Now, the gist of the thing is—Be silent. Be calm.Be awake. Be on hand on the day.Be instant to heed the first note of alarm.And—precisely—exactly—Obey.
AT Howrah, while Mahommed Gunga was employing each chance circumstance to test the pluck and decision and reliability of Cunningham at almost every resting-place along the Grand Trunk Road, the armed squire he had left behind with a little handful of gold mohurs and three horses was finding time heavy on his hands.
Like his master, Ali Partab was a man of action, to whom the purlieus of a caravansary were well enough on rare occasions. He could ruffle it with the best of them; like any of his race, he could lounge with dignity and listen to the tales that hum wherever many horsemen congregate; and he was no mean raconteur—he had a tale or two to tell himself, of women and the chase and of the laugh that he, too, had flung in the teeth of fear when opportunity arose.
But each new story of the paid taletellers, who squat and drone and reach a climax, and then pass the begging bowl before they finish it—each merrily related jest brought in by members of the constantly arriving trading parties—each neigh of his three chargers—every new phase of the kaleidoscopic life he watched stirred new ambition in him to be up, and away, and doing. Many a dozen times he had to remind himself that “there had been a trust imposed.”
He exercised the horses daily, riding each in turn until he was as lean and lithe and hard beneath the skin as they were. They were Mahommed Gunga's horses—he Mahommed Gunga's man; therefore, his honor was involved. He reasoned, when he took the trouble to, along the good clean feudal line that lays down clearly what service is: there is no honor, says that argument, in serving any one who is content with half a service, and the honor is the only thing that counts.
As day succeeded ever sultrier, ever longer-drawn-out day—as each night came that saw him peg the horses out wherever what little breezes moved might fan them—as he sat among the courtyard groups and listened in the heavy heat, the fact grew more apparent to him that this trust of his was something after all which a man of worth might shoulder proudly. There was danger in it.
The talk among the traders—darkly hinted, most of it, and couched in metaphor—was all of blood, and what would follow on the letting of it. Now and then a loud-mouthed boaster would throw caution to the winds and speak openly of a grim day coming for the British; he would be checked instantly by wiser men, but not before Ali Partab had heard enough to add to his private store of information.
Priests came from a dozen cities to the eastward, all nominally after pilgrims for the sacred places, but all strangely indifferent to their quest. They preferred, it would seem, to sit in rings with chance-met ruffians—with believers and unbelievers alike—even with men of no caste at all—and talk of other things than pilgrimages.
“Next year, one hundred years ago the English conquered India. Remember ye the prophecy? One hundred years they had! This, then, is the last year. Whom the gods would whelm they first deprive of reason; mark ye this! The cartridges they serve out to the sepoys now are smeared with the blended fat of cows and pigs. Knowing that we Hindoos hold the cow a sacred beast, they do this sacrilege—and why? They would make us bite the cartridges and lose our caste. And why again? Because they would make us Christians! That is the truth! Else why are the Christian missionaries here in Howrah?”
The listeners would nod while the little red fires glowed and purred above the pipes, and others not included in the circle strained forward through the dark to listen.
“The gods get ready now! Are ye ready?”
Elsewhere, a hadji—green-turbaned from the pilgrimage to Mecca—would hold out to a throng of true believers.
“Ay! Pig's fat on the cartridges! The new drill is that the sepoy bites the cartridge first, to spill a little powder and make priming. Which true believer wishes to defile himself with pig's fat? Why do they this? Why are the Christian missionaries here? Ask both riddles with one breath, for both two are one!”
“Slay, then!”
“Up now, and slay!”
There would be an instant, eager restlessness, while Ali Partab would glance over to where the horses stood, and would wonder why the word that loosed him was so long in coming. The hadji would calm his listeners and tell them to get ready, but be still and await the sign.
“There were to be one hundred years, ran the prophecy; but ninety-nine and a portion have yet run. Wait for the hour!”
Then, for perhaps the hundredth time, Ali Partab would pretend that movement alone could save one or other of his horses from heat apoplexy. He would mount, and ride at a walking pace through the streets that seemed like a night view of a stricken battle-field, turn down by the palace wall, and then canter to the schoolhouse, where the hag—wiser than her mistress—would be sleeping in the open.
“Thou! Mother of a murrain! Toothless one! Is there no word yet?”
The hag would leer up through the heavy darkness—make certain that he had no lance with him with which to prod her in the ribs—scratch herself a time or two like a stray dog half awakened—and then leer knowingly.
“Hast thou the gold mohurs?” she would demand.
“Am I a sieve?”
“Let my old eyes see them, sahib.”
He would take out two gold coins and hold them out in such a way that she could look at them without the opportunity to snatch.
“There is no word yet,” she would answer, when her eyes had feasted on them as long as his patience would allow.
“Have they no fear then?”
“None. Only madness!”
