The sound of firing had now grown incessant. One report followed another at swift, irregular intervals, and each sounded like a clap of thunder in the silent room. Mrs. Cary stirred uneasily in her sleep, a low, scarcely audible groan escaped the parted lips, as though even in her dreams she was being pursued by fear's pitiless phantom. Her self-appointed nurse continued to fan her with the energy of despair, the poor livid face twitching at every fresh threatening sound. Mrs. Carmichael still pretended to be absorbed in her pinafore, but the revolver lay on the table, ready to hand, and there was a look in the steady eyes which boded ill for the first enemy who should confront her. Lois and Beatrice continued their fruitless task.
A woman's courage is the supreme victory of mind over matter. It is no easy thing for a hero to sit still and helpless while death rattles his bullet fingers against the walls and screams in voices of hate and fury from a distance which every minute diminishes. For a woman burdened with the disability of a high-strung nervous system, it is a martyrdom. Yet these women, brought up on the froth of an enervating, pleasure-seeking society, held out—held out with a martyr's courage and constancy—against the torture of inactivity, of an imagination which penetrated the sheltering walls out into the night where fifty men writhed in a death-struggle with hundreds—saw every bleeding wound, heard every smothered moan of pain, felt already the cold iron pierce their own breasts. The hours passed, and they did not yield. They had ceased from their incongruous tasks, and stood and waited, wordless and tearless.
As the first grey lights of dawn crept into the stifling room they heard footsteps hurrying across the adjacent room, and each drew herself upright to meet the end. Mrs. Carmichael's hand tightened over the revolver, but it was only Mr. Berry who entered. The little missionary, a shy, society-shunning man, noted for doing more harm than good among the natives by his zealous bigotry and ignorance of their prejudices, stood revealed in a new light. His face was grimed with dirt and powder, his clothes disordered, his weak eyes bright with the fire of battle.
"Do not be afraid," he said quickly. "There is no immediate danger. I have only been sent to warn you to be ready to leave the bungalow. The front wall is shot-riddled, and the place may become indefensible at any moment. When that time comes, you must slip out to the old bungalow. Nicholson believes he can hold out there."
"My husband—?" interrupted Mrs. Carmichael.
"Your husband is safe. In fact, all three were well when I left. If I wasn't against such things, I should say it was a splendid fight—and every man a hero. The Rajah—"
"The Rajah—?"
Mr. Berry looked in stern surprise at the pale face of the speaker.
"The Rajah has a charmed life," he said somberly. "He is always in the front of his men—we can recognize him by his dress and figure—he is always within range, but we can't hit him. Not that I ought to wish his death, though it's our only chance." He put his hands distractedly to his head. "Heaven knows, it's too hard for a Christian man! Every time I see an enemy fall, I rejoice—and then I remember that it is my brother—" He stopped, the expression on his face of profound trouble giving way to active alarm. "Hush! Some one is coming!"
A second time the door opened, and Travers rushed in. Lois saw his face, and something in her recoiled in sick disgust. Fear, an almost imbecilic fear, was written on the wide-open, staring eyes, and the hand that held the revolver trembled like that of an old man.
"Quick—out by the back way!" he stammered incoherently. "I will lock the door—so. That will keep them off a minute. They are bound to look for us here first. Nicholson is retiring with his men—they are going to have a try to bring down the Rajah. It's our one chance. It may frighten the devils—they think he's a god. I believe he is, curse him!" All the time, he had been piling furniture against the door with a mad and feverish energy. "Help me! Help me!" he screamed. "Why don't you help? Do you want to be killed like sheep?"
Lois drew him back by the arm.
"You are wasting time," she said firmly. "Come with us! Why, you are hurt!"
He looked at the thin stream which trickled down the soiled white of his coat. A silly smile flickered over his big face.
"Oh, yes, a scratch. I hardly feel it. It isn't anything. It can't be anything. There's nothing vital thereabouts, is there, Berry?"
The missionary shrugged his shoulders. He had flung open the glass doors which led on to the verandah, and the brightening dawn flooded in upon them.
"Come and help me carry this poor lady," he said. "We have not a minute to lose."
Travers tried to obey, but he had no strength, and the other thrust him impatiently on one side.
"Mrs. Carmichael, you are a strong woman," he appealed. Between them they managed to bring Mrs. Cary's heavy, unconscious frame down the steps. It was a nerve-trying task, for their progress was of necessity a slow one, and the sound of the desperate fighting seemed to surround them on every side. It was with a feeling of intense relief that the little party saw Nicholson appear from amidst the trees and run toward them.
"That's right!" he cried. "Only be quick! They are at us on all sides now, but my men are keeping them off until you are out of the bungalow. The old ruin at the back of the garden is our last stand. Carmichael is there already with a detachment, and is keeping off a rear attack. I shall remain here."
"Alone?" Berry asked anxiously.
"Yes. I believe they will ransack the bungalow first. When they come, the Rajah is sure to be at their head, and—well, it's going to be diamond cut diamond between us two when we meet. I know the beggars and their superstition. If I get in the first shot, they will bolt. If he does—"
"You are going to shoot him down like a rat in a trap!" Beatrice burst out passionately.
The others had already hurried on. With a gentle force he urged her to follow them.
"Or be shot down myself," he said. "Leave me to do my duty as I think best."
She met his grave eyes defiantly, but perhaps some instinct told her that he was risking his life for a poor chance—for their last chance, for without a word she turned away, apparently in the direction which her companions had already taken.
As soon as she was out of sight, Nicholson recharged his smoking revolver, and stood there quietly waiting. His trained ear heard the firing in front of the bungalow cease. He knew then that his men were retiring to join Colonel Carmichael, and that he stood alone, the last barrier between death and those he loved. The sound of triumphant shouting drew nearer; he heard the wrenching and tearing of doors crashing down before an impetuous onslaught, the cling of steel, a howl of sudden satisfaction. His hand tightened upon his revolver; he stood ready to meet his enemy single-handed, to fight out the duel between man and man. But no one came. A bewildering silence had followed upon the last bloodthirsty cry. It was as though the hand of death had fallen and with one annihilating blow beaten down the approaching horde in the high tide of their victory. But of the two this strange stillness was the more terrible. It penetrated to the little waiting group in the old bungalow and filled them with the chill horror of the unknown. Something had happened—that they felt.
