Ha! my purse may be lean, but my 'scutcheon is clean,And I'm backed by a dozen true men;I've a sword to my name, and a wrist for the same;Can a king frown fear into me, then?
IT is the privilege of emperors, and kings and princes, that—however little real authority they have, or however much their power is undermined by men behind the throne—they must be accorded dignity. They must be, on the face of things, obeyed.
Inspection of the treasure finished and an hour-long mummery of rites performed, the thirty wound their way, chanting, in single file back again. The bronze-enforced door, that was only first of half a hundred barriers between approach and the semi-sacred hoard, at last clanged shut and was locked with three locks, each of whose individual keys was in the keeping of a separate member of the three—Maharajah, Prince, and priest. The same keys fitted every door of the maze—made passages, but no one door would open without all three.
Speaking like an omen from the deepest shadow, the sweeper called to Jaimihr.
“Sahib, thy palace burns! Sahib, thy prisoner runs! Haste, sahib! Call thy men and hasten back! Thy palace is in flames—the Rangars come to—”
As a raven, disturbed into night omen-croaking, he sent forth his news from utter blackness into nerve-strung tension. No one member of the thirty but was on the alert for friction or sudden treachery; the were all eyes for each other, and the croaking fell on ears strained to the aching point. He had time to repeat his warning before one of Jaimihr's men stepped into the darkness where he hid and dragged him out.
“Sahib, a woman came but now and brought the news. It was from the captain of the guard. The Rangars came to take their man away. They broke in. They burn. They loot. They—”
But Jaimihr did not wait another instant to hear the rest. To him this seemed like the scheming of his brother. Now he imagined he could read between the lines! That letter sent to Alwa had been misreported to him, and had been really a call to come and free the prisoner and wreak Rangar vengeance! He understood! But first he must save his palace, if it could be saved. The priests must have deceived him, so he wasted no time in arguing with them; he ran, with his guards behind him, to the outer wall of Siva's temple where the horses waited, each with a saice squatting at his head. The saices were sent scattering among the crowd to give the alarm and send the rest of his contingent hurrying back; Jaimihr and his ten drove home their spurs, and streaked, as the frightened jackal runs when a tiger interrupts them at their worry, hell-bent-for-leather up the unlit street.
Then Maharajah Howrah's custom-accorded dignity stood him in good stead. It flashed across his worried brain that space had been given him by the gods in which to think. Jaimihr—one facet of the problem and perhaps the sharpest—would have his hands full for a while, and the priests—wish how they would—would never dare omit the after-ritual in Siva's temple. He—untrammelled for an hour to come—might study out a course to take and hold with those embarrassing prisoners of his.
He turned—updrawn in regal stateliness—and intimated to the high priest that the ceremony might proceed without him. When the priests demurred and murmured, he informed them that he would be pleased to give them audience when the ritual was over, and without deigning another argument he turned through a side door into the palace.
Within ten minutes he was seated in his throne-room. One minute later his prisoners stood in front of him, still holding each other's hands, and the guard withdrew. The great doors opening on the marble outer hall clanged tight, and in this room there were no carved screens through which a hidden, rustling world might listen. There was gold-incrusted splendor—there were glittering, hanging ornaments that far outdid the peacocks' feathers of the canopy above the throne; but the walls were solid, and the marble floor rang hard and true.
There was no nook or corner anywhere that could conceal a man. For a minute, still bejewelled in his robes of state and glittering as the diamonds in his head-dress caught the light from half a dozen hanging lamps, the Maharajah sat and gazed at them, his chin resting on one hand and his silk-clad elbow laid on the carved gold arm of his throne.
“Why am I troubled?” he demanded suddenly.
“You know!” said the missionary. His daughter clutched his hand tightly, partly to reassure him, partly because she knew that a despot would be bearded now in his gold-bespattered den, and fear gripped her.
“Maharajah-sahib, when I came here with letters from the government of India and asked you for a mission house in which to live and work, I told you that I came as a friend—as a respectful sympathizer. I told you I would not incite rebellion against you, and that I would not interfere with native custom or your authority so long as acquiescence and obedience by me did not run counter to the overriding law of the British Government.”
Howrah did not even move his head in token that he listened, but his tired eyes answered.
“To that extent I promised not to interfere with your religion.”
Howrah nodded.
“Once—twice—in all nine times—I came and warned you that the practice of suttee was and is illegal. My knowledge of Sanskrit is only slight, but there are others of my race who have had opportunity to translate the Sanskrit Vedas, and I have in writing what they found in them. I warned you, when that information reached me, that your priests have been deliberately lying to you—that the Vedas say: 'Thrice-blessed is she who dies of a broken heart because her lord and master leaves her.' They say nothing, absolutely nothing, about suttee or its practice, which from the beginning has been a damnable invention of the priests. But the practice of suttee has continued. I have warned the government frequently, in writing, but for reasons which I do not profess to understand they have made no move as yet. For that reason, and for no other, I have tried to be a thorn in your side, and will continue to try to be until this suttee ceases!”
“Why,” demanded Howrah, “since you are a foreigner with neither influence nor right, do you stay here and behold what you cannot change? Does a snake lie sleeping on an ant-hill? Does a woman watch the butchering of lambs? Yet, do ant-hills cease to be, and are lambs not butchered? Look the other way! Sleep softer in another place!”
