There is a land where no resounding street
With babel of electric-garish night
And whir of endless wheels has put to flight
The liberty of leisure. Sandaled feet
And naked soles that feel the friendly dust
Go easily along the never measured miles.
A land at which the patron tourist smiles
Because of gods in whom those people trust
(He boasting One and trusting not at all);
A land where lightning is the lover's boon,
And honey oozing from an amber moon
Illumines footing on forbidden wall;
Where, 'stead of pursy jeweler's display,
Parading peacocks brave the passer-by,
And swans like angels in an azure sky
Wing swift and silent on unchallenged way.
No land of fable! Of the Hills I sing,
Whose royal women tread with conscious grace
The peace-filled gardens of a warrior race,
Each maiden fit for wedlock with a king,
And every Rajput son so royal born
And conscious of his age-long heritage
He looks askance at Burke's becrested page
And wonders at the new-ennobled scorn.
I sing (for this is earth) of hate and guile,
Of tyranny and trick and broken pledge,
Of sudden weapons, and the thrice-keen edge
Of woman's wit, the sting in woman's smile,
But also of the heaven-fathomed glow,
The sweetness and the charm and dear delight
Of loyal woman, humorous and right,
Pure-purposed as the bosom of the snow.
No tale, then, this of motors, but of men
With camels fleeter than the desert wind,
Who come and go. So leave the West behind,
And, at the magic summons of the pen
Forgetting new contentions if you will,
Take wings, take silent wings of time untied,
And see, with Fellow-friendship for your guide,
A little how the East goes wooing still.
"Gold is where you find it."
Dawn at the commencement of hot weather in the hills if not the loveliest
of India's wealth of wonders (for there is the moon by night) is fair
preparation for whatever cares to follow. There is a musical silence cut
of which the first voices of the day have birth; and a half-light holding
in its opalescence all the colors that the day shall use; a freshness and
serenity to hint what might be if the sons of men were wise enough;
and beauty unbelievable. The fortunate sleep on roofs or on verandas,
to be ready for the sweet cool wind that moves in advance of the rising
sun, caused, as some say, by the wing-beats of departing spirits of the night.
So that in that respect the mangy jackals, the monkeys, and the chandala
(who are the lowest human caste of all and quite untouchable by the
other people the creator made) are most to be envied; for there is no
stuffy screen, and small convention, between them and enjoyment of
the blessed air.
Next in order of defilement to the sweepers,--or, as some particularly
righteous folk with inside reservations on the road to Heaven firmly insist,
even beneath the sweepers, and possibly beneath the jackals--come
the English, looking boldly on whatever their eyes desire and tasting
out of curiosity the fruit of more than one forbidden tree, but obsessed
by an amazing if perverted sense of duty. They rule the land, largely
by what they idolize as "luck," which consists of tolerance for things they
do not understand. Understanding one another rather well, they are
more merciless to their own offenders than is Brahman to chandala,
for they will hardly let them live. But they are a people of destiny, and
India has prospered under them.
In among the English something after the fashion of grace notes in the
bars of music--enlivening, if sharp at times--come occasional Americans,
turning up in unexpected places for unusual reasons, and remaining--
because it is no man's business to interfere with them. Unlike the English,
who approach all quarters through official doors and never trespass
without authority, the Americans have an embarrassing way of choosing
their own time and step, taking officialdom, so to speak, in flank. It is
to the credit of the English that they overlook intrusion that they would
punish fiercely if committed by unauthorized folk from home.
So when the Blaines, husband and wife, came to Sialpore in Rajputana
without as much as one written introduction, nobody snubbed them.
And when, by dint of nothing less than nerve nor more than ability to
recognize their opportunity, they acquired the lease of the only vacant
covetable house nobody was very jealous, especially when the Blaines
proved hospitable.
It was a sweet little nest of a house with a cool stone roof, set in a rather
large garden of its own on the shoulder of the steep hill that overlooks
the city. A political dependent of Yasmini's father had built it as a haven
for his favorite paramour when jealousy in his seraglio had made peace
at home impossible. Being connected with the Treasury in some way,
and suitably dishonest, he had been able to make a luxurious pleasaunce
of it; and he had taste.
But when Yasmini's father died and his nephew Gungadhura succeeded
him as maharajah he made a clean sweep of the old pension and
employment list in order to enrich new friends, so the little nest on the
hill became deserted. Its owner went into exile in a neighboring state
and died there out of reach of the incoming politician who naturally wanted
to begin business by exposing the scandalous remissness of his
predecessor. The house was acquired on a falling market by a money-lender,
who eventually leased it to the Blaines on an eighty per cent. basis--
a price that satisfied them entirely until they learned later about local proportion.
