Part 13

The first few days at sea helped her father, but the improvement did not last. They travelled very leisurely, sometimes stopping over a ship in different ports. It was with a quickened heart that the woman saw the Indian coast again after several years. Routledge was intricately identified with the India of her mind now, and she knew that somewhere in India he was living out his exile. Always in those days and nights of watching and labor with the sleepless old man who was leaving her hourly, with the accelerated speed of a river that nears its falls, she was thrilled with the hope that Bombay or Madras or Calcutta would give her some living word of the outcast. She hardly hoped to see Routledge; but with a triple hunger she yearned to hear that he lived, even to hear his name uttered by some one in whom the mystery had inspired hatred.... But the Indian ports furnished nothing concerning Routledge. They revived, however (and in her maturity), the half-formed impressions of her girlhood on the Anglo-Indians and their life. To observe and despise certain aspects of the ruling people was as certain a heritage from her father as was that fairer evolution of the spirit with which she had been blest by some elder lineage.

The English at Home, Noreen had ever regarded with a mental reservation, or two; and with those telling, divining eyes which are not rarely filled with Irish light. She had repressed and even tried to root out an instinctive animus for certain monuments and institutions large in British life; she tried constantly to shut her eyes to that quarry of self-infatuation, perdition deep, from which these monuments and institutions were carved. She came to triumph over her critical impulses at home, partly because her incisive barbs were dulled by constant contact and repetition--but India again after the few vital years of growth!... Londoners might forget themselves for an hour or two a day on the Thames. They allowed it to be taken for granted an hour or two a day at Home that they were English. In India, they were more English than the English.

It must not be forgotten that Noreen Cardinegh’s mind was the arena of interminable rebellion against the banishment of Routledge. All Englishmen of rank arrayed themselves in contrast to him. She knew that this was wrong, useless; that the energy which spent itself in contrasting to the disfavor of the English, reacted with a hurt to her own finest nature, but she could not help it now. As a daughter of Jerry Cardinegh, she could not be free from something of his passion; moreover, body and brain, she was spent in his service. There were vast areas of unhealed tissue within her--the agony of a daughter of strong devotion, and the agony of a woman whose romance is mined and countermined. So it was a weary and supersensitive nature that caught its new series of impressions of Anglo-Indian life--the life of pegs and chits; men moving in a circle like those lost in the woods; men speaking of their livers as of members of the family; hot, heavy dinners; the religious, life-and-death ceremony of eating and drinking; the arrogant assumption of superiority over the native, and each separate foreigner a cyst of the great British drain! Such were the men of the Indian ports to whom the name of Cosmo Routledge was as black magic. It all came back to her like an ugly dream, and it is not strange that she returned speedily to her ships to cleanse herself from her thoughts in the prophylactic sea-winds.

A day north out of Hong Kong on one of the Empress steamers, Noreen drew her chair to a sheltered place on the promenade to rest an hour. The afternoon was keen and renovating after the slow days of heat in the Indian Ocean. Two Americans were standing at a little distance, and one was speaking with animation. A sentence of his reached the woman’s ears from time to time, between boisterous rushes of wind.... “One of the best talkers I ever heard in my life.”... “No personal hate about it.”... “Literally quartered England and fed her to the pigs.”... “No, wouldn’t give me his name, but I learned it.”... “When I mentioned his name afterward to an Englishman, he turned pale, as if I had turned loose the devil.”... “Speaking of famine conditions, this Routledge----”

Mr. Jasper, whose Indian studies had been put aside for the time by the pressing call of human interest to Tokyo, turned quickly just now at the touch of a hand upon his sleeve, and found a woman whose face he is still remembering--even as he enjoys recalling all the words and phrases of the mysterious stranger of Rydamphur.

“Forgive me, sir,” Noreen panted, “but I could not help overhearing something you said. You--you mentioned a name that is very dear to me--Routledge!”

“I did--yes. A man I met in Rydamphur, of the Central Provinces of India. Excuse me, did you say he was dear to you?”

“Yes.”

