Part 13

"Surely—" he began hoarsely.

Sigrid made an imperative gesture.

"I cannot be bothered with your loves and hates," she said. "I'm going to save Major Tristram—that's all that matters to me. You can stay here if you want to—both of you—but on my terms."

It was like the cut of a whip across the face. Meredith found no answer for a moment. He was sick with horror at the tide of anger which swept over him. His primitive instinct was to strike back physically. He knew now that all Anne's distrust was justified. The woman was dangerous—dangerous, above all, to Anne's happiness. He had the right now to combat her—to set himself squarely against her power in Gaya. He wanted to assume the authority now, but it was too late. Moreover, at the bottom, he knew he could not touch this enemy. She was of another world, impervious to the penalties which his could inflict.

And Compton stood on the threshold—Compton, whose face was a sufficient warning—and behind him Ayeshi. Both men had reached the verandah steps at the run, and now Compton had pulled up, meeting his wife's stare of reproof with a hurried apology.

"I'm sorry—I didn't mean to make a row or startle you. Ayeshi has just come with bad news. Miss Boucicault—I think you ought to go home at once. Your father has been badly hurt—"

"My father!" She sprang to her feet, her eyes wide with an incredulous fear. "My father—hurt—?" she echoed.

"He was found half-an-hour ago, unconscious. Some one must have attacked him. Of course, now Tristram's done there's no doctor. We'll telegraph at once. Radcliffe's got his gig—I thought you might go with him."

He was now honestly conscience-stricken. What happened was only terrible to him because of its significance. It was like a signal of the first break of the storm—the thing for which he had waited. That any one should care personally for the injured man—least of all the girl whose youth he had trodden underfoot—seemed incredible. Yet she stood there, white and shivering with shock. He tried to apologize again, but she did not seem to hear; only, as Meredith came to her side, she turned to him like a panic-stricken child.

"Please take me home to him, Owen—please take me home."

Compton made way for them both. He beckoned to Rasaldu, who obeyed the summons reluctantly.

"We'll clear out and leave you the field. Ayeshi can bring us the news to the club. Suppose I shan't see you again for a bit, old girl."

"Not till my job's done here. Get the ayah to bring round some reasonable clothes."

"Right-o! So long, old girl."

He came up to his wife and kissed her shyly. She patted him.

"So long. Not too many pegs."

The room emptied. Neither Meredith nor Anne had said good-bye nor looked at Sigrid. Rasaldu bowed over her hand, but even he realized that she was not conscious of him. As his broad, fat back vanished down the verandah, Mrs. Compton got up, shaking herself.

"Now we can get to business. God defend me in my last hour from sentimentalists of Anne's make. Can I borrow a dressing-gown, Sigrid?"

"Do. Smithy will give you one."

"Thanks. By the way, I expect Boucicault's not the last to go. It's the first bubble on the water, and soon we shall all be in it, and boiling nicely." She made her exit on this rather light-hearted prophecy; but Sigrid, who had made a movement to follow her, lingered for a moment. Her eyes were cast down as though in thought, but in reality they were fixed on Ayeshi's hand. When she raised them suddenly, she found that he too, was watching her. There was nothing insolent, nothing inquisitive in his scrutiny. His expression was grave and reticent. It made him seem much older. He was no longer the boy who had cried on her doorstep. He looked at her with a man's eyes, with a man's understanding and stern power of secrecy.

"Was it you who found the Colonel?" she asked.

"Yes, Mem-Sahib."

"He is badly hurt?"

"I think so. The blow was a terrible one. It seemed to me that he was conscious. Once he looked at me, but he could not move or speak."

"Do you think it was one of his men, Ayeshi?"

"I do not know, Mem-Sahib."

She turned away from him.

"There is blood on your hand, Ayeshi."

He salaamed imperturbably.

"I will wash it away. It is a cut—a little thing."

He followed her into the next room with the unobtrusive decision of one whose right to enter could never be challenged. Mrs. Smithers had moved the lamp behind a screen, but Ayeshi, standing at the foot of the bed, looked down through the veil of shadow as though the sleeper's face was an open book in which he read intently. Then he looked at Sigrid. She had taken her place close to Tristram's pillow, and one hand rested lightly on the coverlet. There was a caress in that touch. Her fair head was bent in grave, pitying contemplation that was yet touched with a curious detachment, as though she looked down from a great distance. In the half-light, she seemed unreal, fanciful, the very spirit of that beautiful aesthetic Paganism which the room breathed.

