by John Buchan
VIII
THE KINGS OF ORION
"An ape and a lion lie side by side in the heart of a man." --PERSIAN PROVERB
Spring-fishing in the North is a cold game for a man whose blood hasbecome thin in gentler climates. All afternoon I had failed to stir afish, and the wan streams of the Laver, swirling between bare greybanks, were as icy to the eye as the sharp gusts of hail from thenorth-east were to the fingers. I cast mechanically till I grew weary,and then with an empty creel and a villainous temper set myself totrudge the two miles of bent to the inn. Some distant ridges of hillstood out snow-clad against the dun sky, and half in anger, half indismal satisfaction, I told myself that fishing to-morrow would be asbarren as to-day.
At the inn door a tall man was stamping his feet and watching a servantlifting rodcases from a dog-cart. Hooded and wrapped though he was, myfriend Thirlstone was an unmistakable figure in any landscape. Thelong, haggard, brown face, with the skin drawn tightly over thecheek-bones, the keen blue eyes finely wrinkled round the corners withstaring at many suns, the scar which gave his mouth a humorous droop tothe right, made up a whole which was not easily forgotten. I had lastseen him on the quay at Funchal bargaining with some rascally boatmanto take him after mythical wild goats in Las Desertas. Before that wehad met at an embassy ball in Vienna, and still earlier at ahill-station in Persia to which I had been sent post-haste by ananxious and embarrassed Government. Also I had been at school withhim, in those far-away days when we rode nine stone and dreamed ofcricket averages. He was a soldier of note, who had taken part in twolittle wars and one big one; had himself conducted a political missionthrough a hard country with some success, and was habitually chosen byhis superiors to keep his eyes open as a foreign attache in ourneighbours' wars. But his fame as a hunter had gone abroad into placeswhere even the name of the British army is unknown. He was thehungriest shikari I have ever seen, and I have seen many. If you arewise you will go forthwith to some library and procure a little bookentitled "Three Hunting Expeditions," by A.W.T. It is a modest work,and the style is that of a leading article, but all the lore andpassion of the Red Gods are in its pages.
The sitting-room at the inn is a place of comfort, and while Thirlstonewarmed his long back at the fire I sank contentedly into one of thewell-rubbed leather arm-chairs. The company of a friend made theweather and scarcity of salmon less the intolerable grievance they hadseemed an hour ago than a joke to be laughed at. The landlord came inwith whisky, and banked up the peats till they glowed beneath a pall ofblue smoke.
"I hope to goodness we are alone," said Thirlstone, and he turned tothe retreating landlord and asked the question.
"There's naebody bidin' the nicht forbye yoursels," he said, "but themorn there's a gentleman comin'. I got a letter frae him the day.Maister Wiston, they ca him. Maybe ye ken him?"
I started at the name, which I knew very well. Thirlstone, who knew itbetter, stopped warming himself and walked to the window, where hestood pulling his moustache and staring at the snow. When the man hadleft the room, he turned to me with the face of one whose mind is madeup on a course but uncertain of the best method.
"Do you know this sort of weather looks infernally unpromising? I'vehalf a mind to chuck it and go back to town."
I gave him no encouragement, finding amusement in his difficulties."Oh, it's not so bad," I said, "and it won't last. To-morrow we mayhave the day of our lives."
He was silent for a little, staring at the fire. "Anyhow," he said atlast, "we were fools to be so far up the valley. Why shouldn't we godown to the Forest Lodge? They'll take us in, and we should bedeucedly comfortable, and the water's better."
"There's not a pool on the river to touch the stretch here," I said."I know, for I've fished every inch of it."
He had no reply to this, so he lit a pipe and held his peace for atime. Then, with some embarrassment but the air of having made adiscovery, he announced that his conscience was troubling him about hiswork, and he thought he ought to get back to it at once. "There areseveral things I have forgotten to see to, and they're ratherimportant. I feel a beast behaving like this, but you won't mind, willyou?"
"My dear Thirlstone," I said, "what is the good of hedging? Why can'tyou say you won't meet Wiston!"
His face cleared. "Well, that's the fact--I won't. It would be tooinfernally unpleasant. You see, I was once by way of being his friend,and he was in my regiment. I couldn't do it."
The landlord came in at the moment with a basket of peats. "How longis Capt.--Mr. Wiston staying here?" I asked.
"He's no bidin' ony time. He's just comin' here in the middle o' theday for his denner, and then drivin' up the water to Altbreac. He hasthe fishin' there."
Thirlstone's face showed profound relief. "Thank God!" I heard himmutter under his breath, and when the landlord had gone he fell totalking of salmon with enthusiasm. "We must make a big day of itto-morrow, dark to dark, you know. Thank Heaven, our beat'sdown-stream, too." And thereafter he made frequent excursions to thedoor, and bulletins on the weather were issued regularly.
