CHAPTER V

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*A VISION OF THE BACKWATER*

The Dakktar Sahib stepped carefully over the body of Ayeshi, who lay asleep inside the doorway, and went down the centre of the street. The village was silent and seemingly deserted. Even the grain-dealer, Lalloo by name, not unknown as a money-lender with Eastern ideas on interest--had deserted his wooden booth, and the lean dogs which were wont to nose hungrily in the gutters had gone elsewhere for their hunting-ground. The gutters themselves were clean; there was no cattle to wander haplessly in and out of the open doorways; the half-naked babies were hidden and silent. And in all this silence and garnished peace there was something ominous and dreadful. A mighty scavenger had passed through the village and swept it clear of refuse and misery and sickness and life itself. Heerut lay under the burning midday sun like a body awaiting burial, wrapped in the orderliness of death, silent, colourless, for all its piteous poverty, majestic.

Tristram's footsteps rang out loudly in the stillness. He alone was alive and bore the agony and stress of life stamped on his body. He was ugly with the ugliness of a soldier returning from the battle-field. His clothes were dirty. He reeled drunkenly, his eyes were bloodshot and swollen in their deep sockets, and a month's growth of reddish beard covered his long chin. He might have passed for a spectre of Death itself, stalking through the place of its visitation.

He reached the village cross-roads. The pointed leaves of the council-tree hung limply, their soft mysterious voices hushed. Underneath, the earth was scarred and burnt by the bonfires around which the village elders clustered at nightfall, listening to the tales from the great past. There had been no bonfire for many nights, and the elders had gone their ways.

Tristram went on, out of the village, across the ancient half-obliterated path of Auspiciousness, through the coarse jungle grass to the river. It flowed broad and swift, swirling against its muddy, artificial barrier with sullen impatience, its farther bank lost in the blaze and shimmer of heat. Tristram went on, past the temple whose battered walls glowed warm and golden in the sunlight, to the clump of trees beyond. He entered their shade at a stumbling run like a man seeking refuge from pursuers, and burst through the tangled undergrowth with the whole weight of his body.

Here, beneath the branches of the stately Mohwa trees, the Ganges had built herself a backwater. Her waters, grey still with the snows of her mountain mother, had turned from their stern course and become clear as crystal and still as the surface of a mirror. They reflected softly the flaming green of the overhanging foliage and the red and gold of the strange flowers growing on their banks. A lotus-flower floated like a fairy palace in a patch of subdued sunshine, its pale petals half open and delicately tipped with pink as though the light had awakened them from their white sleep to life. Beneath, in the shining, deceptive depths was a world of mystery, forests of twining, sinuous growths, the monster blossoms swaying in the under-current.

Tristram dropped down on his knees at the water's edge and then rolled over with his face hidden on his arm. He lay so still that a golden lizard flashed out from the long grass and lingered almost at his elbow and a water-hen gliding down on to the breast of the water preened herself in complacent security.

The patch of sunlight moved on. It left the lotus-flower in an emerald shadow, and rested like a bright, watchful eye on a patch of flaming poppies on the farther bank. The silence deepened. Even the gentle

## parting of the undergrowth behind the spot where Tristram slept brought

no sound. With a noiseless strength the lean hands of Vahana, the Sadhu, pressed back the opposing branches. He came forward so slowly, so stealthily, that the foliage seemed rather to thin imperceptibly before him like a green mist, leaving him at last unveiled on the fringe of the clearing. Even then it was as though he had been there always, not a man, not even living, but the dead twisted stump of some tempest-riven tree.

But the water-hen heard and saw him and rose with a whirr of wings. The lizard flashed back into his hiding-place.

Tristram did not stir. The emaciated, half-naked body glided towards him and bent over him. For a long minute Vahana remained thus, scrutinizing the half-hidden face of the sleeper, then he stood upright, tossing the hair from his wild eyes, his long, fleshless arms raised high above his head, with a gesture that was as a salute to some oncoming, resistless destiny. Then, in an instant, he seemed to shrivel, his arm sank, and with one swift glance about him he turned and vanished among the trees.

Tristram awoke suddenly, but not completely. He rested on his elbow, gazing at the blur of colour before him with heavy eyes, then drew himself up and, with the clumsiness of a drunken man, began to undress. Presently he slipped into the quiet water; the circles widened about him, and the lotus-flower rocked on the breast of the strange upheaval, but after that the intruder scarcely moved. He became as one of the giant weeds growing amidst the stones, upborne by the water, himself inert and quiescent. His head was thrown slightly back and his eyes had closed again.

