Caste Part 12

A party of villagers hurried by, shifting their cheap turbans to hide faces as they scurried along.

The Gulab was trembling; perhaps the decoits, led by Hunsa, had come by a shorter way; for they were like beasts of the jungle in this art of silent, swift travel.

"Sahib," she pleaded, "go from the road."

"Why, Bootea?"

"The one with the staff spoke of soldiers."

He laughed and patted her shoulder. "Don't fear, little lady," he said, "an army doesn't make war upon one, even if they are soldiers. It will be but a wedding party who now take the wife to the village of her husband."

"Not at night; and a Sahib who carries a woman upon his saddle will hear words of offence."

Though Barlow laughed he was troubled. What if the smouldering fire of sedition had flared up, and that even now men of Sindhia's were slipping on a night march toward some ma.s.sing of rebels. The resonant, heavy moaning of ma.s.sive wheels was like the rumble of a gun carriage. And, too, there was the drumming of many hoofs upon the road. Barlow's ear told him it was the rhythmic beat of cavalry horses, not the erratic rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat of native ponies.

With a pressure upon the rein he edged the grey from the white road to a fringe of bamboo and date palms, saying; "If you will wait here, Gulab, I'll see what this is all about."

He slipped from the saddle and lifted her gently to the ground saying, "Don't move; of a certainty it is nothing but the pa.s.sing of some raja.

But, if by any chance I don't return, wait until all is still, until all have gone, and then some well-disposed driver of a bullock cart will take you on your way." Putting his hand in his pocket, and drawing it forth, he added: "Here is the compeller of friendship--silver; for a bribe even an enemy will become a friend."

But the Gulab with her slim fingers closed his hand over the rupees, and pressed the back of it against her lips saying, "If I die it is nothing.

But stay here, Sahib, they may be--"

She stopped, and he asked, "May be who, Gulab?"

"Men who will harm thee."

But Barlow lifting to the saddle pa.s.sed to the road, and Bootea crumpled down in a little desolate heap of misery, her fingers thrust within her bodice, pleading with an amulet for protection for the Sahib. She prayed to her own village G.o.d to breathe mercy into the hearts of those who marched in war, and if it were the Bagrees, that Bhowanee would vouchsafe them an omen that to harm the one on a white horse would bring her wrath upon their families and their villages.

Captain Barlow reined in the grey on the roadside, for those that marched were close. Now he could see, two abreast, horses that carried cavalry men. Ten couples of the troop rode by with low-voiced exchanges of words amongst themselves. A petty officer rode at their heels, and behind him, on a bay Arab, whose sweated skin glistened like red wine in the moonlight, came a _risiladar_, the commander of the troop. A little down the road Barlow could see an undulating, swaying huge ribbon of white-and-pink bullocks, twenty-four yoke of the tall lean-flanked powerful _Amrit Mahal_, the breed that Hyder Ali long ago had brought on his conquering way to the land of the Mahrattas. And beyond the ghost-like line of white creatures was some huge thing that they drew.

The commander reined his Arab to a stand beside Barlow and saluted, saying, "Salaam, Major Sahib--you ride alone?"

Barlow said: "My salaams, Risiladar, and I am but a captain. I ride at night because the days are hot. My two men have gone before me because my horse dropped a shoe which had to be replaced. Did the Risiladar see my two servants that were mounted?"

"I met none such," the commander answered. "Perhaps in some village they have rested for a drink of liquor; they of the army are given to such practices when their Captain's eye is not upon them. I go with this"--and he waved a gauntleted hand back toward the thing that loomed beyond the bullocks that had now come to a halt. "It is the bra.s.s cannon, the like of which there is no other. We go to the camp of the Amil, who commands the Sindhia troops, taking him the bra.s.s cannon that it may compel a Musselman zemindar to pay the tax that is long past due.

