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diff --git a/old/tinte10.txt b/old/tinte10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c53f26c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tinte10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8782 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Told in the East, by Talbot Mundy +(#5 in our series by Talbot Mundy) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Told in the East + +Author: Talbot Mundy + +Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5315] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 29, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TOLD IN THE EAST *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by Jake Jaqua. + + + +TOLD IN THE EAST + By Talbot Mundy + +[[Original Book edition published by Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, +1920. Source of the following edition is the omnibus "Romances of +India" which was a reprint of three of Talbot Mundy's novels.]] + +Romances of India + By Talbot Mundy +- King of the Khyber Rifles +- Guns of the Gods +- Told in the East + +Contents + + +Hookum Hai.............1 +For The Salt Which He Had Eaten............129 +Machassan Ah............235 + +TOLD IN THE EAST + + + + +Hookum Hai + +A Blood-red sun rested its huge disk upon a low mud wall that crested +a rise to westward, and flattened at the bottom from its own weight +apparently. A dozen dried-out false-acacia-trees shivered as the +faintest puff in all the world of stifling wind moved through them; +and a hundred thousand tiny squirrels kept up their aimless scampering +in search of food that was not there. + +A coppersmith was about the only living thing that seemed to care +whether the sun went down or not. He seemed in a hurry to get a +job done, and his reiterated "Bong-bong-bong!"--that had never ceased +since sunrise, and had driven nearly mad the few humans who were +there to hear it--quickened and grew louder. At last Brown came +out of a square mud house, to see about the sunset. + +He was nobody but plain Bill Brown--or Sergeant William Brown, to +give him his full name and entitlements--and the price of him was +two rupees per day. + +He stared straight at the dull red disk of the sun, and spat with +eloquence. Then he wiped the sweat from his forehead, and scratched +a place where the prickly heat was bothering him. Next, he buttoned +up his tunic, and brushed it down neatly and precisely. There was +official business to be done, and a man did that with due formality, +heat or no heat. + +"Guard, turn out!" he ordered. + +Twelve men filed out, one behind the other, from the hut that he had +left. They seemed to feel the heat more than Brown did, as they fell +in line before Brown's sword. There was no flag, and no flag-pole +in that nameless health-resort, so the sword, without its scabbard, +was doing duty, point downward in the ground, as a totem-pole of Empire. +Brown had stuck it there, like Boanerges' boots, and there it stayed +from sunrise until sunset, to be displaced by whoever dared to do +it, at his peril. + +They had no clock. They had nothing, except the uniforms and arms +of the Honorable East India Company, as issued in this year of Our +Lord, 1857--a cooking-pot or two, a kettle, a little money and a +butcher-knife. Their supper bleated miserably some twenty yards away, +tied to a tree, and a lean. Punjabi squatted near it in readiness +to buy the skin. It was a big goat, but it was mangy, so he held +only two annas in his hand. The other anna (in case that Brown should +prove adamant) was twisted in the folds of his pugree, but he was +prepared to perjure himself a dozen times, and take the names of +all his female ancestors in vain, before he produced it. + +The sun flattened a little more at the bottom, and began to move +quickly, as it does in India--anxious apparently to get away from +the day's ill deeds. + +"Shoulder umms!" commanded Brown. "General salute! Present-umms!" + +The red sun slid below the sky-line, and the night was on them, as +though somebody had shut the lid. Brown stepped to the sword, jerked +it out of the ground and returned it to his scabbard in three motions. + +"Shoulder-umms! Order-umms! Dismiss!" The men filed back into the +hut again, disconsolately, without swearing and without mirth. They +had put the sun to bed with proper military decency. They would have +seen humor--perhaps--or an excuse for blasphemy in the omission of +such a detail, but it was much too hot to swear at the execution of it. + +Besides, Brown was a strange individual who detested swearing, and +it was a very useful thing, and wise, to humor him. He had a way +of his own, and usually got it. + +Brown posted a sentry at the hut-door, and another at the crossroads +which he was to guard, then went round behind the but to bargain +with the goatskin-merchant. But he stopped before he reached the tree. + +"Boy!" he called, and a low-caste native servant came toward him +at a run. + +"Is that fakir there still?" + +"Ha, sahib!" + +"Ha? Can't you learn to say `yes,' like a human being?" + +"Yes, sahib!" + +"All right. I'm going to have a talk with him. Kill the goat, and +tell the Punjabi to wait, if he wants to buy the skin." + +"Ha, sahib!" + +Brown spun round on his heel, and the servant wilted. + +"Yes, sahib!" he corrected. + +Brown left him then, with a nod that conveyed remission of cardinal +sin, and a warning not to repeat the offence. As the native ran +off to get the butcher-knife and sharpen it, it was noticeable that +he wore a chastened look. + +"Send Sidiki after me!" Brown shouted after him, and a minute later +a nearly naked Beluchi struck a match and emerged from the darkness, +with the light of a lantern gleaming on his skin. He followed like +a snake, and only Brown's sharp, authority-conveying footfalls could +be heard as he trudged sturdily--straight-backed, eyes straight in +front of him--to where an age-old baobab loomed like a phantom in +the night. He marched like a man in armor. Not even the terrific +heat of a Central-Indian night could take the stiffening out of him. + +The Beluchi ran ahead, just before they reached the tree. He stopped +and held the lantern up to let its light fall on some object that +was close against the tree-trunk. At a good ten-pace distance from +the object Brown stopped and stared. The lamplight fell on two little +dots that gleamed. Brown stepped two paces nearer. Two deadly, +malicious human eyes blinked once, and then stared back at him. + +"Does he never sleep?" asked Brown. + +The Beluchi said something or other in a language that was full of +harsh hard gutturals, and the owner of the eyes chuckled. His voice +seemed to be coming from the tree itself, and there was nothing of +him visible except the cruel keen eyes that had not blinked once since +Brown drew nearer. + +"Well?" + +"Sahib, he does not answer." + +"Tell him I'm tired of his not answering. Tell him that if he can't +learn to give a civil answer to a civilly put question I'll exercise +my authority on him!" + +The Beluchi translated, or pretended to. Brown was not sure which, +for he was rewarded with nothing but another chuckle, which sounded +like water gurgling down a drain. + +"Does he still say nothing?" + +"Absolutely nothing, sahib." + +Brown stepped up closer yet, and peered into the blackness, looking +straight into the eyes that glared at him, and from them down at the +body of the owner of them. The Beluchi shrank away. + +"Have a care, sahib! It is dangerous! This very holy--most holy-- +most religious man!" + +"Bring that lantern back." + +"He will curse you, sahib!" + +"Do you hear me?" + +The Beluchi came nearer again, trembling with fright. Brown snatched +the lamp away from him, and pushed it forward toward the fakir, moving +it up and down to get a view of the whole of him. There was nothing +that he saw that would reassure or comfort or please a devil even. +It was ultradevilish; both by design and accident--conceived and +calculated ghastliness, peculiar to India. Brown shuddered as he +looked, and it took more than the merely horrible to make him betray +emotion. + +"What god do you say he worships?" + +"Sahib, I know not. I am a Mussulman. These Hindus worship many gods." + +The fakir chuckled again, and Brown held the lantern yet nearer to +him to get a better view. The fakir's skin was not oily, and for +all the blanket-heat it did not glisten, so his form was barely outlined +against the blackness that was all but tangible behind him. + +Brown spat again, as he drew away a step. He could contrive to express +more disgust and more grim determination in that one rudimentary act +than even a Stamboul Softa can. + +"So he's holy, is he?" + +"Very, very holy, sahib!" + +Again the fakir chuckled, and again Brown held his breath and pushed +the lantern closer to him. + +"I believe the brute understands the Queen's English!" + +"He understanding all things, sahib! He knowing all things what +will happen! Mind, sahib! He may curse you!" + +But Brown appeared indifferent to the danger that he ran. To the +fakir's unconcealed discomfort, he proceeded to examine him minutely, +going over him with the aid of the lantern inch by inch, from the +toe-nails upward. + +"Well," he commented aloud, "if the army's got an opposite, here's +it! I'd give a month's pay for the privilege of washing this brute, +just as a beginning!" + +The man's toe-nails--for he really was a man!--were at least two inches +long. They were twisted spirally, and some of them were curled back +on themselves into disgusting-looking knots. What walking he had +ever done had been on his heels. His feet were bent upward, and fixed +upward, by a deliberately cultivated cramp. + +His legs, twisted one above the other in a squatting attitude, were +lean and hairy, and covered with open sores which were kept open by +the swarm of insects that infested him. His loin-cloth was rotting +from him. His emaciated body--powdered and smeared with ashes and +dust and worse--was perched bolt-up-right on a flat earth dais that +had once on a time been the throne of a crossroads idol. One arm, +his right one, hung by his side in an almost normal attitude, and +his right fingers moved incessantly like a man's who is kneading +clay. But his other arm was rigid--straight up in the air above +his head; set, fixed, cramped, paralyzed in that position, with +the fist clenched. And through the back of the closed fist the fakir's +nails were growing. + +But, worse than the horror of the arm was the creature's face, with +the evidence of torture on it, and fiendish delight in torture for +the torture's sake. His eyes were his only organs that really lived +still, and they expressed the steely hate and cruelty, the mad fanaticism, +the greedy self-love--self-immolating for the sake of self--that is +the thoroughgoing fakir's stock in trade. And his lips were like +the graven lips of a Hindu temple god, self-satisfied, self-worshiping, +contemptuous and cruel. He chuckled again, as Brown finished his +inspection. + +"So that crittur's holy, is he? Well, tell him that I'm set here +to watch these crossroads. Tell him I'm supposed to question every +one who comes, and find out what his business is, and arrest him if +he can't give a proper account of himself. Say he's been here three +days now, and that that's long enough for any one to find his tongue in. +Tell him if I don't get an answer from him here and now I'll put him +in the clink!" + +"But, sahib--" + +"You tell him what I say, d'you hear?" + +The Beluchi made haste to translate, trembling as he spoke, and wilting +visibly when the baleful eyes of the fakir rested on him for a second. +The fakir answered something in a guttural undertone. + +"What does he say?" + +"That he will curse you, sahib!" + +"Sentry!" shouted Brown. + +"Sir!" came the ready answer, and the sling-swivels of a rifle clicked +as the man on guard at the crossroads shouldered it. There are some +men who are called "sir" without any title to it, just as there are +some sergeants who receive a colonel's share of deference when out +on a non-commissioned officer's command. Bill Brown was one of them. + +"Come here, will you!" + +There came the sound of heavy footfalls, and a thud as a rifle-butt +descended to the earth again. Brown moved the lamp, and its beams +fell on a rifleman who stood close beside him at attention--like a +jinnee formed suddenly from empty blackness. + +"Arrest this fakir. Cram him in the clink." + +"Very good, sir!" + +The sentry took one step forward, with his fixed bayonet at the "charge," +and the fakir sat still and eyed him. + +"Oh, have a care, sahib!" wailed the Beluchi. "This is very holy man!" + +"Silence!" ordered Brown. "Here. Hold the lamp." + +The bayonet-point pressed against the fakir's ribs, and he drew back +an inch or two to get away from it. He was evidently able to feel +pain when it was inflicted by any other than himself. + +"Come on," growled the sentry. "Forward. Quick march. If you don't +want two inches in you!" + +"Don't use the point!" commanded Brown. "You might do him an injury. +Treat him to a sample of the butt!" + +The sentry swung his rifle round with an under-handed motion that +all riflemen used to practise in the short-range-rifle days. The +fakir winced, and gabbled something in a hurry to the man who held +the lamp. + +"He says that he will speak, sahib!" + +"Halt, then," commanded Brown. "Order arms. Tell him to hurry up!" + +The Beluchi translated, and the fakir answered him, in a voice that +sounded hard and distant and emotionless. + +"He says that he, too, is here to watch the crossroads, sahib! He +says that he will curse you if you touch him!" + +"Tell him to curse away!" + +"He says not unless you touch him, sahib." + +"Prog him off his perch!" commanded Brown. + +The rifle leaped up at the word, and its butt landed neatly on the +fakir's ribs, sending him reeling backward off his balance, but not +upsetting him completely. He recovered his poise with quite astonishing +activity, and shuffled himself back again to the center of the dais. +His eyes blazed with hate and indignation, and his breath came now +in sharp gasps that sounded like escaping steam. He needed no further +invitation to commence his cursing. It burst out with a rush, and +paused for better effect, and burst out again in a torrent. The +Beluchi hid his face between his hands. + +"Now translate that!" commanded Brown, when the fakir stopped for +lack of breath. + +"Sahib, I dare not! Sahib--" + +Brown took a threatening step toward him, and the Beluchi changed +his mind. Brown's disciplining methods were a too recently encountered +fact to be outdone by a fakir's promise of any kind of not-yet-met +damnation. + +"Sahib, he says that because your man has touched him, both you and +your man shall lie within a week helpless upon an anthill, still living, +while the ants run in and out among your wounds. He says that the +ants shall eat your eyes, sahib, and that you shall cry for water, +and there shall be no water within reach--only the sound of water +just beyond you. He says that first you shall be beaten, both of +you, until your backs and the soles of your feet run blood, in order +that the ants may have an entrance!" + +"Is he going to do all this?" + +The Beluchi passed the question on, and the fakir tossed him an answer +to it. + +"He says, sahib, that the gods will see to it." + +"So the gods obey his orders, do they. Well, they've a queer sense +of duty! What else does he prophesy?" + +"About your soul, sahib, and the sentry's soul." + +"That's interesting! Translate!" + +"He says, sahib, that for countless centuries you and your man shall +inhabit the carcasses of snakes, to eat dirt and be trodden on and +crushed, until you learn to have respect for very holy persons!" + +"Is he going to have the ordering of that?" + +"He says that the gods have already ordered it." + +"It won't make much difference, then, what I do now. If that's in +store for me in any case, I may as well get my money's worth before +the fun begins! Tell him that unless he can give me a satisfactory +reason for being here I shall treat him to a little more rifle-butt, +and something else afterward that he will like even less!" + +"He says," explained the Beluchi, after a moment's conversation with +the fakir, "that he is here to see what the gods have prophesied. +He says that India will presently be whelmed in blood!" + +"Whose blood?" + +"Yours and that of others. He says, did you not see the sunset?" + +"What of the sunset?" + +Brown looked about him and, save where the lantern cast a fitful light +on the fakir and the sentry and the native servant, and threw into +faint relief the shadowy, snake-like tendrils of the baobab, his eyes +failed to pierce the gloom. The sunset was a memory. In that heavy, +death-darkness silence it seemed almost as though there had never +been a sun. + +"`A blot of blood,' he says. He says the order has been given. He +says that half of India shall run blood within a day, and the whole +of it within a week!" + +"Who gave the order?" + +"He answers `Hookum hai!'--which means `It is an order!' Nothing +more does the holy fakir say." + +"To the clink with him!" commanded Brown. "I'm tired of these Old +Mother Shipton babblings. That's the third useless Hindu fanatic +within a week who has talked about India being drenched in blood. +Let him go in to the depot under guard, and do his prophesying there! +Bring him along." + +The sentry's rifle-butt rose again and threatened business. The +Beluchi gave a warning cry, and the fakir tumbled off his dais. +Then, with the trembling Beluchi walking on ahead with the lantern, +and Brown and the sentry urging from behind, the fakir jumped and +squirmed and wabbled on his all but useless feet toward the guardroom. +When they reached the tree where the goat had bleated, the Punjabi +skin-buyer rose up, took one long look at the fakir and ran. + +"Well, I'll be!" exclaimed the sentry. + +"You'll be worse than that," said Brown, "if you use that language +anywhere where I'm about! I'll not have it, d'you hear? Get on ahead, +and open the door of the clink!" + +The sentry obeyed him, and a moment later the fakir was thrust into +a four-square mud-walled room, and the door was locked on him. + +"Back to your post," commanded Brown. "And next time I hear you swearing, +I'll treat you to a double-trick, my man! About turn. Quick march." + +The sentry trudged off without daring to answer him, and Brown took +a good look at the fakir through the iron bars that protected the +top half of the door. Then he went off to see about his supper, of +newly slaughtered goat-chops and chupatties baked in ghee. His soul +revolted at the thought of it, but it was his duty to eat it and set +an example to the men; and duty was the only thing that mattered +in Bill Brown's scheme of things. + +"Maybe it's true," he muttered, "and maybe it's all lies; there's +no knowing. Maybe India's going to run blood, as these fakirs seem +to think, and maybe it isn't. There'll be more blood shed than mine +in that case! `Hookum hai'--`It is orders,' heh ? Well--there's +more than one sort of `Hookum hai!' I've got my orders too!" + +He doubled the guard, when supper bad been eaten and the guardroom +had been swept and the pots and kettle had been burnished until they +shone. Then he tossed a chupatty to the imprisoned fakir, spat again +from sheer disgust, lit his pipe and went and sat where he could hear +the footbeats of the sentries. + +"They can't help their religion," he muttered. "The poor infidels +don't know no better. And they've got a right to think what they +please `about me or the Company. But I've no patience with uncleanliness! +That's wrong any way you look at it. That critter can't see straight +for the dirt on him, nor think straight for that matter. He's a disgrace +to humanity. Priest or fakir or whatever he is, if I live to see +tomorrow's sun I'll hand him over to the guard and have him washed!" + +Having formed that resolution, Brown dismissed all thoughts of the +fakir. His memory went back to home--the clean white cottage on the +Sussex Downs, and the clean white girl who once on a time had waited +for him there. For the next few hours, until the guard was changed, +the only signs or sounds of life were the glowing of Brown's pipe, +the steady footfalls of the sentries and occasional creakings from +the hell-hot guard-room, where sleepless soldiers tossed in prickly +discomfort. + + + + +II. + +Bill Brown, with his twelve, had not been set to watch a lonely crossroad +for the fun of it. One road was a well-made highway, and led from +a walled city, where three thousand men sweated and thought of England, +to another city, where five thousand armed natives drew England's +pay, and wore English uniforms. + +The other road was a snake-like trail, nearly as wide but not nearly +so well kept. It twisted here and there amid countless swarming native +villages, and was used almost exclusively by natives, whose rightful +business was neither war nor peace nor the contriving of either of +them. It had been a trade-road when history was being born, and the +laden ox-carts creaked along it still, as they had always done and +always will do until India awakes. + +But there are few men in the world who attend to nothing but their +rightful business, and there are even more in India than elsewhere +who are prone to neglect their own affairs and stir up sedition among +others. There are few fighting-men among that host. They are priests +for the most part or fakirs or make-believe pedlers or confessed +and shameless mendicants; and they have no liking for the trunk +roads, where the tangible evidence of Might and Majesty may be seen +marching in eight-hundred-man battalions. They prefer to dream along +the byways, and set other people dreaming. They lead, when the crash +comes, from behind. + +Though the men who made the policies of the Honorable East India Company +were mostly blind to the moving finger on the wall, and chose to imagine +themselves secure against a rising of the millions they controlled; +and though most of their military officers were blinder yet, and failed +to read the temper of the native troops in their immediate command, +still, there were other men who found themselves groping, at least +two years before the Mutiny of '57. They were groping for something +intangible and noiseless and threatening which they felt was there +in a darkness, but which one could not see. + +Baines was one of them--Lieutenant-General Baines, commanding at Bholat. +His troops were in the center of a spider's web of roads that +criss-crossed and drained a province. There were big trunk arteries, +which took the flow of life from city to walled city, and a mass +of winding veins in the shape of grass-grown country tracks. He +could feel, if any man could, the first faint signs of fever rising, +and he was placed where he could move swiftly, and cut deep in the +right spot, should the knife be needed. + +He was like a surgeon, though, who holds a lancet and can use it, +but who lacks permission. The poison in India's system lay deep, +and the fever was slow in showing itself. And meanwhile the men +who had the ordering of things could see neither necessity nor excuse +for so much as a parade of strength. They refused, point-blank and +absolutely, to admit that there was, or, could be, any symptom of +unrest. + +He dared not make new posts for officers, for officers would grumble +at enforced exile in the country districts, and the Government would +get to hear of it, and countermand. But there were non-commissioned +officers in plenty, and it was not difficult to choose the best of +them--three men--and send them, with minute detachments, to three +different points of vantage. Non-commissioned officers don't grumble, +or if they do no one gets to hear of it, or minds. And they are just +as good as officers at watching crossroads and reporting what they +see and hear. + +So where a little cluster of mud huts ached in the heat of a right +angle where the trunk road crossed a native road some seventy miles +from Bholat, Bill Brown--swordsman and sergeant and strictest of +martinets, as well as sentimentalist--had been set to watch and listen +and report. + +There were many cleverer men in the non-commissioned ranks of Baine's +command, many who knew more of the native languages, and who had +more imagination. But there was none who knew better how to win +the unqualified respect and the obedience of British and native alike, +or who could be better counted on to obey an order, when it came, +literally, promptly and in the teeth of anything. + +Brown's theories on religion were a thing to marvel at, and walk +singularly wide of, for he was a preacher with a pair of fists when +thoroughly aroused. And his devotion to a girl in England whom no +one in his regiment had ever seen, and of whom he did not even possess +a likeness, was next door to being pitiable. His voice was like +a raven's, with something rather less than a raven's sense of melody; +he was very prone to sing, and his songs were mournful ones. He +was not a social acquisition in any generally accepted sense, although +his language was completely free from blasphemy or coarseness. His +ideas were too cut and dried to make conversation even interesting. +But his loyalty and his sense of duty were as adamant. + +He had changed the double guard at the crossroads; and had posted +two fresh men by the mud-walled guardroom door. He had lit his pipe +for the dozenth time, and had let it go out again while he hummed +a verse of a Covenanters' hymn. And he had just started up to wall +over to the cell and make a cursory inspection of his prisoner, when +his ears caught a distant sound that was different from any of the +night sounds, though scarcely louder. + +Prompt as a rifle in answer to the trigger, he threw himself down +on all fours, and laid his ear to the ground. A second later, he +was on his feet again. + +"Guard!" he yelled. "Turn out!" + +Cots squeaked and jumped, and there came a rush of hurrying feet. +The eight men not on watch ran out in single file, still buttoning +their uniforms, and lined up beside the two who watched the +guardroom door. + +"Stand easy!" commanded Brown. Then he marched off to the crossroads, +finding his way in the blackness more by instinct and sense of direction +than from any landmark, for even the road beneath his feet was barely +visible. + +"D'you mean to tell me that neither of you men can hear that sound?" +he asked the sentries. + +Both men listened intently, and presently one of them made out a very +faint and distant noise, that did not seem to blend in with the other +night-sounds. + +"Might be a native drum?" he hazarded. + +"No, 'tain't!" said the other. "I got it now. It's a horse galloping. +Tired horse, by the sound of him, and coming this way. All right, +Sergeant." + +"One of you go two hundred yards along the road, and form an advance-post, +so to speak. Challenge him the minute he's within ear-shot, and shoot +him if he won't halt. If he halts, pass him along to Number Two. +Number Two, pass him along to the guardroom, where I'll deal with +him! Which of you's Number One? Number One, then--forward-- +quick--march!" + +The sentry trudged off in one direction, and Bill Brown in another. +The sentry concealed itself behind a rock that flanked the road, +and Brown spent the next few minutes in making the guard "port arms," +and carefully inspecting their weapons with the aid of a lantern. +He had already inspected there once since supper, but he knew the +effect that another inspection would be likely to produce. Nothing +goes further toward making men careful and ready at the word than +incessant and unexpected but quite quietly performed inspection of +minutest details. + +He produced the effect of setting the men on the qui vive without +alarming them. + +Suddenly, the farthest advanced sentry's challenge rang out. + +"Frie-e-e-e-nd!" came the answer, in nasal, high-pitched wail, but +the galloping continued. + +"Halt, I tell you!" A breech-bolt clicked, and then another one. +They were little sounds, but they were different, and the guard could +hear them plainly. The galloping horse came on. + +"Cra-a-a-a-ack!" went the sentry's rifle, and the flash of it spurted +for an instant across the road, like a sheet of lightning. And, just +as lightning might, it showed an instantaneous vision of a tired gray +horse, foam-flecked and furiously ridden, pounding down the road head-on. +The vision was blotted by the night again before any one could see +who rode the horse, or what his weapons were--if any--or form a theory +as to why he rode. + +But the winging bullet did what the sentry's voice had failed to do. +There came a clatter of spasmodic hoof-beats, an erratic shower of +sparks, a curse in clean-lipped decent Urdu; a grunt, a struggle, +more sparks again, and then a thud, followed by a devoutly worded +prayer that Allah, the all-wise provider of just penalties, might +blast the universe. + +"Stop talkin'!" said the sentry, and a black-bearded Rajput rolled +free, and looked up to find a bayonet-point within three inches +of his eye. + +"Poggul!" snarled the Mohammedan. + +"Poggul's no password!" said the sentry. "Neither to my good-nature +nor to nothing else. Put up your 'ands, and get on your feet, and +march! Look alive, now! Call me a fool, would yer? Wait till the +sergeant's through with yer, and see!" + +The Rajput chose to consider a retort beneath his dignity. He rose, +and took one quick look at the horse, which was still breathing. + +"Your bayonet just there," he said, "and press. So he will die quickly." + +The sentry placed his bayonet-point exactly where directed, and leaned +his weight above it. The horse gave a little shudder, and lay still. + +"Poggul!" said the Rajput once again. And this time the sentry looked +and saw cold steel within three inches of his eye! + +"Your rifle!" said the Rajput. "Hand it here!" + +And, to save his eyesight, the sentry complied, while the Rajput's +ivory-white teeth grinned at him pleasantly. + +"Now, hands to your sides! Attention! March!" the Rajput ordered, +and with his own bayonet at his back the sentry had to march, whether +he wanted to or not, by the route that the other chose, toward the +guardroom. The Rajput seemed to know by instinct where the second +sentry stood although the man's shape was quite invisible against +the night. He called out, "Friend!" again as he passed him, and the +sentry hearing the first sentry's footsteps, imagined that the real +situation was reversed. + +So, out of a pall of blackness, to the accompanying sound of rifles +being brought up to the shoulder, a British sentry--feeling and looking +precisely like a fool--marched up to his own guardroom, with a man +who should have been his prisoner in charge of him. + +"Halt!" commanded Brown. "Who or what have you got there, Stanley?" + +"Stanley is my prisoner at present!" said a voice that Brown vaguely +recognized. + +He stepped up closer, to make sure. + +"What, you? Juggut Khan!" + +"Aye, Brown sahib! Juggut Khan--with tidings, and a dead gray horse +on which to bear them! If this fool could only use his bayonet as +he can shoot, I think I would be dead too. His brains, though, are +all behind his right eye. Tie him up, where no little child can come +and make him prisoner!" + +"Arrest that man!" commanded Brown, and two men detached themselves +from the end of the guard, and stood him between them, behind the line. + +"Here's his rifle!" smiled Juggut Khan, and Brown received it with +an ill grace. + +"How did you get past the other sentry?" he asked. + +"Oh, easily! You English are only brave; you have no brains. +Sometimes one part of the rule is broken, but the other never. You +are not always brave!" + +"I suppose you're angry because he killed your horse?" + +"I am angry, Brown sahib, for greater happenings than that! The man +conceivably was right, since I did not halt for him, and I suppose +he had his orders. I am angry because the standard of rebellion is +raised, and because of what it means to me!" + +"Are you drunk, Juggut Khan?" + +"Your honor is pleased to be humorous? No, I am not drunk. Nor have +I eaten opium. I have eaten of the bread of bitterness this day, +and drunk of the cup of gall. I have seen British officers--good, +brave fools, some of whom I knew and loved--killed by the men they +were supposed to lead. I have seen a barracks burning, and a city +given over to be looted. I have seen white women--nay, sahib, steady!-- +I have seen them run before a howling mob, and I have seen certain +of them shot by their own husbands!" + +"Quietly!" ordered Brown. "Don't let the men hear!" + +"One of them I slew myself, because her husband, who was wounded, +sent me to her and bade me kill her. She died bravely. And certain +others I have hidden where the mutineers are not likely to discover +them at present. I ride now for succor--or, I rode, rather, until +your expert marksman interfered with me! I now need another horse." + +"You mean that the native troops have mutinied?" "I mean rather more +than that, sahib. Mohammedans and Hindus are as one, and the crowd +is with them. This is probably the end of the powder-train, for, +from what I heard shouted by the mutineers, almost the whole of India +is in revolt already!" + +"Why?" + +"God knows, sahib! The reason given is that the cartridges supplied +are greased with the blended fat of pigs and cows, thus defiling both +Hindu and Mohammedan alike. But, if you ask me, the cause lies deeper. +In the meantime, the rebels have looted Jailpore and burned their +barracks, and within an hour or two they will start along this road +for Bholat, which they have a mind to loot likewise. My advice to +you is retire at once. Get me another horse from somewhere, that +I may carry warning. Then follow me as fast as you and your men +can move." + +"Bah!" said Brown. "They'll find General Baines to deal with them +at Bholat." + +"Who knows yet how many in Bholat have not risen? Are you positive +that the garrison there has not already been surrounded by rebels? +I am not! I would not be at all surprised to learn that General Baines +is so busy defending himself that he can not move in any direction. +And--does your honor mean to hold this guardroom here against +five thousand?" + +"I mean to obey my orders!" answered Brown. + +"And your orders are?" + +"My orders!" + +"Would they preclude the provision of another horse for me?" + +"There's a village about a mile away, down over yonder, where I think +you'll find a decent horse--along that road there." + +"And your honor's orders would possibly permit a certain payment for +the horse?" + +"Positively not!" said Brown. + +"Then--' + +"To seize a horse, for military use, under the spur of necessity, +and after giving a receipt for it, would be in order." + +"So I am to spend the night wandering around the countryside, in a +vain endeavor to--" + +But Brown was doing mathematics in his head. Two men to guard prisoners, +two on guard at the crossroads, two at the guardroom door--six from +twelve left six, and six were not enough to rape a countryside. + +"Guard!" he ordered. "Release that prisoner. Now, you Stanley, +let this be a lesson to you, and remember that I only set you free +because I'd have been short-handed otherwise. Number One! Stand +guard between the clink and the guardroom door. Keep an eye on both. +The remainder--form two-deep. Right turn! By the left, quick-march! +Left wheel!..... Now," he said, turning to Juggut Khan, "if you'll +come along I'll soon get a horse for you!" + +The Rajput strode along beside him, and gave him some additional +information as they went, Brown taking very good care all the time +to keep out of earshot of the men and to speak to Juggut Khan in low +tones. He learned, among other things, that Juggut Khan had lost +every anna that he owned, and had only escaped with his life by dint +of luck and swordship and most terrific riding. + +"Are all of you Rajputs loyal?" asked Brown. + +"I know not. I know that I myself shall stay loyal until the end!" + +"Well--the end is not in doubt. There can only be one end!" commented +Brown. + +"Of a truth, sahib, I believe that you are right. There can only +be one end. This night is not more black, this horizon is no shorter, +than the outlook!" + +"Then, you mean--" + +"I mean, sahib, that this uprising is more serious than you--or any +other Englishman--is likely to believe. I believe that the side I +fight for will be the losing side." + +"And yet, you stay loyal?" + +"Why not?" + +"All the same, Juggut Khan--I'm not emotional, or a man of many words. +I don't trust Indians as a rule! I--but--here--will you shake hands?" + +"Certainly, sahib!" said the Rajput. "We be two men, you and I! +Why should the one be loyal and the other not?" + +"When this is over," said Brown, "if it ends the way we want, and +we're both alive, I'd like to call myself your friend!" + +"I have always been your friend, sahib, and you mine, since the day +when you bandaged up a boy and gave him your own drinking-water and +carried him in to Bholat on your shoulder, twenty miles or more." + +"Oh, as for that--any other man would have done the same thing. +That was nothing!" + +"Strange that when a white man does an honorable deed he lies about +it!" said Juggut Khan. "That was not nothing, sahib, and you know +it was not nothing! You know that from the heat and the exertion +you were ill for more than a month afterward. And you know that +there were others there, of my own people, who might have done what +you did, and did not!" + +"But, hang it all! Why drag up a little thing like this?" + +"Because, sahib, I might have no other opportunity, and--" + +"Well? And what?" + +"And the Rajput boy whom you carried was my son!" + + + + +III. + +The finding of a remount for Juggut Khan was not so troublesome as +might have been supposed. The rumors and plans and whispered orders +for the coming struggle had been passed around the countryside for +months past, and every man who owned a horse had it stalled safely +near him, for use when the hour should come. + +There were country-ponies and Arabs and Kathiawaris and Khaubulis +among which to pick, and though the average run of them was worse +than merely bad, and though both best and worst were hidden away +whenever possible, good horses were discoverable. Within an hour, +Bill Brown; with the aid of his men, had routed out a Khaubuji +stallion for Juggut Khan, one fit to carry him against time the whole +of the way to Bholat. + +The Rajput mounted him where Brown unearthed him, and watched the +signing of a scribbled-out receipt with a cynical smile. + +"If he comes to claim his money for the horse," said Juggut Khan, +"I--even I, who am penniless--will pay him. Good-by, Brown sahib!" +He leaned over and grasped the sergeant by the hand. "Take my advice, +now. I know what is happening and what has happened. Fall back on +Bholat at once. Hurry! Seize horses or even asses for your men, +and ride in hotfoot. Salaam!" + +He drove his right spur in, wheeled the horse and started across country +in the direction of Bholat at a hand-gallop, guiding himself solely +by the soldier's sixth sense of direction, and leaving the problem +of possible pitfalls to the horse. + +"If what he says is true," said Brown, as the clattering hoof-beats +died away, "and I'm game to take my oath he wouldn't lie to me, I'd +give more than a little to have him with me for the next few hours!" + +The men came clustering round him now, anxious for an explanation. +They had held their tongues while Juggut Khan was there, because +they happened to know Brown too well to do otherwise. He would have +snubbed any man who dared to question him before the Indian. But, +now that the Indian was gone, curiosity could stay no longer +within bounds. + +"What is it, Sergeant? Anything been happening? What's the news? +What's that I heard him say about rebellion? They're a rum lot, them +Rajputs. D'you think he's square? Tell us, Sergeant!" + +"Listen, then. Rebellion has broken out. The native barracks at +Jailpore have been burned, and all the English officers are killed-- +or so says Juggut Khan. He's riding on, to carry the news to General +Baines. He says that the mutineers are planning to come along this +way some time within the next few hours!" + +"What are we going to do, then?" + +"That's my business! I'm in command here!" + +"Yes, but, Sergeant--aren't you going back to Bholat? Aren't you +going to follow him? Are you going to stay here and get cut up? +We'll get caught here like rats in a trap!" + +"Are you giving orders here?" asked Brown acidly. "Fall in! Come +on, now! Hurry! 'Tshun--eyes right--ri'--dress. Eyes--front. Ri'-- +turn. By the left--quick--march! Silence, now! Left! Left! Left!" + +He marched them back toward the crossroads without giving them any +further opportunity to remonstrate or ask for information. + +It was not until he reached the crossroads, without being challenged, +that he showed any sign of being in any way disturbed. + +"Sentry!" he shouted. "Sentry!" + +But there was no answer. + +"Halt!" he ordered, and he himself went forward to investigate. The +blackness swallowed him, but the men could hear him move, and they +heard him fall. They heard him muttering, too, within ten paces of +them. Then they heard his order. + +"Bring a light here, some one." + +One man produced a piece of candle, struck a match and lit it. A +moment later they had all broken order, and were standing huddled +up together like a frightened flock of sheep, peering through dancing, +candle-lit shadows at something horrible that Brown was handling. + +"What is it, Sergeant?" + +"What in hell's happened?" + +"Who was that swearing?" inquired Brown, with a sudden look up across +his shoulder. "You, Taylor? You again? Swearing in the presence +of death? Talking of hell, with your two comrades lying dead at +the crossroads, and you like to follow both o' them at any minute?" + +Both of the guards lay dead. They lay quite neatly, side by side, +without a sign about them to show that they had met with violence. +Brown rolled one body over, though, and then the cause of death became +more obvious. A stream of blood welled out of the man's back, from +between the shoulder-blades--warm blood, that had not even started +to coagulate. + +"They've been dead about three minutes!" commented Brown, rising, +and wiping his hands in the road-dust to get the blood off them. +"Pick 'em up. Carefully, now! Frog-march 'em, face-downwards. That's +better! Now, forward. Quick, march!" + +The procession advanced toward the guardhouse in grim silence, and +once again there was no challenge when there should have been. The +lamp was still burning in the guardroom, for they could see it plainly +as they drew nearer, but there was no noise of a sentry's footfalls, +or hoarse "Halt!" and "Who comes there?" + +Nor was there any sign yet of the man whom Brown had left to guard +both "clink" and guardroom. Brown let them take their dead comrades +into the guardroom first, then set two fresh guards at the door, +and covered up the bodies with a sheet before commencing to investigate. + +He started off toward the cell where he had imprisoned the fakir. +He went by himself, and no one volunteered to go with him. + +He had gone five yards when the second explanation met his eyes. +This time there was no need to stoop down, nor to turn any body over. +The sentry whom he had left to guard both cell and guardroom stood +bolt upright, with his mouth and his eyes wide open; skewered to +the wall of the guardhouse by an iron spike, which pierced his chest. + +"A lamp and four men here!" ordered Brown, without waiting to let +the horror of the sight sink in. "Take that poor chap down, and lay +him in the guardroom beside the others. How? How should I know? +Pull it out, or break it off--I don't care which; don't leave him +there, that's all." + +He walked on toward the cell-door, while they labored, and fingered +gingerly around the spike, which must have been driven through the +sentry's chest with a hammer. + +"I thought as much!" he muttered. And, though be had not thought +as much, he might have done so. "I knew that a man who could maim +his own body in that way was capable of any crime in the calendar!" + +The door of the cell stood open, and there was no sign of any fakir, +or of any one who might have helped him go--nothing but an empty +cell, with the haunting smell of the fakir still abiding in it. + +Bill Brown spat, and closed the cell-door. + +"I'm thinking that Juggut Khan told nothing but the truth," he muttered. +"Things look right, don't they, if that's so! Obey, Obey! I'd have +liked to see England just once again--I would indeed. If I could +only see her just once. If I'd a letter from her, or her picture. +This is a rotten, rat-in-a-hole, lonely, uncreditable way to die! +I wish Juggut Khan were here. I'd have somebody to help me keep my +good courage up in that case." + +The lock on the cell-door was broken, so he only closed it, then started +back toward the guardroom. + +"Three rifles, and three ammunition pouches gone!" he muttered. "That's +three weapons they've got, in any case. A hornet's nest'd be better +stopping in than this place." + +He overtook the men who were carrying in the nail-killed sentry, and +he saw that their faces were drawn and white. So were those of the +other men, who were clustered in the guardroom door. + +"What next, Sergeant? Hadn't we better be quick? Why not burn the +place? That'd do instead o' buryin' the dead ones, and it'd give +us a light to get away by. Might serve as a beacon, too. Might +fetch assistance!" + +It was evident that panic had set in. + +"Fall in!" commanded Brown, and his straight back took on a curve +that meant straightness to the nth power. + +"'Tshun! Ri'--dress! Eyes--front!" + +He glared at them for just about one minute before +he spoke, and during that minute each man there realized that what +was coming would be quite irrevocable. + +"I'm sergeant here. My orders are to hold this post until relieved. +Therefore--and I hope there's no man here holds any other notion; +I hope it for his own sake!