The dominion over which Rajah Nehal Singh exercised his partial authority was a tract of unfruitful land extending over about two hundred square miles and sparely inhabited by a branch of the Aryan race which through countless generations had kept itself curiously aloof from its neighbors. The greater number were Hindus of the strictest type, and perhaps owing to their natural conservatism they had succeeded in keeping their religion comparatively free from the abuses and distortions which it was forced to undergo in other regions. Up to the year 18—the state had been to all practical purposes independent. Its poverty and unusual integral cohesion made it at once a dangerous enemy and an undesirable dependent, which it was tacitly agreed to let alone until such time when action should become imperative. That time had come under the reign of Behar Asor—then Behar Singh. This prince, who, his followers declared, could trace his descent from Brahma himself, unexpectedly, after he had been living in hand-in-glove friendship with his European neighbors, proclaimed a Holy War, massacred all foreigners within his reach, and for eighteen long months succeeded, by means of a species of guerrilla warfare, in keeping the invading armies at bay. Partly owing to the unflagging determination of the English troops, partly owing also to the intense hatred with which he was regarded by all Mohammedans, he was eventually overcome, though he himself was never captured. It was believed that he died while fleeing through the vast jungles with which his land was overgrown, and this idea was strengthened by the fact that, though a large reward for his capture was offered, nothing further had ever been heard of him.

From that time the land came under the more or less direct control of the Government. As a concession to the population, Behar Singh's one-year-old son was placed upon the throne under a native regency, but English regiments were stationed at the chief towns, and a political agent resided at the capital. Neither the regiments nor the political agent, however, found any work for their hands to do. A calm, as unexpected as it was complete, seemed to descend upon the whole country, and the officers who had taken up their posts with a loaded revolver in each hand, figuratively speaking, began very quickly to relapse instead into pig-sticking, polo and cards.

The climate was moderate, the vegetation beautiful if unprofitable, and the sport excellent. Thus it came about that a danger spot on the map of the Indian Empire became a European paradise, and that to be ordered to Marut was to become an object of envious congratulations. Not, as Mr. Archibald Travers had with justice complained, that the reigning prince, as in other states, took any part in the general gaiety or in any way enhanced the agreeableness of his capital. As far as was known, no European eyes had ever lighted on him since his childhood. Under one excuse and another he had been kept persistently in the background, his place being taken first by the regent and then by succeeding ministers, until it was generally supposed that the young Rajah was either afflicted with some loathsome disease or mentally deficient, probabilities which the Government, with unpleasant recollections of Behar Singh's too great intelligence, accepted with unusual readiness. There were no causes for suspicion. The Rajah never left the precincts of his palace garden, a piece of land whose cultivation had cost untold sums, and which, together with the Hindu temple, was supposed to stand as the eighth wonder of the world. Fabulous stories were told of the beauty and rarity of the vegetation, and of the value of the jewels which were supposed to decorate the temple and royal apartments. As there was no opportunity of confirming or refuting the statements, they were allowed to grow unhindered.

It was in this small sphere that Nehal Singh spent his childhood, his youth and early manhood. Of the outer world he had seen nothing, though he had read much, his education extending over all European history and penetrating deep into that of his own country. Nevertheless, the picture his mind had formed had little in common with the reality—it was too overshadowed by his own character. As a blind man may be able, through hearsay, to describe his surroundings detail by detail and yet at the bottom be possessed by an entirely false conception, so Nehal Singh, to all appearances well instructed, was in reality as ignorant as a child. The heroes whose figures peopled his imagination were too heroic, the villains too evil, and both heroes and villains were either physically beautiful or hideous, according to their characters.

He had no comrade against whose practical experience he might have rubbed this distorted picture into a more truthful likeness. His only companions had been his native instructors and the priests—men separated from him by a gulf of years and a curious lack of sympathy which he had in vain striven to overcome. Thus he had been intensely lonely, more lonely than he knew, though some dawning realization crept over him on this particular evening as he passed through the temple gates. For a moment he stood with his hands crossed over his breast, absorbed in prayer to Brahma, the Creator, in whose presence he was about to stand. In such an hour, amidst the absolute stillness, under the stupendous shadows of the walls, which had, unchanging, seen generation after generation of worshipers drift from their altars into the deeper shades of Patala, the young prince felt the wings of divine spirits brush close past him, bearing his prayer on unseen hands to the very ear of the golden-faced Trinity who, from his earliest years, had seemed to look down upon him with solemn kindness.

