CHAPTER XIV--BATTLE RENEWED
The consequences of that meeting in the dusk of Diana's Grove were
acute and far-reaching, and not only to the two engaged in it. From
Oolanga, this might have been expected by anyone who knew the
character of the tropical African savage. To such, there are two
passions that are inexhaustible and insatiable--vanity and that
which they are pleased to call love. Oolanga left the Grove with an
absorbing hatred in his heart. His lust and greed were afire, while
his vanity had been wounded to the core. Lady Arabella's icy nature
was not so deeply stirred, though she was in a seething passion.
More than ever she was set upon bringing Edgar Caswall to her feet.
The obstacles she had encountered, the insults she had endured, were
only as fuel to the purpose of revenge which consumed her.
As she sought her own rooms in Diana's Grove, she went over the
whole subject again and again, always finding in the face of Lilla
Watford a key to a problem which puzzled her--the problem of a way
to turn Caswall's powers--his very existence--to aid her purpose.
When in her boudoir, she wrote a note, taking so much trouble over
it that she destroyed, and rewrote, till her dainty waste-basket was
half-full of torn sheets of notepaper. When quite satisfied, she
copied out the last sheet afresh, and then carefully burned all the
spoiled fragments. She put the copied note in an emblazoned
envelope, and directed it to Edgar Caswall at Castra Regis. This
she sent off by one of her grooms. The letter ran:
"DEAR MR. CASWALL,
"I want to have a chat with you on a subject in which I believe you
are interested. Will you kindly call for me one day after lunch--
say at three or four o'clock, and we can walk a little way together.
Only as far as Mercy Farm, where I want to see Lilla and Mimi
Watford. We can take a cup of tea at the Farm. Do not bring your
African servant with you, as I am afraid his face frightens the
girls. After all, he is not pretty, is he? I have an idea you will
be pleased with your visit this time.
"Yours sincerely,
"ARABELLA MARCH."
At half-past three next day, Edgar Caswall called at Diana's Grove.
Lady Arabella met him on the roadway outside the gate. She wished
to take the servants into her confidence as little as possible. She
turned when she saw him coming, and walked beside him towards Mercy
Farm, keeping step with him as they walked. When they got near
Mercy, she turned and looked around her, expecting to see Oolanga or
some sign of him. He was, however, not visible. He had received
from his master peremptory orders to keep out of sight--an order for
which the African scored a new offence up against her. They found
Lilla and Mimi at home and seemingly glad to see them, though both
the girls were surprised at the visit coming so soon after the
other.
The proceedings were a repetition of the battle of souls of the
former visit. On this occasion, however, Edgar Caswall had only the
presence of Lady Arabella to support him--Oolanga being absent; but
Mimi lacked the support of Adam Salton, which had been of such
effective service before. This time the struggle for supremacy of
will was longer and more determined. Caswall felt that if he could
not achieve supremacy he had better give up the idea, so all his
pride was enlisted against Mimi. When they had been waiting for the
door to be opened, Lady Arabella, believing in a sudden attack, had
said to him in a low voice, which somehow carried conviction:
"This time you should win. Mimi is, after all, only a woman. Show
her no mercy. That is weakness. Fight her, beat her, trample on
her--kill her if need be. She stands in your way, and I hate her.
Never take your eyes off her. Never mind Lilla--she is afraid of
you. You are already her master. Mimi will try to make you look at
her cousin. There lies defeat. Let nothing take your attention
from Mimi, and you will win. If she is overcoming you, take my hand
and hold it hard whilst you are looking into her eyes. If she is
too strong for you, I shall interfere. I'll make a diversion, and
under cover of it you must retire unbeaten, even if not victorious.
Hush! they are coming."
The two girls came to the door together. Strange sounds were coming
up over the Brow from the west. It was the rustling and crackling
of the dry reeds and rushes from the low lands. The season had been
an unusually dry one. Also the strong east wind was helping forward
enormous flocks of birds, most of them pigeons with white cowls.
Not only were their wings whirring, but their cooing was plainly
audible. From such a multitude of birds the mass of sound,
individually small, assumed the volume of a storm. Surprised at the
influx of birds, to which they had been strangers so long, they all
looked towards Castra Regis, from whose high tower the great kite
had been flying as usual. But even as they looked, the cord broke,
and the great kite fell headlong in a series of sweeping dives. Its
own weight, and the aerial force opposed to it, which caused it to
rise, combined with the strong easterly breeze, had been too much
for the great length of cord holding it.
