One of Clive's Heroes Part 22

He paused; there was a sound of hard breathing.

"Tell it us," said the Gujarati eagerly.

"You are one of us, Fuzl Khan?"

"The plan! the plan! Is not my back mangled? Have I not endured the tank? Is not freedom sweet to me as to another? The plan, sahib! I swear, I Fuzl Khan, to be true to you and all; only tell me the plan."

"You shall have the plan in good time. First, I have a thing to say.

When a battle is to be fought, no soldier fights only for himself, doing that which seems good to him alone. He looks to his captain for orders.

Otherwise mistakes would be made, and all effort would be wasted. We must have a captain: who is he to be?"

"Yourself, sahib," said the Gujarati at once. "You have spoken; you have the plan; we take you as leader."

"You hear what Fuzl Khan says. Do you all agree?"

The others a.s.sented eagerly. Then Desmond told his wondering hearers the secret of the key, and during several hours of that quiet night he discussed with them in whispers the details of the scheme which he had worked out. At intervals the sentry pa.s.sed and flashed his light through the opening in the wall; but at these moments every man was lying motionless upon his charpoy, and not a sound was audible save a snore.

Next day when Desmond, having finished his mid-day meal of rice and mangoes, had returned to his workshop, Diggle sauntered in.

"Ah, my young friend," he said in his quiet voice and with his usual smile, "doubtless you have expected a visit from me. Night brings counsel. I did not visit you yesterday, thinking that after sleeping over the amiable and generous proposition made to you by my friend Angria you would view it in another light. I trust that during the nocturnal hours you have come to perceive the advantages of choosing the discreet part. Let us reason together."

There were several natives with them in the workshop, but none of them understood English, and the two Englishmen could talk at ease.

"Reason!" said Desmond in reply to Diggle's last sentence. "If you are going to talk of what your pirate friend spoke of yesterday, it is mere waste of time. I shall never agree."

"Words, my young friend, mere words! You will be one of us yet. You will never have such a chance again. Why, in a few years you will be able to return to England, if you will, a rich man, a very nawab.[#] My friend Angria has his faults; 'nemo est sine culpa': but he is at least generous. An instance! The man who took the chief part in the capture of the Dutchman two years ago--what is he now? A naib,[#] a man of wealth, of high repute at the Nizam's court. There is no reason why you should not follow so worthy an example; cut out an Indiaman or two, and Desmond Burke may, if he will, convey a shipload of precious things to the sh.o.r.es of Albion, and enjoy his leisured dignity on a landed estate of his own. He shall drive a coach while his oaf of a brother perspires behind a plough."

[#] Governor.

[#] Deputy-governor.

Desmond was silent. Diggle watched him keenly, and after a slight pause continued:

"This is no great thing that is asked of you. You sail on one of Angria's grabs; you are set upon the sh.o.r.e; you enter Bombay with a likely story of escape from the fortress of the Pirate; you are a hero, the boon fellow of the men, the pet of the ladies--for there are ladies in Bombay, 'forma praestante puellae.' In a week you know everything, all the purposes that Angria's spies have failed to discover. One day you disappear; the ladies wail and tear their hair, a tiger has eaten you! in a week you will be forgotten. But you are back in Angria's fortress, no longer a slave, down-trodden and despised; but a free man, a rich man, a potentate to be. Is it not worth thinking of, my young friend, especially when you remember the other side of the picture? It is a dark side; an unpleasant side; even, let me confess, horrible: I prefer to keep it to the wall."

He waved his gloved hand deprecatingly, watching Desmond with the same intentness. The boy was dumb; he might also have been deaf. Diggle drew from his fob an elaborately chased snuff-box and took a pinch of fine rappee, Desmond mechanically noticing that the box bore ornamentation of Dutch design.

"If I were not your friend," continued Diggle, "I might say that your att.i.tude is one of sheer obstinacy. Why not trust us? You see we trust you. I stand pledged for you with Angria; but I flatter myself I know a man when I see one: 'si fractus illabitur orbis'--you have already shown your mettle. Of course I understand your scruples; I was young myself once; I know the generous impulses that rule the hearts of youth. But this is a matter that must be decided, not by feeling, but by hard fact and cold reason. Who benefits by your scruples? A set of hard-living money-grubbers in Bombay who fatten on the oppression of the ryot, who t.i.the mint and anice and c.u.mmin, who h.o.a.rd up treasure which they will take back with their jaundiced livers to England, there to become pests to society with their splenetic and domineering tempers. What's the Company to you, or you to the Company? Why, Governor Pitt was an interloper; and your own father: yes, he was an interloper, and an interloper of the best."

"But not a pirate," said Desmond hotly, his scornful silence yielding at last.

"True, true," said Diggle suavely; "but in the Indies, you see, we don't draw fine distinctions. We are all buccaneers in a sense; some with the sword, others the ledger. Throw in your lot frankly with me; I will stand your friend----"

"You are wasting your breath and your eloquence," interrupted Desmond firmly, "and even if I were tempted to agree, as I never could be, I should remember who is talking to me." Then he added with a whimsical smile, "Come, Mr. Diggle, you are fond of quotations; I am not; but there's one I remember--'I fear the Greeks, even----'"

"You young hound!" cried Diggle, his sallow face becoming purple. His anger, it seemed to Desmond afterwards reflecting on it, was out of proportion to the cause of offence. "You talk of my eloquence. By Heaven, when I see you again I will use it otherwise. You shall hear something of how Angria wreaks his vengeance; you shall have a foretaste of the sweets in store for an obstinate recalcitrant pigheaded fool!"

He strode away, leaving Desmond a prey to the gloomiest antic.i.p.ations.

