CHAPTER XII
DURRANCE SHARPENS HIS WITS
It was a night of May, and outside the mess-room at Wadi Halfa threeofficers were smoking on a grass knoll above the Nile. The moon was atits full, and the strong light had robbed even the planets of theirlustre. The smaller stars were not visible at all, and the sky washed ofits dark colour, curved overhead, pearly-hued and luminous. The threeofficers sat in their lounge chairs and smoked silently, while thebull-frogs croaked from an island in mid-river. At the bottom of thesmall steep cliff on which they sat the Nile, so sluggish was its flow,shone like a burnished mirror, and from the opposite bank the desertstretched away to infinite distances, a vast plain with scatteredhummocks, a plain white as a hoar frost on the surface of which thestones sparkled like jewels. Behind the three officers of the garrisonthe roof of the mess-room verandah threw a shadow on the ground; itseemed a solid piece of blackness.
One of the three officers struck a match and held it to the end of hiscigar. The flame lit up a troubled and anxious face.
"I hope that no harm has come to him," he said, as he threw the matchaway. "I wish that I could say I believed it."
The speaker was a man of middle age and the colonel of a Soudanesebattalion. He was answered by a man whose hair had gone grey, it istrue. But grey hair is frequent in the Soudan, and his unlined facestill showed that he was young. He was Lieutenant Calder of theEngineers. Youth, however, in this instance had no optimism wherewith tochallenge Colonel Dawson.
"He left Halfa eight weeks ago, eh?" he said gloomily.
"Eight weeks to-day," replied the colonel.
It was the third officer, a tall, spare, long-necked major of the ArmyService Corps, who alone hazarded a cheerful prophecy.
"It's early days to conclude Durrance has got scuppered," said he. "Oneknows Durrance. Give him a camp-fire in the desert, and a couple ofsheiks to sit round it with him, and he'll buck to them for a month andnever feel bored at the end. While here there are letters, and there'san office, and there's a desk in the office and everything he loathesand can't do with. You'll see Durrance will turn up right enough, thoughhe won't hurry about it."
"He is three weeks overdue," objected the colonel, "and he's methodicalafter a fashion. I am afraid."
Major Walters pointed out his arm to the white empty desert across theriver.
"If he had travelled that way, westward, I might agree," he said. "ButDurrance went east through the mountain country toward Berenice and theRed Sea. The tribes he went to visit were quiet, even in the worsttimes, when Osman Digna lay before Suakin."
The colonel, however, took no comfort from Walters's confidence. Hetugged at his moustache and repeated, "He is three weeks overdue."
Lieutenant Calder knocked the ashes from his pipe and refilled it. Heleaned forward in his chair as he pressed the tobacco down with histhumb, and he said slowly:--
"I wonder. It is just possible that some sort of trap was laid forDurrance. I am not sure. I never mentioned before what I knew, becauseuntil lately I did not suspect that it could have anything to do withhis delay. But now I begin to wonder. You remember the night before hestarted?"
"Yes," said Dawson, and he hitched his chair a little nearer. Calder wasthe one man in Wadi Halfa who could claim something like intimacy withDurrance. Despite their difference in rank there was no great disparityin age between the two men, and from the first when Calder had comeinexperienced and fresh from England, but with a great ardour to acquirea comprehensive experience, Durrance in his reticent way had been atpains to show the newcomer considerable friendship. Calder, therefore,might be likely to know.
"I too remember that night," said Walters. "Durrance dined at the messand went away early to prepare for his journey."
"His preparations were made already," said Calder. "He went away early,as you say. But he did not go to his quarters. He walked along theriver-bank to Tewfikieh."
Wadi Halfa was the military station, Tewfikieh a little frontier town tothe north separated from Halfa by a mile of river-bank. A few Greekskept stores there, a few bare and dirty cafes faced the street betweennative cook-shops and tobacconists'; a noisy little town where the negrofrom the Dinka country jolted the fellah from the Delta, and the air wastorn with many dialects; a thronged little town, which yet lacked toEuropean ears one distinctive element of a throng. There was no ring offootsteps. The crowd walked on sand and for the most part with nakedfeet, so that if for a rare moment the sharp high cries and theperpetual voices ceased, the figures of men and women flitted bynoiseless as ghosts. And even at night, when the streets were mostcrowded and the uproar loudest, it seemed that underneath the noise, andalmost appreciable to the ear, there lay a deep and brooding silence,the silence of deserts and the East.
