Then suddenly he laughed. In that final moment the brain, corroded with

hatred, broke down beneath its accumulated burden. The maniacal

merriment rang out above the thunder of racing water, it pealed on till

it dominated every other sound. As Ayeshi turned with lifted hand to

strike, it subsided hideously into a broken cackle. Still clinging to

Barclay's stirrup, Vahana dropped to his knees. What possessed Barclay

in that moment he could not have told. He stretched out his arm over

the cowering figure, shielding the thing he feared.

"No, no, Ayeshi--it's too late. It doesn't matter who or what you are.

You've got to go on with it. You can't leave us in the lurch. There's

been bloodshed enough----"

Ayeshi's hand sank limply to his side. His lips were quivering.

"Rasaldu is dead," he repeated. "Rasaldu the swine-herd--had more right

than I--and the Sahibs who have done me no wrong----"

Barclay interrupted him with a curse. Was this last catastrophe of his

life to end as the others had done, in a travesty--in a Gilbertian

fiasco? Was he to be held up to ridicule before those cool, insolent

men and women--ludicrous and ineffectual even in his death?

"For God's sake--pull yourself together, Ayeshi!" he said imperatively.

"What does it matter whether you are wronged or not? You are the

leader. Chance has made you--the deliverer of your people. Act like a

man. Save your country--set us free----" He laid his hand on his breast

with a dramatic gesture. "I ask it of you--I, who have suffered at

their hands. Be strong, Ayeshi. Give us our freedom."

But Ayeshi seemed not to listen. His frowning eyes were fixed in front

of him, and suddenly he pointed. Barclay turned in his saddle. At first

the spectacle that met him seemed no more than curious. The belt of

high grass which separated them from the river had parted, and a young

tigress stood in the opening. She seemed wholly unconscious of the

massed enemy before her. She stood there lashing her tail, her velvet

flanks heaving with recent hard effort, her fine head lifted in an

attitude of listening. For an instant she remained thus. No hand was

raised against her. Ayeshi and his followers watched her in motionless,

superstitious silence. Even Barclay felt himself incapable of action.

It was as though the apparition had for them a deeper, as yet unread

significance.

With a low growl, not of anger but of fear, the beautiful animal trotted

with long, loping strides between Ayeshi and the herded crowd of tensely

watching natives. No sound was uttered until the lean, striped body had

vanished. Then a cry went up--at first isolated--then swelling to a

shout:

"An omen--an omen!"

"Vishnu has spoken!"

"The gods are against us!"

"The flood--the flood----!"

The last came in a scream. It bore the other cries down into an

instant's stupefied silence. The massed square of humanity which had

tossed and surged in a gathering storm of panic grew still.

Barclay lifted himself in his stirrups. He could see nothing. The rain

blinded him. Yet his ears, alert now, caught a distant ominous boom.

"I believe it's true--the animal was bolting for her life--the water

must have burst its banks at Bjura--if it has, it's coming twenty miles

an hour--we've got to run for high ground, Ayeshi."

The Hindu shrugged his shoulders.

"There is no high ground----"

Vahana roused himself from the mud where he had remained in an attitude

of apparent stupor. A demoniac energy blazed in the mad eyes.

"There is a way--past Heerut--I will show you--only let me ride with

you, Sahib Barclay----"

The Eurasian nodded. He no longer appealed to Ayeshi, who was sunk in

an apathy of despair. He raised himself again in the saddle.

"There is a way to safety!" he shouted. "Vahana, the Holy Man, will

lead us--the gods have sent a warning--the gods are with us--follow!"

He lifted Vahana into the saddle behind him and swung his horse round

towards Heerut. Ayeshi lingered; Barclay passed him with a gesture of

contempt. The control was in his hands now. It was for him to act--to

retrieve disaster. He had become the leader--the leader of his people.

He heard the rush of feet behind him--the sound thrilled through his

blood in a storm of exultation.

"Follow me!" he shouted. "I will lead you."

They followed. They swept Ayeshi into their maelstrom and carried him

with them, but they too had ceased to heed him. Nor did he try to

regain his hold. The right to command--even to resist--had gone. He

was no longer Rajah--exiled and disinherited, yet still lord of his

destiny. He was Ayeshi, the village story-teller, the servant of

Tristram Sahib, the dreamer bereft of his dreams. He would have been

glad to meet the end.

But the people he had betrayed bore him in their midst, as they fled

before the oncoming waters.

* * * * *

Tristram heard only the deepening voice of the river, the rain splashing

on the roof, and the rush and swirl of the water as it tore through the

village gutters. Even these things, though they reached his hearing,

scarcely touched his consciousness. They walled him in. They formed a

sombre background for his wife's voice.

He sat beside her, her hot little hand in his, and it seemed to him that

they talked together for the first time in their lives. Her voice was

weak and husky with pain, but the pain itself relaxed its grip on her,

allowing her to sink slowly and mercifully.

"I'm dying, am I not, Tristram?" she had asked, and then, reading his

face, added gently: "I want to know--really. I'm not afraid to die.

Why should I be? There is nothing to fear--only so much to hope. Tell

me."

"Anne--little wife--I honestly don't know. So much depends on your will

to live----"

Her smile was touched with something of its old wisdom.

"It depends on God, Tris."

He nodded. It was too late to show her where their roads met. He could

only acquiesce. And presently she spoke again. "It's all been such a

big, sad mistake, hasn't it?"

"What, dear?"

"Our marriage."

He looked into her pinched face, in which only a child-like wistfulness

remained. He looked then at her hand, hiding his own smarting eyes.

"I suppose it has. It's my failure----"

"You didn't love me, Tris."

"I cared--genuinely. I cared so much that I wanted to make you happy."

He hesitated. "But I couldn't make myself to be the man you loved."

"No, it was just a mistake," she agreed.

"You're very generous, dear."

She shook her head.

"Oh, no--it was my fault most of all. I didn't understand. There are

things I don't understand even now."

"What things?"

"Wickie--and--and--that. It seems so wrong--just a dog. You love life

so--Tris."

"I love living things--I can't help it--helpless living things most of

all. Even now I can't judge what I did--it's the old problem--how far

one has the right to punish--to resist evil. But I haven't any real

theories. I can't bear pain--that's all."

Her eyes softened.

"I know. You have been so good--so tender to me. Last night I

understood better all you are--but it's too late----"

"No, Anne--it isn't. Live--give me the chance to make up to you. Dear,

you can. Ask God to give you the will. We've muddled it so far, but

we've seen our mistakes. We can start again. Who knows but if all this

trouble and pain wasn't meant to bring us together--to give us a real

love and knowledge of each other, Anne; couldn't it be----?"

He was using instinctively the language which she could understand best.

Yet there was a sincerity behind the artificial sentences, a passionate

eagerness which moved her. She turned her head wearily on the pillow,

looking steadily into his face.

"Would you be glad--if I lived?"

"Unutterably glad."

"Perhaps we might learn to love each other--in the end----"

"I would try to earn your love."

She smiled wanly.

"I would try to--to make you love me too. I don't know. I would be

glad to live--perhaps if I could only sleep a little. Is there a

chance----"

"Only try."

"Will you stop by me whilst I sleep?"

"I won't leave you."

"I think--if you're there--if you wish it--yes--I will try. I will ask

God to let me live." He bent and kissed her hand. "You won't leave me,

Tris?"

"I promise you."

Her eyes closed peacefully. Her hand rested in his. He remained

motionless, hushing his own breathing. He did not want to disturb her

by the faintest sound, and he himself was tired almost past feeling. He

tried to hush even his thoughts--to create an hiatus between present and

future in which they could both rest. For an instinct in him knew well

that the great battle lay still before them. The time would come when

the warmth of reconciliation would grow cold, and they would face each

other again in the full strength of their conflicting temperaments. But

so long as this silence lasted there was peace, and in that peace they

were very close to each other--closer than they had ever been.

They were both so unutterably tired.

Of what use to force the issue now, even in his mind? Who knew--perhaps

they had indeed learnt their lesson--perhaps they would have patience

and help each other. All things were possible. He had sworn to himself

to make them possible.

He sat there, bent forward, and listened to the rain and the monotonous

boom of the river. His hearing was that of a man coming out of an

anaesthetic--it distorted and magnified sounds, and yet held them a long

way off as though they came from another world. He could not bring his

thoughts to bear upon them.

Then, amidst the dull persistency of it all, there broke the sharp,

staccato beat of hoofs--the splash of a horse galloping through water.

Tristram rose cautiously to his feet. He had to unclasp his wife's hand

and her eyes opened.

"What is it, Tris?"

"My messenger back from Gaya, I expect. I didn't believe he meant to

go, but it seems I misjudged him."

"You won't leave me, Tris?"

"I've promised you."

The horse had been drawn up sharply. Tristram went to the door and

opened it, letting in a wave of dank air. Sigrid stood on the threshold.

She was drenched with rain and mud. She went past him, closing the door

behind her.

"Tristram--I----" she began breathlessly.

"For pity's sake!" he muttered, in utter consternation. Then she saw

Anne lying on the bed by the wall. There was an instant's silence.

Anne had lifted herself on her elbow. Her cheeks blazed with colour.

All the childish wistfulness had gone from her expression, which was old

and hard and cruel.

"Is this an appointment?" she asked clearly. "Didn't Tristram warn you

in time?"

"Anne--what are you saying?" He came to her side, trying to force her

gently back. "I know nothing of Mrs. Barclay's coming--she will tell

you herself----" He looked towards Sigrid, standing white and still in

the centre of the room, and his voice shook with anger. "Mrs.

Barclay--explain to my wife--and to me----"

But Anne freed herself from his hands.

"Please--don't ask her to perjure herself. I don't believe you,

Tristram--lies are nothing to you--and I shouldn't believe her. She

didn't hesitate to try and take you from me before--a woman who can do

that is bad----"

"It's not true," he broke in sternly.

"It is true. She told me so with her own lips. I wouldn't be here now

if she hadn't confessed to me. You wouldn't have her--that's what she

said. Now, I don't believe even that----"

She stopped, gasping for breath. Sigrid took a step forwards, and

Tristram, as he saw her face, felt the anger go out of him. She also

had tried to atone--to safeguard the happiness of a woman they had both

wronged. It had been in vain, grotesquely, tragically in vain. But she

had not spared herself.

She went past him, straight to Anne's side.

"Mrs. Tristram----" she began, "your husband has told you the truth. He

knew nothing of my coming. I bring grave news----"

Anne shrank back from her.

"Tristram--tell her to go--I can't bear it--won't you do even that for

me? I'm dying--you'll have time enough afterwards. You'll be happy

with her then. Can't you give me this hour--tell her to go----"

He stood big and determined before her.

"You are unjust, Anne. And you are doing yourself harm----"

"Does that trouble you?"

"I tell you, you are unjust. At least, hear why Mrs. Barclay has come.