--until we are relieved, we're going to +hold it! Moreover, this command is going to be a real command, from +now on. It's going to buck up. I'm going to put some ginger in it. +There are three dead men here to be avenged, and I'm going to avenge +'em, or make you do it! And if any man imagines he's going to help +himself by feeling afraid, let me assure him that the only thing +he needs to fear is me! I've a right to command men--I know how-- +I intend to do it. And if I've got to make men first out of whey-faced +cowards, why, I'm game to do it, and this is just where I begin! +Now! Anybody got a word to say?" + +There was grim silence. + +"Good! I'll assume, then, until I'm contradicted, that you're all +brave men. Into the guardroom with you!" + +"Sahib! Sahib!" said a voice beside him. + +"Well? What?" + +It was the Beluchi interpreter who had carried the lamp for him that +evening when he arrested the fakir. + +"Run, sahib! It is time to run away!" + +"Go on, then! Why don't you run?" + +"I am afraid, sahib." + +"Of what?" + +"Of the men who slew the soldiers. Sahib! Remember what the fakir +said. You will be pegged out on an anthill, sahib, when you have +been beaten. Run, while there is yet time!" + +"Did you see them kill my men?" + +"Nay, sahib!" + +"How was that?" + +"I ran away and hid, sahib." + +"How many were there?" + +"Very many. The Punjabi skin-buyer brought them." + +"He did, did he? Very well! Did he go off with the fakir?" + +"I think he did. I did not see." + +"Well, we'll suppose he did, then. And when the day breaks; we'll +suppose that we can find him, and we'll go in search of him, and I +wouldn't like to be that Punjabi when I do find him! Get into the +guard-room, and wait in there until I give you leave to stir." + + + + +IV. + +An Indian city that has yet to have its mysterie's laid bare and +banished by electric light is a stage deliberately set for massacre. +The bazaars run criss-crosswise; any way at all save parallel, and +anyhow but straight. Between them lies always a maze of passages, +and alleys, deep sided, narrow, overhung by trellised windows and +loopholed walls and guarded stairways. + +For every square inch where the sun can shine there are a hundred +where a man could hide unseen. Through century piled on suspicious +century, no designer, no architect, no builder has neglected to provide +a means of secret ingress, and still more secret egress, to each new +house. And the newest house is built on secret passages that hid +conspirators against the kings of men who lived before the oldest +house was thought of. + +After the Mutiny of '57 came broader roads--so that a cannon might +be trained along them. + +But in '57, Jailpore was a nest of winding alley-ways and blind bat +and rat holes, where weird smells and strange unlisted poisons and +prophecies were born. In its midst, tight-packed in a roaring babel-din +of many-colored markets, stood a stone-walled palace, built once by +a Hindu king to commemorate a victory over Moslems, added to by a +Moslem Nizam, to celebrate his conquest of the Hindus and added to +once again by the Honorable East India Company, to make a suitable +barracks for its native troops. + +From the rat-infested slums, from the hot shadows and the mazy +back-bazaars, from temples, store-houses, shops, and from the +sin-steeped underworld, there screamed and surged and swept the +many-graded, many-minded polyglot rebellion-spume. A quarter of +a million underdogs had turned against their masters. A hundred +factions and as many more religions, all had one common end in view-- +to loot. All were agreed on one thing--that the first stage of the +game must be to turn Jailpore and, after Jailpore, India, into a +charnel-house. + +Around and around the burning palace the mob screamed and swept +uncontrolled. Moslem looted Hindu, and Hindu Moslem. Armed sepoys, +with the blood of their British officers fresh-soaked on their British +uniforms, and the unspent pay of "John Company" still jingling in +their pockets, danced weird, wild devil-dances through the streets, +clearing their way, when they saw fit, with cold steel or wanton volleys. +Women screamed. Caste looted caste. Loose horses galloped madly +through the streets. Here and there a pitched battle raged, where +a merchant who had wealth had also courage, and apprentices and friends +to help him defend his store. + +And through all the din and clamor, under and above the howling and +the volleys and the roar of flames, sounded the steady thumping of +the sacred war-drums. The whole sky glowed red. The Indian night +was scorched and smoked and lit by arson. Hell screamed with the +cooking of red mutiny, and throbbed with the thunder of the sacred +temple-drums. And that was only one of the hells, and a small one. +India glowed red that night from end to end! + +Juggut Khan, free-lance Rajput and gentleman of fortune, had ridden +out of that caldron of Jailpore. His house was a heap of glowing +ashes, and his goods were tossed for and distributed among a company. +But his mark lay indelibly impressed upon the town. There were three +European women and a child who were nowhere to be found; and there +was a trail that led from somewhere near the palace to the western +gate. It was a red trail. + +In one spot lay a sepoy pierced through by a lance, and with half +of the lance-shaft still standing upright in him. That had been bad +art--sheer playing to the gallery! Juggut Khan had run him through +and tried to lift him on the lance-end for a trophy. It was luck +that saved the day for him that time, not swordsmanship. + +But a man who has done what he had done that day may be forgiven. +There lay nine other men behind him where his lance was left, and +each of them lay face upward with a round red hole in his anatomy +where the lance had entered. + +And from the point where he had broken his lance and left it, up to +where a self-appointed guard had refused at first to open the city +gate for him, there was a trail that did honor to the man who taught +him swordsmanship. One man lay headless, and another's head was only +part of him, because the sword had split it down the middle and the +two halves were still joined together at the neck. + +There were men who claimed afterward that of the twenty-three who +lay between his lance-shaft and the city gate, some five or six had +been slain in brawls and looting forays. And Juggut Khan was never +known to discuss the matter. But the fact remains that every man +of them was killed by the blade or point of a cavalry-saber, and +that Juggut Khan broke out of the place untouched. + +And another fact worthy of record is, that underneath a stone floor, +in a building that was partly powder-magazine-surrounded at every +end and side by mutineers who searched for them, and very nearly +stifled by the dust of decaying ages--there lay three women and a +child, with a jar of water close beside them and a sack of hastily +collected things to eat. They lay there in all but furnace-heat, +close-huddled in the darkness, and they shuddered and sobbed and +blessed Juggut Khan alternately. Below them the whispering echoes +sighed mysteriously through a maze of tunnels. Around them, and +around their sack of food, the rats scampered. Above them, where a +ten-ton stone trapdoor lay closed over their heads, black powder stood +in heaps and sacks and barrels. Closing the trapdoor had been easy. +One pushed it and it fell. Not all the mutineers in Jailpore nor +Juggut Khan nor any one could open it again without the secret. +And no man living knew the secret. The three women and the child +were safe from immediate intrusion! + +Those three women and that child were not so exceptionally placed +for India, of that date. Two of the women had seen their husbands +slain that afternoon, before their eyes. They were mother and daughter +and grandson; and the fourth was an English nurse, red-cheeked still +from the kiss of English Channel breezes. + +"If only Bill were here!" the nurse wailed. "I know he'd find a +way out. There wasn't never nothing nowhere that beat Bill. Bill +wouldn't ha' left us! Bill'd ha' took us out o' here, an' saved +our lives. Bill--snnff, snnff--Bill wouldn't ha'--snnff, snnff-- +shoved us in a rat-hole and took hisself off!" + +She had not yet lost her English point of view. She still believed +that the strong right arm of an English lover could play ducks and +drakes with Destiny. One-half of the world, at least, still swears +that she was wrong, and her mistress and the other woman thought her +despicable, ridiculous, unenlightened. It was a hardship to them, +to be endured with dignity and patience, but none the less a hardship, +that they should be left and should have to die with this woman of +the Ranks Below to keep them company. She was an honest woman, or +they would never have engaged her and paid her passage all the way +to India. But she was not of their jat, and she was a fool. It +happens, however, that her point of view saved England for the English, +and that the other point of view had brought England to the brink +of utter ruin. + +"If you'd leave off talking about your truly tiresome lover, and +would pray to God, Jane," said Mrs. Leslie, "the rest of us might +have a chance to pray to God too! This isn't the time, let me tell +you, to be thinking of carnal love-affairs. Recall your sins, one +by one, and ask forgiveness for them." + +In the gloom of the vault, poor Jane was quite invisible. The sound +of her snuffling and sobs was the only clue to her direction. But +her bridling was a thing that could be felt through the stuffy +blackness, and there was a ring in her retort that gave the lie to +the tears that she was shedding. + +"The only sin I ask forgiveness for," she answered in a level voice, +"is having let Bill come to India alone. Pray to God, is it? Go on! +Pray! If Bill was here, he'd start on that stone door without no +words nor argument, unless some one tried to stop him. Then there'd +be an argument! And he'd get it open too. Bill's the kind that does +his prayin' afterward, and God helps men like Bill!" + +"Well--I'm afraid that your Bill isn't here, and can't get here. +So the best thing that you can do is to pray and let us pray." + +"I'll pray for Bill!" said Jane defiantly. "Bill don't know that +I'm in India, and he surely doesn't know I'm here. But if he knew-- +Oh, God! Let him know! Tell him! He'd come so quick. He'd--snnff, +snnff--he'd--why, he'd ha' been here long ago! Dear God, tell Bill +I'm here, that's all!" + + + + +V. + +General Baines was in a position to be envied. No soldier worthy +of his salt is other than elated at the thought of war. Now for +the proving of his theories. Now for the fruit of all his tireless +preaching and inspection and preparing--the planned, pegged-out swoop +to victory! + +He knew--as few men in India knew--the length and the breadth of what +was coming. And when two of his non-commissioned officers sent in +word that the whole country was ablaze, he realized, as few other +men did in that minute, that this was no local outbreak. The long- +threatened holocaust had come, and he had to act, to smite, to strike +sure and swift at the festering root of things, or Central India +was lost. + +But his hands were tied still. He knew. He could see. He could +feel. He could hear. But he had his orders. That very morning they +had been repeated to him, and with emphasis. In a letter from the +Council he had been told that "slight disturbances, of a purely local +character, were not without the bounds of possibility, due partly +to religious unrest and partly to local causes. Under no circumstances +were any extended reprisals to be undertaken until further orders, +and generals commanding districts were required to keep the bulk of +their commands within cantonments." + +The countryside was up. All India probably was up. His own men, +set by himself to watch with one definite idea, had confirmed his +worst fears. And he was under orders to stay with the bulk of his +command in Bholat! Corked up in cantonments, with three thousand +first-class fighting-men squealing for trouble, and red rebellion +running riot all around him though it might be quelled by instant action! + +And then worse happened. Juggut Khan clattered in to Bholat, spurring +a horse that was so spent it could barely keep its feet. It fell +in a woeful heap outside the general's quarters, and Juggut Khan-- +all but as weary as the horse--swung himself free, staggered past +the sentry at the door and rapped with his hilt on the tough teak +panel. They had to give him brandy and feed him before he could +summon strength enough to tell what he had seen and heard and done. + +"And Brown stayed on at the crossroads?" + +"Aye, General sahib! He stayed!" + +The general sat back and drummed his heels together on the floor in +a way that his aides had come to recognize as meaning trouble. + +"You say that all of the European officers in Jailpore have been killed?" + +"I did not count. I did not even know them all by mine or sight. +I think, though, that all were killed. I heard men among the mutineers +declare that all had been accounted for, save only three women and +a child, and me. Those four I myself had hidden, and as for myself-- +I too was accounted for, and not without credit to the Raj for whom +I fight!" + +"I believe you, Juggut Khan! Did you have to cut your way out?" + +The Rajput smiled. + +"There was a message to deliver, sahib! What would you? Should +I have waited while they arrested me?" + +"Oh! You managed to evade them, did you?" + +"At least I am here, sahib!" + +The general chewed at his mustache, leaned his chair back against +the wall and tapped at his boot with a riding-cane. + +"Tell me, Juggut Khan," he said after another minute's thought, "what +is your idea? Is this sporadic? Is this a local outbreak? Will +this die down, if left to burn itself out?" + +The Rajput laughed aloud. + +"`Sporadic,"' he answered, "is a word of which I have yet to learn +the meaning. If `sporadic' means rebellion from Peshawur to Cape +Cormorin--revolution, rape, massacre, arson, high treason, torture, +death to every European and every half-breed and every loyal native +north, south, east and west--then, yes, General sahib, `sporadic' +would be the proper word. If your Honor should mean less than that, +then some other word is needed!" + +"Then you confirm my own opinion. You are inclined to think that +this is an organized and country-wide rebellion?" + +"I know of what I speak, sahib!" + +"You don't think that you are being influenced in your opinion by +the fact that you have seen a massacre, and have lost everything +you had?" + +"Nay, sahib! This is no hour for joking, or for bearing of false +tidings. I tell you, up, sahib! Boots and saddles! Strike!" + +The general chewed at his mustache another minute. + +"You know this province well?" he asked. + +"None better than I. I have traversed every yard of it, attending +to my business." + +"And your business is?" + +"Each to his trade, sahib. My trade is honorable." + +"I have good reasons for asking, and no impertinence is meant. Be +good enough to tell me. I wish to know what value I may place on +your opinion." + +"Sahib, I am a full sergeant of the Rajput Horse retired. I bear +one medal." + +"And--" + +"I sell charms, sahib." + +"What sort of charms?" + +"All sorts. But principally charms against the evil eye, and the +red sickness, and death by violence. But, also love-charms now and +then, and now and then a death-charm to a man who has an enemy and +lacks swordsmanship or courage. I trade with each and every man, +sahib, and listen to the talk of each, and hold my tongue!" + +"Strange trade for a soldier, isn't it?" + +"Would you have me a robber, sahib? Or shall I sweep the streets-- +I, who have led a troop before now? Nay, sahib! A soldier can fight, +and can do little else. When the day comes that the Raj has no more +need of him--or thinks that it has no more need of him--he must either +starve or become a prophet. And his own home is no place for a prophet +who would turn his prophesying into silver coin!" + +"Ah! Well-now, tell me! What is your opinion, without reference +to what anybody else may think? You have just seen the massacre +at Jailpore, and you know how many men I have here. And you know +the condition of the road and the number of the mutineers. Would +you, if you were in my place, strike at Jailpore immediately?" + +"Nay, sahib. That I would not. I would strike north. And I would +strike so swiftly that the mutineers would wonder whence I came. +In Jailpore, all is over. They have done the harm, and they are +in charge there. They have the powder-magazine in their possession, +and the stands of arms, and the first advantage. Leave them there, +then, sahib, and strike where you are not expected. In Jailpore +you would be out of touch. You would have just that many more miles +to march when the time comes--and it has come, sahib!--to join forces +with the next command, and hit hard at the heart of things." + +"And the heart of things is--" + +"Delhi!" + +"You display a quite amazing knowledge of the game." + +"I am a soldier, sahib!" + +"You would leave Jailpore, then, to its fate?" + +"Jailpore has already met its fate, sahib. The barracks are afire, +and the city has been given over to be looted. Reckon no more with +Jailpore! Reckon only of the others. Listen, sahib! Has any message +come from the next command? No? Then why? Think you that even a +local outbreak could occur without some message being sent to you, +and to the next division south of you? Why has no message come? +Where is the next command? The next command north? Harumpore? +Then why is there no news from Harumpore? I will tell you, sahib." + +"You mean, I suppose, that the country is up, in between?" + +"You know that it is up, sahib!" + +"You think that no message could get through to me?" + +"I know that it could not! Else had one already come. My advice +to you, sahib, as one soldier to another and tendered with all respect, +is to up and leave this Bholat. Here, of what use are you? Here +you can hold a small city, until the countryside has time to rise +and lay siege to you and hem you in! Outside of here, you can be +a hornet-storm! They will burn Bholat behind you. Let them! Let +them, too, pay the price. Swoop down on Harumpore, sahib--join there +with Kendrick sahib's command. There make a fresh plan, and swoop +down on some other place. But move, quickly, and keep on moving! +And waste no time on places that are already lost." + +"Then you would have me leave those women and that child, that you +tell me of to their fate?" + +"Nay, sahib! I am not of your command. I have done my duty to the +Raj, and I now go about my own business." + +"And that is?" + +"To repay a debt that I owe the Raj, sahib!" + +"Your answers are rather unnecessarily evasive, Juggut Khan. Be +good enough to explain yourself!" + +"I ride back to Jailpore, sahib. I would have stayed there, but +it seemed right and soldierly to bring through the news first. Now, +I return to do what I may to rescue those whom I hid there. I owe +that to the Raj!" + +"You mean that you will ride alone?" + +"At least half of the distance, sahib. I had a favor to ask." + +"Well?" + +"Are you marching north, sahib?" + +"I have not determined yet." + +"Determined, sahib! This is no hour for dallying! Give orders now! +Up! Strike, sahib! Listen! Should you march on Jailpore, the +mutineers, who far outnumber you, will learn beforehand of your coming, +and will put the place in a state of defense. It may take you weeks +to fight your way in! Leave Jailpore, and those who are left in it +to me, and lend me that non-commissioned officer of yours who guards +the crossroads, and his twelve men. With a few, we can manage what +a whole division might fail to do. And you march north, sahib, and +burn and harry and slay! Strike quickly, where the trouble is yet +brewing, and not where the day is lost already!" + +It was case of the British power in India on one side of the scale, +against three women and a child on the other; sentiment in the +balance against strategy. And strategy must win, especially since +this Rajput was offering his services. + +"What are their names, you say?" + +"Mrs. Leslie, wife of Captain Leslie; Mrs. Standish, wife of Colonel +Standish and mother of Mrs. Leslie; Mrs. Leslie's child--I know not +his name, he is but a child in arms--and the child's nurse." + +The general still found it difficult to make up his mind. + +"What proof have I of you?" he asked. + +"Sahib, my honor is in question! I have a debt to pay!" + +"What debt?" + +"To the Raj." + +"To the Raj?" + +"Aye, Sahib! I have but one son, and his life was saved for me by +a British soldier. A life for a life. Four lives for a life. I ride! +I need, though, a fresh horse. And I ask for the loan of that sergeant, +and those twelve men." + +"I wonder whether a man such as you can realize exactly what it means +to us to know that white women are in Jailpore, at the mercy of black +mutineers? I mean, are you sufficiently aware of the extreme horror +of the situation?" + +"Knew you Captain Collins Sahib, of the Jailpore command?" + +"Know him well." + +"Knew you his memsahib?" + +"She was a niece of mine." + +"I slew her myself, with this sword!" + +"When? Why?" + +"Yesterday. Because her husband could not get to her himself, and +since he and I knew each other, and he trusted me. I said to her, +`Memsahib! I have your husband's orders!' She asked me `What orders, +Juggut Khan?' I said, `Why ask me, memsahib? Is my task easier, +or yours?' She said `Obey your orders, Juggut Khan, and accept my +thanks now, since I shall be unable to thank you afterward!' And +then she looked me bravely in the face, and met her death, sahib. +Of a truth I know! I am to be trusted!" + +"I believe you, Juggut Khan. And, incidentally, I beg your pardon +for having doubted you. Have you slept ?" + +"Nay, Sahib. And I sleep not on this side of the crossroads!" + +"I don't place Sergeant Brown under your command--you'll understand +that's impossible--but, it's quite impossible for him to catch me up. +He may as well cooperate with you. Wait." He paused, and wrote, then +continued, "Here is a note to him, in which I order him to work with +you, and to take your advice whenever possible. Go to the stables, +and choose any horse you like except my first charger. Here--here +is money; you may need some. Count that, will you. How much is it? +Four hundred rupees? Write out a receipt for it. Now, good luck +to you, Juggut Khan. And if you should get through alive--I'll pay +you the compliment of admitting that you won't come through without +the women, and I know that Brown won't--if you should have luck, and +should happen to get through, why, look for me at Harumpore, or elsewhere +to the northward of it. I start with my division in an hour." + +"Salaam, sahib!" said Rajput, rising and standing at the salute. + +"Salaam, Juggut Khan! Take any food, or drink, or clothing that +you want. Good-by, and your good luck ride with you. I feel like +a murderer, but I know I've done the best that can be done!" + + + + +VI. + +Now if Sergeant Brown possessed a sweetheart, and the sweetheart lived +in England, and if Brown still loved her--as has already been more +than hinted at--it is not at all unreasonable to wonder why he had +no likeness of her, no news of her, nothing but her memory around +which to weave the woof of sentiment--at least, it's not unreasonable +so to wonder in this late year of grace. + +Then, though, in 1857, when a newspaper cost threepence or thereabouts, +and schools were so far from being free that only the sons of gentlemen +(and seldom the daughters of even gentlemen, remember) attended them, +the art of reading was not so common as it now is. Writing was still +more uncommon. And it has not been pretended that Brown was other +than a commoner. He was a stiff-backed man, and honest. And the +pride that had raised him to the rank of sergeant was even stiffer +than his stock. But he came from the ranks that owned no vote, nor +little else, in those days, and he owned a sweetheart of the same +rank as himself, who could neither read nor write. And when people +whose somewhat primitive ideas on right and wrong lead them to look +on daguerreotypes as works of the devil happen too to be living more +than five thousand miles apart, when one of the two can not write, +nor readily afford the cost of postage, and when the other is nearly +always on the move from post to post, it is not exactly to be wondered +at that memory of each other was all they had to dwell upon. + +A journey to India in '57 meant, to the rank and file, oblivion and +worse. There were men then, of course, just as there are now, who +would leave a girl behind them tied fast by a promise of futile and +endless devotion; men who knew what the girls did not know--that +India was all but inaccessible to any one outside of government employ, +and that a common soldier's chance of sending for his girl, or of +coming home again to claim her, was something in the neighborhood +of one in thirty thousand. + +But there were other men, like William Brown, who were a shade too +honest and too stiff-chinned to buckle under to the social conditions +of England in those days, and who were consequently not exactly pestered +with offers of employment. And a man who could see the difference +between doffing his ragged cap to a dissolute squire or parson, and +saluting his better on parade, could also see the selfishness of +leaving an honest girl to languish for him. Brown could not get a +living in England. So he told his girl to get a better man, swung +his canvas bag across his shoulder and marched away. + +"What kind of a man is a better man than Bill?" she had wondered. +Men like Bill seem to have a knack of judging character, and of picking +girls who are as steadfast as themselves. So it is not to be wondered +at that almost before her tears were dry she had set about attempting +what few women of her type and time would have dreamed of. If Bill +had set her free, she reasoned, Bill had no more authority over her, +and she might do exactly what she chose. Bill could release, but +he could not make her take another man. So, for all that the local +yeomen, and local tradesmen even, haunted the little cottage on the +Downs, and pestered her with their attentions, no one supplanted Bill. + +Bill could tell her--and had told her--that India was no country for +a white woman; that there were snakes there, and black men and tigers +and even worse. But, since he had set her free, if she could manage +it she was quite at liberty to brave the tigers and the snakes. And, +once there, she would see whether she was free or not, and whether +Bill was, either! + +It took Bill Brown six years of constant honest effort to become a +sergeant. It took Jane Emmett six weeks of pride-consuming and +vexatious vigilance to procure for herself a job as nurse in a soldier- +family. And it took her six more years of unremitting diligence, +sweetened by all the attributes that seem desirable when nursing other +people's children and embittered by the shame of grudging patronage, +before she was considered dependable enough to be recommended for +the service of a family just leaving for Bengal. Then, however, her +world was a real world again! + +Five months on a sailing-ship around the Cape--deep-laden, gunwales +awash in a beam--on Bay-of-Biscay "snorer," hove-to for a week off +Cape Agul--has, while the clumsy brigantine rolled the masts loose +in her, all but dismasted in a typhoon come astray from the China +Sea, fed on moldy bread, and even moldier pork, with a fretful child +to nurse, and an exacting mother to be pleased! Jane Emmett laughed +at it. Bill had been there before her, and had done more on his +way, and worse Bengal did not frighten her. Nor did the knowledge, +when she reached it, that Bill was very likely still some hundreds +of miles away. She, who had come five thousand miles as the crows +are said to fly and nine thousand by the map, could manage the odd +hundreds. And she could wait. She had waited six long years. What +was another month or two? + +She had not even a notion where Bill was, beyond a vague one that +he belonged to another province. For when the Honorable East India +Company was muddling the affairs of India, the honors and emoluments +and privileges--such as they were!--were reserved for the benefit +of the commissioned ranks. + +So a transfer to Jailpore did not mean to Jane Emmett ten extra degrees +of heat, the neighborhood of jungle-fever and a brand-new breed of +smells. Those disadvantages, which weighted down the souls of her +employers, were completely overshadowed, so far as she was concerned, +by the knowledge that she was traveling nearer by a hundred leagues +or so to where her Bill was stationed. She was going west; and +somewhere to the west was Bill. Anything was good--fever, and prickly +heat, and smells included--that brought her any nearer him. + +There would be no sense in endeavoring to analyze her sensations +when the sudden outburst overwhelmed the inner-guard at Jailpore. +The sight of white women being butchered, and of white men with the +blood of their own women on their hands, selling their lives as dearly +as the God of War would let them in a holocaust of flames, blinded +her. It was probably just a splurge of fire and noise and smoke +and blood in her memory, with one or two details standing out. The +only real sensation that she felt--even when a tall, lean Rajput +flung her across his shoulder, ran with her and dropped her down +through a square hole into stifling darkness--was a longing for Bill +Brown, her Bill, the one man in the world who could surely stop the +butchery. + +The others prayed. But she refused to pray. She felt angry--not +prayerful! Had she come nine thousand miles, and sacrificed six good +years of youth and youth's heritage, to be cast into a reeking dungeon +and left to die there in the dark? Not if Bill should know of it! +And so she changed her argument, and prayed for Bill. If only Bill +knew--straight-backed, honest, stiff-chinned, uncompromising, plain +Bill Brown. He would change things! + +"Oh, Bill! Bill! Bill!" she sobbed. "Dear God, bring Bill to me!" + + + + +VII. + +When a man knows what is out against him, and from which direction +he may look to meet death, he only needs to be a very ordinary man +to make at least a gallant showing. Gallery or no gallery to watch, +given responsibility and trained men under hire, not one man in a +thousand will fail to face death with dignity. + +But Brown knew practically nothing, and understood still less, of +what was happening. He had Juggut Khan's word for it that Jailpore +was in flames, and that all save four of its European population +had been killed. He believed that to be a probably exaggerated +statement of affairs, but he did not blink the fact that he might +expect to be overwhelmed almost without notice, and at any minute. +That was a fact which he accepted, for the sake of argument and as +a working-basis on which to build a plan of some kind--His orders +were to hold that post, and he would hold it until relieved by General +Baines or death. But there are several ways of holding a hot coal +besides the rather obvious one of sitting on it. + +It would have been a fine chance to be theatrical, had play-acting +been in his line. Many and many a full-blown general has risen to +authority and fame by means of absolutely useless gallery-play. He +believed that he would presently be relieved by General Baines, who +he felt sure would march at once on Jailpore; and had he chosen to +he could have addressed the men, have set them to throwing up defenses +and have made a nice theatrical redoubt that he could have held quite +easily with the help of nine men for a day or two. And since the +really worthwhile things go often unrewarded, but the gallery-plays +never, nobody would have blamed him had he chosen some such course +as that. + +But Brown's idea of holding down a place was to make that place a +thorn in the side of the enemy. And since he did not know who was +the enemy, or where he was, nor why he was an enemy, nor when he +would attack, he proposed to find out these things for himself +preparatory to making the said enemy as uncomfortable as his meager +resources would permit, when eked out by an honest "dogged-does-it" brain. + +He buried the three men whom Fate had seemed to value at the price +of a fakir's freedom. And, being a religious man, to whom religion +was a fact and the rest of the universe a theory, he was able to +say a full funeral service over them from memory. He said it at +the grave-end, with a lantern in his hand and one man facing him +across the grave--as the English used to drink when the Danes had +landed, each watching for the glint of steel beyond the other's shoulder. + +And, four on each side of the trench that they had dug, the remainder +knelt and faced the night each way--partly from enforced piety, and +partly because eight men back to back, with their bayonets outward +and their butts against their knees, are an awkward proposition for +an enemy. They mumbled the responses because Brown made them do it, +and they kept their eyes skinned because the night seemed full of +other eyes, and sounds. + +"And now, you men," said Brown, changing his voice to suit the nature +of his task, "you can get your sleep by fours. I don't care which +four of you goes to sleep first, but there are only two watches of +us left, and there are about four hours left to sleep in, by my +reckoning. That's two hours' sleep for each man. And we'll keep +clear of the guardroom. As I understand my orders, the important +point's the cross-roads. I'm supposed to halt every one who comes, +and to ask him his business. And that'd be impossible to do from +the guardroom here. Let this be a lesson to you men, now. In +interpretin' orders, when a point's in doubt, always look for the +meaning of the orders rather than the letter of them, obeying the +letter only when the meaning and the letter are the same thing. The +letter of our orders says the guardroom. The meaning's clear. We're +here to guard the cross-roads. We take the meaning, and let the +letter hang! + +"Besides! The way it seems to me, if there's any more trouble cooking +in this neighborhood, it's going to cook pretty fast, and it's going +to boil around that guardroom; and if we're not in the guardroom, +why, that's point number one for us! Leave the guardroom lantern +lighted, and bring out nothing but your cartridge-pouches and the +box of ammunition. Leave everything else where it lies. Quick, now." + +They obeyed him on the run, afraid to be out of his sight for a moment +even, trusting him as little children trust a nurse, and ready to +do anything so long as he would only keep them up and doing, and +not make them stay by the scene of the murders. Brown knew their +state of mind as accurately as he knew the range of their service +rifles, and he knew just how he could best keep panic from them. +He knew too, if not what was best to do, at least what he intended +doing, and he knew how he could best get them in a state to do it. + +Behind his own mind lay all the while a sense of loneliness and +hopelessness. He did not entertain the thought of failure to hold +the crossroads, and he was so certain that General Baines would come +with his division that he could almost see the advance-guard trotting +toward him down the trunk road. But there is no accounting for a +soldier's moods, and something told him--something deep down inside +him that he could neither name nor understand--that he was out now +on the adventure of a lifetime, and that the heart-cord which had +held him tight to England all these years had been cut. He felt gloomy +and dispirited, but not a man of the nine who followed him had the +slightest inkling of it. + +He halted them outside the guardroom, and bullydamned two of them +because some unimportant part of their accouterments was missing; +and he "'Tshuned" them, and stood them at ease, and "'Tshuned" them +again, until he had them jumping at the word. Then he marched them +two abreast in and out among the huts in search of any sign of native +servants. They found no sign of any one at all. Though in that +black darkness it would have been quite possible for half a hundred +men to lie undetected. Brown decided that the camp was empty. He +thought it probable that any one concealed there would have tried +his luck on somebody at least, at close range as he passed. + +So he marched them back to the guard-room once again, and sent two +of them in to drag out the shivering Beluchi, who had taken cover +underneath a cot and refused to come out until he was dragged out +by the leg. The native's terror served to pull the men together +quite a little, for Tommy Atkins always does and always did behave +himself with pride when what he is pleased to consider his inferiors +are anywhere about. They showed that unfortunate Beluchi how white +men marched into the darkness--best foot foremost; without halt +or hesitation, when ghosts or murderers or unseen marksmen were close +at hand. + +The Beluchi let himself be dragged, trembling, between two of them. +It was he who first saw something move, or heard some one breathe. +For he was absolutely on edge, and had nothing to attend to but his +own fear. The others had to keep both eyes and ears lifting, to please +Brown the exacting. The Beluchi struggled and held back, almost breaking +loose, and actually tearing his loin-cloth. + +"Sahib!" he whispered hoarsely. "Sahib!" + +"What is it?" demanded Brown, scarcely waiting for an answer, though. +Something told him what it was that moved, and his own skin felt +goose-fleshy from neck to heel. + +"The fakir, sahib!" + +There was a murmur through the ranks, a sibilant indrawing of the breath. + +"Did I hear anybody swear?" asked Brown. + +Nobody answered him. All nine men stood stock-still, leaning on +their rifles, their heads craned forward and their eyes strained +in the direction of the gloomy baobab. + +"Form single rank!" commanded Brown. + +There was no response. They stood there fixed like a row of chickens +staring at a snake! + +"Form single rank!" + +He leaped at them, and broke the first rule of the service--as a man +may when he is man enough, and the alternative would be black shame. + +His fist was a hard one and heavy, and they felt the weight of it. + +"Form single rank! Take one pace open order! Extend! Now, forward-- +by the right! Right dress, there!" + +He marched in front of them, and they followed him for very shame, +now that he had broken their paralysis. + +"Halt! Port-arms! Charge bayonets!" + +He was peering at something in the dark, something that chuckled +and smelled horrible, and sat unusually still for anything that lived. + +"Numbers One, Two, Three--left wheel--forward! Halt! Numbers Seven, +Eight, Nine--right wheel--forward! Halt!" + +They were standing now on three sides of a square. The fourth side +was the trunk of the baobab. Between them and the trunk, the streaming +tendrils swayed and swung, bats flitted and something still invisible +sat still and chuckled. + +"One pace forward--march!" + +They could see now. The fakir sat and stared at them and grinned. +Brown raised the lamp and let its rays fall on him. The light glinted +off his eyes, and off the only other part of him that shone--the long, +curved, ghastly fingernails that had grown through the palm of his +upstretched hand. + +"How did you get here?" demanded Brown, not afraid to speak, for fear +that fright would take possession of himself as well as of his men, +but quite well aware that the fakir would not answer him. Then he +remembered the Beluchi. + +"Ask him, you! Ask him how he came here." + +The Beluchi found his tongue, and stammered out a question. The +fakir chuckled, and following his chuckle let a guttural remark +escape him. + +"He says, sahib, that he flew!" + +"Ask him, could he fly with nine fixed bayonets in him!" + +There was a little laughter from the men at that sally. It takes +very little in the way of humor to dispel a sense of the uncanny +or mysterious. + +"He answers, sahib, that you have seen what comes of striking him. +He asks how many dead there be." + +"Does he want me to hold him answerable for those men's lives?" + +"He says he cares not, sahib! He says that he has promised what shall +befall you, sahib, before a day is past--you and one other!" + +"Ask him, where is the Punjabi skin-buyer?" + +The fakir chuckled at that question, and let out suddenly a long, +low, hollow-sounding howl, like a she-wolf's just at sundown. He +was answered by another howl from near the guardroom, and every soldier +faced about as though a wasp had stung him. + +"Front!" commanded Brown. "Now, one of you, about turn! Keep watch +that way! Is that the Punjabi?