Warriors of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  1

  Interpretation of the name Jahan-Gir.

  VII

  The toil of the hunters is not to be seen in the jungle, but when the hunted beast leaps, the snare is disclosed.

  Jani Beg and Shah Abbas had planned well.

  Throughout the three days after the visit of the Persian to Jahangir, their plans came silently to a head. Outposts in the passes prevented dak runners from the Mogul from passing to the South. Khanjut and its thousands, besiegers and besieged, was isolated from the rest of India.

  But not before a girl on a very good horse had slipped through the ravines of the Koh-i-Baba and circled Kabul, riding fast to the South.

  At the polite request of Jani Beg, Jahangir pitched his great camp between the Persians and the Uzbeks. And the Mogul was given little chance to inspect the formation of the besiegers. Banquet followed banquet, drinking-bout drinking-bout. Khans of the northern tribes paid their respects to the Mogul with a great array of presents.

  What was more natural than that these same khans should be attended by a numerous following of horsemen? So squadrons of Khorassanis, Hazaras, Afridis, and Kara Kirghiz assembled unnoticed—save by the alert Raja Man Singh—about the camp of the Mogul.

  The reception to the Mogul took on the character of a triumphant durbar, under cover of which Shah Abbas moved his men with the same skill with which he manipulated the ivory and gold myrmidons of the chessboard.

  The battalions of northern riders that had swelled down the passes from Ferghana were concealed in convenient nullahs. The human network was drawn about the Mogul and his followers, and closed.

  Standing on the mound by the red imperial tent in front of which the yak-tail standard was planted, Raja Man Singh and Sir Ralph watched mail-clad, mounted archers of the Uzbeks form in position, ostensibly for assault. They saw hooded riders from the Irak plain wheel by in swallow-flight and halt their mounts beside the motley array of Jahangir's followers. They sometimes caught glimpses of helmeted and quilted Black Kirghiz—fierce fighters and lawless—mustering to the banners of their leaders.

  Meanwhile the few Rajputs and Muslims of Jahangir drank and slept. Raja Man Singh, however, slept little.

  “What force has Jahangir—that he can trust?” he demanded bitterly of the Englishman. “A score of armored elephants— eunuchs—slaves—priests—water-carriers. None fit to wield a sword save my Rajputs and a few hundred Muslims.”

  Sir Ralph had eagerly scanned the battered walls of Khanjut.

  The Persian cannon had effected a wide breach. Inside this the defenders had stacked bales of cloth and cotton, and fagots smeared with oil.

  But under another section of the walls reached the saps from the Uzbek camp. At daybreak on the morrow these saps would be exploded, tearing a new and wider breach.

  On the heels of the explosion it was planned to launch the Rajput storm. Sir Ralph had little doubt of the success of the attack. Months of hardship and harrying by arrow and catapults had left their mark on the garrison.

  Few hillmen were to be seen on the walls—or rather the stone heaps that had been walls. These few were ragged, their armor dulled. Sir Ralph saw men stagger from weariness as they labored to build up the crumbling ramparts.

  The Khanjut River, flowing past the slope of the citadel, had been sturdily bridged by the Persian engineers. All the green verdure of the slope had disappeared, leaving a gray-brown stretch of torn earth and sliding rock.

  He looked long and thought that once he saw the tall figure of Abdul Dost. The mansabdar had taken his stand on the wall over the mined section, where he could look down into the nearest trenches, protected by rawhide targets. Adbul Dost paid no heed to arrows that glinted by him.

  “A brave man, that,” grunted Raja Man Singh, who had also noticed the defender of Khanjut. “It is an evil fate that bends our sword against him and Shirzad Mir. Jani Beg called them traitors, but Jani Beg—”

  He waved his lean hand about the encircling camp of the Uzbeks and laughed shortly. Sir Ralph looked up quickly.

  “If you respect them, why not send them food, raja?” he asked in a curious tone. “Is it the custom of the Rajputs first to starve a foe—”

  “Shiva—no! The law reads, 'When an enemy is weakened, tend him; take no advantage from his misfortune.' ”

  “Then,” said Sir Ralph gravely, “obey your law. Send grain to the men of Khanjut.”

  The Rajput stared at him almost suspiciously. He had not forgotten that the Englishman was the friend of Shirzad Mir.