“I am a prisoner. For months past my daughter and I have been prisoners to all intents and purposes, and you, Maharajah-sahib, have known it well. Now, the one man who was left to be our escort to another place is a prisoner, too. You know that, too. And you ask me why I stay! Suppose you answer?”
Rosemary squeezed his hand again, this time less to restrain him than herself. She was torn between an inclination to laugh at the daring or shiver at the indiscretion of taking to task a man whose one word could place them at the mercy of the priests of Siva, or the mob. But Duncan McClean, a little bowed about the shoulders, peered through his spectacles and waited—quite unawed by all the splendor—for the Maharajah's answer.
“Of what man do you speak?” asked Howrah, still undecided what to do with them, and anxious above all things to disguise his thoughts. “What man is a prisoner, and how do you know it?”
Before McClean had time to answer him, a spear haft rang on the great teak double door. There was a pause, and the clang repeated—another pause—a third reverberating, humming metal notice of an interruption, and the doors swung wide. A Hindoo, salaaming low so that the expression of his face could not be seen, called out down the long length of the hall.
“The Alwa-sahib waits, demanding audience!” There was no change apparent on Howrah's face. His fingers tightened on the jewelled cimeter that protruded, silk-sashed, from his middle, but neither voice nor eyes nor lips betrayed the least emotion. It was the McCleans whose eyes blazed with a new-born hope, that was destined to be dashed a second later.
“Has he guards with him?”
“But ten, Maharajah-sahib.”
“Then remove these people to the place where they were, and afterward admit him—without his guards!”
“I demand permission to speak with this Alwa-sahib!” said McClean.
“Remove them!”
Two spear-armed custodians of the door advanced. Resistance was obviously futile. Still holding his daughter's hand, the missionary let himself be led to the outer hall and down a corridor, where, presently, a six-inch door shut prisoners and guards even from sound of what transpired beyond.
Alwa, swaggering until his long spurs jingled like a bunch of keys each time his boot-heels struck the marble floor, strode straight as a soldier up to the raised throne dais—took no notice whatever of the sudden slamming of the door behind him—looked knife-keenly into Howrah's eyes—and saluted with a flourish.
“I come from bursting open Jaimihr's buzzard roost!” he intimated mildly. “He held a man of mine. I have the man.”
Merely to speak first was insolence; but that breach of etiquette was nothing to his manner and his voice. It appeared that he was so utterly confident of his own prowess that he could afford to speak casually; he did not raise his voice or emphasize a word. He was a man of his word, relating facts, and every line of his steel-thewed anatomy showed it.
“I sent a letter to you, by horseman, with a present,” said Howrah. “I await the answer.”
Alwa's eyes changed, and his attention stiffened. Not having been at home, he knew nothing of the letter, but he did not choose to acknowledge the fact. The principle that one only shares the truth with friends is good, when taken by surprise.
“I preferred to have confirmation of the matter from the Maharajah's lips in person, so—since I had this other matter to attend to—I combined two visits in one trip.”
He lied, as he walked and fought, like a soldier, and the weary man who watched him from the throne detected no false ring.
“I informed you that I had extended my protection to the two missionaries, man and daughter.”
“You did. Also, you did well.” He tossed that piece of comfort to the despot as a man might throw table scraps to a starveling dog! “I have come to take away the missionaries.”
“With a guard of ten!”
It was the first admission of astonishment that either man had made.
“Are you not aware that Jaimihr, too, has eyes on the woman?”
“I am aware of it. I have shown Jaimihr how deep my fear of him lies! I know, too, how deep the love lies between thee and thy brother, king of Howrah! I am here to remind you that many more than ten men would race their horses to a stand-still to answer my summons—brave men, Maharajah-sahib—men whose blades are keen, and straightly held, and true. They who would rally round me against Jaimihr would—”
“Would fight for me?”
“I have not yet said so.” There was a little, barely accentuated emphasis on the one word “yet.” The Maharajah thought a minute before he answered.
“How many mounted troopers could you raise?”
“Who knows? A thousand—three thousand—according to the soreness of the need.”
“You have heard—I know that you have heard—what, even at this minute, awaits the British? I know, for I have taken care to know, that a cousin of yours—Mahommed Gunga—is interested for the British. So—so I am interested to have word with you.”
Alwa laughed ironically.
“And the tiger asked the wolf pack where good hunting was!” he mocked. “I and my men strike which way suits us when the hour comes.”
“My palace has many chambers in it!” hinted Howrah. “There have been men who wondered what the light of day was like, having long ago forgotten!”
“Make me prisoner!” laughed Alwa. “Count then the hours until three thousand blades join Jaimihr and help him grease the dungeon hinges with thy fat!”
“Having looted Jaimihr's palace, you speak thus?”
“Having whipped a dog, I wait for the dog to lick my hand.”
“What is your purpose with these missionaries?”
“To redeem my given word.”
“And then?”
“I would be free to pledge it again.”
“To me?”
“To whom I choose.”
“I will give thee the missionaries, against thy word to fight on my side when the hour comes.”
“Against whom?”
“The British.”
“I have no quarrel with the British, yet.”
