CHAPTER XI
WITHIN THE GATES
Nehal Singh's servants stood with the horses outside Travers' compound and waited. Their master did not disturb them. Glad as he was to get away from the crowd of strangers and the dazzling lights and colors, it still pleased him to be within hearing of the music which, softened by the distance, exercised a melancholy yet soothing influence upon his disturbed mind. For the dreamy peace had gone for ever—as indeed it must be when the soul of man is roughly shaken into living, pulsating life, and he fevered with a hundred as yet disordered hopes and ambitions. To be a benefactor to his people and to all mankind, to be the first pioneer of his race in the search after civilization and culture—these had been the dreams of his hitherto wasted life, only he had never recognized them, never understood whither the restless impulses were driving him. It had needed the pure soul of a good woman to unlock the best from his own; it had needed the genius of a clear brain to harness the untrained faculties to some definite aim. The soul of a woman had come and had planted upon him the purity of her high ideal; the genius had already shot its first illuminating ray into his darkness. Henceforth the watchword for them all was to be "Forward," and Nehal Singh, standing like a white ghost in the deserted compound, shaken by the force of his own emotions, intoxicated by his own happiness and the shining future which spread itself before his eyes, sent up a prayer such as rarely ascends from earth to Heaven. To whom? Not to Brahma. His mind had burst like a raging tide over the flood-gates of caste and creed and embraced the whole world and the one God who has no name, no creed, no dogma, but whom in that moment he recognized in great thanksgiving as the Universal Father.
Thus far had Nehal Singh traveled in two short weeks—guided by a woman who had no God and a man who had no God save his own ends. But he did not know this. As he began to pace slowly backward and forward, listening to the distant music, he thought of her, and measured himself with her ideal in a humility which did not reject hope. One day he would be able to stand before her and say, "Thus far have I worked and striven for inner worth and for the good of my brothers. I have kept myself pure and honest, I have cultivated in myself the best I have, and have been inexorable against the evil. Thus much have I attained."
Further than that triumphant moment he did not think, but he thanked God for the ideal which had been set him—the Great People's ideal of a man—and for the afterward which he knew must come.
Thus absorbed in his own reflections, he reached Travers' bungalow, and a ray of light falling across his path, brought him sharply back to the present reality. He looked up and saw that a table had been pulled out on to the verandah, and that four officers sat round it, playing cards by the light of a lamp. At Marut there was always a heavy superfluity of men, and these four, doubtless weary of standing uselessly about, had made good their escape to enjoy themselves in their own way. Nehal Singh hesitated. He felt a strong desire to go up and join them, to learn to know them outside the enervating, leveling atmosphere of social intercourse where each is forced to keep his real individuality hidden behind a wall of phrases. Now, no doubt, they would show themselves openly to him as they were; they would admit him into the circle of their intimate life, and teach him the secret of the greatness which had carried their flag to the four corners of the earth. Yet he hesitated to make his presence known. The study of the four faces, unconscious of his scrutiny, absorbed him.
The two elder men were known to him, although their names were forgotten. Their fair hair, regular, somewhat cold, features led him to suppose that they were brothers. The other two were considerably younger—they seemed to Nehal Singh almost boys, though in all probability they were his own age. One especially interested him. He was a good-looking young fellow, with pleasant if somewhat effeminate features and a healthy skin bronzed with the Indian sun. He sat directly opposite where Nehal Singh stood in the shadow, and when he shifted his cards, as he often did in a restless, uneasy way, he gave the unseen watcher an opportunity to study every line of his set face.
Nehal Singh wondered at his expression. The others were grave with the gravity of indifference, but this boy had his teeth set, and something in his eyes reminded Nehal Singh of a dog he had once seen confronted suddenly with an infuriated rattle-snake. It was the expression of hypnotized fear which held him back from intruding himself upon them, and he was about to retrace his steps quietly when the man who was seated next the balustrade turned and glanced so directly toward him that Nehal Singh thought his presence was discovered. The officer's next words showed, however, that his gaze had passed over Nehal Singh's head to the brightly lighted marquee on the other side of the compound.
"I'm glad to be out of that crush," Captain Webb said, as he lazily gathered up his cards. "Fearfully rotten show I call it—not a pretty girl among the lot, and a heat enough to make the devil envious! I can't think what induced our respected Napoleon to make such a fool of himself."
