“I have made inquiries,” wrote Captain Phillips, the Resident, “as you wished, and I have found out that some melons and bags of grain were sent by Shere Ali’s orders a few weeks ago as a present to one of the chief Mullahs in the town.”
Ralston was brought to a stop. So it was Shere Ali, after all, who was at the bottom of the trouble. It was Shere Ali who had sent the present, and had sent it to one of the Mullahs. Ralston looked back upon the little dinner party, whereby he had brought Hatch and Shere Ali together. Had that party been too successful, he wondered? Had it achieved more than he had wished to bring about? He turned in doubt to the letter which he held.
“It seems,” he read, “that there had been some trouble between this man and Shere Ali. There is a story that Shere Ali set him to work for a day upon a bridge just below Kohara. But I do not know whether there is any truth in the story. Nor can I find that any particular meaning is attached to the present. I imagine that Shere Ali realised that it would be wise — as undoubtedly it was — for him to make his peace with the Mullah, and sent him accordingly the melons and the bags of grain as an earnest of his good-will.”
There the letter ended, and Ralston stood by the window as the light failed more and more from off the earth, pondering with a heavy heart upon its contents. He had to make his choice between the Resident at Kohara and the lady of Gujerat. Captain Phillips held that the present was not interpreted in any symbolic sense. But the lady of Gujerat had known of the present. It was matter of talk, then, in the bazaars, and it would hardly have been that had it meant no more than an earnest of good-will. She had heard of the present; she knew what it was held to convey. It was a message. There was that glare broadening over Chiltistan. Surely the lady of Gujerat was right.
So far his thoughts had carried him when across the window there fell a shadow, and a young officer of the Khyber Rifles passed by to the door. Captain Singleton was announced, and a boy — or so he looked — dark-haired and sunburnt, entered the office. For eighteen months he had been stationed in the fort at Landi Kotal, whence the road dips down between the bare brown cliffs towards the plains and mountains of Afghanistan. With two other English officers he had taken his share in the difficult task of ruling that regiment of wild tribesmen which, twice a week, perched in threes on some rocky promontory, or looking down from a machicolated tower, keeps open the Khyber Pass from dawn to dusk and protects the caravans. The eighteen months had written their history upon his face; he stood before Ralston, for all his youthful looks, a quiet, self-reliant man.
“I have come down on leave, sir,” he said. “On the way I fetched Rahat Mian out of his house and brought him in to Peshawur.”
Ralston looked up with interest.
“Any trouble?” he asked.
“I took care there should be none.”
Ralston nodded.
“He had better be safely lodged. Where is he?”
“I have him outside.”
Ralston rang for lights, and then said to Singleton: “Then, I’ll see him now.”
And in a few minutes an elderly white-bearded man, dressed from head to foot in his best white robes, was shown into the room.
“This is his Excellency,” said Captain Singleton, and Rahat Mian bowed with dignity and stood waiting. But while he stood his eyes roamed inquisitively about the room.
“All this is strange to you, Rahat Mian,” said Ralston. “How long is it since you left your house in the Khyber Pass?”
“Five years, your Highness,” said Rahat Mian, quietly, as though there were nothing very strange in so long a confinement within his doors.
“Have you never crossed your threshold for five years?” asked Ralston.
“No, your Highness. I should not have stepped back over it again, had I been so foolish. Before, yes. There was a deep trench dug between my house and the road, and I used to crawl along the trench when no-one was about. But after a little my enemies saw me walking in the road, and watched the trench.”
