Part 14

His voice failed, and died into a shaken silence. The reptile, lying with its head on the back of Vahana's fleshless hand, held the Eurasian in the malevolent circle of its watchfulness. Its beady, unflinching eyes neither appeared to move nor to be fixed on any definite object, yet when Barclay shifted his position they did not leave his face. Thus they remained, staring at each other. Vahana had sunk into an apparent apathy of meditation. But it was no more than an appearance. Between the three there was now a living, feverish communication.

Barclay roused himself at last.

"Look here--I didn't come here for this tomfoolery. Look at this. It was my mother's. Some one--Lalloo the Kara--told me a tale about it. Said it belonged to--to your wife. I want to know. I want to know who the devil I am. If it's true then I shall know."

Vahana glanced at the gold circlet held out towards him. The adder hissed furiously and he whistled it back to its sluggish content. But he had nodded in assent, Barclay drew his breath between his teeth.

"So that much was true. I've got to think this out. I'm not your son. I've good English blood in my veins, I've known that since I was a kid. If it was Tristram, senior----" He stopped. Vahana had lifted his head, and the change in him struck Barclay silent for a moment. Then, gathering his determination, he added rapidly, scarcely above a whisper--"whom you murdered."

But it seemed that the Fakir had not heard, or that if he had heard the words reached him only as an echo, a shadow of something terrible and actual. The change in him was indefinable. He had scarcely moved. Yet Barclay stared at him stupidly, and a moment looked round to follow the gaze of the fierce expressionless eyes. Then he, too, became silent.

A horseman rode along the river-bank. Evidently he had come some distance, for the nose of his amazingly lean, steed grazed the ground and he himself hung in the saddle. As he passed he turned his head towards the temple, but either the sun, setting with long upward striking rays behind the hills, blinded him, or the watchers were too well hidden in the shadow of the gateway. He did not see them, and, coaxing the dejected quadruped to a canter, disappeared presently in the direction of Heerut.

"Tristram Sahib by the grace of God!" Barclay muttered. "Tristram Sahib!" He repeated the name, pressing into it a restrained bitterness which suddenly burst from him in a wild incoherent deluge. "Sahib--Sahib! Good God--and what am I--with blood as good as his--his blood--Meester Barclay, eh?--damn him--damn them all. What right has he got to treat me like dirt--or any of them? What right? Aren't I one of them? Have I got to pay for their low, mean sins--their little, back-door intrigues? I'm English too--it's their law--why don't they keep to their laws, damn them----"

His voice quivered. He broke down pitiably. It was as though a garment which he held jealously about him had been torn from him and with it his manhood, his mincing, insolent, yet timorous pride. As he crouched there, the tears of mortification and rage on his cheeks he underwent a mysterious change. The over-perfect English clothes no longer disguised him. They had become grotesque.

Vahana looked at him, looked long and intently, and then at the bracelet lying between them. He touched Barclay on the arm, and with his forefinger began to write in the thick dust.

*CHAPTER XVI*

*A MEREDITH TO THE RESCUE*

In the belt of fertile land about Heerut the work of irrigation for the _khareef_ had already begun. Half-naked men and women in gay-coloured _chudders_ laboured in the slanting ruts which stretched down from the river and criss-crossed over the wide fields in a maze of intricate cunningly calculated lines. They worked in complete silence, like a colony of ants, hurrying backwards and forwards, their lean, fragile-looking bodies bent under crushing burdens of freshly turned earth, their faces set in patient acceptance. So much depended on the _khareef_--a meagre sufficiency or a dearth that was always complete--an avalanche of famine sweeping whole communities from existence. Not that life or death was of much significance. They fought for life half instinctively, half because the Sahibs willed it so. It was a hard business either way, and that much they realized dimly.

Tristram drew rein to watch them. Beyond the river the white ungarnered corn lay in its silver fields awaiting its long-delayed hour. He remembered how in the winter months all Heerut had laboured at its irrigation--even as they laboured now--thinking of the harvest. And now the harvest was there and had begun to rot. Disease and the dreaded, docilely accepted quarantine had stayed the hands which should have gathered it. Now those who survived turned to the more pressing task--to the crumbling canals which were to bring life to the summer rice-crop. What was lost was lost. The past was past; but the grim, forbidding shadow of the future remained always.

