AT THE GATES

The darkness which holds the dawn was, as a rule, silent as the grave in the sand-stretches beyond the river, where the wide cut of the canal, the huge mud-heap of the gaol, with its scattered workshops and houses, showed as mere spots and lines on the illimitable plain. But on the night after the band had played "God save the Queen," while the first drops of sacred water trickled over the chink of the sluice into the dry bed of the canal below, its silence was broken by unfamiliar sounds.

First of all, by the now ceaseless splash of the thin, glassy curve of water on its way to find out this new road to the sea. It had a sort of dreamy whisper in it, as if it were telling its first impressions, its hopes, its fears, to the river it was leaving behind.

And on this background of ceaseless sound came two others intermittently.

The first--a muffled hammering from the darkness which hid the Viceroy's camp--told of departure, letting the night know that another white-winged tent was flitting, and that the dawn must be prepared to find its place empty, the dream-city in ruins, the Hosts of the Lord-sahib gone.

The second told of arrival. It was a strange cry, soft, almost musical:--

"HÂrÂ--HÂrÎ--HÂrÂ--HÂrÎ!"

Then every now and again in a sort of chant: "RÂm--RÂm--Sita--RÂm!"

It was the pilgrims' cry, their call on the Creator, the Destroyer, their appeal to the godhead in man and woman; for the forerunners of the great host to come were already nearing Eshwara on their road to the "Cradle of the Gods."

But there was a fourth sound, inaudible--by reason of that ceaseless noise of water through the chink of the sluice--except to those close by it, like George Dillon, as he stood on the hand-bridge above the closed gates looking down idly into the darkness which prevented him from seeing the cause of the sound. He had been up all night. On his return,--later than he had intended, owing to his determination not to be defied by any woman,--he had found that in his absence cholera had been hard at its work. So he had buckled to his, expecting one of those awful nights which live, even in a doctor's memory, as a horror, as a warning to those best fitted to stem the stream of death, that they are but straws on its surface.

But he had been mistaken. True, for an hour or so, cases had come in quicker than they could be attended to; then, suddenly, they ceased to come in at all. That had been eight hours ago. Too short a respite for certainty, but Dr. Dillon, being no novice in such work, had his hopes; the more so because the disease, from the very outset, had become steadily less and less virulent. Even so, seven dead bodies lay awaiting the first glint of dawn; therefore, as ill-luck would have it, there would be seven columns of smoke on the river's edge for all to see!

It was inevitable, however, nor could he do more to prevent others coming. So he had been on his way back to his own house for a few hours' rest when the dreamy splash of the water made him pause to lean over the hand-rail and listen to it, as he finished his cigar in the open.

Then it was that he heard a faint tap, tapping, as of a ghostly hand on a door. What was it? It was quite distinct, though almost as low as the "lip, lipping" of the water, made restless by that glassy curve against the gates.

A curiosity to know seized on him. There was already a glimmer of dawn in the east; he might as well wait and see.

It was not long before a streak of something faintly white made him call himself a fool. The cause was a log of wood. He might have thought of that. Even that faint setting of a stream towards a new way must have drifted it here. The thought made him frown, for this fulfilment of the river-people's prophecy was annoying; the more so from its absolute unlikelihood. Years might pass without such a chance coming again; yet it had come the very first day! It was too bad. The stars in their courses were fighting against him. In a pet he threw the remains of his cigar from him, and was striding off, when a faint glimmer, as of a candle, made him turn sharply and look down whence it came.

The lighted end of his cigar had fallen on something dry, inflammable, which had blazed up. But it was only for a second; the next found darkness, save for that still, faint, glimmer of white. But the brief gleam had told him it was not a log which had drifted astray--

It was a corpse.

That tap, tapping he had heard had been from the dead feet seeking vainly to pass through the chink of the sluice, swerving with the side current, coming back, again and again. He stood, grasping the rail, staring down at the dim outline almost incredulously, and feeling, despite himself, a trifle shivery.

