"Grief chokes me!" he asserted.
"Take care that I choke thee not,babuji! I have asked a question. I am no lawyer to maneuver for my answer. Did you see that trooper killed?"
The babu nodded; but his nod was not much more than tentative. He could have denied it next minute without calling much on his imagination.
"Oh! Which way went the murderer?"
"Grief overwhelms me!" said the babu.
"Grief for what?"
"For my money—my good money—my emoluments!"
Direct as an arrow though he was in all his dealings, Ranjoor Singh had not forgotten how the Old East thinks. He recognized the preliminaries of a bargain, and searched his mind to recall how much money he had with him; to have searched his pocket would have been too puerile.
"What of them?"
"Lost!"
"Where? How?"
"While standing here, observing movements of him whom I suspected to be murderer, a person unknown—possibly a Sikh—perhaps not—removed money surreptitiously from my person."
"How much money?"
"Rupees twenty-five, annas eight," said the babu unwinking. He neither blushed nor hesitated.
"I will take compassion on your loss and replace five rupees of it," said Ranjoor Singh, "when you have told me which way the murderer went."
"My eyes are too dim, and my heart too full with grief," said the babu."No man's memory works under such conditions. Now, that money—"
"I will give you ten rupees," said Ranjoor Singh.
This was too easy! The babu was prepared to bargain for an hour, fighting for rupee after rupee until his wit assured him he had reached the limit. Now he began to believe he had set the limit far too low.
"I do not remember," he said slowly but with great conviction, scratching at his stomach as if he kept his recollections stored there.
"You said twenty-five rupees, eight annas? Well, I will pay the half of it, and no more," said Ranjoor Singh in a new voice that seemed to suggest unutterable things. "Moreover, I will pay it when I have proved thy memory true. Now, scratch that belly of thine and let the thoughts come forth!"
"Nay, sahib, I forget."
Ranjoor Singh drew out his purse and counted twelve rupees and three quarters into the palm of his hand.
"Which way?" he demanded.
"Twenty-five rupees, eight annas of earned emolument—gone while I watched the movements of a murderer! It is not easy to keep brave heart and remember things!"
"See here, thou bellyful of memories! Remember and tell me, or I return this money to my purse and march thee by the nape of thy fat neck to the police station, where they will put thee in a cell for the night and jog thy memory in ways the police are said to understand! Speak! Here, take the money!"
The babu reached out a fat hand and the silver changed owners.
"There!" said the babu, jerking a thumb over his right shoulder."Through that door!"
"That narrow teak door, down the passage?"
But the babu was gone, hurrying as if goaded by fear of hell and all its angels.
Ranjoor Singh strode across the street in a bee-line and entered the dark passage. He had seen the yellow light of a lamp-flame through a chink in an upper shutter, and he intended to try directness on the problem once again. It was ten full paces down the passage to the door; he counted them, finishing the last one with a kick against the panel that would have driven it in had it been less than teak.
There came no answer, so he kicked again. Then he beat on the door with his clenched fists. Presently he turned his back to the door and kept up a steady thunder on it with his heels. And then, after about five minutes, he heard movement within.
He congratulated himself then that the noise he had made had called the attention of passers-by and of all the neighbors, and though he had had no fear and no other intention than to enter the house at all costs, he certainly had that much less compunction now.
He heard three different bolts drawn back, and then there was a pause. He thought he heard whispering, so he resumed his thunder. Almost at once there followed the unmistakable squeak of a big beam turning on its pivot, and the door opened about an inch.
He pushed, but some one inside pushed harder, and the door closed again. So Ranjoor Singh leaned all his weight and strength against the door, drawing in his breath and shoving with all his might. Resistance ceased. The door flew inward, as it had done once before that day, and closed with a bang behind him.
Long were the days and oh! wicked the weather—Endless and thankless the round—Grinding God's Grit into rookies together;I was the upper stone, he was the nether,And Gad, sir, they groaned as we ground!Bitter the blame (but he helped me to bear it),Grim the despair that we ate!But hell's loose! The dam's down, and none can repair it!'Tis our turn! Go, summon my brother to share it!His squadron's at arms, and we wait!
A regiment is more exacting of its colonel than ever was lady of her lord; the more truly he commands, the better it loves him, until at last the regiment swallows him and he becomes part of it, in thought and word and deed. Distractions such as polo, pig-sticking, tiger-shooting are tolerable insofar as they steady his nerve and train his hand and eye; to that extent they, too, subserve the regiment. But a woman is a rival. So it is counted no sin against a cavalry colonel should he be a bachelor.
There remained no virtue, then, in the eyes of Outram's Own for Colonel Kirby to acquire; he had all that they could imagine, besides at least a dozen they had not imagined before he came to them. There was not one black-bearded gentleman who couched a lance behind him but believed Colonel Kirby some sort of super-man; and, in return, Colonel Kirby found the regiment so satisfying that there was not even a lady on the sky-line who could look forward to encroaching on the regiment's preserves.
His heart, his honor, and his rare ability were all the regiment's, and the regiment knew it; so he was studied as is the lot of few. His servant knew which shoes he would wear on a Thursday morning, and would have them ready; the mess-cook spiced the curry so exactly to his taste that more than one cook-book claimed it to be a species apart and labeled it with his name. If he frowned, the troopers knew somebody had tried to flatter him; if he smiled, the regiment grinned; and when his face lacked all expression, though his eyes were more than usually quick, officer, non-commissioned officer and man alike would sit tight in the saddle, so to speak, and gather up their reins.
His mood was recognized that afternoon as he drove back from the club while he was yet four hundred yards away, although twilight was closing down. The waler mare—sixteen three and a half, with one white stocking and a blaze that could be seen from the sky-line—brought his big dog-cart through the street mud at a speed which would have insured the arrest of the driver of a motor; but that, if anything, was a sign of ordinary health.
Nor was the way he took the corner by the barrack gate, on one wheel, any criterion; he always did it, just as he never failed to acknowledge the sentry's salute by raising his whip. It needed the observant eyes of Outram's Own to detect the rather strained calmness and the almost inhumanly active eye.
"Beware!" called the sentry, while he was yet three hundred yards away."Be awake!"
"Be awake! Be awake! Beware!"
The warning went from lip to lip, troop to troop, from squadron stables on to squadron stables, until six hundred men were ready for all contingencies. A civilian might not have recognized the difference, but Kirby's soldier servant awakened from his nap on the colonel's door-mat and straightened his turban in a hurry, perfectly well aware that there was something in the wind.