"Napoleon hasn't made a fool of himself, you can make yourself easy on that score," Saunders retorted. "Napoleon knows on which side of the bread his butter lies, even if you don't. When he dances attendance on any one, you can take it on trust that the butter isn't far off. No, no; I've a great reverence for Nappy's genius."
"It's an infernally undignified proceeding, anyhow," Webb went on. "I'm beginning to see that old Stafford wasn't so far wrong. What do we want with the fellow? All this kowtowing will go to his head and make him as 'uppish' as the rest of 'em. He's conceited enough, already, aping us as though he had been at it all his life."
"That's the mistake we English are always making," grumbled Saunders, as he played out. "We are too familiar. We swallow anything for diplomacy's sake, even if it hasn't got so much as a coating of varnish. We pull these fellows up to our level and pamper them as though they were our equals, and then when they find we won't go the whole hog, they turn nasty and there's the devil to pay. In this case I didn't mind so long as he kept his place, but then that's what they never do. That's our rubber, I think. Shall we stop?"
"I've had enough, anyhow," his vis-a-vis answered. "Add up the dern total, will you, there's a good fellow. I must be getting home. There's that boring parade to-morrow at five again, and I've got a headache that will last me a week, thanks to Nappy's bad champagne. Well, what's the damage?"
The young fellow who had sat with his head bowed over his cards looked up with a sickly smile.
"Yes, what's the damage?" he said. "I can't be bothered—I've lost count. You and I must have done pretty badly, Phipps."
"I dare say we shall survive," his partner rejoined carelessly. "We have lost five rubbers. How does that work out, Webb?"
"I'll trouble you for a hundred each," Webb answered, after a minute's calculation. "Quite a nice, profitable evening for us, eh, Saunders. Thanks, awfully, old fellow." He gathered up the rupees which the boy's partner had pushed toward him. The boy himself sat as though frozen to stone. Only when Saunders gave him a friendly nudge, he started and looked about him as though he had been awakened out of a trance.
"I'm awfully sorry," he stuttered; "you and Webb—would you mind waiting till to-morrow? I'll raise it somehow—I haven't got so much—"
Phipps broke into a laugh.
"You silly young duffer!" he said. "What have you been doing with your pocket money, eh? Been buying too many sweeties?"
The other two men roared, but the boy's features never relaxed.
"I tell you I haven't got so much with me," he mumbled. "I'll bring it to-morrow, I promise."
Webb rose from his chair, stretching himself languidly.
"All right," he agreed. "To-morrow will do. By Jove, what a gorgeous night it is!" He leaned over the balustrade, lifting his aristocratic face to the sky. "Saunders, you don't want to go to bed, you old cormorant. Come on with me, and we'll spend the night hours worthily."
"I'm game!" Saunders rejoined. "That is, if it's anything decent. I'm not going to do any more tar-worshipping, that's certain."
"Don't want you to. I'm going to dress up and have a run around the Bazaar, and if you want a little excitement, you had better do likewise. You see things you don't see in the daytime, I can tell you, and some of the women aren't bad. Come on! We can run round to my diggings and change. Are you coming, Phipps and Geoffries?"
The weedy young man addressed as Phipps rose with alacrity.
"Anything for a change," he said. "Wake up, Innocence!" He brought his hand down with a friendly thump on Geoffries' shoulder, but the boy shook his head.
"No," he said, in the same rough, monotonous voice. "I'm done for to-night. You fellows get on without me."
"As you like. Good night."
"Good night."
The three men went into the bungalow. Gradually their voices died away in the distance, but the boy never moved, never shifted his blank stare from the cards in front of him. It was a curious tableau. In the midst of the darkness it was as though a lime-light had been thrown on to a theatrical representation of despair, while beneath, hidden by the shadow, a lonely spectator, to whom the scene was a horrible revelation, fought out a hard battle between indignation and disbelief.
Throughout the conversation Nehal Singh had stood rigid, his hand clenched on the jeweled hilt of his sword, his eyes riveted on the faces of the four men who were thus unconsciously drawing him into the intimate circle of their life. Much that they said was incomprehensible to him. The references to "Napoleon" and to the unknown individual contemptuously dubbed "the fellow" were not clear, but they left him a gnawing sense of insult and scorn which he could not conquer. The subsequent chink of money changing hands had jarred upon his ears—the final dispute concerning their further pleasure made him sick with disgust. These "gentlemen" sought their amusement in a place where he would have scorned to set his foot.
