Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  Too late Jaimihr decided on more reasonable tactics. Too late he gave orders to his infantry that no such confused body could obey. Before he could ride to rally them, the Rangars were in them, at them, through them, over them. The whole was disintegrating in retreat, endeavoring to rally and reform in different places, each subdivision shouting orders to its nearest neighbor and losing heart as its appeals for help were disregarded.

  Back came Cunningham’s close-formed squadrons, straight through the writhing mass again; and now the whole of Jaimihr’s army took to its heels, just as part of the five-feet-thick stone palace-wall succumbed to the attacks of crowbars and crashed down in the roadway, disclosing a dark vault on the other side.

  Jaimihr made a rush for the six-horse carriage, and tried vainly to get it started. Cunningham shouted to him to surrender, but he took no notice of the challenge; he escaped being made prisoner by the narrowest of margins, as the position next him was cut down. The other postilions were un-horsed, and six Rangars changed mounts and seized the reins. The Prince ran one man through the middle, and then spurred off to try and overtake his routed army, some of which showed a disposition to form up again.

  “Sit quiet!” called Cunningham through the latticed carriage window. “You’re safe!”

  The heavy, swaying carriage rumbled round, and the horses plunged in answer to the Rangars’ heels. A moment later it was moving at a gallop; two minutes later it was backed against the wall, and Rosemary McClean stepped out behind three protecting squadrons that had not suffered perceptibly from what they would have scorned to call a battle.

  “Now all together!” shouted Cunningham, whose theories on the value of seconds when tackling reforming infantry were worthy of the Duke of Wellington, or any other officer who knew his business; and again he led his men at a breakneck charge. This time Jaimihr’s disheartened little army did not wait for him, but broke into wild confusion and scattered right and left, leaving their elephants to be captured. There were only a few men killed. The lance-tipped, roaring whirlwind loosed itself for the most part against nothing, and reformed uninjured to trot back again. Cunningham told off two troops to pursue fugitives and keep their eyes open for the Prince before he rode back to examine the breach in the wall that Jaimihr had been to so much trouble about making.

  He had halted to peer through the break in the age-old masonry when Mahommed Gunga spurred up close to him, touched his arm, and pointed.

  “Look, sahib! Look!”

  Jaimihr — and no one but a wizard could have told how he had managed to get to where he was unobserved — was riding as a man rides at a tent-peg, crouching low, full-pelt for Rosemary McClean!

  Cunningham’s spurs went home before the word was out of Mahommed Gunga’s mouth, and Mahommed Gunga raced behind him; but Jaimihr had the start of them. Duncan McClean, looking ill and weak and helpless, crowded his daughter to the wall, standing between her and the Prince; but Jaimihr aimed a swinging sabre at him, and the missionary fell. His daughter stooped to bend over him, and Jaimihr seized her below the arms. A second later he had hoisted her to his saddle-bow and was spurring hell-bent-for-leather for the open country.

  Two things prevented him from making his escape. Five of Alwa’s men, returning from pursuing fugitives, cut off his flight in one direction, and the extra weight on his horse prevented him from getting clear by means of speed alone — as he might have done otherwise, for Cunningham’s mare was growing tired.

  Jaimihr rode for two minutes with the frenzy of a savage before he saw the futility of it. It was Cunningham’s mare, gaining on him stride over stride, that warned him he would be cut down like a dog from behind unless he surrendered or let go his prize.

  So he laughed and threw the girl to the ground. For a moment more he spurted, spurring like a fiend, then wheeled and charged at Cunningham. He guessed that but for Cunningham that number of Rangars would never have agreed on a given plan. He knew that it was he, and not Cunningham or Alwa or Rosemary McClean, who had broken faith. He had broken it in thought, and word, and action. And he had lost his prospect of a throne. So he came on like a man who has nothing to gain by considering his safety. He came like a real man at last. And Cunningham, on a tired mare, met him point to point.

