Caste Part 27

She turned her small oval face up to look at this wonderful man, to discover if he were really there, that it was not some kindly G.o.d who would vanish. He clasped the face, with its soul of adoration, in his two palms and kissed her. Then fearing that she would fall, for she had closed her eyes and reeled, he took her by the arm, opened the flap of the tent, and steadied her into the arms of her handmaid.

It was a fitful night's sleep for Barlow; the beat of horses' hoofs on the streets or the white sands beyond was like the patter of rain on a roof. There were hoa.r.s.e bull-throated cries of men who rode hither and thither; tremulous voices floated on the night air wild dirges, like the weird Afghan love song. Sometimes a long smooth-bore barked its sharp call. At sunrise the Captain was roused from this tiring sleep by the strident weird sing-song of the Mullah sending forth from a minaret of the palace his call to the faithful to prayer, prayer for the dead Chief. And when the voice had ceased its muezzin:

"Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar; Confess that there is no G.o.d but G.o.d; Confess that Mohammad is the prophet of G.o.d; Come to Prayer, Come to Prayer, For Prayer is better than Sleep."

the big drums sent forth a thundering reverberation. He could hear the voices of the two women within, and called, "Bootea, Bootea!"

The Galub came shyly from the tent saying, "Salaam, Sahib." Then she stood with her eyes drooped waiting for him to speak.

"It is this, Bootea," Barlow said, "do not go away until I am ready to depart, then I will take you where you wish to go."

"If it is permitted, Sahib, I will wait," she answered as simply as a child.

Barlow put a finger under her chin, and lifting her face smiled like a great boy, saying: "Gulab, you are wonderfully sweet."

Then Barlow went to the _serai_, looked after his horse, had his breakfast, and pa.s.sed back into the town. He saw a continuous stream of men moving toward the small river that swept southward, to the east of the town, and asking of one the cause was told that the _ahiria_ (murderer)--for now Hunsa was known as the murderer--was being sent on his way. The speaker was a Rajput. "It is strange, Afghan," he said, "that one who has slain the Chief of these wild barbarians, who are without G.o.ds, should be allowed to depart in peace. We Rajputs worship a G.o.d that visits the sin upon the head of the sinner, but the order has been pa.s.sed that no man shall harm the slayer of Amir Khan.

Perhaps it is whispered in the Bazaar that Commander Ka.s.sim coveted the Chiefship."

Barlow being in the guise of a Musselman said solemnly: "Allah will punish the murderer, mark you well, man of Rajasthan."

"As to that, Afghan, one stroke of a _tulwar_ would put the matter beyond doubt; as it is, let us push forward, because I see from yonder steady array of spears that the Pindaris ride toward the river, and I think the prisoner is with them. It was one Hunsa, a thug, and though the thugs worship Bhowanee, they are worse than the _mhangs_ who are of no caste at all."

As Barlow came to where the town reached to the river bank he saw that the concourse of people was heading south along the river. This was rather strange, for a bridge of stone arches traversed by the aid of two islands the Nahal to the other side. A quarter of a mile lower down he came to where the river, that above wandered in three channels over a rocky bed, now glided sluggishly in one channel. It was like a ribboned lake, smooth in its slow slip over a muddy bed, and circling in a long sweep to the bank. On the level plain was a concourse of thousands, hors.e.m.e.n, who sat their lean-flanked Marwari or Cabul horses as though they waited to swing into a parade, the march past. The _sowars_ Barlow had seen in the town were in front of him, riding four abreast, and at a command from their leader, opened up and formed a scimitar-shaped band, their horses' noses toward the river. As he came close Barlow saw Ka.s.sim in a group of officers, and Hunsa, a soldier on either side of him, was standing free and unshackled in front of the Commander. Save for the clanking of a bit, or the clang of a spear-haft against a stirrup, or the scuffle of a quick-turning horse's hoofs, a silence rested upon that vast throng. Wild barbaric faces held a look of expectancy, of wonderment, for no one knew why the order had been pa.s.sed that they were to a.s.semble at that point.

Ka.s.sim caught sight of Barlow as he drew near, and raising his hand in a salute, said: "Come close, Sahib, the slayer of Amir Khan, in accordance with my promise, is to go from our midst a free man. His punishment has been left to Allah, the one G.o.d."

Without more ado he stretched forth his right arm impressively toward the murky stream, that, where it rippled at some disturbance carried on its bosom ribbons of gold where the sun fell, saying:

"Yonder lies the way, infidel, strangler, slayer of a follower of the Prophet! Depart, for, failing that, it lacks but an hour till the sun reaches overhead, and thy time will have elapsed--thou will die by the torture. You are free, even as I attested by the Beard of the Prophet.

