by Talbot Mundy
Lal Rai by that time was a beast at bay — bleeding, frothing — scared of every sound and shadow — outraged — unable to believe in anything but danger — death — fighting with fist and teeth. They had to seize him from behind. They threw him, and he gnawed their legs. They had to tie him with turbans and frog-march him — all in the dark, hardly knowing which end up he was.
So that when they came to the nearest fire and searched him for Ommony’s letter it seemed obvious that he had dropped it in the struggle. Suddenly his frenzied mind became aware of what they were looking for, and a devil’s delight in defeating their purpose — anybody’s purpose except his own and Prothero’s — seized him. “Yah! Yah! Sons of worms, I eat um!”
He yelled to them to cut his belly open and look if they did not believe him. Seeming to think in that crazy minute that an order from Prothero had magical qualities, or thinking, perhaps, that they thought so, he roared with malicious delight that a message had been written that would ruin all of them.
“Call me when he grows reasonable,” growled Mahommed Babar, and turned away. Everybody knew what that meant, Ali Khan especially. Ommony remonstrated. He caught Mahommed Babar’s arm and spoke with a catch in his throat.
“Are you forgetting your izzat?” he asked.
“Sahib, he has obviously slipped back and talked with Prothero. If you can make him talk to us in any other way—”
“Give me ten minutes,” said Ommony, and the sirdar nodded. So Ommony went into the temple, and Mahommed Babar stayed by the fire superintending. They brought water as well as irons to be heated, and Lal Rai understood, setting his teeth and grinding them like a boar at bay. Ali Khan smiled with cold eyes and thin lips, understanding perfectly how to be master of such ceremonies.
But Ommony, understanding something else, shook Prothero until he could not feign sleepiness.
“They’ve caught Lal Rai,” he said. “They’re heating irons to torture him because he won’t tell what your orders are. The only way you can save—”
“He won’t tell,” said Prothero.
“He will if you order him.”
“I’m no such fool.”
“You’ll let him be done to death?”
“Oh, they won’t go that far. And, if they do, damn it, man, it won’t hurt Lal Rai half as much as it would you or me! We’re, comparatively speaking, soft — at least I am physically. Done myself too well. You’re soft-hearted and soft-headed. He’s hard as nails — an animal — a peculiarly intelligent animal, good in his way, but no more in our class than the fish you catch or the bear you shoot.”
“Then you won’t say the word?” asked Ommony.
“No. If he were to divulge my orders they would probably kill you and me.”
Ommony had what he wanted, but a quirk in his nature that other men, and frequently he, too, construed as weakness, impelled him to offer Prothero a last chance.
“Won’t you come out and stand by?” asked Ommony.
“No. That ‘ud be foolish.”
“It might comfort the poor devil.”
“He has no more use for comfort than a hunted animal. I’d make him nervous. The sight of what they’ll do to him might upset me. I might weaken. Weakness is vice, only more disastrous.”
“I shall tell him you won’t come.”
“Good idea. Tell him. Make him realize it’s up to him to stick it out and see it through. It won’t hurt for you to stand by. He’ll want to show off in front of you. Your presence might help. Go on. Go and tell him I won’t come.”
Mahommed divined easily enough what Ommony had been asking Prothero. The obvious thing was to persuade him to say the word that would loosen Lal Rai’s tongue. But he thought he knew better than Ommony what manner of man was Prothero, and laughed as Ommony strode out into the firelight from the gloom of the temple door.
“The pig’s weak place is his belly, sahib. Did the brein respond to argument? Has he a heart?”
“Have you one?” Ommony retorted.
“Is it you who should ask that?”
“Are you going to torture that poor devil?”
“Ommon-ee, I will let him go if you care to say the word. You were my friend when none believed in me. But be my friend! Think twice! Prothero is the Head of the Intelligence. If I can learn what orders he gave to Lal Rai it is likely I can slip out of a tightening net.”
