Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “I have found plenty of merchants who would promise to finance revolt, and plenty of hillmen who would promise anything. But all said, ‘We will do what the army does!’ And I could not find in all this time, among all those people, anybody to whom I dared show what we — Germany — can do to help. I have seen from the first it was only with the aid of the army that we could accomplish anything, yet the army has been unapproachable. How is it that you have seemed so loyal, all of you, until the minute of war?”

  Ranjoor Singh spat again through the opening with thoroughness and great deliberation. Then he proceeded to give proof that, as Yasmini had said, he was really not a buffalo at all. A fool would have taken chances with any one of a dozen other explanations. Ranjoor Singh, with an expression that faintly suggested Colonel Kirby, picked the right, convincing one.

  “The English are not bad people,” he said simply. “They have left India better than they found it. They have been unselfish. They have treated us soldiers fairly and honorably. We would not have revolted had the opportunity not come, but we have long been waiting for the opportunity.

  “We are not madmen — we are soldiers. We know the value of mere words. We have kept our plans secret from the merchants and the hillmen, knowing well that they would all follow our lead. If you think that you, or Germany, have persuaded us, you are mistaken. You could not persuade me, or any other true soldier, if you tried for fifty years!

  “It is because we had decided on revolt already that I was willing to listen to your offer of material assistance. We understand that Germany expects to gain advantage from our revolt, but we can not help that; that is incidental. As soldiers, we accept what aid we can get from anywhere!”

  “So?” said the German.

  “Ja!” said Ranjoor Singh. “And that is why, if you fail me, I shall give you to Yasmini’s cobras!”

  “You will admit,” said the German, “when I have shown you, that Germany’s foresight has been long and shrewd. Your great chance of success, my friend, like Germany’s in this war, depends on a sudden, swift, tremendous success at first; the rest will follow as a logical corollary. It is the means of securing that first success that we have been making ready for you for two years and more.”

  “You should have credit for great secrecy,” admitted Ranjoor Singh. “Until a little while ago I had heard nothing of any German plans.”

  “Russia got the blame for what little was guessed at!” laughed the German.

  “Oh!” said Ranjoor Singh.

  A little before midday they reached the Ajmere Gate, and the lumbering cart passed under it. At the farther side the driver stopped his oxen without orders, and Ranjoor Singh stepped out, looking quickly up and down the road. There were people about, but none whom he chose to favor with a second glance.

  Close by the gate, almost under the shadow of it, and so drab and dirty as to be almost unnoticeable, there was a little cotton-tented booth, with a stock of lemonade and sweetmeats, that did interest him. He looked three times at it, and at the third look a Mohammedan wriggled out of it and walked away without a word.

  “Come!” commanded Ranjoor Singh, and the German got out of the cart, looking not so very much unlike the poor Mohammedan who had gone away.

  “Get in there!” The German slipped into the real owner’s place. So far as appearances went, he was a very passable sweetmeat and lemonade seller, and Ranjoor Singh proved competent to guard against contingencies.

  He picked a long stick out of the gutter and took his stand near by, frowning as he saw a carriage he suspected to be Yasmini’s drive under the gate and come to a stand at the roadside, fifty or sixty yards away.

  “If the officers should recognize me,” he growled to the German, though seeming not to talk to him at all, “I should be arrested at once, and shot later. But the men will recognize me, and you shall see what you shall see!”

  Three small boys came with a coin to spend, but Ranjoor Singh drove them away with his long stick; they argued shrilly from a distance, and one threw a stone at him, but finally they decided he was some new sort of plain-clothes “constabeel,” and went away.

  One after another, several natives came to make small purchases, but, not being boys any longer, a gruff word was enough to send them running. And then came the clatter of hoofs of the advance-guard, and the German looked up to see a fire in Ranjoor Singh’s eyes that a caged tiger could not have outdone.

