The Bronze Bell
Page 20
CHAPTER XX
A LATER DAY
A man awoke from a long dream of night and fear, of passion, pain, anddeath, and opened eyes whose vision seemed curiously clear, to realisea new world, very unlike that in which the incoherent action of hisdream had moved--a world of light and lively air, as sweet andwholesome as glistening white paint, sunshine, and an abundance ofpure, cool air could render it.
Because he had known these things in a former existence, he understoodthat he lay in the lower berth of a first-cabin stateroom, aboard anocean steamship; a spacious, bright box of a room, through whose openports swayed brilliant shafts of temperate sunlight, together withgreat gusts of the salt sweet breath of the open sea. Through them,too, he could see patches of unclouded blue, athwart which now andagain gulls would sweep on flashing, motionless pinions.
The man lay still and at peace, watching, wondering idly, soothed bythe sense of being swung through space, only vaguely conscious of theplunging pulsations of the ship's engines, hammering away indomitablyfar in the hold beneath him. His thoughts busied themselves lightlywith a number of important questions, to whose answers the man realisedthat he was singularly indifferent. Who was he? What had happened tobring him back to life (for he was sure that he had died, a long timeago)? How had he come to that stateroom? What could the name of thevessel be? Where ... Deep thoughts were these and long; the man drowsedover them, but presently was aroused by the sensation of being nolonger alone, of being watched.
His eyeballs seemed to move reluctantly in their sockets, and his headfelt very light and empty, although so heavy that he could not lift itfrom the pillow. But he managed to shift his gaze from the window untilit rested upon a man's face--a gaunt, impassive brown face illuminatedby steady and thoughtful eyes, filled with that mystic, unshakablespirit of fatalism that is the real Genius of the eastern peoples. Thehead itself stood out with almost startling distinctness against thebackground of pure white. It was swathed with an immaculate whiteturban. The thin, stringy brown neck ran into a loose surtout of snowywhite.
The sick man felt that he recognised this countenance--had known it,rather, in some vague, half-remembered life before his latest death.The name...? He felt his lips move and that they were thin and glazed.Moistening them with his tongue he made another attempt to articulate.A thin whisper passed them in two breaths: "Ram ... Nath ..."
Hearing this, the dark man started out of his abstraction, cast aswift, pitiful glance at the sick man's face, and came to hold atumbler to his lips. The liquid, colourless, acrid, and pungent,slipped into his mouth, and he had to swallow whether he would or no.When the final drop disappeared, Ram Nath put down the glass, smiled,laid a finger on his lips, and went on tiptoe from the stateroom.
After awhile the man without an identity fell asleep, calmly,restfully, in absolute peace. When again he awakened it was with theknowledge that he was David Amber, and that a woman sat beside him.
Her face was turned from him, and her brown eyes, clouded with dreams,were staring steadfastly out through the open port; the flowing bannersof sunshine now and again touched her hair with quick fire--herwonderfully spun hair, itself scarcely less radiant than the light thatillumined it. Against the blue-white background her gracious profileshowed womanly and sweet. There was rich colour in cheeks fresh fromthe caress of the sea wind. She smiled in her musing, scarlet lipsapart.
"Sophia..."
His voice sounded in his own hearing very thin and brittle. The girlturned her gaze upon him swiftly, the soft smile deepening, thedream-light in her eyes burning brighter and more steady. She bentforward, placing over his wasted hand a hand firm and warm, strong yetgentle, its whiteness enhanced by the suggested tracery of blue veinsbeneath the silken skin, and by the rosy tips of her slender, subtlefingers.
"David!" she said.
He sighed and remembered. His brows knitted, then smoothed themselvesout; for with memory came the realisation that, since he was there andshe by his side, God was surely in his Heaven, all well with the world!
"How long...Sophia?"
"Five days, David."
"Where...?"
"At sea, David, on a _Messageries_ boat for Marseilles. Dear ..."
He closed his eyes in beatific content: "David ... Dear ...!"
"Can you listen?"
"Yes ... sweetheart."
Her voice faltered; she flushed adorably. "You mustn't talk. But I'lltell you.... They refused to let us go back to Kuttarpur; an escorttook us across the desert to Nok, you in a litter, I on horseback.There we took train to Haidarabad and Karachi. Ram Nath came with us,as bearer, it being necessary that he too should leave India. My fatherand your man Doggott joined us at Karachi, where this steamer touchedthe second day."
"You understand, now--?"
"Everything, dearest."
"Labertouche--?"
"He told me nothing. I haven't seen him since that morning, when, justafter you were wounded, we started for Nok. He posted off to Kuttarpurto find my father.... No; it was you who told me--everything--in yourdelirium."
"And ... you forgive--?"
"Forgive!"
He smiled faintly. "That photograph?"
"I had it ready to return to you that morning, David."
"Knowing what it meant to me?"
"Knowing what it meant to _me_--what it meant to both of us, David."
"So you weren't offended, that night?"
"I loved you even then, David. I think I must have loved you from thatfirst day at Nokomis. Do you remember...?"
His eyes widened, perplexed, staring into her grave, dear eyes. "Thenwhy did you pretend--?"
With the low, caressing laugh of a happy child, the girl knelt by theside of his berth, and laid her cheek against his own. "Oh, David, myDavid! When do you expect to understand the heart of a woman, dearheart of mine?"