The Lamp in the Desert Part 11

It was abjectly spoken, yet she shuddered at the sound of his voice. Her whole being revolted against holding any converse with the man. But she forced herself to persist. Only this monstrous, half-b.e.s.t.i.a.l creature could give her any detail of the awful thing that had happened in the night. If Ralph were indeed dead, this man was the last who had seen him in life.

With a strong effort she subdued her repugnance and addressed him. "I want," she said, "to be guided to the place from which you say he fell.

I must see for myself."

He bent himself almost to the earth before her. "Let the gracious lady follow her servant!" he said, and forthwith straightened himself and hobbled away.

She followed him in utter silence, Peter walking at her right hand. Up the steep goat-path which Dacre had so arrogantly ascended in the wake of his halting guide they made their slow progress in dumb procession.

Stella moved as one rapt in some terrible dream. Again that drugged feeling was upon her, that sense of being bound by a spell, and now she knew that the spell was evil. Once or twice her brain stirred a little when Peter offered his silent help, and she thanked him and accepted it while scarcely realizing what she did. But for the most part she remained in that state of awful quiescence, the inertia of one about whom the toils of a pitiless Fate were closely woven. There was no escape for her. She knew that there could be no escape. She had been caught trespa.s.sing in a forbidden paradise, and she was about to be thrust forth without mercy.

High up on a shelf of naked rock their guide stood and waited--a ragged, incongruous figure against the purity of the new day. The early sun had barely topped the highest mountains, but a great gap between two mighty peaks revealed it. As Stella pressed forward, she came suddenly into the splendour of the morning.

It affected her strangely. She felt as Moses must have felt when the Glory of G.o.d was revealed to him. The brightness was intolerable. It seemed to pierce her through and through. She was not able to look upon it.

"Excellency," the stranger said, "it was here."

She moved forward and stood beside him. Quiveringly, in a voice she hardly recognized as her own, she spoke. "You were with him. You brought him here."

He made a gesture as of one who repudiates responsibility. "I, excellency, I am the servant of the Holy Ones," he said. "I had a message for him. I knew that the Holy Ones were angry. It was written that the white _sahib_ should not tread the sacred ground. I warned him, excellency, and then I left him. And now the Holy Ones have worked their will upon him, and lo, he is gone."

Stella gazed at the man with fascinated eyes. The confidence with which he spoke somehow left no room for question.

"He is mad," she murmured, half to herself and half to Peter. "Of course he is mad."

And then, as if a hand had touched her also, she moved forward to the edge of the precipice and looked down.

The rush of the torrent rose up like the tumult of many voices calling to her, calling to her. The depth beneath her feet widened to an abyss that yawned to engulf her. With a sick sense of horror she realized that ghastly, headlong fall--from warm, throbbing life on the enchanted height to instant and terrible destruction upon the green, slimy boulders over which the water dashed and roared continuously far below.

Here he had sat, that arrogant lover of hers, and slipped from somnolent enjoyment into that dreadful gulf. At her feet--proof indisputable of the truth of the story she had been told--lay a charred fragment of the cigar that had doubtless been between his lips when he had sunk into that fatal sleep. The memory of Peter's words flashed through her brain.

He had smoked opium. She wondered if Peter really knew. But of what avail now to conjecture? He was gone, and only this mad native vagabond had witnessed his going.

And at that, another thought pierced her keen as a dagger, rending its way through living tissues. The manner of the man's appearing, the horror with which he had inspired her, the mystery of him, all combined to drive it home to her heart. What if a hand had indeed touched him?

What if a treacherous blow had hurled him over that terrible edge?

She turned to look again upon the stranger, but he had withdrawn himself. She saw only the Indian servant, standing close beside her, his dark eyes following her every action with wistful vigilance.

Meeting her desperate gaze, he pressed a little nearer, like a faithful dog, protective and devoted. "Come away, my _mem-sahib!_" he entreated very earnestly. "It is the Gate of Death."

That pierced her anew. Her desolation came upon her in an overwhelming wave. She turned with a great cry, and threw her arms wide to the risen sun, tottering blindly towards the emptiness that stretched beneath her feet. And as she went, she heard the roar of the torrent dashing down over its grim boulders to the great river up which they two had glided in their dream of enchantment aeons and aeons before....

She knew nothing of the sinewy arms that held her back from death though she fought them fiercely, desperately. She did not hear the piteous entreaties of poor hara.s.sed Peter as he forced her back, back, back, from those awful depths. She only knew a great turmoil that seemed to her unending--a fearful striving against ever-increasing odds--and at the last a swirling, unfathomable darkness descending like a wind-blown blanket upon her--enveloping her, annihilating her....

And British eyes, keen and grey and stern, looked on from afar, watching silently, as the Indian bore his senseless _mem-sahib_ away.

PART II

CHAPTER I

THE MINISTERING ANGEL

"And what am I going to do?" demanded Mrs. Ermsted fretfully. She was lounging in the easiest chair in Mrs. Ralston's drawing-room with a cigarette between her fingers. A very decided frown was drawing her delicate brows. "I had no idea you could be so fickle," she said.

