bethune and aspasia quickly parted.
love had come as a messenger of comfort; but to linger under its wings in anything that approached to joy, in that stricken house would have seemed desecration. bethune, moreover, was glad to be alone. his own trouble was too strong upon him. he felt as if he must have the cold clean air upon his face, gather the winter solitude about the nameless confusion of his thoughts. he wanted to meet himself face to face and have it out with raymond bethune; raymond bethune, who had gained an unlooked-for love, but had lost—everything else. he went forth into the orchard—seeking himself in those barren spaces, that, but a while ago, had seemed to hold the image of his future.
but he was no longer the shamed, hopeless man of that hour of dawn, with his eye fixed on some near death, as the savage instinct of some sick wild creature is fixed upon the hole that shall hide the last struggle. henceforth he would be no longer alone; and if the thought of the gentle comradeship brought solace, it brought also its own serious responsibility, almost its terror—the weight of another life, the loss of his soul's freedom....
presently, as he tramped up and down the drenched grass, a chill and numbing touch seemed to be laid upon him and to invade him with the blankness of the universal winter sleep. the recurrent waves of a lover's exaltation that had seized him at each reminiscence of the young bosom beneath his cheek, of the tear-wet face pressed so close to his, died down within him; and died, too, those spasms of horror over that moment when, by a single evil thought, he had betrayed the true facts of a lifetime.
his mind seemed to become nearly as dull as the sky above him—iron grey, flecked with meaningless wrack; his heart to grow cold, like the inert sod beneath his feet. and he let himself go to the respite of this mood. the robin was silent. he was glad of that. there was no sound but the drip of the boughs as he passed. disjointed visions, foolish tags of memory, flashed through his brain—the echo of baby's thrumming, the picture of the eastern palace room, with its english illusions, as he stood waiting; lady gerardine, in the rosy radiance of the indian evening, fitting her slender hand into the imprint of the queens' death-touches on the stone; her smile upon him over the languid niphotis roses in the narrow varnished cabin, the open port-holes and the green sea-foam springing up across them in the lamplight, the mingled smell of the brine and the flowers; aspasia dancing on the frozen grass, brown and red like a robin; muhammed standing before him in his soldier-pride, the ironic smile on his face—son of the east, with the winter-lichened boughs of the english orchard above him!
at the end of his beat raymond wheeled round and looked down the moss-grown avenue where that day the red-turbaned eastern had met his gaze; and now, with the fantastic effect of a dream, he beheld the selfsame square-shouldered figure swing into sight between the grey boles with their ghostly look of age. advancing with quick strides, it was bearing straight upon him.
bethune stood as if held by a resistless force. he knew life would have no more crucial moment for him; yet his heart beat not a stroke the faster. he turned his face towards the inevitable. after all, a man can but endure. the illusion of muhammed had quickly passed, as the steady step drew closer, into that reality that was stranger than any fantasm.
harry english, with head bare to the tart airs, with strong line of clean-shaven chin catching the bleak light, and deep eyes lit with a very human lire—the old comrade in the flesh! he halted within a pace, and the two looked at each other for a second's silence. then, while bethune's countenance remained set in that iron dulness, the other's face was suddenly stirred.
"what the devil is the meaning of this?" cried harry english, in a loud voice of anger. "i see your portmanteau packed. do you think for a second that you can leave me now?"
the deepest reproach, the utmost note of sorrow or scorn, could not have touched bethune so keenly as this familiar explosion. a thousand memories awoke and screamed. how often had not his captain rated him with just such a rough tongue and just such a kindly gleam of the eye! all the ice of his cold humour of reaction was shivered into bits under the rush of upheaving blood.
"harry!" he stammered. "harry ... i ... my god!" ...
he saw, as before, in that hideous moment in the little bedroom, but now blessedly, a reflection of his own thought on the face opposite to him.
harry english put out his hand and clapped him on the shoulder.
"my god!" said bethune again. he turned his head sharply away and his jaw worked. the cry broke from him. "i ought to have died for you! would to heaven i had died for you at inziri! ..."
the grasp of his shoulder was tightened. english shook his comrade almost fiercely.
"old man, you were never one of the talkers. hold your tongue now."
bethune drew a deep breath. the intolerable weight rolled from his heart. english's hand dropped. it was over and done with; the two friends had met again, soul to soul.
in silence they turned and walked towards the house, side by side, steps together, as so often—god, so often!—in the good old days of hardship.
"let us go in," said english, at the door. "they tell me that there can be no change, up there, and she's in good hands, thank heaven, but i cannot find a moment's peace out of the house. come, we'll have a cup of tea together."
the sun had risen just clear of the moor line into a space of clarity, and shone, a white dazzling disc, sending faint spears into their eyes. it shone, too, pale yet brisk, through the open window of the little dining-room, where, as yet, the board was but half spread, where an ill-kindled fire had flickered into death. (what self-respecting servant could do her work as usual when the family is in affliction?)
