Part 8

Amos stood looking down at the letter and remained silent. She laid a hand upon his arm and said, “What does it mean, Amos, about not letting you know who you are? Who are you?”

He looked up with a smile. “I don’t know; I can only guess.”

“Well, what do you guess?”

“I guess that I am the rajah of that province.”

“Really? Why, you don’t mean it! And have you always known it?”

“I don’t know it now, but I have always suspected it.”

“You funny old thing! Why, this is awfully exciting! And you never told me!”

“Why should I? Your father would only have hastened my departure if I had tried to pass myself off as a fairy prince; and you would have laughed in my face.”

“No. I am not so sure. But that was long ago, and to-day I should believe anything you told me.”

“Well, I believe you would,” and there, at the open window, he put his arm about her waist and did that unnecessary thing true lovers seem unable to resist. She jumped away to turn with an anxious face and look cautiously through the window. But the distant haymakers gave no signs of having received a shock.

“Could they have seen?” she demanded.

He looked over upon the sunlit field. “No, poor things, they missed it!”

But Molly moved away and seated herself upon a venerable little horse-hair trunk whose bald spots were numerous and of considerable extent. Brass-headed nails, now black with age, studded all its edges and formed at each end the initials of Josiah Judd.

“Tell me, little Amos, what happened to you as a child, that you should consider yourself a fairy prince.”

The trunk was short for two, but Amos, by a little pushing and crowding, managed to sit beside her.

“Well, in the first place, I was always too wise and too amiable for an ordinary mor--”

“No, no! Be serious.”

“Well, almost everything I remember seems to point in that direction. For instance, there was a separate seat for me on swell occasions; a sort of throne, I should say, and all the other people stood up. In the big hall I told you about where the fight took place, I used to sit in an ivory chair with gold ornaments on it, cocked up on a platform apart from other people. And that afternoon I was walking across the hall toward it when the fierce-looking chap with the beard caught me up and passed me along.”

“Gracious! This is very exciting! Go on.”

“I could give you this sort of stuff by the yard if the conditions were favorable. The conditions now are unfavorable.”

Their eyes met, but experience had taught her caution. “Go on. There are no rajahs in America, and you will do as I tell you.”

“That is very true, but we are too far apart.”

“And all the while you are crowding me off this trunk!”

“Yes, but at the same time I am holding you on. Do you see that old rocking-chair over there with one arm that is beckoning to us?”

There followed a brief, illogical discussion, then finally a gentle force was used by the stronger party, and a moment later the old chair groaned beneath a heavier burden than it had borne for thirty years.

After persistent urging the reminiscences were continued. “They always helped me first at table, no matter how old the other guests were, or how many or how swell. The bowing and saluting was much more elaborate toward me than toward anyone else, and in processions they always stuck me in front. Shortly after my father died there was a grand ceremony in a sort of courtyard with awnings over us, and I remember what an everlasting affair it was, and how my uncle and an old general stood behind my chair, while all the swells and panjandrums came up and saluted me, then passed along. I should say there might have been a million. I know I went to sleep and my uncle kept tapping me on the shoulder to keep me awake.”

“You poor little thing! But you must really have been something tremendously important, mustn’t you?”

“It seems so.”

“Well, go on.”

“After that there were some big reviews, and I sat on a white pony with officers in a semicircle behind me, while the troops marched by, and the generals and colonels all saluted. That was great fun. And I shall never forget my saddle of crimson leather with the gold trimmings.”

“How romantic! Why, it seems impossible!”

“Do you remember the head-dress in my mother’s miniature?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I find that sort of thing is only worn by royalty.”

There was a pause, during which the old chair rocked gently to and fro, but noisily, as if in protest against its double burden, while the voices from the neighboring field came drifting in the window and with them the occasional tinkling of a cow-bell.

“And to think of your being here in Connecticut, a farmer!”

