"For whom is that?" he asked.

"I do not know—but I will make them kill me."

"Why do you not shoot me, then?" he demanded, between despair and bitterness. "That would save you all. If I fell, they would turn and fly. They think I am Vishnu. Haven't you thought of that? I am in your power. Why don't you make yourself the benefactress of your country? Why don't you shoot her enemy?"

She made no answer, but her eyes met his steadily and calmly. He turned away, groaning. In vain he fought against it, in vain stung himself to action by the memory of all that she had done to him. His love remained triumphant. In that supreme moment his faith burst through the darkness, and again he believed in her, believed in her against reason, against the world, against the ineffaceable past, and against himself. And it was too late. He no longer stood alone. His word was given.

"Have pity on me!" he said, once more facing her. "Let me save you!"

"I should despise myself, and you would despise me—even more than you do now. I can not do less than share the fate of those whose lives my folly has jeopardized."

"At least go back to them—do not stay here. Beatrice, for God's sake!—I can not turn back. You have made me suffer enough—." He stood before her now as an incoherent pleader, and her heart burned with an exultation in which the thought of life and death played no part. She knew that he still loved her. It seemed for the moment all that mattered.

"I can not," she said.

"Beatrice, do not deceive yourself. Though my life is nothing to me—though I would give it a dozen times to save you—I can not do otherwise than go on. I may be weak, but I shall be stronger than my weakness. My word is given!"

He spoke with the tempestuous energy of despair. The minutes were passing with terrible swiftness, and any moment the sea behind him might burst its dam and sweep her and him to destruction. Already in the distance he heard the dull clamour of voices raised in angry remonstrance at the delay. Only those immediately about him were held in awed silence by the power of his personality. Again Beatrice shook her head. She stood in the doorway which opened out into the garden where the besieged had taken refuge. There was no other way. He advanced toward her. Instantly she raised her revolver and pointed it at the first man behind him.

"If I fire," she said, "not even you will be able to hold them back."

It seemed to her that she stood like a frail wall between two overwhelming forces—on the one side, Nehal with his thousands; on the other, Nicholson—alone, truly, but armed with a set and pitiless resolve. A single sentence, which had fallen upon her ears months before, rose now out of an ocean of half-forgotten memories: "Nicholson is the best shot in India," some one had said: "he never misses." And still Nehal advanced. His jaws were locked, his eyes had a red fire in them. She knew then that the hour of hesitation was over, and that in that desperate struggle she had indeed lost. Uncontrollable words of warning rushed to her lips.

"Nehal—turn back! Turn back!"

He did not understand her. He thought she was still pleading with him.

"I can not—God have pity on us both!"

Then she too set her lips. She could not betray the last hope of that heroic handful of men and women behind her. He must go to his death—and she to hers. She fired,—whether with success or not, she never knew. In that same instant another sound broke upon their ears—the sound of distant firing, the rattle of drums and the high clear call of a trumpet. Nehal Singh swung around. She caught a glimpse of his face through the smoke, and she saw something written there which she could not understand. She only knew that his features seemed to bear a new familiarity, as though a mask had been torn from them, revealing the face of another man, of a man whom she had seen before, when and where she could not tell. She had no time to analyze her emotions nor the sense of violent shock which passed over her. She heard Nehal Singh giving sharp, rapid orders in Hindustani. The room emptied. She saw him follow the retreating natives. At the door he turned and looked back at her. At no time had his love for her revealed itself more clearly than in that last glance.

"The English regiment has come to help you," he said. "Fate has intervened between us this time. May we never meet again!"

He passed out through the shattered doorway, but she stood where he had left her, motionless, almost unconscious. It was thus Nicholson and the Colonel found her when, a moment later, they entered the room by the verandah. Colonel Carmichael's passionate reproaches died away as he saw her face.

"You must not stop here," he said. "You have frightened us all terribly. The regiment has come and is attacking. There will be some desperate fighting. We must all stick together."

She caught Nicholson's eyes resting on her. She thought she read pity and sympathy in their steady depths, and wondered if he guessed what she had tried to do. But he said nothing, and she followed the two men blindly and indifferently back to the bungalow.



CHAPTER X

TRAVERS

They had no light. They talked in whispers, and now and again, when the darkness grew too oppressive, they stretched out groping hands and touched each other. They did this without explanation. Though none complained or spoke of fear, each needed the consolation of the other's company, and a touch was worth more than words. Mrs. Cary alone needed nothing. She lay on the rough truckle-bed and slept. Thus she had been for a week—a whole week of nerve-wrecking struggle against odds which marked hope as vain. Bullets had beaten like rain upon the walls about her, the moaning of wounded men on the other side of the hastily constructed partition mingled unceasingly with the cries of the ever-nearing enemy. And she had lain there quiet and indifferent. Martins, the regiment's doctor, had looked in once at her and had shaken his head. "In all probability she will never wake," he had said. "Perhaps it is the kindest thing that could happen to her." And then he had gone his way to those who needed him more.

Mrs. Berry knelt by the bedside. Her hands were folded. She had been praying, but exhaustion had overcome her, and her quiet, peaceful breathing contrasted strangely with the other sounds that filled the bungalow. Mrs. Carmichael and Beatrice sat huddled close together, listening. They could do nothing—not even help the wounded men who lay so close to them. Everything was in pitch darkness, and no lights were allowed. They could not go out and help in the stern, relentless struggle that was going on about them. They bore the woman's harder lot of waiting, inactive, powerless, fighting the harder battle against uncertainty and all the horrors of the imagination.

