THE TRUTH
"And to look at it now," came the Commissioner's rich, round brogue,
"you would think butter wouldn't melt in its mouth!"
He waved the cigar he was smoking towards Eshwara. It looked sleepier,
more sun-saturate than ever, as it lay reflected in the still lagoon
between it and the tent in which he was sitting; a double-poled,
Commissioner's tent, which two days before had swooped down like an
avenging angel with broad white wings to take possession of the just
and the unjust in the name of Victoria _Kaiser-i-Hind_.
It was pitched on the site of the Viceroy's camp, for the convenience
of being close to the gaol where the late disturbers of the public
peace had taken up their residence. In fact, the mast from which the
royal standard had floated, still reared itself, bare, undraped, from
its roundel of roses. But the flowers were withered, dead. Even the
palms, their work of welcome over, were wilting fast; but they still
gave a doubtful shade to some groups of manacled men, who, guarded by
yellow-legged constables, were placidly awaiting the Commissioner's
leisure and pleasure; both being, at the time, occupied with lunch and
Dr. Dillon. So, the wide white wings of the tent being set open and
supported with bamboos to let in the breeze, the representative
of law and order could be seen--his feet on the table among his law
books--drinking an iced whiskey-and-soda.
Dr. Dillon--he looked careworn chiefly because in his care for others
he had, as yet, been able to take no rest--nodded.
"Yes; and it doesn't, as a rule. A more peaceable spot never was. You
can't account for these sudden idiotic outbreaks. One reason is as good
as another. And so old Mother Campbell, with her assertion that it all
came because Miss Shepherd would talk about Jean Ziska's drum--"
The Commissioner smiled. "Yes, the good lady has an endless circle of
unfounded beliefs, all dependent on each other for support. It's the
most comfortable way of getting through life. An' miracles are like
drams--ye can't stop them, once you begin. Besides, on me soul, it was
queer--even Carlyon said--"
"And if it _were_ true," interrupted the doctor, "we shouldn't be any
'forrader'! We shouldn't understand. And that's our position now. You
can't, in fact. It's better you shouldn't; in India, at any rate. Just
accept them, ignore them, smash them, hush them up"--here his face
clouded--"and in this case there is a good deal that had better be kept
dark--you'll do your best, I hope?"
The keen whimsical face hardened. "I shall follow the usual official
routine, sir," he said cynically; "for, look you, there never was a row
like this in India but there is something in it about a woman, which
we've got to hush up. An' that's God's truth. Yes, we pay a heavy
toll--" He broke off, took up a pen as if to write, threw it down
impatiently, and stared out into the hot, yellow sunshine.
Dr. Dillon sat twiddling his mushroom hat round and round in his
nervous fingers, and staring out into it also. A sense of being face to
face with an unpleasant truth was on them both. Suddenly he laughed
harshly.
"We ought to have got accustomed to the fact by this time, anyhow," he
said, "for it began early enough in the history of man. Well, I'm off;
you won't want me, will you, this afternoon, now those men have turned
Queen's evidence?"
"Don't think so. Let's see." The Commissioner drew a list towards him,
and ran his eye over it. "I've condemned three warders and seven
prisoners to death for poor Dering's murder; so I daresay penal
servitude will see through the rest. Then there's _jogi_ Gorakh-nath
and his _gosain_. They ought to be hung, but we haven't caught them,
and we never shall; the wild ass that snuffeth up the east wind isn't
in it with a Hindoo ascetic in eluding captors! So the lot out there
are really small fry; for the other ringleaders are either dead or
departed--even that amphibious brute, Gu-gu."
Dr. Dillon looked up cheerfully. "By George! I'd have given something
to see that water-fight between him and Am-ma! By the way, what are you
going to do for that queer fish? But for him, we would never have seen
Lance Carlyon's face again."
The Commissioner's expression was curious. "It's a bit hard to do
anything for a man who wants nothing but earth, air, and water, and has
got all three; besides--" he drew a paper out of a file, looked at it,
then looked at the doctor--"besides it wasn't altogether Am-ma!" He
paused, smiled an infinitely kind smile, then went on: "I was a brute,
entirely, to talk about a heavy toll just now. We get its worth back,
me dear fellow, over and over again. See! here is Am-ma's _affidavit_.
