CHAPTER XIX
But it was many a minute before the litter-bearers came.
The Raja turned to Crespin. “You were speaking of transport, Major—” then to Traherne, “Is your machine past repair, Dr. Traherne?”
“Utterly, I’m afraid.”
“Let us look at it,” the Raja suggested, and turning towards it he saw that his body-guard had broken rank, and all were clustered pell-mell on the path, looking in rather frightened amazement at the mangled plane. He gave a sharp, displeased word of command, and they scampered back into a sort of loose order, but even from the comparative distance they kept their anxious, puzzled eyes swung back to the aeroplane, and some of the boldest or less disciplined craned their bebeaded necks. “Ah, yes,” the Raja said after a near glance, “propeller smashed—planes crumpled up—”
“Under carriage wrecked,” Traherne prompted sadly.
“I’m afraid we can’t offer to repair the damage for you,” the Raja said, shaking his head.
“I’m afraid not, sir,” the doctor answered grimly.
“A wonderful machine!” the Raja said enthusiastically, still looking it over. “Yes,” he owned, “Europe has something to boast of. I wonder what the priest here thinks of it?” He turned with a laugh, and beckoned Yazok, and they spoke together in their own tongue, the Raja with a few short words, the priest with long guttural volubility profusely punctuated with deep salaams. It was evident that temporal power exceeded the gods’ in Rukh. The master dismissed the other almost as crisply as he had admonished the gaping body-guard, and turned with a smile of tolerance, if more contempt, again to Traherne. “He says,” he translated, “it is the great roc—the giant bird, you know, of our Eastern stories. And he declared that he plainly saw his Goddess hovering over you as you descended, and guiding you towards her temple.”
“I wish she could have guided us towards the level ground I saw behind your castle,” Traherne said grimly. He felt no compulsion to speak more ceremoniously of her Green Goddesship than the Raja himself had. “I could have made a safe landing there.”
“No doubt,” the Raja nodded; “on my parade ground—almost the only level spot in my domains.”
“These, I suppose,” Mrs. Crespin, tired of her cushions, asked as she joined them, and caught his words, “are your body-guard?”
“My household troops, Madam,” the potentate said with a bow.
“How picturesque they are!” she exclaimed.
The Raja laughed. “Oh,” he said easily, “a relic of barbarism, I know. I can quite understand the contempt with which my friend the Major is at this moment regarding them.”
Hearing him Crespin joined them too. “Irregular troops, Raja,” he said; “often first-class fighting men.”
“And you think,” the Raja said quickly, “that, if irregularity is the virtue of irregular troops, these—what is the expression, Watkins?”
“Tyke the cyke, Your ’Ighness,” the expatriated cockney supplied—but he kept his distance.
“That’s it—take the cake—that’s what you think, Major?”
“Well,” Crespin owned, too taking his cue and tone from the cosmopolitan Raja’s own, “they would be hard to beat, sir.”
“I repeat,” the ruler said gravely, “a relic of barbarism. You see, I have strong conservative instincts—I cling to the fashions of my fathers—and my people would be restive if I didn’t. I maintain these fellows as his Majesty the King-Emperor keeps up the Beefeaters in the Tower. But I also like to move with the times, as perhaps you will allow me to show you.” He lifted the silver whistle that hung at his coat, and blew on it two short blasts.
Instantly from behind every rock and shrub—from every bit of possible cover—there emerged a soldier, garbed in spick and span European uniform—almost identical with the uniform of a crack regiment of Imperial Russia—and faultlessly armed with the latest brand of magazine rifle. They saluted their prince, and then stood, their eyes on him, as immovable as statues at attention.
“Good Lord!” and Crespin added an involuntary whistle; and Traherne as involuntarily gasped, “Hallo!” But, if the Englishwoman shared their amazement she did not show it. She looked at the up-sprung troops quite calmly and casually. That surprised the Raja, and pleased him—quickened him even. There is no other quality that appeals to the high caste Oriental as inscrutability and imperturbability do—qualities of soul and of breeding that echo his own, and to which his own answer. He did not like Europeans, except an old friend or two of his English varsity days. But he felt that he could, if opportunity served, like this Englishwoman—and the Raja of Rukh was accustomed and skilled to swing opportunity into his line. He said to her concernedly, “I trust I did not startle you, Madam?”
“Oh, not at all,” she told him. “I am not nervous,” and she looked him frankly and squarely in the eyes, as she sat carelessly down again on her seat of cushions.
His dark eyes kindled an instant, then he said lightly, “You, of course, realize that this effect is not original. I have plagiarized it from the excellent Walter Scott:
‘These are the Clan-Alpine’s warriors true,
And, Saxon, I am Roderick Dhu!’
But I think you’ll admit, Major, that my men know how to take cover!”
How typically Oriental, Traherne thought, incredible mixture of child and cool man of the world.
“By the Lord, sir,” Crespin answered heartily, “they must move like cats—for you can’t have planted them there before we arrived.”
“No,” the Raja reminded him with a laugh; “you had given me no notice of your coming.”
“Perhaps the Goddess did,” Lucilla said slyly.
Dr. Traherne felt a little anxious at that, but the Raja took her words in the best of good part. “Not she, Madam,” he assured her, letting his brown-black eyes smile into hers for a moment. “She keeps her own counsel. These men followed me down from the palace, and have taken position while we have been speaking.”
He gave one word of command, and the men, absolutely making no sound, rapidly assembled and formed in two ranks, an officer on their flank.