  All this while the bullock-cart in which they had come remained in the middle of the road, its driver dozing dreamily on his seat and the bullocks perfectly content to chew the cud. At the sound of the hoofs behind him, the driver suddenly awoke and began to belabor and kick his animals; he seemed oblivious of another cart that came toward him, and of a third that hurried after him from underneath the gate.

  In less than sixty seconds all three carts were neatly interlocked, and their respective drivers were engaged in a war of words that beggared Babel.

  The advance-guard halted and added words to the torrent. Colonel Kirby caught up the advance-guard and halted, too.

  “Does he look like a man who commands a loyal regiment?” asked Ranjoor Singh; and the German studied the bowed head and thoughtful angle of a man who at that minute was regretting his good friend the risaldar-major.

  “You will note that he looks chastened!”

  The German nodded.

  In his own good time Ranjoor Singh ran out and helped with that long stick of his to straighten out the mess; then in thirty seconds the wheels were unlocked again and the carts moving in a hurry to the roadside. The advance- guard moved on, and Kirby followed. Then, troop by troop, the whole of Outram’s Own rode by, and the German began to wonder. It seemed to him that the rest of the officers were not demure enough, although he admitted to himself that the enigmatic Eastern faces in the ranks might mean anything at all. He noted that there was almost no talking, and he took that for a good sign for Germany.

  D Squadron came last of all, and convinced him. They rode regretfully, as men who missed their squadron leader, and who, in spite of a message from him, would have better loved to see him riding on their flank.

  But Ranjoor Singh stepped out into the road, and the right-end man of the front four recognized him. Not a word was said that the German could hear, but he could see the recognition run from rank to rank and troop to troop, until the squadron knew to a man; he saw them glance at Ranjoor Singh, and from him to one another, and ride on with a new stiffening and a new air of “now we’ll see what comes of it!”

  It was as evident, to his practiced eye, that they were glad to have seen Ranjoor Singh, and looked forward to seeing him again very shortly, as that they were in a mood for trouble, and he decided to believe the whole of what the Sikh had said on the strength of the obvious truth of part of it.

  “Watch now the supply train!” growled Ranjoor Singh, as the wagons began to rumble by.

  The German had no means of knowing that the greater part of the regiment’s war provisions had gone away by train from a Delhi station. The wagons that followed the regiment on the march were a generous allowance for a regiment going into camp, but not more than that. The spies whose duty it was to watch the railway sidings reported to somebody else and not to him.

  Ranjoor Singh beckoned him after a while, and they came out into the road, to stand between two of the bullock-wagons and gaze after the regiment. The shuttered carriage that Ranjoor Singh had suspected to be Yasmini’s passed them again, and the man beside the driver said something to Ranjoor Singh in an undertone, but the German did not hear it; he was watching the colonel and another officer talking together beside the road in the distance. The shuttered carriage passed on, but stopped in the shadow of the gate.

  “Look!” said the German. “I thought that officer — the adjutant, isn’t he — recognized you. Now he is pointing you out to the colonel! Look!”

  Ranjoor Singh did look, and he saw that Colonel Kirby was waiting to let the regiment go by. H
e knew what was passing through Kirby’s mind, since it is given to some men, native and English, to have faith in each other. And he knew that there was danger ahead of him through which he might not come with his life, perhaps even with his honor. He would have given, like Kirby, a full year’s pay for a hand-shake then, and have thought the pay well spent.

  Kirby began to canter back.

  “He has recognized you!” said the German.

  “And he is coming to cut me down!” swore Ranjoor Singh.

  He dragged the German back behind the nearest cart, and together they ran for the gloom of the big gate, leaving the driver of the bullock-cart standing at gaze where Ranjoor Singh had stood. The door of the shuttered carriage flew open as they reached it, and Ranjoor Singh pushed the German in. He stood a moment longer, with his foot on the carriage step, watching Colonel Kirby; he watched him question the bullock-cart driver.

  Then a voice that he recognized said, “Buffalo!” and he followed into the carriage, shutting the door behind him.

