Here was a topic from which their talk might branch in any direction. Soon Walter was telling her of his mother, of life in London and the North, while a chance reference to his father led up to the story of Dom Geronimo’s crime, and the implacable hatred he bore towards even the son of his victim.
Nur Mahal followed the references to the Jesuit with close interest. When Mowbray would have passed to some other subject she interrupted him, and clapped her hands as a signal to one of her women, whom she bade summon Jai Singh, the Rajput chief of her guard.
“What was the story you heard on the road as we returned to Agra?” she asked when the rissalder stood before her. “It dealt with certain Christian priests who dwell in that city, and with others at Hughli, if I mistake not.”
“A dervish, who sought some grain, maharáni, told us that Jahangir was privately minded to seize all the black robes because they encouraged the Portuguese traders to greater boldness. He ever counseled the great Akbar to that effect, but the Emperor, his father, was too tolerant towards the Feringhis to listen to him. Now, said the dervish, Jahangir would make all the men good Mahomedans and send their young women to the zenana.”
“You hear,” she said, as Jai Singh saluted and disappeared. “Jahangir is opposed to strangers, and it is quite probable he harbors some such project, which he has discoursed with the moullahs, being anxious to win their favor.”
“But the crow was standing by his side when we went to the palace,” put in Roger.
“That may well be. If this man spoke evil against you, Jahangir would listen, though his own purpose remained unchanged. I had this in my mind when you spoke of going to Calcutta.”
“When you spoke of sending us thither to-morrow, you mean,” cried Walter.
“I should have warned you,” she replied, but her hearers saw another purpose behind her words, because anything in the shape of a disturbance on the Hughli rendered it very necessary that they should tarry at Burdwán and avoid the river route until the trouble was ended.
Again, a sense of distrust welled up in Mowbray’s breast, but Nur Mahal’s soft voice allayed it.
“It must not be forgotten,” she said, “that affairs at Agra may cause the King to forego the folly he contemplates. Khusrow, his brother, has many adherents, and if Jahangir, as I am told is true, devotes his waking hours to wine and dissolute companions, he shall not long retain the throne his father built so solidly.”
Both men recalled Sher Afghán’s words. How strange it was that his wife, who had not quitted the walls of Dilkusha during the few hours of her recent tenancy, should be so well informed as to events in the palace.
Walter laughed.
“If I could not see your face and hear your voice,” he cried, “’twere easy to believe it was the Diwán, and not his incomparable daughter, who spoke with such wisdom.”
“Incomparable! It is an idle word. Who is incomparable? Not I. Assuredly there is a maid beyond the sea whose attractions far outweigh mine in your estimation, Mowbray-sahib. Nay, seek not for some adroit phrase to flatter and mislead. Men tell me I am beautiful, but there never yet was rose in a garden which the next south wind did not help to destroy while fanning its budding rival into greater charm.”
She spoke with a vehemence that caused Roger, who followed her poetic Persian simile with difficulty, to believe that Walter had said something to vex her.
“What ails thy tongue to-night, lad?” he cried in English. “It is not wont to rasp so harshly on such fair substance.”
“You disturb my comrade,” said Mowbray, glancing covertly into the girl’s eyes. “He thinks I have offended you.”
She flung a quick glance at Sainton, and laughed. Some pleasant quip was on her lips, but, in that instant, the hoof-beats of horses, hard ridden, came to their ears. In the present state of the fugitives, the sound was ominous. At once the men were on their feet. Mowbray bade Nur Mahal retire to her tent, an order which she was slow to obey, and then betook himself to the disposal of his small force, lest, perchance, the distant galloping signaled the approach of pursuers. The night was dark but clear, the only light being that of the stars, and it was strange indeed that any party of horse should ride with such speed over a broken road.
It was essential that the nature of the cavalcade should be ascertained before it was permitted to come too close. Flight was not to be thought of, owing to the condition of the horses. If the newcomers were the Emperor’s minions the only way to avoid capture was to show a bold front and strike first.
Rissalder Jai Singh was ordered to mount and ride forward with two sowars to bring the party to a halt. If they were strangers, of peaceable intent, he would courteously request them to pass, after explaining the necessity of the precautions taken. Were they the King’s men, he was to demand a parley with their leader, failing which, he and his companions must turn and ride at top speed towards the village, giving the defending force, stationed under a clump of trees on both sides of the road, an opportunity to ambush the enemy on both flanks.
