must once more have circled back on her own footsteps, for behind and
not before her, dark, clear, unmistakable, the domed shadow of the lost
city lay against the lightening east. And on its swelling side, as
Khesroo had stood before, he stood again. Was it the rising sun which
turned the fillet of knotted cord about his head to gold?--which dyed
the coarse blanketing to royal purple, and transformed the wearer into
the perfect kingliness of buoyant youth and beauty? She never knew. She
only felt that something stronger than herself caught her, held her,
clasped her, and yet drew her on, so that with hands outstretched she
ran towards it, crying between smiles and tears:
"The Son of a King! The Son of a King!"
The next instant she had tripped and fallen heavily on her face over a
tangled tuft of grass concealing an unusually deep descent of a desert
wave. As she picked herself up, confused, somewhat dazed, and paused to
free her eyes from the sand grains which clouded them, something almost
at her feet brought her back to realities, and she gave a quick
exclamation. For in the hollow beneath the wave, where he had evidently
sought shelter deliberately, Jim Forrester lay curled up comfortably,
fast asleep. At least, so it seemed, though Khesroo's quaint old bow
must surely make rather an uncomfortable pillow.
She stooped over the sleeping man, and for an instant her face
whitened; she bent lower to listen to his breathing. And as she
listened a couple of startled sand-chaffs fled from a neighbouring
thorn bush, their chuckling cry echoing over the desert like an evil
laugh.
But a minute afterwards, in answer to her touch, Jim Forrester was
staring at her trying to collect his sleep-scattered senses.
"Hullo!" he said, slowly. "How on earth did I--Ah! I remember. That
brute of a goatherd played the garden ass and I lost him, so after
wandering about for hours, I turned in till daylight. But you--my
dearest dear----"
He started to his feet as he realised her presence there, and held out
both his hands to her.
As he did so, something dropped from them and lay glittering on the
sand at his feet. It was a gold coin.
They looked at each other, amazed; then she stooped and picked it up.
"A double profile," she said slowly, holding it so as to catch the
growing sunlight, "and the legend round"--she spelt it out from the
Greek lettering--"'Basileus Basileon.'"
"And the date," he cried, "the date!"
"Yes, the date is there," she replied, still more slowly turning to the
obverse, "the bird and the date--it is all right--but I was thinking of
the other----"
"What other?"
"Basileus Basileon--'the King of Kings,'" she said softly, and looked
out towards the sunrise. But the light had claimed the whole world and
sent all shadows flying.
So happily, prosaically, they went home to breakfast. Yet there was one
thing which she never told anyone, perhaps because it might
have stood in the way of the popular explanation of the whole
affair--namely, that Khesroo had happened on the coin and must have put
it in Jim Forrester's hand after the latter fell asleep. So, not even
when her father proudly pointed out to admirers that the double profile
was that of a man and a woman, and that the latter, curiously enough,
might almost be a portrait of his married daughter, did she ever say
that when she found her husband asleep in the sand that morning, the
looped bowstring of Khesroo the goatherd's bow was loose about his
neck.
But she often wonders if it would have been drawn tighter had she not
gone to seek for what she wanted.
THE BIRTH OF FIRE
The night was clear and silent.
The light-pulse of the stars as they wheeled with slow certainty to
meet the dawn was the only visible movement in the whole expanse of
shadowed earth and sky.
And the only sound audible was my own life breath as I sate beside the
glowing embers of the camp fire.
Strictly speaking, however, there was no camp, for I, and the two
coolies who carried my breakfast, had missed our way in our detour
through the eternal sameness of faint curve and level in the wide
uplands, and finally, in despair of rejoining our tents, had bivouacked
as best we could on the shore of a small frozen lake; one of those
obstinate, rock-bound pools which, even when spring has set seal of
conquest on the world, refuse to melt, and so yield up their treasure
of sweet water to its renewed thirst for Life.
My servants had forced this particular lakelet to philanthropy with
rude blows; wantonly rude it had seemed to me, as I watched the swift
shiver with which the stable unity of surface had split into forlorn
fragments of ice, each adrift at the mercy of that which they had held
prisoner for so long.
The other necessary element, fire, my men had also commandeered by a
raid on the low juniper which crept like moss below the taller grasses
of the plain.
