, ready to
+be worn so soon, would still the vague disquiet of which she was
+conscious. Yet if anyone had ventured to suggest, when she had said
+good-by to Lance Carlyon the evening before,--said good-by almost
+carelessly, by reason of the fervid enthusiasm which absorbed
+her,--that within twenty-four hours the wisdom of the farewell should
+seem logically doubtful, she would have been desperately angry.
+
+But she was too honest to deny that the doubt had come. Come in a
+moment, wildly, passionately, when they had thwarted her desire of
+joining in the crusade over the other side of the river along the
+pilgrims' road. She had meant to go with David, who was to take up his
+position at a camping-ground some six miles off, and she had fought
+hard for the privilege. But they had quoted Scripture at her to prove
+that a wife, or a wife to be, must needs hamper a man more than any
+other woman, even his sister. David had been kind about it, almost too
+kind. She flushed a little at the recollection of his words, his look;
+for that sort of thing had scarcely come into her calculations. But Dr.
+Campbell had pompously reminded her that her future profession would be
+wife, caretaker, sympathizer, and general bolsterer--up to a worker.
+Nor need she think the task small; it was the noblest one a woman could
+have. He had gone on to comfort her with instances of such general
+support from his own life and those of his friends, until, with a
+flash, that unexpected questioning had come to the girl's mind. She had
+asked herself what difference there was in the nobility of being one
+man's wife or another's--provided the man was worthy and his work in
+the world good?
+
+Father Ninian's words, "_I can wish no better wish for you and for the
+world_," had come back to her then, as if in answer to her questioning.
+
+And, even now, they echoed in her heart. The house was very quiet, very
+shadowy, for the sun left the little oasis of valley set in its
+circling wilderness of hill, long before a fraction of light faded from
+the sky above it. She could hear Mrs. Campbell's voice down the little
+ladder-like stairs, conferring with the cook over the wedding cake,
+and, in a side-issue, exhorting him to be sure and have the soup hot in
+case the workers might return exhausted, and require something to eat
+the moment they arrived.
+
+Erda sat down on the bed beside the white muslin, and fingered the
+quaint little cap idly, as she told herself that such things would be a
+part of her duties in the future.
+
+But only a part. Life was no unknown country to this girl, who had
+spent years in a medical mission. She was no ignorant baby, standing,
+in a fashion happily past, on the verge of she knew not what. She
+looked ahead calmly, taking the world as the Creator made it. She
+thought, without a flush, as good women do, of the children she hoped
+might come; and as she thought, she frowned, not from any revolt of her
+spiritual or physical nature, but because, once more, the question
+arose: "Was not Lance right? Was not this the essence? Was it not
+everything to be sure of the inheritance?"
+
+She started up at the sound of her aunt calling her, glad of the
+interruption.
+
+Had she not better, the good lady suggested, try on the dress, now she
+was about it, since if there was anything amiss, the sooner the tailor
+set to work to rectify it the better.
+
+Undoubtedly. Besides, she told herself, the mere putting on of this,
+the sign of her new profession, would be healthful. It would give her
+the feeling of being set apart for the life which she had chosen
+deliberately, chosen with her eyes open, though, maybe, focussed too
+much on that mental companionship. Too much? Impossible! Lance was
+wrong. That was the crowning glory of marriage; and even if it seemed
+hard to have to stand aside from actually fighting the good fight, the
+victory would be hers--hers almost more than her husband's, since the
+effort would be greater, the work more against the grain.
+
+Yes, she would try on the dress; and if it did not fit perfectly, what
+matter?
+
+Was anything in the world perfect? Yet it should be as perfect as she
+could compass; even the little cap should not lack its bunch of orange
+blossoms! As she told herself this she was for the time womanhood
+incarnate; womanhood playing, with dainty little tendernesses and
+conceits, about the abyss for which it is responsible. So, with the
+smile of an angel, she passed into the garden, the old militant feeling
+at her heart. Her feet were on the golden stairs. She was going to
+regain the lost Paradise hand in hand with one of those whom she had
+driven from it. They were going to forget all the consequences of that
+mistake. They were going to be--what?...
+
+The vague confusion did not prevent her feeling that she was absolutely
+certain she was on the right path. Indeed, the only regret of which she
+was conscious was one that she was not on the other side of the river,
+on the pilgrims' road, with the rest of the mission.
+
+She stood looking over to the frowning cliffs from the little wooden
+landing-stage, built out at the bottom of the garden into the wide
+shallows of the river, which here showed scarcely a streak or dimple of
+current. She could see the mission boat lying moored on the other side,
+against the fighters' return.
+
+Yet the very idea of fight seemed impossible, she thought, in that
+utter peacefulness and stillness. The rim of dark hills circled the
+jewel of the sun-bright sky tenderly, as if it sought to keep in the
+heavy, sweet perfume of the orange blossoms which starred every tree in
+the wide, fruitful garden. They were famous oranges, those in the
+Herrnhut garden; grafts brought by a missionary from Malta. Mrs.
+Campbell, notable woman as she was, made a steady income for good works
+out of the sale of the great red-skinned, red-hearted fruit, and prided
+herself in keeping them later on her trees than anyone in India.
+Indeed, in the shadier, colder alleys some were still hanging side by
+side with the new blossoms. A sort of example to these novices, showing
+them what their real work in the world ought to be! Erda, smiling at
+her own conceit, stroked one of the warm yet stainless petals in the
+bunch she held as if it were a sentient thing. Perhaps it was. Who
+knows!
+
+As she turned to go back, warned by a softening of the sky that the
+time was later than she thought, something showed rounding the smooth,
+silver bend of the river above; and she paused, shading her eyes with
+her hand, to see what it was.
+
+A raft. The first of the rafts of wood which at certain seasons were
+floated down the river to Eshwara. Am-ma's raft, most likely, which he
+had told her he had to pilot.
+
+Yes! There he was on the quaint contrivance which the river folk used
+for journeys down stream. A common string bed, no more, no less,
+supported between inflated bladders of skin. The sight of it gave her a
+pang to think that she would never more go bobbing, sidling, dipping,
+racing on one of them, as the mission folk always did when they wanted
+to stay the last possible minute of holiday at Herrnhut, and get back
+to Eshwara as quickly as they could. For it took half the time of the
+winding road, when the river, as now, was quiet and manageable. And
+Am-ma was the most dexterous manager of the singular craft. There he
+was, paddling for dear life; now leaping to his great pile of timber,
+steering it with his paddle round a bend, then back to his string bed
+with the tow rope, to haul the rudderless mass to a straight line
+again.
+
+If she had time, she thought, she would have asked him to take her,
+just once more, as far as the ferry, two miles below. Then she might
+have walked back through the fields. She had often taken the pleasant
+little trip with Am-ma. There was no danger so far; but after that,
+when the river began to slip and slide, even he had sometimes to cut a
+raft adrift and trust to catching it again in smoother water; since it
+was not pleasant to have such a crushing neighbour in the eddies and
+swirls of a lasher.
+
+As she stood watching him, she saw him pause, looking towards her, then
+leap from the raft and come paddling down stream. He had evidently seen
+her waiting on the landing-stage, and thought she wanted him; so she
+shook her head and began to walk back to the house. As she did so an
+orange caught her eye under a tree, whence it had fallen from sheer
+red-gold ripeness, and, knowing how Mrs. Campbell mourned a single
+loss, she gathered it up and took it with her.
+
+Back in her own room, she began to pin her bunch of blossoms in her cap
+hurriedly, for she had lingered longer in the garden than she had
+intended, and there was a chance, only a chance, that those much to be
+envied Church-militants might return and claim her attention.
+
+Still, hurried as she was, she knelt down beside the bed for a moment
+or two, and, with her clasped hands laid almost caressingly among the
+soft muslin, prayed that she might wear this symbol of her entry into a
+new profession worthily.
+
+So, scarcely looking at herself in the glass which, indeed, was too
+small to show her more than a rather pale face smiling under a quaint
+little cap, she dressed hastily. Her aunt would be able to tell her if
+there was anything wrong in the lighter rooms below; here, under the
+roof, it was already a little dark. Then catching up the orange, she
+ran downstairs, wondering if the bridal blossoms always smelt so
+overpoweringly strong, and thinking that, if it was so, they must make
+the trying ceremony still more trying to one who disliked to have
+strong scents about them, as she did.
+
+Her aunt was not to be seen in the dining room, so Erda parted the
+heavy curtains which, in Indian fashion, divided it from the
+drawing-room, and looked in to see if she were there.
+
+It was at all times a dark room, especially in late afternoon, as now;
+but the light from behind her sent a shaft straight to the pier glass
+which stood--the joy of Mrs. Campbell's heart--just opposite the
+curtains; so making--as the good lady used fondly to say--the room look
+much larger than it really was to those entering it.
+
+But what the girl saw in it to-day was no illusory enlargement of
+actualities, no idealization of fact. It was something real, something
+not to be explained away, exaggerated, or minimized. It was a woman,
+tall, slender, robed in white; a woman with red-gold hair, edged by the
+light behind her; a woman with a red-gold apple in her hand.
+
+She stood arrested before herself; helpless before the memory of a
+voice--
+
+"All straight folds--the sunshine on your hair, and a red-gold apple in
+your hand--the World's Desire!"
+
+And she had refused him _his_. She stood for a second, not thinking at
+all; simply, with a rush, feeling the truth, feeling herself.
+
+Then with a queer little cry which might have been his name had it been
+articulate, she broke adrift. Broke, for the time, from all moorings,
+and possessed with but the one idea that she _could_ not do one thing,
+that she _must_ do another, she turned to the garden, and,--the
+red-gold fruit still in her hand,--hurried breathlessly through the
+waning light, through the dead-sweet perfume of the blossoms, till she
+found herself, she knew not why--save that she must have air, have
+space--upon the edge of the river.
+
+There was something now swaying idly against the landing-stage;
+a rude craft buoyed up by air! And there was a rude sort of man in
+it,--comprehending, yet uncomprehending,--primitive, simple, expectant.
+"_Huzoor!_" he said, with broad smiles and outstretched hand. "I have
+been waiting the _Huzoor's_ pleasure. The Presence will go whither?"
+
+Whither?
+
+Even in her excitement the quaint coincidence struck her as absurd, and
+yet it seemed to sweep her further still from her moorings.
+
+Whither?
+
+She gave that queer little cry again, and this time it was "Lance!
+Lance!"
+
+"Whither did the Miss-_sahiba_ say?" asked Am-ma gravely.
+
+The cry turned to a strange laugh. "To Eshwara--where else does the
+river go--where else?"
+
+The strange, frail boat was sidling against the landing-stage in the
+pulse of the river; her stranger, frailer self was adrift on the
+greater river of life. And a hand, heedless, seeing nothing strange in
+either, careless of all the fine-drawn niceties of culture, had hold of
+hers.
+
+"So, straight to the centre, _Huzoor!_ I have placed the seat
+correctly. That is right! The Miss-_sahiba_ recollects the old rules;
+we shall be in Eshwara before dawn!"
+
+She sat down mechanically, feeling only that she was adrift--adrift on
+the river that went to Eshwara--where else--and that she was glad; glad
+because she could not stay, because she could not face--
+
+And then the thought came of facing something else--_his_ glad delight
+when she came floating down the river--not dead, like the Lily Maid to
+Lancelot--but alive--a woman with a red-gold apple in her hand--
+
+She sat staring at what she held, as if hypnotized by its colour,
+absolutely unconscious of anything else till Am-ma's voice came
+stolidly.
+
+"We must pick up the raft first, _Huzoor_. This slave let it drift
+while he waited for the Miss; but we shall find it at the ferry."
+
+At the ferry! The familiar idea startled her from dreams to the
+reality.
+
+How came she there? What had she done? What did this mean? A flush of
+intolerable shame swept to her face; she rose to escape. But Am-ma's
+warning hand was on hers in an instant; that hand, so heedless of so
+many limitations, so certain here that there was no escape from _these_
+limitations.
+
+"The Miss-_sahiba_ forgets," he said deferentially. "When one is in the
+stream there is no change possible; but if the place is not right we
+can alter it at the ferry."
+
+She sat down again, telling herself this was true. She could alter it
+at the ferry. She could walk home through the fields. No one need know
+(the quaint craft, rocking itself back to balance, made her feel
+giddy), her dress was only muslin, she could remove the cap; if
+necessary, borrow a shawl from the bible-woman near the ferry, saying
+she had not thought it would be so chilly.
+
+She buried her face in both her hands in a sort of despairing revolt at
+the duplicity, so, with the red-gold fruit in her lap, sat trying to
+think. But she could not. The scent of the orange blossoms seemed to
+cloud her senses. So she raised her face again, and stared at the
+river. Why had she done this? Why had she put this thing, that she must
+always conceal, into her life? There would always, now, be something
+she could not say straight out; and yet if she lived to be a hundred
+the memory of it would never fade; it would be as fresh as it was now
+when she died, with David's hand in hers!
+
+The intolerable humiliation of it stung deep; the instinct to escape
+rose fiercely.
+
+"Be quick!" she cried, seeing Am-ma idle, letting the current do the
+work. "I want to get there as soon as possible. I must, or something
+worse may happen. There isn't a moment to spare!"
+
+Am-ma bent towards her from his seat astride a skin air-bag. "Did they
+kill anyone?" he asked, in sudden interest. "Did the prisoners escape
+as it was arranged? And was it Carlone-_sahib_ they killed?--they swore
+it should be he, because he laughed at the miracle."
+
+"The prisoners--Carlone-_sahib_--killed!" she echoed stupidly. Then
+with a great throb of the heart she realized that here might be
+something of more importance than her self-humiliation. Had Father
+Ninian been right? Had there really been some conspiracy afoot, and had
+Am-ma heard?
+
+"I have had no news from Eshwara, Am-ma," she said boldly, "what is
+this about prisoners escaping, and the _sahib-logue_ being killed? Who
+was going to do that?"
+
+Am-ma looked crestfallen. "I thought the _Huzoor_ had heard--that
+_that_ was why she was going. It is nothing. Idle talk. It is always
+talk. And the _Huzoors_ have the _Dee-puk-rāg_. They must still be
+kings."
+
+"Am-ma," she interrupted sternly, "you must tell me about this. If you
+do not, I will take my hand off your son's head--I will never--"
+
+He almost dropped his paddle in absolute terror. "_Huzoor_" he said
+helplessly, "it is talk, idle talk. It is always so. All day long, and
+all night long in the bazaars, and the Masters have the _Dee-puk-rāg_.
+There is no fear; but this slave will tell."
+
+They were almost opposite the ferry before he had finished his tale,
+and she had grasped the whole tissue of trivialities which yet went to
+make up so formidable a possibility.
+
+The discontent and dread regarding the canal, the strange lights,
+the deaths in gaol, the return of the cursed corpse, Gopi--the
+ticket-of-leave man's--talk of revenge if the cleansing water should
+fail.
+
+Much of this was new to her, but it hung together with what she already
+knew; and yet it seemed incredible! What could be the object? What
+could they expect to do? Here Am-ma had smiled inscrutably, and said
+the Miss did not know bazaar talk. Everything was possible to it. Had
+they not even spoken of making a new Nawab out of Roshan Khān, the
+_risaldar?_ indeed, had not the _jemedar_ at the palace already treated
+him as one?
+
+And the Pool of Immortality? Had it risen or not? Am-ma could not say.
+They had asked him with bribes and threats to do the job--that was only
+the priest's revenge, but it would serve other purposes too--but he had
+refused, partly because he had to come away, and partly because he was
+the servant of the Light-bringers. As to when the prisoners were to
+escape he could not say. To-day, perhaps to-morrow, most likely never;
+unless something really happened. It was talk. The Miss need have no
+fear. The _Huzoors_, having the _Dee-puk-rāg_, must needs be safe, and
+Carlone-_sahib_ was a real hero; none braver, none stronger.
+
+That decided her. She had been counting costs as she listened. An hour,
+say, back to Herrnhut. Even if anyone were there, which was uncertain,
+half an hour at least to start a messenger. Then the boat might be at
+the other side of the river. Then all those miles, on a rough road at
+night!
+
+"When shall we get to Eshwara?" she asked.
+
+"At the turn of the night and day if the river is kind," said Am-ma,
+but he looked doubtfully into a copper tint that remained in the sky,
+though the sun must have set behind the mountains. It had a curious
+effect, that copper-coloured dome above the rim of almost black hills,
+with the river, dark, mysterious, already beginning to slide towards
+the narrowing ravine. It did not strike her that she herself, adrift on
+that river in what was to be her wedding dress, with prehistoric,
+aboriginal Am-ma as pilot to her and a lumber raft, would have had a
+still more curious effect to a spectator's eyes. But there were none,
+and it was already almost dark.
+
+"Am-ma," she said, "I will give you fifty rupees, and keep my hand on
+the son's head, if you will leave the raft here, and take me as quick
+as you can to Eshwara--to the little steps below the fort--fifty whole
+rupees!"
+
+He shook his head and grinned, partly at his own superlative honesty.
+"We should not go so fast, _Huzoor_, now the slide is near," he said;
+"for, see you, the raft is the wood-_sahib's_ new shape. It is a good
+shape; it came down the rapids above the valley like a boat, faster
+than _this_, when the paddle cannot be used. It will take us with it. I
+will fasten _this_ behind, and steer. Then in the slacker water when
+the paddle is possible, we will leave it; if the Miss-_sahiba_ is in a
+hurry. But there is none. The _Huzoors_ are Light-bringers." He had
+already paddled alongside the raft,--a boat-shaped mass of huge logs
+rising towards the back--and, leaping to it, came back, after a moment,
+with the tow-rope.
+
+"It shall do the work," he said, with another grin, as he fastened the
+air-buoyed bed to a ring placed for the purpose in one of the logs.
+Then he clucked emphatically. "Lo! who would grudge men's brains to the
+Masters when they are clever as the Gods themselves? The Miss will see
+how fast this goes. We shall be at Eshwara before the night turns to
+day."
+
+Something in his tone warned her that the recurrence of the phrase was
+not pure chance.
+
+"That is when the prisoners were to escape?" she said quickly.
+
+He did not affirm or deny it. "So many things happen in the fight of
+Dawn," he said affably. That was all; but she thought rapidly. The
+rising, or whatever the conspiracy aimed at, could scarcely have
+happened just after they left Eshwara the night before. In that case
+the news must have followed them on the road. Therefore, if it was to
+happen at all, if this were not all talk--and Father Ninian's words
+came to make her doubt its being so--it would happen in a few hours. So
+she must be there in time to give warning.
+
+As she thought this, a sudden strain at the tow-rope, a quick dip of
+the boat-shaped prow of the raft, a louder swish of the water as it
+curved out from its rising stern, told her she was adrift, indeed, on
+the way to Eshwara! It seemed almost more incredible than what had gone
+before. But there was nothing to be ashamed of here. It was the only
+possible thing to do under the circumstances. Her journey might prove
+unnecessary, but it might not; and supposing anything should really
+happen--to--to _anybody_--she would never be able to forgive herself
+if, knowing this chance of danger, she had not done her best to avert
+it.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIX
+
+                                JULIET
+
+
+The copper-coloured glow, into which weather-wise Am-ma had looked,
+distrustfully, as it domed the little valley set in its rim of hills,
+had replaced that of sunset in Eshwara also, and Pidar Narāyan's eyes,
+weather-wise as the fisherman's, looked at it as doubtfully, as he
+walked home with Lance and Vincent Dering when the long strain at the
+Pool of Immortality was over.
+
+"If it were not so early in the year, I should predict a dust-storm--a
+real electrical dust-storm," he said.
+
+Lance, whose hands were full of cut-paper Gods--for in obedience to a
+sudden impulse, he had stopped on his way through the crowd to buy up
+the old Brahmin's whole stock in trade, and give him an extra eight
+annas to go away and not drum any more--looked up also, and filled his
+broad chest with a great breath. "Perhaps that is it. I've felt choking
+all day--horrid!"
+
+Vincent Dering laughed. "I don't choke--I tingle; and it is rather
+jolly. Yes, sir; there is a lot of electricity in the air, and I
+shouldn't wonder if we had a regular black snorter. Glad it didn't come
+in the middle of the miracle '_biz_', for, as a general smasher-up of
+ordinary experiences, commend me to a real electrical dust-storm! It
+seems to attract the earth, earthy, in everything. In fact, if there is
+such a thing as the Devil, and he ever gets the upper hand, it is
+then--"
+
+Father Ninian turned to him quickly, and then to the crowd,-through
+which they were still cleaving that curiously acquiescent way which
+white faces still cleave through dark ones--"Then I trust, my son," he
+said gently, "that for your sake and _theirs_ the storm may not come."
+
+"Or that there isn't a Satanic majesty!" retorted Captain Dering,
+cynically. "That, sir, is the easiest way out of the difficulty."
+
+Lance had looked round on the crowd also. "Well! if there is," he said,
+"and I had to paint him, I'd take that man's face as my model for
+Lucifer." He pointed to a _gosain_ who was forming the centre of a
+group of gossipers round a syrup-seller's shop, and added--for he knew
+his Milton as well as his Shakespeare--"_The superior fiend who gives
+not Heav'n for lost!_"
+
+"Looks a bad lot, I admit," remarked Vincent, carelessly. "Have an idea
+I've seen him before; in gaol, I believe. Yes! I'm sure of it. He is
+the fellow Dillon told me was going to get his ticket-of-leave for good
+conduct. He looks scoundrel enough for that! But really, sir--" he
+turned to Father Ninian again--"I think we may count on their behaviour
+now." He indicated the crowd. "If there was going to be a row it would
+have come off before this; now they will settle down, you'll see, and
+go on to the next camping-ground to-morrow morning as if nothing had
+gone wrong. They are such creatures of habit; you could see that from
+their sticking on in expectation of that footling old miracle all day!"
+
+Father Ninian, in that curiously irrelevant way he had, put on the gold
+_pince-nez_ which always dangled over his black soutane, and looked
+round him again. "They will settle down," he said quietly, "if nothing
+new crops up to give them a lead into new ways. That is always the
+danger; and a very small thing does it, sometimes, in India."
+
+They had reached the courtyard which lay between the palace and the
+Fort, and with a wave of his hand in farewell, he passed along the wall
+to the former, while the others, striking across the raised union-jack
+of paths, made for the latter. The yard was crammed with pilgrims on
+their way to bathe on the river steps.
+
+"Who the deuce are those fellows?" said Vincent, angrily, as half a
+dozen figures slipped out through the door in the bastion, as they
+approached, and mixing with the crowd, got lost in it, while the door
+was closed behind them by some unseen hand. "I'll talk to Roshan about
+that. He was complaining only this morning that the men were breaking
+out of barracks. What else can he expect if he doesn't look out. By
+Jove! I'll teach 'em!"
+
+His first words, indeed, as he entered the outer courtyard of the Fort,
+was to order a sentry down to close the doors against all comers
+without a written pass from him, and as he went by the guard-house he
+gave rather a sharp reprimand to Roshan Khān, who happened to be
+outside, for not having kept his eyes open while in charge of the Fort
+during his absence. No one was in future to use the small door; the key
+was to be brought to him, and all passes were to be stopped for that
+night.
+
+"Roshan looks in a demon bad temper. I wonder what's up?" remarked
+Lance, casually, as he passed on through a wicket in the massive closed
+gates to the inner courtyard, where the officers' quarters lay, hugging
+the river wall. It was quite a citadel, a distinct fortification of
+itself, with no entrance or exit except through the outer yard, or by
+the little flight of steps leading down to the river, at the foot of
+which Lance moored his canoe.
+
+"He has been sulky as a bear with me these last few days," replied
+Captain Dering, with a contemptuous smile. "I believe the old Colonel
+was right after all, and coming here has put wind in his head. I shall
+have to teach Mr. Roshan that, good man as he is, he is only a
+_risaldar_, before long."
+
+"Poor devil," said Lance under his breath. "I'm always a bit sorry for
+Roshan. He would be a fine fellow--if--if he wasn't so--so civilized."
+
+"Civilized," echoed Vincent, with a laugh. "You haven't seen him fight.
+I have. Talk of devils; he has got one in him, if you like!"
+
+He certainly had at that moment, when, having gone straight to his
+quarters after Vincent's reprimand, he found himself alone, and free to
+show his feelings.
+
+And yet, had he been calm, he could scarcely have told wherein
+the grievance lay which for the moment clamoured for--no--not
+redress--revenge.
+
+It was not the first time that he had had to ignore hints, innuendoes,
+suggestions of Heaven knows what impossible intrigues, as he had had
+that very afternoon. It was not the first time that, in his position as
+intermediary between the ignorance of the native soldier and the
+ignorance of the English officer, he had had to '_ca' canny_,' so as
+not to alienate the confidence of either. Indeed, the consciousness of
+the necessity for this, by enhancing the value of his services, had
+always been a pride to him hitherto. And these particular intrigues
+were so childish; especially if--he paused in his angry pacing of the
+room, and smiled complacently. Why should he give a thought to an
+impossible plan, when a possible one lay ready to his hand? If he
+married Laila, the land, almost the title, would be his of right. It
+would be easy anyhow to regain. Then with a fresh frown, he remembered
+Vincent's order. That would upset his plans. He had meant to slip out
+by the bastion gate just before--say an hour before--dawn, and cross
+over to the palace. Akbar Khān had arranged to be there to let him into
+the garden. Now he must make other arrangements. He must find the old
+eunuch, change the hour and the place; since nothing--no! not all the
+tyranny in the world--should prevent his carrying out his intention of
+seeing his cousin, and claiming her as his--his by right. So he must
+settle this at once; settle it before there was any chance, he told
+himself bitterly, of his superior officer coming out of the mess--where
+no doubt he was guzzling swine's flesh and bibbing wine--(that faint
+amaze at the presence in his own mind of such antiquated half-forgotten
+ideas assailed him again at this point) to encroach further on his
+liberty, his privileges.
+
+He had to pass the troopers' lines on his way to the main gate, and the
+quick _salaams_, the ready smiles given him by the men, as they lounged
+and smoked after their long day on duty, soothed his pride.
+
+The Captain had certainly said they had behaved well--kindly, and
+discreetly; but whose merit was that? The Englishman's who gave the
+word of command, or his, who had drilled them to obedience, who lived
+with them day and night? Without such as he, a native regiment could
+not be managed, if he chose to give the word. He would not, of course,
+but if he chose--
+
+He set his teeth as he walked out of the Fort, and met at its very gate
+that surging tide of patient, eager faces drifting on, and back again,
+aimlessly.
+
+He need not, as a matter of fact, have feared any further interference
+from Vincent Dering, for the latter, being very tired after the long
+day in the sun, and having reason to know that part of the night time,
+at any rate, which is usually given to sleep would be employed in
+something better, had, after staving off hunger with what the cook
+would produce at a moment's notice, and postponing the dinner hour,
+gone to sleep deliberately, advising Lance to do the same.
+
+But the latter had, rather to his own surprise, found this impossible;
+not even over a cigar in the balcony above the sliding, rushing river,
+the sound of which was as a rule sleep-compelling, would sleep come;
+not even in the cool darkness which was settling on Eshwara, despite
+the curious hint of glow lingering in the sky.
+
+The air was too electrical, he decided. And then--Erda! He had slept
+the night before, after she had said good-by so carelessly, without
+realizing that the good-by was for ever. And he had not had time to
+think all day. But now, at rest in the cool darkness, looking from his
+lounge chair down the river to that other balcony, he did realize it.
+For ever! Yes! that regret was in his life for ever. And he was so
+young. Only twenty-five.
+
+Why had this come to him?
+
+Erda! Erda,--his heart's desire.
+
+He sat there voiceless, sucking mechanically at a cigar, long since
+gone out; but that was as much the cry at his heart as if he had
+allowed himself a fine frenzy of despair in older fashion.
+
+And he imagined her as he had seen her--this way, that way, every way,
+in an unending torture of visions--until he exhausted reality, and
+fancy showed her to him in her wedding dress. And then he felt as if he
+could kill the Reverend David Campbell without shame or fear. He was
+vaguely ashamed of the lack of shame, however, especially when his
+fancy led him into endless mishaps which might befall a man, especially
+a missionary, before his wedding day.
+
+"_There they ate a missionary_--"
+
+Yes, sometimes; but there was not much time left for that sort of
+end--
+
+What a brute he was, when the only thing that mattered was that she
+should be happy and content.
+
+But would she be so?
+
+It went on and on and on, the controversy between himself and that
+other self, so that he felt worn, and harassed, and dirty, and
+altogether undesirable, when Vincent, about nine o'clock, reappeared,
+dapper and scented as usual, in his mess kit, and expressed surprise at
+finding his companion still undressed. He was hungry as a hunter, he
+said; besides he wanted to have a decent interval between dinner and
+turning in. And _that_ must be early, for he had just heard from the
+police authorities that though everything was quiet for the night,
+absolutely quiet, they thought it would be safer to have the Pool
+guarded again at dawn, in case of accidents; since none of the
+pilgrims, though apparently quite resigned, had as yet gone on.
+
+"They never do till the next day; Pidar Narāyan told me so," commented
+Lance, crossly. "Why should they rake us up at such an unearthly hour?
+Why can't they let the people have a row if they want one? I'd like it;
+give a fellow something to do in this beastly hole."
+
+He went off to dress moodily, wishing savage wishes, so adding,
+perhaps, to that electricity in the air. And Vincent gave it his quota
+of desire also, in his reckless determination to regain Paradise, as it
+was lost, through a woman. And that play of Romeo and Juliet in the
+scented garden--Juliet, whose bounty was "as boundless as the sea"--was
+a bit of pure paradise to him. He had never, he thought, been in love
+before. He had never known what love was. Those other loves of his had
+been mean, ungenerous, calculating.
+
+So he was at his best, his brightest, during dinner. Lance, on the
+contrary, was at his worst, his dullest; and Vincent made this his
+excuse for going to his room betimes. He was not due at the palace till
+twelve, but he was anxious to ensure the coast being clear, and Lance
+seemed just in the mood when a fellow sits up sulkily, out of pure
+cussedness, and drinks whiskey-and-water if he can find a companion on
+whom to vent his cavillings.
+
+In truth Lance would have liked to do so. He wanted to feel miserable;
+but after Vincent had gone, and he was left alone in the balcony, sleep
+began to assert itself. He found even his despair becoming dreamy, and
+being obstinate, tried to fight against the fact. The result being that
+he finally fell asleep in his lounge chair with a soundness and
+unconsciousness usually reserved for bed. Fell asleep, and promptly
+relaxed into content with happy dreams of Erda's return to him; for
+his, left to itself, was a healthy soul.
+
+And so were the vast majority of those which, through patient yet eager
+eyes, were looking into the scarce-lit darkness of the streets, as the
+pilgrims, crowded into an almost solid mass, seemed to slide with a
+slow, almost unseen movement, through them. They were waiting for the
+dawn. If nothing new came before then, they would pass on towards the
+'Cradle of the Gods.' So, scarcely seen, restless yet restful, their
+feet on the next rung of the golden stairs, they waited.
+
+And overhead the young moon had risen with a copper-coloured edge to
+its crescent of light. For the glow was still in the sky, and the
+troopers in the Fort, resting, after their long day, in Indian fashion
+by sprawling on their beds and gossiping, had dragged these beds into
+the open and discarded most of their clothing, since the night was
+strangely still and warm. So even the wonder what had become of the
+_risaldar-sahib_ was languid.
+
+For Roshan Khān had not returned. And yet, as he sat in a quiet
+courtyard of the city, with closed doors, realizing how late it was
+growing, he had no fear of further reprimand. On the contrary, his
+pulses were bounding with the certainty that he would gain praise. And
+there was something beyond this mere desire for personal advantage in
+the keen-witted diplomacy with which he listened, with which he
+suggested, with which he led the talkers on to tell what it was of the
+utmost importance that he should know, not so much to himself, as to
+the Government he served. For his vague discontent had vanished, his
+well-reasoned, well-founded loyalty returned at this, the first hint at
+anything beyond the wild, aimless intrigue with which every Indian
+bazaar teems. But here, in this definite plan, by the collaboration of
+his troopers, of liberating fifteen hundred scoundrels,--or, at least,
+desperadoes,--of aping the stroke of action which made the great mutiny
+of '57 possible, was something tangible. Something which, when known to
+the uttermost, must be told without delay to his superior officer. A
+vast pride swept through him, as, when the gongs were striking
+one,--short, yet with lingering vibration in the dull, still air,--he
+made his way, fast as he could, back to the Fort. Without him, and such
+as he, faithful despite limitations, what would the Masters know?
+
+Hours before, as he went out, he had arranged with Akbar Khān that the
+palace door giving on the great square between it and the Fort should
+be on the latch only, so that he might slip in at any time and take his
+chance of hiding in the garden, his chance of seeing Laila before the
+dawn came and he had to go back to the Fort. The old sinner, indeed,
+had jumped at this indefinite arrangement, which bound him to nothing;
+which made it unnecessary for him even to broach the subject of an
+interview to his mistress. Since what was easier to say than that it
+had been impossible; as, indeed, it was! Perhaps Roshan Khān had
+himself grasped this fact; perhaps in insisting on this entry to the
+garden he had been backing more than his own luck, and had been
+meditating a _coup d'état_ of his own. However that may have been, all
+was forgotten in his newly recovered loyalty, his keen ambition, as he
+hurried back to the Fort intent on but one thing--the forewarning and
+forearming of those whom he had long ago deliberately chosen as his
+masters.
+
+Some of his men were still lounging about on their beds, and he spoke a
+word to them as he passed, warning them to be ready if wanted. So,
+leaving them in sudden vague excitement, he passed on to the inner
+court. Here, where Lance Carlyon's small band of Sikh pioneers were
+quartered in the long, low building in which the fortified gateway
+stood, no one was astir. And no lights were visible in the opposite
+building where Lance and Vincent lived. Doubtless everyone was in bed.
+
+He passed on, therefore, swiftly to the room he knew to be his
+Captain's, and knocked. There was no answer. He opened the door and
+looked in. It was empty. A vague wonder assailed him, and he passed on
+to Lance Carlyon's room. It was empty also, and the vague uneasiness
+died down. They must be sitting up still in the balcony overlooking the
+river, where they sat every day after dinner. Stupid of him not to have
+gone there first; and yet, surely, it was late. Perhaps they were
+uneasy; perhaps they had already heard! An open letter "_On Her
+Majesty's Service_" lying on the dinner table as he passed through the
+mess room (which was still lit up--sign that the servants had gone to
+sleep awaiting their masters' call) attracted his attention. He glanced
+at it, half fearing to find himself forestalled by the police
+authorities. No! It was from them, as he had seen at once; but it was
+only that notice for dawn. Ah! what was this? this tiny scrap of paper,
+which had been twisted to a cocked-hat note, lying caught in the fold
+of the foolscap, with the two words--"_twelve o'clock_"--written on it?
+
+In a woman's writing. Roshan knew enough of invitations from
+Englishwomen to be sure of that.
+
+The vague uneasiness returned, as he went on to the balcony beyond the
+dining-room. There too, the swinging lamp still burnt, and showed him
+Lance Carlyon fast asleep in a lounge chair; but no one else.
+
+Where was Captain Dering? Captain Dering, who had the key of the little
+door in the bastion; Captain Dering, who had had a note with "_twelve
+o'clock_" in it?
+
+A sudden thought struck him. If--if there was anything in his vague
+fear--then, by taking the canoe, which lay at the bottom of the stairs,
+he could slip down stream, and see--
+
+Forgetting everything else, Roshan stole softly past the sleeping
+Lance, and went down the stairs.
+
+The canoe was not there.
+
+Then Captain Dering must have taken it and gone--whither?
+
+There was but one place whither he was likely to go alone at that hour
+of the night; one place, a stair like this leading up to a balcony over
+the river where he had gone once before with a woman, a woman in a
+dress which marked her for what she was, really--a dress that marked
+her secluded--which made _this_, shame unutterable!
+
+Roshan's impotent fury rose hot at the inexpressible humiliation. The
+thought of Captain Dering and Laila alone in that balcony meant but one
+thing to his inherited ideas. No glaze of romance was possible. It was
+shame unutterable, irredeemable. Shame that must be revenged without
+delay. So, forgetting everything else in the world except this, he
+passed the sleeping Lance once more, hurried back to his quarters for
+his revolver, and only stopping to see that one chamber at least was
+loaded, made his way to that door which he knew would be on the latch.
+
+That patient, eager crowd was still thronging the courtyard as he
+crossed it, pausing a moment beside the great gun which centred the
+union-jack of raised paths.
+
+The "_Teacher of Religion!_"
+
+Ay! they needed a teacher, needed a lesson; these aliens, these
+usurpers, these depravers of women.
+
+Yet, in sober truth, Vincent Dering, at that moment sitting in the
+little balcony alone with Laila Bonaventura, felt quite virtuous. They
+had just come in from the garden, where they had been strolling and
+whispering, and now, as they sat together, without a word, scarcely a
+thought, in the faint light of the young moon and a red jewelled
+hand-lamp--which Laila, with that unfailing instinct of hers for all
+that matched the passionate mystery of the place, had set in a carved
+niche, where it looked like a votive offering to the unseen image of a
+saint--Vincent could feel the warm ivory of her cheek against his own,
+hear the soft chink of her jewels as they slid towards him, following
+the soft warm curves on which they lay. The red light of the lamp
+glittered faintly in red stars on the myriad facets of looking-glass
+with which the vaulted roof above them was adorned. It fell, reddening
+the red lights on the gold-stiffened crimson waves of her dress, that
+sent such a bewildering perfume to cloud his senses with passionate
+content.
+
+A vast tenderness, a vast triumph, surged through him at the thought of
+her. Who dared to judge her by the narrow standards of to-day--she, who
+had gone back boldly to realities!
+
+_This_ was what poets had sung since time began; _this_ was what the
+world had exchanged for Paradise!
+
+Juliet! Juliet!
+
+And if he was the "_god of her idolatry_," she was to him the "_dearest
+morsel of earth_."
+
+He bent and whispered the name to her with a kiss.
+
+And as he did so, a step, swift, bold, masterful, sounded in the
+passage above; the step of one with a right to be there.
+
+Vincent, startled, sat listening; but Laila was on her feet in a
+second, with a reckless laugh.
+
+"Father Laurence!" she cried. "Well! let him come. I'm not afraid! For
+he loved _her_. He _must_ remember!"
+
+So, as a dim figure showed, half seen, in the archway, she stood like a
+queen, her hand raised, her head thrown back; a sight never to be
+forgotten.
+
+"There is no use in being angry, guardian," she called, in her
+full-throated voice. "It is too late for that. Remember--" She paused,
+gave a slight scream, and flung herself before Vincent.
+
+There was a flash, a second scream, and then the arches rang with the
+echoes of a pistol-shot.
+
+"Laila! Laila!"
+
+"You damned scoundrel! You've killed her!"
+
+"Laila! Laila!"
+
+There were two voices echoing the woman's name, but only that one
+pistol-shot. Then two useless clicks of a trigger, before, with an
+oath, Roshan Khān flung the revolver from him and fled.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX
+
+                               TRAPPED
+
+
+But that pistol-shot, as it pierced the hot, sultry air in the vaulted
+archways, was caught by a sudden blast of warm wind, sweeping God knows
+whence, to God knows where! and was blown out riverwards, citywards.
+Blown by that sudden blast, like the hot breath of someone's anger,
+which always heralds an electrical dust-storm. One moment there is the
+stillness of the uttermost void brooding over the deep; the next,
+causelessly, God knows why! the spirit moving palpably.
+
+And so it is always when the ever-recurring struggle for the right road
+to that lost Paradise, for the right method of regaining that bartered
+birthright, begins afresh among the sons of Adam. When the Hosts of the
+Lord,--fighting, as men always fight, under the banner of Right, for
+what they think good and true, for what seems to them to bring them
+nearer to the golden gates--change armed peace for war.
+
+It was so now; and Lance Carlyon, waking to the familiar, yet
+unfamiliar sound of that pistol-shot, woke also to the knowledge that
+someone had already resorted to that last argument between man and his
+fellow.
+
+Who was it? And why?
+
+As he stood, still half dazed by sleep, listening, as one does
+instinctively, for another shot to follow the first, a new sound
+distracted his attention.
+
+Was he still asleep and dreaming? or was that really Erda Shepherd's
+voice, rising towards him from the sliding, unseen river?
+
+"I will come back to you directly," it said in Urdu. The half-heard
+promise of the words took him by storm, making him forget the
+strangeness of the language. Yet even that made his bewilderment more
+utter. And all around him, about him, a mist--or was it a cloud, or
+what was it?--had sprung into being. A wreath as of smoke drifted past
+the wide arches of the balcony, blotting out the pale shimmer of the
+young moon.
+
+The swinging lamp above his head darkened, reddened, as the dust-atoms
+leapt from the earth into the air, obedient to the call of that
+mightiest force in nature which holds the world together, and guides it
+on its way among the stars.
+
+Pidar Narāyan had been right! The electrical storm had come!
+
+But Erda had come with it. He could see her now, standing at the top of
+the river steps, dimmed by the dust-atoms that glittered faintly in the
+clouded ray of the lamp; could see her--tall, slim, white--with a
+red-gold ball in her hand.
+
+So it was only a dream; he was asleep still!
+
+The certainty of this, the knowledge that he would wake soon, made him
+yield to impulse, to emotion, as he would never have done otherwise. He
+held out his arms to the gracious vision, his voice rang with passion.
+
+"Erda! Erda! You have come back to me!--the world's desire--my heart's
+desire!"
+
+And then, suddenly, his heart a-tremble for the first time, he drew
+back from his own fervour almost apologetically; for the scared look of
+the face seen through those earth-atoms had brought it home to him that
+this was no dream. This was Erda Shepherd herself, the woman who was
+the "_dearest atom of God's earth_" to him. And she had come back, for
+what? Not to listen to his passion, anyhow.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked briefly, sternly; for it came home to
+him also that the cause must be grave.
+
+She gave a little shiver; the hearing of that first greeting had upset
+her calm, her courage, at last. Yet they had been firm till then; and,
+Heaven knows! the long hours of slipping through the rapids in the wake
+of that heaving, plunging mass of logs had been trying enough to
+anyone. Then for the last half hour, since Am-ma had cut the raft
+adrift to follow them at its leisure through the slacker currents, and,
+in obedience to her order, had forged ahead with his paddle, her
+anxiety had risen to fever-pitch; since the night, so far as she could
+judge, must be waning fast, and her errand would be useless if she were
+not in Eshwara before the dawn. For, as she had listened to Am-ma's
+garrulous talk while he steered, the conviction had grown that the
+danger to peace and safety--if there was any--lay in the future, not in
+the past; that this dawn, and not yesterday's, was to be the signal for
+the insensate, almost incredible attempt to wreck authority. An attempt
+which yet--incredible, insensate though it be--might bring death to--to
+one she held very dear.
+
+She admitted so much now to herself, and, pulling that self together,
+looked that dear one in the face. "There is a good deal the matter,"
+she said. "You had better call Captain Dering to hear it, too; it will
+save time."
+
+He nodded acquiescence, but ere he left her, the instinct in him to
+guard his "_dearest atom_" to the uttermost from others, made him set a
+chair for her, and, glancing round for a wrap, take the mess jacket he
+had laid aside for a smoking coat, and fold it round her. For the air
+had grown suddenly chill, as it always does in a sand-storm.
+
+"You must be cold in that dress," he said. As he did so the daintiness
+of it struck him, the scent of the orange blossoms made him turn pale.
+Despite his hurry, his certainty that something serious was ahead, he
+paused to ask sharply: "That is your wedding dress, isn't it?"--
+
+"I am not married, if you mean that!" she answered as sharply. Then she
+flushed up angrily, more at the comprehension shown in her own answer
+than the meaning in his question, and burst out: "What does it matter
+if I am--or if it is? Go! I tell you, and call Captain Dering!"
+
+Yet, when he was gone, she lay back in the chair and shivered again;
+all the more because of the unaccustomed touch about her throat of the
+gold lace on a mess jacket. How red it looked against her white dress!
+And what a lot of little gold buttons there were at its edge: foolish,
+useless, little ornamental gilt buttons, round and red-gold, like--
+
+The comparison brought back Lance's cry of welcome, and made her
+realize that, quite mechanically, she still held in her hand that
+useless, foolish, unnecessary orange!
+
+That, of course, was what had made him remember; had made him say those
+words which had come like the writing on the wall to remind her of her
+own guilt.
+
+She flung the fruit from her, hastily, into the unseen river beyond the
+arches. Only just in time, ere Lance reėntered, with a puzzled face.
+
+"I can't find Dering anywhere," he said vexedly. "He is not in his
+room. Hasn't been to bed, either; though he turned in early saying he
+was half asleep. I wonder what is up? Can he have heard already, do you
+think? Scarcely; and he would not have gone without waking me." His
+surprise seemed to absorb him.
+
+"Then I must tell _you_, for there is no time to be lost," interrupted
+Erda, impatiently. Yet, even in her strenuous desire to make him
+understand quickly, she did not fail to explain, breathlessly, how she
+came to be dressed as she was. She had been trying on her wedding dress
+to see if it fitted, and had gone into the garden for--for--flowers,
+when Am-ma and his raft had come floating down the river.
+
+And was not that all true? she asked herself passionately, as she told
+the tale. It was all of the truth, anyhow, that he or anyone else was
+ever to know.
+
+So she had come to warn them, as she was.
+
+A great joy at her courage filled Lance as he listened, for to most men
+the possibility of a woman acting as a man might act comes as a wonder.
+
+"It was awfully plucky of you," he began; but she cut him short with a
+question as to what was to be done now.
+
+"Warn Dillon, first of all," he said readily. "We have a wire laid on,
+you know. I only hope this infernal--I beg your pardon--dust-storm
+won't interfere with the connection. You had better come over with me
+to the office; it is just across the yard, and I don't like leaving you
+alone. Do you mind?"
+
+"I'll come, of course,--but I must make sure of Am-ma waiting first,"
+she added, with a ring in her voice; the ring of a vigorous vitality
+which finds itself face to face with action. "He said the raft couldn't
+overtake us for half an hour. But he must not go, anyhow, and he will
+want to. I had difficulty in getting him to leave it, as it was. But I
+had to make him. I had to be in time!"
+
+"And you are--loads of time!" he called, as he ran down the river steps
+before her, to give the order. "It isn't two o'clock yet, and--" he
+paused abruptly, on seeing, to his surprise, that only Am-ma's strange
+craft lay sidling against the bottom step, over which little waves were
+curving hurriedly, to reach up the wall, as if the water-atoms were as
+restless as those of earth, as eager to seek a new element. For the air
+was growing darker, thicker every instant with the intruders. He looked
+round hastily, but there was no sign of the canoe anywhere. Yet he had
+seen it moored to its ring before dinner!
+
+Vincent must have taken it. Whither? An answer leapt to Lance's mind,
+and he flushed up, even in the dark, redly. If this was so--what the
+deuce was to be done?
+
+There was an added confusion, an added responsibility in his face as he
+ran back to where Erda stood waiting him, and, catching up a lamp from
+the mess table, started with her close at his heels for the office.
+"That is the first thing, anyhow!" he muttered, half to himself.
+"Dillon must be warned--"
+
+"And perhaps Captain Dering will be back by then," she suggested
+cheerfully, as, with the mess jacket worn as it should be for greater
+convenience of action and greater protection (she had slipped her arms
+into it, deliberately, while waiting for Lance), she followed in the
+little halo of dull, red light cast by the lamp through the dust-mist.
+
+The courtyard was still without sign of life; for there was nothing to
+guard here. The massive gates of the citadel once closed, and a sentry
+outside the wicket, there could be no fear of secret comings and
+goings.
+
+"I hope to God he may," said Lance, ahead, and his tone made the girl
+wonder.
+
+His face, too, surprised her, as, sitting down to the instrument, he
+signalled for attention. No doubt when time is an object, there must
+always be a sense of strain in that pause before the answering tinkle
+comes to tell that a human hand and brain is at the other end of the
+thin wire which means so much, but there was more than that in Lance
+Carlyon's frown.
+
+In truth, as he waited, he was not thinking so much of what would
+happen if the communication was interrupted, but what was to be done if
+it was not. Thinking that he must, somehow, warn Vincent. Thinking how
+awkward it would be for _him_ if there was a row, and he absent, as it
+were, without leave!
+
+So it was Erda who recalled him to the wider issue. "What are you going
+to do, if Dr. Dillon doesn't hear?"
+
+She had to raise her voice a little, for something--either coming wind
+or far-distant thunder--had brought a curious, faint reverberation to
+the air.
+
+It seemed to come from all quarters, scarcely distinguishable, yet
+unmistakable, like the roll of a half-muffled drum, or a deep organ
+note quivering into silence.
+
+The darkness all about them grew thicker and thicker. Lance, close
+beside her in that red lamp circle, showed as if seen through gauze.
+How unreal it all was! Herself, most of all, in a mess jacket, and, of
+course--but this thought came second--her wedding dress! And then it
+struck her that she, herself, was more unreal than anything else. To be
+there at dead of night, feeling no fear, only a sort of savage
+interest--
+
+"But if he doesn't hear," she persisted, "you will have to go down the
+river and warn him."
+
+He nodded. And yet his thought went first to the fact that, if he had
+to do this, if Roshan Khān had to be left in charge of the relief, it
+would be still more awkward for Vincent Dering.
+
+_Tring-a-tring-tring!_
+
+The answering tinkle brought a little breath of joy to them both; but
+Erda felt inclined to stamp her feet at the slow precision with which
+Lance--who had to remember each equivalent sign--spelt out his message.
+He could not be quicker, of course, and yet surely he might! She longed
+to snatch at the handles herself, though she could not signal at all.
+
+"There, that's done!" she cried, as a continuous short rattle followed
+from the other end, which Lance translated into--"_All right, await
+you_." "Now! what is to be done next?"
+
+"Roshan Khān--he'll get the men together," answered Lance, already on
+his way to the wicket in the gate. To his surprise, it was closed. He
+knocked, no answer came. Erda, holding the lamp, looked at him
+startled.
+
+"Sentry!" he called. "Sentry! Open the door! _Miracle!_'"
+
+It was the password for the night, given by Captain Dering in
+contemptuous memory of the day; but it produced no result. The wicket
+remained obstinately closed.
+
+"They've locked us in!" whispered Erda; the lowering of her voice being
+due to a swift instinct that the less fuss made the better; the less
+chance of interruption.
+
+Lance bent his ear to the keyhole to listen. Those dull, muffled
+reverberations--either distant thunder, or faint, ineffective
+explosions of electricity close at hand--were louder now; but he could
+hear no sound above them. He shook his head.
+
+Erda had the lamp on the ground in a second, and was beside it, her
+red-gold hair in the dust, as she peered through a three-inch iron
+grating between the iron-rimmed door and the iron lintel.
+
+When she rose up her face was like the iron also.
+
+"They've trapped us!" she whispered. "There is a sentry outside--I saw
+his feet. Come away, and let us settle what to do. And say something,
+something angry--you know what I mean."
+
+"Damn that brute!" said Lance, cordially, in a loud voice, "where the
+deuce has the sentry gone to? I'll have it out with him to-morrow, the
+infernal--"
+
+Erda, ahead with the lamp, turned to look back, and put her finger on
+her lips reproachfully. "That's quite enough," she said; but she said
+it with a smile. That vigorous delight in action which some women feel
+was making her blood race through her veins.
+
+"Now what's to be done?" she said swiftly, as she put the lamp down on
+the mess table again. "Let's think hard."
+
+The gate was closed against interference with--with--_something!_
+
+That was evident. Proof positive, therefore, that Am-ma's tale was
+true.
+
+So it followed that the most urgent need for help was at the gaol.
+
+But how to reach it, and with whom?
+
+Lance's thoughts turned instantly to Roshan Khān. Was he--could he be
+in the plot? Surely not. Yet with or without his knowledge, the outer
+court was in the hands of rebels who thought their English officers
+were caught like rats in a trap; for, of course, they did not know
+Dering was absent.
+
+And so it was. He and his pioneers--twenty or thereabouts--were in a
+trap. What could they do to get out of it? Their arms, scaling ladders,
+everything, were in the outside courtyard. What would be the use,
+either, of trying to force the door? Mere waste of time. The thing
+required was to prevent those fifteen hundred men with a criminal past
+being let loose on Eshwara, let loose--as men like them had been in the
+Mutiny--to give a lead over.
+
+And that--how was that to be done?
+
+He looked across to Erda, and took sudden comfort in the quick
+intelligence of her face.
+
+"You had better take my place with Am-ma," she said sharply. "Go down
+stream to the spit, cut across by the mission house, and chance getting
+over to the police camp."
+
+He had thought of this before. The extra police, with their two
+officers, who had come over to see the festival through peacefully,
+were encamped above the boat-bridge and though, of course, most of the
+men would be scattered on duty through the town, even some help would
+be better than none. Yet how to leave Erda, not alone even, but with
+twenty men whose loyalty would depend largely--as it always did--on
+action, on their having someone to fight?
+
+"But you," he began--
+
+"I'll stay here. They won't try to come in--yet a while. I am not
+afraid of being alone."
+
+"I wouldn't mind your being alone," he put in, "but my Sikhs--
+
+"Your Sikhs," she echoed. "Are they here? Then why--?"
+
+"They have no arms--I could find some, perhaps--"
+
+--His words--both their words--jostled each other in sheer haste.
+
+"Yes! then why don't you call them?"--
+
+"How can I use them--trapped like a rat. They--they might be worse than
+useless, without something to do--without a lead over--don't you
+see?--and there is nothing--"
+
+--"Nothing!" she echoed, almost savagely, as she clasped and unclasped
+her hands, dragging the fingers through each other, in sheer straining
+after some thought on which to clutch, in cruel whipping and spurring
+of her wits against that inaction.
+
+Nothing! Nothing! The word seemed to fill the world.
+
+Nothing in earth or air or fire or--
+
+"Stay!" she cried, with a gasp. "The raft! The raft! Am-ma shall fetch
+it--it must be close by, now. There will be room. It can float down to
+opposite the gaol."
+
+He stared at her as she stood in her white, and scarlet, and gold.
+
+"By Jove!" he said softly "by Jove, you've got it!"
+
+The next instant he was off to rouse his men, and she was on the bottom
+step giving Am-ma his orders, short, sharp, clear.
+
+But when Lance came back again to look out what arms and ammunition he
+could lay hands on, he found her, in his room, sorting cartridges as if
+she had done it all her life; and her face turned to him all aglow and
+splendid.
+
+"We shall manage it! Am-ma's gone. He didn't want to, but I told him
+I'd kill the baby if he didn't. I suppose it was wrong,"--though her
+woman's tongue sought speech, her woman's hands stuck to their
+work--"but I couldn't help it. I felt so savage."
+
+"You are very brave," he said simply.
+
+"Brave!" she echoed. "Why not? People talk as if women always had to
+try and not be afraid; but we are not all like that. Some of us want to
+fight. I do, always."
+
+She looked it, as, when all was ready, she leant, straining her eyes
+into the darkness for a hint of Am-ma's return. "He must come," she
+muttered to herself, "he shall come!"
+
+And he did. A bigger wave came sweeping up to the wall as a herald, and
+then a voice calling for a rope. Half a dozen were ready posted in the
+men's hands from various points of vantage. They flew outwards; one,
+from Am-ma's hands inwards to a group holding a lantern on the steps.
+So, with a silent haul, the pioneers had the raft stopped, and sidling
+slowly back to mooring against the wall.
+
+Then Lance turned to Erda hesitating, divided between his loyalty to
+Vincent, and to her.
+
+"The palace ought to be warned," he said briefly--"if I go there ahead
+on Am-ma's craft, I could pick you up on your way down. Could you
+manage?"
+
+She gave a look round on the men, eager with the sudden excitement,
+with the rush, with the very novelty of it all, and laughed--positively
+laughed. "Manage? Yes! of course I can manage--_havildar!_ see those
+cartridges are put well back out of the wet--stay! bring down that
+table, someone, and give it a lash--"
+
+Yet, despite this absolute lack of fear, despite the fact that she
+evidently wanted and desired no more consideration than a man, Lance
+felt a wild dislike to leaving her there alone, as he stepped on to
+Am-ma's skin craft, and, edging his way along by the wall, prepared to
+drift down to the palace balcony. It was mirk dark now, and he had no
+fear of being seen by the crowd on the bathing steps and the courtyard,
+though he punted his way with the paddle shaft within a yard or two of
+the shore; for he wanted to judge how far excitement had spread, how
+far the crowd was aware of what was coming at dawn.
+
+To judge by appearances, not at all. There was no more restlessness, no
+more movement than was inevitable in such a concourse of men, women,
+and children. Here and there files of shadowy forms drifted about, but
+the most of them, seen by the little lights set on the ground beside
+each group, were in heaps, like the heaps of dead on a battle-field,
+huddled up on each other, sleeping, resting, indistinguishable,
+shrouded in their shawls, waiting for the dawn to come.
+
+And, above the soft, yet increasing murmur of the still windless storm,
+came a softer murmuring of prayers, a weird low chanting.
+
+The Hosts of the Lord had not yet risen to battle. The Spirit had not
+moved; the Word had not been made manifest.
+
+The palace, also, lay as yet undisturbed, unseen, in the darkness.
+Except for a glimmer of red light just above the river, a paler glimmer
+closer at hand.
+
+The red light must be by the stairs for which he was steering.
+
+The other?--
+
+He did not know, but as he slipped past it another murmuring as of
+prayer seemed to come from within. It must come from the chapel; if so,
+then Pidar Narāyan must be awake also. He felt a certain relief at the
+thought when he caught sight of the canoe at the bottom of the steps.
+Then Vincent, as he had feared, was there; but not on the errand he had
+feared, if Pidar Narāyan knew of it. So, mooring his strange craft to
+the canoe, he ran up the stairs eagerly.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXI
+
+                              MARGHERITA
+
+
+Father Ninian had been awake all night. He had been vaguely uneasy all
+day, conscious, with that fine perception of his, that something was
+amiss. But it was no fear of what _might_ happen which had kept him
+watching when others slept. It was the memory of something which _had_
+happened; for, by a coincidence that for more than fifty years had
+never lost its mystical significance for Ninian Bruce--sentimentalist
+as he was to his finger tips--the night of the _Vaisakh_ festival, when
+the pilgrims watched for the dawn to guide them on their way to the
+'Cradle of the Gods,' was to him, personally, the saddest and gladdest
+of the whole year. Since it was the night on which he had sinned the
+great sin of his life, and repented of it, even in the sinning.
+
+And that sinning, that repenting, was no slight thing to him. It was
+the man himself; for the passion that was in him in his youth was in
+him in his old age. It had only changed its dwelling-place. It had fled
+from the senses, and found refuge in the emotions. In a way, indeed, by
+thus seeking freedom from it, he had fallen into a greater thraldom, so
+that his whole life had been as much swayed by this renunciation of a
+woman as it would have been by her possession.
+
+Old as he was, this very night had brought him--with the thought that
+Death could not delay much longer, and that next _Vaisakh_ festival
+might find him no lonely watcher--that thrill of self-absorption in
+another self, that claim for all, which is the essence of passion. For
+this woman, waiting for him in the land where there is no marrying or
+giving in marriage, was still a woman; still the one of all God's
+creatures whom he claimed, and who claimed him, even as the first woman
+claimed the first man in Paradise.
+
+So he had passed the night watches of the Festival of Spring: as he had
+always passed them. Partly in his room, that room made holy by her
+presence in his heart, partly in the chapel, made holy by the Bodily
+Presence of Him for Whose sake he had renounced her. The two holinesses
+were inextricably mixed in Pidar Narāyan's mind.
+
+He had finished one of the masses for the repose of a sinning yet
+sainted soul, and, before repeating the next, was confessing his own
+repentance in his room, when that hasty footstep along the passage,
+which alarmed those two lovers in the balcony nearer the garden, had
+resounded through the arches. It had disturbed, but not startled him,
+its very boldness reassuring him of its right to be there. Probably it
+was some messenger from the police camp or the Fort. So he had risen
+from his knees calmly and passed into the chapel, which lay between his
+room and the balcony, in order to see who it could be. For the candles
+were lit on the Altar and sent a faint light into the vaulted passage
+beyond.
+
+It was as he paused, in passing, to do homage to that Bodily Presence
+upon the Altar, which was ready--as he was in his robes--for the
+service of love which was to him, as a priest, his duty, as a man a joy
+unspeakable, that the pistol-shot came clamouring through the arches,
+followed by those despairing cries.
+
+What they were he could not distinguish, but that they were urgent was
+unmistakable, and had he been young as he had been on that night long
+years ago in the balcony above the pale flood of the Tiber, he could
+not have been quicker to reach the armoury, seize the long rapier,
+which he had not used, save in play, since those ruffling days in Rome,
+and run out into the wide, dim passage whence the sound had reached
+him.
+
+None too soon! Someone was already flying down it. He pulled himself up
+for attack, but the figure ere he could lunge at it was past him,
+desperate, indifferent, flinging him against the wall as it continued
+its reckless way to the outer door, where, with swift opening and
+closing, it disappeared into the crowded courtyard, out of
+sight--beyond recall!
+
+He stood for a moment, stupefied. What was Roshan Khān doing there? For
+that faint light from the Altar had given him a glimpse of a familiar,
+dark face, Roshan Khān's without a doubt!
+
+"Laila! Laila!"
+
+The cry was clearer this time and the blood left his fine old face in
+sudden doubt as he turned swiftly to his left. Turned, and saw a faint
+red glow through an arch far down the passage.
+
+That was the arch leading down into the balcony that was never lit
+up--that was never to be lit up because of something that had happened
+there long ago--because of the something which had _begun_ a tragedy.
+
+Why was it lit up? A stronger fear caught at his heart. Could
+Laila?--No!--impossible!
+
+He ran on, and the next moment was realizing that some tragedy had
+_ended_ in that balcony.
+
+But what?
+
+Who was the woman in native dress who stood with a man's arm around
+her--a man in a scarlet and gold mess jacket? Ah!--that was Captain
+Dering, undoubtedly. But the woman? The woman in scarlet and gold
+also--God in Heaven!--had the dead--
+
+As he stared, the long, supple limbs, so clearly outlined under their
+cunningly contrived draperies, seemed to lose themselves in the colour,
+the glitter of rich stuff; one white arm, losing its hold on a cuff of
+scarlet and gold, swung back helplessly, and Vincent Dering, with a
+passionate entreaty to his darling not to be afraid, to look up, and
+tell him where she was hurt, sank to one knee the better to support
+what he held.
+
+And so the face, tilted backwards over his shoulder, came in view.
+
+_Laila!_
+
+For an instant Ninian Bruce stood bewildered. Then all his youth, the
+pride of birth, the dash, and the fire which had made that youth what
+it had been, rose up in him. The blood surged back to his face in wild
+anger, in savage sense of insult, and desire for revenge.
+
+"How dare you!" he cried, clenching his hand on his sword. "You shall
+answer for this, sir! How do you come to be here, at this time of
+night, and why?"
+
+Vincent, who at the first word had given a hurried glance to see who
+the speaker was, then returned to his task with the indifference of one
+absolutely preoccupied, held up his hand passionately against more.
+
+"Don't--and don't preach, for God's sake, old man!" he cried
+recklessly. "Come and help, if you like. Some brute--Oh, curse him!
+curse him!"
+
+His one trembling hand, for the other was round her, supporting her,
+was busy with the quaint, jewelled clasps of the scented corselet,
+which was crimsoning deeper with another dye. "It's too late for
+preaching," he muttered, half to himself,--"too late! too late!"
+
+The words seemed to stun his hearer into silence. He stood bewildered.
+Too late for what?
+
+And now, roused by that pistol-shot also, another old man, who had
+carefully hidden himself away from the possibility of being found by
+Roshan Khān, on the rage for an impossible interview; who had counted,
+with malicious cunning, on the cooling effect of a useless waiting in
+the garden till dawn should make it necessary for hot-blooded lovers to
+return to the Fort, stole like a thief to the balcony. What could have
+happened? The only likely trouble which had occurred to his vast
+experience had been the possibility of Roshan Khān seeking the
+interview upstairs. And for that very reason had not he, Akbar Khān,
+felt it his duty to sleep outside his mistress's door? What more could
+faithful servitude be expected to do?
+
+But this! What was this? His charge had stolen a march upon him. Old as
+he was in the care of frail womanhood, he had been imposed upon! Then,
+as he crept round a pillar craftily, the sight of Pidar Narāyan, in his
+priestly robes, made the old sinner throw up his hands and grovel in
+the dust.
+
+"This slave knew nothing!" he mumbled, gasping. "This was unknown. And
+for the other, I told him it was too soon, too soon,--far too soon."
+
+Too soon, and too late! What did it all mean? Father Ninian stood
+helpless, paralyzed; but Vincent caught at the words.
+
+"The other!" he echoed. "You black devil! who was the other? Who was
+that man? Curse him!" He paused, for Laila opened her eyes.
+
+"It was Roshan Khān," she said, with a smile, that half-amused,
+half-mysterious smile. "He gave me the dress, you know, and I think he
+wanted me--to marry him. Hush! what's the use of being angry--now?" She
+checked his incredulous outcry, and her hand hesitated up to his
+trembling fingers, and held them back from their task. "Don't," she
+went on; "I'd rather--you didn't waste time. I want you to look at
+me--only me--me, myself. Ah! that's nice!"
+
+There was an instant's silence; then her eyes wandered to his cuff as
+it rested on her corselet, and she smiled again. "We match, don't we?
+I'm glad. Besides, it won't stain much. I expect--that's why soldiers
+wear red, isn't it?"
+
+The deadly realism roused Vincent to a sort of fury at his own
+helplessness. But what could a man do, caught in a second by Fate to be
+chief actor in a scene like this, where he was lost,--lost utterly? And
+those two fools looking on--doing nothing!
+
+"At least, in common charity, you might help. You're something of a
+doctor!" he cried passionately. "We can settle scores afterwards, you
+and I, can't we? But now you might help _her_."
+
+"What did she say?" asked Father Ninian, tonelessly. He had caught a
+word or two, and their triviality, in the face of what had happened--a
+triviality common in those who have been struck down as she had been,
+almost painlessly--had but increased his bewilderment. "What does it
+mean? How do you come here? I must know, first."
+
+The girl had turned her face quickly to the new voice; and, after
+vainly trying to rise, lay back breathlessly. "Tell him, Vincent; he's
+Father Laurence. Remember--he must know--and--and I--can't--"
+
+"Then here it is, sir!" broke in Vincent, brutally. "If you will wait
+to know, when every moment is precious. We love each other--you've done
+it in your time, I'm told! I've been coming here, night after night, to
+see her; she wears that dress to please me--there! Now you've got it!
+And to-night, some devil--she says Roshan Khān, but she's dreaming;
+what can he have to do with it?--stood there and fired--at me, I think;
+but she flung herself--Ah! Laila, my darling, why did you? Now, will
+that satisfy you--you--you--"
+
+"Hush!" came Laila's voice--"there is no use in being angry. Besides,
+he understands; he knows what it is to be in love quite well. Don't
+you, guardian? You loved her, didn't you? Margherita, I mean--"
+
+She wandered off into Italian--the language they always spoke, and her
+rich voice dulled, died away, as the faintness returned.
+
+"For God's sake, sir, bring the light, if you won't do anything else!"
+cried Vincent, wildly. "She has fainted, I think--I can't see--it is so
+dark. For God's sake, sir, the light at least!"
+
+The light at least! As Father Ninian mechanically took the red lamp
+from its niche he felt that he needed no more light than those words,
+"he understands," had sent into his very soul. Yes, he knew what love
+was. But he knew also--it came home to him in a second--that his love,
+even after all these years, differed not at all from this girl's. He
+heard it in her voice--that voice so strangely like that other
+voice--which he remembered--oh! so well!
+
+"Take off the shade," said Vincent, "it makes everything so--so
+red--you--you can't see the truth." He shivered as he spoke.
+
+But that first look at the girl had been enough for Pidar Narāyan. It
+had roused him, his apathy was gone. He thrust the lamp into Vincent's
+trembling hands without a word, and his own steady ones--the hands
+which had not touched their kind, except to heal body or soul, since
+they had said farewell to a woman--took up the task.
+
+So for a few minutes there was silence, but for the old pantaloon's
+ceaseless mumblings as he rocked himself backwards and forwards. He had
+meant no harm, he protested--he had conducted more affairs of the kind
+to a decent ending than he could well remember--no one could be more
+discreet--accidents would happen--
+
+"She is shot through the lungs," said Father Ninian, breaking the
+silence. "There is very little to be done--I--I--" He would have said
+"_fear_," but for Vincent's face of anguish. What right had he to feel
+sorrow?--he, the man who had brought this about. "Still, I will try.
+Akbar! bring the candles from the altar. Stay! she had better go there.
+It will save time. You two can carry her."
+
+But Vincent had her in his arms, with a brief "Where?"
+
+"The chapel--the lights are lit. Lay her on the cushions before the
+altar. I will be with you again directly."
+
+When he returned from his room with lint and bandages she was lying
+there as he had directed, her long red skirt trailing down the white
+steps.
+
+"The candles, please,--the smaller ones, Akbar,--and place them at her
+head. They will give me a better light."
+
+Vincent shivered again at the sight; she looked already dead, with
+those tall tapers about her. Ah! what did it all mean? Was he dreaming?
+How was it possible? The wild improbability of it stunned him; when not
+three hours ago he had had a sherry-and-bitters before dinner! The
+curious irrelevance of his thoughts made him feel as if he must wake
+soon. Yet there she lay. Laila, whom he loved!
+
+"Is she--is she--" he began.
+
+"Not dead, if you mean that," replied Father Ninian quietly. "But she
+will not live an hour."
+
+There was no mincing matters between these two men--nothing but the
+brutal truth; yet this time it was the old priest who held up his hand
+against a passionate outcry. "Don't make a fuss. Be brave, at least,
+and don't disturb her. She is coming to herself again."
+
+To herself certainly. To the old half-amused, half-mysterious smile, as
+her eyes caught the tapers, the lighted altar beyond, her lover
+kneeling at her side. "It is the wedding, I suppose," she said--there
+was a catch in her breath now--"but why have they put the candles like
+a bier? To save time, I suppose. But it mixes things up; and--" she
+gave a little impatient sigh--"Oh! tell him to be quick, Romeo,
+for--for we always meant to be married in the end--didn't we?"
+
+The words cut Vincent like a knife. Yes! He had meant it. Not always.
+Not till, even to one with his past, the perfection of this idyll in
+the garden would have suffered without that promise to himself. And
+now, death should not cheat him, should not leave a stain, a regret, on
+the one perfect romance of his life. He stooped suddenly and kissed
+her; kissed her with more passion than he had ever kissed her before.
+
+"It won't be long, Juliet; he is just going to begin," he whispered,
+then rose to his feet unsteadily.
+
+This at least he could do for himself. And for her? A sob, almost of
+gratitude, of admiration, came to his eyes as he realized that it would
+never, never--even if she had lived--have mattered to her really. But
+it had been a part of the play; part of her as Juliet. So it should be.
+His wild revolt at the sequence of improbabilities--for after all that
+idyll in the garden had been, bar its environments, commonplace
+enough--which had landed him in--_in an Adelphi drama!_--(he could not
+help the thought, though he despised it)--should give way to this. The
+play should end with a wedding. Juliet should have the '_statue of pure
+gold_' in the eyes of the world. He could ensure this by a word; and
+the word should be spoken.
+
+He touched Father Ninian peremptorily on the shoulder, as he bent, busy
+with his instruments.
+
+"I want to speak to you. Hush! she must not hear. Father, you say she
+is dying. Well, I claim my right. I am a Catholic--I have sinned--we
+will say nothing about her--that lies between us. I wish to marry her
+while I can. I ask it as my right, of you, a priest. Do you understand?
+I ask you to marry us."
+
+Ninian Bruce looked for an instant as if he could have killed the man
+who stood before him; then he drew himself up, priest utterly.
+
+"Have you the right to claim it?"
+
+"I claim it as a right," replied Vincent, fiercely. "That is enough,
+surely."
+
+"It is not enough. I will ask her." And Pidar Narāyan knelt down beside
+the girl. "My daughter," he began, "Captain Dering tells me--" Then he
+gave way--"_Cara mia_," he whispered, laying his hand on hers, "tell
+me--I have never been unkind, surely--tell me--your old guardian, who
+has loved, who loves--must I marry you to--to _him?_"
+
+Laila looked into his face with a faintly-wondering reply. "Must!" she
+echoed dreamily. "It's just as he likes, of course. I don't mind. I
+only want him--where is he?"
+
+"I'm here, sweetheart." Vincent knelt down again and took her in his
+arms.
+
+The faint querulousness left her voice. "That's nice," she murmured.
+"Tell him to begin quickly, Vincent, for I don't want to waste time. I
+want you--you, yourself, and me--me, myself--nothing else."
+
+Father Ninian gave a sort of cry, and turned blindly to the altar. If
+this was not Love, what was?
+
+Then, monotonously, his voice began the marriage service.
+
+"Have you a ring?" he asked, when he came to stand by those two, the
+girl supported in Vincent's arms. The latter shook his head. "Go on
+without it," he said sternly; "she is failing fast."
+
+But there was one on the old man's finger; one that had never left it
+since it had been put there by a saint in Paradise. He took it off now,
+and gave it to the man whom at that moment he hated and despised more
+than any man on earth.
+
+So, swiftly, the prayers went on, and old Akbar paused in his rockings
+to say "Amen" with the others. He had learnt _thus_ much in these
+latter days of grace.
+
+The last one came as a step resounded down the passage; Lance Carlyon's
+step as he sought the light he had seen--sought his Captain. He seemed
+to bring a breath of fresh air into the passion-laden atmosphere, a
+solid reality into the shadows.
+
+"Vincent!" he cried, as he caught sight of the scarlet and gold. "Thank
+God! you're here. The troopers have seized the Fort--" He paused
+suddenly, horror-struck at what had caught his eye. "I beg your
+pardon--I didn't know--is she--is she--hurt?--"
+
+Vincent stood up suddenly. "Hush! that has nothing to do with it. Leave
+that to me. The troopers have risen? When?"
+
+Lance, with his eyes still on that pitiful sight, shook his head.
+
+"There was a pistol-shot--you must have heard it!"
+
+"Heard it!" echoed Vincent, wildly. "Yes! I heard it. Go on! What
+then?"
+
+"I don't know--I know nothing in this infernal nightmare that's got
+hold of us all!" cried Lance. "I only know that if we don't get to the
+gaol before they do--they've gone to set the prisoners free--there will
+be the devil of a row. So you must come at once, Vincent--you must come
+at once!"
+
+Captain Dering gave an irresolute look at the dying girl. She had saved
+his life--he loved her--could he leave her? Was anything worth that
+sacrifice?
+
+"You _must_ go!" said a stern voice. It was Father Ninian's, who had
+taken Vincent's place and was now holding Laila in his arms. "You must
+go, Captain Dering, and prevent worse from befalling; if you can--if
+you can!" There was almost a triumph in his voice.
+
+Lance looked from one to the other in sheer despair. "Well! if you
+won't come, I'm off--oh! come along, Vincent, and don't be a fool!
+It--it isn't worth it; it never is!"
+
+Vincent Dering stood still irresolute. "You'll stay, sir," he said,
+"and--and look after--"
+
+Father Ninian drew the unconscious girl closer to him. "I will look
+after--_Margherita_."
+
+The last word came in a half whisper to himself and his eyes met
+Vincent's with a curious dazed defiance. The latter gave the defiance
+back, as their owner stooped for a second over Laila's indifferent
+face, and kissed it.
+
+"Good-by, _Juliet_," he said; and the last word came also in a half
+whisper to himself.
+
+The next moment he was following Lance down the dim passage, full of a
+vague relief, and realizing for the first time that the mist, which for
+the last half hour had dimmed the reality of all things, was due, not
+to any aberration of his brain, but to the simple fact that an
+electrical dust-storm was in full blast.
+
+He realized it with relief. That was at least real, tangible.
+
+Almost too much so; and as the hot wind, charged with those aspiring
+atoms of earth, met him fiercely, he realized also that the storm would
+fight against him in his efforts to prevent worse from happening. If,
+indeed, anything could be worse than what had happened; worse than
+Laila's--
+
+He broke off in his thought, incredulous. It could not be true. He
+would come back to find her better--well!--
+
+But that other dream was true. His men had risen. The one thing
+necessary, therefore, was to get to the gaol before any decided action
+took place; and this he realised still more clearly from Lance's curt
+explanation as they ran down the river steps. Once there, the sight of
+the canoe he had left suggested the feasibility of getting to the gaol
+in it. His personal influence might avail. If that failed, he would at
+least be able to save time by choosing a suitable place for the raft to
+come ashore. The great thing was to be on the spot, to be within reach
+of action at once; to wait for the raft meant needless delay.
+
+So, a minute after, the faint splash of his paddle was lost in the
+rising hum of the storm, and Lance was left looking anxiously for sound
+or sight of the raft, which, if all had gone well, should by now have
+started.
+
+But neither came, so, seeing from the light he had snatched up as he
+passed through the balcony that the air was growing darker, more
+impenetrable than ever, he shoved off his strange craft, to wait
+further out in the stream where there was less chance of the raft
+passing him unseen, unheard.
+
+For this reason also, he paddled up along the wall a bit into the faint
+glow of light which showed still from the arches of the chapel. And as
+he lay in it, his ears and eyes strained for the least sound, he could
+hear as a kind of background to that muffled drumming of the storm, the
+sound of the pilgrims chanting as they waited for the dawn. The dawn
+which would bring--what? Who could tell?
+
+The sound of other prayers, echoing from the chapel, made him shake his
+head, feeling that it was hopeless to look forward--or backward for
+that matter! Why had Roshan shot the girl--if he had! And why had Pidar
+Narāyan called her Margherita, and Vincent called her Juliet?
+
+The whole thing was exactly as he had said--an infernal nightmare!
+
+Then a faint sound in front of him made his strong arms sweep the
+paddle through the stream as he shot into the darkness in search of the
+raft; in search of Erda.
+
+Not that she needed him, really. The memory of her in that red-and-gold
+mess jacket above her wedding dress, giving orders to the men squarely,
+came back to make him smile.
+
+God bless her! She could do well enough without him. That was one
+comfort. And Dillon could hold his own too, without much help, for a
+time--that was another; for what with this and that, help was bound to
+be over-long in coming.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII
+
+                              A MONOPOLY
+
+
+Lance Carlyon was right in trusting Dr. Dillon's power of doing without
+help until Providence chose to send some. This was the easier task, in
+that he had made up his mind deliberately beforehand as to what his
+best course of action would be should an alarm of this sort occur.
+Therefore that imperative _kling-kling_ of the telegraph bell which
+roused him in a second from his bed, where, ready dressed for any such
+emergency, he was sleeping the sleep of the just, found him alert,
+prepared for anything and everything.
+
+So it has come, he thought, as he hastily wired back the comprehensive
+reply, "_All right, await you_." He felt as a doctor does when a
+dangerous symptom which he has foreseen as a possibility, shows itself.
+He had been on the lookout for this for days, but as the dawn would end
+the period during which it might be expected, he had, as in the
+outbreak of the cholera, had hopes that danger was over. His last
+thought, as he slept, had been this; he woke to find that the
+complication must be faced. Woke with a strong regret, but a stronger
+instinct of fight. So he slipped his feet into his shoes, jammed his
+big mushroom hat on his head out of pure habit, and so, armed
+_cap-ą-pie_, with a brain quick to work, and a body ready to follow and
+obey, he ran across the sandy road to the Smiths' bungalow, realizing
+as he did so that a dust-storm was just beginning. That would delay
+both attack and relief. On the whole, this would be an advantage,
+since, once things were secure, half an hour or so would make no
+difference in the latter; whereas, he wanted every minute he could get
+now for preparation.
+
+He had not warned Eugene Smith of his fears. There was never any use
+alarming people by mere probabilities, unless by so doing you could
+forearm them. And this was not the case here; since the safest--in fact
+the only--place of refuge for Mrs. Smith and the child, should trouble
+arise, was the semi-fortified roof above the gate of the gaol; and that
+he knew to be ready for use. He had, therefore, only to wake them, as
+quietly as might be, so as not to give the alarm to the servants.
+Fortune favoured him in this; for, just outside the verandah, he ran
+full tilt upon Eugene himself, tall, gaunt, in his sleeping-suit,
+carrying a roll of bedding on his back like a snail's shell. The heat
+of the evening had enticed him to sleep outside, as he preferred, _ą
+la_ Robinson Crusoe, and the dust-storm was sending him in.
+
+"Hello, Dillon!" he cried, "what's up?--nothing wrong with my wife or
+the child--I hope--No!--" he gave a sigh of relief, "then it's the
+beastly dust-storm disturbed you, I suppose. Isn't it sickening to
+think how many times in the next six months we shall have to take up
+our beds and walk."
+
+"H'm! Hope I shall have the chance," replied the doctor, dryly,
+recovering his breath. "No, it isn't the storm. They're going to try a
+row, Smith. Just had a wire from the Fort. There's a plot on, to come
+here and set the prisoners free, and that's dangerous. So, till the
+troops come, I think you'd better bring Mrs. Smith and Gladys to the
+gate--it's the safest place, and I've got everything ready. It mayn't
+be much; but the devils, whoever they are, might turn and rend
+you--especially if they fail with me."
+
+Eugene Smith had dropped his snail-shell and sat down on it, aghast, in
+surprise; but he was up again before the doctor finished.
+
+"By Jove!" he said rapidly, calmly as the doctor himself. "That's a
+taking up one's bed with a vengeance. I'll have 'em both ready in a
+jiffy--anything else?"
+
+"No. I'll rummage round till you return--one forgets things to the
+last, sometimes. And I shall want your Remington and such like--I know
+where to find 'em."
+
+A moment after he was striking a match to light the tall floor-lamp in
+Mrs. Smith's drawing-room. She had turned it out herself a few hours
+before, thinking, as she looked round the room, full of soft
+rose-shaded light, how pretty, how cosey it was. It had the same air of
+refined security now. Everything, down to a copy of the last '_Queen_'
+lying on an inlaid table by her favourite chair, was so exactly what
+one would have expected to find in her room; the room of a delicate,
+cultivated, civilized, society woman.
+
+And now?
+
+Now the delicacy, the culture, the civilization, the society, and the
+security belonging to them, had been invaded in an instant. By what?
+
+The dust--you could almost see it springing into the air in these sandy
+stretches--had already settled thick over the dainty furniture, and as
+Dr. Dillon, standing by the table in the pink glow of the lamp, asked
+himself the question, he yielded to the imperious fascination which a
+smooth sand-surface has for humanity. But he did not write his name
+upon it; only the idle answer to the question.
+
+"God knows."
+
+The writing lay upon the table beside the latest fashions, staring up
+into the pink paper shade, after George Dillon had passed rapidly to
+Eugene's office to choose this, that, and the other, and make them into
+a bundle with a table-cloth.
+
+When he returned to the drawing-room, Muriel Smith was standing by that
+writing in the sand: a fragile figure in a blue dressing-gown, all
+frilled and embroidered like the pictures in the paper. She looked more
+forlorn than frightened; forlorn and pathetic.
+
+"Is it warm enough?" said the doctor, as he entered. "Your dress, I
+mean. There's a storm on, and it generally brings rain."
+
+"It is flannel," she answered, and he nodded.
+
+There was no excitement, no heroics. Only that. That, and the writing
+on the sand, and her forlornness--the forlornness of a delicate Dresden
+shepherdess set to drive a flock of real sheep to the shambles. But the
+needlessness, the pity of it, made Dr. Dillon set his teeth.
+
+"Eugene will be here directly with Gladys," she said. "We thought it
+best not to wake her, and he said we had better start at once; for you
+see I can't walk nearly so fast as he does."
+
+There was no trace of fear in her voice, but there was none of
+resistance either, and she turned at the door to look back with an
+almost reproachful acquiescence.
+
+"Poor room," she said softly, "it seems so strange--such a pity; but I
+suppose it can't be helped." She turned to the darkness again with a
+little shiver, and went on, "Vincent sent the wire, I suppose."
+
+"I didn't ask," replied Dr. Dillon curtly; then, repenting him, added,
+"I suppose so. He will be here directly I expect. And--and we will all
+take care of you and Gladys, as long as we can. You know that; and we
+can't do more--can we?"
+
+She smiled quite tenderly. "Of course you will. And I am really not a
+bit afraid--except of being in the way."
+
+She seemed to accept the necessity of this; perhaps rightly. For the
+storm itself was no joke in these desert stretches, where the sand rose
+in choking clouds, yet left enough to make each step a toil. Muriel
+stumbled along breathlessly, but so slowly that, when her husband
+joined them, striding along with Gladys, still sleeping, wrapped in a
+blanket in his arms, the doctor bade them come at their leisure and
+wait until he gave the signal before entering, then ran on swiftly to
+the gaol. For there was no time to lose; though, on the other hand,
+there was very little to be done. The less the better, if his plan was
+to be successful; since that involved the utmost quiet, and the keeping
+of the prisoners from all knowledge of what was going on as long as
+possible.
+
+As he faced the choking darkness, the hot blasts of causeless wind,
+blowing all ways at once, George Dillon reckoned up his chances fairly.
+The storm would certainly make it easier to keep such knowledge from
+those within, and make it more difficult for those without to establish
+communication with the former. So far, good. On the other hand, no
+amount of the light at his command would enable him to see, even from
+his coign of vantage on the gateway roof, what was going on, either
+outside or inside. And darkness was the diggers' best friend; while
+digging was the recognized enemy of mud walls. Especially of those
+inside walls which divided the gaol into sections. Yet the best, the
+only chance of keeping the prisoners quiet, lay in preserving their
+segregation into companies.
+
+For the gaol was of the cart-wheel pattern. That is, a huge circle of
+outside wall, thick as an earthwork, the felloes of the wheel, as it
+were. Then a small central cylinder of brick, like a lime kiln, the
+nave of the wheel, as it were. Between these two the spokes. Spokes of
+twelve feet high mud wall, dividing the whole into seven wedges of
+prison, absolutely distinct, blank, aperture-less, save for one heavily
+stanchioned door in the apex of each wedge, leading into the central
+tower. Exit or entry was therefore impossible to six of these wedges,
+except through the tower; that is the citadel, the key, as it were, of
+the gaol proper.
+
+The seventh wedge, however, gave, at its wider end, on the
+entrance-gate, which was a square, semi-fortified building, pierced by
+a tunnel, gated at each end, and further protected by an outside yard,
+or roofless porch, also gated. The inmost of these three gates opened
+on to a small courtyard, and this narrowed again into an alley which
+gave access to the central tower. Briefly then the whole gaol consisted
+of six wedges opening, by a door in their narrow end, into the central
+cylinder; and a seventh wedge split in two by an alley leading between
+high mud walls from the gateway to that central tower; the key to the
+position.
+
+In the two halves of the split wedge lay the warders' barracks, the
+solitary cells, the cook rooms, the hospital; and the entry to these
+was by a door on either side of the little courtyard, just beyond the
+inner gate. From the corner of this, also, rose the outside stair
+leading to the roof of the square, brick gateway.
+
+Thus the fifteen hundred prisoners were broken up into companies of
+about two hundred each, and were absolutely without possibility of
+communication so long as the central tower was in the hands of
+authority. Unless there was time to undermine the mud walls, and tools,
+also, wherewith to work. Of these, however, there were none in the
+gaol. Nothing, even, that could be used to take their place, except in
+that seventh section which held the executive of the gaol; and there
+Dr. Dillon meant to leave no hands to use them, if he could compass it.
+
+As he pulled up to regain his breath before walking up to the gate and
+giving the countersign, the whole place lay quiet and dark. So far,
+good. There was the risk, however, of the plot being known, and of the
+sentry refusing him entrance. It was not, however, and the next moment,
+calmly as if he was merely on one of his not infrequent rounds of
+unexpected night inspections, Dr. Dillon passed from the outer porch to
+the tunnel, and told the sentry at the inner gate to light the lamp in
+the little office room to one side.
+
+"Call the superintendent," he said to the first man, "and you can tell
+him I am going to inspect the solitary cells."
+
+He added this because he knew it would give time, since the
+superintendent would be sure to give a private look round, first, to
+see all was in order, and remove possible traces of tobacco or
+opium,--those luxuries out of which so much money can be made by gaol
+officials.
+
+No sooner, however, had the first sentry gone through the door to the
+left section, than he sent the second one on a similar message to the
+right, where the hospital lay. Then, the coast being clear, he rapidly
+unlocked the private safe in the office which held his set of keys in
+case of accidents, and locked both the right and left doors. Secure for
+a moment, therefore, from interruption, he ran outside, saw that the
+tool rooms, etc., were closed, gave the signal to Eugene Smith, hurried
+the refugees up the stairs; and then, after unlocking the two doors
+again on his way back to the office, sat down in his usual chair and
+began to look over a register.
+
+He was engaged in this calm occupation when, a minute or two after, the
+native superintendent--a big, dignified person, in a blatant undress
+due largely to his bulk--arrived breathless.
+
+"_Darogah-jee!_" began Dr. Dillon, instantly, and the mere tone of the
+title made the man quiver, "I've had constantly to complain of the
+tobacco and opium smuggling that is going on among the warders, and I
+mean to stop it. I've had information to-night which will clinch
+the business. So take the night guard, rouse every warder, bring
+everyone here, even those on guard in the sections--the hospital
+orderlies--everyone, in fact, who is free to go out of the gaol. They
+are to come at once. No time allowed for arrangements. If they are not
+all here in five minutes I shall think you are in league with the
+smugglers."
+
+The _darogah's_ fat flesh shook, yet he winked as he went off. If the
+doctor-_sahib_ expected to find anything in this fashion except, maybe,
+a smell of the forbidden drugs, he was mistaken. On such a night, too,
+when the dust was in everyone's eyes. Well! it might have been worse;
+for, though he knew nothing definitely of any plot, he could not fail
+to know that there was more to excite men in the gaol, that night, than
+tobacco or opium! So he went about his summons with a sigh of relief,
+and before the five minutes were over had his posse of minor officials
+together, including a file of unfettered prisoners, with good conduct
+badges, who were used as gang leaders. He himself finally coming down
+the alley, with a stupendous bunch of keys, followed by the little
+group of night warders he had collected from the other sections.
+
+"All here?" asked Dr. Dillon, lighting a cigar. "The register, please,
+_darogah_. They will answer to their names, pass out through the wicket
+into the porch, and stay there until I've tallied the lot. I'm going to
+have it _pakka_[11] this time."
+
+Some of the men grinned, some looked uneasy, and some few frowned; but
+all obeyed, though they cuddled themselves into their blankets as they
+slipped through the wicket, and faced the whirling, swirling storm in
+the open porch, the doors of which were barred, not solid.
+
+"Kishen Rao?" came Dr. Dillon's voice, after a long series of names,
+followed by brief "_presents!_" and swift exits. There was no answer.
+He turned to the _darogah_ for explanation.
+
+"Absent!" explained the latter, timorously.
+
+A little more decision might have saved him the quick question, "With
+or without leave?"
+
+"_Huzoor_" palpitated the fat man, "he went out to bathe in the Holy
+Pool by permission this morning. He is of the utmost sobriety. A
+Brahmin, promoted by your Honour to, as your Honour knows, general head
+ward-keeper. He is not to be suspected."
+
+"Leave till 5 P.M.," commented the doctor, looking over the register.
+"Mark him down absent without leave. Go on."
+
+So, rapidly, the last man ducked under the wicket.
+
+"Is that the lot?"
+
+"Everyone, Protector of the Poor," protested the burly official, with
+smiles. "The prison is empty of the unfettered."
+
+"Then let it remain so for the present," said Dr. Dillon, coolly, as he
+stepped forward, closed the wicket, slid the bolt to its place, and
+turned on the _darogah_, all in one swift sequence.
+
+"Now, then!" he went on sharply, "you and I have to settle a bit of
+business. Your keys--" he took out a revolver, and laid it on the table
+beside him--"every key you have; duplicates, triplicates, everything!
+I'm going to keep this gaol myself for a bit. Do you understand?"
+
+"_Huzoor!_" bleated the man, helplessly, putting his big bunch on the
+table.
+
+Dr. Dillon smiled sarcastically. "Won't do, my friend. I want the lot
+by the list. Where's the register?"
+
+When it came he ticked them off rapidly by it. "Sections B and C,
+warder's duplicate; where's that?" he asked.
+
+The official grew green. "Kishen Rao--" he began--"but he is of the
+utmost--"
+
+Dr. Dillon turned on him like lightning. "You're a damned scoundrel,
+sir! What else is missing?" He ran over the rest swiftly, then looked
+up suddenly with a scowl that made the man literally collapse. "So
+that's it, is it? Duplicate of B and C sections missing, and duplicate
+of the alley doors. A pretty little game!" he laughed sardonically.
+
+"Kishen Rao--" gurgled the _darogah_--"by your Honour's promotion--of
+the utmost--"
+
+"But it won't play, my friend; it won't play!" went on the doctor, with
+a curious elation. "I hold the thirteenth trump, now. You go in
+there,"--he pointed to an inner store-room behind the slip of an
+office; a windowless place, pitch dark, where the clothes in which the
+prisoners arrived awaited their release in piles--"and thank your stars
+you're in such good quarters."
+
+All but that brief order, "You go in there," was spoken in English, as
+a sort of outlet for the intense satisfaction which was filling him at
+his own success,--_so far_.
+
+The next minute he had turned the key on the _darogah_, and was up the
+stairs calling Eugene Smith in a low voice to come down and help to
+bolt and bar; but to come as quietly as he could.
+
+"I've got rid of the lot," he said joyously, after he had explained the
+position in a few rapid words; "there isn't a soul in this section
+except the solitary cellers--who, of course, are ironed--a few sick
+people, and the assistant surgeon; but _baboo-jee_ is an agnostic, and
+is so confoundedly afraid of the possibility of a future life that he
+may be trusted to go into green collapse if he hears a shot fired."
+
+So, rapidly, the two men set to work, undisturbed by more than a
+protesting "_Huzoor_, what shall we do?" from the posse outside the
+first gate, and a low knocking at the wicket.
+
+There were double doors here, however, and of the sort which it would
+need time to negotiate, without powder.
+
+"They will hold out for an hour, at least," said the doctor; "then
+there will be the inner one, and after that the alley door--unless--"
+he remembered Kishen Rao, and frowned. That was the only weak spot in
+his armour. "We can count on an hour and a half, at least," he
+continued, carefully allowing for the worst; "longer, perhaps. Now
+then, Smith, for the toughest job! I've got a couple of crowbars here.
+Those first six steps--eight if we can--of the stairs must come down.
+There aren't enough of us to hold them."
+
+So, for fully a quarter of an hour, no sound was heard above the
+curious vibration of the storm except the grinding and crushing of the
+bricks as they were rapidly eased out, one by one, from the mud mortar.
+The light of one of the office lamps, set on the ground, showed by that
+time a sheer drop of eight or ten feet, and Eugene Smith, working
+above, jammed his crowbar into a crevice of the wall against which the
+steps clung like a swallow's nest, and gave Dr. Dillon, who had been
+working below, a rope and a hand up.
+
+The latter set down the keys and the lamp he had brought up with him,
+and deliberately dusted the knees of his trousers.
+
+"There, that's done," he said. "Couldn't be better."
+
+"Yes, it seems pretty safe," assented Eugene Smith, a trifle dubiously.
+
+"Safe!" echoed the doctor, enthusiastically, "I haven't felt so safe
+for the last fortnight. Hullo! what's that?"
+
+That was a sudden bugle-call. The doctor's face fell. "What, already! I
+didn't expect relief so soon. However, it can't be helped. I'll just go
+up and tell Dering what I've done, so that he may be prepared for the
+locked out ones!"
+
+He took the light in his hand and crossed to the outer parapet.
+
+"Hello, Dering!" he began, peering down. Then a couple of shots whizzed
+past his head and he ducked. At the same moment, as if roused by the
+concussion, the first crackling thunderclap of the dust-storm, sounding
+muffled through the thick air, followed like a roll-call, and
+reverberated dully, sluggishly, through the black darkness.
+
+When it passed, Dr. Dillon's voice rose quietly.
+
+"There will be no relief, Smith; those are the troopers, and they're
+against us. So now--we've got it to ourselves, Smith, for some time."
+
+There was a certain satisfaction at the monopoly in his voice.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXIII
+
+                           THE SEARCH-LIGHT
+
+
+The sound of those two shots greeted Vincent Dering as, after infinite
+difficulty, owing to the darkness, the fitful gusts of wind, and the
+sand-banks, he drew up the canoe against what he knew must be the high
+bank below the off-take of the canal.
+
+It had only been by trusting the stream to guide him, and refraining at
+times from the use of his paddle, that he had managed to steer his way
+at all.
+
+So he knew he was late; felt, indeed, that he must be too late to use
+his influence with the men, and yet, despite this knowledge, a keen
+disappointment filled him when those shots proved him to be so; since
+by long experience he knew that once open resistance began, there could
+be no more question of words.
+
+What then, was there for him to do?
+
+If he, in his light canoe, helped, wherever possible, by every atom of
+strength his arms possessed, had taken so long to come down that mile
+or two of stream, the raft could not possibly arrive for another half
+hour.
+
+He could not sit still for half an hour; he felt, indeed, as if he
+could not sit still for half a minute. A passion to act, to sweep away
+the past, to forget, was upon him. He had had time during his strange
+journey--so often idle perforce--to realize his position; time to piece
+the still stranger events preceding his journey into a reasonable
+sequence; so that he had, by now, arrived at a fairly accurate guess as
+to the cause of much, that, when it happened, had seemed causeless.
+
+For instance, Laila's dress, "_given her by someone_." That, joined to
+the knowledge that she was connected with the late Nawab's family, of
+which Roshan Khān might with justice claim the headship, had brought
+the latter's action within the bounds of credibility. Jealousy!
+revenge! these were potent causes. Laila, then, must have been playing
+with Roshan's pretensions. Playing like a child with a toy; playing,
+rather, like a woman who hesitates at nothing for the sake of the man
+she loves. And she had hesitated at nothing; not even at this, to give
+him pleasure, to make things match with his passion! The thought, the
+remembrance, made him for a moment feel inclined to fling up his hands,
+and let the canoe take him where it chose; take him down stream
+utterly. Then a half choking, yet wholly strenuous desire to escape
+from the whole story, a wild instinctive effort for a more wholesome
+atmosphere, like that of a drowning man for a breath of fresh air, had
+sent the canoe bounding on _his_ way; _his_ way and none other's, in
+swift obedience. With a rush, he had grasped that there was more in
+life--that he had allowed himself to be a slave! But that was past,--he
+would shake himself together--he would forget the thraldom of sex--and
+he would forget the past.
+
+Yet, as he cast about in his mind for the best method of applying the
+half hour's leisure, the remembrance of a woman came to him, as if to
+mock at his resolution. Muriel, and dear little Gladys who called him
+"Derin' darling"; where were they? His eyes grew soft in the
+remembrance, stern at the probability of their being in danger. Why had
+he not thought of it before? How could he ever have paused, wondering
+what to do?
+
+He set the red light, which he had taken from the fateful balcony,
+carefully in the canoe--though, even should some gust of the rising
+wind not blow the light out, it could scarcely be of any use in that
+outer darkness--as a signal to the raft should it, by an off chance,
+drift past in his absence, then struck across the sand in the direction
+in which he knew the Smiths' bungalow must lie; that was, a little to
+the rear of the gaol.
+
+The storm, as he faced it, was so fierce that the doubt rose inevitably
+if an unwieldy raft could make way against it. If so, then there would
+be no help. The only thing would be to defend himself and others until
+the end came; the end which would at least end the past.
+
+He had almost to feel his way, the darkness was so intense. It was a
+relief to stumble against something which he knew must be the low mud
+fence of Muriel's garden; that garden in which she tried to defy
+Providence, and rear English flowers. He knew his feet must be crushing
+her treasures as he passed on towards a faint glow, a red glow. But
+everything that was not the blackness of outer darkness to-night seemed
+red--blood red.
+
+A minute after, with a vast relief at the silence, the solitude, he was
+in Muriel's pretty drawing-room. The pink-shaded lamp was still alight,
+showing red through the fog of dust. He passed to it instinctively, and
+as he did so, noticed the writing on the table. But many an earth-atom
+had fallen on that confession of ignorance since George Dillon had made
+it idly, and so, as Vincent Dering bent quickly to see if by chance it
+was some message left for those who might come after, he also had to
+frown and say, "God knows!"
+
+Was it possible that Eugene and his wife were still asleep? The doors
+stood open, but that was to be expected at that season of the year,
+unless someone had been awake to close them against the storm. He must
+make sure, however.
+
+But there was no one to be found in any of the rooms. It occurred to
+him, then, that they must have taken refuge in the gaol, and he told
+himself he was a fool not to have thought of that before. Dillon would,
+of course, have seen to that. He, Vincent, might have remembered so
+much, at least; might have remembered that he himself was not the only
+slave. Then he gave an odd, bitter little laugh. Was it never possible
+to get beyond a woman's apron-strings?
+
+And here he was wasting time over the question, when he ought to be
+doing something better.
+
+But what?
+
+Go back and wait for the raft, or on to the gaol? There was a big
+tamarisk tree at the end of the garden. Only two days before he had
+pointed it out to Muriel and said that an active man accustomed to
+_trapeze_ work might swing himself from it astride the high mud wall of
+the gaol, and so gain the roof of the gate. Dillon had denied it; and
+she had said, laughingly, that no one ever tried to break into a gaol,
+only out of one.
+
+Curious; still, if it had only been light, it would have been worth the
+risking. But it was impossible now in the dark.
+
+So, suddenly, a remembrance came to him. The search-light!
+
+Was it only last night he had been dining here, in this house, after
+bringing Muriel home from the Mission, where they had seen that huge
+ray piercing the shadows? Was it only yesterday that he had listened to
+Eugene's lamentations over his unused electricity, which was sure, he
+said, to vanish into space from his rude contrivances. Was it only
+yesterday that, in obedience to that pathetic look of martyrdom on
+Muriel's face, which still seemed--to one part of Vincent's nature--to
+call for instant sympathy, he had, to appease the honest inventor,
+shown an interest in search-lights which was purely fictitious, and
+learned a variety of facts about buttons and stop-cocks? And had all
+this happened yesterday on purpose that to-day, when he was in need of
+light--
+
+He was up on the roof with the thought. If only the blessed thing had
+go enough for that! As he picked his way rapidly through the litter,
+three or four cigar-ends, a half-finished whiskey-and-soda, seen by the
+flash of the hurricane lantern he had sought out and lit, told him that
+Eugene must have been at work over his new toy till late. So much the
+better for his chance--for everybody's chance; since a signal like that
+might make all the difference to the raft; all the difference to Dillon
+in the gaol--
+
+
+George Dillon was, indeed, beginning to realize this himself. His
+almost triumphant mood had passed; it had come home to him that the
+unexpected revelation of the troopers' complicity in the plot, whatever
+it was, had changed the whole aspect of affairs. Now, there was no
+question of keeping the gaol quiet until help should arrive. He was
+face to face, now, with the fact that he must not rely on any aid at
+all. What had really happened, he could not guess. For all he knew, the
+troopers and pioneers might have risen and killed their officers,
+killed everybody who would be likely to help. His aim, now, was to sell
+his life, and--and hers--as dearly as he could; but in the dead
+darkness, like a rat in a hole, what could be done? Except wait--wait
+for the walls to be dug through, the gates to be mined, that poor eight
+or ten feet drop at the foot of the stairs scaled. Then a rush, still
+in the dark, and--the greatest Darkness of all!
+
+Not even the chance of a shot; and he had plenty of ammunition. It
+would at least have passed the time to take pot-shots at the devils;
+and though these would have brought retaliation, there would have been
+no need for exposure. The parapet walls were high enough, and properly
+loopholed.
+
+So, for a few minutes, he sat almost sullenly beside those, for whom
+alone he now felt responsible, in the little turret, which, as is
+always the case in India, rose at one corner of the flat roof giving
+fair shelter for the time. In his first hurried recognition, which had
+come with the shots, that not help but attack lay outside, he had blown
+out his light, fearing lest Eugene Smith might also be exposed to
+similar attentions; so it was pitch dark. And the now almost constant
+reverberations, which seemed to send the sand-laden air in pulse-beats
+on your face, deadened all other sounds into vague confusion. But he
+knew that the warders within the porch, the troopers without, were
+trying to force the barred gate. That would not take long; though the
+two doors blocking the ends of the tunnel would be a tougher job.
+
+And he heard, closer at hand, a sleepy whimper from the child, a low
+comforting from a mother's voice.
+
+The sound made him set his teeth.
+
+God! if there was only light to kill withal.
+
+And then, in a second, as if by a miracle, it came. A great flood of
+shining light, contemptuous, at that short distance, even of that outer
+darkness. For it was electricity against electricity; a house divided
+against itself.
+
+The first thing he saw by it was that fragile figure in its dainty blue
+frills, a child's golden head; and so, naturally, the next instant
+found his hand on a rifle.
+
+"The search-light! by all that's lucky! Well! everyone has not been
+killed, anyhow," cried Eugene Smith.
+
+"Killed," echoed Dr. Dillon, savagely. "No one has been killed yet, but
+it won't be long before they are."
+
+It was not; for a trooper engaged in staring stupidly at the velvety
+black circle out of which the intruding light seemed to spring,
+suddenly threw up his hands, swirled round, and fell face upwards in a
+crumpled heap.
+
+There was an instant's scare in the crowd, in that hundred and fifty or
+more of troopers and conspirators, thrown into black and white relief,
+like a shadow pantomime, about the outer gate. Then the startled
+murmurs of "the light--the _Dee-puk-rāg_" which were passing from lip
+to lip, changed into a yell.
+
+The fight had begun in earnest.
+
+"Shoot straight," remarked Dr. Dillon, a few minutes after, "we shan't
+have such a good chance long. The gate is almost gone. Then most of the
+game will be out of range--too close to the wall. And once they get
+into the tunnel we shall have to sound _cease firing_ until they come
+out on the other side; but then we ought to do decent damage, if the
+prisoners don't get at us first." He paused, and shot on steadily till,
+with a hoarse shout, the attackers surged inwards. Then he laid his
+rifle aside, remarking that it would be as well to keep an eye
+gaolwards, in case of complications.
+
+So far as could be seen in that curious chequering of dense darkness
+and sharp glittering light; light which was palpably an intruder, which
+seemed absolutely apart from the things it showed--even from the
+dust-atoms--there was none as yet. At least the uppermost portion of
+that vast wheel of wall stood out, perfect, unbroken. The roof of the
+Smiths' bungalow, where the light stood, being, however, but little
+higher than these walls, much of what lay below in the sections
+themselves was necessarily hidden in shadow; especially on the side
+nearest the light. But the narrow alley leading up to the central
+tower, being in straight line with the ray, showed clear as daylight,
+save just under the citadel itself. So did most of the little
+courtyard, with its doors opening to the right and left. George Dillon
+gave a sigh of satisfaction at the sight, since, whether the foe
+elected--when once inside the gates--to rush the roof, or press on to
+liberate the prisoners by those six doors in the round tower, there
+would be fair chance of a good bag, for a straight shot!
+
+Or, even if the convalescents in hospital were to set free the
+solitary-cell convicts--a contingency which had occurred to him too
+late for any plan of minimizing the danger--and were to swarm into the
+courtyard to help against the last gate (which, of course, was partly
+barred from the inside), he could settle their hash also. And that,
+now, was his one idea. The idea of all brave men when they find
+themselves in a tight place--to kill before being killed.
+
+As yet, however, there was no sign of life even within the vast wheel,
+with its rims and spokes of light, its centre of shadow. It lay dim,
+curiously still behind the dust-atoms that danced in the ray, like
+motes in a sunbeam.
+
+There was not a sound, not a sign within. Only the tumult of voices,
+the intermittent shots without, rising above the dull, muffled hum in
+the air.
+
+Stay! that was something. Half way round the circle, where the shadow
+of the tall tamarisk tree in the Smiths' garden cut a jagged gap in the
+white rim of wall, there was some change, something that had not been
+there a moment ago.
+
+The gap had moved; had changed place and form, though for a time the
+air was still with one of those breathless, suffocating pauses, when
+the dust above seems to sink on the dust below, and fill one's very
+lungs. And now the gap was back again, as it had been before. But it
+had left something clinging for a second to the wall like a limpet: the
+next astride it safely.
+
+"Reach me over my rifle, Smith," said the doctor, briefly; "there's a
+brute trying to sniggle along the wall; must have come up that tree in
+your garden. Wish I'd taken Dering's advice and cut it down. Thanks! I
+don't want to take my eye off him, for fear he means to drop into a
+section. I'll shoot, if that seems his game; if not, I'll wait till he
+comes closer."
+
+He leant over the parapet, waiting. Just below him, the inner wall of
+the gate against which the stair clung, and which was prolonged into
+the turret where Muriel and the child were sheltering, joined the
+circular outside wall of the gaol. The man, thought Dr. Dillon,
+trusting to their being occupied in front, must be trying to steal a
+march on them, slip down the stair, and take them in the rear. There
+was plenty of time to prevent that, however.
+
+Muriel Smith, roused by the sound of Vincent's name from the sort of
+lethargy into which she had fallen,--since she was not wanted either by
+her husband or the doctor,--rose to her knees and peered over the
+parapet cautiously.
+
+"From the tree in the garden," she said, dreamily. "Yes! I remember.
+You said it couldn't be done, and I said no one would ever want to do
+it, and he said he could--" she paused, and gave a little cry--"It is
+Vincent himself!" she gasped; "don't shoot, doctor! It's Vincent! I
+know it! I feel it! I knew he would come, if he could! Vincent!
+Vincent!"
+
+"What's up?" asked Eugene, still firing steadily at all that was to be
+seen.
+
+"Only your wife says the man is Captain Dering; and--and, by Jove! I
+believe she is right."
+
+"Of course I'm right," she sobbed, half hysterically--"I knew he would
+come--I knew he wouldn't leave me to die alone!"
+
+Eugene Smith laid down his rifle, and crawled over in cover
+deliberately, with an odd look on his face.
+
+"Yes! that's Dering; plucky fellow. He's swung himself up. I always
+knew he was a nailing gymnast."
+
+There was no grudge in his voice, only a curious challenge as he looked
+at his wife, then laid his big hand on her shoulder. "Keep more down,
+please--your head's showing. He'll get here, all right, never fear;
+we'll lower a rope to him when he comes alongside."
+
+"But I would rather look--I'd rather see _anything_ happen--" she moaned;
+"it seems so unkind not to watch--not to be there--with him--" She was
+shivering all over, the patient self-control, the steady acquiescence
+even in her own danger which had been hers till then, gone utterly.
+
+George Dillon felt a great pity, a vast impatience.
+
+"So you were right, Smith," he broke in hastily, to cover her sudden
+break down. "They aren't killed; now we shall have a chance of knowing
+what's at the bottom of all this foolery!"
+
+But when, five minutes later, Vincent Dering reached the roof in
+safety, the doctor felt vaguely that the explanations only added to the
+general incomprehensibility; and that something was being kept back.
+What, he asked impatiently, had started the show?
+
+Of course there were plots. Pidar Narāyan knew of them, but, as such
+things generally did, they had seemed abortive. What, then, had upset
+the apple-cart?
+
+Vincent gave a gesture of despair. "What does it matter?" he cried. "We
+can think of that--if we _can_ think--when it's over! And if we
+can't--what does it matter?"
+
+"You can bet your bottom dollar on one thing," said Eugene, who, in
+this pause for a council of war, was methodically loading various
+weapons for future use. "It is either the sex, or sin. This world would
+be a paradise of peace if people didn't want virtue or vice,--I don't
+say which is which, mind you." He spoke suddenly, harshly; and once
+more George Dillon came to the rescue.
+
+"As Dering says, it doesn't matter. But the fact that the pioneers are
+staunch, and may be expected before long, alters our tactics a bit,
+Smith. We must husband our ammunition, and stick on as long as
+possible--don't you think so, Dering?"
+
+Vincent, kindly always, had stooped to take little Gladys, who had
+crept over to him, in his arms; and now the child, her arms round his
+neck, was cuddling close to him. "I'm so glad oo's come, Derin'
+darlin'," she whispered. "And so's mum--aren't 'oo, dearest?"
+
+Vincent unclasped the soft, little, clinging hands almost resentfully,
+and pulled himself together.
+
+"Yes!" he said briefly, "we've got to hold out. So it will be better to
+reserve ourselves, and try to keep the gaol itself quiet. It will take
+the brutes some time to force those gates unless they get help from
+within, and then there is the alley, and the doors. Still, we shall
+want every minute; for, unless the storm lessens, Carlyon will scarcely
+get the raft here before dawn. It was awful on the river."
+
+
+It was, indeed.
+
+Even Am-ma had lost himself utterly, while Lance, after paddling, and
+drifting, and shouting after a dozen false hopes, was still as far from
+finding the raft as ever.
+
+What could have become of it? Had it started sooner than he had
+expected, and passed down before he had found Vincent? Or had it never
+started at all? Had the men, after he left, turned round on _her?_
+
+This fear had come to him early in his search, and he had felt inclined
+then and there to paddle back to the Fort, and satisfy himself it was
+not so. But the thought of her face, if he allowed care for her to
+cause delay, had kept him to his task steadily, till he could no longer
+doubt that something had gone wrong.
+
+But what? And what was he to do?
+
+Then, in a flash, had come back her words after she had bidden him
+think hard. "You must go down to the spit, cut across it by the mission
+house, get round, if you can, to the police camp."
+
+That had been her verdict, involving her being left to take her chance.
+
+And now either the raft, the relief for the gaol, had started, or it
+had not. If the former, he might, of course, by a stern chase overtake
+it; but Erda was there and Vincent would meet her; they could do
+without him. But if it had _not_ started, what then? Then matters were
+exactly as they had been, when she had bidden him leave her.
+
+So, with a feeling that, if this were so, he cared little what
+happened, he steered, so far as he could judge, for the sand-banks of
+the spit to the right.
+
+Am-ma, on the contrary, steered instinctively to the left, towards the
+high bank, the deepest stream. It would at least float his logs to
+their destination, and that was something. Kings had come and gone, and
+battles had been won and lost, but the logs had always had to go down
+the river, whatever happened.
+
+And among the men, also, an apathy seemed to have settled, as they
+drifted on and on in the dark. Erda, crouching in a dry spot beside the
+ammunition, alert to the uttermost for the least hint of Lance,
+realized this from the very tone of their voices as they talked under
+their breath to each other. She felt instinctively that the inaction,
+the darkness, the lack of a leader, were lessening the value of those
+twenty men each minute.
+
+If Lance would only turn up! What could have become of him? The time
+seemed interminable; she felt sure that they must already have drifted
+past the gaol; she began to wonder if Am-ma was not playing false. For
+the darkness, the uncertainty, had its grip on her also. It was like
+some horrid nightmare, to drift on and on, hearing the muffled drumming
+of the storm, feeling the strange vibration in the air, the sharp sand
+tingling on your face, and to know nothing--nothing at all, save that
+you were there.
+
+"Am-ma!" she cried sharply, at last, certain of but one thing, that she
+must act,--"I believe we have passed the gaol; steer to the right, do
+you hear?"
+
+A laugh, not exactly insolent, but tolerant, came from the group of
+men. "Tis easy to give orders, Missy-_baba_," said a voice; "but not so
+easy to obey them, when the Lord is against your side, and sends
+darkness!"
+
+Erda's heart gave a great throb, not of fear, but comprehension. That
+was the beginning; a minute or two more and these men would be out of
+hand.
+
+"Am-ma!" she called again, "do what I tell you. Remember the child!
+Remember we have the _Dee-puk-rāg_."
+
+Another laugh came from the men. "If you have the _Dee-puk-rāg_, send
+it now. We need light, for sure, and--"
+
+The voice ended in a gasp--
+
+For it was there! A long ray of light, showing them that they were,
+indeed, just opposite the gaol.
+
+"Am-ma!" came Erda's voice again, and there was a hush and yet a
+triumph in it, "to the right--steer to the right."
+
+The raft edged slowly towards the ray, but the soldiers still crouched
+inactive; awed, yet not certain.
+
+Then suddenly that quick crack of George Dillon's first shot echoed
+over the river, then the yell, then the answering shots.
+
+And following on their heels rapidly came a stir among those crouching
+figures, and one of them stood up excitedly--"It has begun!--see you,
+Prag! Lehna, give the boatman a hand! Lo! do as the Miss-_baba_ bade
+thee, quickly, son of a pig! Steer for the light--they have begun!"
+
+Erda gave a sigh of relief. _That_ danger was over.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV
+
+                          BEYOND THE SHADOW
+
+
+The fact that the quarrel had begun did not, however, have the same
+effect upon Roshan Khān.
+
+In the first tempest of rage and hate which the sight of Laila and
+Vincent in the balcony had roused in him he had simply let himself go.
+He had not thought at all. Had his revolver held other cartridges, he
+would have gone on shooting at Vincent, Pidar Narāyan, at everybody,
+till he could shoot no more. He had run _ā-mak_; that curious phase of
+the Oriental mind when once it oversteps the hard and fast lines of
+custom in which it moves and breathes and has its being.
+
+The very fact that his revolver did not contain more possibilities for
+death, that he had no other weapon, emphasized his wild revolt.
+
+He was helpless--impotent--before these strangers, who had stolen
+everything! Everything, save bare existence. This thought, as he burst
+into the open, into the lurid darkness of the new-come storm, had made
+him laugh bitterly; for it was only that bare existence which _he_
+wished to steal! They might keep the rest; but _that_ he would claim
+from them somehow, in fair exchange.
+
+The time was ripe for such exchange too,--for fair exchange. (The
+epithet "fair" haunted him, trying to still the keen remorse for that
+shot in the dark; for one part of him knew it to have been cowardly.)
+Yes! this useless plot, with foolish mischief hidden in its heart, to
+which he had just been listening with loyal intent to frustrate it,
+could be made to serve his purpose without delay. His men would follow
+him anywhere. He had but to say the word--the word so many of them
+wanted. Then, those thieves of all that made life worth living would
+learn a lesson. They would fight and win, of course; but the lesson
+that without such men as he--men whom they thwarted and repressed at
+every turn--they could not rely upon their regiments, would have to be
+learnt. And in the learning, one thief would learn something else.
+
+So, without more thought than this desperate clashing of jealousy and
+despair, he had dashed through the crowd of pilgrims who were waiting
+for the dawn, gone back to the Fort, and given the word.
+
+In the excitement which followed, spreading swiftly from his own, he
+had not--and it was typical of the man that he did not--forget Lance
+Carlyon's friendliness; a more equal friendliness than that of most.
+There was no need to drag him into the quarrel, the more so because the
+disloyalty of the Sikh pioneers was doubtful. They might complicate
+matters at the beginning. So he had locked and barred them into the
+inner courtyard, out of the way.
+
+But Captain Dering, he knew, was outside! Let him be alone with his
+troopers, as he, Roshan would be alone with them! Let them both try
+their influence; let them try conclusions on these terms. That was but
+fair.
+
+This first step, however, necessitated others. The original plot, with
+its waiting for the dawn, its cumbrous mechanism of keys, and pilgrims,
+and God knows what, was not to his liking. He meant to fight. And if,
+as the conspirators had asserted, some of the warders were friends hand
+and foot, his men could crack the nut of the gaol in half an hour. The
+sooner the better.
+
+Pidar Narāyan, he knew, had recognized him, and he was a fox for
+wiliness. Then, Captain Dering must be after him even now. And
+Dillon-_sahib_ might be on the alert any time. So the _coup de main_
+must come at once. As to what might follow, that might be after the
+fashion of Meerut in '57, or not. Who could tell the end of anything?
+The beginning would be an opportunity for fair fight between him and a
+thief. Once more the epithet "fair" scorched and shrivelled him with
+vague remorse, not for Laila--she was but a woman, a woman who had
+played him false and who deserved the worst--but for that shot in the
+dark.
+
+For there were two Roshans, warring fiercely in heart and brain.
+
+Then, after his mad, reckless ride to the gaol, the first realities had
+come to him in the sight of Dr. Dillon, standing with the light in his
+hand to welcome friends; and in the sound of those two snap-shots
+proclaiming foes.
+
+Why? The question had come swiftly. What quarrel had he with Dr.
+Dillon? Or with Eugene Smith, whose tall, gaunt figure showed behind
+the other? Eugene Smith, who must have brought his wife, his child,
+with him!
+
+The horror, the terror of what might come, swept through the quondam
+prize pupil of a mission school; the horror, the terror, in the
+remembrance of the Great Mutiny, which is, alas! a legacy of wrong to
+young India. Which ties her hand and foot; which makes those who are
+worthy of the name shrink instinctively from anything which may rouse
+the underlying savagery--the unavoidable savagery--of their countrymen.
+
+Could he hold his troopers? Could he be sure? He had come to curse. Was
+it too late to bless?
+
+Then the memory of Laila--the whole hateful tale which was
+irrevocable--struck him hopeless. He was damned utterly; he could not
+escape.
+
+He sat rigid as a statue on his horse for a second; then with a wild
+fury gave the orders for his troopers to dismount and force the gates.
+
+"Your slaves, _Nawab-sahib!_" had come the answer, making him smile
+proudly. _That_, at any rate, could not be stolen from him _now_. _Now_
+he could fight and die in what should have been his real position.
+
+Yet, once more, when the search-light had come to throw that group of
+excited men hacking and hewing at doors closed by authority into
+significant black-and-white relief, that doubt had returned; that
+desire to be on the side, once more, of men like Dr. Dillon, whose bold
+resolve to be alone responsible for his gaol, which the warder's tale
+revealed, filled him with admiration.
+
+But that sudden throwing up of a trooper's hands, that sidelong stumble
+into death, had left Roshan cruel as death itself; for the man thus
+killed had been to him as a brother.
+
+So he had gone on with a fresh impulse towards revenge, and for a time
+found forgetfulness in the excitement, the action. For though the first
+gate, that one giving on the open sort of porch, had yielded, almost at
+once, to the troopers outside and the warders within, the second,
+barring the arched tunnel, was a tougher job. It was not until this had
+given way, and the attacking party were completely sheltered from the
+fire of the little garrison on the roof, that there was leisure for
+that thought to return: "What am I doing? Why am I doing it?"
+
+No man, it may be said broadly, ever fights without feeling that the
+battle is an appeal to a tribunal beyond himself, and Roshan did not
+feel this. Then the remembrance of the woman, the child, upstairs came
+persistently, burdened by the weight of that past tragedy which, in
+India, it is impossible to forget. And this was a woman who had always
+been courteous to him, a child to whom he had given toys.
+
+What was he doing?
+
+The men were at work on the last, the strongest gate, with every tool
+they could find. Not many, for Dr. Dillon's forethought had left them
+before barred doors everywhere. The delay had already been great; would
+be greater. They must be close now on the lines of the original plot,
+at which Roshan had laughed, for the dawn was showing faintly--a mere
+promise of light to come--in the east. And the storm was passing. The
+dull reverberations of faint thunder were lost now in the cries, the
+blows of those at work trying to batter down the iron bars.
+
+A sudden distaste--more than regret or repentance--came to Roshan as he
+stood silent, watching blow after blow; a sudden doubt.
+
+Which was the right? No man worth calling a man ever fights for
+anything else; every man worth calling one fights for that. But which
+was right? Those men, hacking and hewing, or the little garrison
+upstairs?
+
+There were no such searchings of heart there, at any rate; no question
+as to what they were doing, though at that exact moment they were
+engaged in the trivial occupation of drinking tea.
+
+Muriel Smith had made it, at Dr. Dillon's suggestion, against this very
+pause; this "_cease firing_" which he had foreseen. And in the making
+of it she had used a continental tea-basket which more than once had
+been her companion on the Brindisi _route_. Dr. Dillon had laid hands
+on it in his foraging, and as she had boiled the kettle, the rush and
+roar of a train racing through the peaceful French champaignes had
+seemed to be in her ears, instead of that rush and roar of blows and
+shouting which was now rising from every part of the gaol; though the
+prisoners were still helpless for evil in their sections.
+
+So the three men, haggard, anxious, drank their tea in silence,
+hastily; yet with a curious insistence, as if the triviality gave them
+a hold on things familiar, things beyond this midsummer-night's dream
+of madness. But the child chattered as she munched a biscuit; chattered
+of the charms of this strange picnic on the "_woof, in the dark with
+oo's nighty an' s'ippers only_."
+
+The unconscious little voice struck a chill to the men's hearts, but
+the woman smiled, as mothers can do when they wish to guard that
+blessed unconsciousness to the last; the unconsciousness of which they
+are guardians by right.
+
+"We are doing as well as could be expected," remarked Dr. Dillon,
+suddenly, with a quaint professional reminiscence; then added, "I wish
+to God, though, I knew what my prisoners were up to--those solitary
+cellers are on my mind--I believe the convalescents could dig them out
+with the cook-room platters and ladles. I ought to have thought of
+that. But, as I say, we are doing very fairly well--your light, Dering,
+was a godsend."
+
+Eugene Smith looked up sharply, almost as if he meant a disclaimer;
+then he gave a brief assent. "Yes! but _that_ will be more of a godsend
+still--it is the dawn!"
+
+He pointed to that faint promise of light in the east, and Vincent
+Dering's eyes followed his hand with the doubtful look of one sick to
+death, as he watches the long weary night merge once more into another
+long weary day of certain pain. There was an utter hopelessness in it.
+
+"Yes," he echoed slowly, "that is the dawn."
+
+"Carlyon said the attack was planned for dawn, didn't he?" asked the
+doctor, deliberately helping himself to another lump of sugar,
+deliberately trying to keep the pulse beats of those around him as near
+normal as might be--and there had been something beyond it in Vincent's
+voice. "They must have meant to use the keys that brute Kishen Rao made
+off with. I wonder what it was that started the show prematurely?"
+
+"Do you think it was premature? Why?" put in Eugene Smith.
+
+"We should have had some of the townspeople, some of the pilgrims
+otherwise."
+
+"Perhaps the storm"--began Vincent.
+
+The doctor shook his head. "If they had meant to come they would have
+come. Of course now, with the wind blowing straight off us, they can't
+possibly hear."
+
+He paused and listened, for a sudden silence had fallen on the turmoil
+beneath, and out of it came an all too familiar sound, the clank of leg
+irons. Some of the prisoners, therefore, had managed to break out of
+their dormitories; or were these the solitary cellers?
+
+"I wish Carlyon would turn up," he muttered, almost petulantly, "it's
+our only chance--"
+
+But there was to be another; for, from below, a voice rose loud and
+clear.
+
+"Dr. Dillon! I have no desire to hurt you or yours, but I warn you
+that, if you persist, I am not responsible. Open the gates, and you
+shall have a safe conduct--for--for everybody."
+
+George Dillon was on his feet at once, but Captain Dering stopped him;
+his eyes ablaze.
+
+"What shall I tell him, Dillon?" he said sharply. "I'll take my orders
+from you--you're in charge; but that man is under mine. What shall I
+say?"
+
+Dr. Dillon gave one glance at the woman and the child. "Tell him to be
+universally damned," he answered; and Eugene Smith, husband and father,
+nodded acquiescence.
+
+Roshan Khān was standing in full view as Vincent Dering stepped up to
+the parapet. His face was raised; there was almost an appeal in it. But
+every atom of that, every atom almost of humanity, vanished as he
+recognized his captain. His hand went instinctively to his revolver.
+
+Then a thought seemed to come to him. He drew himself up proudly, and
+waited for the answer.
+
+It came, keen as a knife.
+
+"_Risaldar!_ draw off your men and return to barracks, or I'll shoot
+you as a mutineer."
+
+There was half a second's silence; then a wild laugh: "Close up, men,
+rush that gate--forward!"
+
+The words and the crack of Vincent's revolver--the bullet of which,
+aimed too high, passed through Roshan's turban-were almost lost in the
+answering yell. But the _risaldar_ stood his ground for a second, then
+coolly sought shelter.
+
+That was over! They were quits now for the fair fight. And fate had
+been kind. He had unwittingly offered this man--his greatest enemy--a
+safe conduct; and it had been refused, luckily. Well! let Vincent
+Dering take the whole consequences. The blood of one woman was already
+on his head; so would be the blood spilt here. He, Roshan, would need
+have no further scruples.
+
+So, as if it had gained strength from the brief respite, the turmoil
+recommenced; and now Roshan Khān's voice could be heard urging the men
+on. And there were answering shouts from different parts of the gaol.
+
+George Dillon frowned. "They mean business now. And I fancy I hear
+pounding at the left section door. If so we shall have the solitary
+cell men--my worst lot, of course--out in the courtyard before long.
+Dering--can you hear anything?--there's such a confounded noise--"
+
+Vincent, who was standing at the top of the stairs which led to the
+ten-feet drop, ran down a few steps and listened. Then he looked up
+quickly and nodded.
+
+"They are there. The door's shaking. How many of them are there?"
+
+"Two dozen or thereabouts; and the convalescents, of course. That's
+nothing--if they haven't got their leg irons off! We ought to settle
+most of them before they can help with the door. Still, I wish Carlyon
+would turn up."
+
+A sudden hurry and urgency had come to the struggle, and Dr. Dillon
+passed restlessly to the other side of the roof. The sky was lightening
+faintly. More because the dust had sought dust again, the earth earth,
+than from any increase of light; and so the broad ray of the
+search-light, widening as it went, lost itself in the distant darkness,
+and there was nothing to be seen riverwards. But close at hand two
+men--one in a warder's uniform--were running towards the gaol,
+shouting.
+
+The doctor was back to the inner parapet in a second. "Look out!
+they've got the keys now--not of this door, but some of the
+sections--and the alley. The game's up unless Carlyon--Mrs. Smith,
+please--you had better go into the turret--we shall be shooting free--"
+
+Eugene, who had been standing beside her, laid his hand on her
+shoulder. "Yes, dear!" he said gently; "go inside--it will be better
+for Gladys--and for me--"
+
+Muriel turned white, but stood quite firm, quite calm. "Come, little
+girlie," she said, holding out her hand to the child. "You've had your
+tea--it's bedtime--I can't have you sitting up all--" she broke down a
+little, partly because she was passing Vincent, and he, busy loading
+various rifles and revolvers, kept his eyes studiously from her. But
+Gladys did not choose to pass her friend in this fashion. She paused, a
+dainty little figure in a blue dressing-gown, like her mother, and with
+the same fluffy golden curls about her coaxing, delicate little child's
+face.
+
+"Dood-night, Derin' darlin'," she said. "I'm so glad 'oo's here, an'
+so's--"
+
+Something that was not all desire to check that formula made the man
+pause, too, to lift her gently, and kiss her.
+
+"Good-night, Gladys. You mustn't be frightened at anything, you know.
+You've got to be a brave girl--haven't you?" The coaxing face was close
+to the haggard, haunted-looking one.
+
+"If 'oo's goin' to be brave, Derin' darlin', I'll be brave too. Is 'oo,
+dearest?"
+
+The haggardness vanished.
+
+"I think so, little one. Good-night." He put the child down hastily, at
+a crash. The moment for courage had come.
+
+"Shoot as straight as you can!" shouted the doctor. "The section door's
+gone. Let 'em have it!"
+
+The door had gone, indeed; and in a second the courtyard beneath them
+was half full of naked, desperate men; the worst characters in the
+gaol.
+
+"Pick off the ones nearest the gate--don't let 'em touch the
+bolts--it's good for another ten minutes if we can keep them from it,"
+came the doctor's voice in jerks, as he leant over the parapet just
+above the centre of the door below, and carried out his own orders with
+deadly effect; though his heart sank when he saw that some of the
+prisoners were unironed--or rather unironed on one leg, and that they
+were armed with the other iron; a deadly enough weapon at close
+quarters. Besides, it meant more treachery. It meant a previous filing
+of the ankle-fetters; and if others in the remaining sections were as
+free--
+
+He shot quicker, steadier, while Eugene Smith and Vincent, one above
+the other on the top of the stair, did the same, taking the intruders
+on the flank. It was growing lighter every instant, the air was
+clearer, the breeze of dawn was sweeping the smoke of the rifles
+riverwards, the great white wheel of the gaol was growing broader in
+its outlines, the shadows were shrinking. But the storm seemed still
+there, in the ceaseless reverberations.
+
+"They're up to something in the far corner!" called Eugene. "What is
+it, Dillon? You can see better."
+
+The doctor ceased firing for a second, and ran farther down the
+parapet.
+
+"The keys! the keys!" he shouted back. "They are trying to pass in the
+keys! Shoot the devils--those in the corner! Don't let 'em--or the gaol
+is gone!"
+
+So, for the next minute, it was deadly work down in that corner by the
+crevice through which some unseen hand was thrusting something. Three
+times a man, clutching at the prize, fell in a heap ere he touched it.
+Then a fourth pitched forward against the doors with the keys in his
+hand, and a fifth, groping for them, rolled over on his side with them
+hidden under his dead body. And from outside the gate came rendings,
+and crashings, and yells; from above, that call, "Shoot straight, or
+the gaol's gone!"
+
+Muriel crept out from shelter, possessed once more by that frantic
+desire to see to the very end, and stood looking down on those two on
+the stairs. She gave a faint cry when Vincent flung his rifle away, and
+ran down to that ten-foot drop for revolver practice. At the sound, her
+husband gave one quick look up, and followed suit.
+
+But their own success was against them. The growing pile of the wounded
+formed a barricade, behind which a man, squirming with covetous hands
+among the dead and dying, found what he sought.
+
+"He's got them! Stop him! stop him!"
+
+There was a fusillade, the man dropped; but the keys were in another
+hand--another--another--passing outwards from the crush--outwards
+towards that low door at the end of the narrow alley.
+
+Without a word, Vincent, revolver in hand, let himself drop on the
+heads below.
+
+"Oh, don't, Vincent, don't!" came a woman's voice; and at the sound,
+another man gave that swift look up once more, and followed suit.
+
+"Let them be!" said Dr. Dillon, sharply. "Let them do what they can; it
+is about the only chance." And still, as he spoke, he kept singling out
+a foe and firing.
+
+The chance, even with his help, was a poor one in that crowd, where
+there was always another dark hand to snatch at the prize, and pass it
+nearer to the door--that door which was the key to so much!
+
+Yet, the crush through which they fought lessening, those two
+Englishmen found themselves with the straight alley before them for a
+race. A race against three men, without arms, but without irons; and
+with a fair start. While close behind was the crush--the crowd!
+
+It was nothing but a race, now, since the revolvers had done their
+worst, had fired their last shot; a race with the hope--if Vincent
+could come up with those three--of using a Goorkha _kukri_, which he
+had thrust into the yellow silk sash he wore instead of a waistcoat
+beneath his red jacket--thrust it therewith an ugly frown as a last
+argument for his foes, when he had seen it lying among the pile of
+miscellaneous weapons Dr. Dillon had foraged from the Smiths' house. It
+had a dainty ivory handle--Vincent had given it to Mrs. Smith himself,
+and its last use had been to cut the pages of a fashion paper--
+
+It had a sterner job now.
+
+But Vincent was behind; a yard or two--no more. He had fired one more
+shot before beginning the race, and Eugene's legs were longer. Yet the
+yard meant all things, and he knew it; so as he ran, his hand sought
+the knife.
+
+"Look out, Smith! look out!" he called. "I'll chuck you my _kukri_; get
+on and job them; I'll keep the others back--a bit."
+
+As he spoke, a glittering curve sped from his hand to the other man's
+feet.
+
+Then he pulled up and faced the crowd behind with his clubbed revolver.
+
+The lane was very narrow. Three men could barely breast it shoulder to
+shoulder. Surely one could bar it by swift blows and slow retreat! For
+a time, at any rate--time for the opening and shutting of a door! He
+could but try.
+
+"Oh! what is he going to do?" gasped the woman who was watching.
+
+"I appose he's going to be brave, mum," said the child, who clutched at
+her hand, watching, too, with great, wide, uncomprehending eyes.
+
+But the man beside them held his breath.
+
+So retreating, step by step, Vincent Dering kept the crowd back, lured
+the crowd on, safe--so far! For these, the first, the swiftest, were
+naturally the unironed, therefore, the unarmed. But there were others,
+forcing their way to the front, who would be harder to deal with.
+
+Vincent threw his head back and wondered how Eugene was faring; for he
+dared not turn his face from his task even for a second.
+
+Had those three been caught up? Had the _kukri_ helped?
+
+It had. And one of those three had fallen before a flash, as of light.
+
+And another!
+
+But the third had the key in the door; had turned it, when Eugene
+struck him from behind. With a wild yell he flung his full weight on
+the door; it burst open, and the two fell headlong into the tower
+beyond.
+
+But only for a second. Eugene Smith was up again, had the key out, and
+in on the further side.
+
+"All right!" he shouted; "make a rush for it! I'm ready!"
+
+Vincent Dering gave one sharp look round. The door was not four yards
+from him, but the crowd was not one. There was no time. "Shut it," he
+called, "I'm all right."
+
+Eugene Smith stood uncertain; the door ajar.
+
+The keys! ah! what could he do with the keys if he went back to
+help--and if not--
+
+"Oh! please shut it, Smith! there's a good fellow; please."
+
+The four yards were two now, were one. Then slowly the door closed, and
+Vincent had his back against it.
+
+"Oh, Vincent! Vincent!"
+
+The agonized cry echoed above all other cries, but only for an instant;
+the next, George Dillon's hand was gagging the lips which uttered it.
+
+"Hush!" he said fiercely. "Can't you let him forget for these last few
+minutes that there is such a thing as a woman in the world. Hush! I
+say."
+
+And a great hush came. The sound of blows, of iron clashing on iron,
+and falling with a dull thud on something softer, seemed to fill the
+world and leave room for nothing else.
+
+Nothing except a softer sound still. A shuddering moan, as a woman
+slipped to her knees, and covered her face with her hands; then slipped
+lower still to the ground, in a heap.
+
+But the child looked at her mother, surprised.
+
+"Doesn't 'oo like Derin' darlin' to be brave, dearest?" she asked, in a
+concerned little voice.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXV
+
+                                 DAWN
+
+
+Had an hour passed, or twain? Ninian Bruce could not tell. It seemed to
+him that he had been kneeling for a lifetime, there on the altar steps
+beside the dying girl, with the glittering red-and-gold drapery
+trailing to the white marble, and opening to a white breast stained
+red,--a brighter red!
+
+A long lifetime; long as his own; that long life in which he had seen,
+had felt, so much.
+
+For as he waited for her inevitable death, his mind had followed that
+long life of his own, year after year, day after day, hour after hour.
+And everywhere it had seen a woman's eyes, a woman's soul, looking back
+from a soul, from eyes, that should have been a man's.
+
+Yes! the keynote of that long life had been the love of a woman.
+Passionate love, absorbing mind as well as body, claiming its reward in
+kind; as such love always does.
+
+In kind!
+
+There lay the whole difference between _anathema_ and _beata_. They
+were both _karma_, or desire!
+
+One of the girl's white feet slid with a silvery jingle of its anklet
+to the next step, and, as he replaced it to a more comfortable
+position, a chill struck to his heart as he remembered what such
+chiming had meant in the past history of the world. The measure which
+that provoked was--_anathema_. That--disguised, palliated, refined in a
+thousand ways--was one kind.
+
+And the other?
+
+The memory of his own past surged to his brain as he bent over the
+girl's whitening face and scanned it narrowly. How like the face was to
+that other one, now that coming death had sharpened the full, youthful
+curves. He had noticed the likeness often--it had been clear when Laila
+had worn the old Italian--Beatrice's--dress. But not so clear, not half
+so clear, as when in this--this almost shameless one--she had said--"I
+only want--him."
+
+It might have been Margherita speaking,--Margherita, who had wanted a
+man's soul.
+
+And she had had one.
+
+That was the other kind. But both were desire; the desire which drove
+humanity from Paradise, and keeps it vainly seeking for one still.
+
+Saturated as he was with the mysticism of the East and West, these
+thoughts came to him, dreamily, making him feel curiously aloof from
+himself. The pity of it filled him, and brought a pity for the dying
+girl also; the girl who had failed to find a paradise in this world,
+and was seeking a new road to it; seeking it alone. The only thing she
+craved in all God's earth to make that paradise--gone! Priest as he
+was, the humanity in him rose in passionate hope that she should not
+wake to the consciousness of this. What good would it do? Let her enter
+the shadows in peace.
+
+But as he wished the wish, her head, which had been resting on his arm,
+turned to the touch of it, and her smooth cheek nestled closer to what
+it found.
+
+"Kiss me, Vincent," she said, and her voice came back full, rich,
+round, to make the claim. "Kiss me before you go, dear!"
+
+The old man gave a slight shiver, and was silent.
+
+"Vincent!" came the voice again; "you _are_ there, aren't you? You
+wouldn't leave me--now--surely?"
+
+There was another silent pause, and then, silent still, Father Ninian
+stooped, and the old lips and the young ones met in a lover's kiss. And
+as they met, he knew that in that kiss lay the great renunciation of
+his life; that henceforward there would be no woman waiting in Paradise
+for him; that the spiritual presence had gone from his life like the
+bodily presence. That Margherita was Juliet, and Juliet, Margherita!
+
+"That's nice," murmured Laila, softly; "that's nice."
+
+Her head settled to his arm again, and the silence went on. On and on,
+till he stooped lower to listen for an unheard breath; then lower still
+to shift that head from his arm to the ground. For the need of a human
+touch, a human sympathy, had gone forever.
+
+He made the sign of the cross over the dead body, rose to his feet
+unsteadily, and looked about him, dazed, uncertain. In truth, he felt
+all his years for the first time; felt that his last hold on life had
+somehow gone from him in that kiss; that something more than one woman
+lay dead before him.
+
+Then the sight of Akbar Khān, still rocking himself backwards and
+forwards, a perfect pendulum of protesting innocence and helpless
+remorse, roused the old priest to the present. He took up the rapier he
+had laid aside in crossing the chapel, and passed over to where the old
+eunuch was bemoaning the high-handedness of fate. It was a tyranny,
+indeed! Who could have foreseen such an ending to a very ordinary
+intrigue? Who could even have dreamt of it? Had not men and women loved
+and met, thus, since the beginning of time?
+
+So, to the sinner's outraged experience of life and love came the saint
+with his, and with the face and sword of St. Michael and All Angels.
+
+"Tell me the truth," he said sternly; "and tell it quickly, for there
+is no time to lose."
+
+In truth there was not much to tell. It was all so simple, viewed as a
+whole; so complex in detail. And, as he listened, the anger left Pidar
+Narāyan's face wistful, wondering. More so than ever at the last
+mumbling excuse.
+
+"It all comes, _Ge-reeb-pun-wāz_, from the Almighty having made the
+Missy-_baba_ so like her sainted ancestress--Anāri Begum--on whom be
+peace."
+
+Anāri Begum! On whom be peace! Her sainted ancestress, on whom be
+peace!
+
+He stood for an instant looking towards the Altar, towards the dead
+girl; then he echoed under his breath, "On whom be peace!"
+
+That was the end.
+
+Peace on those women who had loved and died; and on the men who had
+loved them--lived for them--perhaps died for them.
+
+But for the rest who lived and loved still? A quick life seemed to come
+back to him at the thought of these, a desire to save them from death.
+
+"Follow me," he said briefly to the old retainer; "it must be close on
+dawn--I must see what I can do."
+
+So, still in his robes, with the blubbering old pantaloon--apostle of
+another cult--at his heels, he passed down the arched passage to the
+door at its end which opened on to the courtyard between the palace and
+the Fort. And as he went, his brain, confused as to the past, clear as
+to the present, was busy making plans for peace. So far as helping
+those at the gaol went, he knew himself to be powerless. Physically, a
+couple of old men--mere shadows of men--could give no help, and he
+could not hope for influence there, among the Hosts of the Devil. But
+here in the city, among those Hosts of the Lord--the pilgrims for whom
+he had always had a secret sympathy, who knew him, at least, by
+reputation--with whom, at least, he stood on common ground--he might
+have some. He could but try; try to persuade some, at least, of the
+great mass of seekers after the "Cradle of the Gods" to go on their way
+in peace when the dawn came; try to save some of them from following a
+wrong road.
+
+The door was slightly ajar; he widened the chink and looked out with a
+sinking heart over the courtyard with its raised union-jack of paths.
+Much larger than the yard about the Pool of Immortality, it was crammed
+from end to end now with a crowd, the first look at which told him that
+his chance of a hearing was small indeed, for the dawn was closer than
+he had thought for amid the shadows of the chapel, and the grey glimmer
+of coming light showed him once more a sea of upturned eager faces. But
+the patience of the previous dawn was gone. They were restless now,
+restless with the vague, uncertain restlessness which is so dangerous
+in a crowd, which tells that the fuel for the flame is only awaiting a
+match, any match, to fire it. And there were many only waiting to be
+struck. The next instant might bring one. Father Ninian felt this
+instinctively, felt that here in this courtyard lay the mine which the
+returning troopers, the desperadoes from the gaol, were to fire first.
+All Eshwara might rise afterwards, but the great danger lay here, must
+be grappled with here. But how?
+
+Not by words. The ear of a crowd is always difficult to gain, unless
+the eye is taken first, and a man had both already. For aloft, on the
+barrel of the big old gun which centred the square, _jogi_ Gorakh-nāth
+was expounding their wrongs to the pilgrims, their inevitable damnation
+if the wrath of the Gods was not instantly appeased. His wild, weird
+figure, in all its nakedness, its austerity, could be seen above the
+little circle of lamps which his immediate supporters held upwards at
+arm's-length. And above his head, like a canopy, drifted the wisps of
+tired earth-atoms which were being driven sideways by the breeze of
+dawn as they fell in their search for rest. For the storm was over,
+their brief ambition for something beyond mere earth was past. Wisps,
+which, as they swept over the circling lights, took a lurid glow, then
+faded into the dim shadows again.
+
+And something else caught the light redly. The chaplet of human skulls,
+the dread Mother's necklace, which the _jogi_ swung from one hand to
+the other as he called for blood--for blood to appease Her--the Mother
+of all--the Eternal Womanhood!
+
+Since without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.
+
+The tenet of all religions echoed into the ear of the crowd, the
+strange demoniacal figure, in its lurid setting, held its eye. What
+chance was there for a single voice? None.
+
+Yet something must be done. For the dawn was nigh. Every instant the
+light grew. Any moment might bring that inrush of evil from the gaol
+which would breed violence among these still peaceful folk; the
+ignorant, helpless folk who were being held captive by words against
+the coming of that inrush.
+
+Suddenly, for a second, the attention of the crowd wavered. A tall man
+in the white dress of a Europeanized native had been hoisted to the
+shoulders of some others, not far from the _jogi_, and so, from this
+coign of vantage, prepared to harangue the people.
+
+"'Tis Ramanund," said someone close to where Father Ninian stood in the
+shadow of the door. "He is Brahmin, and a scholar above scholars.
+Mayhap he will tell us what to do these times, when all seems wrong.
+There is no harm in listening."
+
+Nor good either. For the first words of that appeal of culture to
+ignorance were drowned in a fiendish laugh, a frenzied rattling of the
+dread chaplet, a loud defiance.
+
+"Hold thy peace, _Baboo-jee!_ What is blood to thee, who hath no
+God to whom thou canst give it? But we have, brethren. These be Her
+drinking-cups, the skulls of men like ourselves. Let us give Her
+pleasure, brothers, and have blessing from Her hands; not cursing, as
+thou hast had, Ramanund, whose head should still be shaven, whose touch
+unclean from the loss of a woman."
+
+The allusion to the death of Ramanund's wife roused an instant murmur
+of assent from those who were of the city, and they passing the tale on
+to others, the murmur swelled to a roar which effectively drowned the
+rest of Ramanund's advice.
+
+But Father Ninian, still at the door, still uncertain, could hear a man
+who had been buckling on his pilgrim's sandals as if for a start, say,
+as he stood up and thrust them back to his waistcloth:--
+
+"Well! I, for one, go no further without remission, or the blood which
+brings it. As _jogi-jee_ saith, no man should risk the woman's cursing.
+No man can hold his own against that."
+
+"He hath a young wife in his house, see you, and all know what that
+means," sniggered a neighbour.
+
+But a third voice broke in gravely, "Young or old, what matter? Women
+sit ever on the knees of the Gods, as we men have sat on theirs, seeing
+they are the mothers of us all. So, mother or wife, we cannot escape
+them."
+
+"_Baba-jee_ speaks truth," assented another bystander, "and _jogi-jee_
+also. If She needs blood, She must have it, seeing She is Woman. As for
+_him?_ Let him be silent. He hath no God. No blood sacrifice, no
+remission of sins. Let _him_ speak who hath them."
+
+There was a faint sound as of the closing of a door, and beyond it, in
+the darkness of the arched passage, an old voice said, with a curious
+note of gladness in it, "Follow me, quick, Akbar; there is not a moment
+to be lost. The dawn has come!"
+
+It seemed to have come to Pidar Narāyan's face as he knelt hurriedly
+once more beside the body of the dead girl, to fold her dead hands
+decently as if in prayer, to cover the dead feet with the crimson
+draperies, the dead face with the flimsy, glittering veil--the veil
+which hid nothing of its beauty--which struck the keynote of the whole.
+
+"On whom be peace!" he whispered as he rose, stretching out his thin
+old hand in benediction; and as he said the words, the vision came to
+him of a whole world which had loved, and sinned, and gone on its
+mysterious quest for something beyond love. A world to which he had
+said farewell with a kiss.
+
+He passed on to the Altar, and with swift, steady hands opened the
+sanctuary, and took out the treasure it contained; a star-shaped,
+star-rayed pyx, set with jewels, relic of the days when singing-birds
+that sang of themselves, and such like things, with many another, had
+come to Eshwara from Italy.
+
+"Take the candles from the altar, Akbar," he said, "and walk in
+front--just in front, you know--as you used to walk."
+
+The old courtier mumbled "_Ge-reeb-pun-wāz_," with a caper of alacrity.
+In his confusion, his resentful remorse, it was a relief to return to
+pomp--to servility.
+
+So, with that Bodily Presence which, till then, had always brought the
+thought of the lost paradise of a woman's love with it, in his hands,
+Father Ninian and his strange acolyte, priest of another cult, passed
+swiftly out of the chapel, leaving the Altar dark, bereft of its
+treasure; leaving the dead woman, bereft of her treasure also, lying in
+a glitter of gold and crimson on the Altar steps. Passed on a mission
+of peace to the living; on the chance of gaining the ear, the eye, of
+that waiting crowd outside in the courtyard.
+
+As he went rapidly, yet with the faltering step every now and again of
+one wearied by long journeying, down the arched passage, Ninian Bruce
+scarcely thought of success or failure. There was a wistful triumph in
+his face--he looked as a slave might look who dies in making himself
+free. He did not think even of the strangeness of the little
+procession. The night had been so full of strange things; but the dawn
+had come, and he had a message to give those waiting souls outside--the
+souls who were being kept back from the "Cradle of the Gods" by that
+fear of the Eternal Womanhood.
+
+"Set the door wide, Akbar," he said, and then his voice merged into the
+"_Salutaris_."
+
+So, as the crowd turned at the sound of the opening door, the sound of
+the chanting voice, it saw, raised above it, dim against an arched
+shadow, seen by the grey light of daybreak and the flicker of two tall
+tapers, a strange star-rayed cup shining in the clasped hands of a man.
+An old man in a strange dress, chanting a strange song. And the sight,
+by its very strangeness, its claim to something beyond familiarity, was
+not strange to that restless crowd, waiting for a sign, waiting for
+something not in themselves.
+
+"What is it? What means it?"
+
+The whisper came like the soft hush of a wave; and above it the chant
+rose clearly.
+
+"'Tis Pidar Narāyan and his God!" said those of the city who knew, as
+they fell back instinctively from the raised path. And those who did
+not know followed suit in awed bewilderment, till the way was clear,
+and the little procession passed on slowly above the jammed mass of
+humanity, above the sea of upturned expectant faces.
+
+"'Tis Pidar Narāyan, who went with my father," said one here and there.
+"Mayhap he goes now--let us see."
+
+"Yea! let us see!" answered others.
+
+That slantwise limb of the union-jack of raised paths which crossed
+from one corner to the other of the courtyard--from the door in the
+palace to the wide archway through which the pilgrims always passed on
+their way to the "Cradle of the Gods"--cleared itself by common
+consent, edged itself with a thicker throng of curious faces. Only in
+the middle it was barred by the big old gun, by the "_Teacher of
+Religion_" as its legend boasted, and by the man who claimed to be its
+mouthpiece.
+
+For _jogi_ Gorakh-nāth, recognizing his adversary, recognizing the
+danger of his influence, had slipped from his post above, and now stood
+before the gun, full in the path, defending it with frenzied wavings of
+his chaplet of skulls.
+
+"Listen not, brothers!" he yelled. "_Jai Kali Ma!_ Blood! Blood!
+Without blood is no remission of sins."
+
+And now a new curiosity, a new interest, came to that crowd of mere
+men. What would happen? What would these two, mere men like themselves,
+do? Which was backed by divine authority? That both claimed that
+authority was clear. It held its breath, partly from the desire for a
+sign from God, partly because of the desire which humanity always has
+for a sign of the best man. Let the two try which was the better.
+
+So it waited, ready to approve either, till those two, the Eastern and
+the Western sacerdotalisms, met face to face, within two yards of each
+other, in the centre of the courtyard, on the platform before the
+"_Teacher of Religion_."
+
+Then, not till then, Pidar Narāyan ceased his chant, shifted the pyx to
+his left hand, and with his right drew the rapier hidden till then by
+his long robes.
+
+"_Aha, A-ha-a_," sighed the crowd approvingly. There would be a bodily
+as well as a spiritual fight, for _jogi-jee's_ chaplet of skulls
+swirled dangerously for both attack and defence; since a swinging
+blow from it would kill a man, and its circling sweep keep him beyond
+sword-point reach.
+
+Which would be the better man--the better weapon?
+
+But Pidar Narāyan did not attack. He only stood, the pyx in one hand,
+the sword in the other--alternatives as it were--and called in a loud
+voice--
+
+"Let me pass, _jogi_ Gorakh-nāth!
+
+"Let me pass I say!
+
+"For I carry my GOD!"
+
+Over the whole courtyard, waking now from shadow to light under the
+coming day, the claim echoed sharply; and the arrogance of it, the
+strength, the certainty of it, sank deep into the souls of those who
+heard it.
+
+There was not a sound, not a movement; only a vast, breathless
+expectancy, and Pidar Narāyan's fine old face set like the nether
+mill-stone. Everything that had ever been in him--love, passion, faith,
+worldly wisdom, sympathy--the grit of the whole man--rose up and
+claimed the crowd.
+
+"Let me pass!" he cried again, in absolute command, and this time the
+rapier, twisting like a snake, caught the chaplet of skulls in its
+upward swirl, a dexterous unexpected turn of the old fencer's wrist
+followed, sending it flying from the _jogi's_ hand.
+
+The next instant (the rope on which they were strung severed by the
+strain, by the rapier's edge), the skulls were clattering, bounding
+like balls, like useless toys, on the stone platform.
+
+"_A-ha! A-ha!_" came from the crowd; but the sigh was but half content,
+and men looked at each other wonderingly. Since, no matter which priest
+was the better man, these were Mai Kali's drinking-cups.
+
+The _jogi_, however, had fallen back a step, and Pidar Narāyan was in
+his place by the old gun. Pidar Narāyan and his strange God were now
+the "_Teachers of Religion_." What had they to say?
+
+The crowd had not to wait long, for Father Ninian's voice, with that
+nameless ring in it which makes the orator and makes the audience, was
+already in its ears.
+
+"Listen! Listen to me, for I carry in this cup the Blood of Sacrifice.
+The Victim required by your God and mine, by all the Gods, is here!
+
+"We are free, brothers! you and I. The Eternal Womanhood hath had Her
+toll, in full. The Great Mother is appeased. There is no fear.
+
+"Lift up your eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh your help, and
+follow me and my God, to find yours."
+
+He pointed with the sword--as he paused a second for breath, for
+strength--to the mountains; to those far peaks which, now that the
+storm had ended, the earth-atoms returned to earth, had begun to show
+spectral in the dawn. To show shadowy, yet clear, with never a wreath
+of mist or a wandering cloud to hide the hollow whither the feet of
+millions had journeyed seeking righteousness, and journeyed in vain.
+
+Faint and far they showed against the faint, far sky, but as
+Father Ninian pointed to them, a ray of light from the still unseen sun
+below the visible horizon of this world, a ray of light seeking perhaps
+another world among the stars, found the heights of the holy hills in
+its path, and dyed their snowdrifts red--blood red!
+
+At the sight a roar rose from the crowd.
+
+"_Jai Kali Ma!_ She gives a sign! The sacrifice is there! She is
+appeased! He speaks the truth. Let us follow him and his God!"
+
+"Ay! as my father did," cried one.
+
+"And mine!"
+
+"And mine!" assented some, while others forgot all save pilgrimage in
+the shout--
+
+"_Rām, Rām, Sita Rām!_"
+
+"_Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!_"
+
+So, on that babel of sounds, Pidar Narāyan's voice rose steadily as,
+preceded by that ambling figure--strangest of all acolytes--he walked
+on, chanting the 121st Psalm:--
+
+
+    "_Levavi oculos meos in montes; unde veniet auxilium mihi_."
+
+
+The words were in an unknown tongue, the rhythm strange, but the
+spirit, the idea, were familiar. It was the song of someone seeking the
+"Cradle of the Gods," as they were.
+
+"He carries his God, and that means all," said an old man, pushing his
+way to follow. "The other had none: how could he lead the way?"
+
+"That is true," assented many, following suit.
+
+And some, shrugging their shoulders, said, "He is mad. God has touched
+his brain. Then he goes the way our fathers went. They lingered not
+beyond the second dawn. Why should we?"
+
+"_Rām! Rām! Sita Rām!_"
+
+Thus, swiftly, the footfalls gathered in strength behind the little
+procession, and no one dared to stop it; not even the Mahomedan sentry
+at the Fort gate, to whom some of the agitators ran in their
+disappointment. He only laughed contemptuously; though his gravity
+returned somewhat at his recognition of old Akbar Khān.
+
+"Lo! that is a new walking for him!" he muttered, in an awed voice.
+"Truly, folk are right when they say there is magic in these idolaters.
+Who would have deemed him pilgrim? Well! let him go, he and his
+mummery. We soldiers can do without priests and Hindoos!"
+
+He twirled his mustache fiercely, and wondered when his comrades would
+return victorious from the gaol, and give the word for plunder. That
+was all he cared for.
+
+"Ay!" assented an angry voice, joining the group, "we can do without
+the fools. There be plenty of wise men left."
+
+"Plenty," put in another; "but their mood is different. See how they
+wander!"
+
+It was true. The crowd had broken into groups, and from these,
+pilgrims, singly, or in smaller groups, were drifting after the
+lessening sound of that chanting voice. Not so much from any belief in
+Pidar Narāyan, not even because of his lead over, but because it was
+the old way; the way worn by the feet of their fathers, and their
+fathers' fathers.
+
+So _jogi_ Gorakh-nāth, who, now the coast was clear, had sprung aloft
+on the old gun, once more attempting to regain his empire, failed
+egregiously. The crowd passed him by till a big countryman, with a
+lumbering jest, asked him if he was sure he had picked up the right
+skull to put on his own shoulders. Then it laughed uproariously.
+
+"Best come on to the Pool of Immortality," suggested a conspirator,
+consolingly, as he hurried past. "'Tis no use here. The fools have
+followed after strange gods and men. But at the Pool there are tens of
+thousands to one here; and they are weary waiting. Besides, 'tis nearer
+the gaol. Between the two success will lie."
+
+"Yea," added another, "that was the first plan--the soldiers and the
+Fort spoilt it. But the Pool and the gaol remain."
+
+_Jogi_ Gorakh-nāth, with a scowl, gathered up his skulls to a bundle
+and followed hastily. He would at least be out of hearing of that
+chanting voice.
+
+It had reached the last verse of its Psalm now, and faltered a little
+over the words:--
+
+
+         "_Dominus custodiat introitum tuum et exitum tuum_:
+                   _ex hoc et usque in saeculum_."
+
+
+But the echo of the footsteps behind filled up the blanks.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI
+
+                                FOILED
+
+
+On the gaol or the Pool of Immortality lay the hopes of those whom
+Pidar Narāyan had so far discomfited by his arrogant claim to stand
+between heaven and earth; in other words, to be in personal relations
+with the Great Awarder of gaols and immortalities, forgivenesses, and
+punishments.
+
+But the stars in their courses, hidden though they had been by the
+storm-darkness, had used that very darkness to the due maintenance of
+law and order as they wheeled serenely to meet the coming dawn.
+
+When Lance, for instance--his heart torn in twain by his desire to
+follow Erda's fate at all costs and his knowledge that, if he was to do
+the best for others he must leave her to face it alone--had struck down
+stream on Am-ma's strange craft, his sole intention had been to rouse
+the police camp, and secure what help he could for the gaol.
+
+But the darkness set him another task. For, after drifting past the
+spit, whence he had meant to cut across by land to the bridge of boats,
+and so, creeping past the city, find the camp beyond it, he had lost
+himself absolutely in the maze of sand-banks and shallow channels
+which, when the river was low, as it was now, lay like a network
+between the deep stream of the Hara, and the deep stream of the Hari.
+Lost himself so utterly that, realizing his own bewilderment, he had
+called himself a fool for having lost himself!
+
+A curious discouragement came to him. Yet it made him more dogged and
+persistent, even while the hopelessness of finding his way grew every
+second. Surely, thought he, he could not be such a fool as to fail!
+
+Sometimes a sudden belief that he really had had some faint indication
+of his bearings would make him put all his young strength into the
+paddle, until once more a soft, yielding, yet irresistible, impact came
+to tell him that he had failed again, that he was on another sandbank,
+and another, and another! The dull concussion of them seemed to pass
+into his brain; he found himself fumbling on almost aimlessly, despite
+his doggedness, his mind busy with imagining the things which might be
+happening in the dark around him.
+
+For all he knew close by--
+
+There lay the sting! It was suffocating to be set, as it were, in the
+solid darkness like--he thought of a fly in amber, the birds he had
+limed in his boyhood, finally of a death mask. That was more like
+it--he felt as the corpse must feel--clogged, hampered, helpless!
+
+In such conditions minutes seem hours; and Lance, in reality, had not
+been drifting about for half of one before the certainty that his
+mission must inevitably be useless unless he could fulfil it more
+expeditiously, made him resolve on trying conclusions with the river at
+first hand. He was a good swimmer. As he told himself this, the first
+pulse of gratitude he had ever felt for the big bully who had chucked
+him, a small boy in his first term at Harrow, into "Ducker" to take his
+chance, came to him; for those few minutes of despairing effort had
+taught him more than mere swimming; they had taught him to trust
+himself in water.
+
+More, at any rate, than in a beastly contrivance made of beds and
+footballs, with no stem, no stern, and a devilish habit of spinning in
+every eddy like a teetotum!
+
+The mere condemnation of Am-ma's craft, being a prelude to better
+things, raised his spirits. He flung off his clothes, and, knowing he
+could not hope to keep his revolver dry, improvised a waistcloth out of
+the silk sash he wore instead of a waistcoat, in which to stick the
+hunting-knife that was his only other weapon. As he did so, he thought
+of the deer the knife had killed; as men think idly, irrelevantly, of
+such trivialities when their attention is really concentrated on
+something that is, as yet, outside experience. And Lance, as he slipped
+into the water, knew himself prepared to swim or wade, but knew nothing
+else.
+
+So, doggedly as before, and infinitely quicker, he went on through the
+darkness; sometimes feeling himself in the cool water, sometimes
+finding his feet on warm sand, sometimes parting a way, he knew not
+where, through the low tamarisk and high grass marking an island. If he
+could have guessed which island, or even known which way his face was
+set, these light swishing touches might have been guides; but he knew
+nothing.
+
+Until, after a time, a faint far glow, a mere suspicion of something
+not outer darkness, showed on his left. Even so, he could not guess
+whether that meant the gaol side, or the city side of the rivers. If
+the former, could the gaol have been fired by those devils?
+
+The thought made him set his teeth, and, dry sand being beneath his
+feet, run on recklessly towards the glow.
+
+Only for a yard or two, however; then he pulled up short, amazed to
+find that it was not far, but near; that it came from the ground, from
+a leaping fire of tamarisk branches within a stone's throw of him. A
+step or two more, in fact, showed him a cooking-pot, the remains of
+some food, a familiar fishing-net, and a chrysalis-looking figure
+wrapped in a blanket and half-buried in the sand. One of the fisher
+folk, by all that was lucky! If anyone could tell, they could.
+
+It was only a slender stem of tiger-grass which snapped under his feet,
+but the noise was sufficient. The sleeper sprang to his like a wild
+animal, the blanket falling from him, one lithe arm making for the long
+spear stuck in the sand beside him.
+
+Gu-gu! The missing Gu-gu!
+
+Lance had him back in his sand-bed before hand and spear met. There was
+no struggle. Gu-gu, knowing himself helpless, lay limp, slack, every
+muscle proclaiming capitulation; in so far showing himself something
+less than a wild animal, which struggles till it dies, reckless of
+odds. But, in truth, Gu-gu, with the certainty of speedy extinction
+before him, due to that cursed ghost, had given in to fate utterly, all
+round. Death would come when it came. All that remained, therefore, was
+to make others suffer if he could. Especially those who were
+responsible for altering the currents of the river. With one of these
+on top of you, this was impossible; but time might bring opportunity.
+
+"You devil!" cried Lance, throttling the abject jelly by way of
+emphasis, "you know all about this business, of course; but now I've
+found you, you'll have to do mine,--or I'll kill you. Do you
+understand? Now, which way is the town?"
+
+Gu-gu pointed in the direction whence Lance had come. The latter
+frowned, realizing that it was impossible to know if the brute spoke
+truth, but that, unfortunately, he must be trusted.
+
+"Then get up," he said curtly, taking care to keep the jelly within
+reach of his knife, "and show me the way there. I'll give you a hundred
+rupees if you do; and if you don't--" He gave the yielding flesh an
+explanatory prick.
+
+"Does the _Huzoor_ mean the Pool of Immortality?" asked Gu-gu, affably;
+and the words made Lance remember that fruitless waiting for the water.
+
+"Ah! you _did_ manage that swindle, did you?" he replied savagely, "and
+of course you were camping out of the way. I see! No! I don't want to
+go there yet. To the bridge! So quick, march! or swim; you can tell me
+about the other as we go along. It may be useful."
+
+Another prick with the knife he held in one hand, while his other
+clutched firmly on Gu-gu's hemp-strung waist-belt of blue beads,
+started them. So they went on till the sand grew colder, less
+resistant, changed to water beneath their feet; then Lance's two
+hands--and the knife--came down on Gu-gu's bare back. "Strike out," he
+said briefly; "I'll help."
+
+The two pair of legs and the one pair of hands forged ahead into the
+darkness none the less rapidly because the second pair of hands were
+resting,--with something in them--on yielding flesh. The fact indeed,
+or something else, seemed to make Gu-gu confidential. If the _Huzoor_,
+he said, with a shameless comprehension which made Lance inclined to
+use the knife then and there, wanted to give the alarm at the police
+camp, he was taking a long road to it. He, Gu-gu, could show him a
+shorter, if the _Huzoor_ would trust him.
+
+For a second Lance hesitated. He could not see the man's face; but
+there was a sort of cunning anxiety in the tone which was doubtful.
+Then, remembering that, short or long, he was equally at the man's
+mercy if he _chose to brave results_--though there seemed to be no
+reason why he should--he said quietly,--
+
+"I told you to take the shortest."
+
+"The _Huzoor_ can dive?" asked Gu-gu. "He should, since he swims so
+strong."
+
+"Dive!" echoed Lance. "Yes, why?"
+
+Because the short way, Gu-gu explained, was by an underground passage
+which could be only reached from the river. Undoubtedly the _Huzoor_
+was right, the passage had to do with the miracle; but there must have
+been more than one miracle in the old days, since there was quite a
+network of canals and caves, which could be more or less flooded at
+will. All the river people knew of them, but few ventured in; there was
+nothing to be gained by doing so, _as a rule!_ And the dive to reach
+the passage was long and awkward. But if the _Huzoor_ would trust--
+
+"Go ahead!" broke in Lance, sharply. He _had_ to trust; and time meant
+everything. Besides, even in diving, he could have his revenge on that
+sleek, yielding back!
+
+For answer, Gu-gu altered his course with almost suspicious alacrity;
+though, once more, Lance could see no reason for treachery. A hundred
+rupees was a big bribe to a man who evidently had no personal interest
+in the matter; else, why should he have been on the island instead of
+in the row. But then Lance did not know of that call to death.
+
+So, through the dark, the one pair of hands and two pairs of legs
+forged ahead till a sudden arrest of the former gave Lance a dull shock
+once more. But this time Gu-gu's voice came quite cheerfully: "The city
+wall, _Huzoor_ This slave must feel if he goes up or down."
+
+Apparently it was up, and after a few minutes of crablike edging
+Gu-gu's voice came again:--
+
+"The tunnel is below, Protector of the Poor. Let the most noble take
+the longest breath he ever breathed, then strike down till this mean
+one's legs cease moving. The most noble one's must cease also. The rest
+will this dust-like one accomplish. Save the breath. _That_ is in the
+_Huzoors_ own keeping. Therefore let him take time for filling; and
+when he is ready let him signal this slave with--with a knife-prick if
+he chooses!"
+
+The cool grasp of the position made Lance smile, though the situation,
+he knew, was grave enough. That breath to be drawn might be his last;
+all the more reason why he could have wished it less full of sand!
+
+For the storm was now at its fiercest. Even here out on the river, over
+the water, the air seemed solid. And it had a vibration that could be
+felt on the bare skin. As he drew in that long breath before trusting
+himself to the unseen man whom he held within reach of the grim
+signal--and something sharper should there be sign of treachery--Lance
+told himself that the water could scarcely be more suffocating than
+the air. Then--the sleek skin under his hand shrinking from the
+knife-prick--the two pairs of legs and the one pair of arms struck
+down.
+
+It was almost a relief at first to get rid of the stinging dust in
+one's face; almost a relief not to breathe. But when, after a few
+seconds, the legs in front of him grew rigid, and nothing was left to
+be done save to hold on desperately to a waist-belt of blue beads and
+one's own breath at the same time, the sense of suffocation returned,
+and the question, "How much longer?" seemed to throb in his brain.
+
+He gripped everything he had to grip tighter. But his own body seemed
+to grip his mind tighter still. He could feel the clutch of his
+veins--a whole corded network of them--could see them! A corded,
+pulsing network edged with prismatic light, sending stars into the
+darkness, beating time to the singing in his ears, to the fierce duel
+between the desire to gasp and the determination to hold on,--beating
+time to the confused rush of thoughts which ended in one--"This is
+drowning!"
+
+It made his clutch tighter. Gu-gu, at least, should drown too. That was
+the last conscious thought. It merged into a frantic, insistent clamour
+for air! air! air! till something cold hit him full on the face and
+forced him into a quick, gasping cry, that left him senseless.
+
+When he came to himself, as he did a moment or two afterwards, he was
+still clutching the waist-belt of blue beads, and the touch of it
+lulled him to an instant's sheer relief. The dive was over; they must
+be in the cave; the cold that had hit him in the face must have been
+the air.
+
+But what was he lying upon? Surely rock! And the hand he moved to feel
+it brought the blue beads with it unresistingly.
+
+Gu-gu! where was Gu-gu?
+
+Gone! And the knife too. It had been used to sever the hempen string of
+the belt.
+
+Curious. It might have been used for a different and more deadly
+purpose; but you could never count on what fellows would do--even when
+they were treacherous.
+
+Lance thought this dreamily, before he realized more than the fact that
+he was alive; not drowned.
+
+Then he sat up hastily and faced the truth that he was alone once more;
+alone in that network of underground passages and caves of which Gu-gu
+had spoken.
+
+Was there any chance of his getting out of it? Not by the dive,
+certainly. Without help that was impossible. He set himself to remember
+what his guide had said in reply to the questions with which he had
+been purposely plied.
+
+First, as to light. If Gu-gu was to be trusted the materials for this
+must be close at hand. Lance rose cautiously and felt about the ledge
+on which he lay and the walls of rock about him, and ere long came on
+what he sought. Flint and steel, a box of tinder, a bottle of oil, and
+a rag torch hung in an old bit of fishing-net to a peg that was driven
+into a crevice.
+
+So far, good; and after a minute these enabled him to see that he was
+in a sort of vaulted well, half hewn out of rock, half built in with
+brick. It was filled to some three feet or so with water, except in one
+corner, where the flooring shelved down to an archway. There it was
+deeper. This must be the opening of the tunnel through which they had
+dived, and through which, doubtless, Gu-gu had escaped; for he was not
+likely to have braved the intricate passages without a light. This
+thought made Lance look to see how much oil the bottle contained.
+
+There was only a mere driblet at the bottom. Plainly, therefore, he
+could pause no longer; so, instantly, without further thought, he waded
+across the pool and ran along the only passage which led from it. He
+had to stoop as he ran, and from the feel to his feet he guessed that
+the passage led upwards first, then downwards; apparently, too, in a
+perfectly straight line. The river, therefore, must be behind him, and
+he tried to make this point a fixed one, so as to give him some notion
+of his bearings.
+
+After a hundred yards or so he emerged into a second cave or chamber,
+also nearly waist-deep in water. From this several passages opened,
+some too small to admit of a man passing through them. These, then,
+must be the canals of which Gu-gu had spoken; one of them, possibly,
+that which should have supplied the Pool with Immortality. The memory
+of that crowd of eager, patient faces, disappointed by such a miserable
+trick, made Lance feel pitiful; then his pity brought a sudden
+practical suggestion. Why not open the sluice, or whatever it was, now,
+and give the miracle? It would at least keep _some_ of the crew quiet
+when it came, at dawn; the dawn which might be so fatal to quiet--the
+dawn which must, surely, be close at hand.
+
+He raised the torch and saw, close beside him, a foot or two above the
+present level of the water, a clumsy closed stone conduit with an iron
+handle. It was a rude primitive tap, no doubt, by which the levels
+could be raised. Without further thought, he turned it, and smiled to
+find himself right, as water poured out, filling the vaulted chamber
+with sound. Then, without further pause, he passed on down the biggest
+of the passages leading from the chamber; since that seemed the most
+likely one. After a while, however, the passage narrowed, seemed in
+danger of ending altogether; so he harked back.
+
+There was no longer any sound in the chamber when he returned to it,
+and the level of the water had risen almost to the floor of the passage
+in which he stood, wondering which of the other outlets he had best
+try. The choice was a case of sheer chance, of course, he told himself;
+a mere backing of one's luck. But, as he paused to make it, something
+cold struck on his feet, causing him to look down in sudden surprise.
+
+The water was still rising. That must be stopped, anyhow, unless he was
+to be drowned out like a sewer rat.
+
+He stuck the torch into a cleft in the rock beside him, hung the net to
+it, and swam over to the conduit, which was already submerged. But the
+handle which had turned so easily was stiff now; possibly because of
+the pressure of the water, possibly because there was some other rude
+mechanism of which he was unaware. Anyhow, after a few trials he
+realized that he was helpless until the water had found its own level.
+
+But what was that? Who could tell? Would it rise, and rise, and rise,
+till it filled the whole place?
+
+Who could tell?
+
+It was not fear which clutched at his heart--only a vague self-pity;
+almost an amused wonder that this Immortality for others might bring
+Death to him.
+
+He looked up into the vaulted arch above him, then to the, as yet, dry
+passages which he could just see, as darker arches of shadow.
+
+Unless one of them rose abruptly to a higher level--and the chance that
+one did, or that he should find it, was remote--he would be wiser to
+stay here, and see what happened. The roof was at least higher.
+
+He swam back to the torch and, holding on to the crevices of the wall,
+waited.
+
+Still rising. He shifted the torch to a higher crevice and waited
+again, a dull curiosity taking possession of him.
+
+Still rising. He wondered, suddenly, whether it would not have been
+better for him to have gone back the way he had come. The passage had
+certainly seemed to ascend, and it was a question of levels. That was
+all. A mere question of levels.
+
+He shifted the torch again. It was dying down now, the rags showing
+charred, cindery. But as he fed it with oil and it flared up and
+smoked, the thought came to him that it was using air needlessly,
+making suffocation more imminent.
+
+He blew it out deliberately. If a man had to die, he might as well die
+in the dark. He was glad, a moment later, of the darkness. It shut out
+reality and left him to dreams; to vague hopes, to kindly
+forgetfulness, to Erda's face. How plucky she had been! Well! even
+if he _had_ to be drowned like a rat in a sewer, he must not be behind
+her. The pathetic comfort of kindly memory, which with strange
+unreason--since it enhances the value of the life that is being
+left--makes the face of death seem less stern to poor humanity, came to
+him and absorbed him. If he died and she lived, she would not forget
+him; he knew that.
+
+And still the water rose.
+
+It must be rising now, he thought, in the Pool of Immortality, and the
+eager, patient faces that had been waiting for it so long must be
+showing glad in the grey light of the dawn.
+
+For the dawn was coming to the world, though he would not see it.
+Strange, incomprehensible thought, even though the reality of it was so
+certain, so close. Incomprehensible? Say rather, impossible; frankly
+impossible! He could not be going to die!
+
+He shifted the unlit torch to a still higher crevice--almost a ledge in
+the rock--and waited incredulously for the water to rise.
+
+
+And as he waited in the dark, someone else in the grey dawn, to whom
+death was more familiar, to whom, in a way, it was the one great
+certainty of Life, was feeling the same frank incredulity at the
+thought of the immediate future.
+
+For Dr. Dillon, when he found himself alone on the roof of the gaol
+gate with an unconscious woman and a child, knew that the end could not
+be far off. With Vincent dead, and Eugene cut off by the stern
+necessity for keeping that door shut, he could not hope for more than a
+brief, savage resistance--and then? Failure, inevitable failure, unless
+help came; and that seemed far as ever.
+
+As yet, dazed by that closing of the door, that desperate, triumphant
+death of the man with his back to it--a death which had gained them
+nothing--the prisoners were still huddled together, crushed out of
+further action, at the far end of the alley. So the courtyard was
+clear, free from assailants. But that could only be for a minute or
+two. There was an ominous rending and hewing at the gate below; ere
+long those outside would be inside, and with a leader who would know
+what to do. So life could only be an affair of moments; yet it seemed
+incredible, more than incredible, that all his strong will and
+determination would not avail even to save those helpless creatures in
+his charge. He stooped hurriedly and lifted the still unconscious woman
+in his arms, carried her into the turret, closed the door on her and
+the child--frightened now for the first time at her mother's
+silence--and returned to wait and watch. It was all he could do for
+them, unless fate gave him a chance of appealing for them to Roshan
+Khān. But even then there could be no bargaining, no compromise, no
+surrender!