It was a hasty scheme, evolved so hurriedly that Jai Singh cantered off while as yet the invisible horsemen were quarter of a mile away. Mowbray and Sainton, adjusting their sword-belts, stood on the road between their men and listened for the first sounds which should indicate the reception given to the rissalder.
Suddenly Roger said: “Lest harm should befall Nur Mahal, is it not better that you should take a couple of horses and lead her to some point removed from the track? Then, if this force overwhelms us, you have a chance of escape, whereas the presence of one sword more or less will make slight difference to the odds.”
“Did I think you meant what you have said, you and I should quarrel,” retorted Walter.
“Sooner would my right hand quarrel with the left. Yet my counsel is good. Whilst one of us lives she is not wholly bereft, and you are the lad of her choosing. I’ faith, if she showed me such preference, I’d take a similar offer from thee.”
“You are not wont to anticipate disaster, Roger, nor yet to frame such clumsy excuse.”
“I have never before been so mixed up with a woman. Argue not, Walter, but away with her. I’ll strike more freely if I ken you are safe. It is good generalship, too. She is the treasure they seek, and she should not be left to the hazard of a rough-and-tumble in the dark.”
“Then let her ride alone if she be so minded. We have fought side by side too often, Roger, that we should be separated now.”
Sainton’s huge hand reached out in the gloom and gripped his comrade’s shoulder.
“Gad, Walter,” he growled, “thou art tough oak. Least said is soonest mended, but the notion jumbles in my thick head that Nur Mahal will surely be a quean, and that thou art fated to help in her crowning. Hark! What now?”
They heard Jai Singh’s loud challenge, followed by the confused halting of a large body of horse. The clang of arms and the champing of bits came to them plainly. The distance was too great to distinguish voices at an ordinary pitch, but it was reasonable to suppose that Jai Singh was conversing with some one in authority.
They were not kept long in suspense. A few horsemen advanced slowly, Jai Singh at their head.
“Sahiba!” he called, when close at hand, “there is one here who would converse with your Lordships in privacy.”
Although the fealty of a Rajput to his salt can never be doubted, there was a chance that Jai Singh might have been deluded into an exhibition of false confidence. Walter, therefore, ordered his little force to march close behind Roger and himself, but when he saw that Jai Singh and the two sowars were accompanied by only one man he knew that his suspicions were not well founded.
The stranger was the Chief Eunuch of Jahangir’s court, and the mere presence of such a functionary betrayed the object of the pursuit.
He dismounted and salaamed deeply.
“Praised be the name of Allah that this undertaking nears its close!” he cried, his queer, cracked voice rising and falling in irregular falsetto. “Seldom have men and never has a woman ridden so fast and far during so many days. Had not those whom you left on the way assured me that you were truly before me, I had returned to Agra long since, though my head might have paid the forfeit of a fruitless errand.”
The Chief Eunuch, important official though he was, commanded little respect from other men. Even the manner of Jai Singh’s announcement of his presence betrayed the contempt with which creatures of his type were held. So Walter said, sternly enough: —
“The length of the journey might well serve to condense thy speech. Hast thou brought some message from the Emperor? If so, out with it.”
“Honored one, I am charged to escort the Princess Nur Mahal back to Agra, where, sayeth my Lord, the King, she can dwell in peace and content in her father’s house.”
“What sayeth the capon?” demanded Roger, who caught the peremptory tone of the man’s words and was minded to clout him, for such a menial is apt to become unconsciously insolent when he carries his master’s commands.
Mowbray’s restraining hand warned Roger not to interfere.
“Is that all?” he said with ominous calm.
“No, protector of the poor. The Emperor Jahangir sends his compliments to you and to the Hathi-sahib. He says that if you return with the Princess you shall be received with all honor, paid in full, and forwarded, at his proper charge, to Ajmere on the road to Bombay.”
“And if we refuse the King’s offer?”
“Why should you refuse, sahib? My Lord, the King, is wroth that any should dare act as did that foolish man, Kutub-ud-din. All those who took part in the attack on Sher Afghán have been impaled alive on the road leading from Dilkusha to the bridge of boats. I and my companions rode between their writhing bodies as we quitted Agra.”