Dinner over, we drew our chairs to the hearth, and fell to talk and theslow consumption of tobacco. When two men from the ends of the earthmeet by a winter fire, their thoughts are certain to drift overseas.We spoke of the racing tides off Vancouver, and the lonely pine-cladridges running up to the snow-peaks of the Selkirks, to which we hadboth travelled once upon a time in search of sport. Thirlstone on hisown account had gone wandering to Alaska, and brought back somebear-skins and a frost-bitten toe as trophies, and from his tales hadconsorted with the finest band of rogues which survives unhanged onthis planet. Then some casual word took our thoughts to the south, andour memories dallied with Africa. Thirlstone had hunted in Somalilandand done mighty slaughter; while I had spent some never-to-be forgottenweeks long ago in the hinterland of Zanzibar, in the days beforerailways and game-preserves. I have gone through life with a keen eyefor the discovery of earthly paradises, to which I intend to retirewhen my work is over, and the fairest I thought I had found above theRift valley, where you had a hundred miles of blue horizon and theweather of Scotland. Thirlstone, not having been there, naturallydiffered, and urged the claim of a certain glen in Kashmir, where youmay hunt two varieties of bear and three of buck in thickets ofrhododendron, and see the mightiest mountain-wall on earth from yourtent door. The mention of the Indian frontier brought us back to ourprofessions, and for a little we talked "shop" with the unblushingconfidence of those who know each other's work and approve it. As avery young soldier Thirlstone had gone shooting in the Pamirs, and hadblundered into a Russian party of exploration which containedKuropatkin. He had in consequence grossly outstayed his leave, havingbeen detained for a fortnight by an arbitrary hospitality; but he hadlearned many things, and the experience had given him strong views onfrontier questions. Half an hour was devoted to a masterly survey ofthe East, until a word pulled us up.
"I went there in '99" Thirlstone was saying,--"the time Wiston and Iwere sent--" and then he stopped, and his eager face clouded. Wiston'sname cast a shadow over our reminiscences.
"What did he actually do?" I asked after a short silence.
"Pretty bad! He seemed a commonplace, good sort of fellow, popular,fairly competent, a little bad-tempered perhaps. And then suddenly hedid something so extremely blackguardly that everything was at an end.It's no good repeating details, and I hate to think about it. We knowlittle about our neighbours, and I'm not so sure that we know muchabout ourselves. There may be appalling depths of iniquity in everyone of us, only most people are fortunate enough to go through theworld without meeting anything to wake the devil in them. I don'tbelieve Wiston was bad in the ordinary sense. Only there was somethingelse in him--somebody else, if you like--and in a moment it cameuppermost, and he was a branded man. Ugh! it's a gruesome thought."Thirlstone had let his pipe go out, and was staring moodily into thefire.
"How do you explain thing
s like that?" he asked. "I have an idea of myown about them. We talk glibly of ourselves and our personality andour conscience, as if every man's nature were a smooth, round, whitething, like a chuckie-stone. But I believe there are two men--perhapsmore-in every one of us. There's our ordinary self, generally ratherhumdrum; and then there's a bit of something else, good, bad, but neverindifferent,--and it is that something else which may make a man asaint or a great villain."
"'The Kings of Orion have come to earth,'" I quoted.
Something in the words struck Thirlstone, and he asked me what was theyarn I spoke of.
"It's an old legend," I explained. "When the kings were driven out ofOrion, they were sent to this planet and given each his habitation insome mortal soul. There were differences of character in that royalfamily, and so the alter ego which dwells alongside of us may bevirtuous or very much the reverse. But the point is that he is alwaysgreater than ourselves, for he has been a king. It's a foolish story,but very widely believed. There is something of the sort in Celticfolk-lore, and there's a reference to it in Ausonius. Also the banditsin the Bakhtiari have a version of it in a very excellent ballad."
"Kings of Orion," said Thirlstone musingly. "I like that idea. Goodor bad, but always great! After all, we show a kind of belief in it inour daily practice. Every man is always making fancies about himself;but it is never his workaday self, but something else. The bank clerkwho pictures himself as a financial Napoleon knows that his own thinlittle soul is incapable of it; but he knows, too, that it is possibleenough for that other bigger thing which is not his soul, but yet insome odd way is bound up with it. I fancy myself a field-marshal in aEuropean war; but I know perfectly well that if the job were offeredme, I should realise my incompetence and decline. I expect you ratherpicture yourself now and then as a sort of Julius Caesar andempire-maker, and yet, with all respect, my dear chap, I think it wouldbe rather too much for you."
"There was once a man," I said, "an early Victorian Whig, whose chiefambitions were to reform the criminal law and abolish slavery. Well,this dull, estimable man in his leisure moments was Emperor ofByzantium. He fought great wars and built palaces, and then, when thetime for fancy was past, went into the House of Commons and railedagainst militarism and Tory extravagance. That particular king fromOrion had a rather odd sort of earthly tenement."
Thirlstone was all interest. "A philosophic Whig and the throne ofByzantium. A pretty rum mixture! And yet--yet," and his eyes becameabstracted. "Did you ever know Tommy Lacelles?"
"The man who once governed Deira? Retired now, and lives somewhere inKent. Yes, I've met him once or twice. But why?"
