Guns of the Gods Part 31

"Then how in the world--?"

Yasmini's golden laugh cut short the question as she rose to her feet with a glance at the westering sun.

"Let us go. Two hours from now we shall cross the border into another state. Two hours after night-fall our journey is ended. Then the last game begins--the last chukker--and I win!"

Tess wished then that they had never halted! The rest had given her muscles time to stiffen, and her nerves the opportunity to learn how tired they were. As the camels rose jerkily and followed their leader in line at the same fast pace as before she grew sick with the agony of aching bones and the utter weariness of motion repeated again and again without varying or ceasing. Every ligament in her body craved only stillness, but the camel's unaccustomed thrust and sway continued, repeated to infinity, until her nerves grew numb and she was hardly conscious of time, distance, or direction.

Once again there was pursuit, but Tess was hardly conscious of it-- hardly realized that shots were fired--clinging to the saddle in the misery of a sickness more weakening and deathly than the sort small boats provide at sea. The sun went down and left her cooler, but not recovered.

She knew nothing of boundaries, or of the changing nature of the country- side. It meant nothing to her that they were pa.s.sing great trees now, and that once they crossed a stream by a wide stone bridge. The only thought that kept drumming in her mind was that d.i.c.k, the ever dependable, had misinformed her. She had "fetched it up"--a dozen times. True to his instruction, she had "carried on." But it did not pa.s.s! She felt more sick, more agonized, more weary every minute.

But at last, because there is an end even to the motion of a camel, in this world of example instances, about two hours after nightfall the caravan halted in the shadow of great trees beside a stone house with a wall about it. Her camel knelt with a motion like a landslide, and Tess fell off forward on the ground and fainted, only s.n.a.t.c.hed away by strong hands in the nick of time to save her from the camel's teeth. Uncertain, unforgiving brutes are camels--ungrateful for the toil men put them to.

For an hour after that she was only dimly conscious of being laid on something soft, and of supple, tireless women's hands that kneaded her, and kneaded her, taking the weary muscles one by one and coaxing them back to painlessness.

So she did not see the dog arrive--Trotters, the Rampore-Great Dane, cousin to half the mongrel stock of Hindustan, s...o...b..ring on a package that his set jaws hardly could release; Yasmini, scornful of the laws of caste and ever responsive to a true friend, pried it loose with strong fingers. It was she, too, who saw to the dog's needs--fed him and gave him drink--removed a thorn from his forefoot and made much of him.

She even gave Bimbu food, with her own hands, and saw that his driver and camel had a place to rest in, before she undid the string that bound the leather jacket of the package.

Bimbu on the camel had led the dog by the short route and, having nothing to be robbed of, had had small trouble with policemen on the way.

The first thing Tess was really conscious of when she regained her senses was a great dog that slumbered restlessly beside her own finger-marked, disheveled, dusty, fifty-dollar hat on the floor near by, awaking at intervals to sniff her hand and rea.s.sure himself--then returning to the hat to sleep, and gallop in his sleep; a rangy, gray, enormous beast with cavernous jaws that she presently recognized as Trotters.

Then came the maids again, afraid for their very lives of the dog, but still more mindful of Yasmini's orders. They resumed their kneading of stiff muscles, rubbing in oil that smelt of jasmine, singing incantations while they worked. They lifted the bed away from the wall, and one of the women danced around and around it rhythmically, surrounding Tess with what the West translates as "influence"--the spell that all the East knows keeps away evil interference.

Last of all by candlelight, Yasmini came, scented and fresh and smiling as the flower from which she has her name, dressed now in the soft-hued silken garments of a lady of the land.

"Where did you get them?" Tess asked her.

"These clothes? Oh, I have friends here. Have no fear now--there are friends on every side of us."

She showed Tess a letter, pierced in four places by a dog's eye-teeth.

"This is from Samson sahib. Do you remember how I prayed that Jinendra's priest might think to play me false? I think he has. Some one has been to Samson sahib. Hear this:

"'The Princess Yasmini Omanoff Singh, "'Your Highness, "'Word has reached me frequently of late of pressure brought to bear on you from certain quarters, and hints have been dropped in my hearing that the object of the pressure is to induce you to disclose a secret you possess. Let me a.s.sure you that my official protection from all illegal restraint and improper treatment is at your service. Further, that in case your secret is such as concerns vitally the political relations, present or future, of Sialpore the proper person to whom to confide it is myself. Should you see your way to take that only safe course, you may rest a.s.sured that your own interests will be cared for in every way possible.