Then the remembrance that this was a thing which must be seen by none, which somehow, and as quickly as possible, must be set on its right road again, made him hurry back to where he knew some coils of rope, which had been used for bunting at the ceremony, were lying. Seizing one--still gaily decorated--he tied a brick to one end, and hurried back to the bridge. By dropping this weighted rope over the dim white streak he was able to edge it gradually to one side, until it lay moored against the wall of the basin. Kneeling down for a closer look, he could see, in the fast-growing light, that it was the corpse of a woman. He could even guess the death she died, and if proof was needed, it could be found in the hands folded at full stretch down the body; the thumbs, pointing upward, linked by an iron ring. To this iron ring had been looped a little tuft of the tri-coloured hank of cotton which plays so large a part in marriage ceremonial. Dr. Dillon stood up and swore under his breath.

The fates were, indeed, inexorable in their spite. Of all things unlucky for the changing stream to claim, a corpse seeking union with Mother Ganges was the worst; and of all corpses, this--the cursed one, which had held two lives and could send one back to haunt men--was the worst.

He must get rid of it somehow, if he could.

Fastening the rope, so strangely out of keeping, all hung as it was with gay colours, to the iron ring which showed about the ankles, he proceeded to tow the body back along the basin, past the first gates, and so to the river itself. Thus far was simple. But how was he to get it afloat on a current strong enough to sweep it beyond danger of its returning to tap at the gates once more?

The dawn was hastening with great leaps of light that shot in broad bars from the darkest spot in all the dark horizon; the spot which would soon be the brightest, ablaze with the sun himself. Already the broad shield of the river was changing its heraldry--the sable was turning to steel, sign that the world would side with the light.

What was to be done?

He looked over the wide waste of sand and water, with a perplexity which vanished suddenly in a smile, as he caught sight of a round shadow like a man's head dipping and dancing on the surface. He walked on to the last dry spot of land and shouted--

"Ai! fisherman! Ai! Gu-gu! Am-ma! anybody! Come and earn a gold mohur!"

It was Am-ma. Luckily, perhaps, since the idea of even towing a dead body such as this might have been too much for semi-civilized Gu-gu. Am-ma, however, had not ever borrowed his neighbours' superstitions. In fact, ever since he, the Miss-sahiba and the Dee-puk-rÂg had bested the devil between them, he had felt himself to be invulnerable. So, he assured Dr. Dillon affably, were the Huzoors; therefore he obeyed them. Consequently, less than five minutes after the call, with a vague wonder as to what sixteen rupees would feel like, all at once, in a man's palm, he was heading hard to the nearest stream capable of carrying the thing he had in tow back to the path of purification. This happened to be towards Eshwara, and beyond a sandy point set with tamarisks which jutted out above the canal head. There was, of course, a certain stream against him, and to save himself exertion and finish the job--as he had agreed to do--before dawn, he swam for the most part under water, only coming up, after his habit, for air.

Now it so happened, also, that Gu-gu had thought fit to set nets for wild-fowl, and was even now dozing, while he waited for the result, in the same tamarisk jungle. But the sound of something swishing through the water against the stream roused him in a second, and even without the glimpse, which the coming dawn gave him, of a long streak parting the river with a curved ripple like the prow of a boat, his experience told him what it was sure to be. Briefly, someone of the river people,--Am-ma for choice, since who but Am-ma had the luck of such things--had happened on the chance of stealing a log from the piles about the canal workshops. He was now, after time-honoured precedent, towing it to the stream where, having set it adrift, he would recapture it, and, of course, claim his reward for so doing!

But two could play that game. When secrecy made it necessary for a thief to swim for the most part under water, it was easy to swim under water too, across the track of the robber, cut his prize adrift, and put your weight on the rope instead.

Then you could either choose revenge, and let an enemy tow you home--which was a side-splitting trick,--or you might wait till your adversary came up breathless, and dash after the prize yourself. Even if you could not secure the whole, half profits were generally possible.

