Guns of the Gods Part 32

Yasmini left them, and walked alone to the very edge of the pond, where she stood still for several minutes, apparently gazing at her own reflection in the moonlit water--or perhaps listening. There was no sign of any one else, nor sound of footfall. Then, as if the reflection satisfied, or she had heard some whisper meant for her and none else, she began to dance, moving very slowly in the first few rhythmic steps, resembling a water-G.o.ddess, the clinging silk displaying her young outline as she bent and swayed.

She might have been watching her reflection still, so close she danced to the water's edge with her back turned to the moon. But presently the dance grew quicker, and extended arms that glistened in the light like ivory increased the sinuous perfection of each pose. Still there was nothing wild in it--nothing but the very spirit of the moonlight, beautiful and kind and full of peace. She moved now around the water, in a measured cadence that by some unfathomable witchery of her devising conveyed a thought of maidenhood and modesty. It dawned on Tess, who watched her spell-bound, that there was not one immodest thought in all Yasmini's throng of moods, but only a scorn of all immodesty and its pretensions. And whether that was art, or sheer expression of the truth within her rather than a recognition of the truth without, Tess never quite determined; for it is easier to judge spoken word and unexpected deed than to see the thought behind it. That night Yasmini's mood was simpler and less unseemly than the very virgin dress she wore.

Presently she danced more swiftly, making no sound, so phantom-light and graceful that the rhythm of her movement carried her with scarce a touch to earth. That was strength as well as art, but the art made strength seem spiritual power to float on air. Gaiety grew now into her cadences-- the utter joy of being young. She seemed to revel in a sense of buoyancy that could lift her above all the grim deceptions of the world of wrath and iron, and make her, like the moonlight, all-kind, all-conquering.

Three times round the pond she leapt and gamboled in an ecstasy of youth undisillusioned.

Then the dance changed, though there was yet in it the heart of gaiety.

There moved now in the steps a sense of mystery--a consciousness of close infinity unfolding, far more subtly signified than by the clumsy s.h.i.+ft of words. And she welcomed all the mystery--greeted it with outstretched arms--was glad of it, and eager-impetuous to know the new worlds and the ways undreamed of. Minute after minute, rhapsody on rhapsody, she wooed the near, untouchable delights that, like the moonbeams, seem but empty nothing when the drudges seize them for their palaces of mud.

Nor did she woo in vain. There were stanzas in her dance of simple grat.i.tude, as if the spirit of the mystery had found her mood acceptable and dowered her with new ability to see, and know, and understand.

Even the two watchers, hand in hand a hundred paces off, felt something of the power of vision she had gained, and thrilled at its wonder.

Borne on new wings of fancy now her dance became a very image of those infinite ideas she had seen and felt. She herself, Yasmini, was a part of all she saw--mistress of all she knew--own sister of the beauty in the moonlight and the peace that filled the glade. The night itself-- moon, sky and lotus-dappled water--trees -growth and grace and stillness, were part of her and she of them. Verily that minute she, Yasmini, danced with the G.o.ds and knew them for what in truth they are--ideas a little lower, a little less essential than the sons of men.

Then, as if that knowledge were the climax of attainment, and its owners.h.i.+p a spell that could command the very lips of night, there came a man's voice calling from the temple in the ancient Rajasthani tongue.

"Oh, moon of my desire! Oh, dear delight! Oh, spirit of all gladness! Come!"

Instantly the dance ceased. Instantly the air of triumph left her. As a flower's petals shut at evening, fragrant with promise of a dawn to come, she stood and let a new mood clothe her with humility; for all that grace of high attainment given her were nothing, unless she, too, made of it a gift. That night her purpose was to give the whole of what she knew herself to be.

So, with arms to her sides and head erect, she walked straight toward the temple; and a man came out to meet her, tall and strong, who strode like a scion of a stock of warriors. They met mid-way and neither spoke, but each looked in the other's eyes, then took each other's hands, and stood still minute after minute. Hasamurti, gripping Tess's fingers, caught her breath in something like a sob, while Tess could think of nothing else than Brynhild's oath:

"O Sigurd, Sigurd, Now hearken while I swear!

The day shall die forever And the sun to darkness wear Ere I forget thee, Sigurd...."

Her lips repeated it over and over, like a prayer, until the man put his arm about Yasmini and they turned and walked together to the temple.

Then Hasamurti tugged at Tess, and they followed, keeping their distance, until Yasmini and her lover sat on one stone in the moonlight on the temple porch, their faces clearly lighted by the mellow beams. Then Tess and Hasamurti took their stand again, hand in each other's hand, and watched once more.

It was love-making such as Tess had never dreamed of,--and Tess was no familiar of hoydenish amours; gentle--poetic--dignified on his part--manly as the plighting of the troth of warriors' sons should be.

Yasmini's was the att.i.tude of simple self-surrender, stripped of all pretense, devoid of any other spirit than the will to give herself and all she had, and knowledge that her gift was more than gold and rubles.

For an hour they sat together murmuring questions and reply, heart answering to heart, eyes reading eyes, and hand enfolding hand; until at last Yasmini rose to leave him and he stood like a lord of squadroned lances to watch her go.

"Moon of my existence!" was his farewell speech to her.

"Dear lord!" she answered. Then she turned and went, not looking back at him, walking erect, as one whose lover is the son of twenty kings.

