Part 18

He knew the horror that had forced the appeal from her--the terror which can change a man's heart to water--the horror of those pitiless trampling feet--of those mad mob rushes under which a human body can be stamped out of recognition. He threw one arm about her. He no longer resisted. It was better to go on--to be forgotten. But the stench of those hot, dust-laden bodies sickened him. It was the smell of hatred--of madness. It sapped his strength. It was like the breathing in of a hideous poison.

They swept on. They had reached the densest part of the crowd. Above them he could see the golden image, swaying dangerously from the shoulders of its staggering bearers. A ray of red light from the sinking sun was on the face nearest to them. Its frozen cruelty seemed to have drawn life into itself--to be sucking up a horrible vitality from the very passions to which it had given birth. To Tristram's blurred vision the eyes blazed--the mouth gaped with a grotesque lust of hatred.

It was then he saw Meredith with his shoulders to the base of the altar, his arm raised, shielding his face. A half-naked fakir sprang at him and dragged the arm down, and Tristram saw what had been done. The face was blotted out with blood. The lips were moving. In one clenched hand was an open Bible. Through the hellish pandemonium Tristram caught a single sentence:

"Father, forgive them----"

Tristram flung the man in front of him aside. He had felt the tense revival of strength in his companion like an electric current through all his nerves. They had got to stand together--to go down with the man of their race, for good or evil uphold him.

"We're coming!" Tristram shouted. "Hold on!"

Meredith turned his head in their direction. Perhaps he saw them through the veil of blood. He made a gesture urging them back, and in the same instant the man whom Tristram had flung aside revealed his face.

It was Lalloo, the money-lender.

"Dakktar Sahib!" he said.

"Damn you--let me go past----!"

The old man smiled imperturbably, shrugging his shoulders. The whisper, "The Dakktar Sahib," ran like an undercurrent of sound beneath the screams and curses of the swaying, tossing multitude. A woman spat in Meredith's disfigured face. Tristram lurched forward, but already they had lost ground. Some new force had them in its grip. They were bound in a revolving circle of which Lalloo had become the pivot. Tristram looked about him. He recognized faces which seemed to have sprung from nowhere. There was Mehr Singh, the corn-dealer, and Seetul the weaver, Peru the village ne'er-do-well--men with whom he had lived and suffered. He cursed at them in their dialect, and they regarded him stolidly. He shook Lalloo fiercely with his free hand.

"Let us get out of this--I've got to get back to my friend--do you hear. I've got to help him--do you hear, you lying, grasping old man?"

Lalloo shrugged his shoulders.

The circle rolled on. Meredith and the shining figure of the three-faced god had gone down in the black tumult. The roar of voices began to fade like thunder, rolling faintly in the distance. A breath of fresh air fanned their faces. The circle broke suddenly scattering in all directions.

Tristram still held Lalloo by the shoulder.

"You--you saved us," he stammered thickly. "You saved us--didn't you know me better than that----"

Lalloo rubbed his thin dark hands and smiled vaguely.

"What have I done, Sahib?" he said. "What have I done?" And with an amazing facility freed himself and glided into the shadow of the deserted village.

They went on, not speaking, not looking at each other, sick with the horror of that which they had left behind them. At the door of Tristram's hut a man came running towards them. It was the captain of the native regiment, cursing volubly.

"Tristram--where the devil have you been? What's happened! What set them off?"

"Meredith--preaching the love of God to Siva."

"Oh, damn the parsons!" He mopped his face in helpless exasperation. "Well, I've had a nice time of it. Men vanished into thin air. They've been queer for months--now they've gone. Anyhow, I shall have to stick to it--overawe them with my presence and all that." Even in that moment, his English good-humour prevailed. "Give us a hand, Tristram--you've influence with them. What's happened to Meredith?"

"I don't know----"

"Well, we'll try and get him out. Miss Fersen, you stay quietly in there. There's no getting away just yet. If neither of us get back, there'll be relief from Gaya as soon as they get wind of this shindy. Come on, Hermit!"

