Caste Part 20

"Ah-a-a!" Barlow exclaimed in disgust--"that's India; the fever-bird, the koel, harbinger of the hot-spell, of burning sun and stifling dust, and throbbing head."

He cursed the koel, for the gentle mood had slipped from Elizabeth. He had hoped that she would have spoken of yesterday, give him a shamed solace for the hurt she had given him. Of course Hodson would have told her all about the Gulab. But while that, the service, was sufficient for the Resident, Elizabeth would consider the fact that Barlow knew Bootea well enough to have this service rendered; it would touch her caste--also her exacting nature.

Something like this was floating through his mind as he groped mentally for an explanation of Elizabeth's att.i.tude, the effect of which was neutral; nothing to draw him toward her in a way of moral sustaining, but also, nothing to antagonise him.

She must know that he was leaving on a dangerous mission; but she did not bring it up. Perhaps with her usual diffident reserve she felt that it was his province to speak of that.

At any rate she called to a hovering bearer telling him to give his master Captain Barlow's salaams. Then with the flowers she pa.s.sed into the bungalow. She had quite a proppy, military stride, bred of much riding.

Barlow gazed after Elizabeth ruefully, wishing she had thrown him a life belt. However, it did not matter; it was up to him to act in a sane manner, men of the Service were taught to rely on themselves. And in Barlow was the something of breeding that held him to the true thing, to the pole; the breeding might be compared to the elusive thing in the magnetic needle. It did not matter, he would probably marry Elizabeth--it seemed the proper thing to do. Devilish few of the chaps he knew babbled much about love and being batty over a girl--that is, the girls they married.

Then the bearer brought Hodson's salaams to the Captain.

And Hodson was a Civil Servant in excelsis. He took to bed with him his Form D and Form C--even the "D. O.", the Demi Official business, and worried over it when he should have slept or read himself to sleep.

Duty to him was a more exacting G.o.d than the black Kali to the Brahmins; it had dried up his blood--atrophied his nerves of enjoyment.

And now he was depressed though he strove to greet Barlow cheerily.

"It's a devilish shindy, this killing of our two chaps," he burst forth with; "I've pondered over it, I've worried over it; the only solace in the thing is, that the arm of the law is long."

"I think you've got it, sir," Barlow encouraged. "When we've smashed Sindhia--and we will--we'll demand these murderers, hang a few of them, and send the rest to the Andamans."

"Yes, it has simply got to wait; to stir up things now would only let the Peshwa know what you are going to do--we'd show him our hand. And I don't mind telling you, Captain, that he is an absolute traitor; and I believe that it's that d.a.m.n Nana Sahib who's influencing him."

"There's no doubt about it, sir."

"No, there is not!" the Resident declared gloomily. "The two dead _sowars_ must be considered as sacrifice, just as though they had fallen in battle; it's for the good of the Raj. If I get hauled over the coals for this I don't give a d.a.m.n. I've pondered over it, almost prayed over it, and it's the only way. There's talk of a big loot of jewellery by these decoits, and the killing of the merchant and his men, but I've got nothing to do with that. The one wonderful thing is, that we saved the papers. That little native woman that brought them to you must be rewarded later. By the way, Barlow, I took the liberty of explaining all that to Elizabeth, and I think she's pretty badly cut up over the way she acted. But you understand, don't you, Captain? I believe that if it had been my case I'd have, well, I'd have known that it was because the girl cared. Elizabeth is undemonstrative--too much so, in fact; but I fancy--well, never mind: it's so long ago that I took notice of these things that I find I'm trying to speak in an unknown tongue."

The little man rose and bustled about, pulling out drawers from the cabinet and shoving them back again, venting little asthmatic coughs of sheer nervousness. Then coming up to Barlow he held out his hand saying: "My dear boy, G.o.d be with you; but don't take chances--will you?"

At that instant Elizabeth appeared at the doorway: "Captain Barlow will have breakfast with us, won't he, father--it's all ready, and Boodha says he has a chop-and-kidney curry that is a dream?"

"Jupiter!" Hodson exclaimed; "fancy I'm getting India head; was sending Barlow off without a word about breakfast. Of course he'll stay--thanks, Elizabeth."