  “Nay, do it not if you have a fear, raja. But your chivalry would be recorded in the chronicles of your clan if you do this thing.” The doubt vanished from Raja Man Singh's boyish countenance.

  “What matters it, Ferang?” he laughed. “Jani Beg will scowl, yet I have small cause to love him. Nay, I recall that I once proposed it and he growled. Tomorrow we will all pass under the gateway of Yama, to be born anew—hillman, Abdul Dost, Rajput and I—perchance yourself as well. Let their bellies be filled, so they may feel themselves men when they meet us—”

  He turned away indifferently and gave an order to his captain of the imperial guard. The man disappeared with Raja Man Singh. Presently the Rajput returned in somewhat better humor. “The Persian spat in horror,” he informed his companion. “After all, it matters little to them. Rajputs will be in the van of the storm. It will be done. See—”

  He pointed out where certain mules were being laden with sacks of grain, rice, and dates. This done, the beasts were led up over the trenches under a flag of truce.

  Sir Ralph saw the provisions disappear into Khanjut.

  The reckless chivalry of the Rajput had supplied the garrison with food. Pique, bred of Sir Ralph's words and desire to annoy the Persians and Uzbeks, had been responsible for his act. As Raja Man Singh had said, it mattered little whether the hillmen in the citadel were fed before they were cut down.

  Yet, as it proved, this move was of vital import. Sir Ralph had seen this, and he was pondering it while the two watched and the sun lowered its red ball over the smoke-veiled plain of Khanjut.

  “It was well done,” admitted Raja Man Singh moodily. “I thank you for your word, Ferang. But how came you to think of such a matter of chivalry?”

  Receiving no answer, he fell to watching the clearing away of the chevaux-de-frise preparatory to the assault of the next day. Festive murmurs reached the two from the red tent of Jahangir, where Shah Abbas was being feasted.

  “How thought you of sending the food into Khanjut?” persisted the raja.

  Sir Ralph sighed. He had been thinking deeply. “They are my friends,” he said.

  The Rajput glanced at the silk bracelet on the Englishman's wrist. His thin lips curled as he responded—

  “And the ram rukhi, Ferang?”

  “Krishna Taya trusted me.”

  “Aye, she said you were a leader of men.”

  Sir Ralph smiled grimly, feeling the cords which Raja Man Singh had thought best to keep upon him. The last mule had been lost to sight within the walls, which seemed bare of defenders. From the citadel he heard the long-drawn cry of a mullah, calling to evening prayers as shadows gathered to the East.

  “Could you trust me, raja?”

  “Wherefore? Yet you are a bold man, and frank. For Krishna Taya's sake I have kept you with me. Still, the shield of your honor gleams bright compared to that of the false Persian. May he be born again as a female gully jackal—”

  The Rajput spat, voicing his bitter resentment.

  “Because,” Sir Ralph weighed his words with quickening pulse, “if you would trust me I could save you—and Jahangir.” He had been pondering this for the last hour, silently, with the perseverance of an alert, steady-going mind. And now he was ready to put the matter to an issue.

  The Rajput general sat close beside the Englishman, a single cloak forming a carpet for both. His teeth gleamed through his well-kept beard in a mocking laugh.

  “Ho—that i
s a goodly jest! Bold words from a bound captive! So, you have a thought to wrest Jahangir and his Rajputs from the trap of Jani Beg? Perchance you would arm the many-handed gods, and call them from the sacred abode of Himachal!”

  Sir Ralph faced him patiently, knowing that the raja was worn with anxiety and that his opium no longer sufficed to keep his temper even.

  “Tell me one thing,” he suggested quietly. “Has Jahangir begun to suspect his danger?”

  “He grows uneasy. But the wily Persian surrounds him with talkative women and buffoons. Even me, his general, they keep from his side.”

  “And the Dekkan army will arrive—”

  “In time to bury our corpses that the kites have plucked bare.” Raja Man Singh's feverish eyes glowed with sudden fire. “Death of the gods, Ferang, think you I feel nothing of what is to come to pass? I, the highest ameer of the court—head of the Marwar clan? Nay, just now one of my patrols came upon a dak-bearer of mine, slain in a by-path of the Koh-i-Baba. Some of my horsemen have vanished. The hand of Shah Abbas closes upon us.”

