by John Buchan
CHAPTER XXXII
THE BLESSING OF GAD
"Gad--a troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last."
Lewis peered into the gorge and saw only a thin darkness. The highwalls made pits of shade at the foot, but above there was a misty columnof light which showed the spectres of rock and bush in the nullahbeyond. It was all but dark, and the stars were coming out like thelights on a sea-wall, hard and cold and gleaming. Just in the throat ofthe pass a huge boulder had fallen and left a passage not two yardswide. Beyond there was a sharp descent of a dozen feet to the gravelledbottom which fell away in easier stages to the other watershed. Herewas a place made by nature for his plans. With immense pains he rolledthe biggest stones he could move to the passage, so that they werepoised above the slope. He tried the great boulder, too, with hisshoulders, and it seemed to quiver. In the last resort this mass ofrock might be sent crashing down the incline, and by the blessing of Godit should account for its man.
He brought his rifles forward to the stones, loaded them and felt thecartridges easy in his pocket. They were for the thirty-yards range;his pistol would be kept for closer quarters. He tried one after theother, cuddling the stocks to his cheek. They were all dear-lovedweapons, used in deer-stalking at home and on many a wilder beat. Heknew the tricks of each, and he had little pet devices laughed at by hisfriends. This one had clattered down fifty feet of rock in Ross-shireas the scars on the stock bore witness, and another had his initialsburned in the wood, the relic of a winter's night in a Finnish camp. Athousand old pleasant memories came back to him, the sights and scentsand sounds of forgotten places, the zest of toil and escapade, the joyof food and warmth and rest. Well! he had lived, had tasted to thefull the joys of the old earth, the kindly mother of her children. Hehad faced death thoughtlessly many times, and now the Ancient Enemy wason his heels and he was waiting to give him greeting. A phrase ran inhis head, some trophy from his aimless wanderings among books, whichspoke of death coming easily to one "who has walked steadfastly in thedirection of his dreams." It was a comforting thought to a creature ofmoods and fancies. He had failed, doubtless, but he had ever kept someselect fanciful aim unforgotten. In all his weakness he had neverbetrayed this ultimate Desire of the Heart.
Some few feet up the cliff was a little thicket of withered thorns. Theair was chilly and the cleft was growing very black. Why should not hemake a fire behind the great boulder? He gathered some armfuls andheaped them in a space of dry sand. They were a little wet, so theyburned slowly with a great smoke, which the rising night wind blewbehind him. He was still hungry, so he ate the food he had brought inhis pockets; and then he lit his pipe. How oddly the tobacco tasted inthis moment of high excitement! It was as if the essence of all thepipes he had ever smoked was concentrated into this last one. The smokeblew back, and as he sniffed its old homely fragrance he seemed to feelthe smell of peat and heather, of drenched homespun in the snowy bogs,and the glory of a bright wood fire and the moorland cottage. In asecond his thoughts were many thousand miles away. The night windcooled his brow, and he looked into the dark gap and saw his own past.
The first picture was a cold place on a low western island. Snow wasdrifting sparsely, and a dull grey Atlantic swell was grumbling on thereefs. He was crouching among the withered rushes, where seaweed andshells had been blown, and snow lay in dirty patches. He felt the thickcollar of his shooting-coat tight about his neck, while the Decemberevening grew darker and colder. A gillie, who had no English, was lyingat his right hand, and far out at sea a string of squattering geese wereslowly drifting shorewards with the wind. He saw the scene clear inevery line, and he remembered the moment as if it had been yesterday. Ithad been one of his periods of great exultation. He had just leftOxford, and had fled northward after some weeks in Paris to wash out thetaste of civilization from his mouth among the island north-westers. Hehad had a great day among the woodcock, and now was finishing with astalk after wild geese. He was furiously hungry, chilled and soaked tothe bone, but riotously happy. His future seemed to stretch before him,a brighter continuation of a bright past, a time for high achievement,bold work, and yet no surcease of pleasure. He had been master ofhimself in that hour, his body firm and strong, his soul clear, his minda tempered weapon awaiting his hands.
