Books: The Native Born
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I. A. R. Wylie >> The Native Born
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There was a general laugh. Travers looked around.
"Some one has accused me falsely," he declared. "I have a prophetic sense
of injury."
"On the contrary, that is what I am suffering from," Stafford retorted.
"Since hearing that you have a new scheme, I have been hastily reckoning
how many weeks' leave I shall have to sacrifice to pay for it."
Travers shook his head.
"As usual--wrong, my dear Captain," he said. "My scheme has two parts. The
first part is known to you all, though for the benefit of weak memories, I
will repeat it. Ladies and gentlemen, in this Station we have the honor of
being protected from the malice of the aborigine by two noble regiments.
We count, moreover, at least thirty of the fair sex and forty
miscellaneous persons, such as miserable civilians like myself, and
children. Hitherto, we have been content to meet at odd times and odd
places. When hospitality has run dry, we have resorted to a shed-like
structure dignified with the name of club. Personally, I call it a
disgrace, which should at once be rectified."
"I have already contributed my mite!" protested a young subaltern from the
British regiment.
"I know; so has everybody. With strenuous efforts I have collected the sum
of five hundred rupees. That won't do. We require at least four times that
sum. Consequently, we must have a patron."
"The second part of your programme concerns the patron, then?" Captain
Webb inquired, with an aspect of considerable relief. "Not yourself, by
any chance?"
"Certainly not. If I had any noble inclinations of that sort I should have
discovered them a long time ago. No, I content myself with taking the part
of a fairy godmother."
"I'm afraid I don't follow," Stafford put in. "What is the fairy godmother
going to do for us? Produce a club-house, a patron, or a cucumber?"
"A patron, and one, my dear fellow, whom I should have entirely overlooked
had it not been for you."
"For me!"
"It was you who made the discovery that the present Rajah is not, as we
thought, an imbecilic youth, but a man of many parts and splendidly
adapted to our requirements."
"I protest!" broke in Stafford, with unusual earnestness. "It was by pure
chance that, in an audience with the Maharajah Scindia, the late regent of
Marut, I got to hear that his whilom ward was both intelligent and
cultured. I believe it was a slip on his part, and, seeing that Rajah
Nehal Singh has shunned all English intercourse, I can not see that there
is any likelihood of his adapting himself or his purse to your plans."
"Oh, bosh!" exclaimed Travers impatiently. "You are too cautious,
Stafford. Other rajahs interest themselves in social matters--why not this
one? He is fabulously rich, I understand, and a little gentle handling
should easily bring him around."
There was a chorus of bravos, in which only one or two did not join. One
was Colonel Carmichael, who stood a little apart, pulling his thin grey
moustache in the nervous, anxious way peculiar to him, his kindly face
overshadowed.
"On principle," he began, after the first applause had died down, "I am
against the suggestion. Of course, I have no deciding voice in the matter,
but I confess that the idea has not my approval. I know very well that, as
you say, other native princes have proved themselves useful and valuable
acquisitions to English society. In some cases it may be well enough,
though in no case does it seem to me right to accept hospitality from a
man to whom we only grant an apparent equality. In this particular case I
consider the idea--well, repulsive."
"May I ask why, Colonel?" Travers asked sharply.
"By all means. Because less than a quarter of a century ago the father of
the man from whom you are seeking gifts slaughtered by treachery hundreds
of our own people."
An uncomfortable, uneasy silence followed. Captain Stafford and Lois
exchanged a quick glance of understanding.
"I know of at least two people who will agree with me," continued the
Colonel, who had intercepted and possibly anticipated the glance.
"You are right, Colonel," Stafford said. "I bear no malice, and any idea
of revenge seems to me foolish. As far as I know, the present Rajah is all
that can be desired, but I protest against a suggestion--and what is
worse, a practice, which must inevitably lower our dignity in the eyes of
those we are supposed to govern."
The awkward silence continued for a moment, no one caring to express a
contrary opinion, though a contrary opinion undoubtedly existed.
Beatrice looked up at Captain Webb, who happened to be standing at her
side. Her acquaintance with him dated only from an hour back, but an
uncontrollable irritation made her voice her opinions to him.