"Because," said Thirlstone solemnly, "unless I'm greatly mistaken,Tommy was another such case, though no man ever guessed it exceptmyself. I don't mind telling you the story, now that he is retired andvegetating in his ancestral pastures. Besides, the facts are all inhis favour, and the explanation is our own business....
"His wife was my cousin, and when she died Tommy was left a verywithered, disconsolate man, with no particular object in life. We allthought he would give up the service, for he was hideously well off andthen one fine day, to our amazement, he was offered Deira, and acceptedit. I was short of a job at the time, for my battalion was at home,and there was nothing going on anywhere, so I thought I should like tosee what the East Coast of Africa was like, and wrote to Tommy aboutit. He jumped at me, cabled offering me what he called his MilitarySecretaryship, and I got seconded, and set off. I had never known himvery well, but what I had seen I had liked; and I suppose he was gladto have one of Maggie's family with him, for he was still very lowabout her loss. I was in pretty good spirits, for it meant newexperiences, and I had hopes of big game.
"You've never been to Deira? Well, there's no good trying to describeit, for it's the only place in the world like itself. God made it andleft it to its own devices. The town is pretty enough, with its palmsand green headland, and little scrubby islands in the river's mouth.It has the usual half-Arab, half-Portugee look-white green-shutteredhouses, flat roofs, sallow little men in duck, and every type of niggerfrom the Somali to the Shangaan. There are some good buildings, andGovernment House was the mansion of some old Portugee seigneur, and wasbuilt when people in Africa were not in such a hurry as to-day. Inlandthere's a rolling, forest country, beginning with decent trees andending in mimosa-thorn, when the land begins to rise to the stony hillsof the interior; and that poisonous yellow river rolls through it all,with a denser native population along its banks than you will findanywhere else north of the Zambesi. For about two months in the yearthe climate is Paradise, and for the rest you live in a Turkish bath,with every known kind of fever hanging about. We cleaned out the townand improved the sanitation, so there were few epidemics, but there wasenough ordinary malaria to sicken a crocodile.
"The place was no special use to us. It had been annexed in spite of atremendous Radical outcry, and, upon my soul, it was one of the fewcases where the Radicals had something to say for themselves. All wegot by it was half a dozen of the nastiest problems an unfortunategovernor can have to face. Ten years before it had been a decayingstrip of coast, with a few trading firms in the town, and a smallexport of ivory and timber. But some years before Tommy took it upthere had been a huge discovery of copper in the hills inland, arailway had been built, and there were several biggish miningsettlements at the end of it. Deira itself was filled with offices ofEuropean firms, it had got a Stock Exchange of its own, and it wasbecoming the usual cosmopolitan playground. It had a knack, too, ofgetting the very worst breed of adventurer. I know something of yourSouth African and Australian mining town, and with all their faultsthey are run by white men. If they haven't much morals, they have akind of decency which keeps them fairly straight. But for our sins wegot a brand of Levantine Jew, who was fit for nothing but making moneyand making trouble. They were always defying the law, and then, whenthey got into a hole, they squealed to Government for help, and starteda racket in the home papers about the weakness of the Imperial power.The crux of the whole difficulty was the natives, who lived along theriver and in the foothills. They were a hardy race of Kaffirs, sort offar-away cousins to the Zulu, and till the mines were opened they hadbehaved well enough. They had arms, which we had never dared to takeaway, but they kept quiet and paid their hut-taxes like men. I got toknow many of the chiefs, and liked them, for they were upstandingfellows to look at and heavenborn shikaris. However, when the Jewscame along they wanted labour, and, since we did not see our way toallow them to add to the imported coolie population, they had to fallback upon the Labonga. At first things went smoothly. The chiefs werewilling to let their men work for good wages, and for a time there wasenough labour for everybody. But as the mines extended, and thenatives, after making a few pounds, wanted to get back to their kraals,there came a shortage; and since the work could not be allowed toslacken, the owners tried other methods. They made promises which theynever intended to keep, and they stood on the letter of a law which thenatives did not understand, and they employed touts who were littlebetter than slave-dealers. They got the labour, of course, but soonthey had put the Labonga into a state of unrest which a very littlewould turn into a rising.
