Burning Sands Part 15

Seeing that his tactics were correct, he allowed his anger to develop.

He made a dramatic gesture and flung himself back against the railing.

At the same moment the paddle-wheel beneath him began suddenly to revolve, as the captain manuvred the ship towards the sh.o.r.e. There was a slight lurch; Rupert uttered an exclamation; he seemed to sway away from her; and, heels over head, he fell into the churning water.

Muriel sprang forward. In the half-light she saw the soles of his shoes disappear as the black water swallowed him; then a dripping, writhing form was lifted on a blade of the paddle and tossed into the air. She saw his horrified eyes and his spread fingers. She heard him shriek....

"Help!" she screamed, and, screaming, she rushed across the deck. "Help!

Help!"

CHAPTER X-"FOR TOMORROW WE DIE"

Amidst the wildest clamour the rowing-boat was launched, and two red-jerseyed native sailors took the oars, while a third, shouting and gesticulating, stood at the tiller holding up a hurricane-lamp. Just as they pushed off, Professor Hyley, carrying another lantern, tumbled into the stern; and, in the unreasoning excitement of the moment, called out "Mr. Helsingham, Mr. Helsingham! Hi, hi! Mr. Helsingham!" in a piping voice which sounded through the darkness like that of a lost soul.

The pandemonium upon the steamer was appalling. The jabbering native sailors ran aimlessly to and fro, flinging ropes and buoys into the river from the vessel's stern; while the Egyptian captain, completely losing his head, rang and bawled orders down to the engine-room, as a result of which the paddle-wheels churned up the water, now this way, now that. Lady Smith-Evered and Mr. Bindane leant over the rail, shouting instructions to Professor Hyley as the boat dropped into the distance.

Muriel and Kate Bindane stood together in agonized silence. There was nothing to be done; for there was not a second rowing-boat, nor were there any available lamps or buoys. Their eyes were fixed upon the two points of light drifting astern, and on the illuminated figures of the searchers. And now the misshapen moon, in its last quarter, crept out from behind the horizon, as though curious to know what all the pother was about, but too disdainful to throw any light upon the scene.

At length there were renewed shouts from the boat, and much splashing of the oars; and presently it was apparent that the men were lifting something out of the ink-black water. A few minutes of horrible suspense ensued as the searchers returned; and at last, in a dazed condition, Muriel watched them raise the limp, dripping form out of the boat and lay it on the deck.

Mr. Bindane's servant, Dixon, knew something about the method of resuscitation to be employed in such cases; and, with the aid of Muriel and Professor Hyley, the sodden clothes were removed from the upper part of the prostrate figure, and the bare white arms were worked to and fro.

Brandy in a teaspoon was forced between the blue lips by Kate Bindane, who sent her helpless and apparently callous husband off with the weeping Lady Smith-Evered to fetch blankets and the one hot-water bottle which chanced to be available.

Their efforts, however, were all in vain. With the tears flowing from her eyes, Muriel rose from the puddle of water in which she had been kneeling, and stood clinging to Kate's arm.

"He's dead," she sobbed. "He's been dead all the time;" and a shudder almost of repulsion shook her.

She dried her tears and tried hard to pull herself together: she felt that this undefined feeling of disgust was unworthy of any woman, and was altogether despicable in one who had been so lately clasped in Rupert's arms. She wanted to run away, and that primitive instinct which produces in the mind the nameless horror of a dead body was strong upon her. Yet, bracing herself, she resisted the sensation of nausea, and stood staring down at the prostrate figure before her, vividly illuminated in the glare of the electric light.

His mouth, from which the water oozed, was slightly open, and a pale, swollen tongue protruded somewhat from between his lips. His eyes were closed, and wet strands of dark hair were plastered over his forehead.

His bare neck and shoulders looked thin and poor; and damp wisps of hair covered his chest. The soaked, black trousers clung to his legs; and his ill-shapen toes, from which the socks and shoes had been removed, were ghastly in their greenish whiteness as they rested upon the hot-water bottle.

Suddenly she swayed, and the lights seemed to grow dim. She heard Kate Bindane call out sharply for the brandy, and she was dimly conscious that she was being led away by her maid, Ada. Her perceptions, however, were not clear again until she aroused herself to find that she was lying upon her bed in her cabin, and that Mr. Bindane was standing at the door, staring down at her with his mouth open.

She sat up quickly. "Did I faint?" she said, as the horror of remembrance came upon her once more.

"No," he answered. "You were only a bit giddy. You must try to sleep: we're all going to try to. We shall be back in Cairo before sunrise."

"Where is he?" she asked, pressing her fingers to her pale face.

"On the sofa at the end of the deck," he said.

She sprang to her feet. "No, no!" she cried. "Not there-please not there!"

She buried her face in her hands; and Benifett Bindane, disliking hysteria, hurried away to the saloon, where he played Patience by himself until the small hours; while his wife, Kate, wedging herself into Muriel's narrow bed, comforted her friend until dozing sleep fell upon them.

The next two or three days were like a nightmare. An impenetrable gloom seemed to rest upon the Residency; and, although the body lay in the mortuary of a neighbouring hospital, it was as though the presence of death were actually in the house.

The funeral came almost as a relief; and when the imposing ceremony was at an end, she felt as though the weight were beginning to be lifted from her heart. For the first time since the tragedy she was able to speak of it with calmness.

"You know, father dear," she said, "Rupert and I came to mean a very great deal to one another in these few weeks that we've been together."

He glanced at her timidly, and patted her hand.

"Yes," he answered, "I have eyes, Muriel."

She turned and looked at him with a little smile of confidence. "We were going to be married," she said.

He started violently. "What!" he exclaimed. "Well, well, we must see about that."

"It's no good seeing about it, father," she corrected him, feeling an hysterical desire to laugh; "he's dead."

"The poor boy, the poor boy!" he murmured. "Such a capital fellow."

"It was just after he had proposed to me that he fell overboard," she told him.

"Dear me, dear me!" he sighed. "And you had accepted him? I suppose the shock.... How very, very sad!-He just fell backwards."

Awkwardly, but with great tenderness, he put his arm about her. "You must forget all about it," he whispered. "You must have a good time."

"It was so ghastly," she said. "You see, when he asked me to be his wife, I didn't say 'yes.'"

"Of course not, of course not," he murmured. "Very proper, I'm sure."

"But he thought I was only playing with him," she faltered. "He was so angry, so hurt. And then the paddle-wheel started with a jerk, and he overbalanced."

"Ah, my dear," he answered, "the course of true love never runs smoothly. An ancient saw, but a very true one! But you are young: you will soon get over it. You must throw yourself into your duties as hostess at the Residency; and, in the first place, I want you to help me in a little scheme I have in mind."

Muriel guessed what was coming, and her feelings were peculiarly diversified.

"I want to persuade Daniel Lane to accept some official position," he said. "Of course I can't offer him the mere Oriental Secretaryship which poor dear Rupert has left vacant; but I think its scope and importance could be greatly extended, amplified, and he might be tempted."

"I doubt it," Muriel replied. She did not know quite what to say.

"I shall write to him at once," Lord Blair went on, nodding archly at her. "I shall say how whole-heartedly you second my proposal."

Muriel stiffened. "O, no, _please_," she answered, quickly, and the colour mounted to her face. "Please leave me out of it; Mr. Lane and I have nothing in common. I hardly know him, and much of what I do know I dislike."

Her father's face fell. There is no telling how far his scheming mind had advanced into the future, nor what plans he was forming for the well-being of his only child. It may only be stated with certainty that he had a very great admiration for Daniel, and that he was not blind to the fact that the object of this admiration was heir-presumptive to a man who, by common report, was drinking himself to death.

To Muriel, however, the prospect of having the masterful Mr. Lane actually on the premises was disturbing in the extreme, and, during the ensuing days, added not a little to her mental distress.

She greatly missed Rupert's entertaining company; and although, as the days pa.s.sed, she realized that his death was not as shattering a blow to her as she had thought, the remembrance of their brief romance often brought the tears to her eyes. Yet even as she wiped them away she was conscious that her sorrows were aroused rather by the tragedy itself than by her own heart's desolation. It is true that her emotions had been deeply stirred by his pa.s.sion; but gradually the fires, lighted for so brief a moment, died down, and she was obliged to admit that her heart was not broken.

But if the romantic effect of the sad affair was proved in these few days to be less severe than she had at first supposed, there was another aspect of the matter which had a very profound bearing upon her mental att.i.tude. The sudden termination of Rupert's career had set her thinking about life in a way that she had never thought before. If death were always so near at hand, if so simple an accident so quickly put out the little lamp of existence, ought one not to concentrate all the forces of the human const.i.tution upon the enjoyment of each pa.s.sing hour?

She stood off from herself as an artist stands back from his picture, and she saw that she was but a shadow amongst shadows, a speck of vapour pa.s.sing across time's fixed stare, having no substance of which one could say, "this at least will remain." Today she was here; tomorrow she would be dissolved and gone.