The Deceivers

by John Masters

  For an hour the pursuit hovered behind him. Under the full moon, his horse ran strong and surefooted, but not fast. Sometimes the pursuers would guess that the lay of the land would force him to turn; then he heard them moving out on a flank and calling to one another across the fields. Sometimes, in the woodland stretches, he heard nothing. He rode straight on, as near north-west as possible, through thicket and bush and field and marsh.

  A jungle wall sprang back and a river opened up in front of him. The horse shied, backed away, and screamed. He pounded the pick-axe helve on its quarters until it jumped off the bank, splashed thunderously into the water, and began to swim. This must be the Seonath; the Bhadora ferry was a mile or two to his left. On the other side of the river he galloped through a narrow strip of jungle and saw a rise of land, and on it the ghostly ramparts and shadows on a moonlit village—Chandra Sen’s domain of Padwa. He galloped up the street, watching the silent houses, wondering whether here too Deceivers flanked his path. The grey dogs ran out from the big house to snarl at his horse’s heels, until it bucked and lashed out and broke one’s head, and the other fell back.

  William galloped on, always north-west. Under the moon the country began to whisper in his ear. By this lonely shrine he had talked with Chandra Sen one cold-weather morning. Under that hill he had sat beside the little stream and waited for the gudgeon in the pools to bite. His horse was stumbling now and would not jump. He forced it through the stream and rode on.

  Near midnight he came to his bungalow in Madhya and slid down at the steps. He held a pillar for support and cried, ‘Hey! William Savage here! Let me in!’ Then, toward the distant servants’ quarters, ‘Sher Dil! Koi hai! A-jao, jaldi!

  The horse hung its head, and shuddered, and breathed in roaring gasps. Someone moved about inside the bungalow. A tremulous voice behind the door said, ‘Who—who’s there?’

  ‘William Savage. Is my wife there? Let me in. Quick, man!’

  Footsteps came to him, running across the compound, and he turned with his fists doubled, but it was only Sher Dil, disbelieving wonder in his face and tears in his eyes. He seized William’s knees and hugged them and sobbed loudly. The bungalow door opened an inch, and George Angelsmith looked out. He came forward, a pistol in one hand, a candle in the other. The candlelight dimmed under the brilliant moon. George’s face was dead white, the pistol jumping in his fist. William stared at him, confused for the moment, wondering whether he had come to the wrong place. He did not know whom he had expected to see in Madhya, but certainly it was not George Angelsmith.

  George said, ‘William…?’

  ‘Where’s Mary?’

  ‘Gone to Sagthali this afternoon.’

  ‘Christ’s mercy! When, what route, what escort? Sher Dil, take this horse away, get food, load my pistols, tell the groom to saddle Jerry, send a man running to bring all the police here.’

  Sher Dil grabbed the horse’s bridle and ran off without a word. William pushed past George into the bungalow. George put the candle down on top of the escritoire in the drawing-room but kept the pistol in his hand, half concealed behind his back.

  William snapped, ‘Why did you let her go?’

  George began to talk slowly, carefully examining William and his clothes as he spoke. ‘She wanted to go. I tried to stop her. I did delay her. She wanted to go in the middle of the night. Where have you been?’

  ‘Following the Deceivers. Didn’t a man come here with a message—Hussein, the fellow with his head twisted on one side? Didn’t he come? Didn’t he say something?’

  ‘He came,’ George said slowly. ‘He had some story about Deceivers at Parsola.’

  ‘Yes, yes, what have you done?’

  ‘I was to get the cavalry out from Khapa or Sagthali—again! But Chandra Sen had just told me you were alone in Parsola, begging, mad. I did nothing.’

  ‘What?’ William sprang up, shouting.

  George whipped up the pistol and pointed it at the pit of William’s stomach. He said unsteadily, ‘Keep off, Savage! Keep your distance!’

  William found his hand fumbling in the loincloth for the rumal, but it was not there, and even in his white passion of anger he thanked God it was not. Holding himself in, he said carefully, ‘Do you think I am mad?’

  After these months on the road he knew men. George Angelsmith was relieved that he had come back, and frightened at the expression on his face, and—something else. Angry. He relaxed as George suddenly began to talk. The police were on their way, so no time was being wasted.

