The Lamp in the Desert

  CHAPTER VII

  RUSTAM KARIN

  How long a time passed he never knew. It could not in actual fact havebeen more than a few minutes when a sudden sound from the verandah putan end to his reverie.

  He laid the child back upon the sofa and got up. She was sleeping offthe shock; it would be a pity to wake her. He moved noiselessly to thewindow.

  As he did so, a voice he scarcely recognized--a woman's voice--spoke,tensely, hoarsely, close to him.

  "Tommy, stop that man! Don't let him go! He is a murderer,--do you hear?He is the man who murdered my husband!"

  Bernard stepped over the sill and closed the window after him. Thelanterns were still swaying in the night-breeze. By their light he tookin the group upon the verandah. Peter was sitting bent forward in thechair from which he had lifted Tessa. His snowy garments were deeplystained with blood. Beside him in a crouched and apelike attitude,apparently on the point of departure, was the shadowy native who hadsaved his life. Tommy, still fantastic and clown-like in his green andwhite pyjama-suit, was holding a glass for Peter to drink. And uprightbefore them all, with accusing arm outstretched, her eyes shining likestars out of the shadows, stood Stella.

  She turned to Bernard as he came forward. "Don't let him escape!" shesaid, her voice deep with an insistence he had never heard in it before."He escaped last time. And there may not be another chance."

  Tommy looked round sharply. "Leave the man alone!" he said. "You don'tknow what you're talking about, Stella. This affair has upset you. It'sonly old Rustam Karin."

  "I know. I know. I have known for a long time that it was Rustam Karinwho killed Ralph." Stella's voice vibrated on a strange note. "He may beEverard's chosen friend," she said. "But a day will come when he willturn upon him too. Bernard," she spoke with sudden appeal, "you knoweverything. I have told you of this man. Surely you will help me! I havemade no mistake. Peter will corroborate what I say. Ask Peter!"

  At sound of his name Peter lifted a ghastly face and tried to rise, butTommy swiftly prevented him.

  "Sit still, Peter, will you? You're much too shaky to walk. Finish thisstuff first anyhow!"

  Peter sank back, but there was entreaty in his gleaming eyes. They hadbandaged his injured arm across his breast, but with his free hand hemade a humble gesture of submission to his mistress.

  "_Mem-sahib_," he said, his voice low and urgent, "he is a good man--aholy man. Suffer him to go his way!"

  The man in question had withdrawn into the shadows. He was in factbeating an unobtrusive retreat towards the corner of the bungalow, andwould probably have effected his escape but for Bernard, who, moved bythe anguished entreaty in Stella's eyes, suddenly strode forward andgripped him by his tattered garment.

  "No harm in making inquiries anyway!" he said. "Don't you be in such ahurry, my friend. It won't do you any harm to come back and give anaccount of yourself--that is, if you are harmless."

  He pulled the retreating native unceremoniously back into the light. Theman made some resistance, but there was a mastery about Bernard thatwould not be denied. Hobbling, misshapen, muttering in his beard, hereturned.

  "_Mem-sahib!_" Again Peter's voice spoke, and there was a break in it asthough he pleaded with Fate itself and knew it to be in vain. "He is agood man, but he is leprous. _Mem-sahib,_ do not look upon him! Sufferhim to go!"

  Possibly the words might have had effect, for Stella's rigidity hadturned to a violent shivering and it was evident that her strength wasbeginning to fail. But in that moment Bernard broke into an exclamationof most unwonted anger, and ruthlessly seized the ragged wisp of blackbeard that hung down over his victim's hollow chest.

  "This is too bad!" he burst forth hotly. "By heaven it's too bad! Man,stop this tomfool mummery, and explain yourself!"

  The beard came away in his indignant hand. The owner thereofstraightened himself up with a contemptuous gesture till he reached theheight of a tall man. The enveloping _chuddah_ slipped back from hishead.

  "I am not the fool," he said briefly.

  Stella's cry rang through the verandah, and it was Peter who, utterlyforgetful of his own adversity, leapt up like a faithful hound toprotect her in her hour of need.

  The glass in Tommy's hand fell with a crash. Tommy himself staggeredback as if he had been struck a blow between the eyes.

  And across the few feet that divided them as if it had been a yawninggulf, Everard Monck faced the woman who had denounced him.

  He did not utter a word. His eyes met hers unflinching. They were whollywithout anger, emotionless, inscrutable. But there was somethingterrible behind his patience. It was as if he had bared his breast forher to strike.

  And Stella--Stella looked upon him with a frozen, incredulous horror,just as Tessa had looked upon the snake upon her lap only a littlewhile before.

  In the dreadful silence that hung like a poisonous vapour upon them,there came a small rustling close to them, and a wicked little head withred, peering eyes showed through the balustrade of the verandah.

  In a moment Scooter with an inexpressibly evil air of satisfactionslipped through and scuttled in a zigzag course over the matting insearch of fresh prey.

