Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “I don’t understand you, Jaimihr-sahib,” she whispered, understanding all too well.

  “Follow me. Come to me in Howrah. Then whatever these fool Rangars choose to do, I swear by Siva and the Rites of Siva that I will hurry to the Company’s aid!”

  Rosemary McClean shuddered, and he knew it. But that fact rather added to his pleasure. The wolf prefers a cowering, frightened prey even though he dare fight on occasion. She was thinking against time. Through that one small, overburdened head, besides a splitting headache, there was flashing the ghastly thought of what was happening to her countrymen and women — of what would happen unless she hurried to do something for their aid. All the burden of all warring India seemed to be resting on her shoulders, in a stifling cell; and Jaimihr seemed to be the only help in sight.

  “How many men could you summon to the Company’s aid?” she asked him.

  He laughed. “Ten thousand!” he boasted.

  “Armed and drilled men — soldiers fit to fight?”

  “Surely.”

  “I think that is a lie, Jaimihr-sahib. There is not time enough to waste on lies. Tell me the exact truth, please.”

  He contrived to save his face, or, rather, he contrived to make himself believe he did.

  “I would need some to guard my rear,” he answered. “I could lead five thousand to the British aid.”

  “Is that the truth?”

  “On my honor, sahiba.”

  “And you wish to marry me?”

  “Sahiba — I — I have no other wish!”

  “I agree to marry you provided you will lead five thousand men to the Company’s aid, but not until you have done so.”

  “You will come to Howrah?”

  She could feel his excitement. The cell walls seemed to throb.

  “Yes; but I shall come accompanied by my father, and Mr. Cunningham, and all the Rangars he can raise. And I shall hold you to your bargain. You must help the Company first. FIRST — d’you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  It was Jaimihr’s turn now to lay the law down. She had let him see her eagerness to gain his aid for the Company, and he saw the weakness of her case in an instant. He knew very well, too, that no woman of her breed would have thought of consenting to marry him unless her hand was forced. He decided immediately to force it further.

  “I understand, sahiba. I, too, will hold thee to thy promise! Thou wilt come with an escort, as befits a prince’s wife! But how should I know that the Rangars would prove friends of mine? How should I know that it is not all a trap?”

  “You will have my promise to depend on.”

  “Truly! And there will be how many hundred men to override the promise of one woman? Nay! My word is good; my promise holds; but on my own conditions! Help me to escape. Then follow me to Howrah City. Come in advance of thy Rangar escort. By that I will know that the Rangars and this Cunningham are my friends — otherwise they would not let thee come. The Rangars are to exact guarantees from my brother? How should I know that they do not come to help my brother crush me out of existence? With thee in my camp as hostage I would risk agreement with them, but not otherwise. Escape with me now, or follow. But bring no Rangars, sahiba! Come alone!”

  “I will not. I would not dare trust you.”

  Jaimihr laughed. “I have been reckoning, sahiba, how many hours will pass before my army comes to rip this nest of Alwa’s from its roots, and defile the whole of it! If I am to spare the people on this rock, then I must hurry! Should my men come here to carry me away, they will be less merciful than I! Choose, sahiba! Let me go, and I will spare these Rangars until such time as they earn punishment anew. Or let me go, and follow me. Then fight with the Rangars and for the Company, with thee as the price of my alliance. Or leave me in this cell until my men come to rescue me. The last would be the simplest way! Or it would be enough to help me escape and wait until I have done my share at conquering the British. Then I could come and claim thee! Choose, sahiba; there are many ways, though they all end in one goal.”

  “If I am the price of your allegiance,” said Rosemary, “then I will pay the price. Five thousand men for the British cause are dearer to me than my own happiness. I promise, Jaimihr-sahib, that I will come to you in Howrah. I shall come accompanied by one servant, named Joanna, and — I think — by my father; and the Rangars and Mr. Cunningham shall be at least a day’s ride behind me. I give my word on that. But — I can promise you, on Mr. Cunningham’s behalf, and on the Alwa-sahib’s, and Mahommed Gunga’s, that should you have made any attempt against my liberty — should you have offered me any insult or indignity — before they come — should you have tried to anticipate the terms of your agreement — then — then — there would be an end of bargaining and promises, Jaimihr-sahib, and your life would be surely forfeit! Do you understand?”

