Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  “There’s nothing to see but smiles and good humour and a gentle gaiety,” he argued. “But that means nothing too. . . . They’re a volatile people. The smiles can vanish, the good humour become anger, the gaiety a savage rage, in the course of an hour. . . . Every one of these sixpenny thrones is built up on blood and treachery. Brother murders brother, son murders father, father murders son.”

  This last possibility, however, could be ruled out. Shuja-ul-Mulk sat on the dais at his father’s feet, and from time to time the old man’s hand fell caressingly upon the boy’s shoulder, as if he must needs make sure from time to time that his son was at his side.

  “I shall conduct your Excellencies to your house,” said the Khan when, after an hour of it, the entertainment came to an end.

  The Mission House stood upon a bluff above the river a quarter of a mile from the Fort. A couple of acres of ground had been cleared of boulders; stables and outhouses were built on the side away from the river; and the whole demesne was surrounded by a wall. At the gate the Khan stopped.

  “Beyond this line you are upon your own territory,” he said with a smile. “To-morrow, when you have rested, I shall come and ask for your hospitality. For we have much to talk over.”

  He was holding out his hand when something arrested him. He stood with his lips parted and his head thrown back, immobile, a man stricken to immobility. Yes, but by no ill-tidings. There came a rapt look upon his face, the lines upon it smoothed themselves out, he might have been hearing the music of the spheres. He was certainly listening; and certainly some message reached his ears which lifted him high above his troubles.

  Carruthers listened too. For a few moments he could hear nothing but the roar of the river tumbling over the boulders below. But in a little while, very faintly, above that roar, he too heard just what Sher Afzul heard, but whereas the one was uplifted by the sound to ecstasy, Carruthers was plunged in amazement. For what he heard was the distant beating of a drum.

  The Yudeni drum, then! It couldn’t be that there was any truth in that pretty legend. Yet how else account for the rapture upon Sher Afzul’s face?

  “You hear it,” said the Khan in a whisper of awe. “Yes, you hear it. The drum lies on the roof of the tower of my Fort. No man ever touches it. Yet it is beaten when great things are impending for my house. You are here sent by your Government! Could there be a better omen?”

  Carruthers turned his eyes towards the tower, but Sher Afzul gripped his arm in a panic.

  “Look away!” he cried roughly. “For your life’s sake, for my honour’s sake, look away! No harm must come to you whilst you are my guest. But no man can avoid disaster who sees the ghostly beater of the drum.”

  Carruthers, gazing around at the little throng of courtiers who were clustered at the gate, saw that every eye was averted from the direction of the tower.

  “Until to-morrow,” said the Khan, and he shook Carruthers by the hand. “My son, come and say good-bye — —”

  But Shuja-ul-Mulk was not amongst that throng.

  “Yet he came with us,” said Sher Afzul. “My hand was upon his shoulder for awhile.”

  And thereupon Dadu the Wasir cried with a curious inflection in his voice:

  “No, his Highness is not here.”

  He was a smallish man with the broad face of a Tartar and small, cunning eyes, which were now agleam.

  “He shall beg your pardon for his ill manners to-morrow,” said the Khan to Carruthers, and he turned to the Wasir happily:

  “You hear the drum, Dadu!”

  And Dadu, with a sudden violence, answered:

  “Do I hear? Do I not? Is it true? Is it false? The dark lies to the light, the day lies to the darkness. It may be. Yes, I hear.”

  And with this outburst he followed his master away from the gate. Carruthers watched him go with some disquietude. There had been an arrogance and a challenge in his voice — yes, the challenge of a man so sure of the ground he stood on that he could afford the luxury of slipping off his mask to get a breath of fresh air. Carruthers turned to find Morris at his elbow, with a broad grin upon his face.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” said Morris. “The fairy drummer is a rank amateur at his job. It’s all spluttery and unsteady and muddled. If I was the fairy bandmaster, I’d use the drumsticks for a bit on the drummer’s own particular little drum.”

  But Carruthers was not amused. He answered “Yes” absently and, turning, walked quickly into the house. A few minutes later Morris found him upon the roof gazing through his field-glasses at the tower of the Fort.

