The Lamp in the Desert, Ethel May Dell [the gingerbread man read aloud .TXT] 📗

that quarter," he said. "It seems to me that He hasn't much use for the wanderers once they get off the beaten track."
"Oh, my dear chap!" Bernard's hands pressed upon him suddenly. "Do you really believe He has no care for that which is lost? Have you blundered along all this time and never yet seen the lamp in the desert? You will see it--like every other wanderer--sooner or later, if you only have the pluck to keep on."
"You seem mighty sure of that." Everard looked at him with a species of dull curiosity. "Are you sure?"
"Of course I am sure." Bernard spoke vigorously. "And so are you in your heart. You know very well that if you only push on you won't be left to die in the wilderness. Have you never thought to yourself after a particularly dark spell that there has always been a speck of light somewhere--never total darkness for any length of time? That's the lamp in the desert, old chap. And--whether you realize it or not--God put it there."
He ceased to speak, and rose quietly to his feet; then, as Everard stretched a hand to him, gave him a steady pull upwards. They stood face to face.
"And that," Bernard added, after a few moments, "is all I've got to say. You turn in now and get a rest! If you want me, well, you know where to find me--just any time."
"Thanks!" Everard said. His hand held his brother's hard. "But--before you go--there's one thing I want to say--no, two." A shadowy smile touched his grim lips and vanished. His eyes were still and wholly remote, sheltering his soul.
"Go ahead!" said Bernard gently.
Everard paused for a second. "You have asked no promise of me," he said then; "but--I'll make you one. And I want one from you in return."
Again he paused, as if he had some difficulty in finding words.
"You can rely on me," Bernard said.
"Yes, old fellow." For an instant his eyes smiled also. "I know it. It's by that fact alone that you've gained your point. And so I'll hang on somehow for the present--find another way--anyhow hang on, just because you are what you are--and because--" his voice sank a little--"you care."
"Don't you know I love you before any one else in the world?" Bernard said, giving him a mighty grip.
"Yes," Everard looked him straight in the face, "I do. And it means more to me than perhaps you think. In fact--it's everything to me just now. That's why I want you to promise me--whatever happens--whatever I decide to do--that you will stay within reach of--that you will take care of--my--my--of Stella." He ended abruptly, with a quick gesture that held entreaty.
And Bernard's reply came instantly, almost before he had ceased to speak. "Before God, old chap, I will."
"Thanks," Everard said again. He stood for a few moments as if debating something further, but in the end he freed himself and turned away. "She will be all right, with you," he said. "You're--safe anyhow."
"Quite safe," said Bernard steadily.


