The Native Born; or, the Rajah's People Part 20

"Your influence would be irresistible, Rajah Sahib."

Nehal Singh looked at Travers keenly. For the second time he had been spoken of as a power. Was it perhaps true, as his father had said, and this cool Englishman had said, that the thoughts and actions of more than a million people lay at his command? If so, the twenty-five years of his life had been wasted, and he stood far below the high standard which had been set him. He had wandered aimlessly along a smooth path, cut off from the world, plucking such fruits and flowers as offered themselves within his reach, deaf to the cries of those to whom his highest efforts should have been dedicated. He had dreamed where he should have acted, slept where he should have watched and labored unceasingly, yet it was not too late. He felt how his whole dream-world s.h.i.+vered beneath the convulsions of his awakening energies. The vague, futile, uneasy longings of his immaturity took definite shape. His shackled abilities awaited only the signal to throw off their fetters and in freedom to create good for the whole world.

"You have shown me possibilities of which I never dreamed," he said to Travers. "I must speak to you again, and soon, for if things are as you say, then time enough has been wasted. But not tonight. Tomorrow I will see you--or no, not tomorrow--the day after. I must have time to think."

The waltz had died sentimentally into silence, and he made a gesture indicating that he wished to return to the ball-room. Yet on the threshold he hesitated and drew back.

"The light and confusion trouble me," he said, pa.s.sing his hand over his eyes, "and my mind is full of new thoughts. If you will permit, I will take my leave. My servants are waiting outside, and if you will carry my thanks to my other hosts, I should prefer to go unnoticed."

"It is as you wish, Rajah Sahib," Travers returned, "It is we who have to thank you for partaking of our poor hospitality."

"You have given me more than hospitality," Nehal Singh interposed.

Then he lifted his hand in salute. "In two days I shall expect you."

"In two days."

Travers watched the tall, white-clad figure pa.s.s out of the brightly lighted tent into the darkness. From beginning to end, his plans had been crowned with unhoped-for success, and yet he was puzzled.

"I wonder why in two days?" he thought. "Why not tomorrow? I wonder if by any chance--!" He broke off with a smothered laugh. "It is just possible. I'll make sure and send her a line."

Then, as the band began the first bars of a second waltz, he hurried back into the crowded room in time to forestall Stafford at Lois'

side.

CHAPTER XI

WITHIN THE GATES

Nehal Singh's servants stood with the horses outside Travers' compound and waited. Their master did not disturb them. Glad as he was to get away from the crowd of strangers and the dazzling lights and colors, it still pleased him to be within hearing of the music which, softened by the distance, exercised a melancholy yet soothing influence upon his disturbed mind. For the dreamy peace had gone for ever--as indeed it must be when the soul of man is roughly shaken into living, pulsating life, and he fevered with a hundred as yet disordered hopes and ambitions. To be a benefactor to his people and to all mankind, to be the first pioneer of his race in the search after civilization and culture--these had been the dreams of his. .h.i.therto wasted life, only he had never recognized them, never understood whither the restless impulses were driving him. It had needed the pure soul of a good woman to unlock the best from his own; it had needed the genius of a clear brain to harness the untrained faculties to some definite aim. The soul of a woman had come and had planted upon him the purity of her high ideal; the genius had already shot its first illuminating ray into his darkness. Henceforth the watchword for them all was to be "Forward," and Nehal Singh, standing like a white ghost in the deserted compound, shaken by the force of his own emotions, intoxicated by his own happiness and the s.h.i.+ning future which spread itself before his eyes, sent up a prayer such as rarely ascends from earth to Heaven. To whom? Not to Brahma. His mind had burst like a raging tide over the flood-gates of caste and creed and embraced the whole world and the one G.o.d who has no name, no creed, no dogma, but whom in that moment he recognized in great thanksgiving as the Universal Father.

Thus far had Nehal Singh traveled in two short weeks--guided by a woman who had no G.o.d and a man who had no G.o.d save his own ends. But he did not know this. As he began to pace slowly backward and forward, listening to the distant music, he thought of her, and measured himself with her ideal in a humility which did not reject hope. One day he would be able to stand before her and say, "Thus far have I worked and striven for inner worth and for the good of my brothers. I have kept myself pure and honest, I have cultivated in myself the best I have, and have been inexorable against the evil. Thus much have I attained."

