Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (53 page)

‘Look here,’ said Tarvin reverently, as he took her hand from his shoulder and held it firmly in his clutch again, ‘are there many of you in India?’

‘But one. I am like yourself — alone.’ Her chin drooped against his shoulder, and she looked up at him out of her eyes as dark as the lake. The scarlet mouth and the quivering nostrils were so close to his own that the fragrant breath swept his cheek.

‘Are you making states, Tarvin Sahib, like me? No; surely it is a woman. Your government is decreed for you, and you do what it orders. I turned the canal which the Government said should run through my orange-garden, even as I will bend the King to my will, even as I will kill the boy, even as I will myself rule in Gokral Seetarun through my child. But you, Tarvin Sahib — you wish only a woman! Is it not so? And she is too little to bear the weight of the Luck of the State. She grows paler day by day.’ She felt the man quiver, but he said nothing.

From the tangle of scrub and brushwood at the far end of the lake broke forth a hoarse barking cough that filled the hills with desolation as water brims a cup. Tarvin leaped to his feet. For the first time he heard the angry complaint of the tiger going home to his lair after a fruitless night of ranging.

‘It is nothing,’ said the Queen, without stirring. ‘It is only the tiger of the Dungar Talao. I have heard him howling many times when I was a gipsy, and even if he came you would shoot him, would you not, as you shot the ape?’

She nestled close to him, and, as he sank beside her on the stone again, his arm slipped unconsciously about her waist.

The shadow of the beast drifted across an open space by the lake-shore as noiselessly as thistledown draws through the air of summer, and Tarvin’s arm tightened in its resting-place — tightened on a bossed girdle that struck cold on his palm through many folds of muslin.

‘So little and so frail — how could she wear it?’ resumed the queen.

She turned a little in his embrace, and Tarvin’s arm brushed against one, and another, and then another, strand of the girdle, studded like the first with irregular bosses, till under his elbow he felt a great square stone.

He started, and tightened his hold about her waist, with paling lips.

‘But we two,’ the Queen went on, in a low voice, regarding him dreamily, ‘could make the kingdoms fight like the water-buffaloes in spring. Would you be my prime minister, Tarvin Sahib, and advise me through the curtain?’

‘I don’t know whether I could trust you,’ said Tarvin briefly.

‘I do not know whether I could trust myself,’ responded the Queen; ‘for after a time it might be that I should be servant who have always been queen. I have come near to casting my heart under the hoofs of your horse — not once, but many times.’ She put her arms around his neck and joined them there, gazing into his eyes, and drawing his head down to hers. ‘Is it a little thing,’ she cooed, ‘if I ask you to be my king? In the old days, before the English came, Englishmen of no birth stole the hearts of begums, and led their armies. They were kings in all but the name. We do not know when the old days may return, and we might lead our armies together.’

‘All right. Keep the place open for me. I might come back and apply for it one of these days when I’ve worked a scheme or two at home.’

‘Then you are going away — you will leave us soon?’

‘I’ll leave you when I’ve got what I want, my dear,’ he answered, pressing her closer.

She bit her lip. ‘I might have known,’ she said softly. ‘I, too, have never turned aside from anything I desired. Well, and what is it?’

The mouth drooped a little at the corners, as the head fell on his shoulder. Glancing down, he saw the ruby jewelled jade handle of a little knife at her breast.

He disengaged himself from her arms with a quick movement, and rose to his feet. She was very lovely as she stretched her arms appealingly out to him in the half light; but he was there for other things.

Tarvin looked at her between the eyes, and her glance fell.

‘I’ll take what you have around your waist, please.’

‘I might have known that the white man thinks only of money!’ she cried scornfully.

She unclasped a silver belt from her waist and threw it from her, clinking, upon the marble.

Tarvin did not give it a glance.

‘You know me better than that,’ he said quietly. ‘Come, hold up your. hands. Your game is played.’

‘I do not understand,’ she said. ‘Shall I give you some rupees?’ she asked scornfully. ‘Be quick, Juggut Singh is bringing the horses.’

‘Oh, I’ll be quick enough. Give me the Naulahka.’

‘The Naulahka?’

