The Ruby Sword Part 18

"Wah--wah!" sighed the _mullah_. "Be content my children--it may be ye are poorer than I. Receive this packet, and the blessing of a servant of the Prophet go with it. And now I will proceed upon my way."

"Wait but a few moments," replied Umar Khan, receiving the bag which the other tendered him, and which he immediately handed to Ihalil with one word--"Count!"

"It may not be, for the hour of evening prayer draws near. Peace be with you, my children." And he made as though to move on.

"We will say it together then," replied Umar Khan, barring the way.

"What is this? Two hundred and fifty rupees? Two more packets hast thou forgotten, my father, and--delay not, for the hour of evening prayer draws near."

There was a grim, fell significance in the speaker's tone and countenance. The _mullah_ no longer hesitated. With almost trembling alacrity he drew forth the remaining bags, which being counted, were found to contain the exact sum named.

"We give thee five rupees as an alms, my father," said Umar Khan, tendering him that amount. Gloomily the _mullah_ pocketed it. "And surely G.o.d is good to thee, that in these days thou hast been able to relieve the necessities of Umar Khan."

A start of surprise came over the face of the other, at the mention of the name of the dreaded ex-outlaw. He had more than a shrewd suspicion that but for his sacred office he would be now even as his Hindu driver--which went far to console him for the loss of his substance.

"Wah--wah!" he moaned, sitting down by the roadside. "My hard earned substance which should comfort my old age--all gone! all gone!"

"The faithful will provide for thine old age, my father. And now, peace be with thee, for we may not tarry here. But,"--sinking his voice to a bloodcurdling whisper--"it is well to give alms in secret, for he who should boast too loud of having bestowed them upon Umar Khan, not even the holy sanctuary of Mecca would avail to shelter him."

"Blaspheme not, my son," cried the _mullah_, affecting great horror, and putting his fingers to his ears--though, as a matter of fact, the warning was one which he thoroughly understood.

They left him seated there by the roadside, despondent over his loss.

They left the two mangled bodies of their victims to the birds and beasts of prey, and gave vent to their glee as they dashed off, in shouts and blood thirsty witticisms. They were in high good humour, those jovial souls. They had slain a couple of human beings--that was to keep their hands in. They had robbed another of seven hundred rupees--that would replenish the wasted exchequer for a time; and now they cantered off to see if they could not do a little more in both lines--and the goal for which they were heading was the Kachin valley.

Umar Khan had burnt his boats behind him.

Note 1. To lend additional terror to capital punishment in the eyes of Moslems on the northern border, the dead bodies of those executed for fanatical murder were sometimes burned.

Note 2. "G.o.d is the G.o.d of G.o.ds--Mohammed the Prophet of G.o.d."--The Moslem confession of faith.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

EXPERIMENTAL.

The days had gone by, and now Campian was installed in the forest bungalow. Colonel Jermyn's invitation had gone forth, but the missive which would have counteracted it had not, so here he was.

Not without some deliberation had he decided on accepting it. He had thought himself safe; had reckoned he had safely parted with all illusions, as conducive only to disturbance and anxiety, and the greatest of all illusions was Vivien Wymer. But the sudden and unlooked for reappearance of the latter had reopened a wound. Yet why? She was the same as before. She had failed him once. She had sacrificed him to others once, and would of course do so again unhesitatingly. Why not?

There was no such thing as love as they two had once looked at it--had once imagined it. A mere illusion; pleasant while it lasted, painful when its illusoriness became evident. But then the wrench, though painful, even agonising, was over--and in its effect salutary. Five years make a difference in a man's life. He had not been young then; he was older now. Sensibility was blunted. The capacity for self-torment was no longer his.

Love, the ever endurable! He had believed in that once. He was no misogynist, even now. His experience of the other s.e.x had been considerable. He was ready to accord the members thereof the possession of many delightful qualities. As friends they were staunch, as companions unrivalled. Life unbrightened by feminine presence and feminine influences would be a dull affair. But as exponents of Love, the ever endurable, they were a failure; and exactly as he came to appreciate this did he come to appreciate the other s.e.x the more because he had ceased to expect too much.

His experiences had been many and varied, and took in all types of the softer s.e.x, and he had found them wonderfully similar. The fire and pa.s.sion of to-day became chill and indifference a year hence. Then Vivien Wymer had come into his life, and lo, all was changed. Here was a glorious exception to the rather soulless rule. She met his every want; she appealed to him as he could never have believed any woman could, and by some strange, magnetic instinct, his own personality appealed to hers. They seemed made for each other--and yet--he had been sacrificed. Not even there was he to be all in all--to be first and everything.

They had seen each other again once since that chance meeting in the markhor cave. The colonel and his niece had ridden over to Upward's camp to tiffin, and it was on that occasion that the hearty old soldier had pressed him to come and pay them a visit. He had not even glanced at Vivien, striving to read to what extent she would second the invitation, but had accepted on the spot, yet not without a mental reservation.

For there was one point which he desired to debate within himself, and that was the very one which had occurred to Vivien. How could they two be together under the same roof, in close, daily intercourse as mere acquaintances, they two who had been so much to each other? How could they bear the strain, how keep up the _role_?

