THE MAN PERDU
A shadow swept swiftly across one of the windows, and the stranger at
the door was aware of a slight jarring as though some more than
ordinarily brutal gust of wind had shaken the house upon its
foundation, or an inner door had been slammed violently. But otherwise
he had so little evidence that his summons had fallen on aught but
empty walls or deaf ears that he had begun to debate his right to enter
without permission, when a chain rattled, a bolt grated, and the door
swung wide. A flood of radiance together with a gust of heated air
struck him in the face. Dazzled, he reeled across the threshold.
The door banged, and again the house in the dunes shuddered as the
storm fell upon it with momentarily trebled ferocity; as if, cheated of
its foreordained prey, it would rend apart his frail refuge to regain
him.
Three paces within the room Amber paused, waiting for his eyes to
adjust themselves to the light. Vaguely conscious of a presence behind
him, he faced another--the slight, spare silhouette of a man's figure
between him and the lamp; and at the same time felt that he was being
subjected to a close scrutiny--both searching and, at its outset, the
reverse of hospitable. But he had no more than become sensitive to this
than the man before him stepped quickly forward and with two strong
hands clasped his shoulders.
"David Amber!" he heard his name pronounced in a voice singularly
resonant and pleasant. "So you've run me to earth at last!"
Amber's face was blank with incredulity as he recognised the speaker.
"Rutton!" he stammered. "Rutton--why--by all that's strange!"
"Guilty," said the other with a quiet laugh. "But sit down." He swung
Amber about, gently guiding him to a chair. "You look pretty well done
up. How long have you been out in this infernal night? But never mind
answering; I can wait. Doggott!"
"Yes, sir."
"Take Mr. Amber's coat and boots and bring him my dressing-gown and
slippers."
"Yes, sir."
"And a hot toddy and something to eat--and be quick about it."
"Very good, sir."
Rutton's body-servant moved noiselessly to Amber's side, deftly helping
him remove his shooting-jacket, whereon snow had caked in thin and
brittle sheets. His eyes, grey and shallow, flickered recognition and
softened, but he did not speak in anticipation of Amber's kindly
"Good-evening, Doggott." To which he responded quietly: "Good-evening,
Mr. Amber. It's a pleasure to see you again. I trust you are well."
"Quite, thank you. And you?"
"I'm very fit, thank you sir."
"And"--Amber sat down again, Doggott kneeling at his feet to unlace and
remove his heavy pigskin hunting-boots--"and your brother?"
For a moment the man did not answer. His head was lowered so that his
features were invisible, but a dull, warm flush overspread his cheeks.
"And your brother, Doggott?"
"I'm sorry, sir, about that; but it was Mr. Rutton's order," muttered
the man.
"You're talking of the day you met Doggott at Nokomis station?"
interposed his employer from the stand he had taken at one side of the
fireplace, his back to the broad hearth whereon blazed a grateful
driftwood fire.
Amber looked up inquiringly, nodding an unspoken affirmative.
"It was my fault that he--er--prevaricated, I'm afraid; as he says, it
was by my order."
Rutton's expression was masked by the shadows; Amber could make nothing
of his curious reticence, and remained silent, waiting a further
explanation. It came, presently, with an effect of embarrassment.
"I had--have peculiar reasons for not wishing my refuge here to be
discovered. I told Doggott to be careful, should he meet any one we
knew. Although, of course, neither of us anticipated...."
"I don't think Doggott was any more dumfounded than I," said Amber. "I
couldn't believe he'd left you, yet it seemed impossible that you
should be here--of all places--in the neighbourhood of Nokomis, I mean.
As for that--" Amber shook his head expressively, glancing round the
mean room in which he had found this man of such extraordinary
qualities. "It's altogether inconceivable," he summed up his
bewilderment.
"It does seem so--even to me, at times."
"Then why--in Heaven's name--"
By now Doggott had invested Amber in his master's dressing-gown and
slippers; rising he left them, passing out through an inner door which
led, evidently, to the only other room in the cottage. Rutton delayed
his reply until the man had shut the door behind him, then suddenly,
with the manner of one yielding to the inevitable, drew a chair up to
face Amber's and dropped into it.
"I see I must tell you something--a little; as little as I can help--of
the truth."
"I'm afraid you must; though I'm damned if I can detect a glimmer of
either rhyme or reason in this preposterous situation."
Rutton laughed quietly, lounging in his armchair and lacing before him
the fingers of hands singularly small and delicate in view of their
very considerable strength--to which Amber's shoulder still bore aching
testimony.
"In three words," he said deliberately: "I am hiding."
"Hiding!"
"Obviously."
Amber bent forward, studying the elder man's face intently. Thin and
dark--not tanned like Amber's, but with a native darkness of skin like
that of the Spanish--it was strongly marked, its features at once
prominent and finely modelled. The hair intensely black, the eyes as
dark and of peculiar fire, the lips broad, full, and sympathetic, the
cheekbones high, the forehead high and something narrow: these combined
to form a strangely striking ensemble, and none the less striking for
its weird resemblance to Amber's own cast of countenance.
Indeed, their likeness one to the other was nothing less than weird in
that it could be so superficially strong, yet so elusive. No two men
were ever more unalike than these save in this superficial accident of
facial contours and complexion. No one knowing Amber (let us say) could
ever have mistaken him for Rutton; and yet any one, strange to both,
armed with a description of Rutton, might pardonably have believed
Amber to be his man. Yet manifestly they were products of alien races,
even of different climes--their individualities as dissimilar as the
poles. Where in Rutton's bearing burned an inextinguishable, almost an
insolent pride, beneath an ice-like surface of self-constraint, in
Amber's one detected merely quiet consciousness of strength and
breeding--his inalienable heritage from many generations of Anglo-Saxon
forebears; and while Rutton continually betrayed, by look or tone or
gesture, a birthright of fierce passions savagely tamed, from Amber one
seldom obtained a hint of aught but the broad and humourous tolerance
of an American gentleman.
But to-night the Virginian had undergone enough to have lost much of
his habitual poise. "Hiding!" he reiterated in a tone scarcely louder
than a whisper.
"And you have found me out, my friend."
"But--but I don't--"
Rutton lifted a hand in deprecation; and as he did so the door in the
rear of the room opened and Doggott entered. Cat-like, passing behind
Amber, he placed upon the table a small tray, and from a steaming
pitcher poured him a glass of hot spiced wine. At a look from his
employer he filled a second.
"There's sandwiches, sir," he said; "the best I could manage at short
notice, Mr. Amber. If you'll wait a bit I can fix you up something
'ot."
"Thank you, Doggott, that won't be necessary; the sandwiches look
mighty good to me."
"Thank you, sir. Will there be anything else, Mr. Rutton?"
"If there is, I'll call you."
"Yes, sir. Good-night, sir. Good-night, Mr. Amber."
As Doggott shut himself out of the room, Amber lifted his fragrant
glass. "You're joining me, Rutton?"
"With all my heart!" The man came forward to his glass. "For old sake's
sake, David. Shall we drink a toast?" He hesitated, with a marked air
of embarrassment, then impulsively swung his glass aloft. "Drink
standing!" he cried, he voice oddly vibrant. And Amber rose. "To the
King--the King, God bless him!"
"To the King!" It was more an exclamation of surprise than an echo to
the toast; nevertheless Amber drained his drink to the final drop. As
he resumed his seat, the room rang with the crash of splintering glass;
Rutton had dashed his tumbler to atoms on the hearthstone.
"Well!" commented Amber, lifting his brows questioningly. "You _are_
sincere, Rutton. But who in blazes would ever have suspected you of
being a British subject?"
"Why not?"
"But it seems to me I should have known--"
"What have you ever really known about me, David, save that I am
myself?"
"Well--when you put it that way--little enough--nothing." Amber laughed
nervously, disconcerted.
"And I? Who and what am I?" No answer was expected--so much was plain
from Rutton's tone; he was talking to himself more than addressing his
guest. His long brown fingers strayed to the box and conveyed a
cigarette to his lips; staring dreamily into the fire, he smoked a
little ere continuing. "What does it mean, this eternal 'I' round which
the world revolves?" His voice trailed off into silence.
Amber snapped the tension with a chuckle. "You can search me," he said
irreverently. And his host returned his smile. "Now, will you please
pay attention to me, my friend? Or do you wish me to turn and rend
myself with curiosity--after I've attended to these excellent
sandwiches?... Seriously, I want to know several things. What have you
been doing with yourself these past three years?"
Rutton shook his head gravely. "I can't say."
"You mean you won't?"
"If you will have it that way."
"Well ... I give you up."
"That's the most profitable thing you could do, David."
"But, seriously now, this foolish talk about hiding is all a joke,
isn't it?"
"No," said Rutton soberly; "no, it's no joke." He sighed profoundly.
"As for my recent whereabouts, I have been--ah--travelling
considerably; moving about from pillar to post." To this the man added
a single word, the more significant in that it embodied the nearest
approach to a confidence that Amber had ever known him to make:
"Hunted."
"Hunted by whom?"
"I beg your pardon." Rutton bent forward and pushed the cigarettes to
Amber's elbow. "I am--ah--so preoccupied with my own mean troubles,
David, that I had forgotten that you had nothing to smoke. Forgive me."
"That's no matter, I--"
Amber cut short his impatient catechism in deference to the other's
mute plea. And Rutton thanked him with a glance--one of those looks
which, between friends, are more eloquent than words. Sighing, he shook
his head, his eyes once more seeking the flames. And silently studying
his face--the play of light from lamp and hearth throwing its features
into salient relief--for the first time Amber, his wits warmed back to
activity from the stupor the bitter cold had put upon them, noticed how
time and care had worn upon the man since they had last parted. He had
never suspected Rutton to be his senior by more years than ten, at the
most; to-night, however, he might well be taken for fifty were his age
to be reckoned by its accepted signs--the hollowing of cheek and
temple, the sinking of eyes into their sockets, the deepening of the
maze of lines about the mouth and on the forehead.
Impulsively the younger man sat up and put a hand upon the arm of
Rutton's chair. "What can I do?" he asked simply.
Rutton roused, returning his regard with a smile slow, charming,
infinitely sad. "Nothing," he replied; "absolutely nothing."
"But surely----!"
"No man can do for me what I cannot do for myself. When the time
comes"--he lifted his shoulders lightly--"I will do what I can. Till
then...." He diverged at a tangent. "After all, the world is quite as
tiny as the worn-out aphorism has it. To think that you should find me
here! It's less than a week since Doggott and I hit upon this place and
settled down, quite convinced we had, at last, lost ourselves ... and
might have peace, for a little space at least!"
Amber glanced curiously round the room; sparely furnished, bare,
unlovely, it seemed a most cheerless sort of spot to be considered a
haven of peace.
"And now," concluded Rutton, "we have to move on."
"Because I've found you here?"
"Because you have found me."
"I don't understand."
"My dear boy, I never meant you should."
"But if you're in any danger--"
"I am not."
"You're not! But you just said--"
"I'm in no danger whatever; humanity is, if I'm found."
"I don't follow you at all."
Again Rutton smiled wearily. "I didn't expect you to, David. But this
misadventure makes it necessary that I should tell you something; you
must be made to believe in me. I beg you to; I'm neither mad nor making
game of you." There was no questioning the sane sincerity of the man.
He continued slowly. "It's a simple fact, incredible but absolute,
that, were my whereabouts to be made public, a great, a staggering blow
would be struck against the peace and security of the world.... Don't
laugh, David; I mean it."
"I'm not laughing, Rutton; but you must know that's a pretty large
order. Most men would--"
"Call me mad. Yes, I know," Rutton took up his words as Amber paused,
confused. "I can't expect you to understand me: you couldn't unless I
were to tell you what I may not. But you know me--better, perhaps, than
any living man save Doggott ... and one other. You know whether or not
I would seek to delude you, David. And, knowing that I could not, you
know why it seems to me imperative that, this hole being discovered,
Doggott and I must betake ourselves elsewhere. Surely there must be
solitudes----!" He rose with a gesture of impatience and began
restlessly to move to and fro.
Amber started suddenly, flushing. "If you mean--"
Rutton's kindly hand forced him back into his chair. "Sit down, David.
I never meant that--never for an instant dreamed you'd intentionally
betray my secret. It's enough that you should know it, should
occasionally think of me as being here, to bring misfortune down upon
me, to work an incalculable disaster to the progress of this
civilisation of ours."
"You mean," Amber asked uncertainly, "thought transference?"
"Something of the sort--yes." The man came to a pause beside Amber,
looking down almost pitifully into his face. "I daresay all this sounds
hopelessly melodramatic and neurotic and tommyrotic, David, but ... I
can tell you nothing more. I'm sorry."
"But only let me help you--any way in my power, Rutton. There's nothing
I'd not do...."
"I know, David, I know it. But my case is beyond human aid, since I am
powerless to apply a remedy myself."
"And you _are_ powerless?"
Rutton was silent a long moment. Then, "Time will tell," he said
quietly. "There is one way...." He resumed his monotonous round of the
room.
Mechanically Amber began to smoke, trying hard to think, to penetrate
by reasoning or intuition the wall of mystery which, it seemed, Rutton
chose to set between himself and the world. The intense earnestness of
the man's hopeless confession had carried conviction. Amber believed
him, believed in the reality of his trouble; and, divining it dimly, a
monstrous, menacing shape in the vagueness of the unknown, was himself
dismayed and a little fearful. He owed much to this man, was bound to
him by ties not only of gratitude but of affection, yet, finding him
distressed, found himself simultaneously powerless to render aid.
Inwardly mutinous, he had to school himself to quiescence; lacking the
confidence which Rutton so steadfastly refused him, he was impotent.
Presently he grew conscious that Rutton was standing as if listening,
his eyes averted to the windows. But when Amber looked they showed,
beneath their half-drawn muslin shades, naught save the grey horizontal
rush of snow beyond the panes. And he heard nothing save the endless
raving of the maniac wind.
"What is it?" he inquired at length, unable longer to endure the
tensity of the pause.
"Nothing. I beg your pardon, David." Rutton returned to his chair,
making a visible effort to shake off his preoccupation. "It's an ugly
night, out there. Lucky you blundered on this place. Tell me how it
happened. What became of the other man--your friend?"
The thought of Quain stabbed Amber's consciousness with a mental pang
as keen as acute physical anguish. He jumped up in torment. "God!" he
cried chokingly. "I'd forgotten! He's out there on the bay, poor
devil!--freezing to death if not drowned. Our boat went adrift somehow;
Quain would insist on going after her in a leaky old skiff we found on
the shore ... and didn't come back. I waited till it was hopeless, then
concluded I'd make a try to cross to Shampton by way of the tidal bar.
And I must!"
"It's impossible," Rutton told him with grave sympathy.
"But I must; think of his wife and children, Rutton! There's a chance
yet--a bare chance; he may have reached the boat. If he did, every
minute I waste here is killing him by inches; he'll die of exposure!
But from Shampton we could send a boat--"
"The tide fulls about midnight to-night," interrupted Rutton,
consulting his watch. "It's after nine,--and there's a heavy surf
breaking over the bar now. By ten it'll be impassable, and you couldn't
reach it before eleven. Be content, David; you're powerless."
"You're right--I know that," groaned Amber, his head in his hands. "I
was afraid it was hopeless, but--but--"
"I know, dear boy, I know!"
With a gesture of despair Amber resumed his seat. For some time he
remained deep sunk in dejection. At length, mastering his emotion, he
looked up. "How did you know about Quain--that we were together?" he
asked.
