Che Pocket Kipling 
 
 The Naulahka 
 
Retyua iig 
 
The Naulahka 
 A Story of West and East 
 
 By Rudyard Kipling 
 
 Written in collaboration with 
 W olcott Balestier 
 
 GARDEN CITY New YorK 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 1913 
 
 4 
 
 
 
Copyricut, 1891, 
 
 By RUDYARD KIPLING anp WALCOTT BALESTIER. 
 
 
 
 New Edition, with Rhymed Chapter Headings. 
 Coryricut, 1892, 
 
 By MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 
 
 CopyRiGHt, 1899, 
 
 By RUDYARD KIPLING, 
 
CON TREN TS. 
 PAGE 
 CHAPTER I. : ‘ A : : : F Z 1 
 ~ CHAPTER II. 7 = : . F : ; ; : 9 
 
 e CHAPTER III. . s “ : ; : P : eas 
 .-~\ CHAPTER IV... : . : : ; ‘ . . 44 
 | CHAPTER V. A : : 2 $ : y hea 
 
 S CHaprer VI. 5 , f 3 Bs : : oer ty 
 
 S CHAPTER VII. . - ; ° ° ‘ ° : - 98 
 CHAPTER VIII. . : : . . . ° ° ee WA 
 CHAPTER IX. 3 : - ° ‘ . : weld. 
 CHAPTER X. . : : : ; ; : : - 140 
 CHAPTER XI... ‘ : ‘ . : ° : - 152 
 CHAPTER XII. . : ; : : : : : Pye af 
 CHAPTER XIII. . : p : ° ° ° : » 197 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. . : ; : ; ° A ‘ « 228 
 
 iv CHAPTER XV. . 2 : ; * > - . 240 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 CHAPTER AVI. 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CHapTeR XIX. . 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CHAPTER A XI: 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
The Naulahka 
 

 
THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 There was a strife ’twixt man and maid — 
 O that was at the birth o’ time! 
 
 But what befell ’twixt man and maid, 
 O that’s beyond the grip 0’ rhyme. 
 
 Twas: ‘* Sweet, I must not bide wi’ you,”’ 
 And: ‘‘ Love, I canna bide alone”? ; 
 For baith were young, and baith were true, 
 And baith were hard as the nether stone.* 
 Auchinleck’s Ride. 
 
 NicHoLAs TARVIN sat in the moonlight on the 
 unrailed bridge that crossed the irrigating-ditch 
 above Topaz, dangling his feet over the stream. 
 A brown, sad-eyed little woman sat beside him, 
 staring quietly at the moon. She was tanned with 
 the tan of the girl who does not mind wind and 
 rain and sun, and her eyes were sad with the set- 
 tled melancholy of eyes that know big mountains, 
 and seas of plain, and care, and life. The women 
 of the West shade such eyes under their hands at 
 sunset in their cabin doors, scanning those hills or 
 
 B * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co, a 
 
o THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 those grassless, treeless plains for the home-coming 
 of their men. A hard life is always hardest for 
 the woman. 
 
 Kate Sheriff had lived with her face to the west 
 and with her smouldering eyes fixed upon the wil- 
 derness since she could walk. She had advanced 
 into the wilderness with the railroad. Until she 
 had gone away to school she had never lived where 
 the railroad ran both ways. She had often stayed 
 long enough at the end of a section with her family 
 to see the first glimmering streaks of the raw dawn 
 of civilization, usually helped out by the electric 
 light; but in the new and still newer lands to 
 which her father’s civil-engineering orders called 
 them from year to year there were not even arc 
 lamps. There was a saloon under a tent, and there 
 was the section-house, where they lived, and where 
 her mother had sometimes taken to board the men 
 employed by her husband. But it was not these 
 influences alone that had produced the young woman 
 of twenty-three who sat near Tarvin, and who had 
 just told him gently that she liked him, but that 
 she had a duty elsewhere. 
 
 This duty, as she conceived it, was, briefly, to 
 spend her life in the East in the effort to better the 
 condition of the women of India. It had come to 
 her as an inspiration and a command two years 
 
 before, toward the end of her second year at the St. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 3 
 
 Louis school where she went to tie up the loose ends 
 of the education she had given herself in lonely 
 camps. 
 
 Kate’s mission had: been laid on her one April 
 afternoon warmed and sunned with the first breath 
 of spring. The green trees, the swelling buds, and 
 the sunlight outside had tempted her from the 
 prospect of a lecture on India by a Hindu woman: 
 and it was finally because it was a.school duty not 
 to be escaped that she listened to Pundita Ramabai’s 
 account of the sad case of her sisters at home. It 
 was a heart-breaking story, and the girls, making 
 the offerings begged of them in strange accents, 
 went from it stilled and awed to the measure of 
 their natures, and talked it over in the corridors 
 in whispers until a nervous giggle broke the tension, 
 and they began chattering again. 
 
 Kate made her way from the hall with the fixed, 
 inward-looking eye, the flaming cheek, and air- 
 borne limbs of one on whom the mantle of the Spirit 
 has descended. She went quickly out into the 
 school-garden, away from everybody, and paced the 
 flower-bordered walks, exalted, rich, sure, happy. 
 She had found herself. The flowers knew it, the 
 tender-leaved trees overhead were aware, the shin- 
 ing sky had word. Her head was high; she. wanted 
 to dance, and, much more, she wanted to cry. A 
 pulse in her forehead went beat, beat; the warm 
 
4 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 blood sang through her veins; she stopped every 
 little while to take a deep draft of the good air. In 
 those moments she dedicated herself. 
 
 All her life should take breath from this. hour; 
 she vowed it to the service this day revealed to her, 
 as once to the prophets— vowed all her strength 
 and mind and heart. ‘The angel of the Lord had 
 laid a command upon her. She obeyed joyfully. 
 
 And now after. two years spent in fitting herself 
 for her calling she returned to Topaz, a capable and 
 instructed nurse, on fire for her work in India, to 
 find that Tarvin wished her to stay at Topaz and 
 marry him. 
 
 “You can call it what you like,” Tarvin told her, 
 while she gazed at the moon; “you can call it duty, 
 or you can call it woman’s sphere, or you can call 
 it, as that meddling missionary called it at church 
 to-night, ‘carrying the light to them that sit in 
 darkness.’ I’ve no doubt you’ve got a halo to put 
 to it; they’ve taught you names enough for things 
 in the East. But for me, what I say is, it’s a 
 freeze-out.”’ 
 
 “Don’t say that, Nick. It’s a call.” 
 
 “You've got a call to stay at home; and if you 
 haven’t heard of it, I’m a committee to notify you,” 
 said Tarvin, doggedly. He shied a pebble into the 
 irrigating-ditch, and eyed the racing current with 
 lowering brows. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 5 
 
 “Dear Nick, how can you bear to urge any one 
 who is free to stay at home and shirk after what 
 we've heard to-night?” 
 
 “Well, by the holy smoke, some one has got to 
 urge girls to stand by the old machine, these days! 
 You girls are no good at all under the new regu- 
 lations until you desert. It’s the road to honor.” 
 
 “Desert!” gasped Kate. She turned her eyes 
 on him. 
 
 “Well, what do you call it? That’s what the 
 little girl I used to know on Section 10 of the N. P. 
 and Y. would have called it. O Kate dear, put 
 yourself back in the old days; remember yourself 
 then, remember what we used to be to each other, 
 and see if you don’t see it that way. You’ve gota 
 father and mother, haven’t you? You can’t say it’s 
 the square thing to give them up. And you’ve got 
 aman sitting beside you on this bridge who loves 
 you for all he’s worth—loves you, you dear old 
 thing, for keeps. You used to like him a little bit 
 too. Eh?” 
 
 He slid his arm about her as he spoke, and for a 
 moment she let it rest there. 
 
 “Does that mean nothing to you either? Don’t 
 you seem to see a call here too, Kate?” 
 
 He forced her to turn her face to him, and gazed 
 wistfully into her eyes for a moment. They were 
 brown, and the moonlight deepened their sober 
 depths. 
 
6 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Do you think you have a claim?” she asked, 
 after a moment. 
 
 “T’ll think almost anything to keep you. But 
 no; I haven’t any claim — or none at least that you 
 are not free to jump. But we all have a claim; 
 hang it, the situation has a claim. If you don’t 
 stay, you go back on it. That’s what I mean.” 
 
 “You don’t take a serious view of things, Nick,” 
 she said, putting down his arm. 
 
 Tarvin didn’t see the connection; but he said 
 good-humoredly, “Oh, yes, Ido! There’s no serious 
 view of life I won’t take in fun to please you.” 
 
 “You see— gyou’re not in earnest.” 
 
 “There’s one thing I’m in earnest about,” he 
 whispered in her ear. 
 
 “Ts there?” She turned away her head. 
 
 “T can’t live without you.” He leaned toward 
 her, and added in a lower voice, “Another thing, 
 Kate —I won't.” 
 
 Kate compressed her lips. She had her own will. 
 They sat on the bridge beating out their difference 
 until they heard the kitchen clock in a cabin on the 
 other side of the ditch strike eleven. The stream 
 .came down out of the mountains that loomed above 
 them; they were half a mile from the town. The 
 stillness and the loneliness closed on Tarvin with 
 a physical grip as Kate got up and said decisively 
 that she must go home. He knew she meant that 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 7 
 
 she must go to India, and his own will crumpled 
 helplessly for the moment within hers. He asked 
 himself whether this was the will by which he earned 
 his living, the will which at twenty-eight had made 
 him a successful man by Topaz standards, which 
 was taking him to the State legislature, and which 
 would one day take him much further, unless what 
 ceased to be what. He shook himself scornfully; 
 but he had to add to himself that after all she was 
 only a girl, if he did love her, before he could stride 
 to her side, as she turned her back on him, and say, 
 “See here, young woman, you’re away off!” 
 
 She did not answer, but walked on. 
 
 “You're not going to throw your life away on 
 this Indian scheme,” he pursued. “I won’t have it. 
 Your father won’t have it. Your mother will kick 
 and scream at it, and I’ll be there to encourage her. 
 We have some use for your life, if you haven’t. 
 You don’t know the size of your contract. The 
 land isn’t fit for rats; it’s the Bad Lands,— yes; 
 that’s just what it is, a great big Bad Lands, — 
 morally, physically, and agriculturally, Bad Lands. 
 It’s no place for white men, let alone white women; 
 there’s no climate, no government, no drainage; 
 and there’s cholera, heat, and fighting until you 
 can’t rest. You'll find it all in the Sunday papers. 
 You want to stay right where you are, young 
 lady.”’ 
 
8 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 She stopped a moment in the road they were fol- 
 lowing back to Topaz and glanced at his face in 
 the moonlight. He took her hand, and, for all his 
 masterfulness, awaited her word with parted lips. 
 
 “You're a good man, Nick, but’’— she drooped 
 her eyes —‘“‘I’m going to sail on the 31st for Cal- 
 cutta.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 9 
 
 Creag Liha if. 
 
 Beware the man who’s crossed in love, 
 For pent-up steam must find its vent ; 
 Step back when he is on the move 
 And lend him all the continent.* 
 The Buck and the Saw. 
 
 To sail from New York the 31st she must leave 
 Topaz by the 27th at latest. It was now the 15th. 
 Tarvin made the most of the intervening time. 
 He called on her at her home every evening, and 
 argued it out with her. 
 
 Kate listened with the gentlest willingness to 
 be convinced, but with a dread firmness round the 
 corners of her mouth, and with a sad wish to be 
 good to him, if she could, battling in her eyes with 
 a sadder helplessness. 
 
 “I’m called,” she cried. “I’m called. -I can’t 
 get away from it. I can’t help listening. I can’t 
 help going.” 
 
 And, as she told him, grieving, how the cry of her 
 sisters out of that dim misery, that was yet so dis- 
 tinct, tugged at her heart, how the useless horror 
 and torture of their lives called on her by night 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co, 
 
10 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 and by day, Tarvin could not refuse to respect 
 the solemnly felt need. that drew her from him. 
 He could not help begging her in every accent 
 he knew not to harken to it, but the painful 
 pull of the cry she heard was not a strange or 
 incredible thing to his own generous heart. He 
 only urged hotly that there were other cries, and 
 that there were other people to attend to this one. 
 He, too, had a need, the need for her; and she 
 another, if she would stop a moment to listen to it. 
 They needed each other; that was the supreme need. 
 The women in India could wait; they would go 
 over and look them up later, when the Three 
 C.’s had come to Topaz, and he had made his pile. 
 Meanwhile there was happiness; meanwhile there 
 was love. He was ingenious, he was deeply in love, 
 he knew what he wanted, and he found the most 
 persuasive language for making it seem to be what 
 she wanted in disguise. Kate had to strengthen her 
 resolution often in the intervals between kis visits. 
 She could not say much in reply. She had no such 
 eift of communicating herself as Tarvin. Hers was 
 the still, deep, voiceless nature that can only feel and 
 act. 
 
 She had the kind of pluck and the capacity for 
 silent endurance which goes with such natures, or she 
 must often have faltered and turned back from the 
 resolve which had come upon her in the school- 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 11 
 
 garden that spring day, in the two years that fol. 
 lowed it. Her parents were the first obstacle. They 
 refused outright to allow her to study medicine. 
 She had wished to be both physician and nurse, be- 
 lieving that in India she would find use for both call- 
 ings; but since she could follow only one, she was 
 content to enroll herself as a student at a New York 
 training-school for nurses, and this her parents suf- 
 fered in the bewilderment of finding that they had 
 forgotten how to oppose her gently resolute will 
 through the lifelong habit of yielding to it. 
 
 Her ideas had made her mother wish, when she 
 explained them to her, that she had let her grow 
 up wild, as she had once seemed certain to do. She 
 was even sorry that the child’s father had at last 
 found something to do away from the awful railroad. 
 The railroad now ran two ways from Topaz; Kate 
 had returned from school to find the track stretching 
 a hundred miles to the westward, and her family 
 still there. This time the boom had overtaken them 
 before they could get away. Her father had bought 
 city lots in the acre form and was too rich to move. 
 He had given up his calling and had gone into 
 politics. 
 
 Sheriff’s love for his daughter was qualified by 
 his general flatness ; but it was the clinging affection 
 not uncommon with shallow minds, and he had the 
 habit of indulgence toward her which is the portion 
 
12 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 of an only child. He was accustomed to say that 
 “what she did was about right,” he guessed, and 
 he was usually content to let it go at that. He was 
 anxious now that his riches should do her some 
 good, and Kate had not the heart to tell him the 
 ways she had found to make them do her good. To 
 her mother she confided all her plan; to her father 
 she only said that she wished to learn to be a trained 
 nurse. Her mother grieved in secret with the grim, 
 philosophic, almost cheerful hopelessness of women 
 whose lives have taught them always to expect the 
 worst. It was a sore trial to Kate to disappoint 
 her mother, and it cut her to the heart to know that 
 she could not do what both her father and mother 
 expected of her. Indefinite as the expectation was, 
 —it was simply that she should come home and 
 live, and be a young lady, like the rest of the world, 
 —she felt its justice and reason, and she did not 
 weep the less for them because for herself she be- 
 lieved, modestly, that it was ordered otherwise. 
 
 This was her first trouble. The dissonance 
 between those holy moments in the garden and 
 the hard prose which was to give them reality and 
 effect grew deeper as she went on. It was daunt- 
 ing, and sometimes it was heart-sickening; but she 
 went forward —not always strong, not every mo- 
 ment brave, and only a very little wise, but always 
 forward. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 13 
 
 The life at the training-school was a cruel dis- 
 illusion. She had not expected the path she had 
 set before her to bloom with ease; but at the end 
 of her first month she could have laughed bitterly 
 at the difference between her consecrating dreams 
 and the fact. ‘The dreams looked to her vocation; 
 the fact took no account of it. She had hoped to 
 befriend misery, to bring help and healing to pain 
 from the first days of her apprenticeship. What she 
 was actually set to do was to scald babies’ milk- 
 cans. 
 
 Her further duties in these early days were no 
 more nearly related to the functions of a nurse, and 
 looking about her among the other girls to see how 
 they kept their ideals alight in the midst of work 
 so little connected with their future calling, she 
 perceived that they got on for the most part by not 
 having any. As she advanced, and was trusted first 
 with babies themselves, and later with the actual 
 work of nursing, she was made to feel how her own 
 purpose isolated her. The others were here for 
 business. With one or two exceptions they had 
 apparently taken up nursing as they might have 
 taken up dressmaking. ‘They were here to learn 
 how to make twenty dollars a week, and the sense 
 of this dispirited her even more than the work she 
 was given to do as a preparation for her high call- 
 ing. The talk of the Arkansas girl who sat on a 
 
14 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 table and swung her legs while she discussed her 
 flirtations with the young doctors at the clinics 
 seemed in itself sometimes a final discouragement. 
 Through all ran the bad food, the scanty sleep, the 
 insufficient hours for recreation, the cruelly long 
 hours assigned for work, the nervous strain of sup- 
 porting the life from the merely physical point of 
 view. 
 
 In addition to the work which she shared with 
 the others, she was taking regular lessons in Hin- 
 dustani, and she was constantly grateful for the 
 earlier days which had given her robust health and 
 a sound body. Without them she must often have 
 broken down; and soon it began to be a duty not 
 to break down, because it had become possible to 
 help suffering a little. It was this which reconciled 
 her finally to the low and sordid conditions under 
 which the whole affair of her preparation went on. 
 
 The repulsive aspects of the nursing itself she 
 did not mind. On the contrary she found herself 
 liking them as she got into the swing of her work; 
 and when, at the end of her first year, she was 
 placed in charge of a ward at the woman’s hospital, 
 under another nurse, she began to feel herself 
 drawing in sight of her purpose, and kindled with 
 an interest which made even the surgical operations 
 seem good to her because they helped, and because 
 they allowed her to help a little. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 15 
 
 From this time she went on working strongly and 
 efficiently toward her end. Above all she wanted 
 to be competent, to be wise and thorough. When 
 the time came when those helpless, walled-up women 
 should have no knowledge and no comfort to lean 
 on but hers, she meant that they should lean on the 
 strength of solid intelligence. Her trials were 
 many, but it was her consolation in the midst of 
 them all that her women loved her, and lived upon 
 her comings and goings. Her devotion to her pur- 
 pose carried her forward. She was presently in full 
 charge, and in that long, bare ward where she 
 strengthened so many sufferers for the last part- 
 ing, where she lived with death and dealt with it, 
 where she went about softly, soothing unspeakable 
 pain, learning the note of human anguish, hearing 
 no sound but the murmur of suffering or relief, she 
 sounded one night the depths of her own nature, 
 and received from an inward monitor the confirma- 
 tion of her mission. She consecrated herself to it 
 afresh with a joy beyond her first joy of discovery. 
 
 And now every night at half-past eight Tarvin’s 
 hat hung on the hat-rack in the hallway of her 
 home. He removed it gloomily at a little after 
 eleven, spending the interval in talking over her 
 mission with her persuasively, commandingly, im- 
 ploringly, indignantly. His indignation was for 
 her plan, but it would sometimes irrepressibly trans- 
 
16 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 fer itself to Kate. She was capable not only of 
 defending her plan but of defending herself and 
 keeping her temper; and as this last was an art 
 beyond Nick, these sessions often came to an end 
 suddenly, and early in the evening. But the next 
 night he would come and sit before her in penitence, 
 and with his elbows on his knees, and his head 
 supported moodily in his hands, would entreat her 
 submissively to have some sense. This never lasted 
 long, and evenings of this kind usually ended in 
 his trying to pound sense into her by hammering 
 his chair-arm with a convinced fist. 
 
 No tenderness could leave Tarvin without the 
 need to try to make others believe as he did; but 
 it was a good-humored need, and Kate did not 
 dislike it. She liked so many things about him 
 that often as they sat thus, facing each other, sue 
 let her fancy wander where it had wandered in her 
 school-girl vacations —in a possible future spent 
 by his side. She brought her fancy back again 
 sharply. She had other things to think of now; but 
 there must always be something between her and 
 Tarvin different from her relation to any other man. 
 They had lived in the same house on the prairie 
 at the end of the section, and had risen to take up 
 the same desolate life together morning after morn- 
 ing. The sun brought the morning grayly up over 
 the sad gray plain, and at night left them alone 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. ahs 
 
 together in the midst of the terrible spaces of silence. 
 They broke the ice together in the muddy river near 
 the section-house, and Tarvin carried her pail back 
 for her. A score of other men lived under the same 
 roof, but it was Tarvin who was kind. ‘The others 
 ran to do what she asked them to do; Tarvin found 
 things to do, and did them while she slept. There 
 was plenty to do. Her mother had a family of 
 twenty-five, twenty of whom were boarders — the 
 men working in one capacity or another directly 
 under Sheriff. The hands engaged in the actual 
 work of building the railroad lived in huge barracks 
 near by, or in temporary cabins or tents. The 
 Sheriffs had a house; that is, they hved in a struct- 
 ure with projecting eaves, windows that could be 
 raised or lowered, and a veranda. But this was the 
 sum of their conveniences, and the mother and 
 daughter did their work alone, with the assistance 
 of two Swedes whose muscles were firm but whose 
 cookery was vague. 
 
 Tarvin helped her, and she learned to lean on 
 him; she let him help her, and Tarvin loved her for 
 it. The bond of work shared, of a mutual depen- 
 dence, of isolation, drew them to each other; and 
 when Kate left the section-house for school there 
 was a tacit understanding between them. The 
 essence of such an understanding of course lies in 
 the woman’s recognition of it. When she came 
 
 G 
 
18 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 back from school for the first holiday, Kate’s manner 
 did not deny her obligation, but did not confirm the 
 understanding, and Tarvin, restless and insistent 
 as he was about other things, did not like to force 
 his claim upon her. It wasn’t a claim he could take 
 into court. 
 
 This kind of forbearance was well enough while 
 he expected to have her always within reach, while 
 he imagined for her the ordinary future of an un- 
 married girl. But when she said she was going to 
 India she changed the case. He was not thinking 
 of courtesy or forbearance, or of the propriety of 
 waiting to be formally accepted, as he talked to her 
 on the bridge, and afterward in the evenings. He 
 ached with his need for her, and with the desire to 
 keep her. 
 
 But it looked as if she were going — going in 
 spite of everything he could say, in spite of his love. 
 He had made her believe in that, if it was any 
 comfort; and it was real enough to her to hurt her, 
 which was a comfort! 
 
 Meanwhile she was costing him much in one way 
 and another, and she liked him well enough to have 
 a conscience about it. But when she would tell 
 him that he must not waste so much time and 
 thought on her, he would ask her not to bother her 
 little head about him: he saw more in her than he 
 did in real estate or politics just then; he knew 
 what he was about. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 19 
 
 “T know,” returned Kate. “ But you forget what 
 a delicate position you put me in. I don’t want to 
 be responsible for your defeat. Your party will say 
 I planned it.” 
 
 Tarvin made a positive and unguarded remark 
 about his party, to which Kate replied that if he 
 didn’t care she must; she couldn’t have it said, after 
 the election, that he had neglected his canvass for 
 her, and that her father had won his seat in conse- 
 quence, Fy 
 
 “Of course,” she added frankly, “I want father 
 to go to the State legislature, and I don’t want you 
 to go, because if you win the election, he can’t; 
 but I don’t want to help prevent you from getting 
 Wa 
 “Don’t worry about your father getting that seat, 
 
 b) 
 
 young lady,” cried Tarvin. “If that’s all you’ve 
 got to lie awake about, you can sleep from now until 
 the Three C.’s comes to Topaz. I’m going to Den- 
 ver myself this fall, and you'd better make your 
 plans to come along. Come! How would it suit 
 you to be the speaker’s wife, and live on Capitol 
 Hill?” 
 
 Kate liked him well enough to go half credulously 
 with him in his customary assumption that the 
 difference between his having anything he wanted 
 and his not having it was the difference between his 
 wanting it and his not wanting it. 
 
20 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Nick!” she exclaimed, deriding, but doubtful, 
 “you won’t be speaker!” 
 
 “Td undertake to be governor, if I thought the 
 idea would fetch you. Give me a word of hope, 
 and you’ll see what I’d do.” 
 
 “No, no!” she said, shaking her head. “My 
 governors are all rajahs, and they live a long way 
 from here.” 
 
 “But say, India’s half the size of the United 
 States. Which State are you going to?” 
 
 “Which —?” 
 
 “Ward, township, county, section? What’s your 
 post-office address ?” 
 
 “Rhatore, in the province of Gokral Seetarun, 
 Rajputana, India.” 
 
 “All that!” he repeated despairingly. There 
 was a horrible definiteness about it; it almost made 
 him believe she was going. He saw her drifting 
 hopelessly out of his hfe into a land on the nether 
 rim of the world, named out of the Arabian Nights, 
 and probably populated out of them. ‘“ Nonsense, 
 Kate! You’re not going to try to live in any such 
 heathen fairyland. What’s it got to do with Topaz, 
 Kate? What’s it got todo with home? You can’t 
 do it, I tell you. Let them nurse themselves. 
 Leave it to them. Or leave it'to me. I'll go over 
 myself, turn some of their pagan jewels into money, 
 and organize a nursing corps on a plan that you 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 21 
 
 shall dictate. Then we’ll be married, and I'll take 
 you out to look at my work. Ill make a go of 
 it. Don’t say they’re poor. That necklace alone 
 would fetch money enough to organize an army of 
 nurses. If your missionary told the truth in his 
 sermon at church the other night, it would pay the 
 national debt. Diamonds the size of hens’ eggs, 
 yokes of pearls, coils of sapphires the girth of a 
 man’s wrist, and emeralds until you can’t rest — 
 and they hang all that around the neck of an idol, or 
 keep it stored in a temple, and call on decent white 
 girls to come out and help nurse them! It’s what 
 I call cheek.” 
 
 “As if money could help them! It’s not that. 
 There’s no charity or kindness or pity in money, 
 Nick; the only real help is to give yourself.” 
 
 “All right. Then give me too. I'll go along,” 
 he said, returning to the safer humorous view. 
 
 She laughed, but stopped herself suddenly. “ You 
 mustn’t come to India, Nick. You won’t do that. 
 You won’t follow me. You sha’n’t.” 
 
 “Well, if I get a place as rajah, I don’t say I 
 wouldn’t. ‘There might be a dollar in it.” 
 
 “Nick! They wouldn’t let an American be.a 
 rajah.” 
 
 It is strange that men to whom life is a joke find 
 comfort in women to whom it is a prayer. 
 
 “They might let him run a rajah, though,” said 
 
DY THE NAULAHKA. ° 
 
 Tarvin, undisturbed; “and it might be the softer 
 snap. Rajahing itself is classed extra-hazardous, I 
 think.” 
 
 “ How ?”’ 
 
 “By the accident insurance companies — double 
 premium. None of my companies would touch the 
 risk. They might take a vizier though,” he added 
 meditatively. “They come from that Arabian Nights 
 section, don’t they?” 
 
 “Well, you are not to come,” she said definitively. 
 “You must keep away. Remember that.” 
 
 Tarvin got up suddenly. “Oh, good night! 
 Good night!” he cried. 
 
 He shook himself together impatiently, and waved 
 her from him with a parting gesture of rejection and 
 cancellation. She followed him into the passage, 
 where he was gloomily taking his hat from its 
 wonted peg; but he would not even let her help 
 him on with his coat. 
 
 No man can successfully conduct a love-affair and 
 a political canvass at the same time. It was perhaps 
 the perception of this fact that had led Sheriff to 
 bend an approving eye on the attentions which his 
 opponent in the coming election had lately been 
 paying his daughter. Tarvin had always been in- 
 terested in Kate, but not so consecutively and 
 intensely. Sheriff was stumping the district, and 
 was seldom at home, but in his irregular appearances 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 23 
 
 at ‘Topaz he smiled stolidly on his rival’s occupation. 
 In looking forward to an easy victory over him in 
 the joint debate at Caiion City, however, he had 
 perhaps relied too much on the younger man’s ab- 
 sorption. Tarvin’s consciousness that he had not 
 been playing his party fair had lately chafed against 
 his pride of success. ‘The result was irritation, and 
 Kate’s prophecies and insinuations were pepper on 
 an open wound. 
 
 The Cafion City meeting was set down for the 
 night following the conversation just recorded, and 
 Tarvin set foot on the shaky dry-goods-box platform 
 at the roller skating-rink that night with a raging 
 young intention to make it understood that he was 
 still here, if he was in love. 
 
 Sheriff had the opening, and Tarvin sat in the 
 background dangling a long, restless leg from one 
 knee. The patchily illumined huddle of auditors 
 below him looked up at a nervous, bony, loose-hung 
 man, with a kind, clever, aggressive eye, and a mas- 
 - terful chin. His nose was prominent, and he had 
 the furrowed forehead and the hair thinned about 
 the temples which come to young men in the West. 
 The alert, acute glance which went roving about 
 the hall, measuring the audience to which he was 
 to speak, had the look of sufficiency to the next 
 need, whatever it might be, which, perhaps, more 
 than anything else, commends men to other men 
 
24 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 beyond the Mississippi. He was dressed in the 
 short sack-coat which is good enough for most west- 
 ern public functions; but he had left at Topaz the 
 flannel of every-day wear, and was clad in the white 
 linen of civilization. 
 
 He was wondering, as he listened to Sheriff, how 
 a father could have the heart to get off false views 
 on silver and the tariff to this crowd while his 
 daughter was hatching that ghastly business at 
 home. ‘The true views were so much mixed up in 
 his own mind with Kate, that when he himself rose 
 at last to answer Sheriff, he found it hard not to 
 ask how the deuce a man expected an intelligent 
 mass-meeting to accept the political economy he was 
 trying to apply to the government of a State, when 
 he couldn’t so much as run his own family? Why 
 in the world didn’t he stop his daughter from 
 making such a hash of her hfe ?— that was what he 
 wanted to know. What were fathers for? He 
 reserved these apt remarks, and launched instead 
 upon a flood of figures, facts, and arguments. 
 
 Tarvin had precisely the gift by which the stump 
 orator coils himself into the heart of the stump 
 auditor: he upbraided, he arraigned; he pleaded, 
 insisted, denounced; he raised his lean, long arms, 
 and called the gods and the statistics and the Repub- 
 lican party to witness, and, when he could make 
 a point that way, he did not scorn to tell a story. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 25 
 
 “Why,” he would cry defiantly in that colloquial 
 shout which the political orator uses for his anec- 
 dotes, “that is like a man I used to know back in 
 
 99 
 
 Wisconsin, who—” It wasn’t very much like the 
 man in Wisconsin, and Tarvin had never been in 
 Wisconsin, and didn’t know the man; but it was 
 a good story, and when the crowd howled with 
 delight Sheriff gathered himself together a little 
 and tried to smile, and that was what Tarvin 
 wanted. 
 
 There were dissentient voices, and the jointness 
 of the debate was sometimes not confined to the 
 platform; but the deep, relishing groans which 
 would often follow applause or laughter acted as 
 a spur to Tarvin, who had joined the janitor of the 
 rink that afternoon in mixing the dusky brew on 
 the table before him, and who really did not need 
 a spur. Under the inspiration of the mixture in 
 the pitcher, the passionate resolve in his heart, and 
 the groans and hisses, he melted gradually into an 
 ecstasy of conviction which surprised even himself, 
 and he began to feel at last that he had his au- 
 dience under his hand. Then he gripped them, 
 raised them aloft like a conjurer, patted and stroked 
 them, dropped them to dreadful depths, snatched 
 them back, to show that he could, caught them to 
 - his heart, and told them a story. And with that 
 audience hugged to his breast he marched victo- 
 
26 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 riously up and down upon the prostrate body of the 
 Democratic party, chanting its requiem. It,was a 
 great time. Everybody rose at the end and said so 
 loudly; they stood on benches and shouted it with 
 a bellow that shook the building. They tossed 
 their caps in the air, and danced on one another, 
 and wanted to carry Tarvin around the hall on 
 their shoulders. 
 
 But Tarvin, with a choking at the throat, turned 
 his back on it all, and, fighting his way blindly 
 through the crowd which had gathered on the plat- 
 form, reached the dressing-room behind the stage. 
 He shut and bolted the door behind him, and flung 
 himself into a chair, mopping his forehead. 
 
 “And the man who can do that,” he muttered, 
 
 “can’t make one tiny little bit of a girl marry him.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. of 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 . Who are the rulers of Ind —to whom shall we bow the knee ? 
 
 Make thy peace with the women, and men shall make thee L. G.* 
 Maxims of Hafiz. 
 
 IT was an opinion not concealed in Cajion City 
 the next morning that Tarvin had wiped up the floor 
 with his adversary; and it was at least definitely 
 on record, as a result of Tarvin’s speech, that when 
 Sheriff rose half-heartedly to make the rejoinder set 
 down for him on the program, he had been howled 
 back into his seat by a united public opinion. But 
 Sheriff met Tarvin at the railway-station where they 
 were both to take the train for Topaz with a fair 
 imitation of a nod and smile, and certainly showed 
 no inclination to avoid him on the journey up. If 
 Tarvin had really done Kate’s fathcr the office 
 attributed to him by the voice of Cajion City, Sheriff 
 did not seem to be greatly disturbed by the fact. 
 “But Tarvin reflected that Sheriff had balancing 
 grounds of consolation —a reflection which led him 
 to make the further one that he had made a fool 
 of himself. He had indeed had the satisfaction of 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co. 
 
28 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 explaining publicly to the rival candidate which 
 was the better man, and had enjoyed the pleasure 
 of proving to his constituents that he was still a 
 force to be reckoned with, in spite of the mad mis- 
 sionary notion which had built a nest in a certain 
 young woman’s head. But how did that bring him 
 nearer Kate? Had it not rather, so far as her father 
 could influence the matter, put him farther away — | 
 as far as it had brought his own election near. He 
 believed he would be elected now. But to what? 
 Even the speakership he had dangled before her — 
 did not seem so remote in the light of last night’s 
 occurrences. But the only speakership that Tarvin 
 cared to be elected to was the speakership of Kate’s 
 heart. 
 
 He feared he shouldn’t be chosen to fill that high 
 office immediately, and as he glanced at the stumpy, 
 sturdy form standing next him on the edge of the 
 track, he knew whom he had to thank. She would 
 never go to India if she had a man for a father like 
 some men he knew. But a smooth, politic, con- 
 ciliating, selfish, easy-going rich man — what could 
 you expect? Tarvin could have forgiven Sheriff’s 
 smoothness if it had been backed by force. But he 
 had his opinion of a man who had become rich by 
 accident in a town like Topaz. 
 
 Sheriff presented the spectacle, intolerable to 
 Tarvin, of a man who had become bewilderingly 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 29 
 
 well-to-do through no fault of his own, and who 
 now wandered vaguely about in his good fortune, 
 seeking anxiously to avoid giving offence. In his 
 politics he carried this far, and he was a treasury 
 of delight just at this time to the committees of 
 railroad engineers’ balls, Knight Templars’ excur- 
 sions, and twilight coteries, and to the organizers 
 of church bazaars, theatricals, and oyster suppers, 
 who had tickets to sell. He went indiscriminately 
 to the oyster suppers and bazaars of all denomina- 
 tions in Topaz, and made Kate and her mother go 
 with him, and his collection of Baptist dolls, Pres- 
 _byterian embroidery, and Roman Catholic  sofa- 
 pillows and spatter-work filled his parlor at home. 
 
 But his universal good nature was not so popular 
 as it deserved to be. ‘The twilight coteries took his 
 money but kept their opinion of him; and Tarvin, 
 as the opposing candidate, had shown what he 
 thought of his rival’s system of politics by openly 
 declining to buy a single ticket. This feeble-foolish 
 wish to please everybody was, he understood very 
 well, at the root of Sheriff’s attitude toward his 
 ‘daughter’s mania. Kitty wanted to go so bad he 
 supposed he’d better let her was his slouching ver- 
 sion of the situation at home. He declared that he 
 had opposed the idea strongly when she had first 
 suggested it, and Tarvin did not doubt that Sheriff, 
 who he knew was fond of her, had really done what 
 
30 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 he could. His complaint against him was not on 
 the score of disposition but of capacity. He recog- 
 nized, however, that this was finally a complaint, 
 like all his others, against Kate; for it was Kate’s 
 will which made all pleadings vain. 
 
 When the train for Topaz arrived at the station, 
 Sheriff and Tarvin got into the drawing-room car 
 together. Tarvin did not yearn to talk to Sheriff 
 on the way to Topaz, but neither did he wish to 
 seem to shirk conversation. Sheriff offered him a 
 cigar in the smoking-room of the Pullman, and 
 when Dave Lewis, the conductor, came through, 
 Tarvin hailed him as an old friend, and made him 
 come back and join them when he had gone his 
 rounds. Tarvin liked Lewis in the way that he 
 liked the thousand other casual acquaintances in the 
 State with whom he was popular, and his invitation 
 was not altogether a device for avoiding private talk 
 with Sheriff. The conductor told them that he had 
 the president of the Three C.’s on behind in a 
 special car, with his party. 
 
 “ No!” exclaimed Tarvin, and begged him to in- 
 troduce him on the spot; he was precisely the man 
 he wanted to see. ‘The conductor laughed, and said 
 he wasn’t a director of the road —not himself; but 
 when he had left them to go about his duties he 
 came back, after a time, to say that the president had 
 been asking whom he could recommend at Topaz 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 31 
 
 as a fair-minded and public-spirited man, able to 
 discuss in a reasonable spirit the question of the 
 Three C.’s coming to Topaz. The conductor told 
 him that he had two such gentlemen on board his 
 train at that moment, and the president sent word 
 to them by him that he would be glad to have a little 
 talk with them if they would come back to his ear. 
 
 For a year the directorate of the Three C.’s had 
 been talking of running their line through Topaz, 
 in the dispassionate and impartial manner of direc- 
 torates which await encouragement. The board of 
 trade at Topaz had promptly met and voted the 
 encouragement. It took the shape of town bonds 
 and gifts of land, and finally of an undertaking to 
 purchase shares of stock in the road itself, at an 
 inflated price. This was handsome even for a board 
 of trade, but under the prick of town ambition and 
 town pride Rustler had done better. Rustler lay 
 fifteen miles from Topaz, up in the mountains, and 
 by, that much nearer the mines; and Topaz recog- 
 nized it as its rival in other matters than that of the 
 Three C.’s. 
 
 The two towns had enjoyed their boom at about 
 the same time; then the boom had left Rustler and 
 had betaken itself to Topaz. This had cost Rustler 
 a number of citizens, who moved to the more pros- 
 perous place. Some of the citizens took their houses 
 up bodily, loaded them on a flat car, and sent them 
 
ee THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 over to Topaz as freight, to the desolation of the 
 remaining inhabitants of Rustler. But Topaz now 
 began in her turn to feel that she was losing her 
 clutch. A house or two had been moved back. It 
 was Rustler this time which was gaining. If the 
 railroad went there, Topaz was lost. If Topaz 
 secured the railroad, the town was made. The two 
 towns hated each other as such towns hate in the 
 West — malignantly, viciously, joyously. If a con- 
 vulsion of nature had obliterated one town, the other 
 must have died from sheer lack of interest in life. 
 If Topaz could have killed Rustler, or if Rustler 
 could have killed Topaz, by more enterprise, push, 
 and go, or by the lightnings of the local press, the 
 surviving town would have organized a triumphal 
 procession and a dance of victory. But the destruc- 
 tion of the other town by any other than the heaven- 
 appointed means of schemes, rustle, and a board of 
 trade would have been a poignant grief to the sur- 
 vivor. 
 
 The most precious possession of a citizen of the 
 West is his town pride. It is the flower of that 
 pride to hate the rival town. ‘Town pride cannot 
 exist without town jealousy, and it was therefore 
 fortunate that Topaz and Rustler lay within conven- 
 ient hating distance of each other, for this living 
 belief of men in the one spot of all the great western 
 wilderness on which they have chosen to pitch their 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. a5 
 
 tents contains within itself the future and, the 
 promise of the West. 
 
 Tarvin cherished this sentiment as a religion. It 
 was nearer to him than anything in the world but 
 Kate, and sometimes it was even nearer than Kate. 
 It did duty with him for all the higher aspirations 
 and ideals which beckon other men. He wished to 
 succeed, he wished to make a figure, but his best 
 wish for himself was one with his best wish for the 
 town. He could not succeed if the town failed; and 
 if the town prospered he must prosper. His ambi- 
 tion for Topaz, his glory in Topaz, were a patriotism 
 — passionate and personal. ‘Topaz was his country; 
 and because it was near and real, because he could 
 put his hand on it, and, above all, because he could 
 buy and sell pieces of it, it was much more recog- 
 nizably his country than the United States of 
 America, which was his country in time of war. 
 
 He had been present at the birth of Topaz. He 
 had known it when his arms could almost encircle 
 it; he had watched and fondled and caressed it; he 
 had pegged down his heart with the first peg of the 
 survey; and now he knew what was good for it. 
 It wanted the Three C.’s. | 
 
 The conductor presented Tarvin and Sheriff to 
 the president when he had led them back to his 
 private car, and the president made them both 
 known to his young wife, —a blonde of twenty-five, 
 
 D 
 
34 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 consciously pretty and conspicuously bridal, — by 
 whose side Tarvin placed himself with his instant 
 perception. There were apartments in the private 
 car before and beyond the drawing-room into which 
 they had been shown. ‘The whole was a miracle of 
 compactness and convenience; the decoration was 
 of a spacious refinement. In the drawing-room was 
 a smother of plushes in hues of no kindred, a flicker 
 of tortured nickel-work, and a flash of mirrors. The 
 studied soberness of the wood-work, in a more 
 modern taste, heightened the high pitch of the rest. 
 The president of the embryo Colorado and Cali- 
 fornia Central made room for Sheriff in one of the 
 movable wicker chairs by tilting out a heap of illus- 
 trated papers, and bent two beady black eyes on him 
 from under a pair of bushy eyebrows. His own bulk 
 filled and overflowed another of the frail chairs. He 
 had the mottled cheeks and the flaccid fullness of 
 chin of a man of fifty who has lived too well. He 
 listened to the animated representations which 
 Sheriff at once began making him with an irre- 
 sponsive, sullen face, while Tarvin engaged Mrs. 
 Mutrie in a conversation which did not imply the 
 existence of railways. He knew all about the mar- 
 riage of the president of the Three C.’s, and he found 
 her very willing to let him use his knowledge flat- 
 teringly. He made her his compliments: he _ be- 
 
 guiled her into telling him about her wedding 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 85 
 
 journey. They were just at the end of it; they were 
 to settle in Denver. She wondered how she should 
 like it. ‘Tarvin told her how she would like it. He 
 guaranteed Denver; he gilded and graced it for her; 
 he made it the city of a dream, and peopled it out 
 of an Eastern fairy tale. Then he praised the stores 
 and the theatres. He said they beat New York, but 
 she ought to see their theatre at Topaz. He hoped 
 they meant to stay over a day or two at Topaz. 
 Tarvin would not praise Topaz crudely, as he 
 praised Denver. He contrived to intimate its 
 unique charm, and when he had managed to make 
 her see it in fancy as the prettiest, and finest, and 
 most prosperous town in the West, he left the sub-: 
 ject. But most of their subjects were more personal, 
 and while he discussed them with her he pushed out 
 experimentally in one direction and another, first for 
 a chord of sympathy, then for her weak point. He 
 wanted to know how she could be reached. That 
 was the way to reach the president. He had per- 
 ceived it as soon as he entered the car. He knew 
 her history, and had even known her father, who 
 had once kept the hotel where he stayed when he 
 went to Omaha. He asked her about the old house, 
 and the changes of proprietorship since he had been 
 there. Who had it now? He hoped they had kept 
 the head waiter. And the cook? It made his 
 mouth water to think of that cook. She laughed 
 
36 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 with instant sociability. Her childhood had been 
 passed about the hotel. She had played in the halls 
 and corridors, drummed on the parlor piano, and 
 consumed candy in the office. She knew that cook 
 —knew him personally. He had given her custards 
 to take to bed with her. Oh, yes, he was still there. 
 
 There was an infectious quality in Tarvin’s open 
 and friendly manner, in his willingness to be 
 amused, and in his lively willingness to contribute 
 to the current stock of amusement, and there was 
 something endearing in his hearty, manly way, his 
 _ confident, joyous air, his manner of taking life 
 strongly, and richly, and happily. He had an im- 
 partial kindness for the human species. He was 
 own cousin to the race, and own brother to the 
 members of it he knew, when they would let him 
 be. 
 
 He and Mrs. Mutrie were shortly on beautiful 
 terms, and she made him come back with her to 
 the bow-window at the end of the car, and point 
 out the show sights of the Grand Cajion of the 
 Arkansas to her. Theirs was the rearmost carriage, 
 and they looked back through the polished sweep 
 of glass in which the president’s car terminated,. 
 at the twisting streak of the receding track, and 
 the awful walls of towering rock between which 
 it found its way. They stooped to the floor to catch 
 sight of the massy heights that hung above them, 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. oT 
 
 and peered back at the soaring chaos of rock which, 
 having opened to let them through, closed again 
 immitigably as they left it behind. The train went 
 racketing profanely through the tumbled beauty 
 of this primeval world, miraculously keeping a 
 foothold on the knife-edge of space won for it at 
 the bottom of the cafion from the river on one side 
 and from the rock on the other. Mrs. Mutrie would 
 sometimes lose her balance as the train swept them 
 around the ceaseless curves, and only saved herself 
 by snatching at Tarvin. It ended in his making 
 her take his arm, and then they stood and rocked 
 together with the motion of the train, Tarvin 
 steadying their position with outstretched legs, 
 while they gazed up at the monster spires and 
 sovereign hills of stone wavering and dizzying over 
 their heads. 
 
 Mrs. Mutrie gave frequent utterance to little 
 exclamations of wonder and applause, which began 
 by being the appropriate feminine response to great 
 expressions of nature, and ended in an awed mur- 
 mur. Her light nature was controlled and subdued 
 by the spectacle as it might have been silenced 
 by the presence of death; she used her little arts 
 and coquetries on Tarvin mechanically and _half- 
 heartedly until they were finally out of the caiion, 
 when she gave a gasp of relief, and, taking petulant 
 possession of him, made him return with her to 
 
38 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 the chairs they had left in the drawing-room. 
 Sheriff was still pouring the story of the advantages 
 of Topaz into the unattending ear of the president, 
 whose eyes were on the window-pane. Mutrie 
 received her pat on the back and her whispered 
 confidence with the air of an embarrassed ogre. 
 She flounced into her former seat, and commanded 
 Tarvin to amuse her; and Tarvin willingly told 
 her of a prospecting expedition he had once made 
 into the country above the cafion. He hadn’t found 
 what he was looking for, which was silver, but he 
 had found some rather uncommon amethysts. 
 
 “Oh, you don’t mean it! You delightful man! 
 Amethysts! Real live ones? I didn’t know they 
 found amethysts in Colorado.” 
 
 A singular light kindled in her eyes, a light of 
 passion and longing. ‘Tarvin fastened on the look 
 instantly. Was that her weak point? If it was— 
 He was full of learning about precious stones. 
 Were they not part of the natural resources of the 
 country about Topaz? He could talk precious 
 stones with her until the cows came home. But 
 would that bring the Three C.’s to Topaz? A wild 
 notion of working complimentary bridal resolutions 
 and an appropriation for a diamond tiara through 
 the board of trade danced through his head, and 
 was dismissed. No public offerings of that kind 
 
 would help Topaz. This was a case for private 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 39 
 
 diplomacy, for subtle and laborious delicacies, for 
 quiet and friendly manipulation, for the tact of 
 finger-tips, —a touch here, a touch there, and then 
 a grip, —a case, in fine, for Nicholas Tarvin, and 
 for no one else on top of earth. He saw himself 
 bringing the Three C.’s splendidly, royally, unex- 
 pectedly into Topaz, and fixing it there by that 
 same Tarvin’s unaided strength; he saw himself 
 the founder of the future of the town he loved. 
 He saw Rustler in the dust, and the owner of a 
 certain twenty-acre plot a millionaire. 
 
 His fancy dwelt affectionately for a moment on 
 the twenty-acre plot; the money with which he 
 had bought it had not come easily, and business 
 in the last analysis was always business. But the 
 plot, and his plan of selling a portion of it to the 
 Three C.’s for a round-house, when the railway 
 came, and disposing of the rest as town lots by the 
 front foot, were minor chords in the larger harmony. 
 His dream was of Topaz. If promoters, in accord 
 with the high plan of providence, usually came in 
 on the ground floor when their plans went right, 
 that was a fact strictly by the way. 
 
 He noticed now, as he glanced at Mrs. Mutrie’s 
 hands, that she wore unusual rings. They were 
 not numerous, but the stones were superb. He 
 ventured to admire the huge solitaire she wore 
 on her left hand, and, as they fell into a talk about 
 
40 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 jewels, she drew it off to let him see it. She said 
 the diamond had a history. Her father had bought 
 it from an actor, a tragedian who had met bad 
 business at Omaha, after playing to empty houses 
 at Denver, Topeka, Kansas City, and St. Jo. The 
 money had paid the fares of the company home to 
 New York, a fact which connected the stone with 
 the only real good it had ever done its various 
 owners. The tragedian had won it from a gambler 
 who. had killed his man in a quarrel over it; the 
 man who had died for it had bought it at a low 
 price from the absconding clerk of a diamond 
 merchant. 
 
 “It ought to have been smuggled out of the 
 mines by the man who found it at Kimberly, or 
 somewhere, and sold to an I. D. B.,” she said, 
 “to make the story complete. Don’t you think so, 
 Mroviarvin ten 
 
 She asked all her questions with an arch of the 
 eyebrow, and an engaging smile which required 
 the affirmative readily furnished by Tarvin. He 
 would have assented to an hypothesis denying virtue 
 to the discoveries of Galileo and Newton if Mrs. 
 Mutrie had broached it just then. He sat tense 
 and rigid, full of his notion, watching, waiting, 
 like a dog on the scent. 
 
 “T look into it sometimes to see if I can’t find 
 
 > 
 
 a picture of the crimes it has seen,” she said. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 41 
 
 “They’re so nice and shivery, don’t you think so, 
 Mr. Tarvin, particularly the murder? But what I 
 like best about it is the stone itself. It 7s a beauty, 
 isn’t it? Pa used to say it was the handsomest 
 he’d ever seen, and in a hotel you see lots of good 
 diamonds, you know.” She gazed a moment aftec- 
 tionately into the liquid depths of the brilliant. 
 “Oh, there’s nothing like a beautiful stone — noth- 
 ing!” she breathed. Her eyes kindled. He heard 
 for the first time in her voice the ring of absolute 
 sincerity and unconsciousness. “I could look at 
 a perfect jewel forever, and I don’t much care what 
 it is, so it 7s perfect. Pa used to know how I 
 loved stones, and he was always trading them with 
 the people who came to the house. Drummers are 
 great fellows for jewelry, you know, but they don’t 
 always know a good stone from a bad one. Pa 
 
 ? 
 
 used to make some good trades,” she said, pursing 
 her pretty lips meditatively; “but he would never 
 take anything but the best, and then he would 
 trade that, if he could, for something better. He 
 would always give two or three stones with the 
 least flaw in them for one real good one. He 
 knew they were the only ones I cared for. Oh, 
 I do love them! They’re better than folks. They’re 
 always there, and always just so beautiful.” 
 
 “JT think I know a necklace you’d like, if you 
 
 care for such things,” said Tarvin, quietly. 
 
42 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Do you?” she beamed. “Oh, where?” 
 
 “A long way from here.” 
 
 “Oh — Tiffany’s/” she exclaimed scornfully. “I 
 know you!” she added, with resumed art of into- 
 nation. 
 
 “No; further.” 
 
 “Where?” 
 
 “India.” 
 
 She stared at him a moment interestedly. “Tell - 
 me what it’s like,” she said. Her whole attitude 
 and accent were changed again. ‘There was plainly 
 one subject on which she could be serious.. “Is it 
 really good?” 
 
 “It’s the best,” said Tarvin, and stopped. 
 
 “Well!” she exclaimed. “Don’t tantalize me. 
 What is it made of?” . 
 
 “Oh, diamonds, pearls, rubies, opals, turquoises, 
 amethysts, sapphires —a rope of them. The rubies 
 are as big as your fist; the diamonds are the size 
 of hens’ eggs. It’s worth a king’s ransom.” 
 
 She caught her breath. Then after a long 
 moment, “Oh!” she sighed; and then, “Oh!” she 
 murmured again, languorously, wonderingly, long- 
 ingly. ‘“ And where is it?” she asked briskly, of 
 a sudden. 
 
 “Round the neck of an idol in the province of 
 Rajputana. Do you want it?” he asked grimly. 
 
 She laughed. “Yes,” she answered 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 43 
 
 “Tll get it for you,” said Tarvin, simply. 
 
 “ Yes, you will!” pouted she. 
 
 “IT will,” repeated Tarvin. 
 
 She threw back her gay blonde head and laughed 
 to the painted Cupids on the ceiling of the car. She 
 always threw back her head when she laughed; it 
 showed her throat. 
 
called its “natural resources.” 
 
 THE NAULAHKA, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Your patience, Sirs; the Devil took me up 
 
 To the burned mountain over Sicily 
 
 (Fit place for me), and there I saw my Earth — 
 (Not all Earth’s splendor, ’twas beyond my need) 
 And that one spot I love, — all Earth to me 
 
 And her I love, my Heaven. What said I ? 
 
 My Love was safe from all the powers of Hell — 
 For you, e’en you, acquit her of my guilt — 
 
 But Sula, nestling by our sail-specked sea, 
 
 My city, child of mine, my heart, my home, 
 Mine and my pride — evil might visit there ! 
 
 It was for Sula and her naked ports, 
 
 Prey to the galleys of the Algerine, 
 
 Our city Sula, that I drove my price — 
 
 For love of Sula and for love of her. 
 
 The twain were woven, gold on sackcloth, twined 
 Past any sundering — till God shall judge 
 
 The evil and the good.* 
 
 The Grand-Master’s Defence. 
 
 THE president engaged rooms at the hotel beside 
 the railroad track at Topaz, and stayed over the 
 next day. ‘Tarvin and Sheriff took possession of 
 him, and showed him the town and what they 
 
 president to hold rein when he had ridden with 
 him to a point outside the town, and discoursed, - 
 in the midst of the open plain and in the face of 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co. 
 
 Tarvin caused the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. ie 
 
 the snow-capped mountains, on the reasonableness 
 and necessity of making Topaz the end of a division 
 for the new railroad, and putting the division 
 superintendent, the workshops, and the roundhouse 
 here. 
 
 Tn his heart he knew the president to be absolutely 
 opposed to bringing the railroad to Topaz at all; 
 but he preferred to assume the minor point. It 
 was much easier, as a matter of fact, to show that 
 Topaz ought to be made a junction, and the end 
 of a division, than it was to show that it ought to 
 be a station on the Three C.’s. If it was any- 
 thing, it would have to be a junction; the difficulty | 
 was to prove that it ought to be anything. 
 
 Tarvin knew the whole Topaz situation forward 
 and back, as he might have known the multiph- 
 cation table. He was not president of the board 
 of trade and the head of a land and improvement 
 company, organized with a capital of a million on 
 a cash basis of $2000, for nothing. ‘Tarvin’s 
 company included all the solid men of the town; 
 it owned the open plain from Topaz to the foothills, 
 and had laid it out in streets, avenues, and public 
 parks. One could see the whole thing on a map 
 hung in the company’s office on Connecticut 
 Avenue, which was furnished in oak, floored with 
 mosaic, carpeted with Turkish rugs, and draped 
 with silk. There one could buy town lots at any 
 
46 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 point within two miles of the town; there, in fact, 
 Tarvin had some town lots to sell. The habit of 
 having them to sell had taught him the worst and 
 the best that could be said about the place; and he 
 knew to an exactitude all that he could make a 
 given man believe about it. 
 
 He was aware, for example, that Rustler not 
 only had richer mines in its near neighborhood than 
 Topaz, but that it tapped a mining country behind 
 it of unexplored and fabulous wealth; and he knew 
 that the president knew it. He was equally familiar 
 with other facts —as, for example, that the mines 
 about Topaz were fairly good, though nothing 
 remarkable in a region of great mineral wealth; 
 and that, although the town lay in a wide and 
 well-irrigated valley, and in the midst of an excel- 
 lent cattle country, these were limited advantages, 
 and easily matched elsewhere. In other words, 
 the natural resources of Topaz constituted no such 
 claim for it as a “great railroad centre” as he 
 would have liked any one to suppose who heard 
 him talk. 
 
 But he was not talking to himself. His private 
 word to himself was that Topaz was created to be 
 a railroad town, and the way to create it was to 
 make it a railroad town. This proposition, which 
 could not have been squared to any system of logic, 
 proceeded on the soundest system of reasoning — 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 47 
 
 as thus: Topaz was not an existence at all; Topaz 
 was a hope. Very well. And when one wished 
 to make such hopes realities in the West, what 
 did one do? Why, get some one else to believe 
 in them, of course. ‘Topaz was valueless without 
 the Three C.’s. Then what was its value to the 
 Three C.’s? Obviously the value that the Three 
 C.’s would give it. 
 
 Tarvin’s pledge to the president amounted to 
 this, that if he would give them a chance, they 
 would be worthy of it; and he contended that, in 
 essence, that was all that any town could say. The 
 point for the president to judge was, which place 
 would be most lhkely to be worthy of such an 
 opportunity, Topaz or Rustler; and he claimed 
 there could be no question about that. When you 
 came to size it up, he said, it was the character of 
 the inhabitants that counted. They were dead at 
 Rustler — dead and buried. Everybody knew that; 
 there was no trade, no industry, no life, no energy, 
 no money there. And look at Topaz! The presi- 
 dent could see the character of her citizens at a 
 glance as he walked the streets. They were wide 
 awake down here. They meant business. They 
 believed in their town, and they were ready to 
 put their money on her. The president had only 
 to say what he expected of them. And then he 
 broached to him his plan for getting one of the 
 
48 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 Denver smelters to establish a huge branch at 
 Topaz; he said that he had an agreement with one 
 of them in his pocket, conditioned solely on the 
 Three C.’s--coming their way. The company 
 couldn’t make any such arrangement with Rustler; 
 he knew that. Rustler hadn’t the flux, for one 
 thing. The smelter people had come up from 
 Denver at the expense of Topaz, and had proved 
 Topaz’s allegation that Rustler couldn’t find a 
 proper flux for smelting its ore nearer to her own 
 borders than fifteen miles—in other words, she 
 couldn’t find it this side of Topaz. 
 
