“Out of my path, swine.”“Out of my path, swine.”
Now, the high-placed official was vastly offended byRoger’s rude and peremptory words, and some little time elapsed before Mowbray’s apologies, couched in the most polite Persian, were accepted. There was nothing for it but to credit the Colossus with a touch of the sun, and add thereto a hint of his passionate attachment for the buxom Countess.
Even then Walter’s difficulties were not exhausted. Fra Pietro, speaking very firmly, said that his place was with his people, and he would be glad if some arrangement were made whereby he could return to them.
“It is not to be thought of,” was Mowbray’s instant answer. “Not only will Roger create difficulty enough when he encounters Fateh Mohammed, should the latter oppose the departure of the Countess, but I look to you to champion the cause of the other captives at our meeting with Jahangir. A woman may account for my comrade’s absence. Such excuse will not avail you.”
The friar bowed meekly.
“I would not burthen you with fresh cares,” he said, “but I cannot save my own life and leave my flock to perish. Nevertheless, if it be best in your judgment, I will go with you into the Emperor’s presence.”
Mowbray’s resolute features must have shown the irritation which mastered him, for the Franciscan added:—
“Be not angered with your friend. He hath a heart of a size to match his body, and ’tis a man’s privilege to protect the weaker sex. ‘From the beginning of creation God made them male and female.’”
“Believe me, brother, I am mostly concerned about my own lack of foresight in this matter. Thank Heaven there is no woman here for whose sake I should be compelled to act, it may be, even more hastily than Roger!”
“Did you not tell me that Nur Mahal inhabits that portion of the zenana situate over the Water Gate?”
“Yes; what if she does?”
“While Master Sainton was venting his ire I chanced to turn my eyes that way. A white scarf fluttered for an instant high above the gate. Ah! there it is again! Take heed lest some of the others follow your glance! You are not prone to rash vows, friend, yet I am much mistaken if there be not a woman in Agra who shall perplex you sorely ere many hours have passed.”
And, indeed, Walter did see a whirl of muslin tremble in the air like a tiny cloud from one of the many small windows which pierced the frowning battlements.
“Under which King, Bezonian? Speak, or die!”King Henry IV, Part II, Act 5, Sc. 3.
“Under which King, Bezonian? Speak, or die!”King Henry IV, Part II, Act 5, Sc. 3.
When a woman’s head governs her heart she is to be feared; and that is why Providence, meaning her to be loved, ordained that, for the most part, her heart should govern her head. In the rarer descriptions of the human clay a woman unites in herself romance and the critical faculty, as though the Master delighted in blending Aphrodite with Athene.
Nur Mahal, true daughter of the gods, was such a one. Gifted with the intelligence and cold intellect of an empire-ruler she seldom yielded to the divine femininity which was her birthright. It was an impulse of sheer emotion which led her to betray her joy by a signal when she distinguished Mowbray in the midst of the troop of horse. Not unnaturally, she interpreted the sudden halt caused by Roger’s anxiety anent the Countess as arising from Mowbray’s wish to let her know that he had seen the fluttering scarf and rightly guessed its owner. If so, his action was an indiscretion. Who could tell how many pairs of eyes were watching him from hidden chamber or open battlements?
The departure of Sainton in such furious hastepuzzled her exceedingly, but she was reassured when Mowbray turned his horse’s head again towards Dilkusha. She knew now that the brown-robed stranger who rode so near to him was not only the friend, spoken of by Jai Singh, for whom the Englishman had dared so greatly, but that he, too, had observed her token. So she ventured to thrust forth the gossamer muslin a second time, and she was sure that Mowbray looked towards her and bowed gracefully, even raising his hat to show that he was aware of her presence.
In Agra, during the Mogul dynasty, such was the perfection reached by the weaver’s art, muslin was fashioned of a texture so delicate that a turban or girdle, if spread out, would sink gently, with surprising slowness, to the ground. Nur Mahal, though impoverished, still retained her wardrobe, and this scarf was one of the lightest and most beautiful in her possession. Nevertheless, a flaming torch thrust into an oil-soaked beacon could not have kindled a tocsin fire of more furious significance than those floating folds. Aware of her environment she, having hastily adjudged Mowbray guilty of imprudence, should have been prudent herself. But prudence is a negative quality seldom allied with the magnetic powers which sway men, and Nur Mahal was bold in either love or hate. Moreover, she despised her enemies.
So it came to pass that the Emperor pleaded fatigue when Mowbray and Fra Pietro rode to the palace that afternoon, and they returned to the Garden of Heart’s Delight more perplexed than ever by Jahangir’s inscrutableattitude. Of Jai Singh they could glean no tidings. All the servants in the late Diwán’s residence were newcomers and Mahomedans, to whom the old Rajput was unknown. His fellow-clansmen of the escort had no later intelligence of his movements than Walter himself, who, though restored to familiar surroundings, was nevertheless in the position of a traveler returned to a place whence the well-known landmarks have been effaced.
Fra Pietro, in his placid way, admired the beauty of the garden, the elegance of the building, the wealth of roses and flowering plants which adorned each lovely vista, and then settled down to read his breviary by the waning light.
“It is a salutary practise,” said he quietly, “to turn one’s thoughts heavenward when the world grows dark,” and indeed, Walter, confused by a hundred conflicting issues, found himself regretting the lack of spirituality in his soul which rendered such solace unattainable in the present stress of events.
For never was man more mystified. Clemency, even from a Mogul ruler, was not altogether a vain thing to expect. But why had Jahangir’s grace taken such form? If the Europeans were to be well received, why had the Emperor denied them admission to the fort under a trumpery excuse, after having expressed a wish to see them at once? Where was Jai Singh? Evidently Nur Mahal, assuming it was she who signalled from the tower, had definite news of their coming, and it was most unlikely that she could be so accuratelyinformed save through the medium of her devoted adherent. What mad adventure was Roger engaged in that he was not come ere sunset, for he would reach Fateh Mohammed’s camp about noon, and he would surely hasten the Countess’s departure, if unopposed, to permit arrival at Dilkusha before night fell? Yet the shadows cast by the cypress trees were fast merging with the somber pall spreading over the land, and not a sound of jingling mule bells or clanking steel came to the anxious listener’s ears.
