by Talbot Mundy
She got no credit, though, for consideration — only blame for what the swordsmen had already done. One man — a Maharati trader — half-naked, his black hair coiled into a shaggy rope and twisted up above his neck — followed her, side-tracking through the mazy byways of the bewildering mart, and coming out ahead of her — or lurking beside bales of merchandise and waiting his opportunity to leap from shadow into shadow unobserved.
He followed her until she reached the open, where a double row of trees on each side marked the edge of a big square, large enough for the drilling of an army. Along one side of the square there ran the high brick wall, topped with a kind of battlement, that guarded the Maharajah’s palace grounds from the eyes of men.
Just as she turned, just as she was starting to canter her pony beside the long wall, he leaped out at her and seized her reins. The old woman screamed, and ran to the wall and cowered there.
Very likely the man only meant to frighten her and heap insults on her, for in ‘56, though wrath ran deep and strong, men waited. There was to be sudden, swift whelming when the time came, not intermittent outrage. But he had no time to do more than rein her pony back onto its haunches.
There came a clatter of scurrying hoofs behind, and from a whirl of dust, topped by a rose-pink pugree, a steel blade swooped down on her and him. A surge of brown and pink and cream, and a dozen rainbow tints flashed past her; a long boot brushed her saddle on the off side. There was a sickening sound, as something hard swished and whicked home; her pony reeled from the shock of a horse’s shoulder, and — none too gently — none too modestly — the prince with the egret and the handsome face reined in on his horse’s haunches and saluted her.
There was blood, becoming dull-brown in the dust between them. He shook his sabre, and the blood dripped from it then he held it outstretched, and a horseman wiped it, before he returned it with a clang.
“The sahiba’s servant!” he said magnificently, making no motion to let her pass, but twisting with his sword-hand at his waxed mustache and smiling darkly.
She looked down between them at the thing that but a minute since had lived, and loved perhaps as well as hated.
“Shame on you, Jaimihr-sahib!” she said, shuddering. A year ago she would have fallen from her pony in a swoon, but one year of Howrah and its daily horrors had so hardened her that she could look and loathe without the saving grace of losing consciousness.
“The shame would have been easier to realize, had I taken more than one stroke!” he answered irritably, still blocking the way on his great horse, still twisting at his mustache point, still looking down at her through eyes that blazed a dozen accumulated centuries’ store of lawless ambition. He was proud of that back-handed swipe of his that would cleave a man each time at one blow from shoulder-joint to ribs, severing the backbone. A woman of his own race would have been singing songs in praise of him and his skill in swordsman-ship already; but no woman of his own race would have looked him in the eye like that and dared him, nor have done what she did next. She leaned over and swished his charger with her little whip, and slipped past him.
He swore, deep and fiercely, as he spurred and wheeled, and cantered after her. His great stallion could overhaul her pony in a minute, going stride for stride; the wall was more than two miles long with no break in it other than locked gates; there was no hurry. He watched her through half-closed, glowering, appraising eyes as he cantered in her wake, admiring the frail, slight figure in the gray cotton habit, and bridling his desire to make her — seize her reins, and halt, and make her — admit him master of the situation.
As he reached her stirrup, she reined in and faced him, after a hurried glance that told her her duenna had failed her. The old woman was invisible.
“Will you leave that body to lie there in the dust and sun?” she asked indignantly.
“I am no vulture, or jackal, or hyena, sahiba!” he smiled. “I do not eat carrion!” He seemed to think that that was a very good retort, for he showed his wonderful white teeth until his handsome face was the epitome of self-satisfied amusement. His horse blocked the way again, and all retreat was cut off, for his escort were behind her, and three of them had ridden to the right, outside the row of trees, to cut off possible escape in that direction. “Was it not well that I was near, sahiba? Would it have been better to die at the hands of a Maharati of no caste — ?”
“Than to see blood spilt — than to be beholden to a murderer? Infinitely better! There was no need to kill that man — I could have quieted him. Let me pass, please, Jaimihr-sahib!”
