He shook his head.
"No, it’s Rob. He is just about mad enough to blow his brains out. I’m
going to him."
"He’s sent for you?"
"He’s _asked_ me to come."
Stewart sat with her in the little room all that long afternoon, and
they had tea together, and they watched the sunset from the windows
together, as they had done almost every day that year. It would seem
strange to drink tea alone and watch the sunset by herself, thought
Cary.
"If you would sometimes write—" he suggested once.
"Of course, I will write," she retorted quickly.
When the twilight came, he left.
_End of Book One._
*BOOK TWO*
*THE BREAK
IN THE CLAY*
*BOOK TWO*
*THE BREAK IN THE CLAY*
*I.*
Trevelyan’s face was the first that greeted Stewart at his journey’s
end.
Trevelyan had been in the wildest spirits for days before Stewart’s
arrival, and his fellow officers spoke about the sudden change in him.
For the first time in the year that Trevelyan had served with them, he
became less moody and unsociable and whimsical, and they grew to think
less critically of one who had never been a favorite. It was probably
only the Colonel, remembering the stock from whence he sprang, who took
the trouble to look beneath the inertia.
"The boy will come around all right in time—he’s only a bit homesick and
strange to the new life now. When there’s an opportunity for fighting
he’ll show himself up true," he would say. "Why, his father at
Inkerman—"
And then the officer or officers of whom he had gotten hold, would be
obliged to listen all over again to the story of the charge led by
Trevelyan’s father in the Crimea.
But the story had its unconscious influence on their treatment of the
young Engineer. They never really cared for him but they respected
him—for what the Colonel believed he would some day be—which was all
that Trevelyan seemed to desire. After their first trial at
pleasantries which he had met with ill-concealed indifference, they left
him to himself. They rarely saw him except at mess, or on duty, and his
ungraciousness then did not help to heal the widening breach of
unfavorable opinion.
Toward the end of the year his fellow officers found out that he was
cousin to young Stewart—Stewart who had won that honorable mention—and
son of Malcolm Stewart of Aberdeen. That helped matters a little. They
could pardon a chap’s unpardonable moodiness for young Stewart’s sake.
Months later they heard that young Stewart himself had re-applied for
Indian service, and that he was coming to them. It was Trevelyan who
told them in confidence, first, and from then Trevelyan was changed.
That night he joked them at mess, in a dry Scotch fashion, fostered long
ago in the Argyll years; later he joined them at cards and proposed the
toast to Stewart with a dash and a charm that made some of them wonder
if they had not misjudged a deuced good chap after all.
As a matter of course Trevelyan formed one of the squad of officers and
men who rode over from the Station to meet young Stewart when he came.
It was Trevelyan who got them started a needless hour before the time;
it was Trevelyan who laughed at the dust and the heat of the long ride
and bribed them, with all he possessed from the last cent of his pay, to
his helmet and the braid on his uniform, to races which he always won,
swinging himself far out of the saddle and stooping low to pick up
withered bits of native growth from the ground as he swept past at a
gallop.
Trevelyan’s two mess companions who had been with Stewart in the "row"
where he had won his mention, imbibed something of Trevelyan’s spirits,
and they laughed at the dust, in their turn, and the heat, as they rode
from the military station to welcome back their old comrade.
They saw him long before the train had come to a dead stop and they
cheered him now, in the desolate little way-station, remembering how
they had cheered him that day, but it was only Trevelyan’s bronzed face
that Stewart saw as he descended.
"Hello, Bobby," he said, slapping him on the back, "You see I’ve come."
Trevelyan looked at him queerly for a moment in silence.
"I knew you would. You’re a—" he broke off and turned away, and the
officers and men wondered what had become of Trevelyan’s spirits during
the return trip.
Trevelyan sat up late into the night with Stewart, listening while he
told of England and the home people. Once or twice Stewart mentioned
Cary.
"How is she?" asked the younger man.
He only alluded to her once again.
At midnight he rose to leave.
"Of course there isn’t anything to say to you about—your leaving England
and—and all that—to come to me out here in this devilish hole—" he began
disjointedly, "but it’s only fair to try to say something. The fellows
and the men can tell you I’ve been a different chap since I heard of the
transfer. When I left England, and for all this year, well—I haven’t
much cared what happened. Out here—the loneliness without her—"
He turned sharply on his heel and left.