“That is so queer--a rather pleasant surprise for me. Others have felt differently about Routledge. Are you sure you mean this man--a very tall fellow of thirty-three or thirty-four, with a thin, dark, striking face, and a striking way of putting things in words?”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly.

Jasper offered his card.

“I am Miss Cardinegh, Mr. Jasper. Won’t you please tell me all that you can about him. It means so much to me.... Shall we go into the reading-room?”

Jasper assented, begging leave from his companion.... They sat down together, and the American restored Rydamphur from memory. Since he had thought much of his day and night in that little centre of suffering, he built the picture rather well. He described the manner of Routledge, and related a few of the famine facts as he had drawn them in that evening-hour at the Rest House.

“As I look back on it all, there is a queer atmosphere about the whole affair,” said Jasper. “Such a place I never have known, as that little dining-room in Rydamphur. Mr. Routledge seemed to grasp at once that my interest was sincere. His mind was filled with the pith of things I wanted to learn. No Englishman seemed to be able to talk impersonally on the famine.... I’ll never forget the baking night in that house. The punkahs jerked every moment or so, as if the coolie had stopped to scratch himself. There was a cat-footed servant hanging about, and the lamps were turned low--as if a bright flame could not live in that burned air.”

Mr. Jasper took evident pleasure in the intensity of interest his narrative inspired. “But first I must tell you, Miss Cardinegh,” he went on, “that just as I entered the town in the afternoon, I passed a little hut with an open door. The breath that came out to me, I’ll not attempt to describe: only to say that there was in it more than realism. I had come far to see a real famine, and this was my first lesson. A few steps on from the hut, I turned to see a white man coming out. It was not Mr. Routledge, but a smaller man, dressed in native garb. I have thought much of his face. It had a look as if all the tragedies that a man can know had beaten upon it; and yet it was so strong and so calm.... It was all like a dream to me. Then this wonderful talk with Mr. Routledge at dinner. Afterward, I asked his name, but he withheld it laughingly--in such a way that I took no offense--only wondered at it.”

“But you learned his name----”

“Yes, I will tell you. That night after he left me, I went to my room and thought a long time on the things he had said. I remember one of his sayings impressed me greatly--that we of the occident had learned to suffer only through our excesses--but India through her famines. He intimated that the latter process is better for the soul.... It was too hot to think of sleep, so I went out to walk in that still, stricken place. At the far end of the street, I saw a candle-light and heard the voice of a white man. And that voice I shall never forget--so low was it, so thrilling and gentle. I remember the words--they were printed on some inner wall of my brain. This is what the voice said:

“‘... Night and morning, I shall send you my blessing, Routledge, my brother. Morning and evening, until we meet again in the Leper Valley, you shall know that there is a heart that longs for the good of your life and your soul. Good-by.’... I hurried back, lest it be thought that I was eavesdropping. The man who spoke was the white man in native garb who had emerged in the afternoon from that hut of unburied dead. The man whom he addressed as ‘Routledge’--and thus I learned his name--was the one who had talked to me so brilliantly at dinner. A third sat in the candle-light--a very aged Hindu.... It is all very memorable to me, Miss Cardinegh.”

Again and again he told the story, or parts of it, to the woman; also of the doings of Routledge the next morning, before the English came. Noreen thanked him brokenly at last and hurried back to her father’s state-room. Mr. Jasper saw very little of the lady during the rest of the voyage, and lost her entirely at Shanghai, where in stopping over he is left behind the movement of the present narrative--a worthy, growing American who will have much to tell his sister of Madras and the interior, in spite of missing the illustrious Annie Besant, pronounced “_Bes_sant” for esoteric reasons.

The incident was like oxygen to the tired woman. Nearing Shanghai, the _Empress_ steamer nosed the winter zone, and Jerry Cardinegh was not well enough to go ashore. Noreen had shopping to do, and took the afternoon launch up the river for an hour in the city. Snow was falling. On the Bund, Noreen encountered Finacune, who had come down from Tokyo to get a glance at affairs from the outside. He declared that little or nothing was to be learned in the Japanese capital. Already the nation was constructing an impenetrable atmosphere about her great war. Finacune was going back on the _Empress_. As the time was short, they parted to attend their several errands, planning to meet at the launch later.