He reined aside; but if she thought that cold scorn or hot anger would either of them quell his ardor, she had things reversed. The less she behaved as a native woman would have done — the more she flouted him — the more enthusiastic he became.
“Sahiba!” — he trotted beside her, his great horse keeping up easily with her pony’s canter— “I have told you oftener than once that I make a good friend and a bad enemy!”
“And I have answered oftener than once that I do not need your friendship, and am not afraid of you! You forget that the British Government will hold your royal brother liable for my safety and my father’s!”
“You, too, overlook certain things, sahiba.” He spoke evenly, with a little space between each word. With the dark look that accompanied it, with the blood barely dry yet on the dusty road behind, his speech was not calculated to reassure a slip of a girl, gray-eyed or not, stiff-chinned or not, borne up or not by Scots enthusiasm for a cause. “This is a native state. My brother rules. The British—”
“Are near enough, and strong enough, to strike and to bring you and your brother to your knees if you harm a British woman!” she retorted. “You forget — when the British Government gives leave to missionaries to go into a native state, it backs them up with a strong arm!”
“You build too much on the British and my brother, sahiba! Listen — Howrah is as strong as I am, and no stronger. Had he been stronger, he would have slain me long ago. The British are—” He checked himself and trotted beside her in silence for a minute. She affected complete indifference; it was as though she had not heard him; if she could not be rid of him, she at least knew how to show him his utter unimportance in her estimation.
“Have you heard, sahiba, of the Howrah treasure? Of the rubies? Of the pearls? Of the emeralds? Of the bars of gold? It is foolishness, of course; we who are modern-minded see the crime of hoarding all that wealth, and adding to it, for twenty generations. Have you heard of it, sahiba?”
“Yes!” she answered savagely, swishing at his charger again to make him keep his distance. “You have told me of it twice. You have told me that you know where it is, and you have offered to show it to me. You have told me that you and your brother Maharajah Howrah and the priests of Siva are the only men who know where it is, and you lust for that treasure! I can see you lust! You think that I lust too, and you make a great mistake Jaimihr-sahib! You see, I remember what you have told me. Now, go away and remember what I tell you. I care for you and for your treasure exactly that!” She hit his charger with all her might, and at the sting of the little whip he shied clear of the road before the Rajah’s brother could rein him in.
Again her effort to destroy his admiration for her had directly the opposite effect. He swore, and he swore vengeance; but he swore, too, that there was no woman in the East so worth a prince’s while as this one, who dared flout him with her riding-whip before his men!
“Sahiba!” he said, sidling close to her again, and bowing in the saddle in mock cavalier humility. “The time will come when your government and my brother, who — at present — is Maharajah Howrah — will be of little service to you. Then, perhaps, you may care to recall my promise to load all the jewels you can choose out of the treasure-house on you. Then, perhaps, you may, remember that I said ‘a throne is better than a grave, sahiba.’ Or else—”
“Or else what, Jaimihr-sahib?” She reined again and wheeled about and faced hi
m — pale-trembling a little — looking very small and frail beside him on his great war-horse, but not flinching under his gaze for a single second.
“Or else, sahiba — I think you saw me slay the Maharati? Do you think that I would stop at anything to accomplish what I had set out to do? See, sahiba — there is a little blood there on your jacket! Let that be for a pledge between us — for a sign — or a token of my oath that on the day I am Maharajah Howrah, you are Maharanee — mistress of all the jewels in the treasure-house!”
She shuddered. She did not look to find the blood; she took his word for that, if for nothing else.
“I wonder you dare tell me that you plot against your brother!” That was more a spoken thought than a statement or a question.
“I would be very glad if you would warn my brother!” he answered her; and she knew like a flash, and on the instant, that what he said was true. She had been warned before she came to bear no tales to any one. No Oriental would believe the tale, coming from her; the Maharajah would arrest her promptly, glad of the excuse to vent his hatred of Christian missionaries. Jaimihr would attempt a rescue; it was common knowledge that he plotted for the throne. There would be instant civil war, in which the British Government would perforce back up the alleged protector of a defenseless woman. There would be a new Maharajah; then, in a little while, and in all likelihood, she would have disappeared forever while the war raged. There would be, no doubt, a circumstantial story of her death from natural causes.
