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  CHAPTER X

  _Hand-of-a-God_

  Skag and Carlin had come back from Poona where five of Carlin's sevenbrothers had been present at her marriage. There were weeks in Hurdanow, while Skag's equipment for jungle work arrived bit by bit. Theylived some distance from the city and back from the greatHighway-of-all-India, in Malcolm M'Cord's bungalow, a house to rememberfor several reasons.

  The Indian jungles were showing Skag deep secrets about wildanimals--knowledge beyond his hopes. Some things that he thought heknew in the old days as a circus-trainer were beginning to look curiousand obsolete, but much still held good, even became more and moresignificant. The things he had known intuitively did not diminish.These had to do with mysterious talents of his own, and dated back tothe moment he stood for the first time before one of the "big cat"cages at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. That was his initiation-dayin a craft in which he had since gone very far as white men go--eveninto the endless fascination of the cobra-craft.

  Skag was meeting now from time to time in his jungle work some of thebig hunters of India, men whose lives were a-seethe with tales ofadventure. When they talked, however, Skag slowly but surely graspedthe fact that what they had was "outside stuff." They knew trails,defensive and fighting habits, species and calls; they knew a greatcollection of detached facts about animals but it was all like what onewould see in a strange city--watching from outside its wall. There wasa certain boundary of observation which they never passed. All thatSkag cared to know was across, on the inner side of the wall.

  As for the many little hunters, they were tame; only their bags were"wild." They never even approached the boundary. Skag reflected muchon these affairs. It dawned on him at last, that when you go out withthe idea of killing a creature, you may get its attitude toward death,but you won't learn about how it regards life.

  The more you give, the more you get from any relation. This is notonly common knowledge among school-teachers, but among stock-raisersand rose-growers. Almost every man has had experience with a realteacher, at least once in his life--possibly only a few weeks or evendays, but a bit of real teaching--when something within opened andanswered as never before. It was like an extension of consciousness.If you look back you'll find that you loved that teacher--at least,liked that one differently, very deep.

  Skag wanted a great deal. He wanted more from the jungle doubtlessthan was ever formulated in a white man's mind before. He wanted toknow what certain holy men know; men who dare to walk to and fro in thejungles without arms, apparently without fear. He wanted to know whatthe priests of Hanuman know about monkeys; and what _mahouts_ of famouselephants like Neela Deo and Mithi Baba and Gunpat Rao of the ChiefCommissioner's stockades, know about elephants.

  At this point one reflection was irresistible. The priests of Hanumangave all they had--care, patience, tenderness, even their lives, to themonkey people. There were no two ways about the _mahouts_; they lovedthe elephants reverently; even regarding them as beings more exaltedthan men. As for the holy men--the sign manual of their order was lovefor all creatures. No, there was no getting away from the fact thatyou must give yourself to a thing if you want to know it. . . . Skagwould come up breathless out of this contemplation--only to find it wasthe easiest thing he did--to love wild animals. . . .

  Skag had reason to hold high his trust in animals. He had entered thebig cat cages countless times and always had himself and the animals inhand. He had made good in the tiger pit-trap and certainly the loosetiger near the monkey glen didn't charge. All this might haveestablished the idea that all animals were bound to answer his love forthem.

  But India was teaching him otherwise.

  In the hills back of Poona he had met a murderer. That cat-scream atthe last chilled him to the very centre of things. Cheetahs weremalignant; no two ways about that. Skag hadn't failed. He never wasbetter. There was no fear nor any lack of concentration in his workupon the cheetah beast. Any tiger he knew would have answered to hiscool force, but the cheetah didn't.

  It was the same with the big snake in the grass jungle. Skag had metfear there--something of monstrous proportion, more powerful than will,harder to deal with by a wide margin than any plain adjustment todeath. It stayed with him. It was more formidable than pain. He hadtalked with Cadman about a peculiar inadequacy he felt in dealing withthe snake--as if his force did not penetrate. Cadman knew too much tohoot at Skag's dilemma. The more a man knows, the more he can believe.

