Kitabı oku: «The Sirdar's Oath: A Tale of the North-West Frontier», sayfa 7
Chapter Fourteen
A Visit – and its Sequel
Sarbaland Khan’s village was similar in every particular to that of the greater potentate which we have already seen. Many eyes were watching the approach of the party of four from the loop-holed mud walls, and the glances directed at them as they entered the central courtyard, if not uniformly expressive of good will, were visibly so of curiosity. For these wild beings, to whom raids and forays and blood feuds were as the very salt of existence, now beheld a strange sight – that of a man and a woman – Feringhi infidels – with no other protection than a couple of Levy Sowars, entering their village, quietly, fearlessly, unconcernedly, as though in their own town at Mazaran, and the man was of importance, for he represented the Sirkar at Mazaran; yet here he walked alone into their midst, and to all appearances unarmed. Ya, Allah! but these Feringhi were a mad race – mad and incomprehensible. So pondered these wild mountaineers, salaaming gravely, as they peered at the strangers from beneath their shaggy brows.
The chief received them courteously, inviting them at once into his house. Sarbaland Khan was a tall man with a fine presence and dignified manner, and was clad in snowy white from head to foot. But the appointments of his dwelling were plain in the extreme – the only ornaments being a curious lamp or two, and a beautifully decorated sword, which last, together with a couple of good magazine rifles, hung on the wall. Three or four of his relatives helped to entertain them, and Hilda Clive was vastly impressed with their natural dignity – indeed, she could hardly believe they were of the same race as the shaggy, scowling savages who had so lately threatened them. Tea was brought in, served after the Russian method, and preserved fruits, and then she asked if she could visit the chief’s wives.
“I can do more than even you can, you see, Mr Raynier,” she said gaily, as permission having been given, she rose to follow the veiled figure who was summoned to guide her. “So now for the mysteries of the harem.”
Raynier’s talk with the chief was purely non-official, this being a merely friendly visit. He was asked about his predecessor, whom these people seemed to have held in some estimation – and then they talked about shikar. There were plenty of markhôr in the mountains around his village, declared Sarbaland Khan, and if Raynier Sahib would like to come and stalk some, he would certainly find some sport. Then he sent for some fine heads that had been recently shot to show his guest, and presently these two, the up-to-date Englishman and the mountain chieftain, having got upon this one grand topic in common, set to discussing this branch of sport as animatedly as though fellow-members of an English house party. In the midst of which discussion Hilda Clive returned.
So strange are the writings in the book of Fate. At that very moment a horseman was spurring – his objective the village of Sarbaland Khan. No great time would it take him to reach it either, and did he do so with the message he bore while this friendly conversation was in progress, why, then, Herbert Raynier would never leave Sarbaland Khan’s village alive.
Yet now they took leave of each other with great cordiality – Raynier expressing the hope of welcoming the Sirdar at the jirga, or assembly of all the chief’s and maliks, to be held shortly at Mazaran; and so they fared forth.
“You have given me a most delightfully interesting experience, Mr Raynier,” said Hilda Clive, as they rode campward. “And I admire the chief’s taste. Two of his wives were very pretty, indeed, one quite beautiful.”
“How many has he got?”
“Only three. I expected he would have had about thirty.”
Raynier laughed.
“They’re only allowed four apiece by the Koran,” he said. “But I believe they find ways of driving a coach-and-six through that enactment. Fine fellow Sarbaland Khan, isn’t he?”
“Very. Why, he’s a perfect gentleman. Really he’s quite a splendid-looking man.”
“Many of these people answer to that description, that’s why they are so interesting. Tarleton describes them as ‘niggers.’ But then the British are first-rate at misnomers.”
“I should think so. But how well you talk to them, Mr Raynier. Is it a difficult language to learn. Anything like Hindustani, for instance?”
“No. There’s a lot of Persian in it. I went in for learning Pushtu some years ago, thinking it might come in useful – and it has. By the way, a strange thing happened in London not long before I came back. I can’t help thinking that the man belonged to one of these tribes – but I never saw him again, nor yet the stick I armed him with.”
