A LATER DAY
A man awoke from a long dream of night and fear, of passion, pain, and
death, and opened eyes whose vision seemed curiously clear, to realise
a new world, very unlike that in which the incoherent action of his
dream had moved--a world of light and lively air, as sweet and
wholesome as glistening white paint, sunshine, and an abundance of
pure, cool air could render it.
Because he had known these things in a former existence, he understood
that he lay in the lower berth of a first-cabin stateroom, aboard an
ocean steamship; a spacious, bright box of a room, through whose open
ports swayed brilliant shafts of temperate sunlight, together with
great gusts of the salt sweet breath of the open sea. Through them,
too, he could see patches of unclouded blue, athwart which now and
again gulls would sweep on flashing, motionless pinions.
The man lay still and at peace, watching, wondering idly, soothed by
the sense of being swung through space, only vaguely conscious of the
plunging pulsations of the ship's engines, hammering away indomitably
far in the hold beneath him. His thoughts busied themselves lightly
with a number of important questions, to whose answers the man realised
that he was singularly indifferent. Who was he? What had happened to
bring him back to life (for he was sure that he had died, a long time
ago)? How had he come to that stateroom? What could the name of the
vessel be? Where ... Deep thoughts were these and long; the man drowsed
over them, but presently was aroused by the sensation of being no
longer alone, of being watched.
His eyeballs seemed to move reluctantly in their sockets, and his head
felt very light and empty, although so heavy that he could not lift it
from the pillow. But he managed to shift his gaze from the window until
it rested upon a man's face--a gaunt, impassive brown face illuminated
by steady and thoughtful eyes, filled with that mystic, unshakable
spirit of fatalism that is the real Genius of the eastern peoples. The
head itself stood out with almost startling distinctness against the
background of pure white. It was swathed with an immaculate white
turban. The thin, stringy brown neck ran into a loose surtout of snowy
white.
The sick man felt that he recognised this countenance--had known it,
rather, in some vague, half-remembered life before his latest death.
The name...? He felt his lips move and that they were thin and glazed.
Moistening them with his tongue he made another attempt to articulate.
A thin whisper passed them in two breaths: "Ram ... Nath ..."
Hearing this, the dark man started out of his abstraction, cast a
swift, pitiful glance at the sick man's face, and came to hold a
tumbler to his lips. The liquid, colourless, acrid, and pungent,
slipped into his mouth, and he had to swallow whether he would or no.
When the final drop disappeared, Ram Nath put down the glass, smiled,
laid a finger on his lips, and went on tiptoe from the stateroom.
After awhile the man without an identity fell asleep, calmly,
restfully, in absolute peace. When again he awakened it was with the
knowledge that he was David Amber, and that a woman sat beside him.
Her face was turned from him, and her brown eyes, clouded with dreams,
were staring steadfastly out through the open port; the flowing banners
of sunshine now and again touched her hair with quick fire--her
wonderfully spun hair, itself scarcely less radiant than the light that
illumined it. Against the blue-white background her gracious profile
showed womanly and sweet. There was rich colour in cheeks fresh from
the caress of the sea wind. She smiled in her musing, scarlet lips
apart.
"Sophia..."
His voice sounded in his own hearing very thin and brittle. The girl
turned her gaze upon him swiftly, the soft smile deepening, the
dream-light in her eyes burning brighter and more steady. She bent
forward, placing over his wasted hand a hand firm and warm, strong yet
gentle, its whiteness enhanced by the suggested tracery of blue veins
beneath the silken skin, and by the rosy tips of her slender, subtle
fingers.
"David!" she said.
He sighed and remembered. His brows knitted, then smoothed themselves
out; for with memory came the realisation that, since he was there and
she by his side, God was surely in his Heaven, all well with the world!
"How long...Sophia?"
"Five days, David."
"Where...?"
"At sea, David, on a _Messageries_ boat for Marseilles. Dear ..."
He closed his eyes in beatific content: "David ... Dear ...!"
"Can you listen?"
"Yes ... sweetheart."
Her voice faltered; she flushed adorably. "You mustn't talk. But I'll
tell you.... They refused to let us go back to Kuttarpur; an escort
took us across the desert to Nok, you in a litter, I on horseback.
There we took train to Haidarabad and Karachi. Ram Nath came with us,
as bearer, it being necessary that he too should leave India. My father
and your man Doggott joined us at Karachi, where this steamer touched
the second day."
"You understand, now--?"
"Everything, dearest."
"Labertouche--?"
"He told me nothing. I haven't seen him since that morning, when, just
after you were wounded, we started for Nok. He posted off to Kuttarpur
to find my father.... No; it was you who told me--everything--in your
delirium."
"And ... you forgive--?"
"Forgive!"
He smiled faintly. "That photograph?"
"I had it ready to return to you that morning, David."
"Knowing what it meant to me?"
"Knowing what it meant to _me_--what it meant to both of us, David."
"So you weren't offended, that night?"
"I loved you even then, David. I think I must have loved you from that
first day at Nokomis. Do you remember...?"
His eyes widened, perplexed, staring into her grave, dear eyes. "Then
why did you pretend--?"
With the low, caressing laugh of a happy child, the girl knelt by the
side of his berth, and laid her cheek against his own. "Oh, David, my
David! When do you expect to understand the heart of a woman, dear
heart of mine?"