Red Lotus

by Catherine Airlie

"All right," he said, "we won't think about it. I came down to get the rest of the goats. I wanted to herd them out of the valley before the trouble really started."

  She looked up from the shelter of his arms to discover that his face and eyes were grimmer than his tone. He was trying not to frighten her, but she already knew. They were trapped up here in his silent valley, prisoners of the fierce wrath of the mountains, cut off on every side from any hope of rescue. There was no way of escape.

  Swiftly his eyes searched the face of the rock.

  "We can make it," he said, "if we reach the escarpment."

  No, she thought desperately, there's the road. The road cut off now by a black, seething wall with a heart of fire.

  "Are you sure you're not hurt?" she asked quickly. "Are you sure there's no other way we can go—back to the house?"

  He looked round at the vegetation spreading on all sides, at the spears of cacti quivering in the heat.

  "There isn't a chance that way," he said. "We've got to climb."

  Slowly, laboriously, they began the journey back up the cliff face. It seemed impossible to Felicity that she had ever come down that way unaided, and Philip's jaw hardened when she spoke of it.

  "What made you come?" he demanded almost roughly.

  "I had to get to you. I followed Julio up into the valley, but I missed the road. I was well on my way to Las Canadas when I realized that I had come too far. By the time I got back to the top of the valley, Julio and Conchita must have gone."

  His mouth tightened, his blue eyes narrowing as he said: "What made you follow Julio?"

  "I—he had used threats." She could not tell him anything but the truth now. "I thought I might be in time to stop him doing—anything rash."

  The narrowed eyes went beyond her to the twisted tamarisk clinging precariously to the edge of the escarpment.

  "I see," he said, but that was all.

  He turned, helping her up the final, steeper stretch until they lay, exhausted by their long effort, on the ledge.

  From there Philip could see the mountain road for the first time. Felicity watched his face as the blue eyes took in the details of that twisted landscape, the wreaths of smoke and the black, tortuous stream moving silently, ruthlessly towards them.

  His hand fastened on her arm.

  "We haven't a moment to spare," he said.

  "Philip!" She turned to face him "The road's closed. The lava is over the road."

  He stared at her as if he couldn't believe her, as if what she had just told him must be impossible.

  "It can't be," he said. "It can't have got that far—not so quickly."

  "It's three hours—"

  He continued to look at her for a moment in silence, and then he gripped her by the hand.

  "Come on," he said. "Run!"

  They ran towards the house, with the herd of white goats following at their heels.

  "How did you get down?" he asked when they were out of the glare of the sun. "Where were you when the first eruption occurred?"

  "I had just come into the valley. I thought it was thunder at first, and then—then I couldn't really be mistaken. The whole side of the mountain seemed to go up in the air. I was terrified," she confesed. "I think I must have stood for a long time not knowing what to do." She shivered at the memory. "It was fascinating, Philip, in a ghastly sort of way."

  "Were you cut off?" he demanded.

  "Not at first."

  "Then--" He caught her by the shoulders, searching her face. "My God! why did you come on?" he demanded. "Didn't you know you would be cut off? Didn't you know how quickly the lava would move once it got started. You fool!" His voice was shaken, angry, defeated. "You amazing fool! Why didn't you go back? Why, in heaven's name, didn't you go back?"

  "I knew you were here. I had to get to you, Philip."

  It sounded quite simple, put like that. She had to come to him. For a moment longer he stood staring at her, and then he plunged into the shadowed house.

  "I've got to go up to the road and see what chance there is," he decided. "There's no other way out."

  She could have told him how slim their chances were, but she knew that he would not be satisfied by anything short of personal endeavour.

  "I can't leave you behind and come back for you," he said after a moment's thought. "There wouldn't be time. We've got to make it together."

  "Yes, Philip."

  She watched him put his jacket on over his thin shirt. The skin beneath it was torn and lacerated, but there was no time for first aid. He took the discarded revolver and slipped it into his belt. Subconsciously she wondered if it were loaded and what Philip used it for. Probably to shoot crows. The great carrion crows were often black over a spot on the hillside between the clumps of cacti where a mountain goat had died or fallen, injured, from a rock.

  When they began to climb they cut out as many bends in the road as they could, scrambling over the rough scree and between the red boulders, but long before they had reached the top Philip was aware that their fate was sealed.

  Felicity saw his jaw grow taut and a pulse begin to hammer above his temple as his eyes scanned the ring of mountains which closed Lozaro Alto in. On three sides they frowned down, cold, black, formidable, the fierce guardians of a grim landscape which might have been torn from Dante's Inferno. On the fourth side was the narrow entrance to the valley where the road had been. Now there was only the slow, relentless stream of the lava.

  It had broadened and deepened even in the short space of time occuppied by their journey to the house and back, sealing them in, confronting them with a burning, impassable sea of molten rock and stone.

  Philip turned.

  "We must go back," he said. "We must try some other way."

