Part 40 (1/2)

”Thank you, I have no wish to hear the story.”

The commonplace, second-rate, mock-dignified phrase came to her lips unsought, and she felt she could have cried in sheer vexation at having used it there; in the very face of Death as it were. But Jim Douglas laughed; laughed good-naturedly.

”I wonder how many years it is since I heard a woman say that? In another world surely,” he said with quite a confidential tone. ”But the fact remains that Tara protects you as my wife, and if I were to go----”

Kate looked at him with a quick resentment flaming up in her face beneath the stain.

”I think you are mistaken,” she said slowly. ”I believe Tara would be better pleased if--if she knew the truth.”

”You mean if I were to tell her you are not my wife?” he replied quickly. ”Why?”

”Because I should be less of a tie to you--because----” She paused, then added sharply, ”Mr. Greyman, I must ask you to tell her the truth, please. I have a right to so much, surely. I have my reasons for it, and if you do not, I shall.”

Jim Douglas shrugged his shoulders. ”In that case I had better tell her myself; not that I think it matters much one way or another, so long as I am here. And the whole thing from beginning to end is chance, nothing but chance.”

”Your chance and mine,” she murmured half to herself. It was the first time she had alluded openly to the strange linking of their fates, and he looked at her almost impatiently.

”Yes! your chance and mine; and we must make the best of it. I'll tell her as I go out.”

But Tara interrupted him at the beginning.

”If the Huzoor means that he does not love the mem as he loved Zora, that requires no telling, and for the rest what does it matter to this slave?”

”And it matters nothing to me either,” he retorted roughly, ”but of this be sure. Who kills the mem kills me, unless I kill first; and by Krishnu, and Vishnu, and the lot, I'd as lief kill you, Tara, as anyone else, if you get in my way.”

A great broad flash of white teeth lit up her face as she salaamed, remarking that the Huzoor's mother must have been as Kunti. And Jim Douglas understanding the complimentary allusion to the G.o.d-visited mother of the Lunar race, wished as he went downstairs, that he was like the Five Heroes in one respect, at least, and that was in having only a fifth part of a woman to look after, instead of two whole ones who talked of love! So he pa.s.sed out to listen, and watch, and wait, while the fire-balloons went up into the velvety sky, replacing the kites. For May is the month of marriages also, and night after night these false stars floated out from the Dream-City to form new constellations on the horizon for a few minutes and then disappear with a flare into the darkness. Into the darkness whence the master did not come. Yet, as the month ended, villagers pa.s.sing in with grain from Meerut averred that the masters were not all dead, or else G.o.d gave their ghosts a like power in cursing and smiting--which was all poor folk had to look for; since some had appeared and burned a village.

Not all dead? The news drifted from market to market, but if it penetrated through the Palace gates it did not filter through the new curtains and hangings of the private apartments where the King took perpetual cooling draughts and wrote perpetual appeals for more etiquette and decorum. For nothing likely to disturb the unities of dreams was allowed within the precincts, where every day the old King sat on a mock peac.o.c.k throne with a new cus.h.i.+on to it, and listened for hours to the high-flown letters of congratulation which poured in, each with its own little covering bag of brocade, from the neighboring chiefs. And if any day there happened to be a paucity of real ones, Hussan Askuri could supply them, like other dreams, at so much a dozen; since nothing more costly than the brocade bag came with them.

So that the Mahb.o.o.b's face, as Treasurer, grew longer and longer over the dressmaker's and upholsterer's bills, and the Court Journal was driven into recording the fact that someone actually presented a bottle of _Pandamus odoratissimus_, whatever that may be. Some subtle essence, mayhap, favorable to dreaminess; since, in the month of peace, drugs were necessary to prevent awakening.

Especially when, on the 30th of May, a sound came over the distant horizon; the sound of artillery.

At last! At last! Jim Douglas, who, in sheer dread of his own growing despair, had taken to spending all the time he dared in moody silence on that peaceful roof, started as if he had been shot, and was down the stairs seeking news. The streets were full of a silent, restless crowd, almost empty of soldiers. They had gone out during the night, he learned, Meerutward; tidings of an army on the banks of the Hindu river, seven or eight miles out, having been brought in by scouts.

At last! At last! He wandered through the bazaars scarcely able to think, wondering only when the army could possibly arrive, feeling a mad joy in the anxious faces around him, lingering by the groups of men collected in every open s.p.a.ce simply for the satisfaction of hearing the wonder and alarm in the words: ”So the master lives.”

He lived indeed! Listen! That was his voice over the eastern horizon!

Kate, when he came back to the roof about noon, had never seen him in this mood before, and wondered at his fire, his gayety, his youth. But the recognition brought a dull pain with it, in the thought that this was natural to the man; that gloomy moodiness the result of her presence.

”You are not afraid, surely?” he said suddenly, breaking off in the recital of some future event which seemed to him certain.

”No. I am only glad,” she replied slowly. ”It could not have lasted much longer. It is a great relief.”

”Relief,” he echoed, ”I wonder if you know the relief it is to me?”

And then he looked at her remorsefully. ”I have been an awful brute, Mrs. Erlton, but women can scarcely understand what inaction means to a man.”

Could they not? she wondered bitterly as he hastened off again, leaving her to long weary hours of waiting; till the red flush of sunset on the bubble dome of the mosque brought him back with a new look on his face; a look of angry doubt.

”The sepoys are coming in again,” he said; ”they claim a victory--but that, of course, is impossible. Still I don't understand, and it is so difficult to get any reliable information.”

”You should go out yourself--I believe it would be best for us both,”