“Thank heaven I am!” and there followed one of those foolish but apparently enjoyable scenes which no dignified historian is expected to describe. Stepping away from the rocking-chair Molly turned with a frown upon its remaining occupant as she pressed an escaping lock into position. Through the open window the setting sun sent a bar of light across the attic that illumined her hair with a golden touch.

“We must find that book,” she exclaimed, with an impatient gesture. “It will tell us the very things we wish to know. Come, get up, and hunt!”

Slowly rocking, with his head resting against the chair, he regarded her with admiring eyes, but showed no signs of haste. “There is but one book I care to study, and that is a poem in pink, about five feet six in length, with gilt edges at the top.”

She smiled sadly. “No, not a poem, but very ordinary prose, and you will get precious little wisdom from studying it.”

“On the contrary, every page is a revelation. Why, the binding alone is a poem! Merely to hold it in one’s lap and look at the cover is a gentle intoxication.”

Wavering between a smile and a frown, she answered:

“I wonder if all rajahs are such transparent flatterers. But come! Find the book! It must be downstairs in the library.”

“No, it is not down there. I know every book among them.”

“Where can it be, then? tucked away in some trunk or drawer?”

“Probably.”

“Could it be in that?” and she pointed to an old cherry-wood desk just behind him. He turned and regarded it.

“As likely there as anywhere. It is the desk he used until he died.”

Molly opened the slanting top and found an array of pigeonholes filled with old papers. There were some very small drawers, all of which she opened, but they contained no book, so she closed the top and opened the long upper drawer. It was almost empty, the only contents being a few envelopes of seeds, some tools, scattered cards, and a couple of marbles that ran about as the drawer was opened.

“I rather think you know this place,” and she lifted up a bladeless jackknife. “Only a boy could treat a knife in such a way.”

“Yes, I remember all those things. That wooden pistol has killed lots of Indians.”

The second drawer held among other things a camel’s-hair shawl, a bed-cover, a pair of woman’s slippers, a huge shell-comb elaborately carved, some black mits, and a package of letters; almost everything except a book. The third drawer and the fourth were equally disappointing. The lowest drawer was deeper and heavier, and it stuck. Amos sprang to help her, and together they pulled it open, then sat down upon the floor in front of it. The character of its contents was much like the others, but Molly delved thoroughly among its treasures and she received her reward. As her hand was exploring a farther corner she looked up into his face with a look of excitement.

“Here is a book! It must be the one!” and a little volume was drawn forth.

“‘The Heroes of India!’ aren’t we in luck!”

It was a handsome little book, with a blue morocco cover and gilt edges, published in Calcutta. Turning over the leaves with eager fingers she came to a bookmark opposite a portrait, a steel engraving, showing the head and shoulders of a bejewelled prince.

“Why, it might be you! It is exactly like you! Look!” and she held it before him.

“So it is, but perhaps they all are. Let’s hear about him if you are sure he is our man.”

“Oh, I am sure of it! He is the image of you and the others are not;” and she began to read.

“Of all the royal families in India, none claim an existence more remote than that of the Maharaja Sirdar Oumra Sing. According to accepted history and tradition, this princely house not only dates back to the earliest centuries of Eastern history, but owes its origin to the immortal Vishn’u himself. It is a romantic story, in fact the survival of an ancient fable, poetic and supernatural, but, curiously enough, seems to be substantiated by the extraordinary attributes of a recent ruler. The Rajah Sirdar Sing, whose portrait heads this article, was perhaps the most popular hero of Northern India, and unless we eject the evidence of all his contemporaries, was possessed of powers that brought him the most startling victories both in peace and war, and over adversaries that were considered invincible. His kingdom, during his reign of thirty years, was nearly doubled in territory and enormously increased in wealth. In his own country to-day there are none who question his prophetic powers: men of science and of letters, historians, high priests, lawyers, soldiers, all firmly believe in his immortal gifts. To us Europeans, however, these tales are more difficult of acceptance.