  Veins stood out on his forehead, and his lips twisted in an access of rage. Sir Ralph had not known until then the strain under which the Rajput labored.

  “By Hanuman and Ganesh! By Kali, mistress of blood! What can I do? It avails naught to attempt to cut through the Persian camp. By placing Jahangir on his elephant among my horsemen we could win through the camp. But—each pass to the South is fortified by our foes, and guarded. We would be cut to pieces in the Koh-i-Baba, even if 'twere possible to form in battle array unmolested by the Uzbeks and Persians—which I doubt.”

  His voice had risen in snarling rage.

  “We are trapped, Ferang. India will blame me—”

  “You are not guilty of carelessness.”

  “Who will believe? In the network of lies whispered after the death of the Mogul the name of Raja Man Singh will be linked with treachery.

  “Eh—this place is foul with evil. Yet I am helpless. If Jani Beg suspected what I knew, the cup-bearer who hands Jahangir wine would plunge a poniard into the Mogul's back! The creatures of the harem would drag him down, to be strangled—”

  He waved his clenched hands before his closed eyes.

  “The fate of India hangs upon the life of Jahangir, Ferang. It is the curse of India that she shall destroy herself, one clan fighting the other, if there be no leader.”

  He broke off into curses that Sir Ralph barely understood.

  “It was our fate that this should come upon us. Jahangir, halfdrunk, perceives his peril, but falters, and drinks more to forget. Aie—it will not be long before he drains the cup of death. For if a Rajput comes within earshot, a dozen hands fly to the courtiers' daggers; if Jahangir steps without his tent, twenty pairs of evil eyes follow him and Shah Abbas bows himself up with new presents.”

  Sir Ralph waited until the man's outburst had ceased. It was now early evening, and the men of the camp below them were passing about to their meat. Khanjut was a wall of shadows. Lights twinkled out here and there among the tents.

  “Have you any plan?” he asked thoughtfully.

  “Who may outvie fate? Nay, I and my Rajputs shall spread a carpet of slain for the Lord of the Exalted Throne—if he must die.”

  Rajah Man Singh was quieter now, cynical of the fortune in store for him.

  “There is a way to save him—”

  “It may not be.”

  “—if the army of the Dekkan can win to Khanjut in three days.

  I do not think Jani Beg will look for reinforcements for Jahangir so early.”

  He glanced about to make sure they were alone.

  “Could the Rajputs from the Dekkan force the Persian guards in the Koh-i-Baba passes?”

  “Can a mountain stream eat through a mud wall?” Raja Man Singh was contemptuous.

  “Then Jahangir may be saved, and—the name of Raja Man Singh will be on the lips of every tribe in the empire.”

  “Nay, how can the Mogul escape?”

  “He will not escape. Tomorrow he will watch the assault form against Khanjut.”

  The Rajput was silent for a long space.

  “Speak, Ferang,” he said moodily. “Krishna Taya said that you had a rare wisdom, of other gods than ours.”

  While the evening activities of the camp went on and the watchfires gleamed forth in a circuit around the invested fortress, Sir Ralph told Raja Man Singh what was in his mind.

  He talked with the earnestness of a man that has much at stake. He told his companion what he had reasoned out. And he told his plan.

  Raja Man Singh listened, at first irritably and skeptically, then intently. He was a man of limitations, but the general of the Rajputs was far from stupid. He had been tricked, after a fashion, by Shah Abbas; yet his loyalty to Jahangir had helped to accomplish this.

  He sucked his breath in through his teeth when Sir Ralph finished. He was silent for a long time.

  “Verily,” he said softly, “that is a plan.”

  In the darkness Sir Ralph had no means of reading the Rajput's face.

  “How may we get word of this to Jahangir, Ferang? He will doubt greatly, for he knows not all we know.”

  “Tell him naught. He is half-dazed with opium. You alone must lead in this, raja.”

  Again the Rajput was quiet, faced by the necessity of a vital decision.

  “The mahouts of the imperial elephants are men of Marwar and Oudh,” he meditated aloud. “They will listen to my words— aye, they will obey me. Am I not leader of their clan? They are but servants.”

  “You must be leader.”

  “Shall I take the reins of India into my hand?”

