The Broken Road Part 21

"Tell me the use of a broad mind in Chiltistan," said Shere Ali. And Colonel Dewes, who had last seen the valleys of that remote country more than twenty years before, was baffled by the challenge.

"To tell the truth, I am a little out of touch with Indian problems," he said. "But it's surely good in every way that there should be a man up there who knows we have something in the way of an army. When I was there, there was trouble which would have been quite prevented by knowledge of that kind."

"Are you sure?" said Shere Ali quietly; and the two men turned and went down from the roof of the stand.

The words which Dewes had just used rankled in Shere Ali's mind, quietly though he had received them. Here was the one definite advantage of his education in England on which Dewes could lay his finger. He knew enough of the strength of the British army to know also the wisdom of keeping his people quiet. For that he had been sacrificed. It was an advantage--yes. But an advantage to whom? he asked. Why, to those governing people here who had to find the money and the troops to suppress a rising, and to confront at the same time an outcry at home from the opponents of the forward movement. It was to their advantage certainly that he should have been sent to England. And then he was told to be grateful!

As they came out again from the winding staircase and turned towards the paddock Colonel Dewes took Shere Ali by the arm, and said in a voice of kindliness:

"And what has become of all the fine ambitions you and d.i.c.k Linforth used to have in common?"

"Linforth's still at Chatham," replied Shere Ali shortly.

"Yes, but you are here. You might make a beginning by yourself."

"They won't let me."

"There's the road," suggested Dewes.

"They won't let me add an inch to it. They will let me do nothing, and they won't let Linforth come out. I wish they would," he added in a softer voice. "If Linforth were to come out to Chiltistan it might make a difference."

They had walked round to the rails in front of the stand, and Shere Ali looked up the steps to the Viceroy's box. The Viceroy was present that afternoon. Shere Ali saw his tall figure, with the stoop of the shoulders characteristic of him, as he stood dressed in a grey frock-coat, with the ladies of his family and one or two of his _aides-de-camp_ about him.

Shere Ali suddenly stopped and nodded towards the box.

"Have you any influence there?" he asked of Colonel Dewes; and he spoke with a great longing, a great eagerness, and he waited for the answer in a great suspense.

Dewes shook his head.

"None," he replied; "I am n.o.body at all."

The hope died out of Shere Ali's face.

"I am sorry," he said; and the eagerness had changed into despair. There was just a chance, he thought, of salvation for himself if only Linforth could be fetched out to India. He might resume with Linforth his old companions.h.i.+p, and so recapture something of his old faith and of his bright ideals. There was sore need that he should recapture them. Shere Ali was well aware of it. More and more frequently sure warnings came to him. Now it was some dim recollection of beliefs once strongly clung to, which came back to him with a shock. He would awaken through some chance word to the glory of the English rule in India, the lessening poverty of the Indian nations, the incorruptibility of the English officials and their justice.

"Yes, yes," he would say with astonishment, "I was sure of these things; I knew them as familiar truths," even as a man gradually going blind might one day see clearly and become aware of his narrowing vision. Or perhaps it would be some sudden unsuspected revulsion of feeling in his heart. Such a revulsion had come to him this afternoon as he had gazed up to the Viceroy's box. A wild and unreasoning wrath had flashed up within him, not against the system, but against that tall stooping man, worn with work, who was at once its representative and its flower. Up there the great man stood--so his thoughts ran--complacent, self-satisfied, careless of the harm which his system wrought. Down here upon the gra.s.s walked a man warped and perverted out of his natural course. He had been sent to Eton and to Oxford, and had been filled with longings and desires which could have no fruition; he had been trained to delicate thoughts and habits which must daily be offended and daily be a cause of offence to his countrymen. But what did the tall stooping man care? Shere Ali now knew that the English had something in the way of an army. What did it matter whether he lived in unhappiness so long as that knowledge was the price of his unhappiness? A cruel, careless, warping business, this English rule.

Thus Shere Ali felt rather than thought, and realised the while the danger of his bitter heart. Once more he appealed to Colonel Dewes, standing before him with burning eyes.

"Bring Linforth out to India! If you have any influence, use it; if you have none, obtain it. Only bring Linforth out to India, and bring him very quickly!"

Once before a pa.s.sionate appeal had been made to Colonel Dewes by a man in straits, and Colonel Dewes had not understood and had not obeyed. Now, a quarter of a century later another appeal was made by a man sinking, as surely as Luffe had been sinking before, and once again Dewes did not understand.

He took Shere Ali by the arm, and said in a kindly voice:

"I tell you what it is, my lad. You have been going the pace a bit, eh?

