Caste Part 23

"An oath is an oath, nothing more. To trust to it and go to sleep in its guardians.h.i.+p, one may never wake up. Even the G.o.ds cannot bind a heart that is black with words. It was one of my own name who swore on the shrine of Eklinga at Udaipur friends.h.i.+p for a Prince of Marwar, and changed turbans with him, which is more binding than eating opium together, then slew him like a dog. Of my faith, an oath, 'by the Beard of the Prophet,' is more binding, I think. Too many G.o.ds, such as the men of Hind have, produce a wavering. But thou hast sworn to the truth as I am a witness. The delay of an audience was that thou mightst be well watched before much had been said, for a child at play hides nothing, and if thou hadst gone but once to the tent of the Gulab, Amir Khan would have known.

"But as to this,"--his hand tapped the doc.u.ment--"it has been said that the British Raj doles out the lives of its servants as one doles grain in a time of famine. If an envoy, such as a Raja sends in a way of pride, came with this, and were made a matter of sacrifice, perhaps twenty lives would have paid of the trying, but as it is, but one is the account."

Barlow shot a quick searching look into the Pindari's eyes; was it a covert threat? But he answered: "It is even so, it was spoken of as a matter for two, but--"

The Chief laughed: "I know, Sahib; thou art pleasing to me. Of the Sahibs I have little knowledge, but I have heard it said they were a race of white Rajputs, save that they did not kill a brother or a father for the love of killing. What service want they of Amir Khan?"

"There are rumours that the Mahrattas, forgetting the lessons they have received--both Holkar and Sindhia having been thoroughly beaten by the British--are secretly preparing war."

"A _johur_, a last death-rush, is it not?"

"They will be smashed forever, and their lands taken."

"But the King of Oudh has been promised a return to glory to join in this revolt. The fighting Rajputs--what of them? Backed by the English they should hold these black accursed Mahrattas in check."

Barlow rose and, the wary eyes of the Chief on every move, stepped over to the table and pointed to a signature upon the doc.u.ment.

"That," he said, "is the signature of the Rana of Mewar, meaning that he also pa.s.ses the salt of friends.h.i.+p to Amir Khan."

He turned the doc.u.ment over, and there written upon it was the figure "74 1/2."

"Bismillah!" the Chief cried for he had not noticed this before; "it is the _tilac_, the Rana's sealing of the doc.u.ment; it is the mystic number that means that the contents are sacred, that the curse of the Sack of Fort Chitor be upon him who violates the seal, it is the oath of all Rajputs--_tilac_, that which is forbidden. And the Sahibs have heard a rumour that Amir Khan has a hundred thousand hors.e.m.e.n to cut in with. Even Sindhia is afraid of me and desires my head. The Sahibs have heard and desire my friends.h.i.+p."

"That is true, Chief."

"This is the right way," and the Pindari brought his palm down upon the Government message. "I have heard men say that the English were like children in the matter of knowing nothing but the speaking of truth; I have heard some laugh at this, accounting it easy to circ.u.mvent an enemy when one has knowledge of all his intentions, but truth is strength. We have faith in children because they have not yet learned the art of a lie. In two days, Captain Sahib, thou wilt be called to an audience." He rose from his chair, and, with a hand to his forehead said: "Salaam, Sahib. May the protection of Allah be upon you!"

"Salaam, Chief," Barlow answered, and he held out a hand with a boyish frankness that caused the Pindari to grasp it, and the two stood, two men looking into each other's eyes.

"Go thou now, Sahib; thou art a man. Go alone and with quiet, for I would view this message and put it in yonder strong box before others enter."

CHAPTER XXI

When Captain Barlow had gone Amir Khan took up the message and read it.

Once he chuckled, for it was in his Oriental mind that the deceiving of Barlow as to his knowledge of writing was rather a joke. Once as he read the heavy silk _purdah_ of the door swayed a little at one side as if a draught of wind had s.h.i.+fted it and an evil face appeared in the opening.