“In the very centre of Sirdar Sing’s forehead the reader may have observed a faint spot scarcely half an inch in diameter, and this appeared, we are told, like a scar or a burn, of a lighter color than the skin and, except under certain conditions, was barely noticeable. But the tradition runs that when exercising his prophetic faculty this little spot increased in brilliancy and almost glowed, as if of flame.”

“And so does yours!” and she regarded him with a look of awe.

“Go ahead,” he said, looking down at the book. “Let us hear the rest.”

“The legend is this:

“When Vishn’u in his Kr’ishn’a-Avatâra, or eighth incarnation, was hard-pressed in his war against the Kurus, he received great assistance from Arjuna, a Pân’d’u prince who, after a four days’ battle, and at great risk to himself, delivered to his immortal ally the sacred city of Dwârakâ. For this service and in token of his undying gratitude, Vishn’u laid his finger upon the forehead of Arjuna and endowed him with a knowledge of future events, also promising that once in a hundred years a descendant should possess this priceless gift. Although we may not accept this romantic tale, there is no doubt whatever that Sirdar Sing, the original of our portrait, was guided by a knowledge of the future, either earthly or divine, which neither scientists nor historians have yet explained. The next in order to inherit this extraordinary faculty, if there is truth in the legend, will be the son of the present rajah, whose nuptials have just been celebrated with such lavish and magnificent festivities.”

She paused for a moment, then with trembling fingers turned back to the title-page. The book was printed twenty-eight years ago, the year before Amos was born.

For a long time they sat on the floor talking; she asking many questions and he answering, until the listening objects in the attic began to lose their outline and become a part of the gloom. The sunlight along the rafters dwindled to a narrow strip, then disappeared; and the voices of the haymakers were long since gone when Amos and Molly finally climbed to their feet and descended the stairs.

IX

September brought other guests, and with their arrival Amos Judd and Molly Cabot found the easy, irresponsible routine of their happy summer again disturbed. To his own fierce regret Amos could invent no decent pretext for escaping a visit he had promised early in the summer, and a more unwilling victim never resigned himself to a week of pleasure. To the girl he was to leave behind him, he bewailed the unreasonable cruelty of his friends. “This leaving you, Soul of my Soul, is worse than death. I shall not eat while I am gone, and nights I shall sit up and curse.”

But at the end of a week he returned, promptly on the minute. His moments of depression, however, seemed rather to increase than diminish, and, although carefully repressed, were visible to a pair of watchful eyes. Upon his face when in repose there had always been a melancholy look, which now seemed deepening as from an inward sorrow, too strong to conquer. This was betrayed occasionally by a careless speech, but to her questioning he always returned a cheerful answer. In spite of these heroic efforts to maintain a joyful front, Molly was not deceived, and it was evident, even to Mr. Cabot, that the young man was either ill in body or the victim of a mental disturbance that might be disastrous in its results. Of this he was destined to have a closer knowledge than his daughter. It came about one Sunday morning, when the two men had climbed a neighboring hill for a view which Mr. Cabot had postponed from week to week since early June. This was his last Sunday in Daleford and his final opportunity.

The view was well worth the climb. The day itself, such a day as comes oftenest in September, when the clear air is tempered to the exact degree for human comfort by the rays of a summer sun, was one in which the most indifferent view could shine without an effort. Below them, at the foot of the hill, lay the village of Daleford with its single street. Except the white spires of the churches, little of it could be seen, however, beneath the four rows of overhanging elms. Off to their left, a mile or two away, the broad Connecticut, through its valley of elms, flowed serenely to the sea; and beyond, the changing hills took on every color from the deepest purple to a golden yellow. A green valley on their right wandered off among the woods and hills, and in it the stately avenue of maples they both knew so well. A silence so absolute and so far-reaching rested upon the scene that, after a word or two of praise, the two men, from a common impulse, remained without speaking. As thus they sat under the gentle influence of a spell which neither cared to break, the notes of an organ came floating upward from the trees below them, and mingled with the voices of a choir. Mr. Cabot’s thoughts turned at once to the friend at his side, whom he felt must experience a yet deeper impression from these familiar scenes of his childhood. Turning to express this thought, he was so struck by the look upon Amos’s face, an expression of such despairing melancholy, that he stopped in the middle of his sentence. While well aware that these tragic eyes were always most pathetic objects in repose, he had never seen upon a human face a clearer token of a hopeless grief.

