Kitabı oku: «The Sirdar's Oath: A Tale of the North-West Frontier», sayfa 8
Chapter Sixteen
How Tarleton Yielded
“This is a land of surprises,” Haslam had said, and indeed if ever words had been vividly, literally and luridly borne out, here was an instance. Within one short half hour of their utterance this camp, then the very embodiment of peaceful repose and fancied security, had been overrun by savage massacre and turned into a reeking human shambles. Corpses, many of them horribly hacked, lay in every attitude of agonised contortion, and great smears of blood spattered the canvas of the tents, as also the dirty-white garments of the assailants. As for the hapless Europeans, though for the moment alive and uninjured, they were helpless captives in the power of the most notoriously cruel and unsparing brigand of the whole northern border. Of a truth this was a land of surprises.
The first idea that occupied Haslam and Tarleton was to attend to the unfortunate lady, and this they did, as carefully as though it was an ordinary fainting fit, and there were no barbarous enemies within a thousand miles of them.
“She’d better not come to again just yet,” Tarleton said. “We’d better get her into a tent, if they’ll let us.”
Permission to do this was granted gruffly, but two of their captors were ordered to enter with them lest they should possess themselves of weapons, nor was this precaution superfluous, for they had fixed upon Haslam’s tent as being the nearest, and Haslam’s revolver lay upon his charpoy. At the sight he stifled a deep and muttered curse, as the Gularzai pounced greedily upon it. He had reason to curse deeper still as they ordered him to at once deliver up any arms and ammunition he might have in his possession. Inwardly he groaned again as he saw his beautiful shot gun and Mannlicher rifle in the eager grip of the hooked claws of these copper-hued brigands. Then he was ordered outside again.
Murad Afzul had not dismounted from his fine camel, and from the altitude of his seat – for he had ridden into the centre of the camp – was directing operations. Several of his followers were ransacking the tents, trundling out their contents; and soon trunks and despatch boxes, bags and tins of provisions, articles of clothing and kitchen utensils were piled together in promiscuous heaps. But what delighted the warrior soul of the freebooter was the sight of four or five good, up-to-date rifles and a brace of revolvers. The shotguns, too, he contemplated with satisfaction, but the rifles appealed to him most, and these he caused to be handed up to him one after the other as he sat on his camel, and each he would bring to his shoulder, sighting it at some object far or near, away over the plain. The weapons of his followers were good, but they were only Martinis. But these – magazine and repeating guns, spick and span, and of first-rate workmanship! Ya, Mahomed, what a find!
Now he beckoned Haslam to him. The Forest Officer, standing there under this arch-brigand looking down upon him from the height of his towering camel, felt that humiliation was indeed his lot to-day.
“So, jungle wallah,” began Murad Afzul, speaking in Hindustani, and sneeringly withal, “so, jungle wallah, I told you I was not accustomed to ask the same question twice; yet this time I will give you yet another chance, and ask it the third time. Where is Raynier?”
“That I can’t tell, for I don’t know,” answered Haslam, with perfect truth.
The chief bent over, and whispered instructions to some of his followers on the off-side of his camel. These came round, and laying a hand on Haslam’s shoulder ordered him to go with them. Resistance was absolutely useless, and Haslam was marched away. They were taking him in the direction of the Levy Sowars’ camp, he noticed, of course to execute him there. His time had come, he concluded. Rapidly, as he walked to his doom, his past life flashed through his recollection. He had been a careless sort of chap, he supposed, like others, no better – he would have shrunk from the imputation of making any other claim – but, he hoped, no worse. He had not troubled his head much about what lay beyond the grave, nor had he ever shrunk from death when duty or dangerous sport had brought him within gazing distance of it. Perhaps, if all that was taught of what came after it were true, or even a portion, why, he was surrendering his life rather than give information which should place the lives of others in danger, and it might be taken into consideration. But of mercy at the hands of yon ruthless freebooter he had no hope. At any rate, he would meet a swift death – they would shoot or behead him, and they might have done him to death by slow torture. He thought of his wife and young family away in England. Would they miss him much, and, more important still, would the Government do anything for them over and above the rather moderate pension which they would draw from the fund to which he had subscribed throughout his term of service? It was not probable. Government was seldom liberal. Then his thoughts were broken in upon. They had reached the tents of the Levy Sowars, and into one of these he was ordered.