Then he proceeded to tell her about the incident of the Oriental in the crowd on Mafeking night, and the part he and others had borne in his rescue. Hilda listened, keenly interested.
“And you never got back the stick?” she said.
“No, never. I was going to say – worse luck – but it wasn’t. On the contrary, it was the only ‘lucky’ part of the whole business.”
The dry, satirical tone did not escape his listener’s abnormally acute perceptions. But the recollection seemed to revive the abstraction of thought which had characterised him when they had first set out, and which the incidents of their expedition had gone far to dispel. Now it all seemed to return. This, too, did not escape her, and she was striving to piece the two circumstances together. But as yet all connectedness failed.
They were returning by a somewhat different route, and were already about half-way to the camp. The sun was sinking, and the barren and rugged surface of rock and stunted vegetation was taking on a softer tinge as the westering glow toned down its asperities. But there was a feel in the air as of impending change, and the wind, which had died down altogether, now began to rise in fitful puffs, raising thin spiral columns like dust waterspouts, which whirled along at intervals on the plain around.
“Is there going to be a storm?” said Hilda.
“Yes. But not before we are in camp again.”
He subsided into silence. It was possible that the strange oppressiveness in the atmosphere affected him, to the exaggeration of that which was on his mind, to wit the very disagreeable burden of the news he had just received. Or it may have been that the certainty was brought home to him that a month ago it would not have affected him to any appreciable extent. The unpleasantness, the scandal, would have been just the same, but, somehow, it would have mattered little then. Now it did. But why?
What was to be done? was his ever-present thought. It was simply abominable that he should be pursued in this way. Had the woman no sense of shame? Evidently not. He had heard of ships going down at sea with all on board; was he tempted to feel that this was clearly too good a piece of luck – seen from his point of view – to happen to the one which comprised among its passengers Cynthia Daintree?
What was to be done? He looked at his companion. Should he frankly put the case to her? She was like no other woman he had ever known for clear insight into and ready grasp of the main facts or probabilities of any given question – at least, so he had found reason to decide during their somewhat short acquaintance – which, somehow or other, did not seem short. She could not be more than five or six and twenty at the outside, and yet the knowledge of human nature and capacity for the analysis of human motives she displayed was simply wonderful. He could put it to her as the case of a third party, or simply a case in the abstract, such as they had often debated and threshed out together, and then he laughed at himself in bitter contempt. Where were the qualities with which he had just been endowing her, that she could fail for one single instant to see through so miserable a device? He must put it to her frankly or not at all; and somehow Hilda Clive was the last person in the world to whom he desired to put it at all.
She, for her part, riding beside him, perforce in silence, was thinking of him and his unwonted taciturnity. Some trouble had come upon him – that was certain, and she connected it with the arrival of the mail. Could she but induce him to confide in her? Yet, why should he? She did not know. Still, she wanted him to; for a strange indefinable instinct moved her to the conviction that she could help him. During their acquaintance she had learnt to hold him in high esteem. She admired him, too, for his unassuming nature, the more so that she was able to gauge the real depth of quiet power that lay beneath it. She had noted the ease of his intercourse with these wild and turbulent, but interesting people – for this visit to Sarbaland Khan’s village was not the first time she had been among them in Raynier’s company – and noting it, knew that it bore testimony to the estimation in which he was held by them; for these sons of the desert and mountain, in common with all barbarians, are quick readers of character, and have no respect for that which is weak. And yet, could she have divined what was troubling him then it would have assumed such trivial proportions to her mind, so simple a solution, as to make her laugh outright. And she knew a great deal more about him than he did about her; indeed, the news she had received that morning, and which had somewhat elated her, mainly concerned him.
“What abstruse problem is weighing on your mind, Mr Raynier? Do you know that since we left the chief’s village you have hardly spoken a word. And we are almost home again.”
He started.
“I beg your pardon. How very remiss of me. Well, I was thinking of something. As a matter of fact, it’s something that’s worrying me more than a little.”