She did not answer. She stared back at him, and he smiled down at her, twisting at his mustache.
“Think!” he said, nodding. “A throne, sahiba, is considerably better than a grave!” Then he wheeled like a sudden dust-devil and decamped in a cloud of dust, followed at full pelt by his clattering escort. She watched their horses leap one after the other the corpse of the Maharati that lay by the corner where it fell, and she saw the last of them go clattering, whirling up the street through the bazaar. The old hag rose out of a shadow and trotted after her again as she turned and rode on, pale-faced and crying now a little, to the little begged school place where her father tried to din the alphabet into a dozen low-caste fosterlings.
“Father!” she cried, and she all but fell out of the saddle into his arms as the tall, lean Scotsman came to the door to meet her and stood blinking in the sunlight. “Father, I’ve seen another man killed! I’ve had another scene with Jaimihr! I can’t endure it! I — I — Oh, why did I ever come?”
“I don’t know, dear,” he answered. “But you would come, wouldn’t you?”
CHAPTER II
‘Twixt loot and law— ‘tween creed and caste —
Through slough this people wallows,
To where we choose our road at last.
I choose the RIGHT! Who follows?
HEMMED in amid the stifling stench and babel of the caravansary, secluded by the very denseness of the many-minded swarm, five other Rajputs and Mahommed Gunga — all six, according to their turbans, followers of Islam — discussed matters that appeared to bring them little satisfaction.
They sat together in a dark, low-ceilinged room; its open door — it was far too hot to close anything that admitted air — gave straight onto the street, and the one big window opened on a courtyard, where a pair of game-cocks fought in and out between the restless legs of horses, while a yelling horde betted on them. On a heap of grass fodder in a corner of the yard an all-but-naked expert in inharmony thumped a skin tom-tom with his knuckles, while at his feet the own-blood brother to the screech-owls wailed of hell’s torments on a wind instrument.
Din — glamour — stink — incessant movement — interblended poverty and riches rubbing shoulders — noisy self-interest side by side with introspective revery, where stray priests nodded in among the traders, — many-peopled India surged in miniature between the four hot walls and through the passage to the overflowing street; changeable and unexplainable, in ever-moving flux, but more conservative in spite of it than the very rocks she rests on — India who is sister to Aholibah and mother of all fascination.
In that room with the long window, low-growled, the one thin thread of clear-sighted unselfishness was reeling out to very slight approval. Mahommed Gunga paced the floor and kicked his toes against the walls, as he turned at either end, until his spurs jingled, and looked with blazing dark-brown eyes from one man to the other.
“What good ever came of listening to priests?” he asked. “All priests are alike — ours, and theirs, and padre-sahibs! They all preach peace and goad the lust that breeds war and massacre! Does a priest serve any but himself? Since when? There will come this rising that the priests speak of — yes! Of a truth, there will, for the priests will see to it! There is a padre-sahib here in Howrah now for the Hindoo priests to whet their hate on. You saw the woman ride past here a half-hour gone? There is a pile of tinder ready here, and any fool of a priest can make a spark! There will be a rising, and a big one!”
“There will! Of a truth, there will!” Alwa, his cousin, crossed one leg above the other with a clink of spurs and scabbard. He had no objection to betraying interest, but declined for the present to betray his hand.
“There will be a blood-letting that will do no harm to us Rajputs!” said another man, whose eyes gleamed from the darkest corner; he, too, clanked his scabbard as though the sound were an obbligato to his thoughts. “Sit still and say nothing is my advice; we will be all ready to help ourselves when the hour comes!”
“It is this way,” said Mahommed Gunga, standing straddle-legged to face all five of them, with his back to the window. He stroked his black beard upward with one hand and fingered with the other at his sabre-hilt. “Without aid when the hour does come, the English will be smashed — worn down — starved out — surrounded — stamped out — annihilated — so!” He stamped with his heel descriptively on the hard earth floor. “And then, what?”
