The Broken Road - A. E. W. Mason
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"My Lord! My Lord!" he cried, and there was no simulation in his outburst
of joy. "Would that your people could behold you now! But we have much to
see first. To-morrow we go to Lucknow."
Accordingly the two men travelled the next day to Lucknow. Shere Ali was
led up under the broken archway by Evans's Battery into the grounds of
the Residency. He walked with Ahmed Ismail at his elbow on the green
lawns where the golden-crested hoopoes flashed in the sunlight and the
ruined buildings stood agape to the air. They looked peaceful enough, as
they strolled from one battery to another, but all the while Ahmed Ismail
preached his sermon into Shere Ali's ears. There Lawrence had died; here
at the top of the narrow lane had stood Johannes's house whence Nebo the
Nailer had watched day after day with his rifle in his hand. Hardly a
man, be he never so swift, could cross that little lane from one quarter
of the Residency to another, so long as daylight lasted and so long as
Nebo the Nailer stood behind the shutters of Johannes's house. Shere Ali
was fired by the story of that siege. By so little was the garrison
saved. Ahmed Ismail led him down to a corner of the grounds and once more
a sentry barred the way.
"This is the graveyard," said Ahmed Ismail, and Shere Ali, looking up,
stepped back with a look upon his face which Ahmed Ismail did not
understand.
"Huzoor!" he said anxiously, and Shere Ali turned upon him with an
imperious word.
"Silence, dog!" he cried. "Stand apart. I wish to be alone."
His eyes were on the little church with the trees and the wall girding
it in. At the side a green meadow with high trees, had the look of a
playing-ground--the playing-ground of some great public school in
England. Shere Ali's eyes took in the whole picture, and then saw it but
dimly through a mist. For the little church, though he had never seen it
before, was familiar and most moving. It was a model of the Royal Chapel
at Eton, and, in spite of himself, as he gazed the tears filled his eyes
and the memory of his schooldays ached at his heart. He yearned to be
back once more in the shadow of that chapel with his comrades and his
friends. Not yet had he wholly forgotten; he was softened out of his
bitterness; the burden of his jealousy and his anger fell for awhile
from his shoulders. When he rejoined Ahmed Ismail, he bade him follow
and speak no word. He drove back to the town, and then only he spoke to
Ahmed Ismail.
"We will go from Lucknow to-day," he said. "I will not sleep in
this town."
"As your Highness wills," said Ahmed Ismail humbly, and he went into the
station and bought tickets for Delhi. It was on a Thursday morning that
the pair reached that town; and that day Ahmed Ismail had an unreceptive
listener for his sermons. The monument before the Post Office, the
tablets on the arch of the arsenal, even the barracks in the gardens of
the Moghul Palace fired no antagonism in the Prince, who so short a time
ago had been a boy at Eton. The memories evoked by the little church at
Lucknow had borne him company all night and still clung to him that day.
He was homesick for his school. Only twice was he really roused.
The first instance took place when he was driving along the Chandni
Chauk, the straight broad tree-fringed street which runs from the Lahore
Gate to the Fort. Ahmed Ismail sat opposite to him, and, leaning forward,
he pointed to a tree and to a tall house in front of the tree.
"My Lord," said he, "could that tree speak, what groans would one hear!"
"Why?" said Shere Ali listlessly.
"Listen, your Highness," said Ahmed Ismail. Like the rest of his
countrymen, he had a keen love for a story. And the love was the keener
when he himself had the telling of it. He sat up alertly. "In that house
lived an Englishman of high authority. He escaped when Delhi was seized
by the faithful. He came back when Delhi was recaptured by the infidels.
And there he sat with an English officer, at his window, every morning
from eight to nine. And every morning from eight to nine every native who
passed his door was stopped and hanged upon that tree, while he looked
on. Huzoor, there was no inquiry. It might be some peaceable merchant,
some poor man from the countryside. What did it matter? There was a
lesson to be taught to this city. And so whoever walked down the Chandni
Chauk during that hour dangled from those branches. Huzoor, for a week
this went on--for a whole week."
The story was current in Delhi. Ahmed Ismail found it to his hand, and
Shere Ali did not question it. He sat up erect, and something of the
fire which this last day had been extinct kindled again in his sombre
eyes. Later on he drove along the sinuous road on the top of the ridge,
and as he looked over Delhi, hidden amongst its foliage, he saw the
great white dome of the Jumma Musjid rising above the tree-tops, like a
balloon. "The Mosque," he said, standing up in his carriage. "To-morrow
we will worship there."