"I think all that sort of thing rather overstrained and unnecessary," she
said. "Your chief business is to get the best out of life, and quixotic
people who worry about the means are rather a nuisance, don't you think?"
Captain Webb's bored features lighted up with a faint amusement.
"O, Lor', you mustn't say that sort of thing to me, Miss Cary!" he said in
a subdued aside. "Superior officer, you know! If you want an index to my
feelings, study my countenance." He pretended to smother a gigantic yawn,
and Beatrice's cool, unchecked laughter broke the constraint.
Travers look around with a return of his old good-humor.
"Well," he said, "I have two votes against my plans, but, with due
respect to those two, who are, perhaps, unduly influenced by unfortunate
circumstances, I feel that it is only just that the others should be
given a voice in the matter. Do you agree, Colonel?"
Colonel Carmichael had by this time regained his placid, gentle manner.
"Certainly," he agreed, without hesitation.
"Hands up, then, for letting Rajah Nehal Singh go his way in peace!"
Three hands went up--Colonel Carmichael's, Stafford's and Lois'. Beatrice
glanced at the latter with a smile that expressed what it was meant to
express--a supercilious amusement. Her indifference was rapidly taking
another and more decided character.
"Hands up for drawing the bashful youth into Circe's circle!" called
Travers, now thoroughly elated. A forest of hands went up. Captain Webb
and his bosom comrade, Captain Saunders, who, for diplomatic reasons had
remained neutral, exchanged grins. "You see," Travers said, turning with
deferential politeness to the Colonel, "the day is against you."
"The Old Guard dies, but never surrenders!" quoted the Colonel
good-humoredly.
"The next question is, on whose shoulders shall the task of beguilement
fall?" Travers went on, glancing at Stafford. "I suppose you, O, wise
young judge--?"
"It is out of the question," Stafford answered at once. "I consider I have
done enough damage already."
"What about your serpent's tongue, Travers?" suggested Webb. "When I think
of the follies you have tempted me to commit, I feel that you should be
unanimously elected."
Travers bowed his acknowledgments with mock gravity.
"Since there are no other candidates, I accept the onerous task," he said,
"but I can not go about it single-handed. The serpent's tongue may be
mine, but I lack, I fear, the grace and personal charm necessary for
complete conquest. I need the help of Circe, herself." His bright,
bird-like eye passed over the laughing group, resting on Lois an instant
with an expression of woebegone regret. Beatrice Cary was the next in
line, and his search went no farther than her flushed, eager face. "Ah!"
he exclaimed, "I have found the enchantress herself! Miss----" He
hesitated, for an instant unaccountably shaken out of his debonair
self-possession. Webb sprang to the rescue with a formal introduction, and
Travers proceeded, if not entirely with his old equanimity. "I beg your
pardon, Miss Cary," he apologized. "Your face is, strangely enough, so
familiar to me that I took you for an old acquaintance--perhaps, indeed,
you are, if in our modern days Circe finds it necessary to travel
incognito."
Beatrice joined in the general amusement, her unusually large and
beautiful eyes bright with elation.
"May I claim your assistance?" Travers went on. "Instinct tells me that we
shall be irresistible."
"Willingly," Beatrice responded, "though I can not imagine how I can help
you."
"Leave that to me," he said, offering her his arm. "My plans are
Napoleonic in their depth and magnitude. If you will allow me to unfold
them to you before the dancing begins--?"
She smiled her assent, and walked at his side toward the Colonel's
bungalow. On their way they passed Mrs. Cary, who, strangely enough, did
not respond to the half-triumphant glance which her daughter cast at her.
She turned hastily aside.
"Mr. Travers is no doubt--" she began, in a confidential undertone; but
her companion, Mrs. Carmichael, had taken the opportunity and vanished.
The light-hearted, superficial discussion, with its scarcely felt
undercurrent of tragic reminiscence, had lasted through the swift sunset,
and already dusk was beginning to throw its long shadows over the gaily
dressed figures that streamed up toward the bungalow.
