CHAPTER XII
THE LONG DAY
One travels dak by relays casually disposed along the route at the whimof the native contractor. Between Badshah Junction and Kuttarpur therewere ten stages, of which the conclusion of the first was athand--Amber having all but abandoned belief in its existence.
Slamming recklessly down the bed of an ancient watercourse, the tongaspun suddenly upon one wheel round a shoulder of the banks and dashedout upon a rolling plain, across which the trail snaked to otherfarther hills that lay dim and low, a wavy line of blue, upon thehorizon--the hills in whose heart Kuttarpur itself lay occult. And, bythe roadside, in a compound fenced with camel-thorn, sat an aged andindigent dak-bungalow, marking the end of the first stage, thebeginning of the second.
It wore a look of Heaven to the traveller. In the shade of its verandahe read an urgent invitation to rest and surcease of sunlight. Heapproved it thoroughly; the ramshackle rest-house itself, the sheds inthe rear for the accommodation of relays, the syce squatting asleep inthe sunshine, the few scrawny chickens squabbling and scratching overtheir precarious sustenance in the deep hot dust of the compound, eventhe broken tonga reposing with its shafts uplifted at a piteous angleof decrepitude--all these Amber surveyed with a kindly eye.
Ram Nath reined in with a flourish and lifted a raucous voice, hailingthe syce, while Amber, painfully disengaging his cramped limbs, climbeddown and stumbled toward the veranda. The abrupt transition fromviolent and erratic motion to a solid and substantial footing affectedhim unpleasantly, with an undeniable qualm; the earth seemed to rockand flow beneath him as if under the influence of an antic earthquake.He was for some seconds occupied with the problem of regaining hispoise, and it was not until he heard an Englishwoman's voice upliftedin accents of anger, that he remembered the other wayfarer with whom hewas to share his tonga, or associated the white-clad figure in the darkdoorway of the bungalow with anything but the khansamah, coming togreet and cheat the chance-brought guest.
"Where is that tonga-wallah who deserted me here last night?" the womanwas demanding of Ram Nath, too preoccupied with her resentment to haveeyes for the other traveller, who at sight of her had stopped andremoved his pith helmet and now stood staring as if he had come from aland in which there were no women. "Where," she continued, with animperative stamp of a daintily-shod foot, "is that wretchedtonga-wallah?"
"Sahiba," protested Ram Nath, with a great show of deference, "howshould I know? Belike he is in Badshah Junction, whither he returnedvery late last night, being travel-worn and weary, and where I lefthim, being sent with this excellent tonga to take his place."
"You were? And why have I been detained here, alone and unprotected,this long night? Simply because that other tonga-wallah was a fool, amI to be imposed upon in this fashion?"
"What am I," whimpered Ram Nath, "to endure the wrath of the sahiba fora fault that is none of mine?"
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the girl, turning to Amber, "but it isvery annoying." She looked him over, first with abstraction, then witha puzzled gathering of her brows, for he was far from her thoughts--thelast person she would have expected to meet in that place, and veryeffectually disguised in dust and dirt besides, "The tire came off thewheel just as we got here, late yesterday evening, and in trying, orpretending to try, to fit it on again, that block-head of atonga-wallah hammered the rim with a rock as big as his head andnaturally smashed it to kindling-wood. Then, before I could stop him,he flung himself on the back of a pony and went away, saying that itwas the will of God that he should return to Badshah for a bettertonga. Since when I have had for company one stable-syce, onedeaf-and-dumb patriarch of a khansamah and ... the usual dak-bungalowdiscomforts--insects, bad food, and a terrible fear of dacoits."
"I am so sorry, Miss Farrell," Amber put in. "If I had only beenhere...."
The girl gave a little gasp and sat down abruptly in one of the verandachairs, thereby threatening it with instant demolition and herself witha bad spill; for the chair was feeble with the burden of its manyyears, and she was a quite substantial young person. Indeed, so loudlydid it croak a protest and a warning that she immediately arose inalarm.
"Mr. Amber!" she said; and, "Well ...!"
"You'll forgive me the surprise?" he begged, going up on the veranda toher. "I myself had no hope of finding you here."
"But," she protested, with a pretty flush of colour--"but I left you inthe States such a little while ago!"
"Yes?" he said gravely. "It seems so long to me.... And when you hadgone, Long Island was a very lonely place indeed," he added, withcalculated impudence.
Her colour deepened and she sought another chair, seating herself withgingerly decision. "I'm sure you don't mean me to assume that you'vefollowed me half round the world?"
