The Native Born; or, the Rajah's People

by I. A. R. Wylie

CHAPTER VII

IN THE TEMPLE OF VISHNU

Nicholson rode his horse slowly through the crowd of dark, threatening faces. He did not hurry or show any sign of impatience, anger or fear. In his left hand he carried a riding-whip, but he made no use of it except as an encouragement to his well-trained charger, whose nose and broad breast forced a passage, like a ship through the waves of a turbulent sea, and otherwise he was absolutely unarmed. A spectator ignorant of the truth might have taken him for an officer riding out on some ordinary duty, so little did the weight and seriousness of his real errand appear written on the strong face beneath the shadow of the helmet.

There was no opposition to his progress. His keen eyes noticed as he passed out of the residential quarter that, on the contrary, the crowd formed a sort of disordered escort which surged restlessly but silently about him. One man even laid hold upon his hanging bridle and led the horse through the less dense passages; but the action was not a friendly one, and though no threats were uttered, Nicholson read a passionate bitterness and distrust upon the faces that thrust themselves across his path or sprang up unexpectedly at his knee. For the most part they were men well known to him by sight. They belonged to working caste whose circles had supplied Nehal Singh with his best workmen, though here and there Nicholson caught sight of the turbaned head of a small merchant or the naked body of a yogi.

It was a significant fact that the worst of Marut's population—the beggars, thieves and vagrants—was mostly lacking. These men were the hope upon which Nehal Singh had built his Utopia, the industrious, intelligent minority, and these were they whom he was now calling about him by the power of personality and superstition. Nicholson knew enough of the Hindu character to be well aware that it was not the loss of employment nor of their small savings which had brought them together and put their knives in their hands ready to strike. The Hindu accepts misfortune with the languid stoicism of the fatalist; injury and wrong rarely rouse him, especially, as in this case, when it comes too indirectly for him to trace the real injurer. But to touch his religion is to touch the innermost sanctuary of his being, where are stored the hidden fires of fanatic energy, hatred and reckless courage. And Nehal Singh was their religion, their Messiah, the Avatar for whose coming their whole nation waited. Hitherto he had led them in peace, and they had followed, though other influences had been at work.

Even in this moment he still controlled them. Nicholson felt that a strong unseen hand held the crowd in that strange silence beneath which rumbled and groaned the growing storm. He had seen dark hands finger the unsheathed knives; he had seen them reluctantly fall away. The hour had not yet come. Nehal Singh waited. For what? For him? The idea seemed absurd, and yet, as Nicholson felt himself being swept on, it took stronger hold upon his mind and his faint hope of success revived. He believed that, once face to face with the prince, he would be able to check the headlong disaster which was bearing down upon them all. They had been friends in a curious unacknowledged way. Nehal Singh would listen to him. He would be made to understand that one adventurer and one heartless woman do not make a nation; that the injury done him was far from irreparable.

A low exclamation close at hand roused him from his rapid considerations. He saw that the man who had hold of his horse's bridle had turned and with one outstretched hand was pointing over the heads of the crowd.

"Look, Sahib, look!"

Nicholson glanced in the direction indicated. They were passing the site of the old Bazaar, now a black, scarred waste of machinery and disembowelled earth over which brooded a death-like quiet. Nicholson remembered vividly the day he had ridden there at Nehal Singh's side. A breathless, eager humanity had worked and slaved beneath the scorching sun, redoubling every effort as the fine commanding presence of the young ruler appeared among them. Then the clank of busy machinery had mingled with the shouted orders of the English overseers, and Nehal Singh had turned to him with a grave pride and happiness.

"See what your people have taught my people," he said. "They have taught them to seek their bread from the earth and to leave their dreams. This is only the beginning. The time shall come when they shall stand shoulder to shoulder with their white brethren!"

How had the over-sanguine prophecy been fulfilled! The native at Nicholson's side pointed a finger of scorn and anger at the silent, ruined waste.

"Devil—English devil!" he said laconically, and continued on his way.

Nicholson's lips tightened. His own words came back to him with a new significance: "In a strange country no one is an exception." This Travers, this one unscrupulous fortune-hunter, heedless of everything save his own advancement, had branded them all. He had undone, with the help of a heedless woman, the work of generations of heroic, honest labor. Truly the chain of individual responsibility is a long one!

Nicholson had left Colonel Carmichael's bungalow at twelve o'clock. The increasing crowd and Stafford's prolonged absence had urged him to instant and independent action. In the best of cases, he had little faith in the brother-officer's secret mission. Stafford was not the man to exert any influence over the native mind. He was the type of the capable and well-meaning English officer who, excellent leader in his own country, is of small use when face to face with Indian problems of character and prejudice. Nicholson had judged himself the better advocate, and having obtained the Colonel's reluctant permission, he had at once started for the royal palace. But his progress had been painfully slow, and he had made no effort to hurry.