  They fought over a quarter of a mile of ground, for Jaimihr proved to be as useful with his weapon as Mahommed Gunga’s teaching had made Cunningham. There was plenty of time for the reformed squadrons to see what was happening — plenty of time for Alwa, who considered that he had an account of his own to settle with the Prince, to leave his squadron and come thundering up to help. Mahommed Gunga dodged and reined and spurred, watching his opportunity on one side and Alwa on the other. It would have suited neither of them to have their leader killed at that stage of the game, but the fighting was too quick for either man to interfere.

  Jaimihr charged Cunningham for the dozenth time and missed, charged past, to wheel and charge again, then closed with the most vindictive rush of all. Again Cunningham met him point to point. The two blades locked, and bent like springs as they wrenched at them. Cunningham’s blade snapped. He snatched at his mare and spun her before Jaimihr could recover, then rammed both spurs in and bore down on the Prince with half a sabre. He had him on the near side at a disadvantage. Jaimihr spurred and tried to maneuver for position, and the half sabre went home just below his ribs. He dropped bleeding in the dust at the second that Alwa and Mahommed Gunga each saw an opportunity and rushed in, to rein back face to face, grinning in each other’s faces, their horses’ breasts pressed tight against the charger that Jaimihr rode. The horse screamed as the shock crushed the wind out of him.

  “You robbed me of my man, sahib, by about a sabre’s breadth!” laughed Alwa.

  “And you left your squadron leaderless without my permission!” answered Cunningham. “You too! Mahommed Gunga!”

  “But, sahib!”

  “Do you prefer to argue or obey?”

  Mahommed Gunga flushed and rode back. Alwa grinned and started after him. Cunningham, without another glance at the dead Prince, rode up to Rosemary McClean, who was picking herself up and looking bewildered; she had watched the duel in speechless silence, lying full length in the dust, and she still could not speak when he reached her.

  “Put your foot on mine,” he said reassuringly; “then swing yourself up behind me if you can. If you can’t, I’ll pick you up in front.”

  She tried hard, but she failed; so he put both arms under hers and lifted her.

  “Am I welcome?” he asked. And she nodded.

  Fresh from killing a man — with a man’s blood on his broken sword and the sweat of fighting not yet dry on him — he held a woman in his arms for the first time in his life. His hand had been steady when it struck the blow under Jaimihr’s ribs, but now it trembled. His eyes had been stern and blazing less than two minutes before; now they looked down into nothing more dangerous than a woman’s eyes and grew strangely softer all at once. His mouth had been a hard, tight line under a scrubby upper lip, but his lips had parted now a little and his smile was a boy’s — not nervous or mischievous — a happy boy’s.

  She smiled, too. Most people did smile when young Cunningham looked pleased with them; but she smiled differently. And he, with that blood still wet on him, bent down and kissed her on the lips. Her answer was as characteristic as his action.

  “You look like a blackguard,” she said— “but you came, and I knew you would! I told Jaimihr you would, and he laughed at me. I told God you would, and you came! How long is it since you shaved? Your chin is all prickly!”

  They were interrupted by a roar from the three waiting squadrons. He had ridden without caring where he went, and his mare had borne the two of them to where the squadrons were drawn up with their rear to the great gap in the wall. The situation suited every Rangar of them! That was, indeed, the way a man should win his woman! They cheered him, and cheered again, and he grinned back, knowing that their hearts were in the cheering
and their good will won. Red, then, as a boiled beet, he rode over to the six-horse carriage and dismounted by her father — picked him up — called two troopers — and lifted him on to the rear seat of the great old-fashioned coach.

  “Get inside beside him!” he ordered Rosemary, examining the missionary’s head as he spoke. “It’s a scalp wound, and he’s stunned — no more. He’s left off bleeding already. Nurse him!” He was off, then, without another word or a backward glance for her — off to his men and the gap in the wall that waited an investigation.