 Tarvin went on to say that what Topaz wanted 
 was an outlet for her products to the Gulf of 
 Mexico, and the Three C.’s was the road to furnish 
 it. The president had, perhaps, listened to such 
 statements before, for the entire and crystalline 
 impudence of this drew no retort from his stolidity. 
 He seemed to consider it as he considered the 
 other representations made to him, without hearing 
 it. A railroad president, weighing the advantages 
 of rival towns, could not find it within his con- 
 ception of dignity to ask which of the natural 
 products of Topaz sought relief through the Gulf. 
 But if Mutrie could have asked such a question, 
 Tarvin would have answered unblushingly, “ Rust- 
 
 99 
 
 ler’s.” He implied this freely in the suggestion 
 
 which he made immediately in the form of a con- 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 49 
 
 cession. Of course, he said, if the road wanted to 
 tap the mineral wealth of the country behind 
 Rustler it would be a simple matter to run a branch 
 road up there, and bring down the ore to be smelted 
 at Topaz. Rustler had a value to the road as a 
 mining centre; he didn’t pretend to dispute that. 
 But a mineral road would bring down all the ore 
 as well as a main line, make the same traffic for 
 the road, and satisfy all proper claims of Rustler 
 to consideration, while leaving the junction where 
 it belonged by virtue of natural position. 
 
 He boldly asked the president how he expected 
 to get up steam and speed for the climb over the 
 Pass if he made Rustler the end of the division, 
 and changed engines there. The place was already 
 in the mountains; as a practical railroad-man the 
 president must know that his.engines could get 
 no start from Rustler. The heavy grade by which 
 the railroad would have to get out of the place, 
 beginning in the town itself, prohibited the idea 
 of making it the end of a division. If his engines, 
 by good luck, weren’t stalled on the grade, what 
 did he think of the annual expense involved in 
 driving heavy trains daily at a high mountain from 
 the vantage-ground of a steep slope? What the 
 Three C.’s wanted for the end of their division 
 and their last stop before the climb over the Pass 
 was a place like Topaz, designed for them by nature, 
 
 EK 
 
50 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 built in the centre of a plain, which the railroad 
 could traverse at a level for five miles before attack- 
 ing the hills. 
 
 This point Tarvin made with the fervor and 
 relief born of dealing with one solid and irrefragable 
 fact. It was really his best argument, and he saw 
 that it had reached the president as the latter took 
 up his reins silently and led the way back to town. 
 But another glance at Mutrie’s face told him that 
 he had failed hopelessly in his main contention. 
 The certainty of this would have been heart-break- 
 ing if he had not expected to fail. Success lay 
 elsewhere; but before trying that he had determined 
 to use every other means. 
 
 Tarvin’s eye rested lovingly on his town as they 
 turned their horses again toward the cluster of 
 dwellings scattered irregularly in the midst of the 
 wide valley. She might be sure that he would see 
 her through. 
 
 Of course the Topaz of his affections melted in 
 and out of the Topaz of fact by shadings and 
 subtleties which no measurement could record. 
 The relation of the real Topaz to Tarvin’s Topaz, 
 or to the Topaz of any good citizen of the place, 
 was a matter which no friendly observer could wish 
 to press. In Tarvin’s own case it was impossible 
 to say where actual belief stopped and willingness 
 to believe went on. What he knew was that he 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 51 
 
 did believe; and with him the best possible reason 
 for faith in Topaz would have been that it needed 
 to be believed in hard. The need would only have 
 been another reason for liking it. 
 
 To the ordered Eastern eye the city would have 
 seemed a raw, untidy, lonely collection of ragged 
 wooden buildings sprawling over a level plain. 
 But this was only another proof that one can see 
 only what one brings to the seeing. It was not so 
 that Tarvin saw it; and he would not have thanked 
 the Easterner who should have taken refuge in 
 praise of his snow-whitened hills, walling the 
 valley in a monstrous circle. The Easterner might 
 keep his idea that Topaz merely blotted a beautiful 
 picture; to Tarvin the picture was Topaz’s scenery, 
 and the scenery only an incident of Topaz. It 
 was one of her natural advantages — her own, like 
 her climate, her altitude, and her board of trade. 
 
 He named the big mountains to the president as 
 they rode; he showed him where their big irrigat- 
 ing-ditch led the water down out of the heights, 
 and where it was brought along under the shadow 
 of the foothills before it started across the plain 
 toward Topaz; he told him the number of patients 
 in their hospital, decently subduing his sense of 
 their numerousness, as a testimony to the prosperity 
 of the town; and as they rode into the streets he 
 pointed out the opera-house, the post-office, the 
 
 RsitY OF \LLINO! 
 
 E 
 Buy LIBRARY 
 
52 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 public-school, and the court-house, with the modesty 
 a mother summons who shows her first-born. 
 
 It was at least as much to avoid thinking as to 
 exploit the merits of Topaz that he spared the 
 president nothing. Through all his advocacy 
 another voice had made itself heard, and now, in 
 the sense of momentary failure, the bitterness of 
 another failure caught him with a fresh twinge; 
 for since his return he had seen Kate, and knew 
 that nothing short of a miracle would prevent her 
 from starting for India within three days. In 
 contempt of the man who was making this possible, 
 and in anger and desperation, he had spoken at 
 last directly to Sheriff, appealing to him by all 
 he held most dear to stop this wickedness. But 
 there are limp rags which no buckram can stiffen: 
 and Sheriff, willing as he was to oblige, could not 
 take strength into his fibre from the outside, though 
 Tarvin offered him all of his. His talk with Kate, 
 supplemented by this barren interview with her 
 father, had given him a sickening sense of power- 
 lessness from which nothing but a large success 
 in another direction could rescue him. He thirsted 
 for success, and it had done him good to attack 
 the president, even with the force that 
 he must fail with him. 
 
 He could forget Kate's existence while he song 
 for Topaz, but he remembered it with a pang as 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST, 53 
 
 he parted from Mutrie. He had her promise to 
 make one of the party he was taking to the Hot 
 Springs that afternoon; if it had not been for that 
 he could almost have found it in his heart to let 
 Topaz take care of herself for the remainder of the 
 president’s stay. As it was, he looked forward to 
 the visit to the Springs as a last opening to hope. 
 He meant to make a final appeal; he meant to have 
 it out with Kate, for he could not believe in defeat, 
 and he could not think that she would go. 
 
 The excursion to the Hot Springs was designed 
 to show the president and Mrs. Mutrie what a 
 future Topaz must have as a winter resort, if all 
 other advantages failed her; and they had agreed 
 to go with the party which Tarvin had hastily got 
 together. With a view to a little quiet talk with 
 Kate, he had invited three men besides Sheriff — 
 Maxim, the post-master; Heckler, the editor of 
 the “Topaz Telegram” (both his colleagues on the 
 board of trade); and a pleasant young Englishman 
 named Carmathan. He expected them to do some 
 of the talking to the president, and to give him 
 half an hour with Kate, without detriment to 
 Mutrie’s impressions of Topaz. It had occurred to 
 him that the president might be ready by this 
 time for a fresh view of the town, and Heckler 
 was the man to give it to him. 
 
 Carmathan had come to Topaz two years before 
 
54: THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 in his capacity of colonizing younger son, to engage 
 in the cattle business, equipped with a riding-crop, 
 top-boots, and $2000 in money. He had lost the 
 money; but he knew now that riding-crops were 
 not used in punching cattle, and he was at the 
 moment using this knowledge, together with other 
 information gathered on the same subject, in the 
 calling of cowboy on a neighboring range. He 
 was getting $30 a month, and was accepting his 
 luck with the philosophy which comes to the 
 adoptive as well as to the native-born citizens of 
 the West. Kate liked him for the pride and pluck 
 which did not allow him the easy remedy of writing 
 home, and for other things; and for the first half 
 of their ride to the Hot Springs they rode side by 
 side, while Tarvin made Mr. and Mrs. Mutrie look 
 up at the rocky heights between which they began 
 to pass. He showed them the mines burrowing 
 into the face of the rock far aloft, and explained 
 the geological formation with the purely practical 
 learning of a man who buys and sells mines. The 
 road, which ran alongside the track of the railroad 
 already going through Topaz, wandered back and 
 forth over it from time to time, as Tarvin said, at 
 the exact angle which the Three C.’s would be 
 choosing later. Once a train labored past them, 
 tugging up the heavy grade that led to the town. 
 The narrowing gorge was the first closing in of 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 55 
 
 the hills, which, after widening again, gathered in 
 the great cliffs of the caiion twenty miles below, to 
 face each other across the chasm. The sweep of 
 pictured rock above their heads lifted itself into 
 strange, gnarled crags, or dipped suddenly and 
 swam on high in straining peaks; but for the most 
 part it was sheer wall—blue and brown and 
 purplish-red umber, ochre, and the soft hues 
 between. 
 
 Tarvin dropped back, and ranged his horse 
 beside Kate’s. Carmathan, with whom he was in 
 friendly relation, gave place to him instantly, and 
 rode forward to join the others in advance. 
 
 She lifted her speaking eyes as he drew rein 
 beside her, and begged him silently to save them 
 both the continuance of a hopeless contest; but 
 Tarvin’s jaw was set, and he would not have 
 listened to an angel’s voice. 
 
 “TI tire you by talking of this thing, Kate. I 
 know it. But I’ve got to talk of it. I’ve got to 
 save you.” 
 
 * Don’t try any more, Nick,” she answered gently. 
 “Please don’t. It’s my salvation to go. It is 
 the one thing I want to do. It seems to me some- 
 times, when I think of it, that it was perhaps the 
 thing I was sent into the world to do. We are all 
 sent into the world to do something, don’t you 
 think so, Nick, even if it’s ever so tiny and humble 
 
56 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 and no account? I’ve got to do it, Nick. Make 
 it easy for me.” 
 
 “1711 be—hammered if I will! Ill make it 
 hard. That’s what I’m here for. Every one else 
 yields to that vicious little will of yours. Your 
 father and mother let you do what you like. They 
 don’t begin to know what you are running your 
 precious head into. I can’t replace it. Can you? 
 That makes me positive. It also makes me ugly.” 
 
 Kate laughed. 
 
 “It does make you ugly, Nick. But I don’t 
 mind. I think I lke it that you should care. If 
 I could stay at home tor any one, I’d do it for you. 
 Beleve that, won’t you?” 
 
 “Oh, I’ll believe, and thank you into the bar- 
 gain. But what good will it do me? I don’t 
 want belief. I want you.” 
 
 “T know, Nick. I know. But India wants me 
 more —or not me, but what I can do, and what 
 women like me can do. ‘There’s a cry from 
 Macedonia, ‘Come over and help us!’ While I 
 hear that cry I can find no pleasure in any. other 
 good. IT could be your wife, Nick. That’s easy. 
 But with that in my ears I should be in torture 
 every moment.” 
 
 “'That’s rough on me,” suggested Tarvin, glance: 
 ing ruefully at the cliffs above them. 
 
 “Oh, no. It has nothing to do with you.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. Sif 
 
 “Yes,” returned he, shutting his lps, “that’s 
 just it.” 
 
 She could not help smiling a little again at his 
 face. : 
 
 “YT will never marry any one else, if it helps 
 you any to know that, Nick,” she said, with a 
 sudden tenderness in her voice. 
 
 “But you won’t marry me?” 
 
 “No,” she said quietly, firmly, simply. 
 
 He meditated this answer a moment in bitterness. 
 They were riding at a walk, and he let the reins 
 drop on his pony’s neck as he said, “Oh, well. 
 Don’t matter about me. It isn’t all selfishness, 
 dear. Ido want you to stay for my own sake, I want 
 you for my very own, I want you always _ beside 
 me, I want you— want you; but it isn’t for that 
 I ask you to stay. It’s because I can’t think of 
 you throwing yourself into the dangers and horrors 
 of that life alone, unprotected, a girl. I can’t 
 think of it and sleep nights. I daren’t think of it. 
 The thing’s monstrous. It’s hideous. It’s absurd. 
 You won’t do it!” 
 
 “IT must not think of myself,” she answered in 
 a shaken voice. “I must think of them.” 
 
 “But J must think of you. And you sha’n’t 
 bribe me, you sha’n’t tempt me, to think of any 
 one else. You take it all too hard. Dearest girl,” 
 he entreated, lowering his voice, “are you in charge 
 
58 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 of the misery of the earth? ‘There is misery else- 
 where, too, and pain. Can you stop it? You’ve 
 got to live with the sound of the suffering of 
 millions in your ears all your life, whatever you 
 do. We’re all in for that. We can’t get away 
 from it. We pay that price for daring to be happy 
 for one little second.” 
 
 “IT know, I know. I’m not trying to save 
 myself. I’m ‘not trying to stifle the sound.” 
 
 “No; but you are trying to stop it, and you 
 can’t. It’s like trying to scoop up the ocean with 
 a dipper. You can’t do it. But you can spoil 
 your life in trying; and if you’ve got a scheme by 
 which you can come back and have a spoiled life 
 over again, I know some one who hasn’t. O Kate, 
 I don’t ask anything for myself, —or, at least, I 
 only ask everything,—but do think of that a 
 moment sometimes when you are putting your arms 
 around the earth, and trying to lift it up in your 
 soft little hands — you are spoiling more lives than 
 your own. Great Scott, Kate, if you are looking 
 for some misery to set right, you needn’t go off 
 this road. Begin on me.” 
 
 She shook her head sadly. “I must begin where 
 I see my duty, Nick. I don’t say that I shall 
 make much impression on the dreadful sum of 
 human trouble, and I don’t say it is for everybody 
 to do what I’m going to try to do; but it’s right 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 59 
 
 forme. I know that, and that’s all any of us can 
 know. Oh, to be sure that people are a little better 
 —if only a little better — because you have lived,” 
 she exclaimed, the look of exaltation coming into 
 her eyes; “to know that you have lessened by the 
 slightest bit the sorrow and suffering that must 
 go on all the same, would be good. Even you 
 must feel that, Nick,” she said, gently laying her 
 hand on his arm as they rode. 
 
 Tarvin compressed his lips. “Oh, yes; I feel 
 it,” he said desperately. 
 
 “But you feel something else. So do I.” 
 
 “Then feel it more. Feel it enough to trust 
 yourself to me. I'll find a future for you. You 
 shall bless everybody with your goodness. Do you 
 think I should like you without it? And you shall 
 begin by blessing me.” 
 
 “T can’t! I can’t!” she cried in distress. 
 
 “You can’t do anything else. You must come 
 to me at last. Do you think I could live if I didn’t 
 think that? But I want to save you all that lies 
 between. I don’t want you to be driven into my 
 arms, little girl. I want you to come—and come 
 now.” 
 
 For answer to this she only bowed her head on 
 the sleeve of her riding-habit, and began to cry 
 softly. Nick’s fingers closed on the hand with 
 which she nervously clutched the pommel of her 
 
 saddle. 
 
60 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “You, can't, dear?” 
 
 The brown head was shaken vehemently. Tarvin 
 ground his teeth. 
 
 “All right; don’t mind.” 
 
 He took her yielding hand into his, speaking 
 gently, as he would have spoken to a child in 
 distress. In the silent moment that lengthened 
 between them Tarvin gave it up—not Kate, not 
 his love, not his changeless resolve to have her for 
 his own, but just the question of her going to 
 India. She could go if she liked. There would 
 be two of them. 
 
 When they reached the Hot Springs he took an 
 immediate opportunity to engage the willing Mrs. 
 Mutrie in talk, and to lead her aside, while Sheriff 
 showed the president the water steaming out of 
 the ground, the baths, and the proposed site of a 
 giant hotel. Kate,.willing to hide her red eyes 
 from Mrs. Mutrie’s sharp gaze, remained with her 
 father. 
 
 When Tarvin had led the president’s wife to the 
 side of the stream that went plunging down past 
 the Springs to find a tomb at last in the cafion 
 below, he stopped short in the shelter of a clump 
 of cottonwoods. 
 
 “Do you really want that necklace?” he asked 
 her abruptly. 
 
 She laughed again, gurglingly, amusedly, this 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 61 
 
 time, with the little air of spectacle which she 
 could not help lending to all she did. 
 
 “Want it?” she repeated. ‘Of course I want it. 
 I want the moon, too.” 
 
 Tarvin laid a silencing hand upon her arm. 
 
 “You shall have this,” he said positively. 
 
 She ceased laughing, and grew almost pale at 
 his earnestness. 
 
 “What do you mean?” she asked quickly. 
 
 “It would please you? You would be glad of 
 it?” heasked. “What would you do to get it?” 
 
 “Go back to Omaha on my hands and knees,” 
 she answered with equal earnestness. “Crawl to 
 India.” 
 
 “All right,” returned Tarvin, vigorously. ‘That 
 settlos it. Listen! I want the Three C.’s to come 
 to Topaz. You want this. Can we trade?” 
 
 “But you can never—” 
 
 “No matter; Pll attend to my -part. Can you 
 do yours?” 
 
 99 
 
 “You mean —”’ she began. 
 
 “Yes,” nodded her companion, decisively; “I do. 
 Can you fix it?” 
 
 Tarvin, fiercely repressed and controlled, stood 
 before her with clenched teeth, and hands _ that 
 drove -the nails into his palms, awaiting her answer. 
 
 She tilted her fair head on one side with depreca- 
 
 tion, and regarded him out of the vanishing angle 
 
62 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 of one eye provocatively, with a lingering, tantaliz- 
 ing look of adequacy. 
 
 b] 
 
 “JT guess what I say to Jim goes,” she said at 
 last with a dreamy smile. 
 
 “Then it’s a bargain?” 
 
 “Yes,” she answered. 
 
 “Shake hands on it.” 
 
 They joined hands. For a moment they stood 
 confronted, penetrating each other’s eyes. 
 
 “You'll really get it for me?” 
 
 SG 
 
 “You won’t go back on me?” 
 
 Re Ota: 
 
 He pressed her hand so that she gave a little 
 scream. 
 
 “Ouch! You hurt.” 
 
 “All right,” he said hoarsely, as he dropped her 
 hand. “It’s a trade. I start for India to-morrow. ” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 63 
 
 ‘CHAPTER V. 
 
 Now it is not good for the Christian’s health to hustle the Aryan 
 brown, 
 
 For the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the 
 Christian down ; 
 
 And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the 
 late deceased, 
 
 And the epitaph drear: ‘‘ A fool lies here who tried to hustle the 
 East.”’ * 
 
 Solo from Libretto of Naulahka. 
 
 TARVIN stood on the platform of the station at 
 Rawut Junction watching the dust cloud that 
 followed the retreating Bombay mail. When it 
 had disappeared the heated air above the stone 
 ballast began its dance again, and he turned blink- 
 ing to India. 
 
 It was amazingly simple to come fourteen thou- 
 sand miles. He had lain still in a ship for a certain 
 time, and then had transferred himself to stretch at 
 full length, in his shirt-sleeves, on the leather- 
 padded bunk of the train which had brought him 
 from Calcutta to Rawut Junction. The journey 
 was long only as it kept him from sight of Kate, 
 and kept him filled with thought of her. But was 
 
 Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co, 
 
64 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 this what he had come for—the yellow desolation 
 of a Rajputana desert, and the pinched-off per- 
 spective of the track? Topaz was cosier when 
 they had got the church, the saloon, the school, 
 and three houses up; the loneliness made him 
 shiver. He saw that they did not mean to do any 
 more of it. It was a desolation which doubled 
 desolateness, because it was left for done. It was 
 final, intended, absolute. The grim solidity of 
 the cut-stone station-house, the solid masonry of 
 the empty platform, the mathematical exactitude 
 of the station name-board looked for no future. 
 No new railroad could help Rawut Junction. It 
 had no ambition. It belonged to the Government. 
 There was’ no green thing, no curved line, no 
 promise of life that produces, within eyeshot of 
 Rawut Junction. The mauve railroad-creeper on 
 the station had been allowed to die from lack of 
 attention. 
 
 Tarvin was saved from the more positive pangs 
 of homesickness by a little healthy human rage. 
 A single man, fat, brown, clothed in white gauze, 
 and wearing a black velvet cap on his head, stepped 
 out from the building. This station-master and 
 permanent population of Rawut Junction accepted 
 Tarvin as a feature of the landscape: he did not 
 look at him. ‘Tarvin began to sympathize with the 
 South in the war of the rebellion. | 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 65 
 
 “When does the next train leave for Rhatore?’ 
 he asked. 
 
 “There is no train,’ 
 
 * returned the man, pausing 
 
 with precise deliberation between the words. He 
 sent his speech abroad with an air of detachment, 
 irresponsibly, like the phonograph. 
 
 “No train? Where’s your time-table? Where’s 
 your railroad guide? Where’s your Pathfinder?” 
 
 “No train at all of any kind whatever.” 
 
 “Then what the devil are you here for?” 
 
 “Sir, I am the station-master of this station, 
 and it is prohibited using profane language to 
 employees of this company.” 
 
 “Oh, are you? Is it? Well, see here, my 
 friend — you station-master of the steep-edge of the 
 jumping-off-place, if you want to save your life 
 you will tell me how I get to Rhatore — quick!” 
 
 The man was silent. 
 
 “Well, what do I do, anyway?” shouted the 
 West. 
 
 “What do I know?” answered the East. 
 
 Tarvin stared at the brown being in white, 
 beginning at his patent-leather shoes, surmounted 
 by openwork socks, out of which the calf of his 
 lee bulged, and ending with the velvet smoking- 
 cap on his head. ‘The passionless regard of the 
 Oriental, borrowed from the purple hills behind 
 his station, made him wonder for one profane, 
 
 F 
 
66 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 faithless, and spiritless moment whether Topaz ana 
 Kate were worth all they were costing. 
 
 “Ticket, please,” said the baboo. 
 
 The gloom darkened. This thing was here to 
 take tickets, and would do it though men loved, 
 and fought, and despaired and died at his feet. 
 
 “See here,” cried Tarvin, “you shiny-toed fraud; 
 you agate-eyed pillar of alabaster—” But he did 
 not go on; speech failed in a shout of rage and 
 despair. The desert swallowed all impartially; and 
 the baboo, turning with awful quiet, drifted through 
 the door of the station-house, and locked it behind 
 him. 
 
 Tarvin whistled persuasively at the door with 
 uplifted eyebrows, jingling an American quarter 
 against a rupee in his pocket. The window of 
 the ticket-office opened a little way, and the baboo 
 showed an inch of impassive face. 
 
 “Speaking now in offeshal capacity, your honor 
 can getting to Rhatore via country bullock-cart.” 
 
 “Find me the bullock-cart,” said Tarvin. 
 
 “Your honor granting commission on transac- 
 tion?” 
 
 “Cert.” It was the tone that conveyed the idea 
 to the head under the smoking-cap. 
 
 The window was dropped. Afterward, but not 
 too immediately afterward, a long-drawn howl made 
 itself heard — the howl of a weary warlock invoking 
 a dilatory ghost. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 67 
 
 “OQ Moti! Moti! O-o-h!” 
 
 “Ah there, Moti!’? murmured Tarvin, as _ he 
 vaulted over the low stone wall, gripsack in hand, 
 and stepped out through the ticket wicket into 
 Rajputana. His habitual gaiety and confidence 
 had returned with the prospect of motion. 
 
 Between himself and a purple circle of hills lay 
 fifteen miles of profitless, rolling ground, jagged 
 with laterite rocks, and studded with unthrifty 
 trees —all given up to drought and dust, and all 
 colorless as the sun-bleached locks of a child of the 
 prairies. Very far away to the right the silver 
 gleam of a salt lake showed, and a formless blue 
 haze of heavier forest. ‘Sombre, desolate, oppres- 
 sive, withering under a brazen sun, it smote him 
 with its likeness to his own prairies, and with its 
 homesick unlikeness. 
 
 Apparently out of a crack in the earth—§in fact, 
 as he presently perceived, out of a spot where two 
 waves of plain folded in upon each other and 
 contained a village—-came a pillar of dust, the 
 heart of which was a bullock-cart. The distant 
 whine of the wheels sharpened, as it drew near, 
 to the full-bodied shriek that Tarvin knew when 
 they put the brakes suddenly on a freight coming 
 into Topaz on the down grade. But this was in 
 no sense a freight. The wheels were sections of 
 tree butts—square for the most part. Four 
 
68 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 unbarked poles bounded the corners of a flat body; 
 the sides were made of netted rope of cocoanut 
 fibre. Two bullocks, a little larger than New- 
 foundlands, smaller than Alderneys, drew a vehicle 
 which might have contained the half of a horse*s 
 load. 
 
 The cart drew up at the station, and the bullocks, 
 after contemplating Tarvin for a moment, lay down. 
 Tarvin seated himself on his gripsack, rested his 
 shaggy head in his hands, and expended himself 
 in mirth. . 
 
 “Sail in,” he instructed the baboo; “make your 
 bargain. I’m in no hurry.” 
 
 Then began a scene of declamation and riot to 
 which a quarrel in a Leadville gambling saloon 
 was a poor matter. The impassiveness of the 
 station-master deserted hin like a wind-blown gar- 
 ment. He harangued, gesticulated, and cursed; 
 and the driver; naked except for a blue loin-cloth, 
 was nothing behind him. ‘They pointed at Tarvin; 
 they seemed to be arguing over his birth and 
 ancestry; for all he knew they were appraising 
 his weight. When they seemed to be on the brink 
 of an amicable solution, the question reopened 
 itself, and they went back to the beginning, and 
 reclassified him and the journey. 
 
 Tarvin applauded both parties, sicking one on 
 the other impartially for the first ten minutes. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 69 
 
 Then he besought them to stop, and when they 
 would not he discovered that it was hot, and swore 
 at them. 
 
 The driver had for the moment exhausted himself 
 when the baboo turned suddenly on Tarvin, and, 
 clutching him by the arm, cried, almost shouting, 
 “All arrange, sir! all arrange! This man most 
 uneducated man, sir. You giving me the money, 
 I arrange everything.” 
 
 Swift as thought, the driver had caught his 
 other arm, and was imploring him in a strange 
 tongue not to listen to his opponent. As Tarvin 
 stepped back they followed him with uplifted hands 
 of entreaty and representation, the station-master 
 forgetting his English, and the driver his respect 
 for the white man. ‘Tarvin, eluding them both, 
 pitched his gripsack into the bullock-cart, bounded 
 in himself, and shouted the one Indian word he 
 knew. It happened, fortunately, to be the word 
 
 that moves all India—“ Challo!” which, being 
 
 
 
 interpreted, is “Go on!” 
 
 So, leaving strife and desolation behind him, 
 rode out into the desert of Rajputana Nicholas 
 Tarvin of Topaz, Colorado. 
 
10 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 In the State of Kot-Kumharsen, where the wild dacoits abound 
 And the Thakurs live in castles on the hills, 
 Where the bunnia and bunjara in alternate streaks are found 
 And the Rajah cannot liquidate his bills ; 
 Where the Agent Sahib Bahadur shoots the black-buck for his 
 larder 
 From the tonga which he uses as mach4an, 
 *Twas a white man from the west, came expressly to investigate 
 the natural wealth of Hindustan.* 
 Song from Libretto of Naulahka. 
 
 UNDER certain conditions four days can dwarf 
 eternity. Tarvin had found these circumstances 
 in the bullock-cart from which he crawled ninety- 
 six hours after the bullocks had got up from the 
 dust at Rawut Junction. They stretched behind 
 him — those hours—in a maddening, creaking, 
 dusty, deliberate procession. In an hour the bul- 
 lock-cart went two and a half miles. Fortunes 
 had been made and lost in Topaz —happy Topaz! 
 —while the cart ploughed its way across a red-hot 
 river-bed shut in between two walls of belted 
 sand. New cities might have risen in the West 
 and fallen to ruins older than Thebes while, after 
 
 * Copyright, 1892. by Macmillan & Co. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND FEAST. vil 
 
 any of their meals by the wayside, the driver 
 droned over a water-pipe something less wieldy 
 than a Gatling-gun. In these waits and in others 
 — it seemed to him that the journey was chiefly 
 made up of waits — Tarvin saw himself distanced 
 in the race of life by every male citizen of the 
 United States, and groaned with the consciousness 
 that he could never overtake them, or make up 
 this lost time. 
 
 Great gray cranes with scarlet heads stalked 
 through the high grass of the swamps in the pockets 
 of the hills. The snipe and the quail hardly 
 troubled themselves to move from beneath the noses 
 of the bullocks, and once in the dawn, lying upon 
 a glistening rock, he saw two young panthers 
 playing together like kittens. 
 
 A few miles from Rawut Junction his. driver 
 had taken from underneath the cart a sword, which 
 he hung around his neck, and sometimes used on 
 the bullocks as a goad. Tarvin saw that every 
 man went armed in this country, as in his own. 
 But three feet of clumsy steel struck him as a poor 
 substitute for the delicate and nimble revolver. 
 
 Once he stood up in the cart and hallooed, for he 
 thought he saw the white top of a prairie schooner. 
 But it was only a gigantic cotton-wain, drawn by 
 sixteen bullocks, dipping and plunging across the 
 ridges. Through all, the scorching Indian sun 
 
az THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 blazed down on him, making him wonder how he 
 had ever dared praise the perpetual sunshine ct 
 Colorado. At dawn the rocks glittered like 
 diamonds, and at noonday the sands of the rivers 
 troubled his eyes with a million flashing sparksa 
 At eventide a cold, dry wind would spring up, 
 and the hills lying along the horizon took a hundred 
 colors under the hght of the sunset. Then Tarvin 
 realized the meaning of “the glorious East,” for 
 the hills were turned to heaps of ruby and amethyst, 
 while between them the mists in the valleys were 
 opal. He lay in the bullock-cart on his back and 
 stared at the sky, dreaming of the Naulahka, and 
 wondering whether it would match the scenery. 
 
 “The clouds know what I’m up to. It’s a good 
 omen,” he said to himself. 
 
 He cherished the definite and simple plan of 
 buying the Naulahka and paying for it in good 
 money to be raised at Topaz by bonding the town 
 —not, of course, ostensibly for any such purpose. 
 Topaz was good for it, he believed, and if the 
 Maharajah wanted too steep a price when they 
 came to talk business he would form a syndicate. 
 
 As the cart swayed from side to side, bumping 
 his head, he wondered where Kate was. She might, 
 under favorable conditions, be in Bombay by this 
 time. That much he.knew from careful considera- 
 tion of her route; but a girl alone could not pass 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. to 
 
 from hemisphere to hemisphere as swiftly as an 
 unfettered man spurred by love of herself and of 
 Topaz. Perhaps she was resting for a little time 
 with the Zenana Mission at Bombay. He refused 
 absolutely to admit to himself that she had fallen 
 ill by the way. She was resting, receiving her 
 orders, absorbing a few of the wonders of the strange 
 lands he had contemptuously thrust behind him in 
 his eastward flight; but in a few days at most she 
 ought to be at Rhatore, whither the bullock-cart 
 was taking him. 
 
 He smiled and smacked his lips with pure enjoy- 
 ment as he thought of their meeting, and amused 
 himself with fancies about her fancies touching 
 his present whereabouts. 
 
 He had left Topaz for San Francisco by the night 
 train over the Pass a little more than twenty-four 
 hours after his conference with Mrs. Mutrie, saying 
 good by to no one, and telling nobody where he 
 was going. Kate perhaps wondered at the fervor 
 of his “Good evening” when he left her at her 
 father’s house on their return from their ride to 
 the Hot Springs. But she said nothing, and Tarvin 
 contrived by an effort to take himself off without 
 giving himself away. He had made a quiet sale 
 of a block of town lots the next day at a sacrifice, 
 to furnish himself with money for the voyage; but 
 this was too much in the way of his ordinary business 
 
74 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 to excite comment, and he was finally able to gaze 
 down at the winking lights of Topaz in the valley 
 from the rear platform of his train, as it climbed 
 up over the Continental Divide, with the certainty 
 that the town he was going to India to bless and 
 boom was not “on to” his beneficent scheme. To 
 make sure that the right story went back to the 
 town, he told the conductor of the train, in strict 
 confidence, while he smoked his usual cigar with 
 him, about a little placer-mining scheme in Alaska 
 which he was going there to nurse for a while. 
 
 The conductor embarrassed him for a moment 
 by asking what he was going to do about his elec- 
 tion meanwhile; but Tarvin was ready for him 
 here too. He said that he had that fixed. He had 
 to let him into another scheme to show him how 
 it was fixed, but as he bound him to secrecy again, 
 this didn’t matter. 
 
 He wondered now, however, whether that scheme 
 had worked, and whether Mis. Mutrie would keep 
 her promise to cable the result of the election to 
 him at Rhatore. It was amusing to have to trust 
 a woman to let him know whether he was a 
 member of the Colorado legislature or not; but 
 she was the only living person who knew his 
 address, and as the idea had seemed to please her, 
 in common with their whole “charming conspiracy” 
 (this was what she called it), Tarvin had _ been 
 content. . 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. {ii 
 
 When he had become convinced that his eyes 
 would never again be blessed with the sight of a 
 white man, or his ears with the sound of intelligi- 
 ble speech, the cart rolled through a gorge between 
 two hills, and stopped before the counterpart of 
 the station at Rawut Junction. It was a double 
 cube of red sandstone, but—for this Tarvin could 
 have taken it in his arms—it was full of white 
 men. ‘They were undressed excessively; they were 
 lying in the veranda in long chairs, and between 
 each chair was a well-worn bullock trunk. 
 
 Tarvin got himself out of the cart, unfolding 
 his long stiffened legs with difficulty, and unkinking 
 his muscles one by one. He was a mask of dust 
 —dust beyond sand-storms or cyclones. It had 
 obliterated the creases of his clothing and turned 
 his black Amcrican four-button cutaway to « 
 pearly white. It had done away with the dis- 
 tinction between the hem of his trousers and the 
 top of his shoes. It dropped off him and rolled 
 up from him as he moved. His fervent “Thank 
 God!” was extinguished in a dusty cough. He 
 stepped into the veranda, rubbing his smarting 
 eyes. 
 
 9 
 
 “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said. “Got 
 anything to drink?” 
 No one rose, but somebody shouted for the 
 
 servant. A man dressed in thin Tussur silk. 
 
76 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 yellow and ill-fitting as the shuck on a dried cob, 
 and absolutely colorless as to his face, nodded to 
 him and asked languidly: 
 
 “Who are you for?” ‘ 
 
 “No? Have they got them here too?” said 
 Tarvin to himself, recognizing in that brief ques- 
 tion the universal shibboleth of the commercial 
 traveller. 
 
 He went down the long line and twisted each 
 hand in pure joy and thankfulness before he began 
 to draw comparisons beween the East and the West, 
 and to ask himself if these idle, silent lotus-eaters 
 could belong to the profession with which he had 
 swapped stories, commodities, and political opinions 
 this many a year in smoking-cars and hotel offices. 
 Certainly they were debased and spiritless parodies 
 of the alert, aggressive, joyous, brazen animals 
 whom he knew as the drummers of the West. But 
 perhaps —a twinge in his back reminded him — 
 they had all reached this sink of desolation via 
 country bullock-cart. | 
 
 He thrust his nose into twelve inches of whiskey 
 and soda, and remained there till there was no more; 
 then dropped into a vacant chair and surveyed the 
 group again. 
 
 “Did some one ask who I was for? I’m for 
 myself, I suppose, as much as any one — travelling 
 for pleasure.” | 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. TH 
 
 He had not time to enjoy the absurdity of this, 
 for all five men burst into a shout of laughter, 
 like the laughter of men who have long been 
 estranged from mirth. 
 
 “Pleasure!” cried one. “O Lord!” “Pleasure! 
 You've come to the wrong place.” 
 
 “It’s just as well you’ve come for pleasure. 
 You’d be dead before you did business,” said 
 another. 
 
 “You might as well try to get blood out of a 
 stone. I’ve been here over a fortnight.” 
 
 “Great Scott! What for?” asked Tarvin. 
 
 “We've all been here over a week,” growled 
 a fourth. 
 
 “But what’s your lay? What’s your racket?” 
 
 “Guess you’re an American, ain’t you?” 
 
 “Yes; Topaz, Colorado.” The statement had -.no 
 effect upon them. He might as well have spoken 
 in Greek. “But what’s the trouble?” 
 
 “Why, the King married two wives yesterday. 
 You can hear the gongs going in the city now. 
 He’s trying to equip a new regiment of cavalry for 
 the service of the Indian Government, and he’s 
 quarrelled with his Political Resident. I’ve been 
 living at Colonel Nolan’s door for three days. He 
 says he can’t do anything without authority from 
 the supreme Government. I’ve tried to catch the 
 King when he goes out pig-shooting. I write 
 
78 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 every day to the Prime Minister, when I’m not 
 riding around the city on a camel; and here’s a 
 bunch of letters from the firm asking why I don’t 
 collect.” ; 
 
 At the end of ten minutes Tarvin began to 
 understand that these washed-out representatives 
 of half a dozen firms in Calcutta and Bombay were 
 hopelessly besieging this place on their regular 
 spring campaign to collect a little on account from 
 a king who ordered by the ton and paid by the 
 scruple. He had purchased guns, dressing-cases, 
 mirrors, mantlepiece ornaments, crochet-work, the 
 iridescent Christmas-tree glass balls, saddlery, mail- 
 phaétons, four-in-hands, scent-bottles, surgical in- 
 struments, chandeliers, and chinaware by the dozen, 
 gross, or score as his royal fancy prompted. When 
 he lost interest in his purchases he lost interest 
 in paying for them; and as few things amused his 
 jaded fancy more than twenty minutes, it some- 
 times came to pass that the mere purchase was 
 sufficient, and the costly packing-cases from Cal- 
 cutta were never opened. ‘The ordered peace of 
 the Indian Empire forbade him to take up arms 
 against his fellow sovereigns, the only lasting 
 delight that he or his ancestors had known for thou- 
 sands of years; but there remained a certain modi- 
 fied interest of war in battling with bill-collectors. 
 On one side stood the Political Resident of the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. (is 
 
 State, planted there to teach him good government, 
 and, above all, economy; on the other side — that 
 is to say, at the palace gates — might generally be 
 found a commercial traveller, divided between his 
 contempt of an evasive debtor and his English 
 reverence for a king. Between these two his 
 Majesty went forth to take his pleasure in pig- 
 sticking, in racing, in the drilling of his army, in 
 the ordering of more unnecessaries, and in _ the 
 fitful government of his womankind, who knew 
 considerably more of each commercial traveller’s 
 claims than even the Prime Minister. Behind 
 these was the Government of India, explicitly 
 refusing to guarantee payment of the King’s debts, 
 and from time to time sending him, on a blue 
 velvet cushion, the jewelled insignia of an imperial 
 order to sweeten the remonstrances of the Political 
 Resident. 
 
 “Well, I hope you make the King pay for it,” 
 said Tarvin. 
 
 “ How’s that?” 
 
 “Why, in my country, when a customer sillies 
 about like that, promising to meet a man one day 
 at the hotel and not showing up and then promising 
 to meet him the next day at the store and not pay- 
 ing, a@ drummer says to himself: ‘Oh, all right. 
 If you want to pay my board, and my wine, liquor, 
 and cigar bill, while I wait, don’t mind me. I'll 
 
80 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 mosey along somehow.’ And after the second day 
 he charges up his poker losings to him.” 
 
 “Ah, that’s interesting. But how does he get . 
 those items into his account?” 
 
 “'They go into the next bill of goods he sells 
 him, of course. He makes the prices right for 
 that.” 
 
 “Oh, we can make prices right enough. The 
 difficulty is to get your money.” 
 
 “But I don’t see how you fellows have the time 
 to monkey around here at this rate,” urged Tarvin, 
 mystified. “Where I come from a man makes his 
 trip on schedule time, and when he’s a day behind 
 he’ll wire to his customer in the town ahead to 
 come down to the station and meet him, and he’ll 
 sell him a bill of goods while the train waits. He 
 could sell him the earth while one of your bullock- 
 carts went a mile. And as to getting your money, 
 why don’t you get out an attachment on the old 
 sinner? In your places I’d attach the whole country 
 on him. I’d attach the palace, I’d attach his 
 crown. Id get a judgment against him, and I'd 
 execute it too—personally, if necessary. I’d lock 
 the old fellow up and rule Rajputana for him, if 
 I had to; but I’d have his money.” 
 
 A compassionate smile ran around the group. 
 
 > 
 
 “That’s because you don’t know,” said several at 
 
 once. Then they began to explain voluminously. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 81 
 
 There was no languor about them now; they all 
 spoke together. 
 
 The men in the veranda, though they seemed 
 idle, were no fools, Tarvin perceived after a time. 
 Lying still as beggars at the gate of greatness was 
 their method of doing business. It wasted time, 
 but in the end some sort of payment was sure to 
 be made, especially, explained the man in the 
 yellow coat, if you could interest the Prime Minister 
 in your needs, and through him wake the interests 
 of the King’s women. 
 
 A flicker of memory made Tarvin smile faintly 
 as he thought of Mrs. Mutrie. 
 
 The man in the yellow coat went on, and Tarvin 
 learned that the head queen was a murderess, con- 
 victed of poisoning her former husband. She had 
 lain crouching in an iron cage awaiting execution 
 when the King first saw her, and the King had 
 demanded whether she would poison him if he 
 married her, so the tale ran. Assuredly, she re- 
 pled, if he treated her as her late husband had 
 treated her. ‘Thereupon the King had married her, 
 partly to please his fancy, mainly through sheer 
 delight in her brutal answer. 
 
 This gypsy without lineage held in less than a 
 year King and state under her feet—feet which 
 women of the household sang spitefully were 
 roughened with travel of shameful roads. She 
 
 G 
 
82 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 had borne the King one son, in whom all her pride 
 and ambition centred, and, after his birth, she 
 had apphed herself with renewed energy to the 
 maintenance of mastery in the state. The supreme 
 Government, a thousand miles away, knew that 
 she was a force to be reckoned with, and had no 
 love for her. The white-haired, soft-spoken Politi- 
 cal Resident, Colonel Nolan, who lived in the 
 pink house a bow-shot from the city gates, was 
 often thwarted by her. Her latest victory was 
 peculiarly humiliating to him, for she» had dis- 
 covered that a rock-hewn canal designed to supply 
 the city with water in summer would pass through 
 an orange-garden under her window, and had used 
 her influence with the Maharajah against it. The 
 Maharajah had thereupon caused it to be taken 
 around by another way at an expense of a quarter 
 of his year’s revenue, and in the teeth of the almost 
 tearful remonstrance of the Resident. 
 
 Sitabhai, the gypsy, behind her silken curtains, 
 had both heard and seen this interview between 
 the Rajah and his Political, and had laughed. 
 
 Tarvin devoured all this. eagerly. It fed his 
 purpose; it was grist to his mill, even if it tumbled 
 his whole plan of attack topsy-turvy. It opened upa 
 new world for which he had no measures and stand- 
 ards, and in which he must be frankly and constantly 
 dependent on the inspiration of the next moment. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 83 
 
 He couldn’t know too much of this world before 
 taking his first step toward the Naulahka, and he 
 was willing to hear all that these lazy fellows 
 would tell him. He began to feel as if he should 
 have to go back and learn his A B C’s over again. 
 What pleased this strange being they called King? 
 what appealed to him? what tickled him? above 
 all, what did he fear?. ; 
 
 _ He was thinking much and rapidly. 
 
 But he said, “No wonder your King is bank- 
 rupt if he has such a court to look after.” 
 
 “He’s one of the richest princes in India,” 
 returned the man in the yellow coat. “He doesn’t 
 know himself what he has.” 
 
 “Why doesn’t he pay his debts, then, instead 
 of keeping you mooning about here?” 
 
 “Because he’s a native. He’d spend a hundred 
 thousand pounds on a marriage-feast, and delay 
 payment of a bill for two hundred rupees four 
 years.” 
 
 “You ought to cure him of that,” insisted Tarvin. 
 “Send a sheriff after the crown jewels.” 
 
 “You don’t know Indian princes. They would 
 pay a bill before they would let the crown jewels 
 go. They are sacred. ‘They are part of the Govern- 
 ment.” , 
 
 “Ah, I'd give something to see the Luck of 
 the State!” exclaimed a voice from one of the 
 
84 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 chairs, which Tarvin afterward learned belonged 
 to the agent of a Calcutta firm of jewellers. 
 
 “What’s that?’ he asked as casually as he 
 knew how, sipping his whiskey and soda. 
 
 “The Naulahka. Don’t you know?” 
 
 Tarvin was saved the need of an answer by 
 the man in yellow. “Pshaw! AI that talk about © 
 the Naulahka is invented by the priests.” 
 
 “T don’t think so,” returned the jeweller’s agent, 
 judicially. “The King told me when I was last 
 here that he had once shown it to a viceroy. But 
 he is the only foreigner who has ever seen it. 
 The King assured me he didn’t know where it 
 was himself.” | 
 
 “ Pooh! Do you believe in carved emeralds 
 two inches square?” asked the other, turning to 
 Tarvin. 
 
 “'That’s only the centrepiece,” said the jeweller; 
 “and I wouldn’t mind wagering that it’s a tallow- 
 drop emerald. It isn’t that that staggers me. 
 My wonder is how these chaps, who don’t care 
 anything for water in a stone, could have taken 
 the trouble to get together half a dozen perfect 
 gems, much less fifty. They say that the necklace 
 was begun when William the Conqueror came 
 over.” 
 
 “That gives them a year or two,” said Tarvin. 
 “T would undertake to get a little jewelry together 
 myself if you gave me eight centuries.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. Rh 
 
 His face was turned a little away from them as 
 he lay back in his chair. His heart was going 
 quickly. He had been through mining-trades, 
 land-speculations, and cattle-deals in his time. He 
 had known moments when the turn of a hair, the 
 wrinkle of an eyelid, meant ruin to him. But 
 they were not moments into which eight centuries 
 were gathered. 
 
 They looked at him with a remote pity in their 
 eyes. 
 
 “Five absolutely perfect specimens of the nine 
 precious stones,” began the jeweller; “the ruby, 
 emerald, sapphire, diamond, opal, cat’s-eye, tur- 
 quoise, amethyst, and — ” 
 
 “'Topaz?” asked Tarvin, with the air of a pro- 
 prietor. 
 
 “No; black diamond —black as night.” 
 
 “But how do you know all these things; how 
 do you get on to them?” asked Tarvin, curiously. 
 
 “Like everything else in a native state — common 
 talk, but difficult to prove. Nobody can as much 
 as guess where that necklace is.” 
 
 “Probably under the foundations of some temple 
 
 * said the yellow-coated man. 
 
 in the city,’ 
 
 Tarvin, in spite of the careful guard he was 
 keeping over himself, could not help kindling at 
 this. He saw himself digging the city up.” 
 
 “Where zs this city?” inquired hv. 
 
86 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 They pointed across the sun-glare, and showed 
 him a rock girt by a triple line of wall. It was 
 exactly like one of the many ruined cities that 
 Tarvin had passed in the bullock-cart. <A rock of 
 a dull and angry red surmounted that rock. Up 
 to the foot of the rock ran the yellow sands of the 
 actual desert — the desert that supports neither tree 
 nor shrub, only the wild ass, and somewhere in its 
 heart, men say, the wild camel. 
 
 Tarvin stared through the palpitating haze of 
 heat, and saw that there was neither life nor motion 
 about the city. It was a little after noonday, and 
 his Majesty’s subjects were asleep. This solid 
 block of loneliness, then, was the visible end of 
 his journey —the Jericho he had come from Topaz 
 to attack. 
 
 And he reflected, “Now, if a man should come 
 from New York in a bullock-cart to whistle around 
 the Sauguache Range, I wonder what sort of fool 
 I’d call him!” 
 
 He rose and stretched his dusty limbs. “ What 
 time does it get cool enough to take in the town?” 
 he asked. 
 
 “Do what to the town? Better be careful. You 
 might find yourself in difficulties with the Resi- 
 dent,’’ warned his friendly adviser. 
 
 Tarvin could not understand why a stroll through 
 the deadest town he had ever seen should be for- 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 87 
 
 bidden. But he held his peace, inasmuch as he 
 was in a strange country where nothing, save a 
 certain desire for command on the part of the 
 women, was as he had known it. He would take 
 in the town thoroughly. Otherwise he began to fear 
 that its monumental sloth— there was still no sign 
 of life upon the walled rock — would swallow him 
 up, or turn him into a languid Calcutta drummer. 
 
 Something must be done at once before his wits 
 were numbed. He inquired the way to the tele- 
 graph-office, half-doubting, even though he saw 
 the wires, the existence of a telegraph in Rhatore. 
 
 “By the way,” one of the men called after him, 
 “it’s worth remembering that any telegram you 
 send here is handed all round the court and shown 
 to the King.” 
 
 Tarvin thanked him, and thought this was worth 
 remembering, as he trudged on through the sand 
 toward a desecrated Mohammedan mosque near the 
 road to the city which was doing duty as a tele- 
 eraph-office 
 
 A trooper of the state was lying fast asleep on 
 the threshold, his horse picketed to a long bamboo 
 lance driven into the ground. Other sign of life 
 there was none, save a few doves cooing sleepily 
 in the darkness under the arch. 
 
 Tarvin gazed about him dispiritedly for the blue 
 and white sign of the Western Union, or its 
 
88 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 analogue in this queer land. He saw that the 
 telegraph-wires disappeared through a hole in the 
 dome of the mosque. ‘There were two or three 
 low wooden doors under the archway. He opened 
 one at random, and stepped upon a warm, hairy 
 body, which sprang up with a grunt. ‘Tarvin had 
 hardly time to draw back before a young buffalo 
 calf rushed out. Undisturbed, he opened another 
 door, disclosing a flight of steps eighteen inches 
 wide. Up these he travelled with difficulty, hoping 
 to catch the sound of the ticker. But the building 
 was as silent as the tomb it had once been. He 
 opened another door, and stumbled into a room, 
 the domed ceiling of which was inlaid with fretted 
 tracery in barbaric colors, picked out with myriads 
 of tiny fragments of mirrors. The flood of color 
 and the glare of the snow-white floor made him 
 blink after the pitchy darkness of the staircase. 
 Still, the place was undoubtedly a telegraph-office, 
 for an antiquated: instrument was clamped upon 
 a cheap dressing-table. The sunlight streamed 
 through the gash in the dome which had been made 
 to admit the telegraph-wires, and which had not 
 been repaired. 
 
 Tarvin stood in the sunlight and stared about 
 him. He took off the soft, wide-brimmed Western 
 hat, which he was finding too warm for this climate, 
 and -mopped his forehead. As he stood in the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 89 
 
 sunlight, straight, clean-limbed, and strong, one 
 who lurked in this mysterious spot with designs 
 upon him would have decided that he did not look 
 a wholesome person to attack. He pulled at the 
 long thin mustache which drooped at the corners 
 of his mouth in a curve shaped by the’ habit of 
 tugging at it in thought, and muttered picturesque 
 remarks in a tongue to which these walls had never 
 echoed. What chance was there of communicating 
 with the United States of America from this abyss 
 of oblivion? Even the “damn” that came back to 
 him from the depths of the dome sounded foreign 
 and inexpressive. 
 
 A sheeted figure lay on the floor. “It takes a 
 -dead man to run this place,” exclaimed Tarvin, 
 discovering the body. “Hallo, you! Get up 
 there!” ) 
 
 The figure rose to its feet with grunts, cast away 
 its covering, and disclosed a very sleepy native in 
 a complete suit of dove-colored satin. 
 
 sitio}? cried he. 
 
 “Yes,” returned Tarvin, imperturbably. 
 
 “You want to see me?”’ 
 
 “No; I want to send a telegram, if there’s any 
 electric fluid in this old tomb.” 
 
 “Sir,” said the native, affably, “you have come 
 to right shop. I am telegraph-operator and post- 
 master-general of this state.” 
 
90 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 He seated himself in the decayed chair, opened 
 a drawer of the table, and began to search for 
 something. 
 
 “What you looking for, young man? Lost 
 your connection with Calcutta?” 
 
 “Most gentlemen bring their own forms,” he 
 said with a distant note of reproach in his bland 
 manner. “But here is form. Have you got 
 pencil?” 
 
 “Oh, see here, don’t let me strain this office. 
 Hadn’t you better go and he down again? Ill 
 tap the message off myself. What’s your signal 
 for Calcutta?” 
 
 “You, sir, not understanding this instrument.” 
 
 “Don’t 1? You ought to see me milk the wires - 
 at election-time.”’ 
 
 “This instrument require most judeecious hand- 
 ling, sir. You write message. I send. That is 
 proper division of labor. Ha, ha!” 
 
 Tarvin wrote his message, which ran thus: 
 
 “ Getting there. Remember Three C.’s. 
 | TARVIN.” 
 
 It was addressed to Mrs. Mutrie at the address 
 she had given him in Denver. 
 
 “Rush it,” he said, as he handed it back over 
 the table to the smiling image. 
 
 “All right; no fear. I am here for that,” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 91 
 
 returned the native, understanding in general 
 terms from the cabalistic word that his customer 
 was in haste. 
 
 “Will the thing ever get there?” drawled Tarvin, 
 as he leaned over the table and met the gaze of 
 the satin-clothed being with an air of good com. 
 radeship, which invited him to let him into the 
 fraud, if there was one. 
 
 “Oh, yes; to-morrow. Denver is in the United 
 States America,” said the native, looking up at 
 Tarvin with childish glee in the sense of knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 “Shake!” exclaimed Tarvin, offering him a 
 hairy fist. ‘“‘You’ve been well brought up.” 
 
 He stayed half an hour fraternizing with the 
 man on the foundation of this common ground of 
 knowledge, and saw him work the message off on 
 his instrument, his heart going out on that first 
 click all the way home. In the midst of the con- 
 versation the native suddenly dived into the 
 cluttered drawer of the dressing-table, and drew 
 forth a telegram’ covered with dust, which he 
 offered to Tarvin’s scrutiny. 
 
 “You knowing any new Englishman coming to 
 Rhatore name Turpin?” he asked. 
 
 Tarvin stared at the address a moment, and then 
 tore open the envelope to find, as he expected, that 
 it was for him. It was from Mrs. Mutrie, con- 
 
92 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 eratulating him on his election to the Colorado 
 legislature by a majority of 1518 over Sheriff. 
 
 Tarvin uttered an abandoned howl of joy, exe- 
 cuted a war-dance on the white floor of the mosque, 
 snatched the astounded operator from behind his 
 table, and whirled him away into a mad waltz. 
 ‘Then, making a low salaam to the now wholly 
 bewildered native, he rushed from the building, 
 waving his cable in the air, and went capering up 
 the road. 
 
 When he was back at the rest-house again he 
 retired to a bath to grapple seriously with the dust 
 of the desert, while the commercial travellers with- 
 out discussed his comings and goings. He plunged 
 about luxuriously in a gigantic bowl of earthen- 
 ware, while a brown-skinned water-carrier sluiced 
 the contents of a goat-skin over his head. 
 
 A voice in the veranda, a little louder than the 
 others, said, “ He’s probably come prospecting for 
 gold or boring for oil, and won’t tell.” 
 
 Tarvin winked a wet left eye. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 93 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 There is pleasure in the wet, wet clay 
 When the artist’s hand is potting it, 
 There is pleasure in the wet, wet lay 
 When the poet’s pad is blotting it, 
 There is pleasure in the shine of your picture on the line 
 At the Royal Acade-my ; 
 But the pleasure felt in these is as chalk to cheddar cheese 
 When it comes to a well-made Lie, 
 To a quite unwreckable Lie, 
 To amost impeccable Lie ! 
 To a water-tight, fireproof, angle-iron, sunk-hinge, time-lock, 
 steel-faced Lie ! 
 Not a private hansom Lie, 
 But a pair and brougham Lie ; 
 Not a little place at Tooting, but a country-house with shoot- 
 ing and a ringe-fence deer-park Lie! * 
 Op. 3. 
 
 A COMMON rest-house in the desert is not over- 
 stocked with furniture or carpets. One table, 
 two chairs, a rack on the door for clothing, and a 
 list of charges, are sufficient for each room; and 
 the traveller brings his own bedding. ‘Tarvin read 
 the tariff with deep interest before falling asleep 
 that night, and discovered that this was only in a 
 distant sense a hotel, and that he was open to the 
 danger of being turned out at twelve hours’ notice, 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co. 
 
94 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 after he had inhabited his unhomely apartment for 
 a day and a night. 
 
 Before he went to bed he called. for pen and ink, 
 and wrote a letter to Mrs. Mutrie on the note-paper 
 of his land and improvement company. Under the 
 map of Colorado, at the top, which confidently 
 showed the railroad system of the State converging 
 at Topaz, was the legend, “N. Tarvin, Real Estate 
 and Insurance Agent.” ‘The tone of his letter was 
 even more assured than the map. 
 
 He dreamed that night that the Maharajah was 
 swapping the Naulahka with him for town lots. 
 His Majesty backed out just as they were con- 
 cluding the deal, and demanded that Tarvin should 
 throw in his own favorite mine, the “Lingering 
 Lode,”’ to boot. In his dream Tarvin had kicked 
 at this, and the Rajah had responded, “All right, 
 my boy; no Three C.’s then,” and Tarvin had 
 yielded the point, had hung the Naulahka about 
 Mrs. Mutrie’s neck, and in the same breath had 
 heard the speaker of the Colorado legislature declar- 
 ing that since the coming of the Three C.’s he 
 officially recognized Topaz as the metropolis of 
 the West. Then, perceiving that he himself was 
 the speaker, Tarvin began to doubt the genuineness 
 of these remarks, and awoke, with aloes in his 
 mouth, to find the dawn spreading over Rhatore, 
 and beckoning him out to the conquests of reality. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 95 
 
 He was confronted in the veranda by a grizzled, 
 bearded, booted native soldier on a camel, who 
 handed down to him a greasy little brown book, 
 bearing the legend, Please write “ seen.” 
 
 Tarvin looked at this new development from the 
 heated landscape with interest, but not with an 
 outward effect of surprise. He had already learned 
 one secret of the East, never to be surprised at 
 anything. He took the book and read, on a 
 thumbed page, the announcement, “ Divine services 
 conducted on Sundays in the drawing-room of the 
 residency at 7.30 A.M. Strangers are cordially 
 invited to attend. (Signed) L. R. Estes, American 
 Presbyterian Mission.” 
 
 “They don’t get up early for nothing in this 
 country,” mused Tarvin. “‘Church at 7.30 A.M.’ 
 When do they have dinner? Well, what do I do 
 about this?” he asked the man aloud. ‘The trooper 
 and camel looked at him together, and grunted 
 as they went away. It was no concern of theirs. 
 
 Tarvin addressed a remark of confused purport 
 to the retreating figures. This was plainly not a 
 country in which business could be done at red 
 heat. He hungered for the moment when, with 
 the necklace in his pocket and Kate by his side, 
 he should again set his face westward. 
 
 The shortest way to that was to go over to cali 
 on the wissionary. He was an American, and 
 
96 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 could tell him about the Naulahka if anybody 
 could; Tarvin had also a shrewd suspicion that 
 he could tell him something about Kate. 
 
 The missionary’s home, which was just without 
 the city walls, was also of red sandstone, one 
 story high, and as bare of vines, or any living 
 thing, as the station at Rawut Junction. But 
 he presently found that there were living beings 
 inside the house, with warm hearts and a welcome 
 for him. Mrs. Estes turned out to be that motherly 
 and kindly woman, with the instinct for house- 
 keeping, who would make a home of a cave. She 
 had a round, smooth face, a soft skin, and quiet, 
 happy eyes. She may have been forty. Her still 
 untinged brown hair was brushed smoothly back; 
 her effect was sedate and restful. 
 
