He took the light in his hand and crossed to the outer parapet.

"h.e.l.lo, Dering!" he began, peering down. Then a couple of shots whizzed past his head and he ducked. At the same moment, as if roused by the concussion, the first crackling thunderclap of the dust-storm, sounding m.u.f.fled through the thick air, followed like a roll-call, and reverberated dully, sluggishly, through the black darkness.

When it pa.s.sed, Dr. Dillon's voice rose quietly.

"There will be no relief, Smith; those are the troopers, and they're against us. So now--we've got it to ourselves, Smith, for some time."

There was a certain satisfaction at the monopoly in his voice.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SEARCH-LIGHT

The sound of those two shots greeted Vincent Dering as, after infinite difficulty, owing to the darkness, the fitful gusts of wind, and the sand-banks, he drew up the canoe against what he knew must be the high bank below the off-take of the ca.n.a.l.

It had only been by trusting the stream to guide him, and refraining at times from the use of his paddle, that he had managed to steer his way at all.

So he knew he was late; felt, indeed, that he must be too late to use his influence with the men, and yet, despite this knowledge, a keen disappointment filled him when those shots proved him to be so; since by long experience he knew that once open resistance began, there could be no more question of words.

What then, was there for him to do?

If he, in his light canoe, helped, wherever possible, by every atom of strength his arms possessed, had taken so long to come down that mile or two of stream, the raft could not possibly arrive for another half hour.

He could not sit still for half an hour; he felt, indeed, as if he could not sit still for half a minute. A pa.s.sion to act, to sweep away the past, to forget, was upon him. He had had time during his strange journey--so often idle perforce--to realize his position; time to piece the still stranger events preceding his journey into a reasonable sequence; so that he had, by now, arrived at a fairly accurate guess as to the cause of much, that, when it happened, had seemed causeless.

For instance, Laila's dress, "_given her by someone_." That, joined to the knowledge that she was connected with the late Nawab's family, of which Roshan Khan might with justice claim the headship, had brought the latter's action within the bounds of credibility. Jealousy!

revenge! these were potent causes. Laila, then, must have been playing with Roshan's pretensions. Playing like a child with a toy; playing, rather, like a woman who hesitates at nothing for the sake of the man she loves. And she had hesitated at nothing; not even at this, to give him pleasure, to make things match with his pa.s.sion! The thought, the remembrance, made him for a moment feel inclined to fling up his hands, and let the canoe take him where it chose; take him down stream utterly. Then a half choking, yet wholly strenuous desire to escape from the whole story, a wild instinctive effort for a more wholesome atmosphere, like that of a drowning man for a breath of fresh air, had sent the canoe bounding on _his_ way; _his_ way and none other's, in swift obedience. With a rush, he had grasped that there was more in life--that he had allowed himself to be a slave! But that was past,--he would shake himself together--he would forget the thraldom of s.e.x--and he would forget the past.

Yet, as he cast about in his mind for the best method of applying the half hour's leisure, the remembrance of a woman came to him, as if to mock at his resolution. Muriel, and dear little Gladys who called him "Derin' darling"; where were they? His eyes grew soft in the remembrance, stern at the probability of their being in danger. Why had he not thought of it before? How could he ever have paused, wondering what to do?

He set the red light, which he had taken from the fateful balcony, carefully in the canoe--though, even should some gust of the rising wind not blow the light out, it could scarcely be of any use in that outer darkness--as a signal to the raft should it, by an off chance, drift past in his absence, then struck across the sand in the direction in which he knew the Smiths' bungalow must lie; that was, a little to the rear of the gaol.

The storm, as he faced it, was so fierce that the doubt rose inevitably if an unwieldy raft could make way against it. If so, then there would be no help. The only thing would be to defend himself and others until the end came; the end which would at least end the past.

He had almost to feel his way, the darkness was so intense. It was a relief to stumble against something which he knew must be the low mud fence of Muriel's garden; that garden in which she tried to defy Providence, and rear English flowers. He knew his feet must be crushing her treasures as he pa.s.sed on towards a faint glow, a red glow. But everything that was not the blackness of outer darkness to-night seemed red--blood red.

