Part 19 (2/2)

”Here I am at last, Sir Theophilus,” she began, in a gay artificial voice as she pa.s.sed Jim Douglas, who stood up, pus.h.i.+ng his chair aside to give more room. ”I'm so glad Major Erlton managed to get leave. I'm such a coward! I should have died of fright all by myself in that long, lonely----”

”Keep still!” interrupted a peremptory voice behind her, as a pair of swift unceremonious arms seized her round the waist, and by sheer force dragged her back a step, then held her tight-clasped to something that beat fast despite the calm tone. ”Kill that snake, someone! There, right at her feet! It isn't a branch. I saw it move.

Don't stir, Mrs. Gissing, it's all right.”

It might be, but the heart she felt beat hard; and the one beneath his hand gave a bound and then seemed to stand still, as the sticks and staves, hastily caught up, smote furiously on her very dress, so close did certain death lie to her. There was a faint scent of lavender about that dress, about her curly hair, which Jim Douglas never forgot; just as he never forgot the pa.s.sionate admiration which made his hands relax to an infinite tenderness, when she uttered no cry, no sound; when there was no need to hold her, so still did she stand, so absolutely in unison with the defiance of Fate which kept him steady as a rock. Surely no one in all his life, he thought, had ever stood so close to him, yet so far off!

”G.o.d bless my soul! My dear lady, what an escape!” The hurried faltering exclamation from a bystander heralded the holding up of a long limp rope of a thing hanging helplessly over a stick. It was the signal for a perfect babel. Many had seen the brute, but had thought it a branch, others had similar experiences of drowsy snakes scorched out of winter quarters in some hollow log, and all crowded round Mrs.

Gissing, loud in praise of her coolness. Only she turned quickly to see who had held her; and found Major Erlton.

”The brute hasn't touched you, has he?” he began huskily, then broke into almost a sob of relief, ”My G.o.d! what an escape!”

She glanced at him with the faint distaste which any expression of strong emotion showed toward her by a man always provoked, and gave one of her high irrelevant laughs.

”Is it? I may die a worse death. But I want _him_--where is he?”

”Slipped away from your grat.i.tude, I expect,” said the Collector. ”But I'll betray him. It was the man who knew about the _chupatties_, Sir Theophilus; I don't know his name.”

”Douglas,” said the host. ”He is in camp a mile or two down the jheel.

I expect he has gone back. He seemed a nice fellow.”

Mrs. Gissing made a _moue_. ”I would not have been so grateful as all that! I would only have said 'Bravo' to him.”

Her own phrase seemed to startle her, she broke off with a sudden wistful look in her wide blue eyes.

”My dear Mrs. Gissing, have a gla.s.s of wine; you must indeed,” fussed the Brigadier. But the little lady set the suggestion aside.

”Douglas!” she repeated. ”I wonder where he comes from? Does anyone know a Douglas?”

”James Sholto Douglas,” corrected the host. ”It's a good name.”

”And I knew a good fellow of that name once; but he went under,” said an older man.

”About what?” Alice Gissing's eyes challenged the speaker, who stood close to her.

”About a woman, my dear lady.”

”Poor dear! Erlton, you must fetch him over to see me to-morrow morning.” She said it with infinite verve, and her hearers laughed.

”Him!” retorted someone. ”How do you know it's the same man?”

She nodded her head gayly. ”I've a fancy it is. And I am bound to be nice to him anyhow.”

She had not the chance, however. Major Erlton, riding over before breakfast to catch him, found nothing but the square-shaped furrow surrounding a dry vacant spot which shows where a tent has been.

For Jim Douglas was already on his way back to Delhi, on his way back to more than Delhi if he succeeded in carrying out a plan which had suggested itself to him when he heard of General Hea.r.s.ey's belief that the priests conducting the agitation against widow remarriage and the abolition of _suttee_ were leagued with the Mohammedan revival. Tara, the would-be saint, was still in Delhi. He had not sought her out before, being in truth angry with the woman's duplicity, and not wanting to run the risk of her chattering about him. Now, as he had said, the whole position was changed. He had no common hold upon her, and might through her get some useful hints as to the leading men in the movement. She must have seen them when the miracle took place at Benares. The thought made him smile rather savagely. Decidedly she would not care to defy his tongue; from saint to sinner would be too great a fall.

So at dusk that very evening he was back in his mendicant's disguise, begging at a doorway in one of the oldest parts of Delhi. An insignificant doorway in an insignificant alley. But there was a faded wreath of yellow marigolds over the architrave, a deeper hollow in the stone threshold; sure signs, both, that something to attract wors.h.i.+ping feet lay within. Yet at first sight the court into which you entered, after a brief pa.s.sage barred by blank wall, was much as other courts. It was set round with high irregular houses, perfect rabbit-warrens of tiny rooms, slips of roof, and stairs; all conglomerate, yet distinct. Some reached from within, some from without, some from neighboring roofs, and some, Heaven knows how!

possibly by wings, after the fas.h.i.+on of the purple pigeons cooing and sidling on the purple brick cornices. In one corner, however, stood a huge _peepul-tree_, and partly shaded by this, partly attached to an arcaded building of two stories, was a small, squalid-looking, black stone Hindoo temple. It was not more than ten feet square, triply recessed at each corner, and with a pointed spire continuing the recesses of the base. A sort of hollow monolith raised on a plinth of three steps. In its dark windowless sanctuary, open to the outside world by a tingle arch, stood a polished black stone, resting on a polished black stone cup, like a large acorn. For this was the oldest s.h.i.+vala in Delhi, and in the rabbit-warrens surrounding this survival of Baal wors.h.i.+p lived and lodged _yogis_, beggars, saints, half the insanity and sacerdotalism of Delhi. It was not a place into which to venture rashly. So Jim Douglas sat at the gate begging while the clas.h.i.+ngs and brayings and drumings echoed out into the alley. For the seven fold circling of the Lamps was going on, and if Tara did not pa.s.s to this evening service from outside, she most likely lived within; that she lodged near the temple he knew.

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