“I will ride with you to your door,” he said.
The two men passed alone through the gateway and along a broad path which divided the forecourt to the steps of the house. And not a man of all that crowd which followed Shere Ali to Kohara pressed in behind them. Captain Phillips looked back as much in surprise as in relief. But there was no surprise on the face of Shere Ali. He, it was plain, expected obedience.
“Upon my word,” cried Phillips in a burst of admiration, “you have got your fellows well in hand.”
“I?” said Shere Ali. “I am nothing. What could I do who a week ago was still a stranger to my people? I am a voice, nothing more. But the God of my people speaks through me”; and as he spoke these last words, his voice suddenly rose to a shrill trembling note, his face suddenly quivered with excitement.
Captain Phillips stared. “The man’s in earnest,” he muttered to himself. “He actually believes it.”
It was the second time that Captain Phillips had been surprised within five minutes, and on this occasion the surprise came upon him with a shock. How it had come about — that was all dark to Captain Phillips. But the result was clear. The few words spoken as they had been spoken revealed the fact. The veneer of Shere Ali’s English training had gone. Shere Ali had reverted. His own people had claimed him.
“And I guessed nothing of this,” the Resident reflected bitterly. Signs of trouble he had noticed in abundance, but this one crucial fact which made trouble a certain and unavoidable thing — that had utterly escaped him. His thoughts went back to the nameless tomb in the courtyard of the fort.
“Luffe would have known,” he thought in a very bitter humility. “Nay, he did know. He foresaw.”
There was yet a third surprise in store for Captain Phillips. As the two men rode up the broad path, he had noticed that the door of the house was standing open, as it usually did. Now, however, he saw it swing to — very slowly, very noiselessly. He was surprised, for he knew the door to be a strong heavy door of walnut wood, not likely to swing to even in a wind. And there was no wind. Besides, if it had swung to of its own accord, it would have slammed. Its weight would have made it slam. Whereas it was not quite closed. As he reined in his horse at the steps, he saw that there was a chink between the door and the door-post.
“There’s someone behind that door,” he said to himself, and he glanced quietly at Shere Ali. It would be quite in keeping with the Chilti character for Shere Ali politely to escort him home knowing well that an assassin waited behind the door; and it was with a smile of some irony that he listened to Shere Ali taking his leave.
“You will be safe, so long as you stay within your grounds. I will place a guard about the house. I do not make war against my country’s guests. And in a few days I will send an escort and set you and your attendants free from hurt beyond our borders. But” — and his voice lost its courtesy— “take care you admit no one, and give shelter to no one.”
The menace of Shere Ali’s tone roused Captain Phillips. “I take no orders from your Highness,” he said firmly. “Your Highness may not have noticed that,” and he pointed upwards to where on a high flagstaff in front of the house the English flag hung against the pole.
“I give your Excellency no orders,” replied Shere Ali. “But on the other hand I give you a warning. Shelter so much as one man and that flag will not save you. I should not be able to hold in my men.”
Shere Ali turned and rode back to the gates. Captain Phillips dismounted, and calling forward a reluctant groom, gave him his horse. Then he suddenly flung back the door. But there was no resistance. The door swung in and clattered against the wall. Phillips looked into the hall, but the dusk was gathering in the garden. He looked into a place of twilight and shadows. He grasped his riding-crop a little more firmly in his hand and strode through the doorway. In a dark corner something moved.
“Ah! would you!” cried Captain Phillips, turning sharply on the instant. He raised his crop above his head and then a crouching figure fell at his feet and embraced his knees; and a trembling voice of fear cried:
“Save me! Your Excellency will not give me up! I have been a good friend to the English!”
For the second time the Khan of Chiltistan had sought refuge from his own people. Captain Phillips looked round.
“Hush,” he whispered in a startled voice. “Let me shut the door!”
CHAPTER XXXIII
IN THE RESIDENCY
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS WITH a sharp gesture ordered the Khan back to the shadowy corner from which he had sprung out. Then he shut the door and, with the shutting of the door, the darkness deepened suddenly in the hall. He shot the bolt and put up the chain. It rattled in his ears with a startling loudness. Then he stood without speech or movement. Outside he heard Shere Ali’s voice ring clear, and the army of tribesmen clattered past towards the town. The rattle of their weapons, the hum of their voices diminished. Captain Phillips took his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. He had the sensations of a man reprieved.