--ask him." + +"He says 'Yes!' sahib. He and others!" + +"Very well. Now tell him that unless he obeys my orders on the jump, +word for word as I give them, I'll hang him as high as Haman by that +withered arm of his, and have him beaten on the toenails with a +cleaning-rod before I fill him so full of bayonet-holes that the +vultures'll take him for a sponge! Say I'm a man of my word, and +don't exaggerate." + +The Beluchi translated. + +"He says you dare not, sahib!" + +"Advise him to talk sense." + +"He says, sahib, `You have had one lesson!"' + +"Now it's my turn to give him one. Men! We'll have to give up that +sleep I talked about. This limping dummy of a fakir thinks he's got +us frightened, and we've got to teach him different. There's some +reason why we're not being attacked as yet. There's something fishy +going on, and this swab's at the bottom of it! We want him, too, +on a charge of murder, or instigating murder, and the guardroom's +the best place for him. To the guardroom with him. He'll do for +a hostage anyhow. And where he is, I've a notion that the control +of this treachery won't be far away! Grab him below the arms and +by the legs. One of you hold a bayonet-point against his ribs. +The rest, face each way on guard. Now--all together, forward to +the guardroom--march!" + +The fakir howled. Ululating howls replied from the surrounding night, +and once a red light showed for a second and disappeared in front +of them. Then the fakir howled again. + +"Look, sahib! See! The guardroom!" + +It was the Beluchi who saw it first--the one who was most afraid of +things in general and the least afraid of Sergeant Brown. A little +flame had started in the thatch. + +"Halt!" ordered Brown. "Two of you hold the fakir! The remainder-- +volley-firing--kneeling--point-blank-range. Ready--as you were-- +independent firing--ready! Now, wait till you see 'em in the firelight, +then blaze away all you like!" + +His last words were cut off short by the sound of rifle-fire. Each +rifle in turn barked out, and three rifles answered from the night. + +"Let that fakir feel a bayonet-point, somebody!" + +The fakir cursed between his teeth, in proof of prompt obedience +by one of the men who held him. + +"Tell him to order his crowd to cease fire!" + +The Beluchi translated, and the fakir howled again. The flames leaped +through the thatch, and in a minute more the countryside was lit +for half a mile or more by the glare of the burning guardroom. + +The flames betrayed more than a hundred turbaned men, who hugged the +shadows. + +"Keep that bayonet-point against his ribs. See? That comes o' moving +instead o' sitting still! If we'd shut ourselves in the guardroom +there, we'd have been merrily roasting in there now! We stole a march +on them. Beauty here was sitting on his throne to see the fun. Didn't +expect us. Thought we'd be all hiding under the beds, like Sidiki +here! Goes to prove the worst thing that a soldier can do is to sit +still when there's trouble. We're better off than ever. We're free +and they won't dare do much to us as long as we've got Sacred-Smells- +and-Stinks in charge. Form up round him, men, and keep your eyes +skinned till morning!" + + + + +VIII. + +Of course, discussing matters in the light of history, with full +and intimate knowledge of everything that had a bearing on the Mutiny, +there are plenty of club-armchair critics who maintain that England +could not do otherwise than win in '57. They always do say that +afterward of the side that won the day. + +But then, with history yet to make, things looked very different, +and nobody pretended that there was any certainty of anything except +a victory for the mutineers. All that either side recognized as +likely to reverse conditions was the notorious ability that a beaten +and cornered British army has for upsetting certainties. So the +rebels had more than a little argument as to what steps should be +taken next, once the initial butchery and loot had taken place. + +For instance, in Jailpore + +More than a hundred fakirs and wandering priests and mendicants had +sent in word that the province from end to end was ready, and that +the British slept. But there were those in Jailpore who distrusted +fakirs and religious votaries of every kind. They believed them +fully capable of rousing the countryside, of working on the religious +feelings of the unsophisticated rustics and setting them to murdering +and plundering right and left. But they doubted their ability to +judge of the army's sleepiness. These doubters were the older men, +who had had experience of England's craft in war. They knew of the +ability of some at least of England's generals to match guile against +guile, and back up guile with swift, unexpected hammer-strokes. + +There were men who claimed that what had happened in Jailpore would +be repeated in Bholat and elsewhere. There was no need, these maintained, +to march and join hands with other rebels. Each unit was sufficient +to itself. Each city would be a British funeral pyre. Why march? + +Some said, "The general at Bholat will learn of the massacre, and +will learn too, that not quite all were killed. He will come hotfoot +to find the four we could not find. For these British are as cobras; +slay the he cobra and the she one comes to seek revenge. Slay the +she one and beware! Her husband will track thee down, and strike +thee. They are not ordinary folk!" + +There were other factions that maintained that General Baines was +strong enough, with his three thousand, to hold Bholat, unless the +men of Jailpore marched, to join hands with the Bholatis--who were +surely in revolt by this time. There were others who declared that +he would leave Bholat and Jailpore to their fates without any doubt +at all, and would march to join hands with the nearest contingent, +at Harumpore. + +The bolder spirits of this latter faction were for setting off at +once to prevent this combination. For a little while their arguments +almost prevailed. + +But another faction yet, and an even more numerous one, insisted +it were best to wait for news from other centers. + +Why march, they argued, why strike, why run unnecessary risks, before +they knew what was happening elsewhere? + +"Surely," these argued, "the English will hear that four here are +still unaccounted for. Some attempt will be made to find and rescue +them. But if we find and slay them, and send their heads to Bholat, +then will the English know that they are indeed dead. Then there +will be no attempt at rescue, and we shall hold Jailpore unmolested +as headquarters." + +That piece of logic won the day for a while, and parties were made +up to explore the place, and search in every nook and cranny for the +three women. and a child who surely had not passed out through any +of the gates, and who were therefore just as surely in the city. +A reward was offered by the committee of rebel-leaders and, although +nobody believed that the reward would actually be paid, the opportunities +for looting privately while searching were so great that the search +was thorough. + +It failed, though, for the very simple reason that nobody suspected +that the huge stone trap-door in the floor of the powder-magazine +had ever been opened, or ever could be opened. The magazine had +been a white man's watch. White men had kept guard over it for more +than a hundred years, and the natives had forgotten that a maze of +tunnels and caverns lay beneath it. + +So, while bayonet-points and swords were pushed into crevices, while +smoke was sent down passages and tunnels and great, loose-limbed, +slobbering hounds were led on the leash and cast to find a trail, +the three women and the child lay still beneath the piled-up powder, +and doled out water, and biscuit in siege-time measures. They lay +in pitch-darkness, in a vault where not even a sound could reach them, +except the whispered echo of their own voices and the scampering of +the rats. They were growing nearly blind, and nearly crazed, with +the darkness and the silence and the fear. + +Every second they expected to see daylight through the cracks above, +as rebels levered up the door, or to hear feet and voices coming through +the vaults below, for doubtless the vaults led somewhere. But for +their fear of snakes and rats and unknown horrors, they would have +tried to find a way through the vaults themselves. But as each movement +that they made, and each word that they spoke, sent echoes reverberating +through the gloom, they lay still and shuddered. + +Once they heard footsteps on the stone flags overhead. But the footsteps +went away again, and then all was still. Soon they lost all count +of time. They were only aware of heat and discomfort and fear and +utter weariness. + +One woman and an infant wept. One woman prayed aloud incessantly. +The third woman--the menial, the worst educated and least enlightened +of the three, according to the others' notion of it--stubbornly refused +to admit that there was not some human means of rescue. + +"If Bill were here," she kept on grumbling, "Bill'd find a way!" + +And in the darkness that surrounded her she felt that she could see +Bill's face, as she remembered it--red-cheeked and clean-shaven--six +years or more ago. + + + + +IX. + +The blazing roof of the guardroom lit up even the crossroads for a +while, and Brown and his men could see that for the present there +was a good wide open space between them and the enemy. The firelight +showed a tree not far from the crossroads, and since anything is cover +to men who are surrounded and outnumbered, they made for that tree +with one accord, and without a word from Brown. + +"We've all the luck," said Brown. "There's not a detachment of any +other army in the world would walk straight on to a find like this!" + +He held up one frayed end of a manila rope, that was wound around +the tree-trunk. Some tethered ox had rendered them that service. + +"Fifty feet of good manila, and a fakir that needs hanging! Anybody +see the connection?" + +There was a chorus of ready laughter, and the two men who had the +unenviable task of carrying the fakir picked him up and tossed him +to the tree-trunk. The roof of the guardhouse was blazing fiercely, +and now they had fired the other roofs. The fakir, the tree and the +little bunch of men who held him prisoner were as plainly visible +as though it had been daytime. A bullet pinged past Brown's ear, +and buried itself in the tree-trunk with a thud. + +"Let him feel that bayonet again!" said Brown. + +A rifleman obeyed, and the fakir howled aloud. An answering howl +from somewhere beyond the dancing shadows told that the fakir had +been understood. + +"And now," said Brown, paraphrasing the well-remembered wording of +the drill-book, in another effort to get his men to laughing again, +"when hanging a fakir by numbers--at the word one, place the noose +smartly round the fakir's neck. At the word two, the right-hand +man takes the bight of the rope in the hollow of his left hand, and +climbs the tree, waiting on the first branch suitable for the last +sound of the word three. At the last sound of the word three, he +slips the rope smartly over the bough of the tree and descends smartly +to the ground, landing on the balls of his feet and coming to attention. +At the word four, the remainder seize the loose end of the rope, +being careful to hold it in such a way that the fakir has a chance +to breathe. And at the last sound of the word five, you haul all +together, lifting the fakir off the ground, and keeping him so until +ordered to release. Now--one!" + +He had tied a noose while he was speaking, and the fakir had watched +him with eyes that blazed with hate. A soldier seized the noose, +and slipped it over the fakir's head. + +"Two!" + +The tree was an easy one to climb. "Two" and "three" were the work +of not more than a minute. + +"Four!" commanded Brown, and the rope drew tight across the bough. +The fakir had to strain his chin upward in order to draw his breath. + +"Steady, now!" + +The men were lined out in single file, each with his two hands on +the rope. Not half of them were really needed to lift such a wizened +load as the fakir, but Brown was doing nothing without thought, and +wasting not an effort. He wanted each man to be occupied, and even +amused. He wanted the audience, whom he could not see, but who he +knew were all around him in the shadows, to get a full view of what +was happening. They might not have seen so clearly, had he allowed +one-half of the men to be lookers-on. + +"Steady!" he repeated. "Be sure and let him breathe, until I give +the word." Then he seized the cowering Beluchi by the neck, and +dragged him up close beside the fakir. "Translate, you!" he ordered. +"To the crowd out yonder first. Shout to 'em, and be careful to +make no mistakes." + +"Speak, then, sahib! What shall I say?" + +"Say this. This most sacred person here is our prisoner. He will +die the moment any one attempts to rescue him." + +The Beluchi translated, and repeated word for word. + +"I will now talk with him, and he himself will talk with you, and +thus we will come to an arrangement!"' + +There was a commotion in the shadows, and somewhere in the neighborhood +of fifty men appeared, keeping at a safe distance still, but evidently +anxious to get nearer. + +"Now talk to the fakir, and not so loudly! Ask him `Are you a sacred +person?' Ask him softly, now!" + +"He says `Yes,' sahib, `I am sacred!"' + +"Do you want to die?" + +"All men must die!" + +The answer made an opening for an interminable discussion, of the +kind that fakirs and their kindred love. But Brown was not bent +just then on dissertation. He changed his tactics. + +"Do you want to die, a little slowly, before all those obedient +worshipers of yours, and in such a way that they will see and understand +that you can not help yourself, and therefore are a fraud?" + +The Beluchi repeated the question in the guttural tongue that apparently +the fakir best understood. In the fitful light cast by the burning +roofs, it was evident that the fakir had been touched in the one weak +spot of his armor. + +There can scarcely be more than one reason why a man should torture +himself and starve himself and maim and desecrate and horribly defile +himself. At first sight, the reason sounds improbable, but consideration +will confirm it. It is vanity, of an iron-bound kind, that makes +the wandering fakir. + +"Ask him again!" said Brown. + +But again the fakir did not answer. + +"Tell him that I'm going to let him save his face, provided he saves +mine. Explain that I, too, have men who think I am something more +than human!" + +The Beluchi interpreted, and Brown thought that the fakir's eyes +gleamed with something rather more than their ordinary baleful light. +It might have been the dancing flames that lit them, but Brown thought +he saw the dawn of reason. + +"Say that if I let my men kill him, my men will believe me superhuman, +and his men will know that he is only a man with a withered arm! +But tell him this: He's got the best chance he ever had to perform +a miracle, and have the whole of this province believe in him +forevermore." + +Again the fakir's eyes took on a keener than usual glare, as he listened +to the Beluchi. He did not nod, though, and he made no other sign, +beyond the involuntary evidence of understanding that his eyes betrayed. + +"His men can see that noose round his neck, tell him. And his men +know me, more or less, and British methods anyhow. They believe now, +they're sure, they're positive that his neck's got about as much chance +of escaping from that noose as a blind cow has of running from a tiger. +Now then! Tell him this. Let him come the heavy fakir all he likes. +Tell him to tell his gang that he's going to give an order. Let +him tell them that when he says 'Hookum hai!' my men'll loose his +neck straight away, and fall down flat. Only, first of all he's got +to tell them that he needs us for the present. Let him say that +he's got an extra-special awful death in store for us by and by, +and that he's going to keep us by him until he's ready to work the +miracle. Meantime, nobody's to touch us, or come near us, except +to bring him and us food!" + +The fakir listened, and said nothing. At a sign from Brown the rope +tightened just a little. The fakir raised his chin. + +"And tell him that, if he doesn't do what I say, and exactly what +I say, and do it now, he's got just so long to live as it takes a +man to choke his soul out!" + +The fakir answered nothing. + +"Just ever such a wee bit tighter, men!" + +The fakir lost his balance, and had to scramble to his feet and stand +there swaying on his heels, clutching at the rope above him with his +one uninjured hand, and sawing upward with his head for air. There +came a murmur from the shadows, and a dozen breech-bolts clicked. +There seemed no disposition to lie idle while the holiest thing in +a temple-ridden province dangled in mid-air. + +"In case of a rush," said Brown quietly, "all but two of you let go! +The remainder seize your rifles and fire independently. The two +men on the rope, haul taut, and make fast to the tree-trunk. This +tree's as good a place to die as anywhere, but he dies first! +Understand?" + +The fakir rolled his eyes, and tried to make some sort of signal +with his free arm. + +"Just a wee shade tighter!" ordered Brown. "I'm not sure, but I +think he's seeing reason!" + +The fakir gurgled. No one but a native, and he a wise one, could +have recognized a meaning in the guttural gasp that he let escape him. + +"He says `All right! sahib!' " translated the Beluchi. + +"Good!" said Brown. "Ease away on the rope; men! And now! You +all heard what I told him. If he says `Hookum hai!' you all let go +the rope, and fall flat. But keep hold of your rifles!" + +The fakir's voice, rose in a high-pitched, nasal wail, and from the +darkness all around them there came an answering murmur that was like +the whispering of wind through trees. By the sound, there must have +been a crowd of more than a hundred there, and either the crowd was +sneaking around them to surround them at close quarters, or else the +crowd was growing. + +"Keep awake, men!" cautioned Brown. + +"Aye, aye, sir! All awake, sir!" + +"Listen, now! And if he says one word except what I told him he +might say, tip me the wink at once " + +Brown swung the Beluchi out in front of him where he could hear the +fakir better. + +"I'll hang you, remember, after I've hanged him, if anything goes +wrong!" + +"He is saying, sahib, exactly what you said." + +"He'd better! Listen now! Listen carefully! Look out for tricks!" + +The fakir paused a second from his high-pitched monologue, and a murmur +from the darkness answered him. + +"Stand by to haul tight, you men!" + +"All ready, sir!" + +The rope tightened just a little--just sufficiently to keep the fakir +cognizant of its position. The fakir howled out a sort of singsong +dirge, which plainly had imperatives in every line of it. At each +short pause for breath he added something in an undertone that made +the Beluchi strain his ears. + +"He says, sahib, that they understand. He says, `Now is the time!' +He says now he will order `Hookum hai!' He says, `Are you ready?' +He says, sahib,--he says it, sahib,--not I--he says, 'Thou art a +fool to stare thus! Thou and thy men are fools! Stare, instead, +as men who are bewitched!'" + +"Try to look like boiled owls, to oblige his Highness, men!" said +Brown. "Now, that's better; watch for the word! Easy on the rope +a little!" + +The men did their best to pose for the part of semimesmerized victims +of a superhuman power. The flame from the burning roofs was dying +down already, for the thatch burned fast, and the glowing gloom was +deep enough to hide indifferent acting. With their lives at stake, +though, men act better than they might at other times. + +The fakir spun round on his heels and, clutching with his whole hand +at the rope, began to execute a sort of dance--a weird, fantastic, +horrible affair of quivering limbs and rolling eyeballs, topped by +a withered arm that pointed upward, and a tortured fingernail-pierced +fist that nodded on a dried-out-wrist-joint. + +"Hookum hai!" he screamed suddenly, waving his sound hand upward, +and bringing it down suddenly with a jerk, as though by sheer force +he was blasting them. + +"Down with you!" ordered Brown, and all except Brown and the Beluchi +tumbled over backward. + +"Keep hold of your rifles!" ordered Brown. + +The fakir's wailing continued for a while. With his own hand he took +the noose from his neck and, now that the flames had died away to +nothing but spasmodic spurts above a dull red underglow, there was +no one in the watching ring who could see Brown's sword-point. Only +Brown and the fakir knew that it was scratching at the skin between +the fakir's shoulder-blades. + +"It is done!" said the fakir presently. "Now take me back to my dais +again!" And the Beluchi translated. + +"I'd like to hear their trigger-springs released," suggested Brown. +"This has all been a shade too slick for me. I've got my doubts yet +about it's being done. Tell him to order them to uncock their rifles, +so that I can hear them do it." + +"He says that they are gone already!" translated the Beluchi. + +"Tell him I don't believe it!" answered Brown, whose eyes were straining +to pierce the darkness, which was blacker than the pit again by now. + +The fakir raised his voice into a howl--a long, low, ululating howl +like that he had uttered when they found him on his dais. From the +distance, beyond the range of rifles, came a hundred answering howls. +The fakir waited, and a minute later a hundred howls were raised +again, this time from an even greater distance. + +Then he spoke. + +"He says that they are gone," translated the Beluchi. "He says he +will go back to his dais again." + +"'Tshun!" ordered Brown. "Now, men, just because we've saved our +skins so far is no reason why we should neglect precautions. We're +going to put this imitation angel back on his throne again, so the +same two carry him that brought him here. There's no sense in giving +two more men the itch, and all the other ailments the brute suffers +from! Form up round him, the rest. Take open order--say two paces-- +and go slow. Feel your way with your fixed bayonet, and don't take +a step in the dark until you're sure where it will lead you. Forward- +march! One of you bring that rope along." + +The weird procession crawled and crept and sidled back to where it +had started from not so long before--jumping at every sound, and +at every shadow that showed deeper than the coal-black night around +them. It took them fifteen minutes to recross a hundred yards. +But when they reached the earthen throne again at last, and had hoisted +the fakir back in position on it, there had been no casualties, and +the morale of the men in Sergeant Brown's command was as good again +as the breech-mechanism of the rifles in his charge. + +They were scarcely visible to him or one another in the blackness, +but he sensed the change in them, and changed his own tune to fit +the changed condition. + +His voice had nothing in it but the abrupt military explosion when +he gave his orders now--no argument, no underlying sympathy. He was +no longer herding a flock of frightened children. He was ordering +trained, grown men, and he knew it and they knew it. The orders ripped +out, like the crack of a drover's whip. + +"Fall in, now, properly! 'Tshun! Right dress! To two paces--open +order--from the center--extend! Now, then! Left and right wings-- +last three at each end forward--right wheel--halt. That's it. 'Bout +face. Now each man keep two eyes lifting till the morning. If anything +shows up, or any of you hear a sound, shoot first and challenge +afterward!" + +They were standing so when the pale sun greeted them, in hollow square, +with their backs toward the fakir, who was squatting, staring straight +in front of him, on his dais, with his back turned to the tree and +his withered arm still pointing up to heaven like a dead man's calling +to the gods for vengeance. + +A little later, Brown made each alternate man lie down and get what +sleep he could just where he was, with a comrade standing over him. +He himself slept so for a little while. But one of the men heard +something move among the hanging tendrils of the baobab, investigated +with his bayonet-point, and managed to transfix a twelve-foot python. +After that there was, not so much desire for sleep. The fakir either +slept with his eyes open or else dispensed with sleep. No one seemed +able to determine which. + +When the day grew hotter, and the utterly remorseless Indian sun bore +down on them, and on the aching desolation of the plain and the burnt- +out guardhouse, the fakir still sat unblinking, gazing straight out +in front of him, with eyes that hated but did nothing else. He seemed +to have no time nor thought nor care for anything but hate and the +expression of it. + +At noon, three little children came to him, and brought him water +in a small brass bowl, and cooked-up vegetables wrapped in some kind +of leaf. Brown let him have theirs, and bribed the frightened children +to go and bring water for the men and himself. He gave them the +unheard-of wealth of one rupee between them, and they went off with it-- +and did not come back. + +Meanwhile the fakir had drunk his water, and had poured out what +was left. He had also eaten what the children had brought him, and +suddenly, from vacant, implacable hatred, he woke up and began to +be amused. + +"Ha-ha!" he laughed at them. "Ho-ho!" And then he launched out +with a string of eloquence that Brown called on the Beluchi to translate. + +"Who said there would be thirst, and the sound of water! Is there +a thirst? Who spoke of an anthill and of hungry ants and raw red +openings in the flesh for the little ants to run in and out more easily?" + +The Beluchi translated faithfully, and the men all listened. + +"Tell him to hold his tongue!" growled Brown at last. + +"Ha-ha! Ho-ho-ho!" laughed the fakir. "The heat grows great, and +the tongues grow dry, and none bring water! Ho-ho! But I told them +that I needed these for a deadlier death than any they devised! +Ho-ho-ho-ho! Look at the little crows, how they wait in the branches! +Ha-ha-ha-ha! See how the kites come! Where are the vultures? Wait! +What speck sails in the sky there? Even the vultures come! Ho-ho-ho-ho!" + +"I hear a horse, sir!" said one of the men who watched. + +"I heard it more than a minute ago," said Brown. + +The fakir stopped his mockery, and even he listened. + +"Ask him," said Brown, "where are the men who set fire to the guardroom?" + +"He says they are in the village, waiting till he sends for them!" +said the Beluchi. + +"Keep an eye lifting, you men," ordered Brown. "This'll be a messenger +from Bholat, ten to one. Mind they don't ambush him! Watch every +way at once, and shoot at anything that moves!" + +"Clippety-clippety-clippety-cloppety--" + +The sound of a galloping horse grew nearer; a horse hard-ridden, +that was none the less sure-footed still, and going strong in spite +of sun and heat. Suddenly a foam-flecked black mare swung round a +bend between two banks, and the sun shone on a polished saber-hilt. +A turbaned Rajput rose in his stirrups, gazed left and right and then +in front of him--from the burned-out guardhouse to the baobab--drew +rein to a walk and waved his hand. + +"By all that's good and great and wonderful," said Brown aloud, "if +here's not Juggut Khan again!" + + + + +X. + +It is not easy to give any kind of real impression of India twenty-four +hours after the outbreak of the mutiny. Movement was the keynote +of the picture--stealthy, not-yet-quite-confident pack-movement on +the one hand, concentrated here and there in blood-red eddies, and, +on the other hand, swift, desperate marches in the open. + +The moment that the seriousness of the outbreak had been understood, +and the orders had gone out by galloper to "Get a move on!" each +commanding officer strained every nerve at once to strike where a +blow would have the most effect. There was no thought of anything +but action, and offensive, not defensive action. Until some one +at the head of things proved still to be alive, and had had time +to form a plan, each divisional commander acted as he saw fit. That +was all that any one was asked to do at first: to act, to strike, +to plunge in headlong where the mutiny was thickest and most dangerous, +to do anything, in fact; except sit still. + +Even with the evidence of mutiny and treachery on every side, with +red flames lighting the horizon and the stench of burning villages +on every hand, the strange Anglo-Saxon quality persisted that has +done more even that the fighting-quality to teach the English tongue +to half the world. The native servants who had not yet run away +retained their places still, unquestioned. When an Englishman has +once made up his mind to trust another man, he trusts him to the hilt, +whatever shade of brown or red or white his hide may be. + +But, since every rule has its exceptions, there were some among the +native servants, who remained ostensibly loyal to their masters, who +would better have been shot or hanged at the first suggestion of an +outbreak. For naturally a man who is trusted wrongly is far more +dangerous than one who is held in suspicion. But it never was the +slightest use endeavoring to persuade an average English officer that +his own man could be anything but loyal. He may be a thief and a +liar and a proved-up rogue in every other way; but as for fearing +to let him sleep about the house, or fearing to let him cook his +master's food, or fearing to let him carry firearms--well! Perhaps, +it is conceit, or maybe just ordinary foolishness. It is not fear! + +So, in a country where the art of poisoning has baffled analysts +since analysts have been invented, and where blood-hungry fanatic +priests, both Hindu and Mohammedan, were preaching and promising +the reward of highest heaven to all who could kill an Englishman +or die in the attempt, a native cook whose antecedents were obscured +in mystery cooked dinner for a British general, and marched with +his column to perform the same service while the general tried to +trounce the cook's friends and relatives! + +But General Baines felt perfectly at ease about his food. He never +gave a thought to it, but ate what was brought to him, sitting his +horse most likely, and chewing something as he rode among the men, +and saw that they filled their bellies properly. He had made up his +mind to march on Harumpore, and to take over the five-hundred-strong +contingent there. Then he could swoop down on any of a dozen other +points, in any one of which a blow would tell. + +He was handicapped by knowing almost too much. He had watched so +long, and had suspected for so long that some sort of rebellion was +brewing that, now that it had come, his brain was busy with the tail-ends +of a hundred scraps of plans. He was so busy wondering what might +be happening to all the other men subordinate to him, who would have +to be acting on their own initiative, that his own plans lacked +something of directness. But there was no lack of decision, and no +time was lost. The men marched, and marched their swiftest, in the +dust-laden Indian heat. And he marched with them, in among them, +and ate what the cook brought him, without a thought but for the +best interests of the government he served. + +So they buried General Baines some eighty-and-twenty miles from +Harumpore, and shot the cook. And, according to the easy Indian +theology, the cook was wafted off to paradise, while General Baines +betook himself to hell, or was betaken. But the column, three thousand +perspiring Britons strong, continued marching, loaded down with +haversacks and ammunition and resolve. + +It was met, long before the jackals had dug down to General Baines' +remains, by the advance-guard of Colonel Kendrick's column, which +was coming out of Harumpore because things were not brisk enough in +that place to keep it busy. Kendrick himself was riding with the +cavalry detachment that led the way southward. + +"Who's in command now?" he asked, for they had told him of General +Baines' death by poison. + +"I am," said a gray-haired officer who rode up at that moment. + +"I'm your senior, sir, by two years," answered Kendrick. + +"Then you command, sir." + +"Very good. Enough time's been wasted. The column can wait here +until my main body reaches us. Then we'll march at once on Jailpore. +This idea of leaving Jailpore to its fate is nonsense! The rebels +are in strength there, and they have perpetrated an abominable outrage. +There we will punish them, or else we'll all die in the attempt! +If we have to raze Jailpore to the ground, and put every man in it +to the sword before we find the four Europeans supposed to be left +alive there, our duty is none the less obvious! Here comes my column. +Tell the men to be ready to march in ten minutes." + +He turned his horse, to look through the dust at the approaching column, +but the man who had been superseded touched him on the sleeve. + +"What's that? Better have a rest? Tired out, you say? Oh! Form +them all up in hollow square, then, and I'll say a few words to them. +There are other ways of reviving a leg-weary column than by letting +it lie down." + +Ten minutes later a dull roar rose up through a steel-shot dust-cloud, +and three thousand helmets whirled upward, flashing in the sun. +Three thousand weary men had given him his answer! There was no kind +of handle to it; no reserve--nothing but generous and unconditional +allegiance unto hunger, thirst, pain, weariness, disease or death. +It takes a real commander to draw that kind of answer from a tired-out +column, but it is a kind of answer, too, that makes commanders! It +is not mere talk, on either side. It means that by some sixth sense +a strong man and his men have discovered something that is good in +each other. + + + + +XI. + +"You've made good time, friend Juggut Khan!" said Brown, advancing +to meet him where the men and the fakir and the interpreter would +not be able to Overhear. + +"Sahib, I killed one horse--the horse you looted for me--and I brought +away two from Bholat. One of them carried me more than fifty miles, +and then I changed to this one, leaving the other on the road. I +have orders for you, sahib." + +"Hand 'em over then," said Brown. "Orders first, and talk afterward, +when there's time!" + +The Rajput drew out a sealed envelope, and passed it to him. Brown +tore it open, and read the message, scowling at the half-sheet of +paper as though it were a death-sentence. + +"Where's the general?" + +"With his column-twenty or thirty miles away to the northward by now!" + +"And he's left me, with this handful, in the lurch?" + +"Nay, sahib! As I understood the orders, he has left you with a +very honorable mission to fulfil!" + +Brown stared hard at the half-sheet of notepaper again. Reading +was not his longest suit by any means, and at that he infinitely +preferred to wrestle with printed characters. + +"Have you read it, Juggut Khan?" he asked. + +"Nay, sahib. I can speak English, but not read it." + +"Then we're near to being in the same boat, we two!" said Brown with +a grin. "I'll have another try! It looks like a good-by message to +me--here's the word `good-by' written at the end above his signature." + +"There were other matters, sahib. There was an order. I can not +read, but I know what is in the message." + +"Well?" + +"You, and your twelve--" + +"Nine!" corrected Brown. + +"Three dead?" + +Brown nodded. + +"Your nine, then, sahib, and you and I are to proceed immediately +to Jailpore, and to gain an entrance if we can, rescue those whom +I concealed there and bring them to Harumpore, or to the northward +of Harumpore, wherever we can find the column." + +"Eleven men are to attempt that?" + +Brown was studying out the letter word by word, and discovering to +his amazement that its purport was exactly what Juggut Khan pretended. + +"If there are no more than eleven of us, then yes, eleven! And, sahib, +since you seem to hold at least an island here where a man may lie +down unmolested, I propose to sleep for an hour or two, before proceeding. +I have had no sleep since I left Jailpore." + +"Nothing of the sort!" said Brown. "If we're to march on Jailpore, +off we go at once! You can sleep on the road, my son! It's time +we paid a visit to that village, I'm thinking. Those treacherous +brutes need a lesson. I'd have been down there before, only I wanted +to be in full view of the road in case anybody came looking for me +from Bholat. We'll need a wagon for the fakir. You can sleep in +it too." + +"Sleep with a fakir? I? Allah! I am a Rajput, sahib! A sergeant +of the Rajput Horse, retired!" + +"I wouldn't want to sleep with him myself!" admitted Brown. "Come +and look at him. You can smell him from here, but the sight of him's +the real thing!" + +The Rajput swaggered up beside Brown, after loosening his horse's +girths and lifting the saddle for a moment. + +"He's not the only one that needs a drink!" said Brown. "We're all +dry as brick-dust here, except the fakir!" + +"He must wait a while before he drinks. Show me the fakir. Why, +Brown sahib, know you what you have there?" + +"The father of all the smells, and all the dirt and all the evil eyes +and evil tongues in Asia!" Brown hazarded. + +"More than that, sahib! That is the nameless fakir--him whom they +know as HE! Has there been no attempt made to rescue him?" + +"They rescued him once, and murdered three of my men to get him. +When they tried again, I put a halter round his neck and he and I +arranged a sort of temporary compromise." + +"And the terms of it?" + +"Oh, he's supposed to have performed a miracle. + +He made us unslip the halter, and fall down flat, and he's supposed +to be keeping us by him, by a sort of spell, so's to give us something +extra-special in the line of ghastly deaths at his own convenience. +That way, I was able to wait for news from Bholat--see?" + +"You could have captured no more important prisoner than that, sahib, +let me tell you! They believe him to be almost a god; so nearly +one that the gods themselves obey his orders now and then! It was +he, and no other, that told the men of Jailpore that he would make +them impervious to bullets. If we have him, sahib, we have the key +to Jailpore!" + +"We, have certainly got him," said Brown. "You can see him, and you +can smell him. I'll order one of the men to prick him with a bayonet, +if you want to hear him, too! I wouldn't feel him, if I were you!" + +"He must come, too, to Jailpore!" + +"Of course he comes!" + +"Then, sahib, let us move away from here to where there is water. +There let us rest until sundown, and then march, in the cool of the +evening. It will be better so. And of a truth I must sleep, or +else drop dead from weariness." + +"Does that message put you in command?" asked Brown, a trifle truculently. + +"No, sahib! But it orders you to listen to my advice whenever possible." + +"That means that you are under my orders?" + +"That letter does not say so, sahib!" + +"Very well, are you, or are you not?" + +"We are supposed to act in concert, sahib." + +"It doesn't say so in the letter! Yes, or no? Are you going to obey +orders, or aren't you? In other words, are you coming with me, or +do you stay behind?" + +"I come with you, sahib!" + +"Then you obey my orders!" + +"But the letter says--" + +"That I'm to take your advice whenever possible! I don't need advice +just at the moment, thanks! I've got orders here to march, and I'm +off at once! You can please yourself whether you come with me or +not, but if you come you come on my terms." + +"I go with you, sahib." + +"Under my orders?" + +"Yes, sahib." + +"All right, Juggut Khan. Here's my hand on it. Now, we'll swoop +down on that village, and take the fakir with us, with a halter round +his neck for the sake of argument. We'll get two bullock-carts down +there, and we'll stick him in one of them, with Sidiki the interpreter +tied to him. Sidiki won't like it, but he's only a Beluchi anyway! +You get in the other, and get all the sleep you can. You and I'll +take turns sleeping all the way to Jailpore, so's to be fresh, both +of us, and fit for anything by the time that we get there!" + +"I am ready, sahib." + +"You two men who carried old Stinkijink before, pick him up again!" +shouted Brown. "Let him feel the bayonet if he makes a noise, but +carry him gently as though you loved him. The rest--'Tshun! Form +two-deep--on the center--close order, march. Ri' dress. Eyes front. +Ri' turn. By the left--quick march." + +The Rajput strode beside Brown, wondering wearily whether it was +worth his while to offer him advice or not, and keeping his tired +eyes ever moving in the direction of the distant huts. + +"They have rifles, sahib?" he queried. + +"Lots of 'em! Three that they took from my men, among others." + +"It would not be well to march into a trap at this stage." + +"As well now as later." +"True, sahib! And my time has not come yet; I know it. Else had +I died of weariness, as my horse did." + +Brown kept rigidly to that point of view in everything he did, from +that time on until he reached Jailpore. He believed himself to be +engaged on a forlorn hope that was so close to being an absolute +impossibility as to be almost the same thing. He had no doubt whatever +in his own mind but that his own death, and the death of those with +him, was a matter now of hours, or possibly of minutes. His one +resolute determination was to die, and make the others die, in a manner +befitting their oath of service. He had orders, and he would pass +them on according to his interpretation of them. He would obey his +orders, and they theirs, and the rest was no business of his or anybody's. + +They put the fakir in a hut; where Juggut Khan--too weary for foraging-- +stood guard over him. When a crowd collected round the hut, and +Juggut Khan applied the butt of a lighted cigarette to the tender +skin between the fakir's shoulder-blades, the anxious fakir-worshipers +were told that all was well. They were to let the white soldiers +take two wagons, or three even, if they wanted them. They were to +return to their houses at once, and hide, lest the devils who would +shortly overwhelm the white men should make mistakes and include +them, too, in the whelming. He, the fakir, intended to take the +white men for a little journey along the road toward Jailpore, where +the devils who would deal with them would have no opportunity to +make mistakes. And, since the natives knew that Jailpore was a rebel +stronghold, and that ten white men and a native would have no chance +to do the slightest damage there, they chose to believe the fakir +and to obey him. + +Hindus have as stubborn and unalterable a habit of obeying and believing +their priests--when the fancy suits them--as white men of other religions +have. + +If the fakir had told them through the doorway of the hut that he +intended going with the white men in the direction of Bholat, they +would most surely have prevented him. But it suited them very well +indeed to have the white men killed elsewhere. It was not likely, +but there might be a column on its way from Bholat now; and if that +column came, and found the bones of British soldiers as well as a +burned-out guard-house, vengeance would be dire and prompt. Between +where they were and Jailpore, the white men could not possibly escape. +And at Jailpore, if not sooner, they must surely die. So they believed +the fakir, and retired to the seclusion of their houses. + +It was wonderful, of course, but no more wonderful than a thousand +other happenings in '57. All laws of probability and general average +were upset that year, when sixty thousand men held down an armed +continent. Even stranger things were happening than that two bullock- +carts should dawdle through a rebel-seething district in the direction +of a plundered, blood-soaked rebel stronghold; stranger even than +that on the foremost bullock-cart a lean and louse-infested fakir +should be squatting, guarded by British soldiers, who marched on +either hand; or that a Rajput, who could trace his birth from a +thousand-year-long line of royal chieftains, should be sleeping in +the bullock-cart behind, followed closely by a black charger with +a British saddle on its back, which ate corn from the tail-board +of the wagon; stranger things, even, than that a British sergeant +should be marching last of all, with his stern eyes roving a little +wildly but his jaw set firm and his tread as rigid and authoritative +and abrupt as though he were marching to inspect accouterments. + +In more than a dozen places, about a dozen men were holding a fort +against an army. They were using every wile and trick and dodge that +ingenuity or inspiration could provide them with, and they were mostly +contriving to hold out. But there were none who did anything more +daring or more unusual than to march to the attack of a city, with +a hostile fakir in the van, and nothing else but their eleven selves +and their rifles to assist them. There is a tremendous difference +between defending when you have to, and attacking when you might retire. + + + + +XII. + +There were many more causes than one that worked together to make +possible the entry of Brown and his little force into Jailpore. +They were brave men; they were more than brave and they held the +ace of trumps, as Brown had stated, in the person of the fakir known +as "He." But luck favored them as well, and but for luck they must +have perished half a dozen times. + +They marched the whole of the first afternoon, and met no one. They +only overtook little straggling parties of rebels, making one and +all for Jailpore, who bolted at the sight of them, imagining them +probably to be the advance-guard of a larger force. The very idiocy +of marching eleven strong through a country infested by their enemies +was in their favor. Nobody could believe that there were no more +than eleven of them. Even the English could not be such lunatics! + +That night, they rested for a while, and then went on again. During +the day following they lay in a hollow between some trees and rested, +and slept by turns. They suffered agonies from the heat, and not +a little from hunger, and once or twice they were hard put to it to +stop the Rajput's charger from neighing when a native pony passed +along the nearby road. But night came again, and with it the screen +of darkness for their strange, almost defenseless caravan. Once or +twice the fakir tried to shout an alarm to passing villagers, but +the quick and energetic application of a cleaning-rod by Brown stopped +him always in the nick of time, and they came within sight of the +battlements of Jailpore without an accident. + +Then, though, their problem became really serious, and it was a series +of circumstances altogether out of their control and not connected +with them that made their entry possible. +The mutineers in Jailpore had learned that Kendrick sahib was coming +down on them from the north by forced marches with thirty-five hundred +men or more. They were putting the place into a state of siege, +and getting ready by all means in their power to oppose him. + +Little attention was being paid to small parties of arrivals from +no man knew or cared where. And, in a final effort to find the four +who were the lure that was bringing Kendrick down on them, the city +was once more being turned upside down and inside out, and men were +even being tortured who were thought to know of hiding-places. + +With purely Eastern logic, the leaders of the rebels had decided that +the sight of the bodies of the four, writhing in their last agony +on the sun-scorched outer wall, would mightily discourage the British +when they came. So no efforts were being spared and no stones left +unturned to find them. The hooks on the wall were sharp and ready, +so that they might be impaled without loss of time in full view of +their would-be rescuers. + +Almost every secret passage of the thousand odd had been explored. +In the hurry to run through them and explore the next one, doors had +been left open here and there that had been kept closed in some instances +for centuries. + +One door in particular, placed cornerwise in a buttress of the outer +wall, was spotted by Juggut Khan as he circled round the city on +his charger at dusk on the day following their arrival. He brought +his charger back to where the others lay concealed, and then went +on an exploring-expedition on foot--to discover that the outer city +wall was like a sponge, a nest of honey-combed cells and passages +wandering interminably in the fifty-foot-thick brick and rubble rampart. + +And while he searched amid the mazy windings of the wall, Bill Brown +sat in the forked top of a tree and studied out the ground-plan of +the city. He was imprinting landmarks in his memory for future +reference, and trying--with a brain that ached from the apparent +hopelessness of the task--to figure out a plan. + +He knew by now that the four he had come to rescue were hidden underneath +the powder-magazine, and he could see the magazine itself. But he +could think of no way of rescuing them, for the city absolutely boiled +with frantic, mixed-up castes and creeds picked at random, and thrown +in at random from the whole of India. A mouse could not have passed +through the streets undetected! And yet, from a soldier's point of +view, there were certain fascinating details to be noticed about that +powder-magazine. In the first place, it had been constructed for +a granary by an emperor who never heard of Joseph, but who had the +same ideal plan for cornering the people's food-supply. And since +labor had been unlimited, and cheap, he had gone about building the +thing on the most thoroughly unpractical and most pretentious plan +that he and his architects could figure out. It was big enough to +hold about ten times as much grain as the province could grow in +any one year of plenty. And, since that was the least practical +and most ungranary-like shape, he had caused it to be built like +an enormous beehive, with a tiny platform at the top. + +Winding round and round the huge stone dome, and on the outside, was +a six-foot-wide trail, which was the elevator. Up this, each with +a sack or a basket on his head, the population was to have been induced +to run in single file, dumping its hard-won corn into the granary +through an opening at the top until the granary was full. + +The emperor died--by poison--before he could see his cherished project +put into execution, but he had been a very thorough calculator, and +a builder who believed in permanency. He had foreseen that when the +granary was full, and the screw-jacks were turned beneath the cost +of living, there would probably be efforts made by unwashed, untutored, +unenlightened mobs to rape his storehouse. So he had made the little +platform at the top a veritable fortress of a place, such as a handful +of men could hold against a hundred thousand. + +There was no known entrance to the granary above ground, except on +the ground level, where a huge stone gateway frowned above a teak- +and-iron door. Above that door there were galleries, and fortalices +and cunningly invented battlements in miniature, from behind whose +shelter a resolute defending-party could pour out a hundred different +kinds of death on a hungry crowd. The place was naturally fire-proof +and naturally cool--as far as any building can be cool in Central +India. It was a first-class, ideal powder-magazine, if useless as +a granary; and the last new conquerors of India had hastened to +adopt it as a means of storing up the explosive medicine with which +they kept their foothold. + +Naturally, none but White soldiers, and a very few of the more trusted +natives, had ever been allowed to go inside the powder-magazine. +The secret passages beneath it had never been intended for public +convenience or information. They had been designed as a means of +rushing defenders secretly into the granary, and they connected with +a tunnel underneath the palace that had just been burned. They also +connected with the outer wall in such a way that defenders from the +ramparts might be rushed there too, if wanted in a hurry. But, since +there never had been corn kept in the granary, and nobody had ever +had the slightest need to force an entrance, the knowledge even of +the existence of the passages had become barely a memory, and there +was not a man living in Jailpore who knew exactly where they began +or where they ended. There was a man outside who knew, but none inside. + +The point about the powder-magazine which most appealed to Brown--next +after his knowledge of its contents, mineral and human--was the fact +that the little platform at its summit overlooked the city-wall, +and that the side of the granary actually touched the wall on the +side of the city farthest from where he sat and spied it out. Ten +men on that protected platform, he thought, might suffer from the +sun, but they could hold the building and command a good-sized section +of the city ramparts against all comers. + +He noticed too, though that seemed immaterial at the time, that one +well-aimed shot from heavy ordnance might crash through the upper +dome and set off the powder underneath. There was no artillery that +could be brought against the place, either with the British force +or with the mutineers, but the thought set him to wondering how much +powder there might be stored on the huge round floor below, and what +would happen should it become ignited. It was a sanguinary, interesting, +subtle kind of thought, that suited the condition of his brain exactly! +He climbed down from the tree, feeling almost good-natured. + +At the bottom he met Juggut Khan, waiting for him patiently. + +"What have you seen, sahib?" he asked him. "Have you formed a plan?" + +"I've been wishing I was Joshua!" said Brown. "I'd like to make my +men march round the city and blow trumpets, and then see the walls +fall down. I can think of several things to do, if we could only +get inside. But I can't think how to get there." + +"I have found a way in!" said Juggut Khan. "I have cross-questioned +that fakir of ours as well, with a little assistance from a cleaning-rod +wielded by one of your men. He knows the way too. He says he is +the only man who knows it--in which he lies, since I too have discovered +it. But his knowledge may help as well." + +"What's that about a cleaning-rod?" asked Brown. + +"It was used on him to help him forget his vow of silence." + +"When?" + +"When you were up that tree, sahib!" + +"Have you been giving my man orders?" + +"Nay, sahib!" + +"How did he come to beat the fakir, then?" + +"We both arrived at the same conclusion at the same moment, and the +fakir received the benefit!" + +"Who held him, you?" + +"Nay, sahib! God forbid! I am a clean man. I listened to his +conversation. The Beluchi held him." + +"Oh! Well, I like you well enough, Juggut Khan, but there are things +about you that I don't like. You're too fond of doing things on your +own responsibility, and you're much too fond of using oaths. Y our +soul is none o' my business; you're a heathen anyhow, and no longer +in the Service. But, I'll trouble you not to use those disgraceful +oaths of yours in the presence of the men! Do you understand me?" + +"I understand you, sahib. If my respect for all your other qualities +were not so profound, I would laugh at you! As it is, if your honor +should see fit to turn the bullocks loose, and tie the fakir fast +between two men and follow me, it seems to me dark enough by now, +and I know the way. Might I furthermore suggest that the ammunition-box +would make a reasonable load for another two men?" + +"Hadn't we better bring our rifles too?" asked Brown sarcastically. +"Upon my honor, Juggut Khan! You're getting childish! Are your +nerves upset, or what? Lead on, man! Lead on!" + +"Listen. There are two ways, sahib. One way leads from the burned-out +barracks to the cellar where the women lie hidden. That way is closed +by debris. The other way leads from the outer wall by a very winding +route to the cellar where the women are. The fakir knows that way, +and I do not, though I know of it. There is a third way, though, +that leads from the outer wall, where I have been exploring, straight +almost, if you disregard a wind or two, to the inside of the powder- +magazine. It enters the magazine through a doorway secretly contrived +in an upright pillar--or so the fakir swears. Now this is my notion, +sahib. If we go in by the lower way, we must come out that way, and +run the risk of being caught as we emerge. That risk will be greatly +enhanced when we have frightened women with us whose eyes have been +blinded by the darkness. But, if we go in by the upper way, and +enter the magazine itself, I can make the fakir show us how to lift +the stone trapdoor I spoke of--the one that I closed when I hid the +women. Then I can ascend with him, and with say four men, while +you ascend to the platform at the top with the remainder of the men, +and guard our rear and our exit. From the top, you will be able +to see us as we emerge, and can cover our retreat, and follow." + +"That sounds like a roundabout sort of plan to me!" said Brown. +"Why not go straight in by the lower route, and gather up the women, +and carry 'em out, and make a bolt for it?" + +"Because, sahib, we will be at the fakir's mercy." + +"Nonsense! He's at our mercy." + +"Think, sahib! There, he will be in his own bat's nest, so to speak. +These fakirs are the only men who know the windings of all the secret +passages. They are the rats of religion and intrigue. At any step +he might lead us into an ambush, and we might be overwhelmed before +we knew that we were attacked. If we go the other way, though, I +can lead the way myself, and we need only take the fakir to show us +how to open the door." + +"Very well," said Brown. "Let's get a move on, though! I'm beginning +to think that you're a better talker than a fighter, Juggut Khan!" + +"Yes, sahib? I trust there will be no fighting!" But the Rajput +smiled as he said it, and thought of a certain lance-shaft which +had been broken in the streets of Jailpore. + +"Lead on! Fall in behind me, men! Walk quietly, now, and remember. +Hold your tongues! Each man keep his eye on me, and a finger on +the trigger!" + +The Beluchi and the fakir and Juggut Khan moved in the van, with +two men to hold the fakir. Next marched, or rather tiptoed, Sergeant +Brown, followed by the other men in single file. In that order they +hastened after Juggut Khan, through the darkness, across a dried-out +moat and round the corner of a huge stone buttress. There they +disappeared inside the wall, and a stone swung round and closed the +gap behind the last of them. There was no alarm given, and not a +sign or a sound of any kind to betoken that any one had seen them. +Inside the walls the city roared like a flood-fed maelstrom, and +outside all was darkness and the silence of the dead. + + + + +XIII. + +There was some smart work done inside the powder-magazine. To be +able to appreciate it properly one would be obliged to do what they +did--wander through a maze of tunnels in a city-wall, blinded by +darkness, oppressed by the stored-up stuffiness and heat of ages and +deafened by the stillness--then emerge unexpectedly in the lamp-lit +magazine, among mutineers who sprawled, and laughed; and chewed +betel-nut at their ease upon the powder-kegs. + +Both sides were taken by surprise, but the mutineers had the nominal +advantage, for their eyes were accustomed to the light. They had +the advantage in numbers, too, by almost two to one. But they dared +not fire, for fear of setting off the magazine, whereas Brown and +his little force dared anything. They fully expected to die, and +might as well die that way as any other. And a quick death for the +women down below would be better than anything the rebels had in +store for them. Brown yelled an order, and the rest was too quick, +nearly, for the eye to follow. + +Three rebels died with bullets in them, and the rest stampeded for +the teak-and-metal door, to find it locked on them, and Brown and +the Rajput standing in front of it on guard. The mutineers attacked +fiercely. They flung themselves all together on the two. But they +had yet to learn that they were tackling, or endeavoring to tackle, +the two finest swordsmen in that part of India. And when they turned, +to find more room to fight in, or to draw their breath, they had +to face nine bayonets that hemmed them in, and drove them closer +and even closer to the swords again. They shouted, but no sound +could pierce the walls or escape through that tremendous door. Even +the sound of firing merely echoed upward until it reached the dome, +and then filtered out and upward through the opening above. They +might as well have shouted to their friends in Bholat! + +For ten minutes, perhaps, the battle surged and swayed on the stone +floor first one side rushing, then the other. But man after man of +the mutineers went down--appalled by the amazing swordsmanship, +disheartened by the grim determination of their adversaries, bewildered +to feebleness by the suddenness of the attack. + +Soon there were but eight of them facing the blood-wet steel, and +then Brown shouted for a fresh formation, swung his contingent into +line and led them with a rush across the floor that swept the remaining +mutineers off their feet. + +Three more went down with steel through them, and then the rest +surrendered, throwing down their arms, and begging mercy. Brown made +a bundle of their arms, stowed it in a corner and made the prisoners +stand together in a bunch, while he searched them thoroughly. + +"If we can't get that trapdoor open now, with these to help us," he +remarked, panting and wiping the dotted blood off his sword on a +Hindu prisoner's trousers, "it'll be a heavier proposition than I think!" + +"There's a trick to it," said Juggut Khan, panting too, for the battle +had been fierce and furious while it lasted. "The fakir knows the +trick. It is heavy, in any case. But, if we make him tell us, we +can manage it." + +There followed delay while the fakir was induced to forego the pleasure +of a sulking fit. He seemed like a child, anxious to emphasize their +dependence on his knowledge, and needing to be recompelled to each +new thing they needed of him. He was perfectly content, though, +to surrender when he felt the weight of a cleaning-rod on his anatomy, +or something in the way of fire--a match or cigarette for instance-- +placed where he would get the most sensation from it. + +Then followed more delay, while they rigged a lever of sorts, and +a rope through an iron ring in the trap, and while Juggut Khan hunted +for the secret catch that the fakir swore was hidden underneath a +smaller stone that hinged in the middle of the floor. He found it +at last, moved it and came across to lend a hand with the lever and +the rope. + +The fakir sat still and smiled at them. His eyes gleamed more horridly +than ever, and his withered arm seemed more than ever to be calling +down dire vengeance on them. + +"I believe that monster is up to tricks of some kind!" swore Brown. + +"He can't do anything," said Juggut Khan. "If we were all to put +our weight against this, all together, we and the prisoners, sahib, +we could get it open in a second." + +"All together, then!" said Brown. "Come on, there! Lend a hand!" + +The prisoners and Brown's men and Juggut Khan and the Beluchi bent +their backs above the lever, or hauled taut on the rope, and the +fakir wriggled with some secret joke. + +"At the word three!" said Brown. "Then all together!" + +"One!" + +"Two!" + +The fakir writhed delightedly. He seemed more than ever like a wickedly +malicious child. + +"Three!" + +They strained their utmost, and the huge stone trap gave way with +a sudden jerk. + +"For the love of--" + +They all jumped, but they were strained in the wrong position for +a quick recovery, and the ten-ton rock rolled back on unseen hinges +to crush them all, and rolled back and yet farther back--and then +stayed! Brown had snatched a rifle, and had placed it between the +rolling rock and the wall! + +He stood wiping the sweat from his forehead, while the rest recovered +their lost balance and walked out from behind unscathed. The rifle +creaked and bent and split. Then the stone leaned farther back, +reached the wall and stayed there! + +"A near thing that!" said Brown. "That fakir's a bright beauty, +isn't he!" + +"Shall I kick him, sir?" asked one of Brown's men. + +"Kick him? No! What good'd that do? What next, Juggut Khan?" + +But Juggut Khan was bending down, and listening at the hole laid bare +by the huge hinged trap. + +"Silence!" commanded Brown. + +The men held their breath, even, but not a sound came up from the +darkness down below. + +"Are they dead, d'you suppose?" asked Brown. + +And, even as he asked it, some one in the darkness snuffled, and +he heard a woman's voice that moaned. + +"Snff-snff-snff! I wonder if I'm dead yet! I wouldn't be, I know, +if Bill were here! He'd ha' got us out!" + +"There is one of them alive!" said Juggut Khan. + +"So I notice!" answered Brown, with a strange dry quaver in his voice. +"Go down and bring her up, please! Take three or four men with you. +It won't do to bring women and a child up here and let 'em see this +awful fakir and these corpses. Take your time about bringing 'em +up, while I make the prisoners carry their dead up on to the roof. +I'll take the fakir up there too where he's out of mischief!" + +Just as a six-foot-wide pathway ran round and round the outside of +the dome, another one, scarcely more than a yard wide, ran round the +inside, and formed a roadway to the top in place of a stair. It took +the prisoners and Brown's men fifteen minutes of continuous effort +to carry up the dead and the fakir, and lay them on the roof. + +"Pitch the dead over!" ordered Brown, and the mutineers obeyed. + +"I've a mind to pitch you over too!" he growled at the fakir, and +the strange creature seemed to understand him, for his eyes changed +from their baleful hatred to a look of fear. + +The bodies slid and rolled down the rounded roof, and fell with a +thud against the battlements, or else went rolling down the circular +causeway that led to the street below. + +Brown seemed to be garnering ideas from watching them. He gazed +down at the noisy tumult of the city, watching for a while the efforts +of an ill-directed crowd to put out a fire that blazed in a distant +quarter of the bazaar. + +There seemed to him something strangely preconcerted about much of +the hurrying to and fro below him. It struck him as being far too +orderly to be the mere boiling of a loot-crazed mob. + +His prisoners gave the secret to him. They were leaning against the +parapet on the other side--the side closest to the city-wall, and +farthest from the top of the causeway--and they were chattering together +excitedly in undertones. Brown walked round to where they stood, +and stared where they stared. Just as they had done, he recognized +what lay below him. + +It was faintly outlined in the blackness, picked out here and there +by lanterns, and still too far away for most civilians to name it +until the sun rose and showed its detail. But Brown, the soldier, +knew on the instant, and so did his men. + +Suddenly and unexpectedly and sweetly, like a voice in the night +that spoke of hope and strength and the rebirth of order out of chaos, +a bugle gave tongue from where the lanterns swung in straight-kept lines. + +"Oh, Juggut Khan! Oh, Juggut Khan!" + +Bill Brown's voice boomed through the opening in the dome, and spread +down the walls of the powder-magazine as though in the inside of +a speaking-trumpet. + +"Brown sahib?" + +"The army has got here from the north! It has come down here from +Harumpore! It's outside the walls now, lying on its arms, and evidently +waiting to attack at daylight!" + +"I, too, have news, Brown sahib! All four are living! All four lie +here on the floor of the magazine, and they recover rapidly. They +are all but strong enough to stand." + +"Good! Then come up here, Juggut Khan!" + +That winding pathway up the inside of the dome took longer to negotiate +than an ordinary stairway would have done, but presently the Rajput +leaned against the parapet and panted beside Brown. + +"D'you see them? There they are! Now, look on this side! D'you +see the preparations going on? D'you realize what the next thing's +going to be? They'll come for powder for the guns, so's to have +it all ready for the gun-crews when the fun begins at dawn! Listen! +Here they are already!" + +A thundering had started on the great teak door below--a thundering +that echoed through the dome like the reverberations of an earthquake. +It was punctuated by the screams of women. The prisoners changed +their attitude, and eyed Brown and the Rajput with an air of truculence +again. + +"They'll be up this causeway in a minute, sahib! Listen. There! +They've seen the dead bodies that you tossed over. Better it had +been to keep them up here for a while." + +"Never mind! We can hold this causeway until morning! Men! Take +close order. Line up at the causeway-entrance. Kneel. Prepare for +volley-firing. Now, let 'em come!" + +"I am for making an immediate escape, sahib!" + +"Go ahead!" said Brown, almost dreamily. + +He seemed to be thinking hard on some other subject as he spoke. + +"Sahib, one of the women there--she who is maid to the other two-- +asked me where Bill Brown might be! She swore to me that she had +recognized his voice when the trapdoor opened up above her. Are +you not Bill Brown?" + +"Yes, I'm William Brown!" + +"Her name, she says, is Emmett!" + +"You don't surprise me, Juggut Khan! I thought I had recognized +her voice. It seemed strangely familiar. Well--here come the rebels +up the causeway. See? They're at the bottom now with lanterns! +Ready, men!" + +There came the answering click of breech-bolts, and a little rustling +as each man eased his position, and laid his elbow on his knee. + +"Can you find your way out through the way we came, Juggut Khan?" + +"Of course I can!" + +"Are all the women on the floor?" + +"Three women and the child." + +"Can you close the trap-door again?" + +"Surely! It is only opening it that is difficult." + +"Then close it before you go. I've got a reason! Send one of my +men up here with a lantern--one of those that are burning in the +magazine. I want to signal." + +"Very well, sahib!" + +"Then take the women, with four of my men to help them walk, and +get out as quickly as you can by the way we all came in. Wait for +the rest of my men when you reach the opening in the outer wall, +and when they reach you allot two men to carry each woman, and run-- +the whole lot of you--for the army over yonder. One of the women +will object. She will want to see me first. Use force, if necessary!" + +"Are you, then, not coming, sahib?" + +"I have another plan. Here they come! Hurry now, be off with the +women! Volley-firing--ready--present!" + +Pattering footsteps sounded on the causeway, and a little crowd of +nearly doubled figures came up it at a run. + +"Fire!" + +The volley took the rebels absolutely by surprise, and no man could +miss his mark at that short range. Five of the rebels fell back headlong, +and the rest, who followed up the causeway, turned on their heels +and ran. + +"'Bout turn!" Brown shouted suddenly. "Use the steel, men! Use the +steel!" + +His own sword was flashing, and lunging as he spoke, and he had already +checked a sudden rush by the prisoners. + +They had thought the moment favorable for joining in the scrimmage +from the rear. + +"All right! That'll do them! I'll attend to 'em now!" + +A man came running up with the lantern Brown had asked for, and Brown +took it and began waving it above his head. + +"They must have heard that volley!" he muttered to himself. "Ah! +There's the answer!" + +A red light began to dance over in the British camp, moving up and +down and sidewise in sudden little jerks. Brown read the jerks, as +he could never have read writing, and a moment later he answered them. + +"Now, down below, the lot of you! Give me your rifle, you. I'll +need it." + +"Not coming, sir." + +"Not yet. There's something else yet, and I can do it best. Besides, +some one has got to guard the causeway still. There might be a rush +again at any minute. Listen now. Obey Juggut Khan implicitly as +soon as you get down. His orders are my orders. Understand? Very +well, then. And you without a weapon, your job is to shut the door +that you leave the magazine by tight from the outside--d'you understand +me? Call up when you're all through the door, and then shut it tight!" + +"But, how'll you get out, sir?" + +"That's my business. One minute, though. Here they come again. +Get ready to fire another volley!" + +The mutineers made another and a more determined rush up the causeway, +coming up it more than twenty strong, and at the double. Brown let +one volley loose in the midst of them, then led his men at the charge +down on them and drove them over the edge of the causeway by dint +of sheer impact and cold steel. Not one of them reached the ground +alive, and in the darkness it must have been impossible for the +mutineers below to divine how many were the granary's defenders. + +"That'll keep 'em quiet for a while, I'll wager! Now, quick, you men! +Get down below, and follow Juggut Khan, and don't forget to shut +the door tight on you. These prisoners here are going to follow +you--they may as well go down with you for that matter. No! that +won't do. They could open the door below, couldn't they? They'll +have to stay up here. Got any rope? Then bind them, somebody. +Bind their hands and feet. Now, off with you!" + +Brown spent the next few minutes signaling with the lantern, and reading +answering flashes that zig-zagged in the velvet blackness of the British +lines. Then, as a voice boomed up through the granary, "All's well, +sir! I'm just about to shut the door!" he fixed his eyes on the fakir, +and laughed at him. + +"You and I are going to turn in our accounts of how we've worked out +this `Hookum hai' business, my friend!" he told him. "You've given +orders, and I've obeyed orders! We've both accounted for a death +or two, and we've both accepted responsibility. We're going to know +in less than five minutes from now which of us two was justified. +There's one thing I know, though, without asking. There's one person, +and she a woman, who'll weep for me. Will anybody weep for you, +I wonder?" + +A lantern waved wildly from the British camp, and Brown seized his +own lantern and signaled an answer. + +"See that? That's to say, you glassy-eyed horror you, that our mutual +friend Juggut Khan has been seen emerging like a rat from a hole +in the wall. I'll give him and his party one more minute to get +clear. Then there's going to be a holocaust, my friend!" + +He cocked his rifle, and examined the breech-bolt and the foresight +carefully. The fakir shuddered, evidently thinking that the charge +was intended for himself. + +"No! It won't be that way. I know a better! I'm taking a leaf from +your book and doing harm by wholesale!" + +Brown leaned down into the opening of the dome, and brought the rifle +to his shoulder. There was a chorus of yells from the prisoners, +and a noise like a wounded horse's scream from the fakir. The rest +were bound, but the fakir rose and writhed toward him on his heels, +with his sound arm stretched up in an attitude of despair beside the +withered one. + +A chorus of bugles burst out from the British camp, and a volley ripped +through the blackness. + +"All right! Here goes!" said Brown. And he aimed down into the shadowy +powder-magazine, and pulled the trigger. + +Ten minutes later, an army three thousand and five hundred strong +marched in through the gap made in the outer wall by a granary that +had spread itself through--and not over--what was in its way. There +were seventeen tons of powder that responded to the invitation of +Brown's bullet. + + + + +XIV. + +Explosions are among the few things--or the many things, whichever +way you like to look at it!--that science can not undertake to harness +or account for. When a gun blows up, or a powder-magazine, the shock +kills whom it kills, as when a shell bursts in a dense-packed firing- +line. You can not kill any man before his time comes, even if a thousand +tons of solid masonry combine with you to whelm him, and go hurtling +through the air with him to absolutely obvious destruction. + +The fakir's time had come, and the prisoners' time had come. But +Sergeant William Brown's had not. + +They found him, blackened by powder, and with every stitch of clothing +blown from him, clinging to a bunch of lotus-stems in a temple-pond. +There was a piece of fakir in the water with him, and about a ton +of broken granary, besides the remnants of a rifle and other proof +that he had come belched out of a holocaust. The men who came on +him had given their officer the slip, and were bent on a private +looting-expedition of their own. But by the time that they had dragged +him from the water, and he had looted them of wherewithal to clothe +himself, their thoughts of plunder had departed from them. Brown +had a way of quite monopolizing people's thoughts! + +There were twenty of them, and he led them all that night, and all +through the morning and the afternoon that followed. He held them +together and worked them and wheeled them and coached and cheered +and compelled them through the hell-tumult of the ghastliest thing +there is beneath the dome of heaven--house-to-house fighting in an +Eastern city. And at the end of it, when the bugles blew at last +"Cease fire," and many of the men were marched away by companies +to put out the conflagrations that were blazing here and there, he +led them outside the city-wall, stood them at ease in their own line +and saluted their commanding-officer. + +"Twenty men of yours, sir. Present and correct." + +"Which twenty?" + +"Of Mr. Blair's half-company." + +"Where's Mr. Blair?" + +"Dunno, sir!" + +"Since when have you had charge of them?" + +"Since they broke into the city yesterday, sir." + +"And you haven't lost a man?" + +"Had lots of luck, sir!" + +"Who are you, anyway?" + +"I'm Sergeant Brown, sir." + +"Of the Rifles?" + +"Of the Rifles, sir." + +"Were you the man who signaled to us from the magazine and blew it +up and made the breach in the wall for us to enter by?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Are you alive, or dead? Man or ghost?" + +"I'm pretty much alive, sir, thank you!" + +"D'you realize that you made the taking of Jailpore possible? That +but for you we'd have been trying still to storm the walls without +artillery?" + +"I had the chance, sir, and I only did what any other man would ha' +done under like circumstances." + +"Go and tell that to the Horse Marines--or, rather, tell it to Colonel +Kendrick! Go and report to him at once. Possibly he'll see it through +your eyes!" + +So Brown marched off to report himself, and he found Colonel Kendrick +nursing a badly wounded arm before a torn and mud-stained tent. + +"Who are you?" said the colonel, as Brown saluted him. + +"I'm Sergeant Brown, sir." + +"Not Bill Brown of the Rifles?" + +"Yes, sir!" + +"You lie! He was blown up on the roof of the powder-magazine! I +suppose every man who's gone mad from the heat will be saying that +he's Brown!" + +"I'm Brown, sir! I had written orders from General Baines to enter +Jailpore and rescue three women and a child." + +"Where are your orders?" + +"Lost 'em, sir, in the explosion." + +"For a madman, you're a circumstantial liar! What happened to the +women?" + +The colonel sat back, and smothered an exclamation of agony as the +nerves in his injured arm tortured him afresh. He had asked a question +which should settle once and for all this man's pretentions, and +he waited for the answer with an air of certainty. It was on his +lips to call the guard to take the lunatic away. + +"Juggut Khan, the Rajput, took them, with nine of my men, and brought +them in to your camp last night, sir. I naturally haven't seen +them since." + +"Will the women know you?" + +"One of them will, sir." + +"Which one?" + +"Jane Emmett, sir." + +"Well, we'll see!" + +The colonel called an orderly, and sent the orderly running for Jane +Emmett. A minute later two strong arms were thrown round Bill Brown +from behind, and he was all but carried off his feet. + +"Oh, Bill--Bill--Bill! I knew you'd be all right! Turn round, Bill! +Look at me!" + +She was clinging to him in such a manner that he could not turn, +but he managed to pry her hands loose, and to draw her round in front +of him. + +"I knew, Bill! I felt sure you'd come! And I recognized your voice +the minute that the trapdoor opened and I heard it! I did, Bill! +I knew you in a minute! I didn't worry then! I knew you wouldn't +come and talk to me as long as there was any duty to be done. I just +waited! They said you were killed in the explosion, but I knew you +weren't! I knew it! I did! I knew it!" + +"Face me, please!" said Colonel Kendrick. "Now, Jane Emmett, is that +man Sergeant William Brown, of the Rifles?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Is he the man who entered Jailpore with nine men and a Rajput, and +came to your assistance?" + +"Yes, sir! He's the same man who spoke in the powder-magazine;" ' + +"Do you confirm that?" he asked Brown. + +"Under favor, sir, my men must be somewhere, if they're not all killed. +They'll recognize me. And there's the other lot I led all last night +and all today. They'll tell you where they found me!" + +"Never mind! I've decided I believe you! D'you realize that you're +something of a marvel?" + +"No, sir--except that I've had marvelous luck!" + +"Well, I shall take great pleasure in mentioning your name in despatches. +It will go direct, at first hand, to Her Majesty the Queen! There +are few men, let me tell you, Sergeant Brown, who would dare what +you dared in the first place. But, more than that, there are even +fewer men who would leave a sweetheart in some one else's care while +they blew up a powder-magazine with themselves on top of it, in order +to make a breach for the army to come in by! My right hand's out +of action unfortunately--you'll have to shake my left!" + +The colonel rose, held his uninjured hand out and Brown shook it, +since he was ordered to. + +"I consider it an honor and a privilege to have shaken hands with +you, Sergeant Brown!" said Colonel Kendrick. + +"Thank you, sir!" said Brown, taking one step back, and then saluting. +"May I join my regiment, sir?" + +He joined his regiment, when he had helped to sort out the bleeding +remnants of it from among the by-ways and back alleys of Jailpore. +And the chaplain married him and Jane Emmett out of hand. He sent +her off at once with her former mistress to the coast, and marched +off with his regiment to Delphi. And at Delphi his name was once +more mentioned in despatches. + +When the Mutiny was over, and the country had settled down again to +peace and reincarnation of a nation had begun, Brown found himself +hoisted to a civil appointment that was greater and more highly paid +than anything his modest soul had ever dreamed of. + +He never understood the reason for it, although he did his fighting-best +consistently to fill the job; and he never understood why Queen +Victoria should have taken the trouble to write a letter to him in +which she thanked him personally, nor why they should have singled +out for praise and special notice a fellow who had merely done his duty. + +Perhaps that was the reason why he was such a conspicuous success +in civil life. They still talk of how Bill Brown, with Jane his wife +and Juggut Khan the Rajput to advise him, was Resident Political +Adviser to a Maharajah, and of how the Maharajah loathed him, and +looked sidewise at him--but obeyed. That, though, is not a war-story. +It is a story of the saving of a war, and shall go on record, some +day, beneath a title of its own. + + + + +For The Salt He Had Eaten + +Prologue + +To the northward of Hanadra, blue in the sweltering heat-haze, lay +Siroeh, walled in with sun-baked mud and listless. Through a wooden +gate at one end of the village filed a string of women with their +water-pots. Oxen, tethered underneath the thatched eaves or by the +thirsty-looking trees, lay chewing the cud, almost too lazy to flick +the flies away. Even the village goats seemed overcome with lassitude. +Here and there a pariah dog sneaked in and out among the shadows or +lay and licked his sores beside an offal-heap; but there seemed to +be no energy in anything. The bone-dry, hot-weather wind had shriveled +up verdure and ambition together. + +But in the mud-walled cottages, where men were wont to doze through +the long, hot days, there were murmurings and restless movement. +Men lay on thong-strung beds, and talked instead of dreaming, and +the women listened and said nothing--which is the reverse of custom. +Hanadra was what it always had been, thatched, sun-baked lassitude; +but underneath the thatch there thrummed a beehive atmosphere of tension. + +In the center of the village, where the one main road that led from +the main gate came to an abrupt end at a low mud wall, stood a house +that was larger than the others and somewhat more neatly kept; there +had been an effort made at sweeping the enclosure that surrounded +it on all four sides, and there was even whitewash, peeling off in +places but still comparatively white, smeared on the sun-cracked walls. + +Here, besides murmurings and movement, there was evidence of real +activity. Tethered against the wall on one side of the house stood +a row of horses, saddled and bridled and bearing evidence of having +traveled through the heat; through the open doorway the sunshine +glinted on a sword-hilt and amid the sound of many voices rang the +jingling of a spur as some one sat cornerwise on a wooden table and +struck his toe restlessly against the leg. + +Another string of women started for the water-hole, with their picturesque +brass jars perched at varying angles on their heads; and as each one +passed the doorway of this larger house she turned and scowled. A +Rajput, lean and black-bearded and swaggering, came to the door and +watched them, standing proudly with his arms folded across his breast. +As the last woman showed her teeth at him, he laughed aloud. + +"Nay!" said a voice inside. "Have done with that! Is noticing the +Hindu women fit sport for a Rajput?" + +The youngster turned and faced the old, black-bearded veteran who +spoke. + +"If I had my way," he answered, "I would ride roughshod through this +village, and fire the thatch. They fail to realize the honor that +we pay them by a visit!" + +"Aye, hothead! And burn thy brother's barn with what is in it! +The Hindus here are many, and we are few, and there will be burnings +and saberings a-plenty before a week is past, if I read the signs +aright! Once before have I heard such murmurings. Once before I +have seen chupatties sent from house to house at sunset--and that +time blood ran red along the roadside for a month to follow! Keep +thy sword sharp a while and wait the day!" + +"But why," growled another deep-throated Rajput voice, "does the Sirkar +wait? Why not smite first and swiftly?" + +Mahommed Khan moved restlessly and ran his fingers through his beard. + +"I know not!" he answered. "In the days when I was Risaldar in the +Rajput Horse, and Bellairs sahib was colonel, things were different! +But we conquered, and after conquest came security. The English have +grown overconfident; they think that Mussulman will always war with +Hindu, the one betraying the other; they will not understand that +this lies deeper than jealousy--they will not listen! Six months +ago I rode to Jundhra and whispered to the general sahib what I thought; +but he laughed back at me. He said 'Wolf! wolf!' to me and drew me +inside his bungalow and bade me eat my fill." + +"Well--what matters it! This land has always been the playground +of new conquerors!" + +"There will be no new conquerors," growled the old Risaldar, "so +long as I and mine have swords to wield for the Raj!" + +"But what have the English done for thee or us?" + +"This, forgetful one! They have treated us with honor, as surely +no other conquerors had done! At thy age, I too measured my happiness +in cattle and coin and women, but then came Bellairs sahib, and +raised the Rajput Horse, and I enlisted. What came of that was better +than all the wealth of Ind!" + +He spread his long legs like a pair of scissors and caught a child +between them and lifted him. + +"Thou ruffian, thou!" he chuckled. "See how he fights! A true Rajput! +Nay, beat me not. Some day thou too shalt bear a sword for England, +great-grandson mine. Ai-ee! But I grow old." + +"For England or the next one!" + +"Nay! But for England!" said the Risaldar, setting the child down +on his knee. "And thou too, hot-head. Before a week is past! Think +you I called my sons and grandsons all together for the fun of it? +Think you I rode here through the heat because I needed the exercise +or to chatter like an ape or to stand in the doorway making faces +at a Hindu woman or to watch thee do it? Here I am, and here I stay +until yet more news comes!" + +"Then are we to wait here? Are we to swelter in Siroeh, eating up +our brother's hospitality, until thy messengers see fit to come and +tell us that this scare of thine is past?" + +"Nay!" said the Risaldar. "I said that I wait here! Return now +to your own homes, each of you. But be in readiness. I am old, +but I can ride still. I can round you up. Has any a better horse +than mine? If he has, let him make exchange." + +"There will be horses for the looting if this revolt of thine breaks out!" + +"True! There will be horses for the looting! Well, I wait here then +and, when the trouble comes, I can count on thirteen of my blood to +carry swords behind me?" + +"Aye, when the trouble comes!" + +There was a chorus of assent, and the Risaldar arose to let his sons +and grandsons file past him. He, who had beggared himself to give +each one of them a start in life, felt a little chagrined that they +should now refuse to exchange horses with him; but his eye glistened +none the less at the sight of their stalwart frames and at the thought +of what a fighting unit he could bring to serve the Raj. + +"All, then, for England!" he exclaimed. + +"Nay, all for thee!" said his eldest-born. "We fight on whichever +side thou sayest!" + +"Disloyal one!" growled the Risaldar with a scowl. But he grinned +into his beard. + +"Well, to your homes, then--but be ready!" + + + + +I. + +The midnight jackals howled their discontent while heat-cracked India +writhed in stuffy torment that was only one degree less than unendurable. +Through the stillness and the blackness of the night came every now +and then the high-pitched undulating wails of women, that no one +answered-for, under that Tophet-lid of blackness, punctured by the +low-hung, steel-white stars, men neither knew nor cared whose child +had died. Life and hell-hot torture and indifference--all three were one. + +There was no moon, nothing to make the inferno visible, except that +here and there an oil lamp on some housetop glowed like a blood-spot +against the blackness. It was a sensation, rather than sight or sound, +that betrayed the neighborhood of thousands upon thousands of human +beings, sprawling, writhing, twisting upon the roofs, in restless +suffering. + +There was no pity in the dry, black vault of heaven, nor in the bone-dry +earth, nor in the hearts of men, during that hot weather of '57. +Men waited for the threatened wrath to come and writhed and held +their tongues. And while they waited in sullen Asiatic patience, +through the restless silence and the smell--the suffocating, spice-fed, +filth-begotten smell of India--there ran an undercurrent of even +deeper mystery than India had ever known. + +Priest-ridden Hanadra, that had seen the downfall of a hundred kings, +watched through heat-wearied eyes for another whelming the blood-soaked, +sudden flood that was to burst the dam of servitude and rid India +of her latest horde of conquerors. But eight hundred yards from where +her high brick walls lifted their age-scars in the stifling reek, +gun-chains jingled in a courtyard, and, sharp-clicking on age-old +flagstones, rose the ring of horses' feet. + +Section Number One of a troop of Bengal Horse Artillery was waiting +under arms. Sabered and grim and ready stood fifty of the finest +men that England could produce, each man at his horse's head; and +blacker even than the night loomed the long twelve-pounders, in tow +behind their limbers. Sometimes a trace-chain jingled as a wheel-horse +twitched his flank; and sometimes a man spoke in a low voice, or +a horse stamped on the pavement; but they seemed like black graven +images of war-gods, half-smothered in the reeking darkness. And above +them, from a window that overlooked the courtyard, shone a solitary +lamp that glistened here and there upon the sleek black guns and +flickered on the saber-hilts, and deepened the already dead-black +atmosphere of mystery. + +From the room above, where the lamp shone behind gauze curtains came +the sound of voices; and in the deepest, death-darkest shadow of +the door below there stood a man on guard whose fingers clutched +his sword-hilt and whose breath came heavily. He stood motionless, +save for his heaving breast; between his fierce, black mustache +and his up-brushed, two-pointed beard, his white teeth showed through +parted lips. But he gave no other sign that he was not some Rajput +princeling's image carved out of the night. + +He was an old man, though, for all his straight back and military +carriage. The night concealed his shabbiness; but it failed to hide +the medals on his breast, one bronze, one silver, that told of campaigns +already a generation gone. And his patience was another sign of age; +a younger man of his blood and training would have been pacing to +and fro instead of standing still. + +He stood still even when footsteps resounded on the winding stair +above and a saber-ferrule clanked from step to step. The gunners heard +and stood squarely to their horses. There was a rustling and a sound +of shifting feet, and, a "Whoa,--you!" to an irritated horse; but +the Rajput stayed motionless until the footsteps reached the door. +Then he took one step forward, faced about and saluted. + +"Salaam, Bellairs sahib!" boomed his deep-throated voice, and Lieutenant +Bellairs stepped back with a start into the doorway again--one hand +on his sword-hilt. The Indian moved sidewise to where the lamplight +from the room above could fall upon his face. + +"Salaam, Bellairs sahib!" he boomed again. + +Then the lieutenant recognized him. + +"You, Mahommed Khan!" he exclaimed. "You old war-dog, what brought +you here? Heavens, how you startled me! What good wind brought you?" + +"Nay! It seems it was an ill wind, sahib!" + +"What ill wind? I'm glad to see you!" + +"The breath of rumor, sahib!" + +"What rumor brought you?" + +"Where a man's honor lies, there is he, in the hour of danger! Is +all well with the Raj, sahib?" + +"With the Raj? How d'you mean, Risaldar?" + +Mahommed Khan pointed to the waiting guns and smiled. + +"In my days, sahib," he answered, "men seldom exercised the guns +at night!" + +"I received orders more than three hours ago to bring my section +in to Jundhra immediately--immediately--and not a word of explanation!" + +"Orders, sahib? And you wait?" + +"They seem to have forgotten that I'm married, and by the same token, +so do you! What else could I do but wait? My wife can't ride with +the section; she isn't strong enough, for one thing; and besides, +there's no knowing what this order means; there might be trouble +to face of some kind. I've sent into Hanadra to try to drum up an +escort for her and I'm waiting here until it comes." + +The Risaldar stroked at his beard reflectively. + +"We of the service, sahib," he answered, "obey orders at the gallop +when they come. When orders come to ride, we ride!"' + +Bellairs winced at the thrust. + +"That's all very fine, Risaldar. But how about my wife? What's going +to happen to her, if I leave her here alone and unprotected?" + +"Or to me, sahib? Is my sword-arm withered? Is my saber rusted home?" + +"You, old friend! D'you mean to tell me--" + +The Risaldar saluted him again. + +"Will you stay here and guard her?" + +"Nay, sahib! Being not so young as thou art, I know better!" + +"What in Tophet do you mean, Mahommed Khan?" + +"I mean, sahib,"--the Indian's voice was level and deep, but it +vibrated strangely, and his eyes glowed as though war-lights were +being born again behind them--"that not for nothing am I come! I +heard what thy orders were and--" + +"How did you hear what my orders were?" + +"My half-brother came hurrying with the news, sahib. I