THE BIG, BIG GAME OF LIFE
It was many hours later that understanding returned to Noel.
He came to himself abruptly, in utter darkness, with the horror of it
still strong within his soul. His head was swathed in bandages. He
turned it to and fro with restless jerks.
"And will ye please to lie quiet?" said the voice of the Irish
regimental surgeon peremptorily by his side.
Noel, also Irish, collected his forces and made reply. "No. Why the
devil should I? Where am I? What's going to happen to me? Am I--am I
blind for life?"
The falter in the words spoke to the tenseness of his suspense. The
doctor answered instantly, with more of kindliness than judgment.
"Faith, no! It's not so bad as that. But ye'll have to pretend ye are
for the present, or, egad, ye will be before ye've done. We brought ye
to the Musgraves' shanty. Mrs. Musgrave wanted the care of ye. Damn'
quare taste on her part, I'm thinking. And now ye're not to talk any
more; but drink this stuff like a good boy and go to sleep."
Noel drank with disgust; the taste of blood was still in his mouth. He
had never been ill in his life before, and he had not the smallest
intention of obeying the doctor's orders.
"Let's hear what happened!" he said impatiently. "Oh, leave me alone,
do! When can I have this beastly bandage off my eyes?"
"Not for a very long while, my son." The doctor's voice was jaunty, but
the eyes that looked at the blind, swathed face were full of pity. "And
don't ye go loosening it when my back's turned, or it isn't meself
that'll be answerable for the consequences."
"Oh, damn the consequences!" said Noel. "I want to get up."
"And that ye can't!" was the doctor's prompt rejoinder. "Ye'll just lie
quiet till further orders. Ye'll find yourself as weak as a rat
moreover, when ye start to move about. It's only the fever in your veins
that makes ye want to try."
Noel straightened himself in the bed. He was becoming aware of a fiery,
throbbing torture beneath the bandages. With clenched teeth and hands
hard gripped he set himself to endure.
But in a few minutes he turned his head again. "Are you still there,
Maloney?"
"Still here, my son," said Maloney.
"Well, go and find someone--anyone who knows--to tell me exactly what
happened last night."
"I can tell ye meself," began Maloney.
But Noel interrupted. "No; not you! You're such a liar. No offence
meant! You can't help it. Find--find Nick, will you?"
"It isn't visitors ye ought to be having with your pulse in this state,"
objected Maloney.
"Do as I say!" commanded Noel stubbornly.
His will prevailed. The Irish doctor saw the futility of argument, and
departed, having extracted a promise from his patient not to move during
his absence.
And then came silence as well as darkness, an awful sense of being
entombed, an isolation that appalled him added to the torture that
racked. With an acuteness of consciousness more harrowing than delirium,
he faced this thing that had come upon him, grabbing all his courage to
endure the ordeal.
He felt as if his brain were on fire, each nerve-centre agonizing
separately in the intolerable, all-enveloping flames. And through the
dreadful stillness he heard the beat, beat, beat, of his heart, like the
feet of a runaway along a desert road.
He turned his head again restlessly from side to side. The agony was
beginning to master him. His powers of endurance were dwindling.
Suddenly he found himself speaking, scarcely knowing what he said,
feeling that he must cry out or die.
"Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O God!" Just the one sentence
over and over to save him from raving insanity. "Lighten our darkness!
Lighten our darkness! Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee!"
He broke off abruptly. What was the good? Prayers were for white-souled
children like Peggy. Was it likely that any cry of his would pierce the
veil?
Yet the words came back to him, so urgent was his distress, so
unbearable the silence of his desert. He said them again with a
desperate earnestness, and almost instinctively began to listen for an
answer. He felt almost a child again himself in his utter need, as he
wrestled to drive the awful darkness from his soul. But no answer came
to his cry and the brave heart of him slowly sank. He was deserted then,
hurled down into hell to die a living death. In a single flashing second
he had been torn from the world he loved--that bright, gay world in
which he had revelled all his life--and flung into this inferno of
endless darkness. The iron began to bite into his soul.