"I am sorry the regiment has come," Mrs. Carmichael whispered. "There is no doubt they will be massacred with the rest of us. What are a few hundreds against thousands? It is a pity. They are such fine fellows."

Her rough, tired voice had a ring of unconquerable pride in it. She was thinking of the gallant charge her husband's men had made only two weeks before; how they had broken through the wall of the enemy, and, cheering, had rushed to meet the besieged garrison. That had been a moment of rejoicing, transitory and deceptive. Then the wall closed in about them again, and they knew that they were trapped.

"Perhaps we can hold out till help comes," Beatrice said.

She tried not to be indifferent. For the sake of her companions she would gladly have felt some desire for life, but in truth it had no value for her. She could think of nothing but the evil she had done and of the atonement that had been denied her. It was to no purpose that she worked unceasingly for the wounded. The sense of responsibility never left her. Each moan, each death-sigh brought the same meaning to her ear: "You have helped to do this—this is your work."

"No help will come," Mrs. Carmichael said, shaking her head at the darkness. "When a whole province rises as this has done, it takes months to organize a sufficient force, and we shan't last out many days. I wonder what people in England are saying. How well I can see them over their breakfast cups! Oh, dear, I mustn't think of breakfast cups, or I shall lose my nerve." She laughed under her breath, and there was a long silence.

Presently the door of the bungalow opened, letting in a stream of moonlight. It was closed instantly, and soft footfalls came over the boarded floor.

"Who is it?" Mrs. Carmichael whispered.

"I—Lois," was the answer. The new-comer crept down by Beatrice's side and leaned her head against the warm shoulder. "I am so tired," she said faintly. "I have been with Archibald. He has been moaning so. Mr. Berry says he is afraid mortification has set in. It is terrible."

"Poor little woman!" Beatrice put her arm about the slender figure and drew her closer. "Lay your head on my lap and sleep a little. You can do no good just now."

"Thank you. I will, if you don't mind. You will wake me if anything happens, won't you?"

"Yes, I promise." It gave Beatrice a sense of comfort to have Lois near her. Very gently she passed her hand over the aching forehead, and presently Lois fell into a sleep of absolute exhaustion.

By mutual consent, Mrs. Carmichael and Beatrice ceased to talk, but when suddenly there was a movement close to them, and a dim light flashed over the partition, they exchanged a glance of meaning.

"That is my husband," Mrs. Carmichael whispered. "Something is going to happen. Listen!"

She was not wrong in her supposition. The Colonel had entered the next room, followed by Nicholson and Saunders, and had closed the door carefully after him. All three men carried lanterns. They glanced instinctively at the wooden partition which divided them from the four women, but Carmichael shook his head.

"It's all right," he said. "They must be fast asleep, poor souls. Let's have a look at these fellows." He went over to a huddled-up figure lying in the shadow. The corner of a military cloak had been thrown over the face. He drew it on one side and then let it drop. "Gone!" he said laconically. He passed on to the next. There were in all three men ranged against the wall. Two of them were dead. "Martins told me they couldn't last," Colonel Carmichael muttered. "It is better for them. They are out of it a little sooner, that's all." The third man was Travers. He lay on his back, his face turned slightly toward the wall, his eyes closed. He seemed asleep. The Colonel nodded somberly. "Another ten hours," he calculated.

He came back to the table, where the others waited, and drew out a paper from his pocket.

"Give me your light a moment, Nicholson," he said.

No one spoke while he examined the list before him. All around them was a curious hush—a new thing in their struggle, and one that seemed surcharged with calamity. After a moment Colonel Carmichael looked up. He was many years the senior of his companions, but just then there seemed no difference in years between them. They were three wan, haggard men, weakened with hunger, exhausted with sleepless watching. That week had killed the youth in two of them.

"Geoffries has just given me this," Carmichael said. "It is a list of our provisions. We have enough food, but there is no fresh water. The enemy has cut off the supply. We could not expect them to do otherwise." He waited, and then, as neither spoke, he went on: "I have spoken with the others. You know, gentlemen, we can not go on another twenty-four hours without water. We have made a good fight for it, but this is the end. We must look the fact in the face."

"Surely they must know at headquarters what a state we are in—" Saunders began.

The Colonel shrugged his shoulders.

"No doubt they know, but they can not help in time. This is not a petty frontier business. It is something worse—a rising with a leader. A rising with a leader is a lengthy business to tackle, and it requires its victims. In this case we are the victims." He smiled grimly. "We have only one thing left to do—make a dash for it while we have the strength. You must know as well as I do that there is scarcely anything worth calling a hope, but it's a more agreeable way of dying than being starved out like rats and then butchered like sheep. I know these devils." He glanced around the shadowy room with a curious light in his eyes. "My best friend was murdered in this room," he added. "Personally, I prefer a fair fight in the open."

"When do you propose to make the start, Colonel?" Nicholson asked.

"Within an hour. The night favors us. The women must be kept in the center as much as possible. I have given Geoffries special charge over them. They will be told at the last moment. There is no use in spoiling what little rest they have had." He drew out a pencil and began to scribble a despatch on the back of an old letter. "I advise you gentlemen to do likewise," he said. "Very often a piece of paper gets through where a man can not, and it is our bounden duty to supply the morning periodicals with as much news as possible."

