The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India
than saw Anne lift herself on her elbow. She felt Tristram's movement
and added simply: "Mr. Barclay was married years ago. My marriage with
him was illegal, and I am free."
She did not see the ugly little smile quiver about Anne's lips. She
held her ground, patient, content. She had broken the last link which
held her to a loathed life. It was as though she breathed a fresher,
purer air.
"That frees me from all responsibility, doesn't it?" Barclay suggested.
"Quite."
He hesitated. His minutes in the place were numbered. His ears, attuned
to catch the first warning, reminded him of the remorseless, oncoming
danger, and yet he faltered. A bitter taste of failure was in his
mouth.
"You had better follow me, Tristram. Resistance is useless."
"As you will. I have only one request to make. Respect my wife. She
is very ill."
Barclay shrugged his shoulders.
"A dying woman----? I can grant you that much."
But even in the midst of his brutal self-assertiveness, a merciless
flash of intuition showed him himself as they saw him. His power
slipped through his fingers. He looked from Sigrid to Tristram, and
knew their immeasurable indifference to all that he could threaten.
They were not afraid--almost--they were glad. He could not penetrate
their mood--he only felt it as an intolerable hurt--a frustration of
that madly aching desire in him. They stood aloof from him as they had
always done. He could not reach them--the woman had shaken herself free
from his very name as from something loathsome. To the
last--ineffectual, beyond the pale. He had meant to strike--he had set
them free.
He made a gesture, and Vahana closed the door. He came and stood close
to Sigrid, staring into her face.
"Will you come with me?" he asked. She made no answer. He felt his
lips trembling. "I could make you," he broke out.
"I think not."
"You mean that, sooner or later, you would escape me? I daresay. You
are brave enough. But I ask you to come with me of your own free
will--as my mistress--as anything on earth I choose--to share my
life--whatever future I have--faithfully----"
"Aren't you wasting time, Mr. Barclay?" Tristram interposed.
Barclay remained with his eyes on Sigrid's face.
"If you will come with me, Sigrid, Major Tristram can go back to Gaya."
She seemed scarcely to hear him. He heard Tristram laugh.
"Isn't this all rather melodramatic, Barclay? Do you really imagine I
am anxious to save my life on such terms? Why don't you get on with
things?"
Barclay swung round on his heel.
"And does my offer really amuse you? Are you amused at the death of a
score or so of your countrymen up there in Gaya? That's what it amounts
to. Mrs. Boucicault is giving a dinner to the station tonight. In
three hours' time, the regiment mutinies, and your friends will be wiped
out without being able to lift a hand--unless you warn them. Is that
amusing?"
He drew a deep breath of content. He had seen Tristram flinch. He had
reached him at last, had forced him down from his heights to meet him in
the equality of a life-and-death struggle. He could afford now to be
patient and composed.
It was Sigrid who spoke. Her voice sounded curiously flat and lifeless.
"Why have you told us this?"
He turned to her.
"Because I am asking a great deal of you. This is not our old bargain,
Sigrid. If you come with me, it must be on my own terms. I don't know
where I am going--but I shall be an exile--an Eurasian outcast with a
price on his head. And you have got to stick to me."
"And your wife? She believes that you care for her."
His hands were clenched.
"I have done with caring," he said harshly. "You've taken care that I
shouldn't put love first in my life. Leave my wife out of this.
Nothing concerns you but your own decision."
"And you are ready to sacrifice your plans----?"
"I am prepared to give Gaya a fighting chance," he interrupted sternly.
"I do not pretend that it is more than that--perhaps not so much."
"If--if I consent, will you keep faith? Have you the power----?"
"I have the power. Ayeshi will consent to anything I suggest.
Remember--I have to trust you, too----" He hesitated, and then added
slowly: "I do trust you."
She made a groping, uncertain gesture.
"Tristram----"
But he threw back his head in defiance.
"It can't be. Gaya wouldn't be saved at such a cost."
"It isn't what Gaya would want--it's what we've got to do--we ourselves
don't count."
"Your honour----" he burst out.
"What is honour?" she retorted finely. "By your own creed,
Tristram--what other honour is there but our duty towards others?"
He fought against her, against the light which he saw gathering in her
eyes--against himself.
"It's a hideous impossibility."
"The hideousness isn't ours. It isn't impossible."
"Decide--can't you?" Barclay flung at them.
Tristram turned to him with a gesture of immeasurable contempt.
"So you betray all your masters?" he said.
"I am the son of a betrayal," Barclay retorted, smiling bitterly. "Has
that ever troubled you? Why trouble yourself now about me?"
Sigrid's eyes avoided Tristram's face. The grey horror of it shook her.
"It's as Mr. Barclay says--we've only got to consider our own actions."
"Then you've decided?"
"Is there any choice?" she asked sternly.
For one moment he hated her as a man hates the cause of an intolerable
suffering. The next, he saw that she had outstripped him. She had
taken the fundamentals of his life and built her own edifice upon
them--a higher, finer edifice than his own.
"I see that there is no choice for you," he said, with a chivalrous
resignation. "And you're right. We don't count."