I took it this morning, and upon me soul, Dillon, I should be obliged
if you would tell me whether to hush it up, or inform the party
concerned." So saying, his brogue took possession of the sun-bright,
sun-dry air--
"I, Am-ma, of the river folk, solemnly affirm that, knowing the
_Dee-puk-rag_ to be in the power of the _Huzoors_, I several times
warned Gu-gu not to follow other masters. But he had learned books, and
become ignorant. He could not even feel when a current changed its
course; and then he thought he must die, because of the ghost, and that
made him wild. So when I refused, and set off, as ordained, for the
raft, he took the Brahmin's money and stopped the miracle. Of a surety,
the Awarder of Justice is right. This slave knew what was to come. He
did not tell of it because, where the _Dee-puk-rag_ is, there is
victory; so there was no fear. Yet when the Miss-_sahiba_ bade me help
her, I obeyed, because she has power over devils, and my son, _Huzoor_,
is still in the first week of life. Therefore, for that reason, I
guided the raft. But when I saw that the Light-bringers had smitten the
darkness of evil-doers, and that the raft would be needed no more, I
went on with it to the place appointed by the Wood-_wallah-sahib_
whence it could float of itself.
"So I returned to my home and ate my bread. And the day was quiet, as
the _Huzoor_ knows; only the folk reviled, because I had no fish to
sell.
"But, at night, at the waning of the sunset stars, about the third
jackal cry, came the Miss-_sahiba_ to my hut."
Dr. Dillon ceased twiddling his hat, and looked up in sudden interest.
"To my hut," reiterated the reading voice. "I deemed it because of
devils first; but it was not. It was because of Carlone-_sahib_ who
could not be found,--only his clothes and pistol on my craft, stranded
on a sand-bank by the mid-channel.
"'He has not been killed,' said the Miss-_sahiba_ 'He would not have
fought with his clothes off. Nor did he go to fight. He would not have
left the pistol if he had. He has gone swimming, to get quicker and
find help. So he is drowned. He is in the river still, and I cannot
think of it. Am-ma! you know every inch of the river. Find him! Find
him!'
"Then I said: 'Yea, Miss-_sahiba_ I will find him when his body rises.
No man can find a dead one in the river till then.' But, as I spoke,
the son at his mother's breast left sucking, and cried aloud. The
Miss-_sahiba_ said it was but the gripes, but we--my house and I--knew
more than that. We knew it was the devils, winning a way because the
Miss was not content. So I said: 'I will find him while his beauty is
still on him, for you to see again,'--since that is in the heart of all
women, O Awarder of Justice. Thus at the dawn--the dawn after the dawn
of darkness--I, Am-ma, set out with my nets, seeing that fish, anyhow,
could be found, and the market would be dear, because none had come to
the bazaar during the commotion. So, remembering where my craft had
stranded, I went first to mid-channel; thus, working up, came to where
it had stranded once before. Then, seeing footmarks, I followed them,
till in an island, eating his bread, I found the evil-begotten Gu-gu.
"He had a knife in his bead belt, at the sight whereof I gave glory
to gods and devils alike, for I knew the handle of it. It was
Carlone-_sahib's shikar_ knife, and I had been his _shikari_ many a
time.
"So I said, 'Where gottest thou Carlone-_sahib's_ knife, Gu-gu?'
thinking to startle him. And it did. He said no word, but came at me
with it.
"So we fought. His right hand and mine on the knife, and our left arms
round each other's throat, choking us; and our legs wrestling. Till the
water grew too deep. Then we swam with them. But he said nothing, nor
did I. There was no need. We understood, as dogs do, that it was foe
and foe. So it came to the deep stream; his right hand and mine,
with the knife between them, and our teeth fixed in each other's
shoulders,--till I bethought me of his ear.
"Then he yelled, and let go; but I was after him as he dived. It was a
long race. Wherefore not? since we are the best swimmers in the river.
