"As I removed my hand she bent once more over her burden with the same piteous moan.
"Evidently she was stupefied by horror and suspense, so I gently raised her shawl to see what was the matter.
"Great heavens! What a sight! After all these years I seem to see it now. Fair silky curls dabbled in blood that welled up from under the handkerchief which the woman held convulsively to the little white breast. One chubby hand thrown out stiff and clenched; great brown eyes glazed and dim; grey lips where each gasping sigh sent a tinge of red.
""Dot!" I exclaimed, dropping on my knees the better to a.s.sure myself of the awful truth.
"The familiar name seemed to rouse the wavering life.
""_Dots not af"aid. Dot--only--wanted to make--a puff-puff-boom_."
"The words seemed to float in the air. I heard them as in a dream; and as in a dream also came an insight into what had happened. Dada"s revolver within reach of those tiny hands. O Dot! poor little brave Dot! I felt helpless before the awful tragedy. Once I tried to take the child, but the woman resisted silently, nor could I get her to listen to my entreaties that she should at least move to an easier position. At last, seeing I could do nothing, and acknowledging sorrowfully that nothing I could do was likely to be of any avail, I contented myself with waiting beside her in silence, until the end.
And as I waited a coherent story grew out of what I knew, and what I guessed. They had come on early that morning, the father on his way further afield, the mother and child to remain in the little bungalow till his return. Then all in a minute the accident; and then the only servant had been sent forth wildly for help whilst the wretched woman waited alone. Yes! that must have been it. So clear, so simple, so awful in its very simplicity.
"There was not a sound in the house save at intervals the woman"s moan. "Will no one ever come! O G.o.d; will no one ever come!" and always distinct above it the child"s gasping sigh with a soft rattle in it.
"How long this lasted I cannot say. It was like some hideous nightmare, until suddenly the sighing ceased, and I became conscious of an immeasurable relief. Yet I knew the silence meant death.
"The woman did not move or notice me in any way, so once more I touched her on the arm.
""There is no need to watch longer," I said; "Dot is asleep at last.
It is your turn to rest. Give me the child, and believe me there is nothing to be done now."
"As before, she raised her face to mine, and the same thrill came over me as I recognised an unmistakable change in features and voice; a deadening of expression, a hardening of the tone into a certain fretfulness.
""But there is a great deal to be done," she replied rapidly. "Oh! so much. How can you know? We must dig the grave under the _kikar_ tree and bury her in the sand--for it is sand below, and it creeps and creeps into the grave and will not leave room for Dot. And the night must fall--oh, so dark!--before her father gets home. There will hardly be time to dig the little grave before sunrise; and it must be dug--you know it must--"
"Her words seemed to me wild and distraught. To soothe her I repeated that there was plenty of time.
"She frowned, closed her eyes with one hand, and again replied in a curiously rapid, even tone.
""No! no! there never has been time. It is always a hurry. Out in the dark digging the grave, and the sand slipping, slipping, slipping till there is no room. I have done it,--oh! so many times."
"I was puzzled what to do or say. The wisest course seemed to leave her to herself until help arrived. So after one or two ineffectual attempts at consolation I went outside in despair to see if the a.s.sistance so sorely needed was not in sight. Surely it could not be delayed much longer. I was surprised to find how late it was: noon had long pa.s.sed, and cool shadows were stretching themselves athwart the parched ground. One, darker and cooler than the rest, lay eastward of the solitary _kikar_ tree. Here it was that the little grave was to be dug if the mother"s wish were fulfilled. Quite mechanically I strolled to the spot, impelled by sad curiosity.
"As I approached, the fragments of a low railing, half standing, half lying, in a small oblong, made me wonder if the enclosure had already been a resting-place. That might account for the mother"s wish. Yes!
there was a grave; a tiny grave no bigger than little Dot"s would be, with a roughly-hewn cross as a headstone.
"I bent to read the inscription:--
HERE LIES
Our Little Darling Dot.
1840.
"Dot! I stood up with heart and brain in a whirl. Dot! 1840.
