“Spare us such ill-timed jokes,” growled Mowbray angrily in English, but Roger only answered:—
“Gad! if the quip run not with thy humor, leg it after the hare again.”
Walter realized that his level-headed comrade appreciated the situation sanely, and was, indeed, advising him how to act. Yet he was torn by a thousand conflicting emotions. That field of millet had been to him a bed of nettles. He was still smarting from the sting of recollection. If Nur Mahal offered herself twice to no man, assuredly she was a woman whom few men would refuse at the first asking. And to what purpose had he thrust her away? For all he knew to the contrary, Nellie Roe might be married these two years. He had conversed with that sprightly maid during half a day. He had kissed her once. He had seen her fall fainting into the arms of Anna Cave, as any girl might have done who witnessed the arrest of a young cavalier for whom she felt a passing regard and whose ill fortunes were incurred in her behalf. Frail bonds, these, to hold in leash a warm-blooded youth!
His adventurous soul spurred him on to follow the career which Nur Mahal offered him. In those days, when the world was young, a stout heart and a ready sword were a man’s chief credentials. In no land did they lead to the Paradise of happy chance more readily than in India, where the golden fruit of the pagoda tree was ever ripe for him who dared to shake a laden branch. And yet, and yet—a lover’s kiss in an English garden withheld him from the glamour of it all.
It was fortunate, perhaps, in that hour of fiercest temptation, that Nur Mahal was too proud to stoop again to conquer. There were not wanting signs to her quick intelligence that Mowbray was fighting with beasts at Ephesus. Yet she disdained, by word or look, to join the contest, and it may be that her Eastern brain conceived a more subtle way of achieving her object. She brought forth the little box of cedar wood and handed it to Walter.
“Take heed, Ibrahim,” she said, “that I have given the sahiba diamonds to the value of a lakh and a half. You shall prepare a full quittance for the Emperor, and Mowbray-sahib shall sign it. Be speedy!”
She gave Walter a quick look from those wonderful eyes of hers.
“Whilst Ibrahim inscribes the receipt,” she continued, “you should choose your attendants.”
“At this hour?”
“Why not? When an Emperor is urgent the night becomes day. I begin the march back to Agra forthwith.”