For Golab Singh, notwithstanding the cruelty of his administration, was friend to all, Christian, Musselman, Brahmin, or Sikh, and did not love to be suspected of an undue sympathy with any, not even when such sympathy might wear the cloak of patriotic loyalty.

CHAPTER X.

On the morrow the Rajah of Kashmir sat in the terraced garden and talked of life.  Those who sat with him had lately braved death on battlefield, but death had forborne to touch them, and they rejoiced in existence.  All around them the story was repeated; the deepening shade spoke of another shadow, but the flashing sunbeams chased the thought ere it chilled; eaves fluttering to the mould said, “Ponder the grave,” but the shining air stirred and sent them whirling aloft.  Death and Life enacted a drama.

* * * * *

The human comedy ends in woe, but Nature tenderly masks her catastrophe, and her sorrows are hung with gayest colours and adorned with fairest effects.  This is seen at sunset.  The evening saddens, the earth melts, and in my egoism I hail a fellow mourner.  I would protract the moment of the sun’s entombment.

     “There’s such a charm in melancholy,
     I would not if I could be gay.”

It is the mood of little griefs.  An unquiet wind murmurs, but it does not rise to a wail.

     I fain would bid th’ AEolian tones prolong
     To mourn the jolly Day’s discomfiture,
     And, mindful of mine own estate, among
     The buds and grieving trees my plaint outpour,
     That sweets must fade though Night will aye endure. 
     But crafty Nature, fancy to beguile
     From her disaster, which, alas! is mine,
     Bids to the front in radiant defile
     A trooping host whose pomps incarnadine
     The faded trophies of the dying day,
     And, lest I fail before so brave array,
     She decks the quiet clouds where fancies dwell
     With sweet translucent gleam and melting hue
     To woo my swooning sense with softer spell
     Of blissful pink and hyacinthine blue.

* * * * *

“Life,” said the Rajah, “is the fairest of flowers, and its beauty and fragrance are for him who plucks.”

“Plucks,” sighed one, “to find it wither in his grasp.”

Said the Rajah, “To do justice to life, one must forget death.”

“Forgetfulness may be desirable,” said another, “but how shall it be attained?  How deny the tyrant who at each sunset demands his tribute dues of sleep, and enwraps my vassal being in dull oblivion?”

“By ill-conditioned fears,” replied the Rajah, “men invite evil.  To him who desires the solace of ghostly companionship shall the spectres troop, a phantom in every shadow, and with him make their abode.  He who fears is already overcome.  To the man who would live there must be no death.  For me, I love the rosy, teeming present; to-morrow is with the gods, and I for one,” he added laughing, “will not be guilty of an impious theft by anticipating their gifts.”