‘The same. I’m tired of tipsy bridges and ungirt horses and uneasy arches and dizzy quicksands. I want the necklace.’

‘And I may have the boy?’

‘No; neither boy nor necklace.’

‘And will you go to Colonel Nolan in the morning?’

‘The morning is here now. You’d better be quick.’

‘Will you go to Colonel Nolan?’ she repeated, rising and facing him.

‘Yes; if you don’t give me the necklace.’

‘And if I do?’

‘No. Is it a trade?’ It was his question to Mrs. Mutrie.

The Queen looked desperately at the day-star that was beginning to pale in the East. Even her power over the King could not save her from death if the day discovered her beyond the palace walls.

The man spoke as one who held her life in the hollow of his hand; and she knew he was right. If he had proof he would not scruple to bring it before the Maharajah; and if the Maharajah believed —  — Sitabhai could feel the sword at her throat. She would be no founder of a dynasty, but a nameless disappearance in the palace. Mercifully, the King had not been in a state to understand the charges Tarvin had brought against her in the courtyard. But she lay open now to anything this reckless and determined stranger might choose to do against her. At the least he could bring upon her the formless suspicion of an Indian court, worse than death to her plans, and set the removal of Maharaj Kunwar beyond her power, through the interposition of Colonel Nolan; and at the worst —  — But she did not pursue this train of thought.

She cursed the miserable weakness of liking for him which had prevented her from killing him just now as he lay in her arms. She had meant to kill him from the first moment of their interview; she had let herself toy too long with the fascination of being dominated by a will stronger than her own, but there was still time.

‘And if I do not give you the Naulahka?’ she asked.

‘I guess you know best about that.’

As her eye wandered out on the plain she saw that the stars no longer had fire in them; the black water of the reservoir paled and grew grey, and the wild-fowl were waking in the reeds. The dawn was upon her, as merciless as the man. Juggut Singh was leading up the horses, motioning to her in an agony of impatience and terror. The sky was against her; and there was no help on earth.

She put her hands behind her. Tarvin heard the snap of a clasp, and the Naulahka lay about her feet in ripples of flame.

Without looking at him or the necklace, she moved toward the horses. Tarvin stooped swiftly and possessed himself of the treasure. Juggut Singh had released his horse. Tarvin strode forward and caught at the bridle, cramming the necklace into his breast-pocket.

He bent to make sure of his girth. The Queen, standing behind her horse, waited an instant to mount.

‘Good-bye, Tarvin Sahib; and remember the gipsy,’ she said, flinging her arm out over the horse’s withers. ‘Heh!’

A flicker of light passed his eye. The jade handle of the Queen’s knife quivered in the saddleflap, half an inch above his right shoulder. His horse plunged forward at the Queen’s stallion, with a snort of pain.

‘Kill him, Juggut Singh!’ gasped the Queen, pointing to Tarvin, as the eunuch scrambled into his saddle. ‘Kill him!’

Tarvin caught her tender wrist in his fast grip. ‘Easy there, girl! Easy!’ She returned his gaze, baffled. ‘Let me put you up,’ he said.

He put his arms about her and swung her into the saddle.

‘Now give us a kiss,’ he said, as she looked down at him.

She stooped. ‘No, you don’t! Give me your hands.’ He prisoned both wrists, and kissed her full upon the mouth. Then he smote the horse resoundingly upon the flank, and the animal blundered down the path and leaped out into the plain.

He watched the Queen and Juggut Singh disappear in a cloud of dust and flying stones, and turned with a deep sigh of relief to the lake. Drawing the Naulahka from its resting-place, and laying it fondly out upon his hands, he fed his eyes upon it.

The stones kindled with the glow of the dawn, and mocked the shifting colours of the hills. The shining ropes of gems put to shame the red glare that shot up from behind the reeds, as they had dulled the glare of the torches on the night of the little Prince’s wedding. The tender green of the reeds themselves, the intense blue of the lake, the beryl of the flashing kingfishers, and the blinding ripples spreading under the first rays of the sun, as a bevy of coots flapped the water from their wings — the necklace abashed them all. Only the black diamond took no joy from the joy of the morning, but lay among its glorious fellows as sombre and red-hearted as the troublous night out of which Tarvin had snatched it.

