The free, giant motion of the animal, the sense of strength and ease with which its great stride goes forward, bearing its burden high above the dust and impediments of the earth, sets the blood glowing and the pulses dancing, and she loved it. Here and now to part with him, to see him going to adventure, danger, risk she might not share, to be condemned to the hot, silent tent, to sit inactive there when all her eager, ardent frame was calling out for deeds, movement, action, hurt cruelly. Her brain was seething in fury and rebellion as she turned her steps slowly back to Sybil's tent.
"Come in and shut the door, do," came the latter's voice from within, peevish with fear. "I feel so frightened. I think they were brutes to go and leave us alone."
"I can't see what there is to be afraid of," returned Regina coldly, entering and letting down the tent flap.
Of another nature altogether, she had no fear of solitude, nor of the desert. She would have lain down anywhere on the sand, her hand on her rifle, her pistol in her belt, and slept like an English child in its cot at home.
"They are rather brutes, but they can't help it," she added absently, and sat down on a folding camp-stool, watching the other girl begin to undress.
The tent interior looked cosy enough, bright with red rugs on its sandy floor and a gilt-framed mirrorswinging between the two narrow beds—for a second one had been put in for herself, as Sybil could not bear to be alone if Graham was no longer in the tent beside her.
"What are you afraid of specially?"
"Why, all these lions about!"
Regina laughed contemptuously.
"All these lions about! You talk as if we had been falling over lions and unable to get into our tent door for them!" she exclaimed. "As a fact, we've been here nearly two months and not seen one!"
"Yes; but that was in another camp. I do believe we've got into the districts now where they are. Regina," she added suddenly, "what does 'Hina' in Arabic mean?"
"'Hina' means 'here.'"
"I thought so; and 'henak,' what does that mean?"
"'Henak' means 'there,' 'over there,' 'at a distance.'"
"Well, that's just what I thought. Now I'll tell you what I heard those servants saying. They were talking about lions, because I know that word, and then one said: 'La, la mush henak, lekin hina, hina.' Now doesn't that mean: 'No, no, it's not over there but here, here'? And he got quite excited, and pointed just round the camp."
Regina looked grave.
"Why did you not tell the men?" she asked.
"Idid, I kept telling them about it, but nobody would listen to me. Merton did ask the man something about it, but the others all swore the lions were over the ridge. You know how they jabber and howthey contradict themselves and each other. My idea is, these horrid beasts are all round us," and she shivered. The light from the centre lamp fell on the fair, flower-like beauty of the girl, and as she let down the gold river of her hair the blood of her companion watching her seemed to turn into flame. She felt she would like to spring upon her and kill her, like the lions she was talking about.
"Well, if it's true, I am rather glad," she returned. "I'd much rather they would come and eat us up than Everest."
"Regina! How can you! You don't mean it!"
"Of course I mean it," she flashed out, with extreme passion in her tones, "to be here and know he is in danger, that's the worst agony I can have. I would give up my life for him any time."
"How wonderful!" returned Sybil, drawing off her shoes. "I couldn't care for a man like that."
"No, I don't suppose you could."
"Good-night, I shall try to go off to sleep and forget I am in this horrible place. How you stare, Regina! What's the matter? Won't you go to bed?"
"No; I shall sit up for a time. Go to sleep in peace. You are quite safe."
Sybil lay down on her bed, only drawing the rug partly over her. She had a loose thin flannel gown fastened round her waist and open a little at her neck in the hot night. It was very still within the tent, and without there was not a sound as the moonlit hours went by.
Regina sat like a statue, her elbow on her knee, her chin on her hand, watching the sleeping girl.
What mad, passionate thoughts came to her in their dark battalions and assailed her!
How beautiful it was, that delicate, ivory face, so exquisitely carved, as it lay against the white canvas pillow. It was no wonder that a man should covet it for his own, especially a man like Everest, with his artistic eye for perfect lines. He had always admired it enough to make him keep with him everywhere the blue velvet portrait-case he had had in his rooms at the Rectory. His sister had said that but for Regina he would have married her. But it was not true—Regina felt it was not true, that she never could have satisfied him—kept him—but yet, perhaps, beauty and name and breeding in his wife would have been enough, and for the rest, of all that is divine in humanity—passion and love and character—he would have sought in other women ... she did not know, her thoughts could only whirl round in dizzy, empty circles, outside the barrier of his implacable silence, as falling leaves might beat and whirl round a fortress wall. She knew nothing, and in the obscurity of another's feelings and passions there is no firm ground to stand on.
"It is not his fault, nor hers," she thought; "but oh! Fate! take her away from here, leave him to me again."
In the silence stirred a tiny sound, she heard it, and then, instantly, quicker than thought itself, the tent flap moved and a long yellow streak flashed by her and was upon the bed before her eyes.
One frightful shriek rang out, then the yellow flash passed by and was gone into the night, and the bed was empty where the golden beauty of the girl hadbeen. Regina had sprung to her feet, but the lion had apparently not even seen her.
Almost like lightning, with a rapidity that no one can believe until he has seen it, the great beast had entered, seized its prey and gone.
For a second, Regina stood motionless. The blinding realisation came upon her that she stood alone in the tent and that her rival was gone from her to a certain death. Her invocation had been heard.
In that moment a view of her future came to her. She would be his, alone with him again, safe, secure, protected, loved, herself and her child. And all that was required of her was to do nothing. No one could blame her. Fate had come to her aid. Why should she not receive back her life and happiness at its hands?
The temptation came upon her and gripped her for a moment so that she could not move.
Then she picked up her rifle, jammed her pistol more firmly in her belt and went to the flap of the tent door and pushed it aside.
