"I have read of Englishmen whose deeds outrival the legends of Krishna,"
Nehal Singh answered thoughtfully. "They fought in your time, my father.
Thou knowest them better than I."
The old man ground his teeth together.
"They are dead." There was a reluctant admiration in his tone.
"Nevertheless, their sons live."
"The sons inherit not always the courage of their fathers," Behar Asor answered, with a bitter significance.
Nehal Singh had wandered back to the throne, as though drawn thither by some irresistible attraction, and stood there motionless, his arms folded across his breast.
"Do not blame me," he said at last. "No man can go against himself. Were it in my power, I would do thy will. As it is, without cause or reason I can not draw my sword against men whose fathers have made my heart beat with sympathy and admiration."
Behar Asor sank back in an attitude of absolute despair.
"I am accursed!" he said.
With a smothered sigh, Nehal Singh mounted the steps and seated himself. In his attitude also there was a hopelessness—not indeed the hopelessness of a man whose plans are thwarted, but of one who is keenly conscious that he has no plans, no goal, no purpose. As he sat there, his fine head thrown back against the white ivory, his eyes half closed, his fingers loosely clasping the golden peacocks' heads which formed the arms of his throne, there was, as he had said, something dreamlike and unreal about his whole person, intensified perhaps by the dim atmosphere and shadowy splendor of his surroundings.