Five-and-twenty years ago, and Dot had died but half-an-hour before.
What did it mean? _What did it mean?_
"A sudden fear of the solitude and silence of the place fell upon me.
But for shame I would have turned tail on it then and there. As it was, scorn of my own suspicions made me return to the house. How still it was! how desolate. I remember standing at the outer door listening in vain for some sound within; I remember seeing my revolver and writing-case on the table in the outer room; I remember nerving myself to push open the inner door, but I remember no more.
"They told me in hospital that I must have tripped over the broken flooring between the two rooms, and in falling have cut my head against the lintel.
"Perhaps I did. Perhaps I didn"t. I only know that something--G.o.d knows what--stood between me and my madness, so that when I came to myself it was gone for ever. In its place had grown up a craving to live--to hear, to see, to know, to understand.
"As I got better I used to lie and cry like a woman. Then the other fellows would say it was all weakness, and that I must be a man and bear up. And sometimes I would lie and smile. Then they said I was a trump with more pluck than they had. And as often as not I wasn"t thinking of myself or my own troubles at all, but of brave little Dot and her desire for a _puff-puff-boom_.
"They sent me down the Indus to Bombay, so as to avoid the rattle of the train, for my head was still weak. We stuck on a sandbank at Sukkhur, being made unmanageable by two flats we were towing. They were laden mostly with cargo, but carried a good many third-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers. I don"t know why I had risen from my sick-bed full of a great curiosity, but I had. Somehow I never seemed to have looked at life before, whereas now everything interested me. So I went down to the flats and talked to the people. There was a cabin on one, carrying a few second-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers, and as I was walking along a gangway between some bales I saw an Englishwoman, holding a child on her lap.
The crouching att.i.tude struck me as familiar; I stopped and spoke about the weather or something. She looked up, and then I knew where I had seen that att.i.tude, for it was Dot"s mother. I don"t think I should have recognised her--for she was an old woman with grey hair--but for the remembrance of the changed look which, as you may recollect, she had when I roused her in the bungalow by touching her arm.
""Is that your child?" I asked courteously, for, poorly dressed as she was, her face was unmistakably refined.
""No!" she replied; and I recognised the somewhat querulous voice.
"It"s my granddaughter, but I am as fond of her as if she were my own--almost."
"As she spoke she shifted the child"s head higher up on her arm, and I saw a ma.s.s of fluffy light gold curls.
""Perhaps she reminds you of your own," I continued at a venture, anxious only to make her talk.
"A faint curiosity came to her worn face.
""It"s funny you should say so--just as if you had seen our Dot. So like--so wonderfully like. Sometimes it seems as if she had come back again, yet it is five-and-twenty years since I lost her."
""That is a long time."
""A long, long time to remember, isn"t it? And I"ve had so many and lost so many. But I never forgot Dot--she was so pretty! Ah, well! I daresay it would have been against her, poor lamb. "Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain.""
"She lulled the child on her lap to deeper slumber with a gentle rocking. It seemed to me as if she were soothing regret to sleep also.
""She had curls like this one?" I remarked, cruelly anxious to keep her to the subject.
"Once more she looked at me with that oddly familiar bewilderment.
""I can"t think where I"ve seen you before," she said after a pause.
"I never met you in those old days, did I? Ah, well! I"ve lived so long and travelled so far that I can"t remember it all. Sometimes I seem to forget everything except what I see--and Dot. I never forget her. Only last month I was coming down the river not far from the place where the little dear shot herself--she was playing with her father"s revolver, you know--and I seemed to go through it all again.
Her father--he left the Salt soon after--was downright vexed with me because I fretted so. He said no good could come of remembering grief so long. But I don"t know. I"ve heard it said that there is only so much sorrow and happiness in the world; then if one person gets a lot there must be less trouble left for others. I"ve held on to my share anyhow, though maybe, as father says, it isn"t any good."
"Her tired eyes sought the distant sandhills wistfully and her mouth trembled a little.
"Just then the whistle sounded, bidding all stragglers go on board the steamer.