"Doggott saw you land this morning, and I've been watching you all day
with my field-glasses, prepared to take cover the minute you turned my
way. Don't be angry with me, David; it wasn't that I didn't yearn to
see you face to face again, but that ... I didn't dare."
"Oh, that!" exclaimed Amber with an exasperated fling of his hand.
"Between the two of you--you and Quain--you'll drive me mad with
worry."
"I'm sorry, David. I only wish I might say more. It hurts a bit to have
you doubt me."
"I don't doubt," Amber declared in desperation; "at least, I mean I
won't if you'll be sensible and let me stand by and see you through
this trouble--whatever it is."
Rutton turned to the fire, his head drooping despondently. "That may
not be," he said heavily. "The greatest service you can do me is to
forget my existence, now and henceforth, erase our friendship from the
tablets of your memory, pass me as a stranger should our ways ever
cross again." He flicked the stub of a cigarette into the flames.
"Kismet!... I mean that, David, from my heart. Won't you do this for
me--one last favour, old friend?"
"I'll try; I'll even promise, on condition that you send me word if
ever you have need of me."
"That will be never."
"But if--"
"I'll send for you if ever I may, David; I promise faithfully. And in
return I have your word?"
Amber nodded.
"Then...." Rutton attempted to divert the subject. "I think you said
Quain? Any relation to Quain's 'Aryan Invasion of India?"
"The same man. He asked me down for the shooting--owns a country place
across the bay: Tanglewood."
"A very able man; I wish I might have met him.... What of yourself?
What have you been doing these three years? Have you married?"
"I've been too busy to think of that.... I mean, till lately."
"Ah?"
Amber flushed boyishly. "There was a girl at Quain's--a guest.... But
she left before I dared speak. Perhaps it was as well."
"Why?"
"Because she was too fine and sweet and good for me, Rutton."
"Like every man's first love."
The elder man's glance was keen--too keen for Amber to dissimulate
successfully under it. "You're right," he admitted ruefully. "It's the
first sure-enough trouble of the sort I ever experienced. And, of
course, it had to be hopeless."
"Why?" persisted Rutton.
"Because--I've half a notion there's a chap waiting for her at home."
"At home?"
"In England." The need for a confidant was suddenly imperative upon the
younger man. "She's an English girl--half English, that is; her mother
was an American, a schoolmate of Quain's wife; her father, an
Englishman in the Indian service."
"Her name?"
"Sophia Farrell." A peculiar quality, a certain tensity, in Rutton's
manner, forced itself upon Amber's attention. "Why?" he asked. "Do you
know the Farrells? What's the matter?"
Rutton's eyes met his stonily; out of the ashen mask of his face, that
suddenly had whitened beneath the brown, they glared, afire but
unseeing. His hands writhed, the fingers twisting together with cruel
force, the knuckles grey. Abruptly, as if abandoning the attempt to
reassert his self-control, he jumped up and went quickly to a window,
there to stand, his back to Amber, staring fixedly out into the
storm-racked night. "I knew her father," he said at length, his tone
constrained and odd, "long ago, in India."
"He's out there now--a Political, I believe they call him, or something
of the sort."
"Yes."
"She's going out to rejoin him."
"What!" Rutton came swiftly back to Amber, his voice shaking. "What did
you say?"
"Why, yes. She travels with friends by the western route to join
Colonel Farrell at Darjeeling, where he's stationed just now. Shortly
after I came down she left; Mrs. Quain had a wire a day or so ago,
saying she was on the point of sailing from San Francisco.... Good
Lord, Rutton! are you ill?"
Something in the man's face had brought Amber to his feet, a prey to
inexpressible concern; it was as if a mask had dropped and he were
looking upon the soul of a man in mortal torture.
"No," gasped Rutton, "I'm all right. Besides," he added beneath his
breath, so that Amber barely caught the syllables, "it's too late."
