THE PIVOTS OF LIFE
Lance Carlyon was not, as a rule, given either to loss of spirits or
temper, yet both were at vanishing-point as he flung off the garb of
his namesake of the lake; swearing as he did so that he would never
wear the blessed thing again. It cramped him all over; body and soul.
And then--for he knew his Tennyson well, as one of his name could
hardly fail to do--his memory raced swiftly over the love-loyal
knight's career; until suddenly he laughed at a phrase which had always
tickled him. "_So groaned Sir Lancelot--not knowing he should die a
holy man_."
If he had?--what would have been the result? Would he simply have
refrained from remorseful pain, or from the honour rooted in dishonour
which caused it?
With a mighty stretch of his sound young muscles at the relief, Lance
caught up his Indian clubs, and went elaborately, conscientiously,
through his daily series of exercises before putting on his
dust-coloured shooting-suit, and swathing himself with the necessary
plentitude of belts, cartridge-boxes, and gaiters. The latter--being,
after Indian fashion, simply a couple of bandages neatly twined--were,
as a matter of fact, much tighter than his discarded greaves; but the
clip of them about his calves was familiarly reminiscent of many a
day spent out in the jungle alone, or at most with some companion of
Am-ma's type. A man whose only claim to be called one in these later
days was his undoubted dominion over the birds of the air, the fish of
the sea, the beasts of the field. How jolly it had been! And how the
deuce could a fellow like Vincent Dering--
Lance, sorting cartridges systematically with an eye to a possible
snipe, whistled a tune which Vincent was always asked to sing at the
Smiths', "_Sweet is true love--and sweet is Death_."
Well, he preferred the Death. So, catching up his gun, he made his way
to the crypt-like flight of steps which, half way down the straight
river-edged wall of the Fort--between its northern bastion where the
stream turned hillwards at a sharp angle, and the southern one beside
the bathing-steps--led to a tiny landing-stage. Here the canoe, which
he had hired for such excursions from Ramanund (whose last experience
of boating had rather sickened him of its pleasures), lay moored.
Keeping the paddle ready for steering, he let the stream, which here
clung swift and smooth to the wall, take him with it; partly because he
had no wish to be seen by any revellers in the palace. But the sight of
the latter made him slip the paddle-blade into the sliding water, and
send the canoe swerving out for a better view.
It was wondrously beautiful, seen from the river, with every line
and curve of light reflected almost as clear as the reality. The
sight held his attention, so that he was abreast of the bathing-steps
ere he remembered his desire for secrecy, and, in his haste, the
canoe--answering to his swift stroke--almost spun round, bringing him,
in an instant, within an ace of collision with the hard brick. As it
was, he heard a faint grating sound.
"By Jove! that was a near shave," he muttered to himself.
Out of the darkness of the courtyard, for the unilluminated block of
the palace rose between it and the white radiance, came a voice:--
"Is't thou? Hast brought the tool--we must get the job done ere dawn
and--"
The rest was inaudible as the river slid him on. What were they up to?
he wondered idly; taking advantage, doubtless, of the absolute
desertion of the courtyard, the entry to which had been blocked for the
night, the main entrance to the palace having been prepared for the
reception of the guests. Were they meddling with the padlock Dering had
put on the tampion which stopped the muzzle of the old gun? Time to see
to that in the morning.
He was now steering his way just on the edge of the shadow cast by the
wall on the water, and in front of him jutted out a balcony smaller
than the rest, and nearer the river. Those upper ones, he knew, were
part of the chapel; but this--
He looked at it narrowly, wondering if he had ever noticed it before,
then let the paddle sink idly across the boat, and sat staring at what
he saw. Dering, of course! But the woman! Who on earth was she? A
native? Hardly; and yet he did not remember seeing anyone at the ball
whose dress was in the least like this; even in the dark it glittered.
"Do you call that love?" came a voice echoing softly over the water. "I
don't. When I love, I mean to give, not to take; and the more I give,
the more I'll have to give; because, you see, love will come back--it
must."
