"My father, I will judge them as I find them,"
Nehal Singh went on imperturbably. "If they be good and noble, I will serve and love them. If they be bad, as thou sayest—then thou shalt live to see me do thy will."
He heard a shrill cry, and his eyes, still fixed on the water, saw a hand that swept upward, the flash of steel falling swiftly through the sunshine. He swung round and tore the dagger from the nerveless hand.
"Thou dost wrong, my father," he said, with unshaken calm. "To learn treachery from treachery is a poor lesson. And thou canst not stay me. What I will do I will do. Do not cross me again."
The old man, who had shrunk back, gasping and staring, against the marble basin, pulled himself painfully upright.
"Ay, I did wrong," he said. "With my old hands I tried to forestall the sword of Fate. For, mark me, the hour will come when thou wilt curse thyself that thou didst stay my knife!"
He tottered slowly away, vanishing like a curious twisted shadow amidst the deeper shadows of the columns.
Nehal Singh watched him till he was out of sight, and then, snapping the dagger across his knee, flung the pieces into the water. They lay there, at the bottom of the marble basin, sparkling and twinkling in the sunshine. When he looked in, trying to conjure up once more the beautiful face, it was always the dagger he saw. It was always the dagger he saw when the memory of that short, violent scene came back to him—and it came back often, springing up out of his subconscious self like an evil, slinking shade that could never be wholly brought to rest. Yet he went on resolutely. One barrier had given way—one more remained, and he flung himself against it with a reckless determination which would have overcome any resistance. But there was none. The old priest who had been his guide and teacher welcomed him as he had always done, seated cross-legged at the edge of the Sacred Tank, motionless, rigid, like some handsome bronze statue of Buddha, whose eyes alone spoke of a fierce flowing life within. He bowed his head once in return to Nehal's greeting, but as he began to speak he interrupted him, and in a low, chanting voice uttered the last words he was ever heard to address to any living creature:
"Speak not to me, Son of the Night and Day, for the Spirit of the Holy Yog is on me, and his tongue speaketh through my lips. Behold, mine eyes see with his into the wells of the future—my heart stands still for fear of the things that are to be. I see a Holy Temple and hear the ring of Accursed Footsteps. I see a young man at daybreak, beautiful, strong and upright, and I see him stand beneath the high sun like a blade of withered grass. I see him go forth in the morning with laughter on his lips, and at nightfall his eyes run blood. A voice calleth him from the thicket, and wheresoever the voice calleth him he goeth. He standeth on the banks of Holy Ganges, and behold! the waters burst from their course and pour westward to the ocean. Behold, then shall he draw his sword against his people, and from that hour he shall serve them and become theirs. Then shall the doors of the temple be closed for ever, and the lips of Vishnu silent. Go forth, son of the Evening and Morning Star! That which is to be shall be till the stream of the Future ceaseth to flow from the mouth of Heaven!"
Nehal Singh listened to this strange, disjointed prophecy in perfect silence, his eyes following the fierce stare of the old Brahman into the oily waters of the Sacred Pool. Amidst the hundred reflections from the temple he seemed to see each separate picture as the monotonous voice called it up before his mind, and always it was his own face which shimmered among the shadowy minarets, and always it was a familiar voice calling him through the ages which whispered to him from the trembling leaves of the Bo-Tree as it hung its branches down to the water's edge.