Then he wearied — the mood moving — of the men and things he ruled. And he walked beside the Goomti while the flaming sunset cooled. Simply, without mark or ensign — singly, without guard or guide. And he heard an angry woman screeching by the riverside.
‘Twas the Widow of the Potter, a virago feared and known. In haste to cross the ferry, but the ferry-man had gone. So she cursed him and his office, and hearing Akbar’s tread. (She was very old and darkling) turned her wrath upon his head.
But he answered — being Akbar — ’Suffer me to scull you o’er.’ Called her ‘Mother,’ stowed her bundles, worked the clumsy scow from shore. Till they grounded on a sand-bank, and the Widow loosed her mind; And the stars stole out and chuckled at the Guardian of Mankind.
‘Oh, most impotent of bunglers! Oh, my daughter’s daughter’s brood. Waiting hungry on the threshold for I cannot bring their food. Till a fool has learned his business at their virtuous grandam’s cost. And a greater fool, our Viceroy, trifles while her name is lost!
‘Munim Khan, that Sire of Asses, sees me daily come and go As it suits a drunken boatman, or this ox who cannot row. Munim Khan, the Owl’s Own Uncle — Munim Khan, the Capon’s seed. Must build a mosque to Allah when a bridge is all we need!
‘Eighty years I eat oppression and extortion and delays — Snake and crocodile and fever — flood and drouth, beset my ways. But Munim Khan must tax us for his mosque whate’er befall; Allah knowing (May He hear me!) that a bridge would save us all!’
While she stormed that other laboured and, when they touched the shore. Laughing brought her on his shoulder to her hovel’s very door. But his mirth renewed her anger, for she thought he mocked the weak; So she scored him with her talons, drawing blood on either cheek...
Jelaludin Muhammed Akbar, Guardian of Mankind. Spoke with Munim Khan his Viceroy, ere the midnight stars declined — Girt and sworded, robed and jewelled, but, on either cheek appeared Four shameless scratches running from the turban to the beard.
‘Allah burn all Potters’ Widows! Yet, since this same night was young. One has shown me by sure token, there was wisdom on her tongue. Yes, I ferried her for hire. Yes,’ he pointed, ‘I was paid.’ And he told the tale rehearsing all the Widow did and said.
And he ended, ‘Sire of Asses — Capon — Owl’s Own Uncle — know I — most impotent of bunglers — I — this ox who cannot row I — Jelaludin Muhammed Akbar, Guardian of Mankind — Bid thee build the hag her bridge and put our mosque from out thy mind.’
So ‘twas built, and Allah blessed it; and, through earthquake, flood, and sword. Still the bridge his Viceroy builded throws her arch o’er Akbar’s Ford!
The Manner of Men
‘If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts.’ — I COR. XV. 32.
HER cinnabar-tinted topsail, nicking the hot blue horizon, showed she was a Spanish wheat-boat hours before she reached Marseilles mole. There, her mainsail brailed itself, a spritsail broke out forward, and a handy driver aft; and she threaded her way through the shipping to her berth at the quay as quietly as a veiled woman slips through a bazaar.
The blare of her horns told her name to the port. An elderly hook- nosed Inspector came aboard to see if her cargo had suffered in the run from the South, and the senior ship-cat purred round her captain’s legs as the after-hatch was opened.
‘If the rest is like this — ’ the Inspector sniffed — ’you had better run out again to the mole and dump it.’
‘That’s nothing,’ the captain replied. ‘All Spanish wheat heats a little. They reap it very dry.’
‘‘Pity you don’t keep it so, then. What would you call that — crop or pasture?’
The Inspector pointed downwards. The grain was in bulk, and deck- leakage, combined with warm weather, had sprouted it here and there in sickly green films.
‘So much the better,’ said the captain brazenly. ‘That makes it waterproof. Pare off the top two inches, and the rest is as sweet as a nut.’
‘I told that lie, too, when I was your age. And how does she happen to be loaded?’
The young Spaniard flushed, but kept his temper.
‘She happens to be ballasted, under my eye, on lead-pigs and bagged copper-ores.’
‘I don’t know that they much care for verdigris in their dole-bread at Rome. But — you were saying?’
‘I was trying to tell you that the bins happen to be grain-tight, two- inch chestnut, floored and sided with hides.’