  “It’s the old man’s boy, eh?” Morris stated a fact rather than asked a question.

  “Yes.”

  Carruthers handed the field-glass to his companion.

  “See for yourself! If you can tell me that I’m mistaken, I shall be glad.”

  Morris took the glass, surprised at the gravity of Carruthers’ voice. The lenses were powerful and drew the tower across the quarter-mile of brush until it seemed to stand within arm’s reach. There was no doubt possible. Standing back from the parapet to get what concealment he could, and with his boy’s face concentrated in a frown, the old Khan’s son was beating the drum, now quietly so that at this distance the sound of it was quite lost, now furiously so that it rose above the noise of the Tokot river.

  “The young rascal!” said Morris with a laugh. “He’s working away as if his life hung upon it.”

  Carruthers turned his face quickly to the engineer.

  “But doesn’t it?” he asked.

  “He’s just having a lark,” said Morris.

  “Is he? A dangerous lark, then. Who likes to discover that the things he believes are tricks? Who laughs when he’s shown up for a fool? Not a Mussulman fanatic, anyway.”

  “Oh, I see!” Morris returned. Here was an aspect of the affair which he had overlooked. “And there’s more to it, isn’t there? That old ruffian Dadu is getting wise to the trick. Did you notice him?”

  “And heard him,” Carruthers agreed.

  “But I am wondering,” he added slowly, “whether that boy is having a lark. Whether he isn’t saving his own life, and his father’s life, and the continuance of his house.”

  He stood for a little while longer in doubt. Underneath the smiles and the friendly chatter was there really trouble and treachery in Tokot? Was that the secret of the invitation to the Government in India?

  “I had a very knowledgeable orderly in the 20th Punjab,” he said. “And I have got him as my orderly now.”

  He went down to the living-rooms on the first floor, where he found the orderly, a tall and intelligent Pathan from a village in the Khyber Pass, laying the table for dinner.

  “Zarulla,” he said, “you must hand this job over to someone else. I want to know how things are in Tokot. Is there peace? Is there danger? And I want to know to-night.”

  He did not have very long to wait. Before midnight Zarulla was standing before the two officers telling them his story. The Khan’s brother Nizam was plotting the murder of the Khan and his son. He was making promises, he had a party. It was believed that Dadu the Wasir was on his side. Certainly there was a Mullah who was preaching rebellion at night on the river-side close beneath this Mission House. The moment was near. It would come after the mission had gone back to Peshawur. In all Zarulla’s story there was but one small point of comfort for Carruthers. It was not known that the Khan’s son was the drummer on the top of the tower.

  3

  THE NEXT MORNING Sher Afzul brought his son and half a dozen attendants to the Mission House. The boy made his apology for not waiting upon Carruthers the afternoon of yesterday and was dismissed by his father. He found Captain Morris giving orders for the reconditioning of the house. The ground-floor was to be given up to the guard-room and the stores, the outhouses were to be turned into barracks. All this Morris explained to Shuja-ul-Mulk, whilst two servants stood near.

  “Those are your personal servants?” Morris
asked.

  “Yes,” said the boy with a grin. “They follow me by my father’s wish, but I escape from them when I can.”

  He called to the taller of the two.

  “Wafadar, there is no need for you to follow me in His Excellency’s camp. Wait for me at the gate.”

  Even so, the man demurred, and when Shuja sauntered away on a tour of inspection, they remained not within his view, but not very far away.

  “Zarulla was right,” Captain Morris inferred. “The boy’s in danger and the old Khan knows it. However, that’s Carruthers’ pigeon,” and he returned to his own job.

  At the back of the house Shuja-ul-Mulk came upon an open space and looking out upon the space an open door. By the side of the door stood a stool, and on the stool lay a regimental drum.

  The boy’s eyes lit up at the sight of it. He approached it cautiously and reverentially. He looked about him. There was not a soul in sight. The drum might have been one of the Crown jewels.

