CHAPTER XIII.
As we were to leave the village the next morning, I thought I might aswell go and take leave of Mohun Lall, and accordingly went to his housein the evening.
"So you could make nothing of that rascal who was hung up," said he,when we were seated; "these thieves are hardened vagabonds, and thoughI have hung several in this way, I have never been able to get anythingout of them."
"I could not," said I; "the fellow was, as he called it, faithful, anddied worthy of a better cause."
"It is no use of speaking of him," said Mohun Lall; "the fellow isdead, and I would that all his brethren were hanging as high as he is;but I have heard a strange piece of news since you left me, Meer Sahib,which I do not care telling you, and you may perhaps be able to give mesome assistance."
"Command me," said I; "anything that I can do will be but a poor returnfor your attention."
"The matter is this," said he; "a person by name Syud Mahomed Ali, whois very respectably connected at Hyderabad, came from the city withletters to the governor of Nirmul, two or three years ago, directinghim to be employed as a collector of any small district which mightbecome vacant. He lived some time with him, and when an opportunityoffered, was appointed by him his naib, or deputy, in a districtnot far from Nirmul. Latterly, the governor has had a good deal ofdifficulty in getting him to remit the revenue collections, and one ortwo complaints which reached him privately made him suspicious. Thisfeeling was increased by hearing that he had sent off his baggage in aclandestine manner,--whither, no one knew, and this morning both he andhis people have suddenly disappeared."
"It is most extraordinary," said I; "but as I never heard of thisperson before, I do not see exactly how I am to be of any use to you oryour friend."
"It is only a chance that you may be so," said Mohun Lall; "and myrequest is, that you keep a look out for him during your journey, andshould you meet him, that you will arrest him instantly, and send himto me under an escort of your people, to whom I promise a handsomereward for their delay and trouble. One thing I must tell you, thaton many occasions he has assumed the name of Kumal Khan,--the name Ibelieve of a relative of his who adopted him, and perhaps he may havetaken this name in travelling."
"I will not forget it," said I, "and you may depend upon my doing myutmost to secure him, should I fall in with him; and could you give mea paper relating his delinquencies, under your own seal, to serve me asa kind of authority for arresting him?"
"Certainly," said Mohun Lall; "your thought is a good one: I willforthwith write one myself." So saying he drew up the document, andhanded it to me.
"I am an indifferent scholar," said I, "but I dare say I can make itout;" and taking the paper I read what he had written, which was insubstance what he had told me.
"And now I pray you to give me my dismissal, for I have business amongmy people, and the day is nigh closed."
"I will not detain you," said Mohun Lall; "and if there is anythingyou or your people want which my poor village can afford, you haveonly to send for it. I shall write too to my friend to tell him of thearrangement I have made, and the confidence I have in you."
"I thank you for your kindness," said I, "and should I want anythingmore I will not scruple to send for it. Salam, Sahib!"
"Salam!" he returned; "I wish you a safe journey and a successful one."
"Thanks again to you, good Aumil, for your last words," said I tomyself as I went away: "Inshalla! it will be as successful as it hashitherto been. Well indeed Mahomed Ali has met his deserts; and itis better perhaps for him that he lies cold and dead as he is, thanthat he should have lived to be haunted by an evil conscience, and tofall into the hands of those he has cheated and deceived, who wouldhave tortured him to death, if they had not immured him in a miserableprison to pine out the remainder of his days.
"Verily a good deal has been done, and my old father will laughheartily when he hears how I have behaved, and how I have baffledsuspicion by the commission I have brought with me, of which thesepapers are good proof. I have got his true name too, and it is hard ifwith this clue I do not get hold of the money for the bills of exchangewhich my sagacious parent would have destroyed. Shabash! Ameer Ali,do thou go on in this way, and whose dog is he who shall compete withthee, either in cunning or in daring!"
As I thought he would, my father laughed heartily at the business Ihad undertaken. "It would be a good joke," he said, "to send for KumalKhan's head, and put it at the gate of the village; they would then beat rest about him, and Mohun Lall's friend would be obliged to disgorgea little of the coin I have no doubt he has helped himself to out ofthe revenue."
"By Alla," said I, "it is an excellent thought, and I will send acouple of Lughaees to bring it."
"No, no," said my father; "I did but jest; it is now nearly evening,and it would not do to risk them on that lonely road at nightfall;besides, they could not well be back before we start."
"As you will," said I; but at the same time I made an inwarddetermination to mention it to one or two of them. When I reached mytent, I sent for three Lughaees, enterprising fellows. "Now," said I,"my lads, I have got an adventure for you, and here are five rupeesapiece if you will do it."
"Your commands are on our heads and eyes," said they; "you have only toorder us, and we will perform your wishes."
"Well then," said I, "what I want is the head of Kumal Khan: do youknow the place you put him in? and is the grave deep?"