Any sign of anxiety or excitement would have looked like fear to the suspicious, hate-filled eyes of the men who swarmed about him, and whatever else happened, they should not see an Englishman afraid. The knowledge that he rode there alone, the representative of his nation, added a greater dignity, a greater firmness to his already calm and upright bearing. It was no new situation for him—it is never an exceptional situation in a country where Englishmen are always in the minority—and it inspired him, as it had always done since his earliest lieutenant days. He knew that as he acted, looked, and spoke, so would the image of his country be stamped upon the minds of a hundred thousand and their children's children. There was no vanity, no self-importance in this conception of his duty. It was a stern, unbending acceptance of his responsibility; and as in the lonely fort upon the frontier where he had dominated, unaided, month after month, over wild, antagonistic races, so now, unarmed and unprotected, he dominated over the fanatic rabble by the pure force of a complete personality. He was to all intents and purposes their prisoner, but he rode there as their conqueror; and that most splendid triumph of all triumphs—the unseen victory of will over will—filled him with a new confidence and hope.

Yet it was three o'clock before he reached the palace gates. It seemed to him that they had deterred his progress for some unknown purpose, and the thought of those he had left behind caused him profound uneasiness. Native treachery was proverbial, and no doubt Nehal Singh felt himself justified in any conduct that seemed wise to him. In any case, there was no return. The crowd in front of Nicholson sank back like a receding tide as he rode through the open gates and then closed in behind, following in one dense stream as he proceeded slowly up the splendid avenue. He felt now that he was in the hands of destiny. Through the trees he caught sight of the palace steps where Nehal Singh had stood the night before. No living soul moved. The whole world seemed to have concentrated itself behind him, a grim and silent force which was sweeping him onward—to what end he could not tell.

Suddenly the native who still held his horse's bridle lifted his hand as he had done before and pointed ahead.

"Look, Sahib!" he cried. "Look!"

Nicholson made no sign. He retained his easy attitude, one hand loosely holding the reins, the other with the riding-whip resting negligently on his hip. There was no change in his bronzed face: his eyes took in the scene which an abrupt turn in the road revealed to him with a steadfast calm, though his pulses had begun to beat furiously. It was as though a painter with two strokes of a mighty brush had smeared the square before the temple with a great moving stain. Only one narrow white line reached up to the temple doorway. On either side, right up to the gopuras and stretching far away down the branching paths, a living mass stood and waited, their faces turned toward him. Pilgrims they might have been, but he saw in the foremost row men with their dark hands clasped over the muzzles of their rifles, and every here and there the sunlight flashed back a reflection from the cold steel at their sides. They made no sound as he rode between them; only a soft shuffling behind him told him that the human wall was closing in. He did not turn. His eyes passed calmly over the watching faces, and the hands that played at their dagger-hilts fell away as though the piercing gaze had paralyzed them. Thus he reached the temple, where he dismounted.

No one had told him, but he well understood that this was his destination, and with a firm step passed into the inner court. For an instant the sudden change from brilliant daylight to an almost complete darkness dazzled him. He saw nothing but a moving shadow intermingled with points of fire that glowed steadily in two long rows up to the altar, where fell a single ray of golden sunshine. Helmet in hand, he moved slowly forward, every nerve strung taut with suspense. As his eyes grew accustomed to the curious half-light, he saw that the unreal shadows were men grouped on either side behind rows of torch-bearers. The red flare fell on their fixed, unmoved faces, and threw weird shadows backward and forward among the massive pillars whose capitals faded into the intensified gloom overhead. There was no other movement, no other sound save Nicholson's own footsteps, which echoed loud and threatening in that petrified silence. On the altar itself a Holy Lamp burned steadily, and behind, half obliterated by a lonely, upright figure, the great three-headed god stretched out ghost-like arms into the sunshine that descended in a narrow ladder of pure light to mingle with the altar fire.

Nicholson moved on. At the altar steps he came to a halt and waited. The figure did not stir nor seem to be aware of his presence. A torch-bearer knelt on the lower step, and the fiery deflection threw into plastic relief the set and pitiless features beneath the jeweled turban. Gone was the old simplicity. The hands that lay clasped one upon the other on the splendid scimitar were loaded with gems, and from the turban a single diamond sparkled starlike in the changing light. A splendid and romantic figure, truly; harmonizing with and dominating over the mysterious background. But it was not the splendor, nor even the stern tragedy written on the worn and haggard face, which caused Nicholson to feel a cold hand grasp at his bold self-confidence. It was the sudden intuitive realization that here the battle began. He was no longer the master personality towering over a hydra-headed multitude. Here it was a man against a man, will against will, despair against despair.