Presently he rose from his chair, took the lamp in one hand and the paper in the other, and crossed to the iron box in a far corner of the room. He set the flickering light upon the floor, and dropping to his knees, drew from his waistband a silver chain, at the end of which were his seal and keys. His broad shoulders blanked the tiny cone of light, and behind through a marble fretwork, a delicate tracery of lotus flowers that screened the window, trickled cold shafts of moonlight that fell upon something evil that wriggled across the white and black slabs of marble from beneath the door curtain. The moonlight glistened the bronze skin of the silent, crawling thing that was a huge snake, or a giant centipede; it was even like a square-snouted, shovel-headed _mugger_ that had crept up out of the slimy river that circled sluggishly the eastern wall of the palace.

Once as Amir Khan fitted a key in the lock he checked and knelt, as silent, as pa.s.sive as a bronze Buddha, listening; and the creeping thing was but a blur, a shadow without movement, silent. Then he raised the lid of the box and paused, holding it with his right hand, the flickering light upon his bronze face showing a smile as his eyes dwelt lovingly upon the gold and jewels within.

And again the thing crept, or glided, not even a slipping purr, noiseless, just a drifting shadow; only where a ribbon of moonlight from between a lotus and a leaf picked it out was the brown thing of evil marked against the marble. Then the divan blurred it from sight.

From behind the divan to the ebony chair, and the wide black-topped table the shadow drifted; and when Amir Khan had clanged the iron lid closed, and risen, lamp in hand, there was nothing to catch his eye.

He placed the lamp that was fas.h.i.+oned like a lotus upon the table, and dropping into his chair, yawned sleepily. Then he raised his voice to call his bearer:

"Abd--"

The name died on his lips, for the brown thing behind the chair had slipped upward with the silent undulation of a panther, and a deadly _roomal_ (towel) had flashed over the Chief's head and was now a strangling knot about his tawny throat; the hard knuckles of Hunsa were kneading his spine at the back of the skull with a half twist of the cloth. He was pinioned to the back of the chair; he was in a vise, the jaws of which closed his throat. Just a stifled gurgle escaped from his lips as his hand clutched at a dagger hilt. The muscles of the naked brown body behind stood out in k.n.o.bs of strength, and the face of the strangler, pan-reddened teeth showing in the flickering light as if they had bitten into blood, was the face of a ghoul.

The powerful Pindari struggled in smothering desperation; and Hunsa, twisting the gorilla hands, sought in vain to break the neck--it was too strong.

Then the chair careened sidewise, and the Pindari shot downward, his forehead striking a marble slab, stunning him. Hunsa, with the death-grip still on the roomal, planted a knee between the victim's shoulder-blades, and jerked the head upward--still the spine did not snap; and slowly tightening the pressure of the cloth he smothered the man beneath his knee till he felt the muscles go slack and the body lie limp--dead!

Then Hunsa crossed the _roomal_ in his left hand, and stretching out his right grasped the Chief's dagger where it lay upon the floor, and drove it, from behind, through his heart. He placed the knife upon the floor where drops of blood, trickling from its curved point, lay upon the white marble like spilled rubies. He unfastened the silver chain that carried the keys and crossed the floor with the slouching crouch of a hyena. Rapidly he opened the iron box, took the paper Amir Khan had placed there, and hesitated for a second, his ghoulish eyes gloating over the jewels and gold; but he did not touch them, his animal cunning holding him to the simple plan that was now working so smoothly. He locked the box and slipped the key-chain about the dead man's waist; then seizing the right hand of his victim he smeared the thumb in blood and imprinted it upon the paper just beside the seal of the British Raj, muttering: "This will do for Nana Sahib as well as your head, Pindari, and is much easier hidden."

He placed the paper in a roll of his turban, blew out the flickering light, and with noiseless bare feet glided cautiously to the door. The _purdah_ swung back and there was left just the silent room, all dark, save for little trickles of silver that dropped spots and grotesque lines upon the body of the dead Chief. It fell full upon the knife flooding its blade into a finger-like mirror, and glinted the blood drops as if in reality they had turned to rubies. Without the _purdah_ Hunsa did not crouch and run, he walked swiftly, though noiselessly, as one upon a message. Ten paces of the dim-lighted hall he turned to the right to a balcony.