Young Stewart of the Engineers stood still in the middle of his
quarters, listening to Trevelyan’s footsteps growing fainter. Presently
they were lost in the silence of the Indian night. Now and again came
sounds from the jungle, but Stewart stood motionless.
Suddenly he flung his right arm across his forehead.
"The loneliness without her—"
And Cary, sleepless in far-away England, watched the sun rise, wondering
what made the nights so long.
*II.*
Trevelyan’s excitement over Stewart’s coming died away as one monotonous
week followed another, and he became more moody than before. Stewart
tried to draw him into the life of the station, and the pastimes by
which the officers and men helped to kill the long inactive days, but
Trevelyan steadily refused to be won from his taciturnity. A few used to
laugh at Stewart for his pains, but the majority of the mess, grew,
while watching his struggle for Trevelyan, to know him better and to
appreciate him more. Before, to a few, young Stewart of the Engineers
had been a man with a good name; to the most of them he had been
unknown, but, aside from his devotion to Trevelyan, his knowledge of
surveying and military niceties, his genial spirit and his unfailing
patience, won for him the distinct approval of the officers and the
absolute adoration of the rank and file.
He used to try to include Trevelyan in the atmosphere of approbation
that surrounded himself, but Trevelyan obstinately refused even his
advances.
Once, indeed, one evening, Stewart got him to join a game of cards.
Trevelyan did more drinking than he did playing, and three hours later,
Stewart carried him to his own quarters and nursed him through the long
still night.
When Trevelyan awoke in the dawn of the early morning, he found Stewart
still watching, and later as the wan grayness of the dawn turned to
deepening gold, Stewart talked to him as an older man talks to a younger
one. He spoke to him of self-respect and honor and of self-control. He
spoke to him of Cary.
"Take a brace and redeem yourself with the mess and the men," he said,
as he finished. "Where’s your grit and your hold on things? You don’t
think you’re growing more worthy of her; do you?"
Trevelyan sat up, supporting himself by his rigid arms, on the palms of
his hands. The light of the coming sunrise gave to his bronzed face a
strange reddish hue.
"Think!" he exclaimed, "I wish to God I could stop thinking! Her face
haunts and haunts and _haunts_ me! She says my love frightens her, and
that it lies with me and what I make of myself, if her answer changes.
I can’t change my love—it’s all of me; it’s the soul of me, and if it
frightens her—!" Trevelyan leaned forward, "I can’t change myself! I
can’t see her; I know I’ll never win her! How? I can’t tell you, but I
know I never shall, and I don’t care what becomes of me or how soon I go
to hell!"
The rigidity of his arms increased and he stared straight in front of
him.
Stewart sprang up, his firm mouth quivering with passion.
"If a man had ever dared to tell me that you would talk so, I would have
knocked him down. You’re not worthy to be born of such a father and it’s
a blessing that your mother’s dead. You’re not worthy to have had my
mother foster you ever since you were a little shaver. You’re not worthy
of the worst woman that ever lived. You’ve lost your manhood. You can
be cashiered from the army—and you can go to hell! You’re not worth
saving!"
Young Stewart of the Engineers turned on his heel and swung out of the
room as he would have swung, face forward, at the head of a line,
leading into action.
Later when he returned Trevelyan had gone. He stood in the doorway of
the deserted room and stared fixedly at where Trevelyan had lain through
the night. He was himself again, and a great shame at his lost control
swept over him. He had preached of self-control to Trevelyan.
"And I’d give my life for the boy’s," he said to himself.
It was remarked at mess that night that Trevelyan did not touch his
food, and that he left earlier even than was his wont. Stewart followed
him out into the stillness of the evening.
"Trevelyan," he called, following the quickly moving figure up the steps
of his quarters.
Trevelyan turned sharply.
"I don’t want any more of your talk," he said. "Good-night!" And
slammed the door in Stewart’s face.
Stewart stood there for a moment tapping his booted foot against the
floor of the piazza. Then he went to his own quarters.
"I’ve come out to this cursed hole to serve the boy, and I’ve lost him
instead! I’ve made a jolly mess of it all, this time!"
