THE SEARCH-LIGHT

The sound of those two shots greeted Vincent Dering as, after infinite difficulty, owing to the darkness, the fitful gusts of wind, and the sand-banks, he drew up the canoe against what he knew must be the high bank below the off-take of the canal.

It had only been by trusting the stream to guide him, and refraining at times from the use of his paddle, that he had managed to steer his way at all.

So he knew he was late; felt, indeed, that he must be too late to use his influence with the men, and yet, despite this knowledge, a keen disappointment filled him when those shots proved him to be so; since by long experience he knew that once open resistance began, there could be no more question of words.

What then, was there for him to do?

If he, in his light canoe, helped, wherever possible, by every atom of strength his arms possessed, had taken so long to come down that mile or two of stream, the raft could not possibly arrive for another half hour.

He could not sit still for half an hour; he felt, indeed, as if he could not sit still for half a minute. A passion to act, to sweep away the past, to forget, was upon him. He had had time during his strange journey--so often idle perforce--to realize his position; time to piece the still stranger events preceding his journey into a reasonable sequence; so that he had, by now, arrived at a fairly accurate guess as to the cause of much, that, when it happened, had seemed causeless.

For instance, Laila's dress, "given her by someone." That, joined to the knowledge that she was connected with the late Nawab's family, of which Roshan KhÂn might with justice claim the headship, had brought the latter's action within the bounds of credibility. Jealousy! revenge! these were potent causes. Laila, then, must have been playing with Roshan's pretensions. Playing like a child with a toy; playing, rather, like a woman who hesitates at nothing for the sake of the man she loves. And she had hesitated at nothing; not even at this, to give him pleasure, to make things match with his passion! The thought, the remembrance, made him for a moment feel inclined to fling up his hands, and let the canoe take him where it chose; take him down stream utterly. Then a half choking, yet wholly strenuous desire to escape from the whole story, a wild instinctive effort for a more wholesome atmosphere, like that of a drowning man for a breath of fresh air, had sent the canoe bounding on his way; his way and none other's, in swift obedience. With a rush, he had grasped that there was more in life--that he had allowed himself to be a slave! But that was past,--he would shake himself together--he would forget the thraldom of sex--and he would forget the past.

Yet, as he cast about in his mind for the best method of applying the half hour's leisure, the remembrance of a woman came to him, as if to mock at his resolution. Muriel, and dear little Gladys who called him "Derin' darling"; where were they? His eyes grew soft in the remembrance, stern at the probability of their being in danger. Why had he not thought of it before? How could he ever have paused, wondering what to do?

He set the red light, which he had taken from the fateful balcony, carefully in the canoe--though, even should some gust of the rising wind not blow the light out, it could scarcely be of any use in that outer darkness--as a signal to the raft should it, by an off chance, drift past in his absence, then struck across the sand in the direction in which he knew the Smiths' bungalow must lie; that was, a little to the rear of the gaol.

The storm, as he faced it, was so fierce that the doubt rose inevitably if an unwieldy raft could make way against it. If so, then there would be no help. The only thing would be to defend himself and others until the end came; the end which would at least end the past.

He had almost to feel his way, the darkness was so intense. It was a relief to stumble against something which he knew must be the low mud fence of Muriel's garden; that garden in which she tried to defy Providence, and rear English flowers. He knew his feet must be crushing her treasures as he passed on towards a faint glow, a red glow. But everything that was not the blackness of outer darkness to-night seemed red--blood red.

A minute after, with a vast relief at the silence, the solitude, he was in Muriel's pretty drawing-room. The pink-shaded lamp was still alight, showing red through the fog of dust. He passed to it instinctively, and as he did so, noticed the writing on the table. But many an earth-atom had fallen on that confession of ignorance since George Dillon had made it idly, and so, as Vincent Dering bent quickly to see if by chance it was some message left for those who might come after, he also had to frown and say, "God knows!"

Was it possible that Eugene and his wife were still asleep? The doors stood open, but that was to be expected at that season of the year, unless someone had been awake to close them against the storm. He must make sure, however.

But there was no one to be found in any of the rooms. It occurred to him, then, that they must have taken refuge in the gaol, and he told himself he was a fool not to have thought of that before. Dillon would, of course, have seen to that. He, Vincent, might have remembered so much, at least; might have remembered that he himself was not the only slave. Then he gave an odd, bitter little laugh. Was it never possible to get beyond a woman's apron-strings?

And here he was wasting time over the question, when he ought to be doing something better.

But what?

Go back and wait for the raft, or on to the gaol? There was a big tamarisk tree at the end of the garden. Only two days before he had pointed it out to Muriel and said that an active man accustomed to trapeze work might swing himself from it astride the high mud wall of the gaol, and so gain the roof of the gate. Dillon had denied it; and she had said, laughingly, that no one ever tried to break into a gaol, only out of one.

