Part 17

It will be long ere the Khusru Kheyl forget their night attack on the lowland villages. The Mullah had promised an easy victory and unlimited plunder; but behold, armed troopers of the Queen had risen out of the very earth, cutting, slashing, and riding down under the stars, so that no man knew where to turn, and all feared that they had brought an army about their ears, and ran back to the hills. In the panic of that flight more men were seen to drop from wounds inflicted by an Afghan knife jabbed upwards, and yet more from long-range carbine-fire. Then there rose a cry of treachery, and when they reached their own guarded heights, they had left, with some forty dead and sixty wounded, all their confidence in the Blind Mullah on the plains below. They clamoured, swore, and argued round the fires; the women wailing for the lost, and the Mullah shrieking curses on the returned.

Then Khoda Dad Khan, eloquent and unbreathed, for he had taken no part in the fight, rose to improve the occasion. He pointed out that the tribe owed every item of its present misfortune to the Blind Mullah, who had lied in every possible particular and talked them into a trap. It was undoubtedly an insult that a Bengali, the son of a Bengali, should presume to administer the Border, but that fact did not, as the Mullah pretended, herald a general time of license and lifting; and the inexplicable madness of the English had not in the least impaired their power of guarding their marches. On the contrary, the baffled and out-generalled tribe would now, just when their food-stock was lowest, be blockaded from any trade with Hindustan until they had sent hostages for good behaviour, paid compensation for disturbance, and blood-money at the rate of thirty-six English pounds per head for every villager that they might have slain. ‘And ye know that those lowland dogs will make oath that we have slain scores. Will the Mullah pay the fines or must we sell our guns?’ A low growl ran round the fires. ‘Now, seeing that all this is the Mullah’s work, and that we have gained nothing but promises of Paradise thereby, it is in my heart that we of the Khusru Kheyl lack a shrine whereat to pray. We are weakened, and henceforth how shall we dare to cross into the Madar Kheyl border, as has been our custom, to kneel to Pir Sajji’s tomb? The Madar men will fall upon us, and rightly. But our Mullah is a holy man. He has helped two score of us into Paradise this night. Let him therefore accompany his flock, and we will build over his body a dome of the blue tiles of Mooltan, and burn lamps at his feet every Friday night. He shall be a saint: we shall have a shrine; and there our women shall pray for fresh seed to fill the gaps in our fighting-tale. How think you?’

A grim chuckle followed the suggestion, and the soft wheep, wheep of unscabbarded knives followed the chuckle. It was an excellent notion, and met a long felt want of the tribe. The Mullah sprang to his feet, glaring with withered eyeballs at the drawn death he could not see, and calling down the curses of God and Mahomed on the tribe. Then began a game of blind man’s buff round and between the fires, whereof Khuruk Shah, the tribal poet, has sung in verse that will not die.

They tickled him gently under the armpit with the knife-point. He leaped aside screaming, only to feel a cold blade drawn lightly over the back of his neck, or a rifle-muzzle rubbing his beard. He called on his adherents to aid him, but most of these lay dead on the plains, for Khoda Dad Khan had been at some pains to arrange their decease. Men described to him the glories of the shrine they would build, and the little children clapping their hands cried, ‘Run, Mullah, run! There’s a man behind you!’ In the end, when the sport wearied, Khoda Dad Khan’s brother sent a knife home between his ribs. ‘Wherefore,’ said Khoda Dad Khan with charming simplicity, ‘I am now Chief of the Khusru Kheyl!’ No man gainsaid him; and they all went to sleep very stiff and sore.

On the plain below Tommy Dodd was lecturing on the beauties of a cavalry charge by night, and Tallantire, bowed on his saddle, was gasping hysterically because there was a sword dangling from his wrist flecked with the blood of the Khusru Kheyl, the tribe that Orde had kept in leash so well. When a Rajpoot trooper pointed out that the skewbald’s right ear had been taken off at the root by some blind slash of its unskilled rider, Tallantire broke down altogether, and laughed and sobbed till Tommy Dodd made him lie down and rest.

‘We must wait about till the morning,’ said he. ‘I wired to the Colonel just before we left, to send a wing of the Beshaklis after us. He’ll be furious with me for monopolising the fun, though. Those beggars in the hills won’t give us any more trouble.’

‘Then tell the Beshaklis to go on and see what has happened to Curbar on the canal. We must patrol the whole line of the Border. You’re quite sure, Tommy, that--that stuff was--was only the skewbald’s ear?’

‘Oh, quite,’ said Tommy. ‘You just missed cutting off his head. _I_ saw you when we went into the mess. Sleep, old man.’