  The Rajput clapped his hands softly and laughed.

  “Verily it is a plan of plans. If we should succeed—”

  He broke off swiftly.

  “How am I to trust you, Ferang? I have not forgotten there is a part you must play—”

  “You cannot be sure of me,” said Sir Ralph steadily. “But if the word of an adventurer . . . Krishna Taya is the only one who believes in me,” he concluded grimly.

  “A slender staff to lean on, Ferang. Yet Udai Singh spoke well of you. You have taken the ram rukhi of my clan—”

  He sprang to his feet abruptly, laughing. “Ho, Ferang, I shall do this thing. As you have told it to me, I shall do it.”

  He loved action ever better than thought.

  “If it comes to pass as you have thought, Ferang, it will be verily a jest for the gods and a thing like to none other in the annals of the Rajputs.”

  It was then dark. Before the second watch of that night was ended, Sir Ralph had passed with a small party of Rajputs to a certain valley near the Amu Daria—a gorge whence the river of Khanjut flowed down.

  He was unbound, and when he stepped into the stream and swam out into the current toward Khanjut the Rajputs made no attempt to stay him. Sir Ralph had prevailed upon Raja Man Singh. He had secured his freedom from the custody of the Rajputs.

  And now, he, reflected, as he sought for the watercourse that led under the Khanjut wall, he might obtain that for which he came to India.

  There was no flaw in the scheme of Jani Beg and Shah Abbas—no break in the net that had been thrown around Jahangir.

  Dawn showed the squadrons of Uzbek cavalry drawn up on one side of the Mogul's camp, with the Persians on the other. Behind the camp the plain seemed to have filled suddenly as the waiting battalions from the North emerged from their nullahs and closed in toward Khanjut. If Jahangir had doubted before, he was more than anxious now.

  But he was allowed no opportunity to consult with Raja Man Singh. Jani Beg did not wish to strike until the Rajputs had been thrown against Khanjut, and the sharp edge of their attack dulled. So he escorted Jahangir in person to the waiting elephants, where they feasted briefly and drank under a temporary pavilion erected for that purpose.

  Wine had little effect upon the Uzbek leader. But it dulled the faculties of the anxious monarch
.

  “Lord of the Exalted Throne—” Jani Beg bowed to hide his exultation and the suspense he could not altogether keep from his scarred face—“the storm is prepared, and the mines await but your auspicious word before they hurl the ramparts of Khanjut into the air.”

  “Where is Raja Man Singh?” demanded Jahangir uneasily.

  “With his Rajputs yonder.”

  Jani Beg pointed to where the Mogul's horsemen had formed directly in front of and beside the royal elephants.

  “All goes well,” he cried exultingly. “Mount, sire, and view from the back of your elephant the spectacle we have prepared for you.”

  “Mount, sire,” echoed Shah Abbas suavely, “and give the word that shall crush the rebel of Khanjut as a snake's head is crushed.”

  Both the traitors wished the Mogul to be upon his beast, so that he could not by any chance escape in the throng. Once installed in the gilded howdah, behind the armored head of the royal elephant, every move of Jahangir would be clear to view and descent from his elevation would be difficult.

  Jani Beg whirled his horse away and Jahangir sat alone with a mahout in his accustomed station.

  Around him formed a half-dozen of the royal beasts, bearing Rajput ameers and Muslims of his personal following. But Raja Man Singh, the general who might—so Jahangir in his anxiety reasoned—take command and offset the treachery he had begun to dread, was not to be seen.

  And Raja Man Singh was the one man who could enforce an order among the Mogul's followers. Jahangir himself was no warrior—he scarce knew how to phrase an order in the heat of battle.

  From his elevation he could see that the Hazaras and Afridis who should have held the other side of the fortress had formed behind his own camp. In fact, the whole of the Uzbek and Persian troops were now in a semicircle about Jahangir and Khanjut.

  The Rajputs, aroused as always by the prospect of action, were intent on their own counsels, ameer whispering to mansabdar and mansabdar to troopers.

  It was a glorious sight, gray Khanjut ringed about by its foes under the clear sunlight of Afghanistan. In the distance, the snow peaks of the Himalayas frowned down on the mass of fighting men, ready to be launched into conflict. On the walls few of the garrison showed.