Rukh

“ They were the proudest men in Rukh to-day, for by right of their office well-performed each would claim, and be accorded, privilege to send a girl-child to the Rukh’s harem. Out there close by the great waiting Goddess, close to the spot where the swords would swing and hack at the white offered necks, the three little girls stood side by side dressed in the saffron-edged magenta of brides, their dark little faces golden and shining with joy, each eyeing the other two rather scornfully. ”

“ But Rukh laughed unruffled. He read her. “Forgive me,” he said, “if I smile at your tactics. You want to goad me to chivalry. If every man were a coward who took life without risking his own, where would your British sportsmen be?”
“I beg your pardon,” the woman retorted with a sort of superb insolence; “a savage is not necessarily a coward.” The Raja just flushed at that. “And now,” she ended, rising again, “let me go to my husband.”
“Not yet, Mrs. Crespin,” he stayed her again. “One more word. You are a brave woman, and I sincerely admire you.” ”

“ They were delighted to see him, and exquisitely proud of his gorgeous and noised display, but not a face relaxed, all were inordinately grave, as too were the harlequin mobbery that preceded and followed his litter. Except in China and Burmah, merriment is not the Asian’s idea of enjoyment, and very rarely its expression. Even the babies are grave. But, for all that, the tatter-demalion Rukh populace were enjoying themselves intensely. ”

“ Wild-eyed, four-footed, soft-skinned creatures had been slaughtered in their terrified, moaning hecatombs out there in that courtyard, and human lives had been offered in sacrifice there before this—the lives of miscreants who had angered a prince—but not often enemy lives—not nearly often enough: Rukh lay too far from other principalities, too remote, too rock-and-peak-bound, and the tribes that lay nearest were too strong and warlike, too as apt to give defeat as to meet it. ”

“ Crespin turned on him furiously.
“Do you think we would truckle to you, damn you, if it weren’t for my wife’s sake? But for her we’ll make any concession—promise you anything.”
“What can you that is worth a brass farthing to me?” Rukh retorted. “No.” He spoke vehemently now, pent up ferocity storming out from angry voice, hate-full eyes and eloquent, quivering hands. “Asia,” he hissed, “has a long score against you swaggering, blustering, whey-faced lords of creation, and, by all the gods! I mean to see some of it paid to-morrow!” ”

“ Now there were amongst them old white-bearded men; and when they awoke on the morrow, they found that their beards had turned black, nor did any who had eaten of the young Rukh grow gray ever after. Some said the cause of the return of youth to them and the ceasing of hoariness from them was that they had heated the pot with 123arrow-wood, whilst others would have it that it came of eating the Rukh-chick’s flesh; and this is indeed a wonder of wonders. [177] And a story is related of ”

“ He gave no thought to the Englishwoman alone in her prison-chamber, none to the two Englishmen. He was in Abdulabad keeping their death-watch with his brothers. Oriental thought travels and visualizes, as the thought of no Western can. He was with them in their gaol. Their failure and capture galled him, the ignominy of the death by rope shamed him.
The Raja of Rukh had told Mrs. Crespin the truth. He loved himself first—if so small, so wormlike a thing as self-centered selfishness may be called by so big a name; and his children—above all La-swak—came next, his people third. ”

“ Rukh spoke again to the woman standing there waiting with her hand still in her lover’s. Traherne was trembling almost violently now, Lucilla Crespin was perfectly still.
“Must I do violence to my feelings, Madam,” the Raja-priest said, “by including you in the approaching ceremony? There is still time.”
She took no other notice, but she met his eyes.
“We autocrats,” he added, “are badly brought up. We are not accustomed to having our desires, or even our whims thwarted.” ”

“ Amiable, generous and liberal-minded, and of prepossessing exterior, he proved to be a popular prince. But he was neither of an age nor character to rule over a people led Shah Rukh. by turbulent and disaffected chiefs, ever divided by the conflicting interests of personal ambition Saʽid Mahommed, son of Mirza Daud, a chief mullah at Meshed, whose mother was the reputed daughter of Suleiman, declared himself king, and imprisoned and blinded Shah Rukh. ”

