On the Face of the Waters Part 21

"_Mujhe muaaf. Murna sub ke hukk hai_" (Excuse me. Death is the right of all), he said with a graceful salaam as he pa.s.sed on.

So the water Captain Morecombe brought back was used for a different purpose than quenching pretended thirst; and the bringer, hearing Kate's version of the story, hastily asked Sonny--who by this time was holding out chubby hands cheerfully to be dried and prattling of dirty birdies--what the Prince had said. The child, puzzled for an instant, smiled broadly.

"He said it was deaded all light."

Kate s.h.i.+vered. The incident had touched her on the nerves, taking the color from the flowers, the brightness from the suns.h.i.+ne.

"Come and have a turn," suggested Captain Morecombe; "they have began dancing in the saloon. It will change the subject."

But as she took his arm, she said in rather a tremulous voice, "There is such a thing as a Dance of Death, though."

"My dear lady," he laughed, "it is a most excellent pastime. And one can dance anywhere, on the edge of a volcano even, if one doesn't smell brimstone."

Kate, however, found otherwise, and when the waltz was over, announced her intention of going off to take Sonny home, and see Mrs. Seymour and the new baby. But in this her cavalier saw difficulties. The mare was evidently too fresh for a lady to drive, and Major Erlton, returning, might need the dog-cart. It would be far better for him to drive her in his, so far, and afterward let the Major know he had to call for her. Kate a.s.sented wearily. Such arrangements were part of the detail of life, with a woman neglected as she was by her husband. She could not deliberately avoid them, and yet keep the unconsciousness her pride claimed. How could she, when there were twenty men in society to one woman? Twenty--for the most part--gentlemen, quite capable of gauging a woman's character. So Captain Morecombe drove her to the Seymour's house on the city wall by the Water Bastion. There were several houses there, set so close to the rampart that there was barely room for a paved pathway between their back verandas and the battlement. In front of them lay a metaled road and shady gardens; and at the end of this road stood a small bungalow toward which Kate Erlton looked involuntarily. There was a horse waiting outside it. It was her husband's charger. He must have arranged to have it sent down, arranged, as it were, to leave her in the lurch, and a sudden flash of resentment made her say, as she got down at the Seymours' house, "You had better call for me in half an hour; that will be best."

Captain Morecombe flushed with sheer pleasure. Kate was not often so encouraging. But as he drove round to wait for her at a friend's house, close to the _Delhi Gazette_ press, he, too, noticed the Major's charger, and swore under his breath. Before G.o.d it was too bad! But if ever there were signs of a coming smash they were to be seen here. Erlton, after years of scandal, had lost his head--it seemed incredible, but there was a Fate in such things from which mortal man could not escape.

And as he told himself this tale of Fate--the man's excuse for the inexcusable which will pa.s.s current gayly until women combine in refusing to accept it for themselves--another man, at the back of the little house past which he was driving, was telling it to himself also. For a great silence had fallen between Major Erlton and Alice Gissing after she had told him something, to hear which he had arranged to come home with her for a quiet talk. And, in the silence, the hollow note of the wooden bells upon the necks of the cattle grazing below the battlement, over which he leaned, seemed to count the slow minutes. Quaintest, dumbest of all sounds, lacking vibration utterly, yet mellow, musical, to the fanciful ear, with something of the hopeful persistency of Time in its recurring beat.

Alice Gissing was not a fanciful woman, but as she lay back in her long cane chair, her face hidden in its pillows as if to shut out something unwelcome, her foot kept time to the persistency on the pavement, till, suddenly, she sat up and faced round on her silent companion.

"Well," she said impatiently. "Well! what have you got to say?"

"I--I was thinking," he began helplessly, when she interrupted him.

"What is the use of thinking? That won't alter facts. As I told you, Gissing will be back in a month or so; and then we must decide."

Major Erlton turned quickly. "You can't go back to him, Allie; you weren't considering that, surely. You can't--not--not now." His voice softened over the last words; he turned away abruptly. His face was hidden from her so.

She looked toward him strangely for a second, covered her face with her hands for another, then, changing the very import of the action, used them to brush the hair back from her temples; so, clasping them behind her head, leaned back on the pillows, and looked toward him again. There was a reckless defiance in her att.i.tude and expression, but her words did not match it.

"I suppose I can't," she said drearily, "and I suppose you wouldn't let me go away by myself either."

Once more he turned. "Go!" he echoed quickly. "Where would you go?"

"Somewhere!"--the recklessness had invaded her voice now--"Anywhere!

Wherever women do go in these cases. To the devil, perhaps."

He gave a queer kind of laugh; this spirited effrontery had always roused his admiration. "I dare say," he replied, "for I'm not a saint, and you have got to come with me, Allie. You must. I shall send in my papers, and by and by, when all the fuss is over"--here he gave a fierce sigh--"for I expect Gissing will make a fuss, we can get married and live happily ever after."

