In The Permanent Way Part 19

"'I'd rather you didn't come if there's danger,' said I quite sharp-like, when she told me the sepoys was setting watch because folk said the white soldiers were a-coming. 'Don't! I can't stand it here in the dark, idle, thinkin' o' you G.o.d knows how. I'll fend for myself quite well.'

"An' with that she laughed low with the little catch in her breath still, and come a bit closer so as I could slip my arm round her a little; an' by that I knew 'twas more danger than she let on--for she was not that sort.

"'Now don't you come,' says I, as I might be the King himself givin'

orders, 'I won't have it. If the soldiers is comin', they'll bring justice, an' if not a little starvin' won't hurt me, for I'm gettin'

quite strong again.' An' so I was, sir, what with the rest and the food an' the happiness. For I do a.s.sure you, sir, on my solemn oath, that I was happy at the bottom o' that King's _bawly_. Happy? By the Lord! sir, 'twas enough to make a man happy to see the look she gave me, as much as to say I was strong enough and everything enough for her; for though it was nigh dark I could see her face from its bein'

so close to mine--she bein' a tall girl--but there, it ain't no use describin'. There don't seem much to say, sir, when it comes to lookin' at each other that way, an' so we stood silent a bit, till sudden I hear the old bull toad at his jinks again, and partly to ease off the sort o' burstin' feelin' at my heart I cries with a laugh, 'There's the King!'

"But she just lays her head down, pugree an' all, on my shoulder and says with a sob, 'No, here's the King. The King as I come to for justice.'"

He paused for so long, that something of the excitement which had been thrilling in his tones seemed to pa.s.s into my mind, and I felt almost a shock when he went on quite calmly:

"Well, it was arranged that she wasn't to come back for three days onless somethin' turned up. I would have it so, an' she give in at last. It was mortal dull without her, and I made up my mind when I see her again to tell her I'd back my luck once more, and fight my way safe somehow. Then when it was over I'd come back for her; for it didn't seem it could go against me as I sat down by the drop o' ink a-lookin' up to Je-rewsalem over the way, and a-wonderin' when I should see her on the top step a-comin' for justice to her King.

"Well, she come at last. It were the second day, I think, sir, and it took me all of a sudden, for, owin' to its bein' a _bawly_ in the bowels in the yerth you couldn't hear nothin' of what was goin' on up top. I was sittin' lookin' over the way when I hear a noise behind an'

a voice, '_Maharaj! Maharaj!_'

"It was she, sir, down the King's steps in the man's dress, an' behind her, my G.o.d! not black devils but white ones with red coats an' set bayonets!--'_Maharaj! Maharaj! Justice! Justice!_'

"I was out, sir, tearing up to meet her in a second, shoutin' in English to hold hard--that she was a woman; but them cursed _bawly_ echoes mixed it all up, an' the cursed baggy trousers and things, didn't give me no chance of a-hearin' through its bein' half-dark----

"'_Maharaj! Maharaj!_'

"I heard it plain enough, G.o.d knows. I hear it now sometimes, sir, an'

I see her face as I saw it for the only time in the light afore I fell over her dead body a-lying on the steps half-way down the stairs o'

justice.

"They told me after, as I had finished the cry for her many and many a time whilst I lay in 'orspital--for they'd struck me playful-like before they found out I was white, an' I took mortal bad; but there wasn't much use in justice then for none o' us. An' I never could tell quite how it happened, for when I went back the village was just bricks, and the corpses lyin' about thick, unburied. They had had a hard fight as they told me, had the Tommies, an' bein' fresh from Cawnpore was keen--as was nat'ral--an' she was in man's clothes, you see, when she come flyin' down the steps o' justice calling for the King."

He sat silent, looking out to the now darkening sky where the light had faded save in the widening rays spreading out from the grave of the sun. And down one of them, as down a golden staircase, I seemed to see a flying figure with outstretched arms pa.s.s to Jerusalem the Golden with the cry "_Maharaj! Maharaj!_"

But Craddock was already clearing his throat suggestively for the usual gla.s.s of whisky and water; yet ere he drank it his eyes wandered absently, helplessly, to the horizon, and I heard him mutter to himself:

"An' so 'twas white, not black, as did for Nathaniel James Craddock at the bottom o' the King's Well."

And as I looked at him drink-sodden and reckless, I understood that when the time came he too would have the right to pa.s.s down the King's stair seeking justice--and finding it.

UMA HIMAVUTEE

I

Uma-devi was sitting on a heap of yellow wheat, which showed golden against the silvery surface of her husband's thres.h.i.+ng-floor. She was a tall woman, of about five and twenty, with a fair, fine-cut face, set in a perfect oval above the ma.s.sive column of her throat. She was a Brahmani of the Suruswutee tribe--in other words, a member of perhaps the most ancient Aryan colony in India, which long ages back settled down to cultivate the Hurreana, or "green country"; so called, no doubt, before its sacred river, the Suruswutee, lost itself in the dry deserts west of Delhi; a member, therefore, of a community older than Brahmanism itself, and which clings oddly to older faiths, older ways, and older G.o.ds. So Uma-devi, who was on the rack of that jealousy which comes to most women, whether they be ignorant or cultured, had the advantage over most of the latter: she could look back through the ages to a more inspiring and stimulating progenitrix than Mother Eve. For, despite the pharisaical little hymn of Western infancy bidding us thank goodness for our birth and inheritance of knowledge, one can scarcely be grateful for a typical woman simpering over an apple, or subsequently sighing over the difficulties of dress.

