The Way of an Eagle Part 28

Standing dumbly by the door, she saw the doctor stoop to lay the poor little body down in the cot, saw Daisy's face of anguish, and the sudden, wide-flung spread of her empty arms.

The next moment, her woman's instinct prompting her, she sprang forward; and it was she who caught the stricken mother as she fell.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE CREED OF A FIGHTER

It was growing very hot in the plains. A faint breeze born at sunset had died away long ago, leaving a wonderful, breathless stillness behind. The man who sat at work on his verandah with his shirt-sleeves turned up above his elbows sighed heavily from time to time as if he felt some oppression in the atmosphere. He was quite a young man, fair-skinned and clean-shaven, with an almost pathetically boyish look about him, a wistful expression as of one whose youth still endured though the zest thereof was denied to him. His eyes were weary and bloodshot, but he worked on steadily, indefatigably, never raising them from the paper under his hand.

Even when a step sounded in the room behind him, he scarcely looked up. "One moment, old chap!" He was still working rapidly as he spoke.

"I've a toughish bit to get through. I'll talk to you in a minute."

There was no immediate reply. A man's figure, dressed in white linen, with one arm quite invisible under the coat, stood halting for a moment in the doorway, then moved out and slowly approached the table at which the other sat.

The lamplight, gleaming upwards, revealed a yellow face of many wrinkles, and curious, glancing eyes that shone like fireflies in the gloom.

He stopped beside the man who worked. "All right," he said. "Finish what you are doing."

In the silence that followed he seemed to watch the hand that moved over the paper with an absorbing interest. The instant it rested he spoke.

"Done?"

The man in the chair stretched out his arms with a long gesture of weariness; then abruptly leapt to his feet.

"What am I thinking of, keeping you standing here? Sit down, Nick!

Yes, I've done for the present. What a restless beggar you are! Why couldn't you lie still for a spell?"

Nick grimaced. "It's an accomplishment I have never been able to acquire. Besides, there's no occasion for it now. If I were going to die, it would be a different thing, and even then I think I'd rather die standing. How are you getting on, my son? What mean these hieroglyphics?"

He dropped into the empty chair and pored over the paper.

"Oh, you wouldn't understand if I told you," the other answered.

"You're not an engineer."

"Not even a greaser of wheels." admitted Nick modestly. "But you needn't throw it in my teeth. I suppose you are going to make your fortune soon and retire--you and Daisy and the imp--to a respectable suburb. You're a very lucky chap, Will."

"Think so?" said Will.

He was bending a little over his work. His tone sounded either absent or dubious.

Nick glanced at him, and suddenly swept his free right hand across the table. "Put it away!" he said. "You're overdoing it. Get the wretched stuff out of your head for a bit, and let's have a smoke before dinner. I'll bring her out to you next winter. See if I don't!"

Will turned towards him impulsively. "Oh, man, if you only could!"

"Only could!" echoed Nick. "I tell you I will. Ten quid on it if you like. Is it done?"

But Will shook his head with a queer, unsteady smile. "No, it isn't. But come along and smoke, or you will be having that infernal neuralgia again. It was confoundedly good of you to look me up like this when you weren't fit for it."

Nick laughed aloud. "Man alive! You don't suppose I did it for your sake, do you? Don't you know I wanted to break the journey to the coast?"

"Odd place to choose!" commented Will.

Nick arose in his own peculiarly abrupt fashion, and thrust his hand through his friend's arm.

"Perhaps I thought a couple of days of your society would cheer me up," he observed lightly. "I daresay that seems odd too."

Will laughed in spite of himself. "Well, you've seen me with my nose to the grindstone anyhow. You can tell Daisy I'm working like a troop-horse for her and the boy! Jove! What a knowing little beggar that youngster used to be! He isn't very strong though, Daisy writes."

"How often do you hear?" asked Nick.

"Oh, the last letter came three weeks ago. They were all well then, but she didn't stop to say much because Grange was there. He is staying with them, you know."

"You haven't heard since then?" There was just a hint of indignation in Nick's query.

Will shook his head. "No. She's a bad correspondent, always was. I write by every mail, and of course, if there were anything I ought to know, she would write too. But they are leading a fairly humdrum existence just now. She can't have much to tell me."

Nick changed the subject. "How long has Grange been there?"

"I don't know. Some time, I think. But I really don't know. They are very old pals, you know, he and Daisy. There was a bit of a romance between them, I believe, years ago, when she was in her teens. Their people wouldn't hear of it because they were first cousins, so it fizzled out. But they are still great friends. A good sort of fellow, I always thought."

"Too soft for me," said Nick. "He's like a well-built ship adrift without a rudder. He's all manners and no grit--the sort of chap who wants to be pushed before he can do anything. I often ached to kick him when we were boxed up at Wara."

Will smiled. "The only drawback to indulging in that kind of game is that you may get kicked back, and a kick from a giant like Grange would be no joke."

Nick looked supremely contemptuous. "Fellows like Grange don't kick.

They don't know how. That's why I had to leave him alone."

He turned into Will's sitting-room and stretched himself out upon an ancient _charpoy_ furnished with many ancient cushions that stood by the window.

Will gave him a cigarette, and lighted it. "I wonder how many nights I have spent on that old shake-down," he remarked, as he did it.

Nick glanced upwards. "Last year?"

Will nodded. "It was like h.e.l.l," he said, with terrible simplicity. "I came straight back here, you know, after Daisy left Simla. I suppose the contrast made it worse. Then, too, the sub was ill, and it meant double work. Well," with another sigh, "we pulled through somehow, and I suppose we shall again. But, Nick, Daisy couldn't possibly stand this place more than four months out of the twelve. And as for the kiddie--"

Nick removed his cigarette to yawn.

"You won't be here all your life, my son," he said. "You're a rising man, remember. There's no sense in grizzling, anyhow, and you're getting round-shouldered. Why don't you do some gymnastics? You've got a swimming bath. Go and do a quarter of a mile breast-stroke every day. Jupiter! What wouldn't I give to"--He broke off abruptly. "Well, I'm not going to cry for the moon either. There's the _khit_ on the verandah. What does he want?"

Will went out to see. Nick, idly watching, saw the native hand him something on a salver which Will took to the lamp by which he had been working. Dead silence ensued. From far away there came the haunting cry of a jackal, but near at hand there was no sound. A great stillness hung upon all things.

To Nick, lying at full length upon the cushions, there presently came the faint sound of paper crackling, and a moment later his friend's voice, pitched very low, spoke to the waiting servant. He heard the man softly retire, and again an intense stillness reigned.

He could not see Will from where he lay, and he smoked on placidly for nearly five minutes in the belief that he was either answering some communication or looking over his work. Then at last, growing impatient of the prolonged silence, he lifted his voice without moving.