Darkness fell with the phenomenal rapidity of the vast Indian plain. The sky was overcast. The winter rains were long due, and heavy clouds were massed aloft ready to break when the first cold wind swept down from the Himalayas. But the wind, as Fra Pietro would have it, was only surpassed in fickleness by woman, and it chose now to linger in the icy solitudes of the awful hills rather than seek the pasture lands awaiting its caress. Hence, the atmosphere was oppressive, stirred only by languorous zephyrs from the southwest, and the silence of the garden was such that the uneasy perching of a bird or the rustle of a mongoose in the undergrowth were sounds of import, demanding watchful eyes and strained hearing.
Mowbray and the friar were lodged in that part of the building which overlooked thebaraduri, or summer-house. As frail man, whether warrior or saint, must eat, the pair partook of a well served meal. Other things being equal the repast would have provided a grateful change from the hard fare of the journey up-country.But anxiety is a poor sauce, and they ate rather because they must than because they chose. And now, even the Franciscan put aside for the hour his indifference to matters mundane.
“Our good Roger is belated, I fear,” he said. “Unless he cometh soon I shall offer a prayer in his behalf to St. James, the special patron of all who travel by night.”
“If the result be guaranteed, brother, pray earnestly, I beg you, and, should your list of heavenly advocates include one noted for his wise counsel, ask him to guide our steps aright when next we leave this bewitched abode. In my childhood I was told that the little people who dwell under the green knolls on the hillsides always lead those mortals who fall into their power to scenes of fairy beauty. Certes, this garden is planned for like sorcery. I first entered it a simple trader, but ever since that day my brains have been clouded and my feet meshed in hidden snares.”
Walter spoke bitterly, else he would not have even hinted at his disbelief in the efficacy of the apostolic protection. There never was man of humbler spirit than Fra Pietro, yet he took up the cudgels in earnest when his companion seemed to discredit the son of Zebedee and Salome.
“Blame not the Garden of Eden because it held a snake,” said he. “Whether in garden or desert the Lord will listen to my petition, and grant it the more readily, should it be for the good of my soul, if it be carried to the foot of the throne by a holy sponsor likeSt. James. His mother, some commentators hold, was sister to the Blessed Virgin; he taught the gospel to each of the twelve tribes; and he was the first Christian bishop to undergo martyrdom. He is ever portrayed with the gourd, shell, staff, and cap of a traveler, and it is only reasonable to suppose that such a pillar of the Church should be in special favor in that eternal garden where he is receiving the reward of his earthly sufferings.”
The friar’s outburst, delivered with much fervor, aroused Mowbray to some sense of his involuntary error.
“I beseech your pardon, good Brother Peter,” he cried. “Not for a moment would I dare to disparage St. James. Forget my heedless words. My faith, was it not one named after him who packed me neck and crop into such wanderings as have not been endured by many of my generation, unless it be those few countrymen of mine who crossed the Spanish Main with Hawkins and Grenville? Assuredly, it would ill become me to question the potency of a James, whether Saint or King, where travelers were concerned.”
Perhaps he had phrased his apology better were he less preoccupied. The Franciscan, watching him, sighed and murmured:—
“Gratiam tuam quaesmus, Domine, mentibus nostris infunde!”
The hours passed and naught happened, until Mowbray, harassed by evil forebodings, resolved that further inaction was not to be endured. He marshaled hisRajputs, of whom there were fourteen, and asked for three volunteers who would ride to Fateh Mohammed’s camp and bring news. He would see to it that they were allowed to depart from Dilkusha, and thenceforth they were not to draw rein until they reached the camp, which they were to enter by such means as seemed best to them. If Sainton-sahib were there they must return with utmost speed, one or all, as soon as they had gleaned some explanation of the sahib’s detention.
Each man was willing, so he selected three, and one other, whom he commissioned to search the bazaar and inquire in likely quarters for tidings of Jai Singh.
There was some difficulty at the gate, but Mowbray’s determined air, no less than the truculent attitude of his men, whose belief in him was unbounded, soon quelled the scruples of the doorkeeper, and the four clattered out into the night. It was now ten o’clock, and, in Walter’s opinion, nothing short of force had kept Roger from joining him within the preceding five hours. He deemed it wise to guard the gate on his own account, so he selected the oldest Rajput, one Devi Pershad, to act as lieutenant, while he split up the remainder of his small force into three watches.
He gave strict orders that thenceforth, until daybreak, none should enter or leave the compound without his knowledge and sanction, and he fancied that the Musalman durwán, thus deposed from his duties, smiled maliciously when he heard the lordly stranger imposing his will on those who maintained the dwelling for Jahangir.
Instantly the man was put to the test. Ere he could banish the smile from his face, Mowbray grasped him by the neck, and Devi Pershad held a lantern close to his eyes while his master bared Sher Afghán’s dagger.
“How now, dog!” Walter cried. “Wouldst thou dare to question my commands?”
The doorkeeper’s knees yielded. Here was one who read his thoughts.
“Not so, protector of the poor,” he gasped, “but many have come within the hour, and there may be others.”
“Many, sayest thou? There are not twenty servants in the house all told,” and he shook the fellow till his teeth rattled.
“I am a poor man, sahib—and I do as I am bid. Those who come with a sign—I admit,” was the stuttering answer.
“What manner of sign?”
“Some tap once and crysufed-kira(death watch); others tap thrice and sayJai(victory), and it was myhukmto admit both without question.”
If the trembling wretch’s confession needed evidence it was fittingly supplied. From without came three slight knocks and a voice:—
“Within there, brother. The word isJai!”
Mowbray released the durwán, sheathed his dagger and drew his sword. He motioned to the door.
Instantly the man was put to the test.Instantly the man was put to the test.
“Open, and act as thou wouldst have done were I not here,” he muttered. He and Devi Pershad, with the Rajputs of the first guard, hastened into the darkinterior of the lodge while the man unbound the gate. There entered a very harmless couple, abhisti, carrying his empty water-bag of goatskin, and a veiled woman whose simple garb showed that she was of the same caste, in all probability his wife.
But why had such a pair used a password, and why were two different passwords in vogue at all that night? Here was a minor riddle of which a sword-point might find the key. Walter sprang forth and seized the water-carrier. The woman uttered a slight cry of alarm, but seemed to regain instant control of herself. The poorbhistiwas so taken aback by the sight of the gleaming blade with which the Englishman enforced his stern demand for information that he uttered not a word. His jaw fell and he gazed up at Walter in dumb fear.
Somehow, when the rays of the lantern revealed his features, Mowbray thought he knew the man. Suddenly, recollection came. This was the palace servant who warned him and Roger against Jahangir’s malice on the day of the wild beast combats.