By all that was incomprehensible, Laila Bonaventura! And, if there was
any certainty in these shadows, Dering's arm--
Phew! Lance knew his Shakespeare also; had, in fact, a curiously
ingenuous and human acquaintance with even the exact words of the great
master. So as he drifted on, leaving those two in the balcony, a line
drifted with him:--
"She whom I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.
The other did not so."
He felt a righteous relief at the idea, for he was eminently virtuous.
Poor old Vincent! This was better than the other--he paused
doubtfully--Well! different people had different tastes. He, for
instance, had never admired Mrs. Smith. And then Dering, good chap as
he was, had, everybody knew, a touch of the tar-brush himself. Only a
touch, still it made a difference; for one had to consider the
children. For instance, when _he_ married--Why a vision of a child's
head he had once seen, far away in the north, covered with soft, waving
curls of sun-bright red-gold hair, chestnut--yes, chestnut hair, the
very colour of that beast of a pony who boshed him at polo--should have
come to him at that moment he did not know; but he fled from it,
bashful as any girl over her first fancy, and, bending forward, sent
the canoe racing the foam-bubbles on the swifter current with all the
strength of his young arms.
That was the mission house, ending the long curve of the city. The
mission house, where _she_ slept--the boat raced harder here--where
_she_ lived in the thick of it--God bless her! Here the boat slackened,
partly because the spit was reached, and in the darkness, made visible
by that soft white radiance behind him, he must not miss Am-ma's hut.
Am-ma, who had dominion over wild duck, among other things in that
munificent gift of the Creator to His own image. Am-ma, who must come
out and show those who had fallen from their high estate through
civilization how to lure the birds to their death.
"_Sweet is true Love though given in vain,
And sweet is Death which puts an end to pain_."
The refrain came back in this connection, and Lance's voice, as he sang
it, if not musical, held a hint of something beyond the mere maudlin
expression-stop of the ordinary song-singer.
He need not, he told himself, have feared to overlook Am-ma's wigwam;
for there, not far from the point of the spit it stood, all lit up;
circled round closely with a row of little lights like those at the
palace. Were the primitive folk down here aping their masters and
having a ball of their own? Smiling at the thought, he ran the canoe on
shore and walked up to the reed hut. Then he saw that the circle of
lights was broken by a dark patch. It was Am-ma himself, squatting on
his heels. To one side of him, firmly fixed in the sand, was a
freshly-killed crocodile's head, its jaws ingeniously distended by a
thin cane to which a string was attached. By pulling this the dead
mouth seemed to open and shut, as the pliant rattan bent under the
strain and sprang back again. In his other hand he held a bloody spear.
Despite these fearful preparations, however, the first glimpse of an
approaching figure set him visibly trembling with fright; until, on its
coming nearer the lights, he sprang to his feet with a sudden
blubbering shout of relief.
"I thought--this fool, this atom of dust, thought--the _Huzoor_ was the
devil!" he explained, capering and chuckling to make much of the joke,
now that the fear of its being a reality was over.
"The devil!" echoed Lance. "What the dickens should the devil come here
for?"
Am-ma looked half-grave, half-important. Did not the _Huzoor_ know, he
explained, that when life was coming into the world, all the demons in
it wanted to get hold of the new-born thing? Hence the lights, hence
the crocodile's head and the spear; also his own valiance. Hence, also,
the impossibility of his accompanying the Presence after duck. If he,
the father of the thing to be born, was not there to fight the demons,
what hope could there be for the son?--and here this quaint, broad,
ugly face grew wistful--for it must be a son, surely, this time. No! he
had no children; the demons had taken them all, every one; though he
had left nothing undone, though he had sought out one medicine-man
after another. What did it matter? he asked pathetically, if the charm
were of one faith or another, if it brought a child. He had tried all.
His own and everybody else's. But they all died, the children, girls
and boys; died when they were born. The demon somehow slipped through
the lights; the charm was not strong enough; that was all. So this
time, when he had seen that the _Huzoors_ had the _Dee-puk-rag_, the
sign of kings, that they were, indeed, light-bringers, as his people
had been of old, he had sent for the Miss-_sahiba_, and she had come.
She was there in the hut, even now, fighting the demons.