A minute after, with a vast relief at the silence, the solitude, he was in Muriel's pretty drawing-room. The pink-shaded lamp was still alight, showing red through the fog of dust. He pa.s.sed to it instinctively, and as he did so, noticed the writing on the table. But many an earth-atom had fallen on that confession of ignorance since George Dillon had made it idly, and so, as Vincent Dering bent quickly to see if by chance it was some message left for those who might come after, he also had to frown and say, "G.o.d knows!"

Was it possible that Eugene and his wife were still asleep? The doors stood open, but that was to be expected at that season of the year, unless someone had been awake to close them against the storm. He must make sure, however.

But there was no one to be found in any of the rooms. It occurred to him, then, that they must have taken refuge in the gaol, and he told himself he was a fool not to have thought of that before. Dillon would, of course, have seen to that. He, Vincent, might have remembered so much, at least; might have remembered that he himself was not the only slave. Then he gave an odd, bitter little laugh. Was it never possible to get beyond a woman's ap.r.o.n-strings?

And here he was wasting time over the question, when he ought to be doing something better.

But what?

Go back and wait for the raft, or on to the gaol? There was a big tamarisk tree at the end of the garden. Only two days before he had pointed it out to Muriel and said that an active man accustomed to _trapeze_ work might swing himself from it astride the high mud wall of the gaol, and so gain the roof of the gate. Dillon had denied it; and she had said, laughingly, that no one ever tried to break into a gaol, only out of one.

Curious; still, if it had only been light, it would have been worth the risking. But it was impossible now in the dark.

So, suddenly, a remembrance came to him. The search-light!

Was it only last night he had been dining here, in this house, after bringing Muriel home from the Mission, where they had seen that huge ray piercing the shadows? Was it only yesterday that he had listened to Eugene's lamentations over his unused electricity, which was sure, he said, to vanish into s.p.a.ce from his rude contrivances. Was it only yesterday that, in obedience to that pathetic look of martyrdom on Muriel's face, which still seemed--to one part of Vincent's nature--to call for instant sympathy, he had, to appease the honest inventor, shown an interest in search-lights which was purely fict.i.tious, and learned a variety of facts about b.u.t.tons and stop-c.o.c.ks? And had all this happened yesterday on purpose that to-day, when he was in need of light--

He was up on the roof with the thought. If only the blessed thing had go enough for that! As he picked his way rapidly through the litter, three or four cigar-ends, a half-finished whiskey-and-soda, seen by the flash of the hurricane lantern he had sought out and lit, told him that Eugene must have been at work over his new toy till late. So much the better for his chance--for everybody's chance; since a signal like that might make all the difference to the raft; all the difference to Dillon in the gaol--

George Dillon was, indeed, beginning to realize this himself. His almost triumphant mood had pa.s.sed; it had come home to him that the unexpected revelation of the troopers' complicity in the plot, whatever it was, had changed the whole aspect of affairs. Now, there was no question of keeping the gaol quiet until help should arrive. He was face to face, now, with the fact that he must not rely on any aid at all. What had really happened, he could not guess. For all he knew, the troopers and pioneers might have risen and killed their officers, killed everybody who would be likely to help. His aim, now, was to sell his life, and--and hers--as dearly as he could; but in the dead darkness, like a rat in a hole, what could be done? Except wait--wait for the walls to be dug through, the gates to be mined, that poor eight or ten feet drop at the foot of the stairs scaled. Then a rush, still in the dark, and--the greatest Darkness of all!

Not even the chance of a shot; and he had plenty of ammunition. It would at least have pa.s.sed the time to take pot-shots at the devils; and though these would have brought retaliation, there would have been no need for exposure. The parapet walls were high enough, and properly loopholed.