"Why not?" He brought another chair to face her. "Besides, I haven'tseen anything of ... India for a good many years."
"Mr. Amber!"
"Ma'am?" he countered with affected humility.
"You're spoiling it all. I was so glad to see you--I'd have been gladto see any white man, of course----"
"Much obliged, I'm sure."
"And now you're actually flirting with me--or pretending to."
"I'm not," he declared soberly. "As a matter of solemn fact, I had tocome to India."
"You _had_ to?"
"On a matter of serious business. Please don't ask me what, just yet;but it's very serious, to my way of thinking. This happy accident--Icount myself a very happy man to have been so fortunate--only makes myerrand the more pleasant."
She regarded him intently, chin in hand, her brown eyes sedate withspeculation, for some time. "I believe you've been speaking inparables," she asserted, at length. "If I'm unjust, bear with me;appearances are against you. There isn't any reason I know of why youshould tell me what brought you here----"
"There's every reason, in point of fact, Miss Farrell; only ... I can'texplain just now."
"Very well," she agreed briskly; "let's be content with that. I am gladto see you again, truly; and--we're to travel on to Kuttarpur in thesame tonga?"
"If you'll permit----"
"After what I've endured, this awful night, I wouldn't willingly letyou out of my sight."
"Or any other white man?"
She laughed, pleased. "I presume you're wondering what I'm doing here?"
"You were to join your father in Darjeeling, I believe?" he countered,cautious.
"But I found he'd been transferred unexpectedly to Kuttarpur. So, ofcourse, I had to follow. I telegraphed him day before yesterday when Iwas to arrive at Badshah Junction, and naturally expected he'd come inperson or have some one meet me, but I presume the message must havegone astray. At all events there was no one there for me and I had tocome on alone. It's hardly been a pleasant experience; that incompetenttonga-wallah behaved precisely as though he had deliberately made uphis mind to delay me.... And the tonga's nearly ready; I must lock mykit-bag."
She went into the bungalow, leaving him thoughtful, for perhaps.... Butthe back of Ram Nath, as that worthy busied himself superintending theharnessing in of fresh ponies, conveyed to him no support for hishalf-credited hypothesis that this "accident" had been carefullyplanned by Labertouche for Amber's especial benefit.
He vexed himself with vain speculations, for it was perfectly certainthat he would get nothing in the way of either denial or confirmationout of Ram Nath; and, presently, acknowledging this, he called thekhansamah and ordered a peg for the sake of the dust in his throat.
The girl joined him on the veranda in due course, very demure and sweetto look upon in her travelling-dress of light pongee and her pithhelmet, whose green under-brim and puggaree served very handsomely toset off her fair colouring. If she overlooked the adoration of hiseyes, she was rather less than woman; for it was in them, plain to beseen for the looking. The khansamah followed her from the bungalow,staggering under the weight of her box and kit-bag, and with Ram Nath'ssurly assistance made them fast to the fron
t seat. While Amber gave thegirl his hand to help her to her place, and lifted himself to her sidein a mute glow of ecstasy. Fate, he thought with reason, was most kindto him.
They rattled headlong from the compound, making for the distant hillsof blue. The girl drew down her puggaree, with its soft, thin foldssheltering the pure contours of her face from the dust and burningsun-glare. He watched her hungrily, holding his breath as the thoughtcame to him that he was seated elbow to elbow with the woman who was tobe his wife, his hand still a-tingle with the reminiscence of hergloved fingers that had touched it so transiently. She caught hisintent look and smiled, her eyes lustrous through the veiling.
She was very tired after her night-long vigil, and after a few words ofcommonplace as they drew away from the station, he forebore to wearyher with talk, and a silence as sweet as communion lengthened betweenthem as the stage lengthened. He was very intent upon her presence; theconsciousness of her there beside him seemed, at times, almostsuffocating. He could by no means forget that she had in a curious waybeen assigned to him--set aside to be his wife, the partner of all hisdays; and she tolerated him kindly, all unsuspicious of thesignificance of his advent into her life.... If she were made tosuspect, to understand, what effect would it have upon their relations,slight and but lately established as they were? Would she shrink fromor encourage him?
His wife! He wagged his head in solemn stupefaction, trying toappreciate the intangible, the chimerical dream of yesterday resolvedinto the actuality of to-day; realising that, even when most intriguedby the adventure of which she was at once the cause and the prize, eventhough he had met and been charmed by her before becoming enmeshed inits web of incident, he had thought of her with a faint trace ofincredulity, as though she had been a thing of fable, trapped with allthe fanciful charms of beleaguered fairy princesses, rather than aliving woman of flesh and fire and blood--such as she proved to be whorode with him, her thoughts drowsily astray in the vastnesses of herinscrutable, virginal moods.
