The Native Born; or, the Rajah's People Part 56

"Go back!" she whispered. "Go back!"

He pressed her to him, seeking to pour something of his own seething vitality into her dying frame. With her life the threads of his fate seemed to be slipping through his fingers.

"Help me!" he implored. "Do not leave me!"

But he knew that she would never answer. She lay heavy in his arms, and the hand that clasped his relaxed and fell with a soft thud upon the marble. He rose to his feet and stood looking down upon her. It was not the first time he had seen death. In these last weeks he had met it in all its most hideous, most revolting forms; but none had moved him, awed him as this did. He knew that she had once been beautiful. Who had made her suffer till only a shadow of that beauty remained? What had she endured? Who was she? What did she know of him?

Why did she call him by a name which rang in his ears with a vague familiarity? What was it in her poor dead face which stirred in him a memory which had no date nor place in his life?

Outside he heard the uneasy stirring of the thousands who awaited him.

He looked up and through the open windows, saw the camp-fires and that one dark spot which was to be swept clear of all but death. What had she said? "Go back! Lay down your arms! You must--you know you must!

To turn traitor is to inherit an endless h.e.l.l!" A traitor? A traitor to whom--to what? To some blind instinct that had called him in those English voices, that had beaten out an answering cry of thankfulness from his heart when their cheers proclaimed his own defeat?

A soft step roused him from his troubled thoughts. He looked up and saw a servant standing in the curtained doorway. The man's eyes were fixed on the outstretched figure at Nehal's feet, and there was an expression on the dark face so full of fear and horror that the Rajah involuntarily drew back.

"Who was this woman?" he demanded. "Whence comes she?"

"Lord Sahib, she was a mad-woman whom the Lord Behar Singh kept out of mercy. She must have escaped her prison. More I know not."

The man was trembling as though in the shadows there lurked a hidden threatening danger, and Nehal turned aside with a gesture of desperate impatience.

"Why hast thou come before the time?" he asked.

"Lord Sahib, outside there are two English prisoners. They demand to be brought before thee. What is thy will?"

"Bring them hither."

Nehal Singh stood where the bowing servant left him, at the side of the poor dead woman, his hands crossed upon his sword-hilt, his eyes fixed on the parted curtains. There he waited, motionless, pa.s.sive, as a man waits who knows that he has become the tool of Destiny.

A moment later, Beatrice stood before him.

CHAPTER XII

HIS OWN PEOPLE

She was not alone, but in that first moment he saw nothing but her face. It seemed to him that the whole world was blotted out and that only she remained, grave, fearless, supreme in her wan beauty, a tragic figure glorified by a light of unconquerable resolution. He looked at her but he did not greet her; no muscle of his set and ashy features betrayed the thrill of pa.s.sionate recognition which had pa.s.sed like a line of fire through his veins. To move was to awake from a dream to a hideous, terrible reality.

She came slowly toward him. The thin wrap about her head slipped back and he saw the light flash on to the fair disheveled hair. His eyes were dazzled, but it seemed to him that there were grey threads where once had been untarnished gold. Yet he could not and would not speak, and she came on till she stood opposite him, the dead woman lying there between them. Then for the first time she lowered her eyes and he awoke with a start of agonizing pain.

"Why have you come?" he said. "Have you come to plead again? Have you come to torture me again? Was not that once enough? In a few minutes I shall sweep your people to destruction. Shall I save you?--is that what you have come to tell me?"

He waited for her answer, his teeth clenched, his brows knitted in the old terrible struggle. All his energy, all his determination sank paralyzed before her and before his love, and yet he knew he must go on--go on with the destruction of himself, of her, of all that was dearest to him.

She knelt down and touched the dead face with her white hand, closing the glazed, staring eyes with a curious tenderness and pity. There was no surprise or horror in her expression as she at last rose and faced him--rather a mysterious knowledge which held him bound in wordless expectation.

"I have come to tell you that woman's history, Steven Caruthers," she said. "I have not come to plead with you but to tell you the truth--to lay before you the two paths between which you must choose once and for all. Will you listen to me?"

"Beatrice!" he stammered. "Why have you given me a name which is not mine--which _she_ gave me with her last breath? What do you know that you have risked your life--"

"It was no risk," she said. "My life was forfeited and it was our last hope. Oh, if I can turn you from all this ruin, then I shall have atoned for the evil I have done you!"

The note of mingled entreaty, despair and hope stirred him to the depths of his being, but he made no response. He could only point to the white face and repeat the question which had beaten in pitiless reiteration against his tortured brain.

"Who was she?"

"She was your mother."

"And I--?"

It was not Beatrice who this time answered. A figure stepped forward out of the shadows and faced the Rajah. It was Carmichael, pale, deeply moved, but erect and steadfast. His eyes were fixed on Nehal's features with a curious, hungry eagerness which changed as he spoke into a growing recognition.

"Let me tell you," he said. "I will be brief, for every minute is precious and full of danger for us all. This poor woman was Margaret Caruthers, the wife of my dearest friend, and your mother. Until an hour ago I believed that she had been butchered with her husband and with all those others who paid the penalty of one man's sin. No doubt you know why your supposed father, Behar Singh, rose against us?"

"His honor--his wife had been stolen from him by a treacherous Englishman," Nehal answered hoa.r.s.ely.

"Yes, by Stafford, John Stafford's father. The issue of that act of infidelity was a child, Lois, who afterward was adopted by Caruthers, partly out of friends.h.i.+p for Stafford, partly because he had no children of his own. So much, at least, I surmise. I surmise, too, that that adoption cost him his wife's love and trust. Perhaps, ignorant of the child's real parentage, she believed the worst, perhaps there were other causes--be it as it may, in the hour of catastrophe she refused to share the general fate. She chose to throw herself upon the mercy of her mother's people."

"Her mother's people!" Nehal echoed blankly.

"There was native blood in her veins. It was on that account that Behar Singh spared her. She bitterly learned to regret her change of allegiance. She was kept close prisoner, and six months after the murder of her husband she bore him a son--you--Steven Caruthers. Behar Singh, himself without an heir, took the child from her, and from that hour the unfortunate woman became insane. Long years she was kept a secret and wretched captive, and then one day she escaped, and in her wanderings met a man--an Englishman who was then your friend."

"Travers!" Nehal exclaimed.

"Yes, Travers. By means of bribes and threats he obtained her whole history, partly from her own lips, partly from her gaolers. But he told no one of his discovery."

"Why not? How dared he keep silence?"

"It is very simple. He wished to marry my ward, Lois Caruthers, and he wished to have her money. As I have said, Caruthers had adopted her when her mother, the Reni Ona, returned to her own people, and had made her his heir in the case that he should have no children of his own. Had your existence been known Lois would have been penniless.

Travers knew this and kept his secret from every one save Stafford."

"Why did he tell Stafford?"

"He had to. Stafford and Lois loved each other--with a love which was all too natural and explicable in the light of our present knowledge.

It was necessary that he should be made aware that marriage between them was impossible--that they were, in fact, the children of the same father."

"Stafford kept silence--"

"He had promised. And, moreover, he believed it kinder to hide the truth from Lois. Only at the last he determined to speak at all costs.

But it was too late. You know--he was murdered on the steps of Travers' house."

Nehal Singh nodded. An even deadlier pallor crept over his features.

"I know," he said. "It was Behar Singh's last vengeance. G.o.d knows, my hands are clean."

"That I know. You are your father's son."