Chapter XIV: Part 14

"Oh, I know better than that!" The dark face quivered into a sneer. "I know who you are. You're the white woman he was after. I guessed right enough. He wanted an Englishwoman." She sprang suddenly to her feet with an almost threatening gesture. "But it was me he loved--me he married. He didn't care for you--don't you flatter yourself--he wanted you--just to get even--just to hurt as he'd been hurt. You're nothing but a----"

She broke off. Sigrid had not moved or spoken, but there was that in the still white face which checked the torrent of savage insult. Mrs. Smithers got up. She rolled the mittens into a neat ball.

"I'm an old woman," she said, "and I hate violence. But just you mind what you're saying, Mrs. Barclay----"

Sigrid checked her with a gesture.

"Mrs. Barclay is quite right," she said calmly. "I think she understands her husband very well. She is only mistaken in supposing I did not understand too. I did not know that he was married, but that is neither here nor there. I did know that I was merely a means to an end--as he was to me. Now that's all finished and done with." She laughed a little. "Do you know, Mrs. Barclay, you are the second woman in twenty-four hours who has accused me of trying to steal her husband, and, heaven knows, in this instance, it isn't true."

Marie Barclay stared at her in sullen silence. Her passion had gone down under fatigue and a natural racial apathy. She had struck with all the strength she possessed, and now came the reaction of helpless tears.

"I don't know what to do," she said brokenly. "I've nowhere to go--no one to help me."

"We're going to help you," Sigrid answered. She came and laid a gentle, controlling hand on the other's arm. "You mustn't break down. There's nothing to be afraid of. You don't know it, but you've done me a great service. And now it's my turn. You'll stay here. It's your home--everything in it is yours. There's money enough to keep you going till he comes back. And he will come back. He'll be glad to find you here--we were nothing to one another. Doesn't that make you happy?"

Her tone was so gay, so assured that the brimming eyes lifted to hers lost their suspicion and hatred.

"I don't know--I don't understand--and you----"

"I shall clear out. I've no right here. We'll be your guests for tonight and we can talk things over. Meantime, Mrs. Smithers will give you tea, and I'll go for a last ride on your horse. I want fresh air and a little quiet. You don't mind?"

The full lips quivered resentfully.

"You're making fun of me----"

"No--I'm in dead earnest. I've been an intruder and an unwilling thief, and now I return my ill-gotten gains. Smithy, take care of her till I come back. And no violence!"

Mrs. Smithers paid no heed to the injunction. She was trembling in every limb as she followed the quickly moving figure to the verandah steps. She clutched Sigrid's hands. Her dim old eyes were full of a great dread.

"Sigrid--my dearest--what are you going to do?"

"Do? Nothing rash, Smithy. Did you think I might----? Don't you see how good it is? I'm free. I'm Sigrid Fersen--I haven't got to fight daily, hourly, for my integrity--I'm free." She drew in a deep joyous breath of the fresh, rain-soaked air. Her eyes shone under the fine, untroubled brows. "I'm going home with you to England, Smithy. I'm going to live in the little suburban house and give dancing lessons to the large suburban feet. And in my free moments I shall play Beethoven and Wagner and Chopin on an extravagantly fine Bechstein. For I've learnt that one can play noble music anywhere. That's a great lesson, Smithy." She smiled tenderly. "And I shall live on your savings, Smithy. That'll make you happy, won't it?"

"Oh, my dear----"

"I know. Such queer things make women happy." She grew grave for an instant. "And perhaps I shall live to be very old, as Tristram said I might. I may grow so much stronger--I shall outlive you, Smithy, and every one who ever cared for me. But I'm not going to funk it now. I shall play my music to the very end."

Mrs. Smithers made no answer. She could not have answered, for the dimness had crept into her throat and choked her. She lifted the little hand clasped in hers and kissed it.

Thus Sigrid Fersen rode down the steep, mud-choked road towards the valley. She told herself that it was for the last time. And because each "last time" in life is a bridge-crossing into a new and trackless country she looked back along the old road, and her thoughts lingered by the high landmarks by which she would never pass again. High up against the horizon a mountain-peak glowed in the warm splendour of this farewell. On its topmost crag she had dwelt a little and alone. She saw the rough and ruthless descent into the world of men the winding road over strange countries, the always-seeking of those two years, and there on the verge of an abyss the revelation of something as lofty, as splendid as all that she had left behind her. At first she had drawn back. She had even smiled a little at the thought that her feet should tread so desperate a path. But in the end she had gone on--down into the depths and through a suffocating evil darkness and up again at last to the farther summit. And had it been worth it--worth the effort, the sheer, physical effort, the pitiless drain upon soul and body, the inevitable loneliness? She knew her answer. She saw before her the country to which her stern enterprise had led her. She saw it flat and barren and wind-swept, its sparse trees bowed before the solitary storms. She saw that it had its own grandeur. There was a sweet taste in the wind; and the rough earth carried many flowers on its bosom, and they had a fragrance more delicate than all the rich exotic blossoms which had once been dear to her. She welcomed the sweet winds and the great limitless horizons. She stretched out her arms to the blustering storm. She was free. Her freedom was not of the mountain crags, but of the great undulating plains where men pass their daily life. And she had ceased to be alone. Somewhere on that vast expanse a fellow-traveller pressed on his way, often erring, often misled, but still with head erect, eyes fixed on the down-going sun which was their common goal. She saw him big and careless and unkempt with strays and vagabonds crowded at his heels. She saw the light on his face, and knew that he too was conscious of their comradeship. It did not matter that in that country over which they travelled they would not meet again. They had met once. God Himself, if He existed apart from His creation, could not blot out that knowledge or His own decree by which the separate paths of men meet at the end.

