by Talbot Mundy
Some twenty minutes later he led their horses for them gingerly down the slippery rock gorge, and waited at the bottom while six men wound the gate up slowly. Rosemary McClean was quite unrecognizable, draped from head to foot in a travelling veil that might have been Mohammedan or Hindoo, and gave no outward sign as to her caste, or rank. McClean, in the full attire of a fairly prosperous Hindoo, but with no other mark about him to betoken that he might be worth robbing, rode in front of her, high-perched on a native saddle. In front, on a desert pony, rode Joanna, garbed as a man.
“She ought to be travelling in a carriage of some kind,” admitted Cunningham, “but we haven’t got a single wheeled thing here. If any one asks pertinent questions on the road, you’d better say that she had an ekka, but that some Rangars took it from you. D’you think you know the language well enough to pass muster?”
“It’s a little late to ask me that!” laughed McClean. “Yes — I’m positive I do. Good-by.”
They shook hands again and the three rode off, cantering presently, to make the most of the coolness before the sun got up. Cunningham climbed slowly up the hill and then watched them from the parapet — wondering, wondering again — whether he was justified. As he put it to himself, it was “the hell of a position for a man to find himself in!” He caught himself wondering whether his thoughts would have been the same, and whether his conscience would have racked him quite as much, had Rosemary McClean been older, and less lovely, and a little more sour-tongued.
He had to laugh presently at the absurdity of that notion, for Jaimihr would never have bargained for possession of a sour-faced, elderly woman. He came to the conclusion that the only thing he could do was to congratulate the Raj because, at the right minute, the right good-looking woman had been on the spot! But he did not like the circumstances any better; and before two hours had passed the loneliness began to eat into his soul.
Like any other man whose race and breed and training make him self-dependent, he could be alone for weeks on end and scarcely be aware that he had nobody to talk to. But his training had never yet included sending women off on dangerous missions any more than it had taught him to resist woman’s attraction — the charm of a woman’s voice, the lure of a woman’s eyes. He did not know what was the matter with him, but supposed that his liver must be out of order or else that the sun had touched him.
Taking a chance on the liver diagnosis, he had out the attenuated garrison, and drilled it, both mounted and dismounted, first on the hilltop — where they made the walls re-echo to the clang of grounded butts — and then on the plain below, with the gate wide open in their rear and one man watching from the height above. When he had tired them thoroughly, and himself as well, he set two men on the lookout and retired to sleep; nor did the droning and the wailing music of some women in the harem trouble him.
They called him regularly when the guard was changed, but he slept the greater part of that day and stood watch all night. The next day, and the third day, he drilled the garrison again, growing horribly impatient and hourly more worried as to what Byng-bahadur might be doing, and thinking of him.
It was evening of the fourth day when a Rangar woke him, squeezing at his foot and standing silent by the cot.
“Huzoor — Mahommed Gunga comes!”
“Thank God!”
He ran to the parapet and watched in the fading light a little dust cloud that followed no visible track but headed straight toward them over desert.
“How d’you know that’s Mahommed Gunga?” he demanded.
“Who else, huzoor? Who else would ride from that direction all alone and straight for this nest of wasps? Who else but Alwa or Mahommed Gunga? Alwa said he would not come, but would wait yonder.”
“It might be one of Alwa’s men.”
“We have many good men, sahib — and many good horses — but no man or horse who could come at that pace after traversing those leagues of desert! That is Mahommed Gunga, unless a new fire-eater has been found. And what new man would know the way?”
Soon — staccato, like a drum-beat in the silence — came the welcome, thrilling cadence of the horse’s hoofs — the steady thunder of a horse hard-ridden but not foundered. The sun went down and blackness supervened, but the sound increased, as one lone rider raced with the evening wind, head on.
It seemed like an hour before the lookout challenged from the crag that overhung the gate — before the would-be English words rang out; and all Asia and its jackals seemed to wait in silence for the answer.
“Howt-uh! Hukkums-thar!”
“Ma — hommed — Gunga — hai!”
“Hurrah!”
The cheer broke bonds from the depth of Cunningham’s being, and Mahommed Gunga heard it on the plain below. There was a rush to man the wheels and sweat the gate up, and Cunningham started to run down the zigzag pathway. He thought better of it, though, and waited where the path gave out onto the courtyard, giving the signal with the cords for the gate to lower away again.
“Evening, Mahommed Gunga!” he said, almost casually, as the weary charger’s nose appeared above the rise.
“Salaam, bahadur!”
He dismounted and saluted and then leaned against his horse.
“I wonder, sahib, whether the horse or I be weariest! Of your favor, water, sahib!”
Cunningham brought him water in a dipper, and the Rajput washed his horse’s mouth out, then held out the dipper again to Cunningham for fresh charge for himself.
“I would not ask the service, sahib, but for the moment my head reels. I must rest before I ride again.”
“Is all well, Mahommed Gunga?”
“Ay, sahib! More than well!”
“The men are ready?”
“Horsed, armed, and waiting, they keep coming — there were many when I left — there will be three squadrons worthy of the name by the time we get there! Is all well at your end, sahib?”
