The Man Who Would Be King

by Rudyard Kipling

  It happened that To-morrow never came, and the warm heat of the latter Rains gave place to the chill of early October almost before I was aware of the flight of the year. The Captain Commanding the Fort returned from leave and took over charge of Khem Singh according to the laws of seniority. The Captain was not a nice man. He called all natives ‘niggers’, which, besides being extreme bad form, shows gross ignorance.22

  ‘What’s the use of telling off two Tommies to watch that old nigger?’ said he.

  ‘I fancy it soothes his vanity,’ said the Subaltern. ‘The men are ordered to keep well out of his way, but he takes them as a tribute to his importance, poor old chap.’

  ‘I won’t have Line men taken off regular guards in this way. Put on a couple of Native Infantry.’

  ‘Sikhs?’23 said the Subaltern, lifting his eyebrows.

  ‘Sikhs, Pathans, Dogras24 – they’re all alike, these black people,’ and the Captain talked to Khem Singh in a manner which hurt that old gentleman’s feelings. Fifteen years before, when he had been caught for the second time, every one looked upon him as a sort of tiger. He liked being regarded in this light. But he forgot that the world goes forward in fifteen years, and many Subalterns are promoted to Captaincies.

  ‘The Captain-pig is in charge of the Fort?’ said Khem Singh to his native guard every morning. And the native guard said: ‘Yes, Subadar Sahib,’ in deference to his age and his air of distinction; but they did not know who he was.

  In those days the gathering in Lalun’s little white room was always large and talked more than before.

  ‘The Greeks,’ said Wali Dad, who had been borrowing my books, ‘the inhabitants of the city of Athens, where they were always hearing and telling some new thing, rigorously secluded their women – who were fools. Hence the glorious institution of the heterodox women25 – is it not? – who were amusing and not fools. All the Greek philosophers delighted in their company. Tell me, my friend, how it goes now in Greece and the other places upon the Continent of Europe. Are your women-folk also fools?’

  ‘Wali Dad,’ I said, ‘you never speak to us about your women-folk and we never speak about ours to you. That is the bar between us.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Wali Dad, ‘it is curious to think that our common meeting-place should be here, in the house of a common – how do you call her?’ He pointed with the pipe-mouth to Lalun.

  ‘Lalun is nothing but Lalun,’ I said, and that was perfectly true. ‘But if you took your place in the world, Wali Dad, and gave up dreaming dreams –’

  ‘I might wear an English coat and trousers. I might be a leading Mohammedan pleader. I might be received even at the Commissioner’s tennis-parties where the English stand on one side and the natives on the other, in order to promote social intercourse throughout the Empire. Heart’s Heart,’ said he to Lalun quickly, ‘the Sahib says that I ought to quit you.’

  ‘The Sahib is always talking stupid talk,’ returned Lalun with a laugh. ‘In this house I am a Queen and thou art a King. The Sahib’ – she put her arms above her head and thought for a moment – ‘the Sahib shall be our Vizier26 – thine and mine, Wali Dad – because he has said that thou shouldst leave me.’

  Wali Dad laughed immoderately, and I laughed too. ‘Be it so,’ said he. ‘My friend, are you willing to take this lucrative Government appointment? Lalun, what shall his pay be?’

  But Lalun began to sing, and for the rest of the time there was no hope of getting a sensible answer from her or Wali Dad. When the one stopped, the other began to quote Persian poetry with a triple pun in every other line. Some of it was not strictly proper, but it was all very funny, and it only came to an end when a fat person in black, with gold pince-nez, sent up his name to Lalun, and Wali Dad dragged me into the twinkling night to walk in a big rose-garden and talk heresies about Religion and Governments and a man’s career in life.