 Their visitor had learned that they came from 
 Bangor, Maine, had founded a tie of brotherhood 
 on the fact that his father had been born on a farm 
 down Portland way, and had been invited to break- 
 fast before he had been ten minutes in the house. 
 Tarvin’s gift of sympathy was irresistible. He 
 was the kind of man to whom men confide their 
 heart-secrets, and the canker of their inmost lives, 
 in hotel smoking-rooms. He was the repository 
 of scores of tales of misery and error which he 
 could do nothing to help, and of a few which he 
 could help and had helped. Before breakfast wa: 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 97 
 
 ready he had from Estes and his wife the whole pic- 
 ture of their situation at Rhatore. They told him 
 of their troubles with the Maharajah and with the 
 Maharajah’s wives, and of the exceeding unfruit- 
 fulness of their work; and then of their children, 
 living in the exile of Indian children, at home. 
 They explained that they meant Bangor; they 
 were there with an aunt, receiving their education 
 at the hands of a public school. 
 
 “It’s five years since we saw them,” said Mrs. 
 Estes, as they sat down to breakfast. “Fred was 
 only six when he went, and Laura was eight. 
 They are eleven and thirteen now—only think! 
 We hope they haven’t forgotten us; but how can 
 they remember? ‘They are only children.” 
 
 And then she told him stories of the renewal of 
 filial ties in India, after such absences, that made 
 his blood run cold. 
 
 The breakfast woke a violent homesickness in 
 Tarvin. After a month at sea, two days of the 
 chance railway meals between Calcutta and Rawut 
 Junction, and a night at the rest-house, he was 
 prepared to value the homely family meal, and the 
 abundance of an American breakfast. They began 
 with a watermelon, which did not help him to 
 feel at home, because watermelons were next to 
 an unknown luxury at Topaz, and when known, 
 
 did not ripen in grocers’ windows in the month 
 H 
 
98 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 of April. But the oatmeal brought him home 
 again, and the steak and fried potatoes, the coffee 
 and the hot brown pop-overs, with their beguiling 
 yellow interiors, were reminders far too deep for 
 tears. Mrs. Estes, enjoying his enjoyment, said 
 they must have out the can of maple syrup, which 
 had been sent them all the way from Bangor; and 
 when the white-robed, silent-moving servant in the 
 red turban came in with the waffles, she sent him 
 for it. They were all very happy together over 
 this, and said pleasant things about the American 
 republic, while the punka sang its droning song 
 over their heads. 
 
 Tarvin had a map of Colorado in his pocket, 
 of course, and when the talk, swinging to one part 
 of the United States and another, worked Westward, 
 he spread it out on the breakfast-table between 
 the waffles and the steak, and showed them the 
 position of Topaz. He explained to Estes how a 
 new railway, running north and south, would make 
 the town, and then he had to say affectionately what 
 a wonderful town it really was, and to tell them 
 about the buildings they had put up in the last 
 twelve months, and how they had picked them- 
 selves up after the fire and gone to building the 
 next morning. ‘The fire had brought $100,000 into 
 the town in insurance, he said. He exaggerated 
 his exaggerations in unconscious defiance of the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 99 
 
 hugeness of the empty landscape lying outside the 
 window. He did not mean to let the East engulf 
 him or Topaz. 
 
 “We've got a young lady coming to us, I think, 
 from your state,” interrupted Mrs. Estes, to whom 
 all Western towns were alike. “ Wasn’t it Topaz, 
 Lucien? I’m almost sure it was.” 
 
 She rose and went to her work-basket for a letter, 
 from which she confirmed her statement. “ Yes; 
 Topaz. A Miss Sheriff. She comes to us from the 
 Zenana Mission. Perhaps you know her?” 
 
 Tarvin’s head bent over the map, which he was 
 refolding. He answered shortly, “Yes; I know 
 her. When is she likely to be here?” 
 
 “Most any day now,” said Mrs. Estes. 
 
 “It seems a pity,” said Tarvin, “to bring a 
 young girl out here all alone, away from her 
 friends —though I’m sure you’ll be friends to 
 her,” he added quickly, seeking Mrs. Estes’s eyes. 
 
 “We shall try to keep her from getting home- 
 sick,” said Mrs. Estes, with the motherly note in 
 her voice. “There’s Fred and Laura home in . 
 
 ’ 
 
 Bangor, you know,” she added after a pause. 
 “That will be good of you,” said ‘Tarvin, with 
 more feeling than the interests of the Zenana 
 Mission demanded. 
 “ May I ask what your business is here?” inquired 
 the missionary, as he passed his cup to his wife to 
 
 be refilled. 
 
100 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 He had a rather formal habit of speech, and his 
 words came muffled from the depths of a dense 
 jungle of beard —iron-gray and unusually long. 
 He had a benevolently grim face, a precise but 
 friendly manner, and a good way of looking one 
 in the eye which Tarvin liked. He was a man of 
 decided opinions, particularly about the native 
 races of India. 
 
 “Well, I’m prospecting,” said Tarvin, in a 
 leisurely tone, glancing out of the window as if 
 he expected to see Kate start up out of the desert. 
 
 “Ah! For gold?” 
 
 “'W-e-l-l, yes; as much that as anything.” 
 
 Estes invited him out upon the veranda to smoke 
 a cigar with him; his wife brought her sewing and 
 sat with them; and as they smoked Tarvin asked 
 him his questions about the Naulahka. Where 
 was it? What was it? he inquired boldly. But 
 he found that the missionary, though an American, 
 was no wiser about it than the lazy commercial 
 travellers at the rest-house. He knew that it 
 existed, but knew no man who had seen it save 
 the Maharajah. Tarvin got at this through much 
 talk about other things which interested him less; 
 but he began to see an idea in the gold-mining te 
 which the missionary persistently returned. Estes 
 suid he meant to engage in placer-mining, of 
 
 course ? 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 101 
 
 ”* assented Tarvin. 
 
 “Of course, 
 
 “But you won’t find much gold in the Amet 
 River, I fancy. ‘The natives have washed it spas- 
 modically for hundreds of years. There is nothing 
 to be found but what little silt washes down from 
 the quartz rocks of the Gungra Hills. But you 
 will be undertaking work on a large scale, I 
 judge?” said the missionary, looking at him 
 curiously. 
 
 “Oh, on a large scale, of course.” 
 
 Estes added that he supposed he had thought 
 of the political difficulties in his way. He would 
 have to get the consent of Colonel Nolan, and 
 through him the consent of the British Government, 
 if he meant to do anything serious in the state. 
 In fact he would have to get Colonel Nolan’s 
 consent to stay in Rhatore at all. 
 
 “Do you mean that I shall have to make it worth 
 the British Government’s while to let me alone?” 
 
 fies? 
 
 “All right; I’ll do that too.’ 
 
 Mrs. Estes looked up quickly at her husband 
 from under her eyebrows. Woman-like, she was 
 
 thinking. 
 
102 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 When a Lover hies abroad 
 
 Looking for his Love, 
 Azrael smiling sheaths his sword, 
 
 Heaven smiles above. 
 Earth and Sea 
 His servants be 
 And to lesser compass round, 
 That his Love be sooner found.* 
 
 Chorus from Libretto of Naulahka. 
 
 TARVIN learned a number of things within the 
 next week; and with what the West calls “adapta- 
 bility,” put on, with the complete suit of white 
 linen which he donned the second day, an initiation 
 into the whole new system of manners, usages, and 
 traditions. ‘They were not all agreeable, but they 
 were all in a good cause, and he took pains to see 
 that his new knowledge should not go for nothing, 
 by securing an immediate presentation to the only 
 man in the state of whom it was definitely 
 assertable that he had seen the object of his hopes. 
 Estes willingly presented him to the Maharajah. 
 The missionary and he rode one morning up the 
 steep slopes of the rock on which stood the palace, 
 
 * Copyvight, 1892, by Macmillan & Co. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 103 
 
 itself rock-hewn. Passing through a deep archway, 
 they entered a marble-flagged court-yard, and there 
 found the Maharajah, attended by one ragged and 
 out-at-elbow menial, discussing the points of a 
 fox-terrier, which was lying before him on the 
 flags. 
 
 Tarvin, unversed in kings, had expected a cer- 
 tain amount of state from one who did not pay his 
 bills, and might be reasonably expected to culti- 
 vate reserve; but he was not prepared for the slov- 
 enly informality of a ruler in his everyday garb, 
 released from the duty of behaving with restraint 
 in the presence of a viceroy, nor for the picturesque 
 mixture of dirt and decoration about the court. 
 The Maharajah proved a large and amiable despot, 
 brown and bush-bearded, arrayed in a_ gold- 
 sprigged green velvet dressing-gown, who ap- 
 peared only too delighted to meet a man who had 
 no connection with the Government of India, and 
 who never mentioned the subject of money. 
 
 The disproportionate smallness of his hands and 
 feet showed that the ruler of Gokral Seetarun came 
 of the oldest blood in Rajputana; his fathers had 
 fought hard and ridden far with sword-hilts and 
 stirrups that would hardly serve an English child. 
 His face was bloated and sodden, and the dull eyes 
 stared wearily above deep, rugged pouches. To 
 Tarvin, accustomed to read the motives of Western 
 
104 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 men in their faces, there seemed to be neither fear 
 nor desire in those eyes—only an _ everlasting 
 weariness. It was like looking at an extinct 
 volcano -—a volcano that rumbled in good English. 
 
 Tarvin had a natural interest in dogs, and the 
 keenest possible desire to ingratiate himself with 
 the ruler of the state. As a king he considered him 
 something of an imposture, but as a brother dog- 
 fancier, and the lord of the Naulahka, he was to 
 Tarvin more than a brother; that is to say, the 
 brother of one’s beloved. He spoke eloquently and 
 to the point. 
 
 “Come again,” said the Maharajah, with a light 
 of real interest in his eyes, as Estes, a little scan- 
 dalized, drew off his guest. “Come again this 
 evening after dinner. You have come from new 
 countries ?” 
 
 His Majesty, later, carried away by the evening 
 draught of opium, without which no Rajput can 
 talk or think, taught this irreverent stranger, who 
 told him tales of white men beyond the seas, the 
 royal game of pachisi. They played it far into the 
 night, in the marble-flagged court-yard, surrounded 
 by green shutters from behind which Tarvin could 
 hear, without turning his head, the whisper of 
 watching women and the rustle of silken robes. 
 The palace, he saw, was all eyes. 
 
 Next morning, at dawn, he found the King 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 105 
 
 waiting at the head of the main street of his city 
 for a certain notorious wild boar to come home. 
 The game-laws of Gokral Seetarun extended to the 
 streets of walled towns, and the wild pig rooted 
 unconcerned at night in the alleyways. The pig 
 came, and was dropped, at a hundred yards, by his 
 Majesty’s new Express rifle. It was a clean shot, 
 and ‘Tarvin applauded cordially. Had his Majesty 
 the King ever seen a flying coin hit by a pistol- 
 bullet? The weary eyes brightened with childish 
 delight. The King had not seen this feat, and had 
 not the coin. ‘Tarvin flung an American quarter 
 skyward, and clipped it with his revolver as it fell. 
 Thereupon the King begged him to do it again, 
 which Tarvin, valuing his reputation, politely de- 
 clined to do unless one of the court officials would 
 set the example. 
 
 The King was himself anxious to try, and Tarvin 
 threw the coin for him. The bullet whizzed 
 unpleasantly close to Tarvin’s ear, but the quarter 
 on the grass was dented when he picked it up. The 
 King liked Tarvin’s dent as well as if it had been 
 his own, and Tarvin was not the man to undeceive 
 him. 
 
 The following morning the royal favor was 
 completely withdrawn, and it was not until he had 
 conferred with the disconsolate drummers in the 
 rest-house that Tarvin learned that Sitabhai had 
 
106 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 been indulging one of her queenly rages. On 
 this he transferred himself and his abundant 
 capacity for interesting men offhand to Colonel 
 Nolan, and made that weary white-haired man 
 laugh as he had not laughed since he had been a 
 subaltern over an account of the King’s revolver 
 practice. ‘Tarvin shared his luncheon, and dis- 
 covered from him in the course of the afternoon 
 the true policy of the Government of India in 
 regard to the state of Gokral Seetarun. ‘The 
 Government hoped to elevate it; but as the Maha- 
 rajah would not pay for the means of civilization, 
 the progress was slow. Colonel Nolan’s account 
 of the internal policy of the palace, given with 
 official caution, was absolutely different from the 
 missionary’s, which again differed entirely from the 
 profane account of the men in the rest-house. 
 
 At twilight the Maharajah pursued Tarvin with 
 a mounted messenger, for the favor of the royal 
 countenance was restored, and he required the 
 presence of the tall man who clipped coins in the 
 air, told tales, and played pachisi. ‘There was more 
 than pachisi upon the board that night, and his 
 Majesty the King grew pathetic, and confided to 
 Tarvin a long and particular account of his own 
 and the state’s embarrassments, which presented 
 everything in a fourth new light. He concluded 
 with an incoherent appeal to the President of the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 107 
 
 United States, on whose illimitable powers and 
 far-reaching authority Tarvin dwelt, with a patriot- 
 ism extended for the moment to embrace the nation 
 to which Topaz belonged. For many reasons he 
 did not conceive that this was an- auspicious time 
 to open negotiations for the transfer of the 
 Naulahka. The Maharajah would have given 
 away half his kingdom, and appealed to the Resi- 
 dent in the morning. | 
 
 The next day, and many succeeding days, 
 brought to the door of the rest-house, where Tarvin 
 was still staying, a procession of rainbow-clad 
 Orientals, ministers of the court each one, who 
 looked with contempt on the waiting commercial 
 travellers, and deferentially made themselves known 
 to Tarvin, whom they warned in fluent and stilted 
 English against trusting anybody except them- 
 selves. Each confidence wound up with, “And 
 I am your true friend, sir”; and each man accused 
 his fellows to the stranger of every crime against 
 the state, or ill will toward the Government of 
 India, that it had entered his own brain to 
 conceive. 
 
 Tarvin could only faintly conjecture what all 
 this meant. It seemed to him no extraordinary 
 mark of court favor to play pachisi with the King, 
 and the mazes of Oriental diplomacy were dark to 
 him. The ministers were equally at a loss to 
 
108 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 understand him. He had walked in upon them 
 from out the sky-lne, utterly selt-possessed, utterly 
 fearless, and, so far as they could see, utterly dis- 
 interested; the greater reason, therefore, for sus- 
 pecting that he was a veiled emissary of the Govern- , 
 ment, whose plans they could not fathom. That 
 he was barbarously ignorant of everything per- 
 taining to the Government of India only confirmed 
 their belief. It was enough for them to know that 
 he went to the King in secret, was closeted with 
 him for hours, and possessed, for the time being, 
 the royal ear. 
 
 These smooth-voiced, stately, mysterious strangers 
 filled Tarvin with weariness and disgust, and he 
 took out his revenge upon the commercial travellers, 
 to whom he sold stock in his land and improvement 
 company between their visits. The yellow-coated 
 man, as his first friend and adviser, he allowed to 
 purchase a very few shares in the “Lingering 
 Lode,” on the dead quiet. It was before the days 
 of the gold boom in Lower Bengal, and there was 
 still faith in the land. 
 
 These transactions took him back in fancy to 
 Topaz, and made him long for some word about 
 the boys at home, from whom he had absolutely 
 cut himself off by this secret expedition, in which 
 he was playing, necessarily alone, for the high 
 stake common to them both. He would have given 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 109 
 
 all the rupees in his pocket at any moment for a 
 sight of the “Topaz Telegram,” or even for a look 
 at a Denver daily. What was happening to his 
 mines —to the “Mollie K.,” which was being 
 worked on a lease; to the “ Mascot,’? which was the 
 subject of a legal dispute; to the “Lingering 
 Lode,” where they had been on the point of strik- 
 ing it very rich when he left; and to his “ Garfield” 
 claim, which Fibby Winks had jumped? What 
 had become of the mines of all his friends, of their 
 eattle-ranches, of their deals? What, in fine, had 
 become of Colorado and of the United States of 
 America? They might have legislated silver out 
 of existence at Washington, for all he knew, and 
 turned the republic into a monarchy at the old 
 stand. 
 
 His single resource from these pangs was his 
 visits to the house of the missionary, where they 
 talked Bangor, Maine, in the United States. To 
 that house he knew that every day was bringing 
 nearer the little girl he had come half-way round 
 the world to keep in sight. 
 
 In the splendor of a yellow-and-violet morning, 
 ten days after his arrival, he was roused from his 
 sleep by a small, shrill voice in the veranda demand- 
 ing the immediate attendance of the new English- 
 man. The Maharaj Kunwar, heir apparent to the 
 throne of Gokral Seetarun, a wheat-colored child, 
 
110 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 aged nine, had ordered his miniature court, which 
 was held quite distinct from his father’s, to equip 
 his C-spring barouche, and to take him to the rest- 
 house. , 
 
 Like his jaded father, the child required amuse- 
 ment. All the ‘women of the palace had told him 
 that the new Englishman made the King laugh. 
 The Maharaj Kunwar could speak English much 
 better than his father,— French, too, for the matter 
 of that,—and he was anxious to show off his 
 accomplishments to a court whose applause he had 
 not yet commanded. 
 
 Tarvin obeyed the voice because it was a child’s, 
 and came out to find an apparently empty barouche 
 and an escort of ten gigantic troopers. 
 
 “How do you do? Comment vous portez-vous ? 
 I am the prince of this state. I am the Maharaj 
 Kunwar. Some day I shall be king. Come for a 
 drive with me.” 
 
 A tiny mittened hand was extended in greeting. 
 The mittens were of the crudest magenta wool, with 
 green stripes at the wrist; but the child was robed 
 in stiff gold brocade from head to foot, and in his 
 turban was set an aigret of diamonds six inches 
 high, while emeralds in a thick cluster fell over 
 his eyebrow. Under all this glitter the dark onyx 
 eyes looked out, and they were full of pride and 
 of the loneliness of childhood. 
 
A STORY. OF WEST AND EAST. 111 
 
 Tarvin obediently took his seat in the barouche. 
 He was beginning to wonder whether he should 
 ever wonder at anything again. 
 
 “We will drive beyond the race-course on the 
 railway road,” said the child. ‘Who are you?” he 
 asked, softly laying his hand on Tarvin’s wrist. 
 
 “Just a man, sonny.” 
 
 The face looked very old under the turban, for 
 those born to absolute power, or those who have 
 never known a thwarted desire, and reared under 
 the fiercest sun in the world, age even more swiftly 
 than the other children of the East, who are self- 
 possessed men when they should be bashful babes. 
 
 “They say you come here to see mngese 
 
 “That’s true,” said Tarvin. 
 
 “When I’m king I shall a oN nobody to come 
 here —not even the viceroy.” 
 
 “That leaves: me out,’’ remarked Tarvin, laugh- 
 ing. | 
 
 “You shall come,” returned the child, measuredly, 
 “if you make me laugh. Make me laugh now.” 
 
 _ “Shall I, little fellow? Well—there was once 
 —I wonder what would make a child laugh in 
 this country. I’ve never seen one do it yet. 
 W-h-e-w!” Tarvin gave a low, long-drawn whistle. 
 * What’s that over there, my boy?” 
 
 A little puff of dust rose very far down the road. 
 It was made by swiftly moving wheels, conse- 
 
Le, THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 yuently it had nothing to do with the regular traffic 
 of the state. 
 
 “That is what I came out to see,” said the 
 Maharaj Kunwar. “She will make me well. My 
 father, the Maharajah, said so. I am not well 
 
 now.” 
 
 He turned imperiously to a favorite groom 
 at the back of the carriage. ‘“Soor Singh,” — he 
 spoke in the vernacular, — “what is it when I be- 
 come without sense? [ have forgotten the Eng- 
 
 99 
 
 lish.” The groom leaned forward. 
 
 “ Heaven-born, I do not remember,” he said. 
 
 “Now I remember,” said the child, suddenly. 
 “Mrs. Estes says it is fits. What are fits?” 
 
 Tarvin put his hand tenderly on the child’s 
 shoulder, but his eyes were foliowing the dust- 
 cloud. “Let us hope she’ll cure them, anyway, 
 young un, whatever they are. But who is she?” 
 
 *T do not know the name, but she will make me 
 well. See! My father has sent a carriage to meet 
 her.” 7 
 
 An empty barouche was drawn up by the side 
 of the road as the rickety, straining mailcart drew 
 nearer, with frantic blasts upon a battered key- 
 bugle. 
 
 “It’s better than a bullock-cart, anyway,” said 
 Tarvin to himself, standing up in the carriage, for 
 he was beginning to choke. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 113 
 
 “Young man, don’t you know who she is?” he 
 asked huskily again. 
 “She was sent,” said the Maharaj Kunwar. 
 
 > said Tarvin in his throat, 
 
 “Her name’s Kate,’ 
 “and don’t you forget it.” Then to himself in 
 a contented whisper, “ Kate!” 
 
 The child waved his hand to his escort, who, 
 dividing, lined each side of the road, with all the 
 ragged bravery of irregular cavalry. The mail- 
 carriage halted, and Kate, crumpled dusty, di- 
 shevelled from her long journey, and red-eyed from 
 lack of sleep, drew back the shutters of the 
 palanquin-like carriage, and stepped dazed into 
 the road. Her numbed limbs would have doubled 
 under her, but Tarvin, leaping from the barouche, 
 caught her to him, regardless of the escort and of 
 the calm-eyed child in the golden drapery, who was 
 shouting, “ Kate! Kate!” 
 
 “Run along home, bub,” said Tarvin. “Well, 
 Kate?” 
 
 But Kate had only her tears for him and a gasping 
 “You! You! Yous” 
 
114 aE Opie NAULAHK A> 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 We meet in an evil land 
 That is near to the gates of Hell; 
 I wait for thy command 
 To serve, to speed, or withstand, 
 And thou sayest I do not well ? 
 
 Oh love, the flowers so red 
 Be only blossoms of flame, 
 The earth is full of the dead, 
 The new-killed, restless dead. 
 There is danger beneath and o’erhead, 
 And I guard at thy gates in fear 
 Of peril and jeopardy, 
 Of words thou canst not hear, 
 Of signs thou canst not see — 
 And thou sayest ’tis ill that I came ? * . 
 7 In Shadowland. 
 
 TEARS stood again in Kate’s eyes as she uncoiled 
 her hair before the mirror in the room Mrs. Estes 
 had prepared against her coming — tears of vexation. 
 It was an old story with her that the world wants 
 nothing done for it, and visits with displeasure 
 those who must prod up its lazy content. But in 
 landing at Bombay she had supposed herself at the 
 end of outside hindrances and obstacles; what was 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co, 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 115 
 
 now to come would belong to the wholesome diff- 
 culties of real work. And here was Nick! 
 
 She had made the journey from Topaz in a long 
 mood of exaltation. She was launched; it made 
 her giddy and happy, lke the boy’s first taste of 
 the life of men. She was free at last. No one 
 could stop her. Nothing could keep her from the 
 life to which she had promised herself. <A. little 
 moment and she might stretch forth her hand and 
 lay it fast upon her work. <A few days and she 
 should stoop eye to eye above the pain that had 
 called to her across seas. In her dreams piteous 
 hands of women were raised in prayer to her, and 
 moist, sick palms were laid in hers. The steady 
 urge of the ship was too slow for her; she counted 
 the throbs of the screw. Standing far in the prow, 
 with wind-blown hair, straining her eyes toward 
 India, her spirit went longingly forth toward those 
 to whom she was going; and her life seemed to 
 release itself from her, and sped far, far over the 
 waves, until it-reached them and gave itself to them. 
 For a moment, as she set foot on land, she trembled 
 with a revulsion of feeling. She drew near her 
 work; but was it for her? This old fear, which 
 had gone doubtfully with her purpose from the 
 beginning, she put behind her with a stern refusal 
 to question there. She was for so much of her 
 work as Heaven would let her do; and she went 
 
116 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 forward with a new, strong, humble impulse of 
 devotion filling and uplifting her. 
 
 It was in this mood that she stepped out of the 
 coach at Rhatore into Tarvin’s arms. 
 
 She did justice to the kindness that had brought 
 him over all these leagues, but she heartily wished 
 that he had not come. The existence of a man who 
 loved her, and for whom she could do nothing, was 
 asad and troubling fact enough fourteen thousand 
 miles away. Face to face with it, alone in India, 
 it enlarged itself unbearably, and thrust itself 
 between her and all her hopes of bringing serious 
 help to others. Love literally did not seem to her 
 the most important thing in the world at that 
 moment, and something else did; but that didn’t 
 make Nick’s trouble unimportant, or prevent it, 
 while she braided her hair, from getting in the way 
 of her thoughts. On the morrow she was to enter 
 upon the life which she meant should be a help to 
 those whom it could reach, and here she was 
 thinking of Nicholas Tarvin. 
 
 It was because she foresaw that she would keep 
 on thinking of him that she wished him away. He 
 was the tourist wandering about behind the devotee 
 in the cathedral at prayers; he was the other thought. 
 In his person he represented and symbolized the life 
 she had left behind; much worse, he represented 
 a pain she could not heal. It was not with the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 117 
 
 haunting figure of love attendant that one carried 
 out large purposes. Nor was it with a divided 
 mind that men conquered cities. The intent with 
 which she was aflame needed all of her. She could 
 not divide herself even with Nick. And yet it was 
 good of him to come, and lke him. She knew 
 that he had not come merely in pursuit of a selfish 
 hope; it was as he had said—he couldn’t sleep 
 nights, knowing what might befall her. That was 
 really good of him. 
 
 Mrs. Estes had invited Tarvin to breakfast the 
 day before, when Kate was not expected; but Tarvin 
 was not the man to decline an invitation at the 
 last moment on that account, and he faced Kate 
 across the breakfast-table next morning with a 
 smile which evoked an unwilling smile from her. 
 In spite of a sleepless night she was looking very 
 fresh and pretty in the white muslin frock which 
 had replaced her travelling-dress, and when he 
 found himself alone with her after breakfast on 
 the veranda (Mrs. Estes having gone to look after 
 the morning affairs of a housekeeper, and Estes 
 having betaken himself to his mission-school, inside 
 the city walls), he began to make her his com- 
 pliments upon the cool white, unknown to the 
 West. But Kate stopped him. 
 
 “Nick,” she said, facing him, “will you do some- 
 
 thing for me?” 
 
118 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 Seeing her much in earnest, Tarvin attempted the 
 parry humorous; but she broke in: 
 
 “No; it is something I want very much, Nick. 
 Will you do it for me?” 
 
 “Is there anything I wouldn’t do for you?” he 
 asked seriously. 
 
 “I don’t know; this, perhaps. But you must 
 do it.” 
 
 “What: isiit?.” 
 
 “Go away.” 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 “But you must.” 
 
 “Listen, Kate,” said Tarvin, thrusting his hands 
 deep into the big pockets of his white coat. “I 
 can’t. You don’t know the place you’ve come to. 
 Ask me the same question a week hence. I won’t 
 agree to go. But I’ll agree to talk it over with you 
 then.” 
 
 “T know now everything that counts,” she 
 answered. “I want to do what I’ve come here 
 for. I sha’n’t be able to do it if you stay. You 
 understand, don’t you, Nick? Nothing can change 
 that.” 
 
 “Yes, it can.. 2 can. I'll behave.” 
 
 “You needn’t tell me you’ll be kind. I know it. 
 But even you can’t be kind enough to help hinder- 
 ing me. Believe that, now, Nick, and go. It 
 isn’t that I want you to go, you know.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 119 
 
 “Oh!” observed Tarvin, with a smile 
 
 “Well — you know what I mean,” returned Kate, 
 her face unrelaxed. 
 
 “Yes; I know. But if I’m good it won’t matter. 
 I know that too. You'll see,” he said gently. 
 “ Awtul journey, isn’t it?” 
 
 “You promised me not to take it.” 
 
 “IT didn’t take it,” returned Tarvin, smiling, 
 and spreading a seat for her in the hammock, while 
 he took one of the deep veranda chairs himself. 
 He crossed his legs and fixed the white pith helmet 
 he had lately adopted on his knee. “I came round 
 the other way on purpose.” 
 
 “What do you mean?” asked Kate, dropping 
 tentatively into the hammock. 
 
 “San Francisco and Yokohama, of course. You 
 told me not to follow you.” 
 
 “Nick!” She gathered into the single syllable 
 the reproach and reproof, the liking and despair, 
 with which the least and the greatest of his 
 audacities alike affected her. 
 
 Tarvin had nothing to say for once, and in the 
 pause that fell she had time to reassure herself of 
 her abhorrence of his presence here, and time to 
 still the impulse of pride, which told her that it was 
 good to be followed over half the earth’s girdle for 
 love, and the impulse of admiration for that fine 
 devotion — time, above all, —for this was worst and 
 
120 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 most shameful, —to scorn the sense of loneliness 
 and far-awayness that came rolling in on her out of 
 the desert like a cloud, and made the protecting and 
 homelike presence of the man she had known in the 
 other life seem for a moment sweet and desirable. 
 
 “Come, Kate, you didn’t expect me to stay at 
 home, and let you find your way out here to take 
 the chances of this old sand-heap, did you? It 
 would be a cold day when I let you come to Gokral 
 Seetarun all by your lone, little girl — freezing cold, 
 I’ve thought since I’ve been here, and seen what 
 sort of camp it is.” 
 
 “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” 
 
 “You didn’t seem particularly interested in what 
 I did, when I last saw you.” 
 
 “Nick! I didn’t want you to come here, and I 
 had to come myself.” 
 
 “Well, you’ve come. I hope you’ll like it,” 
 said he, grimly. 
 
 “Ts it so bad?” she asked. “Not that I shall 
 mind.” 
 
 “Bad! Do you remember Mastodon?” 
 
 Mastodon was one of those Western town, which 
 have their future behind them—a city withon, % 
 inhabitant, abandoned and desolate. 
 
 “Take Mastodon for deadness, and fill it with 
 ten Leadvilles for wickedness, — Leadville the first 
 year, —and you’ve got a tenth of it.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. IPAS 
 
 He went on to offer her an exposition of the 
 history, politics, and society of Gokral Seetarun, 
 from his own point of view, dealing with the dead 
 East from the standpoint of the living West, and 
 dealing with it vividly. It was a burning theme, 
 and it was a happiness to him to have a listener 
 who could understand his attitude, even if she 
 could not entirely sympathize with it. His tone 
 besought her to laugh at it with him a little, if 
 only a little, and Kate consented to laugh; but she 
 said it all seemed to her more mournful than amus- 
 ing. 
 
 Tarvin could agree to this readily enough, but 
 he told her that he laughed to avoid weeping. It 
 made him tired to see the fixedness, the apathy, 
 and lifelessness of. this rich and populous world, 
 which should be up and stirring by rights — trad- 
 ing, organizing, inventing, building new towns, 
 making the old ones keep up with the procession, 
 laying new railroads, going in for fresh enterprises, 
 and keeping things humming. 
 
 “They've got resources enough,” he said. “It 
 isn’t as if they had the excuse that the country’s 
 poor. It’s a good country. Move the population 
 of a lively Colorado town to Rhatore, set up a 
 good local paper, organize a board of trade, and let 
 the world know what there is here, and we’d have 
 a boom in six months that would shake the empire. 
 
122 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 But what’s the use? They’re dead. They’re mum: 
 mies. ‘They’re wooden images. There isn’t enough 
 real, old-fashioned downright rustle and _ razzle- 
 dazzle and ‘git up and git’ in Gokral Seetarun to 
 run a milk-cart.”’ 
 
 “Yes, yes;”’ she murmured, half to herself, with 
 illumined eyes. “It’s for that I’ve come.” 
 
 “Hows thatr« 
 
 “Because they are not like us,” 
 
 she answered, 
 turning her lustrous face on him. “If they were 
 clever, if they were wise, what could we do for 
 them? It is because they are lost, stumbling, 
 foolish creatures that they need us.” She heaved 
 a deep sigh. “It is good to be here.” | 
 
 > said Tarvin. 
 
 “It’s good to have you,’ 
 
 She started. 
 
 “Don’t say such things any more, please, Nick,” 
 she said. 
 
 “Oh, well!” he groaned. 
 
 “But it’s this way, Nick,” she said earnestly, 
 but kindly. “I don’t belong to such things any 
 more —not even to the possibility of them. Think 
 of me as a nun. Think of me as having renounced 
 all such happiness, and all other kinds of happiness 
 but my work.” 
 
 “H’m. May Ismoke?” At her nod he lighted 
 a cigar. “I’m glad I’m here for the ceremony.” 
 
 “What ceremony?” she asked. | 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 123 
 
 Seeing you take the veil. But you won’t take 
 ae 
 
 “Why not?” 
 
 He grumbled inarticulately over his cigar a 
 moment. ‘Then he looked up. “Because I’ve got 
 big wealth that says you won’t. I know you, I 
 know Rhatore, and I know —”’ 
 
 a W hatte Who?’’ 
 
 “Myself,” he said, looking up. . 
 
 She clasped her hands in her lap. ‘ Nick,” she 
 said, leaning toward him, “you know I like you. 
 I like you too well to let you go on thinking — 
 You talk of not being able to sleep. How do you 
 suppose I can sleep with the thought always by me 
 that you are laying up a pain and disappointment 
 for yourself—one that I can’t help, unless I can 
 help it by begging you to go away now. I do beg 
 it. Please go!” 
 
 Tarvin pulled at his cigar musingly for some 
 seconds. “Dear girl, I’m not afraid.” 
 
 She sighed, and turned her face away toward the 
 
 bd 
 
 desert. “I wish you were,” she said hopelessly. 
 
 “Fear is not for legislators,” he retorted ora- 
 cularly. 
 
 She turned back to him with a sudden motion. 
 “Legislators! O Nick, are you—” 
 
 “I’m afraid I am—by a majority of 1518.” He 
 handed her the cable-despatch. 
 
124 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Poor father!” 
 
 “Well, I don’t know.” 
 
 “Oh! Well, I congratulate you, of course. 
 
 “Thanks.” 
 
 “But I’m not sure it will be a good thing for 
 you.” 
 
 “Yes; that’s the way it had struck me. If I 
 spend my whole term out here, like as not my 
 constituents won’t be in a mood to advance my 
 political career when I get back.” 
 
 “ All the more reason —” 
 
 “No; the more reason for fixing the real thing 
 first. I can make myself solid in politics any time. 
 But there isn’t but one time to make myself solid 
 with you, Kate. It’s here. It’s now.” He rose 
 and bent over her. “Do you think I can postpone 
 that, dear? I can adjourn it from day to day, and 
 I do cheerfully, and you sha’n’t hear any more of it 
 until you’re ready to. But you like me, Kate. I 
 know that. And I—well, I like you. There isn’t 
 but one end to that sort of thing.” He took her 
 hand. “Good by. T1l come and take you for a 
 look at the city to-morrow.” 
 
 Kate gazed long after his retreating figure, and 
 then took herself into the house, where a warm, 
 healthful chat with Mrs. Estes, chiefly about the 
 children at Bangor, helped her to a sane view of 
 the situation she must face with the reappearance 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 125 
 
 of Tarvin. She saw that he meant to stay, and if 
 she didn’t mean to go, it was for her to find the 
 brave way of adjusting the fact to her hopes. His 
 perversity complicated an undertaking which she 
 had never expected to find simple in itself; and it 
 was finally only because she trusted all that he 
 said implicitly that she was able to stay herself 
 upon his promise to “behave.” Liberally inter- 
 preted, this really meant much from Tarvin; per- 
 haps it meant all that she need ask. 
 
 When all was said, there remained the impulse 
 to flight; but she was ashamed to find, when he 
 came in the morning, that a formidable pang of 
 homesickness drew her toward him, and made his 
 definite and cheerful presence a welcome sight. 
 Mrs. Estes had been kind. The two women had 
 made friends, and found each other’s hearts with 
 instant sympathy. But a home face was different, 
 and perhaps Nick’s was even more different. At 
 all events, she willingly let him carry out his 
 plan of. showing her the city. 
 
 In their walk about it Tarvin did not spare her 
 the advantage of his ten days’ residence in Rhatore 
 preceding her coming; he made himself her guide, 
 and stood on rocks overlooking things, and spouted 
 his second-hand history with an assurance that the 
 
 oldest Political Resident might have envied. He 
 
 was interested in the problems of the state, if not 
 
126 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 responsible for their solution. Was he not a mem- 
 ber of a governing body? His ceaseless and fruit- 
 ful curiosity about all new things had furnished 
 him, in ten days. with much learning about 
 Rhatore and Gokral Seetarun, enabling him to show 
 to Kate, with eyes scarcely less fresh than her own, 
 the wonders of the narrow, sand-choked streets, 
 where the footfalls of camels and men alike fell 
 dead. They lingered by the royal menagerie of 
 starved tigers, and the cages of the two tame 
 hunting-leopards, hooded like hawks, that slept, 
 and yawned, and scratched on their two bedsteads 
 by the main gate of the city; and he showed her 
 the ponderous door of the great gate itself, studded 
 with foot-long spikes against the attacks of that 
 living battering-ram, the elephant. He led her 
 through the long lines of dark shops planted in and 
 among the ruins of palaces, whose builders had 
 been long since forgotten, and about the straggling 
 barracks, past knots of fantastically attired soldiers, 
 who hung their day’s marketing from the muzzle 
 of the Brown Bess or flint-lock; and then he showed 
 her the mausoleum of the kings of Gokral Seetarun, _ 
 under the shadow of the great temple’ where the 
 children of the sun and moon went to worship, and 
 where the smooth, black stone bull glared across 
 the main square at the cheap bronze statue of 
 Colonel Nolan’s predecessor —an offensively ener- 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. Py 
 
 getic and very plain Yorkshireman. Lastly, they 
 found beyond the walls the clamoring caravansary 
 _of traders by the gateway of the Three Gods, whence 
 the caravans of camels filed out with their burdens 
 of glistening vock-salt for the railroad, and where 
 by day and by night cloaked and jawbound riders 
 of the desert, speaking a tongue that none could 
 understand, rode in from God knows what fastness 
 beyond the white hillocks of Jeysulmir. 
 
 As they went along, Tarvin asked her about 
 Topaz. How had she left it? How was the dear 
 old town looking? Kate said she had left it only 
 three days after his departure. 
 
 “Three days! Three days is a long time in the 
 life of a growing town.” 
 
 Kate smiled. “I didn’t see any changes,” she 
 said. 
 
 “No? Peters was talking about breaking ground 
 for his new brick saloon on G street the day after 
 I left; Parsons was getting in a new dynamo for 
 the city’s electric-light plant; they were just get- 
 ting to work on the grading of Massachusetts 
 Avenue, and they had planted the first tree in my 
 twenty-acre plot. Kearney, the druggist, was put- 
 ting in a plate-glass window, and I shouldn’t 
 wonder if Maxim had got his new post-office boxes 
 from Meriden before you left.- Didn’t you notice?” 
 
 Kate shook her head. “I was thinking of some- 
 thing else just then.” 
 
128 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Pshaw! Id like to know. But no matter. I 
 suppose it 7s asking too much to expect a woman 
 to play her own hand, and keep the run of im- 
 provements in the town,” he mused. ‘“ Women 
 aren’t built that way. And yet I used to run a 
 political canvass and a business or two, and some- 
 thing else in that town.” He glanced humorously 
 at Kate, who lifted a warning hand. “Forbidden 
 subject? All right. I will be good. But they 
 had to get up early in the morning to do anything 
 to it without letting me into it. What did your 
 father and mother say at the last?” 
 
 “Don’t speak of that,” begged Kate. 
 
 SW ell l wonite: 
 
 “T wake up at night, and think of mother. It’s 
 dreadful. At the last I suppose I should have 
 stayed behind and shirked if some one had said 
 the right word—or the wrong one—as I got on 
 board the train, and waved my handkerchief to 
 them.” 
 
 “Good heaven! Why didn’t I stay!” he groaned. 
 
 “You couldn’t have said it, Nick,” she told him 
 quietly. 
 
 “You mean your father could. Of course he 
 could, and if he had happened to be some one else 
 he would. When I think of that I want to—!” 
 
 “Don’t say anything against father, please,” she 
 said, with a tightening of the lips. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 129 
 
 “O dear child!” he murmured contritely, “I 
 didn’t mean that. But I have to say something 
 against somebody. Give me somebody to curse, 
 and I’ll be quiet.” 
 
 “Nick!” 
 
 “Well, I’m not a block of wood,” he growled. 
 
 “No; you are only a very foolish man.” 
 
 Tarvin smiled. “Now you’re shouting.” 
 
 She asked him about the Maharaj Kunwar to 
 change the subject, and Tarvin told her that he 
 was a little brick. But he added that the society 
 of Rhatore wasn’t all as good. 
 
 “You ought to see Sitabhai!” 
 
 He went on to tell her about the Maharajah and 
 the people of the palace’ with whom she would 
 come in contact. They talked of the strange min- 
 gling of impassiveness and childishness in the peo- 
 ple, which had already impressed Kate, and spoke 
 of their primitive passions and simple ideas — 
 simple as the massive strength of the Orient is 
 simple. 
 
 “They aren’t what we should call cultured. 
 They don’t know Ibsen a little bit, and they don’t 
 go in for Tolstoi for sour apples,” said Tarvin, who 
 did not read three newspapers a day at Topaz for 
 nothing. “If they really knew the modern young 
 woman, I suppose her life wouldn’t be worth an 
 
 hour’s purchase. But they’ve got some rattling 
 K 
 
130 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 good old-fashioned ideas, all the same —the sort | 
 used to hear once upon a time at my dear old 
 mother’s knee, away back in the state of Maine. 
 Mother believed in marriage, you know; and that’s 
 where she agreed with me and with the fine old- 
 style natives of India. The venerable, ramshackle, 
 tumble-down institution of matrimony is still in 
 use here, you know.” 
 
 “But I never said I.sympathized with Nora, 
 Nick,” exclaimed Kate, leaping all the chasms of 
 connection. 
 
 “Well, then, that’s where you are solid with 
 the Indian Empire. The ‘Doll’s House’ glanced 
 right off this blessed old-timey country. You 
 wouldn’t know where it had been hit.” 
 
 “But I don’t agree with all your ideas either,” 
 she felt bound to add. 
 
 “T ean think of one,” retorted Tarvin, with a 
 shrewd smile. “But Ill convert you to my views 
 there.” 
 
 Kate stopped short in the street along which they 
 were walking. “I trusted you, Nick!” she said 
 reproachfully. 
 
 He stopped, and gazed ruefully at her for a 
 moment. “QO Lord!” he groaned. “TI trusted my- 
 self! But [I’m always thinking of it. What can 
 you expect? But I tell you what, Kate, this shall 
 be the end—last, final, ultimate. I’m done. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. TS 
 
 From this out I’m a reformed man.. I don’t prom- 
 ise not to think, and I’ll have to go on feeling, 
 just the same, but I’ll be quiet. Shake on it.” He 
 offered his hand, and Kate took it. 
 
 They walked on for some moments in silence 
 until Tarvin said mournfully, “You didn’t see 
 Heckler just before you came away, did you?” 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 “No; Jim and you never did get along much 
 together. But I wish I knew what he’s thinking 
 about me. Didn’t hear any rumor, any report, 
 going around about what had become of me, I sup- 
 pose?” 
 
 “ They thought in town that you had gone to 
 San Francisco to see some of the Western directors 
 of the Colorado and California Central, I think. 
 They thought that because the conductor of your 
 train brought back word that you said you were 
 going to Alaska, and they didn’t believe that. I 
 wish you had a better reputation for truth-telling at 
 LopazesNiek.”’ 
 
 “So do I, Kate; so do I,” exclaimed Tarvin 
 heartily. “But if I had, how would I ever get 
 the right thing believed? ‘That’s just what I 
 wanted them to think —that I was looking after 
 their interests. But where would I be if I had 
 sent that story back? They would have had me 
 working a land-grab in Chile hefore night. That 
 
132 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 yeminds me —don’t mention that I’m here in writ- 
 ing home, please. Perhaps they’ll figure that out, 
 too, by the rule of contraries, if I give them the 
 chance. But I don’t want to give them the chance.” 
 
 “I’m not likely to mention it,” said Kate, 
 flushing. 
 
 A moment later she recurred tothe subject of 
 her mother. In the yearning for home that came 
 upon her anew in the midst of all the strangeness 
 through which Tarvin was taking her, the thought 
 of her mother, patient, alone, looking for some 
 word from her, hurt her as if for the first time. 
 The memory was for the moment intolerable to 
 her; but when Tarvin asked her why she had come 
 at all if she felt that way, she answered with the 
 courage of better moments: “Why do men go to 
 war?” ) 
 
 Kate saw little of Tarvin during the next few 
 days. Mrs. Estes made her known at the palace, 
 and she had plenty to occupy her mind and heart. 
 There she stepped bewilderedly into a land where 
 it was always twilight—a labyrinth of passages, 
 court-yards, stairs, and hidden ways, all overflow- 
 ing with veiled women, who peered at her and 
 laughed behind her back, or childishly examined 
 her dress, her helmet, and her gloves. It seemed 
 impossible that she should ever know the smallest 
 part of the vast warren, or distinguish one pale 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 133 
 
 face from another in the gloom, as the women led 
 her through long lines of lonely chambers where 
 the wind sighed alone under the glittering ceilings, 
 to hanging gardens two hundred feet above the 
 level of the ground, but still jealously guarded by 
 high walls, and down again, by interminable stair- 
 ways, from the glare and the blue of the flat roofs 
 to silent subterranean chambers hewn against the 
 heat of the summer sixty feet into the heart of the 
 living rock. At every step she found women and 
 children, and yet more women and children. The 
 palace was reported to hold within its walls four 
 thousand living, and no man knew how many 
 buried, dead. 
 
 There were many women, —how many she did 
 not know, — worked upon by intrigues she could 
 not comprehend, who refused her ministrations 
 absolutely. They were not ill, they said, and the 
 touch of the white woman meant pollution. Others 
 there were who thrust. their children before her 
 and bade her bring color and strength back to these 
 pale buds born in the darkness; and terrible, fierce- 
 eyed girls who leaped upon her out of the dark, 
 overwhelming her with passionate complaints that 
 she did not and dared not. understand. Monstrous 
 and obscene pictures glared at her from the walls 
 of the little rooms, and the images of shameless 
 gods mocked her from their greasy niches above 
 
134 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 the doorways. The heat and the smell of cooking 
 faint fumes of incense, and the indescribable taint 
 of overcrowded humanity, caught her by the throat 
 But what she heard and what she guessed sickened 
 her more than any visible horror. Plainly it was, 
 one thing to be stirred to generous action by a 
 vivid recital of the state of the women of India, 
 another to face the unutterable fact in the isolation 
 of the women’s apartments of the palace of Rhatore. 
 
 Tarvin meanwhile was going about spying out 
 the land on a system which he had contrived for 
 himself. It was conducted on the principle of 
 exhaustion of the possibilities in the order of their 
 importance — every movement which he made hay- 
 ing the directest, though not always the most 
 obvious, relation to the Naulahka. 
 
 He was free to come and go through the royal 
 gardens, where innumerable and very seldom paid 
 gardeners fought with water-skin and well-wheel 
 against the destroying heat of the desert. He was 
 welcomed in the Maharajah’s stables, where eight 
 hundred horses were littered down nightly, and 
 was allowed to watch them go out for their morn- 
 ing exercise, four hundred at a time, in a whirl- 
 wind of dust. In the outer courts of the palace 
 it was open to him to come and go as he chose — 
 to watch the toilets of the elephants when the 
 Maharajah went out in state, to laugh with the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 136 
 
 quarter-guard, and to unearth dragon-headed, snake- 
 throated pieces of artillery, invented by native 
 artificers, who, here in the East, had dreamed of 
 the mtrailleuse. But Kate could go where he was 
 forbidden to venture. He knew the life of a white 
 woman to be as safe in Rhatore as in Topaz; but 
 on the first day she disappeared, untroubled and 
 unquestioning, behind the darkness of the veiled 
 door leading to the apartments of the women of 
 the palace, he found his hand going instinctively 
 to the butt of his revolver. | 
 The Maharajah was an excellent friend, and no 
 bad hand at pachisi; but as Tarvin sat opposite 
 him, half an hour later, he reflected that he should 
 not recommend the Maharajah’s life for insurance 
 if anything happened to his love while she re- 
 mained in those mysterious chambers from which 
 the only sign that came to the outer world was a 
 ceaseless whispering and rustling. When Kate 
 came out, the little Maharaj Kunwar clinging to 
 her hand, her face was white and drawn, and her 
 eyes full of indignant tears. She had seen. 
 Tarvin hastened to her side, but she put him 
 from her with the imperious gesture that women 
 know in deep moments, and fled to Mrs. Estes. 
 Tarvin felt himself for the moment rudely thrust 
 out of her life. The Maharaj Kunwar found him 
 
 that evening pacing up and down the veranda of 
 
136 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 the rest-house, almost sorry that he had not shot 
 the Maharajah for bringing that look into Kate’s 
 eyes. With deep-drawn breath he thanked his 
 God that he was there to watch and defend, and, 
 if need were, to carry off, at the last, by force. 
 With a shudder he fancied her here alone, save 
 for the distant care of Mrs. Estes. 
 
 “T have brought this for Kate,” said the child, 
 descending from his carriage cautiously, with a 
 parcel that filled both his arms. “Come with me 
 there.” 
 
 Nothing loath, Tarvin came, and they drove over 
 to the house of the missionary. 
 
 “All the people in my palace,” said the child 
 as they went, “say that she’s your Kate.” 
 
 “T’m glad they know that much,” muttered 
 Tarvin to himself, savagely. “What’s this you 
 have got for her?” he asked the Maharaj aloud, 
 laying his hand on the parcel. 
 
 “It is from my mother, the Queen—the real 
 Queen, you know, because I am the Prince. There 
 is a message, too, that I must not tell.” He began 
 tc whisper, childlike, to himself, to keep the mes- 
 sage in mind. 
 
 Kate was in the veranda when they arrived, and 
 her face brightened a little at sight of the child. 
 
 “Tell my guard to stand back out of the garden. 
 
 Go, and wait in the road.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. i 
 
 The carriage and troopers withdrew. The child, 
 still holding Tarvin’s hand, held out the parcel 
 to Kate. 
 
 “It is from my mother,” he said. “You have 
 seen her. This man need not go. He is’’—he 
 hesitated a little—“of your heart, is he not? 
 Your speech is his speech.” 
 
 Kate flushed, but did not attempt to set the 
 child right. What could she say? 
 
 “And I am to tell this,” he continued, “first 
 before everything, till you quite understand.” He 
 spoke hesitatingly, translating out of his own verna- 
 cular as he went on, and drawing himself to his 
 full height, as he cleared the cluster of emeralds 
 from his brow. “My mother, the Queen,— the 
 real Queen,—says, ‘I was three months at this 
 work. It is for you, because I have seen your 
 face. That which has been made may be unravelled 
 against our will, and a gypsy’s hands are always 
 picking. For the love of the gods look to it that 
 a gypsy unravels nothing that I have made, for it 
 is my life and soul to me. Protect this work of 
 mine that comes from me—a cloth nine years 
 upon the loom.’ I know more English than my 
 mother,” said the child, dropping into his ordinary 
 speech. : 
 
 Kate opened the parcel, and unrolled a crude 
 yellow and black comforter, with a violent crimson 
 
138 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 fringe, clumsily knitted. With such labors the 
 queens of Gokral Seetarun were wont to beguile 
 their leisure. 
 
 “That is all,” said the child. But he seemed 
 unwilling to go. There was a lump in Kate’s 
 throat, as she handled the pitiful gift. Without 
 warning the child, never loosening for a moment 
 his grip on Tarvin’s hand, began to repeat the 
 message word by word, his little fingers tighten- 
 ing on Tarvin’s fist as he went on. 
 
 “Say I am very grateful indeed,” said Kate, a 
 little puzzled, and not too sure of her voice. 
 
 “That was not the answer,” said the child; and 
 he looked appealingly at his tall friend, the new 
 Englishman. 
 
 The idle talk of the commercial travellers in the 
 veranda of the rest-house flashed through Tarvin’s 
 mind. He took a quick pace forward, and laid 
 his hand on Kate’s shoulder, whispering huskily: 
 
 “Can’t you see what it means? It’s the boy, 
 —the cloth nine years on the loom.” 
 
 “But what can I do?” cried Kate, bewildered. 
 
 “Look after him. Keep on looking after him. 
 You are quick enough in most things. Sitabhai 
 wants his life. See that she doesn’t get it.” 
 
 Kate began to understand a little. Everything 
 was possible in that awful palace, even child- 
 murder. She had already guessed the hate that 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 139 
 
 lives between childless and mother queens. The 
 Maharaj Kunwar stood motionless in the twiligks, 
 twinkling in his jewelled robes. 
 
 “Shall I say it again?” he asked. 
 
 “No, no, no, child! No!” she cried, flinging 
 herself on her knees before him, and snatching his 
 little figure to her breast, with a sudden access of 
 tenderness and pity. “O Nick! what shall we do 
 in this horrible country?” She began to ery. 
 
 “Ah!” said the Maharaj, utterly unmoved, “I was 
 to go when I saw that you cried.” He lifted up 
 his voice for the carriage and troopers, and departed, 
 leaving the shabby comforter on the floor. 
 
 Kate was sobbing in the half darkness. Neither 
 Mrs. Estes nor her husband was within just then. 
 That little “we” of hers went through Tarvin with 
 a sweet and tingling ecstasy. He stooped and 
 took her in his arms, and for that which followed 
 Kate did not rebuke him. 
 
 “We'll pull through together, little girl,” he 
 whispered to the shaken head on his shoulder. 
 
140 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Ye know the Hundred Danger Time when gay with paint and 
 flowers, 
 
 Your household gods are bribed to help the bitter, helpless 
 hours ; — 
 
 Ye know the worn and rotten mat whereon your daughter lies, 
 
 Ye know the Sootak-room unclean, the cell wherein she dies. 
 
 Dies with the babble in her ear of midwife’s muttered charm, 
 Dies, spite young life that strains to stay, the suckling on her 
 arm — 
 Dies in the four-fold heated room, parched by the Birth-Fire’s 
 breath, 
 Foredoomed, ye say, lest anguish lack, to haunt her home in death.* 
 A Song of the Women: 
 
 DEAR Frienp: That was very unkind of you, and you 
 have made my life harder. I know I was weak. The 
 child upset me. But I must do what I came for, and I 
 want you to strengthen me, Nick, not hinder me. Don’t 
 come for a few days, please. I need all I am or hope to 
 be for the work I see opening here. I think I can really 
 do some good. Let me, please. — KATE. 
 
 Tarvin read fifty different meanings into this 
 letter, received the following morning, and read 
 them out again. At the end of his conjectures 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 141 
 
 he could be sure only of one thing —that in spite 
 of that moment’s weakness, Kate was fixed upon 
 her path. He could not yet prevail against her 
 steadfast gentleness, and perhaps it would be better 
 not to try. Talks in the veranda, and _ sentinel- 
 hke prowlings about her path when she went to 
 the palace, were pleasant enough, but he had not 
 come to Rhatore to tell her that he loved her. 
 Topaz, in whose future the other half of his heart 
 was bound up, knew that secret long ago, and— 
 Topaz was waiting for the coming of the Three 
 C.’s, even as Nick was waiting on Kate’s comings 
 and goings. ‘The girl was unhappy, overstrained, 
 and despairing, but since — he thanked God always 
 —he was at hand to guard her from the absolute 
 shock of evil fate. she might well be left for the 
 moment to Mrs. Estes’s comfort and sympathy. 
 She had already accomplished something in the 
 guarded courts of the women’s quarters, for the 
 Maharaj Kunwar’s mother had intrusted her only 
 son’s life to her care (who could help loving and 
 trusting Kate?); but for his own part, what had 
 he done for Topaz beyond — he looked toward the 
 city —playing pachisi with the Maharajah? The 
 low morning sun flung the shadow of the rest- 
 house before him. The commercial travellers came 
 out one by one, gazed at the walled bulk of Rhatore, 
 and cursed it. Tarvin mounted his horse, of which 
 
142 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 much more hereafter, and ambled toward the city 
 to pay his respects to the Maharajah. It was 
 through him, if through any one, that he must 
 possess himself of the Naulahka; he had been anx- 
 iously studying him, and shrewdly measuring the 
 situation, and he now believed that he had formed 
 a plan through which he might hope to make him- 
 self solid with the Maharajah—a plan which, 
 whether it brought him the Naulahka or not, 
 would at least allow him the privilege of staying 
 at Rhatore. ‘This privilege certain broad hints of 
 Colonel Nolan’s had seemed to Tarvin of late 
 plainly to threaten, and it had become clear to him 
 that he must at once acquire a practical and pub- 
 lishable object for his visit, if he had to rip up 
 the entire state to find it. To stay, he must do 
 something in particular. What he had found to 
 do was particular enough; it should be done forth- 
 with, and it should bring him first the Naulahka, 
 and then —if he was at all the man he took him- 
 self for — Kate! 
 
 As he approached the gates he saw Kate, in a 
 brown habit, riding with Mrs. Estes out of the 
 missionary’s garden. | 
 
 “You needn’t be afraid, dear. I sha’n’t bother 
 you,” he said to himself, smiling at the dust-cloud 
 rising behind her, as he slackened his pace. “But 
 i wonder what’s taking you out so early.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 143 
 
 The misery within the palace walls which had 
 sent her half weeping to Mrs. Estes represented 
 only a phase of the work for which Kate had come. 
 If the wretchedness was so great under the shadow 
 of the throne, what must the common folk endure? 
 Kate was on her way to the hospital. 
 
 “There is only one native doctor at the hospi- 
 tal,” Mrs. Estes was saying, as they went along, 
 “and of course he’s only a native; that is to say, 
 he is idle.” 
 
 “How can any one be idle here?” her compan- 
 ion cried, as the stored heat from under the city 
 gates beat across their temples. 
 
 “Every one grows idle so soon in Rhatore,” 
 returned Mrs. Estes, with a little sigh, thinking 
 of Lucien’s high hopes and strenuous endeavors, 
 long since subdued to a mild apathy. 
 
 Kate sat her horse with the assured seat of a 
 Western girl who has learned to ride and to walk 
 at the same time. Her well-borne little figure 
 had advantages on horseback. The glow of resolve 
 lighting her simply framed face at the moment 
 lent it a spiritual beauty; and she was warmed 
 by the consciousness that she drew near her purpose 
 and the goal of two years’ working and dreaming. 
 As they rounded a curve in the main street of the 
 city, a crowd was seen waiting at the foot of a 
 flight of red sandstone steps rising to the platform 
 
144 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 of a whitewashed house three stories in height, on 
 which appeared the sign, “State Dispensary.” The 
 letters leaned against one another, and drooped 
 down over each side of the door. 
 
 A sense of the unreality of it all came over 
 Kate as she surveyed the crowd of women, clad 
 in vermilion, dull-red, indigo, saffron, blue, pink. 
 and turquoise garments of raw silk. Almost every 
 woman held a child on her hip, and a low wailing 
 cry rose up as Kate drew rein. The women clus- 
 tered about her stirrup, caught at her foot, and 
 thrust their babies into her arms. She took one 
 little one to her breast, and hushed it tenderly; it 
 was burnt and dry with fever. 
 
