He spoke the last words to an empty room. Quita was already changing her dress hurriedly, defiantly, shutting her ears to the discouraging sounds without. Michael's half-jesting insinuation had hit her harder than he guessed; had deepened her determination to extricate herself, without loss of time, from a position that justified a suggestion so galling to her pride.
But the mere getting down from the top of Bakrota, and climbing half-way up the neighbouring hill, through a desolating world of mist and rain, was, in itself, a prospect that would have daunted a less headstrong woman. Michael returned her hasty "good-night" in a voice of resigned martyrdom, and out in the verandah, four drenched jhampannis cowering round a hurricane-lantern, had passed beyond martyrdom to the verge of open rebellion.
They were poor men, and the Miss Sahib's slaves, they protested in chorus; but it was a very bad rain. Even with the lantern, it would be impossible to keep the path; and if harm should come to the Protector of the Poor, the Sahib would smite them without mercy. Also the "mate" [1] was even now shivering with ague; in proof whereof he so vigorously shook the lantern that it almost fell out of his hand.
But Quita was adamant. She bade them set out at once, or the Sahib would smite them there and then. Awed by a threat that would never have been executed, they hastened to assure her that she was, collectively and individually, their "father and mother," that their worthless lives were at her service, and that they would start forthwith.
Three minutes later, they were swinging cautiously along the four-foot track that corkscrews down to the level of the Mall, the foremost man thrusting the lantern well ahead, with the sole result that a great white circle showed weirdly upon the curtain of mist, through which they journeyed by faith, and not by sight. With every step of the way Quita's conviction grew that she had pushed persistence to the verge of folly; and the thought of Michael, alone and dejected, tugged at her heart. The rain formed miniature canals in the waterproof sheet that covered her; and more than once a jerk of the dandy emptied these into her lap; while the mist itself was so dense that she seemed to be breathing water instead of air. There was no denying that to-morrow would do as well as to-night. But her impatient spirit fretted against delay; and this senseless obtrusion of inanimate things,—angering her, as only the inanimate can,—drowned the still small voice of common-sense.
Nevertheless, human will and endeavour have small chance in a duel with that invisible Force, which men call Fate. In the language of the East, "it was written" that she should not get down the hill that night; and before they reached the Mall, Quita was compelled to own herself beaten.
A jerk, a crash, followed by darkness, and a thud that brought her half-overturned dandy into violent contact with the ground, fairly settled the matter. The "mate" had missed the path; and, but for an instantaneous counter-jerk on the part of the men behind, Quita would have been shot down the khud, instead of on to the stony roadway. As it was, she thrust out both hands to save herself, while the rain pattered through the light lace scarf on to her head and neck. The lantern glass was broken, and the "mate," lamenting volubly, declared that his arm appeared to be broken also. Quita herself was ignominiously damp and bedraggled; and vanity apart, going on was out of the question. Even getting back, minus the lantern, would be a difficult matter. With tears in her eyes, and fierce disappointment at her heart, she submitted to the inevitable.
Michael greeted her with lifted eyebrows, and an exasperating chuckle.
"Thought ten minutes of it would be enough for you," he remarked coolly; and her wrath against things in general vented itself on him.
"Really, Michel, you are detestable! It was not enough. The 'mate' lost his footing, and the lantern broke. Oh, it's cruel . . . after nearly three weeks . . ."