"Then was I rapt away by the impulse, one
Immeasurable ... wave of a need
To abolish that detested life."
--BROWNING.
Lithe and noiseless as a cat, Roy crept through the archway into outer
darkness. It was hateful leaving Arúna; but rage at her hurt and the
primitive instinct of pursuit were not to be denied. And she _might_
have been killed. And she had done it for him:--coals of fire, indeed!
Also, the others would be getting anxious. Let him only catch that
mysterious skulker, and he could shout across to the Palace roof. They
would hear.
Close under the wall he waited, all the scout in him alert. The cautious
rustlings drew stealthily nearer; ceased, for a few tantalising seconds;
then, out of the massed shadows, there crept a moving shadow.
Roy's spring was calculated to a nicety; but the thing swerved sharply
and fled up the rough hillside. There followed a ghostly chase, unreal
as a nightmare, lit up by the moon's deceptive brilliance; the earth, an
unstable welter of light and darkness, shifting under his feet.
The fleeing shade was agile; and plainly familiar with the ground.
Baulked, and lured steadily farther from Arúna, all the Rajput flamed in
Roy. During those mad moments he was capable of murdering the unknown
with his hands....
Suddenly, blessedly, the thing stumbled and dropped to its knees. With
the spring of a panther, he was on it, his angers at its throat, pinning
it to earth. The choking cry moved him not at all:--and suddenly the
moonlight showed him the face of Chandranath, mingled hate and terror in
the starting eyes....
Amazed beyond measure, he unconsciously relaxed his grip. "_You_--is
it?--you devil!"
There was no answer. Chandranath had had the wit to wriggle almost clear
of him;--almost, not quite. Roy's pounce was worthy of his Rajput
ancestors; and next moment they were locked in a silent, purposeful
embrace....
But Roy's brain was cooler now. Sanity had returned. He could still have
choked the life out of the man, without compunction. But he did not
choose to embroil himself, or his people, on account of anything so
contemptible as the creature that was writhing and scratching in his
grasp. He simply wanted to secure him and hand him over to the Jaipur
authorities, who had several scores up against him.
But Chandranath, though not skilled, had the ready cunning of the lesser
breeds. With a swift unexpected move, he tripped Roy up so that he
nearly fell backward; and, in a supreme effort to keep his balance,
unconsciously loosened his hold. This time, Chandranath slipped free of
him; and, in the act, pushed him so violently that he staggered and came
down among sharp broken stones with one foot twisted under him. When he
would have sprung up, a stab of pain in his ankle told him he was done
for....
The sheer ignominy of it enraged him; and he was still further enraged
by the proceedings of the victor, who sprang nimbly out of reach on to a
fragment of buttressed wall, whence he let fly a string of abusive
epithets nicely calculated to touch up Roy's pride and temper and goad
him to helpless fury.
But if his ankle was crippled, his brain was not. While Chandranath
indulged his pent-up spite, Roy was feeling stealthily, purposefully, in
the semi-darkness, for the sharpest chunk of stone he could lay hands
on; a chunk warranted to hurt badly, if nothing more. The strip of
shadow against the sky made an admirable target; and Roy's move, when it
came, was swift, his aim unerring.
Somewhere about the head or shoulders it took effect: a yell of rage and
pain assured him of that, as his target vanished on the far side of the
wall.
Had he jumped or fallen? And what did the damage amount to? Roy would
have given a good deal to know; but he had neither time nor power to
investigate. Nothing for it but to crawl back, and shout to Arúna, when
he got within hail.
It was an undignified performance. His twisted ankle stabbed like a
knife, and never failed to claim acquaintance with every obstacle in its
path. Presently, to his immense relief, the darkness ahead was raked by
a restless light, zigzagging like a giant glow-worm.
"Lance--ahoy!" he shouted.
"Righto!" Lance sang out; and the glow-worm waggled a welcome.
Another shout from the Palace roof, answered in concert; and the mad,
bad dream was over. He was back in the world of realities; on his feet
again--one foot, to be exact--supported by Desmond's arm; pouring out
his tale.
