Her people in the room--Bhanah, the ayah, the civil surgeon, Ian Deal and someone else--but the line from her eyes to Skag was not crossed.
The heart of the man leaped from what he saw--the transcendent understanding which needed no words; the look of all looks that meant _herself_--a little lingering smile on the lips, the endless lure of her wise eyes.
But all that was whipped away as he came three steps nearer her couch.
The wonder of it was not taken, but the old pain returned; rather, the pain had been there all the time, but he had forgotten for a s.p.a.ce. He saw the ashen and frail face again and the inexpressible weariness of her eyes, too tired to tell of it, too tired to stay! Then the face of the English officer appeared for his eyes--hovering back of the people, in a background of mountains. . . .
Carlin seemed listening. What she heard came out of a grey intolerable monotony; but still her eyes held his. They seemed concentrated upon some weakness of his nature--some dementia that had been before her for years, that had confronted her in every highway of life, frightened away every opportunity and spoiled every day. Her hand lifted just slightly, the palm turned toward him:
"Oh, won"t you please stop those fever birds?"
. . . Then one day Skag, standing in the darkened library, heard Margaret Annesley and one of her friends speaking together in the verandah.
"But does she really hear anything?" the friend asked.
"Oh, yes; though you never hear them unless you are ill with the fever."
"How strange and terrible, and is it a particular fever?"
"Jungle fever, dear. It comes to us sometimes of itself, but more often after a shock. . . . Carlin"s night in the dark--"
Skag"s arm lifted in a curve to cover his face as if from a blow. . . .
Yet Margaret Annesley was not quite right; for he had learned to hear what Carlin heard:
From far away very faint, curiously thin tones came to him; always repeating one word, with an upward inflection, like a question. Every repet.i.tion sounded the fraction of a degree higher than the last, till they were far above the compa.s.s of any human voice:
"Fee-vur? fee-vur? fee-vur? fee-vur? -- -- --" and on and on.
When it began, quite low, he heard infinite patience in it; gradually, it grew full of fear; then it climbed into a veritable panic of terror.
When it stopped at last, on a long distracted "u-u-u-r-r-r-r?"--he heard the male bird"s answer, sounding nearer, in deep tones of utter hopelessness, with a prolonged descending inflection:
"Bhoo-kha-a-a-r-r-r! bhoo-kha-a-a-r-r-r! bhoo-kha-a-a-r-r-r!"--the Indian word for fever, repeated only three times. Then the female began again; so, day and night--night and day.
After he had once heard it, he could always hear it. So he learned that they never rest. Always, by listening, he could hear it at some point of its maddening scale--its insane a.s.surance of the hopelessness of jungle fever.
Skag faced the ultimatum. This was different. It had nothing to do with his world of animal dangers. This was a slow devouring which he could not touch nor stay. _Carlin was melting before his eyes_. . . .
The brothers had come in, one by one, from over India. (Margaret Annesley had attended to that.) Skag met them, moved quietly about, yet could not remember their faces one from another. He answered when spoken to, but retained no registration as to whom he had spoken, or what had been said. Sometimes he was alone for a few moments with Carlin; and when her eyes were open he was appalled by the growing sense of distance in them. Then before she spoke, he would hear what she heard:
"Bhoo-kha-a-a-r-r-r! bhoo-kha-a-a-r-r-r! bhoo-kha-a-a-r-r-r!"
There were queer rifts of light in his mind, instants when he realised that all the hard moments of the past had prepared him for this. He saw clearly that he could not have endured, even to the present hour, without every experience life had shown him--especially without the difficult ones. He lived again the great moments--all the Indian afterglows that were identified with Carlin--perfect lessons of mercy she had taught him, through the very yearning of his own heart in her presence to be worthy of days with her. Never useless words from Carlin, but always the vivid meaning. He had been slow at first to see how much more magic were their days together, because she paid for them with a night-and-day readiness to go forth to the call of service to others.
Yet through all, he was utterly, changelessly desolate. Not only bitterness, but an icy bitterness, was upon all meaning and movement of life. It was almost like a conspiracy that no part in ministration was demanded of him by those who were now in his house. The doctors talked to Miss Annesley or to the servants; the brothers came and went with their fear and fidelity--but spoke to Skag of other things than the illness. Still, in his heart a concept slowly formed--that he had something which Carlin needed now; that this something had to do, though it was different, with the power he used to change animals. It seemed absurd even to think of this--with all these wise ones around him, not perceiving it. They formed a barrier of their thoughts which kept him from expression. He stood apart for hours as the days pa.s.sed, thinking of his part; and yet the icy bitterness held him from action.
Sometimes his heart seemed dying; chill already upon it. Again he seemed filled with a strange vitality, other than his own. This phenomenon frightened him more than the first, so that he would hurry to look at Carlin lest the strength had come from her. He tried to _think_ the strength back to her; to think all his own besides; but there was no drive to his mind-work because he did not have faith in himself.
At length came the night when the fever birds ceased for Carlin. Out of a great soft depth of tone which no one but Skag had heard before (which he had thought no other would hear until there was a baby in her arms), her words came with unforgettable intensity:
"Oh, the jungle shadows! The jungle shadows!"
After that he did not know whether it was night or day, until he heard the end of a sentence from the doctor from Poona:
". . . only four hours left to break the fever."
The room was in great still heat--heat of a burning night, a smothering heat to the couch from a distant lamp--the fire of the day coming up from the ground like flashes of anger. . . .
A strange stillness was settling on everything; the silence before had not been so heavy. The old family doctor from Poona came into it; and Margaret Annesley stood by him near the bed.
"Carlin has not spoken for more than an hour," Skag heard her tell him.
It seemed long before he answered:
"She has pa.s.sed too far down into the shadows. She will not speak again."
The words came to Skag as if through limitless s.p.a.ce; but the last ones penetrated deep and laid hold.
Margaret went out swiftly and the doctor followed. He looked a very, very old man--with his head bent, like that.
. . . She will not speak again!
The universe was falling into disruption.
It was all white where she lay. Only the heavy ma.s.ses of her dark hair, spread on the pillows and across one shoulder, showed any colour--shadowed gold, shadowed red.
. . . She will not speak again!
Seven tall men filed into the room before Skag"s eyes, and ranged on either side of her. These were her own brothers. Skag felt the vague pang again, of being alien to them.
Roderick Deal, the eldest--the one with the inscrutable blackness of eyes--leaned and kissed the white, white forehead; and a fold of the splendid hair.
One figure had gone down at the lower end of the bed--long arms stretched over her feet--slender dark hands clenching and unclenching.
The detail of it cut into Skag, like a spear of keen pain through chaos. Returned away--it was intolerable.
. . . An arm fell about Skag"s shoulders.
"Brother?" Roderick Deal"s fathomless eyes drew Skag"s and held them while he spoke: "We are leaving you to be alone with her--at the last!"
The arm gripped as he added:
"You are to know this--we will not fail you, now!" and he was gone.
They were all gone.
Faint tones of the fever bird, ascending, came from far out. Other tones, descending, came from greater distances within. . . . She will not speak again!
Bhanah touched his sleeve.