+
+A sharp crash, a sudden rise in the babel of voices below, warned him
+that the gate had given, partially at least. The next instant a soldier
+or two, ignorant of that dead man with his back against the closed
+gate, ran lightly down the alley calling on the prisoners to make way.
+One of them was Roshan Khān; but George Dillon did not waste a
+cartridge even on him. He was reserving his fire for that storming of
+the broken stairs which must come when the assailants found themselves
+still foiled.
+
+In truth Roshan Khān had this same storming in his mind as all he cared
+for, since it would pit him against his rival, against Vincent Dering,
+who he knew was on the roof. And so, with that odd acquired sense of
+honour, fair play, God knows what, he had been planning, as his men
+battered down the gate, how best to compass those fair odds which were
+necessary alike to his sense of justice and injustice--for the
+injustice of his own position cried aloud for proof that he was worth a
+better one. So he had settled to complete that liberating of the
+prisoners which, with the help of the keys, ought already to be in
+hand. This done, the general rabble would be eager for freedom, eager
+for plunder, eager to get to the town and raise it, eager for all
+things for which he cared no jot. Then would be his time. Then--he did
+not even try to formulate how--he could find himself face to face, at
+fair odds, with Vincent Dering. Wild memories of duels he had read
+about in western books, duels with others, who had nothing to do with
+the quarrel, looking on, occurred to him.
+
+Yes! that would satisfy him. To have it out, till death!
+
+He set his teeth as he forced a peremptory way through the crowd at the
+end of the alley, which hid the closed door until one actually stood
+beside it.
+
+Then he stood transfixed, for he saw Vincent Dering's dead body still
+backed by that closed door, still guarding it, unarmed. There was a
+curious look of content in the dead face, and Roshan, grasping its
+meaning by intuition, turned from it with a curse, knowing himself
+forestalled, cheated.
+
+"'Twas not our fault, _Khān-jee_," protested a voice, quickly; "the
+swine fought till the other one had locked the door in our faces, and
+so--"
+
+Roshan struck at the voice fiercely. Not forestalled, not cheated,
+only; but outdone, conquered! His rival had died a hero's death, and
+he--he might live to be hanged!
+
+A rage of despair, of despite, seized on him. His one real object gone,
+the whole hideous folly of the rest made him fling up his hands
+passionately as he dashed back to the gate, neither knowing nor caring
+what he was going to do next.
+
+Storm that feeble garrison on the roof? those broken stairs, every
+crevice, every foothold in which stood out clear, easy, in the light of
+the search-ray? Was that a man's task?
+
+Confused, dazed, he ran on, followed instinctively by the crowd,
+wondering what he would be at.
+
+George Dillon, seeing the rush, covered the first foothold of the
+broken stairs with his rifle, and waited for a man to show on it.
+
+But none came.
+
+Just as the rush reached the courtyard, Eugene Smith's search-ray,
+having exhausted itself, went out, leaving, not darkness, but the grey
+mystery of dawn, in which for an instant all sound, all movement,
+seemed arrested. There was one utterly peaceful second, and then, from
+behind the splintered gateway, from the shadows of the tunnel, came a
+breathless voice:--
+
+"Close the outer gate, sergeant; if you can, you have them in a trap! a
+regular trap!"
+
+_A trap!_
+
+The word reached those who had followed Roshan in his causeless
+retreat. Had he foreseen this? Was he escaping from the trap? Their
+eyes flew to the tunnel, but the light which, till then, had lit up its
+darkness, the swinging lamp by which the batterers of the gate had
+worked, was dashed down by someone's hand--a small, white hand--and
+there was nothing to be seen. Only that voice to be heard repeating,
+"They're in a trap; keep them there!"
+
+Keep them! Not if they could fight their way into the open! The cry
+rose in a second:--
+
+"A trap. Yea! a trap! Out of it! Outside, brothers, outside, where we
+can fight free!"
+
+Roshan, who would have paused at this chance of fair resistance, was
+caught in the rush from behind, and found himself through the gap in
+the gate fighting desperately in the crowd, calling on his men to
+rally. But they had construed his half-frenzied flight from that look
+on Vincent Dering's face into a lead, and they were mixed up
+inextricably with the horde of undisciplined conspirators who, having
+been till now safe under cover of the tunnelled archway, yelled for the
+open, not so much in which to fight, but in which to run away.
+
+The mere handful of men, whose number was fortunately hidden by the
+darkness, could never have prevented the rush, but a quick wit amongst
+them seized on a possibility, and the breathless voice called, "Let
+them pass--let them pass!"
+
+So, in a second or two, amid confused yells, and mad slashings at
+friends and foes alike, the positions were reversed. The inside was
+out, the outside in, like Brian O'Lynn's breeches; and Dr. Dillon's
+first hint at what the amazing turn of affairs below him meant came
+with the words:--
+
+"Barricade that gate. Sharp as you know how. They won't give us long."
+
+"Is that you, Carlyon?" he called doubtfully, leaning over the parapet
+and peering into that grey mystery of dawn.
+
+The figure he saw, a woman in a white dress and a scarlet mess jacket,
+made him doubt the evidence of his own eyes. But the answer in a
+woman's voice, with a quick breath in it, sent his back in something
+between a laugh and a sob.
+
+"Then he isn't here! Oh! what can have become of him?"
+
+There was no doubt that this was a woman!
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVII
+
+                         L'ADDIO DEL MARITO
+
+
+Once outside, where they could discern friend from foe, the troopers
+instantly realized their mistake, and rallied round Roshan.
+
+But it was too late for that now. As he stood, centring them, there was
+a wild contempt, a vague relief, in his face. He knew now where his
+sympathies lay. Not with these men, treacherous to their salt, but with
+those who could hold--who _had_ held--their own against all odds. Yes!
+even with that dead figure, still with its back to the door that must
+not be opened.
+
+The thought stung and seared like hot iron.
+
+No! Not with that! not with that! That was--What?--
+
+He could have killed himself for the unwavering testimony which every
+scrap of him gave to the heroism, the defiance of such a death. He knew
+he would give everything to die one like it; and he knew he could
+not--not _now_. He knew he must die a useless death, to save himself
+from a worse one.
+
+"There is no real harm done, _Khān-jee_," broke in his lance-_duffadar_
+in hurried excuse, seeing the expression on his face. "We can get in
+easily again. Those holding the horses say there were but a score of
+them all told--the cursed Sikhs--God knows how they got out of the
+Fort! I thought we had them safe. And there was a woman with them--a
+Miss-_baba_"--he laughed savagely. "Well! if they be brave as men,
+these infidel women, let them die like men--the hell-cats!"
+
+Roshan Khān looked at the man, whom he had known for years, as if he
+had never seen him before. And the thought of another woman--with his
+own blood in her veins--who had been brave also, and who had died--died
+by his hand--returned to sweep him from every bearing, from every
+landmark, eastern or western, and leave him rudderless, drifting, in a
+storm of sheer despair. He laughed suddenly--an insane laugh--at the
+hideousness, the hopelessness of it all. Laughed like the madman he was
+for the time, at the horror which drove him mad.
+
+"Kill her, if thou wilt, fool! I have done my share of that," he cried
+brutally, striking out at the voice as he had struck at the other which
+had told him of Vincent's victory. Striking as he felt inclined to
+strike at anything and everything; most of all at the hateful confusion
+in himself, and in his world. So, without another word, he broke
+through the circle of troopers, dashed to where his horse awaited him,
+and was off like a whirlwind; that strange possession of the Oriental
+races, which, in a way, claims kindred with the Berserk rage of the
+north, thrilling to his finger-tips; yet held in check, diverted from
+sheer, mad, uncalculating desire to kill, by that acquired sense of
+fair play.
+
+"He goes to rouse the city," said some of his men, following him
+hurriedly.
+
+"And time, too!" assented some of the conspirators. "The dawn is upon
+us, and if the pilgrims drift away, our hope is gone!"
+
+But most of the crowd, troopers and conspirators alike, felt vaguely
+that the dawn had indeed come, that the midsummer night's dream of
+madness was over; that those who were wise would try, while they had
+the chance, to escape from its consequences.
+
+And that such a chance existed, even now, was patent. The very madness
+of the night, its lack of reasonable explanation, were in their favour.
+And its darkness, the outer darkness of the storm, which had sprung
+up in a minute, must have hidden much. Who, for instance, was to
+say--except those impenitent ones whose evidence, if given at all, must
+be doubted as the evidence of condemned men seeking to drag others down
+to their fate--whether such and such a one had been a rebel at first?
+Provided, always, that there was no doubt about his staunchness at the
+last; that is, now that the dawn had come--the dawn which showed doubt,
+almost a surprise, in so many faces.
+
+What had come to them? Why were they there?
+
+"_Kuchch saiya pur gya!_" (some shadow fell on me) muttered one man
+below his breath, as he sheathed his sword.
+
+And another, with an oath, said boldly, "This one is for the winning
+side," then gave the cry, "To the rescue, brothers, to the rescue! Cut
+down the mutineers"--so, promptly, began operations on the nearest
+defenceless prisoner.
+
+Thus, almost before those who had galloped in hot haste after Roshan's
+lead were out of sight, the prisoners, even the resisting warders, had
+been driven into the portico, and penned like a flock of sheep between
+the troopers outside and the pioneers within.
+
+"The Lord is King," said the lance-_duffadar_, piously, to a
+neighbour,--he had started back from Roshan's blow with a scowl, and
+watched his retreat resentfully,--"the Handle-end of His Sword is
+safest! Lo! Have at them, brothers!"--he added aloud--"have at the
+evil-born ones who would have killed the _mems_ and the _baba-logue_
+as such scum did in the Great Breathing, making the faces of the
+soldiery black for all time! Show them our mettle. Forward!
+'Gord--save--the--Ka-veen!'"
+
+"Gord--save--the--Ka-veen!"
+
+The cry grew to a shout, and Dr. Dillon, who, with a great incredulity
+lessening the values of all he saw and heard, had promptly swung
+himself down into the courtyard, looked through a crevice in the
+barricade--which was fast taking form under the willing hands of the
+pioneers--to see what the noise meant.
+
+"It is all over," he said slowly, his face pathetic in its
+bewilderment; "the troopers are siding with us!"
+
+He stood for a moment as if unable to grasp the reality, and his keen,
+inquisitive eyes seemed to search almost reproachfully for some cause,
+some hint of reason, in his surroundings. In the splintered door, in
+every cranny and foothold of the broken stair, and so, past the
+parapet, they continued their question to the lightening sky, against
+which, faint and far, those distant peaks where lay the "Cradle of the
+Gods" had begun to show dimly.
+
+"All for nothing!" he muttered to himself, almost petulantly. "Poor
+Dering!" So, swiftly he passed down the alley,--swiftly, but
+hopelessly; for he knew what those iron shackles meant on a man's bare
+head.
+
+He drew the body to one side with tender care, then knocked at the
+closed door and called to the man within. "Smith, open the door! You'd
+better come out--I think it's all over now; be quick, please."
+
+There was a pause, then a fumbling at the bolts and bars. So, in that
+grey, cold light, a figure stood at the open door, tall, gaunt, with a
+hunted look in its eyes, almost a terror, as they looked down--down to
+the threshold--down for what they knew should be there.
+
+"Dering?" asked Eugene Smith, rather hoarsely; then, seeing what lay to
+one side, covered his eyes from the sight with a cry like a woman's,
+and trembled all over. That strain of patient, idle inaction had been
+awful.
+
+"Oh, God damn them!" burst out the doctor, fiercely. "And all for
+nothing--for nothing. At least I think so. Come on, Smith, and make
+sure."
+
+For nothing! For nothing!
+
+The words were echoing in Roshan's brain also, as with loose rein,
+recklessly, he galloped over the frail bridge of boats, making it
+quiver and thunder beneath his horse's hoofs, and send curved waves of
+light and shadow over the clear, steely surface of the water, seen like
+a polished shield in the dawn. The air was clear also; the distant
+hills steel grey as the water, the sky steel grey as the hills. And
+there was the bright keenness as of a glittering sword in the chill
+breeze that swept from west to east. But Roshan did not feel it; he was
+absorbed in himself, in the useless battle of his life.
+
+For nothing! For nothing!
+
+He did not even hear the soft yet sonorous roar, beginning like the
+rush of a big breaker on a beach, ending with a wild, musical note,
+like the wail of new-weaned lambs and their mothers on a lone hillside,
+which suddenly echoed out over the water, making those who galloped
+behind look at each other and whisper joyfully:--
+
+"'Tis all right, _Khān-sahib_," said one, urging his horse alongside;
+"the pilgrims are waiting still--hear you not their cry? They grow
+impatient!"
+
+Roshan looked at him with lack-lustre eyes. What were the pilgrims to
+him, or their impatience? What was salvation, immortality, to one whose
+only desire was death--death and forgetfulness? He dug his spurs into
+his horse, savagely glad to give pain, and rode on.
+
+"_Hārā! Hārī! Harī! Hārā!_"
+
+The roar was articulate now, and those behind looked doubtfully at each
+other.
+
+"If it should be the miracle?" suggested one conspirator; but another
+shook his head, "How can that be? None know the trick save those two,
+Gu-gu and Am-ma, and they are safe."
+
+"Unless it _be_ a miracle," put in a third, almost timidly. "God's club
+makes no noise, and the night has been full of marvels."
+
+So an uneasy silence fell upon the rest.
+
+"_Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!_"
+
+There was no mistaking the cry now. It rose exultant, yet with that
+wailing note in it still, which lingers always in humanity's claim to
+have found its lost Paradise, its lost purity.
+
+Yet there was no trace of doubt in the almost frantic joy on every face
+in the dense multitude which stopped the little cavalcade, as it
+entered the square around the Pool of Immortality; stopped it
+hopelessly, as if the moving, breathing, living mass had been a dead
+wall.
+
+"_Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!_"
+
+It was almost a yell. The patience was gone utterly, and far as the eye
+could reach, in all the wide square, in every street and alley
+converging to it, there was the restless ineffectual movement
+of the sea, when, on a summer's day, it beats itself calmly yet
+persistently--rising and falling--upon a sheer cliff, against the
+impossible. There was no one to check the crowd now, to prevent it from
+finding Death and Immortality at the same time. What matter? What were
+a few hundreds of crushed bodies, when the soul found what it sought?
+
+The riders behind Roshan threw up their hands at the sight. No hope
+here for the littlenesses of life; for principalities and powers, even
+for political liberty.
+
+This was the bed-rock; this, in its unalterable aspiration--not for
+something better, but for the best--neither culture nor conspiracy
+could touch; this was as much beyond the control of kith and kin as of
+strangers and aliens.
+
+"Come, _Khān-sahib_!" they called to the figure with the lack-lustre eyes
+which sat its horse like a statue, staring at itself, at its world,
+conscious only of the hideous discords which were, perforce, the music
+of its sphere. "Come! _Nawab-jee!_ There is still a chance with the
+'_Teacher of Religion_.' The _jogi_ will have held _his_ folk, for
+sure. They will be ready for blood, since Mai Kāli"--the speaker spat
+his Mahomedan contempt for the idolatry ere he went on--"lets none go.
+She's a true woman for that!"
+
+So, by back alleys and crooked ways, Roshan--why he did not know, since
+he meant nothing by it--led the cavalcade past the palace, through the
+archway into the courtyard with its union-jack of raised paths.
+
+And found it empty.
+
+Empty of all save the _jogi_, Gorakh-nāth, who was busy, resignedly, in
+rethreading his chaplet of skulls, ere starting to seek safety over the
+British border in some far recess of the holy hills, whence, when this
+affair had blown over, he could swoop down with added sanctity on some
+other religious fair.
+
+"He and his God stole them from me not the saying of a rosary past," he
+said cheerfully, after he had explained the position. "They went by
+yonder door to the old road. So what matter! They are in it. They will
+come back to Her by and by. It is so always. Men follow other leads,
+other loves. But they do not find what they seek; so they come back to
+Her, to the many named Woman. _Jai! Kali Ma!_"
+
+Those behind Roshan looked at each other.
+
+"It is the end," they said briefly. "Come, _risaldar-jee_--" the change
+of title was significant--"we shall have to ride far and fast if we are
+to live."
+
+Once more, every atom of the man, soul and body, seemed to strike out
+furiously at the voice, at the truth and the untruth in it; at the
+assertion of failure, the linking of his need with theirs.
+
+"Ride for your lives if you want them," he cried fiercely; "I seek
+death."
+
+They left him, after unavailing protests, and rode helter-skelter on to
+the Fort, warning their comrades that the game was up, so, on towards
+safety. And the _jogi_, naked but not ashamed, still swinging his
+chaplet of skulls, followed them leisurely; for he knew himself safe in
+the superstition and the devotion of every woman in India. Since he,
+Her servant, could not fail of shelter in every Hindoo homestead, far
+or near, in which a woman's hand closed on a man's, holding him tight
+for herself alone, as the Great Mother holds all men.
+
+Roshan, thus left alone, rode his horse on slowly to the central
+plinth, dismounted, and, hitching the bridle over the muzzle of the
+"_Teacher of Religion_" stood staring out dully at what lay before him;
+so quiet, so commonplace!
+
+Nothing changed from the day, barely a month ago, when he had stood
+beside the old gun with Vincent Dering and Lance Carlyon, contemptuous
+of the ignorance of others, satisfied with himself.
+
+And now?--what had come to him?
+
+The madness, which his wild gallop from the gaol had calmed somewhat,
+returned in a fierce rush, and with it that one desire for revenge; for
+something by which to show the contempt, which was not now merely for
+the ignorant; but for those others, self-righteous, tyrannical, who had
+dared to touch him--dared to make him what he was--a prey both to
+ignorance and wisdom, savagery and culture--a laughing-stock even to
+himself!
+
+And who had begun the fooling? Who had taught him as a boy?
+
+Pidar Narāyan! Who else? Who else had begun the game giving some
+things, withholding others? And who else was within reach? Who else
+could be followed up and forced to fair fight? Forced to admit that the
+pupil was ahead now of the master.
+
+He laughed a laugh of absolute exultation; and a wave of purely
+childish satisfaction swept through the mind in which there were still
+so many depths of childish ignorance and misconception; unavoidable
+depths in the culture of a bare score of years. Leaving his horse
+tethered to the old gun, he ran hastily across to the palace, so,
+finding the door open, the whole place quiet, went on down the arched
+passage. It was still dark there, but a glimmer of light showed the
+entrance to the chapel, and to the armoury beside it, which was his
+goal.
+
+He had no other thought except for that armoury, until, with the tall
+tapers burning at the head and feet, he saw the dead body of the woman
+who had deceived him lying on the Altar steps. Then the pitifullest
+clashing of satisfaction and despair, of desire and disgust, came to
+him that ever rent a man in twain. For a moment he fought for bare
+reason between them, then with a savage cry, he flung himself beside
+the dead girl, caught her to him, covered her with frantic, cruel
+kisses, and, almost flinging her from him again, ran on into the
+armoury, the red of her dress, her bosom, in his eyes--the red of
+blood!
+
+The armoury! Where he had had his first lesson in the foils! There they
+were, harmless in their buttons, crossed on the wall, and above them
+something more murderous; the dangerous delicate rapiers to which those
+others were but the prelude. No! one was gone! One Father Ninian had
+used against the _jogi!_ One he must have with him. So much the better!
+
+He tore down its fellow, and passing the dead girl without a look,
+dashed out into the courtyard again, his last trace of sanity gone.
+
+The next instant his horse's feet were echoing madly along the
+pilgrims' road. His enemy must have a quarter of an hour's lead, but
+that was nothing; he could overtake him, anyhow, at the first station
+in the pilgrimage,--a temple under a vast _banyan_ tree at the foot of
+the first rise, where the pious must pause to make offerings.
+
+The road was almost empty at first; for the news that the miracle had
+only been deferred had spread instantly through the unrestful town, so
+to a space beyond it, making those who heard the tale turn back to see
+for themselves. But after a few minutes' wild gallop, he came up with
+those who had been beyond recall, who had gone on content with that
+strange lead of a strange God; of a saint, a sinner. Yet, after a time,
+forgetful of that leadership utterly. For they needed it no more. The
+danger of novelty had passed with their first step along the beaten
+track which their fathers had followed. Father Ninian, wise with the
+wisdom of long years, of secret sympathy, had known this; had counted
+on it in his forlorn hope of leading them into familiar bondage. He had
+told himself that he need only go as far as that first station; that
+then, during the pause for offerings, he might return, as it were, to
+realities, to something more consistent with the nineteenth century!
+But to him, also, as he led the way, chanting his offices for the day,
+had come a strange peace, a strange desire to go on to the end of the
+pilgrimage; a strange desire to leave those realities behind him in a
+world from which he was taking nothing, not even his love.
+
+Surely it was time. Surely he was old enough to claim rest. No! not
+rest. It was something more than that. Surely, now that he had left
+every atom of earth behind him lying with a dead woman on the Altar
+steps, he also was free to find the "Cradle of the Gods"!
+
+"_My soul fleeth unto the Lord! before the morning watch I say, before
+the morning watch_," he chanted; he had gone on blindly from psalm to
+psalm intent on the desire to lead those voices behind.
+
+"Have a care, _baba-jee!_ thou and thy God!" said a half-tender,
+half-jesting one as he stumbled among the stones, and a dark hand
+stretched itself out to steady the old priest, and a dark face turned
+to nod approval at other saffron robes; since here was a true pilgrim,
+a true madman, forgetful of this world, to judge by the face lifted
+towards those distant hills.
+
+Yet the desire in him to reach them seemed to the wise old heart
+something that must be set aside. He must return. Yes! he must return.
+To do what? What could an old man do who had left life, a useless life,
+behind him? He crushed down that thought also, and stumbled on.
+
+"_Man is like a thing of nought, his time passeth away like a shadow!_"
+
+His voice spent itself tremulously on that one certainty, and those
+behind him joined their testimony to his all unwittingly, as they
+called on Hārā or Hārī; on the Creator, the Destroyer, as One and
+Indivisible.
+
+And in the rear again, Roshan in his search for Death, for
+annihilation, bore witness also, as he came, cursing those who stood in
+his way, his horse slithering among the stones in its effort to obey
+whip and spur, and sending a dry clangour of hoof-beats through the
+little stony valley to startle the sleepy snakes coiled on the distant
+rocks, and drive them back to their crannies with a hiss.
+
+So, every instant, the distance lessened between the old man and the
+young one, both weary of life. It was broad daylight now, though the
+sun was still low on the horizon. The mystery of dawn had left the
+world, the very pilgrims, between their recurring cries, were
+chattering, laughing, over the every-day details of life which would
+make to-day as trivial as yesterday, to-morrow as trivial as to-day.
+
+There had been a "Breathing" in the night, they told each other. Some
+shadow had fallen. Some God or Devil had had power. But the shackles of
+custom, of familiarity, were back again, the despotism of detail.
+
+Only in those two strangely different minds in the van, in the rear,
+the mystery still clouded the reality.
+
+And the distance between them lessened as Roshan drove his way through
+the saffron robes recklessly.
+
+Yet, fast as he went, when he reached the end of the dry watercourse up
+which the last part of the rough track had wound, and stood in the
+hollow, backed by a further rise of the hill, where the quaint, dumpy,
+black temple hid itself under the huge blotch of the _banyan_ tree--the
+only green thing visible, far or near--the figure he sought was not to
+be seen among the crowd.
+
+Akbar Khān, indeed, he saw, utilizing one of the tall tapers as a
+pipe-light before casting himself on the ground to suck contentedly at
+the screwed _banyan_ leaf full of tobacco which he had gathered by
+claiming a pinch in return for the loan of that same light to others.
+But with a curious shame Roshan avoided him, and passed on in his
+search among the jostling crowd, the continuous babel of trivial talk;
+for this was resting-time, when men and women could be men and women,
+and forget that they were on a pilgrimage; when they could even dream
+themselves back in the village under the familiar shelter of some
+village tree, asking no more than the familiar round of life.
+
+But above the babel came every now and again the insistent clang of a
+bell, telling that some new petitioner was seeking a favour of the
+Gods, and making a golden oriole, which sat in the green leafage, flit
+to another bower with a sudden fluting note, full, joyful, mellow.
+
+"What dost seek, _Musulmān?_" cavilled a saint, drawing back from
+Roshan's shadow, as he gabbled invocations, all he knew, on a rosary,
+ere solacing himself with the pipe which his disciple had prepared. "If
+'tis the madman and his God--he hath gone yonder."
+
+He pointed to a side track, which was a short cut to the road above.
+
+Roshan flung himself from his horse without a word, and followed.
+
+The distance lessened at every step now, for the old priest's breath
+failed him at the steepness of the rise.
+
+Still, it would not delay him long, he told himself, to take that one
+look at the soft, white cloud which generally hid the goal of
+pilgrimage, before he turned back over the hill, as best he could, to
+find what task remained for him in the world.
+
+He might have that one look, surely!
+
+So, reaching the summit of this first bulwark of the unattainable, he
+sat down, breathlessly, beside an upright black stone which showed
+strangely distinct amid the redness of the surrounding rock; a plain
+black stone, not three feet high, chipped rudely to a blunt point.
+Father Ninian did not need the scattering of dead marigolds and dry
+basil leaves about its base to tell him that it was a fragment of an
+older faith than that of the temple below; a faith sterner, purer,
+founded on a clearer perception of what humanity needed in that search
+for the lost Paradise; on a closer memory of the cause which lost it.
+
+He laid one hand on the stone almost caressingly, as, holding the pyx
+in the other, he sat down facing the distant peaks. But there was no
+cloud upon them. The day had dawned clear and still, and as he sat
+looking wistfully over the valleys on valleys, the hills on hills,
+which lay bathed in light between him and the "Cradle of the Gods,"
+a sunbeam--still slanting from the curved edge of the eastern
+plains--caught the jewelled star of what he held, and stayed there.
+
+It was peaceful beyond words. The hurry, the strain, not only of that
+long eventful night, but of the whole long eventful life, seemed over.
+All things seemed behind him. The passion, the pride, the courage, the
+manhood--all things that had made Ninian Bruce what Ninian Bruce had
+been--where were they?
+
+Only wisdom, only a tender knowledge, seemed to remain.
+
+The clank of steel upon stone roused him, the clank of Roshan's spurs
+upon the rocks; and Father Ninian turned to see him, a yard or two on
+the path below, outlined clearly against the distant view of Eshwara,
+against the world in which Ninian Bruce had lived and loved--the Ninian
+Bruce whom he had left behind.
+
+Behind!
+
+No! It was Ninian Bruce and none other who was on his feet in a second,
+a flush on his face--the face that was like the nether mill-stone in
+its stern passion, and pride, and power. For, in a second, the old
+man's soul was back in a world where a dead woman belonging to him lay
+waiting for revenge. His hand was on his hidden rapier, as he flung his
+first word of defiance at the man who had killed her.
+
+"Murderer!"
+
+"Your pupil at that, even!" gasped Roshan, "you began it!--your pupil
+whom you taught--curse you--"
+
+The words failed him--he paused inarticulate--but the keen eyes and
+ears opposite him took in his meaning with the swift comprehension
+which had been Pidar Narāyan's always. A sort of contemptuous pity
+fought with the passion of Ninian Bruce's face.
+
+"My pupil, certainly," he assented. "Have you come to ask me for a
+final lesson?"
+
+Roshan glared at him. "You understand--you always did--that is the
+worst. Yes! I have come"--here he laughed wildly--"for what you taught
+me--fair play and no favour--and I mean to have it." In his fierce
+excitement he pressed closer, flourishing his rapier.
+
+"Pardon me," came a cold, courteous voice; "I did not teach you that
+method of assassination, surely? I thought you desired fair play. If
+so, you might allow me to meet you on equal terms."
+
+Roshan drew back with a flush from the figure which had stood its
+ground, which looked at him with bitter disdain. He scarcely seemed to
+recognize it. No wonder! For this was Ninian Bruce himself. Ninian
+Bruce as he might have spoken to an over-hasty antagonist in the days
+when he was the most reckless swordsman in Rome, when the world held
+him body and soul.
+
+The years, his very priesthood, had slipped from him.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir!" muttered Roshan, standing aside. There was a
+savage satisfaction in his heart. This man was not old, the odds were
+equal; there was enough fire and passion here to please any opponent.
+
+So, after a pause to lay aside the pyx--it found a strange
+resting-place on the blunt summit of that upright black stone--a slim,
+still elegant figure, divested of its priestly robings, took its stand,
+its back to the hills, its face to the world.
+
+Still upright, still active, with its black _soutane_ caught up and
+tucked into the sash to give free play to its limbs.
+
+"Now, sir," came the courteous voice, "I am ready."
+
+Something in the proud grace of bearing, the reckless contempt, made
+Roshan follow suit.
+
+"The sun will be in your eyes," he said, "let us fight lengthwise to
+the ridge."
+
+"We _will_--by and by!" came that icy voice, as the speaker, without
+moving, stood on guard. "We can omit the salute. If you are ready, I
+am."
+
+For an instant Roshan hesitated, realizing what the life that he meant
+to take had been, what the man himself whom he meant to kill had been
+and was. The man whose figure stood out like a black shadow against the
+distant blue of the hills; and as he realized the fine fibre of his
+enemy, a sense of powerlessness to touch, to harm him, kept Roshan
+motionless.
+
+"Shall I count five, and give you a start?" The question came with a
+shrug of the shoulders.
+
+The taunt told. Roshan pulled himself together, and stood on guard
+also. But the sense of powerlessness was intolerable; he lowered his
+rapier for a word more--a word to raise his own self-esteem.
+
+"I warn you," he said haughtily, "that the sun is in your eyes. That I
+have learnt more than you ever taught me--that _this_ is to the death."
+
+"It could scarcely be anything else, could it?" came the instant reply,
+in a voice that vibrated harshly, like a harpstring struck to its
+fullest, "with a dead woman between us! Engage, you devil, or I will
+kill you as you stand!"
+
+Roshan gave a short, sharp cry, like a wild beast. The next instant the
+curious hiss of two meeting blades sliding along each other was the
+only sound. It is a strange sound, which, to the listeners, the
+onlookers, seems to say "hush" to the whole world.
+
+"_Hush_--hush--_sh_--_sh_."
+
+Then, short and sharp as that cry of Roshan's, came another sound; the
+beaten, baffled clash when steel meets steel instead of flesh.
+
+Roshan, with an inward curse, gripped his rapier closer. He had almost
+been disarmed,--disarmed in that first encounter. Strange that he
+should have forgotten his foe,--forgotten the deadly insistence of the
+master's blade, slack as a snake in curves, firm as a vice in grip.
+Then that almost invisible turn of the wrist which had so nearly done
+for him. He had forgotten--these, in years of meaner adversaries. He
+remembered them now, and would not forget again. And he had such
+things; ay! and more, in reserve for himself.
+
+So had his master; in reserve for both of them, if needful. And the
+knowledge that it _would_ be needful came to Ninian Bruce at the first
+touch of his adversary's sword; for there was that in it which told the
+old hand that the young one was a master's also.
+
+"My pupil has improved," he said quietly, as, abandoning the attack, he
+parried Roshan's furious onslaught with scarcely a motion of the hand,
+held level to his heart.
+
+That he could do. But the other must surely come in the end, since he
+was old, and Roshan young. If in the end, therefore, why not now? The
+sooner the better.
+
+A minute after the sun was no longer in Pidar Narāyan's eyes. As he had
+said, they were fighting lengthwise to the ridge; and he drew back,
+choosing his ground, until under his feet he felt the dead marigolds,
+the withered basil leaves that lay about the upright stone,--that
+strange pedestal on which the star-shaped pyx stood as on an altar,
+glittering in the sun-rays.
+
+He seemed to see it, to feel it, standing there between the world below
+and those faint, far peaks. And the eyes which had seen so much felt
+they need see no more.
+
+"_Sta' alerta, Signor!_" he cried jibingly, flinging himself savagely
+forward. "And may the Lord have mercy on your soul," he added in a
+lower tone; as, in an attack which held in it all the wildness, the
+fire, the passion of his youth, he drove Roshan back a step,--one step
+down the faint slope on which he had counted.
+
+A fierce lunge or two, a swift parry, and then,--then an inch beyond
+safety--given purposely--yielded room for the _riposte_ he sought from
+that other rapier.
+
+It came with a quick cry of triumph, as Roshan felt that thin, cold
+steel slide silently on through a dull, faint resistance. A cry that
+ended in a gasp, as the hand which held the rapier dropped for a
+second, then flung itself upwards.
+
+For Pidar Narāyan had given the _reprise_; and '_L'Addio del Marito_'
+had done its work.
+
+So, for an instant--held upright by the lingering force of the old
+man's hand--the two stood within a sword's length, their faces glaring
+at each other,--stern, implacable, the one in death, the other still in
+life.
+
+Then the strength, the life, ebbed; the balance between it and death
+wavered, and Ninian Bruce, overborne by his enemy's dead weight, sank
+to his knee, then backwards.
+
+But his hand still gripped the rapier. So Roshan Khān's body, as it
+fell forward, slithered down the sharp blade, sending a little jet of
+crimson blood backwards, till it stopped with a dull thud upon the
+hilt.
+
+So he lay, face downwards, beside the old man, whose face looked
+skyward; whose head rested among the withered marigolds and the sweet,
+dead leaves of the basil, which generations and generations of pilgrims
+had offered to an unknown wisdom on their way to the "Cradle of the
+Gods."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+                              THE TRUTH
+
+
+"And to look at it now," came the Commissioner's rich, round brogue,
+"you would think butter wouldn't melt in its mouth!"
+
+He waved the cigar he was smoking towards Eshwara. It looked sleepier,
+more sun-saturate than ever, as it lay reflected in the still lagoon
+between it and the tent in which he was sitting; a double-poled,
+Commissioner's tent, which two days before had swooped down like an
+avenging angel with broad white wings to take possession of the just
+and the unjust in the name of Victoria _Kaiser-i-Hind_.
+
+It was pitched on the site of the Viceroy's camp, for the convenience
+of being close to the gaol where the late disturbers of the public
+peace had taken up their residence. In fact, the mast from which the
+royal standard had floated, still reared itself, bare, undraped, from
+its roundel of roses. But the flowers were withered, dead. Even the
+palms, their work of welcome over, were wilting fast; but they still
+gave a doubtful shade to some groups of manacled men, who, guarded by
+yellow-legged constables, were placidly awaiting the Commissioner's
+leisure and pleasure; both being, at the time, occupied with lunch and
+Dr. Dillon. So, the wide white wings of the tent being set open and
+supported with bamboos to let in the breeze, the representative
+of law and order could be seen--his feet on the table among his law
+books--drinking an iced whiskey-and-soda.
+
+Dr. Dillon--he looked careworn chiefly because in his care for others
+he had, as yet, been able to take no rest--nodded.
+
+"Yes; and it doesn't, as a rule. A more peaceable spot never was. You
+can't account for these sudden idiotic outbreaks. One reason is as good
+as another. And so old Mother Campbell, with her assertion that it all
+came because Miss Shepherd would talk about Jean Ziska's drum--"
+
+The Commissioner smiled. "Yes, the good lady has an endless circle of
+unfounded beliefs, all dependent on each other for support. It's the
+most comfortable way of getting through life. An' miracles are like
+drams--ye can't stop them, once you begin. Besides, on me soul, it was
+queer--even Carlyon said--"
+
+"And if it _were_ true," interrupted the doctor, "we shouldn't be any
+'forrader'! We shouldn't understand. And that's our position now. You
+can't, in fact. It's better you shouldn't; in India, at any rate. Just
+accept them, ignore them, smash them, hush them up"--here his face
+clouded--"and in this case there is a good deal that had better be kept
+dark--you'll do your best, I hope?"
+
+The keen whimsical face hardened. "I shall follow the usual official
+routine, sir," he said cynically; "for, look you, there never was a row
+like this in India but there is something in it about a woman, which
+we've got to hush up. An' that's God's truth. Yes, we pay a heavy
+toll--" He broke off, took up a pen as if to write, threw it down
+impatiently, and stared out into the hot, yellow sunshine.
+
+Dr. Dillon sat twiddling his mushroom hat round and round in his
+nervous fingers, and staring out into it also. A sense of being face to
+face with an unpleasant truth was on them both. Suddenly he laughed
+harshly.
+
+"We ought to have got accustomed to the fact by this time, anyhow," he
+said, "for it began early enough in the history of man. Well, I'm off;
+you won't want me, will you, this afternoon, now those men have turned
+Queen's evidence?"
+
+"Don't think so. Let's see." The Commissioner drew a list towards him,
+and ran his eye over it. "I've condemned three warders and seven
+prisoners to death for poor Dering's murder; so I daresay penal
+servitude will see through the rest. Then there's _jogi_ Gorakh-nāth
+and his _gosain_. They ought to be hung, but we haven't caught them,
+and we never shall; the wild ass that snuffeth up the east wind isn't
+in it with a Hindoo ascetic in eluding captors! So the lot out there
+are really small fry; for the other ringleaders are either dead or
+departed--even that amphibious brute, Gu-gu."
+
+Dr. Dillon looked up cheerfully. "By George! I'd have given something
+to see that water-fight between him and Am-ma! By the way, what are you
+going to do for that queer fish? But for him, we would never have seen
+Lance Carlyon's face again."
+
+The Commissioner's expression was curious. "It's a bit hard to do
+anything for a man who wants nothing but earth, air, and water, and has
+got all three; besides--" he drew a paper out of a file, looked at it,
+then looked at the doctor--"besides it wasn't altogether Am-ma!" He
+paused, smiled an infinitely kind smile, then went on: "I was a brute,
+entirely, to talk about a heavy toll just now. We get its worth back,
+me dear fellow, over and over again. See! here is Am-ma's _affidavit_.
+I took it this morning, and upon me soul, Dillon, I should be obliged
+if you would tell me whether to hush it up, or inform the party
+concerned." So saying, his brogue took possession of the sun-bright,
+sun-dry air--
+
+"I, Am-ma, of the river folk, solemnly affirm that, knowing the
+_Dee-puk-rāg_ to be in the power of the _Huzoors_, I several times
+warned Gu-gu not to follow other masters. But he had learned books, and
+become ignorant. He could not even feel when a current changed its
+course; and then he thought he must die, because of the ghost, and that
+made him wild. So when I refused, and set off, as ordained, for the
+raft, he took the Brahmin's money and stopped the miracle. Of a surety,
+the Awarder of Justice is right. This slave knew what was to come. He
+did not tell of it because, where the _Dee-puk-rāg_ is, there is
+victory; so there was no fear. Yet when the Miss-_sahiba_ bade me help
+her, I obeyed, because she has power over devils, and my son, _Huzoor_,
+is still in the first week of life. Therefore, for that reason, I
+guided the raft. But when I saw that the Light-bringers had smitten the
+darkness of evil-doers, and that the raft would be needed no more, I
+went on with it to the place appointed by the Wood-_wallah-sahib_
+whence it could float of itself.
+
+"So I returned to my home and ate my bread. And the day was quiet, as
+the _Huzoor_ knows; only the folk reviled, because I had no fish to
+sell.
+
+"But, at night, at the waning of the sunset stars, about the third
+jackal cry, came the Miss-_sahiba_ to my hut."
+
+Dr. Dillon ceased twiddling his hat, and looked up in sudden interest.
+
+"To my hut," reiterated the reading voice. "I deemed it because of
+devils first; but it was not. It was because of Carlone-_sahib_ who
+could not be found,--only his clothes and pistol on my craft, stranded
+on a sand-bank by the mid-channel.
+
+"'He has not been killed,' said the Miss-_sahiba_ 'He would not have
+fought with his clothes off. Nor did he go to fight. He would not have
+left the pistol if he had. He has gone swimming, to get quicker and
+find help. So he is drowned. He is in the river still, and I cannot
+think of it. Am-ma! you know every inch of the river. Find him! Find
+him!'
+
+"Then I said: 'Yea, Miss-_sahiba_ I will find him when his body rises.
+No man can find a dead one in the river till then.' But, as I spoke,
+the son at his mother's breast left sucking, and cried aloud. The
+Miss-_sahiba_ said it was but the gripes, but we--my house and I--knew
+more than that. We knew it was the devils, winning a way because the
+Miss was not content. So I said: 'I will find him while his beauty is
+still on him, for you to see again,'--since that is in the heart of all
+women, O Awarder of Justice. Thus at the dawn--the dawn after the dawn
+of darkness--I, Am-ma, set out with my nets, seeing that fish, anyhow,
+could be found, and the market would be dear, because none had come to
+the bazaar during the commotion. So, remembering where my craft had
+stranded, I went first to mid-channel; thus, working up, came to where
+it had stranded once before. Then, seeing footmarks, I followed them,
+till in an island, eating his bread, I found the evil-begotten Gu-gu.
+
+"He had a knife in his bead belt, at the sight whereof I gave glory
+to gods and devils alike, for I knew the handle of it. It was
+Carlone-_sahib's shikar_ knife, and I had been his _shikari_ many a
+time.
+
+"So I said, 'Where gottest thou Carlone-_sahib's_ knife, Gu-gu?'
+thinking to startle him. And it did. He said no word, but came at me
+with it.
+
+"So we fought. His right hand and mine on the knife, and our left arms
+round each other's throat, choking us; and our legs wrestling. Till the
+water grew too deep. Then we swam with them. But he said nothing, nor
+did I. There was no need. We understood, as dogs do, that it was foe
+and foe. So it came to the deep stream; his right hand and mine,
+with the knife between them, and our teeth fixed in each other's
+shoulders,--till I bethought me of his ear.
+
+"Then he yelled, and let go; but I was after him as he dived. It was a
+long race. Wherefore not? since we are the best swimmers in the river.
+But I felt the cleave of the water from his foot at last, and spent
+myself in one stroke. So I laid hold of his leg and ran my hand up till
+I found his back. Then I used Carlone-_sahib's_ knife on him, and he
+sank; and I sank too, with the blow.
+
+"And when I came up, leaving him there, I found how long the race had
+been, for my right hand struck the city wall. Then it came to me what
+the Miss-_sahiba_ had said, of Carlone-_sahib_ wishing to go quick; and
+I bethought me of the secret passages, and the knife, and Gu-gu's fear.
+And I said to myself someone must have restored the miracle. Not Gu-gu;
+else why was he hiding? What if it be Carlone-_sahib?_ But most of all
+I thought of my little son, and the devils longing for him, and for a
+woman longing for the sight of a man's beauty, and I knew I must go and
+see if it lay there. So I dived, and found him, as the Awarder of
+Justice knows, sitting high up, with the water about his feet, waiting
+for death, and brought him back as I promised. And Gu-gu is dead, for
+his body was drifting by the tunnel with Carlone-_sahib's_ knife in the
+back as we came out. So the Miss is pleased, and the devils do not come
+near my son."
+
+The brogue ceased, and there was a pause. "Well! what do ye say,
+Dillon?" asked the Commissioner, fretfully.
+
+George Dillon rose and put on his hat deliberately. "Nothing. Except
+that I must really be off. I've to see Smith first, and Carlyon--that
+sprained ankle of his, which he got trying to climb up beyond the rise
+of the water, will be the deuce and all if he uses it too soon. And
+then, if I can, I want to get round and say good-by to--to the
+Miss-_sahiba_. She's off to Herrnhut again this evening. In fact,
+Campbell didn't half like her waiting for the funeral, he is in such a
+blessed hurry to get to his new field, as he calls it; thinks of
+nothing else. They are to be married on Monday, I believe."
+
+The Commissioner laid aside Am-ma's _affidavit_ with a soft "damn," and
+Dr. Dillon paused on his way out at the sound.
+
+"Quite so,--I entirely agree with you," he said sympathetically; "but,
+unfortunately, there is only one person who has a right to tell that
+story, sir--and she won't!"
+
+"Why not?" interrupted the Commissioner, militantly--"why the blazes
+shouldn't a woman tell the truth?"
+
+"Because women don't know it," broke in the doctor, "or men either, for
+that matter. Because we men and women have got ourselves on such false
+lines, into such an absolutely false position towards each other, that
+the only course consistent with propriety and _les convenances_ is
+to--to hush the thing up! So hush-a-bye baby, sir, to your heart's
+content. So long as the mother can tell her blessed infant that she is
+a lady, what does the real fact matter?"
+
+He spoke with a concentrated bitterness, an almost fierce resentment,
+and the Commissioner nodded, finished his whiskey-and-soda at a gulp,
+and returned to work, tossing his papers about recklessly.
+
+"It's a quare world, certainly," he murmured, with a lack of
+originality which sat ill on him. Then, catching sight of something in
+a file, his humorous, kindly self returned. "Listen to this now, for
+quareness," he laughed, beginning to read:--
+
+"'The petition of Mussumat Mumtāza Mahal'--that's Roshan Khān's
+grandmother, you know--'sister,' etc., etc., 'humbly sheweth that she
+has endured grievous wrong and hurt, by loss of her grandson in the
+late deplorable mutiny (of which she was utterly incognizant, being
+helpless, veiled, old woman perpetually confined in house). Therefore
+prayeth that whereas one Mussumat Ashrāf-un-nissa, her neighbour, is in
+receipt of pension rupees twenty-five _per mensem_ for similar
+bereavement of male protector and head of family lost in '57 mutiny,
+therefore her pension of rupees twenty _per mensem_, only, for exile of
+husband to Calcutta, be commuted to similar sum of twenty-five, seeing
+that your poor petitioner is in floods of tears and wholly heartbroken
+through this most nonregulation, premature death of promising young
+scion of her noble house, on whom, as on blessed Victoria, Queen, her
+hopes were fixed. Said petitioner being able to prove _alibi_, absolute
+incomplicity, and continuous remaining at home during late devilish
+disturbances.'"
+
+"Poor old soul!" laughed the doctor, "give it to her if you can, sir.
+And as for remaining at home, everybody except the actual conspirators
+did that. Even Dya-Ram, the disaffected--though he has preached armed
+resistance to tyranny in his paper for years. He barricaded himself in
+with his printing-press. Fact; jammed his fingers in so doing, and came
+to me in a blind funk for a professional certificate that the wound
+could not have been caused by any lethal weapon. As if anyone could
+ever have suspected him of taking part in raising a row, or even in
+settling one! His sort are simply negligible quantities."
+
+"But Ramanund seems to have attempted a lead," put in the Commissioner,
+judicially.
+
+"Exactly. Attempted, and failed. His sort are negligible quantities
+also, sir, I'm sorry to say, and will remain so until they learn,
+amongst other knowledge, to believe in something besides
+themselves--" here the hard eyes softened, the hard voice paused. "That
+is another thing I should like to have seen--dear old Pidar Narāyan--"
+
+The hard voice found even softness too loud; and in the silence which
+fell between the two men, only the Commissioner's pen could be heard.
+
+"You'll look in at the palace, perhaps, and see all is right," came the
+brogue, after a bit, "and give my love to old Smith. I'm not sure but
+that I'd rather have seen him behind the door than anything else, for
+it must have been the hardest job--"
+
+"Considering the circumstances, yes!" put in the doctor; so, with the
+pith hat turning him into an animated mushroom, he passed out into the
+blaze of dry yellow sunshine, on that dry yellow sand.
+
+The sky above was molten with light and heat, the gaol positively
+shimmered in the glare. Not a sound, not a sight, told of that
+midsummer night's dream of wild, useless revolt, save when one of the
+shackled prisoners awaiting trial sought a better bit of shade under
+the wilted palms, which, not a week before, had welcomed the Hosts of
+the Lord-_sahib_ on their way to the hills.
+
+The whole thing seemed incredible; yet, as he crossed the road to enter
+the Smiths' compound, the footsteps of those other Hosts who had passed
+on to the hills also remained to dimple the dry yellow sand.
+
+The Smiths' bungalow lay calm, peaceful; the drawing-room, as he
+entered it, struck him with the old, familiar sense of refinement,
+indexing the refinement of its mistress. Only one change caught his
+observant eyes. Vincent Dering's photograph was no longer on the
+mantle-piece, whence it had always looked out with a certain challenge
+in its very prominence. Where had it gone? What matter? There was no
+need for such defiance now, thought George Dillon, with that curious
+half-cynical, half-resentful smile he kept for one subject only. She
+might keep the photograph where she chose, now, and none would blame
+her.
+
+So thinking, he set aside the curtain which hung at his patient's door,
+and as he did so, resentment, cynicism, vanished in quick sympathy.
+
+"Ah! fever again, I see,--that's a bore," he said, going over swiftly
+to the bed where Eugene Smith's long length lay visibly shivering; for
+something,--the exposure, the excitement, the strain, perhaps, of that
+awful inaction behind the door against which Vincent Dering was making
+that heroic stand,--had knocked the big man over, a prey to an old
+enemy--malarial fever. "When did it come on?"
+
+Muriel Smith, who sat on the bed, her hand in one of her husband's
+shaking, trembling ones, looked up. She was very pale, but very calm.
+
+"Half an hour ago. It is a pity. We hoped it was broken, didn't we? But
+he will fret himself so, Doctor--" Her eyes, on Dr. Dillon's, were
+telling their tale, so that it scarcely needed the rambling, quivering
+voice to show that the fresh onset of fever had once more clouded the
+sick man's brain.
+
+"How can a fellow help fretting," murmured Eugene, his teeth
+chattering, "when he waits like a coward behind a door, where his best
+friend--"
+
+The woman beside him winced, but interrupted him bravely. "But I tell
+him, Doctor--and it's true, isn't it?--that it was hardest for
+_him_--and that--that Vincent would rather have had it so--because he
+had to leave no one, and Eugene had Gladys--and me."
+
+Her voice seemed to bring comfort, and the glistening, feverish eyes
+closed.
+
+"Go on with the mixture," said the doctor, vexedly conscious of a lump
+in his throat. "This will wear itself out in a day or two; and--you
+can't do more than you're doing."
+
+"I suppose not," she replied listlessly.
+
+But the tragedy of her face remained in his memory as he drove over the
+creaking, groaning bridge to Eshwara. The bazaar was full as ever with
+drifting humanity, busy in the details of every-day life. There was no
+hint anywhere of the past storm; not even in the palace. It lay, as
+ever, silent; its blank walls seeming to hold the sunlight back from
+some secret within,--from some veiled, hidden beauty. The door was
+closed, but old Akbar Khān came capering at his call, his back roached,
+in bowing, like a caterpillar's.
+
+"The tomb is finished, _Ge-reeb-pun-wāz_," he mumbled, in blubbering
+importance. "_Ala!_ the sad day! But this slave, knowing all customary
+things, hath remained insistent on the workmen; therefore all is
+befitting the noble people, as the _Huzoor_ will see."
+
+So, down the shadowy passage he led the way, crablike, to the chapel;
+for hither, long years before, Father Ninian had brought the body of
+Pietro Bonaventura, and here, just in front of the Altar steps, he and
+Pietro's granddaughter--the last of the old priest's charges,--had been
+buried the day before. The masons had been busy, building up the vault
+again; but, as Akbar Khān had said, the work was finished, the chapel
+restored to its original state, swept, and garnished. Even the candles
+were lit on the Altar, and four of the tallest tapers had been placed,
+one at each corner of the stone slab on which two more names would have
+to be cut; while from these tapers long strings of jasmine flowers,
+such as native women wear, had been hung in drooping chains to form an
+enclosure. On the slab itself great bossed yellow marigolds were laid
+to simulate a cross.
+
+Dr. Dillon turned to the cringing figure beside him sharply; but there
+was something almost pathetic in its simper of conscious merit, its
+certainty of satisfaction.
+
+"Did you do that?" he asked.
+
+"_Ge-reeb-pun-wāz!_"
+
+There was a world of pride and of servitude in the voice, and in the
+folded, prayerful hands which shot out under the bowings.
+
+"This slave made it! The _Huzoor_ will notice it is, fitting. Even the
+'_crass_'--" he pointed his prayerful hands to the marigolds--"is not
+forgotten. Has not this dust-like one spent his life in preparing
+amusements and spectacles for the noble people? He knows that tombs
+require flowers, as women do."
+
+Through the arches behind the old pantaloon Dr. Dillon could catch a
+glimpse of the garden, ablaze with colour, could smell the perfume of
+the now fading orange-blossoms, could see the water-maze, with its
+marble ledges, among the lotus, just wide enough for the flying feet of
+a laughing girl.
+
+The words, the contrast, held him, as the old man went on with an
+orthodox whine of petition in his voice:--
+
+"So, since the _Sirkar_ will doubtless appoint a guardian of tombs,
+seeing there is none to inherit the palace, if the Protector of the
+Poor would intercede for this slave with the Commissioner?--if the
+_Huzoor_ would say that the dust-like one has provided the pleasures of
+palaces all his life long for the noble people; yea! from the cradle to
+the grave. If he will say that--" he flourished his hands towards the
+slab--"both in the making of garlands and the making of '_crasses_,'
+there is none equal--"
+
+"_For tombs require flowers, as women do!_" The phrase asserted itself
+again, and Dr. Dillon looked at the wicked old face, so comic, so
+pathetic, with the hopeless recognition of the humour of tragedy which
+comes to all save the invincibly dull.
+
+"You would do as well as anyone," he said gravely. "I'll mention your
+name."
+
+"_Ge--reeb-pun--wāz!_" The title prolonged itself abnormally, and Akbar
+Khān, a mask of toothless smiles, darted, in instant assumption of his
+anticipated office, to remove a fallen jasmine flower from Dr. Dillon's
+path as if it had been a deadly reptile. Indeed, he paused in the midst
+of his parting _salaams_ to ask if it was in order that the populace be
+admitted to the sanctuary, since the _missen-miss_ (his accent of
+disdain, tempered by reverence, was delicious) had announced her desire
+to enter it that afternoon for farewell; had, indeed, asked him to be
+there at four to open the door.
+
+Dr. Dillon turned so sharply that the old courtier began instantly on
+asseverations that, without orders--
+
+"Have everything ready, of course," interrupted the doctor,
+impatiently; so strode off across the courtyard, his head down, his
+hands in his pockets, with a jerk, as of irritation, in his walk.
+
+He found Lance Carlyon in the balcony over the river, very apologetic
+at being caught there against orders. But it was so dreary keeping to
+one's room, he said; especially when there were a lot of dismal things
+to think about; and he really had been most careful--had made two of
+his pioneers almost carry him.
+
+"Doesn't seem to have done much harm!" admitted the doctor, gruffly, as
+he sat feeling the ankle and looking at Lance with the oddest air of
+impatience, irritation, and kindliness. Yet there was nothing strange
+in Lance's wholesome young face, save that it showed a little older, a
+little graver.
+
+"It _must_ be beastly dull, too," went on the doctor, loudly, suddenly.
+"You--you might get them to help you over to the palace garden this
+afternoon; about four, you know, when it gets cool. That would be a
+change."
+
+Lance positively gasped. "Rath-er! Why! you told me yesterday I wasn't
+to move a muscle for ten days!" Dr. Dillon positively blushed, under
+the brown. He got up vexedly, walked to the parapet, looked down the
+river towards the mission house, and came back again.
+
+"No more you are!" he said fiercely. "Not what _you_ call moving. But
+gentle exercise and--and congenial society--and all that! You know the
+treatment! Besides the Hutton-Wharton-Hood school don't believe in
+rest. And--and--look here!--I'll put you on the stiffest starch bandage
+ever made--and--Oh! confound it, man, one must risk something
+sometimes, you know! Here, orderly; go over to the _sahib's_ washerman
+and tell him to make me double-extra-white-shirt-front-starch, and if
+that doesn't counteract the--the indiscretion--why--why--I wash my
+hands of the whole business!"
+
+He was at work undoing the bandages already, and the last part of his
+remarks came, argumentatively, to himself.
+
+"If you really think it might injure me permanently," began Lance,
+soberly, in some surprise.
+
+Dr. Dillon paused, and looked up with a vast resentment. "If you mean
+your foot, I don't think it will, and that's all I'm responsible
+for--thank God!"
+
+But as, half an hour after this, he came out from saying good-by to
+Erda Shepherd, he paused as he passed the Pool of Immortality, and
+looked down into it as if he felt some need of salvation.
+
+"'_If I be not damned for this!_'" he quoted softly, shook his head,
+and went back to his prisoners.
+
+So it came to pass that when Erda Shepherd--after laying the wreath she
+had brought as a sort of crown to Akbar Khān's '_crass_'--went into the
+garden for a last look at the familiar places, she found Lance Carlyon
+comfortably settled in one of the balconies overhanging the river.
+
+"This is luck!" he cried, forgetting the starched bandage until
+reminded of it by a sudden twinge of pain. "I thought I was never to
+see you again, and it seemed a bit rough--on--on us both; considering
+what a lot we did together, you know. I've been writing you a letter,
+to say how disappointed I was at not being able to get over and see you
+all this morning."
+
+"That was very kind of you," she said feebly, conscious that the
+surprise had made her feel a little limp. Though, of course, she
+regretted nothing; nothing at all!
+
+"I've been wanting to know such a lot," he went on. "Of course I heard
+about the others, but not about you--you needn't go away immediately,
+need you?" he asked, as he watched her face,--"if--if you could stop a
+bit, it would be so jolly."
+
+The frank wistfulness of his tone was too much for her. "Yes! I can
+stop," she said quietly; "what is it you want to know?"
+
+"Lots of things; but about yourself first of all!"
+
+Herself! That would be the hardest task, she felt; and the memory of
+that senseless flight from her own reflection in the mirror came back
+to bring a quick flush to her cheek.
+
+"Of course, if you'd rather not--" began observant Lance.
+
+"I was only thinking there was very little to tell," she put in
+quickly. She was not even going to allow that, in keeping this incident
+to herself, she was giving it any importance. She had told herself
+during the last few days that it had been unfortunate, that was all.
+Otherwise it was trivial; since it did not, could not, alter her
+decision. On the contrary, it strengthened it; just as a temptation
+resisted always strengthened that resistance.
+
+So, in the balcony where lovers had sat and talked of love, those two
+sat talking of that midsummer night's dream, of everything but love. Of
+Vincent Dering's song, of the raft, of Lance's experience as he clung
+to the highest crevice, and felt the water stop steady between his knee
+and his ankle. Of his incredulity when Am-ma appeared, and his
+immediate lapse into unconsciousness; chiefly, he supposed, because
+there was no need for further endurance. Of how he had no notion of
+anything till he found himself lying on a string bed in the sun, right
+away on the other side of the town, whither Am-ma had brought him, by
+Heaven knows what secret passage.
+
+So, as the shadows grew long, they seemed to invade Lance's face, and
+bring a doubt to it.
+
+"I haven't seen Am-ma since," he said, "so I haven't found out yet why
+on earth he came to look for me?"
+
+Erda rose and held out her hand. "We were all looking for you, Mr.
+Carlyon," she said quietly, "and we were all very glad to find you.
+And--and I am very sorry to--to lose you."
+
+He rose too, stiffly, and, taking her hand, held it while he looked
+into her face steadily.
+
+"Good-by, Miss Shepherd--I'm--I'm sorry it has to be that--but you know
+best. And thank you for telling me--so much." He paused, and his hand
+tightened on hers a little. "Thanks all round, for _that!_ It has been
+the truth between us, hasn't it, always? And so--though it has been a
+bit rough--Good-by!"
+
+There was a pause, a curious pause.
+
+"Good-by," she echoed dully, her face grown very pale. His hand left
+hers gently. She turned and faced the garden, where the shadows were
+invading the blaze of colour, and the coming cool was sending the scent
+of the orange-blossoms into the air. The water-maze, with its marble
+ledges, where there was but room for the feet of a laughing girl, lay
+still and glistening before her. The palace, with its fanciful nooks,
+its illogical recesses, its suggestion of elusive pleasures beyond the
+pale of solid reality, rose up into the sky.
+
+And something in the scene came home to her with the sense that all
+this, in its way, was real also. That this was part of the truth. The
+truth which she had not told.
+
+"_It has been the truth between us, hasn't it, always?_"
+
+She turned suddenly to where Lance stood; turned to find him leaning
+over the balcony, looking down into the water with a listlessness he
+had held in check till then; and a great wave of remorse swept through
+her.
+
+"It has not been the truth between us!" she cried impulsively,
+recklessly--"not quite--but, I will tell it now--if you like."
+
+He looked up, startled. "If you think I--I ought to know."
+
+She gave a queer, half-impatient laugh. "Ought! How do I know? Yes! I
+suppose so--as it's true--absolutely true. I can't help that, can I?"
+
+There was a forlornness in the confession; almost a despair.
+
+"Then tell me, please," said Lance, deliberately making room for her to
+lean over the balustrade beside him. His heart was beating fast at
+something in her face, and yet his uppermost thought was for her; for
+that forlornness, that despair. "I can forget it afterwards--if you
+want me to," he added consolingly.
+
+She came to the place beside him, and looked down, hiding her face from
+all but the sliding river; and he, seeing her desire, looked into it
+also.
+
+"It was about my starting on the raft," she began with a little sob. "I
+didn't tell you the truth about that. I--I didn't come to give the
+warning at first--I--I was coming to you."
+
+"Yes!" he said quietly; but his hand found hers and held it. "You were
+coming to me, dear,--why?"
+
+That touch seemed at once to help her, and to make her desperate.
+
+"Because--oh, Lance! it was so foolish! I saw myself in the glass--all
+in white with the orange in my hand--and I thought of you--of what you
+said--of--of the World's Desire, and--and I felt I couldn't--so--so I
+was coming to you--first--when Am-ma--don't you see--"
+
+There was a long pause. His hand, firm, strong, did not tighten, it
+simply held hers as they both looked down on the sliding river.
+
+"Thanks!" he said after a time; and then there was another pause until
+he added, "It will be a bit rough, I'm afraid, on the Reverend David,
+but I don't see how we can help that--do you?"
+
+And this time his clasp tightened. Erda said nothing; she felt there
+was nothing more to say, now that the truth had been told between them.
+So while the sinking sun flared red on the "Cradle of the Gods" another
+man and woman consoled themselves for the lost Paradise.
+
+
+
+                              FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: Bonaventura.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Pension.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Night, or darkness.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Light, or day.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Narāyan, in the Hindoo mythology, is the creative spirit
+brooding on the waters.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Another kind of religious mendicant.]
+
+[Footnote 7: The ceremonial hospitality offered at levees.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Big lady.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Abuse it.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Lit.: outcasts, used as a term of abuse for Europeans.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Certain.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Hosts of the Lord, by Flora Annie Steel
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hosts of the Lord, by Flora Annie Steel
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: The Hosts of the Lord
+
+Author: Flora Annie Steel
+
+Release Date: June 13, 2012 [EBook #39991]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOSTS OF THE LORD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
+Google Books (the University of California)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Notes:<br>
+<br>
+1. Page scan source:<br>
+http://books.google.com/books?id=x2YpAQAAIAAJ<br>
+(the University of California)</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>THE HOSTS OF THE LORD</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>THE HOSTS OF THE LORD</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h5>BY</h5>
+
+<h3>FLORA ANNIE STEEL</h3>
+
+<h5>AUTHOR OF &quot;ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS,&quot; &quot;MISS STUART'S<br>
+LEGACY,&quot; &quot;THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS,&quot; ETC.</h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>New York</h4>
+
+<h3>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</h3>
+
+<h4>LONDON: MACMILLAN &amp; CO., <span class="sc">Ltd</span>.</h4>
+
+<h4>1900</h4>
+<br>
+<h5><i>All rights reserved</i></h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4><span class="sc2">Copyright, 1899,</span><br>
+<span class="sc">By</span> FLORA ANNIE STEEL.</h4>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4><span class="sc2">Copyright, 1900,</span><br>
+<span class="sc">By</span> THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.</h4>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>Norwood Press</h4>
+<h5>J.S. Cushing &amp; Co.--Berwick &amp; Smith</h5>
+<h5>Norwood Mass. U.S.A.</h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table cellpadding="10" style="width:90%; margin-left:5%; font-weight:bold">
+<colgroup><col style="width:10%; text-align:right"><col style="width:90%"></colgroup>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="sc2">CHAPTER</span></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>I.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_01" href="#div1_01">A Shadow.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>II.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_02" href="#div1_02">&quot;He shall feed his Flock like a Shepherd.&quot;</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>III.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_03" href="#div1_03">Driftwood.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>IV.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_04" href="#div1_04">Under-currents.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>V.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_05" href="#div1_05">The &quot;Dee-Puk-Rāg.&quot;</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>VI.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_06" href="#div1_06">Alpha and Omega.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>VII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_07" href="#div1_07">The World's Desire.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>VIII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_08" href="#div1_08">Falling Stars.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>IX.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_09" href="#div1_09">Out of the Past.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>X.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_10" href="#div1_10">The Pivots of Life.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XI.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_11" href="#div1_11">Wheels within Wheels.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_12" href="#div1_12">The Church Militant.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XIII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_13" href="#div1_13">At the Gates.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XIV.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_14" href="#div1_14">Miracle Mongers.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XV.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_15" href="#div1_15">Oh! dem Golden Slippers!</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XVI.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_16" href="#div1_16">Echoes.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XVII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_17" href="#div1_17">The Pool of Immortality.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XVIII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_18" href="#div1_18">Adrift.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XIX.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_19" href="#div1_19">Juliet.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XX.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_20" href="#div1_20">Trapped.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXI.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_21" href="#div1_21">Margherita.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_22" href="#div1_22">A Monopoly.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXIII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_23" href="#div1_23">The Search-Light.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXIV.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_24" href="#div1_24">Beyond the Shadow.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXV.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_25" href="#div1_25">Dawn.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXVI.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_26" href="#div1_26">Foiled.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXVII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_27" href="#div1_27">L'Addio del Marito.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXVIII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_28" href="#div1_28">The Truth.</a></td>
+</tr></table>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>THE HOSTS OF THE LORD</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/hosts01.png" alt="two bars of music"></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>THE HOSTS OF THE LORD</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_01" href="#div1Ref_01">CHAPTER I</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>A SHADOW</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Understand! Of course you don't. I don't, though I've been here two
+years. And what's more, I don't want to,&quot; retorted a rather undersized
+Englishman, whose white drill suit made him look like a stem to the
+huge mushroom of a pith hat which he wore. Despite this protection his
+face was brown exceedingly, and faintly wrinkled through sheer exposure
+to sun-bright, sun-dried air. The fact enhanced the monkey type of his
+features, and made his clear, light-blue eyes--so set that they were
+shadowless below and cavernous above--look quite aggressively cool,
+inquisitive, intelligent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So long as we don't understand them,&quot; he went on, &quot;and they don't
+understand us, we jog along the same path amicably, like--well! like
+the pilgrims to the 'Cradle of the Gods,' and the telegraph-posts to
+the Adjutant General's office up the road yonder--and I'll trouble you
+to cram more space than that between two earthly poles! No! It is when
+we begin to have glimmerings that the deuce and all comes in--&quot; He
+paused in the molten gold of sunlight, which made the yellow sand, the
+corn-coloured tussocks of tiger-grass still yellower and still more
+corn-coloured, to glance round, as if measuring the distance between
+the long, low line of mud enclosure they had left but a few hundred
+yards behind--yet which, already, was losing itself in an illimitable
+sand stretch beyond--and a bigger tuft in the sand stretch ahead; a
+tuft of spear-points and horses, bayonets and men, waiting beside the
+first faint semblance of a reed-paved road. Then he took out his watch.
+Apparently he found leisure at his disposal, for he walked on. &quot;There's
+a nursery rhyme they taught me,&quot; he continued, &quot;when my moral nature
+was at the mercy of any fool who chose to take an interest in it--'<i>But
+if poor Pussy understood, she'd be, indeed, a naughty creature!</i>' It
+didn't run so consecutively, of course; in fact 'creature' rhymed to
+'teach her'--but I learnt it that way. Children do that sort of thing a
+sight deal oftener than their elders think.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The younger of the two men in uniform with whom he was walking
+laughed--the honest, elated, conscious laugh of one who has not many
+good stories about himself, and happens on an opportunity for telling
+one of them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>I</i> used to say, '<i>Six days shalt thy neighbour do all that thou hast
+to do, and the seventh day shalt thou do no manner</i>--'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shut up, Lance!&quot; interrupted his elder companion with a laugh. &quot;It is
+a ripping excuse for your intolerable laziness, but I don't believe--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fact, I assure you,&quot; protested Lance Carlyon aggrievedly, &quot;and
+considering I really thought that was the proper version for ten years
+of my life, I--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. George Dillon took off his mushroom hat suddenly, and wiped his
+forehead as if to smooth away the wrinkles which his smiles had brought
+to it. &quot;Lordy! It's a queer world,&quot; he put in. &quot;There is really no good
+in understanding most things. As for this place--! Great Scott! What
+would happen if my fifteen hundred scoundrels, whom you saw digging
+like babes in the open just now, were to understand that I--one
+Englishman in charge--had virtually no <i>force majeure</i>--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't insult us, Dillon!&quot; remonstrated Captain Vincent Dering, a
+certain swagger underlying his jest. &quot;Eshwara is a garrison town,
+remember, now; I'm commandant, and Carlyon's staff--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had, in fact, ridden that morning as far as Dr. Dillon's house in
+charge of a troop of native cavalry and some Sikh pioneers who had gone
+on, under a native officer, to take up their temporary quarters in the
+half-ruined Fort, just beyond the old town of Eshwara. And now, having
+thus secured their breakfasts, he and his lieutenant were on their way
+towards the horses and escort they had bidden await them at the boat
+bridge which lay between them and their destination. For George Dillon
+was in control of a large industrial gaol, whose inmates had for months
+been digging the head works of a canal, which was to take off just
+below the town, on the farther side of the river.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you?&quot; replied the doctor, with a look of pity; &quot;then I hope you'll
+both forget the fact. We've got on all right without you, hitherto. So
+if you'll stick to marking out the Viceroy's camp, and generally
+preparing the way of the Lord-sahib, I'll be obliged to you. By the
+way, is he coming to open the canal on the 10th, really?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So they say. That is, if you are ready for the show by then. I believe
+he could put it off till the 11th or 12th. Dashwood said something to
+that effect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then Dashwood's an ass. The 10th is bad enough. The place will be
+filling up even then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Filling up! How?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pilgrims. But on the 11th and 12th! By George! you should see them!
+The 'Assyrians came down like a wolf on the fold,' is nothing to it;
+only these are the Hosts of the Lord, I suppose. And so Dashwood
+suggested the 11th or 12th--the <i>Vaisakh</i> festival, did he? Well, he is
+an ass! But that's always the way. We try to understand feelings,
+instead of trying to know facts. However, we shall be ready for the
+opening, never fear. Smith expects his C. S. I. over it, he says, and
+that's enough guarantee. You know Smith, don't you, Dering? Walsall
+Smith--I think his wife said she knew you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he interrupted, with rather unnecessary decision, &quot;Mrs. Walsall
+Smith is a great friend of mine, a very great friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Jolly for you, having friends in Eshwara,&quot; assented Lance, in uneasy
+haste. &quot;I suppose they are about the only people here, eh, doctor?&quot; he
+went on, changing the subject; but the latter's clear eyes and brain
+were occupied for a moment in taking stock of Captain Dering's
+singular, if a trifle <i>voyant</i> personal attractions; one of the most
+noticeable of which was the perfect curve of his throat and cheek.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg your pardon--people, did you say?&quot; asked Dr. Dillon, after the
+pause. &quot;Plenty of people, if you count <i>padrés</i>--the place swarms with
+missions, you know. But if you mean polo--&quot; He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance Carlyon's honest young face clouded, then grew cheerful again.
+&quot;Well! there must be a lot of black partridge, and I expect there's
+fish in the river. Besides, it's an awfully picturesque place--By Jove!
+it is, Dering, isn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had reached the tuft of spear-points and horses, men and bayonets,
+and before them lay Eshwara, sun-saturate, shadowless, in the April
+noon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So seen, across the still lagoon of water formed by the junction of the
+two streams, the Hara and the Hari, which edged the low-lying
+triangular spit from which its fortified, temple-set walls rose,
+Eshwara seemed at the very foot of the blue barrier of hill behind it,
+whose serrated edge, paler than the blue sky above it, claimed
+three-quarters of all things visible for this world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That, indeed, was the noticeable point in the picture presented to the
+eye. As a rule Heaven claims the larger half of all perspectives. Here,
+the three elements, earth, air, water, lay across the view in three
+broad bands of blue, curiously similar in tint; for the sky was pale
+with excess of light, the hills with excess of heat, and the water
+paler than either by reason of a white silt which it brought with it
+from the snows; a white silt which a recent flood had left in a fine
+film upon the sand stretches that showed here and there in the broad
+basin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is a gypsum <i>detritus</i>,&quot; explained the doctor--&quot;from the 'Cradle of
+the Gods'--the cave, you know, where the rivers rise. The pilgrims go,
+in fact, for this very stuff. Find it in the ice crannies, call it 'the
+clay of immortality,' smear themselves with it, and then die happy, in
+hundreds, of pneumonia! Those are the facts. I don't profess to
+understand them; and as I told you I don't want to. It's dangerous. As
+that cracked old Jesuit, Father Narāyan, admitted, with that
+unfathomable smile of his, when all the other parsons were at me for
+refusing to allow them access to a postulate or a catechumen, or
+someone of that sort, who was sent to my jail '<i>the Church has always
+admitted the value of invincible ignorance</i>.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Father Narāyan!&quot; interrupted Lance Carlyon eagerly, &quot;I suppose that's
+the Father Ninian Bruce who has lived here fifty years, and has a sort
+of Begum in tow, a descendant of General Bonaventura's, who was the
+Nawabs' favourite. I want to see that old chap; he must be a character.
+My grandmother, old Lady Carewe, used to tell me about him; long yarns,
+though she hadn't met him since she was in her teens in a convent at
+Rome, and he was father confessor, I suppose--she's a Holy Roman, you
+know, and was a desperate flirt too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So am I,&quot; said Vincent Dering quickly. &quot;I mean a Catholic--at least my
+people are. So I can tell you one thing, Dillon; Father Ninian isn't a
+Jesuit. I was talking about him at the Club, when I knew I was coming
+here, and Father Delamere was indignant at the idea--said he was a
+disgrace to his cloth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George Dillon's dry face grew dryer. &quot;Did he, indeed! I quite agree
+that <i>he</i> is, but I didn't think Delamere would have admitted the fact
+himself! As for Pidar Narāyan, as the natives call him, he--he--&quot; here
+the dry face melted. &quot;Bless the man,&quot; he continued, and the dry voice
+grew soft, &quot;he thinks he knows more about doctoring than I do, and the
+worst of it is--&quot; here a perfectly charming smile took possession of
+every wrinkle--&quot;he does, in a way; for the natives believe in him, and
+the 'saffron bag' is the best of all remedies. You see, when he was
+younger, he used often to go with the pilgrims and try to pull some of
+the poor devils out of the fire--or rather out of the snow--for the
+'Cradle of the Gods' lies yonder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pointed to where, faint and far, a peak showed paler than the rest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why don't they smear themselves here?&quot; asked Lance stolidly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why? Because they don't. Besides, there isn't much to come and go upon
+for a robe of righteousness here. Look! the breeze is blowing it away
+already!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In truth the sun, which with the other three elements of earth, and
+air, and water, give us, in all religions, the whole spiritual life of
+man,--the world of his probation, the heaven of his hopes, the means of
+his purification, and the fire of his retribution--had scorched the
+fine film to dust, and the wind, blowing where it listed, was sweeping
+it away, leaving the sand stretches unregenerate as ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;An extra touch of pipe-clay!&quot; laughed Vincent Dering, dusting his knee
+as he settled himself in his saddle. &quot;Well! good-by, old chap. I shall
+see you again soon, for I shall be coming over to the Smiths' pretty
+often, and I suppose your regiment of ruffians leaves you off duty
+sometimes. Carlyon, make Dillon an honourary member of the headquarters
+mess!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George Dillon, leaning with his hands in his pockets against the rail
+of the first pontoon, watching the little cavalcade start, nodded.
+&quot;Thanks. I'm over pretty often at the Palace. Pidar Narāyan plays the
+fiddle, and the Begum,--as you call her,--Miss Laila Bonaventura, has a
+voice. Besides, Babylon--I mean Eshwara--amuses me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why Babylon?&quot; asked Captain Dering, stooping to straighten his
+stirrup.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The doctor laughed, as his lounge changed to a start homeward. &quot;Means
+the same thing. Esh-dwarra--or in another tongue, Bab-y-lon,--is 'the
+Gate of God,' though Babylon stands for something else nowadays,
+doesn't it? That's why I say it's never any use to find out the
+meanings of things. They change so. Stick to facts; they don't. Well,
+ta-ta. I'll see you to-morrow, most likely, at the Palace. They have a
+sort of concert-practice-afternoon on Wednesdays--some of the Mission
+ladies sing jollily in parts--and the old man is sure to ask you. He
+sets great store on his ward's position; besides, I told him you were a
+nailer at the piano.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent Dering made a wry face. &quot;The deuce you did! My dear fellow, I
+couldn't play hymn tunes to save my life. I shall refuse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pity,&quot; replied Dr. Dillon over his shoulder, as he swung off in
+strides which emphasized the undue shortness of his trousers, &quot;for I
+heard Mrs. Smith say they wanted a good accompanist. She sings
+<i>alto</i>--rather well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, does she?&quot; said Captain Dering, in a different tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As they set their faces different ways, there was a smile on both, but
+the doctor's was scarcely a pleasant one; it would, in fact, have been
+wholly sardonic but for the touch of impatient weariness it brought
+with it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, through the sun-bright, sun-dried air, while George Dillon walked
+back to his fifteen hundred malefactors, the little trail of
+spear-points and bayonets, men and horses, drifted at a foot-pace
+across the frail bridge towards the town; drifted unsteadily, the
+yielding boats swaying, the wooden girders giving and groaning over
+their burden. Seen so, with but a plank between it and the milky water
+creased by the faint current, there was something unreal in the gay
+troop of colour and glitter making its way to the quaint, storeyed
+town, ablaze in the sunlight, which turned each golden temple-spike to
+a star. A cool breeze fluttered the lance-pennants, and brought that
+faint film of white to horse and man, warm flesh, and cold steel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And far away on that pale peak, a little white cloud had rested, hiding
+the &quot;Cradle of the Gods.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There must be fish here,&quot; remarked Lance dogmatically. &quot;I'll get out
+my rods to-morrow and try for a '<i>mahseer</i>.'&quot; And the earnestness of
+his face, as he lifted his eyes skyward to watch a couple of
+cormorants, would have suited a knight-errant of old on the quest of
+the Holy Grail.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It won't be half bad, I expect--for a time, at any-rate,&quot; assented
+Vincent Dering, still with that content upon his face. &quot;We will get up
+some fun while the camp is here, of course; and after that--&quot; he
+paused, and the content became greater--&quot;we'll manage for the month or
+so we have to stop. At least I shall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His voice was soft. He might have been another knight-errant of old,
+riding across to the enchanted castle of his beloved.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg pardon, sir,&quot; said a voice behind him; a voice with a strong
+native accent, yet with a curiously English phrasing in it, &quot;but by
+dismounting here you will reach the Fort in a few minutes on foot. The
+road is longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Captain Dering turned, as if surprised, to the speaker, a native
+officer who sat his horse at the salute; then smiled, and with a
+clatter of accoutrements slipped to the ground.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come along, Carlyon. I was forgetting that Roshan Khān is up to the
+ropes here. You belong to Eshwara, don't you, <i>risaldar sahib?</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man to whom he spoke had slipped from his saddle also, and stood,
+smart as uniform could make him, still as discipline could hold him. He
+was a good-looking young Mahomedan of about thirty, curiously English
+in his movements, curiously native in his exaggeration of martial airs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Huzoor!</i>&quot; he assented. &quot;We are connected with the late Nawab's
+house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He spoke with absolute indifference, but Captain Dering, as they left
+the bazaar, which led from the bridge, for a short flight of steps and
+a narrow alley cleaving it's way through crowded, shouldering houses,
+remarked aside:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I believe that means he is about the nearest relation left. The
+Colonel, I know, wasn't sure about the wisdom of his coming here; but
+then the Colonel is that sort. So I insisted. One wants somebody who
+can tell you things in a new place. What's that, in there, Roshan?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had come to a long, high wall, with trees showing above it, which
+stretched away on their right hand for two or three hundred yards,
+until it ended in an arched tunnel through a massive block of buildings
+at right angles to it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The palace garden, sir; and that is the palace. There is no entrance
+this side.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The women's apartments, I suppose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Huzoor</i>,&quot; assented Roshan Khān once more. &quot;The Miss <i>Sahib</i> lives
+there now, and the <i>Padré</i> has his chapel there too. The river runs
+along the side, and it is pleasant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pleasant and cool,&quot; echoed Lance, as the shadow of the tunnel closed
+in on them. &quot;I'd no idea it was so hot outside. By Jove! what a quaint
+place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were emerging on a wide, square courtyard of which the palace
+formed one side, the fort another, a flight of steps leading down to
+the river a third, while the fourth was apparently, a wing of the
+palace. All three walls were absolutely blank save for a low door at
+each of the four corners; and these were, so to speak, connected with
+each other by pathways raised two steps above the rest of the
+courtyard. A similar footpath crossed it in the middle and so completed
+the resemblance to a union-jack; for the pathways were of white marble
+and red Agra stone, the courtyard of purple-blue brick. These paths met
+in a round platform in the centre, where, on a stone carriage, stood an
+old cannon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's a big gun,&quot; said Vincent Dering, when, with a quickened clink
+of his spurred steps he had reached it; so, laying his hand lightly on
+the cylinder, he vaulted to it, as on to a horse, and stooped to read
+an inscription on the riveted band about the breech.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sanskrit,&quot; he said--&quot;that stumps me! it's so confounded straight. Ah!
+here it is in Persian too--that's better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a faint clash of steel on stone, for, as he read the motto
+aloud, Roshan's hand, stiffening on his sword-hilt, made ground and
+scabbard meet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Captain Dering slipped to his feet again with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Teacher of religion, and instructor of souls;' that's about a correct
+translation, isn't it, <i>risaldar sahib?</i> Well! I'd back a Maxim against
+old Blunderbore as a missionary agent nowadays. Hullo! they worship it
+still, do they?&quot; He pointed to a faded chaplet of marigolds around the
+muzzle, and a red hand printed on the marble below.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Mahomedan's face took on the expression of his race and creed; all
+unconsciously, too, he reverted to his own language.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The idolators do that when they come to bathe; and they give alms to
+the saint, when he is inside.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Inside!&quot; echoed Captain Dering. &quot;What! Inside the gun?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here Lance, who had promptly peered down the muzzle, came up from it
+excitedly, asserting that the saint was there now; he could see the
+brute's fuzzy head half way down, so he must have crawled in feet
+foremost--one of those naked brutes who smeared themselves with ashes,
+to judge by his <i>chignon</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Make a ripping mop,&quot; laughed Vincent Dering, after glancing down in
+his turn; &quot;clean the gun nicely,&quot;--then the <i>insouciance</i> of his face
+disappeared, its curves hardened--&quot;and by God! I'll make him. I'm not
+going to have my guns worshipped! eh, Roshan?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Huzoor</i>,&quot; assented the Mahomedan once more, this time joyfully, as--a
+decorous two paces behind--his spurs jingled in harmony with his
+captain's across the raised union-jack towards the river-end of the
+courtyard where, in a projecting bastion right upon the bathing steps,
+the low arched door stood which gave access to the Fort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In order to reach it they had to pass the solitary visible occupant of
+the wide, sunlit courtyard. This was a man--of what rank, education,
+occupation, none could tell--who having raised a square of
+two-inch-high mud wall between his twice-born purity and the world, was
+preparing his daily food. Naked, save for his waistcloth, and the
+thread of the twice-born over his left shoulder, he was isolated even
+from his kindred. Alone with himself and his God.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before him in the mud-plastered square, as he sat immovable, was the
+mud fireplace on which his wheaten dough-cake was cooking; beside him
+was a leaf-platter of curds, a brass vessel of milk; a sight to be seen
+a hundred times a day in India; one which should never be forgotten.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The noon was almost shadowless; yet, even so, as he led the way,
+Captain Dering, from sheer habit, swerved to step further from the
+sacred square. Doing so his foot slipped an instant on the lower step.
+He gave an impatient exclamation and passed on. A minute later the door
+of the fort clanged behind the little party, cutting short an English
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, not till then, the man in that square of purity showed signs of
+life. He rose quietly, almost unconcernedly, took the half-baked cake
+from the embers, the leaf-platter of curds, the vessel of milk, and
+going down to the river's edge, flung his dinner into it, to feed the
+fishes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In that stumble, the plume-like fringe of Vincent Dering's high peaked
+turban had sent a shadow to overtop the two-inch barrier between one
+man and his fellows.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_02" href="#div1Ref_02">CHAPTER II</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>&quot;HE SHALL FEED HIS FLOCK LIKE A SHEPHERD&quot;</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The garden of the old palace at Eshwara had been rightly described by
+Roshan Khān as a pleasant place. Longer than it was broad, its shady
+walks and orange groves clung to the river, raised above it by a
+balconied wall against which the current ran dimpling. On two of the
+remaining sides, a twenty-feet high barrier of sheer masonry,
+buttressed and bastioned, blocked out all curious eyes. On the third,
+separating it from the courtyard where the big gun stood, rose the
+palace. Seen thus intimately from within, the latter had changed its
+character. No longer severe, stern, giving a blank stare at the world
+from the narrow slits of infrequent windows, it had grown fanciful,
+almost fantastic, full of canopied turrets and inconsequent little
+latticed retreats.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At least in the two upper storeys; for the lower one was more solid,
+its chief feature being a wide, aisled passage leading right through it
+to a door which gave on the courtyard. Being exactly opposite the one
+in the corner of the Fort bastion on the other side, this door opened,
+as the latter did, on one of the slantwise limbs of the quaint
+union-jack of raised paths which centred in the cannon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not necessary, however, to go round by this in crossing from one
+door to the other, as by keeping to the river steps, you could do so on
+the same level.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In old times the guardians of the frail beauties for whose delectation
+the garden had been made, had lived in the crypt-like vaulted rooms
+which opened out from this aisled passage; so keeping the gate against
+illegal wanderings. Since the only other exit from the garden, save by
+boat, was through the second storey of the women's apartments, and as
+this was by a door leading directly into the royal rooms (which were on
+the other side of the tunnel that gave access to the courtyard, and
+also divided the palace into two portions--male, and female), the
+butterfly prisoners had had no chance of fluttering to strange honey.
+In those days, therefore, the door had always been bolted and barred.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It stood wide open, however, showing a vista of green at the farther
+end of the passage, when Captain Dering and Lance Carlyon came over to
+it in reply to the intimation that Miss Laila Bonaventura was &quot;<i>At Home
+for music on Wednesday afternoons</i>,&quot; which had been brought to the Fort
+overnight by an old pantaloon. A very old pantaloon with a wizened
+face, a few sparse hairs--dyed flaming red--standing at right angles to
+his cheeks, and a marvellous livery, consisting for the most part of
+yards upon yards of tarnished tinsel cloth, twisted and twined about
+head and waist like Saturn's rings. The oldest of old pantaloons, with
+a back curved by a life-time of obeisances, a toothless mouth, still
+full of sonorous titles, and a wicked old eye, watchful for the least
+want of the master, be it good or evil. A pantaloon, with Heaven knows
+what history of unutterable things hidden in his old brain, such as is
+to be seen, even in these days, lingering round the ruins of a native
+court; a figure despicable enough, yet real; so in a way pathetic, by
+reason of its absolute lack of real interest in things as they are.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now as the two Englishmen paused,--partly because the swift change
+from the glare without to the gloom within was startling,--this same
+pantaloon, with a white muslin robe superadded to the livery as a badge
+of his dignity as door-keeper, precipitated himself upon them from the
+shadows, with ancient skips of alacrity and loop-like salaams; then
+with crab-like sidlings led the way, the young men following.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must have that old chap on paper before I leave,&quot; said Vincent
+Dering; &quot;he's too good to be lost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, their steps echoing cheerfully with their laughter, they went on
+until, towards the middle of the passage, the aisle to their left
+widened, and through a maze of pillars and arches, a glimpse or two of
+air and sunlight showed sharply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance took a curious step towards them. &quot;Opens on to the river, I
+expect; jolly cool it must be in the hot weather! By Jove! those old
+sinners knew how to be comfortable. Hullo!&quot;--he paused in a sort of
+horror--&quot;I say, Dering! I believe it's a chapel. Yes! it is!&quot; He took
+off his cap instinctively, and moved another step forward to see
+better.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Captain Dering called impatiently, &quot;Oh, come along, do, Carlyon! I
+didn't promise to go to church! Hymns are bad enough in all
+conscience.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance, however, stood rooted to the spot, cap in hand. &quot;Hush!&quot; he said
+in a low voice, &quot;I believe they are having service.&quot; As he spoke a
+robed figure showed between the arches against the sunlight beyond
+them; showed with something in its lifted hands, then passed to some
+unseen altar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, come along, do! there's a good chap, and let's get out of the
+way,&quot; repeated Captain Dering, sharply. &quot;It's Father Narāyan, I
+suppose,--he's as mad as a hatter, and boshes the whole business--at
+least, so Delamere said. I told you we were a bit early, but you would
+start; still it's too bad of the old man to have his chapel in the
+front hall! Come along! and let us wait in the garden--it looks an
+awfully jolly one--awfully--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paused, perhaps at the change, this time, from gloom to glare,
+perhaps at the sudden sense of anticipation, the sudden quickening of
+the pulse of life, which made him draw a long breath involuntarily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not unfamiliar to him, that sudden stir of vitality, of
+expectation; and with a curious smile on his face he crossed to the
+edge of the marble plinth on which the passage opened, and leaning over
+the balustrade, looked down to a terrace below, and so on to the garden
+itself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A perfect wilderness of common flowers, sown broadcast, lay at his
+feet, hemming in a shallow marble tank, which was nearly covered with
+the dewy leaf-cups of the lotus, and set round with mosaic arabesques.
+From this tank two aqueducts led to the edge of the terrace, and ended
+in steep slopes of fretted marble, where cascades had once wimpled and
+dimpled down to the water-maze which lay below--a shiny lake, cobwebbed
+over by narrow marble paths just wide enough for the bare, flying
+feet of a laughing girl. Beyond was scented shade, with glints of
+water-courses gleaming here and there; while here and there came a peep
+of a latticed balcony overhanging the river; a balcony just large
+enough for a laughing girl and her lover.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet there was not even a butterfly to be seen hovering over the
+flowers. All was still, all was silent, until Vincent Dering's careless
+laugh echoed through the stillness, the silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can't you imagine it--all lit up--they used to put coloured lamps
+behind the cascades, I'm told, and play 'Catch who can' up and down
+and all around the place! On the whole I expect they enjoyed
+themselves--better than the type-writing girls of to-day do, for
+instance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Got beastly sick of enjoying themselves before they had done with it,
+I expect,&quot; replied Lance, succinctly, &quot;especially if there was always
+such a confounded strong smell of orange blossoms. Bah! I'd prefer a
+polecat; but,&quot; he gave a distasteful glance at his companion, &quot;I
+believe you like strong scents.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not?&quot; laughed Vincent Dering, drawing out a handkerchief deluged
+with white-rose, and sniffing at it, &quot;it's a harmless taste,&quot; here his
+jest passed to earnest, and his eyes took a half soft, half cynical
+expression,--&quot;so's the other, in a way. It isn't altogether despicable
+to let yourself loose in Paradise without an <i>arričre pensée</i> of
+flaming swords. Especially if you can give pleasure to someone else
+thereby. One could act Romeo and Juliet nicely in this garden. And have
+your choice of balconies, too,&quot; he continued, returning to jest, &quot;even
+if the young woman--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He glanced back as if to verify his remark from the <i>faēade</i> of the
+palace, but what he saw behind him brought a sudden straightening of
+his lounge, and rather an elaborate doffing of his sailor hat; for he
+was always a trifle ornate in his courtesy towards women, and the girl
+who stood within a pace or two of him was distinctly attractive,
+if--even at the first glance--a little too bread-and-buttery for his
+taste; too young, too clumsy as to waist, too massive in the contours
+of face and figure. For Captain Vincent Dering's taste had remained
+constant for the last three years to a different type of beauty; a type
+which, for the first time in his life, had made him sentimental,
+romantic, more or less unselfish. Still the girl was handsome, even in
+that babyish frock of starched white muslin, girt about with a yellow
+silk sash. The dress, he told himself,--for he was a connoisseur in
+<i>chiffons</i>, and had a pretty turn for painting in addition--would have
+been better soft, and creamy; but thank heaven! the sash was not blue,
+like the marker of the missal she carried in her hand. It might have
+been; for it was impossible to fathom the lack of all sense of fitness
+in some women. Yet the result would have been to take all the ivory
+tints from this girl's complexion, and leave it jaundiced. And the
+ivory was charming.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am Miss Bonaventura,&quot; she began in a set way, which convinced
+Captain Dering that she had been sent to say those very words, and none
+other; &quot;my guardian, Father Ninian Bruce, will be here directly. Won't
+you come upstairs to the drawing-room? I am sorry we did not know it
+was so late.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is our fault; we are disgracefully early,&quot; put in Captain Dering.
+&quot;I told Carlyon--&quot; then he paused, feeling curiously at a loss before
+the girl's look of stolid gravity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps your watch is too fast,&quot; she suggested, &quot;and then my guardian
+likes to go by the sun. He says it never needs winding up. But I think
+it is inconvenient, when everybody else has a watch. It is always
+better to do as other people do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her voice was very sweet and full; but a country-bred accent spoilt its
+beauty, and brought a grimace to Captain Dering's face, as he and his
+companion dutifully followed the speaker up one of the curved flights
+of steps, which led from the plinth to a wide loggia on the second
+storey. Like the room seen through its arches, this was lavishly
+decorated with fragments of looking-glass fashioned into flowing
+designs with gilt stucco. The afternoon sun, at this height shining
+full into the loggia, made it a veritable star chamber.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What a charming place,&quot; went on Captain Dering in his best manner.
+&quot;Doesn't it remind you of the Arabian Nights, Carlyon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sudden vague surprise and interest came to the girl's face,
+lightening it infinitely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you read the <i>Alif Laila?</i>&quot; she asked. &quot;My <i>moonshi</i> brought
+it--I have to learn Urdu, you know, because my guardian thinks I ought
+to be able to speak to the people, as he does--and I wanted to read it,
+because it is my name, you see--Laila--it means 'night,' I believe--but
+my guardian did not wish it. He gave me the 'Mirror of Virtue' instead.
+It is a very, very long--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her almost childish garrulity ceased in a faint flush over the ivory of
+her face, and she reverted to her lesson, and her indifference--&quot;The
+other people will be here directly; but they will come from the city,
+across the tunnel, and go straight into the drawing-room. Would you
+like to come in there, or stay here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! stay here, please!&quot; said Vincent, desperately. The young woman was
+getting on his nerves.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then perhaps you would like to try the piano?&quot; persisted Miss
+Bonaventura. &quot;My guardian has it brought out here on Wednesday
+afternoons, because it sounds well among the arches. Will you try it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her hand--it was ivory also, Vincent observed, and had long
+filbert-shaped nails--held the cover of the keyboard open stolidly; and
+Lance Carlyon, feeling a bit desperate also, said appealingly:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do, Dering. He is a nailer at the piano, I assure you, Miss
+Bonaventura, and he sings too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So my guardian--&quot; she began, when Vincent's patience gave way and,
+with a perfect devil of exasperation roused in him, he sat down on the
+music-stool and with a crash burst into a naughty little love song he
+had picked up at Brindisi on the way out. He did it simply to soothe
+himself; so, to do him justice, he nearly fell off the music-stool in
+horror when, at the refrain of the second verse, a very full round
+<i>mezzo-soprano</i> joined in it with a <i>verve</i> and <i>abandon</i> far
+exceeding
+his own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He scarcely knew whether to apologize, or go on; but Miss Bonaventura
+apparently had no doubts. She finished with a gay little <i>staccato</i>
+note which would have made her fortune at a music hall, and then turned
+to the accompanist with a smile which showed an absolutely flawless set
+of teeth. &quot;What funny words; but I like them, and the tune too. What is
+it called? I should like to get it and sing it to my guardian.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent, who had begun a stammering regret that he had not remembered
+her nationality, altered his phrase, with a sense of relief, to &quot;You
+know Italian very well, I suppose, Miss Bonaventura?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She returned to her indifference immediately. &quot;My guardian and I speak
+it. He loves Italy and the Italians. He knew my grandmother there. She
+was a princess; but he never speaks of her, so I don't know very much
+about it. Only Mother at the convent said that my guardian--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was off, gaily, on the childishly confidential tack again, when the
+sight of someone coming up the stairs made her veer towards dignity
+once more. &quot;There is my guardian,&quot; she said; &quot;he is very sorry to have
+kept you waiting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Evidently this was the last bit of her lesson, for she closed the piano
+with great decision.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The figure which came slowly towards them was that of a very old man,
+yet one older, by many years, than his looks. For he was still
+straight, save for a slight stoop in the neck; but this, by the
+backward poise of the head thus made necessary to enable his brown eyes
+to meet all things, after their habit, squarely, if softly, gave him an
+air of alertness. He was dressed in an ordinary black <i>soutane</i>, but
+wore a fine white embroidered muslin skull-cap, such as natives wear,
+instead of a black one. His grey hair showed, still luxuriant, beneath
+it; and the wide sash of faded lilac silk, with tasselled ends, which
+was tied in a bow about his waist, set off his still slim and still
+graceful figure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope my little girl has been doing the honours properly,&quot; he began,
+pausing a pace or two from the young men, and not offering to shake
+hands; but his voice was a welcome in itself, and had that nameless
+<i>cachet</i> of absolute good breeding which makes offence impossible.
+There was a slight hesitancy in it too, now and again, which was
+overcome by a look that took the listener into its confidence, and
+appealed for friendly forbearance--&quot;but she is only just back from
+school at Calcutta, and the good nuns did not see much company, did
+they, Laila?&quot; Then in an undertone of solicitude he added, in Italian,
+&quot;Didst tell them, <i>cara mia?</i>--didst remember it all?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Laila Bonaventura looked at him with a faint resentment. &quot;I think so,
+guardian,&quot; she replied, in English. &quot;Didn't I?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The last came with such swift, almost savage, challenge of voice and
+eyes, that Vincent Dering, the recipient, felt glad of the diversion
+caused by the arrival, through the drawing-room, of some more guests to
+claim the attention of the host and hostess, and so leave him in peace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I say, that girl has got splendid hair, hasn't she?&quot; he said in an
+undertone to Lance, as they stood a little apart, watching the new
+comers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That tall one, you mean--don't admire it. Puts me in mind of that
+devil of a chestnut who nearly killed me at polo; a chestnut with white
+stockings; awfully handy, but--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paused as Father Ninian came up to them. &quot;You can scarcely know any
+of your neighbours as yet, Captain Dering,&quot; began the old man with the
+ceremony of a past age, &quot;so perhaps you will give me the privilege of
+presenting you to some of our good mission ladies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thanks,&quot; replied Vincent, hastily. &quot;But I see my old friend, Mrs.
+Walsall Smith, coming in. I must just go and shake hands. But I'm sure
+Carlyon--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance shot a perfectly pathetic glance after his Captain, who moved off
+to meet a delicate-looking fair woman who at that moment came in with
+Dr. Dillon; the latter taken possession of and monopolized by an
+exceedingly pretty child of five, who had evidently inherited her
+mother's fragility.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Delighted, I'm sure,&quot; murmured Lance, following his leader dejectedly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Erda Shepherd, Mr. Lancelot--I am right, am I not--Carlyon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the tall girl with the red-brown hair, of course. She had bronze
+eyebrows, too, and bronze eyes--nice ones. He saw so much as he made
+his bow, while Father Ninian stood looking first at the girl, then at
+the young man; and as he looked his fine old hands were clasped as if
+they held something very precious. It was a habit of his.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope you will like each other,&quot; he said in his kind old voice; and
+then, ere he moved away, his hands fell apart for an instant as if
+giving something. &quot;Peace go with you, my children,&quot; he said with a
+smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance felt a queer, unaccustomed thrill travel from the nape of his
+neck to his boots, pausing by the way at his heart. It was an unusual
+method of introduction, certainly; yet somehow it relieved the shyness
+which generally beset him at such functions. He found himself looking
+frankly into the bronze eyes, and something in them made him say,
+almost involuntarily:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That was rather a jolly way of beginning to be friends. I mean--&quot; The
+shyness came back with a rush; he blundered horribly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very,&quot; put in the girl, interrupting him quite simply. &quot;I hope it will
+be peace. I always hope that. You know I am a missionary.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh,&quot; he replied, blankly. &quot;Yes, there are a lot of you--I mean--of
+them, in Eshwara, aren't there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her face set suddenly, her mouth grew almost stern. &quot;Not enough, Mr.
+Carlyon; not half enough,&quot; she replied. And the militant ring of her
+voice, belying the peaceful professions of the previous moment, made
+him look at her curiously, recognizing that he had touched some
+quivering nerve of mind. &quot;If you knew Eshwara as I know it,&quot; she went
+on, passionately, &quot;you would say so too; I'm sure you would.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bronze eyes, meeting his blue ones, though they gave nothing back
+but kindly, almost boyish, surprise, seemed satisfied. She turned
+suddenly and stretched her right hand over the river which slipped
+oilily past the wall below, as they stood beside the balustrade of the
+loggia. &quot;Look!&quot; she said, impulsively. &quot;Do you see that straight white
+thing floating down the curve of the current yonder? It isn't a log;
+those others are; plenty of logs come down the rivers from the forests
+in the hills, for they don't catch all, you know, at the government
+wood-station. And so the people here catch the runaways in the
+backwater, and get paid for them. But that--&quot; She paused and her other
+hand gripped the balustrade hard; then she turned back to him with a
+faint apology. &quot;Why should I bother you? Let us talk of something else.
+There is no reason why I should talk of these things to you so soon,
+or, indeed, at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'd rather you did,&quot; he put in quickly. It was the truth. A sudden
+curiosity had come to him, a sudden desire to know more, to think more.
+He was less of a boy than he had been five minutes before. &quot;I--I hope
+you will,&quot; he added; &quot;really I do--I--I--&quot; He felt his manhood as he
+had never felt it before, and yet, in a way, he was more forgetful of
+it. The girl opposite him was womanhood incarnate to him, and yet, in
+some mysterious way, beyond it, above it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You and I must be about the same age, I expect,&quot; he said, with a
+half-perplexed frown, &quot;but you have seen a lot more than I have. I wish
+you'd tell me, please!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The straight white glint in the water was just disappearing behind one
+of those balconies overhanging the river, where there was only room for
+a pair of lovers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is a dead girl, Mr. Carlyon,&quot; she said in a low voice. &quot;She was in
+my school. Her people were very bigoted--Brahmins in a temple--but they
+let her be taught to read, because she was betrothed to an educated
+man. Last year she was married--she was but a child still--and I have
+only seen her once or twice since. Then&quot;--the voice paused a second.
+&quot;She was very frightened, poor little Premi, at what was coming. 'I
+shall die, Miss-<i>sahib</i>, I shall surely die,' she said to me the very
+last time I saw her; so I promised--I am a medical missionary, Mr.
+Carlyon. But when the time came, they would not let me in. I--I
+went to the husband--he is an educated man--you may have heard of
+him--Rama-nund, a great speaker,--he writes, too, and all that--but he
+said he was helpless with the women; and I am not sure either if he
+wished it himself--they don't know their own minds. So poor little
+Premi and her baby--Oh!&quot; she broke off with an infinite pain in her
+voice--&quot;it is so hard--so hard for both.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her face, set riverwards, was soft, yet stern; full of fight, yet full
+of pity, and Lance thought of a virgin martyr in the illustrated 'Lives
+of the Saints' with which his grandmother, Lady Carewe, had been wont
+to still his boyish unrest on Sunday afternoons. Yet there was
+something beyond that self-concentrated devotion in this face;
+something that took him back further still to the days when he had
+sobbed out his childish hurts in his mother's arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She was ill all yesterday and the day before--they told me there was
+no hope of either--they just let them die. And they always put them in
+the river--they have iron rings round their wrists and ankles to
+prevent them coming back to harm the men--&quot; She paused and turned to
+Lance swiftly. &quot;Isn't it true that there are not enough of us--that we
+want more women to teach them what--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I does!&quot; came a high childish treble, forcing itself irresistibly
+even on the attention of these two; &quot;I 'ikes 'oo twenty 'fowsand times
+better than dad, an' I 'ikes Captain Dering ten 'fowsand times better
+too; an' so does 'mum--don't 'oo mummie?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was little Gladys Smith, who, clasping both Dr. Dillon's hands in
+hers, had swung herself back from him so as to toss her fair curls from
+her laughing face, as she looked up at him mutinously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was an instant's awkward pause, during which the eyes of a man
+and woman met for a second. Met and parted hastily; but not before the
+girl with the yellow silk sash, who stood between them, had looked from
+one to the other with a dim surprise unclosing her red lips, and
+showing the gleam of her white teeth between them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Dr. Dillon said, carelessly, &quot;And you like Akbar Khān better than
+any of us, you young sinner, because he gives you sweeties! Here! Akbar
+Khān, bring the Missy-<i>baba</i> some cream toffee!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old pantaloon, who, with his loose coatee removed and a white
+duster tucked into Saturn's waist-ring was now helping to hand round
+coffee and cake, capered up with a voluble, but toothless,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Ger-reeb--pun-wāz!</i>&quot; (Protector of the Poor.)</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gladys helped herself discriminately, staring at the old servitor the
+while. &quot;But I don't 'ike Akbar Khān. Do I, son of an owl?&quot; she
+continued superbly, in the accurate Urdu which comes so daintily from
+lisping English babies. &quot;Did I not say I would hate thee because thou
+wouldst not tell me why thou didst prostrate thyself before the soldier
+in the courtyard? And the <i>ayah</i> laughed, the base-born! She knew also,
+and would not say, and so did the soldier; so I hate you all!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stamped her little foot, and shook her curls defiantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gladys!&quot; cried her mother, reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hullo! What's all this about?&quot; laughed Captain Dering, catching the
+child up in his arms. &quot;One of my soldiers insulting you? Who was it?&quot;
+He turned, with the absolute command of his race, to the be-ringed one,
+who stood, full of deprecatory mumblings and salaamings, his hands,
+holding the tray of sweets, trembling visibly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who was it, Khān-<i>jee?</i>&quot; asked Father Ninian, in a curiously even
+tone; one which, nevertheless, seemed a compelling one, for a murmured
+name came rapidly, followed by eager explanations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Ninian frowned, and deliberately put on the gold <i>pince-nez</i>
+which always hung around his neck. He seldom used it, however, being,
+he would say playfully, in his native Scotch, too &quot;well acquaint&quot; with
+Eshwara and all in it to need such help after fifty years experience.
+So it had come to be an unfailing sign that he was face to face with
+something unexpected, something new. Naturally, therefore, it changed
+the character of his face, bringing back to it a strange look of youth;
+of hope and energy--the look of choice which age has not.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Roshan Khān,&quot; he echoed, &quot;why comes he here?&quot; Then in sudden
+recollection he turned to Vincent Dering. &quot;Of course, he comes with
+you. I knew he was in your regiment, but I did not think.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Captain Dering put down the child gently. &quot;Is there any reason, sir,&quot;
+he asked decisively, &quot;why he should not be here? If so--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Ninian took off his eye-glasses slowly. He was back on familiar
+ground. &quot;No!&quot; he said, with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders;
+&quot;none. He is welcome to come if he likes. He is a fine soldier, Captain
+Dering, and a good fencer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The best I have ever come across,&quot; put in Lance Carlyon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Ninian laughed, a satisfied, vainglorious little laugh, and
+bowed, with his hand on his heart, in foreign fashion. It seemed almost
+as if something had brought back the manners of a different life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;His master thanks you,&quot; he said gaily. &quot;I taught him; but as Esmond
+said of the <i>botte de Jesuit</i>--not all. We craftsmen keep something up
+our sleeve for our own use!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance Carlyon's face grew eager. He had heard of Father Ninian's art
+with the foils, and took his opportunity. &quot;That's what Roshan does to
+me. I took lessons from him, but he licks my head off with tricks.
+Perhaps some day, sir--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Ninian's right hand and wrist, despite their age, flourished
+themselves with marvellous suppleness. &quot;Of a surety! Of a surety,&quot; he
+interrupted, still in that gay, almost reckless voice, &quot;and I will
+teach you '<i>L'Addio del Marito</i>.' I never taught that to Roshan--it
+does not do for savage natures.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The husband's good-by! What a funny name,&quot; echoed Laila, curiously.
+&quot;Why is it called that, guardian?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The gaiety left the old man's face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because the thrust is used, <i>cara mia</i>,&quot; he replied in Italian, and
+his answer came dreamily, half to himself, &quot;when even those who have
+that greatest tie to life prefer to say good-by to it.&quot; He paused, then
+went on cheerfully: &quot;But come! Music! Music! We lose time horribly.
+Laila, 'tis your part to begin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl walked stolidly to the piano.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What shall I sing, guardian?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sing?&quot; he repeated, reverting once more to Italian, and his voice had
+the dreamy tone in it again; &quot;sing my favourite, child. Something hath
+taken me back to the old days--and sing it well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something in the pose of the girl, something in the faint defiance of
+her face as she stood turning over the leaves of the music, attracted
+Vincent Dering's fancy. He moved over to her, and asked if he should
+play her accompaniment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you can,&quot; she said, ungraciously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He smiled. &quot;What is it? Oh!--Handel.&quot; He shrugged his shoulders. &quot;Yes!
+I fancy I can play him--he is not very complex.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next instant he had embarked, with a certain sense of pique lending
+perfection to his phrasing, on the prelude; but perfect as his tone
+was, it seemed to fall dull and dead before the voice which rose and
+echoed into the arches.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;He shall feed His flock like a Shepherd.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Pure, peaceful, free from every touch of passion; absolutely, utterly,
+beyond this world and its works, it rose and filled the garden; the
+orange-scented garden with its fretted marble cascades and water-maze,
+where the feet of laughing girls had chased each other, the latticed
+balconies where lovers had sat.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;And He shall gather the lambs in His arms.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">It floated out over the river where the dead girl had drifted, making a
+light come to a pair of bronze eyes.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Come unto Him all ye that labor.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Out beyond the garden, into the city, a faint far echo of the call made
+men and women pause in the struggle for life, and say, &quot;They are
+singing in the palace.&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;And ye shall find rest unto your souls.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">The promise of all religions, the cry which makes all creeds one, rose
+and fell, as the afternoon sun, shining into the loggia, put a canopy
+of stars above the head of the singer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Some of the audience said &quot;Thank you,&quot; politely when she ended. Vincent
+Dering did not. He stood on one side, and, being musical to the heart's
+core, gave himself the luxury of silence. Only when Father Ninian, ever
+mindful of ceremonies and courtesies, crossed to acknowledge the
+services of the accompanist, he said briefly,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who taught her that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man looked at him almost wistfully: &quot;I heard her grandmother
+sing it, nearly sixty years ago. I have never forgotten it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not wonder,&quot; said Vincent Dering, and his eyes, forgetful of
+others, followed the girl whose dress ought to have been creamy and
+soft, instead of white and starched.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_03" href="#div1Ref_03">CHAPTER III</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>DRIFTWOOD</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The river Hara, after skirting the fort, the bathing-steps below the
+courtyard, the palace, and the palace garden, continued its course,
+still hemmed in to swift current by a high bank on the opposite side,
+and on the near one by a wall set with spiked temples sacred to Siva;
+for Hara is one of his many names. But, on reaching the apex of the
+triangle formed by the city, the banks fell away, the river spread
+itself out to greater rest, until, at the uttermost end of a long spit
+of sandbank and tamarisk, it met the waters of its twin river, the
+Hari, in the broad placid lagoon which lay between Eshwara and the
+south; that is the dry stretch of desert, against whose barrenness
+Western ingenuity--aided by Dr. Dillon's horde of fifteen hundred
+ruffians--had been digging defiance for months. From the spit of sand
+you could see the result. A broad seam on the face of patient Mother
+Earth, a first wrinkle telling of millions to come from the
+ploughshares of men.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As yet, however, the canal was as dry as the desert around it; and was
+to remain so until the great Lord-<i>sahib</i> came in state, on his way to
+the hills, to open the sluices. There was to be a big camp, a big
+function on the occasion, and even sleepy Eshwara felt a vague
+excitement regarding it. For the older men remembered the days when the
+Hosts of the Lord-<i>sahibs</i> had regularly passed through the city, and
+had tales to tell about them; a fact which prevented the coming event
+from being too strange even to be thought about! Then the opening of
+the canal was another disturber of primeval calm. True, the idea of it
+had been with Eshwara ever since the first sod had been turned two
+years before; but now the thing stared it in the face. Within a few
+days the waters of the sacred rivers would have to lie in a new bed.
+Would they like it? Would the gods like it? Would men like it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Those were the questions being asked from one end of Eshwara to
+another. Even outside it, on the long narrow spit of sand-bank set with
+sparse tussocks of grass and tamarisk which reached beyond the city's
+triangle into the rivers--and where, after a flood, the white gypsum
+silt lay like a robe of righteousness--they were being discussed; for
+the strange race who lived on it, shifting their wigwams of grass to
+the low-lying land opposite when the waters rose, lived by the river;
+by the fish in it, and the logs of wood which came floating down it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So this question of the canal was in the mind of the naked man, attired
+in the complete suit of blue beads which marks an aboriginal race, who,
+in the dawn following, squatted on the highest curve of the spit. He
+was small, swart to positive inkiness, and his thin legs and arms
+shewed grey lights on their tense muscles, as if these were truly iron.
+Behind him rose a wigwam of reeds, at the entrance to which a spear was
+stuck in the sand in order to display the head of a bottle-nosed
+alligator impaled on its point. At his right hand was a reed basket, a
+rude net of reed twine. In front of him lay one of those small
+shark-like scaleless fishes which the learned call Silurian, and tell
+us are relics of a creation older than ours.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So might the man have been. So might have been the background of sand
+and reed, spear and wigwam, the foreground of net and fish. Yet the
+fisher was not all uncivilized. This little survival of an aboriginal
+race, shifting about in the shifting river-bed, had always had an
+attraction for the Missionaries, who, as a rule, find the inferior
+races easiest to deal with. Gu-gu therefore--his name being as
+primitive as his appearance, since it is the first effort of infant
+tongues--belied his looks. He had at any rate a civilized eye to
+business, a civilized notion of the relations between supply and
+demand, for he shook his head at the customer opposite him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not a cowrie less, Khān-jee. 'Tis the only one in the market, see you;
+besides on this day the '<i>Missen</i>' miss comes to us folk, and she never
+haggles. She will pay the five annas gladly to be let read her book to
+my women.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The mumble-apparently a pious aspiration that the Most High would smite
+infidels hip and thigh--was the only recognizable point in the figure
+on the other side of the fish; for Akbar Khān, doorkeeper, messenger,
+assistant waiter, had not only discarded Saturn's rings--the loss of
+which about his head made his baldness something of a shock--but also
+every article of clothing except his waist-cloth. The reason for this
+was, in a way, like many another thing about the old sinner, pathetic.
+Briefly he liked to dissociate his inner self from occupations which he
+considered were beneath the dignity of the Akbar Khān of the past.
+Therefore being, for the nonce, a bazaar coolie in search of fish for
+his master's breakfast, he got up for the part; so finding it, at once,
+easier to forget, and to remember that past.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He mumbled of it as he strenuously opposed the price.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Everything grows dearer, every day,&quot; yawned the aboriginal Gu-gu.
+&quot;Even women, as thou shouldst know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Akbar Khān clucked a pious denial. &quot;We spread no nets for that game in
+the palace nowadays. Those evil times are gone; we live sober and
+virtuous.&quot; The piety held a distinct flavour of regret.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And as for fish,&quot; continued Gu-gu, &quot;they will be dearer ere they are
+cheaper. When the deep water begins to run canalwards, the fish will
+run too. Then good-by to our trade, since the <i>Huzoors</i> allow us
+nothing in their waters without payment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He whined, however, to the wrong quarter for sympathy, the old
+retainer's views on preserving being absolutely those of a Shropshire
+squire who is also a J. P.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Neither did we,&quot; he replied, indifferently. &quot;Thy like, Gu-gu, would
+have had to bring thy fish to the palace and be satisfied with our
+leavings. Out on thee for an upstart! Take thy four annas, and be
+thankful--slave!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gu-gu's ill-tempered face became aggressive. &quot;Not I!--the Miss will
+give it; nay! six, mayhap, since the child is sick, and she will be
+wanting leave to dose it. So--hands off--eunuch!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The title, once dignified, was opprobrious now, and old Akbar rose in a
+perfect fury, his bald head wobbling, the flaming fringe of red hairs
+about his face giving him a ludicrous resemblance to a toothless old
+man-eating tiger, face to face with his lawful prey, yet unable to
+injure it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! for the bastinado!&quot; he stuttered, impotently. &quot;Oh, for the cutting
+off of bodily members! Oh! even, for the tying up of heels, and
+roastings and duckings. But the <i>Huzoors</i> have taken them from us, and
+gifted them to the police, who know not the proper methods. Yāh!
+Gu-gu, had I but had thee fifty years ago!&quot; his anger lessened with
+sheer wistful regret. &quot;Fifty years ago when the Nawab gifted me as
+body-servant to the new <i>Wazeer</i> Bun-avatār<a name="div4Ref_01" href="#div4_01"><sup>[1]</sup></a>-<i>sahib</i>
+because he
+brought him a bird that would sing of itself from Italy <i>wilayat</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But all birds do that,&quot; cavilled Gu-gu, feeling nevertheless a
+reverent curiosity about those legendary days.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Akbar gave a crackling, contemptuous laugh. &quot;Not palace birds! they
+have to be wound up; and Bun-avatār-<i>sahib</i> sent for this across the
+black water. So he kept favour with the Nawab. Birds that sing, and
+flowers that smell, and boxes that make music, and dolls that dance
+when you wind them. Lo! these, Gu-gu, are the pleasures of palaces; but
+how canst thou know, who hast not lived in them even, as I--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sense of his own superiority soothed him still more; he squatted
+down again, and hubble-bubbled for a space at the <i>hookah</i> which was an
+integral part of all his impersonations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea! those were times,&quot; he mumbled half to himself. &quot;Even Pidar
+Narāyan--may Heaven protect him--could not say 'please God' to every
+mouthful, as he does now--as we all do now, and rightly, seeing that we
+have grown old.&quot; Once more the piety smacked of pity, and the old man,
+finding a listener, went on with a certain gusto. &quot;Look you! he had to
+walk like the tongue among thirty-two teeth in those days, with
+Bun-avatār-<i>sahib</i>, my master, like two peas in one pod with the Nawah.
+Except for women. Pidar Narāyan took his way there--mostly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The interrupting gurgle of the <i>hookah</i> gave time for an elaborate wink
+of a wicked old eye. Possibly this was due to the smoke, for the old
+voice went on as before almost dolorously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He had the money-bags, you see, and looked after the rents. But my
+master, Bun-avatār--lo! thou shouldst have seen him when he came
+first--the picture of a man!--they say he was a prince in his own
+country, but fell into trouble; so came to make his fortune here with
+Pidar Narāyan--was called <i>Wazeer</i>. And let me tell thee, Gu-gu, it
+means something to be body-servant to a <i>Wazeer!</i> Lo! to think I might
+have been it still but for that jade, Anāri Begum!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Despite the epithet, he smiled, and his pipe this time gave out quite a
+chuckling sound.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As ill to keep within walls as a butterfly!&quot; he muttered. &quot;Up and down
+the garden, in and out the balconies, and the Nawab in two minds to use
+force, or put her in a sack. For she flouted him. The prettiest ones
+play that game for power always, and she was Walidād, her brother's,
+last hope of favour. Walidād, <i>Kanjara</i>, who had been king's caterer
+for years before my master, Bun-avatār-<i>sahib</i>, came to make all the
+court cry sour buttermilk! Walidād, who had once stood so high, that,
+in a drunken bout, the Nawab promised him his half-sister to wife. And
+he got her too! She wept on her wedding day, but we in the lower storey
+heeded not tears in the upper. For, see you, mine uncle was chief
+eunuch--we kept the honour thus in the family from generation to
+generation--so I was in and out, seeing what went on. Until somehow
+(mine uncle with the bowstring round his neck--as was right, honest
+man--swore he knew not how) Bun-avatār-<i>sahib</i> caught a sight of her!
+Some say it was a plot, from beginning to end, of Walidād's; others
+that <i>his</i> enemies feared lest Anāri should succeed. There be balls
+within balls, even in a plaything, if the workmen are cunning! Anyhow,
+he saw her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I, his body-servant, was able to come and go where Pidar Narāyan
+hath made his church nowadays. But there! what matters it? 'Tis all
+one. Love and the Faith are in and out of men's minds like a shelldrake
+in weedy water; a body cannot tell which way its head may be and which
+its tail! Nevertheless I felt a choke at my throat, Gu-gu, many a time,
+as I waited for him in the boat below the balcony; yet in the end, it
+was not my throat, but mine uncle's. He died in the faith, Gu-gu,
+cursing women. <i>His head was that way at the last!</i>--'Tis mostly
+so--<i>he</i>--<i>he</i>--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The chuckle of his pipe was fiendish, yet his wizened face was wistful.
+&quot;Still, God knows, one could scarce look on at such a wooing, and not
+beat the drum in time, as musicians to a dancer. And it runs in our
+blood, see you, to watch, and beat the drum. That is our profession;
+and, by mine ancestors! I deemed it enough for mortal man. But
+Bun-avatār-<i>sahib</i>, see you, was not of our race. He was of Italy
+<i>wilayat</i> and a prince. So, one day, my liver dissolved hearing that
+the butterfly was over the walls! But, as I said, it was mine uncle's
+neck, not mine. Yet the game ended for me when Bun-avatār-<i>sahib</i>
+died.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They poisoned him, folk say; is't true?&quot; asked Gu-gu. It was a point
+in the oft-told tale which was still discussed by Eshwara gossips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is other folks' news, not mine,&quot; replied Akbar, discreetly. &quot;May
+be, may be not. The <i>Huzoors</i>, anyhow, sent the Nawab to die in
+Calcutta on a <i>pinson</i><a name="div4Ref_02" href="#div4_02"><sup>[2]</sup></a>
+for it; but they have ever an excuse to take
+land! Pidar Narāyan had a hard fight to keep Bun-avatār-<i>sahib's</i>
+grants--the Nawab was ever generous to his favourites, look you--for
+Anāri Begum's baby; ay! though he showed a writing of marriage, and had
+made the infant Christian after their habit. Still he got them, land
+and palace and all. So I stayed on serving my master's child, and when
+she died, her child, the Miss-<i>baba</i>, even to the haggling for fish.
+Lo! slave! it grows late. Give it to me and have done with it--Thou
+wilt not. Oh! for the devil that was in her grandmother Anār to be in
+this Miss-<i>baba</i>, and for her to come to Bun-avatār-<i>sahib's</i> rights as
+<i>Wazeer</i>--then would there be loppings and--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Or if Roshan Khān should come to his,&quot; sneered Gu-gu. &quot;The canal
+<i>sahib's</i> ayah was telling me thou didst prostrate thyself in the dust
+as if he were indeed Nawab! Have a care! eunuch-<i>jee</i>, the police are
+agog nowadays to find disloyalty even in newspapers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May her gossiping tongue be slit!&quot; stuttered the old retainer. &quot;Can a
+body not do obeisance to his masters? For look you, Roshan is true
+grand-nephew to the Nawab through his grandmother, Walidād's wife--ay!
+and for that matter, cousin to the Miss, through Anāri Begum, Walidād's
+sister! I did but welcome him; I did but my duty--I did but show my
+manners--I did but what we have done from generation to generation.&quot; He
+moved away muttering, full of virtuous resentment that a suspicion of
+anything save sheer servility should have been imputed to him. After a
+lifetime of trucklings and bootblackings, to be credited with higher
+motives was too bad. To prove his innocence he would that very evening,
+he told himself, seek out Roshan, not at the Fort,--that might be
+misunderstood,--but at his grandmother's. His grandmother, who, though
+she had been upstart Walidād's wife, was still the late Nawab's
+half-sister! His sister!! What could be nearer than that!!!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he would prostrate himself again, and assure the family of his
+services. <i>That</i> was his birthright.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile Gu-gu looked after him, and laughed. He was a clever fellow,
+was Gu-gu, and in a previous generation of scholars had been pet pupil
+in a little school started by another Miss from another <i>Missen</i>. He
+had got pennies for attending it, which had come in useful before he
+was big enough to face the river.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But now he was the best man on either the Hara or the Hari, save one.
+And he?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gu-gu's beady black eyes, watching the curve of the current
+mechanically, gave a sudden flash. He was on his feet in a second.
+There was something dipping, diving, sidling, drifting, out yonder
+which might be secured for his wigwam before anyone else saw it! But
+as, silently, like a seal's, his black head came up from his first
+forge under water which was to give him a fair start from the shore
+without even a splash to attract notice, another black head showed to
+the right of him, a yard or two behind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it was <i>his</i> head! Am-ma's head! Am-ma, the frog-like, Am-ma, whose
+wide hands and feet looked as if webbed in the water. Am-ma, the only
+man who could touch him. He set his teeth, gave up silence, and surged
+ahead with an overhand stroke, his hand seeming to clutch and hold the
+water. It was a faster stroke than Am-ma's; for a time the swifter.
+Then with a backward glance he drew a quick breath, knowing it would be
+a race indeed, for the black head had gone, and only a faint wale on
+the smooth water told where his rival, avoiding the slight resistance
+of the air, swam like a fish. Dangerous tactics for most men, ending
+often in a sudden collapse, bleedings from nose and ears, or, at least,
+time lost in coming to the surface. But Am-ma was not as other men.
+Half-witted, except in river lore, uncouth, misshapen, he was
+practically amphibious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gu-gu ground his teeth impotently as the faint wale crept up and up.
+The man must have air in his stomach like a fish! Ah! if the river had
+been in flood, if this had been a race with air bladders, indeed,--one
+black head of inflated skin under each arm, and your own in the
+middle--the issue would have been certain; for no one, in the whole
+tribe, knew the backward rip of a knife from below which would leave a
+rival helpless, lopsided, bound to seek safety on shore, so well as
+Gu-gu! But it was not flood time, so he must risk all. Like a porpoise
+at play the curve of his dark back disappeared, and now there were two
+wales upon the water side by side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And ahead, sidling, dipping, diving to the current was a deodar log
+with the broad arrow of government on it, now visible, now out of
+sight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a question of steering; steering without eyes, steering by
+instinct, steering by sheer experience of logs and their ways, of the
+meeting currents of the two rivers and their ways.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And over against them, to the right across the broad lagoon, were low
+brick buildings, and a horde of fifteen hundred ruffians with fascines
+and earth-baskets finishing a dam that was to alter the currents, and
+protect the canal! They looked like swarming ants in the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The wales were neck and neck now, side by side, straight as a die on
+the log. Then suddenly, the right-hand one swerved outward. Only a yard
+or two; a yard or two nearer to the ants in the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A second after the log swerved also--swerved to the right. The next,
+two black heads rose silently; but one of them was two yards to the
+left of that dancing, dipping prize!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gu-gu, breathless as he was, gave an inarticulate cry of rage, and
+shook his fist at the swarming ants. Already their work was altering
+the currents he had known for so long. That it was possible to allow
+for this, as Am-ma had done, did not comfort him. He swam back sulkily,
+his wrath increased by the knowledge one glance had given him, that the
+log on which his rival was paddling to shore triumphantly bore its
+broad arrow so lightly, and so near its end, that a little dexterous
+manipulation would have left the runaway unmarked, and so given its
+captor the right, not merely of ransom, but of sale!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Truly, it was an ill world for the poor!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Lance Carlyon laughed, as he lounged over his early tea and watched
+the river through his field-glass, in a balcony of the fort, dressed in
+a gorgeous ring-streaked sleeping suit which he could only wear when on
+outpost duty, as the regiment had tabooed it. In truth it made him not
+unlike Tom Sawyer's &quot;Royal Nonsuch.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The little 'un's got it! I say! Dering, I believe I shall like
+Eshwara. It's--it's--new--don't you know.&quot; His eyes rested, as he
+spoke, on the low, bastioned building, all hemmed in by temple spires,
+at the very point of the city's triangle, which Erda Shepherd had told
+him was the mission house. Truly, he thought, she was in the thick of
+it!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;New!&quot; echoed Vincent Dering captiously, &quot;I should have called it old.
+I thought that sort of thing had died with the pagoda tree.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What sort of thing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent nodded towards the palace with an odd, cynical laugh. &quot;That;
+it's ghostly. Doesn't belong to the nineteenth century!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance turned curiously. &quot;I said that to--to Pidar Narāyan--I can't call
+him anything else, somehow--when he was showing me over yesterday.
+And--you know that inscrutable smile of his--he just pointed up to the
+telegraph wires--they go right across the garden you know--and said,
+'There is half the news of half the world over our heads, anyhow.' It
+knocked me over, I tell you, to think of it; and by Jove! Dering, next
+week when the Lord-<i>sahib</i> comes--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent Dering laughed boisterously. &quot;There'll be the millennium, of
+course. Come along, Lance! It's time we were off to prepare his way.
+Dashwood wants it done A1. They are going to lay on electric light, and
+all that. By the way, Mrs. Smith told me to tell you she expected you
+to breakfast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ten minutes afterwards they were riding over the boat bridge to
+superintend the laying out of the Vice-regal camp against the coming of
+the Lord-<i>sahib</i> and his hosts.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_04" href="#div1Ref_04">CHAPTER IV</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>UNDER-CURRENTS</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Mumtāza Mahal, Roshan Khān's grandmother, lived in a queer little
+backwater of a house which had eddied itself away from the main stream
+of the town, and jammed itself against a wall of the palace as if
+seeking dignity thereby. For all that it belonged irredeemably to the
+city, and to its evil-smelling lanes. The word house, however, is
+misleading to western ears, since this was simply a well-like
+courtyard, with a great wooden bed set in the centre under a miserable
+attempt at a tree which was used as a clothes-peg, a rack for
+saucepans, and a variety of other domestic purposes. It fulfilled them
+to the perfect satisfaction of its proprietress, a roundabout old lady,
+plump as a button-quail, who, when she was not asleep inside the
+arcaded slip of a room on one side, passed her time on the bed in the
+scanty shade, keeping company with a sausage-roll of a pillow and a
+quilt, both covered in faded, greasy silk. As a rule she did nothing
+save eat <i>pān</i>; though sometimes, as a favour to Erda Shepherd, who
+came to read to her once a week, she would give a few more stitches to
+a knitted comforter which never seemed to get any longer. It had been
+begun, indeed, under the auspices of another &quot;Miss,&quot; who had returned
+to England only to die, as so many do, from exposure, and overwork, and
+homesickness. For the rest, Mumtāza was an arrogant, yet good-natured
+old soul, who, despite those tears on her wedding-day, had kept
+dissolute Walidād under her thumb, and his son also. Therefore, it was
+one of her pet grievances--and she had many--that Roshan, her grandson,
+should have defied her authority and entered the army. The great
+standing grievance, however, was that the &quot;<i>pinson</i>&quot; she received from
+Government because her husband had been deported with the Nawab to
+Calcutta, was not so large as one received by a neighbour and gossip
+whose husband had been hanged in the mutiny! The two old ladies came to
+loggerheads over their respective claims once a month, regularly, when
+pay-day came round; Mumtāza asserting shrilly that to die in a strange
+country was more painful than hanging, Ashrāf-un-nissa contending
+roundly that if Walidād had had as much respectful affection for his
+widow as her husband had had for his, he could easily have caused
+himself to be hanged; since he had certainly deserved it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereat there would be war, until some one in the alley, or round the
+corner did something outrageous,--threw slops over some one, or had
+twins, or imported a new mother-in-law! Then, friendly discussion
+becoming a necessity of life, the big wooden bed would once more hold
+two old ladies, two roly-poly bolsters, two quilts--also two tongues!
+But these confined themselves, for a time, to lesser grievances; such
+as the general decadence of the age, manifested by the reluctance of
+young people to obey the old.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was, however, no sign of displeasure in the reception prepared
+for Roshan, when one afternoon, immediately after his arrival at
+Eshwara, he appeared to prostrate himself at the feet of age; at least
+so he had said in his letter of intimation. Mumtāza Mahal knew her duty
+towards men-folk better than to show temper at once; knew also the
+suffocating effect of ceremonials. So the tarnished treasures of past
+state had been dug out of the mounds of litter heaped up in all four
+corners of the arcaded room, and set about the courtyard. An old
+elephant-housing covered the wooden bed, and to it Roshan was
+conducted: his grandmother, despite her best green satin trousers,
+squatting below, on a mat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young soldier felt and looked thoroughly uncomfortable. Out of
+sheer funk of the old lady's remarks if he had appeared in his usual
+<i>mufti</i> of English tweed and a close-fitting turban, he had reverted to
+the airy muslins and embroidered smoking-caps of his forbears. He felt
+chilly, barely decent in them; and, indeed, the whole environment was
+absolutely repugnant to him. His grandmother's tramways could scarcely
+be otherwise to one who had gone ahead by express train like Roshan
+Khān. Thoroughly well-educated, he knew himself to be considered one of
+the smartest native officers in the army. A first-class polo player, a
+fair cricketer, able to handle cue and racket, and without equal at the
+foils, he had for years met Englishmen on equal terms in sporting
+matters. What wonder, then, that he sat looking inexpressibly bored
+beside the <i>hookah</i> which was the pride of his grandmamma's heart, in
+that it had belonged to many dead and gone Nawabs? He was simply
+longing for the solace of a smoke, yet he did not dare to use the
+silver cigarette case with his initials, &quot;R.K.&quot; on it, which Lance
+Carlyon had given him at Christmas in return for the fencing lessons.
+Fortunately, however, boredom and yawns are correct during visits of
+ceremony, so Mumtāza Mahal crossed her little fat hands over her little
+fat green-trousered legs, and told herself the lad was improved in both
+manners and looks; was distinctly more like her brother, the late and
+sainted Nawab. The fact emphasized her regret that, after a brilliant
+career in a mission school, a career which must have led to a minor
+clerkship, her grandson should have taken the unheard-of course of
+entering the army! If he could even have gone as the Nawab's
+grand-nephew, with a dozen troopers or so as following, it might have
+been bearable; but, as Walidād's extraction barred all claim to noble
+descent, enlistment meant something very different. The old lady,
+accustomed to obedience all round, when the dreadful defiance had
+occurred, ten years before, had called the stars to witness that it was
+all--that everything was--Pidar Narāyan's fault! And then she had
+fallen a-whimpering, knowing right well that but for the latter's
+intercession, she herself would have had no &quot;<i>pinson</i>&quot;; since
+Government bars those who can be proved to be personally implicated in
+evil doings. And now, as she sat looking at her grandson, the same
+conflicting estimates made her irritable. Why had Pidar Narāyan ever
+put his finger in the Eshwara pie? Yet, without him, where would they
+all have been? Still, he need not have taught the lad to fence, and so
+turned him into a mean, common soldier.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, whether this was true, whether his skill with the foils had turned
+Roshan's thoughts towards a fighting life, or whether it was simply the
+result of natural aptitudes that way, the choice of professions had
+been wise. His Colonel,--of the old school though he was,--had
+admitted, when pressed, that the young Mahomedan, <i>given practice</i>,
+might be able to lead the regiment as well as a fresh-joined English
+subaltern. The newer school, again, playing the <i>Krieg spiel</i> against
+him at Simla, and finding itself in grips with a genuine gift for
+tactics, had shaken its head and confessed the hardship of such a
+talent being barred from finding its proper level. Still it was
+impossible to legislate for exceptions without upsetting the every-day
+army apple-cart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan himself, being sensible--above all, being of a nation which
+accepts limitations as a law of God--was, as a rule, satisfied with his
+future <i>risaldar</i> majorship, and, if he was lucky, <i>Aide-de-Camp to the
+Queen</i>, and a few other titles tacked on to it. Like all natives of
+India he lived largely on the approbation of his immediate superiors,
+and this he had without stint; besides, his whole line of thought had
+become too military for any subversion of rule and discipline to seem
+desirable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet the curb made itself felt sometimes; never more keenly than at his
+grandmother's scornful look, when, in reply to her catechising, he
+named his income.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only that! <i>Bāh!</i> Tis the pay of a coolie!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis the pay of my rank, anyhow,&quot; he replied sulkily, &quot;and I cannot
+expect promotion yet; the rules--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She waggled her be-veiled, be-jewelled head cunningly. &quot;Rules! What
+have rules to do with favour, either for men or women? Lo! thy
+grand-uncle, the Nawab, gave twice that to a coachman who had one eye
+black and the other blue because he fancied him! So, if thou art in
+favour, as thou sayest, ask for more. The <i>Huzoors</i> will give it,
+sooner than lose thee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan did not attempt explanation; he simply evaded the point by
+asserting that the pay was sufficient for his wants. In a way it was an
+unfortunate remark, since it precipitated the lecture lurking in the
+old lady's mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And for the wife's that is to come?&quot; she asked, not without
+dignity,--the dignity of age reminding youth that its turn for duty has
+come. &quot;And for the son's that has yet to be born? Why are these old
+arms still empty of thy children, Roshan?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had his answer ready; one that had hitherto baulked even the
+matrimonial desires of his mother, who, having gone to live with her
+own people, was backed up by sisters and sisters-in-law.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because the Most High decreed freedom for wife and son.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was true. The wife found for him as a boy had died in child-birth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Mumtāza had made up her mind to refuse this excuse any longer.
+Matters were getting desperate. Here was Roshan past thirty, and never
+a child's voice to soothe the passion which seems to come back,
+vicariously, to Indian women in their old age. She had been brooding
+over an appeal ever since she had heard that, after ten years' absence,
+the lad was once more to be within reach of her tongue. So she edged
+closer to him, an almost pathetic authority in her face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is but the skin of the orange, Roshan; I take not that as a gift!
+There be more wives than one, if the one die, even for the <i>Huzoors</i>
+whom thou apest. Nay! Light of the house! frown not,&quot; she continued, in
+sudden alarm at his look. &quot;I did but mean that thou wert different from
+thy fathers. How canst help it? Think not the old woman cannot
+understand. Was I not young once? Was I not wedded with tears to thy
+grandfather--on whom be peace! So I know the heart hath fancies, and
+thine--listen while I whisper it--is--is for a wife like a <i>mem!</i>
+Wherefore not? Thou hast seen and talked with them--they have seemed
+better to thee than a cow of a black girl! What then? Have not <i>mems</i>
+married our people ere now? And with thee,&quot;--she looked round quickly,
+to be certain of privacy, then leant closer still,--&quot;with thee it would
+be easy--for there is thy cousin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My cousin?&quot; he echoed stupidly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea! thy cousin, when all is said and done,&quot; she repeated, with faint
+scorn. &quot;Is not the Miss at the palace Anāri Begum's granddaughter? Was
+not Anāri Begum thy grandfather's sister? If that is not cousin, what
+is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had known these facts before, of course, but they had never
+presented themselves to him in this connection. Yet they came
+instantly, accredited by custom. His cousin; if so, his wife, if he
+chose, almost by right. And yet from custom also, he--too sensible not
+to have gauged the vast difference between his position as regards
+Englishmen, and his position as regarded their wives, sisters,
+mothers--was conscious of distinct revolt. &quot;Thou shouldst not say such
+things,&quot; he exclaimed almost angrily; &quot;the Miss-<i>sahib</i>--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss-<i>sahib</i> indeed!&quot; interrupted Mumtāza with a forced giggle. &quot;Who
+knows she is that? Not even Pidar Narāyan.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wherefore?&quot; asked Roshan coldly. &quot;Her mother was Bonaventura-<i>sahib's</i>
+child and heir. That is certain; else the Government would not have
+continued the grants given to him by the Nawab.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An expression of infinite cunning crossed the old lady's face; she
+tucked another budget of <i>pān</i> into her cheek, preparatory to a lengthy
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not if it was payment for evidence given, by which Government could
+find excuse for seizing the rest, and sending innocent people to die in
+Calcutta? Thou knowest the tale, Roshan? How Pidar Narāyan said no word
+when everyone was searching, after Bun-avatār's death, for Anāri Begum,
+who had disappeared, and how, when the land was being taken, he
+appeared with a baby, a baptized baby, and swore it was Bun-avatār's
+lawful heir--that he himself had married them. Mayhap he did. But, look
+you, Anāri was in the palace <i>zenāna</i> ere she disappeared. Who is to
+say she is not thy cousin twice over?... I say not that she is, look
+you, but who can tell. Yet this is certain, Roshan; she hath Anāri
+Begum's eyes. For I have seen her; but a month ago the Miss who reads
+brought her, not knowing of these tales; for Pidar Narāyan keeps a
+silent tongue. Her name is Laila,<a name="div4Ref_03" href="#div4_03"><sup>[3]</sup></a>
+and thine Roshan.<a name="div4Ref_04" href="#div4_04"><sup>[4]</sup></a> Is not
+that a
+fate? and she hath thy grand-aunt's eyes; ay! and thy grandfather's
+land too; for would it not have been Walidād's, if Bun-avatār had not
+ousted him from the <i>wazeer</i>-ship with singing birds?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan Khān stood up feeling as if he was being suffocated. It was ten
+years since he had had experience of the fine-drawn meshes of vague,
+almost useless, conspiracy for which Indian women have such vast
+capability; it was ten years since, with eyes open to his own
+advantage, he had cast in his lot loyally with the Government he
+served. In that time there had not been wanting--there never is in
+India--others, less scrupulous, ready to trade on his connection with a
+dispossessed family, and his possible sense of injustice. He had known
+how to treat them. But this idea bit shrewdly at a feeling which men of
+his stamp have inevitably--the desire for a wife more suitable to their
+own culture than they can hope to find among their own people. He gave
+an uneasy laugh. &quot;These be dreams, indeed, grandmother. To begin with,
+Pidar Narāyan--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pidar Narāyan! Pidar Narāyan!&quot; echoed the old diplomatist tartly, &quot;Art
+turned Hindoo, that thou dost count Narāyan<a name="div4Ref_05" href="#div4_05"><sup>[5]</sup></a>
+the Creator of all?&quot;
+Then she suddenly clapped her hands together in absolute impatience
+and anger. &quot;Yet is it true. He <i>is</i> the cause of all! But for him
+Bun-avatār would have been as an over-fried fritter, a burst bladder,
+a drum on a hen's back! But for his teaching thee to fence--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A quick frown came to her hearer's face. &quot;Teaching! Ay! but only enough
+to make me fit for his skill to play with. I know that now. Well! let
+him try it again--&quot; Roshan's sudden fierceness died down to sombre
+discontent--&quot;but that is fool's talk. He is too old. I could not meet
+him on equal terms.&quot; He drew himself up proudly; yet he felt a vague
+regret at his own acquired sense of fair play. Below it lay a savagery
+that could rejoice in revenge at any price, and Mumtāza Mahal, watching
+him, thought him still more like his ancestors, and nodded approvingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Think of it, at least, Roshan,&quot; she said, &quot;and remember that it is not
+as if the girl were a real <i>mem</i>. Pidar Narāyan, for all he is so
+clever, was put to it to find a husband for the mother, the baptized
+baby! He took a poor creature from Martin's school at Lucknow, at last,
+who could not even speak English like a <i>Huzoor</i>--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because he was Italian and a Catholic,&quot; put in Roshan, then shrugged
+his shoulders impatiently. &quot;But thou canst not understand. 'Tis
+impossible! Dreams, grandmother, dreams!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dreams come true even when forgotten, and torchbearers never see their
+own way,&quot; retorted the old lady, ending the discussion with proverbial
+wisdom as a clincher. &quot;So think of it, since thoughts cost nothing, and
+tell no tales.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan felt as if they did the former at any rate, as he strode back
+toward the fort, telling himself he would feel better when he had on
+his uniform once more. This was his <i>metier</i>, not marriage. The best
+soldiers, the really great soldiers--he paused, the knowledge that he
+could never rise to real greatness coming to make him clinch his right
+hand as if on his sword-hilt. The tempest of revolt which swept through
+him left him dazed, for he had reasoned the matter out with himself
+thoroughly, and thought he had accepted the situation, thought that he
+had realized that his dignity in the regiment under the present system
+went side by side, and not behind, that of the English officers. Yet
+here he was at the mercy of something too strong for acquired wisdom.
+He walked on faster to escape into a more wholesome environment, and by
+sheer force of will succeeded in driving away all thought of the past
+interview save a triviality. That was the remembrance that her name was
+Laila, his Roshan. Light and Darkness, Day and Night. A fate indeed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he passed into the courtyard, however, on his way to the door in the
+river bastion, a group in its centre, round the old gun, brought his
+attention back to realities, and he went towards it, his slipper-shod
+feet making no martial clank, this time, on the union-jack of raised
+paths. The group consisted of half a dozen or so of men listening to
+something which was being declaimed, with much gesticulation, by an
+ash-smeared <i>jogi</i>, whose wide-pierced ears, distended by conch-shell
+rings, and transverse bar of white on his forehead, showed him to
+belong to the sect which claims to have transcendental powers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Apparently he had been making the claim, for a young man, whose costume
+smacked of Western culture, and whose face was acute, litigious,
+interrupted him impatiently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea, yea; possibly thou couldst come over the obstruction,
+Gorakh-nāth-<i>jee</i>; but the question is whether the obstruction be
+legal. Is it not so, Lala Ramanund?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lala Ramanund, whose dress was even more Western, and who had a certain
+air of distinction, due, evidently, to position, assented; adding, as a
+rider, and with some contempt, that at present they had only <i>jogi</i>
+Gorakh-nāth's word that any interference was intended.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gorakh-nāth, a tall, muscular man, naked save for his grass-rope
+girdle, his wild hair twined and twisted to a tiara, his wild,
+half-insane eyes telling of drugs, shot a glance of absolute defiance
+at Ramanund. &quot;Thy name, <i>pundit-jee</i>, is not likely to give friendly
+witness to mine,&quot; he began, alluding to the fact that they were
+respectively called after the founders of their absolutely antagonistic
+sects, &quot;and yet methinks thou couldst, seeing--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here Dya Ram, the first speaker, alarmed in his lawyer's soul at the
+militant tone of the <i>jogi</i>, suggested hastily that they might inquire,
+say at the gate; or stay! there was the <i>risaldar</i> coming; he must
+know.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once more, as he listened to the question put to him, the expression of
+his race and creed came to Roshan's face, hiding its culture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of a certainty!&quot; he replied haughtily. &quot;The gun belongs to the Fort.
+It is not to be used as a shelter for--for saints!&quot; His contempt was
+palpable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I deny your premise,&quot; put in Dya Ram eagerly. &quot;The gun is the people's
+by prescriptive right. I can use it if I choose. The Government
+professes neutrality; therefore, no one has a right to interfere with
+my religion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan's face was a study. &quot;Lo! Dya Ram, for thou art my old
+class-fellow surely, hast gone back to the old beliefs since the days
+when thou didst sign thyself at the end of thy essays, and in thy
+books, 'Dya Ram, Agnostic'?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dya Ram gave an uneasy cough. &quot;It is a question of legality--&quot; he
+began.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And of money also,&quot; put in a new voice cringingly. &quot;The pilgrims come
+hither to see the saint, and then bathe. But if there is no saint, many
+will not come, and I, who have my right on the steps as marker of the
+caste marks--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Right!&quot; echoed the Mahomedan curtly. &quot;Have a care, caste-marker, lest
+we do not claim the courtyard also.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here Ramanund, who had hitherto listened indifferently, took up the
+cudgels. &quot;That can scarcely be, <i>risaldar-sahib</i>,&quot; he said; &quot;our pious
+folk have come hither to perform their offices since time began.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gorakh-nāth turned on him at once. &quot;Not so, <i>Vaishnava!</i>&quot; he said.
+&quot;Thou and thine know naught of the Beginning of Things. Come to us and
+Holy Shiv-<i>jee</i> for that! Thou art as far from the great wisdom as
+he&quot;--here he pointed wildly to Roshan--&quot;yea! further, despite thy
+pretence of purity! Despite thy hunger yesterday when, returning to thy
+lost faith, thou didst come here to eat as the twice-born should, and a
+shadow fell upon thy food! Despite thy deafness to this world just
+now,&quot;--here he laughed jeeringly,--&quot;which kept thee back from bearing
+witness to my truth, to the truth of Shiv-<i>jee's</i> servant!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dya Ram looked at him, then at Ramanund perplexedly. &quot;What means he?&quot;
+he said aside. &quot;Didst thou really come hither?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My wife was dying,&quot; replied Ramanund in a low, rapid undertone, &quot;and
+I--you understand--there--there is nothing certain, you see--and any
+chance--one goes back at such times--&quot; he broke off almost desperately
+in his confession.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dya Ram, who had signed himself Agnostic, nodded. He understood what it
+was to be rudderless in a familiar current, and came to the rescue of
+his friend's consistency by asserting that any such decision regarding
+the gun, if one had been made, would certainly be disputed. That he and
+his--though they demurred to its being counted against them for faith
+in the worshipping of mere matter--would, if necessary, carry the case
+to the High Court.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Carry it to the Court of thy god Indra, if need be, Dya Ram,&quot; retorted
+Roshan, and as he strode off he spat deliberately in the dust. That
+also surprised him faintly, for he had thought he had learnt tolerance
+of the <i>Huzoors</i>. So, with a frown and yet with relief, he put his hand
+on the latch which would open the way back to a less disturbing
+environment. As he did so, another hand was on it also. The door opened
+from within, and Father Ninian stood on the threshold barring it; but
+barring it with smiles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! my pupil,&quot; he said in English. &quot;I have been listening to your
+praises from Captain Dering, and from Mr. Carlyon too. He says you are
+the best fencer in the army. You and I must cross foils again sometime,
+eh, my pupil?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan, as he stepped aside elaborately to let the old man pass, drew
+himself up and saluted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you please, sir; but I have learnt new things since--since those
+days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His tone made Father Ninian pause to look at him for an instant; then
+he replied, &quot;And I have not forgotten the old; that makes us equal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan gave a little hard laugh as he went in; if the old man liked to
+think so, let him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Father Ninian's face as he passed--a black shadow in the
+sunshine--across the level steps leading down to the river wore a
+wistful smile. Old and new, he thought. New and old. Senseless, useless
+words, fit only for humanity to juggle dreams from, since no man knew
+the unseen beginning, knew the unseen end; knew even his own birth and
+death. In the endless band of life, naught came first, naught last, and
+the things of to-day might be old, the things of yesterday might be
+new.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Margherita!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The name came soundless to the priest's lips, and a quick flush of
+youth, and hope, and joy seemed to smooth away the wrinkles of his
+face. A faint laugh, a happy laugh, went further towards a hearing than
+the name. It was sixty years ago, nearly, since he had left her. An old
+story indeed, and yet how new. The new wine of it ran in his old veins,
+thrilled to his old brain, and took him back absolutely to a palazzo on
+the outskirts of Rome, with the pale flood of the Tiber flowing beneath
+a marble loggia. He had never looked on running water since without
+remembrance, and now--his feet having led him unconsciously to the
+river's edge--he stood smiling at the pale flood of the Hari. For he
+knew that he had fought a good fight, that he had kept the promise he
+had made in order to still her soul; that he had kept her boy, Pietro
+Bonaventura, so far as he could, from harm, and his child, and his
+child's child, gathering them as lambs into the arms of Holy Church.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then something in the last thought drove the tender human smile
+from his face. He murmured a &quot;<i>Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa</i>,&quot; bent to
+the stream, and dipping his fingers in it, crossed himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May Shiv-<i>jee's</i> blessing go with his holy water, <i>Baba-jee</i>,&quot; said a
+voice behind him. It was Gorakh-nāth the <i>jogi</i>, who, his sympathizers
+having departed, had come to fill his gourd.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Ninian turned; so for a space they stood face to face;
+representatives of the two great supernaturalisms of the world; the one
+which has held the West, the one which has held the East.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man's face, at first, returned to kindly human tolerance; for
+his fifty years of Eshwara had widened his sympathies. But, as he stood
+before the <i>jogi</i> it hardened, and the priestly arrogance of the naked
+ash-smeared figure, stretching a right hand in claim over the
+sanctifying power of the river, was reflected in Father Ninian's as he
+spread his left hand upwards, and turned on his heel with the words,
+&quot;<i>Vade retro Satanas!</i>&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_05" href="#div1Ref_05">CHAPTER V</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>THE &quot;DEE-PUK-RĀG&quot;</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are tired to death as it is--why should you fuss any more over a
+pack--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ssh! sir; don't talk rubbish. I am all right; and Eugene is so anxious
+everything should be a success that I must. Besides I--I like it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Walsall Smith sent the hostess' gathering smile round her long
+luncheon table, and rose. So did Vincent Dering, who had sat at her
+right hand--a position due to his rank as commandant of Eshwara--and,
+as he did, he drew his chair aside to let the girl on his left pass,
+with his usual somewhat <i>voyant</i> courtesy, though it was only Laila
+Bonaventura. He had met her several times during the past few days, and
+the effect which her singing had made on him had vanished before her
+general failure to interest him in the least. And to-day she actually
+wore a blue sash! In addition she had filled up the time between her
+monosyllables in methodically crumbling her bread and ranging the
+results in a pattern, until the inanity of it had got on his nerves,
+and he had felt inclined to beg her to desist.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And yet, as in passing her black eyes looked into his with one
+curious yet comprehensive flash, a memory of the extreme regularity of
+the curves and lines which had annoyed him, made him--quite
+irrelevantly--wonder hastily if he could have said anything to Muriel
+which--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He broke off in his own thought impatiently, and gave an apologetic
+glance after Mrs. Walsall Smith's fragile figure. There never was
+anything, never! Never a word said, never a deed done, which all the
+world--even Eugene Smith himself--might not hear and know. Vincent
+Dering felt a pulse of sheer virtue as he looked down the long table at
+his host, with the vague irritation which the possessors of women often
+arouse in those who are not their possessors. For Muriel Smith's
+half-playful, half-wistful rejection of sympathy had held that faint
+hint of dutiful martyrdom which seems so purely angelic to selfish
+man--unless he happens to be the wretch who inflicts it!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Curious, he thought; Eugene wasn't much of a gentleman, but he wasn't a
+bad sort, and he was fond of his wife, in a way. Yet he was blind to
+the fact that Muriel was not fit to go trapesing about his blessed old
+canal works with the pack of <i>padrés</i> and people he had got together to
+do honour to his skill. She would do it, of course, and get through
+with it, too! Here he helped himself to a glass of sherry, and felt
+incoherently that she was the dearest and best woman in the world,--the
+one woman in the world, so far as he was concerned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he sat between those two empty chairs where those two women, so
+absolutely unlike, had fenced him in on either side, a faint wonder
+tinged his virtue in comparing the last three years with the time
+before it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If anyone had told him, then, that he would write every day to a woman
+and expect her to write to him without a word or a deed--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please, Dering-darlin',&quot; said an imperious small voice, &quot;mum wants
+'oo, 'tos pup'll go off, she says, wis' all a gemplemen, an' she wants
+'oo to go off wis' a ladies!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All right, little 'un,&quot; he laughed gladly, finishing his sherry at a
+gulp, and, ere catching the little mite in his arms, giving himself
+that smartening pull together which was so characteristic of the man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked very handsome, very happy, as he came up, with Gladys shaking
+her curls at him in outrageous flirtation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How kind!&quot; said Muriel. &quot;I don't know what I should do without you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was all; but it sent him off in absolute content to tackle the
+stoutest lady in the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If <i>you</i> make the move, Mrs. Campbell,&quot; he said diplomatically,
+&quot;everyone will follow, and I know Mrs. Smith is anxious we should
+start, as it will take some time to go round.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay! that it will!&quot; assented the good lady in a mournful Scotch accent.
+&quot;'Deed if it were not for Dr. James--&quot; she glanced fearfully at a tall
+man in a black frock coat--a man whose patriarchal beard had once been
+red and was now the colour of a carpet whisk--who was buttonholing
+Father Ninian; the latter, with his straight slenderness, looking
+almost youthful beside the other's burly bulk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wouldn't go if I didn't want to,&quot; put in a sharp-featured lady who
+belonged to another black frock coat--a small one. &quot;You spoil the
+doctor, Mrs. Campbell. As I tell <i>my</i> husband, I yield to him in
+spiritual matters--the mission, you know, and all that; but when it
+comes to realities--the housekeeping, and what we are to eat, and do,
+and that sort of thing--that is my province.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Campbell turned her fat good-natured face on her neighbour's
+placidly. &quot;Ay, my dear; but ye didn't promise to be a wife to Dr.
+James, an' I did. So, Captain Dering, if you can find my niece--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Shepherd is quite safe, Mrs. Campbell. Carlyon's looking after
+her,&quot; interrupted Vincent, feeling another spasm of sheer virtue. He
+had seen the two sitting together at lunch, apparently interested in
+each other, and he had noticed how Lance, on entering the drawing-room,
+had made his way straight to those coils of red-bronze hair which had a
+trick of being the most conspicuous point in any group of which they
+formed part. So Lance would enjoy himself simply; he would not have to
+gain pleasure in complex fashion by dragging about a <i>posse</i> of
+uninteresting old ladies, for the sake of a lady who was neither.
+Vincent's face had a bored look as he began his task by piloting his
+charge into the verandah, and so on into the open.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was hot work crossing the stretch of sand which lay between the
+bungalow and the red brick abutments of the canal head; but once there,
+with the broad still basin of the united rivers before you, a cool
+breeze blew pleasantly from that blue barrier of hills with the
+gold-spiked temples of Eshwara enamelled against it, and a soft white
+mist hiding the feet of the far-distant snows; so hiding the &quot;Cradle of
+the Gods! The floods had gone, however, and so had the robe of
+righteousness. The sandbanks lay bare, of the earth, earthy. The logs,
+too, were no longer dipping and dancing in the currents. Some were
+piled criss-cross on the spit, awaiting ransomers, and a few lay like
+straight shadows, half in, half out of the receding water.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A log! not a bit of it!&quot; said someone, stooping for a stone. &quot;Look!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The missile fell far short of the low streak of sand and shadow, but
+did its work. The shadow disappeared, as a bottle-nosed alligator
+slipped silently into the stream. Most eyes watched it, but Lance
+Carlyon's turned to Erda Shepherd. He had only met her once, casually,
+when he was out fishing on the spit, since the day when Father Ninian
+had introduced them, and they had seen something else in the river that
+was also not a log.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you remember,&quot; he began impulsively, &quot;the first time we met?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A shadow slipped into her limpid bronze eyes also. &quot;Certainly,&quot; she
+interrupted coldly. &quot;It is not so very long ago--is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had fenced with his assumption of friendliness more than once
+already; feeling vexed with herself, the while, that she should do so.
+Since what did it matter? However much she might regret--and she had
+regretted with foolish unseen blushes as she had lain awake at night
+wondering what had possessed her--the almost indecent unveiling of
+realities in that first five minutes, she could not undo it. Besides,
+she had told herself, he had in all probability forgotten it in polo,
+and partridge-shooting, fishing, and such things.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he had not, apparently; and he parried her fence with a still more
+friendly laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I didn't mean that, of course; but we won't talk of it, if you'd
+rather not. It isn't a very Mark Tapleyish subject, is it, for an
+afternoon party?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The blush was to be seen this time. &quot;So I have been thinking myself,
+Mr. Carlyon, ever since last Wednesday,&quot; she began, still more coldly,
+&quot;and I am sorry--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He interrupted her quite cavalierly. &quot;I didn't mean that, either, and
+you know I didn't. However, we'll leave it alone. So you're not coming
+to the ball! Do you know, I think it's an awful pity; I'm sure you'd
+dance beautifully.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt outraged, in a way, and yet she smiled. He seemed so much
+younger than she was. Younger; but stronger and more vital. That calm
+assertion, too, that she knew she was playing feminine tricks with him,
+had been manly and dignified to quite a crushing degree. She could not
+help being at once meek and indulgent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't dance, Mr. Carlyon,&quot; she said quietly; adding, as a rider and
+salve to her conscience, &quot;I--I think it wrong.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought you might,&quot; he returned, evidently pleased at his own
+acumen, &quot;but I don't see it that way. Of course if--if you go in for
+those ideas, you know, you can make it seem--well--awful low; but I--&quot;
+he paused before even a possible sounding of his own trumpet--&quot;you see
+I think it's awfully jolly; besides, it's such ripping good exercise,
+and I have to be careful, I tell you, not to put on flesh. I ride
+thirteen-four, as it is.&quot; His face grew grave over the confession.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is that much?&quot; she said, her eyes caught and held by the splendid
+figure beside her. &quot;You are very tall, surely.&quot; There was almost a
+pride in her tone, certainly a tenderness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shook his head. &quot;Not so tall as my people are generally. We Carlyons
+run to size. My uncle, Sir Lancelot's, six-three, and his son is
+six-four; but he's a bit weedy. So when you're only six-one and a half
+you can't afford to wax fat; you've got to keep the body in subjection.
+That's right, isn't it?&quot; His pride in his Scriptural knowledge made it
+impossible for her to be stern, though she felt she ought to be.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quite right, Mr. Carlyon,&quot; she assented, hurriedly, &quot;but see! the
+others have gone on, and I don't want to miss--She stumbled, in her
+haste to end the tźte-ą-tźte, on a loose brick, and for an instant was
+over-near the edge of the abutment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Take care!&quot; he said, his hand on hers to give support; a cool, strong
+hand, with an insistence in its clasp which seemed to single her out
+from the world to stand so, hand fast in hand. &quot;You were very nearly
+over that time,&quot; he said, smilingly, as he released her. &quot;Now let's
+come on, or, as you say, we shall be too late for the fair. Smith's
+going to show off his electric light in the tents, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Perhaps it was the slip which had made her dizzy, but she walked beside
+him feeling as if she were in a dream. And, in truth, the scene which
+grew upon them as they went on had a strange unearthliness and
+unreality. She paused, and gave a little gasp of pleasure and surprise.
+&quot;It seems impossible!&quot; she said. &quot;A week ago, when I was here, it was
+all sand, sand; and now--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her eyes met the wide, flower-set walks, the stately white palaces of
+the Vice-regal camp with absolute incredulity. &quot;Did you do all this?&quot;
+she asked, doubtfully. &quot;Why, you've made a new world!&quot; She felt
+inwardly as if he had, somehow, for her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! Vincent did a lot of the decorations, you know. He's that sort.
+We--my fellows, I mean, and Dillon's gaol-birds--dug, and did the dirty
+work. But it looks all right, doesn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It did, indeed,--absolutely and entirely all right. So white, so
+straight, so disciplined; even to the very twist on the tent ropes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That peg's out of line,&quot; said Lance, pausing suddenly. &quot;Here,
+sergeant!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A following had gathered in their rear, bringing up the little
+procession of Englishmen and women, with a knot of dark faces, and from
+it a man in dust-coloured drill stepped, and saluted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Two inches, or, say, an inch and a half.&quot; Erda caught so much in the
+order given as she walked on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><i>Two inches, or, say, an inch and a half!</i> No more than that wrong in
+this dream city; and over yonder? Her eyes travelled past the snowdrift
+of the camp, rising against the blue background of wide water, to
+Eshwara, rising against its background of blue hill.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought so; a good inch and a half,&quot; said Lance exultantly, coming
+up with measured strides. &quot;It makes a lot of difference though.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked at him critically. Older by some months than he, full of
+strong character, almost overfull of strong convictions, she was
+yet--as women must be until experience of work-a-day life teaches them,
+as it has taught men, the value of subordination--curiously
+undisciplined, curiously lawless. And this striving after uniformity
+impressed her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suppose you learn that sort of thing in the army,&quot; she said, with a
+new respect.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed. &quot;I should think so; buttons and bootlaces all to pattern.
+It's an awful bore, but it keeps things going. Now, here we are! Now,
+you can see properly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They stood in the centre of the camp, in front of the huge <i>durbar</i>
+tent, that wandering throne of an empire fixed and immovable as the
+stars. In front of them, rising out of a wilderness of roses,
+blossoming where nothing but sand had shown since the primeval sea
+receded from the hills, was the flag of that empire, its folds drooping
+round the mast. And beyond it, past the two brass guns pointing down
+the long vista, was an avenue of palms, bordered by green grass and
+beds of flowers, and intersected by broad paths leading back to the
+solid white squares of the tents. At the farther end, a quarter of a
+mile or more from the flagstaff, a triumphal arch at the entrance
+showed, until the palm-leaves cut it short, a legend:</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">&quot;WELCOME TO THE LORD----&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="continue">and above it, far at the feet of those distant snows, lay that wreath
+of white mist hiding the &quot;Cradle of the Gods.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda's eyes travelled to it, and from it to the other vistas, similar
+yet smaller, stretching to the right and left of her. Then to the
+orderly rows on rows of tents, looking like solid blocks of marble
+behind her. The whole shut in from the world by a high white wall;
+still, silent, empty, waiting for the Hosts of the Lord. A snow-drift
+facing that mist-drift on the hills. And between them? Eshwara, and all
+that Eshwara held of evil and of good.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dreaminess left her eyes, startled at a band of dark figures which
+at this moment appeared rounding the corner of a tent--figures in
+scanty striped clothing with a broad arrow on it; figures with shaven,
+close-capped heads and leg irons clanking, as their bare feet threaded
+through the flowers. And behind them, half-hidden, as ever, under his
+mushroom of a hat, came George Dillon. He had noticed, as he passed
+with the others, that the roses were flagging a bit under the hot sun,
+and had gone back to summon a fatigue party of his criminals to water
+them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bring another go, <i>mate</i>,&quot; he ordered, as the gang, filing past the
+flagstaff, emptied their earthen pots; &quot;then go back to the road. And
+be quick. There's no time to lose. The Lord-<i>sahib</i> comes to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They obeyed with grins; and Dr. Dillon, as he paused beside Lance and
+Erda, looked after them approvingly. &quot;They like this better than
+picking oakum, and I've had to set some of 'em to do that, now the
+digging's done. I shall be glad when this show's over, and we move on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Move! where?&quot; asked Erda.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where there is work to be done, Miss Shepherd. Satan finds mischief,
+you know, especially with his own hands.&quot; He paused and smiled.
+&quot;They're a queer lot. Do you know some of them are in a blind funk
+because they think a percentage of them have to be sacrificed before
+the water will run.&quot; He grew grave again. &quot;Poor devils!&quot; he added, in a
+softer tone--&quot;as if they hadn't paid tribute already. I lost over a
+hundred last year, what with pneumonia and malaria, but they don't seem
+to count that--that is the will of the gods. But I say, hadn't you
+better be going into the tent if you want to see the light-up? Smith
+went off to his plant five minutes ago with his gang, so it's about
+time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was almost pitch dark in the huge tent, and as they slipped in
+through the closed portieres, Vincent Dering's voice called to them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Be quick, please; and, Carlyon, tell them to shut down the outer
+screens. We want to have a real flash-up, and I believe we are all here
+now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whether that was so or not Erda could not tell. The brief ray of light
+caused by their entrance had only shown her Captain Dering's figure
+beside his hostess, and given her a glimpse of Laila Bonaventura's
+white dress close by. So it was eerie, in a way, to wait in the
+darkness, knowing it to be full of people she knew; yet to have
+consciousness of nothing save their voices, since age, sex, position,
+even race, were alike awaiting this new light which was to make them
+manifest. Perhaps the eeriness struck her companions also, for the
+voices came clearly; not in a babel, but answering each other in the
+listening, waiting silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We are all full of sparks, I assure you, Mrs. Campbell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am weel aware o' it, Doctor Dillon; but it's too much like a brand
+snatched frae the burning to my taste; for Doctor James will have
+it--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Undoubtedly, my dear Ann. It appears to me, sir, and I trust it will
+to you, as a most interesting scientific fact, calculated to confound
+those who scoff at the possibility of eternal punishment in a fire that
+is not quenched--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Or to comfort those who believe in a cleansing one--who seek a place
+in the crown of stars about their Mother's head--who feel the flame of
+immortality.&quot; Its faint hesitancy betrayed this voice, as the dryness
+did the next.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I've got to generate my own heaven or hell, I prefer to pass; but
+if one could turn on a fifty-candlepower reflecting lamp during a <i>post
+mortem</i> or a bacillus hunt, it would be useful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes! Fancy being able to get up at night and see, at once, in all
+corners of the room if there were snakes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This brought a laugh till a fragile voice said plaintively, &quot;That's
+just the worst of it. When one begins to see things too clearly, they
+are so apt to be nasty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That, my dear Madam, has always appeared to me as an additional
+argument against those who contend that Perfect Wisdom could not wisely
+have produced so imperfect a being as Man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Surely, Dr. Campbell,&quot; interrupted a tart voice, &quot;the necessity for
+something on which to exercise our faith proves that; but then I am
+only a woman. I confine myself to realities.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then what a bore it would be if there were no delusions! By Jove! it
+would be dull. Who is it says the soul of man lies in his imagination?&quot;
+Captain Dering's voice could not be mistaken.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just so--and nowhere else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This came in an aside, and was followed in the same tone by the eager,
+hesitating voice. &quot;Scoffer! When you men of Science spend your lives in
+listening--to the things which cannot be heard--looking for the things
+that cannot be seen-- Ah! doctor!--you can't impose on me. I know
+you--I have seen you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The very darkness seemed abashed, and there was silence; till a new
+voice, young, full-throated, broke it. &quot;But how can you tell if things
+are nasty till you have seen them--they may be nice. Ah-h-h!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had come like a creation, flooding all things with irresistible
+light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sort of sigh made itself heard; a sigh of vague relief. &quot;By Jove!&quot;
+said Captain Dering, &quot;it will make a difference to the <i>durbar</i>. As a
+rule you can't see the diamonds and jewels; and they are half the
+show.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Palpably there could be no fear of that. To the uttermost corner of the
+vast tent, the pattern of its lining of shawls was visible; each boss
+on the parcel-gilt poles glittered and shone; the very legend round the
+arms of England above the Vice-regal chair stood out clear &quot;<i>Dieu et
+mon droit</i>.&quot; And the expression on the two groups of dark faces, the
+one which had come by invitation to see, the other which had crept in
+at the further end, could not be mistaken. In the one, indifference
+struggled with curiosity; in the other assent was mingled with awe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are they saying?&quot; asked Lance, who, having come late, stood close
+to the latter group. &quot;Something about <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>. What's that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda shook her head. &quot;Father Ninian will know--he knows all these
+things--that is why they call him Pidar Narāyan, and let him do
+anything. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't the best way.&quot; The last,
+spoken to herself, was interrupted by Father Ninian's echo.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The <i>Dee-puk-rāg!</i> Why, yes--of course!&quot; He turned to the dark faces
+in sheer delight. &quot;Yea! brothers!&quot; he said in Hindustani, &quot;ye are
+right! It is the <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>--the sign of kingship. Have I not told
+ye always that the Lord is with us--and with you?&quot; Then he turned back
+to his other hearers: &quot;It means the Song of Light--a charm--a spell
+which the great men of old knew. Is it not so, Ramanund?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A half-reluctant voice from the invited replied, &quot;The ignorant say so,
+sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A faintly sarcastic smile came to the fine old face. &quot;And they believe
+its possession marks the born ruler of men--the God-sent guide; since,
+when it is sung, the light comes from the stars to help the world on
+its way--to dispel the darkness! Ah-h-h!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had gone! and in the black night which settled blankly on speaker
+and audience, a faint, far cry came from outside. More than one woman's
+voice echoed it with a little startled gasp of suspense.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is all right!&quot; called Vincent Dering, &quot;the thing is always popping
+in and out--I've seen it at Euston--it will come back directly.&quot; And
+then, in response to something he alone had heard, he whispered, &quot;Don't
+be alarmed; Eugene will set it right in a moment--really--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he bent his head a scent of violets--the scent she always
+used--assailed him; and that half-heard appeal--&quot;Oh, what is it,
+Vincent?&quot; seemed still in his ears. Even in the darkness he knew she
+must be close to him. He felt the soft ruffle of the lace about her
+hand upon his wrist. It trembled, surely. Did it? Or was it only
+his own bounding pulse. A sudden imperious desire to know--to be
+certain--swept through him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, with a sort of suffocating rush to heart and brain, came the
+knowledge that his clasp was answered by that small hand--so small, so
+clinging, so trustful--so dear--so absolutely dear--so dear!--so very
+dear!!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he stood in the darkness, he knew that every mooring was gone, knew
+that this--this thing--would change--must change--the whole position.
+It was a light, indeed; a light showing the way--a different way! A
+sort of fierce exultation took possession of him. He knew, now, that he
+had been dreaming till then; that he had been blind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! what a relief! That dreadful darkness was getting on my nerves,&quot;
+said a calm voice coming to him from out of the flood of white light
+which seemed to have rent their hands asunder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Their hands--when she stood yonder? He turned, bewildered, to find a
+pair of grave black eyes fixed critically on him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I--I--he began.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It doesn't matter,&quot; said Laila Bonaventura, with stolid indifference.
+&quot;You thought it was her hand, of course. I quite understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Did she? Did--could--anyone? even he himself?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">God! How content--how happy he had been--how certain--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dillon! Dillon! For God's sake, where's Dillon?&quot; came an excited
+voice, as Eugene Smith burst into the tent, bringing the afternoon
+sunshine to war with that unearthly light. &quot;Come along, man! There's
+been an accident in the workshop! I warned them not to touch--one--a
+mere boy--did. Got startled, I suppose, and fell over--onto the
+circular saw--it was going. His leg--I've tried a <i>tourniquet</i>, but I
+can't stop--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The remainder was inaudible; the caller and the called, followed by
+Vincent, glad of any interruption to the intolerableness of his
+confusion, were already running as for dear life down the palm-set
+avenue towards the canal workshop outside the walls.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That it was for death, however, not life, Dr. Dillon saw at a glance;
+though, without a pause, he knelt down in the fateful, irresistible
+tide of life blood which was ebbing and flowing with such awful
+insistency, and set his teeth in fight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet once he gave an upward glance to the long, low roof so full of
+driving bands and wheels and levers, so full of men's power, so empty
+of men's passion; and then a straight one to the circle of ignorant,
+awe-stricken, dark faces closing in round him. And as he did so, he
+muttered to himself:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wouldn't have had this happen for a thousand pounds--and a
+high-caste man, too!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Undoubtedly; the sacred thread showed on the shoulder under the broad
+arrow--for the twice-born are twice-born even in gaol.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lay him on Mother Earth to die, ye of his caste!&quot; said a voice from
+behind. It was Father Ninian's. His haste had driven the colour from
+his face; he stood breathless, yet calm, his right hand raised. In the
+awestricken circle none stirred; there was no sacred thread upon their
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Give me a hand, please, Dr. Dillon,&quot; said the old man quietly; &quot;he
+will not die easy there.&quot; So, between them, they shifted the slight
+figure from the wooden platform on which it had fallen, to the ground
+all sodden and stained with that tide of blood. A faint content seemed
+to come to the half-conscious face; the head nestled itself into the
+soft earth as if to rest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The circle of dark and white faces fell back alike, leaving the doctor
+and the priest alone with death,--the doctor with both hands detaining
+that ebbing tide of life, the priest with the <i>viaticum</i> of another
+faith on his lips speeding it on its way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo!&quot; whispered some of the circle. &quot;Hark to his '<i>Ram Ram!</i>' He
+knows--Pidar Narāyan knows.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_06" href="#div1Ref_06">CHAPTER VI</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>ALPHA AND OMEGA</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma was fishing. Breast deep in the water, which in the early dawn
+stretched like a shining shield to meet the pale primrose vestments of
+the coming day, his bodiless head and shoulders slid sedately over the
+surface like some strange kind of wild-fowl; for his hands, clasped at
+the back of his curly frizz of hair, held the apex of a conical,
+reed-distended net, shaped like a pair of wings. His eyes were closed,
+and, despite all lack of visible movement, the tenseness of every
+muscle, the strained look of every curve, showed that he was on the
+alert for something; that something, being the first hint of possible
+prey sent by his hidden feet as they felt, like hands, over the bottom.
+Felt lightly, buoyantly, with scarce more pressure than the water
+itself, until, at the first suspicion of a fish lying half-buried in
+the sand, they would fling themselves air-wards to change places with
+his head; and that, with the net twirled dexterously above it, would go
+down like an extinguisher over the suspicious ridge or furrow.
+Sometimes--most often, of course,--they proved to be nothing else; but
+sometimes, again, there would be a pause, during which the black legs
+would remain uppermost, and then, once more, the black head would come
+air-wards with a wriggling fish, held, if it happened to be a small
+one, in its white teeth. For Am-ma had not been provided by nature with
+a pouch, like the pelicans who were fishing hard by; and, being
+absolutely destitute of clothing and pockets, had to sidle sedately to
+the bank with each prize before seeking another, since both hands and
+feet were needed for its capture. Otherwise, his method of fishing was
+little removed from the birds,--the net being considered as his beak.