She may have a message for us--perhaps from your father."

She laughed bitterly.

"You are very clever, Tristram. But I shan't believe her. I won't hear

her----"

"You've got to," Sigrid interposed resolutely. "Mr. Meredith is dead.

He has been murdered. I found him dying--and his last message was a

warning to Tristram."

She had meant to cut short the ugly scene. There was no time to waste.

One sentence was to save Anne the agony of a suspicion which seemed

justified enough. But no relief came into the poor, passion-twisted

features--only a more terrible change. Without a sound, Anne dropped

back among her pillows. Her eyes were closed, the last atom of colour

drained from her open lips.

Tristram bent over her, his hand on her pulse. The fear of that moment

sickened him.

"Owen,--Owen----!"

The whispered name, warm with tenderness and grief, silenced them both.

They could not look at each other. It was as though they had pried

unwillingly into a secret which filled them with shame and a sense of

tragic futility. She, too, had borne her burden--her share of their

common error.

"Owen--Owen----!"

Sigrid touched Tristram's bowed shoulders. There was an odd diffidence

in her touch, as though she had become afraid.

"I didn't know--how could I have known? Have I hurt her?"

"It seems our fate," he answered bitterly.

"I couldn't help it. There was no time to think. Something is very

wrong. Rasaldu was missed yesterday. Then Meredith--and there was no

one at the bridge. I came as fast I could--to warn you----"

He drew himself up painfully.

"It's no good. We can't leave here. You'd better go back to Gaya." He

glanced quickly at her. Her ethereal pallor, the look of wan

spirituality, smote him to the heart, and yet he spoke roughly. "You

ought never to have come. Why didn't you return to Gaya at once?"

"He sent me," she said simply, like a child that has been reproached.

"He knew that Anne was here," he muttered. His eyes returned to the

white, still face of his wife, as though he saw her for the first time.

Sigrid's answer seemed to him no more than the whisper of his own

thoughts.

"Perhaps I should have come anyhow."

"You won't be strong enough to ride back."

"Oh--yes--I am quite strong. It's as you said, Major Tristram--I think

I shall live to be quite old."

He heard her turn to go. He remained motionless, his hands clenched at

his side. No other words could have expressed more poignantly his own

vision of the future, and yet he dared not answer, dared not look at

her.

"Ask them to send help," he said thickly. His voice shook beneath the

harsh self-repression. "You see--how it is--I can't leave here--I

couldn't leave her here----"

"Yes--I understand--I'll send help." The door opened. Yet he knew that

she still lingered. "Major Tristram--I'm afraid, somehow, it's too

late."

He turned. He heard what she had heard.

"Close the door," he said quietly.

She obeyed. There was something inexpressibly gentle and docile about

her. He remembered--not in thought, but in a vivid picture--how once

before they had confronted each other in that selfsame place--he saw her

resolute, defiant of life, splendidly self-assured. All that was gone.

It was as though her physical being, her bodily vitality had been worn

away, and that there was nothing left but the spirit, unbroken, yet

intensely weary.

The sound of voices grew nearer. The cries, at first blurred into one,

became separate, sharp, shrill notes played on the dull bass of the

booming waters. Inarticulate though they were, they carried an

unmistakable significance; they were cries of fear, more terrible, more

pitiless than anger.

Tristram made a gesture of quiet understanding.

"Yes, it is too late," he said. "It's been working up to this. We

shall have to face it together."

She assented silently.

"I can't do much. I haven't a weapon--not so much as a rusty revolver."

He smiled grimly, remembering their first day together. "I shouldn't do

much damage, anyway."

"I'm glad," she answered.

Their eyes met. They dared look at each other now. In that steady,

passionless encounter there was acknowledgment and confession. They saw

their visions of the future as realities and knew that they had been the

creations of their despair. It was all impossible. They could not have

gone on. They were exhausted. They had worn themselves out in the

effort to bear their burden honourably, to break the rare mysterious

decree which binds one being to another in defiance of all human law and

circumstance. It was over. Soon they would be able to rest.

"If only Anne were safe!" he said.

"We must try and help her----"

He felt a hand on his sleeve. He looked down and saw that his wife's

eyes were open. She clung to him.

"You won't leave me, Tris?"

"No, no, I promise you."

"I'm so frightened----"

He could not answer. The vain assurance died on his lips. He could

only hold her hand in his, comforting her to the last. The door opened

and he turned, facing whatever was to come.

Barclay entered; Vahana, at his heels, lingered sinisterly in the

shadow, but Barclay strode straight forward, his arrogant eyes flashing

from one face to the other. He held himself as he had always longed to

hold himself--as the master, as the more than equal. He looked straight

at Tristram, and in that steadfast regard there was satisfaction, an

almost voluptuous foreknowledge of satiated passions.

"You are my prisoner," he said.

"Whom do you represent, Mr. Barclay?"

"The Rajah Ayeshi." He saw, or thought he saw, amusement in Tristram's

eyes, and pointed to the open doorway--"and two thousand armed men."

"Is this Ayeshi's order?"

"It is my order--Rajah Ayeshi accepts my leadership."

"Then it was you who murdered Rasaldu and Mr. Meredith?"

He smiled.

"And others. Believe me, there will be no living white man or woman in

Gaya by midnight--my wife excepted." He made Sigrid a little satirical

bow. "In spite of circumstances, I am glad of the chance to make that

exception. My wife will follow me."

"Your wife is waiting for you in Gaya," she answered. She felt rather

than saw Anne lift herself on her elbow. She felt Tristram's movement

and added simply: "Mr. Barclay was married years ago. My marriage with

him was illegal, and I am free."

She did not see the ugly little smile quiver about Anne's lips. She

held her ground, patient, content. She had broken the last link which

held her to a loathed life. It was as though she breathed a fresher,

purer air.

"That frees me from all responsibility, doesn't it?" Barclay suggested.

"Quite."

He hesitated. His minutes in the place were numbered. His ears, attuned

to catch the first warning, reminded him of the remorseless, oncoming

danger, and yet he faltered. A bitter taste of failure was in his

mouth.

"You had better follow me, Tristram. Resistance is useless."

"As you will. I have only one request to make. Respect my wife. She

is very ill."

Barclay shrugged his shoulders.

"A dying woman----? I can grant you that much."

But even in the midst of his brutal self-assertiveness, a merciless

flash of intuition showed him himself as they saw him. His power

slipped through his fingers. He looked from Sigrid to Tristram, and

knew their immeasurable indifference to all that he could threaten.

They were not afraid--almost--they were glad. He could not penetrate

their mood--he only felt it as an intolerable hurt--a frustration of

that madly aching desire in him. They stood aloof from him as they had

always done. He could not reach them--the woman had shaken herself free

from his very name as from something loathsome. To the

last--ineffectual, beyond the pale. He had meant to strike--he had set

them free.

He made a gesture, and Vahana closed the door. He came and stood close

to Sigrid, staring into her face.

"Will you come with me?" he asked. She made no answer. He felt his

lips trembling. "I could make you," he broke out.

"I think not."

"You mean that, sooner or later, you would escape me? I daresay. You

are brave enough. But I ask you to come with me of your own free

will--as my mistress--as anything on earth I choose--to share my

life--whatever future I have--faithfully----"

"Aren't you wasting time, Mr. Barclay?" Tristram interposed.

Barclay remained with his eyes on Sigrid's face.

"If you will come with me, Sigrid, Major Tristram can go back to Gaya."

She seemed scarcely to hear him. He heard Tristram laugh.

"Isn't this all rather melodramatic, Barclay? Do you really imagine I

am anxious to save my life on such terms? Why don't you get on with

things?"

Barclay swung round on his heel.

"And does my offer really amuse you? Are you amused at the death of a

score or so of your countrymen up there in Gaya? That's what it amounts

to. Mrs. Boucicault is giving a dinner to the station tonight. In

three hours' time, the regiment mutinies, and your friends will be wiped

out without being able to lift a hand--unless you warn them. Is that

amusing?"

He drew a deep breath of content. He had seen Tristram flinch. He had

reached him at last, had forced him down from his heights to meet him in

the equality of a life-and-death struggle. He could afford now to be

patient and composed.

It was Sigrid who spoke. Her voice sounded curiously flat and lifeless.

"Why have you told us this?"

He turned to her.

"Because I am asking a great deal of you. This is not our old bargain,

Sigrid. If you come with me, it must be on my own terms. I don't know

where I am going--but I shall be an exile--an Eurasian outcast with a

price on his head. And you have got to stick to me."

"And your wife? She believes that you care for her."

His hands were clenched.

"I have done with caring," he said harshly. "You've taken care that I

shouldn't put love first in my life. Leave my wife out of this.

Nothing concerns you but your own decision."

"And you are ready to sacrifice your plans----?"

"I am prepared to give Gaya a fighting chance," he interrupted sternly.

"I do not pretend that it is more than that--perhaps not so much."

"If--if I consent, will you keep faith? Have you the power----?"

"I have the power. Ayeshi will consent to anything I suggest.

Remember--I have to trust you, too----" He hesitated, and then added

slowly: "I do trust you."

She made a groping, uncertain gesture.

"Tristram----"

But he threw back his head in defiance.

"It can't be. Gaya wouldn't be saved at such a cost."

"It isn't what Gaya would want--it's what we've got to do--we ourselves

don't count."

"Your honour----" he burst out.

"What is honour?" she retorted finely. "By your own creed,

Tristram--what other honour is there but our duty towards others?"

He fought against her, against the light which he saw gathering in her

eyes--against himself.

"It's a hideous impossibility."

"The hideousness isn't ours. It isn't impossible."

"Decide--can't you?" Barclay flung at them.

Tristram turned to him with a gesture of immeasurable contempt.

"So you betray all your masters?" he said.

"I am the son of a betrayal," Barclay retorted, smiling bitterly. "Has

that ever troubled you? Why trouble yourself now about me?"

Sigrid's eyes avoided Tristram's face. The grey horror of it shook her.

"It's as Mr. Barclay says--we've only got to consider our own actions."

"Then you've decided?"

"Is there any choice?" she asked sternly.

For one moment he hated her as a man hates the cause of an intolerable

suffering. The next, he saw that she had outstripped him. She had

taken the fundamentals of his life and built her own edifice upon

them--a higher, finer edifice than his own.

"I see that there is no choice for you," he said, with a chivalrous

resignation. "And you're right. We don't count."

He felt the hand in his tighten. He looked down into his wife's ashen

face. Throughout she had not spoken--scarcely moved. Now the change in

her startled him out of the stupefying absorption of his pain. He saw

that she had ceased to be afraid, and that the malice and anger had gone

from her. He saw her as she had been in her girlhood, in her first

innocent, incredulous love of him. Her failing eyes were full of a deep,

unearthly pity.

"Tris--you are both--very brave."

