A QUESTION ANSWERED
Thereafter both sat silent for a little while. The stream of people
across the courtyard had diminished. High up on the great platform by the
lighted arches the throng still pressed and shifted. But here there was
quietude. The clatter of voices had died down. A band playing somewhere
near at hand could be heard. Violet Oliver for the first time in her life
had been brought face to face with a real tragedy. She was conscious of
it as something irremediable and terribly sad. And for her own share in
bringing it about she was full of remorse. She looked at Shere Ali as he
sat beside her, his eyes gazing into the courtyard, his face tired and
hopeless. There was nothing to be done. Her thoughts told her so no less
clearly than his face. Here was a life spoilt at the beginning. But that
was all that she saw. That the spoilt life might become an instrument of
evil--she was blind to that possibility: she thought merely of the youth
who suffered and still must suffer; who was crippled by the very means
which were meant to strengthen him: and pity inclined her towards him
with an ever-increasing strength.
"I couldn't do it," she repeated silently to herself. "I couldn't do it.
It would be madness."
Shere Ali raised his head and said with a smile, "I am glad they are not
playing the tune which I once heard on the Lake of Geneva, and again in
London when I said good-bye to you."
And then Violet sought to comfort him, her mind still working on what he
had told her of his life in Chiltistan.
"But it will become easier," she said, beginning in that general way. "In
time you will rule in Chiltistan. That is certain." But he checked her
with a shake of the head.
"Certain? There is the son of Abdulla Mohammed, who fought against my
father when Linforth's father was killed. It is likely enough that those
old days will be revived. And I should have the priests against me."
"The Mullahs!" she exclaimed, remembering in what terms he was wont to
speak of them to her.
"Yes," he answered, "I have set them against me already. They laid their
traps for me while I was on the sea, and I would not fall into them. They
would have liked to raise the country against my father and the English,
just as they raised it twenty-five years ago. And they would have liked
me to join in with them."
He related to Violet the story of his meeting with Safdar Khan at the
Gate of Lahore, and he repeated the words which he had used in Safdar
Khan's hearing.
"It did not take long for my threats to be repeated in the bazaar of
Kohara, and from the bazaar they were quickly carried to the ears of the
Mullahs. I had proof of it," he said with a laugh.
Violet asked him anxiously for the proof.
"I can tell to a day when the words were repeated in Kohara. For a
fortnight after my coming the Mullahs still had hopes. They had heard
nothing, and they met me always with salutations and greetings. Then
came the day when I rode up the valley and a Mullah who had smiled the
day before passed me as though he had not noticed me at all. The news
had come. I was sure of it at the time. I reined in my horse and called
sharply to one of the servants riding behind me, 'Who is that?' The
Mullah heard the question, and he turned and up went the palm of his
hand to his forehead in a flash. But I was not inclined to let him off
so easily."
"What did you do?" Violet asked uneasily.
"I said to him, 'My friend, I will take care that you know me the next
time we meet upon the road. Show me your hands!' He held them out, and
they were soft as a woman's. I was close to a bridge which some workmen
were repairing. So I had my friend brought along to the bridge. Then I
said to one of the workmen, 'Would you like to earn your day's wage and
yet do no work?' He laughed, thinking that I was joking. But I was not. I
said to him, 'Very well, then, see that this soft-handed creature does
your day's work. You will bring him to me at the Palace this evening, and
if I find that he has not done the work, or that you have helped him, you
will forfeit your wages and I will whip you both into the bargain.' The
Mullah was brought to me in the evening," said Shere Ali, smiling grimly.
"He was so stiff he could hardly walk. I made him show me his hands
again, and this time they were blistered. So I told him to remember his
manners in the future, and I let him go. But he was a man of prominence
in the country, and when the story got known he became rather
ridiculous." He turned with a smile to Violet Oliver.
"My people don't like being made ridiculous--least of all Mullahs."
But there was no answering smile on Violet's face. Rather she was
troubled and alarmed.
"But surely that was unwise?"
Shere Ali shrugged his shoulders.
"What does it matter?" he said. He did not tell her all of that story.
There was an episode which had occurred two days later when Shere Ali was
stalking an ibex on the hillside. A bullet had whistled close by his ear,
and it had been fired from behind him. He was never quite sure whether
his father or the Mullah was responsible for that bullet, but he inclined
to attribute it to the Mullah.
"Yes, I have the priests against me," he said. "They call me the
Englishman." Then he laughed. "A curious piece of irony, isn't it?"
He stood up suddenly and said: "When I left England I was in doubt. I
could not be sure whether my home, my true home, was there or in
Chiltistan."
"Yes, I remember," said Violet.
"I am no longer in doubt. It is neither in England nor in Chiltistan. I
am a citizen of no country. I have no place anywhere at all."
Violet Oliver stood up and faced him.
"I must be going. I must find my friends," she said, and as he took her
hand, she added, "I am so very sorry."
The words, she felt, were utterly inadequate, but no others would come to
her lips, and so with a trembling smile she repeated them. She drew her
hand from his clasp and moved a step or two away. But he followed her,
and she stopped and shook her head.
"This is really good-bye," she said simply and very gravely.
"I want to ask you a question," he explained. "Will you answer it?"
"How can I tell you until you ask it?"
He looked at her for a moment as though in doubt whether he should speak
or not. Then he said, "Are you going to marry--Linforth?"
The blood slowly mounted into her face and flushed her forehead
and cheeks.
"He has not even asked me to marry him," she said, and moved down into
the courtyard.
Shere Ali watched her as she went. That was the last time he should see
her, he told himself. The last time in all his life. His eyes followed
her, noting the grace of her movements, the whiteness of her skin, all
her daintiness of dress and person. A madness kindled in his blood. He
had a wild thought of springing down, of capturing her. She mounted the
steps and disappeared among the throng.
And they wanted him to marry--to marry one of his own people. Shere Ali
suddenly saw the face of the Deputy Commissioner at Lahore calmly
suggesting the arrangement, almost ordering it. He sat down again upon
the couch and once more began to laugh. But the laughter ceased very
quickly, and folding his arms upon the high end of the couch, he bowed
his head upon them and was still.