Somehow, the mishap to the kite gave new hope to Mimi. It was as
though the side issues had been shorn away, so that the main
struggle was thenceforth on simpler lines. She had a feeling in her
heart, as though some religious chord had been newly touched. It
may, of course, have been that with the renewal of the bird voices a
fresh courage, a fresh belief in the good issue of the struggle came
too. In the misery of silence, from which they had all suffered for
so long, any new train of thought was almost bound to be a boon. As
the inrush of birds continued, their wings beating against the
crackling rushes, Lady Arabella grew pale, and almost fainted.
"What is that?" she asked suddenly.
To Mimi, born and bred in Siam, the sound was strangely like an
exaggeration of the sound produced by a snake-charmer.
Edgar Caswall was the first to recover from the interruption of the
falling kite. After a few minutes he seemed to have quite recovered
his SANG FROID, and was able to use his brains to the end which he
had in view. Mimi too quickly recovered herself, but from a
different cause. With her it was a deep religious conviction that
the struggle round her was of the powers of Good and Evil, and that
Good was triumphing. The very appearance of the snowy birds, with
the cowls of Saint Columba, heightened the impression. With this
conviction strong upon her, she continued the strange battle with
fresh vigour. She seemed to tower over Caswall, and he to give back
before her oncoming. Once again her vigorous passes drove him to
the door. He was just going out backward when Lady Arabella, who
had been gazing at him with fixed eyes, caught his hand and tried to
stop his movement. She was, however, unable to do any good, and so,
holding hands, they passed out together. As they did so, the
strange music which had so alarmed Lady Arabella suddenly stopped.
Instinctively they all looked towards the tower of Castra Regis, and
saw that the workmen had refixed the kite, which had risen again and
was beginning to float out to its former station.
As they were looking, the door opened and Michael Watford came into
the room. By that time all had recovered their self-possession, and
there was nothing out of the common to attract his attention. As he
came in, seeing inquiring looks all around him, he said:
"The new influx of birds is only the annual migration of pigeons
from Africa. I am told that it will soon be over."
The second victory of Mimi Watford made Edgar Caswall more moody
than ever. He felt thrown back on himself, and this, added to his
absorbing interest in the hope of a victory of his mesmeric powers,
became a deep and settled purpose of revenge. The chief object of
his animosity was, of course, Mimi, whose will had overcome his, but
it was obscured in greater or lesser degree by all who had opposed
him. Lilla was next to Mimi in his hate--Lilla, the harmless,
tender-hearted, sweet-natured girl, whose heart was so full of love
for all things that in it was no room for the passions of ordinary
life--whose nature resembled those doves of St. Columba, whose
colour she wore, whose appearance she reflected. Adam Salton came
next--after a gap; for against him Caswall had no direct animosity.
He regarded him as an interference, a difficulty to be got rid of or
destroyed. The young Australian had been so discreet that the most
he had against him was his knowledge of what had been. Caswall did
not understand him, and to such a nature as his, ignorance was a
cause of alarm, of dread.
Caswall resumed his habit of watching the great kite straining at
its cord, varying his vigils in this way by a further examination of
the mysterious treasures of his house, especially Mesmer's chest.
He sat much on the roof of the tower, brooding over his thwarted
passion. The vast extent of his possessions, visible to him at that
altitude, might, one would have thought, have restored some of his
complacency. But the very extent of his ownership, thus perpetually
brought before him, created a fresh sense of grievance. How was it,
he thought, that with so much at command that others wished for, he
could not achieve the dearest wishes of his heart?
In this state of intellectual and moral depravity, he found a solace
in the renewal of his experiments with the mechanical powers of the
kite. For a couple of weeks he did not see Lady Arabella, who was
always on the watch for a chance of meeting him; neither did he see
the Watford girls, who studiously kept out of his way. Adam Salton
simply marked time, keeping ready to deal with anything that might
affect his friends. He called at the farm and heard from Mimi of
the last battle of wills, but it had only one consequence. He got
from Ross several more mongooses, including a second king-cobra-
killer, which he generally carried with him in its box whenever he
walked out.
