Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  That, he decided was all right. Even if the jailer had to listen, that short speech could do no harm. None but the condemned would understand it, and he would realize that somebody appreciated the sacrifice sufficiently to forgo resentment.

  “It isn’t bowing to necessity that counts. It’s the motive with which we face necessity — the unselfishness with which we do the unavoidable,” he argued, not aware that he, too, was doing just that.

  Nevertheless, he drew blank temporarily. The policeman met him at the door with that inconstruable laugh with which the East looks on the West’s dilemmas.

  “They came for him,” he said simply, answering the unspoken question. Then, to the spoken one:

  “Oh yes, he was violent — at first — that is until they told him he should be shot. Afterward he was well-behaved. But they carried him in a stretcher for fear he might go wild again.”

  “He won’t,” said Ommony, and the policeman nodded, comprehending.

  “Did you get that cold chisel from Colonel Prothero?” Ommony asked him.

  “No, and I no longer care for it,” he answered. “It will not be used against me.”

  Ommony studied him a minute.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Don’t count too much on—”

  The policeman understood. Almost every man’s hand is against the Indian police. He proceeded to make for himself a friend who could be counted on.

  “Sahib, when it was learned yesterday evening by telephone that the train was bringing this important prisoner, Macaulay sahib began to make arrangements. The prisoners who were in here were removed. About an hour before the train arrived Macaulay sahib came in here to visit the cell. I had my arrangements made to put the prisoner in the end cell nearest to the office. It was Macaulay sahib who countermanded that and chose the cell at the other end. He visited it. He was alone in it. After he came out and closed the door none was in it until the prisoner was pushed in. Consequently, since the prisoner was searched and had no cold chisel, and could not have had that cold chisel In any case; and since I have ascertained that a cold chisel similar to that one is now missing from a storeroom which Macaulay sahib inspected yesterday, there is only one conclusion to be drawn! I draw it! Macaulay sahib wished him to escape! I shall hold my tongue, unless—”

  “Unless Prothero should turn on you? Well, he wont!” said Ommony. “He would rather turn on Macaulay.”

  “I know that, sahib!”

  Under the flickering lantern they looked straight into each other’s eyes.

  “The prisoner had a scar,” said the policeman darkly.

  “Was that what you talked about with Colonel Prothero?” Ommony asked him. “Had Prothero seen the scar?”

  “Yes, sahib, he had noticed it. Would your honor care to see the records of two years ago?”

  Ommony, not given as a rule to that kind of curiosity, accepted the invitation.

  “You see,” said the policeman. “I obliged Colonel Prothero to sign that chit tonight. He cannot say afterward that he was not here and did not speak with me. You see? But you do not look surprised, sahib. How is that?”

  “Not the least surprised,” said Ommony. “You said you’d hold your tongue. Do you mean to? I advise that. After dawn, when” — he spoke slowly and distinctly— “Mahommed Babar will be dead and buried, mine would be the only evidence worth anything to you if those men should try to make you a scapegoat. As long as you do hold your tongue, you may count on me implicitly.”

  They shook hands on that, but Ommony limped away aware of fear; for, like Tregurtha, he had crossed a Rubicon. Thenceforward he must carry on, although he knew that nothing could prevent that policeman from trying to blackmail all concerned and, failing that, from telling all he knew if one least step should fail in what should follow.

  He returned to the tent and found Tregurtha sitting there, smoking irritably. He explained where he had been.

  “I thought I’d cheer the man a little if I could, but they’ve removed him.”

  “I know they have. Damn it, that’s Prothero’s doing!” Tregurtha answered. “Macaulay must be drunk or off his head! He has given Prothero an order to have Mahommed Babar executed at dawn. There isn’t one possible excuse for it!”

  “Yes, there is,” said Ommony. “Macaulay wanted Mahommed Babar to escape. He could have blamed the police for it; and without Mahommed Babar on his hands it would have been lots easier to discredit you. However, the escape failed. He’s just as keen now on the execution, for fear the prisoner might tell how he came by a cold chisel. Macaulay recognizes Waterloo and wonders whether he’s French or English!”

