The dawn broke upon a new world as far as Hodinuggur was concerned.
Where the desert had stretched thirsty and dry, lay a shoreless sea.
Where the streak of silver had split the round horizon into halves, the
double line of the canal banks looked like twin paths leading to some
world beyond the waste of waters. They steered straight out of sight
on either side, almost unbroken save for the great gap where the
sluice-gate had stood. There the stream still swept sideways to circle
round the island of Hodinuggur, which bore, like an ark, its company of
refugees from the surrounding levels; a little company which
straightway, taking advantage of the coming sun, began to wring out its
wet garments and spread them to dry, until a general air of washing-day
reduced the tragedy of the past night to the commonplace. And after
all, what had happened? An old woman or two had been drowned, the Diwan
and his tower swept away. But the world held too many old women and
more than enough of nobles. For the rest, it had not been the Flood of
the Most High; and though Death came to all in the end, and the
loneliness of it must be dreary, still it was somehow more terrifying
to die in batches, wholesale.
So, clothed in their white, new-washed robes like the elect, they went
down after a time in companies to see the extent of damage done to
their belongings, and test how far it was possible to wade through the
water towards the village homestead or two which rose above the flood.
Canal-wards, of course, passage was barred, would be barred for days
until the stream ceased flowing or a boat was brought. So the horseman
whom they could see picking his way flounderingly along the northern
bank might be the only survivor of the big world beyond, and they be
none the wiser--for the time. It was Dan Fitzgerald who, after an
enforced shelter at the half-way village, was wondering who could have
taken the responsibility of anticipating the telegram he carried in his
pocket by opening the sluice-gates, and so, in all probability saving
the big Sunowlie embankment farther down. For the sluice had been
opened; that was evident to his experience at once, since without the
lead of the current to cut, the flood would have swept on to do its
worst elsewhere. Well! whoever had done it, be he watchman or Diwan,
deserved something at the hands of the Department, and be the past
record a bad one or not, this act should have its reward--its just
reward--if he could compass it.
Ten minutes after, he had driven the chattering servant from the room,
and grief-stricken, yet convinced into a sort of calm acceptance of the
inevitable, had lifted the poor lad's body tenderly to the bed. He
scarcely even thought of a reason for the tragedy; perhaps there was
none, for Dan in his rough and ready life had seen such a thing before;
had known the useless search for some adequate cause. And was there not
cause enough here for a sudden loss of balance? That race down from
Paradise to Purgatory!--the intolerable journey--the horrible
homecoming; and then the cursed bottle he had left. The remembrance
sent his whole mind into useless regrets. If he had only ridden faster,
if somehow he could have been there in time to prevent the loneliness,
the awful desolation of it all! for he had been through such loneliness
himself, and knew what it had meant to him. Perhaps, taking his own
excitability as a standard, he over-estimated the effect on George's
nature. At any rate, as he stooped mechanically to pick up the revolver
round which the boy's dead hand had still been closed, he felt that,
given the necessity for sudden return, the rest might be inferred. And
then, beside the revolver he saw the open locket, with Gwen's smiling
face staring up at him. _Gwen!_ Great God! what did it mean? His own
locket, of course, and yet----he sat down at the table white as death,
looking first at the pretty face, then at the still figure on the bed,
now decently shrouded from the glaring light of day. And by degrees the
colour returned to his cheek. No! it could not be so. She was not
cruel, only careless; and ah! what a grief this would be to her!
Besides, George was not one to put a life-long regret of that sort into
a friend's life. So pondering, he realised that among other incidents
of the home-coming had been that of learning who his sweetheart really
was. That, then, did not happen at Simla, so that could not have been
the cause of the lad's sudden return.
Why, then, had he come? The new lock and keys lying on the table, gave
him a clew, and his quick wits suggested danger to the gates. Then it
came to him in a flash confusedly, almost irrationally, that it had
been done for his sake and hers, and he was on his knees by the bed in
a minute.
