Books: The Native Born

I >> I. A. R. Wylie >> The Native Born

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Colonel Carmichael turned.

"This is no time," he said sternly, "and it is too late for atonement.
Our account with this world is closed."

"It need not be. Colonel--in the name of those whose lives lie in your
hands, I beg of you to listen to me."

There was a moment's hesitating silence. Travers' glazed eyes were
fixed on the elder man's face with a hypnotizing power. The Colonel
drew nearer--reluctantly knelt down.

"Be quick then!" he said.

Travers nodded. His head was thrown back against Beatrice's shoulder.
With fumbling, trembling fingers he drew a plain gold ring from his
pocket and thrust it into the Colonel's hand.

"Look at that!" he whispered. "Look at the inscription."

Carmichael turned to the feeble light. No one spoke or moved. They
watched him and waited with a reasonless, breathless suspense.

"My God!" he whispered, "How did you come by this?"

Travers drew himself upright. The shadows of death were banished in
that last moment; his voice was clear and steady as he answered.

"Listen," he said. "I will tell you--and then act before it is too
late!"

CHAPTER XI

IN THE HOUR OF NEED

Nehal Singh pulled aside the curtains over the window and stepped out
on to the balcony. The air in the great silent room behind him stifled
him, and even the night breeze, as it touched his cheeks, seemed to
burn with fever. He stood there motionless, his arms folded, gazing
fixedly into the half-darkness. A pale, watery moonlight cast an
unearthly shimmer over the shadowy world before him, brightened every
here and there by the will-o'-the-wisp fire points which marked the
presence of the camped thousands waiting silently for his word. Only
one spot--it seemed like a black stain--remained in absolute gloom,
and it was thither the Rajah's eyes were turned. Every night he had
come to the same place to watch it. Every night he had tortured
himself with the thought of all it contained.

For he knew now, with the clear certainty of a man who has searched
down to the bottom of his soul, that in that silent area his whole
life, his one hope of happiness was bound up, and waited, with those
who were fighting stubbornly, heroically, against the end--its
destruction beneath his own sword. He was fighting against himself.
With his own hands he was tearing down that which seemed an
inseparable, incorporate part of himself. Anger and contempt were
dead. In their place the old love had rekindled and grown brighter
before the sight of a courage, dignified and silent, which had held
back the tide of furious fanaticism and thwarted his own despair. He
had seen, with eyes which burned with an indescribable emotion, a
regiment of wearied, weakened men, led by a man he had once despised,
burst through the densest squares of his own soldiers; he had heard
their cheers as they had clasped hands with the defenders; he had
looked aghast into his own heart, afire with admiration, aching with a
strange, broken-hearted gratitude to God who had made such men. It was
in vain that, lashing himself with the knowledge of his own weakness
and of his disloyalty to those who followed him, he had flung himself
against the defenses of the little garrison.

Day after day they drove him back, fighting hand to hand in the
earthworks they had thrown up in a few hours of miraculous labor. He
fought against them like a man possessed of an unquenchable hatred;
but at night, when he was at last alone, he had slipped out on to his
balcony and held out his hands toward them in an unspeakable wordless
greeting. Once more they had become for him the world's Great People,
the giants of his boyhood's imagination, the heroes of his man's
ideal. At the point of the sword they had proved the truth of
Nicholson's proud boast, and hour by hour the man who had turned from
them in a moment of bitter disillusion saw the temple he had once
built to their honor rise from its ashes in new and greater splendor.

Thus two weeks had passed, and to-night was to see the end. Nehal knew
that, brave though they were, they could do no more. They had no
water, and his forces hugged them in on every side. One last attack
and it would be over--Marut would be cleared from the enemy, his
victory complete. His victory! It was his own ruin he was preparing,
the certain destruction of that which seemed linked invisibly but
surely to his own fate. And, knowing that, he knew also that there was
no turning back for him, no retreat. His word was given. His people,
the people who claimed him by the right of blood, clamored for him to
lead them as he had sworn. It made no difference if on the path he had
chosen he trampled on every hope, every wish, every rooted instinct.
There was no turning back. He knew it--the knowledge that his own
words bound him came to him with pitiless finality as he stood there
watching the silent, lightless stretch which was soon to be the scene
of a last tragic struggle; and if indeed there are such things as
tears of blood, they rose to his eyes now.

