Achilles had a tender spotThat even guarding gods forgot,When clothing him in armor;And I have proved this charge o' mineFor fear, and sloth, and vice, and wine,But clear forgot the charmer!
THE Alwa-sahib knew more English than he was willing to admit. In the first place, he had the perfectly natural dislike of committing his thoughts to any language other than his own when anything serious was the subject of discussion; in the second place, he had little of Mahommed Gunga's last-ditch loyalty. Not that Alwa could be disloyal; he had not got it in him; but as yet he had seen no good reason for pledging himself and his to the British cause.
So for more than ten minutes he chose to sit in apparent dudgeon, his hands folded in front of him on the hilt of his tremendous sabre, growling out a monologue in his own language for Mahommed Gunga's benefit. Then Mahommed Gunga silenced him with an uplifted hand, and turned to translate to Cunningham.
“It would seem, sahib, that even while we rode to Abu the rebellion was already raging! It burst suddenly. They have mutinied at Berhampur, and slain their officers. Likewise at Meerut, and at all the places in between. At Kohat, in this province they have slain every white man, woman, and child, and also at Arjpur and Sohlat. The rebels are hurrying to Delhi, where they have proclaimed new rule, under the descendants of the old-time kings. Word of all this came before dawn today, by a messenger from Maharajah Howrah to my cousin here. My cousin stands pledged to uphold Howrah on his throne; Howrah is against the British; Jaimihr, his brother, is in arms against Howrah.”
“Why did the Alwa-sahib pledge himself to Howrah's cause?”
Mahommed Gunga—who knew quite well—saw fit to translate the question. With a little sign of irritation Alwa growled his answer.
“He says, sahib, that for the safety of two Christian missionaries, for whom he has no esteem at all, he was forced to swear allegiance to a Hindoo whom he esteems even less. He says that his word is given!”
“Does he mean that he would like me and the missionaries to leave his home at once—do we embarrass him?”
Again Mahommed Gunga—this time with a grin—saw fit to ask before he answered.
“He says, 'God forbid,' sahib; 'a guest is guest!'”
Cunningham reflected for a moment, then leaned forward.
“Tell him this!” he said slowly. “I am glad to be his guest, but, if this story of rebellion is true—”
“It is true, sahib! More than true! There is much more to be told!”
“Then, I can only accept his hospitality as the representative of my government! I stay here officially, or not at all. It is for him to answer!”
“Now, Allah be praised!” swore Mahommed Gunga. “I knew we had a man! That is well said, sahib!”
“The son of Cunnigan-bahadur is welcome here on any terms at all!” growled Alwa when Mahommed Gunga had translated. “All the rebels in all India, all trying at once, would fail to take this fort of mine, had I a larger garrison. But what Rangar on this countryside will risk his life and estates on behalf of a cause that is already lost? If they come to hold my fort for me, the rebels will burn their houses. The British Raj is doomed. We Rangars have to play for our own stake!”
Then Mahommed Gunga rose and paced the floor like a man in armor, tugging at his beard and kicking at his scabbard each time that he turned at either end.
“What Rangar in this province would have had one yard of land to his name but for this man's father?” he demanded. “In his day we fought, all of us, for what was right! We threw our weight behind him when he led, letting everything except obedience go where the devil wanted it! What came of that? Good tithes, good report, good feeling, peace!”
“And then, the zemindary laws!” growled Alwa. “Then the laws that took away from us full two-thirds of our revenue!”
“We had had no revenue, except for Cunnigan-bahadur!”
It dawned on Cunningham exactly why and how he came to be there! He understood now that Mahommed Gunga had told nothing less than truth when he declared it had been through his scheming, and no other man's, that he—Cunningham—whose sole thought was to be a soldier, had been relegated to oblivion and politics! He understood why Byng had signed the transfer, and he knew—knew—knew—deep down inside him that his chance had come!
“It seems that another Cunningham is to have the honor of preserving Rangars' titles for them,” he smiled. “How many horsemen could the Alwa-sahib raise?”
“That would depend!” Alwa was in no mood to commit himself.
“At the most—at a pinch—in case of direst need, and for a cause that all agreed on?”
“Two thousand.”
“Horsed and armed?”
“And ready!”
“And you, Alwa-sahib—are you pledged to fight against the British?”
“Not in so many words. I swore to uphold Howrah on his throne. He is against the British.”
“You swore to help smash his brother, Jaimihr?”
“If I were needed.”
“And Jaimihr too is against the British?”
“Jaimihr is for Jaimihr, and has a personal affair with me!”
“I must think,” said Cunningham, getting up. “I can think better alone. D'you mind if I go outside for a while, and come back later to tell you what I think?”
Alwa arose and held the door open for him—stood and watched him cross the courtyard—then turned and laughed at Mahommed Gunga.
“Straight over to the woman!” he grinned. “This leader of thine seems in leading-strings himself already!”
Mahommed Gunga cursed, and cursed again as his own eyes confirmed what Alwa said.
“I tried him all the ways there are, except that one way!” he declared. “May Allah forgive my oversight! I should have got him well entangled with a woman before he reached Peshawur! He should have been heart-broken by this time—rightly, he should have been desperate with unrequited love! Byng-bahadur could have managed it! Byng-bahadur would have managed it, had I thought to advise him!”
He stood, looking over very gloomily at Cunningham, making a dozen wild plans for getting rid of Miss McClean—by no means forgetting poison—and the height of Alwa's aerie from the plain below! He would have been considerably calmer, could he have heard what Cunningham and Miss McClean were saying.
The missionary was with her now—ill and exhausted from the combined effects of excitement, horror, and the unaccustomed ride across the desert—most anxious for his daughter—worried, to the verge of desperation, by the ghastly news of the rebellion.
“Mr. Cunningham, I hope you are the forerunner of a British force?” he hazarded.
But Cunningham was too intent on cross-examination to waste time on giving any information.
