Chapter VI: Part 6

The absurdity of it now prevailed. His story had taken her away from him. Much thinking had made him lose the ugliness. He had told her matters which were so horrible as to break the spell between them. She seemed to be slipping away, and just now he thought of the man in the Forward Room in relation to that year in the Drift. She was not the first woman who had reached the end of endurance in this business. The laugh formed deep within him--the laugh of a man at the last ditch again. What a fool he had been to tell her what had happened--to forget the part that this particular devil had played in her life! ... He would go on to Wampli now--without a woman waiting. The laugh was twisting in his lips, and he had the sense that if it came it would slay the last hope.

Anna Erivan turned and started at the sight of his face.

"I wasn't thinking of the months in which you held yourself palms-up to death, and drifted along the water-fronts," she said quickly. "Oh, any one could see that has nothing to do with you now."

Romney gasped, and, leaning forward, placed his wide-stretched hand near hers, which went to it.

"I was thinking of the woman," she said slowly. "I never thought I would feel like this."

He was still shaken from the illusion he had suffered, in high voltage. It suddenly occurred to him what it would mean if she had brought a story of an affair with a man--an affair that meant as much to her as Moira Kelvin meant to him. The very thought was torture. There is a touch of insanity in the best of men on this ground. Romney was amazed at his own feelings and at his own simplicity; and over all was a contaminating something that seemed to emerge from his deepest nature--a gladness for her primitive emotion regarding him where another woman was concerned. He wanted to take her close in his arms. An uncertain memory of the night before when he was half-asleep, recurred queerly.... He had not spoken, and yet he knew that in her case, he would want to ask and ask--also that to ask questions meant to bend a mighty pride. He was using his will to be fair--holding that woman is as free an instrument in the world as a man.

"I love your truth," she said hoarsely. "I think that is all that saves it--saves me--the sense that what you say is true."

"There is no more," he whispered. "I have told you all."

"I love your truth--but I hate myself--"

"Anna Erivan, you are superb to me. I think--there is a bit of madness or martyrdom about two coming together this way. I didn't understand what my story could mean to you, until I thought of it the other way--as if you brought it to me--"

"I have nothing interesting like that," she said with a smile. "I think if I brought you a story like that, it would change me in your eyes."

"I would not let it," he said.

"Your will could not save me," she answered. "A man might say and believe (until his own heart was touched) that a woman has all the rights of man to diffuse herself before her mate arrives, but in his own heart, he would see her differently if she did. Oh, it is not the pressure of centuries of man's possession of women--not altogether his instinctive sense of conservation. That's only physical. There is something back even of the patriarch idea about women. She cannot give herself to one and be the same again--not even in her own mind. There is something sacred about that, which men do not know--and which only great women know--"

"Then you think a man big enough to place a woman on the same moral footing as himself has not come to the end of the subject?"

"I think when men are tolerant enough for that, they will be great enough to accept woman's idea of herself, which is greater still."

"What is it--can you tell me?"

"Just so long as a woman has not the spiritual power to formulate her ideal of the one man of her heart, she must accept the nearest, the first or second or third, and must suffer her horrors of mis-mating. But all the time her dream is forming, literally making the one who belongs to her and no other. It builds out of her suffering. It comes out of agony and diffusion, even out of promiscuity. It is the ascent of woman's character into an integrity which can only be touched by one human being. It is not touched if he does not come--"

Romney stood before her, looking into two flashing points her eyes had become.

"It does not play a fortnight--to find out if the man is the one. It does not play at all. It does not suffer from waiting because it does not live in sex. It does not meet its own on any basis of sex--not at first, even though it has passions powerful enough to fire the world--"

"Anna Erivan--have I lost you--am I too far from the dream?"

She arose and came nearer, the table no longer between them.

"I tell you I hate myself because this has hurt me--"

"And I tell you that this morning I feel abysses below you--that you are revealed to me higher than I knew and dreamed."

"That first night, I thought it was he who had come to me ... and last night, running after you, I was sure--"

He started forward, his arms outstretched, but remembered and fell back.

"I said I would wait until you held out your arms--"

Her face turned a little to the side, and he saw a smile suffuse with colour.

"I did last night," she whispered.

*13*

That noon Bamban came and sat in the court for a little period, awaiting any word from his master. It was in Romney's heart to tell him that he meant to start for Wampli to-morrow, and yet he had not spoken of that to Anna Erivan since morning, and he decided to wait until the last judgment of the woman was heard. Bamban smilingly departed, but back of the glittering eyes of the little man, the American fancied an expression:

"You are a tarrier with women."

