The Great Amulet

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Along tracks possible and impossible Lenox rode his tireless scrap of a
hill pony, who climbed like a goat, and whose unshod feet picked their
way unerringly even over rocks covered with new snow that gave no
foothold to man or beast. The rest walked; while the baggage ponies
slid and stumbled, and scrambled in their wake with the stupefied
meekness of their kind.

Journeying thus,--now drenched with snow and sleet, now heartened by
rare bursts of sunshine,--through the worst bit of hill country between
Persia and China, they camped at last in the grim Wakhan valley,
rightly named 'the Valley of Humiliation.' To Lenox, the name struck
home with a peculiar force. For his time-saving scheme had failed.
The three marches had not been accomplished in two days. Evil weather,
incessant delays, and the impossibility of hurrying baggage animals
over dangerous ground, had prevailed against him. The valley had
conquered: and for the man remained nothing but stoical acceptance of
defeat, and the 'half of a broken hope' that even in heaven and earth's
despite, he might yet win through in time.

On a night of intermittent moonbeams and racing cloud, the scene from
the little camp across the river had a sombre majesty--a suggestion of
impersonal, relentless power that crushes rather than uplifts; that
dwarfs man, with his puny struggles and aspirations, to a pin-point of
sand on an illimitable shore. Colossal ice-bound spurs walled them in;
their sides astonishingly steep, their embattled heads shattered by sun
and frost into fantastic peaks, from which masses of rock and stones
are hurled down into the valley, when rain and melting snow begin their
yearly task of modelling the face of the earth. And between these
threatening heights the Wakhan river hurried, a pale streak of light,
now grey, now silver, as the clouds, like great birds of ill-omen,
chased one another across the moon.

The sinister aspect of the place had its effect on Lenox,
hypersensitised as he was by anxiety over lost hours, and by the
premonitory chill of fever, strengthening that prescience of disaster
which saps spirit and courage more surely than disaster itself. But
they were on the march again betimes, next morning, breasting the
northern slopes of the Hindu Kush, which at this point can be crossed
without much difficulty. Before noon they were over the crest; and
Lenox, weary at last of his nightmare struggle with the mountains,
dropped thankfully into the Yarkhun valley, beyond which towered his
last great obstacle--the Darkot Pass.

It was late afternoon, and, come what might, he intended to requisition
a guide (no easy matter) and push his way across at daylight. But
neither earth nor heaven had a word of encouragement for the man who
scanned them with tired, desperate eyes. At his feet the Yarkhun river
whirled and foamed, a grey glacier torrent, thick with the milky scum
of ice-ground salt; beyond it the ink-black gorge leading to the summit
was shrouded in a scroll of threatening cloud; and the first natives
whom they questioned as to the state of the pass replied unconcernedly
that it had been closed four days; adding that no man who valued his
life would attempt to cross it in uncertain weather.

To force his little contingent forward in the face of such news seemed
nothing less than murder and suicide of an elevated type. But Lenox,
gritting his teeth on a curse, despatched Zyarulla in search of more
precise information, and ordered his tent to be set up without delay.
For even at times of despondency and ill-health, the man possessed his
full share of that 'outward-going force' which is the hall-mark of the
Scottish race; and the instant books and maps were available, he sat
down, filled a pipe from his dwindling store of tobacco, and proceeded
to look out possible alternatives should the worst befall.

There were two: desperate resources both, yet one degree better than
imprisonment in the Yarkhun valley till it pleased the snows to melt.
They could follow the course of the river to Chitral,--no Frontier
outpost then, but an independent Native State; or work their way, by
faith and courage, through the wild Swat country to the Punjab. The
state of both routes was unknown; the question of supplies a hopeless
one; and amid a chaos of uncertainties, bad weather was the one thing
that might safely be counted on in October. To crown all, their line
of communication must, in either case, be broken. They would be lost
to the outside world for many days, if not weeks; and apart from
consideration for his wife, Lenox was the last man to enjoy creating a
temporary excitement at headquarters.

None the less, after thinking himself into a blinding headache, he
decided to face the Chitral route, if snow fell, and if Zyarulla
brought no better news about the pass. Then, because his last cup of
tea was being held in reserve for breakfast, he contented himself with
goat's milk, a slab of chocolate, and native biscuits that served him
for bread.

It was late before Zyarulla returned, with a companion,--a native from
Yasin, on the Indian side of the Pass.