  The amazing was discovered then. The treasure — the fabled, fabulous, enormous Howrah treasure was no fable. It was there, behind that wall! The jewels and the bullion in marketable bars that could have bought an army or a kingdom — the sacred, secret treasure of twenty troubled generations, that was guarded in the front by fifty doors and fifty corridors and three times fifty locks — the door of whose secret vault was guarded by a cannon, set to explode at the slightest touch — was hidden from the public road at its other side, its rear, by nothing better than a five-foot wall of ill-cemented stone! Cunningham stepped inside over the dismantled masonry and sat down on a chest that held more money’s worth than all the Cunninghams in all the world had ever owned, or spent, or owed, or used, or dreamed of!

  “Ask Alwa and Mahommed Gunga to come to me here!” he called; and a minute later they stood at attention in front of him.

  “Send a hundred men, each with a flag of truce on his lance, to gallop through the city and call on Jaimihr’s men to rally to me, if they wish protection against Howrah!”

  “Good, sahib! Good!” swore Alwa. “Howrah is the next danger! Make ready to fight Howrah!”

  “Attend to my orders, please!” smiled Cunningham, and Alwa did as he was told. Within an hour Jaimihr’s men were streaming from the four quarters of the compass, hurrying to be on the winning side, and forming into companies as they were ordered.

  Then Cunningham gave another order.

  “Alwa-sahib, will you take another flag of truce, please, and ride with not more than two men to Maharajah Howrah. Tell him that I want him here at once to settle about this treasure.”

  Alwa stared. His mouth opened a little, and he stood like a man bereft of reason by the unexpected.

  “Are you not still pledged to support Howrah on his throne?”

  “I am, bahadur.”

  “Would plundering his treasure be in keeping with your promise to him?”

  “Nay, sahib. But—”

  “Be good enough to take my message to him. Assure him that he may come with ten men without fear of molestation, but guarantee to him that if he comes with more than ten — and with however many more — I will fight, and keep his treasure, both!”

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  Friends I have sought me of varying nations,

  Men of all ranks and of different stations;

  Some are in jail now, and some are deceased.

  Two, though, I found to be experts at sundering

  Me from my revenue, leaving me wondering

  Which was the costlier — soldier or priest.

  A LITTLE more than one hour later, Howrah — sulky and disgruntled, but doing his level best to appear at Ease — faced young Cunningham across a table in the treasure-vault. Outside was a row of wagons, drawn by horses and closely guarded by a squadron of the Rangars. Behind Cunningham stood Alwa and Mahommed Gunga; behind the Maharajah were two of his court officials. There were pen and ink and the royal seal between them on the table.

  “So, Maharajah-sahib. They are all scaled, and each chest is marked on the outside with its contents; I’m sorry there was no time to weigh the gold, but the number of the ingots ought to be enough. And, of course, you’ll understand it wasn’t possible to count all those unset stones — that ‘ud take a week; but your seal is on that big chest, too, so you’ll know if it’s been opened. You are certain you can preserve the peace of your state with the army you have?”

  “Yes,” said Howrah curtly.

  “Don’t want me to leave a squadron of my men to help you out?”

  “No!” He said that even more abruptly.

  “Good. Of course, since you won’t have to spare men to guard the treasure now, you’ll have all the more to keep peace in the district with, won’t you? Let me repeat the terms of our bargain — they’re written here, but let’s be sure there is no mistake. I agree to deliver your treasure into safe keeping until the rebellion is over, and to report to my government that you are friendly disposed toward us. You, in return, guarantee to protect the families and property of all these gentlemen who ride with me. It is mutually agreed that any damage done to their homes during their absence shall be made good out of your treasure, but that should you keep your part of the agreement the treasure shall be handed back to you intact. Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” said Howrah shifting in his seat uneasily.

  “Is there anything else?”

  “One other thing. I am outmaneuvered, and I have surrendered with the best grace possible. That agreement stands in my name, and no other man’s?”

  “Certainly.”

  “The priests of Siva are not parties to it?”

  “I’ve had nothing whatever to do with them,” said Cunningham.

  “That is all, then, sahib. I am satisfied.”