To think that she was foreordained to be his wife was not moreunbelievable than the consciousness that he, her undeclared lover, herpredestined mate and protector, was listlessly permitting her to delvefurther into the black heart of a land out of which he had promised toconvey her with all possible speed, for the salvation of her body andsoul.... Yet what could he do, save be passive for the time, and waitupon the turn of events? He could not, dared not seize her in his armsand insist that she love him, marry him, fly with him--all within thecompass of an hour or even of a day. For words of love came haltinglyto his unskilled tongue, though they came from a surcharged heart, andto him the strategy of love was as a sealed book, at whose contents hecould but guess, and that with a diffidence and distrust sadlyhandicapping to one who had urgent need of expedition in his courting.
With a rueful smile and a perturbed heart he pondered his problem. Thesecond stage wore away without a dozen words passing between them; soalso the third. The pauses were brief enough, the ponies beingexchanged with gratifying despatch. The tonga would pull up, Ram Nathwould jump down ... and in a brace of minutes or little more thevehicle would be _en route_ again, Amber engaged with the infiniteramifications of this labyrinthal riddle of his, and the girlinsensibly yielding to the need of sleep. She passed, at length, intosound unconsciousness.
Thus the morning stages flowed beneath the tonga, personified in awinding ribbon of roadway, narrow, deep-rutted, inexpressibly dusty,lined uncertainly over a scrubby, sun-scorched waste. Sophia nappeduneasily by fits and starts, waking now and again with a sleepy smileand a fragmentary, murmured apology. She roused finally very muchrefreshed for the midday halt for rest and tiffin, which they passed atone of the conventional bungalows, in nothing particularly unlike itsfellows unless it were that they enjoyed, before tiffin, the gorgeousluxury of plenty of clean water, cooled in porous earthen jars. Amber,overwhelmed by the discovery of this abundance, promptly went to theextreme of calling in the khansamah to sluice him down with jar afterjar, and felt like himself for the first time in five days when, shavedand dressed, he returned to the common living-room of the resthouse.
The girl kept him waiting but a little while. Lacking the attentions ofan ayah she had probably been unable to bathe so extensively as he, buteventually she appeared in an immeasurably more happy state of body andmind, calling up to him the simile, stronger than any other, of a tall,fair lily after a morning shower. And she was in a bewitching humour,one that ingenuously enough succeeded in entangling him more thoroughlythan ever before in the web of her fascinations. Over an execrablecurry of stringy fowl and questionable rice, eked out with tea andtinned delicacies of their own, their chatter, at the beginningsufficiently gay and inconsequent, drifted by imperceptible andunsuspected gradations perilously close to the shoals of intimacy. Andsubsequently, when they had packed themselves back into the narrowtonga-seat and again were being bounced and juggled breathlessly overshocking roads, the exchange of confidences continued with unabatedinterest. Amber on his part was led to talk of his life and work, ofhis adventures in the name of Science, of his ambitions andachievements. In return he received a vivid impression of the lives ofthose women who share with their men the burden of official life inBritish India: of serene days in the brisk, invigorating, clearatmosphere of hill stations; of sunsmitten days and steaming nights inthe Deccan; of the uncertain, anchorless existences of those who knownot from one day to another when they may be whisked half across anEmpire at the whim of that awful force simply nominated Government....
For all the taint upon her pedigree, she proved herself to Amber atheart a simple, lonely Englishwoman--a stranger in a sullen andsuspicious land, desiring nothing better than to return to the Englandshe had seen and learned to love, the England of ample lawns, ofbox-hedges, and lanes, of travelled highways, pavements and gaslights,of shops and theatres, of home and family ties....
But India she knew. "I sometimes fancy," she told him with theconscious laugh that deprecates a confessed superstition, "that I musthave lived here in some past incarnation." She paused, but he did notspeak. "Do you believe in reincarnation?" Again he had no answer forher, though temporarily he saw the daylight as darkness. "It's hard tolive here for long and resist belief in it.... But as a matter of factI seem to understand these people better than they're understood bymost of _my_ people. Don't you think it curious? Perhaps it's merelyintuition----"
"That's the birthright of your sex," he said, rousing. "On the otherhand, you have to remember that your father is one of a family that forgenerations has served the Empire. And your mother?"