An Oriental expresses his deepest scorn in a statement somewhat of that nature. It touched Romney very lightly on this day. He was not himself--something lifted and expanded far beyond the man he had been; and yet apart from Anna Erivan he was but a creature of listening and turning. On this day, Anna Erivan had entered a domain of his heart which Moira Kelvin had not found. A questing woman brave enough to wait, a woman above playing with senses, who required no experiments to uncover her own. And her head had lain a moment on his breast, her waist in his hard lean arm.... He wasn't untrue to Moira Kelvin in any thought. Even in the illumination of Anna Erivan, there was still a laughing splendour about the other. He could view the yellow-rug woman now with a man's generosity, though he recognised that there was no answer to Anna Erivan's point. He was proud to the very spirit of his being that it was so.... They strode out into the desert together, when the sun was at its highest. She stopped and caught his arm. It was almost as if the cry of the hyenas had come to her:

"What is it? What is it?" he asked.

"Was she very beautiful?"

Her art was somehow revealed. Anna Erivan had waited until they were far from the village before asking that question.... He was almost well again--not so robust, perhaps, as when he had come to Nadiram, but healed and glowing to-day, as one filled with light. It was only gradually that he dared let the full light in. Sometimes he seemed to be holding a door against it, lest it be too much for his heart. He had followed her about the house that morning until he was amazed at her power over him, and forced himself apart in the room where he had passed the long night. He had waited with every ounce of will-force, and holding was possible so long as he heard her step, but the moment she was silent he rushed forth as one coming up from deep water.

The day was dazzling bright though the heat was not dangerous. She had never been out of the court before in his presence, and something of the gold-brown of the desert came to her, as if all the wasted energy of the sunlight, deluging fruitless rock and barren sand, gathered about her to animate the delicate promise of her being. Desert gold was in her eyes, and noon warmth in her cheeks, her lips parted with joy and ardour and low laughter he had never heard in the house. Clouds were massed into gilded mountains in the low west. The dry heat came up from the sand and the living heat pressed down from the sun. Nadiram was silent behind them, their voices free now in the open, their hearts drinking the power of the light.

"Think of it," she said halting, "think if we should go on and on--you and I. The nights--"

"I thought of that before I came to your door--on the road to Turgim. I thought of journeying on and on through the desert with the woman waiting somewhere--"

"I should be dangerous in a desert-night--"

"Dangerous?" he laughed.

"I should be myself at last. You'll find that dangerous. A desert night would set me free. Perhaps I should find a nature very old and abandoned--"

"In me?"

"In myself."

"Suppose you should hear the cries?"

Anna Erivan laughed. "There would be no Forward Room out here. It is the houses and the presence of men that make me afraid."

... He did not care much to speak, but regarded her face as he had never used his eyes before. Several times during the morning, she had reverted in her talk to incidents of the night before, when he lay in exhaustion, with only a waver of consciousness from time to time.

"Did you know that a woman finding her beloved, looks for a man but finds a child?"

Romney peered closer, his eyelids all but shut in the vivid light.

"This morning as the dawn came in, I saw the child so clearly that I had to touch your face. I would have wept had I not run away for a little time."

After a moment, she added in whispers and falterings:

"Did you know, toward morning, but before the light--when the cold came in--that I was very close to you, leaning forward under the edge of your blanket? ... You were still. Your breathing was like a child's. And then I thought again of your coming in the evening to the court--to the west wall. I don't know how I could have been so hard. I should have broken down in fright, had you not come."

"I only knew that I could not leave you," he said.

"But to-morrow morning--"

He was silent.

"We need not think of it now," she said slowly. "Not until to-night. We shall know best to-night--"

She was staring away into the gilded mountains of cloud in the low west. Romney's eyes followed hers. There seemed a movement there, something filmy white like a great bird, against the brilliant horizon. He could not get his mind away from Wampli. Every moment with her, and the parting seemed harder. The larger consciousness that had come from her, at the same time bound him to her.... Leaving her in Nadiram--alone under the Russian flag. It would take seven days at least to get back, even if his mission made it possible for him to remain as short a time as a day in Wampli. That was not likely. The chances were, if he were not held there, his orders would be to push on. The last packet of orders, designated for reading in Wampli, might contain the open orders for a farther journey of weeks. Romney shivered. There was little mercy in the facts. The great continent of Asia was like a dead weight against him. She touched his arm.

"Look--"

What he saw presently, low upon the sand, had the look of a turtle of large size, the head uplifted from time to time. The strangeness of the creature and the way it moved stirred him oddly.... The thing was yellow--the noon light showed that, the deep satisfying embrowned yellow of some object in which the sun has sunk for ages and ages. This is the yellow of the Gobi at a certain moment of evening. It was the yellow of Moira Kelvin's rug--and this was a robe of a Chinese Holy Man. In India they would have called him a Sannysin.

Hastening forward, they saw that the head, lifted from time to time, was shaven and literally fallen in from emaciation. The gray of death suffused the brown skin, especially where it was thinnest, in lip and temple and nostril. The creature crawled; his age must have been very great, his grasp of life a miracle, yet the robe he wore was woven from the breasts of young camels and coloured, as the priests would say, with God's own light. This is a colour princes dare not wear. It trailed upon the sand and took no hurt or stain; it was fine as leather can be, a protection from the sun and a saving grace from cold.

"He is my Ancient!" Anna Erivan cried. "He is the one who came to the court long ago, and left me such strength. He is very dear and very wise."