She shook her head. "You'll regret it. I don't see how you can help regretting it!"

He came over to her, and laid his big broad hand very tenderly on her curly hair. "No! I shan't, Allie," he replied in a low, husky voice, "I shan't, indeed. I never was a good hand at sentiment and that sort, but I love you dearly--dearly. All the more--for this that you've told me. I'd do anything for you, Allie. Keep straight as a die, dear, if you wanted it. And I wasn't regretting--it--just now. I was only thinking how strange----"

"Strange!" she interrupted, almost fiercely. "If it is strange to you, what must it be to me? My G.o.d! I wonder if any man will ever understand what this means to a woman? All the rest seems to pa.s.s her by, to leave no mark--I--I--never cared. But this! Herbert! I feel sometimes as if I were Claude's wife again--Claude's wife, so full of hopes and fears. And I dream of him too. I haven't dreamed of him for years, and I learned to hate him before he died, you know. I have gone back to that old time, and nothing seems different. Nothing at all!

Isn't that strange? And the old Mai--she has gone back, too--sees no difference either. She treats me just as she did in those old, old days. She fusses round, and c.o.c.kers me up, and talks about it. There!

she is coming now with smelling-salts or sal-volatile or something!

Oh! Go away, do, Mai, I don't want anything except to be left alone!"

But the old ayah's untutored instincts were not to be so easily smothered. Her wrinkled face beamed as she insisted on changing the dainty laced shoes for easy slippers, and tucked another pillow into the chair. The mem was tired, she told the Major with a respectful salaam, after her long walk; the faint resentment in her tone being entirely for the latter fact.

"You see, don't you?" said Mrs. Gissing, with bright reckless eyes, when they were alone once more. "She doesn't mind. She has forgotten all the years between, forgotten everything. And I--I don't know why--but there! What is the use of asking questions? I never can answer even for myself. So we had better leave it alone for the present. We needn't settle yet a while, and there is always a chance of something happening."

"But you said your husband would be back----" he began.

"In a month--but we may all be dead and buried in a month," she interrupted. "I only told you now, because I thought you ought to know soon, so as not to be hurried at the last. It means a lot, you see, for a man to give up his profession for a woman; and it isn't like England, you know----" She paused, then continued in an odd half-anxious voice, her eyes fixed on him inquiringly as he stood beside her. "I shouldn't be angry, remember, Herbert, if--if you didn't."

"Allie! What do you mean? Do you mean that you don't care?" His tone was full of pained surprise, his hand scarcely a willing agent as she drew it close to caress it with her cheek.

"Care? of course I care. You are very good to me, Herbert, far nicer to me than you are to other people. And I can't say 'no' if you decide on giving up for me. I _can't_ now. I see that. Only don't let us be in a hurry. As that big fat man in the tight satin trousers said to the Resident to-day, when he was asked what the people in the city thought of the fuss down country, '_Delhi dur ust_.'"

"_Delhi dur ust?_ What the devil does that mean?" asked the Major, his brief doubt soothed by the touch of her soft cheek. "You are such a clever little cat, Allie! You know a deuced sight more than I do. How you pick it up I can't think."

She gave one of her inconsequent laughs. "Don't have so many men anxious to explain things to you as I have, I expect, sir! But if you ever spoke to a native here--which you don't--you'd know _that_. Even my old Mai says it--they all say it when they don't want to tell the truth, or be hurried, and that is generally. 'Delhi is far,' they say.

Dr. Macintyre translates it as 'It's a far cry to Lochawe'; but I don't understand that; for it was an old King of Delhi who said it first. People came and told him an enemy had crossed his border.

'_Delhi dur ust_,' says he. Can't you see him, Herbert? An old Turk of a thing with those tight satin trousers! Then they told him the enemy was in sight. '_Delhi dur ust_,' said he. And he said it when they were at the gate--he said it when their swords----" the dramatic instinct in her was strong, and roused her into springing to her feet and mimicking the thrust. "_Delhi dur ust_."

Her gay mocking voice rang loud. Then she laid her hand lightly on his arm. "Let us say it too, dear," she said almost sharply. "I won't think--yet. '_Delhi dur ust_.'"

The memory of the phrase went with him when he had said good-by, and was pacing his charger toward the Post Office. But it only convinced him that the Delhi of his decision was reached; he would chuck everything for Allie.

It was by this time growing dusk, but he could see two figures standing in the veranda of the Press Office, and one of them called him by name. He turned in at the gate to find Captain Morecombe reading a proof-sheet by the light of a swinging lamp; for Jim Douglas drew back into unrecognizable shadow as he approached. He had purposely kept out of Major Erlton's way during his occasional returns to Delhi, and as he stepped back now he asked himself if he hated the big man most for his own sake, or for Kate's, or for that other little woman's. Not that it mattered a jot, since he hated him cordially on all three scores.

