by Ruskin Bond
Then a house was fired, its defence was good and the Sakoi had paid more in blood than they wanted to, so they fired it and it blazed, and the ring of spear points stood ready to catch the inmates should they run, as two of them did, to be pitchforked back into the blazing mass. They fired more houses after that for sheer joie-de-vivre, it was good sport turning spears into toasting forks with writhing bodies on the points. Only here and there sometimes women, the young and well-favoured, were not thrust back, but after their jewellery and any rich clothes had been torn off them, were huddled together in custody for distribution after the fight was over. Wailing women who knew what was to come and some of whose clothes were splashed with the blood of husbands and brothers and fathers, and even of babes at breast.
And so, the fight raged on, less and less of fighting, and more and more of slaughter, until the sole place holding out was the high tower whence the watchman had first seen the Sakoi. There were desperate men holding that and they held it bitterly.
It was practically dark now and the only light was the red leaping flames from the burning houses round that lit up steel cap and red stained blade and wolfish faces of men who passed from shadow to shadow to avoid the arrows from above. At one point opposite the tower, in the leaping glare from a burning house, a group of the raiders were parcelling out some women, they felt they had done their share of the work, others could deal with that obstinate tower ahead. They laughed and talked together in rough uncouth voices as they looked over the shrinking women, tearing still further their already torn clothing. On some of the men glittered gold and silver ornaments in striking contrast to their rough leather and homespun clothes, their tarnished steel helmets and battered shields, necklaces and bracelets, nose and ear ornaments torn from other women. They settled the distribution, more or less amicably, took hold of their prizes, and disappeared with them into the shadows.
In the upper storey of the tower half a dozen women waited for the end. One fine looking woman, older than the rest, strove to comfort a young girl who clung to her, and she nursed a dagger in the folds of her dress. She had seen that play in the light of the flames yonder, and a dagger kiss was better than an outland embrace. She felt that hope was very faint, the times were evil, men had been bewitched by a froth of words, even she had sometimes been swayed by the magic speech of those men who said that war was dead, that arms were useless waste of substance and indeed, provocative of evil, but that if danger should ever arise they would meet and dispel it. She was a daughter of fighting line and she realised now that it had all been wrong, that in sober truth it is the well-led and disciplined soldier who alone stands between women and ultimate slavery and shame.
As they listened to the shouts and cries outside, the whistle of arrows, the thud of blows upon the door below which was heavily barricaded, they waited for the acrid reek of smoke to creep up the narrow staircase and tell them that the end was at hand. It came at last, and although the flames delayed, the heat mounted and the crackling of blazing wood below showed that the door was likely to give before long.
The older woman rose to her feet and, supporting the girl, made her way up to the open roof of the tower, to stand there among the handful of men who were firing their last arrows into the Sakoi below. She stood hesitating a while, looking out into the night, screening her eyes from the leaping flames that licked up the inside of the tower.
The still starlit night showed nothing, no answering welcome blaze gleamed upon the low hills nor in the plains to tell her that help was at hand. Nor, indeed, could there be any since at that moment the clean-shaven official was talking volubly with other of his kin in Bazira. There was nothing to be done since there were no trained troops to send nor any men to lead such fighting men as might be found. They called upon certain headmen of the district to gather their young men and rescue Maza, and the headmen openly laughed at them—they had their own homes to think of. Furthermore, the headmen were sullen and angry for they felt they had been tricked. There had been real danger after all, and the glib tongued ones had hidden it. Herein, they misjudged the talkers for had these honestly thought danger threatened them they would have secured armies at all costs. They had merely made the elemental mistake of thinking mere words can rule a world of men.
A hundred miles to westward lived an old-fashioned chief who was as openly contemptuous of those who nominally governed Bazira as they were secretly frightened of him. But he had a following of fighting men whom he trained and led in some archaic fashion—it was a boast of his house that some of Alexander's blood ran in his veins, quite a likely story, for more than one Bactrian Queen's son had laid claim to kingship as body heir of Alexander, and been openly supported therein by his mother. They could send to him for aid. It was a bitter pill but they swallowed it, and in the end he came with his unlettered following of spearmen and archers. But when he came, he stopped, and thereafter the late rulers of Bazira disappeared and no man worried to ask how or whither, though it was common talk that the old chief had filled Bazira's rather empty treasury from their hoarded personal wealth. The self-styled descendant of the Macedonian understood human nature thoroughly. He kept Bazira contented for many years though when any disobeyed his orders or his lightest wishes he dealt them swift and heavy-handed justice which made them respect and like him.
But his coming did not affect the fate of Maza that night as the woman looked out from the tower. Below her the clamour increased as the heavy crash and sudden uplift of dancing sparks showed that the now burning door had given way. Then came the sound of blows and outland voices, shrieks and oaths, and the trample of feet on the wooded floor below as men fought about it hand to hand, men without hope fighting desperately in a last effort to save the women huddled behind them.
Then presently, they were dead and the Sakoi checked to bind up wounds and get their breath for the last assault up that further flight of stairs in front, which was narrow and menacing, and where two or three men might hold up five times their number. The grim-faced Sakoi leader himself was there now, he did not lack courage and with him were many equally hard fighters, swordsmen, and spearmen, and men with curved axes.