In the bright African moonlight she saw the form of the great yellow cat, trotting leisurely across the sand in the direction of a low ridge of sandhill, scrub and rock that lay towards the east, obliquely opposite to the direction in which the men had gone. The moonlight showed her clearly its victim flung over its shoulder for its convenience in long travel. She could see, too, it was a lioness, and these two facts made her think that the girl was probably uninjured. The lioness was out hunting, not for herself but for food for her cubs, and the prey was being carefully carried back to them. She could see there was nostruggle. No screams broke the stillness. In helpless unconsciousness the girl was being borne away to a swift, inexorable death. And to the watcher at the tent door came again the great voice of Self and all the cries of the Flesh saying: "Let her go! It is not your part to save her."
She did not know how many servants had gone with the men; doubtless they had left some, but those probably not the most active nor the best shots. If she took the time to go to the back of the camp and find and rouse them, before anything could really be done in rescue the lioness would have disappeared. The natives would talk and gesticulate, weapons would probably not be ready, the time in which rescue could be effected would be lost. Yet Regina would appear to have done all she could, she would have roused the camp, she would have tried to get assistance; no one could expect a woman to go out on foot alone to face lions in the night, nor reproach her if she did not.
Regina would be guiltless and Sybil for ever unable to mar her life again.
But as there is a magnetic pole which draws all magnets to itself, so in this world there is that great indefinable Force of the Right which draws all noble natures always to itself. Where they see the Good and the Right gleaming ahead of them, there they must follow, though stones cut their feet and thorns tear their flesh. The Right, through everything, pulls them to itself. And it drew Regina's feet swiftly over the threshold of the tent now. Silently, quickly, gripping her rifle, she followed in the wake of the lioness. And Temptation walked beside her,trying vainly to suffocate her soul with its dark wings. She knew that in the effort before her she must probably surrender her own life, and the greatness of the sacrifice, the immensity of the demand made upon her appealed to her, called upon the heroism within her.
For some miles the lioness went on at the same easy trot, and Regina followed swiftly, but unable to shorten the distance between them. Then the yellow form began to spring and bound, and for a second now and then was lost to view, and her pursuer knew that she had reached the scrub by the rocks. Then the tawny form disappeared altogether and only the human figure remained, hurrying over the sand in the moonlight.
At last she reached the scrub amongst the rising sandhills and here she went very cautiously, searching for the mouth of the lair she guessed was hidden there. She stood still for a moment, listening for a sound to guide her. A faint scuffling noise came from a gully beside her, deep down between two black faces of rock and overgrown with stunted thorn and the disk-leaved cactus. Down, down through these, one step at a time, silently, holding her heavy rifle above her head to avoid the catching thorn, she descended. The moon, that had been obscured by a tiny cloud, broke suddenly again into full brilliance and she saw she was at the mouth of the cave.
Calm, cool, without a thought of her own life and beauty that she was taking to destruction, only filled with an intense determination to save another, she stooped down and entered the lair. The entrance was low, but worn smooth and easy of access, oncereached, by the passing and repassing of a great body. Within the cave the floor was sandy, and the rock roof so near to it she could not stand upright, but had to move forward crouchingly, with bent knees. Through the obscurity of the inside she strained her eyes, and there, opposite her, far back from the entrance, she saw four green spots of phosphorescent fire against the rock background. She paused, holding herself very still. The warm, suffocating scent of the den filled her nostrils; she heard snuffing and scrambling noises, and then, as the darkness became more and more clear to her eyes, she descried the forms of two little yellow cubs tumbling over each other on some brush in the corner and snuffing at her with curiosity. The mother was not there. Regina looked round. On a ledge of rock jutting out from one side lay the unconscious form of her companion, her loose sleeping gown all gathered together by her neck, where the lioness had held her, but apparently otherwise untouched.
Regina's heart leaped up in a great sense of triumph. All personal feeling was lost and she was only intent now on her heroic duty to save.
As she had thought, the lioness had been out hunting, not for immediate food, but for the sake of filling up her larder, and having secured one victim, dissatisfied, perhaps, with the size of it, she had left it there and started out again to look for more.
Speed was the great necessity now! Regina felt that if she could get away from the den and cross the desert to the camp in time, her success was won. She turned to the rock and lifted the girl's limp body into her arms. One of the cubs ran out and snuffedand growled at her like a puppy and she nearly fell over its soft body as it waddled to the entrance with her. But in a moment more she stood upright outside and drew in a deep breath of the pure desert air.
Up, up through the brake and the tangle of tearing thorn and poisonous cactus, she ascended, panting with the burden of the girl and the rifle in her arms. She held her against her breast, one arm under her shoulders, the other under her knees, and the rifle clasped flat along the girl's side in her right hand. How she blessed her splendid strength of limb and lung and muscle coming up that thorny, rocky path. The top of the sandhills gained, the worst was over, smooth and easy to travel lay before her the hard sand of the desert. Down from the sandhills in safety she stood now on the level and, breathing deeply, she started a steady, even walk over the moonlight plain. Her burden lay so still in her arms she feared the shock had killed her. But the body felt limp and warm; she could only hope she was merely unconscious. She walked on and the sweat in the hot night broke from her forehead and poured down her face, her knees trembled from fatigue. From behind a faint light of the coming dawn began to shine on the desert. Still very far in the distance she thought her strained eyes could distinguish the white peaks of their camp. Would the men have returned? Would he be there? How would—— Without her having heard a sound, there was a rush of wind past her, a blow on her neck and shoulders of something she could not see and the next instant she was flat on the sand, thebody of the girl beside her, over which stood the lioness, growling and snuffing suspiciously. Confused by the scent of the den and the cubs, the animal paused there.
Regina scrambled to her knees, raised her rifle, took aim and fired, over the body of the girl, straight at the snowy breast of the lioness. There was a roar of agony and rage and the beast was upon her. Her bullet had found its heart, but it still had strength and time to take its vengeance. Without pain, for the girl was above the region of pain in that excitement that knows neither suffering nor fear, she felt its teeth close cruelly on her shoulder and break it, and its claws sink deep into her breast and back and tear the flesh. She turned her head away, cheek down to the sand, to save her sight, for she still had work to do, and so for a second remained motionless. The great beast's growling turned to long moans, slowly its teeth and claws relaxed. Then suddenly it rolled clear from her and lay still.