For some minutes there was no sound save that of the pencils scrawling the last messages of men with the seal of death already stamped upon their foreheads. All three had forgotten Travers, and yet from the moment they had begun to speak he had been awake and listening. He sat up now, leaning upon his elbow.

"Nicholson!" he said faintly.

Nicholson turned and came to his side.

"Hullo!" he said. "Awake, are you? How are you?"

Travers made no immediate answer; he took Nicholson's hand in a feverish clasp and drew him nearer.

"I am in great pain," he said. "You don't need to pretend. I know. The fear of death has been on me all day. Just now I am not afraid. Is there no hope?"

"You mean—for us? None."

Travers nodded.

"I heard you talking, but I wanted to make sure. It has all been my fault—every bit of it. It's decent of you not to make me feel it more. You are not to blame—her. You know I tempted her, I made her help me. She isn't responsible. At any rate, she made a clean breast of it—that's something to her credit. I didn't want to—I never meant to. I am not the sort that repents. But this last week you have been so decent, and Lois such a plucky little soul—she ought to hate me—and perhaps she does—but she has done her best. Nicholson, are you listening? Can you hear what I say? It's so damned hard for me to talk."

"I can hear," Nicholson said kindly. "Don't worry about what can't be helped." In spite of everything, he pitied the man, and his tone showed it.

Travers lifted himself higher, clinging to the other's shoulder. His voice began to come in rough, uneven jerks.

"But it can be helped—it must be helped! Don't you see—I came between you and Lois purposely. From the first moment you spoke of her I knew that you loved her—and I wanted her. I never gave your message. I didn't dare. You are the sort of man a woman cares for—a woman like Lois. I couldn't risk it. But now—well, I'm done, and afterward she will be free—"

Nicholson drew back stiffly.

"You are talking nonsense," he said, in a colder tone. "No one wants you to die—and in any case, you know very well we have no chance of getting through this alive."

Travers seized his arm. His eyes shone with a painful excitement.

"Yes—yes!" he stammered. "You have a chance—a sure hope. I can save you; I can—atone. That's what I want. Only you must help me. I am a dying man. I want you to bring me to the Rajah—at once. Only five minutes with him—that will be enough. Then he will let you go—he must!"

Nicholson freed himself resolutely from the clinging hands.

"You exaggerate your power," he said, "and, besides, what you ask is an impossibility."

He turned away, but Travers caught his arm and held him with a frantic, desperate strength.

"Then if you will not help me—send Miss Cary to me," he pleaded. "I must speak to her."

Nicholson looked down into the dying face with a new interest. He had no suspicion of the burden with which Travers' soul was laden, and yet he was conscious now that the matter was urgent and of an importance which he could not estimate.

"I will tell her," he said. "Stay quiet a minute. We have no time to lose."

Travers nodded and fell back on to his rough couch. His eyes closed and he seemed to sleep, but as Beatrice knelt down by his side he roused himself and looked at her with the intensity of a man who has gathered his last strength for a last great purpose.

"I am dying," he whispered thickly; "I know it and I don't care. I am past caring. But before I die I want to atone; I want, if I can, to save Lois. I care for her in my poor way, and I would like her to be happy. Are you listening?"

"I am listening," Beatrice answered gravely. "Do you think I could close my ears when you speak of atonement?"

He clutched her hand.

"You would be glad to atone for all the mischief we have done?"

"I would give my life."

"Is the Colonel there? I can't see clearly. Colonel, I want you to hear what I have to say."

Colonel Carmichael turned.

"This is no time," he said sternly, "and it is too late for atonement. Our account with this world is closed."

"It need not be. Colonel—in the name of those whose lives lie in your hands, I beg of you to listen to me."

There was a moment's hesitating silence. Travers' glazed eyes were fixed on the elder man's face with a hypnotizing power. The Colonel drew nearer—reluctantly knelt down.

"Be quick then!" he said.

Travers nodded. His head was thrown back against Beatrice's shoulder. With fumbling, trembling fingers he drew a plain gold ring from his pocket and thrust it into the Colonel's hand.

"Look at that!" he whispered. "Look at the inscription."

Carmichael turned to the feeble light. No one spoke or moved. They watched him and waited with a reasonless, breathless suspense.

"My God!" he whispered, "How did you come by this?"

Travers drew himself upright. The shadows of death were banished in that last moment; his voice was clear and steady as he answered.

"Listen," he said. "I will tell you—and then act before it is too late!"



CHAPTER XI

IN THE HOUR OF NEED

Nehal Singh pulled aside the curtains over the window and stepped out on to the balcony. The air in the great silent room behind him stifled him, and even the night breeze, as it touched his cheeks, seemed to burn with fever. He stood there motionless, his arms folded, gazing fixedly into the half-darkness. A pale, watery moonlight cast an unearthly shimmer over the shadowy world before him, brightened every here and there by the will-o'-the-wisp fire points which marked the presence of the camped thousands waiting silently for his word. Only one spot—it seemed like a black stain—remained in absolute gloom, and it was thither the Rajah's eyes were turned. Every night he had come to the same place to watch it. Every night he had tortured himself with the thought of all it contained.