Noon brought two squadrons of Beshaklis and a knot of furious brother officers demanding the court-martial of Tommy Dodd for ‘spoiling the picnic,’ and a gallop across country to the canal-works where Ferris, Curbar, and Hugonin were haranguing the terror-stricken coolies on the enormity of abandoning good work and high pay, merely because half a dozen of their fellows had been cut down. The sight of a troop of the Beshaklis restored wavering confidence, and the police-hunted section of the Khusru Kheyl had the joy of watching the canal-bank humming with life as usual, while such of their men as had taken refuge in the watercourses and ravines were being driven out by the troopers. By sundown began the remorseless patrol of the Border by police and trooper, most like the cow-boys’ eternal ride round restless cattle.

‘Now,’ said Khoda Dad Khan to his fellows, pointing out a line of twinkling fires below, ‘ye may see how far the old order changes. After their horse will come the little devil-guns that they can drag up to the tops of the hills, and, for aught I know, to the clouds when we crown the hills. If the tribe-council thinks good, I will go to Tallantire Sahib--who loves me--and see if I can stave off at least the blockade. Do I speak for the tribe?’

‘Ay, speak for the tribe in God’s name. How those accursed fires wink! Do the English send their troops on the wire--or is this the work of the Bengali?’

As Khoda Dad Khan went down the hill he was delayed by an interview with a hard-pressed tribesman, which caused him to return hastily for something he had forgotten. Then, handing himself over to the two troopers who had been chasing his friend, he claimed escort to Tallantire Sahib, then with Bullows at Jumala. The Border was safe, and the time for reasons in writing had begun.

‘Thank Heaven!’ said Bullows, ‘that the trouble came at once. Of course we can never put down the reason in black and white, but all India will understand. And it is better to have a sharp short outbreak than five years of impotent administration inside the Border. It costs less. Grish Chunder De has reported himself sick, and has been transferred to his own province without any sort of reprimand. He was strong on not having taken over the district.’

‘Of course,’ said Tallantire bitterly. ‘Well, what am I supposed to have done that was wrong?’

‘Oh, you will be told that you exceeded all your powers, and should have reported, and written, and advised for three weeks until the Khusru Kheyl could really come down in force. But I don’t think the authorities will dare to make a fuss about it. They’ve had their lesson. Have you seen Curbar’s version of the affair? He can’t write a report, but he can speak the truth.’

‘What’s the use of the truth? He’d much better tear up the report. I’m sick and heartbroken over it all. It was so utterly unnecessary--except in that it rid us of that Babu.’

Entered unabashed Khoda Dad Khan, a stuffed forage-net in his hand, and the troopers behind him.

‘May you never be tired!’ said he cheerily. ‘Well, Sahibs, that was a good fight, and Naim Shah’s mother is in debt to you, Tallantire Sahib. A clean cut, they tell me, through jaw, wadded coat, and deep into the collar-bone. Well done! But I speak for the tribe. There has been a fault--a great fault. Thou knowest that I and mine, Tallantire Sahib, kept the oath we sware to Orde Sahib on the banks of the Indus.’

‘As an Afghan keeps his knife--sharp on one side, blunt on the other,’ said Tallantire.

‘The better swing in the blow, then. But I speak God’s truth. Only the Blind Mullah carried the young men on the tip of his tongue, and said that there was no more Border-law because a Bengali had been sent, and we need not fear the English at all. So they came down to avenge that insult and get plunder. Ye know what befell, and how far I helped. Now five score of us are dead or wounded, and we are all shamed and sorry, and desire no further war. Moreover, that ye may better listen to us, we have taken off the head of the Blind Mullah, whose evil counsels have led us to folly. I bring it for proof,’--and he heaved on the floor the head. ‘He will give no more trouble, for I am chief now, and so I sit in a higher place at all audiences. Yet there is an offset to this head. That was another fault. One of the men found that black Bengali beast, through whom this trouble arose, wandering on horseback and weeping. Reflecting that he had caused loss of much good life, Alla Dad Khan, whom, if you choose, I will to-morrow shoot, whipped off this head, and I bring it to you to cover your shame, that ye may bury it. See, no man kept the spectacles, though they were of gold.’

Slowly rolled to Tallantire’s feet the crop-haired head of a spectacled Bengali gentleman, open-eyed, open-mouthed--the head of Terror incarnate. Bullows bent down. ‘Yet another blood-fine and a heavy one, Khoda Dad Khan, for this is the head of Debendra Nath, the man’s brother. The Babu is safe long since. All but the fools of the Khusru Kheyl know that.’

‘Well, I care not for carrion. Quick meat for me. The thing was under our hills asking the road to Jumala and Alla Dad Khan showed him the road to Jehannum, being, as thou sayest, but a fool. Remains now what the Government will do to us. As to the blockade--’

‘Who art thou, seller of dog’s flesh,’ thundered Tallantire, ‘to speak of terms and treaties? Get hence to the hills--go, and wait there starving, till it shall please the Government to call thy people out for punishment--children and fools that ye be! Count your dead, and be still. Best assured that the Government will send you a MAN!’