'Oh! George! George! why did you do it?'
So with the answering silence came a decision, impulsive, yet
immutable. Such blame as could be taken he would take. No one should
know or dream of failure. No one should ever say--'Ah, poor fellow, he
shot himself; must have been something wrong, you know.' Rapidly he
counted the costs, the possibility of silence. Hodinuggur, separated
from him by an impassable stream, could not be taken into account, so
he must accept the risk there. It would not be much, if the servants'
tale was true, that they had only discovered their master's death when
the storm began, and had done no more than send word to the palace. No
one, then, could have seen the body save those four or five servants,
who loved their master, and worshipped rupees, and, above all, desired
peace and quiet, and not the dangerous rakings up of the past which
always followed on the advent of the police. Then for the Department
itself. What he had said in his ignorance was true. Whether George had
opened the sluice when, as the servants said, he went out in the middle
of the day, or whether the palace folk had done it, the Department, in
either case, owed the opener a debt of gratitude. If the latter, the
Moghuls would be glad to keep silence; if the former, even if they set
up a claim for compensation for damage, they would have been due so
much had he, Dan, arrived in time to carry out his orders; thus no
injustice would be done.
So half an hour afterwards, one of the servants started along the path
to the outer world with a telegram to headquarters, and that evening,
when the flood had subsided a little, Dan chose out the driest spot he
could find in the sandy compound, and read the Church service over his
friend's body. No one, he told himself, should know the truth; except
some day perhaps, Gwen, when she came there as his wife. Then he would
tell her, the pity, the needlessness of it all; and yet the
needlessness had this virtue in it, that it made concealment possible;
for the flood had swept away the error, if error there had been.
The telegram reached Colonel Tweedie next morning, among many more
telling of disaster and death along the line of the great canal. Yet
none was more pitiful than this one which ran thus--
'_Opening of sluice-gate, as ordered, saved Sunowlie embankment, but
palace injured. George Keene died yesterday of cholera. Very prevalent
here. Details by post_.'
'Dear! dear!' fussed the Colonel. 'How very sad! What a blow to poor
Mrs. Boynton. She is so tenderhearted, and really, she was almost
unnecessarily interested in that boy.'
They all thought of her; even Lewis Gordon, as yielding to that odd
desire to see for oneself which besets us all when bad news comes by
telegram, he sat looking at the flimsy message of evil; yet his first
words were of Rose.
'Your daughter will feel it also, sir; feel it very much, I'm afraid.'
Then he paused, to resume in more ordinary tones. 'I had, I think,
better start at once, sir. I can report all along the line, and wire if
your presence seems necessary. I hardly think it will be, and it is
useless inconveniencing yourself for nothing.'
Colonel Tweedie bridled. 'I am not accustomed to consider my own
convenience as against the public service'--he was beginning pompously,
when Lewis cut him short.
'I'm afraid I wasn't thinking so much of you, sir, as of Miss Tweedie.
This will be a great blow to her.' He thought so honestly, and as he
jolted down the hill in a tonga half an hour afterwards he told himself
he was glad to have escaped the necessity for seeing her grief, even
while he was conscious of a curiosity to know how she would take the
news. There was no such difficulty in imagining Gwen's behaviour. He
could almost see the pretty pathetic face keeping back its tears, and
hear the soft voice saying with a little thrill in it that George was
the nicest, dearest boy she had ever met, and that she would never
forget his kindness and goodness to her--never! never!
As he thought of this his expression was not pleasant, for Gwen had, in
his opinion, done her level best to turn the lad's head, and so must
surely know that she was talking bunkum. A man would know it; though
perhaps it was not fair to judge a woman by a man's standard of truth,
and Gwen, doubtless, was as genuine as she knew how to be; as genuine,
anyhow, as Rose Tweedie, with her pretensions of utter indifference to
all sentiment. Well, poor girl! she was face to face with realities
now, for she had certainly cared a good deal for George, even to the
extent of trying to keep him from Gwen's wiles. Poor George! a fine
young fellow, who, for one thing, had been saved a bad heartache.
