The Deceivers

by John Masters

  The flanking forests were silent.

  The Deceivers broke away from the fighting, front and rear, and ran into the woods. William counted: four, six, seven. That was all. Three taken or dead, Yasin among them. The consecrated pick-axe lay in the dust. Piroo had escaped. The forests were silent.

  The voices of the travellers rose to a scream as they realized that the robbers had failed. They surged forward in pursuit to the edge of the wood. One of the old ladies lay in the path and fought for breath as a heart attack gripped her.

  Already men were moving toward William, connecting his cry with the cry of Yasin, who had proved himself a murderer. He found his voice and yelled, ‘Get back! It may be a trap. I will see.’

  He clapped his heels into the mare’s flanks and bounded forward. Opposite the palanquins he slowed, leaned far down from the saddle, and snatched up the pick-axe. Then he turned and plunged into the woods.

  After galloping for a space, spread forward on the withers, he stopped. He heard the crackle of leaves and the far, confused anger of the crowd. He would have to go to the pits and wait for his men—the seven survivors. They would move slowly and fearfully. They had no horses or had lost them. The jungle was empty; there should have been seven score men lying ready back here with club and knife and rumal.

  He found the overgrown trace of a bullock-cart track and followed it. The pits were desolate hummocks and holes, the wounds of earth healed and bandaged with grass and scrub. The silver-white trunks of kulpa trees stood about between the pits, and in very bark an unknown hand had cut the sacred names Ram and Sita: the hand of God, men believed.

  Hussein was there, dismounted, waiting for him. William swung slowly to the ground and tethered the mare. Not ten minutes ago Hussein had given the words: All is well.

  His fear of Kali vanished; he forgot her and was a furiously angry Englishman. His eyes snapped and his teeth ground together. He grated, ‘You, explain!’

  Hussein rose to his feet and stood closer, an ordinary little man, summoning dignity and not finding it. ‘I gave them all the wrong orders.’

  William’s anger choked him so that the words fought together in his throat. His hand took hold of the rumal at his waist.

  ‘You! On purpose? Have you gone mad? Yasin was killed. I had to rescue the pick-axe.’

  Hussein’s jaw trembled and his voice shook. ‘Sahib, I took my own omens three night ago, when you first suggested this plan. They were bad, but I held your wife’s cross and was not frightened. I knew, holding your God’s charm, that all I needed was courage. I had to try once more against Kali, because you had eaten her sugar and sold yourself to her. I had no hope unless I fought Kali for you—and for my red coat. Sahib, do not deceive yourself. If this had gone well today, you would never have returned to your place. It’s true!’

  William swung the rumal but did not jerk his wrists. He held it tight, shaking Hussein wildly to and fro, shouting, ‘Dog, pig, traitor! I’m getting information! That’s all, all, all!’

  ‘Never—gone—back—never!’

  Hussein jerked the words out one by one by one between his rattling teeth. He did not struggle to get away but leaned with William’s fury so that his neck would not be broken.

  William tasted sugar in the back of his mouth. Through the fury that drove him out of all reason he heard Hussein’s choked sobbing. ‘I thought—of my red coat—and strength came. It is made—by the best tailor of—my town. It is in a locked box—under my bed—at my home—waiting.’

  William loosed the rumal slowly. A red coat, with a badge of office. He used to have the power to bestow that. Bestow happiness. He could have given Hussein a badge double the regulation size. Double happiness, full pressed, running over. It was so ridiculous an ambition for a man to have, set against these voluptuous dreams of wealth and death. Almost the banality of it made Kali herself tawdry, for all her blood-wet mouth and lascivious tongue.

  Silver cracks splintered the black mirrors. There was light, but contorted. Kali’s hold was slackening, but he could not stand another trial. Whatever the cost, this passion—half fear, half love—must be ended. He said to Hussein, ‘Go to Madhya. Tell her. See the new Collector. Tell him to bring the cavalry at once, from Khapa, from Sagthali. I can’t stand any more or—or I don’t know what I’ll do.’

