THE SEARCH-LIGHT
The sound of those two shots greeted Vincent Dering as, after infinite
difficulty, owing to the darkness, the fitful gusts of wind, and the
sand-banks, he drew up the canoe against what he knew must be the high
bank below the off-take of the canal.
It had only been by trusting the stream to guide him, and refraining at
times from the use of his paddle, that he had managed to steer his way
at all.
So he knew he was late; felt, indeed, that he must be too late to use
his influence with the men, and yet, despite this knowledge, a keen
disappointment filled him when those shots proved him to be so; since
by long experience he knew that once open resistance began, there could
be no more question of words.
What then, was there for him to do?
If he, in his light canoe, helped, wherever possible, by every atom of
strength his arms possessed, had taken so long to come down that mile
or two of stream, the raft could not possibly arrive for another half
hour.
He could not sit still for half an hour; he felt, indeed, as if he
could not sit still for half a minute. A passion to act, to sweep away
the past, to forget, was upon him. He had had time during his strange
journey--so often idle perforce--to realize his position; time to piece
the still stranger events preceding his journey into a reasonable
sequence; so that he had, by now, arrived at a fairly accurate guess as
to the cause of much, that, when it happened, had seemed causeless.
For instance, Laila's dress, "_given her by someone_." That, joined to
the knowledge that she was connected with the late Nawab's family, of
which Roshan Khan might with justice claim the headship, had brought
the latter's action within the bounds of credibility. Jealousy!
revenge! these were potent causes. Laila, then, must have been playing
with Roshan's pretensions. Playing like a child with a toy; playing,
rather, like a woman who hesitates at nothing for the sake of the man
she loves. And she had hesitated at nothing; not even at this, to give
him pleasure, to make things match with his passion! The thought, the
remembrance, made him for a moment feel inclined to fling up his hands,
and let the canoe take him where it chose; take him down stream
utterly. Then a half choking, yet wholly strenuous desire to escape
from the whole story, a wild instinctive effort for a more wholesome
atmosphere, like that of a drowning man for a breath of fresh air, had
sent the canoe bounding on _his_ way; _his_ way and none other's, in
swift obedience. With a rush, he had grasped that there was more in
life--that he had allowed himself to be a slave! But that was past,--he
would shake himself together--he would forget the thraldom of sex--and
he would forget the past.
Yet, as he cast about in his mind for the best method of applying the
half hour's leisure, the remembrance of a woman came to him, as if to
mock at his resolution. Muriel, and dear little Gladys who called him
"Derin' darling"; where were they? His eyes grew soft in the
remembrance, stern at the probability of their being in danger. Why had
he not thought of it before? How could he ever have paused, wondering
what to do?
He set the red light, which he had taken from the fateful balcony,
carefully in the canoe--though, even should some gust of the rising
wind not blow the light out, it could scarcely be of any use in that
outer darkness--as a signal to the raft should it, by an off chance,
drift past in his absence, then struck across the sand in the direction
in which he knew the Smiths' bungalow must lie; that was, a little to
the rear of the gaol.
The storm, as he faced it, was so fierce that the doubt rose inevitably
if an unwieldy raft could make way against it. If so, then there would
be no help. The only thing would be to defend himself and others until
the end came; the end which would at least end the past.
He had almost to feel his way, the darkness was so intense. It was a
relief to stumble against something which he knew must be the low mud
fence of Muriel's garden; that garden in which she tried to defy
Providence, and rear English flowers. He knew his feet must be crushing
her treasures as he passed on towards a faint glow, a red glow. But
everything that was not the blackness of outer darkness to-night seemed
red--blood red.
A minute after, with a vast relief at the silence, the solitude, he was
in Muriel's pretty drawing-room. The pink-shaded lamp was still alight,
showing red through the fog of dust. He passed to it instinctively, and
as he did so, noticed the writing on the table. But many an earth-atom
had fallen on that confession of ignorance since George Dillon had made
it idly, and so, as Vincent Dering bent quickly to see if by chance it
was some message left for those who might come after, he also had to
frown and say, "God knows!"