  The Mohurrum, the great mourning-festival27 of the Mohammedans, was close at hand, and the things that Wali Dad said about religious fanaticism would have secured his expulsion from the loosest-thinking Muslim sect. There were the rose-bushes round us, the stars above us, and from every quarter of the City came the boom of the big Mohurrum drums. You must know that the City is divided in fairly equal proportions between the Hindus and the Mussulmans, and where both creeds belong to the fighting races, a big religious festival gives ample chance for trouble. When they can – that is to say, when the authorities are weak enough to allow it – the Hindus do their best to arrange some minor feast-day of their own in time to clash with the period of general mourning for the martyrs Hasan and Hussain, the heroes of the Mohurrum. Gilt and painted paper representations of their tombs are borne with shouting and wailing, music, torches, and yells, through the principal thoroughfares of the City; which fakements are called tazias.28 Their passage is rigorously laid down beforehand by the Police, and detachments of Police accompany each tazia, lest the Hindus should throw bricks at it and the peace of the Queen and the heads of Her loyal subjects should thereby be broken. Mohurrum time in a ‘fighting’ town means anxiety to all the officials, because, if a riot breaks out, the officials and not the rioters are held responsible. The former must foresee everything, and while not making their precautions ridiculously elaborate, must see that they are at least adequate.

  ‘Listen to the drums!’ said Wali Dad. ‘That is the heart of the people – empty and making much noise. How, think you, will the Mohurrum go this year? I think that there will be trouble.’

  He turned down a side-street and left me alone with the stars and a sleepy Police patrol. Then I went to bed and dreamed that Wali Dad had sacked the City and I was made Vizier, with Lalun’s silver pipe for mark of office.

  All day the Mohurrum drums beat in the City, and all day deputations of tearful Hindu gentlemen besieged the Deputy-Commissioner with assurances that they would be murdered are next dawning by the Mohammedans. ‘Which,’ said the Deputy-Commissioner, in confidence to the Head of Police, ‘is a pretty fair indication that the Hindus are going to make ’emselves unpleasant. I think we can arrange a little surprise for them. I have given the heads of both Creeds fair warning. If they choose to disregard it, so much the worse for them.’

  There was a large gathering in Lalun’s house that night, but of men that I had never seen before, if I except the fat gentleman in black with the gold pince-nez. Wali Dad lay in the window-seat, more bitterly scornful of his Faith and its manifestations than I had ever known him. Lalun’s maid was very busy cutting up and mixing tobacco for the guests. We could hear the thunder of the drums as the processions accompanying each tazia marched to the central gathering-place in the plain outside the City, preparatory to their triumphant re-entry and circuit within the walls. All the streets seemed ablaze with torches, and only Fort Amara was black and silent.

  When the noise of the drums ceased, no one in the white room spoke for a time. ‘The first tazia has moved off,’ said Wali Dad, looking to the plain.

  ‘That is very early,’ said the man with the pince-nez. ‘It is only half-past eight.’ The company rose and departed.

  ‘Some of them were men from Ladakh,’29 said Lalun, when the last had gone. ‘They brought me brick-tea such as the Russians sell, and a tea-urn from Peshawur. Show me, now, how the English Memsahibs make tea.’

  The brick-tea was abominable. When it was finished Wali Dad suggested going into the streets. ‘I am nearly sure that there will be trouble to-night,’ he said. ‘All the City thinks so, and Vox Populi is Vox Dei,30 as the Babus say. Now I tell you that at the corner of the Padshahi Gate you will find my horse all this night if you want to go about and to see things. It is a most disgraceful exhibition. Where is the pleasure of saying “Ya Hasan! Ya Hussain!”31 twenty thousand times in a night?’

  All the processions – there were two-and-twenty of them – were now well within the City walls. The drums were beating afresh, the crowd were howling ‘Ya Hasan! Ya Hussain!’ and beating their breasts, the brass bands
were playing their loudest, and at every corner where space allowed, Mohammedan preachers were telling the lamentable story of the death of the Martyrs. It was impossible to move except with the crowd, for the streets were not more than twenty feet wide. In the Hindu quarters the shutters of all the shops were up and cross-barred. As the first tazia, a gorgeous erection, ten feet high, was borne aloft on the shoulders of a score of stout men into the semi-darkness of the Gully of the Horsemen, a brickbat crashed through its talc and tinsel sides.

  ‘Into thy hands, O Lord!’32 murmured Wali Dad profanely, as a yell went up from behind, and a native officer of Police jammed his horse through the crowd. Another brickbat followed, and the tazia staggered and swayed where it had stopped.

  ‘Go on! In the name of the Sirkar,33 go forward!’ shouted the Policeman, but there was an ugly cracking and splintering of shutters, and the crowd halted, with oaths and growlings, before the house whence the brickbat had been thrown.