+If anything, it was the more primitive of the two, since the pelicans
+fished in companies, drawing a serried line round each likely shallow;
+whereas Am-ma had all the distrust of his fellow which marks man in his
+earliest development. For, even amongst his kind, Am-ma was held to be
+barbarian; though, Heaven knows! the six or seven millions of wild
+tribes and forest races in India which go to make up its two hundred
+and eighty, are primitive enough. Those six or seven millions, frankly,
+absolutely savage, who, as the census puts it, are 'not to be
+specified'; remaining, as they do, untouched by either the
+civilizations or religions with which they have come in contact. Six or
+seven millions, whose very superstitions are their own monopoly!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Some there were among these fisher folk of Eshwara who, like Gu-gu,
+were faintly leavened with latter-day learning, faintly amenable to
+latter-day standards; but Am-ma's dull brain was satisfied with what it
+had inherited; which included, amongst other things, sight, hearing,
+touch, keen almost beyond belief. So he opened his eyes at a sound
+which, to an ordinary person, would have been as inaudible as the swift
+coming of sunlight in the sky; and his sight told him immediately what
+it was in detail. A canoe was coming down the lagoon with two men in
+it. Now there was only one canoe in Eshwara, and that belonged to
+Pundit Ramanund. He had been over the black water, and learnt, amongst
+a number of other strange new things which were of no use, how to
+paddle a canoe--his own or another's! For what good was a canoe when
+you did not know the sandbanks? And how could you know the sand-banks
+unless you swam over them and dived down to them? Then, if you could do
+that, what was the good of a canoe? An air-bag, or even an earthen pot
+under the pit of your stomach, on which you could lie, was sufficient
+for all practical purposes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Therefore one of the men Am-ma knew must be Ramanund; the other, by his
+turban, was a Mahomedan. Did <i>he</i> know the sand-banks? Am-ma shaded his
+eyes with one hand, and watched to see. Evidently not; the canoe stuck
+here, there, everywhere, yet still came on slowly. But if the occupants
+wanted--as everybody seemed to want nowadays--to cross over to the
+other side--that other side where the red brick headworks of the canal
+showed like a plinth--to those strange, new white tents where the Lord
+was expected; then they would find the navigation more intricate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma being conservative inevitably, smiled at the certainty, closed
+his eyes, and went on fishing; till he opened them again at a shout.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Which way?&quot; he echoed, his voice sounding hollow from its nearness to
+the water. &quot;By the deep stream, always.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And which is that, fool?&quot; came Roshan's voice angrily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where there is most water,&quot; returned Am-ma calmly. &quot;Cease from
+paddling, and the canoe will tell you without fail. Such things know of
+themselves. They are wise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But we want to get over to the camp as quickly as we can,&quot; said
+Ramanund, interrupting an impatient retort of Roshan Khān's, with an
+aside to the effect that they had better not alienate their only hope.
+The river was lower than he had expected, or he would never have
+suggested crossing in the boat, as quicker than the bridge; yet there
+was not time to go back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma smiled cunningly. &quot;None will get quicker than he can, my masters;
+that much is certain.&quot; Being pleased with his own wit, he laughed, and
+kicking up his heels, ducked his head, to come up again a few yards
+nearer in shallower water, where he could stand and salaam.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The noble people,&quot; he said gravely, &quot;must surely follow the stream if
+they go in company; but if they will quit comfort, and wade, carrying
+their boat here and there, I, Am-ma, will show them. But it is
+annoyance. Without going with the stream there is always annoyance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is better than going back or sticking still, anyhow!&quot; remarked
+Roshan Khān to his companion; adding in Hindustani--&quot;Then come
+quick--there is room for thee and thy net, and we will pay thee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma shook his head. &quot;There is weight enough for difficulties without
+me, my masters; and here or there is one to a fisher.&quot; So saying, he
+closed his net with one dexterous twist, slipped his arms through it so
+that it hung behind his back, and struck across the shallows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yonder is our aim,&quot; he said briefly, pointing to a blue thread of
+smoke rising from the water's edge a good way down stream. &quot;They burn a
+dead man there to-day; it is ever a good guide to the living.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Twill be the Brahmin lad the <i>Huzoors</i> killed by mistake with their
+<i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>. Didst hear the tale?&quot; asked Ramanund. Why, he would have
+been puzzled to tell, since he had no definite desire to foster
+ill-feeling or fear; but it had been the talk of the town till those
+small hours which end gossip, even in India, and the talk had confirmed
+the theory, which so many of his kind hold firmly, if vaguely, that the
+mass of the people feel the English rule to be unjust.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Am-ma was not of the people. He was of the six million and odd
+barbarians. He turned, showing his broad white teeth in a grin. &quot;Ay!
+'Twas well done. Now, as in old days, folk will know who is true
+leader.&quot; There was no doubt, no fear in his mind. Had not his tribe
+always, of old, chosen as its chief and God the man who could hold a
+torch in each hand at arms' length, one lighted, the other unlit, and
+bid the flame pass from one to the other seven times? And as for a
+man's life, was it not always expedient that one should die for the
+people upon occasions?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ramanund frowned; perhaps because Am-ma concluded by ordering the crew
+out of the boat, and the water was cold. It could scarcely have been
+anything else which brought annoyance, since he, like most of his kind,
+prided himself on being truly a British subject.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, paddling and pushing, wading, and even carrying, they crossed from
+shallow to shallow, from sand-bank to sand-bank, led by Am-ma, swimming
+and diving like a duck, or walking on ahead unconcernedly, his eyes
+fixed in keen-sighted approval on that group close to the water's edge,
+towards which he steered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet it was a gruesome group, in truth, which circled round that
+solitary and still more gruesome figure in the centre. A figure
+squatting like the rest (since, when wood is dear, funeral piles must
+be restricted) in full view, yet mercifully obscured for the most part
+by the heavy column of smoke which rose straight to a level with the
+leaping flames, then, tilting sideways before the intermittent breeze
+of early dawn, drifted westward, to hide those white tents upon the
+horizon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Above or below, fool!&quot; called Ramanund, sharply, as they neared the
+shore. &quot;I am no <i>Dōm</i>, like thou, to choose my way among dead men's
+bones.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The allusion to the semi-aboriginal tribe who earn their livelihood by
+streaking the dead, brought a frown this time to Am-ma's face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am no <i>Dōm</i>, either,&quot; he retorted, &quot;and were I one, thou wouldst be
+glad of my guidance to the fire some day, Pundit-<i>jee!</i>&quot; Roshan Khān
+listened with the wholehearted contempt of his race and creed. &quot;Be
+quick, either way,&quot; he said, scornfully. &quot;We have bare time, as it is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet he, also, swerved from that gruesome group, which, as the
+two--dressed as Europeans, save for their turbans--stepped ashore and
+hurried off in the direction of the camp, stood up in a linked
+semi-circle to salaam, then squatted again with a clank of leg irons.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma, his task over, had paused in the deeper water, and was once more
+sidling sedately. The sun had risen with the inconceivable swiftness
+with which it rises from a dead-level, treeless plain, and shone
+reddish-yellow, like a fire, on his wet skin. The shadow of that dense
+column of smoke sidled sedately on the water also, shifting with the
+shifting spirals of the reality.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Had he spilt blood?&quot; asked Am-ma, suddenly, as that something,
+half-hidden in the smoke, seemed to dissolve, sending a great fountain
+of sparks, bright even in the sunlight, up into the air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One in the semicircle clucked denial.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A <i>jogi</i>--they say of Gorakh-nāth's monastery--had him for disciple.
+And there was <i>dhatoora</i> in the sweetmeats, for sure. Whether he was
+strangler, God knows! Perhaps. Yet such travellers deserved poison; who
+but a fool trusts a strange hand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A big man at the end of the semicircle, who had a sinister face despite
+his good conduct badge, looked round hastily to where, a little
+distance off, the two jail-warders in charge were dividing a smoke on
+the sly with swift mysterious bubblings; then lowered his voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay! none but fools; and <i>he</i>--&quot; (a nod towards that thing in the
+centre which was now dying down to red embers pointed his meaning) &quot;is
+the first; not the last. I, Gopi, <i>gosain</i>,<a name="div4Ref_06" href="#div4_06"><sup>[6]</sup></a>
+say so. Let fools wait
+and see. Wise men will not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a clank of leg irons as if some stirred uneasily. &quot;Thou canst
+talk,&quot; murmured a voice. &quot;When thy 'tucket' (ticket of leave)--God
+knows how got!--is so nigh.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gopi smiled comfortably. &quot;Ay! To-morrow, and the next day, and the
+next. Then, once more, purification in the Pool of Immortality. Once
+more, sanctification at the 'Cradle of the Gods.'&quot; He cast his eyes
+upwards unctuously, like an Eastern Chadband, so rehearsing the part of
+piety he meant to play once more on his release.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma nodded his bodiless head cheerfully. &quot;There will be no Pool of
+Immortality for the pilgrims this year. So Gorakh-nāth says. The canal
+will drain the spring. But then, he is angry at being turned out of his
+gun. The people will not give so much--that is it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The <i>gosain's</i> face lowered at the news. &quot;Turned out? Who hath done
+it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma's eyes were closed, for his feet had found likely ground; he
+paused a second, tensely alert--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He who comes,&quot; he said, suddenly; &quot;the Master.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he spoke, the quick thud, followed by a lingering reverberation of
+the first saluting gun, told that the Viceroy of India was entering his
+camp.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Lord hath come!&quot; said the circle of prisoners, in awed tones.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All save Gopi, the <i>gosain</i>. He sneered. &quot;The Lord-<i>sahib</i>. Ay! he may
+be that--but the Master--no!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma gave a contented little chuckle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He killed <i>that</i>, anyhow,&quot; he said nodding again, &quot;and he hath the
+<i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>. Is not that enough for poor folk?&quot; Then his feet,
+feeling something far out of sight in the still deep waters, came
+air-wards, and his head went down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When it came up again, the gang of prisoners were being filed back to
+gaol, leaving the still glowing embers of what had been a man to send a
+clear blue smoke into the clear blue sky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They have the <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>--that is enough,&quot; murmured the fisher to
+himself as he slid with the stream.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_07" href="#div1Ref_07">CHAPTER VII</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>THE WORLD'S DESIRE</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The Viceroy's camp was no longer a city of dreams.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Its silence had gone, lost in that indefinable sense of sound which
+seems to come from the heart-beats, even, of unseen humanity; and
+the whiteness, the purity of it, was stained and smirched by the
+scarlet-as-sin coatees of the innumerable orderlies, who bustled about
+from tent to tent, with huge files of references, or lingered at the
+tent doors extorting shoe-money from the native visitors, who came in
+shoals to plead for patronage from one or another of the bigwigs
+belonging to the Hosts of the Lord-<i>sahib</i>. Groups of these
+petitioners, awaiting their turn for an interview, were to be seen at
+most tents; but they stood in crowds round one, in which the
+Commissioner of the Division was making the final arrangements for the
+coming <i>durbar</i>; in consultation with the Under Secretary to Supreme
+Government. It was a difficult task, involving as it did the
+classification of the aristocracy, plutocracy, and democracy of India,
+in one generally satisfactory Court-guide.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It cann't be done in this wurrld,&quot; remarked the Commissioner, in one
+of those suave, plastic, Cork brogues which might be made of Cork
+butter from the softness and lack of friction they bring to the English
+language. &quot;An' what's more the Archangel Gabriel couldn't do it in
+heaven, though he'd have a better chance; for the Cherubim wouldn't be
+wanting seats at all! We are bound to displease somebody, so let's cast
+lots before the Lord; it's Scriptural, annyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Under Secretary looked a trifle shocked, being unacquainted with
+the Commissioner's methods.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But we must,&quot;--he began.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The other's keen face looked up from the lists for a second. &quot;Of course
+we must--we govern India practically, by cane-bottomed chairs. Ye
+remember old Gunning. No!--before your time, I expect! Well! he kept
+two hundred miles of North-West frontier as quiet as the grave, for
+five years, by the simple expedient of awarding thirteen seats in his
+divisional <i>durbar</i> to each of his districts, and only taking twelve
+chairs with him into camp. The <i>māliks</i>, you see, never could tell
+which would be chosen odd man out, an' the fear of it kept 'em like
+sucking doves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed!&quot; remarked the Under Secretary, fidgeting with his lists
+resignedly, for he was under the impression that time was being lost.
+&quot;I'm afraid that sort of thing wouldn't answer nowadays.&quot; The elder man
+looked at him gravely; just one short glance, as he dipped his pen in
+the ink and went on writing, revising, referring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not a bit of it! They'd send down to Whiteway Laidlaw's and get
+Austrian bent-wood chairs by value payable parcel post! The Teuton,
+sir, is ruinin' British prestige by cheapenin' the seats of the mighty.
+There! that's done--block A's beautiful entirely. Now for block B.
+Who's your favourite, and why are you backing him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once more the junior appeared a trifle shocked. &quot;With reference to
+Roshan Khān,&quot; he began. &quot;His Excellency desired me to ask whether it
+might not be possible to give him a step for being, as it were, in his
+own division. He belongs to Eshwara, I believe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The very reason why he cann't get an inch more than his due. But you
+can tell H. E. that I've settled it. I've asked Dering to put him on
+duty, an' when he is in uniform there's no mistaking his place. And
+then we'll ask him in to the reception afterwards with the <i>sahib
+logue</i>. Who's your next--Dya Ram! what, the little pleader?--Why the
+blazes should he come to <i>durbar?</i>--attorneys don't go to St. James.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Cox, the member of parliament--perhaps you may remember him--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A little red-haired fellow, was he? who wrote a book about India on
+the back of his two-monthly return ticket?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Cox is a man of great influence with his party, and he supports
+Dya Ram's--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pestilential little fool,&quot; interrupted the Commissioner impartially,
+impersonally. &quot;It wouldn't be bad, though--stop his scurrilous tongue
+for a bit. Favour does, you know. But I cann't see my way to it. Old
+Hodinuggur would be refusing his '<i>atta</i> and <i>pān</i><a name="div4Ref_07" href="#div4_07"><sup>[7]</sup></a>
+again. He did it
+once, ye know, when some low-caste fellow was within sight of him. Said
+he didn't eat with sweepers; and if Crawford--he was Commissioner at
+the time--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes!&quot; said the Under Secretary, still more resignedly. He had not yet
+grasped the fact that his coadjutor talked while he worked--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hadn't been six foot four and broad in proportion,&quot; went on his
+tormentor imperturbably, &quot;so that the--let us call them the subsequent
+negotiations--diplomatic negotiations--it sounds well!--didn't reach
+the eye of His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, the Thakoor--one of our
+best men let me tell you--would have got into trouble--more'd have been
+the pity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; assented the man of Secretariats, &quot;but about Dya Ram--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dya Ram, is it now? Could we put him in under the head 'benevolence'
+think you? Did he ever vaccinate a baby, or breed a horse, or give
+anything to a female hospital? No! Then the devil fly off with him for
+complicating the problem of British rule in India. Why should he want
+to come to <i>durbar</i> at all? When people change their dress they should
+change their desires, but the only effect our civilization has upon
+some men I know, is to make them want to keep their hat and their boots
+on at the same time! Well, that's done! I've found a place for him
+where Hodinuggur can't see the tail end of him unless he squints.
+Now--who's your next?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While this sort of thing was going on inside the tent, Dya Ram and the
+Thakoor of Hodinuggur were in full view of each other, outside it. The
+former, having scorned the sinful scarlet coatees even to the point of
+refusing to have his patent leather shoes dusted, was walking up and
+down in English fashion. The latter, in a wonderful parcel-gilt coach,
+was awaiting the effect of his ten-rupee tip with perfect patience and
+serenity; while his retinue, which consisted of a dozen ragged
+retainers carrying lances festooned with tinsel and yaks' tails, stared
+contemptuously at the two sentries pacing up and down below the
+flagstaff; who--to tell truth--seemed so monotonously part of the
+general show as to suggest that they also were under the charge of the
+two yellow-legged policemen who stood on either side of the rose-bed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was high noon, and the various departmental gongs had begun to give
+their version of the meridian, with that unbiased disregard for that of
+their neighbours which makes the time of day an absolute uncertainty in
+a big camp. But it was calling time evidently; for two superb
+red-coats, blazoned with gold, appeared in company with two big books
+and a silver inkstand, and disappeared with them into the <i>durbar</i>
+tent. And shortly afterwards an <i>aide-de-camp</i> sloped over to it,
+yawning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Both Dya Ram and the Thakoor knew that this meant preparation for
+those, who, having the <i>entrée</i> to the Government House, had the right
+to put down their names in those big books; but the fact itself
+affected their two types very differently. The old Rajput's visit of
+ceremony was of another sort. He, obeying definite orders, would come
+at a specified time, and get his specified salute with his compeers.
+But Dya Ram was like the wild tribes in one way; he was unspecified! He
+was neither fish nor fowl, flesh nor good red herring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, as he watched a young Englishman drive up in a bamboo cart, dash
+into the tent, and dash out again as if the place belonged to him, he
+felt aggrieved. He even went so far as to formulate his grievance in
+mental words, and then these appeared to him so apposite to a leading
+article, that he took out a note-book, and, after some corrections,
+stored away, for future use, the assertion, that '<i>the time will come
+when the colour of the hand which holds the pen will be no bar to its
+writing its name in the Book of</i>----?' He did not feel sure of the
+qualitative noun, and after trying Fate, Fame, Life, and Lord, left a
+blank instead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile carriages and dogcarts all of sorts had begun to drive up,
+their occupants disappearing into the tent for a second or two, then
+coming out with the smile of the elect on their faces. Father Ninian
+was one of the first, resplendent in a new <i>soutane</i> and sash, with
+Akbar Khān in his orderly's get-up, oscillating between a palsy of
+delighted servility, and a catalepsy of dignity; the one for his
+superiors, the other for his equals.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And, after a while, in one of those mysteriously nondescript
+four-wheeled vehicles that defy classification, but may be said to come
+under the head &quot;<i>phitton</i>&quot; (phaeton) of which mission people seem to
+have a monopoly, came good Mrs. Campbell and her niece, Erda Shepherd;
+the former full of indignant, yet meek alarm, because Dr. James, having
+come across an old friend further down the avenue, had bidden her go on
+and write his name as well as her own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I ken weel how it will be,&quot; she asserted to her niece, &quot;for I havena
+brought my specs, an' a body cannot but be nervous with a young man in
+a scarlet coat glowering at them! I shall put the doctor into the wrong
+book; for, you see, I canna write the two names ane after the ither
+like a marriage lines; for there is one big bookie for the women, and
+one for the men-folk, like a Puseyite chapel! Ay! an' for the matter o'
+that, like a divorce court--and I sou'd never hear the last o't if I
+evened the doctor to myself!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me do all three, Auntie,&quot; said Erda, with a laugh, as she got out
+of the carriage. &quot;Really, there's no need for you to come,--I'll be
+back in a minute.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The blaze of sunshine blinded her for the darkness of the tent, and she
+could scarcely tell whose hand it was which stretched itself frankly,
+eagerly, for hers as she entered. Yet, even through her glove she knew
+the touch, before Lance Carlyon's voice said joyfully,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come to write your name? I've just written mine. Funny our hitting off
+the same time, isn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The tone of his voice, joined to that startling recognition of his
+touch--which she could not conceal from herself--made her shrink, as if
+from actual intrusion. &quot;I have to write my uncle's and aunt's first,&quot;
+she said coldly. &quot;There was no use in us <i>all</i> coming in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She walked on as she spoke to where the two books lay on a sort of
+lectern, while the <i>aide-de-camp</i>, seeing the visitor was a lady, came
+forward politely to assist.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not that book, Mansfield,&quot; remarked Lance, coolly. &quot;Miss Shepherd
+wants--Miss Shepherd, will you allow me to introduce Captain
+Mansfield--to write her uncle's name first.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked back at him almost angrily, full of resentment at his
+persistence; but, even in the semi-blindness which was still hers, his
+face showed too kind for that; and as, at that moment, another lady
+came in with a flutter of laces and ribbons to appropriate Captain
+Mansfield's ready services, Erda had to allow Lance to find her a pen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's right! Now for the other book,&quot; he said. The <i>aide-de-camp</i> had
+by this time gone to see the laces and ribbons back to their carriage,
+so the two were alone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your aunt's first, you know.&quot; There was a suspicion of friendly
+chaff in his tone, this time, but it was gone in a minute as
+he went on quickly--&quot;Erdmuth!--is that your name? Why!--it means
+earth-mood--or--or world's desire, doesn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt herself flush. &quot;I did not know that you were such a German
+scholar,&quot; she replied, sarcastically. &quot;Yes! my name is Erdmuth
+Dorothea. I was called so after--after some one you most likely know
+nothing about, Countess Zinzendorf. She was famous enough, though,--&quot;
+she paused, feeling savagely desirous of snubbing him--&quot;But I daresay
+you never even happened to hear of Jean Ziska, Mr. Carlyon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He smiled suddenly, broadly. &quot;Jean Ziska!&quot; he echoed. &quot;Rather! We had a
+pony called Ziska at home--a Hungarian--used to eat thistles like a
+donkey!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stopped to laugh, and she was about to turn and rend him, when he
+continued, half apologetically, &quot;Of course I have--only the name, you
+see, brought back such jolly old times. Ziska was the beggar who had
+his skin made into a drum when he was dead. I don't expect it's true,
+but it's a fine tale; the drum ecclesiastic with a vengeance, and no
+mistake!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! but it is,&quot; interrupted the girl, forgetting her annoyance in her
+eagerness. &quot;My grandfather--we are really Moravians, you see, and our
+name should be Schaeffer,--saw it when he was a child. He used to tell
+me that people said if it was beaten, everybody must--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Lance's attention had wandered. He was looking at her signature
+with a curious, almost wistful smile. &quot;Erdmuth!&quot; he repeated
+thoughtfully; then turned to her. &quot;I say! you really ought to come to
+the ball with that name--do!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was simply, she told herself, the most distractingly irrelevant, yet
+at the same time the most appallingly direct, person she had ever come
+across. &quot;Really, Mr. Carlyon,&quot; she began, with such heat that the
+<i>aide-de-camp</i>, returning, stared; until Lance coolly asked him if he
+didn't think Miss Shepherd very unkind not to come to the Bachelor's
+Ball? Whereupon he, having by this time had enough of laces and
+ribbons, and begun to recognize a distinct charm in the glistening
+coils of hair, half-hidden by a wide hat, promptly asked her for the
+pleasure of a dance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda looked from one to the other aghast, and to her own intense
+surprise fell back upon the woman's all-embracing excuse, &quot;I--I really
+haven't a dress.&quot; It seemed the simplest and easiest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! anything does for a fancy ball,&quot; persisted Lance, argumentatively,
+as he followed her out. &quot;A tailor in the bazaar would run you up a
+Greek dress in no time, and it would do awfully well. All white, don't
+you know--&quot; his voice slackened and grew soft, as if he saw what he
+described, and the sight made him glad--&quot;all straight folds with a
+little edge of red-gold like--&quot; he paused, then went on boldly--&quot;like
+the sunshine on your hair. And red-gold bracelets high up on your
+arms--and a red-gold apple in your hand--the World's Desire--&quot; He
+stopped abruptly, with a quick catch in his breath, startled at his own
+words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she, too, held her breath before the vision; for she saw it also.
+Saw herself, as he had described her, and the glamour of it, the desire
+of it, assailed her, body and soul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet she made a desperate, a passionately resentful effort to ignore
+them. &quot;I didn't know you were so well up in <i>chiffons</i>, Mr. Carlyon,&quot;
+she said, with a forced laugh. &quot;Did you ever think of setting up a
+milliner's shop? One is badly needed in Eshwara.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the glamour of it had come to Lance Carlyon like a revelation, and
+the blood was leaping in his veins. &quot;I will, if you--&quot; he began.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She scarcely recognized his voice in one way. In another she knew it
+must be his; for all the vitality and strength, the single-mindedness
+and simplicity which she had seen in him so often, were crowded into
+it; brought into it by fancy, concentrated by a mere suggestion--of
+herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The magic of this seemed to encompass her; she sought shelter from it
+recklessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I?&quot; she interrupted. &quot;I don't go in for that sort of thing,
+Mr. Carlyon. You seem to forget my work--work which I value
+above--milliners! Try Mrs. Smith--there she is coming in her victoria;
+she is one of the best-dressed women I ever saw.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could not certainly have looked better than she did as, seeing
+Lance Carlyon, she called to him as her carriage drove up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you know where Captain Dering is? He promised--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here Lance, with guilty haste, interrupted her. He was just about to
+drive over and give her a message. Dering had had a touch of fever; he
+had been over at the palace arranging about the Chinese lanterns for
+the decorations till late the evening before, and--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He might have sent a little sooner,&quot; put in Mrs. Smith. &quot;I have been
+waiting; he said he would drive me in his dogcart.&quot; There was no
+vexation, only an almost pathetic surprise in her voice; and Lance
+looked guiltier still.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm awfully sorry--it's all my fault--I was late to begin with, and
+then--&quot; He glanced at Erda involuntarily,--compromisingly, it seemed to
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am afraid I kept Mr. Carlyon,&quot; she said, haughtily; &quot;most
+unwillingly, I assure you. Thanks so much, but I can get in quite well
+by myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she drove off, however, her head was in a whirl; and as, when
+pausing to pick up Dr. Campbell, the whole panorama of the camp, the
+hills behind it, the distant temples of Eshwara, the busy place-seekers
+in the foreground, the scarlet-sin-stains of the <i>chuprassies'</i> coats
+against the dazzling whiteness of the tents, lay before her, one of
+those rare, incomprehensible moods came upon her when the soul retreats
+into its spiritual body, so that the sight grows clear, the touch keen,
+and you can feel the round world spin beneath your feet, see the shadow
+of earth stretching far among the stars.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The World's Desire! What was it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brought up to believe that the heart of man--that mainspring of the
+spinning world--was vile, she had never asked herself why this was so.
+She had read the story of Adam and Eve with unquestioning faith, yet
+never sought to know what had changed the good to evil.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But now, as her eyes rested on those far-distant peaks with that faint
+mist about their feet hiding the &quot;Cradle of the Gods,&quot; and followed, as
+far as the eye could follow in the nearer hills, the climbing track
+worn by the weariness of that eternal search after righteousness, she
+asked herself what it was which kept mankind so long upon the road;
+asked herself, for the first time, what that first sin had been which
+had lost Paradise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No lack of desire after salvation, surely. Generation on generation of
+Eastern pilgrims had worn that path out of the sheer rock, had agonized
+after good, and remained evil. A little shudder of memory ran through
+her at the thought--how evil! And now the West, with its white tents,
+its white face, its white creed, had come to show a newer, a better
+way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had it? But what had it done for itself? She had worked for two years
+in London ere coming out to India; and another shudder of memory swept
+over her of what she had seen there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The World's Desire! Lance Carlyon had called her that--a woman with a
+red-gold apple in her hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sound of angry dispute brought her back to realities. They were
+passing out of the camp under the triumphal arch, and one of its
+sentries was barring the entrance of an ash-smeared figure which was
+brandishing a stamped petition paper, as if it had been a card of
+admission, and yelling excitedly for &quot;Justice! justice!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is that pernicious fellow, Gorakh-nāth,&quot; remarked Dr. Campbell,
+sententiously. &quot;He wishes, no doubt, to appeal against Captain Dering's
+order, of which I, for one, am heartily glad. A Christian government is
+bound to refuse sanction to the practice of a faith which, it is
+impossible not to see, is degrading in the extreme to those who hold
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda's eyes were still clear; clear with what those who do not see,
+call dreams.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet it seeks what we do--peace--forgiveness--the cradle of the
+goodness, the innocence it left behind--somehow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. James Campbell turned to her in dignified, amazed displeasure. &quot;May
+I ask what has caused--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's easy tellin',&quot; interrupted Mrs. Campbell, comfortably. &quot;It's
+yon hat with feathers, when she is accustomed to a pith one. An' she
+standin' in the sun talkin' to Mr. Carlyon! It's just got to the
+lassie's head. I was the same myself when I was young, Erda; but Dr.
+James thought it a duty--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And so I do now, my dear,&quot; put in her husband. &quot;It is a distinct duty
+on the part of mission workers to take every precaution, and if her
+head is Erda's weak point, I shall warn David--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Campbell nodded hers and smiled, and almost winked. &quot;Oh! Davie
+will take care of her, never fear; he is not a ninny!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda flushed scarlet all over her face and neck. It seemed to her as if
+she had forgotten her cousin, the Reverend David Campbell, altogether.
+And yet she was engaged to be married to him as soon as he returned
+from a well-earned holiday in England.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A swift remorse left her pale again. Davie, who was so much in earnest,
+who looked to her as--as--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That vision of a woman with a red-gold edging to her white robe and a
+red-gold apple in her hand came to send the blood to her face once
+more.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_08" href="#div1Ref_08">CHAPTER VIII</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>FALLING STARS</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The long <i>durbar</i> tent was packed from end to end with the
+cane-bottomed seats of the mighty; and in each sat its appointed
+occupant,--patient, grave, silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But in the two rows behind the Viceroy's still empty chair of state the
+Englishmen in political dress or uniform who sat in the front, and the
+Englishwomen in the latest Paris fashions who sat behind, were talking
+and laughing; in a perfectly well-bred way, yet, to the majority of
+those silent spectators, at the expense of decency, since a <i>durbar</i>
+is, like a West Indian ball, not for '<i>talkee</i>.' There was, however, no
+disapproval on those indifferent dark faces. Such things were part and
+parcel of that general eccentricity of the <i>Huzoors</i>, before which it
+behoved calmness to remain calm. Yet those same faces would have been
+quick to notice and resent the faintest breach of etiquette in regard
+to their own treatment, or position. Those being correct, the rest was
+immaterial.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now, the sudden strains from without of &quot;God Save the Queen&quot; sent
+those talking, laughing rows to their feet silently, with the proud
+alacrity so noticeable in India when the act is a confession of faith,
+indeed! But the mass beyond followed suit obediently, with a starry
+shiver of diamond-flash, a milky way of pearl-shine; for Eugene Smith's
+electric light was working full power.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Finally, as if wafted on the full chords, came a small man, with that
+inevitable look of coming into church which Englishmen consider
+dignity; possibly because public worship is, really, the only function
+in which they are not inwardly ashamed of taking part. The great gold
+chair, the great gold footstool, seemed all too large for everything
+about their occupant, save the diamond star, the ribbon on his breast.
+Yet, in a way, the scene gained by his inadequacy when, after a decent
+pause, a decent silence, he rose, small, insignificant, to give voice
+to Empire--in a strong Scotch accent, it must be admitted, which
+equalled the Commissioner's Irish one, when, its proper exponent, the
+Secretary, having a cold, he read a translation of the Viceroy's
+speech, and his soft brogue ran riot among the clamorous Persian
+vowels.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Ai Māhārājāhān, rājāhān, nawābān wā sāhibān ālishān</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The diamonds and pearls sat too still for play, so the electric light
+contented itself with the white teeth of Englishwomen as they yawned.
+But even these failed it when, the speech ending, that front row began
+its file past; the civilians first, the soldiers next. A quick file, a
+formal bow as a rule; but, every now and again, a pause would come in
+the monotonous string of names, for a few words from the Viceroy,
+and another bow ere the recipient passed on. Muriel Smith, who sat
+behind--the best dressed woman there, as Erda Shepherd had judged
+her--watched her husband's tall gaunt figure approaching, and wondered
+if that pause would come to him. Her heart beat so when it did that she
+could hear nothing except &quot;graciously pleased,&quot; &quot;eminent services,&quot;
+&quot;distinguished order&quot;; but a whisper from her neighbor, &quot;All right!
+C. S. I., not C. I. E.,&quot; left her sick and faint with relief. Even so,
+her eyes instinctively sought Vincent Dering's sympathy; but he, to her
+surprise, was looking at the tall gaunt man whose face was a &quot;<i>nunc
+dimittis</i>&quot; in itself, as he made his way back to his seat, forgetful
+even of his wife.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he had forgotten her, amid a host of other things, for three whole
+years: forgotten them in a ceaseless effort, an untiring energy. And
+now that the necessity for this was over, sleep and rest were his first
+thoughts. He took both, apparently, in his chair, while the
+Commissioner, causing this time a fresh flashing of jewels, began on a
+fresh string of titles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Sri rāja-i-rājān</i>,
+<i>furzund-i-khās-munsoor-i-zamān-māhārāj-dhirāj-rasākh</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And, as they rolled on, the atom of humanity belonging to them--someone
+in faded brocade, with ropes of ill-shaped pearls and uncut stones
+wound about him, or a jauntier figure fresh and glittering from a
+Calcutta jeweller's shop--would be singled out by its political in
+charge, like a sheep from a flock, and guided dexterously to the
+exactly proper spot in the whole round world wherein obeisance and
+offering could be made with dignity to itself, and the recipient. Then
+it would be swept on, regardless of an invariable desire to break back,
+in an endless circle to its seat, while fresh titles rolled out, and a
+fresh owner was hemmed in and swept forward. For two whole mortal
+hours, this, and nothing but this; with, every now and again, that
+pause for a few words, translated now into Irish-Urdu, producing an
+expression as of a cat licking cream, on a face as it was was hustled
+back, blindly obedient, as sheep are with a collie they know and trust.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, at last, long after everyone, even Dya Ram--who looked terribly
+disjointed between his frock coat, white tie, grey trousers, and the
+gold mohur which he persisted in holding after native custom in his
+gloved right hand--had passed, the politicals gathered in a knot, like
+church-wardens for the offertory plates, and the distribution of <i>atta</i>
+and <i>pān</i>, that sacrament of servitude and sovereignty, began. It, too,
+was exactly like an offertory; that is, a languid passing round of a
+plate by an official, and yawns for the rest of the congregation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Finally, with a vigour savouring--like a voluntary--of relief, the band
+attacked &quot;God Save the Queen&quot; once more, the Viceroy retired, the
+<i>durbarees</i> trooped out, still calm and silent, yet satisfied, and the
+Commissioner, sinking into a vacant seat, said:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank the Lord! That's over without a hitch. So India's safe for
+another six months at the cost of a trumpery title or two.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't see on what ground,&quot; began the Under Secretary, laboriously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then ye don't read your Bible. Didn't Adam, when he was given dominion
+over the lower animals, begin by bestowing names on them? Ah! my dear
+Mrs. Smith, I didn't know ye were so close. A thousand congratulations,
+my dear lady.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You don't mean it, sir,&quot; she interrupted, laughing. &quot;Do you think I
+have forgotten the consolatory verses you wrote me last year when
+Eugene <i>didn't</i> get anything? You are a fraud.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not a bit of it; only an Irishman,&quot; put in Father Ninian, with an
+almost tender smile for the keen, whimsical face which had been friend
+to him, and foe to him, for many a long year. &quot;Let us have the verses,
+Mrs. Smith.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Say ye don't remember them, there's a kind soul,&quot; urged the
+Commissioner, persuasively.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I do:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;I dreamt, and lo, the stars fell from the sky</p>
+<p class="t2">To blaze upon the breasts of naughty men;</p>
+<p class="t0">And as I wondered, came this swift reply:--</p>
+<p class="t2">'Each star is some soul's inmost aim, and when</p>
+<p class="t3">The angels don't approve, it is returned</p>
+<p class="t3">To feed the base-born flame by which it burned.</p>
+<p class="t2">The nice, they keep until--life's struggle striven--</p>
+<p class="t2">The owners find them at the gates of heaven.'&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Striven--heaven!&quot; groaned the Commissioner, amid the clapping of
+hands. &quot;My dear madam, did I commit such a crime--I mean rhyme? But the
+poet's right. Ye can't go wide of the mark, annyhow, even in a song,
+but you're sure to find the fact again in the heart of a friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, with that curiously light-hearted, almost reckless, frivolity of
+Indian society--a not unnatural recoil, perhaps, from the perpetual
+presence of the greatest social problem the world has ever seen, or is
+likely to see, that is, the mutual assimilation of East and West
+without injury to either--the little company of English men and women,
+empire makers and breakers, drifted out into the sunshine, and so on to
+the Viceroy's private enclosure, where the band, weary of national
+anthems, was already at work on a selection of street tunes, beginning
+with &quot;Tommy, make room for your uncle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the pageant of power passed into a garden-party, and nothing
+remained to show the hand-grip which had made that garden out of a
+wilderness, to tell of the tireless effort to solve the problem, the
+ceaseless striving to be just, which underlay all the quips and cranks,
+the foibles and follies, of the great camp, save the premature baldness
+of a few heads, as their owners fought desperately at badminton; fought
+to prevent a child's shuttlecock from falling in the wrong court!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A fight which was watched with blank courtesy, as a further exhibition
+of sheer eccentricity, by those of the jewelled and brocaded owners of
+titles who had the <i>entrée</i> to this Holy of Holies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan Khān, however,--who looked splendid in his uniform,--fought with
+the best; and won, too, though Laila Bonaventura, who played on his
+side, stood still, taking, it is true, the shots which came within
+reach dexterously enough, but never stirring an inch for one beyond.
+And, as he played, the curious chance which had brought him into her
+company made his blood run fast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Captain Dering had bidden him join the set; bidden him curtly, almost
+savagely, as the best player available, in answer to a challenge from
+Muriel Smith to play her, her husband, and the Commissioner. And this
+challenge had come curtly, also, because Captain Dering was standing
+beside Laila Bonaventura, to whom he had been giving a cup of coffee.
+Not because it gave him pleasure, but from sheer determination not to
+let his mistake in the darkness count for anything. Yet, as the girl's
+hand took the cup from his, he had remembered with a thrill the
+gladness, the content it had brought him. Though he refused to
+acknowledge the fact, the puzzle of this mistake had been his chief
+thought ever since it occurred, and a smouldering resentment regarding
+his past relationship with one who was still to him the best and
+dearest of women was the result. He felt vaguely that she, as well as
+he, ought to have known that their sentiment, their monopoly, as it
+were, of friendship, could only mean--what it had meant to him during
+those few moments of blindness which had, paradoxically, opened his
+eyes. So he had felt bitter, and she had known it instinctively. If she
+had ever faced facts, this alone might have opened her eyes also; but
+she was too good a woman, too helplessly bound by her woman's cult of
+love, to disassociate it from friendship. So, without bringing a doubt
+even, the jealous desire of appropriation which draws a line clear and
+clean as a sword-cut between the two, had risen up in her from the
+absence of the sympathetic look she had expected from Vincent Dering.
+So she had challenged him, and so it came to pass that Roshan Khān
+played badminton with Laila Bonaventura. She took no notice of him
+beyond a casual inspection of his uniform; still the mere fact of being
+her equal within the white lines which separated their badminton court
+from the realities of life seemed a fate. When the game was over, his
+eyes followed her closely, and he, himself, at a respectful distance;
+and as he followed her, his desire to speak to her grew as he pondered
+on his right to do so. After all, as his grandmother had said, she was
+his cousin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And fate was on his side once more. A well-bred crowding round a table
+where some photographs of the camp were being shown, brought him so
+near her that she caught sight of his yellow, silver-laced uniform
+behind her, and turned quickly. Turned with a look in her big black
+eyes which dazzled him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It vanished, however, in a second; yet her words, spoken with a faint
+resentment, made the memory of the look give rise to a swift pulse of
+angry suspicion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought you were Captain Dering,&quot; she said. &quot;Why do you wear the
+same uniform? I thought natives couldn't be officers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The assumption, in his present state of mind, made all his fierce
+temper flash to his face; but ere he could choose English words to
+express it, she laughed, and, after her fashion when amused, became
+confidential. &quot;You are angry at being called a native; but you <i>are</i>
+one, aren't you? Then it is so foolish. You are like my guardian. He
+can't bear the bazaar people to call me '<i>Begum-sahiba</i>'; but they do
+sometimes, you know, because I own a lot of their houses and lands, and
+my grandmother was a native princess. I know that, though my guardian
+never speaks about it. He is ashamed, I think--like you are. I'm not. I
+didn't choose my grandmother. Why should one fuss about such things? If
+they're true, it can't be helped, and if they're not, what <i>does</i> it
+matter? Besides, it must be rather nice to be a real Begum. You haven't
+seen any, of course; they wouldn't let you, would they? That must be
+horrid. How could you like people if you didn't see them? Besides--&quot;
+she added, with an access of demure, pious conviction, &quot;it would be
+wicked to marry them, you know. You should never marry anyone you don't
+love. Even the Sisters told me that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her voice had deepened, broadened; her eyes, occupied with his uniform,
+not his face, had grown soft. Hitherto he had been too much at a loss
+before her sudden garrulity to interrupt; now, that vague suspicion
+recurred, making him feel inclined to say brutally, &quot;I am your cousin;
+I claim you.&quot; The very thought of her outraged face attracted him. But
+English words were inadequate for such emotions, so, as he paused, she
+went on:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As you are here, I suppose you'll be asked to the ball, also. It is to
+be in my palace, you know, because Captain Dering thinks it the best
+place. He says the gardens will be beautiful all lit up--&quot; She smiled as
+if at some secret mystery, then continued: &quot;Of course, I don't know
+yet; I haven't seen it, but I think it will be lovely. Only I wish my
+dress was different. I am Beatrice--Dante's Beatrice--and I think it
+stupid. But my guardian chose it because--&quot; she smiled again with the
+same secret amusement--&quot;I don't know, of course, but I expect it is
+because my great-grandmother went as Beatrice to some ball long ago. It
+is generally that. I think he must have been in love with her--isn't it
+funny?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Laila,&quot; came Father Ninian's voice from behind, &quot;I have been looking
+for you everywhere. It is time to go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His usually kind old face was stern. He gave the curtest of
+recognitions to Roshan Khān, and, as he carried his ward off, said
+sharply, &quot;Who introduced you to that native?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No one,&quot; she replied, indifferently; &quot;I thought he was Captain Dering;
+their uniforms--&quot; she broke off to add, with more animation, &quot;I do like
+the gold and silver lace. Though of course the jewels, like the rajahs
+wore, look best.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He interrupted her in Italian, giving a quick gesture of dissent. &quot;Say
+not so, <i>cara mia</i>, they would look ill on--on Englishmen. And listen,
+child! You should not speak to strangers; and I would rather you did
+not speak to such natives at all. They--cannot understand--quite--for
+they look on women differently from what we do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Laila's eyes narrowed sullenly. &quot;Very well, guardian,&quot; she said
+resignedly, &quot;only I suppose they must know what their women are really
+like--and--perhaps the native ladies prefer it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man looked at her, startled, but said nothing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he had gone to find Akbar Khān and the carriage, Vincent Dering,
+seeing her alone, came up--so, at least, he told himself--out of sheer
+politeness, to ask if she wanted anything. Yet something in her face
+sent him beyond mere courtesy at once; something almost childishly
+apparent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm afraid you haven't been enjoying yourself,&quot; he said kindly. &quot;Why
+not? I thought it rather pleasant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very pleasant!&quot; she assented wearily. &quot;Only my guardian has been
+telling me not to do things; and I don't know why, but I always want to
+do them at once--don't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could not actually deny the fact. &quot;Sometimes. One has to
+pretend--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She raised her eyes to his blindingly; he caught a glimpse in them of
+the lawless approval Roshan Khān had seen, yet of something else--a
+lawless disdain. &quot;Why must one?&quot; she asked. &quot;I never mean to, never! If
+I want to do a thing I'll do it. I don't mean wicked things, of
+course--&quot; she returned here to demure, almost plaintive piety--&quot;I don't
+want to do them, and nothing can be wrong when it seems right to you,
+and it is real--ever so real, and you give yourself to it, every bit of
+you, without thinking, and--and--ask nothing--nothing at all--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her vehemence, her passionate assertion, roused a quick response in
+him. &quot;Would you do that?&quot; he asked, his voice vibrating. &quot;Would
+you--really?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She smiled slowly. &quot;Of course I don't know,&quot; she said, &quot;I haven't tried
+yet; but I never pretend. I don't even pretend to like my dress for the
+ball. It <i>is</i> so stupid.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He felt annoyed at being led into a burst of emotion, and then baulked.
+&quot;You will look charming, I'm sure,&quot; he said in his worst manner. &quot;And
+if you don't like it, change to something jolly after supper. Lots of
+people do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will Mrs. Smith?&quot; she asked quickly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He flushed angrily. &quot;I really don't know,&quot; he began. Her eyes were on
+him curiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's funny,&quot; she said. &quot;I thought people--not that it matters,&quot; she
+went on, &quot;for I can't. I haven't a dress. Do you know I never have
+anything I really like--never.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl's voice was absolutely touching in its listless, dull
+confidence, and he could not help consolation. &quot;You'll have the ball,
+I'm sure; you will enjoy it awfully, and--and you mustn't forget that
+you've given me the second waltz, and the first extra after supper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not answer for a moment. &quot;Have I?&quot; she asked. &quot;I didn't know
+it; but I will. That will be nice. And you are coming to decorate
+to-morrow, aren't you? That will be nice, too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her tone lingered in his ears long after she had gone. It was with him
+even when he was driving Mrs. Smith home, and, of course, making up
+their little misunderstanding by the way; possibly, because of this
+making up, since, for the first time, the elaborate <i>éclaircissement</i>
+irked him. It seemed so unnecessary unless the whole affair meant
+something, which was quite out of the question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For instance, when driving Lance Carlyon back to the Fort afterwards he
+did not desire an explanation of the latter's moodiness. When a chum
+was evil-dispositioned, you waited calmly for him to come round. That
+was friendship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm sorry Miss Shepherd couldn't come,&quot; said Lance, suddenly, his eyes
+on that spit of sand, with its hovels and logs, below the town. &quot;I
+wanted her to, awfully, if only because she's never seen a <i>durbar</i>;
+but&quot;--he smiled--&quot;I expect someone else wanted her instead. By George!
+Dering, you don't know how that girl works. Sometimes I feel it's a
+shame, and sometimes I think it's splendid--though of course it don't
+matter a dash what I think.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And that--Vincent Dering asked himself--was that love?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Laila Bonaventura's voice came back to make him certain of one thing.
+That would not be her version of the old, old story; and the knowledge
+made him, somehow, more content with his world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile another man in yellow and silver lace was being haunted by a
+girl's voice, which had spoken of things which no decent woman of his
+own race would have mentioned; yet which had spoken to him with an
+equality which no Englishwoman would have allowed herself. And as for
+Englishmen! The recollection of Father Narāyan's face as he carried the
+girl off made Roshan Khān curse under his breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the girl herself had been different. He literally did not know what
+to think; and the desire for someone else's opinion grew so strong
+that, finally, with a curious mixture of reluctance and triumph, he
+forsook the straight road to the Fort, and turned his horse's head
+towards his grandmother's house. She was at least a woman; she might
+understand and judge better than he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His first sight of her, however, in unprepared toilette, <i>minus</i> the
+green satin trousers which gave such dignity to her rotund little
+figure, <i>minus</i> all pretence at pomp, dirty, untidy, unkempt both in
+her surroundings and herself, made him feel what a fool he was. The
+more so when she began by resenting his summary visitation, especially
+in uniform, which, she asserted, made her feel, even at her age, as if
+she were committing the indiscretion of seeing a stranger!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What could a woman like that know? Yet having come, he might as well go
+through with his errand; so he cut short her upbraidings by saying
+without preamble:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have seen my cousin. I spoke to her, and--and she spoke back again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mumtāza Mahal looked at him for a moment incredulously, then she
+cracked all her finger joints over his head, or as nearly over it as
+her height would allow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Said I not so?&quot; she asked prophetically. &quot;And when will the wedding
+be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wedding!&quot; he echoed petulantly; &quot;there is no talk of wedding. I have
+but seen her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But seen her!&quot; echoed the old lady in her turn. &quot;That came after in my
+time; but God knows how things go nowadays. Then what didst speak
+about?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had to give a Bowdlerized version of what had passed; yet, even so,
+Mumtāza Mahal looked shocked. &quot;A bold hussy; but thou wilt bit and
+bridle her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He burst out angrily--for his own recital had shown him the folly of
+castle-building on so slight a foundation--&quot;I am a fool,&quot; he said, &quot;and
+so art thou for all thy years!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her little black eyes flashed angrily. &quot;Not I! Did she not say she
+would like to be a <i>Begum?</i> and if that means not--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And could I make her one?&quot; he interrupted fiercely. &quot;I--a <i>risaldar</i>
+on a bare pittance--with no prospect of rising. Dost dream me Nawab,
+fool?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old lady's face grew cunning in a second, the instinctive love of
+intrigue roused by the mere suggestion. She leant towards him eagerly.
+&quot;And wherefore not, Roshan? Are all things fixed? Do rulers never
+change? I live here in a corner, nothing but a poor woman: yet I hear
+more, it seems, than thou dost. I hear of discontent, of desires, of
+things that call for change. But to-day, they spoke of men being killed
+to make light for these infidels, and Gorakh-nāth, <i>jogi</i>, hath sworn a
+miracle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned on her with a bitter, reckless laugh. &quot;Is that new? Is there
+not always talk? The wise listen not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A vast importance, a real dignity came to her in an instant. &quot;If the
+<i>Huzoors</i> had listened to such talk in '57.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A thrill ran through him; the thrill of secret curiosity, almost of
+expectation regarding the great Rebellion from which so many things
+date, which young India always feels in the presence of their elders,
+who passed through it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thou dost know, of course,&quot; he said, catching his breath; &quot;thou canst
+remember.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay!&quot; she replied sternly, &quot;and there was no more talk than there is
+now. 'Tis not a question of words. It is fate. Something happens, and
+then--then the <i>risaldar</i> may be Nawab--as his fathers were.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had gone too far, and recalled him to himself. &quot;Then let us await
+the happening,&quot; he said curtly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wait!&quot; echoed the old lady, reverting to the main point. &quot;Thou canst
+not wait. Having gone so far, the negotiations cannot drop. Thou must
+send the gift, and see what comes of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A gift!&quot; he repeated. &quot;What gift, and wherefore?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mumtāza Mahal looked round as if for approval, tucked a packet of <i>pān</i>
+into her cheek, and chuckled. She was on familiar ground now.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Leave that to me. I know what girls like. I have them still. Ay! a
+dress that her grandmother wore--good as new, being for a tall
+woman--and jewels. 'Tis no harm, at least, see you; since if they like
+it not, the gift is returned.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood doubtful, half pleased, half shocked at the suggestion. She
+could certainly send the things back, and he had many a time seen
+English women wearing native jewelry; ay! and decorating their rooms
+with native dresses. And he could write that they were from her cousin
+and servant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That would be easier than telling.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_09" href="#div1Ref_09">CHAPTER IX</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>OUT OF THE PAST</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I feel as if I had this moment arrived,&quot; said Muriel Smith, as she
+looked down into the garden from a balcony which jutted out upon one
+side of the wide flight of marble steps that led upwards to the loggia
+of the palace. &quot;Yet I know I've been here for hours. I wonder when the
+sheer beauty will cease to--to take my breath away. <i>You</i> understand,
+don't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes!&quot; assented Vincent Dering, half grudgingly. He would rather not
+have understood more than others. But he did; that was the worst of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was looking his best in the old cavalry uniform of grey, and silver,
+and cherry colour, all laced, embroidered, and glittering with
+epaulettes, sabretasche, and high stock,--the uniform of a hundred
+years ago, when adventurers ruled half India, and Englishmen were
+demi-gods. It seemed to have brought something of their pride and
+recklessness, something of the dreams they dreamt into his whole
+bearing, as he stood leaning over the balustrade gazing fixedly at the
+scene before him. It was beautiful indeed! Beautiful with that
+unearthly stillness which only comes to illuminations in a windless
+Indian night. The lines on lines, the curves on curves of tiny lights
+which outlined each pillar and arch, each buttress and recess of the
+palace, the battlemented wall of the garden, and the turreted town
+rising above it, were steady as the stars. The fine fret of the acacia
+trees, showing white against the purple of the sky, was still as if
+carved in stone. There was no flicker in the soft radiance, which made
+the solid marble seem translucent, illumined mysteriously from within.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The very shadows slept. Such scented shadows, clinging to the burnished
+orange trees, hidden in the wilderness of roses, dreaming on the
+perfumed cushions of the quaint balconies and cupolas which overhung
+the river.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But <i>it</i> did not sleep. <i>It</i> moved, sliding on and on ceaselessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So did the water which dimpled and tinkled--after Heaven only knew
+how many sad years of silence and decorum--over the fretted marble
+water-slides.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How it laughed and babbled to the cunning coloured lights placed behind
+it! And the fountains below, rising out of the water-maze,--where there
+was but room for the flying feet of a laughing girl on the marble
+ledges between the lotus-leaves,--laughed and tinkled, also, as they
+sent showers of diamonds back on the pale blossoms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The &quot;jewel in the lotus&quot; indeed!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no colour to be seen anywhere. Only that soft, steady, white
+radiance, those soft, sleeping, black shadows. Except in the drifting
+water-maze, and the drifting men and women around it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Restless, both of them; going on and on. Whither, and wherefore? It was
+an idle question, Vincent told himself, if the move brought, as it did
+here, fresh laughter, fresh colour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>On such a night did young Lorenzo</i>,&quot; quoted the Commissioner's brogue
+from the flight of steps where, in the guise of a French cook, he was
+fanning Laila Bonaventura, with whom he had been dancing; the latter
+sitting still and silent as the shadow in which she was half hidden. A
+crackling laugh betrayed Dr. Dillon's whereabouts. He was perched on a
+balustrade above, his legs dangling, his trousers, as usual, displaying
+his thin ankles; for he was dressed in his ordinary evening suit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And old Lorenzo also,&quot; he scoffed. &quot;The disease is nonprotective,
+contagious, and marked by extraordinary vitality in the virus, which
+after long years may spring to fresh life from a dress, a bit of
+ribbon, a lock of hair.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! have done with such blasphemy!&quot; interrupted the Commissioner,
+joyously, &quot;and me racking me brains which of all the beauties of this
+<i>hareem</i> I'd better fall in love with! Dering, you're a steward, I
+believe. Turn that man out for obtruding the exigencies of everyday
+life--including a swallow-tail coat--into Paradise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I've objected already, sir,&quot; said Vincent Dering, laughing; &quot;but he
+declares he is a malarial bacillus.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A what?&quot; remonstrated the brogue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A malarial bacillus, sir,&quot; explained the doctor; &quot;as I have failed
+hitherto--like everybody else--to recognize the gentleman, even through
+a microscope, I am naturally at sea as to the proper costume. And you
+will, of course, admit the universal rule: 'When in doubt, play a dress
+suit.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By Jove!&quot; ejaculated Lance Carlyon, who, mopping his face, had joined
+the group, &quot;what a ripping idea. Wish I'd thought of it instead of this
+kit.&quot; He looked regretfully at his mailed limbs; for he was dressed as
+Lancelot-du-Lac, a costume which had been chosen for him two years
+before, at Simla, by a grass widow who had aspired to the part of
+Guinevere; but who, retiring before the young fellow's absolute
+unconsciousness of her intention, had left him saddled with an
+expensive fancy dress which he felt bound to wear out; for all his
+spare cash was kept for guns and polo ponies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm glad you didn't, Mr. Carlyon,&quot; protested Muriel Smith,
+consolingly. &quot;You look very nice in it. Only those things on your
+legs--I forget the proper name--must be difficult to dance in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Greaves--the well-greaved Greeks, me dear madam,&quot; put in the
+Commissioner. &quot;Plural of grief. Ah! ye should have seen him come to it
+just now with the general's wife. Your chance of promotion's gone, me
+dear boy--the marble floor resounded.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, it isn't half so inconvenient as my husband's dress, anyhow,&quot;
+continued Mrs. Smith, persisting in her mission of sympathy, when the
+laugh at Lance's expense had subsided.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's all you know, my dear,&quot; remonstrated Mr. Smith, sleepily, from
+a quiet nook in one corner. &quot;I never said Robinson Crusoe was a good
+dancing dress, but I claim it isn't bad to sleep in, especially out of
+doors. Soft and furry--and--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His voice sank into dreamful ease.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And it can claim solitude, anyhow,&quot; added the doctor, mournfully.
+&quot;Think of the disgust of an old established microbe, like myself, when
+his swept and garnished home is invaded by a party of seven strange
+devils.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How rude you are!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Smith. &quot;Besides, we aren't seven,
+and I believe Robinson Crusoe discovered this island before you did!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think the French cook takes the cake, though,&quot; said poor Lance, who
+had been following up his own grievance. &quot;Shirt sleeves must be an
+awful pull when you are dancing with a <i>burra mem</i>.&quot;<a name="div4Ref_08" href="#div4_08"><sup>[8]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;True for you!&quot; assented the Commissioner, sympathetically. &quot;That's the
+very reason I took to it, me dear boy, when me own merits and me
+advancing years doomed me to all the stout ladies in India. Besides, me
+paper cap rids me of two of me reports anyhow. Ye see I always have to
+wear two caps; one before, and one after supper. Otherwise I find the
+contints get mixed, and make me statements unreliable; and then me
+enemies say it's the champagne. I feel it coming on me now, but--&quot; he
+sprang to his feet, light as a boy--&quot;by a merciful providence there's
+the band at the 'Roast Beef.' Now, are ye coming in to supper with me,
+Mrs. Smith, or are you one of those who have to change their identity?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not I,&quot; she declared, taking his arm, &quot;I'm quite content with myself,
+thank you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She might well be, since her costume of water-nymph could not have been
+improved upon. It enabled her to show off her long, rippling, pale gold
+hair, and the filmy green and white, the feathery weeds, the iridescent
+shells, matched her delicate face, which seemed almost overweighted by
+her water-lily crown.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Besides, Undine can always do quick-change artist, and assume a soul,&quot;
+suggested the Commissioner, as he led her off; adding, in mock alarm:
+&quot;Me dear madam! I apologize profoundly. Miss Bonaventura, Captain
+Dering's waiting for you, I'm sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Laila, who had risen also, stood silent, looking taller and slimmer
+than usual in her guise of Beatrice. It seemed to have brought out the
+fact that she had some of the best blood of Italy in her veins. Vincent
+Dering had recognized this fact--which Father Ninian had taken care to
+communicate to him as soon as the latter had found out that, nominally
+at any rate, the former was a Roman Catholic, and therefore a possible
+lover--when he had gone up to apologize to the girl for having missed
+that second dance, owing to his duties as steward. The recognition had
+him vaguely sorry for the girl; sorry also for the old man who,
+evidently, dreamt such idle dreams. He did not mean to marry a Begum!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He crossed over to her now, offering his arm, but she refused it,
+saying she did not want supper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you are enjoying yourself, surely?&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, yes! thank you,&quot; she answered; &quot;only it isn't real, of course. It
+doesn't mean anything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon, who was within hearing, looked down at her sharply.
+&quot;Perhaps, my dear young lady, it is as well it doesn't. So let us eat,
+drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked up at him quite shocked. &quot;Oh! I didn't mean that, of course;
+that is wrong. I only meant that things don't match--the place and the
+people, I mean. Except one or two--those for instance.&quot; She pointed out
+Roshan Khān who, dressed as himself, was taking advantage of the
+emptiness of the garden during supper time, to go round it with old
+Akbar Khān as guide, the latter in the wildest antics of alacrity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did you ever see such a funny figure?&quot; continued the girl, with an odd
+little laugh. &quot;He is quite crazy with joy. He told me to-day this was
+the first time for forty years that he had been himself! That he has
+been bewitched.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I believe I've been bewitched too,&quot; said Vincent, suddenly. &quot;Let us
+all go back forty years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon swung his feet further over, and dropped to the ground
+almost between them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That would effectually annihilate two of the company, and reduce me to
+cutting my teeth; and I want the use of them at supper. Come along and
+have something solid, Miss Bonaventura; there is nothing so
+indigestible as fancy sweets.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she was firm, and moved away to where a small staircase led from
+the balcony to the upper storey. She did not care for supper, she
+repeated, and she had to mend her dress; someone had trodden on it, and
+she would not be able to dance till it was mended.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't forget ours--the first <i>extra</i>,&quot; called Vincent after her. She
+turned where the narrow stair, after climbing the outside wall, against
+which it clung like a swallow's nest, ended in the shadow of an
+archway. &quot;I shall be back in plenty of time,&quot; she said. Vincent thought
+he had never seen her look so nice, so young, so fresh, so smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's a queer girl,&quot; remarked the doctor, as he lounged off, &quot;not
+half bad. That is just it, in fact; she is a clear case of atavism, and
+as her ancestors seem to have been either saints or sinners, there you
+are! For it's the same tissue absolutely; indeed, there's precious
+little difference between the two when you come to analyze.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I never do,&quot; interrupted Vincent, shortly. The doctor's cynicism bored
+him, especially here, where a man might at least be allowed to escape
+the brutal realities. Here, where even the houses in the bazaar beyond
+the garden wall--those houses that were by the common light of day so
+squalid, so unsavoury, so full of mean, miserable detail--showed like
+star-palaces against the sky!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sudden comprehension came to him. How blind of the girl to say all
+this meant nothing! How crassly idiotic of himself to think of going
+back forty years to enjoy this! This was the same yesterday, to-day,
+for ever! It was the love of physical pleasure, the desire to
+appropriate, to have and to hold, which had civilized the world, and
+made man out of a monkey.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'The Cradle of the Gods,' did you say, my dear lady?&quot; said a courteous
+old voice from the stairs, breaking in on his solitude. &quot;Just so--the
+pilgrims go there every year. It lies--let me see--I think I can point
+it out to you. Ah! Captain Dering!&quot; continued Father Ninian, finding
+the balcony into which he had stepped <i>en passant</i>, occupied. &quot;We don't
+disturb you, I hope; but Mrs. Palmer was speaking about the 'Cradle of
+the Gods.' It must lie--don't you think so?--over there.&quot; He pointed
+beyond the star-palaces.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should fancy so, sir,&quot; replied Vincent, &quot;that is about due north.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I am wrong,&quot; smiled the old priest; &quot;the cave is northwest, and
+the passage to it is difficult--almost incredibly difficult.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet you have been there several times, haven't you?&quot; said Mrs. Palmer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Ninian shook his head. &quot;Never to the cave itself, madam. I am
+not quite sure whether I ever really meant to go so far,--and bow in
+the House of Rimmon! It would have been interesting no doubt--but--&quot; he
+glanced down almost boyishly at his black <i>soutane</i>--&quot;my cloth, my dear
+lady, has to be considered. As a matter of fact, something always
+hindered me. I went as a medicine man, you see; and so many fall
+by the wayside. I wonder, indeed, how any reach it.&quot; He paused,
+and a wistful smile made his face look dreamy. &quot;Some say none do. A
+<i>jogi</i>--Gorakh-nāth, Captain Dering,--he whom you turned out of the
+gun--claims to be the only man who has ever seen the real cave; the
+rest have seen--<i>illusion!</i>&quot; He paused again, and his smile changed.
+&quot;'Tis a claim, madam, made by more than Gorakh-nāth; who, by the way,
+promises to defy you, Captain Dering. Padlock or no padlock, he is to
+get in and out of the gun as he chooses while the pilgrims are here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent laughed contemptuously. &quot;I don't think miracles go down, even
+in India, nowadays, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old priest's face grew grave. &quot;I cannot give my assent to that; I
+who have seen the blood of a saint turn crimson and flow. Faith,
+Captain Dering,--that is, the belief of man in a power beyond his
+own,--is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent Dering bowed politely, and kept his shrug of the shoulders for
+the old man's back, as he followed him upstairs to the supper room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The same yesterday, to-day, for ever! True, in a way. There were two
+stabilities amid the chances and changes of this mortal life. The
+Garden of the Palace. The Cradle of the Gods. Faith and Love--for it
+came to that in the end.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here the familiar sight of a ball supper in full swing ended his rare
+reflections, and he slipped into a place beside a lively vivandičre,
+who welcomed him with entreaties to join in a comic opera she was going
+to get up at Simla. The last new rage in London; she had written home
+for the rights.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was in a new atmosphere in a moment, and straightway forgot the
+garden; forgot everything but that the supper was excellent, his
+companion gay. Even the Commissioner's high voice, as he talked
+nonsense, seemed far from the gravity even of conferring titles, and it
+seemed incredible that the small man who sat surrounded by a host of
+departmental heads was really representing a whole Empire.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the band downstairs, by beginning on Strauss's &quot;Lovelong livelong
+day,&quot; warned him of his engagement to Laila, he passed to it half
+reluctantly. She would be sure to dance badly: that make of girl always
+did. So he was relieved to find the ball room, and the wide loggia into
+which it opened, almost empty. Only a couple or two were spinning
+slowly, idly, in and out of the resounding arches.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He went on, therefore, to the balcony beside the stairs. If the girl
+was there it would be an excuse for sitting out. If not, he could
+always say he had waited for her. Either way, he would have time for a
+cigarette.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he went down towards it he met Lance Carlyon coming up, and called
+to him: &quot;Supper's A1; so's the wine. It's going awfully well, isn't
+it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Suppose so,&quot; replied Lance, &quot;but I'm going to cut. These togs are
+awful; but if I go now I'll have time to change and have a shoot down
+the river. Am-ma says the ducks sit like stones before dawn. They won't
+miss me, as a bachelor, I suppose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent looked at him compassionately. &quot;A bachelor,&quot; he echoed. &quot;It's
+about your last chance, I take it. However, if you want to kill
+something--it's a common symptom--go! I shall stop till the bitter--or
+sweet--end! One doesn't get into a streak like this once in a blue
+moon! I feel fit for anything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he sat down for a smoke in the corner vacated by Robinson Crusoe,
+this feeling was strong upon him, and sent the blood tingling to his
+finger-tips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The band had by this time ceased piping to unwilling dancers, so the
+still, warm, scented air was left to the tinkling ripple of the water,
+the rippling tinkle of distant voices; for supper had almost emptied
+the garden also. The better for its picturesque effect. Now the
+imagination could people it--as Laila Bonaventura (the girl had sense)
+had phrased it--with figures that matched; real figures.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A chiming silvery clash above him made him turn to look upwards to the
+archway where Laila Bonaventura had disappeared. It would be a bore if
+she were returning to interrupt his cigarette; though, in truth, she
+had been, he remembered, almost attractive.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Almost--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave an exclamation, and rose to his feet. She was coming, indeed,
+but not as she had gone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There is no dress in the world which is at once so dainty and so
+sensuous, as the court dress of a Mahomedan lady, and Laila Bonaventura
+was wearing one as she came slowly down the stairs towards him, a
+radiant white figure against the radiant white marble.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The folds of her long silver-gauze skirt--so cunningly fashioned that
+it trailed in rolling shimmer-crested billows behind her, yet left no
+beauty of her round limbs hidden--clipped her about the waist like a
+serpent's skin. So hiding, yet revealing, was the soft film of fine
+muslin over the scented, ivory-tinted corselet, which fitted close to
+the full curves of her figure. So was it with the silver-streaked veil,
+through which the jewels in her dusky hair, the bracelets on her fair
+arms, shone undimmed. So was it even with the chiming fringes of her
+silver anklets, as they slid merrily to cover and uncover the small
+feet, tucked so carelessly into the little silver-tipped slippers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To hide and to reveal, that was the note of all!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she came nearer, too, he saw that her lips were reddened, her dark
+eyes darkened artificially. And yet her face did not correspond to all
+this. It was curiously grave, dignified, almost anxious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you like it?&quot; she asked, suddenly pausing a pace or two from him to
+stand still, heaped round by those shimmer-crested billows, and so,
+with one hand, gather the straight folds of her veil to curves over her
+arm. As she did so, he saw, with a curious throb at his heart, that her
+wrists were fettered to each other by long trailing chains of scented
+jasmine flowers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A dainty prisoning indeed! The suggestion of it set his head whirling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Like it!--His very admiration kept him silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It makes it feel more real,&quot; she went on, &quot;don't you think it does?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Real, or a dream? He did not know which. He felt a fool to stand so
+silent; yet no words--as she would phrase it--came to match. None, at
+least, that he dare use to her unconscious dignity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only I can't dance, you see,&quot; she continued, bending to look at the
+billows about her feet. &quot;Besides,&quot;--she looked up suddenly, her whole
+expression changed, she flung her fettered hands forward almost into
+his face. The strings on strings of scented flowers looping themselves
+in ever widening curves, hung like a screen between him and her
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm a prisoner--yours, I suppose.&quot; He fell back for half a second,
+then caught the hand in his.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then, in an instant, it came back to him--the measureless glad
+content of that mistake in the dark! He had told himself ever since
+that it had come, then, by mistake--incomprehensible, it is true,
+horrible to a certain extent, but still in error. But this was no
+mistake!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes!--my prisoner,&quot; he said. &quot;Come, and sit down, and let us talk.&quot; He
+wanted time to think.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shook her head. &quot;Not here, please! No one is to see me but you,
+only you. That is why I waited till I saw you were alone. I only put it
+on for you to see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sudden remembrance of something she had said to him--&quot;When it is
+real, and you give yourself--everything, and ask nothing.&quot; The
+certainty that she was doing this now made him say quickly:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't be afraid--they shall not see. Come, let us go into the
+garden--those balconies by the river--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shook her head again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are not safe, and my guardian would be so angry. Though it isn't
+really wrong&quot;--she added, with her odd vein of piety; &quot;but when
+somebody sent me the dress, I thought it would be fun, and I wanted you
+to see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sent you the dress?&quot; he echoed hotly. &quot;Who?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked at him vastly amused. &quot;Are you jealous? But I'm not going to
+tell you. That is just like the novels, isn't it; but what is the use
+of making people angry?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How do you know I should be angry,&quot; he asked coldly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She smiled like a Sphinx might smile. &quot;I'm certain. Come! Perhaps I'll
+tell you when we get to a safe place. There's one close by. My guardian
+wouldn't have it lit up because--he always has the same reason for
+everything, you know, and it <i>is</i> so dull--because something happened
+there long ago. As if it mattered!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she spoke, they had been passing down the marble steps, her silver
+anklets chiming; and now, as they paused an instant on the edge of the
+water-maze, they chimed still. But to a new, curiously provocative
+measure, and her face, her figure, her very voice, changed as if to
+keep time with it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I used to run all over it, in and out, when I was little,&quot; she
+chattered mischievously, &quot;and old Akbar used to run after me and
+tumble in! I could do it now, and you could chase me, if I hadn't all
+this-&quot; she gave a little mutinous kick at her sweeping skirt. Then
+suddenly she laughed. &quot;Poor old Akbar! I'd like him to see me, but I
+don't see how it could be managed. And nobody else must--but you. So
+come--come quick!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She drew him after her by one hand, like a child at play. Across the
+marble plinth, right to the wide arched passage in the lower storey;
+and when, having gained in the race, he would from habit have gone
+straight on towards the courtyard, she pulled him back with a peal of
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not that way, stupid! Here--it's a dear little balcony all by itself
+with steps down to the river and a boat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perfect!&quot; he exclaimed with an answering laugh, as he disappeared
+after her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But in that instant's pause two figures had passed into the other end
+of the long passage from the chapel. Two figures, one of which,
+half-disdainfully, half-regretfully, had been going round the beauties
+of the palace; the other, gambolling sideways by reason of its curbing
+deference its urging servility, engaged in garrulous tales of past
+glory.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea! <i>Ger-eeb-pun-wāz</i>,&quot; it was saying, &quot;Bun-avatār used to meet Anāri
+Begum here. She liked him best in uniform, and she wore--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was then that, framed in the distant archway, seen clear against the
+radiance of the garden, that vision of a laughing girl, a flashing
+uniform appeared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Old Akbar Khān gave a faint mumbling petition to be preserved, and fell
+back, his teeth chattering.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Anār--Anār--herself,&quot; he muttered. &quot;And he--God help us all! Why did
+they light up the garden?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Roshan Khān knew better. His eyes were younger. And he had the
+key--the key of that shimmering silver dress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fool!&quot; he said sharply. &quot;They are no ghosts. 'Twas Dering-<i>sahib</i>
+and--and--&quot; he gave a bitter laugh--&quot;one of his <i>mems</i>. They do such
+things often.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But as he walked on, his hands clenched themselves to the tune of the
+words which sang in his brain, &quot;God smite his soul to hell! God smite
+his soul to hell!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The two great stabilities, Love of God and Love of woman, had joined
+hands, as they always do.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A formidable combination.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_10" href="#div1Ref_10">CHAPTER X</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>THE PIVOTS OF LIFE</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance Carlyon was not, as a rule, given either to loss of spirits or
+temper, yet both were at vanishing-point as he flung off the garb of
+his namesake of the lake; swearing as he did so that he would never
+wear the blessed thing again. It cramped him all over; body and soul.
+And then--for he knew his Tennyson well, as one of his name could
+hardly fail to do--his memory raced swiftly over the love-loyal
+knight's career; until suddenly he laughed at a phrase which had always
+tickled him. &quot;<i>So groaned Sir Lancelot--not knowing he should die a
+holy man</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If he had?--what would have been the result? Would he simply have
+refrained from remorseful pain, or from the honour rooted in dishonour
+which caused it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a mighty stretch of his sound young muscles at the relief, Lance
+caught up his Indian clubs, and went elaborately, conscientiously,
+through his daily series of exercises before putting on his
+dust-coloured shooting-suit, and swathing himself with the necessary
+plentitude of belts, cartridge-boxes, and gaiters. The latter--being,
+after Indian fashion, simply a couple of bandages neatly twined--were,
+as a matter of fact, much tighter than his discarded greaves; but the
+clip of them about his calves was familiarly reminiscent of many a
+day spent out in the jungle alone, or at most with some companion of
+Am-ma's type. A man whose only claim to be called one in these later
+days was his undoubted dominion over the birds of the air, the fish of
+the sea, the beasts of the field. How jolly it had been! And how the
+deuce could a fellow like Vincent Dering--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance, sorting cartridges systematically with an eye to a possible
+snipe, whistled a tune which Vincent was always asked to sing at the
+Smiths', &quot;<i>Sweet is true love--and sweet is Death</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Well, he preferred the Death. So, catching up his gun, he made his way
+to the crypt-like flight of steps which, half way down the straight
+river-edged wall of the Fort--between its northern bastion where the
+stream turned hillwards at a sharp angle, and the southern one beside
+the bathing-steps--led to a tiny landing-stage. Here the canoe, which
+he had hired for such excursions from Ramanund (whose last experience
+of boating had rather sickened him of its pleasures), lay moored.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Keeping the paddle ready for steering, he let the stream, which here
+clung swift and smooth to the wall, take him with it; partly because he
+had no wish to be seen by any revellers in the palace. But the sight of
+the latter made him slip the paddle-blade into the sliding water, and
+send the canoe swerving out for a better view.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was wondrously beautiful, seen from the river, with every line
+and curve of light reflected almost as clear as the reality. The
+sight held his attention, so that he was abreast of the bathing-steps
+ere he remembered his desire for secrecy, and, in his haste, the
+canoe--answering to his swift stroke--almost spun round, bringing him,
+in an instant, within an ace of collision with the hard brick. As it
+was, he heard a faint grating sound.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By Jove! that was a near shave,&quot; he muttered to himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Out of the darkness of the courtyard, for the unilluminated block of
+the palace rose between it and the white radiance, came a voice:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is't thou? Hast brought the tool--we must get the job done ere dawn
+and--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The rest was inaudible as the river slid him on. What were they up to?
+he wondered idly; taking advantage, doubtless, of the absolute
+desertion of the courtyard, the entry to which had been blocked for the
+night, the main entrance to the palace having been prepared for the
+reception of the guests. Were they meddling with the padlock Dering had
+put on the tampion which stopped the muzzle of the old gun? Time to see
+to that in the morning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was now steering his way just on the edge of the shadow cast by the
+wall on the water, and in front of him jutted out a balcony smaller
+than the rest, and nearer the river. Those upper ones, he knew, were
+part of the chapel; but this--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked at it narrowly, wondering if he had ever noticed it before,
+then let the paddle sink idly across the boat, and sat staring at what
+he saw. Dering, of course! But the woman! Who on earth was she? A
+native? Hardly; and yet he did not remember seeing anyone at the ball
+whose dress was in the least like this; even in the dark it glittered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you call that love?&quot; came a voice echoing softly over the water. &quot;I
+don't. When I love, I mean to give, not to take; and the more I give,
+the more I'll have to give; because, you see, love will come back--it
+must.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By all that was incomprehensible, Laila Bonaventura! And, if there was
+any certainty in these shadows, Dering's arm--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Phew! Lance knew his Shakespeare also; had, in fact, a curiously
+ingenuous and human acquaintance with even the exact words of the great
+master. So as he drifted on, leaving those two in the balcony, a line
+drifted with him:--</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0" style="text-indent:23%">&quot;She whom I love now</p>
+<p class="t0">Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.<br>
+The other did not so.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">He felt a righteous relief at the idea, for he was eminently virtuous.
+Poor old Vincent! This was better than the other--he paused
+doubtfully--Well! different people had different tastes. He, for
+instance, had never admired Mrs. Smith. And then Dering, good chap as
+he was, had, everybody knew, a touch of the tar-brush himself. Only a
+touch, still it made a difference; for one had to consider the
+children. For instance, when <i>he</i> married--Why a vision of a child's
+head he had once seen, far away in the north, covered with soft, waving
+curls of sun-bright red-gold hair, chestnut--yes, chestnut hair, the
+very colour of that beast of a pony who boshed him at polo--should have
+come to him at that moment he did not know; but he fled from it,
+bashful as any girl over her first fancy, and, bending forward, sent
+the canoe racing the foam-bubbles on the swifter current with all the
+strength of his young arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was the mission house, ending the long curve of the city. The
+mission house, where <i>she</i> slept--the boat raced harder here--where
+<i>she</i> lived in the thick of it--God bless her! Here the boat slackened,
+partly because the spit was reached, and in the darkness, made visible
+by that soft white radiance behind him, he must not miss Am-ma's hut.
+Am-ma, who had dominion over wild duck, among other things in that
+munificent gift of the Creator to His own image. Am-ma, who must come
+out and show those who had fallen from their high estate through
+civilization how to lure the birds to their death.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;<i>Sweet is true Love though given in vain,<br>
+And sweet is Death which puts an end to pain</i>.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">The refrain came back in this connection, and Lance's voice, as he sang
+it, if not musical, held a hint of something beyond the mere maudlin
+expression-stop of the ordinary song-singer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He need not, he told himself, have feared to overlook Am-ma's wigwam;
+for there, not far from the point of the spit it stood, all lit up;
+circled round closely with a row of little lights like those at the
+palace. Were the primitive folk down here aping their masters and
+having a ball of their own? Smiling at the thought, he ran the canoe on
+shore and walked up to the reed hut. Then he saw that the circle of
+lights was broken by a dark patch. It was Am-ma himself, squatting on
+his heels. To one side of him, firmly fixed in the sand, was a
+freshly-killed crocodile's head, its jaws ingeniously distended by a
+thin cane to which a string was attached. By pulling this the dead
+mouth seemed to open and shut, as the pliant rattan bent under the
+strain and sprang back again. In his other hand he held a bloody spear.
+Despite these fearful preparations, however, the first glimpse of an
+approaching figure set him visibly trembling with fright; until, on its
+coming nearer the lights, he sprang to his feet with a sudden
+blubbering shout of relief.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought--this fool, this atom of dust, thought--the <i>Huzoor</i> was the
+devil!&quot; he explained, capering and chuckling to make much of the joke,
+now that the fear of its being a reality was over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The devil!&quot; echoed Lance. &quot;What the dickens should the devil come here
+for?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma looked half-grave, half-important. Did not the <i>Huzoor</i> know, he
+explained, that when life was coming into the world, all the demons in
+it wanted to get hold of the new-born thing? Hence the lights, hence
+the crocodile's head and the spear; also his own valiance. Hence, also,
+the impossibility of his accompanying the Presence after duck. If he,
+the father of the thing to be born, was not there to fight the demons,
+what hope could there be for the son?--and here this quaint, broad,
+ugly face grew wistful--for it must be a son, surely, this time. No! he
+had no children; the demons had taken them all, every one; though he
+had left nothing undone, though he had sought out one medicine-man
+after another. What did it matter? he asked pathetically, if the charm
+were of one faith or another, if it brought a child. He had tried all.
+His own and everybody else's. But they all died, the children, girls
+and boys; died when they were born. The demon somehow slipped through
+the lights; the charm was not strong enough; that was all. So this
+time, when he had seen that the <i>Huzoors</i> had the <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>, the
+sign of kings, that they were, indeed, light-bringers, as his people
+had been of old, he had sent for the Miss-<i>sahiba</i>, and she had come.
+She was there in the hut, even now, fighting the demons.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance gave a quick catch of his breath, and stood silent. Right over
+the miserable reed hut, clear against the violet of the moonless sky,
+rose those palaces of stars lit up for pleasure. It almost seemed to
+him that the slight breeze, which was beginning to whisper of the dawn,
+held in it the faint rhythm of a distant waltz.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And here, at his feet, was this hut, lit up for pain. He heard that
+also, in a faint moan, which sent a shiver through him; the shiver of
+one who finds himself bare of accustomed covering, out in the open, far
+from any shelter from the cold sky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course you can't come, Am-ma,&quot; he said, moving off. &quot;Well! I hope
+the Miss-<i>sahiba</i> will--will keep the devil away. I--I--expect she
+will!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he floated a little further down stream, vaguely obeying the
+instructions which Am-ma, regretful for all his anxiety, had shouted
+after him, he told himself that if anybody could, she would. If a
+fellow married her, for instance--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He drew the canoe on to the sand-bank, Am-ma had spoken of, somewhat
+sooner than his directions warranted, in order to stifle thought by
+action. And it needed every sense on the alert to tell in the darkness
+if one was keeping a fairly straight path. That scarcely audible &quot;<i>lip,
+lip</i>&quot; on the right meant that the water was close by, running an inch
+or two below a sheer yet crumbling edge of earth. That yielding
+softness on the left meant the ridge of dry sand. His way was between
+the two. Every now and again a watchful quack, a distant flutter, told
+him that the ducks were not far off. And in the east the faintest
+lightening of the purple warned him he was none too soon, since the
+dawn in India comes quickly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But this must be the place; a sort of bunker right at the end of the
+bank. Here, cuddling down almost luxuriously into loose dry sand, still
+warm from yesterday's sun, he waited for that hint of light in the far
+east to grow strong enough for him to see.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is always an experience to sit and wait for daylight, ignorant,
+helpless till it comes, of what lies close at hand. Lance Carlyon,
+crouching in that still warm sand, felt a sudden forlornness, a sense
+of having parted with something.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But, almost on the heels of this, came a sense of having found
+something; of strange, quick, new, yet familiar companionship. It
+seemed to him as he watched that faint grey lightening in the far east,
+that he did so, not as Lance Carlyon, but as an atom in the great,
+round, spinning world whose curved edge grew darker against the coming
+light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laid his gun beside him, and, kneeling in the soft, still warm sand,
+rested his arms on the edge of the bunker, ears and eyes alert as any
+wild creature's. He could hear the soft rustle of feathers in the dark,
+the soft swish of the water as something stirred in it, the soft sob
+with which an inch or two of that tiny, unseen sand-cliff gave way to
+the stream, the softer gurgle, as of laughter, with which the water
+took its toll of earth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, thinking not at all, simply as a sand grain in the sand around him,
+the mystery, the certainty of dawn held him, as it held all things.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The curved line of the world darkened, the shadow of it deepened, as
+the grey of the sky grew tender as the eye of a mother watching her
+child asleep. But only for a space. Then the grey hardened, and a
+trumpet call from a whistling teal told that the great fight of dawn
+had come.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, for another space, the Dark and the Light faced each other, waiting
+for that second trumpet call.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It came, borne on a faint rustle of wind which crept over the edge of
+the world from the footsteps of the coming day. The shiver of it swept
+through the shadows; they broke into battalions to face the foe. So
+into companies, till, as the red spear-points of the sun showed over
+the horizon, they rallied darkly, desperately, behind each hint of
+rising ground, in each hint of sheltering hollow. Rallied in vain, for
+below the spear-points a glittering curve, as of a golden helmet, came
+resistless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Lance Carlyon stood up, hastily, gun in hand. But he was too late.
+The mystery of Dawn had held him helpless, as it had held the birds;
+and now they, too, were freemen of the conquering day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He fired a couple of shots after them, more as a salute to the victor
+than in any hope of slaughter; so, with a laugh, turned homeward.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The canoe shot against the stream gaily, but, as he neared the spit, a
+sudden desire to go home by land assailed him. Am-ma could take the
+boat back; there might be a chance of a snipe, in that low-lying bit
+below the mission house, and--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He blushed, even in solitude, at his own moral turpitude. Why not tell
+the truth; to himself, at least?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He found Am-ma, worn out by his night's anxiety, with his head between
+his knees, fast asleep; leaving the crocodile, at the agony point of an
+unending yawn, in sole charge of the little circle of flickering
+lights. Some of them had gone out, the rest looked trumpery in the
+growing blaze of day. But what matter? Since, half an hour before, Erda
+Shepherd had come out of the wigwam with a living child, wrapped quite
+daintily in an orthodox square of new flannel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is a son, Am-ma, and I think it is very like you,&quot; she had said,
+with a laugh at the wrinkled, wizened old face peering out at its new
+world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Am-ma had grovelled on the ground with tears and cries of
+blubbering joy. He had been right. The <i>Huzoors</i> were kings. They knew
+the <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>. They were the light-bringers, the life-bringers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had never asked after his wife, but when Erda had gone inside again,
+he sat, and in his anxiety to keep the devil from those inside, had
+twitched away at his string so fiercely that the crocodile's head lost
+its ferocity in what appeared to be a fit of laughter, until sleep,
+from sheer relief, overtaking the puller, the laugh had ended in that
+steady yawn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma was on his feet, alert in a second, however, at Lance's touch,
+like a wild beast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis all right, <i>Huzoor</i>&quot; he grinned broadly. &quot;'Tis a son.&quot; Then once
+again the exuberance of his delight made him grovel in the sand at the
+feet of the Master.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the Miss-<i>sahiba?</i> Hath she gone?&quot; asked Lance, blushing once
+more, now that his own self-deception became impossible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nay, she remains inside,&quot; asserted Am-ma. But a look which he gave in
+the hut proved him wrong. She must have gone out the other way while he
+slept, he confessed, sheepishly; but there was nothing wrong. The devil
+had not won a way in; both mother and son were dozing peacefully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance, his hope of walking back with Erda gone, felt inclined to take
+to the canoe again. Then a savage desire to kill something, at least,
+suggested the possibility of a snipe in the little swampy bit below the
+city wall, not far from the mission house; so bidding Am-ma take the
+canoe up at his leisure, he walked off, feeling, for him, in a very bad
+temper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He forgot his quarrel with fate, however, in a second, when, the bit of
+swamp reached, something buzzed up to fall slantwise like a stone;
+something which, on picking it up, he found to be the rare Sabine
+snipe, painted, absolutely beautiful, in its delicate harmony of
+colour. And the luck did not come singly, for from behind a clump of
+tiger-grass came Erda Shepherd, a trifle alarmed at the possibility of
+being shot if she did not show herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance walked up to her, swiftly, the dead bird in his hand. &quot;You must
+be awfully tired, being up all night,&quot; he began--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had a way of rushing things, Erda thought, which was disconcerting
+when one was anxious to keep on the surface. &quot;And you too, Mr.
+Carlyon,&quot; she interrupted; &quot;did you enjoy the ball?&quot; She felt pleased
+at this able evasion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who--I--Oh! dear me, no,&quot; he replied, absently; then he smiled. &quot;I
+say, wasn't Am-ma pleased. He slobbered and blubbered with joy all over
+my boots, and yet--&quot; he paused reflectively, &quot;I don't think a little
+Am-ma could be a very pleasing object.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the life of her she could not help a smile. &quot;It was not,&quot; she
+confessed frankly; &quot;in fact I think it was the ugliest baby I ever saw.
+Poor little thing,&quot; she added in quick self-reproach. &quot;Anyhow it seemed
+beautiful to them--it is the first--the first that has lived, I mean.&quot;
+She pulled up short, wondering what possessed her to be so confidential
+with this strange young man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So Am-ma told me,&quot; said Lance. &quot;He called you the Life-bringer. It is
+a nice name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She fought against the tenderness in his tone. &quot;And you are the
+Death-bringer,&quot; she retorted lightly, pointing to the painted beauty in
+his hand. &quot;So you and I are at opposite poles, Mr. Carlyon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood looking at her for a moment with a smile. &quot;I don't know, Miss
+Shepherd. '<i>Death and Birth are the pivots of the Wheel of Life</i>.' I
+remember reading that, in Sanskrit, when I went up for my higher; for
+I've passed it, you know. I'm really not bad at languages when I try.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the first time she had ever heard him claim credit for anything,
+and the fact touched her more than she cared to own. Touched her so
+closely that she sought instantly for cover.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish I were,&quot; she said, moving on, though, as she had known he
+would, he moved on also. &quot;I'm afraid I shall find it a great trouble
+having to learn a new one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A new one,&quot; he echoed quickly, in response to something in her voice.
+&quot;Are you going to leave Eshwara--soon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She paused for a moment ere replying. &quot;Sooner than I expected, Mr.
+Carlyon; most likely in a day or two. I don't know whether you have
+heard,&quot; she continued, looking him in the face, &quot;but I am engaged to be
+married to my cousin--Dr. Campbell's son--David Campbell. He is a
+missionary--as I am--and--&quot; she hesitated. &quot;He is at home,--or was. We
+did not expect him back for two months, but he has had a good offer of
+a splendid place where there is any amount of work to be done. The
+letter telling us this came yesterday--by the same mail as--as he did.
+He is travelling up country now; and then--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And then?&quot; said Lance, quietly. With his gun over his shoulder, he
+looked what he was, a soldier; and since she began to speak, he had,
+insensibly, pulled himself together and fallen into a disciplined
+ordered tread.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My aunt wants the wedding to be from the mission station in the low
+hills where they go every summer,&quot; went on the girl. She was trying not
+to look at her companion, not out of pity, but from dread of her own
+admiration. &quot;So as David&quot;--she felt better after the semi-appropriation
+of the Christian name--&quot;is in a hurry to start, she thought of going
+there as soon as the camp leaves--in a day or two. So--so--we shall not
+see very much more of each other, Mr. Carlyon; shall we?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave her his first look of reproach, being unable, in his absolutely
+honest humility, to conceive of the vague regret which forced her to
+the useless appeal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I--I hope you will be very happy,&quot; he said, quite simply. &quot;Take care,
+please; that bit is boggier than you think.&quot; For the second time in
+their short acquaintance she felt his hand, not as a friend's, but as a
+helper, a protector. This time the blood left her face pale.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope so, Mr. Carlyon,&quot; she replied, and her hands clasped themselves
+tightly as if to hold some resolve. &quot;It is what I have always hoped
+for, thought of.&quot; Then suddenly she smiled at him almost appealingly.
+&quot;I am a bit of a soldier too, you know--I love the fighting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are in the thick of it here, anyhow,&quot; he interrupted, pausing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had climbed by a flight of steps through the city wall into the
+small courtyard on which the mission house, which had once been an
+outpost of the Fort, opened on its inner side. The outer, with its wide
+overhanging verandah, forming part of the actual city wall. But the
+remainder of the courtyard was set round by a perfect congeries of
+small temples, each rearing its upright stone spire--the stone of Baal
+worship--about the central tank which occupied the middle of the
+square. It was quite a small tank, and absolutely dry; so that you
+could see the four or five worn stone steps which led down to the patch
+of earth, not six feet square, at the bottom. A dozen or more children,
+boys and girls of the streets, were playing a sort of hop-scotch on
+these steps, and as Lance looked, one of them slipped and fell into
+that patch of earth. In a second the others had quitted their game, and
+fallen pell-mell, too, struggling, kicking, shouting, screaming with
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it a game?&quot; he asked, looking at his companion, amused.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes!&quot; she said, suddenly, her face stern as he had seen it that first
+time he met her. &quot;It is the game of Life and Death! That is the 'Pool
+of Immortality,' Mr. Carlyon! The pilgrims come here to bathe--there
+must be a secret siphon somewhere, for the water only comes when it is
+wanted. Three years ago the barriers put up to prevent accidents gave
+way--it was no one's fault. The crowd got in--a man slipped--and--and
+when the police managed to clear the crush--the--the tank was full up
+with dead bodies! The children <i>play</i> at it now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But they had spied more amusement, and in another second were hanging
+round Erda's skirts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sing to us, Miss-<i>sahiba</i>,--sing to us before you go in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked apologetically at Lance. &quot;I generally do,&quot; she began.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He raised his cap, almost obediently, with a brief &quot;Certainly,&quot; and
+passed on; but as he left the court on his way to the Fort, the first
+note of her voice made him turn, for a second, to look.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was seated on the top step of the tank, the children grouped
+inquisitively round her, and she held her head high-almost defiantly.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;<i>The Son of God goes forth to war</i>,<br>
+<i>Who follows in His train?</i>&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">The words were distinctly audible, following him as he passed on, the
+gun on his shoulder, the dead bird in his hand, and something between
+blessing and cursing in his heart. But above and through all, he seemed
+to hear a never-ceasing voice that said, &quot;<i>The pivots of Life are Birth
+and Death. Death and Birth</i>.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_11" href="#div1Ref_11">CHAPTER XI</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Half a minute, Dillon!&quot; said the Commissioner abruptly, as the doctor,
+ushered in by a scarlet-sin-stain of an orderly, entered the tent where
+the former was working. &quot;I must attend to these gentlemen first.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">These gentlemen were Dya Ram, Ramanund, and a third very different sort
+of person, obtrusively Hindoo in face, figure, attire.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Commissioner's manner, as he returned to the business in hand,
+changed from careless familiarity to an elaborate courtesy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I quite understand, <i>pundit-sahib</i>,&quot; he said in English to Ramanund,
+&quot;that you are, as you say, actuated by no personal motive. A man of
+your attainments and culture can scarcely feel a keen interest in
+<i>jogi</i> Gorakh-nāth's--that is the name, I think--domicile in a gun
+barrel!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sarcasm was lost on the hearer, who smiled, satisfied. &quot;Quite so,
+sir,&quot; he replied. &quot;It is merely, as my friend Dya Ram postulates, a
+question as to the legality--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Commissioner interrupted him suavely. &quot;In that case it is a matter
+for the courts, surely.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Unless your Honour should, as magistrate, act under Section 418
+providing for emergencies,&quot; began Dya Ram; whereat the official sat
+back in his chair resignedly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course,&quot; he answered, his brogue running riot, as it always did,
+when he was contemptuous, &quot;I have that power. But do ye really think,
+sir, that this present matter is of such paramount importance to the
+stability of the British Empire, that I should be justified in running
+counter to the ordinary course of law and justice?&quot; Here the futility
+of his own sarcasm seemed to come home to him. He paused to consult a
+file, and when he looked up again, he spoke in Hindustani--evidently
+for the benefit of the third party. &quot;There is no record whatever,&quot; he
+said briefly, &quot;of any previous claim to the gun. It has been
+worshipped, of course; but that is a different matter. The military
+power has no intention of interfering with this habit. I may add that a
+counter petition, praying me not to allow appeal on the ground that
+this <i>jogi</i> is a man of ill fame, and a public nuisance, has been filed
+by the <i>mohunt</i> (guardian of shrines) at the Pool of Immortality.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The obtrusively Hindoo figure which had remained standing, though his
+companions were seated, here folded his hands as if in prayer, leant
+forward, and began garrulously:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Huzoor</i> it is malice--malice of hereditary nature. They hope to gain
+money--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Exactly, <i>Mohunt-jee</i>; your money! if the pilgrims haven't the
+attraction of a live man in a gun close to your shrine your trade will
+suffer,&quot; interrupted the Commissioner, with brutal truth. &quot;I am afraid
+I can do nothing. Of course,&quot; he continued, reverting to English, &quot;if
+you bring a suit to claim prescriptive right, you may,&quot; here his
+patience gave way finally, &quot;but God bless my soul, gentlemen! Surely
+men like you have something better to do than bolster up your
+countrymen in a preposterous business like this!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon me, sir,&quot; protested Dya Ram, litigiously, &quot;but if it is
+prescriptive right, vested in citizens, then--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then, sir!&quot; interrupted the stern, high voice, &quot;the British Empire
+will have no choice but to allow <i>jogi</i> Gorakh-nāth to be a
+son-of-a-gun till the day of his death! So good-morning to you;
+unless--&quot; here the suavity returned in full force--&quot;there is any other
+subject you wish to bring forward.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was not, apparently; and as the trio were ushered out, the
+Commissioner sat still further back in his chair, tilting it with his
+feet against the table, and ran his fingers through his hair in an
+exasperated fashion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Pon my soul, it's inconceivable,&quot; he said; then, reaching forward,
+took up a newspaper that was lying on the table, and began to read.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>If we are asked what we, the educated natives of India, claim, we
+reply boldly, all things that Englishmen of equal culture possess by
+right of birth. We refuse flatly to be lumped in with the crass
+ignorance of our fellow-countrymen who have, alas! not yet risen to a
+pitch of desiring that liberty of which John Stuart Mill speaks in such
+glowing terms in his valuable pamphlet</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hark to that, now!&quot; he commented, flinging the paper back. &quot;That's Mr.
+Dya Ram's last, and it goes on, as per usual, to abuse. They asked me
+to put a name to it, and I've just been telling the confidential
+department that, barring a horrible misuse of synonym, there's no
+sedition, no harm in it whatever! And there isn't, Dillon. The
+son-of-a-gun business is ten times as dangerous. Dering's within his
+rights, but I wish to blazes he'd left the brute alone; or he might
+have put a blank cartridge in and fired a salute by mistake when
+Gorakh-nāth was inside! But ye can't keep the military in subjection.
+The department's aimin' at a fight, and small blame to it! I'm spoiling
+for one myself this instant moment; so come along, doctor, an' let me
+hear what your criminals have to say. There's a pretty sheaf of
+complaints for ye, ye hard-hearted murderin' slave driver!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took up a bulky file of papers as he spoke, and passed them to an
+orderly in exchange for his hat, which the man held ready.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes! it's pretty good,&quot; assented the doctor, placidly, as, keeping
+step, the two passed out of the tent, so down the palm avenue towards
+the gaol, which the Commissioner was going to inspect. &quot;It comes of
+their being idle. Wait till I get them digging again. I'll work the
+mischief out of them. When are we going on; and where?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His companion shook his head. &quot;Can't get an answer out of the Public
+Works. Is there anything you would like done, meanwhile?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon laughed sardonically. &quot;Pretty considerable, rather! Only it
+would take months to get sanction. But, if you pass it, Smith says he
+could put a wire on from the Fort easily in a day. It would save
+sending by road if there was trouble, and the great thing is to hit
+back as quick as you can. The mutiny taught us that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay,&quot; said the Commissioner, musingly, &quot;that's the straight tip; and
+that's why steam and electricity rule India. One can be ready without
+letting people know. If that had been the case in the mutiny--&quot; he
+shrugged his shoulders, then went on--&quot;these things come so easily; a
+touch starts them; but you mustn't show that you know it. Still, if you
+thought there would be any difficulty--I mean if you mightn't be able
+to hold your own till they came from the Fort--we might make some
+excuse for quartering a troop closer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon shook his head. &quot;It isn't worth it. I believe myself they'll
+settle down when that big brute, Gopi, I told you about, gets his
+ticket to-morrow. If I didn't want to get rid of him I'd put him in
+cells for six weeks. And there's a warder, too,--or perhaps more. But
+there's no fear. I could hold the whole 'biz' myself, till the brutes
+managed to get off their leg irons, and as I keep every tool <i>extra
+mural</i>, I don't believe there's a bit of iron within the walls--except
+the shackles themselves. So I should have an hour or two, anyhow--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, here you are,&quot; he continued, with pardonable pride, as they
+passed under the mud archway which led into the gaol; a long archway
+with a massive door at either end, tunnelling a square block of
+flat-roofed building. &quot;You'll find everything spick and span, I can
+tell you, for I've been making the beggars polish their own leg irons,
+so as to keep 'em a bit busy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was, indeed, spick and span, as only an Indian gaol can be, where
+everything, including the prisoners' beds, is freshly mud-plastered
+every week. Spick and span in a mere monotony of mud and lack of
+colour. The prisoners, fifteen hundred of them or more, stood in four
+long, straight rows, naked save for their waistcloths and the eared
+caps on their shaven heads; their blankets, folded to a small square
+under their feet, giving them a strangely wooden appearance, as if they
+stood on stands, like the figures in Noah's ark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A couple of policemen fell out and drew their truncheons to walk close
+behind the Commissioner; but Dr. Dillon waved his pair back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never show you expect anything,&quot; he said laconically, &quot;and as I've
+always refused a guard, I can't take one now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nor was there any apparent need for one. Some faces scowled at him, but
+most were occupied with the Commissioner, who, when a prisoner raised
+his hand, paused to take the written petition which, nine times out of
+ten, was ready for presentation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There must be a good many warders in it,&quot; remarked the Commissioner,
+dryly. And the doctor nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now there's only the hospital,&quot; said the latter, when the solitary
+cells had been inspected, the cook room interviewed, and the dinner to
+come tasted. &quot;It won't take you long. There was only one case in this
+morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But as they entered the long open ward, like a cloister, mud-plastered
+as all else, but with iron beds looking strangely at variance with
+their surroundings, two of these were occupied, and at one, a hospital
+dresser was standing, looking somewhat scared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon gave a hasty exclamation as he stepped up to the bed and
+looked at the sick man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When did he come in?&quot; he asked briefly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ten minutes ago, <i>Huzoor</i>; the <i>baboo</i> hath given him--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never mind what he hath given him,&quot; interrupted the doctor, holding up
+his hand in warning, &quot;go on with it, and tell the <i>baboo-sahib</i> to
+come to me for orders--at once. Now then, sir, that's all--and a bit
+too much too--&quot; he added in a lower voice, as they passed out together,
+&quot;for it's a case of cholera.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Commissioner looked grave. &quot;That will complicate matters, won't
+it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can't say. You never can tell. They may take it as a dispensation, or
+there may never be another case. That fellow's done for, anyhow--he'll
+be dead in an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's quick, isn't it?&quot; asked his companion, calmly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Rather. I've seen a man go out in ten minutes, though. The worst of it
+is,&quot; he added, with a frown, &quot;if there really is some conspiracy at the
+bottom of the discontent, it is as likely as not the devils who are
+working it, may take advantage of this--I don't mean of this
+death--<i>that</i> goes without saying. But when cholera is about, poison is
+hard to detect, and even if I stamp out the <i>disease</i>, which I mean to
+do, they may simulate it.&quot; He bit at his thumbnail viciously as he
+strode on, thinking and muttering. &quot;By God!&quot; he murmured, &quot;if I could
+catch 'em at it! However,&quot; he added aloud, &quot;it's no good fussing. If
+the thing comes, it comes, and I've kept you here too long as it is,
+sir. Do you know it's close on half-past ten?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Be jabers!&quot; exclaimed the Commissioner, &quot;only twenty minutes to bathe,
+shave, breakfast, and put on me gold lace continuations. Well, ta, ta!
+I'll see you at the show, of course.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon looked puzzled for an instant; the puzzledom of a man whose
+thoughts are recalled from afar. &quot;The show? Oh, yes! I was forgetting.
+Rather, sir. Why! it is as much my canal as Smith's, for we've done
+every inch of it together; besides, I have got to drive his wife down.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where the deuce is Dering?&quot; asked the Commissioner, quite ingenuously;
+but George Dillon flushed up. It was visible even under his
+leather-like tan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I really can't say, sir; otherwise engaged, I presume.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His elder turned to him, surprised, yet with instant apology. &quot;I'm
+sorry; I shouldn't have said it; but I really meant nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon gave a dry, sardonic laugh. &quot;Oh! it is all right, sir. I
+quite believe you didn't. Nobody does mean anything in that sort of
+connection. It's left for the doctors to face facts as they are really;
+and then you call us brutal.&quot; He turned back, as he spoke, to the
+hospital.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Half an hour afterwards, however, having in the interim provided for
+every contingency he could foresee, including the bare possibility of
+his carrying infection, he appeared in Mrs. Smith's drawing-room,
+looking--for him--quite smart and spruce; since, as he had said, this
+end to three years' work was an event in his life also.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He found her, dressed in her daintiest, in a rocking-chair; and as he
+entered, his quick trained ear took in the petulance of the recurring
+push of one daintily shod foot. The room was darkened, and full of the
+scent of flowers. It was a familiar room to him, yet he never entered
+it without a glad recognition of the extreme feminine refinement shown
+in its every detail; for its mistress was one of those women whose
+fragility comes less from physical delicacy than from sensitiveness of
+mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was leaning back in her chair listlessly; yet the white ringed
+hands which clasped the fair curls on her forehead showed an almost
+passionate strain of muscle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I believe you'll have to go without me,&quot; she said, as he approached,
+&quot;I've such a racking headache. I don't believe I can face it--I'm sure
+I can't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He passed on to her side, and laid his hand on one of hers for an
+instant, while his quick eye took in the details around him. A note had
+slipped from her lap to the floor. It lay face up, and the words &quot;Dear
+Mrs. Smith, so sorry--&quot; showed in Vincent Dering's writing. So, not
+content with the message of excuse sent her by the offender through
+him, she must have written! That was a dangerous development of the
+situation. He stood looking down at her indulgently, as he might on a
+fractious child who did not understand. And she did not--poor soul!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You're nervous,&quot; he said. &quot;Let me give you half a whiskey-and-soda
+before we start. It'll make you all right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nervous!&quot; she echoed irritably, her foot setting her chair a-swing to
+match her tone. &quot;I'm never nervous--you know that is not one of my
+failings--is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he replied, &quot;but you are a bundle of nerves for all that. You
+wouldn't be the woman you are if you weren't. And you are nervous at
+this moment. Nervous, despondent, out of heart. Come! make an effort!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave a petulant little giggle of impatience. &quot;You speak as if I
+were a Mrs. Dombey; but I'm not that sort. Besides, it killed her. I am
+not coming. It doesn't really matter, you know; nobody will miss me--it
+will be all right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George Dillon, watching her, felt sorry, for once, at the correctness
+of his own diagnosis. He knew her so well that it seemed imperative to
+give her a hint of the reality. The danger of a final <i>éclaircissement</i>
+with Captain Dering seemed imminent, and the shock of it might lead to
+anything, if the knowledge of her own weakness came to her in the
+presence of the man she had cheated herself into calling a friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your husband would. It is a great day for him,&quot; he said, laying his
+dexterous surgeon's hand full on the raw. As he expected, the answer
+came passionately, and gave him an opening.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He! O, he is quite happy as it is! He wouldn't miss me a bit. Why
+should he? I am not complaining, mind you--but why should he? He has
+interests enough without me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon deliberately sought for the nearest chair, drew it close,
+and sat down beside his patient in professional fashion, his eyes on
+her face, his hands on his knees.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear lady,&quot; he said, &quot;don't talk--excuse me--rubbish. Try and
+remember what women are always forgetting--that they <i>are</i> women, and
+that, while Eve swallowed her portion of the fatal apple, his
+stuck--thank God for it!--in Adam's throat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She ceased her rocking, to sit and stare at him with a growing
+resentment, which belied the words that came at last, almost sullenly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't understand what you mean in the very least. What has Eve's
+apple to do with--my headache?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A very great deal,&quot; he answered coolly, &quot;and with more than your
+headache, which, by the way, is only a symptom, not a cause. The real
+evil is--is something different. If you do not understand--though I
+think you do a little--&quot; she shook her head--&quot;I can only repeat my
+advice about the whiskey-and-soda; for I cannot explain to you crudely
+what I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She interrupted him angrily. &quot;You have no right to hint at things you
+dare not say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her very indignation betrayed her, and he smiled kindly. &quot;Perhaps not,&quot;
+he said. Then he paused, hesitated, finally leant nearer, with a look
+of resolve in his queer, intelligent face. &quot;But I will tell you what I
+can do. I can sacrifice my self-respect and tell you a bit of my
+personal history which I never meant you to know, but which may help to
+cure--your headache.&quot; His voice, usually so dry, had a softness in it,
+though he went on without the faintest emotion. &quot;Mrs. Smith, I have
+done myself the honour for nearly three years, of considering you as
+near perfection as a woman can he. Allow me to finish, please! I have
+done more. I have been, as the phrase runs, in love with my ideal of
+perfection; but I think you will admit that I have never allowed my
+feelings to give you, myself, or anyone else a--shall we say, a nervous
+headache? Now, after that, don't you think we had better start?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rose in quite a matter-of-fact way, took up his hat, and waited for
+her answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had to wait some time, while the petulance of her renewed rocking
+ceased gradually in a determined rhythm, and he felt his courage going
+down to his boots. It was heroic treatment, but she was a healthy
+subject, and her anger would pass. Anything was better than letting her
+perfection suffer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The even creak of the rocker ended at last, and she rose, as he had
+risen, calmly, and faced him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I quite understand now what you meant, Dr. Dillon,&quot; she said
+freezingly, &quot;and why you did not care to explain. I shall, of course,
+never be able to forgive you for daring to dream such a thing possible,
+but--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But,&quot; he interrupted, without a quiver, &quot;you will take that half
+whiskey-and-soda. Here! <i>qui-hi! Whiskey sharāb belātee pani la'o
+juldi; mem-sahiba jata hai</i>. (Bring whiskey-and-soda; the <i>mem</i> is
+going.)&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Perhaps the command of that assertion helped her to a decision. At any
+rate she did not countermand it, but spent the rather awkward pause
+which inevitably ensued in a perfect field-day of her hat-pins among
+her curls and veil. Whereat George Dillon, despite a certain bruised
+feeling, smiled, telling himself she was a true woman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nevertheless when, as she was stepping into the dogcart, his friendly
+help came necessarily to the fore again, she reverted to her dignified
+resentment. &quot;I ought,&quot; she said stiffly, &quot;to have thanked you for--for
+your good opinion of me, and your evident desire to be kind. I do so
+now. But I fear it will be quite impossible for me to forget or forgive
+the delusion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is quite a minor matter,&quot; he put in, gleefully. &quot;Now, cheer up,
+Bacilla, you brute, or we shall be late,&quot; Bacilla being his term of
+abuse for a pony which required a little stick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were only just in time, no more. Five minutes after they had
+joined the company gathered on the red-brick masonry of the canal head,
+under a canopy of waving garlands and gay bunting, with that inevitable
+British flag as the centre of all, the small man with the big star on
+his breast took a step forward, raised a handle, and, as the first
+drops of water trickled through a sluice, declared, in a violent Scotch
+accent, &quot;that the Victoria-Kaiser-i-Hind&quot; canal was open. So, keeping
+time as it were, slowly, majestically, to those (also inevitable)
+strains of &quot;God save the Queen,&quot; the outer floodgates swung back,
+allowing the river to have permanent possession during good behaviour,
+of the walled basin between them and the inner ones. Thus, slowly, with
+a gurgling of water seeking its level, the surface rose till the
+half-open sluices in the second gates were reached, and a thin curve
+tipped over to fall with a splash, and send a tiny scout of a stream to
+find out what this new straight road might mean. Only a tiny scout,
+since the earthworks beyond had to be accustomed by degrees to their
+new tenant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still the new way was open, and the current of the river hesitated in
+the old one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bravo, Smith!&quot; cried George Dillon, coming round, when the cheering
+and general congratulations were over, to slap his colleague on the
+back, metaphorically and actually. &quot;We've done that; and now perhaps,
+old man, you'll have time for other things.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; assented the tall, gaunt man, dreamily; &quot;now I shall have time
+to settle that point about the searchlight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Search-light. There's been a correspondence in the <i>Engineer</i> about
+it; and as I've all the electric plant here, lying useless, now the
+show's over,--until it's wanted for something else, of course,--I am
+going to see if I can't overcome their difficulty in concentrating all
+the power on a sufficiently narrow area. I believe I know how to do
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George Dillon looked at him with fierce, humorous exasperation.
+&quot;Believe!&quot; he echoed. &quot;I know you can! You are the most intolerably
+circumscribed, self-concentrated, narrow-minded machine of a man I ever
+came across. Heaven help you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he drove Mrs. Smith home again, it was his turn to sit mumchance
+until, womanlike, she relented faintly, and, exaggerating her own
+powers, trusted she had not been, <i>etc</i>., though of course, <i>etc</i>.--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not in the least, thank you,&quot; he replied. &quot;I was only meditating if I
+should tell you that I think Eugene has softening of the brain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Softening of the brain!&quot; she echoed, horrified. &quot;Oh, doctor, do you
+think it's that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, it isn't softening of the heart, anyhow,&quot; he said grimly. &quot;But
+I'm not joking. If someone doesn't get a hold on some portion of that
+man--I don't care what it is--heart, brain, stomach, anything--and
+prevent him from killing himself with work, India will lose her best
+engineer. What he wants is someone to--to give him a nervous headache!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We will leave that subject alone, please,&quot; she said loftily; but when
+her husband joined them in the verandah, she went over ostentatiously
+to him and pinned a carnation in his buttonhole, hoping he would like
+it better than the rose she gave him the day before, which--this was in
+a louder tone for the doctor's benefit--he had forgotten to put in!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did I, my dear?&quot; replied her spouse. &quot;Oh, yes! I remember you put it
+in my minim glass because I was working in my shirt-sleeves. Then I
+wanted the glass. So it got withered and the head snapped off.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon laughed--his usual dry laugh. &quot;That is one of the many
+tragedies which come from the delusion all women have that flowers
+can't be out of place.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_12" href="#div1Ref_12">CHAPTER XII</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>THE CHURCH MILITANT</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">When Roshan Khān had joined those two great stabilities, Faith and
+Love, into one passionate desire for Vincent Dering's damnation, he had
+meant to follow the English etiquette on such occasions, and keep his
+aspiration to himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it had been impossible for him instantly to rejoin the society in
+which he found himself; that is, a society which shared that
+fundamental crime--which more even than any definite jealousy had
+roused his anger against Captain Dering--of being alien to his creed,
+his customs, his code of conduct towards women. So he had wandered off
+into the garden again, shadowed by old Akbar's incredulity, curiosity,
+and sympathy; until, partly from sheer impatience, but mostly from
+sheer inherited habit of employing such as Akbar Khān in anything
+approaching an intrigue, he had made a clean breast of the situation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even the latter, however, had, as it were, shied at the extreme novelty
+of the idea when it was first mooted; but, by degrees, its vast
+possibilities of advantage to faithful old retainers overpowered his
+abject terror at the bare idea of Father Narāyan suspecting such a
+thing. The old master, he told himself, was old, indeed! God only knew
+if he would last a year or a day; therefore it would be well to ensure
+the favour of the new mistress. And there could be no harm in sounding
+her as to what course that favour would follow. One could never tell
+with a woman; and his wicked, experienced old eyes had caught many a
+hint of Anāri Begum in Laila's childhood. Perhaps she had changed since
+she went to Calcutta. He could but try.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So when, on the morning after the ball, Laila, in obedience to her
+pious resolve to do nothing really wrong, had bidden him--with
+threats of vengeance if he betrayed the fact of their having come at
+all--remove and return certain trays of clothes and jewels which had
+been smuggled by someone into her room, he had fallen at her feet,
+confessed falsely that he was the offender, and besought her not to
+impose so unmerited a disgrace on his employer, who had been actuated
+by the ordinary rules of native etiquette which prescribed some
+recognition of his cousin, the head of his family.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Naturally enough, this brought the girl's curiosity, long restless, to
+his aid; and she sat listening to the many things he had to tell her,
+with that faintly mysterious smile of hers. And as she listened, she
+watched a pigeon, all jewelled about its bosom in rainbow hues, and
+with a dainty little pair of silver jingles about its jasper feet,
+which was coquetting and pirouetting to attract the attention of its
+neighbours on the wide marble sill of her latticed window. For Laila
+had a room in the upper storey all painted, carved, and set with little
+balconies, which was worthy of any king's favourite. And Father Ninian,
+mindful lingeringly of the fine ladies' boudoirs of his youth in Rome,
+had filled it, against her return from school, with all the prettiest
+spoils of the palace. Sčvres vases, rare old cabinets, quaint carved
+tables which had been brought thither for the dead Nawabs; treasures
+that were also, inevitably, of the king's-favourite type,--therefore
+unlike the owner of the room, as she sat in her white muslin frock,
+heavy-eyed, almost sallow, from the last night's dissipation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So she--my grandmother, you say--was a dancing-girl--a real
+dancing-girl?&quot; Even her surprise and curiosity were listless. Yet the
+next moment, while Akbar was protesting the superiority of Anāri Begum
+over all the dancing-girls of his vast experience, she had burst into a
+sudden laugh, uncovered one of the trays with kicks which sent first
+one, then the other of her bronze slippers flying, seized on a pair of
+silver anklets, and there she was centring a Persian rug spread on the
+marble floor as if she had been born to it. Coquetting, pirouetting,
+with a challenging clash, a half-impudent jerk of the jingles, for all
+the world like the pigeon on the window-sill.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Like something else also; so that old Akbar felt a shiver run through
+him, lest, after all, his first impression should prove right, and this
+be no more than a <i>simulacrum</i>,--a ghost, a changeling, come to possess
+the usually indifferent lazy Miss-<i>baba</i>. Yet when, all of a sudden,
+she raised her white muslin skirt high in both hands and began to sing,
+at the top of her voice, the wicked little love song which Vincent
+Dering had sung the first day she met him, old Akbar's dread turned to
+sheer wonder. This was not a ghost, but a devil; reckless,
+unrestrained, with a fling of white arms, a kick of white feet, all
+held to rhythm by the outrageous frivolity of the song, until, with
+that last staccato note, she threw herself in a chair, breathless,
+gurgling with laughter and sheer mischief.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! Akbar,&quot; she gasped, &quot;my grandmother never danced like that, did
+she? I don't believe she was my grandmother! I believe you are telling
+stories!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Akbar looked wise, and thrust out his folded hands in cringing protest.
+&quot;The most noble says true, Anāri Begum never danced thus. But there is
+the grandfather, Bun-avātar-<i>sahib bahadur</i>, to be accounted for also.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Laila frowned. The reminder brought back the other side of the story,
+to which she had listened so often from her guardian's lips, while her
+pretended indifference masked a real pride. Of her grandfather's
+gallantry, his good looks, his love of adventure. And of someone else,
+also, who had always had a secret attraction for the girl. That most
+beautiful woman in Rome, the companion of princes, the divine singer,
+the best, the dearest--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Laila's laughter failed her; she rose, and going over to the window
+looked out absently, startling the pigeon into flight. The sun turned
+its breast purple, and green, and gold, as it fluttered down to renew
+its pirouetting on a cupola below, just above the river. And below that
+again was the roof of the balcony where she had sat with Vincent. The
+girl's eyes grew soft. She understood now. That best, that dearest,
+that most beautiful, must have loved her guardian. That was the secret
+of his remembrance. How could one ever forget that one had sat in a
+balcony hand in hand? So content, yet saying so little--only feeling.
+But <i>he</i> had said some things. He had said she was beautiful, that
+she ought always to wear that dress, and she had told him she could
+not,--that she <i>must</i> send it back--that he <i>must</i> learn to like her
+as
+much in her ordinary clothes--that he would never see her in that dress
+again. But, after all, why not--if--?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turned suddenly to the go-between. &quot;There is no need to take them
+back to-day,&quot; she said, sharply; &quot;but thou canst tell the person who
+sent them--he who claims cousinship--that I will not keep them, that I
+know nothing of them; that he must send and <i>take</i> them away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Akbar, with an inward determination to do nothing so palpably foolish,
+salaamed down to the ground. The Presence, he said, in doing this
+showed her dignity; it was undoubtedly the right course to pursue. But,
+in the mean time, would the Begum-<i>sahiba</i>--she must excuse a tongue
+which could not always bear with the paltry present, which remembered
+the facts of the past, the possibilities of the future--not temper her
+noble severity with the usual courtly favour? Her cousin's grandmother,
+a most virtuous princess, sister to the late Nawab, was still alive.
+Her memory of Bun-avatār-<i>sahib</i> was still so green that doubtless she
+would be able to tell the Begum-<i>sahiba</i> many things of which a mere
+mean slave could not be cognizant. And this most virtuous, most
+interesting one, had long been anxious to return a visit which
+the Begum-<i>sahiba</i> had graciously paid her, in company with a
+<i>missen</i>-miss--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What! That funny old fat woman!&quot; interrupted Laila, with a laugh.
+&quot;That dirty old thing? I remember, she <i>did</i> claim to be a relation of
+the Nawab's. And when I asked her why she wore such dirty clothes she
+was angry, and said she had beautiful ones all tied up in bundles! I
+don't believe she had, though--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The dress the Begum-<i>sahiba</i> wore last night is one of them,&quot;
+interrupted Akbar, quietly; &quot;it belonged to Anāri Begum, <i>Huzoor</i>, and
+there are plenty more like it. And all are really the <i>Huzoor's</i>; no
+one else's.&quot; Laila looked down on the trays with a new interest. &quot;Did
+it really belong to--to <i>her?</i>&quot; she asked; &quot;and the jewels also?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The jewels also. There are plenty of them. And if Anāri Begum was
+really the Begum-<i>sahiba's</i> grandmother, then the jewels are hers by
+right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She can come if she wishes,&quot; interrupted Laila, impatiently. &quot;I see
+thy craft, Akbar, but I care not for that. Yet it will be fun to
+receive her as--as a Begum. And no harm either, since the <i>missen</i>
+ladies receive her, I know, and her like--when they will come! It will
+be at night, of course, to ensure her privacy, so Pidar Narāyan need
+know nothing. Only&quot;--she paused, a change swept over her face, leaving
+it dimpled, cunning, full of mischief and cajolery. &quot;I do naught for
+naught! If I please thee, thou must please me! If thou art their
+messenger, thou must be mine also; or I tell Pidar Narāyan!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Akbar-<i>khān's</i> wicked old eyes positively leered approval; he waggled
+his head and chuckled. Wherefore not? Was there a better, more careful
+messenger in the world than he, or one more capable of deft arrangings?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I want none,&quot; she put in with a quick distaste, a shrinking from his
+manner. &quot;'Tis but to take a note to Dering-<i>sahib</i>; he must know
+somewhat before he comes with the other <i>sahib logue</i> this afternoon.
+There is no arrangement needed, no fuss.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How could there be, she asked herself, as, after the old sinner had
+gone off, charmed at this renewal of a once familiar occupation, she
+sat on the window-sill looking down on the roof of the balcony where
+she had been so content. For what could be simpler than to make it
+quite clear that you were real, that you did not pretend, that you were
+not even afraid? That, briefly, you were not like Mrs. Smith, who took
+so much--one could not help seeing that!--and gave so little--one could
+not help seeing that, also! For what was a &quot;Thanks! many, Captain
+Dering,&quot; in return for all the trouble he lavished on her?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it came to pass that when Vincent Dering went to the palace that
+afternoon, some words were haunting heart and brain, as Juliet's words
+must have haunted Romeo's. No more; no less. But they slid into and
+filled up the blanks between some words of his own which he had spoken
+carelessly, not five minutes before he had first seen Laila, and which
+came back to his memory unbidden. &quot;It isn't altogether despicable to
+let yourself loose in Paradise without an <i>arričre pensée</i> of flaming
+swords, especially if you can give pleasure to someone else thereby!
+One could play Romeo and Juliet in this garden nicely.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Well, he had played it for an hour or two, swept off his feet by
+chance. Whether he would continue to play it was unsettled till her
+note came. That ended his vague reluctance, and he went over to the
+palace, eager as any lover could be for the interview she suggested in
+&quot;<i>the old place when it grows dusk, and the people will mostly have
+gone</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For those of the camp who were bound to follow the Viceroy's whim of
+riding by the old road--the pilgrims' road--while the big camp went
+round by the longer, easier route, had promised to look in on the
+palace on their way past it, for a cup of tea, a good-by. Since
+already, the functions over, the dream-city had begun to melt away; the
+Hosts of the Lord-<i>sahib</i> were passing on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Glory be!&quot; said the Commissioner with heart-felt gratitude, &quot;we've
+done our worst and leave you to take the consequences. That's sound
+policy. Anyhow, we are ahead of everybody on the road to heaven, and
+the pilgrims will have to swallow the dust of our feet! I wonder how
+they'll like it.&quot; He was in wild spirits, like a schoolboy escaped from
+school; yet as he paused to shake hands with Dr. Dillon, he said aside,
+&quot;Any more cases?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Two,&quot; said the doctor, laconically, &quot;both dead. It is a bad type.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His hearer's face was unmovable as he turned to Mrs. Smith, who stood
+close by. &quot;Good-by, my dear lady,&quot; he said cheerfully, &quot;remember me
+house is yours if you, or the child, want it. Doctor, couldn't you
+conscientiously recommend change of air to the hills? Couldn't ye swear
+the close proximity to an open canal and a gaol is unwholesome? If ye
+could, you'd oblige a grass-widower, whose wife is at Baden-Baden--or
+is it Marienbad?--living prodigally, while he has to fill himself with
+husks which no self-respecting swine would eat. Faith, me dear madam,
+I'd bless you if you'd come and kill the cook. It's a woman's work; not
+a man's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon, with a quick look, backed him up instantly. &quot;Certainly. I
+told Mrs. Smith a long time ago that she and Gladys had had enough of
+Eshwara. Indeed, as her doctor, she would be doing me a personal favour
+if--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Muriel Smith swept round on him sharply. She was looking her very best,
+in her very best gown; white, mystic, wonderful, with a faint gleam of
+silver embroidery about waist and hem. And she had been obtrusively,
+unnecessarily friendly with Vincent Dering all the afternoon; even now
+she was standing with him attached to her apron-strings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't think nervous headaches are dangerous,&quot; she said, eying Dr.
+Dillon coolly. &quot;But thanks all the same. I should love to kill
+somebody; even a cook. Perhaps I may, by and by, when <i>all</i> the nice
+people leave. I'm so sorry <i>you're</i> going, but we are still to be quite
+gay, aren't we, Captain Dering? And that reminds me we have to settle
+when that riding party is to come off. Good-by--good-by!&quot; She waved her
+hand to the departing Commissioner, and carried Vincent Dering off,
+with a defiant look at the doctor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He, knowing her, smiled indulgently; but Father Ninian, who had come
+down to see his guest off, looked after her with a wistful pain in his
+kind old face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is a mistake,&quot; he said briefly; then the wistfulness grew into a
+puzzled look, and he added, half to himself, &quot;It need not be, surely;
+there is something wrong. I can't understand--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon, catching the end of the remark, gave a cynical laugh and
+turned on his heel. &quot;No one does,&quot; he said as he went off. He would not
+discuss her even with dear old Pidar Narāyan. For the rest, though he
+was keen to get back to his jail, he would wait till she tired of her
+game, and then drive her home himself to her idiot of a husband, who
+was too busy over his blessed search-light to see things that were
+going on under his very eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Captain Dering, however, was already impatient. It was growing dusk;
+the shadows were claiming the garden bit by bit, and as the glint left
+the varnished leaves of the orange trees, the white flowers stood out
+like little stars against the gloom and sent a bewildering perfume into
+the darkening air. He could see no hint of Laila anywhere; Laila in
+that detestable white muslin garment which made him long vainly to get
+rid of the surroundings which suited her so ill, drive all that
+civilized crew from the garden, and claim it as his own--and hers! She
+must have gone to the balcony already. She must be waiting for him. And
+yet a soft-heartedness for this other woman with whom he had been
+friends, whom for a few days he had imagined he loved (it had come to
+<i>this</i> now) forbade him from leaving her cavalierly. So it was long
+past dusk, and the short Indian twilight was hovering on the edge of
+night, ere he made his escape; and, full of anxiety lest Laila should
+have lost patience or hope, hurried down to the wide archway, and so,
+by the turn riverwards, to the right, into the balcony. Most girls, he
+told himself, would by this time have taken offence; but she was there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he entered, her figure showed dimly against the light beyond.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm afraid I am awfully late,&quot; he began, then paused; for, as she
+turned, there was a faint clash of silver, a faint gleam of it too. His
+heart gave a great throb of glad recognition. It was Laila! Laila
+indeed! the Laila of that dream last night. And she had risked <i>this</i>
+to please him!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you?&quot; she said. &quot;I thought <i>I</i> was late; for <i>this</i> took time;
+but
+I wanted to be the same--always the same to you, always--always!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stretched her hands to him, but he set them aside, took her in his
+arms, and kissed her passionately.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes! Laila! always Laila--my Laila!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave him back his kisses joyfully. &quot;I knew you would come,&quot; she
+said. &quot;Love comes to love, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He called her Juliet then, and many another lover's name. She took them
+all, and gave them back again without reserve, until, as they stood
+there, someone passing outward from the arched passage to the garden,
+paused to listen at the half-heard sound of voices. For Father
+Ninian--who had come down to his own rooms for a pair of foils
+wherewith to give Lance Carlyon a lesson in the &quot;<i>Addio del Marito</i>,&quot;
+until Captain Dering should choose to come out of the recesses of the
+garden and allow of their going back to the Fort together--knew of none
+likely to use, or even to be aware of, the balcony. So he turned
+thither curiously, then stood arrested, so that the clash of the foils
+on the stone, as he purposely lowered their points, came as a warning
+to those two that they were observed. Laila, with a catlike
+noiselessness, withdrew in a second. She, a yard or two away, in
+deepest shadow, stood leaning in a careless, easy attitude over the
+balustrade. Her only possibility of escape lay, she felt instinctively,
+in showing no desire to do so. Vincent, for his part, turned to face
+the old priest, prepared to brazen it out; for his blood was running
+like wild-fire in his veins. Yet scarcely so fast as the heart's blood
+had once leapt, and was even now leaping, in the old man who came
+forward, facing him also. Came forward slowly, shortsightedly, a foil
+in each hand. If he had held out one, bade him take the button off and
+fight for his life, Vincent Dering would scarcely have been surprised,
+would almost have been pleased. It would have raised him in his own
+self-esteem. For he knew perfectly well he had no right to be there;
+that, as yet, he was not sure of his own footing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Pidar Narāyan did not. He paused, as he generally did, a few paces
+away, a slender, straight shadow in black, girt about with that pale
+sash, on which, and on his pale face, such light as there was fell
+softly. For there was no anger in the latter; only an almost passionate
+regret and pity. Even so, his words startled the young man, who stood
+prepared for defiance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! Captain Dering!&quot; he said courteously, &quot;it is you, is it? You have
+found a pleasant place, indeed! But scarcely a very safe one for your
+companion--&quot; he turned to that faint gleam of white and silver in the
+arched shadow.--&quot;The air grows chill, madam, so close to the river,&quot; he
+continued, his voice taking a tone almost of command, &quot;and you are
+lightly clad. Will you not be wise, and leave us?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent's surprise had passed by this time into a rush of vexation,
+almost indignation, for he had grasped the old man's mistake. For an
+instant he felt bound to undeceive him, then the impossibility of doing
+so held him silent, feeling a coward indeed; so, desperately, he could
+only join his voice to Father Ninian's. It seemed the only way out of
+the <i>impasse</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps you had better go--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Laila did not need more. Already, under cover of the shadow, she had
+dexterously slipped off her silver jingles, lest they should betray
+what really seemed to her her worst, nay! her only offence;--the taking
+and wearing of Roshan Khān's present. And now, wrapping her veil about
+her like a cloak, gathering her trailing skirts to orthodox length with
+an appalling presence of mind, she was off with just the little uneasy
+laugh which might well befit the situation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She left her companion bewildered, yet still facing the old man
+recklessly. Since he could not explain, he did not mean to be hectored.
+Yet, once again, the old voice took him unawares.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Memory plays strange tricks with us at times,&quot; it said slowly, but
+with a suggestion of the fateful, hopeless rhythm of a Greek chorus in
+it. &quot;She has taken me back, this evening, nearly sixty long years. The
+river before us is the yellow flood of the Tiber, the woman who has
+just left us is the woman I loved--sixty long years ago--I had kissed
+her, as you have kissed her. I had told her I loved her, as you have
+just told her--and then, like an echo from the river below where a boat
+was moored, came to our ears, the same words, 'I love you.'--They
+were spoken, Captain Dering, by a boy, barely in his teens, to a
+waiting-maid. The boy was her son. She had been married, as they marry
+them in Italy, almost before her girlhood, and I, the boy's tutor, was
+nearer her age than his father--a better man, too, Captain Dering! But
+those words--'I love you'--parted us once, and for all. They mirrored
+the truth for us--the truth of the love which hides in balconies--in
+pleasure boats--&quot; he took a step forward, and his whole presence
+changed. He raised his hand, priest to its finger tips. &quot;Let it mirror
+the truth to you also, my son--leave this poor lady to her duty, as
+I--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent Dering broke in on him haughtily, his pride in arms, impatience
+at the falseness of his position making him discourteous.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You don't understand; you are absolutely mistaken--I refuse to
+explain, but I really must ask you not to interfere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man's whole bearing changed again. He drew himself up, and,
+foils in hand, bowed, as fencers do at the salute.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Were I the lady's husband, sir, I would <i>make</i> you answer. As a priest
+of God, I must warn you that I will speak, if--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent Dering interrupted him again. &quot;I can't prevent that--but you
+will wrong us--her at any rate--the best, the kindest woman--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paused, for Father Ninian had come close, laid a hand on his, and
+the touch seemed to bring silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is sixty long years, Captain Dering,&quot; he said, and his eyes seemed
+to pierce through the darkness, &quot;since I have laid my hand on my
+fellow-men save in the hope of healing. It was a fancy of mine
+after--after we kissed, and parted. But I touch you as a second self, a
+fellow-sinner; for she too was the best--the kindest--&quot; His old voice
+failed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Despite his anger at the whole miserable mistake, Vincent was touched;
+but despite his emotion, his annoyance strengthened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Possibly,&quot; he broke in, &quot;but I must really refuse to discuss the
+matter further. Shall we end this, sir,--unless--&quot; he gave a reckless
+laugh and pointed to the foils--&quot;you would like to fight it out?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once more Father Ninian bowed, as fencers bow in the salute, the
+priest, the wise counsellor, lost in an older entity than these; in the
+high-born Scotch student, who, for a while, had forgotten his vocation
+to ruffle with the best blood in Italy. &quot;I have not the privilege of
+being the lady's protector,&quot; he answered hotly. &quot;If I were,&quot;--He
+paused, then said courteously, &quot;Shall we come upstairs? I came down for
+these foils in order to teach Mr. Carlyon the thrust we spoke of once.
+'<i>L'Addio del Marito</i>,' they called it in my youth--I doubt if the name
+has changed now. He will be wondering what has become of me, and--and
+it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As Vincent followed him, he felt a thrill at the savageness of the old
+man's tone, and told himself that here was the Church Militant indeed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He might have said so with still more reason ten minutes after, when
+Father Ninian was left alone. For the hour proved too late for lessons,
+and Lance Carlyon--who had been out of sorts ever since his walk at
+dawn with Erda Shepherd--was obliged to give in to dinner, grumbling
+the while, that Vincent was the worst chum he ever came across. Never
+to be found when he was wanted, then turning up when dear old Pidar
+Narāyan looked as if he could have licked creation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Possibly Lance might have repeated this assertion, also, with greater
+fervour, could he have been witness to Father Ninian's actions, when,
+his last guest gone, he went to put the foils back in the armoury next
+the chapel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For he would have seen him, with head bowed over the crossed foils he
+held, repeating a &quot;<i>mea culpa</i>&quot; as he passed the altar; but ere the
+second foil matched its fellow on the armoury wall, he would have seen
+as pretty a bit of sword-play as could well be seen. Many a dexterous
+turn of wrist, many a quick imaginary parry, many a sharp <i>riposte</i>,
+following each other accurately, as if memory held each attack, each
+defence of an unseen foe; until finally, swift as a flash, would come a
+falter back, as if from a blow, then a thrust forward.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a little silver bell--such as men put to a falcon's hood--no
+bigger than a sixpence, shaped like a man's heart, upon the tassel of a
+resting lance beneath the solitary foil. And the tassel swayed gently
+in the cool river breeze.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet at each thrust the heart-shaped bell chimed a feeble protest under
+the button of the foil, making the Church Militant smile cheerfully.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_13" href="#div1Ref_13">CHAPTER XIII</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>AT THE GATES</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The darkness which holds the dawn was, as a rule, silent as the grave
+in the sand-stretches beyond the river, where the wide cut of the
+canal, the huge mud-heap of the gaol, with its scattered workshops and
+houses, showed as mere spots and lines on the illimitable plain. But on
+the night after the band had played &quot;God save the Queen,&quot; while the
+first drops of sacred water trickled over the chink of the sluice into
+the dry bed of the canal below, its silence was broken by unfamiliar
+sounds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">First of all, by the now ceaseless splash of the thin, glassy curve of
+water on its way to find out this new road to the sea. It had a sort of
+dreamy whisper in it, as if it were telling its first impressions, its
+hopes, its fears, to the river it was leaving behind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And on this background of ceaseless sound came two others
+intermittently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first--a muffled hammering from the darkness which hid the
+Viceroy's camp--told of departure, letting the night know that another
+white-winged tent was flitting, and that the dawn must be prepared to
+find its place empty, the dream-city in ruins, the Hosts of the
+Lord-<i>sahib</i> gone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The second told of arrival. It was a strange cry, soft, almost
+musical:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hārā--Hārī--Hārā--Hārī!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then every now and again in a sort of chant: &quot;<i>Rām--Rām--Sita--Rām!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the pilgrims' cry, their call on the Creator, the Destroyer,
+their appeal to the godhead in man and woman; for the forerunners of
+the great host to come were already nearing Eshwara on their road to
+the &quot;Cradle of the Gods.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But there was a fourth sound, inaudible--by reason of that ceaseless
+noise of water through the chink of the sluice--except to those close
+by it, like George Dillon, as he stood on the hand-bridge above the
+closed gates looking down idly into the darkness which prevented him
+from seeing the cause of the sound. He had been up all night. On his
+return,--later than he had intended, owing to his determination not to
+be defied by any woman,--he had found that in his absence cholera had
+been hard at its work. So he had buckled to his, expecting one of those
+awful nights which live, even in a doctor's memory, as a horror, as a
+warning to those best fitted to stem the stream of death, that they are
+but straws on its surface.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he had been mistaken. True, for an hour or so, cases had come in
+quicker than they could be attended to; then, suddenly, they ceased to
+come in at all. That had been eight hours ago. Too short a respite for
+certainty, but Dr. Dillon, being no novice in such work, had his hopes;
+the more so because the disease, from the very outset, had become
+steadily less and less virulent. Even so, seven dead bodies lay
+awaiting the first glint of dawn; therefore, as ill-luck would have it,
+there would be seven columns of smoke on the river's edge for all to
+see!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was inevitable, however, nor could he do more to prevent others
+coming. So he had been on his way back to his own house for a few
+hours' rest when the dreamy splash of the water made him pause to lean
+over the hand-rail and listen to it, as he finished his cigar in the
+open.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then it was that he heard a faint tap, tapping, as of a ghostly hand on
+a door. What was it? It was quite distinct, though almost as low as the
+&quot;<i>lip, lipping</i>&quot; of the water, made restless by that glassy curve
+against the gates.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A curiosity to know seized on him. There was already a glimmer of dawn
+in the east; he might as well wait and see.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not long before a streak of something faintly white made him
+call himself a fool. The cause was a log of wood. He might have thought
+of that. Even that faint setting of a stream towards a new way must
+have drifted it here. The thought made him frown, for this fulfilment
+of the river-people's prophecy was annoying; the more so from its
+absolute unlikelihood. Years might pass without such a chance coming
+again; yet it had come the very first day! It was too bad. The stars in
+their courses were fighting against him. In a pet he threw the remains
+of his cigar from him, and was striding off, when a faint glimmer, as
+of a candle, made him turn sharply and look down whence it came.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lighted end of his cigar had fallen on something dry, inflammable,
+which had blazed up. But it was only for a second; the next found
+darkness, save for that still, faint, glimmer of white. But the brief
+gleam had told him it was not a log which had drifted astray--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a corpse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That <i>tap, tapping</i> he had heard had been from the dead feet seeking
+vainly to pass through the chink of the sluice, swerving with the side
+current, coming back, again and again. He stood, grasping the rail,
+staring down at the dim outline almost incredulously, and feeling,
+despite himself, a trifle shivery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the remembrance that this was a thing which must be seen by none,
+which somehow, and as quickly as possible, must be set on its right
+road again, made him hurry back to where he knew some coils of rope,
+which had been used for bunting at the ceremony, were lying. Seizing
+one--still gaily decorated--he tied a brick to one end, and hurried
+back to the bridge. By dropping this weighted rope over the dim white
+streak he was able to edge it gradually to one side, until it lay
+moored against the wall of the basin. Kneeling down for a closer look,
+he could see, in the fast-growing light, that it was the corpse of a
+woman. He could even guess the death she died, and if proof was needed,
+it could be found in the hands folded at full stretch down the body;
+the thumbs, pointing upward, linked by an iron ring. To this iron ring
+had been looped a little tuft of the tri-coloured hank of cotton which
+plays so large a part in marriage ceremonial. Dr. Dillon stood up and
+swore under his breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The fates were, indeed, inexorable in their spite. Of all things
+unlucky for the changing stream to claim, a corpse seeking union with
+Mother Ganges was the worst; and of all corpses, this--the cursed one,
+which had held two lives and could send one back to haunt men--was the
+worst.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He must get rid of it somehow, if he could.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fastening the rope, so strangely out of keeping, all hung as it was
+with gay colours, to the iron ring which showed about the ankles, he
+proceeded to tow the body back along the basin, past the first gates,
+and so to the river itself. Thus far was simple. But how was he to get
+it afloat on a current strong enough to sweep it beyond danger of its
+returning to tap at the gates once more?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dawn was hastening with great leaps of light that shot in broad
+bars from the darkest spot in all the dark horizon; the spot which
+would soon be the brightest, ablaze with the sun himself. Already the
+broad shield of the river was changing its heraldry--the sable was
+turning to steel, sign that the world would side with the light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What was to be done?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked over the wide waste of sand and water, with a perplexity
+which vanished suddenly in a smile, as he caught sight of a round
+shadow like a man's head dipping and dancing on the surface. He walked
+on to the last dry spot of land and shouted--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ai! fisherman! Ai! Gu-gu! Am-ma! anybody! Come and earn a gold
+<i>mohur!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was Am-ma. Luckily, perhaps, since the idea of even towing a dead
+body such as this might have been too much for semi-civilized Gu-gu.
+Am-ma, however, had not ever borrowed his neighbours' superstitions. In
+fact, ever since he, the Miss-<i>sahiba</i> and the <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i> had bested
+the devil between them, he had felt himself to be invulnerable. So, he
+assured Dr. Dillon affably, were the <i>Huzoors</i>; therefore he obeyed
+them. Consequently, less than five minutes after the call, with a vague
+wonder as to what sixteen rupees would feel like, all at once, in a
+man's palm, he was heading hard to the nearest stream capable of
+carrying the thing he had in tow back to the path of purification. This
+happened to be towards Eshwara, and beyond a sandy point set with
+tamarisks which jutted out above the canal head. There was, of course,
+a certain stream against him, and to save himself exertion and finish
+the job--as he had agreed to do--before dawn, he swam for the most part
+under water, only coming up, after his habit, for air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now it so happened, also, that Gu-gu had thought fit to set nets for
+wild-fowl, and was even now dozing, while he waited for the result, in
+the same tamarisk jungle. But the sound of something swishing through
+the water against the stream roused him in a second, and even without
+the glimpse, which the coming dawn gave him, of a long streak parting
+the river with a curved ripple like the prow of a boat, his experience
+told him what it was sure to be. Briefly, someone of the river
+people,--Am-ma for choice, since who but Am-ma had the luck of such
+things--had happened on the chance of stealing a log from the piles
+about the canal workshops. He was now, after time-honoured precedent,
+towing it to the stream where, having set it adrift, he would recapture
+it, and, of course, claim his reward for so doing!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But two could play that game. When secrecy made it necessary for a
+thief to swim for the most part under water, it was easy to swim under
+water too, across the track of the robber, cut his prize adrift, and
+put your weight on the rope instead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then you could either choose revenge, and let an enemy tow you
+home--which was a side-splitting trick,--or you might wait till your
+adversary came up breathless, and dash after the prize yourself. Even
+if you could not secure the whole, half profits were generally
+possible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Therefore, slipping noiselessly into the stream like an alligator, he
+was off across the track in a second; swimming, of course, under water.
+He came, up once for air, and smiled to see how far he had come; so,
+fearing lest the holder of the unseen tow-rope might chance to come up
+at the same time, his black head went under once more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When it came up again, it was within a few yards of the long white
+streak. He gave one look at it, let loose a yell of abject terror, and
+almost turning a somersault in his haste to escape, his head went down
+again, his feet went skywards, and though his lungs nearly burst in the
+effort, he came up no more till he felt certain he must have put a
+screen of tamarisk between him and the horror. He had; but his teeth
+chattered, his eyes were half out of his head when he scrambled, hands
+and knees, on to the bank, and lying face down on the dry sand, moaned
+and shuddered. What else could a man do who had seen a cursed corpse
+breasting the stream on its way back to Eshwara? To whose house? That,
+however, was quite a secondary consideration to a man who was already
+as good as dead; since what man had ever survived the sight of a
+<i>churail?</i></p>
+
+<p class="normal">The certainty of his own fate, after a while, made him absolutely,
+recklessly, calm. He gathered up his nets, wrung the necks of the few
+birds he had caught pitilessly, and went with them, as usual, to the
+bazaars. Not only for profit, however. Other men should taste of his
+fear. Other men should know that they too might have to die!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma, meanwhile, having seen nothing when he came up wondering what
+the sound was which had filtered to his ears through the water, had
+gone on his way unwitting, found the stream, cut the corpse adrift
+himself, and gone back to his fishing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not until he also went into the bazaar with his basket, that he
+found it ringing with the direful portent; yet for all that going its
+way buying and selling, squabbling over the uttermost part of a
+farthing; since portents are ever with an Indian bazaar. At first, when
+called upon to verify Gu-gu's story, Am-ma, remembering his promise of
+secrecy, gave it stout denial; but when the real truth of what had
+occurred dawned on his slow brain, the opportunity for piling agony on
+to his rival was too strong for him, and he burst into details, all of
+which made Gu-gu's chance of escape still more remote. The corpse had
+shot after him with a speed only equal to the fire-boats in which the
+<i>Huzoors</i> came across the black water; it had sat up, and beckoned, and
+called &quot;<i>Gu-gu! Gu-gu!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But if thou hast seen all this, thou, too, must die!&quot; remarked the
+syrup-seller round whose shop the talk was loudest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma laughed vaingloriously. &quot;Not I! The devils are afraid of me. See
+you, I have taken the <i>Huzoors</i> for my God; I am on the strong side.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hark to him!&quot; jeered another of his own tribe who was also selling
+fish. &quot;He cannot balance his basket on his head, he holds it so high
+since the wood-<i>sahib</i> up the river hath bidden him guide their big
+raft,--as if he was a whit better than the rest of us!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma smiled peacefully. &quot;That is true, brother. I go for the raft this
+very day. But I leave a son in my house, if the luck goes against me.
+That is the <i>Huzoors'</i> doing. They have the <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>. They are
+the
+Light-bringers, the Birth-bringers!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A tall man, in curiously crumpled clothing, who had just joined the
+group, gave a hollow laugh. &quot;Birth-bringers!&quot; he echoed. &quot;Ay! and
+Death-bringers, too. They took seven in the gaol last night. I have it
+from a sure hand.&quot; That might well be, seeing that he was none other
+than the <i>gosain</i> Gopi, who, scarcely an hour agone, had been given his
+ticket-of-leave and the clothes in which he had been convicted two
+years before. They had since then been rolled up, and ticketed with his
+name and number; hence the creases.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The doctor cuts a hole in their heads,&quot; he went on calmly, &quot;takes out
+their brains, and puts the bit back. Then 'tis cholera. That is why
+they burn them in their clothing and their <i>caps</i>, so that none may
+see. But they <i>say</i>, 'tis for the safety of the living; as if that did
+not lie with the Gods!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hark to him!&quot; said approving voices. &quot;Yea! hark to him, the pious
+one!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The long bazaar lay flooded with sunshine and life. The quails were
+calling from their hooded cages, the sacred monkeys were chattering
+about the sweetmeat-sellers' shops, men and women were going about
+eager on their own affairs, and a group of schoolboys on their way to a
+mission school came along, their books under their arms,--a quaint
+collection, for the most part. A copy of the Gospels, Sa'adi's
+Gulistan, and the Hitopadesa, certainly; a treatise, in English, on the
+latest theories of mind and matter, equally so; selections from general
+literature, probably; with Burke's speeches and Addison's <i>Spectator</i>,
+possibly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One or two of these boys paused in their school talk to listen, as a
+voice said fearfully:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Twill be for '<i>momai</i>' they want them. Folks say they are running
+short of power.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gopi shook his head. &quot;That may be; but these are to grease the slots of
+the canal sluice; without it, water will not run. One brain--his, that
+they killed with the light--opened it but one inch; as all can see if
+they choose. And these seven will not go far. What matter? There be
+plenty more where they came from.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The gossipers looked at each other. &quot;Yea! that is so. It opens but an
+inch, and there are many prisoners,&quot; they said, with that curious
+faculty for giving heart-whole assent to the truthful foundations of a
+lie which makes the latter go so far in India.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The boys went on. There was nothing about the dynamic and hydraulic
+power of a man's brain in their treatises; but, after all, the
+statement was scarcely so strange to ignorance as many another held in
+the books under their arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The times are bad,&quot; remarked someone, chiefly to give a fresh fillip
+to the flagging horrors. &quot;They say the 'Pool of Immortality,' will be
+dry to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A trail of saffron-robed pilgrims who were passing, under the charge of
+a priest, looked at their guide doubtfully. If this was to be so, what
+was the use of having given him a rupee each to be admitted thereto at
+the most auspicious moment?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! 'tis easy to father that falsehood!&quot; cried the priest in charge,
+venomously eyeing a similar figure to his own, which was also followed
+patiently, trustfully, by a band of men and women and children, all in
+their saffron robes. &quot;When folks have had their own miracle stopped,
+they would fain stop other folks' also. Have no fear, my children! The
+sacred water will rise as ever, and send your souls blameless to the
+'Cradle of the Gods.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It would have been easy enough for his rival to throw doubts on the
+genuineness of the pool miracle, had it been sound policy to do so; but
+before those patient, trustful faces, desirous only to save their souls
+alive at any cost, it was unwise to sap at the foundations of faith. So
+the reply contented itself with assertions that there was no fear
+either, for them. Tampion or no tampion, <i>jogi</i> Gorakh-nāth had
+promised to be inside the gun as ever. And that would be a newer, a
+better, miracle, than any other in Eshwara!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here a fresh voice put in its word; for the syrup-seller's shop, being
+at one corner of the central square or <i>chowk</i> of four bazaars, no one
+who had any errand of any sort in Eshwara could fail to pass it sooner
+or later. Therefore, Dya Ram and some other pleaders, on their way thus
+early in the morning to the tahsil court, were bound to overhear the
+priest's boast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But most undesirable, nevertheless,&quot; expostulated Dya Ram, quickly.
+&quot;We have duly appealed against the order to the higher court, and our
+legal course is to await the result.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The priest looked at him, sullenly scornful; for such as he are no
+favourites with the hereditary Levites of India.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The <i>jogi</i> hath appealed to the Gods,&quot; he retorted, &quot;and they will
+give judgment without the help of such as thou, pleader-<i>jee!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hark to the pious one!&quot; murmured the crowd again, admiringly
+responsive, as ever, to a hint of religious sentiment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But it will confuse issues--it is irregular--and I who drew up the
+petition object <i>in toto</i>,&quot; began Dya Ram in angry protest, when a
+friend interrupted him consolingly in English.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;True. As it has been said, it is impossible to serve God and Mammon;
+yet seeing that miracles are, as Herbert Spencer proves, <i>ipsi
+facto</i>--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The ludicrous inadequacy of logic to the mental caliber of those around
+him, struck one of the little party of progress keenly, and he broke
+in, as he passed on, &quot;What is the use of combatting such ignorance?
+It is for us--who represent the intellect of India--to pioneer the
+way--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The rest was lost as the little party went on discussing their own
+position.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mayhap 'twas to Ramanund's house the <i>churail</i> was coming; there was
+such a corpse went from it a week or two since; and they return from
+far,&quot; said an old man, looking after the last speaker.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gopi, the <i>gosain</i>, laughed. &quot;This one, I'll wager, was sent back
+because of the canal. Mark my words, Mai Gunga will return them all
+now. 'Tis the <i>Huzoors'</i> doing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A curious shiver ran through the crowd of men. To have your women
+against you, to feel in your heart that they cannot help being
+revengeful, that their blood is on your head, is ever the greatest of
+dreads. And so many lives held the possibility of this revenge.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma, philosophically seated on the outskirts of the group, trying to
+sell his fish, laughed vaingloriously again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only for fools! The miss-<i>sahiba</i> and the lights, and I, can defy
+devils.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here he stood up, and, with frightful grimaces of joy and uncouth
+salaams, greeted the appearance of Erda Shepherd, who, in the
+mission-lady's uniform of blouse and skirt, white pith hat, green veil,
+and bag of books, came out of a neighbouring alley.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not a becoming dress, Lance Carlyon told himself, as, on his way
+back from escort duty to some lingering bigwig of the camp, he, at the
+same moment, came cantering up the bazaar towards the Fort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could not say the same of his. It was the first time she had seen
+him in uniform, and the sight of the scarlet and gold, the buttons, the
+fal-lals generally, took her breath away. There are, in fact, few women
+whom they do not impress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, curiously enough, her impulse was to pass on without speaking;
+his, to do what he did, namely, pull up, dismount, and shake hands. And
+still more curiously, the reason for both these impulses was the same;
+the presence beside Erda of a tall, rather weedy-looking man, with a
+long, black coat and a long, red beard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me introduce my cousin, the Reverend David Campbell,&quot; said Erda,
+with great dignity, somewhat marred by a fine blush.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought it must be,&quot; rejoined Lance, coolly. He might have said he
+was certain of it; that a fellow could scarcely feel a desire to murder
+another fellow at an instant's notice, unless that fellow was your
+rival.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, still more curiously again, this notion of rivalry had come to
+Lance in an instant also. Before he caught sight of Erda and her
+<i>fiancé</i> he would have sworn that though he had been a bit cut up at
+hearing the nicest girl he had ever met was already engaged, he had
+never had the remotest idea of fighting against the fact. But the first
+glance at the two walking together had changed all this. Here by God's
+grace was the one maid for him. And another man had--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not a bad looking chap, certainly. Better dressed, too, than most
+missionaries. That was because he was fresh out from England. Any fool,
+though, could be that with an English tailor. Yes, not a bad sort; but
+not the sort for <i>her</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You've been out on your rounds, I suppose,&quot; he said, pointing to
+Erda's books.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; answered the Reverend David, with eager assent, and the
+benevolent smile which includes the smiler's own virtue in smiling;
+&quot;and I have been privileged for the first time to see somewhat of the
+noble work Englishwomen are doing for their Indian sisters. It is no
+easy task, Mr. Carlyon, for delicate--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I like it,&quot; put in Erda, with a faint frown at the missionary-report
+style of her cousin's enthusiasm. &quot;So there is no use wasting your pity
+on me, David.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pity!&quot; he echoed, in appropriating approval. &quot;I did not even pity you
+when they called you evil names.&quot; Being of the new school of Free
+church ministers, he put all possible ill into ev-il like any
+ritualistic curate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do they call you names?&quot; asked Lance, sharply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda gave a vexed look at her cousin. For the first time in her life
+the militant joy at persecution of the true proselytizer failed her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sometimes, not often,&quot; she said, quite apologetically. &quot;They happened
+to do so to-day, and David heard it; there are so many strangers about,
+you see, who don't know me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what did you do?&quot; Lance's eyes were on the Reverend David this
+time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do?&quot; repeated the latter, in faint surprise. &quot;Nothing, of course. We
+missionaries hear such things joyfully--for--for the Work's sake.&quot;
+There was dignity in his tone and manner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By Jove!&quot; said Lance, softly, under his breath, &quot;if I'd been there,
+there would have been a row. Besides,&quot; he added, quite argumentatively,
+&quot;if I believed in my work as you do I'd be hanged if I let anybody
+'<i>krab</i>'<a name="div4Ref_09" href="#div4_09"><sup>[9]</sup></a> it--or
+me--for it's the same thing. Not at least, without
+trying to make 'em answer for it all I know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Reverend David Campbell shook his head. &quot;That is not our view.
+Erda, the meeting is at nine, and it is already the half-hour.
+To-morrow, you see, Mr. Carlyon, is our field-day, and we have to
+arrange our forces.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once more the flavour of the missionary report made Erda shrink, but
+Lance nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A field-day for most of us. I expect to be in the saddle all day.
+Good-by, Miss Shepherd.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But something in the girl rose up in revolt at parting with him thus.
+When he had been out of sight, she had faced the probability of never
+seeing him any more with equanimity. Now she felt that she must tell
+him she was leaving Eshwara the very next day, or the day after; that
+she must make this a <i>real</i> good-by.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have to see another old woman in an alley close by first, David,&quot;
+she said. &quot;You had better go on and let me follow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet when he had gone, after another joyously militant pęan over the
+work, she stood silent. It seemed somehow too sunshiny for words. Then
+she looked up at Lance, and her heart sank. For something in his face
+told her, in an instant, that she had been too long in letting him
+know of her engagement to her cousin. The fact, by rousing her
+indignation,--since it was impossible to go about proclaiming that you
+were not available for idle people to fall in love with,--helped her to
+be hard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You need not have been so fierce just now,&quot; she said, with an unreal
+little laugh. &quot;People won't have many more chances of calling me names
+in Eshwara. I told you, didn't I, that I was going; but it will be
+sooner than I expected--to-morrow, or next day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I shan't see you again?&quot; He grasped the meaning to him in an
+instant, and the wondering pain in his voice awoke an echo in her
+heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suppose so; for Mr. Campbell's appointment will be at the other end
+of India; unless, indeed--&quot; she could not withstand his look--&quot;my Aunt
+has asked a few friends in to tea this afternoon to say good-by. If
+you, or Captain Dering, cared--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course I'll come,&quot; he interrupted quietly. &quot;Now which way are you
+going, for I am going too?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked at him helplessly. &quot;But you can't,&quot; she began.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, yes, I can! I'll finish the smoke you interrupted, while you
+polish off the old lady. They're not going to have a chance of--of
+abusing the <i>work</i> again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had a most ingenious way of appealing to her sense of humour, and
+though it was partly at her cousin's expense, she laughed as they set
+off together--a most incongruous couple. He had little time for his
+smoke, however, for he had barely left off watching the point where she
+had disappeared, for any hint of felonious calling of names, when she
+reappeared in company with Father Ninian, the latter looking almost
+pope-like, yet also curiously native, in the white washing <i>soutane</i>
+and skull-cap which he invariably wore in his visitations. His face was
+rather stern, and he had his spectacles on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! Mr. Carlyon,&quot; he said, surprised in his turn, &quot;I am glad. Will you
+take Miss Shepherd home? I want to go over to Dr. Dillon at once: and I
+have advised her not to visit in this quarter to-day. There are many
+lodging houses for the pilgrims, and--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did they call names?&quot; asked Lance, belligerent at once.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man looked at him sharply, almost angrily. &quot;No one ever called
+me names, sir; still less a lady who was with me. But excuse me--I am
+pressed for time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, that's a man!&quot; said Lance, enthusiastically, as he looked after
+the hurrying white figure. The comparison was too obvious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Father Ninian is not a missionary,&quot; she said coldly. &quot;It is easy for
+him--&quot; she paused, turned to her companion, and held out her hand.
+&quot;Good-by, and thanks; but I really can go home by myself, Mr. Carlyon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good-by,&quot; he echoed; then, holding her hand still, a sudden resolve
+seemed to come to him. &quot;But--I should like to tell you something first,
+please.&quot;--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt her heart beating everywhere but in its proper place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">--&quot;Not that it matters, but I'd like you to know it. I had some news by
+the mail this morning--bad news.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt her blood everywhere but in its normal course, now, in sheer
+shame at her own imaginations. &quot;I'm sorry,&quot; she murmured.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So am I,&quot; he went on thoughtfully; &quot;though it isn't bad in a way for
+me. Do you remember my telling you about my cousin? a weedy chap,
+six-four. Well, they sent him round the world for his health, and he
+died two months ago, it seems, in Australia. And the shock was too much
+for my uncle; he was an old man, and this was his only son. So--so I am
+Sir Lancelot now. It doesn't make any odds, of course, but I thought I
+should like you to know, first.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked up at him as he stood beside her, so tall, so strong, so
+young, so kind; and though she only said, &quot;Thanks, Sir Lancelot, it
+won't make any difference to--to our friendship, I'm sure,&quot; she knew in
+her heart of hearts that it did. Though how, she had not yet had time
+to discover.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_14" href="#div1Ref_14">CHAPTER XIV</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>MIRACLE MONGERS</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan Khān flung his cigarette away, and walked up and down his
+quarters in the Fort like an Englishman; he felt rather like one, also,
+in his vague distaste for something which refused to fit in with his
+previous experiences.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So she will see my grandmother,&quot; he said, at last. &quot;That is a step,
+certainly, but--&quot; he turned quickly to Akbar Khān, &quot;it seems
+impossible!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The quondam chief-eunuch giggled like a girl. &quot;Nothing is impossible
+with women, oh, Protector of the Poor!&quot; he said; then, with a jaunty
+air of self-satisfaction, went on, &quot;and this dust-like one has
+experience. She will see the female relation to-night after approved
+custom, and, since this is after the habits of the <i>sahib-logue</i>, she
+would perhaps see the--the Nawab-<i>sahib</i> tomorrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan wheeled again in his walk at both the title and the suggestion,
+half indignantly, yet with a reluctant eagerness. &quot;See--see me! Did she
+say aught of it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A woman's wishes for a lover go not near her tongue, <i>Huzoor</i>; they
+keep to her heart,&quot; replied Akbar, still with his jaunty craft; &quot;but if
+this visit of the female relation be auspicious, as God send it, then
+there would be no hindrance to the asking; and even if she said nay--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something in his hearer's face warned the old sinner he had to do with
+some novel code of conduct, and he paused, while Roshan continued his
+pacing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was disturbed beyond bounds. The foolish dream of a foolish old
+woman had come to be so far a reality, that the jealousy which had
+blazed up instinctively at the sight of Laila in that dress--so like a
+woman of his race--alone with a strange man, had come to be deliberate.
+More than once he had felt inclined to tell Pidar Narāyan what he had
+seen, even to write an anonymous letter of warning. He would have done
+so had he seen any subsequent hint of intimacy between these two. But
+he saw none; on the contrary, they seemed to avoid each other in
+public; and though this might be a blind, on the other hand Roshan had
+seen too much of some English women's ways not to know how trivial an
+offence against the proprieties it was to sit out dances in a balcony!
+Undoubtedly, however, this girl, who had taken his presents on the sly,
+who would receive his ambassadress on the sly, was not one whom it was
+necessary to treat with great ceremony. She was what the English
+language called a flirt; his own a stronger term. Not that it mattered,
+since no wife of his would have a chance of amusing herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, after a while, he paused to say--with a scowl for the toothless
+grinning survival of a past society--&quot;I would I knew if it were wise to
+trust thee? Why shouldst thou take the trouble thou dost? What is the
+affair to thee?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Akbar's face was a study in sheer dignity. &quot;'Tis but my duty, Cherisher
+of the Poor!&quot; he said, almost pathetically. &quot;For what other service
+were such as I am created?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The hateful tragedy of this confession of degradation passed Roshan by;
+he saw nothing in it but an appeal to facts which gave him confidence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea!&quot; he said, &quot;I was forgetting. Such arrangings are meat and drink
+to thy sort. So take thy price. It shall be trebled if she bids me see
+her to-morrow, but--&quot; here he laughed, half at himself,--&quot;thou must
+needs work miracles for such favour to come so soon!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Akbar, as he capered off, the rupees jingling in his pocket, to more
+legitimate and less lucrative pursuits, winked and leered to himself
+over his own surpassing wickedness and wisdom. Miracles! Ay; but it was
+nature worked them, not he. Given youth, proximity, a touch of
+surprise, a flavour of the forbidden, and the result, in his evil
+experience, was sure. In the meantime his part was to keep the ball
+from falling until the players took to playing the game for themselves;
+then the fun was over for the true go-between. He had to take a back
+seat and watch--he! he! he!--the miracle! A pretty miracle, indeed! The
+idea tickled him so that he could not keep it to himself, and as he
+passed through the bazaar, doing his daily marketing, he used his new
+avocation of miracle-monger as a reason for good bargains. The
+shop-keepers, however, shook their heads. Miracles paid the priests,
+and might suit such as he, but for their part they considered that
+there were too many miracles in Eshwara. What was the good of the
+pilgrims coming at all if all their money went to the temples, and they
+had not a pice left for a relic, or even a toy to take home to the
+toddlers whose feet were not yet strong enough for pilgrimage?
+Whereupon they would look discontentedly round the baskets of Brummagen
+brass gods, the Belgian-made rosaries, the patent Swedish self-lighting
+joss sticks, the machine-cut oblation cups, with which almost every
+other shop sought to attract custom. Baskets where a pious pilgrim
+could purchase a whole pantheon, and secure a modicum of divine
+favour--all duly trade-marked by Christians--for a few farthings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis not our fault, brother,&quot; suggested a decrepit old Brahmin, with a
+wrinkled forehead all seamed with white markings, who--squatted in the
+gutter--was extolling the virtue of the sacred <i>sālig rāmas</i>, made
+unblushingly out of the ball stoppers of soda-water bottles, which lay
+exposed for sale on a handkerchief in front of him; a Manchester-made
+handkerchief, printed in the best style with the loves of Krishna. &quot;We
+get no more than in the old days; nay, less. For, see you, the
+third-class ticket takes so much. And that is the <i>Huzoors'</i> fee. They
+send it all over the black water to make a mountain of silver in the
+streets of their big city, London. Oh, pious ones! Buy! Buy a sacred
+sin-expeller!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The monotonous cry was caused by the appearance of a priest-led band of
+pilgrims; for, as yet, the great throng was not, when the whole narrow
+street would be a sea of heads, when even the saffron robes would be
+lost to sight, and the only thing visible would be the patient, anxious
+faces seeking redemption. That would come on the morrow,--the great
+day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, reverent eyes turned to the bottle-stoppers, and one or two
+hands wandered to the little hoard set aside for regeneration, which
+was diminishing so rapidly under the claims of chaplets, lights,
+caste-markings, sprinkling, and miracles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There be too many, I say,&quot; reiterated a radical seller of drugs. &quot;If
+the <i>Sirkar</i> puts a tax on my medicine for the body, why not on thine
+for the soul?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nay, <i>pinsari-jee!</i>&quot; chuckled the privileged wit and gossip of the
+bazaar, a cobbler who sat--by reason of his low caste--at a decent
+distance even from the crowd of customers which was awaiting a patch on
+the coverings of feet already worn and weary with their search after
+righteousness; &quot;'tis a miracle when folk buy of you; and that comes not
+too often.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even the pilgrims laughed; for laughter at a ready gibe comes easily in
+India. Yet they, too, felt inclined to agree with the drug-seller. One
+can get <i>blasé</i> even in miracles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Therefore, naturally enough, when there was a choice, they chose the
+newest ones. And the newest of all was <i>jogi</i> Gorakh-nāth's promise of
+defying tampions, and locks, and chains, and, as in other years,
+blessing the crowd of worshippers from his self-inflicted penitentiary,
+inside the &quot;<i>Teacher of Religion</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And what was more, he had kept his promise. That very dawn, as a kind
+of walk over the course, he had performed the miracle before a select
+band of pilgrims, mostly <i>jogies</i> of his own sect who were now engaged
+in telling the tale to all and sundry in the city. What had occurred
+was briefly this. He had received his followers squatted on the stone
+steps in front of the gun, and had treated them to a dissertation on
+the mysteries of Yoga. Other less eminent practitioners in the art of
+miracles, he said, might have found it necessary to withhold the sight
+of the sacred person from devoted eyes. He, however, meant to show them
+his absolute independence of the body. He would leave it lying there,
+dead, while his soul went inside the gun, and blessed the pious ones.
+Accordingly his jaw had dropped; he had become rigid, callous
+apparently to the prickings of pins with which his assistants strove to
+make him wince, and, just as one of them withdrew a dagger, covered, of
+course, with gore from his very heart, a muffled voice of blessing had
+come from the very bowels of the gun.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If that was not a miracle, what was?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anyhow, it caught on, so that as the day grew, the growing tide of
+pilgrims passed by the side-shows run in connection with the Pool of
+Immortality by its priests, and drifted off to the opposition show,
+leaving the <i>impresarios</i> behind them in a state of rage and despair.
+Rage, for if this sort of thing continued on the morrow they would lose
+their year's harvest, since the Host of God-seekers were ever the
+natural prey of priests; despair, because exposure of what experience
+told them <i>must</i> be a fraud, would only result in counter exposure.
+There must be honour among thieves to make the profession a lucrative
+one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So they met in conclave, each with his miserable earnings in his hand,
+to point the dire urgency of action, and agreed on the wisdom of
+finding a cat's-paw to filch their chestnuts from the fire.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus it happened that Vincent Dering came over to Lance Carlyon's
+quarters half an hour before the time they had settled to start for the
+mission house, and asked him to look sharp, and send round to Roshan
+Khān to come along also, as he had private information--here, with a
+laugh, he threw a letter on the table--that miracles were being
+illegally performed in cantonments, and he expected some fun. Lance
+laughed also as he read the following:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To the Major General commanding. This is to give notice to all
+concerned that illegible miracles is now being performed by bare men in
+belly of great gun, contrary to astringent orders issued by my lord
+god. Therefore your petitioners pray for correct diagnosis of same, and
+removal from Cantonment boundaries with exhibitions not to miracle any
+more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By Jove!&quot; he said, &quot;our petitioner is a medical man--hospital dresser,
+I expect. Not to miracle any more!--h'm.&quot; His tone changed, his honest
+blue eyes clouded, for, ever since Erda Shepherd had told him what her
+future life was to be, the young fellow had been painfully aware that
+Eshwara had wrought a miracle on him; that he was no longer content to
+take life as he found it; that already he had begun to look forward and
+think of what life would be by and by. &quot;I expect that would be a
+difficulty in Eshwara,&quot; he went on; &quot;it's an awful place for upsetting
+the proper odds. Seems to me impossible to--to make a safe book on
+anything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent Dering shrugged his shoulders. He had been in the highest
+spirits for the last few days. &quot;A safe book! The dullest thing in
+creation. That's why I like Eshwara. As I remember telling you, one
+can't count upon anything in the topsy-turvy place--not even one's
+self. They talk of the mystery of the East! By George! one is in grips
+with it here; so come along, Lance! and remove miracles from Cantonment
+boundaries at any rate!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They found the union-jack of paths obliterated by an orderly crowd; for
+every hour, almost every minute, of the day had brought fresh units to
+that weary-footed, eager-eyed host of pilgrims. Here and there amongst
+them was to be seen the high-twined, badge-set turban of a policeman,
+ready, truncheon in hand, to assert the rights of law, but not many;
+since the rush of bathers had not yet come, and there was small danger
+to be feared from anything save that keen desire to be cleansed, which
+showed on almost every face. As the two Englishmen entered, however,
+followed by Roshan Khān, on whose features that fierce intolerance of
+his race for idolaters was written clearly, a murmur of tense
+anticipation ran through the packed courtyard. The miracle turn was
+evidently on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was. <i>Jogi</i> Gorakh-nāth lay as if dead on the raised stone platform
+in front of the gun, and two assistants were prodding him with pins.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I've seen that in London,&quot; said Vincent, forcing his way rapidly
+through the yielding crowd, &quot;so I can hardly object to it here; but if
+there is hanky-panky with my gun--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At that instant, a bloody dagger, fresh apparently from the <i>jogi's</i>
+heart, was held up, and a curious hush fell on the courtyard. It was
+broken by a muffled voice, unmistakably from within the gun, and that
+was lost in a great roar of applause.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A miracle! a miracle of the gods!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Captain Dering, who with the others had now reached the centre, waited
+for the roar to subside a little, and then his voice rose and seemed to
+crush it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Risaldar-sahib</i> You have the key of the padlock. Take out the
+tampion, and see who is inside.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he spoke, his eyes were on the assistants, and something in their
+defiant assurance warned him that he was on the wrong tack, and made
+him cover possible discomfiture with the words,--&quot;If there is no one,
+then someone here has the art of throwing his voice where he will.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As if in assent, the muffled blessing came, louder, this time, from the
+now un-tampioned gun, so that Roshan's face showed somewhat scared, as,
+with a salute, he announced as the result of his inspection, &quot;There is
+no one, sir, I can see clear down the metal, but--but the voice is
+there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sound of such fierce approval ran through the crowd who were within
+hearing, that Captain Dering saw instantly that it would not be wise to
+court another failure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Close up the gun again,&quot; he said loudly. &quot;So long as my orders are not
+disobeyed, and people keep their bodies out of my gun, their voices are
+welcome to it! Come along, Carlyon,&quot; he added, in English, &quot;it's
+ventriloquism, of course, and I'd dearly like to catch the beast who
+does it, but we had better leave it alone for the present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance, who, in sudden remembrance of the sound he had heard as he
+drifted past the bathing-steps in his canoe on the night of the dance,
+had been vainly overhauling the padlock and chain for signs of their
+having been tampered with, nodded his head, and let the chain swing
+back on its staple. The sudden jerk threw a new light on the matter.
+For the staple came out, disclosing the fact that it had been neatly
+filed through at the shank, and then replaced by means of a drilled
+hole and a pin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The proof of tampering was clear, but nothing else.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have it,&quot; said Lance suddenly coming up with a red but triumphant
+face from a prolonged inspection down the huge muzzle, &quot;they've shoved
+in a false end, and there's someone behind. Roshan! go back and fetch
+me my long gaff, and Roshan--my cleaning rod.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And tell the guard to come out at once,&quot; added Captain Dering, heedful
+of the rising note of movement amongst the crowd, sign that it was
+growing restless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stay! I've got a ripping idea!&quot; cried Lance again, his face all abeam
+with delight--delight so catching that the crowd stilled as he turned
+to it. &quot;Look here,&quot; he said confidentially, in Hindustani, &quot;there's a
+boy in this gun. It must be a boy, and rather a small one, for there
+isn't room for anything big. Now isn't there a boy anywhere about the
+same size who'd like to come and draw him? He will be heads this way,
+and you will be able to get a good grip of his hair, and he will get a
+grip of your's, and--and it will be--be jolly!&quot; The untranslatable word
+needed no translation. That something in the perfection of careless
+youth which touches the hearts of all mankind, put Lance and his
+audience in touch instantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A group of tall, grave-eyed Sikhs laughed uproariously, and nudged a
+lad beside them. &quot;Go on, brotherling,&quot; they said, &quot;thou art the best
+wrestler of the school. Go! show the <i>Huzoor</i> how thou canst hold thine
+own.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It needed no more. &quot;Yea! try thy luck, brotherling,&quot; said a dozen
+voices, &quot;and if thou canst not we will find a champion!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That settled it. Five minutes afterwards Lance Carlyon found himself
+arranging the conditions of the draw, surrounded by half a dozen lads,
+each backed by eager supporters. By this time Roshan had returned, and
+with the aid of the gaff and one of the smallest of the guard, Lance's
+guess had been proved to be true. A neatly fitting disc of metal,
+cup-shaped to increase the resemblance to the end of the barrel had
+been withdrawn, leaving a head visible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is beautifully tousled, and you'll get a good grip,&quot; said Lance,
+regretfully, as he helped the Sikh champion into the gun, &quot;but it is
+bigger than I thought for, and you'll have your work cut out for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then ensued the quaintest scene imaginable. The whole crowd, but five
+minutes before ready, almost, to fight for the truth of their miracle,
+were swaying breathless, excited, in sheer childish delight over the
+tussle to expose it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! he comes--I see his toes--bravo, Gurdit! Nay, the other hath
+strength left! Sho! sonling, let not go for thy life! That is well
+done--Bravo! Bravo!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So backwards and forwards, like a terrier and a badger, the draw
+wavered, Lance, watch in hand, calling time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Half a minute more! Go it, Gurdit!&quot; he shouted. The encouragement had
+its effect. Gurdit's toes, his ankles, his calves showed beyond the
+gun; only his knees remained, giving him grip still.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wait for his knees. Wait till he loses grip!&quot; shouted Lance--&quot;twenty
+seconds more--fifteen, ten--f--there you are! that's it, fair!!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fair it was; the knees, pressing outwards steadily, every bronze muscle
+of them showing the strength of the drag, lost grip, and with a great
+yell of delight, half-a-dozen bearded Sikhs had hold of Gurdit's feet
+with such a vigorous pull, that Lance had to shove his knee forward, in
+a hurry, to prevent the boy from falling on his face; since both his
+hands were locked desperately in the tangled hair of a disciple so big
+that he came out of the gun with a cloop like a cork!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was the most sporting draw I've seen for years,&quot; said Lance
+enthusiastically, when, after much laughter and congratulation, the
+crowd parted with smiles to let the Englishmen pass, &quot;and I'm glad you
+let the beggar off, Dering. It wasn't his fault, and he must have been
+beastly uncomfortable. Now, if you could have quodded the <i>jogi</i>--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope to do that by and by,&quot; replied Vincent significantly, &quot;but it
+was just as well the crowd should laugh to-day. These religious
+gatherings are always a bit risky--and, as you know, Dillon is having
+trouble over at the gaol. 'Pon my soul, I don't know which is worst to
+manage--fifteen hundred scoundrels, or a hundred and fifty thousand
+saints.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A hundred and fifty!&quot; echoed Lance, &quot;will there be as many as that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quite. So it is as well they should laugh; for even with the extra
+contingent of police we should find it a bit hard to manage them if
+they didn't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">True; but unfortunately the laughter of the many involves the
+discomfiture of the few; and in this case, these were the most
+unscrupulous men in Eshwara.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_15" href="#div1Ref_15">CHAPTER XV</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>OH! DEM GOLDEN SLIPPERS!</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I were a man--I would fight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words were spoken by Erda Shepherd as the two young men entered the
+drawing-room of the mission house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me fight for you!&quot; said Captain Dering, in his most ornate style,
+as, in the pause following on the interruption of their arrival, he
+went forward to shake hands. &quot;My sword is always at the service of the
+ladies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then a certain feeling, as of electricity in the air, a certain look on
+the faces round him--for most of the mission workers had already
+arrived--warned him that this was no jesting matter, and he continued
+in better taste, &quot;I trust there is nothing wrong?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wrong!&quot; echoed Erda, who in a mechanical, absolutely indifferent
+manner was shaking hands with Lance; &quot;Yes! grievously wrong!&quot;--her
+voice was almost strident in its decision--&quot;hideously wrong!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here Dr. James Campbell, who had been laying down the law to a group of
+other black coats, came up and put the telegram he was holding into
+Captain Dering's hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps you can explain this,&quot; he said severely, &quot;we generally have to
+thank the military authorities for such interference.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not in this case, so far as I am concerned,&quot; replied Vincent, after a
+glance at the first sentence. Then he read on, everyone else in the
+room silent, expectant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was from the Commissioner, saying, that from private information
+given him, he regretted that, in the interests of peace, he must, as
+magistrate, forbid any street preaching or public profession of faith
+during the next two days. Feeling was running high in many ways, and it
+was necessary to be extremely cautious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can assure you, sir,&quot; said Vincent, handing back the telegram, &quot;I am
+not the informant. At the same time&quot;--here he faced about to the room
+generally--&quot;I think the Commissioner is right. Our government is
+neutral--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Neutral!&quot; interrupted the Reverend David Campbell, whose blonde face
+was flushed with excitement. &quot;If it were neutral we would not complain.
