Rudyard Kipling : The Complete Novels and Stories. Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

she looked down at him.

      She stooped. ‘No, you don’t! Give me your hands.’ He prisoned both wrists, and kissed her full upon the mouth. Then he smote the horse resoundingly upon the flank, and the animal blundered down the path and leaped out into the plain.

      He watched the Queen and Juggut Singh disappear in a cloud of dust and flying stones, and turned with a deep sigh of relief to the lake. Drawing the Naulahka from its resting-place, and laying it fondly out upon his hands, he fed his eyes upon it.

      The stones kindled with the glow of the dawn, and mocked the shifting colours of the hills. The shining ropes of gems put to shame the red glare that shot up from behind the reeds, as they had dulled the glare of the torches on the night of the little Prince’s wedding. The tender green of the reeds themselves, the intense blue of the lake, the beryl of the flashing kingfishers, and the blinding ripples spreading under the first rays of the sun, as a bevy of coots flapped the water from their wings—the necklace abashed them all. Only the black diamond took no joy from the joy of the morning, but lay among its glorious fellows as sombre and red-hearted as the troublous night out of which Tarvin had snatched it.

      Tarvin ran the stones through his hands one by one, and there were forty-five of them—each stone perfect and flawless of its kind; nipped, lest any of its beauty should be hidden, by a tiny gold clasp, each stone swinging all but free from the strand of soft gold on which it was strung, and each stone worth a king’s ransom or a queen’s good name.

      It was a good moment for Tarvin. His life gathered into it. Topaz was safe!

      The wild duck were stringing to and fro across the lake, and the cranes called to one another, stalking through reeds almost as tall as their scarlet heads. From some temple hidden among the hills a lone priest chanted sonorously as he made the morning sacrifice to his god, and from the city in the plain came the boom of the first warddrums, telling that the gates were open and the day was born.

      Tarvin lifted his head from the necklace. The jade-handled knife was lying at his feet. He picked up the delicate weapon and threw it into the lake.

      ‘And now for Kate,’ he said.

      ▲▲▲

XVIII

      Now we are come to our Kingdom,

      And the State is thus and thus

      Our legions wait at the palace gate—

      Little it profits us,

       Now we are come to our Kingdom.

      Now we are come to our Kingdom,

      The crown is ours to take—

      With a naked sword at the council board,

      And under the throne the snake,

       Now we are come to our Kingdom.

      Now we are come to our Kingdom,

      But my love’s eyelids fall,

      All that I wrought for, all that I fought for,

      Delight her nothing at all.

      My crown is withered leaves,

      For she sits in the dust and grieves,

       Now we are come to our Kingdom.

      —King Anthony.

      The palace on its red rock seemed to be still asleep as he cantered across the empty plain. A man on a camel rode out of one of the city gates at right angles to his course, and Tarvin noted with interest how swiftly a long-legged camel of the desert can move. Familiar as he had now become with the ostrich-necked beasts, he could not help associating them with Barnum’s Circus and boyhood memories. The man drew near and crossed in front of him. Then, in the stillness of the morning, Tarvin heard the dry click of a voice he understood. It was the sound made by bringing up the cartridge of a repeating rifle. Mechanically he slipped from the saddle, and was on the other side of the horse as the rifle spoke, and a puff of blue smoke drifted up and hung motionless above the camel.

      ‘ I might have known she’d get in her work early,’ he muttered, peering over his horse’s withers. ‘I can’t drop him at this distance with a revolver. What’s the fool waiting for?’

      Then he perceived that, with characteristic native inaptitude, the man had contrived to jam his lever, and was beating it furiously on the forepart of the saddle. He remounted hastily, and galloped up, revolver in hand, to cover the blanched visage of Juggut Singh.

      ‘You! Why, Juggut, old man, this isn’t kind of you.’

      ‘It was an order,’ said Juggut, quivering with apprehension. ‘It was no fault of mine. I—I do not understand these things.’

      ‘I should smile. Let me show you.’ He took the rifle from the trembling hand. ‘The cartridge is jammed, my friend; it don’t shoot as well that way. It only needs a little knack—so! You ought to learn it, Juggut.’ He jerked the empty shell over his shoulder.

      ‘What will you do to me?’ cried the eunuch. ‘She would have killed me if I had not come.’

      ‘Don’t you believe it, Juggut. She’s a Jumbo at theory, but weak in practice. Go on ahead, please.’

      They started back toward the city, Juggut leading the way on his camel, looking back apprehensively every minute. Tarvin smiled at him dryly but reassuringly, balancing on his hip the captured rifle. He observed that it was a very good rifle if properly used.

      At the entrance to Sitabhai’s wing of the palace, Juggut Singh dismounted and slunk into the courtyard, the livid image of fear and shame. Tarvin clattered after him, and as the eunuch was about to disappear through a door, called him back.

      ‘You have forgotten your gun, Juggut,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid of it.’ Juggut was putting up a doubtful hand to take it from him. ‘It won’t hurt anybody this trip. Take yourself back to the lady, and tell her you are returned, with thanks.’

      No sound came to his ear from behind the green shutters as he rode away, leaving Juggut staring after him. Nothing fell upon him from out of the arch, and the apes were tied securely. Sitabhai’s next move was evidently yet to be played.

      His own next move he had already reckoned with. It was a case for bolting.

      He rode to the mosque outside the city, routed out his old friend in dove-coloured satin, and made him send this message:—

      ‘Mrs. Mutrie, Denver.—Necklace is yours. Get throat ready and lay that track into Topaz. —Tarvin.’

      Then he turned his horse’s head toward Kate. He buttoned his coat tightly across his chest, and patted the resting-place of the Naulahka fondly, as he strode up the path to the missionary’s verandah, when he had tethered Fibby outside. His high good humour with himself and the world spoke through his eyes as he greeted Mrs. Estes at the door.

      ‘You have been hearing something pleasant,’ she said. ‘Won’t you come in?’

      ‘Well, either the pleasantest, or next to the pleasantest; I’m not sure which,’ he answered with a smile, as he followed her into the familiar sitting-room. ‘I’d like to tell you all about it, Mrs. Estes. I feel almightily like telling somebody. But it isn’t a healthy story for this neighbourhood.’ He glanced about him: ‘I’d hire the town crier and a few musical instruments and advertise it, if I had my way; and we’d all have a little Fourth of July celebration and a bonfire, and I’d read the Declaration of Independence over the natives with a relish. But it won’t do. There is a story I’d like to tell you, though,’ he added, with a sudden thought. ‘You know why I come here so much, don’t you, Mrs. Estes—I mean outside of your kindness to me, and my liking you all so much, and our always having such good times together? You know, don’t you?’