‘Ay,’ returned Khoda Dad Khan, ‘for we also be men.’

As he looked Tallantire between the eyes, he added, ‘And by God, Sahib, may thou be that man!’

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY

Before my Spring I garnered Autumn’s gain, Out of her time my field was white with grain, The year gave up her secrets to my woe. Forced and deflowered each sick season lay, In mystery of increase and decay; I saw the sunset ere men saw the day, Who am too wise in that I should not know. BITTER WATERS.

I

‘But if it be a girl?’

‘Lord of my life, it cannot be. I have prayed for so many nights, and sent gifts to Sheikh Badl’s shrine so often, that I know God will give us a son--a man-child that shall grow into a man. Think of this and be glad. My mother shall be his mother till I can take him again, and the mullah of the Pattan mosque shall cast his nativity--God send he be born in an auspicious hour!--and then, and then thou wilt never weary of me, thy slave.’

‘Since when hast thou been a slave, my queen?’

‘Since the beginning--till this mercy came to me. How could I be sure of thy love when I knew that I had been bought with silver?’

‘Nay, that was the dowry. I paid it to thy mother.’

‘And she has buried it, and sits upon it all day long like a hen. What talk is yours of dower! I was bought as though I had been a Lucknow dancing-girl instead of a child.’

‘Art thou sorry for the sale?’

‘I have sorrowed; but to-day I am glad. Thou wilt never cease to love me now?--answer, my king.’

‘Never--never. No.’

‘Not even though the mem-log--the white women of thy own blood--love thee? And remember, I have watched them driving in the evening; they are very fair.’

‘I have seen fire-balloons by the hundred. I have seen the moon, and--then I saw no more fire-balloons.’

Ameera clapped her hands and laughed. ‘Very good talk,’ she said. Then with an assumption of great stateliness, ‘It is enough. Thou hast my permission to depart,--if thou wilt.’

The man did not move. He was sitting on a low red-lacquered couch in a room furnished only with a blue and white floor-cloth, some rugs, and a very complete collection of native cushions. At his feet sat a woman of sixteen, and she was all but all the world in his eyes. By every rule and law she should have been otherwise, for he was an Englishman, and she a Mussulman’s daughter bought two years before from her mother, who, being left without money, would have sold Ameera shrieking to the Prince of Darkness if the price had been sufficient.

It was a contract entered into with a light heart; but even before the girl had reached her bloom she came to fill the greater portion of John Holden’s life. For her, and the withered hag her mother, he had taken a little house overlooking the great red-walled city, and found,--when the marigolds had sprung up by the well in the courtyard and Ameera had established herself according to her own ideas of comfort, and her mother had ceased grumbling at the inadequacy of the cooking-places, the distance from the daily market, and at matters of house-keeping in general,--that the house was to him his home. Any one could enter his bachelor’s bungalow by day or night, and the life that he led there was an unlovely one. In the house in the city his feet only could pass beyond the outer courtyard to the women’s rooms; and when the big wooden gate was bolted behind him he was king in his own territory, with Ameera for queen. And there was going to be added to this kingdom a third person whose arrival Holden felt inclined to resent. It interfered with his perfect happiness. It disarranged the orderly peace of the house that was his own. But Ameera was wild with delight at the thought of it, and her mother not less so. The love of a man, and particularly a white man, was at the best an inconstant affair, but it might, both women argued, be held fast by a baby’s hands. ‘And then,’ Ameera would always say, ‘then he will never care for the white mem-log. I hate them all--I hate them all.’

‘He will go back to his own people in time,’ said the mother; ‘but by the blessing of God that time is yet afar off.’

Holden sat silent on the couch thinking of the future, and his thoughts were not pleasant. The drawbacks of a double life are manifold. The Government, with singular care, had ordered him out of the station for a fortnight on special duty in the place of a man who was watching by the bedside of a sick wife. The verbal notification of the transfer had been edged by a cheerful remark that Holden ought to think himself lucky in being a bachelor and a free man. He came to break the news to Ameera.

‘It is not good,’ she said slowly, ‘but it is not all bad. There is my mother here, and no harm will come to me--unless indeed I die of pure joy. Go thou to thy work and think no troublesome thoughts. When the days are done I believe... nay, I am sure. And--and then I shall lay HIM in thy arms, and thou wilt love me for ever. The train goes to-night, at midnight is it not? Go now, and do not let thy heart be heavy by cause of me. But thou wilt not delay in returning? Thou wilt not stay on the road to talk to the bold white mem-log. Come back to me swiftly, my life.’