hastened! +My horse lies dead one kos from Hanadra here!" + +The lieutenant laughed. + +"At last, Mahommed? That poor old screw of yours? So he's dead at +last, eh? So his time had come at last!" + +"We be not all rich men who serve the Raj!" said the Risaldar with +dignity. "Ay, sahib, his time was come! And when our time comes +may thou and I, sahib, die as he did, with our harness on! What said +thy orders, sahib? Haste? Then yonder lies the road, through +the archway!" + +"But, tell me, Risaldar, what brought you here in such a hurry?" + +"A poor old screw, sahib, whose time was come--even as thou hast said!" + +"Mahommed Khan, I'm sorry--very sorry, if I insulted you! I--I'm +worried--I didn't stop to think. I--old friend, I--" + +"It is forgotten, sahib!" + +"Tell me--what are these rumors you have heard?" + +"But one rumor, sahib-war! Uprising--revolution--treachery--all India +waits the word to rise, sahib!" + +"You mean--?" + +"Mutiny among the troops, and revolution north, south, east and west!" + +"Here, too, in Hanadra?" + +"Here, too, in Hanadra, sahib! Here they will be among the first +to rise!" + +"Oh, come! I can't believe that! How was it that my orders said +nothing of it then?" + +"That, sahib, I know not--not having written out thy orders! I heard +that thy orders came. I knew, as I have known this year past, what +storm was brewing. I knew, too, that the heavenborn, thy wife, is +here. I am thy servant, sahib, as I was thy father's servant--we +serve one Queen; thy honor is my honor. Entrust thy memsahib to +my keeping!" + +"You will guard her?" + +"I will bring her in to Jundhra!" + +"You alone?" + +"Nay, sahib! I, and my sons, and my sons' sons--thirteen men all told!" + +"That is good of you, Mahommed Khan. Where are your sons?" + +"Leagues from here, sahib. I must bring them. I need a horse." + +"And while you are gone?" + +"My half-brother, sahib--he is here for no other purpose--he will +answer to me for her safety!" + +"All right, Mahommed Khan, and thank you! Take my second charger, +if you care to; he is a little saddle-sore, but your light weight--" + +"Sahib--listen! Between here and Siroeh, where my eldest-born and +his three sons live, lie seven leagues. And on from there to Lungra, +where the others live, are three more leagues. I need a horse +this night!" + +"What need of thirteen men, Mahommed? You are sufficient by yourself, +unless a rebellion breaks out. If it did, why, you and thirteen +others would be swamped as surely as you alone!" + +"Thy father and I, sahib, rode through the guns at Dera thirteen strong! +Alone, I am an old man--not without honor, but of little use; with +twelve young blades behind me, though, these Hindu rabble--" + +"Do you really mean, Mahommed Khan, that you think Hanadra here +will rise?" + +"The moment you are gone, sahib!" + +"Then, that settles it! The memsahib rides with me!" + +"Nay, listen, sahib! Of a truth, thou art a hot-head as thy father +was before thee! Thus will it be better. If the heavenborn, thy +wife, stays behind, these rabble here will think that the section +rides out to exercise, because of the great heat of the sun by day; +they will watch for its return, and wait for the parking of the guns +before they put torch to the mine that they have laid!" + +"The mine? D'you mean they've--" + +"Who knows, sahib? But I speak in metaphor. When the guns are parked +again and the horses stabled and the men asleep, the rabble, being +many, might dare anything!" + +"You mean, you think that they--" + +"I mean, sahib, that they will take no chances while they think the +guns are likely to return!" + +"But, if I take the memsahib with me?" + +"They will know then, sahib, that the trap is open and the bird flown! +Know you how fast news travels? Faster than the guns, Sahib! There +will be an ambuscade, from which neither man, nor gun, nor horse, +nor memsahib will escape!" + +"But if you follow later, it will mean the same thing! When they +see you ride off on a spent horse, with twelve swords and the memsahib-- +d'you mean that they won't ambuscade you?" + +"They might, sahib--and again, they might not! Thirteen men and a +woman ride faster than a section of artillery, and ride where the +guns would jam hub-high against a tree-trunk! And thy orders, sahib-- +are thy orders nothing?" + +"Orders! Yes, confound it! But they know I'm married. They know--" + +"Sahib, listen! When the news came to me I was at Siroeh, dangling +a great-grandson on my knee. There were no orders, but it seemed +the Raj had need of me. I rode! Thou, sahib, hast orders. I am +here to guard thy wife--my honor is thy honor--take thou the guns. +Yonder lies the road!" + +The grim old warrior's voice thrilled with the throb of loyalty, as +he stood erect and pointed to the shadowy archway through which the +road wound to the plain beyond. + +"Sahib, I taught thy father how to use his sword! I nursed thee when +thou wert little. Would I give three false counsel now? Ride, +sahib--ride!" + +Bellairs turned away and looked at his charger, a big, brown Khaubuli +stallion, named for the devil and true in temper and courage to his +name; two men were holding him, ten paces off. + +"Such a horse I need this night, Sahib! Thy second charger can keep +pace with the guns!" + +Bellairs gave a sudden order, and the men led the brute back into +his stable. + +"Change the saddle to my second charger!" he ordered. + +Then he turned to the Risaldar again, with hand outstretched. + +"I'm ashamed of myself, Mahommed Khan!" he said, with a vain attempt +to smile. "I should have gone an hour ago! Please take my horse +Shaitan, and make such disposition for my wife's safety as you see +fit. Follow as and when you can; I trust you, and I shall be grateful +to you whatever happens!" + +"Well spoken, Sahib! I knew thou wert a man! We who serve the Raj +have neither sons, nor wives, nor sweethearts! Allah guard you, Sahib! +The section waits--and the Service can not wait!" + +"One moment while I tell my wife!" + +"Halt, Sahib! Thou hast said good-by a thousand times! A woman's +tears--are they heart-meat for a soldier when the bits are champing? +Nay! See, sahib; they bring thy second charger! Mount! I will +bring thy wife to Jundhra for thee! The Service waits!" + +The lieutenant turned and mounted. + +"Very well, Mahommed Khan!" he said. "I know you're right! Section! +Prepare to mount!" he roared, and the stirrups rang in answer to him. +"Mount! Good-by, Mahommed Khan! Good luck to you! Section, right! +Trot, march!" + +With a crash and the clattering of iron shoes on stone the guns jingled +off into the darkness, were swallowed by the gaping archway and rattled +out on the plain. + +The Risaldar stood grimly where he was until the last hoof-beat and +bump of gun-wheel had died away into the distance; then he turned +and climbed the winding stairway to the room where the lamp still +shone through gauzy curtains. + +On a dozen roof-tops, where men lay still and muttered, brown eyes +followed the movements of the section and teeth that were betel-stained +grinned hideously. + +From a nearby temple, tight-packed between a hundred crowded houses, +came a wailing, high-pitched solo sung to Siva--the Destroyer. And +as it died down to a quavering finish it was followed by a ghoulish +laugh that echoed and reechoed off the age-old city-wall. + +Proud as a Royal Rajput--and there is nothing else on God's green +earth that is even half as proud--true to his salt, and stout of heart +even if he was trembling at the knees, Mahommed Khan, two-medal man +and Risaldar, knocked twice on the door of Mrs. Lellairs' room, and +entered. + +And away in the distance rose the red reflection of a fire ten leagues +away. The Mutiny of '57 had blazed out of sullen mystery already, +the sepoys were burning their barracks half-way on the road to Jundhra! + +And down below, to the shadow where the Risaldar had stood, crept +a giant of a man who had no military bearing. He listened once, +and sneaked into the deepest black within the doorway and crouched +and waited. + + + + +II. + +Hanadra reeks of history, blood-soaked and mysterious. Temples piled +on the site of olden temples; palaces where half-forgotten kings +usurped the thrones of conquerors who came from God knows where to +conquer older kings; roads built on the bones of conquered armies; +houses and palaces and subterranean passages that no man living knows +the end of and few even the beginning. Dark corridors and colonnades +and hollow walls; roofs that have ears and peep-holes; floors that +are undermined by secret stairs; trees that have swayed with the +weight of rotting human skulls and have shimmered with the silken +bannerets of emperors. Such is Hanadra, half-ruined, and surrounded +by a wall that was age-old in the dawn of written history. + +Even its environs are mysterious; outside the walls, there are carven, +gloomy palaces that once re-echoed to the tinkle of stringed instruments +and the love-songs of some sultan's favorite--now fallen into ruins, +or rebuilt to stable horses or shelter guns and stores and men; +but eloquent in all their new-smeared whitewash, or in crumbling +decay, of long-since dead intrigue. No places, those, for strong +men to live alone in, where night-breezes whisper through forgotten +passages and dry teak planking recreaks to the memory of dead men's +footsteps. + +But strong men are not the only makings of an Empire, nor yet the +only sufferers. Wherever the flag of England flies above a distant +outpost or droops in the stagnant moisture of an Eastern swamp, there +are the graves of England's women. The bones that quarreling jackals +crunch among the tombstones--the peace along the clean-kept borderline-- +the pride of race and conquest and the cleaner pride of work well +done, these are not man's only. Man does the work, but he is held +to it and cheered on by the girl who loves him. + +And so, above a stone-flagged courtyard, in a room that once had echoed +to the laughter of a sultan's favorite, it happened that an English +girl of twenty-one was pacing back and forth. Through the open curtained +window she had seen her husband lead his command out through the echoing +archway to the plain beyond; she had heard his boyish voice bark +out the command and had listened to the rumble of the gun-wheels dying +in the distance--for the last time possibly. She knew, as many an +English girl has known, that she was alone, one white woman amid a +swarm of sullen Aryans, and that she must follow along the road the +guns had taken, served and protected by nothing more than low-caste +natives. + +And yet she was dry-eyed, and her chin was high; for they are a strange +breed, these Anglo-Saxon women who follow the men they love to the +lonely danger-zone. Ruth Bellairs could have felt no joy in her +position; she had heard her husband growling his complaint at being +forced to leave her, and she guessed what her danger was. Fear must +have shrunk her heartbeats and loneliness have tried her courage. +But there was an ayah in the room with her, a low-caste woman of +the conquered race; and pride of country came to her assistance. +She was firm-lipped and, to outward seeming, brave as she was beautiful. + +Even when the door resounded twice to the sharp blow of a saber-hilt, +and the ayah's pock-marked ebony took on a shade of gray, she stood +like a queen with an army at her back and neither blanched nor trembled. + +"Who is that, ayah?" she demanded. + +The ayah shrank into herself and showed the whites of her eyes and +grinned, as a pariah dog might show its teeth--afraid, but scenting +carrion. + +"Go and see!" + +The ayah shuddered and collapsed, babbling incoherencies and calling +on a horde of long-neglected gods to witness she was innocent. She +clutched strangely at her breast and used only one hand to drag her +shawl around her face. While she babbled she glanced wild-eyed around +the long, low-ceilinged room. Ruth Bellairs looked down at her pityingly +and went to the door herself and opened it. + +"Salaam, memsahib!" boomed a deep voice from the darkness. + +Ruth Bellairs started and the ayah screamed. + +"Who are you? Enter--let me see you!" + +A black beard and a turban and the figure of a man--and then white +teeth and a saber-hilt and eyes that gleamed moved forward from the +darkness. + +"It is I, Mahommed Khan!" boomed the voice again, and the Risaldar +stepped out into the lamplight and closed the door behind him. Then, +with a courtly, long-discarded sweep of his right arm, he saluted. + +"At the heavenborn's service!" + +"Mahommed Khan! Thank God!" + +The old man's shabbiness was very obvious as he faced her, with his +back against the iron-studded door; but he stood erect as a man of +thirty, and his medals and his sword-hilt and his silver scabbard-tip +were bright. + +"Tell me, Mahommed Khan, you have seen my husband?" + +He bowed. + +"You have spoken to him?" + +The old man bowed again. + +"He left you in my keeping, heavenborn. I am to bring you safe +to Jundhra!" + +She held her hand out and he took it like a cavalier, bending until +he could touch her fingers with his lips. + +"What is the meaning of this hurrying of the guns to Jundhra, Risaldar?" + +"Who knows, memsahib! The orders of the Sirkar come, and we of the +service must obey. I am thy servant and the Sirkar's!" + +"You, old friend--that were servant, as you choose to call it, to +my husband's father! I am a proud woman to have such friends at call!" +She pointed to the ayah, recovering sulkily and rearranging the shawl +about her shoulders. "That I call service, Risaldar. She cowers +when a knock comes at the door! I need you, and you answer a hardly +spoken prayer; what is friendship, if yours is not?" + +The Risaldar bowed low again. + +"I would speak with that ayah, heavenborn!" he muttered, almost into +his beard. She could hardly catch the words. + +"I can't get her to speak to me at all tonight, Mahommed Khan. She's +terrified almost out of her life at something. But perhaps you can +do better. Try. Do you want to question her alone?" + +"By the heavenborn's favor, yes." + +Ruth walked down the room toward the window, drew the curtain back +and leaned her head out where whatever breeze there was might fan +her cheek. The Risaldar strode over to where the ayah cowered by +an inner doorway. + +"She-Hindu-dog!" he growled at her. "Mother of whelps! Louse-ridden +scavenger of sweepings! What part hast thou in all this treachery? +Speak!" + +The ayah shrank away from him and tried to scream, but he gripped +her by the throat and shook her. + +"Speak!" he growled again. + +But his ten iron fingers held her in a vise-like grip and she could +not have answered him if she had tried to. + +"O Risaldar!" called Ruth suddenly, with her head still out of the +window. He released the ayah and let her tumble as she pleased into +a heap. + +"Heavenborn?" + +"What is that red glow on the skyline over yonder?" + +"A burning, heavenborn!" + +"A burning? What burning? Funeral pyres? It's very big for +funeral pyres!" + +"Nay, heavenborn!" + +"What, then?" + +She was still unfrightened, unsuspicious of the untoward. The Risaldar's +arrival on the scene had quite restored her confidence and she felt +content to ride with him to Jundhra on the morrow. + +"Barracks, heavenborn!" + +"Barracks? What barracks?" + +"There is but one barracks between here and Jundhra." + +"Then--then--then--what has happened, Mahommed Khan?" + +"The worst has happened, heavenborn!" + +He stood between her and the ayah, so that she could not see the +woman huddled on the floor. + +"The worst? You mean then--my--my--husband--you don't mean that +my husband--" + +"I mean, heavenborn that there is insurrection! All India is ablaze +from end to end. These dogs here in Hanadra wait to rise because +they think the section will return here in an hour or two; then +they propose to burn it, men, guns and horses, like snakes in the +summer grass. It is well that the section will not return! We +will ride out safely before morning!" + +"And, my husband--he knew--all this--before he left me here?" + +"Nay! That he did not! Had I told him, he had disobeyed his orders +and shamed his service; he is young yet, and a hothead! He will +be far along the road to Jundhra before he knows what burns. And +then he will remember that he trusts me and obey orders and press on!" + +"And you knew and did not tell him!" + +"Of a truth I knew!" + +She stood in silence for a moment, gazing at the red glow on the skyline, +and then turned to read, if she could, what was on the grim, grizzled +face of Mahommed Khan. + +"The ayah!" he growled. "I have yet to ask questions of the ayah. +Have I permission to take her to the other room?" + +She was leaning through the window again and did not answer him. + +"Who's that moving in the shadow down below?" she asked him suddenly. + +He leaned out beside her and gazed into the shadow. Then he called +softly in a tongue she did not know and some one rose up from the +shadow and answered him. + +"Are we spied on, Risaldar?" + +"Nay. Guarded, heavenborn! That man is my half-brother. May I take +the ayah through that doorway?" + +"Why not question her in here?" + +The mystery and sense of danger were getting the better of her; she +was thoroughly afraid now--afraid to be left alone in the room for +a minute even. + +"There are things she would not answer in thy presence!" + +"Very well. Only, please be quick!" + +He bowed. Swinging the door open, he pushed the ayah through it to +the room beyond. Ruth was left alone, to watch the red glow on the +skyline and try to see the outline of the watcher in the gloom below. +No sound came through the heavy teak door that the Risaldar had slammed +behind him, and no sound came from him who watched; but from the +silence of the night outside and from dark corners of the room that +she was in and from the roof and walls and floor here came little +eerie noises that made her flesh creep, as though she were being +stared at by eyes she could not see. She felt that she must scream, +or die, unless she moved; and she was too afraid to move, and by +far too proud to scream! At last she tore herself away from the +window and ran to a low divan and lay on it, smothering her face +among the cushions. It seemed an hour before the Risaldar came out +again, and then he took her by surprise. + +"Heavenborn!" he said. She looked up with a start, to find him standing +close beside her. + +"Mahommed Khan! You're panting! What ails you?" + +"The heat, heavenborn--and I am old." + +His left hand was on his saber-hilt, thrusting it toward her respectfully; +she noticed that it trembled. + +"Have I the heavenborn's leave to lock the ayah in that inner room?" + +"Why, Risaldar?" + +"The fiend had this in her possession!" He showed her a thin-bladed +dagger with an ivory handle; his own hand shook as he held it out +to her, and she saw that there were beads of perspiration on his wrist. +"She would have killed thee!" + +"Oh, nonsense! Why, she wouldn't dare!" + +"She confessed before she--she confessed! Have I the heavenborn's leave?" + +"If you wish it." + +"And to keep the key?" + +"I suppose so, if you think it wise." + +He strode to the inner door and locked it and hid the key in an inside +pocket of his tunic. + +"And now, heavenborn," he said, "I crave your leave to bring my half- +brother to the presence!" + +He scarcely waited for an answer, but walked to the window, leaned +out of it and whistled. A minute later he was answered by the sound +of fingernails scrabbling on the outer door. He turned the key and +opened it. + +"Enter!" he ordered. + +Barefooted and ragged, but as clean as a soldier on parade and with +huge knots of muscles bulging underneath his copper skin, a Rajput +entered, bowing his six feet of splendid manhood almost to the floor. + +"This, heavenborn, is my half-brother, son of a low-born border-woman, +whom my father chose to honor thus far! The dog is loyal!" + +"Salaam!" said Ruth, with little interest. + +"Salaam, memsahib!" muttered the shabby Rajput. "Does any watch?" +demanded the Risaldar in Hindustanee. "Aye, one." + +"And he?" + +"Is he of whom I spoke." + +"Where watches he?" + +"There is a hidden passage leading from the archway; he peeps out +through a crack, having rolled back so far the stone that seals it." +He held his horny fingers about an inch apart to show the distance. + +"Couldst thou approach unseen?" + +The Rajput nodded. + +"And there are no others there?" + +"No others." + +"Has thy strength left thee, or thy cunning?" + +"Nay!" + +"Then bring him!" + +Without a word in answer the giant turned and went, and the Risaldar +made fast the door behind him. Ruth sat with her face between her +hands, trying not to cry or shudder, but obsessed and overpowered +by a sense of terror. The mystery that surrounded her was bad enough; +but this mysterious ordering and coming to and fro among her friends +was worse than horrible. She knew, though, that it would be useless +to question Mahommed Khan before he chose to speak. They waited +there in the dimly lighted room for what seemed tike an age again; +she, pale and tortured by weird imaginings; he, grim and bolt-upright +like a statue of a warrior. Then sounds came from the stairs again +and the Risaldar hurried to the door and opened it. + +In burst the Risaldar's half-brother, breathing heavily and bearing +a load nearly as big as he was. + +"The pig caught my wrist within the opening!" he growled, tossing +his gagged and pinioned burden on the floor. "See where he all but +broke it!" + +"What is thy wrist to the service of the Raj? Is he the right one?" + +"Aye!" He stooped and tore a twisted loin-cloth from his victim's +face, and the Risaldar walked to the lamp and brought it, to hold +it above the prostrate form. Ruth left the divan and stood between +the men, terrified by she knew not what fear, but drawn into the +lamplight by insuperable curiosity. + +"This, heavenborn," said the Risaldar, prodding at the man with his +scabbard-point, "is none other than the High Priest of Kharvani's +temple here, the arch-ringleader in all the treachery afoot--now +hostage for thy safety!" + +He turned to his half-brother. "Unbind the thing he lies with!" +he commanded, and the giant unwrapped a twisted piece of linen from +the High Priest's mouth. + +"So the big fox peeped through the trapdoor, because he feared to +trust the other foxes; and the big fox fell into the trap!" grinned +the Risaldar. "Bring me that table over yonder, thou!" + +The half-brother did as he was told. + +"Lay it here, legs upward, on the floor. + +"Now, bind him to it--an arm to a leg and a leg to a leg. + +"Remove his shoes. + +"Put charcoal in yon brazier. Light it. Bring it hither!" + +He seized a brass tongs, chose a glowing coal and held it six inches +from the High Priest's naked foot. + +Ruth screamed. + +"Courage, heavenborn! Have courage! This is naught to what he would +have done to thee! .... Now, speak, thou priest of infidels! What +plans are laid and who will rise and when?" + + + + +III. + +"Sergeant!" + +"Sir!" + +The close-cropped, pipe-clayed non-commissioned officer spurred his +horse into a canter until his scabbard clattered at young Bellairs' +boot. Nothing but the rattling and the jolting of the guns and +ammunition-wagon was audible, except just on ahead of them the click- +clack, click-click-clack of the advance-guard. To the right and left +of them the shadowy forms of giant banian-trees loomed and slid past +them as they had done for the past four hours, and for ten paces ahead +they could see the faintly outlined shape of the trunk road that they +followed. The rest was silence and a pall of blackness obscuring +everything. They had ridden along a valley, but they had emerged +on rising ground and there was one spot of color in the pall now, +or else a hole in it. + +"What d'you suppose that is burning over there?" + +"I couldn't say, sir." + +"How far away is it?" + +"Very hard to tell on a night like this, sir. It might be ten miles +away and might be twenty. By my reckoning it's on our road, though, +and somewhere between here and Jundhra." + +"So it seems to me; our road swings round to the right presently, +doesn't it? That'll lead us right to it. That would make it Doonha +more or less. D'you suppose it's at Doonha?" + +"I was thinking it might be, sir. If it's Doonha, it means that the +sepoy barracks and all the stores are burning--there's nothing else +there that would make all that flame!" + +"There are two companies of the Thirty-third there, too." + +"Yes, sir, but they're under canvas; tents would blaze up, but they'd +die down again in a minute. That fire's steady and growing bigger!" + +"It's the sepoy barracks, then!" + +"Seems so to me, sir!" + +"Halt!" roared Bellairs. The advance-guard kicked up a little shower +of sparks, trace-chains slacked with a jingle and the jolting ceased. +Bellairs rode up to the advance-guard. + +"Now, Sergeant," he ordered, "it looks as though that were the Doonha +barracks burning over yonder. There's no knowing, though, what it is. +Send four men on, two hundred yards ahead of you, and you and the +rest keep a good two hundred yards ahead of the guns. See that the +men keep on the alert, and mind that they spare their horses as much +as possible. If there's going to be trouble, we may just as well +be ready for it!" + +"Very good, sir!" + +"Go ahead, then!" + +At a word from the sergeant, four men clattered off and were swallowed +in the darkness. A minute later the advance-guard followed them and +then, after another minute's pause, young Bellairs' voice was raised +into a ringing shout again. + +"Section, advance! Trot, march!" + +The trace-chains tightened, and the clattering, bumping, jingling +procession began again, its rear brought up by the six-horse ammunition- +wagon. They rode speechless for the best part of an hour, each man's +eyes on the distant conflagration that had begun now to light up +the whole of the sky ahead of them. They still rode in darkness, +but they seemed to be approaching the red rim of the Pit. Huge, +billowing clouds of smoke, red-lit on the under side, belched upward +to the blackness overhead, and a something that was scarcely sound-- +for it was yet too distant--warned them that it was no illusion they +were riding into. The conflagration grew. It seemed to be nearly +white-hot down below. + +Bellairs wet his finger and held it extended upward. + +"There's no wind that I can feel!" he muttered. "And yet, if that +were a grass-fire, there'd be game and rats and birds and things-- +some of 'em would bolt this way. That's the Doonha barracks burning +or I'm a black man, which the Lord forbid!" + +A minute later, every man in the section pricked up his ears. There +was no order given; but a sensation ran the whole length of it and +a movement from easy riding to tense rigidity that could be felt by +some sixth sense. Every man was listening, feeling, groping with +his senses for something he could neither hear as yet nor see, but +that he knew was there. And then, far-distant yet--not above, but +under the jolting of the gun-wheels and the rattle of the scabbards-- +they could hear the clickety-clickety-clickety-click of a horse hard- +ridden. + +They had scarcely caught that sound, they had barely tightened up +their bridle-reins, when another sound, one just as unmistakable, +burst out in front of them. A ragged, ill-timed volley ripped out +from somewhere near the conflagration and was answered instantly +by one that was close-ripped like the fire of heavy ordnance. And +then one of the advance-guard wheeled his horse and drove his spurs +home rowel-deep. He came thundering back along the road with his +scabbard out in the wind behind him and reined up suddenly when his +horse's forefeet were abreast of the lieutenant. + +"There's some one coming, sir, hard as he can gallop! He's one of +our men by the sound of him. His horse is shod--and I thought I saw +steel when the fire-light fell on him a minute ago!" + +"Are you sure there's only one?" + +"Sure, sir! You can hear him now!" + +"All right! Fall in behind me!" + +Bellairs felt his sword-hilt and cocked a pistol stealthily, but he +gave no orders to the section. This might be a native soldier run +amuck, and it might be a messenger; but in either case, friend or +foe, if there was only one man he could deal with him alone. + +"Halt!" roared the advance-guard suddenly. But the horse's hoof-beats +never checked for a single instant. + +"Halt, you! Who comes there?" + +"Friend!" came the answer, in an accent that was unmistakable. + +"What friend? Where are you going?" + +One of the advance-guard reined his horse across the road. The others +followed suit and blocked the way effectually. "Halt!" they roared +in unison. + +The main body of the advance came up with them. + +"Who is he?" shouted the sergeant. + +"We'll soon see! Here he comes!" + +"Out of my way!" yelled a voice, as a foamed-flecked horse burst +out of the darkness like an apparition and bore straight down on +them--his head bored a little to one side, the red rims of his nostrils +wide distended and his whole sense and energy, and strength concentrated +on pleasing the speed-hungry Irishman who rode him. He flashed into +them head-on, like a devil from the outer darkness. His head touched +a man's knee--and he rose and tried to jump him! "His breast crashed +full into the obstruction and horse and gunner crashed down to +the road. + +A dozen arms reached out--twelve horses surged in a clattering melee-- +two hands gripped the reins and four arms seized the rider, and in +a second the panting charger was brought up all-standing. The sergeant +thrust his grim face closer and peered at their capture. + +"Good--, if it ain't an officer!" he exclaimed. "I beg your pardon, sir!" + +And at that instant the section rattled, up behind them, with Bellairs +in the lead. + +"Halt!" roared Bellairs. "What's this?" + +"Bloody murder, arson, high treason, mutiny and death! Blood and +onions, man! Don't your men know an officer when they see one? Who +are you? Are you Bellairs? Then why in God's name didn't you say +so sooner? What have you waited for? + +How many hours is it since you got the message through from Jundhra? +Couldn't you see the barracks burning? Who am I--I'm Captain O'Rourke, +of the Thirty-third, sent to see what you're doing on the road, that's +who I am! A full-fledged; able-bodied captain wasted in a crisis, +just because you didn't choose to hurry! Poison take your confounded +gunners, sir! Have they nothing better to engage them than holding +up officers on the Queen's trunk road? + +"Supposing you tell me what's the matter?" suggested young Bellairs, +prompt as are most of his breed to appear casual the moment there +was cause to feel excited. + +"Your gunners have taken all my breath, sir. I can't speak!" + +"You shouldn't take chances with a section of artillery! They're +not like infantry--they don't sleep all the time--you can't ride through +them as a rule!" + +"Don't sleep, don't they! Then what have you been doing on the road? +And what are you standing here for? Ride, man, ride! You're wanted!" + +"Get out of the way, then!" suggested Bellairs, and Captain O'Rourke +legged his panting charger over to the roadside. + +"Advance-guard, forward, trot!" commanded the lieutenant. + +"Have you brought your wife with you?" demanded O'Rourke, peering +into the jingling blackness. + +"No. Of course not. Why?" + +"`Of course not! Why?' says the man! Hell and hot porridge! Why, +the whole of India's ablaze from end to end--the sepoys have mutinied +to a man, and the rest have joined them! There's bloody murder doing-- +they've shot their officers--Hammond's dead and Carstairs and Welfleet +and heaven knows who else. They've burned their barracks and the +stores and they're trying to seize the magazine. If they get that, +God help every one. They're short of ammunition as it is, but two +companies of the Thirty-third can't hold out for long against that +horde. You'll be in the nick of time! Hurry, man! For the love +of anything you like to name, get a move on!" + + + + +IV. + +"Trot, march! + +"Canter!" + +Bellairs was thinking of his wife, alone in Hanadra, unprotected except +by a sixty-year-old Risaldar and a half-brother who was a civilian +and an unknown quantity. There were cold chills running down his +spine and a sickening sensation in his stomach. He rode ahead of +the guns, with O'Rourke keeping pace beside him. He felt that he +hated O'Rourke, hated everything, hated the Service, and the country-- +and the guns, that could put him into such a fiendish predicament. + +O'Rourke broke silence first. + +"Who is with your wife?" he demanded suddenly. + +"Heaven knows! I left her under the protection of Risaldar Mahommed +Khan, but he was to ride off for an escort for her." + +"Not your father's old Risaldar?" asked O'Rourke. + +"The same." + +"Then thank God! I'd sooner trust him than I would a regiment. He'll +bring her in alive or slit the throats of half Asia--maybe 'he'll +do both! Come, that's off our minds! She's safer with him than she +would be here. Have you lots of ammunition?" + +"I brought all I had with me at Hanadra." + +"Good! What you'll need tonight is grape!" + +"I've lots of it. It's nearly all grape." + +"Hurrah! Then we'll treat those dirty mutineers to a dose or two +of pills they won't fancy! Come on, man--set the pace a little faster!" + +"Why didn't my orders say anything about a mutiny or bringing in my +wife?" + +"Dunno! I didn't write 'em. I can guess, though. There'd be something +like nine reasons. For one thing, they'd credit you with sense enough +to bring her in without being told. For another, the messenger who +took the note might have got captured on the way--they wouldn't want +to tell the sepoys more than they could help. Then there'd be something +like a hurry. They're attacked there too--can't even send us assistance. +Told us to waylay you and make use of you. Maybe they forgot your +wife--maybe they didn't. It's a devil of a business anyhow!" + +It was difficult to talk at the speed that they were making, with +their own horses breathing heavily, O'Rourke's especially; the guns +thundering along behind them and the advance-guard clattering in front, +and their attention distracted every other minute by the noise of +volleys on ahead and the occasional staccato rattle of independent +firing. The whole sky was now alight with the reflection of the burning +barracks and they could see the ragged outlines of the cracking walls +silhouetted against the blazing red within. One mile or less from +the burning buildings they could see, too, the occasional flash of +rifles where the two companies of the Thirty-third, Honorable East +India Company's Light Infantry, held out against the mutineers. + +"Why did they mutiny?" asked Bellairs. + +"God knows! Nobody knows! Nobody knows anything! I'm thinking--" + +"Thinking what?" + +"Forrester-Carter is commanding. We'll settle this business pretty +quickly, now you've come. Then--Steady, boy! Steady! Hold up! +This poor horse of mine is just about foundered, by the feel of him. +He'll reach Doonha, though. Then we'll ask Carter to make a dash on +Hanadra and bring Mrs. Bellairs--maybe we'll meet her and the Risaldar +half-way--who knows? The sepoys wouldn't expect that, either. The +move'd puzzle 'em--it'd be a good move, to my way of thinking." + +"Let's hope Carter will consent!" prayed Bellairs fervently. "Now, +what's the lay of things?" + +"Couldn't tell you! When I left, our men were surrounded. I had +to burst through the enemy to get away. Ours are all around the +magazine and the sepoys are on every side of them. You'll have to +use diagonal fire unless you want to hurt some of our chaps--sweep +'em cornerwise. There's high ground over to the right there, within +four hundred yards of the position. Maybe they're holding it, though-- +there's no knowing!" + +They could hear the roar of the flames now, and could see the figures +of sepoys running here and there. The rattle of musketry was incessant. +They could hear howls and yells and bugle-calls blown at random by +the sepoys, and once, in answer as it seemed to a more than usually +savage chorus from the enemy--a chorus that was punctuated by a raging +din of intermittent rifle-fire--a ringing cheer. + +"They must be in a tight hole!" muttered Bellairs. "Answer that, men! +All together, now! Let 'em know we're coming." + +The men rose in their stirrups all together, and sent roaring through +the blackness the deep-throated "Hip-hip-hur-r-a-a-a-a-a!" that has +gladdened more than one beleaguered British force in the course of +history. It is quite different from the "Hur-o-a-o-a-u-r-rh" of a +forlorn hope, or the high-pitched note of pleasure that signals the +end of a review. It means "Hold on, till we get there, boys!" and +it carries its meaning, clear and crisp and unmistakable, in its note. + +The two beleaguered companies heard it and answered promptly with +another cheer. + +"By gad, they must be in a hole!" remarked Bellairs. + +British soldiers do not cheer like that, all together, unless there +is very good reason to feel cheerless. They fight, each man according +to his temperament, swearing or laughing, sobbing or singing comic +songs, until the case looks grim. Then, though, the same thrill +runs through the whole of them, the same fire blazes in their eyes, +and the last ditch that they line has been known to be a grave for +the enemy. + +"Trumpeter! Sound close-order!" + +The trumpet rang. The advance-guard drew rein for the section to +catch up. The guns drew abreast of one another and the mounted gunners +formed in a line, two deep, in front of them. The ammunition-wagon +trailed like a tail behind. + +"That high ground over there, I think!" suggested O'Rourke. + +"Thank you, sir. Section, right! Trot, march! Canter!" + +Crash went the guns and the following wagon across the roadside ditch. +The tired horses came up to the collar as service-horses always will, +generous to the last ounce of strength they have in them. + +"Gallop!" + +The limbers bumped and jolted and the short-handled whips cracked +like the sound of pistol-practise. Blind, unreconnoitered, grim-- +like a black thunderbolt loosed into the blackness--the two guns shot +along a hollow, thundered up a ridge and burst into the fire-light +up above the mutineers, in the last place where any one expected them. +A howl came from the road that they had left, a hundred sepoys had +rushed down to block their passage the moment that their cheer had +rung above the noise of battle. + +"Action--front!" roared young Bellairs, and the muzzles swung round +at the gallop, jerked into position by the wheeling teams. + +"With case, at four hundred!" + +The orders were given and obeyed almost before the guns had lost their +motion. The charges had been rammed into the greedy muzzles before +the horses were away, almost--and that takes but a second--the horses +vanish like blown smoke when the game begins. A howl from the mutineers +told that they were seen; a volley from the British infantry announced +that they were yet in time; and "boom-boom!" went both guns together. + +The grapeshot whined and shrieked, and the ranks of the sepoys wilted, +mown down as though a scythe had swept them. Once, and once only, +they gathered for a charge on the two guns; but they were met half-way +up the rise by a shrieking blast of grape that ripped through them +and took the heart out of them; and the grape was followed by well- +aimed volleys from behind. Then they drew off to sulk and make fresh +plans at a distance, and Bellairs took his section unmolested into +the Thirty-third-lined rampart round the magazine. + +"What kept you, sir?" demanded Colonel Forrester-Carter, nodding +to him in answer to his salute and holding out his right arm while +a sergeant bandaged it. + +"My wife, sir--I--" + +"Where is she? Didn't you bring her?" + +"No, sir--I--" + +"Where is she?" + +"Still at Hanadra, sir--I--" + +"Let the men fall in! Call the roll at once!" + +"There was nothing in my orders, sir, about--" But Colonel Carter +cut him short with a motion and turned his back on him. + +"Much obliged, Sergeant," he said, slipping his wounded arm into an +improvised sling. "How many wagons have we here?" + +"Four, sir." + +"And horses?" + +"All shot dead except your charger, sir." + +"Oh! Ask Captain Trevor to come here." + +The sergeant disappeared into the shadows, and a moment later Captain +Trevor came running up and saluted. + +"There are seven wounded, sir, and nineteen dead," he reported. + +"Better than I had hoped, Trevor! Will you set a train to that magazine, +please, and blow it up the moment we are at a safe distance?" + +Trevor seemed surprised, but he saluted and said nothing. + +"O'Rourke! Please see about burying the dead at once. Mr. Bellairs, +let me have two horses, please, and their drivers, from each gun. +Sergeant! See about putting the wounded into the lightest of the +wagons and harness in four gun-horses the best way you can manage." + +"Very good, sir." + +"Which is your best horseman, Mr. Bellairs? Is his horse comparatively +fresh? I'll need him to gallop with a message. I'll dictate it to +Captain O'Rourke as soon as he is ready. Let the gunner stay here +close to me." + +Bellairs sought out his best man and the freshest-seeming horse in +wondering silence. He felt sick with anxiety, for what could one +lone veteran Risaldar do to protect Mrs. Bellairs against such a +horde as was in Hanadra? He looked at the barracks, which were still +blazing heavenward and illuminating the whole country-side, and shuddered +as he wondered whether his quarters at Hanadra were in flames yet. + +"It's a good job old Carter happened to be here!" he heard one of +his men mumble to another. "He's a man, that is--I'd sooner fight +under him than any I know of!" + +"What d'you suppose the next move is?" asked the other man. + +"I'd bet on it! I'll bet you what you like that--" + +But Bellairs did not hear the rest. + +A bugle rang out into the night. The gunners stood by their horses. +Even the sentries, posted outside the rampart to guard against alarm, +stood to attention, and Colonel Carter, wincing from the pain in his +right arm, walked out in front of where the men were lined up. + +Captain O'Rourke walked up and saluted him. + +"I've arranged to bury them in that trench we dug this evening, sir, +when the trouble started. It's not very deep, but it holds them +all. I've laid them in it." + +"Are you sure they're all dead?" + +"I've burnt their fingers with matches, sir. I don't know of any +better way to make sure." + +"Very well. Can you remember any of the burial service?" + +"'Fraid not, sir." + +"Um! That's a pity. And I'm afraid I can't spare the time. Take +a firing-party, Captain O'Rourke, and give them the last honors, at +all events." + +A party marched away toward the trench, and several minutes later +O'Rourke's voice was heard calling through the darkness, "All ready, sir!" + +"Present arms!" ordered the colonel, and the gunners sat their horses +with their hilts raised to their hips and the two long lines of infantry +stood rigid at the general salute, while five volleys--bulleted--barked +upward above the grave. They were, answered by sniping from the mutineers, +who imagined that reprisals had commenced. + +"Now, men!" said Colonel Carter, raising his voice until every officer +and man along the line could hear him, "as you must have realized, +things are very serious indeed. We are cut off from support, but +now that the guns are here to help us, we could either hold out here +until relieved or else fight our way into Jundhra, where I have no +doubt we are very badly needed. But"--he spoke more slowly and +distinctly now, with a distinct pause between each word--"there is +an officer's lady alone, and practically unprotected at Hanadra. +Our duty is clear. You are tired--I know it. You have had no supper, +and will get none. It means forced marching for the rest of this +night and a good part of tomorrow and more fighting, possibly on +an empty stomach; it means the dust and the heat and the discomfort +of the trunk road for all of us and danger of the worst kind instead +of safety--for we shall have farther to go to reach Jundhra. But +I would do the same, and you men all know it, for any soldier's wife +in my command, or any English woman in India. We will march now +on Hanadra. No! No demonstrations, please!" + +His uplifted left hand was just in time to check a roar of answering +approval. + +"Didn't I tell you so?" exclaimed a gunner to the man beside him in +an undertone. "Him leave a white woman to face this sort o' music? +He'd fight all India first!" + +Ten minutes later two companies of men marched out behind the guns, +followed by a cart that bore their wounded. As they reached the trunk +road they were saluted by a reverberating blast when the magazine +that they had fought to hold blew skyward. They turned to cheer the +explosion and then settled down to march in deadly earnest and, if +need be, to fight a rear-guard action all the way. + +And in the opposite direction one solitary gunner rode, hell-bent- +for-leather, with a note addressed to "O. C.--Jundhra." It was short +and to the point. It ran: + + Have blown up magazine; Mrs. Bellairs at Hanadra; + have gone to rescue her. + (Signed) A. FORRESTER-CARTER (Col.) + per J. O'Rourke + + + + +V. + +The red glow of barracks burning--an ayah from whom a dagger has been +taken locked in another room--the knowledge that there are fifty thousand +Aryan brothers, itching to rebel, within a stone's throw--and two +lone protectors of an alien race intent on torturing a High Priest, +each and every one of these is a disturbing feature. No woman, and +least of all a young woman such as Ruth Bellairs, can be blamed for +being nervous under the stress of such conditions or for displaying +a certain amount of feminine unreasonableness. + +She stood shivering for a minute and watched spellbound while Mahommed +Khan held the hot coal closer and even closer to the High Priest's +naked foot. The priest writhed in anticipation of the agony and turned +his eyes away, and as he turned them they met Ruth's. High priests +of a religion that includes sooth-saying and prophecy and bribery +of gods among its rites are students of human nature, and especially +of female human nature. Knowledge of it and of how it may be gulled, +and when, is the first essential of their calling. Her pale face, +her blue eyes strained in terror, the parted lips and the attitude +of tension, these gave him an idea. Before the charcoal touched him, +he screamed--screamed like a wounded horse. + +"Mahommed Khan, stop! Stop this instant! I won't have it! I won't +have my life, even, on those terms! D'you hear me, sir!" + +"Have courage, heavenborn! There is but one way to force a Hindu +priest, unless it be by cutting off his revenues--he must be hurt! +This dog is unhurt as yet--see! The fire has not yet touched his foot!" + +"Don't let it, Mahommed Khan! Set that iron down! This is my room. +I will not have crime committed here!" + +"And how long does the heavenborn think it would be her room were +this evil-living pig of a priest at large, or how long before a worse +crime were committed? Heavenborn, the hour is late and the charcoal +dies out rapidly when it has left the fire! See. I must choose another +piece!" + +He rummaged in the brazier, and she screamed again. + +"I will not have it, Risaldar! You must find another way." + +"Memsahib! Thy husband left thee in my care. Surely it is my right +to choose the way?" + +"Leave me, then! I relieve you of your trust. I will not have him +tortured in my room, or anywhere!" + +Mahommed Khan bowed low. + +"Under favor, heavenborn," he answered, "my trust is to your husband. +I can be released by him, or by death, not otherwise." + +"Once, and for all, Mahommed Khan, I will not have you torture him +in here!" + +"Memsahib, I have yet to ride for succor! At daybreak, when these +Hindus learn that the guns will not come back, they will rise to a +man. Even now we must find a hiding-place or--it is not good even +to think what I might find on my return!" + +He leaned over the priest again, but without the charcoal this time. + +"Speak, thou!" he ordered, growling in Hindustanee through his savage +black mustache. "I have yet to hear what price a Hindu sets on immunity +from torture!" + +But the priest, it seemed, had formed a new idea. He had been looking +through puckered eyes at Ruth, keen, cool calculation in his glance, +and in spite of the discomfort of his strained position he contrived +to nod. + +"Kharvani!" he muttered, half aloud. + +"Aye! Call on Kharvani!" sneered the Risaldar. "Perhaps the Bride +of Sivi will appear! Call louder!" + +He stirred again among the charcoal with his tongs, and Ruth and the +High Priest both shuddered. + +"Look!" said the High Priest in Hindustanee, nodding in Ruth's direction. +It was the first word that he had addressed to them. It took them +by surprise, and the Risaldar and his half-brother turned and looked. +Their breath left them. + +Framed in the yellow lamplight, her thin, hot-weather garments draped +about her like a morning mist, Ruth stood and stared straight back +at them through frightened eyes. Her blue-black hair, which had become +loosened in her excitement, hung in a long plait over one shoulder +and gleamed in the lamp's reflection. Her skin took on a faintly +golden color from the feeble light, and her face seemed stamped with +fear, anxiety, pity and suffering, all at once, that strangely enhanced +her beauty, silhouetted as she was against the blackness of the wall +behind, she seemed to be standing in an aura, shimmering with radiated +light. + +"Kharvani!" said the High Priest to himself again, and the two Rajputs +stood still like men dumfounded, and stared and stared and stared. +They knew Kharvani's temple. Who was there in Hanadra, Christian +or Mohammedan or Hindu, who did not? The show-building of the city, +the ancient, gloomy, wonderful erection where bats lived in the dome +and flitted round Kharvani's image, the place where every one must +go who needed favors of the priests, the central hub of treason and +intrigue, where every plot was hatched and every rumor had its origin-- +the ultimate, mazy, greedy, undisgorging goal of every bribe and +every blackmail-wrung rupee! + +They knew, too, as every one must know who has ever been inside the +place, the amazing, awe-inspiring picture of Kharvani painted on the +inner wall; of Kharvani as she was idealized in the days when priests +believed in her and artists thought the labor of a lifetime well employed +in painting but one picture of her--Kharvani the sorrowful, grieving +for the wickedness of earth; Kharvani, Bride of Siva, ready to intercede +with Siva, the Destroyer, for the helpless, foolish, purblind sons +of man. + +And here, before them, stood Kharvani--to the life! + +"What of Kharvani?" growled Mahommed Khan. + +"`A purblind fool, a sot and a Mohammedan,"' quoted the priest +maliciously, "`how many be they, three or one?'" + +The Risaldar's hand went to his scabbard. His sword licked out free +and trembled like a tuning-fork. He flicked with his thumbnail at +the blade and muttered: "Sharp! Sharp as death itself!" + +The Hindu grinned, but the blade came down slowly until the point +of it rested on the bridge of his nose. His eyes squinted inward, +watching it. + +"Now, make thy gentle joke again!" growled the Risaldar. +Ruth Bellairs checked a scream. + +"No blood!" she exclaimed. "Don't hurt him, Risaldar! I'll not +have you kill a man in here--or anywhere, in cold blood, for that +matter! Return your sword, sir!" + +The Risaldar swore into his beard. The High Priest grinned again. +"I am not afraid to die!" he sneered. "Thrust with that toy of thine! +Thrust home and make an end!" + +"Memsahib!" said the Risaldar, "all this is foolishness and waste +of time! The hour is past midnight and I must be going. Leave the +room--leave me and my half-brother with this priest for five short +minutes and we will coax from him the secret of some hiding-place +where you may lie hid until I come!" + +"But you'll hurt him!" + +"Not if he speaks, and speaks the truth!" + +"Promise me!" + +"On those conditions--yes!" + +"Where shall I go?" + +The Risaldar's eyes glanced toward the door of the inner room, but +he hesitated. "Nay! There is the ayah!" he muttered. "Is there +no other room?" + +"No, Risaldar, no other room except through that door. Besides, +I would rather stay here! I am afraid of what you may do to that +priest if I leave you alone with him!" + +"Now a murrain on all women, black and white!" swore Mahommed Khan +beneath his breath. Then he turned on the priest again, and placed +one foot on his stomach. + +"Speak!" he ordered. "What of Kharvani?" + +"Listen, Mahommed Khan!" Ruth Bellairs laid one hand on his sleeve, +and tried to draw him back. "Your ways are not my ways! You are a +soldier and a gentleman, but please remember that you are of a different +race! I can not let my life be saved by the torture of a human being-- +no, not even of a Hindu priest! Maybe it's all right and honorable +according to your ideas; but, if you did it, I would never be able +to look my husband in the face again! No, Risaldar! Let this priest +go, or leave him here--I don't care which, but don't harm him! I +am quite ready to ride with you, now, if you like. I suppose you +have horses? But I would rather die than think that a man was put +to the torture to save me! Life isn't worth that price!" + +She spoke rapidly, urging him with every argument she knew; but +the grim old Mohammedan shook his head. + +"Better die here," he answered her, "than on the road! No, memsahib. +With thirteen blades behind me, I could reach Jundhra, or at least +make a bold attempt; but single-handed, and with you to guard, the +feat is impossible. This dog of a Hindu here knows of some hiding-place. +Let him speak!" + +His hand went to his sword again, arid his eyes flashed. + +"Listen, heavenborn! I am no torturer of priests by trade! It is +not my life that I would save!" + +"I know that, Mahommed Khan! I respect your motive. It's the method +that I can't tolerate." + +The Risaldar drew his arm away from her and began to pace the room. +The High Priest instantly began to speak to Ruth, whispering to her +hurriedly in Hindustanee, but she was too little acquainted with +the language to understand him. + +"And I," said the Risaldar's half-brother suddenly, "am I of no +further use?" + +"I had forgotten thee!" exclaimed the Risaldar. + +They spoke together quickly in their own language, drawing aside and +muttering to each other. It was plain that the half-brother was making +some suggestion and that the Risaldar was questioning him and cross- +examining him about his plan, but neither Ruth nor the High Priest +could understand a word that either of them said. At the end of two +minutes or more, the Risaldar gave an order of some kind and the half- +brother grunted and left the room without another word, closing the +door noiselessly behind him. The Risaldar locked it again from the +inside and drew the bolt. + +"We have made another plan, heavenborn!" he announced mysteriously. + +"Then--then--you won't hurt this priest?" + +"Not yet," said the Risaldar. "He may be useful!" + +"Won't you unbind him, then? Look! His wrists and ankles are +all swollen." + +"Let the dog swell!" he grunted. + +But Ruth stuck to her point and made him loosen the bonds a little. + +"A man lives and learns!" swore the Risaldar. "Such as he were cast +into dungeons in my day, to feed on their own bellies until they had +had enough of life!" + +"The times have changed!" said Ruth. + +The Risaldar looked out through the window toward the red glow on the +sky-line. + +"Ha! Changed, have they!" he muttered. "I saw one such burning, +once before!" + + + + +VI. + +The most wonderful thing in history, pointing with the surest finger +to the trail of destiny, has been the fact that in every tremendous +crisis there have been leaders on the spot to meet it. It is not +so wonderful that there should be such men, for the world keeps +growing better, and it is more than likely that the men who have +left their footprints in the sands of time would compare to their +own disadvantage with their compeers of today. The wonderful thing +is that the right men have been in the right place at the right time. +Scipio met Hannibal; Philip of Spain was forced to meet Howard of +Effingham and Drake; Napoleon Bonaparte, the "Man of Destiny," found +Wellington and Nelson of the Nile to deal with him; and, in America, +men like George Washington and Grant and Lincoln seem, in the light +of history, like timed, calculated, controlling devices in an intricate +machine. It was so when the Indian Mutiny broke out. The struggle +was unexpected. A handful of Europeans, commissioned and enlisted +in the ordinary way, with a view to trade, not statesmanship, found +themselves face to face at a minute's notice with armed and vengeful +millions. Succor was a question of months, not days or weeks. India +was ablaze from end to end with rebel fires that had been planned +in secret through silent watchful years. The British force was +scattered here and there in unconnected details, and each detail +was suddenly cut off from every other one by men who had been trained +to fight by the British themselves and who were not afraid to die. + +The suddenness with which the outbreak came was one of the chief assets +of the rebels, for they were able to seize guns and military stores +and ammunition at the very start of things, before the British force +could concentrate. Their hour could scarcely have been better chosen. +The Crimean War was barely over. Practically the whole of England's +standing army was abroad and decimated by battle and disease. At +home, politics had England by the throat; the income-tax was on a +Napoleonic scale and men were more bent on worsting one another than +on equipping armies. They had had enough of war. + +India was isolated, at the rebels' mercy, so it seemed. There were +no railway trains to make swift movements of troops possible. Distances +were reckoned by the hundred miles--of sun-baked, thirsty dust in +the hot weather, and of mud in the rainy season. There were no +telegraph-wires, and the British had to cope with the mysterious, +and even yet unsolved, native means of sending news--the so-called +"underground route," by which news and instructions travel faster +than a pigeon flies. There was never a greater certainty or a more +one-sided struggle, at the start. The only question seemed to be +how many days, or possibly weeks, would pass before jackals crunched +the bones of every Englishman in India. + +But at the British helm was Nicholson, and under him were a hundred +other men whose courage and resource had been an unknown quantity +until the outbreak came. Nicholson's was the guiding spirit, but +it needed only his generalship to fire all the others with that grim +enthusiasm that has pulled Great Britain out of so many other scrapes. +Instead of wasting time in marching and countermarching to relieve +the scattered posts, a swift, sudden swoop was made on Delhi, where +the eggs of the rebellion had hatched. + +As many of the outposts as could be reached were told to fight their +own way in, and those that could not be reached were left to defend +themselves until the big blow had been struck at the heart of things. +If Delhi could be taken, the rebels would be paralyzed and the rescue +of beleaguered details would be easier; so, although odds of one +hundred or more to one are usually considered overlarge in wartime-- +when the hundred hold the fort and the one must storm the gate--there +was no time lost in hesitation. Delhi was the goal; and from north +and south and east and west the men who could march marched, and those +who could not entrenched themselves, and made ready to die in the +last ditch. + +Some of the natives were loyal still. There were men like Risaldar +Mahommed Khan, who would have died ten deaths ten times over rather +than be false in one particular to the British Government. It was +these men who helped to make intercommunication possible, for they +could carry messages and sometimes get through unsuspected where +a British soldier would have been shot before he had ridden half +a mile. Their loyalty was put to the utmost test in that hour, for +they can not have believed that the British force could win. They +knew the extent of what was out against them and knew, too, what +their fate would be in the event of capture or defeat. There would +be direr, slower vengeance wreaked on them than on the alien British. +But they had eaten British salt and pledged their word, and nothing +short of death could free them from it. There was not a shred of +self interest to actuate them; there could not have been. Their +given word was law and there it ended. + +There were isolated commands, like that at Jundhra, that were too +far away to strike at Delhi and too large and too efficient to be +shut in by the mutineers. They were centers on their own account +of isolated small detachments, and each commander was given leave +to act as he saw best, provided that he acted and did it quickly. +He could either march to the relief of his detachments or call them +in, but under no condition was he to sit still and do nothing. + +So, Colonel Carter's note addressed to O. C.--Jundhra only got two-thirds +of the way from Doonha. The gunner who rode with it was brought to a +sudden standstill by an advance-guard of British cavalry, and two +minutes later he found himself saluting and giving up his note to +the General Commanding. The rebels at Jundhra had been worsted and +scattered after an eight-hour fight, and General Turner had made up +his mind instantly to sweep down on Hanadra with all his force and +relieve the British garrison at Doonha on his way. + +Jundhra was a small town and unhealthy. Hanadra was a large city, +the center of a province; and, from all accounts, Hanadra had not +risen yet. By seizing Hanadra before the mutineers had time to +barricade themselves inside it, he could paralyze the countryside, +for in Hanadra were the money and provisions and, above all, the +Hindu priests who, in that part of India at least, were the brains +of the rebellion. So he burned Jundhra, to make it useless to the +rebels, and started for Hanadra with every man and horse and gun +and wagon and round of ammunition that he had. + +Now news in India travels like the wind, first one way and then another. +But, unlike the wind, it never whistles. Things happen and men know +it and the information spreads--invisible, intangible, inaudible, +but positive and, in nine cases out of ten, correct in detail. A +government can no more censor it, or divert it, or stop it on the +way, than it can stay the birthrate or tamper with the Great Monsoon. + +First the priests knew it, then it filtered through the main bazaars +and from them on through the smaller streets. By the time that General +Turner had been two hours on the road with his command every man and +woman and child in Hanadra knew that the rebels had been beaten back +and that Hanadra was his objective. They knew, too, that the section +had reached Doonha, had relieved it and started back again. And yet +not a single rebel who had fought in either engagement was within +twenty miles of Hanadra yet! + +In the old, low-ceilinged room above the archway Mahommed Khan paced +up and down and chewed at his black mustache, kicking his scabbard +away from him each time he turned and glowering at the priest. + +"That dog can solve this riddle!" he kept muttering. Then he would +glare at Ruth impatiently and execrate the squeamishness of women. +Ruth sat on the divan with her face between her hands, trying to +force herself to realize the full extent of her predicament and beat +back the feeling of hysteria that almost had her in its grip. The +priest lay quiet. He was in a torture of discomfort on the upturned +table, but he preferred not to give the Risaldar the satisfaction +of knowing it. He eased his position quietly from time to time as +much as his bandages would let him, but he made no complaint. + +Suddenly, Ruth looked up. It had occurred to her that she was wasting +time and that if she were to fight off the depression that had seized +her she would be better occupied. + +"Mahommed Khan," she said, "if I am to leave here on horseback, with +you or with an escort, I had better collect some things that I would +like to take with me. Let me in that room, please!" + +"The horse will have all that it can carry, heavenborn, without a +load of woman's trappings." + +"My jewels? I can take them, I suppose?" + +He bowed. "They are in there? I will bring them, heavenborn!" + +"Nonsense! You don't know where to find them." + +"The ayah--will--will show me!" + +He fitted the key into the lock and turned it, but Ruth was at his +side before he could pass in through the door. + +"Nonsense, Risaldar! The ayah can't hurt me. You have taken her +knife away, and that is my room. I will go in there alone!" + +She pushed past him before he could prevent her, thrust the door back +and peered in. + +"Stay, heavenborn--I will explain!" + +"Explain what?" + +The dim light from the lamp was filtering in past them, and her eyes +were slowly growing accustomed to the gloom. There was something +lying on the floor, in the middle of the room, that was bulky and +shapeless and unfamiliar. + +"Ayah!" said Ruth. "Ayah!" + +But there was no answer. + +"Where is she, Risaldar?" + +"She is there, heavenborn!" + +"Is she asleep?" + +"Aye! She sleeps deeply!" + +There was, something in the Rajput's voice that was strange, that +hinted at a darker meaning. + +"Ayah!" she called again, afraid, though she knew not why, to enter. + +"She guards the jewels, heavenborn! Wait, while I bring the lamp!" + +He crossed the room, brought it and stepped with it past Ruth, straight +into the room. + +"See!" he said, holding the lamp up above his head. "There in her +bosom are the jewels! It was there, too, that she had the knife to +slay thee with! My sword is clean, yet, heavenborn! I slew her with +my fingers, thus!" + +He kicked the prostrate ayah, and, as the black face with the wide-open +bloodshot eyes and the protruding tongue rolled sidewise and the body +moved, a little heap of jewels fell upon the floor. Mahommed Khan +stooped down to gather them, bending, a little painfully, on one old +knee--but stopped half-way and turned. There was a thud behind him +in the doorway. Ruth Bellairs had fainted, and lay as the ayah had +lain when Risaldar had not yet locked her in the room. + +He raised the lamp and studied her in silence for a minute, looking +from her to the bound priest and back to her again. + +"Now praised be Allah!" he remarked aloud, with a world of genuine +relief in his voice. "Should she stay fainted for a little while, +that priest--" + +He stalked into the middle of the outer room. He set the lamp down +on a table and looked the priest over as a butcher might survey a +sheep he is about to kill. + +"Now--robber of orphans--bleeder of widows' blood--dog of an idol-briber! +This stands between thee and Kharvani!" He drew his sword and flicked +the edges of it. "And this!" He took up the tongs again. "There +is none now to plead or to forbid! Think! Show me the way out of +this devil's nest, or--" He raised the tongs again. + +At that minute came a quiet knock. He set the tongs down again and +crossed the room and opened the door. + + + + +VII. + +Mahommed Khan closed the door again behind his half-brother and turned +the key, but the half-brother shot the bolt home as well before he +spoke, then listened intently for a minute with his ear to the keyhole. + +"Where is the priest's son?" growled the Risaldar, in the Rajput tongue. + +"I have him. I have the priestling in a sack. I have him trussed +and bound and gagged, so that he can neither speak nor wriggle!" + +"Where?" + +"Hidden safely." + +"I said to bring him here!" + +"I could not. Listen! That ayah--where is she?" + +"Dead! What has the ayah to do with it?" + +"This--she was to give a sign. She was not to slay. She had leave +only to take the jewels. Her orders were either to wait until she +knew by questioning that the section would not return or else, when +it had returned, to wait until the memsahib and Bellairs sahib slept, +and then to make a sign. They grow tired of waiting now, for there +is news! At Jundhra the rebels are defeated, and at Doonha likewise." + +"How know you this?" + +"By listening to the priests' talk while I lay in wait to snare the +priestling. Nothing is known as yet as to what the guns or garrison +at Doonha do, but it is known that they of Jundhra will march on +Hanadra here. They search now for their High Priest, being minded +to march out of here and set an ambush on the road." + +"They have time. From Jundhra to here is a long march! Until tomorrow +evening or the day following they have time!" + +"Aye! And they have fear also! They seek their priest--listen." + +There were voices plainly audible in the courtyard down below, and +two more men stood at the foot of the winding stairway whispering. +By listening intently they could hear almost what they said, for the +stone stairway acted like a whispering-gallery, the voices echoing +up it from wall to wall. + +"Why do they seek him here?" + +"They have sought elsewhere and not found him; and there is talk-- +He claimed the memsahib as his share of the plunder. They think--" + +Mahommed Khan glared at the trussed-up priest and swore a savage oath +beneath his breath. + +"Have they touched the stables yet?" he demanded. + +"No, not yet. The loot is to be divided evenly among certain of +the priests, and no man may yet lay a hand on it." + +"Is there a guard there?" + +"No. No one would steal what the priests claim, and the priests will +not trust one another. So the horses stand in their stalls unwatched." + +The voices down the stairs grew louder, and the sound of footsteps +began ascending, slowly and with hesitation. + +"Quick!" said the Risaldar. "Light me that brazier again!" + +Charcoal lights quickly, and before the steps had reached the landing +Mahommed Khan had a hot coal glowing in his tongs: + +"Now speak to them!" he growled at the shuddering priest. "Order +them to go back to their temple and tell them that you follow!" + +The priest shut his lips tight and shook his head. With rescue so +near as that, he could see no reason to obey. But the hot coal touched +him, and a Hindu who may be not at all afraid to die can not stand +torture. + +"I speak!" he answered, writhing. + +"Speak, then!" said the Risaldar, choosing a larger coal. +Then, in the priest's language, which none--and least of all a Risaldar-- +can understand except the priests themselves, he began to shout +directions, pitching his voice into a high, wailing, minor key. +He was answered by another sing-song voice outside the door and he +listened with a glowing coal held six inches from his eyes. + +"An eye for a false move!" hissed Mahommed Khan. "Two eyes are the +forfeit unless they go down the stairs again! Then my half-brother +here will follow to the temple and if any watch, or stay behind, thy +ears will sizzle!" + +The High Priest raised his voice into a wail again, and the feet shuffled +along the landing and descended. + +"Put down that coal!" he pleaded. "I have done thy bidding!" + +"Watch through the window!" said the Risaldar. "Then follow!" + +His giant half-brother peered from behind the curtain and listened. +He could hear laughter, ribald, mocking laughter, but low, and plainly +not intended for the High Priest's ears. + +"They go!" he growled. + +"Then follow." + +Once again the Risaldar was left alone with the priest and the unconscious +Ruth. She was suffering from the effects of long days and nights +of nerve-destroying heat, with the shock of unexpected horror super- +added, and she showed no disposition to recover consciousness. The +priest, though, was very far from having lost his power to think. + +"You are a fool!" he sneered at the Risaldar, but the sword leaped +from its scabbard at the word and he changed that line of argument. +"You hold cards and know not how to play them!" + +"I know along which road my honor lies! I lay no plans to murder +people in their sleep." + +"Honor! And what is honor? What is the interest on honor--how much +percent?" + +The Risaldar turned his back on him, but the High Priest laughed. + +"`The days of the Raj are numbered!" said the priest. "The English +will be slain to the last man and then where will you be? Where will +be the profit on your honor?" + +The Risaldar listened, for he could not help it, but he made no answer. + +"Me you hold here, a prisoner. You can slay or torture. But what +good will that do? The woman that you guard will fall sooner or +later into Hindu hands. You can not fight against a legion. Listen! +I hold the strings of wealth. With a jerk I can unloose a fortune +in your lap. I need that woman there!" + +"For what?" snarled the Risaldar, whirling round on him, his eyes +ablaze. + +"'For power! Kharvani's temple here has images and paintings and +a voice that speaks--but no Kharvani!" + +The Rajput turned away again and affected unconcern. + +"Could Kharvani but appear, could her worshipers but see Kharvani +manifest, what would a lakh, two lakhs, a crore of rupees mean to +me, the High Priest of her temple? I could give thee anything! The +power over all India would be in my hands! Kharvani would but appear +and say thus and thus, and thus would it be done!" + +The Risaldar's hand had risen to his mustache. His back was still +turned on the priest, but he showed interest. His eyes wandered to +where Ruth lay in a heap by the inner door and then away again. + +"Who would believe it?" he growled in an undertone. + +"They would all believe it! One and all! Even Mohammedans would +become Hindus to worship at her shrine and beg her favors. Thou +and I alone would share the secret. Listen! Loose me these bonds-- +my limbs ache." + +Mahommed Khan turned. He stooped and cut them with his sword. + +"Now I can talk," said the priest, sitting up and rubbing his ankles. +"Listen. Take thou two horses and gallop off, so that the rest may +think that the white woman has escaped. Then return here secretly +and name thy price--and hold thy tongue!" + +"And leave her in thy hands?" asked the Risaldar. + +"In my keeping." + +"Bah! Who would trust a Hindu priest!" + +The Rajput was plainly wavering and the priest stood up, to argue +with him the better. + +"What need to trust me? You, sahib, will know the secret, and none +other but myself will know it. Would I, think you, be fool enough +to tell the rest, or, by withholding just payment from you, incite +you to spread it broadcast? You and I will know it and we alone. +To me the power that it will bring--to you all the wealth you ever +dreamed of, and more besides!" + +"No other priest would know?" + +"Not one! They will think the woman escaped!" + +"And she--where would you keep her?" + +"In a secret place I know of, below the temple." + +"Does any other know it?" + +"No. Not one!" + +"Listen!" said the Risaldar, stroking at his beard. "This woman never +did me any wrong--but she is a woman, not a man. I owe her no fealty, +and yet--I would not like to see her injured. Were I to agree to +thy plan, there would needs be a third man in the secret." + +"Who? Name him," said the priest, grinning his satisfaction. + +"My half-brother Suliman." + +"Agreed!" + +"He must go with us to the hiding-place and stay there as her servant." + +"Is he a silent man?" + +"Silent as the dead, unless I bid him speak!" + +"Then, that is agreed; he and thou and I know of this secret, and +none other is to know it! Why wait? Let us remove her to the hiding- +place!" + +"Wait yet for Suliman. How long will I be gone, think you, on my +pretended flight?" + +"Nay, what think you, sahib?" + +"I think many hours. There may be those that watch, or some that +ride after me. I think I shall not return until long after daylight, +and then there will be no suspicions. Give me a token that will admit +me safely back into Hanadra--some sign that the priests will know, +and a pass to show to any one that bids me halt." + +The priest held out his hand. "Take off that ring of mine!" he answered. +"That is the sacred ring of Kharvani--and all men know it. None will +touch thee or refuse thee anything, do they have but the merest sight +of it!" + +The Risaldar drew off a clumsy silver ring, set with three stones-- +a sapphire and a ruby and an emerald, each one of which was worth a +fortune by itself. He slipped it on his own finger and turned it +round slowly, examining it. + +"See how I trust thee," said the priest. + +"More than I do thee!" muttered the Risaldar. + +"I hear my brother!" growled the Risaldar after another minute. +"Be ready to show the way!" + +He walked across the room to Ruth, tore a covering from a divan and +wrapped her in it; then he opened the outer door for his half-brother. + +"Is it well?" he asked in the Rajput tongue. + +"All well!" boomed the half-brother, eying the unbound priest with +unconcealed surprise. + +"Do any watch?" + +"Not one! The priests are in the temple; all who are not priests +man the walls or rush here and there making ready." + +"And the priestling?" + +"Is where I left him." + +"Where?--I said." + +"In the niche underneath the arch, where I trapped the High Priest!" + +"Are the horses fed and watered?" + +"Ha, sahib!" + +"Good! How is the niche opened where the priestling lies?" + +"There is the trunk of an elephant, carved where the largest stone +of all begins to curve outward, on the side of the stone as you go +outward from the courtyard." + +"On which side of the archway, then?" + +"On the left side, sahib. Press on the trunk downward and then pull; +the stone swings outward. There are steps then--ten steps downward +to the stone floor where the priestling lies." + +"Good! I can find him. Now pick up the heavenborn yonder in those +great arms of thine, and bear her gently! Gently, I said! So! Have +a care, now, that she is not injured against the corners. My honor, +aye, my honor and yours and all our duty to the Raj you bear and-- +and have a care of the corners?" + +"Aye," answered the half-brother, stolidly, holding Ruth as though +she had been a little bag of rice. + +Again the Risaldar turned to the High Priest, and eyed him through +eyes that glittered. + +"We are ready!" he growled. "Lead on to thy hiding-place!" + + + + +VIII. + +The guns rode first from Doonha, for the guns take precedence. The +section ground-scouts were acting scouts for the division, two hundred +yards ahead of every one. Behind the guns rode Colonel Forrester-Carter, +followed by the wagon with the wounded; and last of all the two +companies of the Thirty-third trudged through the stifling heat. + +But, though the guns were ahead of every one, they had to suit their +pace to that of the men who marched. For one thing, there might be +an attack at any minute, and guns that are caught at close quarters +at a distance from their escort are apt to be astonishingly helpless. +They can act in unison with infantry; but alone, on bad ground, in +the darkness, and with their horses nearly too tired to drag them, +a leash of ten puppies in a crowd would be an easier thing to hurry with. + +Young Bellairs had his men dismounted and walking by their mounts. +Even the drivers led their horses, for two had been taken from each +gun to drag the wounded, and the guns are calculated as a load for +six, not four. + +As he trudged through the blood-hot dust in clumsy riding-boots and +led his charger on the left flank of the guns, Harry Bellairs fumed +and fretted in a way to make no man envy him. The gloomy, ghost-like +trees, that had flitted past him on the road to Doonha, crawled past +him now--slowly and more slowly as his tired feet blistered in his boots. +He could not mount and ride, though, for very shame, while his men +were marching, and he dared not let them ride, for fear the horses +might give in. He could just trudge and trudge, and hate himself +and every one, and wonder. + +What had the Risaldar contrived to do? Why hadn't he packed up his +wife's effects the moment that his orders came and ridden off with +her and the section at once, instead of waiting three hours or more +for an escort for her? Why hadn't he realized at once that orders +that came in a hurry that way, in the night-time, were not only urgent +but ominous as well? What chance had the Risaldar--an old man, however +willing he might be--to ride through a swarming countryside for thirty +miles or more and bring back an escort? Why, even supposing Mohammed +Khan had ridden off at once, he could scarcely be back again before +the section! And what would have happened in the meantime? + +Supposing the Risaldar's sons and grandsons refused to obey him? +Stranger things than that had been known to happen! Suppose they +were disloyal? And then--blacker though than any yet!--suppose-- +suppose-- Why had Mahommed Khan, the hard-bitten, wise old war-dog, +advised him to leave his wife behind? Did that seem like honest +advice, on second thought? Mohammedans had joined in this outbreak +as well as Hindus. The sepoys at Doonha were Mohammedans! Why had +Mahommed Khan seemed so anxious to send him on his way? As though +an extra five minutes would have mattered! Why had he objected to +a last good-by to Mrs. Bellairs? . . . And then--he had shown a certain +knowledge of the uprising; where had he obtained it? If he were +loyal, who then had told him of it? Natives who are disloyal don't +brag of their plans beforehand to men who are on the other side! +And if he had known of it, and was still loyal, how was it that he +had not divulged his information before the outbreak came? Would +a loyal man hold his tongue until the last minute? Scarcely! + +He halted, pulled his horse to the middle of the road and waited for +Colonel Carter to overtake him. + +"Well? What is it?" asked the colonel sharply. + +"Can I ride on ahead, sir? My horse is good for it and I'm in agonies +of apprehension about my wife!" + +"No! Certainly not! You are needed to command your section!" + +"I beg your pardon, sir, but I've a sergeant who can take command. +He's a first-class man and perfectly dependable." + +"You could do no good, even if you did ride on," said the colonel, +not unkindly. + +"I'm thinking, sir, that Mahommed Khan--" + +"Risaldar Mahommed Khan?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Of the Rajput Horse?" + +"Yes, sir. My father's Risaldar." + +"You left your wife in his charge, didn't you?" + +"Yes, sir, but I'm thinking that--that perhaps the Risaldar--I mean-- +there seem to be Mohammedans at the bottom of this business, as well +as Hindus. Perhaps--" + +"Bellairs! Now hear me once and for all. You thank your God that +the Risaldar turned up to guard her! Thank God that your father was +man enough for Mahommed Khan to love and that you are your father's son! +And listen! Don't let me hear you, ever, under any circumstances, +breathe a word of doubt as to that man's loyalty! D'you understand me, +sir? You, a mere subaltern, a puppy just out of his 'teens, an +insignificant jackanapes with two twelve-pounders in your charge, +daring to impute disloyalty to Mahommed Khan!--your impudence! Remember +this! That old Risaldar is the man who rode with your father through +the guns at Dera! He's a pauper without a pension, for all his loyalty, +but he went down the length of India to meet you, at his own expense, +when you landed raw-green from England! And what d'you know of war, +I'd like to know, that you didn't learn from him? Thank your God, +sir, that there's some one there who'll kill your wife before she +falls into the Hindus' hands!" + +"But he was going to ride away, sir, to bring an escort!" + +"Not before he'd made absolutely certain of her safety!" swore the +colonel with conviction. "Join your section, sir!" + +So Harry Bellairs joined his section and trudged along sore-footed +at its side--sore-hearted, too. He wondered whether any one would +ever say as much for him as Colonel Carter had chosen to say for +Mahommed Khan, or whether any one would have the right to say it! +He was ashamed of having left his wife behind and tortured with anxiety-- +and smarting from the snub--a medley of sensations that were more +likely to make a man of him, if he had known it, than the whole +experience of a year's campaign! But in the dust and darkness, with +the blisters on his heels, and fifty men, who had overheard the colonel, +looking sidewise at him, his plight was pitiable. + +They trudged until the dawn began to rise, bright yellow below the +drooping banian trees; only Colonel Carter and the advance-guard +riding. Then, when they stopped at a stream to water horses and +let them graze a bit and give the men a sorely needed rest, one of +the ring of outposts loosed off his rifle and shouted an alarm. +They had formed square in an instant, with the guns on one side and +the men on three, and the colonel and the wounded in the middle. +A thousand or more of the mutineers leaned on their rifles on the +shoulder of a hill and looked them over, a thousand yards away. + +"Send them an invitation!" commanded Colonel Carter, and the left-hand +gun barked out an overture, killing one sepoy. The rest made off +in the direction of Hanadra. + +"We're likely to have a hot reception when we reach there!" said Colonel +Carter cheerily. "Well, we'll rest here for thirty minutes and give +them a chance to get ready for us. I'm sorry there's no breakfast, +men, but the sepoys will have dinner ready by the time we get there-- +we'll eat theirs!" + +The chorus of ready laughter had scarcely died away when a horse's +hoof-beats clattered in the distance from the direction of Doonha +and a native cavalryman galloped into view, low-bent above his horse's +neck. The foam from his horse was spattered over him and his lance +swung pointing upward from the sling. On his left side the polished +scabbard rose and fell in time to his horse's movement. He was urging +his weary horse to put out every ounce he had in him. He drew rein, +though, when he reached a turning in the road and saw the resting +division in front of him, and walked his horse forward, patting his +sweat-wet neck and easing him. But as he leaned to finger with the +girths an ambushed sepoy fired at him, and he rammed in his spurs +again and rode like a man possessed. + +"This'll be another untrustworthy Mohammedan!" said Colonel Carter +in a pointed undertone, and Bellairs blushed crimson underneath the tan. +"He's ridden through from Jundhra, with torture waiting for him if +he happened to get caught, and no possible reward beyond his pay. +Look out he doesn't spike your guns!" + +The trooper rode straight up to Colonel Carter and saluted. He removed +a tiny package from his cheek, where he had carried it so that he might +swallow it at once in case of accident, tore the oil-silk cover from +it and handed it to him without a word, saluting again and leading +his horse away. Colonel Carter unfolded the half-sheet of foreign +notepaper and read: + + Dear Colonel Carter: + Your letter just received in which you say that you have blown + up the magazine at Doonha and are marching to Hanadra with a + view to the rescue of Mrs. Bellairs. This is in no sense + intended as a criticism of your action or of your plan, but + circumstances have made it seem advisable for me to transfer + my own headquarters to Hanadra and I am just starting. I must + ask you, please, to wait for me--at a spot as near to where + this overtakes you as can be managed. If Mrs. Bellairs, or + anybody else of ours, is in Hanadra, she--or they--are either + dead by now or else prisoners. And if they are to be rescued + by force, the larger the force employed the better. If you + were to attack with your two companies before I reached you, + you probably would be repulsed, and would, I think, endanger + the lives of any prisoners that the enemy may hold. I am + coming with my whole command as fast as possible. + Your Obedient Servant, + A. E. Turner + Genl. Officer Commanding + +"Men!" said Colonel Carter, in a ringing voice that gave not the +slightest indication of his feelings, "we're to wait here for a while +until the whole division overtakes us. The general has vacated Jundhra. +Lie down and get all the rest you can!" + +The murmur from the ranks was as difficult to read as Colonel Carter's +voice had been. It might have meant pleasure at the thought of rest, +or anger, or contempt, or almost anything. It was undefined and +indefinable. + +But there was no doubt at all as to how young Bellairs felt. He was +sitting on a trunnion, sobbing, with his head bent low between his hands. + + + + +IX. + +"Come, then!" said the High Priest. + +Mahommed Khan threw open the outer door and bowed sardonically. +"Precedence for priests!" he sneered, tapping at his sword-hilt. +"Thou goest first! Next come I, and last Suliman with the memsahib! +Thus can I reach thee with my sword, O priest, and also protect her +if need be!" + +"Thou art trusting as a little child!" exclaimed the priest, passing +out ahead of him. + +"A priest and a liar and a thief--all three are one!" hummed the +Risaldar. "Bear her gently, Suliman! Have a care, now, as you turn +on the winding stairs!" + +"Ha, sahib!" said the half-brother, carrying Ruth as easily as though +she had been a little child. + +At the foot of the stairway, in the blackness that seemed alive with +phantom shadows, the High Priest paused and listened, stretching out +his left hand against the wall to keep the other two behind him. +From somewhere beyond the courtyard came the din of hurrying sandaled +feet, scudding over cobblestones in one direction. The noise was +incessant and not unlike the murmur of a rapid stream. Occasionally +a voice was raised in some command or other, but the stream of sound +continued, hurrying, hurrying, shuffling along to the southward. + +"This way and watch a while," whispered the priest. + +"I have heard rats run that way!" growled the Risaldar. + +They climbed up a narrow stairway leading to a sort of battlement +and peered over the top, Suliman laying Ruth Bellairs down in the +darkest shadow he could find. She was beginning to recover consciousness, +and apparently Mahommed Khan judged it best to take no notice of her. + +Down below them they could see the city gate, wide open, with a blazing +torch on either side of it, and through the gate, swarming like ants +before the rains, there poured an endless stream of humans that marched-- +and marched--and marched; four, ten, fifteen abreast; all heights +and sizes, jumbled in and out among one another, anyhow, without +formation, but armed, every one of them, and all intent on marching +to the southward, where Jundhra and Doonha lay. Some muttered to +one another and some laughed, but the greater number marched in silence. + +"That for thy English!" grinned the priest. "Can the English troops +overcome that horde?" + +"Hey-ee! For a troop or two of Rajputs!" sighed the Risaldar. "Or +English Lancers! They would ride through that as an ax does through +the brush-wood!" + +"Bah!" said the priest. "All soldiers boast! There will be a houghing +shortly after dawn. The days of thy English are now numbered." + +"By those--there?" + +"Ay, by those, there! Come!" + +They climbed down the steps again, the Rajput humming to himself and +smiling grimly into his mustache. + +"Ay! There will be a houghing shortly after dawn!" he muttered. +"Would only that I were there to see! . . . Where are the sepoys?" +he demanded. + +"I know not. How should I know, who have been thy guest these hours +past? This march is none of my ordering." + +The priest pressed hard on a stone knob that seemed to be part of +the carving on a wall, then he leaned his weight against the wall +and a huge stone swung inward, while a fetid breath of air wafted +outward in