‘Nick!’ she exclaimed voicelessly. ‘Nick!’ He had stopped, hesitating on the threshold; she dropped her work, and rose breathless. ‘You have come back! It is you! You are alive!’
Tarvin smiled, and held out his arms. ‘Come and see!’ She took a step forward.
‘Oh, I was afraid — — ’
‘Come!’
She went doubtfully toward him. He caught her fast, and held her in his arms.
For a long minute she let her head lie on his breast. Then she looked up. ‘This isn’t what I meant,’ she protested.
‘Oh, don’t try to improve on it!’ Tarvin said hastily.
‘She tried to poison me. I was sure when I heard nothing that she must have killed you. I fancied horrible things.’
‘Poor child! And your hospital has gone wrong! You have been having a hard time. But we will change all that. We must leave as soon as you can get ready. I’ve nipped her claws for a moment; I’m holding a hostage. But we can’t keep that up for ever. We must get away.’
‘We!’ she repeated feebly.
‘Well, do you want to go alone?’
She smiled as she released herself. ‘I want you to.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m not worth thinking of. I have failed. Everything I meant to do has fallen about me in a heap. I feel burnt out, Nick — burnt out!’
‘All right! We’ll put in new works and launch you on a fresh system. That’s what I want. There shall be nothing to remind you that you ever saw Rhatore, dear.’
‘It was a mistake,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Everything. My coming. My thinking I could do it. It’s not a girl’s work. It’s my work, perhaps; but it’s not for me. I have given it up, Nick. Take me home.’
Tarvin gave an unbecoming shout of joy, and folded her in his arms again. He told her that they must be married at once, and start that night, if she could manage it; and Kate, dreading what might befall him, assented doubtfully. She spoke of preparations; but Tarvin said that they would prepare after they had done it. They could buy things at Bombay — stacks of things. He was sweeping her forward with the onrush of his extempore plans, when she said suddenly, ‘But what of the dam, Nick? You can’t leave that.’
‘Shucks!’ exclaimed Tarvin heartily. ‘You don’t suppose there’s any gold in the old river, do you?’
She recoiled quickly from his arms, staring at him in accusation and reproach.
‘Do you mean that you have always known that there was no gold there?’she asked.
Tarvin pulled himself together quickly; but not so quickly that she did not catch the confession in his eye.
‘I see you have,’ she said coldly.
Tarvin measured the crisis which had suddenly descended on him out of the clouds; he achieved an instantaneous change of front, and met her smiling.
‘Certainly,’ he said; ‘I have been working it as a blind.’
‘A blind?’ she repeated. ‘To cover what?’
‘You.’
‘What do you mean?’ she inquired, with a look in her eyes which made him uncomfortable.
‘The Indian Government allows no one to remain in the State without a definite purpose. I couldn’t tell Colonel Nolan that I had come courting you, could I?’
‘I don’t know. But you could have avoided taking the Maharajah’s money to carry out this — this plan. An honest man would have avoided that.’
‘Oh, look here!’ exclaimed Tarvin.
‘How could you cheat the King into thinking that there was a reason for your work, how could you let him give you the labour of a thousand men, how could you take his money? O Nick!’
He gazed at her for a vacant and hopeless minute. ‘Why, Kate,’ he exclaimed, ‘do you know you are talking of the most stupendous joke the Indian empire has witnessed since the birth of time?’
This was pretty good, but it was not good enough. He plunged for a stronger hold as she answered, with a perilous little note of breakdown in her voice, ‘You make it worse.’
‘Well, your sense of humour never was your strongest point, you know, Kate.’ He took the seat next her, leaned over and took her hand, as he went on. ‘Doesn’t it strike you as rather amusing, though, after all, to rip up half a state to be near a very small little girl — a very sweet, very extra lovely little girl, but still a rather tiny little girl in proportion to the size of the Amet valley? Come — doesn’t it?’
