Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  He knew a little of the Moslem mind, having a gift and a liking, which is another name for it, for studying the abstruse. He understood the pride with which Mahommed Babar would strive to keep faith, and, pride failing, the recklessness with which he would deliberately go the limit of unfaithfulness. Reproach would not improve that frame of mind, and in the circumstances any attempt by Ommony to hold communication with him must unavoidably savor of reproach. Silence, aloofness, was the kinder course, as well as the only one tolerable to Tregurtha.

  So Ommony begged leave for his bearers to lag behind, alleging the good reason that his junglis would not then be afraid to bring him word of any overtaking enemy. Junglis and the dogs were better than any regulation rear- guard.

  Tregurtha sent his prisoner on ahead, with a lieutenant and twenty men told off to do nothing but guard him. His wrists and his ankles were lashed to the poles of the litter, and, since that arrangement would have submitted him otherwise to torture from flies, a burlap curtain was suspended all around him. Even that was raised at fifteen-minute intervals to make sure he was not up to tricks.

  Tregurtha marched midway down the column, where he could handle the whole most easily whichever end might get into difficulties. The cook with his pots and pans and all the odds and ends borne cheerfully enough on poles by Tommy Atkins, who will make a joke of anything provided he only gets the kind of officer he loves, was between the main column and the official rear-guard, who again preceded Ommony. So only the dogs and the men who carried Ommony were aware of the one-eyed thing in rags who crept from a thicket on all fours, blubbering and ranting in a mixture of Lascar-English, French, Portuguese, Hindustanee, and a dozen other languages. He clung to the legs of the litter-bearers and refused to be kicked away. Ommony had to control the dogs sternly.

  He was long past walking. Yet he could not be left, and every minute of delay increased the column’s lead. He was pierced with thorns, fly-bitten, full of fever that racked him and shook his aching limbs, and worse than all those, mad with a fear that made his one eye bulge out of its socket.

  “Oh, hell!” he groaned. “You know Lal Rai! You know-um! You not leave-um! Oh—” and he wandered off into a stream of dock-rat blasphemy that all meant nothing except that he was licked, conquered, begging for mercy, and as fit to be trusted as a wolf in similar circumstances.

  In other words, there was just the possibility that he might be tamed a bit.

  “Is that the bloke as ‘it ye on the ‘ead, sir?” asked a litter-bearer sympathetically, grateful for the delay and making use of it to light a clay pipe. “If ‘e ‘ad ‘is rights ‘e’d lead the dawgs acrost a line o’ country! Let the blighter crawl, sir, if ‘is feet ain’t workin’. Serve ‘im proper if ‘e can’t keep up. That bloke’s a bad ‘at — never done no one no bloomin’ good. Ger-r-r-outo-that! Lemmy-leg-alone, d’ye ‘ear!”

  But though it had been a moral obligation to punish Prothero, it would have been descending to the culprit’s level to wreak vengeance on his miserable servitor. There is a definite distinction in such matters. Ommony put his fingers in his teeth and whistled — then laughed, for the fear that had been was as nothing to the paroxysms when the first three naked junglis emerged like timid wraiths into the jungle lane.

  A man in delirium tremens, seeing snakes, makes the same fuss that Lal Rai did, and for reasons as valid. The junglis would no more have harmed him physically than the shadow of a cloud will wreck a mountain. They were almost as afraid as he was, only they knew they had a friend in Ommony, and Lal Rai knew he had none even in far-away Prothero. That constituted all the difference, intangible, but enough, and his grimaces were like Pierrot’s voiding his sense of emptiness.

  The junglis are no more muscular than they are intelligible to the ordinary run, which is hardly at all. No more are they carpenters — builders of anything. The difference between them and the animals, anatomy excluded, is confined to this — that just a little more distinctly than the animals they are aware of the existence of a moral law, apart from physical desire. That is the ladder along which all creation moves, the only way it advances, and is the reason why the “missing link” is no more discernible than the exact point where light begins and darkness ceases. Or so says Ommony. There are high-priests, low-priests and followers of other cults who call him an impostor and an ignoramus.

