“Yes, when you were weak and suffering. You are stronger now, and have thought better of my proposal.”
“I have thought it a great honour, Ny Deen—rajah—your highness, I mean.”
“No, no; Ny Deen always to you, Gil Vincent,” he said warmly. “I am a maharajah, but only a man. I have not forgotten.”
His words, and the way in which they were uttered, moved me, and I held out my hand, which he grasped and held as I went on excitedly—
“Yes, I know you are my friend,” I cried. “You love me, and you are great and noble and chivalrous. You would not wish to see me degrade myself?”
“By becoming my greatest officer?” he said, in a low, reproachful voice.
“No,” I cried; “that would be a great honour, far too great for such a boy as I am.”
He shook his head.
“You are only a boy yet, but you have had the training of a man, and you have the knowledge of a great soldier growing in you rapidly. The boyhood is going fast, Gil, and life is very short. You will make a great soldier, and I hold you in honour for that, as I love you for a brave, true gentleman—my friend.”
“Then you would not wish me to degrade myself by becoming false to my oaths—to see me, for the sake of promotion, turn from my duty to those I have sworn to serve—see me become a renegade. You would never believe in me or trust me again. No, rajah—no, Ny Deen—my friend; you think so now, but by-and-by, in some time of danger, you would say, ‘No; I cannot trust him. He has been false to his people—he will be false to me.’”