The Hosts of the Lord Part 8

They obeyed with grins; and Dr. Dillon, as he paused beside Lance and Erda, looked after them approvingly. "They like this better than picking oak.u.m, 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 G.o.ds. 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, s.e.x, 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 a.s.sure you, Mrs. Campbell."

"I am weel aware o' it, Doctor Dillon; but it's too much like a brand s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 h.e.l.l, I prefer to pa.s.s; 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 a.s.sent 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 kings.h.i.+p. 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 G.o.d-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--a.s.sailed 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?

G.o.d! How content--how happy he had been--how certain--

"Dillon! Dillon! For G.o.d's sake, where's Dillon?" came an excited voice, as Eugene Smith burst into the tent, bringing the afternoon suns.h.i.+ne 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 ca.n.a.l 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 pa.s.sion; 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 s.h.i.+fted 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 _viatic.u.m_ of another faith on his lips speeding it on its way.