The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India
Mrs. Compton shook him by the arm. Her eyes were shining like two
points of fire.
"Shut up--don't you see--he's the Bagh Sahib--he can do things we
can't--it's our only chance."
Bagh Sahib rode down the avenue at a walk. He did not hurry, though the
sinister light swept down on him amidst a pandemonium of rattling drums
and trumpet calls. His face was resolute--no longer brutal--and the
smile lingered at his lips. It was as though the coming encounter
amused him. He did not look to see whether he was followed.
The men he had commanded looked at one another. Compton fingered the
revolver which he had retrieved. He glanced at his wife, and she nodded.
"Well, I'm going, anyhow," he said.
The twelve remaining officers of the 65th assented. Armstrong himself
had already hurried on in front of Compton. He was a staid, humdrum
type of man, but in that moment the fire was in his blood. None of them
remembered that this same Boucicault was the source of the very evil
which he had set out to master.
He was the Bagh Sahib.
That was all they knew of him.
They reached the compound gates as Boucicault, with Tristram at his
heels, came in sight of the mutiny leaders. It was still pitch dark, but
the rain had stopped and the torches burnt up luridly in the still air.
Separate from the rest, a gaunt, spectral figure on the ungainly horse,
Boucicault waited tranquilly. He was so motionless, so unexpected that
the seething mass of soldiers came to a sudden halt. A shot rang out
from somewhere in the rear, but those in the first ranks wavered. The
superstition which was a very part of their blood chilled them to
silence. The roll of drums died away to a faint beat, like the throb of
a dying pulse. The trumpet no longer sounded. Boucicault's eyes passed
from one dark, uncertainly lit face to another. Then he laughed.
"Well, what have you got to say for yourselves?"
He spoke clearly now. His voice had a metallic ring in it which awoke
old memories. But it broke the spell. There were, perhaps, ten yards
between him and the leaders, and they rushed, five of them, with a howl
of triumph--then again halted--as though they had flung themselves
against an invisible barrier. A shot whizzed past Boucicault's head.
He grinned mockingly. He touched Arabella's sides and rode forward,
till the last five yards were covered, and he stared down straight into
their faces. "You don't shoot as well as you did, men. That sort of
thing won't do. You want drilling, and, by God, you shall get it! That
fellow who missed me shall have my special attention. The 65th wants
polishing." He removed his helmet, so that the light flickered on his
features. "And I shall polish it," he said.
They recognized him. It was the thought of him which had goaded them to
their revolt. Yet now he sat there on his horse--the man whom they
believed helpless and stricken--and gibed at them. For them, too, he
was as one risen from the dead. A sergeant in the foremost line drew
back, cowering from him.
"Bagh Sahib!" he muttered.
Boucicault leant forward and seized the man roughly by his ear.
"Yes--Bagh Sahib. You shall see that I can spring still. Ah, you,
Heera, so you remember me? In the old days you fought at my heel like
the tiger's cub you were. That was at Affra and Burda. Yes--you could
fight then--now you can only mutiny like angry children. Then the 65th
had a glorious name in India, and I was proud of you--but now--" He
thrust the man from him so that he went reeling in the mud. "You
cowardly pack--lay down your arms!" he thundered. His command fell like
the lash of a whip. The man he had struck leapt at him. He had a
revolver in his hand and he pointed it straight at Boucicault's breast.
"Bagh Sahib--you killed my brother----"
"And I shall live to court-martial you, my friend."
"Not now----"
"Shoot then, you cur!"
A splash of fire was flung up in Boucicault's face. Tristram, hiding in
the shadow, sprang forward with a smothered cry of horror--then stood
still--incredulous. Boucicault had not moved. He looked down into his
assassin's stricken, gaping face and laughed.
"You can't touch me, Heera. Your very weapon refuses. We have fought
together too often----"
There was a new note in his voice--stern yet curiously caressing. The
man reeled, broke down, sobbing thickly.
"Bagh Sahib----!" he moaned. "Bagh Sahib----"
"It is well, Heera. I forgive." He looked over the sea of faces. "You
see that you cannot touch me. For the sake of the old days-when you
fought gallantly, this night's work is forgotten. Lay down your arms."
For an instant longer they stared at him. The red of his tunic hid the
dark, widening stain. They only saw that the bullet had passed through
him and left him unharmed. The older men among them remembered how in
the bygone days he had passed scatheless through a hail of bullets.
Then as now he had been a stupendous figure--half god.
To the younger men he was a legend. The evil that he had done them was
forgotten. He was their own past--their own greatness--the greatness of
their fathers. They could not touch him.
"Gentlemen--form your men into their companies. Lead them back to the
barracks. Remember--what I tell you--this night is to be forgotten."
The little group of Englishmen behind him obeyed tranquilly. There was
the sound of rifles being stacked. The disorderly crowd formed
automatically into sections. The scene had lasted five minutes. Now it
was finished.
But Boucicault turned Arabella's head and rode slowly back, and
Tristram, who had seen that black stain upon the tunic, followed him.
Mrs. Boucicault stood separate from the rest upon the balcony and
waited. She was smiling. There was no fear--only a girlish pride, a
tragic happiness written on the grey face. As he came within the lights
of the verandah she waved to him, and he saluted her with a chivalrous
dignity.