Regina picked herself up and stood, the blood pouring from her shoulder and chest, but the dauntless soul, strong and unbroken, determined to conquer.
With her left and uninjured arm she drew the girl's body up to her and walked forward, strong in that last great gush of vitality that Nature gives, opening all those reserves for which there is no future need.
Half-an-hour later, as the dawn came up over the ridge, she reached the camp.
Her eyes were dim, and vaguely she saw the press of figures, the fires, the standing camels. Her headwas light and a strange singing filled her ears, but she heard the word "Regina" come in his voice to her, full of agony and love and passion, and she staggered towards him, livid, speechless, her clothing drenched with blood that still came slowly from her shoulder.
It seemed to her swaying vision that she was instantly surrounded by figures and faces, a thousand faces swam round her, her burden was taken from her, then came the roughness of sand to her cheek and lips as she fell, and then black unconsciousness.
The doctor and Everest knelt beside her; at his orders all the others fell back and the cool breeze that blows in the desert at dawn came to her unimpeded. With hands that did not show the slightest quiver, though the tension of agony in his brain was so great, it seemed as if it must break it, Everest loosened her cartridge belt and drew it from her.
"Good God! her right arm!" He exclaimed, as it fell unnaturally, broken, as he moved her and suddenly the words shot across his brain in its anguish, "if some love business does not cripple her."
The doctor forced a little brandy between her white lips, but she did not move, she lay there under Everest's eyes, the gay, radiant creature he had left, now crushed and senseless, a little heap of torn flesh and broken bones and blood-stained clothing.
It seemed to him that all the agony of a hundred lives of pain was forced into his brain at that sight.
"We must get this off," the doctor muttered, indicating the black and stiffening blouse; it was already torn down by the lioness's claws at the back,and the under-linen bodice and flesh and skin with it. St John and Merton, who were standing by, turned away, unable to bear the sight of all that white loveliness mangled and destroyed. Everest, pale as ashes, but perfectly calm, drew and cut away the stuff, piece by piece, with infinite skill and care.
No one seemed to think of Sybil; after the first hasty pronouncement of the doctor that she was alive and uninjured, she had been carried to her tent. Merton had given some orders about her, then he had come back to Everest's side, but Regina herself, as sense struggled back to her, asked as she first unclosed her eyes:
"Is she all right? Did I save her?"
"Yes, my sweet, my brave darling, you did," Everest answered, bending over her. Their eyes met, and a little smile played in hers as she saw the fire of love in his.
"I'm glad," she said faintly. The agony was intense now that action was over. Her eyelids quivered and then grew still as she lapsed into senselessness again.
Merton, who was watching her face, turned to St John and gripped his arm.
"Oh, St John, this is too horrible. If she dies what shall I do? Why did I leave Sybil with her?" His face was working convulsively. St John drew him away.
The sun was getting quite hot, in that instant way it has in Africa; as soon as its rays are well over the horizon they begin to burn.
The doctor wanted to get her into the shelter of the tent. As he touched her to raise her she groaned.
"Let Everest lift me," she murmured, and the doctor drew back.
"She can stand it better from you," he said to Everest, and the latter slipped his arm very gently under her and raised her. It was agony to be touched, frightful pain to be moved, but she was silent in his arms as he lifted her and carried her into their tent.
He laid her on the bed, on her unwounded side, and put a pillow to support the broken, useless arm, and then bent and kissed her as, in all their days of passion, he had not done yet. She saw in the anguish on his face at that moment his suffering, that he showed in no other way.
"Do not grieve so," she whispered. "I am so strong. I shall recover all right. Tell me, did you find any lion?"
He shook his head. "No, not where we went. That's why we came back. They were on this side."
"Then I did have the first shot at lion in this camp, as you said I ought to. How strange it all seems! I shot it out there to the east of the camp. I want you to have that skin. Will you send after it? Get it before it is spoiled, and always keep it. Everest, you know—I saved her—foryou."
"I know, I know," he answered, and his voice told her the words were wrung out of his inmost soul. "But I only want you. It has all been a mistake, and I felt I could not explain. You are my very life, dearest, no one else is anything."
"Come, come, this won't do!" broke in upon them from the door. "No talking, no excitement, please."
The doctor had gone for his case of probes anddressings. He stood now with it in his hand and disapproval on his face. Everest moved a little from the bed.
"Leave me with the doctor for a moment," Regina said. "I want to ask him something," and Everest left the tent to give orders for the body of the lioness to be brought into camp.
As he came back from doing this, he came upon the doctor just leaving the tent and stopped.
"Will she live?" he asked, and the doctor thought in all his experience he had never seen so much suffering and anxiety on a person's face, combined with such perfect self-control and calm, and thought what a splendid pair they were.
"No one can say," he replied, "but I should think there is every chance of her doing so. I was just coming out to find you. This probing of the wounds is a most painful process, but it's extremely necessary; all our success depends on getting them clean. They are all choked up now with clotted blood and bits of linen driven in by the beast's claws. Your wife's just as brave as she can be, but she must suffer intensely. Your influence is so good over her, you'd better be present while I'm doing it: you soothe her, mesmerise her in some way, and that's better than an anæsthetic. I believe she'd let you mince her up alive and never complain. It's a nasty business for you seeing it done, but if you can stand it, it's better for her."
"Of course I will," rejoined Everest. "I was coming back now to her," and both men entered the tent together.
It was a hideous scene of four long hours ofsuffering that followed, but suffering illumined by those noblest qualities in humanity that shine out like lamps here and there and throw their light across the stained pages of humanity's black record as a whole.