  CHAPTER IX

  TOWARDS THE DAWN

  BEFORE they reached the house again, the second warning of eruption deafened their ears. It appeared to come from under their very feet this time, but the new crater, when it opened, was smaller than the first and only half a mile away. There was less out-throw, but it seemed more violent because one half of the valley was already in shade. The sun, sinking towards the west, had deserted it.

  Philip pushed Felicity towards the doorway.

  "Go in and see what you can do about something hot to drink," he commanded. "I want to have a look round."

  She knew that he was giving her something definite to do so that her mind might be taken off their predicament, if only for a short while. She would rather have gone with him, but she sensed that he wanted to go alone. He knew the valley from end to end. If there was any way of escape other than the road, he would already know it.

  Looking up at the great, jagged peaks which surrounded them and back to his tense, controlled face, she felt that she already knew the answer.

  She brewed coffee over the fire, listening with a fast-beating heart to the distant rumblings which she could no longer mistake for thunder. The whole earth seemed to be in terrible upheaval, and the final eruption shook the house visibly.

  She stood in the centre of the room and watched the four walls cave in. They bulged and quivered and bulged a second time, while beyond them the whole valley trembled.

  Felicity put her hands over her eyes, waiting for the final crash, waiting to be smothered by the falling roof

  and the dust of crumbling masonry, but when she opened them again the house was still intact. The roof was still above her head. Plaster had fallen and every pane of glass lay shattered in a million fragments on the tessellated floor, but the house itself was still standing.

  Reaction set in as a tense, breathless silence filled the valley, and in that moment Philip reached the open doorway. He strode across the room towards her, holding her close.

  "It's all right, querida," he said. "It's over now. There will be no more shocks."

  Helplessly she clung to him, aware of how alone she had felt therein the house by herself while he had been away, and his arms remained about her, comforting,
consoling, although he did not promise her any way of escape.

  After a while they walked to the shattered window. Outside, the valley was very still, the sub-tropic night close and dark except for the fiery little craters on the mountain's face with their plumes of sulphurous smoke rising into the still, warm air.

  There was no light in the room behind them. Both lamps had been shattered by that final, violent shock, and only when he moved nearer to the window and stood between her and the strange, orange-yellow glow from the craters could she see Philip's face at all clearly. Silhouetted sharply against the night, his profile was still hard, but there was a pity and a regret in his eyes which she had never seen there before.

  "Philip," she said, "I think I want to know the truth. There's no way out, is there?"

  Her voice had been quite steady. The fear that had been in her heart up till now had gone.

  "We can do nothing," he said, "until the morning." And somewhere, out there in the night, the stream of lava was creeping stealthily towards them.

  "The mountains?" she asked, looking towards the savage, serrated summits above them. "We could not climb them?"

  "It would be almost impossible, even in daylight." She turned towards him.

  "If you were alone, Philip," she suggested, "you would take that risk."

  "No," he said decisively, but she knew that he was not telling her the truth.

  He would not wait here in the valley like some trapped animal until the lava reached him. He would climb high and risk whatever perils the treacherous crags presented, but he knew that she could not climb so far.

  "How long could we—stay here, Philip, if we escaped the lava stream?" she asked slowly.

  He shrugged, turning towards her with nothing but the truth in his eyes.

  "It would eventually force us up on to the peaks," he admitted. "We might be able to live there for a day or two."

  "There's—Julio," she whispered, dry-lipped. "Julio and Conchita must have got back to San Lozaro by now." "Yes," he agreed stonily, "there's Julio."

  "He wouldn't let us remain up here—trapped like this!" she said urgently.

  "Julio," he answered, "may do nothing until the morning."

  He had no faith in the events of the night. She understood that now and felt sick and afraid again, but she would not let him see how weak she was.

  "Your back," she said instead. "You've been hurt, Philip, when you fell. You must let me see to it."

  His smile was dry.

  "It's nothing," he said. "A graze or two."

  "All the same," she persisted, "you must let me wash away the blood."

  He turned towards the fire that had been scattered on the stone hearth by the final eruption.

  "I suppose we can spare the water," he said. "I brought in a supply this morning for the goats."

  "Tell me about the valley," she said as he raked the wood embers together and refilled the kettle which had been spilled.

  Crouching before the hearth while he nursed the fire into a blaze, he said whimsically:

  "Can there be anything you don't already know? It's cruel and savage, yet it can also be quiet and kind. It was my home," he added simply.

  "And you wanted to come back to it," she said. He nodded.

  "I have always wanted to come back."

  And now the volcano was swallowing it up! The black stream of the lava would obliterate it, in time. All that he had hoped for, all that he had dreamed of achieving, would be lost. She saw the granite set of his jaw and knew how fiercely he was resenting this ill-timed stroke of nature which had torn the future out of his grasp.

  "What did you mean to do, Philip?" she asked as she poured water into the basin he had brought and began to bathe the lacerated skin on his back.

  The blue eyes narrowed as he put the kettle on to boil for the second time and righted the overturned coffee jug.

  "I had planned to restore the valley with the help of the woman I loved."

  "Maria?" she said, not holding back from the name as she had once done, because there could be no reserve between them now.