“But it’s only a reprieve,” he thought. “There will be no commutation.”
He turned again towards the dark corner.
“How did you come?” he asked in a low voice.
“By the orchard at the back of the house.”
“Did no one see you?”
“I hid in the orchard until I saw the red coat of one of your servants. I called to him and he let me in secretly. But no one else saw me.”
“No one in the city?”
“I came barefoot in a rough cloak with the hood drawn over my face,” said the Khan. “No one paid any heed to me. There was much noise and running to and fro, and polishing of weapons. I crept out into the hill-side at the back and so came down into your orchard.”
Captain Phillips shrugged his shoulders. He opened a door and led the Khan into a room which looked out upon the orchard.
“Well, we will do what we can,” he said, “but it’s very little. They will guess immediately that you are here of course.”
“Once before—” faltered the Khan, and Phillips broke in upon him impatiently.
“Yes, once before. But it’s not the same thing. This is a house, not a fort, and I have only a handful of men to defend it; and I am not Luffe.” Then his voice sharpened. “Why didn’t you listen to him? All this is your fault — yours and Dewes’, who didn’t understand, and held his tongue.”
The Khan was mystified by the words, but Phillips did not take the trouble to explain. He knew something of the Chilti character. They would have put up with the taxes, with the selling into slavery, with all the other abominations of the Khan’s rule. They would have listened to the exhortations of the mullahs without anything coming of it, so long as no leader appeared. They were great accepters of facts as they were. Let the brother or son or nephew murder the ruling Khan and sit in his place, they accepted his rule without any struggles of conscience. But let a man rise to lead them, then they would bethink them of the exhortations of their priests and of their own particular sufferings and flock to his standard. And the man had risen — just because twenty-five years ago the Khan would not listen to Luffe.
“It’s too late, however, for explanations,” he said, and he clapped his hands together for a servant. In a few moments the light of a lamp gleamed in the hall through the doorway. Phillips went quickly out of the room, closing the door behind him.
“Fasten the shutters first,” he said to the servant in the hall. “Then bring the lamp in.”
The servant obeyed, but when he brought the lamp into the room, and saw the Khan of Chiltistan standing at the table with no more dignity of dress or, indeed, of bearing than any beggar in the kingdom, he nearly let the lamp fall.
“His Highness will stay in this house,” said Phillips, “but his presence must not be spoken of. Will you tell Poulteney Sahib that I would like to speak to him?” The servant bowed his forehead to the palms of his hand and turned away upon his errand. But Poulteney Sahib w
as already at the door. He was the subaltern in command of the half company of Sikhs which served Captain Phillips for an escort and a guard.
“You have heard the news I suppose,” said Phillips.
“Yes,” replied Poulteney. He was a wiry dark youth, with a little black moustache and a brisk manner of speech. “I was out on the hill after chikkor when my shikari saw Shere Ali and his crowd coming down the valley. He knew all about it and gave me a general idea of the situation. It seems the whole country’s rising. I should have been here before, but it seemed advisable to wait until it was dark. I crawled in between a couple of guard-posts. There is already a watch kept on the house,” and then he stopped abruptly. He had caught sight of the Khan in the background. He had much ado not to whistle in his surprise. But he refrained and merely bowed.
“It seems to be a complicated situation,” he said to Captain Phillips. “Does Shere Ali know?” and he glanced towards the Khan.
“Not yet,” replied Phillips grimly. “But I don’t think it will be long before he does.”
“And then there will be ructions,” Poulteney remarked softly. “Yes, there will be ructions of a highly-coloured and interesting description.”
“We must do what we can,” said Phillips with a shrug of his shoulders. “It isn’t much, of course,” and for the next two hours the twenty-five Sikhs were kept busy. The doors were barricaded, the shutters closed upon the windows and loopholed, and provisions were brought in from the outhouses.
“It is lucky we had sense enough to lay in a store of food,” said Phillips.
The Sikhs were divided into watches and given their appointed places. Cartridges were doled out to them, and the rest of the ammunition was placed in a stone cellar.
“That’s all that we can do,” said Phillips. “So we may as well dine.”