Without a word she took Tess and Hasamurti by the hand, and, looking straight before her with blue eyes glowing at the welling joy of thoughts too marvelous for speech, led them to the lane--the village street--and the door in the wall again. The man was still gazing after her, erect and motionless, when Tess turned her head at the beginning of the lane; but Yasmini never looked back once.

"Why did you never tell me his name?" Tess asked; but if Yasmini heard the question she saw fit not to answer it. Not a word pa.s.sed her lips until they reached the house, crossed the wide garden between pomegranate shrubs, and entered the dark door across the body of a sleeping watchman--or a watchman who could make believe he slept. Then:

"Good night!" she said simply. "Sleep well! Sweet dreams! Come, Hasamurti--your hands are cleverer than the other women's."

Daughter of a king, and promised wife of a son of twenty kings, she took the best of the maids to undress her, without any formal mockery of excuse. Two of the other women were awake to see Tess into bed-- no mean allowance for a royal lady's guest.

Very late indeed that night Tess was awakened by Yasmini's hand stroking the hair back from her forehead. Again there was no explanation, no excuse. A woman who was privileged to see and hear what Tess had seen and heard, needed no apology for a visit in the very early hours.

"What do you think of him?" she asked. "How do you like him? Tell me!"

"Splendid!" Tess answered, sitting up to give the one word emphasis.

"But why did you never tell me his name?"

"Did you recognize him?"

"Surely! At once--first thing!"

"No true-born Rajputni ever names her lover or her husband."

"But you knew that I know Prince Utirupa Singh. He came to my garden party!"

"Nevertheless, no Rajputni names her lover to another man or woman-- calling him by his own name only in retirement, to his face."

"Why--he--isn't he the one who Sir Roland Samson told me ought to have been maharajah instead of Gungadhura?"

Yasmini nodded and pressed her hand.

"Tomorrow night you shall see another spectacle. Once, when Rajputana was a veritable land of kings, and not a province tricked and conquered by the English, there was a custom that each great king held a durbar, to which princes came from everywhere, in order that the king's daughter might choose her own husband from among them. The custom died, along with other fas.h.i.+ons that were good. The priests killed it, knowing that whatever fettered women would increase their sway. But I will revive it-- as much as may be, with the English listening to every murmur of their spies and the great main not yet thrown. I have no father, but I need none.

I am a king's daughter! Tomorrow night I will single out my husband, and name him by the t.i.tle under which I shall marry him--in the presence of such men of royal blood as can be trusted with a secret for a day or two! There are many who will gladly see the end of Gungadhura!

But I must try to sleep--I have hardly slept an hour. If a maid were awake to sing to me--but they sleep like the dead after the camel-ride, and Hasamurti, who sings best, is weariest of all."

"Suppose I sing to you?" said Tess.

"No, no; you are tired too."

"Nonsense! It's nearly morning. I have slept for hours. Let me come and sing to you."

"Can you? Will you? I am full of gladness, and my brain whirls with a thousand thoughts, but I ought to sleep."

So Tess went to Yasmini's room, and sat beneath the punkah crooning Moody and Sankey hymns and darky lullabies, until Yasmini dropped into the land of dreams. Then, listening to the punkah's regular soft swing, she herself fell forward on her arms, half-resting on the bed, half on the chair, until Hasamurti crept in silently and, laughing, lifted her up beside Yasmini and left her there until the two awoke near noon, wondering, in each other's arms.

Chapter Fourteen

He who is most easily persuaded is perhaps a fool, for the world is full of fools, and it is dangerous to deal with them. But perhaps he is a man who sees his own advantage hidden in the folds of your proposal; and that is dangerous too. --Eastern Proverb

"Acting on instructions from Your Highness!"

It tickled Gungadhura's vanity to have an Englishman in his employ; but Tom Tripe never knew from one day to another what his next reception would be. On occasion it would suit the despot's sense of humor to snub and slight the veteran soldier of a said-to-be superior race; and he would choose to do that when there was least excuse for it. On the other hand, he recognized Tom as almost indispensable; he could put a lick and polish on the maharajah's troops that no amount of cursing and coaxing by their own officers accomplished. Tom understood to a nicety that drift of the Rajput's martial mind that caused each sepoy to believe himself the equal of any other Rajput man, but permitted him to tolerate fierce disciplining by an alien.

And Tom had his own peculiarities. Born in a Shorncliffe barrack hut, he had a feudal att.i.tude toward people of higher birth. As for a prince-- there was almost no limit to what he would not endure from one, without concerning himself whether the prince was right or wrong. Not that he did not know his rights; his limitations were not Prussian; he would stand up for his rights, and on their account would answer the maharajah back more bluntly and even offensively than Samson, for instance, would have dreamed of doing. But a prince was a prince, and that was all about it.

So, on the morning following the flight of Yasmini and Tess, Tom, sore-eyed from lack of sleep but with an eye-opener of raw brandy inside him, and a sense of irritation due to the absence of his dog, roundly cursed nine unhappy mahouts for having dared let an elephant steal his rum--drilled two companies of heavy infantry in marching order on parade until the sweat ran down into their boots and each miserable man saw two suns in the sky where one should be--dismissed them with a threat of extra parades for a month to come unless they picked their feet up cleaner--and reported, with his heart in his throat, at Gungadhura's palace.