know how I keep myself sitting in this chair. I could turn head over
heels for joy! (And poor Grumper only just buried and his Will read!)
He didn’t lose quite all his grim humour in that wonderful week of
softening, relenting and humanizing. What do you think he solemnly gave
and bequeathed to the poor Haddock? His _wardrobe_!!! And nothing else,
but if the Haddock wears only Grumper’s clothes, including his boots,
shirts, ties, collars and everything else, for one full and complete
year, and wears absolutely nothing else, he is to have five thousand
pounds at the end of it—and he is to begin on the day after the
funeral! And even at the last poor Grumper was a foot taller and a foot
broader (not to mention _thicker_) than the Haddock! It appears that he
systematically tried to poison Grumper’s mind against you—presumably
with an eye on this same last Will and Testament. He hasn’t been seen
since the funeral. I wonder if he is going to try to win the money by
remaining in bed for a year in Grumper’s pyjamas!
“Am I not developing ‘self-control and balance’? Here I sit writing
news to you while my heart is screaming aloud with joy, crying ‘Dam is
coming home. Dam’s troubles are over. Dam is saved!’ Because if you are
ever so ‘ill,’ Darling, there is nothing on earth to prevent your
coming to your old home at once—and if we can’t marry we can be pals
for evermore in the dear old place of our childhood. But of _course_ we
can marry. Hurry home, and if any Harley Street doctor gives you even a
doubtful look, throw him up his own stairs to show how feeble you are,
or tie his poker round his neck in a neat bow, and refuse to undo it
until he apologizes. I’m sure you could! ‘_Ill_’ indeed! If you can’t
have a little fit, on the rare occasions when you see a snake, without
fools saying you are ill or dotty or something, it is a pity! Anyhow
there is one small woman who understands, and if she can’t marry you
she can at any rate be your inseparable pal—and if the Piffling Little
World likes to talk scandal, in spite of Auntie Yvette’s presence—why
it will be amusing. Cable, Darling! I am just bursting with excitement
and joy—and fear (that something may go wrong at the last moment). If
it saved a single day I should start for Motipur myself at once. If we
passed in mid-ocean I should jump overboard and swim to your ship. Then
you’d do the same, and we should ‘get left,’ and look silly…. Oh, what
nonsense I am talking—but I don’t think I shall talk anything else
again—for sheer joy!
“You can’t write me a lot of bosh _now_ about ‘spoiling my life’ and
how you’d be ten times more miserable if I were your wife. Fancy—a
soldier to-day and a ‘landed proprietor’ to-morrow! How I wish you were
a _landed_ traveller, and were in the train from Plymouth—no, from
Dover and London, because of course you’d come the quickest way. Did my
cable surprise you very much?
“I enclose fifty ten-pound notes, as I suppose they will be quicker and
easier for you to cash than those ‘draft’ things, and they’ll be quite
safe in the insured packet. Send a cable at once, Darling. If you don’t
I shall imagine awful things and perhaps die of a broken heart or some
other silly trifle.
“Mind then:—Cable to-day; Start to-morrow; Get here in a fortnight—and
keep a beady eye open at Port Said and Brindisi and places—in case
there has been time for me to get there.
“Au revoir. Darling Dam,
“Your
“LUCILLE.
“Three cheers! And a million more!”
Yes, a long letter, but he could almost say it backwards. He couldn’t
be anything like mad while he could do that?… How had she received his
answer—in which he tried to show her the impossibility of any decent
man compromising a girl in the way she proposed in her sweet innocence
and ignorance. Of course _he_, a half-mad, epileptic, fiend-ridden
monomaniac—nay, dangerous lunatic,—could not _marry_. Why, he might
murder his own wife under some such circumstances as those under which
he attacked Captain Blake. (Splendid fellow Blake! Not every man after
such a handling as that would make it his business to prove that his
assailant was neither drunk, mad, nor criminal—merely under a
hallucination. But for Blake he would now be in jail, or lunatic
asylum, to a certainty. The Colonel would have had him court-martialled
as a criminal, or else have had him out of the regiment as a lunatic.
Nor, as a dangerous lunatic, would he have been allowed to buy himself
out when Lucille’s letter and his money arrived. Blake had got him into
the position of a perfectly sober and sane person whose mind had been
temporarily upset by a night of horror—in which a coffin-quitting
corpse had figured, and so he had been able to steer between the cruel
rocks of Jail and Asylum to the blessed harbour of Freedom.)
Yes—in spite of Blake’s noble goodness and help, Dam knew that he was
_not_ normal, that he _was_ dangerous, that he spent long periods on
the very border-line of insanity, that he stood fascinated on that
border-line and gazed far into the awful country beyond—the Realms of
the Mad….
Marry! Not Lucille, while he had the sanity left to say “No”!
As for going to live at Monksmead with her and Auntie Yvette—it would
be an even bigger crime. Was it for _him_ to make _Lucille_ a “problem”
girl, a girl who was “talked about,” a by-word for those vile old women
of both sexes whose favourite pastime is the invention and
dissemination of lies where they dare, and of even more damaging
head-shakes, lip-pursings, gasps and innuendoes where they do not?
Was it for _him_ to get _Lucille_ called “The Woman Who Did,” by those
scum of the leisured classes, and “That peculiar young woman,” by the
better sort of matron, dowager and chaperone,—make her the kind of
person from whose company careful mothers keep their innocent daughters
(that their market price may never be in danger of the faintest
depreciation when they are for sale in the matrimonial market), the
kind of woman for whom men have a slightly and subtly different manner
at meet, hunt-ball, dinner or theatre-box? Get Lucille “talked about”?
No—setting aside the question of the possibility of living under the
same roof with her and conquering the longing to marry.
No—he had some decency left, tainted as he doubtless was by his
barrack-room life.
Tainted of course…. What was it he had heard the senior
soldierly-looking man, whom the other addressed as “General,” say
concerning some mutual acquaintance, at breakfast in the dining-car
going up to Kot Ghazi?
“Yes, poor chap, was in the ranks—and no man can escape the
barrack-room taint when he has once lived in it. Take me into any
Officers’ Mess you like—say ‘There is a promoted gentleman-ranker
here,’ and I’ll lay a thousand to one I spot him. Don’t care if he’s
the son of a Dook—nor yet if he’s Royal, you can spot him alright….”
Pleasant hearing for the “landed proprietor,” whom a beautiful, wealthy
and high-bred girl proposed to marry!
Tainted or not, in that way—he was _mentally_ tainted, a fact beside
which the other, if as true as Truth, paled into utterest
insignificance.
No—he had taken the right line in replying to Lucille that he was
getting worse mentally, that no doctor would dream of “vetting” him
“sound,” that he was not scoundrel enough to come and cause scandal and
“talk” at Monksmead, and that he was going to disappear completely from
the ken of man, wrestle with himself, and come to her and beg her to
marry him directly he was better—sufficiently better to “pass the
doctor,” that is. If, meanwhile, she met and loved a man worthy of her,
such a man as Ormonde Delorme, he implored her to marry him and to
forget the wholly unworthy and undesirable person who had merely loomed
large upon her horizon through the accident of propinquity …
(He could always disappear again and blow out such brains as he
possessed, if that came to pass, he told himself.)
Meanwhile letters to the Bank of Bombay would be sent for, at least
once a year—but she was not to write—she was to forget him. As to
searching for him—he had not quite decided whether he would walk from
Rangoon to Pekin or from Quetta to Constantinople—perhaps neither, but
from Peshawur to Irkutsk. Anyhow, he was going to hide himself pretty
effectually, and put himself beyond the temptation of coming and
spoiling her life. Sooner or later he would be mad, dead, or cured. If
the last—why he would make for the nearest place where he could get
news of her—and if she were then happily married to somebody
else—why—why—she _would_ be happy, and that would make him quite happy
…
Had the letter been quite sane and coherent—or had he been in a queer
mental state when he wrote it?…
He opened his eyes, saw a vulture within a few yards of him, closed
them again, and, soon after, fell into an uneasy slumber as the camel
padded on at a steady seven miles an hour unurged—save by the _smell_
of pure clear water which was still a score of miles distant….
When Damocles de Warrenne awoke, he was within a few hundred yards of
the nearly dry River Helnuddi, where, failing occasional pools, the
traveller can always procure water by digging and patiently awaiting
the slow formation of a little puddle at the bottom of the hole.