“What is it, my boy?” he asked, laying a hand upon the knee beside him. “Tell me. I may be able to help you.”

There was a slight hesitation and a long breath before the answer came. “I am ashamed to tell you, Mr. Cabot. I value your good opinion so very much that it comes hard to let you know what a weak and cowardly thing I have been, and am.”

“Cowardly--that I do not believe. You may be weak; all of us are that; in fact, it seems to be the distinguishing attribute of the human family. But out with it, whatever it is. You can trust me.”

“Oh, I know that, sir! If you were only less of a man and more like myself, it would be easier to do it. But I will tell you the whole story. By the fourth of November I shall not be alive, and I have known it for a year.”

Mr. Cabot turned in surprise. “Why do you think that?”

But Amos went on without heeding the question.

“I knew it when I asked Molly to be my wife; and all the time that she has gone on loving me more and more, I have known it, and done all I could to make things worse. And now, as the time approaches and I realize that in a few weeks she will be a broken-hearted woman--for I have learned what her affection is and how much I am to her--now I begin to see what I have done. God knows it is hard enough to die and leave her, but to die only to have played a practical joke on the girl for whom I would joyfully give a thousand lives if I had them, is too much.”

He arose, and standing before her father, made a slight gesture as of surrender and resignation. The older man looked away toward the distant river, but said nothing.

“Listen, sir, and try to believe me.” Mr. Cabot raised his glance to the dark face and saw truth and an open heart in the eyes fixed solemnly upon his own; and he recognized a being transformed by a passion immeasurably stronger than himself.

“When I found she loved me I could think of nothing else. Why should I not be happy for the short time I had to live? Her love was more to me than any earthly thing, than any possible hereafter. Better one summer with her than to live forever and not have known her. Oh! I thought of her side of it, often and often; many a night I have done nothing else, but I could no more give her up than I could lift this hill.” He paused, drew a long breath, as if at the hopelessness of words to convey his meaning, then added, very calmly:

“Now I am soberer, as the end approaches, and I love her more than ever: but I will do whatever you say; anything that will make her happier. No sacrifice can be too great, and I promise you I will make it. I have often wished the bull had killed me that day, then I should have her love and respect forever; and yours too, perhaps.”

“You have both now, Amos. But tell me why you think you are to die by November fourth?”

Amos resumed his seat upon the rock and answered: “Because I have seen myself lying dead on that day.”

“I have sometimes wondered,” said Mr. Cabot, “if that temptation would not prove too strong for you.”

“No, sir, it was not too strong for me under ordinary circumstances, but it happened when I was not myself, when I came out of that fever last October, and as I lay in bed, weak and half-conscious, I felt sure my day had come. I thought the doctor was not telling me the truth, so, by looking ahead for myself, I learned more than I cared to know, and saw myself lying on a sofa in a strange room, a place I had never been into; a public building, I should think.”

“But why do you think it is to be the fourth of November, and this year?”

“Because I looked about and saw near a window a little day calendar, and that was the date it bore. Then on a table lay a daily paper of the day before, and two magazines of the same month, all of this year.”

“But is it not possible the room is unoccupied and that these things have been lying there indefinitely?”

Amos shook his head. “No, sir, it is a room that is lived in. There are other papers lying about: books, and a letter on the desk waiting to be mailed. And in the fireplace the embers are still glowing.”