Before noon the next day he mounted the steep broad flight of steps and
passed under the red sandstone arch into the vast enclosure. He performed
his ablutions at the fountain, and, kneeling upon the marble tiles,
waited for the priest to ascend the ladder on to the wooden platform. He
knelt with Ahmed Ismail at his side, in the open, amongst the lowliest.
In front of him rows of worshippers knelt and bowed their foreheads to
the tiles--rows and rows covering the enclosure up to the arches of the
mosque itself. There were others too--rows and rows within the arches, in
the dusk of the mosque itself, and from man to man emotion passed like a
spark upon the wind. The crowd grew denser, there came a suspense, a
tension. It gained upon all, it laid its clutch upon Shere Ali. He ceased
to think, even upon his injuries, he was possessed with expectancy. And
then a man kneeling beside him interrupted his prayers and began to curse
fiercely beneath his breath.
"May they burn, they and their fathers and their children, to the last
generation!" And he added epithets of a surprising ingenuity. The while
he looked backwards over his shoulder.
Shere Ali followed his example. He saw at the back of the enclosure, in
the galleries which surmounted the archway and the wall, English men and
English women waiting. Shere Ali's blood boiled at the sight. They were
laughing, talking. Some of them had brought sandwiches and were eating
their lunch. Others were taking photographs with their cameras. They were
waiting for the show to begin.
Shere Ali followed the example of his neighbour and cursed them. All his
anger kindled again and quickened into hatred. They were so careful of
themselves, so careless of others!
"Not a Mohammedan," he cried to himself, "must set foot in their
graveyard at Lucknow, but they come to our mosque as to a show."
Suddenly he saw the priest climb the ladder on to the high wooden
platform in front of the central arch of the mosque and bow his forehead
to the floor. His voice rang out resonant and clear and confident over
that vast assemblage.
"There is only one God."
And a shiver passed across the rows of kneeling men, as though
unexpectedly a wind had blown across a ripe field of corn. Shere Ali was
moved like the rest, but all the while at the back of his mind there was
the thought of those white people in the galleries.
"They are laughing at us, they are making a mock of us, they think we
are of no account." And fiercely he called upon his God, the God of the
Mohammedans, to root them out from the land and cast them as weeds in
the flame.
The priest stood up erect upon the platform, and with a vibrating voice,
now plaintive and conveying some strange sense of loneliness, now loud in
praise, now humble in submission, he intoned the prayers. His voice rose
and sank, reverberating back over the crowded courtyard from the walls of
the mosque. Shere Ali prayed too, but he prayed silently, with all the
fervour of a fanatic, that it might be his hand which should drive the
English to their ships upon the sea.
When he rose and came out from the mosque he turned to Ahmed Ismail.
"There are some of my people in Delhi?"
Ahmed Ismail bowed.
"Let us go to them," said Shere Ali; he sought refuge amongst them from
the thought of those people in the galleries. Ahmed Ismail was well
content with the results of his pilgrimage. Shere Ali, as he paced the
streets of Delhi with a fierce rapt look in his eyes, had the very aspect
of a Ghazi fresh from the hills and bent upon murder and immolation.
CHAPTER XXIV
NEWS FROM AJMERE
Something of this pilgrimage Ralston understood; and what he understood
he explained to Dick Linforth on the top of the tower at Peshawur.
Linforth, however, was still perplexed, still unconvinced.
"I can't believe it," he cried; "I know Shere Ali so well."
Ralston shook his head.
"England overlaid the real man with a pretty varnish," he said. "That's
all it ever does. And the varnish peels off easily when the man comes
back to an Indian sun. There's not one of these people from the hills but
has in him the makings of a fanatic. It's a question of circumstances
whether the fanaticism comes to the top or not. Given the circumstances,
neither Eton, nor Oxford, nor all the schools and universities rolled
into one would hinder the relapse."
"But why?" exclaimed Linforth. "Why should Shere Ali have relapsed?"
"Disappointment here, flattery in England--there are many reasons.
Usually there's a particular reason."
"And what is that?" asked Linforth.
"The love of a white woman."
Ralston was aware that Linforth at his side started. He started ever so
slightly. But Ralston was on the alert. He made no sign, however, that he
had noticed anything.