It was too early to dress for dinner yet; too late to dress for games of any kind. The servant was nonplussed. He stood in silence, awaiting orders that under ordinary circumstances, or at an ordinary hour, would have been unnecessary. But for a while no orders came. The only sound in those extremely unmarried quarters was the steady drip of water into a flat tin bath that the servant had put beneath a spot where the roof leaked; the rain had ceased but the ceiling cloth still drooped and drooled.
Suddenly Kirby threw himself backward into a long chair, and the servant made ready for swift action.
"Present my compliments to Risaldar-Major Ranjoor Singh sahib, and ask him to be good enough to see me here."
The servant saluted and was gone. Kirby relapsed again into the depth of the chair, staring at the wall in front of him, letting his eye travel from one to another of the accurately spaced-out pictures, pieces of furniture and trophies that proclaimed him unmarried. There was nothing whatever in his quarters to decoy him from his love. There were polo sticks in a corner where a woman would have placed a standard lamp, and where the flowers should have stood was a chest to hold horse-medicines. There was a vague smell about the place of varnish, polish and good leather.
The servant was back again, stiff at the salute, within five minutes.
"Ne hai."
"Not there? Not where? Not in his quarters? Then go and find him. Ask where he is. Hurry!"
So, since the regiment was keyed to watchfulness, it took about five minutes more before it was known that Ranjoor Singh was not in barracks. The servant returned to report that he had been seen driving toward the bazaar in atikka-gharri.
Then entered Warrington, the adjutant, and the servant was dismissed at once.
"Bad business," said Warrington, looking thoroughly cheerful.
"What now?"
"One of Squadron D's men murdered in the bazaar this afternoon. Body's in the morgue in charge of the police. 'Nother man who was with him apparently missing. No explanation, and the p'lice say there aren't any clues."
He twisted at a little black mustache and began to hum.
"Know where Ranjoor Singh is by any chance?" asked Kirby.
"Give me three guesses—no, two. One—he's raising hell with all the police in Delhi. Two—he's at the scene of the murder, doing detective work on his own. I heard he'd driven away—and, anyhow, it's his squadron. Man's probably his second cousin, twenty or thirty times removed."
"Send somebody to find him!" ordered Kirby.
"Say you want to have a word with him?"
Kirby nodded, and Warrington swaggered out, humming to himself exactly as he hoped to be humming when his last grim call should come, the incarnation of efficiency, awake and very glad. A certain number of seconds after he had gone two mounted troopers clattered out toward the bazaar. Ten minutes later Warrington returned.
"D Squadron's squattin' on its hunkers in rings an' lookin' gloomy," he said, as if he were announcing some good news that had a touch of humor in it. "By the look of 'em you'd say they'd been passed over for active service and were meditatin' matrimony."
"By gad, Warrington! You don't know how near that guess is to the truth!"
Kirby's lips were smiling, but his voice was hard. Warrington glanced quickly at him once and then looked serious.
"You mean—"
"Yes," said Kirby.
"Has it broken yet?"
"No."
"Is it goin' to break?"
"Looks like it. Looks to me as if it's all been prearranged. Our crowd are sparring for time, and the Prussians are all in a hurry. Looks that way to me."
"And you mean—there's a chance—even a chance of us—of Outram's Own bein' out of it? Beg your pardon, sir, but are you serious?"
"Yes," said Kirby, and Warrington's jaw fell.
"Any details that are not too confidential for me to know?" askedWarrington.
"Tell you all about it after I've had a word with Ranjoor Singh."
"Hadn't I better go and help look for him?"
"Yes, if you like."
So, within another certain number of split seconds, Captain Charlie Warrington rode, as the French say, belly-to-the-earth, and the fact that the monsoon chose that instant to let pour another Noah's deluge seemed to make no difference at all to his ardor or the pace to which he spurred his horse.
An angry police officer grumbled that night at the club about the arrogance of all cavalrymen, but of one Warrington in particular.
"Wanted to know, by the Big Blue Bull of Bashan, whether I knew when a case was serious or not! Yes, he did! Seemed to think the murder of one sowar was the only criminal case in all Delhi, and had the nerve to invite me to set every constable in what he termed my parish on the one job. What did I say? Told him to call to-morrow, of course—said I'd see. Gad! You should have heard him swear then—thought his eyes 'ud burn holes in my tunic. Went careering out of the office as if war had been declared."
"Talking of war," said somebody, nursing a long drink under the swinging punkah, "do you suppose—"
So the manners of India's pet cavalry were forgotten at once in the vortex of the only topic that had interest for any one in clubdom, and it was not noticed whether Warrington or his colonel, or any other officer of native cavalry looked in at the club that night.
* * * * *
Warrington rode into the rain at the same speed at which he had galloped to the police station, overhauled one of the mounted troopers whom he himself had sent in search of Ranjoor Singh, rated him soundly in Punjabi for loafing on the way, and galloped on with the troop-horse laboring in his wake. He reined in abreast of the second trooper, who had halted by a cross-street and was trying to appear to enjoy the deluge.
"Any word?" asked Warrington.
"I spoke with two who said he entered by that door-that small door down the passage, sahib, where there is no light. It is a teak door, bolted and with no keyhole on the outside."
"Good for you," said Warrington, glancing quickly up and down the wet street, where the lamps gleamed deceptively in pools of running water. There seemed nobody in sight; but that is a bold guess in Delhi, where the shadows all have eyes.
He gave a quiet order, and trooper number one passed his reins to number two.
"Go and try that door. Kick it in if you can—but be quick, and try not to be noisy!"
The trooper swung out of the saddle and obeyed, while Warrington and the other man faced back to back, watching each way against surprise. In India, as in lands less "civilized," the cavalry are not allowed to usurp the functions of police, and the officer or man who tries it does so at his own risk. There came a sound of sudden thundering on teak that ceased after two minutes.
"The door is stout. There is no answer from within," said the trooper.
"Then wait here on foot," commanded Warrington. "Get under cover and watch. Stay here until you're relieved, unless something particularly worth reporting happens; in that case, hurry and report. For instance"—he hesitated, trying to imagine something out of the unimaginable—"suppose the risaldar-major were to come out, then give him the message and come home with him. But—oh, suppose the place takes fire, or there's a riot, or you hear a fight going on inside—then hurry to barracks—understand?"