Lance gave a quick catch of his breath, and stood silent. Right over
the miserable reed hut, clear against the violet of the moonless sky,
rose those palaces of stars lit up for pleasure. It almost seemed to
him that the slight breeze, which was beginning to whisper of the dawn,
held in it the faint rhythm of a distant waltz.
And here, at his feet, was this hut, lit up for pain. He heard that
also, in a faint moan, which sent a shiver through him; the shiver of
one who finds himself bare of accustomed covering, out in the open, far
from any shelter from the cold sky.
"Of course you can't come, Am-ma," he said, moving off. "Well! I hope
the Miss-_sahiba_ will--will keep the devil away. I--I--expect she
will!"
As he floated a little further down stream, vaguely obeying the
instructions which Am-ma, regretful for all his anxiety, had shouted
after him, he told himself that if anybody could, she would. If a
fellow married her, for instance--
He drew the canoe on to the sand-bank, Am-ma had spoken of, somewhat
sooner than his directions warranted, in order to stifle thought by
action. And it needed every sense on the alert to tell in the darkness
if one was keeping a fairly straight path. That scarcely audible "_lip,
lip_" on the right meant that the water was close by, running an inch
or two below a sheer yet crumbling edge of earth. That yielding
softness on the left meant the ridge of dry sand. His way was between
the two. Every now and again a watchful quack, a distant flutter, told
him that the ducks were not far off. And in the east the faintest
lightening of the purple warned him he was none too soon, since the
dawn in India comes quickly.
But this must be the place; a sort of bunker right at the end of the
bank. Here, cuddling down almost luxuriously into loose dry sand, still
warm from yesterday's sun, he waited for that hint of light in the far
east to grow strong enough for him to see.
It is always an experience to sit and wait for daylight, ignorant,
helpless till it comes, of what lies close at hand. Lance Carlyon,
crouching in that still warm sand, felt a sudden forlornness, a sense
of having parted with something.
But, almost on the heels of this, came a sense of having found
something; of strange, quick, new, yet familiar companionship. It
seemed to him as he watched that faint grey lightening in the far east,
that he did so, not as Lance Carlyon, but as an atom in the great,
round, spinning world whose curved edge grew darker against the coming
light.
He laid his gun beside him, and, kneeling in the soft, still warm sand,
rested his arms on the edge of the bunker, ears and eyes alert as any
wild creature's. He could hear the soft rustle of feathers in the dark,
the soft swish of the water as something stirred in it, the soft sob
with which an inch or two of that tiny, unseen sand-cliff gave way to
the stream, the softer gurgle, as of laughter, with which the water
took its toll of earth.
So, thinking not at all, simply as a sand grain in the sand around him,
the mystery, the certainty of dawn held him, as it held all things.
The curved line of the world darkened, the shadow of it deepened, as
the grey of the sky grew tender as the eye of a mother watching her
child asleep. But only for a space. Then the grey hardened, and a
trumpet call from a whistling teal told that the great fight of dawn
had come.
So, for another space, the Dark and the Light faced each other, waiting
for that second trumpet call.
It came, borne on a faint rustle of wind which crept over the edge of
the world from the footsteps of the coming day. The shiver of it swept
through the shadows; they broke into battalions to face the foe. So
into companies, till, as the red spear-points of the sun showed over
the horizon, they rallied darkly, desperately, behind each hint of
rising ground, in each hint of sheltering hollow. Rallied in vain, for
below the spear-points a glittering curve, as of a golden helmet, came
resistless.
Then Lance Carlyon stood up, hastily, gun in hand. But he was too late.
The mystery of Dawn had held him helpless, as it had held the birds;
and now they, too, were freemen of the conquering day.
He fired a couple of shots after them, more as a salute to the victor
than in any hope of slaughter; so, with a laugh, turned homeward.
The canoe shot against the stream gaily, but, as he neared the spit, a
sudden desire to go home by land assailed him. Am-ma could take the
boat back; there might be a chance of a snipe, in that low-lying bit
below the mission house, and--
He blushed, even in solitude, at his own moral turpitude. Why not tell
the truth; to himself, at least?
