Crespin’s once soldierly face glowed with admiration. His wife thought she had not for years seen him look so nearly his old self. “A very smart body of men, Raja,” he said with blunt and evident admiration. “Allow me to congratulate you on their training.”
“I am greatly flattered, Major.” The Raja was delighted, and showed it gleefully—the child, so quick in every Oriental, hot on the surface. “I superintend it myself. . . . Ah, here comes the litter.”
Down the path it came, four bearers carrying it evenly. Two chairs, each borne by two men, swung along behind it. As its bearers put the litter down, the Raja offered his hand to Mrs. Crespin with, “Permit me, Madam, to hand you to your palanquin.”
As she rose she picked up her leather coat, and the newspaper dropped from its folds and fell to the ground. Traherne bit his lip. The Raja sprang to pick it up. “Pardon me, Madam,” he said quickly, almost in a tone of command, and began to scan it. “A newspaper only two days old! That is such a rarity that you must allow me to glance at it.” He opened it with a deferential gesture but with a determined hand, and a flick of something not too amicable glinted from his eyes as he saw that a strip had been torn from the back page. “Ah,” he said softly, “the telegraphic news gone! What a pity! In my seclusion, I hunger for tidings from the civilized world.”
Yazok the priest came closer and spoke to his prince eagerly, telling too in vivid pantomime Traherne’s burning of the paper, and then pointed to the little blur of ashes still on the ground. The Raja looked at them slowly, lifted his eyes, and asked Traherne, smiling, “You burned this column?”
“Unfortunately, I did.” Traherne had sensed rather than caught the dislike, and even almost threat, in the suave Eastern voice.
“Ah!” the Raja said with a significance he did not choose or trouble to veil. Then, after a pause no one else quite cared to break, he added, with a show of gratitude that was very well done, if he was not sincere, “I know your motive, Dr. Traherne, and I appreciate it. You destroyed it out of consideration for my feelings, wishing to spare me a painful piece of intelligence. That was very thoughtful—almost, if I may say it, Orientally so—but quite unnecessary. I already know what you tried to conceal.”
“You know!” and “Your Highness knows!” the two Englishmen said simultaneously, incredulously.
The Raja smiled slightly and bowed so. “Oh, I had not seen this excellent English journal—if I had, my eagerness to look at it would have been an indirection unworthy between friends, and quite unnecessary to me, I assure you—and I have not heard what comment the admirable editor of the Leader makes—or his leader writers—but I know that three of my subjects, accused of a political crime, have been sentenced to death.”
“How is it possible—?” Traherne involuntarily began.