“See that they bite thee not! Keep thy wits with thee, and be ready to bring me word in time, else—”
“Patience, sahib! Show me the coins again—one little look—again once!”
But Ali Partab would wheel and ride away, leaving her to mumble and gibber in the road and curl again on to her blanket in the blackest corner by the door.
Once, on an expedition of that kind, he encountered Duncan McClean himself. The lean, tall Scotsman, gray-headed from the cares he had taken on himself, a little bowed from heat and hopelessness, but showing no least symptom of surrender in the kind, strong lines of a rugged face, stood, eyes upward, in the moonlight. The moon, at least, looked cool. It was at the full, like a disk of silver, and he seemed to drink in the beams that bathed him.
“Does he worship it?” wondered Ali Partab, reining from an amble to a walk and watching half-reverently. The followers of Mohammed are most superstitious about the moon. The feeling that he had for this man of peace who could so gaze up at it was something very like respect, and, with the twenty-second sense that soldiers have, he knew, without a word spoken or a deed seen done, that this would be a wielder of cold steel to be reckoned should he ever slough the robes of peace and take it into his silvered head to fight. The Rajput, that respects decision above all other virtues, perhaps because it is the one that he most lacks, could sense firm, unshakable, quick-seized determination on the instant.
Duncan McClean acknowledged the fierce-seeming stare with a salute, and Ali Partab dismounted instantly. He who holds a trust from such as Mahommed Gunga is polite in recognition of the trust. He leaned, then, against the horse's withers, wondering how far he ought to let politeness go and whether his honor bade him show contempt for the Christian's creed.
“Is there any way, I wonder,” asked the Scotsman, the clean-clipped suspicion of Scots dialect betraying itself even through the Hindustanee that he used, “of getting letters through to some small station?”
“I know not,” said the Rajput.
“You are a Mohammedan?” The Scotsman peered at him, adjusting his viewpoint to the moon's rays. “I see you are. A Rajput, too, I think.”
“Ha, sahib.”
“There was a Rangar here not very long ago.” This man evidently knew the proper title to give a he true believer of the proudest race there is. Ali Partab's heart began to go out to him—“an officer, I think, once of the Rajput Horse, who very kindly carried letters for me. Perhaps you know of some other gentleman of your race about to travel northward? He could earn, at least, gratitude.”
“So-ho!” thought Ali Partab to himself. “I have known men of his race who would have offered money, to be spat on!—Not now, sahib,” he answered aloud.
“Mahommed Gunga was the officer's name. Do you know him, or know of him, by any chance?”
“Ha, sahib, I know him well. It is an honor.”
The Scotsman smiled. “He must be very far away by this time. How many are there, I wonder, in India who have such things said of them when their backs are turned?”
“More than a few, sahib! I would draw steel for the good name of more than a hundred men whom I know, and there be many others!”
“Men of your own race?”
“And yours, sahib.”
There was no bombast in the man's voice; it was said good-naturedly, as a man might say, “There are some friends to whom I would lend money.” No man with any insight could mistake the truth that underlay the boast. The Scotsman bowed.
“I am glad, indeed, to have met you. Will you sit down a little while?”
“Nay, sahib. The hour is late. I was but keeping the blood moving in this horse of mine.”
“Well, tell me, since you won't stay, have you any notion who the man was whom Mahommed Gunga sent to get my letters? My daughter handed them to him one evening, late, at this door.”
“I am he, sahib.”
“Then—I understood—perhaps I was mistaken—I thought it was his man who came?”
“Praised be Allah, I am his man, sahib!”
“Oh! I wonder whether my servants praise God for the privilege!” McClean made the remark only half-aloud and in English. Ali Partab could not have understood the words, but he may have caught their meaning, for he glanced sideways at the old hag mumbling in the shadow and grinned into his beard. “Are you in communication with him? Could you get a letter to him?”
“I have no slightest notion where he is, sahib.”
“If my letters could once reach him, wherever he might be, I would feel confident of their arriving at their destination.”
“I, too, sahib!”
“I sent one letter—to a government official. It cannot have reached him, for there should have been an answer and none has come. It had reference to this terrible suttee business. Suttee is against the law as well as against all dictates of reason and humanity; yet the Hindoos make a constant practice of it here under our very eyes. These native states are under treaty to observe the law. I intend to do all in my power to put a stop to their ghoulish practices, and Maharajah Howrah knows what my intentions are. It must be a Mohammedan, this time, to whom I intrust my correspondence on suttee!”
Now, a Rangar is a man whose ancestors were Hindoos but who became converts to Islam. Like all proselytes, they adhere more enthusiastically to their religion than do the men whose mother creed it is; and the fact that the Rangars originally became converts under duress is often thrown in their teeth by the Hindoos, who gain nothing in the way of brotherly regard in the process. A Rangar hates a Hindoo as enthusiastically as he loves a fight. Ali Partab began to drum his fingers on his teeth and to exhibit less impatience to be off.