“ You will simply disappear in the uncharted sea of the Himalayas, as a ship sinks with all hands in the ocean. If I permitted any word from you to reach India, the detective instinct, so deeply implanted in your race, would be awakened, and the Himalayas would be combed out with a fine-tooth comb. No, Madam, I cannot risk it.”
“Cannot?” Lucilla said with cold scorn; all her calmness was recovered now, her pulsing emotion frozen back by Rukh’s hard refusal. “Cannot? You dare not! But you can and dare kill defenseless men and women. Raja, you are a pitiful coward!” ”

“ And presently when they brought her food—men in the Raja’s white and gold and green liveries—and put it down near her, she ate and drank, because she wished to be strong to-morrow: strong to die quietly and proudly, if no help came, strong to live to reach her children—hers and Antony’s—if help from Amil-Serai swooped down on imprisoning Rukh. The men servants left her as soon as they’d served her, but a girl, evidently of the ayah class, stood near, as if in her service, her hands folded in her sari, her eyes, Lucilla thought, not fanatically inimical. ”

“ It is still possible that some may be found, as the Rukh is included in the Sinhalese tales, and the ogre called Rākshasa, who is a familiar personage in them, is correctly described in his folk-tale form, in one of the Sindbad voyages. In one story, which is not included in this work, there is the incident of the demon who was imprisoned in a bottle. The demon was Māra, Death personified, and his captor was a Vedarāla, or medical practitioner. The age of the tale is uncertain. ”

“ That is part of the bargain. Send him—bound hand and foot, if need be—down to Kashmir, and put him over the frontier—”
“You don’t care what he thinks of you?” Rukh broke in.
“He will know what to think,” the woman said. ”

“ Voyagers and pilgrims and travellers declare that this beast called “Karkadan” will carry off a great elephant on its horn and graze about the island and the sea-coast therewith and take no heed of it, till the elephant dieth and its fat, melting in the sun, runneth down into the rhinoceros’s eyes and blindeth him, so that he lieth down on the shore. Then comes the bird Rukh and carrieth off both the rhinoceros and that which is on its horn to feed its young withal. Moreover, I saw in this island many kinds of oxen and buffaloes, whose like are not found in our country. ”

“ The ambassadors of Shah Rukh to China (1419–1422) wrote:
“In this city of Kamchau there is an idol temple five hundred cubits square. In the middle is an idol lying at length, which measures fifty paces. The sole of the foot is nine paces long, and the instep is twenty-one cubits in girth. Behind this image and overhead are other idols of a cubit (?) in height, besides figures of Bakshis as large as life. The action of all is hit off so admirably that you would think they were alive. ”

“ For, as has been said, Garuda, Simurgh, Phenix, Fung-Whang and all the others are only visions woven out of the sunshine, the clouds and the winds, in the loom of primitive imagination. It is quite a waste of time, therefore, to try as some have done (notably Professor Newton [55] ) to connect any one of them with some living or extinct reality, as, for example, the Rukh with the epiornis or any other of the big extinct ratite birds of Madagascar. Eagles and vultures and peacocks have served as suggestions for fantastic creations of a vagrant fancy, and that is all the reality they ever had. ”

“ If he drinks, the cramp may pass, and all may be well.”
The Raja motioned towards the heavy door, Ak-kok signaled one of the guards, the man ran and opened it, Rukh put up a trembling hand and lifted the curtain of broad-striped silk inside the door, and he and Ak-kok entered the room.
On a low native bed, ropes threaded across sides and ends of chased and beaten silver, a child lay moaning on a snow-leopard pelt. ”

“ Sultan Khalīl being left in possession of Transoxiana, while Pīr Mohammad was acknowledged as his heir.412 Shāh Rukh was conscious of his inability to contend against these combined forces, and he wisely resolved to secure a realm which they were not likely to dispute with him.
He hastened back to Herāt and seized Khorāsān, Māzanderān, and Sīstān. In A.H. 817 (1414) he added Isfahān and Shīrāz to these acquisitions, and ruled over the fairest province of Irān until his death, in A.H. 850 (1447) . ”