* * * * *
After that Trevelyan spent all of his "off duty" time alone. He used to
go on long tramps or wild rides, returning with his horse flecked with
foam and himself worn out, and his evenings were passed in his own
quarters with no one better than himself for company. He would walk up
and down and down and up again until he turned in, or he would take to
studying Hindoostanee, or sit idly, staring into nothingness. At first
he fastened his door against possible intrusion, but no one ever came,
and his solitude was unbroken. Once his strained ears caught the sound
of Stewart’s familiar step outside and he stealthily crept over to the
door and unfastened it and stood by it listening. The even steady steps
came nearer, and then without halting, passed on.
Trevelyan wiped his moist face. After all, why should Stewart have
tried again? He had been refused so often—
Stewart pushed back his ponderous volume on military engineering and
stared ahead of him, his firm lips pressed close together.
If there was only some way to help the boy—
*III.*
In the spring the natives grew restless.
"They’re stretching themselves after a long sleep," said a young
subaltern, knowingly.
"They’re planning mutiny," said the Colonel to himself, and he ordered
out a band of men for investigating the neighborhood.
The little band was delayed seven hours over the extremest limit set for
its return.
When it came it bore a dead man back to the Station. The man had been a
Briton and of the regiment.
Then the grim spirit of the military station rose, as the gray, still
sea rises at the onsweep of the gale.
War had come.
*IV.*
For an hour the Colonel was closeted. There was a line of attack to be
planned. He would talk it over with his older officers presently; for
the time being he could think better alone. It was necessary not to be
too hasty—to keep a controlling hand on the lever of this engine of war,
of which he was in command. It was necessary to strike decisively, when
he did strike, and to the heart of it. That was it—to the heart! The
natives were on the move, the investigating band had reported. _Where_
to strike? A surveying officer; an engineer could judge. Who was the
best man to send. It was like ordering a man into the mouth of death.
The Colonel leaned his head in his hand and beat the end of his pen
against the deal of the table. Coolness was wanted; knowledge of
surveying; courage. That was it—courage!
Only two faces rose before him and haunted him, to the exclusion of all
others. Of the two, Trevelyan’s was the most persistent.
True, he was young and he was untried, and he was probably the most
unpopular officer at the Station, but in his veins was the blood that
endures and slays and conquers!
Properly executed the fulfilling of the orders would mean his proved
skill as an officer. If he failed—the Colonel laid down his pen. That
blood could not fail.
There was his unusual strength, too, to be taken in his favor, his
strength and his endurance. He remembered that Trevelyan had stood
intense heat better than any man at the Station; that he could live on
less food, and had a nicer knowledge of horsemanship than any officer or
trooper in his command; that technically he was brilliant at surveying.
The majority of commanders would probably decide between the two in
favor of Stewart, but the Colonel had run the gauntlet to success a good
deal on instinct. The Colonel prided himself on instinct. It would be
Trevelyan!
Two hours later Trevelyan received his orders.
"Very well, sir," "I understand, sir," "Yes, sir," he had replied, and
after he had left, the Colonel nodded and smiled grimly at the young
engineer’s self-control in the face of an order that might mean death.
Trevelyan walked blindly back to his quarters. There was a queer
singing in his head and beating at his temples. He stumbled across the
threshold and he sat down on the edge of his bunk and pressed his hands
hard against his temples to still that mad, incessant beating. His eyes
remained wide and fixed at one spot on the floor.
It had come at last; the test and the opportunity for which he had
blindly, passionately prayed as a child; for which he had striven and
worked as a boy; it had come and it had found him unprepared to meet it!
He thought of the ride—alone, except for a trooper—and on the spot of
the floor, he pictured the blackness and the danger, as a man brings
forth a likeness on a dark plate. The picture came and went, and went
and came again on the spot on the floor and he sprang up with a choked
cry. To go out into that stillness and darkness; to face the blackness
of death—
They might get back his body—what good would his body do anyone—and they
might get it home, but they probably wouldn’t. The utter silence in
that blackness of death—so great that her voice could never reach him!
He put his foot over the possessed spot on the floor, and his leg shook
as he did so. He saw his leg tremble, and he knew it and he did not
care! He had turned coward, and—he did not care! What was courage when
her voice could not reach him in the blackness of death? He might live
through it, and she might care more for him, for it, but the chances
were two-thirds for death.
The man they had brought in that morning! What a ghastly sight he had
been! The eyes had refused to remain closed and they had stared at him
in all the horror of dead sightlessness. And the lips had been drawn
back from the teeth and had stiffened so, in the agony of the death
struggle. God! And they would bring him back like that—like that—_like
that_!
