by Talbot Mundy
“I don’t care a damn what you think about you or me, so long as you obey me,” Gup interrupted. “I don’t propose to waste one thought on you except as being a useful person who does what he’s told. Do we understand each other?”
“Perfectly. You are the hero! You shall be that until you fail me by becoming sentimental or in some other way arousing my contempt. I am free with my fancies. However—”
“What?”
“I am commanded not to let you out of sight. I shall return you to the heroine — this side up, unbroken so to speak — before I put the hero in her place in my heart. In at one door, out the other! You will go the same way when a better man, or better woman, shows up. But you are the most interesting yet.”
“You are to come with me,” said Gup. “What are those men doing — streaming back and forth near the Ranee’s windows?”
“They are carrying silver rupees.”
“Why?”
“From a hole where they were buried and cemented up, into a treasury room near her apartment. It was I who buried them. We were a long time making this place ready. Do you realize how much money it takes to keep a Hillman army sitting still? Overlook one pay-day, and then count how many men you have to-morrow morning! The unpaid remainder will be tough and hungry, spoiling to be led toward the plunder and very mutinous. Money, money, money! The rupees were safer buried in the open where they could be swept by machine-gun fire, than in the caverns, until we were thoroughly organized. We have a properly underpaid guard for them now that is stupid enough to be loyal, so into the caverns they go. But they melt — oh, Allah, how the money melts! And there’s no way now of cashing drafts on Europe and then smuggling the silver across the border. Time is the most expensive commodity in the market. If you asked me, I should say action is indicated — very sudden and not limited by other people’s feelings.”
“You weren’t asked,” said Gup. He climbed the rough steps to the terrace and entered the huge arched tunnel mouth, alert now to his bearings and striding with a step that echoed down the passage ahead of him. He was not conscious of dramatic movement; he did not know that his stride had changed or that his face was now a picture of determination. He was not even thinking of himself or of his own predicament. Whether he was ridiculous or heroic, wise or unwise, he neither knew nor cared. He had made up his mind. He had accepted a job and he was going to finish it as swiftly as he could and with the aid of every faculty he had. And strangely enough, the prize was not Lottie Carstairs. The goal was as suddenly clear in his sight as the sun on the rim of the world at daybreak, but the prize was nothing to be told in words or even to be thought in communicable phrases. It was something abstract and intangible that he might, or might not be able to share with the woman whom he knew now that he loved; that depended on her. What depended on him, he would do. For the time being he was determined not to think about his love for her.
So he strode along intricate passages, noticing on the way in what had escaped his notice on the way out because he had then been interested only in his own way out of an infernal difficulty. Now it was the difficulty that was interesting and not a detail of its setting escaped him. New admiration for Lottie Carstairs swept over him — a new respect for her. It dawned on him that no one not intelligent and plucky almost beyond human limits could have established herself in those caverns without confusion and with an imposed routine so wonderfully planned that there was hardly a sight or a sound of the men who attended to details. The place was clean. The few men whom he passed were on their rounds inspecting something for which they were responsible to some one higher up. There was organization here and a master-genius controlling it. Control, he reflected, is not physical; if it were, the bulls and elephants would rule; nor is it merely intellectual, or the scholars would govern the world. In essence it is genius. He wondered whether he himself had genius. He was going to find out.
When he reached the door of her apartment, he struck it a blow with his knuckles that rather disconcerted him; he had not meant to make so much noise.
However, he was kept waiting a long time and it was a suave little Bengali clerk who opened it at last — a lean man with brown intellectual eyes, who smiled as men do who have had to do much thinking behind a mask of disarming pleasantries.
“Her Highness is not able to see you at the moment,” he said in fluent, beautifully pronounced English.
“Who are you?” Gup demanded.
“Her treasurer.”
“Does she know I am here?”
“I suspect not. But she is holding a jirga (conference).”
Gup turned to Jonesey. “Leave those Pathans outside and follow me in,” he commanded. Then he strode into the hallway, pushing aside the astonished treasurer. “Go in to the jirga and say Gup Bahadur is out here waiting. Or shall I go in unannounced?”