Wonderingly he obeyed. What did it mean? Were they not going to put him to death after all, for it occurred to him they would hardly have brought him into a tent for such a purpose? But he was ordered to seat himself, and remain perfectly still – and informed that any movement he might make, or sound that he should utter, would be his last. And then, immediately outside the canvas which screened him from the outer world, he heard the loud sharp, double report of a rifle.
One other heard it too, and that one was Tarleton. To his mind it suggested but one solution – possible rescue to wit – acting upon which idea he did what a man of his bull-headed temperament would be expected to do, but which, had his idea been correct, was the very worst possible thing he could have done. He came to the tent door, and looked eagerly and anxiously out.
Murad Afzul still sat there on his great camel, his countenance as cold and impassive as the graceful folds of his snowy turban, while upon his followers a strange hush had fallen. At sight of the Feringhi it was broken – broken by muttered curses and threats. But – where was Haslam?
The chief beckoned him forward, and he had to obey. Yes, obey. There was no mincing the word. He was in the power – absolutely in the power of this man, this “nigger,” as he would have described him about half an hour ago.
“You heard those shots,” said the Gularzai, haughtily, from the loftiness of his tall steed. “Yes? Look around. Where is the jungle wallah?”
Tarleton did look around – with some alacrity, moreover. But no sign of Haslam rewarded his glance. He began to see the grim drift of the injunction.
“You will see your friend no more,” went on the chief. “I asked him a question – for the third time. He would not answer – so he was shot – over there.”
He paused, with intent to let the full weight of his words sink deep in the other’s mind. Like most wild or semi-civilised people, the Gularzai freebooter was a character reader, and knew his man. But, before the other had time to answer, an interruption occurred, as startling as it was unforeseen.
All were watching the result of the dialogue between the chief and the prisoner. Fierce eyes glared beneath shaggy brows, claw-like fingers felt the edge of tulwars, foul and sticky with blood that had already been shed. Eagerly heads were bent forward, awaiting the word that should hand this Feringhi over to their scarcely-glutted blood lust and hate.
“Hear me, O great Sirdar,” cried a voice, pitched in loud, harsh tones. “Hear me, I can give the information thou requirest, O Sword of the Prophet.”
The Levy Sowars who had surrendered, to the number of about a dozen, were grouped on the outskirts of the freebooters. From one of these the voice proceeded.
“Let him come forward,” said Murad Afzul.
Way being made the speaker advanced. He was a youngish man, tall and well built, with aquiline features and a short curling beard.
“Who art thou?” said the chief, shortly.
“Mahomed Afa, Waziri,” answered the man.
“Well, what dost thou know?”
“This, O great Sirdar, Murad Afzul. This, this. That as thou didst slay my father Mahomed Jan, so now enter Jehanum by the hand of his son.”
Quick as thought, while uttering these words he had snatched a rifle from the loose, unguarded grasp of the man next to him, and without waiting to raise it to his shoulder discharged the piece well-nigh point blank at the chief. But the ball hummed viciously past, just ruffling the edge of Murad Afzul’s voluminous turban. For the camel, whether acting under the influence of the ineradicable cussedness which is inherent in its species, or irritated by the harsh vociferation right at its ear, had suddenly reached round its head with a resentful grunt, making a vicious snap at the would-be slayer, with the double effect of somewhat marring his aim and moving its rider by just the few inches requisite to the saving of his life. In a twinkling the man was seized.
“Ya, Allah!” he mouthed, struggling furiously in the grasp of those who held him. “Avenge me of this robber-dog, this vulture-bred coward who only strikes those who are too weak to oppose his numbers. Mahomed Prophet! strike him down into the burning pit of Hâwiyat, where his gnawing vitals shall consume for ever and ever.”