Therefore, slipping noiselessly into the stream like an alligator, he was off across the track in a second; swimming, of course, under water. He came, up once for air, and smiled to see how far he had come; so, fearing lest the holder of the unseen tow-rope might chance to come up at the same time, his black head went under once more.

When it came up again, it was within a few yards of the long white streak. He gave one look at it, let loose a yell of abject terror, and almost turning a somersault in his haste to escape, his head went down again, his feet went skywards, and though his lungs nearly burst in the effort, he came up no more till he felt certain he must have put a screen of tamarisk between him and the horror. He had; but his teeth chattered, his eyes were half out of his head when he scrambled, hands and knees, on to the bank, and lying face down on the dry sand, moaned and shuddered. What else could a man do who had seen a cursed corpse breasting the stream on its way back to Eshwara? To whose house? That, however, was quite a secondary consideration to a man who was already as good as dead; since what man had ever survived the sight of a churail?

The certainty of his own fate, after a while, made him absolutely, recklessly, calm. He gathered up his nets, wrung the necks of the few birds he had caught pitilessly, and went with them, as usual, to the bazaars. Not only for profit, however. Other men should taste of his fear. Other men should know that they too might have to die!

Am-ma, meanwhile, having seen nothing when he came up wondering what the sound was which had filtered to his ears through the water, had gone on his way unwitting, found the stream, cut the corpse adrift himself, and gone back to his fishing.

It was not until he also went into the bazaar with his basket, that he found it ringing with the direful portent; yet for all that going its way buying and selling, squabbling over the uttermost part of a farthing; since portents are ever with an Indian bazaar. At first, when called upon to verify Gu-gu's story, Am-ma, remembering his promise of secrecy, gave it stout denial; but when the real truth of what had occurred dawned on his slow brain, the opportunity for piling agony on to his rival was too strong for him, and he burst into details, all of which made Gu-gu's chance of escape still more remote. The corpse had shot after him with a speed only equal to the fire-boats in which the Huzoors came across the black water; it had sat up, and beckoned, and called "Gu-gu! Gu-gu!"

"But if thou hast seen all this, thou, too, must die!" remarked the syrup-seller round whose shop the talk was loudest.

Am-ma laughed vaingloriously. "Not I! The devils are afraid of me. See you, I have taken the Huzoors for my God; I am on the strong side."

"Hark to him!" jeered another of his own tribe who was also selling fish. "He cannot balance his basket on his head, he holds it so high since the wood-sahib up the river hath bidden him guide their big raft,--as if he was a whit better than the rest of us!"

Am-ma smiled peacefully. "That is true, brother. I go for the raft this very day. But I leave a son in my house, if the luck goes against me. That is the Huzoors' doing. They have the Dee-puk-rÂg. They are the Light-bringers, the Birth-bringers!"

A tall man, in curiously crumpled clothing, who had just joined the group, gave a hollow laugh. "Birth-bringers!" he echoed. "Ay! and Death-bringers, too. They took seven in the gaol last night. I have it from a sure hand." That might well be, seeing that he was none other than the gosain Gopi, who, scarcely an hour agone, had been given his ticket-of-leave and the clothes in which he had been convicted two years before. They had since then been rolled up, and ticketed with his name and number; hence the creases.

"The doctor cuts a hole in their heads," he went on calmly, "takes out their brains, and puts the bit back. Then 'tis cholera. That is why they burn them in their clothing and their caps, so that none may see. But they say, 'tis for the safety of the living; as if that did not lie with the Gods!"

"Hark to him!" said approving voices. "Yea! hark to him, the pious one!"

