Voices in the Night Part 33

'Horrid!' echoed Jack Raymond, in rather an odd tone of voice. 'Stand back, and let me close the door; there's no use in any one running the gauntlet of it.'

He had acted on the words before any one could raise an objection, and they could only hear his voice inarticulately from within.

'He's got the ghost!' cried Jerry triumphantly. 'I knew'd he was here.

I see'd him all along.'

'Seems a peaceable sort, anyhow,' remarked Jan-Ali-shan, as something like a faint whimper filtered through the closed door.

It was lighter now. The sky had paled. The shadows were turning grey.

That was perhaps why Jack Raymond's face showed so pale, and grey, and stern above his political uniform, as he came out, closed the door behind him, and, flinging down the lighted match he carried, trod it under foot.

'It s only a poor devil of a stowaway,' he said calmly. 'Been living here, I expect, some days. Ellison or Budlu, you'd better go and call the police. Stay, I'll give you a note. And Miss Drummond, it is high time that young ghost-hunter was out of the dew--and you also.'

Lesley looked at him with a new swiftness and light in her eyes. 'Dew!'

she echoed, 'there is no dew! I'm not a bit wet--feel that!' She walked deliberately up to where he stood, his back still against the door, and catching her long green sleeve in her hand, held it out.

'I'll take your word for it,' he answered lightly.

She did not move, but her eyes sought his.

'_C'est la peste, monsieur_,' she said in a low voice.

He looked at her for a second.

'_C'est la peste, mademoiselle_,' he replied with a bow.

CHAPTER XIV

IN THE TOILS

On the evening after the ball, Chris Davenant sat in the pretty little drawing-room of which his wife was so proud, looking helplessly at Lala Ram Nath, who had come in on business. Yet the helplessness was not due, Chris felt, to anything in Ram Nath. It was due to himself, to his own actions. The feeling comes to most of us at times; for the story of the man-created monster which turns and rends its creator is as old as the world. It began with the serpent in Paradise, and will only end when humanity, by ceasing to desire that which it has not, ceases to put itself in the power of its own imaginings.

Ram Nath, however, had not reached this stage of development, and was still supremely satisfied with his creature. 'Surely it is out of the question,' he was saying in the fluent English which came from constant speechifying, 'that in the present crisis, when the eyes of all India are fixed on what we Nushaporites will tolerate, in the event of this plague epidemic supervening, and, alas! bringing in its train interferences with the liberty of the subjects beyond bearing even to the long-suffering races of India, that you should stand aloof from us, the recognised defenders of that liberty!'

Chris leant his head on his hand wearily. In truth he felt aloof from everything in G.o.d's round world, save that old man of the sea whom he had invited, under the name of civilisation, to sit on his shoulders.

'What have you decided on doing?' he asked indifferently.

'Doing?' echoed Ram Nath a trifle uneasily. 'So far as we ourselves--we, that is, who form the public opinion of India--are concerned, no definite action seems at present necessary; beyond, of course, the presenting of an unbroken front of opposition to the enemy.

At the same time there is much to be done on the sly; I mean'--he interrupted himself hastily at the false idiom--'unostentatiously, in order to gain the ma.s.s of the people to our side.'

'Yes,' a.s.sented Chris, 'you and I can afford to admit the truth, can't we?--that we are not much nearer to the hearts of the people than the English whom we ape.'

He spoke with a concentrated personal bitterness which brought greater hope and confidence into Ram Nath's persuasions. 'Undoubtedly.

Therefore our duty is palpable. We must seek every sympathy with them that we can legally find. For instance, their admirable desire for religious freedom, their touching devotion to the sanct.i.ty of home, their vehement defence of the modesty of their women. All these----'

'Are in the abstract,' put in Chris keenly. 'Let us deal with the concrete, please; it is safer.' He was roused now by pure love of argument; his intellect, to which he had sacrificed so much, had once more a.s.serted itself; the battle of mere words had made him forget his heartache.

They settled down to it with zest, as if it had been a debate. And when Chris, by sheer force of argument, had made his opponent admit that--setting generalities aside--the expressing of sympathy in some details, though expedient, could not be held lawful, they arrived--so far as any conclusion went--at a regular _impa.s.se_; since, even for Ram Nath, it was far easier to _do_ what was logically indefensible, than to _a.s.sert_ that it was defensible. So, after this incursion into the realms of pure reason, he had to descend from them with a certain petulance.

'But it is idle to wander beyond the pale of practical politics,' he said. 'Even English statesmen consult the wishes of their const.i.tuents; and so must we.'

'There is this flaw in the a.n.a.logy,' interrupted Chris eagerly, with an evident pleasure in the making of a point, 'that, whereas an English const.i.tuency chooses its representative, we are self-elected.'