Curious; still, if it had only been light, it would have been worth the risking. But it was impossible now in the dark.

So, suddenly, a remembrance came to him. The search-light!

Was it only last night he had been dining here, in this house, after bringing Muriel home from the Mission, where they had seen that huge ray piercing the shadows? Was it only yesterday that he had listened to Eugene's lamentations over his unused electricity, which was sure, he said, to vanish into space from his rude contrivances. Was it only yesterday that, in obedience to that pathetic look of martyrdom on Muriel's face, which still seemed--to one part of Vincent's nature--to call for instant sympathy, he had, to appease the honest inventor, shown an interest in search-lights which was purely fictitious, and learned a variety of facts about buttons and stop-cocks? And had all this happened yesterday on purpose that to-day, when he was in need of light--

He was up on the roof with the thought. If only the blessed thing had go enough for that! As he picked his way rapidly through the litter, three or four cigar-ends, a half-finished whiskey-and-soda, seen by the flash of the hurricane lantern he had sought out and lit, told him that Eugene must have been at work over his new toy till late. So much the better for his chance--for everybody's chance; since a signal like that might make all the difference to the raft; all the difference to Dillon in the gaol--

George Dillon was, indeed, beginning to realize this himself. His almost triumphant mood had passed; it had come home to him that the unexpected revelation of the troopers' complicity in the plot, whatever it was, had changed the whole aspect of affairs. Now, there was no question of keeping the gaol quiet until help should arrive. He was face to face, now, with the fact that he must not rely on any aid at all. What had really happened, he could not guess. For all he knew, the troopers and pioneers might have risen and killed their officers, killed everybody who would be likely to help. His aim, now, was to sell his life, and--and hers--as dearly as he could; but in the dead darkness, like a rat in a hole, what could be done? Except wait--wait for the walls to be dug through, the gates to be mined, that poor eight or ten feet drop at the foot of the stairs scaled. Then a rush, still in the dark, and--the greatest Darkness of all!

Not even the chance of a shot; and he had plenty of ammunition. It would at least have passed the time to take pot-shots at the devils; and though these would have brought retaliation, there would have been no need for exposure. The parapet walls were high enough, and properly loopholed.

So, for a few minutes, he sat almost sullenly beside those, for whom alone he now felt responsible, in the little turret, which, as is always the case in India, rose at one corner of the flat roof giving fair shelter for the time. In his first hurried recognition, which had come with the shots, that not help but attack lay outside, he had blown out his light, fearing lest Eugene Smith might also be exposed to similar attentions; so it was pitch dark. And the now almost constant reverberations, which seemed to send the sand-laden air in pulse-beats on your face, deadened all other sounds into vague confusion. But he knew that the warders within the porch, the troopers without, were trying to force the barred gate. That would not take long; though the two doors blocking the ends of the tunnel would be a tougher job.

And he heard, closer at hand, a sleepy whimper from the child, a low comforting from a mother's voice.

The sound made him set his teeth.

God! if there was only light to kill withal.

And then, in a second, as if by a miracle, it came. A great flood of shining light, contemptuous, at that short distance, even of that outer darkness. For it was electricity against electricity; a house divided against itself.

The first thing he saw by it was that fragile figure in its dainty blue frills, a child's golden head; and so, naturally, the next instant found his hand on a rifle.

"The search-light! by all that's lucky! Well! everyone has not been killed, anyhow," cried Eugene Smith.

"Killed," echoed Dr. Dillon, savagely. "No one has been killed yet, but it won't be long before they are."

It was not; for a trooper engaged in staring stupidly at the velvety black circle out of which the intruding light seemed to spring, suddenly threw up his hands, swirled round, and fell face upwards in a crumpled heap.

There was an instant's scare in the crowd, in that hundred and fifty or more of troopers and conspirators, thrown into black and white relief, like a shadow pantomime, about the outer gate. Then the startled murmurs of "the light--the Dee-puk-rÂg" which were passing from lip to lip, changed into a yell.

The fight had begun in earnest.

"Shoot straight," remarked Dr. Dillon, a few minutes after, "we shan't have such a good chance long. The gate is almost gone. Then most of the game will be out of range--too close to the wall. And once they get into the tunnel we shall have to sound cease firing until they come out on the other side; but then we ought to do decent damage, if the prisoners don't get at us first." He paused, and shot on steadily till, with a hoarse shout, the attackers surged inwards. Then he laid his rifle aside, remarking that it would be as well to keep an eye gaolwards, in case of complications.