What vision did those staring eyes see but unutterable, unpenetrable
blackness? What speech could that grinning mouth ever form again? What
sound could pierce the seal laid on the hearing?
They had told him that the trooper had a sweetheart waiting for him
somewhere off in Ireland. Well, even love could not break the bonds of
death, and make him speak and hear and caress her as of old.
There was something mightier than love after all—mightier even than the
love he had for Cary.
And Trevelyan cowered, afraid.
*V.*
Mackenzie, the surgeon, lounging in a big wicker chair, his heels higher
than his head, lazily rolled cigarettes and winked at the dazzling
reflection of the sun on the walls of the barracks. Off in the distance
he could see the little subaltern walking energetically down the road.
The little subaltern was gotten up regardless in white linen. He was
evidently on his way to drink tea with the Colonel’s daughter.
"My eyes," said Mackenzie, aloud, "Will nothing interfere with his
afternoon tea! The devil only knows if he’ll be alive this time
to-morrow. Better keep cool when he can. He’s a blank little fool!
Thinks Jessica Q will tumble when he says good-bye—does he? Tea and
love-making _now_!" and the surgeon fanned himself with his hand. The
surgeon had never taken kindly to the little subaltern.
Suddenly his feet came down with a crash and he leaned forward in the
wicker chair. Bennett had stopped the little subaltern and the little
subaltern was talking back excitedly and kicking up the white dust,
regardless of the fresh linen suit.
Mackenzie rose and stretched himself.
"Wonder if the old man has issued orders? Something’s up, sure as a gun,
when that kid forgets Jessica Q and his clothes."
Three of the mess who had been talking earnestly at the end of the
piazza, turned at the sound of voices in the road and joined the two
there.
"Not Trevelyan, you say? It isn’t Trevelyan?" one of them was saying,
as Mackenzie came up.
"Yes, it is, too! Jove! If I only had his chance," sighed the little
subaltern, twirling around distractedly on one heel.
"There! There! That’ll do, Baby," said Bennett, patting him on the
head. The little subaltern squirmed, but he kept listening to what
Bennett was saying.
"He’s a rum comrade, but I imagine he can do it," said Bennett looking
toward the barracks, thoughtfully, "He knows the fine points of
surveying from A to Z, and—"
"—He’s got more nerve than any chap I ever knew," put in Mackenzie.
"Is the old man going to send an escort with him? I bet if he does,
it’ll be Sandy McCann," said Pearson.
"What’s this? What’s this I hear about Robert being sent off to-night?"
Young Stewart of the Engineers joined the group hastily. His uniform
was covered with dust and he held his helmet under his arm, wiping the
moisture from his face.
"Why, it’s almost certain death. I—"
"That’s why we’re here—to face death, if we have to," said the little
subaltern, with an odd new gravity, and Bennett suddenly stopped short
in patting his head.
Stewart turned.
"True," he said, briefly, running his right hand up and down the sleeve
of his left arm "but—"
"And it probably won’t be any worse than what we’ll have to face
to-morrow or next day," said Bennett, as Stewart paused. "He hasn’t
been sociable and over decent to us, but we’ll call on him and wish him
luck. Come along, boys!"
The group laughed a little. "All right," they said.
Stewart followed them up to Trevelyan’s quarters.
After all, why should he feel it so! It was Trevelyan’s one chance to
redeem himself with the regiment and turn the tide of popularity in his
favor. Fate was not as cruel as she seemed. And Trevelyan bore a
charmed life. And he knew Trevelyan could do it. Trevelyan would do
it—_well_! Trevelyan might have failed in the shaping of the details of
life this last year, but in the supreme hour—
For Stewart remembered the climb down the turret tower and the mad
scaling of the crags in Scotland, and the storm and the white fury of
the waters near the American fort, and the desperate swim, and the child
who had done these things because of what he would one day do as a man.
The little subaltern banged on Trevelyan’s door.
*VI.*
Trevelyan, still standing over the spot on the floor, raised his eyes
and looked vaguely in the direction of the sound. He remained silent.
The little subaltern banged again, and Trevelyan heard the echo of
voices.
He put his hand up to his collar, loosening it, and then he crossed the
room and flung open the door.
"Hello, you fellows," he cried, "What d’you want of a chap now?"