Was it possible that Eugene and his wife were still asleep? The doors
stood open, but that was to be expected at that season of the year,
unless someone had been awake to close them against the storm. He must
make sure, however.
But there was no one to be found in any of the rooms. It occurred to
him, then, that they must have taken refuge in the gaol, and he told
himself he was a fool not to have thought of that before. Dillon would,
of course, have seen to that. He, Vincent, might have remembered so
much, at least; might have remembered that he himself was not the only
slave. Then he gave an odd, bitter little laugh. Was it never possible
to get beyond a woman's apron-strings?
And here he was wasting time over the question, when he ought to be
doing something better.
But what?
Go back and wait for the raft, or on to the gaol? There was a big
tamarisk tree at the end of the garden. Only two days before he had
pointed it out to Muriel and said that an active man accustomed to
_trapeze_ work might swing himself from it astride the high mud wall of
the gaol, and so gain the roof of the gate. Dillon had denied it; and
she had said, laughingly, that no one ever tried to break into a gaol,
only out of one.
Curious; still, if it had only been light, it would have been worth the
risking. But it was impossible now in the dark.
So, suddenly, a remembrance came to him. The search-light!
Was it only last night he had been dining here, in this house, after
bringing Muriel home from the Mission, where they had seen that huge
ray piercing the shadows? Was it only yesterday that he had listened to
Eugene's lamentations over his unused electricity, which was sure, he
said, to vanish into space from his rude contrivances. Was it only
yesterday that, in obedience to that pathetic look of martyrdom on
Muriel's face, which still seemed--to one part of Vincent's nature--to
call for instant sympathy, he had, to appease the honest inventor,
shown an interest in search-lights which was purely fictitious, and
learned a variety of facts about buttons and stop-cocks? And had all
this happened yesterday on purpose that to-day, when he was in need of
light--
He was up on the roof with the thought. If only the blessed thing had
go enough for that! As he picked his way rapidly through the litter,
three or four cigar-ends, a half-finished whiskey-and-soda, seen by the
flash of the hurricane lantern he had sought out and lit, told him that
Eugene must have been at work over his new toy till late. So much the
better for his chance--for everybody's chance; since a signal like that
might make all the difference to the raft; all the difference to Dillon
in the gaol--
George Dillon was, indeed, beginning to realize this himself. His
almost triumphant mood had passed; it had come home to him that the
unexpected revelation of the troopers' complicity in the plot, whatever
it was, had changed the whole aspect of affairs. Now, there was no
question of keeping the gaol quiet until help should arrive. He was
face to face, now, with the fact that he must not rely on any aid at
all. What had really happened, he could not guess. For all he knew, the
troopers and pioneers might have risen and killed their officers,
killed everybody who would be likely to help. His aim, now, was to sell
his life, and--and hers--as dearly as he could; but in the dead
darkness, like a rat in a hole, what could be done? Except wait--wait
for the walls to be dug through, the gates to be mined, that poor eight
or ten feet drop at the foot of the stairs scaled. Then a rush, still
in the dark, and--the greatest Darkness of all!
Not even the chance of a shot; and he had plenty of ammunition. It
would at least have passed the time to take pot-shots at the devils;
and though these would have brought retaliation, there would have been
no need for exposure. The parapet walls were high enough, and properly
loopholed.
So, for a few minutes, he sat almost sullenly beside those, for whom
alone he now felt responsible, in the little turret, which, as is
always the case in India, rose at one corner of the flat roof giving
fair shelter for the time. In his first hurried recognition, which had
come with the shots, that not help but attack lay outside, he had blown
out his light, fearing lest Eugene Smith might also be exposed to
similar attentions; so it was pitch dark. And the now almost constant
reverberations, which seemed to send the sand-laden air in pulse-beats
on your face, deadened all other sounds into vague confusion. But he
knew that the warders within the porch, the troopers without, were
trying to force the barred gate. That would not take long; though the
two doors blocking the ends of the tunnel would be a tougher job.
