King--of the Khyber Rifles: A Romance of Adventure by Talbot Mundy (ereader for textbooks .TXT) 📗

given it to King to read. It was not like a woman's letter. It did not waste a word. “Your Captain King has been too much trouble. He has taken money from the Germans. He adopted native dress. He called himself Kurram Khan. He slew his own brother at night in the Khyber Pass. These men will say that he carried the head to Khinjan, and their word is true, for I, Yasmini, saw. He used the head for a passport, to obtain admittance. He proclaims a jihad! He urges invasion of India! He held up his brother's head before five thousand men and boasted of the murder. The next you shall hear of your Captain King of the Khyber Rifles, he will be leading a jihad into India. You would have better trusted me. Yasmini.”

He read it and passed it back to her.

“They will not disbelieve me,” she said, triumphant as the very devil over a branded soul all hot. “They will be sure you are mad, and they will believe the witnesses!”

He bowed. She sealed the letter and addressed it with only a scrawled mark on its outer cover. That, by the way, was utter insolence, for the mark would be understood at any frontier post by the officer commanding.

“Rewa Gunga shall start with this to-day!” she said, with more amusement than malice. After that she was still for a moment, watching his eyes, at a loss to understand his carelessness. He seemed strangely unabased. His folded arms were not defiant, but neither were they yielding.

“I love you, Athelstan!” she said. “Do you love me?”

“I think you are very beautiful, Princess!”

“Beautiful? I know I am beautiful. But is that all?”

“Clever!” he added.

She began to drum with the golden dagger hilt on the table, and to look dangerous, which is not to infer by any means that she looked less lovely.

“Do you love me?” she asked.

“Forgive me, Princess, but you forget. I was born east of Mecca, but my folk were from the West. We are slower to love than some other nations. With us love is more often growth, less often surrender at first sight. I think you are wonderful.”

She nodded and tucked the sealed letter in her bosom.

“It shall go,” she said darkly, “and another letter with it. They looted your brother's body. In his pocket they found the note you wrote him, and that you asked him to destroy! That will be evidence. That will convince! Come!”

He followed her through leather curtains again and down the dark passage into the outer chamber; and the illusion was of walking behind a golden-haired Madonna to some shrine of Innocence. Her perfume was like incense; her manner perfect reverence. She passed into the cave where the two dead bodies lay like a high priestess performing a rite.

Walking to the bed, she stood for minutes, gazing at the Sleeper and his queen. And from the new angle from which King saw him the Sleeper's likeness to himself was actually startling. Startling--weird--like an incantation were Yasmini's words when at last she spoke.

“Muhammad lied! He lied in his teeth! His sons have multiplied his lie! Siddhattha, whom men have called Gotama, the Buddha, was before Muhammad and he knew more! He told of the wheel of things, and there is a wheel! Yet, what knew the Buddha of the wheel? He who spoke of Dharma (the customs of the law) not knowing Dharma! This is true---Of old there was a wish of the gods--of the old gods. And so these two were. There is a wish again now of the old gods. So, are we two not as they two were? It is the same wish, and lo! We are ready, this man and I. We will obey, ye gods--ye old gods!”

She raised her arms and, going closer to the bed, stood there in an attitude of mystic reverence, giving and receiving blessings.

“Dear gods!” she prayed. “Dear old gods--older than these 'Hills'--show me in a vision what their fault was--why these two were ended before the end!

“I know all the other things ye have shown me. I know the world's silly creeds have made it mad, and it must rend itself, and this man and I shall reap where the nations sowed--if only we obey! Wherein, ye old dear gods, who love me, did these two disobey? I pray you, tell me in a vision!”

She shook her head and sighed. Sadness seemed to have crept over her, like a cold mist from the night. It was as if she could dimly see her plans foredoomed, and yet hoped on in spite of it. The fatalism that she scorned as Muhammad's lie held her in its grip, and her natural courage fought with it. Womanlike, she turned to King in that minute and confided to him her very inmost thoughts. And he, without an inkling as to how she must fail, yet knew that she must, and pitied her.

“Have you seen that breast under the armor?” she asked suddenly. “Come nearer! Come and look! Why did his breast decay and his body stay whole like hers? Did she kill him? Was that a dagger-stab in his breast? I found perfume in these caves--great jars of it, and I use it always. It is better than temple incense and all the breath of gardens in the spring! I have put it on slaughtered animals. Where the knife has touched them, they decay--as that man's breast did--but the rest of them remains undecaying year after year. It was a knife, I think, that pierced his breast. I think that scent is the preservative. Did she kill him? Was she jealous of him? How did she die? There is no mark on her! Athelstan--listen! I think he would have failed her! I think she stabbed him rather than see him fail, and then swallowed poison! Afterward their servants laid them there. She smiles in death because she knew the wheel will turn and that death dies too! He looks grim because he knew less than she. It is always woman who understands and man who fails! I think she stabbed him. She should have loved him better, and then there would have been no need. I will love you better than she loved him!”

She turned and devoured him with her eyes, so that it needed all his manhood to hold him back from being her slave that minute. For in that minute she left no charm unexercised--sex--mesmerisrn--beauty--flattery (her eyes could flatter as a dumb dog's flatter a huntsman!)--grace unutterable-mystery--she used every art on him she knew. Yet he stood the test.

“Even if you fail me, Well-beloved, I will love you! The gods who gave you to me will know how to make you love; and lessons are to learn. If you fail me I will forgive, knowing that in the end the gods will never let you fail me! You are mine, and Earth is ours, for the old gods intend it so!”

She seemed to expect him to take her in his arms again; but he stood respectfully and made no answer, nor any move. Grim and strong his jowl was, like the Sleeper's, and the dark hair three days old on it softened