The front veranda faced due east, raised above the garden by an eight-foot
wall, an ideal place for sleep because of the unfailing morning breeze.
The beds were set there side by side each evening, and Mrs. Blaine--
a full ten years younger than her husband--formed a habit of rising in
the dark and standing in her night-dress, with bare feet on the utmost
edge of the top stone step, to watch for the miracle of morning. She
was fabulously pretty like that, with her hair blowing and her young figure
outlined through the linen; and she was sometimes unobserved.
The garden wall, a hundred feet beyond, was of rock, two-and-a-half
men high, as they measure the unleapable in that distrustful land; but
the Blaines, hailing from a country where a neighbor's dog and chickens
have the run of twenty lawns, seldom took the trouble to lock the little,
arched, iron-studded door through which the former owner had come
and gone unobserved. The use of an open door is hardly trespass
under the law of any land; and dawn is an excellent time for the
impecunious who take thought of the lily how it grows in order to
outdo Solomon.
When a house changes hands in Rajputana there pass with it, as well
as the rats and cobras and the mongoose, those beggars who were
wont to plague the former owner. That is a custom so based on ancient
logic that the English, who appreciate conservatism, have not even
tried to alter it.
So when a cracked voice broke the early stillness out of shadow where
the garden wall shut off the nearer view, Theresa Blaine paid small
attention to it.
"Memsahib! Protectress of the poor!"
She continued watching the mystery of coming light. The ancient city's
domed and pointed roofs already glistened with pale gold, and a pearly
mist wreathed the crowded quarter of the merchants. Beyond that the
river, not more than fifty yards wide, flowed like molten sapphire between
unseen banks. As the pale stars died, thin rays of liquid silver touched
the surface of a lake to westward, seen through a rift between purple
hills. The green of irrigation beyond the river to eastward shone like
square-cut emeralds, and southward the desert took to itself all imaginable
hues at once.
"Colorado!" she said then. "And Arizona! And Southern California!
And something added that I can't just place!"
"Sin's added by the scow-load!" growled her husband from the farther bed.
"Come back, Tess, and put some clothes on!"
She turned her head to smile, but did not move away. Hearing the man's
voice, the owners of other voices piped up at once from the shadow,
all together, croaking out of tune:
"Bhig mangi shahebi! Bhig mangi shahebi!" (Alms! Alms!)
"I can see wild swans," said Theresa. "Come and look--five--six--seven
of them, flying northward, oh, ever so high up!"
"Put some clothes on, Tess!"
"I'm plenty warm."
"Maybe. But there's some skate looking at you from the garden. What's
the matter with your kimono?"
However the dawn wind was delicious, and the night-gown more decent
than some of the affairs they label frocks. Besides, the East is used
to more or less nakedness and thinks no evil of it, as women learn
quicker than men.
"All right--in a minute."
"I'll bet there's a speculator charging 'em admission at the gate," grumbled
Dick Blaine, coming to stand beside her in pajamas. "Sure you're right,
Tess; those are swans, and that's a dawn worth seeing."
He had the deep voice that the East attributes to manliness, and the
muscular mold that never came of armchair criticism. She looked like
a child beside him, though he was agile, athletic, wiry, not enormous.
"Sahib!" resumed the voices. "Sahib! Protector of the poor!" They
whined out of darkness still, but the shadow was shortening.
"Better feed 'em, Tess. A man's starved down mighty near the knuckle
if he'll wake up this early to beg."
"Nonsense. Those are three regular bums who look on us as their preserve.
They enjoy the morning as much as we do. Begging's their way of telling
people howdy."
"Somebody pays them to come," he grumbled, helping her into a pale
blue kimono.
Tess laughed. "Sure! But it pays us too. They keep other bums away.
I talk to them sometimes."
"In English?"
"I don't think they know any. I'm learning their language."
It was his turn to laugh. "I knew a man once who learned the gipsy bolo
on a bet. Before he'd half got it you couldn't shoo tramps off his door-step
with a gun. After a time he grew to like it--flattered him, I suppose, but
decent folk forgot to ask him to their corn-roasts. Careful, Tess, or
Sialpore'll drop us from its dinner lists."
"Don't you believe it! They're crazy to learn American from me, and
to hear your cowpuncher talk. We're social lions. I think they like us
as much as we like them. Don't make that face, Dick, one maverick
isn't a whole herd, and you can't afford to quarrel with the commissioner."
He chose to change the subject.
