in his mind for some years past, took more definite form. It suddenly
assumed the character of a conviction, that yet had no evidence to
support it. A voice, long whispering in the depths of him, became
much louder, grew into a statement that he accepted without further
ado: "I'm paying off a debt," he phrased it, "an old, old debt is
being discharged. I owe him this--my help and so forth." He accepted
it, that is, as just; and this certainty of justice kept sweet his
heart and mind, shutting the door on bitterness or envy. The thought,
however, though it recurred persistently with each encounter, brought
no explanation.
When the war broke out both offered their services; as members of the
O.T.C., they got commissions quickly; but it was a chance remark of
Smith's that made his friend join the very regiment he himself was in.
They trained together, were in the same retreats and the same advances
together. Their friendship deepened. Under the stress of circumstances
the tie did not dissolve, but strengthened. It was indubitably real,
therefore. Then, oddly enough, they were both wounded in the same
engagement.
And it was here the remarkable fate that jointly haunted them betrayed
itself more clearly than in any previous incident of their long
relationship--Smith was wounded in the act of protecting his cousin.
How it happened is confusing to a layman, but each apparently was
leading a bombing-party, and the two parties came together. They found
themselves shoulder to shoulder, both brimmed with that pluck which
is complete indifference to Self; they exchanged a word of excited
greeting; and the same second one of those rare opportunities of
advantage presented itself which only the highest courage could make
use of. Neither, certainly, was thinking of personal reward; it was
merely that each saw the chance by which instant heroism might gain a
surprise advantage for their side. The risk was heavy, but there _was_
a chance; and success would mean a decisive result, to say nothing of
high distinction for the man who obtained it--if he survived. Smith,
being a few yards ahead of his cousin, had the moment in his grasp.
He was in the act of dashing forward when something made him pause.
A bomb in mid-air, flung from the opposing trench, was falling; it
seemed immediately above him; he saw that it would just miss himself,
but land full upon his cousin--whose head was turned the other way. By
stretching out his hand, Smith knew he could field it like a cricket
ball. There was an interval of a second and a half, he judged. He
hesitated--perhaps a quarter of a second--then he acted. He caught it.
It was the obvious thing to do. He flung it back into the opposing
trench.
The rapidity of thought is hard to realise. In that second and a
half Smith was aware of many things: He saved his cousin's life
unquestionably; unquestionably also Jones seized the opportunity that
otherwise was his cousin's. But it was neither of these reflections
that filled Smith's mind. The dominant impression was another. It
flashed into actual words inside his excited brain: "I must risk it.
I owe it to him--and more besides!" He was, further, aware of another
impulse than the obvious one. In the first fraction of a second it was
overwhelmingly established. And it was this: that the entire episode
was familiar to him. A subtle familiarity was present. All this had
happened before. He had already--somewhere, somehow--seen death
descending upon his cousin from the air. Yet with a difference. The
"difference" escaped him; the familiarity was vivid. That he missed the
deadly detonators in making the catch, or that the fuse delayed, he
called good luck. He only remembers that he flung the gruesome weapon
back whence it had come, and that its explosion in the opposite trench
materially helped his cousin to find glory in the place of death. The
slight delay, however, resulted in his receiving a bullet through the
chest--a bullet he would not otherwise have received, presumably.
It was some days later, gravely wounded, that he discovered his cousin
in another bed across the darkened floor. They exchanged remarks.
Jones was already "decorated," it seemed, having snatched success
from his cousin's hands, while little aware whose help had made it
easier.... And once again there stole across the inmost mind of Smith
that strange, insistent whisper: "I owed it to him ... but, by God, I
owe more than that ... I mean to pay it too...!"
There was not a trace of bitterness or envy now; only this profound
conviction, of obscurest origin, that it was right and absolutely
just--full, honest repayment of a debt incurred. Some ancient balance
of account was being settled; there was no "chance"; injustice and
caprice played no role at all.... And a deeper understanding of life's
ironies crept into him; for if everything was _just_, there was no room
for whimpering.
And the voice persisted above the sound of busy footsteps in the ward:
"I owe it ... I'll pay it gladly...!"
