"'Yes! I come down the King's stairs, and I'll be a King to you for justice if you'll be a Queen to me.'
"And by God! sir, she was.
"So there we were, lookin' into each other's eyes and sayin' nothin', till she gave a queer little laugh.
"'Why,' she says, 'you're a white man!' and with that she lay her finger quick and confident on my wrist; an' sure enough, what with the swim and the dark it were white indeed--white an' shivery, too, with the touch somehow, so that I couldn't but keep her hand so and say:
"'Yes, my dear, I'm white and you're black; I'm a man and you're a woman, but it shan't make no odds. I'm King and you're Queen in this here bawly, and there shan't be nothing but justice atween us, so help me, God!'
"An' there wasn't, sir. No! though we went our whole pile on each other, I do assure you, sir."
The assurance was needless; one look at his face was enough--that world-worn face with its bloodshot eyes, fixed on the dazzling glory of the sky as if they saw a vision.
"I used to see her first against Je-rewsalem," he went on in a lower tone. "Then I could hear her come down the stairs ever so soft to stand close to the water's edge and cry, 'Salaam Mâhârâj!'--for she called me that, just for fun, you see, sir. An' there weren't much wistfulness in her voice, sir, mostly laughter, an' somethin' better nor laughter, when I come leapin' across that drop o' ink to stand beside her for a little, an' tell her--what folks say to each other when they've set their whole pile on each other, you know, sir. For she wouldn't never come down the King's stairs, sayin' it was unlucky an' what not. Excuses, sir, but I understood 'em and I didn't want her, for you see it was justice between us I'd sworn, and I was a wild lot. She had told her father--a blind old Brahman, sir, awful holy, and nigh bedridden too--and he sent word to say stop where I was. The villagers wouldn't venture down the stairs either, and if they did wouldn't harm me, being, as I say, sir, as peaceable a lot o' able-bodied men as ever was. But the maraudin', murderin' crew in the big hawelis--that's houses, sir--was harbouring those mutinous devils of Jack Pandies, and playin' high old Tommy for miles round, so I'd better lie low till justice came; as it'd sure to do at last, seein' that the Lord was King. They talks a sight, sir, about the heathen and their ignorance, but I do assure you she knew a deal more nor me; what with being of a king's family an' havin' a bedridden saint of a Brahman for a father. An' they mayn't know much book-learnin' p'r'aps, but some of 'em knows how to make a man put his whole pile on them. And she had grit, my Lord! she had grit!
"Yet there was a catch in her breath that evenin' when I was nigh mad with fear, lest she had come to harm because it was so late, and hearing her footfall on the stair I leapt over, and nearly fell back into the ink-pot through seein' her in a man's dress.
"'I'd rather you didn't come if there's danger,' said I quite sharp-like, when she told me the sepoys was setting watch because folk said the white soldiers were a-coming. 'Don't! I can't stand it here in the dark, idle, thinkin' o' you God knows how. I'll fend for myself quite well.'