The declamatory voice had risen to a wild scream. Murad Afzul, seated on his camel, had not moved throughout the whole scene. Now he spoke.
“So thou art the son of Mahomed Jan, that Waziri thief and enemy of Allah?” he said, gazing down upon his would-be slayer. “Allah is great and His Prophet has rendered thee as unskilful in the use of weapons as others of thy kind. Well, ye twain, father and son, have been parted long enough, so now thou shalt join thine in Jehanum, yet not at once, for I think I will show thee some foretaste of its fires here.”
He signed to those who held the frantic man – then something in the aspect of the latter caused him to change his intention. For he recognised that the Waziri’s mind had given way, in short, that he had become a frenzied maniac, and to harm him as such would be clean contrary to all tribal tradition and sanction. Yet he had no intention of letting him off scot free.
“I will spare him the fire,” he said, “for of that he will have plenty. So – shorten him by the head.”
Willing feet sprang to do his bidding. Willing hands seized the mouthing, cursing maniac, who by dint of a camel halter was forced to stretch forth his neck. Then the flash of a keen tulwar in the air, and the deluging, headless corpse was writhing and squirming right at Tarleton’s feet.
Tarleton, surgeon though he was, turned sick at the horrid sight, the more so that in all probability it presaged his own fate. The voice of Murad Afzul recalled him to this.
“You have seen, Feringhi. Now, that is thy fate, if my question is unanswered. Where is Raynier?”
Tarleton looked at the gushing, headless corpse, then at the stern, uncompromising countenance of the chief. He noted, too, the eager, cruel visages of those around, who seemed to hang upon his answer. Life was as good to him as to anybody else, nor did he feel the least inclination to part with it at that moment. Besides, what would become of his wife, now lying unconscious in the tent behind him, if left alone and at the mercy of these ruthless barbarians? Haslam was dead, and thus no one need ever know, for no one was left to witness against him, and if ever there was a case of “every man for himself” this was surely it. So he replied, —
“He has gone to visit Sarbaland Khan.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Better Than Nothing.”
“What has happened?” said Hilda, quickly, gazing from one to the other, and then at the dead man who lay a little way off.
“Our camp has been rushed by Ghazis, and they are in possession.”
“But – has there been a fight? Have they killed anybody?”
“They had killed some of the servants when that poor fellow broke away to warn us. He was one of Mehrab Khan’s tribesmen. But our people were alive, he says.”
“But we can’t leave them, Mr Raynier.”
“That is not spoken with your usual sense. Are we going to walk straight into the jaws of the enemy and say, ‘Here we are’? No. I am responsible for your safety, Miss Clive, and you may be sure I shall do the uttermost in my power to secure it.”
Even while he had been speaking his mind had rapidly reviewed the situation, and it was one that filled him with the gravest misgiving and concern. He knew that a jihad, or fanatical rising, was being fomented among the tribes further along the border, but that the Gularzai could by any possibility take part in it he had reckoned as clean out of the question. He had trusted Mushîm Khan thoroughly, had reckoned the Nawab as no more likely to take up arms against the Government than he himself. But that a bold outrage on a large scale could thus take place here right under the nose of the Nawab without the knowledge and therefore sanction of that potentate, he could not believe. What a fool he had been, and how utterly blind not to have seen some sign or warning of the dangerous unrest having spread. Well, this was no time for regrets, but for action – and to this end he would consult Mehrab Khan.
But what then? Would the Baluchi be true to his salt? All these border tribes were akin. Ties of friendship, of gratitude, of honour, of self-interest even, all were swept aside when they made common cause together against the Feringhi and the infidel – and the acquaintance between himself and Mehrab Khan was of the shortest.