This robe was first to show Romney the quality of his guest, but he was soon conscious of something beside, that made him very tender, so that he knelt and gently lifted the ancient ascetic by the shoulders. The chin now rested in the hollow of his arm. The old man leaned there as if in peace. Presently Romney's eyes were called back to the town--a mere low jagged contour behind in the blinding stillness. Bamban was running toward them. At a little distance, he halted, dropped to his knees, and thus came forward, the expression on his face altogether new. Indeed, it was dissolute with devotion.

And now the old Father appeared to sleep in Romney's arm, and thus was carried between the men, a light burden, back to the Consulate in Nadiram.

They brought a cot to the living-room, Anna Erivan joyously preparing food, filling the begging-bowl with the choicest that her house afforded. Yet it was hours before the old priest awoke, and during this time Bamban never moved from his devotional posture by the door of the court. It appeared now that the aged Buddhist had pushed his austerities somewhat farther than usual, almost extinguishing the flicker of life that remained in his wasted breast. His opening speech had to do with the absolute rightness of all things, especially with the excellence of the universe and the exceeding rightness of right knowledge, to all of which Romney attentively agreed and Bamban degraded himself to accept. The Sannysin advanced deeper into the thought, enunciating his conviction that all was well in Nadiram and in the house. He spoke briefly of his all-readiness for departure from this life, saying that he had been ready three days before in the desert, that he was ready now to pass or presently. Having impressed his readiness, he ventured to add his personal point of view to the effect that he considered it a misery to be called back into life through the medium of strong food, but qualified this opinion by inquiring if he had not returned to the hideous pressure of the flesh with some slight degree of calmness and cheer. Romney encouraged him to believe this, hastily translating for the woman; and Bamban projected himself in abasement, whereupon the Sannysin slept again.

Toward evening, the ancient head was once more raised into the hollow of Romney's arm. Bamban had scarcely left the Consulate for a moment throughout this extended interval. The Buddhist raised his eyes to Romney's face, saying that he was now acquainted with the deep reason for his misery in being so relentlessly called back to the coils of matter; that he recognised in the white man a younger brother, a true Brahman, whereupon he gave Romney a small bit of parchment, the size of three postage-stamps, upon which was written a Sanscrit phrase, having to do with the inspiration of the soul, and a few further marks which even Romney, though he deciphered them, could not understand.

Thus was the coming of Rajananda and his passing likewise, for he asked that he be carried forth at sundown, to the exact spot where they had first seen the upraised head. There they placed the body upon the sand, accepted a cold claw and a gesture to return to Nadiram. The Buddhist then slept, the withered yellow cheek pressed upon the breast of his old Mother, the desert.

The disquieting part of the whole affair was that Bamban appeared to have acquired the habit of abasing himself in Romney's presence, though more than ever his eyes avoided Anna Erivan's. The three returned to the Consulate in the early darkness and Bamban's impulse to kow tow again asserted itself on the flags of the court.

"Come, come, Bamban; get up and go to the Rest House for your supper. I'm the same friend of yours--as always."

The Chinese obeyed, and Romney turned from where he stood in the court, to the door-way. Anna Erivan stood there--as on the evening of his arrival.

*14*

They sat down together in the deep shadow, for a time not thinking of talk or food. Each felt a singular relief with the passing of Bamban, and the excellent calm that the presence of Rajananda had left behind.

"Did you know he is not Chinese?" Romney said at last.

Anna Erivan shook her head.

"I just thought of it now--the name Rajananda, the Sanscrit on the little parchment, the character of his sayings, though he spoke in Chinese. Then he said I was Brahman.... There was much to say, much to ask him. I don't see how I could have let him go without words--"

"One only thinks of listening when a holy man speaks."

The man smiled at her. "But the thought comes to me again and again that he might have put me straight on the mission--that he is very high in power, possibly of the Inner Temple--"

"You may meet him again--perhaps at Wampli. To-morrow you must go on--"

Romney did not resist the thought at this time. He looked about the low stone room, at the forward door, toward the inner room and at the door to the court.... It was like a call, a trial of strength. He had found his own. It would be weak to tarry with a task undone.

"I will be safe," she said, as if following his thoughts.

"I think you will see me differently--if this thing is well done," he told her. "I remember this morning in our misery over the old story, the need of doing some great thing to show you that I was not that man now, but I didn't relate it to going on to Wampli--"

"You are not the man of the Drift, as you call it. I see that, as you said--a quick review of all the hells of life. You needed it. Nothing so low as that which held him--" she pointed to the Forward Room, "--could hold you.... You must go on to-morrow, but the separation is not for you alone. Perhaps there is a dream that I must form in readiness for action. It is hard for you to go--but as hard for the one who must stay. No harder thing could be called from us. I think I could not have endured it, except for the coming of the Holy Man. He brought me strength before."

"But if, from the desert, that laughter should come at evening--"

She knelt before him an instant.