"We know the spot exactly," said one of them, a Hindoo, by nameMotee-ram; "what Lugha ever forgot a spot where he had buried any one!the grave is not deep, and he is at the top of all. But what are we todo with the head? and why is it wanted?"
I detailed to them what Mohun Lall had said, and repeated what a goodjoke it would be to get the head and place it in some conspicuousplace. "Then," said Motee-ram, "if I may offer advice, I recommend itsbeing put under the tree whereon the thief was hung this morning: theworthy Aumil will think Kumal Khan has fallen by the hands of some ofhis gang."
"A capital idea," said I: "and therefore, if you find no one about whenyou return, place it there, for I have no wish to look at it."
"It shall be done to your satisfaction," said all three; "and we willstart immediately." So they left me. Yet I was in dread all the timethey were absent lest anything should befall them, and I often wished Ihad not sent them on such an errand; but it was too late, and I couldnot recall them. Anxiously and sleeplessly did the hours pass till nearmidnight; and poor Zora could not imagine what was the matter with me.I excused myself to her, however, on the plea of having a headache andfeeling unwell, and suffered her and the old woman to put quicklime onmy temples, and use other remedies which she said were infallible insuch cases: and at last pretending I was going to sleep, she lay downand was soon really so. It was about midnight that I was relieved frommy suspense, and gladly did I hear the voice of Motee-ram at my tentdoor calling to me. I arose and went out. "Is all safe?" I eagerlyasked.
"All is safe," said he; "and we have brought the head and put it whereyou told us. It was well we went, for we found a troop of jackalsbusily scratching at the grave; and they would have got to the bodiesbefore morning, for they had made a large hole when we arrived; howeverwe scared them away, and put a quantity of dry thorns just under theearth on the top: they will not try it again, and if they do it doesnot matter, as no one will ever find that spot--it was too well chosen."
"You have done your work well and bravely," said I, "and you shallhave your money to-morrow morning." They left me, and the excitementpast, I lay down and slept soundly. The next morning we rose beforeday: the omens were consulted, and proved favourable, and all preparedfor prosecuting our march. We were soon ready, and finding that Zorawas comfortable in her cart, and that she needed nothing, I could notresist the temptation of going as far as the tree where the thief hadbeen hung, to see whether in reality the head of Kumal Khan had beenbrought. Accordingly I separated from the party, and ran as fast as Icould to the spot, which was not
far distant. I know not why, but aninvoluntary shudder crept over me as I reached the tree, and lookedabout for the object of my search.
The wind, which had been still all night, suddenly rose with thebreaking day, and its first sigh through the withered branches of theneem almost seemed to have a voice in it--a deprecation of the deed wehad done the night before, and of which so foul an evidence as thatbefore me was present; for at that instant my eyes fell on the head,which had been placed on a projecting knot of the trunk to protect itfrom the jackals. I recoiled from it with loathing, for the eyes wereprotruding from the sockets and the mouth open, and the expression ofthe features was hideous in the extreme. I gazed at it for a moment."This must not be," said I; "those eyes will betray us:" so taking thecold head down, I forced them into their sockets, and shut the eyelids,which I was able to do, as the stillness of death was past. I thenplaced the head on a large stone close to the tree, on which some rudeidol was sculptured, and quitting the place, ran as fast as I could toa small puddle I had passed as I came, in which I cleansed my handsfrom the blood which had adhered to them.
"Alla be praised they are pure again!" said I inwardly, as I washedthem eagerly with some earth and water. "Brave as I know myself to be,and caring for nothing alive, I would not have gone with Motee-ram andhis people, have dug up that body and decollated it,--no, not for thewealth of Delhi. Pah! the idea is horrible." And I arose, and ran againat my utmost speed till I reached the party.
My absence had not been remarked, which was well; and having mountedmy horse, I stationed myself near Zora's cart, which was in front.After we had reached the stage, and were resting ourselves for the day,a horseman came from the Aumil with a letter, at which we were allgreatly amused. It related how the head had been found and recognized,but at the same time implored me to keep the event secret, in orderthat the Aumil's friend, the ruler of Nirmul, might gain time to meetthe demand caused by the defalcation of the man we had killed. Thisexactly suited my purpose, as I had now no doubt that I should be ableto get the amount of the bills.
On the fifth morning after this we were to reach Hyderabad: it wasestimated as seven coss distant, so we did not start so soon asusual; we wished to reach it when the day was well advanced, in orderto attract as little attention as possible, for our numbers wereconsiderable. We therefore divided into three parties, one under myfather, one under myself, and the other under Surfuraz Khan, a friendof my father whom we had met on the road, and who with his men had beenadmitted into our company; and we agreed to meet again in the karwan,which was the usual resort of all travellers, and where we were told weshould find accommodation in the serais which were used by them. Minewas the first division to move, and my father said he should remainwith the baggage, and bring it leisurely along, as he should have topay the usual duties upon the property we had secured, at the varioustoll-houses. Accordingly at full daylight we set out. It was a lovelymorning, cold, yet not so cold as in our own country, where the frostis often seen on the ground, and the grass feels crisp under the footof the traveller until the sun rises; still a good shawl was a welcomeaddition to my usual clothing.
