The Hosts of the Lord Part 3

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 ill.u.s.trated '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-gla.s.ses 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 pa.s.sion; 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, s.h.i.+ning 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?"