"Hail, Rajah Sahib!" he said in Hindustani. "Hail!"

His voice had echoed into silence before Nehal Singh moved. Then he lifted his hand in greeting.

"Hail, Englishman!"

"You know me," Nicholson went on, drawing nearer. "I am Nicholson,
Captain Nicholson of the—Gurkhas."

"I do not know you." There was a pitiless finality in the few words and in the gesture which accompanied them.

Nicholson lifted his head to the light.

"Nehal Singh, you lie. I was and am your friend."

He heard a stir behind him, and his instinct, doubly sharpened, felt how a dozen hands had flown to their weapons. Then again there was silence. His eyes had not flinched in their challenge.

"I have no friends among traitors and cowards."

The insult left Nicholson calm. Something in the tone in which the words were uttered, something that rang more like a broken-hearted despair than contempt, touched him profoundly.

"Thou hast the power to say so, Rajah," he answered quietly. "I am alone and unarmed."

The reproach went home to its mark. He saw the Rajah's hand tighten on the sword-hilt and a deeper shadow pass over the handsome features.

"Thou art right," Nehal Singh said. "I have misused my power, and that I will not do. Whilst thou art here thou needst fear neither insult nor danger."

"I fear neither," was the answer. A bitter, scornful smile lifted the corners of the set lips.

"So thou sayest." Then, with a gesture of impatience, he went on: "Thou hast sought me here, and it is well. I also have sought thee, for I have a message that thou shalt carry from me to thy people. Wilt thou bear it?"

"Bear it thyself, Rajah, to the people with whom thou hast lived in honor and friendship."

"In deceit and treachery!" Nehal Singh retorted, frowning. "But enough of that. Wilt thou bear my message?"

"If it must be—yes."

"It must be. Tell them first that every bond that linked us is broken. Tell them not to count on what has been. What has been is not forgotten, but it is written on my heart in fire and blood—it has crossed out love and respect, pity and mercy."

"Rajah—"

"Hear me to the end, Englishman! I am not here to waste words with thee—henceforward my acts shall be my words. But thou shalt not go back and say that it is ambition or a mean revenge which has drawn my sword from its sheath. It is not that." He paused, and the hand which he had raised to cut short Nicholson's interruption sank slowly back upon his sword-hilt. Then he went on, and his low-pitched voice penetrated into the farthest corner of the silent temple: "Sahib, I loved thy people. I loved them for their past, for their courage, their justice, their greatness. In my boy's mind they were the heroes of the world, and as such I worshiped them. No poison could kill my love—it seemed a part of me, the innermost part of my soul—and when for the first time I stood before them, face to face, it was as though I lived, as though I had awakened from a dream. Be patient, Englishman, for you of all others must understand that there is for me no turning back, no yielding. Great love is sister to a greater hate, respect to scorn. I came among you, inexperienced save in dreams, a believing boy—fool if you will, whose folly received its punishment. The outside of the platter was fair enough to have deceived those wiser than I, Sahib. There were lovely women with the faces of angels, and tall men, honest-eyed and brave-tongued. But the outside was a lie—a lie!" He lifted his hand again in a sudden storm of tortured passion. "The women are wantons—the men tricksters—"

"Rajah!" The stern warning passed, but not unheeded.

"Thou art hurt and stung," Nehal said, in a low, shaken voice. "The truth wounds thee! For me—it was death." He hesitated again, fighting for his self-control. "Sahib, great things are expected of a great people. Others may cheat and swindle, others may lie and blaspheme with God's holy secrets, others may seek their pleasures in the earth's mire, but they must stand apart. They must bear forward the banner of righteousness, or their greatness is no more than an empty sound—a bubble which the first bold enemy may prick. Perchance I blinded myself wilfully, perchance I stopped my ears. The platter was fair to my eyes, the falsehood rang like truth. Now I know. I know that the past is all that is left you—you are a fair seeming behind which is decay and corruption. Were I another, I would take my broken faith to the darkest corner of the jungle and eat out my life in despair and sorrow. But I have another task before me—my duty to my people."

"And that duty, Rajah—?"

"A great people must rule mine," was the high answer. "I thought you a great people, and I used my strength, my wealth and influence to further your power. But you are not worthy. Who are you that dare to assume authority over millions—you who can not rule yourselves, you who idle away your lives in folly and self-seeking? Well may you crown yourselves with the laurels which your fathers won! You have none of your own—and see to it that those faded emblems from a high past are not snatched from your palsied fingers. I at least have flung from me a yoke which I despise. Parasites shall not feast upon my country!"

A low murmur arose from the serried ranks and grew and deepened as
Nicholson retorted passionately:

"Thou canst not measure thyself against an Empire!"

"Empire against Empire!"

"Marut is no Empire!"

"All India shall answer me!"

