The Potter and the Clay: A Romance of Today

by Maud Howard Peterson

  *XV.*

  Three weeks later, when it seemed as though the battle had been won,Trevelyan got a hasty scrawl from Mackenzie.

  It had been carried by a man of the regiment, who had ridden the tenmiles on a dead run, and now stood exhausted before Trevelyan, his facetwitching with the fright born of the tidings he had brought.

  Trevelyan took the note in silence and he looked hard at the man’s facebefore he opened the message. Then he bent his head and forced thepaper open, still without comment.

  "Eight cases broken out in barracks. If you can leave—come.Mackenzie."

  He crushed the note in his hand.

  "My respects to Dr. Mackenzie," he said quietly, raising his head andmeeting the eyes of the trooper, "and I will be with him to-night."

  He spent the morning in arranging matters and leaving orders with hischief helper, who was to remain for a time, more as a precautionarymeasure than for anything else, and then made his own scant preparationsin haste to get to Mackenzie before nightfall.

  He had thought first of slipping away, fearful of what the knowledge ofhis going might bring, but the more he thought of it the more he put theidea from him. After all the truth was the wisest.

  He called all those of the half hundred natives together who had beenspared of the scourge—most of whom he had fought death for, and headdressed them in Hindostanee. He spoke to them simply and briefly; hetold them what they must do—not why they must do it, but simply becausehe ordered them to, and expected their obedience—relying on theworshipful fear with which they regarded him.

  "If I hear of your disobeying me—and I shall hear it, for my ears arelong and sharp—I shall come back and I will kill the dog who dared todisobey my commands, and you are to obey and do just what the _Sahib_ Ileave here tells you to do—do you understand?"

  A low murmuring of assent greeted him, and one or two of the women heldtheir babies up that they might look upon the great _Sahib_ who wasleaving them for a time; who was wise enough to know ten miles off ifanyone disobeyed him; who was strong enough to kill the dog who tried todisobey his great commands.

  And the murmuring of their voices followed him as he rode away from themlater, and the echo of their "_Sahib! Sahib! Sahib!_" haunted him, notknowing that in the years that lay ahead, the native mothers would telltheir babies of the greatness of the Sahib who once had come to them.

  The shadows, the children of the sunset, lay thick upon the road, overwhich he journeyed back to Mackenzie, and in the silence he began tothink of England and of Scotland, and of Cary.

  He thought of them all then, in the pause that came between the strugglehe had just passed through and the struggle that lay ahead, as he hadnot had the time or peace to think of them since he had left Patna. Nordid he try to force the thoughts from him as he had done on leavingPatna, but he went in search of them as a father goes in search oflittle truant children hiding in the dark, and brings them back andholds them close with caresses.

  He brought the vision of Mactier forth so, and he went over everyfamiliar gesture, every tone of Mactier’s voice he knew; he called upthe mother-face of his aunt, the soft pressure of her hand; and hethought of his uncle and Maggie and Kenneth, and ofStewart—lingeringly—and of his father.

  And then he brought forth the picture plate, buried in the dark room ofhis soul, and he thought of her; and he thought, and thought of her! Heheld the dream picture up between him and the light of the dying day,and once he put out his hand slowly and it rested lightly in the air,but in his dream it rested on Cary’s head. Once he raised his headsuddenly and sharply, and he breathed quicker than his wont. The nightshadows crept up and peered into his thin, lined face with thedark-circled eyes; and though he was alone with only the air touchinghim, in his dream his face was close to hers.

  And back of the dreams was the echo of the ocean on the crags. But thedreams and the echo faded as he came within sight of the militaryhospital, and the thoughts receded back and back into the darknessbefore the new necessity of the hour; but the truant children were notlost, only hiding from him, and peering at him from the shadows andwaiting for him to come and look for them and take them home.

  He dismounted, hardly conscious of the greetings the men gave him asthey crowded around him, and he went at once to Mackenzie, as an officerreporting for duty.

