Part 34

The full lips quivered resentfully.

"You're making fun of me—"

"No—I'm in dead earnest. I've been an intruder and an unwilling thief, and now I return my ill-gotten gains. Smithy, take care of her till I come back. And no violence!"

Mrs. Smithers paid no heed to the injunction. She was trembling in every limb as she followed the quickly moving figure to the verandah steps. She clutched Sigrid's hands. Her dim old eyes were full of a great dread.

"Sigrid—my dearest—what are you going to do?"

"Do? Nothing rash, Smithy. Did you think I might—? Don't you see how good it is? I'm free. I'm Sigrid Fersen—I haven't got to fight daily, hourly, for my integrity—I'm free." She drew in a deep joyous breath of the fresh, rain-soaked air. Her eyes shone under the fine, untroubled brows. "I'm going home with you to England, Smithy. I'm going to live in the little suburban house and give dancing lessons to the large suburban feet. And in my free moments I shall play Beethoven and Wagner and Chopin on an extravagantly fine Bechstein. For I've learnt that one can play noble music anywhere. That's a great lesson, Smithy." She smiled tenderly. "And I shall live on your savings, Smithy. That'll make you happy, won't it?"

"Oh, my dear—"

"I know. Such queer things make women happy." She grew grave for an instant. "And perhaps I shall live to be very old, as Tristram said I might. I may grow so much stronger—I shall outlive you, Smithy, and every one who ever cared for me. But I'm not going to funk it now. I shall play my music to the very end."

Mrs. Smithers made no answer. She could not have answered, for the dimness had crept into her throat and choked her. She lifted the little hand clasped in hers and kissed it.

Thus Sigrid Fersen rode down the steep, mud-choked road towards the valley. She told herself that it was for the last time. And because each "last time" in life is a bridge-crossing into a new and trackless country she looked back along the old road, and her thoughts lingered by the high landmarks by which she would never pass again. High up against the horizon a mountain-peak glowed in the warm splendour of this farewell. On its topmost crag she had dwelt a little and alone. She saw the rough and ruthless descent into the world of men the winding road over strange countries, the always-seeking of those two years, and there on the verge of an abyss the revelation of something as lofty, as splendid as all that she had left behind her. At first she had drawn back. She had even smiled a little at the thought that her feet should tread so desperate a path. But in the end she had gone on—down into the depths and through a suffocating evil darkness and up again at last to the farther summit. And had it been worth it—worth the effort, the sheer, physical effort, the pitiless drain upon soul and body, the inevitable loneliness? She knew her answer. She saw before her the country to which her stern enterprise had led her. She saw it flat and barren and wind-swept, its sparse trees bowed before the solitary storms. She saw that it had its own grandeur. There was a sweet taste in the wind; and the rough earth carried many flowers on its bosom, and they had a fragrance more delicate than all the rich exotic blossoms which had once been dear to her. She welcomed the sweet winds and the great limitless horizons. She stretched out her arms to the blustering storm. She was free. Her freedom was not of the mountain crags, but of the great undulating plains where men pass their daily life. And she had ceased to be alone. Somewhere on that vast expanse a fellow-traveller pressed on his way, often erring, often misled, but still with head erect, eyes fixed on the down-going sun which was their common goal. She saw him big and careless and unkempt with strays and vagabonds crowded at his heels. She saw the light on his face, and knew that he too was conscious of their comradeship. It did not matter that in that country over which they travelled they would not meet again. They had met once. God Himself, if He existed apart from His creation, could not blot out that knowledge or His own decree by which the separate paths of men meet at the end.

Thus Sigrid Fersen rode out of Gaya. Her horse slipped and fretted over the treacherous descent, but her hand was as strong and steady as her thought. She had the quality common to all vitally living things—the love of physical, friendly warfare with the elements. She lifted her glowing face to the warm rain. She felt at peace and happy. She could look with clear eyes into the future. Tristram had said that with care she might live to be very old. The thought had no terrors for her now.

Between dreams and realities she left Gaya floating in the grey mists behind her. The solitude and wide stretch of the plain soothed her and gave her a sense of release from a cramping prison. She began to deal practically with the coming years—even, with a faint smile at the corners of her mouth, to furnish the little suburban house, to arrange her days.

