CIRCE
The dominion over which Rajah Nehal Singh exercised his partial authority
was a tract of unfruitful land extending over about two hundred square
miles and sparely inhabited by a branch of the Aryan race which through
countless generations had kept itself curiously aloof from its neighbors.
The greater number were Hindus of the strictest type, and perhaps owing to
their natural conservatism they had succeeded in keeping their religion
comparatively free from the abuses and distortions which it was forced to
undergo in other regions. Up to the year 18--the state had been to all
practical purposes independent. Its poverty and unusual integral cohesion
made it at once a dangerous enemy and an undesirable dependent, which it
was tacitly agreed to let alone until such time when action should become
imperative. That time had come under the reign of Behar Asor--then Behar
Singh. This prince, who, his followers declared, could trace his descent
from Brahma himself, unexpectedly, after he had been living in
hand-in-glove friendship with his European neighbors, proclaimed a Holy
War, massacred all foreigners within his reach, and for eighteen long
months succeeded, by means of a species of guerrilla warfare, in keeping
the invading armies at bay. Partly owing to the unflagging determination
of the English troops, partly owing also to the intense hatred with which
he was regarded by all Mohammedans, he was eventually overcome, though he
himself was never captured. It was believed that he died while fleeing
through the vast jungles with which his land was overgrown, and this idea
was strengthened by the fact that, though a large reward for his capture
was offered, nothing further had ever been heard of him.
From that time the land came under the more or less direct control of the
Government. As a concession to the population, Behar Singh's one-year-old
son was placed upon the throne under a native regency, but English
regiments were stationed at the chief towns, and a political agent resided
at the capital. Neither the regiments nor the political agent, however,
found any work for their hands to do. A calm, as unexpected as it was
complete, seemed to descend upon the whole country, and the officers who
had taken up their posts with a loaded revolver in each hand, figuratively
speaking, began very quickly to relapse instead into pig-sticking, polo
and cards.
The climate was moderate, the vegetation beautiful if unprofitable, and
the sport excellent. Thus it came about that a danger spot on the map of
the Indian Empire became a European paradise, and that to be ordered to
Marut was to become an object of envious congratulations. Not, as Mr.
Archibald Travers had with justice complained, that the reigning prince,
as in other states, took any part in the general gaiety or in any way
enhanced the agreeableness of his capital. As far as was known, no
European eyes had ever lighted on him since his childhood. Under one
excuse and another he had been kept persistently in the background, his
place being taken first by the regent and then by succeeding ministers,
until it was generally supposed that the young Rajah was either afflicted
with some loathsome disease or mentally deficient, probabilities which the
Government, with unpleasant recollections of Behar Singh's too great
intelligence, accepted with unusual readiness. There were no causes for
suspicion. The Rajah never left the precincts of his palace garden, a
piece of land whose cultivation had cost untold sums, and which, together
with the Hindu temple, was supposed to stand as the eighth wonder of the
world. Fabulous stories were told of the beauty and rarity of the
vegetation, and of the value of the jewels which were supposed to decorate
the temple and royal apartments. As there was no opportunity of confirming
or refuting the statements, they were allowed to grow unhindered.
It was in this small sphere that Nehal Singh spent his childhood, his
youth and early manhood. Of the outer world he had seen nothing, though he
had read much, his education extending over all European history and
penetrating deep into that of his own country. Nevertheless, the picture
his mind had formed had little in common with the reality--it was too
overshadowed by his own character. As a blind man may be able, through
hearsay, to describe his surroundings detail by detail and yet at the
bottom be possessed by an entirely false conception, so Nehal Singh, to
all appearances well instructed, was in reality as ignorant as a child.
The heroes whose figures peopled his imagination were too heroic, the
villains too evil, and both heroes and villains were either physically
beautiful or hideous, according to their characters.
He had no comrade against whose practical experience he might have rubbed
this distorted picture into a more truthful likeness. His only companions
had been his native instructors and the priests--men separated from him by
a gulf of years and a curious lack of sympathy which he had in vain
striven to overcome. Thus he had been intensely lonely, more lonely than
he knew, though some dawning realization crept over him on this particular
evening as he passed through the temple gates. For a moment he stood with
his hands crossed over his breast, absorbed in prayer to Brahma, the
Creator, in whose presence he was about to stand. In such an hour, amidst
the absolute stillness, under the stupendous shadows of the walls, which
had, unchanging, seen generation after generation of worshipers drift from
their altars into the deeper shades of Patala, the young prince felt the
wings of divine spirits brush close past him, bearing his prayer on unseen
hands to the very ear of the golden-faced Trinity who, from his earliest
years, had seemed to look down upon him with solemn kindness.
