'Yes, I know; but--no, you are not a woman, only a fairy that has come across the water to help me and mine.'
Here again Kate was baffled. Except in the message sent by the Maharaj Kunwar, the Queen Mother never referred to the danger that threatened her son's life. Again and again Kate had tried to lead up to the subject--to gain some hint, at least, of the nature of the plot.
'I know nothing,' the Queen would reply. 'Here behind the curtain no one knows anything. Miss Kate, if my own women lay dead out there in the sun at noon'--she pointed downwards through the tracery of her window to the flagged path below--'I should know nothing. Of what I said I know nothing; but surely it is allowed'--she lowered her voice to a whisper--'oh, surely it is allowed to a mother to bid another woman look to her son. He is so old now that he thinks himself a man, and wanders far, and so young that he thinks the world will do him no harm. Ahi! And he is so wise that he knows a thousand times more than I: he speaks English like an Englishman. How can I control him with my little learning and my very great love? I say to you, Be good to my son. That I can say aloud, and write it upon a wall, if need were. There is no harm in that. But if I said more, look you, the plaster between the stones beneath me would gape to suck it in, and the wind would blow all my words across to the villages. I am a stranger here--a Rajputni from Kulu, a thousand thousand koss away. They bore me here in a litter to be married--in the dark they bore me for a month; and except that some of my women have told me, I should not know which way the home wind blows when it goes to Kulu. What can a strange cow do in the byre? May the gods witness.'
'Ah, but tell me what you think?'
'I think nothing,' the Queen would answer sullenly. 'What have women to do with thinking? They love and they suffer. I have said all that I may say. Miss Kate, some day you will bear a little son. As you have been good to my son, so may the gods be good to yours when that time comes, and you know how the heart is full of love.'
'If I am to protect him, I must know. You leave me in the dark.'
'And I also am in the dark--and the darkness is full of danger.'
Tarvin himself was much about the palace, not only because he perceived that it was there he might most hopefully keep his ear to the ground for news of the Naulahka, but because it enabled him to observe Kate's comings and goings, and with his hand ready for a rapid movement to his pistol-pocket.
His gaze followed her at these times, as at others, with the longing look of the lover; but he said nothing, and Kate was grateful to him. It was a time, as it seemed to him, to play the part of the Tarvin who had carried water for her long ago at the end of the section; it was a time to stand back, to watch, to guard, but not to trouble her.
The Maharaj Kunwar came often under his eye, and he was constantly inventing amusing things for him to do remote from Sitabhai's courtyard; but the boy would occasionally break away, and then it was Tarvin's task to go after him and make sure that he came to no harm. One afternoon when he had spent some time in coaxing the child away, and had finally resorted to force, much to the child's disgust, a twelve-foot baulk of teakwood, as he was passing out under an arch in process of repair, crashed down from the scaffolding just in front of Fibby's nose. The horse retired into the courtyard on his hind legs, and Tarvin heard the rustle of the women behind the shutters.
He reflected on the incurable slackness of these people, stopped to swear at the workmen crouched on the scaffolding in the hollow of the arch, and went on. They were no less careless about the dam--it was in the blood, he supposed--for the headman of a coolie gang who must have crossed the Amet twenty times, showed him a new ford across a particularly inviting channel, which ended in a quicksand; and when Tarvin had flung himself clear, the gang spent half the day in hauling Fibby out with ropes. They could not even build a temporary bridge without leaving the boards loose, so that a horse's hoof found its way between; and the gangs seemed to make a point of letting bullock-carts run down the steep embankments into the small of Tarvin's back, when, at infrequent intervals, that happened to be turned.
Tarvin was filled with great respect for the British Government, which worked on these materials, and began to understand the mild-faced melancholy and decisive views of Lucien Estes about the native population, as well as to sympathise more keenly than ever with Kate.
This curious people were now, he learned with horror, to fill the cup of their follies by marrying the young Maharaj Kunwar to a three-year-old babe, brought from the Kulu hills, at vast expense, to be his bride. He sought out Kate at the missionary's, and found her quivering with indignation. She had just heard.
'It's like them to waste a wedding where it isn't wanted,' said Tarvin soothingly. Since he saw Kate excited, it became his part to be calm. 'Don't worry your overworked head about it, Kate. You are trying to do too much, and you are feeling too much. You will break down before you know it, from sheer exhaustion of the chord of sympathy.'
'Oh no!' said Kate. 'I feel quite strong enough for anything that may come. I mustn't break down. Think of this marriage coming on. The Maharaj will need me more than ever. He has just told me that he won't get any sleep for three days and three nights while their priests are praying over him.'
'Crazy! Why, it's a quicker way of killing him than Sitabhai's. Heavens! I daren't think of it. Let's talk of something else. Any papers from your father lately? This kind of thing makes Topaz taste sort of good.'
She gave him a package received by the last post, and he fell silent as he ran his eye hastily over a copy of the Telegram six weeks old; but he seemed to find little comfort in it. His brows knitted.
'Pshaw!' he exclaimed with irritation, 'this won't do!'
'What is it?'
'Heckler bluffing about the Three C.'s, and not doing it well. That isn't like Jim. He talks about it as a sure thing as hard as if he didn't believe in it, and had a private tip from somewhere that it wasn't coming after all. I've no doubt he has. But he needn't give it away to Rustler like that. Let's look at the real estate transfers. Ah! that tells the story,' he exclaimed excitedly, as his eye rested on the record of the sale of a parcel of lots on G Street. 'Prices are going down--away, 'way down. The boys are caving. They're giving up the fight.' He leaped up and marched about the room nervously. 'Heavens! if I could only get word to them!'
'Why--what, Nick? What word do you want to send them?'
He pulled himself up instantly.
'To let them know that I believe in it,' he said. 'To get them to hold on.'
'But suppose the road doesn't come to Topaz after all. How can you know, away off here in India?'
'Come to Topaz, little girl!' he shouted. 'Come to Topaz! It's coming if I have to lay the rails!'
But the news about the temper of the town vexed and disconcerted him notwithstanding, and after he left Kate that night he sent a cable to Heckler, through Mrs. Mutrie, desiring her to forward the despatch from Denver, as if that were the originating office of the message.
'HECKLER, TOPAZ.--Take a brace, for God's sake. Got dead cinch on Three C.'s. Trust me, and boom like ---- TARVIN.'
XIV
Because I sought it far from men,
In deserts and alone,