For he knew now, with the clear certainty of a man who has searched down to the bottom of his soul, that in that silent area his whole life, his one hope of happiness was bound up, and waited, with those who were fighting stubbornly, heroically, against the end—its destruction beneath his own sword. He was fighting against himself. With his own hands he was tearing down that which seemed an inseparable, incorporate part of himself. Anger and contempt were dead. In their place the old love had rekindled and grown brighter before the sight of a courage, dignified and silent, which had held back the tide of furious fanaticism and thwarted his own despair. He had seen, with eyes which burned with an indescribable emotion, a regiment of wearied, weakened men, led by a man he had once despised, burst through the densest squares of his own soldiers; he had heard their cheers as they had clasped hands with the defenders; he had looked aghast into his own heart, afire with admiration, aching with a strange, broken-hearted gratitude to God who had made such men. It was in vain that, lashing himself with the knowledge of his own weakness and of his disloyalty to those who followed him, he had flung himself against the defenses of the little garrison.

Day after day they drove him back, fighting hand to hand in the earthworks they had thrown up in a few hours of miraculous labor. He fought against them like a man possessed of an unquenchable hatred; but at night, when he was at last alone, he had slipped out on to his balcony and held out his hands toward them in an unspeakable wordless greeting. Once more they had become for him the world's Great People, the giants of his boyhood's imagination, the heroes of his man's ideal. At the point of the sword they had proved the truth of Nicholson's proud boast, and hour by hour the man who had turned from them in a moment of bitter disillusion saw the temple he had once built to their honor rise from its ashes in new and greater splendor.

Thus two weeks had passed, and to-night was to see the end. Nehal knew that, brave though they were, they could do no more. They had no water, and his forces hugged them in on every side. One last attack and it would be over—Marut would be cleared from the enemy, his victory complete. His victory! It was his own ruin he was preparing, the certain destruction of that which seemed linked invisibly but surely to his own fate. And, knowing that, he knew also that there was no turning back for him, no retreat. His word was given. His people, the people who claimed him by the right of blood, clamored for him to lead them as he had sworn. It made no difference if on the path he had chosen he trampled on every hope, every wish, every rooted instinct. There was no turning back. He knew it—the knowledge that his own words bound him came to him with pitiless finality as he stood there watching the silent, lightless stretch which was soon to be the scene of a last tragic struggle; and if indeed there are such things as tears of blood, they rose to his eyes now.

With lips compressed in an agony he could neither analyze nor conquer, he turned slowly back into the dimly lighted room. Two torches burned on either side of the throne and threw unsteady shadows among the glittering pillars. They lit up his face and revealed it as that of a man who has cast his youth behind him for ever. Only a few months had passed since he had sat there with Travers in the full noon of his hope and enthusiasm. He remembered the scene with a clearness which was a fresh torture. The hopes that had been built up in that hour lay shattered, the woman for whom they had been built was lost. He thought of her now as he always thought of her, as he knew he would think of her to the end. For this love, save that it had grown and deepened into a wider understanding, had remained unchanged. As there had been cowards and tricksters among his heroes, so in that one woman evil and good had stood side by side and fought out their battle. And the good had won—had won because he alone of all men had believed in it. He believed in it still—in the same measure as he had learned to love her—with a deeper understanding of temptation and failure. It was the one triumph in the midst of seeming ruin, the one firm rock in the raging torrent of his fate, beaten as it was between the contending streams of desire and duty. She was indeed lost to him, but not as in the first hour of his shaken trust. He had regained his memory of her as a good woman, striving upward and onward; and already he had invested her with the glory of those whom death has already claimed from us.

Nehal Singh started from his painful reverie, conscious that some one had entered the room and was watching him. He turned and saw his chief captain standing respectfully before him, and, though it was a man he liked and trusted, it seemed to him that the gaunt, soldierly figure had taken on the form of an ugly, threatening destiny.

"All is ready, Great Prince," the native said, salaaming. "Every man is at his post. We do but await thy orders."

Nehal did not answer. His hands clasped and unclasped themselves in the last agony of hesitation. The moment had come, the inevitable and irretrievable moment which had loomed so long upon his horizon. Even now he hardly knew what it was to bring him. The forces warring in his blood were locked in a death struggle. At last he nodded and his lips moved.

"It is well. In half an hour—I will come to them. In half an hour—the attack will begin."

"Sahib—is it good to wait? The dawn cometh, and with the dawn—"

Nehal Singh lifted his hand peremptorily.

"In half an hour," he repeated.

The man salaamed and was gone. Nehal Singh stood there like a pillar of stone. It was over. In half an hour! And yet, at the bottom of his heart, he knew that he had delayed—purposely, but to no end but his own increased suffering. With a sigh of impatience he turned, and in the same instant became once more aware that he was not alone.

For a moment he perceived nothing save the shadows and the unsteady flickering of the yellow torchlight. Then his vision cleared and he saw and understood, and an exclamation burst from his horrified lips. It was a woman who stood out against the darkness, her body clothed in rags, the hair, grey and thin, hanging unkempt about her shoulders, the face turned to his that of some being risen from a tomb. There seemed to be no flesh upon the high cheek-bones nor upon the hands that were stretched toward him; only the eyes were alive with an unquenchable fire which burned upon him with a power that was unearthly. She staggered a few steps and then sank slowly to his feet, her hands still outstretched. He knelt down and supported the sinking head upon his shoulder.

"Who art thou?" he whispered in Hindustani. "Where hast thou come from? Tell me thy history."

A look of intense pain passed over her features. Slowly and with a great effort her lips parted.

"I am English—let me speak in English. I have only a few minutes—I am dying."

He looked about him, seeking something with which to moisten her dry lips, but she clung to him with an incredible strength.