The treasurer glanced at Jonesey’s face for an explanation, but Jonesey had closed the door behind him and was staring at the wall, apparently seeing, hearing, saying nothing, but nevertheless exuding mirth.
“I will not wait long,” said Gup in a voice whose restraint suggested steel springs and a trigger. The treasurer’s surface serenity wilted and the inner man appeared:
“I suspect you will wait until she wishes to see you,” he answered, glancing over his shoulder at two Pathans who stood by the door of the fan-shaped room with bayonets fixed on modern British army rifles.
Gup nodded. “I will report you,” he said, “for a plucky attempt to do your duty.” He thrust him aside and strode across the square antechamber toward the Pathans, who barred the door against him, bringing down their bayonets to the charge. Without turning he reached for Jonesey’s staff, snatched it and thrust at the door between the sentries, striking two resounding blows.
“Announce Gup Bahadur!” he commanded.
The door opened from within, a scant six inches. A man’s voice asked angrily what the noise was all about.
“Gup Bahadur!” said one of the sentries.
“Gup Bahadur!” the voice inside the room repeated. There was a moment’s pause. The door opened wide. Gup strode in, with Jonesey at his heels.
It seemed a different room, now that the sunlight streamed in through the tinted windows. Rahman was there, with Pepul Das, both of them robed in rich silk over their traveling clothes. They and twelve bearded chieftains sat in a semicircle on the floor before the throne, each with a silver tray in front of him, on which was coffee in Dresden china cups. They were all arrayed like Rahman; it was rather obvious that the silken robes were either a loan for the occasion or a gift; they looked gorgeous in the window-light and were perfectly aware of it.
But she — and she was neither the Ranee now nor Lottie Carstairs but some one who combined the qualities of those two with something spiritual added — outshone them all. A screen of peacock feathers had been set behind the throne chair. She was wearing no turban now; her hair was loosely coiled beneath a golden sari. Her coat was blue, over a rose-colored smock and Moslem trousers. Her diamonds flashed like dew on roses in the sun.
One glance at Gup’s face satisfied her. Her lips moved in a slow smile and her eyes laughed triumph. Gup thought she caught her breath, but that might have been his own imagination. Her voice was in perfect control.
“My commander-in-chief,” she said, almost casually. “He has come in haste to attend this jirga. Therefore I excuse him, and I request you nobles to excuse him for not wearing more suitable clothes. — Are my servants asleep?” she added suddenly. “Why is he offered no chair?”
There was a servant in every window-recess and four more stood with their backs to the rear wall. Gup wondered how many of them were spies in the British service. Two of them brought a chair and set it, obeying a royal gesture, where the sunlight formed a pool of light on a Persian rug. Gup bowed and sat down, with a window-recess on his left hand and the semicircle of chieftains on his right. On his right there was also the balcony over the door; it was full of women, but they
were veiled and he could not be sure that Harriet Dover was among them. Rahman’s face was an enigma. Pepul Das blinked at a window-pane. Jonesey sat and leaned back against the door.
“And now,” said the Ranee, “I will listen to your views if each noble will speak in turn.” But there was a long silence.
Gup noticed that she spoke the uncouth northern dialect with difficulty but he admired her, nevertheless, for not using an interpreter, although he thought he saw two of the chieftains almost shudder at the mispronunciation of their cherished gutturals. Then, for no reason whatever, it dawned on him that she was much more helpless than she knew. She was alone — more utterly alone than he was, and in spite of her women — in spite of her army. He remembered the poison-gas. He almost doubted that she knew about it; he could not imagine her using such stuff against savages for the sake of her own ambition. There was something tragic about her loneliness, as if she were surrounded by false friends whom she had begun to suspect. He sat watching her eyes and wondering why he had been such an idiot as not to know he loved her, in the old days when he might have saved her (and himself) from so much anguish. They two together could have lived a life worth while.
At last a chief spoke, cross-legged on a rug and very upright, but not able to look royal as she did. He was only self-assertive. She was aware of essential dignity, which is different.