  The drum-sticks were thrust through the side-lacing. The temptation to Shuja-ul-Mulk was beyond resistance. He lifted the drum from the stool and, squatting on the ground with his back to the door, he set it on his knees. He took the drum-sticks from the lacing and very quietly tapped and tapped and tapped. Still no one interrupted him. He took his courage in his hands and beat out a tattoo. He was so engaged when the drummer-boy, to whom the drum belonged, dashed out from the door and stopped. He put his fists into his ribs and squared his elbows. Shuja-ul-Mulk went on beating the drum. The drummer-boy, with a look of anguish in his face and a deep sense of outrage in his heart, planted himself in front of the Khan’s son.

  “And wot d’yer think yer a-doin’ of, Mister?” he asked with a dangerous and exaggerated politeness.

  Shuja-ul-Mulk beamed up at the drummer-boy.

  “I think I play a tattoo.”

  “Well, I should think again.”

  “You teach me, then, to do it properly?”

  “On that there drum? Not bloomin’ likely! I think as you’d better know about that there drum. The Prime Minister giv’ it me ‘isself in Westminister Abbey. ‘Bill,’ he says — Bill, that’s me— ‘Bill, that ’ere drum means a lot ter me,’ he says, with a sort of crack in ’is voice, same as you’ll ‘ave when I’ve done with yer. ‘And if ever you lets any ‘eathen nigger play on it, I’ll larrup the trousers off yer.’ ”

  The Khan’s son looked up from his drum quietly.

  “Heathen nigger,” he repeated, with an impassive face.

  “That’s what I said,” answered Bill.

  “I am Shuja-ul-Mulk.”

  “Oh, are yer? Then please understand that you are sugar-and-milk from now on.”

  “I am the young Khan,” said Shuja-ul-Mulk with dignity.

  “You’ll be the old Can’t when I’ve done with you,” said Bill the drummer-boy. “Come on! Git up and come on.” He turned away from Shuja-ul-Mulk and began to unbutton his coat. Shuja-ul-Mulk looked at him sorrowfully.

  “You want to fight me?”

  “I’m a-goin’ to fight yer,” said Bill.

  The Tokoti boy put the drum aside, fitting back the sticks into the lacing.

  “Bill, I’d much rather be friends with you.”

  Bill had by then stripped off his coat and hung it up upon the wall. He now turned up his shirt-sleeves.

  “We’ll talk about that afterwards, my friend Sugar-and-Milk.”

  Sugar-and-Milk sorrowfully whipped out a big Afghan knife from the back of his waist and whetted it on the sole of his boot slowly.

  “But, Bill,” he said, “if we fight, of course there won’t be any afterwards.”

  “Wot’s that?”

  Puzzled by a statement so bewildering, Bill swung round, and saw the Khan’s son now on his feet with the long curved knife flashing in his hand.

  “Gawd!” said Bill in a voice of awe.

  And then the unequal combat ended before it had begun. Wafadar and his fellow-guard, whilst dutifully keeping out of Sugar-and-Milk’s sight, had no less dutifully not lost sight of him. With a cry of alarm they dashed round the corner of the house and flung themselves on Bill.

  “ ’Ere, ’ere what’s up?” cried Bill.

  “Let him go!” shouted Sugar-and-Milk, and aroused by the uproar, Captain Morris came running forward from the door of the house. It was the Khan’s son who was the first to see him. He called again to Wafadar, stamping his foot in anger.

  “Bill is my friend, Wafadar! Let him go!”

  Captain Morris was never a fussy man. He was not for pushing in where standing pat would serve as well; and generally he found it served better. So he stood quite still, and his eyes were rewarded with a curious scene.

  “Bill is my friend,” the boy repeated. “Shall I not show him my new knife? What more trouble will you give, you rogues?”

  He stood up, a young Prince from head to foot, with a flashing eye and a face of disdain. His two servants released the drummer-boy and grovelled on their knees. Wafadar, murmuring prayers for pardon, lifted Sugar-and-Milk’s foot and placed it on his head.

  Even Bill, who was not easily impressed, stared at the upright little figure with his eyes popping out of his head.

  “Gawd!” he whispered.

  “Take my knife,” the young Khan commanded of Wafadar, “and give it to my friend.”

  The two men rose as one. Bowing humbly, Wafadar took the knife from his Prince’s hand. He carried it as though it were some priceless and fragile jewel to Bill, and then with his companion he prostrated himself at the drummer-boy’s feet.