Lance already knew part of it. He had found Arúna and was hurrying on to
find Roy. "Your cousin's got the pluck of a Rajput," he concluded. "But
she seems a bit damaged. The left arm's broken, I'm afraid."
Roy cursed freely. "Wish to God I could make sure if I've sent that
skunk to blazes."
"Just as well you can't, perhaps. If your shot took effect, he won't be
off in a hurry. The police can nip out when we get back."
"Look here--keep it dark till I've seen Dyán. If Chandranath's nabbed,
he'll want to be in it. Only fair!"
Lance chuckled. "What an unholy pair you are!--By the way, I fancy
Martin's pulled it off with Miss Flossie. I tumbled across them in the
hanging garden. You left that door open. Gave me the tip you might be
out on the loose."
* * * * *
Desmond's surmise proved correct. Arúna's left arm was broken above the
elbow: a simple fracture, but it hurt a good deal. Thea, in charge of
'the wounded,' eased them both as best she could, during the long drive
home. But Arúna, still in her exalted mood, counted mere pain a little
thing, when Roy, under cover of the cloak, found her cold right hand
and cherished it in his warm one nearly all the way.
No one paid much heed to Martin and Flossie, who felt privately annoyed
with 'the native cousin' for putting her nose out of joint. Defrauded of
her due importance, she told her complacent lover they must 'save up the
news till to-morrow.' Meantime, they rode, very much at leisure, behind
the barouche;--and no one troubled about them at all.
Lance and Vincent, having cantered on ahead, called in for Miss Hammond
and left word at Sir Lakshman's house that Arúna had met with a slight
accident; and would he and her brother come out to the Residency after
dinner?
Before the meal was over, they arrived. Miss Hammond was upstairs
attending to Arúna; and Sir Lakshman joined them without ceremony,
leaving Dyán alone with Roy, who was nursing his ankle in an arm-chair
near the drawing-room fire.
In ten minutes of intimate talk he heard the essential facts, with
reservations; and Roy had never felt more closely akin to him than on
that evening. Rajput chivalry is no mere tradition. It is vital and
active as ever it was. Insult or injury to a woman is sternly avenged;
and the offender is lucky if he escapes the extreme penalty. Roy frankly
hoped he had inflicted it himself. But for Dyán surmise was not enough.
He would not eat nor sleep till he had left his own mark on the man who
had come near killing his sister--most sacred being to him, who had
neither wife nor mother.
"The delicate attention was meant for me, you know," Roy reminded him;
simply from a British impulse to give the devil his due.
"Tcha!" Dyán's thumb and finger snapped like a toy pistol. "No
law-courts talk for me. You were so close together. He took the risk. By
Indra, he won't take any more such risks if I get at him! You said we
would not see him here. But no doubt he has been hanging round Amber,
making what mischief he can. He must have heard your party was coming,
and got sneaking round for a chance to score off you. Young Ramanund,
priest of Kali's shrine, is one of those he has made his tool, the way
he made me. If he is in Amber, I shall find him. You can take your oath
on that." He stood up, straight and virile, instinct with purpose as a
drawn sword. "I am going now, Roy. But not _one word_ to any soul.
Grandfather and Arúna only need to know I am trying to find who toppled
those stones. I shall not succeed. That is all:--except for you and me.
Bijli, Son of Lightning, will take me full gallop to Amber. First thing
in the morning, I will come--and make my report."
"But look here--Lance knows----"
"Well, your Lance can suppose he got away. We could trust him, I don't
doubt. But what is known to more than two, will in time be known to a
hundred. For myself, I don't trouble. Among Rajputs the penalty would be
slight. But this thing must be kept between you and me--because of
Arúna."
Roy held out his hand. Dyán's fingers closed on it like taut strips of
steel. Unmistakably the real Dyán Singh had shed the husks of
scholarship and politics and come into his own again.
"I wouldn't care to have those at my throat!" remarked Roy, pensively
considering the streaks on his own hand.
