The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India
breath of the fresh, rain-soaked air. Her eyes shone under the fine,
untroubled brows. "I'm going home with you to England, Smithy. I'm
going to live in the little suburban house and give dancing lessons to
the large suburban feet. And in my free moments I shall play Beethoven
and Wagner and Chopin on an extravagantly fine Bechstein. For I've
learnt that one can play noble music anywhere. That's a great lesson,
Smithy." She smiled tenderly. "And I shall live on your savings,
Smithy. That'll make you happy, won't it?"
"Oh, my dear----"
"I know. Such queer things make women happy." She grew grave for an
instant. "And perhaps I shall live to be very old, as Tristram said I
might. I may grow so much stronger--I shall outlive you, Smithy, and
every one who ever cared for me. But I'm not going to funk it now. I
shall play my music to the very end."
Mrs. Smithers made no answer. She could not have answered, for the
dimness had crept into her throat and choked her. She lifted the little
hand clasped in hers and kissed it.
Thus Sigrid Fersen rode down the steep, mud-choked road towards the
valley. She told herself that it was for the last time. And because
each "last time" in life is a bridge-crossing into a new and trackless
country she looked back along the old road, and her thoughts lingered by
the high landmarks by which she would never pass again. High up against
the horizon a mountain-peak glowed in the warm splendour of this
farewell. On its topmost crag she had dwelt a little and alone. She
saw the rough and ruthless descent into the world of men the winding
road over strange countries, the always-seeking of those two years, and
there on the verge of an abyss the revelation of something as lofty, as
splendid as all that she had left behind her. At first she had drawn
back. She had even smiled a little at the thought that her feet should
tread so desperate a path. But in the end she had gone on--down into
the depths and through a suffocating evil darkness and up again at last
to the farther summit. And had it been worth it--worth the effort, the
sheer, physical effort, the pitiless drain upon soul and body, the
inevitable loneliness? She knew her answer. She saw before her the
country to which her stern enterprise had led her. She saw it flat and
barren and wind-swept, its sparse trees bowed before the solitary
storms. She saw that it had its own grandeur. There was a sweet taste
in the wind; and the rough earth carried many flowers on its bosom, and
they had a fragrance more delicate than all the rich exotic blossoms
which had once been dear to her. She welcomed the sweet winds and the
great limitless horizons. She stretched out her arms to the blustering
storm. She was free. Her freedom was not of the mountain crags, but of
the great undulating plains where men pass their daily life. And she had
ceased to be alone. Somewhere on that vast expanse a fellow-traveller
pressed on his way, often erring, often misled, but still with head
erect, eyes fixed on the down-going sun which was their common goal.
She saw him big and careless and unkempt with strays and vagabonds
crowded at his heels. She saw the light on his face, and knew that he
too was conscious of their comradeship. It did not matter that in that
country over which they travelled they would not meet again. They had
met once. God Himself, if He existed apart from His creation, could not
blot out that knowledge or His own decree by which the separate paths of
men meet at the end.
Thus Sigrid Fersen rode out of Gaya. Her horse slipped and fretted over
the treacherous descent, but her hand was as strong and steady as her
thought. She had the quality common to all vitally living things--the
love of physical, friendly warfare with the elements. She lifted her
glowing face to the warm rain. She felt at peace and happy. She could
look with clear eyes into the future. Tristram had said that with care
she might live to be very old. The thought had no terrors for her now.
Between dreams and realities she left Gaya floating in the grey mists
behind her. The solitude and wide stretch of the plain soothed her and
gave her a sense of release from a cramping prison. She began to deal
practically with the coming years--even, with a faint smile at the
corners of her mouth, to furnish the little suburban house, to arrange
her days.
And then, in the midst of her planning, her horse jerked to a quivering
standstill. She leant forward in her saddle, frowning through the veil
of rain, and saw that something lay across her road--something black and
huddled and shapeless. She tried to urge the frightened animal forward;
then something definite checked her--held her in sick, motionless
horror. It was a white patch--the shape of a man's hand, the fingers
clawed into the mud.
A minute later she had managed to dismount. She knelt down by the
crumpled body, and, exerting all her strength, lifted it. It was so
caked and stiffened with mire and blood that it remained upright,
kneeling grotesquely, leaning against her. The disfigured features,
made more hideous by their mud-smeared agony, were close to her own.
She believed him dead. The horror of him, kneeling there, leering at
her, overcame her. She let him sink back--and then only saw that he
still lived. His eyes were open. They were already glazed and could not
have seen her, but an instinct, kindling for the last time, recognized
her presence.
"Tristram--Heerut--warn Tristram--warn----"
His mouth fell open. His gaze became fixed under the half-sunk lids.
It was finished.
Sigrid Fersen rose to her feet. She was not conscious now of fear or
hesitation; she walked forward a few paces, tracing the smeared track of
Meredith's body back to a confusion of hoof-prints in the thick mud.