The long bazaar lay flooded with sunshine and life. The quails were calling from their hooded cages, the sacred monkeys were chattering about the sweetmeat-sellers' shops, men and women were going about eager on their own affairs, and a group of schoolboys on their way to a mission school came along, their books under their arms,--a quaint collection, for the most part. A copy of the Gospels, Sa'adi's Gulistan, and the Hitopadesa, certainly; a treatise, in English, on the latest theories of mind and matter, equally so; selections from general literature, probably; with Burke's speeches and Addison's Spectator, possibly.

One or two of these boys paused in their school talk to listen, as a voice said fearfully:--

"'Twill be for 'momai' they want them. Folks say they are running short of power."

Gopi shook his head. "That may be; but these are to grease the slots of the canal sluice; without it, water will not run. One brain--his, that they killed with the light--opened it but one inch; as all can see if they choose. And these seven will not go far. What matter? There be plenty more where they came from."

The gossipers looked at each other. "Yea! that is so. It opens but an inch, and there are many prisoners," they said, with that curious faculty for giving heart-whole assent to the truthful foundations of a lie which makes the latter go so far in India.

The boys went on. There was nothing about the dynamic and hydraulic power of a man's brain in their treatises; but, after all, the statement was scarcely so strange to ignorance as many another held in the books under their arms.

"The times are bad," remarked someone, chiefly to give a fresh fillip to the flagging horrors. "They say the 'Pool of Immortality,' will be dry to-morrow."

A trail of saffron-robed pilgrims who were passing, under the charge of a priest, looked at their guide doubtfully. If this was to be so, what was the use of having given him a rupee each to be admitted thereto at the most auspicious moment?

"Lo! 'tis easy to father that falsehood!" cried the priest in charge, venomously eyeing a similar figure to his own, which was also followed patiently, trustfully, by a band of men and women and children, all in their saffron robes. "When folks have had their own miracle stopped, they would fain stop other folks' also. Have no fear, my children! The sacred water will rise as ever, and send your souls blameless to the 'Cradle of the Gods.'"

It would have been easy enough for his rival to throw doubts on the genuineness of the pool miracle, had it been sound policy to do so; but before those patient, trustful faces, desirous only to save their souls alive at any cost, it was unwise to sap at the foundations of faith. So the reply contented itself with assertions that there was no fear either, for them. Tampion or no tampion, jogi Gorakh-nÂth had promised to be inside the gun as ever. And that would be a newer, a better, miracle, than any other in Eshwara!

Here a fresh voice put in its word; for the syrup-seller's shop, being at one corner of the central square or chowk of four bazaars, no one who had any errand of any sort in Eshwara could fail to pass it sooner or later. Therefore, Dya Ram and some other pleaders, on their way thus early in the morning to the tahsil court, were bound to overhear the priest's boast.

"But most undesirable, nevertheless," expostulated Dya Ram, quickly. "We have duly appealed against the order to the higher court, and our legal course is to await the result."

The priest looked at him, sullenly scornful; for such as he are no favourites with the hereditary Levites of India.

"The jogi hath appealed to the Gods," he retorted, "and they will give judgment without the help of such as thou, pleader-jee!"

"Hark to the pious one!" murmured the crowd again, admiringly responsive, as ever, to a hint of religious sentiment.

"But it will confuse issues--it is irregular--and I who drew up the petition object in toto," began Dya Ram in angry protest, when a friend interrupted him consolingly in English.

"True. As it has been said, it is impossible to serve God and Mammon; yet seeing that miracles are, as Herbert Spencer proves, ipsi facto--"

The ludicrous inadequacy of logic to the mental caliber of those around him, struck one of the little party of progress keenly, and he broke in, as he passed on, "What is the use of combatting such ignorance? It is for us--who represent the intellect of India--to pioneer the way--"

The rest was lost as the little party went on discussing their own position.

"Mayhap 'twas to Ramanund's house the churail was coming; there was such a corpse went from it a week or two since; and they return from far," said an old man, looking after the last speaker.

Gopi, the gosain, laughed. "This one, I'll wager, was sent back because of the canal. Mark my words, Mai Gunga will return them all now. 'Tis the Huzoors' doing."