"She, too, came of an Anglo-Indian family. Indeed, they met and courtedhere, though they were married in England.... So you think my insightinto native character a sort of birthright--a sense inherited?"
"Perhaps--something of the sort."
"You may be right. We'll never know. At all events, I seem to have amore--more painful comprehension of the native than most of the Englishin this country have; I seem to feel, to sense their motives, theirdesires, aspirations, even sometimes their untranslatable thoughts. Ibelieve I understand perfectly their feeling toward us, the governingrace."
"Then," said Amber, "you know something his Highness the Viceroyhimself would give his ears to be sure of."
"I know that; but I do."
"And that feeling is----?"
"Not love, Mr. Amber."
"Much to the contrary----?"
"Very much," she affirmed with deep conviction.
"This 'Indian unrest' one reads of in the papers is not mere gossip,then?"
"Anything but that; it's the hidden fire stirring within the volcano wetold ourselves was dead. The quiet of the last fifty years has been notcontent but slumber; deep down there has always been the fire, slow,deadly, smouldering beneath the ashes. The Mutiny still lives inspirit; some day it will break out afresh. You must believe me--I_know_. The more we English give our lives to educate the natives, thefurther we spread the propaganda of discontent; day by day
we'reteaching them to understand that we are no better than they, no morefit to rule; they are beginning to look up and to see over the rim ofthe world--and we have opened their eyes. They have learned thatJapanese can defeat Caucasians, that China turns in its sleep, thatEngland is no more omnipotent than omniscient. They've heard of anarchyand socialism and have learned to throw bombs. Only the other day ajustice in Bengal was killed by a bomb.... I fancy I talk," the girlbroke off with her clear laugh, "precisely like my father, who talksprecisely as a political pamphleteer writes. You'll see when you meethim."
"Do you take much interest in politics?"
"No more than the every-day Englishwoman; it's one of our staples ofconversation, when we've exhausted the weather, you know. But I'm notin the least advanced, if that's what you mean; I hunger afterfashion-papers and spend more time than I ought, devouring home-madetrash imported in paper-covers. I only feel what I feel by instinct--asI said awhile ago."
Perhaps if he had known less about the girl, he would have attachedless importance to her statements. As it was, she impressed himprofoundly. He pondered her words deeply, storing them in his memory,remembering that another had spoken in the same manner--one for whoseinsight into the ways of the native he had intense respect.
As the slow afternoon dragged out its blazing hours, their spiritslanguished, and they fell silent, full weary and listless. Towards thelast quarter of the journey their road forsook the spacious, haggardplain and again entered a hilly country, but this time one whereinthere was no lack either of water or of life: a green and fertile landparcelled into farms and dotted with villages.
Night overtook the tonga when it was close upon Kuttarpur, swoopingdown upon the world like a blanket of darkness, at the moment that thefinal relay of ponies was being hitched in. The sun dipped behind theencircling hills; the west blazed with the lambent flame of fire-opal;the wonderful translucent blue of the sky shaded suddenly to deeppurple lanced by great shafts of mauve and amethyst light, and in theeast stars popped out; the hills shone like huge, crude gems--sapphire,jade, jasper, malachite, chalcedony--their valleys swimming with mistsof mother-of-pearl.... And it was night, the hills dark and still, thesky a deeper purple and opaque, the ruddy fires of wayfarers on theroadside leaping clear and bright.
With fresh ponies the tonga took the road with a wild initial rush soonto be moderated, when it began to climb the last steep grade to thepass that gives access to Kuttarpur from the south. For an hour theroad toiled up and ever upward; steep cliffs of rock crowded it,threatening to push it over into black abysses, or to choke it offbetween towering, formidable walls. It swerved suddenly into a broad,clear space. The tonga paused. Voluntarily Ram Nath spoke for almostthe first time since morning.
"Kuttarpur," he said, with a wave of his whip.
Aloof, austere and haughty, the City of Swords sits in the mouth of aravine so narrow that a wall no more than a hundred yards in length issufficient to seal its southerly approach. Beneath this wall, to oneside of the city gate, a river flows from the lake that is Kuttarpur'schiefest beauty. Within, a multitude of dwellings huddles, allinterpenetrated by streets and backways so straitened and sinuous asscarcely to permit the passage of an elephant from the Maharana's herd;congested in the bottom of the valley, the houses climb tier upon tierthe flanking hillsides, until their topmost roofs threaten even thesupremacy of that miracle in white marble, the Raj Mahal.