"No, no, I must speak with you. Up to now I have lived in an awful nightmare—amidst ghastly phantoms who pursued and tortured me. But when I heard your voice—when I heard you give that order, I awoke. The dreams vanished, I heard and understood—and remembered!" She drew herself upright and, for a moment spoke with a penetrating clearness. "Not in half an hour—never! Withdraw that order! If you go against them you are accursed. Lay down your arms! You must—you know you must! You dare not—" She clung to his arm and her eyes seemed to burn their way into his very soul. "I tell you—to turn traitor is to inherit an endless hell—"

"A traitor!" he echoed. Something clutched at his heart, a sort of numb suspense which became electrified as he saw a new expression flash into her face.

"Yes, a traitor!" she whispered. "That was what I was. I was English—yes, English in spite of all, but in my bitterness I turned from my people. I let myself be taken alive. I would not share the fate of those who had once been dear to me. My whole life has been the punishment. They tortured me and then came the dreams—the awful, hideous dreams. I was always looking for you, always calling for you. And they laughed and mocked at me. Only one man did not laugh—" her voice grew doubtful and hesitating, as though she were groping in the shadows of her memory. "He did not laugh. He promised to help me but he never came again—and I died—yes, I died—but I saw your face, I heard your voice—and I came back from death—to save you!" Once more her vision cleared and her voice grew steadier. "Go back to them! They are your friends. If you do not go, you will break your heart—as mine is broken. Swear to me—you must, because—"

He bent closer to her to catch every sound that fell from her lips. His pulses were beating with a suffocating violence. Somewhere a veil was lifting. It was as if the sunlight were at last breaking through a mist of strange dreams, strange longings, strange forebodings. The confused voices that had called to him throughout his life grew clearer.

"Because—?" he whispered.

But she did not answer. Her head was thrown back. Her open eyes were fixed intently on his face. Suddenly she smiled. It was a smile that chilled his blood with its hideous distortion. And yet behind it lurked the possibility of a long-lost beauty and sweetness.

"Steven!" she whispered. "Steven!"

Closer and closer she drew his face to hers. Her icy lips rested on his cheek. Pity and a strange, as yet unformed, foreboding made him accept that dying caress and speak to her with an urgent, pleading gentleness.

"You have something to tell me," he murmured, "something I must know. Tell me before it is too late."

But her eyes had closed and she did not answer him.

"Rouse yourself!" he insisted. "Rouse yourself!" It seemed to him that she smiled. Her face had undergone a change. It was younger, and in the flickering light his imagination brightened it with the glories whose dim traces still touched the haggard, emaciated features. One last time her eyes opened and she looked at him. The frenzy of despair was gone. He felt that she was looking beyond him to a future he could not see.

"Go back!" she whispered. "Go back!"

He pressed her to him, seeking to pour something of his own seething vitality into her dying frame. With her life the threads of his fate seemed to be slipping through his fingers.

"Help me!" he implored. "Do not leave me!"

But he knew that she would never answer. She lay heavy in his arms, and the hand that clasped his relaxed and fell with a soft thud upon the marble. He rose to his feet and stood looking down upon her. It was not the first time he had seen death. In these last weeks he had met it in all its most hideous, most revolting forms; but none had moved him, awed him as this did. He knew that she had once been beautiful. Who had made her suffer till only a shadow of that beauty remained? What had she endured? Who was she? What did she know of him? Why did she call him by a name which rang in his ears with a vague familiarity? What was it in her poor dead face which stirred in him a memory which had no date nor place in his life?

Outside he heard the uneasy stirring of the thousands who awaited him. He looked up and through the open windows, saw the camp-fires and that one dark spot which was to be swept clear of all but death. What had she said? "Go back! Lay down your arms! You must—you know you must! To turn traitor is to inherit an endless hell!" A traitor? A traitor to whom—to what? To some blind instinct that had called him in those English voices, that had beaten out an answering cry of thankfulness from his heart when their cheers proclaimed his own defeat?

A soft step roused him from his troubled thoughts. He looked up and saw a servant standing in the curtained doorway. The man's eyes were fixed on the outstretched figure at Nehal's feet, and there was an expression on the dark face so full of fear and horror that the Rajah involuntarily drew back.

"Who was this woman?" he demanded. "Whence comes she?"

"Lord Sahib, she was a mad-woman whom the Lord Behar Singh kept out of mercy. She must have escaped her prison. More I know not."

The man was trembling as though in the shadows there lurked a hidden threatening danger, and Nehal turned aside with a gesture of desperate impatience.

"Why hast thou come before the time?" he asked.

"Lord Sahib, outside there are two English prisoners. They demand to be brought before thee. What is thy will?"

"Bring them hither."

Nehal Singh stood where the bowing servant left him, at the side of the poor dead woman, his hands crossed upon his sword-hilt, his eyes fixed on the parted curtains. There he waited, motionless, passive, as a man waits who knows that he has become the tool of Destiny.

A moment later, Beatrice stood before him.



CHAPTER XII

HIS OWN PEOPLE

She was not alone, but in that first moment he saw nothing but her face. It seemed to him that the whole world was blotted out and that only she remained, grave, fearless, supreme in her wan beauty, a tragic figure glorified by a light of unconquerable resolution. He looked at her but he did not greet her; no muscle of his set and ashy features betrayed the thrill of passionate recognition which had passed like a line of fire through his veins. To move was to awake from a dream to a hideous, terrible reality.