Lois crept to the doorway and peered out into the gathering daylight. Here and there, half hidden behind the shelter of the trees, she could see the khaki-clad figures of the Gurkhas, some kneeling, some standing, their rifles raised to their dark faces, waiting like statues for the enemy that never came. A dead, petrified world, the only living thing the sunshine, which played in peaceful indifference upon the scene of an old and a new tragedy! Lois thought of her mother. By the power of an overwrought imagination she looked back through a quarter of a century to a day of which this present was a strange and horrible repetition. For a moment she lived her mother's life, lived through the hours of torturing doubt and fear, and when a stifled cry called her back to the reality and forced her to turn from the sunlight to the dark room, it was as though the dead had risen, as though her dreams had taken substance. She saw pale faces staring at her; she saw on the rusty truckle-bed a figure which rose up and held out frantic, desperate arms toward her. But it was no dream—no phantom. Mrs. Cary, wild-eyed and distraught, struggled to rise to her feet and come toward her.
"Where is Beatrice?" she cried hysterically. "Where is Beatrice? I dreamed she was dead!—It isn't true! Say it isn't true!"
Lois hurried back. In the confusion of their retreat she had lost sight of Beatrice, and now a cold fear froze her blood. She called her name, adding her voice to the half-delirious mother's appeal; but there was no answer, and as she prepared to leave the shelter of the bungalow to go in search of the lost girl, a pair of strong hands grasped her by the shoulders and forced her back.
"Lois, stand back! They are coming!"
Colonel Carmichael thrust her behind him, and an instant later she heard the report of his revolver. There was no answering volley. A dark, scantily-clad figure sprang through the trees, waving one hand as though in imperative appeal.
"Don't fire—don't fire! It's me!"
The Colonel's still smoking revolver sank, and the supposed native swayed toward him, only to sink a few yards farther on to the ground. Carmichael ran to his side and lifted the fainting head against his shoulder.
"Good God, Geoffries! Don't say I've hit you! How on earth was I to know!"
"That's all right, Colonel. Only winded—don't you know—never hurried so much in life. Have been in the midst of the beggars—just managed to slip through. O Lor', give me something to drink, will you?" Colonel Carmichael put his flask to the parched and broken lips. "Thanks, that's better. We got your message, and are coming on like fun. The regiment's only an hour off. You never saw Saunders in such a fluster—it's his first big job, you know." He took another deep draft, and wiped his mouth with the corner of his ragged tunic. "I say—don't look at me, Miss Lois. I'm not fit to be seen." He laughed hoarsely. "These clothes weren't made in Bond Street, and Webb assured me that the fewer I had the more genuine I looked. I say, Colonel, this is a lively business!"
Colonel Carmichael nodded as he helped the gasping and exhausted man into the bungalow.
"Too lively to be talked about," he said. "I doubt if the regiment isn't going to add itself to the general disaster."
"Oh, rot!" was the young officer's forgetful lapse into disrespect. "The regiment will do for the beggars all right. They didn't expect us so soon, I fancy. Just listen! I believe I've frightened them away already. There isn't a sound."
Colonel Carmichael lifted his head. True enough, no living thing seemed to move. A profound hush hung in the air, broken only by Mrs. Cary's pitiful meanings.
"Oh, Beatrice, Beatrice, where are you?"
Geoffries turned his stained face to the Colonel's.
"Beatrice! That's Miss Cary, isn't it? Anything happened to her?"
Colonel Carmichael shrugged his shoulders with the impatience of a man whose nerves are overstrained by anxiety.
"I don't know—we've lost her," he said. "We must do something at once. Heaven alone knows what has happened."
No one indeed knew what had happened—not even the lonely man who waited, revolver in hand, for the final encounter on whose issue hung the fortunes of them all.
Only one knew, and that was Beatrice herself as she stood before the shattered doorway of the Colonel's drawing-room, amidst the debris of wrecked, shot-riddled furniture, face to face with Nehal Singh.
CHAPTER IX
HALF-LIGHT
Once before she had placed herself in his path, trusting to her skill, her daring, above all, her beauty. With laughter in her heart and cold-blooded coquetry she had chosen out the spot before the altar where the sunlight struck burnished gold from her waving hair and lent deeper, softening shades to her eyes. With cruel satisfaction, not unmixed with admiration, she had seen her power successful and the awe-struck wonder and veneration creep into his face. In the silence and peace of the temple she had plunged reckless hands into the woven threads of his life. Amidst the shriek of war, face to face with death, she sought to save him. It was another woman who stood opposite the yielding, cracking door, past whose head a half-spent bullet spat its way, burying itself in the wall behind her,—another woman, disheveled, forgetful of her wan beauty, trusting to no power but that which her heart gave her to face the man she had betrayed and ruined. Yet both in an instantaneous flash remembered that first meeting. The drawn sword sank, point downward. He stood motionless in the shattered doorway, holding out a hand which commanded, and obtained, a petrified, waiting silence from the armed horde whose faces glared hatred and the lust of slaughter in the narrow space behind. Whatever had been his resolution, whatever the detestation and contempt which had filled him, all sank now into an ocean of reborn pain.
"Why are you here?" he asked sternly. "Why have you not fled?"
"We are all here," she answered. "None of us has fled. Did you not know that?"
He looked about him. A flash of scorn rekindled in his somber eyes.
"You are alone. Have they deserted you?"
"They do not know that I am here. I crept back of my own free will—to speak with you, Nehal."
Both hands clasped upon his sword-hilt, erect, a proud figure of misfortune, he stood there and studied her, half-wonderingly, half-contemptuously. The restless forces at his back were forgotten. They were no more to him than the pawns with which his will played life and death. He was their god and their faith. They waited for his word to sweep out of his path the white-faced Englishwoman who held him checked in the full course of his victory. But he did not speak to them, but to her, in a low voice in which scorn still trembled.
"You are here, no doubt, to intercede for those others—or for yourself. You see, I have learned something in these two years. It is useless. No one can stop me now."
"No one?"
He smiled, and for the first time she saw a sneer disfigure his lips.
"Not even you, Miss Cary. You have done a great deal with me—enough perhaps to justify your wildest hopes—but you have touched the limits of your powers and of my gullibility. Or did you think there were no limits?"
"I do not recognize you when you talk like that!" she exclaimed.
"That is surprising, seeing that you have made me what I am," he answered. Then he made a quick gesture of apology. "Forgive me, that sounded like a reproach or a complaint. I make neither. That is not my purpose."
"And yet you have the right," she said, drawing a deep breath, "you have every right, Nehal. It does not matter what the others did to you. I know that does not count an atom in comparison to my responsibilities. You trusted me as you trusted no one else, and I deceived you. So you have the right to hate me as you hate no one else. And yet—is it not something, does it not mitigate my fault a little, that I deceived myself far, far more than I ever deceived you?" He raised his eyebrows. There was mockery in the movement, and she went on, desperately resolute: "I played at loving you, Nehal. I played a comedy with you for my own purposes. And one day it ceased to be a comedy. I did not know it. I did not know what was driving me to tell the truth, and reveal myself to you in the ugliest light I could. I only knew it was something in me stronger than any other impulse of my life. I know what it is now, and you must know, too. Can't you understand? If it had been no more than a comedy, you must have found me out—months ago. But you never found me out. It was I who told you what I had done and who I was—"
"Why did you tell me?" He took an involuntary step toward her. Something in his face relaxed beneath the force of an uncontrollable emotion. He was asking a question which had hammered at the gates of his mind day after day and in every waking hour. "Why?" he repeated.
