The Lamp in the Desert - Ethel May Dell (ebooks online reader .TXT) 📗

child's whipping at all. It was a grown-up's whipping. And he used a switch. And it hurt--worse than anything ever hurt before. That's why I didn't mind when he went to Heaven the other day. I hope I shan't go there for a long time yet. It isn't nice to be whipped like that. And I wasn't going to say I was sorry either. I knew that would make him crosser than anything."
"Poor chap!" said Tommy suddenly.
Tessa came a step nearer to him. "_Ayah_ says the man who did it will be hanged if they catch him," she said. "If it is the Rajah, will you manage so as I can go and see? I should like to."
"Tessa!" exclaimed Stella.
Tessa turned flushed cheeks and shining eyes upon her. "I would!" she declared stoutly. "I would! There's nothing wrong in that. He's a horrid man. It isn't wrong, is it, Captain Monck? But if he shot my Daddy?" She went swiftly to Monck with the words and leaned ingratiatingly against him. "You'd kill a man yourself that did a thing like that, wouldn't you?"
"Very likely," said Monck.
She gazed at him admiringly. "I expect you've killed lots and lots of men, haven't you?" she said.
He smiled with a touch of grimness. "Do you think I'm going to tell a scaramouch like you?" he said.
"Everard!" Stella rose and came to the window. "Do--please--make her understand that people don't murder each other just whenever they feel like it--even in India!"
He raised his eyes to hers, and an odd sense of shock went through her. It was as if in some fashion he had deliberately made her aware of that secret chamber which she might not enter. "I think you would probably be more convincing on that point than I should," he said.
She gave a little shudder; she could not restrain it. That look in his eyes reminded her of something, something dreadful. What was it? Ah yes, she remembered now. He had had that look on that night of terror when he had first called her his wife, when he had barred the window behind her and sworn to slay any man who should come between them.
She turned aside and went in without another word. India again! India the savage, the implacable, the ruthless! She felt as a prisoner who battered fruitlessly against an iron door.
Tessa's inquisitive eyes followed her. "She's going to cry," she said to Monck.
Tommy turned sharply upon his friend with accusation in his glance, but the next instant he summoned Tessa as if she had been a terrier and walked off into the compound with the child capering at his side.
Monck sat for a moment or two looking straight before him; then he packed together the papers in his hand and stepped through the open window into the room behind. It was empty.
He went through it without a pause, and turned along the passage to the door of his wife's room. It stood half-open. He pushed it wider and entered.
She was standing by her dressing-table, but she turned at his coming, turned and faced him.
He came straight to her and took her by the shoulders. "What is the matter?" he said.
She met his direct look, but there was shrinking in her eyes. "Everard," she said, "there are times when you make me afraid."
"Why?" he said.
She could not put it into words. She made a piteous gesture with her clasped hands.
His expression changed, subtly softening. "I can't always wear kid gloves, my Stella," he said. "When there is rough work to be done, we have to strip to the waist sometimes to get to it. It's the only way to get a sane grip on things."
Her lips were quivering. "But you--you like it!" she said.
He smiled a little. "I plead guilty to a sporting instinct," he said.
"You hunt down murderers--and call it--sport!" she said slowly.
"No, I call it justice." He still spoke gently though his face had hardened again. "That child has a sense of justice, quite elementary, but a true one. If I could get hold of the man who killed Ermsted, I would cheerfully kill him with my own hand--unless I could be sure that he would get his deserts from the Government who are apt to be somewhat slack in such matters."
Stella shivered again. "Do you know, Everard, I can't bear to hear you talk like that? It is the untamed, savage part of you."
He drew her to him. "Yes, the soldier part. I know. I know quite well. But my dear, do me the justice at least to believe that I am on the side of right! I can't do other than talk generalities to you. You simply wouldn't understand. But there are some criminals who can only be beaten with their own weapons, remember that. Nicholson knew that--and applied it. I follow--or try to follow--in Nicholson's steps."
She clung to him suddenly and closely. "Oh, don't--don't! This is another age. We have advanced since then."
"Have we?" he said sombrely. "And do you think the India of to-day can be governed by weakness any more successfully than the India of Nicholson's time? You have no idea what you say when you talk like that. Ermsted is not the first Englishman to be killed in this State. The Rajah of Markestan is too wily a beast to go for the large game at the outset, though--probably--the large game is the only stuff he cares about. He knows too well that there are eyes that watch perpetually, and he won't expose himself--if he can help it. The trouble is he doesn't always know where to look for the eyes that watch."
A certain exultation sounded in his voice, but the next instant he bent and kissed her.