Tristram held open the door for her.

"You won't mind my going? I may be able to help----"

"I want you to go. I am not afraid."

"I know."

They avoided each other's eyes. For one moment at least they had expected death--perhaps willed to die--and in that moment had dared to live.

She went past him, closing the door after her.

Night came on. It rose blackly out of the far corners of the hut, creeping stealthily and soundlessly up the walls, as water rises in a closed lock. She had sat and watched it and listened to the deep, encircling silence beyond which was sound--indefinable, subdued, continuous. Once it had come nearer and instinctively she had sprung up, bracing herself--then rolled back again with a thwarted, muffled murmur.

She had fed the stray pup and put it to sleep on Wickie's old bed. A disreputable, ill-bred-looking tabby had crept slyly in through the open window and had eyed the intruder with disapproving curiosity, then settled herself down as one accustomed to eccentricities. Sigrid had laughed a little at the interlude. It had seemed grotesque and humdrum, a kind of satire on that which the sound painted on the gathering darkness.

Presently it was quite dark. She got up and lit a candle, and held it high above her head. The flame threw a pale circle of light down on the surface of the still black waters which eddied round her. It gave life to an eerie procession of formless, soft-footed shadows. She watched them slide past, from darkness to darkness. Then she went back to the table and sat there with her chin in her hand, her wide eyes fixed broodingly on something far beyond the tiny pillar of light.

An hour passed. She got up and moved restlessly about the room. In the struggle, her helmet had been knocked off and her hair loosened. She let it down and smoothed its fair softness with her hands. There was no glass in the place. She took the candle to the carved table against the wall, and knelt down so that she could see a faint reflection of herself in the glass of the big photograph. She began to do her hair with fastidious, delicate carefulness. When it was done she took the photograph and held it to the light. There was a pile of letters on the table. The envelopes bore the same handwriting--strong and clear, yet not with the strength and clearness of youth. It had an indefinable affinity with the old face that looked out at her with its serene, smiling wisdom from the wooden photo-frame. She counted the letters, lingering over them, as though their touch brought her secret knowledge.

The cat, sleeping by the wall, lifted its head. A minute later, it got up, arching its back, its fur bristling, its eyes blazing in the darkness. She glanced towards it, aroused by its soft, menacing hiss of anger and fear. Then suddenly the silence around her shivered and broke. She turned and slipped into the second room. There was an old hunting-knife lying among the debris of their hastily prepared picnic. She snatched it up and ran back, placing herself against the wall with the light between her and the door.

The sound that rushed down upon her was a new thing--more terrible than the roar which had beaten persistently against the outer wall of her consciousness. It was like rain and wind and water tearing through a narrow gully. It came on swiftly, gathering speed and violence. It came with a rush down the village street--nearer and nearer--the patter of countless running feet--the gasp and groan of hard-drawn breath, stifled mutterings, the shrill scream of a woman breaking off into a choking gurgle. Nearer--in a headlong torrent--right to the closed door. She drew herself up, her lithe body tense and prepared--and it swept past. It raced on in a ceaseless torrent. She heard the jolt of a heavy body sent reeling against the walls of the hut--and a little whimpering sound that was like a child's crying. Behind the deluge there was a fresh sound--the clatter of horses' hoofs at the gallop.

The door opened and closed. She had taken an involuntary step forward to meet whatever was to come, the knife clenched in her right hand; but, as she saw Tristram, she relaxed with a short, shuddering sigh and her hand sank. He stood leaning with his shoulders against the door, staring at her. His clothes were torn and blood-stained. There was something wild and violent in his face which she had never seen before--the look of a fighter straight from a struggle in which every nerve and sinew has been put to a dire test--in which all the primitive passions of men have risen like wolf-hounds tugging at the leash. The sleeve of his shirt had been ripped to the elbow, and she saw the grand curving line of his shoulder, expressive of an immense, tutored strength.

The hot colour raced through her pallor. She looked back to his face. His eyes had dropped to the knife which she still held--they met hers now and blazed back her fierce and sombre admiration. They remained thus watching each other through a moment of shaken silence. Then he lurched forward, dropping down on the chair by the table, sprawling like a man overtaken by a sudden exhaustion, his bleeding hands clenched before him.

"I am sick--sick of bloodshed!" he muttered.

She laid the knife quietly on the table and stood looking down at his bent head.

"Meredith----" she began.

He threw back his shoulders with a bitter laugh.

"Did you ever know of any one who set out to sacrifice himself and who didn't sacrifice everyone else first? Meredith's safe--but my people--my poor people--they didn't mean any harm--they saved us--you and me. Even though one of our kind had spat in the face of their religion--they didn't forget. You don't know what it meant to them to be so calm and loyal in all that frenzy. Then--then the troops came from Gaya. There was a stampede--no one meant to hurt any one--but they went under--dozens of them--stamped out of recognition--old Seetul and Lalloo's little son, whom I nursed once----" He broke off with a harsh, dry sob. She knelt down beside him. She drew his head down to her shoulder, soothing him like a child.

"Tristram--you mustn't mind so. Things happen like that. We don't mean to harm each other--we don't realize or we can't help ourselves. Some one has to go under. We're always trampling on some one. It can't be helped. The crowd is too great--we have to fight for ourselves first. We were made like that----"

He made no answer. He leant against her with closed eyes. The hurricane of galloping hoofs rolled past. She kissed him lightly, tenderly--"Tristram----"

His eyes opened. Their faces were quite close. Their gaze became fixed, intoxicated, deepening in intensity till it seemed as though they held each other, were drawn closer and closer in an embrace of fire which burnt out every intervening thought and consciousness. Suddenly, violently, he sprang up, pushing her from him, and lurched towards the door.

"I've got--to--see after things--there'll be an escort for you at the bridge-head--later--I'll keep guard outside----"

She also had risen as swift and soundless as a panther. She stood by the table upright and exultant, a point of light shining in her eyes.

"Stay here--here with me. If you go, it is because you're afraid----"

"Afraid----?" He swung round, his hand still on the door. "Of whom?"

"Of me--of yourself. You promised to be honest with me. This was to be our day of days for which no one should demand reckoning. It is not ended yet. You were honest once. That was when you thought we were going to be killed. Then you dared to own to what I know already--that you belonged to me--as I perhaps belong to you--to our fate--a fate neither of us can escape, Tristram----"

He remained motionless; she could see the rise and fall of his great chest.

"It isn't wise to be honest," he said thickly. "I'm afraid, if you like--afraid of myself. You'd better let me go."

"Back to your dreams? But they're gone. You were just a grown-up boy, playing with a fancy. Now you are a man and I am a woman. We've got to deal with the reality now."

"That's true." He came slowly towards her, reeling a little in his stride. "I want you--body and soul."

"I know--you told me----"

"When----?"

"The night you lay unconscious in my arms."

He put up his hand to his throat, as though something suffocated him.

"You had better let me go," he repeated doggedly. "We're both thrown out of our course. At my best, I'm not much--I've learnt that--if I resist--things it's because I don't care. And tonight----"

"You do care."

"Yes," he said, between his teeth.

"Why should we resist what is the most splendid thing in us?"

"Splendid?" he echoed. "My--my dreams were splendid. As you say--they've gone. And the reality--can there be any reality between us--between a divinely gifted woman and the loutish fool who dreams about her? If I'd thought so--I'd have gone away--but it seemed to me that you were just kind and pitying--amused even--and I dared go on. And it is impossible--we belong to different worlds--life isn't the same thing to either of us."

"We stand on different peaks of the same mountain range," she answered wistfully. "There is the same sun and sky and stars for us both. It seemed to me that we could have watched the sun rise together."

He held out his hand as though to touch her, and then drew back, his face drawn and hard with the bitterness of mastered passion.

"You don't know what you're saying, Sigrid," he began harshly. "Nor what you are offering me----"

"Myself," she flung in, with joyful fearlessness. "My love for you."

He began to pace the room backwards and forwards, in and out of the light, his hands clenched at his sides.

"I can't--oh, my dear--it's hideous, so hopeless." His voice shook with rough suffering. "Even if things were different--if I were cad--enough--you see, I am being desperately frank now--don't you realize what it would mean--can't you realize what you'd have to pay?"

She watched him patiently. Her first fierce energy had died down. The colour had faded from her cheeks, leaving her with a look of pathetic weariness.

"I've never bothered about the price of things. It's been a curse in my life, I daresay; I shall never be able to sink into a safe, comfortable mediocrity. I've burnt my boats too thoroughly for that. But, instead, I've had the highest and best in life. I've always dared to live to the utmost, Tristram. I wanted to be perfect in my art, and I gave my soul to it. I lived more austerely than a nun, more grandly than an empress. Men wanted to love me, but I never thought of them. There was only one thing for me then--it was like a mountain that I had sworn to climb. I climbed it. And then--then it was over. You can't understand--but I had paid the price to the last farthing. Now, before it's too late, I want the greatest, most splendid thing that perhaps a human being can pray for--the happiness of loving."

Her voice had dropped gradually, as though she had forgotten him. He stood still, frowning at her with a hopeless misery in his exhausted eyes.

"Sigrid--if I'd asked you a month ago would you have been my wife?"

She started a little, seeming to shrink from what was to come.

"No, Tristram--not then."

"And now--if things were different--if it were possible----?"

She shook her head.

"No--now least of all." She heard the sharp, painful catch in his breath. "It isn't possible--that's just it," she added wearily.

He resumed his restless pacing backwards and forwards.

"Then it was just a moment in your life you were offering me--I was to be part of a new and splendid episode----" He strode up to her and gripped her by the shoulders. "Oh--I'm not proud--you're a creature of fire and air, and I'm one of the earth. You could have walked over me and I'd have been content. And yet--I don't know. I might have cared too much. Perhaps I do care too much--but there's something besides that now. I'm not a moral or even a strong man, but there's only to be one woman in my life---the woman I marry."

"Yes," she said listlessly.

"And Anne has promised to be my wife."

She looked up at him for an instant. It grew very still.

"I might have told you that before. But it was to have been our day--with no one between us--no one to demand reckoning. I cheated myself. I'm a rotten sentimentalist, dear--and I've ended by doing something mean and low, like a thorough-paced cad. I deserve to lose--all that I have lost."

She shook her head. Something of her old detachment, a little of her demure humour, tinged with satire, shone in her eyes.

"It's almost funny--your blaming yourself. I hunted you down--and I am going to marry Mr. Barclay."

He swung round on his heel, white to the lips.

"That man----!" he burst out.

"That woman----!" she retorted cynically.

He fought desperately for self-control.

"Anne is a good woman----"

"Is she? A better human being than Barclay? Have you started to lay down the standard of values like the rest of us?"

For an instant they confronted each other as antagonists, then he made a gesture of despair, of fierce self-loathing.

"No--you're quite right. I don't judge--I can't. I seem going down-hill fast with my theories--my--my infernal humanity. I can't believe it--everything seems to have gone at once--you didn't care--it wasn't love you felt for me----"

"Aren't you glad--doesn't that relieve you of all responsibility?"

She watched him for a moment in silence. Then her face softened. He was standing against the table, his hand pressed upon it as though he held himself upright only by an effort of will. She laid her hand on his, diffidently, pityingly. "Tristram, we're both mad with pain, but don't let's hurt each other more than we must. It's no one's fault. We pick up threads in our lives carelessly and without a thought, and from day to day they weave themselves without our will into a pattern--into tragedy. That's all there is to it, Tristram." He nodded silently, and she turned away from him, sighing. "It's quite quiet now. I'll go back to Gaya, Tristram."

He went out beside her into the empty moonlit street. A black shadow lay huddled against the wall, and involuntarily he bent and touched it.

"Dead!" he muttered.

"The feast of Siva!" she said. "He who destroys!"

Her small pale face was lifted to the great silver disk above her. It seemed to his aching eyes that she was no more than a frail white ghost--a haunting spirit of the haunted moonlight.

"Sigrid----!" he whispered.

"Hush--it's no good. We've got to go on--Tristram Sahib----"

He walked beside her as she rode out of Heerut. It was very still---no sound but that of her horse's hoofs and the soft swish of the long Arab tail. They went out across the plain. The conflagration of the day had burnt itself out, leaving grey ash and a few stains on the white fields. The temple lay sinister and watchful beneath the shadow of the jungle. It was as though all life had been swept away in a deluge of destruction.

He looked up and saw how bravely she held herself.

They came within a hundred yards of the bridge-head, and she drew rein. They could hear voices and the jangle of steel. He stood close to her, touching her, feeling the warmth of her, drinking in a faint elusive perfume which was her own. His brain reeled. He was sick and faint at the nearness of the end.

Suddenly she bent down and took his hand. He felt something clasp itself about his wrist.

"I can't give you up--not altogether--I can't, Tristram. I want to keep you in my life--the dream of you--to haunt you a little--to claim you a little--in this world and the next--for good and evil--my bracelet-brother----"

She was gone. He stood there, listening to the thud of her horse's hoofs.

_*BOOK II*_

*CHAPTER I*

*MRS. COMPTON STANDS FIRM*

"Among all the noble, disinterested, selfless things I've done--and my life is full of them--this is the noblest, most disinterested, most selfless."

Mrs. Compton stood back and surveyed the dainty Dresden figure perched on the shelf with the dignity of renunciation. Mrs. Bosanquet sniffed. It was an uncorrected habit of hers when confronted with the incomprehensible and absurd.

"I don't see what you're so upset about," she commented from her large and comfortable pose in the most accommodating chair of which the rather shabby-looking room boasted. "Why, I've seen things just as pretty as that in sixpenny bazaars. I'm sure Anne won't like it. Anne's my type. We both have our spiritual homes in a London suburb--not a garden-suburb, my dear, with nasty modern folk in sandals and _djibba_--but in the old kind, with good old Victorian plush everywhere. It's just a tragedy that we should have to live in India with queer specimens like the Judge and Tristram." She chuckled. The serene detachment with which she regarded her own weaknesses and the weaknesses of her fellow-creatures had made her an institution in Gaya, and was a good substitute for a talent. Mrs. Bosanquet could not make a joke or tell a funny story without disaster, but she could hold up mirrors for herself and her friends and grimace into them with most excellent results, as far as the gaiety of the station was concerned. It was whispered, however, that the Judge's somewhat halting progress towards higher honours was not a little due to his wife's passion for showing plain but superior people just what they looked like.

Mary Compton continued to regard her treasure with wistful tenderness.

"Tristram will like it, anyhow," she said.

"H'm, poor Tristram!"

"Why 'poor Tristram'?"

"Oh, I don't know--a kind of inspiration. Anne did want him so badly, and now she's got him. It's a real triumph of goodness. Now she can pull long noses at dear, disgraceful Eleanor and be sentimental over dear, disgraceful Richard. Also she can make the place too hot for--for that woman. Altogether a wonderful strategic position for any one quite so harmless as dear, respectable Anne."

There was a distinct and unusual note of asperity in Mrs. Bosanquet's review of the situation, and Mary Compton turned to her with apparent puzzlement. But her eyes were bright and rather defiant, as though she was preparing for a long-expected engagement.

"Whom do you mean by 'that woman'?" she asked, not very steadily.

"My dear, there's only one 'that woman' in Gaya as far as I know. The rest of us are--what are we--ladies! or is that Victorian again?--in fact, I mean 'that woman,' and you're just pretending not to know whom I mean."

"I won't pretend." Mrs. Compton steadied to the attack. "If you mean Sigrid----"

"I do, my dear."

"Then I think it's mean and disloyal of you. You were one of the first to kow-tow to her----"

Mrs. Bosanquet settled herself back fatly and serenely unoffended.