PART V


CHAPTER I
GREATER THAN DEATH

"If you ask me," said Bertie Oakes, propping himself up in an elegant attitude against a pillar of the Club verandah, "it's my belief that there's going to be--a bust-up."
"Nobody did ask you," observed Tommy rudely.
He generally was rude nowadays, and had been haled before a subalterns' court-martial only the previous evening for that very reason. The sentence passed had been of a somewhat drastic nature, and certainly had not improved his temper or his manners. To be stripped, bound scientifically, and "dipped" in the Club swimming-bath till, as Oakes put it, all the venom had been drenched out of him, was an experience for which only one utterly reckless would qualify twice.
Tommy had come through it with a dumb endurance which had somewhat spoilt the occasion for his tormentors, had gone back to The Green Bungalow as soon as his punishment was over, and for the first time had drunk heavily in the privacy of his room.
He sat now in a huddled position on the Club verandah, "looking like a sick chimpanzee" as Oakes assured him, "ready to bite--if he dared--at a moment's notice."
Mrs. Ralston was seated near. She had a motherly eye upon Tommy.
"Now what exactly do you mean by a 'bust-up,' Mr. Oakes?" she asked with her gentle smile.
Oakes blew a cloud of smoke upwards. He liked airing his opinions, especially when there were several ladies within earshot.
"What do I mean?" he said, with a pomposity carefully moulded upon the Colonel's mode of delivery on a guest-night. "I mean, my dear Mrs. Ralston, that which would have to be suppressed--a rising among the native element of the State."
"Ape!" growled Tommy under his breath.
Oakes caught the growl, and made a downward motion with his thumb which only Tommy understood.
Mrs. Burton's soft, false laugh filled the pause that followed his pronouncement. "Surely no one could openly object to the conviction of a native murderer!" she said. "I hear that the evidence is quite conclusive. Captain Monck has spared no pains in that direction."
"Captain Monck," observed Lady Harriet, elevating her long nose, "seems to be exceptionally well qualified for that kind of service."
"Set a thief to catch a thief, what?" suggested Oakes lightly. "Yes, he seems to be quite good at it. Just as well in a way, perhaps. Someone has got to do the dirty work, though it would be preferable for all of us if he were a policeman by profession."
It was too carelessly spoken to sound actively malevolent. But Tommy, with his arms gripped round his knees, raised eyes of bloodshot fury to the speaker's face.
"If any one could take a first class certificate for dirty work, it would be you," he said, speaking very distinctly between clenched teeth.
A sudden silence fell upon the assembly. Oakes looked down at Tommy, and Tommy glared up at Oakes.
Then abruptly Major Ralston, who had been standing in the background with a tall drink in his hand, slouched forward and let himself down ponderously on the edge of the verandah by Tommy's side.
"Go away, Bertie!" he said. "We've listened to your wind instrument long enough. Tommy, you shut up, or I'll give you the beastliest physic I know! What were we talking about? Mary, give us a lead!"
He appealed to his wife, who glanced towards Lady Harriet with a hint of embarrassment.
Major Ralston at once addressed himself to her. He was never embarrassed by any one, and never went out of his way to be pleasant without good reason.
"This murder trial is going to be sensational," he said, "I've just got back from giving evidence as to the cause of death and I have it on good authority that a certain august personage in Markestan is shaking in his shoes as to the result of the business."
"I have heard that too," said Lady Harriet.
It was a curious fact that though she was always ready, and would even go out of her way, to snub the surgeon's wife, she had never once been other than gracious to the surgeon.
"I don't suppose he will be actively implicated. He's too wily for that," went on Major Ralston. "But there's not much doubt according to Barnes, that he was in the know--very much so, I should imagine." He glanced about him. "Mrs. Ermsted isn't here, is she?"
"No dear. I left her resting," his wife said. "This affair is very trying for her--naturally." He assented somewhat grimly. "I wonder she stayed for it. Now Tessa on the other hand yearns for the murderer's head in a charger. That child is getting too Eastern in her ideas. It will be a good thing to get her Home."
Mrs. Burton intervened with a simper. "Yes, she really is a naughty little thing, and I cannot say I shall be sorry when she is gone. My small son is at such a very receptive age."
"Yes, he's old enough to go to school and be licked into shape," said Major Ralston brutally. "He flings stones at my car every time I pass. I shall stop and give him a licking myself some day when I have time."
"Really, Major Ralston, I hope you will not do anything so cruel," protested Mrs. Burton. "We never correct him in that way ourselves."
"Pity you don't," said Major Ralston. "An unlicked cub is an insult to creation. Give him to me for a little while! I'll undertake to improve him both morally and physically to such an extent that you won't know him."
Here Tommy uttered a brief, wholly involuntary guffaw.
"What's the matter with you?" said Ralston.
"Nothing." His gloom dropped upon him again like a mantle. "Have you been at Khanmulla all day?"
"Yes; a confounded waste of time it's been too." Ralston took a deep drink and set down his glass.
"You always think it's a waste of time if you can't be doctoring somebody," muttered Tommy.
"Don't be offensive!" said Ralston. "I know what's the matter with you, my son, but I should keep it to myself if I were you. As a matter of fact I did give medical advice to somebody this afternoon--which of course he won't take."
Tommy's face was suddenly scarlet. It was solely the maternal protective instinct that induced Mrs. Ralston to bend forward and speak.
"Do you mean Captain Monck, Gerald?" she asked.
Major Ralston cast a comprehensive glance around the little group assembled near him, finishing his survey upon Tommy's burning countenance. "Yes--Monck," he said. "He's staying with Barnes at Khanmulla to see this affair through. If I were Mrs. Monck I should be pretty anxious about him. He says it's insomnia."
"Is he ill?" It was Tommy who spoke, his voice quick and low, all the sullen embarrassment gone from his demeanour.
The doctor's eyes dwelt upon him for a moment longer before he answered. "I never saw such a change in any man in such a short time. He'll have a bad break-down if he doesn't watch out."
"He works too hard," said Mrs. Ralston sympathetically.
Her husband nodded. "If it weren't for that sickly baby of hers, I should advise his wife to go straight to him and look after him. But perhaps when this trial is over he will be able to take a rest. I shall order the whole family to Bhulwana if I get the chance." He got up with the words, and faced the company with a certain dogged aggressiveness that compelled attention. "It's hard," he said, "to see a fine chap like that knocked out. He's about the best man we've got, and we can't afford to lose him."
He waited for someone to take up the challenge, but no one showed any inclination to do so. Only after a moment Tommy also sprang up as if there was something in the situation that chafed him beyond endurance.
Ralston looked at him again, critically, not over-favourably. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?" he said.
Tommy hunched his shoulders, all defiance in a second. "Going for a ride," he growled. "Any objection?"
Ralston turned away. "None whatever, my young porcupine. Have mercy on your nag, that's all--and don't break your own neck!"
Tommy strode wrathfully away to the sound of Mrs. Burton's tittering laugh. With the exception of Mrs. Ralston, who really did not count, he hated every one of the party that he left behind on the Club verandah, and he did not attempt to disguise the fact.
But when an hour later he rolled off his horse in the compound of the policeman's bungalow at Khanmulla, his mood had undergone a complete change. There was nothing defiant or even assertive