Thus Sigrid Fersen rode out of Gaya. Her horse slipped and fretted over the treacherous descent, but her hand was as strong and steady as her thought. She had the quality common to all vitally living things--the love of physical, friendly warfare with the elements. She lifted her glowing face to the warm rain. She felt at peace and happy. She could look with clear eyes into the future. Tristram had said that with care she might live to be very old. The thought had no terrors for her now.

Between dreams and realities she left Gaya floating in the grey mists behind her. The solitude and wide stretch of the plain soothed her and gave her a sense of release from a cramping prison. She began to deal practically with the coming years--even, with a faint smile at the corners of her mouth, to furnish the little suburban house, to arrange her days.

And then, in the midst of her planning, her horse jerked to a quivering standstill. She leant forward in her saddle, frowning through the veil of rain, and saw that something lay across her road--something black and huddled and shapeless. She tried to urge the frightened animal forward; then something definite checked her--held her in sick, motionless horror. It was a white patch--the shape of a man's hand, the fingers clawed into the mud.

A minute later she had managed to dismount. She knelt down by the crumpled body, and, exerting all her strength, lifted it. It was so caked and stiffened with mire and blood that it remained upright, kneeling grotesquely, leaning against her. The disfigured features, made more hideous by their mud-smeared agony, were close to her own. She believed him dead. The horror of him, kneeling there, leering at her, overcame her. She let him sink back--and then only saw that he still lived. His eyes were open. They were already glazed and could not have seen her, but an instinct, kindling for the last time, recognized her presence.

"Tristram--Heerut--warn Tristram--warn----"

His mouth fell open. His gaze became fixed under the half-sunk lids. It was finished.

Sigrid Fersen rose to her feet. She was not conscious now of fear or hesitation; she walked forward a few paces, tracing the smeared track of Meredith's body back to a confusion of hoof-prints in the thick mud. There had been a struggle, and Meredith had had strength enough to crawl a few feet--she did not know that each foot had represented hours and the triumph of the man's will over agony and unconsciousness, but she knew what he had tried to do.

"Warn Tristram!"

It was a call to her old, unbroken fearlessness, to the eager, adventuring blood and the new faith. Gaya and prudence and safety lay behind her; but what was Gaya to her, what had prudence or safety ever mattered to her? Before her lay the swollen river and sinister, uncomprehended danger.

She was going forward.

She caught her horse by the bridle. It was no easy task to mount from that slippery road, but she had in that hour an unconquerable energy and resolve. It was done at last. She settled herself firmly in the saddle, her hands on the reins were flexible and strong as steel. Through the splashing mire and rain she rode towards Heerut.

She reached the river-bank. The door of the engineer's shanty stood open and one glance showed her that the place was deserted. She rode over the bridge. The water slid across the roadway with an ugly, slopping gurgle; its deeper voice thundered beneath among the shaken arches.

On the farther bank she drew rein for an instant. Amidst the rush of the river it seemed to her that another sound had reached her. It was vague and indefinite, and yet unmistakably separate from all else. It was as though close to her, and yet hidden beneath the water, something monstrous and living groaned in the agony of dismemberment.

"Warn Tristram!"

She rode on towards Heerut.

*CHAPTER XII*

*THE MEETING OF THE WAYS*

They had come from all the ends of the Province, secretly and one by one from the towns, and in whole companies from the villages. It was for them only another pilgrimage. They brought with them the same childlike faith, the same dim, passionless hopes, the same fatalism. And behind those simple things there was the same incalculable force awaiting the spark which should fire them to a ferocious heroism or headlong panic.

They came together in the broad curve of plain where the Ganges twisted in a horseshoe towards the foot of Gaya's hills. To the west, within half a mile of the encampment, the black impregnable barrier of the jungle followed the river's course past the bridge-head and the temple, forming lower down a crescent around the little plateau on which Heerut lay huddled.

There were close on two thousand of them, men of all ages, all castes. They carried weapons, but of a strange and varied nature--old army rifles, an ancient sword, the deadly kukri, sometimes no more than a rusty bayonet, stolen or bought from some drunken defaulter. They themselves were as heterogeneous. They herded together without order or discipline. The rain poured down upon them ceaselessly, saturating their scanty clothing so that it clung to their lean bodies like creased and dirty skins. Here and there the saffron robe proclaimed the Saddhu, and there were priests, haughty, arrogant-featured men, who stood aloof, as though the matter scarcely concerned them. Yet it was they who had worked secretly and cunningly in the towns and villages. It was their infallibility which had welded these strange, inco-ordinate atoms into a weapon. For, undisciplined, ill-armed, and dejected though they seemed, though they came straight from their fields and the enervating atmosphere of the bazaars, these two thousand men were still fighters. In the old days their fathers had scorned the plough and had lived and died by the sword. They had fought for the old Rajah and gone with him into exile and ended their adversity in the wildernesses. Some of that fighting blood was in the veins of these, their descendants, and some of that stern tradition lay smouldering beneath the veneer of peace which the British Raj had forced upon them.

But of all this, Barclay, riding at Ayeshi's side down the irregular front of this strange army, saw nothing. To him they were a sorry, pitiable crew, foredoomed to disaster. He knew now, if he had not always known, the futile madness of the enterprise on which they were launched, he with them. The brief illusion which he had nourished that night in the temple had gone. Though he had flung himself into this cause with all his wealth, all his power, he saw it to be lost. The shadow of the future was on these upturned stoic faces, on Ayeshi, and on himself. Yet he would not have turned back nor changed the course of events. A sombre triumph and satisfaction glowed through his foreknowledge.

