[Footnote J: A literal translation of the name "Jahangir."]
"Follow me to the village. There we can procure a light."
Whatever purpose she had in mind she gave no sign of her intent until she had perused the script which Ibrahim handed to her. Mowbray, watching her mobile features as she broke the seal of the Emperor"s parchment, whilst one of her women held a lantern, saw only an expression of fixed resolve, her set lips and thoughtful eyes revealing a determination to carry out in the best way the course upon which she had already decided.
She read Jahangir"s letter twice before she spoke, and, even then, there was an odd restraint in her manner when she addressed Mowbray and Sainton, who, with the Chief Eunuch, had accompanied her in silence.
"Jahangir told his envoy the chief part of that which he has written.
Ibrahim"s message is exact in so far as it touches your affairs. I will fulfil the Emperor"s behests in all save one slight matter. You must not return to Agra. The Ganges lies a short march ahead, and, now that I have Jahangir"s written promise to pay you, there is no reason why I should not discharge his obligations."
"I have brought no great store of money," put in Ibrahim nervously.
"Said I aught to thee?" she blazed out at him. "It will be thy turn to speak when the Emperor demands a witness."
"Do you revert to a proposal which we have once refused?" asked Walter, with Saxon doggedness frowning in his face.
"I revert to your promise given me quarter of an hour ago."
"I swore to obey you, but--"
"Obey then, without question. Since you force me to it, I command you to accept my jewels in payment of the Emperor"s debt. A lakh and a half, is it not? If you are not cheated, they are worth as much. Further, I advise you to retain a score of my men until you reach Calcutta. They will follow you, I doubt not, but, to make certain of their allegiance, I shall promise them a good reward if they return bearing me a letter from you. They cannot deceive me, as I shall have your signature on the receipt for the money."
"In truth, Princess, "tis easy to see that you are the daughter of the High Treasurer," broke in Roger suddenly. Nur Mahal"s tense expression relaxed for an instant; nevertheless, Walter, vexed that he should be forced into a settlement exceedingly repulsive to his feelings, asked gloomily:--
"What other of the Emperor"s requests do you carry out?"
"I go back to the Garden of Heart"s Delight. You spoke just now of fortunate names. Is it not happily ent.i.tled?"
The quiet scorn of the question revealed to him an utter hopelessness which was so greatly at variance with her confident mien during their flight that not even the scene which took place in the field of millet served to explain it wholly to his puzzled brain. In the presence of the rabbit-eared Chief Eunuch it was not advisable to say too much, but he could not forbear a comment.
"I have heard you describe a woman"s mind as a lake," he said. "Will you forgive me if I liken it to a whirlpool, in which thoughts flowing in one direction at one moment, fly in the opposite way the next."
She laughed lightly, though the joy had gone from her mirth.
"You still would have me go to Burdwan?" she cried.
"Yes; and I care not who hears."
"Nor do I, for the Emperor bids me return, and I am dutiful. Who could deny the wish of so benignant a prince?"
"Burdwan without a husband is not to your liking, perchance. It would be dry meat, anyhow, as the fellow said after coursing a hare and losing it," said Roger, who, for a cause best known to himself, attempted to deprive the undercurrent of their speech of its vinegar.
"Spare us such ill-timed jokes," growled Mowbray angrily in English, but Roger only answered:--
"Gad! if the quip run not with thy humor, leg it after the hare again."
Walter realized that his level-headed comrade appreciated the situation sanely, and was, indeed, advising him how to act. Yet he was torn by a thousand conflicting emotions. That field of millet had been to him a bed of nettles. He was still smarting from the sting of recollection. If Nur Mahal offered herself twice to no man, a.s.suredly she was a woman whom few men would refuse at the first asking. And to what purpose had he thrust her away? For all he knew to the contrary, Nellie Roe might be married these two years. He had conversed with that sprightly maid during half a day. He had kissed her once. He had seen her fall fainting into the arms of Anna Cave, as any girl might have done who witnessed the arrest of a young cavalier for whom she felt a pa.s.sing regard and whose ill fortunes were incurred in her behalf. Frail bonds, these, to hold in leash a warm-blooded youth!