  “Surely, sahiba!”

  “Do you agree?”

  “I already have agreed. They are my terms. I named them!”

  “I would like to hear you promise, on your honor.”

  “I swear by all my gods and by my honor. I swear by my love, that is dearer to me than a throne, and by the name and the honor of a Rajput!”

  “Be ready, then. I am going now to hide the rope in the shadow of the wall. It will take perhaps fifteen minutes. Be ready.”

  He made a quick movement to embrace her, but she slipped out and escaped him; and he thought better of his sudden plan to follow her, remembering that her word was likely to be good, whatever his might be. He elected to wait inside until she returned for him. He little knew that he missed the downward swing of Alwa’s sabre, that was waiting, poised and balanced for him, in the darkness by the door.

  “Bismillah! I would have had a right to kill him had he followed her and broken faith so early in the business!” Alwa swore, excusing his impatience to Mahommed Gunga. “Have no fear, sahib!” he counselled Cunningham a moment later, laying a heavy hand on the boy’s arm. “Let her keep her promises. That Hindoo pig will not keep his! We will be after her, and surely — surely we will find good cause for some throat-slitting as well as the cancelling of marriage promises!”

  “Do you understand, Alwa-sahib, that — if Jaimihr keeps his promise to her, she must keep hers to him? Do you realize that?”

  “Allah! Listen to him! Yes, sahib. Truly, bahadur, I appreciate! I also know that I have given certain promises which I, too, must fulfil! She is not the only bargainer! I am worrying more about those guarantees that Howrah was to give — I am anxious to see how, with fifteen hundred, we are to get the better of a Rajah and his brother and their total of ten thousand! I want to see those promises performed! Ay! The Miss-sahib has done well. She has done her share. Let her continue. And do thou thy share, bahadur! I am at thy back with my men, but give us action!”

  Cunningham held up a lantern, and looked straight at Duncan McClean. The missionary had held his daughter’s hand while she recounted what had happened in the cell. Whatever he may have thought, he had uttered no word of remonstrance.

  “Of course, we go to Howrah ahead of you,” he answered to Cunningham’s unspoken question.

  Cunningham held out his right hand, and the missionary shook it.

  “Hold the lamp, please,” said Cunningham, and Mahommed Gunga seized it. Then Cunningham took paper and a pencil and read aloud the answer that he wrote to Byng-bahadur. He wrote it in Greek characters for fear lest it might fall into the enemy’s hands and be too well understood.

  “I can be with you in one week, sir, and perhaps sooner. Unless we are all killed in the meantime we should number more than fifteen hundred when we come. Expect either all or none of us. The situation here is critical, but our course seems clear, and we ought to pull through. Mahommed Gunga sends salaams. Your obedient servant,

  “RALPH CUNNINGHAM.”

  “Would God I could see the clear course!” laughed Alwa.

  “Call the Sikh, please.”

  The Sikh came running, and C
unningham gave him the folded note.

  “Have you a horse for him, Alwa-sahib?”

  “That has been attended to, sahib,” the Sikh answered. “The Alwa-sahib has given me a wonder of a horse.”

  “Very well, then, Jaidev Singh. Watch your chance. Go to the parapet, and when you see by their lanterns that the cavalry below have ridden off, then race for all you’re worth with that news for Byng-bahadur!”

  “Salaam, sahib!” said the Sikh.

  “Salaam, Jaidev Singh. And now hide, every-body! Don’t let Jaimihr get the impression that we’re playing with him.”

  A little later Miss McClean led Jaimihr through a passage in the rock, off which axe-hewn cells led on either side, to the far side of the summit, where the parapet was higher but the wall was very much less sheer. The Prince’s arms were still too sore from the wrenching he received when they took him prisoner for him to dare trust himself hand over hand on a rope; she had to make the rope fast beneath his armpits, and then lower him slowly, taking two turns with the rope round the waist of a brass cannon. The Prince fended himself off the ragged wall with hands and feet, and called up instructions to her as loudly as he dared.