  Then, without any warning, broke the storm – not only in the Gully of the Horsemen, but in half-a-dozen other places. The tazias rocked like ships at sea, the long pole-torches dipped and rose round them while the men shouted: ‘The Hindus are dishonouring the tazias! Strike! strike! Into their temples for the Faith!’ The six or eight Policemen with each tazia drew their batons, and struck as long as they could in the hope of forcing the mob forward, but they were overpowered, and as contingents of Hindus poured into the streets, the fight became general. Half a mile away where the tazias were yet untouched the drums and the shrieks of ‘Ya Hasan! Ya Hussain!’ continued, but not for long. The priests at the corners of the streets knocked the legs from the bedsteads that supported their pulpits and smote for the Faith, while stones fell from the silent houses upon friend and foe, and the packed streets bellowed: ‘Din! Din! Din!’ A tazia caught fire, and was dropped for a flaming barrier between Hindu and Mussulman at the corner of the Gully. Then the crowd surged forward, and Wali Dad drew me close to the stone pillar of a well.

  ‘It was intended from the beginning!’ he shouted in my ear, with more heat than blank unbelief should be guilty of. ‘The bricks were carried up to the houses beforehand. These swine of Hindus! We shall be killing kine in their temples34 to-night!’

  Tazia after tazia, some burning, others torn to pieces, hurried past us and the mob with them, howling, shrieking, and striking at the house doors in their flight. At last we saw the reason of the rush. Hugonin, the Assistant District Superintendent of Police, a boy of twenty, had got together thirty constables and was forcing the crowd through the streets. His old grey Police-horse showed no sign of uneasiness as it was spurred breast-on into the crowd, and the long dog-whip with which he had armed himself was never still.

  ‘They know we haven’t enough Police to hold ’em,’ he cried as he passed me, mopping a cut on his face. ‘They know we haven’t! Aren’t any of the men from the Club coming down to help? Get on, you sons of burnt fathers!’ The dog-whip cracked across the writhing backs, and the constables smote afresh with baton and gun-butt. With these passed the lights and the shouting, and Wali Dad began to swear under his breath. From Fort Amara shot up a single rocket; then two side by side. It was the signal for troops.

  Petitt, the Deputy-Commissioner, covered with dust and sweat, but calm and gently smiling, cantered up the clean-swept street in rear of the main body of the rioters. ‘No one killed yet,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll keep ’em on the run till dawn! Don’t let ’em halt, Hugonin! Trot ’em about till the troops come.’

  The science of the defence lay solely in keeping the mob on the move. If they had breathing-space they would halt and fire a house, and then the work of restoring order would be more difficult, to say the least of it. Flames have the same effect on a crowd as blood has on a wild beast.

  Word had reached the Club, and men in evening-dress were beginning to show themselves and lend a hand in heading off and breaking up the shouting masses with stirrup-leathers, whips, or chance-found staves. They were not very often attacked, for the rioters had sense enough to know that the death of a European would not mean one hanging but many, and possibly the appearance of the thrice-dreaded Artillery. The clamour in the City redoubled. The Hindus had descended into the streets in real earnest and ere long the mob returned. It was a strange sight. There were no tazias – only their riven platforms – and there were no Police. Here and there a City dignitary, Hindu or Mohammedan, was vainly imploring his co-religionists to keep quiet and behave themselves – advice for which his white beard was pulled. Then a native officer of Police, unhorsed but still using his spurs with effect, would be borne along, warning all the crowd of the danger of insulting the Government. Everywhere men struck aimlessly with sticks, grasping each other by the throat, howling and foaming with rage, or beat with their bare hands on the doors of the houses.

  ‘It is a lucky thing that they are fighting with natural weapons,’I said to Wali Dad, ’else we should have half the City killed.’

  I turned as I spoke and looked at his face. His nostrils were distended, his eyes were fixed, and he was smiting himself softly on the breast. The crowd poured by with renewed riot – a gang of Mussulmans hard pressed by some hundred Hindu fanatics. Wali Dad left my side with an oath, and shouting: ‘Ya Hasan! Ya Hussain!’ plunged into the thick of the fight, where I lost sight of him.