'True, true!' admitted Ram Nath a trifle loftily, 'though, as Mill points out in his admirable treatise, a.n.a.logy does not consist in the ident.i.ty of one thing with another. Still, to avoid further discussion, the question remains whether you will join our organisation.' He drew a paper from his pocket and laid it on the table.

It began: '_We, the undersigned, do solemnly pledge ourselves to uphold and to protect_----'

The list of what was to be so upheld and protected was a long one.

Indeed Chris, running his eye through it, recognised most of the first principles of sweetness and light.

'That is practically all,' put in Ram Nath rather hastily when, the end of the third page being reached, Chris seemed inclined to turn it. 'You have seen enough to grasp our meaning, and decide if you can support us.'

'So far,' began Chris thoughtfully, 'there seems little----' Then, quite mechanically, he did turn the page.

What was written overleaf was in the Sanskrit character, and ran as follows:--

'_And to thee, daughter of Surabhi, framed of the five elements, auspicious, pure, holy, sprung from the sun, source of ambrosia, we vow obedience, reverence, protection. May he be accursed, O Sin Expeller!

who curses thee. May all men know that they who kill them that kill thee, are purified_.'

Chris Davenant's finger remained pointed accusingly at the black-lettering, his clear intelligent eyes sought those other eyes, equally intelligent.

'Oh, that!' said Ram Nath in instant petulant excuse. 'That does not concern you or me. We--I mean our cla.s.s, the educated cla.s.s--understand that it does not, and so--so we ignore it. You know, as well as I do, that if we were to avow our real belief on the cow question--if we did not insist on what is virtually, as you very well know, the test point between the orthodox many and the heterodox few, we, the latter, might as well give up our aim of benefiting India, our hope of influencing its ma.s.ses. It is for this reason that the Arya Somaj, though officered by men like myself, has always professed----' He paused, doubtful of committing himself, even so far; then went on, evasively: 'One has to forfeit some independence of thought in the effort to gain a great end.

Is not the whole system of party government--in which, admittedly, individuality must be lost--a proof----'

Chris stood up suddenly; yet, despite the suddenness, doubtfully.

'Party government!' he echoed. 'Let us find out party first, Ram Nath, and as for that'--his voice and face softened as he pointed again to the Sanskrit lettering--'that cannot be for me--as yet. It may come back also. G.o.d knows! It may become real again like--like other things.

Then I will follow gladly. But not now. I will not be driven, as--in time of stress--that might drive me; as it will surely drive you and yours!'

Ram Nath rose too, vexedly, and put the paper in his pocket. 'We will not be driven. It is knowledge that drives ignorance, not ignorance knowledge. Our harness is ready. We will put it on the right horse, and saddle the a.s.s when the proper time comes, never fear.'

Deadly in earnest as he was, Chris could not forbear a smile; but his despondent gravity was back in a second. 'Not if your hands are tied as they will be,' he answered slowly; 'not if you are in the toils!

He had felt in them, himself, ever since the night before, and the feeling grew stronger when Ram Nath left him to his solitary dinner.

For his wife, after spending the best part of the day in bed recovering from the fatigues of the ball, had gone out to dine with some friends and go on with them to the dress rehearsal of a burlesque in which she was singing and dancing. She had not taken any notice of last night's quarrel; had, indeed, practically ignored it and said good-night to him--as she pa.s.sed out to the carriage in her short skirts--with absolute good humour.

So, baffled, helpless, miserable, he sate down conscientiously to the long, set meal, which his wife prided herself was served with as much ceremony as any in Nushapore. He said 'No thank you' in polite English fas.h.i.+on to half-a-dozen dishes, and still the solemn exchange of one clean plate for another went on and on, till he felt inclined to order the servants, with their ill-concealed tolerance of him as the husband of their _mem_, out of the room.

They left him alone, at last, in company with the dessert; but even this was not to his taste. Yet, in a way, he felt hungry. So he rose and went to the sideboard, cut himself a slice of bread, helped himself to some mango pickle, and ate it with relish.

Then the mere fact of this revival of a childish taste, with its bathos, its hopeless triviality, reduced him almost to tears, and he came back to sit before the chocolate _pralines_ and French _dragees_, and leaning his head on his crossed arms, give himself up to a dreary amaze.

The house was absolutely quiet. The servants had closed the verandah doors and gone off to their own quarters. Through the looped _portieres_ which--as in so many Indian bungalows--hung in the wide arch between the dining and drawing rooms, he could see the latter lit up decorously with a superfluity of pink paper shades. One of the windows opening on to the garden was ajar, and the light from the lamps made the thin split bamboo screen, hung beyond it to keep out the flies, look like solid wood.