The glory of his youth was quenched. From thenceforth he would hear the
music from afar, he would be barred out from the splendour of life, he
would wander along the outside edge of things, forlorn and lonely. His
popularity, his brilliance, his joy of living, had all been crushed to
atoms with that single, sledge-hammer blow of Fate. Better--ten thousand
times better--to have killed him outright! For this thing was infinitely
worse than death.
The iron drove in a little deeper. His spirit, his pride, awoke and
rebelled, raging impotently. He would not bear the burden. He would die
somehow. He would find a means, do what they would to stop him. He would
escape--somehow--from this particular hell. He would not be chained
between life and death. He would burst the bonds. He would be free!
His pulses rose to fever pitch. He started up upon the bed. Now was the
time--now--now! He might not have another chance. And there must be some
means to his hand--some way out of this awful darkness!
The madness of fever urged him. In another moment he would have been on
his feet, at grips with the fate that bound him; but even as he gathered
himself together for the effort, something happened.
The door opened and a woman entered. He heard the swish of her
draperies, and his heart gave a great throb and paused.
"Who is it?" he said, and his voice was harsh and dry even to his own
hearing. "Who is it? Speak to me!"
She spoke, and his heart, released from the sudden check, leaped on at a
pace that nearly suffocated him. "It's I, Noel,--Olga! They said I might
come and see you. You don't mind?"
"Mind!" he said, and suddenly a great sob burst from him. He felt out
towards her with hands that wildly groped. "Let me feel you!" he
entreated. "I--I'll let you go again!"
And then very suddenly her arms were all around him, closing him in,
lifting him out of his hell. "Noel! My own Noel!" she whispered. "My
own, splendid boy!"
He held her fast, his battered head pillowed against her while he fought
for self-control. For many seconds he could not utter a word. And in the
silence the world he knew opened its gates to him again and took him
back. The darkness remained indeed, but it had been lightened. The
horror of it no longer tore his soul. The iron had been withdrawn.
He moved at last, drawing her hand to his lips. "Olga, you don't know
what you've saved me from. I was--in hell."
"Lie down, dear!" she murmured softly. "I'm going to take care of you
now." She added, as she shook up the pillow, "It's my business, isn't
it?"
He sank back with a sense of great comfort, holding her hand fast in
his. It made the darkness less dark to hold her so.
"I want to know what happened," he said. "Sit down and tell me!"
"And you will try to keep quiet," she urged gently.
"Yes--yes! But don't keep anything back! Tell me everything!"
"I will, dear," she said, "though really there isn't much to tell. Is
that quite comfy? You're not in bad pain?"
"I can bear it," he said. "Go on! Let's hear!"
So, sitting by his side, her hand in his, Olga told him.
The plot had been of Kobad Shikan's devising. Nick had been on the watch
for it for some time, had penetrated the city nightly in the garb of a
moonstone-seller, collecting evidence, and--most masterly stroke of
all--he had drawn the Rajah into partnership with him. It was due to
Nick's influence alone that the Rajah had not been caught in Kobad
Shikan's toils. Thanks to Nick's steady call upon his loyalty, he had
remained staunch. But Kobad Shikan had been too powerful a tactician to
overthrow openly. They had been forced to work against him in secret.
"The Rajah calls Nick his brother," said Olga.
"Like his cheek!" said Noel. "Not that I can talk myself. I took the
liberty of kicking him off his own premises once." He chuckled
involuntarily at the recollection and commanded her to continue.
So Olga went on to tell of old Kobad's final coup and of how the Rajah,
receiving news of some mischief afoot, had sent an urgent message of
warning that had taken Nick straight to the Palace. Thence he had gone
in disguise to the haunts of Kobad Shikan's conspirators, but here he
had received a check. Kobad Shikan, fearing treachery among his
followers, had taken elaborate precautions to conceal his proceedings,
and for hours Nick had been kept searching vainly for a clue. Then at
last he had succeeded in running the truth to earth, had discovered the
whole ghastly plot barely half an hour before the time fixed for its
consummation, and had raced to the mess-house with his warning.