A groan burst from his lips.

"Anne--I can't leave you."

"You must. That is my little share in the sacrifice. I shan't be afraid

now, Tris."

He knelt down beside her. She put her weak arms round his neck and

kissed him. "Good-bye, husband."

"Little Anne--God keep you."

She smiled a little.

"I'm--sure--He--will."

Barclay moved impatiently. He saw that they had forgotten him.

"Will you come, Sigrid?"

She bent her head in assent.

"Then you can go your way, Major," Barclay said.

But it was as though the last weapon which his tortured pride had forged

for him had shivered against an impregnable armour. They were

great--these people--even in defeat--even Anne, little cowardly

Anne--could face death alone and unflinchingly. He recognized that

greatness with a last anguish. He had their blood in him. If they had

turned to him, recognized him, appealed to him in the name of their

common ancestry,--even then---- But they did not think of him. He was

a whirlwind driving them apart to their separate destinies--an

impersonal, soulless force--no more.

"Come!" he demanded violently.

Tristram gave Sigrid his hand. They took up their burden of life. It

had become heavier; but they took it up. And for a while they would

carry it. But in the end there would be rest. That was their message

and their farewell.

Tristram went out into the rain-swept street--past Vahana, who looked up

into his face and laughed.

Sigrid lingered. She drew shyly near the camp-bed with its little

burden.

"Good-bye----"

But Anne stretched out her hand and drew Sigrid down to her and kissed

her.

"Yours is the hardest part. I--judged--harshly. Forgive."

"There is no need--our ways have met in the end."

The door closed presently. It grew very still in the little hut. The

voices and the clatter of hoofs faded in the distance. All other sounds

sank into the deepening, growing call of the flood.

Anne lay still. Her eyes lingered on the shadowy furniture. Even now

there was Wickie's old basket in the corner. Poor Tristram! She sighed

faintly--wearily. Somehow now it was so much easier to understand--God

was all-merciful.

It was growing dark. She tried to compose herself. The shadows were

rising up all around her. She was not afraid. Owen would be there--he

would be waiting for her--it would be just as it had always been--only

more perfect.

She tried to fold her hands.

"Our Father which art----"

It was as though a great sea poured over her--engulfing her in its

peace.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*TO GAYA!*

Tristram led Arabella out of her stable and spoke gently to her. He

showed no sign of haste or trouble. He did not believe Barclay. He was

convinced that there was no intention to allow him to leave Heerut

living. Even Barclay could not betray his followers so openly. Yet he

had no right to refuse the chance, and in the end it could make but

little difference.

He mounted and walked Arabella down the centre of the flooded street.

Across the western exit of the village, where the land lay highest, the

two thousand had herded together like a pack of hunted wolves awaiting

the signal from their leader. Ayeshi sat his horse a little in advance,

with Barclay and the shadowy mendicant to his right. Tristram rode

towards them unmoved. He held himself with his usual casual ease, a

little loosely, with one fist stemmed against his thigh. There was no

conscious bravado in the attitude. An instinct inherited from

generations of men who had confronted the same enemy at the same odds

taught him an unchallenging serenity. As he drew nearer, he looked full

into Ayeshi's face and read in the sombre eyes the confirmation of his

death. He might have spoken, made some appeal to the old memories that

bound them, but something--perhaps the consciousness that for that

moment he represented more than himself--held him sternly silent.

Barclay smiled, but his eyes too, were overshadowed with a knowledge in

which there was neither happiness nor triumph. Thus the three men met

in a last encounter. For an instant they seemed to be alone--to be

standing on a lofty plateau above the watching crowd, confronting each

other with a tragic perception of something common to them all, and of a

destroying, merciless destiny.

Then Vahana laughed, shrilly, exultantly, and it was over.

Tristram rode past Ayeshi. He reached the border of the crowd.

Arabella hesitated and he touched her gently with his heels. She

understood, and, understanding, became insolently irresistible. The

first man whom she nosed aside hesitated, his hand on his knife.

Tristram did not look at him. His eyes passed carelessly over the sea

of upturned faces. He did not draw himself up. So he might have ridden

among them on a feast day, or as they returned from their work on the

plain. His expression was neither defiant, nor contemptuous. To the

last even as he awaited death at their hands, he remained one of them,

not judge or master or victim, but man among men. One step more. The

sea closed in behind him. Would it come now? He knew that it would be

in his back. Sooner or later the hypnotic spell which his presence threw

over them would snap. Some hand, bolder, more resolved than the rest,

would lift itself, and then the waves would close over him for ever.

Yet as he rode on, winning each step, the tension of waiting relaxed.

He forgot himself. Something rose up to him in that heated, foetid

atmosphere of a passion-ridden humanity. It enveloped him with a deeper

knowledge of their dim strivings, of their dimmer hopes, and great

fears. He saw in their revolt only a thwarted desire, a piteous

clinging to the only faith they knew, in their hating cruelty only the

curse under which all men, struggling blindly towards their vision of

the future, flood their path with the blood of their brothers.

He did not pity them. The burden of their life was his. He forgot

himself as the individual. He was part of the universe, part of all

life. The instinct in him was to hold, out his hands to them in

recognition--in acceptance of their common destiny.

He did not know that his face had changed as he rode slowly forward, nor

that the faith which burnt up in him shone in his eyes. He only knew

that suddenly it was over. The last wondering, questioning face flashed

past him. He was out in the open--free.

Arabella broke into a canter. He pulled her back to a walk. The time

had not yet come. They would recover now. Some of them had rifles.

They would use them. There must be no sign of flight, of fear.

Ten yards--twenty--fifty--still nothing. Another pace or two, and he

stood on a hillock, his body, as he knew, sharply outlined against the

light. He drew in deliberately. Still nothing. He went on. He was

hidden now. He called to Arabella, and then they were galloping towards

Gaya.

Three hours and fifteen miles of bad road--perhaps partly flooded. So

far there was only mud, into which Arabella sank up to the fetlocks, but

down on the plain itself there would be morass--in places water. His

mind foresaw each mile, each obstacle. If it could be done, Arabella

would do it. No thoroughbred had her pluck and stamina. But it would be

a close finish. Night was coming on. It would be dark within an hour.

He would have to rely on his instinct to guide him. The lights of Gaya

would not carry half a mile through the rain which fell in a finely

woven curtain from the loaded sky.

He had ceased to question Barclay's action or Ayeshi's curious

acquiescence. Possibly they had not meant him to escape--possibly they

had relied on his coming too late or on the futility of his warning. It

was useless to speculate. He could only act--do the best he could.

He breasted the last hillock which separated him from the plain. The

roar of the river sounded ominous even then--like the roll of

continuous, unmodulated thunder. Then on her own initiative, Arabella

slithered to a standstill, her ears pricked, her lean body quivering

with apprehension. Tristram brushed the rain from his eyes. For an

instant he was only incredulous--distrustful of his own senses.

Twenty-four hours ago--a wide flat stretch of saturated fertile

soil--the bold, sweeping line of the Ganges--and now this--this level,

rising, onward-flowing surface, broken near the centre by a broad ribbon

of sinister, rippling movement--no landmark left, no grass, no trace of

land--one stupendous, terrible monotony of water.

Then he knew what Barclay had known. The floods had come. The

catastrophe of which old villagers had spoken with bated breath had

broken over them. He could hear the water lapping against the base of

the rising ground. With every minute it grew louder, nearer. In a few

hours it might well be that the whole plain might be

covered--Heerut--the temple itself.

He spoke to Arabella. He felt that figuratively she shrugged her

shoulders. They had done many mad things together in their day, and

this was the maddest and the last; but, if he wished it, she had no

objection. She went slithering and stumbling down into the water. It

rose to her knees, to his feet and there for the time stopped. They

waded steadily towards the bridge-head. If it grew no deeper than this

the passage might still be possible. He leant forward eagerly in the

saddle, waiting for his goal to outline itself against the eternal

greyness. There was no sound but the sish of the water as it broke from

Arabella's shoulders and her own heavy breathing. He had ceased to hear

the boom which had first warned him. He was in the midst of it and it

became a kind of silence. It was a part of his consciousness--it had

been there always.

Striking diagonally across the plain, he left the black mass of the

temple on his right. He could not feel any current, and yet he was

aware that they were being drawn insidiously towards the centre. The

knowledge did not trouble him. So long as he could keep Arabella's head

up the river, he could afford to give ground. He did not contemplate

the possibility of being sucked into the torrent itself. As yet

Arabella's foothold was sure and her progress steady.

No suspicion of the truth had reached him.

But still he could not see the bridge. Once past the temple it was the

first important landmark, and he began to wonder, in spite of Arabella's

sturdy efforts, whether they were really moving forward. The horror of

the passing time coiled itself round him, stifling him. He knew

fear--already the drab daylight was failing rapidly. Yet there was no

bridge.

He was drifting nearer to the river's banks. He could mark them

definitely by the break in the placid surface--the sudden rush, the

eddies and deep pits of the whirlpools. He could judge the pace of the

torrent by the passing of odd, as yet unrecognizable fragments. They

sped on their way, now disappearing for many minutes, now carried from

side to side in cross currents, but always in headlong movement. Some

of the fragments were like small islands--they stood upright out of the

water like pillars of a ruined church, black and straight.

Still there was no bridge.

"Mother Ganges demands toll of those who curb her."

Suddenly he understood. He understood Barclay's smile and Ayeshi's

acquiescence. He recognized those pillars. They were motionless. They

held their place in the torrent like the defiant remnant of an

annihilated army, like tragic monuments to man's futility.

The bridge had gone.

For a moment he drew Arabella to a standstill. He had lost all sense of

anxiety, all thought of failure. Methodically but rapidly, he threw

overboard every unnecessary weight: his water-logged riding boots,

various small items in his pockets, a heavy belt with a metal clasp, his

coat. With an effort he managed to cut the girths and finally to remove

the saddle itself, flinging it to the rest. Then he turned Arabella's

head towards the river.

They were moving quickly now--perilously quickly. In what seemed no

more than a minute they had reached the limit. The water rose above his

knees, he could feel it circling round him--a living monster, awaiting

its moment. He bent forward and patted Arabella's neck and whispered to

her, and kissed her warm sleekness. She whinnied challengingly, tossing

her head. Then plunged.

The torrent passed over them. He went down under a crushing opaque mass

of delirious water. It seemed many minutes--perhaps it was only a

second or two--then they rose again. Arabella's head was turned

downstream. She made no effort. She was panic-stricken--helpless. He

called to her. He himself was stunned and could barely keep his seat.

Invisible forces had hold of him, dragging at him. At last he had her

head round, and she struck out with the energy of terror. They were

moving now. He could judge their progress by the two pillars mere

specks on the rushing greyness. A fierce exultation possessed him--the

glory of struggle--they were moving. Arabella had found her stride.

