CHAPTER XXIV

THE BIG, BIG GAME OF LIFE

It was many hours later that understanding returned to Noel.

He came to himself abruptly, in utter darkness, with the horror of it still strong within his soul. His head was swathed in bandages. He turned it to and fro with restless jerks.

"And will ye please to lie quiet?" said the voice of the Irish regimental surgeon peremptorily by his side.

Noel, also Irish, collected his forces and made reply. "No. Why the devil should I? Where am I? What's going to happen to me? Am I--am I blind for life?"

The falter in the words spoke to the tenseness of his suspense. The doctor answered instantly, with more of kindliness than judgment.

"Faith, no! It's not so bad as that. But ye'll have to pretend ye are for the present, or, egad, ye will be before ye've done. We brought ye to the Musgraves' shanty. Mrs. Musgrave wanted the care of ye. d.a.m.n'

quare taste on her part, I'm thinking. And now ye're not to talk any more; but drink this stuff like a good boy and go to sleep."

Noel drank with disgust; the taste of blood was still in his mouth. He had never been ill in his life before, and he had not the smallest intention of obeying the doctor's orders.

"Let's hear what happened!" he said impatiently. "Oh, leave me alone, do! When can I have this beastly bandage off my eyes?"

"Not for a very long while, my son." The doctor's voice was jaunty, but the eyes that looked at the blind, swathed face were full of pity. "And don't ye go loosening it when my back's turned, or it isn't meself that'll be answerable for the consequences."

"Oh, d.a.m.n the consequences!" said Noel. "I want to get up."

"And that ye can't!" was the doctor's prompt rejoinder. "Ye'll just lie quiet till further orders. Ye'll find yourself as weak as a rat moreover, when ye start to move about. It's only the fever in your veins that makes ye want to try."

Noel straightened himself in the bed. He was becoming aware of a fiery, throbbing torture beneath the bandages. With clenched teeth and hands hard gripped he set himself to endure.

But in a few minutes he turned his head again. "Are you still there, Maloney?"

"Still here, my son," said Maloney.

"Well, go and find someone--anyone who knows--to tell me exactly what happened last night."

"I can tell ye meself," began Maloney.

But Noel interrupted. "No; not you! You're such a liar. No offence meant! You can't help it. Find--find Nick, will you?"

"It isn't visitors ye ought to be having with your pulse in this state,"

objected Maloney.

"Do as I say!" commanded Noel stubbornly.

His will prevailed. The Irish doctor saw the futility of argument, and departed, having extracted a promise from his patient not to move during his absence.

And then came silence as well as darkness, an awful sense of being entombed, an isolation that appalled him added to the torture that racked. With an acuteness of consciousness more harrowing than delirium, he faced this thing that had come upon him, grabbing all his courage to endure the ordeal.

He felt as if his brain were on fire, each nerve-centre agonizing separately in the intolerable, all-enveloping flames. And through the dreadful stillness he heard the beat, beat, beat, of his heart, like the feet of a runaway along a desert road.

He turned his head again restlessly from side to side. The agony was beginning to master him. His powers of endurance were dwindling.

Suddenly he found himself speaking, scarcely knowing what he said, feeling that he must cry out or die.

"Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O G.o.d!" Just the one sentence over and over to save him from raving insanity. "Lighten our darkness!

Lighten our darkness! Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee!"

He broke off abruptly. What was the good? Prayers were for white-souled children like Peggy. Was it likely that any cry of his would pierce the veil?

Yet the words came back to him, so urgent was his distress, so unbearable the silence of his desert. He said them again with a desperate earnestness, and almost instinctively began to listen for an answer. He felt almost a child again himself in his utter need, as he wrestled to drive the awful darkness from his soul. But no answer came to his cry and the brave heart of him slowly sank. He was deserted then, hurled down into h.e.l.l to die a living death. In a single flashing second he had been torn from the world he loved--that bright, gay world in which he had revelled all his life--and flung into this inferno of endless darkness. The iron began to bite into his soul.

The glory of his youth was quenched. From thenceforth he would hear the music from afar, he would be barred out from the splendour of life, he would wander along the outside edge of things, forlorn and lonely. His popularity, his brilliance, his joy of living, had all been crushed to atoms with that single, sledge-hammer blow of Fate. Better--ten thousand times better--to have killed him outright! For this thing was infinitely worse than death.

The iron drove in a little deeper. His spirit, his pride, awoke and rebelled, raging impotently. He would not bear the burden. He would die somehow. He would find a means, do what they would to stop him. He would escape--somehow--from this particular h.e.l.l. He would not be chained between life and death. He would burst the bonds. He would be free!

His pulses rose to fever pitch. He started up upon the bed. Now was the time--now--now! He might not have another chance. And there must be some means to his hand--some way out of this awful darkness!

The madness of fever urged him. In another moment he would have been on his feet, at grips with the fate that bound him; but even as he gathered himself together for the effort, something happened.

The door opened and a woman entered. He heard the swish of her draperies, and his heart gave a great throb and paused.

"Who is it?" he said, and his voice was harsh and dry even to his own hearing. "Who is it? Speak to me!"

She spoke, and his heart, released from the sudden check, leaped on at a pace that nearly suffocated him. "It's I, Noel,--Olga! They said I might come and see you. You don't mind?"

"Mind!" he said, and suddenly a great sob burst from him. He felt out towards her with hands that wildly groped. "Let me feel you!" he entreated. "I--I'll let you go again!"

And then very suddenly her arms were all around him, closing him in, lifting him out of his h.e.l.l. "Noel! My own Noel!" she whispered. "My own, splendid boy!"

He held her fast, his battered head pillowed against her while he fought for self-control. For many seconds he could not utter a word. And in the silence the world he knew opened its gates to him again and took him back. The darkness remained indeed, but it had been lightened. The horror of it no longer tore his soul. The iron had been withdrawn.

He moved at last, drawing her hand to his lips. "Olga, you don't know what you've saved me from. I was--in h.e.l.l."

"Lie down, dear!" she murmured softly. "I'm going to take care of you now." She added, as she shook up the pillow, "It's my business, isn't it?"

He sank back with a sense of great comfort, holding her hand fast in his. It made the darkness less dark to hold her so.

"I want to know what happened," he said. "Sit down and tell me!"

"And you will try to keep quiet," she urged gently.

"Yes--yes! But don't keep anything back! Tell me everything!"

"I will, dear," she said, "though really there isn't much to tell. Is that quite comfy? You're not in bad pain?"

"I can bear it," he said. "Go on! Let's hear!"

So, sitting by his side, her hand in his, Olga told him.

The plot had been of Kobad Shikan's devising. Nick had been on the watch for it for some time, had penetrated the city nightly in the garb of a moonstone-seller, collecting evidence, and--most masterly stroke of all--he had drawn the Rajah into partnership with him. It was due to Nick's influence alone that the Rajah had not been caught in Kobad Shikan's toils. Thanks to Nick's steady call upon his loyalty, he had remained staunch. But Kobad Shikan had been too powerful a tactician to overthrow openly. They had been forced to work against him in secret.