  His face, in the glow from the fire, looked drawn and heavily shadowed, with a new weariness about the mouth, but his eyes remained blue and alert on hers.

  "Maria—at first," he said. "She loved the valley. She used to come here to attend to the goats. It was a small herd at first, but I have built it up steadily since she died."

  Somehow, that was all that she needed to know.

  "I kept the herd as a—sort of memorial to her," he said quietly. "She was simple and sweet—easily impressed, perhaps, but that was to be expected. She had never been away from San Lozaro in all her life. She had never been deeply in love, I suppose, until the end."

  It was an odd thing for him to say, Felicity thought, but she could not go on questioning him. They had come very close in that moment and the hours ahead of them were her own. Whatever happened, they were together now, in the fullness of understanding, at last.

  She leaned her head against his arm.

  "I love you, Philip," she said. "There has never been anyone but you."

  He turned, pulling her towards him.

  "You mean that?" he asked.

  "Yes. Yes, I mean it, Philip!"

  She closed her eyes as his lips found hers. It was no

  longer a demanding kiss, fiercely possessive, with the flare of passion behind it as on that other occasion when he had found her in Julio's arms. It was gentle, protective, kind, the kiss that Philip might have given to Maria up here among the mountains they had both loved.

  He had seen Maria as his gentle, simple shepherdess, and he had come here often to perpetuate her memory.

  Vaguely she wondered about death as she lay in his arms. It was all about them, but her fear had gone. The strange calmness of unknowable things seemed to stretch away and away, through the sealed valley and the island to the sea—on, on into a vast infinity where there were no tears, no regrets, no sorrow.

  Suspended above it, she felt it in the comfort of Philip's arms.

  "Try to sleep," he encouraged after a while. "It won't be dark for very long."

  Her hands clung to him.

  "Don't leave me, Philip."

  "No," he said, "I won't leave you."

  She closed her eyes, thinking that she would not sleep. The fire was warm and comforting, with a kindly yellow glow. It wrapped her round, laying the fingers of drowsiness across her brows. The coffee, she remembered, had been sweet and warm. . . .

  An hour later—two—three—she opened her eyes to the awareness of light. She had no idea what time it was, but the light she saw was surely not the dawn. It filtered in from the room beyond where she lay, through a faint grey oblong which had once been a window. She had been in that room, but now she was lying in the adjacent bedroom. Philip must have carried her there while she slept.

  Strange that she had not felt any movement, the strengthening grip of his arms, the increased beating of his heart as he had borne her through the communicating door. Had the coffee he had given her to drink been slightly drugged?

  He had laid her on the bed and drawn a blanket over her and she had slept, mercifully unconscious of the passing hours.

  The light she watched was faint, a pale, pearly grey against the encircling darkness. Was Philip, too, asleep?

  She put the blanket aside, trying to stifle the sudden fear in her heart, and sat up. There was no sound from the other room, no sound in all the quiet house. No sound in the valley but the occasional sharp snap of a tree falling unobserved in the darkness. The heat, she realized, was stifling. It was probably that and the strengthening light which had wakened her, yet it was no more than the false dawn which quivered above the shattered mountain peaks.

  Silently she got to her feet and as silently crossed the room. If Philip were asleep she would not disturb him, although she longed for the comfort of his arms, for the security which his steady gaze could bring her in this moment of fear.

>   Beads of perspiration stood out along the line of her upper lip and on her brow, and the oppressive heat caught at her throat. The lava was nearer now. It had crept down, inch by inch, during the night, and the whole air was full of the heavy, sulphurous smell of it. She could feel it advancing on the house like a cautious beast of prey, waiting to spring, but she would not let herself think of the moment when it would be upon them.

  Reaching the open doorway, she looked into the room beyond.

  Philip had allowed the fire to die, but there was still a glowing ember or two on the wide stone hearth which could be blown quickly into a flame. There was no need for a fire's comforting warmth now; the scorching breath of the volcano had come too near.

  She looked at the fragments of charred wood, fascinated for a moment, and then she was aware of Philip standing beside the desk in the corner. He was half turned from her, but the slow, deliberate movements of his hands could not be mistaken. She heard the little click of metal on metal as he dropped the bullets into place and the snap of the safety-catch against the barrel as he drove it home. Then, slowly and deliberately, he opened the shallow centre drawer of the desk and laid the revolver in it, ready.

  He stood looking down at it for several seconds, his profile etched against the strengthening light, and then

  he closed the drawer and turned to find her watching him

  For a split second Felicity thought that the stern jaw was set in anger, and then he held out his arms to her and she ran to their shelter

  He held her without speaking, closely, protectingly, his free hand caressing her hair, her head pressed down against the taut hardness of his chest.

  "Say—'All right, querida! " she whispered shakily.

  He turned her face up, kissing the tears from her eyes. "All right, querida!" he repeated. "All right!"

  He held her as the light grew and strengthened behind them, and then, very gently, he put her from him and went to the window.

  When he came back his mouth was grim and his eyes were hard, and she did not ask him what their chances were. At least they had survived the night.