“If you see her face—you die!”
“She is mad,” he said to himself, as he hastened to join Mr. Gregson, who had arrived at the great iron-studded gates in a state of crimson fury.
“You say we have land—true!” shouted a haggard, wild-eyed ryot; “but what is land without crops? What is a remission of five per cent. to wretches like us? It is but as a carraway seed in a camel’s mouth! The wild beasts take our cattle and destroy our grain, and yet we must work and pay you, and starve! Would that the Rajah was a man grown! Would that you were dead!”
Mr. Gregson hurried inside, and banged the great gate violently in the face of the importunate crowd.
“It is a very poor district, and much too heavily assessed,” said Goring to himself. “There is not even a pony in the place. The very Bunnia is in rags; the deer eat the crops, such as they are, since the deer are preserved, and there is no one now to shoot them. It is abominable!”
The palace was a pretty, light stone building, two stories in height, with a tower at either end, and a double verandah all the way round. In front of it a large space was paved with blocks of white marble, which ran the whole length of the building, and it was surrounded by the most exquisite gardens, kept up in perfect order—doubtless by the taxes wrung from the wretched creatures outside its gates—a garden that was never entered by its proprietor or enjoyed by any one from year’s end to year’s end, save the mallee’s children and the monkeys. The monkeys ate the fruit, the roses and lilies bloomed unseen, the fountains dripped unheeded; it was a paradise for the doves and squirrels, like a garden in a fairy tale.
The chokedar and head mallee (he was a rich man) received their great guest with every expression of humble delight. Dinner was prepared with much bustle in the hall of audience, whilst Mr. Gregson and his junior explored. There were long shady walks paved with white marble, immense bushes of heliotrope and myrtle, delicate palms, fine mango trees, peach trees, and orange trees. It was truly an oasis in the desert when one contrasted it with the bare, desolate, barren country that lay outside its walls.
“I shall bring the little chap here,” said Mr. Gregson, pompously. “We will have a camp here at Christmas.” And then he strolled back to the palace, and made an excellent dinner of roast turkey, and asparagus, and champagne.
After this repast he got out his despatch-box and his cigarette-case, and set about writing an official, whilst Goring took a chair, and adjourned to the marble pavement outside the palace.
It was an exquisite night; a low moon was peering over the wall—the air was heavy with the scent of syringa and orange blossoms; there was not a sound, not a voice to be heard, not a soul in sight, save Mr. Gregson, who, illuminated by two wax candles, bent eagerly over his pen, as he sat in the open hall of audience.