And then the scene changed to a June evening in his own countryside. Hewas deep in the very heart of the hills beside a little loch, whoseclear waves lapped on beaches of milky sand, it was just on twilight,and an infinite sighing of soft winds was around him, a far-awayineffable brightness of sunset, and the good scents of dusk among thymeand heather. He had fished all the afternoon, and his catch lay on thebent beside him. He was to sleep the night in his plaid, and already afire of heather-roots behind him was prepared for supper. He had beenfor a swim, and his hair was still wet on his forehead. Just across aconical hill rose into the golden air, the highest hill in all thecountryside, but here but a little thing, for the loch was as high asmany a hill-top. Just on its face was a scaur, and there a raven--aspeck--was wheeling slowly. Among the little islands broods of mallardwere swimming, and trout in a bay were splashing with wide circles. Thewhole place had seemed caught up into an ecstasy, a riot of gold andcrimson and far-off haunting shades and scents and voices. And yet itwas no wild spectacle; it was the delicate comfort of it all which hadcharmed him. Life seemed one glorious holiday, the world a garden ofthe gods. There was his home across the hills, with its cool chambers,its books and pictures, its gardens and memories. There were hisfriends up and down the earth. There was the earth itself waiting forhis conquest. And, meantime, there was this airy land around him, hisown by the earliest form of occupation.
The fire died down to embers and a sudden scattering of ashes woke himout of his dreaming. The old Scots land was many thousand miles away.His past was wiped out behind him. He was alone in a very strangeplace, cut off by a great gulf from youth and home and pleasure. For aninstant the extreme loneliness of an exile's death smote him, but thenext second he comforted himself. The heritage of his land and hispeople was his in this ultimate moment a hundredfold more than ever.The sounding tale of his people's wars--one against a host, a foray inthe mist, a last stand among the mountain snows--sang in his heart likea tune. The fierce, northern exultation, which glories in hardships andthe forlorn, came upon him with such keenness and delight that, as helooked into the night and the black unknown, he felt the joy of agreater kinship. He was kin to men lordlier than himself, thetrue-hearted who had ridden the King's path and trampled a little worldunder foot. To the old fighters in the Border wars, the religionists ofthe South, the Highland gentlemen of the Cause, he cried greeting overthe abyss of time. He had lost no inch of his inheritance. Where,indeed, was the true Scotland? Not in the little barren acres he hadleft, the few thousands of city-folk, or the contentions of unlovelycreeds and vain philosophies. The elect of his race had ever been thewanderers. No more than Hellas had his land a paltry local unity.Wherever the English flag was planted anew, wherever men did their dutyfaithfully and without hope of little reward--there was the fatherlandof the true patriot.
The time was passing, and still the world was quiet. The hour must beclose on midnight, and still there was no sign of men. For the firsttime he dared to hope for success. Before, an hour's delay was all thathe had sought. To give the north time for a little preparation, to makedefence possible, had been his aim; now with the delay he seemed to seea chance for victory. Bardur would be alarmed hours ago; men would beon the watch all over Kashmir and the Punjab; the railways would beguarded. The invader would find at the least no easy conquest. Whenthey had trodden his life out in the defile they would find stronger mento bar their path, and he would not have died in vain. It was a slendersatisfaction for vanity, for what share would he have in the defence?Unknown, unwept, he would perish utterly, and to others would be theglory. He did not care, nay, he rejoiced in the brave obscurity. Hehad never sought so vulgar a thing as fame. He was going out of lifelike a
snuffed candle. George, if George survived, would know nothingof his death. He was miles beyond the frontier, and if George, aftermonths of war, should make his way to this fatal cleft, what trace wouldhe find of him? And all his friends, Wratislaw, Arthur Mordaunt, thefolk of Glenavelin--no word would ever come to them to tell them of hisend.
But Alice--and in one wave there returned to him the story which he hadstriven to put out of his heart. She had known him in his weakness, butshe would never think of him in his strength. The whimsical fatepleased him. The last meeting on that grey autumn afternoon at theBroken Bridge had heartened him for his travellings. It had been acompact between them; and now he was redeeming the promise of the tryst.And she would never know it, would only know that somewhere and somehowhe had ceased to struggle with an inborn weakness. Well-a-day! It wasno world of rounded corners and complete achievements. It was enough ifa hint, a striving, a beginning were found in the scheme of man'sfrailty. He had no clear-cut conception of a future--that was the happylot of the strong-hearted--but he had a generous intolerance of littlesuccess. He did not ask rewards, but he prayed for the hope of a goodbeginning or a gallant failure. The odd romance which lies in thewanderer's brain welcomed the paradox. Alice and her bright hairfloated dim on the horizon of his vision, something exquisite and dear,a memory, a voice, a note of tenderness in this last exhilaration. Asentimental passion was beyond him; he was too critical of folly toworship any lost lady; and he had no love for vain reminiscences. Butthe girl had become the embodied type of the past. A year ago he hadnot seen her, now she was home and childhood and friends to him. For amoment there was the old heart-hunger, but the pain had gone. Theineffectual longing which had galled him had perished at the advent ofhis new strength.
