The Path to Honour Part 15

"Then bring him on his bed. His life depends upon it. If he is not here in half an hour, I will blow in the gates and come and fetch him myself."

"It is an order!" said Sher Singh's servants in chorus, and withdrew.

Gerrard turned back to the Rani.

"Your Highness has proof of what you say?"

"This much of proof. Two days ago Sarfaraz Khan--may an evil ghost haunt him from henceforth!--came to me with a tale that the guards were discontented by reason of the favour shown to the rest of the army. I promised to do what I could, and went into the room where my jewels are kept, to see if I had anything left that might satisfy them. Kneeling before a coffer, I heard my son shriek without, but when I ran to see what ailed him, certain of my women--daughters of shame, whose end is even as they deserved--pushed me back into the room, and held the door against me. I heard my son fleeing and calling to me for succour, and the clash of the weapons of those that pursued him in silence. I heard him cry, 'O brother, slay me not!' and I heard his moans as they struck. And though I tore at the door until my hands ran down with blood, I could not move it, until the murderers were safely departed.

Then the door yielded suddenly, and I came out, to find my son lying dead in his blood. I called my own servants and swore them to vengeance, dipping in the blood their swords and this cloth of mine, which I will wear until the innocent blood is washed out in the blood of him that shed it, and first I bade them slay the women that had befooled me and held me back from dying with my son. Then I gave orders for the burning of my son's body, for fear the murderers should be minded to add insult to their crime, and I called together the Durbar and the heads of the army, and bade them search the city for Sher Singh, and offer a reward for him, dead or alive. But they refused, and mocked me, saying that Sher Singh was now Rajah, and their obedience was his. Then I reviled them to their faces--speaking unveiled, as one minded to mount the pyre and be consumed with the body of my son, could I but be a.s.sured of vengeance--and called upon those who remained faithful to follow me. This man Rukn-ud-din and these few sowars were all that came, and when we had burnt the body of my son, we took up his ashes and departed--many desiring to stop us, but no man caring to strike the first blow--to ride hither and demand justice on Sher Singh. And this, O Jirad Sahib, was Kharrak Singh, my son."

She swept aside the discoloured veil, and showed a brazen vessel filled with ashes, which she carried clasped to her breast. "This was my son, Jirad Sahib and soldiers of Partab Singh. Foully has he been cut off, before he could raise up a posterity to perform his funeral rites. By the innocent blood and the dishonoured ashes, I call upon you for vengeance."

"If it can be shown that Sher Singh has committed this murder, justice shall indeed be done upon him, Maharaj," said Gerrard. "But I think you will find that he has not left this place."

"Then to whom did my son call out 'Brother'?" she demanded fiercely.

"You will not find him."

"The Prince!" burst from the surrounding soldiers, and all turned towards the gateway of the fort, where a little group of men could be seen. A palanquin was brought out, and the bearers carried it swiftly down the winding path. Almost unconsciously the crowd below pressed forward to the foot of the cliff. The palanquin reached the bottom and stopped, and the fakir, who had followed it, opened the curtains and helped out a bent figure--unmistakably Sher Singh. A shriek broke from the Rani.

"He has outridden me and reached this place first!" she cried. "See his weakness, his deathly aspect. What but four days and nights of riding could account for it?"

Disregarding her words, Sher Singh turned with dignity to Gerrard.

"What does my friend Jirad Sahib require of me?" he asked mildly. "At his command I have risen from my bed, weak and faint with illness though I am. My servants tell me that my brother is dead. Is my blood desired also?"

"Your brother died calling upon you to spare him," said Gerrard.

"And is the life of a man to hang upon the cry of a terrified child?"

asked Sher Singh, with the same dignified meekness. "Nay, if he cried out 'Brother!' would he not say the same to any man of Granthi stock?

Jirad Sahib knows our customs, and that it is our wont to speak thus to one another."

"The matter must be properly tried," said Gerrard. "Your Highness sees"--he turned to the Rani--"that there is no proof against the brother of your son. Let me entreat you to retire to the tent prepared for you, and rest."

The Rani waved him back with a contemptuous gesture. "I have asked for no trial," she cried; "I demand justice. Here to his face I accuse Sher Singh of having ridden secretly to Agpur and murdered my son, his brother, and then returned hither in haste that he might give the lie to my words. Who is on my side? Who will slay this wretch for me?

Jirad Sahib?"

"Maharaj, I can do nothing until the whole matter has been inquired into and fairly decided."

"Oh, words, words! such as the English ever speak, and do nothing until it is too late! You then, soldiers of Partab Singh Rajah! Will you see your king's son murdered unavenged? Avenge me on his murderer!"

No one moved, but from the back of the crowd a murmur arose which swelled into a cry, "Sher Singh Rajah! Sher Singh Rajah!" The Rani started as if she had been stung.

"Will you set this wretch before my eyes on the _gaddi_ from which he has swept his father and his brother?" she shrieked. "Can the heavens look down on such a sight of shame, and not grow black?"

