Part 17 (2/2)

He made the remark chiefly for his own benefit; for he was thinking of the strange chance of meeting those cold blue-gray eyes again in that fas.h.i.+on. Beautiful eyes, brilliant eyes! Then he smiled cynically. The chance he had given had evidently borne fruit. She seemed quite happy, and there was no mistaking the look on her owner's heavy face. So the heroics had meant nothing, and he had given up his chance for a vulgar kiss-and-make-it-up-again!

It was too dark to see that look on Major Erlton's face, but it was there, as, carrying Kate off with a certain air of proprietors.h.i.+p from the compliments which had grown stale, they went to find the dog-cart, which, in deference to the mare's nerves, had been told to await them in a quiet corner of the compound.

”You did it splendidly, Kate!”

His voice came contentedly through the soft darkness which hid the easy arm which slipped to her waist, the easy smiling face which bent to kiss hers.

”Oh, don't! Please don't!” The cry, almost a sob, was unmistakable. So was the start which made her stumble over an unseen edging to the path. Even Herbert Erlton with his blunted delicacy could not misjudge it. He stood silent for a moment, then gave a short hard laugh.

”You haven't hurt yourself, I expect,” he said dryly, ”so there's no harm done. I'll call that fellow with the lantern to give us a light.”

He did, and the vague shadow preceded by a swinging light turned out to be young Mainwaring on his pony, with the groom carrying a lantern.

”Mrs. Erlton,” cried the lad, slipping to the ground, ”what luck! The very person I wanted. I was going round by your house on the chance of catching you, as it was useless trying to get in a quiet word this afternoon. I want to ask if you know of any houses to let! I had a letter this morning from Mrs. Gissing asking me to look out one for her.”

”For her?” The echo came in a dull voice. Kate had scarcely recovered from her own recoil, from a vague doubt of what she had done.

”Yes! Her husband had to go home on business and won't be out till May. So, as the new people at Lucknow seem a poor lot, and she has old friends at Delhi----” A remembrance that some of these old friends.h.i.+ps must be an unwelcome memory to his hearer made the boy pause. But the man, smarting with resentment, had no such scruples--what was the use of them?

”Coming here, is she?” he echoed. ”Then we may hope to have some fun in this deadly-lively stuck-up place. I say, Mainwaring, would you mind driving my wife home and lending me your pony to gallop round to the mess. I must go there, and as it is getting late there is no use dragging Mrs. Erlton all that way. And she has a big Christmas dinner on, haven't you, Kate?”

As the young fellow climbed up into the dog-cart beside her, Kate Erlton knew that one chance had gone irretrievably, irrevocably. Would there be another? Suddenly in the darkness she clasped her hands tight and prayed that there might be--that it might come soon!

And round them as they drove slowly to gain the city gate, the half-seen crowd which had gathered to see the strange spell were drifting homeward to spread the tale of it from hearth to hearth.

CHAPTER IV.

IN THE VILLAGE.

The winter rains had come and gone, leaving a legacy of gold behind them. Promise of future gold in the emerald sea of young wheat, guerdon of present gold in the mustard blossom curving on the green, like the crests of waves curving upon a wind-swept northern sea. Far and near, wide as the eye could reach, there was nothing to be seen save this--a waving sea of green wheat crested by yellow mustard. But in the center, whence the eye looked, stood a human ant-hill; for the congeries of mud alleys, mud walls, mud roofs, forming the village, looked from a little distance like nothing else. Viewed broadly, too, it was simply Earth made plastic by the Form-bringer, Water, hardened again by the Sun-fire. The triple elements combined into a sh.e.l.l for laboring life. Like most villages in Northern India this one stood high on its own ruins, girt round by shallow glistening tanks which were at once its cradle and its grave. From them the mud for the first and last house had been dug, to them the periodical rains of August washed back the village bit by bit.

There was scarcely a sign of life in the sky-encircled plain. Scarcely a tree, scarcely a landmark. Nothing far or near to show that aught lay beyond the pale horizon. The crisp, cold air of a mid-January dawn held scarcely a sound, for the village was still asleep. Here and there, maybe, someone was stirring; but with that deliberate calm which comes to those who by virtue of early rising have the world to themselves. Here and there, too, in the high stone inclosures serving at once as a protection to the village and a cattlefold, some goat, impatient to be roaming, bleated querulously; but these sights and sounds only seemed to increase the stillness, the silence surrounding them. It is a scene which to most civilized eyes is oppressive in its self-centered isolation, its air of remoteness. The isolation of a community, self-supporting, self-sufficing, the remoteness of a place which cares not if, indeed, there be a world beyond its boundaries.

And this one, type of many alike in most things--above all, in steadfast self-absorption--shall be left nameless. We are in the village, that is enough.

Suddenly an odd, clamorous wail rang from among the green corn, and a band of gray cranes which had been standing knee-deep in the wheat rose awkwardly and headed, arrow-shaped, for the great Nujjufgurhjheel which they wotted of below the horizon: in this displaying a wider outlook than the villagers who toiled and slept within sight of those fields, while the birds left them at dawn for the sedgy stretches of another world.

At the sound a man, who had been crouching half-asleep against a mud wall, rose to his feet and peered drowsily over the fields. Something, he knew, must have startled the gray cranes; and he was the village watchman. As his father had been before him, as his son, please G.o.d, would be after him. He carried a short spear hung with jingles as his badge of office, and he leaned upon it lazily as he looked out into the gray dawn. Then he wrapped his blanket closer round him, and walked leisurely to meet the solitary figure coming toward him, threading its way by an invisible path through the dew-hung sea of wheat.

”_Ari_, brother,” he called mildly when he reached earshot, ”is it well?”

”It is well,” came the answer. So he waited, leaning on his spear, until the newcomer stood beside him, his bare legs glistening and the folds of his drooping blanket frosted with the dew. In one hand he, also, held a watchman's spear; in the other one of those unleavened cakes, round and flat like a pancake, which form the daily bread alike of rich and poor. This he held out, saying briefly:

”For the elders. From the South to the North. From the East to the West.”

”Wherefore?” The brief reply held vague curiosity; no more. The cake had already changed hands, unchallenged.

”G.o.d knows. It came to us from Goloowallah with the message as I gave it. Thy folk will pa.s.s it on?”

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