Through the pain and weakness the whisper died away. He was
exhausted. There were periods of unconsciousness, but there were
periods of half-consciousness as well; then flashes of another kind
of consciousness altogether, when, bathed in high, soft light, he
was aware of things he could not quite account for. He _saw_. It was
absolutely real. Only, the critical faculty was gone. He did not
question what he saw, as he stared across at his cousin's bed. He
knew. Perhaps the beaten, worn-out body let something through at last.
The nerves, over-strained to numbness, lay very still. The physical
system, battered and depleted, made no cry. The clamour of the flesh
was hushed. He was aware, however, of an undeniable exaltation of the
spirit in him, as he lay and gazed towards his cousin's bed....
Across the night of time, it seemed to him, the picture stole before
his inner eye with a certainty that left no room for doubt. It was not
the cells of memory in his brain of To-day that gave up their dead,
it was the eternal Self in him that remembered and understood--the
soul....
With that satisfaction which is born of full comprehension, he
watched the light glow and spread about the little bed. Thick matting
deadened the footsteps of nurses, orderlies, doctors. New cases were
brought in, "old" cases were carried out; he ignored them; he saw
only the light above his cousin's bed grow stronger. He lay still and
stared. It came neither from the ceiling nor the floor; it unfolded
like a cloud of shining smoke. And the little lamp, the sheets, the
figure framed between them--all these slid cleverly away and vanished
utterly. He stood in another place that had lain behind all these
appearances--a landscape with wooded hills, a foaming river, the sun
just sinking below the forest, and dusk creeping from a gorge along
the lonely banks. In the warm air there was a perfume of great flowers
and heavy-scented trees; there were fire-flies, and the taste of spray
from the tumbling river was on his lips. Across the water a large
bird, flapped its heavy wings, as it moved down-stream to find another
fishing place. For he and his companion had disturbed it as they broke
out of the thick foliage and reached the river-bank. The companion,
moreover, was his brother; they ever hunted together; there was a
passionate link between them born of blood and of affection--they were
twins....
It all was as clear as though of Yesterday. In his heart was the lust
of the hunt; in his blood was the lust of woman; and thick behind these
lurked the jealousy and fierce desire of a primitive day. But, though
clear as of Yesterday, he knew that it was of long, long ago.... And
his brother came up close beside him, resting his bloody spear with a
clattering sound against the boulders on the shore. He saw the gleaming
of the metal in the sunset, he saw the shining glitter of the spray
upon the boulders, he saw his brother's eyes look straight into his
own. And in them shone a light that was neither the reflection of the
sunset, nor the excitement of the hunt just over.
"It escaped us," said his brother. "Yet I know my first spear struck."
"It followed the fawn that crossed," was the reply. "Besides, we
came down wind, thus giving it warning. Our flocks, at any rate, are
safer----"
The other laughed significantly.
"It is not the safety of our flocks that troubles me just now,
brother," he interrupted eagerly, while the light burned more deeply in
his eyes. "It is, rather, that _she_ waits for me by the fire across
the river, and that I would get to her. With your help added to my
love," he went on in a trusting voice, "the gods have shown me the
favour of true happiness!" He pointed with his spear to a camp-fire
on the farther bank, turning his head as he strode to plunge into the
stream and swim across.
For an instant, then, the other felt his natural love turn into bitter
hate. His own fierce passion, unconfessed, concealed, burst into
instant flame. That the girl should become his brother's wife sent the
blood surging through his veins in fury. He felt his life and all that
he desired go down in ashes.... He watched his brother stride towards
the water, the deer-skin cast across one naked shoulder--when another
object caught his practised eye. In mid-air it passed suddenly, like
a shining gleam; it seemed to hang a second; then it swept swiftly
forward past his head--and downward. It had leaped with a blazing fury
from the overhanging bank behind; he saw the blood still streaming
from its wounded flank. It must land--he saw it with a secret, awful
pleasure--full upon the striding figure, whose head was turned away!
