What were they to do? They were all three wondering that. There was
nothing for them to do but mark time—and watch with alert eyes, ears
open, and placid faces. They all realized it, and realizing it, did it
thoroughly, like the Britons they were.
On and up the procession went to the palace gate, but with every rod
they made the distance between the palanquins and the chairs was
lengthened. It was not far, as that proverbial crow goes, but the way
was hard and steep, it twisted, turned, zig-zagged and circled about
itself like the railroad to Darjeeling, and like it went down almost as
often as it went up, making the actual gain in ascent very gradual.
Except for the rocks on either side, and the rose and snow-crested peaks
beyond them there was little to see. But here and there a tiny
hovel-like home clung desperately to the brown rocks, and twice where
the rocks spread apart a little to flatness great lily-tanks had been
contrived. They really were water-lily farms, the plants grown and
tended for the food they supplied. The first and larger tank was
snow-white, for the _Nymphæa nelumbo_—queen perhaps of all wild
water-lilies—was in full blooming now, and, because it was between
mid-day and sunset, every wonderful flower-cup was opened wide. When
they died away in a few weeks their seed capsules would grow thousands
of acorn-shaped, edible kernels, delicious when gathered green and
roasted, valuable as winter food-store, to be dried and eaten as nuts,
or ground into flour for the lily-cakes upon which the people largely
lived. The tank higher up was densely crowded with singara lilies, the
water so hidden under the great green leaves that it looked a delicate
sward flecked with brilliant snow blossoms. The singara nuts raw were a
great delicacy, second—if second—only to the half-ripe beans of the
lotus and tender leaf-stalks boiled and seasoned, and singara flour was
a staple of peasant life.
Something animal was scrambling slowly, cautiously down a far mountain’s
knife-like edge—a caravan of the miracle-footed hill-ponies bringing
luxuries from half the globe to the King of Rukh.
The long, twisted palace, when they reached it, was even larger and more
impressive than Mrs. Crespin had thought. Whatever the interior might
prove, the exterior was not unbeautiful; the details of the great open
arches, some scalloped, some sharply pointed, no two quite alike, yet
all in harmony with the others and with the splendid and panoramic
mountain site, were beautiful and significant—they told a story of
years of lavish labor and thought; and through several of the open arch
spaces exquisite vistas of courtyards and pools, colonnades and gray,
intricate walls showed cool and inviting.
The Raja helped the Englishwoman out of her litter as deferentially as
he had assisted her into it. Servants hurried to meet them at the opened
door—women among them, and at a flicker of the ruler’s hand, one more
handsomely dressed than the others came to Lucilla and salaamed before
her.
“She will attend you to your apartments, Madam,” the Raja said, “and
wait upon you. She has my command to obey you in all things, and she
will. You will find her not unskillful, and she is trustworthy. She is
yours.”
Mrs. Crespin looked at the native woman searchingly, afraid to go,
afraid to refuse to do so. The woman, uncommonly tall and most decidedly
handsome, had a comfortable, not unkind face, Lucilla decided. But she
temporized.
“I will wait until Major Crespin comes, I think, Your Highness.”
“By no means,” the potentate said smoothly, “See how far the gentlemen
are behind us—and I cannot allow you to fatigue yourself farther than
you already must have done to-day.”
Lucilla still hesitated. The chairs were far in the distance. If she
showed the fear she felt, how might it not anger this now smiling man
who spoke to her so courtly, whose power was so absolute?
“Until dinner, Madam,” he said, bowing low. But there was finality in
his silken voice, and Lucilla Crespin, praying that she might choose of
the perils swarming about her the least, turned and followed the swarthy
ayah.
“Thank you,” she said, “until dinner then, sir.”
The Raja bowed his approval, and turned away in another direction. She
wondered that he did not wait to welcome Antony and Traherne—it would
have been princelier, she thought, since he had so bidden their coming,
so pressed his hospitality upon them—but it was relief that he showed
no intention of dancing unwelcome attendance upon her. That was
something. She shivered a little, and quietly followed the native woman.
* * * * *
Crespin looked quickly about for his wife when at last his bearers put
down his chair, and he lumbered out of it. She was nowhere to be seen.
But Watkins came forward.
“Madam is resting, sir,” he said, “until dinner.”
“I’ll go to her, then,” Major Crespin ordered.
Watkins bowed, and spoke to one of the servants waiting behind him.
“He knows no Henglish, sir,” Watkins said regretfully, “but he
hunderstands gestures somethink surprising, and he knows a few words of
the French tongue, hif you’ll be so good has to pronounce ’em slow, and
one at a toime.”
Crespin nodded curtly, saw Traherne leaving his chair, hesitated an
instant, and then motioned the man of a little French to show him the
way. He’d find Lu, or he’d pull the bally old show down, he said to
himself, and he meant it. No sense in making a fuss, or a mess, till he
had to, till the right time came; but when it did he’d make the
damnedest mess the Eastern hemisphere’d seen yet. So, he threw Traherne
a nod, and followed the white-clad native.
Dr. Traherne searched the great entrance hall, looking for Mrs. Crespin
beyond her husband. She was not in sight, nor was the Raja. Well,
probably Antony Crespin knew where his wife was, had spoken to and was
following her—the hall wound just beyond the stairs. He hoped it was
so, intensely. And he checked an impulse to call Crespin back to
question him. Apparently nothing was wrong yet—not openly wrong—or
Crespin would not be trudging along so contentedly beside that squat
image in the white silk, red-edged gown. There was nothing to gain and
everything to risk in kicking up an impotent dust before one had to;
above all, to show fear was the worst move one could possibly make when
one played chess for heads with an Oriental. Odd the Raja was not here!
Leading the way just ahead with Mrs. Crespin probably. That was right
enough, with Crespin right behind them. So he moved on after the Major.
But Watkins stayed him.
“This way, hif you please, sir,” the valet said subserviently,
indicating a quite different turn in the vast hall. “The ladies are that
side of the ’ouse, sir, hand the military gentleman, because of his
lidy, but your rooms are hover ’ere, sir, and this man will hattend
you.”
Traherne nodded a little curtly but, as the others already had done, did
as he was told. Best carry on, he reflected, none too reassured, and
carry on warily and quietly.
They all separately had come to the same forced, uncomfortable
conclusion.
Alone, lost in this no-white-man’s land, the three English just carried
on. It seemed all they could do.