I
"Barring my pay," he said, ruefully, "I haven't a coin in the world." And for the moment, newly accepted lover as he was, his eyes actually left hers and wandered away to the reddening yellow of the sunset with a certain resentment at the limitations of his world.
"Father has plenty!" she put in joyously. And for the moment her hand actually touched his in a new-born sense of appropriation and right of re-assurance which made her blush faintly. It also made his eyes return to hers, whereat she blushed furiously, and then tried to cover her confusion by a jest. "Well! he has. Hasn't he the best collection of coins in India?"
"He wouldn't part with one of them, though, for love or money. And I doubt his parting with you--though I could pay a lot--in love."
He had both her hands now, and the very newness of the position made her fence with the emotion it aroused.
"He parted with duplicates."
"But you aren't one--there isn't anyone like you in the wide, wide world. And I'm glad you're not. I don't want anyone else to be as lucky as I am."
She retreated still further from realities into jesting. "Then he exchanges quite often, so, if you only set yourself to find something----" She broke off, and her face lit up. "Oh, Jim! I have such a delightful idea! You shall find the gold coin--you know the one I mean--with the date that is to settle, or unsettle, half the history of the world! Do you know, I really believe, if you helped him to confound all those German wiseacres, that father would be quite willing to exchange----"
"His daughter for the ducat! Perhaps. But, unfortunately--and quite between ourselves--I have my doubts about the existence of that coin. Or if it does exist it is hopelessly hidden away for ever and ever and aye, like that blessed old buried city of his that we have all been hunting after this month past in the wilderness. I don't wish to be disrespectful to your father, Queenie, but I believe he dreamt of it--that is to say, if it didn't dream of him--one never knows which comes first----"
He paused, arrested in the egoism, the absolute individualism of love by the mystery of the collective life which was part even of that love, and once more his eyes wandered to the sun setting.
The sky had darkened on the horizon as the dust haze shadowed into purple, so that the distant edge of the low sand-hills, losing definite outline, seemed almost level. Yet far and near, from the feet of the lovers as they sat close together to that uncertain ending of their visible world, not a straight line was to be seen. Everything showed in curves--curves that told their unflinching tale of unseen circlings. The wrinkled ripples left by the last wind upon the sea of sand around them waved over the endless undulations of the desert, the sparse tussocks of coarse grass fell in fountains from their own centres, the stunted thorn-bushes were coiled and twisted on themselves like tangled skeins without a clue, the faint tracks of the sand-rats and the partridges wound snake-like in every direction, and even the footprints which had brought the two lovers in their present resting-place held the same hint of reference to unseen continuity, for, absorbed in Love's new world, they had wandered on aimlessly unheeding of the old one at their feet.
The result stared them in the face, now, in a firm yet undecided trail that was by far the most salient feature in the indefinite landscape. Jim Forrester laughed as he directed her attention to it.
"We seem to have gone round and round on our tracks; so the tents, and your respected father and civilisation generally must be--well! exactly where I would have sworn they were not. But that just bears out what I was saying. For all we know the whole thing may be a peculiarly vicious circle! The world may be going back when we think it is going forward, and all the fine new things we think we find, may only he ourselves again. You and I, and the buried city and the gold coin--everything that we dream of, or that dreams of us, may only be part of the hidden circle which belongs to the curve of a life which has no straight lines--My God! take care--what the devil is that?"
That, if anything, was a straight line--straight as an arrow. And an arrow it was, still vibrating in the soft sand at their very feet. Jim Forrester stood up angrily and looked round for the archer who had drawn his bow at such an unpleasantly close venture. But no one was visible, so he stooped down and drew the arrow out of the sand. He had seen its like, or almost its like, before in those wild central tracts of sandy desert where the wandering tribes of goatherds still cling to the weapons of a past age. His companion, however, had not, and she bent to examine it curiously. The attitude made the fair coils of her hair, which were plaited round her head, look more than ever like a heavy gold crown.