He had found his people. He belonged to them. In the end that was coming he would not be alone. His blood would mingle with theirs. And with them those others would be swept away--those others who had rejected him.

He turned his haggard, moody eyes towards distant Gaya and laughed. Even now he was a little theatrical. He wore the native dress, and it was like a masquerade. All that was English in him stood out the more prominently. The very priests who had admitted him to their caste shrank from his shadow, and quick, dark glances of suspicion followed him as he rode at Ayeshi's side. Vahana, the Saddhu, clung to his stirrup-leather. He was like a mocking spirit of evil, noiseless and remorseless. Once Barclay had tried to swing him off by a quick turn of his horse, but the old withered figure had leapt with him with the agility of a tiger. Afterwards Vahana had lifted his face to Barclay, showing his teeth in a mirthless grin of understanding.

Thereafter Barclay made no effort to free himself. But he had become afraid--afraid of something other than the end.

Ayeshi rode to the farther end of the roughly formed square. Beyond the jewelled turban and the ancient sword at his waist, he wore no insignia of his rank, and even his knightly seat on the thoroughbred Arab could not wholly atone to his followers for this lack of outward splendour. They had expected something other--something resplendent, a gorgeous representative of the millennium that was coming,--a god, an avatar. And he was only a boy, with wasted features and restless, unhappy eyes. Yet they greeted him as their lord. Perhaps even in their minds was the knowledge that their lives were bound up with his, that there was no turning back either for him or them. A Brahmin and a native under-officer, still in uniform though without his badges, came out of the ranks to meet him, and for a few minutes they spoke together in an undertone. Barclay scarcely listened. He was watching with cynical intentness the play of the priest's astute features, the deferential, courtly movements, the keen flashes of the cruel eyes. In contrast, the soldier seemed brutal and aggressive. His face was pockmarked and sodden with vice, but he was a strong man--more vital in that moment even than Ayeshi.

Between Barclay and these two men Ayeshi was the shuttlecock--the toy and instrument with which each sought to attain his own petty ends of vengeance and power. For a moment Barclay could have pitied him as he sat there, reining in his restive Arab with a master's hand, so passionately in earnest, so deeply shaken by premonition.

"They will fight, Pugra?" he asked repeatedly. "They will keep faith with us?"

The soldier grinned significantly.

"They have sworn it, lord. There is no cause for them to break their oath. It is a simple matter. In an hour it will be finished. Heera Singh leads them. He is a good soldier. His brother was shot a year ago. He will not fail."

"And afterwards----?"

"We shall join forces with them."

"And after that----?"

The soldier and the priest exchanged a quick glance of interrogation. But the question had rung with an urgent appeal not to be denied. The Brahmin drew a step nearer, taking the answer upon himself.

"After that the great cities will follow. In Calcutta and Bombay they do but await the signal. Is it not so?"

"That is what they told me." Ayeshi passed his hand nervously over his forehead. "They swore to me that they were ready. I was to be the torch which should light India----"

"Surely, then, it will be so, lord."

Ayeshi made no answer. He seemed to sink into a fit of brooding, his eyes fixed in the direction of Gaya. Barclay, who had not ceased to watch him, urged his horse nearer.

"Of what are you afraid, Rajah?" he asked softly in English, adding with a flash of malice: "Isn't death the worst that can happen to us?"

The echo of the grandiloquent phrase stung Ayeshi to a haughty gesture.

"I do not fear death."

"Whom then? Rasaldu? Rasaldu is dead. In a few hours there will be no white men left in your kingdom----"

"I know. It is not that. It is for these men--my people. They trust me. They hope great things. If I should fail----"

"You will not fail, Rajah. You have the right to call upon them. You are their lord."

Ayeshi glanced up swiftly.

"And if I were not--if it proved a mistake--sometimes I am afraid----"

Barclay shrugged his shoulders. He was growing impatient. The merciless rain began to chill his blood. The roar of the river beat like the incessant thud of a hammer on his ears.

"What does it all matter?" he muttered. "If only this infernal rain would stop! It's dangerous. If the water overflows on the high ground up by Bjura we shall have to swim for it. That's what matters."

But suddenly Ayeshi bent down from his saddle and laid his hand on Vahana's shoulder.

"You promised!" he said, in a tense undertone. "You promised that today you would speak--that you would give me proofs to show my people. Now keep your promise to me. Vahana--justify me."

The fakir lifted his eyes to Ayeshi. His lips moved, but no sound came from them. He shrank back against Barclay's knee, cowering as from a blow. But his expression was triumphantly evil.

And Barclay, looking into Ayeshi's stricken face, came to a bitter understanding. Not only this boy, but all of them, were so many instruments in a master-hand. Their hates and ambitions had been woven skilfully into the greater pattern of a patient, insatiable vengeance. They were pawns in Vahana's game. _They_ would be swept from the board. Vahana would go on to his own end.

Before this selfsame knowledge Ayeshi had faltered. Now he drew himself up in the saddle.

"Rasaldu is dead," he said quietly, yet with despair, "and Sahib Meredith and others--others. Justify me!"

And to that final, irrepressible cry of anguish Vahana answered. His unaccustomed tongue wrestled with the words, and formed them slowly and thickly. They fell like blows.