"I have told you—because I had to. I had to speak the truth. I couldn't build up my new life on an old lie. You had to know. I had won your love by a trick. I had to show you the lowest and worst part of myself before the best in me could grow—the best in me, which is yours."
"You are raving!"
"I am not raving. You must see I am not. Look at me. I am calmer than you, though I face certain death. I knew when I came here that the chances were I should be killed before I even saw you, but I had to risk that. I had to win your trust back somehow, honestly and fairly. I can not live without your trust."
"Beatrice!" The name escaped him almost without his knowledge. He saw tears spring to her eyes.
"It is true. Your love and your trust have become my life. Then I was unworthy of both. I tried to make myself worthy. I did what I could. I told you the truth—I threw away the only thing that mattered to me. I could not hold your love any longer by a lie—I loved you too much!"
For that moment the passionate energy of her words, the sincerity and eloquence of her glance, swept back every thought of suspicion. He stood stupefied, almost overwhelmed. Mechanically his lips formed themselves to a few broken sentences.
"You can not know what you are saying. You are beside yourself. Once, in my ignorance, I believed it possible, but now I know that it could never be. Your race despises mine—"
"I do not care what you are nor to whom you belong!" she broke in, exulting. "You are the man who taught me to believe that there is something in this world that is good, that is worthy of veneration; who awoke in me what little good I have. I love you. If I could win you back—"
"What then?"
"I would follow you to the world's end!"
"As my wife?"
"As your wife!"
He held out his arms toward her, impulse rising like the sun high and splendid above the mists of distrust. It was an instant's forgetfulness, which passed as rapidly as it had come. His arms sank heavily to his side.
"Have you thought what that means? If you go with me, you must leave your people for ever."
"I would follow you gladly."
He shook his head.
"You do not understand. You must leave them now—now when I go against them."
"No!" she broke in roughly. "You can't, Nehal, you can't. You have the right to be bitter and angry; you have not the right to commit a crime. And it would be a crime. You are plunging thousands into bloodshed and ruin—" He lifted his hand, and the expression in his eyes checked her.
"So it is, after all, a bargain that you offer me!" he said. "You are trying to save them. You offer a high price, but I am not a merchant. I can not buy you, Beatrice."
"It is not a bargain!" For the first time she faltered, taken aback by the pitiless logic of his words. "Can't you see that? Can't you see that, however much I loved you, I could not act otherwise than implore you to turn back from a step that means destruction for those bound to me by blood and country? Could I do less?"
"No," he said slowly.
She held out her hands to him.
"Oh, Nehal, turn back while there is yet time! For my sake, for yours, for us all, turn back from a bloody, cruel revenge. The power is yours. Be generous. If we have wronged you, we have suffered and are ready to atone. I am ready to atone. I can atone, because I love you. I have spoken the truth to you. I have laid my soul bare to you as I have done to no other being. Won't you trust me?"
His eyes met hers with a somber, hopeless significance which cut her to the heart.
"I can't," he said. "I can't. That is what you have taught me—to distrust you—and every one."
She stood silent now, paralyzed by the finality of his words and gesture. It was as though the shadow of her heartless folly had risen before her and become an iron wall of unrelenting, measured retribution against which she beat herself in vain. He lifted his head higher, seeming to gather together his shaken powers of self-control.
"I can not trust you," he said again, "nor can I turn back. But there is one thing from the past which can not be changed. I love you. It seems that must remain through all my life. And because of that love I must save you from the death that awaits your countrymen." He smiled in faint self-contempt. "It is not for your sake that I shall save you; it is because I am too great a coward, and can not face the thought that anything so horrible should come near you." He turned to two native soldiers behind him and gave an order. When he faced Beatrice again he saw that she held a revolver in her hand.
"You do not understand," she said. "You say you mean to save me, but that is not in your power. It is in your power to save us all, but not one alone. I know what my people have resolved to do. There are weak, frightened women among them, but not one of them will fall into your hands alive. Whatever happens, I shall share their fate."
Though her tone was quiet and free from all bravado, he knew that she was not boasting. He knew, too, that she was desperate.
"You can not force me to kill you," he said sternly.
"I think it possible," she answered. She was breathing quickly, and her eyes were bright with a reckless, feverish excitement. But the hand that held the revolver pointed at the men behind him was steady—steadier than his own.
Nehal Singh motioned back the two natives who had advanced at his order.
"You play a dangerous game," he said, "and, as before, your strength lies in my weakness—in my folly. But this time you can not win. My word is given—to my people."
"I shall not plead with you," she returned steadily, "and you may be sure I shall not waver. I am not afraid to die. I had hoped to atone for all the wrong that has been done you with my love for you, Nehal. I had hoped that then you would turn away from this madness and become once more our friend. To this end I have not hesitated to trample on my dignity and pride. I have not spared myself. But you will not listen, you are determined to go on, and I"—she caught her breath sharply—"surely you can understand? I love you, and you have made yourself the enemy of my country. Death is the easiest, the kindest solution to it all."
Nehal Singh's brows knitted themselves in the anguish of a man who finds himself thwarted by his own nature. He tried not to believe her, and indeed, in all her words, though they had rung like music, his ear, tuned to suspicion, had heard the mocking undercurrent of laughter. She had laughed at him secretly through all those months when he had offered up to her the incense of an absolute faith, an unshared devotion. Even now she might be laughing at him, playing on that in him which nothing could destroy or conceal—his love for her. And yet—! Behind him he heard the uneasy stir of impatient feet, the hushed clash of arms. He stood between her and a certain, terrible death. One word from him, and it would be over—his path clear. But he could not speak that word. Treacherous and cruel as she had been, the halo of her first glory still hung about her. He saw her as he had first seen her—the golden image of pure womanhood—and, strange, unreasoning contradiction of the human heart, beneath the ashes of his old faith a new fire had kindled and with every moment burned more brightly. Unquenchable trust fought out a death struggle with distrust, and in that conflict her words recurred to him with poignant significance: "Death is the easiest, the kindest solution to it all." For him also there seemed no other escape. He pointed to the revolver.
"For whom is that?" he asked.
"I do not know—but I will make them kill me."
"Why do you not shoot me, then?" he demanded, between despair and bitterness. "That would save you all. If I fell, they would turn and fly. They think I am Vishnu. Haven't you thought of that? I am in your power. Why don't you make yourself the benefactress of your country? Why don't you shoot her enemy?"
