THE COMPLETE WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING (Illustrated Edition). Rudyard 1865-1936 Kipling
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twenty five thousand rupees to the nursing hospital, and the lady sahib kissed me on both cheeks, and I talked English, and showed them how I spent my time knitting--I who knit and unknit the hearts of men.'
This time Tarvin did not whistle; he merely smiled and murmured sympathetically. The large and masterly range of her wickedness, and the coolness with which she addressed herself to it, gave her a sort of distinction. More than this, he respected her for the personal achievement which of all feats most nearly appeals to the breast of the men of the West--she had done him up. It was true her plans had failed; but she had played them all on him without his knowledge. He almost revered her for it.
'Now you begin to understand,' said Sitabhai; 'there is something more to think of. Do you mean to go to Colonel Nolan, Sahib, with all your story about me?'
'Unless you keep your hands off the Maharaj Kunwar--yes,' said Tarvin, not allowing his feelings to interfere with business.
'That is very foolish,' said the Queen; 'because Colonel Nolan will give much trouble to the King, and the King will turn the palace into confusion, and every one of my handmaids, except a few, will give witness against me; and I perhaps shall come to be much suspected. Then you would think, Tarvin Sahib, that you had prevented me. But you cannot stay here for ever. You cannot stay here until I die. And so soon as you are gone----' She snapped her fingers.
'You won't get the chance,' said Tarvin unshakenly. 'I'll fix that. What do you take me for?'
The Queen bit the back of her forefinger irresolutely. There was no saying what this man, who strode unharmed through her machinations, might or might not be able to do. Had she been dealing with one of her own race she would have played threat against threat. But the perfectly composed and loose-knit figure by her side, watching every movement, chin in hand, ready, alert, confident, was an unknown quantity that baffled and distressed her.
There was a sound of a discreet cough, and Juggut Singh waddled toward them, bowing abjectly, to whisper something to the Queen. She laughed scornfully, and motioned him back to his post.
'He says the night is passing,' she explained, 'and it is death for him and for me to be without the palace.'
'Don't let me keep you,' said Tarvin, rising. 'I think we understand each other.' He looked into her eyes. 'Hands off!'
'Then I may not do what I please?' she said, 'and you will go to Colonel Nolan to-morrow?'
'That depends,' said Tarvin, shutting his lips. He thrust his hands into his pockets as he stood looking down at her.
'Seat yourself again a moment, Tarvin Sahib,' said Sitabhai, patting the slab of the tomb invitingly with her little palm. Tarvin obeyed. 'Now, if I let no more timber fall, and keep the grey apes tied fast----'
'And dry up the quicksands in the Amet River,' pursued Tarvin grimly. 'I see. My dear little spitfire, you are at liberty to do what you like. Don't let me interfere with your amusements.'
'I was wrong. I should have known that nothing would make you afraid,' said she, eyeing him thoughtfully out of the corner of her eye; 'and, excepting you, Tarvin Sahib, there is no man that I fear. If you were a king as I a queen, we would hold Hindustan between our two hands.'
She clasped his locked fist as she spoke, and Tarvin, remembering that sudden motion to her bosom when he had whistled, laid his own hand quickly above hers, and held them fast.
'Is there nothing, Tarvin Sahib, that would make you leave me in peace? What is it you care for? You did not come here to keep the Maharaj Kunwar alive.'
'How do you know I didn't?'
'You are very wise,' she said, with a little laugh, 'but it is not good to pretend to be too wise. Shall I tell you why you came?
'Well, why did I? Speak up.'
'You came here, as you came to the temple of Iswara, to find that which you will never find, unless'--she leaned toward him--'I help you. Was it very cold in the Cow's Mouth, Tarvin Sahib?'
Tarvin drew back, frowning, but not betraying himself further.
'I was afraid that the snakes would have killed you there?'
'Were you?'
'Yes,' she said softly. 'And I was afraid, too, that you might not have stepped swiftly enough for the turning stone in the temple.'
Tarvin glanced at her. 'No?'
'Yes. Ah! I knew what was in your mind, even before you spoke to the King--when the bodyguard charged.'
'See here, young woman, do you run a private inquiry agency?'
She laughed. 'There is a song in the palace now about your bravery. But the boldest thing was to speak to the King about the Naulahka. He told me all you said. But he--even he did not dream that any feringhi could dare to covet it. And I was so good--I did not tell him. But I knew men like you are not made for little things. Tarvin Sahib,' she said, leaning close, releasing her hand and laying it softly on his shoulder, 'you and I are kin indeed! For it is more easy to govern this State--ay, and from this State to recapture all Hindustan from these white dogs, the English--than to do what you have dreamed of. And yet a stout heart makes all things easy. Was it for yourself, Tarvin Sahib, that you wanted the Naulahka, or for another--even as I desire Gokral Seetarun for my son? We are not little people. It is for another, is it not?'
'Look here,' said Tarvin reverently, as he took her hand from his shoulder and held it firmly in his clutch again, 'are there many of you in India?'
'But one. I am like yourself--alone.' Her chin drooped against his shoulder, and she looked up at him out of her eyes as dark as the lake. The scarlet mouth and the quivering nostrils were so close to his own that the fragrant breath swept his cheek.
'Are you making states, Tarvin Sahib, like me? No; surely it is a woman. Your government is decreed for you, and you do what it orders. I turned the canal which the Government said should run through my orange-garden, even as I will bend the King to my will, even as I will kill the boy, even as I will myself rule in Gokral Seetarun through my child. But you, Tarvin Sahib--you wish only a woman! Is it not so? And she is too little to bear the weight of the Luck of the State. She grows paler day by day.' She felt the man quiver, but he said nothing.
From the tangle of scrub and brushwood at the far end of the lake broke forth a hoarse barking cough that filled the hills with desolation as water brims a cup. Tarvin leaped to his feet. For the first time he heard the angry complaint of the tiger going home to his lair after a fruitless night of ranging.
'It is nothing,' said the Queen, without stirring. 'It is only the tiger of the Dungar Talao. I have heard him howling many times when I was a gipsy, and even if he came you would shoot him, would you not, as you shot the ape?'
She nestled close to him, and, as he sank beside her on the stone again, his arm slipped unconsciously about her waist.
The shadow of the beast drifted across an open space by the lake-shore as noiselessly as thistledown draws through the air of summer, and Tarvin's arm tightened in its resting-place--tightened on a bossed girdle that struck cold on his palm through many folds of muslin.
'So little and so frail--how could she wear it?' resumed the queen.
She turned a little in his embrace, and Tarvin's arm brushed against one, and another, and then another, strand of the girdle, studded like the first with irregular bosses, till under his elbow he felt a great square stone.
He started, and tightened his hold about her waist, with paling lips.
'But we two,' the Queen went on, in a low voice, regarding him dreamily, 'could make the kingdoms fight like the water-buffaloes in spring. Would you be my prime minister, Tarvin Sahib, and advise me through the curtain?'
'I don't know whether I could trust you,' said Tarvin briefly.
'I do not know whether I could trust myself,' responded the Queen; 'for after a time it might be that I should be servant who have always been queen.