The Great Amulet

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"I don't know. I can't tell--yet."

He straightened himself, and his face hardened.

"You can easily find out by putting the matter to practical proof. In
fact, I am going to make a proposal that will not leave you very long
in doubt. You have genius, Quita. I recognise that. And I want you
to think seriously over all you said this afternoon about not cramping
or distorting your individuality to suit my 'prejudices.' If you feel
that your art must come before everything, that marriage will only
hamper its full development, without making good what you lose,--in
fact, if you think that the purely artist life will be better and
happier for you in the long-run, I would sooner you said so frankly, I
would indeed."

"Eldred!" she gasped, between indignation and fear. But he motioned
her to silence.

"Hear me out first. I told you I had a good deal to say; and as I am
not often taken that way, you must bear with me, for once. You know
now something, at least, of what it means for a man and woman to live
together, as we do. I warned you that I should prove a sorry bargain;
and--take me or leave me--I cannot pretend that any amount of
compromise will make me other than I am. You think me hard, narrow,
conventional, in some respects, no doubt. But in a matter so vital
conventional moralities go for nothing. I want the truth. If you
believe, as I said, that art must stand first with you--always, I shall
respect your frankness and courage in telling me so; and I will give
you--such freedom as the circumstances admit."

"_Mon Dieu_!" she breathed, and for a second or two could say no more.
She had touched the bed-rock of granite in the man at last. Then the
fear that clutched at her found words, in her own despite.

"Have I killed--your love, so soon? Surely you could not make such a
suggestion--in cold blood, unless--I had."

"You are simply shifting the argument," he answered without unbending.
"You know whether--I love you. In fact, if it comes to that, it is
you, my dear, who have not yet grasped the full meaning of the word, or
you would not need to be told that the free choice I am offering you of
compromise with me, or independence--without me, is the utmost proof
one can give that you and your happiness stand absolutely first----"

At that she made an impulsive movement towards him, and her fingers
closed upon his arm. But with inexorable gentleness he unclasped her
hand, and put it from him.

"No, no," he said, and there was more pain than hardness in his tone.
"Better keep clear of that form of argument, for the present. Passion
settles nothing. Contact is not fusion. We have proved it,--you and
I. It is not a question of what we feel. That may be taken for
granted by now. It is a question of what we are, individually,
intrinsically; of how much each of us is ready to forego for the sake
of the one essential form of union that counts between a man and woman
who are not mere materialists; and we are neither of us that. I don't
want my answer to-night, nor even to-morrow. I have not spoken on
impulse; and I want you to think very thoroughly over all I have said
when your brain is cooler than it is just now."

"But suppose--I don't want to think it over?"

A half smile dispelled his gravity. "Knowing you intimately, I should
not suppose anything else! In the two big crises of our life,
remember, you were ruled purely by impulse and emotion, and you brought
us very near to shipwreck in consequence. But this time, you will do
what I ask, and give my slower methods a chance; because this time your
decision will be final. If we are to separate again, we separate for
life. That much _I_ have decided. The rest--I leave in your hands."

She stood very still, like one magnetised, her gaze riveted on the
carpet. His steadfast aloofness had chilled her first headlong impulse
of surrender; and she knew now that he was right:--that, dearly as she
loved him, independence in thought, word, and act were still the breath
of life for her and for her art. He had put the matter to practical
proof with a sledge-hammer directness all his own; had opened her eyes
to the humiliating truth that never in all her thirty years of living
had she given up anything that mattered for any one. And now----

She raised her head with a start, Zyarulla had brought in a telegram,
and Lenox stood reading it with a transfigured face, an eager light in
his eyes.

"What is it?" she wondered, not daring to ask. "He is going away
somewhere--he is delighted. And he says I come absolutely first."

Then Lenox raised his eyes, and a lightning instinct told her that for
the moment he had forgotten her existence.

"Well, Quita," he said, unconscious elation in his tone, "I think the
Foreign Office must have known we had got to a difficult corner, and
decided to give us a helping hand. They want me to undertake an
exploration north of Kashmir, and remonstrate with a small chief who
has been misbehaving up there. I am to report myself at Simla _ek
dum_,[1] to receive detailed instructions of the mission, and we shall
have time enough to think things out very thoroughly before I get back."

"Time? How long?"

