SUBDUL
Tom's first idea was that she, like himself, was a prisoner, and he was about to commit the terrible imprudence of flinging himself at her feet, and begging her to accept his protection, when the snake-charmer passing him by, brushed him as if by accident, and pausing, made a low salaam, and breathed an apology. There was a look in his face which arrested Tom's attention; under cover of the clamour which had not ceased, he said in a low voice and in Marathi, which was known to his spies, 'Are you a friend?'
'I am his Highness's servant,' said the man, 'and I will help him to escape; but he must be prudent. The White Ranee is black of heart.' As he muttered the last words, speaking them in so low a tone that no one but Tom could hear, he was moving towards the Ranee. She greeted him with a smile of childlike triumph, and he prostrated himself at her feet. Then, resuming his wand, and singing his lullaby-song, he enticed the monster into its basket, while the Ranee, having looked round her proudly, threw the black and gold saree about her head, and returned to the tent. The snake-charmer began now to circulate among the soldiers. He was full of stories and jests, and wherever he went he was received with acclamations. Tom, who had taken up his station under the tree to which Snow-queen was tethered, watched him moving to and fro. Presently he noticed a strange thing. It was only as long as the snake-charmer was in the midst of each little group that its members were joyous or lively. As soon as he left them they became silent, most of them falling shortly into a heavy sleep. This must have been apparent to others besides himself, yet there were none who did not watch for and expect his coming. Night had fallen before he had made his round of the camp, and then all, with the exception of two sentinels outside the tent, were in a deep slumber. He crept now to the neighbourhood of Tom's station, and professed to curl himself up for sleep. The sentinels watched him drowsily. After a few minutes of perfect silence, one of them sat down and leaned his back against a tree. His comrade followed his example. They exchanged a few remarks to keep themselves awake. One drank from a bottle in his girdle and offered it to the other, whereupon their dropping remarks fell off into silence. And now no one in all the camp was awake but Tom and the snake-charmer.
It was nearing midnight, but the moon—which was on the wane, but which in this clear atmosphere diffuses a brilliant light—enabled them to see their way, and they both arose.
'Now is our time,' said the snake-charmer, chuckling. He was none other than Subdul, Snow-queen's groom.
'Are you sure they are well settled?' said his master.
'I have given them bhang, Highness. That, and the excitement of the evening, will make them sleep like the dead; no noise will awake them. But the nights are short; why does my master linger?'
'Are you sure she is not a prisoner, Subdul? Might she not come with us if we told her our design?'
'If my master means the Ranee, I tell him that she is black—black at heart and false of speech. Let not my master trust her.'
'What do you know of her, Subdul?'
'I know what these have told me. Does my lord know Dost Ali Khan?'
'The adopted son of the rajah of that name?' cried Tom, with some excitement; 'why, I entertained him once. I have now a pass from him about me. Has he anything to do in this?'
'He has everything to do. He is the hope of thousands. They crowd round him as their lord. If my master has won Dost Ali Khan's favour he is lucky. This man, my lord, this so-called prince, has, as I hear, persuaded the White Ranee to join herself to him. She was married to an English sahib, and she saw him slain. She looked on at the slaughter of her countrymen and women, and now, in her new lord's name, she is taking command of the murderers. If my master wants any more proof that she is a traitress——'
'Silence, Subdul! She is coming!'
'Master! master!' cried the man in strong excitement, 'now is the time to fly!'
'I must let her speak to me first.'
'No, no; let my master listen to me! She is a witch; she will enslave him.'
'Nonsense, Subdul; I know her, I tell you. Be silent!' murmured Tom, whose heart was beating strangely.
And all this time the White Ranee, with veil thrown back, and face looking pure and spiritual in the moonlight, was making her way quietly through the sleepers of the camp towards the spot where Tom was standing. They were alone now, Subdul having disappeared. Tom did not move, for a spell seemed to be over him; so she went close to him and laid her hand on his arm. Then a sudden trembling seized him.
'Who are you?' he said, in a low voice.
'Surely you know me,' she answered. 'I know you, Tom Gregory. Why did you run away from Delhi without seeing me again?'
'Why are you here?' he said sternly.
'You are impolite, my dear boy. A question should be answered.'
'This is no time or place for amenities, and you know it. Answer me! Are you a prisoner? For if so I will take you away with me and protect you honourably until I can restore you to your own people. If you are not a prisoner—if you have given yourself up to the enemies of your race, then I will leave you to reap your own punishment.'
The lady laughed. 'So stern all of a sudden!' she said.
'You are playing with me. You are wasting time.'
'Time was made for slaves, Tom,' said the lady, in a sweet girlish treble, 'and I am not a slave; neither are you. Sit down under this tree, and let us talk together quietly. Ah! how pleasant it is to speak to an Englishman again!'
'Vivien! are you mad?'
'Yes, I am mad, always mad, Tom; but madder than ever now. Be mad with me; you have no idea how delightful it is to live in a dream!'
'The dream will soon be over, my poor child. Do you think that you can tame men as you tame serpents?'
'Think? I am sure of it, Tom!'