But, whatever form Mowbray’s questions might have taken, all such speculations were driven from his brain, and he released thebhistiin blank amazement, when a well-remembered voice murmured sweetly:—
“Harm him not, Walter. He is a humble well-wisher who escorted me hither.”
It was Nur Mahal who spoke. Never before had she addressed him by his Christian name, the sound of which she must have learned owing to Roger’s frequent use of it. Clearly, she had acquired its facile pronunciationby much private endeavor, for his own mother could not have uttered the word more accurately.
And what was he to say, or do? Though it was always a likely thing that Nur Mahal, knowing he was in Agra, would endeavor to reach him, now that she was actually here how should he shape his course to avoid the complications sure to result if her visit came to Jahangir’s ears? It is not to be wondered at if his brain whirled with jostling thoughts, nor that her presence should obscure for the nonce the vital importance of ascertaining the significance of the passwords, whose mere choice showed that they represented the rival factions of Mahomedans and Hindus.
“I see that you are not to be taken by surprise, let those plan who will,” she whispered, and she laughed musically, with a certain frolicsome lightness long absent from her manner. Was the winsome maid of the Garden of Heart’s Delight re-born amidst the sorrows which encompassed her? Was her rapid descent from high estate the means of her regeneration, seeing that content oft arrives by the door through which ambition departs? Who could tell? Certainly not Mowbray, to whose already grievous load of cares her presence added no inconsiderable charge.
But, if the man were flurried, the woman was not. She threw back her veil, being ever disdainful of the ordinance that women of rank and beauty should hide their faces from the common ken.
“Thank you, good fellow,” she said to thebhisti. “Get you back to the fort speedily, and remember thatthose who serve me without words shall be paid ten times more than those who talk. Ah!” she continued, turning to the wondering Rajputs who, of course, recognized her as soon as the light illumined her animated features, “Jai Singh told me you were faithful to your salt. It could not be otherwise with men from Rajputána, yet such fidelity is worthy of reward. It shall not be long delayed.”
The coarse linensariof the water-carrier’s wife had fallen from her head and shoulders, and even the flickering glimmer of the oil lamp revealed the fact that Nur Mahal was attired with uncommon splendor. She not only looked but spoke like a queen, and her way of addressing the poor retainers at the gate was as gracious and dignified as if they were court nobles.
“Have you brought no other retinue?” asked Walter, at a loss for more pertinent question before so many inquisitive ears.
She laughed again, and the silvery note of her mirth was pleasant if disconcerting.
“All in good time,” she said. “Let us go to the house, but first inquire, if you do not know, who have preceded me. Then I shall tell you who will come after.”
Amidst the chaos of his ideas Mowbray was conscious that Nur Mahal was rendering him one invaluable service. She brought with her certainty where all was void. Her words, her air, betokened a fixed purpose. For all he knew he might be a pawn or a king in the game she was playing, but, until he was furtherenlightened, it was advisable to move as she directed. Then, being a free agent, he might become erratic.
The doorkeeper, brought to the domain of dry figures, whittled down his earlier statement as to the number of strange visitors he had admitted. There were two Mahomedans, using the significant countersign “Death Watch,” while no less than eight Hindus, excluding Nur Mahal (herself a Mahomedan), were of the “Victory” party. He knew none. His orders were from the Grand Vizier.
“Whither have they gone? Are they secreted in the house?” demanded Mowbray.
“Enough said,” was Nur Mahal’s laconic interruption. “Come with me. I will explain.”
She led him into the avenue of cypresses. When he would have spoken she caught his arm.
“Not here!” she whispered. “I am told you are lodged in the Peacock Room. Let us converse there in privacy.”
“You know so much,” he murmured, “that perchance you can tell me what has befallen Roger Sainton?”
She stopped.
“Why did he leave you?” she asked.
“He went to rescue one whom he promised not to abandon. My fear of intrigue led him to bring the lady here ere it was too late.”
“To bring a woman—here!”
“Why not? If one woman, why not another?”
“Come!” she urged. “We are at cross purposes,but I have no information as to Sainton-sahib. I had hoped he was with you, for he is worth a thousand. Silence now!”
His feet crunched the gravel of the path, yet he disdained to walk stealthily. Nur Mahal’s tiny slippers made no noise. She moved by his side with swift grace, and when he would have made a détour, led him to the main entrance, paying no heed to those of the house servants stationed at the door, though they stared as if she were a ghost. It may be that some among them were aware of her identity, but in any case the apparition of such a woman, unveiled, in the company of a foreigner, was sufficiently remarkable in India to create unbounded astonishment.
She swept on through the building, casting aside the cumbersomesarias if its purpose of concealment were at an end. The few lamps which lit the inner rooms were scattered and dim, but Mowbray could see that his first impression as to the magnificence of her garments was not a mistaken one. She had yielded so far to convention, being a widow, as to wear a purple dress, but the bodice of white silk was fringed with silver, an exquisite shawl draped her shoulders in diaphanous folds, diamonds gleamed in her hair, and her rapid movements showed that her silk stockings were shot with silver. A strange garb, truly, for one who, according to Jai Singh, lived on a pittance of one rupee a day, and even more noteworthy when the manner and hour of her visit to Dilkusha were taken into account.
When she entered the Peacock Room she found FraPietro kneeling, with his face sunk in his hands, near to thecharpoy, or roughly contrived bedstead, which, like all Europeans, he preferred to the cushions of the East. Walter had quitted the room by another door, so the worthy Franciscan’s spellbound look, when he raised his eyes to learn who it was who came from the interior of the house and saw the radiant figure of Nur Mahal, would surely, under other circumstances, have brought a laugh to Walter’s lips.
The friar, wishing to read some portion of the daily “office,” had obtained four lamps and trimmed them with some care. Comparatively speaking, there was a flood of light at his end of the spacious chamber, and the obscurity reigning in the further part only added to the bewildering effect of the sylph-like being who, after advancing a little way, stood and gazed at him irresolutely.
But Mowbray’s firm tread broke the spell against which Fra Pietro was already fortifying himself by fervent ejaculations. A prophet surprised by the fulfilment of his own prophecy, he rose to his feet, and bowed with the ready politeness of his race.
“Princess,” he said, speaking Urdu, with slow precision, “I greet you! None but you can resolve our perplexities. You are, indeed, well come!”