At another moment Nicholson might have smiled at so vain a boast, but it did not seem to him vain as he faced that towering figure. There was destiny written in the blazing eyes. So might a prophet have called upon his nation—so might a nation, inspired by an absolute belief, have answered him as this swaying crowd answered—with wild, triumphant shouts.

"We follow thee, Anointed One! Lead us, for thou art Vishnu, thou art
God!"

"Thou hearest!" Nehal Singh said, turning to Nicholson.

"I hear," the Englishman answered significantly. "And I know, as thou knowest, that it is a lie. Thou art not God. Thou art a Christian."

"No longer. How shall I believe in a God whose disciples mock His commandments?" His voice became inaudible in the suddenly increased confusion.

The next instant, the torch-bearers, who guarded the open space around the two men, were thrust violently on one side, and with a wild scream, which rang high above the uproar, a half-naked figure rushed up the steps and with outspread arms stood like an evil phantom at Nehal's side.

"He is dead!" he shrieked. "He is dead! I killed him—my knife it was that killed him—the son of the Devil Stafford is dead—my enemy is dead!" He swung around toward the light, his arms still raised and Nicholson recognized, with a start of repulsion, Behar Singh's triumphant, distorted features. "Kill!" he shrieked again. "Kill them all, son—son—of—the—so is my revenge—". The harsh, grating voice cracked like a steel blade that has been snapped in half. For a breathing space Behar Singh stood there, drawn to his full height; then he reeled and rolled with a heavy thud to the lowest step, where he lay motionless, his grinning face frozen into a look of diabolical joy. A slow oozing stream of blood crept over the white marble to Nicholson's feet. The voices died into silence. Nicholson and Nehal Singh faced each other over the dead body.

"Thou seest," Nehal Singh said. "There is no turning back."

"No, there is no turning back." The Englishman drew himself upright. The light of unchangeable resolution illuminated his face and made him, unarmed and dressed in the rigid simplicity of his uniform, a fine and impressive contrast to the brilliant bearing of his opponent. "Not that"—pointing to Behar Singh and speaking in clear, energetic English—"not that has made retreat impossible. It was already impossible before. Nehal Singh, I came here to plead with you. I respected you and pitied you too much to allow you to bring disaster upon yourself without an effort to save you. You say you came among us inexperienced save in dreams. It is true. Only a dreamer could have hoped to find perfection. We are a great people, Rajah; we have always been great, and we shall always be.

"And if there be corruption among us, it shall be weeded out. In times of peace, vice and folly grow fast. Scoundrels, idlers, boasters and fools grow side by side with prosperity; they are the weeds which spring up on an over-cultivated soil. But war is the uprooting time of corruption, it is the harvest-time of what is best and noblest in a people. And that time has come. You, like your father, have learned to despise and hate us. Perhaps you are right. You have mingled with the scum which rises to the surface of still waters. The scum shall be cleared away, and if it costs us the lives of our greatest, it will not be at too high a price. We as well as you need the bitter lesson which only disaster can teach us. We shall see our weakness face to face, we shall root out our weeds and start afresh. You and the whole world shall see that the soil is still rich with honor."

A change so rapid that it was scarcely noticeable passed over the Hindu's face. It would have been a flash of hope but for the contradiction of the scornfully curved lips.

"My belief is dead, Sahib."

"It must live again."

"Would to God that were possible!" Suddenly he leaned forward and spoke hurriedly and in English. "Captain Nicholson, there shall be no treachery. This is not a mutiny as in the past—it is war. And war is between men. See that—your women are brought into safety. I give you till midnight."

"They can not go alone."

Nehal Singh laughed sneeringly.

"It is not your lives that I seek. Go with your women. No harm shall be done you. Make good your escape, for I swear that after midnight I shall lead my people against their enemies, and he who falls into their hands need not hope for mercy."

"And I also swear an oath, Rajah Nehal Singh! Not one of us will leave Marut. The men will remain at their posts, and the women will stand by them."

"You are throwing away your lives."

"They will not be thrown away. They will prove at least that I have not boasted."

For an instant the two men watched each other in momentous silence, as two wrestlers each seeking to measure the other's strength. Then Nehal Singh raised his hand in dismissal.

"It is well, Englishman. If you have not indeed boasted, we shall meet again."

"We shall meet again, Rajah Sahib."

Nicholson swung round on his heel. The crowd behind him fell back, and with a rapid step, neither glancing to the right nor left, he strode out of the temple into the fading sunshine. His horse was still held in waiting, and he mounted instantly. Erect in his saddle, he faced the frowning multitude, then rode forward, as he had come, without haste, holding their passions in check by his own high, fearless bearing.

The highroad was empty as he passed through the gates. The enemy lay behind. He set spurs to his horse and galloped headlong toward Marut.