With her parcels, Noreen hurried back from the shops to the Bund in the winter twilight. Finacune, who had not seen her, was fifty feet ahead, also making for the water-front. She saw him stop short, stare for an instant at the profile of a huge, gaunt figure--in the great frieze coat! It was then that the mighty leap of her heart forced a cry from her throat.... Routledge, staring out over the darkening river, started at her voice and the touch of her hand. For a moment he pressed his fingers against his eyes as if trying to shut out some haunt from his brain. Then he, spoke slowly:

“I did not think that there were substances fine enough in the world to make a woman so beautiful----”

“Routledge-san! Oh, God, there is only a moment or two!”

“I should not have been here,” he began vaguely. “Some one may see you talking with me.”

“Don’t speak of that!... Oh, words are such puny things now! I thought we understood each other about that. Tell me, are you ill? You look----”

“No, not ill, Noreen. I shall be tiptop when I get up yonder into the field.... You startled me. I think I was in a kind of dream about you, and then you----” The old dread returned to his mind. He wondered if the man who had passed had been Finacune. “Are you alone? I wouldn’t have anybody see you talking to me.”

All that was in her heart was called forth by the spectacle of her giant’s pallor and seeming weakness. Proudly she put all this into words:

“I would not care if the whole world saw me with you. It is the same with me--as I told you on the way to Charing Cross! What you may think--does not make me afraid. You have done no wrong. I want to be with you--but the time is not yet come. It is dreadful. Why do you forget all that we told each other--all that I told you?”

“I have not forgotten,” he said huskily. “The scars of that hour in the carriage--leaving you that hour--would not suffer me to forget, but I should not speak this way. I wrong you speaking this way. I am only a world-tramp between wars.... And this war I must watch alone--from the edge where the others do not go. God, what a coward I should be--to chance your happiness----”

The launch whistled--a tearing in her brain. The call to her father was instant and inexorable.... But she clung to Routledge--drew him to the very edge of the stone-pier, blind to the glances of men and women who brushed by.

“Quick, tell me of Jerry!” he said. “Is he out for the war?”

“My father is dying a slow death out yonder on the ship. I must go to him. Already he is dead to wars and friends--all but dead to me!” She added imperiously, “When my work is finished with him, I shall keep my promise, Routledge-san. I shall come to you!”

“No--I’m going where you could not follow----”

“I shall find you!”

“But I have nothing between wars--no British press now, Noreen--only a begging-bowl in India. Why, my name is a whispered hate!... Just a begging-bowl in India, Noreen--and your sweet faith in me.”

She was splendid in the ardor of her answer:

“That begging-bowl in India--I shall carry and share with you! I shall take for mine--that name of whispered hate!... Routledge-san, you have done no wrong--but I should love you, if you led the armies of the world--to burn London!”

He helped her aboard, as the bow was putting out into the river. “In a time like this there are not big enough words for you, Noreen Cardinegh.”

“Oh, Routledge-san,--until I come, take care of your life for me!” she called.... Then, fearless, full-voiced, she added, standing in the snowy dusk: “And when I come--I shall take care of your life for you--even in the Leper Valley!”

He watched her through the big, slow-falling flakes, until the launch disappeared behind the white stern of an American gunboat.

FIFTEENTH CHAPTER

NOREEN CARDINEGH APPEARS AFTER MIDNIGHT IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM OF THE _IMPERIAL_--AN INEFFABLE REMEMBRANCE

Finacune caught a train for Tokyo, after disembarking at Yokohama, an hour or two before the Cardineghs. He wanted to prepare the way at the Imperial for the coming of the dean and his daughter. It was dark when he reached Shimbashi station and crossed the _Ginza_ to the now-famous hotel. Certain of the English correspondents were gathered in the lobby, it being not yet time to dress for dinner. These Finacune beckoned to the billiard-room, and, standing at the head of the farthest table, glanced over the faces to be sure that none but the trusted British were present. Then he whispered impressively:

“Scene: the Bund at Shanghai, snowy twilight; time, five days ago. Looking out upon the darkening river, ‘... a face thin as a dead camel’s and yellow-white like coral!’ That’s one of his own sentences, and God pity or punish the sorrow of his face--as you like----”

“Cut out the scenario,” ordered Bingley. “Who was it?”