“There is no knowing, sahib. I, too, am no advocate of superstitious practices involving cruelty. I might get a letter through. My commission from the risaldar-sahib would include all honorable matters not obstructive to the main issue. I have certain funds—”
“I, too, have funds,” smiled the missionary.
“I am not allowed, sahib, to involve myself in any brawl until after my business is accomplished. It would be necessary first to assure me on that point. My honor is involved in that matter. To whom, and of what nature, would the letter be?”
“A letter to the Company's Resident at Abu, reporting to him that Hindoo widows are still compelled in this city to burn themselves to death above their husbands' funeral pyres.”
The Rajput grinned. “Does the Resident sahib not know it, then?”
“There will be no chance of his not knowing should my report reach him!”
“I will see, sahib, what can be done, then, in the matter. If I can find a man, I will bring him to you.”
The missionary thanked him and stood watching as the Rajput rode away. When the horseman's free, lean back had vanished in the inky darkness his eyes wandered over to a point where tongues of flame licked upward, casting a dull, dancing, crimson glow on the hot sky. Here and there, silhouetted in the firelight, he could see the pugrees and occasional long poles of men who prodded at the embers. Ululating through the din of tom-toms he could catch the wails of women. He shuddered, prayed a little, and went in.
That day even the little bazaar fosterlings, whom he had begged, and coaxed, and taught, had all deserted to be present at the burning of three widows. Even the lepers in the tiny hospital that he had started had limped out for a distant view. He had watched a year's work all disintegrating in a minute at the call of bestial, loathsome, blood-hungry superstition.
And he was a man of iron, as Christian missionaries go. He had been hard-bitten in his youth and trained in a hard, grim school. In the Isle of Skye he had seen the little cabin where his mother lived pulled down to make more room for a fifty-thousand-acre deer-forest. He had seen his mother beg.
He had worked his way to Edinburgh, toiled at starvation wages for the sake of leave to learn at night, burned midnight oil, and failed at the end of it, through ill health, to pass for his degree.
He had loved as only hard-hammered men can love, and had married after a struggle the very thought of which would have melted the courage of an ordinary man, only to see his wife die when her child was born. And even then, in that awful hour, he had not felt the utterness of misery such as came to him when he saw that his work in Howrah was undone. He had given of his best, and all his best, and it seemed that he had given it for nothing.
“Who was that man, father?” asked a very weary voice through which courage seemed to live yet, as the tiniest suspicion of a sweet refrain still lives through melancholy bars.
“The man who took your home letters to Mahommed Gunga.”
“And—?”
“He has promised to try to find a man for me who will take my report on this awful business to the Resident at Abu.”
“Father, listen! Listen, please!” Rosemary McClean drew a chair for him and knelt beside him. Youth saved her face from being drawn as his, but the heat and horror had begun to undermine youth's powers of resistance. She looked more beautiful than ever, but no law lays down that a wraith shall be unlovely. She had tried the personal appeal with him a hundred times, and argument a thousand; now, she used both in a concentrated, earnest effort to prevail over his stubborn will. Her will was as strong as his, and yielded place to nothing but her sense of loyalty. There were not only Rajputs, as the Rajputs knew, who could be true to a high ideal. “I am sure that whoever that man is he must be the link between us and the safety Mahommed Gunga spoke of. Otherwise, why does he stay behind? Native officers who have servants take their servants with them, as a rule.”
“Well?”
“Give the word! Let us at least get in touch with safety!”
“For myself, no. For you, yes! I have been weak with you, dear. I have let my selfish pleasure in having you near me overcome my sense of duty—that, and my faithless fear that you would not be properly provided for. I think, too, that I have never quite induced myself to trust natives sufficiently—even native gentlemen. You shall go, Rosemary. You shall go as soon as I can get word to Mahommed Gunga's man. Call that old woman in.”
“Father, I will not go without you, and you know it! My place is with you, and I have quite made up my mind. If you stay, I stay! My presence here has saved your life a hundred times over. No, I don't mean just when you were ill; I mean that they dare not lay a finger on me! They know that a nation which respects their women would strike hard and swiftly to avenge a woman of its own! If I were to go away and leave you they would poison you or stab you within a day, and then hold a mock trial and hang some innocent or other to blind the British Government. I would be a murderess if I left you here alone! Come! Come away!”
He shook his head. “It was wrong of me to ever bring you here,” he said sadly. “But I did not know—I would never have believed.” Then wrath took hold of him—the awful, cold anger of the Puritan that hates evil as a concrete thing, to be ripped apart with steel. “God's wrath shall burst on Howrah!” he declared. “Sodom and Gomorrah were no worse! Remember what befell them!”
“Remember Lot!” said Rosemary. “Come away!”