Therein lay the tragedy of the unresting, patient figures--the labour that was so often foredoomed to fruitlessness, the struggle against an enemy who could never be wholly vanquished, the hope of a victory that could never be more than a breathing-space, a mere margin of life. But the greater tragedy was their patience, their passive acceptance of life as suffering.

It was that tragedy which Tristram saw as he watched them. For him it blotted out what was lovely and full of promise in the scene--the gay colours, the rich, deep sunlight on the fruitful fields, the semblance of prosperity. It made his greeting to those who passed him somewhat grim and less cheery than was its wont. The men and women nodded to him and smiled gravely in return. There was no formal, deferential salutation such as the Burra Sahib would have expected and received. He was less and greater than any of the Sahibs who ruled their destinies, and they merely smiled at him. No other man was to them what he had become. Rough and ready of tongue, imperious sometimes, occasionally ruthless, he yet was never the representative of a ruling race. Other Sahibs they feared and worshipped--the great warriors, the myth figures of the rulers beyond the unknown, but Tristram was the man of their daily lives, of their great sorrows and little happinesses, the man who sat under the council-tree at night and listened to the last village scandal, or to some wonderful tale told by the village story-teller, who tracked his way down the contaminated stream of their faith to its pure source and drank with them. And they who had known little of pity and less of love came through him to a dim, faltering knowledge.

Through the busy stillness there sounded a shrill trumpeting and the rustle and crack of the high grasses before swift and headlong passage of an elephant. Tristram drew Arabella to one side. Already in the distance he had seen the glitter and flash of the Rajah's gaudy howdah, and was not unprepared for the procession which, now bore down towards the river. There were five elephants in all, the first showily caparisoned with a mahout in splendid livery, the others more seriously equipped for the hunt. Rasaldu and his guest, the new Colonel, whose face was overshadowed by his helmet, rode in the first, and, seeing Tristram, nodded with a cheerful condescension and held up two fat fingers to indicate the success of their expedition. Then the procession rumbled past like a noisy, gorgeous carnival of life leaving a cloud of sullen dust and the grey bed-rock of reality.

An old man who had taken refuge under Arabella's lee put up a palsied hand and pointed in fierce scorn after the disappearing Rajah.

"His father--a cowherd----" he stammered. "His father served mine and betrayed him to the English."

Tristram nodded.

"And the Rajah who then was?"

"Dead, Sahib."

"He left no heirs?"

The sunken eyes were lifted for a moment.

"Sahib, there are things we do not even whisper among ourselves." Then his expression changed. It was as though a vizor had dropped over his shrivelled features. With bowed head he shuffled towards a group of villagers who had gathered farther off, and Tristram, becoming uncomfortably aware of a third presence, turned in his saddle. He saw then that, under cover of the procession's passing, he had been overtaken by a second horseman whose delicately built Arab showed traces of hard and recent galloping. The rider lifted his brown hand in formal salutation.

"I was loafing round the temple when I saw you pass, Major," he said easily. "It occurred to me that our long-planned interview might take place now and here. Are you agreeable?"

"If you wish it."

"May I ride with you?"

"Are you going to Heerut?"

Barclay showed his white teeth in a brief smile.

"I hope so."

There was a moment of uncertainty on Tristram's side. He stroked Arabella's long neck thoughtfully.

"Still, I think we'd better say what we want to say now. Your mare looks pretty winded--mine's all in. It won't hurt to breathe them both."

"As you like," Barclay answered. His manner was touched with a certain tremulousness which might have resulted from his rash gallop through the treacherous grass. But otherwise there was no trace of the man who had broken down at the temple gateway. "Look here," he began abruptly, "do you think you're playing the game, Major Tristram? What's your idea? What have I done to you? We don't need to beat about the bush. I know quite well whom I'm up against. I tell you straight--I've got a short way with people who oppose me--I smash them. But I don't smash till I've tried reason. Why don't you let my affairs alone?"

