The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India

enough." He was shaking from head to foot. Swift and soundless as a flash of light she put the table between them and stood confronting him. Her fair small head was thrown back, her mouth set in an unfaltering line. "By all means--it's useless--I've the right and the might----" Suddenly, like a tiger weary of toying with its victim, he flung himself on the table, lifting it with both hands. Then, as he did so--he stopped short--faltering. A full minute passed whilst they remained face to face, neither moving. He drew himself slowly upright. "Well--why don't you do it?" he asked. "I don't want to--not unless I must." "It would be an expensive business." "I don't know. I've paid so much already--it might be better to go on paying----" "To get what you set out to buy? You don't need to worry about that. I may still keep my share of the bargain. I have other plans. So you had the draw on me all the time? Who would have thought so gentle a bosom could hide so much deadliness?" "I have always carried it," she answered simply. "It may seem theatrical--but I realized--this might happen." He smiled ironically. "You are very cool--very brave, Sigrid. You--you inflame my admiration. Won't you sit down? It is very early yet." "I would rather you unlocked the door. I am tired." "And sick with disgust? I can quite understand. You are white to the backbone." His voice shook with an uncontrollable despair. "Still, I warn you--if I open the door, I win. It is guarded. You see, I took precautions--but I don't want that. I--I have that much English blood in me--I'll fight fair." "Very well. If there is anything you have to say----" "Nothing--except perhaps that it is still early. I can display patience. Won't you sit down?" "Since you wish it." He took his place opposite her, the table still between them. It was a wide table and he could not have touched her. She rested her elbow on the polished edge, the little toy-like weapon held lightly but firmly in her lifted hand. He leant forward, his eyes on her, watchful, intent. All passion, all desire had died out of them. They were hard and cold with purpose. "You will tire," he said softly. "I am very strong." "_A l'outrance_, then?" She smiled faintly. "_A l'outrance_." But he had seen that flicker of amusement and winced under it. "You think I am as absurd--as--as--I am beastly?" he asked. "No--I couldn't think like that--at least, not at the bottom. I understand too well." "You understand?" He stared at her hungrily. "What do you understand?" "That you would have been glad to have acted--and felt differently." He nodded. "I would have been their friend--a good friend. It's too late now." "Yes--too late. I can see that----" It grew still between them. Once he moved suddenly, testing her, but her eyes and hand were unwavering, and he dropped back into his old position. As the time passed blue shadows darkened her eyes and crept about her mouth. She seemed to grow smaller and paler, and a kind of wonder came into his patient watchfulness of her--an almost pitying admiration. "Spare yourself!" he whispered. She made no answer. The hours passed. The man and woman became grotesquely like wax figures in their grey, pallid immobility. The lamplight began to fade. In the dusk the empty face of the Venus looked ghostly and unreal. They could hear a heavy bullock-wagon plough its way up the hill to the crack of whips and native imprecations. Barclay rose slowly and stiffly to his feet. He went across to the window and pulled the curtains aside, letting in a flood of golden morning. "You've won--this time," he said. "You won hours ago." He did not look at her. He went down the verandah steps and did not turn even though he heard the thud of the revolver as it slipped from her unconscious hand. *CHAPTER VI* *"OF YOUR BLOOD"* Gaya awoke the next morning depressed and rather incredulous. The daylight has a tendency to throw a chill interrogation at whatever the previous night has held either of greatness, tragedy, or passion. The blood cools to a little below the normal and the brain perceives things in their flattest, dullest colours. Indeed, until lunch-time the human constitution is too busy working up steam to produce emotion, or even to acknowledge the possibility of anything vital save the getting of the daily bread and the partaking thereof. So Gaya went lazily about its business, deferring serious consideration to a convenient future, and meantime vaguely aware of a foolish, unpleasant crack in the neat surface of its daily life which somehow would have to be patched up. Barclay also went about his business. Beyond a certain sombre abstraction his manner gave no hint of any change. In the early morning a messenger mounted on his favourite Arab rode out on the Heerut road, and in the afternoon Lalloo, suave and impassive, made his appearance in a bullock-wagon which had performed a fifteen-mile journey over bad roads in little over three hours. The two, Lalloo and his patron, sat together in the very English library and talked subduedly until the first breath of nightfall rustled among the trees of the garden. Then Lalloo, as he had come, took his departure, nicely tingeing respect with disparagement and disparagement with respect. Barclay himself did not set foot outside the bungalow. At dinner he sat opposite his wife and ate whatsoever the noiseless servants placed before him. Contrary to his custom--for he had a morbid respect for all appearances he did not attempt to keep up the small talk which usually passed between them. He scarcely spoke to her, and only once looked in her direction. Afterwards they stood for a moment together on the edge of the verandah, looking