The Native Born; or, the Rajah's People Part 16

"Hullo! What's the matter? What are you so cross about?"

"I'm not cross--only tired, tired, tired and sick of it all. Do drive on!"

Far behind them a solitary figure stood on the broad steps of the palace, amidst the dying splendors of the evening and gazed in the direction which the merry procession had taken. A long time it had stood there, motionless, pa.s.sive, the fine husk of the soul which had wandered out into a new world of hope and possibilities following the woman whose hand had flung the gates wide for him to enter in.

Another figure crept out of the shadows and drew near. Twisted and bent, it stood beside the bold, upright form and lifted its face, hate-filled, to the pale light of the stars.

"Nehal Singh, Nehal Singh--oh, my son!"

The prince turned coldly.

"Is it thou? Hast thou a dagger in thy hand?"

"I have no dagger--would to G.o.d I had! Nehal Singh, I have seen mine enemy's face."

"How meanest thou? Thy enemy is dead."

"Nevertheless, his face is among the living. As a servant, I crept among the strangers, and saw him straight in the eyes. He has grown younger, but it is he. It is the body of the son, but the soul of his father in his eyes--and, father or son, their blood is poison to me."

Nehal Singh knit his brows.

"Knowest thou his name?"

"Ay, now I know his name. It came back to me when I saw his face. Stafford he was called--Stafford!" He crept closer, his thin hand fell like a vise on Nehal's arm. "Kill him!" he whispered. "Kill him--the son of thy father's betrayer!"

Nehal Singh shook himself free.

"I can not," he answered proudly, and a warm thrill of enthusiasm rang in his voice. "I can not. They are all my brothers. I can not take my brother's blood."

With a moan of anger the twisted figure crept back into the shadow, and once more Nehal Singh stood alone.

Unconsciously he had accepted and proclaimed Beatrice Cary's ideal as his own. The hour of bloodshed was gone, mercy and justice called him in its stead. And in that acceptance of a new era his gaze pierced through the obscurity into a light beyond. The jungle which had bound his life was gone; all hindrances, all gulfs of hatred and revenge, were overthrown and bridged. The world of the Great People stood open to him, and to them he held out the casteless hand of love and fellows.h.i.+p.

CHAPTER IX

CHECKED

Lois and Stafford had arrived at that stage of friends.h.i.+p when conversation becomes unnecessary. They walked side by side through the Colonel's carefully tended garden and were scarcely conscious that they had dropped into a thoughtful silence. Yet, as though in obedience to some unspoken agreement, their footsteps found their way to the ruined bungalow and there paused.

As a look can be more powerfully descriptive than a word, so these shot-riddled walls had their own eloquence. Each shot-hole, each jagged splinter and torn hinge had its own history and added its pathetic detail to the whole picture of that disastrous night when the vengeance of Behar Singh had burst like a hurricane over the defenseless land.

After a moment's hesitation Stafford stepped forward and, pus.h.i.+ng aside the heavy festoons of creeper which barred the doorway, pa.s.sed through into the gloomy interior.

"I should like to see the place from the inside," he explained to Lois, who, with an uncontrollable shudder, had followed him. "One can imagine better then how it all happened."

"I think of it all--often," she answered in a hushed voice, "and every time I seem to see things differently. My poor mother!"

"You never knew her?" he asked.

"No, I was too young--scarcely more than a year old. Yet her loss seems to have overshadowed my whole life."

"Was she like you?"

"Yes, I believe so. She was dark--not so dark as I am--but she was stately and beautiful. So she has always been described to me, and so I always seem to see her."

Stafford turned and looked about him.

"It must be almost as it was then," he said wonderingly, pointing to the rusty truckle-bed in the corner. "And there is the broken over-turned chair! It might have been yesterday."

She nodded.

"So my guardian found it," she said. "It had been my father's bungalow and he never allowed it to be touched. When I came of age I gave it to him. It seemed to belong to him, somehow. They say that it nearly broke his heart when he found that he had come too late to save my father. My father was his dearest, almost his only friend."

"Were they killed at once?" Stafford asked with hesitating curiosity.

"I have never known the rights of the case. It has always been a painful subject for me--with you I don't mind."

It was the faintest allusion to a bond between them which both silently recognized, and Lois turned away to hide the signal of happiness which had risen to her cheeks.

"No one knows," she answered. "The bodies were never found. It was part of Behar Singh's cruelty to hide the real fate of his victims.

For a long time people used to hope and hope that in some dungeon or prison they would find their friends, but they never did. One can only pray that the end was a mercifully quick one."

"And Behar Singh died in the jungle?"

"So the natives said. No one really knows," she replied.

"I wish he hadn't," Stafford said, his good-natured face darkening.

"It seems unfair that he should have caused our people to suffer so much and we have never had the chance to pay back. Whatever made the Government give his son the power, goodness only knows."

"The present Rajah was a baby then," she said in a tone of gentle remonstrance. "It would have been hard to have punished him for the sins of his father."

Nothing appeals to a man more than a woman's undiplomatic tenderness for the whole world. Stafford looked down at Lois with a smile.

"You dear, good-hearted little girl!" he said. "And yet, blood is blood, you know. Somehow, one can't get over it. In spite of his good looks, it always seems to me as though I could see his father's treachery in Nehal Singh's eyes. It made me sick to think that I was enjoying his hospitality--it makes me feel worse that we have to accept the club-house at his hands. Travers behaved pretty badly, according to my ideas."

"It was mostly Miss Cary's doing," Lois objected. She liked Travers, and was inclined to take up the cudgels on his behalf.

Stafford's eyes twinkled. On his side he had the rooted and not unfounded masculine notion that all women are jealous of one another.

"Miss Cary is young and inexperienced and probably did not realize what she was doing," he retorted. "From what she told me, she takes the whole matter as a big joke, and now that the fat is in the fire it's no use enlightening her."

Lois made no immediate answer, though she may have had her doubts on the subject of Beatrice Cary's inexperience.

"The poor Rajah!" she said, after a pause, as Stafford walked curiously about the room. "I could not help being sorry for him. He seemed so eager and enthusiastic and anxious to please us, and we were so cold and ungrateful. Tell me, does it really make so much difference?"