Chapter 3 NEHAL SINGH

The Royal apartment was prepared for the suffocating midday heat. Heavy hangings had been pulled across the door which led on to the balcony, and only at one small aperture the sunshine ventured to pierce through and dance its golden reflection hither and thither over the marble floor. The rest was hidden in the semi-obscurity of a starlit night, which, like a transparent veil, half conceals and half reveals an untold richness and splendor.

At either side slender Moorish pillars rose to the lofty ceiling, and from their capitals winking points of light shimmered through the shadows. Fantastic designs sprang into sudden prominence on the walls, shifting with the shifting of the sunshine, and at the far end, raised by steps from the level of the floor, stood a throne, alone marked out against the darkness by its bejeweled splendor. Of other furniture there was no trace. To the left a divan formed of silken cushions had been built up for temporary use, and on this, stretched full length on his side, lay an old man whose furrowed visage appeared doubly dark and sinister beneath the dead white of his turban. His head was half supported on a pillow, and thus at his ease he watched with unblinking, unflagging attention the tall, slight figure by the doorway.

It was the Rajah himself who had let in the one point of daylight. It fell full upon his face and set into a brilliant blaze the single diamond on the nervous, muscular hand which held the curtain aside. Apparently he had forgotten his companion, and indeed everything save the scene on which his eyes rested. Beneath the balcony, like steps to a mighty altar, broad and beautiful terraces descended in stately gradations to a paradise of rare exotic flowers, whose heavy perfume came drifting up on the calm air to the very windows of the palace. This lovely chaos extended for about a mile and then ended abruptly. As though cultivated nature had suddenly broken loose from her artificial bounds, a dark jungle-forest rose up side by side with the flowers and well-kept walks, and like a black stain spread itself into the distance, swallowing up hill and valley until the eye lost itself in the haze of the horizon. Within a few hundred yards of the palace a ruined Hindu temple lifted its dome and crumbling towers into the intense blue of the sky. And on garden, jungle, and temple alike the scorching midday sun blazed down with pitiless impartiality.

For an hour the Rajah had remained watching the unchanging scene, scarcely for an instant shifting his own position. One hand rested on his hip, the other held back the curtain and supported him in a half-leaning attitude of dreamy indolence. Against the intensified darkness of the room behind him his features stood out with the distinctness of a finely cut cameo. A man of about twenty-five years, he yet seemed younger, thanks, perhaps, to his expression, which was extraordinarily untroubled.

Thought, poetic and philosophic, but never tempestuous, sat in the dark, well-shaped eyes and high, intellectual forehead. Humor, sorrow, care, anxiety and doubt, the children of a strenuous life, had left his face singularly unscarred with their characteristic lines. For the rest, beyond that he was unusually fair, he represented in bearing and in feature a Hindu prince of high caste and noble lineage. Between him and the old man upon the divan there was no apparent resemblance. The latter was considerably darker, and lacked both the refinement of feature and dignity of expression which distinguished the younger man. Nevertheless, when he spoke it was in the tone of familiarity, almost of paternal authority.

"Art thou not weary, my son?" he asked abruptly. "For an hour thou hast neither moved nor spoken. Tell me with what thy thoughts are concerned. I would fain know, and thy face has told me nothing."

Nehal Singh let the curtain fall back into its place, and the yellow patch of sunshine upon the marble faded. He looked at his companion steadfastly, but with eyes that saw nothing.

"My thoughts!" he repeated, in a low, musical voice. "My thoughts are valueless. They are like caged birds which have beaten their wings against the bars of their cage and now sit on their golden perches and dream of the world beyond." He laughed gently. "No, my father. You, who have seen the world, would mock at them as dim, unreal reflections of a reality which you have touched and handled. For me they are beautiful enough."

The old man lifted himself on his elbow.

"Thinkest thou never of thyself?" he asked. "In thy dreams hast thou never seen thine own form rise at the call of thy waiting people?"