With lips compressed in an agony he could neither analyze nor conquer,
he turned slowly back into the dimly lighted room. Two torches burned
on either side of the throne and threw unsteady shadows among the
glittering pillars. They lit up his face and revealed it as that of a
man who has cast his youth behind him for ever. Only a few months had
passed since he had sat there with Travers in the full noon of his
hope and enthusiasm. He remembered the scene with a clearness which
was a fresh torture. The hopes that had been built up in that hour lay
shattered, the woman for whom they had been built was lost. He thought
of her now as he always thought of her, as he knew he would think of
her to the end. For this love, save that it had grown and deepened
into a wider understanding, had remained unchanged. As there had been
cowards and tricksters among his heroes, so in that one woman evil and
good had stood side by side and fought out their battle. And the good
had won--had won because he alone of all men had believed in it. He
believed in it still--in the same measure as he had learned to love
her--with a deeper understanding of temptation and failure. It was the
one triumph in the midst of seeming ruin, the one firm rock in the
raging torrent of his fate, beaten as it was between the contending
streams of desire and duty. She was indeed lost to him, but not as in
the first hour of his shaken trust. He had regained his memory of her
as a good woman, striving upward and onward; and already he had
invested her with the glory of those whom death has already claimed
from us.

Nehal Singh started from his painful reverie, conscious that some one
had entered the room and was watching him. He turned and saw his chief
captain standing respectfully before him, and, though it was a man he
liked and trusted, it seemed to him that the gaunt, soldierly figure
had taken on the form of an ugly, threatening destiny.

"All is ready, Great Prince," the native said, salaaming. "Every man
is at his post. We do but await thy orders."

Nehal did not answer. His hands clasped and unclasped themselves in
the last agony of hesitation. The moment had come, the inevitable and
irretrievable moment which had loomed so long upon his horizon. Even
now he hardly knew what it was to bring him. The forces warring in his
blood were locked in a death struggle. At last he nodded and his lips
moved.

"It is well. In half an hour--I will come to them. In half an
hour--the attack will begin."

"Sahib--is it good to wait? The dawn cometh, and with the dawn--"

Nehal Singh lifted his hand peremptorily.

"In half an hour," he repeated.

The man salaamed and was gone. Nehal Singh stood there like a pillar
of stone. It was over. In half an hour! And yet, at the bottom of his
heart, he knew that he had delayed--purposely, but to no end but his
own increased suffering. With a sigh of impatience he turned, and in
the same instant became once more aware that he was not alone.

For a moment he perceived nothing save the shadows and the unsteady
flickering of the yellow torchlight. Then his vision cleared and he
saw and understood, and an exclamation burst from his horrified lips.
It was a woman who stood out against the darkness, her body clothed in
rags, the hair, grey and thin, hanging unkempt about her shoulders,
the face turned to his that of some being risen from a tomb. There
seemed to be no flesh upon the high cheek-bones nor upon the hands
that were stretched toward him; only the eyes were alive with an
unquenchable fire which burned upon him with a power that was
unearthly. She staggered a few steps and then sank slowly to his feet,
her hands still outstretched. He knelt down and supported the sinking
head upon his shoulder.

"Who art thou?" he whispered in Hindustani. "Where hast thou come
from? Tell me thy history."

A look of intense pain passed over her features. Slowly and with a
great effort her lips parted.

"I am English--let me speak in English. I have only a few minutes--I
am dying."

He looked about him, seeking something with which to moisten her dry
lips, but she clung to him with an incredible strength.

"No, no, I must speak with you. Up to now I have lived in an awful
nightmare--amidst ghastly phantoms who pursued and tortured me. But
when I heard your voice--when I heard you give that order, I awoke.
The dreams vanished, I heard and understood--and remembered!" She drew
herself upright and, for a moment spoke with a penetrating clearness.
"Not in half an hour--never! Withdraw that order! If you go against
them you are accursed. Lay down your arms! You must--you know you
must! You dare not--" She clung to his arm and her eyes seemed to burn
their way into his very soul. "I tell you--to turn traitor is to
inherit an endless hell--"

"A traitor!" he echoed. Something clutched at his heart, a sort of
numb suspense which became electrified as he saw a new expression
flash into her face.