The aspect of the friar, with the shaven crown, untrimmed beard, coarse brown robe and hood, white cords and rough sandals of St. Francis d’Assisi, was no less astounding to Nur Mahal than was her regal semblance to him. In her eyes he was on a parity with thefakirs, the mullahs, the religious mendicants of her adopted country. The few Europeans she had seen were soldiers, merchants, or dignified ecclesiastics of the Jesuit order, but here was one whose poverty-stricken appearance might well have prejudiced her against him. Like the Apostle whose name he bore, Fra Pietro had said: “Lo, we have left all, and followed Thee.” Of such renunciatory gospel Nur Mahal had no cognizance.
Nevertheless, such was the depth of this girl-widow’s sagacity, that she caught instantly from the Franciscan’s benign features some glimpse of his exalted character. She half turned to Walter with her enchanting smile:—
“I had forgotten the presence of your friend. This, doubtless, is the priest of whom I have heard, and for whose sake you dared do more than for mine.”
“I owed him my life, and more, for he saved me from unimagined horrors. Nor is the debt yet paid in full,” was the reply.
“Can I speak openly before him?”
“You may trust Fra Pietro, Princess, as you would trust none other.”
“Yet I have trusted many to-night. Now list to me carefully, for time presses. Jahangir dies ere daybreak, and there is much to be done by a man who shall risk all.”
“The Emperor dies! Do you mean that he is to be murdered?”
“Call it what you will, his death is ordained. Nay,frown not so ominously. ’Tis not of my planning. Those who wish his downfall are not seeking to avenge my wrongs. If they succeed, and I see no reason why they should fail, they aim at placing Khusrow on the throne. And who is Khusrow? A boy of ten! I, a woman, am a mere puppet in their hands. That is why I am here. You see one who is in the counsels of both parties yet bound to neither.”
She threw back her head, and the circlet of brilliants across her smooth white brow did not send forth brighter gleams than her eyes. Speaking so freely of treason and dynastic plots, she smiled as though the whole affair were some hoax of which she alone knew the petty secret.
“You have met Raja Man Singh and his ally, the Maharaja of Bikanir?” she continued, coolly, before Walter could decide what shape the tumultuous questions trembling on his lips should take.
“Yes,” he answered, “and they are well aware with what loathing I regard their schemes.”
“It is always possible to change one’s mind,” she said slowly. “I cannot, in a few minutes, give you the history of months; the record of the past few hours must suffice. Since it was known that you and the Hathi-sahib were returning to Agra there has been naught but plot and counter-plot. First, those who conspire against the Emperor look to you to help them, and are even now awaiting you in thebaraduriat the bottom of the garden. Secondly, Jahangir, well aware of their intent, has resolved to ensnare them and you in onecast of the net. Hence, the followers of Raja Man Singh and those others who will strike for Khusrow are gathering silently, some within a stone’s throw of the outer walls of the palace, ready to follow their leader in the attack on the fort, where the guard of the Delhi Gate will admit them, the remainder among the trees without. But the forces of the Emperor, ten times more numerous, will fall on them at midnight, whereas the revolt is timed for the first hour. Already the traitors inside the fort have been secured. A few live to delude their friends—most are dead. All this, you may say, concerns you not. You are wrong, Mowbray-sahib. You are a greater man than you think. The conspirators count surely on your assistance and that of Sainton-sahib, whose repute with the common people is worth a whole army. Therefore, lest aught miscarried, they came to me and urged me to induce you to head the outbreak. Though I am a weak woman, I might not have consented had not the Emperor joined his supplications to theirs.”
“The Emperor!” cried Walter, with involuntary loudness.
“Hush! Thebaraduriis not far distant. Yes, Jahangir still favors me with his jealousy. He does not know that—that—you are longing for the sight of some other woman beyond the black seas. Do not misunderstand me. Jahangir hates me and fears you. Kept well informed by his spies of all that was going on, he connived at the scheme which brought you and me to the forefront of the rebellion. Thus, when hestamps it out in blood, we shall be the chief victims. But that is not all. Raja Man Singh and his friends are in no mind to kill Jahangir and clear the way for a foreign intruder. They, too, see how we may serve their ends. Once the Emperor is dead it will be a fitting excuse to get rid of us on the ground that we conspired against him.”
“’Tis a pretty plot,” said Mowbray, grimly. “Hath it any further twists?”
“Yes, one. Raja Man Singh, Khusrow, and the rest are doomed. Few of them shall see the sun again. The man who contrived their fate is far more skilled in intrigue than they. Behind Jahangir and his feud with me stands the black robe.”
“Dom Geronimo! I thought him dead.”
“He may be, but he lived to-day,” was Nur Mahal’s careless answer. “Living or dead, his hour has passed. Others, too, can think and plan. Not plotters now, but swords are needed. I would that Sainton-sahib were here. Why did you let him go?”
“He is hard to restrain when set on anything. But you would not have him and me, with twenty troopers, fight for our own hand ’gainst all India!”
She came nearer to the listening men. In her eagerness she grasped each by an arm and whispered:—
“Jai Singh is within call with two hundred. A few determined men to-night are worth thousands to-morrow. Three hoots of an owl from the wall behind thebaraduriwill bring him and them. You have the leaders of the revolt gathered in the summer-house,whence they will soon send a messenger to summon you to council. They know I am here and await my pleasure. Above them—” and now her voice dropped so low that the words only just reached their ears—“you have Jahangir himself and his principal minion, Ibrahim, the Chief Eunuch!”
Her eyes blazed with the intensity of her emotion. Great though her power of self-control, she quivered slightly, and the action, trivial in itself, told that this woman was the nerve-center of an empire. She waited no comment. The moment long looked for had come at last. India, with all its potentialities, was within her grasp.
“Doubt not, but act!” she murmured, passionately, seeing the incredulity in the men’s faces. “In the roof of thebaradurithere is a secret chamber, contrived there, for their own purposes, by Akbar and my father. From it, in fancied security, Jahangir and Ibrahim can see and hear all that passes beneath. I took care they should know of it. ’Twas too good a bait to pass, and they swallowed it. What joy can equal the Emperor’s when he hears his enemies plotting with you and me to place us on his throne, knowing full well that ere many minutes have passed we shall be slain or, far better, captured, so that he may glut his vengeance on us? Come with me! Let a Rajput give the signal to Jai Singh. Without any fear of failure, almost without a blow, you will have both Jahangir and Khusrow’s adherents in your power to do with as you will.”
They could not choose but believe her. Here was acounter-stroke, worthy indeed of the daughter of one who entered India a pauper and died Prime Minister. Walter’s head swam, and Fra Pietro shook as if with a palsy.
“There is no other course open,” she murmured, vehemently. “It is your death and mine, or Jahangir’s. Decide quickly! Do you flinch from the ordeal?”