  I fled by a side alley to the Padshahi Gate, where I found Wali Dad’s horse, and thence rode to the Fort. Once outside the City wall, the tumult sank to a dull roar, very impressive under the stars and reflecting great credit on the fifty thousand angry able-bodied men who were making it. The troops who, at the Deputy-Commissioner’s instance, had been ordered to rendezvous quietly near the Fort, showed no signs of being impressed. Two companies of Native Infantry, a squadron of Native Cavalry, and a company of British Infantry were kicking their heels in the shadow of the East face, waiting for orders to march in. I am sorry to say that they were all pleased, unholily pleased, at the chance of what they called ‘a little fun’. The senior officers, to be sure, grumbled at having been kept out of bed, and the English troops pretended to be sulky, but there was joy in the hearts of all the subalterns, and whispers ran up and down the line: ‘No ball-cartridge – what a beastly shame!’ ‘D’you think the beggars will really stand up to us?’ ‘Hope I shall meet my money-lender there. I owe him more than I can afford.’ ‘Oh, they won’t let us even unsheath swords.’ ‘Hurrah! Up goes the fourth rocket. Fall in, there!’

  The Garrison Artillery, who to the last cherished a wild hope that they might be allowed to bombard the City at a hundred yards’ range, lined the parapet above the East gateway and cheered themselves hoarse as the British Infantry doubled along the road to the Main Gate of the City. The Cavalry cantered on to the Padshahi Gate, and the Native Infantry marched slowly to the Gate of the Butchers. The surprise was intended to be of a distinctly unpleasant nature, and to come on top of the defeat of the Police, who had been just able to keep the Mohammedans from firing the houses of a few leading Hindus. The bulk of the riot lay in the north and north-west wards. The east and south-east were by this time dark and silent, and I rode hastily to Lalun’s house, for I wished to tell her to send someone in search of Wali Dad. The house was unlighted, but the door was open, and I climbed upstairs in the darkness. One small lamp in the white room showed Lalun and her maid leaning half out of the window, breathing heavily and evidently pulling at something that refused to come.

  ‘Thou art late – very late,’ gasped Lalun without turning her head. ‘Help us now, O Fool, if thou hast not spent thy strength howling among the tazias. Pull! Nasiban and I can do no more! O Sahib, is it you? The Hindus have been hunting an old Mohammedan round the Ditch with clubs. If they find him again they will kill him. Help us to pull him up.’

  I put my hands to the long red silk waist-cloth that was hanging out of the window, and we three pulled and pulled with all the strength at our command. There was something very heavy at the end, and it swor
e in an unknown tongue as it kicked against the City wall.

  ‘Pull, oh, pull!’ said Lalun at the last. A pair of brown hands grasped the window-sill and a venerable Mohammedan tumbled upon the floor, very much out of breath. His jaws were tied up, his turban had fallen over one eye, and he was dusty and angry.

  Lalun hid her face in her hands for an instant and said something about Wali Dad that I could not catch.

  Then, to my extreme gratification, she threw her arms round my neck and murmured pretty things. I was in no haste to stop her; and Nasiban, being a handmaiden of tact, turned to the big jewel-chest that stands in the corner of the white room and rummaged among the contents. The Mohammedan sat on the floor and glared.

  ‘One service more, Sahib, since thou hast come so opportunely,’ said Lalun. ‘Wilt thou’ – it is very nice to be thou-ed by Lalun – ‘take this old man across the City – the troops are everywhere, and they might hurt him, for he is old – to the Kumharsen Gate? There I think he may find a carriage to take him to his house. He is a friend of mine, and thou art – more than a friend – therefore I ask this.’

  Nasiban bent over the old man, tucked something into his belt, and I raised him up and led him into the streets. In crossing from the east to the west of the City there was no chance of avoiding the troops and the crowd. Long before I reached the Gully of the Horsemen I heard the shouts of the British Infantry crying cheerily: ‘Hutt, ye beggars! Hutt, ye devils! Get along! Go forward, there!’ Then followed the ringing of rifle-butts and shrieks of pain. The troops were banging the bare toes of the mob with their gun-butts – for not a bayonet had been fixed. My companion mumbled and jabbered as we walked on until we were carried back by the crowd and had to force our way to the troops. I caught him by the wrist and felt a bangle there – the iron bangle of the Sikhs35 – but I had no suspicions, for Lalun had only ten minutes before put her arms round me. Thrice we were carried back by the crowd, and when we made our way past the British Infantry it was to meet the Sikh Cavalry driving another mob before them with the butts of their lances.