shivered, and seemingly divined all that was in the young man's mind,
for he added: "You will learn to look _within_ for the woman.... You
would not find favor--in finding her without.... It is not for you--the
red desire of love!"
* * * * *
It was during these years in India that Bedient began to put down the
thoughts which delighted him during the long rides through the forest;
and something of the thrill of his reflections, as he watched old
_God-Mother_ from his cliff. He found great delight in this, and his
mind was integrated by expression. He recalled many little pictures of
the early years--not the actions, but the reflections of action. It was
fascinating. He found that his journal would bulk big presently, so he
took to polishing as he went along; chose the finest, toughest Indian
parchment--and wrote finely as this print--for it was clear to him that
he had entered upon what was to prove a life-habit.
The letters from Captain Carreras had become more frequent in late
years; in fact, there was almost always a letter en route either from
Preshbend or Equatoria.... The Captain wanted him to come; stronger and
stronger became the call. So far as money was concerned, he had done
extraordinarily well. He always wrote of this half-humorously.... At
last when Bedient was beginning his seventh year in the Punjab, there
came a letter which held a plaint not to be put aside.
Bedient was in his thirty-second year; and just at this time old Gobind
left his body for a last time beneath the camphor-tree. The young man
had sat before him the night before, and the holy man had told him in
symbolism--that the poor murky river of his life had made its last bend
through the forests, and was swiftly flowing into the sea of time and
space. Though he sat long after silence had settled down, Bedient did
not know (so softly and sweetly did the old saint depart) that the
_Sannyasin_ was tranced in death instead of meditation. It was not
until the next morning, when he heard the Sikh women of the village
weeping--one above all--that he understood. It was not a shock of grief
to these women, for such is their depth that the little matters which
concern all flesh and which are inevitable, cannot be made much ado of.
Still it was feminine and beautiful to him, their weeping; and possibly
the one who wept loudest had mothered old Gobind in her heart, and
there was emptiness in the thought that she could not fill his
begging-bowl again. Bedient, as well as others of the village, knew
that to Gobind, death was a long-awaited consummation; that he was gone
only from the physical eye of the village. _That_ missed him--as did
Bedient, who had loved to sit at the fleshly feet of the holy man....
But he loved all Preshbend, too.
And at length, he set out on foot for Lahore--often looking back.
SIXTH CHAPTER
THAT ISLAND SOMEWHERE
ALL these impressive years, from seventeen to thirty-two, had brought
Andrew Bedient nothing in the civilized sense of success. It is quickly
granted that he was a failure according to such standards. He had never
been in want nor debt, nor so poor that he could not cover another's
immediate human need if presented; yet the reserve energy of all these
years, in fact, of his whole life, as represented in gold, amounted to
less than three hundred dollars. Probably, outside of Asia, there was
not a white man who had accumulated three hundred dollars with less
thought; certainly in Asia there was none, white or black, who carried
this amount with less vital concern. Up the years, he had given no
thought to the oft-expressed eagerness of Captain Carreras to help him
in a substantial way. He had always felt that he would go to his
friend--at times had hungered for him--and now he answered the call.
Fifteen years since he had taken the hand of Captain Carreras and
laughingly refused to share the other's fortunes! Bedient remembered
how bashfully, but how genuinely, that had been suggested. Then the
Captain's manner had become crisp and nervous to hide his heart-break,
and the order was given with all the authority of the quarter-deck,
that Bedient must never fail in any extremity to make known his need.
But there had been no need--save for the friendship....
Strange old true heart that could not forget! Bedient felt it in every
letter. Thousands of acquaintances, but not a friend nor relative! He
thought about Bedient every day; an old man's heart turned to the boy
whose hands had suddenly fallen upon him with such amazing power.
Occasionally in the letters, there was an obvious effort to cover this
profundity of affection with a surface of humor, but it always broke
through before a page was blotted.... Equatoria, and his really
remarkable acquisitions there, were invariably matters for light
touches. He had picked up big lands for almost nothing; and he found
himself presently in strong favor with what was probably the most
stable government Equatoria had ever known. The Captain's original
purpose of acquiring the mineral rights of certain rich rivers had
greatly prospered. Yes, there was gold in the river-beds....
