Banked Fires Part 49

Again the vessel stopped, and a boat was lowered.

"Wonderful presence of mind," the doctor said to Joyce as she, too, anxiously strained her eyes to look for the reappearance of Jack's form in the water, which had been seen, and then lost sight of. "Did you hear how a fellow kept his head when he saw young Darling go over, sending a life-buoy the same moment after him? Splendid, I call that!"

Joyce was deeply impressed. "He has probably saved Jack's life! Good man! does any one know where my sister is?"

Kitty was nowhere to be seen. Joyce presently found her in the saloon crouching on a sofa with her hands over her ears.

"He is drowned, I know he is drowned, and I shall never see him any more! I have killed him just as surely as if I sent him over with my own hands!--oh, let me die!" She was beside herself, and her suffering would not only have more than healed Jack's injured feelings, but have made him sue for pardon.

Joyce took her in her arms and they clung together, fearful of what they should presently hear. The shrieks of the women and children were mingled with the voices of the men shouting instructions from the deck to the officer in the boat. Nothing definite could be gleaned from the excited e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of the onlookers.

"What made me do it!--why did I let myself behave so!" Kitty cried shivering from the force of her emotions. "I shall never be able to ask his forgiveness for my hardness, and yet in my heart I was melted towards him and longing to tell him so,--only waiting till the evening when we could be more alone. Oh, I am terribly punished for daring to punish my poor Jack!"

"We are not to give up hope, dearest, but are to will with might and main that he be saved. It all helps. Honor Bright says it is scientifically possible to impose will-power on the forces of nature. It is a way G.o.d works for us and with us."

"It is useless to tell me all that when I cannot even think!" wailed Kitty.

"But there is a great deal in heaven and earth that is not 'dreamt of in our philosophy,'" Joyce repeated.

"Oh, my poor Jack!--Go, Joyce, and ask what is happening, now! I cannot bear this stillness." For a sudden hush seemed to have fallen on the company on deck.

At that moment, a distant cheer came from over the water. It was taken up by those watching from the ship and loud "Hurrahs!" sounded again and again.

"Oh, thank G.o.d!--he must be safe!" cried Joyce.

Kitty seemed to crumple up as she burst into a pa.s.sion of tears.

Neither she nor Joyce had any idea that the rescue of Jack Darling was a touch and go. He had gone overboard confident of being able to keep afloat till he was picked up, and willing to accept his fate if it worked out otherwise. Having, in his despair, become temporarily insane, he was hardly accountable for his actions till his immersion in the waves brought him rudely to his senses. After coming to the surface, he looked about for the steamer, and was astounded to see it already so far away that it seemed to him impossible for a boat's crew to descry him in that heaving expanse of ocean. To add to his dismay, the vessel seemed to steam on as though determined to leave him to his fate.

The prospect was horrible!

In a flash, he saw himself swimming till exhausted and a prey to sharks.

Life became all at once very dear. Whether with, or without Kitty, it would be better to live, than to die this slow and lonely death! He had been nothing but a d.a.m.ned idiot to have allowed himself to be dragged into such a dangerous piece of melodrama, and all for nothing! With a little patience and perseverance he might have gained his end without all this miserable fuss! No abuse was strong enough for his folly.

At that moment he espied the life-buoy, which he was fearing he would never find, and eagerly scrambled into it. Ah, that was better! Though he could swim like a fish, there was no doubt about it that he was grateful for support in the restless waters. Sometimes he was on the top of a wave where he was able to see the far distant ship; then, with a smart buffeting, he would find himself at the bottom of a trough with, what looked like green mountains of water threatening to engulf him.

It was an immense relief to his mind when it became apparent that the vessel was steaming back on her course, and the sight of the boat being lowered gave him new life and confidence.

But before it could reach him, symptoms of cramp in one leg had set in--possibly, because of late he had entirely neglected his exercises.

The first twinge scared him mightily. If it should increase, he would be doubled up in the water and, in spite of the buoy, go down like a stone.

The prospect racked him with suspense. The cramp again seized him with demoniacal violence and a red-hot band seemed to tighten round about his limb....

Was it cramp, or the jaws of a shark?

Petrifying thought!

If ever he had been punished in his life for folly, he was being punished now!

He glanced wildly over his shoulder, then at the advancing boat. He tried to call aloud, but his voice was choked with spray. The pain intensified. It seemed to rise into his thigh and the leg felt wrenched from its socket. Surely this was the end? A shark----?

Jack remembered no more. He had fainted with the pain of severe cramp combined with the shock of terror. He had never been wanting in courage, but physical agony, and the notion of falling a prey to sharks before he had time to show fight, had caused him to swoon.

And it was at that moment that the boat reached him, and eager hands s.n.a.t.c.hed him into safety.

Before the boat reached the ship he had recovered, and after a stiff dose of brandy, was able to take an interest in his rescue.

"I could have sworn a shark had got me," he explained. "The pain was so excruciating."

"In the water, cramp is the very devil!" said the third officer.

It was a shamed and chastened young man who disappeared into his cabin, amid hearty congratulations, to change into dry garments. In the face of so much honest relief and thankfulness, he felt a very worm for his deceit and trickery. It had been a mean game--a dirty trick he had played everybody, and Kitty in particular; which might easily have cost him his life. Truly, he had come to the conclusion that he was not fit to aspire to any nice girl. Kitty was properly fastidious, and she was not to be blamed for having recoiled from his unsavoury story, though it had been the barest outline of his misdemeanours that he had given her.

All the same, it was hardly a yarn for the ears of even modern eighteen!

She being his promised wife, he had felt it due to her to reveal his past--(lest others should do so!)--and he had no right to rebel against her verdict, however blasting to his life and happiness--and so on, and so forth.

In downright self-disgust he kept his cabin, pleading the effects of cramp and exhaustion, and emerged only when it was dark, to drop into a deck chair behind a windla.s.s, and brood upon his sins, staring out upon the moonlit sea.

Here Kitty came to him with healing, and here we take our leave of them for the present, feeling perfectly sure that Jack was not likely to damage his chances of reconciliation by any further confessions,--not even concerning his latest and maddest adventure. Confession may be good for the soul, but Jack had learned that there are circ.u.mstances when it is better to be silent.

CHAPTER XXIII

TEMPORISINGS

While Jack counted the days to the arrival of the ship at Bombay, and Joyce lived in antic.i.p.ation of the reunion with her husband; while Honor watched for the coming of Joyce and an end to an impossible situation in Darjeeling; while Dalton played at friendship with the girl he adored, since to desire more was like asking for the moon; and while Tommy was breaking his heart with disappointment, and tormenting the Government of Bengal for permission to join the Indian Army reserve, instead of continuing to serve that Government by safe-guarding his District, it seemed almost inconceivable that thousands of miles away, the destinies of nations were in the melting pot, and the map of Europe in process of re-making.

Immense armies were in training; miracles of organisation were taking place within the British Empire. Always the greatest Naval Power, she was rapidly becoming, also, a great Military Power.

The grand old army of "Contemptibles" was covering itself with imperishable glory; Indian and Colonial troops were mobilising for the a.s.sistance of the Motherland. In all parts of the world the clarion cry was sounded--"To arms!"

The War was the absorbing topic in all the cities of the world.

But at little Muktiarbad and similar rural districts, the placid monotony of daily life was barely stirred.

There was "a war on," of course, they said in the bazaars. India was involved--that, also, was a matter of course. The fighting sons of India could not be left out of such a fateful occasion as a war which called for loyalty and support. But it was an impersonal matter to native Muktiarbad. Doubtless, one of these wise dispensations of the Almighty, that helped to thin out the too rapidly increasing population of the world! It had no bearing on the lives and fortunes of the cultivator and the shop-keeper, save, that, in the case of the latter, it enabled him to put up his prices. But since the sun rose and set exactly as usual, and the flowers bloomed, and the seasons remained unchanged, and the daily life of the District continued undisturbed, where was the need to worry?

True, there was occasionally talk in the bazaar of battles lost and won; but talk was the life of the bazaar. Whatever happened, or did not happen, the bazaar always knew about it and spread rumours that none heeded, for rumours are always unreliable. What did they amount to, anyway? Nothing came of them, so far as the countryside was concerned.

Now and again, it was said, that So-and-So, generally a stout Pathan, who had seen active service on the frontier, had packed his bundle and was off on his own initiative to offer his strong right arm for the cause of the _Sarcar_ who was his father and his mother. His ancestors had fought and bled--or died; won medals and gained pensions; he, too, would gain medals and a pension, or lose his life if G.o.d so willed it.

"_Kismet ke bat!_"[18] Where was he going? G.o.d knew! Some day, if it was so willed, he would return to tell.

[Footnote 18: With Fate lay the decision.]

Like as not, he would never return. When youth went a-travelling, the attractions of the great world seldom released him from their thrall.

At the court-house, the Magistrate and Collector, officiating for Meredith who was still on leave at Darjeeling, tried cases and settled disputes, while the court-yard in front was covered with squatting humanity, chewing _pan_ and awaiting their individual turns to be called up before the _Hakim_ to tell--anything but the truth!