"Nay, hazoor, not this alone. Come."
The Rajput led him out of the hall by way of a small doorway behind the throne, and after a little turning and twisting through tortuous passages they began to ascend again, and so went on up, ever upwards, the flights of steps broken by other corridors, other apartments, other galleries and gardens, until at length they emerged into a garden laid out in the very topmost court of all—the loftiest spot in all Kuttarpur.
It was a very wonderful garden, a jungle of exotic plants and shrubs threaded by narrow walks that led to secluded nooks and unsuspected pleasaunces, and lighted by low-swung festoons of dim lamps, many-coloured. A banian grew curiously in its midst, and there also they found a great tank of crystal water with a bed of brilliant pebbles over which small golden gleaming fish flashed and loitered. Here, where the walls of acacia, orange, thuia and pepal shut out every breath of wind, the air was dense with the cloying sweetness of jasmine, musk and marigold….
"My lord," said the Maharana, pausing, "if thou wilt wait here for a little, permitting me to excuse myself—?"
"All right," Amber told him tolerantly. "Run along."
Salig Singh quietly effaced himself, and the American watched him go with an inward chuckle. "I presume I'll have to pay for my impudence in the end," he thought; "but it's costing Salig Singh a good deal to hold himself in." He was for the time being not ill-pleased with this phase of his adventure; he had a notion that this must be a sort of very private pleasure-ground of the rulers of Khandawar, and that very few, if any, white people had ever been permitted to inspect it. What the Maharana's next move would be he had not the least suspicion; but since he must be content and abide the developments as they came, he was minded to amuse himself. He moved away from the cistern, idling down a path in a direction opposite that taken by Salig Singh.
An abrupt turn brought him to the outer wall, and he stopped to gaze, leaning upon the low marble balustrade.
From his feet the wall fell away sheer, precipitous, a hundred feet or more, to another hanging garden like that which lay behind him. From this there was another stupendous drop. On all sides the marble walls spread over the hillsides, descending it in great strides broken by terraces, gardens, paved courts, all white and silver and deep violet shadow, with here and there a window glowing softly yellow or a web of saffron rays peeping through the intricacies of a carved stone lattice. Far below, on the one hand, the lake lay like a sheet of steel; on the other the city stretched, a huddle of flat roofs not unlike an armful of child's building blocks. At that great height the effect was that of peering over the upper lip of an avalanche of masonry on the point of tumbling headlong down a mountainside to crush all beneath it.
In the hush there rose to Amber a muted confusion of sounds—the blended voices of the multitude that inhabited the hidden chambers of the palace: the pawing and shrill neighing of the stallions in the lower courtyard, a shivering clash of steel against steel, somewhere the tinkle of a stringed instrument and a soft voice singing, a man's accents weighty with authority, the ripple of a woman's laugh—all relieved against an undertone like a profound sigh, waning and waxing: the breathing of the Raj Mahal …
Amber turned away to rejoin Salig Singh by the cistern. But the Rajput was not there; and, presently, another path tempting him to unlawful exploration, he yielded and sauntered aimlessly away. A sudden corner cloaked with foliage brought him to a little open space, a patch of lawn over which a canopy had been raised. Beneath this, a woman sat alone. He halted, thunderstruck.