THE COLLECTED WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING (Illustrated Edition). Rudyard Kipling

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      They were talking in the flagged courtyard immediately outside that wing of the palace occupied by Sitabhai. The Maharajah was sitting in a broken Windsor chair, while his grooms brought up successive files of horses, saddled and bridled, in the hope that one of the animals might be chosen for his Majesty's ride. The stale, sick air of the palace drifted across the marble flags before the morning wind, and it was not a wholesome smell.

      Tarvin, who had drawn rein in the courtyard without dismounting, flung his right leg over the pony's withers, and held his peace. He had seen something of the effect of opium upon the Maharajah. A servant was approaching with a small brass bowl full of opium and water. The Maharajah swallowed the draught with many wry faces, dashed the last brown drops from his moustache and beard, and dropped back into the chair, staring with vacant eyes. In a few minutes he sprang to his feet, erect and smiling.

      'Are you here, Sahib?'said he. 'You are here, or I should not feel ready to laugh. Do you go riding this morning?'

      'I'm your man.'

      'Then we will bring out the Foxhall colt. He will throw you.'

      'Very good,' said Tarvin leisurely.

      'And I will ride my own Cutch mare. Let us get away before the agent sahib comes,' said the Maharajah.

      The blast of a bugle was heard without the courtyard, and a clatter of wheels, as the grooms departed to saddle the horses.

      The Maharaj Kunwar ran up the steps and pattered toward the Maharajah, his father, who picked him up in his lap, and fondled him.

      'What brings thee here, Lalji?' asked the Maharajah. Lalji, the Beloved, was the familiar name by which the Prince was known within the palace.

      'I came to exercise my guard. Father, they are giving me bad saddlery for my troopers from the State arsenal. Jeysingh's saddle-peak is mended with string, and Jeysingh is the best of my soldiers. Moreover, he tells me nice tales,' said the Maharaj Kunwar, speaking in the vernacular, with a friendly little nod toward Tarvin.

      'Hai! Hai! Thou art like all the rest,' said the King. 'Always some fresh demand upon the State. And what is it now?'

      The child joined his little hands together, and caught his father fearlessly by his monstrous beard, which, in the manner of a Rajput, was brushed up over his ears. 'Only ten little new saddles,' said the child. 'They are in the big saddle-rooms. I have seen them. But the keeper of the horses said that I was first to ask the King.'

      The Maharajah's face darkened, and he swore a great oath by his gods.

      'The King is a slave and a servant,' he growled--'the servant of the agent sahib and this woman-talking English Raj; but, by Indur! the King's son is at least a King's son. What right had Saroop Singh to stay thee from anything that thou desiredst, Prince?'

      'I told him,' said the Maharaj Kunwar, 'that my father would not be pleased. But I said no more, because I was not very well, and thou knowest'--the boy's head drooped under the turban--'I am only a little child. I may have the saddles?'

      Tarvin, to whom no word of this conversation was intelligible, sat at ease on his pony, smiling at his friend the Maharaj. The interview had begun in the dead dawn-silence of the courtyard--a silence so intense that he could hear the doves cooing on a tower a hundred and fifty feet above his head. But now all four sides of the green-shuttered courtyard were alive, awake, and intent about him. He could hear muffled breathings, the rustle of draperies, and the faintest possible jarring of shutters, cautiously opened from within. A heavy smell of musk and jasmine came to his nostrils and filled him with uneasiness, for he knew, without turning his head or his eyes, that Sitabhai and her women were watching all that went on. But neither the King nor the Prince heeded. The Maharaj Kunwar was very full of his English lessons, learned at Mrs. Estes' knee, and the King was as interested as he. Lest Tarvin should fail to understand, the Prince began to speak in English again, but very slowly and distinctly, that his father also might comprehend.

      'And this is a new verse,' he said, 'which I learned only yesterday.'

      'Is there any talk of their gods in it?' asked the Maharajah suspiciously. 'Remember, thou art a Rajput.'

      'No; oh no!' said the Prince. 'It is only English, and I learned it very quickly.'

      'Let me hear, little Pundit. Some day thou wilt become a scribe, and go to the English colleges, and wear a long black gown.'

      The child slipped quickly back into the vernacular. 'The flag of our State has five colours,' he said. 'When I have fought for that, perhaps I will become an Englishman.'

      'There is no leading of armies afield any more, little one; but say thy verses.'

      The subdued rustle of unseen hundreds grew more intense. Tarvin leaned forward with his chin in his hand, as the Prince slid down from his father's lap, put his hands behind him, and began, without pauses or expression--

      Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Framed thy fearful symmetry? When thy heart began to beat What dread hand made thy dread feet?

      'There is more that I have forgotten,' he went on, 'but the last line is--

      'Did He who made the lamb make thee?

      I learned it all very quickly.' And he began to applaud himself with both hands, while Tarvin followed suit.

      'I do not understand; but it is good to know English. Thy friend here speaks such English as I never knew,' said the Maharajah in the vernacular.

      'Ay,' rejoined the Prince. 'But he speaks with his face and his hands alive--so; and I laugh before I know why. Now Colonel Nolan Sahib speaks like a buffalo, with his mouth shut. I cannot tell whether he is angry or pleased. But, father, what does Tarvin Sahib do here?'

      'We go for a ride together,' returned the King. 'When we return, perhaps I will tell thee. What do the men about thee say of him?'

      'They say he is a man of clean heart; and he is always kind to me.'

      'Has he said aught to thee of me?'

      'Never in language that I could understand. But I do not doubt that he is a good man. See, he is laughing now.'

      Tarvin, who had pricked up his ears at hearing his own name, now resettled himself in the saddle, and gathered up his reins, as a hint to the King that it was time to be moving.

      The grooms brought up a long, switch-tailed English thoroughbred and a lean, mouse-coloured mare. The Maharajah rose to his feet.

      'Go back to Saroop Singh and get the saddles, Prince,' said he.

      'What are you going to do to-day, little man?' asked Tarvin.

      'I shall go and get new equipment,' answered the child, 'and then I shall come to play with the prime minister's son here.'

      Again, like the hiss of a hidden snake, the rustle behind the shutters increased. Evidently some one there understood the child's words.

      'Shall you see Miss Kate to-day?'

      'Not to-day. 'Tis holiday for me. I do not go to Mrs. Estes to-day.'

      The СКАЧАТЬ