Tristram stirred impatiently in his saddle.

"I'm not interested in your affairs, Mr. Barclay, except in so far as they concern my friends."

"Friends!" Barclay laughed out with a forced good-humour. "And what have I done to your friends, pray? Look around you. Look at these rotten crops. Well, I've lent good money on these crops--lent it to your precious proteges. When am I going to see my money back?"

"When you want to," Tristram returned. "Next harvest, or as soon as the poor devils get a cow they can call their own--and fifty per cent. into the bargain."

Barclay shrugged his shoulders.

"Fifty per cent. covers the risks--no more."

"Then it's a pity you bother yourself."

"That's your idea of humour, no doubt, Major. But I'm dead serious. I know what you've done. You've set these people against me. You've used your influence to prevent my doing business with them. I've no doubt you used your power to terrify them."

Tristram laughed gaily.

"I did that," he admitted. "I believe they think you're the devil himself."

"And you think that's fair? What right had you----?"

"I don't care to see people paying fifty per cent. interest."

"Very well. But what's going to happen? You're so damned thoughtful for your friends--perhaps you'll tell me what's going to happen to them. Those weavers--at Heerut and Bjura and all round--they're smashed. No one will touch their stuff for a year at least. Are they going to starve--or are you going to advance them money out of your screw?"

Tristram looked up, his blue eyes resting calmly and even with a certain amusement on the other's dark and bitter face.

"In a sort of way--at least I'm getting the Government to take a hand."

"You--you did that?"

"I'm trying to. You're quite right. I've done all I can to keep you and your agents out. I'm a doctor, and the material conditions of my people concern me. I've seen some of your business methods, and I think you're unhealthy, Mr. Barclay."

Barclay contained himself with a desperate effort.

"My word, that may be truer than you think. I'm unhealthy to people who get in my way. Look here, Major Tristram--I don't want to use the screw--after all, we're Englishmen in a foreign country, and it's our infernal duty to hang together--but I won't be kicked out of things like that. I give you fair warning to leave my preserves alone, and I'll tell you why. I know things--I know something that would----" He stopped short. Tristram's eyes were still on his face. They had neither flickered nor lost their quizzical good-humour.

"Well, what do you know? It's rather funny, but we both seem to have found out something detrimental about each other. For instance, though this is only our second meeting, I'm convinced that you're a thorough-paced blackguard, Mr. Barclay."

"That may be. My father was one."

"I'm sorry."

"You have good reason to be sorry." His lips were quivering. He burst out ungovernably. "You have your share in him."

"Mr. Barclay----"

"Tristram--that's what my name should be. Your father was mine----"

"Is that your attack, then?"

Barclay put up his hand as though to hide his unsteady mouth.

"No," he said. "It is not. But it is the truth. I can prove it. I guessed it some time back, but I wasn't certain. Your--our father, lived in my bungalow. It was there he was murdered--he and my mother by her husband. How much you know----"

"I didn't know that," Tristram put in quietly. He looked away from Barclay, and the latter, watching him with a fevered anxiety, saw that the fine hand lying on Arabella's neck had lost its absolute steadiness. "You must prove it."

"I can do so."

"If it's true--then I'm sorry--sorry I spoke as I did. You've had the beastliest luck--I beg your pardon."

He lifted his head again. The white gravity of his face lent the rather boyish words a sincerity which Barclay recognized with an inward faltering of his anger. For a vivid instant the two men touched spiritually, or met on some common ground of emotion--then broke apart.

"I don't want pity," Barclay exclaimed childishly, bitterly.

"I didn't offer you pity. Or if I did--I meant it for us both. It's not as bad--but I was rather proud of my father. My mother--we'll leave that out. And, anyhow--I suppose it's a small thing compared to what he did to you. It was a pitiless thing to do." He hesitated, and then added, with a shyness which sat quaintly enough on his big manhood: "I suppose we're brothers, then?"

