Voices in the Night Part 26

He laid his hand on the tombstone and smiled; so did Budlu and the _chupra.s.si_, uncomprehendingly; so, reluctantly, did Jerry.

'It's an orful time to wait,' he said regretfully, 'an' there's goin'

to be a row quite soon. Dad doesn't say so, but he thinks it; for I heard 'em talking of what they'd have to do if there was one; but they hadn't settled when Miss Dwummond came for me. What do you think would be the best thing, Mr. Ellison?'

'Lick 'em, sir, for sure,' replied Jan-Ali-shan succinctly.

Jerry's face flushed sharply, almost with vexation.

'Oh! of course, we'd lick 'em; but I meant what kind of things, just to show 'em, you know, that--that----' he paused, as he often did, bewildered by his own thoughts.

'Show 'em?' echoed John Ellison. 'Show 'em? Why! show 'em, that it's "_as you was!_" That there ain't no change. That it's still flags flyin' an'

"Gord save our gracious Queen."'

Jerry rose solemnly and took off his cap as the notes of the National Anthem floated out over the garden mound into the crisp morning air, in which even the nearer shadows showed blue as the distant ones.

'I thought that would be it myself,' he commented, heaving a sigh of relief, 'but I'm glad to be sure. Thanks, so much.'

The others, duteously following his lead, had risen also, and now Jan-Ali-shan, who had reached for the helmet which had been lying on the steps beside him, stood looking into it with a half-prayerful expression before putting it on: for time was pa.s.sing, and he was due at his work.

'You're welcome, sir, kindly welcome,' he said, after a pause. 'So jest you wait patient--say six-an'-thirty year. An' then, if you ain't got an 'ero's grave of your own as you can slip into when you fancies it--why, John Ellison--that's me, sir--'ll up an' give you 'is, an'--an'--chanst the constant wickedness! There, sir'--he spoke with conscious pride in the magnitude of his offer--' I can't say fairer nor that, so there's my 'and on it; for if ever there was a chip of the old block, it's you, sir--the chippiest of the chippiest.'

He reached out a big brown paw, and Jerry with great dignity laid his soft white one in it.

'Thanks orfully,' said the child, 'but I won't bovver you; I'll get one of my vewy own, please.'

'You bet!' remarked Jan-Ali-shan briefly. 'That's the game to play.

Same as 'im and me played forty years back. Same's you and some other chap'll play forty years on. Time's no hobject, only a comfortable 'ome. Well, good day to you, sir; an' if ever you wants John Ellison, you'll find me here, mornin's and evenin's, most days, on my way to work; for 'e and me's been pals a many years.'

As he walked off jauntily, his hands in his pockets, he paraphrased 'John Anderson my Jo' into Ellison, and put the expression stop full on at the last quatrain.

'Now we maun totter down, John, But hand in hand we'll come 'nd sleep together at the foot.'

He paused here at the gate which ended the rising path, and waved a hand back at the group in the hollow, ere the snick of the latch started him again on the refrain,

'John Ellison, my chum.'

So he pa.s.sed, with a curious mixture of swing and slouch, along the dusty roads towards the railway station, which lay on the outskirts of the town, about a quarter of a mile from the bridge. Like the latter, it was a semi-fortified structure, capable of some defence. The more so because the city wall, which it faced, was in itself an obstacle to attack from that quarter; since it was largely a retaining wall to the higher ground of the city within, and therefore solid, blank; until at the river end it jutted into a bastion, loopholed and embrasured. But even this would be of little use to a foe, for the brickwork was cracked from the parapet right down to the water's edge, and the whole building sloped outwards, as if even the firing of a cannon would send it toppling over into the river. Indeed, the advisability of so sending it safely under control of science, before chance interfered and sent it crashing into the railway bridge, had more than once been urged on the authorities. The bastion, however, happened to be part of a royal building which had been given for life to a very old pensioner; so it had been decided that destruction should await his death, unless matters became worse.

Therefore Jehan, as head of the six hundred of his like in Nushapore, still found it the best place in the whole city whence to fly kites; for there was generally a breeze off the river, and daylight lingered long, reflected from the glistening water.

So, at all times of the day, and occasionally by the help of a full moon, the royal pensioners gathered strong on the bastion. Quite a little court of them--reminiscent, strangely, of that dead dispossessed court of old days--centred round Jehan the Heir of all Things or Nothing. And they would pledge and p.a.w.n everything they possessed, except their pride, on the results of Lateefa's skill with paste and paper.

