Whiskey had done its medicinal work. Alcohol had wrought its miracle. It
had paid something more off the long score it owed Antony Crespin.
Dr. Traherne knew it.
“Can you lock that door?” the soldier demanded, pointing towards the
corridor.
His wife ran to it breathlessly. “No key this side!” she told him
hoarsely.
Traherne went to it quickly. “Don’t open it,” he whispered. “There are
soldiers in the passage. I’ll hold it.” He put his back against the
door—and stood rock-like before it.
Major Crespin strode to the wireless instruments, and flung himself down
in the chair worn a little from the often sitting of what lay down below
the balcony, in the chair still warm from the human heat of living
Watkins.
Major Crespin took no thought of that. He was examining the instruments.
He examined them rapidly.
“The scoundrel had reduced the current,” he exclaimed, making an
adjustment with feverish haste, but steady, expert fingers. “Now the
wave-length!” He still was adjusting. He caught up the receivers, and
clapped them on—they too still a little warm from Watkins’ ears. Then
he began to transmit, sending their desperate cry for help out into the
alien spaces of air—their grand hailing cry of distress—over the
Himalayas to a British-held station. Traherne at the door, alert for the
slightest movement outside it, Lucilla breathless, drawn-eyed, watched
him breathlessly. They were openly nervous and anxious, tormented, but
Crespin worked calmly on, expert and confident, braced by the liquor
he’d gulped, doubly braced and better that he was doing something, and
knew that he was able to do something—something that might, by God’s
own mercy, and England’s own good luck, avail them, and succor.
He ended the first sending, and sat listening in quietly, while their
breath came in painful pants; Traherne’s hands knotted convulsively, the
agony-lines in the woman’s face cutting its loveliness deeper, slashing
furrow and sags of age on her youth.
“Do you get any answer?” Traherne whispered across the room, impatience
cracking through the leash of his prudence.
“No,” Crespin replied cheerfully, over his shoulder. “No; I don’t expect
any. It was scarcely worth listening-in—I’m sure they haven’t the
power. But it’s an even chance that I get them all the same. I’ll repeat
now—if I get the time.” Again the sure, dexterous fingers rushed over
the key. Once more their life-or-death call hurtled out into the almost
chartless ocean of atmosphere over the mountains of Rukh, calling, “For
our blood’s sake, and the flag’s, come save us.”
“Some one’s coming up the passage!” Dr. Traherne whispered sharply. “Go
on! Go on! I’ll _hold_ the door.”
“Come and be damned!” Antony Crespin said. And the subtle fingers went
gayly, carefully, very rapidly on.
Suddenly Traherne braced himself against the door, gripping its handle
till his knuckles showed white and sharp through the strained, tanned
skin. In another moment a sharp word of command was given outside, and
the rasping sound came in of shoulders heaved against the man-held door.
Traherne put all his strength, all his will, to the stand he made, but
gradually the door gave to the greater strength outside, and slowly but
surely three of Rukh’s guards pushed it open, and half tumbled into the
room, almost thrown down by the force of their own exertion. And
Traherne, drenched in his sweat—it dripped from him—was shoved by the
push of the opening door, till he stood, trembling, but not
untriumphant, not far from Mrs. Crespin.
Crespin went on transmitting—thought better of it—and pretended to be
finding some wave-length, careful that it should not be that to
Amil-Serai.
The corridor was a Babel. Hurried steps and guttural oaths, shrill
questions, hot commands choked and packed it.
Rukh came in quickly—it had not taken him long to come—an inscrutable
smile on his tan face, a murderous twinkle in his quickened eyes. He
grasped the situation instantly—lifted his eyebrows amusedly, keenly
surprised even in the moment’s imperative rush—he knew he had no time
to waste—to see not Traherne but Crespin at the instruments.
“Ah!” he exclaimed lightly. “When the cat’s away—” He laughed
delicately as he whipped out a revolver, and instantly fired.