+But does this prohibition extend to the priests of other religions? No!
+a thousand times, no! It is only another instance of the fact, that we,
+who have the strongest claim on a Christian government--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Possibly,&quot; put in Captain Dering, &quot;but I am only a soldier. I do not
+ask questions. I obey.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And we are soldiers too,&quot; said Dr. Campbell, weightily, &quot;and our
+orders are to be instant in season and out of season.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A little murmur of approval ran through the company. There was a
+militant look on every face, a militant ring in every voice, as they
+discussed what ought to be done. The women workers, with Erda at their
+head, went solid for defiance,--only Mrs. Campbell making the
+reservation &quot;if James approved.&quot; So did some of the men, notably David
+Campbell, who passed from one group to another, his pale blue eyes
+a-glisten with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda's followed him with such approval, that Lance crossed over
+pugnaciously to where she stood, with a pretty flush on her cheeks,
+listening.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is a pity you haven't got Jean Ziska's drum, Miss Shepherd,&quot; he
+said. &quot;By Jove! how you would bang it! Then, right or wrong, there
+would be a high old row, and that would just suit me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There can scarcely, Sir Lancelot,&quot;--she paused on the title with a
+strain after contempt which did not somehow come off,--&quot;be a question
+as to right or wrong in this case.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave a kindly, almost indulgent laugh. &quot;There never can be, really,
+of course. One is bound to be right, the other wrong. The mischief is
+to know t'other from which! Now I expect the sixty thousand nobles, and
+the grand-master who were left dead on the field, and the two thousand
+poor devils who got drowned in the river besides, and all the
+others--you know about 'em, of course, and you must admit he was a
+bloodthirsty chap at any rate!--had got a musical instrument of some
+sort, too. You can't fight without a band, Miss Shepherd, specially
+drums and fifes. But Jean Ziska was blind; so he could only hear his
+own music.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I hear it, too,&quot; she said superbly, with all the more defiance,
+because his words touched her innate sense of justice, as they did so
+often.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she spoke, the not unusual sound--considering that one side of the
+mission house gave on the city--of a native <i>tom-tom</i> drifted in
+through the open window, causing Lancelot's eyes to brim over with
+smiles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That isn't it, anyhow, is it, Miss Shepherd?&quot; he said. &quot;I saw that
+drum-banger as I came past just now--the funniest old dried stick of a
+Brahmin you ever set eyes on. And you know those '<i>round the mulberry
+bush</i>,' fairy-ring, endless circles of men and women hand in hand we
+used to cut out of newspaper when we were kids? Well, he was using gilt
+paper, and trying to make a miracle out of the '<i>biz</i>'! One god, he
+said, in many; the outline being the same, and the eye of faith
+sufficient to fill in the details of divinity! The people were buying
+them by dozens for the half of nothing. I asked 'em why, and they said
+as toys for their children. So I expect it will be the endless circle
+of boys and girls again--don't you? For, you know,&quot; he went on in the
+confidential voice which, dimly, she recognized was for her alone,
+&quot;I've never been able to find out the least difference in kids. I talk
+to the little beggars when I'm out shooting, you know, and--well! the
+boys are just as much boys as I used to be--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Used to be! Yet once again, for the hundredth time at least since
+they had first met, barely a month ago, his youth, his boyish,
+whole-hearted, healthy zest in life made her eyes soft; made her feel,
+with all the true womanhood in her that, if she ever had a son, she
+prayed he might be like this. And something else she recognized--not
+for the first time, either; namely, that boyish, almost thoughtless as
+he was, puzzling himself not at all with the problems of life, you
+could never dip below the surface without finding him, as it were,
+there before you; finding him clear-eyed, ready to treat the shady side
+of things as he treated the light side; that is, with an absolutely
+limpid honesty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, as she stood silent, checked in her desire to check, Father Ninian,
+who had just entered with Laila, came up to greet her, and having done
+so, turned to Lance with kind eyes and voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Captain Dering has just told me that we have to call you Sir Lancelot
+Carlyon. I am sorry for the cause, since your uncle was a man who made
+the world better by being in it;--as--as you will. It is a fine old
+name, Sir Lancelot! It carries with it a fine inheritance of honour;
+therefore I can wish no better wish for the world, as well as for
+yourself, than that you may hand it on to your son. So, peace be with
+you!&quot; His clasped hands unfolded themselves for a space as he passed
+on, leaving those two once more standing together with that sense of
+being singled out for friendship which had come to them in the
+beginning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And this was to be the end of it? Even to her it seemed impossible. To
+him it made the impossibility certain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Shepherd,&quot; he said suddenly, &quot;I have something I must say to you
+this afternoon. Come into the verandah, after you have done pouring out
+the tea, and let me say it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was so much of command in his voice that she might have resented
+it, had not Father Ninian's voice risen at that moment; firmly, yet
+with its usual faint hesitancy, in words which made everyone in the
+room pause to listen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I, and I only, am responsible, Dr. Campbell. I gave the Commissioner
+the information on which he has acted,&quot; here he raised his hand against
+interruption. &quot;I have been fifty years at Eshwara; fifty times have I
+seen the pilgrims pass to the 'Cradle of the Gods' listening peacefully
+to your preaching. But this year there is something new.&quot; He paused to
+put on his spectacles, yet the keenness they brought to his face was
+dimmed by wistfulness. &quot;I cannot quite tell what it is. There is
+something beyond the things I know, though these are many--small, it is
+true, but cumulative. Still, this is certain; the pulse of the people
+beats irregularly to-day, and that means danger to the body corporate.
+It may pass; yet the faintest stimulus may upset the whole balance of
+the organism. So, my friends, as our cause is eternal, as we have
+time--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Time!&quot; interrupted David Campbell, passionately, &quot;but now <i>is</i> the
+appointed time. Think, sir, how many of these poor deluded souls,
+striving after salvation, may die upon the road to their false
+gods--none can know how many better than you, who--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old priest looked at the young one with a whole lifetime of sad
+wisdom in his face. &quot;Yes!&quot; he said, softly, &quot;for I am very old. I have
+seen half a world die upon its road to the 'Cradle of the Gods.'
+Die--though we have not the courage to say so,--with their faces set to
+the eternal goal of humanity; to the finding of something we have lost.
+And something keeps us all back. What is it? Have we the secret more
+than they, who say, as we do, that it is sin?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His voice had fallen into a strangely musical rhythm, so that Dr.
+Campbell's, following it, seemed harsh indeed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>We</i> know we have. We have the certainty--we are missionaries of that
+certainty--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I--to my shame be it said,&quot; interrupted Father Ninian, with a
+curious return to worldly courtesy as he removed his spectacles, &quot;have
+never tried to make a convert; therefore I can scarcely hope to
+persuade you; but if, gentlemen, I might be allowed to talk the matter
+over with you--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A most sensible suggestion,&quot; assented Dr. Campbell, looking round on
+his younger, less experienced colleagues; &quot;I should be loth to act
+hastily, and give occasion to the scoffer. Mamma, will you send our tea
+into the dining room?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The pure practicality of the last words seemed to relieve the general
+tension, and Vincent Dering--who had been looking horribly
+bored--seeing the piano open, sat down to it, as the dissentients moved
+off into their cave of Adullam, and began to play, &quot;<i>La Donna é
+mobile</i>;&quot; saying, with a laugh:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Cherchez la femme!</i> Depend upon it, Mrs. Campbell, there is a woman
+at the bottom of it. I know from personal experience that she is always
+fatal to my peace and pulse on any road.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda Shepherd, holding her head very high, crossed over to pour out the
+tea; whereupon Vincent, being mischievously inclined, suddenly changed
+the tune to &quot;Where'er you walk,&quot; which he played daintily, purely,
+altogether charmingly, so causing Muriel Smith, who had lately joined
+the party, to relax her faint frown at his remark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Shepherd objects,&quot; he went on provokingly. &quot;She doesn't believe
+in men fighting for women. She scorned the offer of my sword in
+favour--excuse me for having overheard--of some drum or another. What
+was it, Miss Shepherd? I really only heard Lance say you would like to
+bang it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda flushed all over her face. &quot;I was only alluding to Jean Ziska's
+drum, which was sounded to call the Hosts of the Lord to arms.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Campbell gave a fine, hearty shudder. &quot;My dear,&quot; she said, &quot;why
+can ye not leave that gruesome tale alone? For it's just an awful tale,
+Mrs. Smith. As if he could not be content with doing his duty in this
+life, but must leave his skin behind for the next generation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We have biblical warranty for that sort of thing, Mrs. Campbell,&quot; said
+the sharp-voiced lady who owned the small black coat. &quot;Elijah left his
+mantle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hoots!&quot; interrupted Mrs. Campbell, scornfully. &quot;We all have to leave
+our body-wear, but a skin's different altogether. It sou'd just have
+gone to the grave with him, honest man, dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
+I've often heard Dr. James say there was nothing in the world for tying
+the hands o' the leevin' like dead men's dispositions. They're just a
+mortification indeed to a' concerned.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was always something about the good lady's comfortable
+common-sense which made further discussion difficult, and the talk
+wandered into less rugged paths until, the time for leisure from Erda's
+duties as tea-maker being close at hand, Lance went out deliberately
+into the verandah which overhung the river, or rather the spit of
+sand-bank which jutted out from this, the turning-point of the city's
+triangle. On the right, the wall, set with its temple spires, trended
+away to meet the bridge, on the left to join the line of the palace,
+the bathing-steps, the Fort. In front of him, as he stood leaning over
+the balustrade at the western end of the verandah, lay dull streaks of
+sand, bright gleams of water, and beyond them--dim, mysterious--was the
+great level plain of India, on whose scarce distinguishable edge the
+sun was setting behind a bank of deep purple cloud. It was a long, low,
+almost level bank, outlined sharply against the sea of golden-green
+light above it. There was scarcely a hint of sunset fire save in a
+trailing chain of little fleecy golden flocks, which stretched away
+from the purple of the clouds into the deepening purple of clear sky
+overhead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance, waiting, watched that clear, almost level, outline, until, as
+clouds do when gazed at fixedly, it took shape for him as the body of a
+dead warrior half-covered by a pall. The straight sweep yonder was the
+shield, still held upon the arm, the peak of shadow below it was the
+mailed feet. There was the curve of the throat; the head thrown back;
+the feathery plumes of the helmet. The whole world seemed his bier; the
+stars, just trembling into sight, the watch-lights round it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you see?&quot; he asked, as Erda joined him. &quot;<i>From the great deep to
+the great deep he goes</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She recognized the quotation; and though she had come out full of
+determination to deny the glamour of their mutual comprehension, it
+claimed her in a second.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes!&quot; she answered quickly, and pointing to the trailing drift of
+cloudlets, added, &quot;<i>bound by gold chains about the feet of God</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned to look at her then, forgetting fancy in a sudden certainty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought I had something to tell you,&quot; he said, &quot;but I think you know
+it already, don't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes!&quot; she answered, held captive still by that inevitable
+understanding. &quot;I think I do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paused a moment; then going back to the now fading likeness of that
+dead &quot;King of the Dead,&quot; continued: &quot;Then that ends it so--so far as I
+am concerned. But it remains as an excuse for my asking a question.
+Miss Shepherd, why are you going to marry your cousin?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had known this was coming. &quot;For a great many reasons,&quot; she began
+boldly; then paused, wishing for the first time that these reasons had
+been fewer, feeling that the possession of but <i>one</i> would have made
+speech easier. &quot;To begin with, it has been the dream of my life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned on her with an amaze which was almost ludicrous. &quot;What! to
+marry him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She frowned angrily. &quot;No! To work--to help--to give my sympathy--to
+stand hand in hand with someone who, as he does, gives himself, as I
+do, to the great work. To someone whose life will be mine--whom I can
+respect and admire and--and love--in the best sense of the word--&quot; Her
+voice, gaining confidence from its own statements, rose almost
+passionately.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance looked at her with his clear eyes, and nodded. &quot;Yes! I quite
+understand. But what has that to do with marrying him? How will
+the--the great Work be furthered by your having to look after the house
+and all that? And it isn't as if you couldn't give the help and
+sympathy without marrying a fellow. Even the love--at least I think so.
+Now, I want to marry you, because--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,--&quot; she said severely, as he paused--she felt glad to change
+places with him in the witness box--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because, to begin with, it doesn't seem possible for me to live my
+life--I mean my everyday life, trying to rub along, you know, without
+doing any harm; keeping things going as--as my people have always kept
+them, unless you help me. And then--&quot; he paused again--&quot;from the first
+moment I saw you, you reminded me--&quot; he paused so long this time that a
+faint wonder as to what he was going to say next made her heart beat,
+as she watched him leaning over the balcony, looking dreamily at that
+fading likeness of a dead 'King of the Dead.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't suppose anyone had a happier, jollier childhood than I had,&quot;
+he said suddenly, &quot;though I was an orphan. I lived at Tregarthen, you
+know.&quot; He turned to her as he spoke, and smiled. &quot;You should have seen
+my grandfather and grandmother, Miss Shepherd. They were like the
+double Christmas number of an illustrated paper! She used to boast that
+she never saw a naughty child; and she never did, for the dear old lady
+always walked out of the room promptly when we tried it on. I remember
+it used to take the starch out awfully, having no audience. But it was
+the same in everything. It beat even a boy to be really bad in that
+house, somehow. Yes! we had jolly times! You would have liked it--you
+would like it now&quot;--he turned swiftly and held out both hands--&quot;Come to
+it!--Come, and be Lady Carlyon as she was! People may say all that
+means nothing, but it means everything to a woman to be able to count
+on an inheritance like that for her--&quot; he broke off as some of the
+others came out into the balcony, and bending closer to her, went on in
+a low voice, &quot;I've said nothing of my love--you know all that--and I
+think--Yes--&quot; his voice took a note of certainty--&quot;I think you--you like
+me well enough--don't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was something so truth-compelling in his face, his voice, that
+she felt thankful for the tepid word <i>like</i>--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I like you very much, Sir Lancelot,&quot; she said, trying not to let her
+voice betray the absolute tenderness she felt, &quot;but, as you told me
+just now, that is no reason why I should marry you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is at least as good as yours for marrying <i>him</i>,&quot; he broke in
+quickly. &quot;At least it has to do with you--with me--with our
+happiness--with mine at any rate! Do you remember when you first told
+me your name--The World's Desire I called it--the woman with the
+red-gold hair, the red-gold hem to her garment, the red-gold apple in
+her hand--you are that to me--Erda! give me my heart's desire--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His voice--low, quick, passionate--thrilled through her. She saw
+herself as she had seen herself then.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes! it has to do with you, with me!&quot; she echoed desperately, &quot;but
+only we two.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No!--&quot; he interrupted--&quot;with more than that, surely!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the pause which followed, one vision faded in another, and her own
+wish, that if she ever had a son he might be as this man, came to make
+her remember Father Ninian's words, &quot;I can wish no better wish for the
+world!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Father Ninian could not have said so to her. <i>She</i> could do
+better for the world in the other life, the other work. The very
+self-sacrifice of it attracted her, vague though the sense of that was,
+as yet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sir Lancelot,&quot; she said at last, &quot;I am very sensible of the honour--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't--for heaven's sake,&quot; he interrupted. &quot;That is--excuse
+me--bunkum.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt glad of the faint resentment which came to her aid. &quot;I am, all
+the same,&quot; she continued; &quot;but it is impossible. Perhaps if I did not
+look forward as I do; perhaps if I only sought happiness; but--&quot; she
+clasped her hands tightly and the militant look came back to her
+face--&quot;I am sworn to another work--the noblest work of all--to bring
+light to those that sit in darkness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance gave an odd little laugh, full of bitterness. &quot;You leave me out
+in the black night, anyhow,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">True enough, in one way, for the quick dusk had closed in around them;
+but as he spoke, a great white shaft of light like a moon-ray shot,
+almost as if in denial--widening on its way, from the shadowy stretches
+beyond the river; shot waveringly, as if uncertain, until, focussing
+itself full on the verandah, it turned the dusk to day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The search-light!&quot; cried Mrs. Smith, clapping her daintily gloved
+little hands. &quot;Eugene will be so pleased. He couldn't positively
+swallow a mouthful at lunch because, when he thought all was right,
+something went wrong. That's why he didn't come, Miss Shepherd,&quot; she
+added, for the light had effectually joined the scattered groups into
+one. &quot;I positively couldn't tear him away, but I made him promise to
+turn the thing on here if he succeeded. And he has. Isn't it splendid?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Campbell looked doubtful. &quot;It's just too much like the last day,
+comin' unawares, and makin' a' things manifest, for my taste. An' I
+wonder what Dr. James will say to it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wonder what the natives will say to it?&quot; said Vincent Dering,
+looking across at Lance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Say!&quot; echoed the tart lady. &quot;I know what they should say--that, of
+course, we know a great deal more than they do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And, besides,&quot; added a new and gushing voice, &quot;it is so beautifully,
+suggestively true. We have the light, we can light them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! but that <i>is</i> such a bother,&quot; came Laila Bonaventura's
+full-throated tones. &quot;I hate having to see things I don't care to see.
+I much prefer to have my own candle, don't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had been finding it dull work waiting for her guardian's return
+from the dining room, even though Vincent had, now and again, found
+opportunity for a word or look. He took advantage of one now to say,
+&quot;It will be pleasanter by and by, won't it? We must settle the time
+before you leave.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What time?&quot; asked Muriel Smith, who happened to overhear his
+undertone. She had been vaguely curious at their apparent avoidance of
+each other, their occasional lapses into familiarity, ever since she
+had challenged them at the Viceroy's party.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Time!&quot; echoed Vincent, coolly. &quot;Of that new song, of course. Come in,
+Miss Bonaventura, let us decide about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl swept up her long lashes solemnly. &quot;I should think a twelve
+beat would be best, really. It is safer when there are so many
+accidental notes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His face, as he led the way to the piano, was a study. If she had lived
+her life in a vaudeville at the <i>Folies Bergčres</i> she could scarcely
+have been more at home in intrigue, yet her absolute sincerity and
+unconsciousness of wrongdoing was as palpable. On the whole, he felt
+vexed; the more so because the vaudeville dialogue proved unnecessary,
+since a sudden concentration of the party to hear the verdict of the
+Adullamites, who at that moment came out of the dining room, would have
+given them ample time for more dignified conversation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda was in the front rank of the eager little crowd, her hopes, her
+enthusiasms, heightened by the deliberate choice she had just made,
+when Dr. Campbell, as the recognized head, began to speak. They had
+come unanimously to the conclusion, he said, that absolute revolt at
+this late hour would be unwise. Whether Father Ninian Bruce was
+justified, by the circumstances, in his adverse report was another
+matter. Personally he denied it; nor did he propose that they should
+sit down quietly under the interference. They were only forbidden to
+preach in Eshwara. Therefore they had come, again unanimously, to the
+resolution of leaving Eshwara for the time in a body. It would be a
+solemn protest; and they could thus render both to Cęsar and to God,
+since they could preach at other pilgrim stations on the road. It would
+be a noble protest which was certain of proving blessed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words roused no little enthusiasm, mingled with undoubted relief in
+most cases; but Erda, standing beside her cousin, said in an undertone,
+&quot;Did you assent to that, David?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suggested it,&quot; he answered, in a louder voice, not without some
+self-satisfaction. &quot;It appeared to me to meet the exigencies of the
+case admirably, and it will be very useful, let me tell you, at home.
+It will emphasize the difficulties and dangers we have to contend
+against. It will show our meek reasonableness, and then--&quot; he looked
+round with a jubilant smile--&quot;it seems to me such a beautiful idea that
+the only result of this attempt to gag us will be that the thousands of
+poor benighted souls will have a chance of hearing the Truth in many
+places instead of one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Erda's voice broke in on the hum of applause almost harshly,
+filling the room with its defiance. &quot;I think it cowardly; I would
+fight--if I were a man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You would beat Jean Ziska's drum!&quot; laughed Vincent Dering, rising from
+the music stool where he had been holding Laila's hand under cover of
+the new song,--an occupation which always made him feel as if all the
+wine of life had gone to his head. &quot;You refused my sword just now, Miss
+Shepherd, so I place my drumstick at your disposal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, with a reckless gaiety, he seized on a painted tambourine which
+good Mrs. Campbell had hung as an ornament on the wall,--it was
+bedaubed with two white lilies and a butterfly rampant,--and catching
+up a teaspoon from the table, he began to sing in his pretty,
+light-comedy voice, &quot;Oh! dem golden slippers!&quot; while the tambourine,
+under his skilful drumming, throbbed to the words:--</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Golden slippers on a golden stair,<br>
+Golden slippers on my tired feet,<br>
+Golden slippers dat we all mus' wear<br>
+Becos' dey are so sweet.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">He sang well, he played better; and both voice and drumming echoed out
+through the open windows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are singing in the <i>missen</i>,&quot; said the people in the courtyard to
+the pilgrims, who were still gathering to the miracles, like moths
+round a candle. &quot;It is not wise to listen; folk become as they are, if
+they do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Some of the pilgrims laughed and some stopped their ears; but even so,
+the throbbing of the tambourine was in the air.</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Golden slippers on a golden stair,<br>
+Golden slippers on my tired feet,<br>
+Golden slippers dat we all mus' wear.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_16" href="#div1Ref_16">CHAPTER XVI</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>ECHOES</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">If the twopenny-halfpenny tambourine--which had been bedaubed with its
+white lilies and rampant butterfly by a suburban maiden lady for a
+mission sale, and, remaining over from that, had been bought in at half
+price by Mrs. Campbell for the adornment of her drawing-room,--had been
+indeed Jean Ziska's famous drum, Eshwara could hardly have been more
+restless than it was on the night after Vincent Dering had sung, &quot;Oh!
+dem golden slippers!&quot; to its accompaniment. The tune had occurred to
+him in an instant, without thought, simply as one he had sung more than
+once when doing bones and tambourine in a nigger troupe at a soldiers'
+sing-song. He had meant nothing by; it and yet the words,</p>
+
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="i6">&quot;Golden slippers on a golden stair,<br>
+Golden slippers dat we'se got to wear,&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">fitted their environment; that atmosphere of effort after something
+beyond, above the real, the actual; the inevitable climbing of a golden
+stair, the inevitable wearing of the golden shoes, the inevitable
+search after the golden gates which, found, will open upon Paradise.
+True, the Paradise differed to each pair of yearning eyes and weary
+feet; but the longing for it as a personal gain, spiritual or bodily,
+was identical.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For Paradise is the Desire of the World still; whether men find it in
+the good they lost, or the Love which lost it for them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And in Eshwara that night the desire rose strenuously, militantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda, packing her boxes in haste, since she and her aunt had arranged
+to start with the others at dawn, felt as if she had, at last, closed
+her hand firmly on the plough. There could be no looking back now. The
+golden slippers were on her feet, the golden stairs before her, the
+golden gates within sight. She had said good-by to Lance without a
+quiver. She even smiled softly, tenderly, as she set an unopened deal
+box to go with her others. It was one which the Reverend David had
+brought with him from England, and which had been made over to her, not
+without nods and winks, smiles and suspicions of tears, from her aunt.
+For it contained the wedding dress. It was a Moravian wedding dress of
+the old style, to suit Erda's fancy; and she had been quite anxious to
+see the delicate white muslin robe and the quaint little cap, with its
+bunch of orange blossoms, which was to mark her as both bride and
+matron. But it had seemed a pity, in careful Mrs. Campbell's opinion,
+to unpack it only to repack it, and run the needless risk of crushing
+its daintiness. So there in its box it lay still, untouched, unseen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There would be real orange blossoms and to spare, the girl told
+herself with a smile, in the garden at Herrnhut; for so the summer
+resting-place of the mission had been called in deference to the
+Moravian extraction of those who had built it and started the Christian
+settlement in the tiny valley in which it stood. This lay some thirty
+miles up the Hara, beyond the first range of hills; and the river,
+fresh from its mad rush from the snows beyond, ran through it slackly,
+peacefully, before beginning its long, swift, yet smooth, slide down
+the dark ravine which cleft the outer range, until it ended in the
+plains at Eshwara.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was at Herrnhut that, every year, in turns of two months during the
+hot weather, the missionaries exchanged work in the bazaars for the
+lighter labor of the agricultural settlement. Naturally, therefore, it
+was looked on as a sort of holiday house; but this year it would be
+something more. It would be the headquarters of fight, the centre of
+the resistance which was to use the Commissioner's order to cease
+firing as an excuse for a more determined skirmishing. For it stood
+right on the pilgrims' road. Indeed, Erda and the other rebels would
+have to travel a good eight-and-twenty miles along that very road
+itself before coming to the slack water where they could cross the
+river by a ferry, and finish their journey through the level fields on
+its further side to Herrnhut, with its homelike, peaceful surroundings.
+The memory of them came to Erda, making her sense of that inevitable
+climbing of the golden stair after righteousness more acute; since she
+had to face a good-by to them also. And sooner than she had expected,
+for the breaking up of winter work a week earlier than usual, owing to
+this secular interference, had made David, eager to begin anew, plead
+for a speedier wedding. So there were only two or three days left, at
+most.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The knowledge, however, brought her no doubt; it helped her, rather, to
+a greater certainty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had done right. Her feet were indeed upon the golden stair!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And in the other houses of the mission, where everyone was disregarding
+sleep in the striving after something that was more to them than sleep,
+the atmosphere was electric also, the thoughts militant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So they were in the streets, the alleys of the town; for on the bridge
+of boats--that bridge which spanned the broad expanse of water between
+the city and the great plain of India--the pilgrims were passing, now,
+in an unending stream--to take up their places as near as might be to
+the Pool of Immortality, where, with the dawn, the water would rise
+miraculously for the cleansing of sin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hārī! Hārā! Hārā! Hārī!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cry was almost incessant, but the eye could see little, for the
+moon was young, the night dark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hour after hour it came, that cry on the dread Creator, the dread
+Destroyer. Monotonous, patient, almost indifferent, yet absolutely
+insistent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The golden-shod feet of the pilgrims, after whose souls the
+missionaries yearned, were on the golden stair also, and their golden
+gates would open at the 'Cradle of the Gods'; must open, hidden though
+the goal was by mist when it was day, by darkness when it was night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What matter if it was hidden? For the gold-shod feet might falter and
+fall ere that goal was reached; but the hidden spring of cleansing at
+the Pool of Immortality was theirs. It would rise at dawn; rise as it
+did always, every year.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What matter Birth or Death, if the finding of that lost paradise of
+purity was certain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Out on the bridge, whence the cry came oftenest, there was no doubt
+regarding this certainty; but as each weary pair of feet stumbled on
+the first stones of the town, it stumbled into an atmosphere in which
+nothing seemed sure, save that there was change; that Eshwara was not
+what it had been.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To begin with, it held soldiers. Wherefore? And why had dead women been
+sent back to it by Mother Ganges to curse the men whose love had killed
+them?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But what wonder, when the very logs, the fishes, were stolen from the
+river nowadays; and from the people also. Then what of this strange new
+light? The light which fed on men's brains!--that came and went at
+pleasure--that was quite small at first, when but seven or eight men
+had been sacrificed, but which, only an hour or so agone, had showed in
+a huge ray, feeling here and there through the darkness for God knows
+what, then settling on it, making it impossible to hide aught, prying
+into the very Holiest of Holies! Had it not shot into Mother Kali's
+very temple, and shown the worshippers that two of her mighty arms were
+stuck on with sealing wax! What God would stand that! And how could the
+very Gods themselves work miracles if everybody could see how they were
+done?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had already refused to work them for pious <i>jogi</i> Gorakh-nāth.
+What wonder? The Gods did not like laughter, especially the laughter of
+<i>M'lléchas</i>.<a name="div4Ref_10" href="#div4_10"><sup>[10]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class="normal">Therefore, who was to tell if the spring would even rise in the Pool?
+So those who were wise would make certain of at least a modicum of
+salvation, and go straight to the bathing-steps; since the river,
+anyhow, must be there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This suggestion of a cautious hedge was diligently spread by the
+bathing-<i>ghat</i> priests among the new arrivals; who listened patiently.
+But so they did also to the other priests whose business it was to
+scorn the possibility of failure, and to deny the displeasure of the
+Gods. To say that <i>jogi</i> Gorakh-nāth had been found out by the
+<i>Huzoors</i> in one of his usual tricks; that was all. So that people who
+wanted the genuine article, and a real, good, old crusted miracle, had
+better come as usual to the Pool.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The weary-footed, anxious-eyed climbers of the golden stairs listened
+patiently, silently, even when the antagonists began, in vehement
+quarrel, to bandy threats, and hint at worse portents to come. To their
+experience, their hope, it seemed impossible even to dream their
+pilgrimage in vain. The dawn would show, anyhow. So hour by hour,
+minute by minute, the tide of pilgrims set citywards till it brimmed
+over with faith and hope. And these are dangerous things when charity
+depends on them, and there are antagonistic claims to every alms. So
+Eshwara was restless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Over in the gaol, also, by which the golden-shod feet passed so closely
+with their heart-stirring cry, it seemed as if Vincent Dering's
+thrumming, following as it did on the heels of Eugene Smith's success
+with the search light, had set what Dr. Dillon called his Hosts of the
+Devil in commotion. Indeed, that thrumming was still going on when
+George Dillon had gone raging over to conjure the experimenter, with
+oaths, to turn off his confounded bull's-eye at once, or the prisoners
+would go out of their judgment with thinking of the number who would
+have to die that night in order to keep up the supply of brain
+power!--just too, as he had been congratulating himself that the
+cholera scare was over. Seventy-two hours, and not a case! It was too
+bad!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Eugene, whom he found on the roof of his house playing with coils,
+batteries, accumulators, had suggested eagerly that if there was real
+trouble, he might end it by turning his light bang on to the gaol, and
+so reducing it to a paralysis of sheer terror. Dr. Dillon, however, had
+sworn violently that he would not have the poor wretches frightened
+unnecessarily, especially when that triumphant cry of those who were
+free to defy the devil by seeking sanctification before death reminded
+them that <i>they</i> could not--that they must die defiled, helpless,
+hopeless! That fear was, he said, in a way dignified, worthy of
+consideration. And he did not anticipate trouble unless there was
+treachery inside or out, though perhaps he might, as a precaution, ask
+Dering for an extra guard. But when the latter happened to come in, as
+Mrs. Smith's escort home, while the doctor was still there, Dr. Dillon
+apparently changed his mind. Anyhow, he pooh-poohed Captain Dering's
+offer to send one, saying, the more you could keep a gaol to yourself
+the better--or for the matter of that anything else! So, with a curt
+good-night to Mrs. Smith, he went back to his work, leaving Vincent to
+remark, carelessly, that Dillon seemed in a bad temper. At which Muriel
+smiled. There was something in the air, she said, conducive to bad
+temper. She, herself, felt she must soon have quarrelled with the
+doctor's assumption of knowing better than anyone else; so it was as
+well he had not stopped to dinner. Her quarrelsomeness did not,
+however, extend to Vincent, who did; indeed, she made herself so
+tenderly charming and unconsciously friendly towards him that he began
+to accuse himself of having been too irresponsive of late. The fact of
+being in love did not preclude friendship for someone else, if, indeed,
+he was really in love with Laila Bonaventura? In one way he knew
+himself to be so; but the idea of treating this love of his on
+conventional lines was still repugnant to him; the thought of her, as
+his wife, barely attractive.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, after a time spent pleasantly enough for those two, Eugene Smith
+went off to his coils, and accumulators, and batteries, half-sulky,
+half-bored, and wholly ill-used at having to switch off, when he had at
+least half an hour's electricity all ready stored for use.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was grumbling over this fact when Vincent called good-night to him
+before starting to drive back; and he answered that but for fools, who
+were afraid of going to their proper place, he might have given Dering
+electric light on the road.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, thanks!&quot; cried Vincent, gaily, &quot;there's enough electricity in the
+air to-night without that. I believe your machine has leaked, Smith! I
+feel as if I should give out sparks if anyone touched me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he drove across the bridge Eshwara looked as if it were doing that,
+too. There were lights everywhere, twinkling, little, restless lights.
+The very spit, usually dark with the darkness of primitive life after
+sundown, was alive with them; for the pilgrims were camping there, as
+elsewhere. Nor were all the fisher folk abed as usual, for that,
+surely, was one of them paddling up stream on a dug-out,--just under
+the last span of the bridge. He saw the man distinctly, not five yards
+from him in the flash of the lamps as he drove past overhead, and
+wondered what the mischief the fellow was doing at that time of night,
+going up stream.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something to be ashamed of, no doubt, else why should he have sent the
+dug-out beyond the circle of light with a swift stroke?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Truly Father Ninian was right; Eshwara was not normal. Its pulse beat
+irregularly, and things were going on which should not be going on--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sudden shame made him glance at the shadowed pile of the palace
+looming above the shadowed town. It was all dark, save for one row of
+restless, twinkling lights. Those were the little latticed windows of
+Laila's sitting-room, that was fit for any king's favourite. He had
+seen it already, might see it again at twelve, if she was in one of her
+reckless moods when she would risk anything for his sake.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Truly! there were things going on!--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But this was between themselves; this could hurt no one. By and by, of
+course, he would insist on a commonplace engagement, and a wedding.
+Yes! a commonplace wedding. He had, despite his vague repugnance to her
+origin, made up his mind to that. No one but an utter cad could take
+what he was taking, and then shake his bridle rein and ride away. But
+for the present, it was the most absolutely perfect bit of romance in
+his whole life. He could not, would not give it up. Laila was right!
+This was the essence. As a rule, people mixed love, diluted it, were
+vaguely ashamed of its absorbing influence. But when you came to
+analyze even the diluted feeling, its virtue lay in this irrational
+content, this desire for nothing better than this best of
+pleasures--this paradise of a woman's or a man's love.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed, suddenly, at the memory of Laila's quick grasp of his
+meaning when Muriel had overheard his remark about the time. Such
+quickness, in the latter, would have made him revolt from it; but with
+Laila it was different. A passionate gratitude to the girl to whom
+fear, remorse, the very possibility of change seemed unknown, rose up
+and claimed him. Dear little girl! She was so absolutely single-minded
+in her love for him. How could anyone expect him to forego the luxury
+of such love yet awhile?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In thinking Laila single-minded, Vincent thought the truth, so far as
+he was concerned. If love, passionate as Juliet's, and far more
+innocent in one way, far more <i>rusé</i> in another, ever existed, hers was
+that love. Nevertheless, its very integrity made her curiously cunning
+in regard to anything which threatened to disturb that idyll in the
+garden. So, at that very moment, when Vincent looked up at her windows
+asserting her absolute lack of pretence and single-mindedness, she was
+pitting her wits against old Akbar Khān in a manner worthy of her
+grandmother, Anāri Begum; since Akbar, far more than her guardian, was
+to be feared. The latter, honest man, went to his bed, beyond the
+chapel, at ten of the clock precisely; but Akbar, who from ancient
+habit was given to prowling about at night, and napping in odd corners,
+had many chances of discovery. During the last few days, however, when
+she, for her own purposes, had let him talk, he had become so garrulous
+regarding his past that she had recognized in him an unscrupulous
+confidant, with whom, in face of the possibility of requiring one, it
+was wise to remain on terms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, as she lounged on the sofa, she listened to his endless talk with
+tolerance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nay!&quot; she interrupted at last. &quot;If, as thou sayest she will, she
+brings me more dresses and jewels, she may call me Begum, and hint at
+my being one, really, a thousand times over! Why not? Begum and
+Princess are the same, and my great-grandmother in Italy was that.
+Pidar Narāyan told me so to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The memory of the old man's voice, when, with new-found courage, she
+had questioned him concerning those old days, made her eyes soft. Yes!
+he would, he <i>must</i> understand. So, by and by, when Vincent and she
+were tired of playing Romeo and Juliet (the story of the star-crossed
+lovers had been her only reading since Vincent had taken to quoting so
+much from it) they would make Pidar Narāyan play Friar Laurence, and
+marry them on the sly. That would be so much more amusing than a
+regular wedding. He could not refuse, since he had once loved as she
+loved. You could hear that in his voice; after how many years?--fifty
+or sixty! And the Princess had, of course, loved also in exactly the
+same way. Laila felt sure of it. That curious, inexpressible feeling
+had come to her also. Laila, trying to formulate that feeling, slipping
+her heel idly in and out of her dainty little bronze shoe as she
+lounged, suddenly remembered Vincent's song to the tambourine, and
+laughed. That was it!</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size:90%">&quot;Golden feet upon a golden stair.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That expressed it exactly. Two pair of feet going side by side up a
+golden stair, to golden gates. So contented. Ah, God! how content!
+Seeking something, claiming something, yet still content. That feeling
+came, sometimes, when you were saying your prayers. A sort of yearning
+<i>for</i>, a sort of satisfaction <i>in</i>, something that was not you; so,
+surely if it came <i>then</i>, there could be no harm in it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harm! The very sisters allowed that you must love the man you were
+going to marry. And she and Vincent would be married by and by and live
+happily, for that was better than having a &quot;<i>statue of pure gold</i>&quot;
+erected to you! In the meantime, secrecy, so long as Vincent wished to
+play Romeo and Juliet, was her cue; therefore, the more she could blind
+old Akbar, the more he could be turned on a wrong track, the better.
+Especially when the turning was so delightfully ridiculous!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She managed, however, not to laugh her childish love of mischief into
+Mumtāza Mahal's very face when, after much shrinking into white sheets
+held up as screens, and quick cuddlings into corners at the faintest
+suspicion of a possible peep, that good lady, in her very, very best
+pink satin continuations, was ushered in through the dark deserted
+passages of the palace, to Laila's boudoir. For, despite the amusement,
+the girl's heart was beating fast with determination to climb her
+golden stairs without interruption. So she allowed herself to be
+<i>kow-towed</i> to, and called Begum-<i>sahiba</i> and she accepted the new
+dress and jewels without protest. Eagerly, in fact, since they were far
+more gorgeous than the first, and caught her taste better. The former,
+indeed, had been Roshan Khān's own choice, dictated by his acquired
+knowledge of the sort of things <i>mem-sahibs</i> admired; these latter were
+her grandmother's, purely, entirely oriental. The difference was great.
+Put briefly, <i>this</i> was the costume in which Anāri Begum had flouted
+the Nawab, the <i>other</i> that in which she had caught Bun-avatār's fancy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Laila took up one of the heavy, gorgeous, glittering garments. It smelt
+strongly of musk, attar of roses, and jasmin, and she snuffed at it
+with a smile. That was ever so much better than the dull lavender
+water, which was the only scent her guardian said a lady could use.
+Vincent would like that; he, like she did, loved strong scents. If only
+the stupid old frumpish thing would go away in time, she would put on
+that dress at once, and so give him pleasure. That was all her thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she sat, with a happy smile, her face half-buried in a tiny,
+three-cornered corselet of scarlet net embroidered in seed pearls,
+Mumtāza and Akbar Khān winked at each other; and Laila's sharp eyes,
+catching this, brimmed over with laughter. She felt glad the rest of
+her face was hidden, until she was grave enough to reply graciously to
+the hints, the suggestions; for Mumtāza had been bound over by oaths
+not to go too fast, and she obeyed her instructions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even so, Akbar Khān, listening with folded hands in a mantis-like
+attitude, his angles all crushed together into humility, wondered if he
+was standing on his head or his heels, as he heard Laila admit,
+gravely, that she was certainly, in a way, the head of the family, in
+that she possessed its land; but that, of course, Roshan was really the
+heir. That it had given her great gratification to see how thoroughly
+he had adopted English ways. That, of course, it would be impossible
+for him to marry an uneducated cow of a girl. Here, for a moment, she
+had relapsed to sincerity in order to remark that it must be impossible
+to love a person you had not seen, and that for her part, she knew in
+an instant if she was going to like or dislike people. If the latter,
+she tried never to see them, really, again. Then, remembering her part,
+she had resumed it hastily by saying that no doubt she would see more
+of her cousin,--who, by the way, was very nice-looking,--in the future,
+as he was quite in society.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Old Mumtāza had hard work at this juncture to prevent herself from
+cracking all her finger-joints over the girl's head for luck, and
+wishing her a numerous offspring; while Akbar gave a gasp that was not
+all pleasure. He felt that he was being rushed, that the crisis might
+come before he was ready for it. At this rate, Pidar Narāyan would have
+no chance of dying. At this rate, Roshan Khān's castle in the air must
+topple over from sheer lack of foundation to such a lofty structure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he trotted back beside Mumtāza's curtained <i>dhooli</i> to that little
+parasite of a house against the palace wall, where he knew Roshan was
+waiting for the upshot of the interview, his one consolation was that
+bow-strings were out of fashion!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In truth, there was no more restless man in Eshwara that night than
+Roshan Khān. The desire for this paradise had grown overwhelming, and
+as he listened to his grandmother, while Akbar pointed each triumphant
+appeal of the old lady's with a helpless &quot;<i>Gereeb-pun-wās</i>,&quot; his face
+grew pale with emotion; until, at the mention of his good looks and
+Laila's desire to see him, he turned fiercely to the go-between, and
+bade him fix a time; the sooner the better!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Akbar felt inclined to tell the truth then. To admit that he had never
+breathed a word of Roshan's pretensions to the Miss-<i>sahiba</i> and that,
+so far, the negotiations only existed in his own imaginings. But the
+look on Roshan's face--he had seen it often in his youth in connection
+with women, and sacks, and bow-strings--reduced him to protestations.
+He would do his best, he said, but with Pidar Narāyan it would be
+difficult to manage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan strode about the little courtyard like a wild beast in a
+cage, biting his mustache, and thinking. Then he turned to the old
+phrase-monger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have settled it. Before dawn to-morrow--not this dawn, that is too
+nigh on us now--but the next, thou shalt let me into the garden. Thou
+knowest the little balcony which was not lit up? I will stay there,
+waiting, till she come for an early walk among the flowers. That can be
+managed. Then, if the coast is clear, we can meet and talk. If not,
+there is no harm done, for I can slip into the stream and swim back.
+That will be best, since it is not possible by day, and at night the
+<i>mems</i> do not receive visitors, as we do, without reproach.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan's knowledge of etiquette was sound, yet at that very moment
+Laila, ablaze with gold and jewels, was meeting her lover's eyes with a
+happy laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's in a dress?&quot; she paraphrased, &quot;it is no part of me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was it not? Never had Vincent seen her look like this; so absolutely
+desirable, so perfectly adorable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He caught her in his arms and kissed her. The heavy scent upon her
+dress assailed him. She looked up into his eyes and laughed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true</i>,&quot; she whispered,
+&quot;<i>than those who have more cunning to be strange</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Juliet!&quot; he whispered back, lost in his own mad passion. &quot;Juliet!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Their gold-shod feet were upon the golden stairs; the gates of Paradise
+were before them.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_17" href="#div1Ref_17">CHAPTER XVII</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>THE POOL OF IMMORTALITY</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cry was incessant now, for there was a glint of light in the east;
+and the hosts of pilgrims to the 'Cradle of the Gods' were cramming,
+almost to solidity, each street and alley in Eshwara which could be
+said, by however long and tortuous a detour, to give access to that
+small tank where, at dawn, the miraculous waters of cleansing would
+rise, as they always did on this, the great Day of Atonement. In the
+sea of slightly upturned faces, upturned in the vain hope of seeing
+over the heads of those in front, the most noticeable thing was the
+expression of mingled eagerness and patience. And this was most
+noticeable in those who stood nearest to the bamboo railing which had
+been erected (in a square some four feet from the first step downwards)
+as a precaution against a dangerous rush on all sides; and in
+consequence, a dangerous crush on those steep steps. The only entrance
+to them, therefore, was by a sort of double sheep-pen at the end
+nearest the town, by means of which, when the time came, some fifty
+bathers would be admitted to the railed square from the inner pen,
+their places in which would be taken by the fifty in the outer one;
+their places, in turn, being filled by fifty from the general crowd. By
+which double check no more than fifty could stand at one time with no
+barrier between their mortality and immortality! The railing itself was
+guarded every two yards by a yellow-legged constable, and at the
+sheep-pens stood the two European police-officers in whose hands the
+peace and order of the vast crowd lay. Their assistant stood at the
+exit gate at the other end, and their three white helmets showed
+strangely conspicuous amongst the bare or saffron-turbaned heads.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The two at the sheep-pens were talking and laughing to each other as
+Englishmen will before business begins; talking and laughing London
+talk, for one of them was fresh from home furlough, and had only been
+detailed for this special duty, on his way up country.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes! I had a jolly day,&quot; he was saying. &quot;The dear old Heath was
+looking just as it always did. It was like being born again to come
+back to the whole caboodle--Aunt Sallies, Tommy Dods, Welshers, and the
+lot--and then the enclosure--&quot; A sudden sway in the crowd made him look
+round hastily at his own. It was all correct; so many yards this way,
+so many that, with yellow legs marking the yards, and those three white
+helmets marking the limits within which regeneration was legal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sway ceased. The moment had not yet come, though slowly, surely,
+the light grew, to give the great mass of bronze faces a greyish,
+corpse-like tint, while, half way up the sky behind them, the serrated
+edge of the sacred snows grew pale, and cold, and stern, like the very
+face of Death itself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hārī! Hārā! Hārā! Hārī!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a note of anxiety in the cry now; for the shadow thrown by
+the tall houses which hemmed in the wide courtyard was growing paler,
+and in another minute, at most, the twelve-foot square of cleansing
+water, which was all the Gods vouchsafed, must surely begin to rise and
+show at the bottom of those worn stone steps--worn by generations on
+generations of golden-shod feet seeking immortality.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stand back, please! Not yet!&quot; came an English voice, inaudible for the
+rhythmic roar of the multitude; but the raised riding whip was
+sufficient. The eagerness died out for a moment from those nearest
+faces, lost in a cheerful obedience, a respectful <i>salaam</i> or two, a
+general acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish those devils of priests would turn on the tap,&quot; remarked the
+other Englishman with a yawn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes!&quot; answered the first speaker; &quot;if you are on duty, next year, I'd
+insist on the curtain being rung up at the bill time. It is rough on
+the audience; especially when they don't cat-call!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave an imitation of a London gallery's sign of impatience, which
+made some of the golden-shod ones stare; for the rhythmic roar had died
+down in one of those sudden silences which seize upon humanity even
+when in masses. So that a faint &quot;<i>rumpa-tum-tum-rumpa-tum-tum</i>&quot; was
+distinctly audible from far. It was the <i>tom-tom</i> of the old Brahmin,
+whom Lance Carlyon had seen selling the endless circles of cut papers
+as a whole pantheon of Gods.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is an eminently disturbing sound, that ceaseless, insistent throb of
+a <i>tom-tom</i>, which has no end, no beginning; which holds ever in its
+beat the necessity for something more; for another repetition, and yet
+another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, on its ceaselessness, broke in again that swaying, pulsing roar of
+many voices.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hārī! Hārā!</i> Life-Death-Creator-Destroyer!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Something must have gone wrong with the ball-cock, and as usual, the
+plumber will be '<i>in directly from another little job</i>,'&quot; said the man
+who had just come out from England, reminiscently. He had gone there to
+settle his wife and bairns in a jerry-built villa near London; so the
+memory of something beyond the iniquities of the plumber--those Borgias
+of modern life, dealing death unchecked, undiscovered--made his eyes
+pass beyond the crowd, pass the spires of the clustered temples, and
+settle on the still dark, western sky, over whose curved edge lay the
+goal of <i>his</i> solitary feet, the end of <i>his</i> pilgrimage, the cradle
+of
+<i>his</i> divinities.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stand back, please! not yet!&quot; came his order again; and once more
+eagerness died down to obedience. Once more that cry on the Creator,
+the Destroyer, ended in that insistent, restless beat of the old
+god-selling Brahmin's drum.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a strange scene. Above, was the growing light of day; below, the
+square stone font of immortality, and between them a clamouring crowd,
+a careless few.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And between <i>them</i> what?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A light railing of bamboo, the dignity that doth hedge an empire. That
+was all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now, with a sudden access of light, came the quick indrawing breath
+of thousands to voice a sort of sharp, short sob, followed by an
+instant's silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, long, soft, with the hush in it of some huge wave far out at sea
+which swallows up a lesser one, the out-going breath of those thousands
+voiced a sigh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the pool was still empty, though the dawn had come.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something was wrong.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Seriously wrong, to judge by one English face, as it turned to give a
+look round, then settled on another English face. &quot;There's something
+up--God knows what--the Commissioner feared a row, you know. You'd
+better go to the Fort and ask Dering to send us down every man he can;
+men, you understand, not sabres--as yet. And tell Pidar Narāyan, he's a
+host in himself with these pilgrims,--Ramanund too, you might get
+him,--we want anyone who can help the crowd to keep its temper, though
+I don't expect he'd be much good--and there's no one else. Inspector!&quot;
+here the police officer turned to a silver-laced turban beside the
+outer pen, &quot;leave that in charge of Govinda and Suchet--Stay! Shiv-deo
+will be better; he is a high-caste Brahmin. And you go and send every
+twice-born constable you've got, <i>and can trust</i>, to every alley and
+street that leads here; for there will be an awful crush when those
+in front don't move on. And--&quot; he wrinkled his forehead in hasty
+thought--&quot;have we anyone connected with the temple priests, someone
+they can trust? Ah! Annant, of course,--the very man! Send him to find
+out if there is anything really wrong; and--&quot; he lowered his voice, &quot;if
+it is anything to do with the siphon, or whatever it is, get workmen
+and set it straight--pour water down--anything! Only there <i>must be a
+miracle</i>. And be quick. If this crowd gets impatient--God help it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The last was to himself as he looked round the solid packed mass of
+humanity. There was no sigh of impatience in it as yet; only eagerness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And mind,&quot; he added, &quot;no truncheons drawn till I myself give the
+order.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The word passed in a low tone round the square of authority, and that
+done, the head of it pulled out his cigar case. He might as well smoke
+while he could.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The crowd watched him, vaguely interested at his lack of interest in
+what was coming, until a faint forward sweep, a half-hearted shout came
+from behind; from those upturned faces which could not even see an
+Englishman lighting his cigar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not yet! Stand back!&quot; said the latter again, as the pressure on the
+sheep pen grew. And they stood back, all save a miserable-looking,
+dirt-clad, wild-eyed mendicant, who had wormed his way to the front,
+and now feared to lose it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! brother,&quot; said big Govinda, a Sikh from Patiala, as he thrust him
+back gently, &quot;have patience awhile. Give the Gods time. There is not
+water to wash a babe yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Shiv-deo, taller even than Govinda, a Saraswati Brahmin, if ever there
+was one, at the other side of the pen, twirled his mustache airily, and
+laughed. &quot;Nay, Govinda,&quot; he called, &quot;let the beggar in. He seeks but to
+drown vermin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The rude jest served its turn, after the manner of policemen's jokes
+all over the world. The crowd close at hand tittered, caught up the
+cue, amused itself with additions; and those behind forgot the great
+question in curiosity. But not for long.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The roar of relief rose up tumultuously, the mass of people swayed with
+that curious sidelong motion of a forward crowd, as, in the clear
+light, a trickle of water showed through the crevices of the paving
+stones at the bottom of the tank.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look out!&quot; shouted the Englishman; but remonstrance in words was
+useless in that storm of sound. So big Govinda promptly snatched two
+intruders out of his pen, like puppies, by the scruff of their necks,
+one in each hand; and Shiv-deo, choosing out the nearest low-caste man
+unerringly, caught him in his arms like a baby, and literally tossed
+him on to the heads of the crowd, with a shout which, even in that
+uproar, could be heard of some in that nearest crush.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Brahmins first, washerman! Thy sort can bathe in the suds of our
+clothes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And those who heard, ducked, and when the victim--who was <i>not</i> a
+washerman--fell amongst them, hustled and silenced him, and nodded to
+the big man whose claim to dignity was writ so plain upon his face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But despite ready wit and sheer strength, one determined fellow would
+have made good his entrance, and so served as a bell-wether to that
+overwhelming flock, if a white hand and arm with silver buttons
+on the cuff--holding a silver-mounted hunting-crop, clubbed savagely
+short--had not come down-glinting in the first sunray like a
+sword--clear on the bare head as it ducked under the barrier.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The intruder, a big burly devotee, dropped on his face like a stone;
+then, to the striker's relief, sat up, and apparently howled;
+apparently, because that rhythmic roar smothered all individual sound.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hārā! Hārī! Hārā! Hārī!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly, as it had begun, it stopped; for that faint inrush of water
+had stopped also; stopped, hesitated, then sunk out of sight again with
+a sort of drowning gurgle that came as an accompaniment to the only
+other sound; the insistent throbbing of the old God-maker's drum in the
+distance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not enough pressure!&quot; murmured the police officer to himself, judging
+that an attempt had been made to fill the tank in some new way. Then he
+frowned. There would be pressure enough and to spare among the crowd
+soon, most likely. What could be done to prevent it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Halt! by your right--single file!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The order came, far back, from the widest street, and it was full ten
+minutes ere Lance Carlyon, with a following of Sikh pioneers, armed
+with spades and picks, could edge through the crowd, though it still
+yielded room to authority without a murmur. He had been on his way with
+a fatigue party to finish clearing the camp, when the assistant
+superintendent of police had met him, in the bazaar, and told him he
+was wanted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Send four of your men to clear the mud from the crevices of the
+stones,&quot; said the police officer, seizing on a possible diversion
+gladly, &quot;it will serve to keep the crowd amused till Dering brings his
+men down.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the four stalwart pioneers stepped to their work of making miracles,
+a stir of expectation ran through those first rows who could see.
+&quot;Surely,&quot; they said to each other, &quot;if the Masters took the job in
+hand, the Gods must needs send the water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of a surety!&quot; said Shiv-deo, catching the comment. &quot;Do not the Gods
+always befriend the bold? Do not we, of Harriana, find the sacred river
+which the devils hid, though we have to dig three-hundred-feet wells to
+find it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This allusion to the extraordinarily deep wells dug by the peasantry in
+the almost rainless tract beneath which, so the legend goes, the river
+Saraswati still runs, passed from mouth to mouth consolingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yea, if devils hid water, men found it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why not these men? since nothing was impossible to a miracle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sun was shining broadly now, as if it had been up for hours, and
+showed, far as the eye could reach down every lane and street and
+alley, nothing but that sea of upturned faces converging to one centre;
+wonderfully still, wonderfully patient.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish someone would stop that cursed drum,&quot; said Lance, suddenly,
+&quot;it's enough to give anyone the fidgets. I feel myself--&quot; he broke off,
+and his memory going back to his jesting remark to Erda, his young face
+clouded. Was it possible he should never see her again? Was it possible
+that the Reverend David was to claim his paradise? He felt savage at
+the very thought, impatient, full of an almost righteous anger at
+everything, especially the drum-banger for making such an infernal
+noise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now, far back as before, an English voice could be heard giving an
+order. It was to loosen scabbards this time, and the police officer
+looked up hastily. It meant that, for the first time, the crowd must be
+hesitating in its quick obedience to command; perhaps because most of
+the troopers were Mahomedans.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope they'll get through without using them,&quot; said the man
+responsible for peace and order, &quot;but, steady! please, in case of a
+rush. Remember that if we yield more foot-room, someone <i>must</i> fall;
+then there will be the devil to pay. At present they are so tight
+packed they can't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That, indeed, was the position. So long as authority could prevent
+those few yards of clear space about the pool being encroached upon,
+there was safety. So the barrier of men waited anxiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But no rush came; the reason of this being made clear when the file of
+troopers appeared, led by old Pidar Narāyan, who had joined the party
+at the crucial moment, and piloted them through the crowd, which gave
+way to his well-known figure with absolute alacrity. He turned at the
+entrance, to hold up his hand in priestly fashion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Patience, my children!&quot; he said sternly. &quot;Tarry ye the Lord's leisure!
+Let Him do what seemeth Him good!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The idea, familiar to the least of them, brought instant assent and a
+sort of relieved sigh from those who heard it. Here was something they
+could understand. A man, set apart from others by his dress, his life,
+his invariable assumption of authority, his unquestioned claim to be
+mediator between the dim, inaccessible Creator and his creatures, to be
+interpreter of the hidden Mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the police officer heaved <i>his</i> sigh of relief over the appearance
+of more matter. His barrier could now be one of men, standing shoulder
+to shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And such a barrier would soon be needed, since this latest contingent
+brought discouraging news. The priests were helpless. The secret supply
+had somehow been tampered with, but where, not even they could tell
+without help. And though they had sent, long before dawn, to both Am-ma
+and Gu-gu--the only two men likely to know anything or be able to do
+anything--neither could be found.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And won't be,&quot; interrupted Vincent, suddenly remembering, as he
+listened, what he had seen the night before. &quot;They are most likely in
+the plot; one of them, at any rate, was going up the Hāri in a dug-out
+late last night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not Am-ma,&quot; put in Lance. &quot;He started before that to go up the Hāra
+and pilot down a raft for the forest officer. I met him as I came back
+to dinner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, he is not get-at-able anyhow, and that's all we have to
+consider,&quot; said the police officer. &quot;Briefly, the miracle is off the
+bill. Now, how the deuce are we to get the audience to go away
+peacefully?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps if I, as a fellow-countryman, and a Brahmin, were to address
+them--&quot; began Ramanund, who had come down with Pidar Narāyan, feeling
+important at being summoned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The latter turned to the man, whom he knew had long since rejected the
+faith of his fathers, and, so to speak, thrown the Almighty overboard
+to lighten his ship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You cannot argue with that, my son!&quot; he said gently, pointing to the
+sea of patient, yet eager, faces. &quot;No one of your sort ever has, in all
+the history of the world. <i>That</i> does not reason. It feels. Show it
+another miracle, and it will worship. Give it a cause, and it will
+espouse it. Give it a lead, and it will follow; but words--never!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, I hope to God no one will supply it with the wrong lead!&quot; put in
+the police officer. &quot;For the rest, we must hold the fort, I suppose.
+Inspector! when is the show--the miracle, I mean,--supposed to end?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not till sunset, sir,&quot; said the man, <i>salaaming</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And it's now about six, I suppose. Eleven hours!&quot; He took out his
+cigar-case and counted. &quot;Yes! I'll last through. Inspector! Close your
+men in, and let them stand at ease. Captain Dering, if you can spare
+yours till then, I shall be obliged.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly. I left a troop with Roshan Khān, and orders to send word of
+any disturbance; and I wired to Dillon in case--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Ninian shook his head. &quot;There is no fear till this is settled.&quot;
+He pointed to the Pool.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he was right. All through the long hot hours the crowd waited.
+Sometimes the cry, &quot;<i>Hārā! Hārī!</i>&quot; burst out, to be followed by a faint
+rush. Sometimes the great mass stood silent, listening to the insistent
+throbbing of the old God-maker's drum in the distance, but through it
+all the note was patience. And it was patience, also, in the square
+enclosure of authority. Sometimes a would-be intruder would be lifted
+like a puppy, and chucked back to his fellows. Once or twice an English
+arm would go up, and come down on some more wilful head; but that was
+all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And far away at the Fort the gong chimed the hours regularly up to
+twelve, and begun at one again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But there was no fuss, no noise. The crowd stood their ground, giving
+no inch, and authority stood its ground and yielded none, since in that
+lay safety for all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, with a horrible slowness, the day dragged on, until at last the red
+sun sank behind the levels beyond the gaol; and the strain was over!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll take a biscuit in my pocket next time,&quot; said the police officer,
+cheerfully, as, bit by bit, the stones of the courtyard began to show
+between the golden-shod feet. &quot;Inspector! send your men to quarters,
+and let them eat their food.&quot; Then he walked over and looked down into
+the deep empty tank.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It might have been full up,&quot; he said. &quot;We couldn't have stopped them
+for a moment if they had had any sort of a lead over. And from what you
+told the Commissioner, sir,&quot;--he turned to Father Ninian--&quot;I was afraid
+of one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old priest stood watching the crowd disperse for a moment in
+silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So was I,&quot; he said, &quot;but I was mistaken, so far. Still, there is
+danger in the air. I feel it. I hear it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And as he spoke, above the hum of the crowd, silent no longer, rose
+that insistent throbbing of the old God-maker's drum.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_18" href="#div1Ref_18">CHAPTER XVIII</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>ADRIFT</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda Shepherd stood in her bedroom, under the wood-shingled house at
+Herrnhut, looking at a heap of white muslin and delicate embroideries
+which lay upon her bed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the wedding dress. She had just unpacked it; partly because she
+felt <i>déc&#339;uvré</i>, partly in the hope that the sight of it, ready to
+be worn so soon, would still the vague disquiet of which she was
+conscious. Yet if anyone had ventured to suggest, when she had said
+good-by to Lance Carlyon the evening before,--said good-by almost
+carelessly, by reason of the fervid enthusiasm which absorbed
+her,--that within twenty-four hours the wisdom of the farewell should
+seem logically doubtful, she would have been desperately angry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she was too honest to deny that the doubt had come. Come in a
+moment, wildly, passionately, when they had thwarted her desire of
+joining in the crusade over the other side of the river along the
+pilgrims' road. She had meant to go with David, who was to take up his
+position at a camping-ground some six miles off, and she had fought
+hard for the privilege. But they had quoted Scripture at her to prove
+that a wife, or a wife to be, must needs hamper a man more than any
+other woman, even his sister. David had been kind about it, almost too
+kind. She flushed a little at the recollection of his words, his look;
+for that sort of thing had scarcely come into her calculations. But Dr.
+Campbell had pompously reminded her that her future profession would be
+wife, caretaker, sympathizer, and general bolsterer--up to a worker.
+Nor need she think the task small; it was the noblest one a woman could
+have. He had gone on to comfort her with instances of such general
+support from his own life and those of his friends, until, with a
+flash, that unexpected questioning had come to the girl's mind. She had
+asked herself what difference there was in the nobility of being one
+man's wife or another's--provided the man was worthy and his work in
+the world good?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Ninian's words, &quot;<i>I can wish no better wish for you and for the
+world</i>,&quot; had come back to her then, as if in answer to her questioning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And, even now, they echoed in her heart. The house was very quiet, very
+shadowy, for the sun left the little oasis of valley set in its
+circling wilderness of hill, long before a fraction of light faded from
+the sky above it. She could hear Mrs. Campbell's voice down the little
+ladder-like stairs, conferring with the cook over the wedding cake,
+and, in a side-issue, exhorting him to be sure and have the soup hot in
+case the workers might return exhausted, and require something to eat
+the moment they arrived.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda sat down on the bed beside the white muslin, and fingered the
+quaint little cap idly, as she told herself that such things would be a
+part of her duties in the future.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But only a part. Life was no unknown country to this girl, who had
+spent years in a medical mission. She was no ignorant baby, standing,
+in a fashion happily past, on the verge of she knew not what. She
+looked ahead calmly, taking the world as the Creator made it. She
+thought, without a flush, as good women do, of the children she hoped
+might come; and as she thought, she frowned, not from any revolt of her
+spiritual or physical nature, but because, once more, the question
+arose: &quot;Was not Lance right? Was not this the essence? Was it not
+everything to be sure of the inheritance?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She started up at the sound of her aunt calling her, glad of the
+interruption.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had she not better, the good lady suggested, try on the dress, now she
+was about it, since if there was anything amiss, the sooner the tailor
+set to work to rectify it the better.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Undoubtedly. Besides, she told herself, the mere putting on of this,
+the sign of her new profession, would be healthful. It would give her
+the feeling of being set apart for the life which she had chosen
+deliberately, chosen with her eyes open, though, maybe, focussed too
+much on that mental companionship. Too much? Impossible! Lance was
+wrong. That was the crowning glory of marriage; and even if it seemed
+hard to have to stand aside from actually fighting the good fight, the
+victory would be hers--hers almost more than her husband's, since the
+effort would be greater, the work more against the grain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, she would try on the dress; and if it did not fit perfectly, what
+matter?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was anything in the world perfect? Yet it should be as perfect as she
+could compass; even the little cap should not lack its bunch of orange
+blossoms! As she told herself this she was for the time womanhood
+incarnate; womanhood playing, with dainty little tendernesses and
+conceits, about the abyss for which it is responsible. So, with the
+smile of an angel, she passed into the garden, the old militant feeling
+at her heart. Her feet were on the golden stairs. She was going to
+regain the lost Paradise hand in hand with one of those whom she had
+driven from it. They were going to forget all the consequences of that
+mistake. They were going to be--what?...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vague confusion did not prevent her feeling that she was absolutely
+certain she was on the right path. Indeed, the only regret of which she
+was conscious was one that she was not on the other side of the river,
+on the pilgrims' road, with the rest of the mission.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stood looking over to the frowning cliffs from the little wooden
+landing-stage, built out at the bottom of the garden into the wide
+shallows of the river, which here showed scarcely a streak or dimple of
+current. She could see the mission boat lying moored on the other side,
+against the fighters' return.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet the very idea of fight seemed impossible, she thought, in that
+utter peacefulness and stillness. The rim of dark hills circled the
+jewel of the sun-bright sky tenderly, as if it sought to keep in the
+heavy, sweet perfume of the orange blossoms which starred every tree in
+the wide, fruitful garden. They were famous oranges, those in the
+Herrnhut garden; grafts brought by a missionary from Malta. Mrs.
+Campbell, notable woman as she was, made a steady income for good works
+out of the sale of the great red-skinned, red-hearted fruit, and prided
+herself in keeping them later on her trees than anyone in India.
+Indeed, in the shadier, colder alleys some were still hanging side by
+side with the new blossoms. A sort of example to these novices, showing
+them what their real work in the world ought to be! Erda, smiling at
+her own conceit, stroked one of the warm yet stainless petals in the
+bunch she held as if it were a sentient thing. Perhaps it was. Who
+knows!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she turned to go back, warned by a softening of the sky that the
+time was later than she thought, something showed rounding the smooth,
+silver bend of the river above; and she paused, shading her eyes with
+her hand, to see what it was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A raft. The first of the rafts of wood which at certain seasons were
+floated down the river to Eshwara. Am-ma's raft, most likely, which he
+had told her he had to pilot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes! There he was on the quaint contrivance which the river folk used
+for journeys down stream. A common string bed, no more, no less,
+supported between inflated bladders of skin. The sight of it gave her a
+pang to think that she would never more go bobbing, sidling, dipping,
+racing on one of them, as the mission folk always did when they wanted
+to stay the last possible minute of holiday at Herrnhut, and get back
+to Eshwara as quickly as they could. For it took half the time of the
+winding road, when the river, as now, was quiet and manageable. And
+Am-ma was the most dexterous manager of the singular craft. There he
+was, paddling for dear life; now leaping to his great pile of timber,
+steering it with his paddle round a bend, then back to his string bed
+with the tow rope, to haul the rudderless mass to a straight line
+again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If she had time, she thought, she would have asked him to take her,
+just once more, as far as the ferry, two miles below. Then she might
+have walked back through the fields. She had often taken the pleasant
+little trip with Am-ma. There was no danger so far; but after that,
+when the river began to slip and slide, even he had sometimes to cut a
+raft adrift and trust to catching it again in smoother water; since it
+was not pleasant to have such a crushing neighbour in the eddies and
+swirls of a lasher.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she stood watching him, she saw him pause, looking towards her, then
+leap from the raft and come paddling down stream. He had evidently seen
+her waiting on the landing-stage, and thought she wanted him; so she
+shook her head and began to walk back to the house. As she did so an
+orange caught her eye under a tree, whence it had fallen from sheer
+red-gold ripeness, and, knowing how Mrs. Campbell mourned a single
+loss, she gathered it up and took it with her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Back in her own room, she began to pin her bunch of blossoms in her cap
+hurriedly, for she had lingered longer in the garden than she had
+intended, and there was a chance, only a chance, that those much to be
+envied Church-militants might return and claim her attention.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still, hurried as she was, she knelt down beside the bed for a moment
+or two, and, with her clasped hands laid almost caressingly among the
+soft muslin, prayed that she might wear this symbol of her entry into a
+new profession worthily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, scarcely looking at herself in the glass which, indeed, was too
+small to show her more than a rather pale face smiling under a quaint
+little cap, she dressed hastily. Her aunt would be able to tell her if
+there was anything wrong in the lighter rooms below; here, under the
+roof, it was already a little dark. Then catching up the orange, she
+ran downstairs, wondering if the bridal blossoms always smelt so
+overpoweringly strong, and thinking that, if it was so, they must make
+the trying ceremony still more trying to one who disliked to have
+strong scents about them, as she did.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her aunt was not to be seen in the dining room, so Erda parted the
+heavy curtains which, in Indian fashion, divided it from the
+drawing-room, and looked in to see if she were there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was at all times a dark room, especially in late afternoon, as now;
+but the light from behind her sent a shaft straight to the pier glass
+which stood--the joy of Mrs. Campbell's heart--just opposite the
+curtains; so making--as the good lady used fondly to say--the room look
+much larger than it really was to those entering it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But what the girl saw in it to-day was no illusory enlargement of
+actualities, no idealization of fact. It was something real, something
+not to be explained away, exaggerated, or minimized. It was a woman,
+tall, slender, robed in white; a woman with red-gold hair, edged by the
+light behind her; a woman with a red-gold apple in her hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stood arrested before herself; helpless before the memory of a
+voice--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All straight folds--the sunshine on your hair, and a red-gold apple in
+your hand--the World's Desire!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she had refused him <i>his</i>. She stood for a second, not thinking at
+all; simply, with a rush, feeling the truth, feeling herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then with a queer little cry which might have been his name had it been
+articulate, she broke adrift. Broke, for the time, from all moorings,
+and possessed with but the one idea that she <i>could</i> not do one thing,
+that she <i>must</i> do another, she turned to the garden, and,--the
+red-gold fruit still in her hand,--hurried breathlessly through the
+waning light, through the dead-sweet perfume of the blossoms, till she
+found herself, she knew not why--save that she must have air, have
+space--upon the edge of the river.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was something now swaying idly against the landing-stage;
+a rude craft buoyed up by air! And there was a rude sort of man in
+it,--comprehending, yet uncomprehending,--primitive, simple, expectant.
+&quot;<i>Huzoor!</i>&quot; he said, with broad smiles and outstretched hand. &quot;I have
+been waiting the <i>Huzoor's</i> pleasure. The Presence will go whither?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whither?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even in her excitement the quaint coincidence struck her as absurd, and
+yet it seemed to sweep her further still from her moorings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whither?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave that queer little cry again, and this time it was &quot;Lance!
+Lance!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whither did the Miss-<i>sahiba</i> say?&quot; asked Am-ma gravely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cry turned to a strange laugh. &quot;To Eshwara--where else does the
+river go--where else?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The strange, frail boat was sidling against the landing-stage in the
+pulse of the river; her stranger, frailer self was adrift on the
+greater river of life. And a hand, heedless, seeing nothing strange in
+either, careless of all the fine-drawn niceties of culture, had hold of
+hers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So, straight to the centre, <i>Huzoor!</i> I have placed the seat
+correctly. That is right! The Miss-<i>sahiba</i> recollects the old rules;
+we shall be in Eshwara before dawn!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She sat down mechanically, feeling only that she was adrift--adrift on
+the river that went to Eshwara--where else--and that she was glad; glad
+because she could not stay, because she could not face--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then the thought came of facing something else--<i>his</i> glad delight
+when she came floating down the river--not dead, like the Lily Maid to
+Lancelot--but alive--a woman with a red-gold apple in her hand--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She sat staring at what she held, as if hypnotized by its colour,
+absolutely unconscious of anything else till Am-ma's voice came
+stolidly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We must pick up the raft first, <i>Huzoor</i>. This slave let it drift
+while he waited for the Miss; but we shall find it at the ferry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the ferry! The familiar idea startled her from dreams to the
+reality.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How came she there? What had she done? What did this mean? A flush of
+intolerable shame swept to her face; she rose to escape. But Am-ma's
+warning hand was on hers in an instant; that hand, so heedless of so
+many limitations, so certain here that there was no escape from <i>these</i>
+limitations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Miss-<i>sahiba</i> forgets,&quot; he said deferentially. &quot;When one is in the
+stream there is no change possible; but if the place is not right we
+can alter it at the ferry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She sat down again, telling herself this was true. She could alter it
+at the ferry. She could walk home through the fields. No one need know
+(the quaint craft, rocking itself back to balance, made her feel
+giddy), her dress was only muslin, she could remove the cap; if
+necessary, borrow a shawl from the bible-woman near the ferry, saying
+she had not thought it would be so chilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She buried her face in both her hands in a sort of despairing revolt at
+the duplicity, so, with the red-gold fruit in her lap, sat trying to
+think. But she could not. The scent of the orange blossoms seemed to
+cloud her senses. So she raised her face again, and stared at the
+river. Why had she done this? Why had she put this thing, that she must
+always conceal, into her life? There would always, now, be something
+she could not say straight out; and yet if she lived to be a hundred
+the memory of it would never fade; it would be as fresh as it was now
+when she died, with David's hand in hers!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The intolerable humiliation of it stung deep; the instinct to escape
+rose fiercely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Be quick!&quot; she cried, seeing Am-ma idle, letting the current do the
+work. &quot;I want to get there as soon as possible. I must, or something
+worse may happen. There isn't a moment to spare!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma bent towards her from his seat astride a skin air-bag. &quot;Did they
+kill anyone?&quot; he asked, in sudden interest. &quot;Did the prisoners escape
+as it was arranged? And was it Carlone-<i>sahib</i> they killed?--they swore
+it should be he, because he laughed at the miracle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The prisoners--Carlone-<i>sahib</i>--killed!&quot; she echoed stupidly. Then
+with a great throb of the heart she realized that here might be
+something of more importance than her self-humiliation. Had Father
+Ninian been right? Had there really been some conspiracy afoot, and had
+Am-ma heard?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have had no news from Eshwara, Am-ma,&quot; she said boldly, &quot;what is
+this about prisoners escaping, and the <i>sahib-logue</i> being killed? Who
+was going to do that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma looked crestfallen. &quot;I thought the <i>Huzoor</i> had heard--that
+<i>that</i> was why she was going. It is nothing. Idle talk. It is always
+talk. And the <i>Huzoors</i> have the <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>. They must still be
+kings.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Am-ma,&quot; she interrupted sternly, &quot;you must tell me about this. If you
+do not, I will take my hand off your son's head--I will never--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He almost dropped his paddle in absolute terror. &quot;<i>Huzoor</i>&quot; he said
+helplessly, &quot;it is talk, idle talk. It is always so. All day long, and
+all night long in the bazaars, and the Masters have the <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>.
+There is no fear; but this slave will tell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were almost opposite the ferry before he had finished his tale,
+and she had grasped the whole tissue of trivialities which yet went to
+make up so formidable a possibility.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The discontent and dread regarding the canal, the strange lights,
+the deaths in gaol, the return of the cursed corpse, Gopi--the
+ticket-of-leave man's--talk of revenge if the cleansing water should
+fail.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Much of this was new to her, but it hung together with what she already
+knew; and yet it seemed incredible! What could be the object? What
+could they expect to do? Here Am-ma had smiled inscrutably, and said
+the Miss did not know bazaar talk. Everything was possible to it. Had
+they not even spoken of making a new Nawab out of Roshan Khān, the
+<i>risaldar?</i> indeed, had not the <i>jemedar</i> at the palace already
+treated
+him as one?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the Pool of Immortality? Had it risen or not? Am-ma could not say.
+They had asked him with bribes and threats to do the job--that was only
+the priest's revenge, but it would serve other purposes too--but he had
+refused, partly because he had to come away, and partly because he was
+the servant of the Light-bringers. As to when the prisoners were to
+escape he could not say. To-day, perhaps to-morrow, most likely never;
+unless something really happened. It was talk. The Miss need have no
+fear. The <i>Huzoors</i>, having the <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>, must needs be safe, and
+Carlone-<i>sahib</i> was a real hero; none braver, none stronger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That decided her. She had been counting costs as she listened. An hour,
+say, back to Herrnhut. Even if anyone were there, which was uncertain,
+half an hour at least to start a messenger. Then the boat might be at
+the other side of the river. Then all those miles, on a rough road at
+night!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When shall we get to Eshwara?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At the turn of the night and day if the river is kind,&quot; said Am-ma,
+but he looked doubtfully into a copper tint that remained in the sky,
+though the sun must have set behind the mountains. It had a curious
+effect, that copper-coloured dome above the rim of almost black hills,
+with the river, dark, mysterious, already beginning to slide towards
+the narrowing ravine. It did not strike her that she herself, adrift on
+that river in what was to be her wedding dress, with prehistoric,
+aboriginal Am-ma as pilot to her and a lumber raft, would have had a
+still more curious effect to a spectator's eyes. But there were none,
+and it was already almost dark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Am-ma,&quot; she said, &quot;I will give you fifty rupees, and keep my hand on
+the son's head, if you will leave the raft here, and take me as quick
+as you can to Eshwara--to the little steps below the fort--fifty whole
+rupees!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shook his head and grinned, partly at his own superlative honesty.
+&quot;We should not go so fast, <i>Huzoor</i>, now the slide is near,&quot; he said;
+&quot;for, see you, the raft is the wood-<i>sahib's</i> new shape. It is a good
+shape; it came down the rapids above the valley like a boat, faster
+than <i>this</i>, when the paddle cannot be used. It will take us with it. I
+will fasten <i>this</i> behind, and steer. Then in the slacker water when
+the paddle is possible, we will leave it; if the Miss-<i>sahiba</i> is in a
+hurry. But there is none. The <i>Huzoors</i> are Light-bringers.&quot; He had
+already paddled alongside the raft,--a boat-shaped mass of huge logs
+rising towards the back--and, leaping to it, came back, after a moment,
+with the tow-rope.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It shall do the work,&quot; he said, with another grin, as he fastened the
+air-buoyed bed to a ring placed for the purpose in one of the logs.
+Then he clucked emphatically. &quot;Lo! who would grudge men's brains to the
+Masters when they are clever as the Gods themselves? The Miss will see
+how fast this goes. We shall be at Eshwara before the night turns to
+day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something in his tone warned her that the recurrence of the phrase was
+not pure chance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is when the prisoners were to escape?&quot; she said quickly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not affirm or deny it. &quot;So many things happen in the fight of
+Dawn,&quot; he said affably. That was all; but she thought rapidly. The
+rising, or whatever the conspiracy aimed at, could scarcely have
+happened just after they left Eshwara the night before. In that case
+the news must have followed them on the road. Therefore, if it was to
+happen at all, if this were not all talk--and Father Ninian's words
+came to make her doubt its being so--it would happen in a few hours. So
+she must be there in time to give warning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she thought this, a sudden strain at the tow-rope, a quick dip of
+the boat-shaped prow of the raft, a louder swish of the water as it
+curved out from its rising stern, told her she was adrift, indeed, on
+the way to Eshwara! It seemed almost more incredible than what had gone
+before. But there was nothing to be ashamed of here. It was the only
+possible thing to do under the circumstances. Her journey might prove
+unnecessary, but it might not; and supposing anything should really
+happen--to--to <i>anybody</i>--she would never be able to forgive herself
+if, knowing this chance of danger, she had not done her best to avert
+it.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_19" href="#div1Ref_19">CHAPTER XIX</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>JULIET</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The copper-coloured glow, into which weather-wise Am-ma had looked,
+distrustfully, as it domed the little valley set in its rim of hills,
+had replaced that of sunset in Eshwara also, and Pidar Narāyan's eyes,
+weather-wise as the fisherman's, looked at it as doubtfully, as he
+walked home with Lance and Vincent Dering when the long strain at the
+Pool of Immortality was over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If it were not so early in the year, I should predict a dust-storm--a
+real electrical dust-storm,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance, whose hands were full of cut-paper Gods--for in obedience to a
+sudden impulse, he had stopped on his way through the crowd to buy up
+the old Brahmin's whole stock in trade, and give him an extra eight
+annas to go away and not drum any more--looked up also, and filled his
+broad chest with a great breath. &quot;Perhaps that is it. I've felt choking
+all day--horrid!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent Dering laughed. &quot;I don't choke--I tingle; and it is rather
+jolly. Yes, sir; there is a lot of electricity in the air, and I
+shouldn't wonder if we had a regular black snorter. Glad it didn't come
+in the middle of the miracle '<i>biz</i>', for, as a general smasher-up of
+ordinary experiences, commend me to a real electrical dust-storm! It
+seems to attract the earth, earthy, in everything. In fact, if there is
+such a thing as the Devil, and he ever gets the upper hand, it is
+then--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Ninian turned to him quickly, and then to the crowd,-through
+which they were still cleaving that curiously acquiescent way which
+white faces still cleave through dark ones--&quot;Then I trust, my son,&quot; he
+said gently, &quot;that for your sake and <i>theirs</i> the storm may not come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Or that there isn't a Satanic majesty!&quot; retorted Captain Dering,
+cynically. &quot;That, sir, is the easiest way out of the difficulty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance had looked round on the crowd also. &quot;Well! if there is,&quot; he said,
+&quot;and I had to paint him, I'd take that man's face as my model for
+Lucifer.&quot; He pointed to a <i>gosain</i> who was forming the centre of a
+group of gossipers round a syrup-seller's shop, and added--for he knew
+his Milton as well as his Shakespeare--&quot;<i>The superior fiend who gives
+not Heav'n for lost!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Looks a bad lot, I admit,&quot; remarked Vincent, carelessly. &quot;Have an idea
+I've seen him before; in gaol, I believe. Yes! I'm sure of it. He is
+the fellow Dillon told me was going to get his ticket-of-leave for good
+conduct. He looks scoundrel enough for that! But really, sir--&quot; he
+turned to Father Ninian again--&quot;I think we may count on their behaviour
+now.&quot; He indicated the crowd. &quot;If there was going to be a row it would
+have come off before this; now they will settle down, you'll see, and
+go on to the next camping-ground to-morrow morning as if nothing had
+gone wrong. They are such creatures of habit; you could see that from
+their sticking on in expectation of that footling old miracle all day!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Ninian, in that curiously irrelevant way he had, put on the gold
+<i>pince-nez</i> which always dangled over his black soutane, and looked
+round him again. &quot;They will settle down,&quot; he said quietly, &quot;if nothing
+new crops up to give them a lead into new ways. That is always the
+danger; and a very small thing does it, sometimes, in India.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had reached the courtyard which lay between the palace and the
+Fort, and with a wave of his hand in farewell, he passed along the wall
+to the former, while the others, striking across the raised union-jack
+of paths, made for the latter. The yard was crammed with pilgrims on
+their way to bathe on the river steps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who the deuce are those fellows?&quot; said Vincent, angrily, as half a
+dozen figures slipped out through the door in the bastion, as they
+approached, and mixing with the crowd, got lost in it, while the door
+was closed behind them by some unseen hand. &quot;I'll talk to Roshan about
+that. He was complaining only this morning that the men were breaking
+out of barracks. What else can he expect if he doesn't look out. By
+Jove! I'll teach 'em!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His first words, indeed, as he entered the outer courtyard of the Fort,
+was to order a sentry down to close the doors against all comers
+without a written pass from him, and as he went by the guard-house he
+gave rather a sharp reprimand to Roshan Khān, who happened to be
+outside, for not having kept his eyes open while in charge of the Fort
+during his absence. No one was in future to use the small door; the key
+was to be brought to him, and all passes were to be stopped for that
+night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Roshan looks in a demon bad temper. I wonder what's up?&quot; remarked
+Lance, casually, as he passed on through a wicket in the massive closed
+gates to the inner courtyard, where the officers' quarters lay, hugging
+the river wall. It was quite a citadel, a distinct fortification of
+itself, with no entrance or exit except through the outer yard, or by
+the little flight of steps leading down to the river, at the foot of
+which Lance moored his canoe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He has been sulky as a bear with me these last few days,&quot; replied
+Captain Dering, with a contemptuous smile. &quot;I believe the old Colonel
+was right after all, and coming here has put wind in his head. I shall
+have to teach Mr. Roshan that, good man as he is, he is only a
+<i>risaldar</i>, before long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor devil,&quot; said Lance under his breath. &quot;I'm always a bit sorry for
+Roshan. He would be a fine fellow--if--if he wasn't so--so civilized.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Civilized,&quot; echoed Vincent, with a laugh. &quot;You haven't seen him fight.
+I have. Talk of devils; he has got one in him, if you like!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He certainly had at that moment, when, having gone straight to his
+quarters after Vincent's reprimand, he found himself alone, and free to
+show his feelings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And yet, had he been calm, he could scarcely have told wherein
+the grievance lay which for the moment clamoured for--no--not
+redress--revenge.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not the first time that he had had to ignore hints, innuendoes,
+suggestions of Heaven knows what impossible intrigues, as he had had
+that very afternoon. It was not the first time that, in his position as
+intermediary between the ignorance of the native soldier and the
+ignorance of the English officer, he had had to '<i>ca' canny</i>,' so as
+not to alienate the confidence of either. Indeed, the consciousness of
+the necessity for this, by enhancing the value of his services, had
+always been a pride to him hitherto. And these particular intrigues
+were so childish; especially if--he paused in his angry pacing of the
+room, and smiled complacently. Why should he give a thought to an
+impossible plan, when a possible one lay ready to his hand? If he
+married Laila, the land, almost the title, would be his of right. It
+would be easy anyhow to regain. Then with a fresh frown, he remembered
+Vincent's order. That would upset his plans. He had meant to slip out
+by the bastion gate just before--say an hour before--dawn, and cross
+over to the palace. Akbar Khān had arranged to be there to let him into
+the garden. Now he must make other arrangements. He must find the old
+eunuch, change the hour and the place; since nothing--no! not all the
+tyranny in the world--should prevent his carrying out his intention of
+seeing his cousin, and claiming her as his--his by right. So he must
+settle this at once; settle it before there was any chance, he told
+himself bitterly, of his superior officer coming out of the mess--where
+no doubt he was guzzling swine's flesh and bibbing wine--(that faint
+amaze at the presence in his own mind of such antiquated half-forgotten
+ideas assailed him again at this point) to encroach further on his
+liberty, his privileges.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had to pass the troopers' lines on his way to the main gate, and the
+quick <i>salaams</i>, the ready smiles given him by the men, as they lounged
+and smoked after their long day on duty, soothed his pride.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Captain had certainly said they had behaved well--kindly, and
+discreetly; but whose merit was that? The Englishman's who gave the
+word of command, or his, who had drilled them to obedience, who lived
+with them day and night? Without such as he, a native regiment could
+not be managed, if he chose to give the word. He would not, of course,
+but if he chose--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He set his teeth as he walked out of the Fort, and met at its very gate
+that surging tide of patient, eager faces drifting on, and back again,
+aimlessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He need not, as a matter of fact, have feared any further interference
+from Vincent Dering, for the latter, being very tired after the long
+day in the sun, and having reason to know that part of the night time,
+at any rate, which is usually given to sleep would be employed in
+something better, had, after staving off hunger with what the cook
+would produce at a moment's notice, and postponing the dinner hour,
+gone to sleep deliberately, advising Lance to do the same.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the latter had, rather to his own surprise, found this impossible;
+not even over a cigar in the balcony above the sliding, rushing river,
+the sound of which was as a rule sleep-compelling, would sleep come;
+not even in the cool darkness which was settling on Eshwara, despite
+the curious hint of glow lingering in the sky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The air was too electrical, he decided. And then--Erda! He had slept
+the night before, after she had said good-by so carelessly, without
+realizing that the good-by was for ever. And he had not had time to
+think all day. But now, at rest in the cool darkness, looking from his
+lounge chair down the river to that other balcony, he did realize it.
+For ever! Yes! that regret was in his life for ever. And he was so
+young. Only twenty-five.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why had this come to him?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda! Erda,--his heart's desire.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sat there voiceless, sucking mechanically at a cigar, long since
+gone out; but that was as much the cry at his heart as if he had
+allowed himself a fine frenzy of despair in older fashion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he imagined her as he had seen her--this way, that way, every way,
+in an unending torture of visions--until he exhausted reality, and
+fancy showed her to him in her wedding dress. And then he felt as if he
+could kill the Reverend David Campbell without shame or fear. He was
+vaguely ashamed of the lack of shame, however, especially when his
+fancy led him into endless mishaps which might befall a man, especially
+a missionary, before his wedding day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>There they ate a missionary</i>--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, sometimes; but there was not much time left for that sort of
+end--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What a brute he was, when the only thing that mattered was that she
+should be happy and content.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But would she be so?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It went on and on and on, the controversy between himself and that
+other self, so that he felt worn, and harassed, and dirty, and
+altogether undesirable, when Vincent, about nine o'clock, reappeared,
+dapper and scented as usual, in his mess kit, and expressed surprise at
+finding his companion still undressed. He was hungry as a hunter, he
+said; besides he wanted to have a decent interval between dinner and
+turning in. And <i>that</i> must be early, for he had just heard from the
+police authorities that though everything was quiet for the night,
+absolutely quiet, they thought it would be safer to have the Pool
+guarded again at dawn, in case of accidents; since none of the
+pilgrims, though apparently quite resigned, had as yet gone on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They never do till the next day; Pidar Narāyan told me so,&quot; commented
+Lance, crossly. &quot;Why should they rake us up at such an unearthly hour?
+Why can't they let the people have a row if they want one? I'd like it;
+give a fellow something to do in this beastly hole.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He went off to dress moodily, wishing savage wishes, so adding,
+perhaps, to that electricity in the air. And Vincent gave it his quota
+of desire also, in his reckless determination to regain Paradise, as it
+was lost, through a woman. And that play of Romeo and Juliet in the
+scented garden--Juliet, whose bounty was &quot;as boundless as the sea&quot;--was
+a bit of pure paradise to him. He had never, he thought, been in love
+before. He had never known what love was. Those other loves of his had
+been mean, ungenerous, calculating.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he was at his best, his brightest, during dinner. Lance, on the
+contrary, was at his worst, his dullest; and Vincent made this his
+excuse for going to his room betimes. He was not due at the palace till
+twelve, but he was anxious to ensure the coast being clear, and Lance
+seemed just in the mood when a fellow sits up sulkily, out of pure
+cussedness, and drinks whiskey-and-water if he can find a companion on
+whom to vent his cavillings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In truth Lance would have liked to do so. He wanted to feel miserable;
+but after Vincent had gone, and he was left alone in the balcony, sleep
+began to assert itself. He found even his despair becoming dreamy, and
+being obstinate, tried to fight against the fact. The result being that
+he finally fell asleep in his lounge chair with a soundness and
+unconsciousness usually reserved for bed. Fell asleep, and promptly
+relaxed into content with happy dreams of Erda's return to him; for
+his, left to itself, was a healthy soul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so were the vast majority of those which, through patient yet eager
+eyes, were looking into the scarce-lit darkness of the streets, as the
+pilgrims, crowded into an almost solid mass, seemed to slide with a
+slow, almost unseen movement, through them. They were waiting for the
+dawn. If nothing new came before then, they would pass on towards the
+'Cradle of the Gods.' So, scarcely seen, restless yet restful, their
+feet on the next rung of the golden stairs, they waited.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And overhead the young moon had risen with a copper-coloured edge to
+its crescent of light. For the glow was still in the sky, and the
+troopers in the Fort, resting, after their long day, in Indian fashion
+by sprawling on their beds and gossiping, had dragged these beds into
+the open and discarded most of their clothing, since the night was
+strangely still and warm. So even the wonder what had become of the
+<i>risaldar-sahib</i> was languid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For Roshan Khān had not returned. And yet, as he sat in a quiet
+courtyard of the city, with closed doors, realizing how late it was
+growing, he had no fear of further reprimand. On the contrary, his
+pulses were bounding with the certainty that he would gain praise. And
+there was something beyond this mere desire for personal advantage in
+the keen-witted diplomacy with which he listened, with which he
+suggested, with which he led the talkers on to tell what it was of the
+utmost importance that he should know, not so much to himself, as to
+the Government he served. For his vague discontent had vanished, his
+well-reasoned, well-founded loyalty returned at this, the first hint at
+anything beyond the wild, aimless intrigue with which every Indian
+bazaar teems. But here, in this definite plan, by the collaboration of
+his troopers, of liberating fifteen hundred scoundrels,--or, at least,
+desperadoes,--of aping the stroke of action which made the great mutiny
+of '57 possible, was something tangible. Something which, when known to
+the uttermost, must be told without delay to his superior officer. A
+vast pride swept through him, as, when the gongs were striking
+one,--short, yet with lingering vibration in the dull, still air,--he
+made his way, fast as he could, back to the Fort. Without him, and such
+as he, faithful despite limitations, what would the Masters know?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hours before, as he went out, he had arranged with Akbar Khān that the
+palace door giving on the great square between it and the Fort should
+be on the latch only, so that he might slip in at any time and take his
+chance of hiding in the garden, his chance of seeing Laila before the
+dawn came and he had to go back to the Fort. The old sinner, indeed,
+had jumped at this indefinite arrangement, which bound him to nothing;
+which made it unnecessary for him even to broach the subject of an
+interview to his mistress. Since what was easier to say than that it
+had been impossible; as, indeed, it was! Perhaps Roshan Khān had
+himself grasped this fact; perhaps in insisting on this entry to the
+garden he had been backing more than his own luck, and had been
+meditating a <i>coup d'état</i> of his own. However that may have been, all
+was forgotten in his newly recovered loyalty, his keen ambition, as he
+hurried back to the Fort intent on but one thing--the forewarning and
+forearming of those whom he had long ago deliberately chosen as his
+masters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Some of his men were still lounging about on their beds, and he spoke a
+word to them as he passed, warning them to be ready if wanted. So,
+leaving them in sudden vague excitement, he passed on to the inner
+court. Here, where Lance Carlyon's small band of Sikh pioneers were
+quartered in the long, low building in which the fortified gateway
+stood, no one was astir. And no lights were visible in the opposite
+building where Lance and Vincent lived. Doubtless everyone was in bed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He passed on, therefore, swiftly to the room he knew to be his
+Captain's, and knocked. There was no answer. He opened the door and
+looked in. It was empty. A vague wonder assailed him, and he passed on
+to Lance Carlyon's room. It was empty also, and the vague uneasiness
+died down. They must be sitting up still in the balcony overlooking the
+river, where they sat every day after dinner. Stupid of him not to have
+gone there first; and yet, surely, it was late. Perhaps they were
+uneasy; perhaps they had already heard! An open letter &quot;<i>On Her
+Majesty's Service</i>&quot; lying on the dinner table as he passed through the
+mess room (which was still lit up--sign that the servants had gone to
+sleep awaiting their masters' call) attracted his attention. He glanced
+at it, half fearing to find himself forestalled by the police
+authorities. No! It was from them, as he had seen at once; but it was
+only that notice for dawn. Ah! what was this? this tiny scrap of paper,
+which had been twisted to a cocked-hat note, lying caught in the fold
+of the foolscap, with the two words--&quot;<i>twelve o'clock</i>&quot;--written on it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a woman's writing. Roshan knew enough of invitations from
+Englishwomen to be sure of that.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vague uneasiness returned, as he went on to the balcony beyond the
+dining-room. There too, the swinging lamp still burnt, and showed him
+Lance Carlyon fast asleep in a lounge chair; but no one else.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Where was Captain Dering? Captain Dering, who had the key of the little
+door in the bastion; Captain Dering, who had had a note with &quot;<i>twelve
+o'clock</i>&quot; in it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sudden thought struck him. If--if there was anything in his vague
+fear--then, by taking the canoe, which lay at the bottom of the stairs,
+he could slip down stream, and see--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Forgetting everything else, Roshan stole softly past the sleeping
+Lance, and went down the stairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The canoe was not there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Captain Dering must have taken it and gone--whither?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was but one place whither he was likely to go alone at that hour
+of the night; one place, a stair like this leading up to a balcony over
+the river where he had gone once before with a woman, a woman in a
+dress which marked her for what she was, really--a dress that marked
+her secluded--which made <i>this</i>, shame unutterable!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan's impotent fury rose hot at the inexpressible humiliation. The
+thought of Captain Dering and Laila alone in that balcony meant but one
+thing to his inherited ideas. No glaze of romance was possible. It was
+shame unutterable, irredeemable. Shame that must be revenged without
+delay. So, forgetting everything else in the world except this, he
+passed the sleeping Lance once more, hurried back to his quarters for
+his revolver, and only stopping to see that one chamber at least was
+loaded, made his way to that door which he knew would be on the latch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That patient, eager crowd was still thronging the courtyard as he
+crossed it, pausing a moment beside the great gun which centred the
+union-jack of raised paths.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The &quot;<i>Teacher of Religion!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ay! they needed a teacher, needed a lesson; these aliens, these
+usurpers, these depravers of women.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, in sober truth, Vincent Dering, at that moment sitting in the
+little balcony alone with Laila Bonaventura, felt quite virtuous. They
+had just come in from the garden, where they had been strolling and
+whispering, and now, as they sat together, without a word, scarcely a
+thought, in the faint light of the young moon and a red jewelled
+hand-lamp--which Laila, with that unfailing instinct of hers for all
+that matched the passionate mystery of the place, had set in a carved
+niche, where it looked like a votive offering to the unseen image of a
+saint--Vincent could feel the warm ivory of her cheek against his own,
+hear the soft chink of her jewels as they slid towards him, following
+the soft warm curves on which they lay. The red light of the lamp
+glittered faintly in red stars on the myriad facets of looking-glass
+with which the vaulted roof above them was adorned. It fell, reddening
+the red lights on the gold-stiffened crimson waves of her dress, that
+sent such a bewildering perfume to cloud his senses with passionate
+content.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A vast tenderness, a vast triumph, surged through him at the thought of
+her. Who dared to judge her by the narrow standards of to-day--she, who
+had gone back boldly to realities!</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><i>This</i> was what poets had sung since time began; <i>this</i> was what the
+world had exchanged for Paradise!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Juliet! Juliet!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And if he was the &quot;<i>god of her idolatry</i>,&quot; she was to him the &quot;<i>dearest
+morsel of earth</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bent and whispered the name to her with a kiss.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And as he did so, a step, swift, bold, masterful, sounded in the
+passage above; the step of one with a right to be there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent, startled, sat listening; but Laila was on her feet in a
+second, with a reckless laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Father Laurence!&quot; she cried. &quot;Well! let him come. I'm not afraid! For
+he loved <i>her</i>. He <i>must</i> remember!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, as a dim figure showed, half seen, in the archway, she stood like a
+queen, her hand raised, her head thrown back; a sight never to be
+forgotten.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is no use in being angry, guardian,&quot; she called, in her
+full-throated voice. &quot;It is too late for that. Remember--&quot; She paused,
+gave a slight scream, and flung herself before Vincent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a flash, a second scream, and then the arches rang with the
+echoes of a pistol-shot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Laila! Laila!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You damned scoundrel! You've killed her!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Laila! Laila!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were two voices echoing the woman's name, but only that one
+pistol-shot. Then two useless clicks of a trigger, before, with an
+oath, Roshan Khān flung the revolver from him and fled.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_20" href="#div1Ref_20">CHAPTER XX</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>TRAPPED</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">But that pistol-shot, as it pierced the hot, sultry air in the vaulted
+archways, was caught by a sudden blast of warm wind, sweeping God knows
+whence, to God knows where! and was blown out riverwards, citywards.
+Blown by that sudden blast, like the hot breath of someone's anger,
+which always heralds an electrical dust-storm. One moment there is the
+stillness of the uttermost void brooding over the deep; the next,
+causelessly, God knows why! the spirit moving palpably.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so it is always when the ever-recurring struggle for the right road
+to that lost Paradise, for the right method of regaining that bartered
+birthright, begins afresh among the sons of Adam. When the Hosts of the
+Lord,--fighting, as men always fight, under the banner of Right, for
+what they think good and true, for what seems to them to bring them
+nearer to the golden gates--change armed peace for war.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was so now; and Lance Carlyon, waking to the familiar, yet
+unfamiliar sound of that pistol-shot, woke also to the knowledge that
+someone had already resorted to that last argument between man and his
+fellow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Who was it? And why?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he stood, still half dazed by sleep, listening, as one does
+instinctively, for another shot to follow the first, a new sound
+distracted his attention.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was he still asleep and dreaming? or was that really Erda Shepherd's
+voice, rising towards him from the sliding, unseen river?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will come back to you directly,&quot; it said in Urdu. The half-heard
+promise of the words took him by storm, making him forget the
+strangeness of the language. Yet even that made his bewilderment more
+utter. And all around him, about him, a mist--or was it a cloud, or
+what was it?--had sprung into being. A wreath as of smoke drifted past
+the wide arches of the balcony, blotting out the pale shimmer of the
+young moon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The swinging lamp above his head darkened, reddened, as the dust-atoms
+leapt from the earth into the air, obedient to the call of that
+mightiest force in nature which holds the world together, and guides it
+on its way among the stars.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Pidar Narāyan had been right! The electrical storm had come!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Erda had come with it. He could see her now, standing at the top of
+the river steps, dimmed by the dust-atoms that glittered faintly in the
+clouded ray of the lamp; could see her--tall, slim, white--with a
+red-gold ball in her hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it was only a dream; he was asleep still!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The certainty of this, the knowledge that he would wake soon, made him
+yield to impulse, to emotion, as he would never have done otherwise. He
+held out his arms to the gracious vision, his voice rang with passion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Erda! Erda! You have come back to me!--the world's desire--my heart's
+desire!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then, suddenly, his heart a-tremble for the first time, he drew
+back from his own fervour almost apologetically; for the scared look of
+the face seen through those earth-atoms had brought it home to him that
+this was no dream. This was Erda Shepherd herself, the woman who was
+the &quot;<i>dearest atom of God's earth</i>&quot; to him. And she had come back, for
+what? Not to listen to his passion, anyhow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter?&quot; he asked briefly, sternly; for it came home to
+him also that the cause must be grave.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave a little shiver; the hearing of that first greeting had upset
+her calm, her courage, at last. Yet they had been firm till then; and,
+Heaven knows! the long hours of slipping through the rapids in the wake
+of that heaving, plunging mass of logs had been trying enough to
+anyone. Then for the last half hour, since Am-ma had cut the raft
+adrift to follow them at its leisure through the slacker currents, and,
+in obedience to her order, had forged ahead with his paddle, her
+anxiety had risen to fever-pitch; since the night, so far as she could
+judge, must be waning fast, and her errand would be useless if she were
+not in Eshwara before the dawn. For, as she had listened to Am-ma's
+garrulous talk while he steered, the conviction had grown that the
+danger to peace and safety--if there was any--lay in the future, not in
+the past; that this dawn, and not yesterday's, was to be the signal for
+the insensate, almost incredible attempt to wreck authority. An attempt
+which yet--incredible, insensate though it be--might bring death to--to
+one she held very dear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She admitted so much now to herself, and, pulling that self together,
+looked that dear one in the face. &quot;There is a good deal the matter,&quot;
+she said. &quot;You had better call Captain Dering to hear it, too; it will
+save time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He nodded acquiescence, but ere he left her, the instinct in him to
+guard his &quot;<i>dearest atom</i>&quot; to the uttermost from others, made him set a
+chair for her, and, glancing round for a wrap, take the mess jacket he
+had laid aside for a smoking coat, and fold it round her. For the air
+had grown suddenly chill, as it always does in a sand-storm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You must be cold in that dress,&quot; he said. As he did so the daintiness
+of it struck him, the scent of the orange blossoms made him turn pale.
+Despite his hurry, his certainty that something serious was ahead, he
+paused to ask sharply: &quot;That is your wedding dress, isn't it?&quot;--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not married, if you mean that!&quot; she answered as sharply. Then she
+flushed up angrily, more at the comprehension shown in her own answer
+than the meaning in his question, and burst out: &quot;What does it matter
+if I am--or if it is? Go! I tell you, and call Captain Dering!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, when he was gone, she lay back in the chair and shivered again;
+all the more because of the unaccustomed touch about her throat of the
+gold lace on a mess jacket. How red it looked against her white dress!
+And what a lot of little gold buttons there were at its edge: foolish,
+useless, little ornamental gilt buttons, round and red-gold, like--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The comparison brought back Lance's cry of welcome, and made her
+realize that, quite mechanically, she still held in her hand that
+useless, foolish, unnecessary orange!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That, of course, was what had made him remember; had made him say those
+words which had come like the writing on the wall to remind her of her
+own guilt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She flung the fruit from her, hastily, into the unseen river beyond the
+arches. Only just in time, ere Lance reėntered, with a puzzled face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can't find Dering anywhere,&quot; he said vexedly. &quot;He is not in his
+room. Hasn't been to bed, either; though he turned in early saying he
+was half asleep. I wonder what is up? Can he have heard already, do you
+think? Scarcely; and he would not have gone without waking me.&quot; His
+surprise seemed to absorb him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I must tell <i>you</i>, for there is no time to be lost,&quot; interrupted
+Erda, impatiently. Yet, even in her strenuous desire to make him
+understand quickly, she did not fail to explain, breathlessly, how she
+came to be dressed as she was. She had been trying on her wedding dress
+to see if it fitted, and had gone into the garden for--for--flowers,
+when Am-ma and his raft had come floating down the river.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And was not that all true? she asked herself passionately, as she told
+the tale. It was all of the truth, anyhow, that he or anyone else was
+ever to know.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So she had come to warn them, as she was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A great joy at her courage filled Lance as he listened, for to most men
+the possibility of a woman acting as a man might act comes as a wonder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was awfully plucky of you,&quot; he began; but she cut him short with a
+question as to what was to be done now.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Warn Dillon, first of all,&quot; he said readily. &quot;We have a wire laid on,
+you know. I only hope this infernal--I beg your pardon--dust-storm
+won't interfere with the connection. You had better come over with me
+to the office; it is just across the yard, and I don't like leaving you
+alone. Do you mind?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll come, of course,--but I must make sure of Am-ma waiting first,&quot;
+she added, with a ring in her voice; the ring of a vigorous vitality
+which finds itself face to face with action. &quot;He said the raft couldn't
+overtake us for half an hour. But he must not go, anyhow, and he will
+want to. I had difficulty in getting him to leave it, as it was. But I
+had to make him. I had to be in time!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you are--loads of time!&quot; he called, as he ran down the river steps
+before her, to give the order. &quot;It isn't two o'clock yet, and--&quot; he
+paused abruptly, on seeing, to his surprise, that only Am-ma's strange
+craft lay sidling against the bottom step, over which little waves were
+curving hurriedly, to reach up the wall, as if the water-atoms were as
+restless as those of earth, as eager to seek a new element. For the air
+was growing darker, thicker every instant with the intruders. He looked
+round hastily, but there was no sign of the canoe anywhere. Yet he had
+seen it moored to its ring before dinner!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent must have taken it. Whither? An answer leapt to Lance's mind,
+and he flushed up, even in the dark, redly. If this was so--what the
+deuce was to be done?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was an added confusion, an added responsibility in his face as he
+ran back to where Erda stood waiting him, and, catching up a lamp from
+the mess table, started with her close at his heels for the office.
+&quot;That is the first thing, anyhow!&quot; he muttered, half to himself.
+&quot;Dillon must be warned--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And perhaps Captain Dering will be back by then,&quot; she suggested
+cheerfully, as, with the mess jacket worn as it should be for greater
+convenience of action and greater protection (she had slipped her arms
+into it, deliberately, while waiting for Lance), she followed in the
+little halo of dull, red light cast by the lamp through the dust-mist.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The courtyard was still without sign of life; for there was nothing to
+guard here. The massive gates of the citadel once closed, and a sentry
+outside the wicket, there could be no fear of secret comings and
+goings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope to God he may,&quot; said Lance, ahead, and his tone made the girl
+wonder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His face, too, surprised her, as, sitting down to the instrument, he
+signalled for attention. No doubt when time is an object, there must
+always be a sense of strain in that pause before the answering tinkle
+comes to tell that a human hand and brain is at the other end of the
+thin wire which means so much, but there was more than that in Lance
+Carlyon's frown.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In truth, as he waited, he was not thinking so much of what would
+happen if the communication was interrupted, but what was to be done if
+it was not. Thinking that he must, somehow, warn Vincent. Thinking how
+awkward it would be for <i>him</i> if there was a row, and he absent, as it
+were, without leave!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it was Erda who recalled him to the wider issue. &quot;What are you going
+to do, if Dr. Dillon doesn't hear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had to raise her voice a little, for something--either coming wind
+or far-distant thunder--had brought a curious, faint reverberation to
+the air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed to come from all quarters, scarcely distinguishable, yet
+unmistakable, like the roll of a half-muffled drum, or a deep organ
+note quivering into silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The darkness all about them grew thicker and thicker. Lance, close
+beside her in that red lamp circle, showed as if seen through gauze.
+How unreal it all was! Herself, most of all, in a mess jacket, and, of
+course--but this thought came second--her wedding dress! And then it
+struck her that she, herself, was more unreal than anything else. To be
+there at dead of night, feeling no fear, only a sort of savage
+interest--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But if he doesn't hear,&quot; she persisted, &quot;you will have to go down the
+river and warn him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He nodded. And yet his thought went first to the fact that, if he had
+to do this, if Roshan Khān had to be left in charge of the relief, it
+would be still more awkward for Vincent Dering.</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><i>Tring-a-tring-tring!</i></p>
+
+<p class="normal">The answering tinkle brought a little breath of joy to them both; but
+Erda felt inclined to stamp her feet at the slow precision with which
+Lance--who had to remember each equivalent sign--spelt out his message.
+He could not be quicker, of course, and yet surely he might! She longed
+to snatch at the handles herself, though she could not signal at all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There, that's done!&quot; she cried, as a continuous short rattle followed
+from the other end, which Lance translated into--&quot;<i>All right, await
+you</i>.&quot; &quot;Now! what is to be done next?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Roshan Khān--he'll get the men together,&quot; answered Lance, already on
+his way to the wicket in the gate. To his surprise, it was closed. He
+knocked, no answer came. Erda, holding the lamp, looked at him
+startled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sentry!&quot; he called. &quot;Sentry! Open the door! <i>Miracle!</i>'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the password for the night, given by Captain Dering in
+contemptuous memory of the day; but it produced no result. The wicket
+remained obstinately closed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They've locked us in!&quot; whispered Erda; the lowering of her voice being
+due to a swift instinct that the less fuss made the better; the less
+chance of interruption.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance bent his ear to the keyhole to listen. Those dull, muffled
+reverberations--either distant thunder, or faint, ineffective
+explosions of electricity close at hand--were louder now; but he could
+hear no sound above them. He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda had the lamp on the ground in a second, and was beside it, her
+red-gold hair in the dust, as she peered through a three-inch iron
+grating between the iron-rimmed door and the iron lintel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she rose up her face was like the iron also.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They've trapped us!&quot; she whispered. &quot;There is a sentry outside--I saw
+his feet. Come away, and let us settle what to do. And say something,
+something angry--you know what I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Damn that brute!&quot; said Lance, cordially, in a loud voice, &quot;where the
+deuce has the sentry gone to? I'll have it out with him to-morrow, the
+infernal--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda, ahead with the lamp, turned to look back, and put her finger on
+her lips reproachfully. &quot;That's quite enough,&quot; she said; but she said
+it with a smile. That vigorous delight in action which some women feel
+was making her blood race through her veins.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now what's to be done?&quot; she said swiftly, as she put the lamp down on
+the mess table again. &quot;Let's think hard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The gate was closed against interference with--with--<i>something!</i></p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was evident. Proof positive, therefore, that Am-ma's tale was
+true.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it followed that the most urgent need for help was at the gaol.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But how to reach it, and with whom?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance's thoughts turned instantly to Roshan Khān. Was he--could he be
+in the plot? Surely not. Yet with or without his knowledge, the outer
+court was in the hands of rebels who thought their English officers
+were caught like rats in a trap; for, of course, they did not know
+Dering was absent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so it was. He and his pioneers--twenty or thereabouts--were in a
+trap. What could they do to get out of it? Their arms, scaling ladders,
+everything, were in the outside courtyard. What would be the use,
+either, of trying to force the door? Mere waste of time. The thing
+required was to prevent those fifteen hundred men with a criminal past
+being let loose on Eshwara, let loose--as men like them had been in the
+Mutiny--to give a lead over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And that--how was that to be done?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked across to Erda, and took sudden comfort in the quick
+intelligence of her face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You had better take my place with Am-ma,&quot; she said sharply. &quot;Go down
+stream to the spit, cut across by the mission house, and chance getting
+over to the police camp.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had thought of this before. The extra police, with their two
+officers, who had come over to see the festival through peacefully,
+were encamped above the boat-bridge and though, of course, most of the
+men would be scattered on duty through the town, even some help would
+be better than none. Yet how to leave Erda, not alone even, but with
+twenty men whose loyalty would depend largely--as it always did--on
+action, on their having someone to fight?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you,&quot; he began--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll stay here. They won't try to come in--yet a while. I am not
+afraid of being alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wouldn't mind your being alone,&quot; he put in, &quot;but my Sikhs--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your Sikhs,&quot; she echoed. &quot;Are they here? Then why--?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They have no arms--I could find some, perhaps--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">--His words--both their words--jostled each other in sheer haste.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes! then why don't you call them?&quot;--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How can I use them--trapped like a rat. They--they might be worse than
+useless, without something to do--without a lead over--don't you
+see?--and there is nothing--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">--&quot;Nothing!&quot; she echoed, almost savagely, as she clasped and unclasped
+her hands, dragging the fingers through each other, in sheer straining
+after some thought on which to clutch, in cruel whipping and spurring
+of her wits against that inaction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing! Nothing! The word seemed to fill the world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing in earth or air or fire or--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stay!&quot; she cried, with a gasp. &quot;The raft! The raft! Am-ma shall fetch
+it--it must be close by, now. There will be room. It can float down to
+opposite the gaol.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stared at her as she stood in her white, and scarlet, and gold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By Jove!&quot; he said softly &quot;by Jove, you've got it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next instant he was off to rouse his men, and she was on the bottom
+step giving Am-ma his orders, short, sharp, clear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But when Lance came back again to look out what arms and ammunition he
+could lay hands on, he found her, in his room, sorting cartridges as if
+she had done it all her life; and her face turned to him all aglow and
+splendid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We shall manage it! Am-ma's gone. He didn't want to, but I told him
+I'd kill the baby if he didn't. I suppose it was wrong,&quot;--though her
+woman's tongue sought speech, her woman's hands stuck to their
+work--&quot;but I couldn't help it. I felt so savage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are very brave,&quot; he said simply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Brave!&quot; she echoed. &quot;Why not? People talk as if women always had to
+try and not be afraid; but we are not all like that. Some of us want to
+fight. I do, always.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked it, as, when all was ready, she leant, straining her eyes
+into the darkness for a hint of Am-ma's return. &quot;He must come,&quot; she
+muttered to herself, &quot;he shall come!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he did. A bigger wave came sweeping up to the wall as a herald, and
+then a voice calling for a rope. Half a dozen were ready posted in the
+men's hands from various points of vantage. They flew outwards; one,
+from Am-ma's hands inwards to a group holding a lantern on the steps.
+So, with a silent haul, the pioneers had the raft stopped, and sidling
+slowly back to mooring against the wall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Lance turned to Erda hesitating, divided between his loyalty to
+Vincent, and to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The palace ought to be warned,&quot; he said briefly--&quot;if I go there ahead
+on Am-ma's craft, I could pick you up on your way down. Could you
+manage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave a look round on the men, eager with the sudden excitement,
+with the rush, with the very novelty of it all, and laughed--positively
+laughed. &quot;Manage? Yes! of course I can manage--<i>havildar!</i> see those
+cartridges are put well back out of the wet--stay! bring down that
+table, someone, and give it a lash--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, despite this absolute lack of fear, despite the fact that she
+evidently wanted and desired no more consideration than a man, Lance
+felt a wild dislike to leaving her there alone, as he stepped on to
+Am-ma's skin craft, and, edging his way along by the wall, prepared to
+drift down to the palace balcony. It was mirk dark now, and he had no
+fear of being seen by the crowd on the bathing steps and the courtyard,
+though he punted his way with the paddle shaft within a yard or two of
+the shore; for he wanted to judge how far excitement had spread, how
+far the crowd was aware of what was coming at dawn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To judge by appearances, not at all. There was no more restlessness, no
+more movement than was inevitable in such a concourse of men, women,
+and children. Here and there files of shadowy forms drifted about, but
+the most of them, seen by the little lights set on the ground beside
+each group, were in heaps, like the heaps of dead on a battle-field,
+huddled up on each other, sleeping, resting, indistinguishable,
+shrouded in their shawls, waiting for the dawn to come.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And, above the soft, yet increasing murmur of the still windless storm,
+came a softer murmuring of prayers, a weird low chanting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Hosts of the Lord had not yet risen to battle. The Spirit had not
+moved; the Word had not been made manifest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The palace, also, lay as yet undisturbed, unseen, in the darkness.
+Except for a glimmer of red light just above the river, a paler glimmer
+closer at hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The red light must be by the stairs for which he was steering.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The other?--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not know, but as he slipped past it another murmuring as of
+prayer seemed to come from within. It must come from the chapel; if so,
+then Pidar Narāyan must be awake also. He felt a certain relief at the
+thought when he caught sight of the canoe at the bottom of the steps.
+Then Vincent, as he had feared, was there; but not on the errand he had
+feared, if Pidar Narāyan knew of it. So, mooring his strange craft to
+the canoe, he ran up the stairs eagerly.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_21" href="#div1Ref_21">CHAPTER XXI</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>MARGHERITA</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Ninian had been awake all night. He had been vaguely uneasy all
+day, conscious, with that fine perception of his, that something was
+amiss. But it was no fear of what <i>might</i> happen which had kept him
+watching when others slept. It was the memory of something which <i>had</i>
+happened; for, by a coincidence that for more than fifty years had
+never lost its mystical significance for Ninian Bruce--sentimentalist
+as he was to his finger tips--the night of the <i>Vaisakh</i> festival, when
+the pilgrims watched for the dawn to guide them on their way to the
+'Cradle of the Gods,' was to him, personally, the saddest and gladdest
+of the whole year. Since it was the night on which he had sinned the
+great sin of his life, and repented of it, even in the sinning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And that sinning, that repenting, was no slight thing to him. It was
+the man himself; for the passion that was in him in his youth was in
+him in his old age. It had only changed its dwelling-place. It had fled
+from the senses, and found refuge in the emotions. In a way, indeed, by
+thus seeking freedom from it, he had fallen into a greater thraldom, so
+that his whole life had been as much swayed by this renunciation of a
+woman as it would have been by her possession.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Old as he was, this very night had brought him--with the thought that
+Death could not delay much longer, and that next <i>Vaisakh</i> festival
+might find him no lonely watcher--that thrill of self-absorption in
+another self, that claim for all, which is the essence of passion. For
+this woman, waiting for him in the land where there is no marrying or
+giving in marriage, was still a woman; still the one of all God's
+creatures whom he claimed, and who claimed him, even as the first woman
+claimed the first man in Paradise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he had passed the night watches of the Festival of Spring: as he had
+always passed them. Partly in his room, that room made holy by her
+presence in his heart, partly in the chapel, made holy by the Bodily
+Presence of Him for Whose sake he had renounced her. The two holinesses
+were inextricably mixed in Pidar Narāyan's mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had finished one of the masses for the repose of a sinning yet
+sainted soul, and, before repeating the next, was confessing his own
+repentance in his room, when that hasty footstep along the passage,
+which alarmed those two lovers in the balcony nearer the garden, had
+resounded through the arches. It had disturbed, but not startled him,
+its very boldness reassuring him of its right to be there. Probably it
+was some messenger from the police camp or the Fort. So he had risen
+from his knees calmly and passed into the chapel, which lay between his
+room and the balcony, in order to see who it could be. For the candles
+were lit on the Altar and sent a faint light into the vaulted passage
+beyond.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was as he paused, in passing, to do homage to that Bodily Presence
+upon the Altar, which was ready--as he was in his robes--for the
+service of love which was to him, as a priest, his duty, as a man a joy
+unspeakable, that the pistol-shot came clamouring through the arches,
+followed by those despairing cries.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What they were he could not distinguish, but that they were urgent was
+unmistakable, and had he been young as he had been on that night long
+years ago in the balcony above the pale flood of the Tiber, he could
+not have been quicker to reach the armoury, seize the long rapier,
+which he had not used, save in play, since those ruffling days in Rome,
+and run out into the wide, dim passage whence the sound had reached
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">None too soon! Someone was already flying down it. He pulled himself up
+for attack, but the figure ere he could lunge at it was past him,
+desperate, indifferent, flinging him against the wall as it continued
+its reckless way to the outer door, where, with swift opening and
+closing, it disappeared into the crowded courtyard, out of
+sight--beyond recall!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood for a moment, stupefied. What was Roshan Khān doing there? For
+that faint light from the Altar had given him a glimpse of a familiar,
+dark face, Roshan Khān's without a doubt!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Laila! Laila!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cry was clearer this time and the blood left his fine old face in
+sudden doubt as he turned swiftly to his left. Turned, and saw a faint
+red glow through an arch far down the passage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was the arch leading down into the balcony that was never lit
+up--that was never to be lit up because of something that had happened
+there long ago--because of the something which had <i>begun</i> a tragedy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why was it lit up? A stronger fear caught at his heart. Could
+Laila?--No!--impossible!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He ran on, and the next moment was realizing that some tragedy had
+<i>ended</i> in that balcony.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But what?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Who was the woman in native dress who stood with a man's arm around
+her--a man in a scarlet and gold mess jacket? Ah!--that was Captain
+Dering, undoubtedly. But the woman? The woman in scarlet and gold
+also--God in Heaven!--had the dead--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he stared, the long, supple limbs, so clearly outlined under their
+cunningly contrived draperies, seemed to lose themselves in the colour,
+the glitter of rich stuff; one white arm, losing its hold on a cuff of
+scarlet and gold, swung back helplessly, and Vincent Dering, with a
+passionate entreaty to his darling not to be afraid, to look up, and
+tell him where she was hurt, sank to one knee the better to support
+what he held.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so the face, tilted backwards over his shoulder, came in view.</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><i>Laila!</i></p>
+
+<p class="normal">For an instant Ninian Bruce stood bewildered. Then all his youth, the
+pride of birth, the dash, and the fire which had made that youth what
+it had been, rose up in him. The blood surged back to his face in wild
+anger, in savage sense of insult, and desire for revenge.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How dare you!&quot; he cried, clenching his hand on his sword. &quot;You shall
+answer for this, sir! How do you come to be here, at this time of
+night, and why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent, who at the first word had given a hurried glance to see who
+the speaker was, then returned to his task with the indifference of one
+absolutely preoccupied, held up his hand passionately against more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't--and don't preach, for God's sake, old man!&quot; he cried
+recklessly. &quot;Come and help, if you like. Some brute--Oh, curse him!
+curse him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His one trembling hand, for the other was round her, supporting her,
+was busy with the quaint, jewelled clasps of the scented corselet,
+which was crimsoning deeper with another dye. &quot;It's too late for
+preaching,&quot; he muttered, half to himself,--&quot;too late! too late!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words seemed to stun his hearer into silence. He stood bewildered.
+Too late for what?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now, roused by that pistol-shot also, another old man, who had
+carefully hidden himself away from the possibility of being found by
+Roshan Khān, on the rage for an impossible interview; who had counted,
+with malicious cunning, on the cooling effect of a useless waiting in
+the garden till dawn should make it necessary for hot-blooded lovers to
+return to the Fort, stole like a thief to the balcony. What could have
+happened? The only likely trouble which had occurred to his vast
+experience had been the possibility of Roshan Khān seeking the
+interview upstairs. And for that very reason had not he, Akbar Khān,
+felt it his duty to sleep outside his mistress's door? What more could
+faithful servitude be expected to do?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But this! What was this? His charge had stolen a march upon him. Old as
+he was in the care of frail womanhood, he had been imposed upon! Then,
+as he crept round a pillar craftily, the sight of Pidar Narāyan, in his
+priestly robes, made the old sinner throw up his hands and grovel in
+the dust.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This slave knew nothing!&quot; he mumbled, gasping. &quot;This was unknown. And
+for the other, I told him it was too soon, too soon,--far too soon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Too soon, and too late! What did it all mean? Father Ninian stood
+helpless, paralyzed; but Vincent caught at the words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The other!&quot; he echoed. &quot;You black devil! who was the other? Who was
+that man? Curse him!&quot; He paused, for Laila opened her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was Roshan Khān,&quot; she said, with a smile, that half-amused,
+half-mysterious smile. &quot;He gave me the dress, you know, and I think he
+wanted me--to marry him. Hush! what's the use of being angry--now?&quot; She
+checked his incredulous outcry, and her hand hesitated up to his
+trembling fingers, and held them back from their task. &quot;Don't,&quot; she
+went on; &quot;I'd rather--you didn't waste time. I want you to look at
+me--only me--me, myself. Ah! that's nice!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was an instant's silence; then her eyes wandered to his cuff as
+it rested on her corselet, and she smiled again. &quot;We match, don't we?
+I'm glad. Besides, it won't stain much. I expect--that's why soldiers
+wear red, isn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The deadly realism roused Vincent to a sort of fury at his own
+helplessness. But what could a man do, caught in a second by Fate to be
+chief actor in a scene like this, where he was lost,--lost utterly? And
+those two fools looking on--doing nothing!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At least, in common charity, you might help. You're something of a
+doctor!&quot; he cried passionately. &quot;We can settle scores afterwards, you
+and I, can't we? But now you might help <i>her</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What did she say?&quot; asked Father Ninian, tonelessly. He had caught a
+word or two, and their triviality, in the face of what had happened--a
+triviality common in those who have been struck down as she had been,
+almost painlessly--had but increased his bewilderment. &quot;What does it
+mean? How do you come here? I must know, first.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl had turned her face quickly to the new voice; and, after
+vainly trying to rise, lay back breathlessly. &quot;Tell him, Vincent; he's
+Father Laurence. Remember--he must know--and--and I--can't--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then here it is, sir!&quot; broke in Vincent, brutally. &quot;If you will wait
+to know, when every moment is precious. We love each other--you've done
+it in your time, I'm told! I've been coming here, night after night, to
+see her; she wears that dress to please me--there! Now you've got it!
+And to-night, some devil--she says Roshan Khān, but she's dreaming;
+what can he have to do with it?--stood there and fired--at me, I think;
+but she flung herself--Ah! Laila, my darling, why did you? Now, will
+that satisfy you--you--you--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hush!&quot; came Laila's voice--&quot;there is no use in being angry. Besides,
+he understands; he knows what it is to be in love quite well. Don't
+you, guardian? You loved her, didn't you? Margherita, I mean--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wandered off into Italian--the language they always spoke, and her
+rich voice dulled, died away, as the faintness returned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For God's sake, sir, bring the light, if you won't do anything else!&quot;
+cried Vincent, wildly. &quot;She has fainted, I think--I can't see--it is so
+dark. For God's sake, sir, the light at least!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The light at least! As Father Ninian mechanically took the red lamp
+from its niche he felt that he needed no more light than those words,
+&quot;he understands,&quot; had sent into his very soul. Yes, he knew what love
+was. But he knew also--it came home to him in a second--that his love,
+even after all these years, differed not at all from this girl's. He
+heard it in her voice--that voice so strangely like that other
+voice--which he remembered--oh! so well!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Take off the shade,&quot; said Vincent, &quot;it makes everything so--so
+red--you--you can't see the truth.&quot; He shivered as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But that first look at the girl had been enough for Pidar Narāyan. It
+had roused him, his apathy was gone. He thrust the lamp into Vincent's
+trembling hands without a word, and his own steady ones--the hands
+which had not touched their kind, except to heal body or soul, since
+they had said farewell to a woman--took up the task.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So for a few minutes there was silence, but for the old pantaloon's
+ceaseless mumblings as he rocked himself backwards and forwards. He had
+meant no harm, he protested--he had conducted more affairs of the kind
+to a decent ending than he could well remember--no one could be more
+discreet--accidents would happen--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is shot through the lungs,&quot; said Father Ninian, breaking the
+silence. &quot;There is very little to be done--I--I--&quot; He would have said
+&quot;<i>fear</i>,&quot; but for Vincent's face of anguish. What right had he to feel
+sorrow?--he, the man who had brought this about. &quot;Still, I will try.
+Akbar! bring the candles from the altar. Stay! she had better go there.
+It will save time. You two can carry her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Vincent had her in his arms, with a brief &quot;Where?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The chapel--the lights are lit. Lay her on the cushions before the
+altar. I will be with you again directly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he returned from his room with lint and bandages she was lying
+there as he had directed, her long red skirt trailing down the white
+steps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The candles, please,--the smaller ones, Akbar,--and place them at her
+head. They will give me a better light.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent shivered again at the sight; she looked already dead, with
+those tall tapers about her. Ah! what did it all mean? Was he dreaming?
+How was it possible? The wild improbability of it stunned him; when not
+three hours ago he had had a sherry-and-bitters before dinner! The
+curious irrelevance of his thoughts made him feel as if he must wake
+soon. Yet there she lay. Laila, whom he loved!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is she--is she--&quot; he began.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not dead, if you mean that,&quot; replied Father Ninian quietly. &quot;But she
+will not live an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no mincing matters between these two men--nothing but the
+brutal truth; yet this time it was the old priest who held up his hand
+against a passionate outcry. &quot;Don't make a fuss. Be brave, at least,
+and don't disturb her. She is coming to herself again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To herself certainly. To the old half-amused, half-mysterious smile, as
+her eyes caught the tapers, the lighted altar beyond, her lover
+kneeling at her side. &quot;It is the wedding, I suppose,&quot; she said--there
+was a catch in her breath now--&quot;but why have they put the candles like
+a bier? To save time, I suppose. But it mixes things up; and--&quot; she
+gave a little impatient sigh--&quot;Oh! tell him to be quick, Romeo,
+for--for we always meant to be married in the end--didn't we?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words cut Vincent like a knife. Yes! He had meant it. Not always.
+Not till, even to one with his past, the perfection of this idyll in
+the garden would have suffered without that promise to himself. And
+now, death should not cheat him, should not leave a stain, a regret, on
+the one perfect romance of his life. He stooped suddenly and kissed
+her; kissed her with more passion than he had ever kissed her before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It won't be long, Juliet; he is just going to begin,&quot; he whispered,
+then rose to his feet unsteadily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This at least he could do for himself. And for her? A sob, almost of
+gratitude, of admiration, came to his eyes as he realized that it would
+never, never--even if she had lived--have mattered to her really. But
+it had been a part of the play; part of her as Juliet. So it should be.
+His wild revolt at the sequence of improbabilities--for after all that
+idyll in the garden had been, bar its environments, commonplace
+enough--which had landed him in--<i>in an Adelphi drama!</i>--(he could not
+help the thought, though he despised it)--should give way to this. The
+play should end with a wedding. Juliet should have the '<i>statue of pure
+gold</i>' in the eyes of the world. He could ensure this by a word; and
+the word should be spoken.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He touched Father Ninian peremptorily on the shoulder, as he bent, busy
+with his instruments.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I want to speak to you. Hush! she must not hear. Father, you say she
+is dying. Well, I claim my right. I am a Catholic--I have sinned--we
+will say nothing about her--that lies between us. I wish to marry her
+while I can. I ask it as my right, of you, a priest. Do you understand?
+I ask you to marry us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ninian Bruce looked for an instant as if he could have killed the man
+who stood before him; then he drew himself up, priest utterly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you the right to claim it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I claim it as a right,&quot; replied Vincent, fiercely. &quot;That is enough,
+surely.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is not enough. I will ask her.&quot; And Pidar Narāyan knelt down beside
+the girl. &quot;My daughter,&quot; he began, &quot;Captain Dering tells me--&quot; Then he
+gave way--&quot;<i>Cara mia</i>,&quot; he whispered, laying his hand on hers, &quot;tell
+me--I have never been unkind, surely--tell me--your old guardian, who
+has loved, who loves--must I marry you to--to <i>him?</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Laila looked into his face with a faintly-wondering reply. &quot;Must!&quot; she
+echoed dreamily. &quot;It's just as he likes, of course. I don't mind. I
+only want him--where is he?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm here, sweetheart.&quot; Vincent knelt down again and took her in his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The faint querulousness left her voice. &quot;That's nice,&quot; she murmured.
+&quot;Tell him to begin quickly, Vincent, for I don't want to waste time. I
+want you--you, yourself, and me--me, myself--nothing else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Ninian gave a sort of cry, and turned blindly to the altar. If
+this was not Love, what was?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, monotonously, his voice began the marriage service.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you a ring?&quot; he asked, when he came to stand by those two, the
+girl supported in Vincent's arms. The latter shook his head. &quot;Go on
+without it,&quot; he said sternly; &quot;she is failing fast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But there was one on the old man's finger; one that had never left it
+since it had been put there by a saint in Paradise. He took it off now,
+and gave it to the man whom at that moment he hated and despised more
+than any man on earth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, swiftly, the prayers went on, and old Akbar paused in his rockings
+to say &quot;Amen&quot; with the others. He had learnt <i>thus</i> much in these
+latter days of grace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The last one came as a step resounded down the passage; Lance Carlyon's
+step as he sought the light he had seen--sought his Captain. He seemed
+to bring a breath of fresh air into the passion-laden atmosphere, a
+solid reality into the shadows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Vincent!&quot; he cried, as he caught sight of the scarlet and gold. &quot;Thank
+God! you're here. The troopers have seized the Fort--&quot; He paused
+suddenly, horror-struck at what had caught his eye. &quot;I beg your
+pardon--I didn't know--is she--is she--hurt?--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent stood up suddenly. &quot;Hush! that has nothing to do with it. Leave
+that to me. The troopers have risen? When?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance, with his eyes still on that pitiful sight, shook his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There was a pistol-shot--you must have heard it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Heard it!&quot; echoed Vincent, wildly. &quot;Yes! I heard it. Go on! What
+then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know--I know nothing in this infernal nightmare that's got
+hold of us all!&quot; cried Lance. &quot;I only know that if we don't get to the
+gaol before they do--they've gone to set the prisoners free--there will
+be the devil of a row. So you must come at once, Vincent--you must come
+at once!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Captain Dering gave an irresolute look at the dying girl. She had saved
+his life--he loved her--could he leave her? Was anything worth that
+sacrifice?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You <i>must</i> go!&quot; said a stern voice. It was Father Ninian's, who had
+taken Vincent's place and was now holding Laila in his arms. &quot;You must
+go, Captain Dering, and prevent worse from befalling; if you can--if
+you can!&quot; There was almost a triumph in his voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance looked from one to the other in sheer despair. &quot;Well! if you
+won't come, I'm off--oh! come along, Vincent, and don't be a fool!
+It--it isn't worth it; it never is!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent Dering stood still irresolute. &quot;You'll stay, sir,&quot; he said,
+&quot;and--and look after--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Ninian drew the unconscious girl closer to him. &quot;I will look
+after--<i>Margherita</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The last word came in a half whisper to himself and his eyes met
+Vincent's with a curious dazed defiance. The latter gave the defiance
+back, as their owner stooped for a second over Laila's indifferent
+face, and kissed it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good-by, <i>Juliet</i>,&quot; he said; and the last word came also in a half
+whisper to himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next moment he was following Lance down the dim passage, full of a
+vague relief, and realizing for the first time that the mist, which for
+the last half hour had dimmed the reality of all things, was due, not
+to any aberration of his brain, but to the simple fact that an
+electrical dust-storm was in full blast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He realized it with relief. That was at least real, tangible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Almost too much so; and as the hot wind, charged with those aspiring
+atoms of earth, met him fiercely, he realized also that the storm would
+fight against him in his efforts to prevent worse from happening. If,
+indeed, anything could be worse than what had happened; worse than
+Laila's--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He broke off in his thought, incredulous. It could not be true. He
+would come back to find her better--well!--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But that other dream was true. His men had risen. The one thing
+necessary, therefore, was to get to the gaol before any decided action
+took place; and this he realised still more clearly from Lance's curt
+explanation as they ran down the river steps. Once there, the sight of
+the canoe he had left suggested the feasibility of getting to the gaol
+in it. His personal influence might avail. If that failed, he would at
+least be able to save time by choosing a suitable place for the raft to
+come ashore. The great thing was to be on the spot, to be within reach
+of action at once; to wait for the raft meant needless delay.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, a minute after, the faint splash of his paddle was lost in the
+rising hum of the storm, and Lance was left looking anxiously for sound
+or sight of the raft, which, if all had gone well, should by now have
+started.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But neither came, so, seeing from the light he had snatched up as he
+passed through the balcony that the air was growing darker, more
+impenetrable than ever, he shoved off his strange craft, to wait
+further out in the stream where there was less chance of the raft
+passing him unseen, unheard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For this reason also, he paddled up along the wall a bit into the faint
+glow of light which showed still from the arches of the chapel. And as
+he lay in it, his ears and eyes strained for the least sound, he could
+hear as a kind of background to that muffled drumming of the storm, the
+sound of the pilgrims chanting as they waited for the dawn. The dawn
+which would bring--what? Who could tell?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sound of other prayers, echoing from the chapel, made him shake his
+head, feeling that it was hopeless to look forward--or backward for
+that matter! Why had Roshan shot the girl--if he had! And why had Pidar
+Narāyan called her Margherita, and Vincent called her Juliet?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The whole thing was exactly as he had said--an infernal nightmare!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then a faint sound in front of him made his strong arms sweep the
+paddle through the stream as he shot into the darkness in search of the
+raft; in search of Erda.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not that she needed him, really. The memory of her in that red-and-gold
+mess jacket above her wedding dress, giving orders to the men squarely,
+came back to make him smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">God bless her! She could do well enough without him. That was one
+comfort. And Dillon could hold his own too, without much help, for a
+time--that was another; for what with this and that, help was bound to
+be over-long in coming.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_22" href="#div1Ref_22">CHAPTER XXII</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>A MONOPOLY</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance Carlyon was right in trusting Dr. Dillon's power of doing without
+help until Providence chose to send some. This was the easier task, in
+that he had made up his mind deliberately beforehand as to what his
+best course of action would be should an alarm of this sort occur.
+Therefore that imperative <i>kling-kling</i> of the telegraph bell which
+roused him in a second from his bed, where, ready dressed for any such
+emergency, he was sleeping the sleep of the just, found him alert,
+prepared for anything and everything.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it has come, he thought, as he hastily wired back the comprehensive
+reply, &quot;<i>All right, await you</i>.&quot; He felt as a doctor does when a
+dangerous symptom which he has foreseen as a possibility, shows itself.
+He had been on the lookout for this for days, but as the dawn would end
+the period during which it might be expected, he had, as in the
+outbreak of the cholera, had hopes that danger was over. His last
+thought, as he slept, had been this; he woke to find that the
+complication must be faced. Woke with a strong regret, but a stronger
+instinct of fight. So he slipped his feet into his shoes, jammed his
+big mushroom hat on his head out of pure habit, and so, armed
+<i>cap-ą-pie</i>, with a brain quick to work, and a body ready to follow and
+obey, he ran across the sandy road to the Smiths' bungalow, realizing
+as he did so that a dust-storm was just beginning. That would delay
+both attack and relief. On the whole, this would be an advantage,
+since, once things were secure, half an hour or so would make no
+difference in the latter; whereas, he wanted every minute he could get
+now for preparation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had not warned Eugene Smith of his fears. There was never any use
+alarming people by mere probabilities, unless by so doing you could
+forearm them. And this was not the case here; since the safest--in fact
+the only--place of refuge for Mrs. Smith and the child, should trouble
+arise, was the semi-fortified roof above the gate of the gaol; and that
+he knew to be ready for use. He had, therefore, only to wake them, as
+quietly as might be, so as not to give the alarm to the servants.
+Fortune favoured him in this; for, just outside the verandah, he ran
+full tilt upon Eugene himself, tall, gaunt, in his sleeping-suit,
+carrying a roll of bedding on his back like a snail's shell. The heat
+of the evening had enticed him to sleep outside, as he preferred, <i>ą
+la</i> Robinson Crusoe, and the dust-storm was sending him in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hello, Dillon!&quot; he cried, &quot;what's up?--nothing wrong with my wife or
+the child--I hope--No!--&quot; he gave a sigh of relief, &quot;then it's the
+beastly dust-storm disturbed you, I suppose. Isn't it sickening to
+think how many times in the next six months we shall have to take up
+our beds and walk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm! Hope I shall have the chance,&quot; replied the doctor, dryly,
+recovering his breath. &quot;No, it isn't the storm. They're going to try a
+row, Smith. Just had a wire from the Fort. There's a plot on, to come
+here and set the prisoners free, and that's dangerous. So, till the
+troops come, I think you'd better bring Mrs. Smith and Gladys to the
+gate--it's the safest place, and I've got everything ready. It mayn't
+be much; but the devils, whoever they are, might turn and rend
+you--especially if they fail with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Eugene Smith had dropped his snail-shell and sat down on it, aghast, in
+surprise; but he was up again before the doctor finished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By Jove!&quot; he said rapidly, calmly as the doctor himself. &quot;That's a
+taking up one's bed with a vengeance. I'll have 'em both ready in a
+jiffy--anything else?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No. I'll rummage round till you return--one forgets things to the
+last, sometimes. And I shall want your Remington and such like--I know
+where to find 'em.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A moment after he was striking a match to light the tall floor-lamp in
+Mrs. Smith's drawing-room. She had turned it out herself a few hours
+before, thinking, as she looked round the room, full of soft
+rose-shaded light, how pretty, how cosey it was. It had the same air of
+refined security now. Everything, down to a copy of the last '<i>Queen</i>'
+lying on an inlaid table by her favourite chair, was so exactly what
+one would have expected to find in her room; the room of a delicate,
+cultivated, civilized, society woman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now the delicacy, the culture, the civilization, the society, and the
+security belonging to them, had been invaded in an instant. By what?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dust--you could almost see it springing into the air in these sandy
+stretches--had already settled thick over the dainty furniture, and as
+Dr. Dillon, standing by the table in the pink glow of the lamp, asked
+himself the question, he yielded to the imperious fascination which a
+smooth sand-surface has for humanity. But he did not write his name
+upon it; only the idle answer to the question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God knows.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The writing lay upon the table beside the latest fashions, staring up
+into the pink paper shade, after George Dillon had passed rapidly to
+Eugene's office to choose this, that, and the other, and make them into
+a bundle with a table-cloth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he returned to the drawing-room, Muriel Smith was standing by that
+writing in the sand: a fragile figure in a blue dressing-gown, all
+frilled and embroidered like the pictures in the paper. She looked more
+forlorn than frightened; forlorn and pathetic.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it warm enough?&quot; said the doctor, as he entered. &quot;Your dress, I
+mean. There's a storm on, and it generally brings rain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is flannel,&quot; she answered, and he nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no excitement, no heroics. Only that. That, and the writing
+on the sand, and her forlornness--the forlornness of a delicate Dresden
+shepherdess set to drive a flock of real sheep to the shambles. But the
+needlessness, the pity of it, made Dr. Dillon set his teeth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Eugene will be here directly with Gladys,&quot; she said. &quot;We thought it
+best not to wake her, and he said we had better start at once; for you
+see I can't walk nearly so fast as he does.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no trace of fear in her voice, but there was none of
+resistance either, and she turned at the door to look back with an
+almost reproachful acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor room,&quot; she said softly, &quot;it seems so strange--such a pity; but I
+suppose it can't be helped.&quot; She turned to the darkness again with a
+little shiver, and went on, &quot;Vincent sent the wire, I suppose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I didn't ask,&quot; replied Dr. Dillon curtly; then, repenting him, added,
+&quot;I suppose so. He will be here directly I expect. And--and we will all
+take care of you and Gladys, as long as we can. You know that; and we
+can't do more--can we?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She smiled quite tenderly. &quot;Of course you will. And I am really not a
+bit afraid--except of being in the way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She seemed to accept the necessity of this; perhaps rightly. For the
+storm itself was no joke in these desert stretches, where the sand rose
+in choking clouds, yet left enough to make each step a toil. Muriel
+stumbled along breathlessly, but so slowly that, when her husband
+joined them, striding along with Gladys, still sleeping, wrapped in a
+blanket in his arms, the doctor bade them come at their leisure and
+wait until he gave the signal before entering, then ran on swiftly to
+the gaol. For there was no time to lose; though, on the other hand,
+there was very little to be done. The less the better, if his plan was
+to be successful; since that involved the utmost quiet, and the keeping
+of the prisoners from all knowledge of what was going on as long as
+possible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he faced the choking darkness, the hot blasts of causeless wind,
+blowing all ways at once, George Dillon reckoned up his chances fairly.
+The storm would certainly make it easier to keep such knowledge from
+those within, and make it more difficult for those without to establish
+communication with the former. So far, good. On the other hand, no
+amount of the light at his command would enable him to see, even from
+his coign of vantage on the gateway roof, what was going on, either
+outside or inside. And darkness was the diggers' best friend; while
+digging was the recognized enemy of mud walls. Especially of those
+inside walls which divided the gaol into sections. Yet the best, the
+only chance of keeping the prisoners quiet, lay in preserving their
+segregation into companies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the gaol was of the cart-wheel pattern. That is, a huge circle of
+outside wall, thick as an earthwork, the felloes of the wheel, as it
+were. Then a small central cylinder of brick, like a lime kiln, the
+nave of the wheel, as it were. Between these two the spokes. Spokes of
+twelve feet high mud wall, dividing the whole into seven wedges of
+prison, absolutely distinct, blank, aperture-less, save for one heavily
+stanchioned door in the apex of each wedge, leading into the central
+tower. Exit or entry was therefore impossible to six of these wedges,
+except through the tower; that is the citadel, the key, as it were, of
+the gaol proper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The seventh wedge, however, gave, at its wider end, on the
+entrance-gate, which was a square, semi-fortified building, pierced by
+a tunnel, gated at each end, and further protected by an outside yard,
+or roofless porch, also gated. The inmost of these three gates opened
+on to a small courtyard, and this narrowed again into an alley which
+gave access to the central tower. Briefly then the whole gaol consisted
+of six wedges opening, by a door in their narrow end, into the central
+cylinder; and a seventh wedge split in two by an alley leading between
+high mud walls from the gateway to that central tower; the key to the
+position.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the two halves of the split wedge lay the warders' barracks, the
+solitary cells, the cook rooms, the hospital; and the entry to these
+was by a door on either side of the little courtyard, just beyond the
+inner gate. From the corner of this, also, rose the outside stair
+leading to the roof of the square, brick gateway.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus the fifteen hundred prisoners were broken up into companies of
+about two hundred each, and were absolutely without possibility of
+communication so long as the central tower was in the hands of
+authority. Unless there was time to undermine the mud walls, and tools,
+also, wherewith to work. Of these, however, there were none in the
+gaol. Nothing, even, that could be used to take their place, except in
+that seventh section which held the executive of the gaol; and there
+Dr. Dillon meant to leave no hands to use them, if he could compass it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he pulled up to regain his breath before walking up to the gate and
+giving the countersign, the whole place lay quiet and dark. So far,
+good. There was the risk, however, of the plot being known, and of the
+sentry refusing him entrance. It was not, however, and the next moment,
+calmly as if he was merely on one of his not infrequent rounds of
+unexpected night inspections, Dr. Dillon passed from the outer porch to
+the tunnel, and told the sentry at the inner gate to light the lamp in
+the little office room to one side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Call the superintendent,&quot; he said to the first man, &quot;and you can tell
+him I am going to inspect the solitary cells.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He added this because he knew it would give time, since the
+superintendent would be sure to give a private look round, first, to
+see all was in order, and remove possible traces of tobacco or
+opium,--those luxuries out of which so much money can be made by gaol
+officials.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No sooner, however, had the first sentry gone through the door to the
+left section, than he sent the second one on a similar message to the
+right, where the hospital lay. Then, the coast being clear, he rapidly
+unlocked the private safe in the office which held his set of keys in
+case of accidents, and locked both the right and left doors. Secure for
+a moment, therefore, from interruption, he ran outside, saw that the
+tool rooms, etc., were closed, gave the signal to Eugene Smith, hurried
+the refugees up the stairs; and then, after unlocking the two doors
+again on his way back to the office, sat down in his usual chair and
+began to look over a register.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was engaged in this calm occupation when, a minute or two after, the
+native superintendent--a big, dignified person, in a blatant undress
+due largely to his bulk--arrived breathless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Darogah-jee!</i>&quot; began Dr. Dillon, instantly, and the mere tone of the
+title made the man quiver, &quot;I've had constantly to complain of the
+tobacco and opium smuggling that is going on among the warders, and I
+mean to stop it. I've had information to-night which will clinch
+the business. So take the night guard, rouse every warder, bring
+everyone here, even those on guard in the sections--the hospital
+orderlies--everyone, in fact, who is free to go out of the gaol. They
+are to come at once. No time allowed for arrangements. If they are not
+all here in five minutes I shall think you are in league with the
+smugglers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The <i>darogah's</i> fat flesh shook, yet he winked as he went off. If the
+doctor-<i>sahib</i> expected to find anything in this fashion except, maybe,
+a smell of the forbidden drugs, he was mistaken. On such a night, too,
+when the dust was in everyone's eyes. Well! it might have been worse;
+for, though he knew nothing definitely of any plot, he could not fail
+to know that there was more to excite men in the gaol, that night, than
+tobacco or opium! So he went about his summons with a sigh of relief,
+and before the five minutes were over had his posse of minor officials
+together, including a file of unfettered prisoners, with good conduct
+badges, who were used as gang leaders. He himself finally coming down
+the alley, with a stupendous bunch of keys, followed by the little
+group of night warders he had collected from the other sections.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All here?&quot; asked Dr. Dillon, lighting a cigar. &quot;The register, please,
+<i>darogah</i>. They will answer to their names, pass out through the wicket
+into the porch, and stay there until I've tallied the lot. I'm going to
+have it <i>pakka</i><a name="div4Ref_11" href="#div4_11"><sup>[11]</sup></a>
+this time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Some of the men grinned, some looked uneasy, and some few frowned; but
+all obeyed, though they cuddled themselves into their blankets as they
+slipped through the wicket, and faced the whirling, swirling storm in
+the open porch, the doors of which were barred, not solid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Kishen Rao?&quot; came Dr. Dillon's voice, after a long series of names,
+followed by brief &quot;<i>presents!</i>&quot; and swift exits. There was no answer.
+He turned to the <i>darogah</i> for explanation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Absent!&quot; explained the latter, timorously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A little more decision might have saved him the quick question, &quot;With
+or without leave?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Huzoor</i>&quot; palpitated the fat man, &quot;he went out to bathe in the Holy
+Pool by permission this morning. He is of the utmost sobriety. A
+Brahmin, promoted by your Honour to, as your Honour knows, general head
+ward-keeper. He is not to be suspected.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Leave till 5 P.M.,&quot; commented the doctor, looking over the register.
+&quot;Mark him down absent without leave. Go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, rapidly, the last man ducked under the wicket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is that the lot?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Everyone, Protector of the Poor,&quot; protested the burly official, with
+smiles. &quot;The prison is empty of the unfettered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then let it remain so for the present,&quot; said Dr. Dillon, coolly, as he
+stepped forward, closed the wicket, slid the bolt to its place, and
+turned on the <i>darogah</i>, all in one swift sequence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, then!&quot; he went on sharply, &quot;you and I have to settle a bit of
+business. Your keys--&quot; he took out a revolver, and laid it on the table
+beside him--&quot;every key you have; duplicates, triplicates, everything!
+I'm going to keep this gaol myself for a bit. Do you understand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Huzoor!</i>&quot; bleated the man, helplessly, putting his big bunch on the
+table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon smiled sarcastically. &quot;Won't do, my friend. I want the lot
+by the list. Where's the register?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When it came he ticked them off rapidly by it. &quot;Sections B and C,
+warder's duplicate; where's that?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The official grew green. &quot;Kishen Rao--&quot; he began--&quot;but he is of the
+utmost--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon turned on him like lightning. &quot;You're a damned scoundrel,
+sir! What else is missing?&quot; He ran over the rest swiftly, then looked
+up suddenly with a scowl that made the man literally collapse. &quot;So
+that's it, is it? Duplicate of B and C sections missing, and duplicate
+of the alley doors. A pretty little game!&quot; he laughed sardonically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Kishen Rao--&quot; gurgled the <i>darogah</i>--&quot;by your Honour's promotion--of
+the utmost--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But it won't play, my friend; it won't play!&quot; went on the doctor, with
+a curious elation. &quot;I hold the thirteenth trump, now. You go in
+there,&quot;--he pointed to an inner store-room behind the slip of an
+office; a windowless place, pitch dark, where the clothes in which the
+prisoners arrived awaited their release in piles--&quot;and thank your stars
+you're in such good quarters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All but that brief order, &quot;You go in there,&quot; was spoken in English, as
+a sort of outlet for the intense satisfaction which was filling him at
+his own success,--<i>so far</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next minute he had turned the key on the <i>darogah</i>, and was up the
+stairs calling Eugene Smith in a low voice to come down and help to
+bolt and bar; but to come as quietly as he could.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I've got rid of the lot,&quot; he said joyously, after he had explained the
+position in a few rapid words; &quot;there isn't a soul in this section
+except the solitary cellers--who, of course, are ironed--a few sick
+people, and the assistant surgeon; but <i>baboo-jee</i> is an agnostic, and
+is so confoundedly afraid of the possibility of a future life that he
+may be trusted to go into green collapse if he hears a shot fired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, rapidly, the two men set to work, undisturbed by more than a
+protesting &quot;<i>Huzoor</i>, what shall we do?&quot; from the posse outside the
+first gate, and a low knocking at the wicket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were double doors here, however, and of the sort which it would
+need time to negotiate, without powder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They will hold out for an hour, at least,&quot; said the doctor; &quot;then
+there will be the inner one, and after that the alley door--unless--&quot;
+he remembered Kishen Rao, and frowned. That was the only weak spot in
+his armour. &quot;We can count on an hour and a half, at least,&quot; he
+continued, carefully allowing for the worst; &quot;longer, perhaps. Now
+then, Smith, for the toughest job! I've got a couple of crowbars here.
+Those first six steps--eight if we can--of the stairs must come down.
+There aren't enough of us to hold them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, for fully a quarter of an hour, no sound was heard above the
+curious vibration of the storm except the grinding and crushing of the
+bricks as they were rapidly eased out, one by one, from the mud mortar.
+The light of one of the office lamps, set on the ground, showed by that
+time a sheer drop of eight or ten feet, and Eugene Smith, working
+above, jammed his crowbar into a crevice of the wall against which the
+steps clung like a swallow's nest, and gave Dr. Dillon, who had been
+working below, a rope and a hand up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The latter set down the keys and the lamp he had brought up with him,
+and deliberately dusted the knees of his trousers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There, that's done,&quot; he said. &quot;Couldn't be better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, it seems pretty safe,&quot; assented Eugene Smith, a trifle dubiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Safe!&quot; echoed the doctor, enthusiastically, &quot;I haven't felt so safe
+for the last fortnight. Hullo! what's that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was a sudden bugle-call. The doctor's face fell. &quot;What, already! I
+didn't expect relief so soon. However, it can't be helped. I'll just go
+up and tell Dering what I've done, so that he may be prepared for the
+locked out ones!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took the light in his hand and crossed to the outer parapet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hello, Dering!&quot; he began, peering down. Then a couple of shots whizzed
+past his head and he ducked. At the same moment, as if roused by the
+concussion, the first crackling thunderclap of the dust-storm, sounding
+muffled through the thick air, followed like a roll-call, and
+reverberated dully, sluggishly, through the black darkness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When it passed, Dr. Dillon's voice rose quietly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There will be no relief, Smith; those are the troopers, and they're
+against us. So now--we've got it to ourselves, Smith, for some time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a certain satisfaction at the monopoly in his voice.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_23" href="#div1Ref_23">CHAPTER XXIII</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>THE SEARCH-LIGHT</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The sound of those two shots greeted Vincent Dering as, after infinite
+difficulty, owing to the darkness, the fitful gusts of wind, and the
+sand-banks, he drew up the canoe against what he knew must be the high
+bank below the off-take of the canal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had only been by trusting the stream to guide him, and refraining at
+times from the use of his paddle, that he had managed to steer his way
+at all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he knew he was late; felt, indeed, that he must be too late to use
+his influence with the men, and yet, despite this knowledge, a keen
+disappointment filled him when those shots proved him to be so; since
+by long experience he knew that once open resistance began, there could
+be no more question of words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What then, was there for him to do?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If he, in his light canoe, helped, wherever possible, by every atom of
+strength his arms possessed, had taken so long to come down that mile
+or two of stream, the raft could not possibly arrive for another half
+hour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could not sit still for half an hour; he felt, indeed, as if he
+could not sit still for half a minute. A passion to act, to sweep away
+the past, to forget, was upon him. He had had time during his strange
+journey--so often idle perforce--to realize his position; time to piece
+the still stranger events preceding his journey into a reasonable
+sequence; so that he had, by now, arrived at a fairly accurate guess as
+to the cause of much, that, when it happened, had seemed causeless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For instance, Laila's dress, &quot;<i>given her by someone</i>.&quot; That, joined to
+the knowledge that she was connected with the late Nawab's family, of
+which Roshan Khān might with justice claim the headship, had brought
+the latter's action within the bounds of credibility. Jealousy!
+revenge! these were potent causes. Laila, then, must have been playing
+with Roshan's pretensions. Playing like a child with a toy; playing,
+rather, like a woman who hesitates at nothing for the sake of the man
+she loves. And she had hesitated at nothing; not even at this, to give
+him pleasure, to make things match with his passion! The thought, the
+remembrance, made him for a moment feel inclined to fling up his hands,
+and let the canoe take him where it chose; take him down stream
+utterly. Then a half choking, yet wholly strenuous desire to escape
+from the whole story, a wild instinctive effort for a more wholesome
+atmosphere, like that of a drowning man for a breath of fresh air, had
+sent the canoe bounding on <i>his</i> way; <i>his</i> way and none other's, in
+swift obedience. With a rush, he had grasped that there was more in
+life--that he had allowed himself to be a slave! But that was past,--he
+would shake himself together--he would forget the thraldom of sex--and
+he would forget the past.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, as he cast about in his mind for the best method of applying the
+half hour's leisure, the remembrance of a woman came to him, as if to
+mock at his resolution. Muriel, and dear little Gladys who called him
+&quot;Derin' darling&quot;; where were they? His eyes grew soft in the
+remembrance, stern at the probability of their being in danger. Why had
+he not thought of it before? How could he ever have paused, wondering
+what to do?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He set the red light, which he had taken from the fateful balcony,
+carefully in the canoe--though, even should some gust of the rising
+wind not blow the light out, it could scarcely be of any use in that
+outer darkness--as a signal to the raft should it, by an off chance,
+drift past in his absence, then struck across the sand in the direction
+in which he knew the Smiths' bungalow must lie; that was, a little to
+the rear of the gaol.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The storm, as he faced it, was so fierce that the doubt rose inevitably
+if an unwieldy raft could make way against it. If so, then there would
+be no help. The only thing would be to defend himself and others until
+the end came; the end which would at least end the past.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had almost to feel his way, the darkness was so intense. It was a
+relief to stumble against something which he knew must be the low mud
+fence of Muriel's garden; that garden in which she tried to defy
+Providence, and rear English flowers. He knew his feet must be crushing
+her treasures as he passed on towards a faint glow, a red glow. But
+everything that was not the blackness of outer darkness to-night seemed
+red--blood red.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A minute after, with a vast relief at the silence, the solitude, he was
+in Muriel's pretty drawing-room. The pink-shaded lamp was still alight,
+showing red through the fog of dust. He passed to it instinctively, and
+as he did so, noticed the writing on the table. But many an earth-atom
+had fallen on that confession of ignorance since George Dillon had made
+it idly, and so, as Vincent Dering bent quickly to see if by chance it
+was some message left for those who might come after, he also had to
+frown and say, &quot;God knows!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was it possible that Eugene and his wife were still asleep? The doors
+stood open, but that was to be expected at that season of the year,
+unless someone had been awake to close them against the storm. He must
+make sure, however.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But there was no one to be found in any of the rooms. It occurred to
+him, then, that they must have taken refuge in the gaol, and he told
+himself he was a fool not to have thought of that before. Dillon would,
+of course, have seen to that. He, Vincent, might have remembered so
+much, at least; might have remembered that he himself was not the only
+slave. Then he gave an odd, bitter little laugh. Was it never possible
+to get beyond a woman's apron-strings?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And here he was wasting time over the question, when he ought to be
+doing something better.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But what?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Go back and wait for the raft, or on to the gaol? There was a big
+tamarisk tree at the end of the garden. Only two days before he had
+pointed it out to Muriel and said that an active man accustomed to
+<i>trapeze</i> work might swing himself from it astride the high mud wall of
+the gaol, and so gain the roof of the gate. Dillon had denied it; and
+she had said, laughingly, that no one ever tried to break into a gaol,
+only out of one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Curious; still, if it had only been light, it would have been worth the
+risking. But it was impossible now in the dark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, suddenly, a remembrance came to him. The search-light!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was it only last night he had been dining here, in this house, after
+bringing Muriel home from the Mission, where they had seen that huge
+ray piercing the shadows? Was it only yesterday that he had listened to
+Eugene's lamentations over his unused electricity, which was sure, he
+said, to vanish into space from his rude contrivances. Was it only
+yesterday that, in obedience to that pathetic look of martyrdom on
+Muriel's face, which still seemed--to one part of Vincent's nature--to
+call for instant sympathy, he had, to appease the honest inventor,
+shown an interest in search-lights which was purely fictitious, and
+learned a variety of facts about buttons and stop-cocks? And had all
+this happened yesterday on purpose that to-day, when he was in need of
+light--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was up on the roof with the thought. If only the blessed thing had
+go enough for that! As he picked his way rapidly through the litter,
+three or four cigar-ends, a half-finished whiskey-and-soda, seen by the
+flash of the hurricane lantern he had sought out and lit, told him that
+Eugene must have been at work over his new toy till late. So much the
+better for his chance--for everybody's chance; since a signal like that
+might make all the difference to the raft; all the difference to Dillon
+in the gaol--</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">George Dillon was, indeed, beginning to realize this himself. His
+almost triumphant mood had passed; it had come home to him that the
+unexpected revelation of the troopers' complicity in the plot, whatever
+it was, had changed the whole aspect of affairs. Now, there was no
+question of keeping the gaol quiet until help should arrive. He was
+face to face, now, with the fact that he must not rely on any aid at
+all. What had really happened, he could not guess. For all he knew, the
+troopers and pioneers might have risen and killed their officers,
+killed everybody who would be likely to help. His aim, now, was to sell
+his life, and--and hers--as dearly as he could; but in the dead
+darkness, like a rat in a hole, what could be done? Except wait--wait
+for the walls to be dug through, the gates to be mined, that poor eight
+or ten feet drop at the foot of the stairs scaled. Then a rush, still
+in the dark, and--the greatest Darkness of all!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not even the chance of a shot; and he had plenty of ammunition. It
+would at least have passed the time to take pot-shots at the devils;
+and though these would have brought retaliation, there would have been
+no need for exposure. The parapet walls were high enough, and properly
+loopholed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, for a few minutes, he sat almost sullenly beside those, for whom
+alone he now felt responsible, in the little turret, which, as is
+always the case in India, rose at one corner of the flat roof giving
+fair shelter for the time. In his first hurried recognition, which had
+come with the shots, that not help but attack lay outside, he had blown
+out his light, fearing lest Eugene Smith might also be exposed to
+similar attentions; so it was pitch dark. And the now almost constant
+reverberations, which seemed to send the sand-laden air in pulse-beats
+on your face, deadened all other sounds into vague confusion. But he
+knew that the warders within the porch, the troopers without, were
+trying to force the barred gate. That would not take long; though the
+two doors blocking the ends of the tunnel would be a tougher job.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he heard, closer at hand, a sleepy whimper from the child, a low
+comforting from a mother's voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sound made him set his teeth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">God! if there was only light to kill withal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then, in a second, as if by a miracle, it came. A great flood of
+shining light, contemptuous, at that short distance, even of that outer
+darkness. For it was electricity against electricity; a house divided
+against itself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first thing he saw by it was that fragile figure in its dainty blue
+frills, a child's golden head; and so, naturally, the next instant
+found his hand on a rifle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The search-light! by all that's lucky! Well! everyone has not been
+killed, anyhow,&quot; cried Eugene Smith.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Killed,&quot; echoed Dr. Dillon, savagely. &quot;No one has been killed yet, but
+it won't be long before they are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not; for a trooper engaged in staring stupidly at the velvety
+black circle out of which the intruding light seemed to spring,
+suddenly threw up his hands, swirled round, and fell face upwards in a
+crumpled heap.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was an instant's scare in the crowd, in that hundred and fifty or
+more of troopers and conspirators, thrown into black and white relief,
+like a shadow pantomime, about the outer gate. Then the startled
+murmurs of &quot;the light--the <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>&quot; which were passing from lip
+to lip, changed into a yell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The fight had begun in earnest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shoot straight,&quot; remarked Dr. Dillon, a few minutes after, &quot;we shan't
+have such a good chance long. The gate is almost gone. Then most of the
+game will be out of range--too close to the wall. And once they get
+into the tunnel we shall have to sound <i>cease firing</i> until they come
+out on the other side; but then we ought to do decent damage, if the
+prisoners don't get at us first.&quot; He paused, and shot on steadily till,
+with a hoarse shout, the attackers surged inwards. Then he laid his
+rifle aside, remarking that it would be as well to keep an eye
+gaolwards, in case of complications.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So far as could be seen in that curious chequering of dense darkness
+and sharp glittering light; light which was palpably an intruder, which
+seemed absolutely apart from the things it showed--even from the
+dust-atoms--there was none as yet. At least the uppermost portion of
+that vast wheel of wall stood out, perfect, unbroken. The roof of the
+Smiths' bungalow, where the light stood, being, however, but little
+higher than these walls, much of what lay below in the sections
+themselves was necessarily hidden in shadow; especially on the side
+nearest the light. But the narrow alley leading up to the central
+tower, being in straight line with the ray, showed clear as daylight,
+save just under the citadel itself. So did most of the little
+courtyard, with its doors opening to the right and left. George Dillon
+gave a sigh of satisfaction at the sight, since, whether the foe
+elected--when once inside the gates--to rush the roof, or press on to
+liberate the prisoners by those six doors in the round tower, there
+would be fair chance of a good bag, for a straight shot!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Or, even if the convalescents in hospital were to set free the
+solitary-cell convicts--a contingency which had occurred to him too
+late for any plan of minimizing the danger--and were to swarm into the
+courtyard to help against the last gate (which, of course, was partly
+barred from the inside), he could settle their hash also. And that,
+now, was his one idea. The idea of all brave men when they find
+themselves in a tight place--to kill before being killed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As yet, however, there was no sign of life even within the vast wheel,
+with its rims and spokes of light, its centre of shadow. It lay dim,
+curiously still behind the dust-atoms that danced in the ray, like
+motes in a sunbeam.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was not a sound, not a sign within. Only the tumult of voices,
+the intermittent shots without, rising above the dull, muffled hum in
+the air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Stay! that was something. Half way round the circle, where the shadow
+of the tall tamarisk tree in the Smiths' garden cut a jagged gap in the
+white rim of wall, there was some change, something that had not been
+there a moment ago.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The gap had moved; had changed place and form, though for a time the
+air was still with one of those breathless, suffocating pauses, when
+the dust above seems to sink on the dust below, and fill one's very
+lungs. And now the gap was back again, as it had been before. But it
+had left something clinging for a second to the wall like a limpet: the
+next astride it safely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Reach me over my rifle, Smith,&quot; said the doctor, briefly; &quot;there's a
+brute trying to sniggle along the wall; must have come up that tree in
+your garden. Wish I'd taken Dering's advice and cut it down. Thanks! I
+don't want to take my eye off him, for fear he means to drop into a
+section. I'll shoot, if that seems his game; if not, I'll wait till he
+comes closer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He leant over the parapet, waiting. Just below him, the inner wall of
+the gate against which the stair clung, and which was prolonged into
+the turret where Muriel and the child were sheltering, joined the
+circular outside wall of the gaol. The man, thought Dr. Dillon,
+trusting to their being occupied in front, must be trying to steal a
+march on them, slip down the stair, and take them in the rear. There
+was plenty of time to prevent that, however.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Muriel Smith, roused by the sound of Vincent's name from the sort of
+lethargy into which she had fallen,--since she was not wanted either by
+her husband or the doctor,--rose to her knees and peered over the
+parapet cautiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From the tree in the garden,&quot; she said, dreamily. &quot;Yes! I remember.
+You said it couldn't be done, and I said no one would ever want to do
+it, and he said he could--&quot; she paused, and gave a little cry--&quot;It is
+Vincent himself!&quot; she gasped; &quot;don't shoot, doctor! It's Vincent! I
+know it! I feel it! I knew he would come, if he could! Vincent!
+Vincent!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's up?&quot; asked Eugene, still firing steadily at all that was to be
+seen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only your wife says the man is Captain Dering; and--and, by Jove! I
+believe she is right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course I'm right,&quot; she sobbed, half hysterically--&quot;I knew he would
+come--I knew he wouldn't leave me to die alone!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Eugene Smith laid down his rifle, and crawled over in cover
+deliberately, with an odd look on his face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes! that's Dering; plucky fellow. He's swung himself up. I always
+knew he was a nailing gymnast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no grudge in his voice, only a curious challenge as he looked
+at his wife, then laid his big hand on her shoulder. &quot;Keep more down,
+please--your head's showing. He'll get here, all right, never fear;
+we'll lower a rope to him when he comes alongside.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I would rather look--I'd rather see <i>anything</i> happen--&quot; she moaned;
+&quot;it seems so unkind not to watch--not to be there--with him--&quot; She was
+shivering all over, the patient self-control, the steady acquiescence
+even in her own danger which had been hers till then, gone utterly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George Dillon felt a great pity, a vast impatience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So you were right, Smith,&quot; he broke in hastily, to cover her sudden
+break down. &quot;They aren't killed; now we shall have a chance of knowing
+what's at the bottom of all this foolery!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But when, five minutes later, Vincent Dering reached the roof in
+safety, the doctor felt vaguely that the explanations only added to the
+general incomprehensibility; and that something was being kept back.
+What, he asked impatiently, had started the show?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of course there were plots. Pidar Narāyan knew of them, but, as such
+things generally did, they had seemed abortive. What, then, had upset
+the apple-cart?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent gave a gesture of despair. &quot;What does it matter?&quot; he cried. &quot;We
+can think of that--if we <i>can</i> think--when it's over! And if we
+can't--what does it matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You can bet your bottom dollar on one thing,&quot; said Eugene, who, in
+this pause for a council of war, was methodically loading various
+weapons for future use. &quot;It is either the sex, or sin. This world would
+be a paradise of peace if people didn't want virtue or vice,--I don't
+say which is which, mind you.&quot; He spoke suddenly, harshly; and once
+more George Dillon came to the rescue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As Dering says, it doesn't matter. But the fact that the pioneers are
+staunch, and may be expected before long, alters our tactics a bit,
+Smith. We must husband our ammunition, and stick on as long as
+possible--don't you think so, Dering?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent, kindly always, had stooped to take little Gladys, who had
+crept over to him, in his arms; and now the child, her arms round his
+neck, was cuddling close to him. &quot;I'm so glad oo's come, Derin'
+darlin',&quot; she whispered. &quot;And so's mum--aren't 'oo, dearest?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent unclasped the soft, little, clinging hands almost resentfully,
+and pulled himself together.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes!&quot; he said briefly, &quot;we've got to hold out. So it will be better to
+reserve ourselves, and try to keep the gaol itself quiet. It will take
+the brutes some time to force those gates unless they get help from
+within, and then there is the alley, and the doors. Still, we shall
+want every minute; for, unless the storm lessens, Carlyon will scarcely
+get the raft here before dawn. It was awful on the river.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">It was, indeed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even Am-ma had lost himself utterly, while Lance, after paddling, and
+drifting, and shouting after a dozen false hopes, was still as far from
+finding the raft as ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What could have become of it? Had it started sooner than he had
+expected, and passed down before he had found Vincent? Or had it never
+started at all? Had the men, after he left, turned round on <i>her?</i></p>
+
+<p class="normal">This fear had come to him early in his search, and he had felt inclined
+then and there to paddle back to the Fort, and satisfy himself it was
+not so. But the thought of her face, if he allowed care for her to
+cause delay, had kept him to his task steadily, till he could no longer
+doubt that something had gone wrong.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But what? And what was he to do?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, in a flash, had come back her words after she had bidden him
+think hard. &quot;You must go down to the spit, cut across it by the mission
+house, get round, if you can, to the police camp.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That had been her verdict, involving her being left to take her chance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now either the raft, the relief for the gaol, had started, or it
+had not. If the former, he might, of course, by a stern chase overtake
+it; but Erda was there and Vincent would meet her; they could do
+without him. But if it had <i>not</i> started, what then? Then matters were
+exactly as they had been, when she had bidden him leave her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, with a feeling that, if this were so, he cared little what
+happened, he steered, so far as he could judge, for the sand-banks of
+the spit to the right.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Am-ma, on the contrary, steered instinctively to the left, towards the
+high bank, the deepest stream. It would at least float his logs to
+their destination, and that was something. Kings had come and gone, and
+battles had been won and lost, but the logs had always had to go down
+the river, whatever happened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And among the men, also, an apathy seemed to have settled, as they
+drifted on and on in the dark. Erda, crouching in a dry spot beside the
+ammunition, alert to the uttermost for the least hint of Lance,
+realized this from the very tone of their voices as they talked under
+their breath to each other. She felt instinctively that the inaction,
+the darkness, the lack of a leader, were lessening the value of those
+twenty men each minute.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If Lance would only turn up! What could have become of him? The time
+seemed interminable; she felt sure that they must already have drifted
+past the gaol; she began to wonder if Am-ma was not playing false. For
+the darkness, the uncertainty, had its grip on her also. It was like
+some horrid nightmare, to drift on and on, hearing the muffled drumming
+of the storm, feeling the strange vibration in the air, the sharp sand
+tingling on your face, and to know nothing--nothing at all, save that
+you were there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Am-ma!&quot; she cried sharply, at last, certain of but one thing, that she
+must act,--&quot;I believe we have passed the gaol; steer to the right, do
+you hear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A laugh, not exactly insolent, but tolerant, came from the group of
+men. &quot;Tis easy to give orders, Missy-<i>baba</i>,&quot; said a voice; &quot;but not so
+easy to obey them, when the Lord is against your side, and sends
+darkness!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda's heart gave a great throb, not of fear, but comprehension. That
+was the beginning; a minute or two more and these men would be out of
+hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Am-ma!&quot; she called again, &quot;do what I tell you. Remember the child!
+Remember we have the <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Another laugh came from the men. &quot;If you have the <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i>, send
+it now. We need light, for sure, and--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The voice ended in a gasp--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For it was there! A long ray of light, showing them that they were,
+indeed, just opposite the gaol.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Am-ma!&quot; came Erda's voice again, and there was a hush and yet a
+triumph in it, &quot;to the right--steer to the right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The raft edged slowly towards the ray, but the soldiers still crouched
+inactive; awed, yet not certain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then suddenly that quick crack of George Dillon's first shot echoed
+over the river, then the yell, then the answering shots.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And following on their heels rapidly came a stir among those crouching
+figures, and one of them stood up excitedly--&quot;It has begun!--see you,
+Prag! Lehna, give the boatman a hand! Lo! do as the Miss-<i>baba</i> bade
+thee, quickly, son of a pig! Steer for the light--they have begun!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda gave a sigh of relief. <i>That</i> danger was over.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_24" href="#div1Ref_24">CHAPTER XXIV</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>BEYOND THE SHADOW</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The fact that the quarrel had begun did not, however, have the same
+effect upon Roshan Khān.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the first tempest of rage and hate which the sight of Laila and
+Vincent in the balcony had roused in him he had simply let himself go.
+He had not thought at all. Had his revolver held other cartridges, he
+would have gone on shooting at Vincent, Pidar Narāyan, at everybody,
+till he could shoot no more. He had run <i>ā-mak</i>; that curious phase of
+the Oriental mind when once it oversteps the hard and fast lines of
+custom in which it moves and breathes and has its being.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The very fact that his revolver did not contain more possibilities for
+death, that he had no other weapon, emphasized his wild revolt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was helpless--impotent--before these strangers, who had stolen
+everything! Everything, save bare existence. This thought, as he burst
+into the open, into the lurid darkness of the new-come storm, had made
+him laugh bitterly; for it was only that bare existence which <i>he</i>
+wished to steal! They might keep the rest; but <i>that</i> he would claim
+from them somehow, in fair exchange.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The time was ripe for such exchange too,--for fair exchange. (The
+epithet &quot;fair&quot; haunted him, trying to still the keen remorse for that
+shot in the dark; for one part of him knew it to have been cowardly.)
+Yes! this useless plot, with foolish mischief hidden in its heart, to
+which he had just been listening with loyal intent to frustrate it,
+could be made to serve his purpose without delay. His men would follow
+him anywhere. He had but to say the word--the word so many of them
+wanted. Then, those thieves of all that made life worth living would
+learn a lesson. They would fight and win, of course; but the lesson
+that without such men as he--men whom they thwarted and repressed at
+every turn--they could not rely upon their regiments, would have to be
+learnt. And in the learning, one thief would learn something else.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, without more thought than this desperate clashing of jealousy and
+despair, he had dashed through the crowd of pilgrims who were waiting
+for the dawn, gone back to the Fort, and given the word.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the excitement which followed, spreading swiftly from his own, he
+had not--and it was typical of the man that he did not--forget Lance
+Carlyon's friendliness; a more equal friendliness than that of most.
+There was no need to drag him into the quarrel, the more so because the
+disloyalty of the Sikh pioneers was doubtful. They might complicate
+matters at the beginning. So he had locked and barred them into the
+inner courtyard, out of the way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Captain Dering, he knew, was outside! Let him be alone with his
+troopers, as he, Roshan would be alone with them! Let them both try
+their influence; let them try conclusions on these terms. That was but
+fair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This first step, however, necessitated others. The original plot, with
+its waiting for the dawn, its cumbrous mechanism of keys, and pilgrims,
+and God knows what, was not to his liking. He meant to fight. And if,
+as the conspirators had asserted, some of the warders were friends hand
+and foot, his men could crack the nut of the gaol in half an hour. The
+sooner the better.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Pidar Narāyan, he knew, had recognized him, and he was a fox for
+wiliness. Then, Captain Dering must be after him even now. And
+Dillon-<i>sahib</i> might be on the alert any time. So the <i>coup de main</i>
+must come at once. As to what might follow, that might be after the
+fashion of Meerut in '57, or not. Who could tell the end of anything?
