The Native Born; or, the Rajah's People Part 3

"I can guess," he answered, half smiling. "When Travers has a suggestion to make, it usually means that some one has to stump up."

There was a general laugh. Travers looked around.

"Some one has accused me falsely," he declared. "I have a prophetic sense of injury."

"On the contrary, that is what I am suffering from," Stafford retorted.

"Since hearing that you have a new scheme, I have been hastily reckoning how many weeks' leave I shall have to sacrifice to pay for it."

Travers shook his head.

"As usual--wrong, my dear Captain," he said. "My scheme has two parts. The first part is known to you all, though for the benefit of weak memories, I will repeat it. Ladies and gentlemen, in this Station we have the honor of being protected from the malice of the aborigine by two n.o.ble regiments.

We count, moreover, at least thirty of the fair s.e.x and forty miscellaneous persons, such as miserable civilians like myself, and children. Hitherto, we have been content to meet at odd times and odd places. When hospitality has run dry, we have resorted to a shed-like structure dignified with the name of club. Personally, I call it a disgrace, which should at once be rectified."

"I have already contributed my mite!" protested a young subaltern from the British regiment.

"I know; so has everybody. With strenuous efforts I have collected the sum of five hundred rupees. That won't do. We require at least four times that sum. Consequently, we must have a patron."

"The second part of your programme concerns the patron, then?" Captain Webb inquired, with an aspect of considerable relief. "Not yourself, by any chance?"

"Certainly not. If I had any n.o.ble inclinations of that sort I should have discovered them a long time ago. No, I content myself with taking the part of a fairy G.o.dmother."

"I'm afraid I don't follow," Stafford put in. "What is the fairy G.o.dmother going to do for us? Produce a club-house, a patron, or a cuc.u.mber?"

"A patron, and one, my dear fellow, whom I should have entirely overlooked had it not been for you."

"For me!"

"It was you who made the discovery that the present Rajah is not, as we thought, an imbecilic youth, but a man of many parts and splendidly adapted to our requirements."

"I protest!" broke in Stafford, with unusual earnestness. "It was by pure chance that, in an audience with the Maharajah Scindia, the late regent of Marut, I got to hear that his whilom ward was both intelligent and cultured. I believe it was a slip on his part, and, seeing that Rajah Nehal Singh has shunned all English intercourse, I can not see that there is any likelihood of his adapting himself or his purse to your plans."

"Oh, bos.h.!.+" exclaimed Travers impatiently. "You are too cautious, Stafford. Other rajahs interest themselves in social matters--why not this one? He is fabulously rich, I understand, and a little gentle handling should easily bring him around."

There was a chorus of bravos, in which only one or two did not join. One was Colonel Carmichael, who stood a little apart, pulling his thin grey moustache in the nervous, anxious way peculiar to him, his kindly face overshadowed.

"On principle," he began, after the first applause had died down, "I am against the suggestion. Of course, I have no deciding voice in the matter, but I confess that the idea has not my approval. I know very well that, as you say, other native princes have proved themselves useful and valuable acquisitions to English society. In some cases it may be well enough, though in no case does it seem to me right to accept hospitality from a man to whom we only grant an apparent equality. In this particular case I consider the idea--well, repulsive."

"May I ask why, Colonel?" Travers asked sharply.

"By all means. Because less than a quarter of a century ago the father of the man from whom you are seeking gifts slaughtered by treachery hundreds of our own people."

An uncomfortable, uneasy silence followed. Captain Stafford and Lois exchanged a quick glance of understanding.

"I know of at least two people who will agree with me," continued the Colonel, who had intercepted and possibly antic.i.p.ated the glance.

"You are right, Colonel," Stafford said. "I bear no malice, and any idea of revenge seems to me foolish. As far as I know, the present Rajah is all that can be desired, but I protest against a suggestion--and what is worse, a practice, which must inevitably lower our dignity in the eyes of those we are supposed to govern."

The awkward silence continued for a moment, no one caring to express a contrary opinion, though a contrary opinion undoubtedly existed.