But I felt the cleave of the water from his foot at last, and spent
myself in one stroke. So I laid hold of his leg and ran my hand up till
I found his back. Then I used Carlone-_sahib's_ knife on him, and he
sank; and I sank too, with the blow.
"And when I came up, leaving him there, I found how long the race had
been, for my right hand struck the city wall. Then it came to me what
the Miss-_sahiba_ had said, of Carlone-_sahib_ wishing to go quick; and
I bethought me of the secret passages, and the knife, and Gu-gu's fear.
And I said to myself someone must have restored the miracle. Not Gu-gu;
else why was he hiding? What if it be Carlone-_sahib?_ But most of all
I thought of my little son, and the devils longing for him, and for a
woman longing for the sight of a man's beauty, and I knew I must go and
see if it lay there. So I dived, and found him, as the Awarder of
Justice knows, sitting high up, with the water about his feet, waiting
for death, and brought him back as I promised. And Gu-gu is dead, for
his body was drifting by the tunnel with Carlone-_sahib's_ knife in the
back as we came out. So the Miss is pleased, and the devils do not come
near my son."
The brogue ceased, and there was a pause. "Well! what do ye say,
Dillon?" asked the Commissioner, fretfully.
George Dillon rose and put on his hat deliberately. "Nothing. Except
that I must really be off. I've to see Smith first, and Carlyon--that
sprained ankle of his, which he got trying to climb up beyond the rise
of the water, will be the deuce and all if he uses it too soon. And
then, if I can, I want to get round and say good-by to--to the
Miss-_sahiba_. She's off to Herrnhut again this evening. In fact,
Campbell didn't half like her waiting for the funeral, he is in such a
blessed hurry to get to his new field, as he calls it; thinks of
nothing else. They are to be married on Monday, I believe."
The Commissioner laid aside Am-ma's _affidavit_ with a soft "damn," and
Dr. Dillon paused on his way out at the sound.
"Quite so,--I entirely agree with you," he said sympathetically; "but,
unfortunately, there is only one person who has a right to tell that
story, sir--and she won't!"
"Why not?" interrupted the Commissioner, militantly--"why the blazes
shouldn't a woman tell the truth?"
"Because women don't know it," broke in the doctor, "or men either, for
that matter. Because we men and women have got ourselves on such false
lines, into such an absolutely false position towards each other, that
the only course consistent with propriety and _les convenances_ is
to--to hush the thing up! So hush-a-bye baby, sir, to your heart's
content. So long as the mother can tell her blessed infant that she is
a lady, what does the real fact matter?"
He spoke with a concentrated bitterness, an almost fierce resentment,
and the Commissioner nodded, finished his whiskey-and-soda at a gulp,
and returned to work, tossing his papers about recklessly.
"It's a quare world, certainly," he murmured, with a lack of
originality which sat ill on him. Then, catching sight of something in
a file, his humorous, kindly self returned. "Listen to this now, for
quareness," he laughed, beginning to read:--
"'The petition of Mussumat Mumtaza Mahal'--that's Roshan Khan's
grandmother, you know--'sister,' etc., etc., 'humbly sheweth that she
has endured grievous wrong and hurt, by loss of her grandson in the
late deplorable mutiny (of which she was utterly incognizant, being
helpless, veiled, old woman perpetually confined in house). Therefore
prayeth that whereas one Mussumat Ashraf-un-nissa, her neighbour, is in
receipt of pension rupees twenty-five _per mensem_ for similar
bereavement of male protector and head of family lost in '57 mutiny,
therefore her pension of rupees twenty _per mensem_, only, for exile of
husband to Calcutta, be commuted to similar sum of twenty-five, seeing
that your poor petitioner is in floods of tears and wholly heartbroken
through this most nonregulation, premature death of promising young
scion of her noble house, on whom, as on blessed Victoria, Queen, her
hopes were fixed. Said petitioner being able to prove _alibi_, absolute
incomplicity, and continuous remaining at home during late devilish
disturbances.'"
"Poor old soul!" laughed the doctor, "give it to her if you can, sir.