And then, in the midst of her planning, her horse jerked to a quivering standstill. She leant forward in her saddle, frowning through the veil of rain, and saw that something lay across her road—something black and huddled and shapeless. She tried to urge the frightened animal forward; then something definite checked her—held her in sick, motionless horror. It was a white patch—the shape of a man's hand, the fingers clawed into the mud.

A minute later she had managed to dismount. She knelt down by the crumpled body, and, exerting all her strength, lifted it. It was so caked and stiffened with mire and blood that it remained upright, kneeling grotesquely, leaning against her. The disfigured features, made more hideous by their mud-smeared agony, were close to her own. She believed him dead. The horror of him, kneeling there, leering at her, overcame her. She let him sink back—and then only saw that he still lived. His eyes were open. They were already glazed and could not have seen her, but an instinct, kindling for the last time, recognized her presence.

"Tristram—Heerut—warn Tristram—warn—"

His mouth fell open. His gaze became fixed under the half-sunk lids. It was finished.

Sigrid Fersen rose to her feet. She was not conscious now of fear or hesitation; she walked forward a few paces, tracing the smeared track of Meredith's body back to a confusion of hoof-prints in the thick mud. There had been a struggle, and Meredith had had strength enough to crawl a few feet—she did not know that each foot had represented hours and the triumph of the man's will over agony and unconsciousness, but she knew what he had tried to do.

"Warn Tristram!"

It was a call to her old, unbroken fearlessness, to the eager, adventuring blood and the new faith. Gaya and prudence and safety lay behind her; but what was Gaya to her, what had prudence or safety ever mattered to her? Before her lay the swollen river and sinister, uncomprehended danger.

She was going forward.

She caught her horse by the bridle. It was no easy task to mount from that slippery road, but she had in that hour an unconquerable energy and resolve. It was done at last. She settled herself firmly in the saddle, her hands on the reins were flexible and strong as steel. Through the splashing mire and rain she rode towards Heerut.

She reached the river-bank. The door of the engineer's shanty stood open and one glance showed her that the place was deserted. She rode over the bridge. The water slid across the roadway with an ugly, slopping gurgle; its deeper voice thundered beneath among the shaken arches.

On the farther bank she drew rein for an instant. Amidst the rush of the river it seemed to her that another sound had reached her. It was vague and indefinite, and yet unmistakably separate from all else. It was as though close to her, and yet hidden beneath the water, something monstrous and living groaned in the agony of dismemberment.

"Warn Tristram!"

She rode on towards Heerut.

CHAPTER XII

THE MEETING OF THE WAYS

They had come from all the ends of the Province, secretly and one by one from the towns, and in whole companies from the villages. It was for them only another pilgrimage. They brought with them the same childlike faith, the same dim, passionless hopes, the same fatalism. And behind those simple things there was the same incalculable force awaiting the spark which should fire them to a ferocious heroism or headlong panic.

They came together in the broad curve of plain where the Ganges twisted in a horseshoe towards the foot of Gaya's hills. To the west, within half a mile of the encampment, the black impregnable barrier of the jungle followed the river's course past the bridge-head and the temple, forming lower down a crescent around the little plateau on which Heerut lay huddled.

There were close on two thousand of them, men of all ages, all castes. They carried weapons, but of a strange and varied nature—old army rifles, an ancient sword, the deadly kukri, sometimes no more than a rusty bayonet, stolen or bought from some drunken defaulter. They themselves were as heterogeneous. They herded together without order or discipline. The rain poured down upon them ceaselessly, saturating their scanty clothing so that it clung to their lean bodies like creased and dirty skins. Here and there the saffron robe proclaimed the Saddhu, and there were priests, haughty, arrogant-featured men, who stood aloof, as though the matter scarcely concerned them. Yet it was they who had worked secretly and cunningly in the towns and villages. It was their infallibility which had welded these strange, inco-ordinate atoms into a weapon. For, undisciplined, ill-armed, and dejected though they seemed, though they came straight from their fields and the enervating atmosphere of the bazaars, these two thousand men were still fighters. In the old days their fathers had scorned the plough and had lived and died by the sword. They had fought for the old Rajah and gone with him into exile and ended their adversity in the wildernesses. Some of that fighting blood was in the veins of these, their descendants, and some of that stern tradition lay smouldering beneath the veneer of peace which the British Raj had forced upon them.