+The beginning would be an opportunity for fair fight between him and a
+thief. Once more the epithet &quot;fair&quot; scorched and shrivelled him with
+vague remorse, not for Laila--she was but a woman, a woman who had
+played him false and who deserved the worst--but for that shot in the
+dark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For there were two Roshans, warring fiercely in heart and brain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, after his mad, reckless ride to the gaol, the first realities had
+come to him in the sight of Dr. Dillon, standing with the light in his
+hand to welcome friends; and in the sound of those two snap-shots
+proclaiming foes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why? The question had come swiftly. What quarrel had he with Dr.
+Dillon? Or with Eugene Smith, whose tall, gaunt figure showed behind
+the other? Eugene Smith, who must have brought his wife, his child,
+with him!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The horror, the terror of what might come, swept through the quondam
+prize pupil of a mission school; the horror, the terror, in the
+remembrance of the Great Mutiny, which is, alas! a legacy of wrong to
+young India. Which ties her hand and foot; which makes those who are
+worthy of the name shrink instinctively from anything which may rouse
+the underlying savagery--the unavoidable savagery--of their countrymen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Could he hold his troopers? Could he be sure? He had come to curse. Was
+it too late to bless?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the memory of Laila--the whole hateful tale which was
+irrevocable--struck him hopeless. He was damned utterly; he could not
+escape.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sat rigid as a statue on his horse for a second; then with a wild
+fury gave the orders for his troopers to dismount and force the gates.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your slaves, <i>Nawab-sahib!</i>&quot; had come the answer, making him smile
+proudly. <i>That</i>, at any rate, could not be stolen from him <i>now</i>. <i>
+Now</i>
+he could fight and die in what should have been his real position.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, once more, when the search-light had come to throw that group of
+excited men hacking and hewing at doors closed by authority into
+significant black-and-white relief, that doubt had returned; that
+desire to be on the side, once more, of men like Dr. Dillon, whose bold
+resolve to be alone responsible for his gaol, which the warder's tale
+revealed, filled him with admiration.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But that sudden throwing up of a trooper's hands, that sidelong stumble
+into death, had left Roshan cruel as death itself; for the man thus
+killed had been to him as a brother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he had gone on with a fresh impulse towards revenge, and for a time
+found forgetfulness in the excitement, the action. For though the first
+gate, that one giving on the open sort of porch, had yielded, almost at
+once, to the troopers outside and the warders within, the second,
+barring the arched tunnel, was a tougher job. It was not until this had
+given way, and the attacking party were completely sheltered from the
+fire of the little garrison on the roof, that there was leisure for
+that thought to return: &quot;What am I doing? Why am I doing it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No man, it may be said broadly, ever fights without feeling that the
+battle is an appeal to a tribunal beyond himself, and Roshan did not
+feel this. Then the remembrance of the woman, the child, upstairs came
+persistently, burdened by the weight of that past tragedy which, in
+India, it is impossible to forget. And this was a woman who had always
+been courteous to him, a child to whom he had given toys.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What was he doing?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The men were at work on the last, the strongest gate, with every tool
+they could find. Not many, for Dr. Dillon's forethought had left them
+before barred doors everywhere. The delay had already been great; would
+be greater. They must be close now on the lines of the original plot,
+at which Roshan had laughed, for the dawn was showing faintly--a mere
+promise of light to come--in the east. And the storm was passing. The
+dull reverberations of faint thunder were lost now in the cries, the
+blows of those at work trying to batter down the iron bars.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sudden distaste--more than regret or repentance--came to Roshan as he
+stood silent, watching blow after blow; a sudden doubt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Which was the right? No man worth calling a man ever fights for
+anything else; every man worth calling one fights for that. But which
+was right? Those men, hacking and hewing, or the little garrison
+upstairs?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were no such searchings of heart there, at any rate; no question
+as to what they were doing, though at that exact moment they were
+engaged in the trivial occupation of drinking tea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Muriel Smith had made it, at Dr. Dillon's suggestion, against this very
+pause; this &quot;<i>cease firing</i>&quot; which he had foreseen. And in the making
+of it she had used a continental tea-basket which more than once had
+been her companion on the Brindisi <i>route</i>. Dr. Dillon had laid hands
+on it in his foraging, and as she had boiled the kettle, the rush and
+roar of a train racing through the peaceful French champaignes had
+seemed to be in her ears, instead of that rush and roar of blows and
+shouting which was now rising from every part of the gaol; though the
+prisoners were still helpless for evil in their sections.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the three men, haggard, anxious, drank their tea in silence,
+hastily; yet with a curious insistence, as if the triviality gave them
+a hold on things familiar, things beyond this midsummer-night's dream
+of madness. But the child chattered as she munched a biscuit; chattered
+of the charms of this strange picnic on the &quot;<i>woof, in the dark with
+oo's nighty an' s'ippers only</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The unconscious little voice struck a chill to the men's hearts, but
+the woman smiled, as mothers can do when they wish to guard that
+blessed unconsciousness to the last; the unconsciousness of which they
+are guardians by right.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We are doing as well as could be expected,&quot; remarked Dr. Dillon,
+suddenly, with a quaint professional reminiscence; then added, &quot;I wish
+to God, though, I knew what my prisoners were up to--those solitary
+cellers are on my mind--I believe the convalescents could dig them out
+with the cook-room platters and ladles. I ought to have thought of
+that. But, as I say, we are doing very fairly well--your light, Dering,
+was a godsend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Eugene Smith looked up sharply, almost as if he meant a disclaimer;
+then he gave a brief assent. &quot;Yes! but <i>that</i> will be more of a godsend
+still--it is the dawn!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pointed to that faint promise of light in the east, and Vincent
+Dering's eyes followed his hand with the doubtful look of one sick to
+death, as he watches the long weary night merge once more into another
+long weary day of certain pain. There was an utter hopelessness in it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he echoed slowly, &quot;that is the dawn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Carlyon said the attack was planned for dawn, didn't he?&quot; asked the
+doctor, deliberately helping himself to another lump of sugar,
+deliberately trying to keep the pulse beats of those around him as near
+normal as might be--and there had been something beyond it in Vincent's
+voice. &quot;They must have meant to use the keys that brute Kishen Rao made
+off with. I wonder what it was that started the show prematurely?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you think it was premature? Why?&quot; put in Eugene Smith.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We should have had some of the townspeople, some of the pilgrims
+otherwise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps the storm&quot;--began Vincent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The doctor shook his head. &quot;If they had meant to come they would have
+come. Of course now, with the wind blowing straight off us, they can't
+possibly hear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paused and listened, for a sudden silence had fallen on the turmoil
+beneath, and out of it came an all too familiar sound, the clank of leg
+irons. Some of the prisoners, therefore, had managed to break out of
+their dormitories; or were these the solitary cellers?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish Carlyon would turn up,&quot; he muttered, almost petulantly, &quot;it's
+our only chance--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But there was to be another; for, from below, a voice rose loud and
+clear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dr. Dillon! I have no desire to hurt you or yours, but I warn you
+that, if you persist, I am not responsible. Open the gates, and you
+shall have a safe conduct--for--for everybody.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George Dillon was on his feet at once, but Captain Dering stopped him;
+his eyes ablaze.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What shall I tell him, Dillon?&quot; he said sharply. &quot;I'll take my orders
+from you--you're in charge; but that man is under mine. What shall I
+say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon gave one glance at the woman and the child. &quot;Tell him to be
+universally damned,&quot; he answered; and Eugene Smith, husband and father,
+nodded acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan Khān was standing in full view as Vincent Dering stepped up to
+the parapet. His face was raised; there was almost an appeal in it. But
+every atom of that, every atom almost of humanity, vanished as he
+recognized his captain. His hand went instinctively to his revolver.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then a thought seemed to come to him. He drew himself up proudly, and
+waited for the answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It came, keen as a knife.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Risaldar!</i> draw off your men and return to barracks, or I'll shoot
+you as a mutineer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was half a second's silence; then a wild laugh: &quot;Close up, men,
+rush that gate--forward!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words and the crack of Vincent's revolver--the bullet of which,
+aimed too high, passed through Roshan's turban-were almost lost in the
+answering yell. But the <i>risaldar</i> stood his ground for a second, then
+coolly sought shelter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was over! They were quits now for the fair fight. And fate had
+been kind. He had unwittingly offered this man--his greatest enemy--a
+safe conduct; and it had been refused, luckily. Well! let Vincent
+Dering take the whole consequences. The blood of one woman was already
+on his head; so would be the blood spilt here. He, Roshan, would need
+have no further scruples.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, as if it had gained strength from the brief respite, the turmoil
+recommenced; and now Roshan Khān's voice could be heard urging the men
+on. And there were answering shouts from different parts of the gaol.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George Dillon frowned. &quot;They mean business now. And I fancy I hear
+pounding at the left section door. If so we shall have the solitary
+cell men--my worst lot, of course--out in the courtyard before long.
+Dering--can you hear anything?--there's such a confounded noise--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent, who was standing at the top of the stairs which led to the
+ten-feet drop, ran down a few steps and listened. Then he looked up
+quickly and nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are there. The door's shaking. How many of them are there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Two dozen or thereabouts; and the convalescents, of course. That's
+nothing--if they haven't got their leg irons off! We ought to settle
+most of them before they can help with the door. Still, I wish Carlyon
+would turn up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sudden hurry and urgency had come to the struggle, and Dr. Dillon
+passed restlessly to the other side of the roof. The sky was lightening
+faintly. More because the dust had sought dust again, the earth earth,
+than from any increase of light; and so the broad ray of the
+search-light, widening as it went, lost itself in the distant darkness,
+and there was nothing to be seen riverwards. But close at hand two
+men--one in a warder's uniform--were running towards the gaol,
+shouting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The doctor was back to the inner parapet in a second. &quot;Look out!
+they've got the keys now--not of this door, but some of the
+sections--and the alley. The game's up unless Carlyon--Mrs. Smith,
+please--you had better go into the turret--we shall be shooting free--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Eugene, who had been standing beside her, laid his hand on her
+shoulder. &quot;Yes, dear!&quot; he said gently; &quot;go inside--it will be better
+for Gladys--and for me--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Muriel turned white, but stood quite firm, quite calm. &quot;Come, little
+girlie,&quot; she said, holding out her hand to the child. &quot;You've had your
+tea--it's bedtime--I can't have you sitting up all--&quot; she broke down a
+little, partly because she was passing Vincent, and he, busy loading
+various rifles and revolvers, kept his eyes studiously from her. But
+Gladys did not choose to pass her friend in this fashion. She paused, a
+dainty little figure in a blue dressing-gown, like her mother, and with
+the same fluffy golden curls about her coaxing, delicate little child's
+face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dood-night, Derin' darlin',&quot; she said. &quot;I'm so glad 'oo's here, an'
+so's--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something that was not all desire to check that formula made the man
+pause, too, to lift her gently, and kiss her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good-night, Gladys. You mustn't be frightened at anything, you know.
+You've got to be a brave girl--haven't you?&quot; The coaxing face was close
+to the haggard, haunted-looking one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If 'oo's goin' to be brave, Derin' darlin', I'll be brave too. Is 'oo,
+dearest?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The haggardness vanished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think so, little one. Good-night.&quot; He put the child down hastily, at
+a crash. The moment for courage had come.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shoot as straight as you can!&quot; shouted the doctor. &quot;The section door's
+gone. Let 'em have it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The door had gone, indeed; and in a second the courtyard beneath them
+was half full of naked, desperate men; the worst characters in the
+gaol.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pick off the ones nearest the gate--don't let 'em touch the
+bolts--it's good for another ten minutes if we can keep them from it,&quot;
+came the doctor's voice in jerks, as he leant over the parapet just
+above the centre of the door below, and carried out his own orders with
+deadly effect; though his heart sank when he saw that some of the
+prisoners were unironed--or rather unironed on one leg, and that they
+were armed with the other iron; a deadly enough weapon at close
+quarters. Besides, it meant more treachery. It meant a previous filing
+of the ankle-fetters; and if others in the remaining sections were as
+free--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shot quicker, steadier, while Eugene Smith and Vincent, one above
+the other on the top of the stair, did the same, taking the intruders
+on the flank. It was growing lighter every instant, the air was
+clearer, the breeze of dawn was sweeping the smoke of the rifles
+riverwards, the great white wheel of the gaol was growing broader in
+its outlines, the shadows were shrinking. But the storm seemed still
+there, in the ceaseless reverberations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They're up to something in the far corner!&quot; called Eugene. &quot;What is
+it, Dillon? You can see better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The doctor ceased firing for a second, and ran farther down the
+parapet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The keys! the keys!&quot; he shouted back. &quot;They are trying to pass in the
+keys! Shoot the devils--those in the corner! Don't let 'em--or the gaol
+is gone!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, for the next minute, it was deadly work down in that corner by the
+crevice through which some unseen hand was thrusting something. Three
+times a man, clutching at the prize, fell in a heap ere he touched it.
+Then a fourth pitched forward against the doors with the keys in his
+hand, and a fifth, groping for them, rolled over on his side with them
+hidden under his dead body. And from outside the gate came rendings,
+and crashings, and yells; from above, that call, &quot;Shoot straight, or
+the gaol's gone!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Muriel crept out from shelter, possessed once more by that frantic
+desire to see to the very end, and stood looking down on those two on
+the stairs. She gave a faint cry when Vincent flung his rifle away, and
+ran down to that ten-foot drop for revolver practice. At the sound, her
+husband gave one quick look up, and followed suit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But their own success was against them. The growing pile of the wounded
+formed a barricade, behind which a man, squirming with covetous hands
+among the dead and dying, found what he sought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He's got them! Stop him! stop him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a fusillade, the man dropped; but the keys were in another
+hand--another--another--passing outwards from the crush--outwards
+towards that low door at the end of the narrow alley.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Without a word, Vincent, revolver in hand, let himself drop on the
+heads below.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, don't, Vincent, don't!&quot; came a woman's voice; and at the sound,
+another man gave that swift look up once more, and followed suit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let them be!&quot; said Dr. Dillon, sharply. &quot;Let them do what they can; it
+is about the only chance.&quot; And still, as he spoke, he kept singling out
+a foe and firing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The chance, even with his help, was a poor one in that crowd, where
+there was always another dark hand to snatch at the prize, and pass it
+nearer to the door--that door which was the key to so much!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, the crush through which they fought lessening, those two
+Englishmen found themselves with the straight alley before them for a
+race. A race against three men, without arms, but without irons; and
+with a fair start. While close behind was the crush--the crowd!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was nothing but a race, now, since the revolvers had done their
+worst, had fired their last shot; a race with the hope--if Vincent
+could come up with those three--of using a Goorkha <i>kukri</i>, which he
+had thrust into the yellow silk sash he wore instead of a waistcoat
+beneath his red jacket--thrust it therewith an ugly frown as a last
+argument for his foes, when he had seen it lying among the pile of
+miscellaneous weapons Dr. Dillon had foraged from the Smiths' house. It
+had a dainty ivory handle--Vincent had given it to Mrs. Smith himself,
+and its last use had been to cut the pages of a fashion paper--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had a sterner job now.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Vincent was behind; a yard or two--no more. He had fired one more
+shot before beginning the race, and Eugene's legs were longer. Yet the
+yard meant all things, and he knew it; so as he ran, his hand sought
+the knife.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look out, Smith! look out!&quot; he called. &quot;I'll chuck you my <i>kukri</i>; get
+on and job them; I'll keep the others back--a bit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he spoke, a glittering curve sped from his hand to the other man's
+feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he pulled up and faced the crowd behind with his clubbed revolver.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lane was very narrow. Three men could barely breast it shoulder to
+shoulder. Surely one could bar it by swift blows and slow retreat! For
+a time, at any rate--time for the opening and shutting of a door! He
+could but try.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! what is he going to do?&quot; gasped the woman who was watching.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I appose he's going to be brave, mum,&quot; said the child, who clutched at
+her hand, watching, too, with great, wide, uncomprehending eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the man beside them held his breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So retreating, step by step, Vincent Dering kept the crowd back, lured
+the crowd on, safe--so far! For these, the first, the swiftest, were
+naturally the unironed, therefore, the unarmed. But there were others,
+forcing their way to the front, who would be harder to deal with.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent threw his head back and wondered how Eugene was faring; for he
+dared not turn his face from his task even for a second.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had those three been caught up? Had the <i>kukri</i> helped?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had. And one of those three had fallen before a flash, as of light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And another!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the third had the key in the door; had turned it, when Eugene
+struck him from behind. With a wild yell he flung his full weight on
+the door; it burst open, and the two fell headlong into the tower
+beyond.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But only for a second. Eugene Smith was up again, had the key out, and
+in on the further side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All right!&quot; he shouted; &quot;make a rush for it! I'm ready!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vincent Dering gave one sharp look round. The door was not four yards
+from him, but the crowd was not one. There was no time. &quot;Shut it,&quot; he
+called, &quot;I'm all right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Eugene Smith stood uncertain; the door ajar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The keys! ah! what could he do with the keys if he went back to
+help--and if not--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! please shut it, Smith! there's a good fellow; please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The four yards were two now, were one. Then slowly the door closed, and
+Vincent had his back against it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Vincent! Vincent!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The agonized cry echoed above all other cries, but only for an instant;
+the next, George Dillon's hand was gagging the lips which uttered it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hush!&quot; he said fiercely. &quot;Can't you let him forget for these last few
+minutes that there is such a thing as a woman in the world. Hush! I
+say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And a great hush came. The sound of blows, of iron clashing on iron,
+and falling with a dull thud on something softer, seemed to fill the
+world and leave room for nothing else.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing except a softer sound still. A shuddering moan, as a woman
+slipped to her knees, and covered her face with her hands; then slipped
+lower still to the ground, in a heap.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the child looked at her mother, surprised.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Doesn't 'oo like Derin' darlin' to be brave, dearest?&quot; she asked, in a
+concerned little voice.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_25" href="#div1Ref_25">CHAPTER XXV</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>DAWN</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Had an hour passed, or twain? Ninian Bruce could not tell. It seemed to
+him that he had been kneeling for a lifetime, there on the altar steps
+beside the dying girl, with the glittering red-and-gold drapery
+trailing to the white marble, and opening to a white breast stained
+red,--a brighter red!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A long lifetime; long as his own; that long life in which he had seen,
+had felt, so much.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For as he waited for her inevitable death, his mind had followed that
+long life of his own, year after year, day after day, hour after hour.
+And everywhere it had seen a woman's eyes, a woman's soul, looking back
+from a soul, from eyes, that should have been a man's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes! the keynote of that long life had been the love of a woman.
+Passionate love, absorbing mind as well as body, claiming its reward in
+kind; as such love always does.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In kind!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There lay the whole difference between <i>anathema</i> and <i>beata</i>. They
+were both <i>karma</i>, or desire!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One of the girl's white feet slid with a silvery jingle of its anklet
+to the next step, and, as he replaced it to a more comfortable
+position, a chill struck to his heart as he remembered what such
+chiming had meant in the past history of the world. The measure which
+that provoked was--<i>anathema</i>. That--disguised, palliated, refined in a
+thousand ways--was one kind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the other?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The memory of his own past surged to his brain as he bent over the
+girl's whitening face and scanned it narrowly. How like the face was to
+that other one, now that coming death had sharpened the full, youthful
+curves. He had noticed the likeness often--it had been clear when Laila
+had worn the old Italian--Beatrice's--dress. But not so clear, not half
+so clear, as when in this--this almost shameless one--she had said--&quot;I
+only want--him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It might have been Margherita speaking,--Margherita, who had wanted a
+man's soul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she had had one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was the other kind. But both were desire; the desire which drove
+humanity from Paradise, and keeps it vainly seeking for one still.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Saturated as he was with the mysticism of the East and West, these
+thoughts came to him, dreamily, making him feel curiously aloof from
+himself. The pity of it filled him, and brought a pity for the dying
+girl also; the girl who had failed to find a paradise in this world,
+and was seeking a new road to it; seeking it alone. The only thing she
+craved in all God's earth to make that paradise--gone! Priest as he
+was, the humanity in him rose in passionate hope that she should not
+wake to the consciousness of this. What good would it do? Let her enter
+the shadows in peace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But as he wished the wish, her head, which had been resting on his arm,
+turned to the touch of it, and her smooth cheek nestled closer to what
+it found.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Kiss me, Vincent,&quot; she said, and her voice came back full, rich,
+round, to make the claim. &quot;Kiss me before you go, dear!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man gave a slight shiver, and was silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Vincent!&quot; came the voice again; &quot;you <i>are</i> there, aren't you? You
+wouldn't leave me--now--surely?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was another silent pause, and then, silent still, Father Ninian
+stooped, and the old lips and the young ones met in a lover's kiss. And
+as they met, he knew that in that kiss lay the great renunciation of
+his life; that henceforward there would be no woman waiting in Paradise
+for him; that the spiritual presence had gone from his life like the
+bodily presence. That Margherita was Juliet, and Juliet, Margherita!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's nice,&quot; murmured Laila, softly; &quot;that's nice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her head settled to his arm again, and the silence went on. On and on,
+till he stooped lower to listen for an unheard breath; then lower still
+to shift that head from his arm to the ground. For the need of a human
+touch, a human sympathy, had gone forever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He made the sign of the cross over the dead body, rose to his feet
+unsteadily, and looked about him, dazed, uncertain. In truth, he felt
+all his years for the first time; felt that his last hold on life had
+somehow gone from him in that kiss; that something more than one woman
+lay dead before him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the sight of Akbar Khān, still rocking himself backwards and
+forwards, a perfect pendulum of protesting innocence and helpless
+remorse, roused the old priest to the present. He took up the rapier he
+had laid aside in crossing the chapel, and passed over to where the old
+eunuch was bemoaning the high-handedness of fate. It was a tyranny,
+indeed! Who could have foreseen such an ending to a very ordinary
+intrigue? Who could even have dreamt of it? Had not men and women loved
+and met, thus, since the beginning of time?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, to the sinner's outraged experience of life and love came the saint
+with his, and with the face and sword of St. Michael and All Angels.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tell me the truth,&quot; he said sternly; &quot;and tell it quickly, for there
+is no time to lose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In truth there was not much to tell. It was all so simple, viewed as a
+whole; so complex in detail. And, as he listened, the anger left Pidar
+Narāyan's face wistful, wondering. More so than ever at the last
+mumbling excuse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It all comes, <i>Ge-reeb-pun-wāz</i>, from the Almighty having made the
+Missy-<i>baba</i> so like her sainted ancestress--Anāri Begum--on whom be
+peace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anāri Begum! On whom be peace! Her sainted ancestress, on whom be
+peace!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood for an instant looking towards the Altar, towards the dead
+girl; then he echoed under his breath, &quot;On whom be peace!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was the end.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Peace on those women who had loved and died; and on the men who had
+loved them--lived for them--perhaps died for them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But for the rest who lived and loved still? A quick life seemed to come
+back to him at the thought of these, a desire to save them from death.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Follow me,&quot; he said briefly to the old retainer; &quot;it must be close on
+dawn--I must see what I can do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, still in his robes, with the blubbering old pantaloon--apostle of
+another cult--at his heels, he passed down the arched passage to the
+door at its end which opened on to the courtyard between the palace and
+the Fort. And as he went, his brain, confused as to the past, clear as
+to the present, was busy making plans for peace. So far as helping
+those at the gaol went, he knew himself to be powerless. Physically, a
+couple of old men--mere shadows of men--could give no help, and he
+could not hope for influence there, among the Hosts of the Devil. But
+here in the city, among those Hosts of the Lord--the pilgrims for whom
+he had always had a secret sympathy, who knew him, at least, by
+reputation--with whom, at least, he stood on common ground--he might
+have some. He could but try; try to persuade some, at least, of the
+great mass of seekers after the &quot;Cradle of the Gods&quot; to go on their way
+in peace when the dawn came; try to save some of them from following a
+wrong road.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The door was slightly ajar; he widened the chink and looked out with a
+sinking heart over the courtyard with its raised union-jack of paths.
+Much larger than the yard about the Pool of Immortality, it was crammed
+from end to end now with a crowd, the first look at which told him that
+his chance of a hearing was small indeed, for the dawn was closer than
+he had thought for amid the shadows of the chapel, and the grey glimmer
+of coming light showed him once more a sea of upturned eager faces. But
+the patience of the previous dawn was gone. They were restless now,
+restless with the vague, uncertain restlessness which is so dangerous
+in a crowd, which tells that the fuel for the flame is only awaiting a
+match, any match, to fire it. And there were many only waiting to be
+struck. The next instant might bring one. Father Ninian felt this
+instinctively, felt that here in this courtyard lay the mine which the
+returning troopers, the desperadoes from the gaol, were to fire first.
+All Eshwara might rise afterwards, but the great danger lay here, must
+be grappled with here. But how?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not by words. The ear of a crowd is always difficult to gain, unless
+the eye is taken first, and a man had both already. For aloft, on the
+barrel of the big old gun which centred the square, <i>jogi</i> Gorakh-nāth
+was expounding their wrongs to the pilgrims, their inevitable damnation
+if the wrath of the Gods was not instantly appeased. His wild, weird
+figure, in all its nakedness, its austerity, could be seen above the
+little circle of lamps which his immediate supporters held upwards at
+arm's-length. And above his head, like a canopy, drifted the wisps of
+tired earth-atoms which were being driven sideways by the breeze of
+dawn as they fell in their search for rest. For the storm was over,
+their brief ambition for something beyond mere earth was past. Wisps,
+which, as they swept over the circling lights, took a lurid glow, then
+faded into the dim shadows again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And something else caught the light redly. The chaplet of human skulls,
+the dread Mother's necklace, which the <i>jogi</i> swung from one hand to
+the other as he called for blood--for blood to appease Her--the Mother
+of all--the Eternal Womanhood!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Since without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The tenet of all religions echoed into the ear of the crowd, the
+strange demoniacal figure, in its lurid setting, held its eye. What
+chance was there for a single voice? None.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet something must be done. For the dawn was nigh. Every instant the
+light grew. Any moment might bring that inrush of evil from the gaol
+which would breed violence among these still peaceful folk; the
+ignorant, helpless folk who were being held captive by words against
+the coming of that inrush.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly, for a second, the attention of the crowd wavered. A tall man
+in the white dress of a Europeanized native had been hoisted to the
+shoulders of some others, not far from the <i>jogi</i>, and so, from this
+coign of vantage, prepared to harangue the people.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis Ramanund,&quot; said someone close to where Father Ninian stood in the
+shadow of the door. &quot;He is Brahmin, and a scholar above scholars.
+Mayhap he will tell us what to do these times, when all seems wrong.
+There is no harm in listening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nor good either. For the first words of that appeal of culture to
+ignorance were drowned in a fiendish laugh, a frenzied rattling of the
+dread chaplet, a loud defiance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hold thy peace, <i>Baboo-jee!</i> What is blood to thee, who hath no
+God to whom thou canst give it? But we have, brethren. These be Her
+drinking-cups, the skulls of men like ourselves. Let us give Her
+pleasure, brothers, and have blessing from Her hands; not cursing, as
+thou hast had, Ramanund, whose head should still be shaven, whose touch
+unclean from the loss of a woman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The allusion to the death of Ramanund's wife roused an instant murmur
+of assent from those who were of the city, and they passing the tale on
+to others, the murmur swelled to a roar which effectively drowned the
+rest of Ramanund's advice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Father Ninian, still at the door, still uncertain, could hear a man
+who had been buckling on his pilgrim's sandals as if for a start, say,
+as he stood up and thrust them back to his waistcloth:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well! I, for one, go no further without remission, or the blood which
+brings it. As <i>jogi-jee</i> saith, no man should risk the woman's cursing.
+No man can hold his own against that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He hath a young wife in his house, see you, and all know what that
+means,&quot; sniggered a neighbour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But a third voice broke in gravely, &quot;Young or old, what matter? Women
+sit ever on the knees of the Gods, as we men have sat on theirs, seeing
+they are the mothers of us all. So, mother or wife, we cannot escape
+them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Baba-jee</i> speaks truth,&quot; assented another bystander, &quot;and <i>jogi-jee</i>
+also. If She needs blood, She must have it, seeing She is Woman. As for
+<i>him?</i> Let him be silent. He hath no God. No blood sacrifice, no
+remission of sins. Let <i>him</i> speak who hath them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a faint sound as of the closing of a door, and beyond it, in
+the darkness of the arched passage, an old voice said, with a curious
+note of gladness in it, &quot;Follow me, quick, Akbar; there is not a moment
+to be lost. The dawn has come!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed to have come to Pidar Narāyan's face as he knelt hurriedly
+once more beside the body of the dead girl, to fold her dead hands
+decently as if in prayer, to cover the dead feet with the crimson
+draperies, the dead face with the flimsy, glittering veil--the veil
+which hid nothing of its beauty--which struck the keynote of the whole.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On whom be peace!&quot; he whispered as he rose, stretching out his thin
+old hand in benediction; and as he said the words, the vision came to
+him of a whole world which had loved, and sinned, and gone on its
+mysterious quest for something beyond love. A world to which he had
+said farewell with a kiss.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He passed on to the Altar, and with swift, steady hands opened the
+sanctuary, and took out the treasure it contained; a star-shaped,
+star-rayed pyx, set with jewels, relic of the days when singing-birds
+that sang of themselves, and such like things, with many another, had
+come to Eshwara from Italy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Take the candles from the altar, Akbar,&quot; he said, &quot;and walk in
+front--just in front, you know--as you used to walk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old courtier mumbled &quot;<i>Ge-reeb-pun-wāz</i>,&quot; with a caper of alacrity.
+In his confusion, his resentful remorse, it was a relief to return to
+pomp--to servility.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, with that Bodily Presence which, till then, had always brought the
+thought of the lost paradise of a woman's love with it, in his hands,
+Father Ninian and his strange acolyte, priest of another cult, passed
+swiftly out of the chapel, leaving the Altar dark, bereft of its
+treasure; leaving the dead woman, bereft of her treasure also, lying in
+a glitter of gold and crimson on the Altar steps. Passed on a mission
+of peace to the living; on the chance of gaining the ear, the eye, of
+that waiting crowd outside in the courtyard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he went rapidly, yet with the faltering step every now and again of
+one wearied by long journeying, down the arched passage, Ninian Bruce
+scarcely thought of success or failure. There was a wistful triumph in
+his face--he looked as a slave might look who dies in making himself
+free. He did not think even of the strangeness of the little
+procession. The night had been so full of strange things; but the dawn
+had come, and he had a message to give those waiting souls outside--the
+souls who were being kept back from the &quot;Cradle of the Gods&quot; by that
+fear of the Eternal Womanhood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Set the door wide, Akbar,&quot; he said, and then his voice merged into the
+&quot;<i>Salutaris</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, as the crowd turned at the sound of the opening door, the sound of
+the chanting voice, it saw, raised above it, dim against an arched
+shadow, seen by the grey light of daybreak and the flicker of two tall
+tapers, a strange star-rayed cup shining in the clasped hands of a man.
+An old man in a strange dress, chanting a strange song. And the sight,
+by its very strangeness, its claim to something beyond familiarity, was
+not strange to that restless crowd, waiting for a sign, waiting for
+something not in themselves.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is it? What means it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The whisper came like the soft hush of a wave; and above it the chant
+rose clearly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis Pidar Narāyan and his God!&quot; said those of the city who knew, as
+they fell back instinctively from the raised path. And those who did
+not know followed suit in awed bewilderment, till the way was clear,
+and the little procession passed on slowly above the jammed mass of
+humanity, above the sea of upturned expectant faces.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis Pidar Narāyan, who went with my father,&quot; said one here and there.
+&quot;Mayhap he goes now--let us see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea! let us see!&quot; answered others.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That slantwise limb of the union-jack of raised paths which crossed
+from one corner to the other of the courtyard--from the door in the
+palace to the wide archway through which the pilgrims always passed on
+their way to the &quot;Cradle of the Gods&quot;--cleared itself by common
+consent, edged itself with a thicker throng of curious faces. Only in
+the middle it was barred by the big old gun, by the &quot;<i>Teacher of
+Religion</i>&quot; as its legend boasted, and by the man who claimed to be its
+mouthpiece.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For <i>jogi</i> Gorakh-nāth, recognizing his adversary, recognizing the
+danger of his influence, had slipped from his post above, and now stood
+before the gun, full in the path, defending it with frenzied wavings of
+his chaplet of skulls.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Listen not, brothers!&quot; he yelled. &quot;<i>Jai Kali Ma!</i> Blood! Blood!
+Without blood is no remission of sins.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now a new curiosity, a new interest, came to that crowd of mere
+men. What would happen? What would these two, mere men like themselves,
+do? Which was backed by divine authority? That both claimed that
+authority was clear. It held its breath, partly from the desire for a
+sign from God, partly because of the desire which humanity always has
+for a sign of the best man. Let the two try which was the better.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it waited, ready to approve either, till those two, the Eastern and
+the Western sacerdotalisms, met face to face, within two yards of each
+other, in the centre of the courtyard, on the platform before the
+&quot;<i>Teacher of Religion</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, not till then, Pidar Narāyan ceased his chant, shifted the pyx to
+his left hand, and with his right drew the rapier hidden till then by
+his long robes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Aha, A-ha-a</i>,&quot; sighed the crowd approvingly. There would be a bodily
+as well as a spiritual fight, for <i>jogi-jee's</i> chaplet of skulls
+swirled dangerously for both attack and defence; since a swinging
+blow from it would kill a man, and its circling sweep keep him beyond
+sword-point reach.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Which would be the better man--the better weapon?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Pidar Narāyan did not attack. He only stood, the pyx in one hand,
+the sword in the other--alternatives as it were--and called in a loud
+voice--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me pass, <i>jogi</i> Gorakh-nāth!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me pass I say!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For I carry my GOD!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Over the whole courtyard, waking now from shadow to light under the
+coming day, the claim echoed sharply; and the arrogance of it, the
+strength, the certainty of it, sank deep into the souls of those who
+heard it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was not a sound, not a movement; only a vast, breathless
+expectancy, and Pidar Narāyan's fine old face set like the nether
+mill-stone. Everything that had ever been in him--love, passion, faith,
+worldly wisdom, sympathy--the grit of the whole man--rose up and
+claimed the crowd.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me pass!&quot; he cried again, in absolute command, and this time the
+rapier, twisting like a snake, caught the chaplet of skulls in its
+upward swirl, a dexterous unexpected turn of the old fencer's wrist
+followed, sending it flying from the <i>jogi's</i> hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next instant (the rope on which they were strung severed by the
+strain, by the rapier's edge), the skulls were clattering, bounding
+like balls, like useless toys, on the stone platform.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>A-ha! A-ha!</i>&quot; came from the crowd; but the sigh was but half content,
+and men looked at each other wonderingly. Since, no matter which priest
+was the better man, these were Mai Kali's drinking-cups.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The <i>jogi</i>, however, had fallen back a step, and Pidar Narāyan was in
+his place by the old gun. Pidar Narāyan and his strange God were now
+the &quot;<i>Teachers of Religion</i>.&quot; What had they to say?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The crowd had not to wait long, for Father Ninian's voice, with that
+nameless ring in it which makes the orator and makes the audience, was
+already in its ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Listen! Listen to me, for I carry in this cup the Blood of Sacrifice.
+The Victim required by your God and mine, by all the Gods, is here!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We are free, brothers! you and I. The Eternal Womanhood hath had Her
+toll, in full. The Great Mother is appeased. There is no fear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lift up your eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh your help, and
+follow me and my God, to find yours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pointed with the sword--as he paused a second for breath, for
+strength--to the mountains; to those far peaks which, now that the
+storm had ended, the earth-atoms returned to earth, had begun to show
+spectral in the dawn. To show shadowy, yet clear, with never a wreath
+of mist or a wandering cloud to hide the hollow whither the feet of
+millions had journeyed seeking righteousness, and journeyed in vain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Faint and far they showed against the faint, far sky, but as
+Father Ninian pointed to them, a ray of light from the still unseen sun
+below the visible horizon of this world, a ray of light seeking perhaps
+another world among the stars, found the heights of the holy hills in
+its path, and dyed their snowdrifts red--blood red!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the sight a roar rose from the crowd.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Jai Kali Ma!</i> She gives a sign! The sacrifice is there! She is
+appeased! He speaks the truth. Let us follow him and his God!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay! as my father did,&quot; cried one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And mine!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And mine!&quot; assented some, while others forgot all save pilgrimage in
+the shout--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Rām, Rām, Sita Rām!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, on that babel of sounds, Pidar Narāyan's voice rose steadily as,
+preceded by that ambling figure--strangest of all acolytes--he walked
+on, chanting the 121st Psalm:--</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Levavi oculos meos in montes; unde veniet auxilium mihi</i>.&quot;<p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The words were in an unknown tongue, the rhythm strange, but the
+spirit, the idea, were familiar. It was the song of someone seeking the
+&quot;Cradle of the Gods,&quot; as they were.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He carries his God, and that means all,&quot; said an old man, pushing his
+way to follow. &quot;The other had none: how could he lead the way?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is true,&quot; assented many, following suit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And some, shrugging their shoulders, said, &quot;He is mad. God has touched
+his brain. Then he goes the way our fathers went. They lingered not
+beyond the second dawn. Why should we?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Rām! Rām! Sita Rām!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus, swiftly, the footfalls gathered in strength behind the little
+procession, and no one dared to stop it; not even the Mahomedan sentry
+at the Fort gate, to whom some of the agitators ran in their
+disappointment. He only laughed contemptuously; though his gravity
+returned somewhat at his recognition of old Akbar Khān.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lo! that is a new walking for him!&quot; he muttered, in an awed voice.
+&quot;Truly, folk are right when they say there is magic in these idolaters.
+Who would have deemed him pilgrim? Well! let him go, he and his
+mummery. We soldiers can do without priests and Hindoos!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He twirled his mustache fiercely, and wondered when his comrades would
+return victorious from the gaol, and give the word for plunder. That
+was all he cared for.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay!&quot; assented an angry voice, joining the group, &quot;we can do without
+the fools. There be plenty of wise men left.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Plenty,&quot; put in another; &quot;but their mood is different. See how they
+wander!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was true. The crowd had broken into groups, and from these,
+pilgrims, singly, or in smaller groups, were drifting after the
+lessening sound of that chanting voice. Not so much from any belief in
+Pidar Narāyan, not even because of his lead over, but because it was
+the old way; the way worn by the feet of their fathers, and their
+fathers' fathers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So <i>jogi</i> Gorakh-nāth, who, now the coast was clear, had sprung aloft
+on the old gun, once more attempting to regain his empire, failed
+egregiously. The crowd passed him by till a big countryman, with a
+lumbering jest, asked him if he was sure he had picked up the right
+skull to put on his own shoulders. Then it laughed uproariously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Best come on to the Pool of Immortality,&quot; suggested a conspirator,
+consolingly, as he hurried past. &quot;'Tis no use here. The fools have
+followed after strange gods and men. But at the Pool there are tens of
+thousands to one here; and they are weary waiting. Besides, 'tis nearer
+the gaol. Between the two success will lie.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yea,&quot; added another, &quot;that was the first plan--the soldiers and the
+Fort spoilt it. But the Pool and the gaol remain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><i>Jogi</i> Gorakh-nāth, with a scowl, gathered up his skulls to a bundle
+and followed hastily. He would at least be out of hearing of that
+chanting voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had reached the last verse of its Psalm now, and faltered a little
+over the words:--</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size:90%">&quot;<i>Dominus custodiat introitum tuum et exitum tuum</i>:<br>
+<i>ex hoc et usque in saeculum</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the echo of the footsteps behind filled up the blanks.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_26" href="#div1Ref_26">CHAPTER XXVI</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>FOILED</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">On the gaol or the Pool of Immortality lay the hopes of those whom
+Pidar Narāyan had so far discomfited by his arrogant claim to stand
+between heaven and earth; in other words, to be in personal relations
+with the Great Awarder of gaols and immortalities, forgivenesses, and
+punishments.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the stars in their courses, hidden though they had been by the
+storm-darkness, had used that very darkness to the due maintenance of
+law and order as they wheeled serenely to meet the coming dawn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Lance, for instance--his heart torn in twain by his desire to
+follow Erda's fate at all costs and his knowledge that, if he was to do
+the best for others he must leave her to face it alone--had struck down
+stream on Am-ma's strange craft, his sole intention had been to rouse
+the police camp, and secure what help he could for the gaol.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the darkness set him another task. For, after drifting past the
+spit, whence he had meant to cut across by land to the bridge of boats,
+and so, creeping past the city, find the camp beyond it, he had lost
+himself absolutely in the maze of sand-banks and shallow channels
+which, when the river was low, as it was now, lay like a network
+between the deep stream of the Hara, and the deep stream of the Hari.
+Lost himself so utterly that, realizing his own bewilderment, he had
+called himself a fool for having lost himself!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A curious discouragement came to him. Yet it made him more dogged and
+persistent, even while the hopelessness of finding his way grew every
+second. Surely, thought he, he could not be such a fool as to fail!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sometimes a sudden belief that he really had had some faint indication
+of his bearings would make him put all his young strength into the
+paddle, until once more a soft, yielding, yet irresistible, impact came
+to tell him that he had failed again, that he was on another sandbank,
+and another, and another! The dull concussion of them seemed to pass
+into his brain; he found himself fumbling on almost aimlessly, despite
+his doggedness, his mind busy with imagining the things which might be
+happening in the dark around him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For all he knew close by--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There lay the sting! It was suffocating to be set, as it were, in the
+solid darkness like--he thought of a fly in amber, the birds he had
+limed in his boyhood, finally of a death mask. That was more like
+it--he felt as the corpse must feel--clogged, hampered, helpless!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In such conditions minutes seem hours; and Lance, in reality, had not
+been drifting about for half of one before the certainty that his
+mission must inevitably be useless unless he could fulfil it more
+expeditiously, made him resolve on trying conclusions with the river at
+first hand. He was a good swimmer. As he told himself this, the first
+pulse of gratitude he had ever felt for the big bully who had chucked
+him, a small boy in his first term at Harrow, into &quot;Ducker&quot; to take his
+chance, came to him; for those few minutes of despairing effort had
+taught him more than mere swimming; they had taught him to trust
+himself in water.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">More, at any rate, than in a beastly contrivance made of beds and
+footballs, with no stem, no stern, and a devilish habit of spinning in
+every eddy like a teetotum!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The mere condemnation of Am-ma's craft, being a prelude to better
+things, raised his spirits. He flung off his clothes, and, knowing he
+could not hope to keep his revolver dry, improvised a waistcloth out of
+the silk sash he wore instead of a waistcoat, in which to stick the
+hunting-knife that was his only other weapon. As he did so, he thought
+of the deer the knife had killed; as men think idly, irrelevantly, of
+such trivialities when their attention is really concentrated on
+something that is, as yet, outside experience. And Lance, as he slipped
+into the water, knew himself prepared to swim or wade, but knew nothing
+else.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, doggedly as before, and infinitely quicker, he went on through the
+darkness; sometimes feeling himself in the cool water, sometimes
+finding his feet on warm sand, sometimes parting a way, he knew not
+where, through the low tamarisk and high grass marking an island. If he
+could have guessed which island, or even known which way his face was
+set, these light swishing touches might have been guides; but he knew
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Until, after a time, a faint far glow, a mere suspicion of something
+not outer darkness, showed on his left. Even so, he could not guess
+whether that meant the gaol side, or the city side of the rivers. If
+the former, could the gaol have been fired by those devils?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The thought made him set his teeth, and, dry sand being beneath his
+feet, run on recklessly towards the glow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Only for a yard or two, however; then he pulled up short, amazed to
+find that it was not far, but near; that it came from the ground, from
+a leaping fire of tamarisk branches within a stone's throw of him. A
+step or two more, in fact, showed him a cooking-pot, the remains of
+some food, a familiar fishing-net, and a chrysalis-looking figure
+wrapped in a blanket and half-buried in the sand. One of the fisher
+folk, by all that was lucky! If anyone could tell, they could.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was only a slender stem of tiger-grass which snapped under his feet,
+but the noise was sufficient. The sleeper sprang to his like a wild
+animal, the blanket falling from him, one lithe arm making for the long
+spear stuck in the sand beside him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gu-gu! The missing Gu-gu!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance had him back in his sand-bed before hand and spear met. There was
+no struggle. Gu-gu, knowing himself helpless, lay limp, slack, every
+muscle proclaiming capitulation; in so far showing himself something
+less than a wild animal, which struggles till it dies, reckless of
+odds. But, in truth, Gu-gu, with the certainty of speedy extinction
+before him, due to that cursed ghost, had given in to fate utterly, all
+round. Death would come when it came. All that remained, therefore, was
+to make others suffer if he could. Especially those who were
+responsible for altering the currents of the river. With one of these
+on top of you, this was impossible; but time might bring opportunity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You devil!&quot; cried Lance, throttling the abject jelly by way of
+emphasis, &quot;you know all about this business, of course; but now I've
+found you, you'll have to do mine,--or I'll kill you. Do you
+understand? Now, which way is the town?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gu-gu pointed in the direction whence Lance had come. The latter
+frowned, realizing that it was impossible to know if the brute spoke
+truth, but that, unfortunately, he must be trusted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then get up,&quot; he said curtly, taking care to keep the jelly within
+reach of his knife, &quot;and show me the way there. I'll give you a hundred
+rupees if you do; and if you don't--&quot; He gave the yielding flesh an
+explanatory prick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Does the <i>Huzoor</i> mean the Pool of Immortality?&quot; asked Gu-gu, affably;
+and the words made Lance remember that fruitless waiting for the water.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! you <i>did</i> manage that swindle, did you?&quot; he replied savagely, &quot;and
+of course you were camping out of the way. I see! No! I don't want to
+go there yet. To the bridge! So quick, march! or swim; you can tell me
+about the other as we go along. It may be useful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Another prick with the knife he held in one hand, while his other
+clutched firmly on Gu-gu's hemp-strung waist-belt of blue beads,
+started them. So they went on till the sand grew colder, less
+resistant, changed to water beneath their feet; then Lance's two
+hands--and the knife--came down on Gu-gu's bare back. &quot;Strike out,&quot; he
+said briefly; &quot;I'll help.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The two pair of legs and the one pair of hands forged ahead into the
+darkness none the less rapidly because the second pair of hands were
+resting,--with something in them--on yielding flesh. The fact indeed,
+or something else, seemed to make Gu-gu confidential. If the <i>Huzoor</i>,
+he said, with a shameless comprehension which made Lance inclined to
+use the knife then and there, wanted to give the alarm at the police
+camp, he was taking a long road to it. He, Gu-gu, could show him a
+shorter, if the <i>Huzoor</i> would trust him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a second Lance hesitated. He could not see the man's face; but
+there was a sort of cunning anxiety in the tone which was doubtful.
+Then, remembering that, short or long, he was equally at the man's
+mercy if he <i>chose to brave results</i>--though there seemed to be no
+reason why he should--he said quietly,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I told you to take the shortest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The <i>Huzoor</i> can dive?&quot; asked Gu-gu. &quot;He should, since he swims so
+strong.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dive!&quot; echoed Lance. &quot;Yes, why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Because the short way, Gu-gu explained, was by an underground passage
+which could be only reached from the river. Undoubtedly the <i>Huzoor</i>
+was right, the passage had to do with the miracle; but there must have
+been more than one miracle in the old days, since there was quite a
+network of canals and caves, which could be more or less flooded at
+will. All the river people knew of them, but few ventured in; there was
+nothing to be gained by doing so, <i>as a rule!</i> And the dive to reach
+the passage was long and awkward. But if the <i>Huzoor</i> would trust--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go ahead!&quot; broke in Lance, sharply. He <i>had</i> to trust; and time meant
+everything. Besides, even in diving, he could have his revenge on that
+sleek, yielding back!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For answer, Gu-gu altered his course with almost suspicious alacrity;
+though, once more, Lance could see no reason for treachery. A hundred
+rupees was a big bribe to a man who evidently had no personal interest
+in the matter; else, why should he have been on the island instead of
+in the row. But then Lance did not know of that call to death.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, through the dark, the one pair of hands and two pairs of legs
+forged ahead till a sudden arrest of the former gave Lance a dull shock
+once more. But this time Gu-gu's voice came quite cheerfully: &quot;The city
+wall, <i>Huzoor</i> This slave must feel if he goes up or down.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Apparently it was up, and after a few minutes of crablike edging
+Gu-gu's voice came again:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The tunnel is below, Protector of the Poor. Let the most noble take
+the longest breath he ever breathed, then strike down till this mean
+one's legs cease moving. The most noble one's must cease also. The rest
+will this dust-like one accomplish. Save the breath. <i>That</i> is in the
+<i>Huzoors</i> own keeping. Therefore let him take time for filling; and
+when he is ready let him signal this slave with--with a knife-prick if
+he chooses!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cool grasp of the position made Lance smile, though the situation,
+he knew, was grave enough. That breath to be drawn might be his last;
+all the more reason why he could have wished it less full of sand!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the storm was now at its fiercest. Even here out on the river, over
+the water, the air seemed solid. And it had a vibration that could be
+felt on the bare skin. As he drew in that long breath before trusting
+himself to the unseen man whom he held within reach of the grim
+signal--and something sharper should there be sign of treachery--Lance
+told himself that the water could scarcely be more suffocating than
+the air. Then--the sleek skin under his hand shrinking from the
+knife-prick--the two pairs of legs and the one pair of arms struck
+down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was almost a relief at first to get rid of the stinging dust in
+one's face; almost a relief not to breathe. But when, after a few
+seconds, the legs in front of him grew rigid, and nothing was left to
+be done save to hold on desperately to a waist-belt of blue beads and
+one's own breath at the same time, the sense of suffocation returned,
+and the question, &quot;How much longer?&quot; seemed to throb in his brain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gripped everything he had to grip tighter. But his own body seemed
+to grip his mind tighter still. He could feel the clutch of his
+veins--a whole corded network of them--could see them! A corded,
+pulsing network edged with prismatic light, sending stars into the
+darkness, beating time to the singing in his ears, to the fierce duel
+between the desire to gasp and the determination to hold on,--beating
+time to the confused rush of thoughts which ended in one--&quot;This is
+drowning!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It made his clutch tighter. Gu-gu, at least, should drown too. That was
+the last conscious thought. It merged into a frantic, insistent clamour
+for air! air! air! till something cold hit him full on the face and
+forced him into a quick, gasping cry, that left him senseless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he came to himself, as he did a moment or two afterwards, he was
+still clutching the waist-belt of blue beads, and the touch of it
+lulled him to an instant's sheer relief. The dive was over; they must
+be in the cave; the cold that had hit him in the face must have been
+the air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But what was he lying upon? Surely rock! And the hand he moved to feel
+it brought the blue beads with it unresistingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gu-gu! where was Gu-gu?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gone! And the knife too. It had been used to sever the hempen string of
+the belt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Curious. It might have been used for a different and more deadly
+purpose; but you could never count on what fellows would do--even when
+they were treacherous.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance thought this dreamily, before he realized more than the fact that
+he was alive; not drowned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he sat up hastily and faced the truth that he was alone once more;
+alone in that network of underground passages and caves of which Gu-gu
+had spoken.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was there any chance of his getting out of it? Not by the dive,
+certainly. Without help that was impossible. He set himself to remember
+what his guide had said in reply to the questions with which he had
+been purposely plied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">First, as to light. If Gu-gu was to be trusted the materials for this
+must be close at hand. Lance rose cautiously and felt about the ledge
+on which he lay and the walls of rock about him, and ere long came on
+what he sought. Flint and steel, a box of tinder, a bottle of oil, and
+a rag torch hung in an old bit of fishing-net to a peg that was driven
+into a crevice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So far, good; and after a minute these enabled him to see that he was
+in a sort of vaulted well, half hewn out of rock, half built in with
+brick. It was filled to some three feet or so with water, except in one
+corner, where the flooring shelved down to an archway. There it was
+deeper. This must be the opening of the tunnel through which they had
+dived, and through which, doubtless, Gu-gu had escaped; for he was not
+likely to have braved the intricate passages without a light. This
+thought made Lance look to see how much oil the bottle contained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was only a mere driblet at the bottom. Plainly, therefore, he
+could pause no longer; so, instantly, without further thought, he waded
+across the pool and ran along the only passage which led from it. He
+had to stoop as he ran, and from the feel to his feet he guessed that
+the passage led upwards first, then downwards; apparently, too, in a
+perfectly straight line. The river, therefore, must be behind him, and
+he tried to make this point a fixed one, so as to give him some notion
+of his bearings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After a hundred yards or so he emerged into a second cave or chamber,
+also nearly waist-deep in water. From this several passages opened,
+some too small to admit of a man passing through them. These, then,
+must be the canals of which Gu-gu had spoken; one of them, possibly,
+that which should have supplied the Pool with Immortality. The memory
+of that crowd of eager, patient faces, disappointed by such a miserable
+trick, made Lance feel pitiful; then his pity brought a sudden
+practical suggestion. Why not open the sluice, or whatever it was, now,
+and give the miracle? It would at least keep <i>some</i> of the crew quiet
+when it came, at dawn; the dawn which might be so fatal to quiet--the
+dawn which must, surely, be close at hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He raised the torch and saw, close beside him, a foot or two above the
+present level of the water, a clumsy closed stone conduit with an iron
+handle. It was a rude primitive tap, no doubt, by which the levels
+could be raised. Without further thought, he turned it, and smiled to
+find himself right, as water poured out, filling the vaulted chamber
+with sound. Then, without further pause, he passed on down the biggest
+of the passages leading from the chamber; since that seemed the most
+likely one. After a while, however, the passage narrowed, seemed in
+danger of ending altogether; so he harked back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no longer any sound in the chamber when he returned to it,
+and the level of the water had risen almost to the floor of the passage
+in which he stood, wondering which of the other outlets he had best
+try. The choice was a case of sheer chance, of course, he told himself;
+a mere backing of one's luck. But, as he paused to make it, something
+cold struck on his feet, causing him to look down in sudden surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The water was still rising. That must be stopped, anyhow, unless he was
+to be drowned out like a sewer rat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stuck the torch into a cleft in the rock beside him, hung the net to
+it, and swam over to the conduit, which was already submerged. But the
+handle which had turned so easily was stiff now; possibly because of
+the pressure of the water, possibly because there was some other rude
+mechanism of which he was unaware. Anyhow, after a few trials he
+realized that he was helpless until the water had found its own level.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But what was that? Who could tell? Would it rise, and rise, and rise,
+till it filled the whole place?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Who could tell?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not fear which clutched at his heart--only a vague self-pity;
+almost an amused wonder that this Immortality for others might bring
+Death to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked up into the vaulted arch above him, then to the, as yet, dry
+passages which he could just see, as darker arches of shadow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Unless one of them rose abruptly to a higher level--and the chance that
+one did, or that he should find it, was remote--he would be wiser to
+stay here, and see what happened. The roof was at least higher.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He swam back to the torch and, holding on to the crevices of the wall,
+waited.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still rising. He shifted the torch to a higher crevice and waited
+again, a dull curiosity taking possession of him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still rising. He wondered, suddenly, whether it would not have been
+better for him to have gone back the way he had come. The passage had
+certainly seemed to ascend, and it was a question of levels. That was
+all. A mere question of levels.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shifted the torch again. It was dying down now, the rags showing
+charred, cindery. But as he fed it with oil and it flared up and
+smoked, the thought came to him that it was using air needlessly,
+making suffocation more imminent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He blew it out deliberately. If a man had to die, he might as well die
+in the dark. He was glad, a moment later, of the darkness. It shut out
+reality and left him to dreams; to vague hopes, to kindly
+forgetfulness, to Erda's face. How plucky she had been! Well! even
+if he <i>had</i> to be drowned like a rat in a sewer, he must not be behind
+her. The pathetic comfort of kindly memory, which with strange
+unreason--since it enhances the value of the life that is being
+left--makes the face of death seem less stern to poor humanity, came to
+him and absorbed him. If he died and she lived, she would not forget
+him; he knew that.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And still the water rose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It must be rising now, he thought, in the Pool of Immortality, and the
+eager, patient faces that had been waiting for it so long must be
+showing glad in the grey light of the dawn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the dawn was coming to the world, though he would not see it.
+Strange, incomprehensible thought, even though the reality of it was so
+certain, so close. Incomprehensible? Say rather, impossible; frankly
+impossible! He could not be going to die!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shifted the unlit torch to a still higher crevice--almost a ledge in
+the rock--and waited incredulously for the water to rise.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">And as he waited in the dark, someone else in the grey dawn, to whom
+death was more familiar, to whom, in a way, it was the one great
+certainty of Life, was feeling the same frank incredulity at the
+thought of the immediate future.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For Dr. Dillon, when he found himself alone on the roof of the gaol
+gate with an unconscious woman and a child, knew that the end could not
+be far off. With Vincent dead, and Eugene cut off by the stern
+necessity for keeping that door shut, he could not hope for more than a
+brief, savage resistance--and then? Failure, inevitable failure, unless
+help came; and that seemed far as ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As yet, dazed by that closing of the door, that desperate, triumphant
+death of the man with his back to it--a death which had gained them
+nothing--the prisoners were still huddled together, crushed out of
+further action, at the far end of the alley. So the courtyard was
+clear, free from assailants. But that could only be for a minute or
+two. There was an ominous rending and hewing at the gate below; ere
+long those outside would be inside, and with a leader who would know
+what to do. So life could only be an affair of moments; yet it seemed
+incredible, more than incredible, that all his strong will and
+determination would not avail even to save those helpless creatures in
+his charge. He stooped hurriedly and lifted the still unconscious woman
+in his arms, carried her into the turret, closed the door on her and
+the child--frightened now for the first time at her mother's
+silence--and returned to wait and watch. It was all he could do for
+them, unless fate gave him a chance of appealing for them to Roshan
+Khān. But even then there could be no bargaining, no compromise, no
+surrender!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sharp crash, a sudden rise in the babel of voices below, warned him
+that the gate had given, partially at least. The next instant a soldier
+or two, ignorant of that dead man with his back against the closed
+gate, ran lightly down the alley calling on the prisoners to make way.
+One of them was Roshan Khān; but George Dillon did not waste a
+cartridge even on him. He was reserving his fire for that storming of
+the broken stairs which must come when the assailants found themselves
+still foiled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In truth Roshan Khān had this same storming in his mind as all he cared
+for, since it would pit him against his rival, against Vincent Dering,
+who he knew was on the roof. And so, with that odd acquired sense of
+honour, fair play, God knows what, he had been planning, as his men
+battered down the gate, how best to compass those fair odds which were
+necessary alike to his sense of justice and injustice--for the
+injustice of his own position cried aloud for proof that he was worth a
+better one. So he had settled to complete that liberating of the
+prisoners which, with the help of the keys, ought already to be in
+hand. This done, the general rabble would be eager for freedom, eager
+for plunder, eager to get to the town and raise it, eager for all
+things for which he cared no jot. Then would be his time. Then--he did
+not even try to formulate how--he could find himself face to face, at
+fair odds, with Vincent Dering. Wild memories of duels he had read
+about in western books, duels with others, who had nothing to do with
+the quarrel, looking on, occurred to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes! that would satisfy him. To have it out, till death!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He set his teeth as he forced a peremptory way through the crowd at the
+end of the alley, which hid the closed door until one actually stood
+beside it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he stood transfixed, for he saw Vincent Dering's dead body still
+backed by that closed door, still guarding it, unarmed. There was a
+curious look of content in the dead face, and Roshan, grasping its
+meaning by intuition, turned from it with a curse, knowing himself
+forestalled, cheated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Twas not our fault, <i>Khān-jee</i>,&quot; protested a voice, quickly; &quot;the
+swine fought till the other one had locked the door in our faces, and
+so--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan struck at the voice fiercely. Not forestalled, not cheated,
+only; but outdone, conquered! His rival had died a hero's death, and
+he--he might live to be hanged!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A rage of despair, of despite, seized on him. His one real object gone,
+the whole hideous folly of the rest made him fling up his hands
+passionately as he dashed back to the gate, neither knowing nor caring
+what he was going to do next.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Storm that feeble garrison on the roof? those broken stairs, every
+crevice, every foothold in which stood out clear, easy, in the light of
+the search-ray? Was that a man's task?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Confused, dazed, he ran on, followed instinctively by the crowd,
+wondering what he would be at.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George Dillon, seeing the rush, covered the first foothold of the
+broken stairs with his rifle, and waited for a man to show on it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But none came.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Just as the rush reached the courtyard, Eugene Smith's search-ray,
+having exhausted itself, went out, leaving, not darkness, but the grey
+mystery of dawn, in which for an instant all sound, all movement,
+seemed arrested. There was one utterly peaceful second, and then, from
+behind the splintered gateway, from the shadows of the tunnel, came a
+breathless voice:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Close the outer gate, sergeant; if you can, you have them in a trap! a
+regular trap!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><i>A trap!</i></p>
+
+<p class="normal">The word reached those who had followed Roshan in his causeless
+retreat. Had he foreseen this? Was he escaping from the trap? Their
+eyes flew to the tunnel, but the light which, till then, had lit up its
+darkness, the swinging lamp by which the batterers of the gate had
+worked, was dashed down by someone's hand--a small, white hand--and
+there was nothing to be seen. Only that voice to be heard repeating,
+&quot;They're in a trap; keep them there!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Keep them! Not if they could fight their way into the open! The cry
+rose in a second:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A trap. Yea! a trap! Out of it! Outside, brothers, outside, where we
+can fight free!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan, who would have paused at this chance of fair resistance, was
+caught in the rush from behind, and found himself through the gap in
+the gate fighting desperately in the crowd, calling on his men to
+rally. But they had construed his half-frenzied flight from that look
+on Vincent Dering's face into a lead, and they were mixed up
+inextricably with the horde of undisciplined conspirators who, having
+been till now safe under cover of the tunnelled archway, yelled for the
+open, not so much in which to fight, but in which to run away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The mere handful of men, whose number was fortunately hidden by the
+darkness, could never have prevented the rush, but a quick wit amongst
+them seized on a possibility, and the breathless voice called, &quot;Let
+them pass--let them pass!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, in a second or two, amid confused yells, and mad slashings at
+friends and foes alike, the positions were reversed. The inside was
+out, the outside in, like Brian O'Lynn's breeches; and Dr. Dillon's
+first hint at what the amazing turn of affairs below him meant came
+with the words:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Barricade that gate. Sharp as you know how. They won't give us long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is that you, Carlyon?&quot; he called doubtfully, leaning over the parapet
+and peering into that grey mystery of dawn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The figure he saw, a woman in a white dress and a scarlet mess jacket,
+made him doubt the evidence of his own eyes. But the answer in a
+woman's voice, with a quick breath in it, sent his back in something
+between a laugh and a sob.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then he isn't here! Oh! what can have become of him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no doubt that this was a woman!</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_27" href="#div1Ref_27">CHAPTER XXVII</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>L'ADDIO DEL MARITO</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Once outside, where they could discern friend from foe, the troopers
+instantly realized their mistake, and rallied round Roshan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it was too late for that now. As he stood, centring them, there was
+a wild contempt, a vague relief, in his face. He knew now where his
+sympathies lay. Not with these men, treacherous to their salt, but with
+those who could hold--who <i>had</i> held--their own against all odds. Yes!
+even with that dead figure, still with its back to the door that must
+not be opened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The thought stung and seared like hot iron.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No! Not with that! not with that! That was--What?--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could have killed himself for the unwavering testimony which every
+scrap of him gave to the heroism, the defiance of such a death. He knew
+he would give everything to die one like it; and he knew he could
+not--not <i>now</i>. He knew he must die a useless death, to save himself
+from a worse one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is no real harm done, <i>Khān-jee</i>,&quot; broke in his lance-<i>duffadar</i>
+in hurried excuse, seeing the expression on his face. &quot;We can get in
+easily again. Those holding the horses say there were but a score of
+them all told--the cursed Sikhs--God knows how they got out of the
+Fort! I thought we had them safe. And there was a woman with them--a
+Miss-<i>baba</i>&quot;--he laughed savagely. &quot;Well! if they be brave as men,
+these infidel women, let them die like men--the hell-cats!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan Khān looked at the man, whom he had known for years, as if he
+had never seen him before. And the thought of another woman--with his
+own blood in her veins--who had been brave also, and who had died--died
+by his hand--returned to sweep him from every bearing, from every
+landmark, eastern or western, and leave him rudderless, drifting, in a
+storm of sheer despair. He laughed suddenly--an insane laugh--at the
+hideousness, the hopelessness of it all. Laughed like the madman he was
+for the time, at the horror which drove him mad.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Kill her, if thou wilt, fool! I have done my share of that,&quot; he cried
+brutally, striking out at the voice as he had struck at the other which
+had told him of Vincent's victory. Striking as he felt inclined to
+strike at anything and everything; most of all at the hateful confusion
+in himself, and in his world. So, without another word, he broke
+through the circle of troopers, dashed to where his horse awaited him,
+and was off like a whirlwind; that strange possession of the Oriental
+races, which, in a way, claims kindred with the Berserk rage of the
+north, thrilling to his finger-tips; yet held in check, diverted from
+sheer, mad, uncalculating desire to kill, by that acquired sense of
+fair play.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He goes to rouse the city,&quot; said some of his men, following him
+hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And time, too!&quot; assented some of the conspirators. &quot;The dawn is upon
+us, and if the pilgrims drift away, our hope is gone!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But most of the crowd, troopers and conspirators alike, felt vaguely
+that the dawn had indeed come, that the midsummer night's dream of
+madness was over; that those who were wise would try, while they had
+the chance, to escape from its consequences.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And that such a chance existed, even now, was patent. The very madness
+of the night, its lack of reasonable explanation, were in their favour.
+And its darkness, the outer darkness of the storm, which had sprung
+up in a minute, must have hidden much. Who, for instance, was to
+say--except those impenitent ones whose evidence, if given at all, must
+be doubted as the evidence of condemned men seeking to drag others down
+to their fate--whether such and such a one had been a rebel at first?
+Provided, always, that there was no doubt about his staunchness at the
+last; that is, now that the dawn had come--the dawn which showed doubt,
+almost a surprise, in so many faces.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What had come to them? Why were they there?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Kuchch saiya pur gya!</i>&quot; (some shadow fell on me) muttered one man
+below his breath, as he sheathed his sword.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And another, with an oath, said boldly, &quot;This one is for the winning
+side,&quot; then gave the cry, &quot;To the rescue, brothers, to the rescue! Cut
+down the mutineers&quot;--so, promptly, began operations on the nearest
+defenceless prisoner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus, almost before those who had galloped in hot haste after Roshan's
+lead were out of sight, the prisoners, even the resisting warders, had
+been driven into the portico, and penned like a flock of sheep between
+the troopers outside and the pioneers within.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Lord is King,&quot; said the lance-<i>duffadar</i>, piously, to a
+neighbour,--he had started back from Roshan's blow with a scowl, and
+watched his retreat resentfully,--&quot;the Handle-end of His Sword is
+safest! Lo! Have at them, brothers!&quot;--he added aloud--&quot;have at the
+evil-born ones who would have killed the <i>mems</i> and the <i>baba-logue</i>
+as such scum did in the Great Breathing, making the faces of the
+soldiery black for all time! Show them our mettle. Forward!
+'Gord--save--the--Ka-veen!'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gord--save--the--Ka-veen!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cry grew to a shout, and Dr. Dillon, who, with a great incredulity
+lessening the values of all he saw and heard, had promptly swung
+himself down into the courtyard, looked through a crevice in the
+barricade--which was fast taking form under the willing hands of the
+pioneers--to see what the noise meant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is all over,&quot; he said slowly, his face pathetic in its
+bewilderment; &quot;the troopers are siding with us!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood for a moment as if unable to grasp the reality, and his keen,
+inquisitive eyes seemed to search almost reproachfully for some cause,
+some hint of reason, in his surroundings. In the splintered door, in
+every cranny and foothold of the broken stair, and so, past the
+parapet, they continued their question to the lightening sky, against
+which, faint and far, those distant peaks where lay the &quot;Cradle of the
+Gods&quot; had begun to show dimly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All for nothing!&quot; he muttered to himself, almost petulantly. &quot;Poor
+Dering!&quot; So, swiftly he passed down the alley,--swiftly, but
+hopelessly; for he knew what those iron shackles meant on a man's bare
+head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He drew the body to one side with tender care, then knocked at the
+closed door and called to the man within. &quot;Smith, open the door! You'd
+better come out--I think it's all over now; be quick, please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a pause, then a fumbling at the bolts and bars. So, in that
+grey, cold light, a figure stood at the open door, tall, gaunt, with a
+hunted look in its eyes, almost a terror, as they looked down--down to
+the threshold--down for what they knew should be there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dering?&quot; asked Eugene Smith, rather hoarsely; then, seeing what lay to
+one side, covered his eyes from the sight with a cry like a woman's,
+and trembled all over. That strain of patient, idle inaction had been
+awful.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, God damn them!&quot; burst out the doctor, fiercely. &quot;And all for
+nothing--for nothing. At least I think so. Come on, Smith, and make
+sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For nothing! For nothing!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words were echoing in Roshan's brain also, as with loose rein,
+recklessly, he galloped over the frail bridge of boats, making it
+quiver and thunder beneath his horse's hoofs, and send curved waves of
+light and shadow over the clear, steely surface of the water, seen like
+a polished shield in the dawn. The air was clear also; the distant
+hills steel grey as the water, the sky steel grey as the hills. And
+there was the bright keenness as of a glittering sword in the chill
+breeze that swept from west to east. But Roshan did not feel it; he was
+absorbed in himself, in the useless battle of his life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For nothing! For nothing!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not even hear the soft yet sonorous roar, beginning like the
+rush of a big breaker on a beach, ending with a wild, musical note,
+like the wail of new-weaned lambs and their mothers on a lone hillside,
+which suddenly echoed out over the water, making those who galloped
+behind look at each other and whisper joyfully:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis all right, <i>Khān-sahib</i>,&quot; said one, urging his horse alongside;
+&quot;the pilgrims are waiting still--hear you not their cry? They grow
+impatient!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan looked at him with lack-lustre eyes. What were the pilgrims to
+him, or their impatience? What was salvation, immortality, to one whose
+only desire was death--death and forgetfulness? He dug his spurs into
+his horse, savagely glad to give pain, and rode on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hārā! Hārī! Harī! Hārā!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The roar was articulate now, and those behind looked doubtfully at each
+other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If it should be the miracle?&quot; suggested one conspirator; but another
+shook his head, &quot;How can that be? None know the trick save those two,
+Gu-gu and Am-ma, and they are safe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Unless it <i>be</i> a miracle,&quot; put in a third, almost timidly. &quot;God's club
+makes no noise, and the night has been full of marvels.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So an uneasy silence fell upon the rest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no mistaking the cry now. It rose exultant, yet with that
+wailing note in it still, which lingers always in humanity's claim to
+have found its lost Paradise, its lost purity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet there was no trace of doubt in the almost frantic joy on every face
+in the dense multitude which stopped the little cavalcade, as it
+entered the square around the Pool of Immortality; stopped it
+hopelessly, as if the moving, breathing, living mass had been a dead
+wall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hārā! Hārī! Hārī! Hārā!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was almost a yell. The patience was gone utterly, and far as the eye
+could reach, in all the wide square, in every street and alley
+converging to it, there was the restless ineffectual movement
+of the sea, when, on a summer's day, it beats itself calmly yet
+persistently--rising and falling--upon a sheer cliff, against the
+impossible. There was no one to check the crowd now, to prevent it from
+finding Death and Immortality at the same time. What matter? What were
+a few hundreds of crushed bodies, when the soul found what it sought?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The riders behind Roshan threw up their hands at the sight. No hope
+here for the littlenesses of life; for principalities and powers, even
+for political liberty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was the bed-rock; this, in its unalterable aspiration--not for
+something better, but for the best--neither culture nor conspiracy
+could touch; this was as much beyond the control of kith and kin as of
+strangers and aliens.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, <i>Khān-sahib</i>!&quot; they called to the figure with the lack-lustre eyes
+which sat its horse like a statue, staring at itself, at its world,
+conscious only of the hideous discords which were, perforce, the music
+of its sphere. &quot;Come! <i>Nawab-jee!</i> There is still a chance with the
+'<i>Teacher of Religion</i>.' The <i>jogi</i> will have held <i>his</i> folk,
+for
+sure. They will be ready for blood, since Mai Kāli&quot;--the speaker spat
+his Mahomedan contempt for the idolatry ere he went on--&quot;lets none go.
+She's a true woman for that!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, by back alleys and crooked ways, Roshan--why he did not know, since
+he meant nothing by it--led the cavalcade past the palace, through the
+archway into the courtyard with its union-jack of raised paths.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And found it empty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Empty of all save the <i>jogi</i>, Gorakh-nāth, who was busy, resignedly, in
+rethreading his chaplet of skulls, ere starting to seek safety over the
+British border in some far recess of the holy hills, whence, when this
+affair had blown over, he could swoop down with added sanctity on some
+other religious fair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He and his God stole them from me not the saying of a rosary past,&quot; he
+said cheerfully, after he had explained the position. &quot;They went by
+yonder door to the old road. So what matter! They are in it. They will
+come back to Her by and by. It is so always. Men follow other leads,
+other loves. But they do not find what they seek; so they come back to
+Her, to the many named Woman. <i>Jai! Kali Ma!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Those behind Roshan looked at each other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is the end,&quot; they said briefly. &quot;Come, <i>risaldar-jee</i>--&quot; the change
+of title was significant--&quot;we shall have to ride far and fast if we are
+to live.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once more, every atom of the man, soul and body, seemed to strike out
+furiously at the voice, at the truth and the untruth in it; at the
+assertion of failure, the linking of his need with theirs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ride for your lives if you want them,&quot; he cried fiercely; &quot;I seek
+death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They left him, after unavailing protests, and rode helter-skelter on to
+the Fort, warning their comrades that the game was up, so, on towards
+safety. And the <i>jogi</i>, naked but not ashamed, still swinging his
+chaplet of skulls, followed them leisurely; for he knew himself safe in
+the superstition and the devotion of every woman in India. Since he,
+Her servant, could not fail of shelter in every Hindoo homestead, far
+or near, in which a woman's hand closed on a man's, holding him tight
+for herself alone, as the Great Mother holds all men.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan, thus left alone, rode his horse on slowly to the central
+plinth, dismounted, and, hitching the bridle over the muzzle of the
+&quot;<i>Teacher of Religion</i>&quot; stood staring out dully at what lay before him;
+so quiet, so commonplace!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing changed from the day, barely a month ago, when he had stood
+beside the old gun with Vincent Dering and Lance Carlyon, contemptuous
+of the ignorance of others, satisfied with himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now?--what had come to him?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The madness, which his wild gallop from the gaol had calmed somewhat,
+returned in a fierce rush, and with it that one desire for revenge; for
+something by which to show the contempt, which was not now merely for
+the ignorant; but for those others, self-righteous, tyrannical, who had
+dared to touch him--dared to make him what he was--a prey both to
+ignorance and wisdom, savagery and culture--a laughing-stock even to
+himself!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And who had begun the fooling? Who had taught him as a boy?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Pidar Narāyan! Who else? Who else had begun the game giving some
+things, withholding others? And who else was within reach? Who else
+could be followed up and forced to fair fight? Forced to admit that the
+pupil was ahead now of the master.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed a laugh of absolute exultation; and a wave of purely
+childish satisfaction swept through the mind in which there were still
+so many depths of childish ignorance and misconception; unavoidable
+depths in the culture of a bare score of years. Leaving his horse
+tethered to the old gun, he ran hastily across to the palace, so,
+finding the door open, the whole place quiet, went on down the arched
+passage. It was still dark there, but a glimmer of light showed the
+entrance to the chapel, and to the armoury beside it, which was his
+goal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had no other thought except for that armoury, until, with the tall
+tapers burning at the head and feet, he saw the dead body of the woman
+who had deceived him lying on the Altar steps. Then the pitifullest
+clashing of satisfaction and despair, of desire and disgust, came to
+him that ever rent a man in twain. For a moment he fought for bare
+reason between them, then with a savage cry, he flung himself beside
+the dead girl, caught her to him, covered her with frantic, cruel
+kisses, and, almost flinging her from him again, ran on into the
+armoury, the red of her dress, her bosom, in his eyes--the red of
+blood!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The armoury! Where he had had his first lesson in the foils! There they
+were, harmless in their buttons, crossed on the wall, and above them
+something more murderous; the dangerous delicate rapiers to which those
+others were but the prelude. No! one was gone! One Father Ninian had
+used against the <i>jogi!</i> One he must have with him. So much the better!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He tore down its fellow, and passing the dead girl without a look,
+dashed out into the courtyard again, his last trace of sanity gone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next instant his horse's feet were echoing madly along the
+pilgrims' road. His enemy must have a quarter of an hour's lead, but
+that was nothing; he could overtake him, anyhow, at the first station
+in the pilgrimage,--a temple under a vast <i>banyan</i> tree at the foot of
+the first rise, where the pious must pause to make offerings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The road was almost empty at first; for the news that the miracle had
+only been deferred had spread instantly through the unrestful town, so
+to a space beyond it, making those who heard the tale turn back to see
+for themselves. But after a few minutes' wild gallop, he came up with
+those who had been beyond recall, who had gone on content with that
+strange lead of a strange God; of a saint, a sinner. Yet, after a time,
+forgetful of that leadership utterly. For they needed it no more. The
+danger of novelty had passed with their first step along the beaten
+track which their fathers had followed. Father Ninian, wise with the
+wisdom of long years, of secret sympathy, had known this; had counted
+on it in his forlorn hope of leading them into familiar bondage. He had
+told himself that he need only go as far as that first station; that
+then, during the pause for offerings, he might return, as it were, to
+realities, to something more consistent with the nineteenth century!
+But to him, also, as he led the way, chanting his offices for the day,
+had come a strange peace, a strange desire to go on to the end of the
+pilgrimage; a strange desire to leave those realities behind him in a
+world from which he was taking nothing, not even his love.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Surely it was time. Surely he was old enough to claim rest. No! not
+rest. It was something more than that. Surely, now that he had left
+every atom of earth behind him lying with a dead woman on the Altar
+steps, he also was free to find the &quot;Cradle of the Gods&quot;!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>My soul fleeth unto the Lord! before the morning watch I say, before
+the morning watch</i>,&quot; he chanted; he had gone on blindly from psalm to
+psalm intent on the desire to lead those voices behind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have a care, <i>baba-jee!</i> thou and thy God!&quot; said a half-tender,
+half-jesting one as he stumbled among the stones, and a dark hand
+stretched itself out to steady the old priest, and a dark face turned
+to nod approval at other saffron robes; since here was a true pilgrim,
+a true madman, forgetful of this world, to judge by the face lifted
+towards those distant hills.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet the desire in him to reach them seemed to the wise old heart
+something that must be set aside. He must return. Yes! he must return.
+To do what? What could an old man do who had left life, a useless life,
+behind him? He crushed down that thought also, and stumbled on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Man is like a thing of nought, his time passeth away like a shadow!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His voice spent itself tremulously on that one certainty, and those
+behind him joined their testimony to his all unwittingly, as they
+called on Hārā or Hārī; on the Creator, the Destroyer, as One and
+Indivisible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And in the rear again, Roshan in his search for Death, for
+annihilation, bore witness also, as he came, cursing those who stood in
+his way, his horse slithering among the stones in its effort to obey
+whip and spur, and sending a dry clangour of hoof-beats through the
+little stony valley to startle the sleepy snakes coiled on the distant
+rocks, and drive them back to their crannies with a hiss.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, every instant, the distance lessened between the old man and the
+young one, both weary of life. It was broad daylight now, though the
+sun was still low on the horizon. The mystery of dawn had left the
+world, the very pilgrims, between their recurring cries, were
+chattering, laughing, over the every-day details of life which would
+make to-day as trivial as yesterday, to-morrow as trivial as to-day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There had been a &quot;Breathing&quot; in the night, they told each other. Some
+shadow had fallen. Some God or Devil had had power. But the shackles of
+custom, of familiarity, were back again, the despotism of detail.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Only in those two strangely different minds in the van, in the rear,
+the mystery still clouded the reality.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the distance between them lessened as Roshan drove his way through
+the saffron robes recklessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, fast as he went, when he reached the end of the dry watercourse up
+which the last part of the rough track had wound, and stood in the
+hollow, backed by a further rise of the hill, where the quaint, dumpy,
+black temple hid itself under the huge blotch of the <i>banyan</i> tree--the
+only green thing visible, far or near--the figure he sought was not to
+be seen among the crowd.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Akbar Khān, indeed, he saw, utilizing one of the tall tapers as a
+pipe-light before casting himself on the ground to suck contentedly at
+the screwed <i>banyan</i> leaf full of tobacco which he had gathered by
+claiming a pinch in return for the loan of that same light to others.
+But with a curious shame Roshan avoided him, and passed on in his
+search among the jostling crowd, the continuous babel of trivial talk;
+for this was resting-time, when men and women could be men and women,
+and forget that they were on a pilgrimage; when they could even dream
+themselves back in the village under the familiar shelter of some
+village tree, asking no more than the familiar round of life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But above the babel came every now and again the insistent clang of a
+bell, telling that some new petitioner was seeking a favour of the
+Gods, and making a golden oriole, which sat in the green leafage, flit
+to another bower with a sudden fluting note, full, joyful, mellow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What dost seek, <i>Musulmān?</i>&quot; cavilled a saint, drawing back from
+Roshan's shadow, as he gabbled invocations, all he knew, on a rosary,
+ere solacing himself with the pipe which his disciple had prepared. &quot;If
+'tis the madman and his God--he hath gone yonder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pointed to a side track, which was a short cut to the road above.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan flung himself from his horse without a word, and followed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The distance lessened at every step now, for the old priest's breath
+failed him at the steepness of the rise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still, it would not delay him long, he told himself, to take that one
+look at the soft, white cloud which generally hid the goal of
+pilgrimage, before he turned back over the hill, as best he could, to
+find what task remained for him in the world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He might have that one look, surely!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, reaching the summit of this first bulwark of the unattainable, he
+sat down, breathlessly, beside an upright black stone which showed
+strangely distinct amid the redness of the surrounding rock; a plain
+black stone, not three feet high, chipped rudely to a blunt point.
+Father Ninian did not need the scattering of dead marigolds and dry
+basil leaves about its base to tell him that it was a fragment of an
+older faith than that of the temple below; a faith sterner, purer,
+founded on a clearer perception of what humanity needed in that search
+for the lost Paradise; on a closer memory of the cause which lost it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laid one hand on the stone almost caressingly, as, holding the pyx
+in the other, he sat down facing the distant peaks. But there was no
+cloud upon them. The day had dawned clear and still, and as he sat
+looking wistfully over the valleys on valleys, the hills on hills,
+which lay bathed in light between him and the &quot;Cradle of the Gods,&quot;
+a sunbeam--still slanting from the curved edge of the eastern
+plains--caught the jewelled star of what he held, and stayed there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was peaceful beyond words. The hurry, the strain, not only of that
+long eventful night, but of the whole long eventful life, seemed over.
+All things seemed behind him. The passion, the pride, the courage, the
+manhood--all things that had made Ninian Bruce what Ninian Bruce had
+been--where were they?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Only wisdom, only a tender knowledge, seemed to remain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The clank of steel upon stone roused him, the clank of Roshan's spurs
+upon the rocks; and Father Ninian turned to see him, a yard or two on
+the path below, outlined clearly against the distant view of Eshwara,
+against the world in which Ninian Bruce had lived and loved--the Ninian
+Bruce whom he had left behind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Behind!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No! It was Ninian Bruce and none other who was on his feet in a second,
+a flush on his face--the face that was like the nether mill-stone in
+its stern passion, and pride, and power. For, in a second, the old
+man's soul was back in a world where a dead woman belonging to him lay
+waiting for revenge. His hand was on his hidden rapier, as he flung his
+first word of defiance at the man who had killed her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Murderer!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your pupil at that, even!&quot; gasped Roshan, &quot;you began it!--your pupil
+whom you taught--curse you--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words failed him--he paused inarticulate--but the keen eyes and
+ears opposite him took in his meaning with the swift comprehension
+which had been Pidar Narāyan's always. A sort of contemptuous pity
+fought with the passion of Ninian Bruce's face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My pupil, certainly,&quot; he assented. &quot;Have you come to ask me for a
+final lesson?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan glared at him. &quot;You understand--you always did--that is the
+worst. Yes! I have come&quot;--here he laughed wildly--&quot;for what you taught
+me--fair play and no favour--and I mean to have it.&quot; In his fierce
+excitement he pressed closer, flourishing his rapier.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon me,&quot; came a cold, courteous voice; &quot;I did not teach you that
+method of assassination, surely? I thought you desired fair play. If
+so, you might allow me to meet you on equal terms.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan drew back with a flush from the figure which had stood its
+ground, which looked at him with bitter disdain. He scarcely seemed to
+recognize it. No wonder! For this was Ninian Bruce himself. Ninian
+Bruce as he might have spoken to an over-hasty antagonist in the days
+when he was the most reckless swordsman in Rome, when the world held
+him body and soul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The years, his very priesthood, had slipped from him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg your pardon, sir!&quot; muttered Roshan, standing aside. There was a
+savage satisfaction in his heart. This man was not old, the odds were
+equal; there was enough fire and passion here to please any opponent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, after a pause to lay aside the pyx--it found a strange
+resting-place on the blunt summit of that upright black stone--a slim,
+still elegant figure, divested of its priestly robings, took its stand,
+its back to the hills, its face to the world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still upright, still active, with its black <i>soutane</i> caught up and
+tucked into the sash to give free play to its limbs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, sir,&quot; came the courteous voice, &quot;I am ready.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something in the proud grace of bearing, the reckless contempt, made
+Roshan follow suit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The sun will be in your eyes,&quot; he said, &quot;let us fight lengthwise to
+the ridge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We <i>will</i>--by and by!&quot; came that icy voice, as the speaker, without
+moving, stood on guard. &quot;We can omit the salute. If you are ready, I
+am.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For an instant Roshan hesitated, realizing what the life that he meant
+to take had been, what the man himself whom he meant to kill had been
+and was. The man whose figure stood out like a black shadow against the
+distant blue of the hills; and as he realized the fine fibre of his
+enemy, a sense of powerlessness to touch, to harm him, kept Roshan
+motionless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shall I count five, and give you a start?&quot; The question came with a
+shrug of the shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The taunt told. Roshan pulled himself together, and stood on guard
+also. But the sense of powerlessness was intolerable; he lowered his
+rapier for a word more--a word to raise his own self-esteem.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I warn you,&quot; he said haughtily, &quot;that the sun is in your eyes. That I
+have learnt more than you ever taught me--that <i>this</i> is to the death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It could scarcely be anything else, could it?&quot; came the instant reply,
+in a voice that vibrated harshly, like a harpstring struck to its
+fullest, &quot;with a dead woman between us! Engage, you devil, or I will
+kill you as you stand!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan gave a short, sharp cry, like a wild beast. The next instant the
+curious hiss of two meeting blades sliding along each other was the
+only sound. It is a strange sound, which, to the listeners, the
+onlookers, seems to say &quot;hush&quot; to the whole world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Hush</i>--hush--<i>sh</i>--<i>sh</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, short and sharp as that cry of Roshan's, came another sound; the
+beaten, baffled clash when steel meets steel instead of flesh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Roshan, with an inward curse, gripped his rapier closer. He had almost
+been disarmed,--disarmed in that first encounter. Strange that he
+should have forgotten his foe,--forgotten the deadly insistence of the
+master's blade, slack as a snake in curves, firm as a vice in grip.
+Then that almost invisible turn of the wrist which had so nearly done
+for him. He had forgotten--these, in years of meaner adversaries. He
+remembered them now, and would not forget again. And he had such
+things; ay! and more, in reserve for himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So had his master; in reserve for both of them, if needful. And the
+knowledge that it <i>would</i> be needful came to Ninian Bruce at the first
+touch of his adversary's sword; for there was that in it which told the
+old hand that the young one was a master's also.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My pupil has improved,&quot; he said quietly, as, abandoning the attack, he
+parried Roshan's furious onslaught with scarcely a motion of the hand,
+held level to his heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That he could do. But the other must surely come in the end, since he
+was old, and Roshan young. If in the end, therefore, why not now? The
+sooner the better.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A minute after the sun was no longer in Pidar Narāyan's eyes. As he had
+said, they were fighting lengthwise to the ridge; and he drew back,
+choosing his ground, until under his feet he felt the dead marigolds,
+the withered basil leaves that lay about the upright stone,--that
+strange pedestal on which the star-shaped pyx stood as on an altar,
+glittering in the sun-rays.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seemed to see it, to feel it, standing there between the world below
+and those faint, far peaks. And the eyes which had seen so much felt
+they need see no more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Sta' alerta, Signor!</i>&quot; he cried jibingly, flinging himself savagely
+forward. &quot;And may the Lord have mercy on your soul,&quot; he added in a
+lower tone; as, in an attack which held in it all the wildness, the
+fire, the passion of his youth, he drove Roshan back a step,--one step
+down the faint slope on which he had counted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A fierce lunge or two, a swift parry, and then,--then an inch beyond
+safety--given purposely--yielded room for the <i>riposte</i> he sought from
+that other rapier.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It came with a quick cry of triumph, as Roshan felt that thin, cold
+steel slide silently on through a dull, faint resistance. A cry that
+ended in a gasp, as the hand which held the rapier dropped for a
+second, then flung itself upwards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For Pidar Narāyan had given the <i>reprise</i>; and '<i>L'Addio del Marito</i>'
+had done its work.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, for an instant--held upright by the lingering force of the old
+man's hand--the two stood within a sword's length, their faces glaring
+at each other,--stern, implacable, the one in death, the other still in
+life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the strength, the life, ebbed; the balance between it and death
+wavered, and Ninian Bruce, overborne by his enemy's dead weight, sank
+to his knee, then backwards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But his hand still gripped the rapier. So Roshan Khān's body, as it
+fell forward, slithered down the sharp blade, sending a little jet of
+crimson blood backwards, till it stopped with a dull thud upon the
+hilt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he lay, face downwards, beside the old man, whose face looked
+skyward; whose head rested among the withered marigolds and the sweet,
+dead leaves of the basil, which generations and generations of pilgrims
+had offered to an unknown wisdom on their way to the &quot;Cradle of the
+Gods.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_28" href="#div1Ref_28">CHAPTER XXVIII</a></h2>
+<br>
+<h3>THE TRUTH</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And to look at it now,&quot; came the Commissioner's rich, round brogue,
+&quot;you would think butter wouldn't melt in its mouth!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He waved the cigar he was smoking towards Eshwara. It looked sleepier,
+more sun-saturate than ever, as it lay reflected in the still lagoon
+between it and the tent in which he was sitting; a double-poled,
+Commissioner's tent, which two days before had swooped down like an
+avenging angel with broad white wings to take possession of the just
+and the unjust in the name of Victoria <i>Kaiser-i-Hind</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was pitched on the site of the Viceroy's camp, for the convenience
+of being close to the gaol where the late disturbers of the public
+peace had taken up their residence. In fact, the mast from which the
+royal standard had floated, still reared itself, bare, undraped, from
+its roundel of roses. But the flowers were withered, dead. Even the
+palms, their work of welcome over, were wilting fast; but they still
+gave a doubtful shade to some groups of manacled men, who, guarded by
+yellow-legged constables, were placidly awaiting the Commissioner's
+leisure and pleasure; both being, at the time, occupied with lunch and
+Dr. Dillon. So, the wide white wings of the tent being set open and
+supported with bamboos to let in the breeze, the representative
+of law and order could be seen--his feet on the table among his law
+books--drinking an iced whiskey-and-soda.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon--he looked careworn chiefly because in his care for others
+he had, as yet, been able to take no rest--nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes; and it doesn't, as a rule. A more peaceable spot never was. You
+can't account for these sudden idiotic outbreaks. One reason is as good
+as another. And so old Mother Campbell, with her assertion that it all
+came because Miss Shepherd would talk about Jean Ziska's drum--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Commissioner smiled. &quot;Yes, the good lady has an endless circle of
+unfounded beliefs, all dependent on each other for support. It's the
+most comfortable way of getting through life. An' miracles are like
+drams--ye can't stop them, once you begin. Besides, on me soul, it was
+queer--even Carlyon said--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And if it <i>were</i> true,&quot; interrupted the doctor, &quot;we shouldn't be any
+'forrader'! We shouldn't understand. And that's our position now. You
+can't, in fact. It's better you shouldn't; in India, at any rate. Just
+accept them, ignore them, smash them, hush them up&quot;--here his face
+clouded--&quot;and in this case there is a good deal that had better be kept
+dark--you'll do your best, I hope?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The keen whimsical face hardened. &quot;I shall follow the usual official
+routine, sir,&quot; he said cynically; &quot;for, look you, there never was a row
+like this in India but there is something in it about a woman, which
+we've got to hush up. An' that's God's truth. Yes, we pay a heavy
+toll--&quot; He broke off, took up a pen as if to write, threw it down
+impatiently, and stared out into the hot, yellow sunshine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon sat twiddling his mushroom hat round and round in his
+nervous fingers, and staring out into it also. A sense of being face to
+face with an unpleasant truth was on them both. Suddenly he laughed
+harshly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We ought to have got accustomed to the fact by this time, anyhow,&quot; he
+said, &quot;for it began early enough in the history of man. Well, I'm off;
+you won't want me, will you, this afternoon, now those men have turned
+Queen's evidence?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't think so. Let's see.&quot; The Commissioner drew a list towards him,
+and ran his eye over it. &quot;I've condemned three warders and seven
+prisoners to death for poor Dering's murder; so I daresay penal
+servitude will see through the rest. Then there's <i>jogi</i> Gorakh-nāth
+and his <i>gosain</i>. They ought to be hung, but we haven't caught them,
+and we never shall; the wild ass that snuffeth up the east wind isn't
+in it with a Hindoo ascetic in eluding captors! So the lot out there
+are really small fry; for the other ringleaders are either dead or
+departed--even that amphibious brute, Gu-gu.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon looked up cheerfully. &quot;By George! I'd have given something
+to see that water-fight between him and Am-ma! By the way, what are you
+going to do for that queer fish? But for him, we would never have seen
+Lance Carlyon's face again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Commissioner's expression was curious. &quot;It's a bit hard to do
+anything for a man who wants nothing but earth, air, and water, and has
+got all three; besides--&quot; he drew a paper out of a file, looked at it,
+then looked at the doctor--&quot;besides it wasn't altogether Am-ma!&quot; He
+paused, smiled an infinitely kind smile, then went on: &quot;I was a brute,
+entirely, to talk about a heavy toll just now. We get its worth back,
+me dear fellow, over and over again. See! here is Am-ma's <i>affidavit</i>.
+I took it this morning, and upon me soul, Dillon, I should be obliged
+if you would tell me whether to hush it up, or inform the party
+concerned.&quot; So saying, his brogue took possession of the sun-bright,
+sun-dry air--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I, Am-ma, of the river folk, solemnly affirm that, knowing the
+<i>Dee-puk-rāg</i> to be in the power of the <i>Huzoors</i>, I several times
+warned Gu-gu not to follow other masters. But he had learned books, and
+become ignorant. He could not even feel when a current changed its
+course; and then he thought he must die, because of the ghost, and that
+made him wild. So when I refused, and set off, as ordained, for the
+raft, he took the Brahmin's money and stopped the miracle. Of a surety,
+the Awarder of Justice is right. This slave knew what was to come. He
+did not tell of it because, where the <i>Dee-puk-rāg</i> is, there is
+victory; so there was no fear. Yet when the Miss-<i>sahiba</i> bade me help
+her, I obeyed, because she has power over devils, and my son, <i>Huzoor</i>,
+is still in the first week of life. Therefore, for that reason, I
+guided the raft. But when I saw that the Light-bringers had smitten the
+darkness of evil-doers, and that the raft would be needed no more, I
+went on with it to the place appointed by the Wood-<i>wallah-sahib</i>
+whence it could float of itself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So I returned to my home and ate my bread. And the day was quiet, as
+the <i>Huzoor</i> knows; only the folk reviled, because I had no fish to
+sell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, at night, at the waning of the sunset stars, about the third
+jackal cry, came the Miss-<i>sahiba</i> to my hut.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon ceased twiddling his hat, and looked up in sudden interest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To my hut,&quot; reiterated the reading voice. &quot;I deemed it because of
+devils first; but it was not. It was because of Carlone-<i>sahib</i> who
+could not be found,--only his clothes and pistol on my craft, stranded
+on a sand-bank by the mid-channel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'He has not been killed,' said the Miss-<i>sahiba</i> 'He would not have
+fought with his clothes off. Nor did he go to fight. He would not have
+left the pistol if he had. He has gone swimming, to get quicker and
+find help. So he is drowned. He is in the river still, and I cannot
+think of it. Am-ma! you know every inch of the river. Find him! Find
+him!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I said: 'Yea, Miss-<i>sahiba</i> I will find him when his body rises.
+No man can find a dead one in the river till then.' But, as I spoke,
+the son at his mother's breast left sucking, and cried aloud. The
+Miss-<i>sahiba</i> said it was but the gripes, but we--my house and I--knew
+more than that. We knew it was the devils, winning a way because the
+Miss was not content. So I said: 'I will find him while his beauty is
+still on him, for you to see again,'--since that is in the heart of all
+women, O Awarder of Justice. Thus at the dawn--the dawn after the dawn
+of darkness--I, Am-ma, set out with my nets, seeing that fish, anyhow,
+could be found, and the market would be dear, because none had come to
+the bazaar during the commotion. So, remembering where my craft had
+stranded, I went first to mid-channel; thus, working up, came to where
+it had stranded once before. Then, seeing footmarks, I followed them,
+till in an island, eating his bread, I found the evil-begotten Gu-gu.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He had a knife in his bead belt, at the sight whereof I gave glory
+to gods and devils alike, for I knew the handle of it. It was
+Carlone-<i>sahib's shikar</i> knife, and I had been his <i>shikari</i> many a
+time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So I said, 'Where gottest thou Carlone-<i>sahib's</i> knife, Gu-gu?'
+thinking to startle him. And it did. He said no word, but came at me
+with it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So we fought. His right hand and mine on the knife, and our left arms
+round each other's throat, choking us; and our legs wrestling. Till the
+water grew too deep. Then we swam with them. But he said nothing, nor
+did I. There was no need. We understood, as dogs do, that it was foe
+and foe. So it came to the deep stream; his right hand and mine,
+with the knife between them, and our teeth fixed in each other's
+shoulders,--till I bethought me of his ear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then he yelled, and let go; but I was after him as he dived. It was a
+long race. Wherefore not? since we are the best swimmers in the river.
+But I felt the cleave of the water from his foot at last, and spent
+myself in one stroke. So I laid hold of his leg and ran my hand up till
+I found his back. Then I used Carlone-<i>sahib's</i> knife on him, and he
+sank; and I sank too, with the blow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And when I came up, leaving him there, I found how long the race had
+been, for my right hand struck the city wall. Then it came to me what
+the Miss-<i>sahiba</i> had said, of Carlone-<i>sahib</i> wishing to go quick; and
+I bethought me of the secret passages, and the knife, and Gu-gu's fear.
+And I said to myself someone must have restored the miracle. Not Gu-gu;
+else why was he hiding? What if it be Carlone-<i>sahib?</i> But most of all
+I thought of my little son, and the devils longing for him, and for a
+woman longing for the sight of a man's beauty, and I knew I must go and
+see if it lay there. So I dived, and found him, as the Awarder of
+Justice knows, sitting high up, with the water about his feet, waiting
+for death, and brought him back as I promised. And Gu-gu is dead, for
+his body was drifting by the tunnel with Carlone-<i>sahib's</i> knife in the
+back as we came out. So the Miss is pleased, and the devils do not come
+near my son.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The brogue ceased, and there was a pause. &quot;Well! what do ye say,
+Dillon?&quot; asked the Commissioner, fretfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George Dillon rose and put on his hat deliberately. &quot;Nothing. Except
+that I must really be off. I've to see Smith first, and Carlyon--that
+sprained ankle of his, which he got trying to climb up beyond the rise
+of the water, will be the deuce and all if he uses it too soon. And
+then, if I can, I want to get round and say good-by to--to the
+Miss-<i>sahiba</i>. She's off to Herrnhut again this evening. In fact,
+Campbell didn't half like her waiting for the funeral, he is in such a
+blessed hurry to get to his new field, as he calls it; thinks of
+nothing else. They are to be married on Monday, I believe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Commissioner laid aside Am-ma's <i>affidavit</i> with a soft &quot;damn,&quot; and
+Dr. Dillon paused on his way out at the sound.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quite so,--I entirely agree with you,&quot; he said sympathetically; &quot;but,
+unfortunately, there is only one person who has a right to tell that
+story, sir--and she won't!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not?&quot; interrupted the Commissioner, militantly--&quot;why the blazes
+shouldn't a woman tell the truth?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because women don't know it,&quot; broke in the doctor, &quot;or men either, for
+that matter. Because we men and women have got ourselves on such false
+lines, into such an absolutely false position towards each other, that
+the only course consistent with propriety and <i>les convenances</i> is
+to--to hush the thing up! So hush-a-bye baby, sir, to your heart's
+content. So long as the mother can tell her blessed infant that she is
+a lady, what does the real fact matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He spoke with a concentrated bitterness, an almost fierce resentment,
+and the Commissioner nodded, finished his whiskey-and-soda at a gulp,
+and returned to work, tossing his papers about recklessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's a quare world, certainly,&quot; he murmured, with a lack of
+originality which sat ill on him. Then, catching sight of something in
+a file, his humorous, kindly self returned. &quot;Listen to this now, for
+quareness,&quot; he laughed, beginning to read:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'The petition of Mussumat Mumtāza Mahal'--that's Roshan Khān's
+grandmother, you know--'sister,' etc., etc., 'humbly sheweth that she
+has endured grievous wrong and hurt, by loss of her grandson in the
+late deplorable mutiny (of which she was utterly incognizant, being
+helpless, veiled, old woman perpetually confined in house). Therefore
+prayeth that whereas one Mussumat Ashrāf-un-nissa, her neighbour, is in
+receipt of pension rupees twenty-five <i>per mensem</i> for similar
+bereavement of male protector and head of family lost in '57 mutiny,
+therefore her pension of rupees twenty <i>per mensem</i>, only, for exile of
+husband to Calcutta, be commuted to similar sum of twenty-five, seeing
+that your poor petitioner is in floods of tears and wholly heartbroken
+through this most nonregulation, premature death of promising young
+scion of her noble house, on whom, as on blessed Victoria, Queen, her
+hopes were fixed. Said petitioner being able to prove <i>alibi</i>, absolute
+incomplicity, and continuous remaining at home during late devilish
+disturbances.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor old soul!&quot; laughed the doctor, &quot;give it to her if you can, sir.
+And as for remaining at home, everybody except the actual conspirators
+did that. Even Dya-Ram, the disaffected--though he has preached armed
+resistance to tyranny in his paper for years. He barricaded himself in
+with his printing-press. Fact; jammed his fingers in so doing, and came
+to me in a blind funk for a professional certificate that the wound
+could not have been caused by any lethal weapon. As if anyone could
+ever have suspected him of taking part in raising a row, or even in
+settling one! His sort are simply negligible quantities.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But Ramanund seems to have attempted a lead,&quot; put in the Commissioner,
+judicially.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Exactly. Attempted, and failed. His sort are negligible quantities
+also, sir, I'm sorry to say, and will remain so until they learn,
+amongst other knowledge, to believe in something besides
+themselves--&quot; here the hard eyes softened, the hard voice paused. &quot;That
+is another thing I should like to have seen--dear old Pidar Narāyan--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The hard voice found even softness too loud; and in the silence which
+fell between the two men, only the Commissioner's pen could be heard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You'll look in at the palace, perhaps, and see all is right,&quot; came the
+brogue, after a bit, &quot;and give my love to old Smith. I'm not sure but
+that I'd rather have seen him behind the door than anything else, for
+it must have been the hardest job--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Considering the circumstances, yes!&quot; put in the doctor; so, with the
+pith hat turning him into an animated mushroom, he passed out into the
+blaze of dry yellow sunshine, on that dry yellow sand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sky above was molten with light and heat, the gaol positively
+shimmered in the glare. Not a sound, not a sight, told of that
+midsummer night's dream of wild, useless revolt, save when one of the
+shackled prisoners awaiting trial sought a better bit of shade under
+the wilted palms, which, not a week before, had welcomed the Hosts of
+the Lord-<i>sahib</i> on their way to the hills.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The whole thing seemed incredible; yet, as he crossed the road to enter
+the Smiths' compound, the footsteps of those other Hosts who had passed
+on to the hills also remained to dimple the dry yellow sand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Smiths' bungalow lay calm, peaceful; the drawing-room, as he
+entered it, struck him with the old, familiar sense of refinement,
+indexing the refinement of its mistress. Only one change caught his
+observant eyes. Vincent Dering's photograph was no longer on the
+mantle-piece, whence it had always looked out with a certain challenge
+in its very prominence. Where had it gone? What matter? There was no
+need for such defiance now, thought George Dillon, with that curious
+half-cynical, half-resentful smile he kept for one subject only. She
+might keep the photograph where she chose, now, and none would blame
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So thinking, he set aside the curtain which hung at his patient's door,
+and as he did so, resentment, cynicism, vanished in quick sympathy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! fever again, I see,--that's a bore,&quot; he said, going over swiftly
+to the bed where Eugene Smith's long length lay visibly shivering; for
+something,--the exposure, the excitement, the strain, perhaps, of that
+awful inaction behind the door against which Vincent Dering was making
+that heroic stand,--had knocked the big man over, a prey to an old
+enemy--malarial fever. &quot;When did it come on?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Muriel Smith, who sat on the bed, her hand in one of her husband's
+shaking, trembling ones, looked up. She was very pale, but very calm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Half an hour ago. It is a pity. We hoped it was broken, didn't we? But
+he will fret himself so, Doctor--&quot; Her eyes, on Dr. Dillon's, were
+telling their tale, so that it scarcely needed the rambling, quivering
+voice to show that the fresh onset of fever had once more clouded the
+sick man's brain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How can a fellow help fretting,&quot; murmured Eugene, his teeth
+chattering, &quot;when he waits like a coward behind a door, where his best
+friend--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The woman beside him winced, but interrupted him bravely. &quot;But I tell
+him, Doctor--and it's true, isn't it?--that it was hardest for
+<i>him</i>--and that--that Vincent would rather have had it so--because he
+had to leave no one, and Eugene had Gladys--and me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her voice seemed to bring comfort, and the glistening, feverish eyes
+closed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go on with the mixture,&quot; said the doctor, vexedly conscious of a lump
+in his throat. &quot;This will wear itself out in a day or two; and--you
+can't do more than you're doing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suppose not,&quot; she replied listlessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the tragedy of her face remained in his memory as he drove over the
+creaking, groaning bridge to Eshwara. The bazaar was full as ever with
+drifting humanity, busy in the details of every-day life. There was no
+hint anywhere of the past storm; not even in the palace. It lay, as
+ever, silent; its blank walls seeming to hold the sunlight back from
+some secret within,--from some veiled, hidden beauty. The door was
+closed, but old Akbar Khān came capering at his call, his back roached,
+in bowing, like a caterpillar's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The tomb is finished, <i>Ge-reeb-pun-wāz</i>,&quot; he mumbled, in blubbering
+importance. &quot;<i>Ala!</i> the sad day! But this slave, knowing all customary
+things, hath remained insistent on the workmen; therefore all is
+befitting the noble people, as the <i>Huzoor</i> will see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, down the shadowy passage he led the way, crablike, to the chapel;
+for hither, long years before, Father Ninian had brought the body of
+Pietro Bonaventura, and here, just in front of the Altar steps, he and
+Pietro's granddaughter--the last of the old priest's charges,--had been
+buried the day before. The masons had been busy, building up the vault
+again; but, as Akbar Khān had said, the work was finished, the chapel
+restored to its original state, swept, and garnished. Even the candles
+were lit on the Altar, and four of the tallest tapers had been placed,
+one at each corner of the stone slab on which two more names would have
+to be cut; while from these tapers long strings of jasmine flowers,
+such as native women wear, had been hung in drooping chains to form an
+enclosure. On the slab itself great bossed yellow marigolds were laid
+to simulate a cross.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon turned to the cringing figure beside him sharply; but there
+was something almost pathetic in its simper of conscious merit, its
+certainty of satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did you do that?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Ge-reeb-pun-wāz!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a world of pride and of servitude in the voice, and in the
+folded, prayerful hands which shot out under the bowings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This slave made it! The <i>Huzoor</i> will notice it is, fitting. Even the
+'<i>crass</i>'--&quot; he pointed his prayerful hands to the marigolds--&quot;is not
+forgotten. Has not this dust-like one spent his life in preparing
+amusements and spectacles for the noble people? He knows that tombs
+require flowers, as women do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Through the arches behind the old pantaloon Dr. Dillon could catch a
+glimpse of the garden, ablaze with colour, could smell the perfume of
+the now fading orange-blossoms, could see the water-maze, with its
+marble ledges, among the lotus, just wide enough for the flying feet of
+a laughing girl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words, the contrast, held him, as the old man went on with an
+orthodox whine of petition in his voice:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So, since the <i>Sirkar</i> will doubtless appoint a guardian of tombs,
+seeing there is none to inherit the palace, if the Protector of the
+Poor would intercede for this slave with the Commissioner?--if the
+<i>Huzoor</i> would say that the dust-like one has provided the pleasures of
+palaces all his life long for the noble people; yea! from the cradle to
+the grave. If he will say that--&quot; he flourished his hands towards the
+slab--&quot;both in the making of garlands and the making of '<i>crasses</i>,'
+there is none equal--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>For tombs require flowers, as women do!</i>&quot; The phrase asserted itself
+again, and Dr. Dillon looked at the wicked old face, so comic, so
+pathetic, with the hopeless recognition of the humour of tragedy which
+comes to all save the invincibly dull.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You would do as well as anyone,&quot; he said gravely. &quot;I'll mention your
+name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Ge--reeb-pun--wāz!</i>&quot; The title prolonged itself abnormally, and Akbar
+Khān, a mask of toothless smiles, darted, in instant assumption of his
+anticipated office, to remove a fallen jasmine flower from Dr. Dillon's
+path as if it had been a deadly reptile. Indeed, he paused in the midst
+of his parting <i>salaams</i> to ask if it was in order that the populace be
+admitted to the sanctuary, since the <i>missen-miss</i> (his accent of
+disdain, tempered by reverence, was delicious) had announced her desire
+to enter it that afternoon for farewell; had, indeed, asked him to be
+there at four to open the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon turned so sharply that the old courtier began instantly on
+asseverations that, without orders--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have everything ready, of course,&quot; interrupted the doctor,
+impatiently; so strode off across the courtyard, his head down, his
+hands in his pockets, with a jerk, as of irritation, in his walk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He found Lance Carlyon in the balcony over the river, very apologetic
+at being caught there against orders. But it was so dreary keeping to
+one's room, he said; especially when there were a lot of dismal things
+to think about; and he really had been most careful--had made two of
+his pioneers almost carry him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Doesn't seem to have done much harm!&quot; admitted the doctor, gruffly, as
+he sat feeling the ankle and looking at Lance with the oddest air of
+impatience, irritation, and kindliness. Yet there was nothing strange
+in Lance's wholesome young face, save that it showed a little older, a
+little graver.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It <i>must</i> be beastly dull, too,&quot; went on the doctor, loudly, suddenly.
+&quot;You--you might get them to help you over to the palace garden this
+afternoon; about four, you know, when it gets cool. That would be a
+change.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lance positively gasped. &quot;Rath-er! Why! you told me yesterday I wasn't
+to move a muscle for ten days!&quot; Dr. Dillon positively blushed, under
+the brown. He got up vexedly, walked to the parapet, looked down the
+river towards the mission house, and came back again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No more you are!&quot; he said fiercely. &quot;Not what <i>you</i> call moving. But
+gentle exercise and--and congenial society--and all that! You know the
+treatment! Besides the Hutton-Wharton-Hood school don't believe in
+rest. And--and--look here!--I'll put you on the stiffest starch bandage
+ever made--and--Oh! confound it, man, one must risk something
+sometimes, you know! Here, orderly; go over to the <i>sahib's</i> washerman
+and tell him to make me double-extra-white-shirt-front-starch, and if
+that doesn't counteract the--the indiscretion--why--why--I wash my
+hands of the whole business!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was at work undoing the bandages already, and the last part of his
+remarks came, argumentatively, to himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you really think it might injure me permanently,&quot; began Lance,
+soberly, in some surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Dillon paused, and looked up with a vast resentment. &quot;If you mean
+your foot, I don't think it will, and that's all I'm responsible
+for--thank God!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But as, half an hour after this, he came out from saying good-by to
+Erda Shepherd, he paused as he passed the Pool of Immortality, and
+looked down into it as if he felt some need of salvation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'<i>If I be not damned for this!</i>'&quot; he quoted softly, shook his head,
+and went back to his prisoners.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it came to pass that when Erda Shepherd--after laying the wreath she
+had brought as a sort of crown to Akbar Khān's '<i>crass</i>'--went into the
+garden for a last look at the familiar places, she found Lance Carlyon
+comfortably settled in one of the balconies overhanging the river.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is luck!&quot; he cried, forgetting the starched bandage until
+reminded of it by a sudden twinge of pain. &quot;I thought I was never to
+see you again, and it seemed a bit rough--on--on us both; considering
+what a lot we did together, you know. I've been writing you a letter,
+to say how disappointed I was at not being able to get over and see you
+all this morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That was very kind of you,&quot; she said feebly, conscious that the
+surprise had made her feel a little limp. Though, of course, she
+regretted nothing; nothing at all!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I've been wanting to know such a lot,&quot; he went on. &quot;Of course I heard
+about the others, but not about you--you needn't go away immediately,
+need you?&quot; he asked, as he watched her face,--&quot;if--if you could stop a
+bit, it would be so jolly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The frank wistfulness of his tone was too much for her. &quot;Yes! I can
+stop,&quot; she said quietly; &quot;what is it you want to know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lots of things; but about yourself first of all!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herself! That would be the hardest task, she felt; and the memory of
+that senseless flight from her own reflection in the mirror came back
+to bring a quick flush to her cheek.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course, if you'd rather not--&quot; began observant Lance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was only thinking there was very little to tell,&quot; she put in
+quickly. She was not even going to allow that, in keeping this incident
+to herself, she was giving it any importance. She had told herself
+during the last few days that it had been unfortunate, that was all.
+Otherwise it was trivial; since it did not, could not, alter her
+decision. On the contrary, it strengthened it; just as a temptation
+resisted always strengthened that resistance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, in the balcony where lovers had sat and talked of love, those two
+sat talking of that midsummer night's dream, of everything but love. Of
+Vincent Dering's song, of the raft, of Lance's experience as he clung
+to the highest crevice, and felt the water stop steady between his knee
+and his ankle. Of his incredulity when Am-ma appeared, and his
+immediate lapse into unconsciousness; chiefly, he supposed, because
+there was no need for further endurance. Of how he had no notion of
+anything till he found himself lying on a string bed in the sun, right
+away on the other side of the town, whither Am-ma had brought him, by
+Heaven knows what secret passage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, as the shadows grew long, they seemed to invade Lance's face, and
+bring a doubt to it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I haven't seen Am-ma since,&quot; he said, &quot;so I haven't found out yet why
+on earth he came to look for me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Erda rose and held out her hand. &quot;We were all looking for you, Mr.
+Carlyon,&quot; she said quietly, &quot;and we were all very glad to find you.
+And--and I am very sorry to--to lose you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rose too, stiffly, and, taking her hand, held it while he looked
+into her face steadily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good-by, Miss Shepherd--I'm--I'm sorry it has to be that--but you know
+best. And thank you for telling me--so much.&quot; He paused, and his hand
+tightened on hers a little. &quot;Thanks all round, for <i>that!</i> It has been
+the truth between us, hasn't it, always? And so--though it has been a
+bit rough--Good-by!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a pause, a curious pause.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good-by,&quot; she echoed dully, her face grown very pale. His hand left
+hers gently. She turned and faced the garden, where the shadows were
+invading the blaze of colour, and the coming cool was sending the scent
+of the orange-blossoms into the air. The water-maze, with its marble
+ledges, where there was but room for the feet of a laughing girl, lay
+still and glistening before her. The palace, with its fanciful nooks,
+its illogical recesses, its suggestion of elusive pleasures beyond the
+pale of solid reality, rose up into the sky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And something in the scene came home to her with the sense that all
+this, in its way, was real also. That this was part of the truth. The
+truth which she had not told.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>It has been the truth between us, hasn't it, always?</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turned suddenly to where Lance stood; turned to find him leaning
+over the balcony, looking down into the water with a listlessness he
+had held in check till then; and a great wave of remorse swept through
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It has not been the truth between us!&quot; she cried impulsively,
+recklessly--&quot;not quite--but, I will tell it now--if you like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked up, startled. &quot;If you think I--I ought to know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave a queer, half-impatient laugh. &quot;Ought! How do I know? Yes! I
+suppose so--as it's true--absolutely true. I can't help that, can I?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a forlornness in the confession; almost a despair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then tell me, please,&quot; said Lance, deliberately making room for her to
+lean over the balustrade beside him. His heart was beating fast at
+something in her face, and yet his uppermost thought was for her; for
+that forlornness, that despair. &quot;I can forget it afterwards--if you
+want me to,&quot; he added consolingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She came to the place beside him, and looked down, hiding her face from
+all but the sliding river; and he, seeing her desire, looked into it
+also.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was about my starting on the raft,&quot; she began with a little sob. &quot;I
+didn't tell you the truth about that. I--I didn't come to give the
+warning at first--I--I was coming to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes!&quot; he said quietly; but his hand found hers and held it. &quot;You were
+coming to me, dear,--why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That touch seemed at once to help her, and to make her desperate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because--oh, Lance! it was so foolish! I saw myself in the glass--all
+in white with the orange in my hand--and I thought of you--of what you
+said--of--of the World's Desire, and--and I felt I couldn't--so--so I
+was coming to you--first--when Am-ma--don't you see--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a long pause. His hand, firm, strong, did not tighten, it
+simply held hers as they both looked down on the sliding river.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thanks!&quot; he said after a time; and then there was another pause until
+he added, &quot;It will be a bit rough, I'm afraid, on the Reverend David,
+but I don't see how we can help that--do you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And this time his clasp tightened. Erda said nothing; she felt there
+was nothing more to say, now that the truth had been told between them.
+So while the sinking sun flared red on the &quot;Cradle of the Gods&quot; another
+man and woman consoled themselves for the lost Paradise.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_01" href="#div4Ref_01">Footnote 1</a>:
+Bonaventura.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_02" href="#div4Ref_02">Footnote 2</a>: Pension.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_03" href="#div4Ref_03">Footnote 3</a>: Night, or
+darkness.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_04" href="#div4Ref_04">Footnote 4</a>: Light, or
+day.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_05" href="#div4Ref_05">Footnote 5</a>: Narāyan,
+in the Hindoo mythology, is the creative spirit
+brooding on the waters.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_06" href="#div4Ref_06">Footnote 6</a>: Another
+kind of religious mendicant.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_07" href="#div4Ref_07">Footnote 7</a>: The
+ceremonial hospitality offered at levees.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_08" href="#div4Ref_08">Footnote 8</a>: Big lady.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_09" href="#div4Ref_09">Footnote 9</a>: Abuse it.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_10" href="#div4Ref_10">Footnote 10</a>: Lit.:
+outcasts, used as a term of abuse for Europeans.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div4_11" href="#div4Ref_11">Footnote 11</a>: Certain.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Hosts of the Lord, by Flora Annie Steel
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hosts of the Lord, by Flora Annie Steel
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: The Hosts of the Lord
+
+Author: Flora Annie Steel
+
+Release Date: June 13, 2012 [EBook #39991]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOSTS OF THE LORD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
+Google Books (the University of California)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://books.google.com/books?id=x2YpAQAAIAAJ
+      (the University of California)
+
+   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        THE HOSTS OF THE LORD
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        THE HOSTS OF THE LORD
+
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                          FLORA ANNIE STEEL
+
+        AUTHOR OF "ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS," "MISS STUART'S
+             LEGACY," "THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               New York
+
+                        THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+                     LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
+
+                                 1900
+
+                        _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           Copyright, 1899,
+                        By FLORA ANNIE STEEL.
+
+
+                           Copyright, 1900,
+                      By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+
+                            Norwood Press
+                 J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
+                         Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER
+
+         I. A Shadow.
+
+        II. "He shall feed his Flock like a Shepherd."
+
+       III. Driftwood.
+
+        IV. Under-currents.
+
+         V. The "Dee-Puk-Rag."
+
+        VI. Alpha and Omega.
+
+       VII. The World's Desire.
+
+      VIII. Falling Stars.
+
+        IX. Out of the Past.
+
+         X. The Pivots of Life.
+
+        XI. Wheels within Wheels.
+
+       XII. The Church Militant.
+
+      XIII. At the Gates.
+
+       XIV. Miracle Mongers.
+
+        XV. Oh! dem Golden Slippers!
+
+       XVI. Echoes.
+
+      XVII. The Pool of Immortality.
+
+     XVIII. Adrift.
+
+       XIX. Juliet.
+
+        XX. Trapped.
+
+       XXI. Margherita.
+
+      XXII. A Monopoly.
+
+     XXIII. The Search-Light.
+
+      XXIV. Beyond the Shadow.
+
+       XXV. Dawn.
+
+      XXVI. Foiled.
+
+     XXVII. L'Addio del Marito.
+
+    XXVIII. The Truth.
+
+
+
+
+
+                        THE HOSTS OF THE LORD
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Two Bars of Music]
+
+
+
+
+
+                        THE HOSTS OF THE LORD
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+                               A SHADOW
+
+
+"Understand! Of course you don't. I don't, though I've been here two
+years. And what's more, I don't want to," retorted a rather undersized
+Englishman, whose white drill suit made him look like a stem to the
+huge mushroom of a pith hat which he wore. Despite this protection his
+face was brown exceedingly, and faintly wrinkled through sheer exposure
+to sun-bright, sun-dried air. The fact enhanced the monkey type of his
+features, and made his clear, light-blue eyes--so set that they were
+shadowless below and cavernous above--look quite aggressively cool,
+inquisitive, intelligent.
+
+"So long as we don't understand them," he went on, "and they don't
+understand us, we jog along the same path amicably, like--well! like
+the pilgrims to the 'Cradle of the Gods,' and the telegraph-posts to
+the Adjutant General's office up the road yonder--and I'll trouble you
+to cram more space than that between two earthly poles! No! It is when
+we begin to have glimmerings that the deuce and all comes in--" He
+paused in the molten gold of sunlight, which made the yellow sand, the
+corn-coloured tussocks of tiger-grass still yellower and still more
+corn-coloured, to glance round, as if measuring the distance between
+the long, low line of mud enclosure they had left but a few hundred
+yards behind--yet which, already, was losing itself in an illimitable
+sand stretch beyond--and a bigger tuft in the sand stretch ahead; a
+tuft of spear-points and horses, bayonets and men, waiting beside the
+first faint semblance of a reed-paved road. Then he took out his watch.
+Apparently he found leisure at his disposal, for he walked on. "There's
+a nursery rhyme they taught me," he continued, "when my moral nature
+was at the mercy of any fool who chose to take an interest in it--'_But
+if poor Pussy understood, she'd be, indeed, a naughty creature!_' It
+didn't run so consecutively, of course; in fact 'creature' rhymed to
+'teach her'--but I learnt it that way. Children do that sort of thing a
+sight deal oftener than their elders think."
+
+The younger of the two men in uniform with whom he was walking
+laughed--the honest, elated, conscious laugh of one who has not many
+good stories about himself, and happens on an opportunity for telling
+one of them.
+
+"_I_ used to say, '_Six days shalt thy neighbour do all that thou hast
+to do, and the seventh day shalt thou do no manner_--'"
+
+"Shut up, Lance!" interrupted his elder companion with a laugh. "It is
+a ripping excuse for your intolerable laziness, but I don't believe--"
+
+"Fact, I assure you," protested Lance Carlyon aggrievedly, "and
+considering I really thought that was the proper version for ten years
+of my life, I--"
+
+Dr. George Dillon took off his mushroom hat suddenly, and wiped his
+forehead as if to smooth away the wrinkles which his smiles had brought
+to it. "Lordy! It's a queer world," he put in. "There is really no good
+in understanding most things. As for this place--! Great Scott! What
+would happen if my fifteen hundred scoundrels, whom you saw digging
+like babes in the open just now, were to understand that I--one
+Englishman in charge--had virtually no _force majeure_--"
+
+"Don't insult us, Dillon!" remonstrated Captain Vincent Dering, a
+certain swagger underlying his jest. "Eshwara is a garrison town,
+remember, now; I'm commandant, and Carlyon's staff--"
+
+He had, in fact, ridden that morning as far as Dr. Dillon's house in
+charge of a troop of native cavalry and some Sikh pioneers who had gone
+on, under a native officer, to take up their temporary quarters in the
+half-ruined Fort, just beyond the old town of Eshwara. And now, having
+thus secured their breakfasts, he and his lieutenant were on their way
+towards the horses and escort they had bidden await them at the boat
+bridge which lay between them and their destination. For George Dillon
+was in control of a large industrial gaol, whose inmates had for months
+been digging the head works of a canal, which was to take off just
+below the town, on the farther side of the river.
+
+"Are you?" replied the doctor, with a look of pity; "then I hope you'll
+both forget the fact. We've got on all right without you, hitherto. So
+if you'll stick to marking out the Viceroy's camp, and generally
+preparing the way of the Lord-sahib, I'll be obliged to you. By the
+way, is he coming to open the canal on the 10th, really?"
+
+"So they say. That is, if you are ready for the show by then. I believe
+he could put it off till the 11th or 12th. Dashwood said something to
+that effect."
+
+"Then Dashwood's an ass. The 10th is bad enough. The place will be
+filling up even then."
+
+"Filling up! How?"
+
+"Pilgrims. But on the 11th and 12th! By George! you should see them!
+The 'Assyrians came down like a wolf on the fold,' is nothing to it;
+only these are the Hosts of the Lord, I suppose. And so Dashwood
+suggested the 11th or 12th--the _Vaisakh_ festival, did he? Well, he is
+an ass! But that's always the way. We try to understand feelings,
+instead of trying to know facts. However, we shall be ready for the
+opening, never fear. Smith expects his C. S. I. over it, he says, and
+that's enough guarantee. You know Smith, don't you, Dering? Walsall
+Smith--I think his wife said she knew you."
+
+"Yes," he interrupted, with rather unnecessary decision, "Mrs. Walsall
+Smith is a great friend of mine, a very great friend."
+
+"Jolly for you, having friends in Eshwara," assented Lance, in uneasy
+haste. "I suppose they are about the only people here, eh, doctor?" he
+went on, changing the subject; but the latter's clear eyes and brain
+were occupied for a moment in taking stock of Captain Dering's
+singular, if a trifle _voyant_ personal attractions; one of the most
+noticeable of which was the perfect curve of his throat and cheek.
+
+"I beg your pardon--people, did you say?" asked Dr. Dillon, after the
+pause. "Plenty of people, if you count _padres_--the place swarms with
+missions, you know. But if you mean polo--" He shook his head.
+
+Lance Carlyon's honest young face clouded, then grew cheerful again.
+"Well! there must be a lot of black partridge, and I expect there's
+fish in the river. Besides, it's an awfully picturesque place--By Jove!
+it is, Dering, isn't it?"
+
+They had reached the tuft of spear-points and horses, men and bayonets,
+and before them lay Eshwara, sun-saturate, shadowless, in the April
+noon.
+
+So seen, across the still lagoon of water formed by the junction of the
+two streams, the Hara and the Hari, which edged the low-lying
+triangular spit from which its fortified, temple-set walls rose,
+Eshwara seemed at the very foot of the blue barrier of hill behind it,
+whose serrated edge, paler than the blue sky above it, claimed
+three-quarters of all things visible for this world.
+
+That, indeed, was the noticeable point in the picture presented to the
+eye. As a rule Heaven claims the larger half of all perspectives. Here,
+the three elements, earth, air, water, lay across the view in three
+broad bands of blue, curiously similar in tint; for the sky was pale
+with excess of light, the hills with excess of heat, and the water
+paler than either by reason of a white silt which it brought with it
+from the snows; a white silt which a recent flood had left in a fine
+film upon the sand stretches that showed here and there in the broad
+basin.
+
+"It is a gypsum _detritus_," explained the doctor--"from the 'Cradle of
+the Gods'--the cave, you know, where the rivers rise. The pilgrims go,
+in fact, for this very stuff. Find it in the ice crannies, call it 'the
+clay of immortality,' smear themselves with it, and then die happy, in
+hundreds, of pneumonia! Those are the facts. I don't profess to
+understand them; and as I told you I don't want to. It's dangerous. As
+that cracked old Jesuit, Father Narayan, admitted, with that
+unfathomable smile of his, when all the other parsons were at me for
+refusing to allow them access to a postulate or a catechumen, or
+someone of that sort, who was sent to my jail '_the Church has always
+admitted the value of invincible ignorance_.'"
+
+"Father Narayan!" interrupted Lance Carlyon eagerly, "I suppose that's
+the Father Ninian Bruce who has lived here fifty years, and has a sort
+of Begum in tow, a descendant of General Bonaventura's, who was the
+Nawabs' favourite. I want to see that old chap; he must be a character.
+My grandmother, old Lady Carewe, used to tell me about him; long yarns,
+though she hadn't met him since she was in her teens in a convent at
+Rome, and he was father confessor, I suppose--she's a Holy Roman, you
+know, and was a desperate flirt too."
+
+"So am I," said Vincent Dering quickly. "I mean a Catholic--at least my
+people are. So I can tell you one thing, Dillon; Father Ninian isn't a
+Jesuit. I was talking about him at the Club, when I knew I was coming
+here, and Father Delamere was indignant at the idea--said he was a
+disgrace to his cloth."
+
+George Dillon's dry face grew dryer. "Did he, indeed! I quite agree
+that _he_ is, but I didn't think Delamere would have admitted the fact
+himself! As for Pidar Narayan, as the natives call him, he--he--" here
+the dry face melted. "Bless the man," he continued, and the dry voice
+grew soft, "he thinks he knows more about doctoring than I do, and the
+worst of it is--" here a perfectly charming smile took possession of
+every wrinkle--"he does, in a way; for the natives believe in him, and
+the 'saffron bag' is the best of all remedies. You see, when he was
+younger, he used often to go with the pilgrims and try to pull some of
+the poor devils out of the fire--or rather out of the snow--for the
+'Cradle of the Gods' lies yonder."
+
+He pointed to where, faint and far, a peak showed paler than the rest.
+
+"Why don't they smear themselves here?" asked Lance stolidly.
+
+"Why? Because they don't. Besides, there isn't much to come and go upon
+for a robe of righteousness here. Look! the breeze is blowing it away
+already!"
+
+In truth the sun, which with the other three elements of earth, and
+air, and water, give us, in all religions, the whole spiritual life of
+man,--the world of his probation, the heaven of his hopes, the means of
+his purification, and the fire of his retribution--had scorched the
+fine film to dust, and the wind, blowing where it listed, was sweeping
+it away, leaving the sand stretches unregenerate as ever.
+
+"An extra touch of pipe-clay!" laughed Vincent Dering, dusting his knee
+as he settled himself in his saddle. "Well! good-by, old chap. I shall
+see you again soon, for I shall be coming over to the Smiths' pretty
+often, and I suppose your regiment of ruffians leaves you off duty
+sometimes. Carlyon, make Dillon an honourary member of the headquarters
+mess!"
+
+George Dillon, leaning with his hands in his pockets against the rail
+of the first pontoon, watching the little cavalcade start, nodded.
+"Thanks. I'm over pretty often at the Palace. Pidar Narayan plays the
+fiddle, and the Begum,--as you call her,--Miss Laila Bonaventura, has a
+voice. Besides, Babylon--I mean Eshwara--amuses me."
+
+"Why Babylon?" asked Captain Dering, stooping to straighten his
+stirrup.
+
+The doctor laughed, as his lounge changed to a start homeward. "Means
+the same thing. Esh-dwarra--or in another tongue, Bab-y-lon,--is 'the
+Gate of God,' though Babylon stands for something else nowadays,
+doesn't it? That's why I say it's never any use to find out the
+meanings of things. They change so. Stick to facts; they don't. Well,
+ta-ta. I'll see you to-morrow, most likely, at the Palace. They have a
+sort of concert-practice-afternoon on Wednesdays--some of the Mission
+ladies sing jollily in parts--and the old man is sure to ask you. He
+sets great store on his ward's position; besides, I told him you were a
+nailer at the piano."
+
+Vincent Dering made a wry face. "The deuce you did! My dear fellow, I
+couldn't play hymn tunes to save my life. I shall refuse."
+
+"Pity," replied Dr. Dillon over his shoulder, as he swung off in
+strides which emphasized the undue shortness of his trousers, "for I
+heard Mrs. Smith say they wanted a good accompanist. She sings
+_alto_--rather well."
+
+"Oh, does she?" said Captain Dering, in a different tone.
+
+As they set their faces different ways, there was a smile on both, but
+the doctor's was scarcely a pleasant one; it would, in fact, have been
+wholly sardonic but for the touch of impatient weariness it brought
+with it.
+
+So, through the sun-bright, sun-dried air, while George Dillon walked
+back to his fifteen hundred malefactors, the little trail of
+spear-points and bayonets, men and horses, drifted at a foot-pace
+across the frail bridge towards the town; drifted unsteadily, the
+yielding boats swaying, the wooden girders giving and groaning over
+their burden. Seen so, with but a plank between it and the milky water
+creased by the faint current, there was something unreal in the gay
+troop of colour and glitter making its way to the quaint, storeyed
+town, ablaze in the sunlight, which turned each golden temple-spike to
+a star. A cool breeze fluttered the lance-pennants, and brought that
+faint film of white to horse and man, warm flesh, and cold steel.
+
+And far away on that pale peak, a little white cloud had rested, hiding
+the "Cradle of the Gods."
+
+"There must be fish here," remarked Lance dogmatically. "I'll get out
+my rods to-morrow and try for a '_mahseer_.'" And the earnestness of
+his face, as he lifted his eyes skyward to watch a couple of
+cormorants, would have suited a knight-errant of old on the quest of
+the Holy Grail.
+
+"It won't be half bad, I expect--for a time, at any-rate," assented
+Vincent Dering, still with that content upon his face. "We will get up
+some fun while the camp is here, of course; and after that--" he
+paused, and the content became greater--"we'll manage for the month or
+so we have to stop. At least I shall."
+
+His voice was soft. He might have been another knight-errant of old,
+riding across to the enchanted castle of his beloved.
+
+"I beg pardon, sir," said a voice behind him; a voice with a strong
+native accent, yet with a curiously English phrasing in it, "but by
+dismounting here you will reach the Fort in a few minutes on foot. The
+road is longer."
+
+Captain Dering turned, as if surprised, to the speaker, a native
+officer who sat his horse at the salute; then smiled, and with a
+clatter of accoutrements slipped to the ground.
+
+"Come along, Carlyon. I was forgetting that Roshan Khan is up to the
+ropes here. You belong to Eshwara, don't you, _risaldar sahib?_"
+
+The man to whom he spoke had slipped from his saddle also, and stood,
+smart as uniform could make him, still as discipline could hold him. He
+was a good-looking young Mahomedan of about thirty, curiously English
+in his movements, curiously native in his exaggeration of martial airs.
+
+"_Huzoor!_" he assented. "We are connected with the late Nawab's
+house."
+
+He spoke with absolute indifference, but Captain Dering, as they left
+the bazaar, which led from the bridge, for a short flight of steps and
+a narrow alley cleaving it's way through crowded, shouldering houses,
+remarked aside:--
+
+"I believe that means he is about the nearest relation left. The
+Colonel, I know, wasn't sure about the wisdom of his coming here; but
+then the Colonel is that sort. So I insisted. One wants somebody who
+can tell you things in a new place. What's that, in there, Roshan?"
+
+They had come to a long, high wall, with trees showing above it, which
+stretched away on their right hand for two or three hundred yards,
+until it ended in an arched tunnel through a massive block of buildings
+at right angles to it.
+
+"The palace garden, sir; and that is the palace. There is no entrance
+this side."
+
+"The women's apartments, I suppose?"
+
+"_Huzoor_," assented Roshan Khan once more. "The Miss _Sahib_ lives
+there now, and the _Padre_ has his chapel there too. The river runs
+along the side, and it is pleasant."
+
+"Pleasant and cool," echoed Lance, as the shadow of the tunnel closed
+in on them. "I'd no idea it was so hot outside. By Jove! what a quaint
+place."
+
+They were emerging on a wide, square courtyard of which the palace
+formed one side, the fort another, a flight of steps leading down to
+the river a third, while the fourth was apparently, a wing of the
+palace. All three walls were absolutely blank save for a low door at
+each of the four corners; and these were, so to speak, connected with
+each other by pathways raised two steps above the rest of the
+courtyard. A similar footpath crossed it in the middle and so completed
+the resemblance to a union-jack; for the pathways were of white marble
+and red Agra stone, the courtyard of purple-blue brick. These paths met
+in a round platform in the centre, where, on a stone carriage, stood an
+old cannon.
+
+"That's a big gun," said Vincent Dering, when, with a quickened clink
+of his spurred steps he had reached it; so, laying his hand lightly on
+the cylinder, he vaulted to it, as on to a horse, and stooped to read
+an inscription on the riveted band about the breech.
+
+"Sanskrit," he said--"that stumps me! it's so confounded straight. Ah!
+here it is in Persian too--that's better."
+
+There was a faint clash of steel on stone, for, as he read the motto
+aloud, Roshan's hand, stiffening on his sword-hilt, made ground and
+scabbard meet.
+
+Captain Dering slipped to his feet again with a laugh.
+
+"'Teacher of religion, and instructor of souls;' that's about a correct
+translation, isn't it, _risaldar sahib?_ Well! I'd back a Maxim against
+old Blunderbore as a missionary agent nowadays. Hullo! they worship it
+still, do they?" He pointed to a faded chaplet of marigolds around the
+muzzle, and a red hand printed on the marble below.
+
+The Mahomedan's face took on the expression of his race and creed; all
+unconsciously, too, he reverted to his own language.
+
+"The idolators do that when they come to bathe; and they give alms to
+the saint, when he is inside."
+
+"Inside!" echoed Captain Dering. "What! Inside the gun?"
+
+Here Lance, who had promptly peered down the muzzle, came up from it
+excitedly, asserting that the saint was there now; he could see the
+brute's fuzzy head half way down, so he must have crawled in feet
+foremost--one of those naked brutes who smeared themselves with ashes,
+to judge by his _chignon_.
+
+"Make a ripping mop," laughed Vincent Dering, after glancing down in
+his turn; "clean the gun nicely,"--then the _insouciance_ of his face
+disappeared, its curves hardened--"and by God! I'll make him. I'm not
+going to have my guns worshipped! eh, Roshan?"
+
+"_Huzoor_," assented the Mahomedan once more, this time joyfully, as--a
+decorous two paces behind--his spurs jingled in harmony with his
+captain's across the raised union-jack towards the river-end of the
+courtyard where, in a projecting bastion right upon the bathing steps,
+the low arched door stood which gave access to the Fort.
+
+In order to reach it they had to pass the solitary visible occupant of
+the wide, sunlit courtyard. This was a man--of what rank, education,
+occupation, none could tell--who having raised a square of
+two-inch-high mud wall between his twice-born purity and the world, was
+preparing his daily food. Naked, save for his waistcloth, and the
+thread of the twice-born over his left shoulder, he was isolated even
+from his kindred. Alone with himself and his God.
+
+Before him in the mud-plastered square, as he sat immovable, was the
+mud fireplace on which his wheaten dough-cake was cooking; beside him
+was a leaf-platter of curds, a brass vessel of milk; a sight to be seen
+a hundred times a day in India; one which should never be forgotten.
+
+The noon was almost shadowless; yet, even so, as he led the way,
+Captain Dering, from sheer habit, swerved to step further from the
+sacred square. Doing so his foot slipped an instant on the lower step.
+He gave an impatient exclamation and passed on. A minute later the door
+of the fort clanged behind the little party, cutting short an English
+laugh.
+
+Then, not till then, the man in that square of purity showed signs of
+life. He rose quietly, almost unconcernedly, took the half-baked cake
+from the embers, the leaf-platter of curds, the vessel of milk, and
+going down to the river's edge, flung his dinner into it, to feed the
+fishes.
+
+In that stumble, the plume-like fringe of Vincent Dering's high peaked
+turban had sent a shadow to overtop the two-inch barrier between one
+man and his fellows.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II
+
+              "HE SHALL FEED HIS FLOCK LIKE A SHEPHERD"
+
+
+The garden of the old palace at Eshwara had been rightly described by
+Roshan Khan as a pleasant place. Longer than it was broad, its shady
+walks and orange groves clung to the river, raised above it by a
+balconied wall against which the current ran dimpling. On two of the
+remaining sides, a twenty-feet high barrier of sheer masonry,
+buttressed and bastioned, blocked out all curious eyes. On the third,
+separating it from the courtyard where the big gun stood, rose the
+palace. Seen thus intimately from within, the latter had changed its
+character. No longer severe, stern, giving a blank stare at the world
+from the narrow slits of infrequent windows, it had grown fanciful,
+almost fantastic, full of canopied turrets and inconsequent little
+latticed retreats.
+
+At least in the two upper storeys; for the lower one was more solid,
+its chief feature being a wide, aisled passage leading right through it
+to a door which gave on the courtyard. Being exactly opposite the one
+in the corner of the Fort bastion on the other side, this door opened,
+as the latter did, on one of the slantwise limbs of the quaint
+union-jack of raised paths which centred in the cannon.
+
+It was not necessary, however, to go round by this in crossing from one
+door to the other, as by keeping to the river steps, you could do so on
+the same level.
+
+In old times the guardians of the frail beauties for whose delectation
+the garden had been made, had lived in the crypt-like vaulted rooms
+which opened out from this aisled passage; so keeping the gate against
+illegal wanderings. Since the only other exit from the garden, save by
+boat, was through the second storey of the women's apartments, and as
+this was by a door leading directly into the royal rooms (which were on
+the other side of the tunnel that gave access to the courtyard, and
+also divided the palace into two portions--male, and female), the
+butterfly prisoners had had no chance of fluttering to strange honey.
+In those days, therefore, the door had always been bolted and barred.
+
+It stood wide open, however, showing a vista of green at the farther
+end of the passage, when Captain Dering and Lance Carlyon came over to
+it in reply to the intimation that Miss Laila Bonaventura was "_At Home
+for music on Wednesday afternoons_," which had been brought to the Fort
+overnight by an old pantaloon. A very old pantaloon with a wizened
+face, a few sparse hairs--dyed flaming red--standing at right angles to
+his cheeks, and a marvellous livery, consisting for the most part of
+yards upon yards of tarnished tinsel cloth, twisted and twined about
+head and waist like Saturn's rings. The oldest of old pantaloons, with
+a back curved by a life-time of obeisances, a toothless mouth, still
+full of sonorous titles, and a wicked old eye, watchful for the least
+want of the master, be it good or evil. A pantaloon, with Heaven knows
+what history of unutterable things hidden in his old brain, such as is
+to be seen, even in these days, lingering round the ruins of a native
+court; a figure despicable enough, yet real; so in a way pathetic, by
+reason of its absolute lack of real interest in things as they are.
+
+And now as the two Englishmen paused,--partly because the swift change
+from the glare without to the gloom within was startling,--this same
+pantaloon, with a white muslin robe superadded to the livery as a badge
+of his dignity as door-keeper, precipitated himself upon them from the
+shadows, with ancient skips of alacrity and loop-like salaams; then
+with crab-like sidlings led the way, the young men following.
+
+"I must have that old chap on paper before I leave," said Vincent
+Dering; "he's too good to be lost."
+
+So, their steps echoing cheerfully with their laughter, they went on
+until, towards the middle of the passage, the aisle to their left
+widened, and through a maze of pillars and arches, a glimpse or two of
+air and sunlight showed sharply.
+
+Lance took a curious step towards them. "Opens on to the river, I
+expect; jolly cool it must be in the hot weather! By Jove! those old
+sinners knew how to be comfortable. Hullo!"--he paused in a sort of
+horror--"I say, Dering! I believe it's a chapel. Yes! it is!" He took
+off his cap instinctively, and moved another step forward to see
+better.
+
+But Captain Dering called impatiently, "Oh, come along, do, Carlyon! I
+didn't promise to go to church! Hymns are bad enough in all
+conscience."
+
+Lance, however, stood rooted to the spot, cap in hand. "Hush!" he said
+in a low voice, "I believe they are having service." As he spoke a
+robed figure showed between the arches against the sunlight beyond
+them; showed with something in its lifted hands, then passed to some
+unseen altar.
+
+"Oh, come along, do! there's a good chap, and let's get out of the
+way," repeated Captain Dering, sharply. "It's Father Narayan, I
+suppose,--he's as mad as a hatter, and boshes the whole business--at
+least, so Delamere said. I told you we were a bit early, but you would
+start; still it's too bad of the old man to have his chapel in the
+front hall! Come along! and let us wait in the garden--it looks an
+awfully jolly one--awfully--"
+
+He paused, perhaps at the change, this time, from gloom to glare,
+perhaps at the sudden sense of anticipation, the sudden quickening of
+the pulse of life, which made him draw a long breath involuntarily.
+
+It was not unfamiliar to him, that sudden stir of vitality, of
+expectation; and with a curious smile on his face he crossed to the
+edge of the marble plinth on which the passage opened, and leaning over
+the balustrade, looked down to a terrace below, and so on to the garden
+itself.
+
+A perfect wilderness of common flowers, sown broadcast, lay at his
+feet, hemming in a shallow marble tank, which was nearly covered with
+the dewy leaf-cups of the lotus, and set round with mosaic arabesques.
+From this tank two aqueducts led to the edge of the terrace, and ended
+in steep slopes of fretted marble, where cascades had once wimpled and
+dimpled down to the water-maze which lay below--a shiny lake, cobwebbed
+over by narrow marble paths just wide enough for the bare, flying
+feet of a laughing girl. Beyond was scented shade, with glints of
+water-courses gleaming here and there; while here and there came a peep
+of a latticed balcony overhanging the river; a balcony just large
+enough for a laughing girl and her lover.
+
+Yet there was not even a butterfly to be seen hovering over the
+flowers. All was still, all was silent, until Vincent Dering's careless
+laugh echoed through the stillness, the silence.
+
+"Can't you imagine it--all lit up--they used to put coloured lamps
+behind the cascades, I'm told, and play 'Catch who can' up and down
+and all around the place! On the whole I expect they enjoyed
+themselves--better than the type-writing girls of to-day do, for
+instance."
+
+"Got beastly sick of enjoying themselves before they had done with it,
+I expect," replied Lance, succinctly, "especially if there was always
+such a confounded strong smell of orange blossoms. Bah! I'd prefer a
+polecat; but," he gave a distasteful glance at his companion, "I
+believe you like strong scents."
+
+"Why not?" laughed Vincent Dering, drawing out a handkerchief deluged
+with white-rose, and sniffing at it, "it's a harmless taste," here his
+jest passed to earnest, and his eyes took a half soft, half cynical
+expression,--"so's the other, in a way. It isn't altogether despicable
+to let yourself loose in Paradise without an _arriere pensee_ of
+flaming swords. Especially if you can give pleasure to someone else
+thereby. One could act Romeo and Juliet nicely in this garden. And have
+your choice of balconies, too," he continued, returning to jest, "even
+if the young woman--"
+
+He glanced back as if to verify his remark from the _facade_ of the
+palace, but what he saw behind him brought a sudden straightening of
+his lounge, and rather an elaborate doffing of his sailor hat; for he
+was always a trifle ornate in his courtesy towards women, and the girl
+who stood within a pace or two of him was distinctly attractive,
+if--even at the first glance--a little too bread-and-buttery for his
+taste; too young, too clumsy as to waist, too massive in the contours
+of face and figure. For Captain Vincent Dering's taste had remained
+constant for the last three years to a different type of beauty; a type
+which, for the first time in his life, had made him sentimental,
+romantic, more or less unselfish. Still the girl was handsome, even in
+that babyish frock of starched white muslin, girt about with a yellow
+silk sash. The dress, he told himself,--for he was a connoisseur in
+_chiffons_, and had a pretty turn for painting in addition--would have
+been better soft, and creamy; but thank heaven! the sash was not blue,
+like the marker of the missal she carried in her hand. It might have
+been; for it was impossible to fathom the lack of all sense of fitness
+in some women. Yet the result would have been to take all the ivory
+tints from this girl's complexion, and leave it jaundiced. And the
+ivory was charming.
+
+"I am Miss Bonaventura," she began in a set way, which convinced
+Captain Dering that she had been sent to say those very words, and none
+other; "my guardian, Father Ninian Bruce, will be here directly. Won't
+you come upstairs to the drawing-room? I am sorry we did not know it
+was so late."
+
+"It is our fault; we are disgracefully early," put in Captain Dering.
+"I told Carlyon--" then he paused, feeling curiously at a loss before
+the girl's look of stolid gravity.
+
+"Perhaps your watch is too fast," she suggested, "and then my guardian
+likes to go by the sun. He says it never needs winding up. But I think
+it is inconvenient, when everybody else has a watch. It is always
+better to do as other people do."
+
+Her voice was very sweet and full; but a country-bred accent spoilt its
+beauty, and brought a grimace to Captain Dering's face, as he and his
+companion dutifully followed the speaker up one of the curved flights
+of steps, which led from the plinth to a wide loggia on the second
+storey. Like the room seen through its arches, this was lavishly
+decorated with fragments of looking-glass fashioned into flowing
+designs with gilt stucco. The afternoon sun, at this height shining
+full into the loggia, made it a veritable star chamber.
+
+"What a charming place," went on Captain Dering in his best manner.
+"Doesn't it remind you of the Arabian Nights, Carlyon?"
+
+A sudden vague surprise and interest came to the girl's face,
+lightening it infinitely.
+
+"Have you read the _Alif Laila?_" she asked. "My _moonshi_ brought
+it--I have to learn Urdu, you know, because my guardian thinks I ought
+to be able to speak to the people, as he does--and I wanted to read it,
+because it is my name, you see--Laila--it means 'night,' I believe--but
+my guardian did not wish it. He gave me the 'Mirror of Virtue' instead.
+It is a very, very long--"
+
+Her almost childish garrulity ceased in a faint flush over the ivory of
+her face, and she reverted to her lesson, and her indifference--"The
+other people will be here directly; but they will come from the city,
+across the tunnel, and go straight into the drawing-room. Would you
+like to come in there, or stay here?"
+
+"Oh! stay here, please!" said Vincent, desperately. The young woman was
+getting on his nerves.
+
+"Then perhaps you would like to try the piano?" persisted Miss
+Bonaventura. "My guardian has it brought out here on Wednesday
+afternoons, because it sounds well among the arches. Will you try it?"
+
+Her hand--it was ivory also, Vincent observed, and had long
+filbert-shaped nails--held the cover of the keyboard open stolidly; and
+Lance Carlyon, feeling a bit desperate also, said appealingly:--
+
+"Do, Dering. He is a nailer at the piano, I assure you, Miss
+Bonaventura, and he sings too."
+
+"So my guardian--" she began, when Vincent's patience gave way and,
+with a perfect devil of exasperation roused in him, he sat down on the
+music-stool and with a crash burst into a naughty little love song he
+had picked up at Brindisi on the way out. He did it simply to soothe
+himself; so, to do him justice, he nearly fell off the music-stool in
+horror when, at the refrain of the second verse, a very full round
+_mezzo-soprano_ joined in it with a _verve_ and _abandon_ far exceeding
+his own.
+
+He scarcely knew whether to apologize, or go on; but Miss Bonaventura
+apparently had no doubts. She finished with a gay little _staccato_
+note which would have made her fortune at a music hall, and then turned
+to the accompanist with a smile which showed an absolutely flawless set
+of teeth. "What funny words; but I like them, and the tune too. What is
+it called? I should like to get it and sing it to my guardian."
+
+Vincent, who had begun a stammering regret that he had not remembered
+her nationality, altered his phrase, with a sense of relief, to "You
+know Italian very well, I suppose, Miss Bonaventura?"
+
+She returned to her indifference immediately. "My guardian and I speak
+it. He loves Italy and the Italians. He knew my grandmother there. She
+was a princess; but he never speaks of her, so I don't know very much
+about it. Only Mother at the convent said that my guardian--"
+
+She was off, gaily, on the childishly confidential tack again, when the
+sight of someone coming up the stairs made her veer towards dignity
+once more. "There is my guardian," she said; "he is very sorry to have
+kept you waiting."
+
+Evidently this was the last bit of her lesson, for she closed the piano
+with great decision.
+
+The figure which came slowly towards them was that of a very old man,
+yet one older, by many years, than his looks. For he was still
+straight, save for a slight stoop in the neck; but this, by the
+backward poise of the head thus made necessary to enable his brown eyes
+to meet all things, after their habit, squarely, if softly, gave him an
+air of alertness. He was dressed in an ordinary black _soutane_, but
+wore a fine white embroidered muslin skull-cap, such as natives wear,
+instead of a black one. His grey hair showed, still luxuriant, beneath
+it; and the wide sash of faded lilac silk, with tasselled ends, which
+was tied in a bow about his waist, set off his still slim and still
+graceful figure.
+
+"I hope my little girl has been doing the honours properly," he began,
+pausing a pace or two from the young men, and not offering to shake
+hands; but his voice was a welcome in itself, and had that nameless
+_cachet_ of absolute good breeding which makes offence impossible.
+There was a slight hesitancy in it too, now and again, which was
+overcome by a look that took the listener into its confidence, and
+appealed for friendly forbearance--"but she is only just back from
+school at Calcutta, and the good nuns did not see much company, did
+they, Laila?" Then in an undertone of solicitude he added, in Italian,
+"Didst tell them, _cara mia?_--didst remember it all?"
+
+Laila Bonaventura looked at him with a faint resentment. "I think so,
+guardian," she replied, in English. "Didn't I?"
+
+The last came with such swift, almost savage, challenge of voice and
+eyes, that Vincent Dering, the recipient, felt glad of the diversion
+caused by the arrival, through the drawing-room, of some more guests to
+claim the attention of the host and hostess, and so leave him in peace.
+
+"I say, that girl has got splendid hair, hasn't she?" he said in an
+undertone to Lance, as they stood a little apart, watching the new
+comers.
+
+"That tall one, you mean--don't admire it. Puts me in mind of that
+devil of a chestnut who nearly killed me at polo; a chestnut with white
+stockings; awfully handy, but--"
+
+He paused as Father Ninian came up to them. "You can scarcely know any
+of your neighbours as yet, Captain Dering," began the old man with the
+ceremony of a past age, "so perhaps you will give me the privilege of
+presenting you to some of our good mission ladies."
+
+"Thanks," replied Vincent, hastily. "But I see my old friend, Mrs.
+Walsall Smith, coming in. I must just go and shake hands. But I'm sure
+Carlyon--"
+
+Lance shot a perfectly pathetic glance after his Captain, who moved off
+to meet a delicate-looking fair woman who at that moment came in with
+Dr. Dillon; the latter taken possession of and monopolized by an
+exceedingly pretty child of five, who had evidently inherited her
+mother's fragility.
+
+"Delighted, I'm sure," murmured Lance, following his leader dejectedly.
+
+"Miss Erda Shepherd, Mr. Lancelot--I am right, am I not--Carlyon?"
+
+It was the tall girl with the red-brown hair, of course. She had bronze
+eyebrows, too, and bronze eyes--nice ones. He saw so much as he made
+his bow, while Father Ninian stood looking first at the girl, then at
+the young man; and as he looked his fine old hands were clasped as if
+they held something very precious. It was a habit of his.
+
+"I hope you will like each other," he said in his kind old voice; and
+then, ere he moved away, his hands fell apart for an instant as if
+giving something. "Peace go with you, my children," he said with a
+smile.
+
+Lance felt a queer, unaccustomed thrill travel from the nape of his
+neck to his boots, pausing by the way at his heart. It was an unusual
+method of introduction, certainly; yet somehow it relieved the shyness
+which generally beset him at such functions. He found himself looking
+frankly into the bronze eyes, and something in them made him say,
+almost involuntarily:--
+
+"That was rather a jolly way of beginning to be friends. I mean--" The
+shyness came back with a rush; he blundered horribly.
+
+"Very," put in the girl, interrupting him quite simply. "I hope it will
+be peace. I always hope that. You know I am a missionary."
+
+"Oh," he replied, blankly. "Yes, there are a lot of you--I mean--of
+them, in Eshwara, aren't there?"
+
+Her face set suddenly, her mouth grew almost stern. "Not enough, Mr.
+Carlyon; not half enough," she replied. And the militant ring of her
+voice, belying the peaceful professions of the previous moment, made
+him look at her curiously, recognizing that he had touched some
+quivering nerve of mind. "If you knew Eshwara as I know it," she went
+on, passionately, "you would say so too; I'm sure you would."
+
+The bronze eyes, meeting his blue ones, though they gave nothing back
+but kindly, almost boyish, surprise, seemed satisfied. She turned
+suddenly and stretched her right hand over the river which slipped
+oilily past the wall below, as they stood beside the balustrade of the
+loggia. "Look!" she said, impulsively. "Do you see that straight white
+thing floating down the curve of the current yonder? It isn't a log;
+those others are; plenty of logs come down the rivers from the forests
+in the hills, for they don't catch all, you know, at the government
+wood-station. And so the people here catch the runaways in the
+backwater, and get paid for them. But that--" She paused and her other
+hand gripped the balustrade hard; then she turned back to him with a
+faint apology. "Why should I bother you? Let us talk of something else.
+There is no reason why I should talk of these things to you so soon,
+or, indeed, at all."
+
+"I'd rather you did," he put in quickly. It was the truth. A sudden
+curiosity had come to him, a sudden desire to know more, to think more.
+He was less of a boy than he had been five minutes before. "I--I hope
+you will," he added; "really I do--I--I--" He felt his manhood as he
+had never felt it before, and yet, in a way, he was more forgetful of
+it. The girl opposite him was womanhood incarnate to him, and yet, in
+some mysterious way, beyond it, above it.
+
+"You and I must be about the same age, I expect," he said, with a
+half-perplexed frown, "but you have seen a lot more than I have. I wish
+you'd tell me, please!"
+
+The straight white glint in the water was just disappearing behind one
+of those balconies overhanging the river, where there was only room for
+a pair of lovers.
+
+"It is a dead girl, Mr. Carlyon," she said in a low voice. "She was in
+my school. Her people were very bigoted--Brahmins in a temple--but they
+let her be taught to read, because she was betrothed to an educated
+man. Last year she was married--she was but a child still--and I have
+only seen her once or twice since. Then"--the voice paused a second.
+"She was very frightened, poor little Premi, at what was coming. 'I
+shall die, Miss-_sahib_, I shall surely die,' she said to me the very
+last time I saw her; so I promised--I am a medical missionary, Mr.
+Carlyon. But when the time came, they would not let me in. I--I
+went to the husband--he is an educated man--you may have heard of
+him--Rama-nund, a great speaker,--he writes, too, and all that--but he
+said he was helpless with the women; and I am not sure either if he
+wished it himself--they don't know their own minds. So poor little
+Premi and her baby--Oh!" she broke off with an infinite pain in her
+voice--"it is so hard--so hard for both."
+
+Her face, set riverwards, was soft, yet stern; full of fight, yet full
+of pity, and Lance thought of a virgin martyr in the illustrated 'Lives
+of the Saints' with which his grandmother, Lady Carewe, had been wont
+to still his boyish unrest on Sunday afternoons. Yet there was
+something beyond that self-concentrated devotion in this face;
+something that took him back further still to the days when he had
+sobbed out his childish hurts in his mother's arms.
+
+"She was ill all yesterday and the day before--they told me there was
+no hope of either--they just let them die. And they always put them in
+the river--they have iron rings round their wrists and ankles to
+prevent them coming back to harm the men--" She paused and turned to
+Lance swiftly. "Isn't it true that there are not enough of us--that we
+want more women to teach them what--"
+
+"But I does!" came a high childish treble, forcing itself irresistibly
+even on the attention of these two; "I 'ikes 'oo twenty 'fowsand times
+better than dad, an' I 'ikes Captain Dering ten 'fowsand times better
+too; an' so does 'mum--don't 'oo mummie?"
+
+It was little Gladys Smith, who, clasping both Dr. Dillon's hands in
+hers, had swung herself back from him so as to toss her fair curls from
+her laughing face, as she looked up at him mutinously.
+
+There was an instant's awkward pause, during which the eyes of a man
+and woman met for a second. Met and parted hastily; but not before the
+girl with the yellow silk sash, who stood between them, had looked from
+one to the other with a dim surprise unclosing her red lips, and
+showing the gleam of her white teeth between them.
+
+Then Dr. Dillon said, carelessly, "And you like Akbar Khan better than
+any of us, you young sinner, because he gives you sweeties! Here! Akbar
+Khan, bring the Missy-_baba_ some cream toffee!"
+
+The old pantaloon, who, with his loose coatee removed and a white
+duster tucked into Saturn's waist-ring was now helping to hand round
+coffee and cake, capered up with a voluble, but toothless,--
+
+"_Ger-reeb--pun-waz!_" (Protector of the Poor.)
+
+Gladys helped herself discriminately, staring at the old servitor the
+while. "But I don't 'ike Akbar Khan. Do I, son of an owl?" she
+continued superbly, in the accurate Urdu which comes so daintily from
+lisping English babies. "Did I not say I would hate thee because thou
+wouldst not tell me why thou didst prostrate thyself before the soldier
+in the courtyard? And the _ayah_ laughed, the base-born! She knew also,
+and would not say, and so did the soldier; so I hate you all!"
+
+She stamped her little foot, and shook her curls defiantly.
+
+"Gladys!" cried her mother, reproachfully.
+
+"Hullo! What's all this about?" laughed Captain Dering, catching the
+child up in his arms. "One of my soldiers insulting you? Who was it?"
+He turned, with the absolute command of his race, to the be-ringed one,
+who stood, full of deprecatory mumblings and salaamings, his hands,
+holding the tray of sweets, trembling visibly.
+
+"Who was it, Khan-_jee?_" asked Father Ninian, in a curiously even
+tone; one which, nevertheless, seemed a compelling one, for a murmured
+name came rapidly, followed by eager explanations.
+
+Father Ninian frowned, and deliberately put on the gold _pince-nez_
+which always hung around his neck. He seldom used it, however, being,
+he would say playfully, in his native Scotch, too "well acquaint" with
+Eshwara and all in it to need such help after fifty years experience.
+So it had come to be an unfailing sign that he was face to face with
+something unexpected, something new. Naturally, therefore, it changed
+the character of his face, bringing back to it a strange look of youth;
+of hope and energy--the look of choice which age has not.
+
+"Roshan Khan," he echoed, "why comes he here?" Then in sudden
+recollection he turned to Vincent Dering. "Of course, he comes with
+you. I knew he was in your regiment, but I did not think."
+
+Captain Dering put down the child gently. "Is there any reason, sir,"
+he asked decisively, "why he should not be here? If so--"
+
+Father Ninian took off his eye-glasses slowly. He was back on familiar
+ground. "No!" he said, with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders;
+"none. He is welcome to come if he likes. He is a fine soldier, Captain
+Dering, and a good fencer."
+
+"The best I have ever come across," put in Lance Carlyon.
+
+Father Ninian laughed, a satisfied, vainglorious little laugh, and
+bowed, with his hand on his heart, in foreign fashion. It seemed almost
+as if something had brought back the manners of a different life.
+
+"His master thanks you," he said gaily. "I taught him; but as Esmond
+said of the _botte de Jesuit_--not all. We craftsmen keep something up
+our sleeve for our own use!"
+
+Lance Carlyon's face grew eager. He had heard of Father Ninian's art
+with the foils, and took his opportunity. "That's what Roshan does to
+me. I took lessons from him, but he licks my head off with tricks.
+Perhaps some day, sir--"
+
+Father Ninian's right hand and wrist, despite their age, flourished
+themselves with marvellous suppleness. "Of a surety! Of a surety," he
+interrupted, still in that gay, almost reckless voice, "and I will
+teach you '_L'Addio del Marito_.' I never taught that to Roshan--it
+does not do for savage natures."
+
+"The husband's good-by! What a funny name," echoed Laila, curiously.
+"Why is it called that, guardian?"
+
+The gaiety left the old man's face.
+
+"Because the thrust is used, _cara mia_," he replied in Italian, and
+his answer came dreamily, half to himself, "when even those who have
+that greatest tie to life prefer to say good-by to it." He paused, then
+went on cheerfully: "But come! Music! Music! We lose time horribly.
+Laila, 'tis your part to begin."
+
+The girl walked stolidly to the piano.
+
+"What shall I sing, guardian?" she asked.
+
+"Sing?" he repeated, reverting once more to Italian, and his voice had
+the dreamy tone in it again; "sing my favourite, child. Something hath
+taken me back to the old days--and sing it well."
+
+Something in the pose of the girl, something in the faint defiance of
+her face as she stood turning over the leaves of the music, attracted
+Vincent Dering's fancy. He moved over to her, and asked if he should
+play her accompaniment.
+
+"If you can," she said, ungraciously.
+
+He smiled. "What is it? Oh!--Handel." He shrugged his shoulders. "Yes!
+I fancy I can play him--he is not very complex."
+
+The next instant he had embarked, with a certain sense of pique lending
+perfection to his phrasing, on the prelude; but perfect as his tone
+was, it seemed to fall dull and dead before the voice which rose and
+echoed into the arches.
+
+
+              "He shall feed His flock like a Shepherd."
+
+
+Pure, peaceful, free from every touch of passion; absolutely, utterly,
+beyond this world and its works, it rose and filled the garden; the
+orange-scented garden with its fretted marble cascades and water-maze,
+where the feet of laughing girls had chased each other, the latticed
+balconies where lovers had sat.
+
+
+             "And He shall gather the lambs in His arms."
+
+
+It floated out over the river where the dead girl had drifted, making a
+light come to a pair of bronze eyes.
+
+
+             "Come unto Him all ye that labor."
+
+
+Out beyond the garden, into the city, a faint far echo of the call made
+men and women pause in the struggle for life, and say, "They are
+singing in the palace."
+
+
+             "And ye shall find rest unto your souls."
+
+
+The promise of all religions, the cry which makes all creeds one, rose
+and fell, as the afternoon sun, shining into the loggia, put a canopy
+of stars above the head of the singer.
+
+Some of the audience said "Thank you," politely when she ended. Vincent
+Dering did not. He stood on one side, and, being musical to the heart's
+core, gave himself the luxury of silence. Only when Father Ninian, ever
+mindful of ceremonies and courtesies, crossed to acknowledge the
+services of the accompanist, he said briefly,--
+
+"Who taught her that?"
+
+The old man looked at him almost wistfully: "I heard her grandmother
+sing it, nearly sixty years ago. I have never forgotten it."
+
+"I do not wonder," said Vincent Dering, and his eyes, forgetful of
+others, followed the girl whose dress ought to have been creamy and
+soft, instead of white and starched.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III
+
+                              DRIFTWOOD
+
+
+The river Hara, after skirting the fort, the bathing-steps below the
+courtyard, the palace, and the palace garden, continued its course,
+still hemmed in to swift current by a high bank on the opposite side,
+and on the near one by a wall set with spiked temples sacred to Siva;
+for Hara is one of his many names. But, on reaching the apex of the
+triangle formed by the city, the banks fell away, the river spread
+itself out to greater rest, until, at the uttermost end of a long spit
+of sandbank and tamarisk, it met the waters of its twin river, the
+Hari, in the broad placid lagoon which lay between Eshwara and the
+south; that is the dry stretch of desert, against whose barrenness
+Western ingenuity--aided by Dr. Dillon's horde of fifteen hundred
+ruffians--had been digging defiance for months. From the spit of sand
+you could see the result. A broad seam on the face of patient Mother
+Earth, a first wrinkle telling of millions to come from the
+ploughshares of men.
+
+As yet, however, the canal was as dry as the desert around it; and was
+to remain so until the great Lord-_sahib_ came in state, on his way to
+the hills, to open the sluices. There was to be a big camp, a big
+function on the occasion, and even sleepy Eshwara felt a vague
+excitement regarding it. For the older men remembered the days when the
+Hosts of the Lord-_sahibs_ had regularly passed through the city, and
+had tales to tell about them; a fact which prevented the coming event
+from being too strange even to be thought about! Then the opening of
+the canal was another disturber of primeval calm. True, the idea of it
+had been with Eshwara ever since the first sod had been turned two
+years before; but now the thing stared it in the face. Within a few
+days the waters of the sacred rivers would have to lie in a new bed.
+Would they like it? Would the gods like it? Would men like it?
+
+Those were the questions being asked from one end of Eshwara to
+another. Even outside it, on the long narrow spit of sand-bank set with
+sparse tussocks of grass and tamarisk which reached beyond the city's
+triangle into the rivers--and where, after a flood, the white gypsum
+silt lay like a robe of righteousness--they were being discussed; for
+the strange race who lived on it, shifting their wigwams of grass to
+the low-lying land opposite when the waters rose, lived by the river;
+by the fish in it, and the logs of wood which came floating down it.
+
+So this question of the canal was in the mind of the naked man, attired
+in the complete suit of blue beads which marks an aboriginal race, who,
+in the dawn following, squatted on the highest curve of the spit. He
+was small, swart to positive inkiness, and his thin legs and arms
+shewed grey lights on their tense muscles, as if these were truly iron.
+Behind him rose a wigwam of reeds, at the entrance to which a spear was
+stuck in the sand in order to display the head of a bottle-nosed
+alligator impaled on its point. At his right hand was a reed basket, a
+rude net of reed twine. In front of him lay one of those small
+shark-like scaleless fishes which the learned call Silurian, and tell
+us are relics of a creation older than ours.
+
+So might the man have been. So might have been the background of sand
+and reed, spear and wigwam, the foreground of net and fish. Yet the
+fisher was not all uncivilized. This little survival of an aboriginal
+race, shifting about in the shifting river-bed, had always had an
+attraction for the Missionaries, who, as a rule, find the inferior
+races easiest to deal with. Gu-gu therefore--his name being as
+primitive as his appearance, since it is the first effort of infant
+tongues--belied his looks. He had at any rate a civilized eye to
+business, a civilized notion of the relations between supply and
+demand, for he shook his head at the customer opposite him.
+
+"Not a cowrie less, Khan-jee. 'Tis the only one in the market, see you;
+besides on this day the '_Missen_' miss comes to us folk, and she never
+haggles. She will pay the five annas gladly to be let read her book to
+my women."
+
+The mumble-apparently a pious aspiration that the Most High would smite
+infidels hip and thigh--was the only recognizable point in the figure
+on the other side of the fish; for Akbar Khan, doorkeeper, messenger,
+assistant waiter, had not only discarded Saturn's rings--the loss of
+which about his head made his baldness something of a shock--but also
+every article of clothing except his waist-cloth. The reason for this
+was, in a way, like many another thing about the old sinner, pathetic.
+Briefly he liked to dissociate his inner self from occupations which he
+considered were beneath the dignity of the Akbar Khan of the past.
+Therefore being, for the nonce, a bazaar coolie in search of fish for
+his master's breakfast, he got up for the part; so finding it, at once,
+easier to forget, and to remember that past.
+
+He mumbled of it as he strenuously opposed the price.
+
+"Everything grows dearer, every day," yawned the aboriginal Gu-gu.
+"Even women, as thou shouldst know."
+
+Akbar Khan clucked a pious denial. "We spread no nets for that game in
+the palace nowadays. Those evil times are gone; we live sober and
+virtuous." The piety held a distinct flavour of regret.
+
+"And as for fish," continued Gu-gu, "they will be dearer ere they are
+cheaper. When the deep water begins to run canalwards, the fish will
+run too. Then good-by to our trade, since the _Huzoors_ allow us
+nothing in their waters without payment."
+
+He whined, however, to the wrong quarter for sympathy, the old
+retainer's views on preserving being absolutely those of a Shropshire
+squire who is also a J. P.
+
+"Neither did we," he replied, indifferently. "Thy like, Gu-gu, would
+have had to bring thy fish to the palace and be satisfied with our
+leavings. Out on thee for an upstart! Take thy four annas, and be
+thankful--slave!"
+
+Gu-gu's ill-tempered face became aggressive. "Not I!--the Miss will
+give it; nay! six, mayhap, since the child is sick, and she will be
+wanting leave to dose it. So--hands off--eunuch!"
+
+The title, once dignified, was opprobrious now, and old Akbar rose in a
+perfect fury, his bald head wobbling, the flaming fringe of red hairs
+about his face giving him a ludicrous resemblance to a toothless old
+man-eating tiger, face to face with his lawful prey, yet unable to
+injure it.
+
+"Oh! for the bastinado!" he stuttered, impotently. "Oh, for the cutting
+off of bodily members! Oh! even, for the tying up of heels, and
+roastings and duckings. But the _Huzoors_ have taken them from us, and
+gifted them to the police, who know not the proper methods. Yah!
+Gu-gu, had I but had thee fifty years ago!" his anger lessened with
+sheer wistful regret. "Fifty years ago when the Nawab gifted me as
+body-servant to the new _Wazeer_ Bun-avatar[1]-_sahib_ because he
+brought him a bird that would sing of itself from Italy _wilayat_."
+
+"But all birds do that," cavilled Gu-gu, feeling nevertheless a
+reverent curiosity about those legendary days.
+
+Akbar gave a crackling, contemptuous laugh. "Not palace birds! they
+have to be wound up; and Bun-avatar-_sahib_ sent for this across the
+black water. So he kept favour with the Nawab. Birds that sing, and
+flowers that smell, and boxes that make music, and dolls that dance
+when you wind them. Lo! these, Gu-gu, are the pleasures of palaces; but
+how canst thou know, who hast not lived in them even, as I--"
+
+The sense of his own superiority soothed him still more; he squatted
+down again, and hubble-bubbled for a space at the _hookah_ which was an
+integral part of all his impersonations.
+
+"Yea! those were times," he mumbled half to himself. "Even Pidar
+Narayan--may Heaven protect him--could not say 'please God' to every
+mouthful, as he does now--as we all do now, and rightly, seeing that we
+have grown old." Once more the piety smacked of pity, and the old man,
+finding a listener, went on with a certain gusto. "Look you! he had to
+walk like the tongue among thirty-two teeth in those days, with
+Bun-avatar-_sahib_, my master, like two peas in one pod with the Nawah.
+Except for women. Pidar Narayan took his way there--mostly!"
+
+The interrupting gurgle of the _hookah_ gave time for an elaborate wink
+of a wicked old eye. Possibly this was due to the smoke, for the old
+voice went on as before almost dolorously.
+
+"He had the money-bags, you see, and looked after the rents. But my
+master, Bun-avatar--lo! thou shouldst have seen him when he came
+first--the picture of a man!--they say he was a prince in his own
+country, but fell into trouble; so came to make his fortune here with
+Pidar Narayan--was called _Wazeer_. And let me tell thee, Gu-gu, it
+means something to be body-servant to a _Wazeer!_ Lo! to think I might
+have been it still but for that jade, Anari Begum!"
+
+Despite the epithet, he smiled, and his pipe this time gave out quite a
+chuckling sound.
+
+"As ill to keep within walls as a butterfly!" he muttered. "Up and down
+the garden, in and out the balconies, and the Nawab in two minds to use
+force, or put her in a sack. For she flouted him. The prettiest ones
+play that game for power always, and she was Walidad, her brother's,
+last hope of favour. Walidad, _Kanjara_, who had been king's caterer
+for years before my master, Bun-avatar-_sahib_, came to make all the
+court cry sour buttermilk! Walidad, who had once stood so high, that,
+in a drunken bout, the Nawab promised him his half-sister to wife. And
+he got her too! She wept on her wedding day, but we in the lower storey
+heeded not tears in the upper. For, see you, mine uncle was chief
+eunuch--we kept the honour thus in the family from generation to
+generation--so I was in and out, seeing what went on. Until somehow
+(mine uncle with the bowstring round his neck--as was right, honest
+man--swore he knew not how) Bun-avatar-_sahib_ caught a sight of her!
+Some say it was a plot, from beginning to end, of Walidad's; others
+that _his_ enemies feared lest Anari should succeed. There be balls
+within balls, even in a plaything, if the workmen are cunning! Anyhow,
+he saw her.
+
+"And I, his body-servant, was able to come and go where Pidar Narayan
+hath made his church nowadays. But there! what matters it? 'Tis all
+one. Love and the Faith are in and out of men's minds like a shelldrake
+in weedy water; a body cannot tell which way its head may be and which
+its tail! Nevertheless I felt a choke at my throat, Gu-gu, many a time,
+as I waited for him in the boat below the balcony; yet in the end, it
+was not my throat, but mine uncle's. He died in the faith, Gu-gu,
+cursing women. _His head was that way at the last!_--'Tis mostly
+so--_he_--_he_--"
+
+The chuckle of his pipe was fiendish, yet his wizened face was wistful.
+"Still, God knows, one could scarce look on at such a wooing, and not
+beat the drum in time, as musicians to a dancer. And it runs in our
+blood, see you, to watch, and beat the drum. That is our profession;
+and, by mine ancestors! I deemed it enough for mortal man. But
+Bun-avatar-_sahib_, see you, was not of our race. He was of Italy
+_wilayat_ and a prince. So, one day, my liver dissolved hearing that
+the butterfly was over the walls! But, as I said, it was mine uncle's
+neck, not mine. Yet the game ended for me when Bun-avatar-_sahib_
+died."
+
+"They poisoned him, folk say; is't true?" asked Gu-gu. It was a point
+in the oft-told tale which was still discussed by Eshwara gossips.
+
+"That is other folks' news, not mine," replied Akbar, discreetly. "May
+be, may be not. The _Huzoors_, anyhow, sent the Nawab to die in
+Calcutta on a _pinson_[2] for it; but they have ever an excuse to take
+land! Pidar Narayan had a hard fight to keep Bun-avatar-_sahib's_
+grants--the Nawab was ever generous to his favourites, look you--for
+Anari Begum's baby; ay! though he showed a writing of marriage, and had
+made the infant Christian after their habit. Still he got them, land
+and palace and all. So I stayed on serving my master's child, and when
+she died, her child, the Miss-_baba_, even to the haggling for fish.
