CHAPTER VIII
THE FIERY VORTEX
"There is nothing more to be done," said Peter with mournful eyes uponthe baby in the _ayah's_ arms. "Will not my _mem-sahib_ take her rest?"
Stella's eyes also rested upon the tiny wizen face. She knew that Peterspoke truly. There was nothing more to be done. She might send yet againfor Major Ralston. But of what avail? He had told her that he could dono more. The little life was slipping swiftly, swiftly, out of herreach. Very soon only the desert emptiness would be left.
"The _mem-sahib_ may trust her _baba_ to Hanani," murmured the _ayah_behind the enveloping veil. "Hanani loves the _baba_ too."
"Oh, I know," Stella said.
Yet she hung over the _ayah's_ shoulder, for to-night of all nights shesomehow felt that she could not tear herself away.
There had been a change during the day--a change so gradual as to bealmost imperceptible save to her yearning eyes. She was certain that thebaby was weaker. He had cried less, had, she believed, suffered less;and now he lay quite passive in the _ayah's_ arms. Only by the feeble,fluttering breath that came and went so fitfully could she have toldthat the tiny spark yet lingered in the poor little wasted frame.
Major Ralston had told her earlier in the evening that he might go on inthis state for days, but she did not think it probable. She was surethat every hour now brought an infinitesimal difference. She felt thatthe end was drawing near.
And so a great reluctance to go possessed her, even though she would bewithin call all night. She had a hungry longing to stay and watch thelittle unconscious face which would soon be gone from her sight. Shewanted to hold each minute of the few hours left.
Very softly Peter came to her side. "My _mem-sahib_ will rest?" he saidwistfully.
She looked at him. His faithful eyes besought her like the eyes of adog. Their dumb adoration somehow made her want to cry.
"If I could only stay to-night, Peter!" she said.
"_Mem-sahib_," he urged very pleadingly, "the _baba_ sleeps now. It maybe he will want you to-morrow. And if my _mem-sahib_ has not slept shewill be too weary then."
Again she knew that he spoke the truth. There had been times of latewhen she had been made aware of the fact that her strength was nearingits limit. She knew it would be sheer madness to neglect the warninglest, as Peter suggested, her baby's need of her outlasted herendurance. She must husband all the strength she had.
With a sigh she bent and touched the tiny forehead with her lips.Hanani's hand, long and bony, gently stroked her arm as she did so.
"Old Hanani knows, _mem-sahib_," she whispered under her breath.
The tears she had barely checked a moment before sprang to Stella'seyes. She held the dark hand in silence and was subtly comfortedthereby.
Passing through the door that Peter held open for her, she gave him herhand also. He bent very low over it, just as he had bent on that firstwedding-day of hers so long--so long--ago, and touched it with hisforehead. The memory flashed back upon her oddly. She heard again RalphDacre's voice speaking in her ear. "You, Stella,--you are as ageless asthe stars!" The pride and the passion of his tones stabbed through herwith a curious poignancy. Strange that the thought of him should come toher with such vividness to-night! She passed on to her room, as onemoving in a painful trance.
For a space she lingered there, hardly knowing what she did; then sheremembered that she had not bidden Bernard good-night, and mechanicallyher steps turned in his direction.
He was generally smoking and working on the verandah at that hour. Shemade her way to the dining-room as being the nearest approach.
But half-way across the room the sound of Tommy's voice, sharp andagitated, came to her: Involuntarily she paused. He was with Bernard onthe verandah.
"The devils shot him in the jungle, but he came on, got as far asRalston's bungalow, and collapsed there. He was dead in a fewminutes--before anything could be done."
The words pierced through her trance, like a naked sword flashing withincredible swiftness, cutting asunder every bond, every fibre, that heldher soul confined. She sprang for the open window with a great andterrible cry.
"Who is dead? Who? Who?"
The red glare of the lamp met her, dazzled her, seemed to enter herbrain and cruelly to burn her; but she did not heed it. She stood witharms flung wide in frantic supplication.
"Everard!" she cried. "Oh God! My God! Not--Everard!"
Her wild words pierced the night, and all the voices of India seemed toanswer her in a mad discordant jangle of unintelligible sound. An owlhooted, a jackal yelped, and a chorus of savage, yelling laughter brokehideously across the clamour, swallowing it as a greater wave swallows alesser, overwhelming all that has gone before.
The red glare of the lamp vanished from Stella's brain, leaving an awfulblankness, a sense as of something burnt out, a taste of ashes in themouth. But yet the darkness was full of horrors; unseen monsters leapedpast her as in a surging torrent, devils' hands clawed at her, devils'mouths cried unspeakable things.
She stood as it were on the edge of the vortex, untouched, unafraid,beyond it all since that awful devouring flame had flared and gone out.She even wondered if it had killed her, so terribly aloof was she, sototally distinct from the pandemonium that raged around her. It had thevividness and the curious lack of all physical feeling of a nightmare.And yet through all her numbness she knew that she was waiting forsomeone--someone who was dead like herself.
She had not seen either Bernard or Tommy in that blinding moment on theverandah. Doubtless they were fighting in that raging blackness in frontof her. She fancied once that she heard her brother's voice laughing asshe had sometimes heard him laugh on the polo-ground when he hadexecuted a difficult stroke. Immediately before her, a Titanic strugglewas going on. She could not see it, for the light in the room behind hadbeen extinguished also, but the dreadful sound of it made her think fora fleeting second of a great bull-stag being pulled down by a score ofleaping, wide-jawed hounds.
And then very suddenly she herself was caught--caught from behind,dragged backwards off her feet. She cried out in a wild horror, but in asecond she was silenced. Some thick material that had a heavy nativescent about it--such a scent as she remembered vaguely to hang aboutHanani the _ayah_--was thrust over her face and head muffling alloutcry. Muscular arms gripped her with a fierce and ruthless mastery,and as they lifted and bore her away the nightmare was blotted from herbrain as if it had never been. She sank into oblivion....