"Into this kettle of fish Tommy was pitchforked, and when I arrived hewas just beginning to understand how unpleasant it was. As I saidbefore, I did not know him very well, and I was amazed to find how badhe was at his job. A more curiously incompetent person I never met.He was a long, thin man, with a grizzled moustache and a mild sleepyeye-not an impressive figure, except on a horse; and he had an odd lispwhich made even a shrewd remark sound foolish. He was the mostindustrious creature in the world, and a model of official decorum.His papers were always in order, his despatches always neat andcorrect, and I don't believe any one ever caught him tripping in officework. But he had no more conception than a child of the kind oftrouble that was brewing. He knew never an honest man from a rogue,and the resu
lt was that he received all unofficial communications witha polite disbelief. I used to force him to see people--miners,prospectors, traders, any one who had something to say worth listeningto, but it all glided smoothly off his mind. He was simply the mostincompetent being ever created, living in the world as not being of it,or rather creating a little official world of his own, where all eventshappened on lines laid down by the Colonial Office, and men were likepapers, to be rolled into packets and properly docketed. He had anExecutive Council of people like himself, competent officials and blindbats at anything else. Then there was a precious Legislative Council,intended to represent the different classes of the population. Therewere several good men on it--one old trader called Mackay, for instance,who had been thirty years in the country-but most were nominees of themining firms, and very seedy rascals at that. They were always talkingabout the rights of the white man, and demanding popular control of theGovernment, and similar twaddle. The leader was a man who hailed fromHamburg, and called himself Le Foy--descended from a Crusader of thename of Levi--who was a jackal of one of the chief copper firms. Heoverflowed with Imperialist sentiment, and when he wasn't waving theflag he used to gush about the beauties of English country life thegrandeur of the English tradition. He hated me from the start, forwhen he talked of going 'home' I thought he meant Hamburg, and said so;and then a thing happened which made him hate me worse. He wasinfernally rude to Tommy, who, like the dear sheep he was, never sawit, and, if he had, wouldn't have minded. But one day I chanced tooverhear some of his impertinences, so I hunted out my biggest sjambokand lay in wait for Mr. Le Foy. I told him that he was arepresentative of the sovereign people, that I was a member of aneffete bureaucracy, and that it would be most painful if unpleasantnessarose between us. But, I added, I was prepared, if necessary, tosacrifice my official career to my private feelings, and if he dared touse such language again to his Majesty's representative I would givehim a hiding he would remember till he found himself in Abraham'sbosom. Not liking my sjambok, he became soap and butter at once, andheld his tongue for a month or two.
"But though Tommy was no good at his job, he was a tremendous swell atother things. He was an uncommonly good linguist, and had always abouta dozen hobbies which he slaved at; and when he found himself at Deirawith a good deal of leisure, he became a bigger crank than ever. Hehad a lot of books which used to follow him about the world inzinc-lined boxes--your big paper-backed German books which meanresearch,--and he was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and correspondedwith half a dozen foreign shows. India was his great subject, but hehad been in the Sudan and knew a good deal about African races. When Iwent out to him, his pet hobby was the Bantu, and he had acquired anamazing amount of miscellaneous learning. He knew all about theirimmigration from the North, and the Arab and Phoenician trade-routes,and the Portuguese occupation, and the rest of the history of thatunpromising seaboard. The way he behaved in his researches showed theman. He worked hard at the Labonga language--which, I believe, is alinguistic curiosity of the first water-from missionary books and theconversation of tame Kaffirs. But he never thought of paying them avisit in their native haunts. I was constantly begging him to do it,but it was not Tommy's way. He did not care a straw about politicalexperience, and he liked to look at things through the medium of paperand ink. Then there were the Phoenician remains in the foot-hillswhere the copper was mined-old workings, and things which might havebeen forts or temples. He knew all that was to be known about them,but he had never seen them and never wanted to. Once only he went tothe hills, to open some new reservoirs and make the ordinary Governor'sspeech; but he went in a special train and stayed two hours, most ofwhich was spent in lunching and being played to by brass bands.
"But, oddly enough, there was one thing which stirred him with aninterest that was not academic. I discovered it by accident one daywhen I went into his study and found him struggling with a map ofCentral Asia. Instead of the mild, benevolent smile with which heusually greeted my interruptions, he looked positively furtive, and, Icould have sworn, tried to shuffle the map under some papers. Now ithappens that Central Asia is the part of the globe that I know betterthan most men, and I could not help picking up the map and looking atit. It was a wretched thing, and had got the Oxus two hundred milesout of its course. I pointed this out to Tommy, and to my amazement hebecame quite excited. 'Nonsense,' he said. 'You don't mean to say itgoes south of that desert. Why, I meant to--,' and then he stammeredand stopped. I wondered what on earth he had meant to do, but I merelyobserved that I had been there, and knew. That brought Tommy out ofhis chair in real excitement. 'What!' he cried, 'you! You never toldme,' and he started to fire off a round of questions, which showed thatif he knew very little about the place, he had it a good deal in hismind."
I drew some sketch-plans for him, and left him brooding over them.
"That was the first hint I got. The second was a few nights later,when we were smoking in the billiard-room. I had been reading MarcoPolo, and the talk got on to Persia and drifted all over the north sideof the Himalaya. Tommy, with an abstracted eye, talked of Alexanderand Timour and Genghis Khan, and particularly of Prester John, who wasa character and took his fancy. I had told him that the natives in thePamirs were true Persian stock, and this interested him greatly. 'Whywas there never a great state built up in those valleys?' he asked.'You get nothing but a few wild conquerors rushing east and west, andthen some squalid khanates. And yet all the materials were there--thestuff for a strong race, a rich land, the traditions of an oldcivilisation, and natural barriers against all invasion.'
"'I suppose they never found the man,' I said.
"He agreed. 'Their princes were sots, or they were barbarians ofgenius who could devastate to the gates of Peking or Constantinople,but could never build. They did not recognise their limits, and sothey went out in a whirlwind. But if there had been a man of solidgenius he might have built up the strongest nation on the globe. Intime he could have annexed Persia and nibbled at China. He would havebeen rich, for he could tap all the inland trade-routes of Asia. Hewould have had to be a conqueror, for his people would be a race ofwarriors, but first and foremost he must have been a statesman. Thinkof such a civilisation, THE Asian civilisation, growing up mysteriouslybehind the deserts and the ranges! That's my idea of Prester John.Russia would have been confined to the line of the Urals. China wouldhave been absorbed. There would have been no Japan. The whole historyof the world for the last few hundred years would have been different.It is the greatest of all the lost chances in history.' Tommy waxedpathetic over the loss.
"I was a little surprised at his eloquence, especially when he seemedto remember himself and stopped all of a sudden. But for the next weekI got no peace with his questions. I told him all I knew of Bokhara,and Samarkand, and Tashkend, and Yarkand. I showed him the passes inthe Pamirs and the Hindu Kush. I traced out the rivers, and Icalculated distances; we talked over imaginary campaigns, and set upfanciful constitutions. It a was childish game, but I found itinteresting enough. He spoke of it all with a curious personal tonewhich puzzled me, till one day when we were amusing ourselves with afight on the Zarafshan, and I put in a modest claim to be allowed towin once in a while. For a second he looked at me in blank surprise.'You can't,' he said; 'I've got to enter Samarkand before I can...'and he stopped again, with a glimmering sense in his face that he wasgiving himself away. And then I knew that I had surprised Tommy'ssecret. While he was muddling his own job, he was salving his pridewith fancies of some wild career in Asia, where Tommy, disguised as thelord knows what Mussulman grandee, was hammering the little states intoan empire.
"I did not think then as I think now, and I was amused to find so odd atrait in a dull man. I had known something of the kind before. I hadmet fellows who after their tenth peg would begin to swagger about someridiculous fancy of their own--their little private corner of soulshowing for a moment when the drink had blown aside their common-sense.
Now, I had never known the thing appear in cold blood and everydaylife, but I assumed the case to be the same. I thought of it only as aharmless fancy, never imagining that it had anything to do withcharacter. I put it down to that kindly imagination which is the oldopiate for failures. So I played up to Tommy with all my might, andthough he became very discreet after the first betrayal, having hitupon the clue, I knew what to look for, and I found it. When I toldhim that the Labonga were in a devil of a mess, he would look at mewith an empty face and change the subject; but once among the Turcomanshis eye would kindle, and he would slave at his confounded folly withsufficient energy to reform the whole East Coast. It was the sparkthat kept the man alive. Otherwise he would have been as limp as arag, but this craziness put life into him, and made him carry his headin the air and walk like a free man. I remember he was very keen aboutany kind of martial poetry. He used to go about crooning Scott andMacaulay to himself, and when we went for a walk or a ride he wouldn'tspeak for miles, but keep smiling to himself and humming bits of songs.I daresay he was very happy,--far happier than your stolid, competentman, who sees only the one thing to do and does it. Tommy was muddlinghis particular duty, but building glorious palaces in the air.
"One day Mackay, the old trader, came to me after a sitting of theprecious Legislative Council. We were very friendly, and I had doneall I could to get the Government to listen to his views. He was adour, ill-tempered Scotsman, very anxious for the safety of hisproperty, but perfectly careless about any danger to himself.
"'Captain Thirlstone,' he said, 'that Governor of yours is a damnedfool.'
"Of course I shut him up very brusquely, but he paid no attention. 'Hejust sits and grins, and lets yon Pentecostal crowd we've gotten hereas a judgment for our sins do what they like wi' him. God kens what'llhappen. I would go home to-morrow, if I could realise without animmoderate loss. For the day of reckoning is at hand. Maark my words,Captain--at hand.'
"I said I agreed with him about the approach of trouble, but that theGovernor would rise to the occasion. I told him that people like Tommywere only seen at their best in a crisis, and that he might beperfectly confident that when it arrived he would get a new idea of theman. I said this, but of course I did not believe a word of it. Ithought Tommy was only a dreamer, who had rotted any grit he everpossessed by his mental opiates. At that time I did not understandabout the kings from Orion.
"And then came the thing we had all been waiting for--a Labonga rising.A week before I had got leave and had gone up country, partly to shoot,but mainly to see for myself what trouble was brewing. I kept awayfrom the river, and therefore missed the main native centres, but suchkraals as I passed had a look I did not like. The chiefs were almostalways invisible, and the young bloods were swaggering about andbukking to each other, while the women were grinding maize as if forsome big festival. However, after a bit the country seemed to growmore normal, and I went into the foothills to shoot, fairly easy in mymind. I had got up to a place called Shimonwe, on the Pathi river,where I had ordered letters to be sent, and one night coming in from ahard day after kudu I found a post-runner half-dead of fatigue with achit from Utterson, who commanded a police district twenty miles nearerthe coast. It said simply that all the young men round about him hadcleared out and appeared to be moving towards Deira, that he was in thedevil of a quandary, and that, since the police were under theGovernor, he would take his orders from me.
