feels something in that love song – in the sorrowing voice that does not anger him."
A peacock, wakened from his sleep by the leopard, sent out a warning call to jungle dwellers that a killer was afoot. "Meough, meough, meough!" he cried in shrill discordancy.
The song of love-search drifted in from the sal trees, through the mango tope beyond the palace, along the banks of the Lake of the Golden Coin, and up the ghat steps to the terrace.
In the moonlight the girl's face, as she came slowly up the steps, was beautiful; her grace of movement was exquisite. Followed by the musician, she passed along the terrace with no notice of the prince or his guests. At the far end, she dropped to her knees beside a figure that had lain there – her slain soldier lover. She lifted his head into her lap, and the song rose in an intensity of lament; then it died down to a croon; the desolate woman's head drooped until her luxuriant hair shrouded the soldier's face. Suddenly the crooning chant was stilled; the girl's face thrust up through its veil of hair, and the eyes, showing a gleam of madness in the moonlight, swept the vault above.
"She has become crazed by the death of her lover," the prince explained softly. As the girl commenced a low chant he added: "She now asks of the gods what she must do to receive back his life. She thinks, in her madness, they answer that if she dances so that it pleases Krishna the soldier will be restored to life."
Tenderly the girl laid the head of her lover down, kissing him on the staring eyes, and then commenced a slow, sinuous dance, the violin, with its myriad wire strings, pulsating with sobs. The soft, enveloping moon shimmer lent a mystic touch of unreality to the elfin form that seemed to float in rhythmic waves against the dark background of the sal forest. Faster and faster grew the dance, more and more weird the wail of the violin, and the plaint from the girl for her lover's life became a frenzied cry. Now she had failed; her strength was gone; death still held in its cold fingers the heart of her lover; she reeled in exhausted delirium, but, as she would have fallen, the lover rose from death and caught her to his breast.
But the gift of the gods – his life – had been but transitional – a bitter mockery – for the princess lay dead against his pulsing heart. Smothering the unresponsive eyes and lips with kisses, he gently placed the girl upon the ground, and, standing erect, defied the gods – called them to combat.
Prince Ananda interpreted the words and gestures of the gladiator as the moonlight painted in gold and copper his bronze form.
In answer to his challenge a sinister form glided from the shadow of the wall.
"Bhairava, the evil black god, who rides abroad at night," Ananda explained, adding, as the combat began: "They are two Punjabi wrestlers. The lover is Balwant Singh, which means 'Strong Lion;' Bhairava, whom you see is so grotesquely painted black, is Jai Singh, 'Lion of Victory.'"
The struggle was Homeric, as Balwant Singh, the muscles on his back rising in ridges, strove to conquer the black god. In vain his strength, for the god, sinuous as a serpent, slipped from the lover's grasp with ease. At last Jai Singh's black arm lay across the lover's throat, anchored to the shoulder by a hand grip; there was a quick twist to the arm, a choking gasp from Balwant Singh, and, with startling suddenness, he was on his back, both shoulders pinned to the mat.
The tragic drama was at an end. The lover, slain by the gods he had defied, lay beside his dead princess.
"Ripping!" Lord Victor cried. "In Drury Lane that would cause no end of a sensation as a pantomime. Hello! By Jove! I say!"
For even as the young man cackled, some heavy shadow, some mystic trick of the Orient, had faded from their eyes the three figures of the drama.
Prince Ananda, with a soft laugh at Gilfain's astonishment, said: "Bharitava, the evil god, has spirited the lover and the princess away."
"My friends, dot to me brings of importance a question," Doctor Boelke commented. "How is it dot a few Englishmen rule hundreds of millions, and we see dot der Hindus are stronger as der white man; no Englishman could wrestle those men."
"I fancy it's hardly a question of what we call brute force where England governs," Swinton claimed.
"Oh, of course!" And Doctor Boelke laughed. "England alvays ruling people because of philanthropy. Ah, yes, I hear dot!"
"Do you mean to say, sir" – and Lord Victor's voice was pitched to a high treble of indignation – "that we have no wrestlers at home as good as these Hindu chaps? Damn it, sir, it's rot! A man like Fitzalban, who was at Oxford in my last year, would simply disjoint these chaps like wooden dolls."
The doctor puffed his billowy cheeks in disdain, and Finnerty contributed: "Don't underrate these Punjabi wrestlers, my young friend; there are devilish few professionals even who can take a fall out of them."
"The major should know," and Darpore nodded pleasantly; "he has grappled with the best that come out of the Punjab."
Gilfain, his spirit still ruffled by the Prussian's sneer at England, declared peevishly: "I wish there was a chance to test the bally thing; I'd bet a hundred pounds on the Englishman, even if I'd never seen him wrestle."
Boelke, with a sibilant smack of his lips, retorted: "You are quite safe, my young frient, with your hundred pounds, because, you see, there is no Englishman here to put der poor Hindu on his back."
"I'm not quite so sure about that, Herr Doctor."
Boelke turned in his chair at the deliberate, challenging tone of Finnerty's voice. He looked at the major, then gave vent to an unpleasant laugh.
"There is one thing a Britisher does not allow to pass – a sneer at England by a German." Finnerty hung over the word "German."
"Vell," the doctor asked innocently, "you vil prove I am wrong by wrestling der Punjabi, or are we to fight a duel?" And again came the disagreeable laugh.
"If the prince has no objection, I don't know why I shouldn't take a fall out of one of these chaps. It's a game I'm very fond of."
"And, Herr Doctor, I'll have you on for the hundred," Lord Victor cried eagerly.
"Just as you like, major," the prince said. "There'll be no loss of caste, especially if we sit on our sporting friend over there and curb his betting propensities."
"Right you are, rajah," Finnerty concurred. "We wrestle just to prove that Britain is not the poor old effete thing the Herr Doctor thinks she is."
Prince Ananda sent for his secretary, Baboo Chunder Sen, and when the baboo came said: "Ask Jai Singh if he would like to try a fall with the major sahib."
Balwant Singh came back with the baboo when he had delivered this message. Salaaming, he said: "Huzoor, the keddah sahib has his name in our land, the Land of the Five Rivers. We who call men of strength brothers say that he is one of us. No one from my land has come back boasting that he has conquered the sahib. Jai Singh, in the favor of the gods, has achieved to victory over me, so Jai Singh will meet with the sahib."
"Fine!" Finnerty commented. "I'll need wrestling togs, prince."
"The baboo will take you to my room and get a suit for you."
Finnerty put the sapphire in a silver cigarette box that was on the table, saying: "I'll leave this here," and followed Chunder Sen into the palace.
"Devilish sporting, I call it; Finnerty is Irish, but he's a Britisher," Gilfain proclaimed. "He'll jolly well play rugby with your friend, Herr Boelke."
"In