As rapidly as he had lost he seemed to regain mastery of his
inexplicable emotion. His face became again composed, almost immobile,
and stepping to the table he selected a cigarette and rolled it gently
between his slim brown fingers. "I'm sorry to have alarmed you," he
said, his tone a bit too even not to breed a doubt in the mind of his
hearer. "It's nothing serious--a little trouble of the heart, of long
standing, incurable--I hope."
Perplexed, yet hesitating to press him further, Amber watched him
furtively, instinctively assured that between this man and the Farrells
there existed some extraordinary bond; wondering how that could be,
convinced in his soul that somehow the entanglement involved the woman
he loved, he still feared to put his suspicions to the question, lest
he should learn that which he had no right to know ... and while he
watched was startled by the change that came over Rutton. At ease, one
moment, outwardly composed if absorbed in thought, the next he was
rigid, every muscle taut, every nerve tense as a steel spring, his
keen, thoughtful face hardening with a look of brutal hatred, his eyes
narrowing until no more than a glint of fire was visible between the
lashes, lips straining apart until they showed thin and bloodless, with
a gleam of white, set teeth between. His head jerked back suddenly, his
gaze fixing itself first upon the window, then shifting to the door.
And his fingers, contracting, tore the cigarette in half.
"Rutton, what the deuce is the matter?"
Rutton seemed not to hear; Amber got his answer from the door, which
was swung wide and slammed shut. A blast of frosty air and a flurry of
snow swept across the room. And against the door there leaned a man
puffing for breath and coughing spasmodically--a gross and monstrous
bulk of flesh, unclean and unwholesome to the eye, attired in an
extravagant array of coloured garments, tawdry silks and satins
clinging, sodden, to his ponderous and unwieldy limbs.
"The babu!" cried Amber unconsciously; and was rewarded by a flash of
recognition from the coal-black, beady, evil eyes of the man.
But for that involuntary exclamation the tableau held unbroken for a
space; Rutton standing transfixed, the torn halves of the cigarette
between his fingers, his head well up and back, his stare level,
direct, uncompromising, a steady challenge to the intruder; the babu
resting with one shoulder against the door, panting stertorously and
trembling with the cold and exposure he had undergone, yet with his
attention unflinchingly concentrated upon Rutton; and, finally, Amber,
a little out of the picture and quite unconsidered of the others, not
without a certain effect as of a supernumerary standing in the wings
and watching the development of the drama.
Then, demanding Amber's silence with an imperative movement of his
hand, Rutton spoke. "Well, babu?" he said quietly, the shadow of a
bitter and weary smile curving his thin, hard lips.
The Bengali moved a pace or two from the door, and plucked nervously at
the throat of his surtout, finally managing to insert one hand in the
folds of silk across his bosom.
"I seek," he said distinctly in Urdu, and not without a definite note
of menace in his manner, "the man calling himself Rutton Sahib?"
Very deliberately Rutton inclined his head. "I am he."
"Hazoor!" The babu laboriously doubled up his enormous body in profound
obeisance. Having recovered, he nodded to Amber with the easy
familiarity of an old acquaintance. "To you, likewise, greeting, Amber
Sahib."
"What!" Rutton swung sharply to Amber with an exclamation of amazement.
"You know this fellow, David?"
The babu cut in hastily, stimulated by a pressing anxiety to clear
himself. "Hazoor, I did but err, being misled by his knowledge of our
tongue as well as by that pale look of you he wears. And, indeed, is it
strange that I should take him for you, who was told to seek you in
this wild land?"
"Be silent!" Rutton told him angrily.
"My lord's will is his slave's." Resignedly the babu folded his fat
arms.
"Tell me about this," Rutton demanded of Amber.
"The ass ran across me in the woods south of the station, the day I
came down," explained Amber, summarising the episode as succinctly as
he could. "He didn't call me by your name, but I've no doubt he's
telling the truth about mistaking me for you. At all events he
hazoor-ed me a number of times, talked a lot of rot about some silly
'Voice,' and finally made me a free gift of a nice little bronze box
that wouldn't open. After which he took to his heels, saying he'd call
later for my answer--whatever he meant by that. He did call by night
and stole the box. That's about all I know of him, thus far. But I'd
watch out for him, if I were you; if he isn't a raving lunatic, I miss
my guess."