“Yes, all’s well.”
“Did the padre people go to Howrah?”
“They started and they have not returned.”
“Then, Allah be praised! Inshallah, I will grip that spectacled old woman of a priest by the hand before I die. He has a spark of manhood in him! Send me this good horse to the stables, sahib; I am overweary. Have him watered when the heat has left him, and then fed. Let them blanket him lightly. And, sahib, have his legs rubbed — that horse ever loved to have his legs rubbed. Allah! I must sleep four hours before I ride! And the Miss-sahib — went she bravely?”
“Went as a woman of her race ought to go, Mahommed Gunga.”
“Ha! She met a man first of her own race, and he made her go! Would she have gone if a coward asked her, think you? Sahib — women are good — at the other end of things! We will ride and fetch her. Ha! I saw! My eyes are old, but they bear witness yet! — Now, food, sahib — for the love of Allah, food, before my belt-plate and my backbone touch!”
“I wonder what the damned old infidel is dreaming of!” swore Cunningham, as Mahommed Gunga staggered to the chamber in the rock where a serving-man was already heaping victuals for him.
“Have me called in four hours, sahib! In four hours I will be a man again!”
CHAPTER XXXI
The freed wolf limped home to his lair,
And lay to lick his sore.
With wrinkled lip and fangs agnash —
With back-laid ear and eyes aflash —
“Twas something rather more than rash
To turn me loose!” he swore.
NOW Jaimihr fondly thought he held a few cards up his sleeve when he made his bargain with Rosemary McClean and let himself be lowered from the Alwa-sahib’s rock. He knew, better probably than any one except his brother and the priests, how desperate the British situation had become throughout all India at an instant’s notice, and he made his terms accordingly.
He did not believe, in the first place, that there would be any British left to succor by the time matters had been settled sufficiently in Howr
ah to enable him to dare leave the city at his rear. Afterward, should it seem wise, he would have no objection in the world to riding to the aid of a Company that no longer existed.
In the second place, he entertained no least compunction about breaking his word completely in every particular. He knew that the members of the little band on Alwa’s rock would keep their individual and collective word, and therefore that Rosemary McClean would come to him. He suspected, though, that there would prove to be a rider of some sort to her agreement as regarded marrying him, for he had young Cunningham in mind; and he knew enough of Englishmen from hearsay and deduction to guess that Cunningham would interject any obstacle his ingenuity could devise.
Natives of India do not like Englishmen to marry their women. How much less, then, would a stiff-necked member of a race of conquerors care to stand by while a woman of his own race became the wife of a native prince? He did not trust Cunningham, and he recalled that he had had no promise from that gentleman.
Therefore, he proposed to forestall Cunningham if possible, and, if that were inconvenient or rash, he meant to take other means of making Rosemary McClean his, beyond dispute, in any case.
Next to Rosemary McClean he coveted most the throne of Howrah. With regard to that he was shrewd enough not to conceal from himself for a second the necessity for scotching the priests of Siva before he dare broach the Howrah treasure, and so make the throne worth his royal while. Nor did he omit from his calculations the public clamor that would probably be raised should he deal too roughly with the priests. And he intended to deal roughly with them.
So the proposed allegiance of the Rangars suited him in more ways than one. His army and his brother’s were so evenly matched in numbers and equipment that he had been able to leave Howrah without fear for the safety of his palace while his back was turned. The eight hundred whom he had led on the unlucky forray to Alwa’s were scarcely missed, and, even had the Maharajah known that he was absent with them, there were still too many men behind for him to dare to start reprisals. The Maharajah was too complete a coward to do anything much until he was forced into it.
The Rangars, he resolved, must be made to take the blame for the broaching of the treasure. He proposed to go about the broaching even before hostilities between himself and his brother had commenced, and he expected to be able to trick the Rangars into seeming to be looting. To appear to defend the treasure would probably not be difficult; and it would be even less difficult to blame the Rangars afterward for the death of any priest who might succumb during the ensuing struggle. He counted on the populace, more than on his own organized forces, to make the Rangars powerless when the time should come for them to try to take the upper hand. The mob would suffer in the process, but its fanaticism — its religious prejudice and numbers — would surely win the day.
As for Rosemary McClean, the more he considered her the more his brown eyes glowed. He had promised to make her Maharanee. But he knew too thoroughly what that would mean not to entertain more than a passing doubt as to the wisdom of the course. He was as ready to break his word on that point as on any other.
A woman of his own race, however wooed and won, would have been content to accept the usual status of whisperer from behind the close-meshed screens. Not so an Englishwoman, with no friends to keep her company and with nothing in the world to do but think. She, he realized, would expect to make something definite of her position, and that would suit neither his creed (which was altogether superficial), nor custom (which was iron-bound and to be feared), nor prejudice (which was prodigious), nor yet convenience (which counted most).
He came to the conclusion that the fate in store for her was not such as she would have selected had she had her choice. Nor were his conclusions in regard to her such as would commend him in the eyes of honest men.
