Part 14 (2/2)

So all the servants knew that Nels had owned the child from that day.

Now it is not a wise thing to antagonise a body of East Indian servants in matters which they consider sacred; and Police Commissioner Hichens was a lawyer and a judge and a wise man. He might fear Nels as he feared death itself, the two being equivalent in his mind, but he might not destroy Nels with his own hand, nor let it be known that he had caused the great dog's death. Still, if he took Nels with him on hunting-furloughs, as often as possible setting him to charge most deadly game, there was always the possibility of an accident.

To many it seemed strange that the present Mrs. Hichens, a regal young English thing, was made to live in a lonely tent, well back among dense jungle growths, quite out of sight or call away from any human habitation, with her husband's little son and littler daughter and the Great Dane dog. Certainly the servants were about during the daytime; as much out of sight as possible, according to their good teaching.

But at night there were no servants about; they were all far away at the other end of the village, because the natives who lived at this side were low caste.

And it was at night the thing developed. A slow-driving inquisition, night after night. It drove her through and beyond the deadly fever la.s.situde. She was not building up out of it; she was beaten down below it. She was beaten through all the successive stages of breaking nerves. She used all the known arguments, all the intellectual methods to sustain pure courage, to hold herself immune. She used them all up.

At first, when her husband came up for his weekends, he was quite evidently pleased with his arrangement. And it would take a self-confidence which had long since gone a-glimmering out of her, to break in on his enthusiasm with any criticism of his provisions for her comfort; certainly no criticism on any basis of noise. It has been said that Police Commissioner Hichens was an unapproachable man; and some things are impossible. One can die, you know, any death. But some things are entirely impossible.

The day came when she dragged her weary weight up from the couch and drove her unsteady frame along the new pathway through jungle thickets toward the village. The idea had been gnawing in her consciousness for days; to find the nearest house or hut or any kind of place where human beings lived, so as to have it in her mind where to run when the time came. It had come to that. It went in circles through her brain; when the time came to run, she positively must know where to run.

Her progress was slow and painful. When her limbs shook so she could not stand alone, she leaned against a tree. She must not lie down on the ground on account of the centipedes and scorpions.

”h.e.l.lo--”

Startled a little, she turned toward the voice. A man's voice, very low. It came from somewhere behind her. She broke away from her support and the fever-surge caught her and whipped her from head to foot. Her balance was going--

”I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you.”

She was kept from falling by the arm of the stranger.

”No. It's the fever. I a.s.sure you it's the fever.”

Now he just steadied her with one hand. The fever was filling her brain with a dull haze. . . . He was slender and not tall. He was much bronzed. She could see only his eyes and his mouth. He spoke again:

”Why are you alone in this jungle--with such a fever?”

The words dropped into her consciousness; even, smooth, like pebbles gently released into water.

Then the blackness of outer darkness came up between.

. . . That was how the present Mrs. Hichens began to know Skag.

He carried her back along the path, fresh-marked by her own footsteps, to the tent.

Next afternoon he called to learn how she was. He had a sheaf of wild mountain lilac-blooms in his hand.

”Oh, lovely! I haven't seen lilacs since England.”

”They make me think of my mother,” he said, giving the flowers into her hands.

”I would so much like to hear about your mother.”

Skag had not the habit of much speaking, but he found it easy to tell this English girl about the mother who had died when he was a child.

She leaned against banked pillows and watched the changes flow across his face. They were almost startling and yet so clean, so wholesome, that she felt inwardly refreshed, as by a breath from mountain heights.

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