There she stood radiant but half doubting, stately and yet so sweet. It was but a moment, but I then and there fell in love with her myself, and have remained so to this hour; for, indeed, she looked more like an angel out of heaven than a loving, pa.s.sionate, mortal woman. Low we bowed before her, and then she spoke.
"I have come," she whispered, "but it was at great risk. Ye know not how I am watched. The priests watch me. Sorais watches me with those great eyes of hers. My very guards are spies upon me. Nasta watches me too.
Oh, let him be careful!" and she stamped her foot. "Let him be careful; I am a woman, and therefore hard to drive. Ay, and I am a Queen, too, and can still avenge. Let him be careful, I say, lest in place of giving him my hand I take his head," and she ended the outburst with a little sob, and then smiled up at us bewitchingly and laughed.
"Thou didst bid me come hither, my Lord Incubu" (Curtis had taught her to call him so). "Doubtless it is about business of the State, for I know that thou art ever full of great ideas and plans for my welfare and my people"s. So even as a Queen should I have come, though I greatly fear the dark alone," and again she laughed and gave him a glance from her grey eyes.
At this point I thought it wise to move a little, since secrets "of the State" should not be made public property; but she would not let me go far, peremptorily stopping me within five yards or so, saying that she feared surprise. So it came to pa.s.s that, however unwillingly, I heard all that pa.s.sed.
"Thou knowest, Nyleptha," said Sir Henry, "that it was for none of these things that I asked thee to meet me at this lonely place. Nyleptha, waste not the time in pleasantry, but listen to me, for--I love thee."
As he said the words I saw her face break up, as it were, and change.
The coquetry went out of it, and in its place there shone a great light of love which seemed to glorify it, and make it like that of the marble angel overhead. I could not help thinking that it must have been a touch of prophetic instinct which made the long dead Rademas limn, in the features of the angel of his inspiring vision, so strange a likeness of his own descendant. Sir Henry, also, must have observed and been struck by the likeness, for, catching the look upon Nyleptha"s face, he glanced quickly from it to the moonlit statue, and then back again at his beloved.
"Thou sayest thou dost love me," she said in a low voice, "and thy voice rings true, but how am I to know that thou dost speak the truth?"
"Though," she went on with proud humility, and in the stately third person which is so largely used by the Zu-Vendi, "I be as nothing in the eyes of my lord," and she curtseyed towards him, "who comes from among a wonderful people, to whom my people are but children, yet here am I a queen and a leader of men, and if I would go to battle a hundred thousand spears shall sparkle in my train like stars glimmering down the path of the bent moon. And although my beauty be a little thing in the eyes of my lord," and she lifted her broidered skirt and curtseyed again, "yet here among my own people am I held right fair, and ever since I was a woman the great lords of my kingdom have made quarrel concerning me, as though forsooth," she added with a flash of pa.s.sion, "I were a deer to be pulled down by the hungriest wolf, or a horse to be sold to the highest bidder. Let my lord pardon me if I weary my lord, but it hath pleased my lord to say that he loves me, Nyleptha, a Queen of the Zu-Vendi, and therefore would I say that though my love and my hand be not much to my lord, yet to me are they all."
"Oh!" she cried, with a sudden and thrilling change of voice, and modifying her dignified mode of address. "Oh, how can I know that thou lovest but me? How can I know that thou wilt not weary of me and seek thine own place again, leaving me desolate? Who is there to tell me but that thou lovest some other woman, some fair woman unknown to me, but who yet draws breath beneath this same moon that shines on me tonight?
Tell me _how_ am I to know?" And she clasped her hands and stretched them out towards him and looked appealingly into his face.
"Nyleptha," answered Sir Henry, adopting the Zu-Vendi way of speech; "I have told thee that I love thee; how am I to tell thee how much I love thee? Is there then a measure for love? Yet will I try. I say not that I have never looked upon another woman with favour, but this I say that I love thee with all my life and with all my strength; that I love thee now and shall love thee till I grow cold in death, ay, and as I believe beyond my death, and on and on for ever: I say that thy voice is music to my ear, and thy touch as water to a thirsty land, that when thou art there the world is beautiful, and when I see thee not it is as though the light was dead. Oh, Nyleptha, I will never leave thee; here and now for thy dear sake I will forget my people and my father"s house, yea, I renounce them all. By thy side will I live, Nyleptha, and at thy side will I die."
He paused and gazed at her earnestly, but she hung her head like a lily, and said never a word.
