Part 25 (1/2)
He fairly shook with rage. ”Go!” he burst out. ”Go! I hate the sight of you, with your lips full of talk about duty and self-respect and honour. Go!”
I left the man, but for all his violence I felt that his anger was really against himself, and that my words had gone home.
A year, two years pa.s.sed. Three times in this interval I had heard from Nelly, and on each occasion the letter was not so much for me as to obtain news of Mazarion. She was still watching and waiting--wasting the treasures of her heart as many another woman has done on men as worthless as Mazarion. And I--I was powerless to help her for whom I would have given my life. Twice I had answered to say that I had no news to give; but on the third occasion it was on the heels of her letter that news reached me. It came from the commander of a river steamer who dined with me in my lonely district house on the banks of the Irawadi.
”The man has practically gone to the devil,” said Jarman in his blunt outspoken way; ”he got a touch of the sun about a year ago.”
”I never heard of that.”
”I'm not surprised at that; it's a wonder you hear anything in this doggone hole. Well, when Mazarion came round again the pace was faster than ever. I can't help thinking that his brain never really righted itself; but he acted like a fool, and a madman, and a blackguard combined--with the usual result.”
”You don't mean to say he's broken!”
”About as good as broke. Government is long-suffering, but in common decency they couldn't overlook the things Mazarion did. They've given him a chance, however. He's had six months' sick leave to settle his affairs, and he's cleared off to some hill station or other in India.”
So it had come to this. And late that night I took the bull by the horns and wrote to Mrs. Carstairs, telling her exactly how things were, and in the morning my heart failed me and I tore up that letter and wrote another one to Nelly, in which all that I said of Mazarion was that he had gone on leave to the Indian hills; and this letter I posted.
I little knew how near the time was when I should go myself. My tour of service in Burma was coming to an end, and that end was hastened by the rice-swamps of Henzada. A medical certificate did the rest, and within the month I was ordered to India, and, best of good luck, to a Himalayan station. In a fortnight I was out of Burma--in India--in the Himalayas.
How I enjoyed that journey from the plains! How strength seemed to come back by leaps and bounds as we rushed through the belt of forest that girdled the mountains, past savannahs of waving yellow tiger-gra.s.s, through purple-blossomed ironwood and lilac jerrol, through stretches of bamboo jungle in every shade of colour, with their graceful tufts of culms a hundred feet and more from the ground, through giant sal and toon woods whose sombre foliage was lightened by the orange petals of the palas, and the blazing crimson bloom of the wax-like flowers of the silk cotton! Higher still, and the tropical forest is now but a hazy green sea that quivers uneasily below. Now the hedgerows are bright with dog-roses, and the shade is the shade of oak and birch and maple. In the long restful arcades of the forest, by the edges of the trickling mountain springs, the sward is gay with amaranth and marguerite, the pimpernel winks its blue eyes from beneath its shelter of tender green, and a hundred other nameless woodland flowers spangle the glades. Higher still and the whole wonder of the Himalayas is around me, one rolling ma.s.s of green, purple, and azure mountains, with a horizon of snow-clad peaks standing white and pure against the perfect blue of the sky.
There was a window at the club which used to be my favourite seat, for it commanded a matchless view, and it was here that I used to sit and positively drink in strength with every puff of fresh, pure air that came in past the roses cl.u.s.tering on the trelliswork outside. A friend joined me--one who like myself had escaped to the hills after wrecking his health in a Burman swamp. He had known Mazarion, and somehow the conversation turned upon him, and Paget asked me to step with him into the hall. Once there he pointed to a small board which I had noticed before, but never had the curiosity to examine. On that board was posted the name of John Mazarion as a defaulter.
”He has gone under utterly,” said Paget as we regained our seats, ”for this is not all that has happened.”
”Could anything be worse?”
”Well, I rather think so. Do you know the man has flung away all shame and has gone to live like a beastly Bhootea--a hill man--a savage on the mountain side?”
”What!”
”Why, every one knows it here. It happened about three months ago--just after that affair,” and he indicated the board in the hall with a turn of his hand.
”The man must be mad.”
”Not he; only he hasn't pluck enough to blow his brains out. He's not alone either, but has taken a wife--a Bhootea woman. They're not far off from here--over there on that spur,” and he pointed to a wooded arm of the mountains that stood out above a grey rolling mist.
”My G.o.d!” and I put my head between my hands. ”The cad! the worthless brute!” I burst out. ”See here, Paget: perhaps you're wrong--perhaps this story isn't true?”
Paget carefully dusted a speck from his coat-sleeve.
”I know what you're thinking of, Thring. That girl at home. I heard something about the affair. I used to feel inclined to kick him when I saw her picture in his rooms at Rangoon beside that of the other one--you know whom I mean. Yes, it's all true, and you can go and see if you like. The Boothea girl is called Rani; she's devilish pretty.
It's the 'squalid savage' business, you know; but the man is a moral hog--d.a.m.n him!”
Saying this, Paget, who was a good fellow after his kind, lit another cigar, and nodding his head in farewell went off to the billiard-room, and I sat still--thinking, thinking, with fury and shame in my heart.
At last I could endure it no longer, and then suddenly rose and walked to my rooms--I lived in the club. I was hardly conscious of what I did, but I remember ordering my pony, and then my eyes fell on a case containing a small pair of dainty revolvers. I took them mechanically from their velvet-lined beds, loaded them carefully, and slipped them in a courier-bag. Then I mounted the pony and rode off to find Mazarion. The road was longer than I thought; but it seemed as if some instinct guided me--some power, I know not what, was over me, and led my steps straight to my goal.
It is curious how in moments like this unimportant and trivial incidents impress themselves on the mind. I remember tying the pony to a white rhododendron, and that in so doing I dropped my cigar. It was the only one I had, and it lay smouldering before me, crosswise on the petals of one of the huge lemon-scented flowers that had fallen from the tree. I kicked it from me, and then went onwards on foot. In about half an hour I came to a little tableland of greensward, which hung over a grey abyss. Huge black pines rose stiffly on the rocks that beetled over the level turf, and to the edge of the rocks there clung, like a wasp's nest, a wretched hut, with a thin blue smoke rising from between the rafters of its moss-grown roof.
It was touching sunset, and the west was a blaze of crimson and gold.
The face of the pine-covered crag towering above me was in black shadow; but the mellow light was bright on the green turf at my feet.