The result had not been altogether satisfactory, for the pungent
smoke of the aromatic wood had--at least, so the sufferers averred,
though, at the time, I suspected a recourse for comfort to my
whisky-flask--produced unmistakable symptoms of intoxication in the
amateur cooks, who, after valiantly serving me up a réchauffé of
breakfast had succumbed to sleep. The mattress of creeping juniper on
which they lay like logs was springy enough to have hidden them from
sight even if the shadowed earth had not been so dark; for it was dark,
formless, void, as only an unbroken expanse of featureless plain can be
when the very sky grows velvet black because of the infinitely distant
brilliance of the stars. Indeed, the uniformity of indefinable shadow
was almost oppressive, although I knew right well the scene that lay
around me; for who that has once seen it can fail of seeing again with
the mind's eye the marvellous mosaic as of white marble and precious
jewels which covers the high upland stretches of the World's Roof, when
the winter snow retreats reluctantly, as if loth to leave the carpeting
of spring flowers which follow on its fleeing footsteps.
I even remembered as I watched the embers that just behind them,
finding faint shelter from a solitary boulder, there grew a tiny azalea
I had never seen before; a fragile, leafless thing set sparsely with
sweet-scented flowers that were flecked rose on saffron like a sunset
sky.
And the silence was oppressive also. I caught myself
listening--listening almost breathlessly--for a sound--for some sound!
But there was not even a whisper among the tall grasses.
In sudden impulse I threw a fresh juniper branch upon the embers, and
the silence, the stillness ended as if by magic; for the green spines
spat and sputtered as they shrivelled, and sent out a dense cloud of
smoke to circle up endlessly into the darkness.
A pungent smoke indeed! Involuntarily I drew back from it and covered
my eyes with my hand waiting until the smouldering should lighten into
flame.
The waiting, however, prolonged itself strangely. No flicker of light
reached me, and I began to wonder dreamily what had happened; so
dreamily, indeed, that when at last I looked up, I did so reluctantly,
and with a curious sense of confusion.
It was this, no doubt, which prevented surprise at finding that I was
no longer the solitary watcher of those dull embers.
Opposite me, nearly hidden in the endless curlings of the juniper smoke
was a man crouching towards the fire as if he felt the cold of the high
uplands. Only his face, and the hands he held towards the heat, showed
clearly; the rest was lost in billowy clouds which, drifting upwards
behind him, obscured the very stars.
I sate silent for a while, disinclined even for curiosity, and then,
rather to my own surprise, I spoke as I might have spoken to a familiar
friend.
"You are cold, I'm afraid."
To this day, I do not know in what language he replied--if, indeed! he
spoke at all. My only recollection is of the eloquence of liquid,
lustrous eyes, the confident certainty of comprehension which is the
child's ere it can speak articulately.
"I am a Star-gazer; so the Fire draws me."
"Why?"
"Why? Surely all know it is the Star Fire which fell when She first
came to me--Hai-me! Hai-me! When She first came and laid her hand in
mine."
The drifting billows parted, showing the stars above his head, then
closed again, blotting them out; blotting out all things, it seemed to
me, even my own self as I sate listening to the faint wail which rose
vaguely, filling the wide shadows.
"Io! Io! Disturber of dreams, why didst thou come? Io! Io! Bringer of
dreams, why didst go? Lo! the Star fire was not thine though thou
earnest with the Fire of the Star."
Through the pungent aroma of the burning branches, a faint breath of
perfume from the sunset-dyed azalea swept, mingling with it, and so
passing with it into the endless circling.
The lustrous eyes drooped, losing their brilliance; but when they
looked up again only serene confident comprehension was there.
"In forest days none of us were Star-gazers, for there was no Rim to
the world on which the following Footsteps could be seen. But when we
left the forest for the upland, with its milch kine and seed grains, we
learnt to look; for there was the Rim. And all things went to stand on
it and disappear among the Stars.
"So, gazing, we saw that the Stars disappeared also; they, too, were
following the Footsteps. But they never came back as they went, like
other things. Their footsteps were faithful; so faithful that you could
foretell by them the ripening of the seed grains, the coming of milk to
the herds.
"So gazing, we wondered. Here by this pool I watched, taking no need of
harvest or milk time; but I saw nothing but the following Footsteps and
the footsteps of the Stars.
"Nothing, though I followed with mine eyes, wheeling as the Stars
wheeled to meet the dawn while the shadows and my kind, and all other
things, slept as they do now."