She made no answer, but her eyes met his steadily and calmly. He turned away, groaning. In vain he fought against it, in vain stung himself to action by the memory of all that she had done to him. His love remained triumphant. In that supreme moment his faith burst through the darkness, and again he believed in her, believed in her against reason, against the world, against the ineffaceable past, and against himself. And it was too late. He no longer stood alone. His word was given.
"Have pity on me!" he said, once more facing her. "Let me save you!"
"I should despise myself, and you would despise me—even more than you do now. I can not do less than share the fate of those whose lives my folly has jeopardized."
"At least go back to them—do not stay here. Beatrice, for God's sake!—I can not turn back. You have made me suffer enough—." He stood before her now as an incoherent pleader, and her heart burned with an exultation in which the thought of life and death played no part. She knew that he still loved her. It seemed for the moment all that mattered.
"I can not," she said.
"Beatrice, do not deceive yourself. Though my life is nothing to me—though I would give it a dozen times to save you—I can not do otherwise than go on. I may be weak, but I shall be stronger than my weakness. My word is given!"
He spoke with the tempestuous energy of despair. The minutes were passing with terrible swiftness, and any moment the sea behind him might burst its dam and sweep her and him to destruction. Already in the distance he heard the dull clamour of voices raised in angry remonstrance at the delay. Only those immediately about him were held in awed silence by the power of his personality. Again Beatrice shook her head. She stood in the doorway which opened out into the garden where the besieged had taken refuge. There was no other way. He advanced toward her. Instantly she raised her revolver and pointed it at the first man behind him.
"If I fire," she said, "not even you will be able to hold them back."
It seemed to her that she stood like a frail wall between two overwhelming forces—on the one side, Nehal with his thousands; on the other, Nicholson—alone, truly, but armed with a set and pitiless resolve. A single sentence, which had fallen upon her ears months before, rose now out of an ocean of half-forgotten memories: "Nicholson is the best shot in India," some one had said: "he never misses." And still Nehal advanced. His jaws were locked, his eyes had a red fire in them. She knew then that the hour of hesitation was over, and that in that desperate struggle she had indeed lost. Uncontrollable words of warning rushed to her lips.
"Nehal—turn back! Turn back!"
He did not understand her. He thought she was still pleading with him.
"I can not—God have pity on us both!"
Then she too set her lips. She could not betray the last hope of that heroic handful of men and women behind her. He must go to his death—and she to hers. She fired,—whether with success or not, she never knew. In that same instant another sound broke upon their ears—the sound of distant firing, the rattle of drums and the high clear call of a trumpet. Nehal Singh swung around. She caught a glimpse of his face through the smoke, and she saw something written there which she could not understand. She only knew that his features seemed to bear a new familiarity, as though a mask had been torn from them, revealing the face of another man, of a man whom she had seen before, when and where she could not tell. She had no time to analyze her emotions nor the sense of violent shock which passed over her. She heard Nehal Singh giving sharp, rapid orders in Hindustani. The room emptied. She saw him follow the retreating natives. At the door he turned and looked back at her. At no time had his love for her revealed itself more clearly than in that last glance.
"The English regiment has come to help you," he said. "Fate has intervened between us this time. May we never meet again!"
He passed out through the shattered doorway, but she stood where he had left her, motionless, almost unconscious. It was thus Nicholson and the Colonel found her when, a moment later, they entered the room by the verandah. Colonel Carmichael's passionate reproaches died away as he saw her face.
"You must not stop here," he said. "You have frightened us all terribly. The regiment has come and is attacking. There will be some desperate fighting. We must all stick together."
She caught Nicholson's eyes resting on her. She thought she read pity and sympathy in their steady depths, and wondered if he guessed what she had tried to do. But he said nothing, and she followed the two men blindly and indifferently back to the bungalow.
CHAPTER X
TRAVERS
They had no light. They talked in whispers, and now and again, when the darkness grew too oppressive, they stretched out groping hands and touched each other. They did this without explanation. Though none complained or spoke of fear, each needed the consolation of the other's company, and a touch was worth more than words. Mrs. Cary alone needed nothing. She lay on the rough truckle-bed and slept. Thus she had been for a week—a whole week of nerve-wrecking struggle against odds which marked hope as vain. Bullets had beaten like rain upon the walls about her, the moaning of wounded men on the other side of the hastily constructed partition mingled unceasingly with the cries of the ever-nearing enemy. And she had lain there quiet and indifferent. Martins, the regiment's doctor, had looked in once at her and had shaken his head. "In all probability she will never wake," he had said. "Perhaps it is the kindest thing that could happen to her." And then he had gone his way to those who needed him more.
Mrs. Berry knelt by the bedside. Her hands were folded. She had been praying, but exhaustion had overcome her, and her quiet, peaceful breathing contrasted strangely with the other sounds that filled the bungalow. Mrs. Carmichael and Beatrice sat huddled close together, listening. They could do nothing—not even help the wounded men who lay so close to them. Everything was in pitch darkness, and no lights were allowed. They could not go out and help in the stern, relentless struggle that was going on about them. They bore the woman's harder lot of waiting, inactive, powerless, fighting the harder battle against uncertainty and all the horrors of the imagination.
"I am sorry the regiment has come," Mrs. Carmichael whispered. "There is no doubt they will be massacred with the rest of us. What are a few hundreds against thousands? It is a pity. They are such fine fellows."
Her rough, tired voice had a ring of unconquerable pride in it. She was thinking of the gallant charge her husband's men had made only two weeks before; how they had broken through the wall of the enemy, and, cheering, had rushed to meet the besieged garrison. That had been a moment of rejoicing, transitory and deceptive. Then the wall closed in about them again, and they knew that they were trapped.
"Perhaps we can hold out till help comes," Beatrice said.
She tried not to be indifferent. For the sake of her companions she would gladly have felt some desire for life, but in truth it had no value for her. She could think of nothing but the evil she had done and of the atonement that had been denied her. It was to no purpose that she worked unceasingly for the wounded. The sense of responsibility never left her. Each moan, each death-sigh brought the same meaning to her ear: "You have helped to do this—this is your work."
"No help will come," Mrs. Carmichael said, shaking her head at the darkness. "When a whole province rises as this has done, it takes months to organize a sufficient force, and we shan't last out many days. I wonder what people in England are saying. How well I can see them over their breakfast cups! Oh, dear, I mustn't think of breakfast cups, or I shall lose my nerve." She laughed under her breath, and there was a long silence.
Presently the door of the bungalow opened, letting in a stream of moonlight. It was closed instantly, and soft footfalls came over the boarded floor.
"Who is it?" Mrs. Carmichael whispered.
"I—Lois," was the answer. The new-comer crept down by Beatrice's side and leaned her head against the warm shoulder. "I am so tired," she said faintly. "I have been with Archibald. He has been moaning so. Mr. Berry says he is afraid mortification has set in. It is terrible."