"This man, Sahib, hath even now crossed over from Darkot village," the
Pathan explained, indicating the wizened leader of a forlorn hope with
the air of a showman exhibiting a curiosity. "He came to fetch the
remains of his sister, who died in this valley, that she may be buried
among her own people. I have therefore engaged him as guide, to take
the Sahib over on his return."

"The thing can be done?" Lenox asked, with an eagerness not to be
repressed; and the small man bowed his head upon his hands.

"Allah alone can answer the question of the Heaven-born. For one man
to travel safely among glaciers and crevasses without number, it was no
easy matter--and as for a company of men and ponies, how can this slave
tell? Nevertheless, if the Sahib wills, and there is no snow before
morning, I go before, showing the way; and that which will fall--will
fall."

"Good. That is a bargain. Fulfil it, and thy reward shall be worth
the winning. Let yaks be ordered from the nearest _aul_; and at
daylight we set out."

The man from Yasin salaamed and departed; but at the tent door Zyarulla
paused, a glitter of triumph in his eyes.

"Captain Sahib,--was it well done?"

"Excellently done," Lenox answered, smiling. "Thou art worth thy
weight in tobacco of the first quality!"

And the Pathan, knowing that to his master the value of tobacco was
above all the rupees ever minted, went out to patronise lesser mortals,
and impress them with the fact that he was not as other men, since he
had rendered signal service to "the first-best Sahib in all India,
whose eyes pierce the earth, and whose feet tread upon the necks of
mountains even as those of common Sahibs scatter the dust of cities!"

That night, ominous pains in his limbs and a sensation as of cold water
down his spine drove Lenox to open his second and last bottle of
brandy. Stimulated by the kindly spirit, he wrestled with a fowl
tougher than india-rubber, and slept as a doomed man might sleep on the
night of his reprieve.

But he woke to hear the tread of his sentry muffled by new-fallen snow;
and hope died in him at the sound. Outside, the world was white with
it; the whole air thick with it; yet his men were striking camp and
loading up, confident in the white man's reputation for achieving the
impossible. Only the little guide demurred, trembling at his own
audacity.

"Hazur, look whether the thing can be done. I said--if no snow fell."

"And _I_ say, if it fall or no, we cross to-day," Lenox answered, with
more of assurance than he felt. "Bid the yaks go forward to prepare a
way for our coming."

The great shaggy beasts went forward accordingly, head downward,
ploughing a way through the snow, to make marching easier and disclose
hidden pitfalls or crevasses; and by the time Lenox had despatched a
travesty of a breakfast, a pallid light in the east hinted that the
storm might be local after all. Wet and draggled as they were, the
order was given to load up and start; and even as they crossed the
torrent to the foot of the glacier, earth and sky leaped suddenly into
light; broken streaks of radiance danced and sparkled on the river, and
the sun swept the shadows from hill and valley, converting their
deathlike shroud into a glittering garment, stainless as the soul of a
child.

"Inshallah!! Now all is well!"

It was the deep voice of Yusuf Ali; and Lenox heard his cheery little
friend, the Havildar, make answer, "True talk, brother; the gods favour
those who go forward!"

Cheered by the prospect of getting dry, and by the sun's mysterious
power to exhilarate all things living, the whole party quickened their
pace. But in less than an hour fresh clouds had rolled up, blotting
out the sun; and on the glacier they overtook the yaks and their
drivers, lumbering soberly through the snow-drifts with true Oriental
disregard for time.

The men chorussed voluble excuses; but since time meant life or death,
Lenox waved them aside impatiently, and ordered the guide to go on,
making his own tracks as best he might. The which he did, with the
help of two others, pressed into service by promises of liberal
backsheesh, stepping out valiantly at the head of the mixed procession;
his sister's remains--tied up in a wisp of turban--bobbing over his
shoulder; driving on before him a donkey followed by a goat. And the
unerring instinct by which this despised creature of God avoided hidden
fissures and crevasses must needs be seen to be believed.

The guides, keeping in the tracks of the animals, marked off dangerous
places with their sticks; and behind them rode Lenox, muffled to the
eyes in poshteen and Balaklava cap, his league of leg barely two feet
off the ground; his keen little pony--long since christened 'The
Rat'--almost as trustworthy on dangerous ground as the donkey himself.
And wherever he led, all self-respecting Kashmiri ponies would
follow,--even into a crevasse!

Through four mortal hours they plodded on, a strange procession of
muffled figures, leaving in their wake a dark, contorted track, as
though some wounded thing had writhed its way upward through the frozen
snow.