"It looked as if the heather were fairly on fire at last, so I set offearly next morning to trek back. About midday I met Utterson, a verybadly scared little man, who had come to look for me. It seemed thathis policemen had bolted in the night and gone to join the rising,leaving him with two white sergeants, barely fifty rounds ofammunition, and no neighbour for a hundred miles. He said that theLabonga chiefs were not marching to the coast, as he had thought, butnorth along the eastern foothills in the direction of the mines. Thiswas better news, for it meant that in all probability the railway wouldremain open. It was my business to get somehow to my chief, and I wasin the deuce of a stew how to manage it. It was no good following theline of the natives' march, for they would have been between me and mygoal, and the only way was to try and outflank them by going due east,in the Deira direction, and then turning north, so as to strike therailway about half-way to the mines. I told Utterson we had betterscatter, otherwise we should have no chance of getting through adensely populated native country. So, about five in the afternoon Iset off with my chief shikari, who, by good luck, was not a Labonga,and dived into the jungly bush which skirts the hills.
"For three days I had a baddish time. We steered by the stars,travelling chiefly by night, and we showed extraordinary skill inmissing the water-holes. I had a touch of fever and got light-headed,and it was all I could do to struggle through the thick grass andwait-a-bit thorns. My clothes were torn to rags, and I grew sofootsore that it was agony to move. All the same we travelled fast,and there was no chance of our missing the road, for any route duenorth was bound to cut the railway. I had the most sickeninguncertainty about what was to come next. Hely, who was in command atDeira, was a good enough man, but he had only three companies of whitetroops, and the black troops were as likely as not to be on their wayto the rebels. It looked as if we should have a Cawnpore business on asmall scale, though I thanked Heaven there were no women in the case.As for Tommy, he would probably be repeating platitudes in Deira andcomposing an intelligent despatch on the whole subject.
"About four in the afternoon of the third day I struck the line near alittle station called Palala. I saw by the look of the rails thattrains were still running, and my hopes revived. At Palala there was acoolie stationmaster, who gave me a drink and a little food, afterwhich I slept heavily in his office till wakened by the arrival of anup train. It contained one of the white companies and a man Davidson,of the 101st, who was Hely's second in command. From him I had newsthat took away my breath. The Governor had gone up the line two daysbefore with an A.D.C. and old Mackay. 'The sportsman has got a moveon him at last,' said Davidson, 'but what he means to do Heaven onlyknows. The Labonga are at the mines, and a kind of mine-guard has beenformed for defence. The joke of it is that most of the magnates aretreed up there, for the railway is cut and they can't get away. Idon't envy your chief the job of schooling that nervous crowd.'
"I went on with Davidson, and very early next morning we came to abroken culvert and had to stop. There we stuck for three hours tillthe down train arrived, and with it Hely. He was for ordinary a stolidsoul, but I never saw a man in such a fever of excitement. He grippedme by the arm and fairly shook me. 'That old man of yours is a hero,'he cried. 'The Lord forgive me! and I have always crabbed him.'
"I implored him in Heaven's name to tell me what was up, but he wouldsay nothing till he had had his pow-pow with Davidson. It seemed thathe was bringing all his white troops up the line for some greatdemonstration that Tommy had conceived. Davidson went back to Deira,while we mended the culvert and got the men transferred to the othertrain. Then I screwed the truth out of Hely. Tommy had got up to themines before the rebels arrived, and had found as fine a chaos as canbe imagined. He did not seem to have had any doubts what to do. Therewas a certain number of white workmen, hard fellows from Cornwallmostly, with a few Australians, and these he got together with Mackay'shelp and organised into a pretty useful corps. He set them to guardthe offices, and gave them strict orders to shoot at sight any oneattempting to leave. Then he collected the bosses and talked to themlike a father. What he said Hely did not know, except that he haddamned their eyes pretty heartily, and told them what a set of swinethey were, making trouble which they had not the pluck to face.Whether from Mackay, or from his own intelligence, or from a memory ofmy neglected warnings, he seemed to have got a tight grip on the factsat last. Meanwhile, the Labonga were at the doors, chanting theirbattle-songs half a mile away, and shots were heard from the farpickets. If they had tried to rush the place
then, all would have beenover, but, luckily, that was never their way of fighting. They satdown in camp to make their sacrifices and consult their witch-doctors,and presently Hely arrived with the first troops, having come in on thenorthern flank when he found the line cut. He had been in time to hearthe tail-end of Tommy's final address to the mineowners. He told them,in words which Hely said he could never have imagined coming from hislips, that they would be well served if the Labonga cleaned the wholeplace out. Only, he said, that would be against the will of Britain,and it was his business, as a loyal servant, to prevent it. Then,after giving Hely his instructions, he had put on his uniform, goldlace and all, and every scrap of bunting he possessed--all the ordersand 'Golden Stars' of half a dozen Oriental States where he had served.He made Ashurst, the A.D.C., put on his best Hussar's kit, and Mackayrigged himself out in a frock-coat and a topper; and the three set outon horseback for the Labonga. 'I believe he'll bring it off, saidHely, with wild eyes, 'and, by Heaven, if he does, it'll be the bestthing since John Nicholson!'