"'I have the honor to be, "'Your Highness' obedient servant, "'Roland Samson, K. C. S. I.'"

"That looks fair enough," said Tess. "I dislike Samson for reasons of my own, but--"

"Hah!" laughed Yasmini. "He makes love to you! Is it not so? He would make love to me if I gave him opportunity! What a jest for the G.o.ds if I should play that game with him and make him marry me! I could! I could make of Samson a power in India! But the man would weary me with his conceit and his 'orders from higher up' within a week. I can have power without his help! What a royal jest, though, to marry Samson and intrigue with all the jealous English wives who think they pull the strings of government!"

"You'd get the worst of it," laughed Tess.

"Maybe. I shall never try it. I am more of the East than the West. But I will answer Samson. Bimbu shall remain here lest he talk too much, but the dog shall take a letter to Tom Tripe at dawn. Samson knew hours ago that I have flown the nest. He will wonder how Tom Tripe holds communication with me, and so swiftly, and will have greater respect for him--which may serve us later."

"Let me add a letter to my husband then, to tell him I'm safe."

"Surely. But now eat. Eat and be strong. Can you stand? Can you walk?

Have the maids put new life in you?"

Tess was astonished at her swift recovery. She was a little stiff--a little weak--a little tired; but she could walk up and down the room with her natural gait and Yasmini clapped her hands.

"I will order food brought. Listen! Tonight I am Abhisharika. Do you know what that is--Abhisharika?"

Tess shook her head.

"I go to my lover of my own accord!"

"That sounds more like West than East!"

"You think so? You shall come with me and see! You shall play the part of cheti (the indispensable hand-maiden)--you and Hasamurti.

You must dress like her. Simply be still and watch, and you shall see!"

Chapter Thirteen

Of what use were the gift of G.o.ds, The buoyant sweetness of a virgin state, The blossomy delight of youth Ablow with promise of fruit consummate; What use the affluence of song And marvel of delicious motion meet To grace the very revelings of Fawn, Could she not lay them at another's feet?

"I am a king's daughter!"

That was a night when the full-moon rose in a sea of silver, and changed into amber as it mounted in the sky. The light shone like liquid honey, and the shadowed earth was luminous and still. The very deepest of the shadows glowed with undertones of half-suggested color. Hardly a zephyr moved.

"You see?" said Yasmini. "The G.o.ds are our servants! They have set the stage!"

Hand in hand--Yasmini in the midst in spotless silken white; Tess and Hasamurti draped in black from head to foot--they left the house by a high teak door in the garden wall and started down a road half hidden by lacy shadows. All three wore sandals on bare feet, and Tess was afraid at first of insects.

"Have no fear of anything tonight," Yasmini whispered. "The G.o.ds are all about us! Wasuki, who is king of all the snakes, is on our side!"

One could not speak aloud, for the spell of mystery overlay everything.

They walked into the very heart of silent beauty. Overhead, enormous trees, in which the sacred monkeys slept, dropped tendrils like long arms yearning with the love of mother earth. Here and there the embers of a dying fire glowed crimson, and the only occasional sound was of sleepy cattle that chewed the cud contentedly--or when a monkey moved above them to change his roost. Once, a man's voice singing by a fireside conjured back for a moment the world's hard illusion; but the stillness and the mystery overcame him too, and all was true again, and wonderful.

Hand in hand they followed the road to its end and turned into a lane between thorn hedges. Now the moon shone straight toward them and there was no shadow, so that the earth was bright golden underfoot-- a lane of mellow light on which they trod between fantastic woven walls.

At the end of the lane they came into a clearing at a forested-edge, where an ancient ruined temple nestled in the shadow of great trees, its stone front and the seated image of a long-neglected G.o.d restored to more than earthly sanct.i.ty and peace by the cool, caressing moonlight.

"Jinendra again!" Yasmini whispered. "Always Jinendra! His priests are rascals, but the G.o.d himself is kind! When I am maharanee, that temple shall stand whole again!"

In front of the temple, between them and the trees, was a pond edged with carved stone. Lotus leaves floated on the water, and one blue flower was open wide to welcome whoever loved serenity.

Still hand in hand, they crossed the clearing mid-way to the pond, and there Yasmini bade them stand.

"Draw no nearer. Only stand and watch."

She had a great blue flower in her bosom that heaved and fell for proof of her own emotion. Hasamurti's hand was trembling as she nestled closer, and Tess felt her own pulsing to quick heart-beats as she clasped the girl's.