The Hosts of the Lord Part 52

"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 n.o.ble people, as the _Huzoor_ will see."

So, down the shadowy pa.s.sage 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 '_cra.s.s_'--" he pointed his prayerful hands to the marigolds--"is not forgotten. Has not this dust-like one spent his life in preparing amus.e.m.e.nts and spectacles for the n.o.ble 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 pet.i.tion 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 n.o.ble 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 '_cra.s.ses_,'

there is none equal--"

"_For tombs require flowers, as women do!_" The phrase a.s.serted 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 t.i.tle prolonged itself abnormally, and Akbar Khan, a mask of toothless smiles, darted, in instant a.s.sumption of his antic.i.p.ated 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 a.s.severations 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-s.h.i.+rt-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 G.o.d!"

But as, half an hour after this, he came out from saying good-by to Erda Shepherd, he paused as he pa.s.sed the Pool of Immortality, and looked down into it as if he felt some need of salvation.

"'_If I be not d.a.m.ned for this!_'" he quoted softly, shook his head, and went back to his prisoners.

So it came to pa.s.s that when Erda Shepherd--after laying the wreath she had brought as a sort of crown to Akbar Khan's '_cra.s.s_'--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 pa.s.sage.

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.