  George said, ‘I don’t know if you are mad, but I do know you are under departmental arrest. Orders. And what do you mean by running away from all the important things here? For the first four months I had to double up, do my work at Khapa as well as yours here. It’s too much. Everything’s gone wrong. Complaints. Troubles. The people are swine—keep coming in, complaining, writing to Mr. Wilson. I had no time.’

  William laughed suddenly. ‘D’you mean to say you’ve got a black mark in the record, George? That’s calamitous!’ He began to speak with insistent force. He could not be angry with George any more. ‘Listen, please. The biggest criminal conspiracy in history is on your doorstep, in Parsola, ready to be unmasked. There’s glory for you in Parsola—far more than in finding me. Act fast and boldly now, and your name will be greater in the department than anyone’s has ever been. More than that: you will be world famous. I don’t want any credit, honestly I don’t.’

  For this man he had no better bait to offer, and he watched narrowly as George swam up like a golden fish out of the weeds of indecision to inspect the lure. But George wasn’t a fish, just a shiny, shallow man. William saw the old gentleman with the purple ribbon land on George’s shoulders, and saw George’s mouth curl unhappily. His own muscles flexed of themselves for action. The pick-axe at his waist came under his hand.

  ‘Here is food for my sahib. He is hungry.’ Sher Dil’s low voice behind him.

  George nodded. ‘All right, put it down. I don’t believe you, William. You want to ruin me for—for—I don’t know. Jealousy. You’re out of your mind. I’m going to lock you up in the bathroom here. Didn’t I hear you send for the police? That’s all they’ll do tonight—guard you. I’m the Collector.’

  ‘Here, sahib,’ Sher Dil said, bowing respectfully, a plate of cold curried vegetables on his palm. As he bowed he scooped back his hand and hurled the plate into George Angelsmith’s face. George shrieked as the mess stung his eyes, raised the pistol and jerked the trigger. The ball thumped through the ceiling cloth into the rafters. William knocked the pistol from his hand and turned and ran, shouting over his shoulder, ‘For God’s sake, believe me, and send to Khapa for the cavalry! I’m going to Sagthali.’

  He jumped into Jerry’s saddle and found Sher Dil beside him on George Angelsmith’s Arab. ‘It’s no good waiting for the police, sahib,’ the butler muttered. ‘They will only arrest you. The memsahib was going to take the Jabera road.’ William nodded, gripped with his thighs, and began to ride. On the Arab, Sher Dil flopped and jolted along in the unaccustomed English saddle.

  ‘Who’s with her?’ William asked.

  ‘The tirewoman, a groom, and a bearer. And the palanquin coolies, of course. She’s in that. The groom rides, the others walk.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She is well, Sahib, I came to know her in these months, and I am her servant. For a time I did not understand. She will tell you. Then I understood, for she is skilful and brave. She heaped fire on my head, and I knew I was only a foolish, jealous, black man.’

  Kala admi—black man. How often had William heard Indians use the words in self-depreciation? Was it the conquering British who had led them to exaggerate and despise the colour of their skins? Or was it other conquerors of long ago, Alexander’s olive-skinned phalanx? He said, ‘You are a good man, Sher Dil; better than I. Ride faster. Sit down, let the horse move beneath you. Did you see the lopsided man, Hussein?’

  ‘No. He s
truck Angelsmith-sahib, but I could not catch him. The memsahib left at noon today—yesterday. We could not get a palanquin earlier. She was not going to stop anywhere. They will be about at Jabera by the time we catch them up.’

  ‘If!’

  ‘We will. Your pistols are in the holster on the saddle.’

  ‘Good. Listen, Sher Dil, you’ve got to know what’s happened. I’m going to send you straight on to Mr. Wilson in Sagthali.’

  They rode south-east as fast as the fresh horses would carry them, and William jerked out the present situation of the Deceivers. Another part of his mind ran racing ahead among the gathering dangers. He could only guess what the Deceivers had done, where they had gone. They might have thought it would be safer to scatter; but it was not likely because eight hundred of them had been there in the jungles round Parsola. He thought that few would yet be west of the Seonath. Under Chandra Sen’s leadership they would be spreading across the country and along the roads beyond the Bhadora ferry—if they had not yet taken Mary. If they had, they would be there to tell him so.

