THE SECRET OF THE AMULET.
“Frailty, thy name is woman!”—Hamlet.
Peoplesaid they were from the north—even from beyond Peshawar—the two tall men, with fair skins and long brown hair, but no one had time to ascertain their name or business, for between the sunset and dawn both had fallen a prey to that horrible throat disease that seizes its victims by the gullet, and strangles them almost on the spot. Thus they died in the great serai at Hassanpur—leaving behind them three stout Cabuli ponies, two rolls of bedding, and one little boy; also, it was whispered in the bazaar, a considerable sum of money in excellent Government notes; but this, the policeman in charge of the serai swore by the soul of his father, was a black lie, and, with the sanction ofthe authorities, he made over the child and three ponies to the keeping of his maternal uncle, Ibrahim Khan (the same who lives at the corner of the road as you go to the sugar-works). Ibrahim sold the ponies to his satisfaction to officers in the cantonments, and suffered the child to share his roof, and also his extremely frugal fare. An Indian community is never slow to talk, and it was breathed from ear to ear, that the traders had been wealthy, and that Nubbi Bux, the policeman, and Ibrahim, his kinsman, had divided the spoil between them. One thing was manifest: nought had descended to Kareem, the rightful heir!
He was a fair-skinned little fellow, with dancing dark eyes, who ran about the roads almost naked, with an old flat copper amulet tied round his neck by a piece of string; he was about four years of age, as pretty as a bronze Cupid; the women petted him for his good looks, and he found many congenial playfellows among the narrow alleys and courtyards of the swarmingburra bazar. Ibrahim, Kareem’s adopted grandfather, was an avariciousold person, with a hooked nose, pendulous underlip, and frowsy turban, who sat all day long in a shop like a niche—it looked no bigger than a wardrobe—lined with empty jars, bottles, broken lamps, cracked cups and saucers, and battered odd volumes of worthless books. He did not sell much, but he served market people with pulls at a huka, at a fixed price; and he was reputed to lend money at enormous interest.
If you know the city of Hassanpur, where it lies between two capricious rivers, and surrounded by a vast grain country, you must be familiar with the long red bridge over the Kanat, on the parapet of which a mendicant sits, who rests not from dawn till dusk calling, “Blind man—blind man.” Just at the foot of the bridge is the great serai, or wayside house, for travellers, with its lofty walls, spacious inclosure, and entrance gate worthy of a mosque—both it and the bridge were built by a rich native, who wished his name to go down to posterity; but to thousands who cross the one, and hundreds who halt at the other, it is unknown—nodoubt they imagine both to be the work of the all-powerful and ever-active Sircar (Government).
Kareem’s tastes did not lean to trade; far from it! he had no aptitude in bargaining for kid skins, empty bottles, and kerosine oil tins. On the other hand, he had an uncontrollable passion for horses, and when he grew too old to build houses in the dust, and play baby games, he used to hang about the serai and haunt the society of camel-drivers and horse-dealers. He soon became acquainted with the manners and customs of the divers kinds of beasts that crowded the inclosure; camels, ekka ponies, buffaloes, mules, elephants, and squealing country-breds. He knew all their peculiarities, and was not afraid of one of them. Many and many a time, he played truant from the munshi and his lessons, and many a time his angry grandfather sought him with a stick, and drove him forth with blows and curses; but now—Kareem was a smart lad of eighteen, and useful to traders and travellers. Moreover he earned money, and Ibrahim viewed his visits to the serai with extremecomplacency. Within the last ten years he had become a well-known and popular character. New arrivals and regularhabituésimmediately shouted for “Kareem, Kareem.” He was a person of far more importance than the sleepy policeman in charge—not his original patron, who had picked him up from between two dead men, and placed him out in the world!