  It was a tremendous drop. For the last fifty or more feet the wall rose straight, overhung by a ridge that rasped the rope. And the rope proved fifteen feet or more too short. Rosemary paid out as much of it as she dared, and then made the end fast round the cannon, leaning over to see whether Jaimihr would have sense enough or skill enough to cut himself free and fall. But he hung where he was and spun, and it was five minutes before Rosemary remembered that his weapons had all been taken from him! It was scarcely likely that he could bite the thick rope through with his teeth!

  She stood then for two or three more minutes wondering what to do, for she had no knife of her own, and she had made the rope fast — woman-wise — with a true landlubber’s knot that tightened from the strain until her struggling fingers could not make the least impression on it. But Alwa walked up openly — drew his heavy sabre — and saved the situation for her.

  “That may help to jog his recollection of the bargain!” he laughed, severing the rope with a swinging cut and peering over to see, if he could, how Jaimihr landed. By a miracle the Prince landed on his feet. He sat down for a moment to recover from the shock, and then walked off awkwardly to where his cavalry were sleeping by their horses.

  He had some trouble in persuading the outposts who he really was, and there was an argument that could be quite distinctly heard from the summit of the rock, and made Alwa roar with laughter before, finally, the whole contingent formed and wheeled and moved away, ambling toward Howrah City at a pace that betokened no unwillingness.

  Five minutes later the Sikh’s horse thundered out across the plain from under Alwa’s iron gate, and the news, such as it was, was on its way to Byng-bahadur.

  “A clear road at the price of a horse-hide rope!” laughed Alwa. “Now for some real man’s work!”

  Rosemary stole off to argue with her father and her conscience, but Alwa went to his troopers’ quarters and told off ten good men for the task of manning the fortress in his absence. They were ten unwilling men; it needed all his gruff authority, and now and then a threat, to make them stay behind.

  “I must leave ten men behind,” he insisted. “It takes four men, even at a pinch, to lift the gate. And who shall guard my women? Nay, I should leave twenty, and I must leave ten. Therefore I leave the ten best men I have, and they who stay behind may know by that that I consider them the best!”

  The remainder of his troopers he sent out one by one in different directions, with orders to rally every Rangar they could find, and at a certain point he named. Then he and Mahommed Gunga said good-by to Cunningham and took a trail that led in the direction where most of the doubtfuls lived — the men who might need personal convincing — rousing — awakening from lethargy.

  “You think I ought to stay behind?” asked Cunningham, who had already made his mind up but chose to consult Alwa.

  “Surely, sahib. If for no other reason, then to make sure that that priest of thine and his daughter make tracks for Howrah City! While he is here he is a priest, and we Rangars have our own ideas on what they are good for! When he is there he will be a man maneuvering to save his own life and his daughter’s reputation! See that he starts, sahib!”

  He rode off then. But before Mahommed Gunga saw fit to follow him he legged his charger close to Cunningham for a final word or two.

  “Have no fear now, bahadur — no anxiety! Three days hence there will be a finer regiment to lead than ever thundered in thy father’s wake — a regiment of men, sahib, for a man to lead and love! — a regiment that will trust thee, sahib! See thou to the guarantees! Rung Ho, bahadur!”

  “Rung Ho! See you again, Mahommed Gunga!”

  CHAPTER XXX

  Sabres and spurs and jingling bits —

  (Ho! But the food to feed them!)

  Sinews and eyes and ears and wits —

  (Hey! But the troopers need them!)

  Sahib, mount! Thy chargers fling

  Foam to the night — thy trumpets sing —

  Thy lance-butts on the stirrups ring —

  Mount, sahib! Blood them! Lead them!

  IT was arranged that the McCleans, with old Joanna, should start at dawn for Howrah City, and they were, both of them, too overcome with mingled dread and excitement to even try to sleep. Joanna, very much as usual, snoozed comfortably, curled in a blanket in a corner.

  They would run about a hundred different risks, not least of which was the chance of falling in with a party of Howrah’s men. In fact, if they should encounter anybody before bringing up at Jaimihr’s palace it was likely that the whole plan would fizzle into nothing.