The wet trooper nodded and saluted.
"Get into a shadow, then, and keep as dry as you can," orderedWarrington. "Come on!" he called to the other man.
And a second later he was charging through the street as if he rode with despatches through a zone of rifle fire. Behind him clattered a rain-soaked trooper and two horses.
Colonel Kirby stepped out of his bathroom just as Warrington arrived, and arranged his white dress-tie before the sitting-room mirror.
"Looks fishy to me, sir," said Warrington, hurrying in and standing where the rain from his wet clothes would do least harm.
There was a space on the floor between two tiger-skins where the matting was a little threadbare. Messengers, orderlies or servants always stood on that spot. After a moment, however, Kirby's servant brought Warrington a bathroom mat.
"How d'ye mean?"
Warrington explained.
"What did the police say?"
"Said they were busy."
"Now, I could go to the club," mused Kirby, "and see Hetherington, and have a talk with him, and get him to sign a search-warrant. Armed with that, we could—"
"Perhaps persuade a police officer to send two constables with it to-morrow morning!" said Warrington, with a grin.
"Yes," said Kirby.
"And if we do much on our own account we'll fall foul of the IndianPenal Code, which altereth every week," said Warrington.
"If it weren't for the fact that I particularly want a word with him," said Kirby, giving a last tweak to his tie and reaching out for his mess-jacket that the servant had laid on a chair, "there'd not be much ground that I can see for action of any kind. He has a right to go where he likes."
That point of view did not seem to have occurred to Warrington before; nor did he quite like it, for he frowned.
"On the other hand," said Kirby, diving into his mess-jacket and shrugging his neat shoulders until they fitted into it as a charger fits into his skin, "under the circumstances—and taking into consideration certain private information that has reached me—if I were supposed to be behind a bolted door in the bazaar, I'd rather appreciate it if Ranjoor Singh, for instance, were to—ah—take action of some kind."
"Exactly, sir."
"Hallo—what's that?"
* * * * *
A motor-car, driven at racing speed, thundered up the lane between the old stacked cannon and came to a panting standstill by the colonel's outer door. A gruff question was answered gruffly, and a man's step sounded on the veranda. Then the servant flung the door wide, and a British soldier stepped smartly into the room, saluted and held out a telegram.
Kirby tore it open. His eyes blazed, but his hands were steady. The soldier held out a receipt book and a pencil, and Kirby took time to scribble his initials in the proper place. Warrington, humming to himself, began to squeeze the rain out of his tunic to hide impatience. The soldier saluted, faced about and hurried to the waiting car. Then Kirby read the telegram. He nodded to Warrington. Warrington, his finger-ends pressed tight into his palms and his forearms quivering, raised one eyebrow.
"Yes," said Kirby.
"War, sir?"
"War."
"We're under orders?"
"Not yet. It says, 'War likely to be general. Be ready.' Here, read it for yourself."
"They wouldn't have sent us that if—"
"Addressed to O.C. troops. They had those ready written out and sent one to every O.C. on the list the second they knew."
"Well, sir?"
"Leave the room, Lal Singh!"
The servant, who was screwing up his courage to edge nearer, did as he was told.
Kirby stood still, facing the mirror, with both arms behind him.
"They're certain to send native Indian troops to Europe," he said.
"We're ready, sir! We're ready to a shoe-string! We'll go first!"
"We'll be last, Warrington, supposing we go at all, unless we find Ranjoor Singh! They'll send us to do police work in Bengal, or to guard the Bombay docks and watch the other fellows go. I'm going to the club. You'd better come with me. Hurry into dry clothes." He glanced at the clock. "We'll just have time to drive past the house where you say he's supposed to be, if you hurry."
The last three words were lost, for Captain Warrington had turned into a thunderbolt and disappeared; the noise of his going was as when a sudden windstorm slams all the doors at once. A moment later he could be heard shouting from outside his quarters to his servant to be ready for him.
He certainly bathed, for the noise of the tub overturning when he was done with it was unmistakable. And eight minutes after his departure he was back again, dressed, cloaked and ready.
"Got your pistol, sir?"
"Yes," said Kirby.
"Thought I'd bring mine along. You never know, you know."
Together they climbed into the colonel's dog-cart, well smothered under waterproofs. Kirby touched up another of his road-devouring walers, the sais grabbed at the back seat and jumped for his life, and they shot out of the compound, down the line of useless cannon and out into the street, taking the corner as the honor of the regiment required. Then the two big side-lamps sent their shafts of light straight down the metaled, muddy road, and the horse settled down between them to do his equine "demdest"; there was a touch on the reins he recognized.
* * * * *
They reached the edge of the bazaar to find the crowd stirring, although strangely mute.
"They'll have got the news in an hour from now," said Kirby. "They can smell it already."
"Wonder how much truth there is in all this talk about German merchants and propaganda."
"H-rrrrr-ummm!" said Kirby.
"Steady, sir! Lookout!"
The near wheel missed a native woman by a fraction of an inch, and her shrill scream followed them. But Kirby kept his eyes ahead, and the shadows continued to flash by them in a swift procession until Warrington leaned forward, and then Kirby leaned back against the reins.
"There he is, sir!"
They reined to a halt, and a drenched trooper jumped up behind to kneel on the back seat and speak in whispers.
"No sign of him at all?" asked Kirby.
"No, sahib. But there has been a light behind a shutter above there. It comes and goes. They light it and extinguish it."
"Has anybody come out of that door?"
"No, sahib."
"None gone in?"
"None."
"Any other door to the place?"
"There may be a dozen, sahib. That is an old house, and it backs up against six others."
"What we suffer from in this country is information," said Warrington, beginning to hum to himself.
But Kirby signed to the trooper, and the man began to scramble out of the cart.
"Between now and our return, report to the club if anything happens," called Warrington.
The whip swished, the horse shot forward, and they were off again as if they would catch up with the hurrying seconds. People scattered to the right and left in front of them; a constable at a street crossing blew his whistle frantically; once the horse slipped in a deep puddle, and all but came to earth; but they reached the club without mishap and drove up the winding drive at a speed more in keeping with convention.
"Oh, hallo, Kirby! Glad you've come!" said a voice.
"Evening, sir!"
Kirby descended, almost into the arms of a general in evening dress. They walked into the club together, leaving the adjutant wondering what to do. He decided to follow them at a decent distance, still humming and looking happy enough for six men.