For a minute he halted. Should he dig while he had strength, or should
he turn to the left and follow the river-bed until he came to a pool—or
could go no farther? Perhaps he would be too weak to dig, though, by
that time…. Remarkable how eager to turn to the left and get on, the
camel was—considering how tired he must be—perhaps he could smell
distant water or knew of a permanent pool hereabouts. Well, let that
decide it….
An hour later, as the camel topped a rise in the river-bank, a
considerable pool came into view, tree-shaded, heron-haunted, too
incredibly beautiful and alluring for belief. Was it a mirage?…
A few minutes later, Damocles de Warrenne and his camel were drinking,
and a few hours later entered the dreary featureless compound of a
wretched hovel, which, to the man at least, was a palatial and
magnificent asylum (no, not _asylum_—of all words)—refuge and home—the
more so that a camel knelt chewing in the shade of the building, and a
man, Abdul Ghani himself, lay slumbering in the verandah….
“You understand, then,” said Dam in the vernacular, to the malodorous,
hideous, avaricious Abdul who reappeared from Kot Ghazi a few days
later, “you return here again, one week from to-day, bringing the
things written down on this paper, from the shop of Rustomji at Kot
Ghazi. Here you wait until I come. If I find there is truth in your
_khubbar_[27] of ibex you will be rewarded … Why don’t I take you?
Because I want to be alone. Set out now for Kot Ghazi. I may return.” A
stone fell and clattered. Dam shrank, cringed, and shut his eyes—as one
expecting a heavy blow. _Ah-h-h-h-h_—had the beast bolted? With the
slowness of an hour-hand he raised his head above the bank of the
watercourse until his eye cleared the edge. _No_—still there. After a
painful crawl that seemed to last for hours, he reached the point where
the low ridge ran off at right-angles, crept behind it, and lay flat on
his face, to rest and recover breath. He was soaked in perspiration
from head to foot, giddy with sun and unnatural posture, very sore as
to elbows and knees, out of breath, trembling—and entirely happy. The
half-mile crawl, with the greater part of his body on the burning
ground, and the rifle to shuffle steadily along without noise or
damage, was the equivalent of a hard day’s work to a strong man. At the
end of it he lay gasping and sick, aching in every limb, almost blind
with glare and over-exertion, weary to death—and entirely happy. Thank
God he would be able to stand up in a moment and rest behind a big
cactus. Then he would have a spell of foot-work for a change, and,
though crouching double, would not be doing any crawling until he had
crossed the plateau and reached the bushes.
[27] News, information.
The upward climb was successfully accomplished with frequent halts for
breath, behind boulders. On the plateau all that was required was
silence. The ibex could not see him up there. In his rubber-soled
khaki-coloured shoes he could almost run, but it was a question whether
a drink of cold water would not be worth more than all the ibexes in
the world.
He tip-toed rapidly across the level hill-top, reached the belt of low
bushes, dropped, and lay to recover breath before resuming the painful
and laborious crawling part of his journey. Was it possible to tap
one’s tongue against one’s teeth and hear the noise of it as though it
were made of wood? It seemed so. Was this giddiness and dimness of
vision sunstroke? What would he give to have that fly (that had
followed him for hundreds of thousands of miles that morning) between
his fingers?
Last lap! There was the rock, and below it must be the quarry—if it had
not fled. He must keep that rock between himself and his prey and he
must get to it without a sound. It would be easy enough without the
rifle. Could he stick it through his belt and along his back, or trail
it behind him? What nonsense! He must be getting a touch of sun. Would
these stones leave marks of burns on his clothes? Surely he could smell
himself singeing. Enough to explode the rifle … The big rock at last! A
rest and then a peep, with infinite precaution. Dam held his breath and
edged his face to the corner of the great boulder. Moving
imperceptibly, he peeped … _No ibex!_ … He was about to spring up with
a hearty malediction on his luck when he perceived a peculiar
projection on a large stone some distance down the hill. It moved—and
Dam dropped back. It must be the top of the curve of one of the horns
of the ibex and the animal must be lying down…. What to do? It might
lie for hours and he himself might go to sleep. It might get up and
depart at any moment without coming into the line of fire—without being
seen indeed. Better continue the stalk and hope to get a standing shot,
or, failing that, a running one.
It looked a nasty descent, since silence was essential—steep, slippery,
and strewn with round stones. Anyhow, he could go down on his feet,
which was something to be thankful for, as it was agony to put a knee
or elbow to the ground. He crept on.
Surely his luck was changing, for here he was, within fifty yards of a
stone behind which lay an unsuspecting ibex with a world’s-record head.
Hullo! a nasty little precipice! With a nastily sloping shelf at the
bottom too, eight feet away—and then another little precipice and
another sloping shelf at its base.
Better lay the rifle on the edge, slip over, hang by the hands, grab it
with one, and then drop the intervening few inches. Rubber soles would
play their part here! Damn this giddiness—touch of sun, no doubt.
Damocles de Warrenne knelt on the edge of the eight-foot drop, turned
round, swayed, fell, struck the sloping ledge, rolled off it, fell,
struck the next sloping ledge, fell thirty feet—arousing an astounded
ibex _en route_—and landed in a queer heap on a third shelf, with a few
broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, broken ankles, and a fractured
thigh.
A vulture, who had been interested in his proceedings for some time,
dropped a few thousand feet and had a look. What he saw decided him to
come to earth. He perched on a rock and waited patiently. He knew the
symptoms and he knew the folly of taking risks. A friend or two joined
him—each, as he left his place in the sky, being observed and followed
by a brother who was himself in turn observed and followed by another
who brought others….
One of the hideous band had drawn quite near and was meditating
rewarding his own boldness with a succulent eye, when Dam groaned and
moved. The pretty birds also moved and probably groaned in spirit—but
they didn’t move far.
What was that Miss Smellie had been so fond of saying? “There is no
such thing as ‘luck,’ Damocles. All is ordered for the best by an
all-seeing and merciful Providence.” Yes. No doubt.
What was that remark of his old friend, “Holy Bill”?
“What do you mean by ‘luck,’ Damocles? All that happens is ordained by
God in His infinite mercy.” Yes.
Holy Bill had never done a day’s work in his life nor missed a
meal—save when bilious from overeating….
A pity the infinite mercy didn’t run to a little water! It would have
been easy for the all-seeing and merciful Providence to move him to
retain his water-bottle when starting the stalk—if it were necessary to
the schemes of the Deity to have him smashed like a dropped egg…. What
agony a human being could endure!…
Not even his rifle at hand with its means of speedy death. He might
live for days and then be torn alive by those accursed vultures. One
mighty effort to turn on his back and he would breathe easier—but that
would bring his eyes to the sun—and the vultures…. Had he slept or
fainted? How long had he lain there?… Chance of being found? Absolutely
none. Shikarri would have visited the dak-bungalow a week ago. Camel
left below on the plain—and it would wander miles from where he left it
when it grew hungry. Even if Abdul and an organized search-party were
after him _now_ they might as well be searching for a needle in a
hay-stack. No one knew which of the thousand gullies he had ascended
and no one could track camel-pads or flat rubber soles over bare solid
rock, even if given the starting-point. No—he had got to die of thirst,
starvation, and vultures, barring miracles of luck—and he had _never_
had any good luck—for luck existed, undoubtedly, in spite of
mealy-mouthed platitude-makers and twaddle about everything being
pre-arranged and ordained with care and deliberation by a kind paternal
Providence.
And what luck he had had—all his life! Born fated!
