Voices in the Night Part 57

Trouble expected in the city--ah! about the amulets, no doubt--why had he not spoken? Troops sent for to Fareedabad, and coming sooner than the authorities expected. How could that be? Coming in a few moments, and the fact of their having been sent for leaking out through the second telegram, the Commissioner's telegram! Why had there been two telegrams?

'Ob, Lord G.o.d!' moaned the _baboo_, reverting to English at this question, 'because this poor devil of a _baboo_ one fool! Yet doing duty, sir--getting line clear, go ahead, all serene till _Kuzai_ fellows come bribing signalman for midnight train, so discovering special, beat this poor body to bruises--Oh, sir! issue orders! issue orders!'

Chris, in a whirl, stood aghast. Issue orders? What orders?

'Yes, sir! Ah! come and see, sir, and issue orders!' moaned the _baboo_ again.

Come and see? Well! he could at least do that! He dashed out at the door, and, followed breathlessly by the _baboo_, cut across the line.

As he did so a figure, crouching by the telegraph-office, ran towards the bridge end of the station. In the moonlight he saw the man's face, and recognised him as one of his butcher's gang.

He pulled up short, the consciousness that _this_ was something in which he could be no mere onlooker, but one in which his part must be played as that man's superior officer, coming to him. And as he paused, looking down the narrowing ribbon of steel, he gave a quick gasp of comprehension. All lay silent, peaceful, but against the dark shadow of the pier-tower a darker shadow was rising, and below it that narrowing ribbon of steel ended sharp, square, as if cut off with a knife.

The drawbridge was being raised!

Yet above it the green light of safety, the signal '_Line clear, go ahead_' shone bright, and was echoed from the faint moonshine and the deepening dark over the river.

And troops, in a special train, were almost due. At the very moment, indeed, a sudden ringing of an electric bell from the telegraph-office could be heard distinctly in the silence. The sound seemed to finish the _baboo_; he squatted down on the rails, murmuring, 'Oh, flag-station now! Oh, coming _instanter_! Oh, please, master, issue orders!'

No! not orders; something beyond orders surely! Who was it--was it he himself in a different life?--who had been through this before, with some one who had said, '_But we don't let 'em. No, sir! Two men, if they was men, 'ud keep that pier a Christian country for a tidy time_.'

But he was only one, for that thing at his feet was not a man! The old north-country contempt for the down-country swept through Chris as fiercely as contempt for the east sometimes sweeps through the west; as, no doubt, it sweeps through the east for the west!

'How many were there?' he asked swiftly. 'Of the gang, I mean.'

'Too many,' moaned the _baboo_; 'oh, sir, too many for one poor man.

Therefore _vis et armis_ forced into telling truth on compulsion because, they knowing already of train and troops, little knowledge became dangerous thing causing grievous hurt.'

'How many?' reiterated Chris fiercely; 'don't "men in buckram"!' He could not help the quotation, even then.

Five or six! And the man who had run forward was one, left as a scout, of course. And that must be another in the shadow of the city wall, close to the gap. Say three or four, then, on the bridge-pier; and behind him? He turned citywards, then realised that if--if the _pier was to be held as a Christian country_, it would not matter how many men were on this side of the drawbridge, provided those three or four on the pier could be reckoned with.

If! The next moment, still uncertain what he should do to gain his object, yet intellectually certain of that, he had run along the platform, swung himself over the low parapet of the retaining-wall, and dropped on to the bathing-steps, the top of which was here not six feet below the level of the line. And below him again the temple of _Mai_ Kali rose out of the levels of the river; rose from the sunken ridge of rock, on which, farther out in the deeper stream, the drawbridge tower was built; the ridge along which he must pa.s.s, since he was no swimmer, if he was to gain that iron ladder.

There were lights in the temple; twinkling lights. In his headlong rush downwards he could see the many-armed, blood-red idol between the figures of those circling round it with the sacred lamps. And that compelling clang of the temple bell was in his ears. Yet he did not pause. He was on the threshold, when it was barred by Viseshwar Nath.