Incidentally, to keep his hands "from mauling the natives," he had
caused to be planted at different times, several thousand acres of
cacao trees, all of which were now bearing. The Captain explained
naïvely that these had turned out rather handsomely, since the natives
harvested the nuts for him at a ludicrously low figure, and Holland
sent ships twice a year for the product. "Just suggest anything to this
soil, and the answer is perennials. We can't bother with stuff that has
to be planted more than once," he observed. Bedient returned many times
to the letter that told about the goats. Part of it read:
"There was a rocky strip of land in the fork of two rivers--several
thousand acres--that almost shut itself off, so narrow and rocky was
the neck.... For a long time this big bottle of land troubled
me--couldn't think of any use to put it to--until somebody mentioned
goats. In a fit of industry, I shipped over a few goat families from
Mexico, turned them loose in the natural corral--and forgot all about
them for a couple of years. You see, the natives are fruit-eaters, and
it's too hot for skins. My men occasionally brought me word that the
goats were doing well. Finally, I sent a party over to pile a few more
rocks at the mouth. They came back pale and awed, begging me to come
and look. I went. I tell you, boy, there were parades, caravans,
pageants of goats in there--all happy in the stone-crop.... I haven't
dared to look for a year or more, but with a good marine-glass from the
upper window of the _hacienda_, you can see a portion of the tract.
They're hopping about over there--thick as fleas!... That's the way
everything multiplies. Come and extricate me from the goat problem!...
Dear lad, I do need you--not for goats, nor for fruit, nor mining, nor
chocolate interests, not to be my cook--forgive the mention of a
delightful memory--but as a lonely old man needs a boy--his boy."
* * * * *
Only a half-day in New York on the way down to Equatoria, or the
alternative of waiting over a ship, meaning eight days later with
Captain Carreras. Bedient could not bring his mind to the latter delay
at this stage of the journey, though the metropolis called to him
amazingly. Here he had been born; and here was the setting of many
early memories, now seen through a kind of faëry dusk. With but an hour
or so in lower Manhattan, he swept in impressions like a panorama-film,
his mind held to no single thought for more than an instant. The finest
outer integument had never been worn from his nerves, so that nothing
of the pandemonium distressed; but what his oriental training called
the illusion of it all--really dismayed. It seemed as if the millions
were locked in some terrible slavery, which they did not fully
understand, only that they must hurry, and never cease the devouring
toil. In the hideous walled cities of China, the same thought had often
come to Bedient--that these myriads had been condemned by the sins of
their past lives, blindly to gather together and maim each others'
souls.
Still there was some big meaning for him in New York. Bedient realized
that sooner or later he would return. Toward the end of the afternoon,
as he looked back from the deck of the Dryden steamer _Hatteras_, he
realized that New York had dazed him; that something of the grand
gloom, something of the granite, had entered his heart. Perhaps it was
well for him to have these glimpses, and to hurry away to adjust
himself in the silence--before he took up his place in New York again.
A week later the _Hatteras_ awaited dawn, sixty miles off the northern
coast of Equatoria. Treacherous coral reefs extend that far out to sea,
and the lights of the passage into port are few. This is an ugly part
of the Caribbean in high seas. Moreover, the coral has a way of
changing its ramifications; its spires build rapidly in the warm
surface water.
All the forenoon the liner crawled in toward the harbor, and at last
through the blazing noon, Bedient saw Coral City in a foreground of
palm-decked hills. Certain fresh-tinned roofs close to the water-front
reflected the sun like a burning-glass. Nearer still, a few white
buildings on the seaward slopes shone through the heat haze with the
vividness of jewels--whitened walls gleaming among the palms and
colorful turrets of pure Spanish line. The strip of beach, white as a
road of shells, lost itself on either side of the city in its own
dazzling light. Films of heat danced upon the painted roofs. The sky
was a blinding azure that tranced the hills and harbor with its
brilliance, silence and magic.
