Part 57 (1/2)

”Wast not?” she retorted bitterly. ”The G.o.ds know. Is there not woman in man, and man in woman, among those born at a birth? Soma! for the sake of that--do this for me----” It was her last appeal; she had kept it for the last, and now her somber eyes were ablaze with pa.s.sionate entreaty. ”See, brother! I claim it of you as a right. Thou didst take my sainthood from me once. Count this as giving it back again.”

”Back again?” echoed Soma thickly. ”What fool's talk is this?”

”Let it be fool's talk, brother,” she interrupted, with a strange intensity in her voice. ”I care not--thou dost not know; I cannot tell thee. But--but _this_ will be counted to thee in rest.i.tution. Soma!

think of it as my sainthood! Sure thou dost owe me it! Somal for the sake of the hand which lay in thine.”

In her excitement she moved a step forward, and he shrank back instinctively. True, she was a saint in another way if those scars were true; but--at the moment, being angry with her, he chose to doubt, to remember. ”Stand back!” he cried roughly, unsteadily. ”What do I owe thee? What claim hast thou?”

The question, the gesture outraged her utterly. The memory of a whole life of vain struggling after self-respect surged to her brain, bringing that almost insane light to her eyes. ”What?” she echoed fiercely--”this!” Ere he could prevent it, her hand was in his, gripping it like a vice.

”So in the beginning--so in the end!” she gasped, as he struggled with her madly. ”Tara and Soma hand in hand. Nay! I am strong as thou.”

She spoke truth, for his nerve and muscle were slack with opium; yet he fought wildly, striking at her with his left hand, until in a supreme effort she lost her footing, they both staggered, and he--as she loosed her hold--fell backward, striking his head against a projecting brick in the ruined wall.

”Soma!” she whispered to his prostrate figure, ”art hurt, brother?

Speak to me!”

But he lay still, and, with a cry, she flung herself on her knees beside him, feeling his heart, listening to his breathing, searching for the injury. It was a big cut on the crown of the head; but it did not seem a bad one, and she began to take his unconsciousness more calmly. She had seen folk like that before from a sudden fall, and they came to themselves, none the worse, after a while. But scarcely, here, in time to relieve guard.

She stood up suddenly and looked round her. Soma's uniform hung on a peg, his musket stood in a corner.

Half an hour after this, Kate, waiting in the thatch for Tara to come as usual, gave a cry, more of surprise than alarm, as a tall figure, in uniform, stepped into the flickering light of the cresset.

”Soma!” she cried, ”what is it?”

A gratified smile came to the curled mustachios. ”Soma or Tara, it matters not,” replied a familiar voice. ”They were one in the beginning. Quick, mem-sahib. On with the jewels. I have a dark veil too for the gate.”

Kate stood up, her heart throbbing. ”Am I to go, then? Is that what Sri Anunda meant?”

”Sri Anunda! hath he been here?” Tara paused, sniffed, and once more those dark eyes met the light ones with a fierce jealousy. ”He hath given thee henna-blossom. I smell it; and he gives it to none but those who---- So the Swami's lesson is learned--and the disciple can go in peace----” She broke off with a petulant laugh. ”Well! so be it.

It ends my part. The mem will sleep among her own to-night; Sri Anunda hath said it. Come----”

”But how? I must know how,” protested Kate.

The laugh rose again. ”Wherefore? The mem is Sri Anunda's disciple.

For the rest, I will let the mem out through the little river-gate.

There is a boat, and she can go in peace.”

There was something so wild, so almost menacing in Tara's face, that Kate felt her only hope was to obey. And, in good sooth, the scent of the henna-blossom she carried with her, tucked into her bosom, gave her, somehow, an irrational hope that all would go well as she followed her guide swiftly through the alleys and bazaars.

”The mem must wait here,” whispered Tara at last, pausing behind one of the ungainly mausoleums in what had been the old Christian cemetery. ”When she hears me singing Sonny-baba's song, she must follow to the Water-gate. It is behind the ruins, there.”

Kate crouched down, setting her back, native fas.h.i.+on, against the tomb. And as she waited she wondered idly what mortal lay there; so, being strangely calm, she let her fingers stray to the recess she felt behind her. There should be a marble tablet there; and even in the dark she might trace the lettering. But the recess was empty, the marble having evidently been picked out. So it was a nameless grave.

And the next? She moved over to it stealthily, then to the next.

But the tablets had been taken out of all and carried off--for curry-stones most likely. So the graves were nameless; those beneath them mortals--nothing more. As she waited under the stars, her mind reverted to Sri Anunda and the Wheel of Life and Death. The immortality of mortality! Was that the lesson which was to let her go in peace?