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,