“No,” said Mowbray, recovering himself. “If such be the alternatives, may God prosper those who are in the right!”
Nur Mahal released them. Walter would have sent for Devi Pershad, and in a few fateful seconds the irrevocable step must be taken which should plunge India into an era of turmoil and bloodshed. But a tumult of alarm among the household servants, and the clatter of hurried footsteps in the interior of the house, betokened some new and unforeseen commotion. Then the door by which Nur Mahal and Mowbray had entered the room was flung open and Roger appeared, carrying in his left arm the apparently lifeless body of the Countess di Cabota. His long sword was dripping blood, and his clothes were rent by cuts and lance thrusts, but his genial face, never downcast when a fight was toward, broke into a broad grin when he saw Walter.
“By the cross of Osmotherly!” he roared, “I have had the devil’s own job to reach thee, lad. I have fought every inch of a good mile, and been ambushed times out of count. Poor Matilda fainted at the lastonset. I had to hug her with one arm and slay with the other. Gad! it was warm work. She is no light weight!”
He deposited his inanimate burthen on acharpoyand cleared his vision of blood and perspiration, for he had been wounded slightly on the forehead. Then he set eyes on Nur Mahal.
“Oh, ho, my lady, art thou here?” he said. “Small wonder there were such goings on without! By gad, thou art the herald of storm on land as the petrel is at sea. Walter, my lad, give us a grip of thy hand! I’m main glad to meet thee again. But Matilda needs tending. Bid this glittering fairy see to her. Whether Portugee or Hindee, I suppose women are much alike in such matters!”
“Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.”Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Sc. 1.
“Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.”Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Sc. 1.
But there were matters of graver import afoot than the Countess’s fainting fit. Already the conspirators in the summer-house, alarmed by the commotion, must be devising means to protect themselves, and the Emperor, ensconced in a hiding-place after the fashion invented by Dionysius of Syracuse, was probably doubting the wisdom of his Haroun-al-Raschid escapade. For Roger, bursting through the hostile cordons like an infuriated blue-bottle fly caught in the outer strands of a spider’s web, had applied a premature spark to a gunpowder train. The silence of the night was jarred into fierce uproar. The imperial troops, thinking the revolt had broken out before its appointed hour, were hurriedly closing in around the rebels. The latter, strenuously opposing Sainton’s passage up the hill leading to the Garden of Heart’s Delight, communicated a panic for action, which is the next worst thing to a flight, to those of their comrades who knew not what was happening. In a word, the left bank of the Jumna was ablaze, and sharp encounters occurred wherever the Emperor’s men met those who fought for his would-be supplanter, Khusrow. At the gateDevi Pershad and the Rajputs, manfully aided by the house servants, were even then resisting the efforts of the rebels previously hidden in the wood to break open the door and go to the aid of their leaders within. Indeed, Roger had barely ceased speaking, before a sowar, one of his own small escort, ran in and breathlessly announced the desperate nature of the attack on the gateway.
Sainton, of course, knew nothing of the real cause of all this riot. Nor was there time to tell him. Mowbray grasped the excited soldier.
“Canst hoot like an owl?” he cried.
“Aye, sahib, that can I,” was the reply, for the man guessed the portent of the question.
“Come, then, Roger! Thou knowest the summer-house? Smite any man who leaves it! Nur Mahal, bide you here till I return! Fra Pietro, bolt the doors and open only to me or Roger!”
“One word, brother, ere thou goest,” cried the friar in English. “A chosen ruler, be he Christian or heathen, is the Lord’s anointed. ‘Curse not the King, no, not in thy thought.’”
Walter, hurrying forth, darted a single glance at the speaker. Somehow, the Franciscan’s words gave ordered sequence to a project which flitted vaguely through his mind as he listened to Nur Mahal’s thrilling recital. It seemed to him that this beautiful woman, “who offered herself twice to no man,” harbored a certain spite against Jahangir because of the treatment he had meted out to her. Once she hadvaguely hinted at bygones as between Mowbray and herself; otherwise her utterances were those of unsated and insatiable ambition, and the style of her raiment alone showed that she had quitted the palace that night prepared to fill the stage in whatsoever part fortune allotted her.
Now the two Englishmen were in the garden, running towards the summer-house, which, it will be remembered, stood on an island in the midst of a small lake, and was approached by four narrow causeways, each at right angles with its neighbors. There never was a darker night. It was barely possible to distinguish the tops of the trees against the sky; beneath, they passed through a blackness so dense that they could not see each other.
Under such conditions rapid progress was impossible. Mowbray called a halt, and bade the Rajput use his skill in imitating owls. Thrice the long-drawn ululu vibrated in the scent-laden atmosphere; at the third screech came an answering hoot, lanterns twinkled of a sudden at the farther end of the lawn, and Jai Singh, with his rabble of swashbucklers, perched expectantly on the wall, tumbled pell-mell into the garden.
“We come, sahib!” they heard his exultant cry. “Every man carries a light and wears a black turban. Spare none other!”
“Ecod!” said Roger, “that is good talking. Jai Singh is thin in the ribs, but he hath the liver of a bull. Yet there seemeth no urgence for killing. What is toward, Walter? ‘Smite,’ say you. ‘Spare not,’ yelpsJai Singh. Nur Mahal shoots lightning from her eyes. Even the good friar points a moral with a text on cursing the king. Who hath cursed him? Whose throat is to be cut? My soul, there’s battle in the very air!”
Sainton was appealing to unheeding ears. Thebaraduri, being a roofed entablature supported on slight columns, became vaguely silhouetted against the dim glow of the advancing lantern-bearers. Walter saw several armed men rushing towards the house along the nearestchaussée. It went against the grain to strike any man who came to him trustingly, no matter what the ultimate intent, and among the foremost he thought he recognized Raja Man Singh.
“Back, there!” he shouted. “We are for Jahangir! Back to your covert and lay down your arms!”
There could be no mistaking his meaning. The conspirators, dumbfounded by the discovery that he whom they reckoned an ally was a declared foe, stopped, hesitated, and then broke, left and right.
“They must not escape!” said Mowbray to his companion. “After them, Jai Singh!” he vociferated to the Rajput, and forthwith there was a scurry in which several fell. Nevertheless, two, at least, got away through the trees and scaled the wall. Raja Man Singh remained, gasping his life out, but he of Bikanir and one other reached the reinforcements outside.
