Mr. Isaacs Part 21

"Jungle fever, my dear fellow, jungle fever; caught in that beastly tiger-hunt. Oh! I wish I had never taken her. I wish we had never gone.

Why wasn't I firm? d.a.m.n it all, sir, why wasn't I firm, eh?" In his anger at himself something of the former jerky energy of the man showed itself. Then it faded away into the jaded sorrowful look that was on his face when I came in. He sat down with his elbows on his knees and his hands in his scanty gray hair, his suspenders hanging down at his sides--the picture of misery. I tried to console him, but I confess I felt very much like breaking down myself. I did not see what I could do, except break the bad news to Isaacs.

"Mr. Griggs," he said at last, "she has been asking for you all the time, and the doctor thought if you came she had best see you, as it might quiet her. Understand?" I understood better than he thought.

People who are dangerously ill have no morning and no evening. Their hours are eternally the same, save for the alternation of suffering and rest. The nurse and the doctor are their sun and moon, relieving each other in the watches of day and night. As they are worse--as they draw nearer to eternity, they are less and less governed by ideas of time. A dying person will receive a visit at midnight or at mid-day with no thought but to see the face of friend--or foe--once more. So I was not surprised to find that Miss Westonhaugh would see me; in an interval of the fever she had been moved to a chair in her room, and her brother was with her. I might go in--indeed she sent a very urgent message imploring that I would go. I went.

The morning sun was beating brightly on the shutters, and the room looked cheerful as I entered. John Westonhaugh, paler than death, came quickly to the door and grasped my hand.

On a long cane-chair by the window, carefully covered from the possible danger of any insidious draught, with a ma.s.s of soft white wraps and shawls, lay Katharine Westonhaugh--the transparant phantasm of her brilliant self. The rich ma.s.ses of pale hair were luxuriously nestled around her shoulders and the blazing eyes flamed, lambently, under the black brows--but that was all. Colour, beside the gold hair and the black eyes, there was hardly any. The strong clean-cut outline of the features was there, but absolutely startling in emaciation, so that there seemed to be no flesh at all; the pale lips scarcely closed over the straight white teeth. A wonderful and a fearful sight to see, that stately edifice of queenly strength and beauty thus laid low and pillaged and stript of all colour save purple and white--the hues of mourning--the purple lips and the white cheek. I have seen many people die, and the moment I looked at Katharine Westonhaugh I felt that the hand of death was already closed over her, gripped round, never to relax. John led me to her side, and a faint smile showed she was glad to see me. I knelt reverently down, as one would kneel beside one already dead. She spoke first, clearly and easily, as it seemed. People who are ill from fever seldom lose the faculty of speech.

"I am so glad you are come. There are many things I want you to do."

"Yes, Miss Westonhaugh. I will do everything."

"Is he come back?" she asked--then, as I looked at her brother, she added, "John knows, he is very glad."

"Yes, we came back this morning together; I came here at once."

"Thank you--it was kind. Did you give him the box?"

"Yes--he does not know you are ill. He means to come at eleven."

"Tell him to come now. _Now_--do you understand?" Then she added in a low tone, for my ear only, "I don't think they know it; I am dying. I shall be dead before to-night. Don't tell him that. Make him come now.

John knows. Now go. I am tired. No--wait! Did he save the man's life?"

"Yes; the man is safe and free in Thibet."

"That was n.o.bly done. Now go. You have always been kind to me, and you love him. When you see me again I shall be gone." Her voice was perceptibly weaker, though still clearly audible. "When I am gone, put some flowers on me for friendship's sake. You have always been so kind.

Good-bye, dear Mr. Griggs. Good-bye. G.o.d keep you." I moved quickly to the door, fearing lest the piteous sight should make a coward of me. It was so ineffably pathetic--this lovely creature, just tasting of the cup of life and love and dying so.

"Bring him here at once, Griggs, please. I know all about it. It may save her." John Westonhaugh clasped my hand in his again, and pushed me out to speed me on my errand. I tore along the crooked paths and the winding road, up through the bazaar, past the church and the narrow causeway beyond to the hotel. I found him still smoking and reading the paper.

"Well?" said he cheerfully, for the morning sun had dispelled the doubts of the night.

"My dear friend," I said, "Miss Westonhaugh wants to see you immediately."

"How? What? Of course; I will go at once, but how did you know?"

"Wait a minute, Isaacs; she is not well at all--in fact, she is quite ill."

"What's the matter--for G.o.d's sake--Why, Griggs, man, how white you are--O my G.o.d, my G.o.d--she is dead!" I seized him quickly in my arms or he would have thrown himself on the ground.

"No," I said, "she is not dead. But, my dear boy, she is dying. I do not believe she will live till this evening. Therefore get to horse and ride there quickly, before it is too late."

Isaacs was a brave man, and of surpa.s.sing strength to endure. After the first pa.s.sionate outburst, his manner never changed as he mechanically ordered his horse and pulled on his boots. He was pale naturally, and great purple rings seemed to come out beneath his eyes--as if he had received a blow--from the intensity of his suppressed emotion. Once only he spoke before he mounted.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Jungle fever," I answered. He groaned. "Shall I go with you?" asked I, thinking it might be as well. He shook his head, and was off in a moment.

I turned to my rooms and threw myself on my bed. Poor fellow; was there ever a more piteous case? Oh the cruel misery of feeling that nothing could save her! And he--he who would give life and wealth and fortune and power to give her back a shade of colour--as much as would tinge a rose-leaf, even a very little rose-leaf--and could not. Poor fellow!

What would he do to-night--to-morrow. I could see him kneeling by her side and weeping hot tears over the wasted hands. I could almost hear his smothered sob--his last words of speeding to the parting soul--the picture grew intensely in my thoughts. How beautiful she would look when she was dead!

I started as the thought came into my mind. How superficial was my acquaintance with her, poor girl,--how little was she a part of my life, since I could really so heartlessly think of her beauty when her breath should be gone! Of course, though, it was natural enough, why should I feel any personal pang for her? It was odd that I should even expect to--I, who never felt a "personal pang" of regret for the death of any human creature, excepting poor dear old Lucia, who brought me up, and sent me to school, and gave me roast chestnuts when I knew my lessons, in the streets of Rome, thirty years ago. When she died, I was there; poor old soul, how fond she was of me! And I of her! I remember the tears I shed, though I was a bearded man even then. How long is that?

Since she died, it must be ten years.

My thoughts wandered about among all sorts of _bric-a-brac_ memories.

Presently something brought me back to the present. Why must this fair girl from the north die miserably here in India? Ah yes! the eternal why. Why did we go at such a season into the forests of the Terai? it was madness; we knew it was, and Ram Lal knew it too. Hence his warning.

O Ram Lal, you are a wise old man, with your gray beard and you mists of wet white velvet and your dark sayings! Ram Lal, will you riddle me, also, my weird that I must dree?

A cold draught pa.s.sed over my head, and I turned on my couch to see whence it came. I started bolt upright, and my hair stood on end with sudden terror. I had uttered the name of Ram Lal aloud in my reverie, and there he sat on a chair by the door, as gray as ever, with his long staff leaning from his feet across his breast and shoulder. He looked at me quietly.

"I come opportunely, Mr. Griggs, it seems. _Lupus in fabula._ I hear my name p.r.o.nounced as I enter the door. This is flattering to a man of my modest pretensions to social popularity. You would like me to tell you your fortune? Well, I am not a fortune-teller."

"Never mind my fortune. Will Miss Westonhaugh recover?"

"No. She will die at sundown."

"How do you know, since you say you are no prophet?"

"Because I am a doctor of medicine. M.D. of Edinburgh."

"Why can you not save her then? A man who is a Scotch doctor, and who possesses the power of performing such practical jokes on nature as you exhibited the other night, might do something. However, I suppose I am not talking to you at all. You are in Thibet with Shere Ali. This is your astral body, and if I were near enough, I could poke my fingers right through you, as you sit there, telling me you are an Edinburgh doctor, forsooth."

"Quite right, Mr. Griggs. At the present moment my body is quietly asleep in a lamastery in Thibet, and this is my astral shape, which, from force of habit, I begin to like almost as well. But to be serious----"

"I think it is very serious, your going about in this casual manner."

"To be serious. I warned Isaacs that he should not allow the tiger-hunt to come off. He would not heed my warning. It is too late now. I am not omnipotent."

"Of course not. Still, you might be of some use if you went there. While there is life there is hope."

"Proverbs," said Earn Lai scornfully, "are the wisdom of wise men prepared in portable doses for the foolish; and the saying you quote is one of them. There is life yet, but there is no hope."

"Well, I am afraid you are right. I saw her this morning--I suppose I shall never see her again, not alive, at least. She looked nearly dead then. Poor girl; poor Isaacs, left behind!"

"You may well say that, Mr. Griggs," said the adept. "On the whole, perhaps he is to be less pitied than she; who knows? Perhaps we should pity neither, but rather envy both."

"Why? Either you are talking the tritest of cant, or you are indulging in more of your dark sayings, to be interpreted, _post facto_, entirely to your own satisfaction, and to every one else's disgust." I was impatient with the man. If he had such extraordinary powers as were ascribed to him--I never heard him a.s.sert that he possessed any; if he could prophesy, he might as well do so to some purpose. Why could he not speak plainly? He could not impose on me, who was ready to give him credit for what he really could do, while finding fault with the way he did it.

"I understand what pa.s.ses in your mind, friend Griggs," he said, not in the least disconcerted at my attack. "You want me to speak plainly to you, because you think you are a plain-spoken, clear-headed man of science yourself. Very well, I will. I think you might yourself become a brother some day, if you would. But you will not now, neither will in the future. Yet you understand some little distant inkling of the science. When you ask your scornful questions of me, you know perfectly well that you are putting an inquiry which you yourself can answer as well as I. I am not omnipotent. I have very little more power than you.

Given certain conditions and I can produce certain results, palpable, visible, and appreciable to all; but my power, as you know, is itself merely the knowledge of the laws of nature, which Western scientists, in their wisdom, ignore. I can replenish the oil in the lamp, and while there is wick the lamp shall burn--ay, even for hundreds of years. But give me a lamp wherein the wick is consumed, and I shall waste my oil; for it will not burn unless there be the fibre to carry it. So also is the body of man. While there is the flame of vitality and the essence of life in his nerves and finer tissues, I will put blood in his veins, and if he meet with no accident he may live to see hundreds of generations pa.s.s by him. But where there is no vitality and no essence of life in a man, he must die; for though I fill his veins with blood, and cause his heart to beat for a time, there is no spark in him--no fire, no nervous strength. So is Miss Westonhaugh now--dead while yet breathing, and sighing her sweet farewells to her lover."

"I know. I understand you very well. But do not deny that you might have saved her. Why did you not?" Ram Lal smiled a strange smile, which I should have described as self-satisfied, had it not been so gentle and kind.

"Ah yes!" he said, with something like a sigh, though there was no sorrow or regret in it. "Yes, Griggs, I might have saved her life. I would certainly have saved her--well, if he had not persuaded her to go down into that steaming country at this time of year, since it was my advice to remain here. But it is no use talking about it."

"I think you might have conveyed your meaning to him a little more clearly. He had no idea that you meant danger to her."