The tired drawn parchment face of the Resident became revivified, it was the face of a happy boy; the grey eyes blued to youth. Inwardly he murmured: "Elizabeth is wonderful! I knew it; good girl!"

It was a curious breakfast--mentally. Elizabeth was the Elizabeth of the verandah. Perhaps it was the pa.s.sionate beating of the pillow the day before, when she had realised for the first time what Barlow meant to her, that now cast her into defence; encased her in an armour of protection; caused her to a.s.sume a casualness. She would give worlds to not have said what she had said the day before, but the Captain must know that she had been roused by a knowledge of his intimacy with the Gulab. Just what had occurred did not matter--not in the least; it was his place to explain it. That was Elizabeth's way--it was her manner of thought; a subservience of impulse to propriety, to cla.s.s. In the light of her feeling when she had lain, wet-eyed, beating the pillow, she knew that if he had put his arms about her and said just even stupid words--"I'm sorry, Beth, you know I love you"--she would have capitulated, perhaps even in the capitulation have said a Bethism: "It doesn't matter--we'll never mention it again."

But Barlow, very much of a boy, couldn't feel this elusive thing, and rode away after breakfast from the bungalow muttering: "By gad!

Elizabeth should have said something over roasting me. Fancy she doesn't care a hang. Anyway--I'll give her credit for that--she doesn't hunt with the hounds and run with the hare. If it's the prospect of sharing a t.i.tle with me, a rotter would have eaten the leek. Yes, Elizabeth is cla.s.s."

CHAPTER XVIII

Dewan Sewlal was in a shiver of apprehension over the killing of the two sepoys; there would be trouble over this if the Resident came to know of it.

But Hunsa had a.s.sured him that the soldiers and their saddles had been buried in the pit with the others, and that n.o.body but the decoits knew of their advent.

Then when he learned that Ajeet Singh had been to the Resident he was in a panic. But as that British official made no move, said nothing about the decoity, he fancied that perhaps Ajeet had not mentioned this, in fact he had no proof that he had made a confession at all.

But Ajeet's complicity in the decoity where the merchant and his men had been killed, gave the Dewan just what he had planned for--the power of death over the Chief. As to his own complicity he had taken care to speak of the decoity to no one but Hunsa. The yogi had been inspired, of course, but the yogi would not appear as a witness against him, and Hunsa would not, because it would cost him his head.

So now, at a hint from Nana Sahib, the Dewan seized upon Ajeet, voicing a righteous indignation at his crime of decoity, and gave him the alternative of being strangled with a bow-string or forcing the Gulab to go to the camp of Amir Khan to betray him. Not only would Ajeet be killed, but Bootea would be thrust into the _seraglio_, and the other Bagrees put in prison--some might be killed. Ajeet was forced to yield to these threats. The very complicity of the Dewan made him the more hurried in this thing. Also he wanted to get the Bagrees away to the Pindari camp before the Resident made a move.

The mission to Amir Khan would be placed in the hands of Hunsa and Sookdee, Ajeet being retained as a p.a.w.n; also his wound had incapacitated him. He was nominally at liberty, though he knew well that if he sought to escape the Mahrattas would kill him.

The jewels that had been stolen from the merchant were largely retained by the Bagrees, though the Dewan found, one night, very mysteriously, a magnificent string of pearls on his pillow. He did not ask questions, and seemingly no one of his household knew anything about the pearls.

When the yogi asked Hunsa about the ruby, the Akbar Lamp, Hunsa, who had determined to keep it himself, as, perhaps, a ransom for his life in that troublous time, declared that in the turmoil of the coming of the soldiers he had not found it. Indeed this seemed reasonable, for he, having fled down the road to the Gulab, had not been there when they had opened the box and looted it.

So the Dewan sent for Ajeet, Hunsa and Sookdee, and declared that if the Bagree contingent of murder did not start at once for the Pindari camp he would have them taken up for the decoity.

It was Ajeet who answered the Dewan: "Dewan Sahib, we be men who undertake all things in the favour of Bhowanee, and we make prayer to that G.o.ddess. If the Dewan will give fifty rupees for our _pooja_, to-morrow we will make sacrifice to her, for without the feast and the sacrifice the signs that she would vouchsafe would be false. Then we will take the signs and the men will go at once."

