“I looked about me and realized my wealth and power from my twelve million subjects and from the pathway of my kingdom between India and China. Widowed even before I was a wife, bearing all the Indian contempt for widowhood; child with the heavy burden of womanhood and royal power, I was like to be torn in two not only by the rising determination of young India to be free of Europe and all hereditary power, but also by the equal determination of England to keep and guard her Indian empire.
“I looked on India with new and frightened eyes. I saw degradation in the cringing of the people, starvation and poverty in my own jewels and wealth, tyranny and ignorance in the absolute rule of my fathers, harsh dogmatism in the transformed word of the great and gentle Buddha and the eternal revelation of Brahma.”
“But,” cried Matthew, “was there no one to guide and advise this poor child of nineteen?”
“Not at first. My natural advisers were fighting against those who threatened my throne, and young India alone was fighting England. I called my family in counsel. Boldly I took the side of young India against England and called the young, educated Indians together, many of them cousins and kinsmen, and offered the weight of my wealth and power to forward their aims. The result was miraculous. Some of my old and reactionary kinsmen stood apart, but they did not actively oppose us. Some very few of the most radical of the advocates of Swaraj refused to cooperate with royalty on any terms. But I gathered a great bloc of young trained men and women. Long we planned and contrived and finally with united strength turned on England.
“My own mind was clear. I was to be the visible symbol of the power of New India. With my new council I would rule until such time as I married a prince of royal blood and set my son on the throne as Maharajah of Bwodpur. But I postponed marriage. I wanted light. I wanted to hear what other dark peoples were doing and thinking beneath the dead, white light of European tyranny.
“I called a secret council of the Durbar and laid my plans before them. The splendid wedding ceremony of the proposed English alliance approached. The bridegroom and a host of officials arrived, and from the hills arrived too that ancient and ugly Rajah who was old when he sought my hand in vain seven years before and now had grandchildren older than I.
“The hosts assembled, the ceremony gorgeous in gold and ivory and jewels began: the elephants, painted and caparisoned, marching with slow, sedate, and mighty tread; the old high chariots of the rajahs, with huge wheels and marvelous gilding, drawn by great oxen; the curtained palanquins of the women; the clash of horns and drums and high treble of flutes.
“Then at the height and culmination of the ceremony and before the world of all India and in the face of its conquerors, I took my revenge on the man and nation that had dared to insult a Maharanee of Bwodpur. As Captain the Honorable Malcolm Fortescue-Dodd kneeled in silver and white to kiss my hand, the ancient Rajah from the hills stepped forward and interposed. As the eldest representative of my far-flung family, he announced that this marriage could not be. A plenary council of the chief royal families of India had been held, and it had been decided that it was beneath the dignity of India to accept as consort for a princess of the blood a man without rank or title—unless, he added, ‘this alliance was by the will and command of the Maharanee herself.’
“All the world turned toward me and listened as I answered that this marriage was neither of my will nor wish but at the command of my family. Since that command was withdrawn—
“ ‘I do not wish to marry Captain the Honorable Malcolm Fortescue-Dodd.’
“England and English India roared at the insult. There were a hundred conjectures, reasons, explanations, and then sudden silence. After all it was no time for England to take the high hand in India. So it was merely whispered in select circles that the family of Fortescue-Dodd had decided that the women of India were not fit consorts for Englishmen and that they had therefore allowed me gracefully to withdraw. But we of India knew that England was doubly determined to crush Bwodpur.
“Four years went by. Although ruling in my own right, I made that ancient Rajah my guardian and regent and thus put behind my throne all the tradition of old India. Meantime with a growing council of young, enthusiastic followers I began to transform my kingdoms. We mitigated the power of the castes and brought Bwodpur and Sindrabad nearer together. We contrived to spend the major part of the income of the state for the public welfare instead of on ourselves, as was our ancient usage. We began to establish public schools and to send scholars to foreign lands.
“Only in religion and industry were my hands tied—in religion by my own people; in industry by England. We had Hindus and Mohammedans, Buddhists of every shade, and a few more or less sincere Christians. I wanted to clean the slate and go back to the ancient simplicity of Brahma. But, ah! Who can attack the strongholds of superstition and faith!”
“Who indeed!” sighed Matthew. “Our only refuge in America is to stop going to church.”
“The church comes to us in India and seizes us. I could only invoke a truce of God to make Allah and Brahma and Buddha sit together in peace, to respect each other as equals.
“In industry my hands were tied by the English power to sell machine goods and drive our artisans from the markets. In vain I joined Mahatma Gandhi and tried to force the boycott over my land. My people were too poor and ignorant. Yet