Further than that triumphant moment he did not think, but he thanked G.o.d for the ideal which had been set him--the Great People's ideal of a man--and for the afterward which he knew must come.

Thus absorbed in his own reflections, he reached Travers' bungalow, and a ray of light falling across his path, brought him sharply back to the present reality. He looked up and saw that a table had been pulled out on to the verandah, and that four officers sat round it, playing cards by the light of a lamp. At Marut there was always a heavy superfluity of men, and these four, doubtless weary of standing uselessly about, had made good their escape to enjoy themselves in their own way. Nehal Singh hesitated. He felt a strong desire to go up and join them, to learn to know them outside the enervating, leveling atmosphere of social intercourse where each is forced to keep his real individuality hidden behind a wall of phrases. Now, no doubt, they would show themselves openly to him as they were; they would admit him into the circle of their intimate life, and teach him the secret of the greatness which had carried their flag to the four corners of the earth. Yet he hesitated to make his presence known. The study of the four faces, unconscious of his scrutiny, absorbed him.

The two elder men were known to him, although their names were forgotten. Their fair hair, regular, somewhat cold, features led him to suppose that they were brothers. The other two were considerably younger--they seemed to Nehal Singh almost boys, though in all probability they were his own age. One especially interested him. He was a good-looking young fellow, with pleasant if somewhat effeminate features and a healthy skin bronzed with the Indian sun. He sat directly opposite where Nehal Singh stood in the shadow, and when he s.h.i.+fted his cards, as he often did in a restless, uneasy way, he gave the unseen watcher an opportunity to study every line of his set face.

Nehal Singh wondered at his expression. The others were grave with the gravity of indifference, but this boy had his teeth set, and something in his eyes reminded Nehal Singh of a dog he had once seen confronted suddenly with an infuriated rattle-snake. It was the expression of hypnotized fear which held him back from intruding himself upon them, and he was about to retrace his steps quietly when the man who was seated next the bal.u.s.trade turned and glanced so directly toward him that Nehal Singh thought his presence was discovered. The officer's next words showed, however, that his gaze had pa.s.sed over Nehal Singh's head to the brightly lighted marquee on the other side of the compound.

"I'm glad to be out of that crush," Captain Webb said, as he lazily gathered up his cards. "Fearfully rotten show I call it--not a pretty girl among the lot, and a heat enough to make the devil envious! I can't think what induced our respected Napoleon to make such a fool of himself."

"Napoleon hasn't made a fool of himself, you can make yourself easy on that score," Saunders retorted. "Napoleon knows on which side of the bread his b.u.t.ter lies, even if you don't. When he dances attendance on any one, you can take it on trust that the b.u.t.ter isn't far off. No, no; I've a great reverence for Nappy's genius."

"It's an infernally undignified proceeding, anyhow," Webb went on.

"I'm beginning to see that old Stafford wasn't so far wrong. What do we want with the fellow? All this kowtowing will go to his head and make him as 'uppish' as the rest of 'em. He's conceited enough, already, aping us as though he had been at it all his life."

"That's the mistake we English are always making," grumbled Saunders, as he played out. "We are too familiar. We swallow anything for diplomacy's sake, even if it hasn't got so much as a coating of varnish. We pull these fellows up to our level and pamper them as though they were our equals, and then when they find we won't go the whole hog, they turn nasty and there's the devil to pay. In this case I didn't mind so long as he kept his place, but then that's what they never do. That's our rubber, I think. Shall we stop?"

"I've had enough, anyhow," his vis-a-vis answered. "Add up the dern total, will you, there's a good fellow. I must be getting home.

There's that boring parade to-morrow at five again, and I've got a headache that will last me a week, thanks to Nappy's bad champagne.

Well, what's the damage?"

The young fellow who had sat with his head bowed over his cards looked up with a sickly smile.

"Yes, what's the damage?" he said. "I can't be bothered--I've lost count. You and I must have done pretty badly, Phipps."

