Louis Joseph Vance

“ Am I blind—I, Salig Singh, thy childhood's playmate, the Grand Vizier of thy too-brief rule, to whom thou didst surrender the reins of government of Khandawar? I know thee; thou canst not deceive me. True it is that thou art changed—sadly changed, my lord; and the years have not worn upon thee as they might—I had thought to find thee an older man and, by thy grace, a wiser. But even as I am Salig Singh, thou art none other than my lord, Har Dyal Rutton."
Salig Singh put his shoulders against the wall and, leaning so with arms folded, regarded Amber with a triumph not unmixed with contempt. ”

“ Sophia echoed warmly. "I've had no chance, as yet—"
"Not another word, my dear Miss Farrell!" Labertouche protested, acutely uncomfortable. "To've been able to help you out of the scrape is enough."
"But I must—" she began, and stopped with a little cry as a shot rang out from the heart of the thicket, to be followed by another and then by a shriek of agony and a great confusion of sounds—shouts and oaths and noisy crashings in the tamarisks as of many men blundering hither and yon.
Silenced, with a slight shudder of apprehension, the girl drew to Amber's side, as if instinctively. ”

“ If thou art king, then am I more than queen, in Khandawar."
"I am not angry, Naraini," he told her humbly, "but mad with love for thee—"
"And lust, my lord, for—power," she interpolated.
"But if what thou hast said be true—"
"'Who lies to the King, is already a dead man.' Why should I trouble to deceive thee, Heaven-born? I tell thee, the man is won. The day shall declare it: this night will he ride with me to Kathiapur. Why didst thou not tarry to eavesdrop? Indeed thou hast lost an opportunity that may never a second time be thine—to learn of the wiles of woman." ”

“ The khansamah followed her from the bungalow, staggering under the weight of her box and kit-bag, and with Ram Nath's surly assistance made them fast to the front seat. While Amber gave the girl his hand to help her to her place, and lifted himself to her side in a mute glow of ecstasy. Fate, he thought with reason, was most kind to him.
They rattled headlong from the compound, making for the distant hills of blue. The girl drew down her puggaree, with its soft, thin folds sheltering the pure contours of her face from the dust and burning sun-glare. ”

“ Never hast thou dreamed of love such as the love that I bear for thee. How could it be otherwise, when thou hast passed thy days in the chill exile of the North? O my husband, turn not from me—"
He pulled himself together and stood away. "Madam," he said with an absurdly formal bow, "I am not your husband."
She opened her arms with infinite allure. "It is so little that is asked of thee—only to ascend thy father's throne and be honoured of all Bharuta, only to wield the sceptre that is thine by right, only to reign an undisputed king in two kingdoms—Khandawar and thy Naraini's heart!" ”

“ Once away from the Great Eastern he quietly insinuated himself into the tide of the city's night life that tirelessly ebbs and flows north of Dalhousie Square—the restless currents of native life that move ceaselessly in obedience to impulses so meaningless and strange to the Occidental understanding. Before he realised it he had left civilisation behind him and was breathing the atmosphere, heady and weird, of the Thousand-and-One Nights. The Lal Bazaar seethed round him noisily, with a roaring not unlike that of a surf in the hearing of him who had so long lived separate from such scenes. ”

“ A great drum roared like the crack of Doom; and Amber's jaw dropped. For in the high roof of the temple a six-foot slab had been noiselessly withdrawn, and through it a cold shaft of moonlight fell, cutting the gloom like a gigantic rapier, and smote with its immaculate radiance the true Gateway of Swords.
Not six paces from him it leaped out of the darkness in an iridescent sheen: an arch a scant ten feet in height, and in span double the width of a big man's shoulders, woven across like a weaver's frame with ribbons of pale fire. ”

“ Simultaneously Amber heard a cry go up, shrill above the clamour of the mob, screaming that a white sailor had knifed the goldsmith. And he turned pale beneath his tan.
"You hear, hazoor? They are naming you to the police-wallahs. Come!"
"You're right." Amber fell into a long, free stride that threatened quickly to distance the Gurka's short, sturdy legs. "Yet why do you take this trouble for me?"
"Why ask?" panted the Gurkha. "Did I not stand behind you and see that you did not throw the knife? Am I a dog to stand by and see an innocent man yoked to a crime?" ”

“ Falling ever more densely, the snow drew an impenetrable wan curtain between Amber and the world of life and light and warmth; while with each discordant blast the strength of the gale seemed to wax, its high hysteric clamour at times drowning even the incessant deep bellow of the ocean surf. Once Amber paused in his patrol, having heard, or fancying he had heard, the staccato plut-plut-plut of a marine motor. On impulse, with a swelling heart, he swung his gun skywards and pulled both triggers. The double report rang in his ears loud as a thunderclap. ”