This fact obliterated for a moment every other consideration. Was it to these that his hero-worship was dedicated? Were these the men from whom he was to learn greatness of thought, heroism of action, purity in life, idealism—these blatant, coarse-worded, coarse-minded cynics to whom duty was a "bore" and pleasure an excuse to plunge into the lowest dregs of existence? In vain his young enthusiasm, his almost passionate desire to honor greatness in others fought his contemptuous conviction of their unworthiness. Gradually, it is true, he grew calmer, and, like a climber who has been flung from a high peak, gathered himself from his fall, ready to climb again. He told himself that as an outsider he did not understand either the words or the actions which he had heard and witnessed, that he judged them by the narrow standard of a life spent cut off from the practical ways of the world. He repeated to himself Beatrice Cary's assurance—"All men do not carry their heart on their sleeve." He told himself that behind the jarring flippancy there still could lurk a hidden depth and greatness. Nevertheless the received impression was stronger than all argument. The climber, apparently unhurt, had sustained a vital injury.
Nehal Singh was about to turn away, desirous only to be alone, when a sound fell on his ears which sent a sudden sharp thrill through his troubled heart. It was a groan, a single, half-smothered groan, breaking through compressed lips by the very force of an overpowering misery. Nehal looked back. The blank stare was gone, the boy lay with his face buried in his arms.
In that moment the dreamer in Nehal died, the man of instant, impulsive action took his place. He hurried up the steps of the verandah and laid his hand on the bowed shoulder.
"You are in trouble," he said. "What is the matter?"
As though he had been struck by a shock of electricity, Geoffries half sprang to his feet, and then, as he saw the dark face so close to his own, he sank back again, speechless and white to the lips. For a moment the two men looked at each other in unbroken silence.
"I am sorry I have startled you," Nehal said at length, "but I could not see you in such distress. I do not know what it is, but if you will confide in me, I may be able to help you."
"Rajah Sahib," stammered the young fellow, in helpless confusion, "if
I had known you were there—"
"You would not have revealed your trouble to me?" Nehal finished, with a faint smile. "And that, I think, would have been a pity for us both. If I can help you, perhaps you can help me." He paused and then added slowly: "I have been standing watching you a long time."
"A long time!" A curious fear crept over the boyish face. "You saw us playing, then—and heard what we said?"
"Yes."
"And you wish to help me?"
"If I can."
Geoffries turned his head away, avoiding the direct gaze.
"You are very kind, Rajah Sahib. I'm afraid I'm not to be helped."
The sight of that awkward shame and misery drove all personal grief from Nehal's mind. He drew forward a chair and seated himself opposite his companion, clasping his sinewy, well-shaped hands on the table before him.
"Let us try and put all formalities aside," he said. "If you can treat me as a friend, let nothing prevent you. We are strangers to each other, but then the whole world is stranger to me. Yet I would be glad to help and understand the world, as I would be glad to help and understand you if you will let me."
Geoffries looked shyly at this strange deus ex machina, troubled by perplexing considerations. How much had the Rajah heard of the previous conversation, how much had he understood? Above all, what would his comrades say if they found him pouring out his heart to "this fellow," who had been the constant butt for their arrogant contempt? And yet, as often happens, amidst his many friends he was intensely alone. There was no single one to whom he could turn with the burden of his conscience, no one to whom he did not systematically play himself off as something other than he was. And opposite he looked into a face full of grave sympathy, not unshadowed with personal sadness. Yet he hesitated, and Nehal Singh went on thoughtfully:
"There are some things I do not understand," he said. "You were playing some game for money. I have heard of that before, but I do not understand. Are you then, so poor?"
Geoffries laughed miserably.
"I am now," he said.
"Then it is money that is the trouble?"
"It always is. At first one plays for the fun of the thing and because—oh, well, one has to, don't you know. Afterward, one plays to get it back."
"But you have not got it back?"
Geoffries shook his head.
"I never do," he said. "I'm a rotter at bridge."
"A hundred rupees!" Nehal went on reflectively. "That was the sum, I think? It is very little—not enough to cause you any trouble."
"Not by itself," Geoffries agreed, with a fresh collapse into his old depression. "But it is the last straw. I'm cut pretty short by the home people, who don't understand, and there are other things—polo ponies, dinner-races, subscriptions—"
"And the Bazaar."