Ommony knew better than to believe that. The unlikeliest thing was that Prothero had done more than appeal for help, with a detail or two as to how to reach him. But it is not wisdom to argue with a man in dire straits about things you can’t prove to him. Mahommed Babar was not open to argument.
“Let me speak with Lal Rai alone,” suggested Ommony.
So though Ali Khan displayed reluctance they drew away at the Sirdar’s gruff command and left the captive gagged and trussed between two fires with the evidence of their intentions all around him. Ommony loosened the gag. Lal Rai spat in his face promptly. Ommony wiped off the spittle with the sort of deliberate care he would have used if it had been wind-blown dirt, and with no more resentment. Something in his manner of doing that conveyed more to the captive than words could have. He glared around at Ommony’s dogs that sat showing their fangs at him, and from them to their master, who took an iron out of the fire and stirred the ashes contemplatively.
“Burn me! I will not tell!” he sneered.
“There is no danger of your being burned,” said Ommony. “You are of no importance. But you can sit here, and see them torture your master with these irons and that water and not speak?”
“Hah! He is Perr-r-other-o-o-oh! They could burn him forever and he would not tell!”
“But will you permit that? That is the point. Will you sit here unharmed, and watch, and let them burn him, when a word from you — ?”
“What word?”
Ommony made a signal with his hand behind his back before answering, and Mahommed Babar began to draw near unostentatiously.
“If you tell what the message was that he gave you to take just now there would be no object in torturing him.”
The one wild eye betrayed hesitation palpably. Ommony put in his subtlest stroke.
“It is true he will not come and tell to save you from being tortured, for he does not consider you are worth it. I have asked him. But you might tell to save him, for you are his man, and he is your master. Besides, he would never know.”
“Never know?”
“Never know.”
Ommony moved his hand again, and the sirdar came and stood quite close behind the prisoner.
CHAPTER 6. “I’m going to kick you out of this!”
It is team work that wins, even in questioning prisoners. The ability to watch and wait and support the other man is what makes captains in the end, and never a rebel leader lasted thirty days who could not play second fiddle to opportunity. Lal Rai was disposed to bargain for terms and guarantees, but Mahommed Babar, listening behind him, saw the drift and played into Ommony’s hand.
“What are you waiting for?” he growled in a sort of stage-assassin’s sotto voce, and Ali Khan and several others got up, wondering what he meant.
“The irons are hot. Are you afraid to burn his feet because his hide is white and his name is Prothero? His liver will be found whiter than his skin, I’ll warrant! Must I show you? Take the fire into the temple and heat the irons there. Make haste. Have him tied and stripped before I come.”
Those were Afridis, neither averse to inflicting pain nor ashamed of the impulse. The hills they are born among are cruel, and why should they not be? Moreover, they were rebels, whose heads, excepting Ali Khan’s, were not yet priced only because the authorities did not yet know their names. If caught they might be hanged, and the preference for being hanged for something rather than for nothing is as old as draconic law. And Ali Khan, who would be hanged in any case, might just as well go the limit. In the mind of Lal Rai there was no question as to their intentions. In their shoes he would h
ave done the same thing.
“I will tell,” he said, with a great man’s simplicity.
“Do not touch him until I come!” Mahommed Babar shouted, and Ali Khan, who at that distance looked like the sirdar’s twin brother, threw up his hands in a gesture of disgust. The others looked not more pleased than hungry men would be if told to wait while the dinner cooled.
Lal Rai, taking all that in with one super-observant eye, hastened to repeat the message Prothero had given him. Parrotfish he pronounced the words almost perfectly, even apeing his master’s voice, he who when coining his own phrases never used a word or part of speech without maltreating it.
“My compliments to the General Commanding. Mr. Ommon-ee caused my teerain to be wrecked and me to be tak-en peerisner. Mr. Ommon-ee is here at liberty to come an’ go among the rebels with hees dogs, hees horses, hees cook, and several guns. Weeth Mr. Ommon-ee’s assistance Mahommed Babar ees raising a new force from thee Punjab and all over thee North. Two hun’red men resolutely led and moveeng swiftly could surround thees party and fineesh thee bisnis.”