One hot April evening, as Kareem squatted idly at the serai entrance, enjoying a huka and a “bukk” with a lad of his own age, he noticed a cloud of white dust whirling down the bridge. No—it was not driven by the wind, but caused by a wild runaway. In a second he had recognized the collector’s little boy, on his chestnut pony, racing towards him at break-neck pace—a huge lumbering camel carriage had frightened the overfed, pampered Tattoo, and he was making for home at a mad gallop. Kareem stood up, and dashed into the road; he was lithe and active as a hunting leopard. As the pony passed, he sprang at it, like a starving beast of prey, clung to its neck, andran alongside until he had effectually checked its career, but only just in time—only just before it turned the sharp corner into the bazaar. The collector now rode up; his face grey with fear. He knew too well what would have been the child’s fate, had the fiery little animal bolted through those narrow streets, impassable with ekkas and bullock carts, and he shuddered as he wiped the perspiration from his face, and tendered Kareem his tremulous thanks. But empty thanks were not to be his sole portion. As he attached a leading rein from the pony’s bridle to the collector’s shaking hand, that gentleman said, “Let me see you to-morrow morning at nine o’clock,” and then the pair trotted soberly away.
Mr. Colebrook, the collector, lived in a fine square flat-roofed bungalow, about two miles from the city, in the civil lines. It stood in a spacious compound studded with fine trees, and was approached by a winding gravelled avenue. Kareem went up this avenue, slowly and doubtfully; he was not in the habit of frequenting such grand dwellings, andpresently he came to a dead halt, and sat down at a respectful distance, under a cork tree; and here the collector saw him, and beckoned him from his office verandah.
“Yes,” said Mr. Colebrook to himself, “a fine frank face, and surely not a native of these parts.”
In answer to a question, Kareem replied—
“No, your worship, I am from the north—so they say.”
“They say?” echoed the gentleman. “What do you mean?”
“My father died in the serai fifteen years ago, your honour; no one knew his name or country; and old Ibrahim took me; he says I am a Cabuli or a Cashmeri. God knows.”
“And what is your occupation?”
“By your honour’s favour, I work in the serai, and earn from one rupee to four rupees a month, according to the season.”
“Then you understand horses.”
“Oh!”—his face lighting up—“by your favour, yes; and I can ride.”
“Then, I will take you on as syce for my son’s pony—the one you caught yesterday.”
Kareem salaamed to the very matting.
“Your pay will be seven rupees a month and clothes.”
Now, six rupees is a man’s pay, and Kareem was but eighteen. Kareem’s heart was too full for words; he was almost overcome, and on the very verge of tears. All his comrades knew that he was an odd, excitable boy, and laughed and cried like a woman! His feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground; he sped along as if they had wings, and he was a second Mercury carrying home the great news—first over the wide white roads, then across the railway, and finally he plunged into the bazaar.
Kareem ran along at a sling trot, hustling and thrusting his slim body through the densely-packed thoroughfares; at last he arrived at home and panted out his marvellous tidings to old Ibrahim. That patriarch received the intelligence with so many exclamations of “Oh, ye fathers!” and somuch clawing of his beard, that Kareem felt assured that he had been handsomely launched in life, and was indeed a man of considerable importance; he lost no time, that same evening, in hurrying to the bridge (a kind of local Rialto) and there expounding his success to a curious and envious crowd of listening friends. Among the crowd was Pera, Ibrahim’s grand-niece, Kareem’s former playmate—and present idol. She was four years younger than him by months and days, but thirty years his senior in experience, in worldly wisdom, and in wickedness. Undoubtedly she was extremely pretty, with wondrously-traced arched brows, red lips, and eloquent black eyes. Nevertheless her grand-uncle detested her, and most of her own sex bore her unconcealed animosity; they declared, “She was as false as the devil, deep as the pit, and as dangerous as a snake with a head at both ends.” People hinted that Abdool, her father, was in debt to his uncle Ibrahim; and also that Pera was promised in marriage to Mindoo, her cousin, a handsome hawk-eyed man, with a scar onhis cheek and minus one finger. There was some mystery about Mindoo. Once, he had been absent for three whole years, and it was an unexplained absence; for it was mere foolishness for his brothers to say that he had joined a horse-dealer and had gone down to Allahabad. Does it take three years to sell a dozen ponies?