Ayeshi shivered a little, and his slender, dark hands resting on the carved wooden bed, tightened their grasp.

"Mem-Sahib!" he said, softly.

"Yes, Ayeshi?"

"Mem-Sahib—I have seen so many die of late. Death at its best is sleep. The Sahib sleeps deeply. Perhaps it is the will of his God that death should come to him now that he has given so much for those he loves. Is there not a saying in your Book, Mem-Sahib—'Greater love hath no man than this, that he layeth down his life for his friend'?"

Sigrid Fersen lifted her head.

"Yes," she answered steadily.

"Meredith Sahib taught it me. I have forgotten much, but not that. It was true of him. Others—those who come here to teach us—preach to us, but he lived. He did not believe—no, not as Sahib Meredith believed. He believed in the flowers and the birds and the wind and the mountains—he believed in us." He put his hands to his breast, and his eyes glowed in the darkness. "I was his brother—his younger brother," he said proudly.

"And he loved you, Ayeshi."

"He loved all men—even the worst." He came a step nearer to her. "Mem-Sahib—a woman died out in Bjura—died horribly. He stayed with her to the end. She was hideous, and he took her head on his knee and comforted her as though she had been his mother. There was a little child, and he took it and promised he would care for it. She died happy."

Her head was bent again.

"That was like him, Ayeshi."

"Mem-Sahib—if the end comes now it will trouble him that he cannot keep his promise."

"He shall keep his promise. I will keep it for him. And you, Ayeshi—stay with me."

But he drew back, and the light died out of his face.

"This is the end, Mem-Sahib. His and mine. I loved him—I, too, would have given my life—remember that of me, Mem-Sahib."

She looked up at him, and the naked agony in his eyes was something that she indeed remembered long afterwards.

"I think he knows," she said.

He salaamed deeply.

"I will go and guard the door, Mem-Sahib."

He was gone without a sound. A shadow seemed to have passed from the room. His very voice had been so low, that now the silence flowed over it as though it had never been. Yet what he had said lingered.

Sigrid Fersen drew her chair close up to the bedside, and sat there chin in hand watching. The dim light of the lamp threw the shadow of Tristram's profile on to the white-washed wall beyond. Ugly enough—the pointed beard thrust out under the broad, unshapely nose—the big forehead made grotesque by the outline of disordered hair. But even the shadow gave a hint of what the face itself revealed in its unconsciousness. The mouth, tender and strong as a woman's may be, passionate and austere, laughter and the joy and love of life in the corners of the closed eyes, and over all, like a veil, pain. Quixote with a grain of English humour—Quixote at the end, vanquished and conquering.

He stirred a little in the first uneasiness of coming delirium, and she laid her hand on his and he grew still again.

Mary Compton came in presently. With Mrs. Smithers, she had been preparing a special fever antidote of her own, and there was an air of resolve about her neat, kimono-clad figure which made death seem afar off. She came lightly up to the bedside, stirring the contents of a malicious-looking medicine glass.

"Now, if we can only get him to take a few drops, they will help to keep him quiet. Of course, we don't know what in the world's the matter with him. It may be the ghastly thing they had in Bjura; but I don't think so. He wouldn't have come back. Are you afraid?" She glanced down at her companion, and Sigrid met her close scrutiny deliberately.

"No."

"Well, you've been crying, anyhow."

"That's possible."

"What for?"

Sigrid's lips were twisted with a wry smile.

"I don't know—I was touched about something, I suppose. I think it was because I never thanked him for something he gave me—I never gave him anything to take with him when he went out there—I've just remembered."

"H'm! How many times have you two met?"

"Twice—no, three times, and the first time counted most of all."

"Are you in love with him, too?"

"I've been trying to decide—yes, I think so."

Mary Compton poured out the medicine into a tea-spoon.

"Do you mean to marry him? Because, if you do, you will."

"No, I'm not going to marry him."

"Why not?"

She made a gesture, brief, impatient.

"My dear, can't you see? We live at the opposite poles of things—he, the unbelieving Christian, I, the believing Pagan. Look at his life—look at mine. Look at this room—these things. You have a flair for what is precious and beautiful—can't you see?"

Mary Compton continued to balance the spoon. Her bright hazel eyes were fixed thoughtfully on the other's face.