And by one o'clock the crest was in sight! "The gods favour those who
go forward!" Chundra Sen had spoken truth. Another half hour would
see them through the worst; and Lenox--scarcely able to believe in his
good fortune--urged The Rat to renewed exertion, and shouted to his men
to hurry on.

But the gods are nothing if not capricious; and the 'advanced guard,'
reaching the summit, found no promised land spread out below them, but
a mass of blue-black cloud, heavy with snow, surging up the valley,
with the rush of a tidal wave and the breath of an iceberg, blotting
out creation as it came; till it shrouded the little band of
men--'unconquering, yet unconquered'--in a sinister twilight, cold as
Death's own self.

There was nothing to be said or done. They simply stood still, and
waited for the end:--the Asiatics with the phlegm of fatalism; Lenox
with the stillness of despair.

"Checkmate," he muttered grimly. "Two hours of this will about finish
us off."

In two seconds his moustache was frozen to his face; his limbs numbed,
so that movement became imperative. Mechanically he dismounted,
stamped his feet, and beat his arms across his chest as the others were
doing; a proceeding about as effective as thimblefuls of water flung on
a fire. For every moment the iron clutch of frost tightened and
penetrated; even, it seemed, to the life-blood in his veins. But
through its deadening influence the thought of Quita struck like a
knife-thrust. "God help her!" his heart cried out in bitter rebellion
against his own helplessness to shield her from pain. "It will hit her
hard. But she has grit;--and her art. She will live it down."

For five awful minutes the darkness held; and the men waited;--free yet
helpless, like castaways on an open sea. Yet no snow fell.

Suddenly Lenox was aware of Brutus rubbing against his leg, plainly
demanding what was wrong. He stooped and caressed the ugly head of his
eight years' companion and friend. "Rough luck on you, old chap. You
never asked to come."

For answer Brutus licked his woollen glove. And as he straightened
himself, Chundra Sen came up and saluted.

"Captain Sahib, it is strange. No snow falls; and the darkness
moves--moves. May be it is not the storm itself; but a cloud that will
pass."

"I doubt it, Havildar," Lenox answered, smiling at the characteristic
suggestion. Yet his eyes, half-blinded with snow-glare, peered
anxiously southward, and detected a change; a faint hint of
transparency, as though light were struggling through.

The Gurkha detected it also.

"Hazur, behold!--The cloud _will_ pass." His teeth flashed out
exultant. "A good tale is not to be bought with cowries; and we shall
tell this one in India before many weeks be out."

Chundra Sen was right. With astonishing swiftness the twilight paled
from grey to white; a streak of spectral sunlight quivered through,
like life creeping back into the face of death; and the cloud rolled
harmlessly over into the Yarkhun valley behind them.

It was but a herald of the great battalion that billowed up an hour
later, enveloping glacier, peak, and crag, and sealing up the pass for
seven months to come.

But by then, they were clattering recklessly down the slope,
helter-skelter, like a pack of children let out of school; slithering
over fissured glacier and moraine, sending loose boulders flying from
rock to rock; the Gurkhas shouting and laughing, the Kashmiri coolies
breaking into weird snatches of song. Even The Rat lost his sober
little head, and in scuttling over a glacier slope sat suddenly down
upon his tail, dog fashion, landing Lenox on his feet, and sliding away
from under him, to the vociferous delight of every one but himself.
Only the two Pathans and the Scot accepted reprieve as imperturbably as
they had accepted sentence of death; suggesting by their silence, in
the midst of excitement, the large reserves of strength common to the
natures of both.

Before five they had sighted the willows and poplars of Darkot; and by
sunset they were encamped outside the village, walled in with a rugged
amphitheatre of granite and limestone cliffs. Here they found the man
in charge of the welcome caravan of supplies and heavy baggage, taking
his ease, a little puzzled, yet in no wise troubled at the Sahib's
delay.

Lenox, broken with fatigue, relief, and incipient illness, realised, as
he sank into his camp chair, that throughout the past week he had kept
himself going by pure force of will. And his record was a fair one,
even as Frontier records go:--incessant marching in wet clothes, on a
minimum of food, culminating in ten hours of severe exposure and the
acutest anxiety he had ever known. And over and above all such
incidentals of the day's work,--achievement, in full measure, of that
which he had set out to do; not merely in respect of his mission, but
in respect of that hidden struggle and victory, 'that weighed not as
his work, yet swelled the man's amount.' For he knew now that by the
God-given power of sheer, unwearied resistance he had vanquished an
evil the most insidious and alluring that can assail a man; knew that
he had put the accursed thing under his feet; and he meant to keep it
there.