His adventurous soul spurred him on to follow the career which Nur Mahal offered him. In those days, when the world was young, a stout heart and a ready sword were a man"s chief credentials. In no land did they lead to the Paradise of happy chance more readily than in India, where the golden fruit of the paG.o.da tree was ever ripe for him who dared to shake a laden branch. And yet, and yet--a lover"s kiss in an English garden withheld him from the glamour of it all.
It was fortunate, perhaps, in that hour of fiercest temptation, that Nur Mahal was too proud to stoop again to conquer. There were not wanting signs to her quick intelligence that Mowbray was fighting with beasts at Ephesus. Yet she disdained, by word or look, to join the contest, and it may be that her Eastern brain conceived a more subtle way of achieving her object. She brought forth the little box of cedar wood and handed it to Walter.
"Take heed, Ibrahim," she said, "that I have given the sahiba diamonds to the value of a lakh and a half. You shall prepare a full quittance for the Emperor, and Mowbray-sahib shall sign it. Be speedy!"
She gave Walter a quick look from those wonderful eyes of hers.
"Whilst Ibrahim inscribes the receipt," she continued, "you should choose your attendants."
"At this hour?"
"Why not? When an Emperor is urgent the night becomes day. I begin the march back to Agra forthwith."
Even the wearied Chief Eunuch would have protested, but she did not deign to heed his stammering words. It took Ibrahim some time to write all Jahangir"s t.i.tles on the parchment which set forth Nur Mahal"s settlement of Akbar"s debt. When the last flourish was drawn, and Mowbray had appended his name to the script, with Roger"s cross as agreeing to the same, the masterful lady herself was equipped for the road.
She sought no private leave-taking of the man whom, an hour earlier, she was willing to espouse. Before them all, she curtsied most gracefully to the two Englishmen.
"Farewell, sahiba," she said. "May Allah prosper you!"
And with that she was gone. Ere they were fully resolved that this was, indeed, the end, they heard the hoof-beats of her retreating cavalcade.
Soon they knew, from the distant commotion, that the Emperor"s troopers were withdrawing to their last camping-place.
Mowbray, a prey to thoughts which he could ill control, stood with Sainton a little apart from the cl.u.s.ter of mud huts adjoining their bivouac. Roger, sympathizing with the stress of his comrade"s reflections, gazed at the stars and softly whistled a few bars of an air popular in the North:
"O, do ye ken Elsie Marley, honey-- The wife that sells the barley, honey?
For Elsie Marley"s grown so fine, She wean"t get up to feed the swine."
But Jai Singh, who had elected to go with them to Calcutta, did not scruple to break in on his new master"s reverie. To him, no matter what the comedy played by his mistress, one woman more or less in the world was of little import.
"Do we, too, march to-night, sahib?" he asked, when he discovered Mowbray on the outskirts of the hamlet.
"No," was the curt reply.
"Then, sahib, if Khuda permits it, let us sleep. Three times in one month have we pa.s.sed restless nights in this accursed village."
"Ha! Why are these poor dwellings more hateful than any others pa.s.sed on the road?"
"I know not, sahib, unless it be a meeting-place of evil spirits. When the Maharani came this way to Burdwan she wept all night and refused to be comforted. When she returned she wept again, for it was here we rested after regaining the great road. To-night, when I saw her smiling whilst she conversed with your Lordships, I thought the spell was broken. Yet, by the beard of Manu, now she is gone--and for what?--to indulge the fancy of a king who murdered that good man, Sher Afghan."
"It may be that the local fiends are unfriendly to her and not to thee, Jai Singh. Sleep in peace. We march betimes in the morning."
He knew full well that ambition was the sprite which plagued Nur Mahal.
It had tortured many before her, nor would it cease to vex mankind long after her restless soul was stilled eternally.
"In truth," said Roger, as they walked slowly after Jai Singh, "I am resolved now that your lucky star shines over these hovels, lad. Had you tried to shoe yon filly she would have requited you by kicking you into the smithy fire."
"My soul, that would be the proper lot of an indifferent smith," said Mowbray, with a queer bitterness in his voice, for weak human nature is so made up of contradictions that he missed Nur Mahal sorely now that he had seen the last of her.
"Ecod, if that is your way of thinking, why didn"t you give her a hearty hug when she led you forth into the field of chick-peas? Women will oft yield to a squeeze when they cry "Pshaw" to a sigh. My mother told me--"