Had he fainted again or slept? And could he hear the tinkle of ice
against the sides of a tall thin tumbler of lemonade, or was it the
sound of a waterfall of clear, cold water close by? Were the servants
asleep, or was the drink he had ordered being prepared?… No—he was
dying in agony on a red-hot rock, surrounded by vultures and probably
watched by foxes, jackals and hyenas. And a few yards away were the
rifle that would have put him out of his misery, and the water-bottle
that would have alleviated his pain—to the extent, at any rate, of
enabling him to think clearly and perhaps scribble a few words in blood
or something, somehow, for Lucille … Lucille! Would the All-Merciful
let him see her once again for a moment in return for an extra thousand
years of Hell or whatever it was that unhappy mortals got as a
continuation of the joys of this gay world? Could he possibly induce
the vultures to carry him home—if he pledged himself to feed them and
support their progeny? They could each have a house in the compound. It
would pay them far better than eating him now. Did they understand
Pushtoo or was it Persian? Certainly not Hindustani and Urdu. People
who came shooting alone in the desert and mountains, where vultures
abounded, should learn to talk Vulture and pass the Higher Standard in
that tongue. But even if they understood him they might be unwilling to
serve a coward. _Was_ he a coward? Anyhow he lay glued with his own
blood to the spot he would never leave—unless the vultures could be
bribed. Useless to hope anything of the jackals. He had hunted too many
foxes to begin now to ask favours. Besides they could only drag, and he
had been dragged once by a horse. Quite enough for one lifetime. But he
had never injured a vulture. Pity he had no copy of Grimm or Anderson
with him—they contained much useful information about talking foxes,
obliging birds, and other matters germane to the occasion. If he could
only get them to apply it, a working-party of vultures and jackals
certainly had the strength to transport him a considerable
distance—alternately carrying and dragging him. The big bird, stalking
nearer, was probably the _macuddam_ or foreman. Would it be at all
possible for vultures to bring water? He would be very willing to offer
his right hand in return for a little water. The bird would be welcome
to eat it off his body if it would give him a drink first. Did not
ravens bring meat to the prophet Elijah? Intelligent and obliging
birds. Probably cooked it, too. But water was more difficult to carry,
if easier to procure.
How close they were coming and how they watched with their horrible
eyes—and pretended not to watch!…
Oh, the awful, unspeakable agony! Why was he alive again? Was his chest
full of terribly rusty machinery that would go on when it ought to stop
for want of oil?… If pain is punishment for sin, as placid stall-fed
Holy Bill held (never having suffered any), then Damocles de Warrenne
must have been the prince of sinners. Oh God! a little drop of water!
Rivers of it flowing not many miles away!
Monsoons of it falling recently! A water-bottle full a few yards
distant—and he must die for want of a drop … What a complete circle the
vultures made on the rocks and stunted trees of the sloping hill-side.
Oh, for a revolver! A man ought to carry one on shikar expeditions. One
would give him a chance of life when under a tiger or panther—and a
chance of decent death in a position such as this. Where had he read
that vultures begin on the eyes of their prey? Without awaiting its
death either, so long as it could not defend itself. There were other
depraved gustatory preferences, too, if he remembered rightly-He would
have an opportunity of testing the accuracy of the statement—though not
of assuring its author as to its correctness.
Water … Water … Water …
Had he fainted again, that the vultures were so much nearer?… Why
should he be a second Prometheus? Had he not had suffering enough in
his life, without having more in his death?… If the sending of a little
water were too obvious a miracle, was it too much to ask that his next
fainting and collapse might last long enough for the vultures to get to
work, make a beginning, and an end?
Surely that would not be too great a miracle, since he had lain for
years on a red-hot rock with blood in his mouth and his body wrecked
like a smashed egg. He must be practically dead. Perhaps if he held his
laboured breath and closed his eyes they _would_ begin, and he would
have the strength to keep still when they did so. That would be the
quickest way. Once they started, it would not be long before his bones
were cleaned. No possible ghost of a chance of being saved. Probably no
human foot had been on these particular rocks since human feet existed.
Nor would he ever again have the strength to drag his shattered body to
where the rifle lay. Only a few yards away lay speedy happy release.
“No such thing as luck, Damocles.”
Perhaps the vultures thought otherwise.
Colonel John Decies, still of Bimariabad, but long retired on pension
from the Indian Medical Service, was showing his mental and physical
unfitness for the service of the Government that had ordered his
retirement, by devoting himself at the age of fifty-nine to
aviation—aviation in the interests of the wounded on the battlefield.
What he wanted to live to see was a flying stretcher-service of the
Royal Army Medical Corps that should flash to and fro at the rate of a
hundred miles an hour between the rear of the firing-line and the field
hospital and base hospital in aeroplanes built especially for the
accommodation of wounded men—an officer of the Corps accompanying each
in the dual capacity of surgeon and potential pilot. When he allowed
his practical mind to wander among the vast possibilities of the
distant future, he dreamed of bigger and bigger aeroplanes until they
became fully equipped flying hospitals themselves, and removed the
wounded from the danger zone to the nearest salubrious spot for their
convalescence. Meanwhile, he saw no reason why the more powerful
biplanes should not carry an operating-table and all surgical
accessories, a surgeon, and two or three wounded men who could not be
made sitting-up cases.
To Colonel John Decies it seemed that if soldiers schemed to adapt the
flying-machine to purposes of death and destruction, doctors might do
the same to purposes of life and salvation. Think of the difference
between being jolted for hours in a bullock-cart in the dust and heat
and being borne through the air without jerk or jar. Think of the
hundreds of men who, in the course of one campaign, would be saved from
the ghastly fate of lying unfound, unseen by the stretcher-bearers, to
starve to death, to lie weltering in their blood, to live through days
of agony….
He was making quite a name for himself by his experiments at the Kot
Ghazi flying-school and by his articles and speeches on the formation
and training of a R.A.M.C. flying branch. Small beginnings would
content him (provided they were intended to lead to great
developments)—an aeroplane at first, that could carry one or two
special cases to which the ordinary means of transport would be fatal,
and that could scour the ground, especially in the case of very broken
terrain and hill-country, for overlooked cases, wounded men unable to
move or call, and undiscovered by the searchers.
He was hard at work on the invention of a strong collapsible
operating-table (that could readily be brought into use in the field
and also be used in aerial transport) and a case for the concentration
of equipment—operation instruments, rubber gloves, surgical gauntlets,
saline infusion apparatus, sterilizer, aseptic towels, chloroform,
bandages, gauze, wool, sponges, drainage-tubing, inhaler, silk skeins,
syringes, field tourniquets, waterproof cloth, stethoscope—everything,
and the whole outfit, table and all, weighing forty pounds. This would
be an improvement on the system of having to open half a dozen medical
and surgical cases when operating on the line of march, cases requiring
the most expert repacking after use …
Perhaps it was a sign of advancing years and weakening mind that this
fine specimen of a fine service felt that, when flying some thousands
of feet above the earth, he was nearer to Lenore in Heaven. All his
science and sad experience had failed to deprive him of a sub-conscious
belief in an actual place “above,” a material Hereafter beyond the sky,
and, when clouds cut him off from sight of the earth, he had a quaint,
half-realized feeling of being in the ante-room of the Great House of
many mansions, wherein dwelt Lenore.
Yes, when flying, Colonel John Decies felt that he was nearer to the
woman he had lost nearly a quarter of a century before. In one sense he
may have been so, for he was a very reckless airman, and never in
greater danger than when engaged in what he called “ground-scouring”
among the air-current haunted, mist-haunted mountains of the Border. He
anticipated an early Border-war and realized that here would be a great
opportunity for a keen-sighted and iron-nerved medical airman to
locate, if not to pick up, overlooked wounded. Here, too, would be a
double need of such service in a country where “the women come out to
cut up what remains”! Imagine, too, cavalry reconnaissances and bad
casualties a score of miles from medical help …
Whether it brought him nearer in any sense to Lenore de Warrenne, it
brought him nearer to her son, on one of those hundred-mile circular
“scours” which he practised when opportunity offered, generally
accompanied by a like-minded officer of the R.A.M.C., to which Corps he
had become a kind of unofficial and honorary instructor in “First- Aid
Flying” at the Kot Ghazi flying-school, situate in the plains at the
foot of the “Roof of the World”.
“Hullo!” said Colonel John Decies to himself—“vultures! I suppose they
might be referred to in my manual as a likely guide to the wounded.
Good idea. ‘The flying casualty-scout should always take note of the
conduct of vultures, noting the direction of flight if any are seen
dropping to earth. These birds may prove invaluable guides. A
collection of them on the ground may indicate a wounded man who may be
alive.’ …”
The Colonel was thinking of his _magnum opus_, “The Aeroplane and the
Surgeon, in War,” wherewith he lived laborious days at Bimariabad in
the intervals of testing, developing, and demonstrating his theories at
Kot Ghazi.
Turning his head, he shouted to Surgeon-Captain Digby-Soames, R.A.M.C.,
his passenger and pupil:—
“Vultures on the left-front or starboard bow. ‘Invariable battle-field
sign of wounded man. Note spot if unable to land and rescue. Call up
stretcher-party by signal—_Vide_ page 100 of Decies’ great work,’
what?”