But the latter, even at that moment, was giving some indication of what line he was going to take in the crisis. For the other Levy Sowar had been gradually edging away. These two Feringhis would soon be found and cut to pieces, Sirkar or not, argued this man, and he had no intention of identifying himself with them any further, and thus sharing their fate; wherefore he resolved, while there was yet time, to effect his own escape. But Mehrab Khan, who knew the workings of his mind, was equally resolved that he should not.
To this end Mehrab Khan dismounted, and levelling his rifle called upon him to stop. The result of this order was to cause the defaulter to ram his spurs into his horse’s flanks, and start off along the hillside at a gallop. Now Mehrab Khan was an old and practised stalker of markhôr and wild sheep, consequently now, when, without further warning, he pressed the trigger, the runaway toppled heavily from his saddle, and lay without a kick.
“He would have betrayed us, Huzoor,” said the Baluchi, laconically, as he slipped a fresh cartridge into his piece. “Now he will not.”
To Raynier’s plan of returning straight to Sarbaland Khan’s village, and not only placing themselves under the protection of that chief, but even ordering him, by virtue of his own office as representative of the Government, to collect a strong force and safeguard those in the camp, if any were left there, or pursue the aggressors if they were not, Mehrab Khan was strongly opposed. He was somewhat mysterious on the point; mysterious but emphatic. On no account must they go there, indeed, he had been glad to get out of the place when they were there before.
Was Sarbaland Khan disaffected then? That he could not say exactly. But the Huzoor must trust him. He had seen signs which might have meant much or little. By the light of what had happened he now knew they meant much. The Huzoor knew his people, and he, Mehrab Khan, knew his. The gist of all of which was that they must go at once into hiding, and the sooner the better.
All this, however, took far quicker to decide than it has taken to narrate, and now, Mehrab Khan taking the lead, they moved, under his guidance, down into the valley, turning their backs on the site of the camp altogether.
“I shall never forgive myself for getting you into this fix, Miss Clive,” said Raynier, with great concern, as he thought on the hardships the coming night would entail upon her, even if it were not the first of many such nights.
“There is no necessity for you to do anything of the sort,” she answered. “You could not help it. You could not have foreseen things.”
“But that is just what I ought to have done,” he answered bitterly. “I have simply acted like a fool, and have made an utter mess of the whole situation.”
“No – no. I am sure you have not. Things may not be so bad as you think – and if they are, you are not to blame.”
What was this? He looked at her strangely. There was not so much in the words – but the tone, the soothing sympathy of it, as if she realised, even as he did, that, apart from their imminent and common danger, the result for him would be something like official ruin. The colour had returned to her face – for she had gone rather white as she witnessed Mehrab Khan’s grimly successful shot – and there was a look in her eyes which, combined with the tone of her voice, went far to compensate for all. It struck him, too, that she showed no alarm, no anxiety whatever on her own account. Afterwards it was to occur to him how easily she was reassured as to the safety of those they had left in the camp.
Darker and darker it grew, as they threaded their way behind their guide through those lonely defiles, for now the sky was black and overcast, and a lurid flash or two lit their way – and the accompanying boom rolled, deep voiced, among the cliffs and chasms.
“Here we should halt, Mehrab Khan,” said Raynier, at last, as two or three great drops splashed down upon them. “The Miss Sahib will get wet through if we go further, and here under this rock is shelter.”
But the Baluchi shook his head.
“See there, Huzoor,” pointing upward.
“We are in a sort of tangi, only it is closed at one end. If it should rain here, and rain hard, the water would roll off the smooth rock slopes above, and sweep us out of this like wisps of dried grass. We cannot rest here. We must go on and upward.”
The horses were needing rest badly, yet on they struggled. It was quite dark now, but their way was lit by the red flashes. Rain had begun to fall, hard, heavy rain, as, stumbling over the slippery stones, they held on their wet and weary way. And through it all Raynier did not fail to notice that from the girl at his side there came no word of complaint, no sigh of weariness – whereat he marvelled.