Why the barbarian should not pay I know not for a tax of one-fourth is not much for a foreigner, a debased follower of Mahomet, to render unto the ruler of this land that is the garden of the world. He has shut himself and men up in his mud fort, but when this bra.s.s mother of destruction spits into his stronghold a ball or two that is not opium he will come forth or we will enter by the gate the cannon has made."

"Then there will be bloodshed, Risiladar," Barlow declared.

"True, Captain Sahib; but that is, after a manner, the method of collecting just dues in this land where those who till the soil now, were, but a generation or two since, men of the sword,--they can't forget the traditions. In the land of the British Raj six inches of a paper, with a big seal duly affixed, would do the business. That I know, for I have travelled far, Sahib. As to the bloodshed, worse will be the trampling of crops, for in the district of this worshipper of Mahomet the wheat grows like wild scrub in the jungle, taller than up to the belly of my horse. That is the whyfore of the cannon, in a way of speaking, because from a hill we can send to this man a slaying message, and leave the wheat standing to fill the bellies of those who are in his hands as a tyrant. Sirdar Baptiste was for sending a thousand sepoys to put the fear of destruction in the debtor; but the Dewan with his eye on revenue from crops, hit upon this plan of the loud-voiced one of bra.s.s."

Then the commander ordered the advance, and saluting, said: "Salaam, Captain Sahib, and if I meet with your servants I will give them news that you desire their presence."

When the huge cannon had rumbled by, and behind it had pa.s.sed a company of sepoys on foot, Barlow turned his horse into the jungle for Gulab.

CHAPTER XI

Bootea's eyes glistened like stars when, lowering a hand, Barlow said: "Put a foot upon mine, Gulab, and I'll swing you up."

When they were on the road she said; "I saw them. It is as the runner said, war--is it so, Sahib?"

"The Captain says that he goes to collect revenue, but it may be that he spoke a lie, for it is said that a man of the land of the Five Rivers, which is the Punjaub, has five ways of telling a tale, and but one of them is the truth and comes last."

The girl pondered over this for a little, and then asked; "Does the Sahib think perhaps it is war against his people?"

That was just what was in Barlow's mind since he had seen the big gun going forth at night; that perhaps the plot that was just a whisper, fainter than the hum of a humming bird's wing, was moving with swift silent velocity.

"Why do you ask that question? Have you heard from lips--perhaps loosened by wine or desire--aught of this?"

When she remained without answer, Barlow tapped his fingers lightly upon her shoulder, saying, "Tell me, girl."

"I have heard nothing of war," she said. "There was a something though that men whispered in the dark."

"What was it?"

"It was of the Chief of the Pindaris."

She felt the quivering start that ran through Barlow's body; but he said quietly: "With the Pindaris there is always trouble. Something of robbery--of a raid, was it?"

"I will listen again to those that whisper in the dark," she answered, "and perhaps if it concerns you, for your protection, I will tell."

"I hope those men didn't fall in with my two chaps," Barlow said, rather voicing his thoughts than in the way of speaking to the girl.

"The two who rode--they were the Captain Sahib's servants?"

Barlow started. "Yes, they were: I suppose I can trust you."

"And the Sahib is troubled? Perhaps it was a message for the Sahib that they carried."

"I don't know," he answered, evasively. "I was thinking that perhaps they might be messengers, for our sepoys are not stationed here, and come but on such errands."

"And if they were lulled, and the message stolen, it would cause trouble?"

She felt him tremble as he looked down into her eyes.

"I don't know. But the messages of a Raj are not for the ears of men to whom they have not been sent."

Barlow had an intuition that the girl's words were not prompted by idle curiosity. He was possessed of a sudden gloomy impression that she knew something of the two men who rode. And it was strange that they had not been seen upon either of the roads. The officer spoke of them frankly, and not as a man hiding something.

Suddenly he took a firm resolve, perhaps a dangerous one; not dangerous though if his men had really gone through.

"Gulab," he said,--and with his hand he turned her face up by the chin till their eyes were close together,--"if the two bore a message for me, and it was stolen, I would be like that one you loved was lost."

The beautiful face swung from his palm and he could hear her gasping.