“I want you to tell me, quite quietly and without hurry, all you can about Howrah,” he said, sitting close to Miss McClean. “I want you to understand that I am the sole representative of my government in the whole district, and that whatever can be done depends very largely on what information I can get. I have been talking to the Alwa-sahib, but he seems too obsessed with his own predicament to be able to make things quite clear. Now, go ahead and tell me what you know about conditions in the city. Remember, you are under orders! Try and consider yourself a scout, reporting information to your officer. Tell me every single thing, however unimportant.”
On the far side of the courtyard Alwa and Mahommed Gunga had gone to lean over the parapet and watch something that seemed to interest both of them intently. There were twenty or more men, lined round the ramparts on the lookout, and they all too seemed spellbound, but Cunningham was too engrossed in Miss McClean's story of the happenings in Howrah City to take notice. Now and then her father would help her out with an interjected comment; occasionally Cunningham would stop her with a question, or would ask her to repeat some item; but, for more than an hour she spun a clear-strung narrative that left very little to imagination and included practically all there was to know.
“Do you think,” asked Cunningham “that this brute Jaimihr really wants to make you Maharanee?”
“I couldn't say,” she shuddered. “You know, there have been several instances of European women having practically sold themselves to native princes; there have been stories—I have heard them—of English women marrying Rajahs, and regretting it. There is no reason why he should not be in earnest, and he certainly seemed to be.”
“And this treasure? Of course, I have heard tales about it, but I thought they were just tales.”
“That treasure is really there, and its amount must be fabulous. I have been told that there are jewels there which would bring a Rajah's ransom, and gold enough to offset the taxes of the whole of India for a year or two. I've no doubt the stories are exaggerated, but the treasure is real enough, and big enough to make the throne worth fighting for. Jaimihr counts on being able to break the power of the priests and broach the treasure.”
“And Jaimihr is—er—in love with you!”
“He tried very hard to prove it, in his own objectionable way!”
“And Jaimihr wants the throne—and Howrah wants to send a force against the British, but dare not move because of Jaimihr—I have Mahommed Gunga and five or six men to depend on—the Rangars are sitting on the fence—and the government has its hands full! The lookout's bright! I think I see the way through!”
“You are forgetting me.” The missionary spread his broad stooped shoulders. “I am a missionary first, but next to that I have my country's cause more at heart than anything. I place myself under your orders, Mr. Cunningham.”
“I too,” said Miss McClean. She was looking at him keenly as he gazed away into nothing through slightly narrowed eyes. Vaguely, his attitude reminded her of a picture she had once seen of the Duke of Wellington; there was the same mastery, the same far vision, the same poise of self-contained power. His nose was not like the Iron Duke's, for young Cunningham's had rather more tolerance in its outline and less of Roman overbearing; but the eyes, and the mouth, and the angle of the jaw were so like Wellesley's as to force a smile. “A woman isn't likely to be much use in a case like this—but, one never knows. My country comes first.”
“Thanks,” he answered quietly. And as he turned his head to flash one glance at each of them, she recognized what Mahommed Gunga had gloated over from the first—the grim decision, that will sacrifice all—take full responsibility—and use all means available for the one unflinching purpose of the game in hand. She knew that minute, and her father knew, that if she could be used—in any way at all—he would make use of her.
“Go ahead!” she nodded. “I'll obey!”
“And I will not prevent!” said Duncan McClean, smiling and straightening his spectacles.
Cunningham left them and walked over to the parapet, where the whole garrison was bending excitedly now above the battlement. There were more than forty men, most of them clustered near Alwa and Mahommed Gunga. Mahommed Gunga was busy counting.
“Eight hundred!” he exclaimed, as Cunningham drew near.
“Eight hundred what, Mahommed Gunga? Come and see, sahib.”
Cunningham leaned over, and beheld a mounted column, trailing along the desert road in wonderfully good formation.
“Where are they from?” he asked.
“Jaimihr's men, from Howrah!”
“That means,” growled Alwa, “that the Hindoo pig Jaimihr has more than half the city at his back. He has left behind ten men for every one he brings with him—sufficient to hold Howrah in check. Otherwise he would never have dared come here. He hopes to settle his little private quarrel with me first, before dealing with his brother! Who told him, I wonder, that I was pledged to Howrah?”
“He reckons he has caught thee napping in this fort of thine!” laughed Mahommed Gunga. “He means to bottle up the Rangars' leader, and so checkmate all of them!”
The eight hundred horsemen on the plain below rode carelessly through Alwa's gardens, leaving trampled confusion in their wake, and lined up—with Jaimihr at their head—immediately before the great iron gate. A moment later four men rode closer and hammered on it with their lance-ends.
“Go down and speak to them!” commanded Alwa, and a man dropped down the zigzag roadway like a goat, taking short cuts from level to level, until he stood on a pinnacle of rock that overhung the gate. Ten minutes later he returned, breathing hard with the effort of his climb.
“Jaimihr demands the missionaries—particularly the Miss-sahib—also quarters and food!” he reported.
“Quarters and food he shall have!” swore Alwa, looking down at the Prince who sat his charger in the centre of the roadway. “Did he deign a threat?”
“He said that in fifteen minutes he will burst the gate in, unless he is first admitted!”
Duncan McClean walked over, limping painfully, and peered over the precipice.
“Unfriendly?” he asked, and Mahommed Gunga heard him.
“Thy friend Jaimihr, sahib! His teeth are all but visible from here!”
“And—?”
“He demands admittance—also thee and thy daughter!”
“And—?”
“Sahib—art thou a priest?”
“I am.”
“One, then, who prays?”
“Yes.”
“For dead men, ever? For the dying?”
“Certainly.”
“Aloud?”
“On occasion, yes.”
“Then pray now! There will be many dead and dying on the plain below in less than fifteen minutes! Hindoos, for all I know, would benefit by prayer. They have too many gods, and their gods are too busy fighting for ascendancy to listen. Pray thou, a little!”
There came a long shout from the plain, and Alwa sent a man again to listen. He came back with a message that Jaimihr granted amnesty to all who would surrender, and that he would be pleased to accept Alwa's allegiance if offered to him.
