The Three Sapphires

The Three Sapphires
William Fraser

Fraser William Alexander

The Three Sapphires

PART ONE

Chapter I

From where they were on the marble terrace that reached from the palace to a little lake – the Lake of the Golden Coin – Lord Victor Gilfain and Captain Swinton could see the intricate maze of Darpore City's lights down on the plain, six miles away.

Over the feather-topped sal forest behind the palace a gorgeous moon was flooding the earth with light, turning to ribbons of gold the circling ripples on the jade lake, where mahseer and burbel splashed in play.

Rajah Darpore was leaning lazily against the fretwork marble balustrade just where the ghat steps dipped down under the water. He was really Prince Ananda, the shazada, for down in the city of glittering lights still lived his father, the maharajah; but it had become customary to address the prince as rajah.

A servant came and took their empty sherry glasses.

Prince Ananda was saying in his soft Oriental voice that the Oxford training had set to truer rhythm: "After that gallop up in the tonga I always find it restful to come out here and have my sherry and bitters before dinner."

"It's ripping; I mean that." And Lord Victor Gilfain stretched his slim arm toward the blinking lights of Darpore.

"I hope you're comfortable in the bungalow," the prince said solicitously. "I hadn't time when you arrived this morning to see just how you were placed. I haven't any bungalows up here, either; they're all in the cantonments."

"We're fitted up regal," Lord Victor answered; "horses, servants – everything."

"Well, I'm very glad you came," Ananda said. "At Oxford we often talked about the shooting you were to have here, didn't we?"

"Rather."

"But I never thought Earl Craig would let you come. Having lived in India in his younger days, I fancied he'd be gun-shy of the country."

Lord Victor laughed. "I got marching orders from the gov'nor."

The prince tapped a cigarette on the marble rail, lighted it from the fireball a watchful servant glided into range with, blew a puff of smoke out toward the little lake, and, with a smile, murmured dreamily: "I wonder if I knew the girl?"

"You didn't, old chap; though you've pipped the gov'nor's idea all right. Swinton here is my keeper; he's supposed to be immune."

"Well, you're safe at Darpore. There's absolutely nobody here just now. Everybody's in Calcutta."

"I fancy the gov'nor cabled out to ask about that before he packed me off." And Gilfain chuckled, a tribute to his reputation for gallantry.

"I should say you're in good hands, too." Ananda's white teeth showed in a smile that irritated Swinton. When Prince Ananda had met them at the train Swinton had seen his black eyes narrow in a hard look. He had been wondering if the prince knew his real position – that he was Captain Herbert, of the secret service. But that was impossible. Probably the prince was mistrustful of all Europeans.

Then Ananda resumed, in an introspective way: "That's England all over; they're as much afraid of breaking caste by marrying lower down as we are here. In fact" – Darpore raised his hand and pointed to the distant city – "the maharajah is sitting yonder, probably in his glass prayer room, listening to some wandering troubadour singing the amorous love songs of 'Krishna and the Milkmaids,' and his mind is quite at rest, knowing that the Brahman caste is so strong that it protects itself in the way of misalliance."

"But you?" Lord Victor blurted out boyishly. "Damn it, prince, you put your caste under the pillow at Oxford!"

Ananda laughed. "Personally it is still under the pillow. You see, when I crossed the 'black water' I broke my caste. When the time comes that it is necessary for the welfare of Darpore state that I take it on again – well, I may. To tell you the truth, the maharajah is not a Brahman at all; he's something very much greater, if he'd only think so; he's a rajput of the Kshatri caste, the warrior caste."

Swinton, sitting back in his chair, had closed his eyes, experiencing a curious pantomimic effect in listening to the English voice leisurely drawling these curiously startling sentiments; then when he opened them suddenly there was the lithe figure of the Oriental, the Indian prince. It didn't ring true; there was a disturbing something about it that kept his nerves tingling. Perhaps it was that he had come to delicately investigate.

"And this," Ananda continued, indicating the palace and the sal forest beyond. "I mean my desire for this and not that" – and the ruby point of his cigarette enveloped with a sweeping gesture the city in the plain – "is because of a Raj Gond cross away back. They were primitive nature worshippers – tiger gods and all that. Listen!" He held up a finger, his eyes tense, as from high up on the hills, deep in the forest, came the hoarse, grating call of a leopard. Immediately from just behind the palace the call was taken up and answered by another leopard.

"By Jove!" Gilfain sprang to his feet.

The prince laughed. "That's one of my captives; I've got quite a menagerie. We'll see them in the day, first time you're out. That's the Raj Gond taint. I couldn't stand it down there, so the maharajah let me build this bungalow up here. This whole plateau we're on contains a buried city. Who built it or who lived in it nobody knows. The marble you see in the palace was all taken from the buildings beneath the roots of these sal trees. I'll show you something; we've got time before the others arrive for dinner."

He led the two men down wide, marble steps to the water's edge, and indicated a cable, the end of which, coming up out of the lake, crept into the bank beneath a large marble slab.

"What's it attached to?" Lord Victor asked.

"This lake is artificial. If it were daylight, and we were up on the bank, we could see seven of them. The story of this cable runs that when the king of this city that is buried was dying he commanded that all his jewels and weapons and his body be placed in a golden boat and sunk in the centre of this lake. They say the boat is attached to the other end of this cable; I don't know."

"Has anybody ever tried to pull it up?" Swinton asked, still feeling that he was helping on the pantomime.

"Yes; once an avaricious nawab got together several elephants and many men, and, fastening to the cable, started to pull the boat up. It came easily at first, but just when they all got very careless and were starting to rush it the magic thing slipped back, pulling them in, and they were all drowned. There's a legend that if a holy man stands here at midnight of a full moon when the mhowa tree is in bloom, with the three sacred sapphires of our mythology in his hand, the king will rise in his golden boat if the holy man has been ordained of the gods to be a leader of his people."

Back on the terrace, Prince Ananda asked: "Were you in the service out here, captain?" Very inconsequential was the tone of this query that was so pointed in reality.

"I was on the Bombay side for a time; my health petered out, and I had to go back to Belati."

"I see the lights of Major Finnerty's dogcart coming up the hill," Ananda announced.

"Coming to dinner with us – any ladies, prince?" Lord Victor queried.

"No; this is what I call a pilkana or play dinner. After we've dined I'm going to show you some Indian tamasha. I asked Finnerty because he's great on these jungle friends of mine – should be able to find you some tiger; I don't shoot."

The moon showed an apologetic smile curving the lips clear of his brilliant white teeth as Ananda, turning to Swinton, added: "I never kill any of them myself; I'm a Buddhist in that way."

"Do you believe in reincarnation, prince?" Gilfain questioned.

"I'm afraid I don't believe in anything that's not demonstrable; but I do know that it is a good thing to not take life. Finnerty is the government keddah sahib here, and I'm going to ask his help in giving you some sport, Gilfain. My private archæologist, Doctor Boelke, is coming for dinner also. The trouble about him is the more he drinks the more Teutonically sombre he becomes."

The prince excused himself, saying: "I think they're pretty well coming together."

The two men could hear a heavy tonga clatter up, followed by the light, whirring grind of dogcart wheels and a medley of voices. As a group came through the palace, Swinton could hear the heavy guttural of a German's "Ach, Gott!" about something unpleasing.

There was a brief introduction and an immediate departure to the dining room.

After dinner, as they sat at little tables on the moonlit terrace over their coffee and cheroots, Major Finnerty, taking from his pocket an oval stone the size of a hen's egg, said: "I've got a curiosity, prince; I wonder if you can read the inscription on it."

"What is it, major?" Darpore asked as he held it toward an electric lamp on the table.

"It's a very fine sapphire in the rough. Where the end has been cut it is of the deepest pigeon blue."

"I can't read the characters because they are Persian, and I only know the Devanagari, but Professor Boelke can," and Ananda passed it to the German.

"Yes, it is Persian," Doctor Boelke said. With a pencil he wrote on a piece of paper some strange-looking characters. "It means Rikaz, and is nothing of mystery."