But of all this, Barclay, riding at Ayeshi's side down the irregular front of this strange army, saw nothing. To him they were a sorry, pitiable crew, foredoomed to disaster. He knew now, if he had not always known, the futile madness of the enterprise on which they were launched, he with them. The brief illusion which he had nourished that night in the temple had gone. Though he had flung himself into this cause with all his wealth, all his power, he saw it to be lost. The shadow of the future was on these upturned stoic faces, on Ayeshi, and on himself. Yet he would not have turned back nor changed the course of events. A sombre triumph and satisfaction glowed through his foreknowledge.

He had found his people. He belonged to them. In the end that was coming he would not be alone. His blood would mingle with theirs. And with them those others would be swept away—those others who had rejected him.

He turned his haggard, moody eyes towards distant Gaya and laughed. Even now he was a little theatrical. He wore the native dress, and it was like a masquerade. All that was English in him stood out the more prominently. The very priests who had admitted him to their caste shrank from his shadow, and quick, dark glances of suspicion followed him as he rode at Ayeshi's side. Vahana, the Saddhu, clung to his stirrup-leather. He was like a mocking spirit of evil, noiseless and remorseless. Once Barclay had tried to swing him off by a quick turn of his horse, but the old withered figure had leapt with him with the agility of a tiger. Afterwards Vahana had lifted his face to Barclay, showing his teeth in a mirthless grin of understanding.

Thereafter Barclay made no effort to free himself. But he had become afraid—afraid of something other than the end.

Ayeshi rode to the farther end of the roughly formed square. Beyond the jewelled turban and the ancient sword at his waist, he wore no insignia of his rank, and even his knightly seat on the thoroughbred Arab could not wholly atone to his followers for this lack of outward splendour. They had expected something other—something resplendent, a gorgeous representative of the millennium that was coming,—a god, an avatar. And he was only a boy, with wasted features and restless, unhappy eyes. Yet they greeted him as their lord. Perhaps even in their minds was the knowledge that their lives were bound up with his, that there was no turning back either for him or them. A Brahmin and a native under-officer, still in uniform though without his badges, came out of the ranks to meet him, and for a few minutes they spoke together in an undertone. Barclay scarcely listened. He was watching with cynical intentness the play of the priest's astute features, the deferential, courtly movements, the keen flashes of the cruel eyes. In contrast, the soldier seemed brutal and aggressive. His face was pockmarked and sodden with vice, but he was a strong man—more vital in that moment even than Ayeshi.

Between Barclay and these two men Ayeshi was the shuttlecock—the toy and instrument with which each sought to attain his own petty ends of vengeance and power. For a moment Barclay could have pitied him as he sat there, reining in his restive Arab with a master's hand, so passionately in earnest, so deeply shaken by premonition.

"They will fight, Pugra?" he asked repeatedly. "They will keep faith with us?"

The soldier grinned significantly.

"They have sworn it, lord. There is no cause for them to break their oath. It is a simple matter. In an hour it will be finished. Heera Singh leads them. He is a good soldier. His brother was shot a year ago. He will not fail."

"And afterwards—?"

"We shall join forces with them."

"And after that—?"

The soldier and the priest exchanged a quick glance of interrogation. But the question had rung with an urgent appeal not to be denied. The Brahmin drew a step nearer, taking the answer upon himself.

"After that the great cities will follow. In Calcutta and Bombay they do but await the signal. Is it not so?"

"That is what they told me." Ayeshi passed his hand nervously over his forehead. "They swore to me that they were ready. I was to be the torch which should light India—"

"Surely, then, it will be so, lord."

Ayeshi made no answer. He seemed to sink into a fit of brooding, his eyes fixed in the direction of Gaya. Barclay, who had not ceased to watch him, urged his horse nearer.

"Of what are you afraid, Rajah?" he asked softly in English, adding with a flash of malice: "Isn't death the worst that can happen to us?"

The echo of the grandiloquent phrase stung Ayeshi to a haughty gesture.

"I do not fear death."

"Whom then? Rasaldu? Rasaldu is dead. In a few hours there will be no white men left in your kingdom—"

"I know. It is not that. It is for these men—my people. They trust me. They hope great things. If I should fail—"

"You will not fail, Rajah. You have the right to call upon them. You are their lord."