  Hussein had mounted his horse. Tears streamed down his face. He said, ‘The others are coming. Do not try and tell them what happened in the affair. They’ll know Kali did it. You had bad omens? I was not there, but I knew.’

  He turned the horse’s head, and William, not looking up, said ‘Go! And on the way back, tell the woman at Kahari that her husband is dead.’

  ‘Sahib, I cannot. That you must do yourself. You know it.’

  Hussein waved his free hand, and Mary’s cross was in it. Triumph filled the little lopsided man’s face. Then he was gone.

  One by one, Deceivers crept out of the woods. William stood up and, with effort, piece by piece, broke up the black mirror so that he could see more clearly. He was William Savage, and no servant of Kali. She had touched him and held him for a time. Hussein had today broken some of the chains; but some silver links still shone on William’s wrists, and he did not know whether they were a brand or an ornament.

  The mirror was breaking, but—Kali’s omens last night had been bad; so she had meant the affair today to fail; and it had. Was Hussein therefore the servant of Christ, or of Kali? … It was Christ who, in the last resort, had forced him, William, to ignore the superstition of omens; so it was Christ who had wanted him to kill the travellers? All travellers?

  A week ago such thoughts as these would run like silver deer, horned and beautiful, across the jet mirror as he lay awake or, unseeing, rode his horse. Now he saw the madness in them and prayed for a little more strength until the time should come to stand free, himself once more, not fearing Kali’s eyes, not loving her liquid mouth, but having understanding and compassion.

  The Deceivers waited for their Jemadar to speak, and did not interrupt, because they saw that he prayed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  William knew that the desiccated jungles north and west of Parsola and the Mala marsh must be full of Deceivers, but when he reached there at the head of his band, late at night on March 20th, 1826, he could see no trace of them or of anyone else. He settled his men in camp in a secluded valley, and when they were all asleep sat for a time over the fire with Piroo.

  Piroo said, ‘Jemadar-sahib, who are you going to send to the corn-chandler’s? I don’t suppose you’ve ever been there?’

  Piroo’s voice was still respectful in spite of the fiasco near the iron workings. William had expected furious recriminations from all of them, but they had only been sympathetic and solicitous. They seemed to think that Kali had deliberately misled him, as any proud woman will sometimes harry a lover to prove her independence. They seemed to have guessed, too, that Hussein had failed him, and never mentioned the little man’s name. Probably they thought William had strangled his friend, and that his moroseness sprang from that.

  William said, ‘Yes, I know Parsola.’

  There was a corn-chandler’s stores at the head of the only street in the village. On arrival in the forests, every band was to send a man there to receive instructions about the sale.

  William knew Parsola. The Mala marsh nearby was a favourite of flighting wildfowl; he had shot over it two or three times every cold weather since his coming to Madhya. He knew several people in Parsola by sight, including the corn-chandler whose store seemed to be the local headquarters of the Deceivers. In his memories Parsola was a small, dirty, friendly little place, typical of all that he had liked best about his work in this district—shy peasant farmers, sturdy women, a marshy lake, jungles and fields. He wondered for a minute how such a gathering as this—there must be eight hundred Deceivers collecting in the forests—could come together, and deliberate, and sent envoys in and out of the village, without the inhabitants becoming a
ware of it.

  He thought of Chandra Sen, while Piroo whittled a stick and waited patiently. Chandra Sen must have returned from his expedition to the south; William remembered now that in past years the patel had been away from his village only between Dussehra and the New Year. Chandra Sen was said never to attend these sales in person; nevertheless it was a risk. But he himself would have to go if he was to round out these five months’ work. Hussein would reach Madhya tonight or tomorrow. The new Collector couldn’t get the cavalry in time to catch the Deceivers at the sale, but he could round them up before they had dispersed afterwards. Many would stay a day or two to make preparations for the road.

  He said, ‘I’ll go to Parsola myself, first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Very good, Jemadar-sahib.’

  A moment longer William stared into the embers. Then he said, ‘I’m going to sleep now. Good night.’