Her colour had ebbed; but the change in him had steeled her to
unreasoning hardness of heart.

"Six months, certain. Possibly more."

"And you are as glad as you can be. One sees that quite plainly."

Her tone stung him to sharp retort.

"Yes, I am glad--since you insist, and since I am no hypocrite."

Pride would not suffer her to remind him of his assurance, "You stand
absolutely first." Instead she asked him in a repressed voice--

"Doesn't it occur to you, after your eloquence about what each of us
should give up, that this is precisely where your share of the
compromise comes in?"

"It occurred to me nearly a year ago," he said simply. "After our talk
at Kajiar, I faced the fact that there was an end of my exploring as a
hobby;--at least on the big scale that appeals to me most. It was just
the price one had to pay for getting you back again; and I paid
it--willingly. In fact, I should never have mentioned it, if you
hadn't dragged it out of me."

The quiet of his tone, and the kindliness in the blue eyes that
challenged her own, brought the blood into her face. He shamed her
every way, this big husband of hers. He had counted the cost and paid
it--willingly. He would not even have mentioned it. There you have
the essence of the man. Her lids fell, and her incurable instinct for
comedy set a faint dimple in her cheek. Here he was at his old trick
of dragging her on to higher ground; and the perverse spirit of her
loved and hated him for it in one breath.

"But you are going now?" she whispered, without looking up.

"Certainly. That is quite another matter. When Government needs my
services for work which I have made a speciality, it would be neither
right nor possible for me to refuse; and, frankly, I am glad, because I
love the work, fully as much as you love yours; and because the
opportunity could hardly have come at a better moment."

"And I--go back to Michael?"

"Yes. For six months you will be free to travel, paint--what you will;
and for six months I shall have my mountains to grapple with." Again
the light sprang to his eyes. "By the end of that time we shall know
once for all how much we are ready to forego for the sake of spending
our lives together. That is the ultimate test of a big thing,
Quita--what one will give up for it. Marriage is a big thing; and if
ours is built on the right foundations, it will stand the test. Now, I
shall have a good deal to see to this evening, and I think you had
better go to bed early. You look tired."

"I am tired." She realised suddenly that all the spring had gone out
of her. "When do you leave?"

"To-morrow, most likely. You had better write to Michael."

"Very well. I suppose--one will be able to write to _you_?"

"Yes. Now and then. But for a great part of the time I shall be
beyond the reach of posts."

Though his surface hardness had melted, his voice had an impersonal
note that crushed her, making her feel as if she were dealing with a
cosmic force, rather than a human being;--one of his own detestable
mountains, for instance. But for that, it is conceivable that there
might have been something approaching a 'scene'; that she might have
obeyed her unreasoning impulse to plead with him, and exhort him not to
push his test of her to such pitiless lengths. As it was, she sank
into a chair without answering; and he turned towards the study with a
new lift of his head, a new elasticity of step that struck at her heart.

For, in truth, until he read that summons from Simla he had scarcely
known how irresistibly the old free life drew him; how the white
silence of the mountains called to him as friend calls friend; and the
whole heart of him answered, 'I come.' 'As the dew is dried up by the
sun, so are the sins of mankind by the glory of Himachal.' The words
of the old Hindoo worshipper sprang to his brain, and for him they were
no fanciful imagery, but a radiant truth. Six months of the Himalayas,
six months of freedom from brain work, and headache, and strain,--for
though loyalty denied it, the past month had been a strain,--would
suffice to break the power of the hideous thing that was sapping his
manhood; to dispel the great black something that shadowed his mind and
spirit--to set him on his feet again, a free man.

But since he had kept the deeper source of his trouble secret from
Quita, she did not hold the key to the deeper source of his joy. And
now, lying back in his chair, her eyes closed, violet shadows showing
beneath the black line of her lashes, she saw herself, momentarily, as
a trivial thing--a mere tangle of nerves, perversity, and
egotism--flung aside without hesitation, perhaps even with relief, at
the first call of the larger life, the larger loyalty. Two tears stole
out on to her lashes, and slipped down her check. Mere concessions to
overwrought feeling, and she knew it; knew, in the depths of her, that
she was no triviality, but a woman into whose hands power had been
given; the power of things primeval that are the mainspring of life.