Tarvin ran the stones through his hands one by one, and there were forty-five of them — each stone perfect and flawless of its kind; nipped, lest any of its beauty should be hidden, by a tiny gold clasp, each stone swinging all but free from the strand of soft gold on which it was strung, and each stone worth a king’s ransom or a queen’s good name.

It was a good moment for Tarvin. His life gathered into it. Topaz was safe!

The wild duck were stringing to and fro across the lake, and the cranes called to one another, stalking through reeds almost as tall as their scarlet heads. From some temple hidden among the hills a lone priest chanted sonorously as he made the morning sacrifice to his god, and from the city in the plain came the boom of the first warddrums, telling that the gates were open and the day was born.

Tarvin lifted his head from the necklace. The jade-handled knife was lying at his feet. He picked up the delicate weapon and threw it into the lake.

‘And now for Kate,’ he said.

XVIII

Now we are come to our Kingdom,
And the State is thus and thus
Our legions wait at the palace gate —
Little it profits us,
Now we are come to our Kingdom.

Now we are come to our Kingdom,
The crown is ours to take —
With a naked sword at the council board,
And under the throne the snake,
Now we are come to our Kingdom.

Now we are come to our Kingdom,
But my love’s eyelids fall,
All that I wrought for, all that I fought for,
Delight her nothing at all.
My crown is withered leaves,
For she sits in the dust and grieves,
Now we are come to our Kingdom.

— King Anthony.

The palace on its red rock seemed to be still asleep as he cantered across the empty plain. A man on a camel rode out of one of the city gates at right angles to his course, and Tarvin noted with interest how swiftly a long-legged camel of the desert can move. Familiar as he had now become with the ostrich-necked beasts, he could not help associating them with Barnum’s Circus and boyhood memories. The man drew near and crossed in front of him. Then, in the stillness of the morning, Tarvin heard the dry click of a voice he understood. It was the sound made by bringing up the cartridge of a repeating rifle. Mechanically he slipped from the saddle, and was on the other side of the horse as the rifle spoke, and a puff of blue smoke drifted up and hung motionless above the camel.

‘I might have known she’d get in her work early,’ he muttered, peering over his horse’s withers. ‘I can’t drop him at this distance with a revolver. What’s the fool waiting for?’

Then he perceived that, with characteristic native inaptitude, the man had contrived to jam his lever, and was beating it furiously on the forepart of the saddle. He remounted hastily, and galloped up, revolver in hand, to cover the blanched visage of Juggut Singh.

‘You! Why, Juggut, old man, this isn’t kind of you.’

‘It was an order,’ said Juggut, quivering with apprehension. ‘It was no fault of mine. I — I do not understand these things.’

‘I should smile. Let me show you.’ He took the rifle from the trembling hand. ‘The cartridge is jammed, my friend; it don’t shoot as well that way. It only needs a little knack — so! You ought to learn it, Juggut.’ He jerked the empty shell over his shoulder.

‘What will you do to me?’ cried the eunuch. ‘She would have killed me if I had not come.’

‘Don’t you believe it, Juggut. She’s a Jumbo at theory, but weak in practice. Go on ahead, please.’

They started back toward the city, Juggut leading the way on his camel, looking back apprehensively every minute. Tarvin smiled at him dryly but reassuringly, balancing on his hip the captured rifle. He observed that it was a very good rifle if properly used.

At the entrance to Sitabhai’s wing of the palace, Juggut Singh dismounted and slunk into the courtyard, the livid image of fear and shame. Tarvin clattered after him, and as the eunuch was about to disappear through a door, called him back.

‘You have forgotten your gun, Juggut,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid of it.’ Juggut was putting up a doubtful hand to take it from him. ‘It won’t hurt anybody this trip. Take yourself back to the lady, and tell her you are returned, with thanks.’

No sound came to his ear from behind the green shutters as he rode away, leaving Juggut staring after him. Nothing fell upon him from out of the arch, and the apes were tied securely. Sitabhai’s next move was evidently yet to be played.

His own next move he had already reckoned with. It was a case for bolting.

He rode to the mosque outside the city, routed out his old friend in dove-coloured satin, and made him send this message: —