He was only, she knew, laying down the law of handicaps to some dissentient; but the words thrilled her. Poor Herbert! What had _his_ merits been? And then she wondered how long it had been since she had thought of him thus by his Christian name, as it were. Would it be possible----

"It's a story of Fate, really," said one of the spectators at the entrance, to the ladies who were with him; his voice clearly audible in a sudden hush which had come to the dim veranda that grew dimmer and dimmer to the end, despite the swinging lamp. "A sort of miracle play, called 'The Lord of Life, and the Lord of Death.' Yama and Indra of course. I saw it two days ago, and one of the actors is the best pantomimist--That's the man--now."

Kate turned her eyes instinctively to the open s.p.a.ce which was to do duty as a stage. The play had begun; must have been going on while she was thinking, for a scene was in full swing. A scene? A misnomer that, surely! when there was no scenery, nothing but that strange dim curtain with its indefinite lights and shadows. Or was there some meaning in the dabs and splashes after all? Was that a corn merchant's shop? Yes, there were the gleaming pots, the cavernous shadows, the piled baskets of flour and turmeric and pulse, the odd little strings of dried cocoanuts and pipe cups, the blocks of red rock-salt. And that--she gave an odd little sigh of certainty--was the corn merchant himself selling flour, with a weighted balance, to a poor widow. What magnificent pantomime it was! And what a relief that it was pantomime; so leaving her no whit behind anyone in comprehension; but the equal of all the world, as far as this story was concerned. And it was unmistakable. She seemed to hear the c.h.i.n.k of money, to see the juggling with the change, the subst.i.tution of inferior flour for that chosen; the whole give and take of cheating, till the ill-gotten gain was clutched tight, and the robbed woman turned away patiently, unconsciously.

An odd, doubtful murmur rose among the squatting boys, checked almost as it began; for the shadowy curtain behind wavered, seemed to grow dimmer, to curve in cloud-like festoons, and then disclosed a sitting figure.

There was a burst of laughter from the entrance. "Rum sort of G.o.d, isn't he?" came the voice again. But from the front rose an uneasy whisper. "Yama! Sri Yama himself; look at his nose!"

Viewed without reference to either remark, the figure, if quaint, almost ludicrous, did not lack dignity. There was impa.s.siveness in the pea-green mask below the miter-like gilt tiara, and impressiveness in the immovability of the pea-green hands folded on the scarlet draperies.

"He answers to Charon, you know," went on the voice again. "I suppose it means that the _buniya-jee_ will need all his ill-gotten gain to pay fare to Paradise."

Did it mean that? Kate wondered, as she leaned back clasping Sonny tighter in her arms, or was it only to show that Fate lay behind the daily life of every man. Then what a farce it was to talk of chance!

Yet she had pleaded for it, till she had gained it. "Let him have his chance. Let us all have our chance. You and I into the bargain. You and I!" What made her think of that now?

A sn.i.g.g.e.r from the lads in front roused her to a new scene; a serio-comic dispute, evidently, between a termagant of a mother-in-law and a tearful daughter. Kate found herself following it closely enough, even smiling at it, but Sonny shifted restlessly on her knee.

"I 'ikes a funny man," he said plaintively. "Tell a funny man to come again, Miffis Erlton."

"I expect he will come soon, dear," she replied, conscious of a foolish awe behind her own words. Fate lay there also, no doubt.

It did, but as the termagant triumphed and the dutiful daughter-in-law wept over her baking, the figure that showed wore a white mask, the rainbow-hued garments were hung with flowers, and the white hands held a parti-colored bow.

The boys nodded and smiled. "Sri Indra himself," they said. "Look at his bow!"

"Who is Indra, Mr. Jones?" asked a feminine voice from behind.

"Lord of Paradise. And that is the whole show. It goes on and on. Some of the scenes are awfully funny, but they wouldn't act the funniest ones here. And they all end with the green or white dummy; so it gets a bit monotonous. Shall we go and look at the conjurors now?"

The voices departed; once more to Kate's relief. She felt that the explanation spoiled the play. And that was no dummy! She could see the same eyes through the mask; curious, steady, indifferent eyes. The eyes of a Fate indifferent as to what mask it wore. So the play went on and on. Some of the Eurasians slipped away, but the boys remained ready with awe or rejoicing, while Kate sat by the c.h.i.n.k through which the light came more and more dimly as the day darkened. She scarcely noticed the actors; she waited dreamily for the Lord of Life or the Lord of Death; for there was never any doubt as to which was coming.