The girl never flinched nor groaned as the probes went deep into the long slashes from shoulder to waist made by the lion's claws, nor when the forced-in linen was drawn out from the wound above her breast, nor when her broken arm was handled and set. Of all the great horrible pain she was suffering the men were given no sign to increase their difficulty and labour.
Everest at first held her hand and spoke to her, putting to her lips from time to time the liquid the doctor ordered, but when the wounds were clean it was his strong, slight hand that, without a quiver of the muscles, replaced as far as was possible the torn fragments of flesh and strips of skin exactly and perfectly in their place in the hope that they would grow again, reunite and join without a serious scar. The union of brain between these two was so complete that, though Regina had not uttered any word on the subject, to Everest it seemed as if her whole body, as it lay there so broken and wounded, was crying out to him: "My beauty, my beauty! Save that if you can for the sake of our love." And the doctor watched with surprise the admirable skill and infinite care with which he pieced all the satin surface together. Some of the places were too deep to be treated in any way but stitched up, and this the doctor did himself. Then they dressed and bandaged the whole of the back and shoulder and breast and setand bandaged the broken arm, and only at the very last Regina quietly fainted as Everest kissed her and told her it was finished.
When she recovered consciousness she passed almost immediately into a deep sleep. She was so very, very tired and everything was done now, and he was pleased with her, so nothing mattered and the sense of suffocating heat in the tent as the noon rays poured down on the canvas, the buzz of the flies, the sight of the instruments and basins and bandages, the long ache and smart of her whole body, all these were blotted out as the soft, velvet darkness of sleep enfolded her.
The doctor turned to Everest.
"Now you must turn in and take a rest. Out riding all last night and then four hours of this. Tell them to send in that extra little bed here and then get a good sleep. If you don't you'll be done up and no good to nurse her."
"But it's the same for you, doctor," rejoined Everest, smiling. He was standing erect at the foot of the bed, without any sign of fatigue. "You've been without sleep as long as I have; you want a rest."
"Oh, nonsense. I'm not leading the life you are and taking it out of myself all ways at once. I'll get that bed in and then off to sleep you go. When you wake up you can watch her and let me doze a bit." And he went out.
A little later, when he had seen his two patients, as he called them to himself—for the pallor and extreme mental distress of Everest's face told him that, unless there were some alleviation of the strain, physical collapse must follow—asleep in the big tent,he crossed the strip of fiery sand to the two little white ones opposite of Sybil and her brother. He entered the girl's and found her white and shivering in her bed with the rug drawn up to her neck. Merton was standing beside her.
"Why doesn't Everest come to see me?" Sybil asked directly the doctor appeared. "It was all so awful for me. He might have come."
"Mr. Lanark has not had a moment in which to think of anything but his wife and her suffering; he's been working with me there for her these last four hours, and now I've made him go to bed. He's utterly exhausted with it all," the doctor answered, with some asperity.
"I don't believe I shall ever get over it," moaned Sybil, "that awful beast coming on to the bed. I think it's coming again every minute."
"You had better try and brace up, and not give way to your nerves like this," he returned. "Your friend shot the lioness, so you've nothing to fear from the same one anyway. You'd better get up and have some luncheon with the rest of us. There's nothing on earth the matter with you."
"Oh, doctor, how can you! You don't know what I feel! I couldn't eat! I want to see Everest. I am sure he would come if he were told." And her eyes began to fill with tears.
"I'll go and get him, Sybil; don't cry," exclaimed Merton, who resented a little the doctor's attitude to his sister. He approached the door, but the doctor barred his progress.
"You shall not go," he exclaimed angrily, "and disturb him now. I won't be responsible for his life,I tell you, if you drag him up from his sleep and bully him. Let your sister wait till the evening. If she has the smallest consideration for him she will do that at least."
The doctor was a great burly man and Merton could not get by him. He stopped sulkily and Sybil said:
"Don't go, Merton, I'll wait."
"I should think you would," grunted the doctor, "when you've caused all this trouble already!"
The contrasts of humanity, he was thinking—Regina in her agonies had declared they were not to worry about her, she was not suffering, she would soon recover. This girl, untouched, persisted in lying in bed and magnifying her little woes.
Regina's first inquiry had been for Sybil. Sybil never troubled herself once to ask about the one who had rescued her!
"Well, if you won't get up and lunch," he said aloud, "you'd best have a sleeping draught and try to go to sleep."
But Sybil did not want to be put to sleep, she wanted to lie and shiver and look ill and complain and talk about herself. So the doctor put the draught back in his pocket and went off to the dining tent, where he found St John, and the two men sat down to luncheon alone.
That same evening, late, when the moon was pouring silver over the encampment and over the level plain, and the pink and orange ridges of rocky hills that lay to the west and east, and the air was cool and still, Everest and Sybil sat in the latter's tent, of which the flap was securely shut and tied. They were alone. The girl was dressed now, and sitting on a folding-chair. She looked pale, and her face was tense with anxiety, her eyes distracted.
Everest sat opposite her, restored by his long sleep, calm and entirely composed. On his face was an unusual expression of severity: it looked implacable, absolutely immovable, like a countenance of stone. Sybil clasped her hands and wrung them together in her lap.
"Oh, Everest, don't say such things," she said, in a low tone. "Don't say you won't marry me—any time. Not just now, I know you can't—not for some time, perhaps, but promise you will some time—when we are back in Europe, say. It is so dreadful to me to think of—of—all that has happened, if we are not to marry after all."
"Why did you seek such a position, then?" he asked, looking across at her steadily; and she, meeting the gaze of those large eyes full of fiery darkness like the African sky at midnight, felt her soul sinkand faint in a mingled anguish of shame and despair and hopeless longing for him.
"You knew that I was with a woman I loved, and who loved me. Why did you come and try to force yourself, as you did from the first, between us?"
"I felt sure you were not married. Regina was only one of all the many women you have had with you for a time. She would have to give way to any woman you wanted to marry."