“Lot stayed on to the last, and tried to warn them! I will warn the Resident! Here, give me my writing things—where are they?”
He pushed her aside, none too gently, for the fire of a Covenanter's anger was blazing in his eyes.
“There are forty thousand British soldiers standing still, and wrong—black, shameful wrong—is being done! For a matter of gold—for fear of the cost in filthy lucre—they refrain from hurling wrong-doers in the dust! For the sake of dishonorable peace they leave these native states to misgovern themselves and stink to high heaven! Will God allow what they do? The shame and the sin is on England's head! Her statesmen shut their eyes and cry 'Peace, peace!' where there is no peace. Her queen sits idle on the throne while widows burn, screaming, in the flames of superstitious priests. Men tell her, 'All is well; there is British rule in India!' They are too busy robbing widows in the Isle of Skye to lend an ear to the cries of India's widows! Corruption—superstition—murder—lies—black wrong—black selfishness—all growing rank beneath the shadow of the British rule—how long will God let that last?”
He was pacing up and down like a caged lion, not looking at Rosemary, not speaking to her—speaking to himself, and giving rein to all the rankling rage at wrong that wrong had nurtured in him since his boyhood. She knelt still by the chair, her eyes following him as he raged up and down the matted floor. She pitied him more than she did India.
When he took the one lamp at last and set it where the light would fall above his writing pad, she left the room and went to stand at the street-door, where the sluggish night air was a degree less stifling than in the mud-plastered, low-ceilinged room. As she stood there, one hand on either door-post to remind her she was living in a concrete world, not a charred whisp swaying in the heat, a black thing rose out of the blackness, and the toothless hag held out a bony hand and touched her.
“Is it not time yet for the word to go?” she asked.
“No. No word yet, Joanna.”
Now, God give good going to master o' mine,God speed him, and lead him, and nerve him;God give him a lead of a length in the line,And,—God let him boast that I serve him!
THE dawn was barely breaking yet when things stirred in the little mission house. The flea-bitten gray pony was saddled by a sleepy saice, and brought round from his open-sided thatch stable in the rear. The violet and mauve, that precede the aching yellow glare of day were fading; a coppersmith began his everlasting bong-bong-bong, apparently reverberating from every direction; the last, almost indetectable, warm whiff of night wind moved and died away, and the monkeys in the near-by baobab chattered it a requiem. Almost on the stroke of sunrise Rosemary McClean stepped out—settled her sun-helmet, with a moue above the chin-strap that was wasted on flat-bosomed, black grandmotherdom and sulky groom—and mounted.
She needed no help. The pony stood as though he knew that the hot wind would soon dry the life out of him; and, though dark rings beneath dark eyes betrayed the work of heat and sleepless worry on a girl who should have graced the cool, sweet, rain-swept hills of Scotland, she had spirit left yet and an unspent store of youth. The saice seemed more weathered than the twenty-year-old girl, for he limped back into the smelly shelter of the servants' quarters to cook his breakfast and mumble about dogs and sahibs who prefer the sun.
She looked shrunk inside the riding-habit—not shrivelled, for she sat too straight, but as though the cotton jacket had been made for a larger woman. If she seemed tired, and if a stranger might have guessed that her head ached until the chestnut curls were too heavy for it, she was still supple. And, as she whipped the pony into an unwilling trot and old mission-named Joanna broke into a jog behind, revolt—no longer impatience, or discontent, or sorrow, but reckless rebellion—rode with her.
It was there, plain for the world to see, in the firm lines of a little Puritan mouth, in the angle of a high-held chin in the set of a gallant little pair of shoulders. The pony felt it, and leaned forward to a canter. Joanna scented, smelt, or sensed in some manner known to Eastern old age, that purpose was afoot; this was to be no early-morning canter, merely out and home again; there was no time, now, for the customary tricks of corner-cutting and rest-snatching under eaves; she tucked her head down and jogged forward in the dust, more like a dog than ever. It was a dog's silent, striving determination to be there when the finish came—a dog's disregard of all object or objective but his master's—but a long-thrown stride, and a crafty, beady eye that promised more usefulness than a dog's when called on.
The first word spoken was when Rosemary drew rein a little more than half-way along the palace wall.
“Are you tired yet, Joanna?”
“Uh-uh!” the woman answered, shaking her head violently and pointing at the sun that mounted every minute higher. The argument was obvious; in less than twenty minutes the whole horizon would be shimmering again like shaken plates of brass; wherever the other end might be, a rest would be better there than here! Her mistress nodded, and rode on again, faster yet; she had learned long ago that Joanna could show a dusty pair of heels to almost anything that ran, and she had never yet known distance tire her; it had been the thought of distance and speed combined that made her pause and ask.