In the far corner two of his men stood guard over the half a dozen women, there was one who was particularly beautiful and the Sakoi chief intended her for his own pleasure presently. He grinned affably in her direction and the wilted at his look and the sight of his mouth.
The woman on the roof listened as the men about her passed back into the dark staircase to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Among them came the grey-bearded elder, her brother, and he limped badly as he went, his old face gaunt in the light of the blazing house beyond, his sword firmly gripped in his knotted veined old hand. He hoped to kill a man before the finish came.
"It is the end, Unna, we die" he said quietly to her as he passed, and she nodded in silence, showing the dagger she held. In the room below a woman's voice rose in a sobbing wail that was drowned again in an instant by a chorus of coarse laughs. Then, once more broke out the grating sound of steel on steel, the trample of feet, and the noise of a body rolling down the stairs.
The remnants of the defenders fought well in the stairway and held it for some little time, since the enemy could come but two at a time and even your keenest fighter will sometimes hesitate to tackle the man who has made up his mind that there is nothing left but death. Moreover, like most of the northern Indian peasantry in all ages, the villagers of Maza were a fighting folk, and with proper leadership would have been more than a match for the Sakoi. As the elder did his best with his ancient sword, he had succeeded in slaying not merely one man but two already, though he was sorely wounded, and his sole remaining companion, a well-built bobbed-haired youth was also wounded in three places, the thought of that lack of leadership was peculiarly bitter. His youth had been passed under leaders of courage who understood men and life as it is and not merely manuscripts.
Then, he gripped his sword again to meet a new rush, went dow
n with a spear point in his chest, and coughed out his life while men beat at him with swords and axes as they dragged him away from the stairway which his maimed old body cumbered.
The woman on the tower drew the terror-stricken girl closer to her and gave one last long look out to the silent hills whence aid might have come. Life was very dear but other things were dearer. Her blade shimmered in the starlight and the girl gave a little gasp as with a choking sob she crumpled in the older woman's arms. Unna laid the limp form down gently, raised the wet blade once more, and, sheathing it in her own breast, sank slowly down across the girl's lifeless body. It was the end.
This "Familiar" of Mine
By Hilmer Rey
"….and who is now shadowing thee on behalf of the war in perpetuity that thy family wages on his family? …as far as is known to me and my kinsfolk it is a fool who goes by the name of Safarchat: it is he that is my familiar for the moment.
"….What? Safarchat, thy familiar? Lookout, and look oft brother, that man is no fool, he is a thrice accursed dog."
(Part of a conversation at any time and anywhere in a village on the North-West Frontier).
It was years ago that I first came across this "familiar" of mine, how long ago I just do not care to remember—I loathed him' at sight (this much I can recollect, also that each successive visit to me was in the nature of a nightmare, with all its attendant horrors); I still loathe him but the bitter, aching hate of our first few encounters is now a little dulled.
I suppose familiarity with one's own "familiar" does breed a contempt—that should be only natural—but with me things are now too far gone for me to retrieve myself and I sometimes long for an end to things and then again sometimes I long to live with a desperation that is pitiful.
But what are these "things" that I speak of and who is this "familiar" that I dread so much yet with whom I am so familiar that I hold him in contempt? The Risaldar had said long ago that he was a cravenhearted knave; no, he said he would send a cravenhearted fool….
But listen!
The valley on the Frontier which supplies salt in such quantity and with which I had been connected for so many years was not in anyway conducive to gaiety or amusement; my job was a one-man job and except for a stray missionary I saw no other company but my own. Of course, there were Pathans all around me and of course, I knew them intimately, but then the Pathan is very much of a rough diamond at times and one can have too much of him.
I had a hobby. Most men have hobbles for collecting something, with some it is wives while others make a hobby of losing them, some gather stamps while others collect coins, but with me my grand passion lay in the gathering together of chips of quartz and crystal, precious and semi-precious stones and I guarded them lovingly with all the care and affection of the true lapidary.
It is not generally known that the mountains of the North-West Frontier of India can, if "tapped" carefully, produce a variety of precious and semi-precious stones sufficient to supply the world for many years to come with all its requirements of tourmalines, emeralds, sapphires, topazes, garnets, beryls and half a dozen other forms of gems yet to be named.
And, there are occasional opals to be had.
Here, if one is lucky (and show me the Pathan who does not believe in chance though he will solemnly avow his faith is against it) one might pick up, buy, steal or otherwise acquire gems worth a fortune, and I was the only European in the country! Just think of the opportunities I had; I eagerly devoured all the latest literature on the subject, purchased the right types of lenses and a microscope, bought myself a pair of mathematically exact troy scales and settled down to my hobby with a grim earnestness which bordered on passion.
I developed a "sixth" sense as it were and very smart had to be the man who could deceive me in the matter of precious stones, oh! very smart, indeed. I adjudged the "precious" stones from the rest by virtue of that combination of essential qualities which, in my opinion, went to the fashioning of these the finest of God's works; these qualities being hardness, brilliancy, beauty, lustre, durability and rareness while the semi-precious I judged for their beauty alone with of course, a fair percentage of rareness.
