Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/291



Not many years ago a King died in one of the Rajpoot States. His wives, disregarding the orders of the English against Suttee, would have broken out of the palace and burned themselves with the corpse had not the gates been barred. But one of them, disguised as the King' s favourite dancing-girl, passed through the line of guards and reached the pyre. There, her courage failing, she prayed her cousin, a baron of the King's court, to kill her. This he did, not knowing who she was. DAI CHAND lay sick to death In his hold by Gungra hill. All night we heard the death-gongs ring, For the soul of the dying Rajpoot King, All night beat up from the women's wing A cry that we could not still.

All night the barons came and went, The Lords of the Outer Guard. All night the cressets glimmered pale On Ulwar sabre and Tonk jezail, Mewar headstall and Marwar mail, That clinked in the palace yard.

In the Golden Room on the palace roof All night he fought for air: And there were sobbings behind the screen, Rustle and whisper of women unseen, And the hungry eyes of the Boondi Queen On the death she might not share.