"Yes, a traitor!" she whispered. "That was what I was. I was
English--yes, English in spite of all, but in my bitterness I turned
from my people. I let myself be taken alive. I would not share the
fate of those who had once been dear to me. My whole life has been the
punishment. They tortured me and then came the dreams--the awful,
hideous dreams. I was always looking for you, always calling for you.
And they laughed and mocked at me. Only one man did not laugh--" her
voice grew doubtful and hesitating, as though she were groping in the
shadows of her memory. "He did not laugh. He promised to help me but
he never came again--and I died--yes, I died--but I saw your face, I
heard your voice--and I came back from death--to save you!" Once more
her vision cleared and her voice grew steadier. "Go back to them! They
are your friends. If you do not go, you will break your heart--as mine
is broken. Swear to me--you must, because--"

He bent closer to her to catch every sound that fell from her lips.
His pulses were beating with a suffocating violence. Somewhere a veil
was lifting. It was as if the sunlight were at last breaking through a
mist of strange dreams, strange longings, strange forebodings. The
confused voices that had called to him throughout his life grew
clearer.

"Because--?" he whispered.

But she did not answer. Her head was thrown back. Her open eyes were
fixed intently on his face. Suddenly she smiled. It was a smile that
chilled his blood with its hideous distortion. And yet behind it
lurked the possibility of a long-lost beauty and sweetness.

"Steven!" she whispered. "Steven!"

Closer and closer she drew his face to hers. Her icy lips rested on
his cheek. Pity and a strange, as yet unformed, foreboding made him
accept that dying caress and speak to her with an urgent, pleading
gentleness.

"You have something to tell me," he murmured, "something I must know.
Tell me before it is too late."

But her eyes had closed and she did not answer him.

"Rouse yourself!" he insisted. "Rouse yourself!" It seemed to him that
she smiled. Her face had undergone a change. It was younger, and in
the flickering light his imagination brightened it with the glories
whose dim traces still touched the haggard, emaciated features. One
last time her eyes opened and she looked at him. The frenzy of despair
was gone. He felt that she was looking beyond him to a future he could
not see.

"Go back!" she whispered. "Go back!"

He pressed her to him, seeking to pour something of his own seething
vitality into her dying frame. With her life the threads of his fate
seemed to be slipping through his fingers.

"Help me!" he implored. "Do not leave me!"

But he knew that she would never answer. She lay heavy in his arms,
and the hand that clasped his relaxed and fell with a soft thud upon
the marble. He rose to his feet and stood looking down upon her. It
was not the first time he had seen death. In these last weeks he had
met it in all its most hideous, most revolting forms; but none had
moved him, awed him as this did. He knew that she had once been
beautiful. Who had made her suffer till only a shadow of that beauty
remained? What had she endured? Who was she? What did she know of him?
Why did she call him by a name which rang in his ears with a vague
familiarity? What was it in her poor dead face which stirred in him a
memory which had no date nor place in his life?

Outside he heard the uneasy stirring of the thousands who awaited him.
He looked up and through the open windows, saw the camp-fires and that
one dark spot which was to be swept clear of all but death. What had
she said? "Go back! Lay down your arms! You must--you know you must!
To turn traitor is to inherit an endless hell!" A traitor? A traitor
to whom--to what? To some blind instinct that had called him in those
English voices, that had beaten out an answering cry of thankfulness
from his heart when their cheers proclaimed his own defeat?

A soft step roused him from his troubled thoughts. He looked up and
saw a servant standing in the curtained doorway. The man's eyes were
fixed on the outstretched figure at Nehal's feet, and there was an
expression on the dark face so full of fear and horror that the Rajah
involuntarily drew back.

"Who was this woman?" he demanded. "Whence comes she?"

"Lord Sahib, she was a mad-woman whom the Lord Behar Singh kept out of
mercy. She must have escaped her prison. More I know not."

The man was trembling as though in the shadows there lurked a hidden
threatening danger, and Nehal turned aside with a gesture of desperate
impatience.

"Why hast thou come before the time?" he asked.

"Lord Sahib, outside there are two English prisoners. They demand to
be brought before thee. What is thy will?"

"Bring them hither."

Nehal Singh stood where the bowing servant left him, at the side of
the poor dead woman, his hands crossed upon his sword-hilt, his eyes
fixed on the parted curtains. There he waited, motionless, passive, as
a man waits who knows that he has become the tool of Destiny.

A moment later, Beatrice stood before him.