"For the rest of the way I sat hugging myself with excitement. Themiracle of miracles seemed to have come. The old, slack, incompetentsoul in Tommy seemed to have been driven out by that other spirit,which had hitherto been content to dream of crazy victories on theOxus. I cursed my folly in having missed it all, for I would havegiven my right hand to be with him among the Labonga. I envied thatyoung fool Ashurst his luck in being present at that queertransformation scene. I had not a doubt that Tommy would bring it offall right. The kings from Orion don't go into action without comingout on top. As we got near the mines I kept my ears open for the soundof shots; but all was still,--not even the kind of hubbub a nativeforce makes when it is on the move. Something had happened, but whatit was no man could guess. When we got to where the line was up, wemade very good time over the five miles to the mines. No oneinterfered with us, and the nearer we got the greater grew mycertainty. Soon we were at the pickets, who had nothing to tell us;and then we were racing up the long sandy street to the offices, andthere, sitting smoking on the doorstep of the hotel, surrounded byeverybody who was not on duty, were Mackay and Ashurst.
"They were an odd pair. Ashurst still wore his uniform; but he seemedto have been rolling about in it on the ground; his sleek hair waswildly ruffled, and he was poking holes in the dust with his sword.Mackay had lost his topper, and wore a disreputable cap, his ancientfrock-coat was without buttons, and his tie had worked itself up behindhis ears. They talked excitedly to each other, now and thenvouchsafing a scrap of information to an equally excited audience.When they saw me they rose and rushed for me, and dragged me betweenthem up the street, while the crowd tailed at our heels.
"'Ye're a true prophet, Captain Thirlstone,' Mackay began, 'and I askyour pardon for doubting you. Ye said the Governor only needed acrisis to behave like a man. Well, the crisis has come; and if there'sa man alive in this sinful world, it's that chief o' yours. And thenhis emotion overcame him, and, hard-bitten devil as he was, he sat downon the ground and gasped with hysterical laughter, while Ashurst, witha very red face, kept putting the wrong end of a cigarette in his mouthand swearing profanely.
"I never remember a madder sight. There was the brassy blue sky andreddish granite rock and acres of thick red dust. The scrub had thatmetallic greenness which you find in all copper places. Prettyunwholesome it looked, and the crowd, which had got round us again, wasmore unwholesome still. Fat Jew boys, with diamond rings on dirtyfingers and greasy linen cuffs, kept staring at us with twitching lips;and one or two smarter fellows in riding-breeches, mine-managers andsuchlike, tried to show their pluck by nervous jokes. And in themiddle was Mackay, with his damaged frocker, drawling out his story inbroad Scots.
"'He made this laddie put on his braws, and he commandeered thisiniquitous garment for me. I've raxed its seams, and it'll never lookagain on the man that owns it. Syne he arrayed himself in purple andfine linen till he as like the king's daughter, all glorious without;and says he to me, "Mackay," he says, "we'll go and talk to theseuncovenanted deevils in their own tongue. We'll visit them at home,Mackay," he says. "They're none such bad fellows, but they want alittle humouring from men like you and me." So we got on our horsesand started the procession--the Governor with his head in the air, andthe laddie endenvouring to look calm and collected, and me praying tothe God of Israel and trying to keep my breeks from working up above myknees. I've been in Kaffir wars afore, but I never thought I wouldride without weapon of any kind into such a black Armageddon. I am apeaceable man for ordinar', and a canny one, but I wasna myself in thathour. Man, Thirlstone, I was that overcome by the spirit of yourchief, that if he had bidden me gang alone on the same errand, Iwouldna say but what I would have gone.
"'We hadna ridden half a mile before we saw the indunas and their men,ten thousand if there was one, and terrible as an army with banners. Ispeak feeguratively, for they hadna the scrap of a flag among them.They were beating the war-drums, and the young men were dancing withtheir big skin shields and wagging their ostrich feathers, so I sawthey were out for business. I'll no' say but what my blood ran cold,but the Governor's eye got brighter and his back stiffer. "Kings maybe blest," I says to myself, "but thou art glorious."
"'We rode straight for the centre of the crowd, where the young menwere thickest and the big war-drums lay. As soon as they saw us adozen lifted their spears and ran out to meet us. But they stoppedafter six steps. The sun glinted on the Governor's gold lace and mylum hat, and no doubt they thought we were heathen deities descendedfrom the heavens. Down they went on their faces, and then back likerabbits to the rest, while the drums stopped, and the whole bodyawaited our coming in a silence like the tomb.