She came slowly toward him. The thin wrap about her head slipped back and he saw the light flash on to the fair disheveled hair. His eyes were dazzled, but it seemed to him that there were grey threads where once had been untarnished gold. Yet he could not and would not speak, and she came on till she stood opposite him, the dead woman lying there between them. Then for the first time she lowered her eyes and he awoke with a start of agonizing pain.

"Why have you come?" he said. "Have you come to plead again? Have you come to torture me again? Was not that once enough? In a few minutes I shall sweep your people to destruction. Shall I save you?—is that what you have come to tell me?"

He waited for her answer, his teeth clenched, his brows knitted in the old terrible struggle. All his energy, all his determination sank paralyzed before her and before his love, and yet he knew he must go on—go on with the destruction of himself, of her, of all that was dearest to him.

She knelt down and touched the dead face with her white hand, closing the glazed, staring eyes with a curious tenderness and pity. There was no surprise or horror in her expression as she at last rose and faced him—rather a mysterious knowledge which held him bound in wordless expectation.

"I have come to tell you that woman's history, Steven Caruthers," she said. "I have not come to plead with you but to tell you the truth—to lay before you the two paths between which you must choose once and for all. Will you listen to me?"

"Beatrice!" he stammered. "Why have you given me a name which is not mine—which she gave me with her last breath? What do you know that you have risked your life—"

"It was no risk," she said. "My life was forfeited and it was our last hope. Oh, if I can turn you from all this ruin, then I shall have atoned for the evil I have done you!"

The note of mingled entreaty, despair and hope stirred him to the depths of his being, but he made no response. He could only point to the white face and repeat the question which had beaten in pitiless reiteration against his tortured brain.

"Who was she?"

"She was your mother."

"And I—?"

It was not Beatrice who this time answered. A figure stepped forward out of the shadows and faced the Rajah. It was Carmichael, pale, deeply moved, but erect and steadfast. His eyes were fixed on Nehal's features with a curious, hungry eagerness which changed as he spoke into a growing recognition.

"Let me tell you," he said. "I will be brief, for every minute is precious and full of danger for us all. This poor woman was Margaret Caruthers, the wife of my dearest friend, and your mother. Until an hour ago I believed that she had been butchered with her husband and with all those others who paid the penalty of one man's sin. No doubt you know why your supposed father, Behar Singh, rose against us?"

"His honor—his wife had been stolen from him by a treacherous Englishman," Nehal answered hoarsely.

"Yes, by Stafford, John Stafford's father. The issue of that act of infidelity was a child, Lois, who afterward was adopted by Caruthers, partly out of friendship for Stafford, partly because he had no children of his own. So much, at least, I surmise. I surmise, too, that that adoption cost him his wife's love and trust. Perhaps, ignorant of the child's real parentage, she believed the worst, perhaps there were other causes—be it as it may, in the hour of catastrophe she refused to share the general fate. She chose to throw herself upon the mercy of her mother's people."

"Her mother's people!" Nehal echoed blankly.

"There was native blood in her veins. It was on that account that Behar Singh spared her. She bitterly learned to regret her change of allegiance. She was kept close prisoner, and six months after the murder of her husband she bore him a son—you—Steven Caruthers. Behar Singh, himself without an heir, took the child from her, and from that hour the unfortunate woman became insane. Long years she was kept a secret and wretched captive, and then one day she escaped, and in her wanderings met a man—an Englishman who was then your friend."

"Travers!" Nehal exclaimed.

"Yes, Travers. By means of bribes and threats he obtained her whole history, partly from her own lips, partly from her gaolers. But he told no one of his discovery."

"Why not? How dared he keep silence?"

"It is very simple. He wished to marry my ward, Lois Caruthers, and he wished to have her money. As I have said, Caruthers had adopted her when her mother, the Reni Ona, returned to her own people, and had made her his heir in the case that he should have no children of his own. Had your existence been known Lois would have been penniless. Travers knew this and kept his secret from every one save Stafford."

"Why did he tell Stafford?"

"He had to. Stafford and Lois loved each other—with a love which was all too natural and explicable in the light of our present knowledge. It was necessary that he should be made aware that marriage between them was impossible—that they were, in fact, the children of the same father."

"Stafford kept silence—"

"He had promised. And, moreover, he believed it kinder to hide the truth from Lois. Only at the last he determined to speak at all costs. But it was too late. You know—he was murdered on the steps of Travers' house."

Nehal Singh nodded. An even deadlier pallor crept over his features.

"I know," he said. "It was Behar Singh's last vengeance. God knows, my hands are clean."

"That I know. You are your father's son."

"And the proof of all this?"

"This ring. Take it. It was your mother's. Travers gave it to me when he made his confession. He took it from the poor mad woman at their first meeting. Look at the inscription. It bears your mother's and father's names."

"And Travers—?" The Rajah lifted his hand in a stern, threatening gesture.

"—is dead," was the grave answer. "He died an hour ago, in his wife's arms."

For a moment a profound hush hung over the great, dimly lighted hall. The Rajah knelt down by his mother's side and gently replaced the ring upon the thin lifeless finger.

"She called herself a traitor," he said, half to himself. "A traitor to whom—to what?"