He found Am-ma, worn out by his night's anxiety, with his head between
his knees, fast asleep; leaving the crocodile, at the agony point of an
unending yawn, in sole charge of the little circle of flickering
lights. Some of them had gone out, the rest looked trumpery in the
growing blaze of day. But what matter? Since, half an hour before, Erda
Shepherd had come out of the wigwam with a living child, wrapped quite
daintily in an orthodox square of new flannel.
"It is a son, Am-ma, and I think it is very like you," she had said,
with a laugh at the wrinkled, wizened old face peering out at its new
world.
But Am-ma had grovelled on the ground with tears and cries of
blubbering joy. He had been right. The _Huzoors_ were kings. They knew
the _Dee-puk-rag_. They were the light-bringers, the life-bringers.
He had never asked after his wife, but when Erda had gone inside again,
he sat, and in his anxiety to keep the devil from those inside, had
twitched away at his string so fiercely that the crocodile's head lost
its ferocity in what appeared to be a fit of laughter, until sleep,
from sheer relief, overtaking the puller, the laugh had ended in that
steady yawn.
Am-ma was on his feet, alert in a second, however, at Lance's touch,
like a wild beast.
"'Tis all right, _Huzoor_" he grinned broadly. "'Tis a son." Then once
again the exuberance of his delight made him grovel in the sand at the
feet of the Master.
"And the Miss-_sahiba?_ Hath she gone?" asked Lance, blushing once
more, now that his own self-deception became impossible.
"Nay, she remains inside," asserted Am-ma. But a look which he gave in
the hut proved him wrong. She must have gone out the other way while he
slept, he confessed, sheepishly; but there was nothing wrong. The devil
had not won a way in; both mother and son were dozing peacefully.
Lance, his hope of walking back with Erda gone, felt inclined to take
to the canoe again. Then a savage desire to kill something, at least,
suggested the possibility of a snipe in the little swampy bit below the
city wall, not far from the mission house; so bidding Am-ma take the
canoe up at his leisure, he walked off, feeling, for him, in a very bad
temper.
He forgot his quarrel with fate, however, in a second, when, the bit of
swamp reached, something buzzed up to fall slantwise like a stone;
something which, on picking it up, he found to be the rare Sabine
snipe, painted, absolutely beautiful, in its delicate harmony of
colour. And the luck did not come singly, for from behind a clump of
tiger-grass came Erda Shepherd, a trifle alarmed at the possibility of
being shot if she did not show herself.
Lance walked up to her, swiftly, the dead bird in his hand. "You must
be awfully tired, being up all night," he began--
He had a way of rushing things, Erda thought, which was disconcerting
when one was anxious to keep on the surface. "And you too, Mr.
Carlyon," she interrupted; "did you enjoy the ball?" She felt pleased
at this able evasion.
"Who--I--Oh! dear me, no," he replied, absently; then he smiled. "I
say, wasn't Am-ma pleased. He slobbered and blubbered with joy all over
my boots, and yet--" he paused reflectively, "I don't think a little
Am-ma could be a very pleasing object."
For the life of her she could not help a smile. "It was not," she
confessed frankly; "in fact I think it was the ugliest baby I ever saw.
Poor little thing," she added in quick self-reproach. "Anyhow it seemed
beautiful to them--it is the first--the first that has lived, I mean."
She pulled up short, wondering what possessed her to be so confidential
with this strange young man.
"So Am-ma told me," said Lance. "He called you the Life-bringer. It is
a nice name."
She fought against the tenderness in his tone. "And you are the
Death-bringer," she retorted lightly, pointing to the painted beauty in
his hand. "So you and I are at opposite poles, Mr. Carlyon."
He stood looking at her for a moment with a smile. "I don't know, Miss
Shepherd. '_Death and Birth are the pivots of the Wheel of Life_.' I
remember reading that, in Sanskrit, when I went up for my higher; for
I've passed it, you know. I'm really not bad at languages when I try."
It was the first time she had ever heard him claim credit for anything,
and the fact touched her more than she cared to own. Touched her so
closely that she sought instantly for cover.
"I wish I were," she said, moving on, though, as she had known he
would, he moved on also. "I'm afraid I shall find it a great trouble
having to learn a new one."
