The Lamp in the Desert Part 10

It was the end of the conflict. Dacre attempted no further resistance.

He was not the man to waste himself upon a cause that he realized to be hopeless. Moreover, there was about Monck at that moment a force that restrained him, compelled instinctive respect. Though he hated the man for his mastery, he could not despise him. For he knew that what he had done had been done through a rigid sense of honour and that chivalry which goes hand in hand with honour--the chivalry with which no woman would have credited him.

That Monck had nought but the most disinterested regard for any woman, he firmly believed, and probably that conviction gave added strength to his position. That he should fight thus for a mere principle, though incomprehensible in Dacre's opinion, was a circ.u.mstance that carried infinitely more weight than more personal champions.h.i.+p. Monck was the one man of his acquaintance who had never displayed the smallest desire to compete for any woman's favour, who had never indeed shown himself to be drawn by any feminine attractions, and his sudden a.s.sumption of authority was therefore una.s.sailable. In yielding to the greater power, Dacre yielded to a moral force rather than to human compulsion. And though driven sorely against his will, he respected the power that drove. His dumb gesture of acquiescence conveyed as much as he turned away relinquis.h.i.+ng the struggle.

He had fought hard, and he had been defeated. It was bitter enough, but after all he had had his turn. The first hot rapture was already pa.s.sing. Love in the wilderness could not last for ever. It had been fierce enough--too fierce to endure. And characteristically he reflected that Stella's cold beauty would not have held him for long. He preferred something more ardent, more living. Moreover, his nature demanded a certain meed of homage from the object of his desire, and undeniably this had been conspicuously lacking. Stella was evidently one to accept rather than to give, and there had been moments when this had slightly galled him. She seemed to him fundamentally incapable of any deep feeling, and though this had not begun to affect their relations at present, he had realized in a vague fas.h.i.+on that because of it she would not hold him for ever. So, after the first, he knew that he would find consolation. Certainly he would not break his heart for her or for any woman, nor did he flatter himself that she would break hers for him.

Meantime--he prepared to shrug his shoulders over the inevitable. Things might have been much worse. And perhaps on the whole it was safer to obey Monck's command and go. An open scandal would really be a good deal worse for him than for Stella, who had little to lose, and there was no knowing what might happen if he took the risk and remained. Emphatically he had no desire to face a personal reckoning at some future date with the she-devil who had been the bane of his existence. It was an unlikely contingency but undoubtedly it existed, and he hated unpleasantness of all kinds. So, philosophically, he resolved to adjust himself to this burden. There was something of the adventurer in his blood and he had a vast belief in his own ultimate good luck. Fortune might frown for awhile, but he knew that he was Fortune's favourite notwithstanding. And very soon she would smile again.

But for Monck he had only the bitter hate of the conquered. He cast a malevolent look upon him with eyes that were oddly narrowed--a measuring, speculative look that comprehended his strength and registered the infallibility thereof with loathing. "I wonder what happened to the serpent," he said, "when the man and woman were thrust out of the garden."

Monck had readjusted his disguise. He looked back with baffling, inscrutable eyes, his dark face masklike in its impenetrability. But he spoke no word in answer. He had said his say. Like a mantle he gathered his reserve about him again, as a man resuming a solitary journey through the desert which all his life he had travelled alone.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FORBIDDEN PARADISE

Looking back later upon that fateful night, it seemed to Stella that she must indeed have slept the sleep of the lotus-eater, for no misgivings pierced the numb unconsciousness that held her through the still hours.

She lay as one in a trance, wholly insensible of the fact that she was alone, aware only of the perpetual rush and fall of the torrent below, which seemed to act like a narcotic upon her brain.

When she awoke at length broad daylight was all about her, and above the roar of the stream there was rising a hubbub of voices like the buzzing of a swarm of bees. She lay for awhile listening to it, lazily wondering why the coolies should bring their breakfast so much nearer to the tent than usually, and then, suddenly and terribly, there came a cry that seemed to transfix her, stabbing her heavy senses to full consciousness.

For a second or two she lay as if petrified, every limb struck powerless, every nerve strained to listen. Who had uttered that dreadful wail? What did it portend? Then, her strength returning, she started up, and knew that she was alone. The camp-bed by her side was empty. It had not been touched. Fear, nameless and chill, swept through her. She felt her very heart turn cold.

s.h.i.+vering, she seized a wrap, and crept to the tent-entrance. The flap was unfastened, just as it had been left by her husband the night before. With shaking fingers she drew it aside and looked forth.

The hubbub of voices had died down to awed whisperings. A group of coolies huddled in the open s.p.a.ce before her like an a.s.sembly of monkeys holding an important discussion.

Further away, with distorted limbs and grim, impa.s.sive countenance, crouched the black-bearded beggar whose importunity had lured Ralph from her side the previous evening. His red-rimmed, sunken eyes gazed like the eyes of a dead man straight into the sunrise. So motionless were they, so utterly void of expression, that she thought they must be blind. There was something fateful, something terrible in the aloofness of him. It was as if an invisible circle surrounded him within which none might intrude.

And close at hand--so close that she could have touched his turbaned head as she stood--the great Sikh bearer, Peter, sat huddled in a heap on the soft green earth and rocked himself to and fro like a child in trouble. She knew at the first glance that it was he who had uttered that anguished wail.

To him she turned, as to the only being she could trust in that strange scene.

"Peter," she said, "what has happened? What is wrong? Where--where is the captain _sahib_?"