Mahommed Babar made no audible comment but strode out of the firelight and returned, two or three times, with his hands behind him. Ommony’s face betrayed emotion, but not incredulity. Lal Rai was a person whom you could disbelieve easily in most circumstances, but not when he reeled off that particular message in that particular tone of voice. It would have been as sensible to disbelieve a dog with feathers in his mouth, bringing in news of partridges. At last Mahommed Babar stood still and exploded — one word:
“Allah!”
It contained a whole encyclopedia of mixed information as to his own thoughts. He was full of scorn. He was amazed. He doubted what to do.
“I advise you to keep this fellow prisoner,” said Ommony. “Put irons on him. Make sure of him.”
The sirdar nodded. “And the other?”
“Let him go,” said Ommony.
Mahommed Babar thought that was part of the snare of words being laid for Lal Rai. He entered no immediate objection, but shouted to his men to come and tie the prisoner carefully and followed Ommony away into the shadows.
“I do not see the connection,” he said then. “I do not understand the trick.”
“No trick,” said Ommony. “Just let him go. I’d have the junglis watch him as far as the railway line. He’s useless to you as he is, but—”
“I do not understand you, Ommon-ee. Listen to me. That man Prothero is a snake with the hide of a lion and the mentality of a hyena. You have heard the message that he hoped to send. If I let Prothero himself go he will tell worse lies. Moreover, he will know the way to this place, and—”
“Why be here?” wondered Ommony.
“Because I must!”
It was no use arguing that, no time for explanations.
“All the more, I advise you to let him go,” insisted Ommony. “As a hostage he isn’t the slightest use to you. They’ll be searching for him now. My servants will have told all they know. By morning the scouts will have found my tonga in the jungle. It won’t be very difficult to trace you from that point. They’ll find the footprints of your elephants if nothing else. Reinforcements will be sent for. They’ll surround you. You’ll be killed if you don’t surrender. And what’s to prevent Prothero from telling any lies he pleases?”
“But, Allah! If I let him go—”
“He will tread on his own feet — dig his own pit-trap himself! If you must stay here—”
“I must.”
“Then your only chance is a mistake by the other side! Keep Lal Rai and let the colonel go, for he’s a man who’ll make mistakes! You’ll puzzle him if you let him go. He’s absolutely sure to put a false construction on it.”
“Sahib, I will have nothing to do with this!” said Mahommed Babar with a sudden exclamation of disgust. “If the British caught me they would hang me as a traitor, who am a rebel and no worse. I have caught him. I should hang him as a convicted jackal masquerading in a man’s skin! It is in your hands. Do as you like with him!”
“Is it between him and me?” asked Ommony with a strange new thrill in his voice.
“I give him to you, sahib. I give you leave to turn him loose or kill him or trade him for yourself and go free, or do anything you will.”
Ommony threw his shoulders back and instantly took Mahommed Babar at the letter of his word.
“Keep Lal Rai out of sight then,” he answered with a grin, and started for the temple, springing to alternate paving-blocks with a playfulness that he had hardly felt since his school-days.
There is no such exhilaration as the courage that a man of peace produces when he has made up his mind at last that patience, having had her rein, is due to trot behind. Your mere berserker, used to hurling thew and steel into each chance argument — your bully, who delights to see the other fellow cringe — even your stone-wall fighter forever on the defensive — neither know nor can imagine such perfect thrills as he enjoys who knows in his heart of hearts that he has done all possible to avoid offense.
Ommony’s boots rang on the temple floor as he entered. He knew vaguely where Prothero’s corner was and struck a match as he drew near, whereat Prothero began calling to him from somewhere else. He followed the sound of the voice and came on steps descending. There was a glow of light below, so he went forward, down into a cavern where the ancient priests had held their mysteries, all cleaned out anew and hung with plundered mats and what not else.