"What are your bums' names?" he asked.
"Funny names. Bimbu, Umra and Pinga. Now you can see them, look,
the shadow's gone. Bimbu is the one with no front teeth, Umra has only
one eye, and Pinga winks automatically. Wait till you see Pinga smile.
It's diagonal instead of horizontal. Must have hurt his mouth in an accident."
"Probably he and Bimbu fought and found the biting tough. Speaking
of dogs, strikes me we ought to keep a good big fierce one," be added
suggestively.
"No, no, Dick; there's no danger. Besides, there's Chamu."
"The bums could make short work of that parasite."
"I'm safe enough. Tom Tripe usually looks in at least once a day when
you're gone."
"Tom's a good fellow, but once a day--. A hundred things might happen.
I'd better speak to Tom Tripe about those three bums--he'll shift them!"
"Don't, Dick! I tell you they keep others away. Look, here comes Chamu
with the chota hazri."
Clad in an enormous turban and clean white linen from head to foot, a
stout Hindu appeared, superintending a tall meek underling who carried
the customary "little breakfast" of the country--fruit, biscuits and the
inevitable tea that haunts all British byways. As soon as the underling
had spread a cloth and arranged the cups and plates Chamu nudged
him into the background and stood to receive praise undivided. The
salaams done with and his own dismissal achieved with proper dignity,
Chamu drove the hamal away in front of him, and cuffed him the minute
they were out of sight. There was a noise of repeated blows from
around the corner.
"A big dog might serve better after all," mused Tess. "Chamu beats
the servants, and takes commissions, even from the beggars."
"How do you know?"
"They told me."
"Um, Bing and Ping would better keep away. There's no obligation to
camp here."
"Only, if we fired Chamu I suppose the maharajah would be offended.
He made such a great point of sending us a faithful servant."
"True. Gungadhura Singh is a suspicious rajah. He suspects me anyway.
I screwed better terms out of him than the miller got from Bob White,
and now whenever he sees me off the job he suspects me of chicanery.
If we fired Chamu he'd think I'd found the gold and was trying to hide it.
Say, if I don't find gold in his blamed hills eventually--!"
"You'll find it, Dick. You never failed at anything you really set your heart on.
With your experience--"
"Experience doesn't count for much," he answered, blowing at his tea
to cool it. "It's not like coal or manganese. Gold is where you find it.
There are no rules."
"Finding it's your trade. Go ahead."
"I'm not afraid of that. What eats me," he said, standing up and looking
down at her, "is what I've heard about their passion for revenge. Every
one has the same story. If you disappoint them, gee whiz, look out!
Poisoning your wife's a sample of what they'll do. It's crossed my mind
a score of times, little girl, that you ought to go back to the States and
wait there till I'm through--"
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him.
"Isn't that just like a man!"
"All the same--"
"Go in, Dick, and get dressed, or the sun will be too high before you
get the gang started."
She took his arm and they went into the house together. Twenty minutes
later he rode away on his pony, looking if possible even more of an
athlete than in his pajamas, for there was an added suggestion of
accomplishment in the rolled-up sleeves and scarred boots laced to
the knee. Their leave-taking was a purely American episode, mixed
of comradeship, affection and just plain foolishness, witnessed by more
wondering, patient Indian eyes than they suspected. Every move that
either of them made was always watched.
As a matter of fact Chamu's attention was almost entirely taken up just
then by the crows, iniquitous black humorists that took advantage of
turned backs (for Tess walked beside the pony to the gate) to rifle the
remains of chota hazri, one of them flying off with a spoon since the
rest had all the edibles. Chamu threw a cushion at the spoon-thief and
called him "Balibuk," which means eater of the temple offerings, and
is an insult beyond price.
"That's the habit of crows," he explained indignantly to Tess as she
returned, laughing, to the veranda, picking up the cushion on her way.
"They are without shame. Garud, who is king of all the birds, should
turn them into fish; then they could swim in water and be caught with
hooks. But first Blaine sahib should shoot them with a shotgun."
Having offered that wise solution of the problem Chamu stood with fat
hands folded on his stomach.
"The crows steal less than some people," Tess answered pointedly.
He preferred to ignore the remark.
"Or there might be poison added to some food, and the food left for
them to see," he suggested, whereat she astonished him, American
women being even more incomprehensible than their English cousins.
"If you talk to me about poison I'll send you back to Gungadhura in
disgrace. Take away the breakfast things at once."
"That is the hamal's business," he retorted pompously. "The maharajah
sahib is knowing me for most excellent butler. He himself has given
me already very high recommendation. Will he permit opinions of other
people to contradict him?"