“I will offer the braggart something in the way of board and lodging that will astonish him!” growled Alwa. “Eight men to horse! The first eight! That will do! Back to the battlement, the rest of you!”
They had raced for the right to loose themselves against eight hundred!
OH, duck and run—the hornets come!Oh, jungli! Clear the way!The nest's ahum—the hornets come!The sharp-stinged, harp-winged hornets come!Nay, jungli! When the hornets come,It isn't well to stay!
ALWA ordered ten men down into the bowels of the rock itself, where great wheels with a chain attached to them were forced round to lift the gate. Next he stationed a signaller with a cord in either hand, above the parapet, to notify the men below exactly when to set the simple machinery in motion. His eight clattered out from the stables on the far side of the rock, and his own charger was brought to him, saddled.
Then, in a second, it was evident why Raputs do not rule in Rajputana.
“I ride too with my men!” declared Mahommed Gunga.
“Nay! This is my affair—my private quarrel with Jaimihr!”
Mahommed Gunga turned to Ali Partab, who had been a shadow to him ever since he came.
“Turn out my five, and bring my charger!” he commanded.
“No, I say!” Alwa had his hand already on his sabre hilt. “There is room for eight and no more. Four following four abreast, and one ahead to lead them. I and my men know how to do this. I and my men have a personal dispute with Jaimihr. Stay thou here!”
Mahommed Gunga's five and Ali Partab came clattering out so fast as to lead to the suspicion that their horses had been already saddled. Mahommed Gunga mounted.
“Lead on, cousin!” he exclaimed. “I will follow thy lead, but I come!”
Then Alwa did what a native nearly always will do. He turned to a man not of his own race, whom he believed he could trust to be impartial.
“Sahib—have I no rights in my own house?”
“Certainly you have,” said Cunningham, who was wondering more than anything what weird, wild trick these horsemen meant to play. No man in his senses would have dared to ride a horse at more than foot-pace down the path. Was there another path? he wondered. At least, if eight men were about to charge into eight hundred, it would be best to keep his good friend Mahommed Gunga out of it, he decided.
“Risaldar!” The veteran was always most amenable to reason when addressed by his military title. “Who of us two is senior—thou or I?”
“By Allah, not I, sahib! I am thy servant!”
“I accept your service, and I order you to stay with your men up here with me!”
Mahommed Gunga saluted and dismounted, and his six followed suit, looking as disappointed as children just deprived of a vacation. Alwa wheeled his horse in front of Cunningham and saluted too.
“For that service, sahib, I am thy friend!” he muttered. “That was right and reasonable, and a judgement quickly given! Thy friend, bahadur!” He spoke low on purpose, but Mahommed Gunga heard him, caught Cunningham's eye, and grinned. He saw a way to save his face, at all events.
“That was a trick well turned, sahib!” he whispered, as Alwa moved away. “Alwa will listen in future when Cunnigan-bahadur speaks!”
“Go down and tell Jaimihr that I come in person!” ordered Alwa, and the man dropped down the cliff side for the third time; they could hear his voice, high-pitched, resounding off the rock, and they caught a faint murmur of the answer. Below, Jaimihr could be seen waiting patiently, checking his restive war-horse with a long-cheeked bit, and waiting, ready to ride under the gate the moment it was opened. Rosemary McClean came over; she and Cunningham and the missionary leaned together over the battlement and watched.
“We might do some execution with rifles from here,” Cunningham suggested; “I believe I'll send for mine.” But Mahommed Gunga overheard him.
“Nay, sahib! No shooting will be necessary. Watch!”
There was a clatter of hoofs, and they all looked up in time to see the tails of the last four chargers disappearing round the corner, downward. They had gone—full pelt—down a path that a man might hesitate to take! From where they stood, there was an archer's view of every inch of the only rock-hewn road that led from the gate to the summit of the cliff; an enemy who had burst the gate in would have had to climb in the teeth of a searching hail of missiles, with little chance of shooting back.
They could see the gate itself, and Jaimihr on the other side. And, swooping—shooting—sliding down the trail like a storm-loosed avalanche, they could see the nine go, led by Alwa. No living creature could have looked away!
Below, entirely unconscious of the coming shock, the mounted sepoys waited behind Jaimihr in four long, straight lines. Jaimihr himself, with a heavy-hilted cimeter held upward at the “carry,” was about four charger lengths beyond the iron screen, ready to spur through. Close by him were a dozen, waiting to ram a big beam in and hold up the gate when it had opened. And, full-tilt down the gorge, flash-tipped like a thunderbolt, gray-turbaned, reckless, whirling death ripped down on them.
They caught sound of the hammering hoofs too late. Two gongs boomed in the rock. The windlass creaked. Five seconds too late Jaimihr gathered up his reins, spurred, wheeled, and shouted to the men behind him. The great gate rose, like the jaws of a hungry monster, and the nine—streaking too fast down far too steep a slide to stop themselves—burst straight out under it and struck, as a wind blast smites a poppy-field.
Jaimihr was borne backward—carried off his horse. Alwa and the first four rode him down, and crashed through the four-deep line beyond; the second four pounced on him, gathered him, and followed. Before the lines could form again the whole nine wheeled—as a wind-eddy spins on its own axis—and burst through back again, the horses racing neck and neck, and the sabres cutting down a swath to screech and swear and gurgle in among the trampled garden stuff.
They came back in a line, all eight abreast, Alwa leading only by a length. At the opening, four horses—two on either side—slid, rump to the ground, until their noses touched the rock. Alwa and four dashed through and under; the rest recovered, spun on their haunches, and followed. The gongs boomed again down in the belly of the rock, and the gate clanged shut.
“That was good,” said Mahommed Gunga quietly. “Now, watch again!”
Almost before the words had left his lips, a hail of lead barked out from twenty vantage-points, and the smoke showed where some forty men were squinting down steel barrels, shooting as rapidly and as rottenly as natives of India usually do. They did little execution; but before Alwa and his eight had climbed up the steep track to the summit, patting their horses' necks and reviling Jaimihr as they came, the cavalry below had scampered out of range, leaving their dead and wounded where they lay.
