Part 24 (1/2)

”My son for one. He was wounded to the death. Ah! I knew it--though the brave lad--he was the son of mine old age--steadied his breath and smiled when I spoke to him. But there was little leisure for words with treachery to right and treachery to left, and none to trust fairly. For the world had changed even then, and there were but one or two of my kind left, and I was out of favour. Too old for the new court--too old for new pleasures. And the young Prince--lo! how he used to laugh at my worn flatteries--had many pleasures--so many of them that he took some of them from other folks' lives; thus he had foes. Aye! but friends, too, for he came nearer to kingliness than his brothers. And my son loved him.

”So when the danger came, and I knew by chance of the plot to kill the Prince as he slept, and gain the reward set on him by the English, I had no choice. Yet I dare trust no one in the skulking crowd which crept about the shadows of the old tomb. In those days it was every one for himself, and the Prince had scant following at best. And he lay drunk with wine and women, out of bravado partly to the skulkers--in one of the half-secret upper rooms. But I knew which, and I remember it so well. The grey spear point of the distant Kut showed through its open arch.

”And below, in a far nook of the crypt, where there was a secret swinging panel in the red sandstone wall, known only to the old, my son lay dying.

”He steadied his breath as I stooped over him, and whispered that he would soon be fighting for his Prince again.

”'Soon, my son,' I answered, waiting as he smiled. For I knew the silence was at hand--silence from all things save the breathing that would only steady into death.

”We, my servant and I, lifted him easily. He was but a lad, though he would have grown to greater stature than the Prince. His head lay so contentedly on my shoulder as I went backward up the stair, telling those who stood aside to let us pa.s.s, that he was better and craved the fresher air of the roof. 'Better? Aye! he is better, or soon will be, old fool,' said one with a laugh. Then clattered noisily after his companions, so noisily that the echo of the winding staircase sent their scornful mirth back to me. 'He will be dead--like someone he followed--by morning.'

”Before morning, if I did not fail, thought I, silently, as, searching the shadows, we sought the Prince's hidden room. There was a youth ever with the Prince--a baby-faced, frightened, womanly thing--yet faithful as far as in him lay. Him, I caught by the throat, 'They would kill thee, too,' I said; 'better take the chance of life. If fate be kind, ere dawn discovers the deceit, _he_ will be fit to fly.'

”So after my servant and I, wailing at our lack of wisdom, had carried the Prince down, face covered as one to whom worse sickness had come suddenly, I crept to the upper room again. It was growing late, but the grey spear-head of the Kut still showed beyond the open arch as I covered the lad's face, lest, for all his gay dress, the murderers might see too much.

”'Dream thou art fighting for the Prince, sonling!' I said, knowing he was past even the steadying of his breath for an answer; but the smile had lingered on his face.

”Then I covered my face also, and, bidding the baby-faced one escape to the crypt as soon as it was possible, sate as a servant might have sate, at the turning of the ways from the stair head.

”Would those who were to come be familiar or strange? I wondered. The latter, most likely, since Chiragh Shah, the Chaplaoo, had long since pa.s.sed from court life, almost from remembrance.

”They were strange; as they challenged me, I drew the cloth from my face without fear.

”'The Prince's room!' they cried, dagger-point at my breast. But that could not be. There must be no suspicion, only certainty, only soothed certainty. 'I have been waiting to show it to my lords,' I answered.

'Lo! he sleeps sound--yea! he sleeps sound, his face toward the Kut.'

”So, with smooth words, I led them in the dark----”

The memory of the darkness seemed to fall as darkness itself on the old brain, and Chiragh Shah sate silent in the suns.h.i.+ne for a few seconds.

When he spoke again, it was as if years had pa.s.sed. ”It was the last lie that was worth the telling,” he said, almost triumphantly.

”And a good lie, too,” came the shrill voice from behind the door c.h.i.n.k. ”See you, boy!--call the old man by his right name in your paper, or may G.o.d's curse light on you for ever!”

Thus adjured, Prem Lal, who, throughout the whole tale, had been fluttering his dictionary from one synonym to another, suggested sycophant; that was, he explained, one who flatters and lies for personal profit.

”Profit!” echoed the voice. ”Small profit dada gained. Was not the Prince killed with his brothers next day by Hudson Sahib; so there was no one left even to reward the old man?”

”Save G.o.d,” suggested Prem Lal, piously trying to escape somehow from the dilemma.

”And there is gain, and gain,” admitted the spokesman, combining new and old, east and west.

”Hus.h.!.+” said one of the two small boys again; ”dada is going to talk--he may know----”

So once more the old voice rose in unconscious apology for the difficulty of condensing what etomologists call his life history into a census paper.

”Yea, it was good, and hard--yet not so hard as the first. _That_ never left me, despite the long years.”

It seemed, indeed, as if it had not, for something of childlike complaint came into the old voice. ”It was my first day at court.