"Poor little woman!" Beatrice put her arm about the slender figure and drew her closer. "Lay your head on my lap and sleep a little. You can do no good just now."
"Thank you. I will, if you don't mind. You will wake me if anything happens, won't you?"
"Yes, I promise." It gave Beatrice a sense of comfort to have Lois near her. Very gently she passed her hand over the aching forehead, and presently Lois fell into a sleep of absolute exhaustion.
By mutual consent, Mrs. Carmichael and Beatrice ceased to talk, but when suddenly there was a movement close to them, and a dim light flashed over the partition, they exchanged a glance of meaning.
"That is my husband," Mrs. Carmichael whispered. "Something is going to happen. Listen!"
She was not wrong in her supposition. The Colonel had entered the next room, followed by Nicholson and Saunders, and had closed the door carefully after him. All three men carried lanterns. They glanced instinctively at the wooden partition which divided them from the four women, but Carmichael shook his head.
"It's all right," he said. "They must be fast asleep, poor souls. Let's have a look at these fellows." He went over to a huddled-up figure lying in the shadow. The corner of a military cloak had been thrown over the face. He drew it on one side and then let it drop. "Gone!" he said laconically. He passed on to the next. There were in all three men ranged against the wall. Two of them were dead. "Martins told me they couldn't last," Colonel Carmichael muttered. "It is better for them. They are out of it a little sooner, that's all." The third man was Travers. He lay on his back, his face turned slightly toward the wall, his eyes closed. He seemed asleep. The Colonel nodded somberly. "Another ten hours," he calculated.
He came back to the table, where the others waited, and drew out a paper from his pocket.
"Give me your light a moment, Nicholson," he said.
No one spoke while he examined the list before him. All around them was a curious hush—a new thing in their struggle, and one that seemed surcharged with calamity. After a moment Colonel Carmichael looked up. He was many years the senior of his companions, but just then there seemed no difference in years between them. They were three wan, haggard men, weakened with hunger, exhausted with sleepless watching. That week had killed the youth in two of them.
"Geoffries has just given me this," Carmichael said. "It is a list of our provisions. We have enough food, but there is no fresh water. The enemy has cut off the supply. We could not expect them to do otherwise." He waited, and then, as neither spoke, he went on: "I have spoken with the others. You know, gentlemen, we can not go on another twenty-four hours without water. We have made a good fight for it, but this is the end. We must look the fact in the face."
"Surely they must know at headquarters what a state we are in—"
Saunders began.
The Colonel shrugged his shoulders.
"No doubt they know, but they can not help in time. This is not a petty frontier business. It is something worse—a rising with a leader. A rising with a leader is a lengthy business to tackle, and it requires its victims. In this case we are the victims." He smiled grimly. "We have only one thing left to do—make a dash for it while we have the strength. You must know as well as I do that there is scarcely anything worth calling a hope, but it's a more agreeable way of dying than being starved out like rats and then butchered like sheep. I know these devils." He glanced around the shadowy room with a curious light in his eyes. "My best friend was murdered in this room," he added. "Personally, I prefer a fair fight in the open."
"When do you propose to make the start, Colonel?" Nicholson asked.
"Within an hour. The night favors us. The women must be kept in the center as much as possible. I have given Geoffries special charge over them. They will be told at the last moment. There is no use in spoiling what little rest they have had." He drew out a pencil and began to scribble a despatch on the back of an old letter. "I advise you gentlemen to do likewise," he said. "Very often a piece of paper gets through where a man can not, and it is our bounden duty to supply the morning periodicals with as much news as possible."
For some minutes there was no sound save that of the pencils scrawling the last messages of men with the seal of death already stamped upon their foreheads. All three had forgotten Travers, and yet from the moment they had begun to speak he had been awake and listening. He sat up now, leaning upon his elbow.
"Nicholson!" he said faintly.
Nicholson turned and came to his side.
"Hullo!" he said. "Awake, are you? How are you?"
Travers made no immediate answer; he took Nicholson's hand in a feverish clasp and drew him nearer.
"I am in great pain," he said. "You don't need to pretend. I know. The fear of death has been on me all day. Just now I am not afraid. Is there no hope?"
"You mean—for us? None."
Travers nodded.
"I heard you talking, but I wanted to make sure. It has all been my fault—every bit of it. It's decent of you not to make me feel it more. You are not to blame—her. You know I tempted her, I made her help me. She isn't responsible. At any rate, she made a clean breast of it—that's something to her credit. I didn't want to—I never meant to. I am not the sort that repents. But this last week you have been so decent, and Lois such a plucky little soul—she ought to hate me—and perhaps she does—but she has done her best. Nicholson, are you listening? Can you hear what I say? It's so damned hard for me to talk."
"I can hear," Nicholson said kindly. "Don't worry about what can't be helped." In spite of everything, he pitied the man, and his tone showed it.
Travers lifted himself higher, clinging to the other's shoulder. His voice began to come in rough, uneven jerks.
"But it can be helped—it must be helped! Don't you see—I came between you and Lois purposely. From the first moment you spoke of her I knew that you loved her—and I wanted her. I never gave your message. I didn't dare. You are the sort of man a woman cares for—a woman like Lois. I couldn't risk it. But now—well, I'm done, and afterward she will be free—"
Nicholson drew back stiffly.
"You are talking nonsense," he said, in a colder tone. "No one wants you to die—and in any case, you know very well we have no chance of getting through this alive."
Travers seized his arm. His eyes shone with a painful excitement.
"Yes—yes!" he stammered. "You have a chance—a sure hope. I can save you; I can—atone. That's what I want. Only you must help me. I am a dying man. I want you to bring me to the Rajah—at once. Only five minutes with him—that will be enough. Then he will let you go—he must!"
Nicholson freed himself resolutely from the clinging hands.
"You exaggerate your power," he said, "and, besides, what you ask is an impossibility."
He turned away, but Travers caught his arm and held him with a frantic, desperate strength.
"Then if you will not help me—send Miss Cary to me," he pleaded. "I must speak to her."
Nicholson looked down into the dying face with a new interest. He had no suspicion of the burden with which Travers' soul was laden, and yet he was conscious now that the matter was urgent and of an importance which he could not estimate.
"I will tell her," he said. "Stay quiet a minute. We have no time to lose."
Travers nodded and fell back on to his rough couch. His eyes closed and he seemed to sleep, but as Beatrice knelt down by his side he roused himself and looked at her with the intensity of a man who has gathered his last strength for a last great purpose.
"I am dying," he whispered thickly; "I know it and I don't care. I am past caring. But before I die I want to atone; I want, if I can, to save Lois. I care for her in my poor way, and I would like her to be happy. Are you listening?"
"I am listening," Beatrice answered gravely. "Do you think I could close my ears when you speak of atonement?"