"Indeed, my lord, it is all quite as the sahib says," the babu admitted
graciously, his eyes gleaming with sardonic amusement. "Circumstances
conspired to mislead me; but that I was swift to discover. Nor did I
lose time in remedying the error, as you have heard. Moreover--"
He shut up suddenly at a sign from Rutton, with a ludicrous shrug of
his huge shoulders disclaiming any ill-intent or wrong-doing; and while
Rutton remained deep in thought by the table, the babu held silence,
his gaze flickering suspiciously round the room, searching the shadows,
questioning the closed door behind which Doggott lay asleep (evidence
of which fact was not wanting in his snores), resting fleetingly on
Amber's face, returning to Rutton. His features were composed; his
face, indeed, might have been taken as a model for some weird mask of
unctuous depravity, but for his eyes, which betrayed a score of
differing phases of emotion. He was by turns apparently possessed by
fear, malice, distrust, a subtle sense of triumph, contempt for Amber,
deference to Rutton, and a feeling that he was master not alone of the
situation but of the man whom he professed to honor so extravagantly.
At length Rutton looked up, suppressing a sigh. "Your errand, babu?"
"Is it, then, your will that I should speak before this man?" The
Bengali nodded impudently at Amber.
"It is my will."
"Shabash! I bear a message, hazoor, from the Bell."
"You are the Mouthpiece of the Voice?"
"That honor is mine, hazoor. For the rest I am--"
"Behari Lal Chatterji," interrupted Rutton impatiently; "solicitor of
the Inner Temple--disbarred; anointed thief, liar, jackal, lickspittle,
and perjurer--I know you."
"My lord," said the man insolently, "omits from his catalogue of my
accomplishments my chiefest honour; he forgets that, with him, I am an
accepted Member of the Body."
"The Body wears strange members that employs you, babu," commented
Rutton bitterly. "It has fallen upon evil days when such as you are
charged with a message of the Bell."
"My lord is harsh to one who would be his slave in all things.
Fortunate indeed am I to own the protection of the Token." A slow leer
widened greasily upon his moon-like face.
"Ah, the Token!" Rutton repeated tensely, beneath his breath. "It is
true that you have the Token?" "Aye; it is even here, my lord." The
heavy brown hand returned to the spot it had sought soon after the
babu's entrance, within the folds of silk across his bosom, and groped
therein for an instant. "Even here," he iterated with a maddening
manner of supreme self-complacency, producing the bronze box and
waddling over to drop it into Rutton's hand. "My lord is satisfied?" he
gurgled maliciously.
Without answering Rutton turned the box over in his palm, his slender
fingers playing about the bosses of the relief work; there followed a
click and one side of it swung open. The Bengali fell back a pace with
a whisper of awe--real or affected: "The Token, hazoor!" Amber himself
gasped slightly.
Unheeded, the box dropped to the floor. Between Rutton's thumb and
forefinger there blazed a great emerald set in a ring of red old gold.
He turned it this way and that, inspecting it critically; and the
lamplight, catching on the facets, struck from it blinding shafts of
intensely green radiance. Rutton nodded as if in recognition of the
stone and, turning, with an effect of carelessness, tossed it to Amber.
"Keep that for me, David, please," he said. And Amber, catching it,
dropped the ring into his pocket.
"My lord is satisfied with my credentials, then?" the babu persisted.
"It is the Token," Rutton assented wearily. "Now, your message. Be
brief."
"The utterances of the Voice be infrequent, hazoor, its words few--but
charged with meaning: as you know of old." The Bengali drew himself up,
holding up his head and rolling forth his phrases in a voice of great
resonance and depth. "These be the words of the Voice, hazoor:
"'_To all my peoples:
"'Even now the Gateway of Swords yawns wide, that he who is without
fear may pass within; to the end that the Body be purged of the Scarlet
Evil.