Though they drifted, too, they were not wholly at the mercy of the

current. Foot by foot, they were winning their way across. It did not

matter that they were being swept farther down the river. Once on dry

land they could make up for lost time. Then Arabella would not fail.

But now he was afraid for her. He could feel in his own nerves and

sinews the cost of her heroic effort--the rising agony of her

exhaustion. He believed that already she was finished. He felt her go

down under him. Then, in answer to a supreme demand of her spirit, she

rose again--the blood streaming from her nostrils. He called to her,

and she turned her head a little. He could see her eyes, their whites

veined with red, and he remembered Wickie. It was the same look, the

same unfaltering confidence, the same patient acceptance of suffering.

For herself alone she would not have struggled farther; but for him, for

his life she accepted the crushing, heart-breaking burden of living.

Strange things raced past them--fragments horrible in their

significance--an unhinged door, a table, a wooden image swept from some

village shrine, its battered face staring from out of the foaming water

in grotesque serenity; dead things--the carcase of a bullock, a woman's

rigid hand tossed up in horrible semblance of appeal, a baby's body;

living things--the hideous snout of a mugger battling against the

stream, its jaws snapping greedily at the passing provender, a cheetah,

caught perhaps in the midst of some marauding expedition, which

struggled to Tristram's side and kept close to him. He called to it and

it turned its eyes to him in frantic supplication and terror. In that

dread moment they were comrades, fighting shoulder to shoulder against

the common enemy.

They reached midstream. In a minute they would be out of the worst--out

of danger. He turned his head; he wanted to measure by the pillars how

far they had still to go. He saw the end coming. It was

grotesque--absurd--a native hovel that had been caught up bodily. It

bore down upon him, staggering drunkenly on the full breast of the

current. It seemed to blot out the sky--a monstrous, towering

Juggernaut.

A figure clung to the thatched roof. It was gesticulating wildly--in

fear or warning, he could not tell. But there was no escape. The

rocking structure was travelling with the speed of an express,--Arabella

had almost ceased to move. Tristram slipped quietly from her back, only

holding to her bridle, and she rose buoyantly. In that final moment, a

deep-rooted instinct in him had prevailed. She was to have her chance.

He struck out--turning his head for a last time towards the onrushing

catastrophe. It was not more than twenty yards away. He could see the

man's dark face--staring down into the water--aghast, silly-looking.

His grotesque vessel seemed suddenly to stop, to draw back, quivering

like a frightened, death-stricken animal--then plunged headlong--flashed

like a pebble over the edge of a precipice.

Tristram closed his eyes. He tasted death. He knew the horror of

suffocation--the pitiless night which swirled over him, choking him,

stupefying him.

Twenty yards lower down the hut reappeared. Its roof was battered in.

The clinging, piteous figure had vanished.

Tristram twisted Arabella's bridle about his arm. It was his last

deliberate act. He was dimly conscious of movement, of being sucked

against warm, heaving flanks, of a hand that closed down blackly on his

will to live. He knew that he was letting go his hold--he was beaten.

He felt himself go down--then one last thrill of consciousness. His feet

jarred against something--he was being dragged--dragged over a soft

spongy substance.

He tried to right himself--but instead stumbled--pitched headlong into

oblivion.

*CHAPTER XIV*

*RESURRECTION*

"That reminds me of a story some one told me once," Mrs. Brabazone

declared. "I think it was George----"

George, seated three places lower down on the opposite side of the

table, looked up anxiously and, meeting his wife's eyes, signalled a

denial. "Yes, I'm sure it was you, George. Anyhow, it's a very good

story. It was about a Lancashire coal-heaver--or was it a

cotton-spinner? What do they do in Lancashire? I never can remember.

But I know they make a frightful lot of money, and are horribly

extravagant." She considered a moment. "Yes--it is extravagant, not

mean. I get so confused. And one day when he was dying----"

Some one laughed, and Mrs. Brabazone glanced up perplexedly. "My dear,

that isn't the point--at least, I don't think so. George, do tell it.

It's such a good story."

The Judge, usually the soul of courtesy, turned a deaf ear and fixed his

attention with an expression of almost passionate interest on Colonel

Armstrong, who was seated on Mrs. Boucicault's left. The Colonel was

discussing the prospects of the rains, his manner beautifully

Anglo-Saxon in its optimistic serenity.

"I'm sure we can congratulate ourselves that the worst is over," he

said. "As long as the banks at Bjura hold there is nothing to fear, and

Rutherford promised to let us know the moment there was any danger--on

account of the bridge, of course. Poor Matherson was rather rattled

about the bridge. It's his first single-handed job, and a swollen river

like that is a severe test. However, he's kept quiet, so we can presume

that it's holding out."

Mrs. Boucicault smiled. She smiled very often--always when a reply was

expected of her. It covered over her silence. It was a curious smile.

It came suddenly and faded slowly, leaving behind it a kind of grimace.

Her eyes, abnormally large and intensely blue, were fixed blankly on the

length of the table. Its display of silver, the many flowers, the

subdued lights, the noiseless servants whose dark hands reached out

spectrally from the shadows, seemed to absorb her. Certainly it was a

feast unequalled in the annals of Gaya's sociabilities. Some of the

guests were even vaguely oppressed by it. A pace was being set which

none of them could hope to keep up.

Dr. Martin, seated a few places lower down on his hostess's right,

scarcely turned his eyes from her face. She seemed to fascinate him.

His neighbour--the wife of a newly arrived Captain--decided that he was

a very stupid little man. He rarely spoke, and seemed to have no

appetite. Her inherited antipathy for civilians increased to dislike,

and she pitied herself intensely. In despite, she amused herself with

Captain Compton, who was her _vis-a-vis_, dilating rather maliciously on

the glories of Simla, from whence she hailed.

The conversation never flagged. Its feverish persistency covered the

splash of the rain outside the open windows and the sound of smothered,

angry whisperings somewhere behind the curtained doorways. Mrs.

Compton, who was an old hand at Indian life, sensed "nerves" in that

perpetual chatter, in that resolute determination to shut out alike

thought and silence. The last weeks had been almost unbearable. She

herself had never experienced anything to equal the incessant downpour.

But it was more than the climate. There was unrest in the air. From

her husband she had heard mutterings to the effect that Armstrong, good

soldier though he was, did not know how to tackle the ugly temper of his

men--that a demand had been sent to headquarters for a battalion of

white troops. Then other things had gone wrong--Rasaldu, Sigrid,

Barclay--it was one long sequence of trouble.

And now tonight, Mrs. Boucicault sat at the head of the table with her

staring, unseeing eyes and grey, powdered face, looking like a smiling

death's-head.

Mary Compton thought of the man who lay paralysed and silent behind the

walls, and wondered if beneath their gaiety the others thought of him

and of the unknown hand which had struck him down. Things happened in

India. They came out of the darkness like lightning--struck, and

vanished. It was no wonder people had nerves. They were in the

minority--in reality quite powerless. It was just bluff--splendid

bluff.

Mrs. Compton bit her lip. She had nearly screamed. In the midst of her

unpleasant reflections, the voices in the corridor had risen to an angry

clamour. Suddenly the curtains were pushed violently aside. The butler

entered backwards, expostulating, gesticulating, followed overwhelmingly

by Mrs. Smithers. Her entry, her rain-soaked clothes and dishevelled

grey hair might have been comic--might have caused amused

surprise--discomfort; but there was something else about her--a

resolution, a reality of tense anxiety which, reflected on the faces of

those who saw her first, brought the rest to an instantaneous silence.

She looked round the table, and, seeing Mrs. Compton, who had half

risen, burst into breathless speech.

"It's Sigrid--she's gone--she's been gone since this morning--I've

waited--I couldn't bear it any longer. She'll die. It's her heart. And

that man--that scoundrel--his real wife's down there now--crying her

eyes out. It made me sick. I had to come. Mrs. Compton, you cared for

her--you'll help me. Don't you know anything--don't you know where

she's gone?"

The broken, incoherent flow came to a more resolute end. The servants

made a movement as though to approach her, but Mrs. Boucicault waved

them back. She had become suddenly alert and watchful, as though for

something which she had long foreseen.

Mrs. Compton looked helplessly round the table.

"Does any one know--I haven't seen Mrs. Barclay for days----"

"You can call her Miss Fersen," Mrs. Smithers broke in doggedly.

"Well, you know who I mean. Perhaps she's taken shelter----"

"It was raining when she started out. That was this morning

early--after that woman came----"

"What woman----?"

"Mrs. Barclay--a nigger, like him."

Mrs. Smithers was uncompromising--violent. She did not care that she

interrupted, that forty of Gaya's most important inhabitants stared at

her with varying feelings of consternation and annoyance. She was

frightened. Her fear had tightened its hold with every hour of futile

waiting, till what self-consciousness she had was stifled out of her.

Her fear was everything. These people were nothing. Her disparagement

of them expressed itself in every line of her grim, ashen features.

"You mean"--Colonel Armstrong leant back judicially in his chair,

fingering the stem of his wine-glass "you mean actually that Mrs.--your

mistress discovered this morning--that--that, in fact, her marriage had

been illegal----?"

"That's it. She wasn't _his_ wife--never had been, thank God."

"Isn't it conceivable--I don't want to frighten you--that in her despair

she may have done something rash?"

Mrs. Smithers jerked her head with a movement of utter contempt.

"You men seem to think we're always in despair if we lose one of you

precious creatures--most times it's t'other way round. She was glad.

It's the first time I've seen her happy for months and months. He's

done away with her--and you sit there like a herd of stuck pigs----"

"Really, my good woman----"

"I'm not your good woman. A lot you care. She's one of your

blood--worth the whole crowd of you--and you treated her like dirt just

because she got into the clutches of one of

your--your--wickednesses----"

"Smithy!" Mrs. Compton implored.

"I don't care--it's true."

Armstrong looked helplessly at Mrs. Boucicault; but Mrs. Boucicault was

staring in front of her with that same look of tense expectancy. The

new arrival from Simla shivered. She did not understand the scene, but

she thought it vulgar and horrid. These out-of-the-way stations were

very uncivilized. It was amazing how quickly the smartest people lost

their polish.

Captain Compton came suddenly to the rescue.

"It's a queer thing," he said, in his deliberate way. "Meredith and

Rasaldu and now Miss Fersen----"

"Rubbish!" Armstrong knitted his brows at his junior. "Meredith has

probably taken the Rajah with him on his rounds. It's happened before.

As to Mrs.--Miss Fersen, there are any amount of possible explanations.