But the child in her lap waited indiscriminately for the funny man.

The thought of the contrast struck her, making her smile. Yet, after all, the difference only lay in the way you looked at life. There was no possibility of change to it; the Great Handicap was run on its own merits. And then, like an unseen hand brushing away the cobwebs which of late had been obscuring the unalterable facts, like a wave collapsing her house of sand, came the memory of words which at the time they were spoken had made her cry out on their cruelty. "What possible right have you or I to suppose that anything you or I can do now will alter the initial fact?" If he--that stranger who had stepped in and laid rude touch on her very soul, had been the Lord of Life or Death himself, could he have been more remorseless? And what possessed her that she should think of him again and again; that she should wonder what his verdict would be on those vague thoughts of compromise?

"Mrs. Erlton! Mrs. Erlton, everything is ready. Everybody is waiting!

I have been hunting for you everywhere. It never occurred to me you would be here after all this time. Why, you are almost alone!" Captain Morecombe's aggrieved regret was scarcely appeased by her hurried excuse that she believed she had been half-asleep. For the Christmas tree was lit to its topmost branch, the guests admitted, the drawings begun.

Perhaps it was the sudden change from dark to light, silence to clamor, which gave Kate Erlton the dazed look with which she came into that circle of radiant faces where Prince Abool-Bukr was clapping his hands like a child and thinking, as he generally did when his pleasures could be shared by virtue, of how he would describe it all to Newasi Begum on her roof. He drew a spotless white lamb as his gift; Major Erlton its fellow, and the two men compared notes in sheer laughter, broken English, and shattered Hindustani. And through the fun and the pulling of crackers, Kate, who recovered herself rapidly, flitted here and there, arranging, deciding, setting the ball a-rolling. There was a flush on her cheek, a light in her eyes which forced other eyes to follow her, even among the packed, prying faces, peeping from every door and window at the strange sight, the strange spell. One pair of eyes in particular, belonging to a slight, clean-shaven man standing beside two others who carried bundles in their hands, and who, having come from the inside veranda, had found s.p.a.ce to slip well to the front. They were the actors in the now forsaken drama of Life and Death. One of them, however, had evidently seen a Christmas tree before, since he suddenly called out in the purest English:

"The top branch on the left has caught! Put it out, someone!"

The sound seemed to discomfit him utterly. He looked round him quickly, then realizing that the crowd was too dense for the voice to be accurately located save by his immediate neighbors, gave a half apologetic sign to the older of his two companions and slipped away.

They followed obediently, but once outside Tiddu shook his head at his pupil.

"The Huzoor will never remember to forget. He will get into trouble some day," he said reproachfully.

"Not if I stick to playing Yama and Indra," replied Jim Douglas with a shrug of his shoulders. "The Mask of Fate is apt to be inscrutable."

He made the remark chiefly for his own benefit; for he was thinking of the strange chance of meeting those cold blue-gray eyes again in that fashion. Beautiful eyes, brilliant eyes! Then he smiled cynically. The chance he had given had evidently borne fruit. She seemed quite happy, and there was no mistaking the look on her owner's heavy face. So the heroics had meant nothing, and he had given up his chance for a vulgar kiss-and-make-it-up-again!

It was too dark to see that look on Major Erlton's face, but it was there, as, carrying Kate off with a certain air of proprietorship from the compliments which had grown stale, they went to find the dog-cart, which, in deference to the mare's nerves, had been told to await them in a quiet corner of the compound.

"You did it splendidly, Kate!"

His voice came contentedly through the soft darkness which hid the easy arm which slipped to her waist, the easy smiling face which bent to kiss hers.

"Oh, don't! Please don't!" The cry, almost a sob, was unmistakable. So was the start which made her stumble over an unseen edging to the path. Even Herbert Erlton with his blunted delicacy could not misjudge it. He stood silent for a moment, then gave a short hard laugh.

"You haven't hurt yourself, I expect," he said dryly, "so there's no harm done. I'll call that fellow with the lantern to give us a light."

He did, and the vague shadow preceded by a swinging light turned out to be young Mainwaring on his pony, with the groom carrying a lantern.

"Mrs. Erlton," cried the lad, slipping to the ground, "what luck! The very person I wanted. I was going round by your house on the chance of catching you, as it was useless trying to get in a quiet word this afternoon. I want to ask if you know of any houses to let! I had a letter this morning from Mrs. Gissing asking me to look out one for her."

"For her?" The echo came in a dull voice. Kate had scarcely recovered from her own recoil, from a vague doubt of what she had done.