“How is that for a start, sahib?” demanded Mahommed Gunga exultantly, as two men deposited the dishevelled Jaimihr on his feet, and the Prince glared around him like a man awaking from a dream. “How is that for a beginning?”
“As bad as could be!” answered Cunningham. “It was well executed—bold—clever—anything you like, Mahommed Gunga, but—if I'd been asked I'd have sooner made the devil prisoner! Jaimihr is no use at all to us in here. Outside, he'd be veritable godsend!”
There is war to the North should I risk and ride forth,And a fight to the South, too, I'm thinking;There is war in the East, and one battle at leastIn the West between eating and drinking.I'm allowed to rejoice in an excellent choiceOf plans for a soldier of mettle,For all of them mean bloody war and rapine.So—on which should a gentleman settle?
WITH his muscles strained and twisted (for his Rangar capturers had dragged him none too gently) and with his jewelled pugree all awry, Jaimihr did not lack dignity. He held his chin high, although he gazed at the bubbling spring thirstily; and, thirsty though he must have been, he asked no favors.
One of Alwa's men brought him a brass dipper full of water, after washing it out first thoroughly and ostentatiously. But Jaimihr smiled. His caste forbade. He waved away the offering much as Caesar may have waved aside a crown, with an air of condescending mightiness too proud to know contempt.
“Go, help thyself!” growled Alwa; and Jaimihr walked to the spring without haste, knelt down, and dipped up water with his hand.
“Now to a cell with him!” commanded Alwa, before the Prince had time to slake a more than ordinary thirst. Jaimihr stood upright as four men closed in on him, and looked straight in the eyes of every one in turn. Rosemary McClean stepped back, to hide herself behind Cunningham's broad shoulders, but Jaimihr saw her and his proud smile broadened to a laugh of sheer amusement. He let his captors wait for him while he stared straight at her, sparing her no fragment of embarrassment.
“I slew a man once to save thee, sahiba!” he mocked. “Why slink away? Have I ever been thy enemy?”
Then he folded his arms and walked off between his guards, without even an acknowledgment of Alwa's or any other man's existence on the earth.
Alwa spat as he wiped blood from his long sabre. He imagined he was doing the necessary dirty work out of Miss McClean's sight; but, except hospital nurses, there are few women who can see dry blood removed from steel without a qualm; she had looked at Alwa to escape Jaimihr's gaze; now she looked at Jaimihr's back to avoid the sight of what Alwa was seeing fit to do. And with all the woman in her she pitied the prisoner, who had said no less than truth when he claimed to have killed a man for her.
She knew that he would have killed a thousand men for her with equal generosity and equal disregard of what she thought was right, and she did not doubt that he would think himself both justified and worthy of renown for doing it. She could have begged his release that minute, had she thought for an instant that Alwa would consent, and but for Cunningham. She had grown aware of Cunningham's gray eyes, staring straight at her—summing her up—reading her. And she became conscious of the fact that she had met a man whose leave she would like to ask before deciding to act.
The mental acknowledgment brought relief for a few seconds. She was tired. The woman in here went out to the man in Cunningham, and she welcomed a protector. Then the Scots blood raced to the assistance of the woman, and she bridled instantly. Who, then, was this chance-met jackanapes, that she should lean on him or look to him for guidance?
The rebellion that had made her disobey her father back in Howrah City—the spirit that had kept her in Howrah City and had given Jaimihr back cool stare for stare—rallied her to resist—to ridicule—to rival Cunningham's pretensions. He saw her flush beneath his gaze, and turned away to where Mahommed Gunga watched from the parapet.
The leaders of Jaimihr's calvary were arguing. They could be seen gathered together out of rifle-shot but in full view of Alwa's rock, and from their gestures they seemed to be considering the feasibility of an attack.
But it needed no warrior—it needed less even than ordinary intelligence—to know that as few as forty men could hold that fastness against two thousand. Eight hundred would have no chance against it. Even two thousand would need engineers, and ordnance, as well as plans.
Presently half of the little army rode away, back toward Howrah City, and the other half proceeded to bivouac where they could watch the iron-shuttered entrance and cut off the little garrison from all communication or assistance.
“We might as well resume our conference,” suggested Alwa, with the courtly air of a man just arisen from a chair. No one who had not seen him ride would have dreamed that he was fresh from snatching a prisoner at the bottom of a neck-breaking defile. Cunningham nodded acquiescence and followed him, turning to stare again at Miss McClean before he strode away with long, even strides that had a reassuring effect on any one who watched him. She bridled again, and blushed. But she experienced the weird sensation of being read right through before Mahommed Gunga contrived adroitly to step into the line of view and so let Cunningham's attention fix itself on something else. The Risaldar had made up his mind that love was inopportune just then; and he was a man who left no stone unturned—no point unwatched—when he had sensed a danger. This might be danger and it might not be; so he watched. Cunningham was conscious of the sudden interruption of a train of thought, but he was not conscious of deliberate interference.
“That very young man is an old man,” said Duncan McClean, wiping his spectacles as he walked beside his daughter to the deep veranda where their chairs were side by side. “He is a grown man. He has come to man's estate. Look at the set of that pair of shoulders. Mark his strength!”
“I expect any one of those Rajputs is physically stronger,” answered Rosemary, in no mood to praise any one.
“I was thinking of the strength of character he expresses rather than of his actual muscles,” said McClean.
“Bismillah!” Alwa was swearing behind the thick teak door that closed behind him and Cunningham and Mahommed Gunga. “We have made a good beginning! With the wolf in a trap, what has the goat to dread? Howrah may chuckle himself to sleep! And I—I, too, by the beard of God's prophet!—I, too, may laugh, for, with Jaimihr under lock and key, what need is there to ride to the aid of a Hindoo Rajah? I am free again!”
“Alwa-sahib!”
Cunningham had fixed him with those calm gray eyes of his, and Mahommed Gunga sat down on the nearest bench contented. He could wait for what was coming now. He recognized the blossoming of the plant that he had nursed through its growth so long.