“ Abruptly she brought both hands down upon the keys, educing a jangled, startled crash from the tortured wires, and swinging round, glanced up at Amber with quaint mirth trembling behind the veil of moisture in her misty eyes.
"India!" she cried, with a broken laugh: "India epitomised: a homesick, exiled woman trying to drag a song of Home from the broken heart of a crippled piano! That is an Englishwoman's India: it's our life, ever to strive and struggle and contrive to piece together out of makeshift odds and ends the atmosphere of Home!... ”

“ On the table a tin kerosene-lamp had burned low, poisoning the air with its bitter reek. On the cot Doggott sprawled in his clothing, his strained position—half reclining, feet upon the floor—suggesting an uncontemplated surrender to fatigue. His face was flushed and he was breathing heavily.
The Virginian stood over him for several minutes before he could bring himself to the point of awakening the man to the news of Rutton's death. Aware of that steadfast loyalty which Doggott had borne his master through many years of service, he shrank with conceivable reluctance from the duty. ”

“ It is not well to meddle with the unknown."
The ring was off his finger now and the woman was cramming it into his coat-pocket with tremulous hands. And where the Eye had shone, the sky was blank. They stood in darkness, Amber mute with perplexity, Naraini clinging to his arm and shaking like a reed in the wind.
"Now am I frightened, lord of my heart! Lead me back to the garden, for I am but a woman and afraid. Who am I, Naraini, to see the Eye? What am I, a weak woman, to trespass upon the Mysteries? I am very much afraid. Do thou take me hence and comfort me, my king!" ”

“ In the hush there rose to Amber a muted confusion of sounds—the blended voices of the multitude that inhabited the hidden chambers of the palace: the pawing and shrill neighing of the stallions in the lower courtyard, a shivering clash of steel against steel, somewhere the tinkle of a stringed instrument and a soft voice singing, a man's accents weighty with authority, the ripple of a woman's laugh—all relieved against an undertone like a profound sigh, waning and waxing: the breathing of the Raj Mahal ...
Amber turned away to rejoin Salig Singh by the cistern. ”

“ The unending hum of a living city was not there. Sister of Babylon, Nineveh and Tyre, kin to Chitor and that proud city of the plains that Jai Singh abandoned when he built him his City of Victory, Kathiapur is as Tadmor—dead. The shell remains; the soul has flown.
A gasp from the woman and an oath from the sowar startled Amber out of somber apprehensions into which he had been plunged by contemplation of this impregnable fortress of desolation. ”

“ If I was told that Har Dyal Rutton would be in India upon such-and-such a day, am I to blame that I did promise to bring him to the Gateway?"
"And seeing that the man is dead, art thou to blame for bringing in his place a substitute, even so poor a changeling as this man Amber? Nay, be not angry; do I blame thee? Have I done aught but serve thee to the end thou dost desire?... Thou shouldst be grateful to me, rather than menace me with thine anger.... And," she added sweetly, "it were well for thee that thou shouldst bear always in mind my intimacy with thy secret. ”

“ Amber went temporarily mad with rage. He was no stranger to fear—no man with an imagination is; but for the time being he was utterly foolhardy. He forgot his exhaustion, forgot the hopelessness of his plight, forgot everything save his insatiable thirst for vengeance. He was, in our homely idiom, fighting-mad.
One instant overpowered by and supine beneath the Gurkha, the next he had flung the man off and bounded to his feet. There was the automatic pistol in his coat-pocket, but he, conscious that many hands were reaching out in the darkness to drag him down again, found no time to draw it. ”

“ Without answering Rutton turned the box over in his palm, his slender fingers playing about the bosses of the relief work; there followed a click and one side of it swung open. The Bengali fell back a pace with a whisper of awe—real or affected: "The Token, hazoor!" Amber himself gasped slightly.
Unheeded, the box dropped to the floor. Between Rutton's thumb and forefinger there blazed a great emerald set in a ring of red old gold. He turned it this way and that, inspecting it critically; and the lamplight, catching on the facets, struck from it blinding shafts of intensely green radiance. ”

“ What, the Sirkar itself to us in Khandawar?" She laughed bitterly. "I am a Rohilla, a daughter of kings: my dishonour may be purged only by flame. Arre! that I should live to meet with such fate—I, Naraini, to perish in the flower of my beauty.... For I am beautiful, am I not?" She dropped the veil which instinctively she had caught across her face, and met his gaze with childish coquetry, torn though she seemed to be by fear and disappointment.
"Thou art assuredly most beautiful, Ranee," Amber told her, with a break in his voice, very compassionate. ”

“ Thou before whom all men stand affrighted! Thou who canst look into their hearts and read them as a scroll that is unrolled ... Look deep into the heart of my Chosen! Judge if he be worthy or wanting, judge if he be false or true ... Judge him, O Death!"
Before Amber the great serpent was oscillating like a pendulum, its little tongue playing like forked red lightning, its loathsome red eyes holding his own. Terror gripped his heart, and his soul curdled. ”