"Yes, I see. And I love you, Sigrid, as Gaya does, without caring who or what you are, or what you mean to do with us. But just sometimes I'm afraid—sometimes I think it would have been more merciful to have let us go on our own old, stodgy way."

"You mean—him? He sought me out. I believe he brought me here. There are more things in heaven and earth, Mary, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. And even if that weren't true—he knew as well as I did what I was—what I wanted—adventure, knowledge of the finest and the best in life and in men—a last splendid hour—he would not have denied it me."

The last words had sunk below the whisper of their brief conversation, and Mary Compton did not hear them. Very skilfully she forced the opiate between the unconscious man's lips.

"At any rate, we're a nice couple of nurses chattering over poor Tristram's head. Will you watch for a little? Mrs. Smithers and I will relieve you."

"If you want him to live leave us alone. I shall not sleep tonight."

"In those clothes?"

She glanced down at her quaint, gold-brocaded dress.

"Yes. He loves beautiful things."

"He may think he is in Paradise and you an angel," rather satirically.

"Or perhaps men so near death see clearer—"

Mary Compton sighed and bent and kissed her.

"Good night, then. If there is any change, send for us. Ayeshi is at the door."

"Goodnight."

Now the last sound was gone. Even the man's shallow, irregular breathing became for the moment quieter, as though peace had crept into his troubled oblivion. Sigrid sat motionless at his side. The light touched her with a dim brilliance; it dwelt on the smooth gold hair, on the gold of her dress, on the rich living whiteness of her arms and shoulders. She shone subduedly like an image on an altar-shrine—an image of life and of life's splendour faced with the shadow of death.

Presently Tristram stirred and muttered to himself. The words were at first thick, indistinguishable, but suddenly he roused himself. She caught sentences, rapid, fever-stricken—the incoherent risings from the depths of the man's soul. It was his credo—a fragment of that faith of which Ayeshi had spoken, perhaps never before formulated, now poured in a molten stream of delirious sincerity.

"I believe in all things living—I believe in beauty—I believe in the goodness of men and in their immortality. I believe in the immortality of the flowers, of the trees, of the grass in the wind—I believe in God who is all things, who is myself and her. I believe in the sacredness of all life—" An intolerable agony crept into his voice. He repeated the last phrase on a rising inflection. "Oh, God, I believe in the sacredness of life—"

She bent over him. She laid her hand on his forehead and suddenly his eyes opened. They rested full on her face, but she knew, for all their extraordinary brilliance, that they did not see her. It was not to her that he spoke, but to the vision of her. "You must go, you too—everything. A man who has broken faith—there is a curse on us—an awful curse. We kill what we love—we kill what is holy, unfathomable—every day of our lives—for pleasure, because we must. We're doomed to destroy. We try not to—we try to save—but the curse is on us—the curse of Cain—" His voice had dropped; it broke now with a groan and the brief glimpse of coherent thought was over. He began to mutter again—isolated words, a name, constantly a name. Still she remained bent over him. Her small face had lost colour, and something of its aloof pity. She was breathing quickly, through parted lips.

"Tristram!" she whispered.

He raised one burning hand and pushed her back.

"No—not now—you must go—for pity's sake. I've carried you here—here—so long—through the burning days—since that night. You don't know—no other woman—there had been fancies—the flowers by the waterside—the lotus there in the shadows—the lizard in the long grass—you were the golden corn swaying in the wind, the flowers—the stars, the mountains, the slender trees in the storm—great ships sailed down the river—you came in and out of their ghosts flying over the water—I watched you till dawn—you were the dawn—dancing over the world's grey roofs—you were nature, life, God—" He raised himself on his elbow in a frenzied ecstasy. She put her arm round his shoulders trying to force him back. In a minute his voice had changed—grew dry and harsh and imperative. "Separate the living from the dead—no flinching—it's a miracle, this life—a mystery—sacred—fan the flames—the dead, too, are sacred—fire is pure—now it is over—finished—I can sleep—" He sat upright, head thrown back as one awaiting thirstily release, then lifted his arms high up in a gesture of despair. "The colours—down—down in the dust—a blow straight in the face of God—the goal missed—in a minute—oh! God!—if I cared less—"

He fell back exhausted, broken, his breathing so hushed that for a moment she believed that it had ceased for ever. She still held him, her arm crushed under his great shoulders, and she called him by name, recklessly. He turned over a little on his side.