Then when his meditations had reached this point, a strange exultant thrill seemed to disturb the balance of his clearer judgment. Why should the _role_ be kept up? After being parted for five years, they had met again--nay, more--had been thrown together again in this strange, wild country, that in former times had been to either of them no more than a mere geographical name. Both were unchanged. There was a softening in Vivien's voice, when off her guard, as on the last occasion of their meeting, which seemed to point to the fact that she was. For himself--well, he had grown older, wiser--and, he imagined, harder. Still, the wound did seem to be reopening. Why, the whole was almost as though Fate had gone out of her way to bring they two together again.

Yes, he had grown harder. Love, the ever endurable! Ridiculous! She had sacrificed him before, and would do so again if occasion arose. If she did not do so it would be because occasion had not arisen, and this consideration const.i.tuted a state of potential unreliability, which was not rea.s.suring. The idea even served to re-awaken much of the old bitterness and rankling resentment, and he decided that it would be an interesting, if coldblooded, study in character to observe how Vivien herself would come out under such an ordeal as the close, intimate intercourse which life beneath the same roof could not but involve.

Once there, he had no cause to regret his decision. The colonel was a fine old soldier of the very best type. Most of his life had been spent in India, and he was full of anecdote and reminiscence. He had served through the Mutiny, and in several frontier disturbances, and his knowledge of the country and its natives was intelligent and exhaustive.

He had been a sportsman, too, in his time--and, in short, was a man whom it was a pleasure to talk with. He and Campian took to each other immensely, and the two would sit together under the verandah of an evening, smoking their cheroots and exchanging ideas, while Vivien discoursed music through the open doors, upon a cottage piano which had been lugged up, at some risk to its tuning and general anatomy, on board the hideous necessary camel.

Decidedly it was very close quarters, indeed, this party of three, isolated there in that remote forest bungalow, away among the chaotic, piled up mountain deserts of wild Baluchistan; but there was no element of monotony about it; indeed, how could there be when to two out of the three life thus represented an ordeal that meant so much, that might mean indeed so much more. Yet it spoke volumes for the self control of both that no suspicion should have entered the mind of the third that they had ever beheld each other elsewhere, and under very near circ.u.mstances. Their intercourse was free and unrestrained, but it was the easy intercourse of two people who had ideas in common and liked each other's society, and totally devoid of any symptom of covering a warmer feeling. They would frequently take rides or walks together through the juniper forest, or to some point overlooking a new or wider view of the great chaotic mountain waste, and it spoke volumes for their self control that no allusion was ever made to the past. They would not have been human if occasionally some undercurrent of feeling had not now and then come unguardedly near the surface, but only to be instantly repressed. It was as though both were engaged in a diplomatic game requiring a high degree of skill, and in which each was watching the next move of the other with a jealous eye.

Once, in course of their rides together, the two were threading a _tangi_, and the sense of being shut within those high rock walls moved Vivien to broach the subject of the adventure which had so nearly ended in tragedy for her companion and his.

"It must have been a dreadful experience," she said, looking up at the cliffs overhead.

"Yes. It was awkward. I've no use for a repet.i.tion of it."

His tone was discouraging, as though he would fain have changed the subject. But she seemed to cling to it.

"I think that was a splendid feat," she went on, looking straight at him. "I wish I knew what it was like never to be afraid."

"So do I--most heartily. But I simply don't believe in the existence of that enviable state; if you can talk of the existence of a negative, that is."

"But you do know what it is. Were you ever afraid of anything in your life?"

The very words Nesta had used. Then he had not taken them in a complimentary sense. He had thought the remark a foolish one. Now coming from this woman, who had idealised him--who did still--with her wide luminous eyes turned full upon his face, and that unguarded softening which had again crept into her tone, there was a subtle flattery in it which was delicious, but enervating. As a matter of fact he really thought nothing of the feat, beyond what a lucky thing it was they should have been able to save both their lives. He answered so shortly as to seem ungracious.

"Very much and very often. I would rather run away than fight any day.

Fact."

"I don't believe you."

"No? People don't, I find. Some day I may do that very thing--then when everybody is howling me down I can always turn round and say--'I told you so, and you wouldn't believe me.'"

"But do you want them to believe you?"

"Why, of course. You don't know me at all, Vivien, even now." Then, as if to hurry away from a dangerous slip. "By the by, I never can understand the insane way in which even civilised and thinking people elect to deify what they call courage or pluck. There is no such thing really. It is purely a matter of opportunity or temperament--in short, sheer accident. To get out of a tight place a man has got to do something. While doing it he has no time to think. If he had, in nine cases out of ten he'd run away."

"Yes? And what about when he has to go into a tight place?"

"Why, then he's got to go. And as a matter of fact it is funk that drives him in. The opprobrium and possibly material penalty, he would incur by backing out const.i.tute the more formidable alternative of the two. So of the two evils man, being essentially a self preserving animal, instinctively chooses the least."

"Plausible, but not convincing," returned Vivien, with a laugh. "And is there not something of what they call a 'crank' underlying that philosophy?"

"'They' are apt to say that of any application of the principles of common sense,"--"as I have so often told you before," he was nearly adding.

"Was Miss Cheriton very much scared that day? She says she'll never get over it as long as she lives."

"Poor little girl. It must have been a ghastly experience. She behaved very well; was no more scared than any other woman would have been, and a good deal less so than some."