The White Hecatomb Part 18

Once they paused in going along the pa.s.sage to the front door, and Aiala lifted a curtain that hung before a doorway. Brand looked and saw the old priest sitting on the floor in mourning garb, still with ashes strewn upon his head. A dim light shone upon the pain-worn face, the sightless eyes, and the trembling lips that moved in prayer to the G.o.d whom the Great Prophet of Islam had always called "the compa.s.sionate-- the merciful." On the floor near the mourner lay the green robe and the turban of his dead son.

Brand walked down the street with a heart like lead in his breast, and a sense as of one who, having died and reached Paradise, and again come to life, knows that henceforth he must be a stranger among the sons of men.

_Four_.

Brand arrived at his lodgings just before midnight, and went up-stairs quietly to his room. The front door of the house had been left open for some of the lodgers who were still out. To his relief he met no one on the stairs or in the pa.s.sages; otherwise he would have had some difficulty in accounting for his being in Malay garb.

Upon awaking in the morning he had some difficulty in persuading himself that he had been away for ten days,--or indeed at all. The last week seemed now a fevered dream of terror and delight. Was it real? His hand accidentally touched Aiala's pearl which hung from his neck, and his doubts vanished. He sprang out of bed, dressed as quickly as he could, and hurried down to the sea to have the swim he so longed for.

The cold southern current was sweeping into Table Bay. Brand plunged into the surf, and swam out beyond the line of breakers. He felt the clean, stinging water dissipating the fantasies which were woven around him, and Aiala's image rose clear over the mists that had clouded his understanding, like the sun over a huddled ma.s.s of dissolving, wind-driven clouds.

After his swim Brand walked slowly back to his lodgings, thinking over the strange problem set before him for solution, and wondering as to what the outcome of the matter would be. As to Aiala, his intentions were clear and distinct up to a certain point. He meant to take her away at once from the house of pestilence, and eventually to marry her, but he knew enough of law to be quite sure that, she being under age, he could not marry her without the consent of her guardians, and he knew enough of Mahometan prejudice to be certain that such consent he would never obtain.

What in the mean time was he to do? He could not bring Aiala to the lodging-house--that was quite certain. His means, moreover, were very limited. He had been waiting in Cape Town in the hope of obtaining employment from a certain mining-syndicate there being formed, but as yet no definite offer had been made him. However, Aiala must, under any circ.u.mstances, be at his side from and after the second midnight following--that was the only certain and important thing; all the rest was mere detail.

Brand's landlady was much astonished when he put in an appearance at breakfast, but he silenced all inquiries on the subject of his absence by stating that he had been called suddenly away, and that he supposed his letter explaining his absence had miscarried.

After breakfast he went to his room, and, feeling unwell, threw himself on the bed, and fell asleep. It was late in the afternoon when he awoke with a violent headache, a feverish skin, and a burning thirst. In the evening delirium set in and a doctor was sent for. He p.r.o.nounced the malady to be small-pox, so next morning Brand was removed to the lazaretto.

In spite of the fact that Brand had recently been vaccinated the attack was a severe one. When he regained his senses at the cessation of the fever he wanted, weak as he was, to rush out and go to Aiala, but this, of course, the attendants prevented him from doing. Afterwards he resigned himself quietly to his fate, and remained at the lazaretto until discharged as cured.

He took a cab and returned to his lodgings, where he found, to his relief, that the disease had not been communicated to any of the other inmates. As the day wore on he watched the slowly-sinking sun with chafing impatience, longing for the hour when he could go to Aiala, clasp her to his heart, and explain his absence.

At length the hour of eleven was slowly struck from the belfry tower, and Brand hurried to the nearest cab-stand. He hired a cab to convey him in the direction of the silent street, and discharged it some little distance from his destination. He went forward on foot, and when he got close to the house he knew so well, he noticed a small crowd of people congregated before the door. They were all Malays. He moved in among them and listened to their conversation. He heard one man relating to another, evidently a stranger, how every member of the old priest's family had been carried off by the scourge, and how the young girl, his grand-daughter, whose body they were now about to bury, had almost recovered, but had died of weakness through refusing to take nourishment after her convalescence had set in.

Then the door opened, and the body, wrapped in white linen, was carried out and borne onward upon a bier by four men. The little crowd of people formed a procession behind it. Brand, with a heart of frozen stone in his desolated breast, followed after the others.

The _cortege_ wended slowly to the Malay burial-ground high on the mountain-side, and here Brand stood among the tinselled tombs and saw Aiala's body lowered into the dark grave. He listened in dread for the first sound of the earth falling upon the flesh that he loved, and that had thrilled to his kisses, but found to his surprise that it had little or no effect upon his feelings. The funeral was hurriedly and unceremoniously conducted, so in a very few minutes the grave was filled in, and those who gathered round it dispersed.

Brand threw himself upon the new-made grave. As yet no wailing mourners had come to desecrate the spot. All around him the weird howls arose, but they smote unheeded on his ear. He was just stupidly trying to recall Aiala's face, and finding to his annoyance that he could not do so clearly. Then he began to murmur her name over and over to himself softly, in different cadences.

An old man, probably a priest, came quietly up and bent over him. Brand had kept on repeating Aiala's name. The old man laid a kindly hand on his shoulder and reminded him in the Malay tongue of the Prophet's words of consolation to mourners, and promises to such as die in the faith.

Brand listened without being able to understand a word of what he was saying for some time; but an expression that Aiala had been in the habit of using in her poetical moods fell from the old man's lips, and startled the stunned hearer into momentary animation. The pa.s.sage where the expression occurs is at the beginning of that chapter of the Koran known as "The Rending Asunder." Brand interrupted the garrulous flow of the old man's talk by continuing the pa.s.sage which he had unconsciously quoted:

"When the seas are let loose, and when the tombs are turned upside down, the soul shall know what it hath done and left undone."

The old man stood up and moved quietly away.

_The End_.