"Some Germans didn't care for it--in France," said Dyán coolly. "But
now----" He scowled at his offending left arm. "I hope--very soon ...
never mind. No more talking ... poison gas!" And with a flash of white
teeth--he was gone.
Roy, left staring into the fire, followed him in imagination, speeding
through the silent city out into the region of skulls and eye-sockets--a
flying shadow in the moonlight with murder in its heart....
* * * * *
Within an hour, that flying shadow was outside the gateway of Amber,
startling the doorkeepers from sleep; murder, not only in its heart, but
tucked securely in its belt. No 'law-courts talk' for one of his breed;
no nice adjustment of penalty to offence; no concern as to possible
consequences. The Rajput, with his blood up, is daring to the point of
recklessness; deaf to puerile promptings of prudence or mercy; a sword,
seeking its victim; insatiate till the thrust has gone home.
And, in justice to Dyán Singh, it should be added that there was more
than Arúna in his mind. There was India--increasingly at the mercy of
Chandranath and his kind. The very blindness of his earlier obsession
had intensified the effect of his awakening. Roy's devoted daring, his
grandfather's mellow wisdom, had worked in his fiery soul more
profoundly than they knew: and his act of revenge was also, in his eyes,
an act of expiation. At the bidding of Chandranath, or another, he would
unhesitatingly have flung a bomb at the Commissioner of Delhi--the sane,
strong man whose words and bearing had so impressed him on the few
occasions they had met at the Residency. By what law of God or man,
then, should he hesitate to grind the head of this snake under his heel?
One-handed though he was, he would not strike from behind. The son of a
jackal should know who struck him. He should taste fear, before he
tasted death. And then--the Lake, that would never give up its secret or
its dead. Siri Chandranath would disappear from his world, like a stone
flung into a river; and India would be a cleaner place without him.
He knew himself hampered, if it came to a struggle. But--tcha! the man
was a coward. Let the gods but deliver his victim into that one
purposeful hand of his--and the end was sure.
Near the Palace, he deserted Bijli, Son of Lightning; tethered him
securely and spoke a few words in his ear, while the devoted creature
nuzzled against him, as who should say, 'What need of speech between me
and thee'? Then--following Roy's directions--he made his way cautiously
up the hillside, where the arch showed clear in the moon. If Chandranath
had been injured or stupefied, he would probably not have gone far.
His surmise proved correct. His stealthy approach well-timed. The
guardian gods of Amber, it seemed, were on his side. For there, on the
fallen slab, crouched a shadow, bowed forward; its head in its hands.
"Must have been stunned," he thought. Patently the gods were with him.
Had he been an Englishman, the man's hurt would probably have baulked
him of his purpose. But Dyán Singh, Rajput, was not hampered by the
sportman's code of morals. He was frankly out to kill. His brain worked
swiftly, instinctively: and swift action followed....
Out of the sheltering shadow he leapt, as the cheetah leaps on its prey:
the long knife gripped securely in his teeth. Before Chandranath came to
his senses, the steel-spring grasp was on his throat, stifling the yell
of terror at Roy's supposed return....
The tussle was short and silent. Within three minutes Dyán had his man
down; arms and body pinioned between his powerful knees, that his one
available hand might be free to strike. Then, in a low fierce rush, he
spoke: "Yes--it is I--Dyán Singh. You told me often--strike, for the
Mother. 'Who kills the body kills naught.' I strike for the Mother
_now_."
Once--twice--the knife struck deep; and the writhing thing between his
knees was still.
He did not altogether relish the weird journey down to the shore of the
Lake; or the too close proximity of the limp burden slung over his
shoulder. But his imagination did not run riot, like Roy's: and no
qualms of conscience perturbed his soul. He had avenged, tenfold,
Arúna's injury. He had expiated, in drastic fashion, his own aberration
from sanity. It was enough.
The soft 'plop' and splash of the falling body, well weighted with
stones, was music to his ear. Beyond that musical murmur, the Lake would
utter no sound....