She did not stop again until they had cantered up through the awakening bazaar, where unclean-looking merchants and their underlings rinsed out their teeth noisily above the gutters, and the pariah dogs had started nosing in among the muck for things unthinkable to eat. The sun had shortened up the shadows and begun to beat down through the gaps; the advance-guard of the shrivelling hot wind had raised foul dust eddies, and the city was ahum when she halted at last beside the big brick arch of the caravansary, where Mahommed Gunga's boots and spurs had caught her eye once.
“Now, Joanna!” She leaned back from the saddle and spoke low, but with a certain thrill. “Go in there, find me Mahommed Gunga-sahib's man, and bring him out here!”
“And if he will not come?” The old woman seemed half-afraid to enter.
“Go in, and don't come out without him—unless you want to see me go in by myself!”
The old woman looked at her piercingly with eyes that gleamed from amid a bunch of wrinkles, then motioned with a skinny arm in the direction of an awning where shade was to be had from the dangerous early sun-rays. She made no move to enter through the arch until her mistress had taken shelter.
Fifteen minutes later she emerged with Ali Partab, who looked sleepy, but still more ashamed of his unmilitary dishabille. Rosemary McClean glanced left and right—forgot about the awning and the custom which decrees aloofness—ignored the old woman's waving arm and Ali Partab's frown, and rode toward him eagerly.
“Did Mahommed Gunga-sahib leave you here with any orders relative to me?” she asked.
The Rajput bowed.
“Before he went away, he spoke to me of safety, and told me he would leave a link between me and men whom I may trust.”
The Rajput bowed again. Neither of them saw an elbow laid on the window-ledge of a room above the arch; it disappeared, and very gingerly a bared black head replaced it. Then the head too disappeared.
The girl's eyes sparkled as the reassurance came that at least one good fighting man was waiting to do nothing but assist her. For the moment she threw caution to the winds and remembered nothing but her plight and her father's stubbornness.
“My father will not come away, but—”
Ali Partab's eyes betrayed no trace of concern.
“But—I thought—Are you all alone?”
“All alone, Miss-sahib, but your servant.”
“Oh! I thought—perhaps that”—she checked herself, then rushed the words out as though ashamed of them—“that, if you had men to help you, you might carry him away against his will! Where are these others who are to be trusted?”
Ali Partab grinned and then drew himself up with a movement of polite dissent. It was not for him to question the suggestions of a Miss-sahib; he conveyed that much with an inimitable air. But it was his business to keep strictly to the letter of his orders.
“Miss-sahib, I cannot do that. So said Mahommed Gunga: 'When the hag brings word, then take three horses and bear the Miss-sahib and her father to my cousin Alwa's place.' I stand ready to obey, but the padre-sahib comes not against his will.”
“To whose place?”
“Alwa's, Miss-sahib.”
“And who is he?” She seemed bewildered. “I had hoped to be escorted to some British residency.”
“That would be for Alwa, should he see fit. He has men and horses, and a fort that is impregnable. The Miss-sahib would be safe there under all circumstances.”
“But—but, supposing I declined to accept that invitation? Supposing I preferred not to be carried off to a—er—a Mohammedan gentleman's fort. What then?”
“I could but wait here, Miss-sahib, until the hour came when you changed your mind, or until Mahommed Gunga by letter or by word of mouth relieved me of my trust.”
“Oh! Then you will wait here until I ask?”
“Surely, Miss-sahib.”
The head again peered through the window up above them, but disappeared below the ledge furtively, and none of the three were aware of it. For that matter, the old woman was gazing intently at Ali Partab and listening eagerly; he stood almost underneath the arch, and Miss McClean was staring at him frowning with the effort to translate her thoughts into a language that is very far from easy. They would none of them have seen the roof descending on them.
“And—and won't you under any circumstances take us, say, to the Resident at Abu instead?”
“I may not, Miss-sahib.”
“But why?”
“Of a truth I know not. I never yet knew Mahommed Gunga to give an order without good reason for it; but beyond that he chose me, because he said the task might prove difficult and he trusted me, I know nothing.”
“Have you no idea of the reason?”
“Miss-sahib, I am a soldier. To me an order is an order to be carried out; suspicions, fears are nothing unless they stand in the way of accomplishment. I await your word. I am ready. The horses are here—good horses—lean and hard. The order is that you must ask me.”
“Thank you—er—Ali what?—thank you, Ali Partab.” The disappointment in her voice was scarcely more noticeable than the despondency her drooping figure showed. The little shoulders that had sat so square and gallantly seemed to have lost their strength, and there was none of the determined ring left in the words she hesitated for. “I—hope you will understand that I am grateful—but—I cannot—er—see my way just yet to—”
“In your good time, Miss-sahib. I was ordered to have patience!”
“At least I will have more confidence, knowing that you are always close at hand.”