This evening, more perhaps than ever before, every fiber in him vibrated beneath the touch of the holy charm, and the prayer which passed soundlessly over his lips came from a soul that worshiped in fiery earnestness and truth. A minute passed as he stood there, then, removing his shoes, he stepped over the threshold and walked forward between the gigantic granite columns which supported what was left of the dome-shaped roof. There was no altar, no jewel, no figure cut in the hard stone that was not known to him with all their mysterious significance. Here had been spent all his leisure hours; here had been dreamed his wildest dreams; beneath this column he had seen as in a vision how Vishnu took nine times human form and a tenth time came, according to the Holy Writings, with a winged horse of spotless white, and crowned as conqueror.

To-day these things pressed down upon him with all the weight of a tremendous reality. With beating heart he entered at last into the Holy of Holies and stood before the god's high altar, visible only to those of purest caste. His head was once more bowed. He did not venture to look up at the golden figure whose ruby eyes, he knew, stared straight through his soul into every corner of the world and beyond into Eternity. His belief, pure, unsoiled from contact with the world, was a power that had gone out into the darkness and conjured thence the spirits that shrank back from the cold prayer of the half-believer. They stood before him now—these wonderful spirits. He believed surely that, should he dare to raise his eyes, he would see them, definite yet formless, arising glorious out of the cloud of golden reflection from Brahma's threefold forehead.

Thus he prayed, not kneeling, since the god cared only for his soul:

"Oh, Lord Brahma, Creator, hear me! Thou who madest me knowest whither I came and whither I go; but I, who am as the wind that bloweth as thou listeth, as a flower that springeth up in the night and unseen fadeth in the midday heat, I know not thy purpose nor the end for which I am. Lord Brahma, teach me, for my soul panteth after knowledge. Show me the path which I must tread, for I am weary with dreams. Teach me to serve my people—be it hand in hand with the Stranger and his gods, be it alone. Teach me to act, and that right soon; for my childhood days are spent and my man's arm heavy with idleness. Send me forth—but not alone—not alone, Lord Brahma, for I am heart-sick of loneliness. Give me my comrade, my comrade who shall be more to me than—"

He stopped and, obeying an impulse stronger than himself, lifted his face to the idol. It had vanished. In its place stood a woman.

At another and cooler moment, with a mind filled with other thoughts, with a heart untroubled by new and all-powerful emotions, he would have known her, if only from hearsay, for what she was. But with that passionate prayer upon his lips, she was for him the answer, a divine recognition of his need and of his lately recognized loneliness.

Tall, slender, with a pale, transparent complexion, touched like a young rose with the faintest color, dark, grave eyes and hair that seemed a part of the obscured god, whose pure lines, though foreign, harmonized in every detail with the classic beauty of her surroundings, she stood and watched him, as he watched her, in perfect silence.

"Lakshmi!" he murmured at last; and, as though the one word had broken a charm which held them both paralyzed, she smiled, and the smile lit up the Madonna face and made it as human as it had seemed divine.

[Illustration: "Lakshmi!" he murmured at last.]

"Forgive me," she began, speaking in English, "I am afraid I have disturbed you, but—" She paused, apparently confused by the directness of his gaze. The faint pink upon her cheek deepened.

"Who are you?" he demanded in his own tongue.

Her look of non-comprehension steadied him, at least outwardly, though it did not check the fierce, painful beating of his pulses. He repeated the question in pure though hesitating English.

"I am an Englishwoman," she answered at once, "and have lost my way. For hours—it seems hours, at any rate—I have been wandering hither and thither, trying to find my party, with whom I was enjoying an excursion. By some chance I came across this temple, and hoped to meet some one who might help me. You see, I am a stranger in this part of the world. I—I hope I have done no wrong?"

She looked at him pleadingly, but he ignored her question. It never occurred to him to doubt her explanation, or wonder at the unlikeliness of the chance which should have led her through the intricate paths to this hallowed spot.

"You are English?" he echoed. The fever in his blood was subsiding, but, like some great crisis, it was leaving him changed. It had swept him out of the world of languorous, enchanted dreams into a world of not less enchanted reality.

"I fear I am presumptuous," she began again; "but are you not the Rajah? If so, I am certain you must be very, very angry. For the Rajah—so I have been told—does not love the English."

She smiled again, meeting his unwavering gaze with a frank good-humor which for him was more wonderful even than her beauty. No woman—and for that matter, no man—had ever dared to look him in the eyes with such a laughing, fearless challenge.