 “Be careful,” said Mrs. Estes; “there is small- 
 pox in the hills behind us, and these people have 
 no notion of precautions.” 
 
 Kate, listening to the ery of the women, did 
 not answer. <A portly, white-bearded native, in a 
 brown camel’s hair dressing-gown and. patent-leather 
 boots, came out of the dispensary, thrusting the 
 women right and left, and bowing profoundly. 
 
 “You are new lady doctor?” he said. “ Hospi- 
 tal is quite ready for inspection.- Stand back 
 from the miss sahib!” he shouted in the vernacu- 
 Jar, as Kate slipped to the ground, and the crowd 
 closed about her. Mrs. Estes remained in the 
 saddle, watching the scene. - 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 145 
 
 A woman of the desert, very tall, gold-colored, 
 and scarlet-lipped, threw back her face-cloth, caught 
 Kate by the wrist, and made as if she would drag 
 her away, crying aloud fiercely in the vernacular. 
 The trouble in her eyes was not to be denied. 
 Kate followed unresisting, and, as the crowd 
 parted, saw a camel kneeling in the roadway. On 
 its back a gaunt skeleton of a man was mutter- 
 ing, and picking aimlessly at the nail-studded 
 saddle. The woman drew herself up to full height, 
 and, without a word, flung herself down upon the 
 ground, clasping Kate’s feet. Kate stooped to raise 
 her, her under lip quivering, and the doctor from 
 the steps shouted cheerfully: 
 
 “Oh, that is all right. He is confirmed luna- 
 tic, her husband. She is always bringing him 
 here.” 
 
 “Have you done nothing, then?” cried Kate, 
 turning on him angrily. 
 
 “What can do? She will not leave him here 
 for treatment so I may blister him.” 
 
 “Blister him!” murmured Kate to herself, ap- 
 palled, as she caught the woman’s hands and held 
 them firmly. “Tell her that I say he must be left 
 here,” she said aloud. The doctor conveyed the 
 command. The woman took.a deep breath, and 
 stared at Kate under level brows for a full half- 
 
 minute. Then she carried Kate’s hand to the 
 i 
 
146 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 man’s forehead, and sat down in the dust, veiling 
 her head. 
 
 Kate, dumb under these strange expressions of 
 the workings of the Eastern mind, stared at her 
 for a moment, with an impulse of the compassion 
 which knows no race, before she bent and kissed 
 her quietly on the forehead. 
 
 “Carry this man up,” she said, pointing; and he 
 was carried up the steps and into the hospital, his 
 wife following like a dog. Once she turned and 
 spoke to her sisters below, and there went up a 
 little chorus of weeping and laughter. 
 
 § 
 
 “She says, said the doctor, beaming, “that she 
 
 will kill any one who is impolite to you. Also, 
 she will be the nurse of your son.” 
 
 Kate paused to say a word to Mrs. Estes, who 
 was bound on an errand further into the city; then 
 she mounted the steps with the doctor. 
 
 “Now, will you see the hospital?” he asked. 
 “But first let me introduce. I am Lalla Dhunpat 
 Rai, Licentiate Medicine, from the Duff College. 
 I was first native my province that took that 
 degree. That was twenty years ago.” 
 
 Kate looked at him wonderingly. .“ Where have 
 you been since?” she asked. 
 
 “Some time I stayed in my father’s house. Then 
 I was clerk in medical stores in British India. 
 But his Highness have graciously given me this 
 appointment, which I hold now.” 
 
A STORY: OF WEST AND EAST. 147 
 
 Kate lifted her eyebrows. This, then, was ta 
 be her colleague. They passed into the hospital 
 together in silence, Kate holding the skirt of her 
 riding-habit clear of the accumulated grime of the 
 floor. 
 
 Six roughly made pallets, laced with hide and 
 string, stood in the filthy central court-yard of the 
 house, and on each cot a man, swathed in a white 
 sheet, tossed and moaned and jabbered. A woman 
 entered with a pot full of rancid native sweet- 
 meats, and tried vainly to make one of the men 
 eat of her delicacies. In the full glare of the 
 sunlight stood a young man almost absolutely 
 unclothed, his hands clasped behind his head, try- 
 ing to outstare the sun. He began a chant, broke 
 off, and hurried from bed to bed, shouting to each 
 words that Kate could not understand. Then he 
 returned to his place in the centre, and took up his 
 interrupted song. 
 
 “He is confirmed lunatic, also,” said the doctor. 
 “T have blistered and cupped him very severely, 
 but he will not go away. He is quite harmless, 
 except when he does not get his opium.” 
 
 “Surely you don’t allow the patients opium!” 
 exclaimed Kate. 
 
 “Of course I allow opium. Otherwise they 
 would die. All Rajputs eat opium.” 
 
 “And you?” asked Kate, with horror. 
 
148 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Once I did not—when I first came. But 
 now —’” He drew a smooth-worn tin tobacco-box 
 from his waist, and took from it what appeared 
 to Kate a handful of opium-pills. 
 
 Despair was going over her in successive waves. 
 “Show me the women’s ward,” she said wearily. 
 
 “Oh, they are all up-stairs and down-stairs and 
 round about,” returned the doctor, casually. 
 
 “And the maternity cases?” she asked. 
 
 “They are in casual ward.” 
 
 “Who attends to them?” 
 
 “They do not hke me; but there is very clever 
 woman from the outside —she comes in.” 
 
 “Has she any training—any education?” 
 
 “She is much esteemed in her own village,” 
 said the doctor. “She is here now, if you wish 
 to see.” 
 
 “Where?’? demanded Kate. 
 
 Dhunpat Rai, somewhat uneasy in his mind, 
 made haste to lead the way up a narrow stair- 
 case to a closed door, from behind which came 
 the wail of a new life. 
 
 Kate flung the door open wrathfully. In that 
 particular ward of the State Hospital were the 
 clay and cow-dung images of two gods, which 
 the woman in charge was besprinkling with mari- 
 gold buds. Every window, every orifice that might 
 admit a breath of air, was closed, and the birth-fire 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 149 
 
 blazed fiercely in one corner, its fumes nearly 
 asphyxiating Kate as she entered. 
 
 What happened between Kate and the much- 
 esteemed woman will never be known. The girl 
 did not emerge for half an hour. But the woman 
 came out much sooner, dishevelled, and cackling 
 feebly. 
 
 After this Kate was prepared for anything, even 
 for the neglected condition of the drugs in the 
 dispensary, —the mortar was never cleaned, and 
 every prescription carried to the patient many 
 and for 
 
 
 
 more drugs than were written for him, 
 the foul, undrained, uncleaned, unlighted, and 
 unventilated rooms which she entered one after 
 another hopelessly. The patients were allowed to 
 receive their friends as they would, and to take 
 from their hands whatever misguided kindness 
 offered. When death came, the mourners howled 
 in chorus about the cot, and bore the naked body 
 through the court-yard, amid the jeers of the luna- 
 tic, to carry to the city what infection Heaven 
 willed. 
 
 There was no isolation of infectious cases dur- 
 ing the progress of the disease, and children 
 scourged with ophthalmia played light-heartedly 
 with the children of the visitors or among diph- 
 theria-beds. At one point, and one point only, 
 the doctor was strong; he was highly successful 
 
150 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 in dealing with the very common trouble entered 
 on the day-book as “loin-bite.” The wood-cutters 
 and small traders who had occasion to travel through 
 the lonely roads of the state were not infrequently 
 struck down by tigers, and in these cases the 
 doctor, discarding the entire English pharmacopeia, 
 fell back on simples of proved repute in the neigh- 
 boring villages, and wrought wonders. None the 
 less, 1t was necessary to convey to him that in 
 future there would be only one head of the State 
 Hospital, that her orders must be obeyed with- 
 out question, and that her name was Miss Kate 
 Sheriff. 
 
 The doctor, reflecting that she attended on the 
 women of the court, offered no protest. He had 
 been through many such periods of reform and reor- 
 ganization, and knew that his own inertia and a 
 smooth tongue would carry him through many 
 more. He bowed and assented, allowing Kate’s 
 reproaches to pass over his head, and parrying all 
 questions with the statement: 
 
 “This hospital only allowed one hundred and 
 fifty rupees per mensem from state revenues. How 
 can get drugs all the way from’ Calcutta for 
 that?” 
 
 “7 am paying for this order,’ 
 
 ’ said Kate, writing 
 
 out a list of needed drugs and appliances on the 
 desk in the bath-room, which was supposed to serve 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 151 
 
 as an office; “and I shall pay for whatever else I 
 think necessary.” 
 
 “Order going through me offeecially?” sug- 
 gested Dhunpat Rai, with his head on one side. 
 
 Unwilling to raise unnecessary obstacles, Kate 
 assented. With those poor creatures lying in the 
 rooms about her unwatched, untended, at the mercy 
 of this creature, it was not a time to argue about 
 commissions. 
 
 “Yes,” she said decidedly; “of course.” And 
 the doctor, when he saw the size and scope of the 
 order, felt that he could endure much at her 
 hands. 
 
 At the end of the three hours Kate came away, 
 fainting with weariness, want of food, and bitter 
 heartache. 
 
152 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Who speaks to the King carries his life in his hand, 
 Native Proverb. 
 
 TARVIN found the Maharajah, who had not yet 
 taken his morning allowance of opium, sunk in 
 the deepest depression. The man from Topaz 
 gazed at him shrewdly, filled with his purpose. 
 
 The Maharajah’s first words helped him to de- 
 clare it. “ What have you come here for?” he asked. 
 
 “To Rhatore?” inquired Tarvin, with a smile 
 that embraced the whole horizon. 
 
 “Yes; to Rhatore,” grunted the Maharajah. 
 “The agent sahib says you do not belong to any 
 government, and that you have come here only to 
 see things and write lies about them. Why have 
 you come?” 
 
 “T have come to turn your river. There is gold 
 in it,” he said steadily. 
 
 The Rajah answered him with brevity. “Go 
 and speak to the Government,” he said sulkily. 
 
 “Tt’s your river, I guess,” returned Tarvin, 
 cheerfully. 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 153 
 
 “Mine! Nothing in the state is mine. The 
 shopkeeper people are at my gates day and night. 
 The agent sahib won’t let me collect taxes as my 
 fathers used to do. I have no army.” 
 
 “ That’s perfectly true,’ assented Tarvin, under 
 his breath. “Il run off with it some morning.” 
 
 “And if I had,” continued the Maharajah, “I 
 have no one to fight against. I am only an old 
 wolf, with all my teeth drawn. Go away!” 
 
 They were talking in the flagged court-yard 
 immediately outside that wing of the palace occu- 
 pied by Sitabhai. The Maharajah was sitting in 
 a broken Windsor chair, while his grooms brought 
 up successive files of horses, saddled and _ bridled, 
 in the hope that one of the animals might be 
 chosen for his Majesty’s ride. The stale, sick air of 
 the palace drifted across the marble flags before 
 the morning wind, and it was not a wholesome 
 smell. 
 
 Tarvin, who had drawn rein in the court-yard 
 without dismounting, flung his right leg over the 
 pony’s withers, and held his peace. He had seen 
 something of the effect of opium upon the Mahara- 
 jah. A servant was approaching with a_ small 
 brass bowl full of opium and water. The Mahara- 
 jah swallowed the draught with many wry faces, 
 dashed the last brown drops from his mustache 
 and beard, and dropped back into the chair, star- 
 
154 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 ing with vacant eyes. In a few minutes he sprang 
 to his feet, erect and smiling. 
 
 “Are you here, Sahib?” said he.» “You are 
 here, or I should not feel ready to laugh. Do you 
 go riding this morning?” 
 
 “I’m your man.” | 
 
 “Then we will bring out the Foxhall colt. He 
 will throw you.” 
 
 “Very good,” said Tarvin, leisurely. 
 
 “And I will ride my own Cutch mare. Let us 
 get away before the agent sahib comes,” said the 
 Maharajah. 
 
 The blast of a bugle was heard without the 
 court-yard, and a clatter of wheels, as the grooms 
 departed to saddle the horses. 
 
 The Maharaj Kunwar ran up the steps and 
 pattered toward the Maharajah, his father, who 
 picked him up in his lap, and fondled him. 
 
 “What brings thee here, Lalji?” asked the 
 Maharajah. Lalji, the Beloved, was the familiar 
 name by which the Prince was known within the 
 palace. 
 
 “TIT came to exercise my guard. Father, they 
 are giving me bad saddlery for my troopers from 
 the state arsenal. Jeysingh’s saddle-peak is mended 
 with string, and Jeysingh is the best of my sol- 
 diers. Moreover, he tells me nice tales,” said the 
 Maharaj Kunwar, speaking in the vernacular, 
 with a friendly little nod toward Tarvin. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 155 
 
 “Hai! Hai! Thou art like all the rest,” said 
 the King. “Always some fresh demand upon the 
 state. And what is it now?” 
 
 The child joined his little hands together, and 
 caught his father fearlessly by his monstrous beard, 
 which, in the manner of a Rajput, was brushed up 
 over his ears. “Only ten little new saddles,” said 
 the child. “They are in the big saddle-rooms. I 
 have seen them. But the keeper of the horses 
 said that I was first to ask the King.” 
 
 The Maharajah’s face darkened, and he swore a 
 great oath by his gods. 
 
 “'The King is a slave and a servant,” he growled 
 —“the servant of the agent sahib and this woman- 
 talking English Raj; but, by Indur! the King’s 
 son is at least a King’s son. What right had 
 Saroop Singh to stay thee from anything that thou 
 desirest, Prince?” , 
 
 “T told him,” said the Maharaj Kunwar, “that 
 my father would not be pleased. But I said no 
 more, because I was not very well, and thou know- 
 est”’— the boy’s head drooped under the turban 
 —“T am only a little child. I may have the 
 saddles ?” 
 
 Tarvin, to whom no word of this conversation 
 was intelligible, sat at ease on his pony, smiling 
 at his friend the Maharaj. The interview had 
 begun in the dead dawn-silence of the court-yard 
 
156 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 —a silence so intense that he could hear the doves 
 cooing on a tower a hundred and fifty feet above 
 his head. But now all four sides of the green- 
 shuttered court-yard were alive, awake, and intent 
 about him. He could hear muffled breathings, the 
 rustle of draperies, and the faintest possible jarring 
 of shutters, cautiously opened from within. A 
 heavy smell of musk and jasmine came to his nos- 
 trils and filled him with uneasiness, for he knew, 
 without turning his head or his eyes, that Sitabhai 
 and her women were watching all that went on. 
 But neither the King nor the Prince heeded. The 
 Maharaj Kunwar was very full of his English les- 
 sons, learned at Mrs. Estes’s knee, and the King 
 was as interested as he. Lest Tarvin should fail 
 to understand, the Prince began to speak in Eng- 
 lish again, but very slowly and distinctly, that his 
 father also might comprehend. 
 
 “And this is a new verse,” he said, “which I 
 learned only yesterday.” 
 
 “Ts there any talk of their gods in it?” asked 
 the Maharajah, suspiciously. ‘“ Remember thou art 
 a Rajput.” 
 
 “No; oh, no!” said the Prince. “It is only 
 English, and I learned it very quickly.” 
 
 “Let me hear, little Pundit. Some day thou 
 wilt become a scribe, and go to the English col- 
 leges, and wear a long black gown.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 157% 
 
 The child slipped quickly back into the vernac- 
 alar. “The flag of our state has five colors,” he 
 said. “When I have fought for that, perhaps I 
 will become an Englishman.” 
 
 “There is no leading of armies afield any more, 
 little one; but say thy verses.” 
 
 The subdued rustle of unseen hundreds orew 
 more intense. Tarvin leaned forward with his 
 chin in his hand, as the Prince slid down from 
 his father’s lap, put his hands behind him, and 
 
 began, without pauses or expression: 
 
 “ Tiger, tiger, burning bright 
 In the forests of the night, 
 What immortal hand or eye 
 Framed thy fearful symmetry ? 
 When thy heart began to beat, 
 What dread hand made thy dread feet ? 
 
 “There is more that I have forgotten,” he went 
 
 on, “but the last line is: 
 
 “ Did he who made the lamb make thee ? 
 
 I learned it all very quickly,” and he began to 
 applaud himself with both hands, while Tarvin 
 followed suit. 
 
 “IT do not understand; but itis good to know 
 English. Thy friend here speaks such English 
 as I never knew,” said the Maharajah in the ver 
 nacular. 
 
158 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Aye,” rejoined the Prince; “but he speaks 
 with his face and his hands alive—so; and I 
 laugh before I know why. Now Colonel Nolan 
 Sahib speaks like a buffalo, with his mouth shut. 
 I cannot tell whether he is angry or pleased. But, 
 father, what does Tarvin Sahib do here?” 
 
 “We go for a ride together,” returned the King. 
 “When we return, perhaps I will tell thee. What 
 do the men about thee say of him?” 
 
 “They say he is a man of clean heart; and he 
 is always kind to me.” 
 
 “Has he said aught to thee of me?” 
 
 “Never in language that I could understand. 
 But I do not doubt that he is a good man. See, 
 he is laughing now.” 
 
 Tarvin, who had pricked up his ears at hearing 
 his own name, now resettled himself in the saddle, 
 and gathered up his reins, as a hint to the King 
 that it was time to be moving. 
 
 The grooms brought up a long, switch-tailed 
 English thoroughbred and a lean, mouse-colored 
 mare. The Maharajah rose to his feet. 
 
 “Go back to Saroop Singh and get the saddles, 
 Prince,” said he. 
 
 “What are you going to do to-day, little man?” 
 asked Tarvin. ° 
 
 “T shall go and get new equipment,” answered 
 the child, “and then I shall come to play with the 
 prime minister’s son here.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 159 
 
 Again, like the hiss of a hidden snake, the 
 rustle behind the shutters increased. Evidently 
 some one there understood the child’s words. 
 
 “Shall you see Miss Kate to-day?” 
 
 “Not to-day. °Tis holiday for me. I do not 
 go to Miss Estes to-day.” 
 
 The King turned on Tarvin swiftly, and spoke 
 under his breath. 
 
 “Must he see that doctor lady every day? All 
 my people lie to me, in the hope of winning my 
 favor; even Colonel Nolan says that the child is 
 very strong. Speak the truth. He is my first 
 son.” 
 
 “He is not strong,” answered Tarvin, calmly. 
 “Perhaps it would be better to let him see Miss 
 Sheriff this morning. You don’t lose anything by 
 keeping your weather eye open, you know.” 
 
 “T do not understand,” said the King; “but go 
 
 > 
 
 to the missionary’s house to-day, my son.’ 
 
 ’ answered the 
 
 “T am to come here and play,’ 
 Prince, petulantly. 
 
 “You don’t know what Miss Sheriff’s got for 
 you to play with,” said Tarvin. 
 
 “What is it?” asked the Maharaj, sharply. 
 
 “You’ve got a carriage and ten troopers,” replied 
 Tarvin. “You’ve only got to go there and find 
 out.” 
 He drew a letter from his breast-pocket, glanc- 
 
160 THE NAULAHKA 
 
 ing with liking at the two-cent American stamp, 
 and scribbled a note to Kate on the envelope, 
 which ran thus: 
 
 Keep the little fellow with you to-day. There’s a 
 wicked look about things this morning. Find some- 
 thing for him to do; get up games for him; do any- 
 thing, but keep him away from the palace. I got your 
 note. All right. I understand. 
 
 He called the Maharaj to him, and handed him 
 the note. “Take this to Miss Kate, like a little 
 man, and say I sent you,” he said. 
 
 “My son is not an orderly,” said the King, 
 surlily. 
 
 “Your son is not very well, and I’m the first 
 to speak the truth to you about him, it seems to 
 me,” said Tarvin. “Gently on that colt’s mouth 
 
 — you.” 
 
 The Foxhall colt was dancing between 
 his grooms. 
 
 “You'll be thrown,” said the Maharaj Kunwar, 
 in an ecstasy of delight. “He throws all his 
 grooms.” 
 
 At that moment a shutter in the court-yard 
 clicked distinctly three times in the silence. - 
 
 One of the grooms passed to the off side of the 
 plunging colt deftly. Tarvin put his foot into 
 the stirrup to spring up, when the saddle turned 
 
 completely round. Some one let go of the horse’s 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 161 
 
 head, and Tarvin had just time to kick his foot 
 free as the animal sprang forward. 
 
 “T’ve seen slicker ways of killing a man than 
 that,” he said quietly. “Bring my friend back,”’ 
 he added to one of the grooms; and when the 
 Foxhall colt was under his hands again he cinched 
 him up as the beast had not been girt since he 
 had first felt the bit. “Now,” he said, and leaped 
 into the saddle, as the King clattered out of the 
 court-yard. 
 
 The colt reared on end, landed stiffly on his 
 fore feet, and lashed out. Tarvin, sitting him 
 with the cowboy seat, said quietly to the child, 
 who was still watching his movements, “Run 
 along, Maharaj. Don’t hang around here. Let 
 me see you started for Miss Kate.” 
 
 The boy obeyed, with a regretful glance at the 
 prancing horse. Then the Foxhall colt devoted 
 himself to unseating his rider. He refused to quit 
 the court-yard, though Tarvin argued with hin, 
 first behind the saddle, and then between the indig- 
 nant ears. Accustomed to grooms who slipped 
 off at the first sign of rebellion, the Foxhall colt 
 was wrathful. Without warning, he dashed through 
 the archway, wheeled on his haunches, and bolted 
 in pursuit of the Maharajah’s mare. Once in the 
 open, sandy country, he felt that he had a field 
 
 worthy of his powers. ‘Tarvin also saw his oppor- 
 M 
 
162 THE NAULAHKA., 
 
 tunity. The Maharajah, known in his youth as 
 a hard rider among a nation of perhaps the hardest 
 riders on earth, turned in his saddle and watched 
 the battle with interest. 
 
 “You ride like a Rajput,” he shouted, as Tar- 
 vin flew past him. “Breathe him on a straight 
 course in the open.” 
 
 “Not till he’s learned who’s boss,” replied Tar- 
 vin, and he wrenched the colt around. 
 
 “ Shabash! Shabash! Oh, well done! Well done!” 
 cried the Maharajah, as the colt answered the bit. 
 “Tarvin Sahib, I?ll make you colonel of my regu- 
 lar cavalry.” 
 
 “Ten million iregular devils!” said Tarvin, 
 impolitely. “Come back, you brute! Back!” 
 
 The horse’s head was bowed on his lathering 
 chest under the pressure of the curb; but before 
 obeying he planted his fore feet, and bucked as 
 viciously as one of Tarvin’s own broncos. ‘“ Both 
 feet down and chest extended,” he murmured gayly 
 to himself, as the creature see-sawed up and down. 
 He was in his element, and dreamed himself back 
 in Topaz. 
 
 “ Maro! Maro!” exclaimed the King. “Hit him 
 hard! Hit him well!” 
 
 “Oh, let him have his little picnic,” 
 
 said Tar- 
 vin, easily. “I like it.” 
 When the colt was tired he was forced to back 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 168 
 
 r 
 
 for ten yards. “Now we’ll go on,” said Tarvin, 
 and fell into a trot by the side of the Maharajah. 
 “That river of yours is full of gold,” he said, 
 after a moment’s silence, as if continuing an unin- 
 terrupted conversation. 
 
 “When I was a young man,” said the King, “I 
 rode pig here. We chased them with the sword 
 in the springtime. ‘That was before the English 
 came. Over there, by that pile of rock, I broke 
 my collar-bone.” | 
 
 “Full of gold, Maharajah Sahib. How do you 
 propose to get it out?” 
 
 Tarvin knew something already of the King’s 
 discursiveness; he did not mean to give way to 
 it. 
 
 “What do I know?” answered the King, sol- 
 emnly. “Ask the agent sahib.” 
 
 “But, look here, who does run this state, you 
 or Colonel Nolan?” 
 
 ? 
 
 “You know,” returned the Maharajah. “You 
 
 have seen.” 
 
 He pointed north and south. “There,” 
 he said, “is one railway line; yonder is another. 
 I am a goat between two wolves.” 
 
 “Well, anyway, the country between is your 
 own. Surely you .can do what you like with 
 that.” 
 
 They had ridden some two or three miles beyond 
 
 the city, parallel with the course of the Amet 
 
164 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 River, their horses sinking fetlock-deep in the soft 
 sand. The King looked along the chain of shin- 
 ing pools, the white, rush-tipped hillocks of the 
 desert, and the far-distant line of low granite- 
 topped hills, whence the Amet sprang. It was 
 not a prospect to delight the heart of a king. 
 
 “Yes; I am lord of all this country,” he said. 
 “But, look you, one fourth of my revenue is swal- 
 lowed up by those who collect it; one fourth those 
 black-faced camel-breeders in the sand there will 
 not pay, and I must not march troops against them; 
 one fourth I myself, perhaps, receive; but the peo- 
 ple who should pay the other fourth do not know 
 to whom it should be sent. Yes; I am a very rich 
 king.” 
 
 “Well, any way you look at it, the river ought 
 to treble your income.” 
 
 The Maharajah looked at Tarvin intently. 
 
 “What would the Government say?” he asked. 
 
 “T don’t quite see where the Government comes 
 in. You can lay out orange-gardens and take 
 canals around them.” (There was a deep-set twin- 
 kle of comprehension in his Majesty’s eye.) “ Work- 
 ing the river would be much easier. You’ve tried 
 placer-mining here, haven’t you?” 
 
 “There was some washing in the bed of the river 
 one summer. My jails were too full of convicts, 
 and I feared rebellion. But there was nothing to 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 165 
 
 see, except those black dogs digging in the sand. 
 That year I won the Poonah cup with a bay pony.” 
 
 Tarvin brought his hand down on his thigh with 
 an unguarded smack. What was the use of talk- 
 ing business to this wearied man, who would pawn 
 what the opium had left to him of soul for some- 
 thing to see? He shifted his ground instantly. 
 
 “Yes; that sort of mining is nothing to look 
 at. What you want is a little dam up Gungra 
 way.” 
 
 “Near the hills?” 
 
 mes. 
 
 “No man has ever dammed the Amet,” said the 
 King. “It comes out of the ground, and sinks 
 back into the ground, and when the rain falls it 
 is as big as the Indus.” 
 
 “We'll have the whole bed of it laid bare batbre 
 
 Jesaid ‘Lar 
 
 the rains begin — bare for twelve miles, 
 vin, watching the effect on his companion. 
 
 “No man has dammed the Amet,” was the stony 
 reply. 
 
 “No man has ever tried. Give me all the labor 
 I want, and J will dam the Amet.” 
 
 “Where will the water go?” inquired the King. 
 
 “Tl take it around another way, as you took 
 the canal around the orange-garden, of course.” 
 
 “Ah! Zhen Colonel Nolan talked to me as if 
 
 I were a child.” 
 
166 (THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “You know why, Maharajah Sahib,” said Tar- 
 vin, placidly. 
 
 The King was frozen for a moment by this au- 
 dacity. He knew that all the secrets of his 
 domestic life were common talk in the mouths of 
 the city, for no man can bridle three hundred 
 women; but he was not prepared to find them so 
 frankly hinted at by this irreverent stranger, wha 
 was and was not an Englishman. . 
 
 “Colonel Nolan will say nothing this time,” 
 continued Tarvin. “Besides, it will help yom 
 people.” 
 
 “Who are also his,” said the King. 
 
 The opium was dying out of his brain, and his 
 head fell forward upon his chest. 
 
 “Then I shall begin to-morrow,” said Tarvin. 
 “It will be something to see. I must find the 
 best place to dam the river, and I dare say you 
 can lend me a few hundred convicts.” 
 
 “But why have you come here at all,” asked the 
 King, “to dam my rivers, and turn my state upside 
 down?” 
 
 “Because it’s good for you to laugh, Maharajah 
 Sahib. You know that as well as Ido. I will 
 play pachisi with you every night until you are 
 tired, and I can speak the truth—a rare commo- 
 dity in these parts.” 
 
 “Did you speak truth about the Maharaj Kun- 
 
 war? Is he indeed not well?” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 167 
 
 “T have told you he isn’t quite strong. But 
 there’s nothing the matter with him that Miss 
 Sheriff can’t put right.” 
 
 “Ts that the truth?” demanded the King. ‘“ Re- 
 member, he has my throne after me.” 
 
 “Tf I know Miss Sheriff, he’ll have that throne. 
 Don’t you fret, Maharajah Sahib.” 
 
 “You are great friend of hers?” pursued his 
 companion. “You both come from one country?” 
 
 “Yes,” assented Tarvin; “and one town.” 
 
 b) 
 
 “Tell me. about that town,” said the King, curi- 
 ously. 
 
 Tarvin, nothing loath, told him—told him at 
 length, in detail, and with his own touches of 
 verisimilitude, forgetting in the heat of admiration 
 and affection that the King could understand, at | 
 best, not more than one word in ten of his vigor- 
 ous Western colloquialisms. Half-way through his 
 rhapsody the King interrupted. | 
 
 “Tf it was so good, why did you not stay there?” 
 
 > 
 
 “I came to see you,” said Tarvin, quickly. “I 
 heard about you there.” 
 
 “Then it is true, what my poets sing to me, that 
 my fame is known in the four corners of the earth? 
 I will fill Bussant Rao’s mouth with gold if it is 
 so.” 
 
 “You can bet your life. Would you like me to 
 go away, though? Say the word!” Tarvin made 
 
 as if to check his horse. 
 
169 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 The Maharajah remained sunk in deep thought, 
 and when he spoke it was slowly and distinctly, 
 that Tarvin might catch every word. “I hate all 
 the English,” he said. “Their ways are not my 
 ways, and they make such trouble over the killing 
 of a man here and there. Your ways are not my 
 ways; but you do not give so much trouble, and 
 you are a friend of the doctor lady.” 
 
 “Well, I hope I’m a friend of the Maharaj Kun- 
 war’s too,” said Tarvin. 
 
 “Are you a true friend to him?” asked the 
 King, eyeing him closely. 
 
 “'That’s all right. I’d like to see the man who 
 tried to lay a hand on the little one. He’d van- 
 ish, King; he’d disappear; he wouldn’t be. Id 
 mop up Gokral Seetarun with him.” 
 
 “T have seen you hit that rupee. Do it again.” 
 
 Without thinking for a moment of the Foxhall 
 colt, Tarvin drew his revolver, tossed a coin into 
 
 the air, and fired. The coin fell beside them, 
 
 
 
 a 
 fresh one this time, — marked squarely in the cen- 
 tre. The colt plunged furiously, and the Cutch 
 mare curveted. There was a thunder of hoofs 
 behind them. The escort, which, till now, had 
 waited respectfully a quarter of a mile behind, 
 were racing up at full speed, with levelled lances. 
 The King laughed a little contemptuously. 
 
 “They are thinking you have shot me,” he said. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 169 
 
 “So they will kill you, unless I stop them. Shall 
 I stop them?” 
 
 Tarvin thrust out his under jaw with a motion 
 peculiar to himself, wheeled the colt, and waited 
 without answering, his empty hands folded on the 
 pommel of his saddle. The troop swept down in 
 -an irregular mob, each man crouching, lance in 
 rest, over his saddle-bow, and the captain of the 
 troop flourishing a long, straight Rajput sword. 
 Tarvin felt rather than saw the lean, venomous 
 lanceheads converging on the breast of the colt. 
 The King drew off a few yards, and watched him 
 where he stood alone in the centre of the plain, 
 waiting. For that single moment, in which he 
 faced death, Tarvin thought to himself that he 
 preferred any customer to a maharajah. 
 
 Suddenly his Highness shouted once, the lance- 
 butts fell as though they had been smitten down, 
 and the troop, opening out, whirled by on each 
 side of Tarvin, each man striving as nearly as 
 might be to brush the white man’s boot. 
 
 The white man stared in front of him without 
 turning his head, and the King gave a little grunt 
 of approval. 
 
 “Would you have done that for the Maharaj 
 Kunwar?” he asked, wheeling his mare in again 
 beside him, after a pause. 
 
 “No,” said Tarvin, placidly. “I should have 
 begun shooting long before.” 
 
iO THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “What! Fifty men?” 
 
 “No; the captain.” 
 
 The King shook in his saddle with laughter, 
 and held up his hand. The commandant of the 
 troop trotted up. 
 
 “ Ohe, Pertab Singh-Ji, he says he would have 
 shot thee.” Then, turning to Tarvin, smiling, , 
 “That is my cousin.” 
 
 The burly Rajput captain grinned from ear to 
 ear, and, to T'arvin’s surprise, answered in perfect 
 English: “That would do for irregular cavalry, — 
 to kill the subalterns, you understand, —but we 
 are drilled exclusively on English model, and I 
 have my commission from the Queen. Now, in 
 the German army —” 
 
 Tarvin looked at him in blank amazement. 
 
 “But you are not connected with the military,” 
 said Pertab Singh-Ji, politely. “I have heard how 
 you shot, and I saw what you were doing. But 
 you must please excuse. When a shot is fired near 
 his Highness it is our order always to come up.” 
 
 He saluted, and withdrew to his troop. 
 
 The sun was growing unpleasantly hot, and the 
 King and Tarvin trotted back toward the city. — 
 
 “How many convicts can you Jend me?” asked 
 Tarvin, as they went. 
 
 “All my jails full, if you want them,” was 
 the enthusiastic answer. “By God, Sahib, I never 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 171 
 
 saw anything like that. I would give you any- 
 thing.” ? 
 
 Tarvin took off his hat, and mopped his fore- 
 head, laughing. 
 
 “Very good, then. J’ll ask for something that 
 will cost you nothing.” 
 
 The Maharajah grunted doubtfully. People gen- 
 erally demanded of him things he was not willing 
 to part with. | 
 
 “That talk is new to me, Tarvin Sahib,” said 
 he. 
 
 “You'll see I’m in earnest when I say I only 
 want to look at the Naulahka. I’ve seen all your 
 state diamonds and gold carriages, but I haven’t 
 seen that.” 
 
 The Maharajah trotted fifty yards without reply- 
 ing.. Then: 
 
 “Do they speak of it where you come from?” 
 
 “Of course. All Americans know that it’s the 
 biggest thing in India. It’s in all the guide- 
 books,” said Tarvin, brazenly. | 
 
 “Do the books say where it is? The English 
 people are so wise.” The Maharajah stared straight 
 in front of him, and almost smiled. 
 
 “No; but they say you know, and I’d like to 
 see it.” 
 
 “You must understand, Tarvin Sahib,” — the 
 
 Maharajah spoke meditatively, — “that this is not 
 
 
 
iba THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 a state jewel, but the state jewel—the jewel of 
 the state. It is a holy thing. Even I do not 
 keep it, and I cannot give you any order to see 
 ites: 
 
 Tarvin’s heart sank. 
 
 “But,” the Maharajah continued, “if I say where 
 if is, you can go at your own risk, without Gov- 
 ernment interfering. I have seen you are not 
 afraid of risk, and I am a very grateful man.  Per- 
 haps the priests will show you; perhaps they will 
 not. Or perhaps you will not find the priests at 
 all. Oh, I forgot; it is not in that temple that I 
 was thinking of. No; it must be in the Gye- 
 Mukh—the Cow’s Mouth. But there are no 
 priests there, and nobody goes. Of course it is in 
 the Cow’s Mouth. I thought it was in this city,” 
 resumed the Maharajah. He spoke as if he were 
 talking of a dropped horseshoe or a mislaid turban. 
 
 “Oh, of course. The Cow’s Mouth,” repeated 
 Tarvin, as if this also were in the guide-books. 
 
 Chuckling with renewed animation, the King 
 went on: “By God, only a very brave man would 
 go to the Gye-Mukh; such a brave man as your- 
 self, Tarvin Sahib,” he added, giving his compan- 
 ion a shrewd look. “Ho, ho! Pertab Singh-Ji 
 would not go. No; not with all his troops that 
 you conquered to-day.” 
 
 “Keep your praise until I’ve earned it, Mahara- 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 173 
 
 jah Sahib,” said Tarvin. “Wait until I’ve dammed 
 
 y) 
 
 that river.”” He was silent for a while, as if di- 
 gesting this newest piece of information. 
 
 “Now, you have a city like this city, I sup- 
 pose?” said the Maharajah, interrogatively, point- 
 ing to Rhatore. 
 
 Tarvin had overcome in a measure his first feel- 
 ing of contempt for the state of Gokral Seetarun 
 and the city of Rhatore. He had begun to look 
 upon them both, as was his nature in the case of 
 people and things with which he dwelt, with a 
 certain kindness. 
 
 “Topaz is going to be bigger,” he explained. 
 
 “And when you are there what is your offeecial 
 position?” asked the Maharajah. 
 
 Tarvin, without answering, drew from his breast- 
 pocket the cable from Mrs. Mutrie, and handed 
 it in silence to the King. Where an election was 
 concerned even the sympathy of an opium-soaked 
 Rajput was not indifferent to him. 
 
 “What does it mean?” asked the King, and 
 Tarvin threw up his hands in despair. 
 
 He explained his connection with the govern- 
 ment of his state, making the Colorado legislature 
 appear as one of the parliaments-of America. He 
 owned up to being the Hon. Nicholas Tarvin, if 
 the Maharajah really wanted to give him his full 
 title. 
 
174 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Such as the members of provincial councils that 
 come here?” suggested the Maharajah, remember- 
 ing the gray-headed men who visited him from time 
 to time, charged with authority only little less than 
 that of a viceroy. “But still you will not write 
 letters to that legislature about my government?” 
 queried he suspiciously, recalling again over-curi- 
 ous emissaries from the British Parliament over 
 seas, who sat their horses like sacks, and talked 
 interminably of good government when he wished 
 to go to bed. “And, above ali,” he added slowly, 
 as they drew near to the palace, “you are most 
 true friend of the Maharaj Kunwar? And your 
 friend, the lady doctor, will make him well?” 
 
 “That,” said Tarvin, with a sudden inspiration, 
 
 “is what we are both here for!” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 175 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 This I saw when the rites were done 
 And the lamps were dead and the Gods alone 
 And the gray snake coiled on the altar stone — 
 Ere I fled from a Fear that I could not see, 
 And the Gods of the East made mouths at me.* 
 In Seonee. 
 
 WHEN he left the King’s side, Tarvin’s first 
 impulse was to set the Foxhall colt into a gallop, 
 and forthwith depart in search of the Naulahka. 
 He mechanically drove his heels home, and _ short- 
 ened his rein under the impulse of the thought; 
 but the colt’s leap beneath him recalled him to his 
 senses, and he restrained himself and his mount 
 with the same motion. 
 
 His familiarity with the people’s grotesque no- 
 menclature left him unimpressed by the Cow’s 
 Mouth as a name for a spot, but he gave some 
 wonder to the question why the thing should be 
 in the Cow’s Mouth. This was a matter to be 
 laid before Estes. 
 
 “These heathen,” he said to himself, “are just 
 the sort to hide it away in a salt-lick, or bury it 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co. 
 
176 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 in a hole in the ground. Yes; a hole is about 
 their size. They put the state diamonds in cracker- 
 boxes tied up with boot-laces. The Naulahka is 
 probably hanging on a tree.” 
 
 As he trotted toward the missionary’s house, he 
 looked at the hopeless landscape with new interest, 
 for any spur of the low hills, or any roof in the 
 jumbled city, might contain his treasure. 
 
 Estes, who had outlived many curiosities, and 
 knew Rajputana as a prisoner knows the bricks of 
 his cell, turned on Tarvin, in reply to the latter’s 
 direct question, a flood of information. There were 
 mouths of all kinds in India, from the Burning 
 Mouth in the north, where a jet of natural gas 
 was worshipped by millions as the incarnation of a 
 divinity, to the Devil’s Mouth among some for- 
 gotten Buddhist ruins in the furthest southern 
 corner of Madras. 
 
 There was also a Cow’s Mouth some hundreds 
 of miles away, in the court-yard of a temple at 
 Benares, much frequented by devotees; but as far 
 as Rajputana was concerned, there was only one 
 Cow’s Mouth, and that was to be found in a dead 
 city. 
 
 The missionary launched into a history of wars 
 and rapine, extending over hundreds of years, all 
 centring round one rock-walled city in the wilder- 
 ness, which had been the pride and the glory of 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. LT 
 
 the kings of Mewar. ‘Tarvin listened with patience 
 as infinite as his weariness —ancient history had 
 no charm for the man who was making his: own 
 town —while Estes enlarged upon the past, and 
 told stories of voluntary immolation on the pyre 
 in subterranean palaces by thousands of Rajput 
 women who, when the city fell before a Moham- 
 medan, and their kin had died in the last charge 
 of defence, cheated the conquerors of all but the 
 empty glory of conquest. Estes had a taste for 
 archeology, and it was a pleasure to him to speak 
 of it to a fellow countryman. 
 
 By retracing the ninety-six miles to Rawut 
 Junction, Tarvin might make connection with a 
 train that would carry him sixty-seven miles west- 
 ward to yet another junction, where he would 
 change and go south by rail for a hundred and 
 seven miles; and this would bring him within four 
 miles of this city, its marvellous nine-storied tower 
 of glory, which he was to note carefully, its stu- 
 pendous walls and desolate palaces. The journey 
 would occupy at least two days. At this point 
 Tarvin suggested a map, and a glance at it showed 
 him that Estes proposed an elaborate circus round 
 three sides of a square, whereas a spider-like line 
 ran more or less directly from Rhatore to Gun- 
 naur. 
 
 “This seems shorter,” he said. 
 N 
 
TTS, THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “It’s only a country road, and you have had 
 some experience of roads in this state. Fifty-seven 
 miles on a kutecha road in this sun would be fatal.” 
 
 Tarvin smiled to himself. He had no particular 
 dread of the sun, which, year by year, had stolen 
 from his companion something of his vitality. 
 
 “T think I'll ride, anyhow... It seems a waste 
 to travel half round India to get at a thing 
 across the road, though it is the custom of the 
 country.” 
 
 He asked the missionary what the Cow’s Mouth 
 was like, and Estes explained archeologically, archi- 
 tecturally, and philologically to such good purpose 
 that Tarvin understood that it was some sort of a 
 hole in the ground—an ancient, a remarkably 
 ancient, hole of peculiar sanctity, but nothing more 
 than a hole. 
 
 Tarvin decided to start without an hour’s delay. 
 The dam might wait until he returned. It was 
 hardly likely that the King’s outburst of gener- 
 osity would lead him to throw open his jails on 
 the morrow. ‘Tarvin debated for a while whether 
 he should tell him of the excursion he was propos- 
 ing to himself, and then decided that he would 
 look at the necklace first, and: open negotiations 
 later. This seemed to suit the customs of the 
 country. He returned to the rest-house with 
 Kstes’s map in his pocket to take stock of his 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 178 
 
 stable. Like other men of the West, he reckoned 
 « horse a necessity before all other necessities, and 
 had purchased one mechanically immediately after 
 his arrival. It had been a comfort to him to note 
 all the tricks of all the men he had ever traded 
 horses with faithfully reproduced in the lean, 
 swarthy Cabuli trader who had led his kicking, 
 plunging horse up to the veranda one idle even- 
 ing; and it had been a greater comfort to battle 
 with them as he had battled in the old days. The 
 result of the skirmish, fought out in broken Eng- 
 lish and expressive American, was an unhandsome, 
 doubtful-tempered, mouse-colored Kathiawar stall- 
 ion, who had been dismissed for vice from the 
 service of his Majesty, and who weakly believed 
 that, having eaten pieces of the troopers of the 
 Deo Li Irregular Horse, ease and idleness awaited 
 him. Tarvin had undeceived him leisurely, in 
 such moments as he most felt the need of doing 
 something, and the Kathiawar, though never grate- 
 ful, was at least civil. He had been christened 
 Fibby Winks in recognition of ungentlemanly con- 
 duct and a resemblance which Tarvin fancied he 
 detected between the beast’s lean face and that of 
 the man who had jumped his claim. 
 
 Tarvin threw back the loin-cloth as he came 
 upon Fibby drowsing in the afternoon sun behind 
 the rest-house. 
 
180 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “We're going for a little walk down-town, 
 Fibby,” he said. 
 
 The Kathiawar squealed and snapped. 
 
 wens you always were a loafer, Fibby.” 
 
 Fibby was saddled by his nervous native atten- 
 dant, while Tarvin took a blanket from his room 
 and rolled up into it an imaginative assortment 
 of provisions. Fibby was to find his rations where 
 Heaven pleased. Then he set out as light-heartedly 
 as though he were going for a canter round the 
 city. It was now about three in the afternoon. 
 All’ Fibby’s boundless reserves. of ill temper and 
 stubborn obstinacy Tarvin resolved should be de- 
 voted, by the aid of his spurs, to covering the 
 fifty-seven miles to Gunnaur in the next ten hours, 
 if the road were fair. If not, he should be allowed 
 another two hours. ‘The return journey would not 
 require spurs. There was a moon that night, and 
 Tarvin knew enough of native roads in Gokrai 
 Seetarun, and rough trails elsewhere, to be certain 
 that he would not be confused by cross-tracks. 
 
 It being borne into Fibby’s mind that he was 
 required to advance, not in three directions at once, 
 but in one, he clicked his bit comfortably in his 
 mouth, dropped his head, and began to trot stead- 
 ily. Then Tarvin pulled him up, and addressed 
 him tenderly. 
 
 “Fib, my boy, we’re not out for exercise — you’l] 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 181 
 
 fearn that before sundown. Some galoot has been 
 training you to waste your time over the English 
 trot. Ill be discussing other points with you in 
 the course of the campaign; but we'll settle this 
 now. We don’t begin with crime. Drop it, 
 Iibby, and behave like a man-horse.” 
 
 Tarvin was obliged to make further remarks on 
 the same subject before Fibby returned to the easy 
 native lope, which is also a common Western pace, 
 tiring neither man nor beast. By this he began 
 to understand that a long journey was demanded 
 of him, and, lowering his tail, buckled down to 
 it. 
 
 At first he moved in a cloud of sandy dust with 
 the cotton-wains and the country-carts that were 
 creaking out to the far distant railroad at Gun- 
 naur. As the sun began to sink, his gaunt shadow 
 danced like a goblin across low-lying volcanic 
 rock tufted with shrubs, and here and there an 
 aloe. 
 
 The carters unyoked their cattle on the roadside, 
 and prepared to eat their evening meal by the light 
 of dull-red fires. Fibby cocked one ear wistfully 
 toward the flames, but held on through the gather-. 
 ing shadows, and Tarvin smelt the acrid juice of 
 bruised camel’s-thorn beneath his horse’s hoofs. 
 The moon rose in splendor behind him, and, 
 
 following his lurching shadow, he overtook a naked 
 
182 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 man who bore over his shoulder a stick loaded 
 with jingling bells, and fled panting and perspiring 
 from one who followed him armed with a naked 
 sword. ‘This was the mail-carrier and his escort run- 
 ning to Gunnaur. The jingling died away on the 
 dead air, and Fibby was ambling between intermin- 
 able lines of thorn-bushes that threw mad arms to the 
 stars, and cast shadows as solid as themselves across 
 the road. Some beast of the night plunged through 
 the thicket alongside, and Fibby snorted in panic. 
 Then a porcupine crossed under his nose with a 
 rustle of quills, and left an evil stench to poison 
 the stillness for a moment. <A _ point of light 
 gleamed ahead, where a bullock-cart had broken 
 down, and the drivers were sleeping peacefully till 
 daylight should show the injury. Here Fibby 
 stopped, and Tarvin, through the magic of a rupee, 
 representing fortune to the rudely awakened sleep- 
 ers, procured food and a little water for him, eased 
 the girths, and made as much of him as he was 
 disposed to permit. On starting again, Fibby found 
 his second wind, and with it there woke the spirit 
 of daring and adventure inherited from his ances- 
 tors, who were accustomed to take their masters 
 thirty leagues’ in a day for the sacking of a town, 
 to sleep by a lance driven into the earth as a 
 picket, and to return whence they had come before 
 the ashes of the houses had lost heat. So Fibby 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST, 183 
 
 lifted his tail valiantly, neighed, and began to 
 move. | 
 
 The road descended for miles, crossing the dry 
 ‘beds of many water-courses and once a broad river, 
 where Fibby stopped for another drink, and would 
 have lain down to roll in a melon-bed but that 
 his rider spurred him on up the slope. The coun- 
 try grew more fertile at every mile, and rolled in 
 broader waves. Under the lght of the setting 
 moon the fields showed silver-white with the opium- 
 poppy, or dark with sugar-cane. 
 
 Poppy and sugar ceased together, as Fibby topped 
 a long, slow ascent, and with distended nostrils 
 snuffed for the wind of the morning. He knew 
 that the day would bring him rest. Tavin peered 
 forward where the white line of the road disap- 
 peared in the gloom of velvety scrub. He com- 
 manded a vast level plain flanked by hills of soft 
 outline —a plain that in the dim light seemed as 
 level as the sea. Like the sea, too, it bore on its 
 breast a ship, ike a gigantic monitor with a sharp 
 bow, cutting her way from north to south; such a 
 ship as man never yet has seen—two miles long, 
 with three or four hundred feet free-board, lonely, 
 silent, mastless, without lights, a derelict of the 
 earth. 
 
 “We are nearly there, Fib, my boy,” said Tar- 
 
 vin, drawing rein, and scanning the monstrous 
 
 ~ 
 
184 THE NAULAHKA., 
 
 thing by the starlight. “We’ll get as close as 
 we can, and then wait for the daylight before going 
 aboard.” 
 
 They descended the slope, which was covered © 
 with sharp stones and sleeping goats. Then the 
 road turned sharply to the left, and began to run 
 parallel to the ship. Tarvin urged Fibby into a 
 more direct path, and the good horse blundered 
 piteously across the scrub-covered ground, cut up 
 and channelled by the rains into a network of six- 
 foot ravines and gulches. 
 
 Here he gave out with a despairing grunt. Tar- 
 vin took pity on him, and, fastening him to a 
 tree, bade him think of his sins till breakfast-time, 
 and dropped from his back into a dry and dusty 
 water-hole. Ten steps further, and the scrub was 
 all about him, whipping him across the brows, 
 hooking thorns into his jacket, and looping roots 
 in front of his knees as he pushed on up an ever- 
 steepening incline. 
 
 At last Tarvin was crawling on his hands and 
 knees, grimed from head to foot, and hardly to be 
 distinguished from the wild pigs that passed like — 
 slate-colored shadows through the tangle of the 
 thickets on their way to their rest. Too absorbed 
 to hear them grunt, he pulled and screwed himself 
 up the slope, tugging at the roots as though he 
 would rend the Naulahka from the bowels of the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 185 
 
 earth, and swearing piously at every step. When 
 he stopped to wipe the sweat from his face, he 
 found, more by touch than by eye, that he knelt 
 at the foot of a wall that ran up into the stars. 
 Fibby, from the tangle below, was neighing dole- 
 fully. } 
 
 “You're not hurt, Fibby,” he gasped, spitting 
 out some fragments of dry grass; “you aren’t on 
 in this scene. Nobody’s asking you to fly to- 
 night,” he said, looking hopelessly up at the wall 
 again, and whistling softly in response to an owl’s 
 hooting overhead. 
 
 He began to pick his way between the foot of 
 the wall and the scrub that grew up to it, press- 
 ing one hand against the huge cut stones, and 
 holding the other before his face. A fig-seed had 
 found foothold between two of the gigantic slabs, 
 and, undisturbed through the centuries, had grown 
 into an arrogant, gnarled tree, that writhed between 
 the fissures and heaved the stonework apart. Tar- 
 vin considered for a while whether he could climb 
 into the crook of the lowest branch, then moved 
 on a few steps, and found the wall rent from top 
 to bottom through the twenty feet of its thick- 
 ness, allowing passage for the head of an army. 
 
 “Like them, exactly like them!” he mused. “I 
 might have expected it. To build a wall sixty 
 feet high, and put an eighty-foot hole in it! The 
 
186 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 Naulahka must. be lying out on a bush, or a child’s 
 playing with it, and—I can’t get it!” 
 
 He plunged through the gap, and found himself 
 amid scattered pillars, slabs of stone, broken lin- 
 tels, and tumbled tombs, and heard a low, thick 
 hiss almost under his riding-boots. No man born 
 of woman needs to be instructed in the voice of 
 the serpent. 
 
 Tarvin jumped, and stayed still. Fibby’s neigh 
 came faintly now. The dawn wind blew through 
 the gap in the wall, and Tarvin wiped his fore- 
 head with a deep sigh of relief. He would do 
 no more till the light came. This was the hour 
 to eat and drink; also to stand very still, because 
 of that voice from the ground. 
 
 He pulled food and a flask from his pocket, and, 
 staring before him in every direction, ate hungrily. 
 The loom of the night lifted a little, and he 
 could see the outline of some great building a few 
 yards away. Beyond this were other shadows, 
 faint as the visions in a dream—the shadows of 
 yet more temples and lines of houses; the wind, 
 blowing among them, brought back a rustle of 
 tossing hedges. 
 
 The shadows grew more distinct: he could: see 
 that he was standing with his face to some decayed 
 tomb. Then his jaw fell, for, without warning 
 or presage, the red dawn shot up behind him, and 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 187 
 
 there leaped out of the night the city of the dead. 
 Tall-built, sharp-domed palaces, flushing to the 
 color of blood, revealed the horror of their empti- 
 ness, and glared at the day that pierced them 
 through and through. 
 
 The wind passed singing down the empty streets, 
 and, finding none to answer, returned, chasing 
 before it a muttering cloud of dust, which pres- 
 ently whirled itself into a little cyclone-funnel, 
 and laid down with a sigh. 
 
 A screen of fretted marble lay on the dry grass, 
 where it had fallen from some window above, and 
 a gecko crawled over it to sun himself. Already 
 the dawn flush had passed. The hot light was 
 everywhere, and a kite had poised himself in the 
 parched blue sky. ‘The day, new-born, might have 
 been as old as the city. It seemed to Tarvin that 
 he and it were standing still to hear the centuries 
 race by on the wings of the purposeless dust. 
 
 As he took his first step into the streets, a pea- 
 cock stepped from the threshold of a lofty red 
 house, and spread his tail in the splendor of the 
 sun. ‘Tarvin halted, and with perfect gravity took 
 off his hat to the royal bird, where it blazed 
 against the sculptures on the wall, the sole living 
 thing in sight. 
 
 The silence of the place and the insolent naked- 
 ness of the empty ways lay on him like a dead 
 
188 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 weight. For a long time he did not care toa 
 whistle, but rambled aimlessly from one wall to 
 another, looking at the gigantic reservoirs, dry 
 and neglected, the hollow guard-houses that studded 
 the battlements, the time-riven arches that spanned 
 the streets, and, above all, the carven tower -with 
 a shattered roof that sprang a hundred and _ fifty 
 feet into the air, for a sign to the country-side 
 that the royal city of Gunnaur was not dead, but 
 would one day hum with men. 
 
 It was from this tower, incrusted with figures 
 in high relief of beast and man, that Tarvin, after 
 a heavy climb, looked out on the vast sleeping 
 land in the midst of which the dead city lay. He 
 saw the road by which he had come in the night, 
 dipping and reappearing again over thirty miles 
 of country, saw the white poppy-fields, the dull- 
 brown scrub, and the unending plain to the north- 
 ward, cut by the shining line of the rail. From 
 his aery he peered forth as a man peers from a 
 crow’s-nest at sea; for, once down there below 
 in the city, all view was cut off by the battle- 
 ments that rose like bulwarks. On the side nearest 
 to the railroad, sloping causeways, paved with 
 stone, ran down to the plain under many gates, 
 as the gangway of a ship when it is let down, 
 and through the gaps in the walls —time and the 
 trees had torn their way to and fro—there was 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 189 
 
 nothing to be seen except the horizon, which might 
 have been the deep sea. 
 
 He thought of Fibby waiting in the scrub for 
 his breakfast, and made haste to descend to the 
 streets again. Remembering the essentials of his 
 talk with Estes as to the position of the Cow’s 
 Mouth, he passed up a side-lane, disturbing the 
 squirrels and monkeys that had taken up their 
 quarters in the cool dark of the rows of empty 
 houses. The last house ended in a heap of ruins 
 among a tangle of mimosa and tall grass, through 
 which ran a narrow foot-track. 
 
 Tarvin marked the house as the first actual ruin 
 he had seen. His complaint against all the others, 
 the temples and the palaces, was that they were 
 not ruined, but dead—-empty, swept, and gar- 
 nished, with the seven devils of loneliness in riot- 
 ous possession. In time —in a few thousand years 
 perhaps — the city would crumble away. He was 
 distinctly glad that one house at least had set the 
 example. 
 
 The path dropped beneath his feet on a shelf of 
 solid rock that curved over like. the edge of a 
 waterfall. Tarvin took only one step, and fell, 
 for the rock was worn into deep gutters, smoother 
 than ice, by the naked feet of millions who had 
 trodden that way for no man knew how many 
 years. When he rose he heard a malignant chuc- 
 
190 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 kle, half suppressed, which ended in a choking 
 cough, ceased, and broke out anew. Tarvin regis- 
 tered an oath to find that scoffer when he had 
 found the necklace, and looked to his foothold more 
 carefully. At this point it. seemed that the Cow’s 
 Mouth must be some sort of disused quarry fringed 
 to the ps with rank vegetation. 
 
 All sight of what lay below him was blocked 
 by the thick foliage of trees that leaned forward, 
 bowing their heads together as night-watchers hud- 
 dle over a corpse. Once upon a time there had 
 been rude steps leading down the almost sheer 
 descent, but the naked feet had worn them to 
 glassy knobs and lumps, and blown dust had made 
 a thin soil in their chinks. Tarvin looked long 
 and angrily, because the laugh came from the 
 bottom of this track, and then, digging his heel 
 into the mould, began to let himself down step 
 by step, steadying himself by the tufts of grass. 
 Before he had realized it, he was out of reach of 
 the sun, and neck-deep in tall grass. Still there 
 was a sort of pathway under his feet, down the 
 almost perpendicular side. He gripped the grass, 
 and went on. ‘The earth beneath his elbows grew 
 moist, and the rock where it cropped out showed 
 rotten with moisture and coated with moss. The 
 air grew cold and damp. Another plunge down- 
 ward revealed to him what the trees were guard- 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST... ae 
 
 ing, as he drew breath on a narrow stone ledge. 
 They sprung from the masonry round the sides of 
 a square tank of water so stagnant that it had 
 corrupted past corruption, and lay dull-blue under 
 the blackness of the trees. The drought of summer 
 had shrunk it, and a bank of dried mud ran round 
 its sides. The head of a sunken stone pillar, 
 carved with monstrous and obscene gods, reared 
 itself from the water like the head of a tortoise 
 swimming to land. ‘The birds moved in the sunlit 
 branches of the trees far overhead. Little twigs 
 and berries dropped into the water, and the noise 
 of their fall echoed from side to side of the tank 
 that received no sunlight. 
 
