Rosa Mundi and Other Stories Part 68

"Monty, Monty, lie still, man! I'll see to you!"

That voice recalled Herne, renewed his failing faculties, galvanized him into life. The man with the mummy's hands was bending over him, stripping away the useless bandage, fashioning it anew for the moment's emergency. In a few seconds he was working at it with pitiless strength, twisting and twisting again till the tension told, and Herne forced back a groan.

But he clung to consciousness with all his quivering strength, bewildered, unbelieving still, yet hovering on the edge of conviction.

"Is it really you, Bobby?" he whispered. "I can't believe it! Let me look at you! Let me see for myself!"

The man beside him made no answer. He had s.n.a.t.c.hed up the first thing he could find, a fragment of a broken tent-peg, to tighten the pressure upon the wound.

But, as if in response to Herne's appeal, he freed one hand momentarily, and pushed back the covering from his face. And in the dim light Herne looked, looked closely; then shut his eyes and sank back with an uncontrollable shudder.

"Merciful Heaven!" he said.

VIII

"Monty, I say! Monty!"

Again the gulf of years was bridged; again the voice he knew came down to him. Herne wrestled with himself, and opened his eyes.

The man in Arab dress was still kneeling by his side, the skeleton hands still supported him, but the face was veiled again.

He suppressed another violent shudder.

"In Heaven's name," he said, "what are you?"

"I am a dead man," came the answer. "Don't move! I will call your man in a moment, but I must speak to you first. Do you feel all right?"

"Bobby!" Herne said.

"No, I am not Bobby. He died, you know, ages ago. They cut him up and burned him. Don't move. I have stopped the bleeding, but it will easily start again. Lean back--so! You needn't look at me. You will never see me again. But if I hadn't shown you--once, you would never have understood. Are you comfortable? Can you listen?"

"Bobby!" Herne said again.

He seemed incapable of anything but that one word, spoken over and over, as though trying to make himself believe the incredible.

"I am not Bobby," the voice reiterated. "Put that out of your mind for ever! He belonged to another life, another world. Don't you believe me?

Must I show you--again? Do you really want to talk with me face to face?"

"Yes," Herne said, with abrupt resolution. "I will see you--talk with you--as you are."

There was a brief pause, and he braced himself to face, without blenching, the thing that a moment before, his soldier's training notwithstanding, had turned him sick with horror. But he was spared the ordeal.

"There is no need," said the familiar voice. "You have seen enough. I don't want to haunt you, even though I am dead. What put it into your head to come in search of me? You must have known I should be long past any help from you."

"I--wanted to know," Herne said. He was feeling curiously helpless, as if, in truth, he were talking with a mummy. All the questions he desired to put remained unuttered. He was confronted with the impossible, and he was powerless to deal with it.

"What did you want to know? How I died? And when? It was a thousand years ago, when those d.a.m.ned Wandis swallowed up the Zambas. They took me first--by treachery. Then they wiped out the entire tribe. The poor devils were lost without me. I always knew they would be--but they made a gallant fight for it." A thrill of feeling crept into the monotonous voice, a tinge of the old abounding pride, but it was gone on the instant, as if it had not been. "They slaughtered them all in the end,"

came in level, dispa.s.sionate tones, "and, last of all, they killed me.

It was a slow process, but very complete. I needn't harrow your feelings. Only be quite sure I am dead! The thing that used to be my body was turned into an abomination that no sane creature could look upon without a shudder. And as for my soul, devils took possession, so that even the Wandis were afraid. They dare not touch me now. I have trampled them, I have tortured them, I have killed them. They fly from me like sheep. Yet, if I lead, they follow. They think, because I have conquered them, that I am invincible, invulnerable, immortal. They cringe before me as if I were a G.o.d. They would offer me human sacrifice if I would have it. I am their talisman, their mascot, their safeguard from defeat, their luck--a dead man, Herne, a dead man! Can't you see the joke? Why don't you laugh?"

Again the grim voice thrilled as if some fiendish mirth stirred it to life.

Herne moved and groaned, but spoke no word.

"What? You don't see it? You never had much sense of humour. And yet it's a good thing to laugh when you can. We savages don't know how to laugh. We only yell. That is all you wanted to know, is it? You will go back now with an easy mind?"

"As if that could be all!" Herne muttered.

"That is all. And count yourself lucky that I haven't killed you. It was touch and go that night you attacked me. You may die yet."

"I may. But it won't be your fault if I do. Great Heaven, I might have killed you!"

"So you might." Again came that quiver of dreadful laughter. "That would have been the end of the story for everyone, for you wouldn't have got away without me. But that was no part of the program. Even you couldn't kill a dead man. Feel that, if you don't believe me!" Suddenly one of the shrivelled, mummy hands came down to his own. "How much life is there in that?"

Herne gripped the hand. It was cold and clammy; he could feel every separate bone under the skin. He could almost hear them grind together in his hold. He repressed another shudder; and even as he did it, he heard again the bitter cry of a woman's wrung heart, "Bobby is still alive and wanting me."

Would she say that when she knew? Would she still reach out her hands to this monstrous wreck of humanity, this shattered ruin of what had once been a tower of splendid strength? Would she feel bound to offer herself? Was her love sufficient to compa.s.s such a sacrifice? The bare thought revolted him.

"Are you satisfied?" asked the voice that seemed to him like a mocking echo of Bobby's ardent tones. "Why don't you speak?"

A great struggle was going on in Herne's soul. For Betty's sake--for Betty's sake--should he hold his peace? Should he take upon himself a responsibility that was not his? Should he deny this man the chance that was his by right--the awful chance--of returning to her? The temptation urged him strongly; the fight was fierce. But--was it because he still grasped that bony hand?--he conquered in the end.

"I haven't told you yet why I came to look for you," he said.

"Is it worth while?" The question was peculiarly deliberate, yet not wholly cynical.

Desperately Herne compelled himself to answer.

"You have got to know it, seeing it was not for my own satisfaction--primarily--that I came."

"Why then?" The brief query held scant interest; but the hand he still grasped stirred ever so slightly in his.

Herne set his teeth.

"Because--someone--wanted you."

"No one ever wanted me," said the Wandi Mullah curtly.

But Herne had tackled his task, and he pursued it unflinching.

"I came for the sake of a woman who once--long ago--refused to marry you, but who has been waiting for you--ever since."

"A woman?" Undoubtedly there was a savage note in the words. The shrunken fingers clenched upon Herne's hand.

"Betty Derwent," said Herne very quietly.