This evening, more perhaps than ever before, every fiber in him vibrated
beneath the touch of the holy charm, and the prayer which passed
soundlessly over his lips came from a soul that worshiped in fiery
earnestness and truth. A minute passed as he stood there, then, removing
his shoes, he stepped over the threshold and walked forward between the
gigantic granite columns which supported what was left of the dome-shaped
roof. There was no altar, no jewel, no figure cut in the hard stone that
was not known to him with all their mysterious significance. Here had been
spent all his leisure hours; here had been dreamed his wildest dreams;
beneath this column he had seen as in a vision how Vishnu took nine times
human form and a tenth time came, according to the Holy Writings, with a
winged horse of spotless white, and crowned as conqueror.
To-day these things pressed down upon him with all the weight of a
tremendous reality. With beating heart he entered at last into the Holy of
Holies and stood before the god's high altar, visible only to those of
purest caste. His head was once more bowed. He did not venture to look up
at the golden figure whose ruby eyes, he knew, stared straight through his
soul into every corner of the world and beyond into Eternity. His belief,
pure, unsoiled from contact with the world, was a power that had gone out
into the darkness and conjured thence the spirits that shrank back from
the cold prayer of the half-believer. They stood before him now--these
wonderful spirits. He believed surely that, should he dare to raise his
eyes, he would see them, definite yet formless, arising glorious out of
the cloud of golden reflection from Brahma's threefold forehead.
Thus he prayed, not kneeling, since the god cared only for his soul:
"Oh, Lord Brahma, Creator, hear me! Thou who madest me knowest whither I
came and whither I go; but I, who am as the wind that bloweth as thou
listeth, as a flower that springeth up in the night and unseen fadeth in
the midday heat, I know not thy purpose nor the end for which I am. Lord
Brahma, teach me, for my soul panteth after knowledge. Show me the path
which I must tread, for I am weary with dreams. Teach me to serve my
people--be it hand in hand with the Stranger and his gods, be it alone.
Teach me to act, and that right soon; for my childhood days are spent and
my man's arm heavy with idleness. Send me forth--but not alone--not alone,
Lord Brahma, for I am heart-sick of loneliness. Give me my comrade, my
comrade who shall be more to me than--"
He stopped and, obeying an impulse stronger than himself, lifted his face
to the idol. It had vanished. In its place stood a woman.
At another and cooler moment, with a mind filled with other thoughts, with
a heart untroubled by new and all-powerful emotions, he would have known
her, if only from hearsay, for what she was. But with that passionate
prayer upon his lips, she was for him the answer, a divine recognition of
his need and of his lately recognized loneliness.
Tall, slender, with a pale, transparent complexion, touched like a young
rose with the faintest color, dark, grave eyes and hair that seemed a part
of the obscured god, whose pure lines, though foreign, harmonized in every
detail with the classic beauty of her surroundings, she stood and watched
him, as he watched her, in perfect silence.
"Lakshmi!" he murmured at last; and, as though the one word had broken a
charm which held them both paralyzed, she smiled, and the smile lit up the
Madonna face and made it as human as it had seemed divine.
[Illustration: "Lakshmi!" he murmured at last.]
"Forgive me," she began, speaking in English, "I am afraid I have
disturbed you, but--" She paused, apparently confused by the directness of
his gaze. The faint pink upon her cheek deepened.
"Who are you?" he demanded in his own tongue.
Her look of non-comprehension steadied him, at least outwardly, though it
did not check the fierce, painful beating of his pulses. He repeated the
question in pure though hesitating English.
"I am an Englishwoman," she answered at once, "and have lost my way. For
hours--it seems hours, at any rate--I have been wandering hither and
thither, trying to find my party, with whom I was enjoying an excursion.
By some chance I came across this temple, and hoped to meet some one who
might help me. You see, I am a stranger in this part of the world. I--I
hope I have done no wrong?"
She looked at him pleadingly, but he ignored her question. It never
occurred to him to doubt her explanation, or wonder at the unlikeliness of
the chance which should have led her through the intricate paths to this
hallowed spot.
"You are English?" he echoed. The fever in his blood was subsiding, but,
like some great crisis, it was leaving him changed. It had swept him out
of the world of languorous, enchanted dreams into a world of not less
enchanted reality.
"I fear I am presumptuous," she began again; "but are you not the Rajah?
If so, I am certain you must be very, very angry. For the Rajah--so I have
been told--does not love the English."
She smiled again, meeting his unwavering gaze with a frank good-humor
which for him was more wonderful even than her beauty. No woman--and for
that matter, no man--had ever dared to look him in the eyes with such a
laughing, fearless challenge.