"You'll be among the first," said the general. "Are you ready,Kirby—absolutely ready?"
"Yes,"
"The wires are working to the limit. It isn't settled yet whether troops go from here via Canada or the Red Sea—probably won't be until the Navy's had a chance to clear the road. All that's known—yet—is that Belgium's invaded, and that every living man Jack who can be hurried to the front in time to keep the Germans out of Paris will be sent. Hold yourself ready to entrain any minute, Kirby."
"Is martial law proclaimed yet?" asked Kirby in a voice that the general seemed to think was strained, for he looked around sharply.
"Not yet. Why?"
"Information, sir. Anything else?"
"No. Good night."
"Good night, sir."
Kirby nearly ran into Warrington as he hurried back toward the door.
"Find a police officer!" he ordered.
"They all passed you a minute ago, sir," answered Warrington. "They're headed for police headquarters. Heard one of 'em say so."
Kirby pulled himself together. A stranger would not have noticed that he needed it, but Warrington at his elbow saw the effort and was glad.
"Go to police headquarters, then," he ordered. "Try to get them to bring a dozen men and search, that house; but don't say that Ranjoor Singh's in there."
"Where'll I find you, sir?"
"Barracks. Oh, by the way, we're a sure thing for the front."
"I knew there was some reason why I kept feelin' cheerful!" saidWarrington. "The risaldar-major looks like gettin' left."
"Unless," said Kirby, "you can get the police to act to-night—or unless martial law's proclaimed at once, and I can think of an excuse to search the house with a hundred men myself. Find somebody to give you a lift. So long."
Kirby swung into his dog-cart, the sais did an acrobatic turn behind, and again the horse proceeded to lower records. Zigzag-wise, through streets that were growing more and yet more thronged instead of silent, they tore barrackward, missing men by a miracle every twelve yards. Kirby's eyes were on a red blotch, now, that danced and glowed above the bazaar a mile ahead. It reminded him of pain.
Presently the horse sniffed smoke, and notified as much before settling down into his stride again. The din of hoarse excitement reached Kirby's ears, and in a moment more a khaki figure leaped out of a shadow and a panting trooper snatched at the back seat, was grabbed by the sais, and swung up in the rear.
"Sahib—"
"All right. I know," said Kirby, though he did not know how he knew.
They raced through another dozen streets until the glare grew blinding and the smoke nearly choked him. Then they were stopped entirely by the crowd, and Colonel Kirby sat motionless; for he had a nearly perfect view of a holocaust. The house in which Ranjoor Singh was supposed to be was so far burned that little more than the walls was standing.
The North Wind hails from the Northern snows,(His voice is loud—oh, listen ye!)He cried of death—the death he knows—Of the mountain death. (Oh, listen ye!)Who looks to the North for love looks long!Who goes to the North for gain goes wrong!Men's hearts are hard, and the goods belongTo the strong in the North! (Oh, listen ye!)Whose lot is fair—who loves his life—Walks wide, stays wide of the Northern knife!(Ye men o' the world, oh, listen ye!)
There were police and to spare now, nor any doubt of it. Even the breath of war's beginning could not keep them elsewhere when a fire had charge in the densest quarters of the danger zone. The din of ancient Delhi roared skyward, and the Delhi crowd surged and fought to be nearer to the flame; but the police already had a cordon around the building, and another detachment was forcing the swarms of men and women into eddying movement in which something like a system developed presently, for there began to be a clear space in which the fire brigade could work.
"Any bodies recovered?" asked Colonel Kirby, leaning from the seat of his high dogcart to speak to the English fireman who stood sentry over the water-plug.
"No, sir. The fire had too much headway before the alarm went in. When we got here the whole lower part was red-hot."
"Any means of escape from the building from the rear?"
"As many as from a rat-run, sir. That house is as old as Delhi—about; and there are as any galleries up above connecting with houses at the rear as there are run-holes from cellar to cellar."
"Any chance for anybody down in the cellar?"
"Doubt it, sir. The fire started there; the water'll do what the fire left undone. Pretty bad trap, sir, I should say, if you asked me."
"No reports of escape or rescue?"
"None that I've heard tell of."
"And the house seems doomed, eh? Be some days before they can sort the debris over?"
"Lucky if we save the ten houses nearest it! Look, sir! There she goes!"
The roof fell in, sending five separate volumes of red sparks up into the cloudy night as floor after floor collapsed beneath the weight. The thunder of it was almost drowned in a roar of delight, for the crowd, sensing the new spirit of its masters, was in a mood for the terrible. Then silence fell, as if that had been an overture.
Out of the silence and through the sea of hot humanity, the white of his dress-shirt showing through the unbuttoned front of a military cloak, Warrington rode a borrowed Arab pony, the pony's owner's sais running beside him to help clear a passage. Warrington was still humming to himself as he dismissed both sais and pony and climbed up beside Kirby in the dog-cart.
"If Ranjoor Singh's in that house, he's in a predicament," he said cheerfully. "I went to police headquarters, and the first officer I spoke to told me to go to hell. So I went into the next office, where all the big panjandrums hide—and some of the little ones—and they told me what you know, sir, that the house is in flames and every policeman who can be spared is on the job, so I came to see. If Ranjoor Singh's in there—but I don't believe he is!"
"Why don't you?"
"I don't believe the Lord 'ud send us active service—not a real red war against a real enemy—and play a low-down trick on Ranjoor Singh. Ranjoor Singh's a gentleman. It wouldn't be sportsmanlike to let him die before the game begins."
For a minute or two they watched the sparks go up and the crowd striking at the rats that still seemed to find some place of exit.
"There's a place below there that isn't red—hot yet," said Kirby. "Those rats are not cooked through. Did you tell the police that you wanted a search warrant?"
"Yes. Might as well argue with an ant-heap. All of 'em too busy tryin' for commissions in the Volunteers to listen. They've got it all cut an' dried—somebody in the basement upset a lamp, according to them—nobody up-stairs—nobody to turn in the alarm until the fire had complete charge! They offer to prove it when the fire's out and they can sort the ashes."
"Um-m-m! Tell 'em a trooper of ours saw a light there?"
"Yes."
"What did they say?"
"'Doubtless the lamp that was kicked over!'"
Colonel Kirby clucked to his horse and worked a way out to the edge of the crowd with the skill of one whose business is to handle men in quantity. Then he shot like a dart up side streets and made for barracks by a detour.
