Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/145

 his desires and passions wandered about, like lonely children lost in the dark …

“Next stop Rawalpindi!” came the Eurasian railway guard's strident voice. “Change trains there for Peshawar and the North!”

Oh, well—Hector shrugged his shoulders, as if already the fatalistic East had submerged his soul—it had to be.

His old life was dead, and his new life had begun. And it must be untrammeled—by the past, the likes and dislikes, the endeavors and ambitions of the past.

Untrammeled even by—the love of the past?

No, no! His love could never be of the past. It was of the present, the future, all shoreless eternity. His love was a living thing, would ever be a living thing, come what may.

Why, he couldn't do without Jane. She was the breath of life itself to him and …

Hector Wade kicked himself in the shin.

“I am a silly ass,” he remarked, at a little wayside station, to a crimson necked vulture that was sitting on a low wall, flopping its dirt-gray wings and making improper noises in its scrawny throat. “Hector Wade is dead and forgotten. There is only Al Nakia left!”

“Al Nakia!”

He repeated the word aloud, and the Tartar servant sat up and rubbed his sleepy eyes.

“Didst thou call, my lord?” he asked.