So far as could be seen in that curious chequering of dense darkness and sharp glittering light; light which was palpably an intruder, which seemed absolutely apart from the things it showed--even from the dust-atoms--there was none as yet. At least the uppermost portion of that vast wheel of wall stood out, perfect, unbroken. The roof of the Smiths' bungalow, where the light stood, being, however, but little higher than these walls, much of what lay below in the sections themselves was necessarily hidden in shadow; especially on the side nearest the light. But the narrow alley leading up to the central tower, being in straight line with the ray, showed clear as daylight, save just under the citadel itself. So did most of the little courtyard, with its doors opening to the right and left. George Dillon gave a sigh of satisfaction at the sight, since, whether the foe elected--when once inside the gates--to rush the roof, or press on to liberate the prisoners by those six doors in the round tower, there would be fair chance of a good bag, for a straight shot!

Or, even if the convalescents in hospital were to set free the solitary-cell convicts--a contingency which had occurred to him too late for any plan of minimizing the danger--and were to swarm into the courtyard to help against the last gate (which, of course, was partly barred from the inside), he could settle their hash also. And that, now, was his one idea. The idea of all brave men when they find themselves in a tight place--to kill before being killed.

As yet, however, there was no sign of life even within the vast wheel, with its rims and spokes of light, its centre of shadow. It lay dim, curiously still behind the dust-atoms that danced in the ray, like motes in a sunbeam.

There was not a sound, not a sign within. Only the tumult of voices, the intermittent shots without, rising above the dull, muffled hum in the air.

Stay! that was something. Half way round the circle, where the shadow of the tall tamarisk tree in the Smiths' garden cut a jagged gap in the white rim of wall, there was some change, something that had not been there a moment ago.

The gap had moved; had changed place and form, though for a time the air was still with one of those breathless, suffocating pauses, when the dust above seems to sink on the dust below, and fill one's very lungs. And now the gap was back again, as it had been before. But it had left something clinging for a second to the wall like a limpet: the next astride it safely.

"Reach me over my rifle, Smith," said the doctor, briefly; "there's a brute trying to sniggle along the wall; must have come up that tree in your garden. Wish I'd taken Dering's advice and cut it down. Thanks! I don't want to take my eye off him, for fear he means to drop into a section. I'll shoot, if that seems his game; if not, I'll wait till he comes closer."

He leant over the parapet, waiting. Just below him, the inner wall of the gate against which the stair clung, and which was prolonged into the turret where Muriel and the child were sheltering, joined the circular outside wall of the gaol. The man, thought Dr. Dillon, trusting to their being occupied in front, must be trying to steal a march on them, slip down the stair, and take them in the rear. There was plenty of time to prevent that, however.

Muriel Smith, roused by the sound of Vincent's name from the sort of lethargy into which she had fallen,--since she was not wanted either by her husband or the doctor,--rose to her knees and peered over the parapet cautiously.

"From the tree in the garden," she said, dreamily. "Yes! I remember. You said it couldn't be done, and I said no one would ever want to do it, and he said he could--" she paused, and gave a little cry--"It is Vincent himself!" she gasped; "don't shoot, doctor! It's Vincent! I know it! I feel it! I knew he would come, if he could! Vincent! Vincent!"

"What's up?" asked Eugene, still firing steadily at all that was to be seen.

"Only your wife says the man is Captain Dering; and--and, by Jove! I believe she is right."

"Of course I'm right," she sobbed, half hysterically--"I knew he would come--I knew he wouldn't leave me to die alone!"

Eugene Smith laid down his rifle, and crawled over in cover deliberately, with an odd look on his face.

"Yes! that's Dering; plucky fellow. He's swung himself up. I always knew he was a nailing gymnast."

There was no grudge in his voice, only a curious challenge as he looked at his wife, then laid his big hand on her shoulder. "Keep more down, please--your head's showing. He'll get here, all right, never fear; we'll lower a rope to him when he comes alongside."

"But I would rather look--I'd rather see anything happen--" she moaned; "it seems so unkind not to watch--not to be there--with him--" She was shivering all over, the patient self-control, the steady acquiescence even in her own danger which had been hers till then, gone utterly.

George Dillon felt a great pity, a vast impatience.

"So you were right, Smith," he broke in hastily, to cover her sudden break down. "They aren't killed; now we shall have a chance of knowing what's at the bottom of all this foolery!"

But when, five minutes later, Vincent Dering reached the roof in safety, the doctor felt vaguely that the explanations only added to the general incomprehensibility; and that something was being kept back. What, he asked impatiently, had started the show?

Of course there were plots. Pidar NarÂyan knew of them, but, as such things generally did, they had seemed abortive. What, then, had upset the apple-cart?

Vincent gave a gesture of despair. "What does it matter?" he cried. "We can think of that--if we can think--when it's over! And if we can't--what does it matter?"

