"And now——"
"Now it is for Gaya—for those lives your ambition has jeopardized. And even that may be useless."
The ridge they were traversing began to slope downwards. The water was at their feet. They could hear it sucking at the long grasses. The men immediately behind them were swept forward and lost their footing. A man who stumbled at Sigrid's side clutched at her and then went rolling ludicrously down the mud bank into the rising flood. She saw his head for an instant—his face gazing stupidly up at them. Something square and black and evil that had lain like a lump of wood on the surface of the water moved swiftly forward.
There was a scream. Ayeshi held up his hand before Sigrid's face, but she had seen enough. The man had vanished, and where he had been the greyness of the water had turned to red.
"Oh, God!" she whispered. "Tristram!"
"No, no, Mem-Sahib—not that—not that—they meant that he should die, but I—I who served him and loved him, I know that death cannot touch him when he fights for others. He fights for others now, Mem-Sahib—for those I have betrayed—for my salvation." He laid his hand on his breast with a gesture of unutterable despair. "No—not even he can do that. It is too late. I am accursed—accursed——!"
And, as though in answer, the crowd he led surged up closer to him. Arms were held up to him—thin, supplicating arms.
"Lord—the water—the water—save us!"
"I am accursed!" he whispered. "Accursed!"
She saw his face. The youth in it was dead—stamped out. Yet in that instant she recognized in him the boy, the dreamer who, crouched upon the step of her verandah, had told the story of the Rani Kurnavati. And the pity that surged over her had in it the passion of that memory.