For in this ultimate moment he at last seemed to have come to his own.The vulgar little fears, which, like foxes, gnaw at the roots of theheart, had gone, even the greater perils of faint hope and a haltingenergy. The half-hearted had become the stout-hearted. The resistlessvigour of the strong and the simple was his. He stood in the dark gullypeering into the night, his muscles stiff from heel to neck. Theweariness of the day had gone: only the wound in his ear, got the daybefore, had begun to bleed afresh. He wiped the blood away with hishandkerchief, and laughed at the thought of this little care. In a fewminutes he would be facing death, and now he was staunching a pin-prick.
He wondered idly how soon death would come. It would be speedy, atleast, and final. And then the glory of the utter loss. His boneswhitening among the stones, the suns of summer beating on them and thewinter snowdrifts decently covering them with a white sepulchre. No mancould seek a lordlier burial. It was the death he had always craved.From murder, fire, and sudden death, why should we call on the Lord todeliver us? A broken neck in a hunting-field, a slip on rockymountains, a wounded animal at bay--such was the environment of deathfor which he had ever prayed. But this--this was beyond his dreams.
And with it all a great humility fell upon him. His battles were allunfought. His life had been careless and gay; and the noblecommonplaces of faith and duty had been things of small meaning. He hadlived within the confines of a little aristocracy of birth and wealthand talent, and the great melancholy world scourged by the winds of Godhad seemed to him but a phrase of rhetoric. His creeds and hisarguments seemed meaningless now in this solemn hour; the truth had beenhis no more than his crude opponent's! Had he his days to live overagain he would look on the world with different eyes. No man any moreshould call him a dreamer. It pleased him to think that, half-heartedand sceptical as he had been, a humorist, a laughing philosopher, he wasnow dying for one of the catchwords of the crowd. He had returned tothe homely paths of the commonplace, and young, unformed, untried, hewas caught up by kind fate to the place of the wise and the heroic.
* * * * *
Suddenly on his thoughts there broke in a dull tread of men, a sound ofslipping stones and feet upon dry gravel. He broke into the cold sweatof tense nerves, and waited, half hidden, with his rifle ready. Thencame the light of dull lanterns which showed a thin, endless columnbeneath the rock walls. They advanced with wonderful quietness, thesound of feet broken only by a soft word of command. He calculated thedistance--now it was three hundred yards, now two, now a bare eighty.At fifty his rifle flew to his shoulder and he fired. His nerves werebad, for one bullet clicked on the rock, while the second took the dusta yard before the enemy's feet. Instantly there was a halt and thesound of speech.
The failure had steadied him. The second pair of shots killed theirmen. He heard the quick cry of pain and shivered. He was new to thiswork and the cry hurt him. But he picked up his express and firedagain, and again there was a cry and a fall. Then he heard a word ofcommand and the sound of men creeping in the side of the nullah. Eyeand ear were marvelously acute at the moment, for he picked out thescouts and killed them. Then he loaded his rifles and waited.
He saw a man in the half-light not five yards below him. He fired andthe man dropped, but he had used his rifle and the great spattering ofearth showed his whereabouts. Now was the time for keen eye and steadyarm. The enemy had halted thirty yards off and beneath the slope therewas a patch of darkness. He kept one eye on this, for it might containa man. He fixed his attention on a ray of moonlight which fell acrossthe floor of the gully. When a man crept past this he shot, and herarely failed.
Then a command was given and the column came forward at the double. Hefired two shots, but the advance continued. They passed the ray oflight and he saw the whites of their eyes and the gleam of teeth andsteel. They paused a second to fire a volley, and a storm of shotrattled about him. He had stepped back into his shelter, and wasunscathed, but when he looked out he saw the enemy at the foot of theslope. His weapons were all loaded except the express, and in mad hastehe sent shot after shot into the ranks. The fire halted them, and for asecond they were on the edge of a panic. This unknown destructioncoming out of the darkness was terrifying to the stoutest hearts. Allthe while there was wrath behind them. This stopping of the advancecolumn was throwing the whole force into confusion. Angry messages cameup from the centre, and distracted officers cursed their native guides.
Meanwhile Lewis was something wholly unlike himself, a maddened creaturewith every sense on the alert, drinking in the glory of the fight. Hehusbanded the chances of his life with generous parsimony. Every chancemeant some minutes' delay and every delay a new link of safety for thenorth. His cartridges were getting near an end, but there stillremained the stones and his pistol and the power of his arm hand tohand.
Suddenly came a second volley which all but killed him, bullets glancingon all sides of him and scraping the rocks with a horrid message ofdeath. Then on the heels of it came a charge up the slope. The turnhad come for the last expedient. He rushed to the stone and with thestrength of madness rooted it from its foundations. It wavered for asecond, and then with a cloud of earth and gravel it plunged downwards.A second and it had ploughed its way with a sickening grinding soundinto the ranks of the men below. There was one wild scream of terror,and then a retreat, a flight, almost a panic.