"Bad news from Barrackpore, Erlton," said the Captain, "and as I have to drive Mrs. Erlton home I thought you might take it round to the Brigadier's. At least if you have no objection, Douglas?"

"None. The telegram is all through the bazaar by now. You can't help it if you employ natives."

"'Through the medium of a private telegram,'" read Captain Morecombe, "'the following startling news has reached our office. On Sunday (the 29th of March) about 4.30 P. M., a Brahmin sepoy of the 34th N.

I.'--that's the missionary fellow's regiment, of course--'went amuck, and rus.h.i.+ng to the quarter-guard with his musket, ordered the bugler to sound the a.s.sembly to all who desired to keep the faith of their fathers. The guard, ordered to arrest him, refused. The whole regiment being, it is said, in alarm at the arrival that morning of the first detachment of British troops, detailed to keep order during the approaching disbandment of the 19th for mutiny; rumor having it that all sepoys then refusing to become Christians would be shot down at once. The mutineer, who had been drinking hemp, actually fired at Sergeant-major Hewson, providentially missing him; subsequently he fired at the Adjutant, who, after a hand-to-hand scuffle with the madman, in which Hewson joined, only escaped with his life through the aid of a faithful Mohammedan orderly. Until, and, indeed, after Colonel Wheler the Commandant arrived on the parade ground, the mutineer marched up and down in front of the guard, flouris.h.i.+ng his musket and calling for his comrades to join him. The Colonel therefore ordered the guard to advance and shoot the man down. The men made show of obedience, but after a few steps they refused to go on, unless accompanied by a British officer. On this, Colonel Wheler, considering the risk needless with an unreliable guard already half-mutinous, rode off to report his failure to the Brigadier, who had halted on the further side of the parade ground. At this juncture (about 5.30 P. M.) matters looked most serious. The 43d N. I. had turned out, and were barely restrained from rus.h.i.+ng their bells of arms by the entreaties of their native officers. The 34th, beyond control altogether, were watching the mutineer's unchecked defiance with growing sympathy.

Fortunately at this moment General Hea.r.s.ey, commanding the Division, rode up, followed by his two sons as _aides_. Hearing what had occurred from the group of officers awaiting further developments, he galloped over to the guard, ordered them to follow him, and made straight for the mutineer; shouting back, "D----n his musket, sir!" to an officer who warned him it was loaded. But seeing the man kneel to take aim he called to his son, "If I fall, John, rush in and put him to death somehow." The precaution was, providentially, unnecessary, for the mutineer, seeing the remaining officers join in this resolute advance, turned his musket on himself. He is not expected to live.

Adjutant Baugh, a most promising young officer, is, we regret to say, dangerously wounded.'"

"Treacherous black devils! I'd shoot 'em down like dogs--the lot of them," said Major Erlton savagely. He had slipped from his horse and now stood in the veranda overlooking the proof, his back to Jim Douglas. Perhaps it was the closer sight of his enemy's face which roused the latter's temper. Anyhow he broke into the conversation with that nameless challenge in his voice which makes a third person nervous.

"It is a pity you were not at Barrackpore. They seem to have been in need of a good pot-shot--even of an officer to be potted at--till Hea.r.s.ey came to the front."

Captain Morecombe turned quickly to put up his sword as it were. "By the way, Erlton," he said hastily, "I don't think you know Douglas, though you tried to see him at Nujjufghur after he saved Mrs. Gissing from that snake."

But Jim Douglas' temper grew, partly at his own fatuity in risking the now inevitable encounter; and he had a vile, uncontrollable temper when he was in the wrong.

"Major Erlton and I have met before," he interrupted, turning to go; "but I doubt if he will recognize me. Possibly his horse may."

He paused as he spoke before the Arab which stood waiting. It whinnied instantly, stretching its head toward its old master. Major Erlton muttered a startled exclamation, but regained his self-possession instantly. "I beg your pardon--Mr.--er--Douglas, I think you said, Morecombe; but I did not recognize you."

The pause was aggressive to the last degree.

"Under that name, you mean," finished Jim Douglas, white with anger at being so obviously at a disadvantage. "The fact is, Captain Morecombe, that as the late King of Oude's trainer I called myself James Greyman. I sold that Arab to Major Erlton under that name, and under--well--rather peculiar circ.u.mstances. I am quite ready to tell them if Major Erlton thinks them likely to interest the general public."

His eyes met his enemy's, fiercely getting back now full measure of sheer, wild, vicious temper. Everything else had gone to the winds, and they would have been at each other's throats gladly; scarcely remembering the cause of quarrel, and forgetting it utterly with the first grip, as men will do to the end of time.