The Hosts of the Lord Part 32

He set his teeth as he walked out of the Fort, and met at its very gate that surging tide of patient, eager faces drifting on, and back again, aimlessly.

He need not, as a matter of fact, have feared any further interference from Vincent Dering, for the latter, being very tired after the long day in the sun, and having reason to know that part of the night time, at any rate, which is usually given to sleep would be employed in something better, had, after staving off hunger with what the cook would produce at a moment's notice, and postponing the dinner hour, gone to sleep deliberately, advising Lance to do the same.

But the latter had, rather to his own surprise, found this impossible; not even over a cigar in the balcony above the sliding, rushing river, the sound of which was as a rule sleep-compelling, would sleep come; not even in the cool darkness which was settling on Eshwara, despite the curious hint of glow lingering in the sky.

The air was too electrical, he decided. And then--Erda! He had slept the night before, after she had said good-by so carelessly, without realizing that the good-by was for ever. And he had not had time to think all day. But now, at rest in the cool darkness, looking from his lounge chair down the river to that other balcony, he did realize it.

For ever! Yes! that regret was in his life for ever. And he was so young. Only twenty-five.

Why had this come to him?

Erda! Erda,--his heart's desire.

He sat there voiceless, sucking mechanically at a cigar, long since gone out; but that was as much the cry at his heart as if he had allowed himself a fine frenzy of despair in older fashion.

And he imagined her as he had seen her--this way, that way, every way, in an unending torture of visions--until he exhausted reality, and fancy showed her to him in her wedding dress. And then he felt as if he could kill the Reverend David Campbell without shame or fear. He was vaguely ashamed of the lack of shame, however, especially when his fancy led him into endless mishaps which might befall a man, especially a missionary, before his wedding day.

"_There they ate a missionary_--"

Yes, sometimes; but there was not much time left for that sort of end--

What a brute he was, when the only thing that mattered was that she should be happy and content.

But would she be so?

It went on and on and on, the controversy between himself and that other self, so that he felt worn, and hara.s.sed, and dirty, and altogether undesirable, when Vincent, about nine o'clock, reappeared, dapper and scented as usual, in his mess kit, and expressed surprise at finding his companion still undressed. He was hungry as a hunter, he said; besides he wanted to have a decent interval between dinner and turning in. And _that_ must be early, for he had just heard from the police authorities that though everything was quiet for the night, absolutely quiet, they thought it would be safer to have the Pool guarded again at dawn, in case of accidents; since none of the pilgrims, though apparently quite resigned, had as yet gone on.

"They never do till the next day; Pidar Narayan told me so," commented Lance, crossly. "Why should they rake us up at such an unearthly hour?

Why can't they let the people have a row if they want one? I'd like it; give a fellow something to do in this beastly hole."

He went off to dress moodily, wishing savage wishes, so adding, perhaps, to that electricity in the air. And Vincent gave it his quota of desire also, in his reckless determination to regain Paradise, as it was lost, through a woman. And that play of Romeo and Juliet in the scented garden--Juliet, whose bounty was "as boundless as the sea"--was a bit of pure paradise to him. He had never, he thought, been in love before. He had never known what love was. Those other loves of his had been mean, ungenerous, calculating.

So he was at his best, his brightest, during dinner. Lance, on the contrary, was at his worst, his dullest; and Vincent made this his excuse for going to his room betimes. He was not due at the palace till twelve, but he was anxious to ensure the coast being clear, and Lance seemed just in the mood when a fellow sits up sulkily, out of pure cussedness, and drinks whiskey-and-water if he can find a companion on whom to vent his cavillings.

In truth Lance would have liked to do so. He wanted to feel miserable; but after Vincent had gone, and he was left alone in the balcony, sleep began to a.s.sert itself. He found even his despair becoming dreamy, and being obstinate, tried to fight against the fact. The result being that he finally fell asleep in his lounge chair with a soundness and unconsciousness usually reserved for bed. Fell asleep, and promptly relaxed into content with happy dreams of Erda's return to him; for his, left to itself, was a healthy soul.