  "It would be easier with a cobra than a constrictor," Cadman had said."You'd have to strike just the right key, son. This is what I mean:The wireless instruments of the Swastika Line answer to one pitch; theships of the Blue Toll to another. . . . But I've seen thingsdone--yes, I've seen things done in this man's India. . . . I saw aman from one of the little brotherhoods of the Vindhas breathe a nestof cobras into repose; also I have seen other brothers pass throughplaces where the deadly little karait is supposed to watch and wait andturn red-eyed."

  The more Skag listened and learned and watched in India, the more herealised that if he knew all there was to know about the differentorders of holy men, all the rest of knowledge would be included, eventhe lore of the jungle animals. He had come into his own considerableawe through what he had seen in the forest with the priests of Hanuman,but things-to-learn stretched away and away before him like range uponrange of High Himalaya.

  Malcolm M'Cord was the best rifle-shot in India. The natives calledhim Hand-of-a-God. As usual they meant a lot more than a meredecoration. M'Cord was one of the big master mechanics--especiallyserving Indian Government in engine building--a Scot nearing fifty now.For many years he had answered the cries of the natives for helpagainst the destroyers of human life. Sometimes it was a mugger,sometimes a cobra, a cheetah, often a man-eating tiger that terrorisedthe countryside. There are many sizeable Indian villages where thereis not a single rifle or short piece in the place; repeated instanceswhere one pampered beast has taken his tolls of cattle and children ofmen, for several years.

  The natives are slow to take life of any creature. They are suspicioustoward anyone who does it thoughtlessly, or for pastime; but the Hindualso believes that one is within the equity of preservation in doingaway with those ravagers that learn to hunt men.

  In the early days M'Cord began to take the famous shoot trophies. Timecame when this sort of thing was no longer a gamesome event, but aforegone conclusion. His rifle work was a revelation of genius--likethe work of a prodigious young pianist or billiardist in the midst ofmere natural excellence.

  He had wearied of the game-bag end of shooting, even before his prowessin the tournaments became a bore. . . . So there was only the bigphilanthropy left. The silent steady Scot gave himself more and moreto this work for the hunted villagers as the years went on. Itsufficed. Many a man has stopped riding or walking for mere exercise,but joyously, and with much profit, taken it up again as a means to getsomewhere.

  It was Carlin who helped Skag to a deep understanding of her oldfriend, the Scot, and the famous bungalow in which he lived.

  "It is 'papered' and carpeted and curtained with the skins of animals,but you would have to know what the taking of those skins has meant tothe natives and how different it is from the usual hunter-man's house.The M'Cord bungalow is a book of man-eater tales--with leather leaves."

  Carlin, who had been one of M'Cord's favourites since she was a child,saw the man with the magic of the native standpoint upon him. . . .With all its richness there was nothing of the effect of thetaxidermist's shop about the place. Altogether the finest private setof gun-racks Skag had looked upon was in the dim front hall. Bhanahand Nels had a comfortable lodge to themselves, and there was a tinysummerhouse at the far end of the lawn that had been an ideal ofCarlin's when she was small. The playhouse had but one door, which wasturned modestly away from the great Highway. It was vined and partlysequestered in garden growths, its threshold to the west. The Scottishbachelor had tu
rned this little house over to the child Carlin yearsago, as eagerly as his entire establishment now. Yet the woman was noless partial to the playhouse than the child had been.

  . . . They hardly saw the Scot. In fact it was only a moment in thestation oval. Skag looked into a grey eye that seemed so steady as tohave a life all its own and apart, in the midst of a weatheredcountenance both kindly and grim. . . . There was a tiny locked roomon the south side of the bungalow, vividly sunlit--a room which initself formed a cabinet for mounted cobras--eight or ten specimens withmarvellous bodies and patchy-looking heads. . . . The place washeavily glazed, but not with windows that opened. Skag caught the hintbefore Carlin spoke--that the display might have a queer attraction forcobras that had not suffered the art of the taxidermist.