Clouds of yellow mud boiled up from the bottom of the oozy harbor as
the _Hatteras_ dropped her hook; and the sharks moved about, all the
more shuddery in their tameness. Two launches were making for the
steamer, and Bedient, sheltering his eyes from the light, discovered
the little Captain standing well-forward on the nearest--a puffy,
impatient face, pathetically unconscious of its own workings in
anxiety. Bedient's uplifted hand caught the other's eye as the launch
neared. The old adventurer needed a second or two to take in the tall
figure and the changed countenance--then a look of gladness, full, deep
and tender with embarrassment, crowned the years and the long journey.
Bedient had to remember hard, after dozens of fluent and delightful
letters, that he must encounter the old bashfulness again.... Plainly
the Captain showed the years. There was the dark dry look of some inner
consuming, and the trembling mouth was lined and assertive where
formerly it was unnoticed in the general cheer. There was a break in
rotundity. Perhaps this, more than anything else, put a strange hush
upon the meeting. Bedient was glad he had not delayed longer; and he
saw he must break through the embarrassment, as the boy and the cook of
years ago would not have thought of doing. The old perfume sought his
nostrils delicately with a score of memories.
The Captain seemed to have an absurd number of natives at his disposal.
Bedient's small pieces of baggage were prodigiously handled. A carriage
was provided, and the two drove up the main thoroughfare, _Calle Real_.
The little city was appointed and its streets named by the Spanish.
Parts of it were very old, and Bedient liked the setting, which was new
to him--the native courtesy and the mellowness of architecture which
that old race of conquerors has left in so many isles of the Western
sea.
At the head of the rising highway shone a gilded dome, a sort of crown
for the city. Bedient had seen it shining from the harbor, and supposed
it to be the capitol. The building stood upon an eminence like a
temple. _Calle Real_ parted to the right and left at its gates. Their
carriage passed to the right, and within the walls were groves of
palms, gardens of rose, rhododendron, jasmine, flames of poinsettia,
and a suggestion of mystic glooms where orchids breathed--fruit,
fragrance, fountains.
"The Capitol?" laughed the Captain. "No, my boy, those little
rain-rotted, stone buildings near the water-front are the government
property. However, you never can tell about Equatoria. There are folks
who believe that this stone palace of Señor Rey is fated to become the
Capitol. It might happen in two ways. Señor Rey might overturn the
government and move headquarters to his own house. You see, he loves
fine things too well to reside back yonder. Or, the government
overturning Celestino Rey--would ultimately move up here on the hill."
Bedient laughed softly. It was all delightfully young to him. "Then
Señor Rey aspires?"
"That's the idea--only we put it 'conspires' down here.... It is really
a remarkable institution--this of Señor Rey's," Carreras went on. He
forgot himself in a narrative. "Now, if you were in New York and had a
hundred thousand dollars of another man's money, and wanted to
relax--you would come here to Equatoria, and put up with Celestino Rey.
To all appearances, _The Pleiad_ is a hotel, but in reality it's just a
club for those who have taken the short cut to fortune--the direct and
amiable way of loot. There's so much red tape in Equatoria that a New
York warrant for arrest would be about as compelling in our city as a
comic valentine.
"So you see, Andrew, those who used to fly to Mexico now come here.
This is the most interesting colony of crime-cultured gentlemen in the
world--ex-cashiers, penmen, promoters and gamblers, all move in those
great halls and gardens. There are big games. Señor Rey is an artist in
many ways, not only as a master of gambling chances. His palace is
filled with art treasures from all lands. He was a pirate in these
waters--yes, within your years. I heard of him in Asia as the most
murderous pirate the Caribbean had ever known--and this was the Spanish
Main. Of course, stories build about a picturesque figure. The Señor
must be seventy years old now, but a man of mystery, fabulously
rich.... Just a little while ago, he brought over a fresh bride from
South America. They say she's a thriller to look at. The Spaniard calls
her his 'Glow-worm'----"
"Truly a honeymoon name," Bedient observed.