Geoffries caught his breath and glanced across at the stern, unhappy face. He read there in an instant a pitying contempt which at first seemed ridiculous, and then insolent, and then terrible. Boy as he was, there flashed through his easy-going brain some vague unformed recognition of the unshifting national responsibility which weighs upon the shoulders of the greatest and the least. He understood, though not clearly, that he and his three comrades had dragged themselves and their race in the mud at the feet of a foreigner, and with that shock of understanding came the desire to vindicate himself and the uncounted millions who were linked to him.
"You think badly of us, Rajah Sahib," he said fiercely. "Perhaps you have a right to do so from what you have seen; but you have not seen all—no, not nearly all. You've seen us in the soft days when we've nothing to do but drill recruits and while away the time as best we can. Think what the monotony means—day after day the same work, the same faces. Who can blame us if we get slack and ready to do anything for a change? I know some of us are rotters—especially here in Marut. Most of us belong to the British Regiment, and are accustomed to luxury and ease in the old country. I haven't got that excuse—I'm in the Gurkhas—and what I do I do because I am a rotter. But there are men who are not. There are men, Rajah Sahib, right up there by the northern provinces, who are made of steel and iron, real men, heroes—"
Nehal Singh leaned forward and caught his companion by the arm.
"Heroes?" he said with passionate earnestness. "Heroes?"
Geoffries nodded. That look of enthusiastic sympathy won his heart and awoke his soldier's slumbering pride.
"I'm no good at explaining," he said, "but I know of things that would stir your blood. For a whole year—my first year—I was up north in a mud fortress where there was only one other European officer. It was Nicholson. You mayn't have heard of him—precious few people have—but up there in that lonely, awful place, with wild hill-tribes about us and a handful of sepoys for our protection, he was a god—yes, a god; for there was not one of us that didn't worship him and honor him. We would have followed him to the mouth of hell. He was young, only six months a captain, and yet there was nothing he didn't seem to know, nothing he couldn't do. Every day he was in the saddle, reconnoitering, visiting the heads of the tribes, making peace, distributing justice. Every day he went out with his life in his hands, and every night he came back, quiet, unpretending, never boasting, never complaining, and yet we knew that somewhere he had risked himself to clear a stone out of our way, to win an enemy over to our side, to confirm a friend in his friendship. Yes, he was a man; and there are others like him. No one hears about them, but they don't care. They go on giving their lives and energy to their work, and never ask for thanks or reward. I—once hoped to be like that; but I came to Marut—and then—" He stumbled and stopped short. "I'm a ranting fool!" he went on angrily. "You won't understand, Rajah Sahib, but I couldn't stand your thinking that they are all like me—"
Nehal Singh rose to his feet.
"Nicholson!" he repeated slowly, as though he had not heard. "I shall remember that name. And there are more like him? That is well." Then he laid his hand on the young officer's shoulder. "I am going to help you," he said. "I am going to save you from whatever trouble you are in, and then you must go back to the frontiers and become a man after the ideal that has been set you. One day you can repay me."
The storm of protest died on Geoffries' lips. Prejudices, the ingrained arrogance of race which scorned to accept friendship at the hands of an inferior, sank to ashes as his eyes met those of this Hindu prince.
"What have I done to deserve your kindness, Rajah Sahib?" he began helplessly, but Nehal Singh cut him smilingly short.
"You have saved me," he said. "To-night my faith hung in the balance. You have given it back to me, and in my turn I will save you and give you back what you have lost. And this shall be a bond between us. You will hear from me to-morrow. Good night."
"Good night, Rajah Sahib—and—thank you." He hesitated, and then went on painfully: "You have shown me that we have behaved like cads. I—am awfully sorry."
He was not referring to the Bazaar, as Nehal supposed.
"The past is over and done with," Nehal Singh answered, "but the future is ours—and the common ideal which we must follow for the common good."
Hugh Geoffries stood a long time after the Rajah had left him, absorbed in wondering speculation. Who was this strange man who a few weeks ago had been but a shadow, and to-day stood in the midst of them, sharing their life and yet curiously alone? He had met other Indian rulers, but they had not been as this man. They had also joined the European life, but they had come as strangers and had remained as strangers. They had learned to assume an outward conformity which this prince had not needed to learn. And yet he stood alone, even among his own people alone. Wherein lay the link, wherein the barrier? Was it caste, religion?
Hugh Geoffries found no answer to these questions. He went home sobered and thoughtful, dimly conscious that he had brushed past the mystery of a great character, whom, in spite of all, he had been forced to reverence.