Here at the top of a narrow winding stone stairway Hunsa listened; no sound came from below, and he glided down. Beneath was a balcony corresponding with the one above, and just beyond was a domed cell that he had investigated. It was a cell that at one time had witnessed the quick descent of headless bodies to the river below. A teakwood beam with a round hole in the centre spanned the cell just above an opening that had all the appearance of a well. Hunsa had investigated this exit for this very purpose, for he had been somewhat of a privileged character about the palace.

He now unslung from about his waist, hidden by his baggy trousers, a strong, fine line of camel hair. Making one end fast to the teakwood sill he went down hand over hand, his strong hard palms gripping the soft line. At the end of it he still had a drop of ten or twelve feet, but bracing his shoulders to one wall and his feet to the other he let go. Hunsa was shaken by his drop of a dozen feet, but the soft sand of the river bed had broken the shock of his fall. He picked himself up, and crouching in the hiding shadow of the bank hurried along for fifty yards; then he clambered up cautiously to the waste of white sand that was studded with the tents of the Pindari hors.e.m.e.n. On his right, floating up the hill in terraces, its marble white in the moonlight, was the palace where Amir Khan lay dead. It still held a sombre quietude; the murder had not been discovered.

He had mapped this route out carefully in the day and knew just how to avoid the patrolling guards, and he was back in the narrow _chouk_ of the town that was a struggling stream of swaggering Pindaris, and darker skinned Marwari bunnias and shopkeepers. Hunsa pushed his way through this motley crowd and continued on to the gate of the palace.

To the guard who halted him he said: "If the other who went up to see the Chief has gone, I would go now, _meer_ sahib. As I have said, it is a message from the Gulab Begum."

"I looked for you when I returned from above," the guard answered, "but you had gone. The Afghan has gone but a little since--stay you here."

He called within, "Yacoub!"

It was the orderly who had conducted Barlow to Amir Khan who answered, and to him the guard said: "Go to the Chief's apartment and say that one waits here with word from the favourite."

Hunsa sat down nonchalantly upon a marble step, and drew the guard into a talk of raids, explaining that he had ridden once upon a time with Chitu, on his foray into the territory of the Nizam.

CHAPTER XXII

Hunsa had come back to the palace in haste so that the murder of Amir Khan might be discovered soon after Captain Barlow had left, and that the crime might be fastened upon the Sahib. As he waited, chatting to the guard, there was suddenly a frenzied deep-throated call of alarm from the upper level of rooms that was answered by other voices here and there crying out; there was the hurrying scuffling of feet on the marble stairs, and Yacoub appeared, his eyes wide in fright, crying:

"The Chief has been stabbed! he's dead! he's murdered! Guard the door--let no one out--let no one in!"

"Beat the _nakara_," the guard commanded; "raise the alarm!"

He seized his long-barrelled matchlock, blew on the fuse, and pointing up toward the moonlit sky, fired. Just within, in a little court, Yacoub, with heavy drum-stick, was pounding from the huge drum a thunderous vibrant roar, and somebody at his command had seized a horn, and from its copper throat a strident shriek of alarm split the air.

The narrow street was now one surging ma.s.s of excited Pindaris. With their riding whips they slashed viciously at any one other than their own soldier caste that ventured near, driving them out, crying: "This is alone for the Pindaris!"

A powerful, whiskered jamadar pushed his way through the mob, throwing men to the right and left with sweeps of his strong arm, and, reaching the guard, was told that Amir Khan lay up in his room, murdered. Then an _hazari_ (commander of five thousand) came running and pushed through the throng that the full force of the tragedy held almost silent.

The guard saluted, saying: "Commander Ka.s.sim, the Chief has been slain."

"How--who?"

"I know not, Commander."