He felt the hand in his tighten. He looked down into his wife's ashen
face. Throughout she had not spoken--scarcely moved. Now the change in
her startled him out of the stupefying absorption of his pain. He saw
that she had ceased to be afraid, and that the malice and anger had gone
from her. He saw her as she had been in her girlhood, in her first
innocent, incredulous love of him. Her failing eyes were full of a deep,
unearthly pity.
"Tris--you are both--very brave."
A groan burst from his lips.
"Anne--I can't leave you."
"You must. That is my little share in the sacrifice. I shan't be afraid
now, Tris."
He knelt down beside her. She put her weak arms round his neck and
kissed him. "Good-bye, husband."
"Little Anne--God keep you."
She smiled a little.
"I'm--sure--He--will."
Barclay moved impatiently. He saw that they had forgotten him.
"Will you come, Sigrid?"
She bent her head in assent.
"Then you can go your way, Major," Barclay said.
But it was as though the last weapon which his tortured pride had forged
for him had shivered against an impregnable armour. They were
great--these people--even in defeat--even Anne, little cowardly
Anne--could face death alone and unflinchingly. He recognized that
greatness with a last anguish. He had their blood in him. If they had
turned to him, recognized him, appealed to him in the name of their
common ancestry,--even then---- But they did not think of him. He was
a whirlwind driving them apart to their separate destinies--an
impersonal, soulless force--no more.
"Come!" he demanded violently.
Tristram gave Sigrid his hand. They took up their burden of life. It
had become heavier; but they took it up. And for a while they would
carry it. But in the end there would be rest. That was their message
and their farewell.
Tristram went out into the rain-swept street--past Vahana, who looked up
into his face and laughed.
Sigrid lingered. She drew shyly near the camp-bed with its little
burden.
"Good-bye----"
But Anne stretched out her hand and drew Sigrid down to her and kissed
her.
"Yours is the hardest part. I--judged--harshly. Forgive."
"There is no need--our ways have met in the end."
The door closed presently. It grew very still in the little hut. The
voices and the clatter of hoofs faded in the distance. All other sounds
sank into the deepening, growing call of the flood.
Anne lay still. Her eyes lingered on the shadowy furniture. Even now
there was Wickie's old basket in the corner. Poor Tristram! She sighed
faintly--wearily. Somehow now it was so much easier to understand--God
was all-merciful.
It was growing dark. She tried to compose herself. The shadows were
rising up all around her. She was not afraid. Owen would be there--he
would be waiting for her--it would be just as it had always been--only
more perfect.
She tried to fold her hands.
"Our Father which art----"
It was as though a great sea poured over her--engulfing her in its
peace.
*CHAPTER XIII*
*TO GAYA!*
Tristram led Arabella out of her stable and spoke gently to her. He
showed no sign of haste or trouble. He did not believe Barclay. He was
convinced that there was no intention to allow him to leave Heerut
living. Even Barclay could not betray his followers so openly. Yet he
had no right to refuse the chance, and in the end it could make but
little difference.
He mounted and walked Arabella down the centre of the flooded street.
Across the western exit of the village, where the land lay highest, the
two thousand had herded together like a pack of hunted wolves awaiting
the signal from their leader. Ayeshi sat his horse a little in advance,
with Barclay and the shadowy mendicant to his right. Tristram rode
towards them unmoved. He held himself with his usual casual ease, a
little loosely, with one fist stemmed against his thigh. There was no
conscious bravado in the attitude. An instinct inherited from
generations of men who had confronted the same enemy at the same odds
taught him an unchallenging serenity. As he drew nearer, he looked full
into Ayeshi's face and read in the sombre eyes the confirmation of his
death. He might have spoken, made some appeal to the old memories that
bound them, but something--perhaps the consciousness that for that
moment he represented more than himself--held him sternly silent.
Barclay smiled, but his eyes too, were overshadowed with a knowledge in
which there was neither happiness nor triumph. Thus the three men met
in a last encounter. For an instant they seemed to be alone--to be
standing on a lofty plateau above the watching crowd, confronting each
other with a tragic perception of something common to them all, and of a
destroying, merciless destiny.
Then Vahana laughed, shrilly, exultantly, and it was over.
Tristram rode past Ayeshi. He reached the border of the crowd.
Arabella hesitated and he touched her gently with his heels. She
understood, and, understanding, became insolently irresistible. The
first man whom she nosed aside hesitated, his hand on his knife.
Tristram did not look at him. His eyes passed carelessly over the sea
of upturned faces. He did not draw himself up. So he might have ridden
among them on a feast day, or as they returned from their work on the
plain. His expression was neither defiant, nor contemptuous. To the
last even as he awaited death at their hands, he remained one of them,
not judge or master or victim, but man among men. One step more. The
sea closed in behind him. Would it come now? He knew that it would be
in his back. Sooner or later the hypnotic spell which his presence threw
over them would snap. Some hand, bolder, more resolved than the rest,
would lift itself, and then the waves would close over him for ever.
Yet as he rode on, winning each step, the tension of waiting relaxed.
He forgot himself. Something rose up to him in that heated, foetid