"Yes! Her husband had to go home on business and won't be out till May. So, as the new people at Lucknow seem a poor lot, and she has old friends at Delhi----" A remembrance that some of these old friendships must be an unwelcome memory to his hearer made the boy pause. But the man, smarting with resentment, had no such scruples--what was the use of them?

"Coming here, is she?" he echoed. "Then we may hope to have some fun in this deadly-lively stuck-up place. I say, Mainwaring, would you mind driving my wife home and lending me your pony to gallop round to the mess. I must go there, and as it is getting late there is no use dragging Mrs. Erlton all that way. And she has a big Christmas dinner on, haven't you, Kate?"

As the young fellow climbed up into the dog-cart beside her, Kate Erlton knew that one chance had gone irretrievably, irrevocably. Would there be another? Suddenly in the darkness she clasped her hands tight and prayed that there might be--that it might come soon!

And round them as they drove slowly to gain the city gate, the half-seen crowd which had gathered to see the strange spell were drifting homeward to spread the tale of it from hearth to hearth.

CHAPTER IV.

IN THE VILLAGE.

The winter rains had come and gone, leaving a legacy of gold behind them. Promise of future gold in the emerald sea of young wheat, guerdon of present gold in the mustard blossom curving on the green, like the crests of waves curving upon a wind-swept northern sea. Far and near, wide as the eye could reach, there was nothing to be seen save this--a waving sea of green wheat crested by yellow mustard. But in the center, whence the eye looked, stood a human ant-hill; for the congeries of mud alleys, mud walls, mud roofs, forming the village, looked from a little distance like nothing else. Viewed broadly, too, it was simply Earth made plastic by the Form-bringer, Water, hardened again by the Sun-fire. The triple elements combined into a sh.e.l.l for laboring life. Like most villages in Northern India this one stood high on its own ruins, girt round by shallow glistening tanks which were at once its cradle and its grave. From them the mud for the first and last house had been dug, to them the periodical rains of August washed back the village bit by bit.

There was scarcely a sign of life in the sky-encircled plain. Scarcely a tree, scarcely a landmark. Nothing far or near to show that aught lay beyond the pale horizon. The crisp, cold air of a mid-January dawn held scarcely a sound, for the village was still asleep. Here and there, maybe, someone was stirring; but with that deliberate calm which comes to those who by virtue of early rising have the world to themselves. Here and there, too, in the high stone inclosures serving at once as a protection to the village and a cattlefold, some goat, impatient to be roaming, bleated querulously; but these sights and sounds only seemed to increase the stillness, the silence surrounding them. It is a scene which to most civilized eyes is oppressive in its self-centered isolation, its air of remoteness. The isolation of a community, self-supporting, self-sufficing, the remoteness of a place which cares not if, indeed, there be a world beyond its boundaries.

And this one, type of many alike in most things--above all, in steadfast self-absorption--shall be left nameless. We are in the village, that is enough.

Suddenly an odd, clamorous wail rang from among the green corn, and a band of gray cranes which had been standing knee-deep in the wheat rose awkwardly and headed, arrow-shaped, for the great Nujjufgurhjheel which they wotted of below the horizon: in this displaying a wider outlook than the villagers who toiled and slept within sight of those fields, while the birds left them at dawn for the sedgy stretches of another world.

At the sound a man, who had been crouching half-asleep against a mud wall, rose to his feet and peered drowsily over the fields. Something, he knew, must have startled the gray cranes; and he was the village watchman. As his father had been before him, as his son, please G.o.d, would be after him. He carried a short spear hung with jingles as his badge of office, and he leaned upon it lazily as he looked out into the gray dawn. Then he wrapped his blanket closer round him, and walked leisurely to meet the solitary figure coming toward him, threading its way by an invisible path through the dew-hung sea of wheat.

"_Ari_, brother," he called mildly when he reached earshot, "is it well?"

"It is well," came the answer. So he waited, leaning on his spear, until the newcomer stood beside him, his bare legs glistening and the folds of his drooping blanket frosted with the dew. In one hand he, also, held a watchman's spear; in the other one of those unleavened cakes, round and flat like a pancake, which form the daily bread alike of rich and poor. This he held out, saying briefly:

"For the elders. From the South to the North. From the East to the West."

"Wherefore?" The brief reply held vague curiosity; no more. The cake had already changed hands, unchallenged.

"G.o.d knows. It came to us from Goloowallah with the message as I gave it. Thy folk will pa.s.s it on?"