The search in Angel's hut proved fruitless, although the dhurries were taken up, and the ayah passed her slim nervous hand over every inch of the floor, whilst her mistress held aloft the lantern, and Mrs. Waldershare—otherwise passive—poured forth passionate lamentations.
"I'm certain I lost it in the lower hut," she announced, with a catch in her breath. "Give me the light, and I will go and look for it myself—I can never rest until it is found."
"But the lake," objected Angel. "There may be great risk. Philip says it will come down in an hour."
"Bah! I am not afraid," rejoined Lola, with profound scorn. "Those huts are well above water-mark, and it is only eight o'clock. I shall not be more than a few minutes; but I don't know the path in the dark. Ayah, you come, and I will give you five rupees."
In reply to this appeal and bribe, the ayah shook her head, and said:
"No, no, mem sahib—that not good—plenty water soon—soon coming."
"Then I'll have to go alone—for go I will," she announced excitedly.
"I can show you the way," said Angel, putting on her waterproof, and taking the lantern; "we can be there and back in twenty minutes, if we hurry."
id="Page_366"[Pg 366]
In another instant the ladies had disappeared into the darkness, Angel in advance, carrying the hurricane lantern. There was a heavy, dazzling mist, through which they could barely discern great lights flaming at the posts all the way down the valley (to mark the danger limit). These, in the darkness, twinkled like a street of stars, and how the lake growled within its prison, with the savage snarling of some wild beast straining at its leash.
"Where are you off to?" asked the general, as the couple hurried by the mess verandah, in which he stood endeavouring to light his pipe.
"To the lower hut to search for an ornament," promptly answered Mrs. Waldershare.
"Plucky woman! But I don't think you run any risk, beyond breaking your necks in the dark. I shall come and look after you, as soon as I have started this pipe."
On their way to the hut, the couple encountered Mr. Brady—that is to say, he met Mrs. Waldershare, for Angel was already half-way down the path, her feet winged by some indescribable presentiment.
"Hallo, I say! what are you doing here?" he panted, for he had been running fast.
"Only going to the hut for a moment to look for something I have lost."
"For God's sake, don't," he cried. "Better lose what ever it is, than your life—mind you, I warn you that the dam can only hold another ten minutes."
He had an important message to deliver, and [Pg 367] could not delay, although probably he would have done so had he dreamt that Mrs. Gascoigne was already standing on dangerous ground. Lola smiled to herself as she hurried downwards. What a fright they were all in. Lose her life! There was no fear of that; and she would risk a good deal to find her little diamond skull—her fetish.
In five minutes' time Mrs. Waldershare was on her knees going over the floor of the hut, ayah-fashion, with her bare hands; her hair had come adrift, and fell in one great coil on her shoulders. Her companion held the light a little way above the searcher's head. At last, after considerable delay, Lola lifted her head.
"Here it is," she cried, with an audible sob of relief, raising herself in a kneeling position; "see, the ring is broken. A fortune-teller told me that my star would be in the ascendant as long as I had the skull. Now I have found it, I am happy. What luck! What," she repeated, in another and a sharper key, as the hut rocked violently, and the rest of the sentence was drowned in a long, loud, shattering crash.
There was a peal of thunder, reverberating far among the mountains—the roar of the lake released from bondage, rushing headlong to devastate the country.
"The dam—it is gone!" cried Angel, as the sound died away. "There is not a second to lose; we must fly. Come," and she flung open the door. As she did so the hut reeled over, and a wave of cold water splashed across the threshold. Outside, the drizzle, as illuminated by the lantern, was impregnated [Pg 368] with thick red dust, which spread over an area of ten miles. Lola was still on her knees, as if turned to stone, apparently paralysed with horror. The flood was rising in the room, and the hut shivered and trembled like some live thing. "Come, Lola, you must make a dash for your life," urged Angel, placing the lamp in the window, and reaching out to help her to rise. "Every moment it is getting worse."