‘Meaning dressed African leathers on your private account?’
‘What has that got to do with you? We discharge at Port of Rome, not here.’
‘So your papers show. And what might you have stowed in the wings of her?’
‘Oh, apes! Circumcised apes — just like you!’
‘Young monkey! Well, if you are not above taking an old ape’s advice, next time you happen to top off with wool and screw in more bales than are good for her, get your ship undergirt before you sail. I know it doesn’t look smart coming into Port of Rome, but it ‘ll save your decks from lifting worse than they are.’
There was no denying that the planking and waterways round the after- hatch had lifted a little. The captain lost his temper.
‘I know your breed!’ he stormed. ‘You promenade the quays all summer at Caesar’s expense, jamming your Jew-bow into everybody’s business; and when the norther blows, you squat over your brazier and let us skippers hang in the wind for a week!’
‘You have it! Just that sort of a man am I now,’ the other answered. ‘That’ll do, the quarter-hatch!’
As he lifted his hand the falling sleeve showed the broad gold armlet with the triple vertical gouges which is only worn by master mariners who have used all three seas — Middle, Western, and Eastern.
‘Gods!’ the captain saluted. ‘I thought you were — ’
‘A Jew, of course. Haven’t you used Eastern ports long enough to know a Red Sidonian when you see one?’
‘Mine the fault — yours be the pardon, my father!’ said the Spaniard impetuously. ‘Her topsides are a trifle strained. There was a three days’ blow coming up. I meant to have had her undergirt off the Islands, but hawsers slow a ship so — and one hates to spoil a good run.’
‘To whom do you say it?’ The Inspector looked the young man over between horny sun and salt creased eyelids like a brooding pelican. ‘But if you care to get up your girt-hawsers to-morrow, I can find men to put ‘em overside. It’s no work for open sea. Now! Main-hatch, there!...I thought so. She’ll need another girt abaft the foremast.’ He motioned to one of his staff, who hurried up the quay to where the port Guard-boat basked at her mooring-ring. She was a stoutly-built, single-banker, eleven a side, with a short punching ram; her duty being to stop riots in harbour and piracy along the coast.
‘Who commands her?’ the captain asked.
‘An old shipmate of mine, Sulinus — a River man. We’ll get his opinion.’
In the Mediterranean (Nile keeping always her name) there is but one river — that shifty-mouthed Danube, where she works through her deltas into the Black Sea. Up went the young man’s eyebrows.
‘Is he any kin to a Sulinor of Tomi, who used to be in the flesh- traffic — and a Free Trader? My uncle has told me of him. He calls him Mango.’
‘That man. He was my second in the wheat-trade my last five voyages, after the Euxine grew too hot to hold him. But he’s in the Fleet now...You know your ship best. Where do you think the after-girts ought to come?’
The captain was explaining, when a huge dishfaced Dacian, in short naval cuirass, rolled up the gangplank, carefully saluting the bust of Caesar on the poop, and asked the captain’s name.
‘Baeticus, for choice,’ was the answer.
They all laughed, for the sea, which Rome mans with foreigners, washes out many shore-names.
‘My trouble is this’ Baeticus began, and they went into committee, which lasted a full hour. At the end, he led them to the poop, where an awning
had been stretched, and wines set out with fruits and sweet shore water.
They drank to the Gods of the Sea, Trade, and Good Fortune, spilling those small cups overside, and then settled at ease.
‘Girting’s an all-day job, if it’s done properly,’ said the Inspector. ‘Can you spare a real working-party by dawn to-morrow, Mango?’
‘But surely — for you, Red.’
‘I’m thinking of the wheat,’ said Quabil curtly. He did not like nicknames so early.
‘Full meals and drinks,’ the Spanish captain put in.
‘Good! Don’t return ‘em too full. By the way’ — Sulinor lifted a level cup — ’where do you get this liquor, Spaniard?’
‘From our Islands (the Balearics). Is it to your taste?’
‘It is.’ The big man unclasped his gorget in solemn preparation.
Their talk ran professionally, for though each end of the Mediterranean scoffs at the other, both unite to mock landward, wooden-headed Rome and her stiff-jointed officials.
Sulinor told a tale of taking the Prefect of the Port, on a breezy day, to Forum Julii, to see a lady, and of his lamentable condition when landed.
