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

moment or two, as though irresolute. Then: "I brought you by a way unknown to you, _mem-sahib_," she said. "Hafiz--you know Hafiz?--he helped me."
"Hafiz!" Stella frowned a little. Yes, by sight she knew him well. Hafiz the crafty, was her private name for him.
"How did he help you?" she asked.
Again Hanani seemed to hesitate as one reluctant to give away a secret. "From the shop of Hafiz--that is the shop of Rustam Karin in the bazaar," she said at length, and Stella quivered at the name, "there is a passage that leads under the ground into the jungle. To those who know, the way is easy. It was thus, _mem-sahib_, that I brought you hither."
"But how did you get me to the bazaar?" questioned Stella, still hardly believing.
"It was very dark, _mem-sahib_; and the _budmashes_ were scattered. They would not touch an old woman such as Hanani. And you, my _mem-sahib_, were wrapped in a _saree_. With old Hanani you were safe."
"Ah, why should you take all that trouble to save my life?" Stella said, a little quiver of passion in her voice. "Do you think life is so precious to me--now?"
Hanani made a protesting gesture with one arm. "Lo, it is yet night, _mem-sahib_," she said. "But is it not written in the sacred Book that with the dawn comes joy?"
"There can never be any joy for me again," Stella said.
Hanani leaned slowly forward. "Then will my _mem-sahib_ have missed the meaning of life," she said. "Listen then--listen to old Hanani--who knows! It is true that the _baba_ cannot return to the _mem-sahib_, but would she call him back to pain? Have I not read in her eyes night after night the silent prayer that he might go in peace? Now that the God of gods has answered that prayer--now that the _baba_ is in peace--would my _mem-sahib_ have it otherwise? Would she call that loved one back? Would she not rather thank the God of spirits for His great mercy--and so go her way rejoicing?"
Again the utterance was too full of tenderness to give her pain. It sank deep into Stella's heart, stilling for a space the anguish. She looked at the strange, draped figure beside her that spoke those husky words of comfort with a dawning sense of reverence. She had a curious feeling as of one being guided through a holy place.
"You--comfort me, Hanani," she said after a moment. "I don't think I am really grieving for the _baba_ yet. That will come after. I know that--as you say--he is at peace, and I would not call him back. But--Hanani--that is not all. It is not even the half or the beginning of my trouble. The loss of my _baba_ I can bear--I could bear--bravely. But the loss of--of--" Words failed her unexpectedly. She bowed her head again upon her arms and wept the bitter tears of despair.
Hanani the _ayah_ sat very still by her side, her brown, bony hands tightly gripped about her knees, her veiled head bent slightly forward as though she watched for someone in the dimness of the broken archway.
At last very, very slowly she spoke.
"_Mem-sahib_, even in the desert the sun rises. There is always comfort for those who go forward--even though they mourn."
"Not for me," sobbed Stella. "Not for those--who part--in bitterness--and never--meet again!"
"Never, _mem-sahib?_" Hanani yet gazed straight before her. Suddenly she made a movement as if to rise, but checked herself as one reminded by exertion of physical infirmity. "The _mem-sahib_ weeps for her lord," she said. "How shall Hanani comfort her? Yet never is a cruel word. May it not be that he will--even now--return?"
"He is dead," whispered Stella.
"Not so, _mem-sahib_." Very gently Hanani corrected her. "The captain _sahib_ lives."
"He--lives?" Stella started upright with the words. In the gloom her eyes shone with a sudden feverish light; but it very swiftly died. "Ah, don't torture me, Hanani!" she said. "You mean well, but--it doesn't help."
"Hanani speaks the truth," protested the old _ayah_, and behind the enveloping veil came an answering gleam as if she smiled. "My lord the captain _sahib_ spoke with Hafiz this very night. Hafiz will tell the _mem-sahib_."
But Stella shook her head in hopeless unbelief. "I don't trust Hafiz," she said wearily.
"Yet Hafiz would not lie to old Hanani," insisted the _ayah_ in that soft, insinuating whisper of hers.
Stella reached out a trembling hand and laid it upon her shoulder. "Listen, Hanani!" she said. "I have never seen your face, yet I know you for a friend."
"Ask not to see it, _mem-sahib_," swiftly interposed the _ayah_, "lest you turn with loathing from one who loves you!"
Stella smiled, a quivering, piteous smile. "I should never do that, Hanani," she said. "But I do not need to see it. I know you love me. But do not--out of your love for me--tell me a lie! It is false comfort. It cannot help me."
"But I have not lied, _mem-sahib_." There was earnest assurance in Hanani's voice--such assurance as could not be disregarded. "I have told you the truth. The captain _sahib_ is not dead. It was a false report."
"Hanani! Are you--sure?" Stella's hand gripped the _ayah_'s shoulder with convulsive, strength. "Then who--who--was the _sahib_ they shot in the jungle--the _sahib_ who died at the bungalow of Ralston _sahib_? Did--Hafiz--tell you that?"
"That--" said Hanani, and paused as if considering how best to present the information,--"that was another _sahib_."
"Another _sahib?_" Stella was trembling violently. Her hold upon Hanani was the clutch of desperation, "Who--what was his name?"
She felt in the momentary pause that followed that the eyes behind the veil were looking at her strangely, speculatively. Then very softly Hanani answered her.
"His name, _mem-sahib_, was Dacre."