And as for remaining at home, everybody except the actual conspirators
did that. Even Dya-Ram, the disaffected--though he has preached armed
resistance to tyranny in his paper for years. He barricaded himself in
with his printing-press. Fact; jammed his fingers in so doing, and came
to me in a blind funk for a professional certificate that the wound
could not have been caused by any lethal weapon. As if anyone could
ever have suspected him of taking part in raising a row, or even in
settling one! His sort are simply negligible quantities."
"But Ramanund seems to have attempted a lead," put in the Commissioner,
judicially.
"Exactly. Attempted, and failed. His sort are negligible quantities
also, sir, I'm sorry to say, and will remain so until they learn,
amongst other knowledge, to believe in something besides
themselves--" here the hard eyes softened, the hard voice paused. "That
is another thing I should like to have seen--dear old Pidar Narayan--"
The hard voice found even softness too loud; and in the silence which
fell between the two men, only the Commissioner's pen could be heard.
"You'll look in at the palace, perhaps, and see all is right," came the
brogue, after a bit, "and give my love to old Smith. I'm not sure but
that I'd rather have seen him behind the door than anything else, for
it must have been the hardest job--"
"Considering the circumstances, yes!" put in the doctor; so, with the
pith hat turning him into an animated mushroom, he passed out into the
blaze of dry yellow sunshine, on that dry yellow sand.
The sky above was molten with light and heat, the gaol positively
shimmered in the glare. Not a sound, not a sight, told of that
midsummer night's dream of wild, useless revolt, save when one of the
shackled prisoners awaiting trial sought a better bit of shade under
the wilted palms, which, not a week before, had welcomed the Hosts of
the Lord-_sahib_ on their way to the hills.
The whole thing seemed incredible; yet, as he crossed the road to enter
the Smiths' compound, the footsteps of those other Hosts who had passed
on to the hills also remained to dimple the dry yellow sand.
The Smiths' bungalow lay calm, peaceful; the drawing-room, as he
entered it, struck him with the old, familiar sense of refinement,
indexing the refinement of its mistress. Only one change caught his
observant eyes. Vincent Dering's photograph was no longer on the
mantle-piece, whence it had always looked out with a certain challenge
in its very prominence. Where had it gone? What matter? There was no
need for such defiance now, thought George Dillon, with that curious
half-cynical, half-resentful smile he kept for one subject only. She
might keep the photograph where she chose, now, and none would blame
her.
So thinking, he set aside the curtain which hung at his patient's door,
and as he did so, resentment, cynicism, vanished in quick sympathy.
"Ah! fever again, I see,--that's a bore," he said, going over swiftly
to the bed where Eugene Smith's long length lay visibly shivering; for
something,--the exposure, the excitement, the strain, perhaps, of that
awful inaction behind the door against which Vincent Dering was making
that heroic stand,--had knocked the big man over, a prey to an old
enemy--malarial fever. "When did it come on?"
Muriel Smith, who sat on the bed, her hand in one of her husband's
shaking, trembling ones, looked up. She was very pale, but very calm.
"Half an hour ago. It is a pity. We hoped it was broken, didn't we? But
he will fret himself so, Doctor--" Her eyes, on Dr. Dillon's, were
telling their tale, so that it scarcely needed the rambling, quivering
voice to show that the fresh onset of fever had once more clouded the
sick man's brain.
"How can a fellow help fretting," murmured Eugene, his teeth
chattering, "when he waits like a coward behind a door, where his best
friend--"
The woman beside him winced, but interrupted him bravely. "But I tell
him, Doctor--and it's true, isn't it?--that it was hardest for
_him_--and that--that Vincent would rather have had it so--because he
had to leave no one, and Eugene had Gladys--and me."
Her voice seemed to bring comfort, and the glistening, feverish eyes
closed.
"Go on with the mixture," said the doctor, vexedly conscious of a lump
in his throat. "This will wear itself out in a day or two; and--you
can't do more than you're doing."
"I suppose not," she replied listlessly.