"And that's all, is it?" said Noel.
"Yes, that's all; except that old Kobad has disappeared. Nick seems
sorry, but everyone else is glad."
"And what about--Hunt-Goring?" said Noel at last.
Olga's fingers tightened in his hold. "Oh, did you know he was there?"
she said.
Briefly he made answer. "Yes, he tripped me. I believe he was half-drunk
with opium or something. What happened? Was he killed?"
Noel's voice was imperious. She answered him instantly, seeing he
demanded it.
"Yes."
Noel drew a deep breath. "Thank God for that!" he said. "Then you are
free'"
Olga was silent.
"You are free?" he repeated, with quick interrogation.
Yet an instant longer she hesitated. Then she leaned her head against
his pillow with a little sob. "No,--I'm not free, Noel. I--have given
myself--to you!"
"Because I'm blind!" he said.
"No, dear, no! Once free--I should have come to you--in any case."
"Would you?" he said. "Would you? You're quite sure? You're not saying
it out of pity? I won't have you marry me out of pity, Olga. I couldn't
stand it."
"Oh, you needn't be afraid of that!" she said. Then a moment later,
"When I marry you," she murmured softly, "it will be--for love."
There was no mistaking the sincerity of the words, though even then as
it were in spite of himself he knew that the passionate adoration he had
poured out to her had awakened no answering rapture in her heart. The
very fashion of her surrender told him this. He might come first with
her indeed, but the full gift was no longer hers to offer.
"I wonder if you will be happy with me," he said, after a moment.
"It is my only chance of happiness," she made answer.
"How do you know?" There was curiosity in his voice: he made a movement
of impatient impotence, putting a hand that trembled up to his bandaged
head.
She took the hand, and drew it softly down. "I will tell you how I
know," she said. "I know because when I thought you were killed I
felt--I felt as if the world had stopped. And since then--since I knew
that you would live--I have been able to think of only you--only you."
Her voice broke upon a sound of tears. "That awful fear for you opened
my eyes," she whispered. "I haven't been able to think of Major
Hunt-Goring's death or anything else at all. I've even deserted Nick."
Valiantly, through her tears, she smiled. "I never did such a thing as
that before for anyone."
He clasped her hands tightly as he lay. "Don't cry, sweetheart!" he
whispered. "You're not crying--for me?"
"I can't help it," she whispered back. "I can't bear to think of you
suffering,--you, Noel, you!"
"Don't cry!" he said again, and this time there was a hint of grimness
in his voice. "I shall win through--somehow--for your sweet sake.
Maloney told me I wasn't blind just now. That, I know, was a lie. Or at
least he didn't believe it himself. Personally I feel as if my eyes have
been blown clean out of my head. But--blind or otherwise--I'll stick to
it, I'll stick to it, Olga. I'll make you happy, so help me, God!"
"My dearest!" she murmured. "My dearest!"
"And you're not to cry over me," he said despotically. "You're not to
fret--ever. If you do, I--I shall be furious." He uttered a quivering
laugh. "We'll play the game, dear, shall we, the big, big game of life?
It won't be easy, God knows; but He lightened my darkness--very first
time of asking too. So perhaps He'll give us a tip now and then as to
the moves."
He fell silent for a space, and she wondered if he were growing drowsy.
Then as she sat motionless by his side, closely watching him, she saw
the boyish lips part in their own sunny smile.
"Go and tell Mrs. Musgrave to hoist a flag!" he said. "Say it's the
luckiest day of my life!"
The lips quivered a little over the words, but they continued bravely to
smile.
And Olga understood. The boy had shouldered his burden with all his
soldier's spirit, and nothing would daunt him now. He had begun to play
the game.
She herself rose to the occasion with instant resolution, forcing back
the tears he would not suffer, brave because he was brave.
"I shall tell her to hoist one for us both," she said, "and to keep it
flying as long as we are under her roof."