Rahat Mian lived in one of the square mud windowless houses, each with a tower at a corner which dot the green wheat fields in the Khyber Pass wherever the hills fall back and leave a level space. His house was fifty yards from the road, and the trench stretched to it from his very door. But not two hundred yards away there were other houses, and one of these held Rahat Mian’s enemies. The feud went back many years to the date when Rahat Mian, without asking anyone’s leave or paying a single farthing of money, secretly married the widowed mother of Futteh Ali Shah. Now Futteh Ali Shah was a boy of fourteen who had the right to dispose of his mother in second marriage as he saw fit, and for the best price he could obtain. And this deprivation of his rights kindled in him a great anger against Rahat Mian. He nursed it until he became a man and was able to buy for a couple of hundred rupees a good pedigree rifle — a rifle which had belonged to a soldier killed in a hill-campaign and for which inquiries would not be made. Armed with his pedigree rifle, Futteh Ali Shah lay in wait vainly for Rahat Mian, until an unexpected bequest caused a revolution in his fortunes. He went down to Bombay, added to his bequest by becoming a money-lender, and finally returned to Peshawur, in the neighbourhood of which city he had become a landowner of some importance. Meanwhile, however, he had not been forgetful of Rahat Mian. He left relations behind to carry on the feud, and in addition he set a price on Rahat Mian’s head. It was this feud which Ralston had it in his mind to settle.
He turned to Rahat Mian.
“You are willing to make peace?”
“Yes,” said the old man.
“You will take your most solemn oath that the feud shall end. You will swear to divorce your wife, if you break your word?”
For a moment Rahat Mian hesitated. There was no oath more binding, more sacred, than that which he was called upon to take. In the end he consented.
“Then come here at eight to-morrow morning,” said Ralston, and, dismissing the man, he gave instructions that he should be safely lodged. He sent word at the same time to Futteh Ali Shah, with whom, not for the first time, he had had trouble.
Futteh Ali Shah arrived late the next morning in order to show his independence. But he was not so late as Ralston, who replied by keeping him waiting for an hour. When Ralston entered the room he saw that Futteh Ali Shah had dressed himself for the occasion. His tall high-shouldered frame was buttoned up in a grey frock coat, grey trousers clothed his legs, and he wore patent-leather shoes upon his feet.
“I hope you have not been waiting very long. They should have told me you were here,” said Ralston, and though he spoke politely, there was just a suggestion that it was not really of importance whether Futteh Ali Shah was kept waiting or not.
“I have brought you here that together we may put an end to your dispute with Rahat Mian,” said Ralston, and, taking no notice of the exclamation of surprise which broke from the Pathan’s lips, he rang the bell and ordered Rahat Mian to be shown in.
“Now let us see if we cannot come to an understanding,” said Ralston, and he seated himself between the two antagonists.
But though they talked for an hour, they came no nearer to a settlement. Futteh Ali Shah was obdurate; Rahat Mian’s temper and pride rose in their turn. At the sight of each other the old grievance became fresh as a thing of yesterday in both their minds. Their dark faces, with the high cheek-bones and the beaked noses of the Afridi, became passionate and fierce. Finally Futteh Ali Shah forgot all his Bombay manners; he leaned across Ralston, and cried to Rahat Mian:
“Do you know what I would like to do with you? I would like to string my bedstead with your skin and lie on it.”
And upon that Ralston arrived at the conclusion that the meeting might as well come to an end.
He dismissed Rahat Mian, promising him a safe conveyance to his home. But he had not yet done with Futteh Ali Shah.
“I am going out,” he said suavely. “Shall we walk a little way together?”
Futteh Ali Shah smiled. Landowner of impor
tance that he was, the opportunity to ride side by side through Peshawur with the Chief Commissioner did not come every day. The two men went out into the porch. Ralston’s horse was waiting, with a scarlet-clad syce at its head. Ralston walked on down the steps and took a step or two along the drive. Futteh Ali Shah lagged behind.
“Your Excellency is forgetting your horse.”
“No,” said Ralston. “The horse can follow. Let us walk a little. It is a good thing to walk.”
It was nine o’clock in the morning, and the weather was getting hot. And it is said that the heat of Peshawur is beyond the heat of any other city from the hills to Cape Comorin. Futteh Ali Shah, however, could not refuse. Regretfully he signalled to his own groom who stood apart in charge of a fine dark bay stallion from the Kirghiz Steppes. The two men walked out from the garden and down the road towards Peshawur city, with their horses following behind them.
