The Hosts of the Lord Part 17

Poor little thing," she added in quick self-reproach. "Anyhow it seemed beautiful to them--it is the first--the first that has lived, I mean."

She pulled up short, wondering what possessed her to be so confidential with this strange young man.

"So Am-ma told me," said Lance. "He called you the Life-bringer. It is a nice name."

She fought against the tenderness in his tone. "And you are the Death-bringer," she retorted lightly, pointing to the painted beauty in his hand. "So you and I are at opposite poles, Mr. Carlyon."

He stood looking at her for a moment with a smile. "I don't know, Miss Shepherd. '_Death and Birth are the pivots of the Wheel of Life_.' I remember reading that, in Sanskrit, when I went up for my higher; for I've pa.s.sed it, you know. I'm really not bad at languages when I try."

It was the first time she had ever heard him claim credit for anything, and the fact touched her more than she cared to own. Touched her so closely that she sought instantly for cover.

"I wish I were," she said, moving on, though, as she had known he would, he moved on also. "I'm afraid I shall find it a great trouble having to learn a new one."

"A new one," he echoed quickly, in response to something in her voice.

"Are you going to leave Eshwara--soon?"

She paused for a moment ere replying. "Sooner than I expected, Mr.

Carlyon; most likely in a day or two. I don't know whether you have heard," she continued, looking him in the face, "but I am engaged to be married to my cousin--Dr. Campbell's son--David Campbell. He is a missionary--as I am--and--" she hesitated. "He is at home,--or was. We did not expect him back for two months, but he has had a good offer of a splendid place where there is any amount of work to be done. The letter telling us this came yesterday--by the same mail as--as he did.

He is travelling up country now; and then--"

"And then?" said Lance, quietly. With his gun over his shoulder, he looked what he was, a soldier; and since she began to speak, he had, insensibly, pulled himself together and fallen into a disciplined ordered tread.

"My aunt wants the wedding to be from the mission station in the low hills where they go every summer," went on the girl. She was trying not to look at her companion, not out of pity, but from dread of her own admiration. "So as David"--she felt better after the semi-appropriation of the Christian name--"is in a hurry to start, she thought of going there as soon as the camp leaves--in a day or two. So--so--we shall not see very much more of each other, Mr. Carlyon; shall we?"

He gave her his first look of reproach, being unable, in his absolutely honest humility, to conceive of the vague regret which forced her to the useless appeal.

"I--I hope you will be very happy," he said, quite simply. "Take care, please; that bit is boggier than you think." For the second time in their short acquaintance she felt his hand, not as a friend's, but as a helper, a protector. This time the blood left her face pale.

"I hope so, Mr. Carlyon," she replied, and her hands clasped themselves tightly as if to hold some resolve. "It is what I have always hoped for, thought of." Then suddenly she smiled at him almost appealingly.

"I am a bit of a soldier too, you know--I love the fighting."

"You are in the thick of it here, anyhow," he interrupted, pausing.

They had climbed by a flight of steps through the city wall into the small courtyard on which the mission house, which had once been an outpost of the Fort, opened on its inner side. The outer, with its wide overhanging verandah, forming part of the actual city wall. But the remainder of the courtyard was set round by a perfect congeries of small temples, each rearing its upright stone spire--the stone of Baal worship--about the central tank which occupied the middle of the square. It was quite a small tank, and absolutely dry; so that you could see the four or five worn stone steps which led down to the patch of earth, not six feet square, at the bottom. A dozen or more children, boys and girls of the streets, were playing a sort of hop-scotch on these steps, and as Lance looked, one of them slipped and fell into that patch of earth. In a second the others had quitted their game, and fallen pell-mell, too, struggling, kicking, shouting, screaming with laughter.

"Is it a game?" he asked, looking at his companion, amused.

"Yes!" she said, suddenly, her face stern as he had seen it that first time he met her. "It is the game of Life and Death! That is the 'Pool of Immortality,' Mr. Carlyon! The pilgrims come here to bathe--there must be a secret siphon somewhere, for the water only comes when it is wanted. Three years ago the barriers put up to prevent accidents gave way--it was no one's fault. The crowd got in--a man slipped--and--and when the police managed to clear the crush--the--the tank was full up with dead bodies! The children _play_ at it now!"

But they had spied more amus.e.m.e.nt, and in another second were hanging round Erda's skirts.

"Sing to us, Miss-_sahiba_,--sing to us before you go in."

She looked apologetically at Lance. "I generally do," she began.

He raised his cap, almost obediently, with a brief "Certainly," and pa.s.sed on; but as he left the court on his way to the Fort, the first note of her voice made him turn, for a second, to look.

She was seated on the top step of the tank, the children grouped inquisitively round her, and she held her head high-almost defiantly.

"_The Son of G.o.d goes forth to war, Who follows in His train?_"

The words were distinctly audible, following him as he pa.s.sed on, the gun on his shoulder, the dead bird in his hand, and something between blessing and cursing in his heart. But above and through all, he seemed to hear a never-ceasing voice that said, "_The pivots of Life are Birth and Death. Death and Birth_."

CHAPTER XI

WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS

"Half a minute, Dillon!" said the Commissioner abruptly, as the doctor, ushered in by a scarlet-sin-stain of an orderly, entered the tent where the former was working. "I must attend to these gentlemen first."

These gentlemen were Dya Ram, Ramanund, and a third very different sort of person, obtrusively Hindoo in face, figure, attire.

The Commissioner's manner, as he returned to the business in hand, changed from careless familiarity to an elaborate courtesy.

"I quite understand, _pundit-sahib_," he said in English to Ramanund, "that you are, as you say, actuated by no personal motive. A man of your attainments and culture can scarcely feel a keen interest in _jogi_ Gorakh-nath's--that is the name, I think--domicile in a gun barrel!"

The sarcasm was lost on the hearer, who smiled, satisfied. "Quite so, sir," he replied. "It is merely, as my friend Dya Ram postulates, a question as to the legality--"

The Commissioner interrupted him suavely. "In that case it is a matter for the courts, surely."

"Unless your Honour should, as magistrate, act under Section 418 providing for emergencies," began Dya Ram; whereat the official sat back in his chair resignedly.

"Of course," he answered, his brogue running riot, as it always did, when he was contemptuous, "I have that power. But do ye really think, sir, that this present matter is of such paramount importance to the stability of the British Empire, that I should be justified in running counter to the ordinary course of law and justice?" Here the futility of his own sarcasm seemed to come home to him. He paused to consult a file, and when he looked up again, he spoke in Hindustani--evidently for the benefit of the third party. "There is no record whatever," he said briefly, "of any previous claim to the gun. It has been worshipped, of course; but that is a different matter. The military power has no intention of interfering with this habit. I may add that a counter pet.i.tion, praying me not to allow appeal on the ground that this _jogi_ is a man of ill fame, and a public nuisance, has been filed by the _mohunt_ (guardian of shrines) at the Pool of Immortality."

The obtrusively Hindoo figure which had remained standing, though his companions were seated, here folded his hands as if in prayer, leant forward, and began garrulously:--

"_Huzoor_ it is malice--malice of hereditary nature. They hope to gain money--"

"Exactly, _Mohunt-jee_; your money! if the pilgrims haven't the attraction of a live man in a gun close to your shrine your trade will suffer," interrupted the Commissioner, with brutal truth. "I am afraid I can do nothing. Of course," he continued, reverting to English, "if you bring a suit to claim prescriptive right, you may," here his patience gave way finally, "but G.o.d bless my soul, gentlemen! Surely men like you have something better to do than bolster up your countrymen in a preposterous business like this!"

"Pardon me, sir," protested Dya Ram, litigiously, "but if it is prescriptive right, vested in citizens, then--"

"Then, sir!" interrupted the stern, high voice, "the British Empire will have no choice but to allow _jogi_ Gorakh-nath to be a son-of-a-gun till the day of his death! So good-morning to you; unless--" here the suavity returned in full force--"there is any other subject you wish to bring forward."

There was not, apparently; and as the trio were ushered out, the Commissioner sat still further back in his chair, tilting it with his feet against the table, and ran his fingers through his hair in an exasperated fashion.

"'Pon my soul, it's inconceivable," he said; then, reaching forward, took up a newspaper that was lying on the table, and began to read.

"_If we are asked what we, the educated natives of India, claim, we reply boldly, all things that Englishmen of equal culture possess by right of birth. We refuse flatly to be lumped in with the cra.s.s ignorance of our fellow-countrymen who have, alas! not yet risen to a pitch of desiring that liberty of which John Stuart Mill speaks in such glowing terms in his valuable pamphlet_."

"Hark to that, now!" he commented, flinging the paper back. "That's Mr.

Dya Ram's last, and it goes on, as per usual, to abuse. They asked me to put a name to it, and I've just been telling the confidential department that, barring a horrible misuse of synonym, there's no sedition, no harm in it whatever! And there isn't, Dillon. The son-of-a-gun business is ten times as dangerous. Dering's within his rights, but I wish to blazes he'd left the brute alone; or he might have put a blank cartridge in and fired a salute by mistake when Gorakh-nath was inside! But ye can't keep the military in subjection.

The department's aimin' at a fight, and small blame to it! I'm spoiling for one myself this instant moment; so come along, doctor, an' let me hear what your criminals have to say. There's a pretty sheaf of complaints for ye, ye hard-hearted murderin' slave driver!"

He took up a bulky file of papers as he spoke, and pa.s.sed them to an orderly in exchange for his hat, which the man held ready.