"Durrance went down to Tewfikieh at ten o'clock that night," saidCalder. "I went to his quarters at eleven. He had not returned. He wasstarting eastward at four in the morning, and there was some detail ofbusiness on which I wished to speak to him before he went. So I waitedfor his return. He came in about a quarter of an hour afterwards andtold me at once that I must be quick, since he was expecting a visitor.He spoke quickly and rather restlessly. He seemed to be labouring undersome excitement. He barely listened to what I had to say, and heanswered me at random. It was quite evident that he was moved, andrather deeply moved, by some unusual feeling, though at the nature ofthe feeling I could not guess. For at one moment it seemed certainly tobe anger, and the next moment he relaxed into a laugh, as though inspite of himself he was glad. However, he bundled me out, and as I wentI heard him telling his servant to go to bed, because, though heexpected a visitor, he would admit the visitor himself."
"Well!" said Dawson, "and who was the visitor?"
"I do not know," answered Calder. "The one thing I do know is that whenDurrance's servant went to call him at four o'clock for his journey, hefound Durrance still sitting on the verandah outside his quarters, asthough he still expected his visitor. The visitor had not come."
"And Durrance left no message?"
"No. I was up myself before he started. I thought that he was puzzledand worried. I thought, too, that he meant to tell me what was thematter. I still think that he had that in his mind, but that he couldnot decide. For even after he had taken his seat upon his saddle and hiscamel had risen from the ground, he turned and looked down towards me.But he thought better of it, or worse, as the case may be. At allevents, he did not speak. He struck the camel on the flank with hisstick, and rode slowly past the post-office and out into the desert,with his head sunk upon his breast. I wonder whether he rode into atrap. Who could this visitor have been whom he meets in the street ofTewfikieh, and who must come so secretly to Wadi Halfa? What can havebeen his business with Durrance? Important business, troublesomebusiness--so much is evident. And he did not come to transact it. Wasthe whole thing a lure to which we have not the clue? Like ColonelDawson, I am afraid."
There was a silence after he had finished, which Major Walters was thefirst to break. He offered no argument--he simply expressed again hisunalterable cheerfulness.
"I don't think Durrance has got scuppered," said he, as he rose from hischair.
"I know what I shall do," said the colonel. "I shall send out a strongsearch party in the morning."
And the next morning, as they sat at breakfast on the verandah, he atonce proceeded to describe the force which he meant to despatch. MajorWalters, too, it seemed, in spite of his hopeful prophecies, hadpondered during the night over Calder's story, and he leaned across thetable to Calder.
"Did you never inquire whom Durrance talked with at Tewfikieh on thatnight?" he asked.
"I did, and there's a point that puzzles me," said Calder. He wassitting with his back to the Nile and his face towards the glass doorsof the mess-room, and he spoke to Walters, who was directly opposite. "Icould not find that he talked to more than one person, and that oneperson could not by any likelihood have been the visitor he expected.Durrance stopped in front of
a cafe where some strolling musicians, whohad somehow wandered up to Tewfikieh, were playing and singing for theirnight's lodging. One of them, a Greek I was told, came outside into thestreet and took his hat round. Durrance threw a sovereign into the hat,the man turned to thank him, and they talked for a little timetogether;" and as he came to this point he raised his head. A look ofrecognition came into his face. He laid his hands upon the table-edge,and leaned forward with his feet drawn back beneath his chair as thoughhe was on the point of springing up. But he did not spring up. His lookof recognition became one of bewilderment. He glanced round the tableand saw that Colonel Dawson was helping himself to cocoa, while MajorWalters's eyes were on his plate. There were other officers of thegarrison present, but not one had remarked his movement and its suddenarrest. Calder leaned back, and staring curiously in front of him andover the major's shoulder, continued his story. "But I could never hearthat Durrance spoke to any one else. He seemed, except that one knows tothe contrary, merely to have strolled through the village and back againto Wadi Halfa."
"That doesn't help us much," said the major.
"And it's all you know?" asked the colonel.