Northwards the palace of Khandawar's kings stands, exquisite, rare, andmarvellous, unlike any other building in the world. White, all white,from the lake that washes its lowest walls to the crenellated rim ofits highest roof, it sweeps upward in breath-taking steps and wideterraces to the crest of the western hill, into which it burrows, fromwhich it springs; a vast enigma propounded in white marble without anote of colour save where the foliage of a hidden garden peeps over theedge of a jealous screen--a hundred imposing mansions merged into onemonstrous and imperial maze.
Impregnable in the old days, before cannon were brought to India,Kuttarpur lives to-day remote, unfriendly, inhospitable. Within itswalls there is no room for many visitors; they who come in numbers,therefore, must perforce camp down before the gates.
Now figure the city to yourself, seeing it as Sophia was later to seeit in the light of day; then drench it with blue Indian night and studit with a myriad eyes of fire--lamps, torches, candles, blue-whiteelectric arcs, lights running up and down both hillsides and fringingthe very star-sheeted skies, clustering and diverging in vast,bewildering, inconsequent designs, picking out the walls and mainthoroughfares, shining through coloured globes upon the palaceterraces, glimmering mysteriously from isolate windows and balconies;and add to these the softly illuminated walls of a hundred silken statemarquees and a thousand meaner canvas tents arrayed south of thecity.... And that is Kuttarpur as it first revealed itself to Amber andSophia Farrell.
But for a moment were they permitted to gaze in wonderment; Ram Nathhad little patience. When he chose to, he applied his whip, and theponies stretched out, the tonga plunging on their heels down the steephillside, like an ungoverned, ungovernable thing, maddened. Within aquarter of an hour they were careering through the city of tents on theparked plain before the southern wall. In five minutes more they drewup at the main city gate to parley with the Quarter Guard.
Here they suffered an exasperating delay. It appeared that the gateswere shut at sundown, in deference to custom immemorial. Between thathour and sunrise none were permitted to pass either in or out withoutthe express sanction of the State. The commander of the guardinstituted an impudent catechism, in response to which Ram Nathdiscovered the several identities and estates of his charges. Thecommander received the information with impartial equanimity andretired within the city to confer with his superiors. After some time atrooper was sent to advise the travellers that the tonga would bepermitted to enter with the understanding that the unaccreditedEnglishman (meaning Amber) would consent to lodge for the night in noother spot than the State rest-house beyond the northern limits of thecity.
Amber agreed. The trooper saluted with much deference and withdrew. Andfor a long time nothing happened; the gates remained shut, the posternof the Quarter Guard irresponsive to Ram Nath's repeated summons. Hispassengers endured with what patience they could command; they wereaware that it was necessary to obtain from some quarter officialsanction for the opening of the gates, but they had understood that ithad already been obtained.
Abruptly the peace of the night was shattered, and the hum of theencampment behind them with the roar of the city before them wasdwarfed, by a dull and thunderous detonation of cannon from a terraceof the palace. The tonga ponies, reared and plunged, Ram Nath masteringthem with much difficulty. Sophia was startled, and Amber himselfstirred uneasily on his perch.
"What now?" he grumbled. "You'd think we were visitors of state and hadto be durbarred!"
Far up on the heights a second red flame stabbed the night, and againthe thunder pealed. Thereafter gun after gun bellowed at imperative,stately intervals.
"Fifteen," Amber announced after a time. "Isn't this somethingextraordinary, Miss Farrell?"
"Perhaps," she suggested, "there's a native potentate arriving at thenorthern gate. They're very punctilious about their salutes, you know."
Another crash silenced her. Amber continued to count. "Twenty-one," hesaid when it seemed that there was to be no more cannonading. "Isn'tthat a royal salute?"
"Yes," said the girl; "four more guns than the Maharana of Khandawarhimself is entitled to."
"How do you explain it?"
"I don't," she replied simply. "Can you?"
He was dumb. Could it be possible that this imperial greeting wasintended for the man supposed to be the Maharana of Khandawar--Har DyalRutton? He glanced sharply at the girl, but her face was shadowed; andhe believed she suspected nothing.
A great hush had fallen, replacing the rolling thunder of the Stateordnance. Even the voice of the city seemed moderate, subdued. Insilence
the massive gates studded with sharp-toothed elephant-spikesswung open.
With a grunt, Ram Nath cracked his whiplash and the tonga sped into thecity. Amber bent forward.
"What's the name of that gate, Ram Nath--if you happen to know?"
"That," said the tonga-wallah in a level voice, "is known as theGateway of Swords, sahib." He added in his own good time: "But not_the_ Gateway of Swords."
Amber failed to educe from him any satisfactory explanation of thisorphic utterance.