“By Allah,” he began, “we believe it is true that there are fifty thousand who have sworn to follow you. And some say more. And you offer to set up a government here. But we know it is true that the Punjaub hungers to rebel; and that means opportunity. The Sikhs, it is said, would rise like one man if a lashkar came down from the North to their aid. Peshawar is in the way, like a rock in the way of a mountain torrent, but a torrent can flow past such obstacles. No fortress and no artillery can prevent the will of Allah.”
There was a murmur of assent. The Ranee watched the chieftains’ faces with eyes that betrayed only interest. Her still hands rested on the chair-arms. The blue, unswollen veins of her bare feet did not suggest excitement or anxiety. Gup crossed his legs and noticed that the pressure of his own heart’s beating made it impossible to keep the free foot still; he set it on the floor again. The chieftain resumed:
“You should make cause with the Amir and march with him into India. The Amir of Kabul offers us more than you offer.”
“I offer you nothing,” she answered, “except honor and what comes of that. I make no promise in advance to men whose courage and good faith I have not yet tested. If you prefer to trust the Amir then you have my leave to go.”
It was a royal answer and it made even Gup’s blood go leaping in his veins. There was a murmur from the women in the balcony. The chieftains glanced at one another. Rahman sought Gup’s eyes, met them and nodded three times. Then another chieftain spoke up, rougher of voice and gesture than the first:
“By Allah, I say a thousand men will follow where I lead. But shall I lead them as a stream flows, knowing neither why nor whither? Allah gave men understanding for their use, so let there be understanding. Therefore, I say this: that the Amir would pay a high price for our friendship. Aye, and by Allah he leaves Kabul for a pledge behind him! Let him play us false or lead unwisely — lo, we turn and plunder Kabul to reimburse ourselves! Furthermore, if we follow him into India, and if Allah wills that our arms are successful, it is stipulated in advance that this one shall have so much gold and so many women and so much land — and this other shall have so much — and this other. All is written. You should make us a better offer.”
“I did not even invite you to come and see me,” said the Ranee.
Gup rose out of his chair and cleared his throat with a noise like the crash of command on parade. She nodded to him to speak and her eyes glowed as if light shone through them.
“It is not I,” said Gup, “who make agreements,” and he used their gutturals as harshly as they did; his vowels were solid and rounded; his voice was resonant and deep; it was as Hillmen love to hear their language spoken, “but it is I who will lead this army in the field. And I will lead it northward, against Kabul, if I see fit! If I go by way of your valleys some one’s grain shall feed the horses, some one’s sheep shall feed our fighting men and some one’s gold shall pay them. It is for you to say whose grain and sheep and gold it is to be. As Allah is our witness, if Allah wills that this Ranee shall sit on the throne of Kabul, is there any man here who can prevent it? Ye speak of understanding. Which of you can prophesy whether I lead north, south, east or west? And when I begin? And how swift my marches?”
Silence fell. Dark eyes watching Gup from beneath overshadowing turbans tried to hide consternation. The Ranee sat motionless, that look of ancient Egypt stealing over her face until she seemed like Hatshepsut in an hour of mystic meditation. Gup resumed. He used no gestures and not much emphasis; he understated the strength of his new-found arrogance, thus multiplying its effect:
“I need no more men. I have enough friends. It is agreeable to me now to learn who my enemies are. One false friend is worse than a hundred manly enemies who name the cause of their quarrel and take up arms. If ye prefer the Amir’s promises, say so, and let the Amir keep them if he can.”
A man who had not yet spoken stroked his beard by way of calling attention to himself. “As Allah is my witness,” he said, “this is a page from another book.” Gup sat down, praying that this bluff had not succeeded too well. The speaker continued: “It is not our custom to be ruled or led by women. The Amir is a man, but he neither fills the eye, nor the ear, nor makes the spirit burn within a man as you do. What we lack in this land is a leader. By Allah, if you can lead as you speak, you are he! And by my beard, I am no dependent of Kabul. Speak again. Tell us more of this matter.”
