THE FIERY VORTEX
"There is nothing more to be done," said Peter with mournful eyes upon
the baby in the _ayah's_ arms. "Will not my _mem-sahib_ take her rest?"
Stella's eyes also rested upon the tiny wizen face. She knew that Peter
spoke truly. There was nothing more to be done. She might send yet again
for Major Ralston. But of what avail? He had told her that he could do
no more. The little life was slipping swiftly, swiftly, out of her
reach. Very soon only the desert emptiness would be left.
"The _mem-sahib_ may trust her _baba_ to Hanani," murmured the _ayah_
behind the enveloping veil. "Hanani loves the _baba_ too."
"Oh, I know," Stella said.
Yet she hung over the _ayah's_ shoulder, for to-night of all nights she
somehow felt that she could not tear herself away.
There had been a change during the day--a change so gradual as to be
almost imperceptible save to her yearning eyes. She was certain that the
baby was weaker. He had cried less, had, she believed, suffered less;
and now he lay quite passive in the _ayah's_ arms. Only by the feeble,
fluttering breath that came and went so fitfully could she have told
that the tiny spark yet lingered in the poor little wasted frame.
Major Ralston had told her earlier in the evening that he might go on in
this state for days, but she did not think it probable. She was sure
that every hour now brought an infinitesimal difference. She felt that
the end was drawing near.
And so a great reluctance to go possessed her, even though she would be
within call all night. She had a hungry longing to stay and watch the
little unconscious face which would soon be gone from her sight. She
wanted to hold each minute of the few hours left.
Very softly Peter came to her side. "My _mem-sahib_ will rest?" he said
wistfully.
She looked at him. His faithful eyes besought her like the eyes of a
dog. Their dumb adoration somehow made her want to cry.
"If I could only stay to-night, Peter!" she said.
"_Mem-sahib_," he urged very pleadingly, "the _baba_ sleeps now. It may
be he will want you to-morrow. And if my _mem-sahib_ has not slept she
will be too weary then."
Again she knew that he spoke the truth. There had been times of late
when she had been made aware of the fact that her strength was nearing
its limit. She knew it would be sheer madness to neglect the warning
lest, as Peter suggested, her baby's need of her outlasted her
endurance. She must husband all the strength she had.
With a sigh she bent and touched the tiny forehead with her lips.
Hanani's hand, long and bony, gently stroked her arm as she did so.
"Old Hanani knows, _mem-sahib_," she whispered under her breath.
The tears she had barely checked a moment before sprang to Stella's
eyes. She held the dark hand in silence and was subtly comforted
thereby.
Passing through the door that Peter held open for her, she gave him her
hand also. He bent very low over it, just as he had bent on that first
wedding-day of hers so long--so long--ago, and touched it with his
forehead. The memory flashed back upon her oddly. She heard again Ralph
Dacre's voice speaking in her ear. "You, Stella,--you are as ageless as
the stars!" The pride and the passion of his tones stabbed through her
with a curious poignancy. Strange that the thought of him should come to
her with such vividness to-night! She passed on to her room, as one
moving in a painful trance.
For a space she lingered there, hardly knowing what she did; then she
remembered that she had not bidden Bernard good-night, and mechanically
her steps turned in his direction.
He was generally smoking and working on the verandah at that hour. She
made her way to the dining-room as being the nearest approach.
But half-way across the room the sound of Tommy's voice, sharp and
agitated, came to her: Involuntarily she paused. He was with Bernard on
the verandah.
"The devils shot him in the jungle, but he came on, got as far as
Ralston's bungalow, and collapsed there. He was dead in a few
minutes--before anything could be done."
The words pierced through her trance, like a naked sword flashing with
incredible swiftness, cutting asunder every bond, every fibre, that held
her soul confined. She sprang for the open window with a great and
terrible cry.
"Who is dead? Who? Who?"
The red glare of the lamp met her, dazzled her, seemed to enter her
brain and cruelly to burn her; but she did not heed it. She stood with
arms flung wide in frantic supplication.
"Everard!" she cried. "Oh God! My God! Not--Everard!"
Her wild words pierced the night, and all the voices of India seemed to
answer her in a mad discordant jangle of unintelligible sound. An owl
hooted, a jackal yelped, and a chorus of savage, yelling laughter broke
hideously across the clamour, swallowing it as a greater wave swallows a
lesser, overwhelming all that has gone before.
The red glare of the lamp vanished from Stella's brain, leaving an awful
blankness, a sense as of something burnt out, a taste of ashes in the
mouth. But yet the darkness was full of horrors; unseen monsters leaped
past her as in a surging torrent, devils' hands clawed at her, devils'
mouths cried unspeakable things.
She stood as it were on the edge of the vortex, untouched, unafraid,
beyond it all since that awful devouring flame had flared and gone out.
She even wondered if it had killed her, so terribly aloof was she, so
totally distinct from the pandemonium that raged around her. It had the
vividness and the curious lack of all physical feeling of a nightmare.
And yet through all her numbness she knew that she was waiting for
someone--someone who was dead like herself.
She had not seen either Bernard or Tommy in that blinding moment on the
verandah. Doubtless they were fighting in that raging blackness in front
of her. She fancied once that she heard her brother's voice laughing as
she had sometimes heard him laugh on the polo-ground when he had
executed a difficult stroke. Immediately before her, a Titanic struggle
was going on. She could not see it, for the light in the room behind had
been extinguished also, but the dreadful sound of it made her think for
a fleeting second of a great bull-stag being pulled down by a score of
leaping, wide-jawed hounds.
And then very suddenly she herself was caught--caught from behind,
dragged backwards off her feet. She cried out in a wild horror, but in a
second she was silenced. Some thick material that had a heavy native
scent about it--such a scent as she remembered vaguely to hang about
Hanani the _ayah_--was thrust over her face and head muffling all
outcry. Muscular arms gripped her with a fierce and ruthless mastery,
and as they lifted and bore her away the nightmare was blotted from her
brain as if it had never been. She sank into oblivion....