The swiftness of that leap, however, was not so swift but that he could
easily have used his spear. Indeed, he gripped it strongly. His skill,
his strength, his aim--he knew them well enough. But hate and love,
fastening upon his heart, held all his muscles still. He hesitated. He
was no murderer, yet he paused. He heard the roar, the ugly thud, the
crash, the cry for help--too late ... and when, an instant afterwards,
his steel plunged into the great beast's heart, the human heart and
life he might have saved lay still for ever.... He heard the water
rushing past, an icy wind came down the gorge against his naked back,
he saw the fire shine upon the farther bank ... and the figure of a
girl in skins was wading across, seeking out the shallow places in the
dusk, and calling wildly as she came.... Then darkness hid the entire
landscape, yet a darkness that was deeper, bluer than the velvet of the
night alone....
And he shrieked aloud in his remorseful anguish: "May the gods
forgive me, for I did not mean it! Oh, that I might undo ... that
I might repay...!"
That his cries disturbed the weary occupants in more than one bed is
certain, but he remembers chiefly that a nurse was quickly by his side,
and that something she gave him soothed his violent pain and helped
him into deeper sleep again. There was, he noticed, anyhow, no longer
the soft, clear, blazing light about his cousin's bed. He saw only the
faint glitter of the oil-lamps down the length of the great room....
And some weeks later he went back to fight. The picture, however, never
left his memory. It stayed with him as an actual reality that was
neither delusion nor hallucination. He believed that he understood at
last the meaning of the tie that had fettered him and puzzled him so
long. The memory of those far-off days of shepherding beneath the stars
of long ago remained vividly beside him. He kept his secret, however.
In many a talk with his cousin beneath the nearer stars of Flanders no
word of it ever passed his lips.
The friendship between them, meanwhile, experienced a curious
deepening, though unacknowledged in any spoken words. Smith, at any
rate, on his side, put into it an affection that was a brave man's
love. He watched over his cousin. In the fighting especially, when
possible, he sought to protect and shield him, regardless of his own
personal safety. He delighted secretly in the honours his cousin had
already won. He himself was not yet even mentioned in dispatches, and
no public distinction of any kind had come his way.
His V.C. eventually--well, he was no longer occupying his body when it
was bestowed. He had already "left." ... He was now conscious, possibly,
of other experiences besides that one of ancient, primitive days when
he and his brother were shepherding beneath other stars. But the
reckless heroism which saved his cousin under fire may later enshrine
another memory which, at some far future time, shall reawaken as a
"hallucination" from a Past that to-day is called the Present.... The
notion, at any rate, flashed across his mind before he "left."
IX
AN EGYPTIAN HORNET
The word has an angry, malignant sound that brings the idea of
attack vividly into the mind. There is a vicious sting about it
somewhere--even a foreigner, ignorant of the meaning, must feel it.
A hornet is wicked; it darts and stabs; it pierces, aiming without
provocation for the face and eyes. The name suggests a metallic droning
of evil wings, fierce flight, and poisonous assault. Though black and
yellow, it sounds scarlet. There is blood in it. A striped tiger of the
air in concentrated form! There is no escape--if it attacks.
In Egypt an ordinary bee is the size of an English hornet, but the
Egyptian hornet is enormous. It is truly monstrous--an ominous, dying
terror. It shares that universal quality of the land of the Sphinx and
Pyramids--great size. It is a formidable insect, worse than scorpion
or tarantula. The Rev. James Milligan, meeting one for the first
time, realised the meaning of another word as well, a word he used
prolifically in his eloquent sermons--devil.
One morning in April, when the heat began to bring the insects out,
he rose as usual betimes and went across the wide stone corridor to
his bath. The desert already glared in through the open windows. The
heat would be afflicting later in the day, but at this early hour the
cool north wind blew pleasantly down the hotel passages. It was Sunday,
and at half-past eight o'clock he would appear to conduct the morning
service for the English visitors. The floor of the passage-way was cold
beneath his feet in their thin native slippers of bright yellow. He was
neither young nor old; his salary was comfortable; he had a competency
of his own, without wife or children to absorb it; the dry climate
had been recommended to him; and--the big hotel took him in for next
to nothing. And he was thoroughly pleased with himself, for he was a
sleek, vain, pompous, well-advertised personality, but mean as a rat.
No worries of any kind were on his mind as, carrying sponge and towel,
scented soap and a bottle of Scrubb's ammonia, he travelled amiably
across the deserted, shining corridor to the bathroom. And nothing
went wrong with the Rev. James Milligan until he opened the door, and
his eye fell upon a dark, suspicious-looking object clinging to the
window-pane in front of him.