Then he toppled from his seat into Tristram's arms.
They carried him into the bungalow and set him gently on one of the
sofas. His wife knelt down beside him and he put his arm about her and
held her close to him.
"There is nothing to be done--the whole breast. I am too old a soldier
not to know. Please leave us these few minutes. We have so much to say
to one another." But to Tristram he gave his hand, drawing him down so
that his face almost touched the dying lips. "Major
I'm--sorry--about--your dog----"
Tristram knew then that at the last it was not oblivion, but
resurrection.
He lingered a moment. Even as he stood there hesitating, Boucicault's
body straightened out a little. His wife's head rested on his shoulder,
and there was blood mingled in the grey, untidy hair. Her eyes were
closed, and she seemed asleep.
They had so much to say to one another.
Tristram crept out on tiptoe. He went down again into the compound. It
was very still. The tumult of the last hour had died away. It had all
been like an adventure in a mad, terrible dream. Arabella nozzled
against his shoulder, and he stroked her gently. And, as he did so, the
faint light from the room behind him showed him the slender, colourless
band about his wrist.
It was as though a charm had laid itself on his aching senses. A gate
of memory was opened. He passed through. In the tranquil solemnity of
an Indian night, he heard voices--Ayeshi's voice, hushed yet passionate.
"Behold, according to the custom, Humayun accepts the bond, and from
henceforth the Rani Kurnavati is his dear and virtuous sister, and his
sword shall not rest in his scabbard till she is free from the threat of
her oppressor."
The bo-tree whispered mysteriously:
"Ah--those were the great days--the great days----"
And Tristram Sahib swung himself on to Arabella's back and once more
rode out towards Heerut.
*CHAPTER XV*
*THE SNAKE-GOD*
Vahana ran on ahead. Bent and twisted with age, his half-naked figure
far outstripped the riders whose horses ploughed heavily through the
morass of jungle-grass. Behind them, again, came the straggle,
panic-driven horde of Ayeshi's army, and after them the flood, rising
over Heerut.
Vahana halted from time to time and looked back, nodding and beckoning.
He was too far in advance for them to see his face. But in that
feverish agility, in that patient waiting on them there was a malignant
joy, the expression of a soundless, senile laughter.
They had strange companions--cheetahs, antelopes, wild pigs--all the
creatures of the plain--trotting at their sides, unheeded and unheeding,
conscious only of their common peril. They moved slowly, dragging
themselves painfully free from the clinging mud. It was the flight of
an evil dream--the enemy at their heels, their limbs weighted, each step
an anguished effort. They made no outcry, but the tortured breathing of
these flying thousands became an unbroken moan of terror.
Vahana led them by a circuitous path back over a ridge of ground rising
to the rear of the temple. They followed unquestioningly. There was no
choice. Their retreat was already cut off: to the right the flooded
plain, to the left the trackless jungle hemmed them in. The ridge was
all that remained to them.
Sigrid rode between Ayeshi and Barclay. They had not spoken. Ayeshi
held himself like a sleep-walker, his face blank, his eyes wide open and
expressionless. The hand that held the reins was slack and indifferent.
His horse, instinctively aware of the danger pursuing them, kept up of
its own account, but he did not seek to control it. Compared with him,
Barclay was the very spirit of sombre exultation. He turned
persistently to the woman beside him, his eyes ugly with significance.
But her small, white face betrayed no consciousness of him. Its
serenity was deathlike. Her body rode beside him, but her mind, the
living part of her, eluded him. He had not hoped that it would be
otherwise--his pitiless intuition had showed him the limit of his power,
the limit of all power; but there was Tristram, who by now knew the
value of the freedom which she had bought for him--Tristram, who
represented all that he, Barclay, had desired and hoped for and loved,
all that he now hated with the intensity of a mutilated passion,
Tristram who would suffer at the last.
He laughed at his own thought and pointed a shaking hand at the mournful
immensity beneath them.
"Your friend will have a wet ride. Look out there--the bridge has gone.
It was swept away an hour ago."
He laughed again, and urged his horse past her. He had triumphed, but
he did not wish to see her face.
She turned her head in the direction which he had indicated. The night,
mingling its sable with the dirty greys of sky and water, shrouded the
familiar landmarks, but that very narrowing of her vision widened the
boundaries of her hearing. The thunder of the torrent sounded
nearer--she heard again the mysterious mutterings which had arrested her
at the bridge-head only an hour or two before. She knew that Barclay had
not boasted.
"Did you know that too, Ayeshi?"
"Yes, Mem-Sahib."
His voice was callous, toneless. She could not look at him.
"And you let him go? You had forgotten so easily?"
"Have you found it hard to forget, Mem-Sahib--you whom he loved----?"
He awoke suddenly from his apathy. He bent towards her, his fevered
hand on her arm. "Was not a little of _that_ man's gold, stained with
the sweat and blood of men, enough to buy your forgetfulness?"
And now she looked at him. She saw the quivering features--the eyes
bloodshot and wretched with scorn of her.
"I went out of his life as you did, Ayeshi," she said gently. "Was that
forgetfulness?"