And so were the vast majority of those which, through patient yet eager eyes, were looking into the scarce-lit darkness of the streets, as the pilgrims, crowded into an almost solid ma.s.s, seemed to slide with a slow, almost unseen movement, through them. They were waiting for the dawn. If nothing new came before then, they would pa.s.s on towards the 'Cradle of the G.o.ds.' So, scarcely seen, restless yet restful, their feet on the next rung of the golden stairs, they waited.

And overhead the young moon had risen with a copper-coloured edge to its crescent of light. For the glow was still in the sky, and the troopers in the Fort, resting, after their long day, in Indian fashion by sprawling on their beds and gossiping, had dragged these beds into the open and discarded most of their clothing, since the night was strangely still and warm. So even the wonder what had become of the _risaldar-sahib_ was languid.

For Roshan Khan had not returned. And yet, as he sat in a quiet courtyard of the city, with closed doors, realizing how late it was growing, he had no fear of further reprimand. On the contrary, his pulses were bounding with the certainty that he would gain praise. And there was something beyond this mere desire for personal advantage in the keen-witted diplomacy with which he listened, with which he suggested, with which he led the talkers on to tell what it was of the utmost importance that he should know, not so much to himself, as to the Government he served. For his vague discontent had vanished, his well-reasoned, well-founded loyalty returned at this, the first hint at anything beyond the wild, aimless intrigue with which every Indian bazaar teems. But here, in this definite plan, by the collaboration of his troopers, of liberating fifteen hundred scoundrels,--or, at least, desperadoes,--of aping the stroke of action which made the great mutiny of '57 possible, was something tangible. Something which, when known to the uttermost, must be told without delay to his superior officer. A vast pride swept through him, as, when the gongs were striking one,--short, yet with lingering vibration in the dull, still air,--he made his way, fast as he could, back to the Fort. Without him, and such as he, faithful despite limitations, what would the Masters know?

Hours before, as he went out, he had arranged with Akbar Khan that the palace door giving on the great square between it and the Fort should be on the latch only, so that he might slip in at any time and take his chance of hiding in the garden, his chance of seeing Laila before the dawn came and he had to go back to the Fort. The old sinner, indeed, had jumped at this indefinite arrangement, which bound him to nothing; which made it unnecessary for him even to broach the subject of an interview to his mistress. Since what was easier to say than that it had been impossible; as, indeed, it was! Perhaps Roshan Khan had himself grasped this fact; perhaps in insisting on this entry to the garden he had been backing more than his own luck, and had been meditating a _coup d'etat_ of his own. However that may have been, all was forgotten in his newly recovered loyalty, his keen ambition, as he hurried back to the Fort intent on but one thing--the forewarning and forearming of those whom he had long ago deliberately chosen as his masters.

Some of his men were still lounging about on their beds, and he spoke a word to them as he pa.s.sed, warning them to be ready if wanted. So, leaving them in sudden vague excitement, he pa.s.sed on to the inner court. Here, where Lance Carlyon's small band of Sikh pioneers were quartered in the long, low building in which the fortified gateway stood, no one was astir. And no lights were visible in the opposite building where Lance and Vincent lived. Doubtless everyone was in bed.

He pa.s.sed on, therefore, swiftly to the room he knew to be his Captain's, and knocked. There was no answer. He opened the door and looked in. It was empty. A vague wonder a.s.sailed him, and he pa.s.sed on to Lance Carlyon's room. It was empty also, and the vague uneasiness died down. They must be sitting up still in the balcony overlooking the river, where they sat every day after dinner. Stupid of him not to have gone there first; and yet, surely, it was late. Perhaps they were uneasy; perhaps they had already heard! An open letter "_On Her Majesty's Service_" lying on the dinner table as he pa.s.sed through the mess room (which was still lit up--sign that the servants had gone to sleep awaiting their masters' call) attracted his attention. He glanced at it, half fearing to find himself forestalled by the police authorities. No! It was from them, as he had seen at once; but it was only that notice for dawn. Ah! what was this? this tiny sc.r.a.p of paper, which had been twisted to a c.o.c.ked-hat note, lying caught in the fold of the foolscap, with the two words--"_twelve o'clock_"--written on it?