"Yes, I am the Rajah," he answered. Then, after a pause, he added with
great simplicity, "You are very beautiful."
She laughed outright, and the laugh, which rang like the peal of a silver
bell through the vaulted chamber, filled him with a sudden sense of her
danger. She stood with her back turned indifferently on the golden image,
an Unbeliever whose shod feet were defiling the sacred precincts, an
object, then, for hatred and revenge--not for him, truly. In his eyes she
was still an emissary from Brahma, and thus in herself half sacred; but he
knew well enough that such would not be the opinion of the few fierce
priests who worshiped in the temple.
"You are not safe here," he said, with an energy which was new to him.
"Come!"
He led her hurriedly out of the sanctuary into the great entrance hall.
There he slackened speed and waited until she reached his side.
"For a foreigner it is not safe to enter the temple," he explained. "Had
any one but myself found you, I could not answer for the consequences."
"They would have harmed me?"
"It is possible."
"That would have been terrible!" she said, glancing at him with eyes that
expressed rather a daring courage than fear.
"Most terrible," he assented earnestly.
"Yet--you also, Your Highness, you have also the same reasons for anger.
My intrusion, innocent though it was, must have been equally offensive to
you."
"No," he said. "That is quite different."
He offered no further explanation, and together they passed out of the two
immense gopuras into the evening sunshine.
"I will bring you to the gates which lead on to the highroad," he went on.
"Thence one of my servants will conduct you back to the town, where I
trust you will find your friends."
"You are most good," she answered gratefully.
They walked side by side between the high walls of cypress and palm. The
path was a narrow one, and once his hand brushed lightly against hers. The
touch sent a flood of fire through his young veins. He drew back with a
courtesy which surprised himself. He had never been taught that courtesy
toward a woman could ever be required of him. Of women he had heard little
save that they were inferior, in intellect and judgment no more than
slaves, and his curiosity had at once been satiated. He sought things
above him--those beneath him excited no more than indifference. But this
woman was neither an inferior nor a slave. Her free, erect carriage,
steadfast, fearless eyes proclaimed the equal. So much his instinct taught
him in those brief moments, and his eager curiosity concerning her grew
and deepened. Every now and again his gaze sought her face, drinking in
with an almost passionate thirst the fine detail of her profile, compared
to which his dreams were poor and lifeless. Once it chanced that she also
glanced at him, and that they looked at each other for less than a
breathing space full in the eyes.
"I fear you are angry, Your Highness," she said earnestly. "I must have
offended against your laws even more than I know."
"Why do you think I am angry?" he asked.
"You have scarcely spoken."
"Forgive me! That is no sign of anger. I am still overcome with the
strangeness of it all. You are the first English person I have ever met."
She stood still, with an exclamation of surprise.
"Is that possible? I thought all Indian princes mixed with English people.
Many, indeed, go to England to be educated--"
"So I have heard," he broke in, with a faint haughtiness. "I am not one of
them."
"Yet you speak the language so perfectly!" she said.
A gleam of naive pleasure shone out of his dark eyes.
"I am glad you think so. My--one of my ministers taught me."
They walked on again. Here and there she stopped to look at some curious
plant--always a little in advance of him--so that he had opportunity to
study the hundred things about her which confirmed his wondering,
increasing admiration. Slight as she was, there was yet a gracefully
controlled strength in every movement. In his own mind, poor as it
necessarily was in comparisons, he compared her to a young doe he had once
startled from its resting-place. There was the same fragile beauty, the
same grace, the same high-strung energy. In nothing was she like the women
painted for him by his father's hand--things for idle, sensuous pleasure,
never for serious action.
Plunged in a happy confusion of thought, he had once more relapsed into
silence, from which she startled him with a question evidently connected
with their previous conversation.
"And so you have lived all your life in this lovely garden?" she said,
looking up at him with a grave wonder in her eyes.
"All my life," he answered.
"You have never seen anything of the world?"
"Never." He felt the pity in her tone, and added, with a shamefacedness
curiously in contrast with his former hauteur: "But I have read much."
"That is not the same thing," she returned. "No book could make you
understand how wonderful and beautiful things are."
He looked at her, and for a second time their eyes met.
"You are right," he said. "Hitherto I have thought myself all-wise. I have
studied hard, and I believed there was nothing I did not know. Now I see
that there are wonders in the world of which I have never even dreamed."
Her glance wavered beneath the undisguised admiration in his eyes and
voice. Then she asked gently:
"Now that you have seen, will you not leave your hermitage? Surely it is
wrong to shut one's heart against the world in which one lives. There is
so much work to be done, so much to learn, and you have been granted power
and wealth, Your Highness. The call upon your help is greater than upon
others."