Down in the hollow was a babel of sound, men yelping with fright,officers calming and cursing them, and the shouting of the forcesbehind. For Lewis the last moment was approaching. The neck of thepass was now bare and wide and half of the slope was gone. He had losthis weapons in the fall, all but his express, and the loosening of thestone had crushed his foot so that he could scarcely stand. Then orderseemed to be restored, for another volley rang out, which passed overhis head as he crouched on the ground. The enemy were advancing slowly,resolutely. He knew that now there was something different in theirtread.
He was calm and quiet. The mad exhilaration was ebbing and he wascalculating chances as dispassionately as a scientist in his study. Twoshots, the six chambers of his pistol, and then he would be ground topowder. The moon rode over the top of the cleft and a sudden wave oflight fell on the slope, the writhing dead, and below, the a
dvancingcolumn. It gave him a chance for fair shooting, and he did not miss.But the men were maddened with anger and taunts, and they would havecharged a battery. They came up on the slope with a fierce rush,cursing in gutturals. He slipped behind the old friendly jag of rockand waited till they were abreast. Then began a strange pistolpractice. Crouching in the darkness he selected his men and shot them,making no mistake. The front ranks of the column turned to the rightand lunged with their bayonets into the gloom. But the man knew hispurpose. He climbed farther back till he was above their heads, lookingdown on ranks of white inhuman faces mad with slaughter and the couragewhich is next door to fear. They were still advancing, but with anuncertain air. He saw his chance and took it. Crying out he knew notwhat, he leapt among them with clutched rifle, striking madly to rightand left. There was a roar of fright, and for a moment a space wascleared around him. He fought like a maniac, stumbling with his crushedfoot and leaving two men stunned at his feet. But it was only for amoment. A bayonet entered his side and his rifle snapped at the stock.He grappled with the nearest man and pulled him to the ground, for hecould stand no longer. Then there came a wild surge around, a dozenbayonets pierced him, and in the article of death he was conscious of agreat press which ground him into the earth. The next moment the columnwas marching over his body.
* * * * *
Dawn came with light and sweet airs to the dark cleft in the hills.Just at that moment, when the red east was breaking into spires andclouds of colour, and the little morning winds were beginning to flutteramong the crags, two men were standing in the throat of the pass. Theground about them was ploughed up as if by a battery, the rock seamedand broken, and red stains of blood were on the dry gravel. From thenorth, in the direction of the plain, came the confused sound of an armyin camp. But to the south there was a glimpse through an aperture ofhill of a far side of mountain, and on it a gleam as of fire.
Marka, clad in the uniform of a captain of Cossacks, looked fiercely athis companion and then at the beacon.
"Look," he said, "look and listen!" And sure enough in the morningstillness came the sound as of a watchword cried from post to post.
"That," said he, "is the morning signal of an awakened empire and thefinal proof of our failure."
"It was no fault of mine," said Fazir Khan sourly. "I did as I wascommanded, and lo! when I come I find an army in confusion and thefrontier guarded." The chief spoke with composure, but he had in hisheart an uneasy consciousness that he had had some share in thisundoing.
Marka looked down at a body which lay wrinkled across the path. It wastrodden all but shapeless, the poor face was unrecognizable, the legswere scrawled like a child's letters. Only one hand with a broken goldsignet-ring remained to tell of the poor inmate of the clay.
The Cossack looked down on the dead with a scowling face. "Cursehim--curse him eternally. Who would have guessed that this fool, thisphrasing fool, would have spoiled our plans? Curse his conscience andhis honour, and God pity him for a fool! I must return to my troops,for this is no place to linger in." The man saw his work of yearsspoiled in a night, and all by the agency of a single adventurer. Hesaw his career blighted, his reputation gone. It is not to be wonderedat if he was bitter.
He turned to go, and in leaving pushed the dead man over with his foot.He saw the hand and the broken ring.
"This thing was once a gentleman," he said, and he went down the pass.
But Fazir Khan remained by the body. He remembered his guest of twodays before, and he cursed himself for underrating this wanderingEnglishman. He saw himself in evil case. His chances of spoil andglory had departed. He foresaw expeditions of reprisal, and theBada-Mawidi hunted like partridges upon the mountains. He had staked hisall on a desperate chance, and this one man had been his ruin. For amoment the barbarian came out, and in a sudden ferocity he kicked thedead.
But as he looked again he was moved to a juster appreciation.
"This thing was a man," he said.
Then stooping he dipped his finger in blood and touched his forehead."This man," he said, "was of the race of kings."