+Lo! slave! it grows late. Give it to me and have done with it--Thou
+wilt not. Oh! for the devil that was in her grandmother Anar to be in
+this Miss-_baba_, and for her to come to Bun-avatar-_sahib's_ rights as
+_Wazeer_--then would there be loppings and--"
+
+"Or if Roshan Khan should come to his," sneered Gu-gu. "The canal
+_sahib's_ ayah was telling me thou didst prostrate thyself in the dust
+as if he were indeed Nawab! Have a care! eunuch-_jee_, the police are
+agog nowadays to find disloyalty even in newspapers."
+
+"May her gossiping tongue be slit!" stuttered the old retainer. "Can a
+body not do obeisance to his masters? For look you, Roshan is true
+grand-nephew to the Nawab through his grandmother, Walidad's wife--ay!
+and for that matter, cousin to the Miss, through Anari Begum, Walidad's
+sister! I did but welcome him; I did but my duty--I did but show my
+manners--I did but what we have done from generation to generation." He
+moved away muttering, full of virtuous resentment that a suspicion of
+anything save sheer servility should have been imputed to him. After a
+lifetime of trucklings and bootblackings, to be credited with higher
+motives was too bad. To prove his innocence he would that very evening,
+he told himself, seek out Roshan, not at the Fort,--that might be
+misunderstood,--but at his grandmother's. His grandmother, who, though
+she had been upstart Walidad's wife, was still the late Nawab's
+half-sister! His sister!! What could be nearer than that!!!
+
+And he would prostrate himself again, and assure the family of his
+services. _That_ was his birthright.
+
+Meanwhile Gu-gu looked after him, and laughed. He was a clever fellow,
+was Gu-gu, and in a previous generation of scholars had been pet pupil
+in a little school started by another Miss from another _Missen_. He
+had got pennies for attending it, which had come in useful before he
+was big enough to face the river.
+
+But now he was the best man on either the Hara or the Hari, save one.
+And he?
+
+Gu-gu's beady black eyes, watching the curve of the current
+mechanically, gave a sudden flash. He was on his feet in a second.
+There was something dipping, diving, sidling, drifting, out yonder
+which might be secured for his wigwam before anyone else saw it! But
+as, silently, like a seal's, his black head came up from his first
+forge under water which was to give him a fair start from the shore
+without even a splash to attract notice, another black head showed to
+the right of him, a yard or two behind.
+
+But it was _his_ head! Am-ma's head! Am-ma, the frog-like, Am-ma, whose
+wide hands and feet looked as if webbed in the water. Am-ma, the only
+man who could touch him. He set his teeth, gave up silence, and surged
+ahead with an overhand stroke, his hand seeming to clutch and hold the
+water. It was a faster stroke than Am-ma's; for a time the swifter.
+Then with a backward glance he drew a quick breath, knowing it would be
+a race indeed, for the black head had gone, and only a faint wale on
+the smooth water told where his rival, avoiding the slight resistance
+of the air, swam like a fish. Dangerous tactics for most men, ending
+often in a sudden collapse, bleedings from nose and ears, or, at least,
+time lost in coming to the surface. But Am-ma was not as other men.
+Half-witted, except in river lore, uncouth, misshapen, he was
+practically amphibious.
+
+Gu-gu ground his teeth impotently as the faint wale crept up and up.
+The man must have air in his stomach like a fish! Ah! if the river had
+been in flood, if this had been a race with air bladders, indeed,--one
+black head of inflated skin under each arm, and your own in the
+middle--the issue would have been certain; for no one, in the whole
+tribe, knew the backward rip of a knife from below which would leave a
+rival helpless, lopsided, bound to seek safety on shore, so well as
+Gu-gu! But it was not flood time, so he must risk all. Like a porpoise
+at play the curve of his dark back disappeared, and now there were two
+wales upon the water side by side.
+
+And ahead, sidling, dipping, diving to the current was a deodar log
+with the broad arrow of government on it, now visible, now out of
+sight.
+
+It was a question of steering; steering without eyes, steering by
+instinct, steering by sheer experience of logs and their ways, of the
+meeting currents of the two rivers and their ways.
+
+And over against them, to the right across the broad lagoon, were low
+brick buildings, and a horde of fifteen hundred ruffians with fascines
+and earth-baskets finishing a dam that was to alter the currents, and
+protect the canal! They looked like swarming ants in the sunshine.
+
+The wales were neck and neck now, side by side, straight as a die on
+the log. Then suddenly, the right-hand one swerved outward. Only a yard
+or two; a yard or two nearer to the ants in the sunshine.
+
+A second after the log swerved also--swerved to the right. The next,
+two black heads rose silently; but one of them was two yards to the
+left of that dancing, dipping prize!
+
+Gu-gu, breathless as he was, gave an inarticulate cry of rage, and
+shook his fist at the swarming ants. Already their work was altering
+the currents he had known for so long. That it was possible to allow
+for this, as Am-ma had done, did not comfort him. He swam back sulkily,
+his wrath increased by the knowledge one glance had given him, that the
+log on which his rival was paddling to shore triumphantly bore its
+broad arrow so lightly, and so near its end, that a little dexterous
+manipulation would have left the runaway unmarked, and so given its
+captor the right, not merely of ransom, but of sale!
+
+Truly, it was an ill world for the poor!
+
+But Lance Carlyon laughed, as he lounged over his early tea and watched
+the river through his field-glass, in a balcony of the fort, dressed in
+a gorgeous ring-streaked sleeping suit which he could only wear when on
+outpost duty, as the regiment had tabooed it. In truth it made him not
+unlike Tom Sawyer's "Royal Nonsuch."
+
+"The little 'un's got it! I say! Dering, I believe I shall like
+Eshwara. It's--it's--new--don't you know." His eyes rested, as he
+spoke, on the low, bastioned building, all hemmed in by temple spires,
+at the very point of the city's triangle, which Erda Shepherd had told
+him was the mission house. Truly, he thought, she was in the thick of
+it!
+
+"New!" echoed Vincent Dering captiously, "I should have called it old.
+I thought that sort of thing had died with the pagoda tree."
+
+"What sort of thing?"
+
+Vincent nodded towards the palace with an odd, cynical laugh. "That;
+it's ghostly. Doesn't belong to the nineteenth century!"
+
+Lance turned curiously. "I said that to--to Pidar Narayan--I can't call
+him anything else, somehow--when he was showing me over yesterday.
+And--you know that inscrutable smile of his--he just pointed up to the
+telegraph wires--they go right across the garden you know--and said,
+'There is half the news of half the world over our heads, anyhow.' It
+knocked me over, I tell you, to think of it; and by Jove! Dering, next
+week when the Lord-_sahib_ comes--"
+
+Vincent Dering laughed boisterously. "There'll be the millennium, of
+course. Come along, Lance! It's time we were off to prepare his way.
+Dashwood wants it done A1. They are going to lay on electric light, and
+all that. By the way, Mrs. Smith told me to tell you she expected you
+to breakfast."
+
+Ten minutes afterwards they were riding over the boat bridge to
+superintend the laying out of the Vice-regal camp against the coming of
+the Lord-_sahib_ and his hosts.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV
+
+                            UNDER-CURRENTS
+
+
+Mumtaza Mahal, Roshan Khan's grandmother, lived in a queer little
+backwater of a house which had eddied itself away from the main stream
+of the town, and jammed itself against a wall of the palace as if
+seeking dignity thereby. For all that it belonged irredeemably to the
+city, and to its evil-smelling lanes. The word house, however, is
+misleading to western ears, since this was simply a well-like
+courtyard, with a great wooden bed set in the centre under a miserable
+attempt at a tree which was used as a clothes-peg, a rack for
+saucepans, and a variety of other domestic purposes. It fulfilled them
+to the perfect satisfaction of its proprietress, a roundabout old lady,
+plump as a button-quail, who, when she was not asleep inside the
+arcaded slip of a room on one side, passed her time on the bed in the
+scanty shade, keeping company with a sausage-roll of a pillow and a
+quilt, both covered in faded, greasy silk. As a rule she did nothing
+save eat _pan_; though sometimes, as a favour to Erda Shepherd, who
+came to read to her once a week, she would give a few more stitches to
+a knitted comforter which never seemed to get any longer. It had been
+begun, indeed, under the auspices of another "Miss," who had returned
+to England only to die, as so many do, from exposure, and overwork, and
+homesickness. For the rest, Mumtaza was an arrogant, yet good-natured
+old soul, who, despite those tears on her wedding-day, had kept
+dissolute Walidad under her thumb, and his son also. Therefore, it was
+one of her pet grievances--and she had many--that Roshan, her grandson,
+should have defied her authority and entered the army. The great
+standing grievance, however, was that the "_pinson_" she received from
+Government because her husband had been deported with the Nawab to
+Calcutta, was not so large as one received by a neighbour and gossip
+whose husband had been hanged in the mutiny! The two old ladies came to
+loggerheads over their respective claims once a month, regularly, when
+pay-day came round; Mumtaza asserting shrilly that to die in a strange
+country was more painful than hanging, Ashraf-un-nissa contending
+roundly that if Walidad had had as much respectful affection for his
+widow as her husband had had for his, he could easily have caused
+himself to be hanged; since he had certainly deserved it.
+
+Whereat there would be war, until some one in the alley, or round the
+corner did something outrageous,--threw slops over some one, or had
+twins, or imported a new mother-in-law! Then, friendly discussion
+becoming a necessity of life, the big wooden bed would once more hold
+two old ladies, two roly-poly bolsters, two quilts--also two tongues!
+But these confined themselves, for a time, to lesser grievances; such
+as the general decadence of the age, manifested by the reluctance of
+young people to obey the old.
+
+There was, however, no sign of displeasure in the reception prepared
+for Roshan, when one afternoon, immediately after his arrival at
+Eshwara, he appeared to prostrate himself at the feet of age; at least
+so he had said in his letter of intimation. Mumtaza Mahal knew her duty
+towards men-folk better than to show temper at once; knew also the
+suffocating effect of ceremonials. So the tarnished treasures of past
+state had been dug out of the mounds of litter heaped up in all four
+corners of the arcaded room, and set about the courtyard. An old
+elephant-housing covered the wooden bed, and to it Roshan was
+conducted: his grandmother, despite her best green satin trousers,
+squatting below, on a mat.
+
+The young soldier felt and looked thoroughly uncomfortable. Out of
+sheer funk of the old lady's remarks if he had appeared in his usual
+_mufti_ of English tweed and a close-fitting turban, he had reverted to
+the airy muslins and embroidered smoking-caps of his forbears. He felt
+chilly, barely decent in them; and, indeed, the whole environment was
+absolutely repugnant to him. His grandmother's tramways could scarcely
+be otherwise to one who had gone ahead by express train like Roshan
+Khan. Thoroughly well-educated, he knew himself to be considered one of
+the smartest native officers in the army. A first-class polo player, a
+fair cricketer, able to handle cue and racket, and without equal at the
+foils, he had for years met Englishmen on equal terms in sporting
+matters. What wonder, then, that he sat looking inexpressibly bored
+beside the _hookah_ which was the pride of his grandmamma's heart, in
+that it had belonged to many dead and gone Nawabs? He was simply
+longing for the solace of a smoke, yet he did not dare to use the
+silver cigarette case with his initials, "R.K." on it, which Lance
+Carlyon had given him at Christmas in return for the fencing lessons.
+Fortunately, however, boredom and yawns are correct during visits of
+ceremony, so Mumtaza Mahal crossed her little fat hands over her little
+fat green-trousered legs, and told herself the lad was improved in both
+manners and looks; was distinctly more like her brother, the late and
+sainted Nawab. The fact emphasized her regret that, after a brilliant
+career in a mission school, a career which must have led to a minor
+clerkship, her grandson should have taken the unheard-of course of
+entering the army! If he could even have gone as the Nawab's
+grand-nephew, with a dozen troopers or so as following, it might have
+been bearable; but, as Walidad's extraction barred all claim to noble
+descent, enlistment meant something very different. The old lady,
+accustomed to obedience all round, when the dreadful defiance had
+occurred, ten years before, had called the stars to witness that it was
+all--that everything was--Pidar Narayan's fault! And then she had
+fallen a-whimpering, knowing right well that but for the latter's
+intercession, she herself would have had no "_pinson_"; since
+Government bars those who can be proved to be personally implicated in
+evil doings. And now, as she sat looking at her grandson, the same
+conflicting estimates made her irritable. Why had Pidar Narayan ever
+put his finger in the Eshwara pie? Yet, without him, where would they
+all have been? Still, he need not have taught the lad to fence, and so
+turned him into a mean, common soldier.
+
+Now, whether this was true, whether his skill with the foils had turned
+Roshan's thoughts towards a fighting life, or whether it was simply the
+result of natural aptitudes that way, the choice of professions had
+been wise. His Colonel,--of the old school though he was,--had
+admitted, when pressed, that the young Mahomedan, _given practice_,
+might be able to lead the regiment as well as a fresh-joined English
+subaltern. The newer school, again, playing the _Krieg spiel_ against
+him at Simla, and finding itself in grips with a genuine gift for
+tactics, had shaken its head and confessed the hardship of such a
+talent being barred from finding its proper level. Still it was
+impossible to legislate for exceptions without upsetting the every-day
+army apple-cart.
+
+Roshan himself, being sensible--above all, being of a nation which
+accepts limitations as a law of God--was, as a rule, satisfied with his
+future _risaldar_ majorship, and, if he was lucky, _Aide-de-Camp to the
+Queen_, and a few other titles tacked on to it. Like all natives of
+India he lived largely on the approbation of his immediate superiors,
+and this he had without stint; besides, his whole line of thought had
+become too military for any subversion of rule and discipline to seem
+desirable.
+
+Yet the curb made itself felt sometimes; never more keenly than at his
+grandmother's scornful look, when, in reply to her catechising, he
+named his income.
+
+"Only that! _Bah!_ Tis the pay of a coolie!"
+
+"'Tis the pay of my rank, anyhow," he replied sulkily, "and I cannot
+expect promotion yet; the rules--"
+
+She waggled her be-veiled, be-jewelled head cunningly. "Rules! What
+have rules to do with favour, either for men or women? Lo! thy
+grand-uncle, the Nawab, gave twice that to a coachman who had one eye
+black and the other blue because he fancied him! So, if thou art in
+favour, as thou sayest, ask for more. The _Huzoors_ will give it,
+sooner than lose thee."
+
+Roshan did not attempt explanation; he simply evaded the point by
+asserting that the pay was sufficient for his wants. In a way it was an
+unfortunate remark, since it precipitated the lecture lurking in the
+old lady's mind.
+
+"And for the wife's that is to come?" she asked, not without
+dignity,--the dignity of age reminding youth that its turn for duty has
+come. "And for the son's that has yet to be born? Why are these old
+arms still empty of thy children, Roshan?"
+
+He had his answer ready; one that had hitherto baulked even the
+matrimonial desires of his mother, who, having gone to live with her
+own people, was backed up by sisters and sisters-in-law.
+
+"Because the Most High decreed freedom for wife and son."
+
+It was true. The wife found for him as a boy had died in child-birth.
+
+But Mumtaza had made up her mind to refuse this excuse any longer.
+Matters were getting desperate. Here was Roshan past thirty, and never
+a child's voice to soothe the passion which seems to come back,
+vicariously, to Indian women in their old age. She had been brooding
+over an appeal ever since she had heard that, after ten years' absence,
+the lad was once more to be within reach of her tongue. So she edged
+closer to him, an almost pathetic authority in her face.
+
+"That is but the skin of the orange, Roshan; I take not that as a gift!
+There be more wives than one, if the one die, even for the _Huzoors_
+whom thou apest. Nay! Light of the house! frown not," she continued, in
+sudden alarm at his look. "I did but mean that thou wert different from
+thy fathers. How canst help it? Think not the old woman cannot
+understand. Was I not young once? Was I not wedded with tears to thy
+grandfather--on whom be peace! So I know the heart hath fancies, and
+thine--listen while I whisper it--is--is for a wife like a _mem!_
+Wherefore not? Thou hast seen and talked with them--they have seemed
+better to thee than a cow of a black girl! What then? Have not _mems_
+married our people ere now? And with thee,"--she looked round quickly,
+to be certain of privacy, then leant closer still,--"with thee it would
+be easy--for there is thy cousin."
+
+"My cousin?" he echoed stupidly.
+
+"Yea! thy cousin, when all is said and done," she repeated, with faint
+scorn. "Is not the Miss at the palace Anari Begum's granddaughter? Was
+not Anari Begum thy grandfather's sister? If that is not cousin, what
+is it?"
+
+He had known these facts before, of course, but they had never
+presented themselves to him in this connection. Yet they came
+instantly, accredited by custom. His cousin; if so, his wife, if he
+chose, almost by right. And yet from custom also, he--too sensible not
+to have gauged the vast difference between his position as regards
+Englishmen, and his position as regarded their wives, sisters,
+mothers--was conscious of distinct revolt. "Thou shouldst not say such
+things," he exclaimed almost angrily; "the Miss-_sahib_--"
+
+"Miss-_sahib_ indeed!" interrupted Mumtaza with a forced giggle. "Who
+knows she is that? Not even Pidar Narayan."
+
+"Wherefore?" asked Roshan coldly. "Her mother was Bonaventura-_sahib's_
+child and heir. That is certain; else the Government would not have
+continued the grants given to him by the Nawab."
+
+An expression of infinite cunning crossed the old lady's face; she
+tucked another budget of _pan_ into her cheek, preparatory to a lengthy
+explanation.
+
+"Not if it was payment for evidence given, by which Government could
+find excuse for seizing the rest, and sending innocent people to die in
+Calcutta? Thou knowest the tale, Roshan? How Pidar Narayan said no word
+when everyone was searching, after Bun-avatar's death, for Anari Begum,
+who had disappeared, and how, when the land was being taken, he
+appeared with a baby, a baptized baby, and swore it was Bun-avatar's
+lawful heir--that he himself had married them. Mayhap he did. But, look
+you, Anari was in the palace _zenana_ ere she disappeared. Who is to
+say she is not thy cousin twice over?... I say not that she is, look
+you, but who can tell. Yet this is certain, Roshan; she hath Anari
+Begum's eyes. For I have seen her; but a month ago the Miss who reads
+brought her, not knowing of these tales; for Pidar Narayan keeps a
+silent tongue. Her name is Laila,[3] and thine Roshan.[4] Is not that a
+fate? and she hath thy grand-aunt's eyes; ay! and thy grandfather's
+land too; for would it not have been Walidad's, if Bun-avatar had not
+ousted him from the _wazeer_-ship with singing birds?"
+
+Roshan Khan stood up feeling as if he was being suffocated. It was ten
+years since he had had experience of the fine-drawn meshes of vague,
+almost useless, conspiracy for which Indian women have such vast
+capability; it was ten years since, with eyes open to his own
+advantage, he had cast in his lot loyally with the Government he
+served. In that time there had not been wanting--there never is in
+India--others, less scrupulous, ready to trade on his connection with a
+dispossessed family, and his possible sense of injustice. He had known
+how to treat them. But this idea bit shrewdly at a feeling which men of
+his stamp have inevitably--the desire for a wife more suitable to their
+own culture than they can hope to find among their own people. He gave
+an uneasy laugh. "These be dreams, indeed, grandmother. To begin with,
+Pidar Narayan--"
+
+"Pidar Narayan! Pidar Narayan!" echoed the old diplomatist tartly, "Art
+turned Hindoo, that thou dost count Narayan[5] the Creator of all?"
+Then she suddenly clapped her hands together in absolute impatience
+and anger. "Yet is it true. He _is_ the cause of all! But for him
+Bun-avatar would have been as an over-fried fritter, a burst bladder,
+a drum on a hen's back! But for his teaching thee to fence--"
+
+A quick frown came to her hearer's face. "Teaching! Ay! but only enough
+to make me fit for his skill to play with. I know that now. Well! let
+him try it again--" Roshan's sudden fierceness died down to sombre
+discontent--"but that is fool's talk. He is too old. I could not meet
+him on equal terms." He drew himself up proudly; yet he felt a vague
+regret at his own acquired sense of fair play. Below it lay a savagery
+that could rejoice in revenge at any price, and Mumtaza Mahal, watching
+him, thought him still more like his ancestors, and nodded approvingly.
+
+"Think of it, at least, Roshan," she said, "and remember that it is not
+as if the girl were a real _mem_. Pidar Narayan, for all he is so
+clever, was put to it to find a husband for the mother, the baptized
+baby! He took a poor creature from Martin's school at Lucknow, at last,
+who could not even speak English like a _Huzoor_--"
+
+"Because he was Italian and a Catholic," put in Roshan, then shrugged
+his shoulders impatiently. "But thou canst not understand. 'Tis
+impossible! Dreams, grandmother, dreams!"
+
+"Dreams come true even when forgotten, and torchbearers never see their
+own way," retorted the old lady, ending the discussion with proverbial
+wisdom as a clincher. "So think of it, since thoughts cost nothing, and
+tell no tales."
+
+Roshan felt as if they did the former at any rate, as he strode back
+toward the fort, telling himself he would feel better when he had on
+his uniform once more. This was his _metier_, not marriage. The best
+soldiers, the really great soldiers--he paused, the knowledge that he
+could never rise to real greatness coming to make him clinch his right
+hand as if on his sword-hilt. The tempest of revolt which swept through
+him left him dazed, for he had reasoned the matter out with himself
+thoroughly, and thought he had accepted the situation, thought that he
+had realized that his dignity in the regiment under the present system
+went side by side, and not behind, that of the English officers. Yet
+here he was at the mercy of something too strong for acquired wisdom.
+He walked on faster to escape into a more wholesome environment, and by
+sheer force of will succeeded in driving away all thought of the past
+interview save a triviality. That was the remembrance that her name was
+Laila, his Roshan. Light and Darkness, Day and Night. A fate indeed.
+
+As he passed into the courtyard, however, on his way to the door in the
+river bastion, a group in its centre, round the old gun, brought his
+attention back to realities, and he went towards it, his slipper-shod
+feet making no martial clank, this time, on the union-jack of raised
+paths. The group consisted of half a dozen or so of men listening to
+something which was being declaimed, with much gesticulation, by an
+ash-smeared _jogi_, whose wide-pierced ears, distended by conch-shell
+rings, and transverse bar of white on his forehead, showed him to
+belong to the sect which claims to have transcendental powers.
+
+Apparently he had been making the claim, for a young man, whose costume
+smacked of Western culture, and whose face was acute, litigious,
+interrupted him impatiently.
+
+"Yea, yea; possibly thou couldst come over the obstruction,
+Gorakh-nath-_jee_; but the question is whether the obstruction be
+legal. Is it not so, Lala Ramanund?"
+
+Lala Ramanund, whose dress was even more Western, and who had a certain
+air of distinction, due, evidently, to position, assented; adding, as a
+rider, and with some contempt, that at present they had only _jogi_
+Gorakh-nath's word that any interference was intended.
+
+Gorakh-nath, a tall, muscular man, naked save for his grass-rope
+girdle, his wild hair twined and twisted to a tiara, his wild,
+half-insane eyes telling of drugs, shot a glance of absolute defiance
+at Ramanund. "Thy name, _pundit-jee_, is not likely to give friendly
+witness to mine," he began, alluding to the fact that they were
+respectively called after the founders of their absolutely antagonistic
+sects, "and yet methinks thou couldst, seeing--"
+
+Here Dya Ram, the first speaker, alarmed in his lawyer's soul at the
+militant tone of the _jogi_, suggested hastily that they might inquire,
+say at the gate; or stay! there was the _risaldar_ coming; he must
+know.
+
+Once more, as he listened to the question put to him, the expression of
+his race and creed came to Roshan's face, hiding its culture.
+
+"Of a certainty!" he replied haughtily. "The gun belongs to the Fort.
+It is not to be used as a shelter for--for saints!" His contempt was
+palpable.
+
+"I deny your premise," put in Dya Ram eagerly. "The gun is the people's
+by prescriptive right. I can use it if I choose. The Government
+professes neutrality; therefore, no one has a right to interfere with
+my religion."
+
+Roshan's face was a study. "Lo! Dya Ram, for thou art my old
+class-fellow surely, hast gone back to the old beliefs since the days
+when thou didst sign thyself at the end of thy essays, and in thy
+books, 'Dya Ram, Agnostic'?"
+
+Dya Ram gave an uneasy cough. "It is a question of legality--" he
+began.
+
+"And of money also," put in a new voice cringingly. "The pilgrims come
+hither to see the saint, and then bathe. But if there is no saint, many
+will not come, and I, who have my right on the steps as marker of the
+caste marks--"
+
+"Right!" echoed the Mahomedan curtly. "Have a care, caste-marker, lest
+we do not claim the courtyard also."
+
+Here Ramanund, who had hitherto listened indifferently, took up the
+cudgels. "That can scarcely be, _risaldar-sahib_," he said; "our pious
+folk have come hither to perform their offices since time began."
+
+Gorakh-nath turned on him at once. "Not so, _Vaishnava!_" he said.
+"Thou and thine know naught of the Beginning of Things. Come to us and
+Holy Shiv-_jee_ for that! Thou art as far from the great wisdom as
+he"--here he pointed wildly to Roshan--"yea! further, despite thy
+pretence of purity! Despite thy hunger yesterday when, returning to thy
+lost faith, thou didst come here to eat as the twice-born should, and a
+shadow fell upon thy food! Despite thy deafness to this world just
+now,"--here he laughed jeeringly,--"which kept thee back from bearing
+witness to my truth, to the truth of Shiv-_jee's_ servant!"
+
+Dya Ram looked at him, then at Ramanund perplexedly. "What means he?"
+he said aside. "Didst thou really come hither?"
+
+"My wife was dying," replied Ramanund in a low, rapid undertone, "and
+I--you understand--there--there is nothing certain, you see--and any
+chance--one goes back at such times--" he broke off almost desperately
+in his confession.
+
+Dya Ram, who had signed himself Agnostic, nodded. He understood what it
+was to be rudderless in a familiar current, and came to the rescue of
+his friend's consistency by asserting that any such decision regarding
+the gun, if one had been made, would certainly be disputed. That he and
+his--though they demurred to its being counted against them for faith
+in the worshipping of mere matter--would, if necessary, carry the case
+to the High Court.
+
+"Carry it to the Court of thy god Indra, if need be, Dya Ram," retorted
+Roshan, and as he strode off he spat deliberately in the dust. That
+also surprised him faintly, for he had thought he had learnt tolerance
+of the _Huzoors_. So, with a frown and yet with relief, he put his hand
+on the latch which would open the way back to a less disturbing
+environment. As he did so, another hand was on it also. The door opened
+from within, and Father Ninian stood on the threshold barring it; but
+barring it with smiles.
+
+"Ah! my pupil," he said in English. "I have been listening to your
+praises from Captain Dering, and from Mr. Carlyon too. He says you are
+the best fencer in the army. You and I must cross foils again sometime,
+eh, my pupil?"
+
+Roshan, as he stepped aside elaborately to let the old man pass, drew
+himself up and saluted.
+
+"If you please, sir; but I have learnt new things since--since those
+days."
+
+His tone made Father Ninian pause to look at him for an instant; then
+he replied, "And I have not forgotten the old; that makes us equal."
+
+Roshan gave a little hard laugh as he went in; if the old man liked to
+think so, let him.
+
+But Father Ninian's face as he passed--a black shadow in the
+sunshine--across the level steps leading down to the river wore a
+wistful smile. Old and new, he thought. New and old. Senseless, useless
+words, fit only for humanity to juggle dreams from, since no man knew
+the unseen beginning, knew the unseen end; knew even his own birth and
+death. In the endless band of life, naught came first, naught last, and
+the things of to-day might be old, the things of yesterday might be
+new.
+
+"_Margherita!_"
+
+The name came soundless to the priest's lips, and a quick flush of
+youth, and hope, and joy seemed to smooth away the wrinkles of his
+face. A faint laugh, a happy laugh, went further towards a hearing than
+the name. It was sixty years ago, nearly, since he had left her. An old
+story indeed, and yet how new. The new wine of it ran in his old veins,
+thrilled to his old brain, and took him back absolutely to a palazzo on
+the outskirts of Rome, with the pale flood of the Tiber flowing beneath
+a marble loggia. He had never looked on running water since without
+remembrance, and now--his feet having led him unconsciously to the
+river's edge--he stood smiling at the pale flood of the Hari. For he
+knew that he had fought a good fight, that he had kept the promise he
+had made in order to still her soul; that he had kept her boy, Pietro
+Bonaventura, so far as he could, from harm, and his child, and his
+child's child, gathering them as lambs into the arms of Holy Church.
+
+And then something in the last thought drove the tender human smile
+from his face. He murmured a "_Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_," bent to
+the stream, and dipping his fingers in it, crossed himself.
+
+"May Shiv-_jee's_ blessing go with his holy water, _Baba-jee_," said a
+voice behind him. It was Gorakh-nath the _jogi_, who, his sympathizers
+having departed, had come to fill his gourd.
+
+Father Ninian turned; so for a space they stood face to face;
+representatives of the two great supernaturalisms of the world; the one
+which has held the West, the one which has held the East.
+
+The old man's face, at first, returned to kindly human tolerance; for
+his fifty years of Eshwara had widened his sympathies. But, as he stood
+before the _jogi_ it hardened, and the priestly arrogance of the naked
+ash-smeared figure, stretching a right hand in claim over the
+sanctifying power of the river, was reflected in Father Ninian's as he
+spread his left hand upwards, and turned on his heel with the words,
+"_Vade retro Satanas!_"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+                          THE "DEE-PUK-RAG"
+
+
+"You are tired to death as it is--why should you fuss any more over a
+pack--"
+
+"Ssh! sir; don't talk rubbish. I am all right; and Eugene is so anxious
+everything should be a success that I must. Besides I--I like it."
+
+Mrs. Walsall Smith sent the hostess' gathering smile round her long
+luncheon table, and rose. So did Vincent Dering, who had sat at her
+right hand--a position due to his rank as commandant of Eshwara--and,
+as he did, he drew his chair aside to let the girl on his left pass,
+with his usual somewhat _voyant_ courtesy, though it was only Laila
+Bonaventura. He had met her several times during the past few days, and
+the effect which her singing had made on him had vanished before her
+general failure to interest him in the least. And to-day she actually
+wore a blue sash! In addition she had filled up the time between her
+monosyllables in methodically crumbling her bread and ranging the
+results in a pattern, until the inanity of it had got on his nerves,
+and he had felt inclined to beg her to desist.
+
+And yet, as in passing her black eyes looked into his with one
+curious yet comprehensive flash, a memory of the extreme regularity of
+the curves and lines which had annoyed him, made him--quite
+irrelevantly--wonder hastily if he could have said anything to Muriel
+which--
+
+He broke off in his own thought impatiently, and gave an apologetic
+glance after Mrs. Walsall Smith's fragile figure. There never was
+anything, never! Never a word said, never a deed done, which all the
+world--even Eugene Smith himself--might not hear and know. Vincent
+Dering felt a pulse of sheer virtue as he looked down the long table at
+his host, with the vague irritation which the possessors of women often
+arouse in those who are not their possessors. For Muriel Smith's
+half-playful, half-wistful rejection of sympathy had held that faint
+hint of dutiful martyrdom which seems so purely angelic to selfish
+man--unless he happens to be the wretch who inflicts it!
+
+Curious, he thought; Eugene wasn't much of a gentleman, but he wasn't a
+bad sort, and he was fond of his wife, in a way. Yet he was blind to
+the fact that Muriel was not fit to go trapesing about his blessed old
+canal works with the pack of _padres_ and people he had got together to
+do honour to his skill. She would do it, of course, and get through
+with it, too! Here he helped himself to a glass of sherry, and felt
+incoherently that she was the dearest and best woman in the world,--the
+one woman in the world, so far as he was concerned.
+
+As he sat between those two empty chairs where those two women, so
+absolutely unlike, had fenced him in on either side, a faint wonder
+tinged his virtue in comparing the last three years with the time
+before it.
+
+If anyone had told him, then, that he would write every day to a woman
+and expect her to write to him without a word or a deed--
+
+"Please, Dering-darlin'," said an imperious small voice, "mum wants
+'oo, 'tos pup'll go off, she says, wis' all a gemplemen, an' she wants
+'oo to go off wis' a ladies!"
+
+"All right, little 'un," he laughed gladly, finishing his sherry at a
+gulp, and, ere catching the little mite in his arms, giving himself
+that smartening pull together which was so characteristic of the man.
+
+He looked very handsome, very happy, as he came up, with Gladys shaking
+her curls at him in outrageous flirtation.
+
+"How kind!" said Muriel. "I don't know what I should do without you."
+
+That was all; but it sent him off in absolute content to tackle the
+stoutest lady in the room.
+
+"If _you_ make the move, Mrs. Campbell," he said diplomatically,
+"everyone will follow, and I know Mrs. Smith is anxious we should
+start, as it will take some time to go round."
+
+"Ay! that it will!" assented the good lady in a mournful Scotch accent.
+"'Deed if it were not for Dr. James--" she glanced fearfully at a tall
+man in a black frock coat--a man whose patriarchal beard had once been
+red and was now the colour of a carpet whisk--who was buttonholing
+Father Ninian; the latter, with his straight slenderness, looking
+almost youthful beside the other's burly bulk.
+
+"I wouldn't go if I didn't want to," put in a sharp-featured lady who
+belonged to another black frock coat--a small one. "You spoil the
+doctor, Mrs. Campbell. As I tell _my_ husband, I yield to him in
+spiritual matters--the mission, you know, and all that; but when it
+comes to realities--the housekeeping, and what we are to eat, and do,
+and that sort of thing--that is my province."
+
+Mrs. Campbell turned her fat good-natured face on her neighbour's
+placidly. "Ay, my dear; but ye didn't promise to be a wife to Dr.
+James, an' I did. So, Captain Dering, if you can find my niece--"
+
+"Miss Shepherd is quite safe, Mrs. Campbell. Carlyon's looking after
+her," interrupted Vincent, feeling another spasm of sheer virtue. He
+had seen the two sitting together at lunch, apparently interested in
+each other, and he had noticed how Lance, on entering the drawing-room,
+had made his way straight to those coils of red-bronze hair which had a
+trick of being the most conspicuous point in any group of which they
+formed part. So Lance would enjoy himself simply; he would not have to
+gain pleasure in complex fashion by dragging about a _posse_ of
+uninteresting old ladies, for the sake of a lady who was neither.
+Vincent's face had a bored look as he began his task by piloting his
+charge into the verandah, and so on into the open.
+
+It was hot work crossing the stretch of sand which lay between the
+bungalow and the red brick abutments of the canal head; but once there,
+with the broad still basin of the united rivers before you, a cool
+breeze blew pleasantly from that blue barrier of hills with the
+gold-spiked temples of Eshwara enamelled against it, and a soft white
+mist hiding the feet of the far-distant snows; so hiding the "Cradle of
+the Gods! The floods had gone, however, and so had the robe of
+righteousness. The sandbanks lay bare, of the earth, earthy. The logs,
+too, were no longer dipping and dancing in the currents. Some were
+piled criss-cross on the spit, awaiting ransomers, and a few lay like
+straight shadows, half in, half out of the receding water.
+
+"A log! not a bit of it!" said someone, stooping for a stone. "Look!"
+
+The missile fell far short of the low streak of sand and shadow, but
+did its work. The shadow disappeared, as a bottle-nosed alligator
+slipped silently into the stream. Most eyes watched it, but Lance
+Carlyon's turned to Erda Shepherd. He had only met her once, casually,
+when he was out fishing on the spit, since the day when Father Ninian
+had introduced them, and they had seen something else in the river that
+was also not a log.
+
+"Do you remember," he began impulsively, "the first time we met?"
+
+A shadow slipped into her limpid bronze eyes also. "Certainly," she
+interrupted coldly. "It is not so very long ago--is it?"
+
+She had fenced with his assumption of friendliness more than once
+already; feeling vexed with herself, the while, that she should do so.
+Since what did it matter? However much she might regret--and she had
+regretted with foolish unseen blushes as she had lain awake at night
+wondering what had possessed her--the almost indecent unveiling of
+realities in that first five minutes, she could not undo it. Besides,
+she had told herself, he had in all probability forgotten it in polo,
+and partridge-shooting, fishing, and such things.
+
+But he had not, apparently; and he parried her fence with a still more
+friendly laugh.
+
+"I didn't mean that, of course; but we won't talk of it, if you'd
+rather not. It isn't a very Mark Tapleyish subject, is it, for an
+afternoon party?"
+
+The blush was to be seen this time. "So I have been thinking myself,
+Mr. Carlyon, ever since last Wednesday," she began, still more coldly,
+"and I am sorry--"
+
+He interrupted her quite cavalierly. "I didn't mean that, either, and
+you know I didn't. However, we'll leave it alone. So you're not coming
+to the ball! Do you know, I think it's an awful pity; I'm sure you'd
+dance beautifully."
+
+She felt outraged, in a way, and yet she smiled. He seemed so much
+younger than she was. Younger; but stronger and more vital. That calm
+assertion, too, that she knew she was playing feminine tricks with him,
+had been manly and dignified to quite a crushing degree. She could not
+help being at once meek and indulgent.
+
+"I don't dance, Mr. Carlyon," she said quietly; adding, as a rider and
+salve to her conscience, "I--I think it wrong."
+
+"I thought you might," he returned, evidently pleased at his own
+acumen, "but I don't see it that way. Of course if--if you go in for
+those ideas, you know, you can make it seem--well--awful low; but I--"
+he paused before even a possible sounding of his own trumpet--"you see
+I think it's awfully jolly; besides, it's such ripping good exercise,
+and I have to be careful, I tell you, not to put on flesh. I ride
+thirteen-four, as it is." His face grew grave over the confession.
+
+"Is that much?" she said, her eyes caught and held by the splendid
+figure beside her. "You are very tall, surely." There was almost a
+pride in her tone, certainly a tenderness.
+
+He shook his head. "Not so tall as my people are generally. We Carlyons
+run to size. My uncle, Sir Lancelot's, six-three, and his son is
+six-four; but he's a bit weedy. So when you're only six-one and a half
+you can't afford to wax fat; you've got to keep the body in subjection.
+That's right, isn't it?" His pride in his Scriptural knowledge made it
+impossible for her to be stern, though she felt she ought to be.
+
+"Quite right, Mr. Carlyon," she assented, hurriedly, "but see! the
+others have gone on, and I don't want to miss--She stumbled, in her
+haste to end the tete-a-tete, on a loose brick, and for an instant was
+over-near the edge of the abutment.
+
+"Take care!" he said, his hand on hers to give support; a cool, strong
+hand, with an insistence in its clasp which seemed to single her out
+from the world to stand so, hand fast in hand. "You were very nearly
+over that time," he said, smilingly, as he released her. "Now let's
+come on, or, as you say, we shall be too late for the fair. Smith's
+going to show off his electric light in the tents, you know."
+
+Perhaps it was the slip which had made her dizzy, but she walked beside
+him feeling as if she were in a dream. And, in truth, the scene which
+grew upon them as they went on had a strange unearthliness and
+unreality. She paused, and gave a little gasp of pleasure and surprise.
+"It seems impossible!" she said. "A week ago, when I was here, it was
+all sand, sand; and now--"
+
+Her eyes met the wide, flower-set walks, the stately white palaces of
+the Vice-regal camp with absolute incredulity. "Did you do all this?"
+she asked, doubtfully. "Why, you've made a new world!" She felt
+inwardly as if he had, somehow, for her.
+
+"Oh! Vincent did a lot of the decorations, you know. He's that sort.
+We--my fellows, I mean, and Dillon's gaol-birds--dug, and did the dirty
+work. But it looks all right, doesn't it?"
+
+It did, indeed,--absolutely and entirely all right. So white, so
+straight, so disciplined; even to the very twist on the tent ropes.
+
+"That peg's out of line," said Lance, pausing suddenly. "Here,
+sergeant!"
+
+A following had gathered in their rear, bringing up the little
+procession of Englishmen and women, with a knot of dark faces, and from
+it a man in dust-coloured drill stepped, and saluted.
+
+"Two inches, or, say, an inch and a half." Erda caught so much in the
+order given as she walked on.
+
+_Two inches, or, say, an inch and a half!_ No more than that wrong in
+this dream city; and over yonder? Her eyes travelled past the snowdrift
+of the camp, rising against the blue background of wide water, to
+Eshwara, rising against its background of blue hill.
+
+"I thought so; a good inch and a half," said Lance exultantly, coming
+up with measured strides. "It makes a lot of difference though."
+
+She looked at him critically. Older by some months than he, full of
+strong character, almost overfull of strong convictions, she was
+yet--as women must be until experience of work-a-day life teaches them,
+as it has taught men, the value of subordination--curiously
+undisciplined, curiously lawless. And this striving after uniformity
+impressed her.
+
+"I suppose you learn that sort of thing in the army," she said, with a
+new respect.
+
+He laughed. "I should think so; buttons and bootlaces all to pattern.
+It's an awful bore, but it keeps things going. Now, here we are! Now,
+you can see properly."
+
+They stood in the centre of the camp, in front of the huge _durbar_
+tent, that wandering throne of an empire fixed and immovable as the
+stars. In front of them, rising out of a wilderness of roses,
+blossoming where nothing but sand had shown since the primeval sea
+receded from the hills, was the flag of that empire, its folds drooping
+round the mast. And beyond it, past the two brass guns pointing down
+the long vista, was an avenue of palms, bordered by green grass and
+beds of flowers, and intersected by broad paths leading back to the
+solid white squares of the tents. At the farther end, a quarter of a
+mile or more from the flagstaff, a triumphal arch at the entrance
+showed, until the palm-leaves cut it short, a legend:
+
+
+                      "WELCOME TO THE LORD----"
+
+
+and above it, far at the feet of those distant snows, lay that wreath
+of white mist hiding the "Cradle of the Gods."
+
+Erda's eyes travelled to it, and from it to the other vistas, similar
+yet smaller, stretching to the right and left of her. Then to the
+orderly rows on rows of tents, looking like solid blocks of marble
+behind her. The whole shut in from the world by a high white wall;
+still, silent, empty, waiting for the Hosts of the Lord. A snow-drift
+facing that mist-drift on the hills. And between them? Eshwara, and all
+that Eshwara held of evil and of good.
+
+The dreaminess left her eyes, startled at a band of dark figures which
+at this moment appeared rounding the corner of a tent--figures in
+scanty striped clothing with a broad arrow on it; figures with shaven,
+close-capped heads and leg irons clanking, as their bare feet threaded
+through the flowers. And behind them, half-hidden, as ever, under his
+mushroom of a hat, came George Dillon. He had noticed, as he passed
+with the others, that the roses were flagging a bit under the hot sun,
+and had gone back to summon a fatigue party of his criminals to water
+them.
+
+"Bring another go, _mate_," he ordered, as the gang, filing past the
+flagstaff, emptied their earthen pots; "then go back to the road. And
+be quick. There's no time to lose. The Lord-_sahib_ comes to-morrow."
+
+They obeyed with grins; and Dr. Dillon, as he paused beside Lance and
+Erda, looked after them approvingly. "They like this better than
+picking oakum, and I've had to set some of 'em to do that, now the
+digging's done. I shall be glad when this show's over, and we move on."
+
+"Move! where?" asked Erda.
+
+"Where there is work to be done, Miss Shepherd. Satan finds mischief,
+you know, especially with his own hands." He paused and smiled.
+"They're a queer lot. Do you know some of them are in a blind funk
+because they think a percentage of them have to be sacrificed before
+the water will run." He grew grave again. "Poor devils!" he added, in a
+softer tone--"as if they hadn't paid tribute already. I lost over a
+hundred last year, what with pneumonia and malaria, but they don't seem
+to count that--that is the will of the gods. But I say, hadn't you
+better be going into the tent if you want to see the light-up? Smith
+went off to his plant five minutes ago with his gang, so it's about
+time."
+
+It was almost pitch dark in the huge tent, and as they slipped in
+through the closed portieres, Vincent Dering's voice called to them.
+
+"Be quick, please; and, Carlyon, tell them to shut down the outer
+screens. We want to have a real flash-up, and I believe we are all here
+now."
+
+Whether that was so or not Erda could not tell. The brief ray of light
+caused by their entrance had only shown her Captain Dering's figure
+beside his hostess, and given her a glimpse of Laila Bonaventura's
+white dress close by. So it was eerie, in a way, to wait in the
+darkness, knowing it to be full of people she knew; yet to have
+consciousness of nothing save their voices, since age, sex, position,
+even race, were alike awaiting this new light which was to make them
+manifest. Perhaps the eeriness struck her companions also, for the
+voices came clearly; not in a babel, but answering each other in the
+listening, waiting silence.
+
+"We are all full of sparks, I assure you, Mrs. Campbell."
+
+"I am weel aware o' it, Doctor Dillon; but it's too much like a brand
+snatched frae the burning to my taste; for Doctor James will have
+it--"
+
+"Undoubtedly, my dear Ann. It appears to me, sir, and I trust it will
+to you, as a most interesting scientific fact, calculated to confound
+those who scoff at the possibility of eternal punishment in a fire that
+is not quenched--"
+
+"Or to comfort those who believe in a cleansing one--who seek a place
+in the crown of stars about their Mother's head--who feel the flame of
+immortality." Its faint hesitancy betrayed this voice, as the dryness
+did the next.
+
+"If I've got to generate my own heaven or hell, I prefer to pass; but
+if one could turn on a fifty-candlepower reflecting lamp during a _post
+mortem_ or a bacillus hunt, it would be useful."
+
+"Yes! Fancy being able to get up at night and see, at once, in all
+corners of the room if there were snakes!"
+
+This brought a laugh till a fragile voice said plaintively, "That's
+just the worst of it. When one begins to see things too clearly, they
+are so apt to be nasty."
+
+"That, my dear Madam, has always appeared to me as an additional
+argument against those who contend that Perfect Wisdom could not wisely
+have produced so imperfect a being as Man."
+
+"Surely, Dr. Campbell," interrupted a tart voice, "the necessity for
+something on which to exercise our faith proves that; but then I am
+only a woman. I confine myself to realities."
+
+"Then what a bore it would be if there were no delusions! By Jove! it
+would be dull. Who is it says the soul of man lies in his imagination?"
+Captain Dering's voice could not be mistaken.
+
+"Just so--and nowhere else."
+
+This came in an aside, and was followed in the same tone by the eager,
+hesitating voice. "Scoffer! When you men of Science spend your lives in
+listening--to the things which cannot be heard--looking for the things
+that cannot be seen-- Ah! doctor!--you can't impose on me. I know
+you--I have seen you."
+
+The very darkness seemed abashed, and there was silence; till a new
+voice, young, full-throated, broke it. "But how can you tell if things
+are nasty till you have seen them--they may be nice. Ah-h-h!"
+
+It had come like a creation, flooding all things with irresistible
+light.
+
+A sort of sigh made itself heard; a sigh of vague relief. "By Jove!"
+said Captain Dering, "it will make a difference to the _durbar_. As a
+rule you can't see the diamonds and jewels; and they are half the
+show."
+
+Palpably there could be no fear of that. To the uttermost corner of the
+vast tent, the pattern of its lining of shawls was visible; each boss
+on the parcel-gilt poles glittered and shone; the very legend round the
+arms of England above the Vice-regal chair stood out clear "_Dieu et
+mon droit_." And the expression on the two groups of dark faces, the
+one which had come by invitation to see, the other which had crept in
+at the further end, could not be mistaken. In the one, indifference
+struggled with curiosity; in the other assent was mingled with awe.
+
+"What are they saying?" asked Lance, who, having come late, stood close
+to the latter group. "Something about _Dee-puk-rag_. What's that?"
+
+Erda shook her head. "Father Ninian will know--he knows all these
+things--that is why they call him Pidar Narayan, and let him do
+anything. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't the best way." The last,
+spoken to herself, was interrupted by Father Ninian's echo.
+
+"The _Dee-puk-rag!_ Why, yes--of course!" He turned to the dark faces
+in sheer delight. "Yea! brothers!" he said in Hindustani, "ye are
+right! It is the _Dee-puk-rag_--the sign of kingship. Have I not told
+ye always that the Lord is with us--and with you?" Then he turned back
+to his other hearers: "It means the Song of Light--a charm--a spell
+which the great men of old knew. Is it not so, Ramanund?"
+
+A half-reluctant voice from the invited replied, "The ignorant say so,
+sir."
+
+A faintly sarcastic smile came to the fine old face. "And they believe
+its possession marks the born ruler of men--the God-sent guide; since,
+when it is sung, the light comes from the stars to help the world on
+its way--to dispel the darkness! Ah-h-h!"
+
+It had gone! and in the black night which settled blankly on speaker
+and audience, a faint, far cry came from outside. More than one woman's
+voice echoed it with a little startled gasp of suspense.
+
+"It is all right!" called Vincent Dering, "the thing is always popping
+in and out--I've seen it at Euston--it will come back directly." And
+then, in response to something he alone had heard, he whispered, "Don't
+be alarmed; Eugene will set it right in a moment--really--"
+
+As he bent his head a scent of violets--the scent she always
+used--assailed him; and that half-heard appeal--"Oh, what is it,
+Vincent?" seemed still in his ears. Even in the darkness he knew she
+must be close to him. He felt the soft ruffle of the lace about her
+hand upon his wrist. It trembled, surely. Did it? Or was it only
+his own bounding pulse. A sudden imperious desire to know--to be
+certain--swept through him.
+
+Then, with a sort of suffocating rush to heart and brain, came the
+knowledge that his clasp was answered by that small hand--so small, so
+clinging, so trustful--so dear--so absolutely dear--so dear!--so very
+dear!!
+
+As he stood in the darkness, he knew that every mooring was gone, knew
+that this--this thing--would change--must change--the whole position.
+It was a light, indeed; a light showing the way--a different way! A
+sort of fierce exultation took possession of him. He knew, now, that he
+had been dreaming till then; that he had been blind.
+
+"Ah! what a relief! That dreadful darkness was getting on my nerves,"
+said a calm voice coming to him from out of the flood of white light
+which seemed to have rent their hands asunder.
+
+Their hands--when she stood yonder? He turned, bewildered, to find a
+pair of grave black eyes fixed critically on him.
+
+"I--I--he began.
+
+"It doesn't matter," said Laila Bonaventura, with stolid indifference.
+"You thought it was her hand, of course. I quite understand."
+
+Did she? Did--could--anyone? even he himself?
+
+God! How content--how happy he had been--how certain--
+
+"Dillon! Dillon! For God's sake, where's Dillon?" came an excited
+voice, as Eugene Smith burst into the tent, bringing the afternoon
+sunshine to war with that unearthly light. "Come along, man! There's
+been an accident in the workshop! I warned them not to touch--one--a
+mere boy--did. Got startled, I suppose, and fell over--onto the
+circular saw--it was going. His leg--I've tried a _tourniquet_, but I
+can't stop--"
+
+The remainder was inaudible; the caller and the called, followed by
+Vincent, glad of any interruption to the intolerableness of his
+confusion, were already running as for dear life down the palm-set
+avenue towards the canal workshop outside the walls.
+
+That it was for death, however, not life, Dr. Dillon saw at a glance;
+though, without a pause, he knelt down in the fateful, irresistible
+tide of life blood which was ebbing and flowing with such awful
+insistency, and set his teeth in fight.
+
+Yet once he gave an upward glance to the long, low roof so full of
+driving bands and wheels and levers, so full of men's power, so empty
+of men's passion; and then a straight one to the circle of ignorant,
+awe-stricken, dark faces closing in round him. And as he did so, he
+muttered to himself:--
+
+"I wouldn't have had this happen for a thousand pounds--and a
+high-caste man, too!"
+
+Undoubtedly; the sacred thread showed on the shoulder under the broad
+arrow--for the twice-born are twice-born even in gaol.
+
+"Lay him on Mother Earth to die, ye of his caste!" said a voice from
+behind. It was Father Ninian's. His haste had driven the colour from
+his face; he stood breathless, yet calm, his right hand raised. In the
+awestricken circle none stirred; there was no sacred thread upon their
+shoulders.
+
+"Give me a hand, please, Dr. Dillon," said the old man quietly; "he
+will not die easy there." So, between them, they shifted the slight
+figure from the wooden platform on which it had fallen, to the ground
+all sodden and stained with that tide of blood. A faint content seemed
+to come to the half-conscious face; the head nestled itself into the
+soft earth as if to rest.
+
+The circle of dark and white faces fell back alike, leaving the doctor
+and the priest alone with death,--the doctor with both hands detaining
+that ebbing tide of life, the priest with the _viaticum_ of another
+faith on his lips speeding it on its way.
+
+"Lo!" whispered some of the circle. "Hark to his '_Ram Ram!_' He
+knows--Pidar Narayan knows."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI
+
+                           ALPHA AND OMEGA
+
+
+Am-ma was fishing. Breast deep in the water, which in the early dawn
+stretched like a shining shield to meet the pale primrose vestments of
+the coming day, his bodiless head and shoulders slid sedately over the
+surface like some strange kind of wild-fowl; for his hands, clasped at
+the back of his curly frizz of hair, held the apex of a conical,
+reed-distended net, shaped like a pair of wings. His eyes were closed,
+and, despite all lack of visible movement, the tenseness of every
+muscle, the strained look of every curve, showed that he was on the
+alert for something; that something, being the first hint of possible
+prey sent by his hidden feet as they felt, like hands, over the bottom.
+Felt lightly, buoyantly, with scarce more pressure than the water
+itself, until, at the first suspicion of a fish lying half-buried in
+the sand, they would fling themselves air-wards to change places with
+his head; and that, with the net twirled dexterously above it, would go
+down like an extinguisher over the suspicious ridge or furrow.
+Sometimes--most often, of course,--they proved to be nothing else; but
+sometimes, again, there would be a pause, during which the black legs
+would remain uppermost, and then, once more, the black head would come
+air-wards with a wriggling fish, held, if it happened to be a small
+one, in its white teeth. For Am-ma had not been provided by nature with
+a pouch, like the pelicans who were fishing hard by; and, being
+absolutely destitute of clothing and pockets, had to sidle sedately to
+the bank with each prize before seeking another, since both hands and
+feet were needed for its capture. Otherwise, his method of fishing was
+little removed from the birds,--the net being considered as his beak.
+If anything, it was the more primitive of the two, since the pelicans
+fished in companies, drawing a serried line round each likely shallow;
+whereas Am-ma had all the distrust of his fellow which marks man in his
+earliest development. For, even amongst his kind, Am-ma was held to be
+barbarian; though, Heaven knows! the six or seven millions of wild
+tribes and forest races in India which go to make up its two hundred
+and eighty, are primitive enough. Those six or seven millions, frankly,
+absolutely savage, who, as the census puts it, are 'not to be
+specified'; remaining, as they do, untouched by either the
+civilizations or religions with which they have come in contact. Six or
+seven millions, whose very superstitions are their own monopoly!
+
+Some there were among these fisher folk of Eshwara who, like Gu-gu,
+were faintly leavened with latter-day learning, faintly amenable to
+latter-day standards; but Am-ma's dull brain was satisfied with what it
+had inherited; which included, amongst other things, sight, hearing,
+touch, keen almost beyond belief. So he opened his eyes at a sound
+which, to an ordinary person, would have been as inaudible as the swift
+coming of sunlight in the sky; and his sight told him immediately what
+it was in detail. A canoe was coming down the lagoon with two men in
+it. Now there was only one canoe in Eshwara, and that belonged to
+Pundit Ramanund. He had been over the black water, and learnt, amongst
+a number of other strange new things which were of no use, how to
+paddle a canoe--his own or another's! For what good was a canoe when
+you did not know the sandbanks? And how could you know the sand-banks
+unless you swam over them and dived down to them? Then, if you could do
+that, what was the good of a canoe? An air-bag, or even an earthen pot
+under the pit of your stomach, on which you could lie, was sufficient
+for all practical purposes.
+
+Therefore one of the men Am-ma knew must be Ramanund; the other, by his
+turban, was a Mahomedan. Did _he_ know the sand-banks? Am-ma shaded his
+eyes with one hand, and watched to see. Evidently not; the canoe stuck
+here, there, everywhere, yet still came on slowly. But if the occupants
+wanted--as everybody seemed to want nowadays--to cross over to the
+other side--that other side where the red brick headworks of the canal
+showed like a plinth--to those strange, new white tents where the Lord
+was expected; then they would find the navigation more intricate.
+
+Am-ma being conservative inevitably, smiled at the certainty, closed
+his eyes, and went on fishing; till he opened them again at a shout.
+
+"Which way?" he echoed, his voice sounding hollow from its nearness to
+the water. "By the deep stream, always."
+
+"And which is that, fool?" came Roshan's voice angrily.
+
+"Where there is most water," returned Am-ma calmly. "Cease from
+paddling, and the canoe will tell you without fail. Such things know of
+themselves. They are wise."
+
+"But we want to get over to the camp as quickly as we can," said
+Ramanund, interrupting an impatient retort of Roshan Khan's, with an
+aside to the effect that they had better not alienate their only hope.
+The river was lower than he had expected, or he would never have
+suggested crossing in the boat, as quicker than the bridge; yet there
+was not time to go back.
+
+Am-ma smiled cunningly. "None will get quicker than he can, my masters;
+that much is certain." Being pleased with his own wit, he laughed, and
+kicking up his heels, ducked his head, to come up again a few yards
+nearer in shallower water, where he could stand and salaam.
+
+"The noble people," he said gravely, "must surely follow the stream if
+they go in company; but if they will quit comfort, and wade, carrying
+their boat here and there, I, Am-ma, will show them. But it is
+annoyance. Without going with the stream there is always annoyance."
+
+"It is better than going back or sticking still, anyhow!" remarked
+Roshan Khan to his companion; adding in Hindustani--"Then come
+quick--there is room for thee and thy net, and we will pay thee."
+
+Am-ma shook his head. "There is weight enough for difficulties without
+me, my masters; and here or there is one to a fisher." So saying, he
+closed his net with one dexterous twist, slipped his arms through it so
+that it hung behind his back, and struck across the shallows.
+
+"Yonder is our aim," he said briefly, pointing to a blue thread of
+smoke rising from the water's edge a good way down stream. "They burn a
+dead man there to-day; it is ever a good guide to the living."
+
+"'Twill be the Brahmin lad the _Huzoors_ killed by mistake with their
+_Dee-puk-rag_. Didst hear the tale?" asked Ramanund. Why, he would have
+been puzzled to tell, since he had no definite desire to foster
+ill-feeling or fear; but it had been the talk of the town till those
+small hours which end gossip, even in India, and the talk had confirmed
+the theory, which so many of his kind hold firmly, if vaguely, that the
+mass of the people feel the English rule to be unjust.
+
+But Am-ma was not of the people. He was of the six million and odd
+barbarians. He turned, showing his broad white teeth in a grin. "Ay!
+'Twas well done. Now, as in old days, folk will know who is true
+leader." There was no doubt, no fear in his mind. Had not his tribe
+always, of old, chosen as its chief and God the man who could hold a
+torch in each hand at arms' length, one lighted, the other unlit, and
+bid the flame pass from one to the other seven times? And as for a
+man's life, was it not always expedient that one should die for the
+people upon occasions?
+
+Ramanund frowned; perhaps because Am-ma concluded by ordering the crew
+out of the boat, and the water was cold. It could scarcely have been
+anything else which brought annoyance, since he, like most of his kind,
+prided himself on being truly a British subject.
+
+So, paddling and pushing, wading, and even carrying, they crossed from
+shallow to shallow, from sand-bank to sand-bank, led by Am-ma, swimming
+and diving like a duck, or walking on ahead unconcernedly, his eyes
+fixed in keen-sighted approval on that group close to the water's edge,
+towards which he steered.
+
+Yet it was a gruesome group, in truth, which circled round that
+solitary and still more gruesome figure in the centre. A figure
+squatting like the rest (since, when wood is dear, funeral piles must
+be restricted) in full view, yet mercifully obscured for the most part
+by the heavy column of smoke which rose straight to a level with the
+leaping flames, then, tilting sideways before the intermittent breeze
+of early dawn, drifted westward, to hide those white tents upon the
+horizon.
+
+"Above or below, fool!" called Ramanund, sharply, as they neared the
+shore. "I am no _Dom_, like thou, to choose my way among dead men's
+bones."
+
+The allusion to the semi-aboriginal tribe who earn their livelihood by
+streaking the dead, brought a frown this time to Am-ma's face.
+
+"I am no _Dom_, either," he retorted, "and were I one, thou wouldst be
+glad of my guidance to the fire some day, Pundit-_jee!_" Roshan Khan
+listened with the wholehearted contempt of his race and creed. "Be
+quick, either way," he said, scornfully. "We have bare time, as it is."
+
+Yet he, also, swerved from that gruesome group, which, as the
+two--dressed as Europeans, save for their turbans--stepped ashore and
+hurried off in the direction of the camp, stood up in a linked
+semi-circle to salaam, then squatted again with a clank of leg irons.
+
+Am-ma, his task over, had paused in the deeper water, and was once more
+sidling sedately. The sun had risen with the inconceivable swiftness
+with which it rises from a dead-level, treeless plain, and shone
+reddish-yellow, like a fire, on his wet skin. The shadow of that dense
+column of smoke sidled sedately on the water also, shifting with the
+shifting spirals of the reality.
+
+"Had he spilt blood?" asked Am-ma, suddenly, as that something,
+half-hidden in the smoke, seemed to dissolve, sending a great fountain
+of sparks, bright even in the sunlight, up into the air.
+
+One in the semicircle clucked denial.
+
+"A _jogi_--they say of Gorakh-nath's monastery--had him for disciple.
+And there was _dhatoora_ in the sweetmeats, for sure. Whether he was
+strangler, God knows! Perhaps. Yet such travellers deserved poison; who
+but a fool trusts a strange hand?"
+
+A big man at the end of the semicircle, who had a sinister face despite
+his good conduct badge, looked round hastily to where, a little
+distance off, the two jail-warders in charge were dividing a smoke on
+the sly with swift mysterious bubblings; then lowered his voice.
+
+"Ay! none but fools; and _he_--" (a nod towards that thing in the
+centre which was now dying down to red embers pointed his meaning) "is
+the first; not the last. I, Gopi, _gosain_,[6] say so. Let fools wait
+and see. Wise men will not."
+
+There was a clank of leg irons as if some stirred uneasily. "Thou canst
+talk," murmured a voice. "When thy 'tucket' (ticket of leave)--God
+knows how got!--is so nigh."
+
+Gopi smiled comfortably. "Ay! To-morrow, and the next day, and the
+next. Then, once more, purification in the Pool of Immortality. Once
+more, sanctification at the 'Cradle of the Gods.'" He cast his eyes
+upwards unctuously, like an Eastern Chadband, so rehearsing the part of
+piety he meant to play once more on his release.
+
+Am-ma nodded his bodiless head cheerfully. "There will be no Pool of
+Immortality for the pilgrims this year. So Gorakh-nath says. The canal
+will drain the spring. But then, he is angry at being turned out of his
+gun. The people will not give so much--that is it!"
+
+The _gosain's_ face lowered at the news. "Turned out? Who hath done
+it?"
+
+Am-ma's eyes were closed, for his feet had found likely ground; he
+paused a second, tensely alert--
+
+"He who comes," he said, suddenly; "the Master."
+
+As he spoke, the quick thud, followed by a lingering reverberation of
+the first saluting gun, told that the Viceroy of India was entering his
+camp.
+
+"The Lord hath come!" said the circle of prisoners, in awed tones.
+
+All save Gopi, the _gosain_. He sneered. "The Lord-_sahib_. Ay! he may
+be that--but the Master--no!"
+
+Am-ma gave a contented little chuckle.
+
+"He killed _that_, anyhow," he said nodding again, "and he hath the
+_Dee-puk-rag_. Is not that enough for poor folk?" Then his feet,
+feeling something far out of sight in the still deep waters, came
+air-wards, and his head went down.
+
+When it came up again, the gang of prisoners were being filed back to
+gaol, leaving the still glowing embers of what had been a man to send a
+clear blue smoke into the clear blue sky.
+
+"They have the _Dee-puk-rag_--that is enough," murmured the fisher to
+himself as he slid with the stream.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII
+
+                          THE WORLD'S DESIRE
+
+
+The Viceroy's camp was no longer a city of dreams.
+
+Its silence had gone, lost in that indefinable sense of sound which
+seems to come from the heart-beats, even, of unseen humanity; and
+the whiteness, the purity of it, was stained and smirched by the
+scarlet-as-sin coatees of the innumerable orderlies, who bustled about
+from tent to tent, with huge files of references, or lingered at the
+tent doors extorting shoe-money from the native visitors, who came in
+shoals to plead for patronage from one or another of the bigwigs
+belonging to the Hosts of the Lord-_sahib_. Groups of these
+petitioners, awaiting their turn for an interview, were to be seen at
+most tents; but they stood in crowds round one, in which the
+Commissioner of the Division was making the final arrangements for the
+coming _durbar_; in consultation with the Under Secretary to Supreme
+Government. It was a difficult task, involving as it did the
+classification of the aristocracy, plutocracy, and democracy of India,
+in one generally satisfactory Court-guide.
+
+"It cann't be done in this wurrld," remarked the Commissioner, in one
+of those suave, plastic, Cork brogues which might be made of Cork
+butter from the softness and lack of friction they bring to the English
+language. "An' what's more the Archangel Gabriel couldn't do it in
+heaven, though he'd have a better chance; for the Cherubim wouldn't be
+wanting seats at all! We are bound to displease somebody, so let's cast
+lots before the Lord; it's Scriptural, annyhow."
+
+The Under Secretary looked a trifle shocked, being unacquainted with
+the Commissioner's methods.
+
+"But we must,"--he began.
+
+The other's keen face looked up from the lists for a second. "Of course
+we must--we govern India practically, by cane-bottomed chairs. Ye
+remember old Gunning. No!--before your time, I expect! Well! he kept
+two hundred miles of North-West frontier as quiet as the grave, for
+five years, by the simple expedient of awarding thirteen seats in his
+divisional _durbar_ to each of his districts, and only taking twelve
+chairs with him into camp. The _maliks_, you see, never could tell
+which would be chosen odd man out, an' the fear of it kept 'em like
+sucking doves."
+
+"Indeed!" remarked the Under Secretary, fidgeting with his lists
+resignedly, for he was under the impression that time was being lost.
+"I'm afraid that sort of thing wouldn't answer nowadays." The elder man
+looked at him gravely; just one short glance, as he dipped his pen in
+the ink and went on writing, revising, referring.
+
+"Not a bit of it! They'd send down to Whiteway Laidlaw's and get
+Austrian bent-wood chairs by value payable parcel post! The Teuton,
+sir, is ruinin' British prestige by cheapenin' the seats of the mighty.
+There! that's done--block A's beautiful entirely. Now for block B.
+Who's your favourite, and why are you backing him?"
+
+Once more the junior appeared a trifle shocked. "With reference to
+Roshan Khan," he began. "His Excellency desired me to ask whether it
+might not be possible to give him a step for being, as it were, in his
+own division. He belongs to Eshwara, I believe."
+
+"The very reason why he cann't get an inch more than his due. But you
+can tell H. E. that I've settled it. I've asked Dering to put him on
+duty, an' when he is in uniform there's no mistaking his place. And
+then we'll ask him in to the reception afterwards with the _sahib
+logue_. Who's your next--Dya Ram! what, the little pleader?--Why the
+blazes should he come to _durbar?_--attorneys don't go to St. James."
+
+"Mr. Cox, the member of parliament--perhaps you may remember him--"
+
+"A little red-haired fellow, was he? who wrote a book about India on
+the back of his two-monthly return ticket?"
+
+"Mr. Cox is a man of great influence with his party, and he supports
+Dya Ram's--"
+
+"Pestilential little fool," interrupted the Commissioner impartially,
+impersonally. "It wouldn't be bad, though--stop his scurrilous tongue
+for a bit. Favour does, you know. But I cann't see my way to it. Old
+Hodinuggur would be refusing his '_atta_ and _pan_[7] again. He did it
+once, ye know, when some low-caste fellow was within sight of him. Said
+he didn't eat with sweepers; and if Crawford--he was Commissioner at
+the time--"
+
+"Yes!" said the Under Secretary, still more resignedly. He had not yet
+grasped the fact that his coadjutor talked while he worked--
+
+"Hadn't been six foot four and broad in proportion," went on his
+tormentor imperturbably, "so that the--let us call them the subsequent
+negotiations--diplomatic negotiations--it sounds well!--didn't reach
+the eye of His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, the Thakoor--one of our
+best men let me tell you--would have got into trouble--more'd have been
+the pity."
+
+"Yes," assented the man of Secretariats, "but about Dya Ram--"
+
+"Dya Ram, is it now? Could we put him in under the head 'benevolence'
+think you? Did he ever vaccinate a baby, or breed a horse, or give
+anything to a female hospital? No! Then the devil fly off with him for
+complicating the problem of British rule in India. Why should he want
+to come to _durbar_ at all? When people change their dress they should
+change their desires, but the only effect our civilization has upon
+some men I know, is to make them want to keep their hat and their boots
+on at the same time! Well, that's done! I've found a place for him
+where Hodinuggur can't see the tail end of him unless he squints.
+Now--who's your next?"
+
+While this sort of thing was going on inside the tent, Dya Ram and the
+Thakoor of Hodinuggur were in full view of each other, outside it. The
+former, having scorned the sinful scarlet coatees even to the point of
+refusing to have his patent leather shoes dusted, was walking up and
+down in English fashion. The latter, in a wonderful parcel-gilt coach,
+was awaiting the effect of his ten-rupee tip with perfect patience and
+serenity; while his retinue, which consisted of a dozen ragged
+retainers carrying lances festooned with tinsel and yaks' tails, stared
+contemptuously at the two sentries pacing up and down below the
+flagstaff; who--to tell truth--seemed so monotonously part of the
+general show as to suggest that they also were under the charge of the
+two yellow-legged policemen who stood on either side of the rose-bed.
+
+It was high noon, and the various departmental gongs had begun to give
+their version of the meridian, with that unbiased disregard for that of
+their neighbours which makes the time of day an absolute uncertainty in
+a big camp. But it was calling time evidently; for two superb
+red-coats, blazoned with gold, appeared in company with two big books
+and a silver inkstand, and disappeared with them into the _durbar_
+tent. And shortly afterwards an _aide-de-camp_ sloped over to it,
+yawning.
+
+Both Dya Ram and the Thakoor knew that this meant preparation for
+those, who, having the _entree_ to the Government House, had the right
+to put down their names in those big books; but the fact itself
+affected their two types very differently. The old Rajput's visit of
+ceremony was of another sort. He, obeying definite orders, would come
+at a specified time, and get his specified salute with his compeers.
+But Dya Ram was like the wild tribes in one way; he was unspecified! He
+was neither fish nor fowl, flesh nor good red herring.
+
+So, as he watched a young Englishman drive up in a bamboo cart, dash
+into the tent, and dash out again as if the place belonged to him, he
+felt aggrieved. He even went so far as to formulate his grievance in
+mental words, and then these appeared to him so apposite to a leading
+article, that he took out a note-book, and, after some corrections,
+stored away, for future use, the assertion, that '_the time will come
+when the colour of the hand which holds the pen will be no bar to its
+writing its name in the Book of_----?' He did not feel sure of the
+qualitative noun, and after trying Fate, Fame, Life, and Lord, left a
+blank instead.
+
+Meanwhile carriages and dogcarts all of sorts had begun to drive up,
+their occupants disappearing into the tent for a second or two, then
+coming out with the smile of the elect on their faces. Father Ninian
+was one of the first, resplendent in a new _soutane_ and sash, with
+Akbar Khan in his orderly's get-up, oscillating between a palsy of
+delighted servility, and a catalepsy of dignity; the one for his
+superiors, the other for his equals.
+
+And, after a while, in one of those mysteriously nondescript
+four-wheeled vehicles that defy classification, but may be said to come
+under the head "_phitton_" (phaeton) of which mission people seem to
+have a monopoly, came good Mrs. Campbell and her niece, Erda Shepherd;
+the former full of indignant, yet meek alarm, because Dr. James, having
+come across an old friend further down the avenue, had bidden her go on
+and write his name as well as her own.
+
+"I ken weel how it will be," she asserted to her niece, "for I havena
+brought my specs, an' a body cannot but be nervous with a young man in
+a scarlet coat glowering at them! I shall put the doctor into the wrong
+book; for, you see, I canna write the two names ane after the ither
+like a marriage lines; for there is one big bookie for the women, and
+one for the men-folk, like a Puseyite chapel! Ay! an' for the matter o'
+that, like a divorce court--and I sou'd never hear the last o't if I
+evened the doctor to myself!"
+
+"Let me do all three, Auntie," said Erda, with a laugh, as she got out
+of the carriage. "Really, there's no need for you to come,--I'll be
+back in a minute."
+
+The blaze of sunshine blinded her for the darkness of the tent, and she
+could scarcely tell whose hand it was which stretched itself frankly,
+eagerly, for hers as she entered. Yet, even through her glove she knew
+the touch, before Lance Carlyon's voice said joyfully,--
+
+"Come to write your name? I've just written mine. Funny our hitting off
+the same time, isn't it?"
+
+The tone of his voice, joined to that startling recognition of his
+touch--which she could not conceal from herself--made her shrink, as if
+from actual intrusion. "I have to write my uncle's and aunt's first,"
+she said coldly. "There was no use in us _all_ coming in."
+
+She walked on as she spoke to where the two books lay on a sort of
+lectern, while the _aide-de-camp_, seeing the visitor was a lady, came
+forward politely to assist.
+
+"Not that book, Mansfield," remarked Lance, coolly. "Miss Shepherd
+wants--Miss Shepherd, will you allow me to introduce Captain
+Mansfield--to write her uncle's name first."
+
+She looked back at him almost angrily, full of resentment at his
+persistence; but, even in the semi-blindness which was still hers, his
+face showed too kind for that; and as, at that moment, another lady
+came in with a flutter of laces and ribbons to appropriate Captain
+Mansfield's ready services, Erda had to allow Lance to find her a pen.
+
+"That's right! Now for the other book," he said. The _aide-de-camp_ had
+by this time gone to see the laces and ribbons back to their carriage,
+so the two were alone.
+
+"Your aunt's first, you know." There was a suspicion of friendly
+chaff in his tone, this time, but it was gone in a minute as
+he went on quickly--"Erdmuth!--is that your name? Why!--it means
+earth-mood--or--or world's desire, doesn't it?"
+
+She felt herself flush. "I did not know that you were such a German
+scholar," she replied, sarcastically. "Yes! my name is Erdmuth
+Dorothea. I was called so after--after some one you most likely know
+nothing about, Countess Zinzendorf. She was famous enough, though,--"
+she paused, feeling savagely desirous of snubbing him--"But I daresay
+you never even happened to hear of Jean Ziska, Mr. Carlyon?"
+
+He smiled suddenly, broadly. "Jean Ziska!" he echoed. "Rather! We had a
+pony called Ziska at home--a Hungarian--used to eat thistles like a
+donkey!"
+
+He stopped to laugh, and she was about to turn and rend him, when he
+continued, half apologetically, "Of course I have--only the name, you
+see, brought back such jolly old times. Ziska was the beggar who had
+his skin made into a drum when he was dead. I don't expect it's true,
+but it's a fine tale; the drum ecclesiastic with a vengeance, and no
+mistake!"
+
+"Oh! but it is," interrupted the girl, forgetting her annoyance in her
+eagerness. "My grandfather--we are really Moravians, you see, and our
+name should be Schaeffer,--saw it when he was a child. He used to tell
+me that people said if it was beaten, everybody must--"
+
+But Lance's attention had wandered. He was looking at her signature
+with a curious, almost wistful smile. "Erdmuth!" he repeated
+thoughtfully; then turned to her. "I say! you really ought to come to
+the ball with that name--do!"
+
+He was simply, she told herself, the most distractingly irrelevant, yet
+at the same time the most appallingly direct, person she had ever come
+across. "Really, Mr. Carlyon," she began, with such heat that the
+_aide-de-camp_, returning, stared; until Lance coolly asked him if he
+didn't think Miss Shepherd very unkind not to come to the Bachelor's
+Ball? Whereupon he, having by this time had enough of laces and
+ribbons, and begun to recognize a distinct charm in the glistening
+coils of hair, half-hidden by a wide hat, promptly asked her for the
+pleasure of a dance.
+
+Erda looked from one to the other aghast, and to her own intense
+surprise fell back upon the woman's all-embracing excuse, "I--I really
+haven't a dress." It seemed the simplest and easiest.
+
+"Oh! anything does for a fancy ball," persisted Lance, argumentatively,
+as he followed her out. "A tailor in the bazaar would run you up a
+Greek dress in no time, and it would do awfully well. All white, don't
+you know--" his voice slackened and grew soft, as if he saw what he
+described, and the sight made him glad--"all straight folds with a
+little edge of red-gold like--" he paused, then went on boldly--"like
+the sunshine on your hair. And red-gold bracelets high up on your
+arms--and a red-gold apple in your hand--the World's Desire--" He
+stopped abruptly, with a quick catch in his breath, startled at his own
+words.
+
+And she, too, held her breath before the vision; for she saw it also.
+Saw herself, as he had described her, and the glamour of it, the desire
+of it, assailed her, body and soul.
+
+Yet she made a desperate, a passionately resentful effort to ignore
+them. "I didn't know you were so well up in _chiffons_, Mr. Carlyon,"
+she said, with a forced laugh. "Did you ever think of setting up a
+milliner's shop? One is badly needed in Eshwara."
+
+But the glamour of it had come to Lance Carlyon like a revelation, and
+the blood was leaping in his veins. "I will, if you--" he began.
+
+She scarcely recognized his voice in one way. In another she knew it
+must be his; for all the vitality and strength, the single-mindedness
+and simplicity which she had seen in him so often, were crowded into
+it; brought into it by fancy, concentrated by a mere suggestion--of
+herself.
+
+The magic of this seemed to encompass her; she sought shelter from it
+recklessly.
+
+"I?" she interrupted. "I don't go in for that sort of thing,
+Mr. Carlyon. You seem to forget my work--work which I value
+above--milliners! Try Mrs. Smith--there she is coming in her victoria;
+she is one of the best-dressed women I ever saw."
+
+She could not certainly have looked better than she did as, seeing
+Lance Carlyon, she called to him as her carriage drove up.
+
+"Do you know where Captain Dering is? He promised--"
+
+Here Lance, with guilty haste, interrupted her. He was just about to
+drive over and give her a message. Dering had had a touch of fever; he
+had been over at the palace arranging about the Chinese lanterns for
+the decorations till late the evening before, and--
+
+"He might have sent a little sooner," put in Mrs. Smith. "I have been
+waiting; he said he would drive me in his dogcart." There was no
+vexation, only an almost pathetic surprise in her voice; and Lance
+looked guiltier still.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry--it's all my fault--I was late to begin with, and
+then--" He glanced at Erda involuntarily,--compromisingly, it seemed to
+her.
+
+"I am afraid I kept Mr. Carlyon," she said, haughtily; "most
+unwillingly, I assure you. Thanks so much, but I can get in quite well
+by myself."
+
+As she drove off, however, her head was in a whirl; and as, when
+pausing to pick up Dr. Campbell, the whole panorama of the camp, the
+hills behind it, the distant temples of Eshwara, the busy place-seekers
+in the foreground, the scarlet-sin-stains of the _chuprassies'_ coats
+against the dazzling whiteness of the tents, lay before her, one of
+those rare, incomprehensible moods came upon her when the soul retreats
+into its spiritual body, so that the sight grows clear, the touch keen,
+and you can feel the round world spin beneath your feet, see the shadow
+of earth stretching far among the stars.
+
+The World's Desire! What was it?
+
+Brought up to believe that the heart of man--that mainspring of the
+spinning world--was vile, she had never asked herself why this was so.
+She had read the story of Adam and Eve with unquestioning faith, yet
+never sought to know what had changed the good to evil.
+
+But now, as her eyes rested on those far-distant peaks with that faint
+mist about their feet hiding the "Cradle of the Gods," and followed, as
+far as the eye could follow in the nearer hills, the climbing track
+worn by the weariness of that eternal search after righteousness, she
+asked herself what it was which kept mankind so long upon the road;
+asked herself, for the first time, what that first sin had been which
+had lost Paradise.
+
+No lack of desire after salvation, surely. Generation on generation of
+Eastern pilgrims had worn that path out of the sheer rock, had agonized
+after good, and remained evil. A little shudder of memory ran through
+her at the thought--how evil! And now the West, with its white tents,
+its white face, its white creed, had come to show a newer, a better
+way.
+
+Had it? But what had it done for itself? She had worked for two years
+in London ere coming out to India; and another shudder of memory swept
+over her of what she had seen there.
+
+The World's Desire! Lance Carlyon had called her that--a woman with a
+red-gold apple in her hand.
+
+The sound of angry dispute brought her back to realities. They were
+passing out of the camp under the triumphal arch, and one of its
+sentries was barring the entrance of an ash-smeared figure which was
+brandishing a stamped petition paper, as if it had been a card of
+admission, and yelling excitedly for "Justice! justice!"
+
+"It is that pernicious fellow, Gorakh-nath," remarked Dr. Campbell,
+sententiously. "He wishes, no doubt, to appeal against Captain Dering's
+order, of which I, for one, am heartily glad. A Christian government is
+bound to refuse sanction to the practice of a faith which, it is
+impossible not to see, is degrading in the extreme to those who hold
+it."
+
+Erda's eyes were still clear; clear with what those who do not see,
+call dreams.
+
+"Yet it seeks what we do--peace--forgiveness--the cradle of the
+goodness, the innocence it left behind--somehow."
+
+Dr. James Campbell turned to her in dignified, amazed displeasure. "May
+I ask what has caused--"
+
+"That's easy tellin'," interrupted Mrs. Campbell, comfortably. "It's
+yon hat with feathers, when she is accustomed to a pith one. An' she
+standin' in the sun talkin' to Mr. Carlyon! It's just got to the
+lassie's head. I was the same myself when I was young, Erda; but Dr.
+James thought it a duty--
+
+"And so I do now, my dear," put in her husband. "It is a distinct duty
+on the part of mission workers to take every precaution, and if her
+head is Erda's weak point, I shall warn David--"
+
+Mrs. Campbell nodded hers and smiled, and almost winked. "Oh! Davie
+will take care of her, never fear; he is not a ninny!"
+
+Erda flushed scarlet all over her face and neck. It seemed to her as if
+she had forgotten her cousin, the Reverend David Campbell, altogether.
+And yet she was engaged to be married to him as soon as he returned
+from a well-earned holiday in England.
+
+A swift remorse left her pale again. Davie, who was so much in earnest,
+who looked to her as--as--
+
+That vision of a woman with a red-gold edging to her white robe and a
+red-gold apple in her hand came to send the blood to her face once
+more.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII
+
+                            FALLING STARS
+
+
+The long _durbar_ tent was packed from end to end with the
+cane-bottomed seats of the mighty; and in each sat its appointed
+occupant,--patient, grave, silent.
+
+But in the two rows behind the Viceroy's still empty chair of state the
+Englishmen in political dress or uniform who sat in the front, and the
+Englishwomen in the latest Paris fashions who sat behind, were talking
+and laughing; in a perfectly well-bred way, yet, to the majority of
+those silent spectators, at the expense of decency, since a _durbar_
+is, like a West Indian ball, not for '_talkee_.' There was, however, no
+disapproval on those indifferent dark faces. Such things were part and
+parcel of that general eccentricity of the _Huzoors_, before which it
+behoved calmness to remain calm. Yet those same faces would have been
+quick to notice and resent the faintest breach of etiquette in regard
+to their own treatment, or position. Those being correct, the rest was
+immaterial.
+
+And now, the sudden strains from without of "God Save the Queen" sent
+those talking, laughing rows to their feet silently, with the proud
+alacrity so noticeable in India when the act is a confession of faith,
+indeed! But the mass beyond followed suit obediently, with a starry
+shiver of diamond-flash, a milky way of pearl-shine; for Eugene Smith's
+electric light was working full power.
+
+Finally, as if wafted on the full chords, came a small man, with that
+inevitable look of coming into church which Englishmen consider
+dignity; possibly because public worship is, really, the only function
+in which they are not inwardly ashamed of taking part. The great gold
+chair, the great gold footstool, seemed all too large for everything
+about their occupant, save the diamond star, the ribbon on his breast.
+Yet, in a way, the scene gained by his inadequacy when, after a decent
+pause, a decent silence, he rose, small, insignificant, to give voice
+to Empire--in a strong Scotch accent, it must be admitted, which
+equalled the Commissioner's Irish one, when, its proper exponent, the
+Secretary, having a cold, he read a translation of the Viceroy's
+speech, and his soft brogue ran riot among the clamorous Persian
+vowels.
+
+"_Ai Maharajahan, rajahan, nawaban wa sahiban alishan_."
+
+The diamonds and pearls sat too still for play, so the electric light
+contented itself with the white teeth of Englishwomen as they yawned.
+But even these failed it when, the speech ending, that front row began
+its file past; the civilians first, the soldiers next. A quick file, a
+formal bow as a rule; but, every now and again, a pause would come in
+the monotonous string of names, for a few words from the Viceroy,
+and another bow ere the recipient passed on. Muriel Smith, who sat
+behind--the best dressed woman there, as Erda Shepherd had judged
+her--watched her husband's tall gaunt figure approaching, and wondered
+if that pause would come to him. Her heart beat so when it did that she
+could hear nothing except "graciously pleased," "eminent services,"
+"distinguished order"; but a whisper from her neighbor, "All right!
+C. S. I., not C. I. E.," left her sick and faint with relief. Even so,
+her eyes instinctively sought Vincent Dering's sympathy; but he, to her
+surprise, was looking at the tall gaunt man whose face was a "_nunc
+dimittis_" in itself, as he made his way back to his seat, forgetful
+even of his wife.
+
+But he had forgotten her, amid a host of other things, for three whole
+years: forgotten them in a ceaseless effort, an untiring energy. And
+now that the necessity for this was over, sleep and rest were his first
+thoughts. He took both, apparently, in his chair, while the
+Commissioner, causing this time a fresh flashing of jewels, began on a
+fresh string of titles.
+
+"_Sri raja-i-rajan_,
+_furzund-i-khas-munsoor-i-zaman-maharaj-dhiraj-rasakh_."
+
+And, as they rolled on, the atom of humanity belonging to them--someone
+in faded brocade, with ropes of ill-shaped pearls and uncut stones
+wound about him, or a jauntier figure fresh and glittering from a
+Calcutta jeweller's shop--would be singled out by its political in
+charge, like a sheep from a flock, and guided dexterously to the
+exactly proper spot in the whole round world wherein obeisance and
+offering could be made with dignity to itself, and the recipient. Then
+it would be swept on, regardless of an invariable desire to break back,
+in an endless circle to its seat, while fresh titles rolled out, and a
+fresh owner was hemmed in and swept forward. For two whole mortal
+hours, this, and nothing but this; with, every now and again, that
+pause for a few words, translated now into Irish-Urdu, producing an
+expression as of a cat licking cream, on a face as it was was hustled
+back, blindly obedient, as sheep are with a collie they know and trust.
+
+So, at last, long after everyone, even Dya Ram--who looked terribly
+disjointed between his frock coat, white tie, grey trousers, and the
+gold mohur which he persisted in holding after native custom in his
+gloved right hand--had passed, the politicals gathered in a knot, like
+church-wardens for the offertory plates, and the distribution of _atta_
+and _pan_, that sacrament of servitude and sovereignty, began. It, too,
+was exactly like an offertory; that is, a languid passing round of a
+plate by an official, and yawns for the rest of the congregation.
+
+Finally, with a vigour savouring--like a voluntary--of relief, the band
+attacked "God Save the Queen" once more, the Viceroy retired, the
+_durbarees_ trooped out, still calm and silent, yet satisfied, and the
+Commissioner, sinking into a vacant seat, said:--
+
+"Thank the Lord! That's over without a hitch. So India's safe for
+another six months at the cost of a trumpery title or two."
+
+"I don't see on what ground," began the Under Secretary, laboriously.
+
+"Then ye don't read your Bible. Didn't Adam, when he was given dominion
+over the lower animals, begin by bestowing names on them? Ah! my dear
+Mrs. Smith, I didn't know ye were so close. A thousand congratulations,
+my dear lady."
+
+"You don't mean it, sir," she interrupted, laughing. "Do you think I
+have forgotten the consolatory verses you wrote me last year when
+Eugene _didn't_ get anything? You are a fraud."
+
+"Not a bit of it; only an Irishman," put in Father Ninian, with an
+almost tender smile for the keen, whimsical face which had been friend
+to him, and foe to him, for many a long year. "Let us have the verses,
+Mrs. Smith."
+
+"Say ye don't remember them, there's a kind soul," urged the
+Commissioner, persuasively.
+
+"But I do:
+
+
+      "I dreamt, and lo, the stars fell from the sky
+         To blaze upon the breasts of naughty men;
+       And as I wondered, came this swift reply:--
+         'Each star is some soul's inmost aim, and when
+           The angels don't approve, it is returned
+           To feed the base-born flame by which it burned.
+         The nice, they keep until--life's struggle striven--
+         The owners find them at the gates of heaven.'"
+
+
+"Striven--heaven!" groaned the Commissioner, amid the clapping of
+hands. "My dear madam, did I commit such a crime--I mean rhyme? But the
+poet's right. Ye can't go wide of the mark, annyhow, even in a song,
+but you're sure to find the fact again in the heart of a friend."
+
+So, with that curiously light-hearted, almost reckless, frivolity of
+Indian society--a not unnatural recoil, perhaps, from the perpetual
+presence of the greatest social problem the world has ever seen, or is
+likely to see, that is, the mutual assimilation of East and West
+without injury to either--the little company of English men and women,
+empire makers and breakers, drifted out into the sunshine, and so on to
+the Viceroy's private enclosure, where the band, weary of national
+anthems, was already at work on a selection of street tunes, beginning
+with "Tommy, make room for your uncle."
+
+So the pageant of power passed into a garden-party, and nothing
+remained to show the hand-grip which had made that garden out of a
+wilderness, to tell of the tireless effort to solve the problem, the
+ceaseless striving to be just, which underlay all the quips and cranks,
+the foibles and follies, of the great camp, save the premature baldness
+of a few heads, as their owners fought desperately at badminton; fought
+to prevent a child's shuttlecock from falling in the wrong court!
+
+A fight which was watched with blank courtesy, as a further exhibition
+of sheer eccentricity, by those of the jewelled and brocaded owners of
+titles who had the _entree_ to this Holy of Holies.
+
+Roshan Khan, however,--who looked splendid in his uniform,--fought with
+the best; and won, too, though Laila Bonaventura, who played on his
+side, stood still, taking, it is true, the shots which came within
+reach dexterously enough, but never stirring an inch for one beyond.
+And, as he played, the curious chance which had brought him into her
+company made his blood run fast.
+
+Captain Dering had bidden him join the set; bidden him curtly, almost
+savagely, as the best player available, in answer to a challenge from
+Muriel Smith to play her, her husband, and the Commissioner. And this
+challenge had come curtly, also, because Captain Dering was standing
+beside Laila Bonaventura, to whom he had been giving a cup of coffee.
+Not because it gave him pleasure, but from sheer determination not to
+let his mistake in the darkness count for anything. Yet, as the girl's
+hand took the cup from his, he had remembered with a thrill the
+gladness, the content it had brought him. Though he refused to
+acknowledge the fact, the puzzle of this mistake had been his chief
+thought ever since it occurred, and a smouldering resentment regarding
+his past relationship with one who was still to him the best and
+dearest of women was the result. He felt vaguely that she, as well as
+he, ought to have known that their sentiment, their monopoly, as it
+were, of friendship, could only mean--what it had meant to him during
+those few moments of blindness which had, paradoxically, opened his
+eyes. So he had felt bitter, and she had known it instinctively. If she
+had ever faced facts, this alone might have opened her eyes also; but
+she was too good a woman, too helplessly bound by her woman's cult of
+love, to disassociate it from friendship. So, without bringing a doubt
+even, the jealous desire of appropriation which draws a line clear and
+clean as a sword-cut between the two, had risen up in her from the
+absence of the sympathetic look she had expected from Vincent Dering.
+So she had challenged him, and so it came to pass that Roshan Khan
+played badminton with Laila Bonaventura. She took no notice of him
+beyond a casual inspection of his uniform; still the mere fact of being
+her equal within the white lines which separated their badminton court
+from the realities of life seemed a fate. When the game was over, his
+eyes followed her closely, and he, himself, at a respectful distance;
+and as he followed her, his desire to speak to her grew as he pondered
+on his right to do so. After all, as his grandmother had said, she was
+his cousin.
+
+And fate was on his side once more. A well-bred crowding round a table
+where some photographs of the camp were being shown, brought him so
+near her that she caught sight of his yellow, silver-laced uniform
+behind her, and turned quickly. Turned with a look in her big black
+eyes which dazzled him.
+
+It vanished, however, in a second; yet her words, spoken with a faint
+resentment, made the memory of the look give rise to a swift pulse of
+angry suspicion.
+
+"I thought you were Captain Dering," she said. "Why do you wear the
+same uniform? I thought natives couldn't be officers."
+
+The assumption, in his present state of mind, made all his fierce
+temper flash to his face; but ere he could choose English words to
+express it, she laughed, and, after her fashion when amused, became
+confidential. "You are angry at being called a native; but you _are_
+one, aren't you? Then it is so foolish. You are like my guardian. He
+can't bear the bazaar people to call me '_Begum-sahiba_'; but they do
+sometimes, you know, because I own a lot of their houses and lands, and
+my grandmother was a native princess. I know that, though my guardian
+never speaks about it. He is ashamed, I think--like you are. I'm not. I
+didn't choose my grandmother. Why should one fuss about such things? If
+they're true, it can't be helped, and if they're not, what _does_ it
+matter? Besides, it must be rather nice to be a real Begum. You haven't
+seen any, of course; they wouldn't let you, would they? That must be
+horrid. How could you like people if you didn't see them? Besides--"
+she added, with an access of demure, pious conviction, "it would be
+wicked to marry them, you know. You should never marry anyone you don't
+love. Even the Sisters told me that."
+
+Her voice had deepened, broadened; her eyes, occupied with his uniform,
+not his face, had grown soft. Hitherto he had been too much at a loss
+before her sudden garrulity to interrupt; now, that vague suspicion
+recurred, making him feel inclined to say brutally, "I am your cousin;
+I claim you." The very thought of her outraged face attracted him. But
+English words were inadequate for such emotions, so, as he paused, she
+went on:--
+
+"As you are here, I suppose you'll be asked to the ball, also. It is to
+be in my palace, you know, because Captain Dering thinks it the best
+place. He says the gardens will be beautiful all lit up--" She smiled as
+if at some secret mystery, then continued: "Of course, I don't know
+yet; I haven't seen it, but I think it will be lovely. Only I wish my
+dress was different. I am Beatrice--Dante's Beatrice--and I think it
+stupid. But my guardian chose it because--" she smiled again with the
+same secret amusement--"I don't know, of course, but I expect it is
+because my great-grandmother went as Beatrice to some ball long ago. It
+is generally that. I think he must have been in love with her--isn't it
+funny?"
+
+"Laila," came Father Ninian's voice from behind, "I have been looking
+for you everywhere. It is time to go."
+
+His usually kind old face was stern. He gave the curtest of
+recognitions to Roshan Khan, and, as he carried his ward off, said
+sharply, "Who introduced you to that native?"
+
+"No one," she replied, indifferently; "I thought he was Captain Dering;
+their uniforms--" she broke off to add, with more animation, "I do like
+the gold and silver lace. Though of course the jewels, like the rajahs
+wore, look best."
+
+He interrupted her in Italian, giving a quick gesture of dissent. "Say
+not so, _cara mia_, they would look ill on--on Englishmen. And listen,
+child! You should not speak to strangers; and I would rather you did
+not speak to such natives at all. They--cannot understand--quite--for
+they look on women differently from what we do."
+
+Laila's eyes narrowed sullenly. "Very well, guardian," she said
+resignedly, "only I suppose they must know what their women are really
+like--and--perhaps the native ladies prefer it."
+
+The old man looked at her, startled, but said nothing.
+
+When he had gone to find Akbar Khan and the carriage, Vincent Dering,
+seeing her alone, came up--so, at least, he told himself--out of sheer
+politeness, to ask if she wanted anything. Yet something in her face
+sent him beyond mere courtesy at once; something almost childishly
+apparent.
+
+"I'm afraid you haven't been enjoying yourself," he said kindly. "Why
+not? I thought it rather pleasant."
+
+"Very pleasant!" she assented wearily. "Only my guardian has been
+telling me not to do things; and I don't know why, but I always want to
+do them at once--don't you?"
+
+He could not actually deny the fact. "Sometimes. One has to
+pretend--"
+
+She raised her eyes to his blindingly; he caught a glimpse in them of
+the lawless approval Roshan Khan had seen, yet of something else--a
+lawless disdain. "Why must one?" she asked. "I never mean to, never! If
+I want to do a thing I'll do it. I don't mean wicked things, of
+course--" she returned here to demure, almost plaintive piety--"I don't
+want to do them, and nothing can be wrong when it seems right to you,
+and it is real--ever so real, and you give yourself to it, every bit of
+you, without thinking, and--and--ask nothing--nothing at all--"
+
+Her vehemence, her passionate assertion, roused a quick response in
+him. "Would you do that?" he asked, his voice vibrating. "Would
+you--really?"
+
+She smiled slowly. "Of course I don't know," she said, "I haven't tried
+yet; but I never pretend. I don't even pretend to like my dress for the
+ball. It _is_ so stupid."
+
+He felt annoyed at being led into a burst of emotion, and then baulked.
+"You will look charming, I'm sure," he said in his worst manner. "And
+if you don't like it, change to something jolly after supper. Lots of
+people do."
+
+"Will Mrs. Smith?" she asked quickly.
+
+He flushed angrily. "I really don't know," he began. Her eyes were on
+him curiously.
+
+"That's funny," she said. "I thought people--not that it matters," she
+went on, "for I can't. I haven't a dress. Do you know I never have
+anything I really like--never."
+
+The girl's voice was absolutely touching in its listless, dull
+confidence, and he could not help consolation. "You'll have the ball,
+I'm sure; you will enjoy it awfully, and--and you mustn't forget that
+you've given me the second waltz, and the first extra after supper."
+
+She did not answer for a moment. "Have I?" she asked. "I didn't know
+it; but I will. That will be nice. And you are coming to decorate
+to-morrow, aren't you? That will be nice, too."
+
+Her tone lingered in his ears long after she had gone. It was with him
+even when he was driving Mrs. Smith home, and, of course, making up
+their little misunderstanding by the way; possibly, because of this
+making up, since, for the first time, the elaborate _eclaircissement_
+irked him. It seemed so unnecessary unless the whole affair meant
+something, which was quite out of the question.
+
+For instance, when driving Lance Carlyon back to the Fort afterwards he
+did not desire an explanation of the latter's moodiness. When a chum
+was evil-dispositioned, you waited calmly for him to come round. That
+was friendship.
+
+"I'm sorry Miss Shepherd couldn't come," said Lance, suddenly, his eyes
+on that spit of sand, with its hovels and logs, below the town. "I
+wanted her to, awfully, if only because she's never seen a _durbar_;
+but"--he smiled--"I expect someone else wanted her instead. By George!
+Dering, you don't know how that girl works. Sometimes I feel it's a
+shame, and sometimes I think it's splendid--though of course it don't
+matter a dash what I think."
+
+And that--Vincent Dering asked himself--was that love?
+
+Laila Bonaventura's voice came back to make him certain of one thing.
+That would not be her version of the old, old story; and the knowledge
+made him, somehow, more content with his world.
+
+Meanwhile another man in yellow and silver lace was being haunted by a
+girl's voice, which had spoken of things which no decent woman of his
+own race would have mentioned; yet which had spoken to him with an
+equality which no Englishwoman would have allowed herself. And as for
+Englishmen! The recollection of Father Narayan's face as he carried the
+girl off made Roshan Khan curse under his breath.
+
+But the girl herself had been different. He literally did not know what
+to think; and the desire for someone else's opinion grew so strong
+that, finally, with a curious mixture of reluctance and triumph, he
+forsook the straight road to the Fort, and turned his horse's head
+towards his grandmother's house. She was at least a woman; she might
+understand and judge better than he.
+
+His first sight of her, however, in unprepared toilette, _minus_ the
+green satin trousers which gave such dignity to her rotund little
+figure, _minus_ all pretence at pomp, dirty, untidy, unkempt both in
+her surroundings and herself, made him feel what a fool he was. The
+more so when she began by resenting his summary visitation, especially
+in uniform, which, she asserted, made her feel, even at her age, as if
+she were committing the indiscretion of seeing a stranger!
+
+What could a woman like that know? Yet having come, he might as well go
+through with his errand; so he cut short her upbraidings by saying
+without preamble:
+
+"I have seen my cousin. I spoke to her, and--and she spoke back again."
+
+Mumtaza Mahal looked at him for a moment incredulously, then she
+cracked all her finger joints over his head, or as nearly over it as
+her height would allow.
+
+"Said I not so?" she asked prophetically. "And when will the wedding
+be?"
+
+"Wedding!" he echoed petulantly; "there is no talk of wedding. I have
+but seen her."
+
+"But seen her!" echoed the old lady in her turn. "That came after in my
+time; but God knows how things go nowadays. Then what didst speak
+about?"
+
+He had to give a Bowdlerized version of what had passed; yet, even so,
+Mumtaza Mahal looked shocked. "A bold hussy; but thou wilt bit and
+bridle her."
+
+He burst out angrily--for his own recital had shown him the folly of
+castle-building on so slight a foundation--"I am a fool," he said, "and
+so art thou for all thy years!"
+
+Her little black eyes flashed angrily. "Not I! Did she not say she
+would like to be a _Begum?_ and if that means not--"
+
+"And could I make her one?" he interrupted fiercely. "I--a _risaldar_
+on a bare pittance--with no prospect of rising. Dost dream me Nawab,
+fool?"
+
+The old lady's face grew cunning in a second, the instinctive love of
+intrigue roused by the mere suggestion. She leant towards him eagerly.
+"And wherefore not, Roshan? Are all things fixed? Do rulers never
+change? I live here in a corner, nothing but a poor woman: yet I hear
+more, it seems, than thou dost. I hear of discontent, of desires, of
+things that call for change. But to-day, they spoke of men being killed
+to make light for these infidels, and Gorakh-nath, _jogi_, hath sworn a
+miracle."
+
+He turned on her with a bitter, reckless laugh. "Is that new? Is there
+not always talk? The wise listen not."
+
+A vast importance, a real dignity came to her in an instant. "If the
+_Huzoors_ had listened to such talk in '57."
+
+A thrill ran through him; the thrill of secret curiosity, almost of
+expectation regarding the great Rebellion from which so many things
+date, which young India always feels in the presence of their elders,
+who passed through it.
+
+"Thou dost know, of course," he said, catching his breath; "thou canst
+remember."
+
+"Ay!" she replied sternly, "and there was no more talk than there is
+now. 'Tis not a question of words. It is fate. Something happens, and
+then--then the _risaldar_ may be Nawab--as his fathers were."
+
+She had gone too far, and recalled him to himself. "Then let us await
+the happening," he said curtly.
+
+"Wait!" echoed the old lady, reverting to the main point. "Thou canst
+not wait. Having gone so far, the negotiations cannot drop. Thou must
+send the gift, and see what comes of it."
+
+"A gift!" he repeated. "What gift, and wherefore?"
+
+Mumtaza Mahal looked round as if for approval, tucked a packet of _pan_
+into her cheek, and chuckled. She was on familiar ground now.
+
+"Leave that to me. I know what girls like. I have them still. Ay! a
+dress that her grandmother wore--good as new, being for a tall
+woman--and jewels. 'Tis no harm, at least, see you; since if they like
+it not, the gift is returned."
+
+He stood doubtful, half pleased, half shocked at the suggestion. She
+could certainly send the things back, and he had many a time seen
+English women wearing native jewelry; ay! and decorating their rooms
+with native dresses. And he could write that they were from her cousin
+and servant.
+
+That would be easier than telling.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX
+
+                           OUT OF THE PAST
+
+
+"I feel as if I had this moment arrived," said Muriel Smith, as she
+looked down into the garden from a balcony which jutted out upon one
+side of the wide flight of marble steps that led upwards to the loggia
+of the palace. "Yet I know I've been here for hours. I wonder when the
+sheer beauty will cease to--to take my breath away. _You_ understand,
+don't you?"
+
+"Yes!" assented Vincent Dering, half grudgingly. He would rather not
+have understood more than others. But he did; that was the worst of it.
+
+He was looking his best in the old cavalry uniform of grey, and silver,
+and cherry colour, all laced, embroidered, and glittering with
+epaulettes, sabretasche, and high stock,--the uniform of a hundred
+years ago, when adventurers ruled half India, and Englishmen were
+demi-gods. It seemed to have brought something of their pride and
+recklessness, something of the dreams they dreamt into his whole
+bearing, as he stood leaning over the balustrade gazing fixedly at the
+scene before him. It was beautiful indeed! Beautiful with that
+unearthly stillness which only comes to illuminations in a windless
+Indian night. The lines on lines, the curves on curves of tiny lights
+which outlined each pillar and arch, each buttress and recess of the
+palace, the battlemented wall of the garden, and the turreted town
+rising above it, were steady as the stars. The fine fret of the acacia
+trees, showing white against the purple of the sky, was still as if
+carved in stone. There was no flicker in the soft radiance, which made
+the solid marble seem translucent, illumined mysteriously from within.
+
+The very shadows slept. Such scented shadows, clinging to the burnished
+orange trees, hidden in the wilderness of roses, dreaming on the
+perfumed cushions of the quaint balconies and cupolas which overhung
+the river.
+
+But _it_ did not sleep. _It_ moved, sliding on and on ceaselessly.
+
+So did the water which dimpled and tinkled--after Heaven only knew
+how many sad years of silence and decorum--over the fretted marble
+water-slides.
+
+How it laughed and babbled to the cunning coloured lights placed behind
+it! And the fountains below, rising out of the water-maze,--where there
+was but room for the flying feet of a laughing girl on the marble
+ledges between the lotus-leaves,--laughed and tinkled, also, as they
+sent showers of diamonds back on the pale blossoms.
+
+The "jewel in the lotus" indeed!
+
+There was no colour to be seen anywhere. Only that soft, steady, white
+radiance, those soft, sleeping, black shadows. Except in the drifting
+water-maze, and the drifting men and women around it.
+
+Restless, both of them; going on and on. Whither, and wherefore? It was
+an idle question, Vincent told himself, if the move brought, as it did
+here, fresh laughter, fresh colour.
+
+"_On such a night did young Lorenzo_," quoted the Commissioner's brogue
+from the flight of steps where, in the guise of a French cook, he was
+fanning Laila Bonaventura, with whom he had been dancing; the latter
+sitting still and silent as the shadow in which she was half hidden. A
+crackling laugh betrayed Dr. Dillon's whereabouts. He was perched on a
+balustrade above, his legs dangling, his trousers, as usual, displaying
+his thin ankles; for he was dressed in his ordinary evening suit.
+
+"And old Lorenzo also," he scoffed. "The disease is nonprotective,
+contagious, and marked by extraordinary vitality in the virus, which
+after long years may spring to fresh life from a dress, a bit of
+ribbon, a lock of hair."
+
+"Oh! have done with such blasphemy!" interrupted the Commissioner,
+joyously, "and me racking me brains which of all the beauties of this
+_hareem_ I'd better fall in love with! Dering, you're a steward, I
+believe. Turn that man out for obtruding the exigencies of everyday
+life--including a swallow-tail coat--into Paradise."
+
+"I've objected already, sir," said Vincent Dering, laughing; "but he
+declares he is a malarial bacillus."
+
+"A what?" remonstrated the brogue.
+
+"A malarial bacillus, sir," explained the doctor; "as I have failed
+hitherto--like everybody else--to recognize the gentleman, even through
+a microscope, I am naturally at sea as to the proper costume. And you
+will, of course, admit the universal rule: 'When in doubt, play a dress
+suit.'"
+
+"By Jove!" ejaculated Lance Carlyon, who, mopping his face, had joined
+the group, "what a ripping idea. Wish I'd thought of it instead of this
+kit." He looked regretfully at his mailed limbs; for he was dressed as
+Lancelot-du-Lac, a costume which had been chosen for him two years
+before, at Simla, by a grass widow who had aspired to the part of
+Guinevere; but who, retiring before the young fellow's absolute
+unconsciousness of her intention, had left him saddled with an
+expensive fancy dress which he felt bound to wear out; for all his
+spare cash was kept for guns and polo ponies.
+
+"I'm glad you didn't, Mr. Carlyon," protested Muriel Smith,
+consolingly. "You look very nice in it. Only those things on your
+legs--I forget the proper name--must be difficult to dance in."
+
+"Greaves--the well-greaved Greeks, me dear madam," put in the
+Commissioner. "Plural of grief. Ah! ye should have seen him come to it
+just now with the general's wife. Your chance of promotion's gone, me
+dear boy--the marble floor resounded."
+
+"Well, it isn't half so inconvenient as my husband's dress, anyhow,"
+continued Mrs. Smith, persisting in her mission of sympathy, when the
+laugh at Lance's expense had subsided.
+
+"That's all you know, my dear," remonstrated Mr. Smith, sleepily, from
+a quiet nook in one corner. "I never said Robinson Crusoe was a good
+dancing dress, but I claim it isn't bad to sleep in, especially out of
+doors. Soft and furry--and--"
+
+His voice sank into dreamful ease.
+
+"And it can claim solitude, anyhow," added the doctor, mournfully.
+"Think of the disgust of an old established microbe, like myself, when
+his swept and garnished home is invaded by a party of seven strange
+devils."
+
+"How rude you are!" exclaimed Mrs. Smith. "Besides, we aren't seven,
+and I believe Robinson Crusoe discovered this island before you did!"
+
+"I think the French cook takes the cake, though," said poor Lance, who
+had been following up his own grievance. "Shirt sleeves must be an
+awful pull when you are dancing with a _burra mem_."[8]
+
+"True for you!" assented the Commissioner, sympathetically. "That's the
+very reason I took to it, me dear boy, when me own merits and me
+advancing years doomed me to all the stout ladies in India. Besides, me
+paper cap rids me of two of me reports anyhow. Ye see I always have to
+wear two caps; one before, and one after supper. Otherwise I find the
+contints get mixed, and make me statements unreliable; and then me
+enemies say it's the champagne. I feel it coming on me now, but--" he
+sprang to his feet, light as a boy--"by a merciful providence there's
+the band at the 'Roast Beef.' Now, are ye coming in to supper with me,
+Mrs. Smith, or are you one of those who have to change their identity?"
+
+"Not I," she declared, taking his arm, "I'm quite content with myself,
+thank you!"
+
+She might well be, since her costume of water-nymph could not have been
+improved upon. It enabled her to show off her long, rippling, pale gold
+hair, and the filmy green and white, the feathery weeds, the iridescent
+shells, matched her delicate face, which seemed almost overweighted by
+her water-lily crown.
+
+"Besides, Undine can always do quick-change artist, and assume a soul,"
+suggested the Commissioner, as he led her off; adding, in mock alarm:
+"Me dear madam! I apologize profoundly. Miss Bonaventura, Captain
+Dering's waiting for you, I'm sure."
+
+Laila, who had risen also, stood silent, looking taller and slimmer
+than usual in her guise of Beatrice. It seemed to have brought out the
+fact that she had some of the best blood of Italy in her veins. Vincent
+Dering had recognized this fact--which Father Ninian had taken care to
+communicate to him as soon as the latter had found out that, nominally
+at any rate, the former was a Roman Catholic, and therefore a possible
+lover--when he had gone up to apologize to the girl for having missed
+that second dance, owing to his duties as steward. The recognition had
+him vaguely sorry for the girl; sorry also for the old man who,
+evidently, dreamt such idle dreams. He did not mean to marry a Begum!
+
+He crossed over to her now, offering his arm, but she refused it,
+saying she did not want supper.
+
+"But you are enjoying yourself, surely?" he said.
+
+"Oh, yes! thank you," she answered; "only it isn't real, of course. It
+doesn't mean anything."
+
+Dr. Dillon, who was within hearing, looked down at her sharply.
+"Perhaps, my dear young lady, it is as well it doesn't. So let us eat,
+drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!"
+
+She looked up at him quite shocked. "Oh! I didn't mean that, of course;
+that is wrong. I only meant that things don't match--the place and the
+people, I mean. Except one or two--those for instance." She pointed out
+Roshan Khan who, dressed as himself, was taking advantage of the
+emptiness of the garden during supper time, to go round it with old
+Akbar Khan as guide, the latter in the wildest antics of alacrity.
+
+"Did you ever see such a funny figure?" continued the girl, with an odd
+little laugh. "He is quite crazy with joy. He told me to-day this was
+the first time for forty years that he had been himself! That he has
+been bewitched."
+
+"I believe I've been bewitched too," said Vincent, suddenly. "Let us
+all go back forty years."
+
+Dr. Dillon swung his feet further over, and dropped to the ground
+almost between them.
+
+"That would effectually annihilate two of the company, and reduce me to
+cutting my teeth; and I want the use of them at supper. Come along and
+have something solid, Miss Bonaventura; there is nothing so
+indigestible as fancy sweets."
+
+But she was firm, and moved away to where a small staircase led from
+the balcony to the upper storey. She did not care for supper, she
+repeated, and she had to mend her dress; someone had trodden on it, and
+she would not be able to dance till it was mended.
+
+"Don't forget ours--the first _extra_," called Vincent after her. She
+turned where the narrow stair, after climbing the outside wall, against
+which it clung like a swallow's nest, ended in the shadow of an
+archway. "I shall be back in plenty of time," she said. Vincent thought
+he had never seen her look so nice, so young, so fresh, so smiling.
+
+"That's a queer girl," remarked the doctor, as he lounged off, "not
+half bad. That is just it, in fact; she is a clear case of atavism, and
+as her ancestors seem to have been either saints or sinners, there you
+are! For it's the same tissue absolutely; indeed, there's precious
+little difference between the two when you come to analyze."
+
+"I never do," interrupted Vincent, shortly. The doctor's cynicism bored
+him, especially here, where a man might at least be allowed to escape
+the brutal realities. Here, where even the houses in the bazaar beyond
+the garden wall--those houses that were by the common light of day so
+squalid, so unsavoury, so full of mean, miserable detail--showed like
+star-palaces against the sky!
+
+A sudden comprehension came to him. How blind of the girl to say all
+this meant nothing! How crassly idiotic of himself to think of going
+back forty years to enjoy this! This was the same yesterday, to-day,
+for ever! It was the love of physical pleasure, the desire to
+appropriate, to have and to hold, which had civilized the world, and
+made man out of a monkey.
+
+"'The Cradle of the Gods,' did you say, my dear lady?" said a courteous
+old voice from the stairs, breaking in on his solitude. "Just so--the
+pilgrims go there every year. It lies--let me see--I think I can point
+it out to you. Ah! Captain Dering!" continued Father Ninian, finding
+the balcony into which he had stepped _en passant_, occupied. "We don't
+disturb you, I hope; but Mrs. Palmer was speaking about the 'Cradle of
+the Gods.' It must lie--don't you think so?--over there." He pointed
+beyond the star-palaces.
+
+"I should fancy so, sir," replied Vincent, "that is about due north."
+
+"Then I am wrong," smiled the old priest; "the cave is northwest, and
+the passage to it is difficult--almost incredibly difficult."
+
+"Yet you have been there several times, haven't you?" said Mrs. Palmer.
+
+Father Ninian shook his head. "Never to the cave itself, madam. I am
+not quite sure whether I ever really meant to go so far,--and bow in
+the House of Rimmon! It would have been interesting no doubt--but--" he
+glanced down almost boyishly at his black _soutane_--"my cloth, my dear
+lady, has to be considered. As a matter of fact, something always
+hindered me. I went as a medicine man, you see; and so many fall
+by the wayside. I wonder, indeed, how any reach it." He paused,
+and a wistful smile made his face look dreamy. "Some say none do. A
+_jogi_--Gorakh-nath, Captain Dering,--he whom you turned out of the
+gun--claims to be the only man who has ever seen the real cave; the
+rest have seen--_illusion!_" He paused again, and his smile changed.
+"'Tis a claim, madam, made by more than Gorakh-nath; who, by the way,
+promises to defy you, Captain Dering. Padlock or no padlock, he is to
+get in and out of the gun as he chooses while the pilgrims are here."
+
+Vincent laughed contemptuously. "I don't think miracles go down, even
+in India, nowadays, sir."
+
+The old priest's face grew grave. "I cannot give my assent to that; I
+who have seen the blood of a saint turn crimson and flow. Faith,
+Captain Dering,--that is, the belief of man in a power beyond his
+own,--is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever!"
+
+Vincent Dering bowed politely, and kept his shrug of the shoulders for
+the old man's back, as he followed him upstairs to the supper room.
+
+The same yesterday, to-day, for ever! True, in a way. There were two
+stabilities amid the chances and changes of this mortal life. The
+Garden of the Palace. The Cradle of the Gods. Faith and Love--for it
+came to that in the end.
+
+Here the familiar sight of a ball supper in full swing ended his rare
+reflections, and he slipped into a place beside a lively vivandiere,
+who welcomed him with entreaties to join in a comic opera she was going
+to get up at Simla. The last new rage in London; she had written home
+for the rights.
+
+He was in a new atmosphere in a moment, and straightway forgot the
+garden; forgot everything but that the supper was excellent, his
+companion gay. Even the Commissioner's high voice, as he talked
+nonsense, seemed far from the gravity even of conferring titles, and it
+seemed incredible that the small man who sat surrounded by a host of
+departmental heads was really representing a whole Empire.
+
+When the band downstairs, by beginning on Strauss's "Lovelong livelong
+day," warned him of his engagement to Laila, he passed to it half
+reluctantly. She would be sure to dance badly: that make of girl always
+did. So he was relieved to find the ball room, and the wide loggia into
+which it opened, almost empty. Only a couple or two were spinning
+slowly, idly, in and out of the resounding arches.
+
+He went on, therefore, to the balcony beside the stairs. If the girl
+was there it would be an excuse for sitting out. If not, he could
+always say he had waited for her. Either way, he would have time for a
+cigarette.
+
+As he went down towards it he met Lance Carlyon coming up, and called
+to him: "Supper's A1; so's the wine. It's going awfully well, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Suppose so," replied Lance, "but I'm going to cut. These togs are
+awful; but if I go now I'll have time to change and have a shoot down
+the river. Am-ma says the ducks sit like stones before dawn. They won't
+miss me, as a bachelor, I suppose?"
+
+Vincent looked at him compassionately. "A bachelor," he echoed. "It's
+about your last chance, I take it. However, if you want to kill
+something--it's a common symptom--go! I shall stop till the bitter--or
+sweet--end! One doesn't get into a streak like this once in a blue
+moon! I feel fit for anything."
+
+As he sat down for a smoke in the corner vacated by Robinson Crusoe,
+this feeling was strong upon him, and sent the blood tingling to his
+finger-tips.
+
+The band had by this time ceased piping to unwilling dancers, so the
+still, warm, scented air was left to the tinkling ripple of the water,
+the rippling tinkle of distant voices; for supper had almost emptied
+the garden also. The better for its picturesque effect. Now the
+imagination could people it--as Laila Bonaventura (the girl had sense)
+had phrased it--with figures that matched; real figures.
+
+A chiming silvery clash above him made him turn to look upwards to the
+archway where Laila Bonaventura had disappeared. It would be a bore if
+she were returning to interrupt his cigarette; though, in truth, she
+had been, he remembered, almost attractive.
+
+Almost--
+
+He gave an exclamation, and rose to his feet. She was coming, indeed,
+but not as she had gone.
+
+There is no dress in the world which is at once so dainty and so
+sensuous, as the court dress of a Mahomedan lady, and Laila Bonaventura
+was wearing one as she came slowly down the stairs towards him, a
+radiant white figure against the radiant white marble.
+
+The folds of her long silver-gauze skirt--so cunningly fashioned that
+it trailed in rolling shimmer-crested billows behind her, yet left no
+beauty of her round limbs hidden--clipped her about the waist like a
+serpent's skin. So hiding, yet revealing, was the soft film of fine
+muslin over the scented, ivory-tinted corselet, which fitted close to
+the full curves of her figure. So was it with the silver-streaked veil,
+through which the jewels in her dusky hair, the bracelets on her fair
+arms, shone undimmed. So was it even with the chiming fringes of her
+silver anklets, as they slid merrily to cover and uncover the small
+feet, tucked so carelessly into the little silver-tipped slippers.
+
+To hide and to reveal, that was the note of all!
+
+As she came nearer, too, he saw that her lips were reddened, her dark
+eyes darkened artificially. And yet her face did not correspond to all
+this. It was curiously grave, dignified, almost anxious.
+
+"Do you like it?" she asked, suddenly pausing a pace or two from him to
+stand still, heaped round by those shimmer-crested billows, and so,
+with one hand, gather the straight folds of her veil to curves over her
+arm. As she did so, he saw, with a curious throb at his heart, that her
+wrists were fettered to each other by long trailing chains of scented
+jasmine flowers.
+
+A dainty prisoning indeed! The suggestion of it set his head whirling.
+
+Like it!--His very admiration kept him silent.
+
+"It makes it feel more real," she went on, "don't you think it does?"
+
+Real, or a dream? He did not know which. He felt a fool to stand so
+silent; yet no words--as she would phrase it--came to match. None, at
+least, that he dare use to her unconscious dignity.
+
+"Only I can't dance, you see," she continued, bending to look at the
+billows about her feet. "Besides,"--she looked up suddenly, her whole
+expression changed, she flung her fettered hands forward almost into
+his face. The strings on strings of scented flowers looping themselves
+in ever widening curves, hung like a screen between him and her
+laughter.
+
+"I'm a prisoner--yours, I suppose." He fell back for half a second,
+then caught the hand in his.
+
+And then, in an instant, it came back to him--the measureless glad
+content of that mistake in the dark! He had told himself ever since
+that it had come, then, by mistake--incomprehensible, it is true,
+horrible to a certain extent, but still in error. But this was no
+mistake!
+
+"Yes!--my prisoner," he said. "Come, and sit down, and let us talk." He
+wanted time to think.
+
+She shook her head. "Not here, please! No one is to see me but you,
+only you. That is why I waited till I saw you were alone. I only put it
+on for you to see."
+
+A sudden remembrance of something she had said to him--"When it is
+real, and you give yourself--everything, and ask nothing." The
+certainty that she was doing this now made him say quickly:--
+
+"Don't be afraid--they shall not see. Come, let us go into the
+garden--those balconies by the river--"
+
+She shook her head again.
+
+"They are not safe, and my guardian would be so angry. Though it isn't
+really wrong"--she added, with her odd vein of piety; "but when
+somebody sent me the dress, I thought it would be fun, and I wanted you
+to see."
+
+"Sent you the dress?" he echoed hotly. "Who?"
+
+She looked at him vastly amused. "Are you jealous? But I'm not going to
+tell you. That is just like the novels, isn't it; but what is the use
+of making people angry?"
+
+"How do you know I should be angry," he asked coldly.
+
+She smiled like a Sphinx might smile. "I'm certain. Come! Perhaps I'll
+tell you when we get to a safe place. There's one close by. My guardian
+wouldn't have it lit up because--he always has the same reason for
+everything, you know, and it _is_ so dull--because something happened
+there long ago. As if it mattered!"
+
+As she spoke, they had been passing down the marble steps, her silver
+anklets chiming; and now, as they paused an instant on the edge of the
+water-maze, they chimed still. But to a new, curiously provocative
+measure, and her face, her figure, her very voice, changed as if to
+keep time with it.
+
+"I used to run all over it, in and out, when I was little," she
+chattered mischievously, "and old Akbar used to run after me and
+tumble in! I could do it now, and you could chase me, if I hadn't all
+this-" she gave a little mutinous kick at her sweeping skirt. Then
+suddenly she laughed. "Poor old Akbar! I'd like him to see me, but I
+don't see how it could be managed. And nobody else must--but you. So
+come--come quick!"
+
+She drew him after her by one hand, like a child at play. Across the
+marble plinth, right to the wide arched passage in the lower storey;
+and when, having gained in the race, he would from habit have gone
+straight on towards the courtyard, she pulled him back with a peal of
+laughter.
+
+"Not that way, stupid! Here--it's a dear little balcony all by itself
+with steps down to the river and a boat."
+
+"Perfect!" he exclaimed with an answering laugh, as he disappeared
+after her.
+
+But in that instant's pause two figures had passed into the other end
+of the long passage from the chapel. Two figures, one of which,
+half-disdainfully, half-regretfully, had been going round the beauties
+of the palace; the other, gambolling sideways by reason of its curbing
+deference its urging servility, engaged in garrulous tales of past
+glory.
+
+"Yea! _Ger-eeb-pun-waz_," it was saying, "Bun-avatar used to meet Anari
+Begum here. She liked him best in uniform, and she wore--"
+
+It was then that, framed in the distant archway, seen clear against the
+radiance of the garden, that vision of a laughing girl, a flashing
+uniform appeared.
+
+Old Akbar Khan gave a faint mumbling petition to be preserved, and fell
+back, his teeth chattering.
+
+"Anar--Anar--herself," he muttered. "And he--God help us all! Why did
+they light up the garden?"
+
+But Roshan Khan knew better. His eyes were younger. And he had the
+key--the key of that shimmering silver dress.
+
+"Fool!" he said sharply. "They are no ghosts. 'Twas Dering-_sahib_
+and--and--" he gave a bitter laugh--"one of his _mems_. They do such
+things often."
+
+But as he walked on, his hands clenched themselves to the tune of the
+words which sang in his brain, "God smite his soul to hell! God smite
+his soul to hell!"
+
+The two great stabilities, Love of God and Love of woman, had joined
+hands, as they always do.
+
+A formidable combination.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER X
+
+                          THE PIVOTS OF LIFE
+
+
+Lance Carlyon was not, as a rule, given either to loss of spirits or
+temper, yet both were at vanishing-point as he flung off the garb of
+his namesake of the lake; swearing as he did so that he would never
+wear the blessed thing again. It cramped him all over; body and soul.
+And then--for he knew his Tennyson well, as one of his name could
+hardly fail to do--his memory raced swiftly over the love-loyal
+knight's career; until suddenly he laughed at a phrase which had always
+tickled him. "_So groaned Sir Lancelot--not knowing he should die a
+holy man_."
+
+If he had?--what would have been the result? Would he simply have
+refrained from remorseful pain, or from the honour rooted in dishonour
+which caused it?
+
+With a mighty stretch of his sound young muscles at the relief, Lance
+caught up his Indian clubs, and went elaborately, conscientiously,
+through his daily series of exercises before putting on his
+dust-coloured shooting-suit, and swathing himself with the necessary
+plentitude of belts, cartridge-boxes, and gaiters. The latter--being,
+after Indian fashion, simply a couple of bandages neatly twined--were,
+as a matter of fact, much tighter than his discarded greaves; but the
+clip of them about his calves was familiarly reminiscent of many a
+day spent out in the jungle alone, or at most with some companion of
+Am-ma's type. A man whose only claim to be called one in these later
+days was his undoubted dominion over the birds of the air, the fish of
+the sea, the beasts of the field. How jolly it had been! And how the
+deuce could a fellow like Vincent Dering--
+
+Lance, sorting cartridges systematically with an eye to a possible
+snipe, whistled a tune which Vincent was always asked to sing at the
+Smiths', "_Sweet is true love--and sweet is Death_."
+
+Well, he preferred the Death. So, catching up his gun, he made his way
+to the crypt-like flight of steps which, half way down the straight
+river-edged wall of the Fort--between its northern bastion where the
+stream turned hillwards at a sharp angle, and the southern one beside
+the bathing-steps--led to a tiny landing-stage. Here the canoe, which
+he had hired for such excursions from Ramanund (whose last experience
+of boating had rather sickened him of its pleasures), lay moored.
+
+Keeping the paddle ready for steering, he let the stream, which here
+clung swift and smooth to the wall, take him with it; partly because he
+had no wish to be seen by any revellers in the palace. But the sight of
+the latter made him slip the paddle-blade into the sliding water, and
+send the canoe swerving out for a better view.
+
+It was wondrously beautiful, seen from the river, with every line
+and curve of light reflected almost as clear as the reality. The
+sight held his attention, so that he was abreast of the bathing-steps
+ere he remembered his desire for secrecy, and, in his haste, the
+canoe--answering to his swift stroke--almost spun round, bringing him,
+in an instant, within an ace of collision with the hard brick. As it
+was, he heard a faint grating sound.
+
+"By Jove! that was a near shave," he muttered to himself.
+
+Out of the darkness of the courtyard, for the unilluminated block of
+the palace rose between it and the white radiance, came a voice:--
+
+"Is't thou? Hast brought the tool--we must get the job done ere dawn
+and--"
+
+The rest was inaudible as the river slid him on. What were they up to?
+he wondered idly; taking advantage, doubtless, of the absolute
+desertion of the courtyard, the entry to which had been blocked for the
+night, the main entrance to the palace having been prepared for the
+reception of the guests. Were they meddling with the padlock Dering had
+put on the tampion which stopped the muzzle of the old gun? Time to see
+to that in the morning.
+
+He was now steering his way just on the edge of the shadow cast by the
+wall on the water, and in front of him jutted out a balcony smaller
+than the rest, and nearer the river. Those upper ones, he knew, were
+part of the chapel; but this--
+
+He looked at it narrowly, wondering if he had ever noticed it before,
+then let the paddle sink idly across the boat, and sat staring at what
+he saw. Dering, of course! But the woman! Who on earth was she? A
+native? Hardly; and yet he did not remember seeing anyone at the ball
+whose dress was in the least like this; even in the dark it glittered.
+
+"Do you call that love?" came a voice echoing softly over the water. "I
+don't. When I love, I mean to give, not to take; and the more I give,
+the more I'll have to give; because, you see, love will come back--it
+must."
+
+By all that was incomprehensible, Laila Bonaventura! And, if there was
+any certainty in these shadows, Dering's arm--
+
+Phew! Lance knew his Shakespeare also; had, in fact, a curiously
+ingenuous and human acquaintance with even the exact words of the great
+master. So as he drifted on, leaving those two in the balcony, a line
+drifted with him:--
+
+
+                                "She whom I love now
+       Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.
+       The other did not so."
+
+
+He felt a righteous relief at the idea, for he was eminently virtuous.
+Poor old Vincent! This was better than the other--he paused
+doubtfully--Well! different people had different tastes. He, for
+instance, had never admired Mrs. Smith. And then Dering, good chap as
+he was, had, everybody knew, a touch of the tar-brush himself. Only a
+touch, still it made a difference; for one had to consider the
+children. For instance, when _he_ married--Why a vision of a child's
+head he had once seen, far away in the north, covered with soft, waving
+curls of sun-bright red-gold hair, chestnut--yes, chestnut hair, the
+very colour of that beast of a pony who boshed him at polo--should have
+come to him at that moment he did not know; but he fled from it,
+bashful as any girl over her first fancy, and, bending forward, sent
+the canoe racing the foam-bubbles on the swifter current with all the
+strength of his young arms.
+
+That was the mission house, ending the long curve of the city. The
+mission house, where _she_ slept--the boat raced harder here--where
+_she_ lived in the thick of it--God bless her! Here the boat slackened,
+partly because the spit was reached, and in the darkness, made visible
+by that soft white radiance behind him, he must not miss Am-ma's hut.
+Am-ma, who had dominion over wild duck, among other things in that
+munificent gift of the Creator to His own image. Am-ma, who must come
+out and show those who had fallen from their high estate through
+civilization how to lure the birds to their death.
+
+
+      "_Sweet is true Love though given in vain,
+       And sweet is Death which puts an end to pain_."
+
+
+The refrain came back in this connection, and Lance's voice, as he sang
+it, if not musical, held a hint of something beyond the mere maudlin
+expression-stop of the ordinary song-singer.
+
+He need not, he told himself, have feared to overlook Am-ma's wigwam;
+for there, not far from the point of the spit it stood, all lit up;
+circled round closely with a row of little lights like those at the
+palace. Were the primitive folk down here aping their masters and
+having a ball of their own? Smiling at the thought, he ran the canoe on
+shore and walked up to the reed hut. Then he saw that the circle of
+lights was broken by a dark patch. It was Am-ma himself, squatting on
+his heels. To one side of him, firmly fixed in the sand, was a
+freshly-killed crocodile's head, its jaws ingeniously distended by a
+thin cane to which a string was attached. By pulling this the dead
+mouth seemed to open and shut, as the pliant rattan bent under the
+strain and sprang back again. In his other hand he held a bloody spear.
+Despite these fearful preparations, however, the first glimpse of an
+approaching figure set him visibly trembling with fright; until, on its
+coming nearer the lights, he sprang to his feet with a sudden
+blubbering shout of relief.
+
+"I thought--this fool, this atom of dust, thought--the _Huzoor_ was the
+devil!" he explained, capering and chuckling to make much of the joke,
+now that the fear of its being a reality was over.
+
+"The devil!" echoed Lance. "What the dickens should the devil come here
+for?"
+
+Am-ma looked half-grave, half-important. Did not the _Huzoor_ know, he
+explained, that when life was coming into the world, all the demons in
+it wanted to get hold of the new-born thing? Hence the lights, hence
+the crocodile's head and the spear; also his own valiance. Hence, also,
+the impossibility of his accompanying the Presence after duck. If he,
+the father of the thing to be born, was not there to fight the demons,
+what hope could there be for the son?--and here this quaint, broad,
+ugly face grew wistful--for it must be a son, surely, this time. No! he
+had no children; the demons had taken them all, every one; though he
+had left nothing undone, though he had sought out one medicine-man
+after another. What did it matter? he asked pathetically, if the charm
+were of one faith or another, if it brought a child. He had tried all.
+His own and everybody else's. But they all died, the children, girls
+and boys; died when they were born. The demon somehow slipped through
+the lights; the charm was not strong enough; that was all. So this
+time, when he had seen that the _Huzoors_ had the _Dee-puk-rag_, the
+sign of kings, that they were, indeed, light-bringers, as his people
+had been of old, he had sent for the Miss-_sahiba_, and she had come.
+She was there in the hut, even now, fighting the demons.
+
+Lance gave a quick catch of his breath, and stood silent. Right over
+the miserable reed hut, clear against the violet of the moonless sky,
+rose those palaces of stars lit up for pleasure. It almost seemed to
+him that the slight breeze, which was beginning to whisper of the dawn,
+held in it the faint rhythm of a distant waltz.
+
+And here, at his feet, was this hut, lit up for pain. He heard that
+also, in a faint moan, which sent a shiver through him; the shiver of
+one who finds himself bare of accustomed covering, out in the open, far
+from any shelter from the cold sky.
+
+"Of course you can't come, Am-ma," he said, moving off. "Well! I hope
+the Miss-_sahiba_ will--will keep the devil away. I--I--expect she
+will!"
+
+As he floated a little further down stream, vaguely obeying the
+instructions which Am-ma, regretful for all his anxiety, had shouted
+after him, he told himself that if anybody could, she would. If a
+fellow married her, for instance--
+
+He drew the canoe on to the sand-bank, Am-ma had spoken of, somewhat
+sooner than his directions warranted, in order to stifle thought by
+action. And it needed every sense on the alert to tell in the darkness
+if one was keeping a fairly straight path. That scarcely audible "_lip,
+lip_" on the right meant that the water was close by, running an inch
+or two below a sheer yet crumbling edge of earth. That yielding
+softness on the left meant the ridge of dry sand. His way was between
+the two. Every now and again a watchful quack, a distant flutter, told
+him that the ducks were not far off. And in the east the faintest
+lightening of the purple warned him he was none too soon, since the
+dawn in India comes quickly.
+
+But this must be the place; a sort of bunker right at the end of the
+bank. Here, cuddling down almost luxuriously into loose dry sand, still
+warm from yesterday's sun, he waited for that hint of light in the far
+east to grow strong enough for him to see.
+
+It is always an experience to sit and wait for daylight, ignorant,
+helpless till it comes, of what lies close at hand. Lance Carlyon,
+crouching in that still warm sand, felt a sudden forlornness, a sense
+of having parted with something.
+
+But, almost on the heels of this, came a sense of having found
+something; of strange, quick, new, yet familiar companionship. It
+seemed to him as he watched that faint grey lightening in the far east,
+that he did so, not as Lance Carlyon, but as an atom in the great,
+round, spinning world whose curved edge grew darker against the coming
+light.
+
+He laid his gun beside him, and, kneeling in the soft, still warm sand,
+rested his arms on the edge of the bunker, ears and eyes alert as any
+wild creature's. He could hear the soft rustle of feathers in the dark,
+the soft swish of the water as something stirred in it, the soft sob
+with which an inch or two of that tiny, unseen sand-cliff gave way to
+the stream, the softer gurgle, as of laughter, with which the water
+took its toll of earth.
+
+So, thinking not at all, simply as a sand grain in the sand around him,
+the mystery, the certainty of dawn held him, as it held all things.
+
+The curved line of the world darkened, the shadow of it deepened, as
+the grey of the sky grew tender as the eye of a mother watching her
+child asleep. But only for a space. Then the grey hardened, and a
+trumpet call from a whistling teal told that the great fight of dawn
+had come.
+
+So, for another space, the Dark and the Light faced each other, waiting
+for that second trumpet call.
+
+It came, borne on a faint rustle of wind which crept over the edge of
+the world from the footsteps of the coming day. The shiver of it swept
+through the shadows; they broke into battalions to face the foe. So
+into companies, till, as the red spear-points of the sun showed over
+the horizon, they rallied darkly, desperately, behind each hint of
+rising ground, in each hint of sheltering hollow. Rallied in vain, for
+below the spear-points a glittering curve, as of a golden helmet, came
+resistless.
+
+Then Lance Carlyon stood up, hastily, gun in hand. But he was too late.
+The mystery of Dawn had held him helpless, as it had held the birds;
+and now they, too, were freemen of the conquering day.
+
+He fired a couple of shots after them, more as a salute to the victor
+than in any hope of slaughter; so, with a laugh, turned homeward.
+
+The canoe shot against the stream gaily, but, as he neared the spit, a
+sudden desire to go home by land assailed him. Am-ma could take the
+boat back; there might be a chance of a snipe, in that low-lying bit
+below the mission house, and--
+
+He blushed, even in solitude, at his own moral turpitude. Why not tell
+the truth; to himself, at least?
+
+He found Am-ma, worn out by his night's anxiety, with his head between
+his knees, fast asleep; leaving the crocodile, at the agony point of an
+unending yawn, in sole charge of the little circle of flickering
+lights. Some of them had gone out, the rest looked trumpery in the
+growing blaze of day. But what matter? Since, half an hour before, Erda
+Shepherd had come out of the wigwam with a living child, wrapped quite
+daintily in an orthodox square of new flannel.
+
+"It is a son, Am-ma, and I think it is very like you," she had said,
+with a laugh at the wrinkled, wizened old face peering out at its new
+world.
+
+But Am-ma had grovelled on the ground with tears and cries of
+blubbering joy. He had been right. The _Huzoors_ were kings. They knew
+the _Dee-puk-rag_. They were the light-bringers, the life-bringers.
+
+He had never asked after his wife, but when Erda had gone inside again,
+he sat, and in his anxiety to keep the devil from those inside, had
+twitched away at his string so fiercely that the crocodile's head lost
+its ferocity in what appeared to be a fit of laughter, until sleep,
+from sheer relief, overtaking the puller, the laugh had ended in that
+steady yawn.
+
+Am-ma was on his feet, alert in a second, however, at Lance's touch,
+like a wild beast.
+
+"'Tis all right, _Huzoor_" he grinned broadly. "'Tis a son." Then once
+again the exuberance of his delight made him grovel in the sand at the
+feet of the Master.
+
+"And the Miss-_sahiba?_ Hath she gone?" asked Lance, blushing once
+more, now that his own self-deception became impossible.
+
+"Nay, she remains inside," asserted Am-ma. But a look which he gave in
+the hut proved him wrong. She must have gone out the other way while he
+slept, he confessed, sheepishly; but there was nothing wrong. The devil
+had not won a way in; both mother and son were dozing peacefully.
+
+Lance, his hope of walking back with Erda gone, felt inclined to take
+to the canoe again. Then a savage desire to kill something, at least,
+suggested the possibility of a snipe in the little swampy bit below the
+city wall, not far from the mission house; so bidding Am-ma take the
+canoe up at his leisure, he walked off, feeling, for him, in a very bad
+temper.
+
+He forgot his quarrel with fate, however, in a second, when, the bit of
+swamp reached, something buzzed up to fall slantwise like a stone;
+something which, on picking it up, he found to be the rare Sabine
+snipe, painted, absolutely beautiful, in its delicate harmony of
+colour. And the luck did not come singly, for from behind a clump of
+tiger-grass came Erda Shepherd, a trifle alarmed at the possibility of
+being shot if she did not show herself.
+
+Lance walked up to her, swiftly, the dead bird in his hand. "You must
+be awfully tired, being up all night," he began--
+
+He had a way of rushing things, Erda thought, which was disconcerting
+when one was anxious to keep on the surface. "And you too, Mr.
+Carlyon," she interrupted; "did you enjoy the ball?" She felt pleased
+at this able evasion.
+
+"Who--I--Oh! dear me, no," he replied, absently; then he smiled. "I
+say, wasn't Am-ma pleased. He slobbered and blubbered with joy all over
+my boots, and yet--" he paused reflectively, "I don't think a little
+Am-ma could be a very pleasing object."
+
+For the life of her she could not help a smile. "It was not," she
+confessed frankly; "in fact I think it was the ugliest baby I ever saw.
+Poor little thing," she added in quick self-reproach. "Anyhow it seemed
+beautiful to them--it is the first--the first that has lived, I mean."
+She pulled up short, wondering what possessed her to be so confidential
+with this strange young man.
+
+"So Am-ma told me," said Lance. "He called you the Life-bringer. It is
+a nice name."
+
+She fought against the tenderness in his tone. "And you are the
+Death-bringer," she retorted lightly, pointing to the painted beauty in
+his hand. "So you and I are at opposite poles, Mr. Carlyon."
+
+He stood looking at her for a moment with a smile. "I don't know, Miss
+Shepherd. '_Death and Birth are the pivots of the Wheel of Life_.' I
+remember reading that, in Sanskrit, when I went up for my higher; for
+I've passed it, you know. I'm really not bad at languages when I try."
+
+It was the first time she had ever heard him claim credit for anything,
+and the fact touched her more than she cared to own. Touched her so
+closely that she sought instantly for cover.
+
+"I wish I were," she said, moving on, though, as she had known he
+would, he moved on also. "I'm afraid I shall find it a great trouble
+having to learn a new one."
+
+"A new one," he echoed quickly, in response to something in her voice.
+"Are you going to leave Eshwara--soon?"
+
+She paused for a moment ere replying. "Sooner than I expected, Mr.
+Carlyon; most likely in a day or two. I don't know whether you have
+heard," she continued, looking him in the face, "but I am engaged to be
+married to my cousin--Dr. Campbell's son--David Campbell. He is a
+missionary--as I am--and--" she hesitated. "He is at home,--or was. We
+did not expect him back for two months, but he has had a good offer of
+a splendid place where there is any amount of work to be done. The
+letter telling us this came yesterday--by the same mail as--as he did.
+He is travelling up country now; and then--"
+
+"And then?" said Lance, quietly. With his gun over his shoulder, he
+looked what he was, a soldier; and since she began to speak, he had,
+insensibly, pulled himself together and fallen into a disciplined
+ordered tread.
+
+"My aunt wants the wedding to be from the mission station in the low
+hills where they go every summer," went on the girl. She was trying not
+to look at her companion, not out of pity, but from dread of her own
+admiration. "So as David"--she felt better after the semi-appropriation
+of the Christian name--"is in a hurry to start, she thought of going
+there as soon as the camp leaves--in a day or two. So--so--we shall not
+see very much more of each other, Mr. Carlyon; shall we?"
+
+He gave her his first look of reproach, being unable, in his absolutely
+honest humility, to conceive of the vague regret which forced her to
+the useless appeal.
+
+"I--I hope you will be very happy," he said, quite simply. "Take care,
+please; that bit is boggier than you think." For the second time in
+their short acquaintance she felt his hand, not as a friend's, but as a
+helper, a protector. This time the blood left her face pale.
+
+"I hope so, Mr. Carlyon," she replied, and her hands clasped themselves
+tightly as if to hold some resolve. "It is what I have always hoped
+for, thought of." Then suddenly she smiled at him almost appealingly.
+"I am a bit of a soldier too, you know--I love the fighting."
+
+"You are in the thick of it here, anyhow," he interrupted, pausing.
+
+They had climbed by a flight of steps through the city wall into the
+small courtyard on which the mission house, which had once been an
+outpost of the Fort, opened on its inner side. The outer, with its wide
+overhanging verandah, forming part of the actual city wall. But the
+remainder of the courtyard was set round by a perfect congeries of
+small temples, each rearing its upright stone spire--the stone of Baal
+worship--about the central tank which occupied the middle of the
+square. It was quite a small tank, and absolutely dry; so that you
+could see the four or five worn stone steps which led down to the patch
+of earth, not six feet square, at the bottom. A dozen or more children,
+boys and girls of the streets, were playing a sort of hop-scotch on
+these steps, and as Lance looked, one of them slipped and fell into
+that patch of earth. In a second the others had quitted their game, and
+fallen pell-mell, too, struggling, kicking, shouting, screaming with
+laughter.
+
+"Is it a game?" he asked, looking at his companion, amused.
+
+"Yes!" she said, suddenly, her face stern as he had seen it that first
+time he met her. "It is the game of Life and Death! That is the 'Pool
+of Immortality,' Mr. Carlyon! The pilgrims come here to bathe--there
+must be a secret siphon somewhere, for the water only comes when it is
+wanted. Three years ago the barriers put up to prevent accidents gave
+way--it was no one's fault. The crowd got in--a man slipped--and--and
+when the police managed to clear the crush--the--the tank was full up
+with dead bodies! The children _play_ at it now!"
+
+But they had spied more amusement, and in another second were hanging
+round Erda's skirts.
+
+"Sing to us, Miss-_sahiba_,--sing to us before you go in."
+
+She looked apologetically at Lance. "I generally do," she began.
+
+He raised his cap, almost obediently, with a brief "Certainly," and
+passed on; but as he left the court on his way to the Fort, the first
+note of her voice made him turn, for a second, to look.
+
+She was seated on the top step of the tank, the children grouped
+inquisitively round her, and she held her head high-almost defiantly.
+
+
+             "_The Son of God goes forth to war,
+              Who follows in His train?_"
+
+
+The words were distinctly audible, following him as he passed on, the
+gun on his shoulder, the dead bird in his hand, and something between
+blessing and cursing in his heart. But above and through all, he seemed
+to hear a never-ceasing voice that said, "_The pivots of Life are Birth
+and Death. Death and Birth_."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI
+
+                         WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS
+
+
+"Half a minute, Dillon!" said the Commissioner abruptly, as the doctor,
+ushered in by a scarlet-sin-stain of an orderly, entered the tent where
+the former was working. "I must attend to these gentlemen first."
+
+These gentlemen were Dya Ram, Ramanund, and a third very different sort
+of person, obtrusively Hindoo in face, figure, attire.
+
+The Commissioner's manner, as he returned to the business in hand,
+changed from careless familiarity to an elaborate courtesy.
+
+"I quite understand, _pundit-sahib_," he said in English to Ramanund,
+"that you are, as you say, actuated by no personal motive. A man of
+your attainments and culture can scarcely feel a keen interest in
+_jogi_ Gorakh-nath's--that is the name, I think--domicile in a gun
+barrel!"
+
+The sarcasm was lost on the hearer, who smiled, satisfied. "Quite so,
+sir," he replied. "It is merely, as my friend Dya Ram postulates, a
+question as to the legality--"
+
+The Commissioner interrupted him suavely. "In that case it is a matter
+for the courts, surely."
+
+"Unless your Honour should, as magistrate, act under Section 418
+providing for emergencies," began Dya Ram; whereat the official sat
+back in his chair resignedly.
+
+"Of course," he answered, his brogue running riot, as it always did,
+when he was contemptuous, "I have that power. But do ye really think,
+sir, that this present matter is of such paramount importance to the
+stability of the British Empire, that I should be justified in running
+counter to the ordinary course of law and justice?" Here the futility
+of his own sarcasm seemed to come home to him. He paused to consult a
+file, and when he looked up again, he spoke in Hindustani--evidently
+for the benefit of the third party. "There is no record whatever," he
+said briefly, "of any previous claim to the gun. It has been
+worshipped, of course; but that is a different matter. The military
+power has no intention of interfering with this habit. I may add that a
+counter petition, praying me not to allow appeal on the ground that
+this _jogi_ is a man of ill fame, and a public nuisance, has been filed
+by the _mohunt_ (guardian of shrines) at the Pool of Immortality."
+
+The obtrusively Hindoo figure which had remained standing, though his
+companions were seated, here folded his hands as if in prayer, leant
+forward, and began garrulously:--
+
+"_Huzoor_ it is malice--malice of hereditary nature. They hope to gain
+money--"
+
+"Exactly, _Mohunt-jee_; your money! if the pilgrims haven't the
+attraction of a live man in a gun close to your shrine your trade will
+suffer," interrupted the Commissioner, with brutal truth. "I am afraid
+I can do nothing. Of course," he continued, reverting to English, "if
+you bring a suit to claim prescriptive right, you may," here his
+patience gave way finally, "but God bless my soul, gentlemen! Surely
+men like you have something better to do than bolster up your
+countrymen in a preposterous business like this!"
+
+"Pardon me, sir," protested Dya Ram, litigiously, "but if it is
+prescriptive right, vested in citizens, then--"
+
+"Then, sir!" interrupted the stern, high voice, "the British Empire
+will have no choice but to allow _jogi_ Gorakh-nath to be a
+son-of-a-gun till the day of his death! So good-morning to you;
+unless--" here the suavity returned in full force--"there is any other
+subject you wish to bring forward."
+
+There was not, apparently; and as the trio were ushered out, the
+Commissioner sat still further back in his chair, tilting it with his
+feet against the table, and ran his fingers through his hair in an
+exasperated fashion.
+
+"'Pon my soul, it's inconceivable," he said; then, reaching forward,
+took up a newspaper that was lying on the table, and began to read.
+
+"_If we are asked what we, the educated natives of India, claim, we
+reply boldly, all things that Englishmen of equal culture possess by
+right of birth. We refuse flatly to be lumped in with the crass
+ignorance of our fellow-countrymen who have, alas! not yet risen to a
+pitch of desiring that liberty of which John Stuart Mill speaks in such
+glowing terms in his valuable pamphlet_."
+
+"Hark to that, now!" he commented, flinging the paper back. "That's Mr.
+Dya Ram's last, and it goes on, as per usual, to abuse. They asked me
+to put a name to it, and I've just been telling the confidential
+department that, barring a horrible misuse of synonym, there's no
+sedition, no harm in it whatever! And there isn't, Dillon. The
+son-of-a-gun business is ten times as dangerous. Dering's within his
+rights, but I wish to blazes he'd left the brute alone; or he might
+have put a blank cartridge in and fired a salute by mistake when
+Gorakh-nath was inside! But ye can't keep the military in subjection.
+The department's aimin' at a fight, and small blame to it! I'm spoiling
+for one myself this instant moment; so come along, doctor, an' let me
+hear what your criminals have to say. There's a pretty sheaf of
+complaints for ye, ye hard-hearted murderin' slave driver!"
+
+He took up a bulky file of papers as he spoke, and passed them to an
+orderly in exchange for his hat, which the man held ready.
+
+"Yes! it's pretty good," assented the doctor, placidly, as, keeping
+step, the two passed out of the tent, so down the palm avenue towards
+the gaol, which the Commissioner was going to inspect. "It comes of
+their being idle. Wait till I get them digging again. I'll work the
+mischief out of them. When are we going on; and where?"
+
+His companion shook his head. "Can't get an answer out of the Public
+Works. Is there anything you would like done, meanwhile?"
+
+Dr. Dillon laughed sardonically. "Pretty considerable, rather! Only it
+would take months to get sanction. But, if you pass it, Smith says he
+could put a wire on from the Fort easily in a day. It would save
+sending by road if there was trouble, and the great thing is to hit
+back as quick as you can. The mutiny taught us that."
+
+"Ay," said the Commissioner, musingly, "that's the straight tip; and
+that's why steam and electricity rule India. One can be ready without
+letting people know. If that had been the case in the mutiny--" he
+shrugged his shoulders, then went on--"these things come so easily; a
+touch starts them; but you mustn't show that you know it. Still, if you
+thought there would be any difficulty--I mean if you mightn't be able
+to hold your own till they came from the Fort--we might make some
+excuse for quartering a troop closer."
+
+Dr. Dillon shook his head. "It isn't worth it. I believe myself they'll
+settle down when that big brute, Gopi, I told you about, gets his
+ticket to-morrow. If I didn't want to get rid of him I'd put him in
+cells for six weeks. And there's a warder, too,--or perhaps more. But
+there's no fear. I could hold the whole 'biz' myself, till the brutes
+managed to get off their leg irons, and as I keep every tool _extra
+mural_, I don't believe there's a bit of iron within the walls--except
+the shackles themselves. So I should have an hour or two, anyhow--"
+
+"Now, here you are," he continued, with pardonable pride, as they
+passed under the mud archway which led into the gaol; a long archway
+with a massive door at either end, tunnelling a square block of
+flat-roofed building. "You'll find everything spick and span, I can
+tell you, for I've been making the beggars polish their own leg irons,
+so as to keep 'em a bit busy."
+
+It was, indeed, spick and span, as only an Indian gaol can be, where
+everything, including the prisoners' beds, is freshly mud-plastered
+every week. Spick and span in a mere monotony of mud and lack of
+colour. The prisoners, fifteen hundred of them or more, stood in four
+long, straight rows, naked save for their waistcloths and the eared
+caps on their shaven heads; their blankets, folded to a small square
+under their feet, giving them a strangely wooden appearance, as if they
+stood on stands, like the figures in Noah's ark.
+
+A couple of policemen fell out and drew their truncheons to walk close
+behind the Commissioner; but Dr. Dillon waved his pair back.
+
+"Never show you expect anything," he said laconically, "and as I've
+always refused a guard, I can't take one now."
+
+Nor was there any apparent need for one. Some faces scowled at him, but
+most were occupied with the Commissioner, who, when a prisoner raised
+his hand, paused to take the written petition which, nine times out of
+ten, was ready for presentation.
+
+"There must be a good many warders in it," remarked the Commissioner,
+dryly. And the doctor nodded.
+
+"Now there's only the hospital," said the latter, when the solitary
+cells had been inspected, the cook room interviewed, and the dinner to
+come tasted. "It won't take you long. There was only one case in this
+morning."
+
+But as they entered the long open ward, like a cloister, mud-plastered
+as all else, but with iron beds looking strangely at variance with
+their surroundings, two of these were occupied, and at one, a hospital
+dresser was standing, looking somewhat scared.
+
+Dr. Dillon gave a hasty exclamation as he stepped up to the bed and
+looked at the sick man.
+
+"When did he come in?" he asked briefly.
+
+"Ten minutes ago, _Huzoor_; the _baboo_ hath given him--"
+
+"Never mind what he hath given him," interrupted the doctor, holding up
+his hand in warning, "go on with it, and tell the _baboo-sahib_ to
+come to me for orders--at once. Now then, sir, that's all--and a bit
+too much too--" he added in a lower voice, as they passed out together,
+"for it's a case of cholera."
+
+The Commissioner looked grave. "That will complicate matters, won't
+it?"
+
+"Can't say. You never can tell. They may take it as a dispensation, or
+there may never be another case. That fellow's done for, anyhow--he'll
+be dead in an hour."
+
+"That's quick, isn't it?" asked his companion, calmly.
+
+"Rather. I've seen a man go out in ten minutes, though. The worst of it
+is," he added, with a frown, "if there really is some conspiracy at the
+bottom of the discontent, it is as likely as not the devils who are
+working it, may take advantage of this--I don't mean of this
+death--_that_ goes without saying. But when cholera is about, poison is
+hard to detect, and even if I stamp out the _disease_, which I mean to
+do, they may simulate it." He bit at his thumbnail viciously as he
+strode on, thinking and muttering. "By God!" he murmured, "if I could
+catch 'em at it! However," he added aloud, "it's no good fussing. If
+the thing comes, it comes, and I've kept you here too long as it is,
+sir. Do you know it's close on half-past ten?"
+
+"Be jabers!" exclaimed the Commissioner, "only twenty minutes to bathe,
+shave, breakfast, and put on me gold lace continuations. Well, ta, ta!
+I'll see you at the show, of course."
+
+Dr. Dillon looked puzzled for an instant; the puzzledom of a man whose
+thoughts are recalled from afar. "The show? Oh, yes! I was forgetting.
+Rather, sir. Why! it is as much my canal as Smith's, for we've done
+every inch of it together; besides, I have got to drive his wife down."
+
+"Where the deuce is Dering?" asked the Commissioner, quite ingenuously;
+but George Dillon flushed up. It was visible even under his
+leather-like tan.
+
+"I really can't say, sir; otherwise engaged, I presume."
+
+His elder turned to him, surprised, yet with instant apology. "I'm
+sorry; I shouldn't have said it; but I really meant nothing."
+
+Dr. Dillon gave a dry, sardonic laugh. "Oh! it is all right, sir. I
+quite believe you didn't. Nobody does mean anything in that sort of
+connection. It's left for the doctors to face facts as they are really;
+and then you call us brutal." He turned back, as he spoke, to the
+hospital.
+
+Half an hour afterwards, however, having in the interim provided for
+every contingency he could foresee, including the bare possibility of
+his carrying infection, he appeared in Mrs. Smith's drawing-room,
+looking--for him--quite smart and spruce; since, as he had said, this
+end to three years' work was an event in his life also.
+
+He found her, dressed in her daintiest, in a rocking-chair; and as he
+entered, his quick trained ear took in the petulance of the recurring
+push of one daintily shod foot. The room was darkened, and full of the
+scent of flowers. It was a familiar room to him, yet he never entered
+it without a glad recognition of the extreme feminine refinement shown
+in its every detail; for its mistress was one of those women whose
+fragility comes less from physical delicacy than from sensitiveness of
+mind.
+
+She was leaning back in her chair listlessly; yet the white ringed
+hands which clasped the fair curls on her forehead showed an almost
+passionate strain of muscle.
+
+"I believe you'll have to go without me," she said, as he approached,
+"I've such a racking headache. I don't believe I can face it--I'm sure
+I can't."
+
+He passed on to her side, and laid his hand on one of hers for an
+instant, while his quick eye took in the details around him. A note had
+slipped from her lap to the floor. It lay face up, and the words "Dear
+Mrs. Smith, so sorry--" showed in Vincent Dering's writing. So, not
+content with the message of excuse sent her by the offender through
+him, she must have written! That was a dangerous development of the
+situation. He stood looking down at her indulgently, as he might on a
+fractious child who did not understand. And she did not--poor soul!
+
+"You're nervous," he said. "Let me give you half a whiskey-and-soda
+before we start. It'll make you all right."
+
+"Nervous!" she echoed irritably, her foot setting her chair a-swing to
+match her tone. "I'm never nervous--you know that is not one of my
+failings--is it?"
+
+"No," he replied, "but you are a bundle of nerves for all that. You
+wouldn't be the woman you are if you weren't. And you are nervous at
+this moment. Nervous, despondent, out of heart. Come! make an effort!"
+
+She gave a petulant little giggle of impatience. "You speak as if I
+were a Mrs. Dombey; but I'm not that sort. Besides, it killed her. I am
+not coming. It doesn't really matter, you know; nobody will miss me--it
+will be all right."
+
+George Dillon, watching her, felt sorry, for once, at the correctness
+of his own diagnosis. He knew her so well that it seemed imperative to
+give her a hint of the reality. The danger of a final _eclaircissement_
+with Captain Dering seemed imminent, and the shock of it might lead to
+anything, if the knowledge of her own weakness came to her in the
+presence of the man she had cheated herself into calling a friend.
+
+"Your husband would. It is a great day for him," he said, laying his
+dexterous surgeon's hand full on the raw. As he expected, the answer
+came passionately, and gave him an opening.
+
+"He! O, he is quite happy as it is! He wouldn't miss me a bit. Why
+should he? I am not complaining, mind you--but why should he? He has
+interests enough without me."
+
+Dr. Dillon deliberately sought for the nearest chair, drew it close,
+and sat down beside his patient in professional fashion, his eyes on
+her face, his hands on his knees.
+
+"My dear lady," he said, "don't talk--excuse me--rubbish. Try and
+remember what women are always forgetting--that they _are_ women, and
+that, while Eve swallowed her portion of the fatal apple, his
+stuck--thank God for it!--in Adam's throat."
+
+She ceased her rocking, to sit and stare at him with a growing
+resentment, which belied the words that came at last, almost sullenly.
+
+"I don't understand what you mean in the very least. What has Eve's
+apple to do with--my headache?"
+
+"A very great deal," he answered coolly, "and with more than your
+headache, which, by the way, is only a symptom, not a cause. The real
+evil is--is something different. If you do not understand--though I
+think you do a little--" she shook her head--"I can only repeat my
+advice about the whiskey-and-soda; for I cannot explain to you crudely
+what I mean."
+
+She interrupted him angrily. "You have no right to hint at things you
+dare not say."
+
+Her very indignation betrayed her, and he smiled kindly. "Perhaps not,"
+he said. Then he paused, hesitated, finally leant nearer, with a look
+of resolve in his queer, intelligent face. "But I will tell you what I
+can do. I can sacrifice my self-respect and tell you a bit of my
+personal history which I never meant you to know, but which may help to
+cure--your headache." His voice, usually so dry, had a softness in it,
+though he went on without the faintest emotion. "Mrs. Smith, I have
+done myself the honour for nearly three years, of considering you as
+near perfection as a woman can he. Allow me to finish, please! I have
+done more. I have been, as the phrase runs, in love with my ideal of
+perfection; but I think you will admit that I have never allowed my
+feelings to give you, myself, or anyone else a--shall we say, a nervous
+headache? Now, after that, don't you think we had better start?"
+
+He rose in quite a matter-of-fact way, took up his hat, and waited for
+her answer.
+
+He had to wait some time, while the petulance of her renewed rocking
+ceased gradually in a determined rhythm, and he felt his courage going
+down to his boots. It was heroic treatment, but she was a healthy
+subject, and her anger would pass. Anything was better than letting her
+perfection suffer.
+
+The even creak of the rocker ended at last, and she rose, as he had
+risen, calmly, and faced him.
+
+"I quite understand now what you meant, Dr. Dillon," she said
+freezingly, "and why you did not care to explain. I shall, of course,
+never be able to forgive you for daring to dream such a thing possible,
+but--"
+
+"But," he interrupted, without a quiver, "you will take that half
+whiskey-and-soda. Here! _qui-hi! Whiskey sharab belatee pani la'o
+juldi; mem-sahiba jata hai_. (Bring whiskey-and-soda; the _mem_ is
+going.)"
+
+Perhaps the command of that assertion helped her to a decision. At any
+rate she did not countermand it, but spent the rather awkward pause
+which inevitably ensued in a perfect field-day of her hat-pins among
+her curls and veil. Whereat George Dillon, despite a certain bruised
+feeling, smiled, telling himself she was a true woman.
+
+Nevertheless when, as she was stepping into the dogcart, his friendly
+help came necessarily to the fore again, she reverted to her dignified
+resentment. "I ought," she said stiffly, "to have thanked you for--for
+your good opinion of me, and your evident desire to be kind. I do so
+now. But I fear it will be quite impossible for me to forget or forgive
+the delusion."
+
+"That is quite a minor matter," he put in, gleefully. "Now, cheer up,
+Bacilla, you brute, or we shall be late," Bacilla being his term of
+abuse for a pony which required a little stick.
+
+They were only just in time, no more. Five minutes after they had
+joined the company gathered on the red-brick masonry of the canal head,
+under a canopy of waving garlands and gay bunting, with that inevitable
+British flag as the centre of all, the small man with the big star on
+his breast took a step forward, raised a handle, and, as the first
+drops of water trickled through a sluice, declared, in a violent Scotch
+accent, "that the Victoria-Kaiser-i-Hind" canal was open. So, keeping
+time as it were, slowly, majestically, to those (also inevitable)
+strains of "God save the Queen," the outer floodgates swung back,
+allowing the river to have permanent possession during good behaviour,
+of the walled basin between them and the inner ones. Thus, slowly, with
+a gurgling of water seeking its level, the surface rose till the
+half-open sluices in the second gates were reached, and a thin curve
+tipped over to fall with a splash, and send a tiny scout of a stream to
+find out what this new straight road might mean. Only a tiny scout,
+since the earthworks beyond had to be accustomed by degrees to their
+new tenant.
+
+Still the new way was open, and the current of the river hesitated in
+the old one.
+
+"Bravo, Smith!" cried George Dillon, coming round, when the cheering
+and general congratulations were over, to slap his colleague on the
+back, metaphorically and actually. "We've done that; and now perhaps,
+old man, you'll have time for other things."
+
+"Yes," assented the tall, gaunt man, dreamily; "now I shall have time
+to settle that point about the searchlight."
+
+"The what?"
+
+"Search-light. There's been a correspondence in the _Engineer_ about
+it; and as I've all the electric plant here, lying useless, now the
+show's over,--until it's wanted for something else, of course,--I am
+going to see if I can't overcome their difficulty in concentrating all
+the power on a sufficiently narrow area. I believe I know how to do
+it."
+
+George Dillon looked at him with fierce, humorous exasperation.
+"Believe!" he echoed. "I know you can! You are the most intolerably
+circumscribed, self-concentrated, narrow-minded machine of a man I ever
+came across. Heaven help you!"
+
+As he drove Mrs. Smith home again, it was his turn to sit mumchance
+until, womanlike, she relented faintly, and, exaggerating her own
+powers, trusted she had not been, _etc_., though of course, _etc_.--
+
+"Not in the least, thank you," he replied. "I was only meditating if I
+should tell you that I think Eugene has softening of the brain."
+
+"Softening of the brain!" she echoed, horrified. "Oh, doctor, do you
+think it's that?"
+
+"Well, it isn't softening of the heart, anyhow," he said grimly. "But
+I'm not joking. If someone doesn't get a hold on some portion of that
+man--I don't care what it is--heart, brain, stomach, anything--and
+prevent him from killing himself with work, India will lose her best
+engineer. What he wants is someone to--to give him a nervous headache!"
+
+"We will leave that subject alone, please," she said loftily; but when
+her husband joined them in the verandah, she went over ostentatiously
+to him and pinned a carnation in his buttonhole, hoping he would like
+it better than the rose she gave him the day before, which--this was in
+a louder tone for the doctor's benefit--he had forgotten to put in!
+
+"Did I, my dear?" replied her spouse. "Oh, yes! I remember you put it
+in my minim glass because I was working in my shirt-sleeves. Then I
+wanted the glass. So it got withered and the head snapped off."
+
+Dr. Dillon laughed--his usual dry laugh. "That is one of the many
+tragedies which come from the delusion all women have that flowers
+can't be out of place."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XII
+
+                         THE CHURCH MILITANT
+
+
+When Roshan Khan had joined those two great stabilities, Faith and
+Love, into one passionate desire for Vincent Dering's damnation, he had
+meant to follow the English etiquette on such occasions, and keep his
+aspiration to himself.
+
+But it had been impossible for him instantly to rejoin the society in
+which he found himself; that is, a society which shared that
+fundamental crime--which more even than any definite jealousy had
+roused his anger against Captain Dering--of being alien to his creed,
+his customs, his code of conduct towards women. So he had wandered off
+into the garden again, shadowed by old Akbar's incredulity, curiosity,
+and sympathy; until, partly from sheer impatience, but mostly from
+sheer inherited habit of employing such as Akbar Khan in anything
+approaching an intrigue, he had made a clean breast of the situation.
+
+Even the latter, however, had, as it were, shied at the extreme novelty
+of the idea when it was first mooted; but, by degrees, its vast
+possibilities of advantage to faithful old retainers overpowered his
+abject terror at the bare idea of Father Narayan suspecting such a
+thing. The old master, he told himself, was old, indeed! God only knew
+if he would last a year or a day; therefore it would be well to ensure
+the favour of the new mistress. And there could be no harm in sounding
+her as to what course that favour would follow. One could never tell
+with a woman; and his wicked, experienced old eyes had caught many a
+hint of Anari Begum in Laila's childhood. Perhaps she had changed since
+she went to Calcutta. He could but try.
+
+So when, on the morning after the ball, Laila, in obedience to her
+pious resolve to do nothing really wrong, had bidden him--with
+threats of vengeance if he betrayed the fact of their having come at
+all--remove and return certain trays of clothes and jewels which had
+been smuggled by someone into her room, he had fallen at her feet,
+confessed falsely that he was the offender, and besought her not to
+impose so unmerited a disgrace on his employer, who had been actuated
+by the ordinary rules of native etiquette which prescribed some
+recognition of his cousin, the head of his family.
+
+Naturally enough, this brought the girl's curiosity, long restless, to
+his aid; and she sat listening to the many things he had to tell her,
+with that faintly mysterious smile of hers. And as she listened, she
+watched a pigeon, all jewelled about its bosom in rainbow hues, and
+with a dainty little pair of silver jingles about its jasper feet,
+which was coquetting and pirouetting to attract the attention of its
+neighbours on the wide marble sill of her latticed window. For Laila
+had a room in the upper storey all painted, carved, and set with little
+balconies, which was worthy of any king's favourite. And Father Ninian,
+mindful lingeringly of the fine ladies' boudoirs of his youth in Rome,
+had filled it, against her return from school, with all the prettiest
+spoils of the palace. Sevres vases, rare old cabinets, quaint carved
+tables which had been brought thither for the dead Nawabs; treasures
+that were also, inevitably, of the king's-favourite type,--therefore
+unlike the owner of the room, as she sat in her white muslin frock,
+heavy-eyed, almost sallow, from the last night's dissipation.
+
+"So she--my grandmother, you say--was a dancing-girl--a real
+dancing-girl?" Even her surprise and curiosity were listless. Yet the
+next moment, while Akbar was protesting the superiority of Anari Begum
+over all the dancing-girls of his vast experience, she had burst into a
+sudden laugh, uncovered one of the trays with kicks which sent first
+one, then the other of her bronze slippers flying, seized on a pair of
+silver anklets, and there she was centring a Persian rug spread on the
+marble floor as if she had been born to it. Coquetting, pirouetting,
+with a challenging clash, a half-impudent jerk of the jingles, for all
+the world like the pigeon on the window-sill.
+
+Like something else also; so that old Akbar felt a shiver run through
+him, lest, after all, his first impression should prove right, and this
+be no more than a _simulacrum_,--a ghost, a changeling, come to possess
+the usually indifferent lazy Miss-_baba_. Yet when, all of a sudden,
+she raised her white muslin skirt high in both hands and began to sing,
+at the top of her voice, the wicked little love song which Vincent
+Dering had sung the first day she met him, old Akbar's dread turned to
+sheer wonder. This was not a ghost, but a devil; reckless,
+unrestrained, with a fling of white arms, a kick of white feet, all
+held to rhythm by the outrageous frivolity of the song, until, with
+that last staccato note, she threw herself in a chair, breathless,
+gurgling with laughter and sheer mischief.
+
+"Lo! Akbar," she gasped, "my grandmother never danced like that, did
+she? I don't believe she was my grandmother! I believe you are telling
+stories!"
+
+Akbar looked wise, and thrust out his folded hands in cringing protest.
+"The most noble says true, Anari Begum never danced thus. But there is
+the grandfather, Bun-avatar-_sahib bahadur_, to be accounted for also."
+
+Laila frowned. The reminder brought back the other side of the story,
+to which she had listened so often from her guardian's lips, while her
+pretended indifference masked a real pride. Of her grandfather's
+gallantry, his good looks, his love of adventure. And of someone else,
+also, who had always had a secret attraction for the girl. That most
+beautiful woman in Rome, the companion of princes, the divine singer,
+the best, the dearest--
+
+Laila's laughter failed her; she rose, and going over to the window
+looked out absently, startling the pigeon into flight. The sun turned
+its breast purple, and green, and gold, as it fluttered down to renew
+its pirouetting on a cupola below, just above the river. And below that
+again was the roof of the balcony where she had sat with Vincent. The
+girl's eyes grew soft. She understood now. That best, that dearest,
+that most beautiful, must have loved her guardian. That was the secret
+of his remembrance. How could one ever forget that one had sat in a
+balcony hand in hand? So content, yet saying so little--only feeling.
+But _he_ had said some things. He had said she was beautiful, that
+she ought always to wear that dress, and she had told him she could
+not,--that she _must_ send it back--that he _must_ learn to like her as
+much in her ordinary clothes--that he would never see her in that dress
+again. But, after all, why not--if--?
+
+She turned suddenly to the go-between. "There is no need to take them
+back to-day," she said, sharply; "but thou canst tell the person who
+sent them--he who claims cousinship--that I will not keep them, that I
+know nothing of them; that he must send and _take_ them away."
+
+Akbar, with an inward determination to do nothing so palpably foolish,
+salaamed down to the ground. The Presence, he said, in doing this
+showed her dignity; it was undoubtedly the right course to pursue. But,
+in the mean time, would the Begum-_sahiba_--she must excuse a tongue
+which could not always bear with the paltry present, which remembered
+the facts of the past, the possibilities of the future--not temper her
+noble severity with the usual courtly favour? Her cousin's grandmother,
+a most virtuous princess, sister to the late Nawab, was still alive.
+Her memory of Bun-avatar-_sahib_ was still so green that doubtless she
+would be able to tell the Begum-_sahiba_ many things of which a mere
+mean slave could not be cognizant. And this most virtuous, most
+interesting one, had long been anxious to return a visit which
+the Begum-_sahiba_ had graciously paid her, in company with a
+_missen_-miss--
+
+"What! That funny old fat woman!" interrupted Laila, with a laugh.
+"That dirty old thing? I remember, she _did_ claim to be a relation of
+the Nawab's. And when I asked her why she wore such dirty clothes she
+was angry, and said she had beautiful ones all tied up in bundles! I
+don't believe she had, though--"
+
+"The dress the Begum-_sahiba_ wore last night is one of them,"
+interrupted Akbar, quietly; "it belonged to Anari Begum, _Huzoor_, and
+there are plenty more like it. And all are really the _Huzoor's_; no
+one else's." Laila looked down on the trays with a new interest. "Did
+it really belong to--to _her?_" she asked; "and the jewels also?"
+
+"The jewels also. There are plenty of them. And if Anari Begum was
+really the Begum-_sahiba's_ grandmother, then the jewels are hers by
+right."
+
+"She can come if she wishes," interrupted Laila, impatiently. "I see
+thy craft, Akbar, but I care not for that. Yet it will be fun to
+receive her as--as a Begum. And no harm either, since the _missen_
+ladies receive her, I know, and her like--when they will come! It will
+be at night, of course, to ensure her privacy, so Pidar Narayan need
+know nothing. Only"--she paused, a change swept over her face, leaving
+it dimpled, cunning, full of mischief and cajolery. "I do naught for
+naught! If I please thee, thou must please me! If thou art their
+messenger, thou must be mine also; or I tell Pidar Narayan!"
+
+Akbar-_khan's_ wicked old eyes positively leered approval; he waggled
+his head and chuckled. Wherefore not? Was there a better, more careful
+messenger in the world than he, or one more capable of deft arrangings?
+
+"I want none," she put in with a quick distaste, a shrinking from his
+manner. "'Tis but to take a note to Dering-_sahib_; he must know
+somewhat before he comes with the other _sahib logue_ this afternoon.
+There is no arrangement needed, no fuss."
+
+How could there be, she asked herself, as, after the old sinner had
+gone off, charmed at this renewal of a once familiar occupation, she
+sat on the window-sill looking down on the roof of the balcony where
+she had been so content. For what could be simpler than to make it
+quite clear that you were real, that you did not pretend, that you were
+not even afraid? That, briefly, you were not like Mrs. Smith, who took
+so much--one could not help seeing that!--and gave so little--one could
+not help seeing that, also! For what was a "Thanks! many, Captain
+Dering," in return for all the trouble he lavished on her?
+
+So it came to pass that when Vincent Dering went to the palace that
+afternoon, some words were haunting heart and brain, as Juliet's words
+must have haunted Romeo's. No more; no less. But they slid into and
+filled up the blanks between some words of his own which he had spoken
+carelessly, not five minutes before he had first seen Laila, and which
+came back to his memory unbidden. "It isn't altogether despicable to
+let yourself loose in Paradise without an _arriere pensee_ of flaming
+swords, especially if you can give pleasure to someone else thereby!
+One could play Romeo and Juliet in this garden nicely."
+
+Well, he had played it for an hour or two, swept off his feet by
+chance. Whether he would continue to play it was unsettled till her
+note came. That ended his vague reluctance, and he went over to the
+palace, eager as any lover could be for the interview she suggested in
+"_the old place when it grows dusk, and the people will mostly have
+gone_."
+
+For those of the camp who were bound to follow the Viceroy's whim of
+riding by the old road--the pilgrims' road--while the big camp went
+round by the longer, easier route, had promised to look in on the
+palace on their way past it, for a cup of tea, a good-by. Since
+already, the functions over, the dream-city had begun to melt away; the
+Hosts of the Lord-_sahib_ were passing on.
+
+"Glory be!" said the Commissioner with heart-felt gratitude, "we've
+done our worst and leave you to take the consequences. That's sound
+policy. Anyhow, we are ahead of everybody on the road to heaven, and
+the pilgrims will have to swallow the dust of our feet! I wonder how
+they'll like it." He was in wild spirits, like a schoolboy escaped from
+school; yet as he paused to shake hands with Dr. Dillon, he said aside,
+"Any more cases?"
+
+"Two," said the doctor, laconically, "both dead. It is a bad type."
+
+His hearer's face was unmovable as he turned to Mrs. Smith, who stood
+close by. "Good-by, my dear lady," he said cheerfully, "remember me
+house is yours if you, or the child, want it. Doctor, couldn't you
+conscientiously recommend change of air to the hills? Couldn't ye swear
+the close proximity to an open canal and a gaol is unwholesome? If ye
+could, you'd oblige a grass-widower, whose wife is at Baden-Baden--or
+is it Marienbad?--living prodigally, while he has to fill himself with
+husks which no self-respecting swine would eat. Faith, me dear madam,
+I'd bless you if you'd come and kill the cook. It's a woman's work; not
+a man's."
