And thereinafter came quiet; while one by one the glittering windows of the house sank to darkness.
And yet it was not dark, after all, surely? Or was there a curious halo of light emanating from old Mahadeo's head; a halo which distorted him somehow, which piled his low turban into a high tiara, and made his nose show long, so long--almost as long as the Elephant-Faced God-of-Wisdom ... in the Indian shrines....
Ah! There he was!...
Gwynne of Garthgwynne, standing on a bit of open beyond the shadow--behind him a grey shimmer of mere set thick with water lilies--his legs very wide apart, his watch in his hand--it had some electric appliance about it, and the feeble light streaming upwards showed his face full of hard, soul-revealing lines. What a face!--the face of a devil let loose--set free from the fetters of conventional life.
"Two o'clock," he muttered. "Well! whats'h a--matter. Sh'upposin' am drunk she'll have to put up--Gwynne Garthgwynne, d--mn her--my wife--mother of Gwynne's-Garth ..."
"Forward, Sri Ganêsh!" The order came soft but swift, and we were out of the shadows. What was it out of the shadows, also--out of the Dim Shadows which shroud Life in the Beginning and the End, which caught me irresistibly, making me say sharply as one who has waited long, "Come along, Gwynne! do--there's a good fellow."
For an instant surprise seemed to struggle with satisfaction in his drink-sodden brain. The tall, heavy figure swayed, lurched. I could see its every detail, the very buttons on the mess jacket--worn doubtless out of bravado this last evening of bachelorhood--shone, as they had done that night years ago amid the shadow and shine of the mango-tôpe; for a radiance seemed to have sprung from earth and sky in which nothing could be hidden.
Then suddenly came his old reckless, half-insane burst of laughter. "Come," he echoed, drunkenly, "Why--why--shno't? Whatsh' larks--chursh, fl'rs joll'--lit'--bride--no bridegroom!--joll'--good'--larks'h, eh! Off to Phildelp'ia in the mornin'--see th'other one--joll'--lit' one. Bait, you pig, Ganêsh! Bait!"
It all passed like a flash of lightning. The elephant was down and up again, and the last thing I remember was hearing Gwynne of Garthgwynne's drunken voice say, "Hello! old Mahadeo, eh! Well! go it, ol' man. Givs'h some of--wish-dom--Shri Ganêsh--eh--what?"
When I roused again it was dawn; pale primrose dawn over a cloudless sea.