“I will give thee the missionaries, against thy word to support me on this throne.”
“Against whom?”
“Against all comers.”
“If I refuse, what then?”
“Jaimihr—who by this time must surely be thy very warmest friend!—shall attack thee unmolested. Pledge thy word—take thy missionary people—and Jaimihr must oppose thee and me combined.”
“Should Jaimihr ride after me, what then?”
“If he takes many with him, he must leave his camp unguarded, or only weakly guarded. Then I would act. If he goes with few, how can he take thy castle?”
“Then I have your protection against Jaimihr, and the missionaries, against my promise to support you on the throne?”
“My word on it.”
“And mine.”
Howrah rose, stepped forward to the dais edge, and held his hand out.
“Nay!” swore Alwa, recoiling. “My word is given. I take no Hindoo's hand!”
Howrah glared for a moment, but thought better of the hot retort that rose to his lips. Instead he struck a silver gong, and when the doors swung open ordered the prisoners to be produced.
“Escape through the palace-grounds,” he advised Alwa. “A man of mine will show the way.”
“Remember!” said Alwa across his shoulder with more than royal insolence, “I swore to help thee against Jaimihr and to support thee on thy throne—but in nothing did I swear to be thy tool—remember!”
Howrah City bows the knee(More or less) to masters three,King, and Prince, and Siva.Howrah City comes and goes—Buys and sells—and never knowsWhich is friend, and which are foes—King, or Prince, or Siva.
THAT that followed Alwa's breakaway was all but the tensest hour in Howrah City's history. The inevitable—the foiled rage of the priests and Jaimihr's impudent insistence that the missionaries should be handed over to him—the Maharajah's answer—all combined to set the murmurings afoot. Men said that the threatened rebellion against the rule of Britain had broken loose at last, and a dozen other quite as false and equally probable things.
Jaimihr, finding that his palace was intact, and that only the prisoner and three horses from his stable were missing, placed the whole guard under arrest—stormed futilely, while his hurrying swarm flocked to him through the dinning streets—and then, mad-angry and made reckless by his rage, rode with a hundred at his back to Howrah's palace, scattering the bee-swarm of inquisitive but so far peaceful citizens right and left.
With little ceremony, he sent in word to Howrah that he wanted Alwa and the missionaries; he stated that his private honor was at stake, and that he would stop at nothing to wreak vengeance. He wanted the man who had dared invade his palace—the man whom he had released—and the two who were the prime cause of the outrage. And with just as little ceremony word came out that the Maharajah would please himself as to what he did with prisoners.
That message was followed almost instantly by the high priest of Siva in person, angry as a turkey-gobbler and blasphemously vindictive. He it was who told Jaimihr of the unexpected departure through the palace-grounds.
“Ride, Jaimihr-sahib! Ride!” he advised him.
“How many have you? A hundred? Plenty! Ride and cut him off! There is but one road to Alwa's place; he must pass by the northern ford through Howrah River. Ride and cut him off!”
So, loose-reined, foam-flecked, breathing vengeance, Jaimihr and his hundred thundered through the dark hot night, making a bee-line for the point where Alwa's band must pass in order to take the shortest route to safety.
It was his word to the Jew that saved Alwa's neck. He and his men were riding borrowed horses, and he had promised to return them and reclaim his own. They had moved at a walk through winding, dark palace-alleys, led by a palace attendant, and debouched through a narrow door that gave barely horse-room into the road where Jaimihr had once killed a Maharati trader who molested Rosemary McClean. The missionary and his daughter were mounted on the horses seized in Jaimihr's stable; Joanna, moaning about “three gold mohurs, sahib—three, where are they?” was up behind Ali Partab, tossed like a pea on a drum-skin by the lunging movements of the wonder of a horse.
Instead of heading straight for home, in which case—although he did not know it—he would have been surely overhauled and brought to bay, he led at a stiff hand gallop to the Jew's, changed horses, crossed the ford by the burning ghats, and swooped in a wide half-circle for the sandy trail that would take him homeward. He made the home road miles beyond the point where Jaimihr waited for him—drew rein into the long-striding amble that desert-taught horses love—and led on, laughing.
“Ho!” He laughed. “Ho-ho! Here, then, is the end of Mahommed Gunga's scheming! Now, when he comes with arguments to make me fight on the British side, what a tale I have for him! Ho! What a swearing there will be! I will give him his missionary people, and say, 'There, Mahommed Gunga, cousin mine, there is my word redeemed—there is thy man into the bargain—there are three horses for thee—and I—I am at Howrah's beck and call!' Allah! What a swearing there will be!”
There was swearing, viler and more blasphemous than any of which Mahommed Gunga might be capable, where Jaimihr waited in the dark. He waited until the yellow dawn broke up the first dim streaks of violet before he realized that Alwa had given him the slip; and he cursed even the high priest of Siva when that worthy accosted him and asked what tidings.
“Another trick!” swore Jaimihr. “So, thou and thy temple rats saw fit to send me packing for the night! What devils' tricks have been hatched out in my absence?”
The high priest started to protest, but Jaimihr silenced him with coarse-mouthed threats.
“I, too, can play double when occasion calls for it!” he swore. And with that hint at coming trouble he clattered on home to his palace.
