by Talbot Mundy
Last of all by candlelight, Yasmini came, scented and fresh and smiling as the flower from which she has her name, dressed now in the soft-hued silken garments of a lady of the land.
“Where did you get them?” Tess asked her.
“These clothes? Oh, I have friends here. Have no fear now — there are friends on every side of us.”
She showed Tess a letter, pierced in four places by a dog’s eye-teeth.
“This is from Samson sahib. Do you remember how I prayed that Jinendra’s priest might think to play me false? I think he has. Some one has been to Samson sahib. Hear this:
“‘The Princess Yasmini Omanoff Singh,
“‘Your Highness,
“‘Word has reached me frequently of late of pressure brought
to bear on you from certain quarters, and hints have been dropped
in my hearing that the object of the pressure is to induce you to
disclose a secret you possess. Let me assure you that my official
protection from all illegal restraint and improper treatment is at your
service. Further, that in case your secret is such as concerns vitally
the political relations, present or future, of Sialpore the proper
person to whom to confide it is myself. Should you see your way to
take that only safe course, you may rest assured that your own
interests will be cared for in every way possible.
“‘I have the honor to be,
“‘Your Highness’ obedient servant,
“‘Roland Samson, K. C. S. I.’”
“That looks fair enough,” said Tess. “I dislike Samson for reasons of my own, but—”
“Hah!” laughed Yasmini. “He makes love to you! Is it not so? He would make love to me if I gave him opportunity! What a jest for the gods if I should play that game with him and make him marry me! I could! I could make of Samson a power in India! But the man would weary me with his conceit and his ‘orders from higher up’ within a week. I can have power without his help! What a royal jest, though, to marry Samson and intrigue with all the jealous English wives who think they pull the strings of government!”
“You’d get the worst of it,” laughed Tess.
“Maybe. I shall never try it. I am more of the East than the West. But I will answer Samson. Bimbu shall remain here lest he talk too much, but the dog shall take a letter to Tom Tripe at dawn. Samson knew hours ago that I have flown the nest. He will wonder how Tom Tripe holds communication with me, and so swiftly, and will have greater respect for him — which may serve us later.”
“Let me add a letter to my husband then, to tell him I’m safe.”
“Surely. But now eat. Eat and be strong. Can you stand? Can you walk?
Have the maids put new life in you?”
Tess was astonished at her swift recovery. She was a little stiff — a little weak — a little tired; but she could walk up and down the room with her natural gait and Yasmini clapped her hands.
“I will order food brought. Listen! Tonight I am Abhisharika. Do you know what that is — Abhisharika?”
Tess shook her head.
“I go to my lover of my own accord!”
“That sounds more like West than East!”
“You think so? You shall come with me and see! You shall play the part of cheti (the indispensable hand-maiden) — you and Hasamurti. You must dress like her. Simply be still and watch, and you shall see!”
Chapter Thirteen
Of what use were the gift of gods,
The buoyant sweetness of a virgin state,
The blossomy delight of youth
Ablow with promise of fruit consummate;
What use the affluence of song
And marvel of delicious motion meet
To grace the very revelings of Fawn,
Could she not lay them at another’s feet?
“I am a king’s daughter!”
That was a night when the full-moon rose in a sea of silver, and changed into amber as it mounted in the sky. The light shone like liquid honey, and the shadowed earth was luminous and still. The very deepest of the shadows glowed with undertones of half-suggested color. Hardly a zephyr moved.
“You see?” said Yasmini. “The gods are our servants! They have set the stage!”
Hand in hand — Yasmini in the midst in spotless silken white; Tess and Hasamurti draped in black from head to foot — they left the house by a high teak door in the garden wall and started down a road half hidden by lacy shadows. All three wore sandals on bare feet, and Tess was afraid at first of insects.
“Have no fear of anything tonight,” Yasmini whispered. “The gods are all about us! Wasuki, who is king of all the snakes, is on our side!”
One could not speak aloud, for the spell of mystery overlay everything. They walked into the very heart of silent beauty. Overhead, enormous trees, in which the sacred monkeys slept, dropped tendrils like long arms yearning with the love of mother earth. Here and there the embers of a dying fire glowed crimson, and the only occasional sound was of sleepy cattle that chewed the cud contentedly — or when a monkey moved above them to change his roost. Once, a man’s voice singing by a fireside conjured back for a moment the world’s hard illusion; but the stillness and the mystery overcame him too, and all was true again, and wonderful.
Hand in hand they followed the road to its end and turned into a lane between thorn hedges. Now the moon shone straight toward them and there was no shadow, so that the earth was bright golden underfoot — a lane of mellow light on which they trod between fantastic woven walls. At the end of the lane they came into a clearing at a forested-edge, where an ancient ruined temple nestled in the shadow of great trees, its stone front and the seated image of a long-neglected god restored to more than earthly sanctity and peace by the cool, caressing moonlight.
“Jinendra again!” Yasmini whispered. “Always Jinendra! His priests are rascals, but the god himself is kind! When I am maharanee, that temple shall stand whole again!”
In front of the temple, between them and the trees, was a pond edged with carved stone. Lotus leaves floated on the water, and one blue flower was open wide to welcome whoever loved serenity.
Still hand in hand, they crossed the clearing mid-way to the pond, and there Yasmini bade them stand.
“Draw no nearer. Only stand and watch.”
She had a great blue flower in her bosom that heaved and fell for proof of her own emotion. Hasamurti’s hand was trembling as she nestled closer, and Tess felt her own pulsing to quick heart-beats as she clasped the girl’s.
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-goddess, 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 l
ess 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 shift 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 gratitude, 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 gods 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 ownership 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 attitude 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 passed 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 fashions 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 title 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 attitude 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.