CHAPTER XII

HIS OWN PEOPLE

She was not alone, but in that first moment he saw nothing but her
face. It seemed to him that the whole world was blotted out and that
only she remained, grave, fearless, supreme in her wan beauty, a
tragic figure glorified by a light of unconquerable resolution. He
looked at her but he did not greet her; no muscle of his set and ashy
features betrayed the thrill of passionate recognition which had
passed like a line of fire through his veins. To move was to awake
from a dream to a hideous, terrible reality.

She came slowly toward him. The thin wrap about her head slipped back
and he saw the light flash on to the fair disheveled hair. His eyes
were dazzled, but it seemed to him that there were grey threads where
once had been untarnished gold. Yet he could not and would not speak,
and she came on till she stood opposite him, the dead woman lying
there between them. Then for the first time she lowered her eyes and
he awoke with a start of agonizing pain.

"Why have you come?" he said. "Have you come to plead again? Have you
come to torture me again? Was not that once enough? In a few minutes I
shall sweep your people to destruction. Shall I save you?--is that
what you have come to tell me?"

He waited for her answer, his teeth clenched, his brows knitted in the
old terrible struggle. All his energy, all his determination sank
paralyzed before her and before his love, and yet he knew he must go
on--go on with the destruction of himself, of her, of all that was
dearest to him.

She knelt down and touched the dead face with her white hand, closing
the glazed, staring eyes with a curious tenderness and pity. There was
no surprise or horror in her expression as she at last rose and faced
him--rather a mysterious knowledge which held him bound in wordless
expectation.

"I have come to tell you that woman's history, Steven Caruthers," she
said. "I have not come to plead with you but to tell you the truth--to
lay before you the two paths between which you must choose once and
for all. Will you listen to me?"

"Beatrice!" he stammered. "Why have you given me a name which is not
mine--which _she_ gave me with her last breath? What do you know that
you have risked your life--"

"It was no risk," she said. "My life was forfeited and it was our last
hope. Oh, if I can turn you from all this ruin, then I shall have
atoned for the evil I have done you!"

The note of mingled entreaty, despair and hope stirred him to the
depths of his being, but he made no response. He could only point to
the white face and repeat the question which had beaten in pitiless
reiteration against his tortured brain.

"Who was she?"

"She was your mother."

"And I--?"

It was not Beatrice who this time answered. A figure stepped forward
out of the shadows and faced the Rajah. It was Carmichael, pale,
deeply moved, but erect and steadfast. His eyes were fixed on Nehal's
features with a curious, hungry eagerness which changed as he spoke
into a growing recognition.

"Let me tell you," he said. "I will be brief, for every minute is
precious and full of danger for us all. This poor woman was Margaret
Caruthers, the wife of my dearest friend, and your mother. Until an
hour ago I believed that she had been butchered with her husband and
with all those others who paid the penalty of one man's sin. No doubt
you know why your supposed father, Behar Singh, rose against us?"

"His honor--his wife had been stolen from him by a treacherous
Englishman," Nehal answered hoarsely.

"Yes, by Stafford, John Stafford's father. The issue of that act of
infidelity was a child, Lois, who afterward was adopted by Caruthers,
partly out of friendship for Stafford, partly because he had no
children of his own. So much, at least, I surmise. I surmise, too,
that that adoption cost him his wife's love and trust. Perhaps,
ignorant of the child's real parentage, she believed the worst,
perhaps there were other causes--be it as it may, in the hour of
catastrophe she refused to share the general fate. She chose to throw
herself upon the mercy of her mother's people."

"Her mother's people!" Nehal echoed blankly.

"There was native blood in her veins. It was on that account that
Behar Singh spared her. She bitterly learned to regret her change of
allegiance. She was kept close prisoner, and six months after the
murder of her husband she bore him a son--you--Steven Caruthers. Behar
Singh, himself without an heir, took the child from her, and from that
hour the unfortunate woman became insane. Long years she was kept a
secret and wretched captive, and then one day she escaped, and in her
wanderings met a man--an Englishman who was then your friend."

"Travers!" Nehal exclaimed.

"Yes, Travers. By means of bribes and threats he obtained her whole
history, partly from her own lips, partly from her gaolers. But he
told no one of his discovery."

"Why not? How dared he keep silence?"

"It is very simple. He wished to marry my ward, Lois Caruthers, and he
wished to have her money. As I have said, Caruthers had adopted her
when her mother, the Reni Ona, returned to her own people, and had
made her his heir in the case that he should have no children of his
own. Had your existence been known Lois would have been penniless.
Travers knew this and kept his secret from every one save Stafford."