The fact being that our story of Creation only begins when humanity, fairly started on the Rake's Progress, felt the necessity for bolstering up its self-respect by the theory of original sin.

But this woman could dimly, through the numb pain of her heart, feel the influence of a n.o.bler Earth-mother in Uma Him[=a]vutee--Uma her namesake--Uma of the Himalayas, birthplace of all sacred things--Uma of the sunny yet snowy peaks, emblem at once of perfect wifehood, motherhood, and that mystical virginity which, in Eve-ridden faiths, finds its wors.h.i.+p in Mariolatry.

That she could even dimly recognise the beauty of this conception came partly from the simple yet ascetic teachings of her race; partly because there are some natures, East and West, which turn instinctively to Uma Him[=a]vutee, and this woman among yellow corn was of that goodly company.

Yet a sharp throb of sheer animal jealousy--the jealousy which in most civilised communities is considered a virtue when sanctified by the bonds of matrimony--seemed to tear her heart as her hands paused in her patient darning of gold-coloured silk on dull madder-red stuff, and her eyes sought the figure of a man outlined against the dull red horizon.

It was s.h.i.+v-deo, her husband, returning from his work in the fields.

She folded up her work methodically, leaving the needle with its pennant of floss still twined deftly in and out of the threads as a mark to show where to take up the appointed pattern once more. For Uma-devi's work was quaintly ill.u.s.trative of her life, being done from the back of the stuff and going on laboriously, conscientiously, trustfully, without reference to the unseen golden diaper slowly growing to beauty on the other side of the cloth. That remained as a reward to tired eyes and fingers when the toil was over, and the time came to piece the whole web into a garment--a wedding veil, perchance, for her daughter, had she had one. But Uma was childless.

Yet there was no reproach, no discontent in her husband's fine beardless face as he came up to her; for he happened--despite the barbarous marriage customs of his race--to love his wife as she loved him.

They were a handsome pair truly, much of an age, tall, strong, yet of a type as refined-looking as any in the world. At their feet lay the heaps of wheat; beyond them, around them, that limitless plain which once seen holds the imagination captive for ever whether the recollection be of a sea of corn, or, as now, of stretches of brown earth bare of all save the dead sources of a gathered harvest. To one side, a mile or so away, the piled mud village was girdled by a golden haze of dust which sprang from the feet of the homing cattle.

"I saw one with thee but now," he said, as half-mechanically he stooped to gather up a handful of the wheat and test it between finger and thumb. "Gossip Radha by her bulk--and by thy face, wife. What new crime hath the village committed? What new calamity befallen the part-owners? Sure, even her tongue could say naught against the harvest!"

"Naught! thanks be to the Lord!" replied Uma briefly. "Now, since thou hast come to watch, I will go bring the water and see _Baba-jee_[34]

hath his dinner. I will return ere long and set thee free."

[Footnote 34: Honorific t.i.tle for a father.]

"Thou hast a busy life," he said suddenly as if the fact struck him newly. "There are too few of us for the work."

The woman turned from him suddenly to look out to the horizon beyond the level fields.

"Ay! there are too few of us," she echoed with an effort, "but I will be back ere the light goes."

Too few! Yes, too few. She had known that for some time; and if it were so in their youth and strength, what would it be in the old age which must come upon them as it had upon the _Baba-jee_, who, as she pa.s.sed in to the wide courtyard in order to fetch the big brazen water vessel, nodded kindly, asking where his son had lingered.

"He watchas the corn heaps till I return. It must be so, since there are so few of us."

The nod changed to a shake, and the cheerful old voice trembled a little over the echo.

"Ay! there are few of us."

All the way down to the shallow tank, set, as it were, in a crackle-edge of a sun-baked mud, the phrase re-echoed again and again in Uma-devi's brain till it seemed written large through her own eyes in the faces of the village women pa.s.sing to and fro with their water-pots. They knew it also; they said it to themselves, though as yet none had dared--save Mai Radha, with her cowardly hints--to say to _her_ that the time had come when the few ought to be made more. Ah!

if s.h.i.+v-deo's younger brother had not died before his child-wife was of age to be brought home, this need not have been. Though, even then, a virtuous woman for her husband's sake ought----

Uma-devi, down by the water-edge, as if to escape from her own thoughts, turned hastily to spread the corner of her veil over the wide mouth of the brazen pot and with a smaller cup began to ladle the muddy water on to the strainer. But the thought was pa.s.sionate, insistent. Ought! What was the use of prating about ought? She could not, she would not let s.h.i.+vo take another woman by the hand. How could they ask her, still young, still beautiful, still beloved, to give him another bride? Why, it would be her part to lift the veil from the new beauty, as she lifted it from the now br.i.m.m.i.n.g water-pot--so----