  ‘Good night, Jemadar-sahib.’

  In the morning William set out early, walking fast through the jungle but without the appearance of hurrying. He saw no one until the trail came out of the woods and skirted the Mala marsh. There three peasants jumped up nervously from a bullock cart they were mending and whined, ‘Ram ram, maharaj. Have you lost your way? This track leads nowhere.’

  ‘I’m going to Parsola, and I know this is the way there,’ he answered curtly. They were owlish, open-mouthed yokels, and he was in a hurry. They came closer round him. One of them jumped back, shrieking, ‘Aiiih! A snake!’

  William leaped aside, exclaiming automatically, ‘Brother of Ali! A snake!’

  The rumal choked him, the silver rupee in it bit against the bone under his left ear. The rumal dropped away. There was no snake. Two of the yokels had their hands on him, one at each side. He had jumped into the noose.

  The man with the rumal put it away, grumbling, ‘Why the hell can’t you answer a greeting properly in the first place? It’s careless fools like you that get us into trouble.’

  ‘I am Gopal Jemadar,’ William said shakily, feeling his neck. The three walked back, muttering, and bent over their cart. William saw that its axle was broken. It would not get mended for several days; during that time no stranger who passed by chance through the unfrequented jungle would reach Parsola with a tale of many men seen in the woods. On the other paths there would be other carts, other watchers.

  Long-horned white cattle grazed in the hummocky grass at the farther side of the marsh. Half a dozen buffaloes wallowed in a mud hole where a stream trickled out of the reeds. Three brown boys lay on their backs under a tree there. The blazing scarlet blossoms of the flame-of-the-forest hung over the stream and were reflected in it. It was a hot, still morning. A group of women stood round the village well and chattered amiably. He wondered what they would think if they knew that eight hundred men, murderers by religion, lay hidden in the woods across the marsh. He braced himself to pass them and enter the village. Kahari was not far away. There might be people here who knew Gopal the weaver. Then the word would reach the woman at the pyre, and hold her there, waiting for ever. Not for ever. Sooner or later he had to go to her.

  At the corn-chandler’s shop there was a man squatting on the beaten-earth platform that jutted a little into the street. The place smelled pleasantly of jute sacking, bajri, and rice. There was no sign of the merchant himself, and William squatted down to wait.

  The other man rose to his feet and walked away. William looked suspiciously after him; the man had glanced at him carelessly, showing no sign of recognition; but it was too late now. The man had gone.

  He waited, remembering that he had sat more than once on this platform, his gun beside him, while paying off the guides and coolies who had helped to give him a good day’s sport. No one would recognize him as that shuffly, shy old fool Captain Savage.

  The chandler came out of his house behind the store, and William said, ‘Greetings, brother Ali. I want some flour for a long journey.’

  ‘How many men in your band?’ the chandler said testily. People were moving up and down the street in front of the store; a woman had entered and stood on the platform awaiting her turn. William thought quickly what answer he could give that would not cause suspicion.

  The chandler glanced at the pick-axe at William’s waist and said, ‘Speak up. What’s the size of your band—ten, twenty, what?’

  William said, ‘Twenty-one,’ in a low voice, adding half hysterically, ‘and a bear.’ The chandler looked at him in astonishment, peering into his face as though he were mad. His eyes contracted as he stared, and he said slowly, ‘Isn’t it Gopal the weaver from Kahari?’

  The woman turned suddenly and came close to William, walking with the hip-swinging gait of those used to heavy loads. She cried, ‘It is!’ Her face was bare in the manner of the low-caste poor. She added gently, ‘Don’t worry. We all knew here that you’d gone back to Kali. We haven’t told the one of your house. She waits by her pyre for you.’ A couple of passers-by had stopped to listen; they nodded, and smiled at William, and went their way. The woman took a bag of rice, paid for it, and swung down into the street.

  William looked after her and could not speak. She knew what the Deceivers were and what they did. Everyone in Parsola knew; they were the servants of Kali—all of them, everyone in the village. None of them cared what happened to the woman at the pyre.