Mr. Cabot looked with the profoundest sympathy toward his friend, who was scaling bits of moss from the rock beside him; then he turned again to the view and its tranquil beauty seemed a mockery. In the village below them he could see the congregation pouring out from a little white church like ants from a loaf of sugar. Mr. Cabot was not a religious man, and at present there was nothing in his heart that could be mistaken for resignation. His spirit was in revolt, his pugnacity aroused, and with this quality he was freely endowed. Rising to his feet he stood for a moment in silence, with folded arms, frowning upon the distant hills.

“Amos,” he said, finally, “in spite of bygone defeats I am inclined to resist this prophecy of yours. You were not absolutely master of your own mind at the time, and under such conditions nothing would be easier than to confuse your own imagining with a vision of another character. At least it is not impossible, and if by good luck you did happen to confound one with the other we are having our panic for nothing. Moreover, even if this vision is correct, it need not necessarily signify an undeviating fulfilment in every detail. It may indicate the result to be expected in the natural order of events; that is, if things are allowed to take their course without obstruction or intervening influences. But it is difficult for me to believe this faculty is to continue infallible through all your mental and physical developments and fluctuations of faith, and never, under any possible conditions, vary a hair’s-breadth from the truth. It is a law of nature that a disused faculty shall weaken and lose its power, and for years you have done your best to repress and forget it.”

“Yes, sir, but whenever employed it has been correct.”

“That may be, and its day of failure still remain a probability. In this present case the prophecy, aside from its uncertain origin, is one whose fulfilment is more easy to avert than some of the others. You say the room in which you saw yourself is one you are unfamiliar with, and consequently is not in Daleford.”

“Oh, no! There is nothing like it in this vicinity.”

“Well, suppose you were to remain in Daleford during the critical period with two men, nominally visitors at your house, to watch you day and night and see that you do not escape? Or, better still, let me send you to an institution in which I am a director, where you will be confined as a dangerous patient, and where escape, even if you attempted it, would be as hopeless as from a prison.”

Amos doubted the success of any attempt at foiling fate, or, in other words, giving the lie to a revelation once received, but he was willing to do whatever his friend desired. As they walked home they discussed the plan in detail and decided to act upon it; also to take every precaution that Molly should be kept in ignorance.

The first week in October the house at the north end of the avenue was empty and the Cabots were in New York. As the end of the month approached a little tale was invented to explain the cessation for a time of Amos’s visits, and early one afternoon the two men got into a cab and were driven to the outskirts of the city. They entered the grounds of a well-known institution, were received by the superintendent and one or two other officials, then, at the request of the elder visitor, were shown over the entire building and into every room of any size or importance. When this inspection was over Mr. Cabot took his companion aside and asked if he had seen the room they sought. Amos shook his head and replied that no such room could be within the grounds. A few minutes later the young man was shown to a chamber where his trunk had preceded him. The two friends were alone for a moment, and as they separated Amos gave the hand in his own a final pressure, saying: “Don’t think I am weakening, Mr. Cabot, but I cannot help feeling that I have seen Molly for the last time. And if you and I never meet again, you may be sure my last thoughts were with you both.”

In a cheerful tone the lawyer answered: “I shall listen to no such sentiments. If your prophecy is correct you are to be lying in a room outside these grounds on November fourth. No such prophecy can be carried out. And if the prophecy is incorrect we shall meet for several years yet. So good-by, my boy. I shall be here the third.”

During ten days Amos was to remain under the strictest watch, to be guarded by two men at night and by two others in the day-time, and to be permitted under no conditions to leave that wing of the building. By the subordinate in charge and by the four guardians he was believed to be the victim of a suicidal mania. As the fourth of November approached Mr. Cabot’s thoughts were less upon his business than with his imprisoned friend. He remembered with what inexorable force he himself had been held to the fulfilment of a prediction. He had felt the hand of an unswerving fate; and he had not forgotten.