"Gad!" said Warrington suddenly.
"Who's told 'em d'you suppose?"
"Dunno, sir. News leaks in Delhi like water from a lump of ice."
In the darkness of the barrack wall there were more than a thousand men, women and children, many of them Sikhs, who clamored to be told things, and by the gate was a guard of twenty men drawn up to keep the crowd at bay. The shrill voices of the women drowned the answers of the native officer as well as the noise of the approaching wheels, and the guard had to advance into the road to clear a way for its colonel.
The native officer saluted and grinned.
"Is it true, sahib?" he shouted, and Kirby raised his whip in the affirmative. From that instant the guard began to make more noise than the crowd beyond the wall.
Kirby whipped his horse and took the drive that led to his quarters at a speed there was no overhauling. He wanted to be alone. But his senior major had forestalled him and was waiting by his outer door.
"Oh, hallo, Brammle. Yes, come in."
"Is it peace, Jehu?" asked Brammle.
"War. We'll be the first to go. No, no route yet—likely to get it any minute."
"I'll bet, then. Bet you it's Bombay—a P. and O.—Red Sea and Marseilles! Oh, who wouldn't be light cavalry? First-class all the way, first aboard, and first crack at 'em! Any orders, sir?"
"Yes. Take charge. I'm going out, and Warrington's going with me. Don't know how long we'll be gone. If anybody asks for me, tell him I'll be back soon. Tell the men."
"Somebody's told 'em—listen!"
"Tell 'em that whoever misbehaves from now forward will be left behind.Give 'em my definite promise on that point!"
"Anything else, sir?"
"No."
"Then see you later."
"See you later."
The major went away, and Kirby turned to his adjutant.
"Go and order the closed shay, Warrington. Pick a driver who won't talk. Have some grub sent in here to me, and join me at it in half an hour; say fifteen minutes later. I've some things to see to."
Kirby wanted very much to be alone. The less actual contact a colonel has with his men, and the more he has with his officers, the better—as a rule; but it does not pay to think in the presence of either. Officers and men alike should know him as a man-who-has-thought, a man in whose voice is neither doubt nor hesitation.
Thirty minutes later Warrington found him just emerging from a brown study.
"India's all roots-in-the-air an' dancin'!" he remarked cheerfully."There was a babu sittin' by the barrack gate who offers to eat aGerman a day, as long as we'll catch 'em for him. He's the same manthat was tryin' for a job as clerk the other day."
"Fat man?"
"Very."
"Uh-h-h! No credentials—bad hat! Send him packing?"
"The guard did."
Food was laid on a small table by a silent servant who had eyes in the back of his head and ears that would have caught and analyzed the lightest whisper; but the colonel and his adjutant ate hurriedly in silence, and the only thing remarkable that the servant was able to report to the regiment afterward was that both drank only water. Since all Sikhs are supposed to be abstainers from strong drink, that was accepted as a favorable omen.
The shay arrived on time to the second. It was the only closed carriage the regiment owned—a heavy C-springed landau thing, taken over from the previous mess. The colonel peered through outer darkness at the box seat, but the driver did not look toward him; all he could see was that there was only one man on the box.
"Where to?" asked Warrington.
"The club."
Warrington jumped in after him, and the driver sent his pair straining at the traces as if they had a gun behind them. Three hundred yards beyond the barrack wall Colonel Kirby knelt on the front seat and poked the driver from behind.
"Oh! You?" he remarked, as he recognized a native risaldar of D Squadron. Until the novelty wears off it would disconcert any man to discover suddenly that his coachman is a troop commander.
"D'you know a person named Yasmini?" he asked.
"Who does not, sahib?"
"Drive us to her house—in a hurry!"
The immediate answer was a plunge as the whip descended on both horses and the heavy carriage began to sway like a boat in a beam-sea swell. They tore through streets that were living streams of human beings—streams that split apart to let them through and closed like water again behind them. With his spurred heels on the front seat, Warrington hummed softly to himself as ever, happy, so long as there were only action.
"I've heard India spoken of as dead," he remarked after a while. "Gad!Look at that color against the darkness!"
"If Ranjoor Singh is dead, I'm going to know it!" said Colonel Kirby. "And if he isn't dead, I'm going to dig him out or know the reason why. There's been foul play, Warrington. I happen to know that Ranjoor Singh has been suspected in a certain quarter. Incidentally, I staked my own reputation on his honesty this afternoon. And besides, we can't afford to lose a wing commander such as he is on the eve of the real thing. We've got to find him!"
Once or twice as they flashed by a street-lamp they were recognized as British officers, and then natives, who would have gone to some trouble to seem insolent a few hours before, stopped to half-turn and salaam to them.
"Wonder how they'd like German rule for a change?" mused Warrington.
"India doesn't often wear her heart on her sleeve," said Kirby.
"It's there to-night!" said Warrington. "India's awake, if this is Delhi and not a nightmare! India's makin' love to the British soldier-man!"
They tore through a city that is polychromatic in the daytime and by night a dream of phantom silhouettes. But, that night, day and night were blended in one uproar, and the Chandni Chowk was at floodtide, wave on wave of excited human beings pouring into it from a hundred bystreets and none pouring out again.
So the risaldar drove across the Chandni Chowk, fighting his way with the aid of whip and voice, and made a wide circuit through dark lanes where groups of people argued at the corners, and sometimes a would-be holy man preached that the end of the world had come.
* * * * *
They reached Yasmini's from the corner farthest from the Chandni Chowk, and sprang out of the carriage the instant that the risaldar drew rein.
"Wait within call!" commanded Kirby, and the risaldar raised his whip.
Then, with his adjutant at his heels, Colonel Kirby dived through the gloomy opening in a wall that Yasmini devised to look as little like an approach to her—or heaven—as possible.
"Wonder if he's brought us to the right place?" he whispered, sniffing into the moldy darkness.
"Dunno, sir. There're stairs to your left."
They caught the sound of faint flute music on an upper floor, and as Kirby felt cautiously for his footing on the lower step Warrington began to whistle softly to himself. Next to war, an adventure of this kind was the nearest he could imagine to sheer bliss, and it was all he could do to contrive to keep from singing.
The heavy teak stairs creaked under their joint weight, and though their eyes could not penetrate the upper blackness, yet they both suspected rather than sensed some one waiting for them at the top.