  He turned to the chandler and said bitterly, ‘I am Gopal the Jemadar, not Gopal the weaver. What orders?’

  The chandler washed his hands. ‘Yes indeed, sir, I quite realize. The jewel buying will be in the barn here, two hours after sunset the day after tomorrow, the twenty-third. The order is that only two men from each band are to come, Jemadar-sahib.’

  William nodded, stooped, twisted the sack on to his shoulder, and walked out. Trudging down the street, he glanced covertly at the villagers as they passed by or sat in their yards. Great was Kali and uncountable her servants. These people looked no different now from when he had seen them all those incarnations back, as a white sahib with a gun. Did they kill strangers here at all seasons, or only during the annual sale? Perhaps the point didn’t arise. Parsola was well chosen; the track through it led nowhere; it was a dead end and might see only two or three visitors in a year.

  He reached his camp again without being challenged, although the cart stood abandoned in the same place, and a tingling in his neck warned him that the sentries watched from the trees. He told Piroo of the arrangements for the sale and added, ‘You come with me. Assuredly our Deceivers have a great and wonderful organization here. That whole village is of us.’

  Piroo smiled. ‘Yes. The women can’t actually be Deceivers of course, but Parsola is one of the places where even they know all about us. They have to. There are several like it in India, where everybody has taken the oath to Kali. Some towns, too, in rajahs’ country. We keep the peace while we are in them and take no merchandise. A few of the men travel with Deceiver bands, but not many. It’s better not to arouse suspicion about places which are so useful as refuges and gathering points.’

  Six months ago William could not have believed it. Now it all seemed plain enough. At some moment, centuries past perhaps, the Deceivers had descended on the village in strength and given it the choice: be destroyed, or provide refuge, hold silence, and receive an annual payment from the spoils. Embraced in the choice were immense difficulties, both moral and physical, for the people of the village. The Deceivers’ worship of Kali was genuinely religious. Indians of an older generation might have felt it impiety in them not to help these seekers after salvation, even if the Deceivers’ way to grace was not their own. Then, the payments would raise the community an inch or two above starvation; the danger of starvation, actual and ever present, does not breed respect for law. On the other hand, if the village refused and spoke up against the Deceivers, the local powers of order, which had sometimes been weak and always venal, could not have saved them from torture and annihilation. Probably the old rulers had received their percentag
e of the spoils too, in return for keeping their troops away and their eyes and ears shut. The close interlocking of so many self-interests formed a conspiracy of silence as effective as the conspiracy of murder.

  In the nine years of the English Company’s rule nothing had been done against the Deceivers. But William realized now that most Indians knew at least of the existence of the Deceivers; and, knowing, they could not believe the English did not also know; therefore the English officials too were sharing in the spoils; so what was the use of informing? He had found Kali on the road, and followed her, and found her in palaces, and now in hovels. Kali’s hand truly lay over all India.

  He fell to wondering again about the man who had seen him at the corn chandler’s and gone away so quickly.

  Mary stood in the carpenter’s shop behind the bungalow, absently stroking the edge of the bench where William’s hands used to rest. For five months, once every week, she had come here in secret to oil his tools. She had finished: it was dark outside, and in a minute she would pick up the lamp and carry it to the bungalow. She was heavy now, and swollen out in the last month of her pregnancy. For five months she had bound herself in, and her young muscles had almost to the last contained and preserved her virginal beauty. Today, March 22nd, she had let it go and put on loose clothes, and all day worn pride instead of a cloak about her.

  She picked up the lamp, closed and latched the door, and walked slowly to the bungalow. At the drawing-room she stopped in surprise and put the lamp down on a table. Chandra Sen, the patel of Padwa and Kahari, stood respectfully erect near the windows. George turned as she came in, and she saw the mixed anger and relief on his face. He said, ‘Oh, come in, Mary. Chandra Sen has some news. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad.’

  ‘I think I know where Savage-sahib is. Indeed, I am sure that I do,’ the patel said quietly. ‘I have just told Mr. Angelsmith.’