The Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated Edition). Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

order to see it.'

      Tarvin's heart sank.

      'But,' the Maharajah continued, 'if I say where it is, you can go at your own risk, without Government interfering. I have seen you are not afraid of risk, and I am a very grateful man. Perhaps the priests will show you; perhaps they will not. Or perhaps you will not find the priests at all. Oh, I forgot; it is not in that temple that I was thinking of. No; it must be in the Gye-Mukh--the Cow's Mouth. But there are no priests there, and nobody goes. Of course it is in the Cow's Mouth. I thought it was in this city,' resumed the Maharajah. He spoke as if he were talking of a dropped horse-shoe or a mislaid turban.

      'Oh, of course. The Cow's Mouth,' repeated Tarvin, as if this also were in the guide-books.

      Chuckling with renewed animation, the King went on--'By God, only a very brave man would go to the Gye-Mukh; such a brave man as yourself, Tarvin Sahib,' he added, giving his companion a shrewd look. 'Ho, ho! Pertab Singh-Ji would not go. No; not with all his troops that you conquered to-day.'

      'Keep your praise until I've earned it, Maharajah Sahib,' said Tarvin. 'Wait until I've dammed that river.' He was silent for a while, as if digesting this newest piece of information.

      'Now, you have a city like this city, I suppose?' said the Maharajah interrogatively, pointing to Rhatore.

      Tarvin had overcome, in a measure, his first feeling of contempt for the State of Gokral Seetarun and the city of Rhatore. He had begun to look upon them both, as was his nature in the case of people and things with which he dwelt, with a certain kindness.

      'Topaz is going to be bigger,' he explained.

      'And when you are there what is your offeecial position?' asked the Maharajah.

      Tarvin, without answering, drew from his breast-pocket the cable from Mrs. Mutrie, and handed it in silence to the King. Where an election was concerned even the sympathy of an opium-soaked Rajput was not indifferent to him.

      'What does it mean?' asked the King, and Tarvin threw up his hands in despair.

      He explained his connection with the government of his State, making the Colorado legislature appear as one of the parliaments of America. He owned up to being the Hon. Nicholas Tarvin, if the Maharajah really wanted to give him his full title.

      'Such as the members of provincial councils that come here?' suggested the Maharajah, remembering the grey-headed men who visited him front time to time, charged with authority only little less than that of a viceroy. 'But still you will not write letters to that legislature about my government,' queried he suspiciously, recalling again over-curious emissaries from the British Parliament over seas, who sat their horses like sacks, and talked interminably of good government when he wished to go to bed. 'And above all,' he added slowly, as they drew near to the palace, 'you are most true friend of the Maharaj Kunwar? And your friend, the lady doctor, will make him well?'

      'That,' said Tarvin, with a sudden inspiration, 'is what we are both here for!'

XII

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      This I saw when the rites were done,

       And the lamps were dead and the Gods alone,

       And the grey snake coiled on the altar stone--

       Ere I fled from a Fear that I could not see,

       And the Gods of the East made mouths at me.

       —In Seeonee.

      When he left the King's side, Tarvin's first impulse was to set the Foxhall colt into a gallop, and forthwith depart in search of the Naulahka. He mechanically drove his heels home, and shortened his rein under the impulse of the thought; but the colt's leap beneath him recalled him to his senses, and he restrained himself and his mount with the same motion.

      His familiarity with the people's grotesque nomenclature left him unimpressed by the Cow's Mouth as a name for a spot, but he gave some wonder to the question why the thing should be in the Cow's Mouth. This was a matter to be laid before Estes.

      'These heathen,' he said to himself, 'are just the sort to hide it away in a salt-lick, or bury it in a hole in the ground. Yes; a hole is about their size. They put the State diamonds in cracker-boxes tied up with boot-laces. The Naulahka is probably hanging on a tree.'

      As he trotted toward the missionary's house, he looked at the hopeless landscape with new interest, for any spur of the low hills, or any roof in the jumbled city, might contain his treasure.

      Estes, who had outlived many curiosities, and knew Rajputana as a prisoner knows the bricks of his cell, turned on Tarvin, in reply to the latter's direct question, a flood of information. There were mouths of all kinds in India, from the Burning Mouth in the north, where a jet of natural gas was worshipped by millions as the incarnation of a divinity, to the Devil's Mouth among some forgotten Buddhist ruins in the furthest southern corner of Madras.

      There was also a Cow's Mouth some hundreds of miles away, in the courtyard of a temple at Benares, much frequented by devotees; but as far as Rajputana was concerned, there was only one Cow's Mouth, and that was to be found in a dead city.

      The missionary launched into a history of wars and rapine, extending over hundreds of years, all centring round one rock-walled city in the wilderness, which had been the pride and the glory of the kings of Mewar. Tarvin listened with patience as infinite as his weariness--ancient history had no charm for the man who was making his own town--while Estes enlarged upon the past, and told stories of voluntary immolation on the pyre in subterranean palaces by thousands of Rajput women who, when the city fell before a Mohammedan, and their kin had died in the last charge of defence, cheated the conquerors of all but the empty glory of conquest. Estes had a taste for archæology, and it was a pleasure to him to speak of it to a fellow-countryman.

      By retracing the ninety-six miles to Rawut Junction, Tarvin might make connection with a train that would carry him sixty-seven miles westward to yet another junction, where he would change and go south by rail for a hundred and seven miles; and this would bring him within four miles of this city, its marvellous nine-storeyed tower of glory, which he was to note carefully, its stupendous walls and desolate palaces. The journey would occupy at least two days. At this point Tarvin suggested a map, and a glance at it showed him that Estes proposed an elaborate circus round three sides of a square, whereas a spider-like line ran more or less directly from Rhatore to Gunnaur.

      'This seems shorter,' he said.

      'It's only a country road, and you have had some experience of roads in this State. Fifty-seven miles on a kutcha road in this sun would be fatal.'

      Tarvin smiled to himself. He had no particular dread of the sun, which, year by year, had stolen from his companion something of his vitality.

      'I think I'll ride, anyhow. It seems a waste to travel half round India to get at a thing across the road, though it is the custom of the country.'

      He asked the missionary what the Cow's Mouth was like, and Estes explained archæologically, architecturally, and philologically to such good purpose that Tarvin understood that it was some sort of a hole in the ground--an ancient, a remarkably ancient, hole of peculiar sanctity, but nothing more than a hole.

      Tarvin decided to start without an hour's delay. The dam might wait until he returned. It was hardly likely that the King's outburst of generosity would lead him to throw open his jails on the morrow. Tarvin debated for a while whether he should tell him of the excursion he was proposing to himself, and then decided that he would look at the necklace first, and open negotiations later. This seemed to suit the customs of the country. He returned to the rest-house with Estes' map in his pocket to take stock of his stable. Like other men of the West, he reckoned a horse a necessity before all necessities, and had purchased one mechanically immediately after his arrival. It had been a comfort to him to note all the tricks of all the men he had ever traded horses with faithfully reproduced in the lean,