+
+Dr. Dillon, with a quick look, backed him up instantly. "Certainly. I
+told Mrs. Smith a long time ago that she and Gladys had had enough of
+Eshwara. Indeed, as her doctor, she would be doing me a personal favour
+if--"
+
+Muriel Smith swept round on him sharply. She was looking her very best,
+in her very best gown; white, mystic, wonderful, with a faint gleam of
+silver embroidery about waist and hem. And she had been obtrusively,
+unnecessarily friendly with Vincent Dering all the afternoon; even now
+she was standing with him attached to her apron-strings.
+
+"I don't think nervous headaches are dangerous," she said, eying Dr.
+Dillon coolly. "But thanks all the same. I should love to kill
+somebody; even a cook. Perhaps I may, by and by, when _all_ the nice
+people leave. I'm so sorry _you're_ going, but we are still to be quite
+gay, aren't we, Captain Dering? And that reminds me we have to settle
+when that riding party is to come off. Good-by--good-by!" She waved her
+hand to the departing Commissioner, and carried Vincent Dering off,
+with a defiant look at the doctor.
+
+He, knowing her, smiled indulgently; but Father Ninian, who had come
+down to see his guest off, looked after her with a wistful pain in his
+kind old face.
+
+"That is a mistake," he said briefly; then the wistfulness grew into a
+puzzled look, and he added, half to himself, "It need not be, surely;
+there is something wrong. I can't understand--"
+
+Dr. Dillon, catching the end of the remark, gave a cynical laugh and
+turned on his heel. "No one does," he said as he went off. He would not
+discuss her even with dear old Pidar Narayan. For the rest, though he
+was keen to get back to his jail, he would wait till she tired of her
+game, and then drive her home himself to her idiot of a husband, who
+was too busy over his blessed search-light to see things that were
+going on under his very eyes.
+
+Captain Dering, however, was already impatient. It was growing dusk;
+the shadows were claiming the garden bit by bit, and as the glint left
+the varnished leaves of the orange trees, the white flowers stood out
+like little stars against the gloom and sent a bewildering perfume into
+the darkening air. He could see no hint of Laila anywhere; Laila in
+that detestable white muslin garment which made him long vainly to get
+rid of the surroundings which suited her so ill, drive all that
+civilized crew from the garden, and claim it as his own--and hers! She
+must have gone to the balcony already. She must be waiting for him. And
+yet a soft-heartedness for this other woman with whom he had been
+friends, whom for a few days he had imagined he loved (it had come to
+_this_ now) forbade him from leaving her cavalierly. So it was long
+past dusk, and the short Indian twilight was hovering on the edge of
+night, ere he made his escape; and, full of anxiety lest Laila should
+have lost patience or hope, hurried down to the wide archway, and so,
+by the turn riverwards, to the right, into the balcony. Most girls, he
+told himself, would by this time have taken offence; but she was there.
+
+As he entered, her figure showed dimly against the light beyond.
+
+"I'm afraid I am awfully late," he began, then paused; for, as she
+turned, there was a faint clash of silver, a faint gleam of it too. His
+heart gave a great throb of glad recognition. It was Laila! Laila
+indeed! the Laila of that dream last night. And she had risked _this_
+to please him!
+
+"Are you?" she said. "I thought _I_ was late; for _this_ took time; but
+I wanted to be the same--always the same to you, always--always!"
+
+She stretched her hands to him, but he set them aside, took her in his
+arms, and kissed her passionately.
+
+"Yes! Laila! always Laila--my Laila!"
+
+She gave him back his kisses joyfully. "I knew you would come," she
+said. "Love comes to love, you know."
+
+He called her Juliet then, and many another lover's name. She took them
+all, and gave them back again without reserve, until, as they stood
+there, someone passing outward from the arched passage to the garden,
+paused to listen at the half-heard sound of voices. For Father
+Ninian--who had come down to his own rooms for a pair of foils
+wherewith to give Lance Carlyon a lesson in the "_Addio del Marito_,"
+until Captain Dering should choose to come out of the recesses of the
+garden and allow of their going back to the Fort together--knew of none
+likely to use, or even to be aware of, the balcony. So he turned
+thither curiously, then stood arrested, so that the clash of the foils
+on the stone, as he purposely lowered their points, came as a warning
+to those two that they were observed. Laila, with a catlike
+noiselessness, withdrew in a second. She, a yard or two away, in
+deepest shadow, stood leaning in a careless, easy attitude over the
+balustrade. Her only possibility of escape lay, she felt instinctively,
+in showing no desire to do so. Vincent, for his part, turned to face
+the old priest, prepared to brazen it out; for his blood was running
+like wild-fire in his veins. Yet scarcely so fast as the heart's blood
+had once leapt, and was even now leaping, in the old man who came
+forward, facing him also. Came forward slowly, shortsightedly, a foil
+in each hand. If he had held out one, bade him take the button off and
+fight for his life, Vincent Dering would scarcely have been surprised,
+would almost have been pleased. It would have raised him in his own
+self-esteem. For he knew perfectly well he had no right to be there;
+that, as yet, he was not sure of his own footing.
+
+But Pidar Narayan did not. He paused, as he generally did, a few paces
+away, a slender, straight shadow in black, girt about with that pale
+sash, on which, and on his pale face, such light as there was fell
+softly. For there was no anger in the latter; only an almost passionate
+regret and pity. Even so, his words startled the young man, who stood
+prepared for defiance.
+
+"Oh! Captain Dering!" he said courteously, "it is you, is it? You have
+found a pleasant place, indeed! But scarcely a very safe one for your
+companion--" he turned to that faint gleam of white and silver in the
+arched shadow.--"The air grows chill, madam, so close to the river," he
+continued, his voice taking a tone almost of command, "and you are
+lightly clad. Will you not be wise, and leave us?"
+
+Vincent's surprise had passed by this time into a rush of vexation,
+almost indignation, for he had grasped the old man's mistake. For an
+instant he felt bound to undeceive him, then the impossibility of doing
+so held him silent, feeling a coward indeed; so, desperately, he could
+only join his voice to Father Ninian's. It seemed the only way out of
+the _impasse_.
+
+"Perhaps you had better go--"
+
+Laila did not need more. Already, under cover of the shadow, she had
+dexterously slipped off her silver jingles, lest they should betray
+what really seemed to her her worst, nay! her only offence;--the taking
+and wearing of Roshan Khan's present. And now, wrapping her veil about
+her like a cloak, gathering her trailing skirts to orthodox length with
+an appalling presence of mind, she was off with just the little uneasy
+laugh which might well befit the situation.
+
+She left her companion bewildered, yet still facing the old man
+recklessly. Since he could not explain, he did not mean to be hectored.
+Yet, once again, the old voice took him unawares.
+
+"Memory plays strange tricks with us at times," it said slowly, but
+with a suggestion of the fateful, hopeless rhythm of a Greek chorus in
+it. "She has taken me back, this evening, nearly sixty long years. The
+river before us is the yellow flood of the Tiber, the woman who has
+just left us is the woman I loved--sixty long years ago--I had kissed
+her, as you have kissed her. I had told her I loved her, as you have
+just told her--and then, like an echo from the river below where a boat
+was moored, came to our ears, the same words, 'I love you.'--They
+were spoken, Captain Dering, by a boy, barely in his teens, to a
+waiting-maid. The boy was her son. She had been married, as they marry
+them in Italy, almost before her girlhood, and I, the boy's tutor, was
+nearer her age than his father--a better man, too, Captain Dering! But
+those words--'I love you'--parted us once, and for all. They mirrored
+the truth for us--the truth of the love which hides in balconies--in
+pleasure boats--" he took a step forward, and his whole presence
+changed. He raised his hand, priest to its finger tips. "Let it mirror
+the truth to you also, my son--leave this poor lady to her duty, as
+I--"
+
+Vincent Dering broke in on him haughtily, his pride in arms, impatience
+at the falseness of his position making him discourteous.
+
+"You don't understand; you are absolutely mistaken--I refuse to
+explain, but I really must ask you not to interfere."
+
+The old man's whole bearing changed again. He drew himself up, and,
+foils in hand, bowed, as fencers do at the salute.
+
+"Were I the lady's husband, sir, I would _make_ you answer. As a priest
+of God, I must warn you that I will speak, if--"
+
+Vincent Dering interrupted him again. "I can't prevent that--but you
+will wrong us--her at any rate--the best, the kindest woman--"
+
+He paused, for Father Ninian had come close, laid a hand on his, and
+the touch seemed to bring silence.
+
+"It is sixty long years, Captain Dering," he said, and his eyes seemed
+to pierce through the darkness, "since I have laid my hand on my
+fellow-men save in the hope of healing. It was a fancy of mine
+after--after we kissed, and parted. But I touch you as a second self, a
+fellow-sinner; for she too was the best--the kindest--" His old voice
+failed.
+
+Despite his anger at the whole miserable mistake, Vincent was touched;
+but despite his emotion, his annoyance strengthened.
+
+"Possibly," he broke in, "but I must really refuse to discuss the
+matter further. Shall we end this, sir,--unless--" he gave a reckless
+laugh and pointed to the foils--"you would like to fight it out?"
+
+Once more Father Ninian bowed, as fencers bow in the salute, the
+priest, the wise counsellor, lost in an older entity than these; in the
+high-born Scotch student, who, for a while, had forgotten his vocation
+to ruffle with the best blood in Italy. "I have not the privilege of
+being the lady's protector," he answered hotly. "If I were,"--He
+paused, then said courteously, "Shall we come upstairs? I came down for
+these foils in order to teach Mr. Carlyon the thrust we spoke of once.
+'_L'Addio del Marito_,' they called it in my youth--I doubt if the name
+has changed now. He will be wondering what has become of me, and--and
+it!"
+
+As Vincent followed him, he felt a thrill at the savageness of the old
+man's tone, and told himself that here was the Church Militant indeed.
+
+He might have said so with still more reason ten minutes after, when
+Father Ninian was left alone. For the hour proved too late for lessons,
+and Lance Carlyon--who had been out of sorts ever since his walk at
+dawn with Erda Shepherd--was obliged to give in to dinner, grumbling
+the while, that Vincent was the worst chum he ever came across. Never
+to be found when he was wanted, then turning up when dear old Pidar
+Narayan looked as if he could have licked creation.
+
+Possibly Lance might have repeated this assertion, also, with greater
+fervour, could he have been witness to Father Ninian's actions, when,
+his last guest gone, he went to put the foils back in the armoury next
+the chapel.
+
+For he would have seen him, with head bowed over the crossed foils he
+held, repeating a "_mea culpa_" as he passed the altar; but ere the
+second foil matched its fellow on the armoury wall, he would have seen
+as pretty a bit of sword-play as could well be seen. Many a dexterous
+turn of wrist, many a quick imaginary parry, many a sharp _riposte_,
+following each other accurately, as if memory held each attack, each
+defence of an unseen foe; until finally, swift as a flash, would come a
+falter back, as if from a blow, then a thrust forward.
+
+There was a little silver bell--such as men put to a falcon's hood--no
+bigger than a sixpence, shaped like a man's heart, upon the tassel of a
+resting lance beneath the solitary foil. And the tassel swayed gently
+in the cool river breeze.
+
+Yet at each thrust the heart-shaped bell chimed a feeble protest under
+the button of the foil, making the Church Militant smile cheerfully.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII
+
+                             AT THE GATES
+
+
+The darkness which holds the dawn was, as a rule, silent as the grave
+in the sand-stretches beyond the river, where the wide cut of the
+canal, the huge mud-heap of the gaol, with its scattered workshops and
+houses, showed as mere spots and lines on the illimitable plain. But on
+the night after the band had played "God save the Queen," while the
+first drops of sacred water trickled over the chink of the sluice into
+the dry bed of the canal below, its silence was broken by unfamiliar
+sounds.
+
+First of all, by the now ceaseless splash of the thin, glassy curve of
+water on its way to find out this new road to the sea. It had a sort of
+dreamy whisper in it, as if it were telling its first impressions, its
+hopes, its fears, to the river it was leaving behind.
+
+And on this background of ceaseless sound came two others
+intermittently.
+
+The first--a muffled hammering from the darkness which hid the
+Viceroy's camp--told of departure, letting the night know that another
+white-winged tent was flitting, and that the dawn must be prepared to
+find its place empty, the dream-city in ruins, the Hosts of the
+Lord-_sahib_ gone.
+
+The second told of arrival. It was a strange cry, soft, almost
+musical:--
+
+"_Hara--Hari--Hara--Hari!_"
+
+Then every now and again in a sort of chant: "_Ram--Ram--Sita--Ram!_"
+
+It was the pilgrims' cry, their call on the Creator, the Destroyer,
+their appeal to the godhead in man and woman; for the forerunners of
+the great host to come were already nearing Eshwara on their road to
+the "Cradle of the Gods."
+
+But there was a fourth sound, inaudible--by reason of that ceaseless
+noise of water through the chink of the sluice--except to those close
+by it, like George Dillon, as he stood on the hand-bridge above the
+closed gates looking down idly into the darkness which prevented him
+from seeing the cause of the sound. He had been up all night. On his
+return,--later than he had intended, owing to his determination not to
+be defied by any woman,--he had found that in his absence cholera had
+been hard at its work. So he had buckled to his, expecting one of those
+awful nights which live, even in a doctor's memory, as a horror, as a
+warning to those best fitted to stem the stream of death, that they are
+but straws on its surface.
+
+But he had been mistaken. True, for an hour or so, cases had come in
+quicker than they could be attended to; then, suddenly, they ceased to
+come in at all. That had been eight hours ago. Too short a respite for
+certainty, but Dr. Dillon, being no novice in such work, had his hopes;
+the more so because the disease, from the very outset, had become
+steadily less and less virulent. Even so, seven dead bodies lay
+awaiting the first glint of dawn; therefore, as ill-luck would have it,
+there would be seven columns of smoke on the river's edge for all to
+see!
+
+It was inevitable, however, nor could he do more to prevent others
+coming. So he had been on his way back to his own house for a few
+hours' rest when the dreamy splash of the water made him pause to lean
+over the hand-rail and listen to it, as he finished his cigar in the
+open.
+
+Then it was that he heard a faint tap, tapping, as of a ghostly hand on
+a door. What was it? It was quite distinct, though almost as low as the
+"_lip, lipping_" of the water, made restless by that glassy curve
+against the gates.
+
+A curiosity to know seized on him. There was already a glimmer of dawn
+in the east; he might as well wait and see.
+
+It was not long before a streak of something faintly white made him
+call himself a fool. The cause was a log of wood. He might have thought
+of that. Even that faint setting of a stream towards a new way must
+have drifted it here. The thought made him frown, for this fulfilment
+of the river-people's prophecy was annoying; the more so from its
+absolute unlikelihood. Years might pass without such a chance coming
+again; yet it had come the very first day! It was too bad. The stars in
+their courses were fighting against him. In a pet he threw the remains
+of his cigar from him, and was striding off, when a faint glimmer, as
+of a candle, made him turn sharply and look down whence it came.
+
+The lighted end of his cigar had fallen on something dry, inflammable,
+which had blazed up. But it was only for a second; the next found
+darkness, save for that still, faint, glimmer of white. But the brief
+gleam had told him it was not a log which had drifted astray--
+
+It was a corpse.
+
+That _tap, tapping_ he had heard had been from the dead feet seeking
+vainly to pass through the chink of the sluice, swerving with the side
+current, coming back, again and again. He stood, grasping the rail,
+staring down at the dim outline almost incredulously, and feeling,
+despite himself, a trifle shivery.
+
+Then the remembrance that this was a thing which must be seen by none,
+which somehow, and as quickly as possible, must be set on its right
+road again, made him hurry back to where he knew some coils of rope,
+which had been used for bunting at the ceremony, were lying. Seizing
+one--still gaily decorated--he tied a brick to one end, and hurried
+back to the bridge. By dropping this weighted rope over the dim white
+streak he was able to edge it gradually to one side, until it lay
+moored against the wall of the basin. Kneeling down for a closer look,
+he could see, in the fast-growing light, that it was the corpse of a
+woman. He could even guess the death she died, and if proof was needed,
+it could be found in the hands folded at full stretch down the body;
+the thumbs, pointing upward, linked by an iron ring. To this iron ring
+had been looped a little tuft of the tri-coloured hank of cotton which
+plays so large a part in marriage ceremonial. Dr. Dillon stood up and
+swore under his breath.
+
+The fates were, indeed, inexorable in their spite. Of all things
+unlucky for the changing stream to claim, a corpse seeking union with
+Mother Ganges was the worst; and of all corpses, this--the cursed one,
+which had held two lives and could send one back to haunt men--was the
+worst.
+
+He must get rid of it somehow, if he could.
+
+Fastening the rope, so strangely out of keeping, all hung as it was
+with gay colours, to the iron ring which showed about the ankles, he
+proceeded to tow the body back along the basin, past the first gates,
+and so to the river itself. Thus far was simple. But how was he to get
+it afloat on a current strong enough to sweep it beyond danger of its
+returning to tap at the gates once more?
+
+The dawn was hastening with great leaps of light that shot in broad
+bars from the darkest spot in all the dark horizon; the spot which
+would soon be the brightest, ablaze with the sun himself. Already the
+broad shield of the river was changing its heraldry--the sable was
+turning to steel, sign that the world would side with the light.
+
+What was to be done?
+
+He looked over the wide waste of sand and water, with a perplexity
+which vanished suddenly in a smile, as he caught sight of a round
+shadow like a man's head dipping and dancing on the surface. He walked
+on to the last dry spot of land and shouted--
+
+"Ai! fisherman! Ai! Gu-gu! Am-ma! anybody! Come and earn a gold
+_mohur!_"
+
+It was Am-ma. Luckily, perhaps, since the idea of even towing a dead
+body such as this might have been too much for semi-civilized Gu-gu.
+Am-ma, however, had not ever borrowed his neighbours' superstitions. In
+fact, ever since he, the Miss-_sahiba_ and the _Dee-puk-rag_ had bested
+the devil between them, he had felt himself to be invulnerable. So, he
+assured Dr. Dillon affably, were the _Huzoors_; therefore he obeyed
+them. Consequently, less than five minutes after the call, with a vague
+wonder as to what sixteen rupees would feel like, all at once, in a
+man's palm, he was heading hard to the nearest stream capable of
+carrying the thing he had in tow back to the path of purification. This
+happened to be towards Eshwara, and beyond a sandy point set with
+tamarisks which jutted out above the canal head. There was, of course,
+a certain stream against him, and to save himself exertion and finish
+the job--as he had agreed to do--before dawn, he swam for the most part
+under water, only coming up, after his habit, for air.
+
+Now it so happened, also, that Gu-gu had thought fit to set nets for
+wild-fowl, and was even now dozing, while he waited for the result, in
+the same tamarisk jungle. But the sound of something swishing through
+the water against the stream roused him in a second, and even without
+the glimpse, which the coming dawn gave him, of a long streak parting
+the river with a curved ripple like the prow of a boat, his experience
+told him what it was sure to be. Briefly, someone of the river
+people,--Am-ma for choice, since who but Am-ma had the luck of such
+things--had happened on the chance of stealing a log from the piles
+about the canal workshops. He was now, after time-honoured precedent,
+towing it to the stream where, having set it adrift, he would recapture
+it, and, of course, claim his reward for so doing!
+
+But two could play that game. When secrecy made it necessary for a
+thief to swim for the most part under water, it was easy to swim under
+water too, across the track of the robber, cut his prize adrift, and
+put your weight on the rope instead.
+
+Then you could either choose revenge, and let an enemy tow you
+home--which was a side-splitting trick,--or you might wait till your
+adversary came up breathless, and dash after the prize yourself. Even
+if you could not secure the whole, half profits were generally
+possible.
+
+Therefore, slipping noiselessly into the stream like an alligator, he
+was off across the track in a second; swimming, of course, under water.
+He came, up once for air, and smiled to see how far he had come; so,
+fearing lest the holder of the unseen tow-rope might chance to come up
+at the same time, his black head went under once more.
+
+When it came up again, it was within a few yards of the long white
+streak. He gave one look at it, let loose a yell of abject terror, and
+almost turning a somersault in his haste to escape, his head went down
+again, his feet went skywards, and though his lungs nearly burst in the
+effort, he came up no more till he felt certain he must have put a
+screen of tamarisk between him and the horror. He had; but his teeth
+chattered, his eyes were half out of his head when he scrambled, hands
+and knees, on to the bank, and lying face down on the dry sand, moaned
+and shuddered. What else could a man do who had seen a cursed corpse
+breasting the stream on its way back to Eshwara? To whose house? That,
+however, was quite a secondary consideration to a man who was already
+as good as dead; since what man had ever survived the sight of a
+_churail?_
+
+The certainty of his own fate, after a while, made him absolutely,
+recklessly, calm. He gathered up his nets, wrung the necks of the few
+birds he had caught pitilessly, and went with them, as usual, to the
+bazaars. Not only for profit, however. Other men should taste of his
+fear. Other men should know that they too might have to die!
+
+Am-ma, meanwhile, having seen nothing when he came up wondering what
+the sound was which had filtered to his ears through the water, had
+gone on his way unwitting, found the stream, cut the corpse adrift
+himself, and gone back to his fishing.
+
+It was not until he also went into the bazaar with his basket, that he
+found it ringing with the direful portent; yet for all that going its
+way buying and selling, squabbling over the uttermost part of a
+farthing; since portents are ever with an Indian bazaar. At first, when
+called upon to verify Gu-gu's story, Am-ma, remembering his promise of
+secrecy, gave it stout denial; but when the real truth of what had
+occurred dawned on his slow brain, the opportunity for piling agony on
+to his rival was too strong for him, and he burst into details, all of
+which made Gu-gu's chance of escape still more remote. The corpse had
+shot after him with a speed only equal to the fire-boats in which the
+_Huzoors_ came across the black water; it had sat up, and beckoned, and
+called "_Gu-gu! Gu-gu!_"
+
+"But if thou hast seen all this, thou, too, must die!" remarked the
+syrup-seller round whose shop the talk was loudest.
+
+Am-ma laughed vaingloriously. "Not I! The devils are afraid of me. See
+you, I have taken the _Huzoors_ for my God; I am on the strong side."
+
+"Hark to him!" jeered another of his own tribe who was also selling
+fish. "He cannot balance his basket on his head, he holds it so high
+since the wood-_sahib_ up the river hath bidden him guide their big
+raft,--as if he was a whit better than the rest of us!"
+
+Am-ma smiled peacefully. "That is true, brother. I go for the raft this
+very day. But I leave a son in my house, if the luck goes against me.
+That is the _Huzoors'_ doing. They have the _Dee-puk-rag_. They are the
+Light-bringers, the Birth-bringers!"
+
+A tall man, in curiously crumpled clothing, who had just joined the
+group, gave a hollow laugh. "Birth-bringers!" he echoed. "Ay! and
+Death-bringers, too. They took seven in the gaol last night. I have it
+from a sure hand." That might well be, seeing that he was none other
+than the _gosain_ Gopi, who, scarcely an hour agone, had been given his
+ticket-of-leave and the clothes in which he had been convicted two
+years before. They had since then been rolled up, and ticketed with his
+name and number; hence the creases.
+
+"The doctor cuts a hole in their heads," he went on calmly, "takes out
+their brains, and puts the bit back. Then 'tis cholera. That is why
+they burn them in their clothing and their _caps_, so that none may
+see. But they _say_, 'tis for the safety of the living; as if that did
+not lie with the Gods!"
+
+"Hark to him!" said approving voices. "Yea! hark to him, the pious
+one!"
+
+The long bazaar lay flooded with sunshine and life. The quails were
+calling from their hooded cages, the sacred monkeys were chattering
+about the sweetmeat-sellers' shops, men and women were going about
+eager on their own affairs, and a group of schoolboys on their way to a
+mission school came along, their books under their arms,--a quaint
+collection, for the most part. A copy of the Gospels, Sa'adi's
+Gulistan, and the Hitopadesa, certainly; a treatise, in English, on the
+latest theories of mind and matter, equally so; selections from general
+literature, probably; with Burke's speeches and Addison's _Spectator_,
+possibly.
+
+One or two of these boys paused in their school talk to listen, as a
+voice said fearfully:--
+
+"'Twill be for '_momai_' they want them. Folks say they are running
+short of power."
+
+Gopi shook his head. "That may be; but these are to grease the slots of
+the canal sluice; without it, water will not run. One brain--his, that
+they killed with the light--opened it but one inch; as all can see if
+they choose. And these seven will not go far. What matter? There be
+plenty more where they came from."
+
+The gossipers looked at each other. "Yea! that is so. It opens but an
+inch, and there are many prisoners," they said, with that curious
+faculty for giving heart-whole assent to the truthful foundations of a
+lie which makes the latter go so far in India.
+
+The boys went on. There was nothing about the dynamic and hydraulic
+power of a man's brain in their treatises; but, after all, the
+statement was scarcely so strange to ignorance as many another held in
+the books under their arms.
+
+"The times are bad," remarked someone, chiefly to give a fresh fillip
+to the flagging horrors. "They say the 'Pool of Immortality,' will be
+dry to-morrow."
+
+A trail of saffron-robed pilgrims who were passing, under the charge of
+a priest, looked at their guide doubtfully. If this was to be so, what
+was the use of having given him a rupee each to be admitted thereto at
+the most auspicious moment?
+
+"Lo! 'tis easy to father that falsehood!" cried the priest in charge,
+venomously eyeing a similar figure to his own, which was also followed
+patiently, trustfully, by a band of men and women and children, all in
+their saffron robes. "When folks have had their own miracle stopped,
+they would fain stop other folks' also. Have no fear, my children! The
+sacred water will rise as ever, and send your souls blameless to the
+'Cradle of the Gods.'"
+
+It would have been easy enough for his rival to throw doubts on the
+genuineness of the pool miracle, had it been sound policy to do so; but
+before those patient, trustful faces, desirous only to save their souls
+alive at any cost, it was unwise to sap at the foundations of faith. So
+the reply contented itself with assertions that there was no fear
+either, for them. Tampion or no tampion, _jogi_ Gorakh-nath had
+promised to be inside the gun as ever. And that would be a newer, a
+better, miracle, than any other in Eshwara!
+
+Here a fresh voice put in its word; for the syrup-seller's shop, being
+at one corner of the central square or _chowk_ of four bazaars, no one
+who had any errand of any sort in Eshwara could fail to pass it sooner
+or later. Therefore, Dya Ram and some other pleaders, on their way thus
+early in the morning to the tahsil court, were bound to overhear the
+priest's boast.
+
+"But most undesirable, nevertheless," expostulated Dya Ram, quickly.
+"We have duly appealed against the order to the higher court, and our
+legal course is to await the result."
+
+The priest looked at him, sullenly scornful; for such as he are no
+favourites with the hereditary Levites of India.
+
+"The _jogi_ hath appealed to the Gods," he retorted, "and they will
+give judgment without the help of such as thou, pleader-_jee!_"
+
+"Hark to the pious one!" murmured the crowd again, admiringly
+responsive, as ever, to a hint of religious sentiment.
+
+"But it will confuse issues--it is irregular--and I who drew up the
+petition object _in toto_," began Dya Ram in angry protest, when a
+friend interrupted him consolingly in English.
+
+"True. As it has been said, it is impossible to serve God and Mammon;
+yet seeing that miracles are, as Herbert Spencer proves, _ipsi
+facto_--"
+
+The ludicrous inadequacy of logic to the mental caliber of those around
+him, struck one of the little party of progress keenly, and he broke
+in, as he passed on, "What is the use of combatting such ignorance?
+It is for us--who represent the intellect of India--to pioneer the
+way--"
+
+The rest was lost as the little party went on discussing their own
+position.
+
+"Mayhap 'twas to Ramanund's house the _churail_ was coming; there was
+such a corpse went from it a week or two since; and they return from
+far," said an old man, looking after the last speaker.
+
+Gopi, the _gosain_, laughed. "This one, I'll wager, was sent back
+because of the canal. Mark my words, Mai Gunga will return them all
+now. 'Tis the _Huzoors'_ doing."
+
+A curious shiver ran through the crowd of men. To have your women
+against you, to feel in your heart that they cannot help being
+revengeful, that their blood is on your head, is ever the greatest of
+dreads. And so many lives held the possibility of this revenge.
+
+Am-ma, philosophically seated on the outskirts of the group, trying to
+sell his fish, laughed vaingloriously again.
+
+"Only for fools! The miss-_sahiba_ and the lights, and I, can defy
+devils."
+
+Here he stood up, and, with frightful grimaces of joy and uncouth
+salaams, greeted the appearance of Erda Shepherd, who, in the
+mission-lady's uniform of blouse and skirt, white pith hat, green veil,
+and bag of books, came out of a neighbouring alley.
+
+It was not a becoming dress, Lance Carlyon told himself, as, on his way
+back from escort duty to some lingering bigwig of the camp, he, at the
+same moment, came cantering up the bazaar towards the Fort.
+
+She could not say the same of his. It was the first time she had seen
+him in uniform, and the sight of the scarlet and gold, the buttons, the
+fal-lals generally, took her breath away. There are, in fact, few women
+whom they do not impress.
+
+Yet, curiously enough, her impulse was to pass on without speaking;
+his, to do what he did, namely, pull up, dismount, and shake hands. And
+still more curiously, the reason for both these impulses was the same;
+the presence beside Erda of a tall, rather weedy-looking man, with a
+long, black coat and a long, red beard.
+
+"Let me introduce my cousin, the Reverend David Campbell," said Erda,
+with great dignity, somewhat marred by a fine blush.
+
+"I thought it must be," rejoined Lance, coolly. He might have said he
+was certain of it; that a fellow could scarcely feel a desire to murder
+another fellow at an instant's notice, unless that fellow was your
+rival.
+
+Yet, still more curiously again, this notion of rivalry had come to
+Lance in an instant also. Before he caught sight of Erda and her
+_fiance_ he would have sworn that though he had been a bit cut up at
+hearing the nicest girl he had ever met was already engaged, he had
+never had the remotest idea of fighting against the fact. But the first
+glance at the two walking together had changed all this. Here by God's
+grace was the one maid for him. And another man had--
+
+Not a bad looking chap, certainly. Better dressed, too, than most
+missionaries. That was because he was fresh out from England. Any fool,
+though, could be that with an English tailor. Yes, not a bad sort; but
+not the sort for _her_.
+
+"You've been out on your rounds, I suppose," he said, pointing to
+Erda's books.
+
+"Yes," answered the Reverend David, with eager assent, and the
+benevolent smile which includes the smiler's own virtue in smiling;
+"and I have been privileged for the first time to see somewhat of the
+noble work Englishwomen are doing for their Indian sisters. It is no
+easy task, Mr. Carlyon, for delicate--"
+
+"I like it," put in Erda, with a faint frown at the missionary-report
+style of her cousin's enthusiasm. "So there is no use wasting your pity
+on me, David."
+
+"Pity!" he echoed, in appropriating approval. "I did not even pity you
+when they called you evil names." Being of the new school of Free
+church ministers, he put all possible ill into ev-il like any
+ritualistic curate.
+
+"Do they call you names?" asked Lance, sharply.
+
+Erda gave a vexed look at her cousin. For the first time in her life
+the militant joy at persecution of the true proselytizer failed her.
+
+"Sometimes, not often," she said, quite apologetically. "They happened
+to do so to-day, and David heard it; there are so many strangers about,
+you see, who don't know me."
+
+"And what did you do?" Lance's eyes were on the Reverend David this
+time.
+
+"Do?" repeated the latter, in faint surprise. "Nothing, of course. We
+missionaries hear such things joyfully--for--for the Work's sake."
+There was dignity in his tone and manner.
+
+"By Jove!" said Lance, softly, under his breath, "if I'd been there,
+there would have been a row. Besides," he added, quite argumentatively,
+"if I believed in my work as you do I'd be hanged if I let anybody
+'_krab_'[9] it--or me--for it's the same thing. Not at least, without
+trying to make 'em answer for it all I know."
+
+The Reverend David Campbell shook his head. "That is not our view.
+Erda, the meeting is at nine, and it is already the half-hour.
+To-morrow, you see, Mr. Carlyon, is our field-day, and we have to
+arrange our forces."
+
+Once more the flavour of the missionary report made Erda shrink, but
+Lance nodded.
+
+"A field-day for most of us. I expect to be in the saddle all day.
+Good-by, Miss Shepherd."
+
+But something in the girl rose up in revolt at parting with him thus.
+When he had been out of sight, she had faced the probability of never
+seeing him any more with equanimity. Now she felt that she must tell
+him she was leaving Eshwara the very next day, or the day after; that
+she must make this a _real_ good-by.
+
+"I have to see another old woman in an alley close by first, David,"
+she said. "You had better go on and let me follow."
+
+Yet when he had gone, after another joyously militant paean over the
+work, she stood silent. It seemed somehow too sunshiny for words. Then
+she looked up at Lance, and her heart sank. For something in his face
+told her, in an instant, that she had been too long in letting him
+know of her engagement to her cousin. The fact, by rousing her
+indignation,--since it was impossible to go about proclaiming that you
+were not available for idle people to fall in love with,--helped her to
+be hard.
+
+"You need not have been so fierce just now," she said, with an unreal
+little laugh. "People won't have many more chances of calling me names
+in Eshwara. I told you, didn't I, that I was going; but it will be
+sooner than I expected--to-morrow, or next day."
+
+"Then I shan't see you again?" He grasped the meaning to him in an
+instant, and the wondering pain in his voice awoke an echo in her
+heart.
+
+"I suppose so; for Mr. Campbell's appointment will be at the other end
+of India; unless, indeed--" she could not withstand his look--"my Aunt
+has asked a few friends in to tea this afternoon to say good-by. If
+you, or Captain Dering, cared--"
+
+"Of course I'll come," he interrupted quietly. "Now which way are you
+going, for I am going too?"
+
+She looked at him helplessly. "But you can't," she began.
+
+"Oh, yes, I can! I'll finish the smoke you interrupted, while you
+polish off the old lady. They're not going to have a chance of--of
+abusing the _work_ again."
+
+He had a most ingenious way of appealing to her sense of humour, and
+though it was partly at her cousin's expense, she laughed as they set
+off together--a most incongruous couple. He had little time for his
+smoke, however, for he had barely left off watching the point where she
+had disappeared, for any hint of felonious calling of names, when she
+reappeared in company with Father Ninian, the latter looking almost
+pope-like, yet also curiously native, in the white washing _soutane_
+and skull-cap which he invariably wore in his visitations. His face was
+rather stern, and he had his spectacles on.
+
+"Ah! Mr. Carlyon," he said, surprised in his turn, "I am glad. Will you
+take Miss Shepherd home? I want to go over to Dr. Dillon at once: and I
+have advised her not to visit in this quarter to-day. There are many
+lodging houses for the pilgrims, and--"
+
+"Did they call names?" asked Lance, belligerent at once.
+
+The old man looked at him sharply, almost angrily. "No one ever called
+me names, sir; still less a lady who was with me. But excuse me--I am
+pressed for time."
+
+"Now, that's a man!" said Lance, enthusiastically, as he looked after
+the hurrying white figure. The comparison was too obvious.
+
+"Father Ninian is not a missionary," she said coldly. "It is easy for
+him--" she paused, turned to her companion, and held out her hand.
+"Good-by, and thanks; but I really can go home by myself, Mr. Carlyon."
+
+"Good-by," he echoed; then, holding her hand still, a sudden resolve
+seemed to come to him. "But--I should like to tell you something first,
+please."--
+
+She felt her heart beating everywhere but in its proper place.
+
+--"Not that it matters, but I'd like you to know it. I had some news by
+the mail this morning--bad news."
+
+She felt her blood everywhere but in its normal course, now, in sheer
+shame at her own imaginations. "I'm sorry," she murmured.
+
+"So am I," he went on thoughtfully; "though it isn't bad in a way for
+me. Do you remember my telling you about my cousin? a weedy chap,
+six-four. Well, they sent him round the world for his health, and he
+died two months ago, it seems, in Australia. And the shock was too much
+for my uncle; he was an old man, and this was his only son. So--so I am
+Sir Lancelot now. It doesn't make any odds, of course, but I thought I
+should like you to know, first."
+
+She looked up at him as he stood beside her, so tall, so strong, so
+young, so kind; and though she only said, "Thanks, Sir Lancelot, it
+won't make any difference to--to our friendship, I'm sure," she knew in
+her heart of hearts that it did. Though how, she had not yet had time
+to discover.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIV
+
+                           MIRACLE MONGERS
+
+
+Roshan Khan flung his cigarette away, and walked up and down his
+quarters in the Fort like an Englishman; he felt rather like one, also,
+in his vague distaste for something which refused to fit in with his
+previous experiences.
+
+"So she will see my grandmother," he said, at last. "That is a step,
+certainly, but--" he turned quickly to Akbar Khan, "it seems
+impossible!"
+
+The quondam chief-eunuch giggled like a girl. "Nothing is impossible
+with women, oh, Protector of the Poor!" he said; then, with a jaunty
+air of self-satisfaction, went on, "and this dust-like one has
+experience. She will see the female relation to-night after approved
+custom, and, since this is after the habits of the _sahib-logue_, she
+would perhaps see the--the Nawab-_sahib_ tomorrow."
+
+Roshan wheeled again in his walk at both the title and the suggestion,
+half indignantly, yet with a reluctant eagerness. "See--see me! Did she
+say aught of it?"
+
+"A woman's wishes for a lover go not near her tongue, _Huzoor_; they
+keep to her heart," replied Akbar, still with his jaunty craft; "but if
+this visit of the female relation be auspicious, as God send it, then
+there would be no hindrance to the asking; and even if she said nay--"
+
+Something in his hearer's face warned the old sinner he had to do with
+some novel code of conduct, and he paused, while Roshan continued his
+pacing.
+
+He was disturbed beyond bounds. The foolish dream of a foolish old
+woman had come to be so far a reality, that the jealousy which had
+blazed up instinctively at the sight of Laila in that dress--so like a
+woman of his race--alone with a strange man, had come to be deliberate.
+More than once he had felt inclined to tell Pidar Narayan what he had
+seen, even to write an anonymous letter of warning. He would have done
+so had he seen any subsequent hint of intimacy between these two. But
+he saw none; on the contrary, they seemed to avoid each other in
+public; and though this might be a blind, on the other hand Roshan had
+seen too much of some English women's ways not to know how trivial an
+offence against the proprieties it was to sit out dances in a balcony!
+Undoubtedly, however, this girl, who had taken his presents on the sly,
+who would receive his ambassadress on the sly, was not one whom it was
+necessary to treat with great ceremony. She was what the English
+language called a flirt; his own a stronger term. Not that it mattered,
+since no wife of his would have a chance of amusing herself.
+
+So, after a while, he paused to say--with a scowl for the toothless
+grinning survival of a past society--"I would I knew if it were wise to
+trust thee? Why shouldst thou take the trouble thou dost? What is the
+affair to thee?"
+
+Akbar's face was a study in sheer dignity. "'Tis but my duty, Cherisher
+of the Poor!" he said, almost pathetically. "For what other service
+were such as I am created?"
+
+The hateful tragedy of this confession of degradation passed Roshan by;
+he saw nothing in it but an appeal to facts which gave him confidence.
+
+"Yea!" he said, "I was forgetting. Such arrangings are meat and drink
+to thy sort. So take thy price. It shall be trebled if she bids me see
+her to-morrow, but--" here he laughed, half at himself,--"thou must
+needs work miracles for such favour to come so soon!"
+
+Akbar, as he capered off, the rupees jingling in his pocket, to more
+legitimate and less lucrative pursuits, winked and leered to himself
+over his own surpassing wickedness and wisdom. Miracles! Ay; but it was
+nature worked them, not he. Given youth, proximity, a touch of
+surprise, a flavour of the forbidden, and the result, in his evil
+experience, was sure. In the meantime his part was to keep the ball
+from falling until the players took to playing the game for themselves;
+then the fun was over for the true go-between. He had to take a back
+seat and watch--he! he! he!--the miracle! A pretty miracle, indeed! The
+idea tickled him so that he could not keep it to himself, and as he
+passed through the bazaar, doing his daily marketing, he used his new
+avocation of miracle-monger as a reason for good bargains. The
+shop-keepers, however, shook their heads. Miracles paid the priests,
+and might suit such as he, but for their part they considered that
+there were too many miracles in Eshwara. What was the good of the
+pilgrims coming at all if all their money went to the temples, and they
+had not a pice left for a relic, or even a toy to take home to the
+toddlers whose feet were not yet strong enough for pilgrimage?
+Whereupon they would look discontentedly round the baskets of Brummagen
+brass gods, the Belgian-made rosaries, the patent Swedish self-lighting
+joss sticks, the machine-cut oblation cups, with which almost every
+other shop sought to attract custom. Baskets where a pious pilgrim
+could purchase a whole pantheon, and secure a modicum of divine
+favour--all duly trade-marked by Christians--for a few farthings.
+
+"'Tis not our fault, brother," suggested a decrepit old Brahmin, with a
+wrinkled forehead all seamed with white markings, who--squatted in the
+gutter--was extolling the virtue of the sacred _salig ramas_, made
+unblushingly out of the ball stoppers of soda-water bottles, which lay
+exposed for sale on a handkerchief in front of him; a Manchester-made
+handkerchief, printed in the best style with the loves of Krishna. "We
+get no more than in the old days; nay, less. For, see you, the
+third-class ticket takes so much. And that is the _Huzoors'_ fee. They
+send it all over the black water to make a mountain of silver in the
+streets of their big city, London. Oh, pious ones! Buy! Buy a sacred
+sin-expeller!"
+
+The monotonous cry was caused by the appearance of a priest-led band of
+pilgrims; for, as yet, the great throng was not, when the whole narrow
+street would be a sea of heads, when even the saffron robes would be
+lost to sight, and the only thing visible would be the patient, anxious
+faces seeking redemption. That would come on the morrow,--the great
+day.
+
+Meanwhile, reverent eyes turned to the bottle-stoppers, and one or two
+hands wandered to the little hoard set aside for regeneration, which
+was diminishing so rapidly under the claims of chaplets, lights,
+caste-markings, sprinkling, and miracles.
+
+"There be too many, I say," reiterated a radical seller of drugs. "If
+the _Sirkar_ puts a tax on my medicine for the body, why not on thine
+for the soul?"
+
+"Nay, _pinsari-jee!_" chuckled the privileged wit and gossip of the
+bazaar, a cobbler who sat--by reason of his low caste--at a decent
+distance even from the crowd of customers which was awaiting a patch on
+the coverings of feet already worn and weary with their search after
+righteousness; "'tis a miracle when folk buy of you; and that comes not
+too often."
+
+Even the pilgrims laughed; for laughter at a ready gibe comes easily in
+India. Yet they, too, felt inclined to agree with the drug-seller. One
+can get _blase_ even in miracles.
+
+Therefore, naturally enough, when there was a choice, they chose the
+newest ones. And the newest of all was _jogi_ Gorakh-nath's promise of
+defying tampions, and locks, and chains, and, as in other years,
+blessing the crowd of worshippers from his self-inflicted penitentiary,
+inside the "_Teacher of Religion_."
+
+And what was more, he had kept his promise. That very dawn, as a kind
+of walk over the course, he had performed the miracle before a select
+band of pilgrims, mostly _jogies_ of his own sect who were now engaged
+in telling the tale to all and sundry in the city. What had occurred
+was briefly this. He had received his followers squatted on the stone
+steps in front of the gun, and had treated them to a dissertation on
+the mysteries of Yoga. Other less eminent practitioners in the art of
+miracles, he said, might have found it necessary to withhold the sight
+of the sacred person from devoted eyes. He, however, meant to show them
+his absolute independence of the body. He would leave it lying there,
+dead, while his soul went inside the gun, and blessed the pious ones.
+Accordingly his jaw had dropped; he had become rigid, callous
+apparently to the prickings of pins with which his assistants strove to
+make him wince, and, just as one of them withdrew a dagger, covered, of
+course, with gore from his very heart, a muffled voice of blessing had
+come from the very bowels of the gun.
+
+If that was not a miracle, what was?
+
+Anyhow, it caught on, so that as the day grew, the growing tide of
+pilgrims passed by the side-shows run in connection with the Pool of
+Immortality by its priests, and drifted off to the opposition show,
+leaving the _impresarios_ behind them in a state of rage and despair.
+Rage, for if this sort of thing continued on the morrow they would lose
+their year's harvest, since the Host of God-seekers were ever the
+natural prey of priests; despair, because exposure of what experience
+told them _must_ be a fraud, would only result in counter exposure.
+There must be honour among thieves to make the profession a lucrative
+one.
+
+So they met in conclave, each with his miserable earnings in his hand,
+to point the dire urgency of action, and agreed on the wisdom of
+finding a cat's-paw to filch their chestnuts from the fire.
+
+Thus it happened that Vincent Dering came over to Lance Carlyon's
+quarters half an hour before the time they had settled to start for the
+mission house, and asked him to look sharp, and send round to Roshan
+Khan to come along also, as he had private information--here, with a
+laugh, he threw a letter on the table--that miracles were being
+illegally performed in cantonments, and he expected some fun. Lance
+laughed also as he read the following:--
+
+"To the Major General commanding. This is to give notice to all
+concerned that illegible miracles is now being performed by bare men in
+belly of great gun, contrary to astringent orders issued by my lord
+god. Therefore your petitioners pray for correct diagnosis of same, and
+removal from Cantonment boundaries with exhibitions not to miracle any
+more."
+
+"By Jove!" he said, "our petitioner is a medical man--hospital dresser,
+I expect. Not to miracle any more!--h'm." His tone changed, his honest
+blue eyes clouded, for, ever since Erda Shepherd had told him what her
+future life was to be, the young fellow had been painfully aware that
+Eshwara had wrought a miracle on him; that he was no longer content to
+take life as he found it; that already he had begun to look forward and
+think of what life would be by and by. "I expect that would be a
+difficulty in Eshwara," he went on; "it's an awful place for upsetting
+the proper odds. Seems to me impossible to--to make a safe book on
+anything."
+
+Vincent Dering shrugged his shoulders. He had been in the highest
+spirits for the last few days. "A safe book! The dullest thing in
+creation. That's why I like Eshwara. As I remember telling you, one
+can't count upon anything in the topsy-turvy place--not even one's
+self. They talk of the mystery of the East! By George! one is in grips
+with it here; so come along, Lance! and remove miracles from Cantonment
+boundaries at any rate!"
+
+They found the union-jack of paths obliterated by an orderly crowd; for
+every hour, almost every minute, of the day had brought fresh units to
+that weary-footed, eager-eyed host of pilgrims. Here and there amongst
+them was to be seen the high-twined, badge-set turban of a policeman,
+ready, truncheon in hand, to assert the rights of law, but not many;
+since the rush of bathers had not yet come, and there was small danger
+to be feared from anything save that keen desire to be cleansed, which
+showed on almost every face. As the two Englishmen entered, however,
+followed by Roshan Khan, on whose features that fierce intolerance of
+his race for idolaters was written clearly, a murmur of tense
+anticipation ran through the packed courtyard. The miracle turn was
+evidently on.
+
+It was. _Jogi_ Gorakh-nath lay as if dead on the raised stone platform
+in front of the gun, and two assistants were prodding him with pins.
+
+"I've seen that in London," said Vincent, forcing his way rapidly
+through the yielding crowd, "so I can hardly object to it here; but if
+there is hanky-panky with my gun--"
+
+At that instant, a bloody dagger, fresh apparently from the _jogi's_
+heart, was held up, and a curious hush fell on the courtyard. It was
+broken by a muffled voice, unmistakably from within the gun, and that
+was lost in a great roar of applause.
+
+"A miracle! a miracle of the gods!"
+
+Captain Dering, who with the others had now reached the centre, waited
+for the roar to subside a little, and then his voice rose and seemed to
+crush it.
+
+"_Risaldar-sahib_ You have the key of the padlock. Take out the
+tampion, and see who is inside."
+
+As he spoke, his eyes were on the assistants, and something in their
+defiant assurance warned him that he was on the wrong tack, and made
+him cover possible discomfiture with the words,--"If there is no one,
+then someone here has the art of throwing his voice where he will."
+
+As if in assent, the muffled blessing came, louder, this time, from the
+now un-tampioned gun, so that Roshan's face showed somewhat scared, as,
+with a salute, he announced as the result of his inspection, "There is
+no one, sir, I can see clear down the metal, but--but the voice is
+there."
+
+A sound of such fierce approval ran through the crowd who were within
+hearing, that Captain Dering saw instantly that it would not be wise to
+court another failure.
+
+"Close up the gun again," he said loudly. "So long as my orders are not
+disobeyed, and people keep their bodies out of my gun, their voices are
+welcome to it! Come along, Carlyon," he added, in English, "it's
+ventriloquism, of course, and I'd dearly like to catch the beast who
+does it, but we had better leave it alone for the present."
+
+Lance, who, in sudden remembrance of the sound he had heard as he
+drifted past the bathing-steps in his canoe on the night of the dance,
+had been vainly overhauling the padlock and chain for signs of their
+having been tampered with, nodded his head, and let the chain swing
+back on its staple. The sudden jerk threw a new light on the matter.
+For the staple came out, disclosing the fact that it had been neatly
+filed through at the shank, and then replaced by means of a drilled
+hole and a pin.
+
+The proof of tampering was clear, but nothing else.
+
+"I have it," said Lance suddenly coming up with a red but triumphant
+face from a prolonged inspection down the huge muzzle, "they've shoved
+in a false end, and there's someone behind. Roshan! go back and fetch
+me my long gaff, and Roshan--my cleaning rod."
+
+"And tell the guard to come out at once," added Captain Dering, heedful
+of the rising note of movement amongst the crowd, sign that it was
+growing restless.
+
+"Stay! I've got a ripping idea!" cried Lance again, his face all abeam
+with delight--delight so catching that the crowd stilled as he turned
+to it. "Look here," he said confidentially, in Hindustani, "there's a
+boy in this gun. It must be a boy, and rather a small one, for there
+isn't room for anything big. Now isn't there a boy anywhere about the
+same size who'd like to come and draw him? He will be heads this way,
+and you will be able to get a good grip of his hair, and he will get a
+grip of your's, and--and it will be--be jolly!" The untranslatable word
+needed no translation. That something in the perfection of careless
+youth which touches the hearts of all mankind, put Lance and his
+audience in touch instantly.
+
+A group of tall, grave-eyed Sikhs laughed uproariously, and nudged a
+lad beside them. "Go on, brotherling," they said, "thou art the best
+wrestler of the school. Go! show the _Huzoor_ how thou canst hold thine
+own."
+
+It needed no more. "Yea! try thy luck, brotherling," said a dozen
+voices, "and if thou canst not we will find a champion!"
+
+That settled it. Five minutes afterwards Lance Carlyon found himself
+arranging the conditions of the draw, surrounded by half a dozen lads,
+each backed by eager supporters. By this time Roshan had returned, and
+with the aid of the gaff and one of the smallest of the guard, Lance's
+guess had been proved to be true. A neatly fitting disc of metal,
+cup-shaped to increase the resemblance to the end of the barrel had
+been withdrawn, leaving a head visible.
+
+"It is beautifully tousled, and you'll get a good grip," said Lance,
+regretfully, as he helped the Sikh champion into the gun, "but it is
+bigger than I thought for, and you'll have your work cut out for you."
+
+Then ensued the quaintest scene imaginable. The whole crowd, but five
+minutes before ready, almost, to fight for the truth of their miracle,
+were swaying breathless, excited, in sheer childish delight over the
+tussle to expose it.
+
+"Lo! he comes--I see his toes--bravo, Gurdit! Nay, the other hath
+strength left! Sho! sonling, let not go for thy life! That is well
+done--Bravo! Bravo!"
+
+So backwards and forwards, like a terrier and a badger, the draw
+wavered, Lance, watch in hand, calling time.
+
+"Half a minute more! Go it, Gurdit!" he shouted. The encouragement had
+its effect. Gurdit's toes, his ankles, his calves showed beyond the
+gun; only his knees remained, giving him grip still.
+
+"Wait for his knees. Wait till he loses grip!" shouted Lance--"twenty
+seconds more--fifteen, ten--f--there you are! that's it, fair!!"
+
+Fair it was; the knees, pressing outwards steadily, every bronze muscle
+of them showing the strength of the drag, lost grip, and with a great
+yell of delight, half-a-dozen bearded Sikhs had hold of Gurdit's feet
+with such a vigorous pull, that Lance had to shove his knee forward, in
+a hurry, to prevent the boy from falling on his face; since both his
+hands were locked desperately in the tangled hair of a disciple so big
+that he came out of the gun with a cloop like a cork!
+
+"It was the most sporting draw I've seen for years," said Lance
+enthusiastically, when, after much laughter and congratulation, the
+crowd parted with smiles to let the Englishmen pass, "and I'm glad you
+let the beggar off, Dering. It wasn't his fault, and he must have been
+beastly uncomfortable. Now, if you could have quodded the _jogi_--"
+
+"I hope to do that by and by," replied Vincent significantly, "but it
+was just as well the crowd should laugh to-day. These religious
+gatherings are always a bit risky--and, as you know, Dillon is having
+trouble over at the gaol. 'Pon my soul, I don't know which is worst to
+manage--fifteen hundred scoundrels, or a hundred and fifty thousand
+saints."
+
+"A hundred and fifty!" echoed Lance, "will there be as many as that?"
+
+"Quite. So it is as well they should laugh; for even with the extra
+contingent of police we should find it a bit hard to manage them if
+they didn't."
+
+True; but unfortunately the laughter of the many involves the
+discomfiture of the few; and in this case, these were the most
+unscrupulous men in Eshwara.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV
+
+                       OH! DEM GOLDEN SLIPPERS!
+
+
+"If I were a man--I would fight."
+
+The words were spoken by Erda Shepherd as the two young men entered the
+drawing-room of the mission house.
+
+"Let me fight for you!" said Captain Dering, in his most ornate style,
+as, in the pause following on the interruption of their arrival, he
+went forward to shake hands. "My sword is always at the service of the
+ladies."
+
+Then a certain feeling, as of electricity in the air, a certain look on
+the faces round him--for most of the mission workers had already
+arrived--warned him that this was no jesting matter, and he continued
+in better taste, "I trust there is nothing wrong?"
+
+"Wrong!" echoed Erda, who in a mechanical, absolutely indifferent
+manner was shaking hands with Lance; "Yes! grievously wrong!"--her
+voice was almost strident in its decision--"hideously wrong!"
+
+Here Dr. James Campbell, who had been laying down the law to a group of
+other black coats, came up and put the telegram he was holding into
+Captain Dering's hand.
+
+"Perhaps you can explain this," he said severely, "we generally have to
+thank the military authorities for such interference."
+
+"Not in this case, so far as I am concerned," replied Vincent, after a
+glance at the first sentence. Then he read on, everyone else in the
+room silent, expectant.
+
+It was from the Commissioner, saying, that from private information
+given him, he regretted that, in the interests of peace, he must, as
+magistrate, forbid any street preaching or public profession of faith
+during the next two days. Feeling was running high in many ways, and it
+was necessary to be extremely cautious.
+
+"I can assure you, sir," said Vincent, handing back the telegram, "I am
+not the informant. At the same time"--here he faced about to the room
+generally--"I think the Commissioner is right. Our government is
+neutral--"
+
+"Neutral!" interrupted the Reverend David Campbell, whose blonde face
+was flushed with excitement. "If it were neutral we would not complain.
+But does this prohibition extend to the priests of other religions? No!
+a thousand times, no! It is only another instance of the fact, that we,
+who have the strongest claim on a Christian government--"
+
+"Possibly," put in Captain Dering, "but I am only a soldier. I do not
+ask questions. I obey."
+
+"And we are soldiers too," said Dr. Campbell, weightily, "and our
+orders are to be instant in season and out of season."
+
+A little murmur of approval ran through the company. There was a
+militant look on every face, a militant ring in every voice, as they
+discussed what ought to be done. The women workers, with Erda at their
+head, went solid for defiance,--only Mrs. Campbell making the
+reservation "if James approved." So did some of the men, notably David
+Campbell, who passed from one group to another, his pale blue eyes
+a-glisten with enthusiasm.
+
+Erda's followed him with such approval, that Lance crossed over
+pugnaciously to where she stood, with a pretty flush on her cheeks,
+listening.
+
+"It is a pity you haven't got Jean Ziska's drum, Miss Shepherd," he
+said. "By Jove! how you would bang it! Then, right or wrong, there
+would be a high old row, and that would just suit me!"
+
+"There can scarcely, Sir Lancelot,"--she paused on the title with a
+strain after contempt which did not somehow come off,--"be a question
+as to right or wrong in this case."
+
+He gave a kindly, almost indulgent laugh. "There never can be, really,
+of course. One is bound to be right, the other wrong. The mischief is
+to know t'other from which! Now I expect the sixty thousand nobles, and
+the grand-master who were left dead on the field, and the two thousand
+poor devils who got drowned in the river besides, and all the
+others--you know about 'em, of course, and you must admit he was a
+bloodthirsty chap at any rate!--had got a musical instrument of some
+sort, too. You can't fight without a band, Miss Shepherd, specially
+drums and fifes. But Jean Ziska was blind; so he could only hear his
+own music."
+
+"And I hear it, too," she said superbly, with all the more defiance,
+because his words touched her innate sense of justice, as they did so
+often.
+
+As she spoke, the not unusual sound--considering that one side of the
+mission house gave on the city--of a native _tom-tom_ drifted in
+through the open window, causing Lancelot's eyes to brim over with
+smiles.
+
+"That isn't it, anyhow, is it, Miss Shepherd?" he said. "I saw that
+drum-banger as I came past just now--the funniest old dried stick of a
+Brahmin you ever set eyes on. And you know those '_round the mulberry
+bush_,' fairy-ring, endless circles of men and women hand in hand we
+used to cut out of newspaper when we were kids? Well, he was using gilt
+paper, and trying to make a miracle out of the '_biz_'! One god, he
+said, in many; the outline being the same, and the eye of faith
+sufficient to fill in the details of divinity! The people were buying
+them by dozens for the half of nothing. I asked 'em why, and they said
+as toys for their children. So I expect it will be the endless circle
+of boys and girls again--don't you? For, you know," he went on in the
+confidential voice which, dimly, she recognized was for her alone,
+"I've never been able to find out the least difference in kids. I talk
+to the little beggars when I'm out shooting, you know, and--well! the
+boys are just as much boys as I used to be--"
+
+Used to be! Yet once again, for the hundredth time at least since
+they had first met, barely a month ago, his youth, his boyish,
+whole-hearted, healthy zest in life made her eyes soft; made her feel,
+with all the true womanhood in her that, if she ever had a son, she
+prayed he might be like this. And something else she recognized--not
+for the first time, either; namely, that boyish, almost thoughtless as
+he was, puzzling himself not at all with the problems of life, you
+could never dip below the surface without finding him, as it were,
+there before you; finding him clear-eyed, ready to treat the shady side
+of things as he treated the light side; that is, with an absolutely
+limpid honesty.
+
+So, as she stood silent, checked in her desire to check, Father Ninian,
+who had just entered with Laila, came up to greet her, and having done
+so, turned to Lance with kind eyes and voice.
+
+"Captain Dering has just told me that we have to call you Sir Lancelot
+Carlyon. I am sorry for the cause, since your uncle was a man who made
+the world better by being in it;--as--as you will. It is a fine old
+name, Sir Lancelot! It carries with it a fine inheritance of honour;
+therefore I can wish no better wish for the world, as well as for
+yourself, than that you may hand it on to your son. So, peace be with
+you!" His clasped hands unfolded themselves for a space as he passed
+on, leaving those two once more standing together with that sense of
+being singled out for friendship which had come to them in the
+beginning.
+
+And this was to be the end of it? Even to her it seemed impossible. To
+him it made the impossibility certain.
+
+"Miss Shepherd," he said suddenly, "I have something I must say to you
+this afternoon. Come into the verandah, after you have done pouring out
+the tea, and let me say it."
+
+There was so much of command in his voice that she might have resented
+it, had not Father Ninian's voice risen at that moment; firmly, yet
+with its usual faint hesitancy, in words which made everyone in the
+room pause to listen.
+
+"I, and I only, am responsible, Dr. Campbell. I gave the Commissioner
+the information on which he has acted," here he raised his hand against
+interruption. "I have been fifty years at Eshwara; fifty times have I
+seen the pilgrims pass to the 'Cradle of the Gods' listening peacefully
+to your preaching. But this year there is something new." He paused to
+put on his spectacles, yet the keenness they brought to his face was
+dimmed by wistfulness. "I cannot quite tell what it is. There is
+something beyond the things I know, though these are many--small, it is
+true, but cumulative. Still, this is certain; the pulse of the people
+beats irregularly to-day, and that means danger to the body corporate.
+It may pass; yet the faintest stimulus may upset the whole balance of
+the organism. So, my friends, as our cause is eternal, as we have
+time--"
+
+"Time!" interrupted David Campbell, passionately, "but now _is_ the
+appointed time. Think, sir, how many of these poor deluded souls,
+striving after salvation, may die upon the road to their false
+gods--none can know how many better than you, who--"
+
+The old priest looked at the young one with a whole lifetime of sad
+wisdom in his face. "Yes!" he said, softly, "for I am very old. I have
+seen half a world die upon its road to the 'Cradle of the Gods.'
+Die--though we have not the courage to say so,--with their faces set to
+the eternal goal of humanity; to the finding of something we have lost.
+And something keeps us all back. What is it? Have we the secret more
+than they, who say, as we do, that it is sin?"
+
+His voice had fallen into a strangely musical rhythm, so that Dr.
+Campbell's, following it, seemed harsh indeed.
+
+"_We_ know we have. We have the certainty--we are missionaries of that
+certainty--"
+
+"And I--to my shame be it said," interrupted Father Ninian, with a
+curious return to worldly courtesy as he removed his spectacles, "have
+never tried to make a convert; therefore I can scarcely hope to
+persuade you; but if, gentlemen, I might be allowed to talk the matter
+over with you--"
+
+"A most sensible suggestion," assented Dr. Campbell, looking round on
+his younger, less experienced colleagues; "I should be loth to act
+hastily, and give occasion to the scoffer. Mamma, will you send our tea
+into the dining room?"
+
+The pure practicality of the last words seemed to relieve the general
+tension, and Vincent Dering--who had been looking horribly
+bored--seeing the piano open, sat down to it, as the dissentients moved
+off into their cave of Adullam, and began to play, "_La Donna e
+mobile_;" saying, with a laugh:--
+
+"_Cherchez la femme!_ Depend upon it, Mrs. Campbell, there is a woman
+at the bottom of it. I know from personal experience that she is always
+fatal to my peace and pulse on any road."
+
+Erda Shepherd, holding her head very high, crossed over to pour out the
+tea; whereupon Vincent, being mischievously inclined, suddenly changed
+the tune to "Where'er you walk," which he played daintily, purely,
+altogether charmingly, so causing Muriel Smith, who had lately joined
+the party, to relax her faint frown at his remark.
+
+"Miss Shepherd objects," he went on provokingly. "She doesn't believe
+in men fighting for women. She scorned the offer of my sword in
+favour--excuse me for having overheard--of some drum or another. What
+was it, Miss Shepherd? I really only heard Lance say you would like to
+bang it."
+
+Erda flushed all over her face. "I was only alluding to Jean Ziska's
+drum, which was sounded to call the Hosts of the Lord to arms."
+
+Mrs. Campbell gave a fine, hearty shudder. "My dear," she said, "why
+can ye not leave that gruesome tale alone? For it's just an awful tale,
+Mrs. Smith. As if he could not be content with doing his duty in this
+life, but must leave his skin behind for the next generation."
+
+"We have biblical warranty for that sort of thing, Mrs. Campbell," said
+the sharp-voiced lady who owned the small black coat. "Elijah left his
+mantle."
+
+"Hoots!" interrupted Mrs. Campbell, scornfully. "We all have to leave
+our body-wear, but a skin's different altogether. It sou'd just have
+gone to the grave with him, honest man, dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
+I've often heard Dr. James say there was nothing in the world for tying
+the hands o' the leevin' like dead men's dispositions. They're just a
+mortification indeed to a' concerned."
+
+There was always something about the good lady's comfortable
+common-sense which made further discussion difficult, and the talk
+wandered into less rugged paths until, the time for leisure from Erda's
+duties as tea-maker being close at hand, Lance went out deliberately
+into the verandah which overhung the river, or rather the spit of
+sand-bank which jutted out from this, the turning-point of the city's
+triangle. On the right, the wall, set with its temple spires, trended
+away to meet the bridge, on the left to join the line of the palace,
+the bathing-steps, the Fort. In front of him, as he stood leaning over
+the balustrade at the western end of the verandah, lay dull streaks of
+sand, bright gleams of water, and beyond them--dim, mysterious--was the
+great level plain of India, on whose scarce distinguishable edge the
+sun was setting behind a bank of deep purple cloud. It was a long, low,
+almost level bank, outlined sharply against the sea of golden-green
+light above it. There was scarcely a hint of sunset fire save in a
+trailing chain of little fleecy golden flocks, which stretched away
+from the purple of the clouds into the deepening purple of clear sky
+overhead.
+
+Lance, waiting, watched that clear, almost level, outline, until, as
+clouds do when gazed at fixedly, it took shape for him as the body of a
+dead warrior half-covered by a pall. The straight sweep yonder was the
+shield, still held upon the arm, the peak of shadow below it was the
+mailed feet. There was the curve of the throat; the head thrown back;
+the feathery plumes of the helmet. The whole world seemed his bier; the
+stars, just trembling into sight, the watch-lights round it.
+
+"Do you see?" he asked, as Erda joined him. "_From the great deep to
+the great deep he goes_."
+
+She recognized the quotation; and though she had come out full of
+determination to deny the glamour of their mutual comprehension, it
+claimed her in a second.
+
+"Yes!" she answered quickly, and pointing to the trailing drift of
+cloudlets, added, "_bound by gold chains about the feet of God_."
+
+He turned to look at her then, forgetting fancy in a sudden certainty.
+
+"I thought I had something to tell you," he said, "but I think you know
+it already, don't you?"
+
+"Yes!" she answered, held captive still by that inevitable
+understanding. "I think I do."
+
+He paused a moment; then going back to the now fading likeness of that
+dead "King of the Dead," continued: "Then that ends it so--so far as I
+am concerned. But it remains as an excuse for my asking a question.
+Miss Shepherd, why are you going to marry your cousin?"
+
+She had known this was coming. "For a great many reasons," she began
+boldly; then paused, wishing for the first time that these reasons had
+been fewer, feeling that the possession of but _one_ would have made
+speech easier. "To begin with, it has been the dream of my life."
+
+He turned on her with an amaze which was almost ludicrous. "What! to
+marry him?"
+
+She frowned angrily. "No! To work--to help--to give my sympathy--to
+stand hand in hand with someone who, as he does, gives himself, as I
+do, to the great work. To someone whose life will be mine--whom I can
+respect and admire and--and love--in the best sense of the word--" Her
+voice, gaining confidence from its own statements, rose almost
+passionately.
+
+Lance looked at her with his clear eyes, and nodded. "Yes! I quite
+understand. But what has that to do with marrying him? How will
+the--the great Work be furthered by your having to look after the house
+and all that? And it isn't as if you couldn't give the help and
+sympathy without marrying a fellow. Even the love--at least I think so.
+Now, I want to marry you, because--"
+
+"Yes,--" she said severely, as he paused--she felt glad to change
+places with him in the witness box--
+
+"Because, to begin with, it doesn't seem possible for me to live my
+life--I mean my everyday life, trying to rub along, you know, without
+doing any harm; keeping things going as--as my people have always kept
+them, unless you help me. And then--" he paused again--"from the first
+moment I saw you, you reminded me--" he paused so long this time that a
+faint wonder as to what he was going to say next made her heart beat,
+as she watched him leaning over the balcony, looking dreamily at that
+fading likeness of a dead 'King of the Dead.'
+
+"I don't suppose anyone had a happier, jollier childhood than I had,"
+he said suddenly, "though I was an orphan. I lived at Tregarthen, you
+know." He turned to her as he spoke, and smiled. "You should have seen
+my grandfather and grandmother, Miss Shepherd. They were like the
+double Christmas number of an illustrated paper! She used to boast that
+she never saw a naughty child; and she never did, for the dear old lady
+always walked out of the room promptly when we tried it on. I remember
+it used to take the starch out awfully, having no audience. But it was
+the same in everything. It beat even a boy to be really bad in that
+house, somehow. Yes! we had jolly times! You would have liked it--you
+would like it now"--he turned swiftly and held out both hands--"Come to
+it!--Come, and be Lady Carlyon as she was! People may say all that
+means nothing, but it means everything to a woman to be able to count
+on an inheritance like that for her--" he broke off as some of the
+others came out into the balcony, and bending closer to her, went on in
+a low voice, "I've said nothing of my love--you know all that--and I
+think--Yes--" his voice took a note of certainty--"I think you--you like
+me well enough--don't you?"
+
+There was something so truth-compelling in his face, his voice, that
+she felt thankful for the tepid word _like_--
+
+"I like you very much, Sir Lancelot," she said, trying not to let her
+voice betray the absolute tenderness she felt, "but, as you told me
+just now, that is no reason why I should marry you."
+
+"It is at least as good as yours for marrying _him_," he broke in
+quickly. "At least it has to do with you--with me--with our
+happiness--with mine at any rate! Do you remember when you first told
+me your name--The World's Desire I called it--the woman with the
+red-gold hair, the red-gold hem to her garment, the red-gold apple in
+her hand--you are that to me--Erda! give me my heart's desire--"
+
+His voice--low, quick, passionate--thrilled through her. She saw
+herself as she had seen herself then.
+
+"Yes! it has to do with you, with me!" she echoed desperately, "but
+only we two."
+
+"No!--" he interrupted--"with more than that, surely!"
+
+In the pause which followed, one vision faded in another, and her own
+wish, that if she ever had a son he might be as this man, came to make
+her remember Father Ninian's words, "I can wish no better wish for the
+world!"
+
+But Father Ninian could not have said so to her. _She_ could do
+better for the world in the other life, the other work. The very
+self-sacrifice of it attracted her, vague though the sense of that was,
+as yet.
+
+"Sir Lancelot," she said at last, "I am very sensible of the honour--"
+
+"Don't--for heaven's sake," he interrupted. "That is--excuse
+me--bunkum."
+
+She felt glad of the faint resentment which came to her aid. "I am, all
+the same," she continued; "but it is impossible. Perhaps if I did not
+look forward as I do; perhaps if I only sought happiness; but--" she
+clasped her hands tightly and the militant look came back to her
+face--"I am sworn to another work--the noblest work of all--to bring
+light to those that sit in darkness."
+
+Lance gave an odd little laugh, full of bitterness. "You leave me out
+in the black night, anyhow," he said.
+
+True enough, in one way, for the quick dusk had closed in around them;
+but as he spoke, a great white shaft of light like a moon-ray shot,
+almost as if in denial--widening on its way, from the shadowy stretches
+beyond the river; shot waveringly, as if uncertain, until, focussing
+itself full on the verandah, it turned the dusk to day.
+
+"The search-light!" cried Mrs. Smith, clapping her daintily gloved
+little hands. "Eugene will be so pleased. He couldn't positively
+swallow a mouthful at lunch because, when he thought all was right,
+something went wrong. That's why he didn't come, Miss Shepherd," she
+added, for the light had effectually joined the scattered groups into
+one. "I positively couldn't tear him away, but I made him promise to
+turn the thing on here if he succeeded. And he has. Isn't it splendid?"
+
+Mrs. Campbell looked doubtful. "It's just too much like the last day,
+comin' unawares, and makin' a' things manifest, for my taste. An' I
+wonder what Dr. James will say to it?"
+
+"I wonder what the natives will say to it?" said Vincent Dering,
+looking across at Lance.
+
+"Say!" echoed the tart lady. "I know what they should say--that, of
+course, we know a great deal more than they do."
+
+"And, besides," added a new and gushing voice, "it is so beautifully,
+suggestively true. We have the light, we can light them."
+
+"Oh! but that _is_ such a bother," came Laila Bonaventura's
+full-throated tones. "I hate having to see things I don't care to see.
+I much prefer to have my own candle, don't you?"
+
+She had been finding it dull work waiting for her guardian's return
+from the dining room, even though Vincent had, now and again, found
+opportunity for a word or look. He took advantage of one now to say,
+"It will be pleasanter by and by, won't it? We must settle the time
+before you leave."
+
+"What time?" asked Muriel Smith, who happened to overhear his
+undertone. She had been vaguely curious at their apparent avoidance of
+each other, their occasional lapses into familiarity, ever since she
+had challenged them at the Viceroy's party.
+
+"Time!" echoed Vincent, coolly. "Of that new song, of course. Come in,
+Miss Bonaventura, let us decide about it."
+
+The girl swept up her long lashes solemnly. "I should think a twelve
+beat would be best, really. It is safer when there are so many
+accidental notes."
+
+His face, as he led the way to the piano, was a study. If she had lived
+her life in a vaudeville at the _Folies Bergeres_ she could scarcely
+have been more at home in intrigue, yet her absolute sincerity and
+unconsciousness of wrongdoing was as palpable. On the whole, he felt
+vexed; the more so because the vaudeville dialogue proved unnecessary,
+since a sudden concentration of the party to hear the verdict of the
+Adullamites, who at that moment came out of the dining room, would have
+given them ample time for more dignified conversation.
+
+Erda was in the front rank of the eager little crowd, her hopes, her
+enthusiasms, heightened by the deliberate choice she had just made,
+when Dr. Campbell, as the recognized head, began to speak. They had
+come unanimously to the conclusion, he said, that absolute revolt at
+this late hour would be unwise. Whether Father Ninian Bruce was
+justified, by the circumstances, in his adverse report was another
+matter. Personally he denied it; nor did he propose that they should
+sit down quietly under the interference. They were only forbidden to
+preach in Eshwara. Therefore they had come, again unanimously, to the
+resolution of leaving Eshwara for the time in a body. It would be a
+solemn protest; and they could thus render both to Caesar and to God,
+since they could preach at other pilgrim stations on the road. It would
+be a noble protest which was certain of proving blessed.
+
+The words roused no little enthusiasm, mingled with undoubted relief in
+most cases; but Erda, standing beside her cousin, said in an undertone,
+"Did you assent to that, David?"
+
+"I suggested it," he answered, in a louder voice, not without some
+self-satisfaction. "It appeared to me to meet the exigencies of the
+case admirably, and it will be very useful, let me tell you, at home.
+It will emphasize the difficulties and dangers we have to contend
+against. It will show our meek reasonableness, and then--" he looked
+round with a jubilant smile--"it seems to me such a beautiful idea that
+the only result of this attempt to gag us will be that the thousands of
+poor benighted souls will have a chance of hearing the Truth in many
+places instead of one."
+
+But Erda's voice broke in on the hum of applause almost harshly,
+filling the room with its defiance. "I think it cowardly; I would
+fight--if I were a man."
+
+"You would beat Jean Ziska's drum!" laughed Vincent Dering, rising from
+the music stool where he had been holding Laila's hand under cover of
+the new song,--an occupation which always made him feel as if all the
+wine of life had gone to his head. "You refused my sword just now, Miss
+Shepherd, so I place my drumstick at your disposal."
+
+So, with a reckless gaiety, he seized on a painted tambourine which
+good Mrs. Campbell had hung as an ornament on the wall,--it was
+bedaubed with two white lilies and a butterfly rampant,--and catching
+up a teaspoon from the table, he began to sing in his pretty,
+light-comedy voice, "Oh! dem golden slippers!" while the tambourine,
+under his skilful drumming, throbbed to the words:--
+
+
+             "Golden slippers on a golden stair,
+              Golden slippers on my tired feet,
+              Golden slippers dat we all mus' wear
+              Becos' dey are so sweet."
+
+
+He sang well, he played better; and both voice and drumming echoed out
+through the open windows.
+
+"They are singing in the _missen_," said the people in the courtyard to
+the pilgrims, who were still gathering to the miracles, like moths
+round a candle. "It is not wise to listen; folk become as they are, if
+they do."
+
+Some of the pilgrims laughed and some stopped their ears; but even so,
+the throbbing of the tambourine was in the air.
+
+
+             "Golden slippers on a golden stair,
+              Golden slippers on my tired feet,
+              Golden slippers dat we all mus' wear."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVI
+
+                                ECHOES
+
+
+If the twopenny-halfpenny tambourine--which had been bedaubed with its
+white lilies and rampant butterfly by a suburban maiden lady for a
+mission sale, and, remaining over from that, had been bought in at half
+price by Mrs. Campbell for the adornment of her drawing-room,--had been
+indeed Jean Ziska's famous drum, Eshwara could hardly have been more
+restless than it was on the night after Vincent Dering had sung, "Oh!
+dem golden slippers!" to its accompaniment. The tune had occurred to
+him in an instant, without thought, simply as one he had sung more than
+once when doing bones and tambourine in a nigger troupe at a soldiers'
+sing-song. He had meant nothing by; it and yet the words,
+
+
+             "Golden slippers on a golden stair,
+              Golden slippers dat we'se got to wear,"
+
+
+fitted their environment; that atmosphere of effort after something
+beyond, above the real, the actual; the inevitable climbing of a golden
+stair, the inevitable wearing of the golden shoes, the inevitable
+search after the golden gates which, found, will open upon Paradise.
+True, the Paradise differed to each pair of yearning eyes and weary
+feet; but the longing for it as a personal gain, spiritual or bodily,
+was identical.
+
+For Paradise is the Desire of the World still; whether men find it in
+the good they lost, or the Love which lost it for them.
+
+And in Eshwara that night the desire rose strenuously, militantly.
+
+Erda, packing her boxes in haste, since she and her aunt had arranged
+to start with the others at dawn, felt as if she had, at last, closed
+her hand firmly on the plough. There could be no looking back now. The
+golden slippers were on her feet, the golden stairs before her, the
+golden gates within sight. She had said good-by to Lance without a
+quiver. She even smiled softly, tenderly, as she set an unopened deal
+box to go with her others. It was one which the Reverend David had
+brought with him from England, and which had been made over to her, not
+without nods and winks, smiles and suspicions of tears, from her aunt.
+For it contained the wedding dress. It was a Moravian wedding dress of
+the old style, to suit Erda's fancy; and she had been quite anxious to
+see the delicate white muslin robe and the quaint little cap, with its
+bunch of orange blossoms, which was to mark her as both bride and
+matron. But it had seemed a pity, in careful Mrs. Campbell's opinion,
+to unpack it only to repack it, and run the needless risk of crushing
+its daintiness. So there in its box it lay still, untouched, unseen.
+
+There would be real orange blossoms and to spare, the girl told
+herself with a smile, in the garden at Herrnhut; for so the summer
+resting-place of the mission had been called in deference to the
+Moravian extraction of those who had built it and started the Christian
+settlement in the tiny valley in which it stood. This lay some thirty
+miles up the Hara, beyond the first range of hills; and the river,
+fresh from its mad rush from the snows beyond, ran through it slackly,
+peacefully, before beginning its long, swift, yet smooth, slide down
+the dark ravine which cleft the outer range, until it ended in the
+plains at Eshwara.
+
+It was at Herrnhut that, every year, in turns of two months during the
+hot weather, the missionaries exchanged work in the bazaars for the
+lighter labor of the agricultural settlement. Naturally, therefore, it
+was looked on as a sort of holiday house; but this year it would be
+something more. It would be the headquarters of fight, the centre of
+the resistance which was to use the Commissioner's order to cease
+firing as an excuse for a more determined skirmishing. For it stood
+right on the pilgrims' road. Indeed, Erda and the other rebels would
+have to travel a good eight-and-twenty miles along that very road
+itself before coming to the slack water where they could cross the
+river by a ferry, and finish their journey through the level fields on
+its further side to Herrnhut, with its homelike, peaceful surroundings.
+The memory of them came to Erda, making her sense of that inevitable
+climbing of the golden stair after righteousness more acute; since she
+had to face a good-by to them also. And sooner than she had expected,
+for the breaking up of winter work a week earlier than usual, owing to
+this secular interference, had made David, eager to begin anew, plead
+for a speedier wedding. So there were only two or three days left, at
+most.
+
+The knowledge, however, brought her no doubt; it helped her, rather, to
+a greater certainty.
+
+She had done right. Her feet were indeed upon the golden stair!
+
+And in the other houses of the mission, where everyone was disregarding
+sleep in the striving after something that was more to them than sleep,
+the atmosphere was electric also, the thoughts militant.
+
+So they were in the streets, the alleys of the town; for on the bridge
+of boats--that bridge which spanned the broad expanse of water between
+the city and the great plain of India--the pilgrims were passing, now,
+in an unending stream--to take up their places as near as might be to
+the Pool of Immortality, where, with the dawn, the water would rise
+miraculously for the cleansing of sin.
+
+"_Hari! Hara! Hara! Hari!_"
+
+The cry was almost incessant, but the eye could see little, for the
+moon was young, the night dark.
+
+"_Hara! Hari! Hari! Hara!_"
+
+Hour after hour it came, that cry on the dread Creator, the dread
+Destroyer. Monotonous, patient, almost indifferent, yet absolutely
+insistent.
+
+The golden-shod feet of the pilgrims, after whose souls the
+missionaries yearned, were on the golden stair also, and their golden
+gates would open at the 'Cradle of the Gods'; must open, hidden though
+the goal was by mist when it was day, by darkness when it was night.
+
+What matter if it was hidden? For the gold-shod feet might falter and
+fall ere that goal was reached; but the hidden spring of cleansing at
+the Pool of Immortality was theirs. It would rise at dawn; rise as it
+did always, every year.
+
+"_Hara! Hari! Hari! Hara!_"
+
+What matter Birth or Death, if the finding of that lost paradise of
+purity was certain.
+
+Out on the bridge, whence the cry came oftenest, there was no doubt
+regarding this certainty; but as each weary pair of feet stumbled on
+the first stones of the town, it stumbled into an atmosphere in which
+nothing seemed sure, save that there was change; that Eshwara was not
+what it had been.
+
+To begin with, it held soldiers. Wherefore? And why had dead women been
+sent back to it by Mother Ganges to curse the men whose love had killed
+them?
+
+But what wonder, when the very logs, the fishes, were stolen from the
+river nowadays; and from the people also. Then what of this strange new
+light? The light which fed on men's brains!--that came and went at
+pleasure--that was quite small at first, when but seven or eight men
+had been sacrificed, but which, only an hour or so agone, had showed in
+a huge ray, feeling here and there through the darkness for God knows
+what, then settling on it, making it impossible to hide aught, prying
+into the very Holiest of Holies! Had it not shot into Mother Kali's
+very temple, and shown the worshippers that two of her mighty arms were
+stuck on with sealing wax! What God would stand that! And how could the
+very Gods themselves work miracles if everybody could see how they were
+done?
+
+They had already refused to work them for pious _jogi_ Gorakh-nath.
+What wonder? The Gods did not like laughter, especially the laughter of
+_M'llechas_.[10]
+
+Therefore, who was to tell if the spring would even rise in the Pool?
+So those who were wise would make certain of at least a modicum of
+salvation, and go straight to the bathing-steps; since the river,
+anyhow, must be there.
+
+This suggestion of a cautious hedge was diligently spread by the
+bathing-_ghat_ priests among the new arrivals; who listened patiently.
+But so they did also to the other priests whose business it was to
+scorn the possibility of failure, and to deny the displeasure of the
+Gods. To say that _jogi_ Gorakh-nath had been found out by the
+_Huzoors_ in one of his usual tricks; that was all. So that people who
+wanted the genuine article, and a real, good, old crusted miracle, had
+better come as usual to the Pool.
+
+The weary-footed, anxious-eyed climbers of the golden stairs listened
+patiently, silently, even when the antagonists began, in vehement
+quarrel, to bandy threats, and hint at worse portents to come. To their
+experience, their hope, it seemed impossible even to dream their
+pilgrimage in vain. The dawn would show, anyhow. So hour by hour,
+minute by minute, the tide of pilgrims set citywards till it brimmed
+over with faith and hope. And these are dangerous things when charity
+depends on them, and there are antagonistic claims to every alms. So
+Eshwara was restless.
+
+Over in the gaol, also, by which the golden-shod feet passed so closely
+with their heart-stirring cry, it seemed as if Vincent Dering's
+thrumming, following as it did on the heels of Eugene Smith's success
+with the search light, had set what Dr. Dillon called his Hosts of the
+Devil in commotion. Indeed, that thrumming was still going on when
+George Dillon had gone raging over to conjure the experimenter, with
+oaths, to turn off his confounded bull's-eye at once, or the prisoners
+would go out of their judgment with thinking of the number who would
+have to die that night in order to keep up the supply of brain
+power!--just too, as he had been congratulating himself that the
+cholera scare was over. Seventy-two hours, and not a case! It was too
+bad!
+
+Eugene, whom he found on the roof of his house playing with coils,
+batteries, accumulators, had suggested eagerly that if there was real
+trouble, he might end it by turning his light bang on to the gaol, and
+so reducing it to a paralysis of sheer terror. Dr. Dillon, however, had
+sworn violently that he would not have the poor wretches frightened
+unnecessarily, especially when that triumphant cry of those who were
+free to defy the devil by seeking sanctification before death reminded
+them that _they_ could not--that they must die defiled, helpless,
+hopeless! That fear was, he said, in a way dignified, worthy of
+consideration. And he did not anticipate trouble unless there was
+treachery inside or out, though perhaps he might, as a precaution, ask
+Dering for an extra guard. But when the latter happened to come in, as
+Mrs. Smith's escort home, while the doctor was still there, Dr. Dillon
+apparently changed his mind. Anyhow, he pooh-poohed Captain Dering's
+offer to send one, saying, the more you could keep a gaol to yourself
+the better--or for the matter of that anything else! So, with a curt
+good-night to Mrs. Smith, he went back to his work, leaving Vincent to
+remark, carelessly, that Dillon seemed in a bad temper. At which Muriel
+smiled. There was something in the air, she said, conducive to bad
+temper. She, herself, felt she must soon have quarrelled with the
+doctor's assumption of knowing better than anyone else; so it was as
+well he had not stopped to dinner. Her quarrelsomeness did not,
+however, extend to Vincent, who did; indeed, she made herself so
+tenderly charming and unconsciously friendly towards him that he began
+to accuse himself of having been too irresponsive of late. The fact of
+being in love did not preclude friendship for someone else, if, indeed,
+he was really in love with Laila Bonaventura? In one way he knew
+himself to be so; but the idea of treating this love of his on
+conventional lines was still repugnant to him; the thought of her, as
+his wife, barely attractive.
+
+So, after a time spent pleasantly enough for those two, Eugene Smith
+went off to his coils, and accumulators, and batteries, half-sulky,
+half-bored, and wholly ill-used at having to switch off, when he had at
+least half an hour's electricity all ready stored for use.
+
+He was grumbling over this fact when Vincent called good-night to him
+before starting to drive back; and he answered that but for fools, who
+were afraid of going to their proper place, he might have given Dering
+electric light on the road.
+
+"No, thanks!" cried Vincent, gaily, "there's enough electricity in the
+air to-night without that. I believe your machine has leaked, Smith! I
+feel as if I should give out sparks if anyone touched me!"
+
+As he drove across the bridge Eshwara looked as if it were doing that,
+too. There were lights everywhere, twinkling, little, restless lights.
+The very spit, usually dark with the darkness of primitive life after
+sundown, was alive with them; for the pilgrims were camping there, as
+elsewhere. Nor were all the fisher folk abed as usual, for that,
+surely, was one of them paddling up stream on a dug-out,--just under
+the last span of the bridge. He saw the man distinctly, not five yards
+from him in the flash of the lamps as he drove past overhead, and
+wondered what the mischief the fellow was doing at that time of night,
+going up stream.
+
+Something to be ashamed of, no doubt, else why should he have sent the
+dug-out beyond the circle of light with a swift stroke?
+
+Truly Father Ninian was right; Eshwara was not normal. Its pulse beat
+irregularly, and things were going on which should not be going on--
+
+A sudden shame made him glance at the shadowed pile of the palace
+looming above the shadowed town. It was all dark, save for one row of
+restless, twinkling lights. Those were the little latticed windows of
+Laila's sitting-room, that was fit for any king's favourite. He had
+seen it already, might see it again at twelve, if she was in one of her
+reckless moods when she would risk anything for his sake.
+
+Truly! there were things going on!--
+
+But this was between themselves; this could hurt no one. By and by, of
+course, he would insist on a commonplace engagement, and a wedding.
+Yes! a commonplace wedding. He had, despite his vague repugnance to her
+origin, made up his mind to that. No one but an utter cad could take
+what he was taking, and then shake his bridle rein and ride away. But
+for the present, it was the most absolutely perfect bit of romance in
+his whole life. He could not, would not give it up. Laila was right!
+This was the essence. As a rule, people mixed love, diluted it, were
+vaguely ashamed of its absorbing influence. But when you came to
+analyze even the diluted feeling, its virtue lay in this irrational
+content, this desire for nothing better than this best of
+pleasures--this paradise of a woman's or a man's love.
+
+He laughed, suddenly, at the memory of Laila's quick grasp of his
+meaning when Muriel had overheard his remark about the time. Such
+quickness, in the latter, would have made him revolt from it; but with
+Laila it was different. A passionate gratitude to the girl to whom
+fear, remorse, the very possibility of change seemed unknown, rose up
+and claimed him. Dear little girl! She was so absolutely single-minded
+in her love for him. How could anyone expect him to forego the luxury
+of such love yet awhile?
+
+In thinking Laila single-minded, Vincent thought the truth, so far as
+he was concerned. If love, passionate as Juliet's, and far more
+innocent in one way, far more _ruse_ in another, ever existed, hers was
+that love. Nevertheless, its very integrity made her curiously cunning
+in regard to anything which threatened to disturb that idyll in the
+garden. So, at that very moment, when Vincent looked up at her windows
+asserting her absolute lack of pretence and single-mindedness, she was
+pitting her wits against old Akbar Khan in a manner worthy of her
+grandmother, Anari Begum; since Akbar, far more than her guardian, was
+to be feared. The latter, honest man, went to his bed, beyond the
+chapel, at ten of the clock precisely; but Akbar, who from ancient
+habit was given to prowling about at night, and napping in odd corners,
+had many chances of discovery. During the last few days, however, when
+she, for her own purposes, had let him talk, he had become so garrulous
+regarding his past that she had recognized in him an unscrupulous
+confidant, with whom, in face of the possibility of requiring one, it
+was wise to remain on terms.
+
+So, as she lounged on the sofa, she listened to his endless talk with
+tolerance.
+
+"Nay!" she interrupted at last. "If, as thou sayest she will, she
+brings me more dresses and jewels, she may call me Begum, and hint at
+my being one, really, a thousand times over! Why not? Begum and
+Princess are the same, and my great-grandmother in Italy was that.
+Pidar Narayan told me so to-day."
+
+The memory of the old man's voice, when, with new-found courage, she
+had questioned him concerning those old days, made her eyes soft. Yes!
+he would, he _must_ understand. So, by and by, when Vincent and she
+were tired of playing Romeo and Juliet (the story of the star-crossed
+lovers had been her only reading since Vincent had taken to quoting so
+much from it) they would make Pidar Narayan play Friar Laurence, and
+marry them on the sly. That would be so much more amusing than a
+regular wedding. He could not refuse, since he had once loved as she
+loved. You could hear that in his voice; after how many years?--fifty
+or sixty! And the Princess had, of course, loved also in exactly the
+same way. Laila felt sure of it. That curious, inexpressible feeling
+had come to her also. Laila, trying to formulate that feeling, slipping
+her heel idly in and out of her dainty little bronze shoe as she
+lounged, suddenly remembered Vincent's song to the tambourine, and
+laughed. That was it!
+
+
+                  "Golden feet upon a golden stair."
+
+
+That expressed it exactly. Two pair of feet going side by side up a
+golden stair, to golden gates. So contented. Ah, God! how content!
+Seeking something, claiming something, yet still content. That feeling
+came, sometimes, when you were saying your prayers. A sort of yearning
+_for_, a sort of satisfaction _in_, something that was not you; so,
+surely if it came _then_, there could be no harm in it.
+
+Harm! The very sisters allowed that you must love the man you were
+going to marry. And she and Vincent would be married by and by and live
+happily, for that was better than having a "_statue of pure gold_"
+erected to you! In the meantime, secrecy, so long as Vincent wished to
+play Romeo and Juliet, was her cue; therefore, the more she could blind
+old Akbar, the more he could be turned on a wrong track, the better.
+Especially when the turning was so delightfully ridiculous!
+
+She managed, however, not to laugh her childish love of mischief into
+Mumtaza Mahal's very face when, after much shrinking into white sheets
+held up as screens, and quick cuddlings into corners at the faintest
+suspicion of a possible peep, that good lady, in her very, very best
+pink satin continuations, was ushered in through the dark deserted
+passages of the palace, to Laila's boudoir. For, despite the amusement,
+the girl's heart was beating fast with determination to climb her
+golden stairs without interruption. So she allowed herself to be
+_kow-towed_ to, and called Begum-_sahiba_ and she accepted the new
+dress and jewels without protest. Eagerly, in fact, since they were far
+more gorgeous than the first, and caught her taste better. The former,
+indeed, had been Roshan Khan's own choice, dictated by his acquired
+knowledge of the sort of things _mem-sahibs_ admired; these latter were
+her grandmother's, purely, entirely oriental. The difference was great.
+Put briefly, _this_ was the costume in which Anari Begum had flouted
+the Nawab, the _other_ that in which she had caught Bun-avatar's fancy.
+
+Laila took up one of the heavy, gorgeous, glittering garments. It smelt
+strongly of musk, attar of roses, and jasmin, and she snuffed at it
+with a smile. That was ever so much better than the dull lavender
+water, which was the only scent her guardian said a lady could use.
+Vincent would like that; he, like she did, loved strong scents. If only
+the stupid old frumpish thing would go away in time, she would put on
+that dress at once, and so give him pleasure. That was all her thought.
+
+As she sat, with a happy smile, her face half-buried in a tiny,
+three-cornered corselet of scarlet net embroidered in seed pearls,
+Mumtaza and Akbar Khan winked at each other; and Laila's sharp eyes,
+catching this, brimmed over with laughter. She felt glad the rest of
+her face was hidden, until she was grave enough to reply graciously to
+the hints, the suggestions; for Mumtaza had been bound over by oaths
+not to go too fast, and she obeyed her instructions.
+
+Even so, Akbar Khan, listening with folded hands in a mantis-like
+attitude, his angles all crushed together into humility, wondered if he
+was standing on his head or his heels, as he heard Laila admit,
+gravely, that she was certainly, in a way, the head of the family, in
+that she possessed its land; but that, of course, Roshan was really the
+heir. That it had given her great gratification to see how thoroughly
+he had adopted English ways. That, of course, it would be impossible
+for him to marry an uneducated cow of a girl. Here, for a moment, she
+had relapsed to sincerity in order to remark that it must be impossible
+to love a person you had not seen, and that for her part, she knew in
+an instant if she was going to like or dislike people. If the latter,
+she tried never to see them, really, again. Then, remembering her part,
+she had resumed it hastily by saying that no doubt she would see more
+of her cousin,--who, by the way, was very nice-looking,--in the future,
+as he was quite in society.
+
+Old Mumtaza had hard work at this juncture to prevent herself from
+cracking all her finger-joints over the girl's head for luck, and
+wishing her a numerous offspring; while Akbar gave a gasp that was not
+all pleasure. He felt that he was being rushed, that the crisis might
+come before he was ready for it. At this rate, Pidar Narayan would have
+no chance of dying. At this rate, Roshan Khan's castle in the air must
+topple over from sheer lack of foundation to such a lofty structure.
+
+As he trotted back beside Mumtaza's curtained _dhooli_ to that little
+parasite of a house against the palace wall, where he knew Roshan was
+waiting for the upshot of the interview, his one consolation was that
+bow-strings were out of fashion!
+
+In truth, there was no more restless man in Eshwara that night than
+Roshan Khan. The desire for this paradise had grown overwhelming, and
+as he listened to his grandmother, while Akbar pointed each triumphant
+appeal of the old lady's with a helpless "_Gereeb-pun-was_," his face
+grew pale with emotion; until, at the mention of his good looks and
+Laila's desire to see him, he turned fiercely to the go-between, and
+bade him fix a time; the sooner the better!
+
+Akbar felt inclined to tell the truth then. To admit that he had never
+breathed a word of Roshan's pretensions to the Miss-_sahiba_ and that,
+so far, the negotiations only existed in his own imaginings. But the
+look on Roshan's face--he had seen it often in his youth in connection
+with women, and sacks, and bow-strings--reduced him to protestations.
+He would do his best, he said, but with Pidar Narayan it would be
+difficult to manage.
+
+Roshan strode about the little courtyard like a wild beast in a
+cage, biting his mustache, and thinking. Then he turned to the old
+phrase-monger.
+
+"I have settled it. Before dawn to-morrow--not this dawn, that is too
+nigh on us now--but the next, thou shalt let me into the garden. Thou
+knowest the little balcony which was not lit up? I will stay there,
+waiting, till she come for an early walk among the flowers. That can be
+managed. Then, if the coast is clear, we can meet and talk. If not,
+there is no harm done, for I can slip into the stream and swim back.
+That will be best, since it is not possible by day, and at night the
+_mems_ do not receive visitors, as we do, without reproach."
+
+Roshan's knowledge of etiquette was sound, yet at that very moment
+Laila, ablaze with gold and jewels, was meeting her lover's eyes with a
+happy laugh.
+
+"What's in a dress?" she paraphrased, "it is no part of me!"
+
+Was it not? Never had Vincent seen her look like this; so absolutely
+desirable, so perfectly adorable.
+
+He caught her in his arms and kissed her. The heavy scent upon her
+dress assailed him. She looked up into his eyes and laughed.
+
+"_But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true_," she whispered,
+"_than those who have more cunning to be strange_."
+
+"Juliet!" he whispered back, lost in his own mad passion. "Juliet!"
+
+Their gold-shod feet were upon the golden stairs; the gates of Paradise
+were before them.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII
+
+                       THE POOL OF IMMORTALITY
+
+
+"_Hara! Hari! Hari! Hara!_"
+
+The cry was incessant now, for there was a glint of light in the east;
+and the hosts of pilgrims to the 'Cradle of the Gods' were cramming,
+almost to solidity, each street and alley in Eshwara which could be
+said, by however long and tortuous a detour, to give access to that
+small tank where, at dawn, the miraculous waters of cleansing would
+rise, as they always did on this, the great Day of Atonement. In the
+sea of slightly upturned faces, upturned in the vain hope of seeing
+over the heads of those in front, the most noticeable thing was the
+expression of mingled eagerness and patience. And this was most
+noticeable in those who stood nearest to the bamboo railing which had
+been erected (in a square some four feet from the first step downwards)
+as a precaution against a dangerous rush on all sides; and in
+consequence, a dangerous crush on those steep steps. The only entrance
+to them, therefore, was by a sort of double sheep-pen at the end
+nearest the town, by means of which, when the time came, some fifty
+bathers would be admitted to the railed square from the inner pen,
+their places in which would be taken by the fifty in the outer one;
+their places, in turn, being filled by fifty from the general crowd. By
+which double check no more than fifty could stand at one time with no
+barrier between their mortality and immortality! The railing itself was
+guarded every two yards by a yellow-legged constable, and at the
+sheep-pens stood the two European police-officers in whose hands the
+peace and order of the vast crowd lay. Their assistant stood at the
+exit gate at the other end, and their three white helmets showed
+strangely conspicuous amongst the bare or saffron-turbaned heads.
+
+The two at the sheep-pens were talking and laughing to each other as
+Englishmen will before business begins; talking and laughing London
+talk, for one of them was fresh from home furlough, and had only been
+detailed for this special duty, on his way up country.
+
+"Yes! I had a jolly day," he was saying. "The dear old Heath was
+looking just as it always did. It was like being born again to come
+back to the whole caboodle--Aunt Sallies, Tommy Dods, Welshers, and the
+lot--and then the enclosure--" A sudden sway in the crowd made him look
+round hastily at his own. It was all correct; so many yards this way,
+so many that, with yellow legs marking the yards, and those three white
+helmets marking the limits within which regeneration was legal.
+
+The sway ceased. The moment had not yet come, though slowly, surely,
+the light grew, to give the great mass of bronze faces a greyish,
+corpse-like tint, while, half way up the sky behind them, the serrated
+edge of the sacred snows grew pale, and cold, and stern, like the very
+face of Death itself.
+
+"_Hari! Hara! Hara! Hari!_"
+
+There was a note of anxiety in the cry now; for the shadow thrown by
+the tall houses which hemmed in the wide courtyard was growing paler,
+and in another minute, at most, the twelve-foot square of cleansing
+water, which was all the Gods vouchsafed, must surely begin to rise and
+show at the bottom of those worn stone steps--worn by generations on
+generations of golden-shod feet seeking immortality.
+
+"Stand back, please! Not yet!" came an English voice, inaudible for the
+rhythmic roar of the multitude; but the raised riding whip was
+sufficient. The eagerness died out for a moment from those nearest
+faces, lost in a cheerful obedience, a respectful _salaam_ or two, a
+general acquiescence.
+
+"I wish those devils of priests would turn on the tap," remarked the
+other Englishman with a yawn.
+
+"Yes!" answered the first speaker; "if you are on duty, next year, I'd
+insist on the curtain being rung up at the bill time. It is rough on
+the audience; especially when they don't cat-call!"
+
+He gave an imitation of a London gallery's sign of impatience, which
+made some of the golden-shod ones stare; for the rhythmic roar had died
+down in one of those sudden silences which seize upon humanity even
+when in masses. So that a faint "_rumpa-tum-tum-rumpa-tum-tum_" was
+distinctly audible from far. It was the _tom-tom_ of the old Brahmin,
+whom Lance Carlyon had seen selling the endless circles of cut papers
+as a whole pantheon of Gods.
+
+It is an eminently disturbing sound, that ceaseless, insistent throb of
+a _tom-tom_, which has no end, no beginning; which holds ever in its
+beat the necessity for something more; for another repetition, and yet
+another.
+
+So, on its ceaselessness, broke in again that swaying, pulsing roar of
+many voices.
+
+"_Hari! Hara!_ Life-Death-Creator-Destroyer!"
+
+"Something must have gone wrong with the ball-cock, and as usual, the
+plumber will be '_in directly from another little job_,'" said the man
+who had just come out from England, reminiscently. He had gone there to
+settle his wife and bairns in a jerry-built villa near London; so the
+memory of something beyond the iniquities of the plumber--those Borgias
+of modern life, dealing death unchecked, undiscovered--made his eyes
+pass beyond the crowd, pass the spires of the clustered temples, and
+settle on the still dark, western sky, over whose curved edge lay the
+goal of _his_ solitary feet, the end of _his_ pilgrimage, the cradle of
+_his_ divinities.
+
+"Stand back, please! not yet!" came his order again; and once more
+eagerness died down to obedience. Once more that cry on the Creator,
+the Destroyer, ended in that insistent, restless beat of the old
+god-selling Brahmin's drum.
+
+It was a strange scene. Above, was the growing light of day; below, the
+square stone font of immortality, and between them a clamouring crowd,
+a careless few.
+
+And between _them_ what?
+
+A light railing of bamboo, the dignity that doth hedge an empire. That
+was all.
+
+And now, with a sudden access of light, came the quick indrawing breath
+of thousands to voice a sort of sharp, short sob, followed by an
+instant's silence.
+
+Then, long, soft, with the hush in it of some huge wave far out at sea
+which swallows up a lesser one, the out-going breath of those thousands
+voiced a sigh.
+
+For the pool was still empty, though the dawn had come.
+
+Something was wrong.
+
+Seriously wrong, to judge by one English face, as it turned to give a
+look round, then settled on another English face. "There's something
+up--God knows what--the Commissioner feared a row, you know. You'd
+better go to the Fort and ask Dering to send us down every man he can;
+men, you understand, not sabres--as yet. And tell Pidar Narayan, he's a
+host in himself with these pilgrims,--Ramanund too, you might get
+him,--we want anyone who can help the crowd to keep its temper, though
+I don't expect he'd be much good--and there's no one else. Inspector!"
+here the police officer turned to a silver-laced turban beside the
+outer pen, "leave that in charge of Govinda and Suchet--Stay! Shiv-deo
+will be better; he is a high-caste Brahmin. And you go and send every
+twice-born constable you've got, _and can trust_, to every alley and
+street that leads here; for there will be an awful crush when those
+in front don't move on. And--" he wrinkled his forehead in hasty
+thought--"have we anyone connected with the temple priests, someone
+they can trust? Ah! Annant, of course,--the very man! Send him to find
+out if there is anything really wrong; and--" he lowered his voice, "if
+it is anything to do with the siphon, or whatever it is, get workmen
+and set it straight--pour water down--anything! Only there _must be a
+miracle_. And be quick. If this crowd gets impatient--God help it!"
+
+The last was to himself as he looked round the solid packed mass of
+humanity. There was no sigh of impatience in it as yet; only eagerness.
+
+"And mind," he added, "no truncheons drawn till I myself give the
+order."
+
+The word passed in a low tone round the square of authority, and that
+done, the head of it pulled out his cigar case. He might as well smoke
+while he could.
+
+The crowd watched him, vaguely interested at his lack of interest in
+what was coming, until a faint forward sweep, a half-hearted shout came
+from behind; from those upturned faces which could not even see an
+Englishman lighting his cigar.
+
+"Not yet! Stand back!" said the latter again, as the pressure on the
+sheep pen grew. And they stood back, all save a miserable-looking,
+dirt-clad, wild-eyed mendicant, who had wormed his way to the front,
+and now feared to lose it.
+
+"Lo! brother," said big Govinda, a Sikh from Patiala, as he thrust him
+back gently, "have patience awhile. Give the Gods time. There is not
+water to wash a babe yet."
+
+Shiv-deo, taller even than Govinda, a Saraswati Brahmin, if ever there
+was one, at the other side of the pen, twirled his mustache airily, and
+laughed. "Nay, Govinda," he called, "let the beggar in. He seeks but to
+drown vermin."
+
+The rude jest served its turn, after the manner of policemen's jokes
+all over the world. The crowd close at hand tittered, caught up the
+cue, amused itself with additions; and those behind forgot the great
+question in curiosity. But not for long.
+
+"_Hara! Hari! Hari! Hara!_"
+
+The roar of relief rose up tumultuously, the mass of people swayed with
+that curious sidelong motion of a forward crowd, as, in the clear
+light, a trickle of water showed through the crevices of the paving
+stones at the bottom of the tank.
+
+"Look out!" shouted the Englishman; but remonstrance in words was
+useless in that storm of sound. So big Govinda promptly snatched two
+intruders out of his pen, like puppies, by the scruff of their necks,
+one in each hand; and Shiv-deo, choosing out the nearest low-caste man
+unerringly, caught him in his arms like a baby, and literally tossed
+him on to the heads of the crowd, with a shout which, even in that
+uproar, could be heard of some in that nearest crush.
+
+"Brahmins first, washerman! Thy sort can bathe in the suds of our
+clothes!"
+
+And those who heard, ducked, and when the victim--who was _not_ a
+washerman--fell amongst them, hustled and silenced him, and nodded to
+the big man whose claim to dignity was writ so plain upon his face.
+
+But despite ready wit and sheer strength, one determined fellow would
+have made good his entrance, and so served as a bell-wether to that
+overwhelming flock, if a white hand and arm with silver buttons
+on the cuff--holding a silver-mounted hunting-crop, clubbed savagely
+short--had not come down-glinting in the first sunray like a
+sword--clear on the bare head as it ducked under the barrier.
+
+The intruder, a big burly devotee, dropped on his face like a stone;
+then, to the striker's relief, sat up, and apparently howled;
+apparently, because that rhythmic roar smothered all individual sound.
+
+"_Hara! Hari! Hara! Hari!_"
+
+Suddenly, as it had begun, it stopped; for that faint inrush of water
+had stopped also; stopped, hesitated, then sunk out of sight again with
+a sort of drowning gurgle that came as an accompaniment to the only
+other sound; the insistent throbbing of the old God-maker's drum in the
+distance.
+
+"Not enough pressure!" murmured the police officer to himself, judging
+that an attempt had been made to fill the tank in some new way. Then he
+frowned. There would be pressure enough and to spare among the crowd
+soon, most likely. What could be done to prevent it?
+
+"Halt! by your right--single file!"
+
+The order came, far back, from the widest street, and it was full ten
+minutes ere Lance Carlyon, with a following of Sikh pioneers, armed
+with spades and picks, could edge through the crowd, though it still
+yielded room to authority without a murmur. He had been on his way with
+a fatigue party to finish clearing the camp, when the assistant
+superintendent of police had met him, in the bazaar, and told him he
+was wanted.
+
+"Send four of your men to clear the mud from the crevices of the
+stones," said the police officer, seizing on a possible diversion
+gladly, "it will serve to keep the crowd amused till Dering brings his
+men down."
+
+As the four stalwart pioneers stepped to their work of making miracles,
+a stir of expectation ran through those first rows who could see.
+"Surely," they said to each other, "if the Masters took the job in
+hand, the Gods must needs send the water."
+
+"Of a surety!" said Shiv-deo, catching the comment. "Do not the Gods
+always befriend the bold? Do not we, of Harriana, find the sacred river
+which the devils hid, though we have to dig three-hundred-feet wells to
+find it?"
+
+This allusion to the extraordinarily deep wells dug by the peasantry in
+the almost rainless tract beneath which, so the legend goes, the river
+Saraswati still runs, passed from mouth to mouth consolingly.
+
+Yea, if devils hid water, men found it.
+
+Why not these men? since nothing was impossible to a miracle.
+
+The sun was shining broadly now, as if it had been up for hours, and
+showed, far as the eye could reach down every lane and street and
+alley, nothing but that sea of upturned faces converging to one centre;
+wonderfully still, wonderfully patient.
+
+"I wish someone would stop that cursed drum," said Lance, suddenly,
+"it's enough to give anyone the fidgets. I feel myself--" he broke off,
+and his memory going back to his jesting remark to Erda, his young face
+clouded. Was it possible he should never see her again? Was it possible
+that the Reverend David was to claim his paradise? He felt savage at
+the very thought, impatient, full of an almost righteous anger at
+everything, especially the drum-banger for making such an infernal
+noise.
+
+And now, far back as before, an English voice could be heard giving an
+order. It was to loosen scabbards this time, and the police officer
+looked up hastily. It meant that, for the first time, the crowd must be
+hesitating in its quick obedience to command; perhaps because most of
+the troopers were Mahomedans.
+
+"I hope they'll get through without using them," said the man
+responsible for peace and order, "but, steady! please, in case of a
+rush. Remember that if we yield more foot-room, someone _must_ fall;
+then there will be the devil to pay. At present they are so tight
+packed they can't."
+
+That, indeed, was the position. So long as authority could prevent
+those few yards of clear space about the pool being encroached upon,
+there was safety. So the barrier of men waited anxiously.
+
+But no rush came; the reason of this being made clear when the file of
+troopers appeared, led by old Pidar Narayan, who had joined the party
+at the crucial moment, and piloted them through the crowd, which gave
+way to his well-known figure with absolute alacrity. He turned at the
+entrance, to hold up his hand in priestly fashion.
+
+"Patience, my children!" he said sternly. "Tarry ye the Lord's leisure!
+Let Him do what seemeth Him good!"
+
+The idea, familiar to the least of them, brought instant assent and a
+sort of relieved sigh from those who heard it. Here was something they
+could understand. A man, set apart from others by his dress, his life,
+his invariable assumption of authority, his unquestioned claim to be
+mediator between the dim, inaccessible Creator and his creatures, to be
+interpreter of the hidden Mind.
+
+But the police officer heaved _his_ sigh of relief over the appearance
+of more matter. His barrier could now be one of men, standing shoulder
+to shoulder.
+
+And such a barrier would soon be needed, since this latest contingent
+brought discouraging news. The priests were helpless. The secret supply
+had somehow been tampered with, but where, not even they could tell
+without help. And though they had sent, long before dawn, to both Am-ma
+and Gu-gu--the only two men likely to know anything or be able to do
+anything--neither could be found.
+
+"And won't be," interrupted Vincent, suddenly remembering, as he
+listened, what he had seen the night before. "They are most likely in
+the plot; one of them, at any rate, was going up the Hari in a dug-out
+late last night."
+
+"Not Am-ma," put in Lance. "He started before that to go up the Hara
+and pilot down a raft for the forest officer. I met him as I came back
+to dinner."
+
+"Well, he is not get-at-able anyhow, and that's all we have to
+consider," said the police officer. "Briefly, the miracle is off the
+bill. Now, how the deuce are we to get the audience to go away
+peacefully?"
+
+"Perhaps if I, as a fellow-countryman, and a Brahmin, were to address
+them--" began Ramanund, who had come down with Pidar Narayan, feeling
+important at being summoned.
+
+The latter turned to the man, whom he knew had long since rejected the
+faith of his fathers, and, so to speak, thrown the Almighty overboard
+to lighten his ship.
+
+"You cannot argue with that, my son!" he said gently, pointing to the
+sea of patient, yet eager, faces. "No one of your sort ever has, in all
+the history of the world. _That_ does not reason. It feels. Show it
+another miracle, and it will worship. Give it a cause, and it will
+espouse it. Give it a lead, and it will follow; but words--never!"
+
+"Well, I hope to God no one will supply it with the wrong lead!" put in
+the police officer. "For the rest, we must hold the fort, I suppose.
+Inspector! when is the show--the miracle, I mean,--supposed to end?"
+
+"Not till sunset, sir," said the man, _salaaming_.
+
+"And it's now about six, I suppose. Eleven hours!" He took out his
+cigar-case and counted. "Yes! I'll last through. Inspector! Close your
+men in, and let them stand at ease. Captain Dering, if you can spare
+yours till then, I shall be obliged."
+
+"Certainly. I left a troop with Roshan Khan, and orders to send word of
+any disturbance; and I wired to Dillon in case--"
+
+Father Ninian shook his head. "There is no fear till this is settled."
+He pointed to the Pool.
+
+And he was right. All through the long hot hours the crowd waited.
+Sometimes the cry, "_Hara! Hari!_" burst out, to be followed by a faint
+rush. Sometimes the great mass stood silent, listening to the insistent
+throbbing of the old God-maker's drum in the distance, but through it
+all the note was patience. And it was patience, also, in the square
+enclosure of authority. Sometimes a would-be intruder would be lifted
+like a puppy, and chucked back to his fellows. Once or twice an English
+arm would go up, and come down on some more wilful head; but that was
+all.
+
+And far away at the Fort the gong chimed the hours regularly up to
+twelve, and begun at one again.
+
+But there was no fuss, no noise. The crowd stood their ground, giving
+no inch, and authority stood its ground and yielded none, since in that
+lay safety for all.
+
+So, with a horrible slowness, the day dragged on, until at last the red
+sun sank behind the levels beyond the gaol; and the strain was over!
+
+"I'll take a biscuit in my pocket next time," said the police officer,
+cheerfully, as, bit by bit, the stones of the courtyard began to show
+between the golden-shod feet. "Inspector! send your men to quarters,
+and let them eat their food." Then he walked over and looked down into
+the deep empty tank.
+
+"It might have been full up," he said. "We couldn't have stopped them
+for a moment if they had had any sort of a lead over. And from what you
+told the Commissioner, sir,"--he turned to Father Ninian--"I was afraid
+of one."
+
+The old priest stood watching the crowd disperse for a moment in
+silence.
+
+"So was I," he said, "but I was mistaken, so far. Still, there is
+danger in the air. I feel it. I hear it."
+
+And as he spoke, above the hum of the crowd, silent no longer, rose
+that insistent throbbing of the old God-maker's drum.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XVIII
+
+                                ADRIFT
+
+
+Erda Shepherd stood in her bedroom, under the wood-shingled house at
+Herrnhut, looking at a heap of white muslin and delicate embroideries
+which lay upon her bed.
+
+It was the wedding dress. She had just unpacked it; partly because she
+felt _dec[oe]uvre_, partly in the hope that the sight of it, ready to
+be worn so soon, would still the vague disquiet of which she was
+conscious. Yet if anyone had ventured to suggest, when she had said
+good-by to Lance Carlyon the evening before,--said good-by almost
+carelessly, by reason of the fervid enthusiasm which absorbed
+her,--that within twenty-four hours the wisdom of the farewell should
+seem logically doubtful, she would have been desperately angry.
+
+But she was too honest to deny that the doubt had come. Come in a
+moment, wildly, passionately, when they had thwarted her desire of
+joining in the crusade over the other side of the river along the
+pilgrims' road. She had meant to go with David, who was to take up his
+position at a camping-ground some six miles off, and she had fought
+hard for the privilege. But they had quoted Scripture at her to prove
+that a wife, or a wife to be, must needs hamper a man more than any
+other woman, even his sister. David had been kind about it, almost too
+kind. She flushed a little at the recollection of his words, his look;
+for that sort of thing had scarcely come into her calculations. But Dr.
+Campbell had pompously reminded her that her future profession would be
+wife, caretaker, sympathizer, and general bolsterer--up to a worker.
+Nor need she think the task small; it was the noblest one a woman could
+have. He had gone on to comfort her with instances of such general
+support from his own life and those of his friends, until, with a
+flash, that unexpected questioning had come to the girl's mind. She had
+asked herself what difference there was in the nobility of being one
+man's wife or another's--provided the man was worthy and his work in
+the world good?
+
+Father Ninian's words, "_I can wish no better wish for you and for the
+world_," had come back to her then, as if in answer to her questioning.
+
+And, even now, they echoed in her heart. The house was very quiet, very
+shadowy, for the sun left the little oasis of valley set in its
+circling wilderness of hill, long before a fraction of light faded from
+the sky above it. She could hear Mrs. Campbell's voice down the little
+ladder-like stairs, conferring with the cook over the wedding cake,
+and, in a side-issue, exhorting him to be sure and have the soup hot in
+case the workers might return exhausted, and require something to eat
+the moment they arrived.
+
+Erda sat down on the bed beside the white muslin, and fingered the
+quaint little cap idly, as she told herself that such things would be a
+part of her duties in the future.
+
+But only a part. Life was no unknown country to this girl, who had
+spent years in a medical mission. She was no ignorant baby, standing,
+in a fashion happily past, on the verge of she knew not what. She
+looked ahead calmly, taking the world as the Creator made it. She
+thought, without a flush, as good women do, of the children she hoped
+might come; and as she thought, she frowned, not from any revolt of her
+spiritual or physical nature, but because, once more, the question
+arose: "Was not Lance right? Was not this the essence? Was it not
+everything to be sure of the inheritance?"
+
+She started up at the sound of her aunt calling her, glad of the
+interruption.
+
+Had she not better, the good lady suggested, try on the dress, now she
+was about it, since if there was anything amiss, the sooner the tailor
+set to work to rectify it the better.
+
+Undoubtedly. Besides, she told herself, the mere putting on of this,
+the sign of her new profession, would be healthful. It would give her
+the feeling of being set apart for the life which she had chosen
+deliberately, chosen with her eyes open, though, maybe, focussed too
+much on that mental companionship. Too much? Impossible! Lance was
+wrong. That was the crowning glory of marriage; and even if it seemed
+hard to have to stand aside from actually fighting the good fight, the
+victory would be hers--hers almost more than her husband's, since the
+effort would be greater, the work more against the grain.
+
+Yes, she would try on the dress; and if it did not fit perfectly, what
+matter?
+
+Was anything in the world perfect? Yet it should be as perfect as she
+could compass; even the little cap should not lack its bunch of orange
+blossoms! As she told herself this she was for the time womanhood
+incarnate; womanhood playing, with dainty little tendernesses and
+conceits, about the abyss for which it is responsible. So, with the
+smile of an angel, she passed into the garden, the old militant feeling
+at her heart. Her feet were on the golden stairs. She was going to
+regain the lost Paradise hand in hand with one of those whom she had
+driven from it. They were going to forget all the consequences of that
+mistake. They were going to be--what?...
+
+The vague confusion did not prevent her feeling that she was absolutely
+certain she was on the right path. Indeed, the only regret of which she
+was conscious was one that she was not on the other side of the river,
+on the pilgrims' road, with the rest of the mission.
+
+She stood looking over to the frowning cliffs from the little wooden
+landing-stage, built out at the bottom of the garden into the wide
+shallows of the river, which here showed scarcely a streak or dimple of
+current. She could see the mission boat lying moored on the other side,
+against the fighters' return.
+
+Yet the very idea of fight seemed impossible, she thought, in that
+utter peacefulness and stillness. The rim of dark hills circled the
+jewel of the sun-bright sky tenderly, as if it sought to keep in the
+heavy, sweet perfume of the orange blossoms which starred every tree in
+the wide, fruitful garden. They were famous oranges, those in the
+Herrnhut garden; grafts brought by a missionary from Malta. Mrs.
+Campbell, notable woman as she was, made a steady income for good works
+out of the sale of the great red-skinned, red-hearted fruit, and prided
+herself in keeping them later on her trees than anyone in India.
+Indeed, in the shadier, colder alleys some were still hanging side by
+side with the new blossoms. A sort of example to these novices, showing
+them what their real work in the world ought to be! Erda, smiling at
+her own conceit, stroked one of the warm yet stainless petals in the
+bunch she held as if it were a sentient thing. Perhaps it was. Who
+knows!
+
+As she turned to go back, warned by a softening of the sky that the
+time was later than she thought, something showed rounding the smooth,
+silver bend of the river above; and she paused, shading her eyes with
+her hand, to see what it was.
+
+A raft. The first of the rafts of wood which at certain seasons were
+floated down the river to Eshwara. Am-ma's raft, most likely, which he
+had told her he had to pilot.
+
+Yes! There he was on the quaint contrivance which the river folk used
+for journeys down stream. A common string bed, no more, no less,
+supported between inflated bladders of skin. The sight of it gave her a
+pang to think that she would never more go bobbing, sidling, dipping,
+racing on one of them, as the mission folk always did when they wanted
+to stay the last possible minute of holiday at Herrnhut, and get back
+to Eshwara as quickly as they could. For it took half the time of the
+winding road, when the river, as now, was quiet and manageable. And
+Am-ma was the most dexterous manager of the singular craft. There he
+was, paddling for dear life; now leaping to his great pile of timber,
+steering it with his paddle round a bend, then back to his string bed
+with the tow rope, to haul the rudderless mass to a straight line
+again.
+
+If she had time, she thought, she would have asked him to take her,
+just once more, as far as the ferry, two miles below. Then she might
+have walked back through the fields. She had often taken the pleasant
+little trip with Am-ma. There was no danger so far; but after that,
+when the river began to slip and slide, even he had sometimes to cut a
+raft adrift and trust to catching it again in smoother water; since it
+was not pleasant to have such a crushing neighbour in the eddies and
+swirls of a lasher.
+
+As she stood watching him, she saw him pause, looking towards her, then
+leap from the raft and come paddling down stream. He had evidently seen
+her waiting on the landing-stage, and thought she wanted him; so she
+shook her head and began to walk back to the house. As she did so an
+orange caught her eye under a tree, whence it had fallen from sheer
+red-gold ripeness, and, knowing how Mrs. Campbell mourned a single
+loss, she gathered it up and took it with her.
+
+Back in her own room, she began to pin her bunch of blossoms in her cap
+hurriedly, for she had lingered longer in the garden than she had
+intended, and there was a chance, only a chance, that those much to be
+envied Church-militants might return and claim her attention.
+
+Still, hurried as she was, she knelt down beside the bed for a moment
+or two, and, with her clasped hands laid almost caressingly among the
+soft muslin, prayed that she might wear this symbol of her entry into a
+new profession worthily.
+
+So, scarcely looking at herself in the glass which, indeed, was too
+small to show her more than a rather pale face smiling under a quaint
+little cap, she dressed hastily. Her aunt would be able to tell her if
+there was anything wrong in the lighter rooms below; here, under the
+roof, it was already a little dark. Then catching up the orange, she
+ran downstairs, wondering if the bridal blossoms always smelt so
+overpoweringly strong, and thinking that, if it was so, they must make
+the trying ceremony still more trying to one who disliked to have
+strong scents about them, as she did.
+
+Her aunt was not to be seen in the dining room, so Erda parted the
+heavy curtains which, in Indian fashion, divided it from the
+drawing-room, and looked in to see if she were there.
+
+It was at all times a dark room, especially in late afternoon, as now;
+but the light from behind her sent a shaft straight to the pier glass
+which stood--the joy of Mrs. Campbell's heart--just opposite the
+curtains; so making--as the good lady used fondly to say--the room look
+much larger than it really was to those entering it.
+
+But what the girl saw in it to-day was no illusory enlargement of
+actualities, no idealization of fact. It was something real, something
+not to be explained away, exaggerated, or minimized. It was a woman,
+tall, slender, robed in white; a woman with red-gold hair, edged by the
+light behind her; a woman with a red-gold apple in her hand.
+
+She stood arrested before herself; helpless before the memory of a
+voice--
+
+"All straight folds--the sunshine on your hair, and a red-gold apple in
+your hand--the World's Desire!"
+
+And she had refused him _his_. She stood for a second, not thinking at
+all; simply, with a rush, feeling the truth, feeling herself.
+
+Then with a queer little cry which might have been his name had it been
+articulate, she broke adrift. Broke, for the time, from all moorings,
+and possessed with but the one idea that she _could_ not do one thing,
+that she _must_ do another, she turned to the garden, and,--the
+red-gold fruit still in her hand,--hurried breathlessly through the
+waning light, through the dead-sweet perfume of the blossoms, till she
+found herself, she knew not why--save that she must have air, have
+space--upon the edge of the river.
+
+There was something now swaying idly against the landing-stage;
+a rude craft buoyed up by air! And there was a rude sort of man in
+it,--comprehending, yet uncomprehending,--primitive, simple, expectant.
+"_Huzoor!_" he said, with broad smiles and outstretched hand. "I have
+been waiting the _Huzoor's_ pleasure. The Presence will go whither?"
+
+Whither?
+
+Even in her excitement the quaint coincidence struck her as absurd, and
+yet it seemed to sweep her further still from her moorings.
+
+Whither?
+
+She gave that queer little cry again, and this time it was "Lance!
+Lance!"
+
+"Whither did the Miss-_sahiba_ say?" asked Am-ma gravely.
+
+The cry turned to a strange laugh. "To Eshwara--where else does the
+river go--where else?"
+
+The strange, frail boat was sidling against the landing-stage in the
+pulse of the river; her stranger, frailer self was adrift on the
+greater river of life. And a hand, heedless, seeing nothing strange in
+either, careless of all the fine-drawn niceties of culture, had hold of
+hers.
+
+"So, straight to the centre, _Huzoor!_ I have placed the seat
+correctly. That is right! The Miss-_sahiba_ recollects the old rules;
+we shall be in Eshwara before dawn!"
+
+She sat down mechanically, feeling only that she was adrift--adrift on
+the river that went to Eshwara--where else--and that she was glad; glad
+because she could not stay, because she could not face--
+
+And then the thought came of facing something else--_his_ glad delight
+when she came floating down the river--not dead, like the Lily Maid to
+Lancelot--but alive--a woman with a red-gold apple in her hand--
+
+She sat staring at what she held, as if hypnotized by its colour,
+absolutely unconscious of anything else till Am-ma's voice came
+stolidly.
+
+"We must pick up the raft first, _Huzoor_. This slave let it drift
+while he waited for the Miss; but we shall find it at the ferry."
+
+At the ferry! The familiar idea startled her from dreams to the
+reality.
+
+How came she there? What had she done? What did this mean? A flush of
+intolerable shame swept to her face; she rose to escape. But Am-ma's
+warning hand was on hers in an instant; that hand, so heedless of so
+many limitations, so certain here that there was no escape from _these_
+limitations.
+
+"The Miss-_sahiba_ forgets," he said deferentially. "When one is in the
+stream there is no change possible; but if the place is not right we
+can alter it at the ferry."
+
+She sat down again, telling herself this was true. She could alter it
+at the ferry. She could walk home through the fields. No one need know
+(the quaint craft, rocking itself back to balance, made her feel
+giddy), her dress was only muslin, she could remove the cap; if
+necessary, borrow a shawl from the bible-woman near the ferry, saying
+she had not thought it would be so chilly.
+
+She buried her face in both her hands in a sort of despairing revolt at
+the duplicity, so, with the red-gold fruit in her lap, sat trying to
+think. But she could not. The scent of the orange blossoms seemed to
+cloud her senses. So she raised her face again, and stared at the
+river. Why had she done this? Why had she put this thing, that she must
+always conceal, into her life? There would always, now, be something
+she could not say straight out; and yet if she lived to be a hundred
+the memory of it would never fade; it would be as fresh as it was now
+when she died, with David's hand in hers!
+
+The intolerable humiliation of it stung deep; the instinct to escape
+rose fiercely.
+
+"Be quick!" she cried, seeing Am-ma idle, letting the current do the
+work. "I want to get there as soon as possible. I must, or something
+worse may happen. There isn't a moment to spare!"
+
+Am-ma bent towards her from his seat astride a skin air-bag. "Did they
+kill anyone?" he asked, in sudden interest. "Did the prisoners escape
+as it was arranged? And was it Carlone-_sahib_ they killed?--they swore
+it should be he, because he laughed at the miracle."
+
+"The prisoners--Carlone-_sahib_--killed!" she echoed stupidly. Then
+with a great throb of the heart she realized that here might be
+something of more importance than her self-humiliation. Had Father
+Ninian been right? Had there really been some conspiracy afoot, and had
+Am-ma heard?
+
+"I have had no news from Eshwara, Am-ma," she said boldly, "what is
+this about prisoners escaping, and the _sahib-logue_ being killed? Who
+was going to do that?"
+
+Am-ma looked crestfallen. "I thought the _Huzoor_ had heard--that
+_that_ was why she was going. It is nothing. Idle talk. It is always
+talk. And the _Huzoors_ have the _Dee-puk-rag_. They must still be
+kings."
+
+"Am-ma," she interrupted sternly, "you must tell me about this. If you
+do not, I will take my hand off your son's head--I will never--"
+
+He almost dropped his paddle in absolute terror. "_Huzoor_" he said
+helplessly, "it is talk, idle talk. It is always so. All day long, and
+all night long in the bazaars, and the Masters have the _Dee-puk-rag_.
+There is no fear; but this slave will tell."
+
+They were almost opposite the ferry before he had finished his tale,
+and she had grasped the whole tissue of trivialities which yet went to
+make up so formidable a possibility.
+
+The discontent and dread regarding the canal, the strange lights,
+the deaths in gaol, the return of the cursed corpse, Gopi--the
+ticket-of-leave man's--talk of revenge if the cleansing water should
+fail.
+
+Much of this was new to her, but it hung together with what she already
+knew; and yet it seemed incredible! What could be the object? What
+could they expect to do? Here Am-ma had smiled inscrutably, and said
+the Miss did not know bazaar talk. Everything was possible to it. Had
+they not even spoken of making a new Nawab out of Roshan Khan, the
+_risaldar?_ indeed, had not the _jemedar_ at the palace already treated
+him as one?
+
+And the Pool of Immortality? Had it risen or not? Am-ma could not say.
+They had asked him with bribes and threats to do the job--that was only
+the priest's revenge, but it would serve other purposes too--but he had
+refused, partly because he had to come away, and partly because he was
+the servant of the Light-bringers. As to when the prisoners were to
+escape he could not say. To-day, perhaps to-morrow, most likely never;
+unless something really happened. It was talk. The Miss need have no
+fear. The _Huzoors_, having the _Dee-puk-rag_, must needs be safe, and
+Carlone-_sahib_ was a real hero; none braver, none stronger.
+
+That decided her. She had been counting costs as she listened. An hour,
+say, back to Herrnhut. Even if anyone were there, which was uncertain,
+half an hour at least to start a messenger. Then the boat might be at
+the other side of the river. Then all those miles, on a rough road at
+night!
+
+"When shall we get to Eshwara?" she asked.
+
+"At the turn of the night and day if the river is kind," said Am-ma,
+but he looked doubtfully into a copper tint that remained in the sky,
+though the sun must have set behind the mountains. It had a curious
+effect, that copper-coloured dome above the rim of almost black hills,
+with the river, dark, mysterious, already beginning to slide towards
+the narrowing ravine. It did not strike her that she herself, adrift on
+that river in what was to be her wedding dress, with prehistoric,
+aboriginal Am-ma as pilot to her and a lumber raft, would have had a
+still more curious effect to a spectator's eyes. But there were none,
+and it was already almost dark.
+
+"Am-ma," she said, "I will give you fifty rupees, and keep my hand on
+the son's head, if you will leave the raft here, and take me as quick
+as you can to Eshwara--to the little steps below the fort--fifty whole
+rupees!"
+
+He shook his head and grinned, partly at his own superlative honesty.
+"We should not go so fast, _Huzoor_, now the slide is near," he said;
+"for, see you, the raft is the wood-_sahib's_ new shape. It is a good
+shape; it came down the rapids above the valley like a boat, faster
+than _this_, when the paddle cannot be used. It will take us with it. I
+will fasten _this_ behind, and steer. Then in the slacker water when
+the paddle is possible, we will leave it; if the Miss-_sahiba_ is in a
+hurry. But there is none. The _Huzoors_ are Light-bringers." He had
+already paddled alongside the raft,--a boat-shaped mass of huge logs
+rising towards the back--and, leaping to it, came back, after a moment,
+with the tow-rope.
+
+"It shall do the work," he said, with another grin, as he fastened the
+air-buoyed bed to a ring placed for the purpose in one of the logs.
+Then he clucked emphatically. "Lo! who would grudge men's brains to the
+Masters when they are clever as the Gods themselves? The Miss will see
+how fast this goes. We shall be at Eshwara before the night turns to
+day."
+
+Something in his tone warned her that the recurrence of the phrase was
+not pure chance.
+
+"That is when the prisoners were to escape?" she said quickly.
+
+He did not affirm or deny it. "So many things happen in the fight of
+Dawn," he said affably. That was all; but she thought rapidly. The
+rising, or whatever the conspiracy aimed at, could scarcely have
+happened just after they left Eshwara the night before. In that case
+the news must have followed them on the road. Therefore, if it was to
+happen at all, if this were not all talk--and Father Ninian's words
+came to make her doubt its being so--it would happen in a few hours. So
+she must be there in time to give warning.
+
+As she thought this, a sudden strain at the tow-rope, a quick dip of
+the boat-shaped prow of the raft, a louder swish of the water as it
+curved out from its rising stern, told her she was adrift, indeed, on
+the way to Eshwara! It seemed almost more incredible than what had gone
+before. But there was nothing to be ashamed of here. It was the only
+possible thing to do under the circumstances. Her journey might prove
+unnecessary, but it might not; and supposing anything should really
+happen--to--to _anybody_--she would never be able to forgive herself
+if, knowing this chance of danger, she had not done her best to avert
+it.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIX
+
+                                JULIET
+
+
+The copper-coloured glow, into which weather-wise Am-ma had looked,
+distrustfully, as it domed the little valley set in its rim of hills,
+had replaced that of sunset in Eshwara also, and Pidar Narayan's eyes,
+weather-wise as the fisherman's, looked at it as doubtfully, as he
+walked home with Lance and Vincent Dering when the long strain at the
+Pool of Immortality was over.
+
+"If it were not so early in the year, I should predict a dust-storm--a
+real electrical dust-storm," he said.
+
+Lance, whose hands were full of cut-paper Gods--for in obedience to a
+sudden impulse, he had stopped on his way through the crowd to buy up
+the old Brahmin's whole stock in trade, and give him an extra eight
+annas to go away and not drum any more--looked up also, and filled his
+broad chest with a great breath. "Perhaps that is it. I've felt choking
+all day--horrid!"
+
+Vincent Dering laughed. "I don't choke--I tingle; and it is rather
+jolly. Yes, sir; there is a lot of electricity in the air, and I
+shouldn't wonder if we had a regular black snorter. Glad it didn't come
+in the middle of the miracle '_biz_', for, as a general smasher-up of
+ordinary experiences, commend me to a real electrical dust-storm! It
+seems to attract the earth, earthy, in everything. In fact, if there is
+such a thing as the Devil, and he ever gets the upper hand, it is
+then--"
+
+Father Ninian turned to him quickly, and then to the crowd,-through
+which they were still cleaving that curiously acquiescent way which
+white faces still cleave through dark ones--"Then I trust, my son," he
+said gently, "that for your sake and _theirs_ the storm may not come."
+
+"Or that there isn't a Satanic majesty!" retorted Captain Dering,
+cynically. "That, sir, is the easiest way out of the difficulty."
+
+Lance had looked round on the crowd also. "Well! if there is," he said,
+"and I had to paint him, I'd take that man's face as my model for
+Lucifer." He pointed to a _gosain_ who was forming the centre of a
+group of gossipers round a syrup-seller's shop, and added--for he knew
+his Milton as well as his Shakespeare--"_The superior fiend who gives
+not Heav'n for lost!_"
+
+"Looks a bad lot, I admit," remarked Vincent, carelessly. "Have an idea
+I've seen him before; in gaol, I believe. Yes! I'm sure of it. He is
+the fellow Dillon told me was going to get his ticket-of-leave for good
+conduct. He looks scoundrel enough for that! But really, sir--" he
+turned to Father Ninian again--"I think we may count on their behaviour
+now." He indicated the crowd. "If there was going to be a row it would
+have come off before this; now they will settle down, you'll see, and
+go on to the next camping-ground to-morrow morning as if nothing had
+gone wrong. They are such creatures of habit; you could see that from
+their sticking on in expectation of that footling old miracle all day!"
+
+Father Ninian, in that curiously irrelevant way he had, put on the gold
+_pince-nez_ which always dangled over his black soutane, and looked
+round him again. "They will settle down," he said quietly, "if nothing
+new crops up to give them a lead into new ways. That is always the
+danger; and a very small thing does it, sometimes, in India."
+
+They had reached the courtyard which lay between the palace and the
+Fort, and with a wave of his hand in farewell, he passed along the wall
+to the former, while the others, striking across the raised union-jack
+of paths, made for the latter. The yard was crammed with pilgrims on
+their way to bathe on the river steps.
+
+"Who the deuce are those fellows?" said Vincent, angrily, as half a
+dozen figures slipped out through the door in the bastion, as they
+approached, and mixing with the crowd, got lost in it, while the door
+was closed behind them by some unseen hand. "I'll talk to Roshan about
+that. He was complaining only this morning that the men were breaking
+out of barracks. What else can he expect if he doesn't look out. By
+Jove! I'll teach 'em!"
+
+His first words, indeed, as he entered the outer courtyard of the Fort,
+was to order a sentry down to close the doors against all comers
+without a written pass from him, and as he went by the guard-house he
+gave rather a sharp reprimand to Roshan Khan, who happened to be
+outside, for not having kept his eyes open while in charge of the Fort
+during his absence. No one was in future to use the small door; the key
+was to be brought to him, and all passes were to be stopped for that
+night.
+
+"Roshan looks in a demon bad temper. I wonder what's up?" remarked
+Lance, casually, as he passed on through a wicket in the massive closed
+gates to the inner courtyard, where the officers' quarters lay, hugging
+the river wall. It was quite a citadel, a distinct fortification of
+itself, with no entrance or exit except through the outer yard, or by
+the little flight of steps leading down to the river, at the foot of
+which Lance moored his canoe.
+
+"He has been sulky as a bear with me these last few days," replied
+Captain Dering, with a contemptuous smile. "I believe the old Colonel
+was right after all, and coming here has put wind in his head. I shall
+have to teach Mr. Roshan that, good man as he is, he is only a
+_risaldar_, before long."
+
+"Poor devil," said Lance under his breath. "I'm always a bit sorry for
+Roshan. He would be a fine fellow--if--if he wasn't so--so civilized."
+
+"Civilized," echoed Vincent, with a laugh. "You haven't seen him fight.
+I have. Talk of devils; he has got one in him, if you like!"
+
+He certainly had at that moment, when, having gone straight to his
+quarters after Vincent's reprimand, he found himself alone, and free to
+show his feelings.
+
+And yet, had he been calm, he could scarcely have told wherein
+the grievance lay which for the moment clamoured for--no--not
+redress--revenge.
+
+It was not the first time that he had had to ignore hints, innuendoes,
+suggestions of Heaven knows what impossible intrigues, as he had had
+that very afternoon. It was not the first time that, in his position as
+intermediary between the ignorance of the native soldier and the
+ignorance of the English officer, he had had to '_ca' canny_,' so as
+not to alienate the confidence of either. Indeed, the consciousness of
+the necessity for this, by enhancing the value of his services, had
+always been a pride to him hitherto. And these particular intrigues
+were so childish; especially if--he paused in his angry pacing of the
+room, and smiled complacently. Why should he give a thought to an
+impossible plan, when a possible one lay ready to his hand? If he
+married Laila, the land, almost the title, would be his of right. It
+would be easy anyhow to regain. Then with a fresh frown, he remembered
+Vincent's order. That would upset his plans. He had meant to slip out
+by the bastion gate just before--say an hour before--dawn, and cross
+over to the palace. Akbar Khan had arranged to be there to let him into
+the garden. Now he must make other arrangements. He must find the old
+eunuch, change the hour and the place; since nothing--no! not all the
+tyranny in the world--should prevent his carrying out his intention of
+seeing his cousin, and claiming her as his--his by right. So he must
+settle this at once; settle it before there was any chance, he told
+himself bitterly, of his superior officer coming out of the mess--where
+no doubt he was guzzling swine's flesh and bibbing wine--(that faint
+amaze at the presence in his own mind of such antiquated half-forgotten
+ideas assailed him again at this point) to encroach further on his
+liberty, his privileges.
+
+He had to pass the troopers' lines on his way to the main gate, and the
+quick _salaams_, the ready smiles given him by the men, as they lounged
+and smoked after their long day on duty, soothed his pride.
+
+The Captain had certainly said they had behaved well--kindly, and
+discreetly; but whose merit was that? The Englishman's who gave the
+word of command, or his, who had drilled them to obedience, who lived
+with them day and night? Without such as he, a native regiment could
+not be managed, if he chose to give the word. He would not, of course,
+but if he chose--
+
+He set his teeth as he walked out of the Fort, and met at its very gate
+that surging tide of patient, eager faces drifting on, and back again,
+aimlessly.
+
+He need not, as a matter of fact, have feared any further interference
+from Vincent Dering, for the latter, being very tired after the long
+day in the sun, and having reason to know that part of the night time,
+at any rate, which is usually given to sleep would be employed in
+something better, had, after staving off hunger with what the cook
+would produce at a moment's notice, and postponing the dinner hour,
+gone to sleep deliberately, advising Lance to do the same.
+
+But the latter had, rather to his own surprise, found this impossible;
+not even over a cigar in the balcony above the sliding, rushing river,
+the sound of which was as a rule sleep-compelling, would sleep come;
+not even in the cool darkness which was settling on Eshwara, despite
+the curious hint of glow lingering in the sky.
+
+The air was too electrical, he decided. And then--Erda! He had slept
+the night before, after she had said good-by so carelessly, without
+realizing that the good-by was for ever. And he had not had time to
+think all day. But now, at rest in the cool darkness, looking from his
+lounge chair down the river to that other balcony, he did realize it.
+For ever! Yes! that regret was in his life for ever. And he was so
+young. Only twenty-five.
+
+Why had this come to him?
+
+Erda! Erda,--his heart's desire.
+
+He sat there voiceless, sucking mechanically at a cigar, long since
+gone out; but that was as much the cry at his heart as if he had
+allowed himself a fine frenzy of despair in older fashion.
+
+And he imagined her as he had seen her--this way, that way, every way,
+in an unending torture of visions--until he exhausted reality, and
+fancy showed her to him in her wedding dress. And then he felt as if he
+could kill the Reverend David Campbell without shame or fear. He was
+vaguely ashamed of the lack of shame, however, especially when his
+fancy led him into endless mishaps which might befall a man, especially
+a missionary, before his wedding day.
+
+"_There they ate a missionary_--"
+
+Yes, sometimes; but there was not much time left for that sort of
+end--
+
+What a brute he was, when the only thing that mattered was that she
+should be happy and content.
+
+But would she be so?
+
+It went on and on and on, the controversy between himself and that
+other self, so that he felt worn, and harassed, and dirty, and
+altogether undesirable, when Vincent, about nine o'clock, reappeared,
+dapper and scented as usual, in his mess kit, and expressed surprise at
+finding his companion still undressed. He was hungry as a hunter, he
+said; besides he wanted to have a decent interval between dinner and
+turning in. And _that_ must be early, for he had just heard from the
+police authorities that though everything was quiet for the night,
+absolutely quiet, they thought it would be safer to have the Pool
+guarded again at dawn, in case of accidents; since none of the
+pilgrims, though apparently quite resigned, had as yet gone on.
+
+"They never do till the next day; Pidar Narayan told me so," commented
+Lance, crossly. "Why should they rake us up at such an unearthly hour?
+Why can't they let the people have a row if they want one? I'd like it;
+give a fellow something to do in this beastly hole."
+
+He went off to dress moodily, wishing savage wishes, so adding,
+perhaps, to that electricity in the air. And Vincent gave it his quota
+of desire also, in his reckless determination to regain Paradise, as it
+was lost, through a woman. And that play of Romeo and Juliet in the
+scented garden--Juliet, whose bounty was "as boundless as the sea"--was
+a bit of pure paradise to him. He had never, he thought, been in love
+before. He had never known what love was. Those other loves of his had
+been mean, ungenerous, calculating.
+
+So he was at his best, his brightest, during dinner. Lance, on the
+contrary, was at his worst, his dullest; and Vincent made this his
+excuse for going to his room betimes. He was not due at the palace till
+twelve, but he was anxious to ensure the coast being clear, and Lance
+seemed just in the mood when a fellow sits up sulkily, out of pure
+cussedness, and drinks whiskey-and-water if he can find a companion on
+whom to vent his cavillings.
+
+In truth Lance would have liked to do so. He wanted to feel miserable;
+but after Vincent had gone, and he was left alone in the balcony, sleep
+began to assert itself. He found even his despair becoming dreamy, and
+being obstinate, tried to fight against the fact. The result being that
+he finally fell asleep in his lounge chair with a soundness and
+unconsciousness usually reserved for bed. Fell asleep, and promptly
+relaxed into content with happy dreams of Erda's return to him; for
+his, left to itself, was a healthy soul.
+
+And so were the vast majority of those which, through patient yet eager
+eyes, were looking into the scarce-lit darkness of the streets, as the
+pilgrims, crowded into an almost solid mass, seemed to slide with a
+slow, almost unseen movement, through them. They were waiting for the
+dawn. If nothing new came before then, they would pass on towards the
+'Cradle of the Gods.' So, scarcely seen, restless yet restful, their
+feet on the next rung of the golden stairs, they waited.
+
+And overhead the young moon had risen with a copper-coloured edge to
+its crescent of light. For the glow was still in the sky, and the
+troopers in the Fort, resting, after their long day, in Indian fashion
+by sprawling on their beds and gossiping, had dragged these beds into
+the open and discarded most of their clothing, since the night was
+strangely still and warm. So even the wonder what had become of the
+_risaldar-sahib_ was languid.
+
+For Roshan Khan had not returned. And yet, as he sat in a quiet
+courtyard of the city, with closed doors, realizing how late it was
+growing, he had no fear of further reprimand. On the contrary, his
+pulses were bounding with the certainty that he would gain praise. And
+there was something beyond this mere desire for personal advantage in
+the keen-witted diplomacy with which he listened, with which he
+suggested, with which he led the talkers on to tell what it was of the
+utmost importance that he should know, not so much to himself, as to
+the Government he served. For his vague discontent had vanished, his
+well-reasoned, well-founded loyalty returned at this, the first hint at
+anything beyond the wild, aimless intrigue with which every Indian
+bazaar teems. But here, in this definite plan, by the collaboration of
+his troopers, of liberating fifteen hundred scoundrels,--or, at least,
+desperadoes,--of aping the stroke of action which made the great mutiny
+of '57 possible, was something tangible. Something which, when known to
+the uttermost, must be told without delay to his superior officer. A
+vast pride swept through him, as, when the gongs were striking
+one,--short, yet with lingering vibration in the dull, still air,--he
+made his way, fast as he could, back to the Fort. Without him, and such
+as he, faithful despite limitations, what would the Masters know?
+
+Hours before, as he went out, he had arranged with Akbar Khan that the
+palace door giving on the great square between it and the Fort should
+be on the latch only, so that he might slip in at any time and take his
+chance of hiding in the garden, his chance of seeing Laila before the
+dawn came and he had to go back to the Fort. The old sinner, indeed,
+had jumped at this indefinite arrangement, which bound him to nothing;
+which made it unnecessary for him even to broach the subject of an
+interview to his mistress. Since what was easier to say than that it
+had been impossible; as, indeed, it was! Perhaps Roshan Khan had
+himself grasped this fact; perhaps in insisting on this entry to the
+garden he had been backing more than his own luck, and had been
+meditating a _coup d'etat_ of his own. However that may have been, all
+was forgotten in his newly recovered loyalty, his keen ambition, as he
+hurried back to the Fort intent on but one thing--the forewarning and
+forearming of those whom he had long ago deliberately chosen as his
+masters.
+
+Some of his men were still lounging about on their beds, and he spoke a
+word to them as he passed, warning them to be ready if wanted. So,
+leaving them in sudden vague excitement, he passed on to the inner
+court. Here, where Lance Carlyon's small band of Sikh pioneers were
+quartered in the long, low building in which the fortified gateway
+stood, no one was astir. And no lights were visible in the opposite
+building where Lance and Vincent lived. Doubtless everyone was in bed.
+
+He passed on, therefore, swiftly to the room he knew to be his
+Captain's, and knocked. There was no answer. He opened the door and
+looked in. It was empty. A vague wonder assailed him, and he passed on
+to Lance Carlyon's room. It was empty also, and the vague uneasiness
+died down. They must be sitting up still in the balcony overlooking the
+river, where they sat every day after dinner. Stupid of him not to have
+gone there first; and yet, surely, it was late. Perhaps they were
+uneasy; perhaps they had already heard! An open letter "_On Her
+Majesty's Service_" lying on the dinner table as he passed through the
+mess room (which was still lit up--sign that the servants had gone to
+sleep awaiting their masters' call) attracted his attention. He glanced
+at it, half fearing to find himself forestalled by the police
+authorities. No! It was from them, as he had seen at once; but it was
+only that notice for dawn. Ah! what was this? this tiny scrap of paper,
+which had been twisted to a cocked-hat note, lying caught in the fold
+of the foolscap, with the two words--"_twelve o'clock_"--written on it?
+
+In a woman's writing. Roshan knew enough of invitations from
+Englishwomen to be sure of that.
+
+The vague uneasiness returned, as he went on to the balcony beyond the
+dining-room. There too, the swinging lamp still burnt, and showed him
+Lance Carlyon fast asleep in a lounge chair; but no one else.
+
+Where was Captain Dering? Captain Dering, who had the key of the little
+door in the bastion; Captain Dering, who had had a note with "_twelve
+o'clock_" in it?
+
+A sudden thought struck him. If--if there was anything in his vague
+fear--then, by taking the canoe, which lay at the bottom of the stairs,
+he could slip down stream, and see--
+
+Forgetting everything else, Roshan stole softly past the sleeping
+Lance, and went down the stairs.
+
+The canoe was not there.
+
+Then Captain Dering must have taken it and gone--whither?
+
+There was but one place whither he was likely to go alone at that hour
+of the night; one place, a stair like this leading up to a balcony over
+the river where he had gone once before with a woman, a woman in a
+dress which marked her for what she was, really--a dress that marked
+her secluded--which made _this_, shame unutterable!
+
+Roshan's impotent fury rose hot at the inexpressible humiliation. The
+thought of Captain Dering and Laila alone in that balcony meant but one
+thing to his inherited ideas. No glaze of romance was possible. It was
+shame unutterable, irredeemable. Shame that must be revenged without
+delay. So, forgetting everything else in the world except this, he
+passed the sleeping Lance once more, hurried back to his quarters for
+his revolver, and only stopping to see that one chamber at least was
+loaded, made his way to that door which he knew would be on the latch.
+
+That patient, eager crowd was still thronging the courtyard as he
+crossed it, pausing a moment beside the great gun which centred the
+union-jack of raised paths.
+
+The "_Teacher of Religion!_"
+
+Ay! they needed a teacher, needed a lesson; these aliens, these
+usurpers, these depravers of women.
+
+Yet, in sober truth, Vincent Dering, at that moment sitting in the
+little balcony alone with Laila Bonaventura, felt quite virtuous. They
+had just come in from the garden, where they had been strolling and
+whispering, and now, as they sat together, without a word, scarcely a
+thought, in the faint light of the young moon and a red jewelled
+hand-lamp--which Laila, with that unfailing instinct of hers for all
+that matched the passionate mystery of the place, had set in a carved
+niche, where it looked like a votive offering to the unseen image of a
+saint--Vincent could feel the warm ivory of her cheek against his own,
+hear the soft chink of her jewels as they slid towards him, following
+the soft warm curves on which they lay. The red light of the lamp
+glittered faintly in red stars on the myriad facets of looking-glass
+with which the vaulted roof above them was adorned. It fell, reddening
+the red lights on the gold-stiffened crimson waves of her dress, that
+sent such a bewildering perfume to cloud his senses with passionate
+content.
+
+A vast tenderness, a vast triumph, surged through him at the thought of
+her. Who dared to judge her by the narrow standards of to-day--she, who
+had gone back boldly to realities!
+
+_This_ was what poets had sung since time began; _this_ was what the
+world had exchanged for Paradise!
+
+Juliet! Juliet!
+
+And if he was the "_god of her idolatry_," she was to him the "_dearest
+morsel of earth_."
+
+He bent and whispered the name to her with a kiss.
+
+And as he did so, a step, swift, bold, masterful, sounded in the
+passage above; the step of one with a right to be there.
+
+Vincent, startled, sat listening; but Laila was on her feet in a
+second, with a reckless laugh.
+
+"Father Laurence!" she cried. "Well! let him come. I'm not afraid! For
+he loved _her_. He _must_ remember!"
+
+So, as a dim figure showed, half seen, in the archway, she stood like a
+queen, her hand raised, her head thrown back; a sight never to be
+forgotten.
+
+"There is no use in being angry, guardian," she called, in her
+full-throated voice. "It is too late for that. Remember--" She paused,
+gave a slight scream, and flung herself before Vincent.
+
+There was a flash, a second scream, and then the arches rang with the
+echoes of a pistol-shot.
+
+"Laila! Laila!"
+
+"You damned scoundrel! You've killed her!"
+
+"Laila! Laila!"
+
+There were two voices echoing the woman's name, but only that one
+pistol-shot. Then two useless clicks of a trigger, before, with an
+oath, Roshan Khan flung the revolver from him and fled.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX
+
+                               TRAPPED
+
+
+But that pistol-shot, as it pierced the hot, sultry air in the vaulted
+archways, was caught by a sudden blast of warm wind, sweeping God knows
+whence, to God knows where! and was blown out riverwards, citywards.
+Blown by that sudden blast, like the hot breath of someone's anger,
+which always heralds an electrical dust-storm. One moment there is the
+stillness of the uttermost void brooding over the deep; the next,
+causelessly, God knows why! the spirit moving palpably.
+
+And so it is always when the ever-recurring struggle for the right road
+to that lost Paradise, for the right method of regaining that bartered
+birthright, begins afresh among the sons of Adam. When the Hosts of the
+Lord,--fighting, as men always fight, under the banner of Right, for
+what they think good and true, for what seems to them to bring them
+nearer to the golden gates--change armed peace for war.
+
+It was so now; and Lance Carlyon, waking to the familiar, yet
+unfamiliar sound of that pistol-shot, woke also to the knowledge that
+someone had already resorted to that last argument between man and his
+fellow.
+
+Who was it? And why?
+
+As he stood, still half dazed by sleep, listening, as one does
+instinctively, for another shot to follow the first, a new sound
+distracted his attention.
+
+Was he still asleep and dreaming? or was that really Erda Shepherd's
+voice, rising towards him from the sliding, unseen river?
+
+"I will come back to you directly," it said in Urdu. The half-heard
+promise of the words took him by storm, making him forget the
+strangeness of the language. Yet even that made his bewilderment more
+utter. And all around him, about him, a mist--or was it a cloud, or
+what was it?--had sprung into being. A wreath as of smoke drifted past
+the wide arches of the balcony, blotting out the pale shimmer of the
+young moon.
+
+The swinging lamp above his head darkened, reddened, as the dust-atoms
+leapt from the earth into the air, obedient to the call of that
+mightiest force in nature which holds the world together, and guides it
+on its way among the stars.
+
+Pidar Narayan had been right! The electrical storm had come!
+
+But Erda had come with it. He could see her now, standing at the top of
+the river steps, dimmed by the dust-atoms that glittered faintly in the
+clouded ray of the lamp; could see her--tall, slim, white--with a
+red-gold ball in her hand.
+
+So it was only a dream; he was asleep still!
+
+The certainty of this, the knowledge that he would wake soon, made him
+yield to impulse, to emotion, as he would never have done otherwise. He
+held out his arms to the gracious vision, his voice rang with passion.
+
+"Erda! Erda! You have come back to me!--the world's desire--my heart's
+desire!"
+
+And then, suddenly, his heart a-tremble for the first time, he drew
+back from his own fervour almost apologetically; for the scared look of
+the face seen through those earth-atoms had brought it home to him that
+this was no dream. This was Erda Shepherd herself, the woman who was
+the "_dearest atom of God's earth_" to him. And she had come back, for
+what? Not to listen to his passion, anyhow.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked briefly, sternly; for it came home to
+him also that the cause must be grave.
+
+She gave a little shiver; the hearing of that first greeting had upset
+her calm, her courage, at last. Yet they had been firm till then; and,
+Heaven knows! the long hours of slipping through the rapids in the wake
+of that heaving, plunging mass of logs had been trying enough to
+anyone. Then for the last half hour, since Am-ma had cut the raft
+adrift to follow them at its leisure through the slacker currents, and,
+in obedience to her order, had forged ahead with his paddle, her
+anxiety had risen to fever-pitch; since the night, so far as she could
+judge, must be waning fast, and her errand would be useless if she were
+not in Eshwara before the dawn. For, as she had listened to Am-ma's
+garrulous talk while he steered, the conviction had grown that the
+danger to peace and safety--if there was any--lay in the future, not in
+the past; that this dawn, and not yesterday's, was to be the signal for
+the insensate, almost incredible attempt to wreck authority. An attempt
+which yet--incredible, insensate though it be--might bring death to--to
+one she held very dear.
+
+She admitted so much now to herself, and, pulling that self together,
+looked that dear one in the face. "There is a good deal the matter,"
+she said. "You had better call Captain Dering to hear it, too; it will
+save time."
+
+He nodded acquiescence, but ere he left her, the instinct in him to
+guard his "_dearest atom_" to the uttermost from others, made him set a
+chair for her, and, glancing round for a wrap, take the mess jacket he
+had laid aside for a smoking coat, and fold it round her. For the air
+had grown suddenly chill, as it always does in a sand-storm.
+
+"You must be cold in that dress," he said. As he did so the daintiness
+of it struck him, the scent of the orange blossoms made him turn pale.
+Despite his hurry, his certainty that something serious was ahead, he
+paused to ask sharply: "That is your wedding dress, isn't it?"--
+
+"I am not married, if you mean that!" she answered as sharply. Then she
+flushed up angrily, more at the comprehension shown in her own answer
+than the meaning in his question, and burst out: "What does it matter
+if I am--or if it is? Go! I tell you, and call Captain Dering!"
+
+Yet, when he was gone, she lay back in the chair and shivered again;
+all the more because of the unaccustomed touch about her throat of the
+gold lace on a mess jacket. How red it looked against her white dress!
+And what a lot of little gold buttons there were at its edge: foolish,
+useless, little ornamental gilt buttons, round and red-gold, like--
+
+The comparison brought back Lance's cry of welcome, and made her
+realize that, quite mechanically, she still held in her hand that
+useless, foolish, unnecessary orange!
+
+That, of course, was what had made him remember; had made him say those
+words which had come like the writing on the wall to remind her of her
+own guilt.
+
+She flung the fruit from her, hastily, into the unseen river beyond the
+arches. Only just in time, ere Lance reentered, with a puzzled face.
+
+"I can't find Dering anywhere," he said vexedly. "He is not in his
+room. Hasn't been to bed, either; though he turned in early saying he
+was half asleep. I wonder what is up? Can he have heard already, do you
+think? Scarcely; and he would not have gone without waking me." His
+surprise seemed to absorb him.
+
+"Then I must tell _you_, for there is no time to be lost," interrupted
+Erda, impatiently. Yet, even in her strenuous desire to make him
+understand quickly, she did not fail to explain, breathlessly, how she
+came to be dressed as she was. She had been trying on her wedding dress
+to see if it fitted, and had gone into the garden for--for--flowers,
+when Am-ma and his raft had come floating down the river.
+
+And was not that all true? she asked herself passionately, as she told
+the tale. It was all of the truth, anyhow, that he or anyone else was
+ever to know.
+
+So she had come to warn them, as she was.
+
+A great joy at her courage filled Lance as he listened, for to most men
+the possibility of a woman acting as a man might act comes as a wonder.
+
+"It was awfully plucky of you," he began; but she cut him short with a
+question as to what was to be done now.
+
+"Warn Dillon, first of all," he said readily. "We have a wire laid on,
+you know. I only hope this infernal--I beg your pardon--dust-storm
+won't interfere with the connection. You had better come over with me
+to the office; it is just across the yard, and I don't like leaving you
+alone. Do you mind?"
+
+"I'll come, of course,--but I must make sure of Am-ma waiting first,"
+she added, with a ring in her voice; the ring of a vigorous vitality
+which finds itself face to face with action. "He said the raft couldn't
+overtake us for half an hour. But he must not go, anyhow, and he will
+want to. I had difficulty in getting him to leave it, as it was. But I
+had to make him. I had to be in time!"
+
+"And you are--loads of time!" he called, as he ran down the river steps
+before her, to give the order. "It isn't two o'clock yet, and--" he
+paused abruptly, on seeing, to his surprise, that only Am-ma's strange
+craft lay sidling against the bottom step, over which little waves were
+curving hurriedly, to reach up the wall, as if the water-atoms were as
+restless as those of earth, as eager to seek a new element. For the air
+was growing darker, thicker every instant with the intruders. He looked
+round hastily, but there was no sign of the canoe anywhere. Yet he had
+seen it moored to its ring before dinner!
+
+Vincent must have taken it. Whither? An answer leapt to Lance's mind,
+and he flushed up, even in the dark, redly. If this was so--what the
+deuce was to be done?
+
+There was an added confusion, an added responsibility in his face as he
+ran back to where Erda stood waiting him, and, catching up a lamp from
+the mess table, started with her close at his heels for the office.
+"That is the first thing, anyhow!" he muttered, half to himself.
+"Dillon must be warned--"
+
+"And perhaps Captain Dering will be back by then," she suggested
+cheerfully, as, with the mess jacket worn as it should be for greater
+convenience of action and greater protection (she had slipped her arms
+into it, deliberately, while waiting for Lance), she followed in the
+little halo of dull, red light cast by the lamp through the dust-mist.
+
+The courtyard was still without sign of life; for there was nothing to
+guard here. The massive gates of the citadel once closed, and a sentry
+outside the wicket, there could be no fear of secret comings and
+goings.
+
+"I hope to God he may," said Lance, ahead, and his tone made the girl
+wonder.
+
+His face, too, surprised her, as, sitting down to the instrument, he
+signalled for attention. No doubt when time is an object, there must
+always be a sense of strain in that pause before the answering tinkle
+comes to tell that a human hand and brain is at the other end of the
+thin wire which means so much, but there was more than that in Lance
+Carlyon's frown.
+
+In truth, as he waited, he was not thinking so much of what would
+happen if the communication was interrupted, but what was to be done if
+it was not. Thinking that he must, somehow, warn Vincent. Thinking how
+awkward it would be for _him_ if there was a row, and he absent, as it
+were, without leave!
+
+So it was Erda who recalled him to the wider issue. "What are you going
+to do, if Dr. Dillon doesn't hear?"
+
+She had to raise her voice a little, for something--either coming wind
+or far-distant thunder--had brought a curious, faint reverberation to
+the air.
+
+It seemed to come from all quarters, scarcely distinguishable, yet
+unmistakable, like the roll of a half-muffled drum, or a deep organ
+note quivering into silence.
+
+The darkness all about them grew thicker and thicker. Lance, close
+beside her in that red lamp circle, showed as if seen through gauze.
+How unreal it all was! Herself, most of all, in a mess jacket, and, of
+course--but this thought came second--her wedding dress! And then it
+struck her that she, herself, was more unreal than anything else. To be
+there at dead of night, feeling no fear, only a sort of savage
+interest--
+
+"But if he doesn't hear," she persisted, "you will have to go down the
+river and warn him."
+
+He nodded. And yet his thought went first to the fact that, if he had
+to do this, if Roshan Khan had to be left in charge of the relief, it
+would be still more awkward for Vincent Dering.
+
+_Tring-a-tring-tring!_
+
+The answering tinkle brought a little breath of joy to them both; but
+Erda felt inclined to stamp her feet at the slow precision with which
+Lance--who had to remember each equivalent sign--spelt out his message.
+He could not be quicker, of course, and yet surely he might! She longed
+to snatch at the handles herself, though she could not signal at all.
+
+"There, that's done!" she cried, as a continuous short rattle followed
+from the other end, which Lance translated into--"_All right, await
+you_." "Now! what is to be done next?"
+
+"Roshan Khan--he'll get the men together," answered Lance, already on
+his way to the wicket in the gate. To his surprise, it was closed. He
+knocked, no answer came. Erda, holding the lamp, looked at him
+startled.
+
+"Sentry!" he called. "Sentry! Open the door! _Miracle!_'"
+
+It was the password for the night, given by Captain Dering in
+contemptuous memory of the day; but it produced no result. The wicket
+remained obstinately closed.
+
+"They've locked us in!" whispered Erda; the lowering of her voice being
+due to a swift instinct that the less fuss made the better; the less
+chance of interruption.
+
+Lance bent his ear to the keyhole to listen. Those dull, muffled
+reverberations--either distant thunder, or faint, ineffective
+explosions of electricity close at hand--were louder now; but he could
+hear no sound above them. He shook his head.
+
+Erda had the lamp on the ground in a second, and was beside it, her
+red-gold hair in the dust, as she peered through a three-inch iron
+grating between the iron-rimmed door and the iron lintel.
+
+When she rose up her face was like the iron also.
+
+"They've trapped us!" she whispered. "There is a sentry outside--I saw
+his feet. Come away, and let us settle what to do. And say something,
+something angry--you know what I mean."
+
+"Damn that brute!" said Lance, cordially, in a loud voice, "where the
+deuce has the sentry gone to? I'll have it out with him to-morrow, the
+infernal--"
+
+Erda, ahead with the lamp, turned to look back, and put her finger on
+her lips reproachfully. "That's quite enough," she said; but she said
+it with a smile. That vigorous delight in action which some women feel
+was making her blood race through her veins.
+
+"Now what's to be done?" she said swiftly, as she put the lamp down on
+the mess table again. "Let's think hard."
+
+The gate was closed against interference with--with--_something!_
+
+That was evident. Proof positive, therefore, that Am-ma's tale was
+true.
+
+So it followed that the most urgent need for help was at the gaol.
+
+But how to reach it, and with whom?
+
+Lance's thoughts turned instantly to Roshan Khan. Was he--could he be
+in the plot? Surely not. Yet with or without his knowledge, the outer
+court was in the hands of rebels who thought their English officers
+were caught like rats in a trap; for, of course, they did not know
+Dering was absent.
+
+And so it was. He and his pioneers--twenty or thereabouts--were in a
+trap. What could they do to get out of it? Their arms, scaling ladders,
+everything, were in the outside courtyard. What would be the use,
+either, of trying to force the door? Mere waste of time. The thing
+required was to prevent those fifteen hundred men with a criminal past
+being let loose on Eshwara, let loose--as men like them had been in the
+Mutiny--to give a lead over.
+
+And that--how was that to be done?
+
+He looked across to Erda, and took sudden comfort in the quick
+intelligence of her face.
+
+"You had better take my place with Am-ma," she said sharply. "Go down
+stream to the spit, cut across by the mission house, and chance getting
+over to the police camp."
+
+He had thought of this before. The extra police, with their two
+officers, who had come over to see the festival through peacefully,
+were encamped above the boat-bridge and though, of course, most of the
+men would be scattered on duty through the town, even some help would
+be better than none. Yet how to leave Erda, not alone even, but with
+twenty men whose loyalty would depend largely--as it always did--on
+action, on their having someone to fight?
+
+"But you," he began--
+
+"I'll stay here. They won't try to come in--yet a while. I am not
+afraid of being alone."
+
+"I wouldn't mind your being alone," he put in, "but my Sikhs--
+
+"Your Sikhs," she echoed. "Are they here? Then why--?"
+
+"They have no arms--I could find some, perhaps--"
+
+--His words--both their words--jostled each other in sheer haste.
+
+"Yes! then why don't you call them?"--
+
+"How can I use them--trapped like a rat. They--they might be worse than
+useless, without something to do--without a lead over--don't you
+see?--and there is nothing--"
+
+--"Nothing!" she echoed, almost savagely, as she clasped and unclasped
+her hands, dragging the fingers through each other, in sheer straining
+after some thought on which to clutch, in cruel whipping and spurring
+of her wits against that inaction.
+
+Nothing! Nothing! The word seemed to fill the world.
+
+Nothing in earth or air or fire or--
+
+"Stay!" she cried, with a gasp. "The raft! The raft! Am-ma shall fetch
+it--it must be close by, now. There will be room. It can float down to
+opposite the gaol."
+
+He stared at her as she stood in her white, and scarlet, and gold.
+
+"By Jove!" he said softly "by Jove, you've got it!"
+
+The next instant he was off to rouse his men, and she was on the bottom
+step giving Am-ma his orders, short, sharp, clear.
+
+But when Lance came back again to look out what arms and ammunition he
+could lay hands on, he found her, in his room, sorting cartridges as if
+she had done it all her life; and her face turned to him all aglow and
+splendid.
+
+"We shall manage it! Am-ma's gone. He didn't want to, but I told him
+I'd kill the baby if he didn't. I suppose it was wrong,"--though her
+woman's tongue sought speech, her woman's hands stuck to their
+work--"but I couldn't help it. I felt so savage."
+
+"You are very brave," he said simply.
+
+"Brave!" she echoed. "Why not? People talk as if women always had to
+try and not be afraid; but we are not all like that. Some of us want to
+fight. I do, always."
+
+She looked it, as, when all was ready, she leant, straining her eyes
+into the darkness for a hint of Am-ma's return. "He must come," she
+muttered to herself, "he shall come!"
+
+And he did. A bigger wave came sweeping up to the wall as a herald, and
+then a voice calling for a rope. Half a dozen were ready posted in the
+men's hands from various points of vantage. They flew outwards; one,
+from Am-ma's hands inwards to a group holding a lantern on the steps.
+So, with a silent haul, the pioneers had the raft stopped, and sidling
+slowly back to mooring against the wall.
+
+Then Lance turned to Erda hesitating, divided between his loyalty to
+Vincent, and to her.
+
+"The palace ought to be warned," he said briefly--"if I go there ahead
+on Am-ma's craft, I could pick you up on your way down. Could you
+manage?"
+
+She gave a look round on the men, eager with the sudden excitement,
+with the rush, with the very novelty of it all, and laughed--positively
+laughed. "Manage? Yes! of course I can manage--_havildar!_ see those
+cartridges are put well back out of the wet--stay! bring down that
+table, someone, and give it a lash--"
+
+Yet, despite this absolute lack of fear, despite the fact that she
+evidently wanted and desired no more consideration than a man, Lance
+felt a wild dislike to leaving her there alone, as he stepped on to
+Am-ma's skin craft, and, edging his way along by the wall, prepared to
+drift down to the palace balcony. It was mirk dark now, and he had no
+fear of being seen by the crowd on the bathing steps and the courtyard,
+though he punted his way with the paddle shaft within a yard or two of
+the shore; for he wanted to judge how far excitement had spread, how
+far the crowd was aware of what was coming at dawn.
+
+To judge by appearances, not at all. There was no more restlessness, no
+more movement than was inevitable in such a concourse of men, women,
+and children. Here and there files of shadowy forms drifted about, but
+the most of them, seen by the little lights set on the ground beside
+each group, were in heaps, like the heaps of dead on a battle-field,
+huddled up on each other, sleeping, resting, indistinguishable,
+shrouded in their shawls, waiting for the dawn to come.
+
+And, above the soft, yet increasing murmur of the still windless storm,
+came a softer murmuring of prayers, a weird low chanting.
+
+The Hosts of the Lord had not yet risen to battle. The Spirit had not
+moved; the Word had not been made manifest.
+
+The palace, also, lay as yet undisturbed, unseen, in the darkness.
+Except for a glimmer of red light just above the river, a paler glimmer
+closer at hand.
+
+The red light must be by the stairs for which he was steering.
+
+The other?--
+
+He did not know, but as he slipped past it another murmuring as of
+prayer seemed to come from within. It must come from the chapel; if so,
+then Pidar Narayan must be awake also. He felt a certain relief at the
+thought when he caught sight of the canoe at the bottom of the steps.
+Then Vincent, as he had feared, was there; but not on the errand he had
+feared, if Pidar Narayan knew of it. So, mooring his strange craft to
+the canoe, he ran up the stairs eagerly.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXI
+
+                              MARGHERITA
+
+
+Father Ninian had been awake all night. He had been vaguely uneasy all
+day, conscious, with that fine perception of his, that something was
+amiss. But it was no fear of what _might_ happen which had kept him
+watching when others slept. It was the memory of something which _had_
+happened; for, by a coincidence that for more than fifty years had
+never lost its mystical significance for Ninian Bruce--sentimentalist
+as he was to his finger tips--the night of the _Vaisakh_ festival, when
+the pilgrims watched for the dawn to guide them on their way to the
+'Cradle of the Gods,' was to him, personally, the saddest and gladdest
+of the whole year. Since it was the night on which he had sinned the
+great sin of his life, and repented of it, even in the sinning.
+
+And that sinning, that repenting, was no slight thing to him. It was
+the man himself; for the passion that was in him in his youth was in
+him in his old age. It had only changed its dwelling-place. It had fled
+from the senses, and found refuge in the emotions. In a way, indeed, by
+thus seeking freedom from it, he had fallen into a greater thraldom, so
+that his whole life had been as much swayed by this renunciation of a
+woman as it would have been by her possession.
+
+Old as he was, this very night had brought him--with the thought that
+Death could not delay much longer, and that next _Vaisakh_ festival
+might find him no lonely watcher--that thrill of self-absorption in
+another self, that claim for all, which is the essence of passion. For
+this woman, waiting for him in the land where there is no marrying or
+giving in marriage, was still a woman; still the one of all God's
+creatures whom he claimed, and who claimed him, even as the first woman
+claimed the first man in Paradise.
+
+So he had passed the night watches of the Festival of Spring: as he had
+always passed them. Partly in his room, that room made holy by her
+presence in his heart, partly in the chapel, made holy by the Bodily
+Presence of Him for Whose sake he had renounced her. The two holinesses
+were inextricably mixed in Pidar Narayan's mind.
+
+He had finished one of the masses for the repose of a sinning yet
+sainted soul, and, before repeating the next, was confessing his own
+repentance in his room, when that hasty footstep along the passage,
+which alarmed those two lovers in the balcony nearer the garden, had
+resounded through the arches. It had disturbed, but not startled him,
+its very boldness reassuring him of its right to be there. Probably it
+was some messenger from the police camp or the Fort. So he had risen
+from his knees calmly and passed into the chapel, which lay between his
+room and the balcony, in order to see who it could be. For the candles
+were lit on the Altar and sent a faint light into the vaulted passage
+beyond.
+
+It was as he paused, in passing, to do homage to that Bodily Presence
+upon the Altar, which was ready--as he was in his robes--for the
+service of love which was to him, as a priest, his duty, as a man a joy
+unspeakable, that the pistol-shot came clamouring through the arches,
+followed by those despairing cries.
+
+What they were he could not distinguish, but that they were urgent was
+unmistakable, and had he been young as he had been on that night long
+years ago in the balcony above the pale flood of the Tiber, he could
+not have been quicker to reach the armoury, seize the long rapier,
+which he had not used, save in play, since those ruffling days in Rome,
+and run out into the wide, dim passage whence the sound had reached
+him.
+
+None too soon! Someone was already flying down it. He pulled himself up
+for attack, but the figure ere he could lunge at it was past him,
+desperate, indifferent, flinging him against the wall as it continued
+its reckless way to the outer door, where, with swift opening and
+closing, it disappeared into the crowded courtyard, out of
+sight--beyond recall!
+
+He stood for a moment, stupefied. What was Roshan Khan doing there? For
+that faint light from the Altar had given him a glimpse of a familiar,
+dark face, Roshan Khan's without a doubt!
+
+"Laila! Laila!"
+
+The cry was clearer this time and the blood left his fine old face in
+sudden doubt as he turned swiftly to his left. Turned, and saw a faint
+red glow through an arch far down the passage.
+
+That was the arch leading down into the balcony that was never lit
+up--that was never to be lit up because of something that had happened
+there long ago--because of the something which had _begun_ a tragedy.
+
+Why was it lit up? A stronger fear caught at his heart. Could
+Laila?--No!--impossible!
+
+He ran on, and the next moment was realizing that some tragedy had
+_ended_ in that balcony.
+
+But what?
+
+Who was the woman in native dress who stood with a man's arm around
+her--a man in a scarlet and gold mess jacket? Ah!--that was Captain
+Dering, undoubtedly. But the woman? The woman in scarlet and gold
+also--God in Heaven!--had the dead--
+
+As he stared, the long, supple limbs, so clearly outlined under their
+cunningly contrived draperies, seemed to lose themselves in the colour,
+the glitter of rich stuff; one white arm, losing its hold on a cuff of
+scarlet and gold, swung back helplessly, and Vincent Dering, with a
+passionate entreaty to his darling not to be afraid, to look up, and
+tell him where she was hurt, sank to one knee the better to support
+what he held.
+
+And so the face, tilted backwards over his shoulder, came in view.
