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

about him as he applied for admittance. He looked beaten, tried beyond his strength.
It was growing rapidly dark as he followed Barnes's _khansama_ into the long bare room which he used as his private office. The man brought him a lamp and told him that the _sahibs_ would be back soon. They had gone down to the Court House again, but they might return at any time.
He also brought him whisky and soda which Tommy did not touch, spending the interval of waiting that ensued in fevered tramping to and fro.
He had not seen Monck alone since the evening of Tessa's birthday-party nearly three weeks before. On the score of business connected with the approaching trial, Monck had come to Khanmulla immediately afterwards, and no one at Kurrumpore had had more than an occasional glimpse of him since. But he meant to see him alone now, and he had given very explicit instructions to that effect to the servant, accompanied by a substantial species of persuasion that could not fail to achieve its object.
When the sound of voices told him at last of the return of the two men, he drew back out of sight of the window while the obsequious _khansama_ went forth upon his errand. Then a moment or two later he heard them separate, and one alone came in his direction. Everard entered with the gait of a tired man.
The lamp dazzled him for a second, and Tommy saw him first. He smothered an involuntary exclamation and stepped forward.
"Tommy!" said Monck, as if incredulous.
Tommy stood in front of him, his hands at his sides. "Yes, it's me. I had to come over--just to have a look at you. Ralston said--said--oh, damn it, it doesn't matter what he said. Only I had to--just come and see for myself. You see, I--I--" he faltered badly, but recovered himself under the straight gaze of Everard's eyes--"I can't get the thought of you out of my mind. I've been a damn' cur. You won't want to speak to me of course, but when Ralston started jawing about you this afternoon, I found--I found--" he choked suddenly--"I couldn't stand it any longer," he said in a strangled whisper.
Monck was looking full at him by the merciless glare of the lamp on the table, which revealed himself very fully also. All the grim lines in his face seemed to be accentuated. He looked years older. The hair above his temples gleamed silver where it caught the light.
He did not speak at once. Only as Tommy made a blind movement as if to go, he put forth a hand and took him by the arm.
"Tommy," he said, "what have you been doing?"
Out of deep hollows his eyes looked forth, indomitable, relentless as they had ever been, searching the boy's downcast face.
Tommy quivered a little under their piercing scrutiny, but he made no attempt to avoid it.
"Look at me!" Monck commanded.
He raised his eyes for a moment, and in spite of himself Monck was softened by the utter misery they held.
"You always were an ass," he commented. "But I thought you had more strength of mind than this."
Tommy made an impotent gesture. "I'm a beast--I'm a skunk!" he declared, with tremulous vehemence. "I'm not fit to speak to you!"
The shadow of a smile crossed Monck's face. "And you've come all this way to tell me so?" he said. "You've no business here either. You ought to be at the Mess."
"Damn the Mess!" said Tommy fiercely. "They'll tell me I ratted to-morrow. I don't care. Let 'em say what they like! It's you that matters. Man, how infernally ill you look!"
Monck checked the personal allusion. "I'm not ill. But what have you been up to? Are you in a row?"
Tommy essayed a laugh. "No, nothing serious. The blithering idiots ducked me yesterday for being disrespectful, that's all. I don't care. It's you I care about, Everard, old chap!"
His voice held sudden pleading, but his face was turned away. He had meant to say more, but could not. He stood biting his lips desperately in a mute struggle for self-control.
Everard waited a few seconds, giving him time; then abruptly he moved, slapped a hand on Tommy's shoulder and gave him a shake.
"Tommy, don't be so beastly cheap! I'm ashamed of you. What's the matter?"
Tommy yielded impulsively to the bracing grip, but he kept his face averted. "That's just it," he blurted out. "I feel cheap. Fact is, I came--I came to ask you to--forgive me. But now I'm here,--I'm damned if I have the cheek."
"What do you want my forgiveness for? I thought I was the transgressor." Everard's voice was a curious blend of humour and sadness.
Tommy turned to him with a sudden boyish gesture so spontaneous as to override all barriers. "Oh, I know all that. But it doesn't count. See? I don't know how I ever had the infernal presumption to think it did, or to ask you--you, of all men--to explain your actions. I don't want any explanation. I believe in you without, simply because I can't help it. I know--without any proof,--that you're sound. And--and--I beg your pardon for being such a cur as to doubt you. There! That's what I came to say. Now it's your turn."
The tears were in his eyes, but he made no further attempt to hide them. All that was great in his nature had come to the surface, and there was no room left for self-consciousness.
Monck realized it, and it affected him deeply, depriving him of the power to respond. He had not expected this from Tommy, had not believed him capable of it. But there was no doubting the boy's sincerity. Through those tears which Tommy had forgotten to hide, he saw the old loving trust shine out at him, the old whole-hearted admiration and honour offered again without reservation and without stint.
He opened his lips to speak, but something rose in his throat, preventing him. He held out his hand in silence, and in that wordless grip the love which is greater than death made itself felt between them--a bond imperishable which no earthly circumstance could ever again violate--the Power Omnipotent which conquers all things.