"I shall think of you and Rajananda--of your bringing back a sign for the little ones. I shall think of the days ahead--our journey out of the desert together--two on the dromedary--the task done--Nadiram behind forever--"

The thought of the hyenas had unsteadied them in spite of her courage. Hyenas meant Nadiram to Romney--and one white woman alone in the midst of a town full of Orientals--bands of desert men passing through--nothing but a Russian flag. He shivered. Anna Erivan arose to get supper. They ate in silence. The thought of to-morrow was like a gray mist between them again. They found themselves very tired; the power of Rajananda slipped farther and farther from them. Often they started to speak, but lost the impulse before the words came. Wampli was inexorable. If Romney failed now, he knew he would find himself less a man.

"It's no use. It's got to be done," he said impatiently at last, "but they seem to be binding us closer to-night rather than making it easy--"

"They?" she whispered.

"Did I say _they_? I think I must have meant the Fates or something of the kind. It isn't all wonder and exaltation--a meeting like this--and yet if I fail to-morrow, I am not what I thought. My work seemed here until you came to me--came running after me last night. Now that I have you, I know that I must go--but there's something impassible in the thought. I can't get over it. It's like walking along the edge of a canyon--no wings, no bridge--"

"You will go," she whispered. "To-morrow you will see the way. It will come with the morning sun. We are very tired to-night. We have been everything to-day. It's like the little picture of a whole life. Why, think of it--last night you were unconscious from weakness.... You must go to your cot now--"

"Leave so soon--the last night?"

"We will arise early. We are helpless in the dark to-night. We can't think. We are like two desolate beings, lost to each other.... I will call you early--"

"My God, don't go so soon!"

Romney didn't know his own voice, didn't know the weakness that had come to him. Her face seemed to be receding in the lamp-light.

"We are not sane!" she whispered. "Have you thought--that it is going to be too much for us? You must go.... Oh, what shall we do?"

"Let us sit in silence together," he asked her.... "The last night--to go apart so soon--"

"Do you not see that we must sleep to be sane? You must feel as I do. We are wearing--wearing. The day has been terrible. This morning, as you told me of that woman, I thought I should die. Even my Holy Man only healed me for a little while. I think it is a madness--a man and woman yearning like this. Words don't help. I look at you--and feel far off. Your hand that I reach for only tells me that to-morrow you must go. It seems nothing will do but--oh, I don't understand--I want to lose myself in your arms. It seems as if all nature were driving me to you--and that you were going away--"

He held her fast and understood it all as only a lover could, for she seemed to be speaking from his own heart. Any separation between them was poignant agony. He wanted to become identified with her--to lose himself, as she expressed it--yet the horror of the coming day prevailed upon his mind, making thoughts and words and even the movement of his hands an indescribable heaviness.

"It seems there should be but two in a world at a time like this. Our walk in the desert must have maddened me. I want some hill-country for our Meeting. I want the desert ... I must go. If I do not sleep, I shall not be strong."

"Do you think you can sleep?"

"I shall try. Perhaps--we are so exhausted."

They stood apart as if by common impulse, searching each other's eyes. It was the deep look that passes but once between a man and a woman. She drew back a little, saying quietly:

"It is not our hour."

And then a sudden pity seemed to come to her, akin to that which he had met the night before--something from his face. She came to him.

"Oh, don't think it has anything to do with the world. I would have no mere man tell us when we are one. It is nothing like that. Our marriage must be made in a better place than earth--or else we are very far apart and mad indeed. No man--none less than a saint, a master--could tell me when I am your wife--oh, yes, our Holy Man--but I would not wait for him. But don't you see--this is not the hour? Our hearts are broken. I feel Nadiram heavy upon me like a low and appraising eye. This place is full of the _old_. It belongs to the cries in the night--it belongs to him of the Forward Room.... Listen, to-night we must rest, or we will break to-morrow. I feel as if nothing mattered but strength for to-morrow. Go to your room--yes, go to your room and bring your cot here--"

"Anna--Anna!"

"Yes, and I will bring mine beside it--here beside it.... Yes, and we shall lie down, hand in hand, and call upon our strength--and rest--don't you remember?--like little children--"

It was in a kind of ecstasy that he moved about his room, making ready--the sweetness of the woman overcoming every other thought. He was hastening, yet he knew she would be longer in coming to the living room. His love went forth to her, often his hand and his step stilled to listen for her movement in the house. With a queer laugh, he realised that she was calling forth from his heart a force that could never come back to him--that she was necessary for life, that his days would be very few if she were taken. He was forced into the lover's establishment of every thought on an immortal basis. "Give all to love"--he had not known what that meant, even last night.

His hand touched something soft and clinging in the saddle-bags. He did not draw it forth at once, but knelt beside it, covering his eyes with his free hand. It was the crumpled bit of chiffon that he had carried so long and forgotten so remotely of late.... He held it in his hand. It was very dry and thin--a little dusty from the bag. Many pictures rushed through his mind--from Longstruth's to the house of Dr. Ti Kung. It had gone down into the Drift with him, and come up to this hour. It was done. It was good. He touched it to his cheek, and held it to the candle-flame, breathing a blessing upon the woman who had stood head and shoulders above her beloved in the doorway of Minglapo's house.