"just see to the fire, ray," said english, and went out of the room.
bethune, with the bachelor's expediency, had recourse to a candle culled from a sconce, and produced a cheerful, if somewhat acrid flame, to greet his friend when he returned, black kettle in one hand, brown teapot in the other. soon the hot fragrance circled into the room.
"if we'd had a brew of this up at inziri, those last days, it would have made a difference, eh?" said the master of the house.
they drew their chairs to the hearth and sat, each with his cup in his hand, even as in times bygone, with their tin mugs before the camp fire at dawn. in spite of the sense of that hushed room above and the suspense of its brooding over them, bethune had not felt so warm in his heart these many years.
"man!" he exclaimed suddenly, reverting unconsciously to the scotch idiom of his youth, "why in the name of heaven did you do it?"
harry english, staring at the red coals, answered nothing for a while. not that he had failed to understand the train of thought that ended in the vague-seeming, yet comprehensive question—but that the answer was difficult if not painful.
"you see," he said slowly, at last, without shifting his abstracted gaze, "there was so much to find out and so much to consider...."
"to find out?"
"i had to be sure."
bethune laid his cup on the hob and leaned over towards his friend, his fingers lightly touching the arm of the other's chair. after a while: "i think i understand," he said, knitting his rugged brows.
english gave him a fleeting smile of peculiar sadness.
"when one has been dead eight years, it is wiser, before coming to life again, to make sure that one's resurrection will be a benefit."
bethune fell back into his place, with a grey shade about the lips. english dropped his eyes and there came silence between them. after a pause, he began to mend the fire from the scuttle; and, placing the lumps of coals one by one, he spoke again:
"it was all a story of waiting, you see, from beginning to end."
"rajab—rajab is gone, by the way, poor old chap. he swore he'd seen you fall, more dead than the prophet himself," said bethune, with the harsh laugh that covers strong emotion. "and from the fort, through the glass, we watched those devils chucking the bodies into the torrent—dead and wounded, too. we thought the great river was your grave with many another's! never a bone could we find of all the good chaps."
harry english straightened himself and laughed, too, not very mirthfully. then he pulled open the loose collar of his shirt and laid bare a jagged scar that ran from the column of the throat across the collar bone.
"i'm confoundedly hard to kill, you know. just missed the jugular. i must have been spouting blood like a fountain. and then i got a blow on the head from a hilt that knocked me into nothingness. rajab was about right—i was as dead as the prophet for the time being. if i had not had nine lives——"
again the silence. then bethune inquired, casually, fumbling in his pocket for a pipe:
"and how is it you weren't chucked overboard with the rest?"
"old yufzul had a fancy for keeping me alive. ah, if he could have caught the chap that cut me down, he would not have left much skin on him. he'd given stringent orders to spare mine. the old beggar took a notion that i was a sort of mascot, or something, that i carried luck—that it was the influence of my precious person kept things going so triumphantly at the fort.... you may remember he was always sending envoys to me with flattering offers? by the lord, ray, i believe it was half to get me that he stuck to the business so long. so much for my carrying luck!"
the speaker smiled, with a bitter twist of the lip, and poked the fire unnecessarily.
"remember," he added, "that business about the flag on the roof, when the bullets were going so lively? it seems our friend was watching and was much struck to see that i was not."
"i remember," answered bethune's deep bass.
did he not remember? had he been of the nationality of m. chatelard, with what a hand-clasp, with what a flow of rhetoric would he not now emphasise his vivid recollection of that hour!
english, lying back in his armchair, with his head resting on the top, closed his eyes wearily. his face looked very pallid and sharp-featured thus upturned and relaxed from its usual stern control; and bethune shot many an anxious look at it as he sat silent, the pipe he forgot to draw hanging loosely between his teeth.
presently the other resumed, in low, reminiscent tones:
"i became the khan's fetish. so long as he had me he was sure of his luck. he thought himself safe. in the end, i think, he thought he could not die."
"well?" said bethune, as the pause grew over long.
"well, that's all. i was a fetish, very well looked after. too well. god!" said the man, sitting up, a sudden passion on eye and lip, "i was kept prisoner, if you like. for five years, raymond bethune, i was chained to that old khan's carcase, night and day."
"for five years," echoed bethune, stupidly; "and what were you doing?"
english did not answer till the silence seemed to have obliterated the question. then he said slowly:
"i was waiting."
"then?"
"then the old devil died—and i escaped. oh, you don't want me to spin you that yarn now! you can imagine it for yourself, if you ever imagine anything, you old dunderhead. there was blood spilt, if you care to know. i had waited a long time, you see."
"but," objected the major of guides, after some minutes devoted to calculation, "that was three years ago."
"aye," laughed english, good-naturedly contemptuous, "but a man doesn't walk off the karakoram on to the english lines in a day, especially if he's an afghan captive. i had to take a little round through turkestan, and back through baluchistan—on foot, raymond, every yard of the way—as a dervish."
"good lord!" said bethune.