Barclay drew back from the outstretched hand. A mad impulse had almost driven him to grasp it and kiss it, but he crushed it under, shivering from head to foot in the violence of the revulsion.

"So you acknowledge the relationship?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"We'd better look the thing in the face. I'm an Eurasian, and illegitimate at that. Are you going to own me before your friends?"

"Yes. I don't care what you are by circumstance. Illegitimacy and race are nothing to me. A man's a man."

"That's not the law," Barclay returned sneeringly.

"And I don't care a fig for the law either," Tristram said with a faint smile.

Barclay was silent. A dull anger was kindling in him. It was a deeper, more dangerous passion than that which had driven him to strike before he had intended. It had its roots in their fundamental antagonism of character as it revealed itself now, in Barclay's failure to strike hatred out of a man he hated. For a moment whatever was fine in him had flashed up in response to Tristram's simple humanity, but that was gone, and there remained nothing but the galling recognition of an inferiority which was not that of race or circumstance. And with that recognition the little light he had within him went out.

"That's all very well," he said at last, "but it's just talk. It won't help me. If you did recognize me, neither of us would get anything out of it. I should have to leave Gaya, and you'd get into trouble. That's not my game. The only brotherly act I ask of you is to leave me alone."

"I have told you already I don't want to interfere. I've got to."

Barclay gnawed at his thick under-lip, holding himself in, calculating.

"Look here," he began again, "I guess I've inherited something from my mother besides my infernal colour--a sort of instinct--a knowledge of people. That night I met you at Sigrid Fersen's I found out something about you. I knew what was going on in you though you didn't know it yourself. I know what's wrong with you now. Well, I'll do the brotherly first. If you treat me fairly, you'll have nothing to fear from me--and besides that, I'll give you the straight tip--I know something of Sigrid Fersen. She wants the cream of life--it's a sort of religion with her. In London there wasn't a man or woman who could stand up to her in magnificence. There were the wildest stories told about her, and they were truer than most stories. She wouldn't stand this sort of thing--not if she were dying of love for you. Take my word for it--you'll want money--any amount of it--then you'll stand a chance with her----"

Tristram, urged by a sudden disgust, and an intolerable unrest, turned Arabella's head and touched her to a walk. But Barclay was beside him, leaning towards him, talking rapidly.

"Well, you can have money, Tristram"--and now he was using the Christian name with a deliberate purpose--"you can have as much as you need. I tell you this country is like an unworked mine. I'm going to work it. I'm going to be as rich and powerful as the pioneers in South Africa. These Anglo-Indian officials treat India as though it was a sort of toy--a kind of game against heavy odds. There isn't a business man among them. I'm a business man. And I'll take you into partnership--a sleeping partner with a quarter share and nothing to do but to sleep hard. I swear to you that in a year or two you can marry any one you please--I tell you she's hard up----"

Tristram pulled Arabella to a standstill.

"Don't talk like that," he blazed out. "I don't want to think you a scoundrel. If there is any blood common to us both I don't want to loathe it. You've had rough luck--it doesn't need to make you a cad."

"Doesn't it? I'm not so sure. What do you expect me to do?"

"Throw up this slave-driving business. I'll stand by you. I'll see you through, Barclay--whatever one man can do for another I will do----"

"Will you? Will you come and live with me in Calcutta--with my people--the only people who won't treat me as though I were a nasty cross between a human being and an animal--blowsy, feckless, shiftless outcasts--will you? Well, you might--you're credited with queer things of that sort, but it would do for you. Your white blood wouldn't stand it. Nor will mine. I've got to get away from them. It's our father in me. But there's nowhere for me to go. I've got to make my world--make it in blood and sweat if needs must. When I've money enough to buy up Gaya, Gaya will accept me fast enough."

Tristram shook his head.

"You said just now that we behaved as though we were playing a big game," he said. "You may be right. And good sportsmen can't be bought."

"Can't they? Well, we'll see. Meantime, if there's a word of sincerity in all you've said, either come in with me or keep out of my way. I can make you a rich man, Tristram; don't forget that."