In a woman's writing. Roshan knew enough of invitations from Englishwomen to be sure of that.

The vague uneasiness returned, as he went on to the balcony beyond the dining-room. There too, the swinging lamp still burnt, and showed him Lance Carlyon fast asleep in a lounge chair; but no one else.

Where was Captain Dering? Captain Dering, who had the key of the little door in the bastion; Captain Dering, who had had a note with "_twelve o'clock_" in it?

A sudden thought struck him. If--if there was anything in his vague fear--then, by taking the canoe, which lay at the bottom of the stairs, he could slip down stream, and see--

Forgetting everything else, Roshan stole softly past the sleeping Lance, and went down the stairs.

The canoe was not there.

Then Captain Dering must have taken it and gone--whither?

There was but one place whither he was likely to go alone at that hour of the night; one place, a stair like this leading up to a balcony over the river where he had gone once before with a woman, a woman in a dress which marked her for what she was, really--a dress that marked her secluded--which made _this_, shame unutterable!

Roshan's impotent fury rose hot at the inexpressible humiliation. The thought of Captain Dering and Laila alone in that balcony meant but one thing to his inherited ideas. No glaze of romance was possible. It was shame unutterable, irredeemable. Shame that must be revenged without delay. So, forgetting everything else in the world except this, he pa.s.sed the sleeping Lance once more, hurried back to his quarters for his revolver, and only stopping to see that one chamber at least was loaded, made his way to that door which he knew would be on the latch.

That patient, eager crowd was still thronging the courtyard as he crossed it, pausing a moment beside the great gun which centred the union-jack of raised paths.

The "_Teacher of Religion!_"

Ay! they needed a teacher, needed a lesson; these aliens, these usurpers, these depravers of women.

Yet, in sober truth, Vincent Dering, at that moment sitting in the little balcony alone with Laila Bonaventura, felt quite virtuous. They had just come in from the garden, where they had been strolling and whispering, and now, as they sat together, without a word, scarcely a thought, in the faint light of the young moon and a red jewelled hand-lamp--which Laila, with that unfailing instinct of hers for all that matched the pa.s.sionate mystery of the place, had set in a carved niche, where it looked like a votive offering to the unseen image of a saint--Vincent could feel the warm ivory of her cheek against his own, hear the soft c.h.i.n.k of her jewels as they slid towards him, following the soft warm curves on which they lay. The red light of the lamp glittered faintly in red stars on the myriad facets of looking-gla.s.s with which the vaulted roof above them was adorned. It fell, reddening the red lights on the gold-stiffened crimson waves of her dress, that sent such a bewildering perfume to cloud his senses with pa.s.sionate content.

A vast tenderness, a vast triumph, surged through him at the thought of her. Who dared to judge her by the narrow standards of to-day--she, who had gone back boldly to realities!

_This_ was what poets had sung since time began; _this_ was what the world had exchanged for Paradise!

Juliet! Juliet!

And if he was the "_G.o.d of her idolatry_," she was to him the "_dearest morsel of earth_."

He bent and whispered the name to her with a kiss.

And as he did so, a step, swift, bold, masterful, sounded in the pa.s.sage above; the step of one with a right to be there.

Vincent, startled, sat listening; but Laila was on her feet in a second, with a reckless laugh.

"Father Laurence!" she cried. "Well! let him come. I'm not afraid! For he loved _her_. He _must_ remember!"

So, as a dim figure showed, half seen, in the archway, she stood like a queen, her hand raised, her head thrown back; a sight never to be forgotten.

"There is no use in being angry, guardian," she called, in her full-throated voice. "It is too late for that. Remember--" She paused, gave a slight scream, and flung herself before Vincent.

There was a flash, a second scream, and then the arches rang with the echoes of a pistol-shot.

"Laila! Laila!"

"You d.a.m.ned scoundrel! You've killed her!"