As he left the courtyard to reach his horse that was tethered to the gate-post, Holden spoke to the white-haired old watchman who guarded the house, and bade him under certain contingencies despatch the filled-up telegraph-form that Holden gave him. It was all that could be done, and with the sensations of a man who has attended his own funeral Holden went away by the night mail to his exile. Every hour of the day he dreaded the arrival of the telegram, and every hour of the night he pictured to himself the death of Ameera. In consequence his work for the State was not of first-rate quality, nor was his temper towards his colleagues of the most amiable. The fortnight ended without a sign from his home, and, torn to pieces by his anxieties, Holden returned to be swallowed up for two precious hours by a dinner at the club, wherein he heard, as a man hears in a swoon, voices telling him how execrably he had performed the other man’s duties, and how he had endeared himself to all his associates. Then he fled on horseback through the night with his heart in his mouth. There was no answer at first to his blows on the gate, and he had just wheeled his horse round to kick it in when Pir Khan appeared with a lantern and held his stirrup.

‘Has aught occurred?’ said Holden.

‘The news does not come from my mouth, Protector of the Poor, but--’ He held out his shaking hand as befitted the bearer of good news who is entitled to a reward.

Holden hurried through the courtyard. A light burned in the upper room. His horse neighed in the gateway, and he heard a shrill little wail that sent all the blood into the apple of his throat. It was a new voice, but it did not prove that Ameera was alive.

‘Who is there?’ he called up the narrow brick staircase.

There was a cry of delight from Ameera, and then the voice of the mother, tremulous with old age and pride--‘We be two women and--the--man--thy--son.’

On the threshold of the room Holden stepped on a naked dagger, that was laid there to avert ill-luck, and it broke at the hilt under his impatient heel.

‘God is great!’ cooed Ameera in the half-light. ‘Thou hast taken his misfortunes on thy head.’

‘Ay, but how is it with thee, life of my life? Old woman, how is it with her?’

‘She has forgotten her sufferings for joy that the child is born. There is no harm; but speak softly,’ said the mother.

‘It only needed thy presence to make me all well,’ said Ameera. ‘My king, thou hast been very long away. What gifts hast thou for me? Ah, ah! It is I that bring gifts this time. Look, my life, look. Was there ever such a babe? Nay, I am too weak even to clear my arm from him.’

‘Rest then, and do not talk. I am here, bachari [little woman].’

‘Well said, for there is a bond and a heel-rope [peecharee] between us now that nothing can break. Look--canst thou see in this light? He is without spot or blemish. Never was such a man-child. Ya illah! he shall be a pundit--no, a trooper of the Queen. And, my life, dost thou love me as well as ever, though I am faint and sick and worn? Answer truly.’

‘Yea. I love as I have loved, with all my soul. Lie still, pearl, and rest.’

‘Then do not go. Sit by my side here--so. Mother, the lord of this house needs a cushion. Bring it.’ There was an almost imperceptible movement on the part of the new life that lay in the hollow of Ameera’s arm. ‘Aho!’ she said, her voice breaking with love. ‘The babe is a champion from his birth. He is kicking me in the side with mighty kicks. Was there ever such a babe! And he is ours to us--thine and mine. Put thy hand on his head, but carefully, for he is very young, and men are unskilled in such matters.’

Very cautiously Holden touched with the tips of his fingers the downy head.

‘He is of the faith,’ said Ameera; ‘for lying here in the night-watches I whispered the call to prayer and the profession of faith into his ears. And it is most marvellous that he was born upon a Friday, as I was born. Be careful of him, my life; but he can almost grip with his hands.’

Holden found one helpless little hand that closed feebly on his finger. And the clutch ran through his body till it settled about his heart. Till then his sole thought had been for Ameera. He began to realise that there was some one else in the world, but he could not feel that it was a veritable son with a soul. He sat down to think, and Ameera dozed lightly.

‘Get hence, sahib,’ said her mother under her breath. ‘It is not good that she should find you here on waking. She must be still.’

‘I go,’ said Holden submissively. ‘Here be rupees. See that my baba gets fat and finds all that he needs.’

The chink of the silver roused Ameera. ‘I am his mother, and no hireling,’ she said weakly. ‘Shall I look to him more or less for the sake of money? Mother, give it back. I have born my lord a son.’

The deep sleep of weakness came upon her almost before the sentence was completed. Holden went down to the courtyard very softly with his heart at ease. Pir Khan, the old watchman, was chuckling with delight. ‘This house is now complete,’ he said, and without further comment thrust into Holden’s hands the hilt of a sabre worn many years ago when he, Pir Khan, served the Queen in the police. The bleat of a tethered goat came from the well-kerb.

‘There be two,’ said Pir Khan, ‘two goats of the best. I bought them, and they cost much money; and since there is no birth-party assembled their flesh will be all mine. Strike craftily, sahib! ‘Tis an ill-balanced sabre at the best. Wait till they raise their heads from cropping the marigolds.’

‘And why?’ said Holden, bewildered.