On the outskirts of the garden lights were springing up in quick
succession, thanks to the industry of Mrs. Carmichael, who hurried from
one Chinese lantern to the other, breathless but determined. The task was
doubtless an ignominious one for an Anglo-Indian lady of position, but
Mrs. Carmichael, who acted as a sort of counterbalance to her husband's
extravagant hospitality, cared not at all. England, half-pay and all its
attendant horrors, loomed in the near future, and economy had to be
practised somehow.
Of the late group only Lois and John Stafford remained. They had not
spoken, but, as though obeying a mutual understanding, both remained
quietly waiting till they were alone.
"Shall we walk about a little?" he asked at last. "I missed our morning
ride so much. It has put my whole day out of joint, and I want something
to put it straight again. Do you mind, or would you rather dance? I see
they have begun."
"No," she said. "I would rather be quiet for a few minutes. Somehow I have
lost the taste for that sort of thing to-night."
"I also," he responded.
They walked silently side by side along the well-kept path, each immersed
in his own thoughts and soothed by the knowledge that their friendship had
reached a height where silence is permitted--becomes even the purest form
of expression. At the bottom of the compound they reached a large,
low-built building, evidently once a dwelling-place, overgrown with wild
plants and half in ruins, whose dim outlines stood out against the
darkening background of trees and sky. The door stood open, and must
indeed have stood open for many years, for the broken hinges were rusty
and seemed to be clinging to the torn woodwork only by the strength of
undisturbed custom.
Stafford came to a halt.
"That is where--" he began, and then abruptly left his sentence
unfinished.
"Yes," she said, "it is here. I don't think, as long as we live in India,
that my guardian will ever have it touched. He calls it the Memorial. My
father was his greatest friend, and the terrible fact that he came too
late to save him has saddened his whole life."
Stafford looked down at her. The light from a lantern which Mrs.
Carmichael, with great dexterity, had fixed among some overhanging
branches, fell on the dark features, now composed and thoughtful. She met
his glance in silence, with large eyes that had taken into their depths
something of the surrounding shadow. He had never felt so strongly before
the peculiarity of her fascination--perhaps because he had never seen her
in a setting which seemed so entirely a part of herself. The distant
music, the hum of voices, and that strange charm which permeates an Indian
nightfall--above all, the ruined bungalow with its shattered door and
silent memories--these things, with their sharp contrasts of laughter and
tragedy, had formed themselves into a background which belonged to her, so
that she and they seemed inseparable.
"Oh, Lois, little girl!" Stafford said gently. "I have always thought of
you as standing alone, different from everything and everybody, a stranger
from another world, irresistible, incomprehensible. I have just understood
that you are part and parcel of it all, child of the sun and flowers and
mysteries and wonders. It is I who am the stranger!"
"Hush!" she said, in a voice of curious pain. "Hush! Let us go back. We
must dance--whether we will or not."
He followed her without protest. The very rustle of her muslin skirts over
the fallen leaves made for his ears a new and fantastic music.
Close behind them wandered the two captains, Webb and Saunders, arm in
arm. At the entrance to Colonel Carmichael's Memorial Webb stopped, and,
striking a match against the door, proceeded to light his cigar. The tiny
flame lit up for an instant the languid patrician features.
"A cigar is one's only comfort in a dull affair like this," he remarked,
as they resumed their leisurely promenade. "Awful wine, wasn't it?"
"Awful. The Colonel is beginning to put on the curb--or his lady. It's the
same thing."
"It will be better when the club comes into existence," said Webb, blowing
consolatory clouds of smoke into the quiet air.
"It is to be hoped so. Spunky devil, that Travers. Wonder how he means to
do the trick. He knows how to pick out a pretty partner, anyhow."
"That Cary girl? Yes. Wait till the heat has dried her up, though. She'll
be a scarecrow, like the rest of them. By the way, what were her people?"
"Heaven knows--something in the D.P.W., I believe. The mother was dressed
in the queerest kit."
"I heard her talking about 'the gentlemen,'" remarked Webb, laughing, as
they went up the steps of the bungalow together.
The Memorial was once more left to its shadows and silence. At the edge of
the compound a group of natives peered through the fencing, watching and
listening. Their dark faces expressed neither hatred nor admiration, nor
sorrow, nor pleasure--at most, a dull wonder.
When they were tired of watching, they passed noiselessly on their way.
CHAPTER III
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."
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