"The--Rajah--had--no--son," he said.

Then suddenly he laughed. In that final moment the brain, corroded with hatred, broke down beneath its accumulated burden. The maniacal merriment rang out above the thunder of racing water, it pealed on till it dominated every other sound. As Ayeshi turned with lifted hand to strike, it subsided hideously into a broken cackle. Still clinging to Barclay's stirrup, Vahana dropped to his knees. What possessed Barclay in that moment he could not have told. He stretched out his arm over the cowering figure, shielding the thing he feared.

"No, no, Ayeshi--it's too late. It doesn't matter who or what you are. You've got to go on with it. You can't leave us in the lurch. There's been bloodshed enough----"

Ayeshi's hand sank limply to his side. His lips were quivering.

"Rasaldu is dead," he repeated. "Rasaldu the swine-herd--had more right than I--and the Sahibs who have done me no wrong----"

Barclay interrupted him with a curse. Was this last catastrophe of his life to end as the others had done, in a travesty--in a Gilbertian fiasco? Was he to be held up to ridicule before those cool, insolent men and women--ludicrous and ineffectual even in his death?

"For God's sake--pull yourself together, Ayeshi!" he said imperatively. "What does it matter whether you are wronged or not? You are the leader. Chance has made you--the deliverer of your people. Act like a man. Save your country--set us free----" He laid his hand on his breast with a dramatic gesture. "I ask it of you--I, who have suffered at their hands. Be strong, Ayeshi. Give us our freedom."

But Ayeshi seemed not to listen. His frowning eyes were fixed in front of him, and suddenly he pointed. Barclay turned in his saddle. At first the spectacle that met him seemed no more than curious. The belt of high grass which separated them from the river had parted, and a young tigress stood in the opening. She seemed wholly unconscious of the massed enemy before her. She stood there lashing her tail, her velvet flanks heaving with recent hard effort, her fine head lifted in an attitude of listening. For an instant she remained thus. No hand was raised against her. Ayeshi and his followers watched her in motionless, superstitious silence. Even Barclay felt himself incapable of action. It was as though the apparition had for them a deeper, as yet unread significance.

With a low growl, not of anger but of fear, the beautiful animal trotted with long, loping strides between Ayeshi and the herded crowd of tensely watching natives. No sound was uttered until the lean, striped body had vanished. Then a cry went up--at first isolated--then swelling to a shout:

"An omen--an omen!"

"Vishnu has spoken!"

"The gods are against us!"

"The flood--the flood----!"

The last came in a scream. It bore the other cries down into an instant's stupefied silence. The massed square of humanity which had tossed and surged in a gathering storm of panic grew still.

Barclay lifted himself in his stirrups. He could see nothing. The rain blinded him. Yet his ears, alert now, caught a distant ominous boom.

"I believe it's true--the animal was bolting for her life--the water must have burst its banks at Bjura--if it has, it's coming twenty miles an hour--we've got to run for high ground, Ayeshi."

The Hindu shrugged his shoulders.

"There is no high ground----"

Vahana roused himself from the mud where he had remained in an attitude of apparent stupor. A demoniac energy blazed in the mad eyes.

"There is a way--past Heerut--I will show you--only let me ride with you, Sahib Barclay----"

The Eurasian nodded. He no longer appealed to Ayeshi, who was sunk in an apathy of despair. He raised himself again in the saddle.

"There is a way to safety!" he shouted. "Vahana, the Holy Man, will lead us--the gods have sent a warning--the gods are with us--follow!"

He lifted Vahana into the saddle behind him and swung his horse round towards Heerut. Ayeshi lingered; Barclay passed him with a gesture of contempt. The control was in his hands now. It was for him to act--to retrieve disaster. He had become the leader--the leader of his people. He heard the rush of feet behind him--the sound thrilled through his blood in a storm of exultation.

"Follow me!" he shouted. "I will lead you."

They followed. They swept Ayeshi into their maelstrom and carried him with them, but they too had ceased to heed him. Nor did he try to regain his hold. The right to command--even to resist--had gone. He was no longer Rajah--exiled and disinherited, yet still lord of his destiny. He was Ayeshi, the village story-teller, the servant of Tristram Sahib, the dreamer bereft of his dreams. He would have been glad to meet the end.

But the people he had betrayed bore him in their midst, as they fled before the oncoming waters.

* * * * *

Tristram heard only the deepening voice of the river, the rain splashing on the roof, and the rush and swirl of the water as it tore through the village gutters. Even these things, though they reached his hearing, scarcely touched his consciousness. They walled him in. They formed a sombre background for his wife's voice.

He sat beside her, her hot little hand in his, and it seemed to him that they talked together for the first time in their lives. Her voice was weak and husky with pain, but the pain itself relaxed its grip on her, allowing her to sink slowly and mercifully.

"I'm dying, am I not, Tristram?" she had asked, and then, reading his face, added gently: "I want to know--really. I'm not afraid to die. Why should I be? There is nothing to fear--only so much to hope. Tell me."

"Anne--little wife--I honestly don't know. So much depends on your will to live----"

Her smile was touched with something of its old wisdom.

"It depends on God, Tris."

He nodded. It was too late to show her where their roads met. He could only acquiesce. And presently she spoke again. "It's all been such a big, sad mistake, hasn't it?"

"What, dear?"

"Our marriage."

He looked into her pinched face, in which only a child-like wistfulness remained. He looked then at her hand, hiding his own smarting eyes.

"I suppose it has. It's my failure----"

"You didn't love me, Tris."

"I cared--genuinely. I cared so much that I wanted to make you happy." He hesitated. "But I couldn't make myself to be the man you loved."

"No, it was just a mistake," she agreed.

"You're very generous, dear."

She shook her head.

"Oh, no--it was my fault most of all. I didn't understand. There are things I don't understand even now."

"What things?"

"Wickie--and--and--that. It seems so wrong--just a dog. You love life so--Tris."

"I love living things--I can't help it--helpless living things most of all. Even now I can't judge what I did--it's the old problem--how far one has the right to punish--to resist evil. But I haven't any real theories. I can't bear pain--that's all."

Her eyes softened.

"I know. You have been so good--so tender to me. Last night I understood better all you are--but it's too late----"

"No, Anne--it isn't. Live--give me the chance to make up to you. Dear, you can. Ask God to give you the will. We've muddled it so far, but we've seen our mistakes. We can start again. Who knows but if all this trouble and pain wasn't meant to bring us together--to give us a real love and knowledge of each other, Anne; couldn't it be----?"

He was using instinctively the language which she could understand best. Yet there was a sincerity behind the artificial sentences, a passionate eagerness which moved her. She turned her head wearily on the pillow, looking steadily into his face.

"Would you be glad--if I lived?"

"Unutterably glad."

"Perhaps we might learn to love each other--in the end----"

"I would try to earn your love."

She smiled wanly.

"I would try to--to make you love me too. I don't know. I would be glad to live--perhaps if I could only sleep a little. Is there a chance----"

"Only try."

"Will you stop by me whilst I sleep?"

"I won't leave you."

"I think--if you're there--if you wish it--yes--I will try. I will ask God to let me live." He bent and kissed her hand. "You won't leave me, Tris?"

"I promise you."

Her eyes closed peacefully. Her hand rested in his. He remained motionless, hushing his own breathing. He did not want to disturb her by the faintest sound, and he himself was tired almost past feeling. He tried to hush even his thoughts--to create an hiatus between present and future in which they could both rest. For an instinct in him knew well that the great battle lay still before them. The time would come when the warmth of reconciliation would grow cold, and they would face each other again in the full strength of their conflicting temperaments. But so long as this silence lasted there was peace, and in that peace they were very close to each other--closer than they had ever been.

They were both so unutterably tired.

Of what use to force the issue now, even in his mind? Who knew--perhaps they had indeed learnt their lesson--perhaps they would have patience and help each other. All things were possible. He had sworn to himself to make them possible.

He sat there, bent forward, and listened to the rain and the monotonous boom of the river. His hearing was that of a man coming out of an anaesthetic--it distorted and magnified sounds, and yet held them a long way off as though they came from another world. He could not bring his thoughts to bear upon them.

Then, amidst the dull persistency of it all, there broke the sharp, staccato beat of hoofs--the splash of a horse galloping through water.

Tristram rose cautiously to his feet. He had to unclasp his wife's hand and her eyes opened.

"What is it, Tris?"

"My messenger back from Gaya, I expect. I didn't believe he meant to go, but it seems I misjudged him."

"You won't leave me, Tris?"

"I've promised you."

The horse had been drawn up sharply. Tristram went to the door and opened it, letting in a wave of dank air. Sigrid stood on the threshold. She was drenched with rain and mud. She went past him, closing the door behind her.

"Tristram--I----" she began breathlessly.

"For pity's sake!" he muttered, in utter consternation. Then she saw Anne lying on the bed by the wall. There was an instant's silence. Anne had lifted herself on her elbow. Her cheeks blazed with colour. All the childish wistfulness had gone from her expression, which was old and hard and cruel.

"Is this an appointment?" she asked clearly. "Didn't Tristram warn you in time?"

"Anne--what are you saying?" He came to her side, trying to force her gently back. "I know nothing of Mrs. Barclay's coming--she will tell you herself----" He looked towards Sigrid, standing white and still in the centre of the room, and his voice shook with anger. "Mrs. Barclay--explain to my wife--and to me----"

But Anne freed herself from his hands.

"Please--don't ask her to perjure herself. I don't believe you, Tristram--lies are nothing to you--and I shouldn't believe her. She didn't hesitate to try and take you from me before--a woman who can do that is bad----"

"It's not true," he broke in sternly.

"It is true. She told me so with her own lips. I wouldn't be here now if she hadn't confessed to me. You wouldn't have her--that's what she said. Now, I don't believe even that----"

She stopped, gasping for breath. Sigrid took a step forwards, and Tristram, as he saw her face, felt the anger go out of him. She also had tried to atone--to safeguard the happiness of a woman they had both wronged. It had been in vain, grotesquely, tragically in vain. But she had not spared herself.

She went past him, straight to Anne's side.

"Mrs. Tristram----" she began, "your husband has told you the truth. He knew nothing of my coming. I bring grave news----"

Anne shrank back from her.

"Tristram--tell her to go--I can't bear it--won't you do even that for me? I'm dying--you'll have time enough afterwards. You'll be happy with her then. Can't you give me this hour--tell her to go----"

He stood big and determined before her.

"You are unjust, Anne. And you are doing yourself harm----"

"Does that trouble you?"

"I tell you, you are unjust. At least, hear why Mrs. Barclay has come. She may have a message for us--perhaps from your father."

She laughed bitterly.

"You are very clever, Tristram. But I shan't believe her. I won't hear her----"

"You've got to," Sigrid interposed resolutely. "Mr. Meredith is dead. He has been murdered. I found him dying--and his last message was a warning to Tristram."

She had meant to cut short the ugly scene. There was no time to waste. One sentence was to save Anne the agony of a suspicion which seemed justified enough. But no relief came into the poor, passion-twisted features--only a more terrible change. Without a sound, Anne dropped back among her pillows. Her eyes were closed, the last atom of colour drained from her open lips.

Tristram bent over her, his hand on her pulse. The fear of that moment sickened him.

"Owen,--Owen----!"

The whispered name, warm with tenderness and grief, silenced them both. They could not look at each other. It was as though they had pried unwillingly into a secret which filled them with shame and a sense of tragic futility. She, too, had borne her burden--her share of their common error.

"Owen--Owen----!"

Sigrid touched Tristram's bowed shoulders. There was an odd diffidence in her touch, as though she had become afraid.

"I didn't know--how could I have known? Have I hurt her?"

"It seems our fate," he answered bitterly.

"I couldn't help it. There was no time to think. Something is very wrong. Rasaldu was missed yesterday. Then Meredith--and there was no one at the bridge. I came as fast I could--to warn you----"

He drew himself up painfully.

"It's no good. We can't leave here. You'd better go back to Gaya." He glanced quickly at her. Her ethereal pallor, the look of wan spirituality, smote him to the heart, and yet he spoke roughly. "You ought never to have come. Why didn't you return to Gaya at once?"

"He sent me," she said simply, like a child that has been reproached.

"He knew that Anne was here," he muttered. His eyes returned to the white, still face of his wife, as though he saw her for the first time. Sigrid's answer seemed to him no more than the whisper of his own thoughts.

"Perhaps I should have come anyhow."

"You won't be strong enough to ride back."

"Oh--yes--I am quite strong. It's as you said, Major Tristram--I think I shall live to be quite old."

He heard her turn to go. He remained motionless, his hands clenched at his side. No other words could have expressed more poignantly his own vision of the future, and yet he dared not answer, dared not look at her.

"Ask them to send help," he said thickly. His voice shook beneath the harsh self-repression. "You see--how it is--I can't leave here--I couldn't leave her here----"

"Yes--I understand--I'll send help." The door opened. Yet he knew that she still lingered. "Major Tristram--I'm afraid, somehow, it's too late."

He turned. He heard what she had heard.

"Close the door," he said quietly.

She obeyed. There was something inexpressibly gentle and docile about her. He remembered--not in thought, but in a vivid picture--how once before they had confronted each other in that selfsame place--he saw her resolute, defiant of life, splendidly self-assured. All that was gone. It was as though her physical being, her bodily vitality had been worn away, and that there was nothing left but the spirit, unbroken, yet intensely weary.

The sound of voices grew nearer. The cries, at first blurred into one, became separate, sharp, shrill notes played on the dull bass of the booming waters. Inarticulate though they were, they carried an unmistakable significance; they were cries of fear, more terrible, more pitiless than anger.

Tristram made a gesture of quiet understanding.

"Yes, it is too late," he said. "It's been working up to this. We shall have to face it together."

She assented silently.

"I can't do much. I haven't a weapon--not so much as a rusty revolver." He smiled grimly, remembering their first day together. "I shouldn't do much damage, anyway."

"I'm glad," she answered.

Their eyes met. They dared look at each other now. In that steady, passionless encounter there was acknowledgment and confession. They saw their visions of the future as realities and knew that they had been the creations of their despair. It was all impossible. They could not have gone on. They were exhausted. They had worn themselves out in the effort to bear their burden honourably, to break the rare mysterious decree which binds one being to another in defiance of all human law and circumstance. It was over. Soon they would be able to rest.

"If only Anne were safe!" he said.

"We must try and help her----"

He felt a hand on his sleeve. He looked down and saw that his wife's eyes were open. She clung to him.

"You won't leave me, Tris?"

"No, no, I promise you."

"I'm so frightened----"

He could not answer. The vain assurance died on his lips. He could only hold her hand in his, comforting her to the last. The door opened and he turned, facing whatever was to come.

Barclay entered; Vahana, at his heels, lingered sinisterly in the shadow, but Barclay strode straight forward, his arrogant eyes flashing from one face to the other. He held himself as he had always longed to hold himself--as the master, as the more than equal. He looked straight at Tristram, and in that steadfast regard there was satisfaction, an almost voluptuous foreknowledge of satiated passions.

"You are my prisoner," he said.

"Whom do you represent, Mr. Barclay?"

"The Rajah Ayeshi." He saw, or thought he saw, amusement in Tristram's eyes, and pointed to the open doorway--"and two thousand armed men."

"Is this Ayeshi's order?"

"It is my order--Rajah Ayeshi accepts my leadership."

"Then it was you who murdered Rasaldu and Mr. Meredith?"

He smiled.

"And others. Believe me, there will be no living white man or woman in Gaya by midnight--my wife excepted." He made Sigrid a little satirical bow. "In spite of circumstances, I am glad of the chance to make that exception. My wife will follow me."

"Your wife is waiting for you in Gaya," she answered. She felt rather than saw Anne lift herself on her elbow. She felt Tristram's movement and added simply: "Mr. Barclay was married years ago. My marriage with him was illegal, and I am free."

She did not see the ugly little smile quiver about Anne's lips. She held her ground, patient, content. She had broken the last link which held her to a loathed life. It was as though she breathed a fresher, purer air.

"That frees me from all responsibility, doesn't it?" Barclay suggested.

"Quite."

He hesitated. His minutes in the place were numbered. His ears, attuned to catch the first warning, reminded him of the remorseless, oncoming danger, and yet he faltered. A bitter taste of failure was in his mouth.

"You had better follow me, Tristram. Resistance is useless."

"As you will. I have only one request to make. Respect my wife. She is very ill."

Barclay shrugged his shoulders.

"A dying woman----? I can grant you that much."

But even in the midst of his brutal self-assertiveness, a merciless flash of intuition showed him himself as they saw him. His power slipped through his fingers. He looked from Sigrid to Tristram, and knew their immeasurable indifference to all that he could threaten. They were not afraid--almost--they were glad. He could not penetrate their mood--he only felt it as an intolerable hurt--a frustration of that madly aching desire in him. They stood aloof from him as they had always done. He could not reach them--the woman had shaken herself free from his very name as from something loathsome. To the last--ineffectual, beyond the pale. He had meant to strike--he had set them free.

He made a gesture, and Vahana closed the door. He came and stood close to Sigrid, staring into her face.

"Will you come with me?" he asked. She made no answer. He felt his lips trembling. "I could make you," he broke out.

"I think not."

"You mean that, sooner or later, you would escape me? I daresay. You are brave enough. But I ask you to come with me of your own free will--as my mistress--as anything on earth I choose--to share my life--whatever future I have--faithfully----"

"Aren't you wasting time, Mr. Barclay?" Tristram interposed.

Barclay remained with his eyes on Sigrid's face.

"If you will come with me, Sigrid, Major Tristram can go back to Gaya."

She seemed scarcely to hear him. He heard Tristram laugh.

"Isn't this all rather melodramatic, Barclay? Do you really imagine I am anxious to save my life on such terms? Why don't you get on with things?"

Barclay swung round on his heel.

"And does my offer really amuse you? Are you amused at the death of a score or so of your countrymen up there in Gaya? That's what it amounts to. Mrs. Boucicault is giving a dinner to the station tonight. In three hours' time, the regiment mutinies, and your friends will be wiped out without being able to lift a hand--unless you warn them. Is that amusing?"

He drew a deep breath of content. He had seen Tristram flinch. He had reached him at last, had forced him down from his heights to meet him in the equality of a life-and-death struggle. He could afford now to be patient and composed.

It was Sigrid who spoke. Her voice sounded curiously flat and lifeless.

"Why have you told us this?"

He turned to her.

"Because I am asking a great deal of you. This is not our old bargain, Sigrid. If you come with me, it must be on my own terms. I don't know where I am going--but I shall be an exile--an Eurasian outcast with a price on his head. And you have got to stick to me."

"And your wife? She believes that you care for her."

His hands were clenched.

"I have done with caring," he said harshly. "You've taken care that I shouldn't put love first in my life. Leave my wife out of this. Nothing concerns you but your own decision."

"And you are ready to sacrifice your plans----?"

"I am prepared to give Gaya a fighting chance," he interrupted sternly. "I do not pretend that it is more than that--perhaps not so much."

"If--if I consent, will you keep faith? Have you the power----?"

"I have the power. Ayeshi will consent to anything I suggest. Remember--I have to trust you, too----" He hesitated, and then added slowly: "I do trust you."

She made a groping, uncertain gesture.

"Tristram----"

But he threw back his head in defiance.

"It can't be. Gaya wouldn't be saved at such a cost."

"It isn't what Gaya would want--it's what we've got to do--we ourselves don't count."

"Your honour----" he burst out.

"What is honour?" she retorted finely. "By your own creed, Tristram--what other honour is there but our duty towards others?"

He fought against her, against the light which he saw gathering in her eyes--against himself.

"It's a hideous impossibility."

"The hideousness isn't ours. It isn't impossible."

"Decide--can't you?" Barclay flung at them.

Tristram turned to him with a gesture of immeasurable contempt.

"So you betray all your masters?" he said.

"I am the son of a betrayal," Barclay retorted, smiling bitterly. "Has that ever troubled you? Why trouble yourself now about me?"

Sigrid's eyes avoided Tristram's face. The grey horror of it shook her.

"It's as Mr. Barclay says--we've only got to consider our own actions."

"Then you've decided?"

"Is there any choice?" she asked sternly.

For one moment he hated her as a man hates the cause of an intolerable suffering. The next, he saw that she had outstripped him. She had taken the fundamentals of his life and built her own edifice upon them--a higher, finer edifice than his own.

"I see that there is no choice for you," he said, with a chivalrous resignation. "And you're right. We don't count."

He felt the hand in his tighten. He looked down into his wife's ashen face. Throughout she had not spoken--scarcely moved. Now the change in her startled him out of the stupefying absorption of his pain. He saw that she had ceased to be afraid, and that the malice and anger had gone from her. He saw her as she had been in her girlhood, in her first innocent, incredulous love of him. Her failing eyes were full of a deep, unearthly pity.

"Tris--you are both--very brave."

A groan burst from his lips.

"Anne--I can't leave you."

"You must. That is my little share in the sacrifice. I shan't be afraid now, Tris."

He knelt down beside her. She put her weak arms round his neck and kissed him. "Good-bye, husband."

"Little Anne--God keep you."

She smiled a little.

"I'm--sure--He--will."

Barclay moved impatiently. He saw that they had forgotten him.

"Will you come, Sigrid?"

She bent her head in assent.

"Then you can go your way, Major," Barclay said.