The Rajput bowed. She reined back. He saluted, and she bowed again; then, with a glance to make sure that Joanna followed, she started back at little more than a walking pace—a dejected wraith of a girl on a dejected-looking pony, too overcome by the upsetting of her rebellious scheme to care or even think whether Joanna dropped out of sight or not. Ali Partab watched her down the street with a face that betrayed no emotion and no suspicion of what his thoughts might be. When she was out of sight he went back under the arch to attend to his three horses; and the moment that he did so a fat but very furtive Hindoo took his place—glanced down the street once in the direction that Rosemary had taken—and then darted up-street as fast as his shaking paunch would let him. He had been gone at the least ten minutes, when Joanna, also furtive, also in a hurry, dodged here and there among the commencing surge of traffic and approached the arch again.
It would be useless to try to read her mind, or to translate the glitter of her beady eyes into thoughts intelligible to any but an Oriental. It was quite clear, though, that she wished not to be noticed, that she feared the occupants of the caravansary, and that she had returned for word with Ali Partab. He, least of all, would have doubted her intention of demanding the two gold mohurs, for it was she who had brought the word that Miss McClean wanted him. But what relation that intention had to her loyalty or treachery, or whether she were capable of either—capable of anything except greed, and obedience for the sake of pay—were problems no man living could have guessed.
She asked the lounging sweeper by the arch whether Ali Partab had ridden out as yet. He jeered back outrageous improprieties, suggestive of impossible ambition on the hag's part. She called him “sahib,” dubbed him “father of a dozen stalwart sons,” returned a few of his immodest compliments with a flattering laugh, and learned that Ali Partab was still busy in the caravansary. Then she proceeded to make herself very inconspicuous beside a two-wheeled wagon, up-ended in the gutter opposite the arch, and waited with eastern patience for the horseman to ride out.
She saw the fat Hindoo come back, in no particular hurry now, and seat himself not far from her. Later she saw eight horsemen ride down the street, pass the arch, wheel, and halt. She noticed that they were not Maharajah Howrah's men but a portion of his brother Jaimihr's body-guard, then took no further notice of them. If they chose to wait there, it was no affair of hers, and to appear inquisitive would be to invite a lance-butt, very shrewdly thrust where it would hurt.
It was an hour at least before Ali Partab rode out through the arch, looking down anxiously at his horse's off-hind that had been showing symptoms of “brushing” lately. Joanna rose instantly to cross the street and intercept him; and she recoiled in the nick of time to save herself from being ridden down.
At a sign from the fat Hindoo the eight horsemen spurred, and swooped up-street with the speed and certainty of sparrow-hawks and the noise of devastation. They rode down Ali Partab—unhorsed him—bound him—threw him on his horse again—and galloped off before any but the Hindoo had time to realize that he was their objective. He was gone—snatched like a chicken from the coop. Noise and dust were all the trace or explanation that he left. The mazy streets swallowed him; the Hindoo waddled over to the arch and disappeared without a smile on his face to show even interest. The interrupted trading and bartering went on again, and no one commented or made a move to follow but Joanna.
She watched the fat Hindoo, and made sure that she would recognize him anywhere again. Then, by a trail that no one would have guessed at and few could have followed, she made her way to Jaimihr's palace—three miles away from Howrah's—where a dozen sulky-looking sepoys lolled, dismounted, by the wooden gate. There was neither sight nor sound of mounted men, and the gate was shut; but in the middle of the roadway there was smoking dung, and there was a suspicion of overacting about the indifference of the guardians of the entrance.
There was no overacting, though, in what Joanna did. Nobody would have dreamed that she was playing any kind of part, or interested in anything at all except the coppers that she begged for. She squatted in the roadway, ink-black and clear-cut in the now blazing sunlight, alternately flattering them and pretending to a knowledge of unguessed-at witchcraft.
She was there still at midday when they changed the guard. She was there when night fell, still squatting in the roadway, still exchanging repartee and hints at the supernatural with armed men who shuddered now and then between their bursts of mockery. The sore, suffering dogs that sniff through the night for worse eyesores than themselves whimpered and watched her. The guard changed and the moon paled, but she stayed on; and whatever her purpose, or whatever information she obtained in fragments amid the raillery, she did not return to the mission house.
It was not until Rosemary McClean returned and dismounted by the door that she realized Joanna had not kept pace. Even then she thought little of it; the old woman often lingered on the homeward way when the chance of her being needed was remote. Two or three hours passed before the suspicion rose that anything might have happened to Joanna, and even then she might not have been remembered had not Duncan McClean asked for her.
“I have changed my mind,” he said, calling Rosemary into the long, low living-room. It was darkened to exclude the hot wind and the glare, and he looked like a ghost as he rose to meet her. “I have decided that my duty is to get away from this place for your sake and for the sake of the cause I have at heart. We are doing no good here. I can do most by going to the Resident, or even to somebody higher up than he, and laying my case before him personally. Send for Joanna, and tell her to go and bring Mahommed Gunga's man.”