"i flatter myself i know more of the karakorams and the turkoman frontier than any white man yet. and i can speak the lingo of every tribe that calls ali chief. aye, and i know their tricks and customs, their very habit of thought. there was not a camp or hut where they did not take me for one of themselves. it was just a year after yufzul's death that i landed at kurrachee."
"oh, harry," cried his friend, impulsively, "why did you not come to me?"
"have i not told you already?" answered english, after one of his deep pauses. "i had things to find out first. where is your canniness? if live men have to go slow, what about dead men? ... no—no." the bitter smile came back to his lips. "i lay low, and lived in the bazaar, as good a servant of the prophet as ever salaamed to the east; and then"—his voice changed—"oh, then—i got all the news i wanted!"
bethune dared not raise his eyes.
"more than i wanted," added harry english, with his bleak laugh. "you don't need to be told why i remained a pathan, do you?"
when bethune once more found courage to speak to his friend, it was because the stillness, pregnant with so much meaning, seemed intolerable.
"well?" he queried hoarsely.
"well, then," said harry english, "i waited—again." ...
and his comrade felt more than this he was never to know of the hardest moment of all the man's hard life.
"i dare say," resumed english, his old air of serenity coming back to him, "you wonder why i did not extend that botched business as far as the jugular this time, and have done with it. but, you see, there was just a chance, i told myself; and so," he repeated, falling back into his significant formula, "i waited. i got work with an old babu; and by-and-by my opportunity came, and i took it."
"good lord!" exclaimed bethune, shifting restlessly in his chair. "it was the maddest business!"
"perhaps," said english, a shade of pain sweeping across his face. "but i had to know. any other course was too dangerous. oh, i am not speaking of myself—think how dangerous!"
"but, man—man," cried the other, "it need not have taken you all that time! when you'd seen with your own eyes, when you had found that the old fellow was killing her, when you were here in this house, and had seen her in her sorrow—then——"
english flung one lightning glance upon the speaker.
"and even then," he said slowly, "i had still to know—more."
a moment bethune stared at him open-mouthed; then his own unclear conscience pointed the otherwise inconceivable idea to his slow-working wits. he felt the dark blood mount to his forehead.
"now i've told you all," said harry english, and got up from his chair.
"thank you," said bethune.
* * * * *
aspasia's bright presence was suddenly with them. english wheeled round; but her smiling face was reassurance sufficient.
"i've come as i promised," she said, "to give you the last report. dr. chatelard says all is going as he wishes. he will be down immediately for some breakfast, and then he will tell you himself. isn't he a darling little man?" she went on. "i am sorry i said he had a pink head! what should we do now without it? by the way, some one must send a wire to melbury towers for his luggage."
"let me go," said bethune, starting forward.
"let him go," echoed baby, saucily, turning to captain english.
with such new happiness before her, the natural buoyancy of her nature was triumphant over all present doubt and anxiety. bethune put out his hand, and she slipped her own confidingly into it.
"harry," said he, and the girl wondered and was highly flattered at the sudden emotion that shook his voice, "you see how things stand between us?"
again english flashed that glance of vivid scrutiny. this time his friend met it steadily, though again with a heightening colour. then, after a perceptible pause:
"i am glad," said captain english, simply.
and bethune dropped the girl's hand to meet the strong clasp held out to him.
he knew that from henceforth all misunderstanding was swept away from between them. if he had felt before for his friend that love closer than a brother's, it was cemented now by the strongest bond that can exist between generous natures—that of forgiver and forgiven. he was forgiven with the only real forgiveness—that which understands.
"have they not brought breakfast?" cried baby, the housekeeper, very bustling all at once, to cover her pretty confusion. she sprang to the bell, then checked herself, with finger on lip, and tripped from the room, pointing her feet and laughing over her shoulder, as if to her happy years even that sad precaution of quietness must have its mirthful side.
both men looked after her indulgently. then bethune's face clouded.
"she is but a child, after all," he said doubtfully.
"nay," said harry, "it seems to me she has a woman's heart."
"she is as true as steel," asserted her lover.
when the girl returned, english went restlessly forth. he would wait for m. chatelard, he said, in the hall. the newly betrothed were alone; and, for a second or two, eyed each other shyly. then bethune's face softened in the old, good way; and yet with something, too, that had never been there before, something which made aspasia drop her lids.
"well, robin?" said he, and beckoned. she came to him sidling.
it would always be thus between them. he would beckon and she would come. had the impossible happened, had that mistress of his hidden ideal condescended to him, he would have gone far to crave the least favour, and always with a trembling soul. but the life that touches the transcendent joy, the rare ecstasy is fated to know but little happiness. providence, perhaps, was not dealing unkindly with this man.
"why do you call me robin?" she asked.
he was not of those who explain. with a kiss on her hand he told her simply that she was like a robin.
"then i hope you'll remember, sir," she said, briskly disengaging herself, "that the robin is a bird that makes music in season and out of season."