  Skag turned to the girl as they stood together at the low heavy door,leading into the library. Something in her face held himutterly--something of wisdom, something of dread--if one could, imaginea fear founded on knowledge. . . . A brilliant mid-afternoon. Bhanahand Nels had gone to the stockades. Since the chase and rescue ofCarlin, Nels and the young elephant Gunpat Rao were becomingfriends--peculiar dignities and untellable reservations betweenthem--but undoubtedly friends.

  There was a kind of stillness in the place and hour, as they stoodtogether, that made it seem they had never been alone before. Deep awehad come to Skag. As he looked now upon her beauty and health andcourage, with eyes that saw another loveliness weaving all wonderstogether--he knew a kind of bewildered revolt that life was actuallybounded by a mere few years; that it could be subject to change andchance. Thus he learned what has come to many a man in the first hoursafter bringing his great comrade home--that there must be some innerfold of romance to make straight the insistent torture at the thoughtof illness and accident and death itself--something somehow to enable aman to transcend all three-score and ten affairs and know that birthand death are mere hurdles for the runners of real romance.

  . . . The sunlight brought out faint but marvellous gleamings from theserpents. It was as if every scale had been a jewel. . . . Skaglooked closer. It wasn't bad mounting. It was really marvellousmounting. His eye ran from one to another. Every cobra's head hadbeen shattered by a bullet. The broken tissues had been gatheredtogether, pieced and sewn--the art of the workman not covering thedramatic effect entirely, yet smoothing the excess of the horror away.

  ". . . I've heard of cobras always, yet I never tire and never seem anynearer them," Carlin was saying. "I remember the word _cobra_ when Iheard it the first time--almost the first memory. It never becomesfamiliar. They are mysterious. One can never tell the why or whenabout _them_. One never gets beyond the fascination. The more youknow the more you prepare for them in India. It's like this--any otherroom would have windows that open. . . . Cobras have much fidelity.We think of them as reptiles; and yet they are life-and-death-mates,like the best of tiger pairs. One who kills a cobra must kill two orlook out--"

  Carlin had strange lore about mated pairs; about moths and birds andother creatures (as well as men-things) finding each other and livingand working together; about a tiger that had mourned for many seasonsalone, after some sportsman had killed his female; about anotherrollicking young tiger pair that leaped an eight foot wall into anative yard in early evening, made their kill together of a plump youngcow, and passed it up and over the wall between them.

  "The cubs were hungry," Carlin had said.

  Still they did not leave the door-way of the cobra room. Skag saw thatsomething more was coming. Once more he was drawn to the mystery ofthe holy men by her tale:

  ". . . I was a little girl. It was here in Hurda. . . . I had strayedaway into the open jungle, not toward our monkey glen, but farthersouth where the trees were scarce. . . . Of course I shouldn't havebeen alone--"

  Skag was staring straight at one of the cobras. Carlin turned andplaced her hand upon his sleeve. She knew that he was fighting thatold dread that had come upon him on the day of the elephant pursuit--adread well enough founded, grounded upon many tragedies--of thepitfalls and menaces and miasmas of old Mother India; the infinitevariety, craft, swiftness and violence of her deaths. (White handswere certainly clinging to Skag.) One's vast careless attitudes tolife are fearfully complicated when life means two and not the selfalone.

  "This isn't a horrible story--" she said.

  He cleared his throat; then laughed.

  "I'll get past all this," he muttered. "Go on, Carlin--"

  "I heard a step behind," she said. "It was my uncle--the mostwonderful of many uncles. I have not seen him since that day. He is alittle older than my eldest brother--possibly thirty at thattime--tall, dark, silent; a frowning man, but not to me. Even then hebelonged to one of the little brotherhoods of the Vindhas--lesser, youknow, in relation to the great brotherhoods of the Himalayas. In factit is from the Vindha Hills that they move on when they are called--upthe great way and beyond--"

  Another of Carlin's themes--always the dream in her mind of climbing tothe heights.

  "We walked on together through one of the paths--some time I will showyou. It was not like anyone else coming to find a child, or coming totake it back. A most memorable thing to a little one, this elaborateconsideration from a great man. He did not suggest that I turn. Hemade himself over to my adventure."