They slept, indeed! The very smoke had ceased to circle. It hung in
motionless curves, soft, impenetrable, and I could see nothing now save
the lustrous eyes, and the dull glow of the fire.
"So I gazed, until one night, as I stood following the footsteps of the
faithful Stars with mine eyes, the knowledge came to me, that as I
stood watching them, so Someone stood watching me and all things.
Someone who did not move. And I was glad, though I was afraid.
"But that dawn, when I went down after our custom to gather the seed
grains with my kind, they looked at me askance as if I were a stranger.
Only Io, she of the beautiful young one that all cherished, paused as
she suckled it to follow me with curious wondering eyes."
There was a pause, and through it came, soft as a sigh, that faint
wail:
"Io! Io! Disturber of Dreams, why didst come? Io! Io! Bringer of
Dreams, why didst thou go?"
"It was cold here, on the uplands, gazing; but the faithful Stars shone
quite near me. It seemed as if I could reach up and clasp them. And I
was faithful as they in the Footsteps; for I have driven a stake of
wood into the ground firm as the ground itself, and night after night,
as I watched the Stars wheel, I twirled the slender wand I held in my
hands upon it, following their faithful Footsteps so that the Someone
who watched might see me even as they were!
"And I was happy, though I was afraid.
"But one night, when the tall grasses were stiff and the low green
things were white with the cold, my fingers could scarce twirl the
wand, and the fear lest the Someone might grow angry with me came so
strong that suddenly I lifted my head and cried to It to be kind.
"How the stars shone! My hands longed to leave the wand and reach them,
and in me there rose a great new joy, as if I had found myself.
"But that Dawn, when I went after the custom to gather the grain with
my kind, they fled from me as if I had been an enemy.
"Only Io, she of the beautiful young one, with her breasts full of
milk, left the cherished one athirst to follow my footsteps and hold
out a handful of the grain she had gathered for herself.
"But I feared her and she feared me, so she left it lying on the
ground, and afterwards I went and ate it, for I was hungry. But the
touch of her hand that was on the grain touched my lips so that I felt
it even as I gazed.
"Io! Io! Disturber of Dreams, why didst come? Io! Io! Why didst thou
go? The Star fire was not thine, though thou wast in the fire of the
Star!"
Even the lustrous eyes were hidden from me now; I saw nothing but the
fading glow of the embers as I sate listening amid the uttermost peace
of all things to that soft almost voiceless wail.
"The nights grew hot, and the tall grasses crackled in the drought, and
the low green things wilted to greyness. But I cared not, for I had
found myself, and I knew there was a Beginning and an End. And even
that touch on my lips did not disturb my dreams as, faithful as they, I
followed the faithful footsteps of the Stars.
"Until one night--it was so hot that something in me seemed to
out-beat the beating of the Stars--a great Darkness that was not Night
came from the Rim and swallowed up all things.
"I had seen it come before and had hidden my face from it like the rest
of my kin, but now my fear was too strong for hiding. Besides, who
could hide when Someone watched always? And why should I hide if I were
faithful--if I were as the Stars?
"Thus a great joy mingled with my fear, until something in me cried out
with a great longing for something that was not in me, and something
that I had not, seemed to come to me until my wand twirled faster, as
if other hands were on it, and my lips, as I cried out that I was
faithful, felt the touch of other lips upon them.
"So through the Darkness that hid the Stars while the hot wind howled
about me and flung hot earth grains in my face, I shouted to the Stars
to come down to me."
The very fire had gone now, and I strained my eyes into the shadows,
seeing nothing but endless curves as of smoke.
"And lo! One came!
"Just where the wand whirled by my hot hasty hands touched the steady
stake of wood I saw a tiny star.
"But, as I saw it, something came to me also, making me forget the
Star!
"It was Io!
"She had left her cherished one; with her breasts full of milk, she had
left the little drinker athirst; she had followed my footsteps through
the darkness to find me and lay her hand in mine.
"Io! Io! Bringer of Dreams! Io! Io! Disturber of Dreams, thou didst
come!
"And the touch of our hands and our lips together made us forget the
starshine which had come with it.