“I listen,” answered Alwa.
“I represent the British Government. I am the only servant of the Company within reach. Do you realize that?”
“Yes, sahib.”
“I have no orders which entitle me to deal with any crisis such as this. But, when my orders were given me, no such crisis was contemplated. Therefore, on behalf of the Company, I assume full authority until such time as some one senior to me turns up to relieve me. Is all that clear to you?”
“Yes, sahib.”
Mahommed Gunga went through considerable pantomime of being angry with a fly. He found it necessary to conceal emotion in some way or other. Alwa sat motionless and stared straight back at Cunningham.
“I understand, sahib,” he repeated.
“You are talking to me, then, on that understanding?”
“Most certainly, huzoor.”
“You can raise two thousand men?”
“Perhaps.”
“Say fifteen hundred?”
“Surely fifteen hundred. Not a sabre less.”
“All horsed and armed?”
“Surely, bahadur. Of what use would be a rabble? I was speaking in terms of men able to fight, as one soldier to another.”
“Will you raise those men?”
“Of a truth, I must, sahib!” Alwa laughed. “Jaimihr's thousands will be in no mind to lie leaderless and let Howrah ride rough-shod over them! They know his charity of old! They will be here to claim their Prince within a day or two, and without my fifteen hundred how would I stand? Surely, bahadur, I will raise my fifteen hundred.”
“Very well. Now I will make you a proposal. On behalf of the Company I offer you and your men pay at the rate paid to all irregular cavalry on a war basis. In return, I demand your allegiance.”
“To whom, sahib? To you or to the Company?”
“To the Company, of course.”
“Nay! Not I! For the son of Cunnigan-bahadur I would slit the throats of half Asia, and then of nine-tenths of the other half! But by the breath of God—by my spurs and this sabre here—I have had enough of pledging! I swore allegiance to Howrah. Being nearly free of that pledge by Allah's sending, shall I plunge into another, like a frightened bird fluttering from snare to snare? Nay, nay, bahadur! For thyself, for thy father's sake, ask any favor. It is granted. But thy Company may stew in the grease of its own cartridges for ought I care!”
Cunningham stood up and bowed very slightly—very stiffly—very punctiliously. Mahommed Gunga leaped to his feet, and came to attention with a military clatter. Alwa stared, inclining his head a trifle in recognition of the bow, but evidently taken by surprise.
“Then, good-by, Alwa-sahib.”
Cunningham stretched out a hand.
“I am much obliged to you for your hospitality, and regret exceedingly that I cannot avail myself of it further, either for myself or for Mahommed Gunga or for Mr. and Miss McClean. As the Company's representative, they, of course, look to me for orders and protection, and I shall take them away at once. As things are, we can only be a source of embarrassment to you.”
“But—sahib—huzoor—it is impossible. You have seen the cavalry below. How can you—how could you get away?”
“Unless I am your prisoner I shall certainly leave this place at once. The only other condition on which I will stay here is that you pledge your allegiance to the Company and take my orders.”
“Sahib, this is—why—huzoor—”
Alwa looked over to Mahommed Gunga and raised his eyebrows eloquently.
“I obey him! I go with him!” growled Mahommed Gunga.
“Sahib, I would like time to think this over.”
“How much time? I thought you quick-witted when you made Jaimihr prisoner. Has that small success undermined your power of decision? I know my mind. Mahommed Gunga knows his, Alwa-sahib.”
“I ask an hour. There are many points I must consider. There is the prisoner for one thing.”
“You can hand him over to the custody of the first British column we can get in touch with, Alwa-sahib. That will relieve you of further responsibility to Howrah and will insure a fair trial of any issue there may be between yourself and Jaimihr.”
Alwa scowled. No Rajput likes the thought of litigation where affairs of honor are concerned. He felt he would prefer to keep Jaimihr prisoner for the present.
“Also, sahib”—fresh facets of the situation kept appearing to him as he sparred for time—“with Jaimihr in a cage I can drive a bargain with his brother. While I keep him in the cage, Howrah must respect my wishes for fear lest otherwise I loose Jaimihr to be a thorn in his side anew. If I hand him to the British, Howrah will know that he is safe and altogether out of harm's way; then he will recall what he may choose to consider insolence of mine; and then—”
“Oh, well—consider it!” said Cunningham, saluting him and making for the door, close followed by Mahommed Gunga. The two went out and it left Alwa to stride up and down alone—to wrestle between desire and circumspection—to weigh uncomfortable fact with fact—and to curse his wits that could not settle on the wisest and most creditable course. They turned into another chamber of the tunnelled rock, and there until long after the hour of law allowed to Alwa they discussed the situation too.
“The point was well taken, sahib,” said Mahommed Gunga, “but he should have been handled rather less abruptly.”
“Eh?”
“Rather less abruptly, sahib.”
“Oh! Well—if his mind isn't clear as to which side he'll fight on, I don't want him, and that's all!” said Cunningham. And Mahommed Gunga bitted his impatience fiercely, praying the one God he believed in to touch the right scale of the two. Later, Cunningham strode out to pace the courtyard in the dark, and the Rajput followed him.
The trapped wolf bared his fangs and swore,“But set me this time free,And I will hunt thee never more!By ear and eye and jungle law,I'll starve—I'll faint—I'll die beforeI bury tooth in thee!”
WHILE Alwa raged alone, and while Mahommed Gunga talked to Cunningham in a rock-room near at hand, Rosemary McClean saw fit to take a hand in history. It was not her temperament to sit quite idle while others shaped her destiny; nor was she given to mere brooding over wrongs. When a wrong was being done that she could alter or alleviate it was her way to tackle it at once without asking for permission or advice.
From where her chair was placed under the long veranda she could see the passage in the rock that led to Jaimihr's cell. She saw his captors take him up the passage; she heard the door clang shut on him, and she saw the men come back again. She heard them laugh, too, and she overheard a few words of a jest that seemed the reason for the laughter.
