Driftwood Spars Part 34

"I?" said Mrs. Dearman. "What _are_ you talking about?"

"About you, dearest, and the time when I first saw you--and fell in love with you;--love at first sight, indeed."

"But I never photographed you on board ship. I never saw you on a ship.

I met you first here in Gungapur."

"Do you remember the 'Malaya' stopping to pick up a shipwrecked sailor, a castaway, in a little dug-out canoe, somewhere in the Indian Ocean, when you were first coming out to India? But of course you do--you have the snap-shot in your collection...."

"Why--yes--I remember, of course--but that was a horrid, beastly _native_. The creature could only speak Hindustani. He was the sole survivor of the crew of some dhow or bunder-boat, they said.... He lived and worked with the Lascars till we got to Bombay. Yes...."

"I was that native," said Colonel Ross-Ellison.

"_You_," whispered Mrs. Dearman. "_You_," and scanned his face intently.

"Yes. I. I _am_ half a native. My father was a Pathan. He----"

"_What_?" asked the woman hoa.r.s.ely, drawing away. "_What_? _What_ are you saying?"

"I am half Pathan--my father was a Pathan and my mother an Australian squatter's daughter."

"_Go_," shrieked Mrs. Dearman, springing to her feet. "_Go_. You wretch!

You mean, base liar! To cheat me so! To pretend you were a gentleman.

Leave my house! Go! You horrible--_mongrel_--you----. To take me in your arms! To make love to me! To kiss me! Ugh! I could die for shame! I could _die_----"

The face of the man grew terrible to see. There was no trace of the West in it, no sign of English ancestry, the face of a mad, blood-mad Afghan.

"_We will both die_," he gasped, and took her by the throat.

A few minutes later a Pathan in the dirty dress of his race fled from Colonel Ross-Ellison's bungalow in Cantonments and took the road to the city.

Threading his way through its tortuous lanes, alleys, slums and bazaars he reached a low door in the high wall that surrounded an almost windowless house, knocked in a particular manner, parleyed, and was admitted.

The moment he was inside, the custodian of the door slammed, locked and bolted it, and then raised an outcry.

"Come," he shouted in Pushtoo. "The Spy! The Feringhi! The Pushtoo-knowing English dog, that Abdulali Habbibullah," and he drew his Khyber knife and circled round Ross-Ellison.

A clatter of heavy boots, the opening of wooden "windows" that looked inward on to the high-walled courtyard, and in a minute a throng of Pathans and other Mussulmans entered the compound from the house--some obviously aroused from heavy slumber.

"It is he," cried one, a squat, broad-shouldered fellow, as they stood at gaze, and long knives flashed.

"Oho, Spy! Aha, Dog! For what hast thou come?" asked one burly fellow as he advanced warily upon the intruder, who backed slowly to the angle of the high walls.

"To die, Hidayetullah. To die, n.a.z.ir Ali Khan. To die slaying! Come on!"

was the reply, and in one moment the speaker's Khyber knife flashed from his loose sleeve into the throat of the nearest foe.

As he withdrew it, the door-keeper slashed at his abdomen, missed by a hair's-breadth, raised his arm to save his neck from a slash, and was stabbed to the heart, the knife held dagger-wise. Another Pathan rushing forward, with uplifted knife held as a sword, was met by a sudden low fencing-lunge and fell with a hideous wound, and then, whirling his weapon like a claymore in an invisibly rapid Maltese cross of flashing steel, the man who had been Ross-Ellison drove his enemies before him, whirled about, and established himself in the opposite corner, and spat pungent Border taunts at the infuriated crowd.

"Come on, you village curs, you landless cripples, you wifeless sons of burnt fathers! Come on! Strike for the credit of your noseless mothers!

Run not from me as your wives ran from you--to better men! Come on, you sweepers, you swine-herds, you down-country street-sc.r.a.pers!" and they came on to heart's content, steel clashed on steel and thudded on flesh and bone.

"Get a rifle," cried one, lying bleeding on the ground, striving to rise while he held his right shoulder to his neck with his partly severed left hand. As he fainted the shoulder gaped horribly.

"Get a cannon," mocked Ross-Ellison. "Get a cannon, dogs, against one man," and again, whirling the great jade-handled knife, long as a short sword, he rushed forward and the little mob gave ground before the irresistible claymore-whirl, the unbreakable Maltese cross described by the razor-edge and needle-point.

"It is a devil," groaned a man, as his knife and his hand fell together to the ground, and he clapped his turban on the stump as a boy claps his hat upon some small creature that he would capture.

The madman whirled about in the third corner and, as he ceased the wild whirl, ducked low and lunged, lessening the number of his enemies by one. This lunge was a new thing to men who could only slash and stab, a new thing and a terrible, for it could not be parried save by seizing the blade and losing half a hand.

"Come on, you growing maidens! Come on, grandmothers! Come on, you cleaners of pig-skins, you washers of dogs! Come on!" and as he shouted, the door crashed down and a patrol of British soldiers, attracted by the noise, and delayed by the stout door, burst into the courtyard.

"At the henemy in front, fixed sights," shouted the corporal in charge.

And added an order not to be found in the drill-book: "Blow 'em to 'ell if they budges."

In the hush of surprise his voice arose, addressing the fighters: "_Bus_[70] you bleedin' soors,[71]" said Corporal Cook. "_Bus_; and you _dekho_[72] 'ere. If any of you _jaos_[73] from where 'e is, I'll _pukkaro_[74] 'im and give 'im a punch in the _dekho_."

[70] Enough, stop.

[71] Swine.

[72] Look.

[73] Jao = go (imperative).

[74] Seize (imperative).

And, as bayonets rose breast-high and fingers curled lovingly round triggers, every knife but that of Ross-Ellison disappeared as by magic, and the Corporal beheld a little crowd of innocent men endeavouring to secure a dangerous lunatic at the risk of their lives--terrible risk, as the bodies of five dead and dying men might testify.

"I give myself up to you as a murderer, Corporal," said he who had been Colonel John Robin Ross-Ellison. "I am a murderer. If you will take me before your officer I will confess and give details."

"I'm agoin' to take you bloomin' well all," replied the surprised Corporal. "Chuck down that there beastly carvin' knife. You seem a too 'andy cove wiv' it."

At the Corporal's order of, "Prod 'em all up agin that wall and shoot any bloke as moves 'and or 'oof," the party of panting, bleeding and perspiring ruffians was lined up, relieved of its weapons, and duly marched to the guard-room.

Here, one of the gang (later identified as the man who had been known as John Robin Ross-Ellison, and who insisted that he was a Baluchi) declared that he had just murdered Mrs. Dearman in her drawing-room and made a full statement--a statement found to be only too true, its details corroborated by a trembling _hamal_ who had peeped and listened, as all Indian servants peep and listen.

Duly tried, all members of the gang received terms of imprisonment (largely a prophylactic measure), save the extraordinary English-speaking Baluchi, who had long imposed, it was said, upon Gungapur Society in the days before that Society had disappeared in the cataclysm.

A few days before the date fixed for the execution of this very remarkable desperado, Captain Michael Malet-Marsac, Adjutant of the Gungapur Volunteer Corps, received two letters dated from Gungapur Jail, one covering the other. The covering letter ran:--

"MY DEAR MALET-MARSAC,

"I forward the enclosed. Should you desire to attend the execution you could accompany the new City Magistrate, Wellson, who will doubtless be agreeable.

"Yours sincerely,

"A. Ra.n.a.lD, Major I.M.S."

The accompaniment was from John Robin Ross-Ellison Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan.