The Heart of Denise and Other Tales Part 25

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.

It cast a ruddy glow over the withered trunk of a huge fallen pine that lay athwart the open, and then fell in long rainbow-hued shafts on the uneasy mists that filled the valley, and stole up the mountain side in soft-rolling billows of purple, of grey, and of silver-white.

The pine trunk was not ten paces from me, and walking up to it I took out the pistols from the courier-bag and placed them on the rough bark, and from their resting-place the polished barrels glinted brightly in the evening light. I knew I was near my man, and if ever there was an excuse for doing what I meant to do, I had that defence.

As I stood there, one hand on the tree trunk and still as a stone, a red tragopan crept out from the yellow-berried bramble at the edge of the steep. For a moment we looked at one another, and then he dropped his blue-wattled head an was off like a flash, and at the same instant there was a scream and a rush of wings, as a homing eagle dropped like a falling stone over the pines, and whizzing past me was lost to view.

I walked to the edge of the precipice over which he had flown to his eyrie on the face of the cliffs below; I could see nothing but that heaving swell of billows, and now some one laughed--a sweet, melodious laugh like the tinkling of a silver bell. I turned sharply, and Rani stood before me. It could be none other than she. Bhootea, savage, Mongol--whatever she was, she was of those whom G.o.d had dowered with beauty, and she stood before me a lithe, supple elf of the woods. The rounded outlines of her form were clear through the single garment she wore, clasped by an embroidered zone at the waist, and holding forth a pitcher with a shapely arm, she offered me some spring water to drink.

I shook my head, and she laughed again like the song of a bird, and asked in English, speaking slowly:

"You want--my--man?"

Before I could answer, the door of the hut opened and Mazarion and I had met again.

"You--you!" and he paled beneath his sunburnt cheeks.

"Even I." And we stared at each other, my temples throbbing and my hands clenched. He was dressed as a native of the hills, in a long loose gabardine, with a cloth wound round his waist. His fair hair hung in an unkempt tangle to his neck, and he had a beard of many weeks' growth. All the beauty had gone from his face, and sin had set the mark of the beast on him; he had become a savage; he had gone back five thousand years, to the time when his cave-dwelling ancestors hunted the aurochs and the sabre-toothed tiger. There was that in our gaze which stilled the laughter in Rani's eyes, and she crept closer to him, standing as if to cover him. His head drooped slowly forwards, and the fingers of his hands opened and shut; he was fighting something within himself.

"Send the woman away," I said. "You know why I have come," and I pointed to the pistols on the fallen tree trunk.

Rani saw the gesture. Her glance s.h.i.+fted uneasily from one to the other of us, and then rested on the weapons, and now, trembling with an unknown fear, she clung to her man.

"Send her away. You hear." My own voice came to me as from a far distance.

He put her aside gently, where she stood s.h.i.+vering in every limb, and came forwards a step.

"I cannot," he said thickly, and speaking with an effort; "I cannot--not with you----"

"I will force you to." I spoke calmly enough, but there was a red mist before my eyes and a drumming in my ears. Fool that I was to think that G.o.d would give His vengeance to my hands! And then I struck him where he stood, struck him twice across the face, and with a cry like that of a mad beast he was on me.

We were both strong men, and he was fighting for his life; but I--I had the strength of ten then; all the pent-up rage of years was roaring within me, and there was a pitiless hate in my heart. I would kill him like the unclean thing he was should be killed. With all my force I struck him again and again, and I felt as if something crashed under the blow. We fell together and rose again, and with a mighty effort I flung him from me. He staggered to his feet, his face white and bleeding, his blue lips hissing curses. He was then facing me, his back but a yard from the edge of the abyss, against which the mists were beating like a grey sea. He read the meaning in my look, and made one last straggle, one last rush for safety, but I hit him fair on the forehead, and he threw up his arms with a gasp, staggered back a pace, and was gone. Far below there sounded something like a dull thud and a cry, and then all was still. Nelly was avenged.

It was all over. I could see nothing as I peered into the mist before me, and then I was brought to myself by the sound of sudden sobbing, and there was Rani stretched on the gra.s.s and plucking at the turf like a mad thing. She was a woman after all, and, poor, wild waif of the jungles, hers was no sin and no wrong. But her sobs and the agony on her face brought on a sudden revulsion and a horror at my deed. It was as sudden, as swift, as the tumult of pa.s.sions which had driven me to kill the man, and now the blackness of night had settled on my soul. I made no attempt at speech with the woman, but silently took up the pistols, gave one last s.h.i.+vering glance at the deep and at the prostrate figure of Rani, and then fled through the forest, my one thought to put miles between me and my deed. By the time I had found the pony and mounted him I was able to reflect a little, and it was with a guilty start that I realized there was a witness, and--and--But the place was a lonely one. And Rani--would her word count against mine? Never! And then I laughed shrilly and galloped on.

I reached the club just in time to dress for dinner. Strange! I could not bear the thought of being alone--I who had lived for a year at a time a solitary. I dressed in haste, and as I came out my servant handed me my letters--the English mail had just come in, he said. I would have flung them from me, but that the first letter in my hand was in Mrs. Carstairs' writing. With a vague presentiment of evil I opened and read. Nelly was ill, Nelly was dying. Some fool had told her of John Mazarion, and had killed her as surely as with the stroke of a knife. As I read, the lines blurred one into the other, and something seemed to give way in my brain. I rose and staggered as one drunken, and then--and then, strong man as I was, I fainted and remember no more.

It was a long illness. I do not know what the doctors called it; but they pulled me through, as they thought. It was another thing, however, that cured me. I remember how, when my brain first righted itself, the awful memory of Mazarion's end came back again and sat over me like a dreadful vampire. Each whispered word of the nurses in attendance on me, each noise I heard, seemed to presage the announcement that my guilt was known. One day I asked the nurse whether I had been delirious, and what I had said.

She flushed a little. She was a good woman, and an untruth was hateful to her. Then she fenced:

"Oh, one always says strange things in delirium; but you're getting quite strong now, and Captain Paget is coming to see you to-day. It was he who found you insensible, and he has been as good as any ten of us----"

"Paget--Paget found me?"

She put her finger to her lips and a cool hand on my eyes, and I seemed to fall asleep.

How long I slept I cannot quite say, but I became conscious of whispering voices in the room.

"There's no doubt about it, and it's his only chance, I think. Just give him the news quietly when he awakes. Yes, he may have a gla.s.s of port before."

I lay still, but trembling under my covers. It had come at last. Oh, the shame of it! the sin of it!--I a common murderer. It was too much, and I tried to start up, but fell back weakly, and saw Paget sitting by the bed, smiling kindly at me.