"No, not quite all," returned Calder, slowly; "I know, for instance,that the man we are talking about is staring me straight in the face."
At once everybody at the table turned towards the mess-room.
"Durrance!" cried the colonel, springing up.
"When did you get back?" said the major.
Durrance, with the dust of his journey still powdered upon his clothes,and a face burnt to the colour of red brick, was standing in thedoorway, and listening with a remarkable intentness to the voices of hisfellow-officers. It was perhaps noticeable that Calder, who wasDurrance's friend, neither rose from his chair nor offered any greeting.He still sat watching Durrance; he still remained curious and perplexed;but as Durrance descended the three steps into the verandah there camea quick and troubled look of comprehension into his face.
"We expected you three weeks ago," said Dawson, as he pulled a chairaway from an empty place at the table.
"The delay could not be helped," replied Durrance. He took the chair anddrew it up.
"Does my story account for it?" asked Calder.
"Not a bit. It was the Greek musician I expected that night," heexplained with a laugh. "I was curious to know what stroke of ill-luckhad cast him out to play the zither for a night's lodging in a cafe atTewfikieh. That was all," and he added slowly, in a softer voice, "Yes,that was all."
"Meanwhile you are forgetting your breakfast," said Dawson, as he rose."What will you have?"
Calder leaned ever so slightly forward with his eyes quietly resting onDurrance. Durrance looked round the table, and then called themess-waiter. "Moussa, get me something cold," said he, and the waiterwent back into the mess-room. Calder nodded his head with a faint smile,as though he understood that here was a difficulty rather cleverlysurmounted.
"There's tea, cocoa, and coffee," he said. "Help yourself, Durrance."
"Thanks," said Durrance. "I see, but I will get Moussa to bring me abrandy-and-soda, I think," and again Calder nodded his head.
Durrance ate his breakfast and drank his brandy-and-soda, and talked thewhile of his journey. He had travelled farther eastward than he hadintended. He had found the Ababdeh Arabs quiet amongst their mountains.If they were not disposed to acknowledge allegiance to Egypt, on theother hand they paid no tribute to Mahommed Achmet. The weather had beengood, ibex and antelope plentiful. Durrance, on the whole, had reason tobe content with his journey. And Calder sat and watched him, anddisbelieved every word that he said. The other officers went about theirduties; Calder remained behind, and waited until Durrance should finish.But it seemed that Durrance never would finish. He loitered over hisbreakfast, and when that was done he pushed his plate away and sattalking. There was no end to his questions as to what had passed at WadiHalfa during the last eight weeks, no limit to his enthusiasm over thejourney from which he had just returned. Finally, however, he stoppedwith a remarkable abruptness, and said, with some suspicion, to hiscompanion:--
"You are taking life easily this morning."
"I have not eight weeks' arrears of letters to clear off, as you have,Colonel," Calder returned with a laugh; and he saw Durrance's face cloudand his forehead contract.
"True," he said, after a pause. "I had forgotten my letters." And herose from his seat at the table, mounted the steps, and passed into themess-room.
Calder immediately sprang up, and with his eyes followed Durrance'smovements. Durrance went to a nail which was fixed in the wall close tothe glass doors and on a level with his head. From that nail he tookdown the key of his office, crossed the room, and went out through thefarther door. That door he left open, and Calder could see him walk downthe path between the bushes through the tiny garden in front of themess, unlatch the gate, and cross the open space of sand towards hisoffice. As soon as Durrance had disappeared Calder sat down again, and,resting his elbows on the table, propped his face between his hands.Calder was troubled. He was a friend of Durrance; he was the one man inWadi Halfa who possessed something of Durrance's confidence; he knewthat there were certain letters in a woman's handwriting waiting for himin his office. He was very deeply troubled. Durrance had aged duringthese eight weeks. There were furrows about his mouth where only faintlines had been visible when he had started out from Halfa; and it wasnot merely desert dust which had discoloured his hair. His hilarity,too, had an artificial air. He had sat at the table constraining himselfto the semblance of high spirits. Calder lit his pipe, and sat for along while by the empty table.
Then he took his helmet and crossed the sand to Durrance's office. Helifted the latch noiselessly; as noiselessly he opened the door, and helooked in. Durrance was sitting at his desk with his head bowed upon hisarms and all his letters unopened at his side. Calder stepped into theroom and closed the door loudly behind him. At once Durrance turned hisface to the door.