He had aimed well. His eyes, wrist and fingers had been as steady and
cool as quick.
“Got me, by God!” Major Crespin exclaimed with a stolid grunt, as he
crumpled up, fell forward over the instrument. But he recovered himself
immediately, making the last great effort of his ebbing life, its
supreme effort perhaps, and, with a lightning-like rapidity, that seemed
more of intense living than of dying, unmade the instruments’
adjustment. Then with a tormented laugh, a ghastly sound, he pulled
himself up, groped with hands, eyes, sagging head, staggered back from
the wireless set and lurched into the arms that caught him and held him,
Lucilla, his wife’s, and Basil Traherne’s, while Rukh, smiling
impassively, stood and watched them—and the guard, crowding the
snuggery now—watched their Raja and waited his command.
They got the dying man to the couch, half dragging, half carrying him
there—he could not move—and as they passed him, the Raja drew
courteously back from their way.
They laid him down—very carefully. And he smiled at them as he groaned.
Traherne looked up, as he knelt holding him still, and ordered,
“Brandy!”
Lucilla went to the tantalus, filled a glass, and brought it back; she
held it towards Traherne, then drew it back, half-knelt, half-sat on the
couch where her husband lay; and it was she who held his last glass to
Antony Crespin’s gray, stiffening lips.
The Raja turned away quietly, and left them, motioning the guards back
to the corridor door. He himself strolled slowly to the wireless table,
saw the draft message, written in a woman’s hand, still lying there,
took it up and read it.
“Antony!” the wife sobbed.
He smiled—and a man’s love lit his filming eyes. Then they sought
Traherne’s. They gave each other a long, level look.
“Carry on!” Crespin said. Traherne nodded, tried to speak, choked, then
mastering himself with difficulty, muttered brokenly, “Well played,
sir.”
The death-rattle sounded, the hand Lucilla held was more lifeless and
colder, but it gripped hers yet. “Give my love,” he whispered her,
“to”—the rattle again—“the kiddies. Lu—will you”—again!—“kiss
them—for me?” She nodded. She could not speak. “Lu—Lu—Lu—” his voice
trailed off, and died in his rattling throat.
Rukh stood in the folding-door’s opening and held out towards Crespin
the paper on which their message was written. “How much of this did you
get through?” he asked in a clear, vibrant voice.
“Too late; he’ll not speak again,” Dr. Traherne thought. “You’ll get
nothing from—that”—for the form they held was cold and still.
But the physician was wrong. It quivered once more—the cold thing they
held—the ice-like hand clung once more to the woman’s fingers—Major
Crespin raised himself a little, something very human, alive, hate and
baffled defeat, gleamed through his dead eyes.
“Damn you”—he said clearly and bitterly—acknowledging defeat—“damn
you—none!”
Antony Crespin had gone. His corpse slithered back in their arms.
“Antony!”
But she knew that he would not answer her again.
She drew his head to her breast—and Traherne rose, and left them
together.
“All over, eh?” Rukh asked him quietly.
Dr. Traherne nodded.
A rougher noise muffled the woman’s quiet sobbing. Native soldiers burst
through the corridor door, and rushed pell-mell to the Raja. One spoke
to him wildly, two, not waiting the order, rushed on Traherne.
The man that had spoken, pointed to the open window. The Raja went to it
calmly, and looked out over the narrow balcony, and strolled back till
he stood facing Traherne but a few feet away.
“Tut, tut—most inconvenient,” he remarked languidly, not ill-naturedly.
“And foolish on your part—for now, if my brothers should be reprieved,
we cannot hear of it. What a pity—for you, perhaps. Otherwise—” he
shrugged slightly—“the situation remains unchanged. We adhere to our
program for to-morrow. The Major has only a few hours’ start of you.”
And he turned on his heel, and passed out through the billiard-room,
motioning something to the soldiers standing nearest Traherne.
When Lucilla Crespin looked up—it was not for some time—she was alone
in the room with—her husband.