“It were foolish to distrust so just a monarch, yet what say you if we choose rather to proceed to Burdwán?”
The Chief Eunuch suddenly became very humble.
“I am only an envoy,” he said. “Behind, there are two hundred soldiers, mounted on the best horses in the King’s stables and commanded by a valiant officer. Behind them, there is the might of the Empire. I pray you believe that my Lord, Jahangir, means to do well by you.”
There is an Indian story of a crocodile inviting a lamb to inspect his beautiful teeth as he lay with his mouth open, but the messenger’s fair words placed Walter in a quandary. Obviously, he must consult Nur Mahal ere he returned the answer which was ready enough on his lips, for he thought that the two hundred, however valiant their officer, would never dare to attack half the number of stalwart Rajputs trained by Sher Afghán, especially when they knew that they must also encounter the terrible Man-Elephant. As for the King’s armies, Burdwán was a far cry.
“Bide you here, Roger,” he muttered shortly. “Keep things as they are until I return. I go to seek Nur Mahal.”
A cloaked woman, who had passed silently between the line of soldiers on the road, and who heard each word of the dialogue, evidently guessed what Walter said, though he used English to Sainton. She darted forward now and clasped his arm. Even before she spoke he knew who it was, for the mere touch of her fingers thrilled him.
“I am here!” she whispered. “Let us draw apart. I have that to say which is best said now. One of us two must answer that man, and we gain naught by delay.”
By the roadside grew a field of millet, the sparse crop of some poor ryot in the village who cared little for kings or courts. He would grin with amaze if told that his small holding formed the council-chamber in which was settled the affairs of a nation. Yet it was so in very truth, for Nur Mahal led Mowbray into the midst of the standing crop until they were out of earshot of the others.
Then she turned towards him, and there was a rapture in her face which was bewildering, though the way in which she still clung to his arm caused the warm blood to tingle in his veins.
“Tell me,” she murmured softly; “if we go to Burdwán, are you content to abide there?”
CHAPTER XIII
“A man that hath friends must show himself friendly; and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.”
Prov. xviii. 24.That man would be a fool who pretended to misunderstand her. She would have said more, but words failed. Her labored breath betrayed her, and the light that kindles only in a woman’s eyes leaped out at him. He seemed to be wandering in a maze with a siren as guide. What magic spell surrounded him? Why had the arrival of Jahangir’s messenger forced this tacit avowal from the lips of the proudest woman in India?
If she defied the Emperor and continued the journey to Burdwán, it must be as the promised wife of Walter Mowbray, an alien in race, and one who professed a hostile faith. Never was stranger compact dreamed of. They knew little of each other, beyond the acquaintance arising from an enforced companionship of five days. They scarce had a thought in common. They were bred and reared under social conditions as wide asunder as the poles. Nature, indeed, careless of arbitrary restrictions, had fashioned them in superb comparison, for never were man and woman better mated physically than these two. But the law which parts the East from the West divided them, and, although Nur Mahal would have scorned the unseen barrier, Mowbray drew back. Assuredly, there is no knowing what his answer would have been had not another face risen before his entranced vision, and a despairing voice cried bitterly in his ears: “Oh, Ann, they have taken him!”
Yes, though far from Spanish halberds and London Tower, here was lifelong bondage chaining him with a glamour more enduring than fetters of iron. It says much for the charms of Eleanor Roe that the memory of her anguish when last their eyes met on the Thames-side quay rescued her lover now from the imminent embrace of a most potent rival.
It was no time for measured phrase. His heart rose in pity as he took Nur Mahal in his arms for an instant.
“Sweet lady,” he said, “were I not pledged to one whom I hold dear as my very soul I would abide with you in Burdwán, and my sword should defend you while my hand could use it. But no man can gainsay his fate. He can only keep his conscience clean and leave the rest to God. I came to India hoping to earn a fortune wherewith I could return to my own land and claim my love. I have failed, yet my purpose will endure until I succeed or die.”
He felt the shrinking form he held shake with a sob, and he would have striven to comfort her with some faltering prediction of future happiness had she not raised her beautiful face in wild appeal.