He clutched her hand.
"You would be glad to atone for all the mischief we have done?"
"I would give my life."
"Is the Colonel there? I can't see clearly. Colonel, I want you to hear what I have to say."
Colonel Carmichael turned.
"This is no time," he said sternly, "and it is too late for atonement.
Our account with this world is closed."
"It need not be. Colonel—in the name of those whose lives lie in your hands, I beg of you to listen to me."
There was a moment's hesitating silence. Travers' glazed eyes were fixed on the elder man's face with a hypnotizing power. The Colonel drew nearer—reluctantly knelt down.
"Be quick then!" he said.
Travers nodded. His head was thrown back against Beatrice's shoulder. With fumbling, trembling fingers he drew a plain gold ring from his pocket and thrust it into the Colonel's hand.
"Look at that!" he whispered. "Look at the inscription."
Carmichael turned to the feeble light. No one spoke or moved. They watched him and waited with a reasonless, breathless suspense.
"My God!" he whispered, "How did you come by this?"
Travers drew himself upright. The shadows of death were banished in that last moment; his voice was clear and steady as he answered.
"Listen," he said. "I will tell you—and then act before it is too late!"
CHAPTER XI
IN THE HOUR OF NEED
Nehal Singh pulled aside the curtains over the window and stepped out on to the balcony. The air in the great silent room behind him stifled him, and even the night breeze, as it touched his cheeks, seemed to burn with fever. He stood there motionless, his arms folded, gazing fixedly into the half-darkness. A pale, watery moonlight cast an unearthly shimmer over the shadowy world before him, brightened every here and there by the will-o'-the-wisp fire points which marked the presence of the camped thousands waiting silently for his word. Only one spot—it seemed like a black stain—remained in absolute gloom, and it was thither the Rajah's eyes were turned. Every night he had come to the same place to watch it. Every night he had tortured himself with the thought of all it contained.
For he knew now, with the clear certainty of a man who has searched down to the bottom of his soul, that in that silent area his whole life, his one hope of happiness was bound up, and waited, with those who were fighting stubbornly, heroically, against the end—its destruction beneath his own sword. He was fighting against himself. With his own hands he was tearing down that which seemed an inseparable, incorporate part of himself. Anger and contempt were dead. In their place the old love had rekindled and grown brighter before the sight of a courage, dignified and silent, which had held back the tide of furious fanaticism and thwarted his own despair. He had seen, with eyes which burned with an indescribable emotion, a regiment of wearied, weakened men, led by a man he had once despised, burst through the densest squares of his own soldiers; he had heard their cheers as they had clasped hands with the defenders; he had looked aghast into his own heart, afire with admiration, aching with a strange, broken-hearted gratitude to God who had made such men. It was in vain that, lashing himself with the knowledge of his own weakness and of his disloyalty to those who followed him, he had flung himself against the defenses of the little garrison.
Day after day they drove him back, fighting hand to hand in the earthworks they had thrown up in a few hours of miraculous labor. He fought against them like a man possessed of an unquenchable hatred; but at night, when he was at last alone, he had slipped out on to his balcony and held out his hands toward them in an unspeakable wordless greeting. Once more they had become for him the world's Great People, the giants of his boyhood's imagination, the heroes of his man's ideal. At the point of the sword they had proved the truth of Nicholson's proud boast, and hour by hour the man who had turned from them in a moment of bitter disillusion saw the temple he had once built to their honor rise from its ashes in new and greater splendor.
Thus two weeks had passed, and to-night was to see the end. Nehal knew that, brave though they were, they could do no more. They had no water, and his forces hugged them in on every side. One last attack and it would be over—Marut would be cleared from the enemy, his victory complete. His victory! It was his own ruin he was preparing, the certain destruction of that which seemed linked invisibly but surely to his own fate. And, knowing that, he knew also that there was no turning back for him, no retreat. His word was given. His people, the people who claimed him by the right of blood, clamored for him to lead them as he had sworn. It made no difference if on the path he had chosen he trampled on every hope, every wish, every rooted instinct. There was no turning back. He knew it—the knowledge that his own words bound him came to him with pitiless finality as he stood there watching the silent, lightless stretch which was soon to be the scene of a last tragic struggle; and if indeed there are such things as tears of blood, they rose to his eyes now.
With lips compressed in an agony he could neither analyze nor conquer, he turned slowly back into the dimly lighted room. Two torches burned on either side of the throne and threw unsteady shadows among the glittering pillars. They lit up his face and revealed it as that of a man who has cast his youth behind him for ever. Only a few months had passed since he had sat there with Travers in the full noon of his hope and enthusiasm. He remembered the scene with a clearness which was a fresh torture. The hopes that had been built up in that hour lay shattered, the woman for whom they had been built was lost. He thought of her now as he always thought of her, as he knew he would think of her to the end. For this love, save that it had grown and deepened into a wider understanding, had remained unchanged. As there had been cowards and tricksters among his heroes, so in that one woman evil and good had stood side by side and fought out their battle. And the good had won—had won because he alone of all men had believed in it. He believed in it still—in the same measure as he had learned to love her—with a deeper understanding of temptation and failure. It was the one triumph in the midst of seeming ruin, the one firm rock in the raging torrent of his fate, beaten as it was between the contending streams of desire and duty. She was indeed lost to him, but not as in the first hour of his shaken trust. He had regained his memory of her as a good woman, striving upward and onward; and already he had invested her with the glory of those whom death has already claimed from us.
Nehal Singh started from his painful reverie, conscious that some one had entered the room and was watching him. He turned and saw his chief captain standing respectfully before him, and, though it was a man he liked and trusted, it seemed to him that the gaunt, soldierly figure had taken on the form of an ugly, threatening destiny.
"All is ready, Great Prince," the native said, salaaming. "Every man is at his post. We do but await thy orders."
Nehal did not answer. His hands clasped and unclasped themselves in the last agony of hesitation. The moment had come, the inevitable and irretrievable moment which had loomed so long upon his horizon. Even now he hardly knew what it was to bring him. The forces warring in his blood were locked in a death struggle. At last he nodded and his lips moved.
"It is well. In half an hour—I will come to them. In half an hour—the attack will begin."
"Sahib—is it good to wait? The dawn cometh, and with the dawn—"
Nehal Singh lifted his hand peremptorily.
"In half an hour," he repeated.
The man salaamed and was gone. Nehal Singh stood there like a pillar of stone. It was over. In half an hour! And yet, at the bottom of his heart, he knew that he had delayed—purposely, but to no end but his own increased suffering. With a sigh of impatience he turned, and in the same instant became once more aware that he was not alone.
