There was a pause, then a fumbling at the bolts and bars. So, in that grey, cold light, a figure stood at the open door, tall, gaunt, with a hunted look in its eyes, almost a terror, as they looked down--down to the threshold--down for what they knew should be there.
"Dering?" asked Eugene Smith, rather hoarsely; then, seeing what lay to one side, covered his eyes from the sight with a cry like a woman's, and trembled all over. That strain of patient, idle inaction had been awful.
"Oh, God damn them!" burst out the doctor, fiercely. "And all for nothing--for nothing. At least I think so. Come on, Smith, and make sure."
For nothing! For nothing!
The words were echoing in Roshan's brain also, as with loose rein, recklessly, he galloped over the frail bridge of boats, making it quiver and thunder beneath his horse's hoofs, and send curved waves of light and shadow over the clear, steely surface of the water, seen like a polished shield in the dawn. The air was clear also; the distant hills steel grey as the water, the sky steel grey as the hills. And there was the bright keenness as of a glittering sword in the chill breeze that swept from west to east. But Roshan did not feel it; he was absorbed in himself, in the useless battle of his life.
For nothing! For nothing!
He did not even hear the soft yet sonorous roar, beginning like the rush of a big breaker on a beach, ending with a wild, musical note, like the wail of new-weaned lambs and their mothers on a lone hillside, which suddenly echoed out over the water, making those who galloped behind look at each other and whisper joyfully:--
"'Tis all right, Khân-sahib," said one, urging his horse alongside; "the pilgrims are waiting still--hear you not their cry? They grow impatient!"
Roshan looked at him with lack-lustre eyes. What were the pilgrims to him, or their impatience? What was salvation, immortality, to one whose only desire was death--death and forgetfulness? He dug his spurs into his horse, savagely glad to give pain, and rode on.
"Hârâ! Hârî! Harî! Hârâ!"