And he heard, closer at hand, a sleepy whimper from the child, a low
comforting from a mother's voice.
The sound made him set his teeth.
God! if there was only light to kill withal.
And then, in a second, as if by a miracle, it came. A great flood of
shining light, contemptuous, at that short distance, even of that outer
darkness. For it was electricity against electricity; a house divided
against itself.
The first thing he saw by it was that fragile figure in its dainty blue
frills, a child's golden head; and so, naturally, the next instant
found his hand on a rifle.
"The search-light! by all that's lucky! Well! everyone has not been
killed, anyhow," cried Eugene Smith.
"Killed," echoed Dr. Dillon, savagely. "No one has been killed yet, but
it won't be long before they are."
It was not; for a trooper engaged in staring stupidly at the velvety
black circle out of which the intruding light seemed to spring,
suddenly threw up his hands, swirled round, and fell face upwards in a
crumpled heap.
There was an instant's scare in the crowd, in that hundred and fifty or
more of troopers and conspirators, thrown into black and white relief,
like a shadow pantomime, about the outer gate. Then the startled
murmurs of "the light--the _Dee-puk-rag_" which were passing from lip
to lip, changed into a yell.
The fight had begun in earnest.
"Shoot straight," remarked Dr. Dillon, a few minutes after, "we shan't
have such a good chance long. The gate is almost gone. Then most of the
game will be out of range--too close to the wall. And once they get
into the tunnel we shall have to sound _cease firing_ until they come
out on the other side; but then we ought to do decent damage, if the
prisoners don't get at us first." He paused, and shot on steadily till,
with a hoarse shout, the attackers surged inwards. Then he laid his
rifle aside, remarking that it would be as well to keep an eye
gaolwards, in case of complications.
So far as could be seen in that curious chequering of dense darkness
and sharp glittering light; light which was palpably an intruder, which
seemed absolutely apart from the things it showed--even from the
dust-atoms--there was none as yet. At least the uppermost portion of
that vast wheel of wall stood out, perfect, unbroken. The roof of the
Smiths' bungalow, where the light stood, being, however, but little
higher than these walls, much of what lay below in the sections
themselves was necessarily hidden in shadow; especially on the side
nearest the light. But the narrow alley leading up to the central
tower, being in straight line with the ray, showed clear as daylight,
save just under the citadel itself. So did most of the little
courtyard, with its doors opening to the right and left. George Dillon
gave a sigh of satisfaction at the sight, since, whether the foe
elected--when once inside the gates--to rush the roof, or press on to
liberate the prisoners by those six doors in the round tower, there
would be fair chance of a good bag, for a straight shot!
Or, even if the convalescents in hospital were to set free the
solitary-cell convicts--a contingency which had occurred to him too
late for any plan of minimizing the danger--and were to swarm into the
courtyard to help against the last gate (which, of course, was partly
barred from the inside), he could settle their hash also. And that,
now, was his one idea. The idea of all brave men when they find
themselves in a tight place--to kill before being killed.
As yet, however, there was no sign of life even within the vast wheel,
with its rims and spokes of light, its centre of shadow. It lay dim,
curiously still behind the dust-atoms that danced in the ray, like
motes in a sunbeam.
There was not a sound, not a sign within. Only the tumult of voices,
the intermittent shots without, rising above the dull, muffled hum in
the air.
Stay! that was something. Half way round the circle, where the shadow
of the tall tamarisk tree in the Smiths' garden cut a jagged gap in the
white rim of wall, there was some change, something that had not been
there a moment ago.
The gap had moved; had changed place and form, though for a time the
air was still with one of those breathless, suffocating pauses, when
the dust above seems to sink on the dust below, and fill one's very
lungs. And now the gap was back again, as it had been before. But it
had left something clinging for a second to the wall like a limpet: the
next astride it safely.