Everest's face grew still more set and cold, if that were possible.
"You see you chose to assume all that, and assumed wrongly," he said quietly, and his tones were like falling ice. "Had you accepted the idea that we were married you would have been wiser. Regina is virtually my wife. I should never place any other woman than her in that position. I shall be glad if you will try to grasp that now."
Sybil, unable to bear his gaze, his voice, beside herself with wretchedness, burst into tears.
She slipped from her chair to the floor and put her hands pleadingly on his knees.
"You can't mean it, Everest, I am sure you don't. It would be the wrecking of my life."
Everest's face did not change; he looked down upon her unmoved. She was very beautiful, but in that moment he did not even admire her. The passion for Regina, stirred now into a great blaze, seemed literally to hide this girl from him; moreover, she had deceived, entrapped and was now trying to coerce him.
"Do you not see that if I did marry you it would mean the wrecking of Regina's life?"
"I have not to think or care about Regina!"
"Did she not think of you when she followed you into the lion's cave? You would not be living at all now but for her. For you she is lying there in agony, maimed and mutilated, that you may be here safe, and you talk of not having to think of her!" His voice shook with anger.
"Rubbish! She didn't do it for me, she did it for you."
This was perfectly true, but it was the worst thing she could have said in her own cause. It came over Everest with heartrending force, the truth of it. Regina had done it for him. For him she was now lying crushed and broken, with all her glorious vitality laid by perhaps for ever.
"For me, well, then, yes, for me; and you want me to desert her in return, to consider you before her. You talk of my duty to you when she has all but given up her life for me! I have no duty whatever to anyone, except to her!"
"Nonsense, Everest; you know it's no use to talk like that. You must marry me now after what has occurred. You knew very well I considered myself engaged to you or I should never have allowed it."
"Allowed!"
Everest only uttered that one word. His face was very pale; his lips compressed into one hard line; his brows contracted. Vividly the whole scheme of the last two months stood before him; like a raised map in black and white relief. The coming of this girl and her brother to join their expedition, their insistence on being in the same camp with him, the daily, hourly companionship she had forced upon him,the persistent court, the final deliberately compromising situations, the seduction of his senses, the difficult overthrow of his reason.
As in Regina's case he had taken all blame to himself, and knew that he had abused her innocence and trusting love, so here his conscience absolutely acquitted him.
Just then the string of the door flap was pulled undone from the outside, the flap pushed aside and Merton came in. It seemed to Everest as if his coming had been arranged beforehand. Sybil rose and sat back in her chair. Everest did not move. Merton looked from one to the other.
"I can guess what you've been discussing," he said rather awkwardly. "Look here, Everest. Sybil has told me everything, and I really do think you ought to do something about it."
"What would you propose my doing?" returned Everest coldly, looking steadily at Merton, who flushed uncomfortably under the older man's gaze.
"Well, marry her, or promise to marry her when we all meet again in Europe, because I suppose we'll have to break up now. She's had such a shock she wants to get out of this, and I imagine you'll be tied here some time yet; but I'd like some understanding as to what you're going to do before we leave."
"I have already told your sister I can do nothing."
"But you know, it's all very well," remonstrated Merton hotly; "we're cousins, and you have some responsibility to her. She says you have been intimate, that you forced her——"
Everest rose from his chair with a sudden movement.
"You believed that—of me?" he asked, and Merton shrank under his eyes and tone.
"I don't know what to believe," he said sulkily.
"Will you repeat that accusation, Sybil, in my presence?" he asked, turning to her, but Sybil could not raise her eyes. She turned scarlet and looked down on the camp-table beside her.
"No, no," she faltered hurriedly, "I never said exactly that. Merton must have misunderstood."
A look of contempt passed over Everest's face as he turned again to Merton in silence, his eyes seemed to say, "You see what a liar she is."
"Will you admit your relations with her?"
"If Sybil wishes me to, yes, I admit that, otherwise I should never have admitted it to anyone."
"Then you owe her some reparation."
"I owe hernothing," rejoined Everest, with some heat. "It was a mutual amusement, and she understood perfectly from the very first it was not, and could not be, anything more. I decline to discuss the matter any further. It is done, over. As far as I am concerned it is effaced from my mind. What do you want, Merton? Do you want a duel with me over it, or what?"
"No, oh no, of course not," Merton replied hastily; "that can do no good. I want you to promise to marry her some time, next year, say. Why not, Everest? It has always been thought and talked of in our families, and Sybil has as much as you have. We have all hoped you two would marry."
"I refuse absolutely. You must be made of stone if you can talk of my marrying your sister when the woman I love is between life and death because ofher devotion and self-sacrifice. Sybil would not be here at all to make her mad charges and demands but for her. She is my wife, or will be as soon as I can make her so. It is useless to go on talking. Let me pass."
Merton moved from the door and Everest, without a glance at Sybil, went out.
Coming out of her tent, white with anger and vibrating with an indignation he could not repress, little as his general impulse was to condemn others, he ran almost against the doctor who was coming from Regina.
"How is she?" he asked. "Is she out of danger now? For God's sake tell me she is."
"Don't excite yourself so; yes, yes, she is out of all danger, humanly speaking. I see no reason why she should not quite recover. Of course her condition complicates matters a little, but, as far as one can judge, she is going on very well indeed."
Everest stared at him.
"Her condition? But she was in splendid health when this happened!"
The doctor stared in his turn.
"Health? Oh yes, but I was alluding to her state—being enceinte, I mean."
Everest paled till he was whiter than the drill he was wearing.
"Is it so?" he asked, after a second's blank gaze at the not too friendly face regarding him, "and she—did she know it herself?"
"Oh yes; I should think so, undoubtedly. Yes, I know she did, for the first thing she asked me whenwe were alone was, would all this make any difference to the child."
"And what did you say?" Everest asked, with difficulty; his throat seemed dry; a cramp stretched round his heart.