To begin with, when he reached home, he had the guard beaten all but unconscious for having dared let raiders in during the night before; then he sent them, waterless and thirsty, back to the dungeon. He felt better then, and called for ink and paper.
For hours he thought and wrote alternately, tearing up letter after letter. Then, at last, he read over a composition that satisfied him and set his seal at the foot. He placed the whole in a silver tube, poured wax into the joint, and called for the fat man who had been responsible for Ali Partab's capture.
“Dog!” he snarled. “Interfering fool! All this was thy doing! Didst thou see the guard beaten awhile ago?”
“I did. It was a lordly beating. The men are all but dead but will live for such another one.”
“Wouldst thou be so beaten?”
“How can I prevent, if your highness wishes?”
“Take this. It is intended for Peshawur but may be given to any British officer above the rank of major. It calls for a receipt. Do not dare come back, or be caught in Howrah City, without a receipt for that tube and its contents intact!”
“If Alwa and Mahommed Gunga are in league with my brother,” muttered Jaimihr to himself when the fat Hindoo had gone, “then the sooner the British quarrel with both of them the better. Howrah alone I can dispose of easily enough, and there is yet time before rebellion starts for the British to spike the guns of the other two. By the time that is done, I will be Maharajah!”
It was less than three days later when the word came mysteriously through the undiscoverable “underground” route of India for all men to be ready.
“By the next full moon,” went the message, from the priests alone knew where, “all India will be waiting. When the full moon rises then the hour is come!”
“And when that full moon rises,” thought Jaimihr to himself, “my brother's funeral rites will be past history!”
For the present, though, he made believe to regret his recent rage, and was courteous to priest and Maharajah alike—even sending to his brother to apologize.
They've called thee by an evil word,They've named thee traitor, friend o' mine.Thou askest faith? I send my sword.There is no greater, friend o' mine.
RALPH CUNNINGHAM said good-by to Brigadier-General Byng (Byng the Brigadier) with more feeling of regret and disappointment than he cared to show. A born soldier, he did his hard-mouthed utmost to refrain from whining; he even pretended that a political appointment was a recognizable advance along the road to sure success—or, rather, pretended that he thought it was; and the Brigadier, who knew men, and particularly young men, detected instantly the telltale expression of the honest gray eyes—analyzed it—and, to Cunningham's amazement, approved the unwilling make-believe.
“Now, buck up, Cunningham!” he said, slapping him familiarly on the shoulder. “You're making a good, game effort to hide chagrin, and you're a good, game ass for your pains. There isn't one man in all India who has half your luck at this minute, if you only knew it; but go ahead and find out for yourself! Go to Abu and report, but waste no more time there than you can help. Hurry on to Howrah, and once you're there, if Mahommed Gunga tells you what looks like a lie, trust him to the hilt!”
“Is he coming with me, then?” asked Cunningham in some amazement.
“Yes—unofficially. He has relations in that neighborhood and wants to visit them; he is going to take advantage of your pack-train and escort. You'll have a small escort as far as Abu; after that you'll be expected to look out for yourself. The escort is made up of details travelling down-country; they'll leave you at Abu Road.”
So, still unbelieving—still wondering why the Brigadier should go to all that trouble to convince him that politics in a half-forgotten native state were fair meat for a soldier—Cunningham rode off at the head of a variously made-up travelling party, grudging every step of that wonderful mare Mahommed Gunga had given him, that bore him away from the breeze-swept north—away from the mist-draped hills he had already learned to love—ever down, down, down into the hell-baked plains.
Each rest-house where he spent a night was but another brooding-place of discontent and regret, each little petty detail connected with the command of the motley party (mainly time-expired men, homeward bound), was drudgery; each Hindoo pugree that he met was but a beastly contrast, or so it seemed to him, to the turbans of the troop that but a week ago had thundered at his back.
More than any other thing, Mahommed Gunga's cheerfulness amazed him. He resented it. He did not see why the man who had expressed such interest in the good fortune of his father's son should not be sympathetic now that his soldier career had been nipped so early in the bud. He began to lose faith in Mahommed Gunga's wisdom, and was glad when the ex-Risaldar chose to bring up the rear of the procession instead of riding by his side.
But behind, in Peshawur, there was one man at least who knew Mahommed Gunga and his worth, and who refused to let himself be blinded by any sort of circumstantial evidence. The evidence was black—in black on white—written by a black-hearted schemer, and delivered by a big, fat black man, who was utterly road-weary, to the commissioner in person.
The sepoy mutiny that had been planned so carefully had started to take charge too soon. News had arrived of native regiments whose officers had been obliged against their will to disarm and disband them, and the loyalty of other regiments was seriously called in question.
But the men whose blindness was responsible for the possibility of mutiny were only made blinder by the evidence of coming trouble. With a dozen courses open to them, any one of which might have saved the situation, they deliberately chose a thirteenth—two-forked toboggan-slide into destruction. To prove their misjudged confidence in the native army, they actually disbanded the irregulars led by Byng the Brigadier—removed the European soldiers wherever possible from ammunition-magazine guard-duty, replacing them with native companies—and reprimanded the men whose clear sight showed them how events were shaping.
They reprimanded Byng, as though depriving him of his command were not enough. When he protested, as he had a right to do, they showed him Jaimihr's letter.