“You had bad news?”
“Yes. And yet hardly in the sense of what people understand by bad news. But it was something of an extremely vexatious and worrying nature, and likely to cause me no end of unpleasantness.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, in a tone which invited further confidence. It decided him. He would tell her.
A high ridge rose between them and the camp. This they were the while ascending by a rough road leading to the kotal by which it was crossed. Now, from the other side of this, there boomed forth a long, low, rattling thunder roll.
“Hallo! The storm is a great deal nearer than I thought,” he exclaimed, looking up. “We must hurry on, Miss Clive. I don’t want you to get caught in the thick of it.”
No time for confidences was this, he decided. All women were afraid of thunder and lightning, though all would not admit it. What, then, would be the use of consulting this one on a delicate and highly unpleasant matter what time her thoughts would be running on how quickly at the earliest they could reach the camp?
Another peal rolled forth, dull and distant, tailing off into a sort of staccato rapping rattle.
“Well, these mountains do give out the most extraordinary thing in echoes I ever struck,” he said. “Or else that’s about the strangest peal of thunder I ever heard.”
A clinking sound behind caused both to turn. Mehrab Khan, who, with the other sowar, had been some way behind, was galloping to overtake them, and that at a pace which is hardly put on in ascending such an acclivity unless under weighty necessity. But even before he could come up with them, the dark figure of a horseman appeared on the kotal above, and came flying down the rough and stony road. They made him out to be another of the Levy Sowars.
The pace was too great, or the rider too weak. He was flung off, almost at their very feet – a terrible sight, covered with blood and dust. With a word to Hilda Clive to wait where she was, Raynier and Mehrab Khan went forward to examine the man.
They were only just in time. He could gasp forth a few words, and then fell back dead. Raynier’s voice was very serious as he returned to the girl.
“We cannot go back to camp now, Miss Clive,” he said. “We must travel the other way. But keep up your courage – you have plenty of it – and we will bring you through all safe.”
Chapter Fifteen
“A Land of Surprises.”
“Raynier may be a smart chap, and a smart official, and all that, but he doesn’t know this country a little hang. He oughtn’t to get wandering about all alone as he does. It isn’t safe – and – it isn’t pukka!”
And Haslam, having delivered himself of the above opinion, drained his “peg” and yelled for his bearer to bring him another.
“But he isn’t all by himself,” objected Tarleton. “He’s got Miss Clive with him, and two Levy Sowars.”
“Oh, as to the first, that of course,” returned the Forest Officer, looking knowing, “he generally has. Think that’ll be a bundobust, Tarleton?”
“I don’t know – and don’t care. It’s no concern of mine.”
“Don’t care what?” said Mrs Tarleton, joining the two, who, seated in long chairs and clad in easy attire, were indulging in “pegs” and cheroots.
“We were talking about Raynier, Mrs Tarleton,” said Haslam. “We agreed he oughtn’t to go and look up a man like Sarbaland Khan attended by only two Levy Sowars.”
“And Miss Clive, Haslam said,” appended Tarleton.
“It isn’t pukka, you know,” repeated Haslam, “nor is it altogether safe.”
“Mercy on us, Mr Haslam! Why, he’d never go taking Hilda anywhere that’s dangerous, surely? Besides, the country’s quite quiet now, and the people friendly.”
“Yes. Still, you never know exactly what may happen next. This is a land of surprises. I don’t trust these soors any further than I can see them, and however friendly it may suit them to be for the moment they hate us like poison underneath it all.”
“Why, you quite frighten me,” said Mrs Tarleton, anxiously. “I wish they’d come back. It’s getting late too. Oh, what if anything should happen!”
“Something is going to happen, and that before long,” growled Tarleton, looking up, “and that’ll be a thunderstorm. Phew! how close it is. I must have another ‘peg.’” And he, too, shouted for his bearer.