Half an hour later, when he scrambled back on to the bank, the agony of exhaustion had been washed from him. He held himself upright to the air and sun, his body shining white and splendid against the background of foliage, the joy of life in every muscle, in every firm and graceful line. Then, with a sigh of unutterable content, he began to dress leisurely, retrieved a battered cigarette case and a box of matches and crouched down, tailor fashion, amidst the grasses. For a time he smoked peacefully, watching the light changing on the water and the swift moving life that hid in the shallows and darted out between the stones and swaying weeds. The lizard, tempted by his quiet and perhaps some luscious prospect of supper, wriggled out and took grave stock of him, and he stared back as motionless and absorbed, until the forgotten cigarette burnt him, when he swore and the lizard vanished like a tiny golden streak into its fastness. The man laughed to himself and dropped back upon his elbow. A smile still lingered about his mouth, but his eyes under the big square brows had forgotten their amusement. They were fixed dreamily ahead, and what they saw smoothed out the last lines of tension from his features, and lent them a look of youth and tenderness. And presently he dropped back, and, with his hands clasped behind his head, stared up into the shadowing green, as though whatever dream he conjured up had taken refuge there.

He slept again, not heavily as before but on the border-land of consciousness where thoughts break from their moorings, and sail out into a magic, restless sea of change whose bed lies littered with forgotten treasures. When the thud of hoofs broke on the stillness a dream rose up and shielded him, covering the sound with a fantastic picture, so that he slept on.

The patch of sunshine travelled upwards. It had forsaken the poppies as it had left the lotus-flower, and rested on the fair head of a woman.

Though Tristram saw her he did not move.

She stood scarcely five paces from him near an opening in the trees. One hand rested on the bridle of a tired horse, the other was lifted to her face, the forefinger to her lips, half in reflection, half as though hushing her own breathing. A pith helmet and the white coat of her simple riding-habit were fastened carelessly to the pommel of her saddle.

She stood quite motionless--as still and living as a bird resting among the flowers. It was that wonderful, restrained lightness in her that made her seem smaller and more fragile than she was. Her hair, of a gold paler than the sunlight and parted primly in the middle, waved down smoothly on a forehead that was high and too domed for beauty. Her face was small, more round than oval, with small features, exquisitely imperfect, demure, and resolute. There was something Victorian about her, and something vitally modern. It was as though a Botticellian Madonna had thrown off her serene and lovely foolishness and stepped down into life with the mocking happy humour of a faun at the corners of her fine lips and the wisdom of the world in her eyes. And added to all this there was in her expression an odd touch of an impersonal, aloof pity and tenderness.

She stood there looking down at the man in the grass with her subdued smile, and he stared back at her. Then presently she spoke:

"How do you do, Major Tristram? My name is Fersen--Sigrid Fersen."

"I know," he answered. His own voice seemed to break a spell, for he shot up as though she had struck him, his hand flying to the neck of his graceless, unbuttoned collarless shirt. "I beg your pardon--I'm awfully sorry--I'd been asleep--and day-dreaming--I thought you were just--not real----"

"A sort of concrete vision?" she suggested.

"It sounds absurd, of course, but it wasn't an ordinary sleep. In fact, barring today, I don't know when I slept last. That makes a man queer----"

"Obviously." Her enigmatic kindly smile was like sunshine on her demure gravity. "For instance, you said 'I know' when I introduced myself." The blood welled up under the man's brown skin, and she went on lightly. "I saw you half an hour ago. The shade tempted me--I was hot and tired. Fortunately I came quietly. You had just come out of the water and stood there like a young Beethoven--'this kiss to the whole world----'"

"I felt like that," he stammered. "It just expresses it--only----"

"Of course I went away at once," she said. "I felt you would be disconcerted if you knew--possibly very shocked. You may be now for all I know."

He looked down at his right hand, and then, as though it annoyed him, thrust it into his pocket.

"No," he said, "I'm not."

"I didn't think you would be." She led her horse down to the water, and, with accustomed fingers, unfastened the bit. "Please sit down again, Major Tristram."

He obeyed her instantly, and with his big hands clasped about his knees watched her as she came towards him. The blood was still dark in his face.

"I'm wondering how you knew me," he said abruptly.

"Gaya described you."

He burst out into a big laugh.

"My word! Did Gaya tell you I usually went about with nothing on or in these evil-smelling rags?"

"It is enough that I recognized you," she said primly. She added, as an after-thought: "They didn't tell me you were so beautiful."

"Me--beautiful?"

"As far as your figure goes."

"And my face?"

She looked at him whimsically.

"No, not exactly." She slipped down into the long grass beside him with an effortless, unconscious grace. "We're rather like each other," she went on, "both of us--how shall I say?--plain, and both of us quite lovely in our way. A perfect body is worth more than a perfect nose."

"Yes," he agreed. His voice sounded suddenly thick and tired and he looked away from her. "You're not alone, are you?" he asked.