Mindoo was a stalwart, taciturn man, and somewhat feared; therefore no one called him a budmash to his face, or even in the ears of his kindred. He worked with a carpenter who mended ekkas and gharries, and was clever with the chisel and the saw. Nevertheless, people whispered that he had never learnt this trade at Hassanpur in his youth—but in Allahabad jail khana.
Pera was among Kareem’s audience, and listened, with unaffected interest, to the particulars of his rise in life. He had been her slave ever since she could speak, and now most of his scanty earnings went to gratify her taste for cocoanut-sweets and coloured glass bangles. “You will not scorn me now, Pera,” he pleaded, as they loitered togethernear the tamarind tree. “Behold, I am in the collector sahib’s service. I am to have seven rupees and clothes. I have as much wages as Mindoo!” But Pera only peeped coquettishly round the corner of her orange saree, laughed saucily, and ran away.
Kareem was soon installed in his new post, and wearing a smart blue suit and gorgeous red turban, felt the sense of personal importance accruing from new garments, when he encountered his old friends. His duties proved to be trifling in comparison to his drudgery in the serai, though, now and then, he had enjoyed the fierce, mad delight of mounting some unbroken colt, and galloping it bare-backed over the bridge, away along the Lucknow road, between the waving elephant grass, past little brown houses with pumpkins on the roof, past pools half filled with hideous blue buffaloes, scattering children, pariah dogs, and goats, as if he was mounted on a whirlwind, and riding on the storm.
Here, he had merely to groom and feed an irritable little chestnut pony, no bigger than a calf;to lead out the “lal Tattoo,” as Harry Sahib called it, with its master on its back, of a morning over the dewy maidans and along the shady roads. He ran with it as it cantered, and even galloped, though once or twice he was suddenly obliged to stop, and lean against a tree, his face grey and drawn, and groan aloud with agony (he had, though he knew it not, advanced disease of the heart); he would earnestly beseech Harry Sahib not to tell the collector, and, as a bribe, would hold Harry Sahib in the saddle, whilst he piloted him over tiny nullahs, to that young gentleman’s huge delight. The little boy spoke Hindustani as his native tongue, and soon he and his syce became sworn and intimate friends. Harry Sahib had no mother, only a lazy, elderly European nurse, who liked her beer, her slumbers, and her ease, and was secretly thankful to Kareem for taking the brat off her hands. Otherwise, Harry Sahib might not have spent so many happy hours about the stables, whilst his unsuspecting papa was absent at Cutcherry. One day, whilst he was romping with hisplaymate, and rolling over and over with him in piles of “bedding straw,” he suddenly snatched at a cord round his neck, and a copper amulet came off in his hand. They fought for it for fully five minutes. Harry held it tight in his little fist, and screamed and kicked and evenbit, but refused to release it; in the struggle the amulet was broken, and a small piece of parchment fell out, which Kareem instantly pounced on. It was about two inches long by one wide, and was covered on both sides with closely-written quaint characters. Kareem, with much abuse and slippering, had learned to read the Koran and part of the Gulistan of Sadi, but never such letters as these!
“What is it?” inquired Harry Sahib, impatiently.
“I cannot say, Hazoor. I never knew it opened.”
“Oh, I’ll get it mended, the brass thing; but can you read the chit inside?”
“No, not this writing.”
“Let me show it to father; he can read anything!”
“Yes, his honour is a learned pundit, but I will not trouble him,” said Kareem, independently.
He thought he would rather take it, and have it explained by a Moulvi in a bazaar, nearer home. But in all the city quarter, was not found one man who could translate it, though passed from hand to hand, and learned patriarchs in horn spectacles pored over it, peered into it, turned it backwards and forwards, and upside down, and decided that it was in some dead tongue, and doubtless was a charm against Jadoo (Magic) or the Evil Eye! Finally, Kareem fell back on his young master’s advice, and, with much salaaming and many apologies, submitted the little scrap to the collector. Mr. Colebrook examined it carefully through his glasses, and then by means of a microscope, and asked Kareem “how he came by it?”
“Protector of the Poor, it is all I possess, and was round my throat as an infant.”
