The Bronze Bell Part 39

"Now of a verity do I know that thou art a man, my king!--a Rajput, a son of kings, and ... my husband!" Pitched to a minor, thrilling key, her accents were as musical as the singing of a 'cello. "For thou dost know what thou must dare this night of nights, and he is a brave man who can dare so much, unfaltering. Tell me thou art not afraid, my king?"

"Why should I be?"

"Thou wilt not draw back in the end?" Her arms clipped him softly about the neck and drew his head down so that her breath was fragrant in his face, her lips a sweet peril beneath his own. "Thou wilt brave whatever may be prepared for thy testing, for the sake of Naraini, who awaits thee beyond the Gateway; O my Beloved?"

"I shall not be found wanting."

Lithe as a snake, she slipped from his arms. "Nay, I trust thee not!"

she laughed, a quiver of tenderness in her merriment. "Let my lips be mine alone until thou hast proven thyself worthy of them." She raised her voice, calling: "_Ohe_, Runjit Singh!"

The cry rang bell-clear in the stillness, and its silver echo had not died before it was answered by one who stepped out from the black shadow of a spreading banian, some distance away, and came toward them, leading three horses. As the moonlight fell upon him, Amber recognised the uniform the man wore as that of the Imperial Household Guard of Khandawar, while the horses seemed to be the stallions he had seen in the palace yard, with another but little their inferior in mettle or beauty.

"Now," announced the woman in tones of deep contentment, "we will ride!"

She turned to Amber, who took her up in his arms and set her in the saddle of one of the stallions; who, his bridle being released by the trooper, promptly leaped away and danced a spirited saraband with his shadow, until Naraini, with a strength that seemed incredible when one recalled the slightness of her wrists, curbed him in and taught him sobriety.

"By Har!" she panted, "but I think he must know that he carries to-night the destinies of empire! Mount, mount, my lord, and bear me company if this son of Eblis tries to run away with me!"

The sowar surrendered to Amber the reins of the other stallion, and stepped hastily aside. The Virginian took the saddle with a flying leap, and a thought later was digging his knees into the brute's sleek flanks and sawing on the bits, while the path flowed beneath him, dappled with moonlight and shadow, like a ribbon of grey-green silk, and trees and shrubbery streaked back on either hand in a rush of melting blacks and greys.

Swerving acutely, the path ran into the dusty high-road. Amber heard a rush of hoofs behind him, and then slowly the gauze-wrapped figure of the queen drew alongside.

"_Maro!_ Let him run, my king! The way is not far for such as he. Have no fear lest he tire!"

But Amber set his teeth and wrought with the reins until his mount comprehended the fact that he had met a master, and, moderating his first furious burst of speed, settled down into a league-devouring stride, crest low, limbs gathering and stretching with the elegant precision of clockwork. His rider, regaining his poise, found time to look about him and began to enjoy, for all his cares, this wild race through the blue-white night.

Behind them, carbine on saddle-bow, the sowar thundered in pursuit, at an interval of about a hundred yards--often greater, when the stallions would have it so and spent their temper in brief, brisk contests for the leadership. On Amber's left the woman rode as one to the saddle born, her face turned eagerly to the open road, smiling a little with excitement beneath the tissue of thin veiling which the speed-bred breeze moulded cunningly to the contour of her flawless features. The fire in her blood shone lambent in the eyes that now and again met Amber's. More than once he heard her laugh low, with a lilt of happiness.

For himself he was drunk with the spirit of adventure. Bred of the moonlit sky and the far shy stars, of the flooding moonlight breaking crisply against impenetrable shadows like surf against black rocks, of the tune of hoofs, of the singing wind and sighing waters, a wild and reckless humor possessed him, ran molten in his veins, swam in his brain like fumes of wine.

As the tale of miles increased, the valley opened out, and presently they swung to the west from the northerly track, branching off into a rougher way through a wilder countryside. Rugged hilltops marched beside them, looming stark black against the silvered purple of the sky. They met no one, their road winding through a land whose grandeur was enhanced by its positive desolation--a land tenanted only by a million devils of loneliness with naught to do save to fling back mocking echoes of the road-song of the flying hoofs....

Toward the close of the second hour the valleys began to widen, the hills to be less lofty and precipitous. The horses swung up gentler ascents, down slopes less sharp. The road ran for a time along the bank of a broad and placid river, then crossed it by a ma.s.sive arch of masonry as old as history. They circled finally a great, round, gra.s.sless hillside, and pulled rein in the notch of a gigantic V formed by two long, prow-like spurs running out upon a plain whose sole, vague boundary was the vast arc of the horizon.

Before them loomed dead Kathiapur, an island of stone girdled by the shallow silver river. Like the rugged pedestal of some mammoth column, its cliffs rose sheer threescore feet from the water's edge to the foot of the outermost of its triple walls. From the notch in the hills a great stone causeway climbed with a long and easy grade to the level of the first great gate, spanning the chasm over the river by means of a crazy wooden bridge.