"I know that reason held good in Shere Ali's case," Ralston went on;
and there came a change in Linforth's voice. It grew rather stern,
rather abrupt.
"Why? Has he talked?"
"Not that I know of. Nevertheless, I am sure that there was one who
played a part in Shere Ali's life," said Ralston. "I have known it ever
since I first met him--more than a year ago on his way northwards to
Chiltistan. He stopped for a day at Lahore and rode out with me. I told
him that the Government expected him to marry as soon as possible, and
settle down in his own country. I gave him that advice deliberately. You
see I wanted to find out. And I did find out. His consternation, his
anger, answered me clearly enough. I have no doubt that there was someone
over there in England--a woman, perhaps an innocent woman, who had been
merely careless--perhaps--"
But he did not finish the sentence. Linforth interrupted him before he
had time to complete it. And he interrupted without flurry or any sign of
agitation.
"There was a woman," he said. "But I don't think she was thoughtless.
I don't see how she could have known that there was any danger in her
friendliness. For she was merely friendly to Shere Ali. I know her
myself."
The answer was given frankly and simply. For once Ralston was outwitted.
Dick Linforth had Violet Oliver to defend, and the defence was well done.
Ralston was left without a suspicion that Linforth had any reason beyond
the mere truth of the facts to spur him to defend her.
"Yes, that's the mistake," said Ralston. "The woman's friendly and means
no more than she says or looks. But these fellows don't understand such
friendship. Shere Ali is here dreaming of a woman he knows he can never
marry--because of his race. And so he's ready to run amuck. That's what
it comes to."
He turned away from the city as he spoke and took a step or two towards
the flight of stone stairs which led down from the tower.
"Where is Shere Ali now?" Linforth asked, and Ralston stopped and came
back again.
"I don't know," he said. "But I shall know, and very soon. There may be a
letter waiting for me at home. You see, when there's trouble brewing over
there behind the hills, and I want to discover to what height it has
grown and how high it's likely to grow, I select one of my police, a
Pathan, of course, and I send him to find out."
"You send him over the Malakand," said Linforth, with a glance
towards the great hill-barrier. He was to be astonished by the answer
Ralston gave.
"No. On the contrary, I send him south. I send him to Ajmere, in
Rajputana."
"In Ajmere?" cried Linforth.
"Yes. There is a great Mohammedan shrine. Pilgrims go there from all
parts, but mostly from beyond the frontier. I get my fingers on the pulse
of the frontier in Ajmere more surely than I should if I sent spies up
into the hills. I have a man there now. But that's not all. There's a
great feast in Ajmere this week. And I think I shall find out from there
where Shere Ali is and what he's doing. As soon as I do find out, I want
you to go to him."
"I understand," said Linforth. "But if he has changed so much, he will
have changed to me."
"Yes," Ralston admitted. He turned again towards the steps, and the two
men descended to their horses. "That's likely enough. They ought to have
sent you to me six months ago. Anyway, you must do your best." He climbed
into the saddle, and Linforth did the same.
"Very well," said Dick, as they rode through the archway. "I will do my
best," and he turned towards Ralston with a smile. "I'll do my best to
hinder the Road from going on."
It was a queer piece of irony that the first real demand made upon him in
his life was that he should stop the very thing on the accomplishment of
which his hopes were set. But there was his friend to save. He comforted
himself with that thought. There was his friend rushing blindly upon
ruin. Linforth could not doubt it. How in the world could Shere Ali, he
wondered. He could not yet dissociate the Shere Ali of to-day from the
boy and the youth who had been his chum.
They passed out of the further gate of Peshawur and rode along the broad
white road towards Government House. It was growing dark, and as they
turned in at the gateway of the garden, lights shone in the windows ahead
of them. The lights recalled to Ralston's mind a fact which he had
forgotten to mention.
"By the way," he said, turning towards Linforth, "we have a lady staying
with us who knows you."
Linforth leaned forward in his saddle and stooped as if to adjust a
stirrup, and it was thus a second or two before he answered.
"Indeed!" he said. "Who is she?"
"A Mrs. Oliver," replied Ralston, "She was at Srinagar in Cashmere this
summer, staying with the Resident. My sister met her there, I think she
told Mrs. Oliver you were likely to come to us about this time."