"You're asking me to visit the sins of your father and mine on to thousands of these luckless people."

"Put it that way if you like. I'm going forward, whatever you do."

"Then I shall fight you with every atom of influence and power I have."

Barclay tore at his horse's mouth, dragging the animal round on its haunches so that he faced Tristram. Both men were breathing heavily as though the struggle between them had become a physical one. Barclay thrilled with a savage satisfaction as he saw that the man before him was as shaken as himself, black-browed, hot-eyed, with a mouth set like a vice behind the short beard.

"Then I'll smash you, Tristram--I've got reason enough to hate you without that--you've got everything--now I'll smash you--I can and I will----"

Suddenly Tristram's face relaxed. He broke into a big unaffected laugh.

"We're like two villains out of old Adelphi melodrama," he said. "We've made each other unacceptable offers and threatened each other, and now I suppose it's to be a fight to the finish."

Barclay nodded. The laugh had been more bitter than a blow. He turned his head away so that Tristram should not see the treacherous weakness of his mouth. Then with a muttered exclamation that was half a curse, half a sob of ungovernable passion, he gave his trembling mare her head and galloped recklessly back the way he had come.

Tristram looked after him until Arabella, of her own accord, resumed her patient amble towards Heerut. The darkness began its race over the plain and swept up the little shadows of the field workers as a wave sweeps up driftwood. They came together silently; in a weary, dejected stream resumed their trudge along the rough tracts, bearing Tristram on his gaunt steed in their midst like the high effigy of a god. Thus they brought him to the doors of his hut and there left him, each man creeping in the same ghostly silence to his own hovel.

Owen Meredith was seated at Tristram's carved table, reading by the light of an oil-lamp. Tristram had seen the reflection beneath the ill-fitting doorway, but first had settled Arabella for the night, talking cheerily to her and lingering over his task as though deliberately avoiding the moment when he should meet his unknown visitor. Now seeing Meredith, his face expressed something akin to relief. The two men greeted each other quietly, sincerely, but without effusion. They were men of equal moral rank but of a different spiritual race. They respected each other, but real intimacy was not possible between them.

"I thought you wouldn't mind my dropping in on you like this," Meredith said. "I've been doing a round of the villages, and it was too late to go on. Besides, I was dog-tired. I daresay that's my real reason." He closed his pocket Bible as he spoke and laid his hand on it. He had not spoken the whole truth, but of that fact he was not even dimly conscious. He told himself that it was only right to look in on this lonely man. Tristram nodded absently.

"I'm jolly glad to see you. I've got a shakedown for visitors. You won't mind eating off one plate, will you?"

"Thankful to eat anything."

"That's good." He began to rummage in his little kitchen at the back of the hut and returned presently with the plate and some preserves. "It's not much," he apologized ruefully. "I always forget about food until I'm hungry. And then I want to kick myself."

"I expect we'll manage. You're all alone now."

"Yes. No indoor patients. It's quite queer not having a paw or a wing to bandage up."

"You've never found poor Wickie."

The man seemed to shrink a little.

"No. I guess if the next life allows it, he's not far off, poor old chap. He wouldn't be happy in Paradise without me."

Meredith winced. It was the more painful to him because Tristram was obviously quite serious. To Meredith he seemed like a big, unconsciously blasphemous child.

"And Ayeshi--you must miss him, too."

"Yes." The answer sounded curt, but Meredith persisted. He had the feeling that, though Gaya's suspicions had been kept quiet for Tristram's sake, the latter knew more than he betrayed.

"It was rather queer of him, the way he went off in the middle of your illness. You thought he was so devoted."

"He was." Tristram spread out an old newspaper over the table. "You got the Rajah to subscribe for his education. Well, I suppose he's gone to be educated. It's what you wanted."

"I didn't expect him to go when he did."

"He had good reason. I trust Ayeshi. But what your education will make of him Heaven knows. A rotten, dissatisfied little clerk in a Government office, I suppose. A hundred years ago he would have been a king."

Meredith sighed wearily.

"I know you resented my interference. I've got to do what I can in my own way, Tristram."