Above the broken rim of the three-fold walls the moon's unearthly splendor made visible a vast confusion of crumbling cornices, blank walls, turrets, domes, and towers, the gnarled limbs of dead trees, the luxuriant dark foliage of banian and pepal, palm and acacia. But nothing moved and there was not a light to be seen. These things with the silence told the tale of death. With the cessation of the ringing hoofbeats the stillness had closed down upon the riders like a spell to break the which were to invite the wrath of the undying G.o.ds themselves. Other than the silken breathing of the horses, an occasional m.u.f.fled thud or the jingle of a bridle-chain as one pawed the earth or tossed his head, they heard no sound. The unending hum of a living city was not there. Sister of Babylon, Nineveh and Tyre, kin to Chitor and that proud city of the plains that Jai Singh abandoned when he built him his City of Victory, Kathiapur is as Tadmor--dead.

The sh.e.l.l remains; the soul has flown.

A gasp from the woman and an oath from the sowar startled Amber out of somber apprehensions into which he had been plunged by contemplation of this impregnable fortress of desolation. Gone was his l.u.s.t for peril, gone his high, heedless joy of adventure, gone the intoxication which had been his who had drunk deep of the cup of Romance; there remained only the knowledge that he, alone and single-handed, was to pit his wits against the invisible and mighty forces that lurked in hiding within those walls, to seem to submit to their designs and so find his way to the woman of his love, tear her from the grasp of the unseen, and with her escape...

Naraini had, indeed, no need to cry aloud or clutch his hand in order to apprise him that the Eye was vigilant. He himself had seen it break forth, a lurid star of emerald light suspended high above the dark heart of the city--high in the air where the moment gone there had been nothing; so powerful that it shaded with sickly pallor the face of the woman, who clung shuddering to Amber; so unpresaged its appearance and so malign its augury that it shook even the skepticism of him whose reason had been nourished by the materialism of the Occident.

Slowly, while they watched, the star descended, foot by foot dropping until the topmost pinnacle of a hidden temple seemed to support it; and there it rested, throbbing with light, now bright, now dull.

Amber shook himself impatiently. "Silly charlatanry!" he muttered, irritated by his own susceptibility to its sinister suggestion.... "I'd like to know how they manage it, though; the light itself's comprehensible enough, but their control of it.... If there were enough wind, I'd suspect a kite...."

"Thou art not dismayed, my king?"

He laughed, not quite as successfully as he could have wished, and, "Not I, Naraini," he returned in English: a tongue which seemed somehow better suited for service in combating the esoteric influences at work upon his mind. "What's the next turn on the programme?"

"I like not that tone, nor yet that tongue." The woman shivered. "Even as the Eye seeth, my lord, so doth the Ear hear. Is it meet and wise to speak with levity of that in whose power thou shalt shortly be?"

"Perhaps not," he admitted, thoughtful. "'In whose power I shall shortly be.' ... Well, of course!"

"And thou wilt go on? Thou art not minded to withdraw thy hand?"

"Not so that you'd notice it, Naraini."

"For the sake of the reward Naraini offers thee?" she persisted dangerously.

"I don't mind telling you that you'd turn 'most any man's head, my dear," he said cheerfully, and let her interpret the words as she pleased.

She was not pleased, for her acquaintance with English was more intimate than she had chosen to admit; but if she felt any chagrin she dissimulated with her never-failing art. "Then bid me farewell, O my soul, and go!"

"Up there?" he enquired, lifting his brows.

"Aye, up the causeway and over the bridge, into the city of death."

"Alone?"

"Aye, alone and afoot, my king."

"Pleasant prospect, thanks." Amber whistled, a trifle dashed. "And then, when I get up there--?"

"One will meet thee. Go with him, fearing naught."

"And what will you do, meanwhile?"

"When thou shalt have pa.s.sed the Gateway, my lord, Naraini will be waiting for thee."

"Very well." Amber threw a leg over the crupper, handed the stallion's reins to the sowar, who had dismounted and drawn near, and dropped upon his feet.

Naraini nodded to the sowar, who led the animal away. When he was out of earshot the woman leaned from the saddle, her glorious eyes to Amber's. "My king!" she breathed intensely.

But the thought of Sophia Farrell and what she might be suffering at that very moment was uppermost--obtruded itself like a wall between himself and the woman. He had no further inclination for make-believe, and he saw Naraini with eyes that nothing illuded. Quite as casually as though she had been no more to him than a chance acquaintance, he reached up, took her hand, and gave it a perfunctory shake.

"Good-night, my dear," he said amiably; and, turning, made off toward the foot of the causeway.

When he had gained it, he looked back to see her riding off at a wide angle from the causeway, heading out into the plain. When he looked again, some two or three minutes later, Naraini, the sowar, and the horses had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened to receive them. He rubbed his eyes, stared, and gave it up.

So he was alone!... With a shrug, he plodded on.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE HOODED DEATH