“ In the water at their feet a light boat was gently nosing the marble bund. Dulla Dad, squatting, drew it broadside to the steps and motioned Amber to enter. The Virginian boarded it gingerly, seating himself at the stern. Dulla Dad dropped in forward and pushed off. The boat moved out upon the bosom of the lake with scarce a sound, and the native, grasping a double-bladed paddle, dipped it gently and sent the frail craft flying onward with long, swift, and powerful strokes, guiding it directly toward the walls of the Raj Mahal. ”

“ I am no child; what I know I know. If thou art indeed not Har Dyal Rutton, how is it that thou dost wear upon thy finger the signet of thy house"—Salig Singh indicated the emerald which Amber had forgotten—"the Token sent thee by the Bell? If thou are not my lord the rightful Maharana of Khandawar, how is it that thou hast answered the summons of the Bell? Are the servants of the Body fools who have followed the hither, losing trace of thee no single instant since thou didst slay the Bengali who bore the Token to thee? ”

“ When again shall all Hindustan be ripe for revolt?... Aho! Thou wouldst have sweet patience in the waiting, Salig Singh!... Let matters rest as they be, my lord"—this a trace imperiously. "Leave the man to me: I stand sponsor for him until the Gateway shall have received him and—and perhaps for a little afterwards."
"Thou art right as ever." He lifted his gaze to meet hers and his eyes flamed. "I leave my life on your knees, Naraini. I love thee and ... by all the gods, thou art altogether a woman!"
"And thou ... a man, your Highness?" ”

“ All the inbred contempt of the Southerner for the servile races surged up to overwhelm his passion, to make it seem more than impossible, revolting, that the mistress of his dreams should be a creature tainted by the blood of a brown-skinned people. Though her mother had been of noble Russian family, as her father had declared; though her secret were contained in his knowledge and Farrell's alone, and though it were to be preserved by them ever inviolate—could he, David Amber, ever forget it? ”

“ At one end the fitful, eerie flare of a great bronze brazier revealed the huge proportions of an ivory throne, gorgeous with gems and cloth of gold, standing upon a daïs and flanked by two motionless figures which at first sight Amber took to be pieces of statuary. But they quickened, saluting with a single movement and a flash of steel, as the Maharana drew nearer, and so proved themselves troopers of the State, standing guard with naked swords. ”

“ The face of the world lost its contours in wavering mirage. The travellers found lukewarm water in the station and breakfasted sparingly from their own stores of biscuit and tinned things. Then, in the shadow of the station, they settled down to wait, bored to extinction. Lulled by the hushed chatter of the telegraph sounder, Doggott nodded and slept audibly; Amber nodded, felt himself going, roused with a struggle, and lapsed into a dreary mid-world of semi-stupor. ”

“ In the shade of its veranda he read an urgent invitation to rest and surcease of sunlight. He approved it thoroughly; the ramshackle rest-house itself, the sheds in the rear for the accommodation of relays, the syce squatting asleep in the sunshine, the few scrawny chickens squabbling and scratching over their precarious sustenance in the deep hot dust of the compound, even the broken tonga reposing with its shafts uplifted at a piteous angle of decrepitude—all these Amber surveyed with a kindly eye. ”

“ With a quick gesture she threw her veil aside and lifted her incomparably fair face to his, and he was conscious that he trembled a little, and that his voice shook as he answered evasively: "Thou shouldst know, Ranee."
"Ahi! Then am I a happy woman, to think that, though thou wert in open mutiny against the Voice, when I called, thou didst yield.... And thou art ready?"
"Am I not here?"
"Now of a verity do I know that thou art a man, my king!—a Rajput, a son of kings, and ... my husband!" Pitched to a minor, thrilling key, her accents were as musical as the singing of a 'cello. ”

“ He clung to him who had helped him, swaying like a drunkard, wits a-swirl in the brain thus roughly awakened from semi-hypnosis.
"Here," said Labertouche's voice, "take my hand and follow. We're in for it now!"
He caught Amber's hand and dragged him, yielding and unquestioning, rapidly through a chaotic rush of unseen bodies.
The firing had electrified the tense-strung audience. With a pandemonium of shrieks, oaths, shouts, orders unheard and commands unheeded, a concerted rush was made from every quarter to the spot where the doomed man had been kneeling. ”

“ Out of doors the skies were hot and blue—white with forerunners of the sun, and the world of men was stirring and making preparation against the business of the day; but Amber, who had a work so serious and so instant to his hand, sat on in dreamy lethargy, musing....
The faces of two women stood out vividly against the misty formless void before his eyes: the face of Naraini and that of Sophia Farrell. ”

“ One can endure the blackness that abides within four well-kenned walls; but night unrelieved by the least gleam of light, night without bounds or measurements, enfolding one like a stifling blanket and instilling into the brain the fear of nameless things, quickening the respiration and oppressing the heart—that is another thing entirely, and that is what Amber found in the Temple of the Bell. ”