For Quita also had her secret--at once mysterious and disturbing; since
to your highly-strung woman motherhood rarely comes as a matter of
course--a secret that brought home to her, with a force as quiet and
compelling as her husband himself, the awful sense of the human bond.
He had told her she was free to choose; to take him or leave him as she
saw fit. But the dice were loaded. They were bound to one another now
by a far stronger power than mere law; by the power of action and
consequence, which transcends all laws.

She had guessed the truth, and rebelled against it, on that day when
Honor had unwittingly spoken the right word at the right moment, as
those who believe in Divine transmission through human agency are apt
to do. She had faced and accepted it during Eldred's absence; but had
not found courage since his return to put it into words; had, in fact,
with the revival of inspiration, thrust the knowledge aside, and
deliberately tried to forget.

Now it came back upon her, unrebuked; and while she lay thinking over
all that had passed between them, one insistent question repeated
itself in her brain, "Can I tell him? Shall I tell him before he
goes?" And after much debating, she decided on silence. In the first
place, he would be saved anxiety if he should not return in time; and
in the second place--though this consideration stood undeniably first
with her--she preferred that he, at least, should believe in the
fiction of their freedom; that nothing should weigh with him, or draw
him back to her but his unalterable need of herself. How far her
secret was her own to hide or reveal, how far she had any right to
withhold such knowledge from the man on the eve of a perilous
undertaking,--the man to whom insight told her it would mean
immeasurably much,--were questions that simply did not enter her mind.
The artist's egotism, and the woman's love of dominion, left no room
for fine-drawn scruples of the kind. Never till to-night had she
realised how the mountains claimed and held him; and in her sudden fear
of losing him, either through misadventure or through the reawakening
of the explorer in him, she lost sight of the original point at issue;
of the fact that it was her own work, not his, which had threatened to
stand between them.

An hour later she went into the study, where Lenox, his brow furrowed
into deep lines, bent over an outspread map. A glance showed her that
already in spirit he was miles away from her, planning the exploration
of passes and glaciers guessed at in former journeyings, engrossed,
mind and heard, in the possibilities ahead.

She came and stood beside him. "I am going now, Eldred," she said, a
touch of listlessness in her tone.

He looked up and nodded. "That's right. You do look rather fagged
this evening."

"Only a headache," she answered, flushing and avoiding his eyes. "I
shall be all right if I sleep well."

"Do you ever sleep badly?" he asked, with the quick sympathy of the
sufferer.

"Oh dear, no." She hesitated. "Are you coming?"

"Yes--later."

Still she stood irresolute. Caresses had become rare between them of
late; and now pride as well as shyness checked her natural impulse. In
turning away, she allowed her left hand to swing outward, ever so
little, merely by way of experiment. "He won't see it," she told
herself. And, as if in mute denial, his own hand met and grasped it,
close and hard.

On the threshold she paused and looked back. He was miles away again,
hopelessly out of reach. A sudden thought seized her, tempted her.
Half a dozen words would suffice to snap the chain that held him; to
bring her into his arms. Yet now it seemed impossible to speak them,
even if she would; and she went out, leaving him in undisturbed
possession of his maps and his mountains.

She lingered long over her undressing; and when it was over could not
bring herself to put out the lamp; but lay, waiting and listening for
his coming. Then, as the night slipped away and the silence became a
burden, a dead weight upon brain and heart, the old haunting dread of
those days in Dalhousie came back upon her, and she shivered. The
Pagan in her leaned too readily to superstitious fancy, and her dread
shaped itself finally in a definite thought. "If he comes to me now, I
know I shall conquer the mountains in the end. But if he doesn't come,
they will be too strong for me. They will take him from me for good."

And he did not come; till one of the morning, when he found her fast
asleep, the lamp still burning beside her.

[1] At once.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

"Ledge by ledge outbroke new marvels, now minute, and now immense:
Earth's most exquisite disclosure, heaven's own God in evidence!"
--Browning.

"Sahib, dinner is ready."

"I also am ready. More than ready!" Lenox answered, a twinkle in his
eyes.

Zyarulla responded by a gleam of teeth as he followed his master to the
camp fire of roots and scrub, on whose summit 'dinner' was served
steaming hot; a delectable mass of mutton and rice; eaten straight from
the copper cooking vessel, lest the ice-bound breath of the mountains
freeze it before it could reach its destination. The fire itself was
small, and gave out little heat: for in the heart of the glaciers,
sixteen hundred feet up, fuel is scarce, and even more precious than
food.