Kirby's right hand instinctively sought a pocket in his cloak.Warrington felt for his pistol, too.
For thirty or more seconds—say, three steps—they went up like conspirators, trying to move silently and holding to the rail; then the absurdity of the situation appealed to both, and without a word said each stepped forward like a man, so that the staircase resounded.
They stumbled on a little landing after twenty steps, and wasted about a minute knocking on what felt like the panels of a door; but then Warrington peered into the gloom higher up and saw dim light.
So they essayed a second flight of stairs, in single file as before, and presently—when they had climbed some ten steps and had turned to negotiate ten more that ascended at an angle—a curtain moved a little, and the dim light changed to a sudden shaft that nearly blinded them.
Then a heavy black curtain was drawn back on rings, and a hundred lights, reflected in a dozen mirrors, twinkled and flashed before them so that they could not tell which way to turn. Somewhere there was a glassbead curtain, but there were so many mirrors that they could not tell which was the curtain and which were its reflections.
The curtains all parted, and from the midst of each there stepped a little nutbrown maid, who seemed too lovely to be Indian. Even then they could not tell which was maid and which reflections until she spoke.
"Will the sahibs give their names?" she asked in Hindustani; and her voice suggested flutes.
She smiled, and her teeth were whiter than a pipe-clayed sword-belt; there is nothing on earth whiter than her teeth were.
"Colonel Kirby and Captain Warrington" said Kirby.
"Will the sahibs state their business?"
"No!"
"Then whom do the sahibs seek to see?"
"Does a lady live here named Yasmini?"
"Surely, sahib."
"I wish to talk with her."
A dozen little maids seemed to step back through a dozen swaying curtains, and a second later for the life of them they could neither of them tell through which it was that the music came and the smell of musk and sandal-smoke. But she came back and beckoned to them, laughing over her shoulder and holding the middle curtain apart for them to follow.
So, one after the other, they followed her, Kirby—as became a seriously-minded colonel on the eve of war—feeling out of place and foolish, but Warrington, possessed by such a feeling of curiosity as he had never before tasted.
The heat inside the room they entered was oppressive, in spite of a great open window at which sat a dozen maids, and of the punkahs swinging overhead, so Kirby undid his cloak and walked revealed, a soldier in mess dress.
"Look at innocence aware of itself!" whispered Warrington.
"Shut up!" commanded Kirby, striding forward.
A dozen—perhaps more—hillmen, of three or four different tribes, had sat back against one wall and looked suspicious when they entered, but at sight of Kirby's military clothes they had looked alarmed and moved as if a whip had been cracked not far away. The Northern adventurer does not care to be seen at his amusements, nor does he love to be looked in on by men in uniform.
But the little maid beckoned them on, still showing her teeth and tripping in front of them as if a gust of wind were blowing her. Her motion was that of a dance reduced to a walk for the sake of decorum.
Through another glass-bead curtain at the farther end of the long room she led them to a second room, all hung about with silks and furnished with deep-cushioned divans. There were mirrors in this room, too, so that Kirby laughed aloud to see how incongruous and completely out of place he and his adjutant locked. His gruff laugh came so suddenly that the maid nearly jumped out of her skin.
"Will the sahibs be seated?" she asked almost in a whisper, as if they had half-frightened the life out of her, and then she ran out of the room so quickly that they were only aware of the jingling curtain.
So they sat down, Kirby trying the cushions with his foot until he found some firm enough to allow him to retain his dignity. Cavalry dress-trousers are not built to sprawl on cushions in; a man should sit reasonably upright or else stand.
"I'll say this for myself," he grunted, as he settled into place, "it's the first time in my life I was ever inside a native woman's premises."
Warrington did not commit himself to speech.
They sat for five minutes looking about them, Warrington beginning to be bored, but Kirby honestly interested by the splendor of the hangings and the general atmosphere of Eastern luxury. It was Warrington who grew uneasy first.
"Feel as if any one was lookin' at you, sir?" he asked out of one side of his mouth. And then Kirby noticed it, and felt his collar awkwardly.
In all the world there is nothing so well calculated to sap a man's prepossession as the feeling that he is secretly observed. There was no sound, no movement, no sign of any one, and Warrington looked in the mirrors keenly while he pretended to be interested in his little mustache. Yet the sweat began to run down Colonel Kirby's temples, and he felt at his collar again to make sure that it stood upright.
"Yes," he said, "I do. I'm going to get up and walk about."
He paced the length of the long room twice, turning quickly at each end, but detecting no movement and no eyes. Then he sat down again beside Warrington; but the feeling still persisted.
Suddenly a low laugh startled them, a delicious laugh, full of camaraderie, that would have disarmed the suspicion of a wolf. Just as unexpectedly a curtain less than a yard away from Kirby moved, and she stood before them—Yasmini. She could only be Yasmini. Besides, she had jasmine flowers worked into her hair.
Like a pair of bull buffaloes startled from their sleep, the colonel and his adjutant shot to their feet and faced her, and to their credit let it be recorded that they dropped their eyes, both of them. They felt like bounders. They hated themselves for breaking in on such loveliness.
"Will the sahibs not be seated again?" she asked them in a velvet voice; and, sweating in the neck, they each sat down.
Now that the first feeling of impropriety had given way to curiosity, neither had eyes for anything but her. Neither had ever seen anything so beautiful, so fascinating, so impudently lovely. She was laughing at them; each knew it, yet neither felt resentful.
"Well?" she asked in Hindustani, and arched her eyebrows questioning.
And Colonel Kirby stammered because she had made him think of his mother, and the tender prelude to a curtain lecture. Yet this woman was not old enough to have been his wife!
"I-I-I came to ask about a friend of mine—by name Risaldar—MajorRanjoor Singh. I understand you know him?"
She nodded, and Kirby fought with a desire to let his mind wander. The subtle hypnotism that the East knows how to stage and use was creeping over him. She stood so close! She seemed so like the warm soft spirit of all womanhood that only the measured rising and falling of her bosom, under the gauzy drapery, made her seem human and not a spirit. Subtly, ever so cunningly, she had contrived to touch a chord in Colonel Kirby's heart that he did not know lived any more. Warrington was speechless; he could not have trusted himself to speak. She had touched another chord in him.