Her horse may have fallen lame. I've always set my face against this

silly craze for riding alone, and now----"

He stopped. The stem of his wine-glass snapped under the sudden

pressure of his fingers. The Simla woman gave a little scream and rose

to her feet. He frowned at her. The men exchanged glances. The women

were curiously still--looking towards the window. Armstrong laughed,

mopping up his wine with his napkin. "'Pon my word, we're all suffering

from nerves. Absurd. Some sentry----"

But no one listened to him. Compton got up and ran out of the

window--down into the garden. They heard scuffling--a muttered

exclamation--the sound of something soft and heavy being dragged up the

steps. They sat still--waiting. They saw Compton hesitating on the

threshold of the light. He was bending down----

"Give me a hand some one, for God's sake!"

George Brabazone pushed back his chair and turned to his assistance.

Between them the huddled, shapeless something was pulled into the room.

It lay inert. The shadow covered it. One of the men snatched up a

light, holding it above his head.

"What is it----?"

"Tristram----"

"What--not----?"

"I don't know--tumbled off his horse. Pull the curtains--get the

servants out of the room." Armstrong took over Compton's command. The

natives fled noiselessly before his imperative gestures. The curtains

were dragged across, shutting out the black, menacing gulf. They were

all on their feet now--two brilliant lines of colour--with that blot

lying in a pool of mud and rain----

"Give me wine--anything."

Tristram stirred. With Compton and Brabazone on either side of him, he

dragged himself to his knees. The water dripped from his face--from his

clothes. He was almost unrecognizable.

"It's nothing--they--missed me. Only winded----" He pushed the

proffered glass aside. "Rasaldu--Meredith--both murdered

yesterday--regiment mutinies--organized for tonight--not a soul to

escape--any minute now. That was the first shot----"

"Where have you come from?"

"Heerut. Bridge gone. Had to swim for it----"

"Matherson----?"

"Gone--I don't know. Don't talk----"

"Of course not--we must act. Who's on duty to-night?"

"Farquhar--Haverton----"

"They must be warned."

"It's too late. It'd show them we were prepared. Our only chance is to

take them by surprise-- What's that----?"

"Firing. Poor devils! We shall be the next. Who's at the bottom of

this, Tristram?"

"Ayeshi--Barclay--what's it matter? Do something!"

They looked at each other. Something like a smile passed over their

faces. They were very calm--very quiet. The men and women were equally

aware that there was not much they could do. They were cut off by

hundreds of miles from any real assistance. It would have taken an hour

at least to have gathered the rest of Gaya together and prepared a

defence that might suggest even a fighting chance. As it was, they had

perhaps a few minutes--if one or two of them had a weapon in his

possession it would be a great piece of luck. The thought of a

five-chambered revolver--three chambers empty--which he happened to have

slipped into the pocket of his military overcoat some days back--gave

Compton such an absurd thrill of satisfaction that he laughed.

"We shall have to shy the spoons at 'em!" he said.

Mrs. Boucicault brushed the fluffy grey hair from her forehead.

"My husband has a few guns in his rack," she said quietly. "He used

them for hunting, but they might do. I think there are some cartridges,

too--I don't know--we might look."

"Better than nothing." Armstrong began to direct, heavily but

systematically. "Compton, get the servants together. Shut them up and

see that they don't get a chance to communicate with any one outside.

Five of you had better keep a lookout. The rest stay here. It would be

better to go on as though nothing had happened. We shall defend this

side of the house--this room, in fact. We're too few for anything more.

Mrs. Boucicault, please lead the way----"

He was obeyed. The women reseated themselves. Mary Compton began to

talk. Mrs. Brabazone took up the tangled thread of her story and

unravelled it laboriously. The dead white tablecloth and the brilliant

colours of the flowers made their faces look vivid.

"It's like old times," Mrs. Compton declared. "I expect it's really a

blessing in disguise. If we didn't have these periodical shake-ups our

livers would never work at all. We do eat such dreadfully unhealthy

things. Somebody pass me the almonds. Let's have our desserts now as

well as in the hereafter!"

It was an old and rather feeble jest, but it served its purpose. The

Simla woman laughed heartily. Mrs. Brabazone grumbled.

"People always seem to find something in Mary's remarks. It's base

favouritism. I'm every bit as funny----"

"A lot more, my dear." Mrs. Compton's manner was that of a rather

over-excited school-girl. She ate salted almonds vivaciously and threw

one at Tristram, who had stumbled to a chair and sat there with his face

between his hands. "You look like a drowned rat, Hermit--not a bit

lovable. Where's Anne?"

He glanced up with bloodshot eyes.

"I--think she's dead," he said, hoarsely. "She died alone in Heerut.

Sigrid has gone with Barclay. It was his offer--you understand? I

shouldn't be here now if it wasn't for her. She and Anne--they thought

of you--they neither of them funked."

They were silent for a moment. A spasm passed over Mary Compton's face.

She reached desperately for the sweetmeats.

"Mrs. Brabazone--for mercy's sake, tell that Lancashire story of

yours----"

"It's about a miner," Mrs. Brabazone began jerkily. "You know how

horribly dirty they are. And one day he came home--he was very ill, you

know, and his wife said----"

She laboured on with quivering lips. They listened attentively. A

sound of shouting came from the barracks not a quarter of a mile

distant. Tristram and Mrs. Compton exchanged glances.

"They're working up to concert-pitch----"

* * * * *

In the quiet, whitewashed soldier's room, Armstrong and Brabazone were

collecting what weapons they could find. Mrs. Boucicault had

underestimated, but even so there was not much hope to be found in the

six double-barrelled guns and the few cases of ammunition.

Mrs. Boucicault stood at the foot of her husband's bed looking at him.

They were both so still--the grey-haired, painted woman and the big man

lying stretched out beneath the thin sheet--that Armstrong almost forgot

them. But at the door he remembered and looked back.

"You'd better explain to your husband--I'll send some one to carry

him--he must be where we are----" He hesitated, and then added gruffly:

"You don't need to worry, Boucicault. You shan't fall into their hands,

I give you my word of honour."

They went out. Still Eleanor Boucicault remained at her place at the

foot of the bed. The man's eyes were fixed on her. They were

distended. The dim light could not reveal their expression, yet all the

life which had made its last stand in their depths seemed to gather

together--with a supreme effort--to spread over his face--to swell the

withered muscles.

The distant shouting reached them. The sound released her from her

still absorption. She threw herself down on her knees beside him.

"They're going to kill us, Richard--they're going to kill us. It's the

regiment--your regiment.--Colonel Armstrong says we can't do much.

They'll just--just do what they like! Do you hear that shouting? That

means they're coming. They know we're here--they know you're here. You

made them hate us--just as you made me hate you." She gripped him by

the shoulders, her words rushing down on him in a fevered, awful

torrent. "It doesn't matter to me--I'm dying, anyhow. You've killed me.

That's what I want to tell you. I didn't tell you before, because I

thought you'd be glad. But now we're going to die together I want you

to understand. Look at this----" She tore open the bosom of her dress.

"You did that--that time you struck me. It never healed--it never will.

It's cancer. Oh, but I've had a good time all the same. I've spent

your money, Richard. I've made you suffer. I've had you to hurt when I

couldn't bear the pain any longer. And now--now you're just going to

die like a rabbit in a trap." She burst out laughing. There was a long

flat chest against the wall, and she went to it with quick, tottering

steps and opened it. The neatly folded uniforms, the sword in its

leather case--she flung the whole contents down before him with a shrill

cry of bitter triumph. "You'll never wear them again, Richard. You

won't go down fighting--_I_ shall, but not you--you'll just lie there

and trust to us to have mercy on you. You're just a wreck--a crumbling,

hideous ruin. That's why I hate you--why they hate you--those men who

are coming to kill us. We loved you so. You were our god--our Bagh

Sahib--and then you became--a devil."

She knelt down by the heap of red and gold splendour. She was crying,

and the tears carved deep channels through the paint and powder.

"Bagh Sahib!"

She put her hand over her mouth. It was as though she had tried to

smother a scream, but no sound had come from her lips. She shrank back

from him, farther and farther back till she cowered on the floor,

watching him.

Slowly--so slowly yet steadily that the movement seemed supernatural--he

was lifting himself up. He did not look at her. His gaunt face was

tense and absorbed as though the whole being of the man were turned

inwards on the contemplation of a miracle. His arms hung straight at

his sides. He lifted them--holding them out before him.

"Bagh Sahib!"

He pushed the sheet back and slipped his legs over the edge of the bed.

They were mere sticks--fleshless, piteous--yet he stood up swaying like

a tall reed in the wind. The woman, huddled on the floor, dragged

herself to her feet and stumbled towards him. He put his arm round her

shoulders, leaning on her.

"Nelly--poor Nelly--something in my head--it's better--help me----"

It was a child talking--a mumbling, broken appeal. Yet there was a

purpose in him stronger than his weakness. He lurched across the room.

"Nell--sweetheart--my uniform--my parade--things--my sword----"

"They're here--dear--you can't----"

A shot was fired--this time close at hand. He made an odd little sound

like a laugh.

"They've not done with me yet--by the Lord--they shall meet Bagh Sahib

again--we'll see who's strongest--even now----" He held out his palsied

hands; he was gasping, but it was in the flood-tide of returning life.

His eyes shone like a young man's. "Nell--you used to know the

way--there wasn't a buckle you couldn't manage--quicker to spot things

than a sergeant on parade. No mistakes now--Bagh Sahib never made

mistakes--the smartest man in the Indian Army. By Gad--there's the

sword--not rusty? No--that's like you--so--now--kiss me----"

Between each sentence there had been a gap of time. She had obeyed him

like a woman possessed. Now he stood before her--a ghostly figure in

the loose-fitting uniform--the shadow of the man whom she had once

loved--but at least the shadow.

She clung to him--half supporting him, herself shaking from head to

foot.

"My Richard----"

"Nell--sweetheart--help me--to go to them--just to the door--and then

alone----?"

"Yes--yes----"

"Kiss me!"

Her poor, wizened little face glowed like a girl's as she lifted it to

his. The years, with their bitterness, dropped from her memory. She

did not need to understand more than one thing, that he had been given

back to her as he had once been. Nothing mattered now--not even death

itself.

"Lean on me, Richard--I am quite strong----"

They went together down the gloomy passage, his arm still about her

shoulders. She had need of her boasted strength. At first his weight

almost bore her to the ground. But with every step he held himself

straighter, freeing himself from her support. At the door of the

dining-room he stood upright, only his hands touching her.

He kissed her. Then he went in alone.

A handful of women still sat at the table and talked loudly and

incessantly. The rest were helping the men barricade the verandah

window. Mrs. Smithers worked with the grim energy of despair, keeping

to Tristram's side as though his nearness brought her some comfort. It

was she who saw Boucicault first, and in her consternation clutched at

her companion's arm.

"Lawks a-mercy!" she whispered. "Look----!"

Tristram turned. It seemed to him that he had known even before she had

touched him. Incredible though this thing was, it was also inevitable.

The gaze of the two men crossed. Tristram waited for the hating,

satiric smile, bracing himself to meet its triumph. But there was no

change in Boucicault's face--scarcely recognition.