  Cunningham, after fossicking for a long time in Aliva’s armory — that contained, besides weapons of the date, a motley assortment of the tools of war that would have done great credit to a museum of antiquities — produced two pistols. He handed, one to the missionary and one to Miss McClean, advising her to hide hers underneath her clothing. “You know what they’re for?” he asked. “No. You’d gain nothing by putting up a fight. They’re loaded. All you’ve got to do is jerk the hammer back and pull the trigger, and the best way not to miss is to hold the muzzle underneath your chin — this way — keeping the butt well out from you. You make sure when you do that. The only satisfaction you’ll have, if it comes to suicide as a last resource, will be that you’ve tried to do your duty and the knowledge that you’ll be avenged. I promise that. But I don’t think you’ll have any need to do it — if I did think it I’d have thought twice before sending you.”

  “How does such a very young man as you come to have all this responsibility?” asked Rosemary, taking the pistol without a shudder. She laughed then as she noticed Cunningham’s discomfort and recognized the decency that hates to talk about itself.

  “I suppose I know my own mind,” he answered. “These other awfully decent fellows don’t, that’s all — if you except Mahommed Gunga. That chap’s a wonder. ‘Pon my soul, it seems he knew this was coming and picked me from the start to take charge over here. Seems, owing to my dad’s reputation, these Rangars think me a sort of reincarnation of efficiency. I’ve got to try and live up to it, you know — same old game of reaping what you didn’t sow and hoping it’ll all be over before you wake up! Won’t you try and get some sleep before morning? No? Come and sit over by the parapet with me, then.”

  He carried chairs for both of them to a point whence he could sit and watch the track that led to Howrah and so help out the very meagre garrison. There, until the waning moon dipped down below the sky-line, they talked together — first about the task ahead of each of them; then about the sudden ghastliness of the rebellion, whose extent not one of them could really grasp as yet; last, and much longest, as familiarity gradually grew between them, of youthful reminiscences and home — of Eton and the Isle of Skye.

  In the darkness
and the comparative coolness that came between the setting of the moon and dawn Rosemary fell asleep, her head pillowed in her father’s lap. For a while, then, seeing her only dimly through the night, but conscious, as he could not help being, of her youth and charm and of the act of self-sacrifice that she had undertaken without remonstrance, he felt ashamed. He began to wonder whether there might not have been some other way — whether he had any right, even for his country’s sake, to send a girl on such a mission. Misgiving began to sap his optimism, and there was no Mahommed Gunga to stir the soldier in him and encourage iron-willed pursuance of the game. He began to doubt; and doubt bred silence.

  He was wakened from a revery by Duncan McClean, who raised his daughter tenderly and got up on his feet.

  “The dawn will be here soon, Mr. Cunningham. We had better get ready. Well — in case we never meet again — I’m glad I met you.”

  “Better start before the sun gets up,” he answered, gripping the missionary’s hand. He was a soldier again. He had had the answer to his thoughts! If the man who was to sacrifice his daughter — or risk her sacrifice — was pleased to have met him, there was not much sense in harboring self-criticism! He shook it off, and squared his shoulders, beginning again to think of all that lay ahead.

  “Trust to the old woman to guide you and show you a place to rest at, if you must rest. You ought to reach Howrah at dusk tomorrow, for you’ll find it quite impossible to travel fast — you’re both of you too stiff, for one thing. Lie up somewhere — Joanna will know of a place — until the old woman has taken in a message to Jaimihr, and wait until he sends you some men to escort you through the outskirts of the city. I’ve got disguises ready for you — a pugree for you, Mr. McClean, and a purdah for your daughter — you’ll travel as a Hindoo merchant and his wife. If you get stopped, say very little, but show this.”

  He produced the letter written once by Maharajah Howrah to the Alwa-sahib and sent by galloper with the present of a horse. It was signed, and at the bottom of it was the huge red royal seal. “Now go and put the disguise on, while I see to the horses; I’m going to pick out quiet ones, if possible, though I warn you they’re rare in these parts.”