They had Prothero tied in there — bound with ropes on a thing like an altar in the midst — but neither gagged nor blindfolded. They had their little fires and the hot irons staged so that he should miss no detail of what was supposed to be prepared for him. Fully believing that Mahommed Babar was in earnest, Ali Khan had gone to the length of sharpening a knife and describing to him how conveniently near the surface nerves are so that they can be opened up for more exquisite entertainment. So Prothero was in no mood for pleasantries, although he had not lost his courage when Ommony arrived; the sweat was running from his naked body in anticipation of the ordeal, but his eye was bold and he was asking no quarter. Plainly he had hurt a man or two in the scuffle when they seized him, for Ali Khan’s nose was bleeding and another was chafing an injured arm.
“Loose him!” commanded Ommony. “The sirdar has given him to me.”
They were about to refuse. No Afridi cares to be balked of his prey when the cruel side of him has been deliberately conjured uppermost. Ali Khan thrust out his lower jaw and flashed his knife. But Ommony made as if to call Mahommed Babar; and suddenly Diana appeared from the upper gloom. She had followed her master unbidden, and looked like a special kind of devil with white fangs flashing and eyeballs glaring in the glow of the torture-fires. Superstition is stronger than desire, more compelling than anger.
“Oh, if the sirdar says—”
“Take the fires away with you,” said Ommony. “Leave that lamp.”
One of them set the little clay lamp on a ledge on the cavern wall. Ali Khan, because it was the most unpleasant way of doing it, seared through the cords that bound Prothero, using one of the hot irons, and walked out swinging the weapon in illustration of his frame of mind. Ommony told the dog to follow to the stair-head and keep watch. Then he turned at last on Prothero and stood watching him pull on his pants and boots.
“You’d better leave your coat and collar off,” he said. “I’m going to lick you!”
“What in blazes do you mean?” demanded Prothero.
“Just that.”
“Good Lord! Are you mad? What possesses you?”
“General principles.”
“Don’t be an idiot!”
“Never more sane! You’re a skunk. You’ve been given to me to do what I like with. I like to give you a licking, and kick you into the jungle! Stay up there, Diana! Do you hear me?”
Diana’s tail thumped the stone upstairs in dumb acknowledgment of orders, and Ommony peeled his coat off, rolling up big flannel
shirt-sleeves in a way that almost made him feel in school again.
But it was Prothero who was in school, and he began to take instruction with three different disadvantages. As he had remarked earlier to Ommony, he had done himself too well, and, although hale and strong, he was overfed. The dim light from the clay lamp did not suit his small eyes, whereas Ommony was used to peering down the gloom of jungle lanes. And he did not believe that Ommony was serious. Everybody knew Ommony for a man who preached peace almost to the point of getting fired for it.
He was not really convinced of Ommony’s seriousness until an unimaginary fist struck him on the nose. Bellowing with rage he hitched his pants, squared himself and struck back, receiving another on the nose that made it bleed and added incitement to conviction.
The fight once on he proved no mean antagonist, for he was heavier and full of that ruthless, selfish courage that is apt to surprise those who count too literally on the maxims of the copybook. Bullies may be cowards, but most British officers can box a bit, and in his early days Prothero had studied the game for purely disreputable reasons, counting on the average officer’s objection to having his head punched, as a safe basis from which to disregard the finer canons of conduct. He had almost wooed unpopularity, that being the easiest way for a man to climb who has scant social charm. It passes for strength of character.
So once or twice as they sparred around the altar in the midst of the cavern the advantage passed from Ommony to Prothero. But never for more than a moment, because Prothero’s spirit was the cynic’s bent on self-defense, Ommony’s that of the dealer of chastisement. Moreover, Ommony had never done himself well in the Lucullian sense. If he was an epicure it was of thoughts, principles, and self-control. The self-controlled man who elects at last to fight is utterly invincible — except in the dark and then perhaps.