The words "opinions of women" had trembled on his lips but intuition
saved that day. It flashed across even his obscene mentality that he
might suggest once too often contempt for Western folk who worked
for Eastern potentates. It was true he regarded the difference between
a contract and direct employment as merely a question of degree,
and a quibble in any case, and he felt pretty sure that the Blaines would
not risk the maharajah's unchancy friendship by dismissing himself;
but he suspected there were limits. He could not imagine why, but he
had noticed that insolence to Blaine himself was fairly safe, Blaine being
super-humanly indifferent as long as Mrs. Blaine was shown respect,
even exceeding the English in the absurd length to which he carried it.
It was a mad world in Chamu's opinion. He went and fetched the hamal,
who slunk through his task with the air of a condemned felon. Tess
smiled at the man for encouragement, but Chamu's instant jealousy
was so obvious that she regretted the mistake.
"Now call up the beggars and feed them," she ordered.
"Feed them? They will not eat. It is contrary to caste."
"Nonsense. They have no caste. Bring bread and feed them."
"There is no bread of the sort they will eat."
"I know exactly what you mean. If I give them bread there's no profit
for you--they'll eat it all; but if I give them money you'll exact a commission
from them of one pesa in five. Isn't that so? Go and bring the bread."
He decided to turn the set-back into at any rate a minor victory and went
in person to the kitchen for chupatties such as the servants ate. Then,
returning to the top of the steps he intimated that the earth-defilers
might draw near and receive largesse, contriving the impression that
it was by his sole favor the concession was obtained. Two of them
came promptly and waited at the foot of the steps, smirking and changing
attitudes to draw attention to their rags. Chamu tossed the bread to
them with expressions of disgust. If they had cared to pretend they
were holy men he would have been respectful, in degree at least, but
these were professionals so hardened that they dared ignore the
religious apology, which implies throughout the length and breadth of
India the right to beg from place to place. These were not even true
vagabonds, but rogues contented with one victim in one place as long
as benevolence should last.
"Where is the third one?" Tess demanded. "Where is Pinga?"
They professed not to know, but she had seen all three squatting together
close to the little gate five minutes before. She ordered Chamu to go
and find the missing man and he waddled off, grumbling. At the end
of five minutes he returned without him.
"One comes on horseback," he announced, "who gave the third beggar
money, so that he now waits outside."
"What for?"
"Who knows? Perhaps to keep watch."
"To watch for what?"
"Who knows?"
"Who is it on horseback? A caller? Some one coming for breakfast?
You'd better hurry."
The call at breakfast-time is one of the pleasantest informalities of life
in India. It might even be the commissioner. Tess ran to make one
of those swift changes of costume with which some women have the
gift of gracing every opportunity. Chamu waddled down the steps to
await with due formality, the individual, in no way resembling a British
commissioner, who was leisurely dismounting at the wide gate fifty yards
to the southward of that little one the beggars used.
He was a Rajput of Rajputs, thin-wristed, thin-ankled, lean, astonishingly
handsome in a high-bred Northern way, and possessed of that air of
utter self-assuredness devoid of arrogance which people seem able
to learn only by being born to it. His fine features were set off by a turban
of rose-pink silk, and the only fault discoverable as he strode up the
path between the shrubs was that his riding-boots seemed too tight
across the instep. There was not a vestige of hair on his face. He was
certainly less than twenty, perhaps seventeen years old, or even younger.
Ages are hard to guess in that land.
Tess was back on the veranda in time to receive him, with different
shoes and stockings, and another ribbon in her hair; few men would
have noticed the change at all, although agreeably conscious of the
daintiness. The Rajput seemed unable to look away from her but
ignoring Chamu, as he came up the steps, appraised her inch by inch
from the white shoes upward until as he reached the top their eyes met.
Chamu followed him fussily.
Tess could not remember ever having seen such eyes. They were
baffling by their quality of brilliance, unlike the usual slumbrous Eastern
orbs that puzzle chiefly by refusal to express emotion. The Rajput bowed
and said nothing, so Tess offered him a chair, which Chamu drew up
more fussily than ever.
"Have you had breakfast?" she asked, taking the conscious risk. Strangers
of alien race are not invariably good guests, however good-looking,
especially when one's husband is somewhere out of call. She looked
and felt nearly as young as this man, and had already experienced
overtures from more than one young prince who supposed he was
doing her an honor. Used to closely guarded women's quarters, the
East wastes little time on wooing when the barriers are passed or down.
But she felt irresistibly curious, and after all there was Chamu.
