Caste Part 14

"You must, Gulab."

"No, Bootea will not."

Barlow stared angrily into the big eyes that were lifted to his, that though they lingered in soft loving upon his face, told him that she would not tell, that she would die first; even as he would have given his life if he had been captured by tribesmen and asked to betray his fellow men as the price of liberty.

He threw himself back wearily in the chair. "Why tell me this now,--to mock me, to exult?" he said, reproach in his voice.

"But it is the message, Sahib, that is more than the life of a _sepoy_, is it not?"

Again he sat up: "Why do you say this--do you know where it is?"

She drew from beneath her bodice the sandal soles, saying: "These are from the feet of the messenger who is dead. The one the Sahib beat over the head with his pistol dropped them,--and he was carrying them for a purpose. The Sahib knows, perhaps, the secret way of this land."

In the girl's hand was clasped the knife from her girdle, and she tendered it, hilt first: "Bootea knows not if they are of value, the leather soles, but if the Sahib would open them, then if there are eyes that watch the curtains are drawn."

Barlow revivified, stimulated by hope, seized the knife and ran its sharp point around the st.i.tching of the soles. Between the double leather of one lay a thin, strong parchment-like paper.

He gave a cry of exultation as, unfolding it, he saw the seal of his Raj. His cry was a gasp of relief. Almost the shatterment of his career had lain in that worn discoloured sole, and disaster to his Raj if it had fallen into the hands of the conspirators.

In an ecstasy of relief he sprang to his feet, and lifting Bootea, clasped her in his arms, smothering her face in kisses, whispering: "Gulab, you are my preserver; you are the sweetest rose that ever bloomed!"

He felt the pound of her heart against his breast, and her eyes mirrored a happiness that caused him to realise that he was going too far--drifting into troubled waters that threatened destruction. The girl's soul had risen to her eyes and looked out as though he were a G.o.d.

As if Bootea sensed the same impending evil she pushed Barlow from her and sank back to the cus.h.i.+on, her face shedding its radiancy.

Cursing himself for the impetuous outburst Barlow slumped into the chair.

"Gulab," he said presently, "my government gives reward for loyalty and service."

"Bootea has had full reward," the girl answered.

He continued: "We had talk on the road about the Pindaris; what did they who whisper in the dark say?"

"That the chief, Amir Khan, has gathered an army, and they fear that because of an English bribe he will attack the Mahrattas; so the Dewan has brought men from Karowlee to go into the camp of the Pindaris in disguise and slay the chief for a reward."

This information coming from Bootea was astounding. Neither Resident Hodson nor Captain Barlow had suspected that there had been a leak.

"And was there talk of this message from the British to--?" Barlow checked.

"To the Sahib?" Bootea asked. "Not of the message; but it was whispered that one would go to the Pindari camp to talk with Amir Khan, and perhaps it was the Sahib they meant. And perhaps they knew he waited for orders from the government."

Then suddenly it flashed upon Barlow that because of this he had been marked. The foul riding in the game of polo that so nearly put him out of commission--it had been deliberately foul, he knew that, but he had attributed it to a personal anger on the part of the Mahratta officer, bred of rivalry in the game and the fanatical hate of an individual Hindu for an Englishman.

"Now that a message has come will the Sahib go to the Pindari camp?"

Bootea persisted.

"Why do you ask, Gulab?"

"Not in the way of treachery, but because the Sahib is now like a G.o.d; and because I may again be of service, for those who will slay Amir Khan will also slay the Sahib."

"Gulab,--"

Barlow's voice was drowned by yells of terror in the outer room.

"Thieves! Thieves have broken in to rob, and they have stolen my lamp!

_Chowkidar, chowkidar_! wake, son of a pig!"

It was the bearer, who, suddenly wakened by some noise, had in the dark groped for his lamp and found it missing.

"Heavens!" the Captain exclaimed. "Now the cook house will be empty--the servants will come!" He rubbed a hand perplexedly over his forehead. "Quick, Gulab, you must hide!"

He swung open a wooden door between his room and a bedroom next.

Within he said: "There's a bed, and you must sleep here till daylight, then I will have the _chowkidar_ take you to where you wish to go. You couldn't go in the dark anyway. Bar the door; you will be quite safe; don't be frightened." He touched her cheek with his fingers: "Salaam, little girl." Then, going out, he opened the door leading to the room of clamour, exclaiming angrily, "You fool, why do you scream in your dreams?"

"G.o.d be thanked! it is the Sahib." The bearer flopped to his knees and put his hands in abas.e.m.e.nt upon his master's feet.

Jungwa had rushed into the room, staff in hand, at the outcry. Now he stood glowering indignantly upon the grovelling bearer.

"It is the opium, Sahib," he declared; "this fool spends all his time in the bazaar smoking with people of ill repute. If the Presence will but admonish him with the whip our slumbers will not again be disturbed."

The bearer, running true to the tenets of native servants, put up the universal alibi--a flat denial.

"Sahib, you who are my father and my mother, be not angry, for I have not slept. I observed the Sahib pa.s.s, but as he spoke not, I thought he had matters of import upon his mind and wished not to be disturbed."

"A liar--by Mother Gunga!" The _chowkidar_ prodded him in the ribs with the end of his staff, and turning in disgust, pa.s.sed out.

"Come, you fool!" Barlow commanded, returning to his room, and, sitting down wearily upon the bed, held up a leg.

The bearer knelt and in silence stripped the _putties_ from his master's limbs, unlaced the shoes, and pulled off the breeches.

When Barlow had slipped on the pyjamas handed him, he said: "Tell the _chowkidar_ to come to me at his waking from the first call of the crows."

CHAPTER XIII

An omen of dire import all thugs believe is to hear the cry of a kite between midnight and dawn; to hear it before midnight does not matter, for the sleeper in turning over smothers the impending disaster beneath his body. But Captain Barlow had put up no such defence if evil hung over him, for when the _chowkidar_ stood outside the door calling softly, "Captain Sahib! Captain Sahib!" Barlow lay just as he had flopped on the bed, his tiredness having held him as one dead.

Gently the soft voice of the _chowkidar_ pulled him back out of his Nirvana of non-existence, and he called sleepily, "What is it?"

"It is Jungwa," the watchman answered, "and I have received the Sahib's order to come at this hour."

Then Barlow remembered. He swung his feet to the floor, saying, "Come!"

When the watchman had walked out of his sandals to approach in his bare feet, the Captain said, "Is your tongue still to remain in your mouth, Jungwa, or has it been made sacrifice to the knife for the sin of telling in the cookhouse tales of your Sahib and last night?"

"No, Sahib, I have not spoken. I am a Meena of the Ossary _jat_. In Jaipur we guard the treasury and the zenanna of the Raja, and it is our chief who puts the _tika_ upon the forehead of the Maharaja when he ascends to the throne. Think you, then, Sahib, that an Ossary would betray a trust?"