‘Is that all you have to say?’ asked she. Tarvin turned pale. He knew the tone off finality he heard in her voice; it went with a certain look of scorn when she spoke of any form of moral baseness that moved her. He recognised his condemnation in it and shuddered. In the moment that passed, while he still kept silence, he recognised this for the crisis of his life. Then he took strong hold of himself, and said quietly, easily, unscrupulously —
‘Why, you don’t suppose that I’m not going to ask the Maharajah for his bills do you?’
She gasped a little. Her acquaintance with Tarvin did not help her to follow his dizzying changes of front. His bird’s skill to make his level flight, his reeling dips and circling returns upon himself, all seem part of a single impulse, must ever remain confusing to her. But she rightly believed in his central intention to do the square thing, if he could find out what it was; and her belief in his general strength helped her not to see at this moment that he was deriving his sense of the square thing from herself. She could not know, and probably could not have imagined, how little his own sense of the square thing had to do with any system of morality, and how entirely he must always define morality as what pleased Kate. Other women liked confections; she preferred morality, and he meant she should have it, if he had to turn pirate to get it for her.
‘You didn’t think I wasn’t paying for the show?’ he pursued bravely; but in his heart he was saying, ‘She loathes it. She hates it. Why didn’t I think; why didn’t I think?’ He added aloud, ‘I had my fun, and now I’ve got you. You’re both cheap at the price, and I’m going, to step up and pay it like a little man. You must know that!’
His smile met no answering smile. He mopped his forehead and stared anxiously at her. All the easiness in the world couldn’t make him sure what she would say next. She said nothing, and he had to go on desperately, with a cold fear gathering about his heart. ‘Why, it’s just like me, isn’t it, Kate, to work a scheme on the old Maharajah? It’s like a man who owns a mine that’s turning out $2000 a month, to rig a game out in this desert country to do a confiding Indian Prince out of a few thousand rupees?’ He advanced this recently inspired conception of his conduct with an air of immemorial familiarity, born of desperation.
‘What mine?’ she asked, with dry lips.
‘The “Lingering Lode,” of course. You’ve heard me speak of it?’
‘Yes, but I didn’t know — — ’
‘That it was doing that? Well, it is — right along. Want to see the assay?’
‘No,’ she answered. ‘No. But that makes you — — Why, but, Nick, that makes you — — ’
‘A rich man? Moderately, while the lead holds out. Too rich for petty larceny, I guess.’
He was joking for his life. The heart-sickening seriousness of his unseriousness was making a hole in his head; the tension was too much for him. In the mad fear of that moment his perceptions doubled their fineness. Something went through him as he said ‘larceny.’ Then his heart stopped. A sure, awful, luminous perception leaped upon him, and he knew himself for lost.
If she hated this, what would she say to the other? Innocent, successful, triumphant, even gay it seemed to him; but what to her? He turned sick.
Kate or the Naulahka. He must choose. The Naulahka or Kate?
‘Don’t make light of it,’ she was saying. ‘You would be just as honest if you couldn’t afford it, Nick. Ah,’ she went on, laying her hand on his lightly, in mute petition for having even seemed to doubt him, ‘I know you, Nick! You like to make the better seem
the worse reason; you like to pretend to be wicked. But who is so honest? O Nick! I knew you had to be true. If you weren’t, everything else would be wrong.’
He took her in his arms. ‘Would it, little girl?’ he asked, looking down at her. ‘We must keep the other things right, then, at any expense.’
He heaved a deep sigh as he stooped and kissed her.
‘Have you such a thing as a box?’ he asked, after a long pause.
‘Any sort of box?’ asked Kate bewilderedly.
‘No — well, it ought to be the finest box in the world, but I suppose one of those big grape boxes will do. It isn’t every day that one sends presents to a queen.’
Kate handed him a large chip box in which long green grapes from Kabul had been packed. Discoloured cotton wool lay at the bottom.
‘That was sold at the door the other day,’ she said. ‘Is it big enough?’
Tarvin turned away without answering, emptied something that clicked like a shower of pebbles upon the wool, and sighed deeply: Topaz was in that box. The voice of the Maharaj Kunwar lifted itself from the next room.
‘Tarvin Sahib — Kate, we have eaten all the fruit, and now we want to do something else.’