  Certainly he dare not cross the Bhadora ferry now. He knew from remembered inflections that the ferrymen there were all Deceivers. ‘We’ll have to cut off the road soon,’ he cried across to Sher Dil, and the butler replied, ‘Yes. Which way, north or south?’

  The trail pointed vaguely forward. The three o’clock moon shone over their right shoulders and gave them enough light to hold the horses at a hand gallop. Parsola lay north, left, of the Jabera road. The Deceivers had not had much time to gather and move out in strength. Most of them would still be on that side.

  William cried, ‘South, here!’ and turned off on a jungle track. The track soon died, and they trotted among the ghostly army of trees, finding their way as best they could, haltingly, much more slowly. The river shone among the trees ahead. They walked the horses down the shelving bank, urging them on with heel and voice until the huge muscles of back and haunch gathered and released, and the horses struck out to swim. William looked to the right and could not see what he had hoped to see, the shadowy outlines of the village of Deori. They had gone too far to the left and were crossing now less than a mile from the ferry—less than a quarter of a mile from the place where the widow of Gopal the weaver waited by her fire. He glanced downstream but could make out no human shape in the moonlight and turned again to the front. The horses stretched out their necks, and gnashed their teeth, and ploughed up the water into silver foam, and their tails streamed out behind.

  A convulsive scramble, and they stood for a moment on top of the steep eastern bank and smiled at each other. They crossed the Tendukheda road and galloped on, south-east, keeping two miles to the right of the Jabera road. They left the country William knew well and entered areas where he had been only once or twice. The light grew in the east ahead, the moon sank low behind, and sometimes he would recognize the loom of a far hill, the grey hulk of a village as they skirted it. Their pace slowed. Splashes and stripes of foam streaked the horses’ flanks; sweat lathered them, and they stumbled more often and put their hoofs into holes and rapped them against the roots of trees. William felt the strength draining from his own muscles and knew that only an urgent energy of the spirit held him in the saddle. He thought of food, even the food spread on George’s face, and saliva came painfully into his mouth.

  They plunged on, swaying, turning back at the mouths of blind valleys, swinging away from the hidden hamlets that sprang up before them. The sun rose, and on the instant the land awoke and the air grew hot in their faces.

  They came suddenly upon six men on foot, moving fast from north to south across their path. William recognized Piroo in the same moment that Piroo recognized him. He rode his horse furiously at him. The six ran apart. Piroo shouted, ‘That’s him, catch him!’ but his men broke before the scarlet-eyed horses, and William and Sher Dil rode through between them. William looked back and saw Piroo gesticulating; then all six turned and ran north.

  How far away were other Deceivers, and in which direction were they going? He had to reach Mary before they did, and get away again, get into hiding at least, before the scattered, searching bands could concentrate. There was some reason to hope: Chandra Sen had had to send out from Parsola to collect the bands and give them orders; the majority of the Deceivers were on foot; they must be expecting cavalry and police to be at hand, enforcing caution on them; there would be confusion.

  An hour later William said, ‘We must get on the road now, at any cost, or we’ll miss them.’

  ‘Achchi bat!’

  They turned left, plunged through a jungle of thorny brakes and muddled water courses, and, without warning, reached the Jabera road. They swung right, and William knew that Jabera lay five miles ahead. Far on, dust clouded the road. With hands and knees and voice he urged Jerry forward.

  The road ran down the rim of a low plateau. Flat valley country, the floor of an old lake, spread out on the left, and there the sun picked out the white clothes of three horsemen. Other men on foot ran at their stirrups, and they came on at a diagonal towards the road. On that course they would intercept the moving dust ahead two miles or more before it could reach Jabera—and Jabera held no sanctuary. They were coming now, these that he saw, and Piroo’s six, and countless others, using many trails and running forward like a far-searching pack of red dogs.

  In a few minutes he saw that the dust in front rose from the feet of four coolies hurrying along with a palanquin. Four more trotted beside it. The groom rode a little ahead on Mary’s bay hack. The tirewoman and the bearer walked behind the palanquin.

