The Last Ditch

by Will Levington Comfort

There was a singular nobility about the second paper, which contained the story of the dream and forming structure of New China. Romney was familiar with this study of the coming civilisation, and felt the mighty and beloved spirit of Nifton Bend in every line of the writing. The China which the Hunchback pictured for future years carried the wisest and most modern conceptions of super-national development and the brotherhood principle in the comprehension of apostles of the new social order. Romney was asked in a personal note to place the salient points of this document before Rajananda, one by one. This he was prepared and, in fact, eager to accomplish.

The third enclosure contained a sealed envelope which the American was asked not to open for the present. The accompanying sheets of this document had to do with the menace of Japan. The peril of the Japanese aggressiveness was traced, during the past two decades, to the present snapping point. Japan was shown in her position toward China and the other powers, in relation to the present world-war. The Japanese ambition was set forth from both the conservative and the more perilous angles. Nifton Bend erected in rousing outline the future of Asia under Japanese dominance, in contrast to the vast yellow peoples gathered in a fabric of fraternity and turned outward in benevolence toward the other races of the world.

There were moments in which Romney forgot his own tragedy. The old power of Nifton Bend returned to his heart, the deep thrall of service under him. Something of the breadth of force that comes from self-immolation touched his zeal afresh and brought nearer and clearer the dimension of faith and divine fire which Rajananda had laboured all that day to impress upon his torn and fevered heart. Romney was confronted with the need of drawing upon some higher potency to endure these hours. He could not change the facts of yesterday. He could not turn back until the old master and his desert children made the journey possible. In justice to Anna Erivan, he could not cease to live unless death came to him from an exterior agency, and he was sufficiently imbued with the mysticism of the Orient to believe that death, self-inflicted, would not entirely release him from the struggle and agony of the present separation. Again that night came the queer impulsive passion to transcend these limitations—instead of to bow before them; and more clearly that night he realised what Rajananda had repeated so often through the day: that the limitations were set upon him for the sole purpose of forcing him to rise in his strength and transcend them.

... Nifton Bend had found his own in Moira Kelvin, but only after he had given himself utterly to the service of a foreign people.... Romney turned back to his reading. Bamban was watching him from a shadow—that strange and sleepless boy farther from the white man's comprehension at this moment than when they had set out together from the house of Minglapo.... Just now, Romney encountered a personal note in regard to the sealed envelope:

"My dear Romney: The contents of the final envelope which is sealed are matters which need only be used in case Rajananda or others higher inquire regarding the specific means by which our new party plans to overcome the aggressiveness of the Japanese in case of their war on China. We know that this is uncertain ground for you personally, but trust that in case you are called upon, you will open this letter and state the contents to the religious masters, without bias. Perhaps you will be surprised to find that they who hold all life dear, having a deeper knowledge of the meaning of life than we are given to know, will look with philosophic calm upon the methods we plan to use, to overcome the strength of this young and brutal people. Our whole case is in your hands.

"You will be interested to know that I had intended to take this journey into the desert. I felt that my services could well be spared for so important a mission. The change of plan came as a result of that extra case against you in the police station. During the hours that elapsed before we could secure your freedom (after we had accomplished your release from the first charge) conditions arose here that demanded my remaining in the vicinity of Peking and Tientsin indefinitely. Had the Chinese officials turned you loose when we expected, your service for us would have been carried on in Japan instead of the Gobi. As it stands, we are all breathless for the issue of your travel.

"A last word: If our methods of dealing with Japan in case of war are not asked, do not open this envelope. I would spare you from it personally. On the eve of your return journey, whether it is successful or not, burn the envelope unread, and hurry home to us. There is much for you to do here. Men of your class are rare. The woman who has come to me, bringing the full cup of life, has quickened our spirits toward you afresh, and you know how animate we were before...."

Romney brooded long. He could feel the world a little—the different pulse that the Gobi had made him forget. He felt his relation to the Big Three and the world at large once more. The timeless repetitions of Rajananda came and went in his brain like the sounding of breakers; the letter from Nifton Bend contained intrinsically the fervour and courage that he held most dear from men of the world. He was called to a longer view of life than this present pit afforded. The great plan of it appeared. Out of the sorriest fall of his life had come the great meeting with his own woman. He pictured the wastrel in flapping white clothing that had sunk into the stoke-hold of the John Dividend in Manila Harbour. Upon that day and that ship depended the night of the Cross in Nadiram and the night of the Crown in the desert—upon that darkest of beings, McLean, hung an issue of starry light, for had he not borrowed five pounds from that fence-faced marine, he would have been sent to Japan instead of the desert, where his woman waited.

It was only the Terrible Now....

Romney slept. Anna Erivan came and went in his dreams. Once she was singing her magnificat in the hill-country.... The next day, Romney told the story of his mission to Rajananda. For many hours they sat together on the mud-floor of the clay-walled and palm-thatched hut in Wampli. Rajananda lay covered in his yellow robe and listened, marking the symbols of God and the Holy Breath upon the dirt of the floor with a finger-nail like a twisted kernel of dried corn. Toward evening they broke their fast together, and Romney covered his face in his hands as he listened:

"My son, you are strong. Yesterday you wanted death, but knew too much to die in the midst of gray hate and red desire. All is well with you to-day. Your eyes hold the light that sees afar off. That which you bring to me from the capital of the Empire is too great for the like of Rajananda whose thoughts are of God and not of men.... I see strange things. I see the empire of brotherhood as your white master envisions it, but it is not so near as he thinks—and his figure is not in the midst of it. We will journey on and place our story at the feet of Tsing Hsia, my stern brother in Rhadassim—a journey of five camel days into the west. Your heart is strong, my son. Your woman waits for you—"

Five camel days.... There was an instant in which Romney almost asked for mercy. He would have done this the day before, but somehow he had turned back from the last ditch once more, clutching the very substance to live on from the Unseen—a bigger and silenter man than went out from Nadiram.... He asked the stars if his woman still lived. The next morning as the sun came up, he saw himself in the tin water basin—a darkly-wasted face, beaked like a Hindu of caste, and the eyes asked the same question.