‘One moment, little man,’ said Tarvin. With his back still toward Kate, he drew his hand caressingly, for the last time, over the blazing heap at the bottom of the box, fondling the stones one by one. The great green emerald pierced him, he thought, with a reproachful gaze. A mist crept into his eyes the diamond was too bright. He shut the lid down upon the box hastily, and put it into Kate’s hands with a decisive gesture; he made her hold it while he tied it in silence. Then, in a voice not his, he asked her to take the box to Sitabhai with his compliments. ‘No,’ he continued, seeing the alarm in her eyes. ‘She won’t — she daren’t hurt you now. Her child’s coming along with us; and I’ll go with you, of course, as far as I can. Glory be, it’s the last journey that you’ll ever undertake in this infernal land. The last but one, that’s to say. We live at high pressure in Rhatore — too high pressure for me. Be quick, if you love me.’
Kate hastened, to put on her helmet, while Tarvin amused the two princes by allowing them to, inspect his revolver, and promising at some more fitting season to shoot as many coins as they should demand. The lounging escort at the door was suddenly scattered by. a trooper from without, who flung his horse desperately through their ranks, shouting, ‘A letter for Tarvin Sahib!’
Tarvin stepped into the verandah, took a crumpled half-sheet of paper from the outstretched hand, and read these words, traced painfully and laboriously in an unformed round hand: —
‘DEAR MR. TARVIN — Give me the boy and keep the other thing. Your affectionate FRIEND.’
Tarvin chuckled and thrust the note into his waistcoat pocket. ‘There is no answer,’ he said — and to himself: ‘You’re a thoughtful girl, Sitabhai, but I’m afraid you’re just a little too thoughtful. That boy’s wanted for the next halfhour. Are you ready, Kate?’
The princes lamented loudly when they were told that Tarvin was riding over to the palace at once, and that, if they hoped for further entertainment, they must both go with him. ‘We will go into the great Durbar Hall,’ said the Maharaj Kunwar consolingly to his companion at last, ‘and make all the music-boxes play together.’
‘I want to see that man shoot,’ said Umr Singh. ‘I want to see him shoot something dead. I do not wish to go to the palace.’
‘You’ll ride on my horse,’ said Tarvin, when the answer had been interpreted, ‘and I’ll make him gallop all the way. Say, Prince, how fast do you think your carriage can go?’
‘As fast as Miss Kate dares.’
Kate stepped in, and the cavalcade galloped to the palace, Tarvin riding always a little in front with Umr Singh clapping his hands on the saddle-bow.
‘We must pull up at Sitabhai’s wing, dear,’ Tarvin cried. ‘You won’t be afraid to walk in under the arch with me?’
‘I trust you, Nick,’ she answered simply, getting out of the carriage.
‘Then go in to the women’s wing. Give the box into Sitabhai’s hands, and tell her that I sent it back. You’ll find she knows my name.’
The horse trampled under the archway, Kate at its side, and Tarvin holding Umr Singh very much in evidence. The courtyard was empty, but as they came out into the sunshine by the central fountain the rustle and whisper behind the shutters rose, as the tiger-grass rustles when the wind blows through it.
‘One minute, dear,’ said Tarvin, halting, ‘if you can bear this sun on your head.’
A door opened and a eunuch came out, beckoning silently to Kate. She followed him and disappeared, the door closing behind her. Tarvin’s heart rose into his mouth, and unconsciously he clasped Umr Singh so closely to his breast that the child cried out.
The whisper rose, and it seemed to Tarvin as if some one were sobbing behind the shutters. Then followed a peal of low, soft laughter, and the muscles at the corner of Tarvin’s mouth relaxed. Umr Singh began to struggle in his arms.
‘Not yet, young man. You must wait until — ah! thank God.’
Kate reappeared, her little figure framed against the darkness of the doorway. Behind her came the eunuch, crawling fearfully to Tarvin’s side. Tarvin smiled affably, and dropped the amazed young prince into his arms. Umr Singh was borne away kicking, and ere the left the courtyard Tarvin heard the dry roar of an angry child, followed by an unmistakable yelp of pain. Tarvin smiled.