"Wickie understood," he whispered. "Wickie knew I couldn't help it—but my mother—don't let her know—not yet. She's old—so old—one long sacrifice—and now to have failed—"

"She shan't know—I promise—I promise—"

He did not, could not have heard. His head tossed restlessly on the pillow. The collar of his shirt was open, and she caught a glimpse of a red swollen line across his chest. She drew her breath quickly—staring at it.

"You must go back, Sigrid—you must. You are not a dream—not now. Back up on to the mountain-top—to your golden palaces—where there is no meanness—no poverty—no sin—you could not go with me where I am going—"

She knelt beside him, holding, him with all her strength, his head pressed against her bare shoulder.

"I am going with you, Tristram Sahib—tonight at least I'll go with you wherever you go—tonight. I'll try your way of loving and dying—just this one night, Tristram."

There was a blue, unfamiliar shadow about her lips. The room with its dim treasures was no longer part of her. She had lost her serenity, her easy detachment. Not the triumphant quality of her power. This man was dying—not of the body, but of the soul. She could feel him sinking, and she went down with him—down into the vortex of his unknown struggle, fighting as she had danced and lived, with her whole will, with all the splendid vitalness of her being.

And his eyes, glazing already, were turned to her and saw her. They became peaceful—content. Whatever message she had willed to pierce the dense cloud of delirium had reached him. He sighed, and lay still in her arms.

Presently she saw that his eyes were closed. A faint moisture glistened on his smooth forehead, and the wild muttering passed into the quiet of an exhausted slumber.

Still she did not move.

The night sank into deeper darkness and stillness. The hours crept on their way, monstrous, heavy-footed. She measured her breathing to his, she held him in arms that had lost all feeling. The shadow about her lips crept over her whole face, blotting out its youth.

The dawn came at last, creeping in between the parted curtains, mixing pallidly with the dying lamplight. The rich embroideries and the glittering curios faded, the high carved chair by the dressing-table became spectral, unreal.

Ayeshi entered noiselessly, passing like a ghost to the quiet bedside. Tristram had turned over, his face to the coming day, his head resting in the curve of his arm. So Ayeshi had often seen him—by the camp-fire, after the day's work.

And beneath, on the great tiger-skin, huddled and still, a golden-clad, incongruous figure, which even in that moment retained something imperious, conquering, exultant.

Ayeshi bent down and touched the pale, disordered hair. He leant across and kissed the man's unconscious hand—lightly, as if it had been a sleeping child's.

Then, noiselessly as he had come, glided across the room to the open window and thence out into the morning.

CHAPTER XIV

TRISTRAM CHOOSES HIS ROAD

Dr. Martin from Lucknow had made his examination, and now he sat opposite to the woman on whose husband he was about to pass sentence, and told her the truth with all the delicacy at his command. He was a civilian with a considerable practice among women, and a corresponding belief in his understanding of the sex. But he did not understand Mrs. Boucicault. Possibly the long journey, partly on horse-back, partly on a bone-racking bullock-wagon, had upset his nerve and that nice balance of mind which made a correct analysis possible. He had felt oddly and ridiculously sickened by the man whose bedside he had just left. There was something revolting in that great hulk of over-developed, ill-conditioned strength, inert and helpless, without power of speech or motion, with nothing living in it but the eyes. Dr. Martin had seen a great many ugly sights in his career, but nothing uglier than those desperately living eyes in the dead body.

Now the wife sat opposite him and smiled at him—a slow, unending smile which might have pointed to a mind deranged by grief if she had not been so eminently practical and calm. She was dressed girlishly in white, with a red rose stuck gaily in her belt. The grey fluffy hair had been carefully yet loosely dressed, and there was a faint tinge of artificial colour on her cheeks. Her restless fingers glittered with valuable rings. It was still early in the day, and Dr. Martin had pronounced a sentence which was practically one of death, and he felt that the whole situation was horrid—a kind of danse macabre. The only person who gave him the remotest sensation of preserved decency was the daughter. She sat apart from her mother with her head bowed, her hands tight clasped in her lap, and he had seen a tear fall. He thought her rather pretty and feminine. With the rapid, constructive reasoning of his sex, he placed her in the catalogue of good daughters of adoring fathers and heartless mothers.

"And so," said Mrs. Boucicault, summing up, "you don't think that there is much hope. He may live a long time of course—but like that—quite conscious, but helpless. On the other hand, the end might come suddenly. Isn't that what you mean?"