“Mahommed Gunga told you, did he? Look at this!”
The letter, most concisely and pointedly written, considering the indirect phraseology and caution of the East, deliberately accused Mahommed Gunga and a certain Alwa, together with all the Rangars of a whole province, of scheming with Maharajah Howrah to overthrow the British rule. It recommended the immediate arrest of Mahommed Gunga and stern measures against the Rangars.
“What do you propose to do about it?” inquired Byng.
“It's out of our province. A copy of this letter has been sent to the proper quarter, and no doubt the story will be investigated. There have been all kinds of stories about suttee being practised in Howrah, and it very likely won't be difficult to find a plausible excuse for deposing the Maharajah and putting Jaimihr in his place. In the meantime, if Mahommed Gunga shows himself in these parts he'll be arrested.”
Byng did then the sort of thing that was fortunately characteristic of the men who rose in the nick of time to seize the reins. He hurried to his quarters, packed in its case the sword of honor that had once been given him by his Queen, and despatched it without a written line of comment to Mahommed Gunga. The native who took it was ordered to ride like the devil, overtake Mahommed Gunga on the road to Abu, present the sword without explanation, and return.
Cunningham, in spite of himself, had travelled swiftly. The moon lacked two nights of being full and two more days would have seen him climbing up the fourteen-mile rock road that leads up the purple flanks of Abu, when the ex-trooper of Irregulars cantered from a dust cloud, caught up Mahommed Gunga, who was riding, as usual, in the rear, and handed him the sword. He held it out with both hands. Mahommed Gunga seized it by the middle, and neither said a word for the moment.
In silence Mahommed Gunga drew the blade—saw Byng's name engraved close to the hilt—recognized the sword, and knew the sender—thought—and mistook the meaning.
“Was there no word?”
“None.”
“Then take this word back. 'I will return the sword, with honor added to it, when the peace of India is won.' Say that, and nothing else.”
“I would rest my horse for a day or two,” said the trooper.
“Neither thou nor yet thy horse will have much rest this side of Eblis!” said Mahommed Gunga. “Ride!”
The trooper wheeled and went with a grin and a salute which he repeated twice, leaning back from the saddle for a last look at the man of his own race whom Byng had chosen to exalt. He felt himself honored merely to have carried the sword. Mahommed Gunga removed his own great sabre and handed it to one of his own five whom he overtook; then he buckled on the sword of honor and spurred until he rode abreast of Cunningham, a hundred yards or more ahead of the procession.
“Sahib,” he asked, “did Byng-bahadur say a word or two about listening to me?”
“He did. Why?”
“Because I will now say things!”
The fact that the Brigadier had sent no message other than the sword was probably the Rajput's chief reason for talking in riddles still to Cunningham. The silence went straight to his Oriental heart—so to speak, set the key for him to play to. But he knew, too, that Cunningham's youth would be a handicap should it come to argument; what he was looking for was not a counsellor or some one to make plans, for the plans had all been laid and cross-laid by the enemy, and Mahommed Gunga knew it. He needed a man of decision—to be flung blindfold into unexpected and unexpecting hell wrath, who would lead, take charge, decide on the instant, and lead the way out again, with men behind him who would recognize decision when they saw it. So he spoke darkly. He understood that the sword meant “Things have started,” so with a soldier's courage he proceeded to head Cunningham toward the spot where hell was loose.
“Say ahead!” smiled Cunningham.
“Yonder, sahib, lies Abu. Yonder to the right lies thy road now, not forward.”
“I have orders to report at Abu.”
“And I, sahib, orders to advise!”
“Are you advising me to disobey orders?”
The Rajput hesitated. “Sahib, have I anything to gain,” he asked, “by offering the wrong advice?”
“I can't imagine so.”
“I advise, now, that we—thou and I, sahib, and my five turn off here—yonder, where the other trail runs—letting the party proceed to Abu without us.”
“But why, Mahommed Gunga?”
“There is need of haste, sahib. At Abu there will be delay—much talk with Everton-sahib, and who knows?—perhaps cancellation of the plan to send thee on to Howrah.”
“I'd be damned glad, Mahommed Gunga, not to have to go there!”
“Sahib, look! What is this I wear?”
“Which?”
“See here, sahib—this.”
For the first time Cunningham noticed the fine European workmanship on the sword-hilt, and realized that the Rajput's usual plain, workmanlike weapon had been replaced.
“That is Byng-bahadur's sword of honor! It reached me a few minutes ago. The man who brought it is barely out of sight. It means, sahib, that the hour to act is come!”
“But—”
“Sahib—this sending thee to Howrah is my doing? Since the day when I first heard that the son of Pukka Cunnigan-bahadur was on his way I have schemed and planned and contrived to this end. It was at word from me that Byng-bahadur signed the transfer papers—otherwise he would have kept thee by him. There are owls—old women—men whom Allah has deprived of judgment—drunkards—fools—in charge at Peshawur and in other places; but there are certain men who know. Byng-bahadur knows. I know—and I will show the way! Let me lead, sahib, for a little while, and I will show thee what to lead!”
“But—”
“Does this sword, sahib, mean nothing? Did Byng-bahadur send it me for fun?”