But, after all, the throne was the fulcrum of his plotting; and the lever had to be the treasure, if his plans were to succeed beyond upsetting. He changed his plans a dozen times over before he arrived at last at the audacious decision he was seeking.
Like many another Hindoo in that hour of England’s need, he did not lose sight altogether of the distant if actual possibility that the Company’s servants might — by dint of luck and grit, and what the insurance papers term the Act of God — pull through the crisis. Therefore, he decided that under no circumstances should Rosemary McClean be treated cavalierly until the Rangars were out of the way and he could pose as her protector if need be.
He would be able to prove that Rosemary and her father had come to him of their own free will. He would say that they had asked him for protection from the Rangars. He had evidence that his brother Howrah had been in communication with the Rangars. So, should the Company survive and retain power enough to force an answer to unpleasant questions, he thought it would not be difficult to prove that he had been the Company’s friend all along.
Under all the circumstances he considered it best to be false to everybody and strike for no hand but his own, and with that reconsidered end in view he decided on a master-stroke. He sent word to his brother, the Maharajah, saying that the Rangars had accepted service with the Company and purposed a raid on Howrah; therefore, he proposed that they unite against the common enemy and set a trap for the Rangars.
Howrah sent back to ask what proof he had of the Rangars’ taking service with the British. Jaimihr answered that Cunningham and Mahommed Gunga were both on Alwa’s crag. He also swore that as Alwa’s prisoner he had been able to over-hear the Rangars’ plans.
The Maharajah was bewildered, as Jaimihr had expected that he would be. And with just as Eastern, just as muddle-headed, just as dishonest reasoning, he made up his mind to play a double game with everybody, too. He agreed to join Jaimihr in opposition to the Rangars. He agreed to send all his forces to meet Jaimihr’s and together kill every Rangar who should show himself inside the city. And he privately made plans to arrive on the scene too late, and smash Jaimihr’s army after it had been reduced in size and efficiency by its battle with Alwa’s men.
Jaimihr, unknowingly, fitted his plan into his brother’s by determining to get on the scene early enough to have first crack at the treasure. He meant to get away with that, leave his brother to deal with Alwa’s men, circle round, and then attack his brother from the rear.
Finally, he made up his mind once and for all that Rosemary McClean must remain inviolate until he was quite certain that the English had been driven out of India. He expected that good news within a week.
He was delighted when Joanna, dressed as a man, turned up at his palace-gates and cajoled her way in past the guards. To be asked for an escort to bring the McCleans into Howrah fitted in with his role of protector as a key might fit a lock. Now they could never pretend — nobody could ever pretend — that he had seized them. He sent a carriage out for them, and when they arrived placed a whole wing of his palace at their disposal, treating them like royalty. He made no attempt to molest or interfere with either of them, except that he prevented them from going in and out; and he told off plenty of witnesses who would be able to swear subsequently that they had seen how well his guests were treated. He was taking no unnecessary chances at that stage of the game he played.
There were others, though, who plotted besides Jaimihr. There were, for instance, Siva’s priests. It is not to be forgotten that in that part of India the priests had been foremost in fomenting the rebellion. They urged Howrah constantly to take the field against the British, and it was only the sure knowledge of his brother’s intention to strike for the throne that prevented the Maharajah from doing what the priests urged.
He knew that Alwa and the Rangars would not help him unless Jaimihr first attacked him, for Alwa would be sure to stand on the strict letter of his oath. And he was afraid of the Rangars. He feared that they might protect him and depose him afterward. He reasoned that that, too, might be construed into a strict interpretation of the terms of Alwa’s promise!
He consented to
collect his army. He kept it under arms. He even paid it something on account of arrears of wages and served out rations. But, to the disgust of the priests who asked nothing better than dissension between the brothers, he jumped at the idea of uniting with Jaimihr to defeat Alwa’s men. He knew — just as the priests feared — that once he could trick and defeat Jaimihr he could treat the troublesome priests as cavalierly as he chose.
So the priests made a third knot in the tangle and tried desperately at the last moment to recreate dissension between the rival royal camps.
“Jaimihr is getting ready to attack you!” they assured Howrah. “Attack him first!”
“I will wait until he does attack,” the Maharajah answered. “For the moment we are friends and have a cause in common.”
“Howrah’s men will desert to you the moment you make a move to win the throne,” they assured Jaimihr.
“Wait!” answered Jaimihr. “Wait but a day or two. I will move fast as I see fit when I am ready. For the present my cause and my brother’s cause are one.”
Spies brought in news to Maharajah, Prince, and priest of the hurried raising of a Rangar army. The Maharajah and the Prince laughed up their sleeves and the priests swore horribly; the interjection of another element — another creed — into the complication did not suit the priestly “book.” They were the only men who were really worried about Alwa.
And another spy — Joanna — disappeared. No longer garbed as a man, she had hung about the palace, and — known to nearly all the sweepers — she had overheard things. Garbed as a man again, she suddenly evaporated in thin air, and Rosemary McClean was left without a servant or any means of communication with the outside world.
CHAPTER XXXII
The ringed wolf glared the circle round
Through baleful, blue-lit eye,
Not unforgetful of his debt.