"He came here more than once, or so I've been given to understand," said Kirby, and his own voice startled him, for it seemed harsh. "He is said to have listened to a lecture here—I was told the lecture was delivered by a German—and there was some sort of a fracas outside in the street afterward. I'm told some of his squadron were near, and they thrashed a man. Now, Ranjoor Singh is missing."
"So?" said Yasmini, arching her whole lithe body into a setting for the prettiest yawn that Kirby had ever seen. "So the Jat is missing! Yes, he came here, sahib. He was never invited, but he came. He sat here saying nothing until it suited him to sit where another man was; then he struck the other man—so, with the sole of his foot—and took the man's place, and heard what he came to hear. Later, outside in the street, he and his men set on the Afridi whom he had struck with his foot and beat him."
"I have heard a variation of that," said Kirby.
"Have you ever heard, sahib, that he who strikes the wearer of a Northern knife is like to feel that knife? So Ranjoor Singh, the Jat, is missing?"
"Yes," said Kirby, frowning, for he was not pleased to hear Ranjoor Singh spoken of slightingly. A Jat may be a good enough man, and usually is, but a Sikh is a Jat who is better.
"And if he is missing, what has that to do with me?" asked Yasmini.
"I have heard—men say—"
"Yes?" she said, laughing, for it amused her almost more than any other thing to see dignity disarmed.
"Men say that you know most of what goes on in Delhi—"
"And—?" She was Impudence arrayed in gossamer.
Colonel Kirby pulled himself together; after all, it was not for long that anything less than an army corps could make him feel unequal to a situation. This woman was the loveliest thing he had ever seen, but….
"I've come to find out whether Ranjoor Singh's alive or dead," he said sternly, "and, if he's alive, to take him away with me."
She smiled as graciously as evening smiles on the seeded plains, and sank on to a divan with the grace it needs a life of dancing to bestow.
"Sahib," she said, with a suddenly assumed air of candidness, "they have told the truth. There is little that goes on in Delhi—in the world—that I can not hear of if I will. The winds of the world flow in and out of these four walls."
"Then where is Ranjoor Singh?" asked Colonel Kirby.
She did not hesitate an instant. He was watching her amazing eyes that surely would have betrayed her had she been at a moment's loss; they did not change nor darken for a second.
"How much, does the sahib know already?" she asked calmly, as if she wished to spare him an unnecessary repetition of mere beginnings.
"A trooper of D Squadron—that's Ranjoor Singh's squadron—was murdered in the bazaar this afternoon. The risaldar-major went to the morgue to identify the body—drove through the bazaar, and possibly discovered some clue to the murderer. At all events, he is known to have entered a house in the bazaar, and that house is now in flames."
"The sahib knows that much? And am I to quell the flames?" askedYasmini.
She neither sat nor lay on the divan. She was curled on it, leaning on an elbow, like an imp from another world.
"Who owns that house?" asked Kirby, since he could think of nothing else to ask.
"That is the House-of-the-Eight-Half—brothers," said Yasmini. "He who built it had eight wives, and a son by each. That was ages ago, and the descendants of the eight half-brothers are all at law about the ownership. There are many stories told about that house."
Suddenly she broke into laughter, leaning on her hand and mocking them as Puck mocked mortals. A man could not doubt her. Colonel and adjutant, both men who had seen grim service and both self-possessed as a rule, knew that she could read clean through them, and that from the bottom of her deep, wise soul she was amused.
"I am from the North," she said, "and the North is cold; there is little mercy in the hills, and I was weaned amid them. Yet—would the sahib not better beg of me?"
"How d'ye mean?" asked Kirby, surprised into speaking English.
"Three daysago there came a wind that toldmeof war—of a world-war, surely not this time stillborn. Two years ago the same wind brought me news of its conception, though the talk of the world was then of universal peace and of horror at a war that was. Now, to-night, this greatest war is loose, born and grown big within three days, but conceived two years ago—Russia, Germany, Austria, France are fighting—is it not so? Am I wrong?"
"I came to ask about Ranjoor Singh," said Colonel Kirby, twisting at his closely cropped mustache.
There was a hint of iron in his voice, and he was obviously not the man to threaten and not fulfil. But she laughed in his face.
"All in good time!" she answered him. "You shall beg for your Ranjoor Singh, and then perhaps he shall step forth from the burning house! But first you shall know why youmustbeg."
She clapped her hands, and a maid appeared. She gave an order, and the maid brought sherbet that Kirby sniffed suspiciously before tasting. Again she laughed deliciously.
"Does the sahib think that he could escape alive from this room did I will otherwise?" she asked. "Would I need to drug—I who have so many means?"
Now, it is a maxim of light cavalry that the best means of defense lies in attack; a threat of force should be met by a show of force, and force by something quicker. Kirby's eyes and his adjutant's met. Each felt for his hidden pistol. But she laughed at them with mirth that was so evidently unassumed that they blushed to their ears.
"Look!" she said; and they looked.
Two great gray cobras, male and female, swayed behind them less than a yard away, balanced for the strike, hoods raised. The awful, ugly black eyes gleamed with malice. And a swaying cobra's head is not an easy thing to hit with an automatic-pistol bullet, supposing, for wild imagination's sake, that the hooded devil does not strike first.
"It is not wise to move!" purred Yasmini.
They did not see her make any sign, though she must have made one, for their eyes were fixed on the swaying snakes, and their brains were active with the problem of whether to try to shoot or not. It seemed to them that the snakes reached a resolution first, and struck. And in the same instant as each drew his pistol the hooded messengers of death were jerked out of sight by hands that snatched at horsehair from behind the hangings.
"I have many such!" smiled Yasmini, and they turned to meet her eyes again, hoping she could not read the fear in theirs. "But that is not why the sahib shall beg of me." Kirby was not too overcome to notice the future tense. "That is only a reason why the sahibs should forget their Western manners. But—if the pistols please the sahibs—"
They stowed their pistols away again and sat as if the very cushions might be stuffed with snakes, both of them aware that she had produced a mental effect which was more to her advantage than the pistols would have been had they made her a present of them. She gave a sudden shrill cry that startled them and made them look wildly for the door; but she had done no more than command a punkah-wallah, and the heavy-beamed punkah began to swing rhythmically overhead, adding, if that were possible, to the mesmeric spell.
"Now," she said, "I will tell a little of the why of things." And Colonel Kirby hoped it was the punkah, and not funk, that made the sweat stream down his neck until his collar was a mere uncomfortable mess. "For more than a year there has been much talk in India. The winds have brought it all to me. There was talk—and the government has known it, for I am one of those who told the government—of a ripe time for a blow for independence.