Mr. Caswall's experiments with the kite went on successfully. Each
day he tried the lifting of greater weight, and it seemed almost as
if the machine had a sentience of its own, which was increasing with
the obstacles placed before it. All this time the kite hung in the
sky at an enormous height. The wind was steadily from the north, so
the trend of the kite was to the south. All day long, runners of
increasing magnitude were sent up. These were only of paper or thin
cardboard, or leather, or other flexible materials. The great
height at which the kite hung made a great concave curve in the
string, so that as the runners went up they made a flapping sound.
If one laid a finger on the string, the sound answered to the
flapping of the runner in a sort of hollow intermittent murmur.
Edgar Caswall, who was now wholly obsessed by the kite and all
belonging to it, found a distinct resemblance between that
intermittent rumble and the snake-charming music produced by the
pigeons flying through the dry reeds.
One day he made a discovery in Mesmer's chest which he thought he
would utilise with regard to the runners. This was a great length
of wire, "fine as human hair," coiled round a finely made wheel,
which ran to a wondrous distance freely, and as lightly. He tried
this on runners, and found it work admirably. Whether the runner
was alone, or carried something much more weighty than itself, it
worked equally well. Also it was strong enough and light enough to
draw back the runner without undue strain. He tried this a good
many times successfully, but it was now growing dusk and he found
some difficulty in keeping the runner in sight. So he looked for
something heavy enough to keep it still. He placed the Egyptian
image of Bes on the fine wire, which crossed the wooden ledge which
protected it. Then, the darkness growing, he went indoors and
forgot all about it.
He had a strange feeling of uneasiness that night--not
sleeplessness, for he seemed conscious of being asleep. At daylight
he rose, and as usual looked out for the kite. He did not see it in
its usual position in the sky, so looked round the points of the
compass. He was more than astonished when presently he saw the
missing kite struggling as usual against the controlling cord. But
it had gone to the further side of the tower, and now hung and
strained AGAINST THE WIND to the north. He thought it so strange
that he determined to investigate the phenomenon, and to say nothing
about it in the meantime.
In his many travels, Edgar Caswall had been accustomed to use the
sextant, and was now an expert in the matter. By the aid of this
and other instruments, he was able to fix the position of the kite
and the point over which it hung. He was startled to find that
exactly under it--so far as he could ascertain--was Diana's Grove.
He had an inclination to take Lady Arabella into his confidence in
the matter, but he thought better of it and wisely refrained. For
some reason which he did not try to explain to himself, he was glad
of his silence, when, on the following morning, he found, on looking
out, that the point over which the kite then hovered was Mercy Farm.
When he had verified this with his instruments, he sat before the
window of the tower, looking out and thinking. The new locality was
more to his liking than the other; but the why of it puzzled him,
all the same. He spent the rest of the day in the turret-room,
which he did not leave all day. It seemed to him that he was now
drawn by forces which he could not control--of which, indeed, he had
no knowledge--in directions which he did not understand, and which
were without his own volition. In sheer helpless inability to think
the problem out satisfactorily, he called up a servant and told him
to tell Oolanga that he wanted to see him at once in the turret-
room. The answer came back that the African had not been seen since
the previous evening.
Caswall was now so irritable that even this small thing upset him.
As he was distrait and wanted to talk to somebody, he sent for Simon
Chester, who came at once, breathless with hurrying and upset by the
unexpected summons. Caswall bade him sit down, and when the old man
was in a less uneasy frame of mind, he again asked him if he had
ever seen what was in Mesmer's chest or heard it spoken about.
Chester admitted that he had once, in the time of "the then Mr.
Edgar," seen the chest open, which, knowing something of its history
and guessing more, so upset him that he had fainted. When he
recovered, the chest was closed. From that time the then Mr. Edgar
had never spoken about it again.
When Caswall asked him to describe what he had seen when the chest
was open, he got very agitated, and, despite all his efforts to
remain calm, he suddenly went off into a faint. Caswall summoned
servants, who applied the usual remedies. Still the old man did not
recover. After the lapse of a considerable time, the doctor who had
been summoned made his appearance. A glance was sufficient for him
to make up his mind. Still, he knelt down by the old man, and made
a careful examination. Then he rose to his feet, and in a hushed
voice said:
"I grieve to say, sir, that he has passed away."
