"It is getting very late. I think you had better read a chapter before going to bed."
CHAPTER V.
"FURIIS AGITATUS AMOR."
Belike for her, a royal crown I"d wager to a penny piece.
_Old Play_.
As Jackson and his guide left the gates of the parsonage Peregrine struggled with a temptation to look back over his shoulder. Finally he gave in with a sense of shame at his weakness, and then was unreasonably irritated to find that no shadowy figure behind the tinkling bead screen before the open window watched their pa.s.sage down the moonlit road. The result was that for the first few hundred yards of their walk there was very little talk, for Peregrine"s silence discouraged all the missionary"s attempts at conversation. Suddenly the whole countryside seemed to be filled with the flashing light of gems. A blaze of jewelled glory came and vanished in a moment, and then appeared again in all its fairy beauty to slip away as swiftly as before.
"What on earth is that?" asked Peregrine, moved out of his reserve at the sight.
"Bugs," replied Habakkuk, "fire-bugs. They"re pretty lively to-night, anyhow. Each one with the little lantern G.o.d has given him. They don"t make a real show, however, because of the moon."
"Of course," said Peregrine, "I might have known they were fireflies, but it all came so suddenly, and I had no idea the sight was so perfectly beautiful," and he pointed to the millions of little lights twinkling through the night.
"I guess so, Mr. Jackson; just as if all the little stars had come down to earth and hung themselves out on the trees to dry." The constraint with which the walk began now vanished, and Smalley took the opportunity to read Jackson a lecture on the subject of health, summing up with these words, "I am speaking as a medical man now, Mr.
Jackson; you must remember to take care of No. 1--that is, of yourself. This is a most treacherous climate, and I have known many men stronger even than you look fall before it like withered leaves.
Take a quinine pill daily, and always wear flannel next to your skin.
I don"t do it myself, but then I"m a seasoned vessel. Ah! here we are at your gate."
"Do come in, Dr. Smalley?" and Jackson held the wicket invitingly open.
"No, no, thanks," replied Habakkuk. "Pooh, man! Don"t thank me for showing you the way a few yards. Good-night! I must get back, for my wife is sure to be waiting for me."
The last words jarred on Jackson, and he felt all his old feelings returning as he shook hands with his guide, who turned and shuffled off into the moonlight. When Jackson had got about a third of the way down to his own door, however, he heard his name shouted out by Habakkuk.
"What is it?" he called out as he hastened back.
"Only this--don"t forget about the flannel and the quinine.
Good-night!"
"Confound him!" and the angry young man turned on his heel and entered the house. It was very fairly late now, and Jackson had worked himself again into a thoroughly excited frame of mind. Ah-Geelong devoted himself to making his master comfortable for the night, and as the slippered Galahad sat in an easy-chair trying to collect himself and gather together the fragments of resolve to attack the pile of papers he saw on the table in his study, he heard the angry fizz of a soda-water bottle and the hissing of its contents as it was poured into a long tumbler and placed beside him.
"What _are_ you doing, Ah-Geelong?"
"Allee masters dlinkee peg--peg him keep off fever. Dlinkee peg and go sleep," and Ah-Geelong almost lit up the room with the shining row of teeth he displayed. It was impossible to be angry, but Jackson told the man to go, and he went, wondering, perhaps, wherein he had done wrong.
Peregrine rose from his seat and went to his study. But over the file before him flirted the outlines of the face he had seen. "Ruys," he murmured to himself, repeating the name by which he had heard her called, and it almost seemed to him that she replied, and that he heard the melody of her voice again. The far-off shadows of the room gathered to themselves form and substance, and as he leaned back idly there rose before him the vision of the dimly lighted school hall and that golden head bending slightly over the music. He had never been in love, and he gave himself up for the moment to the fascination of dreaming over the face he had seen. This was what inspired the knights of old. He stretched out his strong right arm and almost felt that he held a lance in rest. What would he not give to know that this peerless woman was his own? How he would work and labour! But a few short hours ago he was bowing at the shrine of a lofty ideal that was to carry him through life, at that invisible glory which strengthened his shrinking heart and nerved him to the highest for duty"s sake. And all this was gone. The old G.o.d was dethroned in a moment, and the soft notes of a woman"s voice, the touch of her hand, a glance from her eyes, and the past was rolled up like a scroll.
"My G.o.d," he said, "can this be love?" It never struck him that he had unconsciously appealed to that G.o.dhead in whom he thought he had no belief. He was not able to think of that then--of how in a moment of trial the doubting soul turns instinctively to cling for support to that ethereal essence we call the Creator, and endows it with a living faculty to hear and to answer. Surely this spontaneous appealing to a higher power is something more than the mere force of habit. It springs from the heart pure as the snows of Everest, genuine and true.
And this is the instinct which is not taken into account in the mathematical reasoning of the atheist; the touch of fire that would enlighten him out of his darkness is wanting. He will allow the instinct which tells an animal of his danger, which signals to him a friend; but to man, the highest of all animals, will he deny the instinct of the soul which shouts aloud to him the existence of G.o.d.
And the answer to Peregrine"s question came unspoken, but he felt it ringing within him. Yes, and a hot flush of shame went over him as he thought of another man"s wife. "It will not be! it shall not be!" he said, and he fought with himself as a strong man can fight. He fought with the devil that tempted until he saw the light of the morning star pale in the east and a pink flush steal into the sky; and then, being utterly wearied, he lay down and slept a dreamful sleep. It seemed to him that he was standing beside his own body and watching a dark stream trickle slowly, slowly from his heart. Around him were misty figures whom he could not recognise, and he lay there very still and silent. Suddenly there was a flash of golden hair, and a woman robed in white stooped and kissed him on the forehead, and as she rose he knew the glorious beauty of her face, and then he awoke.