There had been a struggle, and Meredith had had strength enough to crawl
a few feet--she did not know that each foot had represented hours and
the triumph of the man's will over agony and unconsciousness, but she
knew what he had tried to do.
"Warn Tristram!"
It was a call to her old, unbroken fearlessness, to the eager,
adventuring blood and the new faith. Gaya and prudence and safety lay
behind her; but what was Gaya to her, what had prudence or safety ever
mattered to her? Before her lay the swollen river and sinister,
uncomprehended danger.
She was going forward.
She caught her horse by the bridle. It was no easy task to mount from
that slippery road, but she had in that hour an unconquerable energy and
resolve. It was done at last. She settled herself firmly in the
saddle, her hands on the reins were flexible and strong as steel.
Through the splashing mire and rain she rode towards Heerut.
She reached the river-bank. The door of the engineer's shanty stood
open and one glance showed her that the place was deserted. She rode
over the bridge. The water slid across the roadway with an ugly,
slopping gurgle; its deeper voice thundered beneath among the shaken
arches.
On the farther bank she drew rein for an instant. Amidst the rush of
the river it seemed to her that another sound had reached her. It was
vague and indefinite, and yet unmistakably separate from all else. It
was as though close to her, and yet hidden beneath the water, something
monstrous and living groaned in the agony of dismemberment.
"Warn Tristram!"
She rode on towards Heerut.
*CHAPTER XII*
*THE MEETING OF THE WAYS*
They had come from all the ends of the Province, secretly and one by one
from the towns, and in whole companies from the villages. It was for
them only another pilgrimage. They brought with them the same childlike
faith, the same dim, passionless hopes, the same fatalism. And behind
those simple things there was the same incalculable force awaiting the
spark which should fire them to a ferocious heroism or headlong panic.
They came together in the broad curve of plain where the Ganges twisted
in a horseshoe towards the foot of Gaya's hills. To the west, within
half a mile of the encampment, the black impregnable barrier of the
jungle followed the river's course past the bridge-head and the temple,
forming lower down a crescent around the little plateau on which Heerut
lay huddled.
There were close on two thousand of them, men of all ages, all castes.
They carried weapons, but of a strange and varied nature--old army
rifles, an ancient sword, the deadly kukri, sometimes no more than a
rusty bayonet, stolen or bought from some drunken defaulter. They
themselves were as heterogeneous. They herded together without order or
discipline. The rain poured down upon them ceaselessly, saturating
their scanty clothing so that it clung to their lean bodies like creased
and dirty skins. Here and there the saffron robe proclaimed the Saddhu,
and there were priests, haughty, arrogant-featured men, who stood aloof,
as though the matter scarcely concerned them. Yet it was they who had
worked secretly and cunningly in the towns and villages. It was their
infallibility which had welded these strange, inco-ordinate atoms into a
weapon. For, undisciplined, ill-armed, and dejected though they seemed,
though they came straight from their fields and the enervating
atmosphere of the bazaars, these two thousand men were still fighters.
In the old days their fathers had scorned the plough and had lived and
died by the sword. They had fought for the old Rajah and gone with him
into exile and ended their adversity in the wildernesses. Some of that
fighting blood was in the veins of these, their descendants, and some of
that stern tradition lay smouldering beneath the veneer of peace which
the British Raj had forced upon them.
But of all this, Barclay, riding at Ayeshi's side down the irregular
front of this strange army, saw nothing. To him they were a sorry,
pitiable crew, foredoomed to disaster. He knew now, if he had not
always known, the futile madness of the enterprise on which they were
launched, he with them. The brief illusion which he had nourished that
night in the temple had gone. Though he had flung himself into this
cause with all his wealth, all his power, he saw it to be lost. The
shadow of the future was on these upturned stoic faces, on Ayeshi, and
on himself. Yet he would not have turned back nor changed the course of
events. A sombre triumph and satisfaction glowed through his
foreknowledge.
He had found his people. He belonged to them. In the end that was
coming he would not be alone. His blood would mingle with theirs. And
with them those others would be swept away--those others who had
rejected him.
He turned his haggard, moody eyes towards distant Gaya and laughed.
Even now he was a little theatrical. He wore the native dress, and it
was like a masquerade. All that was English in him stood out the more
prominently. The very priests who had admitted him to their caste shrank
from his shadow, and quick, dark glances of suspicion followed him as he
rode at Ayeshi's side. Vahana, the Saddhu, clung to his
stirrup-leather. He was like a mocking spirit of evil, noiseless and
remorseless. Once Barclay had tried to swing him off by a quick turn of
his horse, but the old withered figure had leapt with him with the
agility of a tiger. Afterwards Vahana had lifted his face to Barclay,
showing his teeth in a mirthless grin of understanding.
Thereafter Barclay made no effort to free himself. But he had become
afraid--afraid of something other than the end.
Ayeshi rode to the farther end of the roughly formed square. Beyond the
jewelled turban and the ancient sword at his waist, he wore no insignia
of his rank, and even his knightly seat on the thoroughbred Arab could