“By Jove, it is a wounded man,” replied Captain Digby-Soames, who was
using field-glasses. “Damned if it isn’t a Sahib, too! Out shikarring
and sprained his ankle, I suppose. Dead, I’m afraid. Poor devil!”
“Vultures aren’t _at work_, anyhow,” commented Colonel Decies. “Can’t
land anywhere hereabouts, and I’m afraid ‘calling up the stretcher
party’ isn’t in the game here.”
“Nothing nearer than Kot Ghazi and that’s a good thirty miles,” replied
Captain Digby-Soames as the aeroplane hovered and slowly sank.
“Let’s see all we can and then find the nearest landing-place. Search
all round for any sign of a tent or encampment. There may be a
dak-bungalow somewhere down in the plains, too. The river-bed down on
the right there, marks the border.”
Captain Digby-Soames “scoured” earnestly with his glasses.
“Camel on the port-bow, at the foot of the hills,” he announced. “What
may be a dak-bungalow several miles away … a white square dot, anyhow …
Camel saddled up, kneeling … His, no doubt. Wonder where his shikarri
is—”
As the aeroplane approached, the disappointed vultures departed,
misliking the size, shape and sounds of the strange fowl. As it passed
over him, and the Major shouted, Dam opened his eyes.
This must be pretty well the end—when he heard the voice of some one he
knew well, and saw a flying-machine just above him. He would see blocks
of ice and cascades of cold water in a moment, doubtless, and hear
Lucille calling.
A flying-machine in Ghazistan! The voice of an old, old friend to whom
he could not, for the moment, give a name … Why couldn’t the cowardly
brutes of vultures begin their business, and end his? What was that
familiar voice calling:—
“Hold on a bit, we’ll soon be with you! Don’t give up. We can’t land
just here. If we drop anything can you crawl and get it?”
“He opened his eyes,” said Captain Digby-Soames, “but I doubt if he’s
conscious. He must have come a frightful cropper. You can see there’s a
compound fracture of the right femur from here, and one of his feet is
fairly pointing backwards. Blood from the mouth, too. Anyhow he’s
alive. Better shoot him if we can’t shift him——”
“We’ll _get_ him all right. This is a Heaven-sent ‘problem’ and we’ll
solve it—and I’ll quote it in my ‘manual’. Quite war-conditions. Very
badly wounded man—inaccessible position—stretcher-parties all out of
sight—aeroplane can’t land for any first-aid nor to pick up the
casualty—_excellent_ problem and demonstration. That oont[28] will
simplify it, though. Look here—I’ll drop down and land you by it, and
then come here again and hover. You bring the beast up—you’ll be able
to ride most of the way if you zig-zag, and lead him most of the rest.
Then you’ll have to carry the casualty to the oont and bring him down.”
[28] Camel.
The aeroplane swooped down and grounded gently within a hundred yards
of the kneeling camel, who eyed it with the cold and supercilious
disdain of his kind.
“Tell you what,” said Colonel Decies, “when I get up there again, have
a good squint and see if you think you can locate the spot for yourself
from below. If you can, I’ll come down again and we’ll both go up on
the oont. Bring the poor beggar down much better if one of us can hold
him while the other drives the camel. It’s no Grand Trunk Road, by
Jove.”
“Right-O,” acquiesced Captain Digby-Soames. “If I can get a clear
bearing to a point immediately below where you hover, I’ll lie flat on
the ground as an affirmative signal. If there’s no good landmark I’ll
stay perpendicular, what?”
“That’s it,” said Colonel Decies, and, with a swift run and throbbing
whirr, the aeroplane soared from the ground and rose to where, a
thousand feet from the plain, lay the mangled “problem”. As it came to
a halt and hovered[29] (like a gigantic dragon-fly poised on its
invisibly-rapid wings above a pool), the junior officer’s practised eye
noted a practicable gully that debouched on a level with, and not far
from, the ledge over which the aeroplane hung, and that a stunted
thorn-tree stood below the shelf and two large cactus bushes on its
immediate left. Having taken careful note of other landmarks and
glanced at the sun, he lay on the ground at full length for a minute
and then arose and approached the camel, who greeted him with a
bubbling snarl. On its great double saddle were a gun-cover and a long
cane, while from it dangled a haversack, camera, cartridge-case,
satchel, canvas water-bag, and a cord-net holdall of odds and ends.
[29] By means of its “Decies Horizontal Screw Stabilizer,” which
enabled it to “hover” with only a very slight rise and fall.
Obviously the “problem’s” shikar-camel. Apparently he was out without
any shikarri, orderly, or servant—a foolish thing to do when stalking
in country in which a sprained ankle is more than a possibility, and a
long-range bullet in the back a probability anywhere on that side of
the border.
The aeroplane returned to earth and grounded near by. Stopping the
engine Colonel Decies climbed out and swung himself into the rear seat
of the camel saddle. Captain Digby-Soames sprang into the front one and
the camel lurched to its feet, and was driven to the mouth of the gully
which the Captain had noted as running up to the scene of the tragedy.
To and fro, in and out of the gully, winding, zig-zagging, often
travelling a hundred yards to make a dozen, the sure-footed and
well-trained beast made its way upward.
“Coming down will be joy,” observed the Colonel. “I’d sooner be on a
broken aeroplane in a cyclone.”
“Better hop off here, I should think,” said Captain Digby-Soames anon.
“We can lead him a good way yet, though. Case of divided we stand,
united we fall. Let him fall by himself if he wants to,” and at the
next reasonably level spot the camel was made to kneel, that his riders
might descend. Slithering down from a standing camel is not a sport to
practise on a steep hillside, if indulged in at all.
Another winding, scrambling climb and the head of the nullah was
reached.
“Have to get the beast kneeling when we climb down to him with the
casualty,” opined the Colonel. “Better get him down here, I think.
Doesn’t seem any decent place farther on,” and the camel was brought to
an anchor and left to his own devices.
“By Jove, the poor beggar _has_ come a purler,” said Captain
Digby-Soames, as the two bent over the apparently unconscious man.
“Ever seen him at Kot Ghazi or Bimariabad?” inquired Colonel Decies.
“No,” said the Captain, “never seen him anywhere. Why—have you?”
“Certainly seen him somewhere—trying to remember where. I thought
perhaps it might have been at the flying-school or at one of the
messes. Can’t place him at all, but I’ll swear I’ve met him.”
“Manoeuvres, perhaps,” suggested the other, “or ’board ship.”
“Extraordinary thing is that I feel I _ought_ to know him well.
Something most familiar about the face. I’m afraid it’s a bit too late
to—Broken ribs—fractured thigh—broken ankles—broken arm—perforated
lungs—not much good trying to get him down, I’m afraid. He might linger
for days, though, if we decided to stand by, up here. A really
first-class problem for solution—we’re in luck,” mused Colonel Decies,
making his rapid and skilful examination. “Yes, we must get him down,
of course—after a bit of splinting.”
“And then the real ‘problem’ will commence, I suppose,” observed
Captain Digby-Soames. “You couldn’t put him into my seat and fly him to
Kot Ghazi while I dossed down with the camel and waited for you to come
for me. And it wouldn’t do to camel him to that building which looks
like a dak-bungalow.”
“No. I think you’ll have to stand by while I fly to Kot Ghazi and bring
the necessary things for a temporary job, and then return and try to
guide an ambulance waggon here. Oh, for an aeroplane-ambulance! This
job brings it home to you pretty clearly, doesn’t it? Or I might first
go and have a look at the alleged dak-bungalow and see if we could
possibly run him over there on a charpoy[30] or an improvised
camel-stretcher. It’ll be a ghastly job getting down. I don’t know that
you hadn’t better stick to him up here while I go straight back for
proper splints and bandages and so forth, and bring another chap too …
Where the devil have I seen him before? I shall forget my own name
next.”
[30] Native bed-frame.
The Colonel pondered a moment.
“Look here,” he decided. “This case is urgent enough to justify a risky
experiment. He’s been here a devil of a time and if he’s not in a
_pukka_ hospital within the next few hours it’s all up with him. He’s
going to have the distinction of being the first casualty removed to
hospital by flying-machine. I’ll tie him on somewhere. We’ll splint him
up as well as possible, and then make him into a blooming cocoon with
the cord, and whisk him away.”
“Pity we haven’t a few planks,” observed Captain Digby-Soames. “We
could make one big splint of his whole body and sling him, planks and
all, underneath the aeroplane.”