"I told her no one could say, but quite possibly it would make no difference since it was so near the beginning."
"Why did she not tell me?" asked Everest blankly, incredulous still.
"Perhaps she thought it wouldn't be welcome news," grunted the doctor grumpily. He had scant sympathy with Everest's conduct as regarded his cousin, though he had shown such genuine and passionate devotion towards Regina to-day that the doctor was inclined to be lenient.
"May I see her now? Go to her?" Everest asked.
"Yes. She's had a splendid sleep, the best thing in the world for her. Only don't let her talk too much, or excite her in any way."
Everest nodded in assent and went on. A strange feeling of delight, of triumph, of joy in his possession of her, filled suddenly his veins. And she had known it all this time and had not told him! Even, he remembered, she seemed to equivocate a little once when he had questioned her.
He came into the tent with a quick step. The moon rays, softened by the white canvas through which they streamed, filled the interior with pale light, and a small lamp burned at the side of the tent under a shade. Regina was lying with her head raised on a couple of pillows and the soft masses of her fair hairfell over the edge of the bed and in its long waving lines to the floor. The bandages disfigured her upper arm and shoulder, but the other, bare in the intense heat, showed warmly white above the blanket. The extreme pallor of her face threw up in new beauty the sweeping dark lines of her brows and the wide-open, light-filled eyes. She was looking towards the door and saw him enter. His cheek was flushed, his eyes kindling and full of fire. He looked like a man who had drunk exhilarating and unaccustomed wine. He crossed to her. He did not dare to lift her, not even touch her as he longed to do, to crush her to him. He bent over her.
"My very, very own, my life, my soul! I am so glad."
She also did not dare to move her body, but she lifted her bare left arm and put it round his neck.
"Are you?" And her eyes grew radiant and full of intense passion as they searched his face in the tender light. "I could not tell—now—and under all the circumstances ... I thought it might only seem a tie to you, but oh! if you are glad, Everest, I cannot tell you the delight it is to me! To know that I am to have a child by you—the most perfectly beautiful thing I have ever seen!"
"You will marry me now, won't you, foritssake anyway?"
"Not for its sake, no, only for yours, if you really wish it. Do tell me the truth, Everest, it is so important for all the rest of our lives. Do you wish, would you like Sybil in my place?"
"Sybil! Never mention her name to me," he said, while the blood surged all across his face and then leftit white again. "I hate it, loathe it and everything connected with her. I hope I may never see her again. I only want to blot out the detestable memory of her! Is that enough for you?" he asked passionately. "Do you want me to say any more?"
Regina lifted her left hand in protest.
"It is quite enough, kiss me, let us forget it all."
There was silence in the tent for a little while. Over the girl from head to foot seemed to flow a deep peace and joy like some magic balm, lulling every pain and every doubtful thought. The great loss of blood she had suffered produced in her a physical tranquillity, an attitude of mental acquiescence.
It was different with Everest. The long sleep had quickly repaired the strain of the previous hours, he was in perfect physical condition, the blood flowing at full tide and pressure in his veins and his whole brain was on fire with anger and irritation under Sybil's accusations. His whole being seemed in a violent turmoil, and on the crest of the storm within him rode like a white seagull, joyous and buoyant, the thought of his child—the last idea that had been thrown so unexpectedly into his mind, the final shock in the whole series of that terrible day, and through all the tempest of his brain it seemed to flash in and out among the storm-clouds on its white and glorious wings. He had always loved Regina more deeply than any other woman—she had all those qualities which appealed to every strain in his own nature, and now to him their love and passion and union seemed complete. This last action of hers in saving Sybil was one a man might be proud of, and it had not been done by a man but by the woman he loved,and while she was bearing his child, and the two facts, intertwisted as they were, seemed like a double steel cable binding him to her in the most passionate devotion.
He passed his arm under her head amongst the soft waves of her hair, and she seemed to feel the vibration of all the eager tumult of emotion in him pass through it. She raised her eyelids with a quick smile.
"It is such good news, such a pleasure to me. Why did you not tell me sooner if you knew?" he questioned wonderingly.
Brought up in the knowledge of and accustomed to ordinary women, he could not grasp entirely the heroic greatness of this girl's nature.
"My dearest, I could not tell you at a time when you were leaning towards separation from me. It would have seemed like trying to tie you to me against your will, to make some claim upon you, which I would never do." Her head turned restlessly on his arm. The light flooding her face showed it pale and drawn with pain.
"But it makes such a difference," he pursued. "Even if it did not affect my wishes and desires, my duty would be——"
Regina looked up with a smile in her eyes, so darkened by suffering.
"Oh, Everest, what has duty to do with passionate love like ours? Once before you thought it your duty to marry me, and I would not have it. Don't you see that I want you to be happy? That is all I care about. Do your duty to the world, to others if you like, but do not think of it where I amconcerned. Let it be all passion, pleasure, desire, with me or—nothing."
"But then there would be another to be considered, provided for, my sweet. Did you think of that?" Everest rejoined very softly.
"I knew I could always make much more money than I want for myself, the child could have had the rest."
Her voice was very faint, the light showed the drops of sweat standing out on her ashy forehead.
Everest bent over her.
"Are you in pain now?"
"Oh yes; I ache, I ache in every fibre; it is the constriction of lying so long without moving; but you must not worry about it; there will be such lots of it to bear!"
A wonderful deep bank of orange glowed all across the western sky, and the light of the sunset fell like a mantle over the limitless expanse of the desert stretching away for ever, as it seemed, beneath the flaming clouds. Round the camp that lay between the rocky ridges to east and west was some stir and excitement. A train of camels bearing tents and outfits stood ready waiting the signal to depart. A group of figures were in parley before the three white tents that still stood pitched upon the sand.
Sybil and Merton, with their part of the camp, their servants, guides and camels, were going.