The best stone I came across in all my forty years of roving around the North-West during my service or since my retirement was Shah Wali's opal. I have it now and I love it with the same keen and deep affection that I first gave it when I lost my heart to it long years ago.
But it has been my undoing.
Listen, please.
Riding my Kabul mare down a gully one morning in late December while the frost lay undisturbed on the grass I found myself on the skirts of a village which passed in those days on the, as yet incomplete, maps as Makaikili or village or maize; it was a prosperous enough sort of place and had in common with other villages its square flat-roofed houses, watch towers, spy holes and powder magazine.
The presiding genius of the place was Shah Wali, a jovial old villain and a true host whose hospitality knew no bounds. He was possessed of an opal which for size and beauty has never been equalled.
That it was loot I was certain of and that originally it had come down to our valley by way of Kandahar I was equally certain of, for Shah Wali was "a man of many hands" as they have it in Pushto and had wandered far afield in his youth as the many scars on his neck and shoulders from the rigours of many a mountain battle in the service of the Amir Badshah Saheb (whose army is said to keep fit by indulging in frequent shamfights which begin in the morning in jest and end at sundown in tragedy when some youthful sepoy forgets to charge his sniper with blank and slips in a ball!) could well testify to.
I had long coveted this jewel. My heart was centered on it and I meant to get it but the manner of obtaining it was not clear to me; my hunger was whetted by the knowledge that he had placed it somewhere for safe custody ever since the day that one of the young Khans of a neighbouring khel, or tribe, had set men on to waylay him and rob him of his treasure.
'Twas here that I was overtaken by a funeral procession moving at a swift amble—for the morning was cold—towards the village kabristan or graveyard. We met in a defile and at the moment of passing each other I observed the comparative richness of the bier, the number of mourners and the colour of the shroud indicating, first that the deceased was of position, secondly popular in the place and lastly, that he, or it, had been a man.
I turned over in my mind the number of likely people that my clues were applicable to and I brought my list down to three. There was old Pir Baksh the Darogha, a martyr to sciatica, and Gholam Sarwar the pensioned lambardar, who, report said, consumed "charas" on the sly, and there was Elahee Baksh the retired butcher but what his particular malady was I just cannot bring to mind.
However, I was wholly unprepared for the shock that awaited me when I hailed an urchin in the wake of the procession with:
"Say, halak, who dies? Tell me that I too may know sorrow for the memory of the dead."
"'Tis Shah Wali, the vendor of many wares. He dies of a pain received in the night but from whence none dare yet say. He was old but had no enemies and his family mourn crying, How is this? How is this? His son has been called from Peshawar but men say he will not remain, for he is in the service of the Sarkar and is enhungered for honour. Still, who knows the minds of the big men. Salaam, I go…!"
Shah Wali! Good God, but how could this be, I had seen the man but yesterday and he was hale and hearty. It was only yesterday that we had bargained (as we had done for so many years) for this priceless opal of his and we had parted with his standing jest "A min ta sarah, Saheb Bahadur, thou shalt receive it as a gift from me ere I die, if I die in peace!"
Clearly, the boy had meant that the man had been murdered when he had spoken of this pain in the night but whether he had meant poison or a stab in the dark was not quite clear; as far as I was aware he had been free of any of those desperately long drawnout blood feuds that just then were playing havoc with some of the best families I knew. So, still puz
zling over it, I turned the mare's nose to the village and dismounted as became a mourner and I approached the house of my friend.
My condolences to the women of the house by an old hag of a maid-servant were not at all well-received; but I dismissed the momentary feeling of discomfiture I experienced with the thought that this calamity that had befallen their house was perhaps, too heavy for them and they would respond suitably later on.
But I did not bargain for the terrible blow I was to receive later on in the week when a particularly smart Risaldar clicked his heels and saluted me at my bungalows. He refused the proffered chair with ill-concealed embarrassment.
"Stare mashe, lad" said I, "How is this, sit yourself down and tell me the tale of your wanderings since last we met". "Khwar mashe", he responded reluctantly and slid into a chair. He buried his face in the bend of his arm and groaned miserably. "Tell me, Sahib, that it is not true what these swines, and less than swine, say of you. Oh, my God, you that were as a small father to me, you that gave me my first rifle, you that helped me into the Service, tell me Sahib, that this is not true."
I was, indeed, puzzled and sat back frowning into space; what on earth could the fellow mean, what was this that I was being asked about? I leaned forward and touched him gently on the shoulder.
"Say, boy, would it not be better to tell me all, is it of your father that you would have us talk?"
He sniffed disconsolately and nodded, then looked away. "Forgive me that it should be I that utter these words but I come in the face of great opposition, Sahib. I come, Sahib, as you and I have been comrades of old and we have broken bread together. Even now as I speak it is known that I come for perhaps the last time, for after this visit is over outwardly we must appear as sworn enemies whatever our hearts may feel one for the other."