  She waited for Skag to see more of the picture from her mind than herwords suggested:

  "Ahead on the path--leisurely, like nothing else, a cobra reared, aking cobra, as great as any of these. He barred our way. There comesa penetrating cold from the first glance. It's like an icy lance tothe centre of consciousness. Then I felt the man's presence beside me.My confidence was that which only a child can give. What the mindknows and fears has too much dominion afterward. . . . The appallingpower and beauty of the cobra fascinated me. I have never quiteforgotten. There was a lolling trailing grace about the lifted length,the head slightly inclined to us, the hood but partly spread--somethingwinged in the undulation, a suggestion of that which we could not see,faintly like the whir of a humming bird's wings. That is it--anintimation of forces we had not senses to register--also colours andsounds! . . . My hand was lost in the great hand. My uncle did notturn back. He was speaking. There was that about his tones which youhad to listen for--a low softness that you had to listen to get. Yes,it was to the cobra that he spoke.

  ". . . There was never a poem to me like those words, but they did notleave themselves in continuity. I could not say the sentences again.I seem to remember the vibration--some sense of the mysterious, kindredwith all creatures--and a vast flung scroll of wisdom and poetry, as ifthe serpents had been a great and glorious people of blinding,incredible knowledges--never like us--but all the more marvellous fortheir difference! . . . And the cobra hung there, his eyes darkeningunder the gentleness of the voice--then reddening again like fannedembers. . . .

  "Then I heard my uncle ask to be permitted to pass, saying that hebrought no harm to the mother, undoubtedly near, nor to the babycobras--only good-will; but that it was not well for a man and a littlegirl to be prevented from passing along a man-path. . . . It was onlya moment more that the way was held from us. There was no rising atall, to fighting anger. A cobra doesn't, you know, until actualattack. In leisurely undulations, he turned and entered the deepergrowths. A moment later my uncle pointed to the lifted head in theshadows. One had need to be magic-eyed to see. We went on a littleway and walked back. It was not that we had to pass--but that we mustnot be obstructed." . . .

  This was the India that astonished Skag more than all hunter tales,more than any hunter prowess; but there were always two sides. . . .The weeks were unlike any others he had ever known. The mysterydeepened between him and Carlin. Almost the first he had heard of herwas that she was "unattainable"--yet _they_ had known each other atonce. . . . Still Carlin _was_ unattainable; forever above and beyond.Such a woman is no sooner comprehended on one problem than she unfoldsanother;
much of man's growth is from one to another of her mysteries.And always when he has passed one, he thinks all is known; and alwaysas another looms, he realises how little he knows after all. . . .

  A thousand times Skag recalled the words of the learned man who hadspoken to Cadman and himself on their way to the grass jungle. "Youwill acknowledge love, but you will not know love until it is revealedby supreme danger. The way of your feet is in the ascending path.Hold fast to the purposes of your own heart and you will come into theheights."

  Could Carlin be more to him than now? . . . Yes, she was more to-daythan yesterday. It would always be so. Love is always love, but it isalways different. . . . Sometimes he would stay away from the bungalowfor several hours. He was of a nature that could not be pleased withhimself when he gave way tumultuously to the thing he wanted--which wascontinually to be in Carlin's presence. His every step in themarket-place, or in the bazaar, had its own twitch back toward MalcolmM'Cord's bungalow; his every thought encountering a pressure of weightto hurry home.

  Carlin was full of deep joys of understanding. One did not have tofinish sentences for her. She meant India--its hidden wisdom. She hadthe thing called education in great tiers and folds. Skag's educationwas of the kind that accumulates when a man does not know he is beingeducated. . . . Certainly Carlin was unattainable--this was an oftenrecurring thought as he learned Hindi from her and something of Urdu;the usages of her world, its castes and cults.