It was then that they missed Joanna and began to search for her. But no Joanna came. It was then that Rosemary McClean rehearsed with her father her former conversation with Mahommed Gunga and part, at least, of her recent one with Ali Partab, and the missionary started off himself to find the horseman whom Mahommed Gunga had so thoughtfully left behind.
But he very naturally found no Ali Partab. What he did discover was that he was followed—that a guard, unarmed but obvious, was placed around the mission house—that his servants deserted one by one—that no more children came to the mission school.
He decided to take chances and ride off with his daughter in the night. But the ponies went mysteriously lame, and nobody would lend or sell him horses on any terms at all. He did his best to get a letter through to anywhere where there were British, but nobody would take it. And then Jaimihr came, swaggering with his escort, to offer him and his daughter the hospitality of his palace.
He declined that offer a little testily, for the insolence behind the offer was less than half concealed. Jaimihr sneered as he rode away.
“Perhaps a month or two of undisturbed enjoyment will induce the padre-sahib to change his mind about my invitation!” he said nastily. And he made no secret then, as he ordered them about before he went, that the men who lounged and watched at every vantage-point were his.
They looked into my eyes and laughed,—But, what when I was gone?Have strong men made me one of them?Or do I ride alone?
ON the morning after Mahommed Gunga's daring experiment with Cunningham's nervous system he was anxious to say the least of it; and that is only another way of saying that he was irritable. He watched the Englishman at breakfast, on the dak-bungalow veranda, with a sideways restless glance that gave the lie a dozen times over to his assumed air of irascible authority.
“We will see now what we will see,” he muttered to himself. “These who know such a lot imagine that the test is made. They forget that there be many brave men of whom but a few are fit to lead. Now—now—we will see!” And he kept on repeating that assurance to himself, with the air of a man who would like to be assured, but is not, while he ostentatiously found fault with every single thing on which his eyes lit.
“One would think that the Risaldar-sahib were afraid of consequences!” whispered the youngest of his followers, stung to the quick by a quite unmerited rebuke. “Does he fear that Chota-Cunnigan will beat him?”
White men have been known—often—to do stupider things than that, and particularly young white men who have not yet learned to gauge proportions accurately; so there was nothing really ridiculous in the suggestion. A young white man who has had his temper worked up to the boiling-point, his nerves deliberately racked, and then has been subjected to the visit of a driven tiger, may be confidently expected to exhibit all the faults of which his character is capable.
To make the situation even more ticklish, Cunningham's servant, in his zeal for his master's comfort, had forgotten to sham sickness, and instead of limping was in abominably active evidence. He was even doing more than was expected of him. Ralph Cunningham had said nothing to him—had not needed to; every single thing that a pampered sahib could imagine that he needed was done for him in the proper order, without noise or awkwardness, and the Risaldar cursed as he watched the clockwork-perfect service. He had hoped for a lapse that might call forth some pointer, either by way of irritation or amusement, as to how young Cunningham was taking things.
But not a thing went wrong and not a sign of any sort gave Cunningham. The youngster did not smile either to himself darkly or at his servant. He lit his after-breakfast cigar and smoked it peacefully, as though he had spent an absolutely normal night, without even a dream to worry him, and if he eyed Mahommed Gunga at all, he did it so naturally, and with so little interest, that no deductions could be drawn from it. He was neither more nor less than a sahib at his ease—which was disconcerting, very, to the Oriental mind.
He smoked the cigar to a finish, without a word or sign that he wished to give audience. Then his eyes lit for the first time on the tiger-skin that was pegged out tight, raw side upward, for the sun to sterilize; he threw the butt of his cigar away and strolled out to examine the skin without a sign to Mahommed Gunga, counted the claws one by one to make sure that no superstitious native had purloined any of them, and returned to his chair on the veranda without a word.
“Is he vindictive, then?” wondered Mahommed Gunga. “Is he a mean man? Will he bear malice and get even with me later on? If so—”
“Present my compliments to Mahommed Gunga-sahib, and ask him to be good enough to—”
The Risaldar heard the order, and was on his way to the veranda before the servant started to convey the message. He took no chances on a reprimand about his shoes, for he swaggered up in riding-boots, which no soldier can be asked to take off before he treads on a private floor; and he saluted as a soldier, all dignity. It was the only way by which he could be sure to keep the muscles of his face from telling tales.
“Huzoor?”
“Morning, Mahommed Gunga. Take a seat, won't you?”
A camp-chair creaked under the descending Rajput's weight, and creaked again as he remembered to settle himself less stiffly—less guiltily.
“I say, I'm going to ask you chaps to do me a favor. You don't mind obliging me now and then, do you?”
The youngster leaned forward confidentially, one elbow on his knee, and looked half-serious, as though what he had to ask were more important than the ordinary.
“Sahib, there is nothing that we will not do.”