  Tregurtha swore explosively.

  “They’ve the right,” he said, “but no excuse! Prothero is a bounder, and Macaulay’s worse! However, there’s only one thing I can do about it. Will you come with me and see the poor devil gets treated decently?”

  They sat talking until shortly before dawn, Tregurtha just simply indignant and Ommony aching to tell what would drive him to a frenzy of defiant countermanding, yet holding his tongue for friendship’s sake. Toward dawn they tied the dogs up and walked side by side to the execution ground in the valley between three hills.

  They could not refuse to let Tregurtha witness the proceedings.

  “Where’s Macaulay?” he demanded.

  “No need of him,” said Prothero, tapping his pocket. “I’ve his signature. You leave Macaulay to me!”

  The prisoner had been carried on a stretcher, but was standing now. They had given him back his uniform and his hands were not tied. Beside Prothero there was only one officer, a non-com, and a dozen men. Prothero ordered the prisoner blindfolded and tied, but Tregurtha interfered.

  “No, if he prefers to stand and face it!” he said. “I forbid tying him unless it’s necessary. Give him his chance to die like a brave man.”

  The prisoner, avoiding Ommony’s eyes, glanced at Tregurtha gratefully and raised one hand to the salute in the first admission of any human feeling he had made since he was captured. The officer touched him on the arm and he stepped forward instantly to the sand-bank with a smile on his lips that hardly suggested defiance. It was more like triumph.

  “Funny!” said Tregurtha. “I don’t see victory in that death, but my! he’s proud of it. And what’s his complaint against you? Why don’t he at least nod you a so-long?”

  “Perhaps he thinks I know too much about him,” ventured Ommony.

  They fired as the sun rose facing the condemned man over the ridge that closed the valley’s end. So he fell with the light in his eyes. And almost before the sand began to soak the blood up, Prothero produced a sheet of paper fastened in a clip on a writing-board. He, Prothero, certified the dead man dead; then passed the paper to Tregurtha, who wrote his name as witness.

  “You’d better sign too. You knew him. Just write your name and the date below Tregurtha’s,” said Prothero, but Ommony shook his head.

  “No,” he answered. “I’ll have nothing to do with it. My job’s the forest!”

  “Good man!” said Tregurtha. “Mind your own business, eh? Besides, it was a damned shame shooting that man!”

  “No,” Ommony answered, “it would have been a shame to let him live! But I’m pleased he escaped hanging.”

  “Lord!” exclaimed Tregurtha. “What d’ye mean, man? Is it pique because he didn’t recognize you — or a touch of sun? Sun — must be! Come away! You’ll feel better after breakfast.” Just a plain, straight-forward, simple fellow, Tregurtha was.

  CHAPTER 16. “A man’s death is the most a man may ask!”

  Cotswold Ommony sat in what he called his “seat of custom,” underneath the sambur antlers, between the front door and the window of the library, on his veranda that overlooked an acre or two of clearing on the outer, penetrable fringe of the forest. The morning mail had arrived, and there was only one letter that interested him; although there was other interesting news, for Prothero had turned up on the same train and sent up asking for
a conveyance to bring him from the station.

  Prothero was always above-board — always fair and unsecretive — always announced his coming in advance. But that did not imply by any means that Ommony desired to meet him. He had sent the tonga to the station, but his gun was against the veranda rail, and the dogs knew what that meant. Meanwhile, he read the letter again and again — particularly part of it:

  You have the news of course. Tregurtha is a brigadier. That pig Prothero they say has contrived to snaffle the only important decoration. It’s not gazetted yet, but they say it’s a foregone conclusion. Macaulay, who everybody thought was the man of destiny — he surely believed it himself — got a backstairs promotion downward and resigned! He’s on his way home. Can’t feel sorry for Macaulay, somehow. Nobody seems to know what caused his downfall, but everybody in this department feels triumphant about it, because he had the petty spirit to report you for making maps!