So, for a few minutes, he sat almost sullenly beside those, for whom alone he now felt responsible, in the little turret, which, as is always the case in India, rose at one corner of the flat roof giving fair shelter for the time. In his first hurried recognition, which had come with the shots, that not help but attack lay outside, he had blown out his light, fearing lest Eugene Smith might also be exposed to similar attentions; so it was pitch dark. And the now almost constant reverberations, which seemed to send the sand-laden air in pulse-beats on your face, deadened all other sounds into vague confusion. But he knew that the warders within the porch, the troopers without, were trying to force the barred gate. That would not take long; though the two doors blocking the ends of the tunnel would be a tougher job.

And he heard, closer at hand, a sleepy whimper from the child, a low comforting from a mother's voice.

The sound made him set his teeth.

G.o.d! if there was only light to kill withal.

And then, in a second, as if by a miracle, it came. A great flood of shining light, contemptuous, at that short distance, even of that outer darkness. For it was electricity against electricity; a house divided against itself.

The first thing he saw by it was that fragile figure in its dainty blue frills, a child's golden head; and so, naturally, the next instant found his hand on a rifle.

"The search-light! by all that's lucky! Well! everyone has not been killed, anyhow," cried Eugene Smith.

"Killed," echoed Dr. Dillon, savagely. "No one has been killed yet, but it won't be long before they are."

It was not; for a trooper engaged in staring stupidly at the velvety black circle out of which the intruding light seemed to spring, suddenly threw up his hands, swirled round, and fell face upwards in a crumpled heap.

There was an instant's scare in the crowd, in that hundred and fifty or more of troopers and conspirators, thrown into black and white relief, like a shadow pantomime, about the outer gate. Then the startled murmurs of "the light--the _Dee-puk-rag_" which were pa.s.sing from lip to lip, changed into a yell.

The fight had begun in earnest.

"Shoot straight," remarked Dr. Dillon, a few minutes after, "we shan't have such a good chance long. The gate is almost gone. Then most of the game will be out of range--too close to the wall. And once they get into the tunnel we shall have to sound _cease firing_ until they come out on the other side; but then we ought to do decent damage, if the prisoners don't get at us first." He paused, and shot on steadily till, with a hoa.r.s.e shout, the attackers surged inwards. Then he laid his rifle aside, remarking that it would be as well to keep an eye gaolwards, in case of complications.

So far as could be seen in that curious chequering of dense darkness and sharp glittering light; light which was palpably an intruder, which seemed absolutely apart from the things it showed--even from the dust-atoms--there was none as yet. At least the uppermost portion of that vast wheel of wall stood out, perfect, unbroken. The roof of the Smiths' bungalow, where the light stood, being, however, but little higher than these walls, much of what lay below in the sections themselves was necessarily hidden in shadow; especially on the side nearest the light. But the narrow alley leading up to the central tower, being in straight line with the ray, showed clear as daylight, save just under the citadel itself. So did most of the little courtyard, with its doors opening to the right and left. George Dillon gave a sigh of satisfaction at the sight, since, whether the foe elected--when once inside the gates--to rush the roof, or press on to liberate the prisoners by those six doors in the round tower, there would be fair chance of a good bag, for a straight shot!

Or, even if the convalescents in hospital were to set free the solitary-cell convicts--a contingency which had occurred to him too late for any plan of minimizing the danger--and were to swarm into the courtyard to help against the last gate (which, of course, was partly barred from the inside), he could settle their hash also. And that, now, was his one idea. The idea of all brave men when they find themselves in a tight place--to kill before being killed.

As yet, however, there was no sign of life even within the vast wheel, with its rims and spokes of light, its centre of shadow. It lay dim, curiously still behind the dust-atoms that danced in the ray, like motes in a sunbeam.

There was not a sound, not a sign within. Only the tumult of voices, the intermittent shots without, rising above the dull, m.u.f.fled hum in the air.

Stay! that was something. Half way round the circle, where the shadow of the tall tamarisk tree in the Smiths' garden cut a jagged gap in the white rim of wall, there was some change, something that had not been there a moment ago.