He folded the blankets and carried forth his cot to the living-room. The little dining-table was thrust back to the wall. The open fire was burning low, the lamp was set apart.

"I am almost ready," she called.

"May I not come to help you with your cot?" he answered.

"In a moment. I will let you know."

He went to the pitcher and drank a cup of cool water, then stood motionless beside the table until her trailing voice:

"Now you may come in."

It was a little white-washed room, a silver cross on the plaster above her pillow. He dropped to his knee there for an instant, his thought for her care while he was gone. She stood apart watching, her hands reaching back against the wall, her eyes burning upon him.

He placed the cot beside his and turned to the door. She came forth, very little in her bare feet and white robe, a shawl about her shoulders, holding something in her hand.

Romney waited for her to come forward, put out the lamp, and found his place. There was a moment of stillness, and then her hand came forth to meet his, and he found that it was the little silver cross that she held.

The door to the court was open, and the moonlight lay pale upon the stones.

*15*

Romney thought at first that it was a flutter of wings that aroused him. The room was cool and touched with gray, not of moonlight. Many vague images passed through his mind before the actual realisation of the present. He turned to find the pillow empty at his side.

He felt the cold of morning, and a silencing dread. A dark shadow hung before his eyes like the tangible presence of fear, and then a hand lifted from the blanket close to his breast and patted him softly.

Now he saw her face, low in the cot. It was turned to him, and Anna Erivan slept. He moved slightly and the hand patted him again. Romney then lay very still, reflecting upon the miracle of her mothering instinct. Without awakening she had felt his sudden stress. It was like a babe's cry, and her hand had brought it peace. The presence of her soothed him again. She was resting so sweetly that he could not arouse her now. Contemplating the magic of it all in the thin dawn light, he fell asleep again.

... Some one had come with a great message--the perfect word for him. The lips moved close to his with the story--touched his with a kind of imperishable wonder. He opened his eyes to the full sunlight, and Anna Erivan's face was close to his.

"Take me with you!" she whispered.

She was dressed and kneeling beside him. His arms went out to her.

"Take me with you!" she said again.

"It is done," he answered, yet even as he spoke he felt that he would have to suffer for that.

"You will take me with you--on your camel--into the desert!"

"Yes."

"Do you know what it means?"

"Yes."

Again in his consciousness came the sense that what he promised was a failure for which he would have to pay.

She stared into the west. "No one goes that way from Nadiram," she said. "I have been here a year, yet Wampli is but a name to me. Even you, coming from Peking, know that desert bands watch the ways around Wampli. We shall have no escort--"

"We shall pay the tariff demanded. I have credentials that worked before."

"The little parchment of Rajananda shall help us!" she exclaimed.

"Also we have Bamban, a camel-tender, good compasses."

"You think there is no danger of getting lost?" she asked, and he did not search in vain for her smile.

"I have been afraid to leave you here," he said. "There is danger, but it is here--it is everywhere, in the desert and out--if they want to bring us danger--"

"_They_--again," she whispered.

"I do not feel that we could be lost _together_. Are you afraid? Would you rather stay?"

She laughed and leaned toward him. "Those who have met our kind of fears, are not afraid of mere men and desert distances.... It will be--it will be almost too great a thing--to leave Nadiram and all this--and go out into the desert with you--"

He saw she had not said all:

"Yes--I would go without food or drink. I would go with you--for you are all that faith means.... Better and better I understand. I do not think we are to die soon--but if that is so--it will be together--a rapture in that." ....

"I have thought every day of our going out in the desert," he said.

His eyes kindled from her nearness. "I saw it the first night here--and every night as I sat at the west wall--"

"We will start to-night!"

"Yes."

"I have tea nearly ready. You will put the cots back--and this--you know where it hangs. We will take it with us tonight."

She gave him the little cross.

"Hurry now and dress, and breakfast will be ready. Don't mind me. I shall be at the fire--"

"I wonder that I did not waken when you did--that I did not hear you."

"I was very quiet."

"I awoke once in the night--and when I stirred, you patted me as if I were--"

"I was dreaming," she said softly, her face turned from him. "I was dreaming--and once I awoke in the night."

Romney felt the very core of the mystery now--his passion not to take or seize, but to give her his life. All the difference between the old and the new was in this--the difference between flesh and spirit, death and life. The thought came that this which he now knew had to do with the romances of the coming age--the passion to give one's self, not to seize something for one's own. He wanted to give her every beauty from his past and the high conceptions from the future, one by one. He had loved her spirit, her understanding mind, her presence, somehow as detached principles until this moment. Now they seemed one. All had come to the very earth of her being. He had knelt to her. The touch of her lips was the whole mystery. Nothing seemed impossible. He went to the door. Her word "to-night" was ringing through his whole being.

He sought Bamban early, to remark that they would set out for Wampli at noon.

