The Hosts of the Lord

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

For instance, Laila's dress, "given her by someone." That, joined to the knowledge that she was connected with the late Nawab's family, of which Roshan Khân might with justice claim the headship, had brought the latter's action within the bounds of credibility. Jealousy! revenge! these were potent causes. Laila, then, must have been playing with Roshan's pretensions. Playing like a child with a toy; playing, rather, like a woman who hesitates at nothing for the sake of the man she loves. And she had hesitated at nothing; not even at this, to give him pleasure, to make things match with his passion! The thought, the remembrance, made him for a moment feel inclined to fling up his hands, and let the canoe take him where it chose; take him down stream utterly. Then a half choking, yet wholly strenuous desire to escape from the whole story, a wild instinctive effort for a more wholesome atmosphere, like that of a drowning man for a breath of fresh air, had sent the canoe bounding on his way; his way and none other's, in swift obedience. With a rush, he had grasped that there was more in life--that he had allowed himself to be a slave! But that was past,--he would shake himself together--he would forget the thraldom of sex--and he would forget the past.

Yet, as he cast about in his mind for the best method of applying the half hour's leisure, the remembrance of a woman came to him, as if to mock at his resolution. Muriel, and dear little Gladys who called him "Derin' darling"; where were they? His eyes grew soft in the remembrance, stern at the probability of their being in danger. Why had he not thought of it before? How could he ever have paused, wondering what to do?

He set the red light, which he had taken from the fateful balcony, carefully in the canoe--though, even should some gust of the rising wind not blow the light out, it could scarcely be of any use in that outer darkness--as a signal to the raft should it, by an off chance, drift past in his absence, then struck across the sand in the direction in which he knew the Smiths' bungalow must lie; that was, a little to the rear of the gaol.

The storm, as he faced it, was so fierce that the doubt rose inevitably if an unwieldy raft could make way against it. If so, then there would be no help. The only thing would be to defend himself and others until the end came; the end which would at least end the past.

He had almost to feel his way, the darkness was so intense. It was a relief to stumble against something which he knew must be the low mud fence of Muriel's garden; that garden in which she tried to defy Providence, and rear English flowers. He knew his feet must be crushing her treasures as he passed on towards a faint glow, a red glow. But everything that was not the blackness of outer darkness to-night seemed red--blood red.

A minute after, with a vast relief at the silence, the solitude, he was in Muriel's pretty drawing-room. The pink-shaded lamp was still alight, showing red through the fog of dust. He passed to it instinctively, and as he did so, noticed the writing on the table. But many an earth-atom had fallen on that confession of ignorance since George Dillon had made it idly, and so, as Vincent Dering bent quickly to see if by chance it was some message left for those who might come after, he also had to frown and say, "God knows!"

Was it possible that Eugene and his wife were still asleep? The doors stood open, but that was to be expected at that season of the year, unless someone had been awake to close them against the storm. He must make sure, however.

But there was no one to be found in any of the rooms. It occurred to him, then, that they must have taken refuge in the gaol, and he told himself he was a fool not to have thought of that before. Dillon would, of course, have seen to that. He, Vincent, might have remembered so much, at least; might have remembered that he himself was not the only slave. Then he gave an odd, bitter little laugh. Was it never possible to get beyond a woman's apron-strings?

And here he was wasting time over the question, when he ought to be doing something better.

But what?