The five human forms, crouching close to it, had been Lenox's sole
companions through three months of hardship and danger, sweetened by
the exhilaration of conquering such difficulties as brace a man's nerve
and fortitude to the utmost. Four of them were Gurkhas,--a Havildar
and three men; short, sturdy hill folk of the Mongol type, with the
spirits of schoolboys and the grit of heroes. The fifth was a Pathan
from Desmond's regiment, told off to act as orderly and surveyor; a man
of immovable gravity, who shared but two qualities with the
thick-headed, stout-hearted little soldiers from Nepal:--courage of the
first order, and devotion to the British officer, for whom any one of
them would have laid down his life, if need be; not as a matter of
sentiment or heroism, but simply as a matter of course. The Gurkhas
had, in fact, settled it among themselves before starting, that if any
harm came to the Sahib none of them were to disgrace the name of the
regiment by returning without their leader.

Now, as he neared the fire, looking bigger and broader than usual in
his sheep-skin coat and Balaklava cap,--his jaw and throat protected by
a beard black as his hair,--all five stood up to receive him: and the
quivering light showed that they also were muffled to the eyes.

"It is a _burra khana_[1] to-night, Hazur," the Havildar informed him
with a chuckle; his slits of eyes vanishing as his teeth flashed out.
"In a treeless country, the castor-oil is a big plant! And the cook,
having three handfuls of flour to spare, hath made us three
_chupattis_; one for your Honour, and one to be broken up among
ourselves."

"No, no, Havildar; fair play," Lenox answered, smiling. "We will
divide the three."

But seeing that insistence would damp their childish spirit of
festivity, he accepted Benjamin's portion; and satisfied his conscience
by sharing it with Brutus, the inevitable, who snuggled contentedly
under a corner of his poshteen, and thanked his stars he was not as
other dogs, a mere loafer round clubs and cantonments. It was bad to
be cold and hungry; to plunge shoulder-deep through snow, and slither
across hideous slopes of ice; but it was uplifting to share your
master's dinner and your master's bed; and there are few things more
sustaining than a sense of one's own importance in the general scheme
of things!

The fire was their mess-table, round which they dined together, to save
time and trouble in cooking; and also because community of hardship and
danger links men to one another with hooks of steel; dispels all minor
distinctions of colour and creed; reveals the Potter's raw material
underlying all.

And while they so sat, enjoying their one-course dinner as no gourmet
ever enjoyed a city feast, night and frost crept stealthily, almost
visibly, over the stupendous snow-peaks and pinnacles of opaque ice
that towered on all sides, breathing out cold; and contemplating, as if
in silent amazement, these atoms of 'valiant dust' who dared and were
beaten back, and dared again; who day by day pushed farther into their
white sanctuary of silence, in search of a pass whose existence was
guessed at rather than known. At sunset there had been a brief burst
of colour,--green and opal and rose; but by now the mountains shimmered
grey and hard as steel under the tremulous fire of the stars; and every
moment the grip of frost tightened upon half-melted glacier, upon man
and beast. For behind the little group of servants, who sat apart,
enjoying their own meal in their own fashion, stood twelve apathetic
Kashmiri ponies,--unconsidered martyrs to man's lust of
achievement,--who endured to the full the miseries of mountaineering,
and reaped none of its rewards.

Dinner over, the fire must be allowed to die down. A pipe over the
embers, and a sheep-skin bag shared with Brutus, was the evening's
unvarying programme on this detached expedition into the hidden core of
things; tents and lesser luxuries having been left with the heavy
baggage in charge of two Gurkhas at the foot of the pass.

While Lenox sat smoking, and encouraging the fire to keep alive as long
as might be, his men vied with one another in discovering sheltered
corners for the night. The Havildar was in high spirits after his
morsel of chupatti, washed down with a mouthful of rum; and the
laughter of his comrades echoed strangely among the ghostly peaks.

"You seem to be in great form, Chundra Sen," Lenox called out at last.
"What's the joke now?"

"We are seeking soft stones to sleep on, Hazur; and betting, like the
_Sahiblog_, which of us shall find the softest!" [Transcriber's note:
the "o" in "_Sahiblog_" is o-macron, Unicode U+014D.]