  The carriage was off almost before the door slammed.

  “Am I to be kept waiting for a week, while a Jat farmer gazes at cattle on the road?” demanded Yasmini, sitting forward out of the darkest corner of the carriage and throwing aside a veil. “He cares nothing for thee!” she whispered. “Didst thou see the jasmine drop into his lap from the gate? That was mine! Didst thou see him button it into his tunic? So, Ranjoor Singh! That for thy colonel sahib! And his head will smell of my musk for a week to come! What — what fools men are! Jaldee, jaldee!” she called to the driver through the shutters, and the man whipped up his pair.

  It was more than scandalous to be driven through Delhi streets in a shuttered carriage with a native lady, and even the German’s presence scarcely modified the sensation; the German did not appreciate the rarity of his privilege, for he was too busy staring through the shutters at a world which tried its best to hide excitement; but Ranjoor Singh was aware all the time of Yasmini’s mischievous eyes and of mirth that held her all but speechless. He knew that she would make up tales about that ride, and would have told them to half of India to his enduring shame before a year was out.

  “Are you satisfied?” she asked the German, after a long silence.

  “Of what?” asked the German.

  “That Ranjoor Singh sahib can do what he has promised.”

  The German laughed.

  “I have an excuse for doing what I promised,” he said, “if that is what you mean.”

  “That regiment,” said Ranjoor Singh, since he had made up his mind to lie thoroughly, “will camp a day’s march out of Delhi. The men will wait to hear from me for a day or two, but after that they will mutiny and be done with it; the men are almost out of hand with excitement.”

  “You mean—”

  The German’s eyebrows rose, and his light-blue eyes sought Ranjoor Singh’s.

  “I mean that now is the time to do your part, that I may continue doing mine!” he answered.

  “What I have to offer would be of no use without the regiment to use it,” said the German. “Let the regiment mutiny, and I will lead you and it at once to what I spoke of.”

  “No,” said Ranjoor Singh.

  “What then?”

  “It does not suit my plan, or my convenience, that there should be any outbreak until I myself have knowledge of all my resources. When everything is in my hand, I will strike hard and fast in my own good time.”

  “You seem to forget,” said the German, “that the material aid I offer is from Germany, and that therefore Germany has a right to state the terms. Of course, I know there are the cobras, but I am not afraid of them. Our stipulation is that there shall be at least a show of fight before aid is given. If the cobras deal with me, and my secret dies with me, there will be one German less and that is all. That regiment I have seen looks ripe for mutiny.”

  Ranjoor Singh drew breath slowly through set teeth.

  “Let it mutiny,” said the German, “and I am ready with such material assistance as will place Delhi at its mercy. Delhi is the key to India!”

  “It shall mutiny tonight!” said Ranjoor Singh abruptly.

  The German stared hard at him, though not so hard as Yasmini; the chief difference was that nobody could have told she was staring, whereas the German gaped.

  “It shall mutiny tonight, and you shall be there! You shall lead us then to this material aid you promise, and after that, if it all turns out to be a lie, as I suspect, we will talk about cobras.”

  For a minute, two minutes, three minutes, while the rubber tires bumped along the road toward Yasmini’s, the German sat in silence, looking straight in front of him.

  “Order horses for him and me!” commanded Ranjoor Singh; and Yasmini bowed obedience.

  “When will you start?” the German asked.

  “Now! In twenty minutes! We will follow the regiment and reach camp soon after it.”

  “I must speak first with my colleagues,” said the German.

  “No!” growled the Sikh.

  “My secret information is that several regiments are ordered oversea. Some of them will consent to go, my friend. We will do well to wait until as many regiments as possible are on the water, and then strike hard with the aid of such as have refused to go.”

  The carriage drew up at Yasmini’s front door, and a man jumped off the box seat to open the carriage.

  “Say the rest inside!” she ordered. “Go into the house! Quickly!”

  So the German stepped out first, moving toward the door much too spryly for the type of street merchant he was supposed to be.