“ And he turned on his heel, and passed out through the billiard-room, motioning something to the soldiers standing nearest Traherne.
When Lucilla Crespin looked up—it was not for some time—she was alone in the room with—her husband.
CHAPTER XXXIX “I regret that I must offer you the services of a less well-trained ayah,” Rukh said, “but it is unavoidable. The woman who has waited on you had the bad taste to be greatly attached to her little—and, I must own, not one would think personally attractive—cockney husband. She is—just for the time being, of course—inconsolable. ”

“ The seated figure inside it showed but indistinctly through the gauzy film of the litter’s curtains; a human figure undoubtedly, and in perfect repose, but instinct with power—a blur of turquoise and rose, of heliotrope and saffron, of silk and satin and tinsel and gems. Immediately behind him came the strangest sight in Rukh—an English valet, if ever one was in Mayfair—an immaculate, demure, correct valet who might have strolled into the picture from St. ”

“ The Raja of Rukh rose and went to Mrs. Crespin. He stood a moment looking at her quietly. Then he said, including Traherne by his manner, “It only remains for me to speed the parting guest. I hope we may one day renew our acquaintance”—he said pointedly to Lucilla Crespin—“oh, not here,”—in reply to her shudder—“I plainly foresee that I shall have to join the other Kings in Exile. Perhaps we may meet at Homburg or Monte Carlo, and talk over old times. Ah, here is the escort.”
As the aeroplane rose in the gathering dusk, Lucilla Crespin turned her face away from the Kingdom of Rukh. But Dr. ”

“ They had to play the social game with this native princelet upon whose whim so much depended for them. Traherne was playing the game very valiantly; Lucilla Crespin was not sorry to go back to the warmer room; and the Major felt something of actual deference to the host, no matter the shade of his skin, who had given him such a rippin’ dinner—and such wines! At a word from his master the major-domo touched a second switch in one of the pillars of the loggia opening, and the chandelier and wall-lamps of the salon burst into brilliant light. Rukh offered his arm to Mrs. ”

“ One was Abdul, who swore that on the fatal night he was watching his crops some five hundred yards from the spot where the body was found, and heard voices in angry altercation some two hours before sunrise.
Rukhia, Mahkmoud's wife, then appeared, to everyone's astonishment, and told a graphic story of how she was awakened some little time before sunrise, and heard the voices of the stranger and her husband in a heated argument. Mahkmoud then returned, much excited and swearing fiercely. ”

“ O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I; For thou hast gone where I shall never go, And snuffed the breezes of my father's home, And thou hast trod the sands of Seïstan, And seen the river of Helmund, and the lake Of Zirrah; and the aged Zal himself Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food— Corn in a golden platter soaked with wine— And said—'O Ruksh! bear Rustum well!' But I Have never known my grandsire's furrowed face, Nor seen his lofty house in Seïstan, Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream ”

“ And wilt thou be saved by me, my son, ere thy story be told in tears as this one, that is as thine to me? And thou wilt seize a jewel, Ruark, O thou soul of wrath, my son, my dazzling Chief, and seize it to wear it, and think it bliss, this lovely jewel; but 'tis an anguish endless and for ever, my son! Woe's me! an anguish is she without end.'
Rukrooth continued moaning, and the thought that was in the mother of Ruark struck Bhanavar like a light in the land of despair that darkly illumineth the dreaded gulfs and abysses of the land, and she knew herself black in evil ”

“ Rowjee Rajah thought he must be in a dream; but when he saw the Ranee drink some water from the tank and return towards the tomb, he sprang up and hurried after her. Sodewa Bai, hearing footsteps follow her, was frightened, and running into the tomb, fastened the door. Then the Rajah knocked at it, saying, 'Let me in; let me in.' She answered, 'Who are you? Are you a Rakshas, or a spirit?' (For she thought, 'Perhaps this is some cruel creature who will kill me and the child.') 'No, no,' cried the Rajah, 'I am no Rakshas, but your husband. ”

“ In a few moments Lucy, accompanied by her ayah, drove off, and Grace turned her pale face to Hoosanee. 'Go on,' she said. 'Your master has sent you. He is the Rajah of Gumilcund.'
'You are right, most noble lady. My master, the rajah, has sent me. He has only lately come to rule over us; but already he knows the hearts of his people. He loves the English, and he would, if he could, avert these troubles. But he knows it to be impossible. The storm has broken, and it will sweep over the land and devastate it, and none can stay its course. ”