“Then, the plunder!” said Alwa, showing a double row of wonderful white teeth. The other four grinned like his reflections. “Ay, there will be plunder — for the priests! And we Rajputs will have new masters over us! Now, as things are, we have honorable men. They are fools, for any man is a fool who will not see and understand the signs. But they are honest. They ride straight! They look us straight between the eyes, and speak truth, and fear nobody! Will the Hindoo priests, who will rule India afterward, be thus? Nay! Here is one sword for the British when the hour comes!”
“I have yet to see a Hindoo priest rule me or plunder me!” said Alwa with a grin.
“You will live to see it!” said Mahommed Gunga. “Truly, you will live to see it, unless you throw your weight into the other scale! What are we Rajputs without a leader whom we all trust? What have we ever been?” He swung on his heels suddenly — angrily — and began to pace the floor again — then stopped.
“Divided, and again subdivided — one-fifth Mohammedan and four-fifths Hindoo — clan within clan, and each against the other. Do we own Rajputana? Nay! Do we rule it? Nay! What were we until Cunnigan-bahadur came?”
“Ah!” All five men rose with a clank in honor to the memory of that man. “Cunnigan-bahadur! Show us such another man as he was, and I and mine ride at his back!” said Alwa. “Not all the English are like Cunnigan! A Cunnigan could have five thousand men the minute that he asked for them!”
“Am I a wizard? — Can I cast spells and bring dead men’s spirits from the dead again? I know of no man to take his place,” said Mahommed Gunga sadly.
He was the poorest of them, but they were all, comparatively speaking, poor men; for the long peace had told its tale on a race of men who are first gentlemen, then soldiers, and last — least of all — and only as a last resource, landed proprietors. The British, for whom they had often fought because that way honor seemed to lie, had impoverished them afterward by passing and enforcing zemindary laws that lifted nine-tenths of the burden from the necks of starving tenants. The new law was just, as the Rajputs grudgingly admitted,
but it pinched their pockets sadly; like the old-time English squires, they would give their best blood and their last rack-rent-wrung rupee for the cause that they believed in, but they resented interference with the rack-rents! Mahommed Gunga had had influence enough with these five landlord relations of his to persuade them to come and meet him in Howrah City to discuss matters; the mere fact that he had thought it worth his while to leave his own little holding in the north had satisfied them that he would be well worth listening to — for no man rode six hundred miles on an empty errand. But they needed something more than words before they pledged the word that no Rajput gentleman will ever break.
“Find us a Cunnigan — bring him to us — prove him to us — and if a blade worth having from end to end of Rajputana is not at his service, I myself will gut the Hindoo owner of it! That is my given word!” said Alwa.
“He had a son,” said Mahommed Gunga quietly.
“True. Are all sons like their fathers? Take Maharajah Howrah here; his father was a man with whom any soldier might be proud to pick a quarrel. The present man is afraid of his own shadow on the wall — divided between love for the treasure-chests he dare not broach and fear of a brother whom he dare not kill. He is priest-ridden, priest-taught, and fit to be nothing but a priest. Who knows how young Cunnigan will shape? Where is he? Overseas yet! He must prove himself, as his father did, before he can hope to lead a free regiment of horse!”
“Then Cunnigan-bahadur’s watch-word ‘For the peace of India,’ is dead-died with him?” asked Mahommed Gunga. “We are each for our own again?”
“I have spoken!” answered Alwa. As the biggest clan-chief left on all that countryside, he had a right to speak before the others, and he knew that what he said would carry weight when they had all ridden home again, and the report had gone abroad in ever-widening rings. “If the English can hold India, let them! I will not fight against them, for they are honest men for all their madness. If they cannot, then I am for Rajputana, not India — India may burn or rot or burst to pieces, so long as Rajputana stands! But—” He paused a moment, and looked at each man in turn, and tapped his sabre-hilt, “ — if a Cunnigan-bahadur were among us — a man whom I could trust to lead me and mine and every man — I would lend him my sword for the sheer honor of helping him hack truth out of corruption! I have nothing more to say!”