Ayeshi glanced up swiftly.

"And if I were not—if it proved a mistake—sometimes I am afraid—"

Barclay shrugged his shoulders. He was growing impatient. The merciless rain began to chill his blood. The roar of the river beat like the incessant thud of a hammer on his ears.

"What does it all matter?" he muttered. "If only this infernal rain would stop! It's dangerous. If the water overflows on the high ground up by Bjura we shall have to swim for it. That's what matters."

But suddenly Ayeshi bent down from his saddle and laid his hand on Vahana's shoulder.

"You promised!" he said, in a tense undertone. "You promised that today you would speak—that you would give me proofs to show my people. Now keep your promise to me. Vahana—justify me."

The fakir lifted his eyes to Ayeshi. His lips moved, but no sound came from them. He shrank back against Barclay's knee, cowering as from a blow. But his expression was triumphantly evil.

And Barclay, looking into Ayeshi's stricken face, came to a bitter understanding. Not only this boy, but all of them, were so many instruments in a master-hand. Their hates and ambitions had been woven skilfully into the greater pattern of a patient, insatiable vengeance. They were pawns in Vahana's game. They would be swept from the board. Vahana would go on to his own end.

Before this selfsame knowledge Ayeshi had faltered. Now he drew himself up in the saddle.

"Rasaldu is dead," he said quietly, yet with despair, "and Sahib Meredith and others—others. Justify me!"

And to that final, irrepressible cry of anguish Vahana answered. His unaccustomed tongue wrestled with the words, and formed them slowly and thickly. They fell like blows.

"The—Rajah—had—no—son," he said.

Then suddenly he laughed. In that final moment the brain, corroded with hatred, broke down beneath its accumulated burden. The maniacal merriment rang out above the thunder of racing water, it pealed on till it dominated every other sound. As Ayeshi turned with lifted hand to strike, it subsided hideously into a broken cackle. Still clinging to Barclay's stirrup, Vahana dropped to his knees. What possessed Barclay in that moment he could not have told. He stretched out his arm over the cowering figure, shielding the thing he feared.

"No, no, Ayeshi—it's too late. It doesn't matter who or what you are. You've got to go on with it. You can't leave us in the lurch. There's been bloodshed enough—"

Ayeshi's hand sank limply to his side. His lips were quivering.

"Rasaldu is dead," he repeated. "Rasaldu the swine-herd—had more right than I—and the Sahibs who have done me no wrong—"

Barclay interrupted him with a curse. Was this last catastrophe of his life to end as the others had done, in a travesty—in a Gilbertian fiasco? Was he to be held up to ridicule before those cool, insolent men and women—ludicrous and ineffectual even in his death?

"For God's sake—pull yourself together, Ayeshi!" he said imperatively. "What does it matter whether you are wronged or not? You are the leader. Chance has made you—the deliverer of your people. Act like a man. Save your country—set us free—" He laid his hand on his breast with a dramatic gesture. "I ask it of you—I, who have suffered at their hands. Be strong, Ayeshi. Give us our freedom."

But Ayeshi seemed not to listen. His frowning eyes were fixed in front of him, and suddenly he pointed. Barclay turned in his saddle. At first the spectacle that met him seemed no more than curious. The belt of high grass which separated them from the river had parted, and a young tigress stood in the opening. She seemed wholly unconscious of the massed enemy before her. She stood there lashing her tail, her velvet flanks heaving with recent hard effort, her fine head lifted in an attitude of listening. For an instant she remained thus. No hand was raised against her. Ayeshi and his followers watched her in motionless, superstitious silence. Even Barclay felt himself incapable of action. It was as though the apparition had for them a deeper, as yet unread significance.

With a low growl, not of anger but of fear, the beautiful animal trotted with long, loping strides between Ayeshi and the herded crowd of tensely watching natives. No sound was uttered until the lean, striped body had vanished. Then a cry went up—at first isolated—then swelling to a shout:

"An omen—an omen!"

"Vishnu has spoken!"

"The gods are against us!"

"The flood—the flood—!"

The last came in a scream. It bore the other cries down into an instant's stupefied silence. The massed square of humanity which had tossed and surged in a gathering storm of panic grew still.

Barclay lifted himself in his stirrups. He could see nothing. The rain blinded him. Yet his ears, alert now, caught a distant ominous boom.