For a moment he perceived nothing save the shadows and the unsteady flickering of the yellow torchlight. Then his vision cleared and he saw and understood, and an exclamation burst from his horrified lips. It was a woman who stood out against the darkness, her body clothed in rags, the hair, grey and thin, hanging unkempt about her shoulders, the face turned to his that of some being risen from a tomb. There seemed to be no flesh upon the high cheek-bones nor upon the hands that were stretched toward him; only the eyes were alive with an unquenchable fire which burned upon him with a power that was unearthly. She staggered a few steps and then sank slowly to his feet, her hands still outstretched. He knelt down and supported the sinking head upon his shoulder.
"Who art thou?" he whispered in Hindustani. "Where hast thou come from? Tell me thy history."
A look of intense pain passed over her features. Slowly and with a great effort her lips parted.
"I am English—let me speak in English. I have only a few minutes—I am dying."
He looked about him, seeking something with which to moisten her dry lips, but she clung to him with an incredible strength.
"No, no, I must speak with you. Up to now I have lived in an awful nightmare—amidst ghastly phantoms who pursued and tortured me. But when I heard your voice—when I heard you give that order, I awoke. The dreams vanished, I heard and understood—and remembered!" She drew herself upright and, for a moment spoke with a penetrating clearness. "Not in half an hour—never! Withdraw that order! If you go against them you are accursed. Lay down your arms! You must—you know you must! You dare not—" She clung to his arm and her eyes seemed to burn their way into his very soul. "I tell you—to turn traitor is to inherit an endless hell—"
"A traitor!" he echoed. Something clutched at his heart, a sort of numb suspense which became electrified as he saw a new expression flash into her face.
"Yes, a traitor!" she whispered. "That was what I was. I was English—yes, English in spite of all, but in my bitterness I turned from my people. I let myself be taken alive. I would not share the fate of those who had once been dear to me. My whole life has been the punishment. They tortured me and then came the dreams—the awful, hideous dreams. I was always looking for you, always calling for you. And they laughed and mocked at me. Only one man did not laugh—" her voice grew doubtful and hesitating, as though she were groping in the shadows of her memory. "He did not laugh. He promised to help me but he never came again—and I died—yes, I died—but I saw your face, I heard your voice—and I came back from death—to save you!" Once more her vision cleared and her voice grew steadier. "Go back to them! They are your friends. If you do not go, you will break your heart—as mine is broken. Swear to me—you must, because—"
He bent closer to her to catch every sound that fell from her lips. His pulses were beating with a suffocating violence. Somewhere a veil was lifting. It was as if the sunlight were at last breaking through a mist of strange dreams, strange longings, strange forebodings. The confused voices that had called to him throughout his life grew clearer.
"Because—?" he whispered.
But she did not answer. Her head was thrown back. Her open eyes were fixed intently on his face. Suddenly she smiled. It was a smile that chilled his blood with its hideous distortion. And yet behind it lurked the possibility of a long-lost beauty and sweetness.
"Steven!" she whispered. "Steven!"
Closer and closer she drew his face to hers. Her icy lips rested on his cheek. Pity and a strange, as yet unformed, foreboding made him accept that dying caress and speak to her with an urgent, pleading gentleness.
"You have something to tell me," he murmured, "something I must know.
Tell me before it is too late."
But her eyes had closed and she did not answer him.
"Rouse yourself!" he insisted. "Rouse yourself!" It seemed to him that she smiled. Her face had undergone a change. It was younger, and in the flickering light his imagination brightened it with the glories whose dim traces still touched the haggard, emaciated features. One last time her eyes opened and she looked at him. The frenzy of despair was gone. He felt that she was looking beyond him to a future he could not see.
"Go back!" she whispered. "Go back!"
He pressed her to him, seeking to pour something of his own seething vitality into her dying frame. With her life the threads of his fate seemed to be slipping through his fingers.
"Help me!" he implored. "Do not leave me!"
But he knew that she would never answer. She lay heavy in his arms, and the hand that clasped his relaxed and fell with a soft thud upon the marble. He rose to his feet and stood looking down upon her. It was not the first time he had seen death. In these last weeks he had met it in all its most hideous, most revolting forms; but none had moved him, awed him as this did. He knew that she had once been beautiful. Who had made her suffer till only a shadow of that beauty remained? What had she endured? Who was she? What did she know of him? Why did she call him by a name which rang in his ears with a vague familiarity? What was it in her poor dead face which stirred in him a memory which had no date nor place in his life?
Outside he heard the uneasy stirring of the thousands who awaited him. He looked up and through the open windows, saw the camp-fires and that one dark spot which was to be swept clear of all but death. What had she said? "Go back! Lay down your arms! You must—you know you must! To turn traitor is to inherit an endless hell!" A traitor? A traitor to whom—to what? To some blind instinct that had called him in those English voices, that had beaten out an answering cry of thankfulness from his heart when their cheers proclaimed his own defeat?
A soft step roused him from his troubled thoughts. He looked up and saw a servant standing in the curtained doorway. The man's eyes were fixed on the outstretched figure at Nehal's feet, and there was an expression on the dark face so full of fear and horror that the Rajah involuntarily drew back.
"Who was this woman?" he demanded. "Whence comes she?"
"Lord Sahib, she was a mad-woman whom the Lord Behar Singh kept out of mercy. She must have escaped her prison. More I know not."
The man was trembling as though in the shadows there lurked a hidden threatening danger, and Nehal turned aside with a gesture of desperate impatience.
"Why hast thou come before the time?" he asked.
"Lord Sahib, outside there are two English prisoners. They demand to be brought before thee. What is thy will?"
"Bring them hither."
Nehal Singh stood where the bowing servant left him, at the side of the poor dead woman, his hands crossed upon his sword-hilt, his eyes fixed on the parted curtains. There he waited, motionless, passive, as a man waits who knows that he has become the tool of Destiny.
A moment later, Beatrice stood before him.
CHAPTER XII
HIS OWN PEOPLE
She was not alone, but in that first moment he saw nothing but her face. It seemed to him that the whole world was blotted out and that only she remained, grave, fearless, supreme in her wan beauty, a tragic figure glorified by a light of unconquerable resolution. He looked at her but he did not greet her; no muscle of his set and ashy features betrayed the thrill of passionate recognition which had passed like a line of fire through his veins. To move was to awake from a dream to a hideous, terrible reality.
She came slowly toward him. The thin wrap about her head slipped back and he saw the light flash on to the fair disheveled hair. His eyes were dazzled, but it seemed to him that there were grey threads where once had been untarnished gold. Yet he could not and would not speak, and she came on till she stood opposite him, the dead woman lying there between them. Then for the first time she lowered her eyes and he awoke with a start of agonizing pain.
"Why have you come?" he said. "Have you come to plead again? Have you come to torture me again? Was not that once enough? In a few minutes I shall sweep your people to destruction. Shall I save you?—is that what you have come to tell me?"