"I have been. I've a faithful syce waiting at the bridge-head five miles up. He wouldn't come any farther. Perhaps----" She studied his hard-set profile with amused eyes. "Perhaps you're wishing I hadn't burst in upon you, or perhaps you share Gaya's dismay."

"Was Gaya dismayed?"

"Very. One or two are still. They thought I was an adventuress, partly on account of the Rajah and partly on account of my profession. And they were quite right." The laughter died out of her. Her voice sounded grave and eager. "I am an adventuress. I can't conceive myself being anything else. To live is to explore an unknown country, with every day a step forward. Some people shrink from it and cringe at home, and when they're taken by the scruff of the neck and flung out they're frightened and helpless. I'm not like that--you're not. Even my art was an adventure--the greatest. Every bar of music, every step, every inspiration that came to me, was like a mountain peak scaled and a new vista into a new country. Do you understand?"

He turned to her, his sunken, red-rimmed eyes warm with a generous, almost passionate sympathy.

"I can understand your feeling like that--I do too, in my way, especially out here. Out here nothing lasts. Every day brings change--the very trees and flowers and fields and forests--I don't know how it is--one says good-night to them and in the morning it's as though new friends had taken their place--people whom one had to study and wonder at--and then----" He turned away from her again and stared down at his strong hands--"anything can happen--the most wonderful, impossible things----"

She did not answer him. When she spoke again it was after a long silence and more lightly.

"I don't believe you're an official at all," she said. "You don't talk like one. You haven't asked me what business I have here or tell me that I am a danger to myself and a nuisance to everyone else. Why haven't you?"

"I forgot," he answered quietly. "For one thing, I knew you were not afraid, and people who are not afraid have nothing to fear. And besides that, the infection is over in Heerut. The poor beggars are either underground or isolated miles away. I did that 'on my own,' and I expect there'll be lots of trouble about it."

"You've had a bad time."

"Yes," he said simply.

"Mrs. Compton told me. I was immensely interested, and made up my mind to call on you. The 'lone fight' has always thrilled me. I don't care whether the fighter is a murderer or a hero so long as he fights against odds."

He laughed.

"Well, I'm not a criminal or a hero," he said.

"You can't tell. We're all potentially one or the other--or both."

He seemed on the verge of protest, but, looking at her, dropped to silence. She leant forward, her chin in the palm of her hand, and he saw that she smiled to herself, her eyes intent on the shadowy water.

"Doesn't Brahma sleep in the heart of that lotus-flower, Major Tristram?"

"He did once--so they say. And it is the lotus-flower which encloses our world. When the pink-tipped petals open then it is dawn with us." He hesitated, and then added with a shy laugh, "Shall I fetch it for you?"

"No, why spoil it? It is loveliest where it is."

"Yes, I know--but if you had wished it----" He broke off. "Somehow I'm glad you didn't," he said almost inaudibly.

The quiet rose up between them. It was like a mist, veiling them from each other with a drowsy peace. When she spoke again her voice sounded gay but subdued.

"Major Tristram, I'm disappointed--I meant to drop on like a bombshell--and here you sit next me as though it was the sort of thing you had done all your life. You don't even bother to talk to me. Do you think we were married in our last pilgrimage?"

The man turned his head away from her.

"Anything seems possible, here," he answered.

"Even hunger," she suggested gravely.

"Hunger?"

The dreamy unreality which had sunk upon them dissolved, letting through the light of every-day facts. She laughed at him.

"_I'm_ hungry. I haven't eaten anything since dawn, and I didn't bring food because Mrs. Compton said you practically lived here. I was sure--after the first skirmish--that you'd ask me to tea."

He was on his feet now--less with eagerness than with a half-angry consternation.

"Mrs. Compton misled you----" he began hotly.

"She didn't--she didn't know I was coming. Are you going to let me starve?"

"I _do_ live here," he went on stammeringly, "but in a native hovel like the rest of them. I can't take you there."

"Why not?" Her eyes were mocking, her lips pursed into a demure, ironic challenge. "Don't you want to?"

"It's not that----" His opposition collapsed and he faltered like a boy. "Only--well, I daresay you know what they call me--Tristram the Hermit. It's because I've had to live alone so much. No one comes out here. I've got accustomed to it. I'm like a miser with my loneliness."

"Then I had better go," she said gravely.

"No--not now. I want you to come. You'll understand better----"

He bridled her horse and brought it to her. For a moment they looked at each other with a steadiness in which there was a vague antagonism. Then the man stooped, hiding his face, and placed his hands for her to mount. She scarcely seemed to touch them. He looked up into her small face, flushed now with an eager colour. "You are lighter than the leaf on the wind," he said.

She laughed, but her laugh was more meditative than gay.

"And you, Major Tristram, are a poet in the wilderness," she answered.

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