But the tragedy of her face remained in his memory as he drove over the
creaking, groaning bridge to Eshwara. The bazaar was full as ever with
drifting humanity, busy in the details of every-day life. There was no
hint anywhere of the past storm; not even in the palace. It lay, as
ever, silent; its blank walls seeming to hold the sunlight back from
some secret within,--from some veiled, hidden beauty. The door was
closed, but old Akbar Khan came capering at his call, his back roached,
in bowing, like a caterpillar's.
"The tomb is finished, _Ge-reeb-pun-waz_," he mumbled, in blubbering
importance. "_Ala!_ the sad day! But this slave, knowing all customary
things, hath remained insistent on the workmen; therefore all is
befitting the noble people, as the _Huzoor_ will see."
So, down the shadowy passage he led the way, crablike, to the chapel;
for hither, long years before, Father Ninian had brought the body of
Pietro Bonaventura, and here, just in front of the Altar steps, he and
Pietro's granddaughter--the last of the old priest's charges,--had been
buried the day before. The masons had been busy, building up the vault
again; but, as Akbar Khan had said, the work was finished, the chapel
restored to its original state, swept, and garnished. Even the candles
were lit on the Altar, and four of the tallest tapers had been placed,
one at each corner of the stone slab on which two more names would have
to be cut; while from these tapers long strings of jasmine flowers,
such as native women wear, had been hung in drooping chains to form an
enclosure. On the slab itself great bossed yellow marigolds were laid
to simulate a cross.
Dr. Dillon turned to the cringing figure beside him sharply; but there
was something almost pathetic in its simper of conscious merit, its
certainty of satisfaction.
"Did you do that?" he asked.
"_Ge-reeb-pun-waz!_"
There was a world of pride and of servitude in the voice, and in the
folded, prayerful hands which shot out under the bowings.
"This slave made it! The _Huzoor_ will notice it is, fitting. Even the
'_crass_'--" he pointed his prayerful hands to the marigolds--"is not
forgotten. Has not this dust-like one spent his life in preparing
amusements and spectacles for the noble people? He knows that tombs
require flowers, as women do."
Through the arches behind the old pantaloon Dr. Dillon could catch a
glimpse of the garden, ablaze with colour, could smell the perfume of
the now fading orange-blossoms, could see the water-maze, with its
marble ledges, among the lotus, just wide enough for the flying feet of
a laughing girl.
The words, the contrast, held him, as the old man went on with an
orthodox whine of petition in his voice:--
"So, since the _Sirkar_ will doubtless appoint a guardian of tombs,
seeing there is none to inherit the palace, if the Protector of the
Poor would intercede for this slave with the Commissioner?--if the
_Huzoor_ would say that the dust-like one has provided the pleasures of
palaces all his life long for the noble people; yea! from the cradle to
the grave. If he will say that--" he flourished his hands towards the
slab--"both in the making of garlands and the making of '_crasses_,'
there is none equal--"
"_For tombs require flowers, as women do!_" The phrase asserted itself
again, and Dr. Dillon looked at the wicked old face, so comic, so
pathetic, with the hopeless recognition of the humour of tragedy which
comes to all save the invincibly dull.
"You would do as well as anyone," he said gravely. "I'll mention your
name."
"_Ge--reeb-pun--waz!_" The title prolonged itself abnormally, and Akbar
Khan, a mask of toothless smiles, darted, in instant assumption of his
anticipated office, to remove a fallen jasmine flower from Dr. Dillon's
path as if it had been a deadly reptile. Indeed, he paused in the midst
of his parting _salaams_ to ask if it was in order that the populace be
admitted to the sanctuary, since the _missen-miss_ (his accent of
disdain, tempered by reverence, was delicious) had announced her desire
to enter it that afternoon for farewell; had, indeed, asked him to be
there at four to open the door.
Dr. Dillon turned so sharply that the old courtier began instantly on
asseverations that, without orders--
"Have everything ready, of course," interrupted the doctor,
impatiently; so strode off across the courtyard, his head down, his
hands in his pockets, with a jerk, as of irritation, in his walk.
He found Lance Carlyon in the balcony over the river, very apologetic
at being caught there against orders. But it was so dreary keeping to
one's room, he said; especially when there were a lot of dismal things
to think about; and he really had been most careful--had made two of
his pioneers almost carry him.