The soldiers cowered before her, but a short thick-set man pushed his way to the front. "I am not wise," he said, and a laugh answered him, "but a plain man may ask questions that the learned cannot answer. Her Highness desires us to slay Sher Singh. For whose benefit? say I. She says he is a murderer, but even if it were so--which I see no cause to believe--he is the last of Partab Singh's house. To whom should the kingdom fall, if he were slain? To her Highness herself--who might then be less desirous of death? To her friends the English? perhaps to Jirad Sahib--who would not be the first to owe a throne to a woman's favour. Not one of these has any cause to desire the death of Sher Singh, of course--I lay my hand upon my mouth for having even uttered the thought--but who then does desire it? Not the soldiers of Partab Singh, say I."

"And thou sayest well, brother!" burst from the soldiers. "Sher Singh Rajah! We will set him on the _gaddi_, and by the might of the Guru!

if the English interfere, we will fight them." Out of the tumult in the ranks a high thin voice rose above the rest. "Back to the zenana, shameless one! Wilt thou disgrace thy lord, as she of Ranjitgarh doth daily?"

The two Englishmen and their followers moved towards the Rani to protect her, but she waved them back with measureless contempt, then turned upon the jeering soldiers with eyes glowing like live coals.

"Truly Jirad Sahib spoke well when he warned me that you, for whom I have stripped myself of the very jewels of my marriage-portion, designed only to play me false. Ai Guru! what a lot is mine, to dwell in a land where the men are as women, even as those that sell themselves for gain! Hear then the curse of the widow, the childless one. Behold the unavenged ashes of my son!" she thrust forth the brazen urn. "As I cover them from your unworthy sight with the cloth stained with his innocent blood"--sweeping her veil over it--"so shall the blood of Agpur extinguish the burning embers of her houses. As you have cried shame upon me, seeking to avenge my dead, so shall your childless mothers and your widowed wives find shame in seeking to avenge you, and the death of honour shall be denied them. For innocent blood shall the doom come, though my eyes shall not behold it, and through these two Feringhees"--she indicated Gerrard and Charteris--"who shall execute justice on the murderer in the day when they shall make a road for a corpse through the great wall of Agpur."

"The doom is easily averted, if only by slaying the two Feringhees and the woman here and now," said the short man who had stood forth as Sher Singh's champion, but this time his words did not meet with the former ready response.

"Aye, do so," said the Rani coolly, "and bring the English down upon you to fulfil the curse as soon as it is uttered."

She faced the ready weapons defiantly, but Sher Singh, who had been sitting drooping upon the edge of the palanquin, apparently too weak either to defend himself or to interfere to prevent a ma.s.sacre, now summoned strength again and interposed.

"The army has spoken truth," he said. "I am Rajah, grievous as is the cause that brings me to the _gaddi_, and evil as shall be the fate of the murderers of my brother. Against Jirad Sahib I bear no malice for his doubts of me, for he has been led astray by the bitter tongue of a woman crazed with grief. She demands vengeance; I will be her avenger, as is fitting, since my father was her husband. In my house she will receive due honour as his widow, and it will fare ill with any man who speaks of shame in connection with this day. Let her Highness be conducted back to her elephant and carried into the fort, where a suitable reception awaits her."

"Not unless she wills it," said Gerrard firmly. "Where does your Highness choose to dwell?" he asked of the Rani, who stood waiting impa.s.sively.

"I have no desire to live save for vengeance, but my life would last but an hour or two within those walls," she said calmly.

"Where would your Highness prefer to go?"

"I would fain entrust my son's ashes to Mother Ganga, and visit Kashi in pilgrimage. That is my desire."

"It shall be done. Will your Highness permit Lieutenant Charteris to escort you to Ranjitgarh?" He looked round for Charteris, intending to present him, but he had slipped away a moment before. "At Ranjitgarh the Resident will charge himself with your safety."

"What Jirad Sahib suggests is impossible," said Sher Singh with determination. "My _izzat_"--a convenient term, covering most things from self-esteem to family honour--"would be destroyed if my father's wife wandered away from my house."

"The choice lies with her Highness," said Gerrard. "Let her servants decide whether they will serve her or Sher Singh Rajah."

The Rajputs stepped over to their mistress's side at once, and so did Rukn-ud-din and most of his troopers, but some even of these who had accompanied the Rani from Agpur preferred to worship the riding [Transcriber's note: rising?] sun. Sher Singh smiled unpleasantly.

"Since I am so many, and he so few, Jirad Sahib will not force me to defend my _izzat_ with the sword?"

"I begin to think that it needs a good deal of defending," said Gerrard meaningly, "but that will not be done by attacking me. I shall attend the Rani Sahiba to Ranjitgarh myself."

[1] Starving oneself to force a debtor to pay.

[2] Fixture.

CHAPTER XII.

THE ONE WHO WAS TAKEN.

"Have you cleared out a tent for the Rani, Bob? I was going to ask you to do it, but when I looked for you, you had disappeared."

"Yes, she and her women are safely secluded. But what I really made myself scarce for was to secure the guns."

"Old boy, you are a genius! They won't dare to try and stop us now."