"You see," the Captain concluded, "I can speak of _The Pleiad_ only
from the outside. That's the Señor's name for his establishment,
possibly because there are seven wings to his castle, but others say it
was the name of a gold-ship that he took in the early days. Anyway, Rey
and I don't neighbor. He's becoming formidable, I'm told, in the
politics of the Island. He's at the head of a very powerful colony
nevertheless, and no matter what its inter-relations are, it hangs
together against the law and the outside world. Rey wants more say back
yonder at headquarters, and our Dictator, Jaffier, all things
considered, is a very good man, but old and stubborn and impolitic. He
won't be driven even by Celestino Rey, who in turn is not a man to be
denied. He is probably richer than Equatoria, and then Coral City lives
off this institution as Monaco lives off Monte Carlo. He doubtless
commands the whole lower element of the town. The word is, Celestino
Rey intends to run the Island first-hand--if he can't run it through
the powers that are."
All of which Bedient found of interest, inasmuch as he was passing
through the heart of these strange affairs. Having any part in them
seemed unearthly remote. The carriage was taking the gradual rise
behind a pair of fine ponies, and the view behind, over _The Pleiad_ to
the sapphire water, was noble. The horizon, beyond the harbor
distances, was a blazing intensity of light that stung the eyes to
quick contraction. The Captain sat back in the cushions, weary from
talking, but his face was happy, and he took in the exterior, and
something of the inner proportions, of the young man, with a sense of
awe. He did not try to explain yet--even to himself.
The _hacienda_ was slightly over twenty miles interior. Bedient was
entranced by the sunset from the heights. Then the slow ride to the
Carreras House through the darkened hills: the smell of warm earth from
the thick growths by the trail-side; little stars slipping into place
like the glisten of fireflies in a garden, or gems in a maiden's hair;
a scandalously-naked new moon lying low, like an arc of white-hot wire
in the purple twilight, and always behind them, a majestic splash of
jewel-edged crimson which showed the West.
And presently, from a high curve in the road, they saw the lights of
the _hacienda_ bold upon its eminence--and a dark valley between. Into
this night they descended, for the last course of the journey; and as
the ponies clattered upward again, white-coated natives came forth to
meet them. Bedient was further astonished at their volubility and easy
laughter. They spoke a debased Spanish, which the Captain had fallen
into,--as difficult of understanding for one whose medium was pure
Castilian as for one who spoke English. There was that mystery upon the
environs that always comes to one who reaches his destination in the
darkness. And to Bedient the sensation was not wholly of joy. These
were wild hills, not without grandeur, but there was something of
chaos, too, to him who came from the roof of the world. He missed the
peace of the greater mountains. His heart hungered to go out to the
natives crowding around--white-toothed men and women of incessant
laughter--but the tones of their voices checked the current. It was
emptiness--but nothing he had to give seemed able to enter.
The Captain was ill with fatigue. His face--the weakness expressed in
the smiling mouth--remained before Bedient's mind, as he followed a
giggling native boy to the large upper room which was for him. Rows of
broad windows faced the South and East, while a corridor ran to the
North for the cool wind at night. Electric lights and glistening black
floors--the first effect came from these. Then the details: rugs that
matched, by art or accident, as perfectly as a valley of various
grain-fields pleases the eye from a mountain-side; a great teak bed,
caned with bamboo strips and canopied with silk net, yards of which one
could crush in his hand, so nearly immaterial was this mosquito fabric;
sumptuous steamer-chairs; a leather reading-couch that could be moved
to the best breeze or light with a touch of the finger; a broad-side of
books and a vast writing-table, openly dimensioned to defy litter--the
whole effect was that of coolness and silence and room. Everything a
man needed seemed to be there and breathing spaciously.... Turning
through a draped door, the astonished wanderer found completeness
again--everything that makes a bath fragrant and refreshing--even to
Carreras scent and a set of perfect English razors.... It was all new
to Bedient. For an hour he _tried_ things--and still there were drawers
and cases of undiscovered novelties and luxuries--details of wealth
which make delightful and uncommon the mere processes of living. Very
much restored in his fresh clothing, and eagerly, he went down to
dinner.
