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Updated: June 15, 2025
His face darkened with a scowl of jealousy and she laughed in open derision. "Were I Naraini could I not divine the heart of a man?" "By what means?" "What is that to thee, O Heaven-born?" She snuggled her body complacently into the luxurious pile of cushions. "If I have accomplished the task thou didst set for me, what concern hast thou with the means I did employ?
Her parted lips moved, but the man, who had drawn near enough to hear, caught two words only. "Naraini!... Empress!" Gall and wormwood in his mouth, more bitter than remorse, Amber became conscious. Or perhaps it were more true to say that he struggled out of unconsciousness, dragging his ego back by main will-power from the deep oblivion of drugged slumber.
Farrell lost all track of him and was unable to communicate with him, of course, when Naraini chose to strike out for herself.... One thing has always puzzled me; the girl called me by her father's name, pretending to recognise me as her husband; you can't reconcile such conduct." "You can, easily enough beg pardon, my dear fellow. Neither she nor Salig Singh was for an instant deceived.
The rounded little chin went up a trifle and her eyes gleamed angrily. "Am I no longer thy Naraini, then? Or wouldst thou deny that thou art Har Dyal, my king and my beloved? Hast thou indeed forgotten the child that was given thee for wife when thy father reigned in Khandawar and thou wert but a boy a boy of ten, the Maharaj Har Dyal?
One by one they routed 'em out and booted 'em down to us. Meanwhile we had rushed enough troops to Kuttarpur to keep their tails quiet." "And Salig Singh and Naraini?" "Salig Singh, it turned out, was the chap that got bayoneted in the tamarisks.
Thou art only Salig Singh, Maharana of Khandawar, but I am Naraini, a free woman." "Thou !" Rage choked the Rajput. "Thou," he sputtered "thou art " "Softly, Heaven-born, softly lest I loose a thunderbolt for thy destruction. Is it wise to forget that Naraini holds thy fate in the hollow of her hands?" She sat forward, speaking swiftly and with malice.
Naraini shuddered and cried out guardedly for very fear. "By Indur, it is even as the Voice foretold! Nay, Heaven-born" she caught his sleeve and forcibly pulled down his hand "tempt not the Unseen further. And put away this Token, lest a more terrible thing befall us. There be mysteries that even we of the initiate may not comprehend, my lord. It is not well to meddle with the unknown."
A shaft of sunlight struck in through the window and lay stark upon the sleeper's face. He did not move. The khansamah drew close the shades, and with the other left the room in semi-dusk. Beneath the spreading banian, by the cistern of the goldfish, Naraini with smouldering eyes watched Amber disappear in the wilderness of shrubbery. He walked as a man with a set purpose, never glancing back.
When he looked again, some two or three minutes later, Naraini, the sowar, and the horses had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened to receive them. He rubbed his eyes, stared, and gave it up. So he was alone!... With a shrug, he plodded on. The causeway down which the horsemen of forgotten kings of Khandawar had clattered forth to war, in its age-old desuetude had come to decay.
As they watched it dropped out of sight and everything was suddenly very bleak and black. And a curious thing happened. Naraini cried out sharply "Aho!" as if unable to contain her excitement. Somewhere in the palace behind them a great gong boomed like thunder. A pause ensued, disturbed only by the fluttering of the woman's breath: for the space of thirty pulse-beats nothing happened.
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