  And by the way, about those maps — Tregurtha took it up with his usual combativeness and recommended for you everything in sight. It seems there are no funds from which you can be paid for making them, and as a decoration costs less anyhow they’ve set your name down for a C.M.G. or something —

  He laughed, picked up his gun and started for the jungle, the dogs leaping and racing about him, showing the way to the lookout rock, as if he did not know it. There, at the end of the long fire-lane, he climbed at last.

  A few minutes later a man’s footsteps were distinctly audible, ascending. They paused.

  “All’s clear, Mahommed Babar. Come on up!” said Ommony.

  The sirdar strode out on to the narrow level at the summit. He looked a trifle younger, perhaps because his beard was not so long. It looked newly grown, as if he had shaved it rather recently. He wore nothing resembling a uniform, but the semi-modern, simple garments of a Northern Moslem of good standing.

  “I came to say good-bye, sahib. I have spent these weeks making sure my rebels scattered and laid down their arms. I have kept faith and will keep it.”

  “How did you persuade Ali Khan to die in your place? You came near breaking it with me,” said Ommony.

  “Near, but not quite! I was there, sahib! If harm had befallen you at any time since, I would have given myself up! I swore to you to be there and to surrender Ali Khan to justice. Did I not?”

  “He didn’t surrender,” said Ommony.

  “So I saw! He feared lest they would hang him. He was glad to die if he might die decently. He knew they would capture him sooner or later, for he was a man of few friends and many enemies; and as a murderer condemned to death he would certainly have been hanged whenever caught. So he offered to die in my place. When you left me, sahib, I intended to disperse my following and surrender, keeping only Ali Khan with me. He was not a man who should be turned loose. He deserved to die, and he knew it. He would have become a common bandit if I had let him go. After you were gone it was he who made me the proposal; I who agreed to it, liking well enough to see him act the man at last. When he was taken, I was within a hundred paces almost, lying along the bough of a great tree — watching. Thereafter there was nothing for me to do but write a letter and arrange for its delivery.”

  “Who delivered that letter?” asked Ommony.

  “I did, sahib. The dogs and the junglis recognized me, and I saw you were puzzled. I shaved and took a Hindu part, and for two reasons — needing to make sure that you, sahib, should believe I was really in the box-car; and having promised Ali Khan he should be shot, not hanged, if I could manage it. When did you first know, bahadur, that it was Ali Khan, not I, who had been taken prisoner?”

  “The night before the execution, after he tried to escape, when I saw him in the cell close up.”

  “Did he die like a man, sahib?”

  “He did. I saw him die.”

  “Good! Surely a man’s death is the most a man may ask! May Allah—”

  He was interrupted by the dogs. Diana’s clarion bark was bearing news, and the yelp and the yap of the other two confirmed it. Ommony stared jungle- wisely in the general direction of the tumult, studied the trees a minute and then laughed.

  “You’re not the only fellow who can lie along a bough, Mahommed Babar! Look!”

  He called the dogs away.

  “Lal Rai!” he ordered. “Get down and go back to your master! Tell him I’m coming! You hear me?”

  There was a noise among the branches and then, presently, retreating footsteps.

  “Will that dog Prothero — Is there danger, sahib? If so—”

  “None whatever! What about you?” Ommony demanded.

  “I go North tonight. I will keep faith. I will never return and make rebellion here. The weapons of those who scattered have been rendered useless.”

  “You’d best be going now. Good luck to you!” said Ommony, holding his hand out. “I’ve committed treason to a lot of rotters — for the sake of a damned good man. Go away and be just that! Yes — see you some day. G’by, Mahommed Babar!”

  Five minutes later he was striding homeward, keeping the dogs to heel, for they had a way of making free with uninvited guests who did not assay up to standard. He reached his own veranda with three sets of glistening teeth on guard and six eyes flashing fire. Lal Rai crouched away at the far end, ready to jump the rail, and Prothero, rising from Ommony’s favorite chair, looked nervous. Ommony went to the point the way he raised a rifle, only careful not to raise his voice lest the dogs should make a mistake.

  “Your stool-pigeon told you he saw me, I suppose?”

  Prothero accepted the challenge. He was a man who usually did the wrong thing when face to face with honesty. It was only dishonesty that he understood.