+
+_Laila!_
+
+For an instant Ninian Bruce stood bewildered. Then all his youth, the
+pride of birth, the dash, and the fire which had made that youth what
+it had been, rose up in him. The blood surged back to his face in wild
+anger, in savage sense of insult, and desire for revenge.
+
+"How dare you!" he cried, clenching his hand on his sword. "You shall
+answer for this, sir! How do you come to be here, at this time of
+night, and why?"
+
+Vincent, who at the first word had given a hurried glance to see who
+the speaker was, then returned to his task with the indifference of one
+absolutely preoccupied, held up his hand passionately against more.
+
+"Don't--and don't preach, for God's sake, old man!" he cried
+recklessly. "Come and help, if you like. Some brute--Oh, curse him!
+curse him!"
+
+His one trembling hand, for the other was round her, supporting her,
+was busy with the quaint, jewelled clasps of the scented corselet,
+which was crimsoning deeper with another dye. "It's too late for
+preaching," he muttered, half to himself,--"too late! too late!"
+
+The words seemed to stun his hearer into silence. He stood bewildered.
+Too late for what?
+
+And now, roused by that pistol-shot also, another old man, who had
+carefully hidden himself away from the possibility of being found by
+Roshan Khan, on the rage for an impossible interview; who had counted,
+with malicious cunning, on the cooling effect of a useless waiting in
+the garden till dawn should make it necessary for hot-blooded lovers to
+return to the Fort, stole like a thief to the balcony. What could have
+happened? The only likely trouble which had occurred to his vast
+experience had been the possibility of Roshan Khan seeking the
+interview upstairs. And for that very reason had not he, Akbar Khan,
+felt it his duty to sleep outside his mistress's door? What more could
+faithful servitude be expected to do?
+
+But this! What was this? His charge had stolen a march upon him. Old as
+he was in the care of frail womanhood, he had been imposed upon! Then,
+as he crept round a pillar craftily, the sight of Pidar Narayan, in his
+priestly robes, made the old sinner throw up his hands and grovel in
+the dust.
+
+"This slave knew nothing!" he mumbled, gasping. "This was unknown. And
+for the other, I told him it was too soon, too soon,--far too soon."
+
+Too soon, and too late! What did it all mean? Father Ninian stood
+helpless, paralyzed; but Vincent caught at the words.
+
+"The other!" he echoed. "You black devil! who was the other? Who was
+that man? Curse him!" He paused, for Laila opened her eyes.
+
+"It was Roshan Khan," she said, with a smile, that half-amused,
+half-mysterious smile. "He gave me the dress, you know, and I think he
+wanted me--to marry him. Hush! what's the use of being angry--now?" She
+checked his incredulous outcry, and her hand hesitated up to his
+trembling fingers, and held them back from their task. "Don't," she
+went on; "I'd rather--you didn't waste time. I want you to look at
+me--only me--me, myself. Ah! that's nice!"
+
+There was an instant's silence; then her eyes wandered to his cuff as
+it rested on her corselet, and she smiled again. "We match, don't we?
+I'm glad. Besides, it won't stain much. I expect--that's why soldiers
+wear red, isn't it?"
+
+The deadly realism roused Vincent to a sort of fury at his own
+helplessness. But what could a man do, caught in a second by Fate to be
+chief actor in a scene like this, where he was lost,--lost utterly? And
+those two fools looking on--doing nothing!
+
+"At least, in common charity, you might help. You're something of a
+doctor!" he cried passionately. "We can settle scores afterwards, you
+and I, can't we? But now you might help _her_."
+
+"What did she say?" asked Father Ninian, tonelessly. He had caught a
+word or two, and their triviality, in the face of what had happened--a
+triviality common in those who have been struck down as she had been,
+almost painlessly--had but increased his bewilderment. "What does it
+mean? How do you come here? I must know, first."
+
+The girl had turned her face quickly to the new voice; and, after
+vainly trying to rise, lay back breathlessly. "Tell him, Vincent; he's
+Father Laurence. Remember--he must know--and--and I--can't--"
+
+"Then here it is, sir!" broke in Vincent, brutally. "If you will wait
+to know, when every moment is precious. We love each other--you've done
+it in your time, I'm told! I've been coming here, night after night, to
+see her; she wears that dress to please me--there! Now you've got it!
+And to-night, some devil--she says Roshan Khan, but she's dreaming;
+what can he have to do with it?--stood there and fired--at me, I think;
+but she flung herself--Ah! Laila, my darling, why did you? Now, will
+that satisfy you--you--you--"
+
+"Hush!" came Laila's voice--"there is no use in being angry. Besides,
+he understands; he knows what it is to be in love quite well. Don't
+you, guardian? You loved her, didn't you? Margherita, I mean--"
+
+She wandered off into Italian--the language they always spoke, and her
+rich voice dulled, died away, as the faintness returned.
+
+"For God's sake, sir, bring the light, if you won't do anything else!"
+cried Vincent, wildly. "She has fainted, I think--I can't see--it is so
+dark. For God's sake, sir, the light at least!"
+
+The light at least! As Father Ninian mechanically took the red lamp
+from its niche he felt that he needed no more light than those words,
+"he understands," had sent into his very soul. Yes, he knew what love
+was. But he knew also--it came home to him in a second--that his love,
+even after all these years, differed not at all from this girl's. He
+heard it in her voice--that voice so strangely like that other
+voice--which he remembered--oh! so well!
+
+"Take off the shade," said Vincent, "it makes everything so--so
+red--you--you can't see the truth." He shivered as he spoke.
+
+But that first look at the girl had been enough for Pidar Narayan. It
+had roused him, his apathy was gone. He thrust the lamp into Vincent's
+trembling hands without a word, and his own steady ones--the hands
+which had not touched their kind, except to heal body or soul, since
+they had said farewell to a woman--took up the task.
+
+So for a few minutes there was silence, but for the old pantaloon's
+ceaseless mumblings as he rocked himself backwards and forwards. He had
+meant no harm, he protested--he had conducted more affairs of the kind
+to a decent ending than he could well remember--no one could be more
+discreet--accidents would happen--
+
+"She is shot through the lungs," said Father Ninian, breaking the
+silence. "There is very little to be done--I--I--" He would have said
+"_fear_," but for Vincent's face of anguish. What right had he to feel
+sorrow?--he, the man who had brought this about. "Still, I will try.
+Akbar! bring the candles from the altar. Stay! she had better go there.
+It will save time. You two can carry her."
+
+But Vincent had her in his arms, with a brief "Where?"
+
+"The chapel--the lights are lit. Lay her on the cushions before the
+altar. I will be with you again directly."
+
+When he returned from his room with lint and bandages she was lying
+there as he had directed, her long red skirt trailing down the white
+steps.
+
+"The candles, please,--the smaller ones, Akbar,--and place them at her
+head. They will give me a better light."
+
+Vincent shivered again at the sight; she looked already dead, with
+those tall tapers about her. Ah! what did it all mean? Was he dreaming?
+How was it possible? The wild improbability of it stunned him; when not
+three hours ago he had had a sherry-and-bitters before dinner! The
+curious irrelevance of his thoughts made him feel as if he must wake
+soon. Yet there she lay. Laila, whom he loved!
+
+"Is she--is she--" he began.
+
+"Not dead, if you mean that," replied Father Ninian quietly. "But she
+will not live an hour."
+
+There was no mincing matters between these two men--nothing but the
+brutal truth; yet this time it was the old priest who held up his hand
+against a passionate outcry. "Don't make a fuss. Be brave, at least,
+and don't disturb her. She is coming to herself again."
+
+To herself certainly. To the old half-amused, half-mysterious smile, as
+her eyes caught the tapers, the lighted altar beyond, her lover
+kneeling at her side. "It is the wedding, I suppose," she said--there
+was a catch in her breath now--"but why have they put the candles like
+a bier? To save time, I suppose. But it mixes things up; and--" she
+gave a little impatient sigh--"Oh! tell him to be quick, Romeo,
+for--for we always meant to be married in the end--didn't we?"
+
+The words cut Vincent like a knife. Yes! He had meant it. Not always.
+Not till, even to one with his past, the perfection of this idyll in
+the garden would have suffered without that promise to himself. And
+now, death should not cheat him, should not leave a stain, a regret, on
+the one perfect romance of his life. He stooped suddenly and kissed
+her; kissed her with more passion than he had ever kissed her before.
+
+"It won't be long, Juliet; he is just going to begin," he whispered,
+then rose to his feet unsteadily.
+
+This at least he could do for himself. And for her? A sob, almost of
+gratitude, of admiration, came to his eyes as he realized that it would
+never, never--even if she had lived--have mattered to her really. But
+it had been a part of the play; part of her as Juliet. So it should be.
+His wild revolt at the sequence of improbabilities--for after all that
+idyll in the garden had been, bar its environments, commonplace
+enough--which had landed him in--_in an Adelphi drama!_--(he could not
+help the thought, though he despised it)--should give way to this. The
+play should end with a wedding. Juliet should have the '_statue of pure
+gold_' in the eyes of the world. He could ensure this by a word; and
+the word should be spoken.
+
+He touched Father Ninian peremptorily on the shoulder, as he bent, busy
+with his instruments.
+
+"I want to speak to you. Hush! she must not hear. Father, you say she
+is dying. Well, I claim my right. I am a Catholic--I have sinned--we
+will say nothing about her--that lies between us. I wish to marry her
+while I can. I ask it as my right, of you, a priest. Do you understand?
+I ask you to marry us."
+
+Ninian Bruce looked for an instant as if he could have killed the man
+who stood before him; then he drew himself up, priest utterly.
+
+"Have you the right to claim it?"
+
+"I claim it as a right," replied Vincent, fiercely. "That is enough,
+surely."
+
+"It is not enough. I will ask her." And Pidar Narayan knelt down beside
+the girl. "My daughter," he began, "Captain Dering tells me--" Then he
+gave way--"_Cara mia_," he whispered, laying his hand on hers, "tell
+me--I have never been unkind, surely--tell me--your old guardian, who
+has loved, who loves--must I marry you to--to _him?_"
+
+Laila looked into his face with a faintly-wondering reply. "Must!" she
+echoed dreamily. "It's just as he likes, of course. I don't mind. I
+only want him--where is he?"
+
+"I'm here, sweetheart." Vincent knelt down again and took her in his
+arms.
+
+The faint querulousness left her voice. "That's nice," she murmured.
+"Tell him to begin quickly, Vincent, for I don't want to waste time. I
+want you--you, yourself, and me--me, myself--nothing else."
+
+Father Ninian gave a sort of cry, and turned blindly to the altar. If
+this was not Love, what was?
+
+Then, monotonously, his voice began the marriage service.
+
+"Have you a ring?" he asked, when he came to stand by those two, the
+girl supported in Vincent's arms. The latter shook his head. "Go on
+without it," he said sternly; "she is failing fast."
+
+But there was one on the old man's finger; one that had never left it
+since it had been put there by a saint in Paradise. He took it off now,
+and gave it to the man whom at that moment he hated and despised more
+than any man on earth.
+
+So, swiftly, the prayers went on, and old Akbar paused in his rockings
+to say "Amen" with the others. He had learnt _thus_ much in these
+latter days of grace.
+
+The last one came as a step resounded down the passage; Lance Carlyon's
+step as he sought the light he had seen--sought his Captain. He seemed
+to bring a breath of fresh air into the passion-laden atmosphere, a
+solid reality into the shadows.
+
+"Vincent!" he cried, as he caught sight of the scarlet and gold. "Thank
+God! you're here. The troopers have seized the Fort--" He paused
+suddenly, horror-struck at what had caught his eye. "I beg your
+pardon--I didn't know--is she--is she--hurt?--"
+
+Vincent stood up suddenly. "Hush! that has nothing to do with it. Leave
+that to me. The troopers have risen? When?"
+
+Lance, with his eyes still on that pitiful sight, shook his head.
+
+"There was a pistol-shot--you must have heard it!"
+
+"Heard it!" echoed Vincent, wildly. "Yes! I heard it. Go on! What
+then?"
+
+"I don't know--I know nothing in this infernal nightmare that's got
+hold of us all!" cried Lance. "I only know that if we don't get to the
+gaol before they do--they've gone to set the prisoners free--there will
+be the devil of a row. So you must come at once, Vincent--you must come
+at once!"
+
+Captain Dering gave an irresolute look at the dying girl. She had saved
+his life--he loved her--could he leave her? Was anything worth that
+sacrifice?
+
+"You _must_ go!" said a stern voice. It was Father Ninian's, who had
+taken Vincent's place and was now holding Laila in his arms. "You must
+go, Captain Dering, and prevent worse from befalling; if you can--if
+you can!" There was almost a triumph in his voice.
+
+Lance looked from one to the other in sheer despair. "Well! if you
+won't come, I'm off--oh! come along, Vincent, and don't be a fool!
+It--it isn't worth it; it never is!"
+
+Vincent Dering stood still irresolute. "You'll stay, sir," he said,
+"and--and look after--"
+
+Father Ninian drew the unconscious girl closer to him. "I will look
+after--_Margherita_."
+
+The last word came in a half whisper to himself and his eyes met
+Vincent's with a curious dazed defiance. The latter gave the defiance
+back, as their owner stooped for a second over Laila's indifferent
+face, and kissed it.
+
+"Good-by, _Juliet_," he said; and the last word came also in a half
+whisper to himself.
+
+The next moment he was following Lance down the dim passage, full of a
+vague relief, and realizing for the first time that the mist, which for
+the last half hour had dimmed the reality of all things, was due, not
+to any aberration of his brain, but to the simple fact that an
+electrical dust-storm was in full blast.
+
+He realized it with relief. That was at least real, tangible.
+
+Almost too much so; and as the hot wind, charged with those aspiring
+atoms of earth, met him fiercely, he realized also that the storm would
+fight against him in his efforts to prevent worse from happening. If,
+indeed, anything could be worse than what had happened; worse than
+Laila's--
+
+He broke off in his thought, incredulous. It could not be true. He
+would come back to find her better--well!--
+
+But that other dream was true. His men had risen. The one thing
+necessary, therefore, was to get to the gaol before any decided action
+took place; and this he realised still more clearly from Lance's curt
+explanation as they ran down the river steps. Once there, the sight of
+the canoe he had left suggested the feasibility of getting to the gaol
+in it. His personal influence might avail. If that failed, he would at
+least be able to save time by choosing a suitable place for the raft to
+come ashore. The great thing was to be on the spot, to be within reach
+of action at once; to wait for the raft meant needless delay.
+
+So, a minute after, the faint splash of his paddle was lost in the
+rising hum of the storm, and Lance was left looking anxiously for sound
+or sight of the raft, which, if all had gone well, should by now have
+started.
+
+But neither came, so, seeing from the light he had snatched up as he
+passed through the balcony that the air was growing darker, more
+impenetrable than ever, he shoved off his strange craft, to wait
+further out in the stream where there was less chance of the raft
+passing him unseen, unheard.
+
+For this reason also, he paddled up along the wall a bit into the faint
+glow of light which showed still from the arches of the chapel. And as
+he lay in it, his ears and eyes strained for the least sound, he could
+hear as a kind of background to that muffled drumming of the storm, the
+sound of the pilgrims chanting as they waited for the dawn. The dawn
+which would bring--what? Who could tell?
+
+The sound of other prayers, echoing from the chapel, made him shake his
+head, feeling that it was hopeless to look forward--or backward for
+that matter! Why had Roshan shot the girl--if he had! And why had Pidar
+Narayan called her Margherita, and Vincent called her Juliet?
+
+The whole thing was exactly as he had said--an infernal nightmare!
+
+Then a faint sound in front of him made his strong arms sweep the
+paddle through the stream as he shot into the darkness in search of the
+raft; in search of Erda.
+
+Not that she needed him, really. The memory of her in that red-and-gold
+mess jacket above her wedding dress, giving orders to the men squarely,
+came back to make him smile.
+
+God bless her! She could do well enough without him. That was one
+comfort. And Dillon could hold his own too, without much help, for a
+time--that was another; for what with this and that, help was bound to
+be over-long in coming.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII
+
+                              A MONOPOLY
+
+
+Lance Carlyon was right in trusting Dr. Dillon's power of doing without
+help until Providence chose to send some. This was the easier task, in
+that he had made up his mind deliberately beforehand as to what his
+best course of action would be should an alarm of this sort occur.
+Therefore that imperative _kling-kling_ of the telegraph bell which
+roused him in a second from his bed, where, ready dressed for any such
+emergency, he was sleeping the sleep of the just, found him alert,
+prepared for anything and everything.
+
+So it has come, he thought, as he hastily wired back the comprehensive
+reply, "_All right, await you_." He felt as a doctor does when a
+dangerous symptom which he has foreseen as a possibility, shows itself.
+He had been on the lookout for this for days, but as the dawn would end
+the period during which it might be expected, he had, as in the
+outbreak of the cholera, had hopes that danger was over. His last
+thought, as he slept, had been this; he woke to find that the
+complication must be faced. Woke with a strong regret, but a stronger
+instinct of fight. So he slipped his feet into his shoes, jammed his
+big mushroom hat on his head out of pure habit, and so, armed
+_cap-a-pie_, with a brain quick to work, and a body ready to follow and
+obey, he ran across the sandy road to the Smiths' bungalow, realizing
+as he did so that a dust-storm was just beginning. That would delay
+both attack and relief. On the whole, this would be an advantage,
+since, once things were secure, half an hour or so would make no
+difference in the latter; whereas, he wanted every minute he could get
+now for preparation.
+
+He had not warned Eugene Smith of his fears. There was never any use
+alarming people by mere probabilities, unless by so doing you could
+forearm them. And this was not the case here; since the safest--in fact
+the only--place of refuge for Mrs. Smith and the child, should trouble
+arise, was the semi-fortified roof above the gate of the gaol; and that
+he knew to be ready for use. He had, therefore, only to wake them, as
+quietly as might be, so as not to give the alarm to the servants.
+Fortune favoured him in this; for, just outside the verandah, he ran
+full tilt upon Eugene himself, tall, gaunt, in his sleeping-suit,
+carrying a roll of bedding on his back like a snail's shell. The heat
+of the evening had enticed him to sleep outside, as he preferred, _a
+la_ Robinson Crusoe, and the dust-storm was sending him in.
+
+"Hello, Dillon!" he cried, "what's up?--nothing wrong with my wife or
+the child--I hope--No!--" he gave a sigh of relief, "then it's the
+beastly dust-storm disturbed you, I suppose. Isn't it sickening to
+think how many times in the next six months we shall have to take up
+our beds and walk."
+
+"H'm! Hope I shall have the chance," replied the doctor, dryly,
+recovering his breath. "No, it isn't the storm. They're going to try a
+row, Smith. Just had a wire from the Fort. There's a plot on, to come
+here and set the prisoners free, and that's dangerous. So, till the
+troops come, I think you'd better bring Mrs. Smith and Gladys to the
+gate--it's the safest place, and I've got everything ready. It mayn't
+be much; but the devils, whoever they are, might turn and rend
+you--especially if they fail with me."
+
+Eugene Smith had dropped his snail-shell and sat down on it, aghast, in
+surprise; but he was up again before the doctor finished.
+
+"By Jove!" he said rapidly, calmly as the doctor himself. "That's a
+taking up one's bed with a vengeance. I'll have 'em both ready in a
+jiffy--anything else?"
+
+"No. I'll rummage round till you return--one forgets things to the
+last, sometimes. And I shall want your Remington and such like--I know
+where to find 'em."
+
+A moment after he was striking a match to light the tall floor-lamp in
+Mrs. Smith's drawing-room. She had turned it out herself a few hours
+before, thinking, as she looked round the room, full of soft
+rose-shaded light, how pretty, how cosey it was. It had the same air of
+refined security now. Everything, down to a copy of the last '_Queen_'
+lying on an inlaid table by her favourite chair, was so exactly what
+one would have expected to find in her room; the room of a delicate,
+cultivated, civilized, society woman.
+
+And now?
+
+Now the delicacy, the culture, the civilization, the society, and the
+security belonging to them, had been invaded in an instant. By what?
+
+The dust--you could almost see it springing into the air in these sandy
+stretches--had already settled thick over the dainty furniture, and as
+Dr. Dillon, standing by the table in the pink glow of the lamp, asked
+himself the question, he yielded to the imperious fascination which a
+smooth sand-surface has for humanity. But he did not write his name
+upon it; only the idle answer to the question.
+
+"God knows."
+
+The writing lay upon the table beside the latest fashions, staring up
+into the pink paper shade, after George Dillon had passed rapidly to
+Eugene's office to choose this, that, and the other, and make them into
+a bundle with a table-cloth.
+
+When he returned to the drawing-room, Muriel Smith was standing by that
+writing in the sand: a fragile figure in a blue dressing-gown, all
+frilled and embroidered like the pictures in the paper. She looked more
+forlorn than frightened; forlorn and pathetic.
+
+"Is it warm enough?" said the doctor, as he entered. "Your dress, I
+mean. There's a storm on, and it generally brings rain."
+
+"It is flannel," she answered, and he nodded.
+
+There was no excitement, no heroics. Only that. That, and the writing
+on the sand, and her forlornness--the forlornness of a delicate Dresden
+shepherdess set to drive a flock of real sheep to the shambles. But the
+needlessness, the pity of it, made Dr. Dillon set his teeth.
+
+"Eugene will be here directly with Gladys," she said. "We thought it
+best not to wake her, and he said we had better start at once; for you
+see I can't walk nearly so fast as he does."
+
+There was no trace of fear in her voice, but there was none of
+resistance either, and she turned at the door to look back with an
+almost reproachful acquiescence.
+
+"Poor room," she said softly, "it seems so strange--such a pity; but I
+suppose it can't be helped." She turned to the darkness again with a
+little shiver, and went on, "Vincent sent the wire, I suppose."
+
+"I didn't ask," replied Dr. Dillon curtly; then, repenting him, added,
+"I suppose so. He will be here directly I expect. And--and we will all
+take care of you and Gladys, as long as we can. You know that; and we
+can't do more--can we?"
+
+She smiled quite tenderly. "Of course you will. And I am really not a
+bit afraid--except of being in the way."
+
+She seemed to accept the necessity of this; perhaps rightly. For the
+storm itself was no joke in these desert stretches, where the sand rose
+in choking clouds, yet left enough to make each step a toil. Muriel
+stumbled along breathlessly, but so slowly that, when her husband
+joined them, striding along with Gladys, still sleeping, wrapped in a
+blanket in his arms, the doctor bade them come at their leisure and
+wait until he gave the signal before entering, then ran on swiftly to
+the gaol. For there was no time to lose; though, on the other hand,
+there was very little to be done. The less the better, if his plan was
+to be successful; since that involved the utmost quiet, and the keeping
+of the prisoners from all knowledge of what was going on as long as
+possible.
+
+As he faced the choking darkness, the hot blasts of causeless wind,
+blowing all ways at once, George Dillon reckoned up his chances fairly.
+The storm would certainly make it easier to keep such knowledge from
+those within, and make it more difficult for those without to establish
+communication with the former. So far, good. On the other hand, no
+amount of the light at his command would enable him to see, even from
+his coign of vantage on the gateway roof, what was going on, either
+outside or inside. And darkness was the diggers' best friend; while
+digging was the recognized enemy of mud walls. Especially of those
+inside walls which divided the gaol into sections. Yet the best, the
+only chance of keeping the prisoners quiet, lay in preserving their
+segregation into companies.
+
+For the gaol was of the cart-wheel pattern. That is, a huge circle of
+outside wall, thick as an earthwork, the felloes of the wheel, as it
+were. Then a small central cylinder of brick, like a lime kiln, the
+nave of the wheel, as it were. Between these two the spokes. Spokes of
+twelve feet high mud wall, dividing the whole into seven wedges of
+prison, absolutely distinct, blank, aperture-less, save for one heavily
+stanchioned door in the apex of each wedge, leading into the central
+tower. Exit or entry was therefore impossible to six of these wedges,
+except through the tower; that is the citadel, the key, as it were, of
+the gaol proper.
+
+The seventh wedge, however, gave, at its wider end, on the
+entrance-gate, which was a square, semi-fortified building, pierced by
+a tunnel, gated at each end, and further protected by an outside yard,
+or roofless porch, also gated. The inmost of these three gates opened
+on to a small courtyard, and this narrowed again into an alley which
+gave access to the central tower. Briefly then the whole gaol consisted
+of six wedges opening, by a door in their narrow end, into the central
+cylinder; and a seventh wedge split in two by an alley leading between
+high mud walls from the gateway to that central tower; the key to the
+position.
+
+In the two halves of the split wedge lay the warders' barracks, the
+solitary cells, the cook rooms, the hospital; and the entry to these
+was by a door on either side of the little courtyard, just beyond the
+inner gate. From the corner of this, also, rose the outside stair
+leading to the roof of the square, brick gateway.
+
+Thus the fifteen hundred prisoners were broken up into companies of
+about two hundred each, and were absolutely without possibility of
+communication so long as the central tower was in the hands of
+authority. Unless there was time to undermine the mud walls, and tools,
+also, wherewith to work. Of these, however, there were none in the
+gaol. Nothing, even, that could be used to take their place, except in
+that seventh section which held the executive of the gaol; and there
+Dr. Dillon meant to leave no hands to use them, if he could compass it.
+
+As he pulled up to regain his breath before walking up to the gate and
+giving the countersign, the whole place lay quiet and dark. So far,
+good. There was the risk, however, of the plot being known, and of the
+sentry refusing him entrance. It was not, however, and the next moment,
+calmly as if he was merely on one of his not infrequent rounds of
+unexpected night inspections, Dr. Dillon passed from the outer porch to
+the tunnel, and told the sentry at the inner gate to light the lamp in
+the little office room to one side.
+
+"Call the superintendent," he said to the first man, "and you can tell
+him I am going to inspect the solitary cells."
+
+He added this because he knew it would give time, since the
+superintendent would be sure to give a private look round, first, to
+see all was in order, and remove possible traces of tobacco or
+opium,--those luxuries out of which so much money can be made by gaol
+officials.
+
+No sooner, however, had the first sentry gone through the door to the
+left section, than he sent the second one on a similar message to the
+right, where the hospital lay. Then, the coast being clear, he rapidly
+unlocked the private safe in the office which held his set of keys in
+case of accidents, and locked both the right and left doors. Secure for
+a moment, therefore, from interruption, he ran outside, saw that the
+tool rooms, etc., were closed, gave the signal to Eugene Smith, hurried
+the refugees up the stairs; and then, after unlocking the two doors
+again on his way back to the office, sat down in his usual chair and
+began to look over a register.
+
+He was engaged in this calm occupation when, a minute or two after, the
+native superintendent--a big, dignified person, in a blatant undress
+due largely to his bulk--arrived breathless.
+
+"_Darogah-jee!_" began Dr. Dillon, instantly, and the mere tone of the
+title made the man quiver, "I've had constantly to complain of the
+tobacco and opium smuggling that is going on among the warders, and I
+mean to stop it. I've had information to-night which will clinch
+the business. So take the night guard, rouse every warder, bring
+everyone here, even those on guard in the sections--the hospital
+orderlies--everyone, in fact, who is free to go out of the gaol. They
+are to come at once. No time allowed for arrangements. If they are not
+all here in five minutes I shall think you are in league with the
+smugglers."
+
+The _darogah's_ fat flesh shook, yet he winked as he went off. If the
+doctor-_sahib_ expected to find anything in this fashion except, maybe,
+a smell of the forbidden drugs, he was mistaken. On such a night, too,
+when the dust was in everyone's eyes. Well! it might have been worse;
+for, though he knew nothing definitely of any plot, he could not fail
+to know that there was more to excite men in the gaol, that night, than
+tobacco or opium! So he went about his summons with a sigh of relief,
+and before the five minutes were over had his posse of minor officials
+together, including a file of unfettered prisoners, with good conduct
+badges, who were used as gang leaders. He himself finally coming down
+the alley, with a stupendous bunch of keys, followed by the little
+group of night warders he had collected from the other sections.
+
+"All here?" asked Dr. Dillon, lighting a cigar. "The register, please,
+_darogah_. They will answer to their names, pass out through the wicket
+into the porch, and stay there until I've tallied the lot. I'm going to
+have it _pakka_[11] this time."
+
+Some of the men grinned, some looked uneasy, and some few frowned; but
+all obeyed, though they cuddled themselves into their blankets as they
+slipped through the wicket, and faced the whirling, swirling storm in
+the open porch, the doors of which were barred, not solid.
+
+"Kishen Rao?" came Dr. Dillon's voice, after a long series of names,
+followed by brief "_presents!_" and swift exits. There was no answer.
+He turned to the _darogah_ for explanation.
+
+"Absent!" explained the latter, timorously.
+
+A little more decision might have saved him the quick question, "With
+or without leave?"
+
+"_Huzoor_" palpitated the fat man, "he went out to bathe in the Holy
+Pool by permission this morning. He is of the utmost sobriety. A
+Brahmin, promoted by your Honour to, as your Honour knows, general head
+ward-keeper. He is not to be suspected."
+
+"Leave till 5 P.M.," commented the doctor, looking over the register.
+"Mark him down absent without leave. Go on."
+
+So, rapidly, the last man ducked under the wicket.
+
+"Is that the lot?"
+
+"Everyone, Protector of the Poor," protested the burly official, with
+smiles. "The prison is empty of the unfettered."
+
+"Then let it remain so for the present," said Dr. Dillon, coolly, as he
+stepped forward, closed the wicket, slid the bolt to its place, and
+turned on the _darogah_, all in one swift sequence.
+
+"Now, then!" he went on sharply, "you and I have to settle a bit of
+business. Your keys--" he took out a revolver, and laid it on the table
+beside him--"every key you have; duplicates, triplicates, everything!
+I'm going to keep this gaol myself for a bit. Do you understand?"
+
+"_Huzoor!_" bleated the man, helplessly, putting his big bunch on the
+table.
+
+Dr. Dillon smiled sarcastically. "Won't do, my friend. I want the lot
+by the list. Where's the register?"
+
+When it came he ticked them off rapidly by it. "Sections B and C,
+warder's duplicate; where's that?" he asked.
+
+The official grew green. "Kishen Rao--" he began--"but he is of the
+utmost--"
+
+Dr. Dillon turned on him like lightning. "You're a damned scoundrel,
+sir! What else is missing?" He ran over the rest swiftly, then looked
+up suddenly with a scowl that made the man literally collapse. "So
+that's it, is it? Duplicate of B and C sections missing, and duplicate
+of the alley doors. A pretty little game!" he laughed sardonically.
+
+"Kishen Rao--" gurgled the _darogah_--"by your Honour's promotion--of
+the utmost--"
+
+"But it won't play, my friend; it won't play!" went on the doctor, with
+a curious elation. "I hold the thirteenth trump, now. You go in
+there,"--he pointed to an inner store-room behind the slip of an
+office; a windowless place, pitch dark, where the clothes in which the
+prisoners arrived awaited their release in piles--"and thank your stars
+you're in such good quarters."
+
+All but that brief order, "You go in there," was spoken in English, as
+a sort of outlet for the intense satisfaction which was filling him at
+his own success,--_so far_.
+
+The next minute he had turned the key on the _darogah_, and was up the
+stairs calling Eugene Smith in a low voice to come down and help to
+bolt and bar; but to come as quietly as he could.
+
+"I've got rid of the lot," he said joyously, after he had explained the
+position in a few rapid words; "there isn't a soul in this section
+except the solitary cellers--who, of course, are ironed--a few sick
+people, and the assistant surgeon; but _baboo-jee_ is an agnostic, and
+is so confoundedly afraid of the possibility of a future life that he
+may be trusted to go into green collapse if he hears a shot fired."
+
+So, rapidly, the two men set to work, undisturbed by more than a
+protesting "_Huzoor_, what shall we do?" from the posse outside the
+first gate, and a low knocking at the wicket.
+
+There were double doors here, however, and of the sort which it would
+need time to negotiate, without powder.
+
+"They will hold out for an hour, at least," said the doctor; "then
+there will be the inner one, and after that the alley door--unless--"
+he remembered Kishen Rao, and frowned. That was the only weak spot in
+his armour. "We can count on an hour and a half, at least," he
+continued, carefully allowing for the worst; "longer, perhaps. Now
+then, Smith, for the toughest job! I've got a couple of crowbars here.
+Those first six steps--eight if we can--of the stairs must come down.
+There aren't enough of us to hold them."
+
+So, for fully a quarter of an hour, no sound was heard above the
+curious vibration of the storm except the grinding and crushing of the
+bricks as they were rapidly eased out, one by one, from the mud mortar.
+The light of one of the office lamps, set on the ground, showed by that
+time a sheer drop of eight or ten feet, and Eugene Smith, working
+above, jammed his crowbar into a crevice of the wall against which the
+steps clung like a swallow's nest, and gave Dr. Dillon, who had been
+working below, a rope and a hand up.
+
+The latter set down the keys and the lamp he had brought up with him,
+and deliberately dusted the knees of his trousers.
+
+"There, that's done," he said. "Couldn't be better."
+
+"Yes, it seems pretty safe," assented Eugene Smith, a trifle dubiously.
+
+"Safe!" echoed the doctor, enthusiastically, "I haven't felt so safe
+for the last fortnight. Hullo! what's that?"
+
+That was a sudden bugle-call. The doctor's face fell. "What, already! I
+didn't expect relief so soon. However, it can't be helped. I'll just go
+up and tell Dering what I've done, so that he may be prepared for the
+locked out ones!"
+
+He took the light in his hand and crossed to the outer parapet.
+
+"Hello, Dering!" he began, peering down. Then a couple of shots whizzed
+past his head and he ducked. At the same moment, as if roused by the
+concussion, the first crackling thunderclap of the dust-storm, sounding
+muffled through the thick air, followed like a roll-call, and
+reverberated dully, sluggishly, through the black darkness.
+
+When it passed, Dr. Dillon's voice rose quietly.
+
+"There will be no relief, Smith; those are the troopers, and they're
+against us. So now--we've got it to ourselves, Smith, for some time."
+
+There was a certain satisfaction at the monopoly in his voice.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXIII
+
+                           THE SEARCH-LIGHT
+
+
+The sound of those two shots greeted Vincent Dering as, after infinite
+difficulty, owing to the darkness, the fitful gusts of wind, and the
+sand-banks, he drew up the canoe against what he knew must be the high
+bank below the off-take of the canal.
+
+It had only been by trusting the stream to guide him, and refraining at
+times from the use of his paddle, that he had managed to steer his way
+at all.
+
+So he knew he was late; felt, indeed, that he must be too late to use
+his influence with the men, and yet, despite this knowledge, a keen
+disappointment filled him when those shots proved him to be so; since
+by long experience he knew that once open resistance began, there could
+be no more question of words.
+
+What then, was there for him to do?
+
+If he, in his light canoe, helped, wherever possible, by every atom of
+strength his arms possessed, had taken so long to come down that mile
+or two of stream, the raft could not possibly arrive for another half
+hour.
+
+He could not sit still for half an hour; he felt, indeed, as if he
+could not sit still for half a minute. A passion to act, to sweep away
+the past, to forget, was upon him. He had had time during his strange
+journey--so often idle perforce--to realize his position; time to piece
+the still stranger events preceding his journey into a reasonable
+sequence; so that he had, by now, arrived at a fairly accurate guess as
+to the cause of much, that, when it happened, had seemed causeless.
+
+For instance, Laila's dress, "_given her by someone_." That, joined to
+the knowledge that she was connected with the late Nawab's family, of
+which Roshan Khan might with justice claim the headship, had brought
+the latter's action within the bounds of credibility. Jealousy!
+revenge! these were potent causes. Laila, then, must have been playing
+with Roshan's pretensions. Playing like a child with a toy; playing,
+rather, like a woman who hesitates at nothing for the sake of the man
+she loves. And she had hesitated at nothing; not even at this, to give
+him pleasure, to make things match with his passion! The thought, the
+remembrance, made him for a moment feel inclined to fling up his hands,
+and let the canoe take him where it chose; take him down stream
+utterly. Then a half choking, yet wholly strenuous desire to escape
+from the whole story, a wild instinctive effort for a more wholesome
+atmosphere, like that of a drowning man for a breath of fresh air, had
+sent the canoe bounding on _his_ way; _his_ way and none other's, in
+swift obedience. With a rush, he had grasped that there was more in
+life--that he had allowed himself to be a slave! But that was past,--he
+would shake himself together--he would forget the thraldom of sex--and
+he would forget the past.
+
+Yet, as he cast about in his mind for the best method of applying the
+half hour's leisure, the remembrance of a woman came to him, as if to
+mock at his resolution. Muriel, and dear little Gladys who called him
+"Derin' darling"; where were they? His eyes grew soft in the
+remembrance, stern at the probability of their being in danger. Why had
+he not thought of it before? How could he ever have paused, wondering
+what to do?
+
+He set the red light, which he had taken from the fateful balcony,
+carefully in the canoe--though, even should some gust of the rising
+wind not blow the light out, it could scarcely be of any use in that
+outer darkness--as a signal to the raft should it, by an off chance,
+drift past in his absence, then struck across the sand in the direction
+in which he knew the Smiths' bungalow must lie; that was, a little to
+the rear of the gaol.
+
+The storm, as he faced it, was so fierce that the doubt rose inevitably
+if an unwieldy raft could make way against it. If so, then there would
+be no help. The only thing would be to defend himself and others until
+the end came; the end which would at least end the past.
+
+He had almost to feel his way, the darkness was so intense. It was a
+relief to stumble against something which he knew must be the low mud
+fence of Muriel's garden; that garden in which she tried to defy
+Providence, and rear English flowers. He knew his feet must be crushing
+her treasures as he passed on towards a faint glow, a red glow. But
+everything that was not the blackness of outer darkness to-night seemed
+red--blood red.
+
+A minute after, with a vast relief at the silence, the solitude, he was
+in Muriel's pretty drawing-room. The pink-shaded lamp was still alight,
+showing red through the fog of dust. He passed to it instinctively, and
+as he did so, noticed the writing on the table. But many an earth-atom
+had fallen on that confession of ignorance since George Dillon had made
+it idly, and so, as Vincent Dering bent quickly to see if by chance it
+was some message left for those who might come after, he also had to
+frown and say, "God knows!"
+
+Was it possible that Eugene and his wife were still asleep? The doors
+stood open, but that was to be expected at that season of the year,
+unless someone had been awake to close them against the storm. He must
+make sure, however.
+
+But there was no one to be found in any of the rooms. It occurred to
+him, then, that they must have taken refuge in the gaol, and he told
+himself he was a fool not to have thought of that before. Dillon would,
+of course, have seen to that. He, Vincent, might have remembered so
+much, at least; might have remembered that he himself was not the only
+slave. Then he gave an odd, bitter little laugh. Was it never possible
+to get beyond a woman's apron-strings?
+
+And here he was wasting time over the question, when he ought to be
+doing something better.
+
+But what?
+
+Go back and wait for the raft, or on to the gaol? There was a big
+tamarisk tree at the end of the garden. Only two days before he had
+pointed it out to Muriel and said that an active man accustomed to
+_trapeze_ work might swing himself from it astride the high mud wall of
+the gaol, and so gain the roof of the gate. Dillon had denied it; and
+she had said, laughingly, that no one ever tried to break into a gaol,
+only out of one.
+
+Curious; still, if it had only been light, it would have been worth the
+risking. But it was impossible now in the dark.
+
+So, suddenly, a remembrance came to him. The search-light!
+
+Was it only last night he had been dining here, in this house, after
+bringing Muriel home from the Mission, where they had seen that huge
+ray piercing the shadows? Was it only yesterday that he had listened to
+Eugene's lamentations over his unused electricity, which was sure, he
+said, to vanish into space from his rude contrivances. Was it only
+yesterday that, in obedience to that pathetic look of martyrdom on
+Muriel's face, which still seemed--to one part of Vincent's nature--to
+call for instant sympathy, he had, to appease the honest inventor,
+shown an interest in search-lights which was purely fictitious, and
+learned a variety of facts about buttons and stop-cocks? And had all
+this happened yesterday on purpose that to-day, when he was in need of
+light--
+
+He was up on the roof with the thought. If only the blessed thing had
+go enough for that! As he picked his way rapidly through the litter,
+three or four cigar-ends, a half-finished whiskey-and-soda, seen by the
+flash of the hurricane lantern he had sought out and lit, told him that
+Eugene must have been at work over his new toy till late. So much the
+better for his chance--for everybody's chance; since a signal like that
+might make all the difference to the raft; all the difference to Dillon
+in the gaol--
+
+
+George Dillon was, indeed, beginning to realize this himself. His
+almost triumphant mood had passed; it had come home to him that the
+unexpected revelation of the troopers' complicity in the plot, whatever
+it was, had changed the whole aspect of affairs. Now, there was no
+question of keeping the gaol quiet until help should arrive. He was
+face to face, now, with the fact that he must not rely on any aid at
+all. What had really happened, he could not guess. For all he knew, the
+troopers and pioneers might have risen and killed their officers,
+killed everybody who would be likely to help. His aim, now, was to sell
+his life, and--and hers--as dearly as he could; but in the dead
+darkness, like a rat in a hole, what could be done? Except wait--wait
+for the walls to be dug through, the gates to be mined, that poor eight
+or ten feet drop at the foot of the stairs scaled. Then a rush, still
+in the dark, and--the greatest Darkness of all!
+
+Not even the chance of a shot; and he had plenty of ammunition. It
+would at least have passed the time to take pot-shots at the devils;
+and though these would have brought retaliation, there would have been
+no need for exposure. The parapet walls were high enough, and properly
+loopholed.
+
+So, for a few minutes, he sat almost sullenly beside those, for whom
+alone he now felt responsible, in the little turret, which, as is
+always the case in India, rose at one corner of the flat roof giving
+fair shelter for the time. In his first hurried recognition, which had
+come with the shots, that not help but attack lay outside, he had blown
+out his light, fearing lest Eugene Smith might also be exposed to
+similar attentions; so it was pitch dark. And the now almost constant
+reverberations, which seemed to send the sand-laden air in pulse-beats
+on your face, deadened all other sounds into vague confusion. But he
+knew that the warders within the porch, the troopers without, were
+trying to force the barred gate. That would not take long; though the
+two doors blocking the ends of the tunnel would be a tougher job.
+
+And he heard, closer at hand, a sleepy whimper from the child, a low
+comforting from a mother's voice.
+
+The sound made him set his teeth.
+
+God! if there was only light to kill withal.
+
+And then, in a second, as if by a miracle, it came. A great flood of
+shining light, contemptuous, at that short distance, even of that outer
+darkness. For it was electricity against electricity; a house divided
+against itself.
+
+The first thing he saw by it was that fragile figure in its dainty blue
+frills, a child's golden head; and so, naturally, the next instant
+found his hand on a rifle.
+
+"The search-light! by all that's lucky! Well! everyone has not been
+killed, anyhow," cried Eugene Smith.
+
+"Killed," echoed Dr. Dillon, savagely. "No one has been killed yet, but
+it won't be long before they are."
+
+It was not; for a trooper engaged in staring stupidly at the velvety
+black circle out of which the intruding light seemed to spring,
+suddenly threw up his hands, swirled round, and fell face upwards in a
+crumpled heap.
+
+There was an instant's scare in the crowd, in that hundred and fifty or
+more of troopers and conspirators, thrown into black and white relief,
+like a shadow pantomime, about the outer gate. Then the startled
+murmurs of "the light--the _Dee-puk-rag_" which were passing from lip
+to lip, changed into a yell.
+
+The fight had begun in earnest.
+
+"Shoot straight," remarked Dr. Dillon, a few minutes after, "we shan't
+have such a good chance long. The gate is almost gone. Then most of the
+game will be out of range--too close to the wall. And once they get
+into the tunnel we shall have to sound _cease firing_ until they come
+out on the other side; but then we ought to do decent damage, if the
+prisoners don't get at us first." He paused, and shot on steadily till,
+with a hoarse shout, the attackers surged inwards. Then he laid his
+rifle aside, remarking that it would be as well to keep an eye
+gaolwards, in case of complications.
+
+So far as could be seen in that curious chequering of dense darkness
+and sharp glittering light; light which was palpably an intruder, which
+seemed absolutely apart from the things it showed--even from the
+dust-atoms--there was none as yet. At least the uppermost portion of
+that vast wheel of wall stood out, perfect, unbroken. The roof of the
+Smiths' bungalow, where the light stood, being, however, but little
+higher than these walls, much of what lay below in the sections
+themselves was necessarily hidden in shadow; especially on the side
+nearest the light. But the narrow alley leading up to the central
+tower, being in straight line with the ray, showed clear as daylight,
+save just under the citadel itself. So did most of the little
+courtyard, with its doors opening to the right and left. George Dillon
+gave a sigh of satisfaction at the sight, since, whether the foe
+elected--when once inside the gates--to rush the roof, or press on to
+liberate the prisoners by those six doors in the round tower, there
+would be fair chance of a good bag, for a straight shot!
+
+Or, even if the convalescents in hospital were to set free the
+solitary-cell convicts--a contingency which had occurred to him too
+late for any plan of minimizing the danger--and were to swarm into the
+courtyard to help against the last gate (which, of course, was partly
+barred from the inside), he could settle their hash also. And that,
+now, was his one idea. The idea of all brave men when they find
+themselves in a tight place--to kill before being killed.
+
+As yet, however, there was no sign of life even within the vast wheel,
+with its rims and spokes of light, its centre of shadow. It lay dim,
+curiously still behind the dust-atoms that danced in the ray, like
+motes in a sunbeam.
+
+There was not a sound, not a sign within. Only the tumult of voices,
+the intermittent shots without, rising above the dull, muffled hum in
+the air.
+
+Stay! that was something. Half way round the circle, where the shadow
+of the tall tamarisk tree in the Smiths' garden cut a jagged gap in the
+white rim of wall, there was some change, something that had not been
+there a moment ago.
+
+The gap had moved; had changed place and form, though for a time the
+air was still with one of those breathless, suffocating pauses, when
+the dust above seems to sink on the dust below, and fill one's very
+lungs. And now the gap was back again, as it had been before. But it
+had left something clinging for a second to the wall like a limpet: the
+next astride it safely.
+
+"Reach me over my rifle, Smith," said the doctor, briefly; "there's a
+brute trying to sniggle along the wall; must have come up that tree in
+your garden. Wish I'd taken Dering's advice and cut it down. Thanks! I
+don't want to take my eye off him, for fear he means to drop into a
+section. I'll shoot, if that seems his game; if not, I'll wait till he
+comes closer."
+
+He leant over the parapet, waiting. Just below him, the inner wall of
+the gate against which the stair clung, and which was prolonged into
+the turret where Muriel and the child were sheltering, joined the
+circular outside wall of the gaol. The man, thought Dr. Dillon,
+trusting to their being occupied in front, must be trying to steal a
+march on them, slip down the stair, and take them in the rear. There
+was plenty of time to prevent that, however.
+
+Muriel Smith, roused by the sound of Vincent's name from the sort of
+lethargy into which she had fallen,--since she was not wanted either by
+her husband or the doctor,--rose to her knees and peered over the
+parapet cautiously.
+
+"From the tree in the garden," she said, dreamily. "Yes! I remember.
+You said it couldn't be done, and I said no one would ever want to do
+it, and he said he could--" she paused, and gave a little cry--"It is
+Vincent himself!" she gasped; "don't shoot, doctor! It's Vincent! I
+know it! I feel it! I knew he would come, if he could! Vincent!
+Vincent!"
+
+"What's up?" asked Eugene, still firing steadily at all that was to be
+seen.
+
+"Only your wife says the man is Captain Dering; and--and, by Jove! I
+believe she is right."
+
+"Of course I'm right," she sobbed, half hysterically--"I knew he would
+come--I knew he wouldn't leave me to die alone!"
+
+Eugene Smith laid down his rifle, and crawled over in cover
+deliberately, with an odd look on his face.
+
+"Yes! that's Dering; plucky fellow. He's swung himself up. I always
+knew he was a nailing gymnast."
+
+There was no grudge in his voice, only a curious challenge as he looked
+at his wife, then laid his big hand on her shoulder. "Keep more down,
+please--your head's showing. He'll get here, all right, never fear;
+we'll lower a rope to him when he comes alongside."
+
+"But I would rather look--I'd rather see _anything_ happen--" she moaned;
+"it seems so unkind not to watch--not to be there--with him--" She was
+shivering all over, the patient self-control, the steady acquiescence
+even in her own danger which had been hers till then, gone utterly.
+
+George Dillon felt a great pity, a vast impatience.
+
+"So you were right, Smith," he broke in hastily, to cover her sudden
+break down. "They aren't killed; now we shall have a chance of knowing
+what's at the bottom of all this foolery!"
+
+But when, five minutes later, Vincent Dering reached the roof in
+safety, the doctor felt vaguely that the explanations only added to the
+general incomprehensibility; and that something was being kept back.
+What, he asked impatiently, had started the show?
+
+Of course there were plots. Pidar Narayan knew of them, but, as such
+things generally did, they had seemed abortive. What, then, had upset
+the apple-cart?
+
+Vincent gave a gesture of despair. "What does it matter?" he cried. "We
+can think of that--if we _can_ think--when it's over! And if we
+can't--what does it matter?"
+
+"You can bet your bottom dollar on one thing," said Eugene, who, in
+this pause for a council of war, was methodically loading various
+weapons for future use. "It is either the sex, or sin. This world would
+be a paradise of peace if people didn't want virtue or vice,--I don't
+say which is which, mind you." He spoke suddenly, harshly; and once
+more George Dillon came to the rescue.
+
+"As Dering says, it doesn't matter. But the fact that the pioneers are
+staunch, and may be expected before long, alters our tactics a bit,
+Smith. We must husband our ammunition, and stick on as long as
+possible--don't you think so, Dering?"
+
+Vincent, kindly always, had stooped to take little Gladys, who had
+crept over to him, in his arms; and now the child, her arms round his
+neck, was cuddling close to him. "I'm so glad oo's come, Derin'
+darlin'," she whispered. "And so's mum--aren't 'oo, dearest?"
+
+Vincent unclasped the soft, little, clinging hands almost resentfully,
+and pulled himself together.
+
+"Yes!" he said briefly, "we've got to hold out. So it will be better to
+reserve ourselves, and try to keep the gaol itself quiet. It will take
+the brutes some time to force those gates unless they get help from
+within, and then there is the alley, and the doors. Still, we shall
+want every minute; for, unless the storm lessens, Carlyon will scarcely
+get the raft here before dawn. It was awful on the river."
+
+
+It was, indeed.
+
+Even Am-ma had lost himself utterly, while Lance, after paddling, and
+drifting, and shouting after a dozen false hopes, was still as far from
+finding the raft as ever.
+
+What could have become of it? Had it started sooner than he had
+expected, and passed down before he had found Vincent? Or had it never
+started at all? Had the men, after he left, turned round on _her?_
+
+This fear had come to him early in his search, and he had felt inclined
+then and there to paddle back to the Fort, and satisfy himself it was
+not so. But the thought of her face, if he allowed care for her to
+cause delay, had kept him to his task steadily, till he could no longer
+doubt that something had gone wrong.
+
+But what? And what was he to do?
+
+Then, in a flash, had come back her words after she had bidden him
+think hard. "You must go down to the spit, cut across it by the mission
+house, get round, if you can, to the police camp."
+
+That had been her verdict, involving her being left to take her chance.
+
+And now either the raft, the relief for the gaol, had started, or it
+had not. If the former, he might, of course, by a stern chase overtake
+it; but Erda was there and Vincent would meet her; they could do
+without him. But if it had _not_ started, what then? Then matters were
+exactly as they had been, when she had bidden him leave her.
+
+So, with a feeling that, if this were so, he cared little what
+happened, he steered, so far as he could judge, for the sand-banks of
+the spit to the right.
+
+Am-ma, on the contrary, steered instinctively to the left, towards the
+high bank, the deepest stream. It would at least float his logs to
+their destination, and that was something. Kings had come and gone, and
+battles had been won and lost, but the logs had always had to go down
+the river, whatever happened.
+
+And among the men, also, an apathy seemed to have settled, as they
+drifted on and on in the dark. Erda, crouching in a dry spot beside the
+ammunition, alert to the uttermost for the least hint of Lance,
+realized this from the very tone of their voices as they talked under
+their breath to each other. She felt instinctively that the inaction,
+the darkness, the lack of a leader, were lessening the value of those
+twenty men each minute.
+
+If Lance would only turn up! What could have become of him? The time
+seemed interminable; she felt sure that they must already have drifted
+past the gaol; she began to wonder if Am-ma was not playing false. For
+the darkness, the uncertainty, had its grip on her also. It was like
+some horrid nightmare, to drift on and on, hearing the muffled drumming
+of the storm, feeling the strange vibration in the air, the sharp sand
+tingling on your face, and to know nothing--nothing at all, save that
+you were there.
+
+"Am-ma!" she cried sharply, at last, certain of but one thing, that she
+must act,--"I believe we have passed the gaol; steer to the right, do
+you hear?"
+
+A laugh, not exactly insolent, but tolerant, came from the group of
+men. "Tis easy to give orders, Missy-_baba_," said a voice; "but not so
+easy to obey them, when the Lord is against your side, and sends
+darkness!"
+
+Erda's heart gave a great throb, not of fear, but comprehension. That
+was the beginning; a minute or two more and these men would be out of
+hand.
+
+"Am-ma!" she called again, "do what I tell you. Remember the child!
+Remember we have the _Dee-puk-rag_."
+
+Another laugh came from the men. "If you have the _Dee-puk-rag_, send
+it now. We need light, for sure, and--"
+
+The voice ended in a gasp--
+
+For it was there! A long ray of light, showing them that they were,
+indeed, just opposite the gaol.
+
+"Am-ma!" came Erda's voice again, and there was a hush and yet a
+triumph in it, "to the right--steer to the right."
+
+The raft edged slowly towards the ray, but the soldiers still crouched
+inactive; awed, yet not certain.
+
+Then suddenly that quick crack of George Dillon's first shot echoed
+over the river, then the yell, then the answering shots.
+
+And following on their heels rapidly came a stir among those crouching
+figures, and one of them stood up excitedly--"It has begun!--see you,
+Prag! Lehna, give the boatman a hand! Lo! do as the Miss-_baba_ bade
+thee, quickly, son of a pig! Steer for the light--they have begun!"
+
+Erda gave a sigh of relief. _That_ danger was over.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV
+
+                          BEYOND THE SHADOW
+
+
+The fact that the quarrel had begun did not, however, have the same
+effect upon Roshan Khan.
+
+In the first tempest of rage and hate which the sight of Laila and
+Vincent in the balcony had roused in him he had simply let himself go.
+He had not thought at all. Had his revolver held other cartridges, he
+would have gone on shooting at Vincent, Pidar Narayan, at everybody,
+till he could shoot no more. He had run _a-mak_; that curious phase of
+the Oriental mind when once it oversteps the hard and fast lines of
+custom in which it moves and breathes and has its being.
+
+The very fact that his revolver did not contain more possibilities for
+death, that he had no other weapon, emphasized his wild revolt.
+
+He was helpless--impotent--before these strangers, who had stolen
+everything! Everything, save bare existence. This thought, as he burst
+into the open, into the lurid darkness of the new-come storm, had made
+him laugh bitterly; for it was only that bare existence which _he_
+wished to steal! They might keep the rest; but _that_ he would claim
+from them somehow, in fair exchange.
+
+The time was ripe for such exchange too,--for fair exchange. (The
+epithet "fair" haunted him, trying to still the keen remorse for that
+shot in the dark; for one part of him knew it to have been cowardly.)
+Yes! this useless plot, with foolish mischief hidden in its heart, to
+which he had just been listening with loyal intent to frustrate it,
+could be made to serve his purpose without delay. His men would follow
+him anywhere. He had but to say the word--the word so many of them
+wanted. Then, those thieves of all that made life worth living would
+learn a lesson. They would fight and win, of course; but the lesson
+that without such men as he--men whom they thwarted and repressed at
+every turn--they could not rely upon their regiments, would have to be
+learnt. And in the learning, one thief would learn something else.
+
+So, without more thought than this desperate clashing of jealousy and
+despair, he had dashed through the crowd of pilgrims who were waiting
+for the dawn, gone back to the Fort, and given the word.
+
+In the excitement which followed, spreading swiftly from his own, he
+had not--and it was typical of the man that he did not--forget Lance
+Carlyon's friendliness; a more equal friendliness than that of most.
+There was no need to drag him into the quarrel, the more so because the
+disloyalty of the Sikh pioneers was doubtful. They might complicate
+matters at the beginning. So he had locked and barred them into the
+inner courtyard, out of the way.
+
+But Captain Dering, he knew, was outside! Let him be alone with his
+troopers, as he, Roshan would be alone with them! Let them both try
+their influence; let them try conclusions on these terms. That was but
+fair.
+
+This first step, however, necessitated others. The original plot, with
+its waiting for the dawn, its cumbrous mechanism of keys, and pilgrims,
+and God knows what, was not to his liking. He meant to fight. And if,
+as the conspirators had asserted, some of the warders were friends hand
+and foot, his men could crack the nut of the gaol in half an hour. The
+sooner the better.
+
+Pidar Narayan, he knew, had recognized him, and he was a fox for
+wiliness. Then, Captain Dering must be after him even now. And
+Dillon-_sahib_ might be on the alert any time. So the _coup de main_
+must come at once. As to what might follow, that might be after the
+fashion of Meerut in '57, or not. Who could tell the end of anything?
+The beginning would be an opportunity for fair fight between him and a
+thief. Once more the epithet "fair" scorched and shrivelled him with
+vague remorse, not for Laila--she was but a woman, a woman who had
+played him false and who deserved the worst--but for that shot in the
+dark.
+
+For there were two Roshans, warring fiercely in heart and brain.
+
+Then, after his mad, reckless ride to the gaol, the first realities had
+come to him in the sight of Dr. Dillon, standing with the light in his
+hand to welcome friends; and in the sound of those two snap-shots
+proclaiming foes.
+
+Why? The question had come swiftly. What quarrel had he with Dr.
+Dillon? Or with Eugene Smith, whose tall, gaunt figure showed behind
+the other? Eugene Smith, who must have brought his wife, his child,
+with him!
+
+The horror, the terror of what might come, swept through the quondam
+prize pupil of a mission school; the horror, the terror, in the
+remembrance of the Great Mutiny, which is, alas! a legacy of wrong to
+young India. Which ties her hand and foot; which makes those who are
+worthy of the name shrink instinctively from anything which may rouse
+the underlying savagery--the unavoidable savagery--of their countrymen.
+
+Could he hold his troopers? Could he be sure? He had come to curse. Was
+it too late to bless?
+
+Then the memory of Laila--the whole hateful tale which was
+irrevocable--struck him hopeless. He was damned utterly; he could not
+escape.
+
+He sat rigid as a statue on his horse for a second; then with a wild
+fury gave the orders for his troopers to dismount and force the gates.
+
+"Your slaves, _Nawab-sahib!_" had come the answer, making him smile
+proudly. _That_, at any rate, could not be stolen from him _now_. _Now_
+he could fight and die in what should have been his real position.
+
+Yet, once more, when the search-light had come to throw that group of
+excited men hacking and hewing at doors closed by authority into
+significant black-and-white relief, that doubt had returned; that
+desire to be on the side, once more, of men like Dr. Dillon, whose bold
+resolve to be alone responsible for his gaol, which the warder's tale
+revealed, filled him with admiration.
+
+But that sudden throwing up of a trooper's hands, that sidelong stumble
+into death, had left Roshan cruel as death itself; for the man thus
+killed had been to him as a brother.
+
+So he had gone on with a fresh impulse towards revenge, and for a time
+found forgetfulness in the excitement, the action. For though the first
+gate, that one giving on the open sort of porch, had yielded, almost at
+once, to the troopers outside and the warders within, the second,
+barring the arched tunnel, was a tougher job. It was not until this had
+given way, and the attacking party were completely sheltered from the
+fire of the little garrison on the roof, that there was leisure for
+that thought to return: "What am I doing? Why am I doing it?"
+
+No man, it may be said broadly, ever fights without feeling that the
+battle is an appeal to a tribunal beyond himself, and Roshan did not
+feel this. Then the remembrance of the woman, the child, upstairs came
+persistently, burdened by the weight of that past tragedy which, in
+India, it is impossible to forget. And this was a woman who had always
+been courteous to him, a child to whom he had given toys.
+
+What was he doing?
+
+The men were at work on the last, the strongest gate, with every tool
+they could find. Not many, for Dr. Dillon's forethought had left them
+before barred doors everywhere. The delay had already been great; would
+be greater. They must be close now on the lines of the original plot,
+at which Roshan had laughed, for the dawn was showing faintly--a mere
+promise of light to come--in the east. And the storm was passing. The
+dull reverberations of faint thunder were lost now in the cries, the
+blows of those at work trying to batter down the iron bars.
+
+A sudden distaste--more than regret or repentance--came to Roshan as he
+stood silent, watching blow after blow; a sudden doubt.
+
+Which was the right? No man worth calling a man ever fights for
+anything else; every man worth calling one fights for that. But which
+was right? Those men, hacking and hewing, or the little garrison
+upstairs?
+
+There were no such searchings of heart there, at any rate; no question
+as to what they were doing, though at that exact moment they were
+engaged in the trivial occupation of drinking tea.
+
+Muriel Smith had made it, at Dr. Dillon's suggestion, against this very
+pause; this "_cease firing_" which he had foreseen. And in the making
+of it she had used a continental tea-basket which more than once had
+been her companion on the Brindisi _route_. Dr. Dillon had laid hands
+on it in his foraging, and as she had boiled the kettle, the rush and
+roar of a train racing through the peaceful French champaignes had
+seemed to be in her ears, instead of that rush and roar of blows and
+shouting which was now rising from every part of the gaol; though the
+prisoners were still helpless for evil in their sections.
+
+So the three men, haggard, anxious, drank their tea in silence,
+hastily; yet with a curious insistence, as if the triviality gave them
+a hold on things familiar, things beyond this midsummer-night's dream
+of madness. But the child chattered as she munched a biscuit; chattered
+of the charms of this strange picnic on the "_woof, in the dark with
+oo's nighty an' s'ippers only_."
+
+The unconscious little voice struck a chill to the men's hearts, but
+the woman smiled, as mothers can do when they wish to guard that
+blessed unconsciousness to the last; the unconsciousness of which they
+are guardians by right.
+
+"We are doing as well as could be expected," remarked Dr. Dillon,
+suddenly, with a quaint professional reminiscence; then added, "I wish
+to God, though, I knew what my prisoners were up to--those solitary
+cellers are on my mind--I believe the convalescents could dig them out
+with the cook-room platters and ladles. I ought to have thought of
+that. But, as I say, we are doing very fairly well--your light, Dering,
+was a godsend."
+
+Eugene Smith looked up sharply, almost as if he meant a disclaimer;
+then he gave a brief assent. "Yes! but _that_ will be more of a godsend
+still--it is the dawn!"
+
+He pointed to that faint promise of light in the east, and Vincent
+Dering's eyes followed his hand with the doubtful look of one sick to
+death, as he watches the long weary night merge once more into another
+long weary day of certain pain. There was an utter hopelessness in it.
+
+"Yes," he echoed slowly, "that is the dawn."
+
+"Carlyon said the attack was planned for dawn, didn't he?" asked the
+doctor, deliberately helping himself to another lump of sugar,
+deliberately trying to keep the pulse beats of those around him as near
+normal as might be--and there had been something beyond it in Vincent's
+voice. "They must have meant to use the keys that brute Kishen Rao made
+off with. I wonder what it was that started the show prematurely?"
+
+"Do you think it was premature? Why?" put in Eugene Smith.
+
+"We should have had some of the townspeople, some of the pilgrims
+otherwise."
+
+"Perhaps the storm"--began Vincent.
+
+The doctor shook his head. "If they had meant to come they would have
+come. Of course now, with the wind blowing straight off us, they can't
+possibly hear."
+
+He paused and listened, for a sudden silence had fallen on the turmoil
+beneath, and out of it came an all too familiar sound, the clank of leg
+irons. Some of the prisoners, therefore, had managed to break out of
+their dormitories; or were these the solitary cellers?
+
+"I wish Carlyon would turn up," he muttered, almost petulantly, "it's
+our only chance--"
+
+But there was to be another; for, from below, a voice rose loud and
+clear.
+
+"Dr. Dillon! I have no desire to hurt you or yours, but I warn you
+that, if you persist, I am not responsible. Open the gates, and you
+shall have a safe conduct--for--for everybody."
+
+George Dillon was on his feet at once, but Captain Dering stopped him;
+his eyes ablaze.
+
+"What shall I tell him, Dillon?" he said sharply. "I'll take my orders
+from you--you're in charge; but that man is under mine. What shall I
+say?"
+
+Dr. Dillon gave one glance at the woman and the child. "Tell him to be
+universally damned," he answered; and Eugene Smith, husband and father,
+nodded acquiescence.
+
+Roshan Khan was standing in full view as Vincent Dering stepped up to
+the parapet. His face was raised; there was almost an appeal in it. But
+every atom of that, every atom almost of humanity, vanished as he
+recognized his captain. His hand went instinctively to his revolver.
+
+Then a thought seemed to come to him. He drew himself up proudly, and
+waited for the answer.
+
+It came, keen as a knife.
+
+"_Risaldar!_ draw off your men and return to barracks, or I'll shoot
+you as a mutineer."
+
+There was half a second's silence; then a wild laugh: "Close up, men,
+rush that gate--forward!"
+
+The words and the crack of Vincent's revolver--the bullet of which,
+aimed too high, passed through Roshan's turban-were almost lost in the
+answering yell. But the _risaldar_ stood his ground for a second, then
+coolly sought shelter.
+
+That was over! They were quits now for the fair fight. And fate had
+been kind. He had unwittingly offered this man--his greatest enemy--a
+safe conduct; and it had been refused, luckily. Well! let Vincent
+Dering take the whole consequences. The blood of one woman was already
+on his head; so would be the blood spilt here. He, Roshan, would need
+have no further scruples.
+
+So, as if it had gained strength from the brief respite, the turmoil
+recommenced; and now Roshan Khan's voice could be heard urging the men
+on. And there were answering shouts from different parts of the gaol.
+
+George Dillon frowned. "They mean business now. And I fancy I hear
+pounding at the left section door. If so we shall have the solitary
+cell men--my worst lot, of course--out in the courtyard before long.
+Dering--can you hear anything?--there's such a confounded noise--"
+
+Vincent, who was standing at the top of the stairs which led to the
+ten-feet drop, ran down a few steps and listened. Then he looked up
+quickly and nodded.
+
+"They are there. The door's shaking. How many of them are there?"
+
+"Two dozen or thereabouts; and the convalescents, of course. That's
+nothing--if they haven't got their leg irons off! We ought to settle
+most of them before they can help with the door. Still, I wish Carlyon
+would turn up."
+
+A sudden hurry and urgency had come to the struggle, and Dr. Dillon
+passed restlessly to the other side of the roof. The sky was lightening
+faintly. More because the dust had sought dust again, the earth earth,
+than from any increase of light; and so the broad ray of the
+search-light, widening as it went, lost itself in the distant darkness,
+and there was nothing to be seen riverwards. But close at hand two
+men--one in a warder's uniform--were running towards the gaol,
+shouting.
+
+The doctor was back to the inner parapet in a second. "Look out!
+they've got the keys now--not of this door, but some of the
+sections--and the alley. The game's up unless Carlyon--Mrs. Smith,
+please--you had better go into the turret--we shall be shooting free--"
+
+Eugene, who had been standing beside her, laid his hand on her
+shoulder. "Yes, dear!" he said gently; "go inside--it will be better
+for Gladys--and for me--"
+
+Muriel turned white, but stood quite firm, quite calm. "Come, little
+girlie," she said, holding out her hand to the child. "You've had your
+tea--it's bedtime--I can't have you sitting up all--" she broke down a
+little, partly because she was passing Vincent, and he, busy loading
+various rifles and revolvers, kept his eyes studiously from her. But
+Gladys did not choose to pass her friend in this fashion. She paused, a
+dainty little figure in a blue dressing-gown, like her mother, and with
+the same fluffy golden curls about her coaxing, delicate little child's
+face.
+
+"Dood-night, Derin' darlin'," she said. "I'm so glad 'oo's here, an'
+so's--"
+
+Something that was not all desire to check that formula made the man
+pause, too, to lift her gently, and kiss her.
+
+"Good-night, Gladys. You mustn't be frightened at anything, you know.
+You've got to be a brave girl--haven't you?" The coaxing face was close
+to the haggard, haunted-looking one.
+
+"If 'oo's goin' to be brave, Derin' darlin', I'll be brave too. Is 'oo,
+dearest?"
+
+The haggardness vanished.
+
+"I think so, little one. Good-night." He put the child down hastily, at
+a crash. The moment for courage had come.
+
+"Shoot as straight as you can!" shouted the doctor. "The section door's
+gone. Let 'em have it!"
+
+The door had gone, indeed; and in a second the courtyard beneath them
+was half full of naked, desperate men; the worst characters in the
+gaol.
+
+"Pick off the ones nearest the gate--don't let 'em touch the
+bolts--it's good for another ten minutes if we can keep them from it,"
+came the doctor's voice in jerks, as he leant over the parapet just
+above the centre of the door below, and carried out his own orders with
+deadly effect; though his heart sank when he saw that some of the
+prisoners were unironed--or rather unironed on one leg, and that they
+were armed with the other iron; a deadly enough weapon at close
+quarters. Besides, it meant more treachery. It meant a previous filing
+of the ankle-fetters; and if others in the remaining sections were as
+free--
+
+He shot quicker, steadier, while Eugene Smith and Vincent, one above
+the other on the top of the stair, did the same, taking the intruders
+on the flank. It was growing lighter every instant, the air was
+clearer, the breeze of dawn was sweeping the smoke of the rifles
+riverwards, the great white wheel of the gaol was growing broader in
+its outlines, the shadows were shrinking. But the storm seemed still
+there, in the ceaseless reverberations.
+
+"They're up to something in the far corner!" called Eugene. "What is
+it, Dillon? You can see better."
+
+The doctor ceased firing for a second, and ran farther down the
+parapet.
+
+"The keys! the keys!" he shouted back. "They are trying to pass in the
+keys! Shoot the devils--those in the corner! Don't let 'em--or the gaol
+is gone!"
+
+So, for the next minute, it was deadly work down in that corner by the
+crevice through which some unseen hand was thrusting something. Three
+times a man, clutching at the prize, fell in a heap ere he touched it.
+Then a fourth pitched forward against the doors with the keys in his
+hand, and a fifth, groping for them, rolled over on his side with them
+hidden under his dead body. And from outside the gate came rendings,
+and crashings, and yells; from above, that call, "Shoot straight, or
+the gaol's gone!"
+
+Muriel crept out from shelter, possessed once more by that frantic
+desire to see to the very end, and stood looking down on those two on
+the stairs. She gave a faint cry when Vincent flung his rifle away, and
+ran down to that ten-foot drop for revolver practice. At the sound, her
+husband gave one quick look up, and followed suit.
+
+But their own success was against them. The growing pile of the wounded
+formed a barricade, behind which a man, squirming with covetous hands
+among the dead and dying, found what he sought.
+
+"He's got them! Stop him! stop him!"
+
+There was a fusillade, the man dropped; but the keys were in another
+hand--another--another--passing outwards from the crush--outwards
+towards that low door at the end of the narrow alley.
+
+Without a word, Vincent, revolver in hand, let himself drop on the
+heads below.
+
+"Oh, don't, Vincent, don't!" came a woman's voice; and at the sound,
+another man gave that swift look up once more, and followed suit.
+
+"Let them be!" said Dr. Dillon, sharply. "Let them do what they can; it
+is about the only chance." And still, as he spoke, he kept singling out
+a foe and firing.
+
+The chance, even with his help, was a poor one in that crowd, where
+there was always another dark hand to snatch at the prize, and pass it
+nearer to the door--that door which was the key to so much!
+
+Yet, the crush through which they fought lessening, those two
+Englishmen found themselves with the straight alley before them for a
+race. A race against three men, without arms, but without irons; and
+with a fair start. While close behind was the crush--the crowd!
+
+It was nothing but a race, now, since the revolvers had done their
+worst, had fired their last shot; a race with the hope--if Vincent
+could come up with those three--of using a Goorkha _kukri_, which he
+had thrust into the yellow silk sash he wore instead of a waistcoat
+beneath his red jacket--thrust it therewith an ugly frown as a last
+argument for his foes, when he had seen it lying among the pile of
+miscellaneous weapons Dr. Dillon had foraged from the Smiths' house. It
+had a dainty ivory handle--Vincent had given it to Mrs. Smith himself,
+and its last use had been to cut the pages of a fashion paper--
+
+It had a sterner job now.
+
+But Vincent was behind; a yard or two--no more. He had fired one more
+shot before beginning the race, and Eugene's legs were longer. Yet the
+yard meant all things, and he knew it; so as he ran, his hand sought
+the knife.
+
+"Look out, Smith! look out!" he called. "I'll chuck you my _kukri_; get
+on and job them; I'll keep the others back--a bit."
+
+As he spoke, a glittering curve sped from his hand to the other man's
+feet.
+
+Then he pulled up and faced the crowd behind with his clubbed revolver.
+
+The lane was very narrow. Three men could barely breast it shoulder to
+shoulder. Surely one could bar it by swift blows and slow retreat! For
+a time, at any rate--time for the opening and shutting of a door! He
+could but try.
+
+"Oh! what is he going to do?" gasped the woman who was watching.
+
+"I appose he's going to be brave, mum," said the child, who clutched at
+her hand, watching, too, with great, wide, uncomprehending eyes.
+
+But the man beside them held his breath.
+
+So retreating, step by step, Vincent Dering kept the crowd back, lured
+the crowd on, safe--so far! For these, the first, the swiftest, were
+naturally the unironed, therefore, the unarmed. But there were others,
+forcing their way to the front, who would be harder to deal with.
+
+Vincent threw his head back and wondered how Eugene was faring; for he
+dared not turn his face from his task even for a second.
+
+Had those three been caught up? Had the _kukri_ helped?
+
+It had. And one of those three had fallen before a flash, as of light.
+
+And another!
+
+But the third had the key in the door; had turned it, when Eugene
+struck him from behind. With a wild yell he flung his full weight on
+the door; it burst open, and the two fell headlong into the tower
+beyond.
+
+But only for a second. Eugene Smith was up again, had the key out, and
+in on the further side.
+
+"All right!" he shouted; "make a rush for it! I'm ready!"
+
+Vincent Dering gave one sharp look round. The door was not four yards
+from him, but the crowd was not one. There was no time. "Shut it," he
+called, "I'm all right."
+
+Eugene Smith stood uncertain; the door ajar.
+
+The keys! ah! what could he do with the keys if he went back to
+help--and if not--
+
+"Oh! please shut it, Smith! there's a good fellow; please."
+
+The four yards were two now, were one. Then slowly the door closed, and
+Vincent had his back against it.
+
+"Oh, Vincent! Vincent!"
+
+The agonized cry echoed above all other cries, but only for an instant;
+the next, George Dillon's hand was gagging the lips which uttered it.
+
+"Hush!" he said fiercely. "Can't you let him forget for these last few
+minutes that there is such a thing as a woman in the world. Hush! I
+say."
+
+And a great hush came. The sound of blows, of iron clashing on iron,
+and falling with a dull thud on something softer, seemed to fill the
+world and leave room for nothing else.
+
+Nothing except a softer sound still. A shuddering moan, as a woman
+slipped to her knees, and covered her face with her hands; then slipped
+lower still to the ground, in a heap.
+
+But the child looked at her mother, surprised.
+
+"Doesn't 'oo like Derin' darlin' to be brave, dearest?" she asked, in a
+concerned little voice.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXV
+
+                                 DAWN
+
+
+Had an hour passed, or twain? Ninian Bruce could not tell. It seemed to
+him that he had been kneeling for a lifetime, there on the altar steps
+beside the dying girl, with the glittering red-and-gold drapery
+trailing to the white marble, and opening to a white breast stained
+red,--a brighter red!
+
+A long lifetime; long as his own; that long life in which he had seen,
+had felt, so much.
+
+For as he waited for her inevitable death, his mind had followed that
+long life of his own, year after year, day after day, hour after hour.
+And everywhere it had seen a woman's eyes, a woman's soul, looking back
+from a soul, from eyes, that should have been a man's.
+
+Yes! the keynote of that long life had been the love of a woman.
+Passionate love, absorbing mind as well as body, claiming its reward in
+kind; as such love always does.
+
+In kind!
+
+There lay the whole difference between _anathema_ and _beata_. They
+were both _karma_, or desire!
+
+One of the girl's white feet slid with a silvery jingle of its anklet
+to the next step, and, as he replaced it to a more comfortable
+position, a chill struck to his heart as he remembered what such
+chiming had meant in the past history of the world. The measure which
+that provoked was--_anathema_. That--disguised, palliated, refined in a
+thousand ways--was one kind.
+
+And the other?
+
+The memory of his own past surged to his brain as he bent over the
+girl's whitening face and scanned it narrowly. How like the face was to
+that other one, now that coming death had sharpened the full, youthful
+curves. He had noticed the likeness often--it had been clear when Laila
+had worn the old Italian--Beatrice's--dress. But not so clear, not half
+so clear, as when in this--this almost shameless one--she had said--"I
+only want--him."
+
+It might have been Margherita speaking,--Margherita, who had wanted a
+man's soul.
+
+And she had had one.
+
+That was the other kind. But both were desire; the desire which drove
+humanity from Paradise, and keeps it vainly seeking for one still.
+
+Saturated as he was with the mysticism of the East and West, these
+thoughts came to him, dreamily, making him feel curiously aloof from
+himself. The pity of it filled him, and brought a pity for the dying
+girl also; the girl who had failed to find a paradise in this world,
+and was seeking a new road to it; seeking it alone. The only thing she
+craved in all God's earth to make that paradise--gone! Priest as he
+was, the humanity in him rose in passionate hope that she should not
+wake to the consciousness of this. What good would it do? Let her enter
+the shadows in peace.
+
+But as he wished the wish, her head, which had been resting on his arm,
+turned to the touch of it, and her smooth cheek nestled closer to what
+it found.
+
+"Kiss me, Vincent," she said, and her voice came back full, rich,
+round, to make the claim. "Kiss me before you go, dear!"
+
+The old man gave a slight shiver, and was silent.
+
+"Vincent!" came the voice again; "you _are_ there, aren't you? You
+wouldn't leave me--now--surely?"
+
+There was another silent pause, and then, silent still, Father Ninian
+stooped, and the old lips and the young ones met in a lover's kiss. And
+as they met, he knew that in that kiss lay the great renunciation of
+his life; that henceforward there would be no woman waiting in Paradise
+for him; that the spiritual presence had gone from his life like the
+bodily presence. That Margherita was Juliet, and Juliet, Margherita!
+
+"That's nice," murmured Laila, softly; "that's nice."
+
+Her head settled to his arm again, and the silence went on. On and on,
+till he stooped lower to listen for an unheard breath; then lower still
+to shift that head from his arm to the ground. For the need of a human
+touch, a human sympathy, had gone forever.
+
+He made the sign of the cross over the dead body, rose to his feet
+unsteadily, and looked about him, dazed, uncertain. In truth, he felt
+all his years for the first time; felt that his last hold on life had
+somehow gone from him in that kiss; that something more than one woman
+lay dead before him.
+
+Then the sight of Akbar Khan, still rocking himself backwards and
+forwards, a perfect pendulum of protesting innocence and helpless
+remorse, roused the old priest to the present. He took up the rapier he
+had laid aside in crossing the chapel, and passed over to where the old
+eunuch was bemoaning the high-handedness of fate. It was a tyranny,
+indeed! Who could have foreseen such an ending to a very ordinary
+intrigue? Who could even have dreamt of it? Had not men and women loved
+and met, thus, since the beginning of time?
+
+So, to the sinner's outraged experience of life and love came the saint
+with his, and with the face and sword of St. Michael and All Angels.
+
+"Tell me the truth," he said sternly; "and tell it quickly, for there
+is no time to lose."
+
+In truth there was not much to tell. It was all so simple, viewed as a
+whole; so complex in detail. And, as he listened, the anger left Pidar
+Narayan's face wistful, wondering. More so than ever at the last
+mumbling excuse.
+
+"It all comes, _Ge-reeb-pun-waz_, from the Almighty having made the
+Missy-_baba_ so like her sainted ancestress--Anari Begum--on whom be
+peace."
+
+Anari Begum! On whom be peace! Her sainted ancestress, on whom be
+peace!
+
+He stood for an instant looking towards the Altar, towards the dead
+girl; then he echoed under his breath, "On whom be peace!"
+
+That was the end.
+
+Peace on those women who had loved and died; and on the men who had
+loved them--lived for them--perhaps died for them.
+
+But for the rest who lived and loved still? A quick life seemed to come
+back to him at the thought of these, a desire to save them from death.
+
+"Follow me," he said briefly to the old retainer; "it must be close on
+dawn--I must see what I can do."
+
+So, still in his robes, with the blubbering old pantaloon--apostle of
+another cult--at his heels, he passed down the arched passage to the
+door at its end which opened on to the courtyard between the palace and
+the Fort. And as he went, his brain, confused as to the past, clear as
+to the present, was busy making plans for peace. So far as helping
+those at the gaol went, he knew himself to be powerless. Physically, a
+couple of old men--mere shadows of men--could give no help, and he
+could not hope for influence there, among the Hosts of the Devil. But
+here in the city, among those Hosts of the Lord--the pilgrims for whom
+he had always had a secret sympathy, who knew him, at least, by
+reputation--with whom, at least, he stood on common ground--he might
+have some. He could but try; try to persuade some, at least, of the
+great mass of seekers after the "Cradle of the Gods" to go on their way
+in peace when the dawn came; try to save some of them from following a
+wrong road.
+
+The door was slightly ajar; he widened the chink and looked out with a
+sinking heart over the courtyard with its raised union-jack of paths.
+Much larger than the yard about the Pool of Immortality, it was crammed
+from end to end now with a crowd, the first look at which told him that
+his chance of a hearing was small indeed, for the dawn was closer than
+he had thought for amid the shadows of the chapel, and the grey glimmer
+of coming light showed him once more a sea of upturned eager faces. But
+the patience of the previous dawn was gone. They were restless now,
+restless with the vague, uncertain restlessness which is so dangerous
+in a crowd, which tells that the fuel for the flame is only awaiting a
+match, any match, to fire it. And there were many only waiting to be
+struck. The next instant might bring one. Father Ninian felt this
+instinctively, felt that here in this courtyard lay the mine which the
+returning troopers, the desperadoes from the gaol, were to fire first.
+All Eshwara might rise afterwards, but the great danger lay here, must
+be grappled with here. But how?
+
+Not by words. The ear of a crowd is always difficult to gain, unless
+the eye is taken first, and a man had both already. For aloft, on the
+barrel of the big old gun which centred the square, _jogi_ Gorakh-nath
+was expounding their wrongs to the pilgrims, their inevitable damnation
+if the wrath of the Gods was not instantly appeased. His wild, weird
+figure, in all its nakedness, its austerity, could be seen above the
+little circle of lamps which his immediate supporters held upwards at
+arm's-length. And above his head, like a canopy, drifted the wisps of
+tired earth-atoms which were being driven sideways by the breeze of
+dawn as they fell in their search for rest. For the storm was over,
+their brief ambition for something beyond mere earth was past. Wisps,
+which, as they swept over the circling lights, took a lurid glow, then
+faded into the dim shadows again.
+
+And something else caught the light redly. The chaplet of human skulls,
+the dread Mother's necklace, which the _jogi_ swung from one hand to
+the other as he called for blood--for blood to appease Her--the Mother
+of all--the Eternal Womanhood!
+
+Since without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.
+
+The tenet of all religions echoed into the ear of the crowd, the
+strange demoniacal figure, in its lurid setting, held its eye. What
+chance was there for a single voice? None.
+
+Yet something must be done. For the dawn was nigh. Every instant the
+light grew. Any moment might bring that inrush of evil from the gaol
+which would breed violence among these still peaceful folk; the
+ignorant, helpless folk who were being held captive by words against
+the coming of that inrush.
+
+Suddenly, for a second, the attention of the crowd wavered. A tall man
+in the white dress of a Europeanized native had been hoisted to the
+shoulders of some others, not far from the _jogi_, and so, from this
+coign of vantage, prepared to harangue the people.
+
+"'Tis Ramanund," said someone close to where Father Ninian stood in the
+shadow of the door. "He is Brahmin, and a scholar above scholars.
+Mayhap he will tell us what to do these times, when all seems wrong.
+There is no harm in listening."
+
+Nor good either. For the first words of that appeal of culture to
+ignorance were drowned in a fiendish laugh, a frenzied rattling of the
+dread chaplet, a loud defiance.
+
+"Hold thy peace, _Baboo-jee!_ What is blood to thee, who hath no
+God to whom thou canst give it? But we have, brethren. These be Her
+drinking-cups, the skulls of men like ourselves. Let us give Her
+pleasure, brothers, and have blessing from Her hands; not cursing, as
+thou hast had, Ramanund, whose head should still be shaven, whose touch
+unclean from the loss of a woman."
+
+The allusion to the death of Ramanund's wife roused an instant murmur
+of assent from those who were of the city, and they passing the tale on
+to others, the murmur swelled to a roar which effectively drowned the
+rest of Ramanund's advice.
+
+But Father Ninian, still at the door, still uncertain, could hear a man
+who had been buckling on his pilgrim's sandals as if for a start, say,
+as he stood up and thrust them back to his waistcloth:--
+
+"Well! I, for one, go no further without remission, or the blood which
+brings it. As _jogi-jee_ saith, no man should risk the woman's cursing.
+No man can hold his own against that."
+
+"He hath a young wife in his house, see you, and all know what that
+means," sniggered a neighbour.
+
+But a third voice broke in gravely, "Young or old, what matter? Women
+sit ever on the knees of the Gods, as we men have sat on theirs, seeing
+they are the mothers of us all. So, mother or wife, we cannot escape
+them."
+
+"_Baba-jee_ speaks truth," assented another bystander, "and _jogi-jee_
+also. If She needs blood, She must have it, seeing She is Woman. As for
+_him?_ Let him be silent. He hath no God. No blood sacrifice, no
+remission of sins. Let _him_ speak who hath them."
+
+There was a faint sound as of the closing of a door, and beyond it, in
+the darkness of the arched passage, an old voice said, with a curious
+note of gladness in it, "Follow me, quick, Akbar; there is not a moment
+to be lost. The dawn has come!"
+
+It seemed to have come to Pidar Narayan's face as he knelt hurriedly
+once more beside the body of the dead girl, to fold her dead hands
+decently as if in prayer, to cover the dead feet with the crimson
+draperies, the dead face with the flimsy, glittering veil--the veil
+which hid nothing of its beauty--which struck the keynote of the whole.
+
+"On whom be peace!" he whispered as he rose, stretching out his thin
+old hand in benediction; and as he said the words, the vision came to
+him of a whole world which had loved, and sinned, and gone on its
+mysterious quest for something beyond love. A world to which he had
+said farewell with a kiss.
+
+He passed on to the Altar, and with swift, steady hands opened the
+sanctuary, and took out the treasure it contained; a star-shaped,
+star-rayed pyx, set with jewels, relic of the days when singing-birds
+that sang of themselves, and such like things, with many another, had
+come to Eshwara from Italy.
+
+"Take the candles from the altar, Akbar," he said, "and walk in
+front--just in front, you know--as you used to walk."
+
+The old courtier mumbled "_Ge-reeb-pun-waz_," with a caper of alacrity.
+In his confusion, his resentful remorse, it was a relief to return to
+pomp--to servility.
+
+So, with that Bodily Presence which, till then, had always brought the
+thought of the lost paradise of a woman's love with it, in his hands,
+Father Ninian and his strange acolyte, priest of another cult, passed
+swiftly out of the chapel, leaving the Altar dark, bereft of its
+treasure; leaving the dead woman, bereft of her treasure also, lying in
+a glitter of gold and crimson on the Altar steps. Passed on a mission
+of peace to the living; on the chance of gaining the ear, the eye, of
+that waiting crowd outside in the courtyard.
+
+As he went rapidly, yet with the faltering step every now and again of
+one wearied by long journeying, down the arched passage, Ninian Bruce
+scarcely thought of success or failure. There was a wistful triumph in
+his face--he looked as a slave might look who dies in making himself
+free. He did not think even of the strangeness of the little
+procession. The night had been so full of strange things; but the dawn
+had come, and he had a message to give those waiting souls outside--the
+souls who were being kept back from the "Cradle of the Gods" by that
+fear of the Eternal Womanhood.
+
+"Set the door wide, Akbar," he said, and then his voice merged into the
+"_Salutaris_."
+
+So, as the crowd turned at the sound of the opening door, the sound of
+the chanting voice, it saw, raised above it, dim against an arched
+shadow, seen by the grey light of daybreak and the flicker of two tall
+tapers, a strange star-rayed cup shining in the clasped hands of a man.
+An old man in a strange dress, chanting a strange song. And the sight,
+by its very strangeness, its claim to something beyond familiarity, was
+not strange to that restless crowd, waiting for a sign, waiting for
+something not in themselves.
+
+"What is it? What means it?"
+
+The whisper came like the soft hush of a wave; and above it the chant
+rose clearly.
+
+"'Tis Pidar Narayan and his God!" said those of the city who knew, as
+they fell back instinctively from the raised path. And those who did
+not know followed suit in awed bewilderment, till the way was clear,
+and the little procession passed on slowly above the jammed mass of
+humanity, above the sea of upturned expectant faces.
+
+"'Tis Pidar Narayan, who went with my father," said one here and there.
+"Mayhap he goes now--let us see."
+
+"Yea! let us see!" answered others.
+
+That slantwise limb of the union-jack of raised paths which crossed
+from one corner to the other of the courtyard--from the door in the
+palace to the wide archway through which the pilgrims always passed on
+their way to the "Cradle of the Gods"--cleared itself by common
+consent, edged itself with a thicker throng of curious faces. Only in
+the middle it was barred by the big old gun, by the "_Teacher of
+Religion_" as its legend boasted, and by the man who claimed to be its
+mouthpiece.
+
+For _jogi_ Gorakh-nath, recognizing his adversary, recognizing the
+danger of his influence, had slipped from his post above, and now stood
+before the gun, full in the path, defending it with frenzied wavings of
+his chaplet of skulls.
+
+"Listen not, brothers!" he yelled. "_Jai Kali Ma!_ Blood! Blood!
+Without blood is no remission of sins."
+
+And now a new curiosity, a new interest, came to that crowd of mere
+men. What would happen? What would these two, mere men like themselves,
+do? Which was backed by divine authority? That both claimed that
+authority was clear. It held its breath, partly from the desire for a
+sign from God, partly because of the desire which humanity always has
+for a sign of the best man. Let the two try which was the better.
+
+So it waited, ready to approve either, till those two, the Eastern and
+the Western sacerdotalisms, met face to face, within two yards of each
+other, in the centre of the courtyard, on the platform before the
+"_Teacher of Religion_."
+
+Then, not till then, Pidar Narayan ceased his chant, shifted the pyx to
+his left hand, and with his right drew the rapier hidden till then by
+his long robes.
+
+"_Aha, A-ha-a_," sighed the crowd approvingly. There would be a bodily
+as well as a spiritual fight, for _jogi-jee's_ chaplet of skulls
+swirled dangerously for both attack and defence; since a swinging
+blow from it would kill a man, and its circling sweep keep him beyond
+sword-point reach.
+
+Which would be the better man--the better weapon?
+
+But Pidar Narayan did not attack. He only stood, the pyx in one hand,
+the sword in the other--alternatives as it were--and called in a loud
+voice--
+
+"Let me pass, _jogi_ Gorakh-nath!
+
+"Let me pass I say!
+
+"For I carry my GOD!"
+
+Over the whole courtyard, waking now from shadow to light under the
+coming day, the claim echoed sharply; and the arrogance of it, the
+strength, the certainty of it, sank deep into the souls of those who
+heard it.
+
+There was not a sound, not a movement; only a vast, breathless
+expectancy, and Pidar Narayan's fine old face set like the nether
+mill-stone. Everything that had ever been in him--love, passion, faith,
+worldly wisdom, sympathy--the grit of the whole man--rose up and
+claimed the crowd.
+
+"Let me pass!" he cried again, in absolute command, and this time the
+rapier, twisting like a snake, caught the chaplet of skulls in its
+upward swirl, a dexterous unexpected turn of the old fencer's wrist
+followed, sending it flying from the _jogi's_ hand.
+
+The next instant (the rope on which they were strung severed by the
+strain, by the rapier's edge), the skulls were clattering, bounding
+like balls, like useless toys, on the stone platform.
+
+"_A-ha! A-ha!_" came from the crowd; but the sigh was but half content,
+and men looked at each other wonderingly. Since, no matter which priest
+was the better man, these were Mai Kali's drinking-cups.
+
+The _jogi_, however, had fallen back a step, and Pidar Narayan was in
+his place by the old gun. Pidar Narayan and his strange God were now
+the "_Teachers of Religion_." What had they to say?
+
+The crowd had not to wait long, for Father Ninian's voice, with that
+nameless ring in it which makes the orator and makes the audience, was
+already in its ears.
+
+"Listen! Listen to me, for I carry in this cup the Blood of Sacrifice.
+The Victim required by your God and mine, by all the Gods, is here!
+
+"We are free, brothers! you and I. The Eternal Womanhood hath had Her
+toll, in full. The Great Mother is appeased. There is no fear.
+
+"Lift up your eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh your help, and
+follow me and my God, to find yours."
+
+He pointed with the sword--as he paused a second for breath, for
+strength--to the mountains; to those far peaks which, now that the
+storm had ended, the earth-atoms returned to earth, had begun to show
+spectral in the dawn. To show shadowy, yet clear, with never a wreath
+of mist or a wandering cloud to hide the hollow whither the feet of
+millions had journeyed seeking righteousness, and journeyed in vain.
+
+Faint and far they showed against the faint, far sky, but as
+Father Ninian pointed to them, a ray of light from the still unseen sun
+below the visible horizon of this world, a ray of light seeking perhaps
+another world among the stars, found the heights of the holy hills in
+its path, and dyed their snowdrifts red--blood red!
+
+At the sight a roar rose from the crowd.
+
+"_Jai Kali Ma!_ She gives a sign! The sacrifice is there! She is
+appeased! He speaks the truth. Let us follow him and his God!"
+
+"Ay! as my father did," cried one.
+
+"And mine!"
+
+"And mine!" assented some, while others forgot all save pilgrimage in
+the shout--
+
+"_Ram, Ram, Sita Ram!_"
+
+"_Hara! Hari! Hari! Hara!_"
+
+So, on that babel of sounds, Pidar Narayan's voice rose steadily as,
+preceded by that ambling figure--strangest of all acolytes--he walked
+on, chanting the 121st Psalm:--
+
+
+    "_Levavi oculos meos in montes; unde veniet auxilium mihi_."
+
+
+The words were in an unknown tongue, the rhythm strange, but the
+spirit, the idea, were familiar. It was the song of someone seeking the
+"Cradle of the Gods," as they were.
+
+"He carries his God, and that means all," said an old man, pushing his
+way to follow. "The other had none: how could he lead the way?"
+
+"That is true," assented many, following suit.
+
+And some, shrugging their shoulders, said, "He is mad. God has touched
+his brain. Then he goes the way our fathers went. They lingered not
+beyond the second dawn. Why should we?"
+
+"_Ram! Ram! Sita Ram!_"
+
+Thus, swiftly, the footfalls gathered in strength behind the little
+procession, and no one dared to stop it; not even the Mahomedan sentry
+at the Fort gate, to whom some of the agitators ran in their
+disappointment. He only laughed contemptuously; though his gravity
+returned somewhat at his recognition of old Akbar Khan.
+
+"Lo! that is a new walking for him!" he muttered, in an awed voice.
+"Truly, folk are right when they say there is magic in these idolaters.
+Who would have deemed him pilgrim? Well! let him go, he and his
+mummery. We soldiers can do without priests and Hindoos!"
+
+He twirled his mustache fiercely, and wondered when his comrades would
+return victorious from the gaol, and give the word for plunder. That
+was all he cared for.
+
+"Ay!" assented an angry voice, joining the group, "we can do without
+the fools. There be plenty of wise men left."
+
+"Plenty," put in another; "but their mood is different. See how they
+wander!"
+
+It was true. The crowd had broken into groups, and from these,
+pilgrims, singly, or in smaller groups, were drifting after the
+lessening sound of that chanting voice. Not so much from any belief in
+Pidar Narayan, not even because of his lead over, but because it was
+the old way; the way worn by the feet of their fathers, and their
+fathers' fathers.
+
+So _jogi_ Gorakh-nath, who, now the coast was clear, had sprung aloft
+on the old gun, once more attempting to regain his empire, failed
+egregiously. The crowd passed him by till a big countryman, with a
+lumbering jest, asked him if he was sure he had picked up the right
+skull to put on his own shoulders. Then it laughed uproariously.
+
+"Best come on to the Pool of Immortality," suggested a conspirator,
+consolingly, as he hurried past. "'Tis no use here. The fools have
+followed after strange gods and men. But at the Pool there are tens of
+thousands to one here; and they are weary waiting. Besides, 'tis nearer
+the gaol. Between the two success will lie."
+
+"Yea," added another, "that was the first plan--the soldiers and the
+Fort spoilt it. But the Pool and the gaol remain."
+
+_Jogi_ Gorakh-nath, with a scowl, gathered up his skulls to a bundle
+and followed hastily. He would at least be out of hearing of that
+chanting voice.
+
+It had reached the last verse of its Psalm now, and faltered a little
+over the words:--
+
+
+         "_Dominus custodiat introitum tuum et exitum tuum_:
+                   _ex hoc et usque in saeculum_."
+
+
+But the echo of the footsteps behind filled up the blanks.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI
+
+                                FOILED
+
+
+On the gaol or the Pool of Immortality lay the hopes of those whom
+Pidar Narayan had so far discomfited by his arrogant claim to stand
+between heaven and earth; in other words, to be in personal relations
+with the Great Awarder of gaols and immortalities, forgivenesses, and
+punishments.
+
+But the stars in their courses, hidden though they had been by the
+storm-darkness, had used that very darkness to the due maintenance of
+law and order as they wheeled serenely to meet the coming dawn.
+
+When Lance, for instance--his heart torn in twain by his desire to
+follow Erda's fate at all costs and his knowledge that, if he was to do
+the best for others he must leave her to face it alone--had struck down
+stream on Am-ma's strange craft, his sole intention had been to rouse
+the police camp, and secure what help he could for the gaol.
+
+But the darkness set him another task. For, after drifting past the
+spit, whence he had meant to cut across by land to the bridge of boats,
+and so, creeping past the city, find the camp beyond it, he had lost
+himself absolutely in the maze of sand-banks and shallow channels
+which, when the river was low, as it was now, lay like a network
+between the deep stream of the Hara, and the deep stream of the Hari.
+Lost himself so utterly that, realizing his own bewilderment, he had
+called himself a fool for having lost himself!
+
+A curious discouragement came to him. Yet it made him more dogged and
+persistent, even while the hopelessness of finding his way grew every
+second. Surely, thought he, he could not be such a fool as to fail!
+
+Sometimes a sudden belief that he really had had some faint indication
+of his bearings would make him put all his young strength into the
+paddle, until once more a soft, yielding, yet irresistible, impact came
+to tell him that he had failed again, that he was on another sandbank,
+and another, and another! The dull concussion of them seemed to pass
+into his brain; he found himself fumbling on almost aimlessly, despite
+his doggedness, his mind busy with imagining the things which might be
+happening in the dark around him.
+
+For all he knew close by--
+
+There lay the sting! It was suffocating to be set, as it were, in the
+solid darkness like--he thought of a fly in amber, the birds he had
+limed in his boyhood, finally of a death mask. That was more like
+it--he felt as the corpse must feel--clogged, hampered, helpless!
+
+In such conditions minutes seem hours; and Lance, in reality, had not
+been drifting about for half of one before the certainty that his
+mission must inevitably be useless unless he could fulfil it more
+expeditiously, made him resolve on trying conclusions with the river at
+first hand. He was a good swimmer. As he told himself this, the first
+pulse of gratitude he had ever felt for the big bully who had chucked
+him, a small boy in his first term at Harrow, into "Ducker" to take his
+chance, came to him; for those few minutes of despairing effort had
+taught him more than mere swimming; they had taught him to trust
+himself in water.
+
+More, at any rate, than in a beastly contrivance made of beds and
+footballs, with no stem, no stern, and a devilish habit of spinning in
+every eddy like a teetotum!
+
+The mere condemnation of Am-ma's craft, being a prelude to better
+things, raised his spirits. He flung off his clothes, and, knowing he
+could not hope to keep his revolver dry, improvised a waistcloth out of
+the silk sash he wore instead of a waistcoat, in which to stick the
+hunting-knife that was his only other weapon. As he did so, he thought
+of the deer the knife had killed; as men think idly, irrelevantly, of
+such trivialities when their attention is really concentrated on
+something that is, as yet, outside experience. And Lance, as he slipped
+into the water, knew himself prepared to swim or wade, but knew nothing
+else.
+
+So, doggedly as before, and infinitely quicker, he went on through the
+darkness; sometimes feeling himself in the cool water, sometimes
+finding his feet on warm sand, sometimes parting a way, he knew not
+where, through the low tamarisk and high grass marking an island. If he
+could have guessed which island, or even known which way his face was
+set, these light swishing touches might have been guides; but he knew
+nothing.
+
+Until, after a time, a faint far glow, a mere suspicion of something
+not outer darkness, showed on his left. Even so, he could not guess
+whether that meant the gaol side, or the city side of the rivers. If
+the former, could the gaol have been fired by those devils?
+
+The thought made him set his teeth, and, dry sand being beneath his
+feet, run on recklessly towards the glow.
+
+Only for a yard or two, however; then he pulled up short, amazed to
+find that it was not far, but near; that it came from the ground, from
+a leaping fire of tamarisk branches within a stone's throw of him. A
+step or two more, in fact, showed him a cooking-pot, the remains of
+some food, a familiar fishing-net, and a chrysalis-looking figure
+wrapped in a blanket and half-buried in the sand. One of the fisher
+folk, by all that was lucky! If anyone could tell, they could.
+
+It was only a slender stem of tiger-grass which snapped under his feet,
+but the noise was sufficient. The sleeper sprang to his like a wild
+animal, the blanket falling from him, one lithe arm making for the long
+spear stuck in the sand beside him.
+
+Gu-gu! The missing Gu-gu!
+
+Lance had him back in his sand-bed before hand and spear met. There was
+no struggle. Gu-gu, knowing himself helpless, lay limp, slack, every
+muscle proclaiming capitulation; in so far showing himself something
+less than a wild animal, which struggles till it dies, reckless of
+odds. But, in truth, Gu-gu, with the certainty of speedy extinction
+before him, due to that cursed ghost, had given in to fate utterly, all
+round. Death would come when it came. All that remained, therefore, was
+to make others suffer if he could. Especially those who were
+responsible for altering the currents of the river. With one of these
+on top of you, this was impossible; but time might bring opportunity.
+
+"You devil!" cried Lance, throttling the abject jelly by way of
+emphasis, "you know all about this business, of course; but now I've
+found you, you'll have to do mine,--or I'll kill you. Do you
+understand? Now, which way is the town?"
+
+Gu-gu pointed in the direction whence Lance had come. The latter
+frowned, realizing that it was impossible to know if the brute spoke
+truth, but that, unfortunately, he must be trusted.
+
+"Then get up," he said curtly, taking care to keep the jelly within
+reach of his knife, "and show me the way there. I'll give you a hundred
+rupees if you do; and if you don't--" He gave the yielding flesh an
+explanatory prick.
+
+"Does the _Huzoor_ mean the Pool of Immortality?" asked Gu-gu, affably;
+and the words made Lance remember that fruitless waiting for the water.
+
+"Ah! you _did_ manage that swindle, did you?" he replied savagely, "and
+of course you were camping out of the way. I see! No! I don't want to
+go there yet. To the bridge! So quick, march! or swim; you can tell me
+about the other as we go along. It may be useful."
+
+Another prick with the knife he held in one hand, while his other
+clutched firmly on Gu-gu's hemp-strung waist-belt of blue beads,
+started them. So they went on till the sand grew colder, less
+resistant, changed to water beneath their feet; then Lance's two
+hands--and the knife--came down on Gu-gu's bare back. "Strike out," he
+said briefly; "I'll help."
+
+The two pair of legs and the one pair of hands forged ahead into the
+darkness none the less rapidly because the second pair of hands were
+resting,--with something in them--on yielding flesh. The fact indeed,
+or something else, seemed to make Gu-gu confidential. If the _Huzoor_,
+he said, with a shameless comprehension which made Lance inclined to
+use the knife then and there, wanted to give the alarm at the police
+camp, he was taking a long road to it. He, Gu-gu, could show him a
+shorter, if the _Huzoor_ would trust him.
+
+For a second Lance hesitated. He could not see the man's face; but
+there was a sort of cunning anxiety in the tone which was doubtful.
+Then, remembering that, short or long, he was equally at the man's
+mercy if he _chose to brave results_--though there seemed to be no
+reason why he should--he said quietly,--
+
+"I told you to take the shortest."
+
+"The _Huzoor_ can dive?" asked Gu-gu. "He should, since he swims so
+strong."
+
+"Dive!" echoed Lance. "Yes, why?"
+
+Because the short way, Gu-gu explained, was by an underground passage
+which could be only reached from the river. Undoubtedly the _Huzoor_
+was right, the passage had to do with the miracle; but there must have
+been more than one miracle in the old days, since there was quite a
+network of canals and caves, which could be more or less flooded at
+will. All the river people knew of them, but few ventured in; there was
+nothing to be gained by doing so, _as a rule!_ And the dive to reach
+the passage was long and awkward. But if the _Huzoor_ would trust--
+
+"Go ahead!" broke in Lance, sharply. He _had_ to trust; and time meant
+everything. Besides, even in diving, he could have his revenge on that
+sleek, yielding back!
+
+For answer, Gu-gu altered his course with almost suspicious alacrity;
+though, once more, Lance could see no reason for treachery. A hundred
+rupees was a big bribe to a man who evidently had no personal interest
+in the matter; else, why should he have been on the island instead of
+in the row. But then Lance did not know of that call to death.
+
+So, through the dark, the one pair of hands and two pairs of legs
+forged ahead till a sudden arrest of the former gave Lance a dull shock
+once more. But this time Gu-gu's voice came quite cheerfully: "The city
+wall, _Huzoor_ This slave must feel if he goes up or down."
+
+Apparently it was up, and after a few minutes of crablike edging
+Gu-gu's voice came again:--
+
+"The tunnel is below, Protector of the Poor. Let the most noble take
+the longest breath he ever breathed, then strike down till this mean
+one's legs cease moving. The most noble one's must cease also. The rest
+will this dust-like one accomplish. Save the breath. _That_ is in the
+_Huzoors_ own keeping. Therefore let him take time for filling; and
+when he is ready let him signal this slave with--with a knife-prick if
+he chooses!"
+
+The cool grasp of the position made Lance smile, though the situation,
+he knew, was grave enough. That breath to be drawn might be his last;
+all the more reason why he could have wished it less full of sand!
+
+For the storm was now at its fiercest. Even here out on the river, over
+the water, the air seemed solid. And it had a vibration that could be
+felt on the bare skin. As he drew in that long breath before trusting
+himself to the unseen man whom he held within reach of the grim
+signal--and something sharper should there be sign of treachery--Lance
+told himself that the water could scarcely be more suffocating than
+the air. Then--the sleek skin under his hand shrinking from the
+knife-prick--the two pairs of legs and the one pair of arms struck
+down.
+
+It was almost a relief at first to get rid of the stinging dust in
+one's face; almost a relief not to breathe. But when, after a few
+seconds, the legs in front of him grew rigid, and nothing was left to
+be done save to hold on desperately to a waist-belt of blue beads and
+one's own breath at the same time, the sense of suffocation returned,
+and the question, "How much longer?" seemed to throb in his brain.
+
+He gripped everything he had to grip tighter. But his own body seemed
+to grip his mind tighter still. He could feel the clutch of his
+veins--a whole corded network of them--could see them! A corded,
+pulsing network edged with prismatic light, sending stars into the
+darkness, beating time to the singing in his ears, to the fierce duel
+between the desire to gasp and the determination to hold on,--beating
+time to the confused rush of thoughts which ended in one--"This is
+drowning!"
+
+It made his clutch tighter. Gu-gu, at least, should drown too. That was
+the last conscious thought. It merged into a frantic, insistent clamour
+for air! air! air! till something cold hit him full on the face and
+forced him into a quick, gasping cry, that left him senseless.
+
+When he came to himself, as he did a moment or two afterwards, he was
+still clutching the waist-belt of blue beads, and the touch of it
+lulled him to an instant's sheer relief. The dive was over; they must
+be in the cave; the cold that had hit him in the face must have been
+the air.
+
+But what was he lying upon? Surely rock! And the hand he moved to feel
+it brought the blue beads with it unresistingly.
+
+Gu-gu! where was Gu-gu?
+
+Gone! And the knife too. It had been used to sever the hempen string of
+the belt.
+
+Curious. It might have been used for a different and more deadly
+purpose; but you could never count on what fellows would do--even when
+they were treacherous.
+
+Lance thought this dreamily, before he realized more than the fact that
+he was alive; not drowned.
+
+Then he sat up hastily and faced the truth that he was alone once more;
+alone in that network of underground passages and caves of which Gu-gu
+had spoken.
+
+Was there any chance of his getting out of it? Not by the dive,
+certainly. Without help that was impossible. He set himself to remember
+what his guide had said in reply to the questions with which he had
+been purposely plied.
+
+First, as to light. If Gu-gu was to be trusted the materials for this
+must be close at hand. Lance rose cautiously and felt about the ledge
+on which he lay and the walls of rock about him, and ere long came on
+what he sought. Flint and steel, a box of tinder, a bottle of oil, and
+a rag torch hung in an old bit of fishing-net to a peg that was driven
+into a crevice.
+
+So far, good; and after a minute these enabled him to see that he was
+in a sort of vaulted well, half hewn out of rock, half built in with
+brick. It was filled to some three feet or so with water, except in one
+corner, where the flooring shelved down to an archway. There it was
+deeper. This must be the opening of the tunnel through which they had
+dived, and through which, doubtless, Gu-gu had escaped; for he was not
+likely to have braved the intricate passages without a light. This
+thought made Lance look to see how much oil the bottle contained.
+
+There was only a mere driblet at the bottom. Plainly, therefore, he
+could pause no longer; so, instantly, without further thought, he waded
+across the pool and ran along the only passage which led from it. He
+had to stoop as he ran, and from the feel to his feet he guessed that
+the passage led upwards first, then downwards; apparently, too, in a
+perfectly straight line. The river, therefore, must be behind him, and
+he tried to make this point a fixed one, so as to give him some notion
+of his bearings.
+
+After a hundred yards or so he emerged into a second cave or chamber,
+also nearly waist-deep in water. From this several passages opened,
+some too small to admit of a man passing through them. These, then,
+must be the canals of which Gu-gu had spoken; one of them, possibly,
+that which should have supplied the Pool with Immortality. The memory
+of that crowd of eager, patient faces, disappointed by such a miserable
+trick, made Lance feel pitiful; then his pity brought a sudden
+practical suggestion. Why not open the sluice, or whatever it was, now,
+and give the miracle? It would at least keep _some_ of the crew quiet
+when it came, at dawn; the dawn which might be so fatal to quiet--the
+dawn which must, surely, be close at hand.
+
+He raised the torch and saw, close beside him, a foot or two above the
+present level of the water, a clumsy closed stone conduit with an iron
+handle. It was a rude primitive tap, no doubt, by which the levels
+could be raised. Without further thought, he turned it, and smiled to
+find himself right, as water poured out, filling the vaulted chamber
+with sound. Then, without further pause, he passed on down the biggest
+of the passages leading from the chamber; since that seemed the most
+likely one. After a while, however, the passage narrowed, seemed in
+danger of ending altogether; so he harked back.
+
+There was no longer any sound in the chamber when he returned to it,
+and the level of the water had risen almost to the floor of the passage
+in which he stood, wondering which of the other outlets he had best
+try. The choice was a case of sheer chance, of course, he told himself;
+a mere backing of one's luck. But, as he paused to make it, something
+cold struck on his feet, causing him to look down in sudden surprise.
+
+The water was still rising. That must be stopped, anyhow, unless he was
+to be drowned out like a sewer rat.
+
+He stuck the torch into a cleft in the rock beside him, hung the net to
+it, and swam over to the conduit, which was already submerged. But the
+handle which had turned so easily was stiff now; possibly because of
+the pressure of the water, possibly because there was some other rude
+mechanism of which he was unaware. Anyhow, after a few trials he
+realized that he was helpless until the water had found its own level.
+
+But what was that? Who could tell? Would it rise, and rise, and rise,
+till it filled the whole place?
+
+Who could tell?
+
+It was not fear which clutched at his heart--only a vague self-pity;
+almost an amused wonder that this Immortality for others might bring
+Death to him.
+
+He looked up into the vaulted arch above him, then to the, as yet, dry
+passages which he could just see, as darker arches of shadow.
+
+Unless one of them rose abruptly to a higher level--and the chance that
+one did, or that he should find it, was remote--he would be wiser to
+stay here, and see what happened. The roof was at least higher.
+
+He swam back to the torch and, holding on to the crevices of the wall,
+waited.
+
+Still rising. He shifted the torch to a higher crevice and waited
+again, a dull curiosity taking possession of him.
+
+Still rising. He wondered, suddenly, whether it would not have been
+better for him to have gone back the way he had come. The passage had
+certainly seemed to ascend, and it was a question of levels. That was
+all. A mere question of levels.
+
+He shifted the torch again. It was dying down now, the rags showing
+charred, cindery. But as he fed it with oil and it flared up and
+smoked, the thought came to him that it was using air needlessly,
+making suffocation more imminent.
+
+He blew it out deliberately. If a man had to die, he might as well die
+in the dark. He was glad, a moment later, of the darkness. It shut out
+reality and left him to dreams; to vague hopes, to kindly
+forgetfulness, to Erda's face. How plucky she had been! Well! even
+if he _had_ to be drowned like a rat in a sewer, he must not be behind
+her. The pathetic comfort of kindly memory, which with strange
+unreason--since it enhances the value of the life that is being
+left--makes the face of death seem less stern to poor humanity, came to
+him and absorbed him. If he died and she lived, she would not forget
+him; he knew that.
+
+And still the water rose.
+
+It must be rising now, he thought, in the Pool of Immortality, and the
+eager, patient faces that had been waiting for it so long must be
+showing glad in the grey light of the dawn.
+
+For the dawn was coming to the world, though he would not see it.
+Strange, incomprehensible thought, even though the reality of it was so
+certain, so close. Incomprehensible? Say rather, impossible; frankly
+impossible! He could not be going to die!
+
+He shifted the unlit torch to a still higher crevice--almost a ledge in
+the rock--and waited incredulously for the water to rise.
+
+
+And as he waited in the dark, someone else in the grey dawn, to whom
+death was more familiar, to whom, in a way, it was the one great
+certainty of Life, was feeling the same frank incredulity at the
+thought of the immediate future.
+
+For Dr. Dillon, when he found himself alone on the roof of the gaol
+gate with an unconscious woman and a child, knew that the end could not
+be far off. With Vincent dead, and Eugene cut off by the stern
+necessity for keeping that door shut, he could not hope for more than a
+brief, savage resistance--and then? Failure, inevitable failure, unless
+help came; and that seemed far as ever.
+
+As yet, dazed by that closing of the door, that desperate, triumphant
+death of the man with his back to it--a death which had gained them
+nothing--the prisoners were still huddled together, crushed out of
+further action, at the far end of the alley. So the courtyard was
+clear, free from assailants. But that could only be for a minute or
+two. There was an ominous rending and hewing at the gate below; ere
+long those outside would be inside, and with a leader who would know
+what to do. So life could only be an affair of moments; yet it seemed
+incredible, more than incredible, that all his strong will and
+determination would not avail even to save those helpless creatures in
+his charge. He stooped hurriedly and lifted the still unconscious woman
+in his arms, carried her into the turret, closed the door on her and
+the child--frightened now for the first time at her mother's
+silence--and returned to wait and watch. It was all he could do for
+them, unless fate gave him a chance of appealing for them to Roshan
+Khan. But even then there could be no bargaining, no compromise, no
+surrender!
+
+A sharp crash, a sudden rise in the babel of voices below, warned him
+that the gate had given, partially at least. The next instant a soldier
+or two, ignorant of that dead man with his back against the closed
+gate, ran lightly down the alley calling on the prisoners to make way.
+One of them was Roshan Khan; but George Dillon did not waste a
+cartridge even on him. He was reserving his fire for that storming of
+the broken stairs which must come when the assailants found themselves
+still foiled.
+
+In truth Roshan Khan had this same storming in his mind as all he cared
+for, since it would pit him against his rival, against Vincent Dering,
+who he knew was on the roof. And so, with that odd acquired sense of
+honour, fair play, God knows what, he had been planning, as his men
+battered down the gate, how best to compass those fair odds which were
+necessary alike to his sense of justice and injustice--for the
+injustice of his own position cried aloud for proof that he was worth a
+better one. So he had settled to complete that liberating of the
+prisoners which, with the help of the keys, ought already to be in
+hand. This done, the general rabble would be eager for freedom, eager
+for plunder, eager to get to the town and raise it, eager for all
+things for which he cared no jot. Then would be his time. Then--he did
+not even try to formulate how--he could find himself face to face, at
+fair odds, with Vincent Dering. Wild memories of duels he had read
+about in western books, duels with others, who had nothing to do with
+the quarrel, looking on, occurred to him.
+
+Yes! that would satisfy him. To have it out, till death!
+
+He set his teeth as he forced a peremptory way through the crowd at the
+end of the alley, which hid the closed door until one actually stood
+beside it.
+
+Then he stood transfixed, for he saw Vincent Dering's dead body still
+backed by that closed door, still guarding it, unarmed. There was a
+curious look of content in the dead face, and Roshan, grasping its
+meaning by intuition, turned from it with a curse, knowing himself
+forestalled, cheated.
+
+"'Twas not our fault, _Khan-jee_," protested a voice, quickly; "the
+swine fought till the other one had locked the door in our faces, and
+so--"
+
+Roshan struck at the voice fiercely. Not forestalled, not cheated,
+only; but outdone, conquered! His rival had died a hero's death, and
+he--he might live to be hanged!
+
+A rage of despair, of despite, seized on him. His one real object gone,
+the whole hideous folly of the rest made him fling up his hands
+passionately as he dashed back to the gate, neither knowing nor caring
+what he was going to do next.
+
+Storm that feeble garrison on the roof? those broken stairs, every
+crevice, every foothold in which stood out clear, easy, in the light of
+the search-ray? Was that a man's task?
+
+Confused, dazed, he ran on, followed instinctively by the crowd,
+wondering what he would be at.
+
+George Dillon, seeing the rush, covered the first foothold of the
+broken stairs with his rifle, and waited for a man to show on it.
+
+But none came.
+
+Just as the rush reached the courtyard, Eugene Smith's search-ray,
+having exhausted itself, went out, leaving, not darkness, but the grey
+mystery of dawn, in which for an instant all sound, all movement,
+seemed arrested. There was one utterly peaceful second, and then, from
+behind the splintered gateway, from the shadows of the tunnel, came a
+breathless voice:--
+
+"Close the outer gate, sergeant; if you can, you have them in a trap! a
+regular trap!"
+
+_A trap!_
+
+The word reached those who had followed Roshan in his causeless
+retreat. Had he foreseen this? Was he escaping from the trap? Their
+eyes flew to the tunnel, but the light which, till then, had lit up its
+darkness, the swinging lamp by which the batterers of the gate had
+worked, was dashed down by someone's hand--a small, white hand--and
+there was nothing to be seen. Only that voice to be heard repeating,
+"They're in a trap; keep them there!"
+
+Keep them! Not if they could fight their way into the open! The cry
+rose in a second:--
+
+"A trap. Yea! a trap! Out of it! Outside, brothers, outside, where we
+can fight free!"
+
+Roshan, who would have paused at this chance of fair resistance, was
+caught in the rush from behind, and found himself through the gap in
+the gate fighting desperately in the crowd, calling on his men to
+rally. But they had construed his half-frenzied flight from that look
+on Vincent Dering's face into a lead, and they were mixed up
+inextricably with the horde of undisciplined conspirators who, having
+been till now safe under cover of the tunnelled archway, yelled for the
+open, not so much in which to fight, but in which to run away.
+
+The mere handful of men, whose number was fortunately hidden by the
+darkness, could never have prevented the rush, but a quick wit amongst
+them seized on a possibility, and the breathless voice called, "Let
+them pass--let them pass!"
+
+So, in a second or two, amid confused yells, and mad slashings at
+friends and foes alike, the positions were reversed. The inside was
+out, the outside in, like Brian O'Lynn's breeches; and Dr. Dillon's
+first hint at what the amazing turn of affairs below him meant came
+with the words:--
+
+"Barricade that gate. Sharp as you know how. They won't give us long."
+
+"Is that you, Carlyon?" he called doubtfully, leaning over the parapet
+and peering into that grey mystery of dawn.
+
+The figure he saw, a woman in a white dress and a scarlet mess jacket,
+made him doubt the evidence of his own eyes. But the answer in a
+woman's voice, with a quick breath in it, sent his back in something
+between a laugh and a sob.
+
+"Then he isn't here! Oh! what can have become of him?"
+
+There was no doubt that this was a woman!
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVII
+
+                         L'ADDIO DEL MARITO
+
+
+Once outside, where they could discern friend from foe, the troopers
+instantly realized their mistake, and rallied round Roshan.
+
+But it was too late for that now. As he stood, centring them, there was
+a wild contempt, a vague relief, in his face. He knew now where his
+sympathies lay. Not with these men, treacherous to their salt, but with
+those who could hold--who _had_ held--their own against all odds. Yes!
+even with that dead figure, still with its back to the door that must
+not be opened.
+
+The thought stung and seared like hot iron.
+
+No! Not with that! not with that! That was--What?--
+
+He could have killed himself for the unwavering testimony which every
+scrap of him gave to the heroism, the defiance of such a death. He knew
+he would give everything to die one like it; and he knew he could
+not--not _now_. He knew he must die a useless death, to save himself
+from a worse one.
+
+"There is no real harm done, _Khan-jee_," broke in his lance-_duffadar_
+in hurried excuse, seeing the expression on his face. "We can get in
+easily again. Those holding the horses say there were but a score of
+them all told--the cursed Sikhs--God knows how they got out of the
+Fort! I thought we had them safe. And there was a woman with them--a
+Miss-_baba_"--he laughed savagely. "Well! if they be brave as men,
+these infidel women, let them die like men--the hell-cats!"
+
+Roshan Khan looked at the man, whom he had known for years, as if he
+had never seen him before. And the thought of another woman--with his
+own blood in her veins--who had been brave also, and who had died--died
+by his hand--returned to sweep him from every bearing, from every
+landmark, eastern or western, and leave him rudderless, drifting, in a
+storm of sheer despair. He laughed suddenly--an insane laugh--at the
+hideousness, the hopelessness of it all. Laughed like the madman he was
+for the time, at the horror which drove him mad.
+
+"Kill her, if thou wilt, fool! I have done my share of that," he cried
+brutally, striking out at the voice as he had struck at the other which
+had told him of Vincent's victory. Striking as he felt inclined to
+strike at anything and everything; most of all at the hateful confusion
+in himself, and in his world. So, without another word, he broke
+through the circle of troopers, dashed to where his horse awaited him,
+and was off like a whirlwind; that strange possession of the Oriental
+races, which, in a way, claims kindred with the Berserk rage of the
+north, thrilling to his finger-tips; yet held in check, diverted from
+sheer, mad, uncalculating desire to kill, by that acquired sense of
+fair play.
+
+"He goes to rouse the city," said some of his men, following him
+hurriedly.
+
+"And time, too!" assented some of the conspirators. "The dawn is upon
+us, and if the pilgrims drift away, our hope is gone!"
+
+But most of the crowd, troopers and conspirators alike, felt vaguely
+that the dawn had indeed come, that the midsummer night's dream of
+madness was over; that those who were wise would try, while they had
+the chance, to escape from its consequences.
+
+And that such a chance existed, even now, was patent. The very madness
+of the night, its lack of reasonable explanation, were in their favour.
+And its darkness, the outer darkness of the storm, which had sprung
+up in a minute, must have hidden much. Who, for instance, was to
+say--except those impenitent ones whose evidence, if given at all, must
+be doubted as the evidence of condemned men seeking to drag others down
+to their fate--whether such and such a one had been a rebel at first?
+Provided, always, that there was no doubt about his staunchness at the
+last; that is, now that the dawn had come--the dawn which showed doubt,
+almost a surprise, in so many faces.
+
+What had come to them? Why were they there?
+
+"_Kuchch saiya pur gya!_" (some shadow fell on me) muttered one man
+below his breath, as he sheathed his sword.
+
+And another, with an oath, said boldly, "This one is for the winning
+side," then gave the cry, "To the rescue, brothers, to the rescue! Cut
+down the mutineers"--so, promptly, began operations on the nearest
+defenceless prisoner.
+
+Thus, almost before those who had galloped in hot haste after Roshan's
+lead were out of sight, the prisoners, even the resisting warders, had
+been driven into the portico, and penned like a flock of sheep between
+the troopers outside and the pioneers within.
+
+"The Lord is King," said the lance-_duffadar_, piously, to a
+neighbour,--he had started back from Roshan's blow with a scowl, and
+watched his retreat resentfully,--"the Handle-end of His Sword is
+safest! Lo! Have at them, brothers!"--he added aloud--"have at the
+evil-born ones who would have killed the _mems_ and the _baba-logue_
+as such scum did in the Great Breathing, making the faces of the
+soldiery black for all time! Show them our mettle. Forward!
+'Gord--save--the--Ka-veen!'"
+
+"Gord--save--the--Ka-veen!"
+
+The cry grew to a shout, and Dr. Dillon, who, with a great incredulity
+lessening the values of all he saw and heard, had promptly swung
+himself down into the courtyard, looked through a crevice in the
+barricade--which was fast taking form under the willing hands of the
+pioneers--to see what the noise meant.
+
+"It is all over," he said slowly, his face pathetic in its
+bewilderment; "the troopers are siding with us!"
+
+He stood for a moment as if unable to grasp the reality, and his keen,
+inquisitive eyes seemed to search almost reproachfully for some cause,
+some hint of reason, in his surroundings. In the splintered door, in
+every cranny and foothold of the broken stair, and so, past the
+parapet, they continued their question to the lightening sky, against
+which, faint and far, those distant peaks where lay the "Cradle of the
+Gods" had begun to show dimly.
+
+"All for nothing!" he muttered to himself, almost petulantly. "Poor
+Dering!" So, swiftly he passed down the alley,--swiftly, but
+hopelessly; for he knew what those iron shackles meant on a man's bare
+head.
+
+He drew the body to one side with tender care, then knocked at the
+closed door and called to the man within. "Smith, open the door! You'd
+better come out--I think it's all over now; be quick, please."
+
+There was a pause, then a fumbling at the bolts and bars. So, in that
+grey, cold light, a figure stood at the open door, tall, gaunt, with a
+hunted look in its eyes, almost a terror, as they looked down--down to
+the threshold--down for what they knew should be there.
+
+"Dering?" asked Eugene Smith, rather hoarsely; then, seeing what lay to
+one side, covered his eyes from the sight with a cry like a woman's,
+and trembled all over. That strain of patient, idle inaction had been
+awful.
+
+"Oh, God damn them!" burst out the doctor, fiercely. "And all for
+nothing--for nothing. At least I think so. Come on, Smith, and make
+sure."
+
+For nothing! For nothing!
+
+The words were echoing in Roshan's brain also, as with loose rein,
+recklessly, he galloped over the frail bridge of boats, making it
+quiver and thunder beneath his horse's hoofs, and send curved waves of
+light and shadow over the clear, steely surface of the water, seen like
+a polished shield in the dawn. The air was clear also; the distant
+hills steel grey as the water, the sky steel grey as the hills. And
+there was the bright keenness as of a glittering sword in the chill
+breeze that swept from west to east. But Roshan did not feel it; he was
+absorbed in himself, in the useless battle of his life.
+
+For nothing! For nothing!
+
+He did not even hear the soft yet sonorous roar, beginning like the
+rush of a big breaker on a beach, ending with a wild, musical note,
+like the wail of new-weaned lambs and their mothers on a lone hillside,
+which suddenly echoed out over the water, making those who galloped
+behind look at each other and whisper joyfully:--
+
+"'Tis all right, _Khan-sahib_," said one, urging his horse alongside;
+"the pilgrims are waiting still--hear you not their cry? They grow
+impatient!"
+
+Roshan looked at him with lack-lustre eyes. What were the pilgrims to
+him, or their impatience? What was salvation, immortality, to one whose
+only desire was death--death and forgetfulness? He dug his spurs into
+his horse, savagely glad to give pain, and rode on.
+
+"_Hara! Hari! Hari! Hara!_"
+
+The roar was articulate now, and those behind looked doubtfully at each
+other.
+
+"If it should be the miracle?" suggested one conspirator; but another
+shook his head, "How can that be? None know the trick save those two,
+Gu-gu and Am-ma, and they are safe."
+
+"Unless it _be_ a miracle," put in a third, almost timidly. "God's club
+makes no noise, and the night has been full of marvels."
+
+So an uneasy silence fell upon the rest.
+
+"_Hara! Hari! Hari! Hara!_"
+
+There was no mistaking the cry now. It rose exultant, yet with that
+wailing note in it still, which lingers always in humanity's claim to
+have found its lost Paradise, its lost purity.
+
+Yet there was no trace of doubt in the almost frantic joy on every face
+in the dense multitude which stopped the little cavalcade, as it
+entered the square around the Pool of Immortality; stopped it
+hopelessly, as if the moving, breathing, living mass had been a dead
+wall.
+
+"_Hara! Hari! Hari! Hara!_"
+
+It was almost a yell. The patience was gone utterly, and far as the eye
+could reach, in all the wide square, in every street and alley
+converging to it, there was the restless ineffectual movement
+of the sea, when, on a summer's day, it beats itself calmly yet
+persistently--rising and falling--upon a sheer cliff, against the
+impossible. There was no one to check the crowd now, to prevent it from
+finding Death and Immortality at the same time. What matter? What were
+a few hundreds of crushed bodies, when the soul found what it sought?
+
+The riders behind Roshan threw up their hands at the sight. No hope
+here for the littlenesses of life; for principalities and powers, even
+for political liberty.
+
+This was the bed-rock; this, in its unalterable aspiration--not for
+something better, but for the best--neither culture nor conspiracy
+could touch; this was as much beyond the control of kith and kin as of
+strangers and aliens.
+
+"Come, _Khan-sahib_!" they called to the figure with the lack-lustre eyes
+which sat its horse like a statue, staring at itself, at its world,
+conscious only of the hideous discords which were, perforce, the music
+of its sphere. "Come! _Nawab-jee!_ There is still a chance with the
+'_Teacher of Religion_.' The _jogi_ will have held _his_ folk, for
+sure. They will be ready for blood, since Mai Kali"--the speaker spat
+his Mahomedan contempt for the idolatry ere he went on--"lets none go.
+She's a true woman for that!"
+
+So, by back alleys and crooked ways, Roshan--why he did not know, since
+he meant nothing by it--led the cavalcade past the palace, through the
+archway into the courtyard with its union-jack of raised paths.
+
+And found it empty.
+
+Empty of all save the _jogi_, Gorakh-nath, who was busy, resignedly, in
+rethreading his chaplet of skulls, ere starting to seek safety over the
+British border in some far recess of the holy hills, whence, when this
+affair had blown over, he could swoop down with added sanctity on some
+other religious fair.
+
+"He and his God stole them from me not the saying of a rosary past," he
+said cheerfully, after he had explained the position. "They went by
+yonder door to the old road. So what matter! They are in it. They will
+come back to Her by and by. It is so always. Men follow other leads,
+other loves. But they do not find what they seek; so they come back to
+Her, to the many named Woman. _Jai! Kali Ma!_"
+
+Those behind Roshan looked at each other.
+
+"It is the end," they said briefly. "Come, _risaldar-jee_--" the change
+of title was significant--"we shall have to ride far and fast if we are
+to live."
+
+Once more, every atom of the man, soul and body, seemed to strike out
+furiously at the voice, at the truth and the untruth in it; at the
+assertion of failure, the linking of his need with theirs.
+
+"Ride for your lives if you want them," he cried fiercely; "I seek
+death."
+
+They left him, after unavailing protests, and rode helter-skelter on to
+the Fort, warning their comrades that the game was up, so, on towards
+safety. And the _jogi_, naked but not ashamed, still swinging his
+chaplet of skulls, followed them leisurely; for he knew himself safe in
+the superstition and the devotion of every woman in India. Since he,
+Her servant, could not fail of shelter in every Hindoo homestead, far
+or near, in which a woman's hand closed on a man's, holding him tight
+for herself alone, as the Great Mother holds all men.
+
+Roshan, thus left alone, rode his horse on slowly to the central
+plinth, dismounted, and, hitching the bridle over the muzzle of the
+"_Teacher of Religion_" stood staring out dully at what lay before him;
+so quiet, so commonplace!
+
+Nothing changed from the day, barely a month ago, when he had stood
+beside the old gun with Vincent Dering and Lance Carlyon, contemptuous
+of the ignorance of others, satisfied with himself.
+
+And now?--what had come to him?
+
+The madness, which his wild gallop from the gaol had calmed somewhat,
+returned in a fierce rush, and with it that one desire for revenge; for
+something by which to show the contempt, which was not now merely for
+the ignorant; but for those others, self-righteous, tyrannical, who had
+dared to touch him--dared to make him what he was--a prey both to
+ignorance and wisdom, savagery and culture--a laughing-stock even to
+himself!
+
+And who had begun the fooling? Who had taught him as a boy?
+
+Pidar Narayan! Who else? Who else had begun the game giving some
+things, withholding others? And who else was within reach? Who else
+could be followed up and forced to fair fight? Forced to admit that the
+pupil was ahead now of the master.
+
+He laughed a laugh of absolute exultation; and a wave of purely
+childish satisfaction swept through the mind in which there were still
+so many depths of childish ignorance and misconception; unavoidable
+depths in the culture of a bare score of years. Leaving his horse
+tethered to the old gun, he ran hastily across to the palace, so,
+finding the door open, the whole place quiet, went on down the arched
+passage. It was still dark there, but a glimmer of light showed the
+entrance to the chapel, and to the armoury beside it, which was his
+goal.
+
+He had no other thought except for that armoury, until, with the tall
+tapers burning at the head and feet, he saw the dead body of the woman
+who had deceived him lying on the Altar steps. Then the pitifullest
+clashing of satisfaction and despair, of desire and disgust, came to
+him that ever rent a man in twain. For a moment he fought for bare
+reason between them, then with a savage cry, he flung himself beside
+the dead girl, caught her to him, covered her with frantic, cruel
+kisses, and, almost flinging her from him again, ran on into the
+armoury, the red of her dress, her bosom, in his eyes--the red of
+blood!
+
+The armoury! Where he had had his first lesson in the foils! There they
+were, harmless in their buttons, crossed on the wall, and above them
+something more murderous; the dangerous delicate rapiers to which those
+others were but the prelude. No! one was gone! One Father Ninian had
+used against the _jogi!_ One he must have with him. So much the better!
+
+He tore down its fellow, and passing the dead girl without a look,
+dashed out into the courtyard again, his last trace of sanity gone.
+
+The next instant his horse's feet were echoing madly along the
+pilgrims' road. His enemy must have a quarter of an hour's lead, but
+that was nothing; he could overtake him, anyhow, at the first station
+in the pilgrimage,--a temple under a vast _banyan_ tree at the foot of
+the first rise, where the pious must pause to make offerings.
+
+The road was almost empty at first; for the news that the miracle had
+only been deferred had spread instantly through the unrestful town, so
+to a space beyond it, making those who heard the tale turn back to see
+for themselves. But after a few minutes' wild gallop, he came up with
+those who had been beyond recall, who had gone on content with that
+strange lead of a strange God; of a saint, a sinner. Yet, after a time,
+forgetful of that leadership utterly. For they needed it no more. The
+danger of novelty had passed with their first step along the beaten
+track which their fathers had followed. Father Ninian, wise with the
+wisdom of long years, of secret sympathy, had known this; had counted
+on it in his forlorn hope of leading them into familiar bondage. He had
+told himself that he need only go as far as that first station; that
+then, during the pause for offerings, he might return, as it were, to
+realities, to something more consistent with the nineteenth century!
+But to him, also, as he led the way, chanting his offices for the day,
+had come a strange peace, a strange desire to go on to the end of the
+pilgrimage; a strange desire to leave those realities behind him in a
+world from which he was taking nothing, not even his love.
+
+Surely it was time. Surely he was old enough to claim rest. No! not
+rest. It was something more than that. Surely, now that he had left
+every atom of earth behind him lying with a dead woman on the Altar
+steps, he also was free to find the "Cradle of the Gods"!
+
+"_My soul fleeth unto the Lord! before the morning watch I say, before
+the morning watch_," he chanted; he had gone on blindly from psalm to
+psalm intent on the desire to lead those voices behind.
+
+"Have a care, _baba-jee!_ thou and thy God!" said a half-tender,
+half-jesting one as he stumbled among the stones, and a dark hand
+stretched itself out to steady the old priest, and a dark face turned
+to nod approval at other saffron robes; since here was a true pilgrim,
+a true madman, forgetful of this world, to judge by the face lifted
+towards those distant hills.
+
+Yet the desire in him to reach them seemed to the wise old heart
+something that must be set aside. He must return. Yes! he must return.
+To do what? What could an old man do who had left life, a useless life,
+behind him? He crushed down that thought also, and stumbled on.
+
+"_Man is like a thing of nought, his time passeth away like a shadow!_"
+
+His voice spent itself tremulously on that one certainty, and those
+behind him joined their testimony to his all unwittingly, as they
+called on Hara or Hari; on the Creator, the Destroyer, as One and
+Indivisible.
+
+And in the rear again, Roshan in his search for Death, for
+annihilation, bore witness also, as he came, cursing those who stood in
+his way, his horse slithering among the stones in its effort to obey
+whip and spur, and sending a dry clangour of hoof-beats through the
+little stony valley to startle the sleepy snakes coiled on the distant
+rocks, and drive them back to their crannies with a hiss.
+
+So, every instant, the distance lessened between the old man and the
+young one, both weary of life. It was broad daylight now, though the
+sun was still low on the horizon. The mystery of dawn had left the
+world, the very pilgrims, between their recurring cries, were
+chattering, laughing, over the every-day details of life which would
+make to-day as trivial as yesterday, to-morrow as trivial as to-day.
+
+There had been a "Breathing" in the night, they told each other. Some
+shadow had fallen. Some God or Devil had had power. But the shackles of
+custom, of familiarity, were back again, the despotism of detail.
+
+Only in those two strangely different minds in the van, in the rear,
+the mystery still clouded the reality.
+
+And the distance between them lessened as Roshan drove his way through
+the saffron robes recklessly.
+
+Yet, fast as he went, when he reached the end of the dry watercourse up
+which the last part of the rough track had wound, and stood in the
+hollow, backed by a further rise of the hill, where the quaint, dumpy,
+black temple hid itself under the huge blotch of the _banyan_ tree--the
+only green thing visible, far or near--the figure he sought was not to
+be seen among the crowd.
+
+Akbar Khan, indeed, he saw, utilizing one of the tall tapers as a
+pipe-light before casting himself on the ground to suck contentedly at
+the screwed _banyan_ leaf full of tobacco which he had gathered by
+claiming a pinch in return for the loan of that same light to others.
+But with a curious shame Roshan avoided him, and passed on in his
+search among the jostling crowd, the continuous babel of trivial talk;
+for this was resting-time, when men and women could be men and women,
+and forget that they were on a pilgrimage; when they could even dream
+themselves back in the village under the familiar shelter of some
+village tree, asking no more than the familiar round of life.
+
+But above the babel came every now and again the insistent clang of a
+bell, telling that some new petitioner was seeking a favour of the
+Gods, and making a golden oriole, which sat in the green leafage, flit
+to another bower with a sudden fluting note, full, joyful, mellow.
+
+"What dost seek, _Musulman?_" cavilled a saint, drawing back from
+Roshan's shadow, as he gabbled invocations, all he knew, on a rosary,
+ere solacing himself with the pipe which his disciple had prepared. "If
+'tis the madman and his God--he hath gone yonder."
+
+He pointed to a side track, which was a short cut to the road above.
+
+Roshan flung himself from his horse without a word, and followed.
+
+The distance lessened at every step now, for the old priest's breath
+failed him at the steepness of the rise.
+
+Still, it would not delay him long, he told himself, to take that one
+look at the soft, white cloud which generally hid the goal of
+pilgrimage, before he turned back over the hill, as best he could, to
+find what task remained for him in the world.
+
+He might have that one look, surely!
+
+So, reaching the summit of this first bulwark of the unattainable, he
+sat down, breathlessly, beside an upright black stone which showed
+strangely distinct amid the redness of the surrounding rock; a plain
+black stone, not three feet high, chipped rudely to a blunt point.
+Father Ninian did not need the scattering of dead marigolds and dry
+basil leaves about its base to tell him that it was a fragment of an
+older faith than that of the temple below; a faith sterner, purer,
+founded on a clearer perception of what humanity needed in that search
+for the lost Paradise; on a closer memory of the cause which lost it.
+
+He laid one hand on the stone almost caressingly, as, holding the pyx
+in the other, he sat down facing the distant peaks. But there was no
+cloud upon them. The day had dawned clear and still, and as he sat
+looking wistfully over the valleys on valleys, the hills on hills,
+which lay bathed in light between him and the "Cradle of the Gods,"
+a sunbeam--still slanting from the curved edge of the eastern
+plains--caught the jewelled star of what he held, and stayed there.
+
+It was peaceful beyond words. The hurry, the strain, not only of that
+long eventful night, but of the whole long eventful life, seemed over.
+All things seemed behind him. The passion, the pride, the courage, the
+manhood--all things that had made Ninian Bruce what Ninian Bruce had
+been--where were they?
+
+Only wisdom, only a tender knowledge, seemed to remain.
+
+The clank of steel upon stone roused him, the clank of Roshan's spurs
+upon the rocks; and Father Ninian turned to see him, a yard or two on
+the path below, outlined clearly against the distant view of Eshwara,
+against the world in which Ninian Bruce had lived and loved--the Ninian
+Bruce whom he had left behind.
+
+Behind!
+
+No! It was Ninian Bruce and none other who was on his feet in a second,
+a flush on his face--the face that was like the nether mill-stone in
+its stern passion, and pride, and power. For, in a second, the old
+man's soul was back in a world where a dead woman belonging to him lay
+waiting for revenge. His hand was on his hidden rapier, as he flung his
+first word of defiance at the man who had killed her.
+
+"Murderer!"
+
+"Your pupil at that, even!" gasped Roshan, "you began it!--your pupil
+whom you taught--curse you--"
+
+The words failed him--he paused inarticulate--but the keen eyes and
+ears opposite him took in his meaning with the swift comprehension
+which had been Pidar Narayan's always. A sort of contemptuous pity
+fought with the passion of Ninian Bruce's face.
+
+"My pupil, certainly," he assented. "Have you come to ask me for a
+final lesson?"
+
+Roshan glared at him. "You understand--you always did--that is the
+worst. Yes! I have come"--here he laughed wildly--"for what you taught
+me--fair play and no favour--and I mean to have it." In his fierce
+excitement he pressed closer, flourishing his rapier.
+
+"Pardon me," came a cold, courteous voice; "I did not teach you that
+method of assassination, surely? I thought you desired fair play. If
+so, you might allow me to meet you on equal terms."
+
+Roshan drew back with a flush from the figure which had stood its
+ground, which looked at him with bitter disdain. He scarcely seemed to
+recognize it. No wonder! For this was Ninian Bruce himself. Ninian
+Bruce as he might have spoken to an over-hasty antagonist in the days
+when he was the most reckless swordsman in Rome, when the world held
+him body and soul.
+
+The years, his very priesthood, had slipped from him.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir!" muttered Roshan, standing aside. There was a
+savage satisfaction in his heart. This man was not old, the odds were
+equal; there was enough fire and passion here to please any opponent.
+
+So, after a pause to lay aside the pyx--it found a strange
+resting-place on the blunt summit of that upright black stone--a slim,
+still elegant figure, divested of its priestly robings, took its stand,
+its back to the hills, its face to the world.
+
+Still upright, still active, with its black _soutane_ caught up and
+tucked into the sash to give free play to its limbs.
+
+"Now, sir," came the courteous voice, "I am ready."
+
+Something in the proud grace of bearing, the reckless contempt, made
+Roshan follow suit.
+
+"The sun will be in your eyes," he said, "let us fight lengthwise to
+the ridge."
+
+"We _will_--by and by!" came that icy voice, as the speaker, without
+moving, stood on guard. "We can omit the salute. If you are ready, I
+am."
+
+For an instant Roshan hesitated, realizing what the life that he meant
+to take had been, what the man himself whom he meant to kill had been
+and was. The man whose figure stood out like a black shadow against the
+distant blue of the hills; and as he realized the fine fibre of his
+enemy, a sense of powerlessness to touch, to harm him, kept Roshan
+motionless.
+
+"Shall I count five, and give you a start?" The question came with a
+shrug of the shoulders.
+
+The taunt told. Roshan pulled himself together, and stood on guard
+also. But the sense of powerlessness was intolerable; he lowered his
+rapier for a word more--a word to raise his own self-esteem.
+
+"I warn you," he said haughtily, "that the sun is in your eyes. That I
+have learnt more than you ever taught me--that _this_ is to the death."
+
+"It could scarcely be anything else, could it?" came the instant reply,
+in a voice that vibrated harshly, like a harpstring struck to its
+fullest, "with a dead woman between us! Engage, you devil, or I will
+kill you as you stand!"
+
+Roshan gave a short, sharp cry, like a wild beast. The next instant the
+curious hiss of two meeting blades sliding along each other was the
+only sound. It is a strange sound, which, to the listeners, the
+onlookers, seems to say "hush" to the whole world.
+
+"_Hush_--hush--_sh_--_sh_."
+
+Then, short and sharp as that cry of Roshan's, came another sound; the
+beaten, baffled clash when steel meets steel instead of flesh.
+
+Roshan, with an inward curse, gripped his rapier closer. He had almost
+been disarmed,--disarmed in that first encounter. Strange that he
+should have forgotten his foe,--forgotten the deadly insistence of the
+master's blade, slack as a snake in curves, firm as a vice in grip.
+Then that almost invisible turn of the wrist which had so nearly done
+for him. He had forgotten--these, in years of meaner adversaries. He
+remembered them now, and would not forget again. And he had such
+things; ay! and more, in reserve for himself.
+
+So had his master; in reserve for both of them, if needful. And the
+knowledge that it _would_ be needful came to Ninian Bruce at the first
+touch of his adversary's sword; for there was that in it which told the
+old hand that the young one was a master's also.
+
+"My pupil has improved," he said quietly, as, abandoning the attack, he
+parried Roshan's furious onslaught with scarcely a motion of the hand,
+held level to his heart.
+
+That he could do. But the other must surely come in the end, since he
+was old, and Roshan young. If in the end, therefore, why not now? The
+sooner the better.
+
+A minute after the sun was no longer in Pidar Narayan's eyes. As he had
+said, they were fighting lengthwise to the ridge; and he drew back,
+choosing his ground, until under his feet he felt the dead marigolds,
+the withered basil leaves that lay about the upright stone,--that
+strange pedestal on which the star-shaped pyx stood as on an altar,
+glittering in the sun-rays.
+
+He seemed to see it, to feel it, standing there between the world below
+and those faint, far peaks. And the eyes which had seen so much felt
+they need see no more.
+
+"_Sta' alerta, Signor!_" he cried jibingly, flinging himself savagely
+forward. "And may the Lord have mercy on your soul," he added in a
+lower tone; as, in an attack which held in it all the wildness, the
+fire, the passion of his youth, he drove Roshan back a step,--one step
+down the faint slope on which he had counted.
+
+A fierce lunge or two, a swift parry, and then,--then an inch beyond
+safety--given purposely--yielded room for the _riposte_ he sought from
+that other rapier.
+
+It came with a quick cry of triumph, as Roshan felt that thin, cold
+steel slide silently on through a dull, faint resistance. A cry that
+ended in a gasp, as the hand which held the rapier dropped for a
+second, then flung itself upwards.
+
+For Pidar Narayan had given the _reprise_; and '_L'Addio del Marito_'
+had done its work.
+
+So, for an instant--held upright by the lingering force of the old
+man's hand--the two stood within a sword's length, their faces glaring
+at each other,--stern, implacable, the one in death, the other still in
+life.
+
+Then the strength, the life, ebbed; the balance between it and death
+wavered, and Ninian Bruce, overborne by his enemy's dead weight, sank
+to his knee, then backwards.
+
+But his hand still gripped the rapier. So Roshan Khan's body, as it
+fell forward, slithered down the sharp blade, sending a little jet of
+crimson blood backwards, till it stopped with a dull thud upon the
+hilt.
+
+So he lay, face downwards, beside the old man, whose face looked
+skyward; whose head rested among the withered marigolds and the sweet,
+dead leaves of the basil, which generations and generations of pilgrims
+had offered to an unknown wisdom on their way to the "Cradle of the
+Gods."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+                              THE TRUTH
+
+
+"And to look at it now," came the Commissioner's rich, round brogue,
+"you would think butter wouldn't melt in its mouth!"
+
+He waved the cigar he was smoking towards Eshwara. It looked sleepier,
+more sun-saturate than ever, as it lay reflected in the still lagoon
+between it and the tent in which he was sitting; a double-poled,
+Commissioner's tent, which two days before had swooped down like an
+avenging angel with broad white wings to take possession of the just
+and the unjust in the name of Victoria _Kaiser-i-Hind_.
+
+It was pitched on the site of the Viceroy's camp, for the convenience
+of being close to the gaol where the late disturbers of the public
+peace had taken up their residence. In fact, the mast from which the
+royal standard had floated, still reared itself, bare, undraped, from
+its roundel of roses. But the flowers were withered, dead. Even the
+palms, their work of welcome over, were wilting fast; but they still
+gave a doubtful shade to some groups of manacled men, who, guarded by
+yellow-legged constables, were placidly awaiting the Commissioner's
+leisure and pleasure; both being, at the time, occupied with lunch and
+Dr. Dillon. So, the wide white wings of the tent being set open and
+supported with bamboos to let in the breeze, the representative
+of law and order could be seen--his feet on the table among his law
+books--drinking an iced whiskey-and-soda.
+
+Dr. Dillon--he looked careworn chiefly because in his care for others
+he had, as yet, been able to take no rest--nodded.
+
+"Yes; and it doesn't, as a rule. A more peaceable spot never was. You
+can't account for these sudden idiotic outbreaks. One reason is as good
+as another. And so old Mother Campbell, with her assertion that it all
+came because Miss Shepherd would talk about Jean Ziska's drum--"
+
+The Commissioner smiled. "Yes, the good lady has an endless circle of
+unfounded beliefs, all dependent on each other for support. It's the
+most comfortable way of getting through life. An' miracles are like
+drams--ye can't stop them, once you begin. Besides, on me soul, it was
+queer--even Carlyon said--"
+
+"And if it _were_ true," interrupted the doctor, "we shouldn't be any
+'forrader'! We shouldn't understand. And that's our position now. You
+can't, in fact. It's better you shouldn't; in India, at any rate. Just
+accept them, ignore them, smash them, hush them up"--here his face
+clouded--"and in this case there is a good deal that had better be kept
+dark--you'll do your best, I hope?"
+
+The keen whimsical face hardened. "I shall follow the usual official
+routine, sir," he said cynically; "for, look you, there never was a row
+like this in India but there is something in it about a woman, which
+we've got to hush up. An' that's God's truth. Yes, we pay a heavy
+toll--" He broke off, took up a pen as if to write, threw it down
+impatiently, and stared out into the hot, yellow sunshine.
+
+Dr. Dillon sat twiddling his mushroom hat round and round in his
+nervous fingers, and staring out into it also. A sense of being face to
+face with an unpleasant truth was on them both. Suddenly he laughed
+harshly.
+
+"We ought to have got accustomed to the fact by this time, anyhow," he
+said, "for it began early enough in the history of man. Well, I'm off;
+you won't want me, will you, this afternoon, now those men have turned
+Queen's evidence?"
+
+"Don't think so. Let's see." The Commissioner drew a list towards him,
+and ran his eye over it. "I've condemned three warders and seven
+prisoners to death for poor Dering's murder; so I daresay penal
+servitude will see through the rest. Then there's _jogi_ Gorakh-nath
+and his _gosain_. They ought to be hung, but we haven't caught them,
+and we never shall; the wild ass that snuffeth up the east wind isn't
+in it with a Hindoo ascetic in eluding captors! So the lot out there
+are really small fry; for the other ringleaders are either dead or
+departed--even that amphibious brute, Gu-gu."
+
+Dr. Dillon looked up cheerfully. "By George! I'd have given something
+to see that water-fight between him and Am-ma! By the way, what are you
+going to do for that queer fish? But for him, we would never have seen
+Lance Carlyon's face again."
+
+The Commissioner's expression was curious. "It's a bit hard to do
+anything for a man who wants nothing but earth, air, and water, and has
+got all three; besides--" he drew a paper out of a file, looked at it,
+then looked at the doctor--"besides it wasn't altogether Am-ma!" He
+paused, smiled an infinitely kind smile, then went on: "I was a brute,
+entirely, to talk about a heavy toll just now. We get its worth back,
+me dear fellow, over and over again. See! here is Am-ma's _affidavit_.
+I took it this morning, and upon me soul, Dillon, I should be obliged
+if you would tell me whether to hush it up, or inform the party
+concerned." So saying, his brogue took possession of the sun-bright,
+sun-dry air--
+
+"I, Am-ma, of the river folk, solemnly affirm that, knowing the
+_Dee-puk-rag_ to be in the power of the _Huzoors_, I several times
+warned Gu-gu not to follow other masters. But he had learned books, and
+become ignorant. He could not even feel when a current changed its
+course; and then he thought he must die, because of the ghost, and that
+made him wild. So when I refused, and set off, as ordained, for the
+raft, he took the Brahmin's money and stopped the miracle. Of a surety,
+the Awarder of Justice is right. This slave knew what was to come. He
+did not tell of it because, where the _Dee-puk-rag_ is, there is
+victory; so there was no fear. Yet when the Miss-_sahiba_ bade me help
+her, I obeyed, because she has power over devils, and my son, _Huzoor_,
+is still in the first week of life. Therefore, for that reason, I
+guided the raft. But when I saw that the Light-bringers had smitten the
+darkness of evil-doers, and that the raft would be needed no more, I
+went on with it to the place appointed by the Wood-_wallah-sahib_
+whence it could float of itself.
+
+"So I returned to my home and ate my bread. And the day was quiet, as
+the _Huzoor_ knows; only the folk reviled, because I had no fish to
+sell.
+
+"But, at night, at the waning of the sunset stars, about the third
+jackal cry, came the Miss-_sahiba_ to my hut."
+
+Dr. Dillon ceased twiddling his hat, and looked up in sudden interest.
+
+"To my hut," reiterated the reading voice. "I deemed it because of
+devils first; but it was not. It was because of Carlone-_sahib_ who
+could not be found,--only his clothes and pistol on my craft, stranded
+on a sand-bank by the mid-channel.
+
+"'He has not been killed,' said the Miss-_sahiba_ 'He would not have
+fought with his clothes off. Nor did he go to fight. He would not have
+left the pistol if he had. He has gone swimming, to get quicker and
+find help. So he is drowned. He is in the river still, and I cannot
+think of it. Am-ma! you know every inch of the river. Find him! Find
+him!'
+
+"Then I said: 'Yea, Miss-_sahiba_ I will find him when his body rises.
+No man can find a dead one in the river till then.' But, as I spoke,
+the son at his mother's breast left sucking, and cried aloud. The
+Miss-_sahiba_ said it was but the gripes, but we--my house and I--knew
+more than that. We knew it was the devils, winning a way because the
+Miss was not content. So I said: 'I will find him while his beauty is
+still on him, for you to see again,'--since that is in the heart of all
+women, O Awarder of Justice. Thus at the dawn--the dawn after the dawn
+of darkness--I, Am-ma, set out with my nets, seeing that fish, anyhow,
+could be found, and the market would be dear, because none had come to
+the bazaar during the commotion. So, remembering where my craft had
+stranded, I went first to mid-channel; thus, working up, came to where
+it had stranded once before. Then, seeing footmarks, I followed them,
+till in an island, eating his bread, I found the evil-begotten Gu-gu.
+
+"He had a knife in his bead belt, at the sight whereof I gave glory
+to gods and devils alike, for I knew the handle of it. It was
+Carlone-_sahib's shikar_ knife, and I had been his _shikari_ many a
+time.
+
+"So I said, 'Where gottest thou Carlone-_sahib's_ knife, Gu-gu?'
+thinking to startle him. And it did. He said no word, but came at me
+with it.
+
+"So we fought. His right hand and mine on the knife, and our left arms
+round each other's throat, choking us; and our legs wrestling. Till the
+water grew too deep. Then we swam with them. But he said nothing, nor
+did I. There was no need. We understood, as dogs do, that it was foe
+and foe. So it came to the deep stream; his right hand and mine,
+with the knife between them, and our teeth fixed in each other's
+shoulders,--till I bethought me of his ear.
+
+"Then he yelled, and let go; but I was after him as he dived. It was a
+long race. Wherefore not? since we are the best swimmers in the river.
+But I felt the cleave of the water from his foot at last, and spent
+myself in one stroke. So I laid hold of his leg and ran my hand up till
+I found his back. Then I used Carlone-_sahib's_ knife on him, and he
+sank; and I sank too, with the blow.
+
+"And when I came up, leaving him there, I found how long the race had
+been, for my right hand struck the city wall. Then it came to me what
+the Miss-_sahiba_ had said, of Carlone-_sahib_ wishing to go quick; and
+I bethought me of the secret passages, and the knife, and Gu-gu's fear.
+And I said to myself someone must have restored the miracle. Not Gu-gu;
+else why was he hiding? What if it be Carlone-_sahib?_ But most of all
+I thought of my little son, and the devils longing for him, and for a
+woman longing for the sight of a man's beauty, and I knew I must go and
+see if it lay there. So I dived, and found him, as the Awarder of
+Justice knows, sitting high up, with the water about his feet, waiting
+for death, and brought him back as I promised. And Gu-gu is dead, for
+his body was drifting by the tunnel with Carlone-_sahib's_ knife in the
+back as we came out. So the Miss is pleased, and the devils do not come
+near my son."
+
+The brogue ceased, and there was a pause. "Well! what do ye say,
+Dillon?" asked the Commissioner, fretfully.
+
+George Dillon rose and put on his hat deliberately. "Nothing. Except
+that I must really be off. I've to see Smith first, and Carlyon--that
+sprained ankle of his, which he got trying to climb up beyond the rise
+of the water, will be the deuce and all if he uses it too soon. And
+then, if I can, I want to get round and say good-by to--to the
+Miss-_sahiba_. She's off to Herrnhut again this evening. In fact,
+Campbell didn't half like her waiting for the funeral, he is in such a
+blessed hurry to get to his new field, as he calls it; thinks of
+nothing else. They are to be married on Monday, I believe."
+
+The Commissioner laid aside Am-ma's _affidavit_ with a soft "damn," and
+Dr. Dillon paused on his way out at the sound.
+
+"Quite so,--I entirely agree with you," he said sympathetically; "but,
+unfortunately, there is only one person who has a right to tell that
+story, sir--and she won't!"
+
+"Why not?" interrupted the Commissioner, militantly--"why the blazes
+shouldn't a woman tell the truth?"
+
+"Because women don't know it," broke in the doctor, "or men either, for
+that matter. Because we men and women have got ourselves on such false
+lines, into such an absolutely false position towards each other, that
+the only course consistent with propriety and _les convenances_ is
+to--to hush the thing up! So hush-a-bye baby, sir, to your heart's
+content. So long as the mother can tell her blessed infant that she is
+a lady, what does the real fact matter?"
+
+He spoke with a concentrated bitterness, an almost fierce resentment,
+and the Commissioner nodded, finished his whiskey-and-soda at a gulp,
+and returned to work, tossing his papers about recklessly.
+
+"It's a quare world, certainly," he murmured, with a lack of
+originality which sat ill on him. Then, catching sight of something in
+a file, his humorous, kindly self returned. "Listen to this now, for
+quareness," he laughed, beginning to read:--
+
+"'The petition of Mussumat Mumtaza Mahal'--that's Roshan Khan's
+grandmother, you know--'sister,' etc., etc., 'humbly sheweth that she
+has endured grievous wrong and hurt, by loss of her grandson in the
+late deplorable mutiny (of which she was utterly incognizant, being
+helpless, veiled, old woman perpetually confined in house). Therefore
+prayeth that whereas one Mussumat Ashraf-un-nissa, her neighbour, is in
+receipt of pension rupees twenty-five _per mensem_ for similar
+bereavement of male protector and head of family lost in '57 mutiny,
+therefore her pension of rupees twenty _per mensem_, only, for exile of
+husband to Calcutta, be commuted to similar sum of twenty-five, seeing
+that your poor petitioner is in floods of tears and wholly heartbroken
+through this most nonregulation, premature death of promising young
+scion of her noble house, on whom, as on blessed Victoria, Queen, her
+hopes were fixed. Said petitioner being able to prove _alibi_, absolute
+incomplicity, and continuous remaining at home during late devilish
+disturbances.'"
+
+"Poor old soul!" laughed the doctor, "give it to her if you can, sir.
+And as for remaining at home, everybody except the actual conspirators
+did that. Even Dya-Ram, the disaffected--though he has preached armed
+resistance to tyranny in his paper for years. He barricaded himself in
+with his printing-press. Fact; jammed his fingers in so doing, and came
+to me in a blind funk for a professional certificate that the wound
+could not have been caused by any lethal weapon. As if anyone could
+ever have suspected him of taking part in raising a row, or even in
+settling one! His sort are simply negligible quantities."
+
+"But Ramanund seems to have attempted a lead," put in the Commissioner,
+judicially.
+
+"Exactly. Attempted, and failed. His sort are negligible quantities
+also, sir, I'm sorry to say, and will remain so until they learn,
+amongst other knowledge, to believe in something besides
+themselves--" here the hard eyes softened, the hard voice paused. "That
+is another thing I should like to have seen--dear old Pidar Narayan--"
+
+The hard voice found even softness too loud; and in the silence which
+fell between the two men, only the Commissioner's pen could be heard.
+
+"You'll look in at the palace, perhaps, and see all is right," came the
+brogue, after a bit, "and give my love to old Smith. I'm not sure but
+that I'd rather have seen him behind the door than anything else, for
+it must have been the hardest job--"
+
+"Considering the circumstances, yes!" put in the doctor; so, with the
+pith hat turning him into an animated mushroom, he passed out into the
+blaze of dry yellow sunshine, on that dry yellow sand.
+
+The sky above was molten with light and heat, the gaol positively
+shimmered in the glare. Not a sound, not a sight, told of that
+midsummer night's dream of wild, useless revolt, save when one of the
+shackled prisoners awaiting trial sought a better bit of shade under
+the wilted palms, which, not a week before, had welcomed the Hosts of
+the Lord-_sahib_ on their way to the hills.
+
+The whole thing seemed incredible; yet, as he crossed the road to enter
+the Smiths' compound, the footsteps of those other Hosts who had passed
+on to the hills also remained to dimple the dry yellow sand.
+
+The Smiths' bungalow lay calm, peaceful; the drawing-room, as he
+entered it, struck him with the old, familiar sense of refinement,
+indexing the refinement of its mistress. Only one change caught his
+observant eyes. Vincent Dering's photograph was no longer on the
+mantle-piece, whence it had always looked out with a certain challenge
+in its very prominence. Where had it gone? What matter? There was no
+need for such defiance now, thought George Dillon, with that curious
+half-cynical, half-resentful smile he kept for one subject only. She
+might keep the photograph where she chose, now, and none would blame
+her.
+
+So thinking, he set aside the curtain which hung at his patient's door,
+and as he did so, resentment, cynicism, vanished in quick sympathy.
+
+"Ah! fever again, I see,--that's a bore," he said, going over swiftly
+to the bed where Eugene Smith's long length lay visibly shivering; for
+something,--the exposure, the excitement, the strain, perhaps, of that
+awful inaction behind the door against which Vincent Dering was making
+that heroic stand,--had knocked the big man over, a prey to an old
+enemy--malarial fever. "When did it come on?"
+
+Muriel Smith, who sat on the bed, her hand in one of her husband's
+shaking, trembling ones, looked up. She was very pale, but very calm.
+
+"Half an hour ago. It is a pity. We hoped it was broken, didn't we? But
+he will fret himself so, Doctor--" Her eyes, on Dr. Dillon's, were
+telling their tale, so that it scarcely needed the rambling, quivering
+voice to show that the fresh onset of fever had once more clouded the
+sick man's brain.
+
+"How can a fellow help fretting," murmured Eugene, his teeth
+chattering, "when he waits like a coward behind a door, where his best
+friend--"
+
+The woman beside him winced, but interrupted him bravely. "But I tell
+him, Doctor--and it's true, isn't it?--that it was hardest for
+_him_--and that--that Vincent would rather have had it so--because he
+had to leave no one, and Eugene had Gladys--and me."
+
+Her voice seemed to bring comfort, and the glistening, feverish eyes
+closed.
+
+"Go on with the mixture," said the doctor, vexedly conscious of a lump
+in his throat. "This will wear itself out in a day or two; and--you
+can't do more than you're doing."
+
+"I suppose not," she replied listlessly.
+
+But the tragedy of her face remained in his memory as he drove over the
+creaking, groaning bridge to Eshwara. The bazaar was full as ever with
+drifting humanity, busy in the details of every-day life. There was no
+hint anywhere of the past storm; not even in the palace. It lay, as
+ever, silent; its blank walls seeming to hold the sunlight back from
+some secret within,--from some veiled, hidden beauty. The door was
+closed, but old Akbar Khan came capering at his call, his back roached,
+in bowing, like a caterpillar's.
+
+"The tomb is finished, _Ge-reeb-pun-waz_," he mumbled, in blubbering
+importance. "_Ala!_ the sad day! But this slave, knowing all customary
+things, hath remained insistent on the workmen; therefore all is
+befitting the noble people, as the _Huzoor_ will see."
+
+So, down the shadowy passage he led the way, crablike, to the chapel;
+for hither, long years before, Father Ninian had brought the body of
+Pietro Bonaventura, and here, just in front of the Altar steps, he and
+Pietro's granddaughter--the last of the old priest's charges,--had been
+buried the day before. The masons had been busy, building up the vault
+again; but, as Akbar Khan had said, the work was finished, the chapel
+restored to its original state, swept, and garnished. Even the candles
+were lit on the Altar, and four of the tallest tapers had been placed,
+one at each corner of the stone slab on which two more names would have
+to be cut; while from these tapers long strings of jasmine flowers,
+such as native women wear, had been hung in drooping chains to form an
+enclosure. On the slab itself great bossed yellow marigolds were laid
+to simulate a cross.
+
+Dr. Dillon turned to the cringing figure beside him sharply; but there
+was something almost pathetic in its simper of conscious merit, its
+certainty of satisfaction.
+
+"Did you do that?" he asked.
+
+"_Ge-reeb-pun-waz!_"
+
+There was a world of pride and of servitude in the voice, and in the
+folded, prayerful hands which shot out under the bowings.
+
+"This slave made it! The _Huzoor_ will notice it is, fitting. Even the
+'_crass_'--" he pointed his prayerful hands to the marigolds--"is not
+forgotten. Has not this dust-like one spent his life in preparing
+amusements and spectacles for the noble people? He knows that tombs
+require flowers, as women do."
+
+Through the arches behind the old pantaloon Dr. Dillon could catch a
+glimpse of the garden, ablaze with colour, could smell the perfume of
+the now fading orange-blossoms, could see the water-maze, with its
+marble ledges, among the lotus, just wide enough for the flying feet of
+a laughing girl.
+
+The words, the contrast, held him, as the old man went on with an
+orthodox whine of petition in his voice:--
+
+"So, since the _Sirkar_ will doubtless appoint a guardian of tombs,
+seeing there is none to inherit the palace, if the Protector of the
+Poor would intercede for this slave with the Commissioner?--if the
+_Huzoor_ would say that the dust-like one has provided the pleasures of
+palaces all his life long for the noble people; yea! from the cradle to
+the grave. If he will say that--" he flourished his hands towards the
+slab--"both in the making of garlands and the making of '_crasses_,'
+there is none equal--"
+
+"_For tombs require flowers, as women do!_" The phrase asserted itself
+again, and Dr. Dillon looked at the wicked old face, so comic, so
+pathetic, with the hopeless recognition of the humour of tragedy which
+comes to all save the invincibly dull.
+
+"You would do as well as anyone," he said gravely. "I'll mention your
+name."
+
+"_Ge--reeb-pun--waz!_" The title prolonged itself abnormally, and Akbar
+Khan, a mask of toothless smiles, darted, in instant assumption of his
+anticipated office, to remove a fallen jasmine flower from Dr. Dillon's
+path as if it had been a deadly reptile. Indeed, he paused in the midst
+of his parting _salaams_ to ask if it was in order that the populace be
+admitted to the sanctuary, since the _missen-miss_ (his accent of
+disdain, tempered by reverence, was delicious) had announced her desire
+to enter it that afternoon for farewell; had, indeed, asked him to be
+there at four to open the door.
+
+Dr. Dillon turned so sharply that the old courtier began instantly on
+asseverations that, without orders--
+
+"Have everything ready, of course," interrupted the doctor,
+impatiently; so strode off across the courtyard, his head down, his
+hands in his pockets, with a jerk, as of irritation, in his walk.
+
+He found Lance Carlyon in the balcony over the river, very apologetic
+at being caught there against orders. But it was so dreary keeping to
+one's room, he said; especially when there were a lot of dismal things
+to think about; and he really had been most careful--had made two of
+his pioneers almost carry him.
+
+"Doesn't seem to have done much harm!" admitted the doctor, gruffly, as
+he sat feeling the ankle and looking at Lance with the oddest air of
+impatience, irritation, and kindliness. Yet there was nothing strange
+in Lance's wholesome young face, save that it showed a little older, a
+little graver.
+
+"It _must_ be beastly dull, too," went on the doctor, loudly, suddenly.
+"You--you might get them to help you over to the palace garden this
+afternoon; about four, you know, when it gets cool. That would be a
+change."
+
+Lance positively gasped. "Rath-er! Why! you told me yesterday I wasn't
+to move a muscle for ten days!" Dr. Dillon positively blushed, under
+the brown. He got up vexedly, walked to the parapet, looked down the
+river towards the mission house, and came back again.
+
+"No more you are!" he said fiercely. "Not what _you_ call moving. But
+gentle exercise and--and congenial society--and all that! You know the
+treatment! Besides the Hutton-Wharton-Hood school don't believe in
+rest. And--and--look here!--I'll put you on the stiffest starch bandage
+ever made--and--Oh! confound it, man, one must risk something
+sometimes, you know! Here, orderly; go over to the _sahib's_ washerman
+and tell him to make me double-extra-white-shirt-front-starch, and if
+that doesn't counteract the--the indiscretion--why--why--I wash my
+hands of the whole business!"
+
+He was at work undoing the bandages already, and the last part of his
+remarks came, argumentatively, to himself.
+
+"If you really think it might injure me permanently," began Lance,
+soberly, in some surprise.
+
+Dr. Dillon paused, and looked up with a vast resentment. "If you mean
+your foot, I don't think it will, and that's all I'm responsible
+for--thank God!"
+
+But as, half an hour after this, he came out from saying good-by to
+Erda Shepherd, he paused as he passed the Pool of Immortality, and
+looked down into it as if he felt some need of salvation.
+
+"'_If I be not damned for this!_'" he quoted softly, shook his head,
+and went back to his prisoners.
+
+So it came to pass that when Erda Shepherd--after laying the wreath she
+had brought as a sort of crown to Akbar Khan's '_crass_'--went into the
+garden for a last look at the familiar places, she found Lance Carlyon
+comfortably settled in one of the balconies overhanging the river.
+
+"This is luck!" he cried, forgetting the starched bandage until
+reminded of it by a sudden twinge of pain. "I thought I was never to
+see you again, and it seemed a bit rough--on--on us both; considering
+what a lot we did together, you know. I've been writing you a letter,
+to say how disappointed I was at not being able to get over and see you
+all this morning."
+
+"That was very kind of you," she said feebly, conscious that the
+surprise had made her feel a little limp. Though, of course, she
+regretted nothing; nothing at all!
+
+"I've been wanting to know such a lot," he went on. "Of course I heard
+about the others, but not about you--you needn't go away immediately,
+need you?" he asked, as he watched her face,--"if--if you could stop a
+bit, it would be so jolly."
+
+The frank wistfulness of his tone was too much for her. "Yes! I can
+stop," she said quietly; "what is it you want to know?"
+
+"Lots of things; but about yourself first of all!"
+
+Herself! That would be the hardest task, she felt; and the memory of
+that senseless flight from her own reflection in the mirror came back
+to bring a quick flush to her cheek.
+
+"Of course, if you'd rather not--" began observant Lance.
+
+"I was only thinking there was very little to tell," she put in
+quickly. She was not even going to allow that, in keeping this incident
+to herself, she was giving it any importance. She had told herself
+during the last few days that it had been unfortunate, that was all.
+Otherwise it was trivial; since it did not, could not, alter her
+decision. On the contrary, it strengthened it; just as a temptation
+resisted always strengthened that resistance.
+
+So, in the balcony where lovers had sat and talked of love, those two
+sat talking of that midsummer night's dream, of everything but love. Of
+Vincent Dering's song, of the raft, of Lance's experience as he clung
+to the highest crevice, and felt the water stop steady between his knee
+and his ankle. Of his incredulity when Am-ma appeared, and his
+immediate lapse into unconsciousness; chiefly, he supposed, because
+there was no need for further endurance. Of how he had no notion of
+anything till he found himself lying on a string bed in the sun, right
+away on the other side of the town, whither Am-ma had brought him, by
+Heaven knows what secret passage.
+
+So, as the shadows grew long, they seemed to invade Lance's face, and
+bring a doubt to it.
+
+"I haven't seen Am-ma since," he said, "so I haven't found out yet why
+on earth he came to look for me?"
+
+Erda rose and held out her hand. "We were all looking for you, Mr.
+Carlyon," she said quietly, "and we were all very glad to find you.
+And--and I am very sorry to--to lose you."
+
+He rose too, stiffly, and, taking her hand, held it while he looked
+into her face steadily.
+
+"Good-by, Miss Shepherd--I'm--I'm sorry it has to be that--but you know
+best. And thank you for telling me--so much." He paused, and his hand
+tightened on hers a little. "Thanks all round, for _that!_ It has been
+the truth between us, hasn't it, always? And so--though it has been a
+bit rough--Good-by!"
+
+There was a pause, a curious pause.
+
+"Good-by," she echoed dully, her face grown very pale. His hand left
+hers gently. She turned and faced the garden, where the shadows were
+invading the blaze of colour, and the coming cool was sending the scent
+of the orange-blossoms into the air. The water-maze, with its marble
+ledges, where there was but room for the feet of a laughing girl, lay
+still and glistening before her. The palace, with its fanciful nooks,
+its illogical recesses, its suggestion of elusive pleasures beyond the
+pale of solid reality, rose up into the sky.
+
+And something in the scene came home to her with the sense that all
+this, in its way, was real also. That this was part of the truth. The
+truth which she had not told.
+
+"_It has been the truth between us, hasn't it, always?_"
+
+She turned suddenly to where Lance stood; turned to find him leaning
+over the balcony, looking down into the water with a listlessness he
+had held in check till then; and a great wave of remorse swept through
+her.
+
+"It has not been the truth between us!" she cried impulsively,
+recklessly--"not quite--but, I will tell it now--if you like."
+
+He looked up, startled. "If you think I--I ought to know."
+
+She gave a queer, half-impatient laugh. "Ought! How do I know? Yes! I
+suppose so--as it's true--absolutely true. I can't help that, can I?"
+
+There was a forlornness in the confession; almost a despair.
+
+"Then tell me, please," said Lance, deliberately making room for her to
+lean over the balustrade beside him. His heart was beating fast at
+something in her face, and yet his uppermost thought was for her; for
+that forlornness, that despair. "I can forget it afterwards--if you
+want me to," he added consolingly.
+
+She came to the place beside him, and looked down, hiding her face from
+all but the sliding river; and he, seeing her desire, looked into it
+also.
+
+"It was about my starting on the raft," she began with a little sob. "I
+didn't tell you the truth about that. I--I didn't come to give the
+warning at first--I--I was coming to you."
+
+"Yes!" he said quietly; but his hand found hers and held it. "You were
+coming to me, dear,--why?"
+
+That touch seemed at once to help her, and to make her desperate.
+
+"Because--oh, Lance! it was so foolish! I saw myself in the glass--all
+in white with the orange in my hand--and I thought of you--of what you
+said--of--of the World's Desire, and--and I felt I couldn't--so--so I
+was coming to you--first--when Am-ma--don't you see--"
+
+There was a long pause. His hand, firm, strong, did not tighten, it
+simply held hers as they both looked down on the sliding river.
+
+"Thanks!" he said after a time; and then there was another pause until
+he added, "It will be a bit rough, I'm afraid, on the Reverend David,
+but I don't see how we can help that--do you?"
+
+And this time his clasp tightened. Erda said nothing; she felt there
+was nothing more to say, now that the truth had been told between them.
+So while the sinking sun flared red on the "Cradle of the Gods" another
+man and woman consoled themselves for the lost Paradise.
+
+
+
+                              FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: Bonaventura.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Pension.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Night, or darkness.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Light, or day.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Narayan, in the Hindoo mythology, is the creative spirit
+brooding on the waters.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Another kind of religious mendicant.]
+
+[Footnote 7: The ceremonial hospitality offered at levees.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Big lady.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Abuse it.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Lit.: outcasts, used as a term of abuse for Europeans.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Certain.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Hosts of the Lord, by Flora Annie Steel
+
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