"My waiting people!" Nehal Singh repeated, with a smile and a faint lifting of the eyebrows. "No people wait for me, my father. So much I have learned. I bear a title, a tract of land acknowledges my rule-but a people! No, like my title, like my power, like myself, so is the people that thou sayest await me-a dream, my father, a dream!" He spoke gravely, without sadness, the same gentle, wistful smile playing about his lips.

The other sank back with a groan.

"The All-Highest pity me!" he exclaimed bitterly. "A child of blood and battle, without energy, without ambition!"

Nehal Singh, who had paced forward to the foot of the throne, turned and looked back.

"Ambition I have had," he answered, "energy I have had. Like my thoughts, they have beaten themselves weary against the bars of their cage. What would you have me do?" He strode back to the door, and, pulling aside the curtain, let the full dazzling sunshine pour in upon them. "See out there!" he cried. "Is it not a sight to bring peace to the soul of the poet and the dreamer? But for the warrior? Can he draw his sword against flowers and trees?"

The old man smiled coldly, but not without satisfaction.

"There is a world that awaiteth thee beyond," he said.

"A world of which I know nothing."

"The time cometh."

Nehal Singh studied the wrinkled face with a new intentness.

"Hitherto thou hast always held a barrier between the world and me," he said. "When the call to the Durbar came, it was thou who bade me say I was ill. When the Feringhi sought my presence, it was thou who held fast my door, first with one excuse, then with another. And now? I do not understand thee."

Behar Asor struggled up into a sitting posture, his features rendered more malignant by a glow of fierce triumph.

"Ay, the barrier has been there!" he cried. "It is I who have held it erect all these years when they thought me dead and powerless. It is I who have kept thee spotless and undefiled, Nehal Singh, thou alone of all thy race and of all thy caste! The shadow of the Unbeliever has never crossed thy man's face, his food thy lips, nor has his hand touched thy man's hand. Thou art the chosen of Brahma, and when the hour striketh and the Holy War proclaimed from east to west and from north to south, then it shall be thy sword-"

Nehal Singh held up his hand with a gesture of command.

"Thou also art a dreamer," he said firmly. "Thy heart is full of an old hatred and an old injury. My heart is free from both. Seest thou, my father, there were years when thy words called up some echo in me. Thou toldest me of the Feringhi, of the bloody battles thou foughtest against them because they had wronged thee; how, after Fortune had smiled faintly, thou wert driven into exile, and I, thy son, bereft of all save pomp and title, placed upon thy empty throne. These things made my blood boil. In those days I thought and planned for the great hour when I should seek revenge for thee and for myself. That is all past."

"Why all past?" Behar Asor demanded.

"Because the truth drifted in to me from the outer world. I saw that everywhere there was peace such as my land, even after thy account, has rarely known. Law and order reigned where there had been plundering and devastation, prosperity where there had been endless famine. More than this, I saw that in every conflict, whether between beast and beast or man and man, it was always the strongest and wisest that conquered. The triumph of the fool and weakling is but a short one, nor is the rule of crime and wickedness of long duration. Why, then, should I throw myself against a people who have brought my people prosperity, and who have proved themselves in peace and war our masters in courage and wisdom?"

Behar Asor struggled up, galvanized by a storm of passion which shook his fragile frame from head to foot.

"Thou art still no more than an ignorant boy," he exclaimed. "What knowest thou of these things?"

"I have read of Englishmen whose deeds outrival the legends of Krishna,"

Nehal Singh answered thoughtfully. "They fought in your time, my father.

Thou knowest them better than I."

The old man ground his teeth together.

"They are dead." There was a reluctant admiration in his tone.

"Nevertheless, their sons live."

"The sons inherit not always the courage of their fathers," Behar Asor answered, with a bitter significance.

Nehal Singh had wandered back to the throne, as though drawn thither by some irresistible attraction, and stood there motionless, his arms folded across his breast.

"Do not blame me," he said at last. "No man can go against himself. Were it in my power, I would do thy will. As it is, without cause or reason I can not draw my sword against men whose fathers have made my heart beat with sympathy and admiration."

Behar Asor sank back in an attitude of absolute despair.

"I am accursed!" he said.