Lenox joined in the laugh that greeted this sally,

"Good men," he said. "Hope you find a few! First-rate joke of yours,
Havildar."

"By ill fortune, it was not I who made it, Hazur! But an officer
Sahib, up in Kabul; one who knew that it is good to laugh even when the
knife is at the throat." And the search went forward with renewed zest.

Apparently soft stones were forthcoming: for one by one the men rolled
themselves up in their blankets and sheep-skins, and slept soundly on
two hundred feet of ice under a freezing sky; leaving Lenox alone with
his pipe and his thoughts, and the silence that dwelt like a presence
in the eerie place.

As a rule a hard day on the glaciers left him so over-powered with
sleep that he could scarcely finish his smoke: but to-night his brain
was alert and active; stimulated by the knowledge that two more days of
climbing ought to bring him at last to the Pass of his dreams:--the
Pass that must be found and crossed in the teeth of all that Nature
might do to hinder him!

That discovery would close the first phase of his journey: and
to-night, looking back over it, from the day of his departure for
Simla, he saw that it had been good.

Sir Henry Forsyth, Foreign Secretary, and an old school friend of his
brother's, had instructed him to work his way up to Hunza, a small
independent state north of Kashmir, hidden among lofty mountains and
impenetrable valleys, whence robber bands--secure from retaliation--had
for long amused and enriched themselves by flying descents upon
neighbouring tribes, and upon caravans passing from Asia to India. And
now, after an unusually daring raid, the peace-loving Kirghiz of the
district had appealed to the Indian Government for protection and help.

Lenox, with his little escort of six Gurkhas and one Pathan, was to
enter this stronghold of brigands; reason with their chief, and bind
him down to good behaviour for the future. In addition, Sir Henry
suggested that instead of going to Hunza direct, he should strike out
eastward from Kashmir, working his way round through the great Mustagh
Mountains, and exploring as he went, also that he should finally push
on northward, and penetrate as far into the Pamirs as the approach of
winter would permit.

"There will be no difficulty with the authorities. I have arranged all
that; and you need not be back at Dera till October or November," the
great man had concluded, in a tone half question, half command.

"No, sir. I may as well do all I can while I'm up there."

Whereat Sir Henry had eyed him thoughtfully from between narrowed lids.
For all his great brain, he was a man of one idea: and that idea--"The
North safeguarded." Mere men, himself included, were for him no more
than pawns in the great game to be played out between two Empires, on
the chess-board of Central Asia. But . . there are pawns, and pawns:
and Sir Henry had had his eye on Lenox for some years; recognising in
him a pawn of high value; a man to be sent to the front on the first
opportunity, and kept there as long as might be. The news of his
marriage had been a shock to the Foreign Secretary: and it is
conceivable that he had wished to test Lenox by asking him to undertake
such a mission within a year of the fatal event. He was speculating
now, as he watched him, how far the 'woman complication' was likely to
count with this impenetrable Scot. With Sir Henry, after the first
year or two, the woman had not counted at all; and, unhappily for her,
she knew it.

The pause lasted so long that Lenox shifted his position: but Sir Henry
only said, "I was relieved when I got your wire."

"Surely I could not have answered otherwise?"

"I am glad you think so. But frankly, when I heard of your marriage, I
was half afraid I had lost one of my ablest men."

Lenox smiled. "Not quite as bad as that, sir, I hope."

"Well then . . what about Gilgit?"

Sir Henry spoke carelessly; but his eyes were on Lenox's face, and he
saw him flinch.

"Is that likely to be an immediate contingency?" Lenox asked quietly.

"Next, year, I should say, as things are going now."

"Well, I hope it may be possible. But . . one would have to think it
over."

"_Talk_ it over, you mean . . eh?"

Something in the tone angered Lenox.

"Yes, sir . . talk it over. That is what I meant," he had answered,
looking straightly at the other: and they had returned somewhat
abruptly to the matter in hand.

But Lenox had dined with the Foreign Secretary that night, and they had
parted good friends, as ever: Sir Henry begging the younger man to ask
him for anything that might serve to lessen the hardships and dangers
ahead of him, adding, as they shook hands: "I assure you, my dear
fellow, we who sit in Simla fully realise how much the country owes to
men of your sort; and grudge no money spent in making the way smoother
for you."

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