“Well, you start splinting that right leg on to the left and stiffen
the knees with something (you’ll probably be able to get a decent stick
or two off that small tree), and shove the arm inside his leather
legging. We’ve two pairs of putties you can bandage with, and there are
_puggries_ on all three _topis_. Probably his gun’s somewhere about,
for another leg-splint, too. I’ll get down to the machine for the cord
and then I’ll skirmish around for anything in the nature of poles or
planks. I can get over to that hut and back before you’ve done. It’ll
be the camelling that’ll kill him.”
At the distant building the Colonel found an abandoned broken-wheeled
bullock-cart, from which he looted the bottom-boards, which were planks
six feet long, laid upon, but not fastened to, the framework of the
body of the cart. From the compound of the place (an ancient and
rarely-visited dak-bungalow, probably the most outlying and deserted in
India) he procured a bamboo pole that had once supported a lamp, the
long leg-rests of an old chair, and two or three sticks, more or less
serviceable for his purpose.
Returning to the camel, he ascended to where his passenger and pupil
awaited him. Over his shoulder he bore the planks, pole and sticks that
the contemptuous but invaluable camel had borne to a point a few yards
below the scene of the tragedy.
“Good egg,” observed the younger man. “We’ll do him up in those like a
mummy.”
“Yes,” returned the Colonel, “then carry him to the oont and bind him
along one side of the saddle, and then lead the beast down. Easily
sling him on to the machine, and there we are. Lucky we’ve got the coil
of cord. Fine demonstration for the Kot Ghazi fellers! Show that the
thing can be done, even without the proper kind of ’plane and surgical
outfit. What luck we spotted him—or that he fell just in our return
track!”
“Doubtless he was born to that end,” observed the Captain, who was apt
to get a little peevish when hungry and tired.
And when the Army Aeroplane _Hawk_ returned from its “ground-scouring
for casualties” trip, lo, it bore, beneath and beside the pilot and
passenger, a real casualty slung in a kind of crude coffin-cradle of
planks and poles, a casualty in whose recovery the Colonel took the
very deepest interest, for was he not a heaven-sent case, born to the
end that he might be smashed to demonstrate the Colonel’s theories? But
no credit was given to the vultures, without whom the “casualty” would
never have been found.
CHAPTER XIII.
FOUND.
Colonel John Decies, I.M.S. (retired), visiting the Kot Ghazi Station
Hospital, whereof his friend and pupil, Captain Digby-Soames, was
Commandant, scanned the temperature chart of the unknown, the
desperately injured “case,” retrieved by his beloved flying-machine,
who, judging by his utterances in delirium, appeared to be even worse
damaged in spirit than he was in body.
“Very high again last night,” he observed to Miss Norah O’Neill of the
Queen Alexandra Military Nursing Sisterhood.
“Yes, and very violent,” replied Miss O’Neill. “I had to call two
orderlies and they could hardly hold him. He appeared to think he was
fighting a huge snake or fleeing from one. He also repeatedly screamed:
‘It is under my foot! It is moving, moving, moving _out_.’”
“_Got it_, by God!” cried the Colonel, suddenly smiting his forehead
with violence. “_Of course!_ Fool! Fool that I am! Merciful God in
Heaven—_it’s her boy_—and _I_ have saved him! _Her boy!_ And I’ve been
cudgelling my failing addled brains for months, wondering where I had
seen his face before. He’s my godson, Sister, and I haven’t set eyes on
him for the last—nearly twenty years!”
Miss Norah O’Neill had never before seen an excited doctor in a
hospital ward, but she now beheld one nearly beside himself with
excitement, joy, surprise, and incredulity. (It is sad to have to
relate that she also heard one murmuring over and over again to
himself, “Well, I am damned”.)
At last Colonel John Decies announced that the world was a tiny, small
place and a very rum one, that it was just like _The Hawk_ to be the
means of saving _her_ boy of all people, and then took the patient’s
hand in his, and sat studying his face, in wondering, pondering
silence.
To Miss Norah O’Neill this seemed extraordinarily powerful affection
for a mere _godson_, and one lost to sight for twenty years at that.
Yet Colonel Decies was a bachelor and, no, the patient certainly
resembled him in no way whatsoever. The tiny new-born germ of a romance
died at once in Miss O’Neill’s romantic heart—and yet, had she but
known, here was a romance such as her soul loved above all things—the
son of the adored dead mistress discovered _in extremis_, and saved, by
the devout platonic lover, the life-long lover, and revealed to him by
the utterance of the pre-natally learnt words of the dead woman
herself!
Yes—how many times through those awful days had Decies heard that
heart-rending cry! How cruelly the words had tortured him! And here,
they were repeated twenty years on—for the identification of the son by
the friend!
That afternoon Colonel Decies dispatched a cablegram addressed to a
Miss Gavestone, Monksmead, Southshire, England, and containing the
words, “Have found him, Kot Ghazi, bad accident, doing well, Decies,”
and by the next mail Lucille, with Aunt Yvette and a maid, left Port
Said, having travelled overland to Brindisi and taken passage to Egypt
by the _Osiris_ to overtake the liner that had left Tilbury several
days before the cable reached Monksmead. And in Lucille’s largest trunk
was an article the like of which is rarely to be found in the baggage
of a young lady—nothing more nor less than an ancient rapier of Italian
pattern!…
To Lucille, who knew her lover so well, it seemed that the sight and
feel of the worshipped Sword of his Ancestors must bring him comfort,
self-respect, memories, thoughts of the joint youth and happiness of
himself and her.
She knew what the Sword had been to him, how he had felt a different
person when he held its inspiring hilt, how it had moved him to the
telling of his wondrous dream and stories of its stirring past, how he
had revered and loved it …surely it must do him good to have it? If he
were stretched upon a bed of sickness, and it were hung where he could
see it, it _must_ help him. It would bring diversion of thought, cheer
him, suggest bright memories—perhaps give him brave dreams that would
usurp the place of bad ones.
If he were well or convalescent it might be even more needful as a
tonic to self-respect, a reminder of high tradition, a message from
dead sires. Yes, surely it must do him good where she could not. If
there were any really insurmountable obstacle to their—their —union—the
Sword could still be with him always, and say unceasingly: “Do not be
world-beaten, son of the de Warrennes and Stukeleys. Do not despair. Do
not be fate-conquered. Fight! Fight! Look upon me not as merely the
symbol of struggle but as the actual Sword of your actual Fathers.
Fight Fate! Die fighting—but do not live defeated”—but of course her
hero Dam needed no such exhortations. Still—the Sword must be a
comfort, a pleasure, a hope, an inspiration, a symbol. When she brought
it him he would understand. Swords were to sever, but _the_ Sword
should be a link—a visible bond between them, and between them again
and their common past.
To her fellow-passengers Lucille was a puzzling enigma. What could be
the story of the beautiful, and obviously wealthy, girl with the
anxious, preoccupied look, whose thoughts were always far away, who
took no interest in the pursuits and pastimes usual to her sex and age
on a long sea voyage; who gave no glance at the wares of local vendors
that came aboard at Port Said and Aden; who occupied her leisure with
no book, no writing, no conversation, no deck-games; and who constantly
consulted her watch as though impatient of the slow flight of time or
the slow progress of the ship?
Many leading questions were put to Auntie Yvette, but, dearly as she
would have liked to talk about her charge’s romantic trouble, her
tongue was tied and she dreaded to let slip any information that might
possibly lead to a train of thought connecting Lucille, Dam, and the
old half-forgotten scandal of the outcast from Monksmead and Sandhurst.
If her beloved nephew foolishly chose to hide his head in shame when
there was no shame, it was not for those who loved him best to say
anything which might possibly lead to his discovery and identification.
While cordially polite to all men (including women) Lucille was found
to be surrounded by an impenetrable wall of what was either glass or
ice according to the nature of the investigator. Those who would fain
extend relationship beyond that of merest ephemeral ship-board
acquaintanceship (and the inevitabilities of close, though temporary,
daily contact), while admitting that her manner and manners were
beautiful, had to admit also that she was an extremely difficult young
person “to get to know”. A gilt-edged, bumptious young subalternknut,
who commenced the voyage apoplectically full of self-admiration,
self-confidence, and admiring wonder at his enormous attractiveness,
importance, and value, finished the same in a ludicrously deflated
condition—and a quiet civilian, to whom the cub had been shamefully
insolent, was moved to present him with a little poem of his
composition commencing “There was a puppy caught a wasp,” which gave
him the transient though salutary gift of sight of himself as certain
others saw him….