His brows knitted.
"Do you hate us so?" she asked.
"Hate you?" he repeated wonderingly. "Why should I hate you?"
"Yet, from your tone, I judged that you had kept seclusion because
intercourse with my country-people meant defilement," she said boldly.
A flush crept up under his dark skin.
"Those are things I can not explain," he said; "but they have nothing to
do with hatred. I have heard much of the English heroes. Their deeds of
daring and self-sacrifice have filled my heart with love and veneration. I
know that they are the greatest and noblest people of the earth. I love
great and noble people. I do not hate them."
"I am glad," she said.
They had reached the gates which opened out on to the highroad, and as
though by mutual consent both came to a standstill.
"Your Highness has been most good to me," she went on. "I can find my way
perfectly now. I am only puzzled to know how I should ever have lost it so
much as to have wandered into your garden."
"Some sentry must have slept," he remarked grimly.
"But you will not punish any one?"
"Whoever it was, he was only the servant of destiny, like us all," he
said. "No harm shall come to him." He paused, and then added with a slight
effort: "One of the sentries shall accompany you."
"No, no," she answered energetically. "That is not necessary. I would
rather go alone."
He pointed upward to the sky, whose blue was deepening into the violet
shades of night.
"It will be dark before you reach your destination," he said. "Are you not
afraid?"
She laughed merrily.
"Of what should I be afraid? There are no maneaters about here, as I
understand. As for men, I am prepared to encounter at least six of them.
Look!" She drew from the bosom of her dress a small revolver of exquisite
workmanship, and held it out to him. "It has all six chambers loaded," she
added.
He took the weapon, pretending to examine it; but his pulses had
recommenced their painful beating, and he saw nothing but her face.
"Are all Englishwomen so brave and beautiful?"
This time she did not laugh at the simplicity of the question.
"Come and see," she answered boldly. He said nothing, and she went on: "At
any rate, I must go now. My people will be very anxious, and I have so
much to tell them. They will envy me the privilege I have enjoyed of
seeing your wonderful gardens. I shall tell them how kind you have been to
a foolish wanderer."
"If the gardens please you, they are always open to you," he said.
She shook her head sadly.
"I am afraid it is not possible. You see, I could not come alone.
Propriety will forgive me this once, because it was an accident--a second
time, and my reputation would be gone for ever." She held out her hand
frankly. "So it must be good-by for ever!"
An instant he hesitated, torn between a deep ingrained principle and
desire. Then he took the small hand in his own.
"It will not be good-by for ever," he said. "We shall meet again."
"I should be glad. We have been quite good friends, haven't we? But you
see, you will be in a garden into which I may not enter, and I in a world
which for you is forbidden ground. I am afraid there is no hope."
"Nevertheless, we shall meet again," he repeated.
"Why are you so certain?"
He smiled dreamily.
"Nothing in this world happens without purpose," he answered. "So much my
books and eyes have taught me. We do not drift aimlessly into each other's
lives. We are borne on the breast of a strong current which flows out of
the river of Fate, and whether we meet for good or evil is according to
the will of God. But of one thing I am sure: it must be for good or evil."
For a moment she said nothing. Her face was turned away from him, and when
at last she spoke, her voice had lost something of its daring certainty.
"I hope, then, our meeting is for our good," she said.
"I feel that it is," he answered.
He led her past the bewildered, terrified sentry on to the grey, dusty
highroad. It was the first time that his feet had crossed the threshold.
"I shall watch you till you are out of sight," he said. "Good-by."
"Good-by--and thank you!"
According to his word, he stood where she had left him, his eyes fixed
immovably, like those of a bronze statue, on the slight, elastic figure,
as it hurried toward the lights of the distant Station. When at last the
purple mist had swallowed her from his sight, he looked up toward the
heavens.
Just where the mist ended and the clear sky began, the evening star rose
in its first splendor and shone through the dry atmosphere, signaling to
its fellows that night was come. One by one others followed. As time
passed, the moon in a cloud of silver lifted herself in stately progress
above the black outline of the jungle and touched with her first beams the
filigree minarets of the temple.
Nehal Singh bowed his head in prayer.
"Oh, Lord Brahma, I thank thee!"
A short-lived breath of evening air caught up the passionate murmur of his
voice and mingled it with the rustling of the Sacred Tree whose restless,
shimmering, silver leaves hung above his head. He understood their whisper
as he listened. It was the accents of the god to whom he prayed, and all
the poetic mysticism of his nature responded to the call.
"Oh, Lord Brahma, Creator, I thank thee!" he repeated; then turned, and
with head still bowed, passed back through the high marble gates.