"Doesn't seem to have done much harm!" admitted the doctor, gruffly, as
he sat feeling the ankle and looking at Lance with the oddest air of
impatience, irritation, and kindliness. Yet there was nothing strange
in Lance's wholesome young face, save that it showed a little older, a
little graver.
"It _must_ be beastly dull, too," went on the doctor, loudly, suddenly.
"You--you might get them to help you over to the palace garden this
afternoon; about four, you know, when it gets cool. That would be a
change."
Lance positively gasped. "Rath-er! Why! you told me yesterday I wasn't
to move a muscle for ten days!" Dr. Dillon positively blushed, under
the brown. He got up vexedly, walked to the parapet, looked down the
river towards the mission house, and came back again.
"No more you are!" he said fiercely. "Not what _you_ call moving. But
gentle exercise and--and congenial society--and all that! You know the
treatment! Besides the Hutton-Wharton-Hood school don't believe in
rest. And--and--look here!--I'll put you on the stiffest starch bandage
ever made--and--Oh! confound it, man, one must risk something
sometimes, you know! Here, orderly; go over to the _sahib's_ washerman
and tell him to make me double-extra-white-shirt-front-starch, and if
that doesn't counteract the--the indiscretion--why--why--I wash my
hands of the whole business!"
He was at work undoing the bandages already, and the last part of his
remarks came, argumentatively, to himself.
"If you really think it might injure me permanently," began Lance,
soberly, in some surprise.
Dr. Dillon paused, and looked up with a vast resentment. "If you mean
your foot, I don't think it will, and that's all I'm responsible
for--thank God!"
But as, half an hour after this, he came out from saying good-by to
Erda Shepherd, he paused as he passed the Pool of Immortality, and
looked down into it as if he felt some need of salvation.
"'_If I be not damned for this!_'" he quoted softly, shook his head,
and went back to his prisoners.
So it came to pass that when Erda Shepherd--after laying the wreath she
had brought as a sort of crown to Akbar Khan's '_crass_'--went into the
garden for a last look at the familiar places, she found Lance Carlyon
comfortably settled in one of the balconies overhanging the river.
"This is luck!" he cried, forgetting the starched bandage until
reminded of it by a sudden twinge of pain. "I thought I was never to
see you again, and it seemed a bit rough--on--on us both; considering
what a lot we did together, you know. I've been writing you a letter,
to say how disappointed I was at not being able to get over and see you
all this morning."
"That was very kind of you," she said feebly, conscious that the
surprise had made her feel a little limp. Though, of course, she
regretted nothing; nothing at all!
"I've been wanting to know such a lot," he went on. "Of course I heard
about the others, but not about you--you needn't go away immediately,
need you?" he asked, as he watched her face,--"if--if you could stop a
bit, it would be so jolly."
The frank wistfulness of his tone was too much for her. "Yes! I can
stop," she said quietly; "what is it you want to know?"
"Lots of things; but about yourself first of all!"
Herself! That would be the hardest task, she felt; and the memory of
that senseless flight from her own reflection in the mirror came back
to bring a quick flush to her cheek.
"Of course, if you'd rather not--" began observant Lance.
"I was only thinking there was very little to tell," she put in
quickly. She was not even going to allow that, in keeping this incident
to herself, she was giving it any importance. She had told herself
during the last few days that it had been unfortunate, that was all.
Otherwise it was trivial; since it did not, could not, alter her
decision. On the contrary, it strengthened it; just as a temptation
resisted always strengthened that resistance.
So, in the balcony where lovers had sat and talked of love, those two
sat talking of that midsummer night's dream, of everything but love. Of
Vincent Dering's song, of the raft, of Lance's experience as he clung
to the highest crevice, and felt the water stop steady between his knee
and his ankle. Of his incredulity when Am-ma appeared, and his
immediate lapse into unconsciousness; chiefly, he supposed, because
there was no need for further endurance. Of how he had no notion of
anything till he found himself lying on a string bed in the sun, right
away on the other side of the town, whither Am-ma had brought him, by
Heaven knows what secret passage.