"Dacre!" Stella repeated the name blankly. It seemed to hold too great a meaning for her to grasp.
"So Hafiz told Hanani," said the _ayah_.
"But--Dacre!" Stella hung upon the name as if it held her by a fascination from which she could not shake free. "Is that--all you know?" she said at last.
"Not all, my _mem-sahib_," answered Hanani, in the soothing tone of one who instructs a child. "Hafiz knew the _sahib_ in the days before Hanani came to Kurrumpore. Hafiz told a strange story of the _sahib_. He had married and had taken his wife to the mountains beyond Srinagar. And there an evil fate had overtaken him, and she--the _mem-sahib_--had returned alone."
Hanani paused dramatically.
"Go on!" gasped Stella almost inarticulately.
Hanani took up her tale again in a mysterious whisper that crept in eerie echoes about the ruined place in which they sat. "_Mem-sahib_, Hafiz said that there was doubtless a reason for which he feigned death. He said that Dacre _sahib_ was a bad man, and my lord the captain _sahib_ knew it. Wherefore he followed him to the mountains and commanded him to be gone, and thus--he went."
"But who--told--Hafiz?" questioned Stella, still struggling against unbelief.
"How should Hanani know?" murmured the _ayah_ deprecatingly "Hafiz lives in the bazaar. He hears many things--some true--some false. But that Dacre _sahib_ returned last night and that he now is dead is true, _mem-sahib_. And that my lord the captain _sahib_ lives is also true. Hanani swears it by her grey hairs."
"Then where--where is the captain _sahib_?" whispered Stella.
The _ayah_ shook her head. "It is not given to Hanani to know all things," she protested. "But--she can find out. Does the _mem-sahib_ desire her to find out?"
"Yes," Stella breathed.
The fantastic tale was running like a mad tarantella through her brain. Her thoughts were in a whirl. But she clung to the thought of Everard as a shipwrecked mariner clings to a rock. He yet lived; he had not passed out of her reach. It might be he was even then at Khanmulla a few short miles away. All her doubt of him, all evil suspicions, vanished in a great and overwhelming longing for his presence. It suddenly came to her that she had wronged him, and before that unquestionable conviction the story of Ralph Dacre's return was dwarfed to utter insignificance. What was Ralph Dacre to her? She had travelled far--oh, very far--through the desert since the days of that strange dream in the Himalayas. Living or dead, surely he had no claim upon her now!
Impulsively she stooped towards Hanani. "Take me to him!" she said. "Take me to him! I am sure you know where he is."
Hanani drew back slightly. "_Mem-sahib_, it will take time to find him," she remonstrated. "Hanani is not a young woman. Moreover--" she stopped suddenly, and turned her head.
"What is it?" said Stella.
"I heard a sound, _mem-sahib_." Hanani rose slowly to her feet. It seemed to Stella that she was more bent, more deliberate of movement, than usual. Doubtless the wild adventure of the night had told upon her. She watched her with a tinge of compunction as she made her somewhat difficult way towards the archway at the top of the broken marble steps. A flying-fox flapped eerily past her as she went, dipping over the bent, veiled head with as little fear as if she were a recognized inhabitant of that wild place.
A sharp sense of unreality stabbed Stella. She felt as one coming out of an all-absorbing dream. Obeying an instinctive impulse, she rose up quickly to follow. But even as she did so, two things happened.
Hanani passed like a shadow from her sight, and a voice she knew--Tommy's voice, somewhat high-pitched and anxious--called her name.
Swiftly she moved to meet him. "I am here, Tommy! I am here!"
And then she tottered, feeling her strength begin to fail.
"Oh, Tommy!" she gasped. "Help me!"
He sprang up the steps and caught her in his arms. "You hang on to me!" he said. "I've got you."
She leaned upon him quivering, with closed eyes. "I am afraid I must," she said weakly. "Forgive me for being so stupid!"
"All right, darling. All right," he said. "You're not hurt?"
"No, oh no! Only giddy--stupid!" She fought desperately for self-command. "I shall be all right in a minute."
She heard the voices of men below her, but she could not open her eyes to look. Tommy supported her strongly, and in a few seconds she was aware of someone on her other side, of a steady capable hand grasping her wrist.
"Drink this!" said Ralston's voice. "It'll help you."
He was holding something to her lips, and she drank mechanically.
"That's better," he said. "You've had a rough time, I'm afraid, but it's over now. Think you can walk, or shall we carry you?"
The matter-of-fact tones seemed to calm the chaos of her brain. She looked up at him with a faint, brave smile.
"I will walk,--of course. There is nothing the matter with me. What has happened at Kurrumpore? Is all well?"
He met her eyes. "Yes," he said quietly.
Her look flinched momentarily from his, but the next instant she met it squarely. "I know about--my baby," she said.
He bent his head. "You could not wish it otherwise," he said, gently.
She answered him with firmness, "No."
The few words helped to restore her self-possession. With her hand upon Tommy's arm she descended the steps into the green gloom of the jungle. The morning sun was smiting through the leaves. It gleamed in her eyes like the flashing of a sword. But--though the simile held her mind for a space--she felt no shrinking. She had a curious conviction that the path lay open before her at last. The Angel with the Flaming Sword no longer barred the way.
A party of Indian soldiers awaited her. She did not see how many. Perhaps she was too tired to take any very vivid interest in her surroundings. A native