But it was many a minute before the litter-bearers came.
The Raja turned to Crespin. “You were speaking of transport, Major—”
then to Traherne, “Is your machine past repair, Dr. Traherne?”
“Utterly, I’m afraid.”
“Let us look at it,” the Raja suggested, and turning towards it he saw
that his body-guard had broken rank, and all were clustered pell-mell on
the path, looking in rather frightened amazement at the mangled plane.
He gave a sharp, displeased word of command, and they scampered back
into a sort of loose order, but even from the comparative distance they
kept their anxious, puzzled eyes swung back to the aeroplane, and some
of the boldest or less disciplined craned their bebeaded necks. “Ah,
yes,” the Raja said after a near glance, “propeller smashed—planes
crumpled up—”
“Under carriage wrecked,” Traherne prompted sadly.
“I’m afraid we can’t offer to repair the damage for you,” the Raja said,
shaking his head.
“I’m afraid not, sir,” the doctor answered grimly.
“A wonderful machine!” the Raja said enthusiastically, still looking it
over. “Yes,” he owned, “Europe has something to boast of. I wonder what
the priest here thinks of it?” He turned with a laugh, and beckoned
Yazok, and they spoke together in their own tongue, the Raja with a few
short words, the priest with long guttural volubility profusely
punctuated with deep salaams. It was evident that temporal power
exceeded the gods’ in Rukh. The master dismissed the other almost as
crisply as he had admonished the gaping body-guard, and turned with a
smile of tolerance, if more contempt, again to Traherne. “He says,” he
translated, “it is the great roc—the giant bird, you know, of our
Eastern stories. And he declared that he plainly saw his Goddess
hovering over you as you descended, and guiding you towards her temple.”
“I wish she could have guided us towards the level ground I saw behind
your castle,” Traherne said grimly. He felt no compulsion to speak more
ceremoniously of her Green Goddesship than the Raja himself had. “I
could have made a safe landing there.”
“No doubt,” the Raja nodded; “on my parade ground—almost the only level
spot in my domains.”
“These, I suppose,” Mrs. Crespin, tired of her cushions, asked as she
joined them, and caught his words, “are your body-guard?”
“My household troops, Madam,” the potentate said with a bow.
“How picturesque they are!” she exclaimed.
The Raja laughed. “Oh,” he said easily, “a relic of barbarism, I know. I
can quite understand the contempt with which my friend the Major is at
this moment regarding them.”
Hearing him Crespin joined them too. “Irregular troops, Raja,” he said;
“often first-class fighting men.”
“And you think,” the Raja said quickly, “that, if irregularity is the
virtue of irregular troops, these—what is the expression, Watkins?”
“Tyke the cyke, Your ’Ighness,” the expatriated cockney supplied—but he
kept his distance.
“That’s it—take the cake—that’s what you think, Major?”
“Well,” Crespin owned, too taking his cue and tone from the cosmopolitan
Raja’s own, “they would be hard to beat, sir.”
“I repeat,” the ruler said gravely, “a relic of barbarism. You see, I
have strong conservative instincts—I cling to the fashions of my
fathers—and my people would be restive if I didn’t. I maintain these
fellows as his Majesty the King-Emperor keeps up the Beefeaters in the
Tower. But I also like to move with the times, as perhaps you will allow
me to show you.” He lifted the silver whistle that hung at his coat, and
blew on it two short blasts.
Instantly from behind every rock and shrub—from every bit of possible
cover—there emerged a soldier, garbed in spick and span European
uniform—almost identical with the uniform of a crack regiment of
Imperial Russia—and faultlessly armed with the latest brand of magazine
rifle. They saluted their prince, and then stood, their eyes on him, as
immovable as statues at attention.
“Good Lord!” and Crespin added an involuntary whistle; and Traherne as
involuntarily gasped, “Hallo!” But, if the Englishwoman shared their
amazement she did not show it. She looked at the up-sprung troops quite
calmly and casually. That surprised the Raja, and pleased him—quickened
him even. There is no other quality that appeals to the high caste
Oriental as inscrutability and imperturbability do—qualities of soul
and of breeding that echo his own, and to which his own answer. He did
not like Europeans, except an old friend or two of his English varsity
days. But he felt that he could, if opportunity served, like this
Englishwoman—and the Raja of Rukh was accustomed and skilled to swing
opportunity into his line. He said to her concernedly, “I trust I did
not startle you, Madam?”
“Oh, not at all,” she told him. “I am not nervous,” and she looked him
frankly and squarely in the eyes, as she sat carelessly down again on
her seat of cushions.
His dark eyes kindled an instant, then he said lightly, “You, of course,
realize that this effect is not original. I have plagiarized it from the
excellent Walter Scott:
‘These are the Clan-Alpine’s warriors true,
And, Saxon, I am Roderick Dhu!’
But I think you’ll admit, Major, that my men know how to take cover!”
How typically Oriental, Traherne thought, incredible mixture of child
and cool man of the world.
“By the Lord, sir,” Crespin answered heartily, “they must move like
cats—for you can’t have planted them there before we arrived.”
“No,” the Raja reminded him with a laugh; “you had given me no notice of
your coming.”
“Perhaps the Goddess did,” Lucilla said slyly.
Dr. Traherne felt a little anxious at that, but the Raja took her words
in the best of good part. “Not she, Madam,” he assured her, letting his
brown-black eyes smile into hers for a moment. “She keeps her own
counsel. These men followed me down from the palace, and have taken
position while we have been speaking.”
He gave one word of command, and the men, absolutely making no sound,
rapidly assembled and formed in two ranks, an officer on their flank.
Crespin’s once soldierly face glowed with admiration. His wife thought
she had not for years seen him look so nearly his old self. “A very
smart body of men, Raja,” he said with blunt and evident admiration.