their faces. + +"None know this road but I!" exclaimed the priest. + +"None need to!" said the Risaldar. "Pass on, snake, into thy hole. +We follow." + +"Steps!" said the priest, and began descending. + +"Curses!" said the Risaldar, stumbling and falling down on top of him. +"Have a care, Suliman! The stone is wet and slippery." + +Down, down they climbed, one behind the other, Suliman grunting beneath +his burden and the Risaldar keeping up a running fire of oaths. Each +time that he slipped, and that was often, he cursed the priest and +cautioned Suliman. But the priest only laughed, and apparently Suliman +was sure-footed, for he never stumbled once. They seemed to be diving +down into the bowels of the earth. They were in pitch-black darkness, +for the stone had swung to behind them of its own accord. The wall +on either side of them was wet with slime and the stink of decaying +ages rose and almost stifled them. But the priest kept on descending, +so fast that the other two had trouble to keep up with him, and he +hummed to himself as though he knew the road and liked it. + +"The bottom!" he called back suddenly. "From now the going is easy, +until we rise again. We pass now under the city-wall." + +But they could see nothing and hear nothing except their own footfalls +swishing in the ooze beneath them. Even the priest's words seemed +to be lost at once, as though he spoke into a blanket, for the air +they breathed was thicker than a mist and just as damp. They walked +on, along a level, wet, stone passage for at least five minutes, feeling +their way with one band on the wall. + +"Steps, now!" said the priest. "Have a care, now, for the lower ones +are slippery." + +Ruth was regaining consciousness. She began to move and tried once +or twice to speak. + +"Here, thou!" growled the Risaldar. "Thou art a younger man than I-- +come back here. Help with the memsahib." + +The priest came back a step or two, but Suliman declined his aid, +snarling vile insults at him. + +"I can manage!" he growled. "Get thou behind me, Mahommed Khan, +in case I slip!" + +So Mahommed Khan came last, and they slipped and grunted upward, +round and round a spiral staircase that was hewn out of solid rock. +No light came through from anywhere to help them, but the priest +climbed on, as though he were accustomed to the stair and knew the +way from constant use. After five minutes of steady climbing the +stone grew gradually dry. The steps became smaller, too, and deeper, +and not so hard to climb. Suddenly the priest reached out his arm +and pulled at something or other that hung down in the darkness. +A stone in the wall rolled open. A flood of light burst in and nearly +blinded them. + +"We are below Kharvani's temple!" announced the priest. +He led them through the opening into a four-square room hewn from +the rock below the foundations of the temple some time in the dawn +of history. The light that had blinded them when they first emerged +proved to be nothing but the flicker of two small oil lamps that hung +suspended by brass chains from the painted ceiling. The only furniture +was mats spread on the cut-stone floor. + +"By which way did we come?" asked the Risaldar, staring in amazement +round the walls. There was not a door nor crack, nor any sign of one, +except that a wooden ladder in one corner led to a trapdoor overhead, +and they had certainly not entered by the ladder. + +"Nay! That is a secret!" grinned the priest. "He who can may find +the opening! Here can the woman and her servant stay until we need them." + +"Here in this place?" + +"Where else? No man but I knows of this crypt! The ladder there +leads to another room, where there is yet another ladder, and that +one leads out through a secret door I know of, straight into the +temple. Art ready? There is need for haste!" + +"Wait!" said the Risaldar. + +"These soldiers!" sneered the priest. "It is wait--wait--wait with +them, always!" + +"Hast thou a son." + +"Ay! But what of it?" + +"I said `hast,' not `hadst'!" + +"Ay. I have a son. + +"Where?" + +"In one of the temple-chambers overhead." + +"Nay, priest! Thy son lies gagged and bound and trussed in a place +I know of, and which thou dost not know!" + +"Since when?" + +"Since by my orders he was laid there." + +"Thou art the devil! Thou liest, Rajput!" + +"So? Go seek thy son!" + +The priest's face had blanched beneath the olive of his skin, and +he stared at Mahommed Khan through distended eyes. + +"My son!" he muttered. + +"Aye! Thy priestling! He stays where he is, as hostage, until my +return! Also the heavenborn stays here! If, on my return, I find +the heavenborn safe and sound, I will exchange her for thy son--and +if not, I will tear thy son into little pieces before thy eyes, priest! +Dost thou understand?" + +"Thou liest! My son is overhead in the temple here!" + +"Go seek him, then!" + +The priest turned and scampered up the ladder with an agility that +was astonishing in a man of his build and paunch. + +"Hanuman should have been thy master!" jeered the Risaldar. "So +run the bandar-log, the monkey-folk!" + +But the priest had no time to answer him. He was half frantic with +the sickening fear of a father for his only son. He returned ten +minutes later, panting, and more scared than ever. + +"Go, take thy white woman," he exclaimed, "and give me my son back!" + +"Nay, priest! Shall I ride with her alone through that horde that +are marching through the gate? I go now for an escort; in eight-- +ten--twelve--I know not how many hours, I will return for her, and +then--thy son will be exchanged for her, or he dies thus in many pieces!" + +He turned to Suliman. "Is she awake yet?" he demanded. + +"Barely, but she recovers." + +"Then tell her, when consciousness returns, that I have gone and will +return for her. And stay here, thou, and guard her until I come." + +"Ha, sahib!" + +"Now, show the way!" + +"But--" said the priest, "our bargain? The price that we agreed on-- +one lakh, was it not?" + +"One lakh of devils take thee and tear thee into little pieces! +Wouldst bribe a Rajput, a Risaldar? For that insult I will repay +thee one day with interest, O priest! Now, show the way!" + +"But how shall I be sure about my son?" + +"Be sure that the priestling will starve to death or die of thirst +or choke, unless I hurry! He is none too easy where he lies!" + +"Go! Hurry, then!" swore the priest. "May all the gods there are, +and thy Allah with them, afflict thee with all their curses--thee +and thine! Up with you! Up that ladder! Run! But, if the gods +will, I will meet thee again when the storm is over!" + +"Inshallah!" growled Mahommed Khan. + +Ten minutes later a crash and a clatter and a shower of sparks broke +out in the sweltering courtyard where the guns had stood and waited. +It was Shaitan, young Bellairs' Khaubuli charger, with his haunches +under him, plunging across the flagstones, through the black-dark +archway, out on the plain beyond--in answer to the long, sharp-roweled +spurs of the Risaldar Mahommed Khan. + + + + +X. + +Dawn broke and the roofs of old Hanadra became resplendent with the +varied colors of turbans and pugrees and shawls. As though the rising +sun had loosed the spell, a myriad tongues, of women chiefly, rose +in a babel of clamor, and the few men who had been left in. Hanadra +by the night's armed exodus came all together and growled prophetically +in undertones. Now was the day of days, when that part of India, +at least, should cast off the English yoke. + +To the temple! The cry went up before the sun was fifteen minutes +high. There are a hundred temples in Hanadra, age-old all of them +and carved on the outside with strange images of heathen gods in high +relief, like molds turned inside out. But there is but one temple +that that cry could mean--Kharvani's; and there could be but one +meaning for the cry. Man, woman and child would pray Kharvani, Bride +of Siva the Destroyer, to intercede with Siva and cause him to rise +and smite the English. On the skyline, glinting like flashed signals +in the early sun, bright English bayonets had appeared; and between +them and Hanadra was a dense black mass, the whole of old Hanadra's +able-bodied manhood, lined up to defend the city. Now was the time +to pray. Fifty to one are by no means despicable odds, but the aid +of the gods as well is better! + +So the huge dome of Kharvani's temple began to echo to the sound of +slippered feet and awe-struck whisperings, and the big, dim auditorium +soon filled to overflowing. No light came in from the outer world. +There was nothing to illuminate the mysteries except the chain-hung +grease-lamps swinging here and there from beams, and they served only +to make the darkness visible. Bats flicked in and out between them +and disappeared in the echoing gloom above. Censers belched out +sweet-smelling, pungent clouds of sandalwood to drown the stench +of hot humanity; and the huge graven image of Kharvani--serene and +smiling and indifferent--stared round-eyed from the darkness. + +Then a priest's voice boomed out in a solemn incantation and the +whispering hushed. He chanted age-old verses, whose very meaning +was forgotten in the womb of time--forgotten as the artist who had +painted the picture of idealized Kharvani on the wall. Ten priests, +five on either side of the tremendous idol, emerged chanting from +the gloom behind, and then a gong rang, sweetly, clearly, suddenly, +and the chanting ceased. Out stepped the High Priest from a niche +below the image, and his voice rose in a wailing, sing-song cadence +that reechoed from the dome and sent a thrill through every one +who heard. + +His chant had scarcely ceased when the temple door burst open and +a man rushed in. + +"They have begun!" he shouted. "The battle has begun!" + +As though in ready confirmation of his words, the distant reverberating +boom of cannon filtered through the doorway from the world of grim +realities outside. + +"They have twenty cannon with them! They have more guns than we have!" +wailed he who brought the news. Again began the chanting that sought +the aid of Siva the Destroyer. Only, there were fewer who listened +to this second chant. Those who were near the doorway slipped outside +and joined the watching hundreds on the roofs. + +For an hour the prayers continued in the stifling gloom, priest +relieving priest and chant following on chant, until the temple +was half emptied of its audience. One by one, and then by twos +and threes, the worshipers succumbed to human curiosity and crept +stealthily outside to watch. + +Another messenger ran in and shouted: "They have charged! Their +cavalry have charged! They are beaten back! Their dead lie twisted +on the plain!" + +At the words there was a stampede from the doorway, and half of those +who had remained rushed out. There were hundreds still there, though, +for that great gloomy pile of Kharvani's could hold an almost countless +crowd. + +Within another hour the same man rushed to the door again and shouted: + +"Help comes! Horsemen are coming from the north! Rajputs, riding +like leaves before the wind! Even the Mussulmans are for us!" + +But the chanting never ceased. No one stopped to doubt the friendship +of arrivals from the north, for to that side there were no English, +and England's friends would surely follow byroads to her aid. The +city gates were wide open to admit wounded or messengers or friends-- +with a view, even, to a possible retreat--and whoever cared could +ride through them unchallenged and unchecked. + +Even when the crash of horses' hoofs rattled on the stone paving +outside the temple there was no suspicion. No move was made to find +out who it was who rode. But when the temple door reechoed to the +thunder of a sword-hilt and a voice roared "Open!" there was something +like a panic. The chanting stopped and the priests and the High +Priest listened to the stamping on the stone pavement at the +temple front. + +"Open!" roared a voice again, and the thundering on the panels +recommenced. Then some one drew the bolt and a horse's head--a huge +Khaubuli stallion's--appeared, snorting and panting and wild-eyed. + +"Farward!" roared the Risaldar Mahommed Khan, kneeling on young Bellairs' +winded charger. + +"Farm twos! Farward!" + +Straight into the temple, two by two, behind the Risaldar, rode two +fierce lines of Rajputs, overturning men and women--their drawn swords +pointing this way and that--their dark eyes gleaming. Without a word +to any one they rode up to the image, where the priests stood in an +astonished herd. + +"Fron-tt farm! Rear rank--'bout-face!" barked the Risaldar, and there +was another clattering and stamping on the stone floor as the panting +chargers pranced into the fresh formation, back to back. + +"The memsahib!" growled Mahommed Khan. "Where is she?" + +"My son!" said the High Priest. "Bring me my son!" + +"A life for a life! Thy heavenborn first!" + +"Nay! Show me my son first!" + +The Risaldar leaped from his horse and tossed his reins to the man +behind him. In a second his sword was at the High Priest's throat. + +"Where is that secret stair?" he growled. "Lead on!" + +The swordpoint pricked him. Two priests tried to interfere, but wilted +and collapsed with fright as four fierce, black-bearded Rajputs spurred +their horses forward. The swordpoint pricked still deeper. + +"My son!" said the High Priest. + +"A life for a life! Lead on!" + +The High Priest surrendered, with a dark and cunning look, though, +that hinted at something or other in reserve. He pulled at a piece +of carving on the wail behind and pointed to a stair that showed behind +the outswung door. Then he plucked another priest by the sleeve and +whispered. + +The priest passed on the whisper. A third priest turned and ran. + +"That way!" said the High Priest, pointing. + +"I? Nay! I go not down!" He raised his voice into an ululating +howl. "O Suliman!" he bellowed. "Suliman! O!--Suliman! Bring up +the heaven-born!" + +A growl like the distant rumble from a bear-pit answered him. Then +Ruth Bellairs' voice was heard calling up the stairway. + +"Is that you, Mahommed Khan?" + +"Ay, memsahib!" + +"Good! I'm coming!" + +She had recovered far enough to climb the ladder and the steep stone +stair above it, and Suliman climbed up behind her, grumbling dreadful +prophecies of what would happen to the priests now that Mohammed Khan +had come. + +"Is all well, Risaldar?" she asked him. + +"Nay, heavenborn! All is not well yet! The general sahib from Jundhra +and your husband's guns and others, making one division, are engaged +with rebels eight or nine miles from here. We saw part of the battle +as we rode!" + +"Who wins?" + +"It is doubtful, heavenborn! How could we tell from this distance?" + +"Have you a horse for me?" + +"Ay, heavenborn! Here! Bring up that horse, thou, and Suliman's! +Ride him cross-saddle, heavenborn--there were no side-saddles in +Siroeh! Nay, he is just a little frightened. He will stand--he +will not throw thee! I did better than I thought, heavenborn. +I come with four-and-twenty, making twenty-six with me and Suliman. +An escort for a queen! So--sit him quietly. Leave the reins free. +Suliman will lead him! Ho! Fronnnt! Rank--'bout-face!" + +"My son!" wailed the High Priest. "Where is my son?" + +"Tell him, Suliman!" + +"Where I caught thee, thou idol-briber!" snarled the Risaldar's half- +brother. + +"Where? In that den of stinks. Gagged and bound all this while?" + +"Ha! Gagged and bound and out of mischief where all priests and priests' +sons ought to be!" laughed Mahommed Khan. "Farward! Farm twos +Ter-r-r-ott!" + +In went the spur, and the snorting, rattling, clanking cavalcade sidled +and pranced out of the temple into the sunshine, with Ruth and Suliman +in the midst of them. + +"Gallop!" roared the Risaldar, the moment that the last horse was +clear of the temple-doors. And in that instant he saw what the High +Priest's whispering had meant. + +Coming up the street toward them was a horde of silent, hurrying +Hindus, armed with swords and spears, wearing all of them the caste- +marks of the Brahman--well-fed, indignant relations of the priests, +intent on avenging the defilement of Kharvani's temple. + +"Canter! Fronnnt--farm--Gallop! Charge!" + +Ruth found herself in the midst of a whirlwind of flashing sabers, +astride of a lean-flanked Katiawari gelding that could streak like +an antelope, knee to knee with a pair of bearded Rajputs, one of whom +gripped her bridle-rein--thundering down a city street straight for +a hundred swords that blocked her path. She set her eyes on the middle +of Mahommed Khan's straight back, gripped the saddle with both hands, +set her teeth and waited for the shock. Mahommed Khan's right arm +rose and his sword flashed in the sunlight as he stood up in his stirrups. +She shut her eyes. But there was no shock! There was the swish of +whirling steel, the thunder of hoofs, the sound of bodies falling. +There was a scream or two as well and a coarse-mouthed Rajput oath. +But when she dared to open her eyes once more they were thundering +still, headlong down the city street and Mahommed Khan was whirling +his sword in mid-air to shake the blood from it. + +Ahead lay the city gate and she could see another swarm of Hindus +rushing from either side to close it. But "Charge!" yelled Mahommed +Khan again, and they swept through the crowd, through the half-shut +gate, out on the plain beyond, as a wind sweeps through the forest, +leaving fallen tree-trunks in its wake. + +"Halt!" roared the Risaldar, when they were safely out of range. +"Are any hurt? No? Good for us that their rifles are all in the +firing-line yonder!" + +He sat for a minute peering underneath his hand at the distant, dark, +serried mass of men and the steel-tipped lines beyond it, watching +the belching cannon and the spurting flames of the close-range rifle-fire. + +"See, heavenborn!" he said, pointing. "Those will be your husband's +guns! See, over on the left, there. See! They fire! Those two! +We can reach them if we make a circuit on the flank here!" + +"But can we get through, Risaldar? Won't they see us and cut us off?" + +"Heavenborn!" he answered, "men who dare ride into a city temple and +snatch thee from the arms of priests dare and can do anything! Take +this, heavenborn--take it as a keepsake, in case aught happens!" + +He drew off the priest's ring, gave it to her and then, before she +could reply: + +"Canter!" he roared. The horses sprang forward in answer to the spurs +and there was nothing for Ruth to do but watch the distant battle +and listen to the deep breathing of the Rajputs on either hand. + + + + +XI. + +There could be no retreat that day and no thought of it. Jundhra +and Doonha were in ruins. The bridges were down behind them and Hanadra +lay ahead. The British had to win their way into it or perish. Tired +out, breakfastless, suffering from the baking heat, the long, thin +British line had got--not to hold at bay but to smash and pierce-- +an over-whelming force of Hindus that was stiffened up and down its +length by small detachments of native soldiers who had mutinied. + +Numbers were against them, and even superiority of weapons was not +so overwhelmingly in their favor, for those were the days of short- +range rifle-fire and smoothbore artillery, and one gun was considerably +like another. The mutinous sepoys had their rifles with them; there +were guns from the ramparts of Hanadra that were capable of quite +efficient service at close range; and practically every man in the +dense-packed rebel line had a firearm of some kind. It was only in +cavalry and discipline and pluck that the British force had the +advantage, and the cavalry had already charged once and had been +repulsed. + +General Turner rode up and down the sweltering firing-line, encouraging +the men when it seemed to him they needed it and giving directions +to his officers. He was hidden from view oftener than not by the +rolling clouds of smoke and he popped up here and there suddenly +and unexpectedly. Wherever he appeared there was an immediate +stiffening among the ranks, as though he carried a supply of spare +enthusiasm with him and could hand it out. + +Colonel Carter, commanding the right wing, turned his head for a second +at the sound of a horse's feet and found the general beside him. + +"Had I better have my wounded laid in a wagon, sir?" he suggested, +"in case you find it necessary to fall back?" + +"There will be no retreat!" said General Turner. "Leave your wounded +where they are. I never saw a cannon bleed before. How's that?" + +He spurred his horse over to where one of Bellairs' guns was being +run forward into place again and Colonel Carter followed him. There +was blood dripping from the muzzle of it. + +"We're short of water, sir!" said Colonel Carter. + +And as he spoke a gunner dipped his sponge into a pool of blood and +rammed it home. + +Bellairs was standing between his two guns, looking like the shadow +of himself, worn out with lack of sleep, disheveled, wounded. There +was blood dripping from his forehead and he wore his left arm in a +sling made from his shirt. + +"Fire!" he ordered, and the two guns barked in unison and jumped +back two yards or more. + +"If you'll look," said General Turner, plucking at the colonel's sleeve, +"you'll see a handful of native cavalry over yonder behind the enemy-- +rather to the enemy's left--there between those two clouds of smoke. +D'you see them?" + +"They look like Sikhs or Rajputs," said the colonel. + +"Yes. Don't they? I'd like you to keep an eye on them. They've +come up from the rear. I caught sight of them quite a while ago and +I can't quite make them out. It's strange, but I can't believe that +they belong to the enemy. D'you see?--there--they've changed direction. +They're riding as though they intended to come round the enemy's +left flank!" + +"By gad, they are! Look! The enemy are moving to cut them off!" + +"I must get back to the other wing!" said General Turner. "But that +looks like the making of an opportunity! Keep both eyes lifting, +Carter, and advance the moment you see any confusion in the +enemy's ranks." + +He rode off, and Colonel Carter stared long and steadily at the +approaching horsemen. He saw a dense mass of the enemy, about a +thousand strong, detach itself from the left wing and move to intercept +them, and he noticed that the movement made a tremendous difference +to the ranks opposed to him. He stepped up to young Bellairs and +touched his sleeve. Bellairs started like a man roused from a dream. + +"That's your wife over there!" said Colonel Carter. "There can't +be any other white woman here-abouts riding with a Rajput escort!" + +Bellairs gripped the colonel's outstretched arm. + +"Where?" he almost screamed. "Where? I don't see her!" + +"There, man! There, where that mass of men is moving! Look! By the +Lord Harry! He's charging right through the mob! That's Mahommed +Khan, I'll bet a fortune! Now's our chance +Bugler!" + +The bugler ran to him, and he began to puff into his instrument. + +"Blow the `attention' first!" + +Out rang the clear, strident notes, and the non-commissioned officers +and men took notice that a movement of some kind would shortly be +required of them, but the din of firing never ceased for a single +instant. Then, suddenly, an answering bugle sang out from the +other flank. + +"Advance in echelon!" commanded Colonel Carter, and the bugler did +his best to split his cheeks in a battle-rending blast. + +"You remain where you are, sir!" he ordered young Bellairs. "Keep +your guns served to the utmost!" + +Six-and-twenty horsemen, riding full-tilt at a thousand men, may look +like a trifle, but they are disconcerting. What they hit, they kill; +and if they succeed in striking home, they play old Harry with formations. +And Risaldar Mahommed Khan did strike home. He changed direction +suddenly and, instead of using up his horses' strength in outflanking +the enemy, who had marched to intercept him, and making a running target +of his small command, he did the unexpected--which is the one best +thing to do in war. He led his six-and-twenty at a headlong gallop +straight for the middle of the crowd--it could not be called by any +military name. They fired one ragged volley at him and then had no +time to load before he was in the middle of them, clashing right and +left and pressing forward. They gave way, right and left, before him, +and a good number of them ran. Half a hundred of them were cut down +as they fled toward their firing-line. At that second, just as the +Risaldar and his handful burst through the mob and the mob began +rushing wildly out of his way, the British bugles blared out the +command to advance in echelon. + +The Indians were caught between a fire and a charge that they had +good reason to fear in front of them, and a disturbance on their +left flank that might mean anything. As one-half of them turned +wildly to face what might be coming from this unexpected quarter, +the British troops came on with a roar, and at the same moment Mahommed +Khan reached the rear of their firing-line and crashed headlong +into it. + +In a second the whole Indian line was in confusion and in another +minute it was in full retreat not knowing nor even guessing what had +routed it. Retreat grew into panic and panic to stampede and, five +minutes after the Risaldar's appearance on the scene, half of the +Indian line was rushing wildly for Hanadra and the other half was +retiring sullenly in comparatively dense and decent order. + +Bellairs could not see all that happened. The smoke from his own +guns obscured the view, and the necessity for giving orders to his +men prevented him from watching as he would have wished. But he saw +the Rajputs burst out through the Indian ranks and he saw his own +charger--Shaitan the unmistakable--careering across the plain toward +him riderless. + +"For the love of God!" he groaned, raising both fists to heaven, "has +she got this far, and then been killed! Oh, what in Hades did I entrust +her to an Indian for? The pig-headed, brave old fool! Why couldn't +he ride round them, instead of charging through?" + +As he groaned aloud, too wretched even to think of what his duty +was, a galloper rode up to him. + +"Bring up your guns, sir, please!" he ordered. "You're asked to +hurry! Take up position on that rising ground and warm up the enemy's +retreat!" + +"Limber up!" shouted Bellairs, coming to himself again. Fifteen seconds +later his two guns were thundering up the rise. + +As he brought them to "action front" and tried to collect his thoughts +to figure out the range, a finger touched his shoulder and he turned +to see another artillery officer standing by him. + +"I've been lent from another section," he explained: "You're wanted." + +"Where?" + +"Over there, where you see Colonel Carter standing. It's your wife +wants you, I think!" + +Bellairs did not wait for explanations. He sent for his horse and +mounted and rode across the intervening space at a breakneck gallop +that he could barely stop in time to save himself from knocking the +colonel over. A second later he was in Ruth's arms. + +"I thought you were dead when I saw Shaitan!" he said. He was nearly +sobbing. + +"No, Mahommed Khan rode him," she answered, and she made no pretense +about not sobbing. She was crying like a child. + +"Salaam, Bellairs sahib!" said a weak voice close to him. He noticed +Colonel Carter bending over a prostrate figure, lifting the head up +on his knee. There were three Rajputs standing between, though, and +he could not see whose the figure was. + +"Come over here!" said Colonel Carter, and young Bellairs obeyed him, +leaving Ruth sitting on the ground where she was. + +"Wouldn't you care to thank Mohammed Khan?" It was a little cruel +of the colonel to put quite so much venom in his voice, for, when +all is said and done: a man has almost a right to be forgetful when +he has just had his young wife brought him out of the jaws of death. +At least he has a good excuse for it. The sting of the reproof left +him bereft of words and he stood looking down at the old Risaldar, +saying nothing and feeling very much ashamed. + +"Salaam, Bellairs sahib!" The voice was growing feebler. +"I would have done more for thy father's son! Thou art welcome. +Aie! But thy charger is a good one! Good-by! Time is short, and +I would talk with the colonel sahib!" + +He waved Bellairs away with a motion of his hand and the lieutenant +went back to his wife again. + +"He sent me away just like that, too!" she told him. "He said he +had no time left to talk to women!" + +Colonel Carter bent down again above the Risaldar, and listened to +as much as he had time to tell of what had happened. + +"But couldn't you have ridden round them, Risaldar?" he asked them. + +"Nay, sahib! It was touch and go! I gave the touch! I saw as I +rode how close the issue was and I saw my chance and took it! Had +the memsahib been slain, she had at least died in full view of the +English--and there was a battle to be won. What would you? I am +a soldier--I." + +"Indeed you are!" swore Colonel Carter. + +"Sahib! Call my sons!" + +His sons were standing near him, but the colonel called up his grandsons, +who had been told to stand at a little distance off. They clustered +round the Risaldar in silence, and he looked them over and counted them. + +"All here?" he asked. + +"All here!" + +"Whose sons and grandsons are ye?" + +"Thine!" came the chorus. + +"This sahib says that having done my bidding and delivered her ye +rode to rescue, ye are no more bound to the Raj. Ye may return to +your homes if ye wish." + +There was no answer. + +"Ye may fight for the rebels, if ye wish! There will be a safe-permit +written." + +Again there was no answer. + +"For whom, then, fight ye?" + +"For the Raj!" The deep-throated answer rang out promptly from every +one of them, and they stood with their sword-hilts thrust out toward +the colonel. He rose and touched each hilt in turn. + +"They are now thy servants!" said the Risaldar, laying his head back. +"It is good! I go now. Give my salaams to General Turner sahib!" + +"Good-by, old war-dog!" growled the colonel, in an Anglo-Saxon effort +to disguise emotion. He gripped at the right hand that was stretched +out on the ground beside him, but it was lifeless. + +Risaldar Mahommed Khan, two-medal man and pensionless gentleman-at-large, +had gone to turn in his account of how he had remembered the salt +which he had eaten. + + + + +MACHASSAN AH + +I. + +Waist-held in the chains and soused in the fifty-foot-high spray, +Joe Byng eyed his sounding lead that swung like a pendulum below him, +and named it sacrilege. + +"This 'ere navy ain't a navy no more," he muttered. "This 'ere's +a school-gal promenade, 'and-in-'and, an' mind not to get your little +trotters wet, that's what this is, so 'elp me two able seamen an' +a red marine!" + +From the moment that the lookout, lashed to the windlass drum up +forward, had spied the little craft away to leeward and had bellowed +his report of it through hollowed hands between the thunder of the +waves, Joe Byng had had premonitory symptoms of uneasiness. He had +felt in his bones that the navy was about to be nose-led into shame. + +At the wheel, both eyes on the compass, as the sea law bids, but both +ears on the more-even-than-usual-alert, Curley Crothers felt the same +sensations but expressed them otherwise. + +"Admiral's orders!" he muttered. "Maybe the admiral was drunk?" + +The brass gongs clanged down in the bowels of H.M.S. Puncher and she +gradually lost what little weigh she had, rolling her bridge ends +under in the heave and hollow of a beam-on monsoon sea. + +"How much does he say he wants?" asked her commander. + +Joe Byng in the chains and Curley Crothers at the wheel both recognized +the quarter tone instantly, and diagnosed it with deadly accuracy; +every vibration of his voice and every fiber of his being expressed +exasperation, though a landsman might have noticed no more than contempt +for what he had seen fit to log as "half a gale." + +"He says he'll take us in for fifty pounds, sir." + +"Oh! Tell him to make it shillings, or else to get out of my course!" + +It is not much in the way of Persian Gulf Arabic that a man picks +up from textbooks but at garnering the business end of beach-born +dialects--the end that gets results at least expense of time or +energy--the Navy goes even the Army half a dozen better. The +sublieutenant's argument, bawled from the bridge rail to the reeling +little boat below, was a marvel in its own sweet way; it combined +abuse and scorn with a cataclysmic blast of threat in six explosive +sentences. + +"He says he'll take us in for ten pounds, sir," he reported, without +the vestige of a smile. + +"Oh! Ask Mr. Hartley to step up on the bridge, will you?" + +Two minutes later, during which the nasal howls from the boat were +utterly ignored, the acting chief engineer hauled himself along the +rail hand over hand to windward, ducking below the canvas guard as +a more than usually big comber split against the Puncher's side and +hove itself to heaven. + +"It beats me how any man can keep a coat on him this weather," he +remarked, and the sublieutenant noticed that the streams that ran +down both his temples were not sea water. "Send for me?" + +His temper, judging by his voice, would seem to be a lot worse than +could be due to the pitching of the ship. + +"Yes. There's a pilot overside, and our orders are to take a pilot +aboard when running in, if available. There are three men bailing +that boat below there, and the sea's gaining on them. They'll need +rescuing within two hours. Then we'd have a pilot aboard and would +have saved the government ten pounds. Point is, can you manage in +the engine-room for two or three hours longer? Three more waves +like that last one and the man's ours anyway!" + +"He might not wait two hours," suggested Mr. Hartley. "He might get +tired of looking at us, and beat back into port. Then where would +be your strategy?" + +"Then there wouldn't be a pilot available. I'd be justified in going +in without one. Point is, can you hold out below?" + +"Man," said Mr. Hartley, "you're a genius." He peered through the +spray down to leeward, where the pilot's boat danced a death dance +alongside, heel and toe to the Puncher's statelier swing. "Yes; +there are three men bailing, and you're a genius. But no! The answer's +no! The engines'll keep on turning, maybe and perhaps, until we make +the shelter o' yon reef. There's no knowing what a cherry-red bearing +will do. I can give ye maybe fifteen knots; maybe a leetle more +for just five minutes, for steerage way and luck, and after that--" + +Even crouched as he was against the canvas guard he contrived to +shrug his shoulders. + +"But if we go in there are you sure you can contrive to patch her +up? It looks like a rotten passage, and not much of a berth beyond it." + +"I could cool her down." + +"Oh, if that's all you want, I can anchor outside in thirty fathoms." + +Curley Crothers heard that and his whole frame stiffened; there seemed +a chance yet that the Navy might not be disgraced. But it faded on +the instant. + +"Man, we've got to go inside and we've got to hurry! Better in there +than at the bottom of the Gulf! Put her where she'll hold still for +a day, or maybe two days--" + +"Say a month!" suggested the commander caustically. + +"Say three days for the sake of argument. Then I can put her to rights. +I daren't take down a thing while she's rolling twenty-five and more, +and I've got to take things down! Why, man, the engine-room is all +pollution from gratings to bilge; if I loosened one more bolt than +is loose a'ready her whole insides 'ud take charge and dance quadrilles +until we drowned!" + +"You won't try to make Bombay?" + +"I'll try to give ye steam as far as the far side o' yon reef. After +that I wash my hands of a' responsibility!" + +"Oh, very well. Mr. White!" + +The sublieutenant hauled himself in turn to windward. Curley Crothers +gave the wheel a half-spoke and looked as if he had no interest in +anything. Joe Byng in the chains bowed his head and groaned inwardly; +his sticky, spray-washed lead seemed all-absorbing. + +"Tell that black robber to hurry aboard, unless he wants me to come +in without him." + +The little boat had drifted fast before the wind, and the sublieutenant +had to bellow through a megaphone to where the three men bailed and +the ragged oarsmen swung their weight against the storm. The man +of ebony, who would be pilot and disgrace the Navy, balanced on a +thwart with wide-spread naked toes and yelled an ululating answer. +With his rags out-blown in the monsoon he looked like a sea wraith +come to life. The big gongs clanged again, and the Puncher drifted +rather than drove down on the smaller craft. A hand line caught the +pilot precisely in the face. He grabbed it frantically, fell headlong +in the sea, and was hauled aboard. + +"He says he wants a tow for that boat of his," reported the sublieutenant. +"Said it in English, too--seems he knows more than he pretends." + +"Missed it, by gad, by just about five minutes!" said the commander +aloud but to himself. "Well--the bargain's made, so it can't be +helped. That boat's sinking! Throw 'em a line, quick!" + +The pilot's crew displayed no overdone affection for their craft, +and there was no struggle to the last to leave it. One by one-- +whichever could grab the line first was the first to come--they were +hauled through the thundering waves and their boat was left to sink. +Then, before they could adjust their unaccustomed feet to the different +balance of the Puncher's heaving deck, the gongs clanged and the +destroyer leaped ahead like a dripping sea-soused water beetle, into +her utmost speed that instant. + +All conscious of his new-won dignity, and utterly regardless of his +boat, the pilot had found the bridge at once. He clung to the rail +there and braced one naked foot against a stanchion. To him the ship's +speed seemed the all-absorbing thing, for either Mr. Hartley had +forgotten just how many revolutions would make fifteen knots or else +he had underestimated his engine-room's capacity. The Puncher split +the waves and spewed them twenty feet above her, racing head-on for +the reef, and Curley Crothers was too busy at his wheel to pass the +pilot the surreptitious insult he intended. + +The gongs clanged presently, and the Puncher swallowed half her speed +at once, giving the pilot courage. + +"This exceedingly damn dangerous place, sah!" he remarked. + +"No bottom at eight!" sang Joe Byng in the chains. + +Three words passed between the commander and Crothers, and the Puncher +hove a weed-draped underside high over the crest of a beam-on roller +as she veered a dozen points, ducked her starboard rail into the trough +of it, and sliced her long thin nose, sizzling and swirling, into +the welter ahead. It was growing weedier and dirtier each minute. + +"No bottom at eight!" chanted Joe Byng. + +And at the sound of his voice the pilot hauled himself up by his leverage +on the rail and found his voice again. + +"This most exceedingly damn dangerous place, sah!" + +But the commander was too busy acting all three L's--Log, Lead and +Lookout--his shrouded figure swaying to the heave and fall and his +eyes fixed straight ahead of him on the double line of boiling foam. +He had conned his course and had it charted in his head. There was +no time to argue with a pilot. + +"Port you-ah hel-um, sah! Port you-ah hel-um!" + +"By the mark--seven!" sang Joe Byng from the chains. + +"Port you-ah hel-um, sah!" yelled the pilot in an ecstasy of fright. + +"Starboard a little," came the quiet command. + +Curley Crothers moved his wheel and the Puncher's bow yawed twenty +feet, as if Providence had pushed her. + +"Gawd A'mighty!" murmured Joe Byng, gazing open-mouthed at fifty feet +of jagged rock that grinned up suddenly three waves away. + +The pilot braced both feet against a stanchion and tried to take the +weigh off her by pulling. + +"Half speed, sah! Go slow, sah! Go dead slow, sah! You'll pile +up you-ah damn ship, sah! Ah tell you, sah, you'll pile her up as +suah as hell, sah! 