Part 50 (1/2)

So, reaching the summit of this first bulwark of the unattainable, he sat down, breathlessly, beside an upright black stone which showed strangely distinct amid the redness of the surrounding rock; a plain black stone, not three feet high, chipped rudely to a blunt point.

Father Ninian did not need the scattering of dead marigolds and dry basil leaves about its base to tell him that it was a fragment of an older faith than that of the temple below; a faith sterner, purer, founded on a clearer perception of what humanity needed in that search for the lost Paradise; on a closer memory of the cause which lost it.

He laid one hand on the stone almost caressingly, as, holding the pyx in the other, he sat down facing the distant peaks. But there was no cloud upon them. The day had dawned clear and still, and as he sat looking wistfully over the valleys on valleys, the hills on hills, which lay bathed in light between him and the ”Cradle of the G.o.ds,”

a sunbeam--still slanting from the curved edge of the eastern plains--caught the jewelled star of what he held, and stayed there.

It was peaceful beyond words. The hurry, the strain, not only of that long eventful night, but of the whole long eventful life, seemed over.

All things seemed behind him. The pa.s.sion, the pride, the courage, the manhood--all things that had made Ninian Bruce what Ninian Bruce had been--where were they?

Only wisdom, only a tender knowledge, seemed to remain.

The clank of steel upon stone roused him, the clank of Roshan's spurs upon the rocks; and Father Ninian turned to see him, a yard or two on the path below, outlined clearly against the distant view of Eshwara, against the world in which Ninian Bruce had lived and loved--the Ninian Bruce whom he had left behind.

Behind!

No! It was Ninian Bruce and none other who was on his feet in a second, a flush on his face--the face that was like the nether mill-stone in its stern pa.s.sion, and pride, and power. For, in a second, the old man's soul was back in a world where a dead woman belonging to him lay waiting for revenge. His hand was on his hidden rapier, as he flung his first word of defiance at the man who had killed her.

”Murderer!”

”Your pupil at that, even!” gasped Roshan, ”you began it!--your pupil whom you taught--curse you--”

The words failed him--he paused inarticulate--but the keen eyes and ears opposite him took in his meaning with the swift comprehension which had been Pidar Narayan's always. A sort of contemptuous pity fought with the pa.s.sion of Ninian Bruce's face.

”My pupil, certainly,” he a.s.sented. ”Have you come to ask me for a final lesson?”

Roshan glared at him. ”You understand--you always did--that is the worst. Yes! I have come”--here he laughed wildly--”for what you taught me--fair play and no favour--and I mean to have it.” In his fierce excitement he pressed closer, flouris.h.i.+ng his rapier.

”Pardon me,” came a cold, courteous voice; ”I did not teach you that method of a.s.sa.s.sination, surely? I thought you desired fair play. If so, you might allow me to meet you on equal terms.”

Roshan drew back with a flush from the figure which had stood its ground, which looked at him with bitter disdain. He scarcely seemed to recognize it. No wonder! For this was Ninian Bruce himself. Ninian Bruce as he might have spoken to an over-hasty antagonist in the days when he was the most reckless swordsman in Rome, when the world held him body and soul.

The years, his very priesthood, had slipped from him.

”I beg your pardon, sir!” muttered Roshan, standing aside. There was a savage satisfaction in his heart. This man was not old, the odds were equal; there was enough fire and pa.s.sion here to please any opponent.

So, after a pause to lay aside the pyx--it found a strange resting-place on the blunt summit of that upright black stone--a slim, still elegant figure, divested of its priestly robings, took its stand, its back to the hills, its face to the world.

Still upright, still active, with its black _soutane_ caught up and tucked into the sash to give free play to its limbs.

”Now, sir,” came the courteous voice, ”I am ready.”

Something in the proud grace of bearing, the reckless contempt, made Roshan follow suit.

”The sun will be in your eyes,” he said, ”let us fight lengthwise to the ridge.”

”We _will_--by and by!” came that icy voice, as the speaker, without moving, stood on guard. ”We can omit the salute. If you are ready, I am.”

For an instant Roshan hesitated, realizing what the life that he meant to take had been, what the man himself whom he meant to kill had been and was. The man whose figure stood out like a black shadow against the distant blue of the hills; and as he realized the fine fibre of his enemy, a sense of powerlessness to touch, to harm him, kept Roshan motionless.