"Yes, I am the Rajah," he answered. Then, after a pause, he added with great simplicity, "You are very beautiful."

She laughed outright, and the laugh, which rang like the peal of a silver bell through the vaulted chamber, filled him with a sudden sense of her danger. She stood with her back turned indifferently on the golden image, an Unbeliever whose shod feet were defiling the sacred precincts, an object, then, for hatred and revenge—not for him, truly. In his eyes she was still an emissary from Brahma, and thus in herself half sacred; but he knew well enough that such would not be the opinion of the few fierce priests who worshiped in the temple.

"You are not safe here," he said, with an energy which was new to him.
"Come!"

He led her hurriedly out of the sanctuary into the great entrance hall.
There he slackened speed and waited until she reached his side.

"For a foreigner it is not safe to enter the temple," he explained. "Had any one but myself found you, I could not answer for the consequences."

"They would have harmed me?"

"It is possible."

"That would have been terrible!" she said, glancing at him with eyes that expressed rather a daring courage than fear.

"Most terrible," he assented earnestly.

"Yet—you also, Your Highness, you have also the same reasons for anger. My intrusion, innocent though it was, must have been equally offensive to you."

"No," he said. "That is quite different."

He offered no further explanation, and together they passed out of the two immense gopuras into the evening sunshine.

"I will bring you to the gates which lead on to the highroad," he went on. "Thence one of my servants will conduct you back to the town, where I trust you will find your friends."

"You are most good," she answered gratefully.

They walked side by side between the high walls of cypress and palm. The path was a narrow one, and once his hand brushed lightly against hers. The touch sent a flood of fire through his young veins. He drew back with a courtesy which surprised himself. He had never been taught that courtesy toward a woman could ever be required of him. Of women he had heard little save that they were inferior, in intellect and judgment no more than slaves, and his curiosity had at once been satiated. He sought things above him—those beneath him excited no more than indifference. But this woman was neither an inferior nor a slave. Her free, erect carriage, steadfast, fearless eyes proclaimed the equal. So much his instinct taught him in those brief moments, and his eager curiosity concerning her grew and deepened. Every now and again his gaze sought her face, drinking in with an almost passionate thirst the fine detail of her profile, compared to which his dreams were poor and lifeless. Once it chanced that she also glanced at him, and that they looked at each other for less than a breathing space full in the eyes.

"I fear you are angry, Your Highness," she said earnestly. "I must have offended against your laws even more than I know."

"Why do you think I am angry?" he asked.

"You have scarcely spoken."

"Forgive me! That is no sign of anger. I am still overcome with the strangeness of it all. You are the first English person I have ever met."

She stood still, with an exclamation of surprise.

"Is that possible? I thought all Indian princes mixed with English people.
Many, indeed, go to England to be educated—"

"So I have heard," he broke in, with a faint haughtiness. "I am not one of them."

"Yet you speak the language so perfectly!" she said.

A gleam of naive pleasure shone out of his dark eyes.

"I am glad you think so. My—one of my ministers taught me."

They walked on again. Here and there she stopped to look at some curious plant—always a little in advance of him—so that he had opportunity to study the hundred things about her which confirmed his wondering, increasing admiration. Slight as she was, there was yet a gracefully controlled strength in every movement. In his own mind, poor as it necessarily was in comparisons, he compared her to a young doe he had once startled from its resting-place. There was the same fragile beauty, the same grace, the same high-strung energy. In nothing was she like the women painted for him by his father's hand—things for idle, sensuous pleasure, never for serious action.

Plunged in a happy confusion of thought, he had once more relapsed into silence, from which she startled him with a question evidently connected with their previous conversation.

"And so you have lived all your life in this lovely garden?" she said, looking up at him with a grave wonder in her eyes.

"All my life," he answered.

"You have never seen anything of the world?"

"Never." He felt the pity in her tone, and added, with a shamefacedness curiously in contrast with his former hauteur: "But I have read much."

"That is not the same thing," she returned. "No book could make you understand how wonderful and beautiful things are."

He looked at her, and for a second time their eyes met.

"You are right," he said. "Hitherto I have thought myself all-wise. I have studied hard, and I believed there was nothing I did not know. Now I see that there are wonders in the world of which I have never even dreamed."

Her glance wavered beneath the undisguised admiration in his eyes and voice. Then she asked gently:

"Now that you have seen, will you not leave your hermitage? Surely it is wrong to shut one's heart against the world in which one lives. There is so much work to be done, so much to learn, and you have been granted power and wealth, Your Highness. The call upon your help is greater than upon others."

