Part 15 (2/2)

And when they drew to the Quarter-Guard, full twenty swords flew clear-- There was not a man but carried his feud with the blood of the mountaineer.

”Ha' done! ha' done!” said the Colonel's son.

”Put up the steel at your sides!

Last night ye had struck at a Border thief-- tonight 'tis a man of the Guides!”

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at G.o.d's great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

THE LAST SUTTEE

Not many years ago a King died in one of the Rajpoot States. His wives, disregarding the orders of the English against Suttee, would have broken out of the palace had not the gates been barred.

But one of them, disguised as the King's favourite dancing-girl, pa.s.sed through the line of guards and reached the pyre. There, her courage failing, she prayed her cousin, a baron of the court, to kill her. This he did, not knowing who she was.

Udai Chand lay sick to death In his hold by Gungra hill.

All night we heard the death-gongs ring For the soul of the dying Rajpoot King, All night beat up from the women's wing A cry that we could not still.

All night the barons came and went, The lords of the outer guard: All night the cressets glimmered pale On Ulwar sabre and Tonk jezail, Mewar headstall and Marwar mail, That clinked in the palace yard.

In the Golden room on the palace roof All night he fought for air: And there was sobbing behind the screen, Rustle and whisper of women unseen, And the hungry eyes of the Boondi Queen On the death she might not share.

He pa.s.sed at dawn--the death-fire leaped From ridge to river-head, From the Malwa plains to the Abu scars: And wail upon wail went up to the stars Behind the grim zenana-bars, When they knew that the King was dead.

The dumb priest knelt to tie his mouth And robe him for the pyre.

The Boondi Queen beneath us cried: ”See, now, that we die as our mothers died In the bridal-bed by our master's side!

Out, women!--to the fire!”

We drove the great gates home apace: White hands were on the sill: But ere the rush of the unseen feet Had reached the turn to the open street, The bars shot down, the guard-drum beat-- We held the dovecot still.

A face looked down in the gathering day, And laughing spoke from the wall: ”Ohe', they mourn here: let me by-- Azizun, the Lucknow nautch-girl, I!

When the house is rotten, the rats must fly, And I seek another thrall.

”For I ruled the King as ne'er did Queen,-- Tonight the Queens rule me!

Guard them safely, but let me go, Or ever they pay the debt they owe In scourge and torture!” She leaped below, And the grim guard watched her flee.

They knew that the King had spent his soul On a North-bred dancing-girl: That he prayed to a flat-nosed Lucknow G.o.d, And kissed the ground where her feet had trod, And doomed to death at her drunken nod, And swore by her lightest curl.

We bore the King to his fathers' place, Where the tombs of the Sun-born stand: Where the gray apes swing, and the peac.o.c.ks preen On fretted pillar and jewelled screen, And the wild boar couch in the house of the Queen On the drift of the desert sand.

The herald read his t.i.tles forth, We set the logs aglow: ”Friend of the English, free from fear, Baron of Luni to Jeysulmeer, Lord of the Desert of Bikaneer, King of the Jungle,--go!”

All night the red flame stabbed the sky With wavering wind-tossed spears: And out of a shattered temple crept A woman who veiled her head and wept, And called on the King--but the great King slept, And turned not for her tears.

Small thought had he to mark the strife-- Cold fear with hot desire-- When thrice she leaped from the leaping flame, And thrice she beat her breast for shame, And thrice like a wounded dove she came And moaned about the fire.

One watched, a bow-shot from the blaze, The silent streets between, Who had stood by the King in sport and fray, To blade in ambush or boar at bay, And he was a baron old and gray, And kin to the Boondi Queen.

<script>