"But the shine grew and grew, so that when we looked again it was not a
Star at all, but something new and strange. Something that crept among
the dry grasses and the wilted green things, something that leaped and
laughed amid the darkness, something that sent hot arms towards us,
till I caught her in mine and fled from it, leaving the wand and the
steady stake behind.
"So we fled and fled, with the Fire which came from the Starshine
behind us always. Fled in the faithful footsteps of the Stars.... Fled
to find the Dawn!..."
* * * * *
There was silence; a long silence! And was that the Dawn, the gracious
Dawn!
Something, surely, all rose flecked on saffron and suffused with Light
lay before my upturned eyes.
It was an azalea blossom. But, as I rose to my feet from the springy
juniper where I had been lying, my head sheltered by the straggling
branches of the leafless bush, the dawn had come, indeed, on the far
rim of the wide plain.
And between it and me, rising from the retreating snow and the
carpeting of spring flowers, was a white vapour which, lit by the rosy
sun rays behind it, showed like smoke from a prairie fire.
But our fire was out. Only a heap of grey ashes remained, though the
sleep which had come from the juniper branches still held the sleeping
servants.
It needed a rough awakening, as rough as that which had left the
prisoning ice at the mercy of the prisoned water, to rouse them and
make them stand yawning, stretching in the dawn, avowing that
_haschish_ itself could not bring wilder dreams than those which
had been theirs that night. But was it a dream? or does the man,
hand-in-hand with the woman, still fly from the Fire which came from
the Star-shine!
THE GIFT OF BATTLE
"Then you recommend them both," said the mild little Commissioner,
doubtfully; he was a vacillating man, by nature lawful prey to his
superiors.
Tim O'Brien, C.I.E.--the uncoveted distinction had been, to his great
disgust, bestowed on him after a recent famine, in which his sheer
vitality had saved half a province, and earned him, rightfully, the
highest honour of the empire--removed his long Burmah cheroot from his
lips and smiled brilliantly. He was a thin brown man with a whimsical
face.
"And what would I be doing with wan of them on the Bench and the other
in the dock? For it would be that way ere a week was past. It is very
kind of the L.G. to suggest putting either Sirdar Bikrama Singh or Khân
Buktiyar Khân on the Honorary Magistracy, but he doesn't grasp that
they are hereditary enemies and have been the same for eight hundred
years. Ever since the Pathans temporarily conquered the Rajputs, in the
year av' grace 1256! So you couldn't in conscience expect wan of them
not to commit a crime if the other was to be preferred before him. Ye
see, he'd just have to kill someone. But, if ye appoint them both, the
dacencies of Court procedure and the hair-splittin' formalities of the
local Bar will conduce to dignity--to say nothing of their own sense of
justice, which, I'll go bail, is stronger than it is in most people ye
could appoint. Equity's apt to go by the board if ye've too much legal
knowledge; and they have none of that last. But I'll give them a good
Clerk of the Court and guarantee they come to no harrm. Yes, sir, I
recommend them both--to sit _in banco_."
When Tim O'Brien spoke, as he did in the last sentence, curtly and
without a trace of his usual rollicking Irish accent, his superior
officers invariably fell in with his views; it saved trouble.
So, in due course, what answers to a J.P.'s commission at home (with no
small extra powers thrown in) was sent to Sirdar Bikrama Singh, Rajput
at his castle of Nagadrug (the Snake's Hole), and also to Khân Buktiyar
Khân at his fortress of Shakingarh (the Falcon's Nest).
Both buildings had been for some centuries in a hopeless state of
dilapidation, as, from a worldly point of view, were their owners'
fortunes. But, just as the crumbling walls still commanded the wide
arid valley which lay between the rocky steeps of the sandhills on
which they stood, so the position of the two most ancient families of
Hindus and Mahomedans in the district still commanded the respect of
the whole sub-division. Of course, they were antagonistic. Had they not
been so always? But, in truth, the old story of how they came to be so
was such a very old story, that none knew the rights of it: not even
the two high-nosed, high-couraged old men, who, having in due time
succeeded to the headship of their respective families, had done as
their fathers had done; that is to say, glared at each other over their
barren fields, formulated every possible complaint they could against
their neighbour, and denied any good quality to him, his house, his
wife, his oxen, or his ass.
Yet the two had one thing in common. They were both soldiers by race.