He gave a great start at the sound of her voice above him, and instantly, with a rapid noiseless movement, arose and bent himself before her.

"The _mem-sahib_ will pardon her servant," he said, and she saw that his dark face was twisted with emotion. "But there is bad news for her to-day. The captain _sahib_ has gone."

"Gone!" Stella echoed the word uncomprehendingly, as one who speaks an unknown language.

Peter's look fell before the wide questioning of hers. He replied almost under his breath: "_Mem-sahib_, it was in the still hour of the night.

The captain _sahib_ slept on the mountain, and in his sleep he fell--and was taken away by the stream."

"Taken away!" Again, numbly, Stella repeated his words. She felt suddenly very weak and sick.

Peter stretched a hand towards the inscrutable stranger. "This man, _mem-sahib_," he said with reverence, "he is a holy man, and while praying upon the mountain top, he saw the _sahib_, sunk in a deep sleep, fall forward over the rock as if a hand had touched him. He came down and searched for him, _mem-sahib_; but he was gone. The snows are melting, and the water runs swift and deep."

"Ah!" It was a gasp rather than an exclamation. Stella was blindly tottering against the tent-rope, clutching vaguely for support.

The great Sikh caught her ere she fell, his own distress subdued in a flash before the urgency of her need. "Lean on me, _mem-sahib!_" he said, deference and devotion mingling in his voice.

She accepted his help instinctively, scarcely knowing what she did, and very gently, with a woman's tenderness, he led her back into the tent.

"My _mem-sahib_ must rest," he said. "And I will find a woman to serve her."

She opened her eyes with a dizzy sense of wonder. Peter had never failed before to procure anything that she wanted, but even in her extremity she had a curiously irrelevant moment of conjecture as to where he would turn in the wilderness for the commodity he so confidently mentioned.

Then, the anguish returning, she checked his motion to depart. "No, no, Peter," she said, commanding her voice with difficulty. "There is no need for that. I am quite all right. But--but--tell me more! How did this happen? Why did he sleep on the mountain?"

"How should the _mem-sahib's_ servant know?" questioned Peter, gently and deferentially, as one who reasoned with a child. "It may be that the opium of his cigar was stronger than usual. But how can I tell?"

"Opium! He never smoked opium!" Stella gazed upon him in fresh bewilderment. "Surely--surely not!" she said, as though seeking to convince herself.

"_Mem-sahib_, how should I know?" the Indian murmured soothingly.

She became suddenly aware that further inaction was unendurable. She must see for herself. She must know the whole, dreadful truth. Though trembling from head to foot, she spoke with decision. "Peter, go outside and wait for me! Keep that old beggar too! Don't let him go! As soon as I am dressed, we will go to--the place--and--look for him."

She stumbled over the last words, but she spoke them bravely. Peter straightened himself, recognizing the voice of authority. With a deep salaam, he turned and pa.s.sed out, drawing the tent-flap decorously into place behind him.

And then with fevered energy, Stella dressed. Her hands moved with lightning speed though her body felt curiously weighted and unnatural.

The fantastic thought crossed her brain that it was as though she prepared herself for her own funeral.

No sound reached her from without, save only the monotonous and endless das.h.i.+ng of the torrent among its boulders. She was beginning to feel that the sound in some fas.h.i.+on expressed a curse.

When she was ready at length, she stood for a second or two to gather her strength. She still felt ill and dizzy, as though the world she knew had suddenly fallen away from her and left her struggling in unimaginable s.p.a.ce, like a swimmer in deep waters. But she conquered her weakness, and, drawing aside the tent-flap once more, she stepped forth.

The morning sun struck full upon her. It was as if the whole earth rushed to meet her in a riot of rejoicing; but she was in some fas.h.i.+on outside and beyond it all. The glow could not reach her.

With a sharp sense of revulsion, she saw the deformed man squatting close to her, his _chuddah_-draped head lodged upon his knees. He did not stir at her coming though she felt convinced that he was aware of her, aware probably of everything that pa.s.sed within a considerable radius of his disreputable person. His dark face, lined and dirty, half-covered with ragged black hair that ended in a long thin wisp like a goat's beard on his shrunken chest, was still turned to the east as though challenging the sun that was smiting a swift course through the heavens as if with a flaming sword. The simile rushed through her mind unbidden. Where would she be--what would have happened to her--by the time that sword was sheathed?

She conquered her repulsion and approached the man. As she did so, Peter glided silently up like a faithful watch-dog and took his place at her right hand. It was typical of the position he was to occupy in the days that were coming.

Within a pace or two of the huddled figure, Stella stopped. He had not moved. It was evident that he was so rapt in meditation that her presence at that moment was no more to him than that of an insect crawling across his path. His eyes, red-rimmed, startlingly bright, still challenged the coming day. His whole expression was so grimly aloof, so sternly unsympathetic, that she hesitated to disturb him.

Humbly Peter came to her a.s.sistance. "May I be allowed to speak to him, _mem-sahib?_" he asked.

She turned to him thankfully. "Yes, tell him what I want!"

Peter placed himself in front of the stranger. "The n.o.ble lady desires your service," he said. "Her gracious excellency is waiting."

A quiver went through the crouching form. He seemed to awake, his mind returning as it were from a far distance. He turned his head, and Stella saw that he was not blind. For his eyes took her in, for the moment appraised her. Then with ungainly, tortoiselike movements, he arose.

"I am her excellency's servant," he said, in hollow, quavering accents.

"I live or die at her most gracious command."