“But what's the idea? I can't disobey orders, and ride off to—God knows where—without some excuse. You'll have to tell me why. What's the matter? What's happening?”
“Byng-bahadur sent not one word to me when he sent this sword. To thee he said: 'Listen to Mahommed Gunga, even when he seems to lie!' I know that, for he told me he had said it. To me he said: 'Take charge, Mahommed Gunga, when the hour comes, and rub his innocent young nose hard as you like into the middle of the mess!' Ay, sahib, so said he. It is now that I take charge.”
“But—”
“'But,' said the nylghau, and the wolf-pack had him! 'But,' said the tiger, and the trap door shut! 'But,' said the Hindoo, and a priest betrayed him! But—but—but—I never knew thy father make much use of that word!”
“Yes—but—I have my orders, Mahommed Gunga!”
“Sahib—this sword is a sword of honor—it stands for Byng-bahadur's honor. I have it in my keeping. Mine own honor is a matter somewhat dear to me, and I have kept it clean these many years. Now I ask to keep thine honor, too, awhile—making three men's honor. If I fail, then thou and I and Byng-bahadur all go down together in good company. If I fail not, then, sahib—Allah is contented when his honor stands!”
Cunningham drew rein and looked him in the eyes. Gray eyes met brown and neither flinched; each read what men of mettle only can read when they see it—the truth, the fearlessness, the thought they understand because it lives with them. Cunningham held out his hand.
Some thirty minutes later Cunningham, Mahommed Gunga, and the five, with a much-diminished mule-train bumping in their wake, were headed westward on a dry, hot trail, while the time-expired and convalescent escort plodded south. The escort carried word that Cunningham had heard of trouble to the west, and had turned off to investigate it.
Quoth little red jackal, famishing, “Lo,Yonder a priest and a soldier go;You can see farthest, and you ought to know,—Which shall I wander with, carrion crow?”The crow cawed back at him, “Ignorant beast!Soldiers get glory, but none of the feast;Soldiers work hardest, and snaffle the least.Take my advice on it—Follow the priest!”
IT was two hours after sunrise on the second day that followed Cunningham's desertion of his party when he and Mahommed Gunga first caught sight of a blue, baked rock rising sheer out of a fringe of green on the dazzling horizon. It was a freak of nature—a point pushed through the level crust of bone-dry earth, and left to glitter there alone.
“That is my cousin Alwa's place!” exclaimed Mahommed Gunga, and he seemed to draw a world of consolation from the fact.
The sight loosed his tongue at last; he rode by Cunningham, and deigned an explanation now, at least, of what had led to what might happen. He wasted little breath on prophecy, but he was eloquent in building up a basis from which Cunningham might draw his own deductions. They had ridden through the cool of the night in easy stages, and should have camped at dawn; but Mahommed Gunga had insisted that the tired animals could carry them for three hours longer.
“A soldier's horse must rest at the other end sahib,” he had laughed. “Who knows that they have not sent from Abu to arrest both thee and me?” And he had not vouchsafed another word until, over the desert glare, his cousin's aerie had blazed out, beating back the molten sun-rays.
“It looks hotter than the horns of hell!” said Cunningham.
“The horns of hell, sahib, are what we leave behind us! They grow hot now! Thy countrymen—the men who hated thee so easily—heated them and sit now between them for their folly!”
“How d'you mean? 'Pon my soul and honor, Risaldar, you talk more riddles in five minutes than I ever heard before in all my life!”
“There be many riddles I have not told yet—riddles of which I do not know the answer. Read me this one. Why did the British Government annex the state of Oudh? All the best native soldiers came from Oudh, or nearly all. They were loyal once; but can a man be fairly asked to side against his own? If Oudh should rise in rebellion, what would the soldiers do?”
“Dunno, I'm sure,” said Cunningham.
“Read me this one, then. By pacifying both Mohammedan and Hindoo and by letting both keep their religion, by sometimes playing one against the other and by being just, the British Government has become supreme from the Himalayas to the ocean. Can you tell me why they now issue cartridges for the new rifles that are soaked in the fat of cows and pigs, thus insulting both Mohammedan and Hindoo?”
“I didn't know it was so.”
“Sahib, it is! These damned new cartridges and this new drill-sahib, I—I who am loyal to the marrow of my bones—would no more touch those cartridges—nor bite them, as the drill decrees—than I would betray thee! Pig's fat! Ugh!”
He spat with Mohammedan eloquence and wiped his lips on his tunic sleeve before resuming.
“Then, like a flint and steel, to light the train that they have laid, they loose these missionaries, in a swarm, from one end of India to the other. Why? What say one and all? Mohammedan and Hindoo both say it is a plot, first to make them lose their own religion by defilement, then to make Christians of them! Foolishness to talk thus? Nay! It was foolishness to act thus!
“Sahib, peace follows in the wake of soldiers, as we know. Time and time again the peace of India has been ripped asunder at the whim of priests! These padre people, preaching new damnation everywhere, are the flint and steel for the tinder of the cartridge fat!”
“I never knew you to croak before, Mahommed Gunga.”
“Nor am I croaking. I am praising Allah, who has sent thee now to the place whence the wind will come to fan the hell flames that presently will burn. The wind will blow hot or cold—for or against the government—according as you and I and certain others act when opportunity arrives! See yonder!”