It was even as he had said, close – close and brooding. The sun was getting low, but the blue of the sky on the northern side had merged indefinably into a leaden, vaporous opacity which was gradually and insidiously creeping upward to the zenith. Against this, the peaks stood up, black and bizarre, and here and there, caught by a fitful wind puff, a trail of red dust would stream outward from the summit of a ridge, to lose itself in midair, or perchance to mingle with one of the column-like “dust-devils” which rose gyrating from the plain. Something was bound to come of it – an earthquake, a tornado, or a thunderstorm – probably the latter, for a muffled boom in the direction of the advancing blackness now became audible.
“We’re going to get it,” said Haslam, looking upward. “I only hope it isn’t a blow – we don’t want the tents suddenly whirled away over our heads. Rather not.”
“I wish those two were back,” repeated Mrs Tarleton, looking out over the forbidding waste, now more forbidding than ever. “I have a presentiment something is going to happen. Do you think these Levy Sowars are reliable, Mr Haslam?”
“I say, Mrs Tarleton, I believe Miss Clive has been infecting you with her forecasts and clairvoyance and all that sort of thing. I don’t know about the Catch-’em-alive-ohs being reliable – but I don’t believe they could hit a town-hall unless they were put inside it and all the doors locked. Even then they’d miss it by the windows.”
“Well, but – surely they must be some good or they wouldn’t be enlisted,” objected Tarleton.
“I remember trying a chap once. There was an old door stuck on end about sixty yards off. I got him to take three shots at it with his Martini, and he missed it clean twice, the third time just knocking a chip off one of the top corners.”
“Well, but you can’t judge them all by one,” objected Tarleton.
“Hallo. Here comes somebody,” cried Haslam.
“Oh, I’m so glad,” said Mrs Tarleton. Then, disappointedly, “It isn’t them at all. It’s some horrid natives. It’s not in the right direction, either.”
Down amid the sparse vegetation, below the camp on the more open side, the troop horses and baggage camels were grazing, and here it was that a group of figures appeared, surrounding a central one who was mounted on a fine camel. It could be seen that all were armed to the teeth, having Lee-Metfords and Martinis, over and above the inevitable curved sword, but there was nothing unusual in this. It was a national custom among these wild northern tribes.
The group had come to a halt just outside the camp. Haslam sent down one of his forest guards to inquire who was there, and what could be done for them. But it might have been seen that the section of the camp occupied by the Levy Sowars was the scene of some little excitement. The occupants had turned out to a man, and were gazing attentively at the new arrivals.
Soon Haslam’s envoy returned to say that a Sirdar of the Gularzai was anxious to salaam to Raynier Sahib, but, as the latter was absent, perhaps the jungle wallah Sahib would confer with him instead. No, the Sirdar could not rest at their camp. He was journeying on a matter of family and religious importance, and must push on immediately. But he had a communication of official import to make. Perhaps the jungle wallah Sahib would hear it in the absence of the Government’s representative, and transmit it.
“Here’s a ‘dik,’” (bother – perplexity – nuisance) grumbled Haslam. “I don’t want to be ‘dikked’ with Raynier’s official affairs. As if I hadn’t enough of my own. Wonder what he wants – and who he is. Well, here goes.” And gulping down the remainder of his “peg” he strolled down towards the group, doing so, moreover, with a leisureliness of gait that was rather put on, being designed to impress the Sirdar with a sense of his condescension in thus going to him at all.
The man on the camel did not dismount, nor did he cause the beast to kneel. This, again, aroused Haslam’s resentment. What business had a native to remain seated, and talk down to him, so to say? Not only that, but the man on the camel returned his salaam somewhat coldly and haughtily – and the salute of his followers was equally curt. Haslam began to feel downright angry.
“Where is the Sirkar Sahib?” began the chief – his voice taking additional haughtiness, coming down, as it did, from his rather lofty eminence.
“You have been told. He is away,” returned the Forest Officer no less curtly, and speaking in Hindustani.
“Where?”
Haslam did not answer immediately. He stared. He was boiling with rage. To be addressed in this way, and in such a tone. Moreover, he thought to detect an evil grin on the faces of the hook-nosed, turbaned savages standing around, who seemed to be fingering their rifles in a manner that was unpleasantly suggestive.
