Laying upon his sores ointment of words.
He would not look at her, however, for he was not yet ready.
In spite of his resistance, their stirrup-irons grappled together as they rode. Salt drops of burning sweat were falling upon the raw withers of the horse, making the animal writhe even in its weakness.
So they rode through hell, that was scented with the Tannenbaum, or hair blowing. His mouth was filled with the greenish-black tips of hair, and a most exquisite bitterness.
‘You are not in possession of your faculties,’ he said to her at last.
‘What are my faculties?’ she asked.
Then they were drifting together. They were sharing the same hell, in their common flesh, which he had attempted so often to repudiate. She was fitting him with a sheath of tender white.
‘Do you see now?’ she asked. ‘Man is God decapitated. That is why you are bleeding.’
It was falling on their hands in hot, opaque drops. But he would not look at her face yet.
They had come to a broad plain of small stones, round in shape, of which at least some were apparently quartz, for where the swords of the sun penetrated the skin of the stone a blinding light would burst forth. These flashes of pure light, although rare, brought cries to the mouths of the three white men. The light was of such physical intensity. Laura Trevelyan, who had experienced sharper daggers, was silent, though. She rode apart, and waited.
When the men had recovered from their surprise, it was seen that the two columns of natives had come upon their rear, and were standing ranged behind them in an arc of concentrated silence. Voss dismounted, and was waiting. For ages everybody stood, and it seemed that nothing would ever happen beyond this commingling of silences, when there was a commotion in the ranks of the blacks, and an individual was pushed forward. He came, looking to the bare ground for inspiration, and when he had approached, Voss addressed him.
‘Well, Jackie, I do not blame you,’ he said. ‘I knew that this would have to happen. What next?”
But Jackie would not lift his head. Subtle thoughts that he had learnt to think, thoughts that were other men’s, had made it too heavy. His body, though, shone with a refreshed innocence.
Then he said:
‘No me. Jackie do nothun. These blackfeller want Jackie. I go. Blackfeller no good along white men. This my people.’ The renegade waved his arm, angrily, it seemed, at the ranks behind him. ‘Jackie belong here.’
Voss listened, touching his beard. He was smiling, or that was the shape his face had taken.
‘Where do I belong, if not here?’ he asked. ‘Tell your people we are necessary to one another. Blackfellow white man friend together.’
‘Friend?’ asked Jackie.
The word was twanging in the air. He had forgotten its usage.
Now the tribe began to murmur. Whether asking, urging, or advising, it was not clear.
Jackie had grown sulkier. His throat was full of knots.
‘Blackfeller dead by white man,’ he was prompted to say at last.
‘Do they wish to kill me?’ asked Voss.
Jackie stood.
‘They cannot kill me,’ said Voss. ‘It is not possible.’
Although his cheek was twitching, like a man’s.
‘Tell them I will not die. But if it is to deprive them of a pleasure, I offer them friendship as a substitute. I am a friend of the blackfellow. Do you understand? This is the sign of friendship.’
The white man took the boy’s hot, black, right hand in both his, and was pressing. A wave of sad, warm magic, and yearning for things past, broke over the blackfellow, but because the withered hands of the white man were physically feeble, even if warm and spiritually potent, the boy wrenched his hand away.
He began gabbling. Two men, two elders, and a younger powerful native now came forward, and were talking with Jackie, in words, and where these failed, with signs. That of which they spoke was of great importance and, even if deferred by difficulties, would, it appeared, take place.
Then Jackie, whose position was obviously intolerable, raised his eyes, and said:
‘No good, Mr Voss.
‘These blackfeller say you come along us,’ he added, for he was still possessed by the white man’s magic.
Voss bowed his head very low. Because he was not accustomed to the gestures of humility, he tried to think how Palfreyman might have acted in similar circumstances, but in that landscape, in that light, not even memory provided a refuge.
The eyes of the black men were upon him. How the veins of their bodies stood out, and the nipples.
As they watched.
The white man was stirring like a handful of dry grass. He was remounting his horse.
In his feebleness, or the dream that he was living, as he was hauling himself up by the pommel he felt the toe of his boot slither from the stirrup-iron. He felt some metal, undoubtedly a buckle, score his chin for a very brief moment of pain, before he was back standing on the ground. It was an incident which, in the past, might have made him look ridiculous.
But the black men did not laugh.
Then Voss, behaving more deliberately, succeeded in seating himself in the saddle, swaying, and smiling. The blood which had begun to run out of his chin was already stanched by the dry atmosphere, and the flies sitting on the crust of blood.
Even so, the woman had ridden closer to him, and was about to make some attempt to clean the wound.
‘Lass mich los,’ he said, abruptly, even rudely, although the rudeness was intended, rather, for himself.
Now the party had begun to move forward over the plain of quartz, in which, it was seen, a path must have been cleared in former times by blacks pushing the stones aside. The going was quite tolerable upon this pale, dusty track. Some of the natives went ahead, but most walked along behind. Now there was little distinction between skins, between men and horses even. Space had blurred the details.
‘Good Lord, sir, what will happen?’ asked Harry Robarts, rising to the surface of his eyes.
‘They will know, presumably,’ replied the German.
‘Lord, sir, will you let them?’ cried the distracted boy. ‘Lord, will you not save us?’
‘I am no longer your Lord, Harry,’ said Voss.
‘I would not know of no other,’ said the boy.
Again the man was grateful for the simple boy’s devotion. But could he, in the state to which he had come, allow himself the luxury of accepting it?
As he was debating this, Laura Trevelyan rode alongside, although there was barely room for two horses abreast on that narrow path.
‘You will not leave me then?’ he asked.
‘Not for a moment,’ she said. ‘Never, never.’
‘If your teaching has forced me to renounce my strength, I imagine the time will come very soon when there will be no question of our remaining together.’
‘Perhaps we shall be separated for a little. But we have experienced that already.’
They rode along.
‘I will think of a way to convince you,’ she said, after a time, ‘to convince you that all is possible. If I can make the sacrifice.’
Then he looked at her, and saw that they had cut off her hair, and below the surprising stubble that remained, they had pared the flesh from her face. She was now quite naked. And beautiful. Her eyes were drenching him.
So they rode on above the dust, in which they were writing their own legend.
*
The girl, Betty, was in tears the evening they took the hair from Miss Trevelyan by order of Dr Kilwinning. It was that lovely, she said, she would keep it always, and stuff a little cushion with it.
‘That is morbid, Betty,’ said Mrs Bonner.