Dragon's blood Part 19

She faced him with a start, never so young and beautiful as now--her blue eyes wide, scornful, and blazing, her cheeks red and lips trembling, like a child ready to cry.

"I did not want _you_" she said curtly.

"Nor did they." Pride forged the retort for him, at a blow. He explained in the barest of terms, while she eyed him steadily, with every sign of rising temper.

"I can spare you, too," she whipped out; then turned to walk away, holding her helmet erect, in the poise of a young G.o.ddess, pert but warlike.

This double injustice left Rudolph chafing. In two strides, however, he had overtaken her.

"I am under orders," he stated grimly.

Her pace gradually slackened in the growing heat; but she went forward with her eyes fixed on the littered, sunken flags of their path. This rankling silence seemed to him more unaccountable and deadly than all former mischances, and left him far more alone. From the sultry tops of bamboos, drooping like plants in an oven, an amorous mult.i.tude of cicadas maintained the buzzing torment of steel on emery wheels, as though the universal heat had chafed and fretted itself into a dry, feverish utterance. Once Mrs. Forrester looked about, quick and angry, like one ready to choke that endless voice. But for the rest, the two strange companions moved steadily onward.

In an alley of checkered light a buffalo with a wicker nose-ring, and heavy, sagging horns that seemed to jerk his head back in agony, heaved toward them, ridden by a naked yellow infant in a nest-like saddle of green fodder. Scenting with fright the disgusting presence of white aliens, the sleep-walking monster s.h.i.+ed, opened his eyes, and lowered his blue muzzle as if to charge. There was a pause, full of menace.

"Don't run!" said Rudolph, and catching the woman roughly about the shoulders, thrust her behind him. She clutched him tightly by the wounded arm.

The buffalo stared irresolute, with evil eyes. The naked boy in the green nest brushed a swarm of flies from his handful of sticky sweetmeats, looked up, pounded the clumsy shoulders, and shrilled a command. Staring doubtfully, and trembling, the buffalo swayed past, the wrinkled armor of his gray hide plastered with dry mud as with yellow ochre. To the slow click of hoofs, the surly monster, guided by a little child, went swinging down the pastoral shade,--ancient yet living shapes from a picture immemorial in art and poetry.

"Please," begged Rudolph, trying with his left hand to loosen her grip.

"Please, that hurts."

For a second they stood close, their fingers interlacing. With a touch of contempt, he found that she still trembled, and drew short breath.

Her eyes slowly gathered his meaning.

"Oh, that!" She tore her hand loose, as though burned. "That! It _was_ all true, then. I forgot."

She caught aside her skirts angrily, and started forward in all her former disdain. But this, after their brief alliance, was not to be tolerated.

"What was all true?" he insisted. "You shall not treat me so. If anybody has a right--"

After several paces, she flashed about at him in a whirl of words:--

"All alike, every one of you! And I was fool enough to think you were different!" The conflict in her eyes showed real, beyond suspicion. "He told me all about it. Last evening. And you dare talk of rights, and come following me here--"

"Lucky I did," retorted Rudolph, with sudden spirit; and holding out his wounded arm, indignantly: "That scratch, if you know how it came--"

"I know, perfectly." She stared as at some crowning impudence. "He was chicken-hearted. You came off cheaply.--I know all you said. But the one thing I'll never understand, is where you found the courage, after he struck you, at the club. You'll always have _that_ to admire!"

"After he struck"--A light broke in on Rudolph, somehow. "Chantel? Oh, that liar!"

He wheeled and started to go back.

"Wait, stop!" she called, in a strangely altered voice, which brought him up short. "They're all with him now. You can't--What did you mean?"

He explained, sulkily at first, but ending in a kind of generous rage.

"So I couldn't even stand up to him. And except for Maurice Heywood--Oh, you need not frown; he's the best friend I ever had."

Mrs. Forrester had walked on, with the same cloudy aspect, the same light, impatient step. He felt the greater surprise when, suddenly turning, she raised toward him her odd, enticing, pointed face, and the friendly mischief of her eyes.

"The best?" she echoed, in the same half-whisper as when she had flattered him, that afternoon in the dusky well of the paG.o.da stairway.

"The very best friend? Don't you think you have a better?"

Rudolph stared.

"Oh, you funny, funny boy!" she cried, with a bewildering laugh, of delight and pride. "I hate people all prim and circ.u.mspect, and you--You'd have flown back there straight at him, before my--before all the others. That's why I like you so!--But you must leave that horrid, lying fellow to me."

All unaware, she had led him along the blinding white wall of the Forrester compound, and halted in the hot shadow that lay under the tiled gateway. As though timidly, her hand stole up and rested on his forearm.

"So sorry." The confined s.p.a.ce, narrow and covered, gave to her voice a plaintive ring. "That's twice you protected me, and I hurt you.--You _are_ different. This doesn't happen between people, often. When you did--that, for me, yesterday, didn't it seem different and rather splendid, and--like a book?"

"It seemed nonsense," replied Rudolph, st.u.r.dily. "The heat. We were fools."

She laughed again, and at close range watched him from under consciously drooping lashes that almost veiled a liquid brilliancy. Everywhere the cicadas kept the heat vibrating with their strident buzz. It recalled some other widespread mist of treble music, long ago. The trilling of frogs, that had been, before.

"You dear, brave boy," she said slowly. "You're so honest, too. I'm not ungrateful. Do you know what I'd like--Oh, there's the _amah!"_

She drew back, with an impatient gesture.

"That stupid, fat Mrs. Earle's waiting for me.--I hate to leave you."

The stealthy brightness of her admiration changed to a slow, inscrutable appeal. "Don't forget. Haven't you--a better friend?" And with an instant, bold, and tantalizing grimace, she had vanished within.

To his homeward march, her cicadas shrilled the music of fifes. He, the despised, the man to spare, now c.o.c.ked up his helmet like fortune's minion, dizzy with new honors. n.o.body had ever praised him to his face.

And now she, she of all the world, had spoken words which he feared and longed to believe, and which even said still less than her searching and mysterious look.

On the top of his exultation, he reached the nunnery, and entered his big, bare living-room, to find Heywood stretched in a wicker chair.

"Hallo, Rudie! I've asked myself to tiffin," drawled the lounger, from a little tempest of blue smoke, tossed by the punkah. "How's the fair Bertha?--Mausers all right? And by the way, did you make that inventory of provisions?"

Rudolph faced him with a sudden conviction of guilt, of treachery to a leader.

"Yes," he stammered; "I--I'll get it for you."

He pa.s.sed into his bedroom, caught up the written list from a table, and for a moment stood as if dreaming. Before him the Mausers, polished and orderly, shone in their new rack against the lime-coated wall. Though appearing to scan them, Rudolph saw nothing but his inward confusion.

"After all this man did for me," he mused. What had loosed the bond, swept away all the effects?

A sound near the window made him turn. An imp in white and red livery, Peng, the little billiard-marker from the club, stood hurling things violently into the outer glare.

"What thing you do?" called Rudolph, sharply.

Some small but heavy object clattered on the floor. The urchin stooped, s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, and flung it hurtling clean over the garden to the river. He turned, grinning amiably. "Goo-moh? ning-seh. How too you too," he chanted. "I am welly? glat to-see you." A boat-coolie, he explained, had called this house bad names. He, Peng, threw stones.

Bad man.

"Out of here, you rascal!" Rudolph flicked a riding-whip at the scampering legs, as the small defender of his honor bolted for the stairs.

"What's wrong?"