 The chuckle that had so annoyed Tarvin broke 
 out again as he listened. This time it was behind 
 him, and, wheeling sharply, he saw that it came 
 from a thin stream of water that spurted fitfully 
 from the rudely carved head of a cow, and dripped 
 along a stone spout into the heavy blue pool. Be- 
 hind that spout the moss-grown rock rose sheer. 
 This, then, was the Cow’s Mouth. 
 
 The tank lay at the bottom of a shaft, and the 
 
 one way down to it was that by which Tarvin had 
 
 
 
 come —a path that led from the sunlight to the 
 chill and mould of a vault. 
 “Well, this is kind of the King, anyhow,” he 
 
 said, pacing the ledge cautiously, for it was almost 
 
192 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 as slippery as the pathway on the rocks. “ Now, 
 what’s the use of this?” he continued, returning. 
 The ledge ran only round one side of the tank, 
 and, unless he trusted to the mud-banks on the 
 other three, there was no hope of continuing his 
 exploration further. The Cow’s Mouth chuckled 
 again, as a fresh jet of water forced its way through 
 the formless jaws. 
 
 “Oh, dry up!” he muttered impatiently, staring 
 through the half light that veiled all. 
 
 He dropped a piece of rock on the mud under 
 the lip of the ledge, then tested it with a cautious 
 foot, found that it bore, and decided to walk round 
 the tank. As there were more trees to the right 
 of the ledge than to the left, he stepped off on 
 the mud from the right, holding cautiously to the 
 branches and the tufts of grass in case of any false 
 step. 
 
 When the tank was first made its rock walls had 
 been perfectly perpendicular, but time and weather 
 and the war of the tree roots had broken and 
 scarred the stone in a thousand places, giving a 
 scant foothold here and there. 
 
 Tarvin crept along the right side of the tank, 
 resolved, whatever might come, to go round it. 
 The gloom deepened as he came directly under the 
 largest fig-tree, throwing a thousand arms across 
 the water, and buttressing the rock with snake-like 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 193 
 
 roots as thick as a man’s body. Here, sitting on 
 a bole, he rested and looked at the ledge. The 
 sun, shooting down the path that he had trampled 
 through the tall grass, threw one patch of ght on 
 the discolored marble of the ledge and on the blunt 
 muzzle of the cow’s head; but where Tarvin rested 
 under the fig-tree there was darkness, and an intol- 
 erable scent of musk. The blue water was not 
 inviting to watch; he turned his face inward to 
 the rock and the trees, and, looking up, caught 
 the emerald-green of a parrot’s wing moving among 
 the upper branches. Never in his life had Tarvin 
 so acutely desired the blessed sunshine. He was 
 cold and damp, and conscious that a gentle breeze 
 was blowing in his face from between the snaky 
 tree roots. 
 
 It was the sense of space more than actual sight 
 that told him that there was a passage before him 
 shrouded by the roots on which he sat, and it 
 was his racial instinct of curiosity rather than any 
 love of adventure that led him to throw himself at 
 the darkness, which parted before and closed behind 
 him. He could feel that his feet were treading 
 on cut stone overlaid with a thin layer of dried 
 mud, and, extending his arms, found masonry on 
 each side. Then he lighted a match, and con- 
 gratulated himself that his ignorance of cows’ 
 
 mouths had not led him to bring a lantern with 
 O 
 
194 THE NAULAHKA, 
 
 him. The first match flickered in the draft and 
 went out, and before the flame had died he heard 
 a sound in front of him like the shivering back- 
 ward draw of a wave on a pebbly beach. The noise 
 was not inspiriting, but Tarvin pressed on for a 
 few steps, looking back to see that the dull glim- 
 mer of the outer day was still behind him, and 
 lighted another match, guarding it with his hands. 
 At his next step he shuddered from head to foot. 
 His heel had crashed through a skull on the 
 ground. 
 
 The match showed him that he had quitted the 
 passage, and was standing in a black space of 
 unknown dimensions. He fancied that he saw 
 the outline of a pillar, or rows of pillars, flicker- 
 ing drunkenly in the gloom, and was all too sure 
 that the ground beneath him was strewn with 
 bones. Then he became aware of pale emerald 
 eyes watching him fixedly, and perceived that there 
 was deep breathing in the place other than his 
 own. He flung the match down, the eyes retreated, 
 there was a wild rattle and crash in the darkness, 
 a howl that might have been bestial or human, and 
 Tarvin, panting between the tree roots, swung him- 
 self to the left, and fled back over the mud-banks 
 to the ledge, where he stood, his back to the Cow’s 
 Mouth and his revolyer in his hand. 
 
 In that moment of waiting for what might emerge 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 195 
 
 from the hole in the side of the tank Tarvin tasted 
 all the agonies of pure physical terror. Then he 
 noted with the tail of his eye that a length of 
 mud-bank to his left—half the mud-bank, in fact 
 —was moving slowly into the water. It floated 
 slowly across the tank, a long welt of filth and 
 slime. Nothing came out of the hole between the 
 fig-roots, but the mud-bank grounded under the 
 ledge almost at Tarvin’s feet, and opened horny 
 eyelids, heavy with green slime. 
 
 The Western man is familiar with many strange 
 things, but the alligator does not come within the 
 common range of his experiences. A second time 
 Tarvin moved from point to point without being 
 able to explain the steps he took to that end. He 
 found himself sitting in the sunshine at the head 
 of the slippery path that led downward. His hands 
 were full of the wholesome jungle-grass and the 
 clean, dry dust. He could see the dead city about 
 him, and he felt that it was home. 
 
 The Cow’s Mouth chuckled and choked out of 
 sight as it had chuckled since the making of the 
 tank, and that was at the making of time. <A 
 man, old, crippled, and all but naked, came through 
 the high grass leading a little kid, and calling 
 mechanically from time to time, “Ao, bhai! Ao!” 
 (“Come, brother! Come!”) ‘Tarvin marvelled first 
 at his appearance on earth at all, and next that he 
 
196 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 could so unconcernedly descend the path to the 
 darkness and the horror below. He did not know 
 that the sacred crocodile of the Cow’s Mouth was 
 waiting for his morning meal, as he had waited 
 in the days when Gunnaur was peopled, ane its 
 queens never dreamed of death. | 
 
a | 
 
 A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 19 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Beat off in our last fight were we ? 
 
 The greater need to seek the sea. 
 
 For Fortune changeth as the moon 
 
 To caravel and picaroon. 
 
 Then, Eastward Ho! or Westward Ho! 
 
 Whichever wind may meetest blow. 
 
 Our quarry sails on either sea, : 
 
 Fat prey for sucn bold lads as we, 
 
 And every sun-dried buccaneer 
 
 Must hand and reef and watch and steer, 
 
 And bear great wrath of sea and sky 
 
 Before the plate-ships wallow by. 
 
 Now, as our tall bow takes the foam, 
 
 Let no man turn his heart to home 
 
 Save to desire land the more 
 
 And larger warehouse for his store 
 
 When treasure won from Santos Bay 
 
 Shall make our sea-washed village gay.* 
 Blackbeard. 
 
 Fissy and Tarvin ate their breakfast together, 
 half an hour later, in the blotched shadows of the 
 serub below the wall: The horse buried his nose 
 
 into his provender, and said nothing. The man 
 
 was equally silent. Once or twice he rose to his 
 
 feet, scanned the irregular line of wall and bastion, 
 
 and shook his head. He had no desire to return 
 
 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co, 
 
19s THE NAULAHKa«. 
 
 there. As the sun grew fiercer he found a resting- 
 place in the heart of a circle of thorn, tucked the 
 saddle under his head, and lay down to sleep. 
 Fibby, rolling luxuriously, followed his master’s 
 example. The two took their rest while the air 
 quivered with heat and the hum of insects, and 
 the browsing goats clicked and pattered through 
 the water-channels. 
 
 The shadow of the Tower of Glory lengthened, 
 fell across the walls, and ran far across the plain; 
 the kites began to drop from the sky by twos and 
 threes; and naked children, calling one to another, 
 collected the goats and drove them to the smoky 
 villages before Tarvin roused himself for the home- 
 ward journey. 
 
 He halted Fibby once for a last look at Gun- 
 naur as they reached the rising ground. The sun- 
 light had left the walls, and they ran black against 
 the misty levels and the turquoise-blue of the twi- 
 light. Fires twinkled from a score of puts about 
 the base of the city, but along the ridge of the 
 desolation itself there was no light. 
 
 ““Mum’s the word, Fibby,” said Tarvin, picking 
 up his reins. “We don’t think well of this pic- 
 nic, and we won’t mention it at Rhatore.” 
 
 He chirruped, and Fibby went home’as swiftly 
 as he could lay hoof to stone, only once suggesting 
 refreshment. ‘Tarvin said nothing till the end of 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 199 
 
 the long ride, when he heaved a deep sigh of relief 
 as he dismounted in the fresh sunlight of the 
 morning. 
 
 Sitting in his room, it seemed to him a waste 
 of a most precious opportunity that he had not 
 manufactured a torch in Gunnaur and thoroughly 
 explored the passage. But the memory of the 
 green eyes and the smell of musk came back to 
 him, and he shivered. The thing was not to be 
 done. Never again, for any consideration under 
 the wholesome light of the sun, would he, who 
 feared nothing, set foot in the Cow’s Mouth. 
 
 It was his pride that he knew when he had had 
 enough. He had had.enough of the Cow’s Mouth; 
 and the only thing for which he still wished in 
 connection with it was to express his mind about 
 it to the Maharajah. Unhappily, this was impos- 
 sible. ‘That idle monarch, who, he now saw plainly, 
 had sent.him there either in a mood of luxurious 
 sportiveness or to throw him off the scent of the 
 necklace, remained the only man from whom he 
 could look for final victory. It was not to the 
 Maharajah that he could afford to.say all that he 
 thought. 
 
 Fortunately the Maharajah was too much enter- 
 tained by the work which Tarvin immediately insti- 
 tuted on the Amet River to inquire particularly 
 whether his young friend had sought the Naulahka 
 
200 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 at the Gye Mukh. ‘Tarvin had sought an audi- 
 ence with the King the morning after his return 
 from that black spot, and, with the face of a man 
 who had never known fear and who lacks. the 
 measure of disappointments, gayly demanded the 
 fulfilment of the King’s promise. Having failed 
 in one direction on a large scale, he laid the first 
 brick on the walls of a new structure without 
 delay, as the people of Topaz had begun to build 
 their town anew the morning after the fire. His 
 experience at the Gye Mukh only sharpened his 
 determination, adding to it a grim willingness to 
 get even with the man who had sent him there. 
 
 The Maharajah, who felt .in especial need of 
 amusement that morning, was very ready to make 
 good his promise, and ordered that the long man 
 who played pachisi should be granted all the men 
 he could use. With the energy of disgust, and 
 with a hot memory of the least assured and com- 
 fortable moments of his life burning in his breast, 
 Tarvin flung himself on the turning of the river 
 and the building of his dam. It was necessary, 
 it seemed, in the land upon which he had fallen, 
 to raise a dust to hide one’s ends. He would raise 
 a dust, and it should be on the same scale as the 
 catastrophe which he had just encountered — thor- 
 ough, business-like, uncompromising. 
 
 He raised it, in fact, in a stupendous cloud. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 201 
 
 Since the state was founded no one had seen any- 
 thing like it. The Maharajah lent him all the 
 convict labor of his jails, and Tarvin marched the 
 little host of leg-ironed kaidies into camp at a 
 point five miles beyond the city walls, and sol- 
 emnly drew up his plans for the futile damming 
 of the barren Amet. His early training as a civil 
 engineer helped him to lay out a reasonable plan 
 of operations, and to give a semblance of reality 
 to his work. His notion was to back up the river 
 by means of a dam at a point where it swept 
 around a long curye, and to send it straight across 
 the plain by excavating a deep bed for it. When 
 this was completed the present bed of the river 
 would lie bare for several miles, and if there were 
 any gold there, as Tarvin said to himself, then 
 would be the time to pick it up. Meanwhile his 
 operations vastly entertained the King, who rode 
 out every morning and watched him directing his 
 small army for an hour or more. The marchings 
 and countermarchings of the mob of convicts with 
 
 baskets, hoes, shovels, and pannier-laden donkeys, 
 the prodigal blasting of rocks, and the general 
 bustle and confusion, drew the applause of the 
 King, for whom Tarvin always reserved his_ best 
 blasts. ‘This struck him as only fair, as the King 
 was paying for the powder, and, indeed, for the 
 entire entertainment. 
 
202 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 Among the unpleasant necessities of his position 
 was the need of giving daily to Colonel Nolan, to 
 the King, and to all the drummers at the rest- 
 house, whenever they might choose to ask him, his 
 reasons for damming the Amet. ‘The great Indian 
 Government itself also presently demanded his 
 reasons, in writing, for damming the Amet; Colonel 
 Nolan’s reasons, in writing, for allowing the Amet 
 to be dammed; and the King’s reasons for allowing 
 anybody but a duly authorized agent of the Goy- 
 ernment to dam the Amet. This was accompanied 
 by a request for further information. To these 
 inquiries Tarvin, for his part, returned an evasive ° 
 answer, and felt that he was qualifying himself 
 for his political career at home. Colonel Nolan 
 explained officially to his superiors that the con- 
 victs were employed in remunerative labor, and, 
 unofficially, that the Maharajah had been so phe- 
 nomenally good for some time past (being kept 
 amused by this American stranger), that it would 
 be a thousand pities to interrupt the operations. 
 Colonel Nolan was impressed by the fact that Tar- 
 vin was the Hon. Nicholas Tarvin, and a member 
 of the legislature of one of the United States. 
 
 The Government, knowing something of the irre- 
 pressible race who stride booted into the council- 
 halls of kings, and demand concessions for oil-boring 
 from Arracan to the Peshin, said no more, but 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 903 
 
 asked to be suppled with information from time to 
 time as to the progress of the stranger’s work. 
 When Tarvin heard this he sympathized with the 
 Indian Government. He understood this thirst for 
 information; he wanted some himself as to the 
 present whereabouts of the Naulahka; also touch- 
 ing the time it would take Kate to find out that 
 she wanted him more than the cure of any misery 
 whatever. 
 
 At least twice a week, in fancy, he gave up the 
 Naulahka definitely, returned to Topaz, and _ re- 
 sumed the business of a real-estate and insurance 
 agent. He drew a long breath after each of these 
 decisions, with the satisfying recollection that there 
 was still one spot on the earth’s suriace where a 
 man might come directly at his desires if he pos- 
 sessed the sand and the hustle; where he could 
 walk a straight path to his ambition; and where 
 he did not by preference turn five corners to reach 
 an object a block away. 
 
 Sometimes, as he grilled patiently in the river- 
 bed under the blighting rays of the Indian sun, 
 he would heretically blaspheme the Naulahka, re- 
 fusing to believe in its existence, and persuading 
 himself that it was as grotesque a lie as the King’s 
 parody of a civilized government, or as Dhunpat 
 Rai’s helpful surgery. Yet from a hundred sources 
 he heard of the existence of that splendor, only 
 never in reply to a direct question. 
 
204 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 Dhunpat Rai, in particular (once weak enough 
 to complain of the new lady doctor’s “excessive 
 zeal and surplusage administration”), had given 
 him an account that made his mouth water. But 
 Dhunpat Rai had not seen the necklace since the 
 crowning of the present King, fifteen years before. 
 The very convicts on the works, squabbling over the 
 distribution of food, spoke of millet as being as 
 costly as the Naulahka. ‘Twice the Maharaj Kun- 
 war, babbling vaingloriously to his big friend of 
 what he would do when he came to the throne, con- 
 cluded his confidences with, “And then I shall 
 wear the Naulahka in my turban all day long.” 
 
 But when Tarvin asked him where that precious 
 necklace lived, the Maharaj Kunwar shook his 
 head, answering sweetly, “I do not know.” 
 
 The infernal thing seemed to be a myth, a word, 
 a proverb—anything rather than the finest neck- 
 lace in the world. In the intervals of blasting 
 and excavation he would make futile attempts to 
 come upon its track. He took the city ward by 
 ward, and explored every temple in each; he rode, 
 under pretence of archeological study, to the out- 
 lying forts and ruined palaces that lay beyond the 
 city in the desert, and roved restlessly through the 
 mausoleums that held the ashes of the dead kings 
 of Rhatore. He told himself a hundred times that 
 he knew each quest to be hopeless; but he needed 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 205 
 
 the consolation of persistent search. And the 
 search was always vain. 
 
 Tarvin fought his impatience when he rode abroad 
 with the Maharajah. At the palace, which he 
 visited at least once a day under pretence of talk- 
 ing about the dam, he devoted himself more sedu- 
 lously than ever to pachisi. It pleased the Maha- 
 rajah in those days to remove himself from the white 
 marble pavilion in the orange-garden, where he 
 usually spent the spring months, to Sitabhai’s wing 
 of the red-stone palace, and to sit in the court-yard 
 watching trained parrots firing lttle cannons, and 
 witnessing combats. between fighting quail or great 
 eray apes dressed in imitation of English officers. 
 When Colonel Nolan appeared the apes were hastily 
 dismissed; but Tarvin was allowed to watch the 
 play throughout, when he was not engaged on the 
 dam. He was forced to writhe in inaction and in 
 wonder about his necklace, while these childish 
 games went forward; but he constantly kept the 
 corner of an eye upon the movements of the Maharaj 
 Kunwar. There, at least, his wit could serve some 
 one. ) 
 
 The Maharajah had given strict orders that the 
 child should obey all Kate’s instructions. Even 
 his heavy eyes noted an improvement in the health 
 of the little one, and Tarvin was careful that he 
 should know that the credit belonged .to Kate 
 
206 THE NAULAHKA., 
 
 alone. With impish perversity the young Prince, 
 who had never received an order in his life before, 
 learned to find joy in disobedience, and devoted his 
 wits, his escort, and his barouche to gamboling in 
 the wing of the palace belonging to Sitabhai. 
 There he found gray-headed flatterers by the score, 
 who abased themselves before him, and told him 
 what manner of king he should be in the years 
 to come. ‘There also were pretty dancing-girls, 
 who sang him songs, and would have corrupted his 
 mind but that it was too young to receive corrup- 
 tion. There were, besides, apes and peacocks and 
 jugglers, —new ones every day,—together with 
 dancers on the slack rope, and wonderful packing- 
 cases from Calcutta, out of which he was allowed 
 to choose ivory-handled pistols and little gold- 
 hilted swords with seed-pearls set in a groove along 
 the middle, and running musically up and down 
 as he waved the blade round his head. Finally, 
 the sacrifice of a goat in an opal and ivory temple 
 in the heart of the women’s quarters which he 
 might watch, allured him that way. Against these 
 enticements Kate, moody, grave, distracted, her 
 eyes full of the miseries on which it was her daily 
 lot to look, and her heart torn with the curelessness 
 of it all, could offer only little childish games in 
 the missionary’s drawing-room. The heir apparent 
 to the throne did not care for leap-frog, which he 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 207 
 
 deemed in the highest degree undignified; nor yet 
 for puss-in-the-corner, which seemed to him over- 
 active; nor for tennis, which he understood was 
 played by his brother princes, but which to him 
 appeared no part of a Rajput’s education. Some- 
 times, when he was tired (and on rare occasions 
 when he escaped to Sitabhai’s wing it was observ- 
 able that he returned very tired indeed), he would 
 listen long and intently to the stories of battle and 
 siege which Kate read to him, and would scandal- 
 ize her at the end of the tale by announcing, with 
 flashing eye: 
 
 “When I am king I will make my army do all 
 those things.” 
 
 It was not in Kate’s nature—she would have 
 thought it in the highest degree wrong — to refrain 
 from some little attempt at religious instruction. 
 But here the child retreated into the stolidity of 
 the East, and only said: 
 
 “All these things are very good for you, Kate, 
 but all my gods are very good for me; and if my 
 father knew, he would be angry.” 
 
 “And what do you worship?” asked Kate, pity- 
 ing the young pagan from the bottom of her heart. 
 
 “My sword and my horse,”’ answered the Mahara} 
 Kunwar; and he half drew the jewelled sabre that 
 was his inseparable companion, returning it witha 
 resolute clank that closed the discussion. 
 
208 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 But it was impossible, he discovered, to evade 
 the long man Tarvin as he evaded Kate. He re- 
 sented being called “bub,” nor did he approve of 
 “little man.” But Tarvin could drawl the word 
 “Prince” with a quiet deference that made the 
 young Rajput almost suspect himself the subject 
 of a jest. And yet Tarvin Sahib treated him as a 
 man, and allowed him, under due precautions, to 
 
 y) 
 
 handle his mighty “gun,” which was not a gun, 
 but a pistol. And once, when the Prince had 
 coaxed the keeper of the horse into allowing him 
 to bestride an unmanageable mount, Tarvin, riding 
 up, had picked him out of the depths of the velvet 
 saddle, set him on his own saddle-bow, and, in 
 the same cloud of dust, shown him how, in his 
 own country, they laid the reins on one side or 
 the other of the neck of their cattle-ponies to guide 
 them in pursuit of a steer broken from the herd. 
 
 The trick of being lifted from his saddle, appeal- 
 ing to the “circus” latent in the boy breast even 
 of an Eastern prince, struck the Maharaj as so 
 amusing that he insisted on exhibiting it before 
 Kate; and as Tarvin was a necessary figure in the 
 performance, he allured him into helping him with 
 it one day before the house of the missionary. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Estes came out upon the veranda with 
 Kate and watched the exhibition, and the mission- 
 
 ary pursued it with applause and requests for a 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. mee Alls 
 
 repetition, which, having been duly given, Mrs. 
 Estes asked Tarvin if he would not stay to dinner 
 with them since he was there. Tarvin glanced 
 doubtfully at Kate for permission, and, by a pro- 
 cess of reasoning best known to lovers, construed 
 the veiling of her eyes and the turning of her 
 head into assent. 
 
 After dinner, as they sat on the veranda in the 
 starlight, “Do you really mind?” he asked. 
 
 “What?” asked she, lifting her sober eyes and 
 letting them fall upon him. 
 
 “My seeing you sometimes. I know you don’t 
 like it; but it will help me to look after you. You 
 must see by this time that you need looking after.” 
 eSOho no.” 
 
 “Thank you,” said Tarvin, almost humbly. 
 
 “T mean I don’t need looking after.” 
 
 “But you don’t dislike it?” 
 
 “It’s good of you,” she said impartially. 
 
 “Well, then, it will be bad of you not to like 
 ice 
 
 Kate had to smile. “I guess I like it,” she 
 replied. 
 
 “And you will let me come once in a while? 
 You can’t think what the rest-house is. Those 
 drummers will kill me yet. And the coolies at 
 the dam are not in my set.” 
 
 “Well, since you’re here. But you ought not 
 P 
 
210 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 to be here. Do me a real kindness, and go away, 
 Nicks 
 
 “Give me an easier one.” 
 
 “But why are you here? You can’t show any 
 rational reason.” 
 
 “Yes; that’s what the British Government says. 
 But I brought my reason along.” 
 
 He confessed his longing for something homely 
 and natural and American after a day’s work under 
 a heathen and raging sun; and when he put it 
 in this hght, Kate responded on another side. She 
 had been brought up with a sense of responsibility 
 for making young men feel at home; and he cer- 
 tainly felt at home when she was able to produce, 
 two or three evenings later, a Topaz paper sent her 
 by her father. Tarvin pounced on it, and turned 
 the flimsy four pages inside out, and then back 
 again. 
 
 He smacked his lips. “Oh, good, good, good!” 
 he murmured relishingly. “Don’t the advertise- 
 ments look nice? What’s the matter with Topaz?” 
 cried he, holding the sheet from him at arm’s- 
 length, and gazing ravenously up and down its 
 columns. “Oh, she’s all right.” The cooing, 
 musical singsong in which he uttered this conse- 
 crated phrase was worth going a long way to hear. 
 “Say, we're coming on, aren’t we? We're not 
 lagging nor loafing, nor fooling our time away, if 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. st 
 
 we haven’t got the Three C.’s yet. We're keeping 
 up with the procession. Hi-yi! look at the ‘Rust- 
 ler Rootlets ?— just about a stickful! Why, the 
 poor old worm-eaten town is going sound, sound 
 ~ asleep in her old age, isn’t she? Think of taking 
 a railroad there’ Listen to this: 
 
 “Milo C. Lambert, the owner of ‘Lambert’s Last 
 Ditch,’ has a car-load of good ore on the dump, but, like 
 all the rest of us, don’t find it pays to ship without a 
 railroad line nearer than fifteen miles. Milo says Colo- 
 rado won’t be good enough for him after he gets his ore 
 away. 
 
 “T should think not. Come to Topaz, Milo! 
 And this: 
 
 “When the Three C.’s comes into the city in the fall 
 we sha’n’t be hearing this talk about hard times. Mean- 
 time it’s an injustice to the town, which all honest citi- 
 zens should resent and do their best to put down, to 
 speak of Rustler as taking a back seat to any town of its 
 age in the State. As a matter of fact, Rustler was never 
 more prosperous. With mines which produced last year 
 ore valued at a total of $1,200,000, with six churches 
 of different denominations, with a young but prosperous | 
 and growing academy which is destined to take a front 
 rank among American schools, with a record of new 
 buildings erected during the past year equal if not su- 
 perior to any town in the mountains, and with a popula- 
 tion of lively and determined business men, Rustler bids 
 fair in the coming year to be worthy of her name. 
 
 “Who said ‘afraid’? We’re not hurt. Hear us 
 whistle. But I’m sorry Heckler let that into his 
 
VAR THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 correspondence,” he added, with a momentary frown. | 
 “Some of our Topaz citizens might miss the fun 
 of it, and go over to Rustler to wait for the Three 
 C.’s. Coming in the fall, is it? Oh, dear! Oh, dear, 
 dear, dear! This is the way they amuse themselves 
 while they dangle their legs over Big Chief Moun- 
 
 tain and wait for it: 
 
 “Our merchants have responded to the recent good 
 feeling which-has pervaded the town since word came 
 that President Mutrie, on his return to Denver, was 
 favorably considering. the claims of Rustler. Robbins 
 has his front windows prettily decorated and filled with 
 fancy articles. His store seems to be the most popular 
 for the youngsters who have a nickle or two to spend. 
 
 “JT should murmur! Won’t you like to see the 
 Three C.’s come sailing into Topaz one of these 
 fine mornings, little girl?” asked Tarvin, sud- 
 denly, as he seated himself on the sofa beside 
 her, and opened out the paper so that she could 
 look over his shoulder. 
 
 “Would you like it, Nick?” 
 
 “ Would 11” 
 
 “Then, of course, I should. But I think you 
 will be better off if it doesn’t. It will make you 
 too rich. See father.” 
 
 “Well, I’d put on the brakes if I found myself 
 getting real rich. I'll stop just after I’ve passed 
 the Genteel Poverty Station. Isn’t it good to see 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. F138 
 
 the old heading again — Heckler’s name as. large as 
 life just under ‘oldest paper in Divide County,’ 
 and Heckler’s fist sticking out all over a rousing 
 editorial on the prospects of the town? Homelike, 
 isn’t it? He’s got two columns of new advertis- 
 ing; that shows what the town’s doing. And look 
 at the good old ‘ads.’ from the Eastern agencies. 
 How they take you back! I never expected to 
 thank Heaven for a castoria advertisement; did 
 you, Kate? But I swear it makes me feel good all 
 over. I'll read the patent inside if you say much.” 
 
 Kate smiled. The paper gave her a little pang 
 of homesickness too. She had her own feeling for 
 Topaz; but what reached her through the “ Tele- 
 gram’s”’ lively pages was the picture of her mother 
 sitting in her kitchen in the long afternoons (she 
 had sat in the kitchen so long in the poor and 
 wandering days of the family that she did it now 
 by preference), gazing sadly out at white-topped 
 Big Chief, and wondering what her daughter was 
 doing at that hour. Kate remembered well that 
 afternoon hour in the kitchen when the work was 
 done. She recalled from the section-house days 
 the superannuated rocker, once a_ parlor chair, 
 which her mother had hung with skins and told 
 off for kitchen service. Kate remembered with 
 starting tears that her mother had always wanted 
 her. to sit in it, and how good it had been to see 
 
214 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 from her. own hassock next the oven the little 
 mother swallowed up in its deeps. She heard the 
 cat purring under the stove, and the kettle singing; 
 the clock ticked in her ear, and the cracks between 
 the boards in the floor of the hastily built sec- 
 tion-house blew the cold prairie air against her 
 heels. | 
 
 She gazed over Tarvin’s shoulder at the two 
 cuts of Topaz which appeared in every issue of the 
 “'Telegram,’’—the one representing the town in 
 its first year, the other the town of to-day, —and 
 a lump rose in her throat. 
 
 “Quite a difference, isn’t there?” said Tarvin, 
 following her eye. “Do you remember where your 
 father’s tent used to stand, and the old section- 
 house, just here by the river?” He pointed, and 
 Kate nodded without speaking. “Those were good 
 days, weren’t they? Your father wasn’t as rich as 
 he is now, and neither was I; but we were all 
 mighty happy together.” 
 
 Kate’s thought drifted back to that time, and 
 called up other visions of her mother expending 
 her slight frame in many forms of hard work. The 
 memory of the little characteristic motion with 
 which she would shield with raised hand the worn 
 young old face when she would be broiling above 
 an open fire, or frying doughnuts, or lifting the 
 stove-lid, forced her-to gulp down the tears. The 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. O15 
 
 simple picture was too clear, even to the lght of 
 the fire on the face, and the pink light shining 
 through the frail hand. 
 
 “Hello!” said Tarvin, casting his eye up and 
 down the columns, “they’ve had to put another 
 team on to keep the streets clean. We had one. 
 Heckler don’t forget the climate either. And they 
 are doing well at the Mesa House. That’s a good 
 sign. The tourists will all have to stop over at 
 Topaz when the new line comes through, and we 
 have the right hotel. Some towns might think we 
 had a little tourist traffic now. Here’s Loomis 
 dining fifty at the Mesa the other day — through 
 express. ‘They’ve formed a new syndicate to work 
 the Hot Springs. Do you know, I shouldn’t won- 
 der if they made a town down there. Heckler’s 
 right. It will help Topaz. We don’t mind a 
 town that near. It makes a suburb of it.” 
 
 He marked his sense of the concession implied 
 in letting him stay that evening by going early; 
 but he did not go so early on the following even- 
 ing, and as he showed no inclination to broach 
 forbidden subjects, Kate found herself glad to have 
 him there, and it became a habit of his to drop 
 in, in the evenings, and to join the group that 
 gathered, with open doors and windows, about the 
 family lamp. In the happiness of seeing visible 
 effects from her labors blossoming under her eyes, 
 
216 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 Kate regarded his presence less and less. Some- 
 times she would let him draw her out upon the 
 veranda, under the sumptuous Indian night — nights 
 when the heat-lghtning played like a drawn sword 
 on the horizon, and the heavens hovered near the 
 earth, and the earth was very still. But com- 
 monly they sat within, with the missionary and 
 his wife, talking of Topaz, of the hospital, of the 
 Maharaj Kunwar, of the dam, and sometimes of 
 the Estes children at Bangor. For the most part, 
 however, when the talk was among the group, it 
 fell upon the infinitesimal gossip of a sequestered 
 life, to the irritation and misery of Tarvin. 
 
 When the conversation lagged in these deeps he 
 would fetch up violently with a challenge to Estes 
 on the subject of the tariff or silver legislation, 
 and after that the talk was at least lively. Tar- 
 
 vin was, by his training, largely a newspaper- 
 educated man. But he had also been taught at 
 first hand by life itself, and by the habit of making 
 his own history; and he used the hairy fist of horse- 
 sense in dealing with the theories of newspaper 
 politics and the systems of the schools. 
 
 Argument had no allurements for him, however; 
 it was with Kate that he talked when he could, 
 and oftenest, of late, of the hospital, since her prog- 
 ress there had begun to encourage her. She yielded’ 
 at last to his entreaties to be allowed to see this 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 217 
 
 paragon, and to look for himself upon the reforms 
 she had wrought. 
 
 Matters had greatly improved since the days of 
 the lunatic and the “much-esteemed woman,” but 
 only Kate knew how much remained to be done. 
 The hospital was at least clean and sweet if she 
 inspected it every day, and the people in their 
 fashion were grateful for kinder tending and more 
 skilful treatment than they had hitherto dreamed 
 of. Upon each cure a rumor went abroad through 
 the country-side of a new power in the land, and 
 other patients came; or the convalescent herself 
 would bring back a sister, a child, or a mother 
 with absolute faith in the power of the White 
 Fairy to make all whole. They could not know 
 all the help that Kate brought in the train of her 
 quiet movements, but for what they knew they 
 blessed her as they lay. Her new energy swept 
 even Dhunpat Rai along the path of reform. He 
 became curious in the limewashing of stonework, 
 the disinfecting of wards, the proper airing of bed- 
 linen, and even the destruction by fire of the bed- 
 steads, once his perquisite, on which smallpox 
 patients had died. Native-like, he worked best for 
 a woman with the knowledge that there was an 
 energetic white man in the background. ‘Tarvin’s 
 visit, and a few cheery words addressed to him by 
 that capable outsider, supphed him with this knowl- 
 edge. 
 
218 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 Tarvin could not understand the uncouth talk 
 of the out-patients, and did not visit the women’s 
 wards; but he saw enough to congratulate Kate 
 unreservedly. She smiled contentedly. Mrs. Estes 
 was sympathetic, but in no way enthusiastic; and 
 it was good to be praised by Nick, who had found 
 so much to blame in her project. 
 
 “It’s clean and it’s wholesome, little girl,” he 
 said, peering and sniffing; “and you’ve done mir- 
 acles with these jellyfish. If you'd. been on the 
 opposition ticket instead of your father I shouldn’t 
 be a member of the legislature.” ¢ 
 
 Kate never talked to him about that large part 
 of her work which lay among the women of the 
 Maharajah’s palace. Little by little she learned 
 her way about such portions of the pile as she was 
 permitted to traverse. From the first she had 
 understood that the palace was ruled by one Queen, 
 of whom the women spoke under their breath, and 
 whose lightest word, conveyed by the mouth of a 
 grinning child, set the packed mazes humming. 
 Once only had she seen this Queen, glimmering 
 like a tiger-beetle among a pile of kincob cushions 
 —a lithe, black-haired young girl, it seemed, with 
 a voice as soft as running water at night, and with 
 eyes that had no shadow of fear in them. She 
 turned lazily, the jewels clinking on ankle, arm, 
 and bosom, and looked at Kate for a long time 
 without speaking. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 219 
 
 2 
 
 “TI have sent that I may see you,” she said at 
 last. “You have come here across the water to 
 help these cattle?” 
 
 Kate nodded, every instinct in her revolting at 
 the silver-tongued splendor at her feet. 
 
 “You are not married?” The Queen put her 
 hands behind her head and looked at the painted 
 peacocks on the ceiling. 
 
 Kate did not reply, but her heart was hot. 
 
 “Ts there any sickness here?” she asked at last 
 sharply. “I have much to do.” 
 
 “There is none, unless it may be that you your- 
 self are sick. There are those who sicken without 
 knowing it.” 
 
 The eyes turned to meet Kate’s, which were 
 blazing with indignation. This woman, lapped in 
 idleness, had struck at the life of the Maharaj 
 Kunwar; and the horror of it was that she was 
 younger than herself. 
 
 “ Achcha,” said the Queen, still more slowly, 
 watching her face. “If you hate me so, why do 
 you not say so? You white people love truth.” 
 
 Kate turned on her heel to leave the room. Sita- 
 bhai called her back for an instant, and, moved by 
 some royal caprice, would have caressed her, but 
 she fled indignant, and was careful never again to 
 venture into that wing of the palace. None of the 
 women there called for her services, and not once 
 
220 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 but several times, when she passed the mouth of 
 the covered way that led to Sitabhai’s apartments, 
 she saw a little naked child flourishing a jewelled 
 knife, and shouting round the headless carcass of a 
 goat whose blood was flooding the white marble. 
 “That,” said the women, “is the gypsy’s son. He 
 learns to kill daily. A snake is a snake, and a 
 gypsy is a gypsy, till they are dead.” 
 
 There was no slaughter of goats, singing of 
 songs, or twangling of musical instruments in the 
 wing of the palace that made itself specially Kate’s 
 own. Here lived, forgotten by the Maharajah and 
 mocked by Sitabhai’s maidens, the mother of the 
 Maharaj Kunwar. Sitabhai had taken from her — 
 by the dark arts of the gypsies, so the Queen’s 
 adherents said; by her own beauty and knowledge 
 in love, they sang in the other wing of the palace 
 —all honor and consideration due to her as the 
 Queen Mother. There were scores of empty rooms 
 where once there had been scores of waiting-women, 
 and those who remained with the fallen Queen 
 were forlorn and ill-favored. She herself was a _ 
 middle-aged woman, by Eastern standards; that is 
 to say, she had passed twenty-five, and had never 
 been more than ordinarily comely. 
 
 Her eyes were dull with much weeping, and her 
 mind was full of superstitions —fears for every 
 hour of the night and the day, and vague terrors, 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. Oy 
 
 bred of loneliness, that made her tremble at the 
 sound of a footfall. In the years of her prosperity 
 she had been accustomed to perfume herself, put 
 on her jewels, and with braided hair await the 
 Maharajah’s coming. She would still call for her 
 jewels, attire herself as of old, and wait amid the 
 respectful silence of her attendants till the long 
 night gave way to the dawn, and the dawn showed 
 the furrows on her cheeks. Kate had seen one 
 such vigil, and perhaps showed in her eyes the 
 wonder that she could not repress, for the Queen 
 Mother fawned on her timidly after the jewels had 
 been put away, and begged her not to laugh. 
 
 “You do not understand, Miss Kate,” she pleaded. 
 “There is one custom in your country and another 
 in ours; but still you are a woman, and you will 
 know.” 
 
 “But you know that no one will come,” Kate said 
 tenderly. 
 
 “Yes, I know; but—no, you are not a woman, 
 only a fairy that has come across the water to help 
 me and mine.” 
 
 Here again Kate was baffled. [xcept in the mes- 
 sage sent by the Maharaj Kunwar, the Queen 
 Mother never referred to the danger that threat- 
 ened her son’s life. Again and again Kate had 
 tried to lead up to the subject — to gain some hint, 
 at least, of the nature of the plot. 
 
ey, THE NAULAHKA.: 
 
 “T know nothing,” the Queen would reply 
 “Here behind the curtain no one knows anything. 
 Miss Kate, if my own women lay dead out there 
 in the sun at noon,’—she pointed downward 
 through the tracery of her window to the flagged 
 path below, —‘“I should know nothing. Of what 
 I said I know nothing; but surely it is allowed,” 
 —she lowered her voice to a whisper, — “oh, surely 
 it is allowed to a mother to bid another woman 
 look to her son. He is so old now that he thinks 
 himself a man, and wanders far, and so young that 
 he thinks the world will do him no harm. Ahi! 
 And he is so wise that he knows a thousand times 
 more than I: he speaks English lke an English- 
 man. How can I control him with my little learn- 
 ing and my very great love? I say to you, Be 
 good to my son. That I can say aloud, and write 
 it upon a wall, if need were. There is no harm 
 in that. But if I said more, look you, the plaster 
 between the stones beneath me would gape to suck 
 it in, and the wind would blow all my words across 
 to the villages. JI am a stranger here —a Rajputni 
 from Kulu, a thousand thousand coss away. They 
 bore me here in a litter to be married—in the 
 dark they bore me for a month; and except that 
 some of my women have told me, I should not 
 know which way the home wind blows when it 
 goes to Kulu. What can a strange cow do in the 
 byre? May the gods witness.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 220 
 
 “Ah, but teil me what you think?” 
 
 “T think nothing,” the Queen would answer sul- 
 lenly. “What have women to do with thinking? 
 They love and they suffer. I have said all that I 
 may say. Miss Kate, some day you will bear a little 
 son. As you have been good to my son, so may 
 the gods be good to yours when that time comes, 
 and you know how the heart is full of love.” 
 
 “If I am to protect him, I must know. You 
 leave me in the dark.” 
 
 “And I also am in the dark—and the darkness 
 is full of danger.” 
 
 TARVIN himself was much about the palace, not 
 only because he perceived that it was there he 
 might most hopefully keep his ear to the ground 
 for news of the Naulahka, but because it enabled 
 him to observe Kate’s comings and goings, and 
 with his hand ready for a rapid movement to his 
 pistol-pocket. 
 
 His gaze followed her at these times, as at others, 
 with the longing look of the lover; but he said 
 nothing, and Kate was grateful to him. It was a 
 time, as it seemed to him, to play the part of the 
 Tarvin who had carried water for her long ago at 
 the end of the section; it was a time to stand 
 back, to watch, to guard, but not to trouble her. 
 
 The Maharai Kunwar came often ander his eve, 
 
224 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 and he was constantly inventing amusing things 
 for him to do remote from Sitabhai’s court-yard; 
 but the boy would occasionally break away, and 
 then it was Tarvin’s task to go after him and 
 make sure that he came to no harm. One after- 
 noon when he had spent some time in coaxing 
 the child away, and had finally resorted to force, 
 much to the child’s disgust, a twelve-foot balk of 
 teak-wood, as he was passing out under an arch 
 in process of repair, crashed down from the scaffold- 
 ing just in front of Fibby’s nose. The horse 
 retired into the court-yard on his hind legs, and 
 Tarvin heard the rustle of the women behind the 
 shutters. 
 
 He reflected on the incurable-slackness of these 
 people, stopped to swear at the workmen crouched 
 on the scaffolding in the hollow of the arch, and 
 went on. They were no less careless about the 
 dam, —it was in the blood, he supposed, —for the 
 head man of a coolie-gang, who must have crossed 
 the Amet twenty times, showed him a new ford 
 across a particularly inviting channel, which ended 
 in a quicksand; and when Tarvin had flung him- 
 self clear, the gang spent half the day in hauling 
 Fibby out with ropes. They could not even build 
 a temporary bridge without leaving the boards 
 loose, so that a horse’s hoof found its way between ; 
 and the gangs seemed to make a point of letting 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 225 
 
 bullock-carts run down the steep embankments into 
 the small of Tarvin’s back, when, at infrequent 
 intervals, that happened to be turned. 
 
 Tarvin was filled with great respect for the Brit- 
 ish Government, which worked on these materials, 
 and began to understand the mild-faced melancholy 
 and decisive views of Lucien Estes about the native 
 population, as well as to sympathize more keenly 
 than ever with Kate. 
 
 This curious people were now, he learned with 
 horror, to fill the cup of their follies by marrying 
 the young Maharaj Kunwar to a three-year-old babe, 
 brought from the Kulu hills, at vast expense, to 
 be his bride. He sought out Kate at the mission- 
 ary’s, and found her quivering with indignation. 
 She had just heard. 
 
 “It’s like them to waste a wedding where it 
 isn’t wanted,” said Tarvin, soothingly. 
 
 Since he saw Kate excited, it became his part to 
 be calm. 
 
 “Don’t worry your overworked head about it, 
 Kate. You are trying to do too much, and you 
 are feeling too much. You will break down before 
 you know it, from sheer exhaustion of the chord 
 of sympathy.” 
 
 *Oh, no!” said Kate. “I feel quite strong 
 enough for anything that may come. I mustn’t 
 break down. Think of this marriage coming on. 
 
 Q 
 
926 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 The Maharaj will need me more than ever. He 
 has just told me that he won’t get any sleep for 
 three days and three nights while their priests are 
 praying over him.” 
 
 “Crazy! Why, it’s a quicker way of killing him 
 than Sitabhai’s. Heavens! I daren’t think of it. 
 Let’s talk of something else. Any papers from 
 your father lately? This kind of thing makes 
 Topaz taste sort of good.” 
 
 She gave him a package received by the last 
 post, and he fell silent as he ran his eye hastily 
 
 ? 
 
 over a copy of the “Telegram” six weeks old; but | 
 he seemed to find little comfort in it. His brows 
 knitted. 
 
 *Pshaw!” he exclaimed with irritation, “this 
 won’t do!” 
 
 IW hat aa 7G 
 
 “Heckler bluffing about the Three C.’s, and not 
 doing it well. That isn’t like Jim. He talks 
 about it as a sure thing as hard as if he didn’t 
 believe in it, and had a private tip from somewhere 
 that it wasn’t coming after all. I’ve no doubt he 
 has. But he needn’t give it away to Rustler lke 
 that. Let’s look at the real-estate transfers. Ah! 
 that tells the story,” he exclaimed excitedly, as 
 his eye rested on the record of the sale of a parcel 
 of lots on G street. “Prices are going down — 
 away, "way down. The boys are caving. They’re 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 297 
 
 giving up the fight.” He leaped up and marched 
 about the room nervously. “Heavens! if I could 
 only get word to them!” 
 
 “Why — what, Nick? What word do you want 
 to send them?” 
 
 He pulled himself up instantly. 
 
 “To let them know that J believe in it,” he 
 said. “To get them to hold on.” 
 
 “But suppose the road doesn’t come to Topaz, 
 after all. How can you know, away off here in 
 India?” 
 
 “Come to Topaz, little girl!” he shouted. 
 “Come to Topaz! It’s coming if I have to lay 
 the rails!” 
 
 But the news about the temper of the town 
 vexed and disconcerted him notwithstanding, and 
 after he left Kate that night he sent a cable to 
 Heckler, through Mrs. Mutrie, desiring her to for- 
 ward the despatch from Denver, as if that were 
 the originating office of the message. 
 
 HECKLER, Topaz.— Take a brace, for God’s 
 sake! Got dead cinch on Three C.’s. Trust me, 
 TARVIN. 
 
 
 
 and boom like 
 
228 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Because I sought it far from men 
 In deserts and alone, 
 
 T found it burning overhead, — 
 The jewel of a throne. 
 
 Because I sought — I sought it so 
 And spent my days to find, 
 It blazed one moment ere it left 
 The blacker night behind.* 
 The Crystals of Iswara. 
 
 A city of tents had grown up in three days 
 without the walls of Rhatore—a city greened with 
 far-brought lawns of turf, and stuck about with 
 hastily transplanted orange-trees, wooden lamp- 
 posts painted in gaudy colors, and a cast-iron foun- 
 tain of hideous design. Many guests were expected 
 at Rhatore to grace the marriage of the Maharaj 
 Kunwar — barons, princes, thakurs, lords of waste 
 fortresses and of hopeless crags of the North and 
 the South, fiefs from the fat, poppy-blazoned plains 
 of Mewar, and brother rajahs of the King. They 
 
 came accompanied by their escorts, horse and foot. 
 
 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 229 
 
 In a land where genealogies, to be respectable, 
 must run back without a break for eight hundred 
 years, it is a delicate matter not to offend; and 
 all were desperately jealous of the place and pre- 
 cedence of their neighbors in the camp. Lest the 
 task should be too easy, the household bards of 
 the princes came with them, and squabbled with 
 the court officials of Gokral Seetarun. Behind the 
 tents stretched long lines of horse-pickets, where 
 the fat pink-and-blue-spotted stallions neighed and 
 squealed at one another, under their heavy velvet 
 trappings, all day long; and the ragged militia of 
 twenty tiny native states smoked and gambled 
 among their saddles, or quarrelled at the daily dis- 
 tribution of food furnished by the generosity of the 
 Maharajah. From hundreds of miles about, va- 
 grant and mendicant priests of every denomination 
 had flocked into the city, and their salmon-colored 
 raiment, black blankets, or ash-smeared nudity gave 
 Tarvin many minutes of untrammelled entertain- 
 ment as he watched them roaming fearlessly from 
 tent to tent, their red eyes rolling in their heads, 
 alternately threatening or fawning for gifts. The 
 rest-house, as Tarvin discovered, was crammed 
 with fresh contingents of commercial travellers. 
 His Highness was not likely to pay at such a 
 season, but fresh orders would be plentiful. The 
 city itself was brilliant with coats of pink-and- 
 
230 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 white lime-wash, and the main streets were ob- 
 structed with the bamboo scaffoldings of fireworks. 
 Every house-front was swept and newly luted with 
 clean mud, and the doorways were hung with mari- 
 golds and strings of jasmine-buds. Through the 
 crowds tramped the sweating sweetmeat-dealers, 
 venders of hawks, dealers in cheap jewelry and 
 glass bracelets and little English mirrors, while 
 camels, loaded with wedding gifts of far-off kings, 
 ploughed through the crowd, or the mace-bearers ot 
 the state cleared a path with their silver staves for 
 the passage of the Maharajah’s carriages. Forty 
 barouches were in use, and, as long as horse-flesh 
 held out, or harness could be patched with string, 
 it did not beseem the dignity of the state to pro- 
 vide less than four horses to each. As these horses 
 were untrained, and as the little native boys, out 
 of sheer lightness of heart, touched off squibs and 
 crackers at high noon, the streets were animated. 
 
 The hill on which the palace stood seemed to 
 smoke like a volcano, for the little dignitaries 
 came without cessation, each expecting the salute 
 of cannon due to his rank. Between the roars of 
 the ordnance, strains of uncouth music would break 
 from the red walls, and presently some officer of 
 the court would ride out of one of the gates, fol- 
 lowed by all his retinue, each man gorgeous as a 
 cock-pheasant in spring, his moustache fresh oiled, 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 231 
 
 and curled fiercely over his ears; or one of the 
 royal elephants, swathed in red velvet and bullion 
 from shoulder to ankle, would roll out under the 
 weight of his silver howdah, and trumpet till the 
 streets were cleared for his passage. Seventy ele- 
 phants were fed daily by the King —no mean charge, 
 since each beast consumed as much green fodder 
 daily as he could carry on his back, as well as 
 thirty or forty pounds of flour. Now and again 
 one of the monsters, maddened by the noise and 
 confusion, and by the presence of strange rivals, 
 would be overtaken with paroxysms of blind fury. 
 Then he would be hastily stripped of his trappings, 
 bound with ropes and iron chains, hustled out of 
 the city between two of his fellows, and tied down 
 half a mile away by the banks of the Amet, to 
 scream and rage till the horses in the neighboring 
 camps broke their pickets and stampeded wildly 
 among the tents. Pertab Singh, commandant of 
 his Highness’s body-guard, was in his glory. Every 
 hour of the day gave him excuse for charging with 
 his troop on mysterious but important errands be- 
 tween the palace and the tents of the princes. The 
 formal interchange of visits alone occupied two 
 days. Each prince with his escort would solemnly 
 drive to the palace, and half an hour later the 
 silver state barouche and the Maharajah himself, 
 jewelled from head to heel, :-would return the visit, 
 
Duty THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 while the guns gave word of the event to the city 
 of houses and to the city of tents. 
 
 When night fell on the camp there was no silence 
 till near the dawn, for strolling players, singers of 
 songs, and tellers of stories, dancing-girls, brawny 
 Oudh wrestlers, and camp-followers beyond count- 
 ing, wandered from tent to tent making merry. 
 When these had departed, the temples in the city 
 sent forth the hoarse cries of conchs, and Kate, lis- 
 tening, seemed to hear in every blast the wail of 
 the little Maharaj Kunwar, who was being prepared 
 for his marriage by interminable prayers and puri- 
 fications. She saw as little of the boy as Tarvin 
 did of the King. In those days every request for 
 an audience was met with, “He is with his 
 priests.” Tarvin cursed all the priests of Rhatore, 
 and condemned to every variety of perdition the 
 hangdog fakirs that prowled about his path. 
 
 “T wish to goodness they’d come to a point with 
 this fool business,”’ he said to himself. “I haven’t 
 got a sentury to spend in Rhatore.” 
 
 After nearly a week of uninterrupted clamor, 
 blazing sunshine, and moving crowds clad in gar- 
 ments the colors of which made Tarvin’s eyes ache, 
 there arrived, by the same road that had borne Kate 
 to the city, two carriages containing five English- 
 men and three Englishwomen, who, later, walked 
 about the city with lack-lustre eyes, bored by the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 230 
 
 official duty which compelled them to witness in 
 the hot weather a crime which it was not only 
 beyond them to hinder, but to which they were 
 obliged to lend their official patronage. 
 
 The agent to the Governor-General — that is to 
 say, the official representative of the Viceroy in 
 Rajputana — had some time before represented to 
 the Maharajah that he might range himself in the 
 way of progress and enlightenment by ordering that 
 his son should not be given in marriage for another 
 ten years. The Maharajah, pleading the imme- 
 morial custom of his land and the influence of the 
 priests, gilded his refusal by a generous donation 
 to a women’s hospital in Calcutta which was not 
 in want of funds. 
 
 For his own part, Tarvin could not comprehend 
 how any government could lend its countenance to 
 this wicked farce, calling itself a marriage, which 
 was presently to be played out with the assistance 
 of two children. He was presently introduced to 
 the agent of the Governor-General, who was anx- 
 ious to learn more about the damming of the Amet. 
 To be asked about the damming of the Amet, when 
 he was making no more progress than at present 
 with the Naulahka, seemed to Tarvin, however, the 
 last touch of insult, and he was not communica- 
 tive, asking the agent, instead, a number of urgent 
 questions about the approaching infamy at the palace. 
 
934 ’ THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 The agent declaring the marriage to be a political 
 necessity, the destination suggested by Tarvin for 
 political necessities of this sort caused the official to 
 stiffen, and to look this wild American up and 
 down with startled curiosity. They parted on poor 
 terms. 
 
 With the rest of the party Tarvin was more at 
 ease. The agent’s wife, a tall brunette, belonging 
 to one of those families which from the earlest 
 days of the East India Company have administered 
 the fortunes of India, solemnly inspected Kate’s 
 work at the hospital; and being only a woman, and 
 not an official, was attracted, and showed that she 
 was attracted, by the sad-eyed little woman who 
 did not talk about her work. ‘Therefore Tarvin 
 devoted himself to the amusement and entertain- 
 ment of the agent’s wife, and she pronounced him 
 an extraordinary person. “But, then, all Ameri- 
 cans are extraordinary, you know, though they’re 
 so clever.” 
 
 Not forgetting in the midst of this tumultuous 
 pageant that he was a citizen of Topaz, Tarvin told 
 her about that blessed city of the plain, away off 
 there under the Sauguache Range, where half his 
 * implying 
 that the dwellers of the western continent had 
 
 ’ 
 
 heart lay. He called it “the magic city, 
 
 agreed to call it so by general consent. She was 
 not bored; she enjoyed it. Talk of land and im- 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 935 
 
 provement companies, boards of trade, town lots, 
 and the Three C.’s was fresh to her, and it became 
 easy to lead up to what Tarvin actually had in 
 mind. What about the Naulahka? Had she ever 
 seen it? He asked these questions boldly. 
 
 No; she knew nothing of the Naulahka. Her 
 thoughts were bounded by the thought of going 
 home in the spring. Home for her meant a little 
 house near Surbiton, close to the Crystal Palace, 
 where her three-year-old boy was waiting for her; 
 and the interests of the other English men and 
 women seemed equally remote from Rajputana — not 
 to mention the Naulahka. It was only inferentially 
 that Tarvin could gather that they had spent the 
 greater part of their working lives within the limits 
 of the country. They talked as gypsies might talk 
 by the roadside a little before the horses are put 
 into the caravan. The ways were hot, they im- 
 pled, and very dusty; and they hoped one day to 
 be able to rest. The wedding was only one more 
 weary incident on the line of march, and they 
 devoutly wished it over. One of them even envied 
 Tarvin for coming to the state with his fresh eye 
 and his lively belief in the possibility of getting 
 something out of the land beside a harvest of 
 regrets. 
 
 The last day of the marriage ceremonies began 
 
 and ended with more cannon, more fireworks, more 
 
936 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 clattering of hoofs, more trumpeting of elephants, 
 and with the clamor of bands trying to play “God 
 Save the Queen.” The Maharaj Kunwar was _ to 
 appear in the evening (in an Indian state wedding 
 the bride is neither mentioned nor seen) at a ban- 
 quet, where the agent of the Governor-General 
 would propose his health and that of his father. 
 The Maharaj was to make a speech in his best 
 English. A court scribe had already composed a 
 long oration to be used by his father. Tarvin was 
 beginning seriously to doubt whether he should 
 ever see the child alive again, and, before the ban- 
 quet, rode out into the seething city to reconnoitre. 
 It was twilight, and the torches were flaring be- 
 tween the houses. Wild outlanders from the desert, 
 who had never seen a white man before, caught 
 his horse by the bridle, examined him curiously, 
 and with a grunt let him pass. The many-colored 
 turbans showed under the flickering light like the 
 jewels of a broken necklace, and all the white 
 housetops were crowded with the veiled figures of 
 women. In half an hour the Maharaj Kunwar 
 would make his way from the royal temple to the 
 banqueting-tent at the head of a procession of 
 caparisoned elephants. 
 
 Tarvin forced his way inch by inch through the 
 dense crowd that waited at the foot of the temple 
 steps. He merely wished to satisfy himself that 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. Dat 
 
 the child was well; he wanted to see him come 
 from the temple. As he looked about him he saw 
 that he was the only white man in the crowd, and 
 pitied his jaded acquaintances, who could find no 
 pleasure in the wild scene under his eyes. 
 
 The temple doors were closed, and the torchlight 
 flashed back from the ivory and silver with which 
 they were inlaid. Somewhere out of sight stood 
 the elephants, for Tarvin could hear their deep 
 breathing and an occasional squeal above the hum 
 of the crowd. Half a troop of cavalry, very worn 
 and dusty with the day’s labors, were trying to 
 clear an open space before the temple, but they 
 might as well have tried to divide a rainbow. 
 From the roofs of the houses the women were throw- 
 ing flowers, sweetmeats, and colored rice into the 
 crowd, while small bards, not yet attached to the 
 house of any prince, chanted aloud in praise of 
 the Maharajah, the Maharaj Kunwar, the Viceroy, 
 the agent of the Governor-General, Colonel Nolan, 
 and any one else who might possibly reward praise 
 with pence. One of these men, recognizing Tar- 
 vin, struck up a chant in his honor. He had come, 
 said the song, from a far country to dam an ungov- 
 ernable river, and fill the country-side with gold; 
 his step was like the step of a dromedary in the 
 spring; his eye terrible as that of an elephant; and 
 the graces of his person such that the hearts of 
 
238 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 all the women of Rhatore turned to water when he 
 rode upon the public way. Lastly, he would re- 
 ward the singer of this poor song with untold gen- 
 erosity, and his name and fame should endure in 
 ‘the land so long as the flag of Gokral Seetarun had 
 five colors, or as long as the Naulahka adorned the 
 throat of kings. 
 
 Then, with an ear-splitting shriek of conchs, the 
 temple doors opened inward, and the yoices of the 
 crowd were hushed into a whisper of awe. ‘Tar- 
 vin’s hands tightened on the reins of his horse, 
 and he leaned forward to stare. The opened doors 
 of the temples framed a square of utter darkness, 
 and to the screeching of the conchs was added a 
 throbbing of innumerable drums. <A_ breath of 
 incense, strong enough to make him cough, drifted 
 across the crowd, which were absolutely silent 
 now. 
 