'Then, if this is your dream, for heaven's sake awake! Good God! why do you look at me so?' cried the young fellow, in a sudden transport.
She was standing before him in the moonlight, her golden hair blown this way and that way with the wind, her eyes full of laughter, an expression half-mocking, half-pitiful, playing about her lips.
'Do you know how awful this time is?' he said. 'Are you human?'
She laughed. 'No,' she said, 'I don't think I am. Take my advice, Tom, and be inhuman too!'
'Vivien, you are playing with me!'
'Of course I am; I never do anything but play. I played with you, and if it had not been for Grace Elton, who is a very serious young person, I should have won you over as a playfellow. I played with Charlie Doncaster, poor boy! But he had not my animal spirits, and he was beginning to be grave and tiresome when—but I don't want to talk of disagreeable things. Well! The next was his Royal or Imperial Highness, Dost Ali Khan. I wonder, by the bye, if you remember him. I was within an ace of running over him in the streets of Delhi. It would have been a good thing for some people if I had succeeded. You saved him, didn't you? Set that as a make-weight against all your good deeds, Mr. Tom, and see what the result will be! But to return, as the story-tellers say. I was so much amused with his Highness that I took the trouble to cultivate him; and it was a very funny little episode, I can assure you. Heavens! how he hated me at first! I tell him sometimes that I am surprised he did not kill me, for I gave him heaps and heaps of chances. He let me live, however, against his better judgment, I believe, and now he is my slave. I can do whatever I like with him. What do you say to that for a game?'
'I say that you are mad—that you don't know what you are saying, and the night is passing. No more of this folly! Will you come with me or will you not?'
'Tom, what a baby you are! Never mind, I like you so! But be a wise baby if you can, and listen to me quietly. I am not going with you. It would be absurd to begin with, and highly dangerous, all through. On the other hand, having found you, I don't mean to let you slip out of my fingers. So you must come with me. I must tell you that you have been so fortunate as to make Dost Ali Khan, his Imperial Highness of the future, your friend. He is the great man just now, for he is the only person in this part of the world who knows what he wants, so the rest of them look up to him. The soldiers, banded and disbanded, the native states, the fanatics of the towns, they are all waiting for his signal. When he gives it—Heavens! I begin to feel sane, as I think of it—what a conflagration there will be! However, that is beside the present question'—she stopped to laugh. 'I think I am speaking rather weightily,' she said; 'don't you? Now, to go on in the same strain, this exalted personage, whose ally I am, offers you his friendship. He doesn't wish you to fight for or with him, for he believes you would say "No," and he has a sort of conscience about destroying you. What he asks is that you will take me into Gumilcund—think of the magnanimity of it!—and keep me there until the explosion is over. Then, if the world doesn't meanwhile fall in ruins about us, we can decide about the future.'
She paused and went a little closer to him. A cloud had veiled the face of the moon so that, near as she was, he could only see her indistinctly; but he felt her—felt her in every nerve of his being, and for a moment he hesitated. Why should he not, after all, take her back to Gumilcund first, and leave her there in safety before setting forth on any other mission of rescue? He did not believe all she had told him. Either she was mad—as she said of herself—and in that case she ought to be protected from the results of her own mad actions; or else she was playing with him. Yes, she had herself spoken the word. But was she accountable for her own strange nature? Should she be punished because she could not see the awful realities that lay about her? Since, by some strange freak of fortune, she had been able so far to gain protection, was he to deny her the asylum that would make her safety sure?
While he reasoned with himself she stood by him. She did not speak, she did not stir; but as the silence prolonged itself a sigh, soft as the breath of a sleeping child, escaped her lips.
'Vivien!' he said tremulously, 'is that you?'
'Yes, it is I; I am near you. You will come with me, Tom?' she murmured; and, in low caressing tones, 'Dearest Tom!'
'Why do you say that?' he said, hoarsely.
'Listen to him, poor child!' she cried. 'Why? Can't you tell? Can't you imagine?'
'You are false!' he groaned; 'you have said it of yourself!'
'False to others, Tom; never to you!'
'False to one is false to all.'
'Listen to him!' she cried again. 'What an exalted standard! But, my young king, let me tell you that you are ungrateful and unjust. If I could only save you by being false to others; if every subterfuge, from the beginning, was planned for this—that I might have you; that I might hold your life in my hands—what then?'
'Is it so?' he said hoarsely.
'You see!' she cried; 'you were cold because you did not understand!'
At this moment, when his will was passing away from him, and his heart was as wax in the midst of his body, there came a strange and sudden disturbance. Subdul Khan had been crouching behind them; his ear was to the ground, and all his senses were on the alert, for he feared treachery. Whether he did actually hear in the distance the rumble of gun-carriages and the sound of armed men on the march, or whether he merely professed to hear them to arouse his master, cannot be certainly known; but the effect was the same. Suddenly, with a cry of, 'The rebels are upon us!' he sprang to his feet.
Snow-queen was saddled, and so was the horse of Subdul Khan. They mounted them together, and while Vivien, with a ringing cry, to which none of the besotted men about her paid any heed, ran frantically through the camp, Snow-queen and her master, going like the wind, disappeared in the distance.