  At least he can understand junglis, and they him, which is unusual. He put them to work, which no other man ever did. They brought him some poles and the long, supple strands of a creeper, and held them while Tommy, with ingenuity and language suitable to the occasion, constructed a litter that would do. Whereat the junglis fell on Lal Rai, Ommony commanding, dogs on tiptoe with excitement, and Thomas Atkins critically amused. The wretch who had fled from those thin, naked forms through the night was incapable now of believing them able or willing to help him. He fought like an animal trapped. It was minutes before they could throw him and tie him in place in the comfortless thing they had made, whereon he was to travel like a man half- crucified, with Ommony’s borrowed blanket thrown over him to keep off the flies and a night-spook fanning his face with a broken wild-plantain leaf.

  The junglis were unused to carrying — except one of Ommony’s guns on occasion, which was the highest honor within reach, and corresponded to Macaulay’s yearned-for-decoration. When they moved their scant belongings, which was often, women labored, which is woman’s business. It was incorrect, undignified to gather up that litter with its burden and bring up the rear of the procession, league on league.

  Yet Ommony commanded, and they did, half-consciously aware that he knew dim, disastrous laws beyond their ken, which he obeyed and they did not dare disobey. Whereas all other men, except their own sparse remnants of a history-less race, were incomprehensible, astonishing, unable to explain, Ommony understood and could give reasons, that were reasons and not conundrums to the jungle intellect. Wherefore, although their women-folk would mock them and need beating, they obeyed, conceding doubtless that a beating would do the women good.

  Once in a while Tregurtha sent back a non-commissioned officer to inquire whether all was well, so it was reported that the blacks were carrying Lal Rai. But nobody was interested. It was agreed the world would be no richer for him, and would hardly have been poorer if the wolves had overcome him in the night. They had Mahommed Babar, safe and alive, which was what they went for, and Tregurtha proposed to wash his hands of all association with the lying stool-pigeon Lal Rai, whose discreditable master Prothero might have the whole credit for him and his consequences! So he ignored the news of his existence, gave no orders concerning him, made no comment when the breathless, overtaking non-com hiccoughed his report. Least said, the soonest mended.

  They halted for food and a rest, but food was scant. Tregurtha believed that a raiding party should travel light and lived up to his convictions. If the men wanted a square meal, they must march; the train was the larder; so the breathing spells were short, and Ommony, whose men must rest too, never came near catching up. Toward the end the junglis wilted like severed green stuff under their unaccustomed load, and had to be coaxed as well as waited for; so although they reached the train about midafternoon, the soldiers had eaten and were singing songs impatiently when Ommony came. Steam was up on a newly-arrived engine, which had brought a letter to Tregurtha from headquarters forbidding him, over Macaulay’s signature, to go raiding into the jungle on any pretext whatever.

  That letter put Tregurtha in a perfectly good temper. The wires were repaired, and Macaulay, he knew, must already be aware of what had happened, with what excellent result. The engine had brought an empty box-car, which was stuffy but an otherwise perfect place of confinement for the prisoner, who was locked in nearly naked, with no means of hanging himself, and watched through a small iron grating by two men, one at either end, who would give the alarm in a moment should he try to escape. Everything was excellent, including one of Ommony’s cigars.

  He was a troublesome
prisoner — difficult to handle in proportion to his value and the cost of taking him. Whenever they had loosed one hand to let him eat or drink he had used it to pluck at his other fastenings, never saying a word, but toward the end of the journey glancing incessantly from right to left, as if he rather expected someone to spring out of the undergrowth and rescue him.

  So they had taken great care; and even when they had him clear of possible ambush in the jungle and locked in the box-car, twenty men were told off to keep guard on either side of the track until the train should start, and the two who stood on the iron steps at either end were cautioned under penalty never to take their eyes away from the gratings through which they watched the prisoner.

  But Tregurtha could override his own strict orders. And to him, obsequious and bland, armed with a permit to be out along the line, “to look into the extent of losses at the hands of Moplahs” — almost as beautifully forged it was, and quite as convincing, as the servants’ references sold in the bazaar — came a Hindu gentleman in cotton clothes and turban, who “rejoiced to believe” that Mahommed Babar had been captured.

