“Sahibs and mem sahibs—eating, drinking, and having music and nautches. For the rest,” with a shrug, “the place was given over to Bhoots and fiends.”
A wide cart road, grass grown, led into the deserted cantonment, and Mark followed it on to the parade ground. There was the mess-house still habitable, the church roofless, encircled by a well-filled God’s acre, kept in perfect order. Here was, indeed, a most surprising sight, a graveyard in the wilds, not over-grown or choked with weeds and bushes, but every stone and slab free from moss, every grave tended with reverent care. He went into the old echoing mess-house, and found it in excellent repair—thanks to its beams and doors of deodar wood—as the Pahari proudly pointed out. There were at least twenty bungalows standing, half buried among trees and jungle; with creepers matted down over their windows; in some the verandahs had given away, in some the roofs had fallen in, some, on the other hand, appeared to set time at defiance. The site was beautifully chosen, nestling in the lap of the hills, with a peep of the far-away plains; not a sound was to be heard save the trickling of a streamlet, nor a living thing to be seen, save a few hill cattle, and under a tree some vultures who were picking the bones of a dead pony. The condemned cantonment was, for all its beauty, a melancholy place. Beyond Haval Ghat, and sloping towards the plains, were fields of golden corn, and villages sheltering in clumps of trees, picturesque bananas waving their graceful leaves over huts, that with their comfortable slab roofs resembled English cottages.
The coolie now explained that he wished to show his honour yet another sight, and to guide him home by a different route.
Half an hour’s climbing brought them to a good-sized street, of carved-fronted, flat-roofed hill houses. To the stranger’s horror it seemed to be altogether populated by lepers—lepers who were old, middle-aged, young—there were also leper children. They swarmed out and surrounded the sahib, exhibiting every form of their hideous disease, as they clamoured for assistance. Jervis emptied his pockets of everything they contained in the shape of money, dispensed alms hastily, and among the worst cases, and then hurried away. He felt heartily ashamed of his feelings of shuddering repulsion. Supposing he had been a leper himself—and such things as Englishmen who were lepers were known to exist. Still he turned headlong from that awful village of life in death, and hastily reascended the hill towards the Pela Kothi.
The desolate cantonment and the leper-colony combined to depress him beyond words, although the scenery was unsurpassed, the air as exhilarating as a tonic, and the scents and sounds of the forest enough to stir the most torpid imagination; nevertheless, Mark Jervis felt as if he had a load upon his back, as if he had grown ten years older in the last two days. It was not merely the scenes of the afternoon that preyed on his spirits. There was his father—his mind was undoubtedly shaken—he must endeavour to get him away, to take him home; yes, at all costs.
“What a curious way he talked. Sometimes so well and sensibly; sometimes in such incomprehensible jargon. What did he mean by saying, ‘Osman stayed here till death took him. You must remain here until death takes me’?”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
“HEREDITARY.”
His long afternoon rest had revived Major Jervis; he appeared to be another man as he sat opposite his son at dinner, and talked not merely sensibly, but wittily, across the grimy tablecloth, on which was exhibited smoked goat-chops and other undesirable comestibles. He discussed the condemned cantonment—he recollected its bygone existence. The lepers—they were his pensioners, and came for their dole weekly—they were well looked after between missionaries and other people. He spoke of his regiment, his former comrades; he gave vivid descriptions of shikar expeditions, of pig-sticking, of thrilling scenes on active service. He related anecdotes of well-known people of his acquaintance; he boasted of his brothers-in-arms, and described a polo tournament as if it had come off yesterday!
“And you have quite lost sight of all these friends?” inquired his son, after a pause.
The question seemed to break a spell; all animation suddenly faded from the major’s face, his whole expression changed into that of a shrunken old man as he replied—