Crespin’s once soldierly face glowed with admiration. His wife thought she had not for years seen him look so nearly his old self. “A very smart body of men, Raja,” he said with blunt and evident admiration. “Allow me to congratulate you on their training.”
“I am greatly flattered, Major.” The Raja was delighted, and showed it gleefully—the child, so quick in every Oriental, hot on the surface. “I superintend it myself. . . . Ah, here comes the litter.”
Down the path it came, four bearers carrying it evenly. Two chairs, each borne by two men, swung along behind it. As its bearers put the litter down, the Raja offered his hand to Mrs. Crespin with, “Permit me, Madam, to hand you to your palanquin.”
As she rose she picked up her leather coat, and the newspaper dropped from its folds and fell to the ground. Traherne bit his lip. The Raja sprang to pick it up. “Pardon me, Madam,” he said quickly, almost in a tone of command, and began to scan it. “A newspaper only two days old! That is such a rarity that you must allow me to glance at it.” He opened it with a deferential gesture but with a determined hand, and a flick of something not too amicable glinted from his eyes as he saw that a strip had been torn from the back page. “Ah,” he said softly, “the telegraphic news gone! What a pity! In my seclusion, I hunger for tidings from the civilized world.”
Yazok the priest came closer and spoke to his prince eagerly, telling too in vivid pantomime Traherne’s burning of the paper, and then pointed to the little blur of ashes still on the ground. The Raja looked at them slowly, lifted his eyes, and asked Traherne, smiling, “You burned this column?”
“Unfortunately, I did.” Traherne had sensed rather than caught the dislike, and even almost threat, in the suave Eastern voice.
“Ah!” the Raja said with a significance he did not choose or trouble to veil. Then, after a pause no one else quite cared to break, he added, with a show of gratitude that was very well done, if he was not sincere, “I know your motive, Dr. Traherne, and I appreciate it. You destroyed it out of consideration for my feelings, wishing to spare me a painful piece of intelligence. That was very thoughtful—almost, if I may say it, Orientally so—but quite unnecessary. I already know what you tried to conceal.”
“You know!” and “Your Highness knows!” the two Englishmen said simultaneously, incredulously.
The Raja smiled slightly and bowed so. “Oh, I had not seen this excellent English journal—if I had, my eagerness to look at it would have been an indirection unworthy between friends, and quite unnecessary to me, I assure you—and I have not heard what comment the admirable editor of the Leader makes—or his leader writers—but I know that three of my subjects, accused of a political crime, have been sentenced to death.”
“How is it possible—?” Traherne involuntarily began.
“Bad news flies fast, Dr. Traherne,” the Raja replied. “And too—this is Asia,” he added significantly. “But one thing you can perhaps tell me—is there any chance of their sentences being remitted?”
“I am afraid not, Your Highness,” Traherne answered reluctantly. And whatever reluctance he did or did not feel at the fact, he was most sincerely reluctant to tell it to the Raja of Rukh.
“Remitted?” Crespin broke in brashly. “I should rather say not. It was a cold-blooded, unprovoked murder!”
“Unprovoked, you think?” Rukh said evenly. “Well, I won’t argue the point. And the execution is to be—?”
He had asked it pointedly of Traherne, and Traherne replied, still more reluctantly than he had before—and smothering a strong desire to throttle Antony Crespin: “I think to-morrow—or the day after.” It might be worse than idle to lie to this man, who seemed uncannily provided with distant news.
“To-morrow, or the day after,” the Raja said musingly. “Yes.” Then, with even an added deference, he turned again to Lucilla. “Forgive me, Madam,” he begged; “I have kept you waiting.”
“Does Your Highness know anything of these men?” Traherne asked impulsively—and regretted instantly that he had.
Over his shoulder, looking Traherne full in the eyes, handing Mrs. Crespin carefully into the waiting litter, the Raja said very simply, “Know them? Oh, yes—they are my brothers.” Then, without giving time for comment or commiseration, and in a manner that unmistakably but delicately brooked none, he seated himself in his own litter, and clapped his hands twice. The bearers lifted the litters and moved away with them slowly. Lucilla Crespin’s went first, the Raja’s close after, the well-trained regular soldiers lining the way in single rank, and saluting as the litters passed. Watkins the valet followed close at heel to his master’s.
The Englishmen seated themselves in the chairs—there was no alternative.
“His brothers?” Crespin said uneasily as they did so. “What did he mean?”
“Heaven knows!” Traherne replied, shrugging his shoulders.
“I don’t half like our host, Traherne,” the Major grumbled from his chair. “There’s too much of the cat about him.”
“Or of the tiger,” the other rejoined grimly. “And how the devil had he got the news?”
They were anxious—Basil Traherne the more so. And Lucilla Crespin’s heart knocked oddly as she rode in her queen-like litter. But she sat at ease with an easy smile on her face—going to, as she perfectly well understood, what might prove either the most interesting experience of her life or a funeral march.
As the two chairs moved after the litters the two ranks of soldiers closed round them. The ramshackle irregulars, and the bizarre retinue, the dancing negro first, the musicians next, the rest pell-mell, brought up the ragged rear, and the gesticulating, still curious populace followed the retinue.
Only Yazok the priest remained, prostrating himself in thanksgiving before the Green Goddess, staying prostrate so, till slow hours had sped and the stark goat heads at her feet grew newly red in the last crimson rays of the fast sinking sun.
The quick Asian twilight came, and as it came was gone. The great stars came out in the crinkling sky, a baby moon laughed down on the temple precincts and the rotting marigolds. And still Yazok the high priest prostrated himself before the six-armed Goddess.