We were very merry in spite, or perhaps because of, an insistent trend of thought towards impending change, and I was just about to propose the health of my guests with due discreet allusion to the still doubtful future when it was settled by the appearance of a telegraph peon.
In the instant hush which followed, I observed irrelevantly that our brief feasting had made a horrid mess of what not half an hour before had seemed food for the G.o.ds!
Then the Colonel looked up with a grim conscious smile which fitted ill with the fragrant lantern-lit garden behind him.
"The route has come, gentlemen, we start to-morrow at noon."
He checked a quick start to their feet on the part of some of the youngsters by addressing himself to me:
"But as everything has been cut and dry for some days we needn"t spoil sport yet awhile. There"s time for a dance or two."
"In that case I"ll go on," I replied, "and with greater will than ever."
Somehow it never struck me what was likely to happen, seeing that young Bertram was junior subaltern and in addition the pride of his fellows, until I heard the calls for "our speaker" to return thanks. He had been sitting, of course, next to the Paris frock, and beside him had been the Adjutant, looking, I had noticed, as if he thought he ought to be in young Bertram"s place. I wish to G.o.d he had been.
They both rose at the same moment; the Adjutant to work, no doubt--for, pushing his chair back, he left the table; young Bertram to his task of responding.
I saw at once that he knew his fate. I think he had that instant been told of it by the Adjutant: and perhaps in a way it was wiser and kinder to tell him before--so to speak--he gave himself away.
He stood for an appreciable time as if dazed, then pulling himself together, spoke steadily, if a trifle artificially.
"Mr. Commissioner, Ladies, and Gentlemen! I thought a minute ago that I was the last person to return thanks for our host"s regrets and good wishes. I know now that I am really the only person in the regiment who could do it honestly; because I am the only person who can sympathise with him thoroughly--who can, like he does, regret the regiment"s departure, and--and at the same time give it G.o.d-speed, while I--I----"
He paused, and suddenly the strenuous effort after conventional ba.n.a.lities left his young face free to show its grief--almost its anger.
"It"s no use my trying to talk bosh," he broke out, and swept away by realities: "As you know, I"d give everything not to say G.o.d-speed, but I suppose I must."
And then a sudden remembrance seemed to come to him, he turned in swift impulse, his face alight, leapt to the pedestal behind him, and there he was again with that blessed battered old ball in his raised right hand.
"And I don"t think I can do it better than this does it. This----" his voice had the notes of life"s divine tragedy of hope in it--"fits us all--fits everything!--And so," his eyes sought mine, "we thank you, sir, for all and everything, and wish that the G.o.d of the Battle may have mercy all round."
For a second he stood there, almost triumphant, beautiful as a G.o.d, below him the guttering candles and disorder of the supper table, above him the stars of heaven: then, with a light laugh, he was calling for the band to begin and heading the hurried return to the dancing floor.
As he pa.s.sed me, gallant and gay, I heard the Paris frock quote in a consoling whisper, "They also serve who only stand and wait."
The grateful admiration of his eyes told the delicacy of her art. I realised this again when shortly after I had an opportunity for one word of consolation also.
"She said that, too," he replied, his voice trembling a little. "She"s been awfully good to me, you know--but so you all are--and I daresay it is all right."
I knew that to be impossible, but I resolved to do my level best to protect him.
Then my duties claimed me. Despite the Colonel"s coolness, the party began to drift away to preparations, their measure of responsibility shown by the order of their going, until only a dozen or so of lighthearted youngsters were left for another and yet another waltz, the prime instigator of delay being, of course, young Bertram.
I never saw the lad look better. An almost reckless vitality seemed to radiate from and invade the still scented peace of the whole garden.
I found myself trying to evade it by wandering off to the furthest, stillest corner, where I could smoke in peace till called on finally to say good-night--or good-morning--to my guests.
I must have fallen asleep in one of the latticed minarets, and slept long, for when I woke a grey radiance was in the sky that showed above the scented orange trees. Dawn was breaking, the garden held no sound save a faint rustle as of leaves. And not a sign remained of Western intrusion. The swiftness of Indian service had taken away as it had brought. As I made my way to where we had danced and supped, the immediate past seemed a dream, and I strained my eyes into the starred shadows of the jasmine thicket half expecting to see a white veil creeping like a snake.
What was that? I had no time to find fancy or fact--my eyes had caught sight of something unmistakable at the foot of the marble pedestal.
It was young Bertram.
He was lying as if asleep, his cheek caressing the battered bronze ball that he had encircled with his arms.
His face turned up to the stars showed nothing but content.
He must have stayed on after the others had gone, probably to think things out--the legend of appeal must have drawn him back to the very spot where the snake charmer"s basket had been upset--like it had to me, the fragrant peace must have brought to his weariness sleep.
For the rest. Had there really been a fourth snake? Was it true that serpents always revenged themselves for wrong charming? Or were those two faint blood spots on the rose leaves of young Bertram"s lips ....
"An "E" willmakeit--plain."
Craddock"s rolling baritone mingled with a shriek of steam welcoming a swift speck on the horizon.
With a roar and a rush it was on us, past us.
"Ef that "ymn "ad bin wrote these times, sir," remarked Craddock blandly, as he turned on steam, "the h"author might "ave put in a H"engin. There ain"t anythin" more mysterious in its goin"s on--except per"aps wimmen. I"d ruther trust for grace to the mercy o" the Lord than to them any day."
SALT DUTY
I
"Lo! nigh on fifty years have pa.s.sed since that dark night; just such a night as this, O! Children-of-the-Master! and yet remembering the sudden yell of death which rose upon the still air--just such an air as this, hot and still.... Nay! fear not, Children-of-the-Master! since I, Iman (the faithful one so named and natured), watch, as I watched then ... and yet, I say, the hair upon my head which then grew thick and now is bald, the down upon my skin which then was bloom and now is stubble, starts up even as I started to my feet at that dread cry, and catching Sonny-_baba_ in my arms fled to the safer shadows of the garden. And the child slept...."
The voice, declamatory yet monotonous, paused as if the speaker listened.
"It is always so with the Master-Children," it went on, tentatively, "they sleep...."
The second and longer pause which ensued allowed soft breathings to be heard from the darkness, even, unmistakable, and when the voice continued something of the vainglorious tone of the _raconteur_ had been replaced by a note of resignation.
"And wherefore not, my friends, seeing that as masters they know no fear?"
Wherefore, indeed?
Iman Khan, whilom major-domo to many sahibs of high degree, now in his old age factotum to the Eurasian widow and children of a conservancy overseer, asked himself the question boldly. Yet the heart which beat beneath the coa.r.s.e white muslin coatee starched to crackle-point in the effort to conceal the poorness of its quality, felt a vague dissatisfaction.
In G.o.d"s truth the memory of the great Mutiny still sent his old blood shivering through his veins, and some of the tribe of black-and-tan boys who slept around him in the darkness were surely now old enough to thrill, helplessly responsive, to the triumphal threnody of their race?