A bugle-call rang above the approaching storm.

Boucicault came forward.

"Gentlemen--gentlemen--this is child's-play! Do you suppose my

fire-eaters care for a few arm-chairs and a crazy gun? Why, we've

swallowed whole fortresses armed with cannon in my time. Who's in

command here?"

He frowned round on them. Not even Armstrong himself moved. This man

had risen from the dead. If their own nearness to death blurred the

miracle of it, they were no less under the ban of a miraculous

authority. Boucicault shrugged his shoulders. He crossed over to the

window and pulled the curtains aside. To the right, towards the

barracks, torchlights ran backwards and forwards like distracted

fireflies, gradually converging together in a solid block of flame. A

black rage settled on the old man's sunken features.

"Who the devil has been meddling with my men?" he cursed. "The 65th

never revolted in its history. Whose fault is this? Can't somebody

speak?" But they could only look at each other in pitying helplessness.

He had forgotten. He was back in the old days when he had led his men

triumphantly into a fire under which every other regiment had withered.

He was Bagh Sahib, the hero, the demi-god. He had forgotten--and even

if they could, they would not have penetrated that merciful oblivion.

He settled his helmet. His thin hand rested tremblingly on the hilt of

his sword.

"The civilians stay here with the women," he said. "The rest follow

me."

He went waveringly down the steps. And then only they recovered their

power of action. Tristram was at his side as he reached the garden.

"Colonel Boucicault--you're not in a fit state----"

The light from behind him flashed into the cold eyes.

"Not fit? I'm more fit than those arm-chair soldiers." A wintry smile

quivered under the grey moustache. "You were always confoundedly

interfering, Major Tristram."

"What do you mean to do?"

"Take command of my regiment." He turned his back on them. Arabella,

still panting and covered from head to foot in mud, had drawn his

attention. "Your horse, Major, I am sure? Your mounts were always a

disgrace to your service. Saddleless, too? However--better than

nothing. Help me up----"

He was obeyed. They might have thrown themselves on him--held him back

by sheer force, but they could not. He had taken command. Dr. Martin

wrung his hands as though his own death were not howling at him within a

couple of hundred yards.

"It's impossible--the man was paralysed half an hour ago--he ought not

to be able to stand. If you allow him to go, I won't take the

responsibility----"

Mrs. Compton shook him by the arm. Her eyes were shining like two

points of fire.

"Shut up--don't you see--he's the Bagh Sahib--he can do things we

can't--it's our only chance."

Bagh Sahib rode down the avenue at a walk. He did not hurry, though the

sinister light swept down on him amidst a pandemonium of rattling drums

and trumpet calls. His face was resolute--no longer brutal--and the

smile lingered at his lips. It was as though the coming encounter

amused him. He did not look to see whether he was followed.

The men he had commanded looked at one another. Compton fingered the

revolver which he had retrieved. He glanced at his wife, and she nodded.

"Well, I'm going, anyhow," he said.

The twelve remaining officers of the 65th assented. Armstrong himself

had already hurried on in front of Compton. He was a staid, humdrum

type of man, but in that moment the fire was in his blood. None of them

remembered that this same Boucicault was the source of the very evil

which he had set out to master.

He was the Bagh Sahib.

That was all they knew of him.

They reached the compound gates as Boucicault, with Tristram at his

heels, came in sight of the mutiny leaders. It was still pitch dark, but

the rain had stopped and the torches burnt up luridly in the still air.

Separate from the rest, a gaunt, spectral figure on the ungainly horse,

Boucicault waited tranquilly. He was so motionless, so unexpected that

the seething mass of soldiers came to a sudden halt. A shot rang out

from somewhere in the rear, but those in the first ranks wavered. The

superstition which was a very part of their blood chilled them to

silence. The roll of drums died away to a faint beat, like the throb of

a dying pulse. The trumpet no longer sounded. Boucicault's eyes passed

from one dark, uncertainly lit face to another. Then he laughed.

"Well, what have you got to say for yourselves?"

He spoke clearly now. His voice had a metallic ring in it which awoke

old memories. But it broke the spell. There were, perhaps, ten yards

between him and the leaders, and they rushed, five of them, with a howl

of triumph--then again halted--as though they had flung themselves

against an invisible barrier. A shot whizzed past Boucicault's head.

He grinned mockingly. He touched Arabella's sides and rode forward,

till the last five yards were covered, and he stared down straight into

their faces. "You don't shoot as well as you did, men. That sort of

thing won't do. You want drilling, and, by God, you shall get it! That

fellow who missed me shall have my special attention. The 65th wants

polishing." He removed his helmet, so that the light flickered on his

features. "And I shall polish it," he said.

They recognized him. It was the thought of him which had goaded them to

their revolt. Yet now he sat there on his horse--the man whom they

believed helpless and stricken--and gibed at them. For them, too, he

was as one risen from the dead. A sergeant in the foremost line drew

back, cowering from him.

"Bagh Sahib!" he muttered.

Boucicault leant forward and seized the man roughly by his ear.

"Yes--Bagh Sahib. You shall see that I can spring still. Ah, you,

Heera, so you remember me? In the old days you fought at my heel like

the tiger's cub you were. That was at Affra and Burda. Yes--you could

fight then--now you can only mutiny like angry children. Then the 65th

had a glorious name in India, and I was proud of you--but now--" He

thrust the man from him so that he went reeling in the mud. "You

cowardly pack--lay down your arms!" he thundered. His command fell like

the lash of a whip. The man he had struck leapt at him. He had a

revolver in his hand and he pointed it straight at Boucicault's breast.

"Bagh Sahib--you killed my brother----"

"And I shall live to court-martial you, my friend."

"Not now----"

"Shoot then, you cur!"

A splash of fire was flung up in Boucicault's face. Tristram, hiding in

the shadow, sprang forward with a smothered cry of horror--then stood

still--incredulous. Boucicault had not moved. He looked down into his

assassin's stricken, gaping face and laughed.

"You can't touch me, Heera. Your very weapon refuses. We have fought

together too often----"

There was a new note in his voice--stern yet curiously caressing. The

man reeled, broke down, sobbing thickly.

"Bagh Sahib----!" he moaned. "Bagh Sahib----"

"It is well, Heera. I forgive." He looked over the sea of faces. "You

see that you cannot touch me. For the sake of the old days-when you

fought gallantly, this night's work is forgotten. Lay down your arms."

For an instant longer they stared at him. The red of his tunic hid the

dark, widening stain. They only saw that the bullet had passed through

him and left him unharmed. The older men among them remembered how in

the bygone days he had passed scatheless through a hail of bullets.

Then as now he had been a stupendous figure--half god.

To the younger men he was a legend. The evil that he had done them was

forgotten. He was their own past--their own greatness--the greatness of

their fathers. They could not touch him.

"Gentlemen--form your men into their companies. Lead them back to the

barracks. Remember--what I tell you--this night is to be forgotten."

The little group of Englishmen behind him obeyed tranquilly. There was

the sound of rifles being stacked. The disorderly crowd formed

automatically into sections. The scene had lasted five minutes. Now it

was finished.

But Boucicault turned Arabella's head and rode slowly back, and

Tristram, who had seen that black stain upon the tunic, followed him.

Mrs. Boucicault stood separate from the rest upon the balcony and

waited. She was smiling. There was no fear--only a girlish pride, a

tragic happiness written on the grey face. As he came within the lights

of the verandah she waved to him, and he saluted her with a chivalrous

dignity.

Then he toppled from his seat into Tristram's arms.

They carried him into the bungalow and set him gently on one of the

sofas. His wife knelt down beside him and he put his arm about her and

held her close to him.

"There is nothing to be done--the whole breast. I am too old a soldier

not to know. Please leave us these few minutes. We have so much to say

to one another." But to Tristram he gave his hand, drawing him down so

that his face almost touched the dying lips. "Major

I'm--sorry--about--your dog----"

Tristram knew then that at the last it was not oblivion, but

resurrection.

He lingered a moment. Even as he stood there hesitating, Boucicault's

body straightened out a little. His wife's head rested on his shoulder,

and there was blood mingled in the grey, untidy hair. Her eyes were

closed, and she seemed asleep.

They had so much to say to one another.

Tristram crept out on tiptoe. He went down again into the compound. It

was very still. The tumult of the last hour had died away. It had all

been like an adventure in a mad, terrible dream. Arabella nozzled

against his shoulder, and he stroked her gently. And, as he did so, the

faint light from the room behind him showed him the slender, colourless

band about his wrist.

It was as though a charm had laid itself on his aching senses. A gate

of memory was opened. He passed through. In the tranquil solemnity of

an Indian night, he heard voices--Ayeshi's voice, hushed yet passionate.

"Behold, according to the custom, Humayun accepts the bond, and from

henceforth the Rani Kurnavati is his dear and virtuous sister, and his

sword shall not rest in his scabbard till she is free from the threat of

her oppressor."

The bo-tree whispered mysteriously:

"Ah--those were the great days--the great days----"

And Tristram Sahib swung himself on to Arabella's back and once more

rode out towards Heerut.

*CHAPTER XV*

*THE SNAKE-GOD*

Vahana ran on ahead. Bent and twisted with age, his half-naked figure

far outstripped the riders whose horses ploughed heavily through the

morass of jungle-grass. Behind them, again, came the straggle,

panic-driven horde of Ayeshi's army, and after them the flood, rising

over Heerut.

Vahana halted from time to time and looked back, nodding and beckoning.

He was too far in advance for them to see his face. But in that

feverish agility, in that patient waiting on them there was a malignant

joy, the expression of a soundless, senile laughter.

They had strange companions--cheetahs, antelopes, wild pigs--all the

creatures of the plain--trotting at their sides, unheeded and unheeding,

conscious only of their common peril. They moved slowly, dragging

themselves painfully free from the clinging mud. It was the flight of

an evil dream--the enemy at their heels, their limbs weighted, each step

an anguished effort. They made no outcry, but the tortured breathing of

these flying thousands became an unbroken moan of terror.

Vahana led them by a circuitous path back over a ridge of ground rising

to the rear of the temple. They followed unquestioningly. There was no

choice. Their retreat was already cut off: to the right the flooded

plain, to the left the trackless jungle hemmed them in. The ridge was

all that remained to them.

Sigrid rode between Ayeshi and Barclay. They had not spoken. Ayeshi

held himself like a sleep-walker, his face blank, his eyes wide open and

expressionless. The hand that held the reins was slack and indifferent.

His horse, instinctively aware of the danger pursuing them, kept up of

its own account, but he did not seek to control it. Compared with him,

Barclay was the very spirit of sombre exultation. He turned

persistently to the woman beside him, his eyes ugly with significance.