And even then, at first, he felt no anxiety or alarm, but merely a
natural curiosity to know exactly what it was--this little clot of an
odd-shaped, elongated thing that stuck there on the wooden framework
six feet before his aquiline nose. He went straight up to it to
see--then stopped dead. His heart gave a distinct, unclerical leap. His
lips formed themselves into unregenerate shape. He gasped: "Good God!
What is it?" For something unholy, something wicked as a secret sin,
stuck there before his eyes in the patch of blazing sunshine. He caught
his breath.
For a moment he was unable to move, as though the sight half
fascinated him. Then, cautiously and very slowly--stealthily, in
fact--he withdrew towards the door he had just entered. Fearful of
making the smallest sound, he retraced his steps on tiptoe. His
yellow slippers shuffled. His dry sponge fell, and bounded till it
settled, rolling close beneath the horribly attractive object facing
him. From the safety of the open door, with ample space for retreat
behind him, he paused and stared. His entire being focused itself in
his eyes. It was a hornet that he saw. It hung there, motionless and
threatening, between him and the bathroom door. And at first he merely
exclaimed--below his breath--"Good God! It's an Egyptian hornet!"
Being a man with a reputation for decided action, however, he soon
recovered himself. He was well schooled in self-control. When people
left his church at the beginning of the sermon, no muscle of his face
betrayed the wounded vanity and annoyance that burned deep in his
heart. But a hornet sitting directly in his path was a very different
matter. He realised in a flash that he was poorly clothed--in a word,
that he was practically half naked.
From a distance he examined this intrusion of the devil. It was calm
and very still. It was wonderfully made, both before and behind. Its
wings were folded upon its terrible body. Long, sinuous things, pointed
like temptation, barbed as well, stuck out of it. There was poison, and
yet grace, in its exquisite presentment. Its shiny black was beautiful,
and the yellow stripes upon its sleek, curved abdomen were like the
gleaming ornaments upon some feminine body of the seductive world he
preached against. Almost, he saw an abandoned dancer on the stage.
And then, swiftly in his impressionable soul, the simile changed,
and he saw instead more blunt and aggressive forms of destruction.
The well-filled body, tapering to a horrid point, reminded him of
those perfect engines of death that reduce hundreds to annihilation
unawares--torpedoes, shells, projectiles, crammed with secret,
desolating powers. Its wings, its awful, quiet head, its delicate,
slim waist, its stripes of brilliant saffron--all these seemed the
concentrated prototype of abominations made cleverly by the brain of
man, and beautifully painted to disguise their invisible freight of
cruel death.
"Bah!" he exclaimed, ashamed of his prolific imagination. "It's only a
hornet after all--an insect!" And he contrived a hurried, careful plan.
He aimed a towel at it, rolled up into a ball--but did not throw it. He
might miss. He remembered that his ankles were unprotected. Instead, he
paused again, examining the black and yellow object in safe retirement
near the door, as one day he hoped to watch the world in leisurely
retirement in the country. It did not move. It was fixed and terrible.
It made no sound. Its wings were folded. Not even the black antennae,
blunt at the tips like clubs, showed the least stir or tremble. It
breathed, however. He watched the rise and fall of the evil body; it
breathed air in and out as he himself did. The creature, he realised,
had lungs and heart and organs. It had a brain! Its mind was active all
this time. It knew it was being watched. It merely waited. Any second,
with a whiz of fury, and with perfect accuracy of aim, it might dart at
him and strike. If he threw the towel and missed--it certainly would.
There were other occupants of the corridor, however, and a sound of
steps approaching gave him the decision to act. He would lose his bath
if he hesitated much longer. He felt ashamed of his timidity, though
"pusillanimity" was the word thought selected owing to the pulpit
vocabulary it was his habit to prefer. He went with extreme caution
towards the bathroom door, passing the point of danger so close that
his skin turned hot and cold. With one foot gingerly extended, he
recovered his sponge. The hornet did not move a muscle. But--it had
seen him pass. It merely waited. All dangerous insects had that trick.
It knew quite well he was inside; it knew quite well he must come out a
few minutes later; it also knew quite well that he was--naked.