Beatrice looked up at Captain Webb, who happened to be standing at her side. Her acquaintance with him dated only from an hour back, but an uncontrollable irritation made her voice her opinions to him.

"I think all that sort of thing rather overstrained and unnecessary," she said. "Your chief business is to get the best out of life, and quixotic people who worry about the means are rather a nuisance, don't you think?"

Captain Webb's bored features lighted up with a faint amus.e.m.e.nt.

"O, Lor', you mustn't say that sort of thing to me, Miss Cary!" he said in a subdued aside. "Superior officer, you know! If you want an index to my feelings, study my countenance." He pretended to smother a gigantic yawn, and Beatrice's cool, unchecked laughter broke the constraint.

Travers look around with a return of his old good-humor.

"Well," he said, "I have two votes against my plans, but, with due respect to those two, who are, perhaps, unduly influenced by unfortunate circ.u.mstances, I feel that it is only just that the others should be given a voice in the matter. Do you agree, Colonel?"

Colonel Carmichael had by this time regained his placid, gentle manner.

"Certainly," he agreed, without hesitation.

"Hands up, then, for letting Rajah Nehal Singh go his way in peace!"

Three hands went up--Colonel Carmichael's, Stafford's and Lois'. Beatrice glanced at the latter with a smile that expressed what it was meant to express--a supercilious amus.e.m.e.nt. Her indifference was rapidly taking another and more decided character.

"Hands up for drawing the bashful youth into Circe's circle!" called Travers, now thoroughly elated. A forest of hands went up. Captain Webb and his bosom comrade, Captain Saunders, who, for diplomatic reasons had remained neutral, exchanged grins. "You see," Travers said, turning with deferential politeness to the Colonel, "the day is against you."

"The Old Guard dies, but never surrenders!" quoted the Colonel good-humoredly.

"The next question is, on whose shoulders shall the task of beguilement fall?" Travers went on, glancing at Stafford. "I suppose you, O, wise young judge--?"

"It is out of the question," Stafford answered at once. "I consider I have done enough damage already."

"What about your serpent's tongue, Travers?" suggested Webb. "When I think of the follies you have tempted me to commit, I feel that you should be unanimously elected."

Travers bowed his acknowledgments with mock gravity.

"Since there are no other candidates, I accept the onerous task," he said, "but I can not go about it single-handed. The serpent's tongue may be mine, but I lack, I fear, the grace and personal charm necessary for complete conquest. I need the help of Circe, herself." His bright, bird-like eye pa.s.sed over the laughing group, resting on Lois an instant with an expression of woebegone regret. Beatrice Cary was the next in line, and his search went no farther than her flushed, eager face. "Ah!"

he exclaimed, "I have found the enchantress herself! Miss----" He hesitated, for an instant unaccountably shaken out of his debonair self-possession. Webb sprang to the rescue with a formal introduction, and Travers proceeded, if not entirely with his old equanimity. "I beg your pardon, Miss Cary," he apologized. "Your face is, strangely enough, so familiar to me that I took you for an old acquaintance--perhaps, indeed, you are, if in our modern days Circe finds it necessary to travel incognito."

Beatrice joined in the general amus.e.m.e.nt, her unusually large and beautiful eyes bright with elation.

"May I claim your a.s.sistance?" Travers went on. "Instinct tells me that we shall be irresistible."

"Willingly," Beatrice responded, "though I can not imagine how I can help you."

"Leave that to me," he said, offering her his arm. "My plans are Napoleonic in their depth and magnitude. If you will allow me to unfold them to you before the dancing begins--?"

She smiled her a.s.sent, and walked at his side toward the Colonel's bungalow. On their way they pa.s.sed Mrs. Cary, who, strangely enough, did not respond to the half-triumphant glance which her daughter cast at her.

She turned hastily aside.

"Mr. Travers is no doubt--" she began, in a confidential undertone; but her companion, Mrs. Carmichael, had taken the opportunity and vanished.

The light-hearted, superficial discussion, with its scarcely felt undercurrent of tragic reminiscence, had lasted through the swift sunset, and already dusk was beginning to throw its long shadows over the gaily dressed figures that streamed up toward the bungalow.