Hastily despatching Jai Singh and his followers to defend the main gate, Mowbray retained only two men of his own little troop. Equipping them with lanterns,he led Roger to the summer-house and cried in a loud voice:—
“Come forth, Jahangir!”
There was no answer. The hollow roof, exquisitely painted with frescoes representing forest life, echoed the command, and the slight scrutiny rendered possible by the weak light of the lamps gave force to Roger’s query:—
“Dost think to find him, like Mahmoud’s coffin, slung ’twixt heaven and earth, Walter?”
But Nur Mahal was to be trusted beyond the credence of eyes alone. Unless the Emperor had flown, or changed his mind at the latest moment, he was surely there, for the doorkeeper said two strangers had passed by the watchword “Safed-Kira.” And the vital need of hurry made stern measures necessary.
“Jahangir!” cried Mowbray again, “I know that thou art here, thou and thy pimp, Ibrahim. Nur Mahal hath sent us to save thy life, and thy throne if need be. Descend, therefore, else Sainton-sahib shall pull thee down together with thy lurking-place.”
A moment’s pause brought only the racket of desultory firing in the roadway, the thuds of a battering ram against the iron-studded door, and the yells of assailants and defenders as the high boundary wall was sought to be carried by escalade, for the Maharaja of Bikanir, now that his desperate scheme was unmasked, urged his adherents ere they marched to sack the palace to extirpate the brood of vipers in the Garden of Heart’s Delight.
“Roger,” said Walter, calmly, resolved to be sure of his quarry, “try thy strength on a pillar!”
The summer-house, an elegant hexagon, had a carved pillar at each angle. Sainton placed his foot against one, gave a mighty push, and the stones yielded. Some fell with a clatter onto the mosaic pavement, others splashed in the water of the lake.
“Hold!” came a muffled cry, “I come!”
A fine creeper had entwined its stout tendrils round three of the pillars. In one of these, cunningly hidden by the vine, were small holdfasts, by which an active man might climb to the roof. Once there, a section of the blue enameled tiles slid back and gave access to a small apartment with a grille floor, the interstices being invisible from beneath owing to the painted foliage.
Jahangir, followed by Ibrahim, made an undignified descent. Obviously, he feared a sword thrust as he neared the ground. Yet he was no coward. Disdaining to jump he came down slowly, and faced Mowbray without laying hand on the pistol or jeweled tulwar he carried. If treachery were intended he could not guard against it, and he was too proud to exhibit his secret thought by useless action.
“Have I heard aright?” he asked, with well-feigned coolness. “Did you say that Nur Mahal had sent you?”
“Yes. How else should I, a stranger, know of your retreat?”
“And neither you nor she are in league with my enemies?”
“Some of them lie in the garden. You hear the others without. Are you man or king enough to help us in repelling them?”
Jahangir bowed his head.
“God is great,” he said, as though in self-communion. “Never was mortal more deceived than I have been.”
Ibrahim, Chief Eunuch, somewhat restored from the rare fright of the trembling roof, thought it high time to trim his sails to the new wind.
“I always told your Majesty,” he began; but Jahangir, for answer, smote him in the face with his clenched fist so heavily that he fell into the lake and lay there insensible. He would have been drowned had not a Rajput pulled him out and held him by the heels until a good deal of water came from his mouth and a good many gold pieces from a tuck in his cummerbund.
Mowbray, whose judgment was cooler and truer in the frenzy of a fight than when a woman’s eyes assailed him, did not forget that where Jai Singh had introduced his hirelings others might follow. Nevertheless, with the inadequate force available, it was impossible to conduct an effective defense of a square enclosure containing many acres. It was above all else essential to resist the main assault. The Eastern fighting man is moved to the madness of heroism by success, and driven to despair by failure. The gateway must not be carried.
He detailed sentries, therefore, to report any hostile move from the flanks or rear, in which case he would fall back on the house, which occupied the exact centerof the garden. Then he and the others hastened to the gate.
They were not a moment too soon. A huge balk of timber, carried up from the bridge and swung by fifty men against the sturdy door, smashed the panels and dislodged the hinges. Through the gap poured a torrent of assailants, all well armed, and the struggle must have resulted in instant victory for the rebels had not Roger faced them.
There was light in plenty. Many carried torches, whilst masses of tow soaked in oil had been placed on the ground to enable the archers and matchlockmen to shoot. Luckily the onward rush prevented anything like a volley being fired in that narrow space, or the Emperor and his English supporters must certainly have been hit. As it was, the giant had a fair field, steel against steel, and one man against a hundred.
When Roger was busy there was no standing-room for friends by his side or foes in front. His tremendous strength was no less astounding than his tigerish agility. His long sword whirled in lightning circles, he sprang back, forth, and sideways with incredible ease, and such was the area he covered, combined with a quick eye to discern and a supple wrist to disconcert every adventurous cut or thrust aimed at him, that, whilst those outside were yelling to the van to press forward, the unlucky wights of the front rank were making a new rampart of their bodies.
Walter found a corner where Sainton’s sickle did not reach, and Jahangir, fired to emulation, joined him.The three practically held the gate, because Jai Singh, with his horde of freebooters, did not quickly regain his self-possession after the stupefying discovery that the Emperor, whom he was actively fighting against, was laying on with a will in behalf of the Englishman.
Others, too, learned the bewildering fact that here was Jahangir himself in the very hatching ground of the conspiracy. The Maharaja of Bikanir saw him, and having missed him twice with a pistol, adopted a new tactic which might easily have involved the monarch and the Englishmen in common ruin. Awaiting the rebel leader, to carry him to the fort, was a war elephant, a huge brute, well protected by iron plates, thick knobs of brass, and chain armor, penetrable by no missile short of a cannon-ball. The animal was trained to charge any one or anything at the bidding of itsmahout, and the Maharaja, mounting thehowdahwith some of his officers, bade the driver launch the elephant at full speed through the gate.
Among the many physical advantages Roger held over other men not the least was his height. While dealing with the present danger he could see that which threatened farther afield, and now, above the heads of the combatants, he caught sight of the great moving mass of shining panoply. Such a thunderbolt would rend its way through all opposition. Swords and lances were powerless against it, but there lay on the ground, wrenched from its sockets by the battering-ram, the heavy iron bar which the big Yorkshireman had usedso effectively on the night that Sher Afghán carried off his unwilling bride.
None of the others knew of the approaching peril. Roger turned to Jai Singh.
“Come on, Don Whiskerando!” he shouted. “I thought thou hadst better stomach for a fray!”