"Thanks, I took breakfast before dawn."
The Rajput accepted the proffered chair without acknowledging the
butler's existence. Tess passed him the big silver cigarette box.
"Then let me offer you a drink."
He declined both drink and cigarette and there was a minute's silence
during which she began to grow uncomfortable.
"I was riding after breakfast--up there on the hill where you see that
overhanging rock, when I caught sight of you here on the veranda.
You, too, were watching the dawn--beautiful! I love the dawn. So I
thought I would come and get to know you. People who love the same
thing, you know, are not exactly strangers."
Almost, if not quite for the first time Tess grew very grateful for Chamu,
who was still hovering at hand.
"If my husband had known, he would have stayed to receive you."
"Oh, no! I took good care for that! I continued my ride until after I knew
he had gone for the day."
Things dawn on your understanding in the East one by one, as the
stars come out at night, until in the end there is such a bewildering
number of points of light that people talk about the "incomprehensible
East." Tess saw light suddenly.
"Do you mean that those three beggars are your spies?"
The Rajput nodded. Then his bright eyes detected the instant resolution
that Tess formed.
"But you must not be afraid of them. They will be very useful--often."
"How?"
The visitor made a gesture that drew attention to Chamu.
"Your butler knows English. Do you know Russian?"
"Not a word."
"French?"
"Very little."
"If we were alone--"
Tess decided to face the situation boldly. She came from a free land,
and part of her heritage was to dare meet any man face to face; but
intuition combined with curiosity to give her confidence.
"Chamu, you may go."
The butler waddled out of sight, but the Rajput waited until the sound
of his retreating footsteps died away somewhere near the kitchen. Then:
"You feel afraid of me?" he asked.
"Not at all. Why should I? Why do you wish to see me alone?"
"I have decided you are to be my friend. Are you not pleased?"
"But I don't know anything about you. Suppose you tell me who you
are and tell me why you use beggars to spy on my husband."
"Those who have great plans make powerful enemies, and fight against
odds. I make friends where I can, and instruments even of my enemies.
You are to be my friend."
"You look very young to--"
Suddenly Tess saw light again, and the discovery caused her pupils
to contract a little and then dilate. The Rajput noticed it, and laughed.
Then, leaning forward:
"How did vou know I am a woman? Tell me. I must know. I shall study
to act better."
Tess leaned back entirely at her ease at last and looked up at the sky,
rather reveling in relief and in the fun of turning the tables.
"Please tell me! I must know!"
"Oh, one thing and another. It isn't easy to explain. For one thing, your insteps."
"I will get other boots. What else? I make no lap. I hold my hands as
a man does. Is my voice too high--too excitable?"
"No. There are men with voices like yours. There's a long golden hair
on your shoulder that might, of course, belong to some one else, but
your ears are pierced--"
"So are many men's."
"And you have blue eyes, and long fair lashes. I've seen occasional
Rajput men with blue eyes, too, but your teeth--much too perfect for a man."
"For a young man?"
"Perhaps not. But add one thing to another--"
"There is something else. Tell me!"
"You remember when you called attention to the butler before I dismissed
him? No man could do that. You're a woman and you can dance."
"So it is my shoulders? I will study again before the mirror. Yes, I can
dance. Soon you shall see me. You shall see all the most wonderful
things in Rajputana."
"But tell me about yourself," Tess insisted, offering the cigarettes again.
And this time her guest accepted one.
"My mother was the Russian wife of Bubru Singh, who had no son.
I am the rightful maharanee of Sialpore, only those fools of English put
my father's
nephew on the throne, saying a woman can not reign. They are no
wiser than apes! They have given Sialpore to Gungadhura who is a
pig and loathes them instead of to a woman who would only laugh at
them, and the brute is raising a litter of little pigs, so that even if he and
his progeny were poisoned one by one, there would always be a brat
left--he has so many!"
"And you?"
"First you must promise silence."
"Very well."
"Woman to woman!"
"Yes."
"Womb to womb--heart to heart--?"
"On my word of honor. But I promise nothing else, remember!"
"So speaks one whose promises are given truly! We are already friends.
I will tell you all that is in my heart now."
"Tell me your name first."
She was about to answer when interruption came from the direction
of the gate. There was a restless horse there, and a rider using resonant
strong language.
"Tom Tripe!" said Tess. "He's earlier than usual."
The Rajputni smiled. Chamu appeared through the door behind them
with suspicious suddenness and waddled to the gate, watched by a
pair of blue eyes that should have burned holes in his back and would
certainly have robbed him of all comfort had he been aware of them.