"Well?" said he.
"I have a paper, Colonel, which requires your signature," said Calder."It's the authority for the alterations in C barracks. You remember?"
"Very well. I will look through it and return it to you, signed, atlunch-time. Will you give it to me, please?"
He held out his hand towards Calder. Calder took his pipe from hismouth, and, standing thus in full view of Durrance, slowly anddeliberately placed it into Durrance's outstretched palm. It was notuntil the hot bowl burnt his hand that Durrance snatched his arm away.The pipe fell and broke upon the floor. Neither of the two men spoke fora few moments, and then Calder put his arm round Durrance's shoulder,and asked in a voice gentle as a woman's:--
"How did it happen?"
Durrance buried his face in his hands. The great control which he hadexercised till now he was no longer able to sustain. He did not answer,nor did he utter any sound, but he sat shivering from head to foot.
"How did it happen?" Calder asked again, and in a whisper.
Durrance put another question:--
"How did you find out?"
"You stood in the mess-room doorway listening to discover whose voicespoke from where. When I raised my head and saw you, though your eyesrested on my face there was no recognition in them. I suspected then.When you came down the steps into the verandah I became almost certain.When you would not help yourself to food, when you reached out your armover your shoulder so that Moussa had to put the brandy-and-soda safelyinto your palm, I was sure."
"I was a fool to try and hide it," said Durrance. "Of course I knew allthe time that I couldn't for more than a few hours. But even those fewhours somehow seemed a gain."
"How did it happen?"
"There was a high wind," Durrance explained. "It took my helmet off. Itwas eight o'clock in the morning. I did not mean to move my camp thatday, and I was standing outside my tent in my shirt-sleeves. So you seethat I had not even the collar of a coat to protect the nape of my neck.I was fool enough to run after my hel
met; and--you must have seen thesame thing happen a hundred times--each time that I stooped to pick itup it skipped away; each time that I ran after it, it stopped and waitedfor me to catch it up. And before one was aware what one was doing, onehad run a quarter of a mile. I went down, I was told, like a log justwhen I had the helmet in my hand. How long ago it happened I don't quiteknow, for I was ill for a time, and afterwards it was difficult to keepcount, since one couldn't tell the difference between day and night."
Durrance, in a word, had gone blind. He told the rest of his story. Hehad bidden his followers carry him back to Berber, and then, influencedby the natural wish to hide his calamity as long as he could, he hadenjoined upon them silence. Calder heard the story through to the end,and then rose at once to his feet.
"There's a doctor. He is clever, and, for a Syrian, knows a good deal. Iwill fetch him here privately, and we will hear what he says. Yourblindness may be merely temporary."
The Syrian doctor, however, pursed up his lips and shook his head. Headvised an immediate departure to Cairo. It was a case for a specialist.He himself would hesitate to pronounce an opinion; though, to be sure,there was always hope of a cure.
"Have you ever suffered an injury in the head?" he asked. "Were youever thrown from your horse? Were you wounded?"
"No," said Durrance.
The Syrian did not disguise his conviction that the case was grave; andafter he had departed both men were silent for some time. Calder had afeeling that any attempt at consolation would be futile in itself, andmight, moreover, in betraying his own fear that the hurt wasirreparable, only discourage his companion. He turned to the pile ofletters and looked them through.
"There are two letters here, Durrance," he said gently, "which you mightperhaps care to hear. They are written in a woman's hand, and there isan Irish postmark. Shall I open them?"
"No," exclaimed Durrance, suddenly, and his hand dropped quickly uponCalder's arm. "By no means."
Calder, however, did not put down the letters. He was anxious, forprivate reasons of his own, to learn something more of Ethne Eustacethan the outside of her letters could reveal. A few rare references madein unusual moments of confidence by Durrance had only informed Calder ofher name, and assured him that his friend would be very glad to changeit if he could. He looked at Durrance--a man so trained to vigour andactivity that his very sunburn seemed an essential quality rather thanan accident of the country in which he lived; a man, too, who came tothe wild, uncitied places of the world with the joy of one who comesinto an inheritance; a man to whom these desolate tracts were home, andthe fireside and the hedged fields and made roads merely the otherplaces; and he understood the magnitude of the calamity which hadbefallen him. Therefore he was most anxious to know more of this girlwho wrote to Durrance from Donegal, and to gather from her letters, asfrom a mirror in which her image was reflected, some speculation as toher character. For if she failed, what had this friend of his any longerleft?