In Rajputana, as in other portions of the East, men laugh with meaning as a rule, and seldom from mere amusement. Included in the laugh there usually lies more than a hint of threat, or hate, or cruelty. And, in partial confirmation of the jest she unintentionally overheard, she saw no servant go to the chuckling spring to fill a water-jar. She recalled that Jaimihr only sipped as much as he could dip up in the hollow of his hand, and that physical exertion and suffering of the sort that he had undergone produces prodigious thirst in that hot, dry atmosphere.
She waited until dark for Cunninham, growing momentarily more restless. She recalled that she was a guest of Alwa's, and as such not free to interfere with his arrangements or to suggest insinuations anent his treatment of prisoners. She recalled the pride of all Rajputs, and its accompanying corollary of insolence when offended. There would come no good—she knew—from asking anybody whether Jaimihr was allowed to drink or not.
Cunningham, with that middle-aged air of authority laid over the fire and ability of youth, would be able, no doubt, to enforce his wishes in the matter after finding out the truth about it. But Cunningham did not come; and she remembered from a short experience of her own what thirst was.
The men-at-arms were all on the ramparts now, watching the leaderless cavalry on the plain. They had even left the cell door unguarded, for it was held shut by a heavy beam that could not be reached from the inside; and they were all too few, even all of them together, to hold that rock against eight hundred. It was characteristic, though, and Eastern of the East, that they should omit to padlock the big beam. It pivoted at its centre on a big bronze pin, and even a child could move it from the outside; it was only from the inside that it was uncontrollable. From inside one could have jerked at the door for a week and the big beam would have lain still and efficient in its niche in the rock-wall; but a little pressure underneath one end would send it swinging in an arc until it hung bolt upright. Then the same child who had pushed it up could have swung the teak door wide.
Rosemary, growing momentarily thirstier herself as she thought of the probable torture of the prisoner, walked down to the spring and filled a dipper, as she had done half a dozen times a day since she first arrived. She had carried almost all her own and her father's water, for Joanna was generally sleeping somewhere out of view, and no other body-servant had been provided for her. There was a fairly big brass pitcher by the spring. She filled it. Nobody noticed her.
Then she recalled that nobody would notice her if she were to carry the brass pitcher in the direction of her room, for she had done that often. She picked it up, and she reached the end of the veranda with it without having called attention to herself. She set it down then to make quite sure that she was unobserved.
But some movement of the cavalry on the plain below was keeping the eyes of the garrison employed. Although a solitary lantern shone full on her, she reached the passage leading to the prisoner's cell unseen; and she walked on down it, making no attempt to hide or hurry, remembering that she was acting out of mercy and had no need to be ashamed. If she were to be discovered, then she would be, and that was all about it, except that she would probably be able to appeal to Cunningham to save her from unpleasant consequences. In any case, she reasoned, she would have done good. She was quite ready to get herself and her own in trouble if by doing it she could insure that a prisoner had water.
But she was not seen. And no one saw her set the jar down by the door. No one except the prisoner inside heard her knock.
“Have you water, Jaimihr-sahib?” she inquired.
The East has a hundred florid epithets for one used in the West; and in a land where water is as scarce as gold and far more precious the mention of water to a thirsty man calls forth a flood of thought such as only music or perhaps religion can produce in luckier climes. Jaimihr waxed eloquent; more eloquent than even water might have made him had another—had even another woman—brought it. He recognized her voice, and said things to her that roused all the anger that she knew. She had not come to be made love to.
She thought, though, of his thirst. She remembered that within an hour or two he might be raving for another reason and with other words. The big beam lifted on her hands with barely more effort than was needed to lift up the water-jar; the door opened a little way, and she tried, while she passed the water in, to peer through the darkness at the prisoner. But there were no windows to that cell, and such dim light as there was came from behind her.
“They have bound me, sahiba, in this corner,” groaned Jaimihr. “I cannot reach it. Take it away again! The certainty that it is there and out of reach is too great torture!”
So she slipped in through the door, leaving it open a little way—both her hands busy with the brass pitcher and both eyes straining their utmost through the gloom—advancing step by step through mouldy straw that might conceal a thousand horrors.
“You wonder, perhaps, why I do not escape!” said a voice. And then she heard the cell door close again gently.
Now she could see Jaimihr, for he stood with his back against the door, and his head was between her and the little six-inch grating that was all the ventilation or light a prisoner in that place was allowed.
“So you lied to me, even when I brought you water?” she answered. She was not afraid. She had nerve enough left to pity him.
“Yes. But I see that you did not lie. I am still thirsty, sahiba.”
He held out both hands, and she could see them dimly. There were no chains on them, and he was not bound in any way. She gave him the jar.
“Let me pass out again before you drink,” she ordered. “It is not known that I am in here, and I would not have it known.”
She could have bitten out her tongue with mortification a moment afterward for letting any such admission escape her. She heard him chuckle as he drank—he choked from chuckling, and set the jar down to cough. Then, when he had recovered breath again, he answered almost patronizingly.
“Which would be least pleased with you, sahiba? The Rangars, or thy father, or the other Englishman? But never mind, sahiba, we are friends. I have proved that we are friends. Never have I taken water from the hands of any man or any woman not of my own caste. I would have died sooner. It was only thou, sahiba, who could make me set aside my caste.”
“Let me pass!”
She certainly was frightened now. It dawned on her, as it had at once on him, that at the least commotion on his part or on hers a dozen Rangars would be likely to come running. And just as he had done, she wondered what explanation she would give in that case, and who would be likely to believe it. To have been caught going to the cell would have been one thing; to be caught in it would be another. He divined her thoughts.
“Have no fear, sahiba. Thou and I are friends.”
She did not answer, for words would not come. Besides, she was beginning to realize that words would be of little help to her. A woman who will tell nothing but the truth under any circumstances and will surely keep her promises is at a disadvantage when conversing with a man who surely will not tell the truth if he can help it and who regards his given word with almost equal disrespect.
“I have no fear, sahiba. I am not afraid to open this door wide and make a bid for liberty. It would not be wise, that is all, and thou—and I must deal in wisdom.”
