“That is more to me than all India and all the world besides.”
“I was born with the new century. My childhood was a dream, a dream of power, beauty, and delight. Before my face rose every morning the white glory of the high Himalayas, with the crowning mass of Gaurisankar, kissing heaven. Behind me lay the great and golden flood of Holy Ganga. On my left hand stood the Bo of Buddha and on my right the Sacred City of the Maghmela.
“All about me was royal splendor, wealth and jewels and beautiful halls, old and priceless carpets, the music of tinkling fountains, the song and flash of birds; and when I clapped my childish hands, servants crawled to me on their faces. Of course, much that I know now was missing—little comforts of the West; and there were poverty, pain, sickness, and death; but with all this, around me everywhere was marble, gold and jewels, silk and fur, and myriads who danced and sang and served me. For I was the little Princess of Bwodpur, the last of a line that had lived and ruled a thousand years.
“We came out of the black South in ancient days and ruled in Rajputana; and then, scorning the yoke of the Aryan invaders, moved to Bwodpur, and there we gave birth to Buddha, black Buddha of the curly hair. Six million people worshiped us as divine, and my father’s revenue was three hundred lakhs of rupees. I had strange and mighty playthings: elephants and lions and tigers, great white oxen and flashing automobiles. Parks there were and palaces, baths and sweet waters, and amid it all I walked a tiny and willful thing, curbed only by my old father, the Maharajah, and my white English governess, whom I passionately loved.
“I had, of course, my furious revolts: wild rebellion at little crossings of my will; wild delight at some of the efforts to amuse me; and then came the culmination when first the flood of life stopped long enough for me to look it full in the face.
“I was twelve and according to the ancient custom of our house I was to be married at a great Durbar. He was a phantom prince, a pale and sickly boy who reached scarcely to my shoulder. But his dominion joined with mine, making a mighty land of twelve million souls; of wealth in gold and jewels, high mineral walls, and valleys fat with cream. All that I liked, and I wanted to be a crowned and reigning Maharanee. But I did not like this thin, scared stick of a boy whose pearls and diamonds seemed to drag him down and make his dark eyes shine terrorstricken beneath his splendid turban.
“I enjoyed the magnificent betrothal ceremony and poked impish fun at the boy who seemed such a child. A tall and crimson Englishman attended him and ran his errands and I felt very grand, riding high on my silken elephant amid applauding thousands. The ‘Fringies,’ as we called the English, were here in large numbers and always whispering in the background, nodding politely, playing with me gravely, and yielding to my whims. I confess I thought them very wonderful. I set them, unconsciously, above my own people.
“I remember hearing and but half understanding the talk of my guardian and counselors. They were apparently vastly surprised that the English had allowed this marriage. It would seem the English had long resisted the wishes of the people of Sindrabad. They had, you see, more power in his land than in ours. Our land was independent—or at least we thought so. To be sure we sent no ministers to foreign lands—but what did we know or care of foreign lands? To be sure our trade was monopolized by the English, but it was good and profitable trade. Internally we were free and unmolested, save that an unobtrusive Englishman was always at court. He was the Resident. He ‘advised’ us and spied upon us, as I now know.
“Now it was different in Sindrabad, where my little prince ruled under English advisers. Sindrabad was in the iron grip of the English. They long frowned upon the power of Bwodpur, a native, half-independent Indian state. They refused to countenance a marriage alliance with Sindrabad and continued to refuse; then suddenly something happened. A new English Resident appeared, a commissioner magnificent with medals, Well trained, allied to a powerful English family of the nobility, and backed by new regiments of well-armed men. He had lived long in the country of my phantom prince; now he came to us smiling and bringing the little Maharajah by the hand and giving consent and benediction to our marriage.
“I heard my father ask, aside, hesitating and frowning:
“ ‘What is back of all this?’
“But I only half listened to this talk and intrigue. I wanted the Durbar and the glory of the pageant of this marriage. So in pomp and magnificence beyond anything of which even I, a princess, had dreamed, we were married in the high hills facing the wide glory of the Himalayas; the drums boomed and the soldiers marched; the elephants paraded and the rajahs bowed before me and I was crowned and married, her Royal Highness, the Maharanee of Bwodpur and Sindrabad. There was, I believe, some dispute about this ‘royal,’ but father was obdurate.”
“You mean that you were really a wife, while yet a child?” asked Matthew.
“Oh, no, I was in reality only a betrothed bride and must return to my home for Gauna, that is, to wait for years until I was grown and my bridegroom should come and take me to his home. But he never came. For somehow, I do not remember why, there came a time of darkness and sorrow, when I could not go abroad, when I was hurried with my nurse from palace to palace and got but