 The next moment the Maharaj Kunwar, alone 
 and unattended, came out of the darkness, and 
 stood in the torchlight with his hands on the hilt 
 of his sword. The face beneath the turban, draped 
 with loops of diamonds under an emerald aigret, 
 was absolutely colorless. There were purple cir-_ 
 cles about his eyes, and his mouth was half open; 
 but the pity Tarvin felt for the child’s weariness 
 was silenced by a sudden thrill and leap of his 
 heart, for on the gold cloth of the Maharaj Kun- 
 war’s breast lay the Naulahka. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 239 
 
 There was no need, this time, to ask any ques- 
 tions. It was not he who saw it; its great deep 
 eyes seemed to fall on him. It blazed with the 
 dull red of the ruby, the angry green of the emer- 
 ald, the cold blue of the sapphire, and the white, 
 hot glory of the diamond. But dulling all these 
 glories was the superb radiance of one gem that 
 lay above the great carved emerald on the central 
 clasp. It was the black diamond — black as the 
 pitch of the infernal lake, and lhghted from below 
 with the fires of hell. 
 
 The thing lay on the boy’s shoulders, a yoke of 
 flame. It outshone the silent Indian stars above, 
 turned the tossing torches to smears of dull yellow, 
 and sucked the glitter from the cloth of gold on 
 which it lay. 
 
 There was no time to think, to estimate, to 
 appraise, scarcely a moment even to realize, for the 
 conchs suddenly wailed again, the Maharaj stepped 
 back into the darkness, and the doors of the temple 
 were shut. 
 
240 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 From smallpox and the Evil Eye, a wasteful marriage-feast, and 
 the kindness of my co-wife may the gods protect my son.* | 
 Hindu Proverb. 
 
 TARVIN made his way to the banquet with his 
 face aflame and his tongue dry between his teeth. 
 He had seen it. It existed. It was not a myth. 
 And he would have it; he would take it back with 
 him. Mrs. Mutrie should hang it about the sculp- 
 tured neck that looked so well when she laughed; 
 and the Three C.’s should come to Topaz. He 
 would be the saviour of his town; the boys at home 
 would take the horses out of his carriage and drag 
 him up Pennsylvania Avenue with their own hands ; 
 and town lots would sell next year in Topaz by 
 the running inch. 
 
 It was worth all the waiting, worth the damming 
 of a hundred rivers, worth a century of pachisi- 
 playing, and a thousand miles of bullock-cart. As 
 he drained a glass to the health of the young Maha- 
 raj Kunwar at the banquet that evening, he renewed 
 
 his pledge to himself to fight it out on this line 
 
 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 241 
 
 if it took all summer. His pride of success had 
 lain low of late, and taken many hurts; but now 
 that he had seen his prize he esteemed it already 
 within his grasp, as he had argued at Topaz that 
 Kate must be his because he loved her. 
 
 Next morning he woke with a confused notion 
 that he stood on the threshold of great deeds; and 
 then, in his bath, he wondered whence he had 
 plucked the certainty and exultation of the night 
 before. He had, indeed, seen the Naulahka, but 
 the temple doors had closed on the vision. He 
 found himself asking whether either temple or neck- 
 lace had been real, and in the midst of his wonder 
 and excitement was half-way to the city before he 
 knew that he had left the rest-house. When he 
 came to himself, however, he knew well whither 
 he was going and what he was going for. If he 
 had seen the Naulahka, he meant to keep it in sight. 
 It hac disappeared into the temple. To the temple, 
 . therefore, he would go. 
 
 Fragments of burnt-out torches lay on the temple 
 steps among trampled flowers and spilt oil, and 
 the marigold garlands hung mp and wilted on 
 the fat shoulders of the black stone bulls that 
 guarded the inner court. Tarvin took off his white 
 pith helmet Gt was very hot, though it was only 
 two hours after dawn), pushed back the scanty hair 
 
 from his high forehead, and surveyed the remnants 
 R 
 
242 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 of yesterday’s feast. The city was still asleep after 
 its holiday. The doors of the building were wide 
 open, and he ascended the steps and walked in, 
 with none to hinder. 
 
 The formless, four-faced god Iswara, standing 
 in the centre of the temple, was smeared and dis- 
 colored with stains of melted butter, and the black 
 smoke of exhausted incense. ‘Tarvin looked at the 
 figure curiously, half expecting to find the Nau- 
 lahka hung about one of its four necks. Behind 
 him, in the deeper gloom of the temple, stood other 
 divinities, many-handed and many-headed, tossing 
 their arms aloft, protruding their tongues, and 
 grinning at one another. The remains of many 
 sacrifices lay about them, and in the half light 
 Tarvin could see that the knees of oné were dark 
 with dried blood. Overhead the dark roof ran up 
 into a Hindu dome, and there was a soft rustle and 
 scratching of nesting bats. 
 
 Tarvin, with his hat on the back of his head - 
 and his hands in his pockets, gazed at the image, 
 looking about him and whistling softly. He had 
 been a month in India, but he had not yet pene- 
 trated to the interior of a temple. Standing there, 
 he recognized with fresh force how entirely the 
 life, habits, and traditions of this strange people 
 alienated them from all that seemed good and right 
 to him; and he was vaguely angered to know that 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 243 
 
 it was the servants of these horrors who possessed a 
 necklace which had power to change the destiny of 
 a Christian and civilized town like Topaz. 
 
 He knew that he would be expelled without 
 ceremony for profanation, if discovered, and made 
 haste to finish his investigations, with a_half- 
 formed belief that the slovenliness of the race might 
 have caused them to leave the Naulahka about 
 somewhere, as a woman might leave her jewels on 
 her dressing-table after a late return from a _ ball 
 the night before. He peered about and under the 
 gods, one by one, while the bats squeaked above 
 him. Then he returned to the central image of 
 Iswara, and in his former attitude regarded the 
 idol. 
 
 It occurred to him that, though he was on level 
 ground, most of his weight was resting on his toes, 
 and he stepped back to recover his balance. The 
 slab of sandstone he had just quitted rolled over 
 slowly as a porpoise rolls im the still sea, revealing 
 for an instant a black chasm below. Then it shoul- 
 dered up into its place again without a sound, and 
 Tarvin wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. If 
 he had found the Naulahka at that instant he would 
 have smashed it in pure rage. He went out into 
 the sunlight once more, devoting the country where 
 such things were possible to its own gods; he could 
 think of nothing worse. 
 
244 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 A priest, sprung from an unguessable retreat, 
 came out of the temple immediately afterward, and 
 smiled upon him. 
 
 Tarvin, willing to renew his hold on the whole- 
 some world in which there were homes and women, 
 betook himself to the missionary’s cottage, where 
 he invited himself to breakfast. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Estes had kept themselves strictly aloof from the 
 marriage ceremony, but they could enjoy Tarvin’s 
 account of it, delivered from the Topaz point of 
 view. Kate was unfeignedly glad to see him. She 
 was full of the discreditable desertion of Dhunpat 
 Rai and the hospital staff from their posts. They 
 had all gone to watch the wedding festivities, and 
 for three days had not appeared at the hospital. 
 The entire work of the place had devolved on her- 
 self and the wild woman of the desert who was 
 watching her husband’s cure. Kate was very tired, 
 and her heart was troubled with misgivings for the 
 welfare of the little Prince, which she communi- 
 cated to Tarvin when he drew her out upon the 
 veranda after breakfast. 
 
 >) 
 
 “T’m sure he wants absolute rest now,” she said, 
 almost tearfully. “He came to me at the end of 
 the dinner last night—J was then in the women’s 
 wing of the palace—and cried for half an hour. 
 Poor little baby! It’s cruel.”: 
 
 “Oh, well, he’ll be resting to-day. Don’t 
 
 WOITy.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 245 
 
 “No; to-day they take his bride back to her own 
 people again, and he has to drive out with the 
 procession, or something —#in this sun, too. It’s 
 very wicked. Doesn’t it ever make your head 
 ache, Nick? I sometimes think of you sitting out 
 on that dam of yours, and wonder how you can 
 bear it.” | 
 
 “IT can bear a good deal for you, little girl,” 
 returned Tarvin, looking down into her eyes. 
 
 “Why, how is that for me, Nick?” 
 
 “You'll see if you live long enough,” he assured 
 her; but he was not anxious to discuss his dam, 
 and returned to the safer subject of the Maharaj 
 Kunwar. 
 
 Next day and the day after he rode aimlessly 
 about in the neighborhood of the temple, not caring 
 to trust himself within its walls again, but deter- 
 mined to keep his eye upon the first and last spot 
 where he had seen the Naulahka. There was no 
 chance at present of getting speech with the only 
 living person, save the King, whom he definitely 
 knew had touched the treasure. It was maddening 
 to await the reappearance of the Maharaj} Kunwar 
 in his barouche, but he summoned what patience 
 he could. He hoped much from him; but mean- 
 while he often looked in at the hospital to see 
 how Kate fared. ‘The traitor Dhunpat Rai and his 
 helpers had returned; but the hospital was crowded 
 
246 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 with cases from the furthest portions of the state — 
 fractures caused by the King’s reckless barouches, 
 and one or two cases, new in Kate’s experience, 
 of men drugged, under the guise of friendship, for 
 the sake of the money they carried with them, and 
 left helpless in the public ways. 
 
 Tarvin, as he cast his shrewd eye about the per- 
 fectly kept men’s ward, humbly owned to himself 
 that, after all, she was doing better work in Rha- 
 tore than he. She at least did not run a hospital 
 to cover up deeper and darker designs, and she 
 had the inestimable advantage over him of having 
 her goal in sight. It was not snatched from her 
 after one maddening glimpse; it was not the charge 
 of a mysterious priesthood, or of an impalpable 
 state; it was not hidden in treacherous temples, 
 nor hung round the necks of vanishing infants. 
 
 One morning, before the hour at which he usually 
 set out for the dam, Kate sent a note over to him 
 at the rest-house asking him to call at the hospital 
 as soon as possible. For one rapturous moment he 
 dreamed of impossible things. But, smiling bit- 
 terly at his readiness to hope, he ete a cigar, 
 and obeyed the order. 
 
 Kate met him on the steps, and led him into 
 the dispensary. 
 
 She laid an eager hand on his arm. “Do you 
 know anything about the symptoms of none 
 oning?” she asked him. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 247 
 
 He caught her by both hands quickly, and stared 
 wildly into her face. “Why? Why? Has any 
 one been daring —?”’ 
 
 She laughed nervously. “No, no. It isn’t me. 
 It’s him.” 
 
 mew Oo?” 
 
 “The Maharaj—the child. I’m certain of it 
 now.” She went on to tell him how, that morn- 
 ing, the barouche, the escort, and a pompous native 
 had hurried up to the missionary’s door bearing the 
 almost lifeless form of the Maharaj Kunwar; how 
 she had at first attributed the attack, whatever it 
 might be, to exhaustion consequent upon the wed- 
 ding festivities; how the little one had ‘roused from 
 his stupor, blue-lipped and hollow-eyed, and had 
 fallen from one convulsion into another, until she 
 had begun to despair; and how, at the last, he had 
 dropped into a deep sleep of exhaustion, when she 
 had left him in the care of Mrs. Estes. She added 
 that Mrs. Estes had believed that the young Prince 
 was suffering from a return of his usual malady; 
 she had seen him in paroxysms of this kind twice 
 before Kate came. 
 
 “Now look at this,” said Kate, taking down the 
 chart of her hospital cases, on which were recorded 
 the symptoms and progress of two cases of hemp- 
 poisoning that had come to her within the past 
 week. 
 
948 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “These men,” she said, “had been given sweet- 
 meats by a gang of travelling gypsies, and all their 
 money was taken from them before they woke up. 
 Read for yourself.” 
 
 Tarvin read, biting his lips. At the end he 
 looked up at her sharply. 
 
 “Yes,” he said, with an emphatic nod of his 
 head —“‘yes. Sitabhai?”’ 
 
 “Who else would dare?” answered Kate, pas- 
 sionately. 
 
 “T know. I know. But how to stop her going 
 on! how to bring it home to her!” 
 
 “Tell the Maharajah,” responded Kate, decid- 
 edly. 
 Tarvin took her hand. “Good! Dll try it. But 
 there’s no shadow of proof, you know.” 
 
 “No matter. Remember the boy. Try. I must 
 go back to him now.” 
 
 The two returned to the house of the missionary 
 together, saying very little on the way. Tarvin’s 
 indignation that Kate should be mixed up in this 
 miserable business almost turned to anger at Kate 
 herself, as he rode beside her; but his wrath was 
 extinguished at sight of the Maharaj Kunwar. 
 The child lay on a bed in an inner room at the 
 missionary’s, almost too weak to turn his head. 
 As Kate and Tarvin entered, Mrs. Estes rose from 
 
 giving him his medicine, said a word to Kate by 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 249 
 
 way of report, and returned to her own work. The 
 child was clothed only in a soft muslin coat; but 
 his sword and jewelled belt lay across his feet. 
 
 “Salaam, Tarvin Sahib,” he murmured. “I am 
 very sorry that I was ill.” 
 
 Tarvin bent over him tenderly. “Don’t try to 
 talk, little one.” 
 
 “Nay; I am well now,” was the answer. “Soon 
 we will go riding together.” 
 
 “Were you very sick, little man?” 
 
 “TI cannot tell. It is all dark to me. I was in 
 the palace laughing with some of the dance-girls. 
 Then I fell. And after that I remember no more 
 till I came here.”’ 
 
 He gulped down the cooling draught that Kate 
 gave him, and resettled himself on the pillows, 
 while one wax-yellow hand played with the hilt 
 of his sword. Kate was kneeling by his side, one 
 arm under the pillow supporting his head; and it 
 seemed to Tarvin that he had never before done 
 justice to the beauty latent in her good, plain, 
 strong features. The trim little figure took softer 
 outlines, the firm mouth quivered, the eyes were 
 filled with a light that Tarvin had never seen 
 before. 
 
 “Come to the other side —so,” said the child, 
 beckoning Tarvin in the native fashion, by folding 
 all his tiny fingers into his palms rapidly and 
 
250 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 repeatedly. Tarvin knelt obediently on the other 
 side of the couch.. “Now I am a king, and this is 
 my court.” 
 
 Kate laughed musically in her delight at seeing 
 the boy recovering strength. ‘Tarvin slid his arm 
 under the pillow, found Kate’s hand there, and 
 held it: 
 
 The portiére at the door of the room dropped 
 softly. Mrs. Estes had stolen in for a moment, 
 and imagined that she saw enough to cause her to 
 steal out again. She had been thinking a great . 
 deal since the days when Tarvin first introduced 
 himself. 
 
 The child’s eyes began to grow dull and heavy, 
 and Kate would have withdrawn her arm to give 
 him another draught. 
 
 “Nay; stay so,” he said imperiously; and relaps- 
 ing into the vernacular, muttered thickly: “Those 
 who serve the king shall not lack their reward. 
 They shall have villages free of tax —three, five 
 villages; Sujjain, Amet, and’Gungra. Let it be » 
 entered as a free gift when they marry. They shall 
 marry, and be about me always — Miss Kate and 
 Tarvin Sahib.” 
 
 Tarvin did not understand why Kate’s hand was 
 withdrawn swiftly. He did not know the vernac- 
 ular.as she did. 
 
 ’ 
 
 “He is getting delirious again,” said Kate, under 
 
 her breath. “Poor, poor little one!” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 951 
 
 Tarvin ground his teeth, and cursed Sitabhai 
 between them. Kate was wiping the damp fore- 
 head, and trying to still the head as it was thrown 
 restlessly from side to side. ‘Tarvin held the child’s 
 hands, which closed fiercely on his own, as the boy 
 was racked and convulsed by the last effects of the 
 hemp. 
 
 For some minutes he fought and writhed, calling 
 upon the names of many gods, striving to reach his 
 sword, and ordering imaginary regiments to hang 
 those white dogs to the beams of the palace gate, 
 and to smoke them to death. 
 
 Then the crisis passed, and he began to talk to 
 himself and to call for his mother. 
 
 The vision of a little grave dug in the open 
 plain sloping to the river, where they had laid out 
 the Topaz cemetery, rose before Tarvin’s memory. 
 They were lowering Heckler’s first baby into it, in 
 its pine coffin; and Kate, standing by the grave- 
 side, was writing the child’s name on the finger’s 
 length of smoothed pine which was to be its only 
 headstone. 
 
 “Nay, nay, nay!” wailed the Maharaj Kunwar. 
 “T am speaking the truth; and oh, I was so tired 
 at that pagal dance in the temple, and I only 
 crossed the court-yard.... It was a new girl 
 from Lucknow; she sang the song of ‘The Green 
 Pulse of Mundore.’... Yes; but only some al- 
 
a, THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 mond curd. I was hungry, too. A little white 
 almond curd, mother. Why should I not eat when 
 I feel inclined? Am I a sweeper’s son, or a 
 prince? Pick me up! pick me up! It is very hot 
 inside my head. ... Louder. I do not under- 
 stand. Will they take me over to Kate? She will 
 make all well. What was the message?” The 
 child began to wring his hands despairingly. “The 
 message! the message! I have forgotten the mes- 
 sage. No one in the state speaks English as I 
 speak English. But I have forgotten the message. 
 
 “Tiger, tiger, burning bright 
 In the forests of the night, 
 What immortal hand or eye 
 Framed thy fearful symmetry ? 
 
 Yes, mother; till she cries. I am to say the whole 
 of it till she cries. I will not forget. I did not 
 forget the first message. By the great god Har! I 
 have forgotten this message.” And he began to 
 cry. 
 
 Kate, who had watched so long by bedsides of 
 pain, was calm and strong; she soothed the child, 
 speaking to him in a low, quieting voice, admin- 
 istering a sedative draught, doing the right thing, 
 as Tarvin saw, surely and steadily, undisturbed. 
 It was he who was shaken by the agony that ue 
 could not alleviate, 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 2538 
 
 The Maharaj Kunwar drew a long, sobbing breath, 
 and contracted his eyebrows. 
 
 “ Mahadeo ki jai!” he shouted. “It has come 
 back. ‘A gypsy has done this. A gypsy has done 
 this.” And I was to say it until she cried.” 
 
 Kate half rose, with an awful look at Tarvin. 
 He returned it, and, nodding, strode from the room, 
 dashing the tears from his eyes. 
 
254 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Heart of my heart, is it meet or wise 
 To warn a King of his enemies ? 
 We know what Heaven or Hell may bring, . 
 But no man knoweth the mind of the King.* 
 The Ballad of the King’s Jest. 
 
 “WANT to see the Maharajah.” 
 
 “He cannot be seen.” 
 
 “T shall wait until he comes.” 
 
 “He will not be seen all day.” 
 
 “Then I shall wait all day.” 
 
 Tarvin settled himself comfortably in his saddle, 
 and drew up in the centre of the court-yard, where 
 he was wont to confer with the Maharajah. 
 
 The pigeons were asleep in the sunlight, and the 
 little fountain was talking to itself, as a pigeon 
 cooes before settling to its nest. The white marble 
 flagging glared like hot iron, and waves of heat 
 flooded him from the green-shaded walls. The 
 guardian of the gate tucked himself up in his 
 sheet again and slept. And with him slept, as it 
 seemed, the whole world in a welter of silence as 
 intense as the heat. Tarvin’s horse champed his 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 255 
 
 bit, and the echoes of the ringing iron tinkled from 
 side to side of the court-yard. The man himself 
 whipped a silk handkerchief round his neck as some 
 slight protection against the peeling sunbeams, and, 
 scorning the shade of the archway, waited in the 
 open that the Maharajah might see there was an 
 urgency in his visit. 
 
 In a few minutes there crept out of the stillness 
 a sound like the far-off rustle of wind across a 
 wheat-field on a still autumn day. It came from 
 behind the green shutters, and with its coming 
 Tarvin mechanically straightened himself in the 
 saddle. It grew, died down again, and at last 
 remained fixed in a continuous murmur for which 
 the ear strained uneasily —such a murmur as _ her- 
 alds the advance of a loud racing tide in a night- 
 mare, when the dreamer cannot flee nor declare his 
 terror in any voice but a whisper. After the rustle 
 came the smell of jasmine and musk that Tarvin 
 knew well. 
 
 The palace wing had wakened from its afternoon 
 siesta, and was looking at him with a hundred 
 eyes. He felt the glances that he could not see, 
 and they filled him with wrath as he sat immoy- 
 able, while the horse swished at the flies. Some- 
 body behind the shutters yawned a_ polite little 
 yawn. ‘Tarvin chose to regard it as an insult, and 
 resolved to stay where he was till he or the horse 
 
256 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 dropped. The shadow of the afternoon sun crept 
 across the court-yard inch by inch, and wrapped 
 him at last in stifling shade. 
 
 There was a muffled hum—quite distinct from 
 the rustle —of voices within the palace. A little 
 ivory-inlaid door opened, and the Maharajah rolled 
 into the court-yard. He was in the ughest muslin 
 undress, and his little saffron-colored Rajput turban 
 was set awry on his head, so that the emerald 
 plume tilted drunkenly. His eyes were red with 
 opium, and he walked as a bear walks when he is 
 overtaken by the dawn in the poppy-field, where he 
 has gorged his fill through the night-watches. 
 
 Tarvin’s face darkened at the sight, and the 
 Maharajah, catching the look, bade his attendants 
 stand back out of earshot. 
 
 “Have you been waiting long, Tarvin Sahib?” 
 he asked huskily, with an air of great good will. 
 “You know I see no man at this afternoon hour, 
 
 and 
 
 
 
 and they did not bring me the news.” 
 
 “T can wait,” said Tarvin, composedly. 
 
 The King seated himself in the broken Windsor 
 chair, which was splitting in the heat, and eyed 
 Tarvin suspiciously. 
 
 “Have they given you enough convicts from the 
 jails? Why are you not°on the dam, then, instead 
 of breaking my rest? By God! is a king to have 
 no peace because of you and such as you?” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. AY | 
 
 Tarvin let this outburst go by without comment. 
 
 “IT have come to you about the Maharaj Kun- 
 war,” he said quietly. 
 
 “What of him?” said the Maharajah, quickly. 
 “T—]J]—have not seen him for some days.” 
 
 “Why?” asked Tarvin, bluntly. 
 
 “ Affairs of state and urgent political necessity,” 
 murmured the King, evading Tarvin’s wrathful 
 eyes. “Why should I be troubled by these things, 
 when I know that no harm has come to the boy?” 
 
 “No harm!” 
 
 “How could harm arrive?” The voice dropped 
 into an almost conciliatory whine. “You yourself, 
 Tarvin Sahib, promised to be his true friend. 
 That was on the day you rode so well, and stood 
 so well against my body-guard. Never have I 
 seen such riding, and therefore why should I be 
 troubled? Let us drink.” 
 
 He beckoned to his attendants. One of them 
 came forward with a long silver tumbler concealed 
 beneath his flowing garments, and poured into it 
 an allowance of liqueur brandy that made Tarvin, 
 used to potent drinks, open his eyes. The second 
 man produced a bottle of champagne, opened it 
 with a skill born of long practice, and filled up 
 the tumbler with the creaming wine. | 
 
 The Maharajah drank deep, and wiped the foam 
 
 from his beard, saying apologetically: “Such things 
 - 
 
258 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 are not for political agents to see; but you, Sahib, 
 are true friend of the state. Therefore I let you 
 see. Shall they mix you one like this?” 
 
 “Thanks. I didn’t come here to drink. I came 
 to tell you that the Maharaj has been very ill.” 
 
 “T was told there was a little fever,” said the 
 King, leaning back in his chair. “But he is with 
 Miss Sheriff, and she will make all well. Just a 
 little fever, Tarvin Sahib. Drink with me.” 
 
 “A little hell! Can you understand what I 
 am saying? The little chap has been half pois- 
 
 99 
 
 oned. 
 
 > said the 
 
 “Then it was the English medicines,’ 
 Maharajah, with a bland smile. ‘Once they made 
 me very sick, and I went back to the native 
 hakims. You are always making funny talks, Tar- 
 vin Sahib.” 
 
 With a mighty effort Tarvin choked down his 
 rage, and tapped his foot with his riding-whip, 
 speaking very clearly and distinctly: “I haven’t 
 come here to make funny talk to-day. The little 
 chap is with Miss Sheriff now. He was driven 
 over there; and somebody in the palace has been 
 trying to poison him with hemp.” 
 
 “Bhang!” said the Maharajah, stupidly. 
 
 “T don’t know what you call the mess, but he 
 has been poisoned. But for Miss Sheriff he would 
 have died—gyour first son would have died. He 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 259 
 
 has been poisoned, — do you hear, Maharajah Sahib? 
 —and by some one in the palace.” 
 
 “He has eaten something bad, and it has saan 
 him sick,” said the King, surlily. “Little boys 
 eat anything. By God! no man would dare to lay 
 a finger on my son.” 
 
 “What would you do to prevent it?” 
 
 The Maharajah half rose to his feet, and his 
 red eyes filled with fury. “I would tie him to 
 the fore foot of my biggest elephant, and kill him 
 through an afternoon!” ‘Then he relapsed, foam- 
 ing, into the vernacular, and poured out a list of 
 the hideous tortures that were within his will but 
 not in his power to inflict. “I would do all these 
 things to any man who touched him,” he con- 
 cluded. 
 
 Tarvin smiled incredulously. 
 
 “T know what you think,” stormed the King, 
 maddened by the liquor and the opium. “You 
 think that because there is an English government 
 I can make trials only by law, and all that non- 
 sense. Stuff! What do I care for the law that 
 is in books? Will the walls of my palace tell 
 anything that I do?” 
 
 “They won’t. If they did, they might let you 
 know that it is a woman inside the palace who is 
 at the bottom of this.” 
 
 The Maharajah’s face turned gray under its 
 
260 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 brown. Then he burst forth anew, almost huskily: 
 “Am I a king or a potter that I must have the 
 affairs of my zenana dragged into the sunlight 
 by any white dog that chooses to howl at me? 
 Go out, or the guard will drive you out like a 
 jackal.” 
 
 “'That’s all right,” said Tarvin, calmly. “But 
 what has it to do with the Prince, Maharajah 
 Sahib? Come over to Mr. Estes’s, and I’ll show 
 you. You’ve had some experience of drugs, I sup- 
 pose. You can decide for yourself. The boy has 
 been poisoned.” 
 
 “Tt was an accursed day for my state when I first 
 allowed the missionaries to come, and a worse day 
 when I did not drive you out.” 
 
 “Not in the least. I’m here to look after the 
 Maharaj Kunwar, and I’m going to do it. You 
 prefer leaving him to be killed by your women.” 
 
 “Tarvin Sahib, do you know what you say?” 
 
 “Shouldn’t be saying it if I didn’t. I have all 
 the proof in my hands.” 
 
 “But when there is a poisoning there are no 
 proofs of any kind, least of all when a woman 
 poisons! One does justice on suspicion, and by 
 the English law it is a most illiberal policy to kill 
 on suspicion. Tarvin Sahib, the English have 
 taken away from me everything that a Rajput 
 desires. and I and the others are rolling in idle- 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 261 
 
 ness like horses that never go to exercise. But 
 at least I am master there!” 
 
 He waved a hand toward the green shutters, and 
 spoke in a lower key, dropping back into his chair, 
 and closing his eyes. 
 
 Tarvin looked at him despairingly. 
 
 “No one man would dare —no man would dare,” 
 murmured the Maharajah, more faintly. “And as 
 for the other thing that you spoke of, it is not in 
 your power. By God! I am a Rajput and a king. 
 I do not talk of the life behind the curtain.” 
 
 Then Tarvin took his courage in both hands 
 and spoke. 
 
 “I don’t want you to talk,” he said; “I merely 
 want to warn you against Sitabhai. She’s poison- 
 ing the Prince.” 
 
 The Maharajah shuddered. That a European 
 should mention the name of his queen was in itself 
 sufficient insult, and one beyond all his experience. 
 But that a European should cry aloud in the open 
 court-yard a charge such as Tarvin had just made 
 surpassed imaginations The Maharajah had just 
 come from Sitabhai, who had lulled him to rest 
 with songs and endearments sacred to him alone; 
 and here was this lean outlander assailing her with 
 vile charges. But for the drugs he would, in the 
 extremity of his rage, have fallen upon ‘Tarvin, 
 who was saying, “I can prove it quite enough to 
 satisfy Colonel Nolan.” 
 
262 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 The Maharajah stared at Tarvin with shiny eyes, 
 and Tarvin thought for a moment that he was 
 going to fall in a fit; but it was the drink and 
 the opium reasserting their power upon him. He 
 mumbled angrily. The head fell forward, the 
 words ceased, and he sat in his chair breathing 
 heavily, as senseless as a log. 
 
 Tarvin gathered up his reins, and watehod the 
 sodden monarch for a long time in silence, as 
 the rustle behind the shutters rose and fell. Then 
 he turned to go, and rode out through the arch, 
 thinking. 
 
 Something sprang out of the darkness where the 
 guard slept, and where the King’s fighting apes 
 were tethered; and the horse reared as a gray ape, 
 its chain broken at the waistband, flung itself on 
 the pommel of the saddle, chattering. Tarvin felt 
 and smelt the beast. It thrust one paw into the 
 horse’s mane, and with the other encircled his own 
 throat. Instinctively he reached back, and before 
 the teeth under the grimy blue gums had time 
 to close he had fired twice, pressing the muzzle of 
 the pistol into the hide. The creature rolled off 
 to the ground, moaning like a human being, and 
 the smoke of the two shots drifted back through 
 the hollow of the arch and dissolved in the open 
 court-yard. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 263 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Strangers drawn from the ends of the earth, jewelled and plumed 
 
 were we. 
 I was the Lord of the Inca Race, ANI she was the Queen of the 
 Sea. 
 Under the stars beyond our stars where the reinless meteors glow, 
 Hotly we stormed Valhalla, a million years ago. 
 
 Dust of the stars was under our feet, glitter of stars above — 
 
 Wrecks of our wrath dropped reeling down as we fought and we 
 spurned and we strove — 
 
 Worlds upon worlds we tossed aside and scattered them to and 
 
 fro, 
 The night that we stormed Valhalla, a million years ago. 
 
 She with the star I had marked for my own—I with my set de- 
 sire — 
 Lost in the loom of the Night of Nights, ’wildered by worlds afire — 
 Met in a war ’twixt love and hate where the reinless meteors glow, 
 Hewing our way to Valhalla, a million years ago.* 
 The Sack of the Gods. 
 
 InN summer the nights of the desert are hotter 
 than the days, for when the sun goes down earth, 
 masonry, and marble give forth their stored heat, 
 and the low clouds, promising rain and never 
 bringing it, allow nothing to escape. 
 
 Tarvin was lying at rest in the veranda of the 
 rest-house, smoking a cheroot and wondering how 
 
 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co. 
 
264 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 far he had bettered the case of the Maharaj Kunwar 
 by appealing to the Maharajah. His reflections 
 were not disturbed; the last of the commercial 
 travelers had gone back to Calcutta and Bombay, 
 erumbling up to the final moment of their stay, 
 and the rest-house was all his own. Surveying 
 his kingdom, he meditated, between the puffs of 
 his cheroot, on the desperate and apparently hope- 
 less condition of things.. They had got to the 
 precise point where he liked them. When a situa- 
 tion looked as this one did, only Nicholas Tarvin 
 could put it through and come out on top. Kate 
 was obdurate; the Naulahka was damnably coy; the 
 Maharajah was ready to turn him out of the state. 
 Sitabhai had heard him denounce her. His life 
 was likely to come to a sudden and mysterious 
 end, without so much as the satisfaction of know- 
 ing that Heckler and the boys would avenge him; 
 and if it went on, it looked as though it would 
 have to go on without Kate, and without the gift of 
 new life to Topaz—in other words, without being 
 worth the trouble of living. 
 
 The moonlight, shining on the city beyond the 
 sands, threw fantastic shadows on temple spires and 
 the watch-towers along the walls. A dog in search 
 of food snuffed dolefully about Tarvin’s chair, and 
 withdrew to howl at him at a distance. It was a 
 singularly melancholy howl. Tarvin smoked till 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 265 
 
 the moon went down in the thick darkness of an 
 Indian night. She had scarcely set when he was 
 aware of something blacker than the night. between 
 him and the horizon. 
 
 “Ts it you, Tarvin Sahib?” the voice inquired 
 in broken English. 
 
 Tarvin sprang to his feet before replying. He 
 was beginning to be a little suspicious of fresh 
 apparitions. His hand went to his hip-pocket. 
 Any horror, he argued, might jump out at him 
 from the darkness in a country managed on the 
 plan of a Kiralfy trick spectacle. 
 
 “Nay; do not be afraid,” said the voice. “It 
 is I—Juggut Singh.” 
 
 Tarvin pulled thoughtfully at his cigar. ‘The 
 state is full of Singhs,” he said. “ Which?” 
 
 “T, Juggut Singh, of the household of the Maha- 
 rajah.” > 
 “H’m. Does the King want to see me?” 
 
 The figure advanced a pace nearer. 
 
 “No, Sahib; the Queen.” 
 
 “Which?” repeated Tarvin. 
 
 The figure was in the veranda at his side, almost 
 whispering in his ear. “There is only one who 
 would dare to leave the palace. It is the Gypsy.” 
 
 Tarvin snapped his fingers blissfully and sound- 
 lessly in the dark, and made a little click of tri- 
 umph with his tongue. “Pleasant calling-hours 
 the lady keeps,” he said. 
 
°66 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “This is no place for speaking, Sahib. I was 
 to say, ‘Come, unless you are afraid of the dark.’ ” 
 
 “Oh, were you? Well, now, look here, Juggut; 
 let’s talk this thing out. I’d like to see your 
 friend Sitabhai. Where are you keeping her? 
 Where do you want me to go?” 
 
 “T was to say, “Come with me.’ Are ‘you 
 afraid?”? ‘The man spoke this time at his own 
 prompting. 
 
 “Oh, I’m afraid fast enough,” said Tarvin, blow- 
 ing a cloud of smoke from him. “It isn’t that.” 
 
 “There are horses—-very swift horses. It is 
 the Queen’s order. Come with me.” 
 
 Tarvin smoked on, unhurrying; and when he 
 finally picked himself out of the chair it was muscle 
 by muscle. He drew his revolver from his pocket, 
 turned the chambers slowly one after another to 
 the vague light, under Juggut.Singh’s watchful 
 eye, and returned it to his pocket again, giving 
 his companion a wink as he did so. 
 
 “Well, come on, Juggut,’” he said, and they 
 passed behind the rest-house to a spot where two 
 horses, their heads enveloped in cloaks to prevent 
 them from neighing, were waiting at their pickets. 
 The man mounted one, and Tarvin took the other 
 silently, satisfying himself before getting into the 
 saddle that the girths were not loose this time. 
 They left the city road at a walking pace by a 
 eart-track leading to the hills. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 267 
 
 “Now,” said Juggut Singh, after they had gone 
 a quarter of a mile in this fashion, and were alone 
 under the stars, “we can ride.” 
 
 He bowed forward, struck his stirrups home, and 
 began lashing his animal furiously. Nothing short 
 of the fear of death would have made the pampered 
 eunuch of the palace ride at this pace. Tarvin 
 watched him roll in the saddle, chuckled a little, 
 and followed. 
 
 “You wouldn’t make much of a cow-puncher, 
 Jugget, would you?” 
 
 “Ride,” gasped Juggut Singh, “for the cleft 
 between the two hills —ride!” 
 
 The dry sand flew behind their horses’ hoofs, and 
 the hot winds whistled about their ears as they 
 headed up the easy slope toward the hills, three 
 miles from the palace. In the old days, before 
 the introduction of telegraphs, the opium specula- 
 tors of the desert were wont to telegraph the rise 
 and fall in the price of the drug from little beacon- 
 towers on the hills. It was toward one of these 
 disused stations that Juggut Singh was straining. 
 The horses fell into. a walk as the slope orew 
 steeper, and the outline of the squat-domed tower 
 began to show clear against the sky. A few mo- 
 ments later Tarvin heard the hoofs of their horses 
 ring on solid marble, and saw that he was riding 
 near the edge of a great reservoir, full of water to 
 
 the lip. 
 
268 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 Eastward, a few twinkling lghts in the open 
 plain showed the position of Rhatore, and took 
 him back to the night when he had said good by 
 to Topaz from the rear platform of a Pullman. 
 Night-fowl called to one another from the weeds 
 at the far end of the tank, and a great fish leaped 
 at the reflection of a star. 
 
 “The watch-tower is at the further end of the 
 dam,” said Juggut Singh. “The Gypsy is there.” 
 
 “Will they never have done with that name?” 
 uttered an incomparably sweet voice out of the 
 darkness. “It is well that I am of a gentle 
 temper, or the fish would know more of thee, Juggut 
 Singh.” » 
 
 Tarvin checked his horse with a jerk, for almost 
 under his bridle stood a figure enveloped from head — 
 to foot in a mist of pale-yellow gauze. It had 
 started up from behind the red tomb of a once 
 famous Rajput cavalier who was supposed by the 
 country-side to gallop nightly round the dam he 
 had built. This was one of the reasons why the 
 Dungar Talao was not visited after nightfall. 
 
 “Come down, Tarvin Sahib,” said the voice 
 mockingly in English. “IJ, at least, am not a 
 gray ape. Juggut Singh, go wait with the horses 
 
 99 
 
 below the watch-tower. 
 
 “Yes, Juggut; and don’t go to sleep,” enjoined 
 Tarvin —“we might want you.” He alighted, 
 
 and stood before the veiled form of Sitabhai. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 269 
 
 _“Shekand,” she said, after a little pause, putting . 
 out a hand that was smaller even than Kate’s. 
 “Ah, Sahib, I knew that you would come. I knew 
 that you were not afraid.” 
 
 She held his hand as she spoke, and pressed it~ 
 tenderly. Tarvin buried the tiny hand deep in 
 his engulfing paw, and, pressing it in a grip that 
 made her give an involuntary cry, shook it with 
 a hearty motion. 
 
 “Happy to make your acquaintance,” he said, 
 as she murmured under her breath, “By Indur, 
 he has a hold!” 
 
 “And I am pleased to see you, too,’ 
 
 ‘che an- 
 
 swered aloud. Tarvin noted the music of the 
 voice. He wondered what the face behind the veil 
 might look like. 
 
 She sat down composedly on the slab of the 
 tomb, motioning him to a seat beside her. 
 
 “All white men like straight talk,” she said, 
 speaking slowly, and with uncertain mastery «of 
 English pronunciation. “Tell me, Tarvin Sahib, 
 how much you know.” 
 
 She withdrew her veil as she spoke, and turned 
 her face toward him. ‘Tarvin saw that she was 
 beautiful. The perception thrust itself insensibly 
 between him and his other perceptions about her. 
 
 “You don’t want me to give myself away, do 
 you, Queen?” 
 
270 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “T do not understand. But I know you do not 
 
 9 
 
 talk like the other white men,” she said sweetly. 
 
 “Well, then, you don’t expect me to tell you 
 the truth?” 
 
 “No,” she replied. “Else you would tell me 
 why you are here. Why do you give me so much 
 trouble?” 
 
 “Do I trouble you?” 
 
 Sitabhai laughed, throwing back her head, and 
 clasping her hands behind her neck. Tarvin watched 
 her curiously in the starlight. All his senses were 
 alert; he was keenly on his guard, and he cast a 
 wary eye about and behind him from time to time. 
 But he could see nothing but the dull glimmer of 
 the water that lapped at the foot of the marble 
 steps, and hear nothing save the cry of the night- 
 owls. 
 
 “Q Tarvin Sahib,” she said. “You know! 
 After the first time I was sorry.” 
 
 “Which time was that?” inquired Tarvin, 
 vaguely. 
 
 “ Of course it was when the saddle turned. And 
 then when the timber fell from the archway I 
 thought at least that I had maimed your horse. 
 Was he hurt?” 
 
 “No,” said Tarvin, stupefied by her engaging 
 frankness. 
 
 ’ 
 
 “Surely you knew,’ 
 fully. 
 
 she said almost reproach. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. para | 
 
 He shook his head. “No, Sitabhai, my dear,” 
 he said slowly and impressively; “I wasn’t on to 
 you, and it’s my eternal shame. But I’m begin- 
 ning to sabe. You worked the little business at 
 the dam, too, I suppose, and the bridge and the 
 bullock-carts. And I thought it was their infernal 
 clumsiness! Well, I'll be—” He whistled melo- 
 diously, and the sound was answered by the hoarse 
 croak of a crane across the reeds. 
 
 The Queen leaped to her feet, thrusting her 
 hand into her bosom. “A signal!” Then, sink- 
 ing back upon the slab of the tomb, “ But you have 
 brought no one with you. I know you are not 
 afraid to go alone.” 
 
 “Oh, I’m not trying to do you up, young lady,” 
 he answered. “I’m too busy admiring your pic- 
 turesque and systematic deviltry. So you’re at 
 the bottom of all my troubles? That quicksand 
 trick was a pretty one. Do you often work it?” 
 
 “Oh, on the dam!” exclaimed the Queen, wav- 
 
 ing her hands lightly. “I only gave them orders 
 to do what they could. But they are very clumsy 
 people — only coolie people. They told me what 
 they had done, and I was angry.” 
 
 “Kill any one?” 
 
 “No; why should I?” 
 
 “Well, if it comes to that, why should you be 
 so hot on killing me?” inquired Tarvin, dryly. 
 
ote THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “T do not like any white men to stay here, and 
 J knew that you had come to stay.” Tarvin smiled 
 at the unconscious Americanism. “ Besides,” she 
 went on, “the Maharajah was fond of you, and I had 
 never killed a white man. Then, too, I like you.” 
 
 “Oh!” responded Tarvin, expressively. 
 
 “By Malang Shah, and you never knew!” She 
 was swearing: by the god of her own clan—the 
 god of the gypsies. 
 
 “Well, don’t rub it in,” said Tarvin. 
 
 “And you killed my big pet ape,” she went 
 on. “He used to salaam to me in the mornings 
 like Luchman Rao, the prime minister. Tarvin 
 Sahib, I have known many Englishmen. I have 
 danced on the slack-rope before the mess-tents of 
 the officers on the line of march, and taken my 
 little begging-gourd up to the big bearded colonel 
 when I was no higher than his knee.” She low- 
 ered her hand to within a foot of the ground. 
 “And when I grew older,” she continued, “I 
 thought that I knew the hearts of all men. But, 
 by Malang Shah, Tarvin Sahib, I never saw a man 
 like unto you! Nay,” she went on almost beseech- 
 ingly, “do not say that you did not know. ‘There 
 is a love-song in my tongue, ‘I have not slept 
 between moon and moon because of you’; and 
 indeed for me that song is quite true. Sometimes 
 
 I think that I did not quite wish to see you die. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. Din 
 
 But it would be better that you were dead. I, 
 and I alone, command this state. And now, after 
 that which you have told the King —” 
 
 “Yes? You heard, then?” 
 
 She nodded. “After that I cannot see that there 
 is any other way —unless you go away.” 
 
 “Tm not going,” said Tarvin. 
 
 “That is good,” said the Queen, with a little 
 laugh. “And so I shall not miss seeing you in 
 the court-yard day by day. I thought the sun 
 would have killed you when you waited for the 
 Maharajah. Be grateful to me, Tarvin Sahib, for 
 I made the Maharajah come out. And you did me 
 an ill turn.” 
 
 “My dear young lady,” said Tarvin, earnestly, 
 “if you’d pull in your wicked little fangs, no 
 one wants to hurt you. But I can’t let you beat 
 me about the Maharaj Kunwar. I’m here to see 
 that the young man stays with us. Keep off the 
 erass, and I'll drop it.” 
 
 99 
 
 “Again I do not understand,” said the Queen, 
 
 bewildered. “But what is the life of a little child 
 to you who are a stranger here?” 
 
 “What is it to me? Why, it’s fair play; it’s 
 the life of a little child. What more do you 
 want? Is nothing sacred to you?” 
 
 > 
 
 “T also have a son,” returned the Queen, “and 
 
 he is not weak. Nay, J'arvin Sahib, the child 
 
 — 
 
274 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 always was sickly from his birth. How can he 
 govern men? My son will be a Rajput; and in 
 the time to come— But that is no concern of 
 the white men. Let this little one go back to the 
 gods.” 
 
 “Not if I know it,” responded Tarvin, deci- 
 sively. 
 
 “ Otherwise,” swept on the Queen, “he will live 
 infirm and miserable for ninety years. I know the 
 bastard Kulu stock that he comes from. Yes; I 
 have sung at the gate of his mother’s palace when 
 she and I were children—TI in the dust, and she 
 in her marriage-litter. To-day she is in the dust. 
 Tarvin Sahib,’’—her voice melted appealingly, — 
 “IT shall never bear another son; but’I may at 
 least mould the state from behind the curtain, as 
 many queens have done. I am not a palace-bred 
 woman. Those”—she pointed scornfully toward 
 the lights of Rhatore — “have never seen the wheat 
 wave, or heard the wind blow, or sat in a saddle, 
 or talked face to face with men in the streets. 
 They call me the gypsy, and they cower under 
 their robes like fat slugs when I choose to lift my 
 hand to the Maharajah’s beard. Their bards sing 
 of their ancestry for twelve hundred years. They 
 are noble, forsooth! By Indur and Allah, — yea, 
 and the God of your missionaries too, — their chil- 
 dren and the British government shall remember 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 275 
 
 me for twice twelve hundred years. Ahi, Tarvin 
 Sahib, you do not know how wise my little son 
 is. I do not let him go to the missionary’s. All 
 that he shall need afterward—and indeed it is 
 no little thing to govern this state — he shall learn 
 from me; for I have seen the world, and I know. 
 And until you came all was going so softly, so 
 softly, to its end! The little one would have died 
 —yes; and there would have been no more trouble. 
 And never man nor woman in the: palace would 
 have breathed to the King one word of what you 
 cried aloud before the sun in the court-yard. Now, 
 suspicion will never cease in the King’s mind, 
 and I do not know—I do not know—” She 
 bent forward earnestly. “Tarvin Sahib, if I have 
 spoken one word of truth this night, tell me how 
 much is known to you.” 
 
 Tarvin preserved absolute silence. She stole one 
 hand pleadingly on his knee. “And none would 
 have suspected. When the ladies of the Viceroy 
 came last year, I gave out of my own treasures 
 twenty-five thousand rupees to the nursing-hospi- 
 tal, and the lady sahib kissed me on both cheeks, 
 and I talked English, and showed them how I 
 spent my time knitting—I who knit and unknit 
 the hearts of men.” 
 
 This time Tarvin did not whistle; he merely 
 smiled and murmured sympathetically. The large 
 
276 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 and masterly range of her wickedness, and the 
 coolness with which she addressed herself to it, 
 gave her a sort of distinction. More than this, 
 he respected her for the personal achievement which 
 of all feats most nearly appeals to the breast of the 
 men of the West—she had done him up. It was 
 true her plans had failed; but she had played them 
 all on him without his knowledge. He almost 
 revered her for it. 
 
 “Now you begin to understand,” said Sitabhai; 
 “there is something more to think of. Do you 
 mean to go to Colonel Nolan, Sahib, with all your 
 story about me?” 
 
 “Unless you keep your hands off the Maharaj 
 Kunwar — yes,” said Tarvin, not allowing his feel- 
 ings to interfere with business. 
 
 “That is very foolish,” said the Queen; “ because 
 Colonel Nolan will give much trouble to the King, 
 and the King will turn the palace into confusion, 
 and every one of my handmaids, except a. few, 
 will give witness against me; and I perhaps shall 
 come to be much suspected. Then you would 
 think, Tarvin Sahib, that you had prevented me. 
 But you cannot stay here forever. You cannot 
 stay here until I die. And so soon as you are 
 gone —”’ She snapped her fingers. 
 
 “You won’t get the chance,” said Tarvin, un- 
 shakenly. “Ill fix that. What do you take me 
 for?” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. Ott 
 
 The Queen bit the back of her forefinger irres: 
 olutely. There was no saying what this man, 
 who strode unharmed through her machinations, 
 might or might not be able to do. Had she been 
 dealing with one of her own race, she would have 
 played threat against threat. But the perfectly 
 composed and loose-knit figure by her side, watch- 
 ing every movement, chin in hand, ready, alert, 
 confident, was an unknown quantity that baffled 
 and distressed her. 
 
 There was a sound of a discreet cough, and 
 Juggut Singh waddled toward them, bowing ab- 
 jectly, to whisper something to the Queen. She 
 laughed scornfully, and motioned him back to his 
 post. 
 
 “He says the night is passing,” she explained, 
 “and it is death for him and for me to be without 
 the palace.” 
 
 “Don’t let me keep you,” said Tarvin, rising. 
 “T think we understand each other.” He looked 
 into her eyes. ‘“ Hands off!” 
 
 “Then I may not do what I please?” she said, 
 “and you will go to Colonel Nolan to-morrow?” 
 
 “That depends,” said Tarvin, shutting his lips. 
 He thrust his hand into his pockets as he stood 
 looking down at her. 
 
 “Seat yourself again a moment, Tarvin Sahib,” 
 said Sitabhai, patting the slab of the tomb invit- 
 
278 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 ingly with her little palm. Tarvin obeyed. “Now, 
 if I let no more timber fall, and keep the gray 
 apes tied fast —” 
 
 “And dry up the quicksands in the Amet River,” 
 pursued Tarvin, grimly. “I see. My dear little 
 spitfire, you are at liberty to do what you like. 
 Don’t let me interfere with your amusements.” 
 
 “T was wrong. I should have known that noth- 
 ing would make you afraid,” said she, eying him 
 
 pAlld. 
 
 thoughtfully out of the corner of her eye; 
 excepting you, Tarvin Sahib, there is no man that 
 I fear. If you were a king as I a queen, we would 
 hold Hindustan between our two hands.” 
 
 She clasped his locked fist as she spoke, and 
 Tarvin, remembering that sudden motion to her 
 bosom when he had whistled, laid his own hand 
 quickly above hers, and held them fast. 
 
 “Ts there nothing, Tarvin Sahib, that would 
 make you leave me in peace? What is it you 
 care for? You did not come here to keep the 
 Mahara} Kunwar alive.” 
 
 “How do you know I didn’t?” 
 
 “You are very wise,’ she said, with a little 
 laugh, “but it is not good to pretend to be too 
 wise. Shall I tell you why you came?” 
 
 “Well, why did I? Speak up.” 
 
 “You came here, as you came to the temple of 
 Iswara, to find that which you will never find, 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 279 
 
 unless **—she leaned toward him—“T help you. 
 Was it very cold in the Cow’s Mouth, Tarvin 
 Sahib?” 
 
 Tarvin drew back, frowning, but not betraying 
 himself further. 
 
 “T was afraid that the snakes would have killed 
 you there.” 
 
 “ Were you?” 
 
 “Yes,” she said softly, “And I was afraid, 
 too, that you might not have stepped swiftly 
 enough for the turning stone in the temple.” 
 
 Tarvin glanced at her. “No?” 
 
 “Yes. Ah! I knew what was in your mind, 
 even before you spoke to the King—when the 
 body-guard charged.” 
 
 “See here, young woman, do you run a private 
 inquiry agency?” 
 
 She laughed. “There is a song in the palace 
 now about your bravery. But the boldest thing 
 was to speak to the King about the Naulahka. He 
 told me all you said. But he—even he did not 
 dream that any feringhi could dare to covet it. 
 And I was so good —I did not tell him. But I 
 knew men like you are not made for little things. 
 Tarvin Sahib,” she said, leaning close, releasing 
 her hand and laying it softly on his shoulder, 
 “you and I are kin indeed! For it is more easy 
 to govern this state—aye, and from this state to 
 
280 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 recapture all Hindustan from these white dogs, the 
 English —than to do what you have dreamed of. 
 And yet a stout heart makes all things easy. Was 
 it for yourself, Tarvin Sahib, that you wanted the 
 Naulahka, or for another—even as I desire Gokral 
 Seetarun for my son? We are not little people. 
 It is for another, is it not?” 
 
 “Look here,”’ said Tarvin, reverently, as he took 
 her hand from his shoulder and held it firmly in 
 his clutch again, “are there many of you in India?” 
 
 “But one. I am like yourself—alone.” Her 
 chin drooped against his shoulder, and she looked 
 up at him out of her eyes as dark as the lake. 
 The scarlet mouth and the quivering nostrils were 
 so close to his own that the fragrant breath swept 
 his cheek. 
 
 “Are you making states, Tarvin Sahib, like me? 
 No; surely it is a woman. Your government is 
 decreed for you, and you do what it orders. I 
 turned the canal which the Government said should 
 run through my orange-garden, even as I will 
 bend the King to my will, even as I will kill the 
 boy, even as I will myself rule in Gokral Seetarun 
 through my child. But you, Tarvin Sahib — you 
 wish only a woman! Is it not so? And she is 
 too little to bear the weight of the Luck of the 
 State. She grows paler day by day.” She felt 
 the man quiver, but he said nothing. | 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 281 
 
 From the tangle of scrub and brushwood at the 
 far end of the lake broke forth a hoarse barking 
 cough that filled the hills with desolation as water 
 brims a cup. Tarvin leaped to his feet. For the 
 first time he heard the angry complaint of the tiger 
 going home to his:lair after a fruitless night of 
 ranging. 
 
 “Tt is nothing,” said the Queen, without stir- 
 ring. “It is only the tiger of the Dungar Talao. 
 I have heard them howling many times when 1 
 was a gypsy, and even if he came you would shoot 
 him, would you not, as you shot the ape?” 
 
 She nestled close to him, and, as he sank beside 
 her on the stone again, his arm slipped uncon- 
 sciously about her waist. 
 
 The shadow of the beast drifted across an open 
 space by. the lake-shore as noiselessly as thistle- 
 down draws through the air of summer, and Tar- 
 vin’s arm tightened in its resting-place — tightened 
 on a bossed girdle that struck cold on his palm 
 through many folds of muslin. 
 
 “So little and so frail—how could she wear 
 it?” resumed the Queen. 
 
 She turned a little in his embrace, and Tarvin’s 
 ‘ arm brushed against one, and another, and then 
 another, strand of the girdle, studded like the first 
 with irregular bosses, till under his elbow he felt 
 a great square stone. 
 
282 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 He started, and tightened his hold about her 
 waist, with paling lips. 
 
 a2) 
 
 “But we two,” the Queen went on, in a low 
 voice, regarding him dreamily, “could make the 
 kingdom fight like the water-buffaloes in spring. 
 Would you be my prime minister, Tarvin Sahib, 
 and advise me through the curtain?” 
 
 “T don’t know whether I could trust you,” 
 said Tarvin, briefly. 
 
 “IT do not know whether I could trust myself,” 
 responded the Queen; “for after a time it might 
 be that I should be servant who have always been 
 queen. I have come near to casting my heart 
 under the hoofs of your horse —not once, but many 
 
 ’ 
 
 times.”” She put her arms around his neck and 
 joined them there, gazing into his eyes, and draw- 
 ing his head down to hers. “Is it a little thing,” 
 she cooed, “if I ask you to be my king? In the 
 old days, before the English came, Englishmen of 
 no birth stole the hearts of begums, and led their 
 armies. They were kings in all but the name. 
 We do not know when the old days may return, 
 and we might lead our armies together.” 
 
 “All right. Keep the place open for me. I 
 might come back and apply for it one of these © 
 days when I’ve worked a scheme or two at home.” 
 
 “Then you are going away— you will leave us 
 
 soon?” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND BAST. 283 
 
 “T’ll leave you when I’ve got what I want, my 
 dear,” he answered, pressing her closer. 
 
 She bit her lip. “I might have known,” she 
 said softly. “I, too, have never turned aside 
 from anything I desired. Well, and what is it?” 
 
 The mouth drooped a little at the corners, as 
 the head fell on his shoulder. Glancing down, 
 he saw the ruby-jewelled jade handle of a little 
 knife at her breast. 
 
 He disengaged himself from her arms with a 
 quick movement, and rose to his feet. She was 
 very lovely ashe stretched her arms appealingly 
 out to him in the half light; but he was there for 
 other things. 
 
 Tarvin looked at. her between the eyes, and her 
 glance fell. 
 
 “T’l] take what you have around your waist, 
 please.” 
 
 “T might have known that the white man thinks 
 only of money!” she cried scornfully. 
 
 She unclasped a silver belt from her waist and 
 threw it from her, clinking, upon the marble. 
 
 Tarvin did not give it a glance. 
 
 “You know me better than that,” he said quietly. 
 “Come, hold up your hands. Your game is 
 played.” 
 
 “T do not understand,” she said. “Shall I give 
 you some rupees?” she asked scornfully. “Be 
 quick, Juggut Singh is bringing the horses.”’ 
 
284 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Oh, [I'll be quick enough. Give me the Nau- 
 lahka.”’ 
 
 “The Naulahka?” 
 
 “The same. I’m tired of tipsy bridges, and 
 ungirt horses, and uneasy arches, and dizzy quick- 
 sands. I want the necklace.” 
 
 “And I may have the boy?” 
 
 “No; neither boy nor necklace.” 
 
 “And will you go to Colonel Nolan in the 
 morning?” 
 
 “The morning is here now. You’d better be 
 quick.” 
 
 “Will you go to Colonel Nolan?” she repeated, 
 rising, and facing him. 
 
 “Yes; if you don’t give me the necklace.” 
 
 ATO Ee Giees 
 
 “No. Is it a trade?” It was his question: to 
 Mrs. Mutrie. 
 
 The Queen looked desperately at the day-star 
 shat was beginning to pale in the East. Even her 
 power over the King could not save her from death 
 if the day discovered her beyond the palace walls. 
 
 The man spoke as one who held her life in the 
 hollow of his hand; and she knew he was right. 
 If he had proof he would not scruple to bring it 
 before the Maharajah; and if the Maharajah be- 
 lieved —Sitabhai could feel the sword at her throat. 
 She would be no founder of a dynasty, but a name- 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 285 
 
 less disappearance in the palace. Mercifully, the 
 King had not been in a state to understand the 
 charges Tarvin had brought against her in the 
 court-yard. But she lay open now to anything 
 this reckless and determined stranger might choose 
 to do against her. At the least he could bring 
 upon her the formless suspicion of an Indian court, 
 worse than death to her plans, and the removal 
 of Maharaj Kunwar beyond her power, through the 
 interposition of Colonel Nolan; and at the worst — 
 But she did not pursue this train of thought. 
 
 She cursed the miserable weakness of liking for 
 him which had prevented her from killing him just 
 now as he lay in her arms. She had meant to 
 kill him from the first moment of their interview; 
 she had let herself toy too long with the fascina- 
 tion of being dominated by a will stronger than 
 her own, but there was still time. 
 
 “And if I do not give you the Naulahka?” 
 she asked. 
 
 “T guess you know best about that.” 
 
 As her eye wandered out on the plain she saw 
 that the stars no longer had fire in them; the black 
 water of the reservoir paled and grew gray, and 
 the wild fowl were waking in the reeds. The 
 dawn was upon her, as merciless as the man 
 Juggut Singh was leading up the horses, motion. 
 ing to her in an agony of impatience and terror. 
 
286 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 The sky was against her; and there was no help 
 on earth. 
 