"'Never a word we spoke, but just jogged on with our chins cocked uptill we were forenent the big drum, where yon old scoundrel Umgazi wasstanding with his young men looking as black as sin. For a momenttheir spears were shaking in their hands, and I heard the click of abreech-bolt. If we had winked an eye we would have become pincushionsthat instant. But some unearthly power upheld us. Even the laddiekept a stiff face, and for me I forgot my breeks in watching theGovernor. He looked as solemn as an archangel, and comes to a haltopposite Umgazi, where he glowers at the old man for maybe threeminutes, while we formed up behind him. Their eyes fell before his,and by-and-by their spears dropped to their sides. "The father hascome to his children," says he in their own tongue. "What do thechildren seek from their father?
"'Ye see the cleverness of the thing. The man's past folly came tohelp him. The natives had never seen the Governor before till theybeheld him in gold lace and a cocked hat on a muckle horse, speakingtheir own tongue and looking like a destroying angel. I tell you theLabonga's knees were loosed under them. They durstna speak a worduntil the Governor repeated the question in the same quiet, steelyvoice. "You seek something," he said, "else you had not come out tomeet me in your numbers. The father waits to hear the children'sdesires."
"'Then Umgazi found his tongue and began an uneasy speech. The mines,he said, truly enough, were the abode of devils, who compelled thepeople to work under the ground. The crops were unreaped and the buckwent unspeared, because there were no young men left to him. Theirfather had been away or asleep, they thought, for no help had come fromhim; therefore it had seemed good to them, being freemen and warriors,to seek help for themselves.
"'The Governor listened to it all with a set face. Then he smiled atthem with supernatural assurance. They were fools, he said, and peopleof little wit, and he flung the better part of the Book of Job at theirheads. The Lord kens where the man got his uncanny knowledge of theLabonga. He had all their heathen customs by heart, and he played withthem like a cat with a mouse. He told then they were damned rascals tomake such a stramash, and damned fools to think they could frighten thewhite man by their demonstrations. There was no brag about his words,just a calm statement of fact. At the same time, he said, he had nomind to let any one wron
g his children, and if any wrong had been doneit should be righted. It was not meet, he said, that the young menshould be taken from the villages unless by their own consent, thoughit was his desire that such young men as could be spared should have achance of earning an honest penny. And then he fired at them somestuff about the British Empire and the King, and you could sec theLabonga imbibing it like water. The man in a cocked hat might havetold them that the sky was yellow, and they would have swallowed it.
"'"I have spoken," he says at last, and there was a great shout fromthe young men, and old Umgazi looked pretty foolish. They were cominground our horses to touch our stirrups with their noses, but theGovernor stopped them.
"'"My children will pile their weapons in front of me," says he, "toshow me how they have armed themselves, and likewise to prove thattheir folly is at an end. All except a dozen," says he, "whom I selectas a bodyguard." And there and then he picked twelve lusty savages forhis guard, while the rest without a cheep stacked their spears and gunsforenent the big drum.
"'Then he turned to us and spoke in English. "Get back to the mineshell-for-leather, and tell them what's happening, and see that you getup some kind of a show for to-morrow at noon. I will bring the chiefs,and we'll feast them. Get all the bands you can, and let them play mein. Tell the mines fellows to look active for it's the chance of theirlives. "Then he says to the Labonga, "My men will return he says, "butas for me I will spend the night with my children. Make ready food,but let no beer be made, for it is a solemn occasion."
"'And so we left him. I will not describe how I spent last nightmysel', but I have something to say about this remarkable phenomenon.I could enlarge on the triumph of mind over matter. ....
"Mackay did not enlarge. He stopped, cocked his ears, and looked downthe road, from which came the strains of 'Annie Laurie,' played withmuch spirit but grievously out of tune. Followed 'The BritishGrenadiers,' and then an attempt at 'The March of the Priests.' Mackayrose in excitement and began to crane his disreputable neck, while theband--a fine scratch collection of instruments--took up their stand atthe end of the street, flanked by a piper in khaki who performed whentheir breath failed. Mackay chuckled with satisfaction. 'The deevilshave entered into the spirit of my instructions,' he said. 'In a weebit the place will be like Falkirk Tryst for din.
"Punctually at twelve there came a great hullabaloo up the road, thebeating of drums and the yelling of natives, and presently theprocession hove in sight. There was Tommy on his horse, and on eachside of him six savages with feather head-dress, and shields andwar-paint complete. After him trooped about thirty of the greatchiefs, walking two by two, for all the world like an Aldershot parade.They carried no arms, but the bodyguard shook their spears, and letyells out of them that would have scared Julius Caesar. Then the bandstarted in, and the piper blew up, and the mines people commenced tocheer, and I thought the heavens would fall. Long before Tommy cameabreast of me I knew what I should see. His uniform looked as if ithad been slept in, and his orders were all awry. But he had his headflung back, and his eyes very bright, and his jaw set square. He neverlooked to right or left, never recognised me or anybody, for he wasseeing something quite different from the red road and the whiteshanties and the hot sky."
The fire had almost died out. Thirlstone stooped for a moment andstirred the peats.
"Yes," he said, "I knew that in his fool's ear the trumpets of all Asiawere ringing, and the King of Bokhara was entering Samarkand."
