On the Face of the Waters Part 5

Closer! As he leaned over the parapet his keen eyes stared down into the half-seen city spreading below him. Wide, tree-set, full of faint sounds of life; the wreaths of smoke from thousands of hearths rising to obscure it from his view. Obscuring it hopelessly with their tale of a life utterly apart from any he could lead. Even there on the housetop he had only pretended to lead it. It was not she, drifting to death so contentedly, who was alone! It was he. Yet some men he had known had seemed able to combine the two lives. They had been content to think half-caste thoughts, to rear up a tribe of half-caste children; while he? How many years was it since he had seen Zora weeping over a still little morsel of humanity, his child and hers, that lay in her tinseled veil? She had wept, mostly because she was afraid he might be angry because his son had never drawn breath; and he had comforted her. He had never told her of the relief it was to him, of the vague repulsion which the thought of a child had always brought with it. One could not help these things; and, after all, she had only cared because she was afraid he cared. She did not crave for motherhood either. It was the glow and glamour that had been the bond between them; nothing else. And, thank Heaven! she had never tired of it, had never seen him tire of it--for Death would come before that now.

A chiming clash of silver made him turn quickly. She had awakened, and seeing him by the parapet, had set her small feet to the ground, and now stood trying to steady herself by her thin, wide-spread arms.

"Zora! wait! I am coming," he cried, starting forward. Then he paused, speech and action arrested by something in her look, her gesture.

"Let me come," she murmured, her breath gone with the effort. "I can come. I must be able to come. My lord is so near--so near."

A fierce pity made him stand still. "Surely thou canst come," he answered. "I will stay here."

As she stood, with parted lips, waiting for a glint of strength ere she tried to walk, her swaying figure, the brilliance of her eyes, the heaving of her delicate throat, cut him to the very heart for her sake more than for his own. Then the jingle of her silver anklets rose again in irregular cadence, to cease at the next pillar where she paused, steadying herself against the cold stone to regain her breath.

"Surely, I can come; and he so near," she murmured wistfully, half to herself.

"Thou art in too great a hurry, sweetheart. There is plenty of time.

The stars are barely lit, and star-time is ever our time."

He set his teeth over the words; but the glow and the glamour should not fail her yet. He would take her back with him while he could to the past which had been so full of it.

"Come slower, my bird, I am waiting," he said again as the jingling cadence ceased once more.

"It is so strange," she gasped; "I feel so strange." And even in the dim light he could see a vague terror, a pitiful amaze in her face.

That must not be. That must be stopped. "And it is strange," he answered quickly. "Strange, indeed, for me to wait like a king, when thou art my queen!"

A faint smile drove the wonder away, a faint laugh mingled with the chiming and clashing. She was like a wounded bird, he thought, as he watched her; a wounded bird fluttering to find shelter from death.

"Take care! Take care of the step!" he cried, as a stumble made him start forward; but when she recovered herself blindly he stood still once more, waiting. Let her come if she could. Let her keep the glamour.

Keep it! She had done more than that. She had given it back to him at its fullest, as, close at hand he saw her radiant face, and his outstretched hands met hers warm and clasping. The touch of them made him forget all else; he drew her close to him pa.s.sionately. She gave a smiling sob of sheer content, raising her face to meet his kisses.

"I have come," she whispered. "I have come to my king." Her voice ended like a sigh. Then there was silence, a fainter sigh, then silence again.

"Zora!" he called with a sudden dread at his heart. "What is it? Zora!

Zora!"

Half an hour afterward, Tara Devi, obeying her master's summons, found him standing beside the bed, which he had dragged out under the stars, and flung up her arms to give the wail for what she saw there.

"Hush!" he said sternly, clutching at her shoulder. "I will not have her disturbed."

Tara looked at him wonderingly. "There is no fear of that," she replied clearly, loudly, "none shall disturb Zora again. She hath found _that_ freedom in the future. For the rest of us, G.o.d knows! The times are strange. So let her have her right of wailing, master. She will feel silent in the grave without the voices of her race."

He drew his hand away sharply; even in death a great gulf lay between him and the woman he had loved.

So the death wail rang out clamorously through the soft dark air.

CHAPTER IV.

TAPE AND SEALING-WAX.

"I can't think," said a good-looking middle-aged man as he petulantly pushed aside a pile of official papers, "where Dashe picks these things up. I never come across them. And it is not as if he were in a big station or--or in the swim in any way." He spoke fretfully, as one might who, having done his best, has failed. And he had grounds for this feeling, since the fact that the diffident district-officer named Dashe was not in the swim, must clearly have been due to his official superiors; the speaker being one of them.

Fortunately, however, for England, these diffident sons of hers cannot always hide their lights under bushels. As the biographies of many Indian statesmen show, some outsider notices a gleam of common sense amid the gloom, and steers his course by it. Now Mr. Dashe's intimate knowledge of a certain jungle tract in this district had resulted in a certain military magnate bagging three tigers. From this to a reliance on his political perceptions is not so great a jump as might appear; since a man acquainted with the haunt of every wild beast in his jurisdiction may be credited with knowledge of other dangerous inhabitants. So much so that the military magnate, being impressed by some casual remarks, had asked Mr. Dashe to put down his views on paper, and had pa.s.sed them on to a great political light.

It was he who sat at the table looking at a broadsheet printed in the native character, as if it were a personal affront. The military magnate, who had come over to discuss the question, was lounging in an easy-chair with a cheroot. They were both excellent specimens of Englishmen. The civilian a trifle bald, the soldier a trifle gray; but one glance was sufficient to judge them neither knaves nor fools.

"That's the proclamation you're at now, isn't it?" asked the military magnate, looking up, "I'm afraid I could only make out a word here and there. That's the worst of Dashe. He's so deuced clever at the vernaculars himself that he imagines other people----"

The political, who had earned his first elevation from the common herd to the Secretariat by a nice taste in Persian couplets suitable for durbar speeches, smiled compa.s.sionately.

"My dear sir! This is not even _shikust_ [broken character]. It is lithographed, and plain sailing to anyone not a fool--I mean to anyone on the civil side, of course--you soldiers have not to learn the language. But I have a translation here. As this farrago of Dashe's must go to Calcutta in due course, I had one made for the Governor General's use."

He handed a paper across the table, and then turned to the next paragraph of the jeremiad.

The military magnate laid down his cigar, took up the doc.u.ment and glanced at it apprehensively, resumed his cigar, and settled himself in his chair. It was a very comfortable one and matched the office-room, which, being in the political light's private house, was under the supervision of his wife, who was a notable woman. Her portrait stood in the place of honor on the mantelpiece and it was flanked by texts; one inculcating the virtue of doing as you would be done by, the other the duty of doing good without ceasing. Both rather dangerous maxims when you have to deal with a different personal and ethical standard of happiness and righteousness. There was also a semicircle of children's photographs--of the kind known as positives--on the table round the official ink-pot. When the sun shone on their gla.s.ses, as it did now through a western window, they dazzled the eyes. Maybe it was their hypnotizing influence which inclined the father of the family toward treating every problem which came to that office-table as if the first desideratum was their welfare, their approbation; not, of course, as his children, but as the representative Englishmen and women of the future. Yet he was filled with earnest desires to do his duty by those over whom he had been set to rule, and as he read, his sense of responsibility was simply portentous, and his pen, scratching fluently in comments over the half margin, was full of wisdom. This sound was the only one in the room save, occasionally, voices raised eagerly in the rehearsal going on in the drawing room next door. It was a tragedy in aid of an orphan asylum in England which the notable wife was getting up; and once her voice could be heard distinctly, saying to her daughter, "Oh, Elsie, I'm sure you could die better than that!"

Meanwhile the military magnate was reading:

"I, servant of G.o.d, the all-powerful, and of the prophet Mohammed--to whom be all praise. I, Syyed Ahmed-Oolah, the dust of the feet of the descendants of _Huzrut Ameer-Oolah-Moomereen-Ali-Moortuza, the Holy_."

He shifted uneasily, looked across the table, appeared discouraged by that even scratching, and went on:

"I, Syyed Ahmed, after preferring my salaams and the blessings of Holy War, to all believers of the sect of Sheeahs or the sect of Sunnees alike, and also to all those having respectful regards to the Faith, declare that I, the least of servants in the company of those waiting on the Prophet, did by the order of G.o.d receive a Sword of Honor, on condition that I should proclaim boldly to all the duty of combining to drive out Infidels. In this, therefore, is there great Reward; as is written in the Word of G.o.d, since His Gracious Power is mighty for success. Yea! and if any fail, will they not be rid of all the ends of this evil world, and attain the Joys and Glories of Martyrdom? So be it. A sign is ever sufficient to the intelligent, and the Duty of a servant is simply to point the way."

When he had finished he laid the doc.u.ment down on the table, and for a minute or so continued to puff at his cigar. Then he broke silence with that curious constraint in his tone which most men a.s.sume when religious topics crop up in general conversation. "I wonder if this--this paper is to be considered the sign, or"--he hesitated for a moment, then the cadence of the proclamation being suggestive, he finished his sentence to match--"or look we for another?"

"Another!" retorted his companion irritably. "According to Dashe the whole of India is one vast sign-post! He seems to think we in authority are blind to this. On the contrary, there is scarcely one point he mentions which is not, I say this confidentially of course, under inquiry. I have the files in my confidential box here and can show them to you now. No! by the way, the head clerk has the key--that proclamation had to be translated, of course. But, naturally, we don't proclaim this on the housetops. We might hurt people's feelings, or give rise to unfounded hopes. As for these bazaar rumors Dashe retails with such zest, I confess I think it undignified for a district-officer to give any heed to them. They are inevitable with an ignorant population, and we, having the testimony of a good conscience,"--he glanced almost unconsciously at the mantelpiece,--"should disregard these ridiculous lies. Of course everyone--everyone in the swim, that is--admits that the native army is most unsettled. And as Sir Charles Napier declared, mutiny is the most serious danger in the future; in fact, if the first symptoms are not grappled with, it may shake the very foundations. But we are grappling with it, just as we are grappling, quietly, with the general distrust. That was a most mischievous paragraph, by the way, in the _Christian Observer_, jubilant over the alarm created by those first widow remarriages the other day. So was that in _The Friend of India_, calling attention to the fact that a regular prayer was offered up in all the mosques for the Restoration of the Royal Family. We don't want these things _noticed_. We want to create a feeling of security by ignoring them. That is our policy. Then as for Dashe's political news, it is all stale! That story, for instance, of the Emba.s.sy from Persia, and of the old King of Delhi having turned a Sheeah----"

"That has something to do with saying Amen, hasn't it?" interrupted the military magnate, with the air of one determined to get at the bottom of things at all costs to himself.

The political light smiled in superior fashion. "Partially; but politically--as a gauge, I mean, to probable antagonism--Sheeahs and Sunnees are as wide apart as Protestants and Papists. The fact that the Royal Family of Oude are Sheeahs, and the Delhi one Sunnees, is our safeguard. Of course the old King's favorite wife, Zeenut Maihl, is an Oude woman, but I don't credit the rumors. I had it carefully inquired into, however, by a man who has special opportunities for that sort of work. A very intelligent fellow, Greyman by name. He has a black wife or--or something of that sort, which of course helps him to understand the natives better than most of us who--er--who don't--you understand----"

The military magnate, having a sense of humor, smiled to himself.

"Perfectly," he replied, "and I'm inclined to think that perhaps there is something to be said for a greater laxity." In his turn he glanced at the mantelpiece, and paused before that immaculate presence. "The proclamation, however," he went on hurriedly, "appears to me a bit dangerous. Holy War is awkward, and a religious fanatic is a tough subject even to the regulars." He had seen a rush of Ghazees once and the memory lingered.

"Undoubtedly. And as we have pointed out again and again to your Department, here and at home, the British garrisons are too scattered.

These large accessions of territory have put them out of touch with each other. But that again is being grappled with. In fact, personally, I believe we are getting on as well as can be expected."

He glanced here at the semicircle of children as if the phrase were suggestive. "We are doing our best for India and the Indians. Now here, in Oude, things are wonderfully ship-shape already. Despite Jackson and Gubbins' tiffs over trifles they are both splendid workers, and Lucknow was never so well governed as it is to-day."

"But about the proclamation," persisted his hearer. "Couldn't you get some more information about it? That Greyman, for instance."

"I'm afraid not. He refused some other work I offered him not long ago. Said he was going home for good. I sometimes wish I could. It is a thankless task slaving out here and being misunderstood, even at home. Being told in so many words that the very system under which we were recruited has failed. Poor old Haileybury! I only hope compet.i.tion will do as well, but I doubt it; these new fellows can never have the old _esprit de corps_; won't come from the same cla.s.s!

One of the Rajah's people was questioning me about it only this morning--they read the English newspapers, of course. 'So we are not to have sahibs to rule over us,' he said, looking black as thunder.

'Any _krani's_ (_lit_. low-caste English) son will do, if he has learned enough.' I tried to explain--" Here a red-coated orderly entering with a card, he broke off into angry inquiries why he was being disturbed contrary to orders.

"The sahib bade me bring it," replied the man, as if that were sufficient excuse, and his master, looking at the card, tossed it over the table to the soldier, who exclaimed: "Talk of the devil! He may as well come in, if you don't mind."

So James Greyman was ushered in, and remained standing between the civilian and the soldier; for it is not given to all to have the fine perceptions of the native. The orderly had unhesitatingly cla.s.sed the visitor as a "gentleman to be obeyed"; but the Political Department knew him only as a reliable source of information.