Even the Great Mrs. “Justice” Spywell (her husband was a wee meek
joint-sessions-judge) was foiled in her diligent endeavours, and those
who know the Great Mrs. “Justice” Spywell will appreciate the defensive
abilities of Lucille. To those poor souls, throughout the world, who
stand lorn and cold without the charmed and charming circle of
Anglo-Indiandom, it may be explained that the Great Mrs. “Justice”
Spywell was far too Great to be hampered by silly scruples of
diffidence when on the track of information concerning the private
affairs of lesser folk—which is to say other folk.
When travelling abroad she is THE Judge’s Wife; when staying at Hill
Stations she is The JUDGE’S Wife, and when adorning her proper sphere,
her native heath of Chota Pagalabad, she is The Judge’s WIFE. As she is
the Senior Lady of all Chota Pagalabad she, of course, always (like
Mary) Goes In First at the solemn and superior dinner parties of that
important place, and is feared, flattered, and fawned upon by the other
ladies of the station, since she can socially put down the mighty from
their seat and exalt the humble and meek and them of low degree (though
she would not be likely to touch the last-named with a pair of tongs,
socially speaking, of course). And yet, such is this queer world, the
said lesser ladies of the famous mofussil station of Chota Pagalabad
are, among themselves, agreed _nemine contradicente_ that the Great
Mrs. “Justice” Spywell is a vulgar old frump (“country-bred to say the
least of it”), and call her The First Seven Sister. This curious and
unsyntactically expressed epithet alludes to the fact that she and six
other “ladies” of like instincts meet daily for tea and scandal at the
Gymkhana and, for three solid hours, pull to pieces the reputations of
all and sundry their acquaintances, reminding the amused on-looker, by
their voices, manner, and appearance, of those strange birds the _Sat
Bai_ or Seven Sisters, who in gangs of seven make day hideous in their
neighbourhood …
“Are you going to India to be married, my dear child?” she asked
Lucille, before she knew her name.
“I really don’t know,” replied Lucille.
“You are not actually engaged, then?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Oh, of course, if you’d rather keep your own counsel, pray do so,”
snapped the Great Lady, bridling.
“Yes,” replied Lucille, and Mrs. Spywell informed her circle of
stereotypes that Lucille was a stupid chit without a word to say for
herself, and an artful designing hussy who was probably an adventuress
of the “fishing-fleet”.
To Auntie Yvette it appeared matter of marvel that earth and sky and
sea were much as when she last passed that way. In quarter of a century
or so there appeared to be but little change in the Egyptian and
Arabian deserts, in the mountains of the African and Arabian coasts, of
the Gulf of Suez, in the contours of the islands of the Red Sea, and of
Aden, whilst, in mid-ocean, there was absolutely no observable
difference between then and now. Wonderful indeed!
This theme, that of what was going on at Monksmead, and that of what to
do when Dam was recaptured, formed the bulk of her conversation with
her young companion.
“What will you _do_, dear, when we _have_ found the poor darling boy?”
she would ask.
“Take him by the ear to the nearest church and marry him,” Lucille
would reply; or—“Stick to him like a leech for evermore, Auntie”;
or—“Marry him when he isn’t looking, or while he’s asleep, if he’s
ill—or by the scruff of his neck if he’s well….”
(What a pity the Great Mrs. “Justice” Spywell could not hear these
terrible and unmaidenly sentiments! An adventuress of the
“fishing-fleet” in very truth!)
And with reproving smile the gentle spinster would reply:—
“My _dear!_ Suppose anyone overheard you, what _would_ they think?”
Whereunto the naughty girl would answer:—
“The truth, Auntie—that I’m going to pursue some poor young man to his
doom. If Dam were a leper in the gutter, begging his bread, I would
marry him in spite of himself—or share the gutter and bread
in—er—guilty splendour. If he were a criminal in jail I would sit on
the doorstep till he came out, and do the same dreadful thing. I’m just
going to marry Dam at the first possible moment—like the Wild West
‘shoot on sight’ idea. I’m going to seize him and marry him and take
care of him for the rest of his life. If he never had another grief,
ache, or pain in the whole of his life, he must have had more than ten
times his share already. Anyhow whether he’ll marry me or whether he
won’t—in his stupid quixotic ideas of his ‘fitness’ to do so—I’m never
going to part from him again.”
And Auntie Yvette would endeavour to be less shocked than a
right-minded spinster aunt should be at such wild un-Early-Victorian
sentiments.
Come, this was a better sort of dream! This was better than dreaming of
prison-cells, lunatic asylums, tortures by the Snake, lying smashed on
rocks, being eaten alive by vultures, wandering for aeons in red- hot
waterless deserts, and other horrors. However illusory and tantalizing,
this was at least a glorious dream, a delirium to welcome, a wondrous
change indeed—to seem to be holding the hand of Lucille while she gazed
into his eyes and, from time to time, pressed her lips to his forehead.
A good job most of the bandages were gone or she could hardly have done
that, even in a dream. And how wondrously _real!_ Her hand felt quite
solid, there were tears trickling down her cheeks, tears that sometimes
dropped on to his own hand with an incredible effect of actuality. It
was even more vivid than his Sword-dream which was always so
extraordinarily realistic and clear. And there, yes, by Jove, was dear
old Auntie Yvette, smiling and weeping simultaneously. Such a dream was
the next best thing to reality—save that it brought home to one too
vividly what one had lost. Pain of that kind was nevertheless a
magnificent change from the other ghastly nightmares, of the wholly
maleficent kind. This was a kindly, helpful pain….It is so rare to see
the faces of our best-beloved in dreams … Sleep was going to be
something other than a procession of hideous nightmares then …
“I believe he knew me, Auntie,” whispered Lucille. “Oh, when will
Colonel Decies come back. I want him to be here when he opens his eyes
again. He would know at a glance whether he were in his right mind and
knew me.”
“I am certain he did, dear,” replied Auntie Yvette. “I am positive he
smiled at you, and I believe he knew me too.”
“I _won’t_ believe I have found him too late. It _couldn’t_ be true,”
wept the girl, overstrained and unstrung by long vigils, heart-sick
with hope deferred, as she turned to her companion.
“Lucille! Is it real?” came a feeble whisper from the bed—and Lucille,
in the next moments, wondered if it be true that joy cannot kill …
A few weeks later, Damocles de Warrenne sat on the verandah of the
Grand Imperial Hotel Royal of Kot Ghazi, which has five rooms and five
million cockroaches, and stared blankly into the moonlit compound,
beyond which stretched the bare rocky plain that was bounded on the
north and west by mighty mountains, on the east by a mighty river, and
on the south by the more mighty ocean, many hundreds of miles away.
He had just parted from Auntie Yvette and Lucille—Lucille whose last
words as she turned to go to her room had been:—
“Now, understand, Dammy, what you want now is a sea-voyage, a
sea-voyage to England and Monksmead. When we have got you absolutely
right, Mr. Wyllis shall show you as a specimen of the Perfect Man in
Harley Street—and _then_, Dammy …” and his burning kisses had closed
her mouth.
Was he scoundrel enough to do it? Had he deteriorated to such a depth
of villainy? Could he let that noblest and finest flower of womanhood
marry a—dangerous lunatic, a homicidal maniac who had nearly killed the
man who proved to be almost his greatest benefactor? Could he? Would
the noble-hearted Decies frankly say that he was normal and had a right
to marry? He would not, and no living man was better qualified to give
an opinion on the case of Damocles de Warrenne than the man who was a
foster-father to him in childhood, and who brought him into the world
in such tragic circumstances. Decies had loved his mother, Lenore de
Warrenne. Would he have married _her_ in such circumstances? Would he
have lived under the same roof with her permanently—knowing how
overpowering would be the temptation to give way and marry her, knowing
how scandal would inevitably arise? A thousand times No. Was there _no_
gentlemanliness left in Damocles de Warrenne that he should even
contemplate the doing of a deed at which his old comrades-in-arms,
Bear, Burke, Jones, Little, Goate, Nemo and Peerson would stand aghast,
would be ready to kick him out of a decent barrack-room—and the poor
demented creature called for a “boy,” and ordered him to send, at once,
for one Abdul Ghani who would, as usual, be found sleeping beside his
camels in the market-place …
Anon the gentle Abdul came, received certain instructions, and departed
smiling till his great yellow fangs gleamed in the moonlight beneath
the bristling moustache, cut back from the lips as that of a righteous
Mussulman _shikarri_ and _oont-wallah_ should be.