But her small, white face betrayed no consciousness of him. Its

serenity was deathlike. Her body rode beside him, but her mind, the

living part of her, eluded him. He had not hoped that it would be

otherwise--his pitiless intuition had showed him the limit of his power,

the limit of all power; but there was Tristram, who by now knew the

value of the freedom which she had bought for him--Tristram, who

represented all that he, Barclay, had desired and hoped for and loved,

all that he now hated with the intensity of a mutilated passion,

Tristram who would suffer at the last.

He laughed at his own thought and pointed a shaking hand at the mournful

immensity beneath them.

"Your friend will have a wet ride. Look out there--the bridge has gone.

It was swept away an hour ago."

He laughed again, and urged his horse past her. He had triumphed, but

he did not wish to see her face.

She turned her head in the direction which he had indicated. The night,

mingling its sable with the dirty greys of sky and water, shrouded the

familiar landmarks, but that very narrowing of her vision widened the

boundaries of her hearing. The thunder of the torrent sounded

nearer--she heard again the mysterious mutterings which had arrested her

at the bridge-head only an hour or two before. She knew that Barclay had

not boasted.

"Did you know that too, Ayeshi?"

"Yes, Mem-Sahib."

His voice was callous, toneless. She could not look at him.

"And you let him go? You had forgotten so easily?"

"Have you found it hard to forget, Mem-Sahib--you whom he loved----?"

He awoke suddenly from his apathy. He bent towards her, his fevered

hand on her arm. "Was not a little of _that_ man's gold, stained with

the sweat and blood of men, enough to buy your forgetfulness?"

And now she looked at him. She saw the quivering features--the eyes

bloodshot and wretched with scorn of her.

"I went out of his life as you did, Ayeshi," she said gently. "Was that

forgetfulness?"

"Mem-Sahib----!" he muttered.

"You tried to save him," she persisted--"as I tried. If we have both

failed need we reproach each other now?"

"Mem-Sahib!" In that reiteration there was agony. His hand dropped from

her arm. "It was for his sake--? Barclay Sahib threatened you?"

"Yes."

"And now----"

"Now it is for Gaya--for those lives your ambition has jeopardized. And

even that may be useless."

The ridge they were traversing began to slope downwards. The water was

at their feet. They could hear it sucking at the long grasses. The men

immediately behind them were swept forward and lost their footing. A

man who stumbled at Sigrid's side clutched at her and then went rolling

ludicrously down the mud bank into the rising flood. She saw his head

for an instant--his face gazing stupidly up at them. Something square

and black and evil that had lain like a lump of wood on the surface of

the water moved swiftly forward.

There was a scream. Ayeshi held up his hand before Sigrid's face, but

she had seen enough. The man had vanished, and where he had been the

greyness of the water had turned to red.

"Oh, God!" she whispered. "Tristram!"

"No, no, Mem-Sahib--not that--not that--they meant that he should die,

but I--I who served him and loved him, I know that death cannot touch

him when he fights for others. He fights for others now, Mem-Sahib--for

those I have betrayed--for my salvation." He laid his hand on his

breast with a gesture of unutterable despair. "No--not even he can do

that. It is too late. I am accursed--accursed----!"

And, as though in answer, the crowd he led surged up closer to him.

Arms were held up to him--thin, supplicating arms.

"Lord--the water--the water--save us!"

"I am accursed!" he whispered. "Accursed!"

She saw his face. The youth in it was dead--stamped out. Yet in that

instant she recognized in him the boy, the dreamer who, crouched upon

the step of her verandah, had told the story of the Rani Kurnavati. And

the pity that surged over her had in it the passion of that memory.

"Ayeshi--why have you done this----?"

His wild eyes met hers for an instant's desperate intentness.

"Mem-Sahib--I loved my country--my gods--the history of them was in my

blood. And then in Calcutta--the misery--the thwarted ambition--my

people starving--the Englishman in the high place. They told me they

were ripe for revolt--only they needed a leader--a leader who would

carry the country-people with him. I came back. Vahana lied to me. I

believed that my father had been robbed and murdered--that my heritage

had been stolen from me--that Tristram Sahib himself had known who I was

and made me his servant----" His voice broke. "But it was a lie--I had

no heritage--no wrongs to avenge--I was their tool--and now--Mem-Sahib,

if ever you should meet him, tell him it was a false dream--but that

Ayeshi loved him----"

She nodded. She could not answer him, and they rode on in silence till

suddenly, Vahana, whom they could still see dimly ahead of them, turned

to the left and pointed up towards the jungle.

"There--there is escape, O Lord Ayeshi! The Sacred Path that leads to

the Shrine of the Snake-god. Who follows?"

The shrill cry died into silence. There was no answer. Barclay came

splashing back through the water. His face glowed with a sombre

excitement.

"It seems there's some secret passage up through the jungle. We may be

able to get right away. At any rate, it's our only chance."

But Ayeshi sat rigid in his saddle, and that which Barclay saw in his

eyes silenced him.

"There is a curse on all those who profane the Snake-god's sanctity----"

Barclay burst out laughing.

"Good God, man, that silly native yarn----"

"I am a native."

"Still, you can't be such a fool----"

Ayeshi turned in his saddle and looked back at the black, silent mass

behind him.

"Who follows Barclay Sahib through the jungle?" he called.

But there was still no answer. They stood there silent and inert, the

water rising about their feet. There was no cry of terror from among

them now. It was finished.

Those nearest Ayeshi lifted their faces to him in stubborn fatalism.

"Ayeshi, pull yourself together--they'll follow you right enough."

"I dare not," was the desperate answer.

"Afraid--? A coward--? You don't really believe----"

Ayeshi threw back his head. His features were terrible in their frozen

composure.

"I believe."

"You accept the responsibility for all these lives----?"

"I cannot help myself--I am one of them."

Barclay made a gesture of angry impatience.

"Do you expect me to stay here and drown like a rat in a trap----?" he

demanded.

"No--why should you? What are we to you--or you to us?"

Barclay shrank back. With a sound like a smothered groan, he turned his

horse about and rode towards Vahana who still stood motionless and

waiting beneath the black shadows of the trees. He dismounted and

looked back. Sigrid had not moved. The water had risen swiftly to her

horse's knees. Ayeshi bent towards her and laid his hand on her bridle.

"Go, Mem-Sahib-fear nothing--_they_ will not harm you. You are not of

our blood or faith. Go--do not let me have your death on my hands.

Mem-Sahib--trust him--he will not fail you----"

She lifted her eyes to his face. Behind his passive despair there shone

the old confidence--the re-birth of a faith. She gave him her hand, and

he lifted it to his forehead.

"Mem-Sahib--remember that I loved him."

She saw Ayeshi for the last time as on the very verge of the jungle she

turned and looked back. His silhouette, cut sharply against the

fast-fading light, rose up from the midst of his unhappy followers like

a tragic, heroic statue out of a black, uneasy sea. Vahana laughed

shrilly, and the sound, breaking the spell of inarticulate terror, let

loose a wailing cry which swept in a gust over the rising water.

"Lord--save us--save us----"

She saw Ayeshi lift his hands above his head. She could not have heard

his voice, and yet the echo of his impotent agony reached her.

"I am accursed--accursed----"

She saw him no more. Vahana had hurried on into the darkness ahead of

them, and Barclay half lifted, half dragged her from the saddle. She

made no resistance. But her strength had begun to fail. She tried to

free herself from his hold--to stand alone.

"Go on without me--I'm not strong enough--save yourself."

He shook his head stubbornly.

"No--I've nothing left but you. Keep your promise. The path is steep--I

can carry you. We're safe now. The ground's rising all the way. We've

nothing to fear--nothing. It's dark, of course--hideously dark. Give

me your hand." His was dry and cold. It filled her with a nameless

disgust--a strange pity. It was as though, helpless as she was, he

clung to her.

"Why--you're shivering!" he muttered. "What is it? You're not afraid?

What is there to be afraid of? We're safe here----"

"It's those others--Ayeshi----"

He laughed brokenly.

"What are they to me? What am I to them? Didn't you hear him? That

settled it, didn't it? I'm not one of them--I've got English blood in

my veins. I've nothing to fear--nothing."

She could not see his face. They were stumbling blindly up the steep

and broken path, and the dense growth of jungle walled them in from

whatever daylight remained. Yet his voice, the touch of his hand,

painted him for her against the black canvas. She could see his face,

eyes wide-open and distended, the mouth agape, the sweat on his

forehead. She knew him to be possessed by an insidious terror.

"What is there to fear?" she asked in her turn.

He muttered incoherently.

Vahana had vanished. They could hear his body brushing against the

tangled growths that hung across the narrow path like warning, invisible

hands. Barclay called him by name, but there was no answer--only a

sudden stillness. He faltered--the hand which still held Sigrid's

relaxed. She stood apart from him. But for the sound of his breathing

she could not have known that he was near her. The infinite relief of

that moment's freedom kept her motionless, and then she realized that he

was moving forward--that he had forgotten her, every ambition, every

desire in the one formless, all-mastering dread.

"Vahana!"

Stillness. He groped wildly about him. The sudden consciousness of his

isolation drove a scream from his dry lips.

"Vahana!"

The answer was almost in his ear--a soft, caressing whisper.

"I am here, Sahib."

"Don't leave me--I can't see--this darkness."

"The path is a straight one, Sahib. Give me your hand."

Barclay cowered back. A chill, foetid breath fanned his face.

Something familiar coiled itself about his fingers. He tried to free

himself.

"The Mem-Sahib!" he gasped thickly. "Where is she?"

"The Mem-Sahib is safe. The path leads to one end. Come, Sahib!"

The whisper had grown shriller, authoritative. There was a subtle hint

of anger in its caress. Barclay heard its echo. Overhead a branch

cracked under a moving burden. A thing slid over his foot and went

hissing into silence. He threw up his free hand to beat off the

invisible attack and touched a slimy, gliding mass which dropped on his

shoulder, winding itself about his neck. He flung it from him. He was

gasping--choking with fear and nausea. He heard Vahana's whisper,

subdued, sibilant:

"Sahib--there are no snakes."

But the very hand that held him was a hideous memory. Something vague,

indeterminate, which had begun to hem him in since that night when he

had fled from the vision of himself, was closing in faster and faster.