They dined with the Khan, speaking little and with ears on the alert, in a room at the back of the house. At any moment the summons might come to surrender the Khan. They waited for a blow upon the door, the sound of the firing of a rifle or a loud voice calling upon them from the darkness. But all they heard was the interminable babble of the Khan, as he sat at the table shivering with fear and unable to eat a morsel of his food.
“You won’t give me up!… I have been a good friend to the English…. All my life I have been a good friend to the English.”
“We will do what we can,” said Phillips, and he rose from the table and went up on to the roof. He lay down behind the low parapet and looked over towards the town. The house was a poor place to defend. At the back beyond the orchard the hill-side rose and commanded the roof. On the east of the house a stream ran by to the great river in the centre of the valley. But the bank of the stream was a steep slippery bank of clay, and less than a hundred yards down a small water-mill on the opposite side overlooked it. The Chiltis had only to station a few riflemen in the water-mill and not a man would be able to climb down that bank and fetch water for the Residency. On the west stood the stables and the storehouses, and the barracks of the Sikhs, a square of buildings which would afford fine cover for an attacking force. Only in front within the walls of the forecourt was there any open space which the house commanded. It was certainly a difficult — nay, a hopeless — place to defend.
But Captain Phillips, as he lay behind the parapet, began to be puzzled. Why did not the attack begin? He looked over to the city. It was a place of tossing lights and wild clamours. The noise of it was carried on the night wind to Phillips’ ears. But about the Residency there was quietude and darkness. Here and there a red fire glowed where the guards were posted; now and then a shower of sparks leaped up into the air as a fresh log was thrown upon the ashes; and a bright flame would glisten on the barrel of a rifle and make ruddy the dark faces of the watchmen. But there were no preparations for an attack.
Phillips looked across the city. On the hill the Palace was alive with moving lights — lights that flashed from room to room as though men searched hurriedly.
“Surely they must already have guessed,” he murmured to himself. The moving lights in the high windows of the Palace held his eyes — so swiftly they flitted from room to room, so frenzied seemed the hurry of the search — and then to his astonishment one after another they began to die out. It could not be that the searchers were content with the failure of their search, that the Palace was composing itself to sleep. In the city the clamour had died down; little by little it sank to darkness. There came a freshness in the air. Though there were many hours still before daylight, the night drew on towards morning. What could it mean, he wondered? Why was the Residency left in peace?
And as he wondered, he heard a scuffling noise upon the roof behind him. He turned his head and Poulteney crawled to his side.
“Will you come down?” the subaltern asked; “I don’t know what to do.”
Phillips at once crept back to the trap-door. The two men descended, and Poulteney led the way into the little room at the back of the house where they had dined. There was no longer a light in the room; and they stood for awhile in the darkness listening.
“Where is the Khan?” whispered Phillips.
“I fixed up one of the cellars for him,” Poulteney replied in the same tone, and as he ended there came suddenly a rattle of gravel upon the shutter of the window. It was thrown cautiously, but even so it startled Phillips almost into a cry.
“That’s it,” whispered Poulteney. “There is someone in the orchard. That’s the third time the gravel has rattled on the shutter. What shall I do?”
“Have you got your revolver?” asked Phillips.
“Yes.”
“Then stand by.”
Phillips carefully and noiselessly opened the shutter for an inch or two.
“Who’s that?” he asked in a low voice; he asked the question in Pushtu, and in Pushtu a voice no louder than his own replied:
“I want to speak to Poulteney Sahib.”
A startled exclamation broke from the subaltern. “It’s my shikari,” he said, and thrusting open the shutter he leaned out.
“Well, what news do you bring?” he asked; and at the answer Captain Phillips for the first time since he had entered into his twilit hall had a throb of hope. The expeditionary troops from Nowshera, advancing by forced marches, were already close to the borders of Chiltistan. News had been brought to the Palace that evening. Shere Ali had started with every man he could collect to take up the position where he meant to give battle.
“I must hurry or I shall be late,” said the shikari, and he crawled away through the orchard.
Phillips closed the shutter again and lit the lamp. The news seemed too good to be true. But the morning broke over a city of women and old men. Only the watchmen remained at their posts about the Residency grounds.