  “That scourge of the villages! That terror of the jungle! Oh, sir, the country-side will bless you!”

  That did not make Tregurtha’s temper any worse. The decent gentlemen who held a country in subjection, being decent, like to believe themselves appreciated by the “thoughtful natives.” The Briton in India is as sure of his duty and as keen on it as ever Roman legionary was in Britain. Moreover, he will cling at least as steadfastly, and die in the end as game. Meanwhile, he liked a little recognition, even on the lips of flattery.

  “Oh, sir, how I would love to set eyes on him! He burned my property. I saw him standing with his officers giving the order to set my barn alight. I heard the words. I could recognize his voice again. If I only might identify him! Then I could tell all men I have seen him with these eyes — heard him with these ears — and even those who have said they receive no protection from the Government would have to take their words back!”

  That was reasonable. It could do no harm to let him look through the grating at one end of the box-car, while the man at the other end moved to let the failing light shine through. Tregurtha himself gave the order to the men to get down off the steps and let the “Hindu gentleman” see inside. So the Hindu stood for possibly twenty minutes tip-toeing on the iron step, exchanging a few words with the prisoner, as if trying to persuade him to look up and be recognized. Tregurtha did not mind his talking with him. It was too late for words to make any difference. Weapons — nails — a small file — were the sort of thing to be looked out for. Satisfied at last, the Hindu gentleman, all gratitude and grins, asked after Ommony.

  “For it was said, sahib, that he was taken prisoner by Mahommed Babar.”

  “Mr. Ommony is on his way here,” said Tregurtha.

  “If I might only see him too. Then I could satisfy everybody!”

  “Go and wait there, at the end of the jungle-path, and you’ll see him coming.”

  That being the apex, as it were, of all available permission, the Hindu sat down in the shade and referred inquisitive sentries to Tregurtha, who, when appealed to, answered:

  “Let the man alone.”

  So when Ommony’s litter at last came sweating jerkily along the fairway a man in Hindu turban, whom the dogs unaccountably did not challenge, strode out of the shadow of a great tree. He was a clean-shaven Hindu, unknown to the junglis or to Ommony; but Diana’s tail, that never made mistakes, beat a sort of reassuring tattoo on the dry earth alongside the litter. The fox-terrier yapped, disliking Hindu clothing, and the setter cocked one eye warily. The sun being low beyond the westward trees, the light in the throat of the lane was uncertain, which accounts in the main for one or two things.

  The Hindu as he drew near raised his right hand almost with the motion of an upward dagger-blow. The soldiers had halted. They dropped the litter, each with a separate oath. They were ready to kill for the sake of the man they had carried all that way and who, according to their view of it, was a “decent sort of bloke.” Nevertheless, the dogs made no move, and the junglis, who were quite as watchful and suspicious as the dogs, did not even set their burden down. Questioned about it afterward, they said “the dogs told us,” which was a long speech from them and more than usually full of explanation.

  The Hindu did not strike. He did not come near enough to strike. So far as anybody knew, and notwithstanding the imagination of Private Joe Peebles who was litter-bearer on the forward port-end, he had no weapon. He simply tossed a folded letter into Ommony’s lap, made a gruff exclamation whose purport no one caught, and vanished into the deepening gloom along the edge of the forest.

  Ommony could have sent Diana to keep track of him, but the train was waiting and Tregurtha was beckoning violently. He could have sent the junglis, but they were prodigiously weary after their unaccustomed labor, and the same problem of lack of time entered into their case too. The simplest course was to open the letter and read it, and to do that he was obliged to have himself carried out into the open, where the light was better. Which being accomplished, there was no longer any sense in pursuing the Hindu, who, if in haste, had had plenty of time to put distance between them. Tregurtha called to him and the litter-bearers answered at the double, so he did not actually read the letter for several minutes.