  Down in the unwalled city one mid-afternoon, he finished certainerrands and started for the bungalow. Had he let himself go, his feetwould have stormed along. He laughed at the joy of the thing; and hehad only been away since tiffin. Yet there was tension too--the oldmystery. A man cannot feel all still and calm and powerful, when therehas suddenly descended upon him realisation of all that can possiblyhappen to take away one so much more important than one's own life asto make contrast absurd. Skag was looking ahead into stark days, whenhe would be called upon to take big journeys alone into the jungle forthe service. It was very clear there might be many weeks of separation. . . and now it was only a matter of hours. He was nearing the littlegate. . . .

  These are affairs men seldom speak about--seldom write; yet hisexperience was one that a multitude of men have felt vaguely at least.There was a laugh about it, a sense of self-deprecation; but above all,Skag knew for the sake of the future that he must get himself better inhand against this incredible pull to the place where she was. Itseemed quite enough to reach the compound or the grass plot and hearher step.

  She was not at the gate. He halted. Malcolm M'Cord was expected homethis day. He might have come. Surely he might give two such rare goodfriends a chance to have a chat together . . . in Malcolm's own house,too. Besides there was no better chance than now for a bit of moralcalisthenics. Skag turned back. No one was very near to note that hewas a bit pale. Still he was laughing. Even Nels, his Great Dane,would have thought him weird, he reflected. Had Bhanah been along,there could have been no possible explanation. . . . He was walkingtoward the city, but his eyes were called back again. Carlin had cometo the gate. She held up her right arm full and straight--her signalalways, such an impulse of joy in it.

  He waved and made a broken sort of gesture toward Hurda, as if he hadforgotten something. Minute by minute he fought them out afterthat--sixty of them, ninety of them, good measure, sixty seconds each,before he started at last to the bungalow again. The sun was low. Thebazaars were but a little distance back, when he met Bhanah and Nelsout for their evening exercise. . . . No, M'Cord-Sahib had not yetcome. . . . Yes, all was quite well with the Hakima, Hantee-Sahiba,who was reading in the playhouse. . . .

  Quite alone. Skag quickened, but repressed himself again. It wasbusiness for contemplation--the way Bhanah had spoken of Carlin asHantee Sahiba, after her usual title. . . . He heard the birds. Thegreat Highway was deserted; the noise of the city all behind. . . . Ifhe had merely "acknowledged love" so far, as the learned man hadsaid--what must be the nature of the emotion that would reveal the fullsecret to him? Always when his thoughts fled away like this, his stepsseized the advantage and he would find himself in full stride like aman doing road-work for the ring.

  She wasn't at the gate this time. Just now Skag felt the firstcoolness of evening, the shadow of the great trees. . . . She did notcome to the gate. His hand touched its latch and still he had notheard her voice. On the lawn path--in that strange lovely wash oflight--he stood, as the sun sank and the afterglow mounted. This wasalways Carlin's hour to him--the magic moment of the afterglow. Insuch an hour in the outer paths of the tree jungle, they had spokenlife to life.

  "Malcolm M'Cord--is that you, Malcolm?"

  Her voice was from the playhouse. It was steady but startling.Something cold in it--very weary. Still he did not see her. The doorwas on the western side.

  Skag answered.

  "Oh--" came from Carlin.

  There was an instant intense silence; then he heard:

  "Go into the house. I thought it was Malcolm. . . . I'll join you.Don't come here--"

  He turned obediently. He had the male's absurd sense of not belonging.. . . He might at least be silent and do as she said. A keener gustof reality then shot through him. His steps would not go on. She musthave heard his change from the gravel to the grass, for she called:

  "It's all right, go right in--"

  "But, Carlin--"

  "Don't come here, dear! It's--not for you to see now!"

  He halted, an indescribable chill upon him. The low threshold was insight, yet Carlin did not appear in the doorway. It was not more thansixty feet away, across the lawn. It may have been something that shehad on. . . . A gold something. This came because of a fallen bit ofgold-brown tapestry on the threshold. It had folds. Out of the coneof it, was a rising sheen like thin gold smoke. A fallen garment wasthe first thing that came to Skag's mind, keyed to the suggestion ofsome fabric which Carlin was to put on. The thing actually before hiseyes had not dislodged for an instant, the thought-picture in his mind.