CHAPTER XXXIV
ONE OF THE LITTLE WARS
THE CAMPAIGN WHICH Shere Ali directed on the borders of Chiltistan is now matter of history, and may be read of, by whoso wills, in the Blue-books and despatches of the time. Those documents, with their paragraphs and diaries and bare records of facts, have a dry-as-dust look about them which their contents very often belie. And the reader will not rise from the story of this little war without carrying away an impression of wild fury and reckless valour which will long retain its colours in his mind. Moreover, there was more than fury to distinguish it. Shere Ali turned against his enemies the lessons which they had taught him; and a military skill was displayed which delayed the result and thereby endangered the position of the British troops. For though at the first the neighbouring tribes and states, the little village republics which abound in those parts, waited upon the event as Phillips had foretold, nevertheless as the days passed, and the event still hung in the balance, they took heart of grace and gathered behind the troops to destroy their communications and cut off their supplies.
Dick Linforth wrote three letters to his mother, who was living over again the suspense and terror which had fallen to her lot a quarte
r of a century ago. The first letter was brought to the house under the Sussex Downs at twilight on an evening of late autumn, and as she recognized the writing for her son’s a sudden weakness overcame her, and her hand so shook that she could hardly tear off the envelope.
“I am unhurt,” he wrote at the beginning of the letter, and tears of gratitude ran down her cheeks as she read the words. “Shere Ali,” he continued, “occupied a traditional position of defence in a narrow valley. The Kohara river ran between steep cliffs through the bed of the valley, and, as usual, above the cliffs on each side there were cultivated maidans or plateaus. Over the right-hand maidan, the road — our road — ran to a fortified village. Behind the village, a deep gorge, or nullah, as we call them in these parts, descending from a side glacier high up at the back of the hills on our right, cut clean across the valley, like a great gash. The sides of the nullah were extraordinarily precipitous, and on the edge furthest from us stone sangars were already built as a second line of defence. Shere Ali occupied the village in front of the nullah, and we encamped six miles down the valley, meaning to attack in the morning. But the Chiltis abandoned their traditional method of fighting behind walls and standing on the defence. A shot rang out on the outskirts of our camp at three o’clock in the morning, and in a moment they were upon us. It was reckoned that there were fifteen thousand of them engaged from first to last in this battle, whereas we were under two thousand combatants. We had seven hundred of the Imperial Service troops, four companies of Gurkhas, three hundred men of the Punjab Infantry, three companies of the Oxfordshires, besides cavalry, mountain batteries and Irregulars. The attack was unexpected. We bestrode the road, but Shere Ali brought his men in by an old disused Buddhist road, running over the hills on our right hand, and in the darkness he forced his way through our lines into a little village in the heart of our position. He seized the bazaar and held it all that day, a few houses built of stone and with stones upon the roof which made them proof against our shells. Meanwhile the slopes on both sides of the valley were thronged with Chiltis. They were armed with jezails and good rifles stolen from our troops, and they had some old cannon — sher bachas as they are called. Altogether they caused us great loss, and towards evening things began to look critical. They had fortified and barricaded the bazaar, and kept up a constant fire from it. At last a sapper named Manders, with half a dozen Gurkhas behind him, ran across the open space, and while the Gurkhas shot through the loop holes and kept the fire down, Manders fixed his gun cotton at the bottom of the door and lighted the fuse. He was shot twice, once in the leg, once in the shoulder, but he managed to crawl along the wall of the houses out of reach of the explosion, and the door was blown in. We drove them out of that house and finally cleared the bazaar after some desperate fighting. Shere Ali was in the thick of it. He was dressed from head to foot in green, and was a conspicuous mark. But he escaped unhurt. The enemy drew off for the night, and we lay down as we were, dog-tired and with no fires to cook any food. They came on again in the morning, clouds of them, but we held them back with the gatlings and the maxims, and towards evening they again retired. To-day nothing has happened except the arrival of an envoy with an arrogant letter from Shere Ali, asking why we are straying inside the borders of his country ‘like camels without nose-rings.’ We shall show him why to-morrow. For to-morrow we attack the fort on the maidan. Good-night, mother. I am very tired.” And the last sentence took away from Sybil Linforth all the comfort the letter had brought her. Dick had begun very well. He could have chosen no better words to meet her eyes at the commencement than those three, “I am unhurt.” But he could have chosen no worse with which to end it. For they had ended the last letter which her husband had written to her, and her mind flew back to that day, and was filled with fore-bodings.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 475