With a smothered sigh, Nehal Singh mounted the steps and seated himself. In his attitude also there was a hopelessness-not indeed the hopelessness of a man whose plans are thwarted, but of one who is keenly conscious that he has no plans, no goal, no purpose. As he sat there, his fine head thrown back against the white ivory, his eyes half closed, his fingers loosely clasping the golden peacocks' heads which formed the arms of his throne, there was, as he had said, something dreamlike and unreal about his whole person, intensified perhaps by the dim atmosphere and shadowy splendor of his surroundings.

Behar Asor had ceased to watch him, but lay motionless, with his face covered by the white mantle which he wore about his shoulders. The first storm of angry disappointment over, he had relapsed into a passive oriental acceptance of the inevitable, which did not, however, exclude an undercurrent of bitter brooding and contempt.

Some time passed before either of the two men spoke. At last Behar Asor lifted his head and glanced quickly sidewise at the figure seated on the throne. Nehal Singh's eyes were now entirely closed and seemed to sleep. Such a proceeding would have been excusable enough in the suffocating heat, but the sight drove the old man into a fresh paroxysm of indignation.

"Sleepest thou, Nehal Singh?" he demanded, in a harsh, rasping voice. "Is it not sufficient that thou hast failed thy destiny, but in the same hour thou must close thine eyes and dream, like a child on whose shoulders rest no duty, no responsibility? Awake! I have more to say to thee."

Nehal Singh looked up.

"I have not slept," he said gravely, "though, as to what concerns duty and responsibility, I might well have done so, for I have neither the one nor the other. Speak, I pray thee. I listen."

Behar Asor remained silent a moment, biting his forefinger. There was something in the action strongly reminiscent of a cunning, treacherous animal.

"Thou hast laughed at thine own power," he said at last, "though I have sworn to thee that, as in my time, so today, the swords that sleep in a hundred thousand sheathes would awake at thy word. They sleep because thou sleepest. Well-thou hast willed to sleep. I can not force thee, and mine own hand has grown too feeble. But since thou hast chosen peace, remember this, that it can last only with thy lifetime. So long thy people will be patient. Afterward-" He shrugged his shoulders significantly.

"Thou hast more to tell me," Nehal Singh said.

"If thou wilt keep peace in thy land, see to it that thou hast children who will carry it on for thee after thou hast passed into the shadow," Behar answered. "Hitherto thou hast led a strange and lonely life, preparing as I willed for the destiny thou hast cast aside. Take now unto thee a companion-a wife."

As though clumsy, untutored fingers which had until now tortured some fine instrument had suddenly, perhaps by chance, perhaps by instinct, struck a pure harmonious chord, Nehal Singh rose to his feet, his weary dreamer's face transfigured with a new light and new energy.

"A wife!" he said under his breath. "A woman! I know nothing of women. In all my life I have seen but two-my mother and a nautch-girl-who cringed to me. I should not like my wife to cringe to me. Are there not such as could be my companion, my comrade? Or are they all servile slaves?"

Behar Asor laughed shortly and contemptuously.

"They are our inferiors," he said, "hence they can not be more than companions for our idle hours. But you will have idle hours enough, and there would be many who would call themselves blessed to share themselves with thee. A great alliance-"

Nehal Singh interrupted him with the old gesture of authority.

"Thou hast said enough, my father," he said. "I will think upon it. Until then-leave me my peace."

With a slow, meditative step he went back to the curtained doorway and, pulling aside the hangings, went out on to the balcony. It was four o'clock, and already the heat of the day had broken. Long rays of sunlight struck eastward across the garden and touched with their faded golden fingers the topmost turrets of the temple. In the distance the shadows of the jungle had advanced and, like the waves of a rising tide, seemed to swallow up, step by step, the brightness of the prospect. Nehal Singh descended the winding stair that led to the first terrace. Thence three paths stretched themselves before him. He chose the central one, and with bowed head passed between the high, half-wild, half-cultivated borders of plants and shrubs. A faint evening breeze breathed its intangible perfume against his cheek, and he looked up smiling.

"A woman!" he murmured dreamily. "A woman!"