"Well, see what happened. Are you interested?"
"I am thrilled. Go on!"
"Thereafter, the Rajput neither ate nor slept till he had devised a plan for carrying her away; for what are laws to lovers? or bolts and bars? Neither caste nor creed can hold a man back whose soul is on fire for a woman." He paused to allow his words to take effect.
"How very romantic!" laughed Joyce, unmoved. "It is like a poem, as unreal as it is picturesque!"
"Don't you believe a man's soul can be aflame with love and desire for a woman?" he asked, picking up a stone idly and flinging it after a disturbing crow.
"Books tell one so, but how am I to know?"
"It must have been proved to you times without number!—but I said you were asleep!" he remarked with his inscrutable smile. "Know, then, that men have cheerfully risked hell for a woman's favours. They have broken every law for the transcendent bliss of lovers' kisses!—Anyhow, that's not the story.
"To proceed: Poor old Ramjitsu was ready to dare or die for his Love, as many another man has been since the world began, and will continue to be while the world lasts. Every night, when darkness covered the land, and the people within and without the palace slept, Ramjitsu Singh would climb the wall by means of a stout bamboo, and clinging to the sill, would wait for the gods to grant him the opportunity to plead his love.
"At last, one night, attracted by the silvery radiance of the moon, she came to the grating to gaze without, and hearing a quivering sigh, she turned and beheld her gallant lover. He looked like a god himself in the bright moonlight, and the words of his mouth, uttered with breathless passion, held her spellbound. With her flower-face pressed to the bars she received his caresses."
"Oh, poor little thing!" cried Joyce, her breath hurried with sympathy. "Did she love him, too?"