"To the strong white blood that was in her veins. In her bitterness at the real or imagined wrongs that had been done her, she turned away from the people to whom she belonged, to whom she was bound by all the ties of love and upbringing. She disobeyed the voice of her instinct. And you, her son, you, too, have been bitter; you, too, must listen to the call of the two races to whom you are linked. Whom will you obey? You stand at the cross-ways where you must choose—where we must either part or join hands for good and all. The road back to us is open, is still open. That is the message of peace which we have risked our lives to bring you. Rajah, Steven Caruthers—for so I now call you—I plead with you—I may plead with you, for in this hour at least I can not look upon you as an adversary, but as the son of this unfortunate woman—above all, of my friend. I plead with you the more because I owe you years of friendship. I am not the least to blame that you fell away from us in resentment and bitterness. I could have shielded you from the inevitable pitfalls that beset your path, but—God forgive me!—my prejudice blinded me and I held back. It was I who carried you away from the palace on that night when you were left, a helpless child, to the mercy of Behar Singh's enemies. Then I had pity enough—but years after I held back the hand of friendship which I might have offered you. Well, I am punished, twice punished, for my prejudice and blindness. Is it too late for me to make my reparation?"

He held out his hand and there was a silence of tense expectation. The Rajah's head was bowed. He did not seem to see the Colonel's movement.

"You can not think I am pleading with you to save our lives," Carmichael went on with grave dignity. "We have fought for them. An hour ago we were prepared to lay them down without complaint. We are not the less prepared now. It is not for us I am speaking, but for you. Your day as Rajah is over—your claim to rule in India void. I offer you instead your father's name, your father's people, your father's heritage. The other road—well, you have trodden it, you know it. You must choose. Your mother chose—twenty-five years ago, in the same hour of crisis, blinded by the same bitterness. She chose to tear the bonds of love and duty; she ignored the true voice of her instinct. It broke her heart. The same crisis stands to-night before you, her son. What will you do—Steven Caruthers?"

The Rajah lifted his head. The struggle was written in his dark, sunken eyes and on the compressed lips.

"I can not desert them," he said wearily. "They trust me—my people trust me."

"Who are your people?" was the swift question. "You must choose."

Again the same silence, the same waiting while the hand of fate seemed to hover above them in the darkness. Beatrice left her place at the dead woman's side. With a firm, proud step she came to the Rajah and took his hand in both her own. He started at her touch, and for a long minute his gaze seemed to sink itself in hers, but she never wavered. When she spoke an immeasurable tenderness rang in her voice, a boundless understanding and sympathy.

"Steven—have you forgotten? Long ago in the old temple? Don't you remember what you told me then—how you loved and admired us? You called us the world's Great People, and when you spoke of our heroes there was something in your voice which thrilled me. Was it only your books, was it your teachers—Behar Singh—who made you feel as you did? When you came among us, what led you? The face of a woman? Was it only that? Or was it something more?—the call of a great, wonderful instinct?"

His eyes were riveted on her face, but for that moment he did not see her. He did not see the tears that glistened on her cheeks. He was looking straight through the long vista of the past, right back to the first hours of his memory, when he had wandered alone amidst strange faces, a ruler in a palace which had never ceased to be his prison, an exile whose home lay only in strange, fantastic dreams. And in this final moment he seemed to stand high above the past, and ever swifter and surer to trace through every incident of his life one same guiding power. Through the snares of Behar Singh's hate-filled temptations it had led onward; it had borne him to the temple—to the feet of the woman he was to love through every torture of bitter deception; it had swept him on a wave of impulse beyond his prison walls out into a world which he at last hailed as his; and now, in the hour of fiercest despair, of deepest loss, it was drawing him surely and swiftly homeward. The past vanished. He saw again the face lifted to his—he saw the tears—the Colonel's hand outstretched, waiting to clasp his own. He heard the title that she gave him as a man hears a long-forgotten watchword.

"You are English, Steven. You are English—you belong to us!"

He unfastened the sword at his side. For a moment he held it as though in farewell. But there was no grief on his face as he laid the jeweled weapon in the Colonel's hand.

"I have chosen," he said. "I can not go against my people."



CHAPTER XIII

ENVOI

With the surrender of one man the great Marut rising came to an end. It had been built up by him and on him, and with him it collapsed. As the news reached the armed thousands encamped about the ruined Station, consternation fell upon them. There was no attempt at organization or resistance. They believed simply that Heaven had turned against them and Vishnu joined hands with the Englishman, and they waited to hear no more. What had seemed an overwhelming force melted away as though it had been a shadow, and in the jungle, slinking along the lightless highways, or huddling in the lonely hovels outside Marut, the remnant of Behar Singh's great army hid from the hand of the destroyer. They had followed their god, and their god had deserted them. All hope was lost, and with the fatalism of their race they flung their weapons from them as they fled.

Pending the decision of the Government, Nehal Singh, now Steven Caruthers, was held prisoner in the club-house he had built two years before. Part of the returned regiment was encamped about the surrounding gardens, in order to prevent all attempt at rescue, but the precaution was a mere formality. Visitors came constantly. There was not a man in all the Station who was not anxious to help bury the past and to hold out the hand of friendship to one whom at the bottom of their hearts they had once wronged and slighted. Among them Carmichael and Nicholson were the chief. They passed many hours of each day with him, and worked steadily and enthusiastically for his pardon and release. He was touched and grateful, but beneath his gratitude there still lurked the demon of unrest. She had not come—the one being for whom he waited—she had sent no word. He knew that her mother lay dying—above all things he knew that on the great day of the attack she had stood resolutely between him and death—but nothing, no explanation or assurance, calmed the hidden trouble of his mind. After all, it had been pity—or remorse—not love.