CHAPTER VI.
ANTHONY POZENDINE SPEAKS UP.
Hark unto me! Myself will weave the plot Close as the spider"s web, with threads as fine.
_Old Play_.
Anthony Pozendine, the half-caste head clerk of the district office of Pazobin, had evidently something on his mind. He sat at his desk amid a heap of files, over which his head just appeared, and every now and again his squeaky voice rose in petulant complaint or censure of one of his subordinates.
"Here, Mr. Pillay, can"t you add, eh? You make out four hundred cases tried last quarter, and seven hundred convictions! Sshoo!" And he flung a file across the room at the unfortunate Mr. Pillay, who stooped and, picking it up humbly, went on with his work.
Through the half-open door of the office the buzz of voices from the court room came in, and occasionally a peon would enter with a request for Pozendine to see either Hawkshawe or Jackson. When it was to see Jackson, Anthony obeyed with a resigned air and a certain amount of pleasure, because he knew he was being sent for to remove some difficulty of routine which the new chief felt, and this would raise him in the eyes of his subordinate clerks, and make them think the power of Pozendine was great in the land. When it was to see Hawkshawe, Anthony"s thin legs trembled under him, and he went with an outside a.s.sumption of dignity but a great fear in his heart, and when he returned there was generally an explosion of some kind. Hawkshawe had already sent for him four times to-day, and Anthony"s temper was in shreds. He had just taken a fair sheet of foolscap, folded it lengthwise, and written in a clerkly hand across the half margin near the top "Memo. for orders," when again the messenger entered with a request from Hawkshawe, that was practically an order, to see him at once. "d.a.m.n!" said Anthony so loudly that the ten busy heads in the room bobbed up from among the heaps of papers in which they were buried, and ten scared faces looked at Anthony in alarm. Ten pairs of eyes were fixed upon him with anxious inquiry in their gaze, and the magnetic effect of this made the head clerk cough nervously and very nearly upset the inkstand.
"Are you coming?" said the messenger in an insolent tone, as he stood in an easy att.i.tude before Anthony and inserted a piece of betel between his teeth.
Anthony glared at him. "I"m coming," he said. "Go "way," and then he turned on his a.s.sistants.
"Wot are you all looking at, eh? Wasting time this way and that way.
Think gov"ment pays you to sit in your chairs and look about! Here you, Mr. Rozario, you joined office a last-grade clerk two years ago, you"re a last-grade clerk now, you"ll leave it a last grade, I think.
G"long and work--plentee of work--if not, I will reduce establishment."
Ten heads sank back into their papers, and the little man, seizing a file in his hand, walked slowly out with becoming dignity, his heart, however, full of combined fear and anger.
He was absent for fully half an hour, and the clerks once or twice distinctly heard the strident tones of Hawkshawe"s voice echoing along the long pa.s.sage, through the court where Jackson sat, and into the room where they worked.
"Big row on," remarked Mr. Rozario to no one in particular. "Pozendine ketching it warm, warm."
Finally the head clerk reappeared, but he came back with hasty steps and a face in which green predominated over its habitually yellow tinge. There were two blue lines to mark his lips, and his hands shivered over his papers as he stood at his desk in an irresolute sort of way. Finally he could contain himself no longer, and turned to his chief a.s.sistant.
"Mr. Iyer," said he, "am I head clerk of the district office or head clerk of the police office, eh? Answer me, eh?"
The stout Madra.s.see clerk looked at a fellow, who looked at another, and then, as if by one impulse, the whole room arose and crowded around Pozendine.
"Am I," repeated Anthony, "head clerk of the district office or of the police office?"
"You"re chief clerk," hazarded Mr. Rozario.
"Yes," a.s.sented Anthony, "I am the chief clerk. I have served gov"ment twentee-four years, and now Mr. Hawkshawe he sends for me and tells me before a menial servant that I know nothing. Why, I taught four deputy commissioners their work! Who writes revenue report? Who writes notes on crops? Who makes tabular statements? Who drafts to commissioner and revises administration report? Who attends to district roads? Who sees to cess collections, budget work, record and despatch, stamps and stationery, office routine and discipline, eh? Who? Who? Who? And now Mr. Hawkshawe he sends for me to look over Mr. Drage"s report on police. "Pozendine," he says, "you"re a damfool"--call me, Anthony Pozendine, head clerk of the district, _damfool!_ "Sir," I said, "that"s Mr. Drage"s order," and he say, "You ought to have been able to tell Mr. Drage what to write." "See," he say, "now that Mr. Drage has gone on leave nothing can be done about this, and it will give beastly trouble--and now be off with you, infernal idiot!" _Damfool and infernal idiot!_ I will report to commissioner at once by wire through a.s.sistant commissioner and resign. Now you go on with your work." He flung himself down into his seat and began to scribble a long complaint to Jackson about the treatment he had received from Hawkshawe. There was much irrelevant matter in it, and his pen fairly hissed along the paper. While he was thus engaged the Madra.s.see clerk Iyer rose softly and, stealing toward Pozendine, whispered in his ear.
It was like one devil tempting another, and Anthony"s face was perfectly satanic in its expression of glee as he listened.
"Plenty witness--Ma Mie"s sister my wife," murmured Iyer, and his yellow eyes twinkled like two evil stars. Pozendine nodded his head.
"Ah, ha! Mr. Hawkshawe, you call me damfool--I will brand you dam"
blaggard!" he hissed out aloud as his busy fingers travelled over the paper and Iyer went back to his seat.