“Are you the jungle wallah?” went on the man on the camel.
“The jungle wallah Sahib” blared forth Haslam, white with fury. But what was the use? and then he remembered that he had not even his revolver upon him. He had thrown it down upon his camp bed, and there it was. And an unarmed man is a demoralised man.
The chief laughed evilly and spat.
“Well, jungle wallah Sahib,” he said. “I asked – Where is the Sirkar wallah Sahib? I am not accustomed to repeat a question twice.”
“Oh, you are not, your Mightiness, and lord of all the world,” answered Haslam, adopting the other’s sneering tone. “Salaam to you then, for you are far too great a king for me to talk with,” and he turned to go.
“Move not.”
The order came, sharp and stern. Haslam’s first impulse was to ignore it, but a second, and perhaps a safer one, caused him to halt, and half turn. It was high time. Four rifles were levelled straight at him at the distance of a few yards.
Haslam was as brave a man as ever lived, yet at that moment, gazing at the deadly muzzles and the scowling, shaggy visages behind them, well might he have quailed, for his peril was great indeed. But he returned the threatening stare of the chief firmly and unflinchingly.
For a few moments both thus looked at each other in silence. Then Haslam, who had none of the imperturbability of the Oriental, thought he might as well say something, if only to show them he was not cowed.
“Who is the Sirdar with whom I am talking?” he asked.
“Murad Afzul, Gularzai.”
Then Haslam felt more than uncomfortable. The name of this noted border ruffian was known to him, likewise some of his deeds. But it was supposed that he had disappeared from that side of the country for some time past.
“Look now at thy camp,” went on the latter. “But move not, or thou art dead.”
The words were nearly drowned in what followed. A long, rattling roll as of thunder, from the ridge overhanging the camp – then another, and lo! the slope was alive with rushing white figures, and the flash of waving tulwars, as the crowd of fierce assailants charged down with lightning speed upon the practically defenceless camp. Many of the Levy Sowars – upon whose especial side of the camp the volleys had been poured – were dead, or writhing in death agonies and wounds. The remnant huddled for a moment like sheep, then made a rush for their horses, but between these and them was Murad Afzul’s bodyguard – practised marksmen. Coolly, and with deliberate aim, they picked off the units of the demoralised force, bringing the whole to a standstill – and a sorry whole it was by now.
Not all, however – not quite all – were demoralised. One, a brave man, a clansman of Mehrab Khan, who had been detailed for dak duty, leaped on his horse, which was standing ready saddled and bridled, and dashed off at full gallop, to warn the Sirkar Sahib and, incidentally, his fellow-tribesman. Bullets were rained after him, but now, in the excitement of immediate massacre and loot, aim had become wild. Yet, had they looked more closely, a tell-tale squirm or quiver might have told those marksmen that of the multitude of the bullets, one or two – or perchance more – had found a billet.
It was all over very quickly. There was no question of defence. In a moment the whole crowd of copper-coloured, frenzied savages was overrunning the camp. Those that were left of the Levy Sowars, being Moslems, appealed to their assailants in the name of Allah and the Prophet for quarter, and were spared. But the other camp servants – bearers, kitmutghars, syces, and the rest, being Hindus, were cut down without mercy, those who had striven to hide being dragged forth and butchered – and the barbarians, yelling aloud in the madness of their blood lust, surged to and fro, brandishing aloft their red and reeking swords, looking around for more to slay. But there were none.
Throughout the attack and massacre Tarleton had been too staggered to do anything at all. As for his wife, the sight of the butchery of the wretched servants, cut to pieces before her eyes, in spite of their heartrending yells for mercy, had been too much for her, and she saved all trouble on her account by incontinently fainting. He reckoned his only chance was to sit quiet, wherein perhaps he was wise, for, although many pressed, cursing and threatening, around them both, none offered them violence, and indeed it looked as if such abstention were part of their orders. But what was the whole bobbery about, he kept putting to himself, for there was no open war with any of the tribes? He was soon to know.