Thus three weeks passed. The Colonel had spent the day with him discussing the future, arranging for the transference of Lois' fortune into his unwilling hands, and now, toward nightfall, he was once more alone, wearied in body and soul. For the first time since his surrender his sense of quiet and release from an immense burden was gone. He was still alone. He felt now that he would always be alone, for there was but one who could fill the blank in his life. And she had not come. He did not and could not blame her. Who was he that a woman should join her lot to his? An Englishman truly, but one over whose birth and youth there hung a shadow, perhaps a curse such as had darkened his mother's life and the life of all those in whose veins there flows an alien blood. She must not even think that any link from the past bound her. She must be free—quite free to choose. Wearily he seated himself at his table and took his pen.

"You have been the great guiding light of my life," he wrote to her. "You will always be, because I can not learn to forget. But for you it would be easier and better to forget. You will be happier—" And then he heard the door open, and she stood before him. The words that he had meant to write rushed to his lips, but no further. Moved by a common impulse, they advanced to meet each other, and the next moment she was in his arms. Neither spoke. It seemed as though, once face to face, there could be no doubts, no misunderstandings between them. Their love was wordless, but it had spoken in a silence more eloquent, more complete than words could ever have been.

"I could not come before," she said, after a little. "I could not leave her. She was only at peace when I held her hand. She was very happy at the last—now it is all over."

He held her closer to him, and she clung to him, not sadly or wearily, but like a strong woman who had fought and won the thing she fought for.

"It was Fate after all," he said, under his breath. "She meant us for each other."

She looked up at him. Though suffering, physical and mental, had drawn its ineffaceable lines upon her face, it had also added to her beauty the charm of strength and experience.

"I knew long ago that it was Fate," she answered. "Do you remember that first evening? You told me that people do not drift aimlessly into each other's lives. Even then, against my will, I felt that it was true. Afterward I was sure. I had entered into your life in a moment of frivolous recklessness, but you had entered into mine with another purpose, and I could not rid myself of you. Your hold upon me was strong. It grew stronger, do what I would, and the farce became deadly earnest."

"For me it was always deadly earnest," he said. "When I first saw you standing before the idol, it was as though a wall which had surrounded my life had been overthrown, and that you had come to be my guide and comrade in a new and unknown world."

"And then I failed you."

His eyes met hers thoughtfully.

"Did you? Now I look back, I am not sure. I had to believe you when you said you had deceived me and played with me. I had to force myself to despise you. Yet, when you confronted me in the bungalow, I felt suddenly that you needed to explain nothing. I understood."

"Did you understand that I had only deceived myself? I told myself that it was a farce played at your expense. But—Heaven knows—I believe it ceased to be a farce from the first hour I saw you. You believed in me so. No one had believed in me before—I had never believed in myself or in man, or in God, either. But I had to believe in you, and afterward—the rest came." She drew herself upright and looked him full in the dark eyes. "Steven, do you trust me?" He nodded. "As you did on that day when you told me that you owed me all that you were and ever would be?"

"As then, Beatrice."

She smiled gravely.

"You do right to trust me. You have made me worthy of your trust."

He put his arm about her shoulder, and led her gently on to the verandah. The night had fallen dark and starless. Through the black veil they saw the gleam of bivouac fires and heard the voices of men calling to one another, and the clatter of piled arms. They remained silent, after the storm and stress of the past, content to be together and at peace. They knew that the long night was over and that the dawn had broken.

When the Colonel entered they did not hear him, and without speaking he turned back and closed the door after him. In his hand he held a telegram ordering the deposition of Nehal Singh, Rajah of Marut, and the recognition, pardon and release of one Steven Caruthers, Englishman. But he crept away with the long-hoped-for message.

"Time enough," he thought. "They are happy."

And if beneath his heartfelt rejoicing there lurked the shadow of bitterness, who shall blame him? There was one dearer to him than his own child could have been, for whose wounded heart there seemed as yet no balsam. And yet, unknown to him, for her also the dawn was breaking. For even as he crept away with knitted brows, sharing her burden with her by the power of love and sympathy, she held in her hands the first herald of a happier future.

"What you have told me I accept—for now," Adam Nicholson had written. "You are wise to travel with the Carmichaels. It will do you good. I, who was prepared to wait my whole life for you, can have patience for a little longer. I know that you suffer and as yet I may not help you. Your pride separates us, but your pride is a little thing compared to my love. What is your birth or parentage to me? You say it would overshadow my whole life, darken my career? It might try. That would be one thing more to fight against. We have come to India to sweep away its prejudices; let us first sweep away our own. We have come to bring freedom; let us first make ourselves free. It will be a good battle, but it will not darken my life, Lois. Do you think opposition and struggle could darken my life? Surely you know me better. Do but stand at my side, and there will be no darkness. I am not a boy. I am a man who sees before him long years of labor, and who needs the one woman who can help him. Is our cathedral forgotten? I do not believe it. You are not the woman to forget. The time is not far off when we will crown our cathedral hand in hand. Only when your love dies can the barrier between us become insurmountable. If your love lives, then, as surely as there is a God in Heaven, I will come and fetch you, Lois—my wife."

And the tears that filled her eyes as she read the boldly written words were no longer the tears of grief. Her love for him had been the rock upon which her life was built. It was imperishable. She knew thus that she would not have long to wait until his coming.

THE END