But the struggle, combined with hardship and privation, had left its
mark on him. The protests of Nature had been disregarded; and now she
took her revenge in the sledge-hammer fashion that is hers.

By next morning the man's skin was like hot parchment, his limbs rigid
with pain, his brain verging on delirium; and before evening it was
clear that rheumatic fever had him in its relentless grip.

The Gurkhas and Zyarulla were in despair. Chundra Sen, goaded by
responsibility for the safety of his officer, set out, straightway, by
double marches for Srinagar, determined to cover the distance in ten
days; while the Pathan, commanding a _charpoy_[1] from the headman of
the village, remained to exorcise the 'fever devil' with the rude skill
and limitless patience of his kind.

But he reaped small reward for his pains. Racked with rheumatism and
burnt up with fever, Lenox had almost reached the end of his tether;
and through the awful hours of delirium, Zyarulla could only crouch,
helpless, by the bedside; listening, listening to the hoarse, hurried
mutterings, of which he could understand nothing beyond the frequent
recurrence of the Mem-sahib's name.

Each day life flickered more uncertainly in the great gaunt frame; and
on the morning when Chundra Sen, with a dapper little doctor, set his
face towards Darkot, Zyarulla, kneeling beside his unheeding master,
bowed his head upon his hands.

"It is the will of God," he muttered. But the formula carried no
conviction to his heart, that whispered rather: "It is the work of
Sheitan, the accursed."

[1] String-bed.

CHAPTER XXXV.

"Why was the pause prolonged, but that singing should issue thence?
Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized!"
--Browning.

Quita Lenox lay back in a long low chair, lost in thought, her hands
clasped behind her head, the folds of her dull-blue tea-gown trailing
on the carpet. A cushion of darker blue threw into stronger relief the
brighter tints of her hair; and at her throat three rough lumps of
Tibetan turquoise--recently sent by Lenox--hung on a fine gold chain.
His last letter, full of the discovery of his Pass, lay open on her
knee,--read and re-read till its contents were stamped upon her brain;
and it seemed to her high time that a fresh one came to take its place.
But the days slipped by--uneventful days, in which the long chair
played a definite part--and no envelope in his hand-writing came to
cheer her.

Yet she was far removed from unhappiness. Her increasing pride in him,
and in his achievement, prevented that. Only there were moments when
the inner vision was too vivid; moments between sleep and waking when
pictures trooped unbidden through the corridors of her brain; when
neither sleep nor effort of will could shield her from that awful
visualisation of the dreaded thing, which is the artist's penalty in
the day of trouble. At such times, the fear that he might slip out of
her life without knowledge of the great fact, that no amount of
repetition can minimise, nor custom stale; without knowledge that
through his long love and constancy she had attained to the 'greatest
creative art of all,' had almost dragged her out of bed at midnight to
begin the letter that should carry the word to him amid the sublimity
of his glaciers and eternal silences. But always something stronger
than fear had restrained her; so that the weeks had dropped away one by
one, like faded petals, and the secret that was to be the crowning
glory of their new life together still lay hidden in her heart.

The cheerful round of festivities common to an Indian Hill season had
passed her by; and she was content to have it so. Between her canvas
and her unpractised needle, between the companionship of Michael, and
of the Desmonds--while they were 'up'--her days had gone softly, yet
pleasantly and profitably in more respects than one. For it is in the
pauses between times of activity and stress that the still small voice
of God speaks most clearly to the soul; that power is generated and
garnered against the hidden things that shall be. It is in the pauses
that we can, as it were, stand back a space from our own corner of the
picture we are so zealously making or marring, and catch an
illuminating glimpse of the proportions of the whole.

Thus it had been with Quita Lenox. In these four months of seeming
inactivity, the large, underlying forces of life had been silently at
work in her, touching the impressionable spirit of her to 'fine issues'
that the sure years would reveal. Nor had her time of quiet been
lacking in immediate results. A completed picture stood to her credit;
and a drawer full of surprising achievements in the way of needlecraft;
achievements so pathetically small that at times the sight of them
brought tears to her eyes.

But this afternoon neither brush nor needle tempted her. In spirit she
was with her husband, trying by concentration of thought to bridge the
space between. But always her thoughts ended in one cry: If only--if
only--he could get back in time!