Dick's heart leaped within him suddenly. Had Violet Oliver arranged her
visit so that it might coincide with his? It was at all events a pleasant
fancy to play with. He looked up at the windows of the house. She was
really there! After all these months he would see her. No wonder the
windows were bright. As they rode up to the porch and the door was
opened, he heard her voice. She was singing in the drawing-room, and the
door of the drawing-room stood open. She sang in a low small voice, very
pretty to the ear, and she was accompanying herself softly on the piano.
Dick stood for a while listening in the lofty hall, while Ralston looked
over his letters which were lying upon a small table. He opened one of
them and uttered an exclamation.
"This is from my man at Ajmere," he said, but Dick paid no attention.
Ralston glanced through the letter.
"He has found him," he cried. "Shere Ali is in Ajmere."
It took a moment or two for the words to penetrate to Linforth's mind.
Then he said slowly:
"Oh! Shere Ali's in Ajmere. I must start for Ajmere to-morrow."
Ralston looked up from his letters and glanced at Linforth. Something in
the abstracted way in which Linforth had spoken attracted his attention.
He smiled:
"Yes, it's a pity," he said. But again it seemed that Linforth did not
hear. And then the voice at the piano stopped abruptly as though the
singer had just become aware that there were people talking in the hall.
Linforth moved forward, and in the doorway of the drawing-room he came
face to face with Violet Oliver. Ralston smiled again.
"There's something between those two," he said to himself. But Linforth
had kept his secrets better half an hour ago. For it did not occur to
Ralston to suspect that there had been something also between Violet
Oliver and Shere Ali.
CHAPTER XXV
IN THE ROSE GARDEN
"Let us go out," said Linforth.
It was after dinner on the same evening, and he was standing with Violet
Oliver at the window of the drawing-room. Behind them an officer and his
wife from the cantonment were playing "Bridge" with Ralston and his
sister. Violet Oliver hesitated. The window opened upon the garden.
Already Linforth's hand was on the knob.
"Very well," she said. But there was a note of reluctance in her voice.
"You will need a cloak," he said.
"No," said Violet Oliver. She had a scarf of lace in her hand, and she
twisted it about her throat. Linforth opened the long window and they
stepped out into the garden. It was a clear night of bright stars. The
chill of sunset had passed, the air was warm. It was dark in spite of the
stars. The path glimmered faintly in front of them.
"I was hoping very much that I should meet you somewhere in India," said
Dick. "Lately I had grown afraid that you would be going home before the
chance came."
"You left it to chance," said Violet.
The reluctance had gone from her voice; but in its place there was
audible a note of resentment. She had spoken abruptly and a little
sharply, as though a grievance present in her mind had caught her
unawares and forced her to give it utterance.
"No," replied Linforth, turning to her earnestly. "That's not fair. I did
not know where you were. I asked all who might be likely to know. No one
could tell me. I could not get away from my station. So that I had to
leave it to chance."
They walked down the drive, and then turned off past the croquet lawn
towards a garden of roses and jasmine and chrysanthemums.
"And chance, after all, has been my friend," he said with a smile.
Violet Oliver stopped suddenly. Linforth turned to her. They were walking
along a narrow path between high bushes of rhododendrons. It was very
dark, so that Linforth could only see dimly her face and eyes framed in
the white scarf which she had draped over her hair. But even so he could
see that she was very grave.
"I was wondering whether I should tell you," she said quietly. "It was
not chance which brought me here--which brought us together again."
Dick came to her side.
"No?" he asked, looking down into her face. He spoke very gently, and
with a graver voice than he had used before.
"No," she answered. Her eyes were raised to his frankly and simply. "I
heard that you were to be here. I came on that account. I wanted to see
you again."
As she finished she walked forward again, and again Linforth walked at
her side. Dick, though his settled aim had given to him a manner and an
aspect beyond his age, was for the same reason younger than his years in
other ways. Very early in his youth he had come by a great and definite
ambition, he had been inspired by it, he had welcomed and clung to it
with the simplicity and whole-heartedness which are of the essence of
youth. It was always new to him, however long he pondered over it; his
joy in it was always fresh. He had never doubted either the true gold of
the thing he desired, or his capacity ultimately to attain it. But he had
ordered his life towards its attainment with the method of a far older
man, examining each opportunity which came his way with always the one
question in his mind--"Does it help?"--and leaving or using that
opportunity according to the answer. Youth, however, was the truth of
him. The inspiration, the freshness, the simplicity of outlook--these
were the dominating elements in his character, and they were altogether
compact of youth. He looked upon the world with expectant eyes and an
unfaltering faith. Nor did he go about to detect intrigues in men or
deceits in women. Violet's words therefore moved him not merely to
tenderness, but to self-reproach.