‘They spank young princes in Rajputana. That’s one step on the path to progress. What did she say, Kate?’
‘She said I was to be sure and tell you that she knew you were not afraid. “Tell Tarvin Sahib that I knew he was not afraid.”‘
‘Where’s Umr Singh?’ asked the Maharaj Kunwar from the barouche.
‘He’s gone to his mother. I’m afraid I can’t amuse you just now, little man. I’ve forty thousand things to do, and no time to do them in. Tell me where your father is.’
‘I do not know. There has been trouble and crying in the palace. The women are always crying, and that makes my father angry. I shall stay at Mr. Estes’, and play with Kate.’
‘Yes. Let him stay,’ said Kate quickly. ‘Nick, do you think I ought to leave him?’
‘That’s another of the things I must fix,’ said Tarvin. ‘But first I must find the Maharajah, if I have to dig up Rhatore for him. What’s that, little one?’
A trooper whispered to the young Prince.
‘This man says that he is there,’ said the Maharaj Kunwar. ‘He has been there since two days. I also have wished to see him.’
‘Very good. Drive home, Kate. I’ll wait here.’
He re-entered the archway, and reined up. Again the whisper behind the shutter rose; and a man from a doorway demanded his business.
‘I must see the Maharajah,’ said Tarvin.
‘Wait,’ said the man. And Tarvin waited for a full five minutes, using his time for concentrated thought.
Then the Maharajah emerged, and amiability sat on every hair of his newly-oiled moustache.
For some mysterious reason Sitabhai had withdrawn the light of her countenance from him for two days, and had sat raging in her own apartments. Now the mood had passed, and the gipsy would see him again. Therefore the Maharajah’s heart was glad within him; and wisely, as befitted the husband of many wives, he did not inquire too closely into the reasons that had led to the change.
‘Ah, Tarvin Sahib,’ said he, ‘I have not seen you for long. What is the news from the dam? Is there anything to see?’
‘Maharajah Sahib, that’s what I’ve come to talk about. There is nothing to see, and I think that there is no gold to be got at.’
‘That is bad,’ said the King lightly.
‘But there is a good deal to be seen, if you care to come along. I. don’t want to waste your money any more, now I’m sure of the fact; but, I don’t see the use of saving all the powder on the dam. There must be five hundred pounds of it.’<
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‘I do not understand,’ said the Maharajah, whose mind was occupied with other things.
‘Do you want to see the biggest explosion that you’ve ever seen in your life? Do you want to hear the earth shake, and see the rocks fly?’
The Maharajah’s face brightened.
‘Will it be seen from the palace?’ he said; ‘from the top of the palace?’
‘Oh yes. But the best place to watch it will be from the side of the river. I shall put the river back at five o’clock. It’s three o’clock now. Will you be there, Maharajah Sahib?’
‘I will be there. It will be a big tamasha. Five hundred pounds of powder! The earth will be rent in two.’
‘I should remark. And after that, Maharajah Sahib, I am going to be married; and then I am going away. Will you come to the wedding?’
The Maharajah shaded his eyes from the sunglare, and peered up at Tarvin under his turban.
‘By God, Tarvin Sahib,’ said he, ‘you are a quick man. So you will marry the doctor-lady, and then you will go away? I will come to the wedding. I and Pertab Singh.’
The next two hours in the life of Nicholas Tarvin will never be adequately chronicled. There was a fierce need upon him to move mountains and shift the poles of the earth; there was a strong horse beneath him, and in his heart the knowledge that he had lost the Naulahka and gained Kate. When he appeared, a meteor amid the coolies on the dam, they understood, and a word was spoken that great things were toward. The gang foreman turned to his shouts, and learned that the order of the day was destruction — the one thing that the Oriental fully comprehends.
They dismantled the powder-shed with outcries and fierce yells, hauled the bullock-carts from the crown of the dam, and dropped the derrick after them, and tore down the mat and grass coolie-lines. Then, Tarvin urging them always, they buried the powder-casks in the crown of the halfbuilt dam, piled the wrapped charges upon them, and shovelled fresh sand atop of all.
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 47