  “Do you mean that?” whispered Yasmini, as she pushed past Ranjoor Singh. “Do you mean to ride away with him and stage a mutiny? How can you?”

  “She-buffalo!” he answered, with the first low laugh she had heard from him since the game began.

  She ran into the house and all the way up the two steep flights of stairs, laughing like a dozen peals of fairy bells.

  At the head of the stairs she began to sing, for she looked back and saw babu Sita Ram waddling wheezily upstairs after Ranjoor Singh and the German.

  “The gods surely love Yasmini!” she told her maids. “Catch me that babu and bottle him! Drive him into a room where I can speak with him alone!”

  “Oh, my God, my God!” wailed the babu at the stair-head from amid a maze of women who hustled and shoved him all one way, and that the way he did not want to go. “I must speak with that German gentleman who was giving lecture here — must positivelee give him warning, or all his hopes will be blasted everlastinglee! No — that is room where are cobras — I will not go there!”

  In three native languages, one after the other, he pleaded and wailed to no good end; the women were too many for him. He was shoved into a small room as a fat beast is driven into a slaughter-stall, and a door was slammed shut on him. He screamed at an unexpected voice from behind a curtain, and a moment later burst into a sweat from reaction at the sight of Yasmini.

  “Listen, babuji,” she purred to him.

  “Who was that man asking for me?” demanded the German.

  “How should I know?” snorted Ranjoor Singh. “Are we to turn aside for every fat babu that asks to speak to us? I have sent for horses.”

  “I will speak with that man!” said the German.

  He began to walk up and down the length of the long room, pushing aside the cushions irritably, and at one end knocking over a great bowl of flowers. He did not appear conscious of his clumsiness, and did not seem to see the maids who ran to mop up the water. At the next turn down the room he pushed between them as if they had not been there. Ranjoor Singh stood watching him, stroking a black beard reflectively; he was perfectly sure that Yasmini would make the next move, and was willing to wait for it.

  “The horses should be here in a few minutes,” he said hopefully, after a while, for he heard a door open.

  Then babu Sita Ram burst in, half running, and holding his grea
t stomach as he always did when in a hurry.

  “Oh, my God!” he wailed. “Quick! Where is German gentleman? And not knowing German, how shall I make meaning clear? German should be reckoned among dead languages and — Ah! My God, sir, you astonish me! Resemblance to Mohammedan of no particular standing in community is first class! How shall I—”

  “Say it in English!” said the German, blocking his way.

  “My God, sahib, it is bad news! How shall I avoid customaree stigma attaching to bearer of ill tidings?”

  “Speak!” said the German. “I won’t hurt you!”

  “Sahib, in pursuit unavailingly of chance emolument in neighborhood of Chandni Chowk just recently—”

  “How recently?” the German asked.

  “Oh, my God! So recently that there are yet erections of cuticle all down my back! Sahib, not more than twenty minutes have elapsed, and I saw this with my own eyes!”

  “Saw what — where?”

  “Where? Have I not said where? My God, I am so upset as to be losing sense of all proportion! Where? At German place of business — Sigelman and Meyer — in small street leading out of Chandni Chowk. In search of chance emolument, and finding none yet — finding none yet, sahib — sahib, I am poor man, having wife and familee dependent and also many other disabilitees, including wife’s relatives.”

  The German gave him some paper money impatiently. The babu unfolded it, eyed the denomination with a spasm of relief, folded it again, and appeared to stow it into his capacious stomach.

  “Sahib, while I was watching, police came up at double-quick march and arrested everybodee, including all Germans in building. There was much annoyance manifested when search did not reveal presence of one other sahib. So I ran to give warning, being veree poor man and without salaried employment.”

  “What happened to the Germans?”

  “Jail, sahib! All have gone to jail! By this time they are all excommunication, supplied with food and water by authorities. Having once been jail official myself, I can testify—”

  “What happened to the office?”