“I have not humbled myself in vain,” she fiercely cried. “You must not deem me unworthy because I have departed from the path ordained for my sex. I am no timid maid who nurses her woes in secret. It may be that I am incapable of feeling that which other women call love. Never was man more deserving of true and faithful wife than Sher Afghán. Yet I hated him. You are one whom I could trust and honor. Had the fates willed it we should have gone far together. Now I yield to my destiny. Go! It is ended. If I never see your face again, at least think well of me, and strive to forget that, in a moment of folly, I sacrificed my self-respect for your sake.”
And now she struggled to free herself, but, because of his true regard for her, he would not suffer her to leave him in such self-condemning mood.
“Nay, fair lady,” he murmured, “we do not part thus. I have misjudged you in the past; be it mine now to make amends. You were wedded against your will, yet who shall hold you guilty of your husband’s death? Be assured that none in all this land shall shield your high repute as I and my honest comrade, Sainton. Lead us to your State, and if Sher Afghán’s followers prove faithful to his widow’s cause, Jahangir may wreck his throne in seeking to injure you.”
Again she lifted her wondrous face to his, and tears were glistening in her eyes. Yet, in the dim light of the open field he fancied he saw a piteous smile dimple her cheeks.
“Spare me your vows,” she said. “Keep them for her whose love is so strong that it binds you beyond the seas. And now, let us return.”
She looked up at him so wistfully that he yielded to impulse and kissed her. Perchance her heart fluttered with the thought that she had won, after all. But Mowbray was adamant in his faith, and his was the kiss of pity, not of passion.
“I shall never know peace again,” he cried, “until you are well content that I am pledged to another, and even wish her well of a poor bargain.”
“Then you are doomed to a life of misery, for that shall never be,” she retorted.
“Say not so, Princess. Your name alone was chosen with wondrous wisdom. It marks out one who has but to seek a throne to obtain it.”
“Ah, is that your secret thought? Strange, indeed that it should pair with mine!”
She wrenched herself free from his embrace, and ran a little way back through the millet. Then she stopped, and there was the wonted imperious ring in her voice as she cried: —
“A moment ago you undertook to defend me from my enemies. Swear, then, that you will obey my wishes!”
“In all things which concern your welfare – ”
“Fear not, Mowbray-sahib. I offer myself twice to no man.”
Her quick transition from melting femininity to stern dominance surprised him as greatly as aught that had gone before. It relieved him, too. Who could deny the truth of Nur Mahal’s estimate of herself, that she was not like unto other women?
“I swear!” he said, wondering what new madness possessed her.
“’Tis well,” she answered. “I shall soon put your fealty to the test.”
Without another word, she passed to the road, where Sainton’s giant figure towered among the group of men and horses. Her quick eyes discovered Jahangir’s messenger, and she addressed him as if he were a servant of lowest rank.
“Ibrahim!” she cried, “did thy master, the Emperor, give thee thy charge in writing?”
The Chief Eunuch bowed obsequiously.
“Knowing your repute for exceeding discernment,” he said, “I even asked the Emperor of the World10 to honor me with his written command. I carry it with me.”
“Follow me to the village. There we can procure a light.”
Whatever purpose she had in mind she gave no sign of her intent until she had perused the script which Ibrahim handed to her. Mowbray, watching her mobile features as she broke the seal of the Emperor’s parchment, whilst one of her women held a lantern, saw only an expression of fixed resolve, her set lips and thoughtful eyes revealing a determination to carry out in the best way the course upon which she had already decided.
She read Jahangir’s letter twice before she spoke, and, even then, there was an odd restraint in her manner when she addressed Mowbray and Sainton, who, with the Chief Eunuch, had accompanied her in silence.
“Jahangir told his envoy the chief part of that which he has written. Ibrahim’s message is exact in so far as it touches your affairs. I will fulfil the Emperor’s behests in all save one slight matter. You must not return to Agra. The Ganges lies a short march ahead, and, now that I have Jahangir’s written promise to pay you, there is no reason why I should not discharge his obligations.”
“I have brought no great store of money,” put in Ibrahim nervously.
“Said I aught to thee?” she blazed out at him. “It will be thy turn to speak when the Emperor demands a witness.”