Damocles de Warrenne’s brain became active with plots and plans for
escape—escape from himself and the temptation which he must avoid by
flight, since he felt he could not conquer it in fight.
He must disappear. He must die—die in such a way that Lucille would
never suppose he had committed suicide. It was the only way to save
himself from so awful a crime and to save her from himself.
He would start just before dawn on Abdul’s shikar camel, be well away
from Kot Ghazi by daylight and reach the old deserted dak-bungalow,
that no one ever used, by evening. There Abdul would come to him with
his _bhoja-oont_[31] bringing the usual supplies, and on receipt of
them he would dismiss Abdul altogether and disappear again into the
desert, this time for good. Criminal lunatics and homicidal maniacs are
better dead, especially when they are tempted beyond their strength to
marry innocent, beautiful girls who do not understand the position.
[31] Baggage-camel.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SNAKE AND THE SWORD.
The dak-bungalow again at last! But how terribly dreary, depressing,
and horrible it looked _now_—the hut that had once seemed a kind of
heaven on earth to the starving wanderer. Then, Lucille was thousands
of miles away (geographically, and millions of miles away in
imagination). Now, she was but thirty miles away—and it was almost more
than human endurance could bear…. Should he turn back even now, ride
straight to Kot Ghazi, fall at her feet and say: “I can struggle no
longer. Come back to Monksmead—and let what will be, be. I have no more
courage.”
And go mad, one day, and kill her? Keep sane, and sully her fair name?
On to the hovel. Rest for the night, and, at dawn, strike into the
desert and there let what will be, be.
Making the camel kneel, Damocles de Warrenne removed its saddle,
fastened its rein-cord tightly to a post, fed it, and then detached the
saddle-bags that hung flatly on either side of the saddle frame, as
well as a patent-leather sword-cover which contained a sword of very
different pattern from that for which it had been made.
Entering the hut, of which the doors and windows were bolted on the
outside, he flung open the shutters of the glassless windows, lit a
candle, and prepared to eat a frugal meal. From the saddlebags he took
bread, eggs, chocolate, sardines, biscuits and apples. With a mixture
of permanganate of potash, tea and cold water from the well, if the
puddle at the bottom of a deep hole could be so termed, he made a drink
that, while drinkable by one who has known worse, was unlikely to cause
an attack upon an enfeebled constitution, of cholera, enteric,
dysentery or any other of India’s specialities. What would he not have
given for a clean whisky-and-soda in the place of the nauseating
muck—but what should be the end of a man who, in his position, turned
to _alcohol_ for help and comfort? “The last state of that man …”
After striking a judicious balance between what he should eat for
dinner and what he should reserve for breakfast, he fell to, ate
sparingly, lit his pipe, and gazed around the wretched room, of which
the walls were blue-washed with a most offensive shade of blue, the
bare floor was frankly dry mud and dust, the roof was bare cob-webbed
thatch and rafter, and the furniture a rickety table, a
dangerous-looking cane-bottomed settee and a leg-rest arm-chair from
which some one had removed the leg-rests. Had some scoundrelly
_oont-wallah_ pinched them for fuel? (No, Damocles, an ex-Colonel of
the Indian Medical Service “pinched” them for splints.) A most
depressing human habitation even for the most cheerful and care-free of
souls, a terrible place for a man in a dangerous mental state of
unstable equilibrium and cruel agony…. Only thirty miles away—and a
camel at the door. _Lucille_ still within a night’s ride. Lucille and
absolute joy…. The desert and certain death—a death of which she must
be assured, that in time she might marry Ormonde Delorme or some such
sound, fine man. Abdul must find his body—and it must be the body not
of an obvious suicide, but of a man who, lost in the desert, had
evidently travelled in circles, trying to find his way to the hut he
had left, on a shooting expedition. Yes—he knew all about travelling in
circles—and what he had done in ignorance (as well as in agony and
horror), he would now do intentionally and with grim purpose. Hard on
the poor camel!… Perhaps he could manage so that it was set free in
time to find its way back somehow. It would if it were loosed within
smell of water…. He must die fairly and squarely of hunger and
thirst—no blowing out of brains or throat-cutting, no trace of suicide;
just lost, poor chap, and no more to be said…. Death of _thirst_—in
that awful desert—_again_—No! God in Heaven he had faced the actual
pangs of it once, and escaped—he could _not_ face it again—he wasn’t
strong enough … and the unhappy man sprang to his feet to rush from the
room and saddle-up the camel for—Life and Lucille—and then his eye fell
on the Sword, the Sword of his Fathers, brought to him by Lucille, who
had said, “Have it with you always, Dearest. It can _talk_ to you, as
even I can not….”
He sat down and drew it from the incongruous modern case and from its
scabbard. Ha! What did it say but “_Honour_!” What was its message but
“Do the right thing. Death is nothing—Honour is everything. Be worthy
of your Name, your Traditions, your Ancestors—”
He would die.
Let him die that Lucille’s honour, Lucille’s happiness, Lucille’s
welfare, might live—and he kissed the hilt of the Sword as he had so
often done in childhood. Having removed boots, leggings and socks, he
lay down on the settee—innocent of bedding and pillows, pulled over him
the coat that had been rolled and strapped trooper-fashion behind the
saddle and fell asleep….
And dreamed that he was shut naked in a tiny cell with a gigantic
python upon whose yard-long fangs he was about to be impaled and, as
usual, awoke trembling and bathed in perspiration, with dry mouth and
throbbing head, sickness, and tingling extremities.
The wind had got up and had blown out the candle which should have
lasted till dawn!…
As he lay shaking, terrified (uncertain as to whether he were a soul in
torment or a human being still alive), and debating as to whether he
could get off the couch, relight the candle, and close the windward
window, he heard a sound that caused his heart to miss a beat and his
hair to rise on end. A strange, dry rustle merged in the sound of paper
being dragged across the floor, and he knew that he _was_ shut in with
a snake, shut up in a _blue room_, cut off from the matches on the
table, and doomed to lie and await the Death he dreaded more than ten
thousand others—or, going mad, to rush upon that Death.
_He was shut in with the SNAKE_. At last it had come for him in its own
concrete form and had him bound and gagged by fascination and fear—in
the Dark, the awful cruel Dark. No more mere myrmidons. _The SNAKE
ITSELF_.
He tried to scream and could not. He tried to strike out at an
imaginary serpent-head, huge as an elephant, that reared itself above
him—and could not.
He could not even draw his bare foot in under the overcoat. And
steadily the paper dragged across the floor … Was it approaching? Was
it progressing round and round by the walls? Would the Snake find the
bed and climb on to it? Would it coil round his throat and gaze
with-luminescent eyes into his, and torture him thus for hours ere
thrusting its fangs into his brain? Would it coil up and sleep upon his
body for hours before doing so, knowing that he could not move? Here
were his Snake-Dreams realized, and in the actual flesh he lay awake
and conscious, and could neither move nor cry aloud!
In the Dark he lay bound and gagged, in a blue-walled room, and the
Snake enveloped him with its Presence, and he could in no wise save
himself.
Oh, God, why let a sentient creature suffer thus? He himself would have
shot any human being guilty of inflicting a tithe of the agony on a
pariah dog. There could _be_ no God!… and then the beams of the rising
moon fell upon the blade of the Sword, making it shine like a lamp,
and, with a roar as of a charging lion, Damocles de Warrenne sprang
from the bed, seized it by the hilt, and was aware, without a tremor,
of a cobra that reared itself before him in the moonlight, swaying in
the Dance of Death.
With a mere flick of the sword he laid the reptile twitching on the
floor—and for a few minutes was madder with Joy than ever in his life
he had been with Fear.
_For Fear was gone. The World of Woe had fallen from his shoulders. The
Snake was to him but a wretched reptile whose head he would crush ere
it bruised his heel. He was sane—he was safe—he was a Man again, and
ere many days were past he would be the husband of Lucille and the
master of Monksmead._
“Oh, God forgive me for a blind, rebellious worm,” he prayed. “Forgive
me, and strike not this cup from my lips. You would not punish the
blasphemy of a madman? I _cannot_ pray in ordered forms, but I beg
forgiveness for my hasty cry ‘There is on God’ …” and then pressed the
Sword to his lips—the Sword that, under God, had overthrown the Snake
for ever, saved his reason—and given him Lucille….