"It takes one back to another world altogether," she said, watching him as he balanced it critically to appraise the perfection of its poise. "To a world where it was made, perhaps--for it looks old, doesn't it! I wonder who----"
She paused, becoming conscious that someone was standing behind her. Jim Forrester became conscious of the fact also, and showed it in such an aggressive way that she exclaimed hastily:
"Don't be angry with him, please. It must have been quite a chance--he couldn't have known we were here."
Even without the plea it would have been difficult for the young Englishman to refuse the chance of explanation to the figure which had appeared so unexpectedly. For, though in all outward accessories it was only that of a wandering goatherd, there was a calm dignity about it which claimed consideration. The fillet which bound the hair, sun-ripened to a rich brown on its waves and curls, was only a knotted bit of goats'-hair string, but the head it encircled had a youthful buoyancy such as the Greek sculptors gave to the young Apollo, a resemblance enhanced by the statuesque folds of the rough goats'-hair blanketing which was sparsely draped over the bare, sinewy yet fine-drawn frame.
The face, however, was faintly aquiline, and the eyes, deep set between prominent brow and cheek bone, had the mingled fire and softness which in India so often redeems an otherwise commonplace countenance.
"I was stalking bustard, Huzoor," said the goatherd frankly, with a flash of very white teeth, "and being face down on the sand yonder behind the grasses saw nothing till the Presences stood up, but a glint of the sun on something."
He spoke to the man, but his eyes were on the girl's golden crown of hair.
Jim Forrester suddenly broke the arrow across his knee and threw the fragments from him into the sand ripples.
"Hand me over the bow, too," he said, peremptorily, then paused. "Hullo! Where the deuce did you get that--it is very old--the oldest I've seen--with a looped string, too?" he added, handling it curiously.
The goatherd smiled. "The Presence is welcome to keep it if he likes. I can get plenty more in the old city."
Once again, in speaking to the man, his eyes, askance, were on the girl.
She started. "In the old city," she echoed, "Jim! do you hear that--then you know where the old city is?"
The goatherd almost laughed. "Wherefore not, malika sahiba (queen-lady). Have I not lived in it always?"
"Lived in it! Then where is it?"
He swept a bronze hand in a circle which clipped her and him and the distant horizon.
"Here, queen-lady."
"Here," echoed Jim Forrester, incredulously; "but there are absolutely no signs of a city here."
"Plenty, Huzoor!" replied the goatherd, "if the Protector of the Poor will only use his eyes. Look yonder, how the ground rises to meet the curve of the sky; yonder, sahib, where the sunset red dyes deepest."
The young Englishman looked and frowned, but the girl gave a quick exclamation, and laid a hasty, surprised touch on her lover's arm. "He is right, Jim," she said; "why didn't we notice it before? It stands out quite clear--an even rise all round centring on the unseen sun. How very curious! Ask him his name, Jim, and all that, so that father may be able to get hold of him. Fancy if we find the buried city--it would be as good almost as the gold coin, though somehow it makes me feel creepy." She gave a faint shiver as she spoke.
"The queen-lady should not remain in the wilderness when the sun has set," came in swift warning from the goatherd; "there is a fever fiend lurks in it and brings strange dreams."
Something almost of familiarity and command in the liquid yet vibrant voice made Jim Forrester frown again and say, shortly, "Yes; we must get back; it grows quite cold."
The girl looked half bewildered first to one and then to the other of the two tall figures that stood between her and the fast-fading light, against which she still saw clearly that faint swelling domed blue shadow, as of some other world forcing its way through the crust of the visible one.
So she stood silent, vaguely disturbed while the few questions necessary to identify the man who answered them were asked.
She did not speak, indeed, until with faces set on the right path for their camp and civilisation generally, they paused on the top of the first sand-rippled wave to look back. The shadowy dome was still there, swelling towards the vanished sun, and from its side the figure of the young goatherd rose into the darkening dust haze. He was calling to his flock, and the words of his old-time chant were clearly audible:
"O, seekers for Life's meat,
Your course is run!
Come home with weary feet,
Rest is so sweet.
What though one day be done?--
Another has begun.
The flock, the fold are one,
Where long years meet!"
"I hope he told us his real name!" she said, suddenly.