"There is some extra baggage at the Consulate, including some provisions. We will need an extra camel and driver. In adding to the provisions in stock, arrange for four persons, Bamban, and don't spare on the little matters of extra comfort and accommodation--"

"Four persons?" said Bamban.

"Anna Erivan is going with us to Wampli."

Romney had a peculiar sense of hatred for an instant from his servant, who a moment before was inclined to prostrate himself, at least in effect. Bamban's hands were lifted, his head thrust forward from his shoulders, thin lips protruding, and a kind of dusk about his features.

"It would be better for us to return with her to Turgim in case she is not safe here, rather than to have a woman on the next part of the journey. Any delay is better than taking a woman--"

"I think we'll be able to manage according to the plan--"

"You will forgive your servant, but our mission is endangered by this plan. The solicitude of those represented by the master who came yesterday is withdrawn from any party which contains a white woman. It would be wiser for you to give up the mission and return to Peking--"

Romney coloured a little. "The master who came yesterday is friendly," he said.

"I am afraid you are taking the woman to her death--to say nothing of your own."

"Bring the camels toward the end of afternoon, Bamban."

Romney turned and walked back to the Consulate. He had met nothing of this sort before from his most excellent _boy_; and the fact that Bamban's resistance tallied with a fear in his own mind, added to the coldness with which he regarded the venture. He recalled his first swift rejection of taking Anna Erivan forward on the mission. So utterly had he put the thought away that it had not returned even in the great stress at the thought of separation. Yet when she asked to go, there had been no question; only the instant sense of warning which he had put from him steadily.... His step quickened. The braver way would be to change now--to explain his fear and ask her to remain. The force to accomplish this, however, did not arise in him. He had always been stubborn. He regarded his stubbornness now as something before which he was powerless.... She had asked to go. He had agreed. She was preparing even now. The journey to the desert was a part of her dream--their dream. It called him now. Rajananda--a queer sense of the old priest's love and tenderness and guardianship came to mind. Romney shared with Anna Erivan a horror for Nadiram. He did not accept the thought that he was taking the woman to her death, yet an icy draught came to him somehow from the thought, a certain grim finality. He did not know how he loved her until he was near the court. A gust of warmth, an indescribable elation, swept over him, as he perceived her against the doorway.

"You are pale," she said.

"It is a strain to be away from you," he answered.

"Bamban is Chinese. He does not understand," she said, with a touch of mirth. "I knew he would do his worst to make you go alone."

Romney found that he had hoped she would change of her own accord, but this was out of the question.

"I have locked up all his papers, and locked the Forward Room. My bags are almost ready--and yours. I helped a little in your room. I could not miss that thrill.... Ah, do not be troubled. I would die here.... Bamban does not know everything. Perhaps I will be a good omen, instead of evil. I think Rajananda would not make me stay."

"Now that's queer; I had the same thought," said Romney.

Anna Erivan was standing by the table, waiting for him to come to her.

"There should not be any mission--any task at this time," she said strangely. "There should be only two in the world--two and a desert--"

"They have given us power," he answered. "All these obstacles make us only cleave together more furiously. I think I could not have known you as I know you now, if everything had been smooth for us. Perhaps it is in the Plan. There are always rapids where two rivers come together."

For an instant her eyes burned passionately into his.

"You are wise," she whispered. "You fill a woman's dream. Last night you were like a priest. To-day you are like an adventurer--"

"To-night?"

"To-night--who knows what the desert will do?"

The camels came when the shadows were long. Bamban's face was wistful.... Romney's lips moved as one wonder-struck, as Anna Erivan emerged a last time from her room in riding-garb--starry-eyed and silent. They saved their words for the desert. Vile Nadiram was in a sunlit stupor, and did not stir as three camels crossed its face like insects--a dirty face in the late day.... They looked back. Nadiram lay still in the midst of thin sharp shadows, not a voice, not a movement--just a sprawl of lifeless browns and thin dark lines, and all around it the desert in the gold of sunset.

The woman spoke:

"A good-bye to that--the rooms, the beds, the streets, the Chinese," she whispered. "Oh, how I have hated it all--but a good-bye to that!"

They halted soon for supper, glad of the fire in the quick chill of dusk, glad for the cheer of the kettle and food. Bamban and the camel-driver sat apart. Romney raised his hand and his servant approached.

"We will set out as soon as the moon rises. And, Bamban, fill the water-cans now, and all you need from the water-hole."

This was done, and Romney led Anna Erivan to the water, and drew apart, waiting. The dusk crept in, and he thought of Bathsheba taking her bath in the fountain on the roof-tops.... All the magic of the old East opened again as he waited, but the moments were unbearably slow. His heart quickened, as after months of separation, when she appeared from the hollow--exquisite to the finger-tips, even in the desert..... The last of their fresh milk was used in that supper, and they fared very well indeed with perfect tea and dried fruit and loaves of her own baking at the Consulate.

"Are you rested for a hard night's journey?" he asked with a laugh.

"I have not been so rested since a little child," she answered.

