She turned to go, but the Queen caught her by the hand.

"Why have you done this?" she asked, looking into the strange eyes of the strange woman.

Something like tears gathered in them for a moment, but she brushed them away as she said hurriedly:

"I was grateful. You saved my son. Is it not enough?"

"No, not enough!" cried the Queen. "There is more. Tell me, for death is upon us."

"His footsteps are near," said the Indian. "I will speak. I love my lord. In death I will not cheat him. What you have known is true. My child is no child of his. I will not go down to death with a lie upon my lips. Come and see."

Dwaymenau was no more. Sundari, the Indian woman, awful and calm, led the Queen down the long ball and into her own chamber, where Mindon, the child, slept a drugged sleep. The Queen felt that she had never known her; she herself seemed diminished in stature as she followed the stately figure, with its still, dark face. Into this room the enemy were breaking, shouldering their way at the door--a rabble of terrible faces.

Their fury was partly checked when only a sleeping child and two women confronted them, but their leader, a grim and evil-looking man, strode from the huddle.

"Where is the son of the King?" he shouted. "Speak, women! Whose is this boy?"

Sundari laid her hand upon her son's shoulder. Not a muscle of her face flickered.

"This is his son."

"His true son--the son of Maya the Queen?"

"His true son, the son of Maya the Queen."

"Not the younger--the mongrel?"

"The younger--the mongrel died last week of a fever."

Every moment of delay was precious. Her eyes saw only a monk and a boy fleeing across the wide river.

"Which is Maya the Queen?"

"This," said Sundari. "She cannot speak. It is her son--the Prince."

Maya had veiled her face with her hands. Her brain swam, but she understood the n.o.ble lie. This woman could love. Their lord would not be left childless. Thought beat like pulses in her--raced along her veins.

She held her breath and was dumb.

His doubt was a.s.suaged and the l.u.s.t of vengeance was on him--a madness seized the man. But even his own wild men shrank back a moment, for to slay a sleeping child in cold blood is no man's work.

"You swear it is the Prince. But why? Why do you not lie to save him if you are the King's woman?"

"Because his mother has trampled me to the earth. I am the Indian woman--the mother of the younger, who is dead and safe. She jeered at me--she mocked me. It is time I should see her suffer. Suffer now as I have suffered, Maya the Queen!"

This was reasonable--this was like the women he had known. His doubt was gone--he laughed aloud.

"Then feed full of vengeance!" he cried, and drove his knife through the child's heart.

For a moment Sundari wavered where she stood, but she held herself and was rigid as the dead.

"Tha-du! Well done!" she said with an awful smile. "The tree is broken, the roots cut. And now for us women--our fate, O master?"

"Wait here," he answered. "Let not a hair of their heads be touched.

Both are fair. The two for me. For the rest draw lots when all is done."

The uproar surged away. The two stood by the dead boy. So swift had been his death that he lay as though he still slept--the black lashes pressed upon his cheek.

With the heredity of their different races upon them, neither wept. But silently the Queen opened her arms; wide as a woman that entreats she opened them to the Indian Queen, and speechlessly the two clung together. For a while neither spoke.

"My sister!" said Maya the Queen. And again, "O great of heart!"

She laid her cheek against Sundari's, and a wave of solemn joy seemed to break in her soul and flood it with life and light.

"Had I known sooner!" she said. "For now the night draws on."

"What is time?" answered the Rajput woman. "We stand before the Lords of Life and Death. The life you gave was yours, and I am unworthy to kiss the feet of the Queen. Our lord will return and his son is saved. The House can be rebuilt. My son and I were waifs washed up from the sea.

Another wave washes us back to nothingness. Tell him my story and he will loathe me."

"My lips are shut," said the Queen. "Should I betray my sister's honour?

When he speaks of the n.o.ble women of old, your name will be among them.

What matters which of us he loves and remembers? Your soul and mine have seen the same thing, and we are one. But I--what have I to do with life?

The ship and the bed of the conqueror await us. Should we await them, my sister?"

The bright tears glittered in the eyes of Sundari at the tender name and the love in the face of the Queen. At last she accepted it.

"My sister, no," she said, and drew from her bosom the dagger of Maya, with the man's blood rusted upon it. "Here is the way. I have kept this dagger in token of my debt. Nightly have I kissed it, swearing that, when the time came, I would repay my debt to the great Queen. Shall I go first or follow, my sister?"

Her voice lingered on the word. It was precious to her. It was like clear water, laying away the stain of the shameful years.

"Your arm is strong," answered the Queen. "I go first. Because the King's son is safe, I bless you. For your love of the King, I love you.

And here, standing on the verge of life, I testify that the words of the Blessed One are truth--that love is All; that hatred is Nothing."

She bared the breast that this woman had made desolate--that, with the love of this woman, was desolate ho longer, and, stooping, laid her hand on the brow of Mindon. Once more they embraced, and then, strong and true, and with the Rajput pa.s.sion behind the blow, the stroke fell and Sundari had given her sister the crowning mercy of deliverance. She laid the body beside her own son, composing the stately limbs, the quiet eyelids, the black lengths of hair into majesty. So, she thought, in the great temple of the Rajput race, the Mother G.o.ddess shed silence and awe upon her worshippers. The two lay like mother and son--one slight hand of the Queen she laid across the little body as if to guard it.

Her work done, she turned to the entrance and watched the dawn coming glorious over the river. The men shouted and quarreled in the distance, but she heeded them no more than the chattering of apes. Her heart was away over the distance to the King, but with no pa.s.sion now: so might a mother have thought of her son. He was sleeping, forgetful of even her in his dreams. What matter? She was glad at heart. The Queen was dearer to her than the King--so strange is life; so healing is death. She remembered without surprise that she had asked no forgiveness of the Queen for all the cruel wrongs, for the deadly intent--had made no confession. Again what matter? What is forgiveness when love is all?

She turned from the dawn-light to the light in the face of the Queen.

It was well. Led by such a hand, she could present herself without fear before the Lords of Life and Death--she and the child. She smiled. Life is good, but death, which is more life, is better. The son of the King was safe, but her own son safer.

When the conqueror reentered the chamber, he found the dead Queen guarding the dead child, and across her feet, as not worthy to lie beside her, was the body of the Indian woman, most beautiful in death.

FIRE OF BEAUTY

(Salutation to Ganesa the Lord of Wisdom, and to Saraswate the Lady of Sweet Speech!)

This story was composed by the Brahmin Visravas, that dweller on the banks of holy Kashi; and though the events it records are long past, yet it is absolutely and immutably true because, by the power of his yoga, he summoned up every scene before him, and beheld the persons moving and speaking as in life. Thus he had naught to do but to set down what befell.