Their sons were even now with the colours of Empire, and in their own
youth both had served John Company, and afterwards, the Queen. This
bond, however, was not one of union, but rather of discord. For the one
had belonged to the crack Hindu and the other to the crack Mahomedan
corps of the Indian army, and their respective sons naturally followed
in their fathers' footsteps. Indeed, on occasions the pair of dear old
pantaloons would appear in the uniforms of a past day, hopelessly out
of date as regards buttons and tailoring, but still worn with the
distinctive cock of the turban and swagger of high boots that had
belonged of old days and still belonged to the "rigimint."
Bikrama Singh was seated on the flat roof which had sheltered him and
his for centuries when he received the little slip of silk paper, so
beautifully engrossed, which appointed him to the Honorary Magistracy.
It was a barren honour, since he was not one of those--and there are
many--who make a stipend out of an unpaid post; but his thin old
fingers trembled a little and his eye lost the faintly blue film which
age draws between the Real and the Unreal. Whether his mind reverted at
once to his hereditary enemy--who was not mentioned in the
paper--is doubtful, but he felt it to be an honour in these miserable
days, when a moneylender had more chance of being elected to a district
council than a gentleman of parts to be chosen by the Sirkar. It was a
thousand times better than being "puffed by rabble votes to wisdom's
chair."
"It is well," he said simply, but with a superior air, to his
womenfolk--the wife and daughters and grand-daughters and
daughters-in-law and their kind who filled up the wide old house. "I
shall do my duty and punish the evil doer; notably those who do evil to
my people and my land, since true justice begins at home." And he
curled his thin grey moustache to meet his short grey whiskers and
looked fierce as an old tiger.
Over in Shakingarh also the commission met with approval. "It is well!"
said Buktiyar Khân, as he sate amongst his crowding womenfolk with a
poultice of leaves on his short beard to dye it purple. "I shall do my
duty and punish the evil doer; notably him who has done evil to my
people and my land, since that is the beginning of justice." And his
hawk's eye travelled almost unconsciously from his flat roof to that
other one far over the valley.
Yet, when they met, a few days afterwards, duly attired in their
uniforms on the threshold of _Brine sahib's_ verandah, whither they had
repaired full of courteous acknowledgments to one whom they recognised
as being at the bottom of the appointment, a faint frown came to their
old faces. But _Brine sahib_ broke it to them gently, with the graceful
tact which gained him so much confidence. Government, recognising their
many and great excellencies, had found it impossible to do otherwise
than elevate them both to the Bench, where they would doubtless remain,
as they were now, the best representatives of Hindu and Mahomedan
feeling in the district. And then Tim O'Brien made a few remarks about
the King-Emperor and devoted service which sent both old hands out in
swift stiff salute.
Doubtless it was a shock to find themselves equally honoured; but
regarding the "_in banco_," they both admitted instantly to themselves
that it was better to sit next a hereditary enemy than a stinking
scrivener or a mean moneylender. So Bikrama Singh twirled his grey
moustache and said, "It is well," and Buktiyar Khân twirled his purple
one and said the same thing.
Thereinafter they began work. The women of both houses made the first
court day a regular festival, and sent the two old men from home
dressed and scented and decorated as if for a bridal. The purple of
Buktiyar's beard was positively regal, while the points of Bikrama's
thin trembling fingers were rosy as the dawn.
They were fearsomely stately with each other, of course, but that only
added to the dignity of the Bench. An excellent Clerk of the Court had
been provided for them, and their first cases had been carefully chosen
by Tim O'Brien for their simplicity.
Thus there had seemed no possibility of friction; yet the two new
judges returned to their womenkind vaguely dissatisfied, dimly uneasy.
"The Mahomedan is no fool," remarked Bikrama Singh thoughtfully, "he
saw as quickly as I did that truth lay with the defendant, lies with
the plaintiff."
"By God's truth," admitted Buktiyar Khân grudgingly, "the Hindu is not
such a blockhead as I deemed him. He saw as quickly as I did that lies
were with the plaintiff, truth with the defendant."
It was almost intolerable; but it was true. The hereditary enemies had
agreed about something on God's earth. And as time went on this
unanimity of opinion became the most salient feature of the
newly-constituted court. They agreed about everything. Of different
race, different religion, something deeper in them than these surface
variations coincided. Their innate sense of justice, fostered by the
fact that they had both been brought up in the India of the past, that
they represented its laws, its morals, its maxims, made their judgments
identical.