Lucilla Crespin paled with anger, Traherne reddened with regret. He knew now that Crespin knew, and he knew that he had tortured him, inflicting a needless pain—the last blunder or malpractice any true physician should forgive himself. He tried to laugh it off—knowing how poor and tepid the poultice was.
“Of course I’m glad you’re all right, Major, and I’m not sorry to be in a whole skin myself. But ladies first, you know.”
But Crespin would not be balked. “The perfect knight errant, in fact!” he snarled.
“Decidedly errant!” Traherne laughed. He had himself well in hand now, and he meant that nothing should betray him again. It was enough that he had brought the woman into such acute and odious peril; she should be subjected to no petty annoyances through him. And he blamed himself, not Crespin. And Antony Crespin looked murderous now.
“Won’t you look at the machine, and see if it’s quite hopeless?” Mrs. Crespin urged, and the look she gave was both an imperious command and an entreaty.
“Yes,” Traherne nodded, “at once.” And he went instantly, went towards the wreck of the aeroplane, and passed out of sight behind the rocks.
It is difficult for the Oriental mind to believe that a man of a race other than theirs is braver than they—and the hillsmen of Central Asia have little cause to believe it. The bleached man was going back to look at the terrible bird-beast; well, they would go too. If the thing wounded or dead, or merely resting even, would not harm him, it could not hurt them. He was only one, they were many. And they had their weapons. So they followed in the wake of his heels, not following too closely, not crowding upon him in the least—but they followed—too proud to show the excitement they felt, but inwardly quivering with curiosity—followed as close as their grim mountain pride would permit, intent upon the marvel of the great air-beast.
But they had no need to hush their words, or to veil their interest. Basil Traherne took no heed of them. He stood beside his ruined toy and pride, and his hands knotted, and so did his throat. His mouth stiffened. His eyes filled. “What does it matter?” he had said to the woman; and there, on the other side of the absurd temple, with his eyes on her, and her eyes on his, it had not mattered at all. But it mattered now. It mattered terribly. He stood and looked down on his comrade and dead, and he was shaken as a sailor who sees his ship go down to the deep, as a soldier who holds his pistol to the horse that has borne him in many a battle, and still nozzles its master’s hand while the blood drips and clots from the panting flank the enemy’s shell has disemboweled. His poor old bus! His dear old bus! For the first time since the day he’d met her among the roses of Kathleen Agnew’s bamboo-shaded garden Lucilla Crespin was nothing to him. He had forgotten her. It is like that with men at such moments. And the women who know men best and value them most, resent it the least. Very wise women do not resent it at all. The sportsman to his sport! Such men make the staunch lovers, when love’s turn comes.
CHAPTER XVI
The clustering hillsmen followed Traherne, but Yazok, the temple priest, did not. His penance and oblations done at last, he stood immovable, his deep-set, inimical eyes fixed, cold and narrowed, on Crespin and Lucilla.