  “The friend of my master is my master. As I serve my master, I serve my master’s friend. I beg my master’s friend to forgive me.”

  “Gawd!” said Bill, and Captain Morris discreetly retired. Bill’s awe, however, changed to a keen pleasure as he balanced the long knife in his hand and felt the sharpness of its edge. When he looked up, the two attendants on the Tokoti lad had gone. The two boys were alone. Bill shifted his feet in discomfort.

  “It’s all true, then,” he said awkwardly. “I thought as you was pullin’ my leg. ’Ere,” and he raised his hand to his forehead in a private’s salute to his officer.

  Sugar-and-Milk shook his head and a smile of friendliness broadened all over his face. “Shakeapaw!” he said, holding out his hand. “That’s good English?”

  “Oxford Dictionary,” said Bill, as he grasped the hand. “I tell you wot! I’ll teach you to roll that there drum of mine in a way that’ld make Tommy Beecham stand on ’is bloomin’ ‘ead in the middle of Coving Garden. Come on!”

  The two boys squatted again on the ground with the drum between them, Bill still in his shirt-sleeves.

  “Now, watch me!”

  He crossed the drum-sticks above his head.

  “Watch me, Sh — I ‘aven’t got yer name right.”

  “My name’s Sugar-and-Milk,” said the other.

  “Good! Off we go, then.”

  And the drum rolled out its thunder, so that it was heard in the upper room where the Khan and Carruthers were sitting in conference. The Khan lifted his head and smiled.

  “Why should all the boys through all the world love to beat a drum?” he asked as one putting a grave problem.

  “Because it makes a damned row,” answered Carruthers, and whilst the debate was continued in the living-room on the first floor, the lesson was earnestly conducted on the grass plot in the garden.

  For an hour it went on, and then Sugar-and-Milk, looking up at the position of the sun, said:

  “My father will be returning. I must wait for him at the gate.”

  “Right,” said Bill. “Wot abaht ter-morrow? I’m free at ten.”

  “Ten to-morrow,” said Shuja-ul-Mulk, and bidding Bill the drummer-boy good-bye, he made his way to the gate. Wafadar and his companion fell in behind him, and at the gate they waited until the Khan and Carruthers came out from the house and joined them.

  “Then, if we make a treaty,
” said the Khan, “you will bring it back to me engraved upon copper?”

  “On copper?” Carruthers asked, a little bewildered.

  “Yes,” said the Khan. “It is known, of course, that the British Government does not hold treaties to be binding unless they are engraved upon copper.”

  Carruthers stared at the Khan and laughed.

  “Well, that’s a new one on me,” he said. “We are accustomed to think that the British Government’s word is enough. But if you would prefer it on copper, I have no doubt that the resources of India can run to it.”

  “I should prefer it on copper,” said the Khan simply.

  At the back of the house Bill the drummer-boy set the drum back upon the stool and passed the drum-sticks through the lacing.

  4

  BILL HOLDER HUNG over the wall at the end of the Mission garden and looked down at the river foaming in a cataract below and the narrow path which ran between the river and the steep cliff-face. Sugar-and-Milk was late to-day for his lesson, and Bill was a trifle disconsolate. For to-morrow the Mission went home over the passes now clear of snow, back to Peshawur and the cantonments and the parades. Bill Holder heaved a great sigh as he thought of them. The enchantment of these deep valleys and soaring mountains of the Hindu Khush had caught him. He lived on the edge of adventure. There was not much poetry in this drummer-boy from Bermondsey, but it seemed to him that these vast snowslopes and cedar forests stood so still on dark nights and bright days, in moonlight or mist, because they knew that something tremendous was going to happen and were just holding their breaths until it did. Moreover, for the first time in his life, he had made a real friend. And the friend was late to-day of all days.

  “Good morning, Bill.”

  Bill swung round in astonishment. Sugar-and-Milk was standing just behind his shoulders with a broad grin on his face.

  “Well, I’m jiggered! And where did you spring from?”

  “My secret!”

  Sugar-and-Milk looked all round and back to the house. No one was visible. He caught Bill Holder eagerly by the arm.