  “Yes. He saw you with Mahommed Babar! That’s why I’m here. I’ve heard of your goings-on!”

  Ommony waited. He knew what was coming. Prothero could only have one possible motive for playing his ace of trumps so swiftly. He was in a clubbing mood. He meant to browbeat Ommony into usefulness to himself — to win the upper hand, and keep and use it everlastingly.

  “That means,” said Prothero slowly, “that you’ve saved your friend, and you and I had better reach an understanding.”

  Whereat Ommony was deadly wise; for there are bullies and then bullies, and with some it does not pay to let them voice their threats first. Prove you can win, before they start to try to bluff you.

  “Let’s!” he said, leaning back against the rail, motioning the dogs to keep still. “You knew that was not Mahommed Babar when you saw him in the jail. You knew before I did! You recognized the scar on Ali Khan’s hand. You knew there was an entry in the office records minutely describing Ali Khan! You saw him when he was locked in there two years ago! The jailer knew that. You knew the jailer knew it! You were so anxious to break Macaulay that you risked a bargain with the jailer — a bad risk, Prothero! Knowing the dead man was not Mahommed Babar, you signed the death certificate! You invited me to sign it, you remember. I refused! Knowing you had shot the wrong man — or, rather, a different man — you sent in a lying report and have been recommended for a decoration, which you will accept, no doubt. It will look very pretty on you! You may wear it. I shall receive one too, and wear it. But I make no bargain with you! Perhaps I’ve nothing to bargain with. You’re the best judge of that. You know now what I know. You know what Tregurtha shall know if you don’t behave yourself! I’ve saved a friend, as you say, and you might break me, but Trig has clean hands and won’t thank you for promoting him on false pretenses!”

  “Well, let’s shake hands and—”

  “No! You came from the station in my tonga, but you’ll walk back! There’s no bargain between us. Any time you feel like denouncing me, remember I’d rather that than be your friend! But don’t imagine that I won’t hit back! Don’t ever come here again or I’ll set the dogs on you! Now go! Get out of here!”

  So Prothero went — on foot — with Lal Rai tagging him. And it is a reasonable surmise that Prothero chose to b
e discreet, because he is still a Colonel of the Intelligence on speaking terms with Tregurtha. Ommony still lives in and for the forest; and Mahommed Babar is officially dead, not resurrected. There is a reward of two thousand rupees for Ali Khan, “dead or alive,” which somebody might claim who knew enough to dig among graves beside the execution grounds.

  EPISODE THREE

  CHAPTER 1. “Slow but sure — the Lord providing foresters”

  Success in public service is the deuce. In a democracy they hate you. In any other kind of country you are overworked. But there are compensations. In India you get transferred and lent from pillar to post to cover the delinquencies of other men; but you may go, like Cotswold Ommony, in a barge with sixteen rowers down mile-wide waterways illuminated by an Indian moon.

  Howard Craig, of Little Cold Springs near Omaha, Baptist missionary, says it is the same moon that shines everywhere; but Ommony refuses to believe him. What Ommony does not believe, and what he does, has caused him to fall foul of lots of men like Craig. He scorns the history books as poisonous fiction, the Bible as Hebrew politics mixed up with plagiarized mid-Asian ethics, and modern civilization as a shoddy re-hash of the worst of Rome, Egypt, Babylon, and Greece; pasted and held together by matter-worship, which is another name — so he says — for modern science. But he is the happiest man in India.

  Concede him, though, no merit on the ground of contentment while the long sweeps rowed him southward, beating time to a song the boatmen’s ancestors had sung a thousand years ago. For as the King of England is the son of England’s king, so rowers are the sons of rowers, songs are the development of one song, and the same short, deep stroke drives Maharajah’s boats as always did keep time to steersman’s chanting, banishing discontent.

  Nowadays the Maharajah owns a motor-boat; that is the fashion. Miserable men like viceroys and their secretaries, who must move with the times, and American millionaires, who believe they know what is due them, are conceded seats in the hot, noisy machine that hurries them into the picture and out again before they can spoil it. So gasoline has virtue.