He waited for her answer, his teeth clenched, his brows knitted in the old terrible struggle. All his energy, all his determination sank paralyzed before her and before his love, and yet he knew he must go on—go on with the destruction of himself, of her, of all that was dearest to him.
She knelt down and touched the dead face with her white hand, closing the glazed, staring eyes with a curious tenderness and pity. There was no surprise or horror in her expression as she at last rose and faced him—rather a mysterious knowledge which held him bound in wordless expectation.
"I have come to tell you that woman's history, Steven Caruthers," she said. "I have not come to plead with you but to tell you the truth—to lay before you the two paths between which you must choose once and for all. Will you listen to me?"
"Beatrice!" he stammered. "Why have you given me a name which is not mine—which she gave me with her last breath? What do you know that you have risked your life—"
"It was no risk," she said. "My life was forfeited and it was our last hope. Oh, if I can turn you from all this ruin, then I shall have atoned for the evil I have done you!"
The note of mingled entreaty, despair and hope stirred him to the depths of his being, but he made no response. He could only point to the white face and repeat the question which had beaten in pitiless reiteration against his tortured brain.
"Who was she?"
"She was your mother."
"And I—?"
It was not Beatrice who this time answered. A figure stepped forward out of the shadows and faced the Rajah. It was Carmichael, pale, deeply moved, but erect and steadfast. His eyes were fixed on Nehal's features with a curious, hungry eagerness which changed as he spoke into a growing recognition.
"Let me tell you," he said. "I will be brief, for every minute is precious and full of danger for us all. This poor woman was Margaret Caruthers, the wife of my dearest friend, and your mother. Until an hour ago I believed that she had been butchered with her husband and with all those others who paid the penalty of one man's sin. No doubt you know why your supposed father, Behar Singh, rose against us?"
"His honor—his wife had been stolen from him by a treacherous
Englishman," Nehal answered hoarsely.
"Yes, by Stafford, John Stafford's father. The issue of that act of infidelity was a child, Lois, who afterward was adopted by Caruthers, partly out of friendship for Stafford, partly because he had no children of his own. So much, at least, I surmise. I surmise, too, that that adoption cost him his wife's love and trust. Perhaps, ignorant of the child's real parentage, she believed the worst, perhaps there were other causes—be it as it may, in the hour of catastrophe she refused to share the general fate. She chose to throw herself upon the mercy of her mother's people."
"Her mother's people!" Nehal echoed blankly.
"There was native blood in her veins. It was on that account that Behar Singh spared her. She bitterly learned to regret her change of allegiance. She was kept close prisoner, and six months after the murder of her husband she bore him a son—you—Steven Caruthers. Behar Singh, himself without an heir, took the child from her, and from that hour the unfortunate woman became insane. Long years she was kept a secret and wretched captive, and then one day she escaped, and in her wanderings met a man—an Englishman who was then your friend."
"Travers!" Nehal exclaimed.
"Yes, Travers. By means of bribes and threats he obtained her whole history, partly from her own lips, partly from her gaolers. But he told no one of his discovery."
"Why not? How dared he keep silence?"
"It is very simple. He wished to marry my ward, Lois Caruthers, and he wished to have her money. As I have said, Caruthers had adopted her when her mother, the Reni Ona, returned to her own people, and had made her his heir in the case that he should have no children of his own. Had your existence been known Lois would have been penniless. Travers knew this and kept his secret from every one save Stafford."
"Why did he tell Stafford?"
"He had to. Stafford and Lois loved each other—with a love which was all too natural and explicable in the light of our present knowledge. It was necessary that he should be made aware that marriage between them was impossible—that they were, in fact, the children of the same father."
"Stafford kept silence—"
"He had promised. And, moreover, he believed it kinder to hide the
truth from Lois. Only at the last he determined to speak at all costs.
But it was too late. You know—he was murdered on the steps of
Travers' house."
Nehal Singh nodded. An even deadlier pallor crept over his features.
"I know," he said. "It was Behar Singh's last vengeance. God knows, my hands are clean."
"That I know. You are your father's son."
"And the proof of all this?"
"This ring. Take it. It was your mother's. Travers gave it to me when he made his confession. He took it from the poor mad woman at their first meeting. Look at the inscription. It bears your mother's and father's names."
"And Travers—?" The Rajah lifted his hand in a stern, threatening gesture.
"—is dead," was the grave answer. "He died an hour ago, in his wife's arms."
For a moment a profound hush hung over the great, dimly lighted hall. The Rajah knelt down by his mother's side and gently replaced the ring upon the thin lifeless finger.
"She called herself a traitor," he said, half to himself. "A traitor to whom—to what?"
"To the strong white blood that was in her veins. In her bitterness at the real or imagined wrongs that had been done her, she turned away from the people to whom she belonged, to whom she was bound by all the ties of love and upbringing. She disobeyed the voice of her instinct. And you, her son, you, too, have been bitter; you, too, must listen to the call of the two races to whom you are linked. Whom will you obey? You stand at the cross-ways where you must choose—where we must either part or join hands for good and all. The road back to us is open, is still open. That is the message of peace which we have risked our lives to bring you. Rajah, Steven Caruthers—for so I now call you—I plead with you—I may plead with you, for in this hour at least I can not look upon you as an adversary, but as the son of this unfortunate woman—above all, of my friend. I plead with you the more because I owe you years of friendship. I am not the least to blame that you fell away from us in resentment and bitterness. I could have shielded you from the inevitable pitfalls that beset your path, but—God forgive me!—my prejudice blinded me and I held back. It was I who carried you away from the palace on that night when you were left, a helpless child, to the mercy of Behar Singh's enemies. Then I had pity enough—but years after I held back the hand of friendship which I might have offered you. Well, I am punished, twice punished, for my prejudice and blindness. Is it too late for me to make my reparation?"
He held out his hand and there was a silence of tense expectation. The
Rajah's head was bowed. He did not seem to see the Colonel's movement.
"You can not think I am pleading with you to save our lives," Carmichael went on with grave dignity. "We have fought for them. An hour ago we were prepared to lay them down without complaint. We are not the less prepared now. It is not for us I am speaking, but for you. Your day as Rajah is over—your claim to rule in India void. I offer you instead your father's name, your father's people, your father's heritage. The other road—well, you have trodden it, you know it. You must choose. Your mother chose—twenty-five years ago, in the same hour of crisis, blinded by the same bitterness. She chose to tear the bonds of love and duty; she ignored the true voice of her instinct. It broke her heart. The same crisis stands to-night before you, her son. What will you do—Steven Caruthers?"
The Rajah lifted his head. The struggle was written in his dark, sunken eyes and on the compressed lips.
"I can not desert them," he said wearily. "They trust me—my people trust me."
"Who are your people?" was the swift question. "You must choose."