"You can bet your bottom dollar on one thing," said Eugene, who, in this pause for a council of war, was methodically loading various weapons for future use. "It is either the sex, or sin. This world would be a paradise of peace if people didn't want virtue or vice,--I don't say which is which, mind you." He spoke suddenly, harshly; and once more George Dillon came to the rescue.

"As Dering says, it doesn't matter. But the fact that the pioneers are staunch, and may be expected before long, alters our tactics a bit, Smith. We must husband our ammunition, and stick on as long as possible--don't you think so, Dering?"

Vincent, kindly always, had stooped to take little Gladys, who had crept over to him, in his arms; and now the child, her arms round his neck, was cuddling close to him. "I'm so glad oo's come, Derin' darlin'," she whispered. "And so's mum--aren't 'oo, dearest?"

Vincent unclasped the soft, little, clinging hands almost resentfully, and pulled himself together.

"Yes!" he said briefly, "we've got to hold out. So it will be better to reserve ourselves, and try to keep the gaol itself quiet. It will take the brutes some time to force those gates unless they get help from within, and then there is the alley, and the doors. Still, we shall want every minute; for, unless the storm lessens, Carlyon will scarcely get the raft here before dawn. It was awful on the river."

It was, indeed.

Even Am-ma had lost himself utterly, while Lance, after paddling, and drifting, and shouting after a dozen false hopes, was still as far from finding the raft as ever.

What could have become of it? Had it started sooner than he had expected, and passed down before he had found Vincent? Or had it never started at all? Had the men, after he left, turned round on her?

This fear had come to him early in his search, and he had felt inclined then and there to paddle back to the Fort, and satisfy himself it was not so. But the thought of her face, if he allowed care for her to cause delay, had kept him to his task steadily, till he could no longer doubt that something had gone wrong.

But what? And what was he to do?

Then, in a flash, had come back her words after she had bidden him think hard. "You must go down to the spit, cut across it by the mission house, get round, if you can, to the police camp."

That had been her verdict, involving her being left to take her chance.

And now either the raft, the relief for the gaol, had started, or it had not. If the former, he might, of course, by a stern chase overtake it; but Erda was there and Vincent would meet her; they could do without him. But if it had not started, what then? Then matters were exactly as they had been, when she had bidden him leave her.

So, with a feeling that, if this were so, he cared little what happened, he steered, so far as he could judge, for the sand-banks of the spit to the right.

Am-ma, on the contrary, steered instinctively to the left, towards the high bank, the deepest stream. It would at least float his logs to their destination, and that was something. Kings had come and gone, and battles had been won and lost, but the logs had always had to go down the river, whatever happened.

And among the men, also, an apathy seemed to have settled, as they drifted on and on in the dark. Erda, crouching in a dry spot beside the ammunition, alert to the uttermost for the least hint of Lance, realized this from the very tone of their voices as they talked under their breath to each other. She felt instinctively that the inaction, the darkness, the lack of a leader, were lessening the value of those twenty men each minute.

If Lance would only turn up! What could have become of him? The time seemed interminable; she felt sure that they must already have drifted past the gaol; she began to wonder if Am-ma was not playing false. For the darkness, the uncertainty, had its grip on her also. It was like some horrid nightmare, to drift on and on, hearing the muffled drumming of the storm, feeling the strange vibration in the air, the sharp sand tingling on your face, and to know nothing--nothing at all, save that you were there.

"Am-ma!" she cried sharply, at last, certain of but one thing, that she must act,--"I believe we have passed the gaol; steer to the right, do you hear?"

A laugh, not exactly insolent, but tolerant, came from the group of men. "Tis easy to give orders, Missy-baba," said a voice; "but not so easy to obey them, when the Lord is against your side, and sends darkness!"

Erda's heart gave a great throb, not of fear, but comprehension. That was the beginning; a minute or two more and these men would be out of hand.

"Am-ma!" she called again, "do what I tell you. Remember the child! Remember we have the Dee-puk-rÂg."

Another laugh came from the men. "If you have the Dee-puk-rÂg, send it now. We need light, for sure, and--"

The voice ended in a gasp--

For it was there! A long ray of light, showing them that they were, indeed, just opposite the gaol.

"Am-ma!" came Erda's voice again, and there was a hush and yet a triumph in it, "to the right--steer to the right."

The raft edged slowly towards the ray, but the soldiers still crouched inactive; awed, yet not certain.

Then suddenly that quick crack of George Dillon's first shot echoed over the river, then the yell, then the answering shots.

And following on their heels rapidly came a stir among those crouching figures, and one of them stood up excitedly--"It has begun!--see you, Prag! Lehna, give the boatman a hand! Lo! do as the Miss-baba bade thee, quickly, son of a pig! Steer for the light--they have begun!"

Erda gave a sigh of relief. That danger was over.