"You would like to hear them, I expect," he insisted. "You have beenaway eight weeks." And he was interrupted by a harsh laugh.
"Do you know what I was thinking when I stopped you?" said Durrance."Why, that I would read the letters after you had gone. It takes time toget used to being blind after your eyes have served you pretty well allyour life." And his voice shook ever so little. "You will have to helpme to answer them, Calder. So read them. Please read them."
Calder tore open the envelopes and read the letters through and wassatisfied. They gave a record of the simple doings of her mountainvillage in Donegal, and in the simplest terms. But the girl's natureshone out in the telling. Her love of the country-side and of the peoplewho dwelt there was manifest. She could see the humour and the tragedyof the small village troubles. There was a warm friendliness forDurrance moreover expressed, not so much in a sentence as in the wholespirit of the letters. It was evident that she was most keenlyinterested in all that he did; that, in a way, she looked upon hiscareer as a thing in which she had a share, even if it was only afriend's share. And when Calder had ended he looked again at Durrance,but now with a face of relief. It seemed, too, that Durrance wasrelieved.
"After all, one has something to be thankful for," he cried. "Think!Suppose that I had been engaged to her! She would never have allowed meto break it off, once I had gone blind. What an escape!"
"An escape?" exclaimed Calder.
"You don't understand. But I knew a man who went blind; a good fellow,too, before--mind that, before! But a year after! You couldn't haverecognised him. He had narrowed down into the most selfish, exacting,egotistical creature it is possible to imagine. I don't wonder; I hardlysee how he could help it; I don't blame him. But it wouldn't make lifeeasier for a wife, would it? A helpless husband who can't cross a roadwithout his wife at his elbow is bad enough. But make him a selfishbeast into the bargain, full of questions, jealous of her power to gowhere she will, curious as to every person with whom she speaks--andwhat then? My God, I am glad that girl refused me. For that I am mostgrateful."
"She refused you?" asked Calder, and the relief passed from his face andvoice.
"Twice," said Durrance. "What an escape! You see, Calder, I shall bemore trouble even than the man I told you of. I am not clever. I can'tsit in a chair and amuse myself by thinking, not having any intellect tobuck about. I have lived out of doors and hard, and that's the only sortof life that suits me. I tell you, Calder, you won't be very anxious formuch of my society in a year's time," and he laughed again and with thesame harshness.
"Oh, stop that," said Calder; "I will read the rest of your letters toyou."
He read them, however, without much attention to their contents. Hismind was occupied with the two letters from Ethne Eustace, and he waswondering whether there was any deeper emotion than mere friendshiphidden beneath the words. Girls refused men for all sorts of queerreasons which had no sense in them, and very often they were sick andsorry about it afterwards; and very often they meant to accept the menall the time.
"I must answer the letters from Ireland," said Durrance, when he hadfinished. "The rest can wait."
Calder held a sheet of paper upon the desk and told Durrance when he waswriting on a slant and when he was writing on the blotting-pad; and inthis way Durrance wrote to tell Ethne that a sunstroke had deprived himof his sight. Calder took that letter away. But he took it to thehospital and asked for the Syrian doctor. The doctor came out to him,and they walked together under the trees in front of the building.
"Tell me the truth," said Calder.
The doctor blinked behind his spectacles.
"The optic nerve is, I think, destroyed," he replied.
"Then there is no hope?"
"None, if my diagnosis is correct."
Calder turned the letter over and over, as though he could not make uphis mind what in the world to do with it.
"Can a sunstroke destroy the optic nerve?" he asked at length.
"A mere sunstroke? No," replied the doctor. "But it may be theoccasion. For the cause one must look deeper."
Calder came to a stop, and there was a look of horror in his eyes. "Youmean--one must look to the brain?"
"Yes."
They walked on for a few paces. A further question was in Calder's mind,but he had some difficulty in speaking it, and when he had spoken hewaited for the answer in suspense.