The figures waited in silence outside the closed doors of Regina's tent. In a moment or two Everest came out.
"You can come and say good-bye to her now. She is waiting for you," he said, as he joined the group. Graham started forward immediately. Sybil's feet seemed to cling to the sand, she hesitated and murmured half inaudibly: "I don't want to see her."
Everest said nothing. He merely looked at her, and Sybil walked forward mechanically and entered the tent.
On the bed, with her head raised, lay Regina, her great flashing eyes turned towards them all as theypressed in. Her face was like marble in its whiteness, even her lips were colourless. Her whole shoulder, right arm and side were a mass of bandages, the soft cloudy yellow of her hair lay above her forehead and fell over her left arm. Sybil approached the bed and said nervously:
"Good-bye, Regina, I hope you will get over it soon. I expect you will. Everest is such a splendid nurse." There was a half-suppressed sigh at the end of her words, and as they fell on the silence in the tent all the three men who heard it glanced involuntarily at Everest. It was quite clear in that moment to them all that of the two women, Sybil, standing upright, erect, untouched in her full power and beauty, envied bitterly the one who was lying crushed and broken, maimed and disfigured in the shadow of death, at her feet, simply because of the delight of this man's presence that she would have about her which would outweigh delirium and fever and pain. It came in upon them all for a moment, a glimpse of the greatness of a woman's love, even when it has a base and selfish form, the value of it, the immense proportion it has in a woman's scheme of things.
They felt the truth, that Sybil, fresh and strong and sound, only longed to change place with the other, shattered and in pain, to know his touch and his kiss.
The colour came hotly to Everest's cheek as he felt all the men turn their eyes on him and heard the keen envy in Sybil's tone, and he said hurriedly:
"No nursing, I am afraid, can help her much in such suffering as hers."
Regina put out her left hand and smiled, lettingher eyes wander over the wonderfully beautiful lines of the face above her which she had rescued from destruction.
"Good-bye, Sybil; I am so glad to know you are not hurt at all."
Their hands clasped, but there was no warmth in Sybil's pressure. She knew that the other, helpless, perhaps about to die, had yet—won; that she was absolutely content and happy, and that the one who walked out of the tent into life and freedom was vanquished. She turned abruptly.
"Can I go now?" she said almost rudely to Everest, and he held up the door flap for her in silence and stood back for her to pass.
Graham's farewell was very different from his sister's. He fell on his knees beside the low tent bed and took the unwounded hand. His face was as white as hers, and looked drawn and livid as he raised it to his host, who was standing with his arms folded at Regina's feet, his eyes fixed on her.
"Everest, give me leave to say good-bye to her alone," he entreated, and Everest made a signal to the others and they went out, leaving Graham sobbing at her side, his tears falling on her hand.
Outside in the hot, ruddy light that the west was throwing on the desert before it donned its violet evening robe of twilight and cool silver cloak, Everest lifted Sybil on to her riding camel for the last time and wondered at himself for the sense of hatred he felt for her. Only such a short time before and his whole frame had vibrated with passion and longing for her, in that very same action, and now the sickening sense of aversion was so great as the slight lightfigure touched his arms that he had to use all his self-command to prevent her seeing it. She saw his face pale with the effort, but only thought he was shaken with emotion at their final parting.
The camel rose to its feet and rocking, swaying, lifted her into the air, far above him, but she bent down and in the crimson light her face hung over him.
"Everest, good-bye; but it is not for long, is it? You will come up to Scotland soon, won't you—I can never forget."
She saw a new expression pass over his face which she did not understand; but how beautiful, how wonderful his face was, no matter what look it wore. She gazed upon it wistfully. Oh, to be in Regina's place, to be lying in that tent, waited on, tended by, caressed and loved by him! How bitterly she envied her!
"Good-bye, Sybil! Please do not think of our meeting again. I do not wish it, and if it has to be I shall regret it." Sybil sat dumb, stupefied, feeling mad with a useless misery.
"How can you be so unkind just at the last," she whispered.
"I do not want to be unkind, but I don't wish you to look forward to impossibilities."
Sybil could not answer. There was an iron inflexibility in his tone against which all words of hers would seem to break in vain. She sat upright on the camel, and Everest fell back to speak to Graham, who came towards him from the tent.
The men shook hands coldly, without any demonstration either of friendliness or enmity. All the events of that wretched camping had rolled into thepast, and no words and no acts could alter them now.
When Merton had mounted the whole line started and moved off slowly to the west, making for the next stopping place, which they hoped to reach before dawn, and where they would rest through the heat of the day. The red of the sunset hung in a fiery glow before them, in the east behind them was rising steadily the silver moon.
Sybil's brain seemed to swim in mists of rage as she was borne forward. From the very first she had planned and schemed and worked for herself with that steady singleness of aim which is supposed to ensure success, and yet she had failed, failed and lost. Regina, unselfish, careless, reckless, she had won.Shehad trusted to Everest, and he had not deniedherclaims. Then she had risked her life, thrown herself absolutely into the jaws of death, and yet she had not been called upon to pay the full price, she had been allowed to come out of it all alive and crowned as a heroine. It was not like life, it was like a Sunday school tale, where the good are always saved and praised and the selfish are always punished. Sybil ground her teeth and the tears brimmed over her eyes. Why wassheso favoured? Girls who lived as Regina was doing were abandoned every day, yet Everest meant to marry her. She knew he would never have spoken as he had unless he meant it. People who risked their lives for others generally had to give them up. Why should she be spared and come back smiling, to be nursed by him to health again?
As the camel swung forward, bearing her awayfrom the camp and that dear figure standing there, a suffocating sense of the injustice of Fate, an agonised realisation of failure, rode beside her into the dark shades of the falling night. The three men turned back into the camp when the procession grew indistinct in the red distance.
"It's good of you to stay, St John," remarked Everest. "I am afraid it may be dull work for you now."