His brows knitted.

"Do you hate us so?" she asked.

"Hate you?" he repeated wonderingly. "Why should I hate you?"

"Yet, from your tone, I judged that you had kept seclusion because intercourse with my country-people meant defilement," she said boldly.

A flush crept up under his dark skin.

"Those are things I can not explain," he said; "but they have nothing to do with hatred. I have heard much of the English heroes. Their deeds of daring and self-sacrifice have filled my heart with love and veneration. I know that they are the greatest and noblest people of the earth. I love great and noble people. I do not hate them."

"I am glad," she said.

They had reached the gates which opened out on to the highroad, and as though by mutual consent both came to a standstill.

"Your Highness has been most good to me," she went on. "I can find my way perfectly now. I am only puzzled to know how I should ever have lost it so much as to have wandered into your garden."

"Some sentry must have slept," he remarked grimly.

"But you will not punish any one?"

"Whoever it was, he was only the servant of destiny, like us all," he said. "No harm shall come to him." He paused, and then added with a slight effort: "One of the sentries shall accompany you."

"No, no," she answered energetically. "That is not necessary. I would rather go alone."

He pointed upward to the sky, whose blue was deepening into the violet shades of night.

"It will be dark before you reach your destination," he said. "Are you not afraid?"

She laughed merrily.

"Of what should I be afraid? There are no maneaters about here, as I understand. As for men, I am prepared to encounter at least six of them. Look!" She drew from the bosom of her dress a small revolver of exquisite workmanship, and held it out to him. "It has all six chambers loaded," she added.

He took the weapon, pretending to examine it; but his pulses had recommenced their painful beating, and he saw nothing but her face.

"Are all Englishwomen so brave and beautiful?"

This time she did not laugh at the simplicity of the question.

"Come and see," she answered boldly. He said nothing, and she went on: "At any rate, I must go now. My people will be very anxious, and I have so much to tell them. They will envy me the privilege I have enjoyed of seeing your wonderful gardens. I shall tell them how kind you have been to a foolish wanderer."

"If the gardens please you, they are always open to you," he said.

She shook her head sadly.

"I am afraid it is not possible. You see, I could not come alone. Propriety will forgive me this once, because it was an accident—a second time, and my reputation would be gone for ever." She held out her hand frankly. "So it must be good-by for ever!"

An instant he hesitated, torn between a deep ingrained principle and desire. Then he took the small hand in his own.

"It will not be good-by for ever," he said. "We shall meet again."

"I should be glad. We have been quite good friends, haven't we? But you see, you will be in a garden into which I may not enter, and I in a world which for you is forbidden ground. I am afraid there is no hope."

"Nevertheless, we shall meet again," he repeated.

"Why are you so certain?"

He smiled dreamily.

"Nothing in this world happens without purpose," he answered. "So much my books and eyes have taught me. We do not drift aimlessly into each other's lives. We are borne on the breast of a strong current which flows out of the river of Fate, and whether we meet for good or evil is according to the will of God. But of one thing I am sure: it must be for good or evil."

For a moment she said nothing. Her face was turned away from him, and when at last she spoke, her voice had lost something of its daring certainty.

"I hope, then, our meeting is for our good," she said.

"I feel that it is," he answered.

He led her past the bewildered, terrified sentry on to the grey, dusty highroad. It was the first time that his feet had crossed the threshold.

"I shall watch you till you are out of sight," he said. "Good-by."

"Good-by—and thank you!"

According to his word, he stood where she had left him, his eyes fixed immovably, like those of a bronze statue, on the slight, elastic figure, as it hurried toward the lights of the distant Station. When at last the purple mist had swallowed her from his sight, he looked up toward the heavens.

Just where the mist ended and the clear sky began, the evening star rose in its first splendor and shone through the dry atmosphere, signaling to its fellows that night was come. One by one others followed. As time passed, the moon in a cloud of silver lifted herself in stately progress above the black outline of the jungle and touched with her first beams the filigree minarets of the temple.

Nehal Singh bowed his head in prayer.

"Oh, Lord Brahma, I thank thee!"

A short-lived breath of evening air caught up the passionate murmur of his voice and mingled it with the rustling of the Sacred Tree whose restless, shimmering, silver leaves hung above his head. He understood their whisper as he listened. It was the accents of the god to whom he prayed, and all the poetic mysticism of his nature responded to the call.

"Oh, Lord Brahma, Creator, I thank thee!" he repeated; then turned, and with head still bowed, passed back through the high marble gates.