‘Yes,’ Quabil sneered. ‘Rome’s mistress of the world — as far as the foreshore.’
‘If Caesar ever came on patrol with me,’ said Sulinor, ‘he might understand there was such a thing as the Fleet.’
‘Then he’d officer it with well-born young Romans,’ said Quabil. ‘Be grateful you are left alone. You are the last man in the world to want to see Caesar.’
‘Except one,’ said Sulinor, and he and Quabil laughed.
‘What’s the joke?’ the Spaniard asked. Sulinor explained.
‘We had a passenger, our last trip together, who wanted to see Caesar. It cost us our ship and freight. That’s all.’
‘Was he a warlock — a wind-raiser?’
‘Only a Jew philosopher. But he had to see Caesar. He said he had; and he piled up the Eirene on his way.’
‘Be fair,’ said Quabil. ‘I don’t like the Jews — they lie too close to my own hold — but it was Caesar lost me my ship.’ He turned to Baeticus. ‘There was a proclamation, our end of the world, two seasons back, that Caesar wished the Eastern wheat-boats to run through the winter, and he’d guarantee all loss. Did you get it, youngster?’
‘No. Our stuff is all in by September. I wager Caesar never paid you! How late did you start?’
‘I left Alexandria across the bows of the Equinox — well down in the pickle, with Egyptian wheat — half pigeon’s dung — and the usual load of Greek sutlers and their women. The second day out the sou’-wester caught me. I made across it north for the Lycian coast, and slipped into Myra till the wind should let me get back into the regular grain- track again.’
Sailor-fashion, Quabil began to illustrate his voyage with date and olive stones from the table.
‘The wind went into the north, as I knew it would, and I got under way. You remember, Mango? My anchors were apeak when a Lycian patrol threshed in with Rome’s order to us to wait on a Sidon packet with prisoners and officers. Mother of Carthage, I cursed him!’
‘‘Shouldn’t swear at Rome’s Fleet. ‘Weatherly craft, those Lycian racers! Fast, too. I’ve been hunted by them! ‘Never thought I’d command one,’ said Sulinor, half aloud.
‘And now I’m coming to the leak in my decks, young man,’ Quabil eyed Baeticus sternly. ‘Our slant north had strained her, and I should have undergirt her at Myra. Gods know why I didn’t! I set up the chain- staples in the cable-tier for the prisoners. I even had the girt- hawsers on deck — which saved time later; but the thing I should have done, that I did not.’
‘Luck of the Gods!’ Sulinor laughed. ‘It was because our little philosopher wanted to see Caesar in his own way at our expense.’
‘Why did he want to see him?’ said Baeticus.
‘As far as I ever made out from him and the centurion, he wanted to argue with Caesar — about philosophy.’
‘He was a prisoner, then?’
‘A political suspect — with a Jew’s taste for going to law,’ Quabil interrupted. ‘No orders for irons. Oh, a little shrimp of a man, but — but he seemed to take it for granted that he led everywhere. He messed with us.’
‘And he was worth talking to, Red,’ said Sulinor.
‘You thought so; but he had the woman’s trick of taking the tone and colour of whoever he talked to. Now — as I was saying...’
There followed another illustrated lecture on the difficulties that beset them after leaving Myra. There was always too much west in the autumn winds, and the Eirene tacked against it as far as Cnidus. Then there came a northerly slant, on which she ran through the Aegean Islands, for the tail of Crete; rounded that, and began tacking up the south coast.
‘Just darning the water again, as we had done from Myra to Cnidus,’ said Quabil ruefully. ‘I daren’t stand out. There was the bone-yard of all the Gulf of Africa under my lee. But at last we worked into Fairhaven — by that cork yonder. Late as it was, I should have taken her on, but I had to call a ship-council as to lying up for the winter. That Rhodian law may have suited open boats and cock-crow coasters,1 but it’s childish for ocean-traffic.’
‘I never allow it in any command of mine,’ Baeticus spoke quietly. ‘The cowards give the order, and the captain bears the blame.’
Quabil looked at him keenly. Sulinor took advantage of the pause.
‘We were in harbour, you see. So our Greeks tumbled out and voted to stay where we were. It was my business to show them that the place was open to many winds, and that if it came on to blow we should drive ashore.’