As Lola staggered to her feet, a wave half filled the hut, and she seemed to lose her reason, and broke into a shrill, wild, unbroken scream—it was hardly like the human voice—minute after minute it continued, and every minute it became wilder and more piercing. Suddenly Gascoigne stood in the doorway. He had returned from the dam, only to learn, to his horror, that his wife and Mrs. Waldershare had gone down to the condemned quarters.
"I can only take one," he said, huskily, and his eyes rested on Angel.
She was farthest away; Lola cowered between her and the door. Lola was crazy with terror, having the fear of death before her eyes, the sound of many waters in her ears. As she stood, in a frenzy, panting like some hunted creature, she was almost unrecognisable, transformed by her emotions. Her livid face, starting eyes, wet, streaming hair, belonged to another woman.
"It means—death?" she questioned, with chattering teeth, and read the tragic answer in the man's set, white face. "Then take—me—me!" she shrieked, and she sprang on him like a leopardess, clung to [Pg 369] his neck with locked arms, and the whole weight of a strongly-built, frantic, desperate woman. He was muscular, and in hard condition, but could he ever have released himself from that cruel clutch, the death-grip of mortal fear, the pitiless hold of the drowning? "Oh, Philip, you loved me first," she sobbed; "save me—save me—me."
Angel surveyed this terrible scene with a gaze of wide-eyed horror. Of course he must save Lola.
"Yes, Phil," she said, coming nearer, and her voice was clear and decided. "Go; don't waste precious time. Philip, I intend to stay. Save her first; you can," and she faltered for a second, "come back."
Angel held aloft the lantern as she spoke, and her husband, without a word, turned, and splashed with his burthen out into the black night; the water swept him off his feet, for one or two strokes, whilst Lola, who was now demented, and a dead weight, nearly dragged him under.
"There is Jim Hailes. No, I'm not coming—they say I killed him—no, I won't die—why should I die? Who said I won his money? There, take it back—a shocking sight, they said. Don't let the Gascoignes hear—no, no, I'm not going to the funeral!"
All this was screamed out at the pitch of her voice into Philip's ear, as he staggered with her up the hill. He toiled onwards with the strength of ten men, for the sake of the figure with the light in her hand, whom he had abandoned for this miserable creature—Angel, his wife. He was resolved to save her, or perish with her. He recalled her face of lofty courage—how her eyes shone in the light, as if she [Pg 370] were inspired by the very spirit of self-sacrifice, whilst she held the lantern and urged him to escape—with Lola. As soon as the party on the hill descried Gascoigne, they rushed to meet him, and he hastily relinquished his burden, and fled down the hill, passing a stricken figure in a tree, whose shouts for help proclaimed that the General was in difficulties.
When her husband had departed with his first love in his arms, Angel stood in the doorway up to her knees in water, holding the lantern to guide them to safety; then, as the flood rose higher and higher, she began to realise the chilly fact, that they had escaped,—and that she was left to face death alone.
She endeavoured to fix her mind on the grim visitor who would claim her young life within the next few minutes, but visions of a gay seaside pier, with the waves lapping underneath and around, accompanied by the strains of the Santiago waltz, into her brain. The memory, under such circumstances, was inexpressibly awful. Was she to pass away with the sound of dance music in her ears—here among the turbulent black waters of a runaway lake in the heart of the Himalayas? Well, at least, she had given herself for Lola—her life for that of another. The thought soothed her, and comforted her heart, and Philip would never forget her—sacrifice; she would live for ever, enshrined in his memory; to attain this was—her recompense.
The hut was above the strong mud-current, otherwise it would have been immediately overwhelmed and carried away by the first rush of the torrent; but, [Pg 371] as it was, it still clung to its foundations, although the water scoured enormous holes in the floor. Angel had climbed up into the window-seat, where she crouched with her lantern, and endeavoured to pray. How her heart plunged at each lurch the building gave; the water was now half-way up the wall, and the end might come at any moment. The hut would soon be swept away, then Philip would see her light floating down on the wild flood, and be sorry when it went out. Oh, he would know what that meant!