 She put her hands behind her. Tarvin heard 
 the snap of a clasp, and the Naulahka lay about 
 her feet in ripples of flame. 
 
 Without looking at him or the necklace, she 
 moved toward the horses. Tarvin stooped swiftly 
 aud possessed himself of the treasure. Juggut 
 Singh had released his horse. ‘Tarvin strode for- 
 ward and caught at the bridle, cramming the 
 necklace into his brea.t-pocket. 
 
 He bent to make sure of his girth. The Queen, 
 standing behind her horse, waited an instant to 
 mount. | 
 
 “Good by, Tarvin Sahib; and remember the 
 gypsy,” she said, flinging her arm out over the 
 horse’s withers. “ Heh!” 
 
 A fiicker of light passed his eye. The jade 
 handle of the Queen’s knife quivered in the saddle- 
 
 9 
 
 flap half an inch above his right shoulder. His 
 horse plunged forward at the Queen’s stallion, 
 with a snort of pain. 
 
 “Kill him, Juggut Singh!” gasped the Queen, 
 pointing to Tarvin, as the eunuch scrambled into 
 his saddle. “Kill him!” 
 
 Tarvin caught her tender wrist in his fast grip. 
 “Easy there, girl! Easy!” She returned his gaze, 
 baffled. “Let me put you up,’”’ he said. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 287 
 
 He put his arms about her and swung her into 
 the saddle. 
 
 “Now give us a kiss,” he said, as she looked 
 down at him. 
 
 She stooped. “No, you don’t! Give me your 
 hands.” He priscned both wrists, and kissed her 
 full upon the mouth. Then he smote tne horse 
 resoundingly upon the flank, and the animal blun- 
 dered down the path and leaped out into the plain. 
 
 He watched the Queen and Juggut Singh dis- 
 appear in a cloud of dust and flying stones, and 
 turned with a deep sigh of relief to the lake. 
 Drawing the Naulahka from its resting-place, and 
 laying it fondly out upon his hands, he fed his 
 eyes upon it. 
 
 The stones kindled with the glow of the dawn, 
 and mocked the shifting colors of the hill. The 
 shining ropes of gems put to shame the red glare 
 that shot up from behind the reeds, as they had 
 dulled the glare of the torches on the night of the 
 little Prince’s wedding. ‘The tender green of the 
 reeds themselves, the intense blue of the lake, 
 the beryl of the flashing kingfishers, and the 
 blinding ripples spreading under the first rays of 
 the sun, as a bevy of coots flapped the water from 
 their wings —the necklace abashed them all. Only 
 the black diamond took no joy from the joy of the 
 morning, but lay among its glorious fellows as 
 
288 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 sombre and red-hearted as the troublous night out 
 of which Tarvin had snatched it. 
 
 Tarvin ran the stones through his hands one by 
 one, and there were forty-five of them—each stone 
 perfect and flawless of its kind; nipped, lest any 
 of its beauty should be hidden, by a tiny gold 
 clasp, each stone swinging all but free from the 
 strand of soft gold on which it was strung, and 
 each stone worth a king’s ransom or a queen’s good 
 name. 
 
 It was a good moment for Tarvin. His life 
 gathered into it. Topaz was safe! 
 
 The wild duck were stringing te and fro across 
 the lake, and the cranes called to one another, 
 stalking through reeds almost as tall as their 
 scarlet heads. From some temple hidden among 
 the hills a lone priest chanted sonorously as he 
 made the morning sacrifice to hi god, and from 
 the city in the plain cam the boom oi the first 
 ward-drums, telling that the gates were open and 
 the day was born. 
 
 Tarvin lifted his head from the necklace. The 
 jade-handled knife was lying at his feet. He 
 picked up the delicate weapon and threw it into 
 the lake. 
 
 *“ And now for Kate,” he said. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 289 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Now we are come to our Kingdom, 
 And the State is thus and thus. 
 Our legions wait at the palace gate — 
 Little it profits us. 
 Now we are come to our Kingdom. 
 
 Now we are come to our Kingdom ; 
 The crown is ours to take — 
 With a naked sword at the council-board, 
 And under the throne the snake. 
 Now we are come to our Kingdom. 
 
 Now we are come to our Kingdom, 
 
 But my love’s eyelids fall — 
 All that I wrou ht for, all that I fought for, 
 
 Delight her nothing at all. 
 
 My crown is yvithered leaves, 
 
 For she sits in the dust and grieves. 
 
 Now we are come to our Kingdom.* 
 King Anthony. 
 
 THE palace on its. red rock seemed to be still 
 asleep as he cantered across the empty plain. <A 
 man on a camel rode out of one of the city gates 
 at right angles to his course, and Tarvin noted 
 with interest how swiftly a long-legged camel of 
 the desert can move. Familiar as he had now 
 become with the ostrich-necked beasts, he could 
 
 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co. U 
 
290 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 not help associating them with Barnum’s Circus 
 and boyhood memories. ‘The man drew near and 
 crossed in front of him. ‘Then, in the stillness of 
 the morning, Tarvin heard the dry click of a voice 
 he understood. It was the sound made by bring- 
 ing up the cartridge of a repeating rifle. Mechan- 
 ically he slipped from the saddle, and was on the 
 other side of the horse as the rifle spoke, and a 
 puff of blue smoke drifted up and hung motionless 
 above the camel. 
 
 “YT might have known she’d get in her work 
 
 > he muttered, peering over his _ horse’s 
 
 early,’ 
 withers. “I can’t drop him at this distance with 
 a revolver. What’s the fool waiting for?” 
 
 Then he perceived that, with characteristic native 
 inaptitude, the man had contrived to jam his lever, 
 and was beating it furiously on the forepart of 
 the saddle. Tarvin remounted hastily, and gal- 
 loped up, revolver in hand, to cover the blanched 
 visage of Juggut Singh. 
 
 “You! Why, Juggut, old man, this isn’t kind 
 of you.” | 
 
 “It was an order,” said Juggut, quivering with 
 apprehension. “It was no fault of mine. I—I 
 do not understand these things.” 
 
 “T should smile. Let me show you.” He took 
 the rifle from the trembling hand. “The cartridge 
 is jammed, my friend; it don’t shoot as well that 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 291 
 
 way. It only needs a little knack—so. You 
 ought to learn it, Juggut.” He jerked the empty 
 shell over his shoulder. | 
 
 “What will you do to me?” cried the eunuch. 
 “She would have killed me if I had not come.” 
 
 “Don’t you believe it, Juggut. She’s a Jumbo 
 at theory, but weak in practice. Go on ahead, 
 please.”’ 
 
 They started back toward the city, Juggut lead- 
 ing the way on his camel, and looking back appre- 
 hensively every minute. ‘Tarvin smiled at him 
 dryly but reassuringly, balancing on his hip the 
 captured rifle. He observed that it was a very 
 good rifle if properly used. 
 
 At the entrance to Sitabhai’s wing of the palace 
 Juggut Singh dismounted and slunk into the court- 
 yard, the livid image of fear and shame. Tarvin 
 clattered after him, and as the eunuch was about 
 to disappear through a door, called him back. 
 
 “You have forgotten your gun, Juggut,” he 
 said. “Don’t be afraid of it.” Juggut was put- 
 ting up a doubtful hand to take it from him. 
 “It won’t hurt anybody this trip. Take yourself 
 back to the lady, and tell her you are returned with 
 thanks.” 
 
 No sound came to his ear from behind the green 
 shutters as he rode away leaving Juggut staring 
 after him. Nothing fell upon him from out of 
 
292, THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 the arch, and the apes were tied securely. Sita- 
 bhai’s next move was evidently yet to be played 
 His own next move he had already considered. 
 It was a case for bolting. 
 He rode to the mosque outside the city, routed 
 out his old friend in dove-colored satin, and made 
 him send this message: 
 
 “Mrs. Murrie, DENVER. — Necklace is yours. 
 Get throat ready, and lay that track into Topaz. 
 “ TARYINe 
 
 Then he turned his horse’s head toward Kate. 
 He buttoned his coat tightly across his chest, and 
 patted the resting-place of the Naulahka fondly, as 
 he strode up the path to the missionary’s veranda, 
 when he had tethered Fibby outside. His high good 
 humor with himself and the world spoke through his 
 eyes as he greeted Mrs. Estes at the door. 
 
 “You have been hearing something pleasant,” she 
 said. ‘“Won’t you come in?” 
 
 “Well, either the pleasantest, or next to the 
 pleasantest, I’m not sure which,” he answered, 
 with a smile, as he followed her into the familiar 
 sitting-room. “I’d like to tell you all about it, 
 Mrs. Estes. I feel almightily like telling somebody. 
 But it isn’t a healthy story for this neighborhood.” 
 He glanced about him. “I’d hire the town-crier 
 
 and a few musical instruments, and advertise it, if 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 293 
 
 I had my way; and we’d all have a little Fourth of 
 July celebration and a bonfire, and I’d read the 
 Declaration of Independence over the natives with 
 a relish. But it won’t do. There zs a story I'd 
 like to tell you, though,” he added, with a sudden 
 thought. “You know why I come here so much, 
 don’t you, Mrs. Estes—I mean outside of your 
 kindness to me, and my liking you all so much, 
 and our always having such good times together? 
 You know, don’t you?” 
 
 Mrs. Estes smiled. “I suppose I do,” she said. 
 
 “Well, that’s right. That’s right. I thought 
 you did. Then I hope you’re my friend.” 
 
 “Tf you mean that I wish you well, I do. But 
 you can understand that I feel responsible for Miss 
 Sheriff. I have sometimes thought I ought to let 
 her mother know.” 
 
 “Oh, her mother knows. She’s full of it. You 
 might say she liked it. The trouble isn’t there, 
 you know, Mrs. Estes.” 
 
 “No. She’s a singular girl; very strong, very 
 sweet. I’ve grown to love her dearly. She has 
 wonderful courage. But I should like it better for 
 her if she would give it up, and all that goes with 
 it. She would be better married,”’ she said medi- 
 tatively. 
 
 Tarvin gazed at her admiringly. “How wise 
 you are, Mrs. Estes! How wise you are!” he 
 
294 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 murmured. “If I’ve told her that once I’ve told 
 her a dozen times. Don’t you think, also, that it 
 would be better if she were married at once — right 
 away, without too much loss of time?” 
 
 His companion looked at him to see if he was 
 in earnest. Tarvin was sometimes a little per- 
 plexing to her. “I think if you are clever you 
 
 b) 
 
 will leave it to the course of events,” she replied, 
 after a moment. “I have watched her work here, 
 hoping that she might succeed where every one 
 else has failed. But I know in my heart that she 
 won’t. There’s too much against her. She’s 
 working against thousands of years of traditions, 
 and training, and habits of hfe. Sooner or later 
 they are certain to defeat her; and then, whatever 
 her courage, she must give in. I’ve thought some- 
 times lately that she might have trouble very soon. 
 There’s a good deal of dissatisfaction at the hos- 
 pital. Lucien hears some stories that make me 
 anxious.” 
 
 “Anxious! I should say so. That’s the worst 
 of it. It isn’t only that she won’t come to me, 
 Mrs. Estes, —that you can understand, —but she 
 is running her head meanwhile into all sorts of 
 impossible dangers. IJ haven’t time to wait until 
 she sees that point. I haven’t time to wait until 
 she sees any point at all but that this present 
 moment, now and here, would be a good moment 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 295 
 
 in which to marry Nicholas Tarvin. Ive got to 
 get out of Rhatore. That’s the long and the short 
 of it, Mrs. Estes. Don’t ask me why. It’s neces- 
 sary. And I must take Kate with me. Help me 
 if you love her.”’ | 
 
 To this appeal Mrs. Estes made the handsomest 
 response in her power, by saying that she would 
 go up and tell her that he wished to see her. This 
 seemed to take some time; and Tarvin waited 
 patiently, with a smile on his lips. He did not 
 doubt that Kate would yield. In the glow of 
 another success it was not possible to him to sup- 
 pose that she would not come around now. Had. 
 he not the Naulahka? She went with it; she was 
 indissolubly connected with it. Yet he was will- 
 ing to impress into his service all the help he could 
 get, and he was glad to believe that Mrs. Estes 
 was talking to her. 
 
 It was an added prophecy of success when he 
 found from a copy of a recent issue of the “ Topaz 
 
 b) 
 
 Telegram,” which he picked up while he waited, 
 that the “ Lingering Lode” had justified his expec- 
 tations. The people he had left in charge had 
 struck a true fissure vein, and were taking out 
 $500 a week. He crushed the paper into his 
 pocket, restraining an inclination to dance; it was 
 perhaps safest, on reflection, to postpone that exer- 
 
 cise until he had seen Kate. The little congrat- 
 
296 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 ulatory whistle that he struck up instead, he had 
 to sober a moment later into a smile as Kate 
 opened the door and came in to him. There could 
 be no two ways about it with her now. His smile, 
 do what he would, almost said as much. 
 
 A single glance at her face showed him, how- 
 ever, that the affair struck her less simply. He 
 forgave her; she could not know the source of his 
 inner certitude. He even took time to like the 
 gray house-dress, trimmed with black velvet, that 
 she was wearing in place of the white which had 
 become habitual to her. 
 
 “I’m glad you’ve dropped white for a moment,” 
 he said, as he rose to shake hands with her. “It’s 
 a sign. It represents a general abandonment and 
 desertion of this blessed country; and that’s just 
 the mood I want to find you in. I want you to 
 drop it, chuck it, throw it up.” He held ‘her 
 brown little hand in the swarthy fist he pushed 
 out from his own white sleeve, and looked down 
 into her eyes attentively. 
 
 “What?” 
 
 “India—the whole business. I want you to 
 come with me.” He spoke gently. 
 
 She looked up, and he saw in the quivering 
 lines about her mouth signs of the contest on this 
 theme that she had passed through before coming 
 down to him. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 297 
 
 “You are going? I’m so glad.” She hesitated 
 a moment. “You know why?” she added, with 
 what he saw was an intention of kindness. | 
 
 Tarvin laughed as he seated himself. “I like 
 that. Yes; I’m going,” he said. “But I’m not 
 going alone. You’re in the plan,” he assured her, 
 with a nod. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 “No; don’t say that, Kate. You mustn’t. It’s 
 serious this time.” . 
 
 “ Hasn’t it always been?” she sank into a chair. 
 “It’s always been serious enough for me— that I 
 couldn’t do what you wish, I mean. Not doing it 
 —that is doing, something else; the one thing I 
 want to do—is the most serious thing in the world 
 to me. Nothing has happened to change me, Nick. 
 I would tell you in a moment if it had. How is 
 it different for either of us?” 
 
 “Lots of ways. But that I’ve got to leave 
 Rhatore for a sample. You don’t think I’d leave 
 you behind, I hope.” | 
 
 She studied the hands she had folded in her lap 
 fora moment. Then she looked up and faced him 
 with her open gaze. 
 
 “Nick,” she said, “let me try to explain as 
 clearly as. I can how all this seems to me. You 
 ean correct me if I’m wrong.” 
 
 “Oh, you’re sure to be wrong!” he cried; but 
 he leaned forward. 
 
298 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Well, let me try. You ask me to marry 
 you?” 
 
 “T do,” answered Tarvin, solemnly. “Give me 
 a chance of saying that before a clergyman, and 
 you'll see.” 
 
 “T am grateful, Nick. It’s a gift—the highest, 
 the best. and I’m grateful. But what is it you 
 really want? Shall you mind my asking that, 
 Nick? You want me to round out your life; you 
 want me to complete your other ambitions. Isn’t 
 that so? Tell me honestly, Nick; isn’t that so?” 
 
 “Nol” roared Tarvin. 
 
 “Ah, but it is! Marriage is that way. It is 
 right. Marriage means that—to be absorbed into 
 another’s life: to live your own, not as your own, 
 but as another’s. It is a good life. It’s a woman’s 
 life. I can like it; I can believe in it. But I 
 can’t see myself in it. A woman gives the whole 
 of herself in marriage —in all happy marriages. I 
 haven’t the whole of myself to give. It belongs 
 to something else. And I couldn’t offer you a 
 part; it is all the best men give to women, but 
 from a woman it would do no man any good.” 
 
 “You mean that you have the choice between 
 giving up your work and giving up me, and that 
 the last is easiest.” 
 
 “T don’t say that; but suppose I did, would it 
 be so strange? Be honest, Nick. Suppose I asked 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST, 299 
 
 you to give up the centre and meaning of your 
 life? Suppose I asked you to give up your 
 work? And suppose I offered in exchange — mar- 
 riage! No, no!” She shook her head. ‘ Marriage 
 is good; but what man would pay that price for 
 it?” 
 
 “My dearest girl, isn’t that just the opportunity 
 of women?” 
 
 “The opportunity of the happy women — yes; but 
 it isn’t given to every one to see marriage like that. 
 Even for women there is more than one kind of 
 devotion.” 
 
 “Oh, look here, Kate! A man isn’t an orphan 
 asylum or a home for the friendless. You take 
 him too seriously. - You talk as if you had to make 
 him your leading charity, and give up everything 
 to the business. Of course you have to pretend 
 something of the kind at the start, but in practice 
 you only have to eat a few dinners, attend a semi- 
 annual board-meeting, and a strawberry-festival or 
 two to keep the thing going. It’s just a general 
 agreement to drink your coffee with a man in the 
 morning, and be somewhere around, not too far from 
 the fire, in not too ugly a dress, when he comes 
 home in the evening. Come! It’s an easy con- 
 tract. Try me,. Kate, and you'll see how simple 
 T’tl make it for you. I know about the other 
 things. I understand well enough that you would 
 
300 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 never care for a life which didn’t allow you to 
 make a lot of people happy besides your husband. 
 I recognize that. I begin with it. And I say 
 that’s just what I want. You have a talent for 
 making folks happy. Well, I secure you on a 
 special agreement to make me happy, and after 
 you’ve attended to that, I want you to sail in and 
 make the whole world bloom with your kindness. 
 And you'll do it, too. Confound it, Kate, we'll 
 do it! No one knows how good two people could 
 be if they formed a syndicate and made a business 
 of it. It hasn’t been tried. Try it with me! O, 
 Kate, I love you, I need you, and if you’ll let 
 me, I’ll make a life for you!” 
 
 “T know, Nick, you would be kind. You would 
 do all that a man can do. But it isn’t the man 
 who makes marriages happy or possible; it’s the 
 woman, and it must be. I should either do my 
 part and shirk the other, and then I should be 
 miserable; or I should shirk you, and be more 
 miserable. Hither way, such happiness is not for 
 me.” | 
 
 Tarvin’s hand found the Naulahka within his 
 breast, and clutched it tightly. Strength seemed 
 to go out of it into him—strength to restrain 
 himself from losing all by a dozen savage words. 
 
 “Kate, my girl,” he said quietly, “we haven’t 
 time to conjure dangers. We have to face a real 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 301 
 
 one. You are not safe here. I can’t leave you in 
 this place, and I’ve got to go. That is why I ask 
 you to marry me at once.” 
 
 “But I fear nothing. Who would harm me?” 
 
 “Sitabhai,” he answered grimly. “But what 
 difference does it make? I tell you, you are not 
 safe. Be sure that I know.” 
 
 “And you?” 
 
 “Oh, I don’t count. 
 
 “The truth, Nick!” she demanded. 
 
 “Well, I always said that there was nothing 
 like the climate of Topaz.” 
 
 “You mean you are in danger— great danger, 
 perhaps.” 
 
 “Sitabhai isn’t going round hunting for ways 
 to save my precious life, that’s a fact.” He smiled 
 at her. | 
 
 “Then you must go away at once; you must 
 not lose an hour. O, Nick, you won’t wait!” 
 
 “'That’s what I say. I can do without Rhatore; 
 but I can’t do without you. You must come.” 
 
 “Do you mean that if I don’t you will stay?” 
 she asked desperately. 
 
 “No; that would be a threat. I mean I'll wait 
 for you.” His eyes laughed at her. 
 
 “Nick, is this because of what I asked you to 
 do?” she demanded suddenly. 
 
 “Vou didn’t ask me,” he defended. 
 
302 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Then it is, and I am much to blame.” 
 
 “What, because I spoke to the King? My dear 
 girl, that isn’t more than the introductory walk- 
 around of this circus. Don’t run away with any 
 question of responsibility. The only thing you are 
 responsible for at this moment is to run with me 
 —flee, vamose, get out. Your life isn’t worth an 
 hour’s purchase here. I’m convinced of that. And 
 mine isn’t worth a minute’s.” 
 
 > she 
 
 “You see what a situation you put me in,’ 
 said accusingly. 
 
 “T don’t put you in it, but I offer you a simple 
 solution.” 
 
 “ Yourself!” 
 
 “Well, yes; I said it was simple. I don’t 
 claim it’s brilliant. Almost any one could do more 
 for you, and there are millions of better men; but 
 there isn’t one who could love you. better. O, 
 Kate, Kate!” he cried, rising, “trust yourself to 
 my love, and I’ll back myself against the world to 
 make you happy.” 
 
 “No, no!” she exclaimed eagerly; “you must 
 go away.” 
 
 He shook his head. “I can’t leave you. Ask 
 that of some one else. Do you suppose a man 
 who loves you can abandon you in this desert 
 wilderness to take your chances? Do you suppose 
 any man could do that? Kate, my darling, come 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 303 
 
 with me. You torment me, you kill me, by fore- 
 ing me to allow you a single moment out of my 
 sight. I tell you, you are in imminent, deadly 
 peril. You won’t stay, knowing that. Surely you 
 won’t sacrifice your life for these creatures.” 
 
 “Yes!” she cried, rising, with the uplifted look 
 on her face — “yes! If it is good to live for them, 
 it is good to die for them. I do not believe my life 
 is necessary; but if it is necessary, that too!” 
 
 Tarvin gazed at her, baffled, disheartened, at a 
 loss. “And you won’t come?” 
 
 >i can't. Good by, Nick. It’s the end.” 
 
 He took her hand. “Good afternoon,” he re- 
 sponded. “It?s end enough for to-day.” 
 
 She pursued him anxiously with her eye as he 
 turned away; suddenly she started after him. 
 “But you will go?” 
 
 “Go! No! No!” he shouted. “I'll stay now if 
 ] have to organize a standing army, declare myself 
 king, and hold the rest-house as the seat of gov- 
 ernment. Go!” 
 
 She put forth a detaining, despairing hand, but 
 he was gone. Ms 
 
 Kate returned to the little Maharaj Kunwar, 
 who had been allowed to Lghten his convalescence 
 by bringing down from the palace a number of his 
 toys and pets. She sat down by the side of the 
 bed, and cried for a long time silently. 
 
304 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “What is it, Miss Kate?” asked the Prince, 
 after he had watched her for some minutes, won- 
 dering. “Indeed, I am quite well now, so there 
 is nothing to cry for. When I go back to the 
 palace I will tell my father all that you have done 
 for me, and he will give you a village. We Raj- 
 puts do not forget.” 
 
 “It’s not that, Lalji,” she said, stooping over 
 him, drying her tear-stained eyes. 
 
 “Then my father will give you two villages. No 
 one must cry when I am getting well, for I am 
 a king’s son. Where is Moti? I want him to 
 sit upon a chair.”’ 
 
 Kate rose obediently, and began to call for the 
 Maharaj Kunwar’s latest pet—a little gray mon- 
 key, with a gold collar, who wandered at liberty 
 through the house and garden, and at night did 
 his best to win a place for himself by the young 
 Prince’s side. He answered the call from the 
 boughs of a tree in the garden, where he was 
 arguing with the wild parrots, and entered the 
 room, crooning softly in the monkey tongue. 
 
 ? 
 
 “Come here, little Hanuman,” said the Prince, 
 
 raising one hand. ‘The monkey bounded to his 
 
 ? 
 
 side. “I have heard of a king,” said the Prince, 
 playing with his golden collar, “who spent three 
 lacs in marrying two monkeys. Moti, wouldst 
 
 thou like a wife? No, no; a gold collar is enough 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 305 
 
 for thee. We will spend our three lacs in marry- 
 ing Miss Kate to Tarvin Sahib, when we get well, 
 and thou shalt dance at the wedding.” He was 
 speaking in the vernacular, but Kate understood 
 too well the coupling of her name with Tarvin’s. 
 “Don’t, Lalji, don’t!” 
 “Why not, Kate? Why, even I am married. 
 
 29 
 
 “Yes, yes. But it is different. Kate would 
 rather you didn’t, Lalji.” 
 
 “Very well,” answered the Maharaj, with a 
 pout. “Now I am only a little child. When I 
 am well I will be a king again, and no one can 
 refuse my gifts. Listen. Those are my father’s 
 trumpets. He is coming to see me.” 
 
 A bugle call sounded in the distance. There 
 was a clattering of horses’ feet, and a little later 
 the Maharajah’s carriage and escort thundered up 
 to the door of the missionary’s house. Kate looked 
 anxiously to see if the noise irritated her young 
 charge, but his eyes brightened, his nostrils quiv- 
 ered, and he whispered, as his hand tightened on 
 the hilt of the sword always by his side: 
 
 “That is very good! My father has brought all 
 his sowars.” 
 
 Before Kate could rise, Mr. Estes had ushered 
 the Maharajah into the room, which was dwarfed 
 by his bulk and by the bravery of his presence. 
 
 He had been assisting at a review of his body- 
 x 
 
306 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 guard, and came therefore in his full uniform as 
 commander-in-chief of the army of the state, which 
 was no mean affair. The Maharaj Kunwar ran his 
 eyes delightedly up and down the august figure of 
 his father, beginning with the polished gold-spurred 
 jack-boots, and ascending to the snow-white doe- 
 skin breeches, the tunic blazing with gold, and 
 the diamonds of the Order of the Star of India, 
 ending with the saffron turban and its nodding 
 emerald aigret. The King drew off his gauntlets, 
 and shook hands cordially with Kate. After an 
 orgy it was noticeable that his Highness became 
 more civilized. 
 
 “ And is the child well?” he asked. ‘They told 
 me that it was a little fever, and I, too, have 
 had some fever.” 
 
 “'The Prince’s trouble was much worse than that, 
 I am afraid, Maharajah Sahib,” said Kate. 
 
 “Ah, little one,” said the King, bending over 
 his son very tenderly, and speaking in the vernac- 
 ular, “this is the fault of eating too much.” 
 
 “Nay, father, I did not eat, and I am quite 
 well.” 
 
 Kate stood at the head of the bed stroking the 
 boy’s hair. 
 
 “How many troops paraded this morning?” 
 
 “Both squadrons, my General,” answered the 
 father, his eye lighting with pride. “Thou art all 
 a Rajput, my son.” 7 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 307 
 
 “And my escort— where were they?” 
 
 “With Pertab Singh’s troop. They led the 
 charge at the end of the fight.” 
 
 “By the Sacred Horse,” said the Maharaj Kun- 
 war, “they shall lead in true fight one day. Shall 
 they not, my father? Thou on the right flank, and 
 I on the left.” 
 
 “Kven so. But to do these things a prince must 
 not be ill, and he must learn many things.” 
 
 “JT know,” returned the Prince, reflectively. 
 “My father, I have lain here some nights, think- 
 ing. Am I a little child?” He looked at Kate 
 a minute, and whispered: “I would speak to my 
 father. Let no one come in.” 
 
 Kate left the room quickly, with a backward 
 smile at the boy, and the King seated himself by 
 the bed. 
 
 “No; I am not a little child,” said the Prince. 
 “In five years I shall be a man, and many men 
 will obey me. But how shall I know the right or 
 the wrong in giving an order?” 
 
 “It is necessary to learn many things,” repeated 
 the Maharajah, vaguely. 
 
 “Yes; I have thought of that lying here in the 
 dark,” said the Prince. “And it is in my mind 
 that these things are not all learned within the 
 walls of the palace, or from women. My father, 
 
 let me go away to learn how to be a prince!” 
 
308 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “But whither wouldst thou go? Surely my 
 kingdom is thy home, beloved.” | 
 
 “I know, I know,” returned the boy. “And I 
 will come back again, but do not let me be a 
 laughing-stock to the other princes. At the wed- 
 ding the Rawut of Bunnaul mocked me _ because 
 my school-books were not so many as his. And 
 he is only the son of an ennobled lord. He is 
 without ancestry. But he has been up and down 
 Rajputana as far as Delhi and Agra, ay, and Abu; 
 and he is in the upper class of the Princes’ School — 
 at Ajmir. Father, all the sons of the kings go 
 there. They do not play with the women; they 
 ride with men. And the air and the water are 
 good at Ajmir. And I should lke to go.” 
 
 The face of the Maharajah grew troubled, for 
 the boy was very dear to him. 
 
 “But an evil might befall thee, Lalji. Think 
 again.” , 
 
 “T have thought,” responded the Prince. “ What 
 evil can come to me under the charge of the Eng- 
 lishman there? The Rawut of Bunnaul told me 
 that I should have my own rooms, my own ser- 
 vants, and my own stables, like the other princes 
 —and that I should be much considered there.” 
 
 “Yes,” said the King, soothingly. “We be chil- 
 dren of the sun, thou and I, my Prince.” 
 
 “Then it concerns me to be as learned and as 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST, 309 
 
 strong and as valiant as the best of my race. 
 Father, I am sick of running about the rooms of 
 _the women, of listening to my mother, and to the 
 singing of the dance-girls; and they are always 
 pressing their kisses on me. Let me go to Ajmir. 
 Let me go to the Princes’ School. And in a year, 
 even in a year, —so says the Rawut of Bunnaul, 
 -——I shall be fit to lead my escort as a king should 
 lead them. Is it a promise, my father?” 
 
 “When thou art well,” answered the Maharajah, 
 “we will speak of it again, not as a father to a 
 child, but as a man to a man.” 
 
 The Maharaj Kunwar’s eyes grew bright with 
 pleasure. “That is good,” he said— “as a man to 
 a man.” 
 
 The Maharajah fondled him in his arms for a 
 few minutes, and told him the small news of the 
 palace —such things as would interest a little boy. 
 Then he said, laughing, “Have I your leave to 
 Soe 
 
 “OQ my father!” The Prince buried his head 
 in his father’s beard, and threw his arms around 
 him. The Maharajah disengaged himself gently, 
 and as gently went out into the veranda. Before 
 Kate returned he had disappeared in a cloud of 
 dust and a flourish of trumpets. As he was going, 
 a messenger came to the house bearing a grass- 
 woven basket piled high with shaddock, banana, 
 
310 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 and pomegranate — emerald, gold, and copper, which 
 he laid at Kate’s feet, saying, “It is a present 
 from the Queen.” 
 
 The little Prince within heard the voice, and 
 cried joyfully: “Kate, my mother has sent you 
 those. Are they big fruits? Oh, give me a 
 pomegranate,” he begged as she came back into 
 his room. “I have tasted none since last winter.” 
 
 Kate set the basket on the table, and the Prince’s 
 mood changed. He wanted pomegranate sherbet, 
 and Kate must mix the sugar and the miik and 
 the syrup and the plump red seeds. Kate left the 
 room for an instant to get a glass, and it occurred 
 to Moti, who had been foiled in an attempt to 
 appropriate the Prince’s emeralds, and had hidden 
 under the bed, to steal forth and seize upon a ripe 
 banana. Knowing well that the Maharaj Kunwar 
 could not move, Moti paid no attention to his 
 voice, but settled himself deliberately on his 
 haunches, chose his banana, stripped off the skin 
 with his little black fingers, grinned at the Prince, 
 and began to eat. | 
 
 “Very well, Moti,” said the Maharaj Kunwar, 
 in the vernacular; “Kate says you are not a god, 
 but only a little gray monkey, and I think so too. 
 When she comes back you will be beaten, Hanu- 
 man.” 
 
 Moti had eaten half the banana when Kate 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. OLE 
 
 returned, but he did not try to escape. She cuffed 
 the marauder lightly, and he fell over on his side. 
 
 “Why, Lalji, what’s the matter with Moti?” 
 she asked, regarding the monkey curiously: 
 
 “He has been stealing, and now I suppose he 
 is playing dead man. Hit him!” 
 
 Kate bent over the limp little body; but there 
 was no need to chastise Moti. He was dead. 
 
 She turned pale, and lifting the basket of fruit 
 quickly to her nostrils, sniffed delicately at it. <A 
 faint, sweet, cloying odor rose from the brilliant 
 pile. It was overpowering. She set the basket 
 down, putting her hand to her head. The odor 
 dizzied her. 
 
 “Well,” said the Prince, who could not see his 
 dead pet, “I want my sherbet.” 
 
 “The fruit is not quite good, I’m afraid, Lalji,” 
 she said, with an effort. As she spoke she tossed 
 into the garden, through the open window, the 
 uneaten fragment of the banana that Moti had 
 clasped so closely to his wicked little breast. 
 
 A parrot instantly swooped down from the trees 
 on the morsel, and took it back to his perch in 
 the branches. It was done before Kate, still 
 unsteadied, could make a motion to stop it, and 
 a moment later a little ball of green feathers fell 
 from the covert of leaves, and the parrot also lay 
 dead on the ground. 
 
ST? THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “No; the fruit is not good,” she said mechani- 
 cally, her eyes wide with terror, and her face 
 blanched. Her thoughts leaped to Tarvin. Ah, 
 the warnings and the entreaties that she had put 
 from her! He had said that she was not safe. 
 Was he not right? The awful subtlety of the 
 danger in which she stood was a thing to shake 
 a stronger woman than she. From where would 
 it come next? Out of what covert might it not 
 leap? The very air might be poisoned. She 
 scarcely dared to breathe. ) 
 
 The audacity of the attack daunted her as much 
 as its design. If this might be done in open day, 
 under cover of friendship, immediately after the 
 visit of the King, what might not the gypsy in 
 the palace dare next? She and the Maharaj Kun- 
 war were under the same roof; if Tarvin was right 
 in supposing that Sitabhai could wish her harm, the 
 fruit was evidently intended for them both. She 
 shuddered to think how she herself might have 
 given the fruit to the Maharaj innocently. 
 
 The Prince turned in his bed and regarded Kate. 
 “You are not well?” he asked, with grave polite- 
 ness. “Then do not trouble about the sherbet. 
 Give me Moti to play with.” 
 
 “OQ Lalji, Lalji!” cried Kate, tottering to the 
 bed. She dropped beside the boy, cast her arms 
 defendingly about him, and burst into tears. 
 
A STORY-OF WEST AND EAST. 34h} 
 
 “You have cried twice,” said the Prince, watch- 
 ing her heaving shoulders curiously. “I shall tell 
 Tarvin Sahib.” 
 
 The word smote Kate’s heart, and filled her with 
 a bitter and fruitless longing. Oh, for a moment 
 of the sure and saving strength she had just rejected! 
 Where was he? she asked herself reproachfully. 
 What had happened to the man she had sent from 
 her to take the chances of life and death in this 
 awful land? 
 
 At that hour Tarvin was sitting in his room at 
 the rest-house, with both doors open to the stifling 
 wind of the desert, that he might command all 
 approaches clearly, his revolver on the table in 
 front of him, and the Naulahka in his pocket, yearn- 
 ing to be gone, and loathing this conquest that did 
 not include Kate. 
 
314 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 We be the Gods of the East 
 Older than all, 
 
 Masters of mourning and feast — 
 How shall we fall ? 
 
 Will they gape to the husks that ye proffer 
 Or yearn to your song, 
 And we — have we nothing to offer 
 Who ruled them so long 
 In the fume of the incense, the clash of the cymbal, the blare of 
 the conch and the gong ? 
 
 Over the strife of the schools 
 Low the day, burns — 
 Back with the kine from the pools 
 Each one returns 
 To the life that he knows where the altar flame glows and the 
 tulsi is trimmed in the urns.* 
 
 Song. 
 
 THE evening and the long night gave Kate 
 ample time for self-examination after she had 
 locked up the treacherous fruit, and consoled the 
 Maharaj, through her tears, for the mysterious death 
 of Moti. One thing only seemed absolutely clear 
 to her, when she rose red-eyed and unrefreshed 
 the next morning: her work was with the women 
 as long as life remained, and the sole refuge for 
 
 * Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Co. 
 
 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 315 
 
 her present trouble was in the portion of that work 
 which lay nearest to her hand. Meanwhile the 
 man who loved her remained in Gokral Seetarun, 
 in deadly peril of his life, that he might be within 
 call of her; and she could not call him, for to - 
 summon him was to yield, and she dared not. 
 
 She took her way to the hospital. The dread 
 for him that had assailed her yesterday had become 
 a horror that would not let her think. 
 
 The woman of the desert was waiting as usual 
 at the foot of the steps, her hands clasped over 
 her knee, and her face veiled. Behind her was 
 Dhunpat Rai, who should have been among the 
 wards; and she could see that the court-yard was 
 filled with people—strangers and visitors, who, 
 by her new regulations, were allowed to come only 
 once a week. This was not their visiting-day, 
 and Kate, strained and worn by all that she had 
 passed through since the day before, felt an angry 
 impulse in her heart go out against them, and 
 spoke wrathfully. 
 
 “What is the meaning of this, Dhunpat Rai?” 
 she demanded, alighting. 
 
 “There is commotion of popular bigotry within,” 
 said Dhunpat Rai. “It is nothing. I have seen 
 ‘it before. Only do not go in.” 
 
 She put him aside without a word, and was 
 about to enter when she met one of her patients, 
 
316 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 a man in the last stage of typhoid fever, being 
 borne out by half a dozen clamoring friends, who 
 shouted at her menacingly. ‘The woman of the 
 desert was at her side in an instant, raising her 
 hand, in the brown hollow of which lay a long, 
 broad-bladed knife. 
 
 “Be still, dogs!” she shouted, in their own 
 tongue. “Dare not to lay hands on this pert, who 
 has done all for you!” 
 
 “She is killing our people,” shouted a_ vil- 
 lager. 
 
 “Maybe,” said the woman, with a flashing smile; 
 “but I know who will be lying here dead if you 
 do not suffer her to pass. Are you Rajputs; or 
 Bhils from the hills, hunters of fish and diggers 
 after grubs, that you run like cattle because a lying 
 priest from nowhere troubles your heads of mud? 
 Is she killing your people? How long can you 
 keep that man alive with your charms and your 
 muntras!” she demanded, pointing to the stricken 
 form on the stretcher. “Out—go out! Is this 
 hospital your own village to defile? Have you 
 paid one penny for the roof above you or the drugs 
 in your bellies? Get hence before I spit upon 
 you!”’ She brushed them aside with a regal ges- 
 ture. 
 
 “It is best not to go in,” said Dhunpat Rai in 
 Kate’s ear. “There is local holy man in the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 817 
 
 court-yard, and he is agitating their minds. Also, 
 I myself feel much indisposed.”’ 
 
 “But what does all this mean?” demanded Kate 
 again. 
 
 For the hospital was in the hands of a hurrying 
 crowd, who were strapping up bedding and cook- 
 ing-pots, lamps and linen, calling to one another 
 up and down the staircases in subdued voices, and 
 bringing the sick from the upper wards as ants 
 bring eggs out of a broken hill, six or eight to 
 each man—some holding bunches of marigold 
 flowers in their hands, and pausing to mutter 
 prayers at each step, others peering fearfully into 
 the dispensary, and yet others drawing water from 
 the well and pouring it out around the beds. 
 
 In the centre of the court-yard, as naked as the 
 lunatic who had once lived there, sat an ash- 
 smeared, long-haired, eagle-taloned, half-mad, wan- 
 dering native priest, and waved above his head 
 his buckhorn staff, sharp as a lance at one end, 
 while he chanted in a loud, monotonous voice some 
 song that drove the men and women to work more 
 quickly. 
 
 As Kate faced him, white with wrath, her eyes 
 blazing, the song turned to a yelp of fierce hatred. 
 
 She dashed among the women swiftly — her own 
 women, whom she thought had grown to love her. 
 But their relatives were about them, and Kate was 
 
318 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 thrust back by a bare-shouldered, loud-voiced dweller 
 of the out-villages in the heart of the desert. 
 
 The man had no intention of doing her harm, 
 but the woman of the desert slashed him across 
 the face with her knife, and he withdrew howling. 
 
 “Let me speak to them,” said Kate, and the 
 woman beside her quelled the clamor of the crowd 
 with uplifted hands. Only the priest continued 
 his song. Kate strode toward him, her little figure 
 erect and quivering, crying in the vernacular, “Be 
 silent, thou, or I will find means to close thy 
 mouth!” 
 
 The man was hushed, and Kate, returning to 
 her women, stood among them, and began to speak 
 impassionedly. 
 
 “O, my women, what have I done?” she cried, 
 still in the vernacular. “If there is any fault here, 
 who should right it but your friend? Surely you 
 can speak to me day or night.”’ She threw out her 
 arms. “Sunlo, hamaree bhain-log! Listen, my 
 sisters! Have you gone mad, that you wish to 
 go abroad now, half-cured, sick, or dying? You 
 are free to go at any hour. Only, for your own 
 sake, and for the sake of your children, do not go 
 before I have cured you, if God so please. It is 
 summer in the desert now, and many of you have 
 come from many cross distant.” 
 
 “She speaks truth, she speaks truth,” said a 
 voice in the crowd. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 319 
 
 “ Ay, I do speak truth. And I have dealt fairly 
 by ye. Surely it is upon your heads to tell me 
 the cause of this flight, and not to run away like 
 mice. My sisters, ye are weak and ill, and your 
 friends do not know what is best for ye. But I 
 know.” 
 
 “Arre! But what can we do?” cried a feeble 
 voice. “It is no fault of ours. I, at least, would 
 fain die in peace, but the priest says —” 
 
 Then the clamor broke out afresh. ‘There are 
 charms written upon the plasters —” 
 
 “Why should we become Christians against our 
 will? The wise woman that was sent away asks 
 14m 
 
 “What are the meanings of the red marks on 
 the plasters ?”’ 
 
 “Why should we have strange devil-marks stamped 
 upon our bodies? And they burn, too, like the 
 fires of hell.” 
 
 “The priest came yesterday, —that holy man 
 yonder, —and he said it had been revealed to 
 him, sitting among the hills, that this devil’s plan 
 was on foot to make us lose our religion —” 
 
 “And to send us out of the hospital with marks 
 upon our bodies —ay, and all the babies we should 
 bear in the hospital should have tails like camels, 
 and ears like mules. The wise woman says 50; 
 the priest says so.” 
 
320 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Hush! hush!” cried Kate, in the face of these 
 various words. “What plasters? What child’s 
 talk is this of plasters and devils? Not one child, 
 but many have been born here, and all were comely. 
 Ye know it! This is the word of the worthless 
 woman whom I sent away because she was torturing 
 you.” 
 
 “Nay; but the priest said —” 
 
 “What care I for the priest? Has he nursed 
 you? Has he watched by you of nights? Has he 
 sat by your bedside, and smoothed your pillow, 
 and held your hand in pain? Has he taken your 
 children from you and put them to sleep, when 
 he needed an hour’s rest?” 
 
 “He is a holy man. He has worked miracles. 
 We dare not face the anger of the gods.” 
 
 One woman, bolder than the rest, shouted, “* Look 
 
 b) 
 
 at this,” and held before Kate’s face one of the 
 prepared mustard leaves lately ordered from Cal- 
 cutta, which bore upon the back, in red ink, the 
 maker’s name and trademark. 
 
 “What is this devil’s thing?” demanded the 
 woman, fiercely. 
 
 The woman of the desert caught her by the 
 shoulder and forced her to her knees. 
 
 “Be still, woman without a nose!” she cried, 
 her voice vibrating with passion. “She is not of 
 thy clay, and thy touch would defile her. Remem- 
 ber thine own dunghill, and speak softly.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 321 
 
 Kate picked up the plaster, smiling. 
 
 “And who says there is devil’s work in this?” 
 she demanded. 
 
 “The holy man, the priest. Surely he should 
 know.” 
 
 “Nay, ye should know,” said Kate, patiently. 
 She understood now, and could pity. “Ye have 
 worn it, Did it work thee any harm, Pithira?” 
 She pointed directly toward her. “Thou hast 
 thanked me not once but many times for giving 
 thee relief through this charm. If it was the 
 devil’s work, why did it not consume thee?” 
 
 “Indeed, it burnt very much indeed,” responded 
 the woman, «vith a nervous laugh. 
 
 Kate could not. help laughing. “That is true. 
 I cannot make my drugs pleasant. But ye know 
 that they do good. What do these people, your 
 friends — villagers, camel-drivers, goatherds — know 
 of English drugs? Are they so wise among their 
 hills, or is the priest so wise, that they can judge 
 for ye here, fifty miles away from them? Do not 
 listen! Oh, do not listen! Tell them that ye 
 will stay with me, and I will make ye well. I 
 can do no more. It was for that I came. I heard 
 of your misery ten thousand miles away, and it 
 burnt into my heart. Would I have come so far 
 to work you harm? Go back to your beds, my 
 
 sisters, and bid these foolish people depart.” 
 Y 
 
329 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 There was @ murmur among the women, as if 
 of assent and doubt. For a moment the decision 
 swayed one way and the other. 
 
 Then the man whose face had been slashed 
 shouted, “What is the use of talking? Let us 
 take our wives and sisters away. We do not 
 wish to have sons like devils. Give us your 
 voice, O father!” he cried to the priest. 
 
 The holy man drew himself up, and swept away 
 Kate’s appeal with a torrent of abuse, imprecation, 
 and threats of damnation; and the crowd began to 
 slip past Kate by twos and threes, half carrying 
 and half forcing their kinsfolk with them. 
 
 Kate called on the women by name, beseeching 
 them to stay, reasoning, arguing, expostulating. 
 But to no purpose. Many of them were in tears; 
 but the answer from all was the same. They were 
 sorry, but they were only poor women, and they 
 feared the wrath of their husbands. 
 
 Minute after minute the wards were depopulated 
 of their occupants, as the priest resumed his song, 
 and began to dance frenziedly in the court-yard. 
 The stream of colors broke out down the steps into 
 the street, and Kate saw the last of her carefully 
 swathed women borne out into the pitiless sun- 
 glare — only the woman of the desert remaining by 
 her side. 
 
 Kate looked on with stony eyes. Her hospital 
 
 was empty. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 823 
 
 CHAPTER XxX. 
 
 Ou? little maid that hath no breasts, 
 Our Sister, sayeth such and such ; 
 
 And we must bow to her behests— 
 Our sister toileth overmuch. 
 
 A field untilled, a web unwove, 
 
 A bud withheld from sun and bee, 
 An alien in the courts of love, 
 
 And priestess of His shrine is she. 
 
 We love her, but we laugh the while ; 
 
 We laugh, but sobs are mixed with laughter ; 
 Uur sister hath no time to smile — 
 
 She knows not must follow after. 
 
 Wind of the South, arise and blow 
 From beds of spice, thy locks shake free — 
 Breathe on her heart that she may know, 
 Breathe on her eyes that she may see! 
 
 Alas! we vex her with our mirth 
 And plague her with most tender scorn 
 Who stands beside the Gates of Birth, 
 Herself a child —a child unborn. 
 
 Our little maid that hath no breasts ; 
 Our Sister, sayeth such and such ; 
 
 And we must bow to her behests — 
 Our sister toileth overmuch.* 
 
 fueens’ Song from Libretto of Naulahka. 
 
 4 Copyright, 1892, by Macmillan & Oo. 
 
324 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Has the Miss Sahib any orders?” asked Dhun- 
 pat Rai, with Oriental calmness, as Kate turned 
 toward the woman of the desert, staying herself 
 against her massive shoulder. 
 
 Kate simply shook her head with closed lips. 
 
 “Tt is very sad,” said Dhunpat Rai thoughtfully, 
 as though the matter were one in which he had 
 no‘ interest, “but it is on account of religious 
 bigotry and intolerance which is prevalent mania 
 in these parts. Once—twice before I have seen 
 the same thing. About powders, sometimes, and 
 once they said that the graduated glasses were holy 
 vessels, and zine ointment was cow-fat. But I 
 have never seen all the hospital disembark simul- 
 taneously. I do not think they will come back; 
 but my appointment is State appointment,” he 
 said with a bland smile, “and so I shall draw my 
 offeeshal income as _ before.” 
 
 Kate stared at him. “Do you mean that they 
 will never come back?” she asked falteringly. 
 
 “Oh, yes —in time—one or two; two or three 
 of the men when they are hurt by tigers, or have 
 ophthalmia; but the women—no. Their husbands 
 will never allow. Ask that woman!” 
 
 Kate bent a piteous look of inquiry upon the 
 woman of the desert, who, stooping down, took up 
 a little sand, let it trickle through her fingers, 
 brushed her palms together, and shook her head. 
 Kate watched these movements despairingly. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 325 
 
 “You see it is all up—no good,” said Dhunpat 
 Rai, not unkindly, but unable to conceal a certain 
 expression of satisfaction in a defeat which the wise 
 had already predicted. “And now what will your 
 honor do? Shall I lock up dispensary, or will you 
 audit drug accounts now?” 
 
 Kate waved him off feebly. “No, no! Not now. 
 I must think. I must have time. I will send you 
 
 > 
 
 word. Come, dear one,” she added in the vernac- 
 ular to the woman of the desert, and hand in hand 
 they went out from the hospital together. 
 
 The sturdy Rajput woman caught her up like a 
 child when they were outside, and set her upon 
 her horse, and tramped doggedly alongside, as they 
 set off together toward the house of the missionary. 
 
 “And whither wilt thou go?” asked Kate, in the 
 woman’s own tongue. 
 
 “IT was the first of them all,’ answered the 
 patient being at her side; “it is fitting therefore 
 that I should be the last. Where thou goest I 
 will go—and afterward what will fall will fall.” 
 
 Kate leaned down and took the woman’s hand 
 in hers with a grateful pressure. 
 
 At the missionary’s gate she had to call up her 
 courage not to break down. She had told Mrs. 
 Estes so much of her hopes for the future, had 
 dwelt so lovingly on all that she meant to teach 
 these helpless creatures, had so constantly conferred 
 
326 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 with her about the help she had fancied herself to 
 be daily bringing to them, that to own that her 
 work had fallen to this ruin was unspeakably 
 bitter. The thought of Tarvin she fought back. 
 It went too deep. 
 
 But, fortunately, Mrs. Estes seemed not to be 
 at home, and a messenger from the queen-mother 
 awaited Kate to demand her presence at the palace 
 with Maharaj Kunwar. 
 
 The woman of the desert laid a restraining hand 
 on her arm, but Kate shook it off. 
 
 “No, no, no! I must go. I must do something,” 
 she exclaimed, almost fiercely, “since there is still 
 some one who will let me. I must have work. It 
 is my only refuge, kind one. Go you on to the 
 palace.” 3 
 
 The woman yielded silently and trudged on up 
 the dusty road, while Kate sped into the house 
 and to the room where the young Prince lay. 
 
 “Lalji,” she said, bending over him, “do you 
 feel well enough to be lifted into the carriage and 
 taken over to see your mother?” 
 
 “T would rather see my father,” responded the 
 boy from the sofa, to which he had been transferred 
 as a reward for the improvement he had made since 
 yesterday. “I wish to speak to my father upon a 
 most important thing.” 
 
 “But your mother hasn’t seen you for so long, — 
 dear.” 
 
=1 
 
 A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 82 
 
 “Very well; I will go.” 
 
 “Then I will tell them to get the carriage 
 ready.” 
 
 Kate turned to leave the room. 
 
 “No, please; [ will have my own. Who is with- 
 out there?” 
 
 “Heaven-born, it is I,” answered the deep voice 
 of a trooper. 
 
 “Achcha! Ride swiftly, and tell them to send 
 down my barouche and escort. If it is not here 
 in ten minutes, tell Sirop Singh that I will cut 
 his pay and blacken his face before all my men. 
 This day I go abroad again.” 
 
 “May the mercy of God be upon the Heaven- 
 born for ten thousand years,” responded the voice 
 from without, as the trooper heaved himself into 
 the saddle ard clattered away. 
 
 By the time that the Prince was ready, a lumber- 
 ing equipage, stuffed with many cushions, waited 
 at the door. Kate and Mrs. Estes half helped and 
 half carried the child into it, though he strove to 
 stand on his feet in the veranda and acknowledge 
 the salute of his escort as befitted a man. 
 
 “Ahi! I am very weak,” he said, with a little 
 laugh, as they drove to the palace. “Certainly it 
 seems to myself that I shall never get well in 
 Rhatore.”’ 
 
 _ Kate put her arm about him and drew him closer 
 to her. 
 
\ 
 
 POLS THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Kate,” he continued, “if I ask anything of my 
 father, will you say that that thing is good for 
 me?” 
 
 Kate, whose thoughts were still bitter and far 
 away, patted his shoulder vaguely as she lifted 
 her tear-stained eyes toward the red height on 
 which the palace stood. 
 
 “How can I tell, Lalji?” She smiled down into 
 his upturned face. 
 
 “But it is a most wise thing.” 
 
 “Ts it?” asked she fondly. 
 
 “Yes; I have thought it out by myself. I am 
 myself a Raj Kumar, and I would go to the Raj 
 Kumar College, where they train the sons of princes 
 to become kings. That is only at Ajmir; but I 
 must go and learn, and fight, and ride with the 
 other princes of Rajputana, and then I shall be alto- 
 gether a man. I am going to the Raj Kumar Col- 
 lege at Ajmir, that I may learn about the world. 
 But you shall see how it is wise. The world 
 looks very big since I have been ill. Kate, how 
 big is the world which you have seen across the 
 Black Water? Where is Tarvin Sahib? I have 
 wished to see him too. Is Tarvin Sahib. angry 
 with me or with you?” 
 
 He plied her with a hundred questions till they 
 halted before one of the gates in the flank of the 
 
 palace that led to his mother’s wing. The woman 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 329 
 
 of the desert rose from the ground beside it, and 
 held out her arms. 
 
 “T heard the message come,” she said to Kate, 
 “and I knew what was required. Give me the 
 child to carry in. Nay, my Prince, there is no 
 cause for fear. I am of good blood.” 
 
 “Women of good blood walk veiled, and do not 
 speak in the streets,” said the child doubtfully. 
 
 “One law for thee and thine, and another for 
 me and mine,” the woman answered with a laugh. 
 “We who earn our bread by toil cannot go veiled, 
 but our fathers lived before us for many hundred 
 years, even as did thine, Heaven-born. Come 
 then, the white fairy cannot carry thee so tenderly 
 as I can.” 
 
 She put her arms about him, and held him to 
 her breast as easily as though he had been a three- 
 year-old child. He leaned back luxuriously, and 
 waved a wasted hand; the grim gate grated on its 
 hinges as it swung back, and they entered together 
 —the woman, the child, and the gil. 
 
 There was no lavish display of ornament in that 
 part of the palace. The gaudy tile-work on the 
 walls had flaked and crumbled away in many 
 places, the shutters lacked paint and hung awry, 
 and there was litter and refuse in the court-yard 
 behind the gates. A queen who has lost the King’s 
 
 favor loses much else as well in material comforts. 
 
330 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 A door opened and a voice called. The three 
 plunged into half darkness, and traversed a long, 
 upward-sloping passage, floored with shining white 
 stucco as smooth as marble, which communicated 
 with the Queen’s apartments. The Maharaj Kun- 
 war’s mother lived by preference in one long, low 
 room that faced to the northeast, that she might 
 press her face against the marble tracery and dream 
 of her home across the sands, eight hundred miles 
 away, among the Kulu hills. The hum of the 
 crowded palace could not be heard there, and the 
 footsteps of her few waiting-women alone broke 
 the silence. 
 
 The woman of the desert, with the Prince hugged 
 more closely to her breast, moved through the laby- 
 rinth of empty rooms, narrow staircases, and roofed 
 court-yards with the air of a caged panther. Kate 
 and the Prince were familiar with the dark and 
 the tortuousness, the silence and the sullen mys- 
 tery. To the one it was part and parcel of the 
 horrors amid which she had elected to move; to 
 the other it was his daily life. 
 
 At last the journey ended. Kate lifted a heavy 
 curtain, as the Prince called for. his mother; and 
 the Queen, rising from a pile of white cushions by 
 the window, cried passionately — 
 
 “Is it well with the child?” 
 
 The Prince struggled to the floor from the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. ool 
 
 woman's arms, and the Queen hung sobbing over 
 him, calling him a thousand endearing names, and 
 fondling him from head to foot. The child’s 
 reserve melted—he had striven for a moment tc 
 carry himself as a man of the Rajput race: that is 
 to say, as one shocked beyond expression at any 
 public display of emotion—and he laughed and 
 wept in his mother’s arms. The woman of the 
 desert drew her hand across her eyes, muttering to 
 herself, and Kate turned to look out of the win- 
 dow. } 
 
 “ How shall I give you thanks?” said the Queen 
 at last. “Oh, my son—my little son—child of 
 my heart, the gods and she have made thee well 
 again. - But who is that yonder?” 
 
 Her eyes fell for the first time on the woman 
 of the desert, where the latter stood by the door- 
 way draped in dull-red. 
 
 > said 
 
 “She carried me here from the carriage,’ 
 the Prince, “saying that she was a Rajput of good 
 blood.” 
 
 “T am of Chohan blood —a Rajput and a mother 
 of Rajputs,” said the woman simply, still standing. | 
 “The white fairy worked a miracle upon my man. 
 He was sick in the head and did not know me. 
 It is true that he died, but before the passing of 
 the breath he knew me and called me by my 
 
 name.” 
 
882 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “And she carried thee!” said the Queen with a 
 shiver, drawing the Prince closer to her, for, like 
 all Indian women, she counted the touch and glance 
 of a widow things of evil omen. ; 
 
 The woman fell at the Queen’s feet. “ Forgive 
 me, forgive me,” she cried. “I had borne three 
 little ones, and the gods took them all and my 
 man at the last. It was good—it was so good — 
 to hold a child in my arms again. ‘Thou canst 
 forgive,” she wailed, “thou art so rich in thy son, 
 and I am only a widow.” 
 
 “ And I a widow in life,” said the Queen under her 
 breath. “Of a truth, I should forgive. Rise thou.” 
 
 The woman lay still where she had fallen, clutch- 
 ing at the Queen’s naked feet. 
 
 “Rise, then, my sister,” the Queen whispered. 
 
 “We of the fields,” murmured the woman of 
 the desert, “we do not know how to speak to 
 the great people. If my words are rough, does the 
 Queen forgive me?” 
 
 “Indeed I forgive. Thy speech is softer than 
 that of the hill women of Kulu, but some of the 
 words are new.” 
 
 “T am of the desert —a herder of camels, a milker 
 of goats. What should I know of the speech of 
 courts? Let the white fairy speak for me.” 
 
 Kate listened with an alien ear. Now that she 
 had discharged her duty, her freed mind went back 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. aby 
 
 to Tarvin’s danger and the shame and overthrow 
 of an hour ago. She saw the women in her hos- 
 pital slipping away one by one, her work unray- 
 elled, and all hope of good brought to wreck; and 
 she saw Tarvin dying atrocious deaths, and, as she 
 felt, by her hand. 
 
 “What is it?” she asked wearily, as the woman 
 plucked at her skirt. Then to the Queen, “This 
 is a@ woman who alone of all those whom I tried 
 to benefit remained at my side to-day, Queen.” 
 
