The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India
a huge cross on the wall beyond.
Neither man spoke. Barclay bent down and picked up his helmet, which
had been knocked off, and, obeying the Fakir's imperative gesture, went
out of the Holy of Holies through the priests' place into the columned,
sun-lit outer court. There he laughed.
"You're a pretty custodian," he said loudly in English. "Enough to
frighten a harmless globe-trotter out of his five senses. What sort of
tip do you expect after that? Or does one pay extra for the thrill?"
There was no answer. Vahana went past him and squatted down in his
accustomed place by the gateway. The fierce outburst was over, and he
seemed to have forgotten Barclay's presence. The latter stood beside
him, propping his shoulders against the lintel, and searched fumblingly
for his cigarette case.
"I suppose it's allowed here, eh? You should put up a notice, 'No
smoking.' Oh, I forgot--a vow of eternal silence is your speciality,
isn't it? You needn't keep it up with me. I shan't tell." He laughed
again. "You old humbug! I _could_ tell a tale if I chose. What about
that evening I caught you sneaking out of Gaya? Been having a
compensating orgy, no doubt."
The Fakir shot a rapid upward glance which Barclay caught with a grunt
of satisfaction.
"Well, you understand English, anyhow, which is a good thing because I
want a word with you."
He lit his cigarette deliberately, and, folding his arms, surveyed the
wide stretch of plain before him. Save for the high grass, it was
barren to the river edge, but beyond that broad, swift-flowing barrier
it became rich with pasture and golden harvest. Barclay's eyes narrowed
at the still ardent sunlight, but beneath the heavy, drooping lids there
was a gleam of some smouldering passion, triumph--resentment.
"Not much of that crop that isn't mine," he said loudly. "They needn't
call me Sahib--not yet--if they don't want to--but I'm lord here, for
all that. I've got the whip hand, and that's what matters."
The Fakir paid no heed to an outburst which was indeed not intended for
him. He bent forward from the hips and whistled softly, on one
monotonous note, the while swaying from left to right with rhythmic
precision. In a minute the tangled growth which, like the first low
waters of an incoming tide, spread out from the jungle and lapped the
temple walls, rustled, parted, and a black glistening body writhed out
into the sunshine. There it paused, listening, its arrow-shaped head
lifted out of the tight coils, and moving to the measure of its
enchanter. Barclay looked down and started and then laughed.
"Practising for the great show, eh? I suppose it'll keep the old story
going--the jungle of serpents. Lord, how you must hate us, with our
education and uplifting of the masses. One of these days I'll clear the
jungle and build a factory, and you can go out of business. That old
trick----!"
Still laughing, he crouched down on his heels and hissed gently, his
black eyes intent on the reptile's poised and swaying body. Vahana
continued to whistle. They had entered into a competition which to
Barclay was a mere jest. But the serpent had grown still, attentive,
its ugly head drawn back in an attitude of cold deliberation. From time
to time its lithe, evilly forked tongue shot out and then an expression
seemed to dawn on the flat face--a kind of satanic pleasure. Then,
suddenly, as though arrived at a decision, it uncoiled and came gliding
towards Barclay. Barclay no longer called to it. His eyes were clouded
and stupid-looking. He glanced up at Vahana and found that he was being
watched. Between the old man and the uncannily moving adder there had
developed an affinity. The Fakir's face seemed to have narrowed and
sharpened. From the wide cheek-bones down to the chin there were two
straight converging lines between which ran the cruel curve of the
mouth. The eyes were hard and dead as a basilisk's. But, like the
reptile's, they expressed something--a sinister amusement, a soulless,
ageless wisdom.
Barclay made a fumbling gesture.
"Look here, I didn't know--call the brute off--I never tried----" He
was stuttering. The defiant arrogance had gone out of him. He had
become curiously afraid. Vahana whistled again, and within a foot of
Barclay the adder recoiled, hissing resentfully, and swung to one side.
Vahana held out his wrist and the sinuous body twisted itself about him
in a monstrous bracelet. Barclay watched, with a sick fascination. His
fear had been neither physical nor passing. In some odd way the
incident had shattered his self-assurance, even his self-control.
"I didn't know----" he began again. "It must just have been chance. I
had never tried----"
His voice failed, and died into a shaken silence. The reptile, lying
with its head on the back of Vahana's fleshless hand, held the Eurasian
in the malevolent circle of its watchfulness. Its beady, unflinching
eyes neither appeared to move nor to be fixed on any definite object,
yet when Barclay shifted his position they did not leave his face. Thus
they remained, staring at each other. Vahana had sunk into an apparent
apathy of meditation. But it was no more than an appearance. Between
the three there was now a living, feverish communication.
Barclay roused himself at last.
"Look here--I didn't come here for this tomfoolery. Look at this. It
was my mother's. Some one--Lalloo the Kara--told me a tale about it.
Said it belonged to--to your wife. I want to know. I want to know who
the devil I am. If it's true then I shall know."
Vahana glanced at the gold circlet held out towards him. The adder
hissed furiously and he whistled it back to its sluggish content. But
he had nodded in assent, Barclay drew his breath between his teeth.