He had intended passing on as quickly as possible to Hodinuggur, but
being delayed by the necessity for settling endless requisitions for
repairs, had barely reached Rajpore ere Dan Fitzgerald returned,
reporting that there was no reason for him to go out. Permanent repair
was impossible till the rains should be over, as every lesser flood
must run down the channel cut out for it by this deluge, and everything
to ensure the further safety of the palace had been done. Barring the
Diwan's tower, there had not after all been much damage, as the jewels
and treasure in the vaults below had been saved: besides, the bumper
crops which would follow on the inundations would more than compensate
for any loss. There was, however, a certain anxiety in Dan's face as he
said this.
'Well, even if they were to claim,' replied Lewis complacently, 'the
saving of the Sunowlie bank would be dirt cheap at a few thousands. It
cost us over two lakhs, and I was in an awful funk about it, thinking
we must be too late. I tried to intercept poor George with a wire,
knowing he would take the order quicker as he was already on the way.
Dan's whole soul leaped towards the possibility. 'Then he got it after
all. I was wondering----' he paused, angry at his own imprudence.
'Wondering what?' asked Lewis impatiently. 'I was going to say I missed
him, and then I didn't see how you could possibly get there in time. By
the way, when did you get my wire?'
'About an hour after you sent it off,' said Dan uneasily. He did not
care for Lewis Gordon's sharp, practical eyes on these details.
'That is, say, ten o'clock on the morning of the 6th, I suppose. Good
riding, indeed! And that reminds me. The report from the Rajah's
people, which came through your office, says that the water first ran
through the cut about middle day on the 6th. Manifestly impossible. You
had hardly left Hodinuggur. It's a trifle, of course but you had better
stamp on the inaccuracy, and show you are on the watch, or they will go
on to cooking generally.'
'Yes----,' replied Dan slowly. This simple difficulty in concealing the
discrepancy of time had escaped him before; but he was fully alive to
it now. Most men in his place would have set the question aside, at all
costs, for further consideration, and risked the possible consequences
of the evasion. But Dan's mind was of finer temper; he could trust it
to thrust home at any moment. This is the true test of power, and it is
only the second thoughts of the commonplace which are better than their
first. So he took advantage of the occasion calmly, knowing his man.
'But they are right. I did not open the gates. I believe George did,
but even of that I am not sure. However, you shall judge for yourself.
I don't ask for confidence, of course. I haven't the right; but I
expect you will give it all the same.' Then boldly, plainly, yet with
one reservation, he told the tale of what he knew and what he surmised.
George had shot himself--of that there was no doubt. The sluice had
been opened, in his opinion, by treachery, of which George, at Simla,
had received some hint, and which he had arrived too late to prevent;
though this also was mysterious, since the gates had not been opened
till long after George's arrival. The guard at the sluice had been
drowned or had disappeared, and the new Diwan, Khush-hal, professed
pious ignorance. In fact, only this much was certain, that the Sunowlie
embankment had been saved, that George had taken the responsibility on
himself even to death, and that the flood had made it possible to keep
his memory from stain. For the sake of his friends alone, was not this
desirable? This hint, no more, he gave of the inner tragedy connected
with the locket. Yet as those two men sat looking at each other across
the office-table littered with papers, their thoughts, all unknown to
each other, flew to the one woman; but the memory brought tears to
Dan's dark eyes, and left Lewis's hard as the nether millstone in the
conviction that Gwen was at least morally responsible for George
Keene's death. It came to him as a certainty, and yet a contemptuous
tolerance came with it. She had not meant, of course--women never
did--to play fast and loose with the boy's head. Yet she had done so.
He had spent too much money, he had been careless; honest, perhaps,
though even that might not be so, no one could tell. Why then should
they try to find out now, when it was all irrevocable, when no harm
could come out of silence? And George had been a good sort; too good
for such an end; besides, even for Gwen's sake silence was best. He
felt very bitter against her, very sore; yet such things must not be
said about his future wife as might be said if the truth were really
known.