The little subaltern tumbled into the room, the other half dozen members
of the mess on top of him.
"Hello, yourself," they cried, "How d’you like the job the Colonel’s
given you?"
"Like it!" Trevelyan threw back his head and his large, well formed
throat pulsed as he spoke, "Why, it’s the greatest thing that ever
happened to a chap of my age!"
His messmates formed a little group around him.
"How’s your nerve?"
Trevelyan laughed. It was only Stewart, who stood by silent, listening,
who felt vaguely the jar in it.
"Oh, _my_ nerve is all right. How’s your own at the prospect of a row?
’I go to prepare a place for you’—" he went on in a deep chant.
"Robert!"
It was Stewart.
"Oh, I suppose that was a bit in bad taste, but when a chap’s making his
last will and testament, he forgets the teachings of the old kirk—"
"Sure! What time do you start?" from the little subaltern.
"Fire arms in good order?" put in Bennett.
"In an hour. No, I’m not going to trust any of these oily natives to
clean them. I’ll see to them myself."
Trevelyan moved away from the group.
"We’ll have something on the strength of it!" said the little subaltern,
"A toast: ’To the Queen—God bless her—and the Queen’s courier!’ How’s
that?"
He glanced conceitedly about the room. The men of the mess laughed good
naturedly.
"Well, here’s my hand on the success of it," said Mackenzie, a little
later, at leaving. He suddenly regretted he had not been a bit kinder
to the young engineer. A fellow with such nerve, deserved more than
they had all given him.
They filed out after awhile. Stewart alone remained. He put his hand
on Trevelyan’s shoulder, as he had used to do long ago when they were
boys, pacing the great library of a rainy afternoon, and he walked with
Trevelyan up and down the length of the room.
"It’s a risky business, Robert," he said, in his grave voice, "but I
believe you’re the man for it."
"I suppose," said Trevelyan, "if it hadn’t been me it would have been
Pearson."
"I suppose so, but Pearson couldn’t do it."
"Neither may I."
"_You_ will," said Stewart.
After a little, he went on, speaking as though to himself.
"I wish to God—"
He did not finish his sentence.
Trevelyan shook off the hand on his shoulder.
"I understand, and—I’m grateful, of course, and all that, but if you’d
leave me alone for awhile. There is a letter or two and—"
"Of course."
At the door Stewart turned.
"I’ll see you before you go," he said.
Trevelyan listened until his footsteps, faded away and then he sat down
at his small deal table, his eyes turned away from the spot on the
floor. The vision of that dead, ghastly face had come back.
If it wasn’t him it would be Pearson, probably, or anyhow, some other
man—glad of the chance. Why should he deprive him, whoever he was, of
the chance? A grim smile crept around Trevelyan’s mouth, and then he
let his head fall forward against the edge of the wood; his arms hanging
limp between his long legs stretched out straight under the table. The
horrible fear had returned, and the darkness and the blackness of death
seemed swallowing him up. Never to see her again! Never to touch her
hand again, or to hear her footsteps in passing, or the sound of her
voice; to die—not with other men in the daylight and in battle—but to be
shot down like a dog, alone, in the darkness—
The steady ticking of the watch he had laid in front of him on the
table, throbbed feebly like a dying pulse, close to his ear, and he sat,
his forehead against the edge of the table, his eyes staring down at the
shadowed floor.
After awhile he got up and steadied himself and went over to the door
and flung it open and looked out. Far off, the little subaltern was
coming his way. He hurried back to the other end of the room and got
out his fire arms and examined them, and began to polish them
vigorously. The little subaltern looked in.
"Hard at work? Do you want help?"
Trevelyan looked up and nodded.
"No, I guess not," he said, pleasantly.
The little subaltern sighed enviously, hesitated, and then passed on.
Trevelyan drew a deep breath and laid down his polishing cloth and
picked up his revolver. His hands played nervously over the trigger a
moment. The catch seemed stiff. He tried it again.
There was a sudden glare and a loud report, and Trevelyan sank back, the
blood staining the shoulder of his uniform.
After all, if one had nerve, it could be easily done and was soon over!
He turned sharply and leaned against the table, facing the window, one
hand to his shoulder. He fancied he heard footsteps receding. After
awhile he wiped the sweat from his face and staggered across the floor,
out into the gathering dusk, to headquarters.