The collector was very busy just at this time and said, “As soon as I have any leisure, Kareem, I will see what I can make of this,” and Kareemwithdrew with profuse thanks. For so long did his master ponder over the parchment, that Kareem’s hopes faded away, and he had almost forgotten the amulet, and believed its contents to be a myth. But one day, at the end of the rains, he was summoned into the collector’s office. That gentleman was alone, and, rising, closed the door, and beckoning to Kareem to come near, said rather mysteriously, “I have had great difficulty in making it out”—showing the writing. “Indeed I had nearly given it up; but at last I got a clue, and I have read it!”
“Yes, your highness.”
“You must keep what I am going to read to you a secret”—Kareem’s eyes sparkled. “It is for your own good, and now listen,” lowering his voice to a whisper. “This”—displaying the scrap—“is in ancient Persian characters, and relates to a treasure that has been buried for more than three hundred years.” Kareem endeavoured to speak, but failed to articulate. “Yes—apparently some of the spoils of Mahommed of Guznee, whotook and conquered the Punjab, and made twelve raiding expeditions into Hindustan. Doubtless this is some loot that the victors failed to carry off and concealed—possibly they were hotly pursued.
“It says”—now taking off his glasses and applying a microscope to his eye and reading very slowly—“‘Eightykossnorth from Hassanpur, on the edge of the Goomptee river, that is within fifty paces, near the great bridge and between milestone and saal tree, I, Fateh Din, bury a rich store of jewels and gold, by reason of one camel being sorely wounded and the enemy pressing on fast. May Allah preserve it for me and mine!’”
The syce’s eyes seemed double their usual size, his face worked with emotion, he could not speak; he could only gasp and sob as the collector went on—
“This is the catalogue, only a partial one apparently,” turning and reading the reverse of the parchment.
“‘Twokhantas(necklaces) of rubies and pearls,very large. Foursirpech(forehead ornaments) of diamonds. Twelvebazabands(armlets) of choice emeralds. Fiveturals(plumes) of great brilliants. One coat embroidered in seed pearls, five gold stirrups.’
“You must keep silent as the grave, Kareem,” said his master, laying down the microscope. “It is possible that there is a quantity of gold coin as well as jewels. The list seems broken off suddenly; it remains entirely with yourself to be a rich man, and if you would be wealthy, be silent. I am going into that part of the district this cold weather. Can you hold your tongue for two months?”
“I can, sahib,” faltered Kareem, who was trembling all over.
“I think I know the place—the bridge was destroyed forty years ago, but its piers are still standing; the old road, too, has fallen into disuse since we have the railway and canal, but I believe I can put my hand on the very spot, between the saal tree and the milestone.”
“And will all this treasure bemine?” whispered Kareem.
“Yes, since you claim it by the writing, which has doubtless been in your family for many generations. Possibly your father was in search of this treasure when he died.”
“Yes, most true, your highness.”
“Only for this paper in your possession, it would be claimed and recovered by Government.”
“May I tell my grandfather, Ibrahim Khan?”
“I suppose you may—that is, if he is a cautious man; but mind this, Kareem, to no one else; above all, to nowoman.”
“No fear, your honour; I know that a slip of the tongue is worse than a slip of the foot.”
“You are young to have learnt that lesson; bear it well in mind. And now you can go.”
Old Ibrahim heard the splendid news that same night, as he and his adopted grandson sat on the rug in the middle of the shop, with the oil-lamp swinging between them; heard it with puckered face, twitching claw-like fingers, andglittering eyes. What was the store he had buried beneath the floor in comparison tothis?Twocamel-loads of gold and jewels! Oh! if he had only taken the worthless-looking amulet when he appropriated the ponies and the money; it was the richest prize of all; but alas! he was ever unfortunate.
“Let us go forth and seek it now,” he panted; “we will arise and take two ekkas with strong ponies, and spades, and sacks, and start. I will aver that we are gone to a marriage at Aligarh.”