out into the quiet darkness. Here, too, custom was broken. It was the first time since their marriage that she had joined him after their ceremonious meal. A memory shot like a light through his moody silence. "Aren't you afraid?" he asked brutally. "No," she answered. There was no bravado--only a great physical weariness in her low voice. "I want to know what is going to happen," she said. "Nothing." "I thought--as I have failed so completely----" "--that you could clear out?" He smoked for a moment in sombre consideration, then tossed his cigarette away from him. It glowed on the pathway like a tiny, watchful eye. "Of course you're free," he said finally. "I haven't any power to hold you. But if you go, then I shall be free too. The last article of our agreement will have been annulled. That's obvious, isn't it?" "Yes--if you hold to your agreement." "I shall." He gave a subdued laugh. "I am like Shylock, Sigrid. And you are one of those good Christians trying to cheat and possibly persecute their infidel creditor. What do you expect?" "Just that." She waited an instant and then he felt rather than heard that she turned away from him. "That's all I wanted to ask you." "Well----? Have you decided?" "There was nothing to decide. I shall go on with it--whatever it is." He heard the curtains fall. Throughout he had not looked at her. It was as though he withheld from her something which his eyes might have betrayed. When all was still again he took a book haphazard from the pompously crowded shelves and sat down beneath the light-bearing Venus to read. He sat very still, his dark eyes resting intently on a spot just above the page which was never turned. The gold-faced clock on the table chimed ten o'clock. The thin, dulcet tones dropped into the quiet like pebbles into a still pool. They seemed to arouse the man beneath the lamplight. He got up and pulled the curtains across the windows. There was a door in the left-hand wall. It led into a room in which he kept his papers, and no one entered it but himself. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked it. "You are safe now," he said in the native tongue. Ayeshi came out slowly into the light. His eyes were dazed-looking, but rest and food had restored something of their old fire, and that very return of life accentuated the deeper change in him. It was not only the lines which disease and want had chiselled among his features. The one-time boyish beauty had been hardened and sharpened by something more subtle than physical privation. His eyes, as they grew accustomed to the light, were no longer clouded with mystic dreams, but were stern and penetrating. His very bearing was profoundly different. His dignity had been gracious and unconscious; it was now conscious and commanding. "You have done me great service," he said in an undertone. "I shall not forget when the time comes for remembrance." "You are rested sufficiently to go on your way?" Ayeshi nodded. He glanced keenly into Barclay's impassive face. "You use our tongue to me?" Barclay shrugged his shoulders. "Is it not mine also?" A faint hauteur compressed the fine lips. He turned away and lifted the edge of the curtain. "I give you great thanks, Barclay Sahib." "I ask no thanks of you, Ayeshi. You will find a horse at the gates. But first, can there be no trust between us? Can you not tell me whither you are going and to what end?" Ayeshi turned, measuring the other man with a grave, scornful deliberation. "I have learnt to keep my counsel where there is English blood," he said. He did not see the expression which passed like a withering flame over his companion's features. He lifted his hand in salutation, and the curtains fell noiselessly behind him. Barclay waited, motionless. His breathing was quick and shallow, his whole body tense with pent-up excitement. As the muffled sound of hoofs reached him he turned the light out and the next instant was running towards the compound gates. A syce leading a horse by the bridle came out of the shadow. Without a word Barclay caught the helmet and long cloak which was held out to him and swung himself lightly into the saddle. "Which way?" "Towards Heerut, Sahib." "See that you remember my orders." "The Sahib shall be obeyed." Barclay's steel wrist brought his nervous, fidgeting animal to an instant's complete quiet. He listened intently. He could still hear the sound of hoofs, beating in the distance. He drove his heels into the Arab's flanks and rode out into the stream of pale starlight which flowed down towards the valley. He rode at a quick canter, dangerous enough on the steep gradation and only justified by his knowledge of every curve in the narrowing roadway. His riding had nothing of the recklessness with which he had driven the night before. He held himself and his horse in the steel grip of a definite purpose. At the bottom of the hill on which Gaya perched itself like a beautiful white bird he drew rein and again listened. There was no moon; the intense clarity of an Indian night covered the parched and gasping plain with a seeming luminousness in which nothing was visible but unrealities. Overhead the black burnished shield of the sky blazed with its mysterious, unreadable devices. But for the monotonous rhythmic thud dying in the distance the silence was absolute, painful, like the suspended breathing of a fevered body. The river was voiceless. Barclay rode on. The road had narrowed to little more than a track which the drought and the passing of heavy wagons to and fro to the new bridge had made a trap of crumbling ruts and dust-covered holes. It was five miles to the river, and nearly two hours had passed before the rider caught the first murmur of water. It sounded faint and exhausted.