Half a dozen or more of these courtiers without a court or a king were lounging on the bastion waiting for Jehan to fly a match with another princeling of royal blood, when Jan-Ali-shan's trolly skimmed past on the line below it. They craned their yellow faces to look at him and the little knot of coolies who were pushing all they knew at the trolly; for Chris Davenant had bidden his overseer be at the drawbridge pier at eight o'clock to look over the machinery, and it was already five minutes past the hour. So Jan-Ali-shan had first hustled his own subordinates with oaths and abuse, into the utmost haste, and was now preparing the half-confidential, half-apologetic look of an offender for his own face--since he could see his superior officer's figure leaning over the iron lattice of the bridge waiting for him. Hurried as he was, however, he looked up, waved his hand to the group on the bastion, and called, '_Ram-ram_, gents, and _Mohammed-russool!_' a salutation (compounded from Hindoo and Mohammedan formulae) which, he would explain elaborately, prevented him from 'either 'inderin' weak brothers, or bowin' in any particklar 'ouse o' r.i.m.m.i.n.g.' For his seven years in a 'surplus ch.o.r.e' had given him a curious knowledge of Scripture.

'We had better begin by seeing if the hydraulic tank is full up,'

said Chris calmly, as the trolly stopped in prompt obedience to Jan-Ali-shan's imperative, 'Woa! I say woa! Didn't I tell yer to _tyro_ (stop) at the _pyli_ (first) pier.'

'Ay, ay, sir!' he answered, his face expressing a certain disappointment; and as he obeyed orders by climbing up an iron ladder which the coolies brought from its hooks on the pier, and fixed to a reservoir on the roof of the arched gateway, he shook his head gravely.

'It don't give a chap a fair chanst,' he muttered to himself as he mounted higher and higher. 'It ain't bracin' enough, that's what it ain't. Now, if 'e'd a said, "D--n you, if you're late agin, I'll cut yer pay," it 'u'd 'ave given a fellow a straight tip up the narrer path.' Here he paused to measure with a foot-rule, and hummed the while,

'A banner with a strange device--Ex--cel--si--or.'

'An' it don't come 'ome to the 'eart if you says it yourself,' he added despondently, 'not even if you uses fancy swears.'

These had an excellent effect, however, on the coolies, to whom they came simply as forcible imperatives; so that in a very few minutes the iron girders on either side had reared themselves back on the central tower, and the little party stood isolated both from the bridge and the bank.

'It 's as right as a trivet, sir!' said John Ellison, 'barrin' bein' a bit stiff on the crank, but a drop o' hoil'll set that easy, for it ain't a ten-men job, as they made it, but a two--that's what it is--a two at most.'

But when the drop of oil had been applied, two men failed to start the hydraulic pressure, much to Jan-Ali-shan's disgust. He set one couple after another of his men to tackle the job, without avail.

'Look 'ere, sir,' he said at last, persuasively, 'I'd take it a kindness if you'd jest lend me the sight o' your 'and for a moment. If I does it all myself, they'll begin to talk that _ik-bally_[15] rot o'

theirs, like as I was Sandow himself, but if they see your 'and in it too, it'll be 'uman beings--that's what it'll be.'

So Chris Davenant's thin nervous brown hand gripped the spindle, and Jan-Ali-shan's great paw--fresh as it was from the clasp of Jerry's small one--gripped the spindle also. The two, side by side, feeling each other's touch, feeling, for all we know, that other touch of the child who would come to such man's work after long years. Why should it not make itself felt, in more ways than one, that strange force which bids the race continue, which gives the spirit of kings or the spirit of slaves?

Then, with a slow gurgle, the water filled the cylinder, and the ma.s.sive iron girders came down once more, to bridge the gulf and make a permanent way between the east and the west banks of the wide river, which slid past silently, bringing no message from its birthplace, taking no message to its grave in the sea.

'Best 'ave 'er up an' down agin onst more, sir,' said Jan-Ali-shan, 'then there'll be fair odds on a continooance of virtoo. There's nothin' like 'abit, sir.'

He heaved a regretful sigh, and this time the water gurgled out of the cylinder.

'Behaves beautiful, she do,' he commented when, the drawbridge having risen and descended again, he had set the coolies to work pumping a fresh supply of water into the cistern, and had gone himself to lean over the iron latticing at a decently respectful distance from his superior officer, who was doing the same thing. The parting stream--its perfect placidity lost by the obstruction of the wide pier--swept under the girders in little petulant wrinkles and furrows. But even through these sears and seams of current, the jutting spit of rock--which yielded firm foothold for this first span of the railway bridge, yet with equal impartiality gave firm foundation closer in-sh.o.r.e to the new temple of Kali which challenged the old temple of Viseshwar--could be seen, clearly or dimly, as its broken contours dipped or rose beneath the water.

'Quite the lydy, she is,' went on Jan-Ali-shan, continuing his approval of the drawbridge. 'Ain't got no games in 'er--'olds out 'er arms if she likes you, an' draws in 'er arms if she don't. That's the sort.'

And then some link of thought started him on a song which shared first favourite honours with

'Her golding 'air all 'anging down 'er back,'

in the estimation of his sing-song audiences, and the notes of

'Where'er you walk,'

echoed out over the river, and made the bathers on the temple steps, who had been watching the proceedings, look up once more towards the bridge.