"Look!" he went on, pointing to the statue on which the moonlight played so brightly. "Thou seest that angel woman who rests her hand upon the forehead of the sleeping man, and thou seest how at her touch his soul flames up and shines out through his flesh, even as a lamp at the touch of the fire, so is it with me and thee, Nyleptha. Thou hast awakened my soul and called it forth, and now, Nyleptha, it is not mine, not mine, but _thine_ and thine only. There is no more for me to say; in thy hands is my life." And he leaned back against the pedestal of the statue, looking very pale, and his eyes shining, but proud and handsome as a G.o.d.
Slowly, slowly she raised her head, and fixed her wonderful eyes, all alight with the greatness of her pa.s.sion, full upon his face, as though to read his very soul. Then at last she spoke, low indeed, but clearly as a silver bell.
"Of a truth, weak woman that I am, I do believe thee. Ill will be the day for thee and for me also if it be my fate to learn that I have believed a lie. And now hearken to me, oh man, who hath wandered here from far to steal my heart and make me all thine own. I put my hand upon thy hand thus, and thus I, whose lips have never kissed before, do kiss thee on the brow; and now by my hand and by that first and holy kiss, ay, by my people"s weal and by my throne that like enough I shall lose for thee--by the name of my high House, by the sacred Stone and by the eternal majesty of the Sun, I swear that for thee will I live and die.
And I swear that I will love thee and thee only till death, ay, and beyond, if as thou sayest there be a beyond, and that thy will shall be my will, and thy ways my ways.
"Oh see, see, my lord! thou knowest not how humble is she who loves; I, who am a Queen, I kneel before thee, even at thy feet I do my homage;"
and the lovely impa.s.sioned creature flung herself down on her knees on the cold marble before him. And after that I really do not know, for I could stand it no longer, and cleared off to refresh myself with a little of old Umslopogaas" society, leaving them to settle it their own way, and a very long time they were about it.
I found the old warrior leaning on Inkosi-kaas as usual, and surveying the scene in the patch of moonlight with a grim smile of amus.e.m.e.nt.
"Ah, Mac.u.mazahn," he said, "I suppose it is because I am getting old, but I don"t think that I shall ever learn to understand the ways of you white people. Look there now, I pray thee, they are a pretty pair of doves, but what is all the fuss about, Mac.u.mazahn? He wants a wife, and she wants a husband, then why does he not pay his cows down {Endnote 17} like a man and have done with it? It would save a deal of trouble, and we should have had our night"s sleep. But there they go, talk, talk, talk, and kiss, kiss, kiss, like mad things. Eugh!"
Some three-quarters of an hour afterwards the "pair of doves" came strolling towards us, Curtis looking slightly silly, and Nyleptha remarking calmly that the moonlight made very pretty effects on the marble. Then, for she was in a most gracious mood, she took my hand and said that I was "her Lord"s" dear friend, and therefore most dear to her--not a word for my own sake, you see. Next she lifted Umslopogaas"
axe, and examined it curiously, saying significantly as she did so that he might soon have cause to use it in defence of her.
After that she nodded prettily to us all, and casting a tender glance at her lover, glided off into the darkness like a beautiful vision.
When we got back to our quarters, which we did without accident, Curtis asked me jocularly what I was thinking about.
"I am wondering," I answered, "on what principle it is arranged that some people should find beautiful queens to fall in love with them, while others find n.o.body at all, or worse than n.o.body; and I am also wondering how many brave men"s lives this night"s work will cost." It was rather nasty of me, perhaps, but somehow all the feelings do not evaporate with age, and I could not help being a little jealous of my old friend"s luck. Vanity, my sons; vanity of vanities!
On the following morning, Good was informed of the happy occurrence, and positively rippled with smiles that, originating somewhere about the mouth, slowly travelled up his face like the rings in a duckpond, till they flowed over the brim of his eyegla.s.s and went where sweet smiles go. The fact of the matter, however, was that not only was Good rejoiced about the thing on its own merits but also for personal reasons. He adored Sorais quite as earnestly as Sir Henry adored Nyleptha, and his adoration had not altogether prospered. Indeed, it had seemed to him and to me also that the dark Cleopatra-like queen favoured Curtis in her own curious inscrutable way much more than Good. Therefore it was a relief to him to learn that his unconscious rival was permanently and satisfactorily attached in another direction. His face fell a little, however, when he was told that the whole thing was to be kept as secret as the dead, above all from Sorais for the present, inasmuch as the political convulsion which would follow such an announcement at the moment would be altogether too great to face and would very possibly, if prematurely made, shake Nyleptha from her throne.
That morning we again attended in the Throne Hall, and I could not help smiling to myself when I compared the visit to our last, and reflecting that, if walls could speak, they would have strange tales to tell.