"You shall have the money," the Dewan declared: "but do not delay."

That evening the Bagrees made their way to a mango grove for the feast, carrying cocoanuts, raw sugar, flour, b.u.t.ter, and a fragrant gum, goojul. A large hole was dug in the ground and filled with dry cow-dung chips which were set on fire. Sweet cakes were baked on the fire and then broken into small pieces, a portion of the fire raked to one side, and their priest sprinkled upon it the fragrant gum, calling in a loud voice: "Maha Kali, a.s.sist and guide us in our expedition.

Keep calamity from us who worship Thee, and have made this feast in Thy honour. Give us the sign, that we may know if it is agreeable to Thee that we destroy the enemy of Maharaja Sindhia."

When the Bagrees had eaten much cooked rice and meat-b.a.l.l.s, which were served on plantain leaves, they drank robustly of _mhowa_ spirit, first spilling some of this liquor upon the ground in the name of the G.o.ddess.

The strong rank native liquor roused an enthusiasm for their approaching interview of the sacred one. Once Ajeet laid his hand upon the pitcher that Hunsa was holding to his coa.r.s.e lips, and pressing it downward, admonished:

"Hunsa, whilst Bhowanee does not prohibit, it is an offence to approach her except in devout silence."

The surly one flared up at this; his ungovernable rage drew his hand to a knife in his belt, and his eyes blazed with the ferocity of a wounded tiger.

"Ajeet," he snarled, "you are now Chief, but you are not Raja to command slaves."

With a swift twist of his wrist Ajeet s.n.a.t.c.hed the pitcher from the hand of Hunsa, saying: "Jamadar, it is the liquor that is in you, therefore you have had enough."

But Hunsa sprang to his feet and his knife gleamed like the spitting of fire in the slanting rays of the setting sun, as he drove viciously at the heart of his Chief. There was a crash as the blade struck and pierced the matka which Ajeet still held by its long neck.

There was a scream of terror from the throats of the women; a cry of horror from the Guru at this sacrilege--the spilling of liquor upon the earth in anger at the feast of Bhowanee.

Ajeet's strong fingers, slim bronzed lengths of steel, had gripped the wrist of his a.s.sailant as Bootea, darting forward, laid a hand upon the arm of Hunsa, crying, "Shame! shame! You are like sweepers of low caste--eaters of carrion, they who respect not Bhowanee. Shame! you are a dog--a tapper of liquor!"

At the touch of the Gulab on his arm, and the scorn in her eyes, Hunsa shivered and drew back, his head hanging in abas.e.m.e.nt, but his face devilish in its malignity.

Ajeet, taking a bra.s.s dish, poured water upon the hand that had gripped the wrist of Hunsa, saying, "Thus I will cleanse the defilement." Then he sat down upon his heels, adding: "Guru, holy one, repeat a prayer to appease Bhowanee, then we will go into the jungle and take the auspices."

The Guru strode over to Hunsa, and holding out his thin skinny palm commanded, "Jamadar, from you a rupee; and to-morrow I will put upon the shrine of Kali cocoanuts and sweet-meats and marigolds as peace offerings."

Hunsa took from his loin cloth a silver coin and dropped it surlily in the outstretched hand, sneering: "To Bhowanee you will give four annas, and you will feast to the value of twelve annas, for that is the way of your craft. The vultures always finish the bait when the tiger has been slain."

Soon the feathery lace work of bamboos beneath which they sat were whispering to the night-wind that had roused at the dropping of the huge ball of fire in the west, and the soft radiance of a gentle moon was gilding with silver the gaunt black arms of a babool. Then the priest said: "Come, jamadars, we now will go deeper into the silent places and listen for the voice of Bhowanee."

He untangled from the posture of sitting his parchment-covered matter of bones, and carrying in one hand a brocaded bag of black velvet and in the other a staff, with bowed head and mutterings started deeper into the jungle of cactus and slim whispering bamboo, followed by Ajeet, Sookdee and Hunsa. Presently he stopped, saying, "Sit you in a line, brave chiefs, facing the great temple of Siva, which is in the mountains of the East, so that the voice of Bhowanee coming out of the silent places and from the mouth of the jackal or the jacka.s.s, shall be known to be from the right or the left, for thus will be the interpretation."