And more, what is not in the covenant,"--Ka.s.sim drew from beneath his rich brocaded vest the dagger of Amir Khan, its blade still carrying the dried blood of the Chief--"this is thine to keep thy vile life if you can. Seest thou if the weapon is still wedded to thy hand. It is that thou goest hand-in-hand with thy crime."

He handed the knife to a soldier with a word of command, and the man thrust it in the belt of Hunsa. Even as Ka.s.sim ceased speaking two round bulbs floated upon the smooth waters of the sullen river, and above them was a green slime; then a square shovel just topped the water, and Barlow could hear, issuing from the thing of horror, a breath like a sigh. He shuddered. It was a square-nosed _mugger_ (crocodile) waiting. And beyond, the water here and there swirled, as if a powerful tail swept it.

And Hunsa knew; his evil swarthy face turned as green as the slime upon the crocodile's forehead; his powerful naked shoulders seemed to shrivel and shrink as though blood had ceased to flow through his veins. He put his two hands, clasped palm to palm, to his forehead in supplication, and begged that the ordeal might pa.s.s, that he might go by the bridge, or across the desert, or any way except by that pool of horrors.

Ka.s.sim again swept his hand toward the river and his voice was horrible in its deadliness: "These children of the poor that are sacred to some of thy G.o.ds, infidel, have been fed; five goats have allotted them as sacrifice and they wait for thee. They serve Allah and not thy G.o.ds to-day. Go, murderer, for we wait; go unless thou art not only a murderer but a coward, for it is the only way. It was promised that no Pindari should wound or kill thee, dog, but they will help thee on thy way."

Hunsa at this drew himself up, his gorilla face seemed to fill out with resolve; he swept the vast throng of hors.e.m.e.n with his eyes, and realised that it was indeed true--there was nothing left but the pool and the faint, faint chance that, powerful swimmer that he was, and with the knife, he might cross. Once his evil eyes rested on Ka.s.sim and involuntarily a hand twitched toward the dagger hilt; but at that instant he was pinioned, both arms, by a Pindari on either side. Then, standing rigid, he said:

"I am Hunsa, a Bagree, a servant of Bhowanee; I am not afraid. May she bring the black plague upon all the Pindaris, who are dogs that worship a false G.o.d."

He strode toward the waters, the soldiers, still a hand on either arm, marching beside him. On the clay bank he put his hands to his forehead, calling in a loud voice: "_Kali Mia_, receive me!" Then he plunged head first into the pool.

A cry of "Allah! Allah!" went up from ten thousand throats as the Bagree shot from view, smothered in the foam of the ruffled stream.

And beyond the waters were churned by huge ghoulish forms that the blood of goats had gathered there. Five yards from the bank the ugly head of Hunsa appeared; a brown arm flashed once, in the fingers clutched a knife that seemed red with fresh blood. The water was lashed to foam; the tail of a giant _mugger_ shot out and struck flat upon the surface of the river like the crack of a pistol. Again the head, and then the shoulders, of the swimmer were seen; and as if something dragged the torso below, two legs shot out from the water, gyrated spasmodically, and disappeared.

Barlow waited, his soul full of horror, but there was nothing more; just a little lower down in the basin of the sluggish pool two bulbous protrusions above the water where some crocodile, either gorged or disappointed, floated lazily.

A ghastly silence reigned--no one spoke; ten thousand eyes stared out across the pool.

Then the voice of Ka.s.sim was heard, solemn and deep, saying: "The covenant has been kept and Allah has avenged the death of Amir Khan!"

CHAPTER XXV

Commander Ka.s.sim touched Barlow on the arm: "Captain Sahib, come with me. The death of that foul murderer does not take the weight off our hearts."

"He deserved it," Barlow declared.

Though filled with a sense of shuddering horror, he was compelled involuntarily to admit that it had been a most just punishment; less brutal, even more impressive--almost taking on the aspect of a religious execution--than if the Bagree had been tortured to death; hacked to pieces by the _tulwars_ of the outraged Pindaris. He had been executed with no evidence of pa.s.sion in those who witnessed his death. And as to the subtlety of the Commander in obtaining the confession, that, too, according to the ethics of Hindustan, was meritorious, not a thing to be condemned. Hunsa's animal cunning had been over-matched by the clear intellect of this wise soldier.

"We will walk back to the Chamber of Audience," Ka.s.sim said, "for now there are things to relate."