Gup took his time. It is a mistake to be in too great haste to speak, in any northern gathering; men like deliberate, slow phrases, weighed in the mind before the mouth utters them. And Gup was not sure of himself; he was banking on the scant advice and information he had had from Tom O’Hara. He wanted no more men, lest the Ranee’s army grow unmanageable and break through into India in spite of him. What he did want was disaffection in the ranks of the Amir of Afghanistan’s adherents — that, and he also wished the news to filter through to Kabul that there was at least dickering to be done, and perhaps a stiff fight to be faced, before the Amir’s army could pour down the passes into India. He suspected that every word he uttered would be reported in Kabul within a week or ten days; exaggerated almost beyond recognition, spies would pick up his words in Kabul and relay them to the Indian Government. He hoped, but doubted that the Indian Government would put a right interpretation on them. Funnily, he did not think that Tom O’Hara might be sending word through.
“I have spoken,” he said, when he did stand up. “It seems to me, ye think ye know more than I know.
If so, I will eagerly match my ignorance against your knowledge!”
He sat down again. The chieftain who had spoken last stood up. He bowed — twice. The second bow was deeper than the first, but Gup took no notice of it.
“Knowledge and ignorance — who shall judge between them?” he said sententiously. “Nevertheless, it is a reasonable thing that men who are to risk their lives should know why and whither and what next?”
“Do you know to-morrow’s events, or can you cancel yesterday’s?” Gup retorted. “Who is there in the world whose life is not hourly at stake? And what matters, so be that a man dies fearless?”
“True. Allah judges our hearts. And none knows whom the dark angel shall overtake next. But though a man be fearless, it is just that he should know what to expect in this world. Let us at least learn of the reward.”
Gup recognized the beginning of one of those endless, half philosophic and wholly non-committal arguments that Hillmen love. They would be willing to talk in that strain until midnight, whereafter they would weigh each phrase in search of something on which to base further discussion. He decided to end it ab
ruptly. He wanted the news to reach Kabul that he was bold and confident enough to reject overtures of aid.
“It is written,” he said, “that in this world there is nothing worth striving for. The Prophet wrote that Isa saith: this world is a bridge; pass over it but build no houses on it. There is no goal that a man can reach in this world, nor any reward, that shall not be as dust and ashes. I am a Ghazi. “It is ghaza that I make! I seek a spiritual goal and the reward of Allah!
Men who question me concerning payment and reward for the loan of their rifles in Allah’s name, belong not in the ranks of Allah’s lashkar. Let them join our enemies and learn whether or not God guides my fighting arm.”
He sat down in awful silence. Not a finger stirred. He looked calm, but his heart was beating like a triphammer and he was wondering how long he might be able to keep up that rôle of Ghazi. He had read the Koran many times but his theology was woefully weak; almost the first question was likely to expose his weakness. And it came, he wondering why he had blundered into such an egregious indiscretion. He could read fear in the Ranee’s eyes. A sidewise glance at Jonesey revealed mischievous amusement. The oldest chieftain stood:
“Your Honor is of our faith? Circumcized and properly provided with a letter saying at which college and by whom he was accepted as a true-believer? It is lawful to demand that such a letter be produced.”
Gup took his time again, wishing he had bitten off his tongue before he used phrases that were only meant, in the heat of a moment, to explain ideals in a language they would understand. Exasperated by being taken literally, as he ought to have known he would be, he was on the verge of letting ill-temper get the better of him. If they should call him a false Ghazi and send that accusation leaping from mouth to mouth of fanatics who knew nothing but the dry dead letter of their faith, the game was lost before it was begun. The Ranee’s own army would melt; there would be no one to hang on the flank of the invading Afghans. They would burst into India — the Punjaub would rise in revolt — there would be a swath of rapine and of dead and dying, all the way from Khyber-mouth to Bombay! He rose very slowly to his feet, and with his brain as blank as if he had been stunned. But intuition is not seated in the brain; it merely uses it, and uses it more readily when the brain is not busy with suggestions.