What actresses women are! There, high upon her golden throne, draped in her blazoned "kaf" or robe of state, sat the fair Nyleptha, and when Sir Henry came in a little late, dressed in the full uniform of an officer of her guard and humbly bent himself before her, she merely acknowledged his salute with a careless nod and turned her head coldly aside. It was a very large Court, for not only did the signing of the laws attract many outside of those whose duty it was to attend, but also the rumour that Nasta was going to publicly ask the hand of Nyleptha in marriage had gone abroad, with the result that the great hall was crowded to its utmost capacity. There were our friends the priests in force, headed by Agon, who regarded us with a vindictive eye; and a most imposing band they were, with their long white embroidered robes girt with a golden chain from which hung the fish-like scales. There, too, were a number of the lords, each with a band of brilliantly attired attendants, and prominent among them was Nasta, stroking his black beard meditatively and looking unusually pleasant. It was a splendid and impressive sight, especially when the officer after having read out each law handed them to the Queens to sign, whereon the trumpets blared out and the Queens"
guard grounded their spears with a crash in salute. This reading and signing of the laws took a long time, but at length it came to an end, the last one reciting that "whereas distinguished strangers, etc.", and proceeding to confer on the three of us the rank of "lords", together with certain military commands and large estates bestowed by the Queen.
When it was read the trumpets blared and the spears clashed down as usual, but I saw some of the lords turn and whisper to each other, while Nasta ground his teeth. They did not like the favour that was shown to us, which under all the circ.u.mstances was not perhaps unnatural.
Then there came a pause, and Nasta stepped forward and bowing humbly, though with no humility in his eye, craved a boon at the hands of the Queen Nyleptha.
Nyleptha turned a little pale, but bowed graciously, and prayed the "well-beloved lord" to speak on, whereon in a few straightforward soldier-like words he asked her hand in marriage.
Then, before she could find words to answer, the High Priest Agon took up the tale, and in a speech of real eloquence and power pointed out the many advantages of the proposed alliance; how it would consolidate the kingdom, for Nasta"s dominions, of which he was virtually king, were to Zu-Vendis much what Scotland used to be to England; how it would gratify the wild mountaineers and be popular among the soldiery, for Nasta was a famous general; how it would set her dynasty firmly on the throne, and would gain the blessing and approval of the "Sun", i.e. of the office of the High Priest, and so on. Many of his arguments were undoubtedly valid, and there was, looking at it from a political point of view, everything to be said for the marriage. But unfortunately it is difficult to play the game of politics with the persons of young and lovely queens as though they were ivory effigies of themselves on a chessboard. Nyleptha"s face, while Agon spouted away, was a perfect study; she smiled indeed, but beneath the smile it set like a stone, and her eyes began to flash ominously.
At last he stopped, and she prepared herself to answer. Before she did so, however, Sorais leant towards her and said in a voice sufficiently loud for me to catch what she said, "Bethink thee well, my sister, ere thou dost speak, for methinks that our thrones may hang upon thy words."
Nyleptha made no answer, and with a shrug and a smile Sorais leant back again and listened.
"Of a truth a great honour has been done to me," she said, "that my poor hand should not only have been asked in marriage, but that Agon here should be so swift to p.r.o.nounce the blessing of the Sun upon my union.
Methinks that in another minute he would have wed us fast ere the bride had said her say. Nasta, I thank thee, and I will bethink me of thy words, but now as yet I have no mind for marriage, that is a cup of which none know the taste until they begin to drink it. Again I thank thee, Nasta," and she made as though she would rise.
The great lord"s face turned almost as black as his beard with fury, for he knew that the words amounted to a final refusal of his suit.
"Thanks be to the Queen for her gracious words," he said, restraining himself with difficulty and looking anything but grateful, "my heart shall surely treasure them. And now I crave another boon, namely, the royal leave to withdraw myself to my own poor cities in the north till such time as the Queen shall say my suit nay or yea. Mayhap," he added, with a sneer, "the Queen will be pleased to visit me there, and to bring with her these stranger lords," and he scowled darkly towards us. "It is but a poor country and a rough, but we are a hardy race of mountaineers, and there shall be gathered thirty thousand swordsmen to shout a welcome to her."
This speech, which was almost a declaration of rebellion, was received in complete silence, but Nyleptha flushed up and answered it with spirit.
"Oh, surely, Nasta, I will come, and the strange lords in my train, and for every man of thy mountaineers who calls thee Prince, will I bring two from the lowlands who call me Queen, and we will see which is the staunchest breed. Till then farewell."
The trumpets blared out, the Queens rose, and the great a.s.sembly broke up in murmuring confusion, and for myself I went home with a heavy heart foreseeing civil war.
After this there was quiet for a few weeks. Curtis and the Queen did not often meet, and exercised the utmost caution not to allow the true relation in which they stood to each other to leak out; but do what they would, rumours as hard to trace as a buzzing fly in a dark room, and yet quite as audible, began to hum round and round, and at last to settle on her throne.
