The Red Year Part 19

When the Begum and the moulvie departed for Lucknow they were accompanied by nearly the whole of their retinue. Two men were left to a.s.sist the rissaldar in taking care of the prisoner, and these two vowed by the Prophet that they had never met such a swashbuckler as the stranger, for he used strange oaths that delighted them and told stories of the sacking of Lucknow that made them tingle with envy.

Oddly enough, he was very anxious that the Nazarene's horse should be recovered, and was so pleased to hear that Nejdi was caught in a field on the outskirts of the town and brought in during the afternoon that he promised his a.s.sistants a handful of gold mohurs apiece--when they reached Lucknow.

Once, ere sunset, he visited the prisoner and cursed him with a fluency that caused all listeners to own that the warriors of the 7th Cavalry must, indeed, be fine fellows.

At last, when Frank was led forth and helped into the saddle, his guardian's flow of humorous invective reached heights that pleased the villagers immensely. The Nazarene's hands were tied behind him, and the gallant rissaldar, holding the Arab's reins, rode by his side. The moulvie's men followed, and in this guise the quartette quitted Rai Bareilly for the north.

They were about a mile on their way and the sun was nearing the horizon, when the native officer bade his escort halt.

"Bones of Mahomet!" he cried, "what am I thinking of? My horse has done fifty miles in twenty-four hours, and the Feringhi's probably more than that. Hath not the moulvie friends in Rai Bareilly who will lend us a spare pair?"

Ahmed Ullah's retainers hazarded the opinion that their master's presence might be necessary ere friendship stood such a strain.

"Then why not make the Nazarene pay for his journey?" said the rissaldar with grim humor.

He showed skill as a cut-purse in going straight to an inner pocket where Malcolm carried some small store of money. Taking ten gold mohurs, he told the men to hasten back to the village and purchase a couple of strong ponies.

"Nay," said he, when they made to ride off. "You must go afoot, else I may never again see you or the tats. I will abide here till you return.

See that you lose no time, but if darkness falls speedily I will await you in the next village."

Not daring to argue with this truculent-looking bravo, the men obeyed.

Already it was dusk and daylight would soon fail. No sooner had they disappeared round the first bend in the road than the rissaldar, unfastening Malcolm's bonds the while, said with a strange humility:

"It was easier done than I expected, sahib, but I guessed that my story about the Nawab of Rampur would send Moulvie and Begum packing. Now we are free, and we have four horses. Whither shall we go? But, if it be north, south, east, or west, let us leave the main road, for messengers may meet the moulvie and that would make him suspicious."

"Thy counsel is better than mine, good friend," was Frank's answer. "I am yet dazed with thy success, and my only word is--to Allahabad."

CHAPTER XI

A DAY'S ADVENTURES

Though his arm was stiff and painful, the rough bandaging it had received and the coa.r.s.e food given him in sufficient quant.i.ty at Rai Bareilly, had partly restored Malcolm's strength. Nevertheless he thought his mind was failing when, in the dim light of the inner room in which he was confined, he saw Chumru standing before him.

His servant's warlike attire was sufficiently bewildering, and the sonorous objurgations with which he was greeted were not calculated to dispel the cloud over his wits, but a whispered sentence gave hope, and hope is a wonderful restorative.

"Pretend not to know me, sahib, and all will be well," said his unexpected ally, and, from that instant until they stood together on the Lucknow road, Malcolm had guarded tongue and eye in the firm faith that Chumru would save him.

He was not mistaken. The adroit Mohammedan knew better than to trust his sahib and himself too long on the highway.

"They will surely make search for us, huzoor," he said as they headed across country towards a distant ridge, thickly coated with trees. "The Begum and Ahmed Ullah met here for a purpose, and their friends will not fail to tell them of the trouble in Lucknow. I have been shaking in my boots all day, for 'tis ill resting in the jungle when tigers are loose, but I knew you could not ride in the sun, and I saw no other way of getting rid of the moulvie's men than that of sending them back in the dark."

"It seems to me," said Malcolm, with a weak laugh, "that you would not have scrupled to knock both of them on the head if necessary."

"No, sahib, they are my kin. He who wore this uniform was a Brahmin, and that makes all the difference. Brother does not slay brother unless there be a woman in dispute."

"When did you leave the Residency?"

"About nine o'clock last night, sahib."

"Did you see the miss-sahib before you came away?"

"It was she who told me whither you had gone, sahib."

"Ah, she knew, then? Did she say aught--send any message?"

"Only that you would be certain to need my help, sahib."

That puzzled Frank. Winifred, of course, had said nothing of the kind, but Chumru a.s.sumed that she understood him, so his misrepresentation was quite honest.