His words came through the dark very evenly—spaced evenly—as though he weighed each one of them before he voiced it. She gathered the impression that he was thinking for his very life. She felt unable to think for her own. She felt impelled to listen—incredulous, helpless, frightened,—not a little ashamed. She was thinking more of the awful things those Moslem gentlemen would say about her should they come and discover her in Jaimihr's cell.
“Listen, sahiba! From end to end of India thy people are either dead, or else face to face with death. There is no escape anywhere for any man or woman—no hope, no chance. The British doom is sealed. So is the doom of every man who dared to side with them.”
She shuddered. But she had to listen.
“There will be an army here within a day or two. My men—and I number them by thousands—will come and rip these Rangars from their roost. Those that are not crucified will be thrown down from the summit, and there shall be a Hindoo shrine where they have worshipped their false god. Then, sahiba, if thou art here—perhaps—there might—yet—be a way-perhaps, yes?—a way, still, to escape me?”
She was trembling. She could not help beginning to believe him. Whatever might be true of what he said was certainly not comforting.
“But, while my army comes in search of me, my brother Howrah will be making merry with my palace and belongings. There will be devastation and other things in my army's rear for which there is no need and for which I have no stomach. I detest the thought of them, sahiba. Therefore, sahiba, I would drive a bargain. Notice, sahiba, I say not one word of love, though love such as mine is has seldom been offered to a woman. I say no word of love—as yet. I say, help me to escape by night, when I may make my way unseen back to my men: enable me to reach Howrah before my dear brother is aware of my trouble and before his men can start plundering, and name your own terms, sahiba!”
Name her own terms—name her own terms—name her own terms! The words dinned through her head and she could grasp no other thought. She was alone in a cell with Jaimihr, and she could get out of it if she would name her terms! She must name them—she must hurry—what were they? What were her terms? She could not think.
“Understand, sahiba. Certain things are sure. It is sure my men will come. It is sure that every Rangar on this rock will meet a very far from pleasant death—”
He grinned, and though she could not see him grin, she knew that he was doing it. She knew that he was even then imagining a hundred horrors that the Rangars would endure before they died. She might name her terms. She could save them.
“No!” she hissed hoarsely. “No! They are my terms! I name them! You must spare them—spare the Rangars—spare every man on this hill, and theirs, and all they have!”
“Truly are those thy terms, sahiba?”
“Truly! What others can I ask?”
“They are granted, sahiba!”
“Oh, thank God!”
She knew that he was speaking at least half the truth. She knew his power. She knew enough of Howrah City's politics to be convinced that he would not be left at the mercy of a little band of Rangars. She knew that there were not enough Rangars on the whole countryside to oppose the army that would surely come to his rescue. And whether he were dead or living, she knew well enough that the vengeance would be wreaked on every living body on the hill. Alwa might feel confident, not she. She trembled now with joy at the thought that she—she the most helpless and useless of all of them—might save the lives of all.
But then another phase of the problem daunted her. She might help Jaimihr go. He might escape unobserved with her aid. But then? What then? What would the Rangars do to her? Had she sufficient courage to face that? It was not fear now that swept over her so much as wonder at herself. Jaimihr detected something different in her mental attitude, and, since almost any change means weakness to the Oriental mind, he was quick to try to take advantage of it. He guessed right at the first attempt.
“And what wilt thou do here, sahiba? When I am gone, and there is none here to love thee—”
“Peace!” she commanded. “Peace! I have suffered enough—”
“Thou wilt suffer more, should the Rangars learn—”
“That is my business! Let me pass! I have bargained, and I will try to fulfil my part!”
She stepped toward the door, but he held out both his arms and she saw them. She had no intention of being embraced by him, whatever their conspiracy.
“Stand back!” she ordered.
“Nay, nay, sahiba! Listen! Escape with me! These Rangars will not believe without proof that thou hast saved their lives by bargaining. They will show thee short shrift indeed when my loss is discovered. Come now and I will make thee Maharanee in a week!”
“I would be as safe with one as with the other!” she laughed, something of calm reflection returning to her. “And what proof have I in any case that you will keep your word, Jaimihr-sahib. I will keep mine—but who will keep yours, that has been so often broken?”
“Sahiba—”
“Show me a proof!”
“Here—now—in this place?”
“Convince me, if you can! I will give myself willingly if I can save my father by it and these Rangars and Mr. Cunningham; but your bare word, Jaimihr-sahib, is worth that!”
She snapped her fingers, and he swore beneath his breath. Then he remembered his ambition and his present need, and words raced to his aid—words, plans, oaths, treachery, and all the hundred and one tricks that he was used to. He found himself consciously selecting from a dozen different plans for tricking her.
“Sahiba”—he spoke slowly and convincingly. In the gloom she could see his brown eyes levelled straight at hers, and she saw they did not flinch—“there is none who knows better than thou knowest how my brother and I stand to each other.” She shuddered at the reiterated second person singular, but he either did not notice it or else affected not to. “Thou know est that there is no love between him and me, and that I would have his throne. The British could set me on that throne unless they were first overwhelmed. Wert thou my legal wife, and were I to aid the British in this minute of their need, they would not be overwhelmed, and afterward they would surely set me on the throne. Therefore I pledge my word to lead my men to the Company's aid, provided that these Rangars ride to my aid. My brother plans to overcome me first, and then take arms against the British. If the Rangars come to help me I will ride with them to the Company's aid afterward. That is my given word!”
“Then the throne of Howrah is your price, Jaimihr-sahib?”
“Thou art the price and the prize, sahiba! For thee I would win the throne!”
She actually laughed, and he winced palpably. There was no doubt that he loved her after a manner of his own, and her contempt hurt him.
“I have said all I can say,” he told her. “I have promised all I can promise. What more is there to say or offer? If I stay here, I swear on the honor of a Rajput and a prince of royal blood, that every living man and woman on this rock, excepting thee only, shall be dead within a week. But if I escape by thy aid, and if, at thy instance, these Rangars and their friends ride to my help against my brother, then I will throw all my weight—men and influence—in the scale on the British side.”