A curious shiver ran through the crowd of men. To have your women against you, to feel in your heart that they cannot help being revengeful, that their blood is on your head, is ever the greatest of dreads. And so many lives held the possibility of this revenge.

Am-ma, philosophically seated on the outskirts of the group, trying to sell his fish, laughed vaingloriously again.

"Only for fools! The miss-sahiba and the lights, and I, can defy devils."

Here he stood up, and, with frightful grimaces of joy and uncouth salaams, greeted the appearance of Erda Shepherd, who, in the mission-lady's uniform of blouse and skirt, white pith hat, green veil, and bag of books, came out of a neighbouring alley.

It was not a becoming dress, Lance Carlyon told himself, as, on his way back from escort duty to some lingering bigwig of the camp, he, at the same moment, came cantering up the bazaar towards the Fort.

She could not say the same of his. It was the first time she had seen him in uniform, and the sight of the scarlet and gold, the buttons, the fal-lals generally, took her breath away. There are, in fact, few women whom they do not impress.

Yet, curiously enough, her impulse was to pass on without speaking; his, to do what he did, namely, pull up, dismount, and shake hands. And still more curiously, the reason for both these impulses was the same; the presence beside Erda of a tall, rather weedy-looking man, with a long, black coat and a long, red beard.

"Let me introduce my cousin, the Reverend David Campbell," said Erda, with great dignity, somewhat marred by a fine blush.

"I thought it must be," rejoined Lance, coolly. He might have said he was certain of it; that a fellow could scarcely feel a desire to murder another fellow at an instant's notice, unless that fellow was your rival.

Yet, still more curiously again, this notion of rivalry had come to Lance in an instant also. Before he caught sight of Erda and her fiancÉ he would have sworn that though he had been a bit cut up at hearing the nicest girl he had ever met was already engaged, he had never had the remotest idea of fighting against the fact. But the first glance at the two walking together had changed all this. Here by God's grace was the one maid for him. And another man had--

Not a bad looking chap, certainly. Better dressed, too, than most missionaries. That was because he was fresh out from England. Any fool, though, could be that with an English tailor. Yes, not a bad sort; but not the sort for her.

"You've been out on your rounds, I suppose," he said, pointing to Erda's books.

"Yes," answered the Reverend David, with eager assent, and the benevolent smile which includes the smiler's own virtue in smiling; "and I have been privileged for the first time to see somewhat of the noble work Englishwomen are doing for their Indian sisters. It is no easy task, Mr. Carlyon, for delicate--"

"I like it," put in Erda, with a faint frown at the missionary-report style of her cousin's enthusiasm. "So there is no use wasting your pity on me, David."

"Pity!" he echoed, in appropriating approval. "I did not even pity you when they called you evil names." Being of the new school of Free church ministers, he put all possible ill into ev-il like any ritualistic curate.

"Do they call you names?" asked Lance, sharply.

Erda gave a vexed look at her cousin. For the first time in her life the militant joy at persecution of the true proselytizer failed her.

"Sometimes, not often," she said, quite apologetically. "They happened to do so to-day, and David heard it; there are so many strangers about, you see, who don't know me."

"And what did you do?" Lance's eyes were on the Reverend David this time.

"Do?" repeated the latter, in faint surprise. "Nothing, of course. We missionaries hear such things joyfully--for--for the Work's sake." There was dignity in his tone and manner.

"By Jove!" said Lance, softly, under his breath, "if I'd been there, there would have been a row. Besides," he added, quite argumentatively, "if I believed in my work as you do I'd be hanged if I let anybody 'krab'^[9] it--or me--for it's the same thing. Not at least, without trying to make 'em answer for it all I know."

The Reverend David Campbell shook his head. "That is not our view. Erda, the meeting is at nine, and it is already the half-hour. To-morrow, you see, Mr. Carlyon, is our field-day, and we have to arrange our forces."

Once more the flavour of the missionary report made Erda shrink, but Lance nodded.