“You would not be believed,” returned Kareem scornfully; “and how would you get the ekkas, or buy spades, without raising suspicion? The place is full of robbers and budmashes, and the distance is too long for an old man like you; we would both be murdered. No, I will wait and go with the collector sahib; he will lend carts, and we need have no fear—we shall have the protection of the Sircar.”
“Oh yes, but you are a young man,” whined Ibrahim, twisting his hands convulsively, “andin two monthsImay be dead! Oh! and I know so well where to sell gold and precious stones; where we shall get agreatprice quietly, and without question or dispute.”
“You will surely live two months,” rejoined Kareem. “At any rate, I have given my word to the sahib, and it must be as he wills.”
From this time forward, a great change came over Kareem; he no longer laughed and gesticulated and showed his teeth—white as the slit of a cocoanut; he no longer gossiped in the serai, or gambled below the bridge; he found his secret very burdensome, and his veins seemed filled with a burning fever of restlessness; his eyes looked large and his cheeks hollow; his song was no longer on his lips.
As for old Ibrahim, he now cared nought for his trade; andwhat, asked the neighbours, had he and Kareem in common that they were so often together, conferring earnestly in low whispers?
Kareem was much at home, too, and people began to marvel; he seemed preoccupied andstrange and proud; he refused to gamble; he took no interest in kite-flying; instead of which, he was constantly muttering into the ear of his grandfather. “Why? What were they talking about? What was their secret?”
Kareem was recounting the list of spoil for the hundredth time, and Ibrahim was bestowing much sage advice on hisprotégé.
“My son, above all keep the secret from a woman—from Pera; do not let her mischievous eyes draw you into her snare. She is bad, she is insolent to you; may her hair take fire!”
“But you know the proverb, a blow in the mouth from the hand of her we love is sweeter than raisins,” argued the youth.
“And you love her?” shrieked the old man.
Kareem nodded his head.
“Oh, ye fathers!” exclaimed Ibrahim; “but she will marry that budmash Mindoo.”
“She cares not for him, and I shall be rich.”
“Yes; and who has money in the scales, has strength in his arms. He who has no money isdestitute of friends. Hearken, my son; Pera will spend your riches like flowing water.”
“Time enough to talk of spending when I possess them,” rejoined the lad, prudently.
“Fair son of my old age, give me your promise to keep the news from her; swear it by the beard of the Prophet.”
“I swear by the soul of my father; am I a child or a fool?” he demanded angrily.
“Alas! in her hands you areboth.”
Kareem’s altered manner was not lost on Pera, and she smilingly promised her immediate circle to probe his secret, and that they should all speedily learn why he gave himself airs like a Nawab.
She drew him on, and encouraged the infatuated boy, and gained her old ascendency over him in less than two days. He entirely forgot Ibrahim’s solemn warnings, and what chance has a wrinkled ugly old man against the charms and the mocking words, and bright glances, of a Circe of sixteen? She asked Kareem many searching questions, and flouted him, ridiculed him, flattered him. Oneevening, as they leant over the bridge together, she inquired—
“Why had he given away his kite? Why was he not at Buldoo’s wedding feast? Why did he mope like a sick fowl? What secret was in his mind?”
His tardy answers were vague and confused, and all at once the truth broke upon Pera with one lightning flash.
The scroll had been deciphered.
“Kareem, I see you no longer care for me,” she whimpered tearfully.
“I do,” he rejoined; “but to what avail? You are to marry Mindoo, the dacoit.”
“He is no dacoit; neither am I to marry him. If you say so, I will strike you on the mouth with my shoe,” rejoined this fiery lady.
“Nevertheless, both my words are true,” persisted Kareem, doggedly.
“They arenot; Mindoo is old. Ah bah! thirty years old! he lacks one finger; he has a hideous mark on his cheek, whilst you——” she pausedand smiled in his face expressively and said, “Oh, Kareem, what an owl you are! And now shall I tell you what ails you?”
“Yes, if you can,” he answered with an incredulous laugh.
“You have found out what was written in the little scroll.”
Kareem started perceptibly.
