The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India
not wholly atone to his followers for this lack of outward splendour.
They had expected something other--something resplendent, a gorgeous
representative of the millennium that was coming,--a god, an avatar.
And he was only a boy, with wasted features and restless, unhappy eyes.
Yet they greeted him as their lord. Perhaps even in their minds was the
knowledge that their lives were bound up with his, that there was no
turning back either for him or them. A Brahmin and a native
under-officer, still in uniform though without his badges, came out of
the ranks to meet him, and for a few minutes they spoke together in an
undertone. Barclay scarcely listened. He was watching with cynical
intentness the play of the priest's astute features, the deferential,
courtly movements, the keen flashes of the cruel eyes. In contrast, the
soldier seemed brutal and aggressive. His face was pockmarked and
sodden with vice, but he was a strong man--more vital in that moment
even than Ayeshi.
Between Barclay and these two men Ayeshi was the shuttlecock--the toy
and instrument with which each sought to attain his own petty ends of
vengeance and power. For a moment Barclay could have pitied him as he
sat there, reining in his restive Arab with a master's hand, so
passionately in earnest, so deeply shaken by premonition.
"They will fight, Pugra?" he asked repeatedly. "They will keep faith
with us?"
The soldier grinned significantly.
"They have sworn it, lord. There is no cause for them to break their
oath. It is a simple matter. In an hour it will be finished. Heera
Singh leads them. He is a good soldier. His brother was shot a year
ago. He will not fail."
"And afterwards----?"
"We shall join forces with them."
"And after that----?"
The soldier and the priest exchanged a quick glance of interrogation.
But the question had rung with an urgent appeal not to be denied. The
Brahmin drew a step nearer, taking the answer upon himself.
"After that the great cities will follow. In Calcutta and Bombay they
do but await the signal. Is it not so?"
"That is what they told me." Ayeshi passed his hand nervously over his
forehead. "They swore to me that they were ready. I was to be the
torch which should light India----"
"Surely, then, it will be so, lord."
Ayeshi made no answer. He seemed to sink into a fit of brooding, his
eyes fixed in the direction of Gaya. Barclay, who had not ceased to
watch him, urged his horse nearer.
"Of what are you afraid, Rajah?" he asked softly in English, adding with
a flash of malice: "Isn't death the worst that can happen to us?"
The echo of the grandiloquent phrase stung Ayeshi to a haughty gesture.
"I do not fear death."
"Whom then? Rasaldu? Rasaldu is dead. In a few hours there will be no
white men left in your kingdom----"
"I know. It is not that. It is for these men--my people. They trust
me. They hope great things. If I should fail----"
"You will not fail, Rajah. You have the right to call upon them. You
are their lord."
Ayeshi glanced up swiftly.
"And if I were not--if it proved a mistake--sometimes I am afraid----"
Barclay shrugged his shoulders. He was growing impatient. The
merciless rain began to chill his blood. The roar of the river beat like
the incessant thud of a hammer on his ears.
"What does it all matter?" he muttered. "If only this infernal rain
would stop! It's dangerous. If the water overflows on the high ground
up by Bjura we shall have to swim for it. That's what matters."
But suddenly Ayeshi bent down from his saddle and laid his hand on
Vahana's shoulder.
"You promised!" he said, in a tense undertone. "You promised that today
you would speak--that you would give me proofs to show my people. Now
keep your promise to me. Vahana--justify me."
The fakir lifted his eyes to Ayeshi. His lips moved, but no sound came
from them. He shrank back against Barclay's knee, cowering as from a
blow. But his expression was triumphantly evil.
And Barclay, looking into Ayeshi's stricken face, came to a bitter
understanding. Not only this boy, but all of them, were so many
instruments in a master-hand. Their hates and ambitions had been woven
skilfully into the greater pattern of a patient, insatiable vengeance.
They were pawns in Vahana's game. _They_ would be swept from the board.
Vahana would go on to his own end.
Before this selfsame knowledge Ayeshi had faltered. Now he drew himself
up in the saddle.
"Rasaldu is dead," he said quietly, yet with despair, "and Sahib
Meredith and others--others. Justify me!"
And to that final, irrepressible cry of anguish Vahana answered. His
unaccustomed tongue wrestled with the words, and formed them slowly and
thickly. They fell like blows.
"The--Rajah--had--no--son," he said.
Then suddenly he laughed. In that final moment the brain, corroded with
hatred, broke down beneath its accumulated burden. The maniacal
merriment rang out above the thunder of racing water, it pealed on till
it dominated every other sound. As Ayeshi turned with lifted hand to
strike, it subsided hideously into a broken cackle. Still clinging to
Barclay's stirrup, Vahana dropped to his knees. What possessed Barclay
in that moment he could not have told. He stretched out his arm over
the cowering figure, shielding the thing he feared.
"No, no, Ayeshi--it's too late. It doesn't matter who or what you are.
You've got to go on with it. You can't leave us in the lurch. There's
been bloodshed enough----"
Ayeshi's hand sank limply to his side. His lips were quivering.
"Rasaldu is dead," he repeated. "Rasaldu the swine-herd--had more right
than I--and the Sahibs who have done me no wrong----"
Barclay interrupted him with a curse. Was this last catastrophe of his
life to end as the others had done, in a travesty--in a Gilbertian
fiasco? Was he to be held up to ridicule before those cool, insolent
men and women--ludicrous and ineffectual even in his death?