  “While we’re about it, Maharajah-sahib, let’s scotch those priests altogether! McClean-sahib has told me that suttee has been practised here as a regular thing. That’s got to stop, and we may as well stop it now. Of course, I shall keep my word about the treasure, and you’ll get it back if you live up to the bargain you have made; but my government will know now where it is, and they’ll be likely to impose a quite considerable fine on you when the rebellion’s over unless this suttee’s put an end to. Besides, you couldn’t think of a better way of scoring off the priests than by enforcing the law and abolishing the practice. Think that over, Maharajah-sahib.”

  Howrah swore into his beard, as any ruling potentate might well do at being dictated to by a boy of twenty-two.

  “I will do my best, sahib,” he answered. “I am with the British — not against them.”

  “Good for you! — er, I mean, that’s right!” He turned to Alwa, and looked straight into his eyes. “Are you satisfied with the guarantee?” he asked.

  “Sahib, I am more than satisfied!”

  “Good! Oh, and — Maharajah-sahib — since we’ve fought your battle for you — and lost a few men — and are going to guard your treasure for you, and be your friends, and all that kind of thing — don’t you think you’d like to do something for us — not much, but just a little thing?”

  “I am in your power. You have but to command.”

  “Oh, no. I don’t want to force anything. We’re friends — talking as friends. I ask a favor.”

  “It is granted, sahib.”

  “A horse or two, that’s all.”

  “How many horses, sahib?”

  “Oh, not more than one each.”

  The Maharajah pulled a wry face, but bowed assent. It would empty his stables very nearly, but he knew when he could not help himself. Mahommed Gunga clapped a hand to his mouth and left the vault hurriedly.

  “You understand this is not a demand, Maharajah-sahib. I take it that you offer me these horses as an act of royal courtesy and as additional proof of friendliness?”

  “Surely, sahib.”

  “My men will be very grateful to you. This will enable them to reach the scene of action with their own horses in good shape. I’m sure it’s awfully good of you to have offered them!”

  Outside, where the late afternoon sun was gradually letting things cool down, Mahommed Gunga leaned against the wall and roared with laughter, as he explained a few details to the admiring troopers.

  “A horse or two, says he! How many? Oh, just a horse or two, Maharajah-sahib — merely a horse apiece! Fifteen hundred horses! A horse or two! Oh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ho! Allah! But that
boy will make a better soldier than his father! As a favor, he asked them — no compulsion, mind you — just as a favor! Allah! What is he asking now, I wonder! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ho-ho-ho!”

  And inside, with a perfectly straight face and almost ghastly generosity, young Cunningham proceeded to impose on Howrah the transferred, unwelcome, perilous allegiance of Jaimihr’s reassembling army. The mere keeping of it in subjection, it was realized by donor and recipient alike, would keep the Maharajah’s hands full.

  “Are you satisfied that your homes will be safe, now?” he asked Alwa. And Alwa looked him in the eyes and grinned.

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  Now, fifteen hundred, horse and man,

  Reel at the word of one!

  Loosed by the brazen trumpet’s peal —

  Knee to knee and toe on heel —

  Troop on troop the squadrons wheel

  Outbrazening the sun!

  WITHIN a fortnight of the outbreak of the mutiny, men spoke with bated breath about the Act of God. It burst at the moment when India’s reins were in the hands of some of the worst incompetents in history. A week found strong men in control of things — the right men, with the right handful behind them.

  Some of the men in charge went mad, and were relieved. Some threw up their commands. Some of the worst incompetents were killed by the mutineers, and more than one man who could have changed the course of history for the worse were taken sick and died. Instead of finding themselves faced by spineless nincompoops, the rebels reeled before the sudden, well-timed tactics of real officers with eyes and ears and brains. The mask was off on both sides, and the sudden, stripped efficiency of one was no less disconcerting than the unexpected rebellion of the other.

  Byng-bahadur— “Byng the Brigadier” — was in command of a force again within three days of the news of the first massacre; and because he was Byng, with Byng’s record, and Byng’s ability to handle loyal natives, the men who succeeded to the reins packed him off at once with a free hand, and with no other orders than to hit, hit hard, and keep on hitting.