Though he spoke English, his look was enough. The old Rajput awoke from his trance and rushed forward manfully. His levies followed, the rebels yielded a few feet, and Roger secured breathing space. He sheathed his reeking sword, picked up the iron bar, and stood on the left of the gateway, balancing the implement over his right shoulder and bracing his feet, set wide apart, firmly against the ground.
A fiercer yell, a stampede of both parties, announced the oncoming of the new danger. Mowbray and Jahangir thought that this was the end until they saw Roger, not smiling now but frowning, whirl the bar lightly as a preliminary to the greatest feat he ever performed. For the story lives yet amidst the glorious ruins of the Mogul Empire how the Man-Elephant killed the elephant. Trumpeting loudly, rushing through the swaying mass of human beings as a whale cleaves water, the immense brute seemed to enjoy the sensation it created. As it entered the gate, with trunk uplifted, the bar crashed across its knees. The elephant stumbled and fell. Again the iron flail whistled in the air, this time striking the brass-studded boss on the beast’s wide forehead. The thick metal disks shivered into fragments, and the monster, withfractured skull, lurched over heavily on its side, throwing the Maharaja of Bikanir and his lieutenants to the ground, where they died quickly at the hands of those nearest to them.
A great shout went up, a shout of terror and wonder. Men ran, throwing away their arms and shrieking incoherent appeals, whether to Allah or Khuda, for protection. It was recorded that some went mad, some died from fright, and many dropped from exhaustion miles away from Dilkusha and its magic. For never before had one man met a full-grown fighting elephant face to face in single combat and killed it. Such deeds were told of lions and tigers, of many-antlered deer and massive bulls, but never of the elephant, which, in the plenitude of its majestic strength, can drag four score men in triumph, let them tug their best at a rope.
“Shabash, hathi!” cried Jahangir. “By the soul of my father, Akbar, if I am spared to-night those two strokes shall be writ in history and recorded in stone!”
“’Twill please me better if they remain in your Majesty’s memory,” was Sainton’s gruff answer. Truth to tell, his mighty effort had shaken him. In that last almost superhuman blow he had surpassed himself. His muscles still twitched from the tension, and he experienced a curious sympathy for the magnificent creature whose dying convulsions alone betokened the abundant life with which it was endowed.
He leaned wearily on the long bar. The slaying of the elephant was the culmination of a day’s toil such as no other man in India could have endured, for manya stout warrior had fallen under his sword ere he carried the Countess di Cabota into the Garden of Heart’s Delight.
But the Emperor, not to be rebuffed thus curtly, seized him by the arm.
“Harken, friend,” said he, “one lie will poison a river of truth. They told me ’twas thy intent to tumble my palace about my ears. Tomb of the Prophet, what will not a man believe when he lends his wits to women and wine? Never was king more beholden to stranger than I to thee and thy friend; canst thou not credit my faith when I say that no recompense you ask shall be too great for me to give?”
Sainton turned and clapped the Emperor on the shoulder.
“I have oft wondered,” he cried, “how so good a soldier could be a bad king. Now I see ’twas a passing fit, which, mayhap, like certain distempers, leaves thee wholesomer.”
And that was how Jahangir and Roger began a comradeship which was never marred nor forgotten while either lived.
Mowbray, though delighted that Sainton’s rough diplomacy had won the Emperor so thoroughly, nevertheless kept a sharp lookout for any recrudescence of the fight. But the back of the revolt was broken. He who escaped with the Maharaja of Bikanir, riding post-haste for fresh troops, was captured by the imperial forces, and a strong contingent of mounted men arriving at Dilkusha relieved the little garrison of further concern.Jahangir despatched several officers with instructions, the exact significance of which Walter failed to grasp. He knew it was hopeless to expect clemency for those who fomented the disorders. In the East, and indeed elsewhere, rulers had a habit, not wholly lost to-day, of repressing such outbreaks with merciless severity.
The Emperor quickly completed his arrangements. Then he drew Walter aside.
“You spoke of Nur Mahal. She is here, I know. What was her errand?” he asked.
“To warn me of the plot of which I was the unconscious figurehead,” was the ready answer.
“Her action is the chief surprise of a night of marvels,” said Jahangir, thoughtfully. “No matter how greatly I was misled by others, I vow she was candid. Never did woman belittle a man as Nur Mahal belittled me. She said much that was true, and a good deal that was false. But her spleen was manifest. Had my head rolled at her feet she would have kicked it. Why, then, should she risk her life to save me?”
“You must ask her that yourself, your Majesty.”
There was no other way. It was out of the question that Walter should dispel Jahangir’s doubts by hinting a very different motive for Nur Mahal’s visit to Dilkusha. Come what might he had dissipated in her mind the mirage of a dynastic struggle in which he would participate as her husband. The mere fact that he had so completely thrown in his lot with the Emperor would prove to her, if proof were needed, that thedream of those memorable days which followed their flight from Agra might never be renewed. What would she do? What manner of greeting would she give Jahangir? Who could tell? Once before, when expected to marry the Emperor, she reviled him. Not half an hour ago she said Jahangir must die before dawn. He was not dead, but very much alive, and more firmly seated on his throne than at any time since his accession. What would she say? Mowbray was on thorns as he walked with the Emperor and Roger to the house.
Fra Pietro unbolted the door at which they knocked. Roger, seeing the Countess moving forward, and evidently quite recovered from her faintness, was seized with a spasm of shyness.
“All is well, Matilda,” he said, hanging back. “You had a boisterous journey, but you are in quiet waters now. I go to remove some marks of the jaunt.”
He made to sheer off, but she ran after him, brushing the Emperor aside in her eagerness.
“Nay, my good Roger!” she cried. “Fra Pietro hath told me all. I closed my eyes, and my heart stopped beating when I witnessed that last array of dreadful men. And thou didst carry me in thy arms as if I were a child, bearing me hither in safety through a hostile army. Oh, Roger, how can I wait to thank thee!”
“Calm thyself, sweet Matilda,” they heard him growl. “I’ll have no kissing of hands, and I cannot kiss thy lips in my present condition. Gad! I havemore brains on my clothes than in my head. Well, if naught else will content thee, there!”
In the center of the room stood Nur Mahal, her normally lily-white face with its peachlike bloom wholly devoid of color, and her wondrous eyes gazing fixedly at the tall figure of the Emperor, who hesitated an instant when Mowbray motioned him to enter first. Walter’s pulse galloped somewhat during that pause. He did not know then that while men were dying in hundreds around the gate and elsewhere, the Franciscan had won a wordy victory behind the locked doors. No sooner were the Countess’s senses restored than Fra Pietro engaged the Persian Princess in a discourse which quickly revealed that here were well-matched dialecticians. Pride, keen intellect, consciousness of physical charm and mental power, were confronted by gentle insistence on the eternal verities which govern mankind, irrespective of race or climate.