“The great frieze coat.”

Bingley was first to break the silence.

“Nice raw state of affairs,” he remarked savagely. “I s’pose he has caught on with one of those fluttered newspapers of New York. They are grabbing up anybody over here, even the remittance-men, so they won’t have to pay expenses out. Rather raw deal, I call it,--to be forced to ride with a traitor in this campaign.”

It was the austere Feeney who answered darkly, “Recall, ‘Horse-killer,’ that Routledge rides alone.”

“I can’t see yet why the secret service doesn’t delegate a man to _get_ him,” Bingley whispered.

They had not heard that a venture of the kind had failed at Madras.

“There is a time for all things,” Feeney replied. “England never forgets a man like----”

“Are you quite sure of the face you saw?” inquired Benton Day, the new man of the _Review_. His tone was troubled. His work was cut out for him--to keep up the war-reputation of the old paper of fat columns.

“Surely,” Finacune said cheerfully, “unless the bottom dropped out of my brain-pan.”

Trollope sniffed ponderously, and was about to comment when the little man of the _Word_ resumed:

“Also, I am permitted to say--and this with a great and sweet joy--that our dean, war’s own favorite, Jerry Cardinegh, came up with me from Shanghai on the _Empress_, and that he will be here to-night with his daughter, Miss Noreen.”

The announcement was acclaimed.

“I heard he was coming,” said Feeney, “but how am I to meet the old champion--me, holding down his old chair-of-war on the _Witness_.”

“He’ll never think of it,” said Finacune. “Old Jerry is nearly out of sight--over the bay. He didn’t leave his state-room coming up--only let me see him once. His daughter is with him day and night. The old man thought he’d like to get into the zone of war once more--before he goes out on the last campaign, where we all ride alone.”

It is to be observed that the little _Word_ man did not tell all he saw on the Bund at Shanghai.

The men repaired to the buffet to break the strain. Those were heavy days--those early February days in Tokyo. War was inevitable, but not declared. Tokyo was sort of pleased at her own forbearance. The vaccine of European civilization had worked with fullness and dispatch. Here was proof: the Russian minister had been allowed to clear, double-eyed and teeth still straight. The mobs in the street did not profess to understand the value of allowing the enemy to depart personally intact--but it was being civilized. The world was watching the young yellow nation’s first venture in _humane_ war; after which, if she conducted herself prettily, the world would be pleased to admit her into the first flight of the powers, where all things having to do with economy, polity, expansion, revenue, and survival are done in a finished fashion. England was watching--and stood behind her. Japan must conduct herself in such a way as not to drag England into the conflict.

Japanese infants played soldiers; Japanese policemen played soldiers; rickshaw coolies, beneath the contempt of a soldier, dreamed of future incarnations when they should evolve into soldiers; Japanese merchants snuffled, rubbed their damp hands together, and wept internally because the Great Wheel of Fate had not skited them off into the military class, instead of among the low-brows of the shops. And the soldiers themselves--how they strutted and performed in the streets, critically mirroring each other and bowing profoundly, blind to all glory and sorrow not of the soldier, and important as a grist of young doctors just turned loose with their diplomas among the ills of the world.... Aye, funny and pitiful, the young Power looked in its Western pants and guns.