He himself was feeling the strain: but with him the strain was as much a mental as a physical one. He felt weighed down with responsibility. If this rising took large and destructive proportions he it was who should have foreseen and coped with it, yet he had gone off, easily and carelessly, upon a pleasure trip, and that right into the heart of the very peril itself. And now the safety of this girl beside him was in his hands; and by way of a beginning to the adventure she would have to spend the livelong night, wet and cold and hungry, lying out among the rocks, for, of course, they had not taken a food supply when starting upon an afternoon ride. And what a contrast it was. The highest official of the district, with, but a few hours ago, servants and armed sowars at his beck and call, surrounded by every comfort and not a few luxuries, was now a fugitive in the heart of a hostile land, soaked by a drenching rain, with no prospect of either food or shelter at the end of it all. It was a contrast, but he was hard and could worry through it – but what of his companion in adversity? She was not inured to rude hardships of this kind. She was not even representative of the stalwart type of her sex, who could scull a boat or play golf all day. She was high couraged and cool of nerve; he had seen enough to convince him of that, yet, physically, she did not look altogether strong. But still no word of complaint escaped her as, stumbling onward and upward through the darkness and the rain, they held on their way.
“Here we will rest, Huzoor,” said Mehrab Khan at last.
They must be among the mountain tops now, Raynier reckoned. The air blew raw and piercing, and tall slimy rocks glistened around in the red glare of the now more distant lightning. Dismounting, with stiffened limbs, he aided Hilda Clive from her saddle. To his surprise she slid off as lightly as though returning from an ordinary ride.
“I believe you are more tired than I am,” she said, with something like a laugh, as she let her hand rest just a moment in his after he had assisted her down. “Tell me. Did you ever have fever?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. Only you are very wet. Shall we be able to make a fire?”
“I’m afraid not. There’s nothing to make it with.”
“That’s a pity. You ought to get dry. Let me think it out.”
Raynier marvelled, and well he might. What sort of a woman was this? Any other woman who had ever come within his experience would not have behaved like this. She would probably have begun by abusing him roundly for ever bringing her into such a hobble at all. Once in it, she would have grumbled and whined, or hysterically howled. She would have been full of herself and her own miserable plight, and what she should do, and what would become of her, and so forth. But this one – her chief thought seemed to be for him. She didn’t seem to think of herself at all.
“Great Heavens, Miss Clive!” he burst forth, “what does it matter whether I am dry or wet. It is of you I am thinking – of you, who have to get through this abominable night somehow. Why, it is nothing to me – but what about you?”
“But I have never had fever.”
The answer came so equably, so matter-of-fact in tone, yet Raynier’s quick ear thought to detect something further. He turned straightway and began vehemently haranguing Mehrab Khan.
The place to which the latter had brought them afforded shelter from the rain, though little or none from the piercing wind. A great slab of rock overhung, yawning outward like an open mouth. Now Mehrab Khan astonished them still further, for, from a cleft at the back of the hole, he produced some billets of dry juniper wood. It would burn wretchedly, he explained apologetically, but was better than nothing. The place had been an old resort of mountain herdsmen, and the wood had been kept ready stored for emergencies. And then, still further amazement followed, for Mehrab Khan produced – this time from his own store – a little rice and corn meal tied up in a rag. Would the Huzoor deign to accept it for himself and the Miss Sahib? he said. It was poor fare, but it might be better than nothing.
This, then, was the man for whose good faith he had feared, thought Raynier, inwardly ashamed, and then again came the whimsical thought of contrast, and the highest official in the district becoming dependent on the Levy Sowar’s humble store, yet not for himself. But Hilda Clive looked at it, then beamed on the giver.
“What will he do?” she asked. “It is all he has.”
“What then? Let the Miss Sahib take what Allah provides through His slave and praise Him. More can be provided, and will be,” was the answer of the follower of the Prophet to the follower of the Redeemer. Said the latter, —
“The blessings of Allah be upon you, Mehrab Khan, and that of His Prophet.”
And Raynier again translating, the fine face of the Baluchi beamed in turn.