"Not a bit, not a bit," he returned. "I didn't like the idea of leaving you. I might come in useful with the nursing and watching, perhaps, as an extra hand. And I'll have a look in at those lions now we've got on to them."
That same night, when the ring of protecting fires had been lighted round the camp and all the lamps were lighted, the native servants brought round to Regina's tent the skin of the lioness. They had not yet finished the dressing and preparing of it, which would take fully a week, but they thought she would like to see it, and Everest let them come in and hold it up before her at the foot of her bed.
It was a magnificent skin; the lioness was a large one, and had been in splendid condition. A little colour came into Everest's face from pride at his pupil as he saw it, but Regina's own eyes filled with tears. The skin was so golden, so beautiful, with a sheen like satin on it, the breast part so snowy white where the cruel hole her rifle had made showed its rusty coloured edges.
"Oh, Everest, I feel so sorry for her! Poor mother, and what will the cubs do now? Will they die if she no longer is there to feed them?"
Everest laughed at this view of things.
"They may not keep so fat now she is no longer able to supply them with human beings for breakfast, but they will probably get on all right. They'll go and forage for themselves. The mother goes on hunting for them long after they can hunt quite well. Let them take away the skin, dearest, if it distresses you. I can't have you crying over anything." And he told the men to take it away, and give every attention to the curing of it and do it as perfectly as possible. For it was her gift to him and he knew she wanted him to keep and value it.
Day after day passed slowly by over the white tent in the desert, where such terrible, physical suffering struggled hour by hour to dominate the spirit of happiness—in vain. Regina lay in pain and was content, and Everest, torn with anxiety, harrowed by the sight of suffering he could not assuage, passing sleepless nights and long weary days at her bedside, was yet happy too. So strange a witch, so essentially a coquette is Happiness! Men spread nets for her feet and prepare chains to bind her airy wings, and just when they fancy she is securely bound to them they look round and she is gone! And those who with tear-blinded eyes have thought they had renounced her for ever, as they have said good-bye, dear Happiness, she has leapt to their heart and said she would never leave them. She will fly from the millionaire, suffocated in the pomp of his palace, to nestle so closely at the side of some one of Life's outcasts toiling in the dust of the road. She is bound by no laws, owes no allegiance, and those who do not court her she follows most. And here in thetent of fever and apprehension, of agony and tedium, she chose to take up her residence with these two. To Everest, in the violent reaction of mind and body, which had thrown him into the extreme of passion for this woman, it was a pleasure to deny himself, to wait upon her and suffer for her sake. He watched and waited on Regina with untiring devotion. At first, while there was great danger of fever, he never slept at all through the night, sitting by her wakeful and intent on watching the changes of her face, snatching for himself what little sleep he could in the day while the doctor took her in charge; and through all the hot long noontide hours he was there by her, reading to her when she could listen, watching her if she slept. And often the lions roared about the camp and his whole blood leapt up in a call upon him to go out into the old danger and excitement that he loved, but he checked and repressed himself and let them challenge him in vain. He knew if he left her now she would be anxious, nervous about him, and those feelings would bring on fever and retard her recovery. St John went out on several hunts, taking the guides and men with him, but neither Everest nor the doctor moved from the camp through all the burning weeks. They had their reward, for never did a patient progress more smoothly and evenly towards recovery than Regina. The iron fortitude of her nature, that enabled her to lie for hours without moving, resulted in her arm setting and joining perfectly. The absolute and silent resignation that she imposed upon herself kept the fever at bay.
One day when St John was out lion-hunting—fired by his success of yesterday, when he had broughtback in triumph a young lion to the camp—and the doctor was asleep in his tent, Everest sat by Regina combing and brushing into order the long strands of her hair, that he had never once allowed to grow tangled or matted in neglect. In the dry, sunny air of the desert it had grown more golden and more crisp, and as he brushed it, it curled and sprang round his fingers in shining silky curls and meshes.
Regina looked up at him suddenly.
"I am so sorry you should have such a wretched time. Fancy you, with all your life and energy, shut up here day after day nursing a sick girl in a tent!"
Everest let the gold strands twine round his wrist as he leant over her, his eyes full of ardent joy and delight in her.
"And yet, do you know that this time of nursing a sick girl in a tent has been the happiest in my life?"
In the silvery light of a soft grey dawn, while morning's face was still gently veiled, two camels stood with heads towards Khartoum, and as the first rosy shaft of light quivered in the sky Regina came to the door of her tent and looked out with glad and joyous eyes. She was very pale from her long seclusion, but tall and straight and supple as always. Uninjured, undisfigured, with the power restored to her right arm, she stood on the golden sanded floor, under the high arched roof of the sky, rejoicing in the life given back to her.
That day they would commence the return journey by very easy stages, only travelling a little in the cool of the evening and the dawn so as not to fatigue her, and she looked out on the great sandy space over which they had to travel fearlessly, eager to brave its dangers and pierce its mysteries, and even as the desert stretched before her uncertain, unknown, full of radiant mist, so lay her future uncertain, unknown, but gleaming brightly, calling her to it. Her marriage at Khartoum, and then maternity, with all its complex pains and cares, but she dreaded nothing. She was ready always to meet life and wrestle with it, and she would always conquer, for of such stuff are life's conquerors made. Overhead the sky gleamedlike the inner shell of an oyster, in marvellous tones of palest green and rose, iridescent like mother of pearl, and in slow magnificence, in dazzling gold, the sun appeared over the rim of the earth.
Just at that moment Everest came to the tent door and stood by her, and the east flung its glory over them both, irradiating their faces in glowing light.
"It is the springtime now," murmured Regina softly. "I wish we could be in the enchanted garden again together in a dawn like this."
"I do not mind where I am as long as you are with me," he answered, drawing her close to him. "Love like yours makes of the whole world an enchanted garden."
And as she heard his words the glory of the dawn was not greater than the glory in her eyes.