  It was then that Stella spoke, her voice no more than a throbbingwhisper. "Rustam Karin!" she said.

  Very grimly across the gulf, Everard made answer. "Rustam Karin wasremoved to a leper settlement before you set foot in India."

  "By--Jupiter!" ejaculated Tommy.

  No one else spoke till slowly, with the gesture of an old and strickenwoman, Stella turned away. "I must think," she said, in the same curiousvibrating whisper, as though she held converse with herself. "Imust--think."

  No one attempted to detain her. It was as though an invisible barriercut her off from all but Peter. He followed her closely, forgetful ofhis wound, forgetful of everything but her pressing need. With dumbdevotion he went after her, and they vanished beyond the flicker of thebobbing lanterns.

  Of the three men left, none moved or spoke for several difficultseconds. Finally Bernard, with an abrupt gesture that seemed to expressexasperation, turned sharply on his heel and without a word re-enteredthe room in which he had left Tessa asleep, and fastened the windowbehind him. He left the tangle of beard on the matting, and Scooterstopped and nosed it sensitively till Everard stooped and picked it up.

  "That show being over," he remarked drily, "perhaps I may be allowed toattend to business without further interference."

  Tommy gave a great start and crunched some splinters of the shatteredglass under his heel. He looked at Everard with an odd, challenginglight in his eyes.

  "If you ask me," he said bluntly, "I should say your business here ismore urgent than your business in the bazaar."

  Everard raised his brows interrogatively, and as if he had asked aquestion Tommy made sternly resolute response.

  "I've got to have a talk with you. Shall I come into your room?"

  Just for a second the elder man paused; then: "Are you sure that is thewisest thing you can do?" he said.

  "It's what I'm going to do," said Tommy firmly.

  "All right." Everard stooped again, picked up the inquiring Scooter, anddropped him into the box in which he had spent the evening.

  Then without more words, he turned along the verandah and led the way tohis own room.

  Tommy came close behind. He was trembling a little but his agitationonly seemed to make him more determined.

  He paused a moment as he entered the room behind Everard to shut thewindow; then valiantly tackled the hardest task that had ever come hisway.

  "Look here!" he said. "You must see that this thing can't be left whereit is."

  Everard threw off the garment that encumbered him and gravely faced hisyoung brother-in-law.

  "Yes, I do see that," he said. "I seem to have exhausted my credit allround. It's decent of you, Tommy, to have been as forbearing as youhave. Now what is it you want to know?"

  Tommy confronted him uncompromisingly. "I want to know th
e truth, that'sall," he said. "Can't you stop this dust-throwing business and bestraight with me?"

  His tone was stubborn, his attitude almost hostile. Yet beneath it allthere ran a vein of something that was very like entreaty. And Everard,steadily watching him, smiled--the faint grim smile of the fighter whosees a gap in his enemy's defences.

  "I'm afraid not," he said. "I don't want to be brutal, but--you see,Tommy--it's not your business."

  Tommy flinched a little, but he stood his ground. "I think you'reforgetting," he said, "that Stella is my sister. It's up to me toprotect her."

  "From me?" Everard's words came swift and sharp as a sword-thrust.

  Tommy turned suddenly white, but he straightened himself with a gesturethat was not without dignity. "If necessary--yes," he said.

  An abrupt silence followed his words. They stood facing each other, andthe stillness between them was such that they could hear Scooter beyondthe closed window scratching against his prison-walls for freedom.

  It seemed endless to Tommy. He came through it unfaltering, but he feltphysically sick, as if he had been struck in the back.

  When Everard spoke at last, his hands clenched involuntarily. He halfexpected violence. But there was no hint of anger about the elder man.He had himself under iron control. His face was flint-like in itscomposure, his mouth implacably grim.

  "Thanks for the warning!" he said briefly. "It's just as well to knowhow we stand. Is that all you wanted to say?"

  The dismissal was as definite as if he had actually seized and thrownhim out of the room. And yet there was not even suppressed wrath in hisspeech. It was indifferent, remote as a voice from the desert-distance.His eyes looked upon Tommy without interest or any sort of warmth, asthough he had been a total stranger.

  In that moment Tommy saw that sacred thing, their friendship, shatteredand lying in the dust. It was not he who had flung it there, yet hissoul cried out in bitter self-reproach. This was the man who had beencloser to him than a brother, the man who had saved him from disasterphysically and morally, watching over him with a grim tenderness thatnothing had ever changed.

  And now it was all done with. There was nothing left but to turn and go.

  But could he? He stood irresolute, biting his lips, held there by aforce that seemed outside himself. And it was Everard who made the firstmove, turning from him as if he had ceased to count and pulling out anote-book that he always carried to make some entry.

  Tommy stood yet a moment longer as if, had it been possible, he wouldhave broken through the barrier between them even then. But Everard didnot so much as glance in his direction, and the moment passed.

  In utter silence he turned and went out as he had entered. There wasnothing more to be said.