"Why did he tell Stafford?"

"He had to. Stafford and Lois loved each other--with a love which was
all too natural and explicable in the light of our present knowledge.
It was necessary that he should be made aware that marriage between
them was impossible--that they were, in fact, the children of the same
father."

"Stafford kept silence--"

"He had promised. And, moreover, he believed it kinder to hide the
truth from Lois. Only at the last he determined to speak at all costs.
But it was too late. You know--he was murdered on the steps of
Travers' house."

Nehal Singh nodded. An even deadlier pallor crept over his features.

"I know," he said. "It was Behar Singh's last vengeance. God knows, my
hands are clean."

"That I know. You are your father's son."

"And the proof of all this?"

"This ring. Take it. It was your mother's. Travers gave it to me when
he made his confession. He took it from the poor mad woman at their
first meeting. Look at the inscription. It bears your mother's and
father's names."

"And Travers--?" The Rajah lifted his hand in a stern, threatening
gesture.

"--is dead," was the grave answer. "He died an hour ago, in his wife's
arms."

For a moment a profound hush hung over the great, dimly lighted hall.
The Rajah knelt down by his mother's side and gently replaced the ring
upon the thin lifeless finger.

"She called herself a traitor," he said, half to himself. "A traitor
to whom--to what?"

"To the strong white blood that was in her veins. In her bitterness at
the real or imagined wrongs that had been done her, she turned away
from the people to whom she belonged, to whom she was bound by all the
ties of love and upbringing. She disobeyed the voice of her instinct.
And you, her son, you, too, have been bitter; you, too, must listen to
the call of the two races to whom you are linked. Whom will you obey?
You stand at the cross-ways where you must choose--where we must
either part or join hands for good and all. The road back to us is
open, is still open. That is the message of peace which we have risked
our lives to bring you. Rajah, Steven Caruthers--for so I now call
you--I plead with you--I may plead with you, for in this hour at least
I can not look upon you as an adversary, but as the son of this
unfortunate woman--above all, of my friend. I plead with you the more
because I owe you years of friendship. I am not the least to blame
that you fell away from us in resentment and bitterness. I could have
shielded you from the inevitable pitfalls that beset your path,
but--God forgive me!--my prejudice blinded me and I held back. It was
I who carried you away from the palace on that night when you were
left, a helpless child, to the mercy of Behar Singh's enemies. Then I
had pity enough--but years after I held back the hand of friendship
which I might have offered you. Well, I am punished, twice punished,
for my prejudice and blindness. Is it too late for me to make my
reparation?"

He held out his hand and there was a silence of tense expectation. The
Rajah's head was bowed. He did not seem to see the Colonel's movement.

"You can not think I am pleading with you to save our lives,"
Carmichael went on with grave dignity. "We have fought for them. An
hour ago we were prepared to lay them down without complaint. We are
not the less prepared now. It is not for us I am speaking, but for
you. Your day as Rajah is over--your claim to rule in India void. I
offer you instead your father's name, your father's people, your
father's heritage. The other road--well, you have trodden it, you know
it. You must choose. Your mother chose--twenty-five years ago, in the
same hour of crisis, blinded by the same bitterness. She chose to tear
the bonds of love and duty; she ignored the true voice of her
instinct. It broke her heart. The same crisis stands to-night before
you, her son. What will you do--Steven Caruthers?"

The Rajah lifted his head. The struggle was written in his dark,
sunken eyes and on the compressed lips.

"I can not desert them," he said wearily. "They trust me--my people
trust me."

"Who are your people?" was the swift question. "You must choose."

Again the same silence, the same waiting while the hand of fate seemed
to hover above them in the darkness. Beatrice left her place at the
dead woman's side. With a firm, proud step she came to the Rajah and
took his hand in both her own. He started at her touch, and for a long
minute his gaze seemed to sink itself in hers, but she never wavered.
When she spoke an immeasurable tenderness rang in her voice, a
boundless understanding and sympathy.

"Steven--have you forgotten? Long ago in the old temple? Don't you
remember what you told me then--how you loved and admired us? You
called us the world's Great People, and when you spoke of our heroes
there was something in your voice which thrilled me. Was it only your
books, was it your teachers--Behar Singh--who made you feel as you
did? When you came among us, what led you? The face of a woman? Was it
only that? Or was it something more?--the call of a great, wonderful
instinct?"

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