  There was the business of rewarding the junglis, for whom he begged fabulous gifts from Tregurtha — even a blanket apiece from the dead men’s kit and — unbelievable, amazing wealth of wonders! — an army flannel shirt for each of them, as useless, and henceforth as fashionable, in the jungle as a silk hat at midsummer funerals in Maine.

  It was after that, as the sun went down, Ommony sitting on the running- board of the train beside Tregurtha, whom he invited to read it along with him for politeness’ sake, that the contents of the letter were revealed to four astonished eyes. The train had not moved on yet because a man with a cutting-in set had reported that headquarters was trying to phone Tregurtha along the mended wire and he expected they would overcome the bad connection in a few minutes. So together Tregurtha and Ommony studied, and studied again the remarkable note that, though never read at any trial, did constitute a plea for mercy more effective than the voice of any paid attorney in the world.

  Ommony sahib, Salaam!

  My heart is broken that I did not keep my promise to surrender to justice Ali Kahn, who is a murderer deserving death, and who himself admits it. Wherefore I sought death, but was taken prisoner, and am treated, as you see, with indignity, which may be just, since Ali Kahn escaped and I am at fault.

  I have not the heart to appeal to you in person, nor to look into eyes that ever met mine fairly and without reserve. If opportunity is given me to end my life before the executioner can take the work in hand, I will seize on it. This, therefore, is perhaps a dying man’s request, made to a friend whose heart it is believed is great enough to overlook the present for the sake of past esteem.

  Sahib, I fear but three things: First, that your honor may suffer for having acted charitably, ever seeking to persuade me to avoid such violence as should include me among those to whom no quarter may be granted. It was through your wise advice that I kept that standard ever first in mind, and it is therefore due to you that I forbade, and sternly punished, excesses by my followers. Sahib, I implore you, let no consideration for my predicament interfere with your own care for yourself. I am as good as dead. You have your life to live. You need not spare my memory.

  Second: I fear that my capture and execution may be kept secret in order the better to trap certain of my friends, who, if the news were published, would not leave the North in search of me. Permit me to remind you, sahib, that my reason for disbanding at this time and deliberately letting myself fall into British hands was none other than to save those friends of mine from hurrying to join a lost cause. My sacrifice will have been worse than useless, therefore, if the news should not be so widely publish
ed as to become common talk throughout the North. If it is the last favor, sahib, and although there can be no acknowledgment from me, I beg you in the interest of peace and for the sake of honorable men not yet indictable, use all your influence to break up secrecy!

  Third: There is a fear that tortures me alone and therefore shall be mentioned with less emphasis. I fear that they will hang, not shoot me. Sahib, as you know, death by hanging is not conformable to my religion, nor is it worthy treatment for a man who, whether or not proclaimed guilty of treason, has been a rebel and no worse. If your honor should have time and the inclination, I would be grateful for such relief in this respect as one friend may contrive for another.

  This letter is written with the aid of Ram Ghose, who, if caught and punished for passing pen and paper to me by means of a trick played on my captor, will beseech your honor’s favor on the ground that it was he who treated your honor’s dogs in your honor’s absence at a time when they would otherwise have died of poisoning. He has no other claim on your consideration.

  For the rest, Bahadur, kindly spare me the distress which is all that a final interview between us could accomplish. You live for India. I die for her. Your hope is in patience and the overturning evolution in the hearts of men. My faith is rooted deep in war, the saber and straight-forwardness. Only Allah, who knoweth all things, can decide between us.

  May He, who judgeth pride, when all is set and off-set, reckon in my favor, if nothing else, than this — that with pride and gratitude I lived, and shall have died.

  Your friend, (Sirdar) Mahommed Babar Khan (Once of the Dera-Ismail Border Regiment.)

  “By God!” exclaimed Tregurtha, choking. “Gad! That fellow shan’t be hanged if it costs my commission! He shall be shot by men of unimpeachable record who fought in France, if my name’s Trig! So that’s why he put up a fight instead of surrendering— ‘fraid we’d hang him! Huh! A decent fellow who could write that letter should have known we’d never hang him! Can’t you speak with him through the bars and persuade him to be sensible? We’ll let bygones be. I’ll take his parole if he’ll ride where I can keep an eye on him.”