Wreaths of mist spread themselves over some hills to the left of theroad, and concealed from our view an immense tank which lay at theirfoot; while, as a gentle breeze arose, the mists were set in motion,revealing one by one piles of the most stupendous rocks I had everseen, and which appeared as though they had been heaped on each otherby human agency; I had been struck by these extraordinary rocks on ourfirst entering Telingana, and remarked them now to Bhudrinath; he gavea ready solution to my conjectures as to their origin, "You perhapshave heard of one of our sacred books called the Mahabharut," said he;"in it are related the wars of the gods. The origin of one of them wasthe forcible carrying off of Sita, the wife of Ram. She was taken tothe island of Lanka (Ceylon), and there detained by the rakshas or evilspirits of the place, assisted by the king with powerful armies: theydefied Ram, and he was in utter despair at the loss of his beautifulwife, nor could he find any trace of whither she had been carried. Youknow that Hunooman, our monkey-god, was a wise and astonishing being;in the monkeys of the present day his form only is perpetuated; theintelligence is gone, and cunning alone is left to them. But it isalso a sad fact that, like them, mankind has also degenerated, and weare no more like the beings of those days than the present monkeysare like Hunooman. Well, as I was saying, Ram in his perplexity wasvisited by Hunooman, who pitying his state proposed to go in search ofthe lost fair one, and accordingly departed. Long did he wander, andat last discovered her in Lanka, in a state of as great distress as hehad left her lord in. Quickly he returned with the intelligence, andan army was assembled for the conquest of the island. But a difficultyarose when it reached the end of the land; before them certainly layLanka, but a wide and rough sea ran between them, the roaring wavesof which appalled the stoutest hearts--nor did even the glorious Ramhimself escape the general fear. Boats were not to be procured, and ifthey had, what would have been their use to transport an army whichconsisted of millions of god-like beings, each of whom was ten cubitsin height! Ram gave himself up to despair; but Hunooman at one boundclearing the channel, quickly returned with assurances that a bridgecould soon be constructed, and that he and his companions would labournight and day till it was completed.
"Quick as thought, legions of monkeys departed to the Himalayas. Hugemountains and rocks were torn from their foundations, and transportedby relays of these indefatigable beings to the shores of the ocean.One by one they were dropped into it from above, and the splashingof these huge masses is described as terrific, the water ascendingto the heavens and extinguishing the stars! At last the bridge wascompleted, the vast armies marched over it, the country was conquered,and the beauteous Sita restored to the arms of her devoted lord. Nowthese rocks are part of those brought from the Himalayas, and haveremained piled upon each other just as they were set down by themonkeys; for this country being half-way, it was here that the relaywas established, and when the bridge was completed, these remained,not being required. To prove the truth of what I have said, (and mayBhugwan grant that no one doubt it!) I must tell you that remains ofthe bridge are visible to this day. Many pilgrims with whom I haveconversed, who had been to Ramisseram, declared that they had gonein boats along the side of the bridge, and traced it by the pointsof rocks appearing above the water, almost in a direct line fromone land to the other, with here and there a small island where thewaves have not been able to make an impression: that further, heapsof rocks similar to these are met with in various parts between hereand Ramisseram, which no doubt were not required; and you will remarkthat in no other part of the country north of this do any similar onesappear. There cannot therefore be a stronger proof of the truth of ourancient religion than these hardened witnesses, which will last to theend of the world, to the confusion of all unbelievers and sceptics."
"Mashalla!" said I; "it is a wonderful story, and true enough, for Ihave heard of the bridge myself. We Moslims have it, that Baba Adam,who was placed by Alla in the paradise of Serendeeb, which is Lanka,got tired one day of his confinement to so small an island; and seeingthe main-land at a distance, made the bridge by throwing mountainsinto the sea, each at seven coss distance, to get there. When it wascompleted, he easily stepped from one to the other, and so gained theland; but this action displeased Alla, who soon afterwards ejected himfrom the paradise, and man has been a wanderer ever since."
"Yes," said Bhudrinath: "but is not my story the most probable,especially when you see all these rocks piled up in so extraordinary amanner as if in loads? Why, if a man wanted to carry a heap of stones,he would pile them up in the same way; and see, these are in separateheaps, just as they were laid down, some large, some small, accordingno doubt to the strength of the parties who bore them."
"Alla ke Qoodrut," exclaimed I,--"it is the power of God. Mashalla!they were great monkeys; it is well we have none of them nowadays, orthey would pelt us out of the land."
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