"For God's sake--pull yourself together, Ayeshi!" he said imperatively.
"What does it matter whether you are wronged or not? You are the
leader. Chance has made you--the deliverer of your people. Act like a
man. Save your country--set us free----" He laid his hand on his breast
with a dramatic gesture. "I ask it of you--I, who have suffered at
their hands. Be strong, Ayeshi. Give us our freedom."
But Ayeshi seemed not to listen. His frowning eyes were fixed in front
of him, and suddenly he pointed. Barclay turned in his saddle. At first
the spectacle that met him seemed no more than curious. The belt of
high grass which separated them from the river had parted, and a young
tigress stood in the opening. She seemed wholly unconscious of the
massed enemy before her. She stood there lashing her tail, her velvet
flanks heaving with recent hard effort, her fine head lifted in an
attitude of listening. For an instant she remained thus. No hand was
raised against her. Ayeshi and his followers watched her in motionless,
superstitious silence. Even Barclay felt himself incapable of action.
It was as though the apparition had for them a deeper, as yet unread
significance.
With a low growl, not of anger but of fear, the beautiful animal trotted
with long, loping strides between Ayeshi and the herded crowd of tensely
watching natives. No sound was uttered until the lean, striped body had
vanished. Then a cry went up--at first isolated--then swelling to a
shout:
"An omen--an omen!"
"Vishnu has spoken!"
"The gods are against us!"
"The flood--the flood----!"
The last came in a scream. It bore the other cries down into an
instant's stupefied silence. The massed square of humanity which had
tossed and surged in a gathering storm of panic grew still.
Barclay lifted himself in his stirrups. He could see nothing. The rain
blinded him. Yet his ears, alert now, caught a distant ominous boom.
"I believe it's true--the animal was bolting for her life--the water
must have burst its banks at Bjura--if it has, it's coming twenty miles
an hour--we've got to run for high ground, Ayeshi."
The Hindu shrugged his shoulders.
"There is no high ground----"
Vahana roused himself from the mud where he had remained in an attitude
of apparent stupor. A demoniac energy blazed in the mad eyes.
"There is a way--past Heerut--I will show you--only let me ride with
you, Sahib Barclay----"
The Eurasian nodded. He no longer appealed to Ayeshi, who was sunk in
an apathy of despair. He raised himself again in the saddle.
"There is a way to safety!" he shouted. "Vahana, the Holy Man, will
lead us--the gods have sent a warning--the gods are with us--follow!"
He lifted Vahana into the saddle behind him and swung his horse round
towards Heerut. Ayeshi lingered; Barclay passed him with a gesture of
contempt. The control was in his hands now. It was for him to act--to
retrieve disaster. He had become the leader--the leader of his people.
He heard the rush of feet behind him--the sound thrilled through his
blood in a storm of exultation.
"Follow me!" he shouted. "I will lead you."
They followed. They swept Ayeshi into their maelstrom and carried him
with them, but they too had ceased to heed him. Nor did he try to
regain his hold. The right to command--even to resist--had gone. He
was no longer Rajah--exiled and disinherited, yet still lord of his
destiny. He was Ayeshi, the village story-teller, the servant of
Tristram Sahib, the dreamer bereft of his dreams. He would have been
glad to meet the end.
But the people he had betrayed bore him in their midst, as they fled
before the oncoming waters.
* * * * *
Tristram heard only the deepening voice of the river, the rain splashing
on the roof, and the rush and swirl of the water as it tore through the
village gutters. Even these things, though they reached his hearing,
scarcely touched his consciousness. They walled him in. They formed a
sombre background for his wife's voice.
He sat beside her, her hot little hand in his, and it seemed to him that
they talked together for the first time in their lives. Her voice was
weak and husky with pain, but the pain itself relaxed its grip on her,
allowing her to sink slowly and mercifully.
"I'm dying, am I not, Tristram?" she had asked, and then, reading his
face, added gently: "I want to know--really. I'm not afraid to die.
Why should I be? There is nothing to fear--only so much to hope. Tell
me."
"Anne--little wife--I honestly don't know. So much depends on your will
to live----"
Her smile was touched with something of its old wisdom.
"It depends on God, Tris."
He nodded. It was too late to show her where their roads met. He could
only acquiesce. And presently she spoke again. "It's all been such a
big, sad mistake, hasn't it?"
"What, dear?"
"Our marriage."
He looked into her pinched face, in which only a child-like wistfulness
remained. He looked then at her hand, hiding his own smarting eyes.
"I suppose it has. It's my failure----"
"You didn't love me, Tris."
"I cared--genuinely. I cared so much that I wanted to make you happy."
He hesitated. "But I couldn't make myself to be the man you loved."
"No, it was just a mistake," she agreed.
"You're very generous, dear."
She shook her head.
"Oh, no--it was my fault most of all. I didn't understand. There are
things I don't understand even now."
"What things?"
"Wickie--and--and--that. It seems so wrong--just a dog. You love life
so--Tris."
"I love living things--I can't help it--helpless living things most of
all. Even now I can't judge what I did--it's the old problem--how far