They had been seen, evidently, for horsemen—looking like black ants on the desert—seemed to have crawled from the bowels of the living rock and were galloping in their direction.
“Friends?” asked Cunningham.
“Friends, indeed! But they have yet to discover whether we are friends. They set me thinking, sahib. Alwa is well known on this country-side and none dare raid his place; few would waste time trying. Therefore, it is all one to him who passes along this road; and he takes no trouble, as a rule, to send his men out in skirmishing order when a party comes in view. Why, then, does he trouble now?”
“Couldn't say. I don't know Alwa.”
“I am thinking, sahib, that the cloud has burst at last! A blood-red cloud! Alwa is neither scare-monger nor robber; when he sends out armed men to inspect strangers on the sky-line, there is war! Sahib, I grow young again! Had people listened to me—had they called me anything but fool when I warned them—thou and I would have been cooped up now in Agra, or in Delhi, or Lucknow, or Peshawur! Now we are free of the plains of Rajputana—within a ride of fifty of my blood-relations, and they each within reach of others! Ho! I can hear the thunder of a squadron at my back again! I am young, sahib—young! My old joints loosen! Allah send the cloud has burst at last—I bring to two thousand Rangars a new Cunnigan-bahadur! Thy father's son shall learn what Cunnigan-bahadur taught!”
He lapsed into silence, watching the advancing horsemen, who swooped down on them in an ever-closing fan formation. His tired horse sensed the thrill that tingled through its rider's veins, and pranced again, curving his neck and straining at the bit until Mahommed Gunga steadied him. The five behind—even the mule-drivers too—detected excitement in the air, and the little column closed in on its leaders. All eyes watched the neck-and-neck approach of Alwa's men, until Cunningham at last could see their turbans and make out that they were Rangars, not Hindoos. Then he and the Risaldar drew rein.
There were twenty who raced toward them, but no Alwa.
“It is as I thought!” declared Mahommed Gunga. “It is war, sahib! He has summoned men from his estates. As a rule, he can afford but ten men for that fort of his, and he would not send all his men to meet us—he has a garrison up yonder!”
Like blown dust-devils the twenty raced to them, and drew up thundering within a lance-length. A sword-armed Rangar with a little gold lace on his sleeve laughed loud as he saluted, greeting Mahommed Gunga first. The Risaldar accepted his salute with iron dignity.
“Forgive him, sahib!” he whispered to Cunningham. “The jungli knows no better! He will learn whom to salute first when Alwa has said his say!”
But Cunningham was in no mood just then to stand on military ceremony or right of precedence. He was too excited, too inquisitive, too occupied with the necessity for keeping calm in the face of what most surely looked like the beginning of big happenings. These horsemen of Alwa's rode, and looked, and laughed like soldiers, new-stripped of the hobble ropes of peace, and their very seat in the untanned saddles—tight down, loose-swaying from the hips, and free—was confirmation of Mahommed Gunga's words.
They wheeled in a cloud and led the way, opening a little in the centre to let the clouds of sand their horses kicked up blow to the right and left of Cunningham and his men. Not a word was spoken—not a question asked or a piece of news exchanged—until the whole party halted at the foot of Alwa's fortress home—a great iron gate in front of them and garden land on either side—watered by the splashing streamlet from the heights above.
“Men of the house of Kachwaha have owned and held this place, sahib, since Allah made it!” whispered Mahommed Gunga. “Men say that Alwa has no right to it; they lie! His father's father won the dower-right!”
He was interrupted by the rising of the iron gate. It seemed solid, without even an eyehole in it. It was wide enough to let four horses under side by side, and for all its weight it rose as suddenly and evenly as though a giant's hand had lifted it. Immediately behind it, like an actor waiting for the stage-curtain to rise, Alwa bestrode his war-horse in the middle of a roadway. He saluted with drawn sabre, and this time Cunningham replied.
Almost instantly the man who had led the gallopers and had saluted Mahommed Gunga spurred his horse up close to Cunningham and whispered:
“Pardon, sahib! I did not know! Am I forgiven?”
“Yes,” said Cunningham, remembering then that a Rajput, and a Rangar more particularly, thinks about points of etiquette before considering what to eat. Alwa growled out a welcome, rammed his sabre home, and wheeled without another word, showing the way at a walk—which was all a wild goat could have accomplished—up a winding road, hewn out of the solid mountain, that corkscrewed round and round upon itself until it gave onto the battlemented summit. There he dismounted, ordered his men to their quarters, and for the first time took notice of his cousin.
“I have thy missionary and his daughter, three horses for thee, and thy man,” he smiled.
“Did Ali Partab bring them?”
“Nay. It was I brought Ali Partab and the rest! My promise is redeemed!”
Mahommed Gunga thrust his sword-hilt out and smiled back at him. “I present Raff-Cunnigan-sahib—son of Pukka-Cunnigan-bahadur!” he announced.
Alwa drew himself up to his full height and eyed young Cunningham as a buyer eyes a war-horse, inch by inch. The youngster, who had long since learned to actually revel in the weird sensation of a hundred pairs of eyes all fixed on him at once, felt this one man's gaze go over him as though he were being probed. He thanked his God he had no fat to be detected, and that his legs were straight, and that his tunic fitted him!