"So that much was true. I've got to think this out. I'm not your son.
I've good English blood in my veins, I've known that since I was a kid.
If it was Tristram, senior----" He stopped. Vahana had lifted his
head, and the change in him struck Barclay silent for a moment. Then,
gathering his determination, he added rapidly, scarcely above a
whisper--"whom you murdered."
But it seemed that the Fakir had not heard, or that if he had heard the
words reached him only as an echo, a shadow of something terrible and
actual. The change in him was indefinable. He had scarcely moved. Yet
Barclay stared at him stupidly, and a moment looked round to follow the
gaze of the fierce expressionless eyes. Then he, too, became silent.
A horseman rode along the river-bank. Evidently he had come some
distance, for the nose of his amazingly lean, steed grazed the ground
and he himself hung in the saddle. As he passed he turned his head
towards the temple, but either the sun, setting with long upward
striking rays behind the hills, blinded him, or the watchers were too
well hidden in the shadow of the gateway. He did not see them, and,
coaxing the dejected quadruped to a canter, disappeared presently in the
direction of Heerut.
"Tristram Sahib by the grace of God!" Barclay muttered. "Tristram
Sahib!" He repeated the name, pressing into it a restrained bitterness
which suddenly burst from him in a wild incoherent deluge.
"Sahib--Sahib! Good God--and what am I--with blood as good as his--his
blood--Meester Barclay, eh?--damn him--damn them all. What right has he
got to treat me like dirt--or any of them? What right? Aren't I one of
them? Have I got to pay for their low, mean sins--their little,
back-door intrigues? I'm English too--it's their law--why don't they
keep to their laws, damn them----"
His voice quivered. He broke down pitiably. It was as though a garment
which he held jealously about him had been torn from him and with it his
manhood, his mincing, insolent, yet timorous pride. As he crouched
there, the tears of mortification and rage on his cheeks he underwent a
mysterious change. The over-perfect English clothes no longer disguised
him. They had become grotesque.
Vahana looked at him, looked long and intently, and then at the bracelet
lying between them. He touched Barclay on the arm, and with his
forefinger began to write in the thick dust.
*CHAPTER XVI*
*A MEREDITH TO THE RESCUE*
In the belt of fertile land about Heerut the work of irrigation for the
_khareef_ had already begun. Half-naked men and women in gay-coloured
_chudders_ laboured in the slanting ruts which stretched down from the
river and criss-crossed over the wide fields in a maze of intricate
cunningly calculated lines. They worked in complete silence, like a
colony of ants, hurrying backwards and forwards, their lean,
fragile-looking bodies bent under crushing burdens of freshly turned
earth, their faces set in patient acceptance. So much depended on the
_khareef_--a meagre sufficiency or a dearth that was always complete--an
avalanche of famine sweeping whole communities from existence. Not that
life or death was of much significance. They fought for life half
instinctively, half because the Sahibs willed it so. It was a hard
business either way, and that much they realized dimly.
Tristram drew rein to watch them. Beyond the river the white ungarnered
corn lay in its silver fields awaiting its long-delayed hour. He
remembered how in the winter months all Heerut had laboured at its
irrigation--even as they laboured now--thinking of the harvest. And now
the harvest was there and had begun to rot. Disease and the dreaded,
docilely accepted quarantine had stayed the hands which should have
gathered it. Now those who survived turned to the more pressing
task--to the crumbling canals which were to bring life to the summer
rice-crop. What was lost was lost. The past was past; but the grim,
forbidding shadow of the future remained always.
Therein lay the tragedy of the unresting, patient figures--the labour
that was so often foredoomed to fruitlessness, the struggle against an
enemy who could never be wholly vanquished, the hope of a victory that
could never be more than a breathing-space, a mere margin of life. But
the greater tragedy was their patience, their passive acceptance of life
as suffering.
It was that tragedy which Tristram saw as he watched them. For him it
blotted out what was lovely and full of promise in the scene--the gay
colours, the rich, deep sunlight on the fruitful fields, the semblance
of prosperity. It made his greeting to those who passed him somewhat
grim and less cheery than was its wont. The men and women nodded to him
and smiled gravely in return. There was no formal, deferential
salutation such as the Burra Sahib would have expected and received. He
was less and greater than any of the Sahibs who ruled their destinies,
and they merely smiled at him. No other man was to them what he had
become. Rough and ready of tongue, imperious sometimes, occasionally
ruthless, he yet was never the representative of a ruling race. Other
Sahibs they feared and worshipped--the great warriors, the myth figures
of the rulers beyond the unknown, but Tristram was the man of their
daily lives, of their great sorrows and little happinesses, the man who
sat under the council-tree at night and listened to the last village
scandal, or to some wonderful tale told by the village story-teller, who
tracked his way down the contaminated stream of their faith to its pure
source and drank with them. And they who had known little of pity and
less of love came through him to a dim, faltering knowledge.
Through the busy stillness there sounded a shrill trumpeting and the
rustle and crack of the high grasses before swift and headlong passage
of an elephant. Tristram drew Arabella to one side. Already in the