"Then this calamity is not all. There will be more to follow--deathor--" but that other alternative he could not bring himself to utter.Here, however, the doctor was able to reassure him.
"No. That does not follow."
Calder went back to the mess-room and called for a brandy-and-soda. Hewas more disturbed by the blow which had fallen upon Durrance than hewould have cared to own; and he put the letter upon the table andthought of the message of renunciation which it contained, and he couldhardly restrain his fingers from tearing it across. It must be sent, heknew; its destruction would be of no more than a temporary avail. Yet hecould hardly bring himself to post
it. With the passage of every minutehe realised more clearly what blindness meant to Durrance. A man notvery clever, as he himself was ever the first to acknowledge, and alwaysthe inheritor of the other places,--how much more it meant to him thanto the ordinary run of men! Would the girl, he wondered, understand asclearly? It was very silent that morning on the verandah at Wadi Halfa;the sunlight blazed upon desert and river; not a breath of wind stirredthe foliage of any bush. Calder drank his brandy-and-soda, and slowlythat question forced itself more and more into the front of his mind.Would the woman over in Ireland understand? He rose from his chair as heheard Colonel Dawson's voice in the mess-room, and taking up his letter,walked away to the post-office. Durrance's letter was despatched, butsomewhere in the Mediterranean it crossed a letter from Ethne, whichDurrance received a fortnight later at Cairo. It was read out to him byCalder, who had obtained leave to come down from Wadi Halfa with hisfriend. Ethne wrote that she had, during the last months, considered allthat he had said when at Glenalla and in London; she had read, too, hisletters and understood that in his thoughts of her there had been nochange, and that there would be none; she therefore went back upon herold argument that she would, by marriage, be doing him an injury, andshe would marry him upon his return to England.
"That's rough luck, isn't it?" said Durrance, when Calder had read theletter through. "For here's the one thing I have always wished for, andit comes when I can no longer take it."
"I think you will find it very difficult to refuse to take it," saidCalder. "I do not know Miss Eustace, but I can hazard a guess from theletters of hers which I have read to you. I do not think that she is awoman who will say 'yes' one day, and then because bad times come to yousay 'no' the next, or allow you to say 'no' for her, either. I have asort of notion that since she cares for you and you for her, you aredoing little less than insulting her if you imagine that she cannotmarry you and still be happy."
Durrance thought over that aspect of the question, and began to wonder.Calder might be right. Marriage with a blind man! It might, perhaps, bepossible if upon both sides there was love, and the letter from Ethneproved--did it not?--that on both sides there _was_ love. Besides, therewere some trivial compensations which might help to make her sacrificeless burdensome. She could still live in her own country and move in herown home. For the Lennon house could be rebuilt and the estates clearedof their debt.
"Besides," said Calder, "there is always a possibility of a cure."
"There is no such possibility," said Durrance, with a decision whichquite startled his companion. "You know that as well as I do;" and headded with a laugh, "You needn't start so guiltily. I haven't overhearda word of any of your conversations about me."
"Then what in the world makes you think that there's no chance?"
"The voice of every doctor who has encouraged me to hope. Theirwords--yes--their words tell me to visit specialists in Europe, and notlose heart, but their voices give the lie to their words. If one cannotsee, one can at all events hear."
Calder looked thoughtfully at his friend. This was not the only occasionon which of late Durrance had surprised his friends by an unusualacuteness. Calder glanced uncomfortably at the letter which he was stillholding in his hand.
"When was that letter written?" said Durrance, suddenly; andimmediately upon the question he asked another, "What makes you jump?"
Calder laughed and explained hastily. "Why, I was looking at the letterat the moment when you asked, and your question came so pat that I couldhardly believe you did not see what I was doing. It was written on thefifteenth of May."
"Ah," said Durrance, "the day I returned to Wadi Halfa blind."
Calder sat in his chair without a movement. He gazed anxiously at hiscompanion, it seemed almost as though he were afraid; his attitude wasone of suspense.
"That's a queer coincidence," said Durrance, with a careless laugh; andCalder had an intuition that he was listening with the utmost intentnessfor some movement on his own part, perhaps a relaxation of his attitude,perhaps a breath of relief. Calder did not move, however; and he drew nobreath of relief.