"It is very kind of you to say that," he said, and he turned to her
suddenly. "Because you mean it."
"It is true," said Violet simply; and the next moment she was aware that
someone very young was standing before her in that Indian garden beneath
the starlit sky and faltering out statements as to his unworthiness. The
statements were familiar to her ears, but there was this which was
unfamiliar: they stirred her to passion.
She stepped back, throwing out a hand as if to keep him from her.
"Don't," she whispered. "Don't!"
She spoke like one who is hurt. Amongst the feelings which had waked in
her, dim and for the most part hardly understood, two at all events were
clear. One a vague longing for something different from the banal path
she daily trod, the other a poignant regret that she was as she was.
But Linforth caught the hand which she held out to thrust him off, and,
clasping it, drew her towards him.
"I love you," he said; and she answered him in desperation:
"But you don't know me."
"I know that I want you. I know that I am not fit for you."
And Violet Oliver laughed harshly.
But Dick Linforth paid no attention to that laugh. His hesitation had
gone. He found that for this occasion only he had the gift of tongues.
There was nothing new and original in what he said. But, on the other
hand, he said it over and over again, and the look upon his face and the
tone of his voice were the things which mattered. At the opera it is the
singer you listen to, and not the words of the song. So in this rose
garden Violet Oliver listened to Dick Linforth rather than to what he
said. There was audible in his voice from sentence to sentence, ringing
through them, inspiring them, the reverence a young man's heart holds for
the woman whom he loves.
"You ought to marry, not me, but someone better," she cried. "There is
someone I know--in--England--who--"
But Linforth would not listen. He laughed to scorn the notion that there
could be anyone better than Violet Oliver; and with each word he spoke he
seemed to grow younger. It was as though a miracle had happened. He
remained in her eyes what he really was, a man head and shoulders above
her friends, and in fibre altogether different. Yet to her, and for her,
he was young, and younger than the youngest. In spite of herself, the
longing at her heart cried with a louder voice. She sought to stifle it.
"There is the Road," she cried. "That is first with you. That is what you
really care for."
"No," he replied quietly. She had hoped to take him at a disadvantage.
But he replied at once:
"No. I have thought that out. I do not separate you from the Road. I put
neither first. It is true that there was a time when the Road was
everything to me. But that was before I met you--do you remember?--in the
inn at La Grave."
Violet Oliver looked curiously at Linforth--curiously, and rather
quickly. But it seemed that he at all events did not remember that he had
not come alone down to La Grave.
"It isn't that I have come to care less for the Road," he went on. "Not
by one jot. Rather, indeed, I care more. But I can't dissociate you from
the Road. The Road's my life-work; but it will be the better done if it's
done with your help. It will be done best of all if it's done for you."
Violet Oliver turned away quickly, and stood with her head averted.
Ardently she longed to take him at his word. A glimpse of a great life
was vouchsafed to her, such as she had not dreamt of. That some time she
would marry again, she had not doubted. But always she had thought of her
husband to be, as a man very rich, with no ambition but to please her, no
work to do which would thwart her. And here was another life offered, a
life upon a higher, a more difficult plane; but a life much more worth
living. That she saw clearly enough. But out of her self-knowledge sprang
the insistent question:
"Could I live it?"
There would be sacrifices to be made by her. Could she make them? Would
not dissatisfaction with herself follow very quickly upon her marriage?
Out of her dissatisfaction would there not grow disappointment in her
husband? Would not bitterness spring up between them and both their lives
be marred?
Dick was still holding her hand.
"Let me see you," he said, drawing her towards him. "Let me see
your face!"
She turned and showed it. There was a great trouble in her eyes, her
voice was piteous as she spoke.
"Dick, I can't answer you. When I told you that I came here on purpose to
meet you, that I wanted to see you again, it was true, all true. But oh,
Dick, did I mean more?"
"How should I know?" said Dick, with a quiet laugh--a laugh of happiness.
"I suppose that I did. I wanted you to say just what you have said
to-night. Yet now that you have said it--" she broke off with a cry.
"Dick, I have met no one like you in my life. And I am very proud.
Oh, Dick, my boy!" And she gave him her other hand. Tears glistened
in her eyes.