He spoke to a soldier to have his horse led behind, and as they walked he explained: "With us, Sahib, as at the death of a Rana of Mewar, there is no interregnum; the dead wait upon the living, for it is dangerous that no one leads, even for an hour, men whose guard is their sword. So, as Amir Khan waits yonder where his body lies to be taken on his way to the arms of Allah in Paradise, they who have the welfare of our people at heart have selected one to lead, and one and all, the jamadars and the hazaris, have decreed that I shall, unworthily, sit upon the _ghuddi_ (throne) that was Amir Khan's, though with us it is but the back of a horse. And we have taken under advis.e.m.e.nt the message thou brought. It has come in good time for the Mahrattas are like wolves that have turned upon each other. Sindhia, Rao Holkar, both beaten by your armies, now fight amongst themselves, and suck like vampires the life-blood of the Rajputs. And Holkar has become insane.

But lately, retreating through Mewar, he went to the shrine of Krishna and prostrating himself before his heathen image reviled the G.o.d as the cause of his disaster. When the priests, aghast at the profanity, expostulated, he levied a fine of three hundred thousand rupees upon them, and when, fearing an outrage to the image these infidels call a G.o.d, they sent the idol to Udaipur, he way-laid the men who had taken it and slew them to a man."

"Your knowledge of affairs is great, Chief," Barlow commented, for most of this was new to him.

"Yes, Captain Sahib, we Pindaris ride north, and east, and south, and west; we are almost as free as the eagles of the air, claiming that our home is where our cooking-pots are. We do not trust to ramparts such as Fort Chitor where we may be cooped up and slain--such as the Rajputs have been three times in the three famed sacks of Chitor--but also, Sahib, this is all wrong."

The Chief halted and swept an arm in an encompa.s.sing embrace of the tent-studded plain.

"We are not a nation to muster an army because now the cannon that belch forth a shower of death mow hors.e.m.e.n down like ripened grain. It was the dead Chief's ambition, but it is wrong."

Barlow was struck with the wise logic of this tall wide-browed warrior, it _was_ wrong. Ma.s.sed together Pindaris and _Bundoolas_ a.s.sailed by the trained hordes of Mahrattas, with their French and Portuguese gunners and officers, would be slaughtered like sheep. And against the war-trained Line Regiments of the British foot soldiers they would meet the same fate. "You are right, Chief Ka.s.sim," Barlow declared; "even if you cut in with the winning side, especially Sindhia, he would turn on you and devour you and your people."

"Yes, Sahib. The trade of a Pindari, if I may call it so, has been that of loot in this land that has always been a land of strife for possession. I rode with Chitu as a jamadar when we swept through the Nizam's territory and put cities under a tribute of many _lakhs_, but that was a force of five thousand only, and we swooped through the land like a great flock of hawks. But even at that Chitu, a wonderful chief, was killed by wild animals in the jungle when he was fleeing from disaster, almost alone."

They were now close to the palace, and as they entered, just within the great hall Ka.s.sim said: "There will be nothing to say on thy part, Captain Sahib; the officers will come even now to the audience and it is all agreed upon. Thou wilt be given an a.s.surance to take back to the British, for by chance the others have great confidence in me, even more in a matter of diplomacy than they had in the dead leader, may Allah rest his soul!"

And to the audience chamber--where had sat oft two long rows of minor chiefs, at their head on a raised dais the Rajput Raja, a Seesodia, one of the "Children of the Sun," as the flaming yellow gypsum sun above the dais attested--now came in twos and threes the wild-eyed whiskered riders of the desert. They were lean, raw-boned, steel-muscled, tall, solemn-faced men, their eyes set deep in skin wrinkled from the scorch of sun on the white sands of the desert. And their eyes beneath the black brows were like falcon's, predatory like those of birds of prey.

And the air of freedom, of self-reliance, of independence was in every look, in the firm swinging stride, and erect set of the shoulders.

They were men to swear by or to fear; verily men. And somehow one sharp look of apprais.e.m.e.nt, and one and all would have sworn by Allah that the Sahib in the garb of an Afghan was a man.

As each one entered he strode to the centre of the room, drew himself erect facing the heavy curtain beyond which lay the dead Chief, and raising a hand to brow, said in a deep voice: "Salaam, Amir Khan, and may the Peace of Allah be upon thy spirit."

"Now, brothers," Ka.s.sim said, when the curtain entrance had ceased to be thrust to one side, "we will say what is to be said. One will stand guard just without for this is a matter for the officers alone."

He took from his waist the silver chain and unlocked the iron box, brought forth the paper that Barlow had carried, and holding it aloft, said: "This is the message of brotherhood from the English Raj. Are ye all agreed that it is acceptable to our people?"

"In the name of Allah we are," came as a sonorous chorus from one and all.

"And are ye agreed that it shall be said to the Captain Sahib, who is envoy from the Englay, that we ride in peace to his people, or ride not at all in war?"

"Allah! it is agreed," came the response.