CHAPTER II
THE LAMP

The orange light of the morning was breaking over the jungle when two horsemen rode out upon the Kurrumpore road and halted between the rice fields.
"I say, come on a bit further!" Tommy urged. "There's plenty of time."
But the other shook his head. "No, I can't. I promised Barnes to be back early. Good-bye, Tommy my lad! Keep your end up!"
"I will," Tommy promised, and thrust out a hand. "And you'll hang on, won't you? Promise!"
"All right; for the present. My love to Bernard." Everard spoke with his usual brevity, but his handclasp was remembered by Tommy for a very long time after.
"And to Stella?" he said, pushing his horse a little nearer till it muzzled against its fellow.
Everard's eyes, grave and dark, looked out to the low horizon. "I think not," he said. "She has--no further use for it."
"She will have," said Tommy quickly.
But Everard passed the matter by in silence. "You must be getting on," he said, and relaxed his grip. "Good-bye, old chap! You've done me good, if that is any consolation to you."
"Oh, man!" said Tommy, and coloured like a girl. "Not--not really!"
Everard uttered his curt laugh, and switched Tommy's mount across the withers. "Be off with you, you--cuckoo!" he said.
And Tommy grinned and went.
Half-an-hour later he was sounding an impatient tatto upon his sister's door.
She came herself to admit him, but the look upon her face checked the greeting on his lips.
"What on earth's the matter?" he said instead.
She was shivering as if with cold, though the risen sun had filled the world with spring-like warmth. It occurred to him as he entered, that she was looking pinched and ill, and he put a comforting arm around her.
"What is it, Stella girl? Tell me!"
She relaxed against him with a sob. "I've been--horribly anxious about you," she said.
"Oh, is that all?" said Tommy. "What a waste of time! I was only over at Khanmulla. I spent the night at Barnes's bungalow because they wouldn't trust me in the jungle after dark."
"They?" she questioned.
"Barnes and Everard," Tommy said, and faced her squarely. "I went to see Everard."
"Ah!" She caught her breath. "Major Ralston has been here. He told me--he told me--" her voice failed; she laid her head down upon Tommy's shoulder.
He tightened his arm about her. "It's a shame of Ralston to frighten you. He isn't ill." Then a sudden thought striking him, "What was he doing here so early? Isn't the kid up to the mark?"
She shivered against him again. "He had a strange attack in the night, and Major Ralston said--said--oh, Tommy," she suddenly clung to him, "I am going to lose him. He--isn't--like other children."
"Ralston said that?" demanded Tommy.
"He didn't tell me. He told Bernard. I practically forced Bernard to tell me, but I think he thought I ought to know. He said--he said--it isn't to be desired that my baby should live."
"What?" said Tommy in dismay. "Oh, my darling girl, I am sorry! What's wrong with the poor little chap?"
With her face hidden against him she made whispered answer. "You know he--came too soon. They thought at first he was all right, but now--symptoms have begun to show themselves. We thought he was just delicate, but it isn't only that. Last night--in the night--" she shuddered suddenly and violently and paused to control herself--"I can't talk about it. It was terrible. Major Ralston says he doesn't suffer, but it looks like suffering. And, oh, Tommy,--he is all I have left."
Tommy held her comfortingly close. "I say, wouldn't you like Everard to come to you?" he said.
"Oh no! Oh no!" Her refusal was instant. "I can't see him. Tommy, why suggest such a thing? You know I can't."
"I know he's a good man," Tommy said steadily. "Just listen a minute, old girl! I know things look black enough against him, so black that it's probable he'll have to send in his papers. But I tell you he's all right. I didn't think so at first. I thought the same as you do. But somehow that suspicion has got worn out. It was pretty beastly while it lasted, but I came to my senses at last. And I've been to tell him so. He was jolly decent about it, though he didn't tell me a thing. I didn't want him to. Besides, he always is decent. How could he be otherwise? And now we're just as we were--friends."
There was no mistaking the satisfaction in Tommy's voice. He even spoke with pride, and hearing it, Stella withdrew herself slowly and wearily from his arms.
"It's rather different for you, Tommy," she said. "A man's standards are different, I know. There may be what you call extenuating circumstances--though I can't quite imagine it. I'm too tired to argue about it, Tommy dear, and you mustn't be vexed with me. I can't go into it with you, but I feel as if it is I--I myself--who have committed an awful sin. And it has got to be expiated, perhaps that is why my baby is to be taken from me. Bernard says it is not so. But then--Bernard is a man too." There was a sound of heartbreak in her voice as she ended. She put up her hands with a gesture as of trying to put away some monstrous thing that threatened to crush her--a gesture that went straight to Tommy's warm heart.
"Oh, poor old girl!" he said