Roy smiled at him, sidelong—and said nothing. It was beastly: but it matched the rest. It was in keeping with the dusky rooms, all damp-incrusted, the narrow passages and screens of marble tracery; the cloistered hanging garden, beyond the women's rooms, their baths chiselled out of naked rock. And the beastliness was off-set by the beauty of inlay and carving and colour; by the splendour of bronze gates and marble pillars, and slabs of carven granite that served as balustrade to the terraced roof, where daylight still lingered and azure-necked peacocks strutted, serenely immune.
Seated on a carven slab, they looked downward into the heart of desolation; upward, at creeping battlements and a little temple of Shiva printed sharply on the light-filled sky.
"Can't you feel the ghosts of them all round you?" whispered Roy.
"No, thank God, I can't," said practical Lance, taking out a cigarette. But a rustle of falling stones made him start—the merest fraction. "Perhaps smoke'll keep 'em off—like mosquitoes!" he added hopefully.
But Roy paid no heed. He was looking down into the hollow shell of that which had been Amber. Not a human sound anywhere; nor any stir of life, but the soft ceaseless kuru-kooing doves, that nested and mated in those dusky inner rooms, where Queens had mated with Kings.
"'Thou hast made of a city an heap, of a defencéd city a ruin ...Their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there,'" he quoted softly; adding after a pause, "Mother had a great weakness for old Isaiah. She used to say he and the minor prophets knew all about Rajasthán. The owls of Amber are blue pigeons. But I hope she's spared the satyrs."
"Globe-trotters!" suggested Lance.
"Or 'Piffers' devoid of reverence!" retorted Roy. "Hullo! Here come the others."
Footsteps and voices in the quadrangle waked hollow echoes as when a stone drops into a well. Presently they sounded on the stairs near by: Flossie's rather boisterous laugh; Martin chaffing her in his husky tones.
"Great sport! Let's rent it off H.H. and gather 'em all in from the highways and hedges for a masked fancy ball!"