'Bout a million sharks round he-ah, sah! For +the love o' God, sah--Captain, sah--" + +"Oh, muzzle him, some one!" ordered the commander, and the jiggling, +complaining engines danced ahead, the horrid gray beneath the pilot's +ebony notwithstanding. + +"By the deep--four!" warned Joe Byng in a level sing-song. +The two gongs clanged like an echo to him, and the Puncher's speed +was reduced at once to her point, of minimum stability. She rolled +and quivered like a living thing in fear, falling on and off, nosing +out a passage on her own account apparently, and seeming to be +gathering all her strength for one tremendous effort. + +"That's bettah, sah! That's bettah, Captain, sah! Go astern! This +he-ah's the bar, sah--damn bad place, the bar, sah! Go astern, sah. +Captain, sah, d'you he-ah me--go astern! Try again, 'nother place +further up, sah. Captain, sah! Over that way; that way thar--that +way, sah!" + +He pointed through the sky-flung spray with a trembling finger and +his voice was rich with doleful emphasis, but the commander held his +course and carried on. There seemed neither sympathy nor understanding +on that unsteadiest of ships. Curley Crothers, solemn-faced as Nemesis +and looking half as compassionate, moved his wheel a trifle. Joe +Byng in the chains kept up his even sing-song, expressionless, as +if he were an automatic clock that did not care, but must record the +truth each time his dripping pendulum touched bottom. + +"And a half--three!" + +White foam was boiling in among the dirty welter, and the Puncher's +bow pitched suddenly as the first big bar wave lifted her; a second +later her propellers chug-chug-chugged in surface spume as she kicked +upward like a porpoise diving. + +"Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy!" groaned the pilot. "This he-ah watah's +full of sharks, an' that's the bar! You're on the bar now, Captain, sah!" + +"By the mark--three!" Byng chanted steadily. + +"Starboard a little more," said the commander leaning forward and +shoving the pilot away to leeward at the same time. Then he shouted +to the fo'castle head, where a bosun's mate and his crew had climbed +and were awaiting orders in evident and most unreasonable unconcern. + +"Get both anchors ready!" + +"Aye, aye, sir!" came the answer, and efficiency controlled by experts +proceeded at kaleidoscopic angles to defy the elements. The big steel +hooks were ready in an instant. + +"Stop her!" ordered the commander. + +The gongs clanged out an alarm and the throbbing ceased. + +"Hard astern, both engines!" + +Again there was a clangor under hatches, and the suffering bearings +shrieked. The Puncher dropped her stern two feet or so, and the +foam boiled brown round her propellers. The shock of the reversal +pitched the pilot up against the forward rail, where he clung like +a drowning man. + +"For the love o' God, sah! Captain; sah, we've struck! Ah told +you so; Ah said--" + +"And a half-three!" chanted Joe Byng. + +"Stop her! Starboard engine ahead! Port engine ahead! Ease your +helm! Meet her! Half speed ahead!" + +The Puncher pitched and rolled, kicking at the following monsoon that +thundered at her counter and tossing up the foam that seethed about +her bow. She trembled from end to end, as if the pounding of the +water hurt her. + +"Helm amidships!" ordered the commander suddenly. + +"'Midships, sir!" + +"Full speed ahead, both engines!" + +The Puncher leaped, as all destroyers do the second day they are +loosed. She sliced through the storm straight for the coral beach +beyond the bar, shaking her graceful shoulders free of the sticky +spray--reeling, rolling, thugging, kicking, bucking through the welter +to where quiet water waited and the ever-lasting, utterly unrighteous +stink of sun-baked Arab beaches. As each tremendous breaker thundered +on her stern each time she lifted to the underswell, the pilot vowed +that she had struck, rolling his eyes and calling two different deities +to witness that none of it was any fault of his. + +"Thar's no water, sah--no water, Captain, sah--not one drop! You've +piled up you-ah ship! Ah told you so; Ah said--" + +"By the deep--four!" + +"And a half-four!" + +"By the mark--five!" + +The Puncher was across the bar, gliding through muddy water on an +even keel and giving the lie direct to him whose fee was ten pounds +English. The pilot drew a talisman of some kind from underneath the +least torn portion of his shirt, and to the commander's amazement +kissed it. It is not often that a woolly headed, or any other, native +of the East kisses either folk or things. But the commander was too +busy at the moment to ask questions. + +"Have your starboard anchor ready!" he commanded, making mental notes. + +"Ready, sir!" + +The glittering, wet, wind-blown beach and the little estuary slid +by like a painted panorama smelling of all the evil in the world +as the Puncher eased her helm a time or two seeking a comfortable +berth with Joe Byng's chanted aid. + +"Let go twenty fathoms!" + +The pilot sighed relief as the starboard anchor splashed into the +water and the cable roared after it through the hawse pipe. + +"What nationality are you?" asked the commander, watching the Puncher +swing and gaging distances, but sparing one eye now for his unwelcome +but official guest. + +"Me, sah?" + +"Yes, you." + +The pilot looked anywhere but at his questioner, and a picture passed +before the commander's eyes--a memory, perhaps, of something he had +read about at school--of Christians in Nero's day being asked what +their religion was. + +"Are you afraid to tell me?" he asked, softening his voice to a kinder +tone as he remembered that God did not make all men Englishmen, and +turning just in time to cause Crothers to withdraw his right leg. + +The pilot's toes were, after all, not destined to be trodden on +just then. + +"No, sah, Ah'm not afraid." + +"What are you, then?" + +"Ah'm--" + +"Well? What?" + +"Ah'm English!" + +"What?" + +"Captain, sah, Ah'm English!" + +"Oh! Are you? Um-m-m! Mr. White, give this man his ten pounds, +will you? And get his receipt for it." + +That appeared to end matters, so far as the commander was concerned; +official dignity forbade any further interest. But it was not so +very long since Mr. White was senior midshipman, and it takes a man +until he is admiral of the fleet to unlearn all he knew then and +forget the curiosity of those days. + +"Now, I should have thought you were a Scotchman," he suggested without +smiling, studying the salt-encrusted wrinkles on the ebony face. "You +like whisky?" + +"Yes, sah--positively, sah! Yes, Captain, sah--Ah do!" + +Mr. White sent for whisky and poured out a stiff four fingers, to +the awful disgust of Curley Crothers, who saw the whole transaction. +The pilot consumed it so instantly that there seemed never to have +been any in the glass. + +"I suppose your name's Macnab--or Macphairson--which? Sign here, please." + +The pilot took the proffered pen in unaccustomed fingers and made +a crisscross scrawl, adorned with thirteen blots. The pen nib broke +under the strain, and he handed it back with an air of confidential +remonstrance. + +"That thing's no mo-ah good," he volunteered. + +"So I see. Now tell me your name in full, so that I can write it +next to the mark. It's a wonder of a mark! Mac--what's the rest +of it?" + +"Hassan Ah." + +"Machassan?" + +"No, sah. Hassan Ah." + +"And you're English?" + +"Yes, sah." + +"With that name?" + +"Mah name makes no diffunts, sah. Ah'm English." + +"Well--here's your money. Cutter away, there! Put the pilot and +his crew ashore! Sorry about your boat, pilot, but it couldn't +be helped." + +"Makes me believe that I'm a nigger!" muttered Curley Crothers, not +yet released from duty on the bridge. + +"First time I ever wished I was a Dutchman!" swore Joe Byng, coiling +up his sounding line. + +Ten minutes later the cutter's captain swung the boat's stern in +shore when he judged that he was reasonably near enough and too far +in for sharks. He had his orders to put the pilot and his crew ashore, +but the means had not been too exactly specified. + +"Get out and swim for it, you bally Englishman!" he ordered, using +a boat-hook on the nearest one to make his meaning clear. + +One by one they jumped for it, the pilot going last. He plainly did +not understand the point of view. + +"Ah'm English!" he expostulated. "Lissen he-ah, Ah'm English! Damwell +English!" + +"All right; let's see you swim, English!" jeered the cutter's captain, +and the pilot took the water with a splash. + +"Ah su-ah am English!" he vowed, as he swam for the shore, and he +stood by the sea's edge repeating his assertion with a leathery pair +of lungs until the cutter had rowed out of ear-shot. + +"English, is he?" said Joe Byng to Curley Crothers in the fo'castle, +not twenty minutes later. "I'd show him, if I had him in here for +twenty minutes!" + +"That fellow's interested me," said Crothers. "He's got me thinking. +I vote we investigate him." + +"How?" + +"Ashore, fathead." + +"There'll be no shore leave." + +"No? You left off being wet nurse to the dawg?" "I brush him, mornin's; +if that's what you mean." + +"Is he fit?" + +"Fit to fight a bumboat full o' pilots!" + +"Could he be sick for an hour?" + +"Might be did." + +"Tomorrow?" + +"Morning?" + +"At about two bells?" + +"It could be done." + +"Then do it!" + +"Why?" + +"Because, Joe Byng my boy, you and I want shore leave; and the pup-- +and he's a decent pup--must suffer for to make a 'tween-deck holiday. +Get my meaning? I've a propagandrum that'll work this tide. You +go and set the fuse in the pup's inside; and mind you, time it right, +my son--for two bells when the old man's in the chair!" + +So Joe Byng, who was something of an expert in the way and ways of +dogs, departed in search of an oiler with whom he was on terms of +condescension; and he returned to the fo'castle a little later with +the nastiest, most awful-smelling mess that ever emanated even from +the engine-room of a destroyer in the Persian Gulf (where grease and +things run rancid.) + + + + +II. + +Lying lazily at anchor off the reeking beach of Adra Bight, the Puncher +looked peaceful and complacent--which is altogether opposite to what +she and her commander were, or had been, for a month. The ship hummed +her shut-in discontent, as a hive does when the bees propose to swarm, +and her commander--who never, be it noted, went to windward of the +one word "damn"--used that one word very frequently. + +He sat "abaft the mainmast" at a table that was splotched already +with abundant perspiration, and the acting engineer who stood in +front of him shifted from foot to foot in attitudes expressive of +increasing agony of mind. It grew obvious at last that there was +a limit to Mr. Hartley's store of courteous deference. + +There had been news, red hot but wrong, of dhows loaded to the water- +line with guns and ammunition somewhere up the Gulf. India, ever +fretful for her tribes beyond the border, had borrowed Applewaite +and his destroyer by instant cablegram, and jealously held records +had been broken while the Puncher quartered those indecent seas and +heated up her bearings. It was almost too much to have to come back +empty-handed. It was quite too much to have to run for shelter under +the lee of Adra's uninviting coral reef. And to be told by an acting +engineer that he would have to stay a week was utterly beyond the +scope of polite conversation. + +"Why a week?" asked Commander Applewaite, with eyebrows raised to +the nth power of incredulity. + +"Why a week?" asked Mr. Hartley, breaking down the barrier of self- +restraint at last. "I'll tell you why. Because, although the guts +of her are so much scrap-iron, you've a crew of engineers who could +build machinery of hell-slag--build it, mind--and could get steam +out o' the Sahara, where there isn't any water at all. + +"Because--conditional upon the act o' God and your permission--I'm +willing to perform a miracle. Because the whole engine-room complement +is dancing mad for shore leave, and there'll be none this side o' +Bombay; and because, in consequence o' that, creation would be a +mild name for what's about to happen under gratings until the shafts +revolve again. Man, I wish ye'd take one peep at her bearings, though +ye wouldn't understand. + +"Because you're lucky; any other engineer in all the navies o' the +world would take a month to tinker with her, even if he didn't have +to send to Bombay for a tow. Because--" + +"That'll do!" said Applewaite, his mind wandering already in search +of suitable employment for the crew. "Get the repairs done as soon +as possible; we stay here until you have finished what is necessary." + +It looked like an evil moment for asking favors, but it was the time +laid down in Regulations when such things as favors may be had; and +it was the moment Curley Crothers had picked out for asking for +shore leave. + +"Come 'ere, Scamp. Come along, Scamp. Come along 'ere--good boy!" +he coaxed, dragging by a short chain in his wake the sorriest-looking +bull terrier that ever acted mascot in the British or any other navy. +Courteous and huge and cap in hand, his weather-beaten face smiling +respectfully above a snow-white uniform, he took his stand before +the little table. +His outward bearing was one of certainty, but his shrewd, slightly +puckered eyes alternately conned the expression of his commander's +face and watched the dog. + +The lee, scuppers were the goal of the dog's immediate ambition, +for he was a well-brought-up dog and such of the decencies as were +not his by instinct he had learned by painful and repeated acquisition. +But at the moment Curley Crothers showed a wondrous disregard for +etiquette. + +"He's very sick, sir," he asserted, tugging a little at the chain +in the hope of producing instant proof of his contention. But the +dog was gamiest of the game, and swallowed hurriedly. + +"Well? I'm not a vet. What about it?" + +"The whole ship's crew 'ud be sorry, sir, if 'e was to lose 'is number. +He's the best mascot this ship ever had, by all accounts." + +"He hasn't brought us much luck this run!" smiled Applewaite, remembering +a long list of "previous convictions" and wondering what Crothers might +be up to next. + +"No, sir? We're still a-top o' the water, sir." + +"Oh! He gets the credit for that, eh? But for him, I suppose we'd +have piled up on the reef yesterday?" + +"Saving your presence, sir." + +Curley Crothers made a gesture expressive of a world of compliment +and praise, but he kept one eye steadily on the dog; he seemed to +imply that but for the presence of the dog on board the commander +might have forgotten his seamanship. + +"Well? What do you suggest?" + +"Seeing the poor dog's sick, sir, and you and all of us so fond of +him, and all he needs is exercise, I thought perhaps as 'ow you'd +order me an' Byng, sir, to take 'im for a run ashore. There'd be +jackals and pi-dogs for 'im to chase. A bit o' sport 'ud set 'im +up in a jiffy. He's languishing--that's what's the matter with him." + +There were almost tears in his voice as he tugged at the chain +surreptitiously, in a vain effort to produce the cataclysm that +was overdue. But for all his efforts to appear affected, his eyes +were smiling. So were his commander's. + +"Why Byng?" he asked. + +"Byng cleans him, sir. He knows Byng." + +"Then, why you?" + +"Why; he knows me too, sir, and between the two +of us, we'd manage him proper. S'posin' he was to get huntin' on +his own and one of us was tired out chasin' him, t'other could run +and catch him. If there was only one of us, he couldn't." + +"I see. Well? One of the other men might take him on the chain. +A good-conduct man, for instance." + +Crothers tugged at the chain, and the unhappy dog drew away toward +the scuppers with all his remaining strength. + +"He's cussed about the chain, sir--apt to drag on it and try to chaw +it through. Besides, sir, when a dawg's sick, he's like a man--same +as me an' you; he likes to 'ave 'is partic'lar pals with 'im. Now, +that dawg's fond o' me an' Byng.' + +"I see. But supposing exercise isn't what he wants after all? Suppose +he needs a long rest and lots of sleep? How about that?" + +The argument had reached a crisis, and Curley realized it. Joking +or not, when the commander of a ship takes too long in reaching a +decision he generally does not reach a favorable one. The leash was +tugged again, this time with some severity. The martyred Scamp was +drawn on his protesting haunches close to the official table, that +the commander might have a better view of his distress. And then +the expected happened--voluminously. + +Curley stood with an expression of wooden-headed, abject innocence +on his big, broad face, and looked straight in front of him. + +"He certainly is sick, sir," he remarked. + +"Sick. Good heavens! The dog's turning himself inside out! That's +the last time a thing like this happens; he's the last dog I ever +take on a cruise. Take him away at once! Bosun--call some one to +wipe up that disgusting mess!" + +"Take him ashore, did you say, sir?" + +"Take him out of this! Take him anywhere you like! Yes, take him +ashore and lose him--feed him to the sharks--give him to the Arabs-- +take him away, that's all!" + +"Me and Byng, sir?" + +"Yes, you and Byng! Did you hear me tell you to take him away?" + +"Very good, sir; thank you!" + +Curley Crothers saluted without the vestige of a smile, and hurried +off before the dog could show too early signs of recovering health +and strength or the commander could change his mind. + +"Come on, Scamp," he whispered. "That was nothing but a temporary +disaccommodation to your tummy, doglums; we'll soon have you to +rights again." + +He dived into the fo'castle with the dog behind him, and there were +those who noticed that the terrier's whip-like tail no longer hugged +his stomach, but was waving to the world at large. + +And thirty minutes later, as the Puncher's launch put off with Curley +and Joe Byng comfortably seated in the stern, it was obvious to any +one who cared to look that Scamp was the happiest and healthiest +terrier in Asia. + +"Now, I wonder what they did to him," mused the Puncher's commander, +watching from beneath his awning. "Those two men live up to the name +they brought aboard! I believe they'd find means and a good excuse +for walking to windward of a First Sea Lord!" + + + + +III. + +Now an Arab would as soon allow a dog to lick his face as he would +think of eating pork in public with his women folk; so the bearded, +hook-nosed believers in the Prophet who looked down from the rock +wall that lines one side of Adra knew what to think of Curley and +his friend Joe Byng long before either of them realized that they +were being watched. + +Arrayed from head to ankles in spotless white, their black boots looking +blacker by comparison, they proceeded in the general direction of +the distant village, with the order and decorum of sea lords descending +on a dockyard for inspection purposes. The trackless sand proved +hot and sharp; the dog proved in poor condition from the voyage +and the morning's incidental martyrdom, and Byng was generous-hearted. +He picked up the dog and carried him; and Scamp displayed his gratitude +in customary canine way. + +The comments of the watching Arabs would not fit into any story in +the world, and it is quite as well that Crothers and Joe Byng did +not hear them and could not have translated them, for in the other +case trouble would have started even sooner than it did. As it was, +they tumbled and maneuvered over unresisting sand through almost +tangible stench to where a gap in the ragged wall did duty as a gate. +As they came nearer, a banner with the star and crescent was displayed +from the wall-top, but no other sign was given that their coming +was observed. + +It was not until they had debouched (as Crothers termed it) to their +half-right front and had taken to a narrow one-man track that ran +below the wall that any over attention was paid them. Suddenly a +hook-nosed Asiatic gentleman emerged through the once-was gateway-- +a picture of a Bible shepherd but for the long-barreled gun he carried +instead of crook--a brown shadow against brown masonry. He challenged +them in Arabic, and Curley Crothers answered him in Queen Victoria's +English that all was well. + +"Everything in the garden's lovely!" he asserted, in a deep-sea sing-song. +"How's yourself?" + +The man repeated whatever he had said before, this time with a gesture +of impatience. + +"Friend!" roared Byng and Curley both together. And the bull terrier +took the joint yell for a war cry, or a bunting call, or possibly +the herald's overture that summons bull pups to Valhalla. He was +bred right and British Navy trained and his was not to reason why. +He waited for no second invitation, but lit out from Byng's arms +like a streak--a whip-tail, snow-white streak--for where the Arab's +hard lean legs shone shiny-brown below his fluttering brown raiment. + +"Come back, there!" yelled both keepers in excited unison, but they +called too late. + +Each grabbed for the chain too late. Their heads and shoulders cannoned +and they fell together on the hot, dirty sand while Scamp and the +Arab made each other's intimate acquaintance in a whirl of ripping +cloth and legs and teeth and blasphemy. + +That in itself was bad enough, and good enough excuse if such were +wanted for war between the Shadow of God Upon Earth and England's +distant Queen; but there was worse to follow. + +One does not laugh, between certain parallels, unless the ultimate +degree of insult is intended. And Curley Crothers and Joe Byng did +laugh. They held their ribs and laughed until their muscles ached +and their strong men's strength oozed out of them. + +They were laughing when they grabbed the dog at last and pulled him +off. They laughed as they set the Arab on his feet and gave him back +his gun; and they laughed at him with Christian and mannerly good +grace when he spat at them in awful frenzy until the spittle matted +in his beard. And, being gentlemen after a fashion quite their own, +they smilingly apologized. + +Arabia lies in the middle of the zone where laughter is not wisdom. +And a smile lies midway in the measure of a laugh. A laugh might +be unintentional. A smile must be deliberate. And the Arab's spittle +was run dry. Creed, custom, law of tooth for tooth and the thought +of half a hundred co-religionists all watching him from crannies +in the wall combined to make him shoot, since further means of showing +malice were denied him; and he raised the long butt to his shoulder +with meaning that was unmistakable. + +And so, with sorrow that the East should be so lacking in good fellowship, +but with the ready instinct of men who have been trained for war, +they closed with him from two directions, swiftly, bull-dog-wise, +and took his gun away. And how could even an able seaman help the +dog's taking a share in the game again? + +So far, nobody had done anything intended to be wrong--least of all +the dog. The Arab was defending institutions; Crothers and Joe Byng +were bent on holiday, and full of kind regards for anything that lived; +and the dog was living dogfully up to well-bred-terrier tradition. +It was as if two harmless chemicals had met and blended into nitroglycerin. + +Deprived of his gun, the Arab drew a knife; and no British sailor +lives who does not understand the quick-loosed answer to the glint +of steel. Fist and boot both landed on the Arab quicker than his +own thought served the knife, and the weight of quick concussions +jarred him into all but coma. This time Byng caught the dog in time +and held him back, leaving Curley Crothers to finish matters by making +the long knife prize of war. Once more he helped the Arab on his +feet, smiling hugely and gentling the iron sinews with huge paws that +could have wrenched them all apart if need be. + +"Take my advice, cully, and weigh quick!" he counseled, looking the +Arab over and making sure the unfortunate had not been too much hurt. +"Run for shelter where you can cool your bearings! Run off to the +mosque and pray, to make up for all that cussing. Go and be good! +And next time you meets us, be friendly--see?" + +The Arab was too apoplectically angry to comply, but Crothers took +him by both shoulders and shoved him; and finding himself shot forward +out of reach, seeing safety ahead and its possible corollary of awful +vengeance, he suddenly achieved discretion and scampered through the +gap in the wall. + +"'E's gone to fetch his pals. Look out, mate!" warned Joe Byng. + +"Not 'im!" vowed Crothers. "'E's 'ad enough, that's all! We've seen +the last of 'im!" + +And the most amazing thing of all was that Crothers believed just +what he said--Curley Crothers, to whom Red Sea and Persian Gulf ports +were as an open book, and to whom the Arab customs and religion and +reprehensible tendencies were currently supposed to be first-reader +knowledge. It was he who had proved there were no harems--he who +coined the Navy adage, "Search an Arab first, and sit on him, before +you come to terms!" + +Yet here he was, advising Byng to disregard a looted Arab's spittle! +There is no accounting, ever, for the ways of shore-leave sailor-men. + +"Come on, Joe," he said. "Lead 'the dawg--he can walk now--and let's +see what Adra looks like." + + + + +IV. + +All might have been well, and both seamen might have reached the +Puncher again with dignity and grace, had they not entered Adra, +past the only jail in that part of Arabia. And an Arab jail being +rarer and one percent more evil than any other evil thing there is, +the two of them quite naturally paused to make its closest possible +acquaintance. + +"Look out for vermin!" cautioned Curley, standing on tiptoe to peer +in through the close-spaced iron bars. + +They forgot the dog. The jail, for the moment, challenged all their +waking senses, the olfactory by no means least. + +"Can you see anything?" asked Byng. + +Before Crothers could answer him, a snarl, then a yap, then a quick, +determined growl gave warning of the terrier's interest in something +else than fleas. + +He had been scratching himself peacefully a moment earlier; now, +like a bower anchor taking charge, he ripped the chain through Byng's +hand and was off--chin, back and tail in one straight, striving line-- +in full chase of a pariah. + +The yellow cur yapped its agony of fear; the nearest hundred and +odd mangy monsters of the gutter took up the chorus; within five +seconds of the start there was the Puncher's mascot racing after one +abominable scavenger, and after him in just as hot pursuit there raced +the whole street-cleaning force of Adra--tongues out, eyes blazing, +and their mean thin barks all working overtime. + +"Good-by, Scamp!" groaned Byng, estimating rapidly. + +"Not yet it ain't!" said Crothers, grabbing Byng's arm and nearly +tearing out the muscles. + +It was a crude way of rousing Byng's latent speed, both of thought +and movement, but it worked. Before Joe could swear, even, Crothers +was off like the wind, with Joe after him, using the string of oaths +he had meant for Crothers on the sand that gave under him and made +him stumble at every other stride. + +Adra turned out, as a colony of prairie dogs might from planless burrows; +only these had more venom in their bite than prairie dogs and came +from structural instead of natural, from flea-bepeppered instead of +grass-grown dirt. Man, woman and child--the grown men armed, the +women veiled in dirt-brown, some of them, and some (mostly the better- +looking) unveiled and unashamed, the little children mostly naked +and colored with all the human hues there are--raced, yelling, through +a swarm of flies in hot pursuit. Never since Shem's great-grandson +gat the Arab race was there a procession like it. + +Behind its mud-and-Masonry decrepit wall that guards only the seaward +side, Adra straggles quite a distance desertward; and there are winding +streets enough to hide an army in, provided that the army did not +mind the fleas. Scamp, view-halloaing his utmost, led that most +amazing hunt a quite considerable circuit before other men and dogs, +arriving from a dozen different directions, set a limit to his +unobstructed movement. + +He knew what he was after, but they did not; they had come to see. +For a moment they seemed to think that Scamp was the object of the +chase, and a dozen guns of a dozen different kinds and dates were +aimed at him. + +And then, as consciousness dawns on a man recovering from choloform, +there swept over their lethargic Eastern brains the simultaneous idea +that Curley Crothers and Joe Byng were the real quarry; and--again +like men recovering from chloroform--they did not quite know what +to do. Should they slay, there was the Puncher to be reckoned with; +and the Puncher's port quick-firers could be seen commanding Adra +by any man who cared to climb the wall. + +Besides, an Arab's hospitality is proverbial. He very seldom kills +a visitor on sight. + +On the other hand a man, and particularly a British sailor, who runs +has reason, as a rule. Therefore these two men were evidently guilty. +Therefore they must not escape. In five seconds the affair had changed +from a spectacular amusement, with Adra's population in the role +of super-heated audience, to a hunt of Crothers and Joe Byng. + +Within ten seconds each of the sailors lay with his face pressed hard +into the sand and at least a dozen Arabs sitting on him. Scamp--utterly +forgotten now by all except the sailors--still behind the one stray +pariah and ahead of all the rest but beginning to appreciate the fact +that he was hunted, and beginning to feel spent--raced on, took three +sharp turns in close succession, and was gathered all unwilling in +the arms of an enormous black man who snatched him from the very teeth +of the following pack and dispersed them, howling, by means of well- +directed kicks. + +"Ah seed you yesterday, Ah did," said his deliverer in English; and, +recalling principle, the terrier bit at him--only to find himself +muzzled by a horny, huge fist that caressed even while it rendered +impotent. + +"Ah'm fond of little dogs! Ah'm English!" + +Scamp understood nothing of the conversation, but with canine instinct +realized that he was safe; and after that he was satisfied to lie +and pant. With five red inches of tongue hanging out, and no sign +whatever of his white-uniformed guardians to trouble him, a black +man's arms were as good as any other place; he did not waste half +a thought on Byng and Crothers. + +But Byng, three turnings back, spat filthy sand out of his mouth +the moment an Arab deemed it safe to leave off sitting on his head, +looked wildly around for Crothers, and bellowed-- + +"Where's the pup?" + +Crothers, spitting out sand, too, twenty yards behind where the swifter +Byng had fallen, called back: + +"Dunno. Whistle him!" + +Byng tried to whistle, and the Arabs mistook the effort for a signal. +In an instant both men were face-downward again, struggling for breath +and clawing at the dirt. Then worse befell. The gentleman whose +brown anatomy had suffered from the seamen's feet and fists just +previous to their invasion of the town limped up with his eye teeth +showing and his flapping cotton raiment still unmended where the dog +had torn it. Any other wrath, however awful, could be nothing but +the shadow of his state of mind; and since he knew the more vindictive +portions of the Koran all by heart, and was quoting as he came, there +was little need of words to illustrate further his attitude. + +He seemed to be a person of authority. An Arab town or village is +a democracy in which each free man has his say; not even a sheik +can overrule the vote of a majority, and this man was no sheik. +But rage and self-assertion will generally exercise a certain weight +in tribal councils, and the crowd in this case was too doubtful of +the facts to have any settled notions of its own. + +"To the jail with them!" the new arrival almost shrieked, and about +a dozen in the crowd took up the cry-- + +"To jail with them!" + +"Infidels! Worshipers of dogs! Wine-drinkers! Eaters of pig flesh! +Dogs and the sons of dogs--what mothers gave them birth? Are your +hands, True-believers, fit bonds for them? To the jail! To the jail +that Abdul Hamid caused his men to build for such as these!" + +He stooped and looked deliberately to make sure that Crothers could +not break away, then came closer and spat on him, saving half his +spittle with impartial forethought for the struggling Byng, who looked +up in time to see what was in store for him. Being spat on is even +less exhilarating than it sounds or looks, and Byng waxed speechless +after passing through a many-worded stage of blasphemy. + +Crothers, the larger of the two and by six brawny inches more phlegmatic, +bode his time in silence, so that neither of them spoke a word while +they were hustled and cuffed along the street between the unbaked +brick hovels. It was not until the reinforced iron door of Adra's +one stone building slammed on them that either of them said a word. + +Then-- + +"I'm not a mean man," protested Crothers. + +"No?" said Byng, monosyllabic for a start. + +"No," repeated Crothers, "I am not, Joe Byng. But--and I says it +solemn; I says it with one 'and above my 'ed, and I'd take my affidavy +on it in a court o' law, if it's the last word I ever does say an' +it's my dying oath--so 'elp me Solomon and all 'is glory; I'm a +Dutchman if I wouldn't like to 'ave a come-back at that Arab." + +Byng lay full length on his stomach, and buried his face in his arms. +He was still too full of wrath for words. + +"I'd kick his mother, if I couldn't land on him," mused Crothers. +And then he busied himself about conning his new bearings. It was +a four-walled jail--one-doored, one-windowed, iron-barred--ill-smelling, +verminous, too hot for words and too suggestive of the opposite of +home, sweet home to call forth humor, even from a seaman. + +"They'll come an' rescue us," moaned Byng. "They'll quarantine the +pair of us for being lousy, and they'll turn the perishing salt-water +hose on us. We're due for the brig for Gawd knows 'ow long; our +reppitation's gone; we've been spat on by a--by a Arab, and we 'aven't +hit 'im back; an' we've lost the pup. We've gone an' lost the pup! +Gawd! There ain't no more good in nothin'!" + +Which shows no more than that Joe Byng in his sorrow overlooked a +circumstance or two. For instance, there were rings in the floor +that Crothers eyed with keen curiosity. They were anchored in the +solid blocks of stone. + +"It's better than it might be, mate!" he argued optimistically. "They +might 'ave gone and chained us up to those!" + + + + +V. + +Arabia has some peculiarities, not all of them discreditable, which +she does not share with any other country. There is, for instance, +the kind custom that dictates the setting free of slaves when they +have rendered seven years' good service. + +That rule (and it is rather rule than law) tends to eliminate all +class and color prejudice. Provided that a man will bow to Mecca +three times daily and refrain from pork and wine, he may wear whatever +skin God gave him and yet mingle with the best. He may even marry +whom he will and can afford; and he may be whatever his ability, +ambition, and audacity dictate. + +And Hassan Ah had never been a slave, so he had even less to overcome +than might have been the case. He stalked Adra socially uncondemned +where once he had caught fish, groomed camels, and done other irritating +jobs. His old fish-catching days had given him an intimate acquaintance +with the reef, and his small-boat seamanship, born of hard pulling +in the trough of beam-on-seas, was well suited to the local type of +craft. + +So nobody questioned his right to the title of harbor pilot. And +if certain perquisites went with an otherwise barren office, that +was to be expected. Who worked for nothing, or for the empty honor +of it, in Arabia? + +Nobody can pass the reef at night in shallow-draft lateen-sail boats +without having him on board; and though he was never ostensibly paid +for his services, it was understood that he performed pilot service +in return for certain other opportunities that sometimes came his +way. When things happened on the high sea that were not discussed +in public, it was understood that Hassan Ah could have discussed +them as thoroughly as anybody if he chose. + +On the whole, then, and within limits that were only more or less +definable, he was something of a personality. Men listened to him +when he raised his voice in argument, and as one who could grant +favors on occasion his words had weight. + +The sun was very nearly in its zenith, beating down on dry Arabia +between racing black clouds, when he had finished talking to the local +council in the ramshackle old council-house, skin and mat curtained, +that faced the sheik's where the main street broadened for a hundred +filthy yards into a market-place. All through his argument he had +held a pure-white bull terrier between his knees as proof that he +knew whereof he spoke. + +"Can any of you hold him without being bitten?" he demanded. And +they did not seem to care to try. + +"I know the ways of these men!" be asserted, drawing extravagant +expressions of contentment from the dog in proof of it. + +So the others in the stuffy council place gave the dog a wide berth +and no privilege, but conceded him the right to hold the beast, if +he wanted to, without personal defilement. And since the way of +the world is that a man who has won the first of his contentions +can win all the rest with half the ease, he persuaded them with a +hurricane of black man's rhetoric to do what Arabs consider almost wicked. + +Unbelievers who are prisoners should die, beyond all question. + +"As the dregs of oil shall the fruit of the tree of Al Zakkum boil +in the bellies of the damned!" the sheik quoted. "They should be +hurried, therefore, to the punishment that waits!" + +But Hassen Ah outargued him. + +"Then they will land men from the ship, who will search our houses," +he asserted. "Is there a majority in the council who would like to +be searched by unbelievers?" + +"Then bind them, and take them to their ship, and tell a tale of much +drunkenness and wrong-doing. Ask an indemnity, and show the proofs, +which will be easy to arrange." + +"They, too, will tell their tale!" said Hassan Ah in perfect Arabic. + +Unlike the more enlightened peoples of the West, Arabs do not encourage +the mutilation of their mother-tongue; they teach it as carefully +as they talk it, and this negro spoke like an Arab of the blood. + +"There are certain damages they have received--some bruises on the +face and tears in the clothing that does not belong to them but their +government," he continued. "They would lay all the blame on us, +and would breathe in the face of an appointed man, in proof that +they were not drunk. And who could get other drink than coffee or +water here? And who would believe the rest of our story, having +found that part to be a lie? There would be a landing, and a search +for proof, and much unpleasantness. Besides--" + +If he had intended to add further arguments, the sheik saw fit to +nip them in the bud; for there were some men in the council-room +who did not know as much as Hassan Ah. Any free man may speak in +council in Arabia. + +"What is thy way, then?" he asked. + +The woolly headed pilot laughed aloud, taking care to make it evident +that he was laughing at the prisoners; to laugh at a sheik or a sheik's +bewilderment would be too dangerous. + +"I would send them to the ship well satisfied," he answered. + +"With money?" asked the sheik. + +"With whose money?" asked Hassan Ah. + +"With thine?" shot back the sheik. + +"In the name of Allah, no!" + +The black man laughed again, and rose to lean against the wall behind +him, gathering the dog up in his arms. + +"If it is the order of the council," he asserted, "I will send them +back satisfied, with a tale to tell that will bring about no landing. +Also, I will give the council much amusement." + +"But will other sailors land afterward, seeking similar amusement?" +asked the sheik. + +"No! There will be an order that none land!" + +The sheik took a vote on it. Heads nodded solemnly all around the +room as his eyes sought each half-veiled face in turn. His own face +was almost altogether shielded by the brown linen head-dress, for +men of his race like to reach a judgment unobserved. They were all +nods that answered him, and he saw fit to keep his own opinion +to himself. + +"Thou seest? These others are all with thee. Have it thine own way, +Hassan Ah. Unlock thou the riddle and on thy head be the answer! +Thou hast our leave to go." + +So Hassan Ah set out undaunted for the jail, with a terrier in tow +behind him and a huge smile on his broad-beamed face. And behind +him a murmur rose that: + +"It was well. He brought the warship in, instead of leaving it +outside or--as any wise man would have done--wrecking it on the +outer reef, where it could have been plundered at discretion. Let +him send the sailors back again and bear the consequences!" + +And within a minute of the pilot's arrival at the window of the jail +(through which he peered for two minutes before speaking) the whole +of Adra's council, followed by the city's children in a noisy horde, +proceeded in a cluster after him and took up position, each as he +saw fit, at different vantage points. + +Then Hassan Ah shook a loose bar of the window until it rattled, and +so called attention to himself. Crothers and Joe Byng raced for the +window neck and neck, and reached it simultaneously. + +"You two men want you-ah dog?" asked Hassan Ah, and the chained dog +leaped up at the window as both men swore at once. + +"You pass him in here! Come on, you black-faced cornerman! There'll +be a cutter's crew ashore pretty soon to rescue us, and if you don't +hand that dog over before they get here you'll get the worst whipping +you ever had in all your black life!" + +"They'll feed you to the dog when they're through with you!" vowed Byng. + +"Come on, MacHassan!" ordered Crothers. "Get the key and pass the +dog in. That'll settle your account. T hen you's free. You needn't +be 'fraid." + +"Ah'm English," said the pilot of the day before, with an enormous +grin that showed a pound or two of yellow ivory. "Ah'm not afraid; +Ah can lick you; Ah can fight same as you men. Ah'm English!" + +"Fight? You Irish Chink! Which of us two do you want to fight?" +asked the outraged Byng. "Come on in here! I'll fight you!" + +But to Byng's amazement Hassan Ah pointed to Crothers, who was heavier +by forty pounds or more and taller by at least half a head. + +"Ah choose him!" he grinned; and Curley Crothers clenched both fists +in absolute but quite unterrified amazement. + +"Come on, then," he answered. "Open the door." Then, as an +afterthought--"I'll fight you for the dog." + +"Ah don't want to kill that little man," said Hassan Ah. "But Ah'll +give you the dog, win or lose, if you'll fight me. You fight fair? +You fight English?" + +"Well, I'm damned!" said Crothers. "I fight Queensberry rules. +That suit you?" + +"Oh-ah, yes! Keensby rules, that's it. All right-o!" + +Hassan Ah produced his key and turned it in the creaking lock. He +was stripping himself even before the two sailors were out in the +sun, and by the time that Crothers and Joe Byng had realized that +there was an audience of something like a thousand, including children, +he was standing posed like a gladiator, with the straight-down tropic +sun streaming off his ebony hide. As Crothers, not quite sure even +yet that the whole affair was not a joke, began to doff his blouse +it dawned on him that if the thing were true it would not be a picnic. + +"Do you mean this?" he asked. + +"Ah shohly do. Are you afraid o' me?" + +That, of course, settled matters. The thing was not a joke, and +Englishman or nigger--black, green, white, or gray--the plot must +be licked forthwith and in accordance with the rules. + +Crothers spat into his hands, while Joe Byng folded up his blouse +and knelt on it. He eyed his antagonist for at least a minute, summing +him up and ignoring none of the woolly-headed one's physical advantages +in weight and strength, in height and reach, in being used to the +climate and the glare, the odds were all with Hassan Ah. Then he +sized up the moral odds; and though a biased audience might be at +first supposed to weigh against him too, the sight of all those Arabs +waiting to see him beaten roused his fighting dander. + +"Do you represent the bloke that spat on us two men?" asked Crothers. + +"Ah represent maself! Ah'm English! Ah fight English, and Ah'll +prove it!" + +"Aw, wade into him!" advised Joe Byng. "London Prize Rules--no +time called until a man's down. Go on, Curley--lead!" + +"Do you agree?" asked Crothers. + +"Suttainly!" The black man seemed disposed to agree to anything so +long as he could get what he was after. + +"Then here goes!" said Crothers; and he stepped in and led for the +honor of the British Navy. + +Oh! It was a fight! Crothers knew what he was up against the instant +that his left fist slid along an ebony forearm and his nose collided +with what seemed like an iron club. Steamship pilot this man might +not be, but fighting man he very surely was. He hit straight and +guarded high. He was no untutored savage. He had the hardest to +acquire of all the Christian arts at his fingers' (or rather his fists') +ends, and the heavyweight champion of Gosport took a double reef in +his fighting tactics while he sparred for time in which to recover +from the shock of that first blow. The claret was streaming down +his face and he was dizzy. + +"Oh, wade into him, mate!" urged Joe. + +It is always easier to see what should be done than to do it. The +sand was not slipping and giving under Joe Byng's feet, nor were +his fists and wrists aching from contact with hard ebony. To him +the thing seemed easy, and he was as anxious to get into the fight +himself as was the terrier that strained at his chain. But Crothers, +who had won a hundred fights at least in cleaner climes, fought +canny and tried to make the black man tire himself with wasted effort. + +And the Arabs sat in silence, like a row of vultures waiting for the +end. Even the little children held their clamor and subsided into +motionless calm. There was not a movement along the roofs or the +wall, or in the rings of those who squatted. Arabia was spellbound, +watching something she had never seen before and trying to puzzle +out the wherefore of it. There were knives and guns available, yet +these men fought without weapons. The white contender had a friend, +but the friend did not join in. Why? Had Allah struck all three +men mad? They sat still to see the end, having no doubt but that +it would prove to be a judgment. + +Curley Crothers was the first to close a round. He put an end to +round one at the end of three minutes by missing with a heavy right +swing, ducking to avoid terrific punishment, slipping in the yielding +sand and falling. + +"Back with you!" yelled Joe Byng, afraid that the pilot would take +liberties and ready to jump in and stop him if need be. But he wasted +his excitement. + +"Ah told you Ah'm English!" said the pilot, stepping back and letting +Crothers find his corner. + +Curley was glad enough of a rest on Joe Byng's knee, and too intent +on getting back his wind to listen over carefully to Joe's advice. +When Joe called "Time" he stepped in readily again; and this time +it was Hassan Ah who suffered from surprise. + +Curley had been getting out of practise on board ship; he had needed +waking up, and round one had done it for him. Round two and the six +that followed it were exhibitions of the "noble art" that men in any +of the larger cities of the world would have paid out a fortune to +have seen. + +There was racial prejudice, and service pride, as well as the usual +decent man's desire to win to make a real mill of what might have +been nothing out of ordinary; and there were the quite considerable +odds against him that--after the first repulse--usually make men like +Crothers do their utmost. + +Even the Arabs lost their stoicism while round two was under way. +Byng yelled, and the terrier yelped, but the Arabs only shifted their +position. That, though, was proof enough of their excitement; they +actually sighed in unison when Hassan Ah thrust his ungainly chin +in the way of a crushing right-hand smash, and laid his broad back +on the sand. + +After that it was slug-and-come-again with both of them, each getting +wilder as round succeeded round, but neither man obtaining much +advantage. Twice it was Crothers who went down; then he discovered +a soft spot in Hassan's ribs, and after that he kept the black man +busy on the desperate defensive. + +There was no doubt of the end, then, barring accidents. Even Hassan +Ah could not have doubted it; but he did his black man's uttermost +to put it off, and he fought as gamely as anybody ever fought since +prize-ring rules were drafted. He did not foul, or take undue +advantage once. + +It was a plain, right-handed, battering-ram punch to the neck that +ended things, and Hassan Ah lay coughing on the sand with bulging +eyes while Joe Byng tended Curley's hurts. + +"Hasn't the nigger got any pals?" asked Crothers; and then it occurred +to Byng that the most hurt man was surely most in need of mending. +Both he and Crothers bent over him, then, and they soon had him on +his feet again. + +"Ah told you Ah'm English!" were the first words he succeeded in +spluttering through swollen lips. + +"Now, what d'you mean by that exactly?" asked Joe Byng, his attitude +toward him almost entirely changed. A man who loses gamely is entitled +to respect if not to friendship. + +Hassan Ah searched in the tattered shirt that he had laid aside, +and pulled out a folded piece of paper after a lot of fumbling. +He opened it gingerly, and holding one corner of it displayed the +rest with evident intention not to allow it out of his grasp. + +"That says Ah'm English!" he explained. + +"Oh!" said Crothers, rubbing an injured eye in order to see it better. +"Can you read, you black heathen?" + +"No," said the pilot. "That says Ah'm English, but Ah can't read!" + +"Well, MacHassan," said Curley Crothers, reading the document a second +time. "Black or white, you fight like a gentleman. I'm proud to +have licked you. Good-by, and good luck! Here's my hand!" + +They shook hands, and the seamen started shoreward with the terrier +in tow. + +"Did you read the paper?" asked Crothers. "It was dated Aden--non-coms' +mess of some regiment or other. `This is to certify that this regiment +taught Hassan Ah to use his fists, and that he has since licked every +single mother's son of us!' Pity I didn't see that first, eh?" + +"Oh, I dunno," said Joe Byng, who had not had to do the fighting. +"You licked the savage, anyway." + +Hassan Ah was right. There was no more shore leave granted. Crothers +and Joe Byng were punished with extra duty and "confined to ship" +for coming back with the marks of fighting on them; and the Puncher +gave no further signs of life until, some three I days later, her +long-suffering engines turned again and she departed through the +channel that had brought her in. + +Then the sheik and three others and a certain Hassan Ah went down +at midnight to the jail and lifted with the aid of long poles passed +through the rings in them the largest floor stones of that vermin- +infested building. But the vermin did not trouble them. What they +were after and what they lifted out was the cases of guns and cartridges +the Puncher had contrived to miss. + + +THE END + + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TOLD IN THE EAST *** + +This file should be named tinte10.txt or tinte10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, tinte11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, tinte10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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