The little man was waiting with expectant smile under a dome of
sheltered lights in the dining-hall. Something of his dazed, ashen look
brought back to Bedient the afternoon of the great wind--the Captain
expecting to stick to his ship.... The table was set for two, and on
one corner was the fresh handkerchief and the rose-dark meerschaum
bowl. Bedient took his old place at the other's chair until the Captain
was seated--and both were laughing strangely.... The ships from Holland
brought all manner of European delicacies. Fresh meats and Northern
vegetables arrived every eight days in the refrigerators of the
alternating Dryden steamers, _Hatteras_ and _Henlopen_, from New York.
Most tropical fruits were native to Equatoria--those thick, abbreviated
red bananas, and small oranges with thin skin of _suede_ finish, so
sharply sweet that one never forgets the first taste. These were served
in their own foliage.
Much of the solid and comfortable furnishing of the _hacienda_ had come
from the old English house of the Carreras' in Surrey. The Captain's
cook, Leadley, and his personal factotum, Falk, were English. A dozen
natives kept the great house in order; and their white dress was as
fresh and pleasing as the stewards of an Atlantic liner. As a matter of
fact, Captain Carreras had softened in this kingly luxury, the infinite
resourcefulness of which was startling to Bedient, who had known but
simplicities all his years, and who even in the Orient had been his own
servant.
The Captain lit his pipe but forgot to keep it going. His eyes turned
to Bedient again and again, and each time with deeper regard. Often he
cleared his voice--but failed to speak. The young man plunged into the
heart of things--and finally with effort, the other interrupted.
"You are not what I expected--forgive me, Andrew----"
"You mean I've disappointed you? Thinking a long time about
one--sometimes throws the mind off the main road of reality--"
"Dear God, not disappointed.... The Man has come to you in a different
way than I expected, that's all. What has India been doing to you?"
"It made New York very strange to me," said Bedient.
"You are like an Oriental," Carreras added. "Oh, they are all mad up in
The States.... It's very good to have you back. I wonder why it
was--that I never doubted you'd come?" Here the Captain swallowed some
wine without adequately preparing his throat, and fell to coughing.
Then he rose with the remark that he had experienced altogether too
much joy for one old man, in a single day--and started for bed in
confusion. Bedient sat back laughing softly, but noting the feeble
movement of the other's limbs, quickly gave his arm. Up they went
together.... In the big room alone, Bedient put on night garments; and
unsatisfied, crossed after a time to the Captain's quarters. He found
the old man sitting in the dark by the window, the meerschaum
glowing.... It may have been the darkness altogether; or that Bedient
as a man gave the other an affection that the boy could not; in any
event that night, they found each other across the externals.
This was the cue for further grand talks--pajamas and darkness. Often,
if it were not too late, they would hear the natives singing in their
cabins. The haunting elemental melody of the African curiously blended
with the tuneful and cavalierish songs of Spain and fitted into the
majestic nights. The darkies sang to the heart of flesh. In such
moments, Equatoria was at her loveliest for Bedient--but the clear
impersonal meditations did not come to him. In a hundred ways he had
been given understanding during the first fortnight, of that something
he had missed the first night on the Island. These people were infant
souls. They were children, rudimentary in every thought. Theirs were
sensations, not emotions; superstitions, not faiths. Their
consciousness was never deeper than the skin. And fresh from his
spacious years in India, where everything is old in spirit, where more
often than not the beggar is a sage,--to encounter in this land of
beauty, a people who were but babes in the thought of God--gave to
Bedient the painful sense that his inner life was dissipating. There
was no Gobind to restore him. It was as if the Spirit had favored the
East; that Africa and the Western Isles had been cast apart as unfit
for the experiment of the soul.
Moments of poignant sorrow were these when Bedient realized he was not
of the West; that he irrevocably missed the great inner _con_tent of
India, and would continue to hunger for it, until he returned, or
coarsened his sensibilities to the Western vibration. This last was as
far from him as the commoner treason to a friend. There were moments
when he feared Captain Carreras almost understood. That dear old seaman
through his solitudes, his natural cleanness and kindness, his real
love, and more than all, through those vague visions which come late to
men of simple hearts--had seemed, from several startling sayings, to
touch the very ache in the young man's breast. These approaches were
under the cover of darkness: