The Hosts of the Lord Part 31

She buried her face in both her hands in a sort of despairing revolt at the duplicity, so, with the red-gold fruit in her lap, sat trying to think. But she could not. The scent of the orange blossoms seemed to cloud her senses. So she raised her face again, and stared at the river. Why had she done this? Why had she put this thing, that she must always conceal, into her life? There would always, now, be something she could not say straight out; and yet if she lived to be a hundred the memory of it would never fade; it would be as fresh as it was now when she died, with David's hand in hers!

The intolerable humiliation of it stung deep; the instinct to escape rose fiercely.

"Be quick!" she cried, seeing Am-ma idle, letting the current do the work. "I want to get there as soon as possible. I must, or something worse may happen. There isn't a moment to spare!"

Am-ma bent towards her from his seat astride a skin air-bag. "Did they kill anyone?" he asked, in sudden interest. "Did the prisoners escape as it was arranged? And was it Carlone-_sahib_ they killed?--they swore it should be he, because he laughed at the miracle."

"The prisoners--Carlone-_sahib_--killed!" she echoed stupidly. Then with a great throb of the heart she realized that here might be something of more importance than her self-humiliation. Had Father Ninian been right? Had there really been some conspiracy afoot, and had Am-ma heard?

"I have had no news from Eshwara, Am-ma," she said boldly, "what is this about prisoners escaping, and the _sahib-logue_ being killed? Who was going to do that?"

Am-ma looked crestfallen. "I thought the _Huzoor_ had heard--that _that_ was why she was going. It is nothing. Idle talk. It is always talk. And the _Huzoors_ have the _Dee-puk-rag_. They must still be kings."

"Am-ma," she interrupted sternly, "you must tell me about this. If you do not, I will take my hand off your son's head--I will never--"

He almost dropped his paddle in absolute terror. "_Huzoor_" he said helplessly, "it is talk, idle talk. It is always so. All day long, and all night long in the bazaars, and the Masters have the _Dee-puk-rag_.

There is no fear; but this slave will tell."

They were almost opposite the ferry before he had finished his tale, and she had grasped the whole tissue of trivialities which yet went to make up so formidable a possibility.

The discontent and dread regarding the ca.n.a.l, the strange lights, the deaths in gaol, the return of the cursed corpse, Gopi--the ticket-of-leave man's--talk of revenge if the cleansing water should fail.

Much of this was new to her, but it hung together with what she already knew; and yet it seemed incredible! What could be the object? What could they expect to do? Here Am-ma had smiled inscrutably, and said the Miss did not know bazaar talk. Everything was possible to it. Had they not even spoken of making a new Nawab out of Roshan Khan, the _risaldar?_ indeed, had not the _jemedar_ at the palace already treated him as one?

And the Pool of Immortality? Had it risen or not? Am-ma could not say.

They had asked him with bribes and threats to do the job--that was only the priest's revenge, but it would serve other purposes too--but he had refused, partly because he had to come away, and partly because he was the servant of the Light-bringers. As to when the prisoners were to escape he could not say. To-day, perhaps to-morrow, most likely never; unless something really happened. It was talk. The Miss need have no fear. The _Huzoors_, having the _Dee-puk-rag_, must needs be safe, and Carlone-_sahib_ was a real hero; none braver, none stronger.

That decided her. She had been counting costs as she listened. An hour, say, back to Herrnhut. Even if anyone were there, which was uncertain, half an hour at least to start a messenger. Then the boat might be at the other side of the river. Then all those miles, on a rough road at night!

"When shall we get to Eshwara?" she asked.

"At the turn of the night and day if the river is kind," said Am-ma, but he looked doubtfully into a copper tint that remained in the sky, though the sun must have set behind the mountains. It had a curious effect, that copper-coloured dome above the rim of almost black hills, with the river, dark, mysterious, already beginning to slide towards the narrowing ravine. It did not strike her that she herself, adrift on that river in what was to be her wedding dress, with prehistoric, aboriginal Am-ma as pilot to her and a lumber raft, would have had a still more curious effect to a spectator's eyes. But there were none, and it was already almost dark.

"Am-ma," she said, "I will give you fifty rupees, and keep my hand on the son's head, if you will leave the raft here, and take me as quick as you can to Eshwara--to the little steps below the fort--fifty whole rupees!"

He shook his head and grinned, partly at his own superlative honesty.

"We should not go so fast, _Huzoor_, now the slide is near," he said; "for, see you, the raft is the wood-_sahib's_ new shape. It is a good shape; it came down the rapids above the valley like a boat, faster than _this_, when the paddle cannot be used. It will take us with it. I will fasten _this_ behind, and steer. Then in the slacker water when the paddle is possible, we will leave it; if the Miss-_sahiba_ is in a hurry. But there is none. The _Huzoors_ are Light-bringers." He had already paddled alongside the raft,--a boat-shaped ma.s.s of huge logs rising towards the back--and, leaping to it, came back, after a moment, with the tow-rope.

"It shall do the work," he said, with another grin, as he fastened the air-buoyed bed to a ring placed for the purpose in one of the logs.

Then he clucked emphatically. "Lo! who would grudge men's brains to the Masters when they are clever as the G.o.ds themselves? The Miss will see how fast this goes. We shall be at Eshwara before the night turns to day."

Something in his tone warned her that the recurrence of the phrase was not pure chance.

"That is when the prisoners were to escape?" she said quickly.

He did not affirm or deny it. "So many things happen in the fight of Dawn," he said affably. That was all; but she thought rapidly. The rising, or whatever the conspiracy aimed at, could scarcely have happened just after they left Eshwara the night before. In that case the news must have followed them on the road. Therefore, if it was to happen at all, if this were not all talk--and Father Ninian's words came to make her doubt its being so--it would happen in a few hours. So she must be there in time to give warning.

As she thought this, a sudden strain at the tow-rope, a quick dip of the boat-shaped prow of the raft, a louder swish of the water as it curved out from its rising stern, told her she was adrift, indeed, on the way to Eshwara! It seemed almost more incredible than what had gone before. But there was nothing to be ashamed of here. It was the only possible thing to do under the circ.u.mstances. Her journey might prove unnecessary, but it might not; and supposing anything should really happen--to--to _anybody_--she would never be able to forgive herself if, knowing this chance of danger, she had not done her best to avert it.

CHAPTER XIX

JULIET

The copper-coloured glow, into which weather-wise Am-ma had looked, distrustfully, as it domed the little valley set in its rim of hills, had replaced that of sunset in Eshwara also, and Pidar Narayan's eyes, weather-wise as the fisherman's, looked at it as doubtfully, as he walked home with Lance and Vincent Dering when the long strain at the Pool of Immortality was over.

"If it were not so early in the year, I should predict a dust-storm--a real electrical dust-storm," he said.

Lance, whose hands were full of cut-paper G.o.ds--for in obedience to a sudden impulse, he had stopped on his way through the crowd to buy up the old Brahmin's whole stock in trade, and give him an extra eight annas to go away and not drum any more--looked up also, and filled his broad chest with a great breath. "Perhaps that is it. I've felt choking all day--horrid!"

Vincent Dering laughed. "I don't choke--I tingle; and it is rather jolly. Yes, sir; there is a lot of electricity in the air, and I shouldn't wonder if we had a regular black snorter. Glad it didn't come in the middle of the miracle '_biz_', for, as a general smasher-up of ordinary experiences, commend me to a real electrical dust-storm! It seems to attract the earth, earthy, in everything. In fact, if there is such a thing as the Devil, and he ever gets the upper hand, it is then--"

Father Ninian turned to him quickly, and then to the crowd,-through which they were still cleaving that curiously acquiescent way which white faces still cleave through dark ones--"Then I trust, my son," he said gently, "that for your sake and _theirs_ the storm may not come."

"Or that there isn't a Satanic majesty!" retorted Captain Dering, cynically. "That, sir, is the easiest way out of the difficulty."

Lance had looked round on the crowd also. "Well! if there is," he said, "and I had to paint him, I'd take that man's face as my model for Lucifer." He pointed to a _gosain_ who was forming the centre of a group of gossipers round a syrup-seller's shop, and added--for he knew his Milton as well as his Shakespeare--"_The superior fiend who gives not Heav'n for lost!_"

"Looks a bad lot, I admit," remarked Vincent, carelessly. "Have an idea I've seen him before; in gaol, I believe. Yes! I'm sure of it. He is the fellow Dillon told me was going to get his ticket-of-leave for good conduct. He looks scoundrel enough for that! But really, sir--" he turned to Father Ninian again--"I think we may count on their behaviour now." He indicated the crowd. "If there was going to be a row it would have come off before this; now they will settle down, you'll see, and go on to the next camping-ground to-morrow morning as if nothing had gone wrong. They are such creatures of habit; you could see that from their sticking on in expectation of that footling old miracle all day!"

Father Ninian, in that curiously irrelevant way he had, put on the gold _pince-nez_ which always dangled over his black soutane, and looked round him again. "They will settle down," he said quietly, "if nothing new crops up to give them a lead into new ways. That is always the danger; and a very small thing does it, sometimes, in India."

They had reached the courtyard which lay between the palace and the Fort, and with a wave of his hand in farewell, he pa.s.sed along the wall to the former, while the others, striking across the raised union-jack of paths, made for the latter. The yard was crammed with pilgrims on their way to bathe on the river steps.

"Who the deuce are those fellows?" said Vincent, angrily, as half a dozen figures slipped out through the door in the bastion, as they approached, and mixing with the crowd, got lost in it, while the door was closed behind them by some unseen hand. "I'll talk to Roshan about that. He was complaining only this morning that the men were breaking out of barracks. What else can he expect if he doesn't look out. By Jove! I'll teach 'em!"

His first words, indeed, as he entered the outer courtyard of the Fort, was to order a sentry down to close the doors against all comers without a written pa.s.s from him, and as he went by the guard-house he gave rather a sharp reprimand to Roshan Khan, who happened to be outside, for not having kept his eyes open while in charge of the Fort during his absence. No one was in future to use the small door; the key was to be brought to him, and all pa.s.ses were to be stopped for that night.

"Roshan looks in a demon bad temper. I wonder what's up?" remarked Lance, casually, as he pa.s.sed on through a wicket in the ma.s.sive closed gates to the inner courtyard, where the officers' quarters lay, hugging the river wall. It was quite a citadel, a distinct fortification of itself, with no entrance or exit except through the outer yard, or by the little flight of steps leading down to the river, at the foot of which Lance moored his canoe.

"He has been sulky as a bear with me these last few days," replied Captain Dering, with a contemptuous smile. "I believe the old Colonel was right after all, and coming here has put wind in his head. I shall have to teach Mr. Roshan that, good man as he is, he is only a _risaldar_, before long."

"Poor devil," said Lance under his breath. "I'm always a bit sorry for Roshan. He would be a fine fellow--if--if he wasn't so--so civilized."

"Civilized," echoed Vincent, with a laugh. "You haven't seen him fight.

I have. Talk of devils; he has got one in him, if you like!"

He certainly had at that moment, when, having gone straight to his quarters after Vincent's reprimand, he found himself alone, and free to show his feelings.

And yet, had he been calm, he could scarcely have told wherein the grievance lay which for the moment clamoured for--no--not redress--revenge.

It was not the first time that he had had to ignore hints, innuendoes, suggestions of Heaven knows what impossible intrigues, as he had had that very afternoon. It was not the first time that, in his position as intermediary between the ignorance of the native soldier and the ignorance of the English officer, he had had to '_ca' canny_,' so as not to alienate the confidence of either. Indeed, the consciousness of the necessity for this, by enhancing the value of his services, had always been a pride to him hitherto. And these particular intrigues were so childish; especially if--he paused in his angry pacing of the room, and smiled complacently. Why should he give a thought to an impossible plan, when a possible one lay ready to his hand? If he married Laila, the land, almost the t.i.tle, would be his of right. It would be easy anyhow to regain. Then with a fresh frown, he remembered Vincent's order. That would upset his plans. He had meant to slip out by the bastion gate just before--say an hour before--dawn, and cross over to the palace. Akbar Khan had arranged to be there to let him into the garden. Now he must make other arrangements. He must find the old eunuch, change the hour and the place; since nothing--no! not all the tyranny in the world--should prevent his carrying out his intention of seeing his cousin, and claiming her as his--his by right. So he must settle this at once; settle it before there was any chance, he told himself bitterly, of his superior officer coming out of the mess--where no doubt he was guzzling swine's flesh and bibbing wine--(that faint amaze at the presence in his own mind of such antiquated half-forgotten ideas a.s.sailed him again at this point) to encroach further on his liberty, his privileges.

He had to pa.s.s the troopers' lines on his way to the main gate, and the quick _salaams_, the ready smiles given him by the men, as they lounged and smoked after their long day on duty, soothed his pride.

The Captain had certainly said they had behaved well--kindly, and discreetly; but whose merit was that? The Englishman's who gave the word of command, or his, who had drilled them to obedience, who lived with them day and night? Without such as he, a native regiment could not be managed, if he chose to give the word. He would not, of course, but if he chose--