FLIGHT.
In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand,
and led them away from the City of Destruction. We see no white
winged angels now; but yet men are led away from threatening
destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them gently
towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more
backward.
Maud effected a speedy reconciliation with Mrs. Vereker, who had
entrenched herself in her bedroom with a French novel till such time as
Maud should have recovered her equanimity. Mrs. Vereker at once forgot
her grievance, listened with real concern to Maud's alarming tidings,
and lent herself with great alacrity to assist in the preparations for a
hasty departure. Boldero had gone off and was to get coolies[5] together
as speedily as possible, so as to be well on the way during the cool
hours of the early morning, before the heat of the day would render
travelling a work of distress.
By three o'clock, accordingly, a little army was collected in front of
Mrs. Vereker's door. The urgent demands of the Collector and the
subsequent zeal of his subordinates had done wonders, and some forty men
had been assembled at an hour's notice for the task of carrying down
Maud, her servant and her various belongings.
The moon had sunk and the torches glared fitfully with dreadful smell
and smoke. The figures looked weird and strange and, to Maud's eye,
horribly numerous. The arrangement of each box involved enormous
discussion as to how the burden of carrying it could best be shared. At
last all was ready; Maud was established in a palanquin; the carriers
kept time to the cadence of a wild refrain; the torch-bearers shuffled
along in front, relays of coolies came behind; close at her side rode
the faithful Boldero, marshalling the little force, and ever on the
watch to shield her from any possible annoyance. Maud appreciated his
fidelity, and felt that she had never liked him half well enough before.
Her conscience smote her for all her rude speeches, slighting acts and
unkind looks; she determined henceforth to be very kind indeed. Boldero,
accordingly, though in a great state of agitation and distress about his
friend's condition, found the journey not quite without its charm. He
had telegraphed to the Camp for Sutton's two horses to be sent out, and
both of them were well accustomed to carry Maud when occasion offered. A
messenger was to be sent up to each halting-place, so that Maud had not
an hour longer to wait for news than was absolutely necessary. It was a
relief, hour by hour, to find the distance growing less and the messages
more recent; still the tidings were very grievous. Sutton, it was clear,
was very ill. He had been thoroughly knocked up beforehand, and agitated
and distressed about something, the doctors thought, and this no doubt
had helped the evil. This was a cruel stab for Maud. For a few days,
said the letter, it would be rash to say what turn the case might take;
still there was reason to be hopeful: he was a very strong man, and very
temperate, and these points, of course, were greatly in his favour. The
mortality, however, had been terrible at the Camp, and the men were
greatly disheartened. They were now marching every day, in hopes of
keeping clear of their own infection.
An hour or two later the two travellers came to a halt. Maud found some
early tea awaiting her, and joyfully exchanged the tiring captivity of
the palanquin for the horse which had been hurried on for her use for
this stage of the journey.
'I have been fast asleep,' she said, as Boldero and she rode down the
hillside together and watched the faint glow in the east warming
gradually into day, 'and this is very refreshing. The darkness, the
crowd, the blazing torches, the confusion, the babel of tongues we had
last night seem like a horrid dream. I was never more thankful for the
light. I feel as if I were escaping; and, Mr. Boldero, you are my
deliverer. I shall be grateful to you all my life. You must have had so
much trouble and have done it all so kindly and like yourself.'
'Do not talk of that,' said the other; 'what are friends for but to
serve us when we need them?'
'And to forgive us when we wrong them?' said Maud, whose conscience was
goading her to confession; 'I know I have behaved ill to you--to you and
to everybody. Now I am going to try to do better, if only I can get the
chance--if only God in His goodness will grant me that.'
'I am hopeful,' said Boldero, 'for both of you. Sutton, I feel, has
something greater yet to do. We have often laughed and said that nothing
can kill him. You know in cholera it is as much mind as body: courage,
calmness, and determination are half the battle.'
'Then,' said Maud, with enthusiasm, faith, and hopefulness glowing in
her face, 'I am sure he will do well. His body is his soul's servant,
you cannot fancy how completely; it does its bidding as a matter of
course. I do not think it would even die without his leave. Have you
telegraphed to say that I am coming?'
'Yes, but leaving it to the doctors to tell him when they think best;
or not at all, if they fear the intelligence will excite him. Very
likely they will be afraid to do so.'
'They will do wrong,' said Maud, who knew her husband's temperament
better even than Boldero; it will not agitate him, and it will make him
resolve to live. He _will_ live, I believe, if it is only in order to
forgive me.'
'Do not say "to forgive,"' said the other, who, in a generously
enthusiastic mood, began to think that Maud was pressing with undue
severity against herself; 'to tell you all that you have been to him and
all the sunshine you have brought into his life.'
'All I have been!' cried Maud, with a vehement remorse; 'I could tell
him that best. You could tell him. I mean to tell him the first moment I
can--and I am in an agony till I can do so. I have been mad, Mr.
Boldero, or in a dream, I think, and you tried in vain to wake me. Now I
am awake, and know the truth. All the things and people we have left
behind are merely shadows, and I mistook them for realities; only one
thing in the world is real for me: my love for my husband. Other people
flatter and excite and amuse one, and one is carried away with all sorts
of follies; but my heart never moves and never can. It is his and his
only, and I never knew it fully till last night. My life, I find, is
centred in his.'
'I pray God,' said Boldero devoutly, 'we may find him better; and
somehow I believe we shall.'
A level stretch of valley lay before them, and allowed them to push
sharply over the next five or six miles. By ten o'clock they arrived at
their halting-place, where Boldero proposed that they should wait till
the afternoon. Maud, however, was too restless to halt.
'Suppose,' she said, 'we push on another stage? The sun is not so very
dreadful, after all.'
'The next two stages are bad ones,' said Boldero. 'Don't you remember
that long, troublesome valley with the rocks on either side?--by twelve
o'clock they will be all red-hot.'
'Well,' said Maud, 'we will tie a wet towel over my head. Will it do you
any harm? or the horses?'
'Me!' cried Boldero, in a tone which at once reassured his companion
that no danger need be apprehended so far as he was concerned; 'as for
my horses, they can, of course, go as many stages as you like.'
So they dressed and breakfasted and Maud declared herself quite ready
for an immediate start. Boldero brought in a great plantain-leaf from
the garden of the little inn, and they tied this under her wide pith
hat; then Maud armed herself with an enormous umbrella, and 'Now,' she
said, 'I am prepared for anything.'
By the end of the stage, however, her strength was spent: she sank into
the first chair that offered itself, and acquiesced thankfully, like a
tired child, in Boldero's decision that they should not move again till
the day's fierce glare was past. There was no need to hurry, for she was
now within a night's march of her husband, and by the morrow's morning
would have known and seen the worst.