“We will go this way,” said Ralston, and he turned to the left and walked along a mud-walled lane between rich orchards heavy with fruit. For a mile they thus walked, and then Futteh Ali Shah stopped and said:
“I am very anxious to have your Excellency’s opinion of my horse. I am very proud of it.”
“Later on,” said Ralston, carelessly. “I want to walk for a little”; and, conversing upon indifferent topics, they skirted the city and came out upon the broad open road which runs to Jamrud and the Khyber Pass.
It was here that Futteh Ali Shah once more pressingly invited Ralston to try the paces of his stallion. But Ralston again refused.
“I will with pleasure later on,” he said. “But a little exercise will be good for both of us; and they continued to walk along the road. The heat was overpowering; Futteh Ali Shah was soft from too much good living; his thin patent-leather shoes began to draw his feet and gall his heels; his frock coat was tight; the perspiration poured down his face. Ralston was hot, too. But he strode on with apparent unconcern, and talked with the utmost friendliness on the municipal affairs of Peshawur.”
“It is very hot,” said Futteh Ali Shah, “and I am afraid for your Excellency’s health. For myself, of course, I am not troubled, but so much walking will be dangerous to you”; and he halted and looked longingly back to his horse.
“Thank you,” said Ralston. “But my horse is fresh, and I should not be able to talk to you so well. I do not feel that I am in danger.”
Futteh Ali Shah mopped his face and walked on. His feet blistered; he began to limp, and he had nothing but a riding-switch in his hand. Now across the plain he saw in the distance the round fort of Jamrud, and he suddenly halted:
“I must sit down,” he said. “I cannot help it, your Excellency, I must stop and sit down.”
Ralston turned to him with a look of cold surprise.
“Before me, Futteh Ali Shah? You will sit down in my presence before I sit down? I think you will not.”
Futteh Ali Shah gazed up the road and down the road, and saw no help anywhere. Only this devilish Chief Commissioner stood threateningly before him. With a gesture of despair he wiped his face and walked on. For a mile more he limped on by Ralston’s side, the while Ralston discoursed upon the great question of Agricultural Banks. Then he stopped again and blurted out:
“I will give you no more trouble. If your Excellency will let me go, never again will I give you trouble. I swear it.”
Ralston smiled. He had had enough of the walk himself.
“And Rahat Mian?” he asked.
There was a momentary struggle in the zemindar’s mind. But his fatigue and exhaustion were too heavy upon him.
“He, too, shall go his own way. Neither I nor mine shall molest him.”
Ralston turned at once and mounted his horse. With a sigh of relief Futteh Ali Shah followed his example.
“Shall we ride back together?” said Ralston, pleasantly. And as on the way out he had made no mention of any trouble between the landowner and himself, so he did not refer to it by a single word on his way back.
But close to the city their ways parted and Futteh Ali Shah, as he took his leave, said hesitatingly,
“If this story goes abroad, your Excellency — this story of how we walked together towards Jamrud — there will be much laughter and ridicule.”
The fear of ridicule — there was the weak point of the Afridi, as Ralston very well knew. To be laughed at — Futteh Ali Shah, who was wont to lord it among his friends, writhed under the mere possibility. And how they would laugh in and round about Peshawur! A fine figure he would cut as he rode through the streets with every ragged bystander jeering at the man who was walked into docility and submission by his Excellency the Chief Commissioner.
“My life would be intolerable,” he said, “were the story to get about.”
Ralston shrugged his shoulders.
“But why should it get about?”
“I do not know, but it surely will. It may be that the trees have ears and eyes and a mouth to speak.” He edged a little nearer to the Commissioner. “It may be, too,” he said cunningly, “that your Excellency loves to tell a good story after dinner. Now there is one way to stop that story.”
Ralston laughed. “If I could hold my tongue, you mean,” he replied.
Futteh Ali Shah came nearer still. He rode up close and leaned a little over towards Ralston.
“Your Excellency would lose the story,” he said, “but on the other hand there would be a gain — a gain of many hours of sleep passed otherwise in guessing.”
He spoke in an insinuating fashion, which made Ralston disinclined to strike a bargain — and he nodded his head like one who wishes to convey that he could tell much if only he would. But Ralston paused before he answered, and when he answered it was only to put a question.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
And the reply came in a low quick voice.
“There was a message sent through Chiltistan.”
Ralston started. Was it in this strange way the truth was to come to him? He sat his horse carelessly. “I know,” he said. “Some melons and some bags of grain.”
Futteh Ali Shah was disappointed. This devilish Chief Commissioner knew everything. Yet the story of the walk must not get abroad in Peshawur, and surely it would unless the Chief Commissioner were pledged to silence. He drew a bow at a venture.
“Can your Excellency interpret the message? As they interpret it in Chiltistan?” and it seemed to him that he had this time struck true. “It is a little thing I ask of your Excellency.”
“It is not a great thing, to be sure,” Ralston admitted. He looked at the zemindar and laughed. “But I could tell the story rather well,” he said doubtfully. “It would be an amusing story as I should tell it. Yet — well, we will see,” and he changed his tone suddenly. “Interpret to me that present as it is interpreted in the villages of Chiltistan.”
Futteh Ali Shah looked about him fearfully, making sure that there was no one within earshot. Then in a whisper he said: “The grain is the army which will rise up from the hills and descend from the heavens to destroy the power of the Government. The melons are the forces of the Government; for as easily as melons they will be cut into pieces.”
He rode off quickly when he had ended, like a man who understands that he has said too much, and then halted and returned.
“You will not tell that story?” he said.
“No,” answered Ralston abstractedly. “I shall never tell that story.”
He understood the truth at last. So that was the message which Shere Ali had sent. No wonder, he thought, that the glare broadened over Chiltistan.
CHAPTER XX
THE SOLDIER AND THE JEW
THESE TWO EVENTS took place at Peshawur, while Linforth was still upon the waters of the Red Sea. To be quite exact, on that morning when Ralston was taking his long walk towards Jamrud with the zemindar Futteh Ali Shah, Linforth was watching impatiently from his deck-chair the high mosque towers, the white domes and great houses of Mocha, as they sh
immered in the heat at the water’s edge against a wide background of yellow sand. It seemed to him that the long narrow city so small and clear across the great level of calm sea would never slide past the taffrail. But it disappeared, and in due course the ship moved slowly through the narrows into Aden harbour. This was on a Thursday evening, and the steamer stopped in Aden for three hours to coal. The night came on hot, windless and dark. Linforth leaned over the side, looking out upon the short curve of lights and the black mass of hill rising dimly above them. Three and a half more days and he would be standing on Indian soil. A bright light flashed towards the ship across the water and a launch came alongside, bearing the agent of the company.
He had the latest telegrams in his hand.
“Any trouble on the Frontier?” Linforth asked.
“None,” the agent replied, and Linforth’s fever of impatience was assuaged. If trouble were threatening he would surely be in time — since there were only three and a half more days.
But he did not know why he had been brought out from England, and the three and a half days made him by just three and a half days too late. For on this very night when the steamer stopped to coal in Aden harbour Shere Ali made his choice.
He was present that evening at a prize-fight which took place in a music-hall at Calcutta. The lightweight champion of Singapore and the East, a Jew, was pitted against a young soldier who had secured his discharge and had just taken to boxing as a profession. The soldier brought a great reputation as an amateur. This was his first appearance as a professional, and his friends had gathered in numbers to encourage him. The hall was crowded with soldiers from the barracks, sailors from the fleet, and patrons of the fancy in Calcutta. The heat was overpowering, the audience noisy, and overhead the electric fans, which hung downwards from the ceiling, whirled above the spectators with so swift a rotation that those looking up saw only a vague blur in the air. The ring had been roped off upon the stage, and about three sides of the ring chairs for the privileged had been placed. The fourth side was open to the spectators in the hall, and behind the ropes at the back there sat in the centre of the row of chairs a fat red-faced man in evening-dress who was greeted on all sides as Colonel Joe. “Colonel Joe” was the referee, and a person on these occasions of great importance.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 464