‘Then I,’ broke in Quabil, with a large and formidable smile, ‘advised pushing on to Phenike, round the cape, only forty miles across the bay. My mind was that, if I could get her undergirt there, I might later — er — coax them out again on a fair wind, and hit Sicily. But the undergirting came first. She was beginning to talk too much — like me now.’
Sulinor chafed a wrist with his hand.
‘She was a hard-mouthed old water-bruiser in any sea,’ he murmured.
‘She could lie within six points of any wind,’ Quabil retorted, and hurried on. ‘What made Paul vote with those Greeks? He said we’d be sorry if we left harbour.’
‘Every passenger says that, if a bucketful comes aboard,’ Baeticus observed.
Sulinor refilled his cup, and looked at them over the brim, under brows as candid as a child’s, ere he set it down.
‘Not Paul. He did not know fear. He gave me a dose of my own medicine once. It was a morning watch coming down through the Islands. We had been talking about the cut of our topsail — he was right — it held too much lee wind — and then he went to wash before he prayed. I said to him: “You seem to have both ends and the bight of most things coiled down in your little head, Paul. If it’s a fair question, what is your trade ashore?” And he said: “I’ve been a man-hunter — Gods forgive me; and now that I think The God has forgiven me, I am man-hunting again.” Then he pulled his shirt over his head, and I saw his back. Did you ever see his back, Quabil?’
‘I expect I did — that last morning, when we all stripped; but I don’t remember.’
‘I shan’t forget it! There was good, sound lictor’s work and criss- cross Jew scourgings like gratings; and a stab or two; and, besides those, old dry bites — when they get good hold and rugg you. That showed he must have dealt with the Beasts. So, whatever he’d done, he’d paid for. I was just wondering what he had done, when he said: “No; not your sort of man-hunting.” “It’s your own affair,” I said: “but I shouldn’t care to see Caesar with a back like that. I should hear the Beasts asking for me.” “I may that, too, some day,” he said, and began sluicing himself, and — then — What’s brought the girls out so early? Oh, I remember!’
There was music up the quay, and a wreathed shore-boat put forth full of Arlesian women. A long-snouted three-banker was hauling from a slip till her tr
umpets warned the benches to take hold. As they gave way, the hrmph-hrmph of the oars in the oar-ports reminded Sulinor, he said, of an elephant choosing his man in the Circus.
‘She has been here re-masting. They’ve no good rough-tree at Forum Julii,’ Quabil explained to Baeticus. ‘The girls are singing her out.’
The shallop ranged alongside her, and the banks held water, while a girl’s voice came across the clock-calm harbour-face
‘Ah, would swift ships had never been about the seas to rove!
For then these eyes had never seen nor ever wept their love.
Over the ocean-rim he came — beyond that verge he passed.
And I who never knew his name must mourn him to the last!’
‘And you’d think they meant it,’ said Baeticus, half to himself.
‘That’s a pretty stick,’ was Quabil’s comment as the man-of-war opened the island athwart the harbour. ‘But she’s overmasted by ten foot. A trireme’s only a bird-cage.’
‘‘Luck of the Gods I’m not singing in one now,’ Sulinor muttered. They heard the yelp of a bank being speeded up to the short sea-stroke.
‘I wish there was some way to save mainmasts from racking.’ Baeticus looked up at his own, bangled with copper wire.
‘The more reason to undergirt, my son,’ said Quabil. ‘I was going to undergirt that morning at Fairhaven. You remember, Sulinor? I’d given orders to overhaul the hawsers the night before. My fault! Never say “To-morrow.” The Gods hear you. And then the wind came out of the south, mild as milk. All we had to do was to slip round the headland to Phenike — and be safe.’
Baeticus made some small motion, which Quabil noticed, for he stopped.
‘My father,’ the young man spread apologetic palms, ‘is not that lying wind the in-draught of Mount Ida? It comes up with the sun, but later — ’
‘You need not tell me! We rounded the cape, our decks like a fair (it was only half a day’s sail), and then, out of Ida’s bosom the full north-easier stamped on us! Run? What else? I needed a lee to clean up in. Clauda was a few miles down wind; but whether the old lady would bear up when she got there, I was not so sure.’
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 573