"Reach me over my rifle, Smith," said the doctor, briefly; "there's a
brute trying to sniggle along the wall; must have come up that tree in
your garden. Wish I'd taken Dering's advice and cut it down. Thanks! I
don't want to take my eye off him, for fear he means to drop into a
section. I'll shoot, if that seems his game; if not, I'll wait till he
comes closer."
He leant over the parapet, waiting. Just below him, the inner wall of
the gate against which the stair clung, and which was prolonged into
the turret where Muriel and the child were sheltering, joined the
circular outside wall of the gaol. The man, thought Dr. Dillon,
trusting to their being occupied in front, must be trying to steal a
march on them, slip down the stair, and take them in the rear. There
was plenty of time to prevent that, however.
Muriel Smith, roused by the sound of Vincent's name from the sort of
lethargy into which she had fallen,--since she was not wanted either by
her husband or the doctor,--rose to her knees and peered over the
parapet cautiously.
"From the tree in the garden," she said, dreamily. "Yes! I remember.
You said it couldn't be done, and I said no one would ever want to do
it, and he said he could--" she paused, and gave a little cry--"It is
Vincent himself!" she gasped; "don't shoot, doctor! It's Vincent! I
know it! I feel it! I knew he would come, if he could! Vincent!
Vincent!"
"What's up?" asked Eugene, still firing steadily at all that was to be
seen.
"Only your wife says the man is Captain Dering; and--and, by Jove! I
believe she is right."
"Of course I'm right," she sobbed, half hysterically--"I knew he would
come--I knew he wouldn't leave me to die alone!"
Eugene Smith laid down his rifle, and crawled over in cover
deliberately, with an odd look on his face.
"Yes! that's Dering; plucky fellow. He's swung himself up. I always
knew he was a nailing gymnast."
There was no grudge in his voice, only a curious challenge as he looked
at his wife, then laid his big hand on her shoulder. "Keep more down,
please--your head's showing. He'll get here, all right, never fear;
we'll lower a rope to him when he comes alongside."
"But I would rather look--I'd rather see _anything_ happen--" she moaned;
"it seems so unkind not to watch--not to be there--with him--" She was
shivering all over, the patient self-control, the steady acquiescence
even in her own danger which had been hers till then, gone utterly.
George Dillon felt a great pity, a vast impatience.
"So you were right, Smith," he broke in hastily, to cover her sudden
break down. "They aren't killed; now we shall have a chance of knowing
what's at the bottom of all this foolery!"
But when, five minutes later, Vincent Dering reached the roof in
safety, the doctor felt vaguely that the explanations only added to the
general incomprehensibility; and that something was being kept back.
What, he asked impatiently, had started the show?
Of course there were plots. Pidar Narayan knew of them, but, as such
things generally did, they had seemed abortive. What, then, had upset
the apple-cart?
Vincent gave a gesture of despair. "What does it matter?" he cried. "We
can think of that--if we _can_ think--when it's over! And if we
can't--what does it matter?"
"You can bet your bottom dollar on one thing," said Eugene, who, in
this pause for a council of war, was methodically loading various
weapons for future use. "It is either the sex, or sin. This world would
be a paradise of peace if people didn't want virtue or vice,--I don't
say which is which, mind you." He spoke suddenly, harshly; and once
more George Dillon came to the rescue.
"As Dering says, it doesn't matter. But the fact that the pioneers are
staunch, and may be expected before long, alters our tactics a bit,
Smith. We must husband our ammunition, and stick on as long as
possible--don't you think so, Dering?"
Vincent, kindly always, had stooped to take little Gladys, who had
crept over to him, in his arms; and now the child, her arms round his
neck, was cuddling close to him. "I'm so glad oo's come, Derin'
darlin'," she whispered. "And so's mum--aren't 'oo, dearest?"
Vincent unclasped the soft, little, clinging hands almost resentfully,
and pulled himself together.