'Not yet, Krishn! Not yet! The penance first, the vow first!'

'It is not that,' gasped Chris, forgetful of the possibility, nay, the probability, that what to him was dire misfortune might be to this man a very different thing. 'It is treachery, murder! a train is due; they have raised the drawbridge. Look! and let me pa.s.s.'

The drawbridge! Half a dozen worshippers grouped about the plinth heard the words and looked bridgewards; so did the Swami, and seized his advantage.

'Take thy shoes from off thy feet, Krishn Davenund,' he called in a louder voice, 'and vow the vow first!'

The circling priests within paused at the sound, and crowded to the temple door; the scattered worshippers, curious at the strange sight, closed in round the figure in the frock-coat, the figure in the saffron-shirt.

Yet there was something stranger to come. For from within, pushed to the front at a sign from the Swami, came two more figures: a widow, her face hidden in her white shroud, a slender slip of a girl with hers hidden in her bridal scarlet.

Chris fell back from the sight with a cry.

'Choose quick, Krishn!'

Choose! How could he choose, when behind those shrinking figures which meant so much to him, he could see that which, in a way, meant more.

For, hidden in the arched shadows of the temple, wafted to him in the perfume of incense and fading flowers--yes! symbolised even in the red-armed idol--was the great Mystery of Right and Wrong, Higher and Lower, which had haunted him all his life. It was years since he had stood so close to these eastern expressions of a world-wide thought, and the old awe came back to him at the sight.

Choose! How could he choose between old and new--even between Viva and Naraini; were they not the same? were they not both----

'Now then, guv'nor! wot 'ave you lost this time?' came a cheerful voice, and with it the sound of shod feet running down the steps. 'You jes' put a name to wot you want done, an' I'm blamed if the best A1 copper-bottomed as ever was 'all-marked----'

Jan-Ali-shan paused, for Chris, with another cry--a cry that had a ring of appeal in it like a lost child's--had caught at the newcomer's hand desperately, while he pointed with his other to the gap.

'The bridge!' he cried in frantic haste. 'Look! the gang, the _Kuzais_ have got at it; there is a train signalled; a train----'

He was going on, but that was enough for Jan-Ali-shan. More than enough! He had wrenched his hand away, turned to look for some weapon, and found one. Found it in the soda-water bottle closely netted round with twine, prolonged into a cord handle, which pilgrims carry so often, and which hung on the wrist of one close by him.

The next instant it was whirling--a veritable death-dealer--round his head, as he dashed forward among the little knot of people outside the temple, and the whole strength of his splendid voice rose echoing over the steps in a triumphant chant--

'I was not born as thousands are.'

There was a free path so far--

'Where G.o.d was never known.'

He paused here in the narrow entry to say, 'Stand back, my darlin's, we ain't got no quarrel with you'; and then, facing the priests inside, to call back--

'Now for it, sir!--use your fists on the _Ram-rammers_ if they tries to stop yer!'

'And taught to pray a useless prayer.'

The words were broken a bit by blows, an oath or two, yells and desperate scuffling, until--breathless but continuous--the chant rose again among the shadows and the incense--

'To blocks of wood and stone!'

Here Jan-Ali-shan, clear of all his adversaries save the Swami, who stood with upraised hands barring the way before the image of _Mai_ Kali, pushed the former aside and aimed a pa.s.sing swing at the latter.

The crash of a fall mingled with his gay 'Yoicks forre'd! gone away!

gone away!' and the next moment, closely followed by Chris, he was through the temple and waistdeep in the water beyond.

'Mum's the word now, sir!' he whispered, when--after having given Chris a heft up to the lowermost rung of the iron ladder, which hung on the pier--he swung himself up by sheer strength, and then paused for breath. 'How many on them are there, I wonder?'

'Not more than four or five,' whispered Chris, as he climbed. The man behind him made no answer, but Chris could hear him mutter the old complaint--'It don't give a fellow a chanst--it don't, really.'