"To the strong white blood that was in her veins. In her bitterness at the real or imagined wrongs that had been done her, she turned away from the people to whom she belonged, to whom she was bound by all the ties of love and upbringing. She disobeyed the voice of her instinct. And you, her son, you, too, have been bitter; you, too, must listen to the call of the two races to whom you are linked. Whom will you obey? You stand at the cross-ways where you must choose—where we must either part or join hands for good and all. The road back to us is open, is still open. That is the message of peace which we have risked our lives to bring you. Rajah, Steven Caruthers—for so I now call you—I plead with you—I may plead with you, for in this hour at least I can not look upon you as an adversary, but as the son of this unfortunate woman—above all, of my friend. I plead with you the more because I owe you years of friendship. I am not the least to blame that you fell away from us in resentment and bitterness. I could have shielded you from the inevitable pitfalls that beset your path, but—God forgive me!—my prejudice blinded me and I held back. It was I who carried you away from the palace on that night when you were left, a helpless child, to the mercy of Behar Singh's enemies. Then I had pity enough—but years after I held back the hand of friendship which I might have offered you. Well, I am punished, twice punished, for my prejudice and blindness. Is it too late for me to make my reparation?"
He held out his hand and there was a silence of tense expectation. The
Rajah's head was bowed. He did not seem to see the Colonel's movement.
"You can not think I am pleading with you to save our lives," Carmichael went on with grave dignity. "We have fought for them. An hour ago we were prepared to lay them down without complaint. We are not the less prepared now. It is not for us I am speaking, but for you. Your day as Rajah is over—your claim to rule in India void. I offer you instead your father's name, your father's people, your father's heritage. The other road—well, you have trodden it, you know it. You must choose. Your mother chose—twenty-five years ago, in the same hour of crisis, blinded by the same bitterness. She chose to tear the bonds of love and duty; she ignored the true voice of her instinct. It broke her heart. The same crisis stands to-night before you, her son. What will you do—Steven Caruthers?"
The Rajah lifted his head. The struggle was written in his dark, sunken eyes and on the compressed lips.
"I can not desert them," he said wearily. "They trust me—my people trust me."
"Who are your people?" was the swift question. "You must choose."
Again the same silence, the same waiting while the hand of fate seemed to hover above them in the darkness. Beatrice left her place at the dead woman's side. With a firm, proud step she came to the Rajah and took his hand in both her own. He started at her touch, and for a long minute his gaze seemed to sink itself in hers, but she never wavered. When she spoke an immeasurable tenderness rang in her voice, a boundless understanding and sympathy.
"Steven—have you forgotten? Long ago in the old temple? Don't you remember what you told me then—how you loved and admired us? You called us the world's Great People, and when you spoke of our heroes there was something in your voice which thrilled me. Was it only your books, was it your teachers—Behar Singh—who made you feel as you did? When you came among us, what led you? The face of a woman? Was it only that? Or was it something more?—the call of a great, wonderful instinct?"
His eyes were riveted on her face, but for that moment he did not see her. He did not see the tears that glistened on her cheeks. He was looking straight through the long vista of the past, right back to the first hours of his memory, when he had wandered alone amidst strange faces, a ruler in a palace which had never ceased to be his prison, an exile whose home lay only in strange, fantastic dreams. And in this final moment he seemed to stand high above the past, and ever swifter and surer to trace through every incident of his life one same guiding power. Through the snares of Behar Singh's hate-filled temptations it had led onward; it had borne him to the temple—to the feet of the woman he was to love through every torture of bitter deception; it had swept him on a wave of impulse beyond his prison walls out into a world which he at last hailed as his; and now, in the hour of fiercest despair, of deepest loss, it was drawing him surely and swiftly homeward. The past vanished. He saw again the face lifted to his—he saw the tears—the Colonel's hand outstretched, waiting to clasp his own. He heard the title that she gave him as a man hears a long-forgotten watchword.
"You are English, Steven. You are English—you belong to us!"