That evening, when the prisoners were squatting outside the shed for the usual hour of talk before being locked up for the night, a new feature was added to the entertainment. One of the Marathas had somehow possessed himself of a tom-tom, and proved himself an excellent performer on that weird instrument. While he tapped its sides, his fellow Maratha, in a strange hard tuneless voice, chanted a song, repeating its single stanza again and again without apparently wearying his hearers, and clapping his hands to mark the time. It was a song about a banya[#] with a beautiful young daughter-in-law, whom he appointed to deal out the daily handful of flour expected as alms by every beggar who pa.s.sed his door. Her hands being much smaller than his own, he pleased himself with the idea that, without losing his reputation for charity, he would give away through her much less grain than if he himself performed the charitable office. But it turned out bad thrift, for so beautiful was she that she attracted to the door not only the genuine beggars, but also many, both young and old, who had disguised themselves in mendicant rags for the mere pleasure of beholding her and getting from her a smile and a gentle word. It was a popular song, and the warder himself was tempted to stay and listen until, the hour for locking up being past, he at last recollected his duty and bundled the prisoners into the shed.

[#] Hindu merchant.

"Sing inside if you must," he said, "but not too loud, lest the overseer come with the bamboo."

Inside the shed, reclining on their charpoys, the men continued their performance, changing their song, though not, as it seemed to Desmond, the tune. He, however, was perhaps not sufficiently attentive to the monotonous strains, for, as soon as the warder had left the yard, he had unlocked his fetters and begun to work in the darkness. Poised on one of the rafters, he held on with one hand to a joist, and with the other plied a small saw, well greased with ghi. The sound of the slow careful movements of the tool was completely drowned by the singing and the hollow rat-a-pan of the tom-tom. Beneath him stood the Babu, extending his dhoti like an ap.r.o.n, and catching in it the falling shower of sawdust.

Suddenly the figure on the rafter gave a low whistle. Through the window he had seen the dim form of the sentry outside approach the s.p.a.ce lighted by the rays from the lantern, which he had laid down at a corner of the shed. Before the soldier had time to lift it and throw a beam into the shed (which he did as much from curiosity to see the untiring performers as in the exercise of his duty) Desmond had swung down from his perch and stretched himself upon the nearest charpoy. The Babu meanwhile had darted with his folded dhoti to the darkest corner. When the sentry peered in, the two performing Marathas were sitting up; the rest were lying p.r.o.ne, to all appearance soothed to sleep.

"Verily thou wilt rap a hole in the tom-tom," said the sentry with a grin. "Better save a little of it for to-morrow."

"Sleep is far from my eyes," replied the man. "My comrades are all at rest; if it does not offend thee----"

"No. Tap till it burst, for me. But without sleep the work will be hard in the morning."

He went away. Instantly the two figures were again upon their feet, and the sawing recommenced. For three hours the work continued, interrupted at intervals by the visits of the sentry. Midnight was past before Desmond, with cramped limbs and aching head, gave the word for the song and accompaniment to cease, and the shed was in silence.

CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH

*In which Mr. Diggle ill.u.s.trates his argument; and there are strange doings in Gheria harbour.*

The morning of the third day dawned--the last of the three allowed Desmond for making up his mind. When the other prisoners were loosed from their fetters and marched off under guard to their usual work, he alone was left. Evidently he was to be kept in confinement with a view to quickening his resolution. Some hours pa.s.sed. About midday he heard footsteps approaching the shed. The door was opened, and in the entrance Diggle appeared.

"You will excuse me," he said with a sniff, "if I remain on the threshold of your apartment. It is, I fear, but imperfectly aired."

He pulled a charpoy to the door, and sat down upon it, as much outside as within. Taking out his snuff-box, he tapped it, took a pinch, savoured it, and added:

"You will find the apartment prepared for you in my friend Angria's palace somewhat sweeter than this your present abode--somewhat more commodious also."

Desmond, reclining at a distance, looked his enemy calmly and steadily in the face.

"If you have come, Mr. Diggle," he said, "merely to repeat what you said yesterday, let me say at once that it is waste of breath. I have not changed my mind."

"No, not to repeat, my young friend. 'Crambe repet.i.ta'--you know the phrase? Yesterday I appealed, in what I had to say, to your reason; either my appeal, or your reason, was at fault. To-day I have another purpose. 'Tis pity to come down to a lower plane; to appeal to the more ign.o.ble part of man; but since you have not yet cut your wisdom teeth I must e'en accommodate myself. Angria is my friend; but there are moments, look you, when the bonds of our friendship are put to a heavy strain. At those moments Angria is perhaps most himself, and I, perhaps, am most myself; which might prove to a philosopher that there is a radical antagonism between the Oriental and the Occidental character.

Since my picture of the brighter side has failed to impress you, I propose to show you the other side--such is the sincerity of my desire for your welfare. And 'tis no empty picture--'inanis imago,' as Ovid might say--no, 'tis sheer reality, speaking, terrible."

He turned and beckoned. In a moment Desmond heard the clank of chains, and by and by, at the entrance of the shed, stood a figure at sight of whom his blood ran cold. It was the bent, lean, broken figure of a Hindu, his thin bare legs weighted with heavy irons. Ears, nose, upper lip were gone; his eyes were lit with the glare of madness; the parched skin of his hollow cheeks was drawn back, disclosing a grinning mouth and yellow teeth. His arms and legs were like sticks; both hands had lost their thumbs; his feet were twisted; straggling wisps of grey hair escaped from his turban. Standing there beside Diggle, he began to mop and mow, uttering incomprehensible gibberish.

Diggle waved him away.