  Right then Skag made a mistake. He had not taken ten running stepsbefore he knew it, and halted. That which had been like rising goldsmoke was a hooded head--lifting just now, dilating. Already he knew,almost fully, what the running had done. The thought of Carlin in theplayhouse had over-balanced his own genius. He walked forward now, forthe time not hearing Carlin's words from within. . . . The door wasopen; the windows were screened. The girl was held within by thecoiled one on the stone. . . . She was imploring Skag to go back:

  ". . . to the house!" he heard at last. "Wait there--don't come! Itis death to come to me!"

  He could not see her.

  "Where are you standing, Carlin?"

  "Far back--by the sewing machine! . . . Will you not--will you not,for me?"

  He spoke very coldly:

  "While he watches me from the stone--you come forward slowly and shutthe door!"

  "That would anger him into flying at you--"

  Quite as slowly, his next words:

  "I do not think he is angry with me--"

  Yet Skag was not in utter truth right there, even in his own knowledge.His voice did not carry conviction of truth. . . . The thingunsteadied his concentration. The fact that he had started to run andthus ruffled the cobra, was still upon him like shame. It reacted todivide his forces now, at least to make tardier his self-command. Backof everything--Carlin's danger. There was a quick turn of his eye fora weapon, even as he heard a deep tone from Carlin--something immortalin the resonance:

  ". . . You might save me . . . but, don't you see--I want you more!"

  A _lakri_ of Bhanah's leaned against the playhouse at the side towardsthe road.

  The cobra had lifted himself erect upon his tail almost to the level ofSkag's eyes, hood spread. Carlin talked to him--low tones--no wordswhich she or Skag should know again. . . .

  The _lakri_ was of iron-wood from the North, thick
as the man's wristat the top. It pulled Skag's eye a second time. It meant thesurrender of his faith in his own free-handed powers to reach for the_lakri_; it meant the fight to death. It meant he must disappear fromthe cobra's eye an instant behind the playhouse. . . . Carlin's toneswere in the air. He could not live or breathe until the threshold wasclear--no concentration but that. . . . Like the last outburst beforea breaking heart, he heard:

  "If you would only go--go, my dear!"

  He had chosen--or the weakness for him. There was an instant--as hishand closed upon the _lakri_, the corner of the playhouse wall shuttinghim off from the cobra--an instant that was doom-long, age-long, longenough for him to picture _in his own thoughts_ the king turning uponthe threshold--entering, rising before Carlin! . . . The threshold wasempty as he stepped back, but the cobra had not entered. Perturbedthat the man had vanished, he had slid down into the path to look.

  Skag breathed. "And now if you will shut the door, Carlin--"

  A great cry from Carlin answered.

  Thick and viperine, the thing looked, as it hurled forward. It waslike the fling of a lash. Four feet away, Skag looked into the hoodedhead poised to strike, the eyes flaming into an altogether differentdimension for battle.

  The head played before him. The breadth of the hood alone held it atall in the range of the human eye--so swift was the lateral vibration,a sparring movement. The whole head seemed delicately veiled in a greymagnetic haze. Its background was Carlin--standing on the threshold.

  "I won't fail--if you stay there!" he called.

  It was like a wraith that answered--again the old mystery, as if thewords came up from his own heart:

  "I--shall--not--come--to--you--until--the--end!"

  Skag was back in the indefinite past--all the dear hushed moments hehad ever known massed in her voice.

  "Stay there--not nearer--and I can't fail!"

  He was saying it like a song--his eyes not leaving the narrow veiledhead before him. It was like a brown sealed lily-bud of hardenedenamel, brown yet iridescent--set off by two jewels of flaming rose.There was no haste. The king's mouth was not tight with strain. Itwas the look of one certain of victory, certain from a life that knewno failures--the look of one that had learned the hunt so well as tomake it play. . . .

  The brown bud vanished. Skag struck at the same time. His _lakri_touched the hood. With all his strength, though with a loose whippingwrist, he had struck. The _lakri_ had touched the hood, but there wasno violence to the impact. . . . Carlin's love tones were in hisheart. Skag laughed.

  The head went out of sight. Skag struck again. It was as if his_lakri_ were caught in a swift hand and held for just the fraction of asecond. No force to the man's blow. The cobra was no nearer; no showof haste. Skag's stick was a barrier of fury, yet twice the kingstruck between . . . twice and again. Skag felt a laming blow upon amuscle of his arm as from sharp knuckles.

  And now they were fast at it. The man heard Carlin's cry but not thewords:

  "Stay there!" he sang in answer. "Not nearer--just there and I can'tlose! . . . It isn't in the cards to lose, Carlin--"

  Yet his mind knew he could not win. The cobra's head and hood recoiledwith each blow. It took Skag's highest speed--as an outfielder takes adrive bare-handed, his hands giving with the ball. The head moved pastall swiftness, even the speed greatest swordsmen know. It was likesomething that laughed. Before the whirring _lakri_, the cobra headplayed like a flung veil between and through and around.

  . . . So, for many seconds. The grey magnetic haze was a dirty brownnow. The man was seeing through blood. He could not make a blow tell.He could not see Carlin. . . . She was not talking to him. . . . Shewas calling upon some strange name. . . . His arm was numbedagain--like a blow from a leaden sling. There was a suffocating knotin his throat and the smell of blood in his head . . . that old smellof blood he had known when his father whipped him long ago. . . .

  He tried to chop straight down to break in upon the king's rhythm. Itanswered quicker than his thought. . . . Yes, it was Malcolm M'Cord,she was calling. . . . He saw her like a ghost now. She was utterlytall--her arms raised! . . . Then he heard a rifle crack--then abreath of moisture upon his face--the sealed bud smashed beforehim--the rest whipping the ground.

  Skag went to Carlin who had fallen, but he was pulled off abruptly.

  "I say, Lad, let me have a look at you. . . . The child's rightenough. Let her rest--"

  The grim face was before him, two steady hands at work on him, pullingback his collar, taking one of Skag's hands after another--looking evenbetween the fingers, feeling his thighs.

  "I can't find that he cut you, Lad," he said gently.

  Skag pushed him away. Carlin was moaning.

  "I'm thinking your lad's sound, deerie," M'Cord called to her. "Aminute more, to be sure." . . .

  He kept a trailing hold of Skag's wrist, staring a last minute in hiseyes.

  No break anywhere in the younger man's flesh.

  The afterglow was thickening. A servant came down the path to callthem to dinner. The servant had never seen such a spectacle--theHakima sitting with Hand-of-a-God and Son-of-Power, together--on thelawn already wet with dew--their knees almost touching. . . .

  "The like's not been known before, Lad--even of a man with a sword,"Malcolm M'Cord was saying. "You must have stood up to him two minutes.No swordsman has done as much. . . . And it was only a _lakri_ youhad--and a swordsman's blade goes soft and flat against a cobra'sscales! . . . You see, they take wings when the fighting rage flowsinto them. It's like wings, sir. . . . Yes, you'll have a lame armwhere the hood grazed. It couldn't have been the drive of the head orhe would have bitten through--"

  Even Skag, as he glanced into Carlin's face from time to time, forgotthat Hand-of-a-God had done it again--one more king cobra with apatched |head and a life and death story to be added to the sunnycabinet in the bungalow. . . . Carlin rose to lead them to dinner atlast, but Malcolm shook his head.

  "On you go, you two. I'll sit out a bit in the lamplight, just here bythe playhouse door. . . . She'll be looking for him soon. . . . Shewon't be far. She won't be long coming--to look for him. . . . She'dfind him and then set out to look for you, Lad."

  The lights of the bungalow windows were like vague cloths upon thelawn. . . . Carlin and Skag hadn't thought of dinner. They were inthe shadow of the deep verandah. Once Carlin whispered:

  "I loved the way he said 'Lad' to you."

  It was hours afterwards that the shot was heard. . . . Carlin wascloser. He felt her shivering. He could not be sure of the words, yetthe spirit of them never left his heart:

  "If I were she--and I had found you so--upon the lawn--I should wantHand-of-a-God to wait for me--like that!"