 “There has been a talk in the palace,” said the 
 Queen, her arm round the Prince’s neck, “a talk 
 that trouble had come to your hospital, Sahiba.” 
 
 “There is no hospital now,” Kate answered, 
 erimly. 
 
 “You promised to take me there, Kate, some 
 day,” the Prince said in English. 
 
 “'The women were fools,” said the woman of the 
 desert quietly, from her place on the ground. “A 
 mad priest told them a he—that there was a charm 
 among the drugs —” 
 
 “Deliver us from all evil spirits and exorcisms,” 
 the Queen murmured. 
 
 “A charm among her drugs that she handles 
 with her own hands, and so forsooth, Sahiba, they 
 must run out shrieking that their children will 
 be misborn apes and their chicken-souls given to 
 the devils. Aho! They will know in a week, 
 
334 7 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 not one or two, but many, whither their souls go: 
 for they will die—the corn and the corn in the 
 ear together.” 
 
 Kate shivered. She knew too well that the 
 woman spoke the truth. 
 
 “But the drugs!” began the Queen. ‘“ Who 
 knows what powers there may be in the drugs?” 
 she laughed nervously, glancing at Kate. 
 
 “ Dekho! Wook at her,” said the woman, with 
 quiet scorn. “She is a girl and naught else. 
 What could she do to the Gates of Life?” 
 
 “She has made my son whole; therefore she is 
 
 ») 
 
 my sister,” said the Queen. 
 
 “She caused my man to speak to me before the 
 death hour; therefore I am her servant as well as 
 thine, Sahiba,’’ said the other. 
 
 The Prince looked up in his mother’s face curi- 
 ously. “She calls thee ‘thou,’” he said, as though 
 the woman did not exist. “That is not seemly 
 between a villager and a queen, thee and thou!” 
 
 “We be both women, little son. Stay still in 
 my arms. Oh, it is good to feel thee here again, 
 worthless one.” 
 
 “The Heaven-born looks as frail as dried maize,”’ 
 said the woman quickly. 
 
 b 
 
 “A dried monkey, rather,’ returned the Queen, 
 dropping her lips on the child’s head. Both 
 
 mothers spoke aloud and with emphasis, that the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 335 
 
 gods, jealous of human happiness, might hear and 
 take for truth the disparagement that veils deepest 
 love. , 
 
 “Aho, my little monkey is dead,” said the Prince, 
 moving restlessly. “I need another one. Let me 
 go into the palace and find another monkey.” 
 
 “He must not wander into the palace from this 
 chamber,” said the Queen passionately, turning to 
 Kate. “Thou art all too weak, beloved. Oh, Miss 
 Sahib, he must not go.” She knew by experience 
 that it was fruitless to cross her son’s will. 
 
 “It is my order,” said the Prince, without turn- 
 ing his head. “I will go.” 
 
 “Stay with us, beloved,” said Kate. She was 
 wondering whether the hospital could be dragged 
 together again, after three months, and whether it 
 was possible she might have overrated the danger 
 to Nick. 
 
 “T go,’ 
 
 ? 
 
 said the Prince, breaking from his moth- 
 er’s arms. “I am tired of this talk.” 
 
 “Does the Queen give leave?” asked the woman 
 of the desert under her breath. The Queen nodded, 
 and the Prince found himself caught between two 
 brown arms, against whose strength it was impos- 
 sible to struggle. 
 
 “Let me go, widow!” he shouted furiously. 
 “It is not good for a Rajput to make light of 
 
 > 
 
 a mother of Rajputs, my king,” was the unmoved 
 
336 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 answer. “If the young steer does not obey the 
 cow, he learns obedience from the yoke. ‘The 
 Heaven-born is not strong. He will fall among 
 those passages and stairs. He will stay here. 
 When the rage has left his body. he will be weaker 
 
 99 
 
 than before. Even now’’——the large bright eyes 
 bent themselves on the face of the child— “even 
 now,’ the calm voice continued, “the rage is 
 going. One moment more, Heaven-born, and thou 
 wilt be a Prince no longer, but only a little, little 
 child, such as I have borne. Adz, such as I shall 
 never bear again.” 
 
 With the last words the Prince’s head nodded 
 forward on her shoulder. The gust of passion had 
 spent itself, leaving him, as she had foreseen, weak 
 to sleep. 
 
 “Shame —oh, shame!” he muttered thickly. 
 “Indeed I do not wish to go. Let me sleep.” 
 
 “He is asleep,” she said at last. “What was 
 the talk about his monkey, Miss Sahib?” 
 
 “Tt died,” Kate said, and spurred herself to the 
 he. “I think it had eaten bad fruit in the garden.” 
 
 “In the garden?” said the Queen quickly. 
 
 “Yes, in the garden.” 
 
 The woman of the desert aig her eyes from 
 one woman to the other. ‘These were matters too 
 high for her, and she began timidly to rub the 
 Queen’s feet. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. oot 
 
 “Monkeys often die,” she observed. “I have 
 seen as it were a pestilence among the monkey folk 
 over there at Banswari.”’ 
 
 “In what fashion did it die?” insisted the 
 (Jueen. 
 
 “T—TI do not know,” Kate stammered, and there 
 was another long silence as the hot afternoon 
 wore on. 
 
 “Miss Kate, what do you think about my son?” 
 whispered the Queen. “Is he well, or is he not 
 well?” 
 
 “He is not very well. In time he will grow 
 stronger, but it would be better if he could go 
 away for a while.” 
 
 The Queen bowed her head quietly. “I have 
 thought of that also many times sitting here alone; 
 and it was the tearing out of my own heart from 
 my breast. Yes, it would be well if he were to 
 go away. But’—she stretched out her hands 
 despairingly toward the sunshine—‘“what do I 
 know of the world where he will go, and how can 
 I be sure that he will be safe? Here —even here” 
 
 She checked herself suddenly. “Since you 
 have come, Miss Kate, my heart has known a little 
 comfort, but I do not know when you will go 
 away again.” 
 
 “T cannot guard the child against every evil,” 
 
 Kate replied, covering her face with her hands; 
 Z 
 
338 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “but send him away from this place as swiftly 
 as may be. In God’s name let him go away.” 
 
 “Such hai! Such hai! It is the truth, the 
 truth!” The Queen turned from Kate to the 
 woman at her feet. 
 
 “Thou hast borne three?” she said. 
 
 “Yea, three, and one other that never drew 
 breath. They were all men-children,” said the 
 woman of the desert. | 
 
 “And the gods took them?” 
 
 “Of smallpox one, and fever the two others.” 
 
 “Art thou certain that it was the gods?” 
 
 “IT was with them always till the end.” 
 
 “Thy man, then, was all thine own?” 
 
 “We were only two, he and I. Among our 
 villages the men are poor, and one wife suffices.” 
 
 “Arré! They are rich among the villages. 
 Listen now. If a co-wife had sought the lives of 
 those three of thine —” 
 
 “T would have killed her. What else?” The 
 woman’s nostrils dilated and her hand went swiftly 
 to her bosom. | 
 
 “And if in place of three there had been one 
 only, the delight of thy eyes, and thou hadst 
 known that thou shouldst never bear another, and 
 the co-wife working in darkness had sought for 
 that life? What then?” 
 
 “IT would have slain her—but with no easy 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 339 
 
 death. At her man’s side and in his arms I would 
 have slain her. If she died before my vengeance 
 arrived I would seek for her in hell.” - 
 
 “Thou canst go out in the sunshine and walk 
 in the streets and no man turns his head,” said 
 the Queen bitterly. “Thy hands are free and thy 
 face is uncovered. What if thou wert a slave 
 among slaves, a stranger among stranger people, 
 and’*—the voice dropped — “dispossessed of the 
 favor of thy lord?” 
 
 The woman, stooping, kissed the pale feet under 
 her hands. 
 
 “Then I would not wear myself with strife, but, 
 remembering that a man-child may grow into a 
 king, would send that child away beyond the power 
 of the co-wife.” 
 
 “Ts it so easy to cut away the hand?” said the 
 Queen, sobbing. 
 
 “ Better the hand than the heart, Sahiba. Who 
 could guard such a child in this place?” 
 
 The Queen pointed to Kate. “She came from 
 far off, and she has once already brought him back 
 from death.” 
 
 “Her drugs are good and her skill is great, but 
 —thou knowest she is but a maiden, who has 
 known neither gain nor loss. It may be that I 
 am luckless, and that my eyes are evil—thus did 
 not my man say last autumn — but it may be. Yet 
 
340 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 I know the pain at the breast and the yearning over 
 the child new-born —as thou hast known it.” 
 
 “As I have known it.” 
 
 “My house is empty and I am a widow and 
 childless, and never again shall a man call me to 
 wed.” 
 
 “As I am —as I am.” 
 
 “Nay, the little one is left, whatever else may 
 go; and the little one must be well guarded. If 
 there is any jealousy against the child it were not 
 well to keep him in this hotbed. Let him go 
 out.” 
 
 “But whither? Miss Kate, dost thou know? 
 The world is all dark to us who sit behind the 
 curtain.” 
 
 “T know that the child of his own motion desires 
 to go to the princes’ school in Ajmir. He has told 
 me that much,” said Kate, who had lost no word 
 of the conversation from her place on the cushion, 
 bowed forward with her chin supported in her 
 hands. “It will be only for a year or two.” 
 
 The Queen laughed a little through her tears. 
 “Only a year or two, Miss Kate. Dost thou know 
 how long is one night when he is not here?” 
 
 “And he can return at call; but no cry will 
 bring back mine own. Only a year or two. The 
 world is dark also to those who do not sit behind 
 the curtain, Sahiba. It is no fault of hers. How 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 341 
 
 should she know?” said the woman of the desert 
 under her breath to the Queen. 
 
 Against her will, Kate began to feel annoyed at 
 - this persistent exclusion of herself from the talk, 
 and the assumption that she, with her own great 
 trouble upon her, whose work was pre-eminently to 
 deal with sorrow, must have no place in this double 
 grief. 
 
 “How should I not know?” said Kate impetu- 
 ously. “Do I not know pain? Is it not my life?” 
 
 “Not yet,” said the Queen quietly. ‘“ Neither 
 pain nor joy. Miss Kate, thou art very wise, and 
 I am only a woman who has never stirred beyond 
 the palace walls. But I am wiser than thou, for 
 I know that which thou dost not know, though thou 
 hast given back my son to me, and to this woman 
 her husband’s speech. How shall I repay thee 
 all I owe?” 
 
 “Let her hear truth,” said the woman under her 
 breath. “We be all three women here, Sahiba — 
 dead leaf, flowering tree, and the blossom un- 
 opened.” 
 
 The Queen caught Kate’s hands and gently 
 pulled her forward till her head fell on the Queen’s 
 knees. Wearied with the emotions of the morn- 
 ing, unutterably tired in body and spirit, the girl 
 had no desire to lift it. The small hands put her 
 hair back from her forehead, and the full dark 
 
342 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 eyes, worn with much weeping, looked into her 
 own. ‘The woman of the desert flung an arm 
 round her waist. 
 
 “Listen, my sister,” began the Queen, with an 
 infinite tenderness. “There is a proverb among 
 my own people, in the mountains of the north, 
 that a rat found a piece of turmeric, and opened a 
 druggist’s shop. Even so with the pain that thou 
 dost know and heal, beloved. Thou art not angry? 
 Nay, thou must not take offence. Forget that 
 thou art white, and I black, and remember only 
 that we three be sisters. Little sister, with us 
 women ‘tis thus, and no other way. From all, 
 except such as have borne a child, the world is 
 hid. I make my prayers trembling to such and 
 such a god, who thou sayest is black stone, and 
 I tremble at the gusts of the night because I believe 
 that the devils ride by my windows at such hours; 
 and I sit here in the dark knitting wool and pre- 
 paring sweetmeats that come back untasted from 
 my lord’s table. And thou coming from ten thou- 
 sand leagues away, very wise and fearing nothing, 
 hast taught me, oh, ten thousand things. Yet 
 thou art the child, and I am still the mother, and 
 what I know thou canst not know, and the wells 
 of my happiness thou canst not fathom, nor the 
 bitter waters of my sorrow till thou hast tasted 
 sorrow and grief alike. I have told thee of the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 343 
 
 child —all and more than all thou sayest? Little 
 sister, I have told thee less than the beginning 
 of my love for him, because I knew that thou 
 couldst not understand. I have told thee my sor- 
 rows —all and more than all, thou sayest, when 
 I laid my head against thy breast? How could I 
 tell thee all? Thou art a maiden, and the heart 
 in thy bosom, beneath my heart, betrayed in its 
 very beat that it did not understand. Nay, that 
 woman there, coming from without, knows more 
 of me than thee? And they taught thee in a 
 school, thou hast told me, all manner of healing, 
 and there is no disease in life that thou dost not 
 understand? Little sister, how couldst thou under- 
 stand life that hast never given it? Hast thou 
 ever felt the tug of the child at the breast? Nay, 
 what need to blush? Hast thou? I know thou 
 hast not. Though I heard thy speech for the first 
 time, and looking from the window saw thee walk- 
 ing, I should know. And the others —my sisters 
 in the world—know also. But they do not all 
 speak to thee as I do. When the life quickens 
 under the breast, they, waking in the night, hear 
 all the earth walking to that measure. Why 
 should they tell thee? To-day the hospital has 
 broken from under thee. Is it not so? And the 
 women went out one by one? And what didst 
 thou say to them?” 
 
344 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 The woman of the desert, answering for her, spoke. 
 “She said, ‘Come back, and I will make ye well.’ ”’ 
 
 “And by what oath did she affirm her words?” 
 
 “'There was no oath,” said the woman of the 
 desert; “she stood in the gate and called.” 
 
 “And upon what should a maiden call to bring 
 wavering women back again? ‘The toil that she 
 has borne for their sake? They cannot see it. 
 But of the pains that a woman has shared with 
 them, a woman knows. There was no child in 
 thy arms. The mother look was not in thy eyes. 
 By what magic, then, wouldst thou speak to 
 women? ‘There was a charm among the drugs, 
 they said, and their children would be* misshapen. 
 What didst thou know of the springs of hfe and 
 death to teach them otherwise? It is written in 
 the books of thy school, I know, that such things 
 cannot be. But we women do not read books. It 
 is not from them that we learn of hfe. How 
 should such an one prevail, unless the gods help 
 her—and the gods are very far away. ‘Thou hast 
 given thy life to the helping of women. Little 
 sister, when wilt thou also be a woman?” 
 
 The voice ceased. Kate’s head was buried deep 
 in the Queen’s lap. She let it lie there without 
 stirring. 
 
 “Ay!” said the woman of .the desert. “The 
 mark of coverture has been taken from my head. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 345 
 
 my glass bangles are broken on my arm, and I 
 am unlucky to meet when a man sets forth on a 
 journey. ‘Till I die I must be alone, earning my 
 bread alone, and thinking of the dead. But though 
 I knew that it was to come again, at the end of 
 one year instead of ten, I would still thank the 
 gods that have given me love and a child. Will 
 the Miss Sahib take this in payment for all she 
 did for my man? ‘A wandering priest, a childless 
 woman, and a stone in the water are of one blood.’ 
 So says the talk of our people. What will the 
 Miss Sahib do now? The Queen has spoken the 
 truth. The gods and thy own wisdom, which is 
 past the wisdom of a maid, have helped thee so 
 far, as I, who was with thee always, have seen. 
 The gods have warned thee that their help is at 
 anend. Whatremains? Is this work for such as 
 thou? Is it not as the Queen says? She, sitting 
 here alone, and seeing nothing, has seen that which 
 I, moving with thee among the sick day by day, 
 have seen and known. Little sister, is it not so?” 
 
 Kate lifted her head slowly from the Queen’s 
 knee, and rose. 
 
 “Take the child, and let us go,” she said hoarsely. 
 
 The merciful darkness of the room hid her face. 
 
 “Nay,” said the Queen, “this woman shall take 
 him. Go thou back alone.” 
 
 Kate vanished. 
 
346 THE NAULAHKA. | 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The Law whereby my Lady moves 
 Was never Law to me, 
 
 But ’tis enough that she approves 
 Whatever Law it be. 
 
 For in that Law and by that Law 
 My constant course I’ll steer ; 
 Not that I heed or deem it dread, 
 
 But that she holds it dear. 
 
 Tho’ Asia sent for my content 
 Her richest argosies, 
 
 Those would I spurn and bid return 
 If that should give her ease. 
 
 With equal heart I’d watch depart 
 Each spicéd sail from sight, 
 
 Sans bitterness, desiring less 
 Great gear than her delight. 
 
 Yet such am IJ, yea such am I — 
 Sore bond and freest free — 
 
 The Law that sways my Lady’s ways 
 Is mystery to me!* 
 
 To sit still, and to keep sitting still, is the 
 first lesson that the young jockey must learn. Tar- 
 vin was learning it in bitterness of spirit. For the 
 sake of his town, for the sake of his love, and, 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 347 
 
 above all, for the sake of his love’s life, he must 
 go. The town was waiting, his horse was saddled 
 at the door, but his love would not come. He 
 must sit still. 
 
 The burning desert wind blew through the open 
 veranda as remorselessly as Sitabhai’s hate. Look- 
 ing out, he saw nothing but the city asleep in the 
 sunshine and the wheeling kites above it. Yet 
 when evening fell, and a man might be able by 
 bold riding to escape to the railway, certain shrouded 
 figures would creep from the walls and take up 
 their position within easy gunshot of the rest- 
 house. One squatted at each point of the compass, 
 and between them, all night long, came and went 
 a man on horseback. ‘Tarvin could hear the steady 
 beat of the hoofs as he went his rounds, and the 
 sound did not give him fresh hope. But for Kate 
 —but for Kate, he repeated to himself, he would 
 have been long since beyond reach of horse or 
 bullet. The hours were very slow, and as he sat 
 and watched the shadows grow and shorten it 
 seemed to him, as it had seemed so often before, 
 that this and no other was the moment that Topaz 
 would choose to throw her chances from her. 
 
 He had lost already, he counted, eight-and-forty 
 precious hours, and, so far as he could see, the 
 remainder of the year might be spent in an equally 
 unprofitable fashion. 
 
348 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 Meantime Kate lay exposed to every imaginable 
 danger. Sitabhai was sure to assume that he had 
 wrested the necklace from her for the sake of the 
 “frail white girl”; she had said as much on the 
 dam. It was for Kate’s sake, in a measure; but 
 Tarvin reflected bitterly that an Oriental had no 
 sense of proportion, and, like the snake, strikes first 
 at that which is nearest. And Kate? How in the 
 world was he to explain the case to her? He had 
 told her of danger about her path as well as his 
 own, and she had decided to face that danger. 
 For her courage and devotion he loved her; but 
 her obstinacy made him grit his teeth. There was 
 but one grimly comical element in the terrible 
 jumble. What would the King say to Sitabhai 
 when he discovered that she had lost the Luck of 
 the State? In what manner would she veil that 
 loss; and, above all, into what sort of royal rage 
 ~ would she fall? Tarvin shook his head meditatively. 
 “It’s quite bad enough for me,” he said, “ just 
 about as bad as it can possibly be made; but I 
 have a wandering suspicion that it may be un- 
 wholesome for Juggut. Yes! I can spare time 
 to be very sorry for Juggut. My fat friend, you 
 should have held straight that first time, outside 
 the city walls!” 
 
 He rose and looked out into the sunlight, won- 
 dering which of the scattered vagrants by the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 349 
 
 roadside might be an emissary from the palace. <A 
 man lay apparently asleep by the side of his camel 
 near the road that ran to the city. Tarvin stepped 
 out casually from the veranda, and saw, as soon 
 as he was fairly in the open, that the sleeper rolled 
 round to the other side of his beast. He strolled 
 forward a few paces. The sunlight glinted above 
 the back of the camel on something that shone like 
 silver. Tarvin marched straight toward the glitter, 
 his pistol in his hand. The man, when he came up 
 to him, was buried in innocent slumber. Under 
 the fold of his garment peered the muzzle of a 
 new and very clean rifle. 
 
 “Looks as if Sitabhai was calling out the militia, 
 and supplying them with outfits from her private 
 
 9 
 
 armory. Juggut’s gun was new, too,” said Tarvin, 
 standing over the sleeper. “But this man knows 
 more about guns than Juggut. Hi!” He stooped 
 down and stirred the man up with the muzzle of 
 his revolver. “I’m afraid I must trouble you for 
 that gun. And tell the lady to drop it, will you? 
 It won’t pay.” 
 
 The man understood the unspoken eloquence of 
 the pistol, and nothing more. He gave up his 
 gun sullenly enough, and moved away, lashing his 
 camel spitefully. 
 
 “Now, I wonder how many more of her army I 
 shall have to disarm,” said Tarvin, retracing his 
 
350 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 steps, the captured gun over his shoulder. “1 
 wonder — no, I won’t believe that she would dare to 
 do anything to Kate! She knows enough of me to 
 be sure that I’d blow her and her old palace into 
 to-morrow. If she’s half the woman she pretends 
 to be, she’]1 reckon with me before she goes much 
 further.” 
 
 In vain he attempted to force himself into this 
 belief. Sitabhai had shown him what sort of thing 
 her mercy might be, and Kate might have tasted 
 it ere this. To go to her now—to be maimed or 
 crippled at the least if he went to her now — was 
 impossible. Yet, he decided that he would go. 
 He returned hastily to Fibby, whom he had left 
 not three minutes before flicking flies off in the 
 sunshine at the back of the rest-house. But Fibby 
 lay on his side groaning piteously, hamstrung and 
 dying. 
 
 Tarvin could hear his groom industriously polish- 
 ing a bit round the corner, and when the man came 
 up in response to his call he flung himself down 
 by the side of the horse, howling with grief. 
 
 “An enemy hath done this, an enemy hath done 
 this!”’ he clamored. “My beautiful brown horse 
 that never did harm except when he kicked through 
 fulness of meat! Where shall I find a new ser- 
 vice if I let my charge die thus?” 
 
 “T wish I knew! I wish I knew!” said Tarvin, 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 351 
 
 puzzled, and almost despairing. “There’d be a 
 bullet through one black head, if I were just a little 
 surer. Get up, you! Fibby, old man, I forgive 
 you all your sins. You were a good old boy, and 
 —here’s luck.” 
 
 The blue smoke enveloped Fibby’s head for an 
 instant, the head fell ike a hammer, and the good 
 horse was out of his pain. The groom, rising, 
 rent the air with grief, till Tarvin kicked him out 
 of the pickets and bade him begone. Then it 
 was noticeable that his cries ceased suddenly, and, 
 as he retreated into his mud-house to tie up his 
 effects, he smiled and dug up some silver from a 
 hole under his bedstead. 
 
 Tarvin, dismounted, looked east, west, north, 
 south for help, as Sitabhai had looked on the dam. 
 A wandering gang of gypsies with their lean bul- 
 locks and yelping dogs turned an angle of the city 
 wall, and rested like a flock of unclean birds by 
 the city gate. The sight in itself was not unusual, 
 but city regulations forbade camping within a 
 quarter of a mile of the walls. 
 
 “Some of the lady’s poor relatives, I suppose. 
 They have blocked the way through the gate pretty 
 well. Now, if I were to make a bolt of it to the 
 missionary’s they’d have me, wouldn’t they?” 
 muttered Tarvin to himself. “On the whole, I’ve 
 seen prettier professions than trading with Eastern 
 
352, THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 queens. They don’t seem to understand the rules 
 of the game.” 
 
 At that moment a cloud of dust whirled through 
 the gypsy camp, as the escort of the Maharaj Kun- 
 war, clearing the way for the barouche, scattered 
 the dark band to the left and right. ‘Tarvin won- 
 dered what this might portend. The escort halted 
 with the customary rattle of accoutrements at the 
 rest-house door, the barouche behind them. A sin- 
 gle trooper, two hundred yards or more in the rear, 
 lifted his voice in a deferential shout as he pur- 
 sued the carriage. He was answered by a chuckle 
 from the escort, and two shrill screams of delight 
 from the occupants of the barouche. 
 
 A child whom Tarvin had never before seen 
 stood upright in the back of the carriage, and 
 hurled a torrent of abuse in the vernacular at the 
 outpaced trooper. Again the escort laughed. 
 
 “Tarvin Sahib! Tarvin Sahib!” piped the Maha- 
 raj Kunwar. “Come and look at us.” 
 
 For a moment Tarvin fancied this a fresh device 
 of the enemy; but, reassured by the sight of his 
 old and trusted ally, the Maharaj, he stepped for- 
 ward. 
 
 “Prince,” he said, as he took his hand, “you 
 ought not to be out.” 
 
 “Oh, it is all right,” said the young man hastily, 
 though his little pale face belied it. “I gave the 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. B54 
 
 order and we came. Miss Kate gives me orders; 
 but she took me over to the palace, and there I 
 give orders. This is Umr Singh—my brother, 
 the little Prince; but J shall be King.” 
 
 The second child raised his eyes slowly and looked 
 full at Tarvin. The eyes and the low broad fore- 
 head were those of Sitabhai, and the mouth closed 
 firmly over the little pearl-like teeth, as his moth- 
 er’s mouth had closed in the conflict on the Dungar 
 Talao. 
 
 “He is from the other side of the palace,” an- 
 swered the Maharaj, still in English. “From the 
 other side, where I must not go. But when I 
 was in the palace I went to him— ha, ha, Tarvin 
 Sahib—and he was killing a goat. Look! His 
 hands are all red now.” 
 
 Umr Singh opened a tiny palm at a word from 
 the Maharaj in the vernacular, and flung it out- 
 ward at Tarvin. It was dark with dried blood, and 
 a bearded whisper ran among the escort. The 
 commandant turned in his saddle, and, nodding at 
 Tarvin, muttered, “ Sitabhai!” Tarvin caught the 
 first word, and it was sufficient for him. Provi- 
 dence had sent him help out of a clear sky. He 
 framed a plan instantly. 
 
 “But how did you come here, you young imps?” 
 he demanded. 
 
 “Oh, there are only women in the palace yonder, 
 
 2A. 
 
354 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 and I am a Rajput and a man. He cannot speak 
 any English at all,” he added, pointing to his 
 companion; “but when we have played together I 
 have told him about you, Tarvin Sahib, and about 
 the day you picked me out of my saddle, and he 
 wished to come too, to see all the things you 
 show me, so I gave the order very quietly, and 
 we came out of the little door together. And so 
 we are here! Salaam baba,” he said patronizingly, 
 to the child at his side, and the child, slowly and 
 gravely, raised his hand to his forehead, still gazing 
 with fixed, incurious eyes on the stranger. Then 
 he whispered something that made the Maharaj 
 Kunwar laugh. “He says,” said the Maharaj Kun- 
 war, “that you are not so big as he thought. His 
 mother told him that you were stronger than any 
 man, but some of these troopers are bigger than 
 you.” 
 
 “Well, what do you want me to do?” asked 
 Tarvin. 
 
 “Show him your gun, and how you shoot rupees, 
 and what you do that makes horses quiet when 
 they kick, and all those things.” 
 
 “All right,” said Tarvin. “But I can’t show 
 them here. Come over to Mr. Estes with me.” 
 
 “JT do not like to go there. My monkey is dead. 
 And I do not think Kate would like to see us. 
 She is always crying now. She took me up to 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. BOD 
 
 the palace yesterday, and this morning I went to 
 her again; but she would not see me.” 
 
 Tarvin could have hugged the child for the 
 blessed assurance that Kate at least still lived. 
 “Tsn’t she at the hospital, then?” he asked thickly. 
 
 “Oh, the hospital has all gone phut. There are 
 no women now. ‘They all ran away.” 
 
 “No!” cried Tarvin. “Say that again, little 
 man. What for?” 
 
 “Devils,” said the Maharaj Kunwar briefly. | 
 “What do I know? It was some women’s talk. 
 Show him how you ride, Tarvin Sahib.” 
 
 Again Umr Singh whispered to his companion, 
 and put one leg over the side of the barouche. 
 “He says he will ride in front of you, as I told him 
 I did,” interpreted the Prince. “Gurdit Singh, 
 dismount!” 
 
 A trooper flung himself out of the saddle on 
 the word, and stood to attention at the horse’s head. 
 Tarvin, smiling to himself at the perfection of his 
 opportunity, said nothing, but leaped into the 
 saddle, picked Umr Singh out of his barouche, and 
 placed him carefully before him. 
 
 “Sitabhai would be rather restless if she could 
 see me,” he murmured to himself, as he tucked 
 his arm round the lithe little figure. “I don’t 
 think there will be any Juggutting while I carry 
 this young man in front of me.” 
 
356 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 As the escort opened to allow Tarvin to take 
 his place at their head, a wandering priest, who 
 had been watching the episode from a little dis- 
 tance, turned and shouted with all the strength of 
 his lungs across the plain, in the direction of the 
 city. The cry was taken up by unseen voices, 
 passed on to the city walls, and died away on the 
 sands beyond. 
 
 Umr Singh smiled, as the horse began to trot, 
 and urged Tarvin to go faster. This the Maharaj 
 forbade. He wished to see the sight comfortably 
 from his seat in the barouche. As he passed the 
 gypsy camp, men and women threw themselves 
 down on the sands, crying, “Jai! Jungle da Bad- 
 shah jai!” and the faces of the troopers darkened. 
 
 > 
 
 “That means,” cried the Maharaj Kunwar, “ Vic- 
 tory to the king of the desert. I have no money 
 to give them. Have you, Tarvin Sahib?” 
 
 In his joy at being now safely on his way to 
 Kate, Tarvin could have flung everything he pos- 
 sessed to the crowd—almost the Naulahka itself. 
 He emptied a handful of copper and small silver 
 among them, and the cry rose again, but bitter 
 laughter was mingled with it, and the gypsy folk 
 called to each other, mocking. The Maharaj Kun- 
 war’s face turned scarlet. He leaned forward lis- 
 tening for an instant, and then shouted, “By 
 Indur, it is for Aim! Scatter their tents!” Ata 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. ODT 
 
 wave of his hand the escort, wheeling, plunged 
 through the camp in line, driving the light ash 
 of the fires up in clouds, slashing the donkeys 
 with the flat of their swords until they stampeded, 
 and carrying away the frail brown tents on the 
 butts of their reversed lances. 
 
 Tarvin looked on contentedly at the dispersal 
 of the group, which he knew would have stopped 
 him if he had been alone. 
 
 Umr Singh bit his lip. Then, turning to the 
 Maharaj Kunwar, he smiled, and put forward from 
 his belt the hilt of his sword in sign of fealty. 
 
 “Tt is just, my brother,” he said in the vernac- 
 ular. “But I” —here he raised his voice a little 
 —“ would not drive the gypsy folk too far. They 
 always return.” 
 
 “Ay,” cried a voice from the huddled crowd, 
 watching the wreck of the camp, significantly, 
 “oypsies always return, my King.” 
 
 “So does a dog,” said the Maharaj, between 
 his teeth. “Both are kicked. Drive on.” 
 
 And a pillar of dust came to. Estes’s house, Tar- 
 vin riding in safety in the midst of it. 
 
 Telling the boys to play until he came out, he 
 swept into the house, taking the steps two at a 
 time, and discovered Kate in a dark corner of the 
 parlor with a bit of sewing in her hand. As she 
 looked up he saw that she was crying. 
 
358 | THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “Nick!”? she exclaimed voicelessly. “ Wick!” 
 He had stopped hesitating on the threshold; she 
 dropped her work, and rose breathless. “ You have 
 come back! It is you! You are alive!” 
 
 Tarvin smiled, and held out his arms. “Come 
 and see!” She took a step forward. 
 
 “Oh, I was afraid—” 
 
 “Come!” 
 
 She went doubtfully toward him. He caught 
 her fast, and held her in his arms. 
 
 For a long minute she let her head lie on his 
 breast. Then she looked up. “This isn’t what 
 I meant,” she protested. 
 
 “Oh, don’t try to improve on it!” Tarvin said 
 hastily. 
 
 “She tried to poison me. I was sure when I 
 heard nothing that she must have killed you. I 
 fancied horrible things.” 
 
 “Poor child! And your hospital has gone wrong ! 
 You have been having a hard time. But we will 
 change all that. We must leave as soon as you 
 can get ready. I’ve nipped her claws for a moment; 
 I’m holding a hostage. But we can’t keep that 
 up for ever. We must get away.” 
 
 “We!” she repeated feebly. 
 
 “Well, do you want to go alone?” 
 
 She smiled as she released herself. “I want 
 
 you to.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 359 
 
 “And you?” 
 
 “I’m not worth thinking of. I have failed. 
 Everything I meant to do has fallen about me in 
 a heap. I feel burnt out, Nick—burnt out!” 
 
 “Allright! We’ll put in new works and launch 
 you on a fresh system. That’s what I want. 
 There shall be nothing to remind you that you ever 
 saw Rhatore, dear.”’ 
 
 “Tt was a mistake,” she said. 
 
 “What?” 
 
 “Everything. My coming. My thinking I 
 could do it. It’s not a gitl’s work. It’s my work, 
 perhaps; but it’s not for me. I have given it 
 up, Nick. Take me home.” 
 
 Tarvin gave an unbecoming shout of joy, and 
 folded her in his arms again. He told her that 
 they must be married at once, and start that night, 
 if she could manage it; and Kate, dreading what 
 might befall him, assented doubtfully. She spoke 
 of preparations; but Tarvin said that they would 
 prepare after they had done it. They could buy 
 
 things at Bombay—stacks of things. He was 
 
 
 
 sweeping her forward with the onrush of his ex- 
 tempore plans, when she said suddenly, “ But what 
 of the dam, Nick? You can’t leave that.” 
 “Shucks!’’ exclaimed Tarvin heartily. “You 
 don’t suppose there’s any gold in the old river, 
 
 do you?” 
 
360 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 She recoiled quickly from his arms, staring at 
 him in accusation and reproach. 
 
 “Do you mean that you have always known that 
 there was no gold there?” she asked. 
 
 Tarvin pulled himself together quickly; but not 
 so quickly that she did not catch the confession 
 in his eye. 
 
 “T-see you have,” 
 
 she said coldly. 
 
 Tarvin measured the crisis which had suddenly 
 descended on him out of the clouds; he achieved 
 an instantaneous change of front, and met her 
 smiling. 
 
 “Certainly,” he said; “I have been working it 
 as a blind.” 
 
 “A blind?” she repeated. “ To cover what?” 
 
 GAY Os = 
 
 “What do you mean?” she inquired, with a 
 look in her eyes which made him uncomfortable. 
 
 “The Indian Government allows no one_ to 
 remain in the State without a definite purpose. I 
 couldn’t tell Colonel Nolan that I had come court- 
 ing you, could I?” 
 
 “T don’t know. But you could have avoided 
 taking the Maharajah’s money to carry out this — 
 this plan. An. honest man would have avoided 
 that.”’ 
 
 “Oh, look here!” exclaimed Tarvin. 
 
 “Tlow could you cheat the King into thinking 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 361 
 
 that there was a reason for your work, how could 
 you let him give you the labor of a thousand men, 
 how could you take his money? Oh, Nick!” 
 
 He gazed at her for a vacant and hopeless min- 
 ute. “Why, Kate,’ he exclaimed, “do you know 
 you are talking of the most stupendous joke the 
 Indian empire has witnessed since the birth of 
 time?” 
 
 This was pretty good, but it was not good 
 enough. He plunged for a stronger hold as she 
 answered, with a perilous little note of breakdown 
 in her voice, “ You make it worse.” 
 
 “Well, your sense of humor never was your 
 strongest point, you know, Kate.” He took the 
 seat next her, leaned over and took her hand, as 
 he went on. “ Doesn’t it strike you as rather amus- 
 ing, though, after all, to rip up half a State to be 
 near a very small little girl 
 
 
 
 a very Sweet, very 
 extra lovely little girl, but still a rather tiny little 
 girl in proportion to the size of the Amet valley? 
 Come — doesn’t it?” 
 
 “Ts that all you have to say?” asked she. Tar- 
 vin turned pale. He knew the tone of finality he 
 heard in her voice; it went with a certain look of 
 scorn when she spoke of any form of moral base- 
 ness that moved her. He recognized his condem- 
 nation in it and shuddered. In the moment that 
 
 passed, while he still kept silence, he recognized 
 
362 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 this for the crisis of his life. Then he took strong 
 hold of himself, and said quietly, easily, unscrupu- 
 lously: 
 
 “Why, you don’t suppose that I’m not going 
 to ask the Maharajah for his bill, do you?” 
 
 She gasped a little. Her acquaintance with Tar- 
 vin did not help her to follow his dizzying changes 
 of front. His bird’s skill to make his level flight, 
 his reeling dips and circling returns upon himself, 
 all seem part of a single impulse, must ever remain 
 confusing to her. But she rightly believed in his 
 central intention to do the square thing, if he 
 could find out what it was; and her belief in his 
 general strength helped her not to see at this 
 moment that he was deriving his sense of the square 
 thing from herself. She could not know, and 
 probably could not have imagined, how little his 
 own sense of the square thing had to do with any 
 system of morality, and how entirely he must 
 always define morality as what pleased Kate. 
 Other women liked confections; she preferred mo- 
 rality, and he meant she should have it, if he had 
 to turn pirate to get it for her. 
 
 “You didn’t think I wasn’t paying for the 
 show?” he pursued bravely; but in his heart he 
 was saying, “She loathes it. She hates it. Why 
 didn’t I think; why didn’t I think?” He added 
 aloud, “I had my fun, and now I’ve got you. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 363 
 
 You’re both cheap at the price, and I’m going to 
 step up and pay it lke a little man. You must 
 know that.” 
 
 His smile met no answering smile. He mopped 
 his forehead and stared anxiously at her. All the 
 easiness in the world couldn’t make him sure what 
 she would say next. She said nothing, and he had 
 to go on desperately, with a cold fear gathering 
 about his heart. “ Why, it’s just like me, isn’t it, 
 Kate, to work a scheme on the old Rajah? It’s 
 like a man who owns a mine that’s turning out 
 $2000 a month, to rig a game out in this desert 
 country to do a confiding Indian prince out of a 
 few thousand rupees?” He advanced this recently 
 inspired conception of his conduct with an air of 
 immemorial familiarity, born of desperation. 
 
 “What mine?” she asked with dry lips. 
 
 “The ‘Lingering Lode,’ of course. You’ve heard 
 me speak of it?” 
 
 “Yes, but I didn’t know —” 
 
 “That it was doing that? Well, it is—right 
 along. Want to see the assay?” 
 
 “No,” she answered. “No. But that makes 
 you— Why, but, Nick, that makes you—”’ 
 
 “A rich man? Moderately, while the lead holds 
 out. Too rich for petty larceny, I guess.” 
 
 He was joking for his life. The heart-sickening 
 seriousness of his unseriousness was making a hole 
 
364 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 in his head; the tension was too much for him. 
 In the mad fear of that moment his perceptions 
 doubled their fineness. Something went through 
 him as he said “larceny.” Then his heart stopped. 
 A sure, awful, luminous perception leaped upon 
 him, and he knew himself for lost. 
 
 If she hated this, what would she say to the 
 other? Innocent, successful, triumphant, even gay 
 it seemed to him; but what to her? He turned 
 sick. 
 
 Kate or the Naulahka. He must choose. The 
 Naulahka or Kate? 
 
 “Don’t make light of it,” she was saying. “You 
 would be just as- honest if you couldn’t afford it, 
 Nick. Ah,” she went on, laying her hand on his 
 lightly, in mute petition for having even seemed to 
 doubt him, “I know you, Nick! You like to make 
 the better seem the worse reason; you like to pre- 
 tend to be wicked. But who is so honest? Oh, 
 Nick! I knew you had to be true. If you weren’t, 
 everything else would be wrong.” 
 
 He took her in his arms. ‘“ Would it, little 
 girl?” he asked, looking down at her. “We must 
 keep the other things right, then, at any expense.” 
 
 He heaved a deep sigh as he stooped and kissed 
 her. 
 
 “Have you such a thing as a box?” he asked, 
 after a long pause. 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 365 
 
 “Any sort of box?” asked Kate, bewilderedly. 
 
 “No—well, it ought to be the finest box in 
 the world, but I suppose one of those big grape- 
 boxes will do. It isn’t every day that one sends 
 presents to a queen.” 
 
 Kate handed him a large chip box in which long 
 ereen grapes from Kabul had been packed.  Dis- 
 colored cotton wool lay at the bottom. 
 
 “That was sold at the door the other day,” she 
 said. “Is it big enough?” 
 
 Tarvin turned away without answering, emptied 
 something that clicked like a shower of pebbles 
 upon the wool, and sighed deeply. ‘Topaz was in 
 that box. The voice of the Maharaj Kunwar lifted 
 itself from the next room. 
 
 “Tarvin Sahib— Kate, we have eaten all the 
 fruit, and now we want to do something else.” 
 said Tarvin. With 
 his back still toward Kate, he drew his hand caress- 
 
 “One moment, little man,”’ 
 
 ingly, for the last time, over the blazing heap at 
 the bottom of the box, fondling the stones one by 
 one. The great green emerald pierced him, he 
 thought, with a reproachful gaze. A mist crept 
 into his eyes: the diamond was too bright. He 
 shut the lid down upon the box hastily, and put 
 it into Kate’s hands with a decisive gesture; he 
 made her hold it while he tied it in silence. Then, 
 in a voice not his, he asked her to take the box 
 
366 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 to Sitabhai with his compliments. “No,” he con- 
 tinued, seeing the alarm in her eyes. “She won’t 
 —she daren’t hurt you now. Her child’s coming 
 along with us; and I’ll go with you, of course, as 
 far as I can. Glory be, it’s the last journey that 
 you’ll ever undertake in this infernal land. The 
 last but one, that’s to say. We live at high press- 
 ure in Rhatore—too high pressure for me. Be 
 quick, if you love me.” 
 
 Kate hastened to put on her helmet, while Tar- 
 vin amused the two princes by allowing them to 
 inspect his revolver, and promising at some more 
 fitting season to shoot as many coins as they should 
 demand. The lounging escort at the door was 
 suddenly scattered by a trooper from without, who 
 flung his horse desperately through their ranks, 
 shouting, “A letter for Tarvin Sahib!” 
 
 Tarvin stepped into the veranda, took a crumpled 
 half-sheet of paper from the outstretched hand, and 
 read these words, traced painfully and laboriously 
 in an unformed round hand: 
 
 Dear Mr. Tarvin: Give me the boy and keep the 
 other thing. Your affectionate 
 FRIEND. 
 
 Tarvin chuckled and thrust the note into his 
 waistcoat pocket. ‘There is no answer,” he said 
 —and to himself: “You’re a thoughtful girl, 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 367 
 
 Sitabhai, but I’m afraid you’re just a little too 
 thoughtful. That boy’s wanted for the next half- 
 hour. Are you ready, Kate?” 
 
 The princes lamented loudly when they were 
 told that Tarvin was riding over to the palace at 
 once, and that, if they hoped for further entertain- 
 ment, they must both go with him. “We will go 
 into the great Durbar Hall,” said the Maharaj 
 Kunwar consolingly to his companion at last, 
 “and make all the music-boxes play together.” 
 
 “T want to see that man shoot,” said Umr Singh. 
 “IT want to see him shoot something dead. I do 
 not wish to go to the palace.” 
 
 “You'll ride on my horse,” said Tarvin, when 
 the answer had been interpreted, “and Ill make 
 him gallop all the way. Say, Prince, how fast 
 do you think your carriage can go?” 
 
 “As fast as Miss Kate dares.” 
 
 Kate stepped in, and the cavalcade galloped to 
 the palace, Tarvin riding always a little in front 
 with Umr Singh clapping his hands on the saddle- 
 bow. 
 
 “We must pull up at Sitabhai’s wing, dear,” 
 Tarvin cried. “You won’t be afraid to walk in 
 under the arch with me?” 
 
 “T trust you, Nick,” she answered simply, get- 
 ting out of the carriage. 
 
 “Then go into the woman’s wing. Give the 
 
368 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 box into Sitabhai’s hands, and tell her that I 
 sent it back. You’ll find she knows my name.” 
 
 The horse trampled under the archway, Kate at 
 its side, and Tarvin holding Umr Singh very much 
 in evidence. The court-yard was empty, but as 
 they came out into the sunshine by the central 
 fountain the rustle and whisper behind the shutters 
 rose, as the tiger-grass rustles when the wind 
 blows through it. 
 
 “One minute, dear,” said Tarvin, halting, “if 
 you can bear this sun on your head.” 
 
 A door opened and a eunuch came out, beckon- 
 ing silently to Kate. She followed him and dis- 
 appeared, the door closing behind her. ‘Tarvin’s 
 heart rose into his mouth, and unconsciously he 
 clasped Umr Singh so closely to his breast that 
 the child cried out. 
 
 The whisper rose, and it seemed to Tarvin as 
 if some one were sobbing behind the shutters. 
 Then followed a peal of low, soft laughter, and 
 the muscles at the corner of Tarvin’s mouth re- 
 laxed. Umr Singh began to struggle in his arms. 
 
 “Not yet, young man. You must wait until — 
 ah! thank God.” 
 
 Kate reappeared, her little figure framed against 
 the darkness of the doorway. Behind her came 
 the eunuch, crawling fearfully to Tarvin’s side. 
 Tarvin smiled affably, and dropped the amazed 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 369 
 
 young Prince into his arms. Umr Singh was borne 
 away kicking, and ere they left the court-yard 
 Tarvin heard the dry roar of an angry child, fol- 
 lowed ‘by an unmistakable yelp of pain. Tarvin 
 smiled. 
 
 “They spank young princes in Rajputana. That’s 
 one step on the path to progress. What did she 
 say, Kate?” 
 
 “She said I was to be sure and tell you that 
 she knew you were not afraid. ‘Tell Tarvin Sahib 
 that I knew he was not afraid.’ ”’ 
 
 “Where’s Umr Singh?” asked the Maharaj 
 Kunwar from the barouche. , 
 
 “He’s gone to his mother. I’m afraid I can’t 
 amuse you just now, little man. I’ve forty thou- 
 sand things to do, and no time to do them in. 
 Tell me where your father is.” 
 
 “I do not know. There has been trouble and 
 crying in the palace. The women are always 
 crying, and that makes my father angry. I shall 
 stay at Mr. Estes’s, and play with Kate.” 
 
 “Yes. Let him stay,” said Kate, quickly. 
 “Nick, do you think I ought to leave him?” 
 
 “That’s another of the things I must fix,” said 
 Tarvin. “But first I must find the Maharajah, 
 if I have to dig up Rhatore for him. What’s that, 
 little one?” 
 
 A trooper whispered to the young Prince. 
 
 2B 
 
370 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 “This man says that he is there,” said the 
 Maharaj Kunwar. “He has been there since two 
 days. I also have wished to see him.” 
 
 “Very good. Drive home, Kate. [ll wait 
 here.”’ 
 
 He re-entered the archway, and reined up. 
 Again the whisper behind the shutter rose, and a 
 man from a doorway demanded his business. 
 
 “T must see the Maharajah,” said Tarvin. 
 
 “Wait,” said the man. And Tarvin waited for 
 a full five minutes, using his time for concentrated 
 thought. | 
 
 Then the Maharajah emerged, and amiability sat 
 on every hair of his newly oiled moustache. 
 
 For some mysterious reason Sitabhai had with- 
 drawn the light of her countenance from him 
 for two days, and had sat raging in her own apart- 
 ments. Now the mood had passed, and the gypsy 
 would see him again. Therefore the Maharajah’s 
 heart was glad within him; and wisely, as befitted 
 the husband of many wives, he did not inquire too 
 closely into the reasons that had led to the change. 
 
 “Ah, Tarvin Sahib,” said he, “I have not seen 
 you for long. What is the news from the dam? 
 Is there anything to see?” 
 
 “Maharajah Sahib, that’s what I’ve come to talk 
 about. There is nothing to see, and I think that 
 there is no gold to be got at.” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. aia! 
 
 “That is bad,” said the King, lightly. 
 
 “But there is a good deal to be seen, if you 
 care to come along. I don’t want to waste your 
 money any more, now I’m sure of the fact; but I 
 don’t see the use of saving all the powder on the 
 dam. There must be five hundred pounds of it.” 
 
 “T do not understand,” said the Maharajah, 
 whose mind was occupied with other things. 
 
 “Do you want to see the biggest explosion that 
 you’ve ever seen in your life? Do you want to 
 hear the earth shake, and see the rocks fly?” 
 
 The Maharajah’s face brightened. 
 
 “Will it be seen from the palace?” he said; 
 “from the top of the palace?” 
 
 “Oh, yes. But the best place to watch it will 
 be from the side of the river. I shall put the 
 river back at five o’clock. It’s three o’clock now. 
 Will you be there, Maharajah Sahib?” 
 
 “IT will be there. It will be a big tamasha. 
 Five hundred pounds of powder! The earth will 
 be rent in two.” 
 
 “TI should remark. And after that, Maharajah 
 Sahib, I am going to be married; and then I am 
 going away. Will you come to the wedding?” 
 
 The Maharajah shaded his eyes from the sun- 
 glare, and peered up at Tarvin under his turban. 
 
 “By God, Tarvin Sahib,” said he, “you are a 
 quick man. So you will marry the doctor-lady, 
 
372 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 and then you will go away? I will come to the 
 wedding. I and Pertab Singh.” 
 
 THE next two hours in the life of Nicholas 
 Tarvin will never be adequately chronicled. There 
 was a fierce need upon him to move mountains 
 and shift the poles of the earth; there was a 
 strong horse beneath him, and in his heart the 
 knowledge that he had lost the Naulahka and 
 gained Kate. When he appeared, a meteor amid 
 the coolies on the dam, they understood, and a 
 word was spoken that great things were toward. 
 The gang foreman turned to his shouts, and learned 
 that the order of the day was destruction — the 
 one thing that the Oriental fully comprehends. 
 
 They dismantled the powder-shed with outcries 
 and fierce yells, hauled the bullock-carts from the 
 crown of the dam, and dropped the derrick after 
 them, and tore down the mat and grass coolie- 
 lines. Then, Tarvin urging them always, they 
 buried the powder-casks in the crown of the half- 
 built dam, piled the wrapped charges upon them, 
 and shovelled fresh sand atop of all. 
 
 It was a hasty onslaught, but the powder was 
 at least all in one place; and it should be none 
 of Tarvin’s fault if the noise and smoke at least 
 did not delight the Maharajah. 
 
 A little before five he came with his escort, and 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 373 
 
 Tarvin, touching fire to a many times lengthened 
 fuse, bade all men run back. ‘The fire ate slowly 
 the crown of the dam. Then with a dull roar 
 the dam opened out its heart in a sheet of white 
 flame, and the masses of flying earth darkened the 
 smoke above. 
 
 The ruin closed on itself for an instant ere the 
 waters of the Amet plunged forward into the gap, 
 made a boiling rapid, and then spread themselves 
 lazily along their accustomed levels. 
 
 The rain of things descending pitted the earth 
 of the banks and threw the water in sheets and 
 spurts. Then only the smoke and the blackened 
 flanks of the dam, crumbling each minute as the 
 river sucked them down, remained to tell of the 
 work that had been. 
 
 “And now, Maharajah Sahib, what do I owe 
 you?” said Tarvin, after he had satisfied himself 
 that none of the more reckless coolies had been 
 killed. | 
 
 -“That was very fine,’ said the Maharajah. “I 
 never saw that before. It is a pity that it cannot 
 come again.” ) 
 
 “What do I owe you?” repeated Tarvin. 
 
 “For that? Oh, they were my people. They 
 ate a little grain, and many were from my jails. 
 The powder was from the arsenal. What is the 
 use to talk of paying? Am I a bunnia that I 
 
374 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 can tell what there is to pay? It was a fine 
 tamasha. By God, there is no dam left at all.” 
 
 “You might let me put it right.” 
 
 “Tarvin Sahib, if you waited one year, or per- 
 haps two years, you would get a bill; and besides, 
 if anything was paid, the men who pay the con. 
 victs would take it all, and I should not be richer. 
 They were my people, and the grain was cheap, 
 and they have seen the tamasha. Enough. It is 
 not good to talk of payment. Let us return to 
 the city. By God, Tarvin Sahib, you are a quick 
 man. Now there will be no one to play pachisi 
 with me or to make me laugh. And the Maharaj 
 Kunwar will be sorry also. But it is good that 
 a man should marry. Yes, it is good. Why do 
 you go, Tarvin Sahib? Is it an order of the 
 Government?” 
 
 “Yes —the American government. I am wanted 
 there to help govern my State.” 
 
 “No telegram has come for you,” said the King, 
 simply. “But you are so quick.” 7 
 
 Tarvin laughed lightly, wheeled his horse and 
 was gone, leaving the King interested but unmoved. 
 He had finally learned to accept Tarvin and his 
 ways as a natural phenomenon beyond control. As 
 he drew rein instinctively opposite the missionary’s 
 door and looked for a instant at the city, the sense 
 of the otherness of daily-seen things that heralds 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 375 
 
 swift-coming change smote the mind of the Ameri- 
 can, and he shivered. “It was a bad dream—a 
 very bad dream,” he muttered, “and the worst of 
 it is not one of the boys in Topaz would ever 
 believe half of it.” Then the eyes that swept the 
 arid landscape twinkled with many reminiscences. 
 “Tarvin, my boy, you’ve played with a kingdom, 
 and for .results it lays over monkeying with the 
 buzz-saw. You were left when you sized this state 
 up for a played-out hole in the ground. Badly 
 left. If you have been romping around six months 
 after something you hadn’t the sabe to hold when 
 you’d got, you’ve learned that much. Topaz! 
 Poor old Topaz!” 
 
 - Again his eyes ran round the tawny horizon, 
 and he laughed aloud. ‘The little town under the 
 shadow of Big Chief, ten thousand miles away and 
 all ignorant of the mighty machinery that had 
 moved on its behalf, would have resented that 
 laugh; for Tarvin, fresh from events that had 
 shaken Rhatore to its heart, was almost patroniz- 
 ing the child of his ambition. 
 
 He brought his hand down on his thigh with a 
 smack, and turned his horse towards the telegraph 
 office. ‘How in the name of all that’s good and 
 holy,” said he, “am I to clear up this business 
 with the Mutrie? Even a copy of the Naulahka 
 in glass would make her mouth water.” The horse 
 
376 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 cantered on steadily and Tarvin dismissed the 
 matter with a generous sweep of his free hand. 
 “Tf I can stand it, she can. But I'll prepare her 
 by electricity.” 
 
 The dove-colored telegraph-operator and Post- 
 master-general of the State remembers even to-day 
 how the Englishman, who was not an Englishman 
 and therefore doubly incomprehensible, climbed for 
 the last time up the narrow stairs, sat down in 
 the broken chair, and demanded absolute silence. 
 How, at the end of fifteen minutes’ portentous 
 meditation and fingering of a thin moustache, he 
 sighed heavily as is the custom of Englishmen 
 when they have eaten that which disagrees with 
 them, waved the operator aside, called up the next 
 office, and clicked off a message with a haughty 
 and high-stepping action of the hands. How he 
 lingered long and lovingly over the last click, 
 apphed his ear to the instrument as though it 
 could answer, and turning with a large, sweet 
 smile, said: —‘“ Finis Babu; make a note of that,” 
 
 and swept forth, chanting the war-cry of his State: 
 
 “Tt is not wealth, nor rank, nor state, 
 
 But get-up-and-get that makes men great.” 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 The bullock-cart creaked down the road to Rawut 
 Junction in the first flush of a purple evening, 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. Oia 
 
 and the low ranges of the Aravullis showed as 
 many-colored cloud-banks against the turquoise 
 sky-line. Behind it the red rock of Rhatore burned 
 angrily on the yellow floors of the desert, speckled 
 with the shadows of browsing camels. Overhead 
 the Crane and the wild duck were flocking back 
 to their beds in the reed, and gray monkeys, family 
 by family, sat on the roadside, their arms round 
 each other’s necks. The- Evening Star came up 
 from behind a jagged peak of rock and brushwood, 
 that its reflection might swim undisturbed at the 
 bottom of an almost dried reservoir, buttressed with 
 time-yellowed marble and flanked with silver plume- 
 grass. Between the star and the earth wheeled 
 huge fox-headed bats, and night-jars hawking for 
 the feather-winged moths. The buffaloes had left 
 their water-holes, and the cattle were lying down 
 for the night. Then villagers in far-away huts 
 began to sing, and the hillsides were studded with 
 home-lights. “The bullocks grunted as the driver 
 twisted their tails, and the high grass by the road- 
 side brushed with the wash of a wave of the open 
 beach against the slow-turning tires. 
 
 The first breath of a cold-weather night made 
 Kate wrap her rugs about her more closely. Tar- 
 vin was sitting at the back of the cart, swinging 
 his legs and staring at Rhatore before the bends 
 of the road should hide it. The realization of 
 
378 THE NAULAHKA. 
 
 defeat, remorse, and the torture of an over well- 
 trained conscience were yet to come to Kate. In 
 that hour, luxuriously disposed upon many cush- 
 ions, she realized nothing more than a woman’s 
 complete contentment with the fact that there was 
 a man in the world to do things for her, though 
 she had not yet learned to lose her interest in how 
 they were done. The reiterated and passionate 
 farewells of the women in the palace, and the 
 cyclonic sweep of a wedding at which Nick had 
 altogether refused to efface himself as a bridegroom 
 should, but had flung all their world forward on 
 the torrent of his own vitality, had worn her out; 
 the yearning of homesickness —she had seen it in 
 Mrs. Estes’s wet eyes at the missionary’s house 
 an hour before—lay strong upon her, and she 
 would fain have remembered her plunge into the 
 world’s evil as a dream of the night, but— 
 
 “Nick,” she said softly. 
 
 “What is it, little woman?” 
 
 “Oh, nothing; I was thinking. Nick, what did 
 you do about the Maharaj Kunwar?” 
 
 “ He’s fixed, or I’m mistaken. Don’t worry your 
 head about that. After I’d explained a thing or 
 two to old man Nolan, he seemed to think. well 
 of inviting that young man to board with him 
 until he starts for the Mayo College. Tumble?” 
 
 “His poor mother! If only I could have —” 
 
A STORY OF WEST AND EAST. 379 
 
 “But you couldn’t, little woman. Hi! Look 
 quick, Kate! ‘There she goes! The last of Rha- 
 tore.” 
 
 A string of colored lights, high up on the 
 hanging-gardens of the palace, was disappearing 
 behind the velvet blackness of a hill shoulder. 
 Tarvin leaped to his feet, caught the side of the 
 cart, and bowed profoundly after the Oriental 
 manner. 
 
 The lights disappeared one by one, even as the 
 glories of a necklace had slidden into a cabuli 
 grape-box, till there remained only the flare from 
 
 
 
 a window on a topmost bastion—a point of light 
 as red and as remote as the blaze of the Black 
 Diamond. That passed too, and the soft darkness 
 rose out of the earth fold upon fold, wrapping the 
 man and the woman. 
 
 “After all,” said Tarvin, addressing the new- 
 lighted firmament, “that was distinctly a side- 
 
 issue.” 
 
 THE END. 
 

 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
 GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 
 
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