“Yes, I see it is true,” and here she made a wild shot. “I’ll wager my gold nose-ring, that it relates tomoney.”
Kareem grew very pale, and cast down his eyes.
“To a treasure: look at me, Kareem.”
He looked, impelled by the influence of her eyes, looked and was lost—his face told everything.
“Pera,” he exclaimed tremulously, “you are a witch.”
“Kareem,” she rejoined, leaning her cool smooth cheek against his (truly she was a bold, forward minx), “you are an owl; you alwayswerean owl. Once you had no secrets from me.—Now begin and tell me all about it.”
“I can tell you nothing,” withdrawing his eyes from those dazzling black orbs, and gazing fixedly into the river.
“Oh, Kareem, alas! my first word was true, you no longer care for me;” and her eyes filled with pure crocodile’s tears.
“I do, I do, beyond any treasure in the world,” he protested eagerly.
“Yes” (so therewasa treasure), “but you only pretend to love me; it is all from the mouth, like idle words.”
“No, it is from my heart and soul; but you in your heart care not for me, you care for Mindoo. You laughed the day I came home in my syce’s clothes—you laughed when Hiram’s white Arab nearly killed me.”
“Pooh”—snapping her fingers playfully—“what is a laugh? I always laugh! See, I still wear your blue glass bangles. I love finery; I love laughing—and I loveyou. Oh, foolish Kareem, how shall I prove it to you, since you doubt my word? Speak!”
“Marry me in two moons’ time,” was his prompt answer.
“Yes,” after a long pause, “but I must also proveyou; I swear by Allah to marry you, but first you must tell me your secret.”
And she looked up into his face and smiled, and he, gazing at her parted red lips and glistening, eager eyes, wavered. She saw her advantage, and instantly pressed it home.
Oh! miserable youth! why did you not attend to that cry of warning in your ears—“Blind man, blind man, blind man”?
The sun hung low in a crimson sky, everything was defined and glorified as in a golden light, from the curves of the shining river, to where the flat horizon touched the glowing heavens. The couple on the bridge, fair as another Paul and Virginia, stood out in black relief against the yellow haze; as they leant upon the stone parapet, talking in whispers, passers-by laughed and said, “Behold, Pera makes a fool of Kareem again.” When at length they raised themselves up, and came slowlyhomewards, there was a new, ecstatic, and triumphant expression in Pera’s eyes—sheKNEW. Nevertheless she had sworn by a most solemn oath, never to reveal the secret of the amulet. It was already arranged that she was to have a palki-gharri and two horses—just like amem-sahib—and a string of large pearls, and gold necklets, such as would make the Bunnia’s wife poison herself from envy; for she and Kareem were to be married by the first moon in December—and to live happy ever after.
A month later, the collector’s camp was pitched within two miles of the banks of the Goomptee. He had arrived there by slow marches, and was within easy reach of the spot indicated in the parchment. Mr. Colebrook set out on foot in the afternoon, with Kareem to carry his fishing-rod, and to disarm suspicion. They walked for some distance along the edge of the river in single file, till round a sharp bend the old broken bridge appeared in view; the setting sun was shining between the massive piers, as the Goomptee came swirlingbetween them. A pair of paddy-birds were having a mortal combat in the rushes, a serious-looking blue kingfisher was perched on a stone, following his avocation. Enormous fish (rohu) splashed about like porpoises; no wonder they were so thriving! the Goomptee is a sacred river; on the sand on the far bank lay a bleached white skeleton, and here, among the tangled water-plants, was an old charpoy, legs upward, on which some corpse had once been committed to the holy stream.
But naturally Kareem had no interest in these things; though his master, a man of dreamy moods, paused for a moment, and in his mind’s eye surveyed the great bridge as it once had been, covered with a multitude of horsemen and camel-drivers—a predatory horde—flying northward, with their spoils, and their streaming horse-tail standards.