Neither palliating nor excusing Jahangir’s excesses, the friar did not hesitate to hold a mirror to the girl’s own faults. If she had loved the prince why did she profess to hate the king? If the death of her husband so rankled in her memory that the Emperor, who was indirectly responsible for it, was not to be forgiven, why had she gone back to Agra, instead of pursuing her peaceful voyage to Burdwán? Ah, yes, he appreciated her belief that other eventualities might happen, but life was constituted of shattered hopes, and the one eternal, wholly satisfying ideal was to so order one’s actions that when called to final account one couldtruly say: “This I did and thus I spoke because it seemed to me best for the happiness and well-being of my fellow-creatures.”
To and fro flew the shuttlecock of their argument, until Nur Mahal, astonished and not a little humiliated by the singular knowledge of her inmost feelings displayed by this mild-eyed man of low estate, paced the long room like a caged gazelle, and the Countess di Cabota, half distracted by the distant sounds of murderous conflict, nevertheless found time to wonder what Fra Pietro was saying which made the beautiful Persian so angry.
The sound of Mowbray’s voice, the sight of Jahangir in his company unattended, drove the passion from her face. Her red lips were slightly opened in mute inquiry, her fingers were entwined irresolutely, her whole attitude, so heedless was she of the restraint that cloaks the secret thought, indicated a passive desire to let chance carry her which way it willed.
But the glory of her loveliness was never more manifest than in this feminine mood, and Jahangir, a man of impulse, was drawn to her as steel to a magnet.
“You and I,” said he, slowly, “have much to forget, but you alone have a great deal to forgive. Nevertheless, on a night when I have won my kingdom I may well be pardoned if I hope to win my queen.”
With that, he unfastened the samite over-cloak he wore, and took from his neck a string of priceless pearls. Nur Mahal bent her proud head, and the Emperor, with a laugh of almost boyish glee, adjusted the shimmering ornament around her throat.
She said something in a low tone, and it was a long time before she looked up again. When her eyes first encountered Mowbray’s they were bright with repressed tears.
Notwithstanding these tender passages, and some amusingly one-sided episodes in the garden between Roger and the Countess, for the lady made him kneel down whilst she washed his face, there was little time for love-making. Jahangir, having joyously informed the nearest members of his entourage that Nur Mahal was to be treated as the Empress which she would be created next day in durbar, began to question Mowbray as to the events of the night. Walter’s task was rendered more simple by the projected marriage of one whom he suspected to be the real instigator of the whole affair. He must perforce twist the narrative to show the prospective Sultana in the best light, and herein, as it happened, a casual reference to Dom Geronimo was helpful.
“I mistrusted that man from the first,” said Jahangir. “Why should he, a European, conspire against his fellows? No beast of prey, unless it be indeed hard pressed, eats its own kind. Howbeit, he will trouble the world no longer.”
“What means your Majesty? I was told he was active in his machinations this very day.”
“Yes,” was the cool reply. “I made use of him until my patience vanished. When you and Sainton-sahib proved him a liar, I sent orders that a cow was to be slain instantly and the black robe sewn in the skin.”
“Sewn in the skin!” repeated Walter, incredulously.
“Yes. He will be dead by the fourth watch. Hussain Beg, a traitorous villain from Lahore, whom I caused to be sealed in an ass’s skin, took a day and a night to die, but the hide of a cow dries more speedily.”
Horrified by the fate which had overtaken the arch enemy of his race, Mowbray told Fra Pietro what the Emperor had said. The Franciscan at once appealed for mercy in the Jesuit’s behalf.
“Forgive him,” he pleaded, “as Christ forgave his enemies. You can save him. Your request will be granted. God, who knoweth all hearts, can look into his and turn its stone into the water of repentance.”
It was not yet one o’clock when Walter and Roger, the latter glad of the errand which freed him from Matilda’s embarrassing attentions, rode with a numerous guard to the fort, bearing Jahangir’s reprieve for Dom Geronimo.
There had been no delay in the execution of the sentence. They found the unhappy priest already imprisoned in his terrible environment, and almost insane with the knowledge that the stiffening hide was slowly but surely squeezing him to death.
With Sher Afghán’s dagger Mowbray cut the stitches of sheep-sinews, and, after drinking some wine and water, the Jesuit fanatic became aware of the identity of the man to whom he owed his life.
“’Tis surely time,” said Walter, sternly, “that you and I discharged our reckoning. I could have pardoned my father’s death, foul murder though it was, onthe score of your youth and zeal. But it is unbearable that you, who preach the gospel of Christianity, should pursue with rancor the son of the man you killed with a coward’s blow. Now, after the lapse of twenty-four years, I have requited both his untimely loss and your continued malice by saving your wretched life. What sayest thou, Geronimo? Does the feud end?”
“On my soul, Walter!” cried Sainton, “I think he is minded to spring at thee now.”
But the glazed eyes of the unfortunate bigot were lifted to his rescuer with the non-comprehending glare of stupor rather than unconquerable hatred. He murmured some reference to the miraculous statue of San José, to which, lying at the bottom of the bay of Biscay amidst the rotting timbers of a ship bearing the saint’s name, he evidently attributed his escape. So they left him, with instructions as to his tendance, and rode back to the Garden of Heart’s Delight.
All fighting had ceased. Some few Samaritans were tending the wounded; ghouls were robbing the dead; a mild rain, come after weeks of drought, was refreshing the thirsty earth and washing away the signs of conflict.
“What kept thee so long on the road?” asked Walter, when Roger confessed that the shower was the next most grateful thing to a flagon of wine he did not fail to call for and empty at the palace.
“Gad! I was forced to wring Fateh Mohammed’s stiff neck,” was the unexpected answer. “Having received Jahangir’s orders, he held by them as if they were verses of the Koran. The fat knave was backedby too many arquebusiers to assault him by daylight, so I played fox, and rode off in seeming temper. I and the six troopers hid in a nullah until night fell. Then we spurred straight to Matilda’s tent, but Fateh Mohammed, to his own undoing, was grossly annoying her, in that very hour, by professing his great admiration for her manifold attractions. He was not worth a sword thrust, so what more was there to do than to treat him as my mother treats a fowl which she wants for the spit?”
“What, indeed?” said Walter.