  Mackenzie looked at him sharply as he entered. The full beard he hadgrown had changed him, and would have hidden the loss of flesh and thehaggard lines to any other than Mackenzie.

  "You don’t look fit to go on with the job, boy," he said concisely.

  Trevelyan laughed.

  "That’s absurd, don’t you know? I’m all right."

  "It’s more than you look—you’re all pulled down!"

  "You’re dreaming! Tell me about the barracks!"

  And Mackenzie told him—briefly.

  All night he and Mackenzie and Clarke worked over the new cases, restingby turns, and in the morning two other men were brought in. One was thetrooper who had borne the summons to Trevelyan.

  The cases developed slowly, and with an effort that had in it somethingof the supernatural, they kept it from spreading into the mow down of anepidemic. But the men were sick—sicker than any had yet been, and outof the proportion stricken, the mortality was frightful, and Death’stwin brother, Fear, laid his heavy hand upon the district.

  The men were good, on the whole, as to precautionary measures, for theyheld Mackenzie and even Clarke in wholesome awe, but they regardedTrevelyan with something greater still. They were ashamed beforehim—ashamed to mention their fear, or even think it, as he came and wentamong them, silent, commanding, and unmoved by fear.

  Mackenzie or Clarke could not have spoken so to them—silently. Theywere at their own business. They were supposed and expected to meetdisease and death, daily, hourly if necessary, and not be afraid. ButTrevelyan was not a surgeon; he had come out to them to serve them intheir extremity—voluntarily—without military command, and they grew tothink of the scourge after a while as they would have looked upon ahostile tribe to be conquered—as an enemy to be vanquished for theQueen.

  And as though the lessening of their panic was the sign for the dyingout of the scourge, the cholera cases decreased as the days worethemselves away.

  It was toward the end of the desperate fight that they had made thatMackenzie came in one day at dawn, to relieve Trevelyan’s watch over thehalf dozen cases in his wing of the hospital. He noticed that Trevelyanlooked oddly white, and that there was a drawn expression about hismouth and face.

  "What is it," he asked. "Aren’t you feeling well?"

  "Why, yes; what made you ask?"

  "You look——"

  "It’s the daylight and the sickly candle," Trevelyan answered shortly ashe rose to leave. "McHennessy, here, has put in a night of it. See youlater."

  Once outside in the narrow passage Trevelyan leaned up stupidly againstthe wall. His head was hurting him violently and was colder than thehand he pressed against it, and a sudden deadly nausea seized him. Hestared hard at the wall opposite and made a movement as though to callMackenzie. Then he drew back and waited. A numbness crept into hislegs, and it seemed to him to deaden all his power. After awhile theseizure passed and he stumbled over to the apothecary’s room, and hebegan to measure out the old prescription of the morphia and calomel andwhite sugar. What was the good of calling Mackenzie when Mackenzie coulddo nothing more for him than he could do for himself? Then he went intoan empty room kept for emergency cases at the end of the building, andflung himself down.

  After awhile the deadly nausea returned and he sat up and crawled to hisfeet, and went back to the apothecary’s room and measured out theprescription again—three hours was the limit between doses, and hiswatch said that the three hours had passed. He believed the watch hadlied, and that it was thirty hours instead.

  Mackenzie opened the door and stood transfixed on the threshold.Treve
lyan conscious of the movement turned and started violently.

  "What are you doing?" Mackenzie’s voice was terrible in its hardness.

  Trevelyan held up the scales with a trembling hand, and he made an oddsound in his throat that was intended for a laugh.

  "Measuring morphia! What do you suppose?"

  Mackenzie came up close to him, and his horror-stricken eyes lookedstraight into Trevelyan’s sunken ones.

  "Who for?"

  Trevelyan was silent.

  "Answer me!"

  Trevelyan shook his head piteously, and a ghastly pallor crept slowly upover his face and into the hollows of his temples and his cheeks.

  "You’re ill, and you didn’t call me!"

  "What was the good——"

  Trevelyan swayed forward. When he spoke again there was an apology inhis hoarse voice because he was ill.

  "It’s the nausea," he said simply.