"A field-day for most of us. I expect to be in the saddle all day. Good-by, Miss Shepherd."

But something in the girl rose up in revolt at parting with him thus. When he had been out of sight, she had faced the probability of never seeing him any more with equanimity. Now she felt that she must tell him she was leaving Eshwara the very next day, or the day after; that she must make this a real good-by.

"I have to see another old woman in an alley close by first, David," she said. "You had better go on and let me follow."

Yet when he had gone, after another joyously militant pÆan over the work, she stood silent. It seemed somehow too sunshiny for words. Then she looked up at Lance, and her heart sank. For something in his face told her, in an instant, that she had been too long in letting him know of her engagement to her cousin. The fact, by rousing her indignation,--since it was impossible to go about proclaiming that you were not available for idle people to fall in love with,--helped her to be hard.

"You need not have been so fierce just now," she said, with an unreal little laugh. "People won't have many more chances of calling me names in Eshwara. I told you, didn't I, that I was going; but it will be sooner than I expected--to-morrow, or next day."

"Then I shan't see you again?" He grasped the meaning to him in an instant, and the wondering pain in his voice awoke an echo in her heart.

"I suppose so; for Mr. Campbell's appointment will be at the other end of India; unless, indeed--" she could not withstand his look--"my Aunt has asked a few friends in to tea this afternoon to say good-by. If you, or Captain Dering, cared--"

"Of course I'll come," he interrupted quietly. "Now which way are you going, for I am going too?"

She looked at him helplessly. "But you can't," she began.

"Oh, yes, I can! I'll finish the smoke you interrupted, while you polish off the old lady. They're not going to have a chance of--of abusing the work again."

He had a most ingenious way of appealing to her sense of humour, and though it was partly at her cousin's expense, she laughed as they set off together--a most incongruous couple. He had little time for his smoke, however, for he had barely left off watching the point where she had disappeared, for any hint of felonious calling of names, when she reappeared in company with Father Ninian, the latter looking almost pope-like, yet also curiously native, in the white washing soutane and skull-cap which he invariably wore in his visitations. His face was rather stern, and he had his spectacles on.

"Ah! Mr. Carlyon," he said, surprised in his turn, "I am glad. Will you take Miss Shepherd home? I want to go over to Dr. Dillon at once: and I have advised her not to visit in this quarter to-day. There are many lodging houses for the pilgrims, and--"

"Did they call names?" asked Lance, belligerent at once.

The old man looked at him sharply, almost angrily. "No one ever called me names, sir; still less a lady who was with me. But excuse me--I am pressed for time."

"Now, that's a man!" said Lance, enthusiastically, as he looked after the hurrying white figure. The comparison was too obvious.

"Father Ninian is not a missionary," she said coldly. "It is easy for him--" she paused, turned to her companion, and held out her hand. "Good-by, and thanks; but I really can go home by myself, Mr. Carlyon."

"Good-by," he echoed; then, holding her hand still, a sudden resolve seemed to come to him. "But--I should like to tell you something first, please."--

She felt her heart beating everywhere but in its proper place.

--"Not that it matters, but I'd like you to know it. I had some news by the mail this morning--bad news."

She felt her blood everywhere but in its normal course, now, in sheer shame at her own imaginations. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

"So am I," he went on thoughtfully; "though it isn't bad in a way for me. Do you remember my telling you about my cousin? a weedy chap, six-four. Well, they sent him round the world for his health, and he died two months ago, it seems, in Australia. And the shock was too much for my uncle; he was an old man, and this was his only son. So--so I am Sir Lancelot now. It doesn't make any odds, of course, but I thought I should like you to know, first."

She looked up at him as he stood beside her, so tall, so strong, so young, so kind; and though she only said, "Thanks, Sir Lancelot, it won't make any difference to--to our friendship, I'm sure," she knew in her heart of hearts that it did. Though how, she had not yet had time to discover.