"Why do you dwell on these things? They only trouble you. But I think you might remember that since they exist, someone has to deal with them."
"You don't trust Ahmed Khan?" she said. "You think he is treacherous?"
He hesitated; then: "Ahmed Khan is either a tiger or--merely a jackal," he said. "I don't know which at present. I am taking his measure."
She still held him closely. "Everard," her voice came low and breathless, "you think he was responsible for Captain Ermsted's death. May he not have been also for--for--"
He checked her sharply before Ralph Dacre's name could leave her lips. "No. Put that out of your mind for good! You have no reason to suspect foul play where he was concerned."
He spoke with such decision that she looked at him in surprise. "I often have suspected it," she said.
"I know. But you have no reason for doing so. I should try to forget it if I were you. Let the past be past!"
It was evident that he would not discuss the matter, and, wondering somewhat, she let it pass. The bare mention of Dacre seemed to be unendurable to him. But the suspicion which his words had started remained in her mind, for it was beyond her power to dismiss it. The conviction that he had met his death by foul means was steadily gaining ground within her, winding serpent-like ever more closely about her shrinking heart.
Monck went his way, whether deeply disappointed or not she knew not. But she realized that he would not reopen the subject. He had made his explanation, but--and for this she honoured him--he would not seek to convince her against her will. It was even possible that he preferred her to keep her own judgment in the matter.
They dined at the Mansfields' bungalow that night, a festivity for which she felt small relish, more especially as she knew that Mrs. Ralston would not be present. To be received with icy ceremony by Lady Harriet and sent in to dinner with Major Burton was a state of affairs that must have dashed the highest spirits. She tried to make the best of it, but it was impossible to be entirely unaffected by the depressing chill of the atmosphere. Conversation turned upon Mrs. Ermsted, regarding whom the report had gone forth that she was very seriously ill. Lady Harriet sought to probe Stella upon the subject and was plainly offended when she pleaded ignorance. She also tried to extract Monck's opinion of poor Captain Ermsted's murder. Had it been committed by a mere _budmash_ for the sake of robbery, or did he consider that any political significance was attached to it? Monck drily expressed the opinion that something might be said for either theory. But when Lady Harriet threw discretion to the winds and desired to know if it were generally believed in official circles that the Rajah was implicated, he raised his brows in stern surprise and replied that so far as his information went the Rajah was a loyal servant of the Crown.
Lady Harriet was snubbed, and she felt the effects of it for the rest of the evening. Walking home with her husband through the starlight later, Stella laughed a little over the episode; but Monck was not responsive. He seemed engrossed in thought.
He went with her to her room, and there bade her good-night, observing that he had work to do and might be late.
"It is already late," she said. "Don't be long! I shall only lie awake till you come."
He frowned at her. "I shall be very angry if you do."
"I can't help that," she said. "I can't sleep properly till you come."
He looked her in the eyes. "You're not nervous? You've got Peter."
"Oh, I am not in the least nervous on my own account," she told him.
"You needn't be on mine," he said.
She laughed, but her lips were piteous. "Well, don't be long anyway!" she pleaded. "Don't forget I am waiting for you!"
"Forget!" he said. For an instant his hold upon her was passionate. He kissed her fiercely, blindly, even violently; then with a muttered word of inarticulate apology he let her go.
She heard him stride away down the passage, and in a few moments Peter came and very softly closed the door. She knew that he was there on guard until his master should return.
She sat down with a beating heart and leaned back with closed eyes. A heavy sense of foreboding oppressed her. She was very tired, but yet she knew that sleep was far away. Just as once she had felt a dread that was physical on behalf of Ralph Dacre, so now she felt weighed down by suspense and loneliness. Only now it was a thousand times magnified, for this man was her world. She tried to picture to herself what it would have meant to her had that shot in the jungle slain him instead of Captain Ermsted. But the bare thought was beyond endurance. Once she could have borne it, but not now--not now! Once she could have denied her love and fared forth alone into the desert. But he had captured her, and now she was irrevocably his. Her spirit pined almost unconsciously whenever he was absent from her. Her body knew no rest without him. From the moment of his leaving her, she was ever secretly on fire for his return.
Had they been in England she knew that it would have been otherwise. In a calm and temperate atmosphere she could have attained a serene, unruffled happiness. But India, fevered and pitiless, held her in scorching grip. She dwelt as it were on the edge of a roaring furnace that consumed some victims every day. Her life was strung up to a pitch that frightened her. The very intensity of the love that Everard Monck had practically forced into being within her was almost more than she could bear. It hurt her like the