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!"