“Salaam, bahadur,” said Alwa slowly. “I knew thy father. So—thou—art—his—son. Welcome. There is room here always for a guest. I have other guests with whom you might care to speak. I will have a room made ready. Have I leave to ask questions of my cousin here?”
Cunningham bowed in recognition of his courtesy, and walked away to a point whence he could look from the beetling parapet away and away across desert that shone hot and hazy-rimmed on every side. If this were a man on whom he must depend for following—if any of all the more than hints dropped by the risaldar were true—it seemed to him that his reception was a little too chilly to be hopeful.
After a minute or two he turned his eyes away from the dazzling plain below and faced about to inspect the paved courtyard. Round it, on three sides of a parallelogram, there ran a beautifully designed and wonderfully worked-out veranda-fronted building, broken here and there by cobbled passages that evidently led to other buildings on the far edge of the rock. In the centre, covered by a roof like a temple-dome in miniature, was the ice-cold spring, whose existence made the fort tenable. Under the veranda, on a long, low lounge, was a sight that arrested his attention—held him spell-bound—drew him, tingling in a way he could not have explained—drew him—drew him, slow-footed, awkward, red—across the courtyard.
He heard Mahommed Gunga swear aloud; he recognized the wording of the belly-growled Rangar oath; but it did not occur to him that what he saw—what was drawing him—could be connected with it. He looked straight ahead and walked ahead—reached the edge of the veranda—took his helmet off—and stood still, feeling like an idiot, with the sun full on his head.
“I'd advise you to step into the shade,” said a voice that laughed more sweetly than the chuckling spring. “I don't know who you are, but I'm more glad to see you than I ever was in my life to see anybody. I can't get up, because I'm too stiff; the ride to here from Howrah City all but killed me, and I'm only here still because I couldn't ride another yard. My father will be out in a moment. He's half-dead too.”
“My name is Cunningham.”
“I'm Miss McClean. My father was a missionary in Howrah.”
She nodded to a chair beside her, and Cunningham took it, feeling awkward, as men of his type usually do when they meet a woman in a strange place.
“How in the world did you get in?” she asked him. “It's two days now since the Alwa-sahib told us that the whole country is in rebellion. How is it that you managed to reach here? According to Alwa, no white man's life is safe in the open, and he only told me today that he wouldn't let me go away even if I were well enough to ride.”
“First I've heard of rebellion!” said Cunningham aghast at the notion of hearing news like that a second hand, and from a woman.
“Hasn't Alwa told you?”
“He hasn't had time to, yet.”
“Then, you'd better ask him. If what he say is true—and I think he tells the truth—the natives mean to kill us all, or drive us out of India. Of course they can't do it, but they mean to try. He has been more than kind—more than hospitable—more than chivalrous. Just because he gave his word to another Rangar, he risked his life about a dozen times to get my father and me and Ali Partab out of Howrah. But, I don't think he quite liked doing it—and—this is in confidence—if I were asked—and speaking just from intuition—I should say he is in sympathy with the rebellion!”
“How long have you been here?” asked Cunningham.
“Several days—ten, I think. It seemed strange at first and rather awful to be lodged on a rock like this in a section of a Rangar's harem! Yes, there are several women here behind the scenes, but I only see the waiting-women. I've forgotten time; the news about rebellion seems too awful to leave room for any other thought.”
“Who was the Rangar to whom Aliva gave his word? Not Mahommed Gunga, by any chance?”
“Yes, Mahommed Gunga.”
“Well, I'm—!” Cunningham clipped off the participle just in time. “There is something, then, in the talk about rebellion! That man's been talking in riddles to me ever since I came to India, and it looks as though he knew long in advance.”
He was about to cross-examine Miss McClean rigorously, even at the risk of seeming either rude or else frightened; but before his lips could frame another question he caught sight of Mahommed Gunga making signals to him. He affected to ignore the signals. He objected to being kept in the dark so utterly, and wished to find out a little for himself before listening to what the Rangars had to say. But Mahommed Gunga started over to him.
He could not hear the remark Mahommed Gunga made to Alwa over his shoulder as he came.
“Had I remembered there was a woman of his own race here, I would have plunged him straight into the fighting! Now there will be the devil first to pay!”
“He has decision in at least one thing!” grinned Alwa.
“Something that I think thou lackest, cousin!” came the hot retort.
Alwa turned his back with a shake of his head and a thin-lipped smile—then disappeared through a green door in the side of what seemed like solid rock. A moment later Mahommed Gunga stood near Cunningham, saluting.
“We ask the favor of a consultation, sahib.”
Cunningham rose, a shade regretfully, and followed into the rock-walled cavern into which Alwa had preceded them. It was nearly square—a hollow bubble in the age-old lava—axe-trimmed many hundred years ago. What light there was came in through three long slits that gave an archer's view of the plain and of the zigzag roadway from the iron gate below. It was cool, for the rock roof was fifty or more feet thick, and the silence of it seemed like the nestling-place of peace.
They sat down on wooden benches round the walls, with their soldier legs stretched out in front of them. Alwa broke silence first, and it was of anything but peace he spoke.
“Now—now, let us see whose throats we are to slit!” he started cheerfully.