“And—?”
“And thou shalt be Maharanee!”
“Never!”
“But in case that the British should be beaten before we reach them, then, sahiba! Then in case of thy need!”
“Jaimihr-sahib, I will help you to escape tonight on the terms that you have named—that you spare these Rangars and every living body on this hill. Then I will do my utmost to persuade the Rangars to ride to your assistance on your condition, that you lead your men to help the British afterward. And if my action in helping you escape should make the Rangars turn against me and my immediate friends, I shall claim your protection. Is that agreed?”
“Sahiba—absolutely!”
“Then let me pass!”
Reluctantly he stood aside. She slipped out and let the bar down unobserved. But she had not recovered all her self-possession when she reached the courtyard.
“Evening, Miss McClean,” said Cunningham; and she all but fainted, she was strained to such a pitch of nervousness.
“Where have you come from, Miss McClean?” asked Cunningham. And she told him. She was not quite so stiff-chinned as she had been.
“What were you doing there?”
She told him that, too.
“Where is your father?”
“In his chair on the veranda, Mr. Cunningham. There, in that deep shadow.”
“Come to him, please. I want your explanation in his presence.”
She followed as obediently as a child. The sense of guilt—of fright—of impending judgment left her as she walked with him, and gave place to a glow of comfort that here should be a man on whom to lean. She did not fight the new sensation, for she was growing strangely weary of the other one. By the time that they had reached her father, and he was standing before Cunningham wiping his spectacles in his nervous way, she had completely recovered her self-possession, although it is likely she would not have given any reason for it to herself.
Cunningham held a lantern up, so that he could study both their faces. His own face muscles were set rigidly, and he questioned them as he might have cross-examined a spy caught in the act. His voice was uncompromising, and his manner stern.
“Do you both understand how serious this situation is?” he asked.
“We naturally do,” said Duncan McClean. The Scotsman was beginning to betray an inclination to bridle under the youngster's attitude, and to show an equally pronounced desire not to appear to. “More so, probably, than anybody else!”
“Are you positive—both of you—you too, Mr. McClean—that all that talk about treasure in Howrah City is not mere imagination and legend?”
“Absolutely positive!” They both answered him at once, both looking in his eyes across the unsteady rays of the flickering, smoky lamp. “The amount has been, of course, much exaggerated,” said McClean, “but I have no doubt there is enough there to pay the taxes of all India for a year or two.”
“Then I have another question to ask. Do you both—or do you not—place yourselves at the service of the Company? It is likely to be dangerous—a desperate service. But the Company needs all that it can muster.”
“Of course we do!” Again both answered in one breath.
“Do you understand that that involves taking my orders?”
This time Duncan McClean did the answering, and now it was he who seized the lamp. He held it high, and scanned Cunningham's face as though he were reading a finely drawn map.
“We are prepared—I speak for my daughter as well as for myself—to obey any orders that you have a right to give, young man.”
“You misunderstand me,” answered Cunningham. “I am offering you the opportunity to serve the Company. As the Company's senior officer in the neighborhood, I am responsible to the Company for such orders as I see fit to give. I could not have my orders questioned. I don't mind telling you that I'm asking you, as British subjects, no more than I intend to ask Alwa and his Rangars. You can do as much as they are going to be asked to do. You can't do more. But you can do less if you like. You are being given the opportunity now to offer your services unconditionally—that is to say in the only manner in which I will accept them. Otherwise you will remain non-combatants, and I shall take such measures for your safety as I see fit. Time presses. Your answer, please!”
“I will obey your legal orders,” said McClean, still making full use of the lantern.
“I refuse to admit the qualification,” answered Cunningham promptly. “Either you will obey, or you will not. You are asked to say which, that is all.”
“I will obey,” said Rosemary McClean quietly. She said it through straight lips and in a level voice that carried more assurance than a string of loud-voiced oaths.
“And you, sir?”
“Since my daughter sees fit to—ah—capitulate, I have no option.”
“Be good enough to be explicit.”
“I agree to obey your orders.”
“Thank you.” He seemed to have finished with McClean. He turned away from him and faced Rosemary, not troubling to examine her face closely as he had done her father's, but seeming none the less to give her full attention. “I understood you to say that you promised to help Prince Jaimihr to escape from his cell tonight?”
“WHAT?”
Duncan McClean could not have acted such amazement. Cunningham desired no further evidence that he had not been accessory to his daughter's visit to the prisoner. He silenced him with a gesture. And now his eyes seemed for the time being to have finished with both of them; in spite of the darkness they both knew that he had resumed the far-away look that seemed able to see things finished.
“Yes,” said Rosemary. “I promised. I had to.”
Her father gasped. But Cunningham appeared to follow an unbroken chain of thought, and she listened.
“Well. You will both realize readily that we, as British subjects, are ranged all together on one side opposed to treachery, as represented by the large majority of the natives. That means that our first consideration must be to keep our given word. What we say,—what we promise—what we boast—must tally with what we undertake, and at the least try, to do. You must keep your word to Jaimihr, Miss McClean!”
She stared back at Cunningham through wide, unfrightened eyes. Whatever this man said to her, she seemed unable to feel fear while she had his attention. Her father seemed utterly bewildered, and she held his hand to reassure him.
“On the other hand, we cannot be guilty of a breach of faith to our friend Alwa here. I must have a little talk with him before I issue any orders. Please wait here and—ah—do nothing while I talk to Alwa. Did you—ah—did you agree to marry Jaimihr, should he make you Maharanee?”
“No! I told him I would rather die!”
“Thank you. That makes matters easier. Now tell me over again from the beginning what you know about the political situation in Howrah. Quickly, please. Consider yourself a scout reporting to his officer.”
Ten minutes later Cunninham heard a commotion by the parapet, and stalked off to find Alwa, close followed by Mahommed Gunga. The grim old Rajput was grinning in his beard as he recognized the set of what might have been Cunningham the elder's shoulders.