CHAPTER XVII THE STORM BREAKS
And now it was that the trouble which at first had been but a cloud as large as a man"s hand began to loom very black and big upon our horizon, namely, Sorais" preference for Sir Henry. I saw the storm drawing nearer and nearer; and so, poor fellow, did he. The affection of so lovely and highly-placed a woman was not a thing that could in a general way be considered a calamity by any man, but, situated as Curtis was, it was a grievous burden to bear.
To begin with, Nyleptha, though altogether charming, was, it must be admitted, of a rather jealous disposition, and was sometimes apt to visit on her lover"s head her indignation at the marks of what Alphonse would have called the "distinguished consideration" with which her royal sister favoured him. Then the enforced secrecy of his relation to Nyleptha prevented Curtis from taking some opportunity of putting a stop, or trying to put a stop, to this false condition of affairs, by telling Sorais, in a casual but confidential way, that he was going to marry her sister. A third sting in Sir Henry"s honey was that he knew that Good was honestly and sincerely attached to the ominous-looking but most attractive Lady of the Night. Indeed, poor Bougwan was wasting himself to a shadow of his fat and jolly self about her, his face getting so thin that his eyegla.s.s would scarcely stick in it; while she, with a sort of careless coquetry, just gave him encouragement enough to keep him going, thinking, no doubt, that he might be useful as a stalking-horse. I tried to give him a hint, in as delicate a way as I could, but he flew into a huff and would not listen to me, so I was determined to let ill along, for fear of making it worse. Poor Good, he really was very ludicrous in his distress, and went in for all sorts of absurdities, under the belief that he was advancing his suit. One of them was the writing--with the a.s.sistance of one of the grave and revered signiors who instructed us, and who, whatever may have been the measure of his erudition, did not understand how to scan a line--of a most interminable Zu-Vendi love-song, of which the continually recurring refrain was something about "I will kiss thee; oh yes, I will kiss thee!" Now among the Zu-Vendi it is a common and most harmless thing for young men to serenade ladies at night, as I believe they do in the southern countries of Europe, and sing all sorts of nonsensical songs to them. The young men may or may not be serious; but no offence is meant and none is taken, even by ladies of the highest rank, who accept the whole thing as an English girl would a gracefully-turned compliment.
Availing himself of this custom, Good bethought him that would serenade Sorais, whose private apartments, together with those of her maidens, were exactly opposite our own, on the further side of a narrow courtyard which divided one section of the great palace from another. Accordingly, having armed himself with a native zither, on which, being an adept with the light guitar, he had easily learned to strum, he proceeded at midnight--the fashionable hour for this sort of caterwauling--to make night hideous with his amorous yells. I was fast asleep when they began, but they soon woke me up--for Good possesses a tremendous voice and has no notion of time--and I ran to my window-place to see what was the matter. And there, standing in the full moonlight in the courtyard, I perceived Good, adorned with an enormous ostrich feather head-dress and a flowing silken cloak, which it is the right thing to wear upon these occasions, and shouting out the abominable song which he and the old gentleman had evolved, to a jerky, jingling accompaniment. From the direction of the quarters of the maids of honour came a succession of faint sn.i.g.g.e.rings; but the apartments of Sorais herself--whom I devoutly pitied if she happened to be there--were silent as the grave. There was absolutely no end to that awful song, with its eternal "I will kiss thee!" and at last neither I nor Sir Henry, whom I had summoned to enjoy the sight, could stand it any longer; so, remembering the dear old story, I put my head to the window opening, and shouted, "For Heaven"s sake, Good, don"t go on talking about it, but _kiss_ her and let"s all go to sleep!" That choked him off, and we had no more serenading.
The whole thing formed a laughable incident in a tragic business. How deeply thankful we ought to be that even the most serious matters have generally a silver lining about them in the shape of a joke, if only people could see it. The sense of humour is a very valuable possession in life, and ought to be cultivated in the Board schools--especially in Scotland.
Well, the more Sir Henry held off the more Sorais came on, as is not uncommon in such cases, till at last things got very queer indeed.
Evidently she was, by some strange perversity of mind, quite blinded to the true state of the case; and I, for one, greatly dreaded the moment of her awakening. Sorais was a dangerous woman to be mixed up with, either with or without one"s consent. At last the evil moment came, as I saw it must come. One fine day, Good having gone out hawking, Sir Henry and I were sitting quietly talking over the situation, especially with reference to Sorais, when a Court messenger arrived with a written note, which we with some difficulty deciphered, and which was to the effect that "the Queen Sorais commanded the attendance of the Lord Incubu in her private apartments, whither he would be conducted by the bearer".
"Oh my word!" groaned Sir Henry. "Can"t you go instead, old fellow?"