"A new one," he echoed quickly, in response to something in her voice.
"Are you going to leave Eshwara--soon?"
She paused for a moment ere replying. "Sooner than I expected, Mr.
Carlyon; most likely in a day or two. I don't know whether you have
heard," she continued, looking him in the face, "but I am engaged to be
married to my cousin--Dr. Campbell's son--David Campbell. He is a
missionary--as I am--and--" she hesitated. "He is at home,--or was. We
did not expect him back for two months, but he has had a good offer of
a splendid place where there is any amount of work to be done. The
letter telling us this came yesterday--by the same mail as--as he did.
He is travelling up country now; and then--"
"And then?" said Lance, quietly. With his gun over his shoulder, he
looked what he was, a soldier; and since she began to speak, he had,
insensibly, pulled himself together and fallen into a disciplined
ordered tread.
"My aunt wants the wedding to be from the mission station in the low
hills where they go every summer," went on the girl. She was trying not
to look at her companion, not out of pity, but from dread of her own
admiration. "So as David"--she felt better after the semi-appropriation
of the Christian name--"is in a hurry to start, she thought of going
there as soon as the camp leaves--in a day or two. So--so--we shall not
see very much more of each other, Mr. Carlyon; shall we?"
He gave her his first look of reproach, being unable, in his absolutely
honest humility, to conceive of the vague regret which forced her to
the useless appeal.
"I--I hope you will be very happy," he said, quite simply. "Take care,
please; that bit is boggier than you think." For the second time in
their short acquaintance she felt his hand, not as a friend's, but as a
helper, a protector. This time the blood left her face pale.
"I hope so, Mr. Carlyon," she replied, and her hands clasped themselves
tightly as if to hold some resolve. "It is what I have always hoped
for, thought of." Then suddenly she smiled at him almost appealingly.
"I am a bit of a soldier too, you know--I love the fighting."
"You are in the thick of it here, anyhow," he interrupted, pausing.
They had climbed by a flight of steps through the city wall into the
small courtyard on which the mission house, which had once been an
outpost of the Fort, opened on its inner side. The outer, with its wide
overhanging verandah, forming part of the actual city wall. But the
remainder of the courtyard was set round by a perfect congeries of
small temples, each rearing its upright stone spire--the stone of Baal
worship--about the central tank which occupied the middle of the
square. It was quite a small tank, and absolutely dry; so that you
could see the four or five worn stone steps which led down to the patch
of earth, not six feet square, at the bottom. A dozen or more children,
boys and girls of the streets, were playing a sort of hop-scotch on
these steps, and as Lance looked, one of them slipped and fell into
that patch of earth. In a second the others had quitted their game, and
fallen pell-mell, too, struggling, kicking, shouting, screaming with
laughter.
"Is it a game?" he asked, looking at his companion, amused.
"Yes!" she said, suddenly, her face stern as he had seen it that first
time he met her. "It is the game of Life and Death! That is the 'Pool
of Immortality,' Mr. Carlyon! The pilgrims come here to bathe--there
must be a secret siphon somewhere, for the water only comes when it is
wanted. Three years ago the barriers put up to prevent accidents gave
way--it was no one's fault. The crowd got in--a man slipped--and--and
when the police managed to clear the crush--the--the tank was full up
with dead bodies! The children _play_ at it now!"
But they had spied more amusement, and in another second were hanging
round Erda's skirts.
"Sing to us, Miss-_sahiba_,--sing to us before you go in."
She looked apologetically at Lance. "I generally do," she began.
He raised his cap, almost obediently, with a brief "Certainly," and
passed on; but as he left the court on his way to the Fort, the first
note of her voice made him turn, for a second, to look.
She was seated on the top step of the tank, the children grouped
inquisitively round her, and she held her head high-almost defiantly.
"_The Son of God goes forth to war,
Who follows in His train?_"
The words were distinctly audible, following him as he passed on, the
gun on his shoulder, the dead bird in his hand, and something between
blessing and cursing in his heart. But above and through all, he seemed
to hear a never-ceasing voice that said, "_The pivots of Life are Birth
and Death. Death and Birth_."