He was sharply aroused from his reverie by a piercing cry, and turning, he saw that Kareem had already made his way to the great milestone (shaped like a gigantic thimble); there, too, wasan ancient saal tree; and his treasure-seeking syce was standing on the verge of an enormous, recently dug, and perfectly empty hole. Miserable Kareem, the world seemed to swim before his eyes; the tree, the milestone, and the sky went round and round, as he turned a ghastly face and pair of wild eyes on his master, and pointed to the cavity at his feet; it was all that he could do.
“Yes,” cried Mr. Colebrook, “it is gone, no doubt ofthat, and gone within a week; see the freshly-turned earth, the wheel-tracks. Oh, you young fool! How many have you taken into your confidence besides old Ibrahim? You see they have robbed you. Whom have you told?”
“But one,” stammered Kareem, in a hoarse voice.
“Look,” continued the collector, “they were in a great hurry”—poking the earth with his stick as he spoke. “See, they left the spade; here are bits of iron clamps; here are two gold coins, the boss of a silver bit, and—yes, a trace of the thieves—and of course there was awomanin it,” as, stooping,he picked up something, and held it towards Kareem. “Here is half of a blue glass bangle.”
Kareem stared, with great distended eyes; as he stood, he became of a dull greyish colour, his lips were livid, and his face twisted out of all recognition, with some spasm of horrible agony.
“It is Pera’s,” he shouted, with a wild, despairing scream, and flung himself full-length on the ground, digging his hands into the sandy soil.
“They have a whole week’s start, I am afraid,” said Mr. Colebrook, who was still turning over the earth, “and will make forced marches; but we may catch them. I shall send you off at once, on the young bay horse, with a note to the joint magistrate; he will telegraph, and I believe we will get them yet; they have too heavy a load to travel rapidly. Kareem, don’t be a woman! Get up and listen to me, Kareem! Do you hear me?” and he shook him gently. But Kareem would never hear anything again in this world—Kareem was dead.
At first Mr. Colebrook could not, and would not,realize the truth; he put his hand across the cold mouth; he laid his ear against the still heart; it was no faint. Alas! no.
The shock had proved fatal to Kareem. To lose his fortune and his beloved, in one and the same moment, was too crushing a blow for his frail organization. Pera’s treachery had broken his heart.
When the collector had at last grasped the tragic fact, that the active, bright-faced boy, who had started from the camp hardly an hour ago, full of life and hope, was really dead, he was deeply concerned, and he felt an unusual dimness in his eyes, as he stood gazing at this unhappy heir of long-buried riches.
Then seeing a chuprassi in the distance, who had followed (unbidden) afar off, he shouted to him to approach. The chuprassi came and looked, and was amazed out of his usual impassive demeanour; and in an extraordinarily short time a little crowd had assembled—what mystic force is it that draws people to a tragedy, whether in aLondon street, or an Indian jungle? Here were lean brown fishermen from the river-banks; here were turtle-spearers, and half a dozen ryots, who had abandoned their herds of gaunt white cattle—all come to look at a dead lad.
The distance made it impossible to carry Kareem back to Hassanpur, and bury him formally in the Mohammedan cemetery. “In the place where the tree falleth there shall it be,” and he must find a resting-place in the forest. Mr. Colebrook left two men to watch the body, whilst he hurried to camp to make arrangements for the interment, and to break the heavy tidings to Harry Sahib. The funeral obsequies were solemnly conducted by Kareem’s fellow Mohammedan servants, and early next day the collector was surprised to hear that Kareem had already been laid to rest. The great hole, which for three centuries had contained his lost family treasure, of gold and rubies, pearls and emeralds, now received instead, their unfortunate and defrauded heir,—and proved his convenient grave. HarrySahib shed many hot tears upon it, and even brought the “lal Tattoo” to see the place where poor Kareem was buried.
The collector instituted an immediate search for Pera, daughter of Abdool, but she and Mindoo, the dacoit, had suddenly disappeared—“the very day that his honour himself had gone into the district; no one could tell what had become of them.” After a long and wholly useless investigation, the following facts were elicited: Pera and Mindoo had had accomplices in their flight; they had gone south; but few beyond Mr. Colebrook were in possession of the third and most important detail, viz. that with them, they had carried the secret of the amulet.
THE END.