This, that was coming, had been from all time, a hand groping up through

the black depths of the ages, a monstrous, inert mass rousing itself

from long sleep to predestined action. The darkness, the jungle, was a

huge prison alive with sound and movement. The sounds awoke under his

feet and went hissing and murmuring like a train of fire into the far

distance, setting alight other sounds till they surrounded him in an

awful, mocking circle. The walls of the prison were narrowing--the air,

thick and heavy with an evil sweetness, weighed down upon him till his

strength reeled. With an effort he freed himself from Vahana's clutch

and began to run. The steepness of the path, the uneven ground, jolted

the breath from his body in agonized gasps. The branches of the trees

were alive--sensate, twisting, winding bodies, which beat their cold,

slimy tentacles against his face--their roots clutched at his stumbling

feet, the hissing murmur had become the high, threatening note of a

rising wind. And behind him was that pursuing Thing--that formless,

familiar menace which he had foreseen, which had hung on the outskirts

of his life waiting for its moment. He fled before it because his

frantic body demanded flight, but _he_ knew its futility. The Thing was

there, silent and invisible, gibing at his pitiful effort. It was not

Death--it was Horror itself----

A pale light broke ahead. He neither knew whence it came nor its

significance. He made for it with a last call to every nerve and muscle

in him. He reached it. He was dimly conscious of a brightening

luminousness, of something black, serenely still, rising up out of the

grey transparency before him. Then the end. It came upon him with a

rush. It closed in in a clammy band about his throat. He turned. A

flat head with a wizened face and small dead eyes and pointed mouth

swayed before his vision in a sinister, rhythmic measure. It was

Vahana--yet not Vahana. It was not Vahana who was slowly dragging his

life from him. It was that cold tightening band--and yet Vahana was

there--close to him.

He screamed. Again and again. The jungle--the whole world, _his_

world, shrinking about him till it was no bigger than his own brain,

echoed with his screams.

*CHAPTER XVI*

*TOWARDS MORNING*

The rain had ceased. A soft wind blowing from the north swept the

low-hanging clouds into the fantastic, tattered fragments, between which

a thin moonlight poured down on to the desolation of waters. All that

had been had been washed out as though a child's sponge had passed over

a slate covered with the laborious work of a life. Fields and villages,

rich pastures, homesteads, bridges, each of them some man's dream and

ambition, lay under that smooth, glittering surface awaiting their

resurrection at the hands of a patient humanity.

It was by this first break of light that Tristram saw the way over which

they had still to travel. He sat motionless and upright, scanning the

seeming limitless expanse, and perhaps in that moment some dim, unformed

appeal went up from him to the Unknown which steels the hearts of men to

supreme effort.

And, swift on the heels of that brief intercession, there followed an

aching pity for the faithful comrade whose share in the coming struggle

was so much greater than his own, whose purpose in it was no more than

to serve him with the last breath of her life. He stroked her ungainly

neck, striving to break down the barrier between living things which

made his remorse and pity powerless. She answered gallantly with the

grand courage of her kind, and the water rose about them.

It was a nightmare redreamed, save that now the first violence of the

storm had spent itself. The wreckage had gone its way, and the flood's

polished bosom shone bare and empty under the wane and glow of light.

There was no landmark left by which they could guide their course. The

jungle-clad mountains were mingled with the clouds. The temple shrouded

itself in the shadow of the jungle. They could but drift with the

currents, fighting their way across, hoping--Tristram himself scarcely

knew for what. For who could have lived in that deluge, what escape was

possible? Yet he carried with him a belief born of despair, a serenity

such as men feel for whom there is no choice, no second possibility.

Something black drifted past him. He could not recognize it, and in a

moment it was gone. They were now in midstream, where the rush of the

water swept over Arabella's desperately uplifted head. It was then, the

moon sailing out unveiled into the open sky, that he saw other black

shapes and knew them for what they were. They were the bodies of

men--not of isolated victims, of villagers and field labourers trapped

separately or even in small communities by the swift disaster. They

were many hundreds. They had died together, and death had not separated

them. Like driftwood, they had been swept into entangled, shapeless

piles of floating horror.

"Sahib! Sahib!"

The cry came faintly across the racing waters. Tristram, waking from

the lethargy of abandoned hope, turned Arabella's head sharply upstream.

She responded. It was as though in those years of comradeship she had

become a part of himself, obeying the same law, acknowledging the same

creed. It was as though she recognized a familiar message in that

appeal to her last strength, as though her blinded eyes had seen what

Tristram saw. It was little enough to accomplish--and yet so much. Ten

feet to go before that agonized, appealing figure, a hurrying blot on

the silver pathway, would be swept irrevocably past and beyond hope. It

could be done. Arabella lifted herself breast high out of the water.

She was young again. All the fire of her mixed ancestry blazed up for

the supreme effort. Five feet--three----. It was done. Tristram

stretched out his hand. It was gripped and held with the tenacity of

despair. Arabella went down under the double burden--rose again

superbly.

"Ayeshi----!"

"Sahib--I knew that you--would come--she--is--safe--the

jungle---path--behind--the Temple----"

"Hold on, Ayeshi----"

"No--Sahib----"

For an instant their faces were almost on a level. The brightening

moonlight was in Ayeshi's eyes--full of a passionate worship. "Humuyan

came--too--late--not you, Sahib----"

He tried to wrench his hand free. Tristram cursed bitterly at him.

"You try to let go--you dare try it--damn you, boy, do you think I'm

going to let you go--now--don't play the Rajah with me here----"

They were being swept faster and faster downstream. Arabella was dying

under him. He did not know it. He could not have unclasped his hand.

No reason could have mastered the love in him, or denied the love which

illuminated the face lifted to his out of the black waters.

"Sahib--forgive----"

"Fool's talk--I don't know the word--hold on, d'you hear? I'll get you

out of it. You shall go scot free--only hold on--Ayeshi----"

They fought each other, hand clasped in hand, eye to eye. No two

enemies, spurred on by the bitterest hatred, could have fought more

grimly.

Tristram laughed.

"I'm stronger than you--always was----" Something flashed up in the

light. "Ayeshi----!" he gasped.

A faint smile dawned on the native's face.

"Greater love hath no man----"

The knife fell with maniacal strength. Tristram closed his eyes. No

fear, but a sheer incredulous horror lamed all power of self-defence.

The second of suspense passed. Nothing--only now there was no weight on

the hand still clasped in his, only Arabella again breasted the torrent

with the energy of release from a killing burden.

"Ayeshi----!"

No answer--only that mute, blood-stained hand--grown powerless--and one

more figure floating to join its brothers on the great, silver-flooded

field.

Two boatmen, guiding their flat-bottomed craft between the ruined hovels

of Heerut, saw him as he waded waist-deep through the receding flood.

The brightening dawn was on his face, but they did not recognize him

till he called them by name. Then silently they paddled towards him and

dragged him to safety.

They were old men, palsied with the horrors of that night. There was no

thought of rebellion left in them. They could only whisper incoherently,

like frightened children, looking up into his face as at something at

once loved and terrible.

"Dakktar Sahib--Dakktar Sahib!"

He became slowly conscious of them and of their piteousness.

"There's nothing to fear," he said compassionately. "I'm not a

spirit--my horse brought me across--just got me into my depth, poor

girl--I've been wading about--till morning." He composed himself with a

stern effort.

"Row me to my place--will you?"

But they shook their heads.

"Gone, Dakktar Sahib, gone."

His face was grey--stiff-looking.

"Still, row me--to where it was."

They obeyed him. Here and there a wall remained, or a half roof

balanced on a few battered, shapeless heaps of mud. A carcase of a

sacred bull floated backwards and forwards between two ruins, with a

grotesque semblance of life. At the cross-roads the council-tree

trailed its leaves sadly in the still water.

But where the Dakktar Sahib's hut had been there was nothing.

He bowed his face upon his hands.

The men stared at him blankly, themselves too stupefied by loss for

either pity or understanding. The minutes flowed past in mournful,

stately silence. At last Tristram drew himself up. His eyes were

calm--warm with a hardly won knowledge--and the awfulness had gone from

him.

"Row me to the path behind the Temple.

"Dakktar Sahib----" they muttered.

"I shall not ask you to follow me," he said, gently.

They rowed out of Heerut towards the rising ground of the jungle

mountains. The fiery wheel of the sun rose behind Gaya and the temple

shone like a black opal in the morning glow. As they drew nearer

Tristram's eyes sought out the great window of the _sikhara_. His

thoughts were vague, unformed, still and serene as the water flowing

peacefully over the plain. Through that window Vishnu watched for his

beloved rising amidst her golden-haired dawn-maidens.

"It is here, Sahib."

They looked at him and now it was with awe--a kind of dumb protest, but

he smiled at them, shaking his head.

"There is nothing to fear. Wait for me."

"Sahib--the curse."

"There is no curse," he said, with the same gentleness.

He waded through the water to the place they indicated and pushed aside

the tangled bashes. The hidden path lay before him, leading steeply

upwards. He went on. He was climbing from gloom and shadow into light.

He knew now neither doubt nor fear. A great serenity possessed him.

There could be no curse. Strange flowers clustered at the roots of the

stark, straight-standing trees--but they were not evil. There was

sound--a rustling and crackling among the branches-a frightened

scurrying of some wild creature startled from its lair--familiar loved

sounds of living things. A warm, consoling radiance sank down between

the stems of the trees as light pours down through a cathedral window

upon the stately pillars.

Up--steadily upwards, up into a higher, purer air, with a strange

heart-beating of foreknowledge. And then at last the end--a wide

clearing on the mountain-summit, and on a high altar, not Siva, but a

golden Lakshmi, her face, beatific in its serene sweetness, turned

towards the rising sun.

Vahana squatted in her shadow, his half-naked body bowed over something

so still, so huddled that Tristram faltered for an instant. Then he

went forward and Vahana, seeing him unrecognizingly, pointed down with a

shaking finger of derision.

It was Barclay. His piteous face, lifted to the peace of the clear sky,

was swollen and bloated almost out of recognition. But he bore no trace

of violence.

Vahana shook with a senile laughter. A fangless adder unwound itself

from about his wrist, and he held it to the dead man's staring eyes,

gibing at him.

"There are no snakes--there are no snakes."

But Tristram had gone on.

He had seen her. Like a pale lotus-flower cast up by the waters, she

lay stretched in the short grass which grew about the foot of the altar,

her fair, dishevelled head pillowed on her arm in an attitude of happy

weariness. He knelt down beside her. The moment's dread was gone. He

saw the faint colour in her cheeks. Her breath came gently, smoothly as

a child's.

He dared not touch her. Her peace was holy to him. But as though his

nearness pierced like sunlight into the calm depths of her dreams, she

stirred, her lips moved, shaping the shadow of his name.

He drew her into the warmth and comfort of his arms. So it had been once

before; but now there was no fear, no pain, or conflict.

"Tristram--I waited for you. I was so tired. I fell asleep. But I was

not afraid. There was nothing to fear--nothing. I knew that you would

come." She smiled wistfully--tenderly. "Bracelet-brother!"

He found no answer. He pointed out eastwards. Above the desolate plain

the sun climbed up in majesty towards a splendid promise of atonement.

One day the fields would bear their harvest, men would build their

houses upon the ruins--there would be a new bridge across the river,

wiser and stronger. The shadow of a curse was lifted.

They knelt together, hand in hand, watching, awestruck, at peace.

Vahana, too, was still. He, too, watched and waited, his mad,

hate-filled eyes growing dim in the clearer light of reconciliation.