"My dear, I shall welcome you here just as heartily as I ever have,"

Mrs. Ralston a.s.sured her, without lifting her eyes from the muslin frock at which she was busily st.i.tching.

Mrs. Ermsted pouted. "That may be. But I shan't come very often when she is here. I don't like widows. They are either so melancholy that they give you the hump or so self-important that you want to slap them. I never did fancy this girl, as you know. Much too haughty and superior."

"You never knew her, dear," said Mrs. Ralston.

Mrs. Ermsted's laugh had a touch of venom. "As I have tried more than once to make you realize," she said, "there are at least two points of view to everybody. You, dear Mrs. Ralston, always wear rose-coloured spectacles, with the unfortunate result that your opinion is so unvaryingly favourable that n.o.body values it."

Mrs. Ralston's faded face flushed faintly. She worked on in silence.

For a s.p.a.ce Netta Ermsted smoked her cigarette with her eyes fixed upon s.p.a.ce; then very suddenly she spoke again. "I wonder if Ralph Dacre committed suicide."

Mrs. Ralston started at the abrupt surmise. She looked up for the first time. "Really, my dear! What an extraordinary thing to say!"

Little Mrs. Ermsted jerked up her chin aggressively. "Why extraordinary, I wonder? Nothing could be more extraordinary than his death. Either he jumped over the precipice or she pushed him over when he wasn't looking.

I wonder which."

But at that Mrs. Ralston gravely arose and rebuked her. She never suffered any nervous qualms when dealing with this volatile friend of hers. "It is more than foolish," she said with decision; "it is wicked, to talk like that. I will not sit and listen to you. You have a very mischievous brain, Netta. You ought to keep it under better control."

Mrs. Ermsted stretched out her dainty feet in front of her and made a grimace. "When you call me Netta, I always know it is getting serious,"

she remarked. "I withdraw it all, my dear angel, with the utmost liberality. You shall see how generous I can be to my supplanter. But do like a good soul finish those tiresome tucks before you begin to be really cross with me! Poor little Tessa really needs that frock, and _ayah_ is such a shocking worker. I shan't be able to turn to you for anything when the estimable Mrs. Dacre is here. In fact I shall be driven to Mrs. Burton for companionship and counsel, and shall become more catty than ever."

"My dear, please"--Mrs. Ralston spoke very earnestly--"do not imagine for an instant that having that poor girl to care for will make the smallest difference to my friendship for you! I hope to see as much of you and little Tessa as I have ever seen. I feel that Stella would be fond of children. Your little one would be a comfort to any sore heart."

"She can be a positive little devil," observed Tessa's mother dispa.s.sionately. "But it's better than being a saint, isn't it? Look at that hateful child, Cedric Burton--detestable little ape! That Burton complacency gets on my nerves, especially in a child. But then look at the Burtons! How could they help having horrible little self-opinionated apes for children?"

"My dear, your tongue--your tongue!" protested Mrs. Ralston.

Mrs. Ermsted shot it out and in again with an impudent smile. "Well, what's the matter with it? It's quite a candid one--like your own. A little more pointed perhaps and something venomous upon occasion. But it has its good qualities also. At least it is never insincere."

"Of that I am sure." Mrs. Ralston spoke with ready kindliness. "But, oh, my dear, if it were only a little more charitable!"

Netta Ermsted smiled at her like a wayward child. "I like saying nasty things about people," she said. "It amuses me. Besides, they're nearly always true. Do tell me what you think of that latest hat erection of Lady Harriet's! I never saw her look more aristocratically hideous in my life than she looked at the Rajah's garden-party yesterday. I felt quite sorry for the Rajah, for he's a nice boy notwithstanding his forty wives, and he likes pretty things." She gave a little laugh, and stretched her white arms up, clasping her hands behind her head. "I have promised to ride with him in the early mornings now and then. Won't darling d.i.c.k be jealous when he knows?"

Mrs. Ralston uttered a sigh. There were times when all her attempts to reform this giddy little b.u.t.terfly seemed unavailing. Nevertheless, being sound of principle and unfailingly conscientious, she made a gallant effort. "Do you think you ought to do that, dear? I always think that we ought to live more circ.u.mspectly here at Bhulwana than down at Kurrumpore. And--if I may be allowed to say so--your husband is such a good, kind man, so indulgent, it seems unfair to take advantage of it."

"Oh, is he?" laughed Netta. "How ill you know my doughty Richard! Why, it's half the fun in life to make him mad. He nearly turned me over his knee and spanked me the last time."

"My dear, I wish he had!" said Mrs. Ralston, with downright fervour. "It would do you good."

"Think so?" Netta flicked the ash from her cigarette with a disdainful gesture. "It all depends. I should either worship him or loath him afterwards. I wonder which. Poor old Richard! It's silly of him to stay in love with the same person always, isn't it? I couldn't be so monotonous if I tried."

"In fact if he cared less about you, you would think more of him,"