“Do you revert to a proposal which we have once refused?” asked Walter, with Saxon doggedness frowning in his face.
“I revert to your promise given me quarter of an hour ago.”
“I swore to obey you, but – ”
“Obey then, without question. Since you force me to it, I command you to accept my jewels in payment of the Emperor’s debt. A lakh and a half, is it not? If you are not cheated, they are worth as much. Further, I advise you to retain a score of my men until you reach Calcutta. They will follow you, I doubt not, but, to make certain of their allegiance, I shall promise them a good reward if they return bearing me a letter from you. They cannot deceive me, as I shall have your signature on the receipt for the money.”
“In truth, Princess, ’tis easy to see that you are the daughter of the High Treasurer,” broke in Roger suddenly. Nur Mahal’s tense expression relaxed for an instant; nevertheless, Walter, vexed that he should be forced into a settlement exceedingly repulsive to his feelings, asked gloomily: —
“What other of the Emperor’s requests do you carry out?”
“I go back to the Garden of Heart’s Delight. You spoke just now of fortunate names. Is it not happily entitled?”
The quiet scorn of the question revealed to him an utter hopelessness which was so greatly at variance with her confident mien during their flight that not even the scene which took place in the field of millet served to explain it wholly to his puzzled brain. In the presence of the rabbit-eared Chief Eunuch it was not advisable to say too much, but he could not forbear a comment.
“I have heard you describe a woman’s mind as a lake,” he said. “Will you forgive me if I liken it to a whirlpool, in which thoughts flowing in one direction at one moment, fly in the opposite way the next.”
She laughed lightly, though the joy had gone from her mirth.
“You still would have me go to Burdwán?” she cried.
“Yes; and I care not who hears.”
“Nor do I, for the Emperor bids me return, and I am dutiful. Who could deny the wish of so benignant a prince?”
“Burdwán without a husband is not to your liking, perchance. It would be dry meat, anyhow, as the fellow said after coursing a hare and losing it,” said Roger, who, for a cause best known to himself, attempted to deprive the undercurrent of their speech of its vinegar.
“Spare us such ill-timed jokes,” growled Mowbray angrily in English, but Roger only answered: —
“Gad! if the quip run not with thy humor, leg it after the hare again.”
Walter realized that his level-headed comrade appreciated the situation sanely, and was, indeed, advising him how to act. Yet he was torn by a thousand conflicting emotions. That field of millet had been to him a bed of nettles. He was still smarting from the sting of recollection. If Nur Mahal offered herself twice to no man, assuredly she was a woman whom few men would refuse at the first asking. And to what purpose had he thrust her away? For all he knew to the contrary, Nellie Roe might be married these two years. He had conversed with that sprightly maid during half a day. He had kissed her once. He had seen her fall fainting into the arms of Anna Cave, as any girl might have done who witnessed the arrest of a young cavalier for whom she felt a passing regard and whose ill fortunes were incurred in her behalf. Frail bonds, these, to hold in leash a warm-blooded youth!
His adventurous soul spurred him on to follow the career which Nur Mahal offered him. In those days, when the world was young, a stout heart and a ready sword were a man’s chief credentials. In no land did they lead to the Paradise of happy chance more readily than in India, where the golden fruit of the pagoda tree was ever ripe for him who dared to shake a laden branch. And yet, and yet – a lover’s kiss in an English garden withheld him from the glamour of it all.
It was fortunate, perhaps, in that hour of fiercest temptation, that Nur Mahal was too proud to stoop again to conquer. There were not wanting signs to her quick intelligence that Mowbray was fighting with beasts at Ephesus. Yet she disdained, by word or look, to join the contest, and it may be that her Eastern brain conceived a more subtle way of achieving her object. She brought forth the little box of cedar wood and handed it to Walter.
“Take heed, Ibrahim,” she said, “that I have given the sahiba diamonds to the value of a lakh and a half. You shall prepare a full quittance for the Emperor, and Mowbray-sahib shall sign it. Be speedy!”
She gave Walter a quick look from those wonderful eyes of hers.
“Whilst Ibrahim inscribes the receipt,” she continued, “you should choose your attendants.”
“At this hour?”
“Why not? When an Emperor is urgent the night becomes day. I begin the march back to Agra forthwith.”