Once inside the little room, he closed the door with exceeding
gentleness, lest the vibration might stir the fearful insect to attack.
The bath was already filled, and he plunged to his neck with a feeling
of comparative security. A window into the outside passage he also
closed, so that nothing could possibly come in. And steam soon charged
the air and left its blurred deposit on the glass. For ten minutes
he could enjoy himself and pretend that he was safe. For ten minutes
he did so. He behaved carelessly, as though nothing mattered, and as
though all the courage in the world were his. He splashed and soaped
and sponged, making a lot of reckless noise. He got out and dried
himself. Slowly the steam subsided, the air grew clearer, he put on
dressing-gown and slippers. It was time to go out.
Unable to devise any further reason for delay, he opened the door
softly half an inch--peeped out--and instantly closed it again with a
resounding bang. He had heard a drone of wings. The insect had left
its perch and now buzzed upon the floor directly in his path. The air
seemed full of stings; he felt stabs all over him; his unprotected
portions winced with the expectancy of pain. The beast knew he was
coming out, and was waiting for him. In that brief instant he had felt
its sting all over him, on his unprotected ankles, on his back, his
neck, his cheeks, in his eyes, and on the bald clearing that adorned
his Anglican head. Through the closed door he heard the ominous, dull
murmur of his striped adversary as it beat its angry wings. Its oiled
and wicked sting shot in and out with fury. Its deft legs worked. He
saw its tiny waist already writhing with the lust of battle. Ugh! That
tiny waist! A moment's steady nerve and he could have severed that
cunning body from the directing brain with one swift, well-directed
thrust. But his nerve had utterly deserted him.
Human motives, even in the professedly holy, are an involved affair
at any time. Just now, in the Rev. James Milligan, they were quite
inextricably mixed. He claims this explanation, at any rate, in excuse
of his abominable subsequent behaviour. For, exactly at this moment,
when he had decided to admit cowardice by ringing for the Arab servant,
a step was audible in the corridor outside, and courage came with it
into his disreputable heart. It was the step of the man he cordially
"disapproved of," using the pulpit version of "hated and despised." He
had overstayed his time, and the bath was in demand by Mr. Mullins. Mr.
Mullins invariably followed him at seven-thirty; it was now a quarter
to eight. And Mr. Mullins was a wretched drinking man--"a sot."
In a flash the plan was conceived and put into execution. The
temptation, of course, was of the devil. Mr. Milligan hid the motive
from himself, pretending he hardly recognised it. The plan was what men
call a dirty trick; it was also irresistibly seductive. He opened the
door, stepped boldly, nose in the air, right over the hideous insect
on the floor, and fairly pranced into the outer passage. The brief
transit brought a hundred horrible sensations--that the hornet would
rise and sting his leg, that it would cling to his dressing-gown and
stab his spine, that he would step upon it and die, like Achilles, of
a heel exposed. But with these, and conquering them, was one other
stronger emotion that robbed the lesser terrors of their potency--that
Mr. Mullins would run precisely the same risks five seconds later,
unprepared. He heard the gloating insect buzz and scratch the
oil-cloth. But it was behind him. _He_ was safe!
"Good morning to you, Mr. Mullins," he observed with a gracious smile.
"I trust I have not kept you waiting."
"Mornin'!" grunted Mullins sourly in reply, as he passed him with a
distinctly hostile and contemptuous air. For Mullins, though depraved,
perhaps, was an honest man, abhorring parsons and making no secret of
his opinions--whence the bitter feeling.
All men, except those very big ones who are supermen, have something
astonishingly despicable in them. The despicable thing in Milligan
came uppermost now. He fairly chuckled. He met the snub with a calm,
forgiving smile, and continued his shambling gait with what dignity he
could towards his bedroom opposite. Then he turned his head to see. His
enemy would meet an infuriated hornet--an Egyptian hornet!--and might
not notice it. He might step on it. He might not. But he was bound to
disturb it, and rouse it to attack. The chances were enormously on the
clerical side. And its sting meant death.
"May God forgive me!" ran subconsciously through his mind. And side by
side with the repentant prayer ran also a recognition of the tempter's
eternal skill: "I hope the devil it will sting him!"