Speak, I pray thee. I listen."
Behar Asor remained silent a moment, biting his forefinger. There was
something in the action strongly reminiscent of a cunning, treacherous
animal.
"Thou hast laughed at thine own power," he said at last, "though I have
sworn to thee that, as in my time, so today, the swords that sleep in a
hundred thousand sheathes would awake at thy word. They sleep because thou
sleepest. Well--thou hast willed to sleep. I can not force thee, and mine
own hand has grown too feeble. But since thou hast chosen peace, remember
this, that it can last only with thy lifetime. So long thy people will be
patient. Afterward--" He shrugged his shoulders significantly.
"Thou hast more to tell me," Nehal Singh said.
"If thou wilt keep peace in thy land, see to it that thou hast children
who will carry it on for thee after thou hast passed into the shadow,"
Behar answered. "Hitherto thou hast led a strange and lonely life,
preparing as I willed for the destiny thou hast cast aside. Take now unto
thee a companion--a wife."
As though clumsy, untutored fingers which had until now tortured some fine
instrument had suddenly, perhaps by chance, perhaps by instinct, struck a
pure harmonious chord, Nehal Singh rose to his feet, his weary dreamer's
face transfigured with a new light and new energy.
"A wife!" he said under his breath. "A woman! I know nothing of women. In
all my life I have seen but two--my mother and a nautch-girl--who cringed
to me.
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