What did England think--smiling back at the peace of her Indian borders--of these wee, wet-nosed, scabby-headed Islanders (with their queer little cruet-stands buckled between their kidneys), in full cry with “Banzai Niphon” from cape to cape? What England thought was not what England said, as she reserved the front pages of her daily press for Japanese victories--whether or no. Not exactly an ally in spirit was wise old England, but an ally in letterpress--the veriest Titan of a press-agent.... Funny and pitiable indeed was the ranting, tramping Japanese infantry in the streets of Tokyo--funnier than stage infantry--quite like string-pulled marionettes of _papier maché_; but let the truth be told, the truth that rises clear from the final adjustment of objects in the perspective: The oil of all the chlorates, nitrates, and fulminates filled those queer little kidney-cruets; and these same little Japanese infantrymen proved packages--_papier maché_ packages, if you like--of lyddite, bellite, cordite, romite, hellite, and other boiled-down cyclones.

* * * * *

On one of those ugly gray afternoons of early February, Benton Day of the _Review_ received a cablegram from his chief in London, Dartmore. There are few men who would express themselves ironically by cable at the London-Tokyo rate of toll. Dartmore did it, and the message follows, with flesh and organs added to the cipher-skeleton:

The _Review_ thought you would be interested to know that Japan has declared war and smashed part of the Russian fleet. This news from New York. Kindly inform Tokyo war-office, which I understand is just a step from your hotel.

Benton Day had come up from common things by strong, hard, well-planned work. He had known few defeats, and these cut deeply. The cable from Dartmore was the worst whipping of his career. Gray with shame, he sought the billiard-room of the hotel, where he found an animated group of British and American correspondents who had just heard the news--ten hours after it had been printed in London and New York. He found that Dartmore alone had taken pains to be ironical in the matter. The truth was exactly as ungetatable in Tokyo as in Mombassa--until the war-office chose to give it up. Benton Day was only to blame in so far as he was not a telepathist. This knowledge eased him greatly, but did not detract from his anger at Dartmore--an emotion which is bad for a young man to take out on his first big campaign. The little sentence in the cablegram regarding the fact that London had received the news from New York, held big interest for Feeney, the saturnine.

“Japan was busy last night,” he communed. “Her Mr. Togo smashed the Russians off Port Arthur, and her little Mr. Uriu, off Chemulpo. It’s about time,” he added with a trace of Indiana humor, “Japan was declaring war. But the thing that gets me is, how did New York know?... Finacune, my young friend, was it you who suggested something about the great frieze coat catching on with New York papers?”

* * * * *

Harrowing weeks at the Imperial followed, while armies augmented, navies fought in the dark, and the bearers of the light of the world made newspaper copy out of heathen temples and Japanese street scenes. Free lances fled to outer ports, there to hearken unto the tales of refugees and weary the world. And the names of these, the Japanese carefully ticketed to Failure, and severed from Opportunity forever.

The Blue Boar, Trollope, wore best of all. He bathed in many springs throughout the empire, peeked into strange quarters of both capitals, and ate and drank after the fashion of those who are formed of arcs and not of angles. From time to time he cabled his paper three words of hope, and eight words of expense account. Trollope strolled down the menus in all parts of Niphon--native and European menus--with fine relish, and waited serenely for the time when he should lean and harden in the field, his sleeves rolled up--one hand covering the strategy of armies, the other at a cable-end, and his sweating face reflecting the pink and pearly flush of fame.

It was not so with the others. Finacune was ragged and restless. The pale Talliaferro looked twice for his own shadow. Feeney’s dark fighting-face wasted and hardened, until it seemed hewn from a block of brown bone; and Trollope’s serene and changeless calm wrought upon Bingley’s nerves like an active poison.

These two did not pretend to speak at the last. The Horse-killer took on the look (his gray eyes were cold and immutable as corner stones, anyway) as if he would spur over a sea of dead men’s faces to get a big tale and a free cable. It would not have been so bad except that the London papers, coming in now with the first cables of the correspondents, showed a consistent garbling and distortion of their reports. Home writers occupied miles of space, placed Togo along with Lord Nelson, and Mutsuhito with Gladstone--a deep planned, conscienceless campaign of fact-mutilation for the extolling of Japanese character and mettle. New York, young in war-handling, was inclined to follow London’s diplomatic lead, against the reports of her own men. February and March ended before the first batch of the British correspondents were informed that they could take the field with Kuroki’s first army.