Michael Maurice had stayed on at the Crow's Nest, possibly
from laziness, possibly for other reasons; and its little
studio-drawing-room was as attractive, as untidy, and as eloquent of
Quita's personality as it had been sixteen months ago. It was late
August now; and a week's break in the rains had given the drenched
hills and those who dwelt upon them a foretaste of that elixir of light
and air which makes September the crowning month of the Himalayan year.
And to Quita it gave promise that her days of waiting were numbered.
In a week she would follow the Desmonds to Dera Ishmael, and remain
with them, at their urgent invitation, till her husband's return. The
friendly smile of the sun after days of downpour and restless mist
lifted her to renewed hope that in spite of the mountains he would
surely reach her in time.

From the open door a stream of afternoon light barred the room with
gold. Passing across her prostrate figure, it fell full upon her
easel, and upon the picture in which she had tried to express her own
solution of the artist's eternal problem--Art or Love. It had been
begun as a subject-picture, inspired by the impassioned cry of Aurora
Leigh: "Oh, Art, my Art! Thou art much; but Love is more!" Then
because her taste leaned always to the actual, and because the picture
was to be a present for her husband, the woman's figure had grown into
a portrait of herself; a thing so living, so eloquent of her new
appealing charm, that even Michael's critical spirit had been roused to
enthusiasm. He had one quarrel only with her achievement, namely, that
it was not to be his own!

In detail, the picture was simplicity itself. Merely the woman beside
her easel, turning eagerly away from it as if at the sound of a
footstep; every line and curve of her athrill with expectancy, her eyes
luminous with the dawn of a new truth, a new ecstasy of heart and
spirit; while at her feet her palette lay broken in a dozen pieces, and
her canvas had fallen, unheeded, to the ground. An open doorway behind
her revealed a glimpse of sunlit verandah, trellis-work and
honeysuckle; revealed also an unmistakable length of shadow,--the head
and shoulders of the man whose large, lonely personality had so taken
possession of her, as to transform her whole vision of life. And below
the canvas, on the gilding of the frame, were graven the words: 'Love
is more.'

For all her delight in this last work of her hands, there were days
when the sight of it pricked her to an anguish of impatience, shadowed
always by the darker anguish of fear lest the ecstasy she had so
vividly portrayed should be snatched untasted from out her grasp; lest
the footstep her heart hungered for should never come back into her
life. But she fought resolutely against such black moods, for
Michael's sake no less than her own. His joy in getting her back had
done much to soften the pang of separation; and now, while she lay
waiting and dreaming,--too lazy to pour out tea till he came--it was
his footstep that put her dreams to flight.

He had been out on the Kajiar road 'taking notes,' and he flourished a
sketch-book at her by way of greeting.

"Tea, _cherie_? _Ah, c'est bien_. I am thirsty!"

She flung out her left hand and took possession of the book.

"Pour it out yourself, there's a dear; and mine too."

"_Voila donc_! What laziness!"

"Energetic people are privileged to be lazy--sometimes."

He laughed, and obeyed her, setting a cup and plate within reach.

"You seem to have been making the most of your privilege. Have you
done anything while I was out?"

"But yes. I have been possessing my soul in quietness; and--I have
been talking to Eldred."

He passed a caressing hand over her hair.

"_Pauvre petite_! How much of that do you really believe?"

"Don't ask uncomfortable questions! At least it helps a little when I
feel I can't wait any longer, and--I am almost sure it helps him too.
I shall find that out when--_if_ he gets back."

"Let 'ifs' alone, _ma belle_. They are gadflies of the devil's
breeding. That great Scotchman of yours would work his way back to
you, if he had to go through hell to do it. _Moi, je le sais_."

She flushed softly; and her eyes looked beyond his through the open
doorway, rapt and shining.

"You _do_ believe in him now, Michel," she said. "And you forgive him?
He has made me so supremely happy."

Michael shook his head.

"Was I ever an altruist, _petite soeur_? If the man had not made you
happy, I should never have rested till I had you back again. As it
is--" he shrugged his shoulders with an expressive turn of the
hands--"one is glad--for your sake; and one makes the best of an empty
house. But, _mon Dieu_! it _is_ empty without you, Quita! You have
light and fire in you;--now, more than ever. You have temperament.
You inspire a man. Your absence actually affects the quality of my
work. Absurd; but true! And as for my affairs--_nom de Dieu_, the
money slips away like water, but the bills never get paid! You saw how
it was when you came. And in one little week you go again, with a
light heart; while I return, _faute de mieux_, to my 'wallowing in the
mire!'"

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