With the Sword in his hand he lay on the bed once more, and slept the
sweet, dreamless sleep of a healthy, happy child. In the morning, when
he awoke, his eyes fell upon the still living cobra that appeared to
watch him with the hate of a baffled Lucifer as it lay broken-backed,
impotent, and full of vicious fury.
Rising, Damocles de Warrenne stepped across to the reptile, and, with a
quick snatch, seized it behind the head and raised it from the ground.
Staring into its baleful, evil-looking eyes, he remarked:—
“Well, mine ancient enemy and almost victor! I’m not of a particularly
vengeful disposition, but I fancy a few of your brethren have got to
die before I leave India. Why, you poor wretched worm, you miserable
maggot,—to think what I have _suffered_” and he angrily dashed it on
the ground and spurned it with his foot.
“Easy to do that when your back’s broken, you think?” he continued.
“Right-O, my lad, wait till I find your mate, and we’ll see. Hand to
hand, no weapons—my quickness and strength against his quickness and
venom. Snakes! The paltriest things that crawl”—and he kicked the
reptile into a corner and burst into song as he busied himself about
preparations for washing, food for himself and the camel, and—_return_.
After enough food to hearten them both for the thirty-mile journey he
would go as fast as camel’s legs could move to Lucille and the
announcement that would send her frantic with joy. He would take her in
his arms—then they would waltz for an hour to keep themselves from
behaving like lunatics…. Fear was dead! The SNAKE was dead—killed by
the SWORD, the Sword that Lucille had brought, and thereby saved him!
Madness was dead! Joy, Peace, Sanity, Health were come—the
wedding-bells were trembling to burst into peals of joyous
announcement.
He would, for Lucille’s sake and the names of de Warrenne and Stukeley,
show whether he was a Coward or a snake-fearing Lunatic, an epileptic,
an unfit-to-marry monstrosity and freak. He would show the Harley
Street physicians how much he feared snakes, and would challenge them
to an undertaking which would give them food for thought before
acceptance…. Where were his boots? He must fly to Lucille!…
And then the galloping hoofs of a horse were heard thudding towards the
hut, and, hastening to the door, he saw Lucille whipping a lathered
horse.
Rushing towards her he shouted:—
“Will you marry me to-morrow? Will you marry me to-day, Lucille?” and,
as she pulled her horse in, he darted back into the room and reappeared
twirling a twitching cobra by its tail, and laughing uproariously….
Lucille appeared to be about to faint as he dropped it, seized her in
his arms, and said:—
_“Darling, I am cured! I have not the slightest fear of snakes. The
Sword has saved me. I am a Man again.”_
He told her all as she sat laughing and sobbing for joy and the dying
snake lay at their feet.
In her heart of hearts Lucille determined that the wedding should take
place immediately, so that if this were but a temporary respite, the
result of the flash of daring inspired by the Sword, she would have the
right to care for him for the rest of his life … She would——
“Look!” she suddenly shrieked, and pointed to where, in the doorway,
cutting them off from escape, was the mate of the cobra that lay
mangled before them. Had the injured reptile in some way called its
mate—or were they regular inhabitants of this deserted hut?
It was Lucille’s first experience of cobras and she shuddered to see
the second—evidently comprehending, aggressive, vengeful—would it
spring from there … and the Sword lay on the bed, out of reach.
Dam arose with a laugh, picked up his heavy boot as he did so, and, all
in one swift movement, hurled it at the half-coiled swaying creature,
with the true aim of the first-class cricketer and trained athlete;
then, following his boot with a leap, he snatched at the tail of the
coiling, thrashing reptile and “cracked” the snake as a carter cracks a
whip—whereafter it dangled limp and dead from his hand! Lucille
shrieked, paled, and sprang towards him.
“Oh, Dam!” she cried, “how _could_ you!”
“Pooh, Kiddy,” he replied. “I’m going to invite the Harley Street cove
to have a match at that—and I’m going to give a little exhibition of it
on the lawn at Monksmead—to all the good folk who witnessed my
disgrace…. What’s a snake after all? It’s _my_ turn now;” and Lucille’s
heart was at rest and very thankful. This was not a temporary “cure”.
Oh, thank God for her inspiration anent the Sword … Thank God, thank
God!…
SEVEN YEARS AFTER.
A beautiful woman, whose face is that of one whose soul is full of
peace and joy, passes up the great staircase of the stately mansion of
Monksmead. Slowly, because her hand holds that of a chubby youth of
five, a picture of sturdy health, strength and happiness. They pass
beneath an ancient Sword and the boy wheels to the right, stiffens
himself, brings his heels together, and raises a fat little hand to his
forehead in solemn salute. The journey is continued without remark
until they reach the day nursery, a big, bright room of which a
striking feature is the mural decoration in a conventional pattern of
entwined serpents, the number of brilliant pictures of snakes, framed
and hung upon the walls, and two glass cases, the one containing a pair
of stuffed cobras and the other a finely-mounted specimen of a
boa-constrictor (which had once been the pride of the heart of a
Folkestone taxidermist).
“Go away, Mitthis Beaton,” says the small boy to a white-haired but
fresh-looking and comely old dame; “I’se not going to bed till Mummy
hath tolded me about ve bwacelet again.”
“But I’ve told you a _thousand_ times, Dammykins,” says the lady.
“Well, now tell me ten hundred times,” replies the young man coolly,
and attempts to draw from the lady’s wrist a huge and remarkable
bracelet.
This uncommon ornament consists of a great ruby-eyed gold snake which
coils around the lady’s arm and which is pierced through every coil by
a platinum, diamond-hilted sword, an exact model of the Sword which
hangs on the staircase.
“You tell _me_, Sonny, for a change,” suggests the lady.
“Velly well,” replies the boy…. “Vere was once a Daddy and a hobberell
gweat Thnake always bovvered him and followed him about and wouldn’t
let him gone to thleep and made him be ill like he had eaten too much
sweets, and the doctor came and gave him lotths of meddisnin. Then he
had to wun away from the Thnake, but it wunned after him, and it wath
jutht going to kill him when Mummy bwoughted the Thword and Daddy
killed the Thnake all dead. And I am going to have the Thword when I
gwow up, but vere aren’t any more bad Thnakes. They is all good now and
Daddy likes vem and I likes vem. Amen.”
“_I_ never said _Amen_, when I told you the story, Sonny,” remarks the
lady.
“Well you can, now I have tolded you it,” permits her son. “It means
_bus_[32]—all finished. Mitthis Beaton thaid tho. And when I am as big
as Daddy I’m going to be the Generwal of the Queenth Gweyth and thay
‘_Charge!_’ and wear the Thword.”
Lucille de Warrenne here smothers conversation in the manner common to
worshipping mothers whose prodigies make remarks indicative of
marvellous precocity, in fact absolutely unique intelligence.
[32] Hindustani—enough, finished, complete.
EPILOGUE.
Is it well, O my Soul, is it well?
In silent aisles of sombre tone
Where phantoms roam, thou dwell’st apart
In drear alone.
Where serpents coil and night-birds dart
Thou liest prone, O Heart, my Heart,
In dread unknown.
O Soul of Night, surpassing fair,
Guide this poor spirit through the air,
And thus atone …
This sad Soul, searching for the light….
O Soul of Night, enstarréd bright,
Shine over all.
Enforce thy right to fend for us
Extend thy power to fight for us
Raise thou night’s pall.
Ensteep our minds in loveliness
In all sweet hope and godliness
Give guard o’er all …
This brave Soul striving in stern fight….
Thou soul of Night, thou spirit-elf,
Rise up and bless.
Help us to cleanse in holiness
Show how to dress in saintliness
Our weary selves,
Expurge our deeds of earthiness
Expunge desires of selfliness
Rise up and bless …
This strong Soul dying in such plight….
Night gently spreads her wings and flies
Star-laden, wide across the skies.
My Soul, new strong,
So late enstained with earthly dust
So long estranged in wander-lust
Gives praise and song,
Strives to create in morning light
The starry wonders of the night
In praise and song …
This strong Soul praising in new right.
It is well, O my Soul, it is well….
A. L. WREN.