At this moment the door burst open, and Philip himself half swam, half waded in. Yes, he had come back for her; she was desperately glad, and yet it meant two lives, instead of one! He was exhausted, and almost breathless, as he made his way over to her, and gasped out:
"We have just one chance, Angel—the roof; you trust yourself to me."
She nodded—for she could not speak.
"We will have to go outside, and there is no time to spare." As he spoke he lifted her down, and guided her through water, now shoulder deep. Then he swung himself up by the door, took the lantern from her, and drew her on the roof beside him. When this feat was accomplished he gave a sigh of relief.
"The hut is bound to go," he exclaimed; "if it capsizes don't grab hold of me. I'll manage to keep you afloat. I know you have a stout heart, Angel. We are luckily in a sort of backwater, and will only catch the edge of the flood. We may be carried along and caught in some trees lower down—that's just our one chance."
[Pg 372]
The hut, which had been rocking and shivering as if about to take some desperate plunge, suddenly staggered, gave a wild lurch, and went more than half under water.
"Oh, this must be the end, now we die," said Angel, clinging to Philip. But no, the stout wooden structure righted itself, spun round, and slowly embarked on the breast of the wild, dark current. What a sight it was, the roaring volume of ungovernable water racing furiously through the valley, and carrying with it, besides whole trees and logs and branches, the frail raft on which these two human beings clung together, with the hurricane lantern between them. The channel was in a condition resembling a storm at sea, and more than once the couple were nearly washed off the roof by the waves that broke over it. The night was as black as a wolf's mouth.
At first they maintained an unbroken silence as they were hurried to what they both believed to be their death. Gascoigne, his arm around Angel, held her closely to him. Then at last he spoke:
"Why did you go down to the hut, Angel?"
"For Lola, to show her the way—she had lost something—I thought there was time."
"But Brady had warned her, and—tell me why you stood back and implored me to take her first?"
"Because—it had to be—one or the other," she stammered. "I knew that you loved her—I only—stood between you. You had escaped—oh, why did you come back?" and she gave a little sob.
"Because I love you, Angel. Surely you know that?" and he drew her still closer to him. "I don't [Pg 373] say much—not half enough—I seem cold, but I feel deeply. It is late in the day to tell you that now! It is true that a man has two soul sides—one to face the world,—another to show the woman he loves—you have scarcely seen—your—side—but I swear by the God before whom we may appear in another moment—that I would rather die with you, than live with Lola."
Angel bent her head upon his shoulder. The long pent-up tide of her misgivings and misery broke loose, and she wept from a mixture of rapture and grief. Alas! death was now doubly bitter; it meant shipwreck in sight of the haven.
The flood travelled with great force and extraordinary velocity; in less than ten minutes the roof was being dizzily whirled through a mountainous gorge, and the branches of huge trees seemed extended like arms, to bar its way and snatch it from its fate. By one hoary old oak the hut became momentarily entangled; the opportunity, the one chance, had come. Gascoigne, who had tied the lantern to his arm, and fastened Angel's mackintosh round her waist and to his belt, now sprang for his life, for both their lives, caught the branch, and swung safely into the tree. But not a moment too soon; the raft was already under weigh, rapidly moving off, to be presently dashed to pieces among the narrow, rocky gorges of the Alakanda valley.
The tree, an old evergreen oak, was not a particularly safe asylum with the hungry dark tide surging below, eager to swallow the refugees, but a rescue party was approaching.
When Sir Capel and Mr. Brady had hurried down [Pg 374] to where the hut had been, there was nothing to be seen but a racing tide of whirling black water covered with blocks of solid foam: the hut was gone. But what was that twinkling on the flood? a light far ahead—not a boat—what boat could live in that mad current?
"They are on the roof," yelled Mr. Brady, "and they may be caught in the trees two miles down. Come on, come on," and, setting an example, he started away at a run, followed by Sir Capel and half-a-dozen others. Thanks to their timely assistance, in less than an hour the two who had so narrowly escaped the great flood were brought into camp, wet, benumbed, and exhausted, but profoundly thankful for their deliverance.
[Pg 375]