  The bearer turned, saw two of them galloping up the road, turned again, and shouted and waved his arm. The coolies dropped the palanquin heavily and ran into the bush, followed by the spare coolies. The bearer fled a second later. The tirewoman fell on her knees beside the palanquin. The groom edged in on his horse, raised the fowling piece he held across his saddle, and aimed it.

  Then he recognized Sher Dil and lowered the gun. Sher Dil’s companion he did not know, and stared in astonishment as William pulled Jerry back on his haunches, jumped down, and knelt in the dust.

  William thrust his head through the palanquin curtain and looked down the muzzle of a pistol. Over it, Mary’s bright blue eyes, unfrightened and angry, glared at him. She knew him at once, seeming to expect that the road would have turned her husband into just this brown-skinned, decisive, half-naked adventurer. She sighed slowly, lowering the pistol.

  He bent forward and gathered her gently in his arms.

  ‘Is it all over?’ she asked quietly. ‘Are we going to die?’

  ‘No. Get out.’ He caught her wrists and pulled. She rose slowly and stood up in the road. The harsh sun glared on her ungainliness, made deep the rings under her eyes, patched her skin with blotches. She was not beautiful now, and she could not ride a mile. His love flooded up so that he forgot their present danger and for a second stood relaxed before her, rejoicing in the affection they had for each other.

  He glanced up and down the road. No one was in sight. A line of trees hid the fields to the north, where the three horsemen and their followers ran in the valley. He rapped out orders. ‘Tirewoman, give the memsahib your sari, take her cloak. Cover your face. Take a cushion from the palanquin for your stomach. There! Get on my horse. All right now. Groom, are you ready? All three of you, ride round Jabera, then straight on to Sagthali, as fast as you can go, for your lives. Sher Dil, you know what to say, what to do. Give me one of those horse pistols. Go!’

  While he spoke Mary took off her long dust cloak and wrapped the tirewoman’s sari loosely over her dress. The tirewoman struggled into the cloak, pushed a cushion under it, drew the thick white veil across her face, and was hurled up into Jerry’s saddle. Sher Dil shouted, the horses reared, and the three plunged away toward Sagthali.

  William took his wife’s hand and led her quickly into the brush on the south side of the road. From its shelter he looked back at the palanquin overtu
rned in the dust. The sun was up, the shadows shortening. The breathless heat of day closed in under the trees. On the road he saw movement to the north-west and crouched lower. The Deceivers were coming.

  Help too would come—in time; but it was him they sought, the apostate, the traitor whose memory alone recorded the graves of the notes, whose mind alone knew all the ways of Kali, whose spirit alone held the will to root out her and her Deceivers from the roads of India and from the memory of man. Only William Savage had the power, the knowledge, and the desire to make the Deceivers, the Thugs, an evil word and nothing more.

  They were coming. How many he did not know. But they were coming, with Kali in their hearts and the taste of sugar in their mouths.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  He crept back, and turned, and led Mary south into the jungle. Among the trees he saw on his left the hills of Jarod shimmering under the sun. He remembered passing under them with Mary, on their bridal journey so many months and lives ago. Jarod’s cliffs and caves offered refuge, and he considered heading for it now, but while Mary could move it was better to cut south and east, cross the Bhanrer hills near Selwara, and reach the comparative safety of the peopled plains.

  Mindful of Mary, he moved at a snail’s pace. After a minute she touched his shoulder and said in a businesslike tone, ‘William, I’ve got about three weeks to go yet. I’ve told you before that you don’t have to treat me like a china doll. I’ll tell you when I can’t go on.’

  ‘You must, Mary,’ he said and tried to smile at her. She carried the heavy pistol in her hand. Already it weighted her down, but she would not give it up. His own he tucked into his waistband, where the rumal had been, and brought out the little pick-axe; with that he held the boughs aside for her.

  They walked faster than before, but still slowly, over the shelving rock ledges of the hills. They rested many times, and in the afternoon found a brown pool and drank from it. He felt shy with her in spite of their danger and spoke little. The sun sank, and they stumbled on. When it was full dark and they could not see at all, they stopped and lay down together on the ground and waited for the moon to rise.