A level path now enabled them to canter, and they reached the first belt of trees ten minutes after the moulvie's men set out for Rai Bareilly.

Luck, which was befriending Chumru that day, must have made possible that burst of speed at the right moment. They were discussing their plans in the gloom of a grove of giant pipals when the clatter of horses hard ridden came from the road they had just quitted.

There could be no doubting the errand that brought a cavalcade thus furiously from the direction of Lucknow. It was so near a thing that for a little while they could not be certain they had escaped unseen. But the riders whirled along towards Rai Bareilly, and in another quarter of an hour the night would be their best guardian.

"That settles it," said Malcolm, in whose veins the blood was now coursing with its normal vitality, though, for the same reason, his right forearm ached abominably. "It would be folly to attempt the road again. Let us make for the river. We must find a boat there, and get men to take us to Allahabad, either by hire or force."

"How far is it to the river, sahib?"

"About twenty-five miles."

"Praise be to Allah! That is better than seventy, for my feet are weary of that accursed Brahmin's boots."

They stumbled on, leading the horses, until the first dark hour made progress impossible. Then, when the evening mists melted and the stars gave a faint light, they resumed the march, for every mile gained now was worth five at dawn if perchance their hunters thought of making a circular sweep of the country in the neighborhood of Rai Bareilly.

It was a glorious night. The rain of the preceding day had freshened the air, and towards midnight the moon sailed into the blue arc overhead, so they were able to mount again and travel at a faster pace. Twice they were warned by the barking of dogs of the proximity of small villages.

They gave these places a wide berth, since there was no knowing what hap might bring a ryot who had seen them into communication with the moulvie's followers.

Each hamlet marked the center of a cultivated area. They could distinguish the jungle from the arable land almost by the animals they disturbed. A gray wolf, skulking through the spa.r.s.ely wooded waste, would be succeeded by a herd of timid deer. Then a sounder of pigs, headed by a ten-inch tusker, would scamper out of the border crop, while a pack of jackals, rending the calm night with their maniac yelping, would start every dog within a mile into a frenzy of hoa.r.s.e barking.

Sometimes a fox slunk across their path. Out of many a tuft they drove a startled hare. In the dense undergrowth hummed and rustled a hidden life of greater mystery.

Where water lodged after the rain there were countless millions of frogs, croaking in harsh chorus, and being ceaselessly hunted by the snakes which the monsoon had driven from their nooks and crannies in the rocks. On such a night all India seems to be dead as a land but tremendously alive as a storehouse of insects, animals, and reptiles.

Even the air has its strange denizens in the guise of huge beetles and vampire-winged flying foxes. And that is why men call it the unchanging East. Civilization has made but few marks on its far-flung plains. Its peoples are either nomads or dwell in huts of mud and straw and scratch the earth to grow their crops as their forbears have done since the dawn of history.

When the amber and rose tints of dawn gave distance to the horizon the fugitives estimated that they had traversed some fifteen miles. Malcolm was ready to drop with fatigue. He was wounded; he had not slept during two nights; he had fought in a lost battle and ridden sixty-five miles, without counting his exertions before going to the field of Chinhut.

Nejdi and the horse which brought Chumru from Lucknow were nearly exhausted. Even the hardy Mohammedan was haggard and spent, and his oblique eyes glowed like the red embers of a dying fire.

"Sahib," he said, when they came upon a villager and his wife sc.r.a.ping opium from unripe poppy-heads in a field, "unless we rest and eat we shall find no boat on Ganga to-day."

This was so undeniable that Malcolm did not hesitate to ask the ryot for milk and eggs. The man was civil. Indeed, he thought the Englishman was some important official and took Chumru for his native deputy. He threw down the scoop, handed to his wife an earthen vessel half full of the milky sap gathered from the plants, and led the "huzoors" at once to his shieling. Here he produced some ghee and chupatties, and half a dozen raw eggs. The feast might not tempt an epicure, but its components were excellent and Frank was well aware that the ghee was exceedingly nutritious, though nauseating to European taste, being practically rancid b.u.t.ter made from buffalo milk.

There was plenty of fodder for the horses, too, and they showed their good condition by eating freely. The ryot eyed Chumru doubtingly when Malcolm gave him five rupees. Under ordinary conditions, the sahib's native a.s.sistant would demand the return of the money at the first convenient moment, and, indeed, Chumru himself was in the habit of exacting a stiff commission on his master's disburs.e.m.e.nts. Frank smiled at the man's embarra.s.sed air.

"The money is thine, friend," said he, quietly, "and there is more to be earned if thou art so minded."