"Yes!" he said briefly, "we've got to hold out. So it will be better to
reserve ourselves, and try to keep the gaol itself quiet. It will take
the brutes some time to force those gates unless they get help from
within, and then there is the alley, and the doors. Still, we shall
want every minute; for, unless the storm lessens, Carlyon will scarcely
get the raft here before dawn. It was awful on the river."
It was, indeed.
Even Am-ma had lost himself utterly, while Lance, after paddling, and
drifting, and shouting after a dozen false hopes, was still as far from
finding the raft as ever.
What could have become of it? Had it started sooner than he had
expected, and passed down before he had found Vincent? Or had it never
started at all? Had the men, after he left, turned round on _her?_
This fear had come to him early in his search, and he had felt inclined
then and there to paddle back to the Fort, and satisfy himself it was
not so. But the thought of her face, if he allowed care for her to
cause delay, had kept him to his task steadily, till he could no longer
doubt that something had gone wrong.
But what? And what was he to do?
Then, in a flash, had come back her words after she had bidden him
think hard. "You must go down to the spit, cut across it by the mission
house, get round, if you can, to the police camp."
That had been her verdict, involving her being left to take her chance.
And now either the raft, the relief for the gaol, had started, or it
had not. If the former, he might, of course, by a stern chase overtake
it; but Erda was there and Vincent would meet her; they could do
without him. But if it had _not_ started, what then? Then matters were
exactly as they had been, when she had bidden him leave her.
So, with a feeling that, if this were so, he cared little what
happened, he steered, so far as he could judge, for the sand-banks of
the spit to the right.
Am-ma, on the contrary, steered instinctively to the left, towards the
high bank, the deepest stream. It would at least float his logs to
their destination, and that was something. Kings had come and gone, and
battles had been won and lost, but the logs had always had to go down
the river, whatever happened.
And among the men, also, an apathy seemed to have settled, as they
drifted on and on in the dark. Erda, crouching in a dry spot beside the
ammunition, alert to the uttermost for the least hint of Lance,
realized this from the very tone of their voices as they talked under
their breath to each other. She felt instinctively that the inaction,
the darkness, the lack of a leader, were lessening the value of those
twenty men each minute.
If Lance would only turn up! What could have become of him? The time
seemed interminable; she felt sure that they must already have drifted
past the gaol; she began to wonder if Am-ma was not playing false. For
the darkness, the uncertainty, had its grip on her also. It was like
some horrid nightmare, to drift on and on, hearing the muffled drumming
of the storm, feeling the strange vibration in the air, the sharp sand
tingling on your face, and to know nothing--nothing at all, save that
you were there.
"Am-ma!" she cried sharply, at last, certain of but one thing, that she
must act,--"I believe we have passed the gaol; steer to the right, do
you hear?"
A laugh, not exactly insolent, but tolerant, came from the group of
men. "Tis easy to give orders, Missy-_baba_," said a voice; "but not so
easy to obey them, when the Lord is against your side, and sends
darkness!"
Erda's heart gave a great throb, not of fear, but comprehension. That
was the beginning; a minute or two more and these men would be out of
hand.
"Am-ma!" she called again, "do what I tell you. Remember the child!
Remember we have the _Dee-puk-rag_."
Another laugh came from the men. "If you have the _Dee-puk-rag_, send
it now. We need light, for sure, and--"
The voice ended in a gasp--
For it was there! A long ray of light, showing them that they were,
indeed, just opposite the gaol.
"Am-ma!" came Erda's voice again, and there was a hush and yet a
triumph in it, "to the right--steer to the right."
The raft edged slowly towards the ray, but the soldiers still crouched
inactive; awed, yet not certain.
Then suddenly that quick crack of George Dillon's first shot echoed
over the river, then the yell, then the answering shots.
And following on their heels rapidly came a stir among those crouching
figures, and one of them stood up excitedly--"It has begun!--see you,
Prag! Lehna, give the boatman a hand! Lo! do as the Miss-_baba_ bade
thee, quickly, son of a pig! Steer for the light--they have begun!"
Erda gave a sigh of relief. _That_ danger was over.