"I dare say we shall survive," his partner rejoined carelessly. "We have lost five rubbers. How does that work out, Webb?"

"I'll trouble you for a hundred each," Webb answered, after a minute's calculation. "Quite a nice, profitable evening for us, eh, Saunders.

Thanks, awfully, old fellow." He gathered up the rupees which the boy's partner had pushed toward him. The boy himself sat as though frozen to stone. Only when Saunders gave him a friendly nudge, he started and looked about him as though he had been awakened out of a trance.

"I'm awfully sorry," he stuttered; "you and Webb--would you mind waiting till to-morrow? I'll raise it somehow--I haven't got so much--"

Phipps broke into a laugh.

"You silly young duffer!" he said. "What have you been doing with your pocket money, eh? Been buying too many sweeties?"

The other two men roared, but the boy's features never relaxed.

"I tell you I haven't got so much with me," he mumbled. "I'll bring it to-morrow, I promise."

Webb rose from his chair, stretching himself languidly.

"All right," he agreed. "To-morrow will do. By Jove, what a gorgeous night it is!" He leaned over the bal.u.s.trade, lifting his aristocratic face to the sky. "Saunders, you don't want to go to bed, you old cormorant. Come on with me, and we'll spend the night hours worthily."

"I'm game!" Saunders rejoined. "That is, if it's anything decent. I'm not going to do any more tar-wors.h.i.+pping, that's certain."

"Don't want you to. I'm going to dress up and have a run around the Bazaar, and if you want a little excitement, you had better do likewise. You see things you don't see in the daytime, I can tell you, and some of the women aren't bad. Come on! We can run round to my diggings and change. Are you coming, Phipps and Geoffries?"

The weedy young man addressed as Phipps rose with alacrity.

"Anything for a change," he said. "Wake up, Innocence!" He brought his hand down with a friendly thump on Geoffries' shoulder, but the boy shook his head.

"No," he said, in the same rough, monotonous voice. "I'm done for to-night. You fellows get on without me."

"As you like. Good night."

"Good night."

The three men went into the bungalow. Gradually their voices died away in the distance, but the boy never moved, never s.h.i.+fted his blank stare from the cards in front of him. It was a curious tableau. In the midst of the darkness it was as though a lime-light had been thrown on to a theatrical representation of despair, while beneath, hidden by the shadow, a lonely spectator, to whom the scene was a horrible revelation, fought out a hard battle between indignation and disbelief.

Throughout the conversation Nehal Singh had stood rigid, his hand clenched on the jeweled hilt of his sword, his eyes riveted on the faces of the four men who were thus unconsciously drawing him into the intimate circle of their life. Much that they said was incomprehensible to him. The references to "Napoleon" and to the unknown individual contemptuously dubbed "the fellow" were not clear, but they left him a gnawing sense of insult and scorn which he could not conquer. The subsequent c.h.i.n.k of money changing hands had jarred upon his ears--the final dispute concerning their further pleasure made him sick with disgust. These "gentlemen" sought their amus.e.m.e.nt in a place where he would have scorned to set his foot.

This fact obliterated for a moment every other consideration. Was it to these that his hero-wors.h.i.+p was dedicated? Were these the men from whom he was to learn greatness of thought, heroism of action, purity in life, idealism--these blatant, coa.r.s.e-worded, coa.r.s.e-minded cynics to whom duty was a "bore" and pleasure an excuse to plunge into the lowest dregs of existence? In vain his young enthusiasm, his almost pa.s.sionate desire to honor greatness in others fought his contemptuous conviction of their unworthiness. Gradually, it is true, he grew calmer, and, like a climber who has been flung from a high peak, gathered himself from his fall, ready to climb again. He told himself that as an outsider he did not understand either the words or the actions which he had heard and witnessed, that he judged them by the narrow standard of a life spent cut off from the practical ways of the world. He repeated to himself Beatrice Cary's a.s.surance--"All men do not carry their heart on their sleeve." He told himself that behind the jarring flippancy there still could lurk a hidden depth and greatness. Nevertheless the received impression was stronger than all argument. The climber, apparently unhurt, had sustained a vital injury.