“Ah! Then you won't mind my mentioning this, I'm sure. Next time you want to kennel a tiger in my bedroom, d'you mind giving me notice in advance? It's not the stink I mind, nor being waked up; it's the deuced awful risk of hurting somebody. Besides—look how I spoilt that tiger's mask! The skins I've always admired at home had been shot where it didn't show so badly.”
There was not even the symptom of a smile on Cunningham's face. He looked straight into Mahommed Gunga's eyes, and spoke as one man talking calm common sense to another. He raised his hand as the Rajput began to stammer an apology.
“No. Don't apologize. If you'll forgive me for shooting your pet tiger, I'll overlook the rest of it. If I'd known that you kept him in there o' nights, I'd have chosen another room, that's all—some room where I couldn't smell him, and where I shouldn't run the risk of killing an inoffensive man. Why, I might have shot you! Think how sorry I'd have been!”
The Risaldar did not quite know what to say; so, wiser than most, he said nothing.
“Oh, and one other matter. I don't speak much of the language yet, so, would you mind translating to my servant that the next time he goes sick without giving me notice, and without putting oil in my lamp, I'll have him fed to the tiger before he's brought into my room? Just tell him that quietly, will you? Say it slowly so that it sinks in. Thanks.”
Straight-faced as Cunningham himself, the Risaldar tongue-lashed the servant with harsh, tooth-rasping words that brought him up to attention. Whether he interpreted or not the exact meaning of what Cunningham had said, he at least produced the desired effect; the servant mumbled apologetic nothings and slunk off the veranda backward—to go away and hold his sides with laughter at the back of the dak-bungalow. There Mahommed Gunga found him afterward and administered a thrashing—not, as he was careful to explain, for disobedience, but for having dared to be amused at the Risaldar's discomfiture.
But there was still one point that weighed heavily on Mahommed Gunga's mind as the servant shuffled off and left him alone face to face with Cunningham. There is as a very general rule not more than one man-eating tiger in a neighborhood, and not even the greenest specimen of subaltern new brought from home would be likely to mistake one for the other kind. The man-eater was dead, and there was an engagement to shoot one that very morning. He hesitated—said nothing for the moment—and wondered whether his best course would be to go ahead and pretend to beat out the jungle and tell some lie or other about the tiger having got away. But Ralph Cunningham, with serious gray eyes fixed full on his, saved him the trouble of deciding.
“If it's all one to you, Mahommed Gunga,” he said, the corner of his mouth just flickering, “we'll move on from here at once. This is a beastly old bungalow to sleep in, and shooting tigers don't seem so terribly exciting to me. Besides, the climate here must be rotten for the horses.”
“As you wish, sahib.”
“Very well—if the choice rests with me, I wish it. It might—ah—save the villagers a lot of hard work beating through the jungle, mightn't it—besides, there'll be other tigers on the road.”
“Innumerable tigers, sahib.”
“Good. Will you order a start then?”
The Risaldar departed round the corner of the bungalow, and a minute or two later Cunningham's ears caught the sound of a riding-switch, lustily applied, and of muffled groans. He suspected readily enough what was going on, particularly since his servant was not in evidence, but he dared not laugh on the veranda. He went inside, and made believe to be busy with his bag before he relaxed the muscles of his face.
“Now, I wonder whether I handled that situation rightly?” he asked himself between chuckles. “One thing I know—if that old ruffian plays another trick on me—one more of any kind—Ill show my teeth. There's a thing known as the limit!”
He would not have wondered, though, if he could have overheard Mahommed Gunga less than an hour later. The Risaldar had stayed behind to make sure nothing had been forgotten, and one of his men remained with him.
“There be sahibs and then sahibs,” said Mahommed Gunga. “Two kinds are the worst—those who strike readily in anger and use bad language when annoyed, and those whose lips are thin and who save their vengeance to be wreaked later on. They are worse, either of them, than the sahib who is usually drunk.”
“And Cunnigan?”
“Is altogether otherwise. As his father was, and as a few other sahibs I have met, he understands what is not spoken—concedes dignity to him who is caught napping, as one who having disarmed his adversary, allows him to recover his weapon—and—”
“And?”
“Proves himself a man worth following! I myself will slit the throat of any man I catch disparaging the name of Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur! By the blood of God—by my medals, my own honor, and the good name of Pukka-Cunnigan, his father, I swear it!”
“Rung Ho!” grinned the six-foot son of war who, rode beside him.
They rode on at a walk past the tombstone that—at Mahommed Gunga's orders—the villagers had decked with sickly scented forest flowers, and as they passed they both saluted it in silence. The fakir of the night before, sitting not very far away from it, mimicked them. He sprang on the stone as soon as they were out of sight, scattering the flowers all about him, and calling down the vengeance of a hundred gods on the heads of Christian and Mohammedan alike.