But it was as though the last weapon which his tortured pride had forged for him had shivered against an impregnable armour. They were great--these people--even in defeat--even Anne, little cowardly Anne--could face death alone and unflinchingly. He recognized that greatness with a last anguish. He had their blood in him. If they had turned to him, recognized him, appealed to him in the name of their common ancestry,--even then---- But they did not think of him. He was a whirlwind driving them apart to their separate destinies--an impersonal, soulless force--no more.

"Come!" he demanded violently.

Tristram gave Sigrid his hand. They took up their burden of life. It had become heavier; but they took it up. And for a while they would carry it. But in the end there would be rest. That was their message and their farewell.

Tristram went out into the rain-swept street--past Vahana, who looked up into his face and laughed.

Sigrid lingered. She drew shyly near the camp-bed with its little burden.

"Good-bye----"

But Anne stretched out her hand and drew Sigrid down to her and kissed her.

"Yours is the hardest part. I--judged--harshly. Forgive."

"There is no need--our ways have met in the end."

The door closed presently. It grew very still in the little hut. The voices and the clatter of hoofs faded in the distance. All other sounds sank into the deepening, growing call of the flood.

Anne lay still. Her eyes lingered on the shadowy furniture. Even now there was Wickie's old basket in the corner. Poor Tristram! She sighed faintly--wearily. Somehow now it was so much easier to understand--God was all-merciful.

It was growing dark. She tried to compose herself. The shadows were rising up all around her. She was not afraid. Owen would be there--he would be waiting for her--it would be just as it had always been--only more perfect.

She tried to fold her hands.

"Our Father which art----"

It was as though a great sea poured over her--engulfing her in its peace.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*TO GAYA!*

Tristram led Arabella out of her stable and spoke gently to her. He showed no sign of haste or trouble. He did not believe Barclay. He was convinced that there was no intention to allow him to leave Heerut living. Even Barclay could not betray his followers so openly. Yet he had no right to refuse the chance, and in the end it could make but little difference.

He mounted and walked Arabella down the centre of the flooded street. Across the western exit of the village, where the land lay highest, the two thousand had herded together like a pack of hunted wolves awaiting the signal from their leader. Ayeshi sat his horse a little in advance, with Barclay and the shadowy mendicant to his right. Tristram rode towards them unmoved. He held himself with his usual casual ease, a little loosely, with one fist stemmed against his thigh. There was no conscious bravado in the attitude. An instinct inherited from generations of men who had confronted the same enemy at the same odds taught him an unchallenging serenity. As he drew nearer, he looked full into Ayeshi's face and read in the sombre eyes the confirmation of his death. He might have spoken, made some appeal to the old memories that bound them, but something--perhaps the consciousness that for that moment he represented more than himself--held him sternly silent. Barclay smiled, but his eyes too, were overshadowed with a knowledge in which there was neither happiness nor triumph. Thus the three men met in a last encounter. For an instant they seemed to be alone--to be standing on a lofty plateau above the watching crowd, confronting each other with a tragic perception of something common to them all, and of a destroying, merciless destiny.

Then Vahana laughed, shrilly, exultantly, and it was over.

Tristram rode past Ayeshi. He reached the border of the crowd. Arabella hesitated and he touched her gently with his heels. She understood, and, understanding, became insolently irresistible. The first man whom she nosed aside hesitated, his hand on his knife. Tristram did not look at him. His eyes passed carelessly over the sea of upturned faces. He did not draw himself up. So he might have ridden among them on a feast day, or as they returned from their work on the plain. His expression was neither defiant, nor contemptuous. To the last even as he awaited death at their hands, he remained one of them, not judge or master or victim, but man among men. One step more. The sea closed in behind him. Would it come now? He knew that it would be in his back. Sooner or later the hypnotic spell which his presence threw over them would snap. Some hand, bolder, more resolved than the rest, would lift itself, and then the waves would close over him for ever. Yet as he rode on, winning each step, the tension of waiting relaxed. He forgot himself. Something rose up to him in that heated, foetid atmosphere of a passion-ridden humanity. It enveloped him with a deeper knowledge of their dim strivings, of their dimmer hopes, and great fears. He saw in their revolt only a thwarted desire, a piteous clinging to the only faith they knew, in their hating cruelty only the curse under which all men, struggling blindly towards their vision of the future, flood their path with the blood of their brothers.

He did not pity them. The burden of their life was his. He forgot himself as the individual. He was part of the universe, part of all life. The instinct in him was to hold, out his hands to them in recognition--in acceptance of their common destiny.

He did not know that his face had changed as he rode slowly forward, nor that the faith which burnt up in him shone in his eyes. He only knew that suddenly it was over. The last wondering, questioning face flashed past him. He was out in the open--free.

Arabella broke into a canter. He pulled her back to a walk. The time had not yet come. They would recover now. Some of them had rifles. They would use them. There must be no sign of flight, of fear.

Ten yards--twenty--fifty--still nothing. Another pace or two, and he stood on a hillock, his body, as he knew, sharply outlined against the light. He drew in deliberately. Still nothing. He went on. He was hidden now. He called to Arabella, and then they were galloping towards Gaya.

Three hours and fifteen miles of bad road--perhaps partly flooded. So far there was only mud, into which Arabella sank up to the fetlocks, but down on the plain itself there would be morass--in places water. His mind foresaw each mile, each obstacle. If it could be done, Arabella would do it. No thoroughbred had her pluck and stamina. But it would be a close finish. Night was coming on. It would be dark within an hour. He would have to rely on his instinct to guide him. The lights of Gaya would not carry half a mile through the rain which fell in a finely woven curtain from the loaded sky.