So, as the shadows grew long, they seemed to invade Lance's face, and
bring a doubt to it.
"I haven't seen Am-ma since," he said, "so I haven't found out yet why
on earth he came to look for me?"
Erda rose and held out her hand. "We were all looking for you, Mr.
Carlyon," she said quietly, "and we were all very glad to find you.
And--and I am very sorry to--to lose you."
He rose too, stiffly, and, taking her hand, held it while he looked
into her face steadily.
"Good-by, Miss Shepherd--I'm--I'm sorry it has to be that--but you know
best. And thank you for telling me--so much." He paused, and his hand
tightened on hers a little. "Thanks all round, for _that!_ It has been
the truth between us, hasn't it, always? And so--though it has been a
bit rough--Good-by!"
There was a pause, a curious pause.
"Good-by," she echoed dully, her face grown very pale. His hand left
hers gently. She turned and faced the garden, where the shadows were
invading the blaze of colour, and the coming cool was sending the scent
of the orange-blossoms into the air. The water-maze, with its marble
ledges, where there was but room for the feet of a laughing girl, lay
still and glistening before her. The palace, with its fanciful nooks,
its illogical recesses, its suggestion of elusive pleasures beyond the
pale of solid reality, rose up into the sky.
And something in the scene came home to her with the sense that all
this, in its way, was real also. That this was part of the truth. The
truth which she had not told.
"_It has been the truth between us, hasn't it, always?_"
She turned suddenly to where Lance stood; turned to find him leaning
over the balcony, looking down into the water with a listlessness he
had held in check till then; and a great wave of remorse swept through
her.
"It has not been the truth between us!" she cried impulsively,
recklessly--"not quite--but, I will tell it now--if you like."
He looked up, startled. "If you think I--I ought to know."
She gave a queer, half-impatient laugh. "Ought! How do I know? Yes! I
suppose so--as it's true--absolutely true. I can't help that, can I?"
There was a forlornness in the confession; almost a despair.
"Then tell me, please," said Lance, deliberately making room for her to
lean over the balustrade beside him. His heart was beating fast at
something in her face, and yet his uppermost thought was for her; for
that forlornness, that despair. "I can forget it afterwards--if you
want me to," he added consolingly.
She came to the place beside him, and looked down, hiding her face from
all but the sliding river; and he, seeing her desire, looked into it
also.
"It was about my starting on the raft," she began with a little sob. "I
didn't tell you the truth about that. I--I didn't come to give the
warning at first--I--I was coming to you."
"Yes!" he said quietly; but his hand found hers and held it. "You were
coming to me, dear,--why?"
That touch seemed at once to help her, and to make her desperate.
"Because--oh, Lance! it was so foolish! I saw myself in the glass--all
in white with the orange in my hand--and I thought of you--of what you
said--of--of the World's Desire, and--and I felt I couldn't--so--so I
was coming to you--first--when Am-ma--don't you see--"
There was a long pause. His hand, firm, strong, did not tighten, it
simply held hers as they both looked down on the sliding river.
"Thanks!" he said after a time; and then there was another pause until
he added, "It will be a bit rough, I'm afraid, on the Reverend David,
but I don't see how we can help that--do you?"
And this time his clasp tightened. Erda said nothing; she felt there
was nothing more to say, now that the truth had been told between them.
So while the sinking sun flared red on the "Cradle of the Gods" another
man and woman consoled themselves for the lost Paradise.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Bonaventura.]
[Footnote 2: Pension.]
[Footnote 3: Night, or darkness.]
[Footnote 4: Light, or day.]
[Footnote 5: Narayan, in the Hindoo mythology, is the creative spirit
brooding on the waters.]
[Footnote 6: Another kind of religious mendicant.]
[Footnote 7: The ceremonial hospitality offered at levees.]
[Footnote 8: Big lady.]
[Footnote 9: Abuse it.]
[Footnote 10: Lit.: outcasts, used as a term of abuse for Europeans.]
[Footnote 11: Certain.]
End of Project Gutenberg's The Hosts of the Lord, by Flora Annie Steel