'I suppose it had better remain as it is,' he said at last, moodily.
'Cholera has served its turn in such a case before--one of the
advantages of living in a land of sudden death. Poor George! I daresay
there was treachery.
Dan, shading his eyes with his clasped hands, was silent a moment. 'If
there was, he had no part in it. I wonder if you remember a
conversation in the balcony at Hodinuggur about what a man would do in
such a case. "No, you wouldn't, not unless you wanted to be thought
guilty." Do you remember saying that, Gordon?'
Lewis nodded; it was not a pleasant memory.
'I can't tell you the whole. But I am convinced George shot himself to
save me. He knew'--what, perhaps, you don't--that I was engaged to a
woman----'
Gordon pulled some papers towards him impatiently, and took up a pen,
as if to end the subject.
'I suppose it is always "_cherchez la femme_"; yet it does not seem to
me an agreeable factor in existence.'
'_Cherchez la femme!_' echoed Dan. 'Why not? They are our mothers and
sisters, our sweethearts and wives, after all. And have you ever
thought, Gordon, what it must be like to look back over a lifetime, and
see next to nothing that you would rather have left undone? Or, if
you're pious, to take a sort of pride in pillorying yourself for a
cross word or a tarradiddle? There isn't a man in a million with that
record, but half the women one meets--ay! half the women one
patronises--have it. Perhaps it is small blame to anything but fate;
still they have it.'
'Or think they have--which has the same effect! You remind me of a
countryman of yours, a doctor, I knew once. "The sex," he said, "can't
do wrong, and when it does it's hysteria." However, let us leave that
poor lad to rest in peace; in a way that is more worth than the
happiness of any woman who ever was born. And, look here, make the tale
of reports complete, send them to me, and I'll consign them, dates and
all, to a pigeon-hole. That is the beauty of official mistakes; you
_can_ pigeon-hole them and no one is the wiser, unless, indeed, some
personal motive crops up. But that is not likely. So far as I can see,
it is to no one's interest to make a row--not even if there is a woman
at the bottom of it all.'
There was a concentrated bitterness in his tone, due to no cynicism,
but rather to an intensity of pain; for if Rose Tweedie belonged by
birth to that strange latter-day feminine development which
unconsciously sets passion aside both from mind and emotion, and will
none of it spiritually or physically, Lewis belonged to that still
larger class of men who have driven it from the mind: who say openly
that it is despicable; but that the world cannot get on without it; who
insist in a breath in its unworthiness and its necessity. Gwen, he said
to himself after Dan had gone, was very woman, capable of ruining any
man in a week if she chose, and then being sorrowfully surprised at
the result. Still it would be unkind to wound her needlessly by telling
her that result; the more so because she would certainly tell other
people, and Rose Tweedie might break her heart over it. Even if the
pigeon-holed mistake were found out, they might get up a fiction about
the telegram having reached George after all. The compensation might
have to be given; but even in that case he could see no need for raking
up the mud, since the claim would be a just one.
Nevertheless a week after, when he and Dan were once more seated
opposite each other at the office-table, he felt vaguely uncomfortable.
For a schedule of the dead lad's debts lay between them ready for the
Administrator-General, and that showed an item of six thousand rupees
borrowed on George's note of hand, backed by some youngsters on the
very day on which he had left Simla.
'It was a first holiday, you know,' said Dan regretfully. 'And
Hodinuggur is such a hole. There were the races, you know,
and--and----'
'_Cherchez la femme_,' quoted Lewis; 'I don't blame him, not a bit. But
if there had been an inquiry, Fitzgerald?-----'
Dan shook his head and sighed fiercely. 'Yes! I know. For all that, he
was straight--straight as a die! My only regret in keeping the thing
dark is that some one has to go scot-free.'