“Allow me to congratulate you on their training.”
“I am greatly flattered, Major.” The Raja was delighted, and showed it
gleefully—the child, so quick in every Oriental, hot on the surface. “I
superintend it myself. . . . Ah, here comes the litter.”
Down the path it came, four bearers carrying it evenly. Two chairs, each
borne by two men, swung along behind it. As its bearers put the litter
down, the Raja offered his hand to Mrs. Crespin with, “Permit me, Madam,
to hand you to your palanquin.”
As she rose she picked up her leather coat, and the newspaper dropped
from its folds and fell to the ground. Traherne bit his lip. The Raja
sprang to pick it up. “Pardon me, Madam,” he said quickly, almost in a
tone of command, and began to scan it. “A newspaper only two days old!
That is such a rarity that you must allow me to glance at it.” He opened
it with a deferential gesture but with a determined hand, and a flick of
something not too amicable glinted from his eyes as he saw that a strip
had been torn from the back page. “Ah,” he said softly, “the telegraphic
news gone! What a pity! In my seclusion, I hunger for tidings from the
civilized world.”
Yazok the priest came closer and spoke to his prince eagerly, telling
too in vivid pantomime Traherne’s burning of the paper, and then pointed
to the little blur of ashes still on the ground. The Raja looked at them
slowly, lifted his eyes, and asked Traherne, smiling, “You burned this
column?”
“Unfortunately, I did.” Traherne had sensed rather than caught the
dislike, and even almost threat, in the suave Eastern voice.
“Ah!” the Raja said with a significance he did not choose or trouble to
veil. Then, after a pause no one else quite cared to break, he added,
with a show of gratitude that was very well done, if he was not sincere,
“I know your motive, Dr. Traherne, and I appreciate it. You destroyed it
out of consideration for my feelings, wishing to spare me a painful
piece of intelligence. That was very thoughtful—almost, if I may say
it, Orientally so—but quite unnecessary. I already know what you tried
to conceal.”
“You know!” and “Your Highness knows!” the two Englishmen said
simultaneously, incredulously.
The Raja smiled slightly and bowed so. “Oh, I had not seen this
excellent English journal—if I had, my eagerness to look at it would
have been an indirection unworthy between friends, and quite unnecessary
to me, I assure you—and I have not heard what comment the admirable
editor of the _Leader_ makes—or his leader writers—but I know that
three of my subjects, accused of a political crime, have been sentenced
to death.”
“How is it possible—?” Traherne involuntarily began.
“Bad news flies fast, Dr. Traherne,” the Raja replied. “And too—this is
Asia,” he added significantly. “But one thing you can perhaps tell
me—is there any chance of their sentences being remitted?”
“I am afraid not, Your Highness,” Traherne answered reluctantly. And
whatever reluctance he did or did not feel at the fact, he was most
sincerely reluctant to tell it to the Raja of Rukh.
“Remitted?” Crespin broke in brashly. “I should rather say not. It was a
cold-blooded, unprovoked murder!”
“Unprovoked, you think?” Rukh said evenly. “Well, I won’t argue the
point. And the execution is to be—?”
He had asked it pointedly of Traherne, and Traherne replied, still more
reluctantly than he had before—and smothering a strong desire to
throttle Antony Crespin: “I think to-morrow—or the day after.” It might
be worse than idle to lie to this man, who seemed uncannily provided
with distant news.
“To-morrow, or the day after,” the Raja said musingly. “Yes.” Then, with
even an added deference, he turned again to Lucilla. “Forgive me,
Madam,” he begged; “I have kept you waiting.”
“Does Your Highness know anything of these men?” Traherne asked
impulsively—and regretted instantly that he had.
Over his shoulder, looking Traherne full in the eyes, handing Mrs.
Crespin carefully into the waiting litter, the Raja said very simply,
“Know them? Oh, yes—they are my brothers.” Then, without giving time
for comment or commiseration, and in a manner that unmistakably but
delicately brooked none, he seated himself in his own litter, and
clapped his hands twice. The bearers lifted the litters and moved away
with them slowly. Lucilla Crespin’s went first, the Raja’s close after,
the well-trained regular soldiers lining the way in single rank, and
saluting as the litters passed. Watkins the valet followed close at heel
to his master’s.
The Englishmen seated themselves in the chairs—there was no
alternative.
“His brothers?” Crespin said uneasily as they did so. “What did he
mean?”
“Heaven knows!” Traherne replied, shrugging his shoulders.
“I don’t half like our host, Traherne,” the Major grumbled from his
chair. “There’s too much of the cat about him.”
“Or of the tiger,” the other rejoined grimly. “And how the devil had he
got the news?”
They were anxious—Basil Traherne the more so. And Lucilla Crespin’s
heart knocked oddly as she rode in her queen-like litter. But she sat at
ease with an easy smile on her face—going to, as she perfectly well
understood, what might prove either the most interesting experience of
her life or a funeral march.
As the two chairs moved after the litters the two ranks of soldiers
closed round them. The ramshackle irregulars, and the bizarre retinue,
the dancing negro first, the musicians next, the rest pell-mell, brought
up the ragged rear, and the gesticulating, still curious populace
followed the retinue.
Only Yazok the priest remained, prostrating himself in thanksgiving
before the Green Goddess, staying prostrate so, till slow hours had sped
and the stark goat heads at her feet grew newly red in the last crimson
rays of the fast sinking sun.
The quick Asian twilight came, and as it came was gone. The great stars
came out in the crinkling sky, a baby moon laughed down on the temple
precincts and the rotting marigolds. And still Yazok the high priest
prostrated himself before the six-armed Goddess.