... They were standing in the darkness by the camels, all prepared for departure, when there came out from the darkness of the desert that insane laughter, the mouthing of stones in thick wet glass.

She caught her breath and clasped his arms. She was laughing, as one who has been drenched with cold water.

"I had forgotten," she said. "It's quite all right, only I had forgotten. I'm not afraid at all.... Why, they are nothing more than jackals--"

The moon was two-thirds full and in meridian. Three nights--and moonlight all the way. Ahead, in the east, the great planet arose. Her eyes were lost in that rising. It was then Anna Erivan sang her song, like the ancient Deborah at the end of conquest:

"A star in the East--" she whispered, leaning back to him. "Our quest--by swiftest camels.... I love it. I love the night and the cold wind---the smell of the desert and the smell of the camels. This is our flight--and what is at the end, Beloved? ... You know, you know, what it is we journey to by swiftest camels--the risen star before our eyes--"

"A little child," said Romney.

For a moment, she clung to him.

*16*

They were in a country of rocks. It was late afternoon of the second day's travel, and Bamban had just found a suitable place for camp. Anna Erivan's eyes had been turned toward the south for a moment. Now her hand pressed Romney's sleeve. He followed her eyes and discerned a black movement in the distance.

Silently they watched a single black figure which presently appeared more clearly, not on account of an approach, but because of an eminence gained. They saw a signal as of a wind-blown cloak. A moment later a party of horsemen appeared upon the slope of a rolling waste of sand, halted before the figure that had signalled--then all were in the saddle and sweeping forward.

Romney's eyes turned to Bamban. The little chap was kneeling in the midst of the camp-kit, but watching the horsemen. Similar parties of horsemen had been met on the out-journey, but there had not come to Bamban's face before quite such a look as now. He stepped forward to Romney.

"It is the Dugpas," he said. "They are devils."

"I think we'll take care of them all right," Romney said lightly.

Anna Erivan fixedly regarded the approach of the desert-men. There were a dozen or fourteen, riding at a gallop in a semi-circle about their leader--the faces bent forward, their black cloaks blown full behind.

"We met this sort of thing coming out," Romney explained.

His hand crept under his blouse to the place of the little parchment. She did not answer. There were no further words between them, just her quick look, haunting and tender, and his movement slightly nearer.

"Greeting--_Amitabah_."

Romney's salutation was returned by the leader. He came forward alone. He was old, very lean and sharp of face, singular in his preservation of wiry strength. His face was a surprise, also, since it might be called cruel or kind, according to the moment; but it was in no wise heavy with brutality. The ponies were given over to the charge of a third portion of the party and were left some distance from the camels. The relieved riders came forward in twos. The significant thing to Romney and the woman was that these were mainly men of years, a queer phantom grayness about them, gray in the black of their skin, a touch of gray in the dulled red of their lips. Life had shown them more than comes from mere desert-riding. Bamban strode in closer. The leader loosed a strap at his throat, the black cloak falling back from his shoulders. It was retained at his hips by a girdle. He shook his arms with a queer spasmodic movement, as if to straighten out a cramp of hard riding from his muscles. There was a thin line of white foam on his lips and he spat twice--pointing first to the woman, then to the camels.

"He does not want her here when we talk," said Bamban. "I will take her there."

He was back in a moment. The usual questions as to direction and motive of the journey were passed. Romney was then informed that he would not be allowed to go on to Wampli. The American drew forth the usual passports, also Anna Erivan's credentials from Russia, and had them thrust back into his hands unopened. The native leader spat again. Romney now offered the parchment from Rajananda. The other took it in his two hands, pressed it to his lips, then turned away, bowing his head close to the paper.

At this point, Bamban undertook to say something to his master, and called upon himself a look of peculiar ferocity from the second in command.

Now certain of the followers came up with long sharply-pointed poles, which were driven into the ground in the form of a square. Before the final stake was driven, Romney and the woman were bundled in. The whole enclosure was then woven with leather thongs, and the sides covered with skins and cloaks. Soon all was quiet about, the chill of night increasing.

Romney called. Bamban was summoned from the camels to interpret. The white man asked for his blanket rolls. Bamban was allowed to serve his master to this extent.... In the early darkness, a twist of dried goat's-flesh and a tin of tea were passed over the pickets.

Romney was quiet many moments, subdued with reflections of his own stubbornness. The woman's hand had come forward from the dusk, touching sometimes his hand, sometimes his knee, or patting his cheek. At last she spoke:

"I know that you are thinking that you might have done differently. You are troubled that this happened with me here, but really I do not mind. I have been many times more miserable--ah, night after night, when you came to the west wall, scores of times before you came to Nadiram--much more miserable. This that has come to us--somehow I cannot lose the great joy and beauty of our meeting and mating. I cannot think steadily of these lesser things. They come to mind, but this wonderful thing we have known routs them forth--"

"You do not falter," he whispered. "You rise and rise, Anna Erivan. I should not ask more of the Gobi, or from Earth itself, than this meeting with you. You said days ago that this was but a place of meetings and departures--perhaps you were right. But I had glimpses of a longer journey than this--that is all."