"'The Elect are bidden to the Ordeal with no exception._'"
The sonorous accents subsided, and a tense wait ensued, none speaking.
Rutton stood in stony apathy, his eyes lifted to a dim corner of the
ceiling, his gaze--like his thoughts--perhaps ranging far beyond the
dreary confines of the cabin in the dunes. Minute after minute passed,
he making no sign, the babu poised before him in inscrutable triumph,
watching him keenly with his black and evil eyes of a beast. Amber hung
breathless upon the issue, sensing a conflict of terrible forces in
Rutton's mind, but comprehending nothing of their natures. In the hush
within-doors he became acutely conscious of the war of elements
without: the mad elfin yammering of the gale tearing at the cabin as
though trying to seize it up bodily and whirl it off into the witches'
dance of the storm; the deep and awful booming of the breakers, whose
incessant impact upon the beach seemed to rock the very island on its
base. Somehow he divined a similitude between the struggle within and
the struggle without, seemed to see the contending elements personified
before his eyes--the spirit of evil incarnate in the Bengali, vast,
loathsome, terrible in his inflexibility of malign purpose; the force
of right symbolized in Rutton, frail of stature, fine of mould, strong
in his unbending loyalty to his conception of honour and duty. The
Virginian could have predicted the outcome confidently, believing as he
did in his friend. It came eventually on the heels of a movement of the
babu's; unable longer to hold his pose, he shifted slightly. And Rutton
awoke as from a sleep.
"The Voice has spoken, babu," he said, not ungently, "and I have
heard."
"And your answer, lord?"
"There is no answer."
"Hazoor!"
"I have said," Rutton confirmed evenly, "there is no answer."
"You will obey?"
"That is between me and my God. Go back to the Hall of the Bell, Behari
Lal Chatterji, and deliver your report; say that you have seen me, that
I have listened to the words of the Voice, and that I sent no answer."
"Hazoor, I may not. I am charged to return only with you."
"Make your peace with the Bell in what manner you will, babu; it is no
concern of mine. Go, now, while yet time is granted you to avoid a
longer journey this night."
"Hazoor!"
"Go." Rutton pointed to the door, his voice imperative.
Upon this the babu abandoned argument, realising that further
resistance were futile. And in a twinkling his dignity, his Urdu and
his cloak of mystery, were discarded, and he was merely an
over-educated and over-fed Bengali, jabbering babu-English.
"Oah, as for thatt," he affirmed easily, with an oleaginous smirk, "I
daresay I shall be able to make adequate explanation. It shall be as
you say, sar. I confess to fright, however, because of storm." He
included Amber affably in his confidences. "By Gad, sar, thees climate
iss most trying to person of my habits. The journey hither _via_
causeway from mainland was veree fearful. Thee sea is most agitated.
You observe my wetness from association with spray. I am of opinion if
I am not damn-careful I jolly well catch-my-death on return. But
_thatt_ is all in day's work."
He rolled sluggishly toward the door, dragging his inadequate overcoat
across his barrel-like chest; and paused to cough affectingly, with one
hand on the knob. Rutton eyed him contemptuously.
"If you care to run the risk," he said suddenly, "you may have a chair
by the fire till the storm breaks, babu."
"Beg pardon?" The babu's eyes widened. "Oah, yess; I see. 'If I care to
run risk.' Veree considerate of you, I'm sure. But as we say in Bengal,
'thee favour of kings iss ass a sword of two edges.' Noah, thanks; the
servants of thee Bell do not linger by wayside, soa to speak. Besides,
I am in great hurree. Mister Amber, good night. Rutton Sahib"--with a
flash of his sinister humour--"_au revoir_; I mean to say, till we meet
in thee Hall of thee Bell. Good night."
He nodded insolently to the man whom a little time since he had hailed
as "my lord," shrugged his coat collar up round his fat, dirty neck,
shivered in anticipation, jerked the door open and plunged ponderously
out.
A second later Amber saw the confused mass of his turban glide past the
window.