"There have been agents of another Power, pretending to be merchants, who have sown their seed carefully in the bazaars. And then there went natives in the pay of the merchants who had word with native sowars, saying that it is not well to be carried over sea to fight another's quarrels. All this the government knew, though, of course, thou art not the government, but only a soldier with a ready pistol and a dull wit."
"What bearing has this on Ranjoor Singh?" asked Kirby. It was so long since he had been spoken to so bluntly that he could not sit still under it.
"I am explaining why the colonel sahib shall beg for his RanjoorSingh," she smiled. "Does the fire burn yet, I wonder?"
She struck a gong, and a maid appeared in the door like an instant echo.
"Does the fire still burn?" she asked.
The maid disappeared, and was gone five minutes, during which Kirby and Warrington sat in silent wonder. They wondered chiefly what the regiment would say if it knew—and whether the regiment would ever know. Then the maid came back.
"It burns," she said. "I can see flame from the roof, though not so much flame."
"So," said Yasmini. "Listen, sahibs."
It is doubtful if a trumpet could have summoned them away, for she had them bound in her spells, and each in a different spell, as her way is. She had little need to order them to listen.
"The talk in the bazaars did little harm, for the fatbunniasknow well whose rule has given them their pickings. They talk for the love of words, but they trade for the love of money, and the government protects their money. Nay, it was not thebunniaswho mattered.
"But there came a day when the rings of talk had reached the hills, and hillmen came to Delhi to hear more, as they ever have come since India was India. And it was clear then to the government that proof of disloyalty among the native regiments would set the hillmen screaming for a holy war-for the hills are cold, sahibs, and the hillmen have cold hearts and are quick to take advantage, even as I am, of others' embarrassment. Hillmen have no mercy, Colonel sahib. I was weaned amid the hills."
It seemed to Kirby and Warrington both—for not all their wits were stupefied—that she was sparring for time. And then Warrington saw a face reflected in one of the mirrors and nudged Kirby, and Kirby saw it too. They both saw that she was watching it. It was a fat face, and it looked terrified, but the lips did not move and only the eyes had expression. In a moment a curtain seemed to be drawn in front of it, and Yasmini took up her tale.
"And then, sahibs, as I have told already, there came a wind that whistled about war; and it pleased the government to know which, if any, of the native regiments had been affected by the talk. So a closer watch was set, then a net was drawn, and Ranjoor Singh ran into the net."
"An antelope might blunder into a net set for a tiger," said Kirby. "I am here to cut him out again."
Yasmini laughed.
"With pistols to shoot the cobras and sweat to put out flame? Nay, what is there to cut but the dark that closes up again? Sahib, thou shaltbegfor Ranjoor Singh, who struck a hillman in my house, he was so eager to hear treason!"
"Ranjoor Singh's honor and mine are one!" said Colonel Kirby, using a native phrase that admits of no double meaning, and for a second Yasmini stared at him in doubt.
She had heard that phrase used often to express native regard for a native, or for an Englishman, but never before by an Englishman for a native.
"Then beg for him!" she grinned mischievously. "Aye, I know the tale! It is the eve of war, and he commands a squadron, and there is need of him. Is it not so? Yet the house that he entered burns. And the hillman's knife is long and keen, sahib! Beg for him!"
Kirby had risen to his feet, and Warrington followed suit. Kirby's self-possession was returning and she must have known it; perhaps she even intended that it should. But she lay curled on the divan, laughing up at him, and perfectly unimpressed by his recovered dignity.
"If he's alive, and you know where he is," said Kirby, "I will pay you your price. Name it!"
"Beg for him! There is no other price. TheHouse-of-the-Eight-Half-brothers burns! Beg for him!"
Now, the colonel of a regiment of light cavalry is so little given to beg for things that the word beg has almost lapsed out of his vocabulary from desuetude.
"I beg you to tell me where he is," he said stiffly, and she clapped her hands and laughed with such delight that he blushed to his ears again.
"I have had a prince on his knees to me, and many a priest," she chuckled, "aye, and many a soldier—but never yet a British colonel sahib. Kneel and beg!"
"Why—what—what d'ye mean?" demanded Kirby.
"Is his honor not your honor? I have heard it said. Then beg, Colonel sahib, on your knees—on those stiff British knees—beg for the honor of Ranjoor Singh!"
"D'you mean—d'you mean—?"
"Beg for his honor, and beg for his life, on your knees, Colonel sahib!"
"I could look the other way, sir," whispered Warrington, for the regiment's need was very real.
"Nay, both of you! Ye shall both beg!" said Yasmini, "or Ranjoor Singh shall taste a hillman's mercy. He shall die so dishonored that the regiment shall hang its head in shame."
"Impossible!" said Kirby. "His honor is as good as mine!'
"Then beg for his and thine—on your knees, Colonel sahib!"
Then it seemed to Colonel Kirby that the room began to swim, for what with the heat and what with an unconquerable dread of snakes, he was not in shape to play his will against this woman's.
"What if I kneel?" he asked.
"I will promise you Ranjoor Singh, alive and clean!"
"When?"
"In time!"
"In time for what?"
"Against the regiment's need!"
"No use. I want him at once!" said Colonel Kirby.
"Then go, sahib! Put out the fire with the sweat that streams from thee! Nay, go, both of you—ye have my leave to go! And what is a Sikh risaldar more or less? Nay, go, and let the Jat die!"
It is not to be written lightly that the British colonel of Outram's Own and his adjutant both knelt to a native woman—if she is a native—in a top back-room of a Delhi bazaar. But it has to be recorded that for the sake of Ranjoor Singh they did.
They knelt and placed their foreheads where she bade them, against the divan at her feet, and she poured enough musk in their hair, for the love of mischief, to remind them of what they had done until in the course of slowly moving nature the smell should die away. And then in a second the lights went out, each blown by a fan from behind the silken hangings.
They heard her silvery laugh, and they heard her spring to the floor. In cold, creeping sweat they listened to footsteps, and a little voice whispered in Hindustani:
"This way, sahibs!"
They followed, since there was nothing else to do and their pride was all gone, to be pushed and pulled by unseen hands and chuckling girls down stairs that were cut out of sheer blackness. And at the foot of the dark a voice that Warrington recognized shed new interest but no light on the mystery.