"That will come to pass--if not to Wampli and beyond--then a still longer journey together.... I am very close to you. We are warm. The thongs give easily to one's back. Will you not lie down a little?"

... His head was upon her knee, her hand lightly touching his temples.... Full darkness had given way to the moon-glow, but the orb itself had not risen for them to see. They heard a sudden restlessness from the picket-line of the horses, a movement as if the natives had started up quickly from the fire--then the soft tread of camels and a hail. The coughing snarl followed from their own camels, as the stranger-beasts came to a halt near-by. The desert greeting, "_Amitabah_" from the Dugpa leader now reached their ears. Another desert party had joined the camp.

For a long time the leaders intoned by the fires; then voices dwindled and the flame-shadows on the picket-wall died to the red glow of embers.... Romney was wondering if the parchment would be of value.... Anna Erivan was not asleep. The slightest movement of his hand and her pressure answered. She was so frail and yet so strong; absolutely courageous, yet so tender. This fragrance that came to him from her was like a breath from home. He was not ready for the end. He wanted earth with her, more than heaven; yet the sense of peril was somehow lost in the peace of her presence, and the madness of any human adversary was less than her power....

Romney's eyes stung with the dawn. The cloaks had suddenly been removed from the pickets and he was staring straight into the rising sun. He turned softly to greet the woman. She sat up laughing like a child. The morning air was keen and bright, the wood-smoke fragrant. Nothing from these black strangers appeared to dismay her, though the impending evil became acute in Romney's mind. The party of later arrival, consisting of a dozen horsemen, was already prepared to depart, standing at the head of their mounts, with the exception of the older men who were conferring with the leader of the original party. Bamban had been called into this conference. Romney saw him bow his head and hold his palms out, a matter of uncertain significance to the white man, though the suspicion arose that the _boy_ was expressing himself to the effect that he had done his best to prevent the woman's coming. Queerly enough the whole spell was broken for an instant as a pair of horses, belonging to the original party, stretched their tethers too close to the camel pickets. There was a tangle, and vicious squealing of beasts, through which Romney observed that his camel driver conducted himself with singular calm.

"What a perfect night's rest," said Anna Erivan.

Romney regarded her with awe. She held up her frail arms to the light and smiled. Her girlish breast seemed moulded of new wonder for that day. It was only in detached fashion that Romney could _take_ the facts. Neither of the parties seemed to have the slightest concern about food. The halting place of the night was clear of unpacked provisions of any kind. Apparently Bamban was not permitted to serve his own. The sun was rising. The rock-strewn desert was like a dream. The sand was drinking in its false life; the rocks were touched with morning red; the horizon was a ring of pearly azure with one flaming jewel of rose-gold. Romney turned his eyes from that rising radiance to the woman, and touched her hand.

The leader of the first party and two others now approached. Romney realised that talk was finished; that what was to be done was to be done now. Then like a thrust their purpose came to him. It was like a physical horror crawling nearer and nearer. Anna Erivan was not slower to grasp the meaning of the approach. Her arms went to him, her face close to his:

"They can only separate us a little. I am yours, body and soul, remember that--yours--yours--my Beloved."

The full madness really came to him when he understood that the woman recognised as coming to pass that which was the most rending fear of his life. It happened very quickly. Two of the pickets were pulled out, the thongs slipped, and the leader stepped back, bowing his head in sign for them to come forth. Romney was first to obey and was ordered to stand with the two desert-men at the right of the opening. Anna Erivan was beckoned to the left by the leader's side. They moved forward, not largely separated, but Romney was halted--a brown hand on each arm--by his own camels; and Anna Erivan was led forward toward the second party of horsemen, which stood in readiness to mount. Whether it was the restraining hands or the obedience of the woman--her face turned back to him--which broke Romney's control, he did not know himself, but leaping forward, he was caught and held, and the battle was on.

He heard her voice. Nothing that he did prevailed; nothing that a white man could do with his body counted against this silent pair of spine-twisters. Knee or knuckle, he could not tell, but it seemed a steel bolt was hurled into his back. He sprawled like a frog, her face and a certain amazement at his own futility queerly blended in his last flash of consciousness--his open mouth pressed into the sand.

*PART THREE: THE GOBI*

*RAJANANDA*

*1*

At times Romney thought he was insane. There were stretches of desert miles, and hours of travel in which he knew only the waver of a brassy film before his eyes--no sand, no sky, just a slowly moving brazen curtain that was like an emanation from burning metal.... He had awakened to the rock of the camel, and day was high. Bamban was nearest, beyond him the Dugpa leader and six of his party. They were on the western trail. Vaguely to Romney's mind came the word "Wampli." Bamban waited for him to speak.

"Did the other party give her the third camel to ride?" Romney asked.

"Yes. Also one driver is with their party."

"Where did they go?"

"I don't know. We turned out of the camp before they left. I think they went back toward Nadiram."

"Was she hurt?"

"No. They treated her with every care."

"Did she say anything--after I fell?"