Calcutta's no good. You'll only collect debts and a lot of things you are better without. Better get out of it."

Shere Ali's face closed as his lips had done. All expression died from it in a moment. There was no help for him in Colonel Dewes. He said good-bye with a smile, and walked out past the stand. His syce was waiting for him outside the railings.

Shere Ali had come to the races wearing a sun-helmet, and, as the fas.h.i.+on is amongst the Europeans in Calcutta, his syce carried a silk hat for Shere Ali to take in exchange for his helmet when the sun went down.

Shere Ali, like most of the Europeanised Indians, was more scrupulous than any Englishman in adhering to the European custom. But to-day, with an angry gesture, he repelled his syce.

"I am going," he said. "You can take that thing away."

His sense of humour failed him altogether. He would have liked furiously to kick and trample upon that glossy emblem of the civilised world; he had much ado to refrain. The syce carried back the silk hat to Shere Ali's smart trap, and Shere Ali drove home in his helmet. Thus he began publicly to renounce the cherished illusion that he was of the white people, and must do as the white people did.

But Colonel Dewes pointed unwittingly the significance of that trivial matter on the same night. He dined at the house of an old friend, and after the ladies had gone he moved up into the next chair, and so sat beside a weary-looking official from the Punjab named Ralston, who had come down to Calcutta on leave. Colonel Dewes began to talk of his meeting with Shere Ali that afternoon. At the mention of Shere Ali's name the official sat up and asked for more.

"He looked pretty bad," said Colonel Dewes. "Jumpy and feverish, and with the air of a man who has been sitting up all night for a week or two. But this is what interested me most," and Dewes told how the lad had implored him to bring Linforth out to India.

"Who's Linforth?" asked the official quickly. "Not the son of that Linforth who--"

"Yes, that's the man," said the Colonel testily. "But you interrupt me.

What interested me was this--when I refused to help, Shere Ali's face changed in a most extraordinary way. All the fire went from his eyes, all the agitation from his face. It was like looking at an open box full of interesting things, and then--bang! someone slaps down the lid, and you are staring at a flat piece of wood. It was as if--as if--well, I can't find a better comparison."

"It was as if a European suddenly changed before your eyes into an Oriental."

Dewes was not pleased with Ralston's success in supplying the simile he could not hit upon himself.

"That's a little fanciful," he said grudgingly; and then recognised frankly the justness of its application. "Yet it's true--a European changing into an Oriental! Yes, it just looked like that."

"It may actually have been that," said the official quietly. And he added: "I met Shere Ali last year at Lah.o.r.e on his way north to Chiltistan. I was interested then; I am all the more interested now, for I have just been appointed to Peshawur."

He spoke in a voice which was grave--so grave that Colonel Dewes looked quickly towards him.

"Do you think there will be trouble up there in Chiltistan?" he asked.

The Deputy-Commissioner, who was now Chief Commissioner, smiled wearily.

"There is always trouble up there in Chiltistan," he said. "That I know.

What I think is this--Shere Ali should have gone to the Mayo College at Ajmere. That would have been a compromise which would have satisfied his father and done him no harm. But since he didn't--since he went to Eton, and to Oxford, and ran loose in London for a year or two--why, I think he is right."

"How do you mean--right?" asked the Colonel.

"I mean that the sooner Linforth is fetched out to India and sent up to Chiltistan, the better it will be," said the Commissioner.

CHAPTER XVII

NEWS FROM MECCA

Mr. Charles Ralston, being a bachelor and of an economical mind even when on leave in Calcutta, had taken up his quarters in a gra.s.s hut in the garden of his Club. He awoke the next morning with an uncomfortable feeling that there was work to be done. The feeling changed into sure knowledge as he reflected upon the conversation which he had had with Colonel Dewes, and he accordingly arose and went about it. For ten days he went to and fro between the Club and Government House, where he held long and vigorous interviews with officials who did not wish to see him.

Moreover, other people came to see him privately--people of no social importance for the most part, although there were one or two officers of the police service amongst them. With these he again held long interviews, asking many inquisitive questions. Then he would go out by himself into those parts of the city where the men of broken fortunes, the jockeys run to seed, and the prize-fighters chiefly preferred to congregate. In the low quarters he sought his information of the waifs and strays who are cast up into the drinking-bars of any Oriental port, and he did not come back empty-handed.

For ten days he thus toiled for the good of the Indian Government, and, above all, of that part of it which had its headquarters at Lah.o.r.e. And on the morning of the eleventh day, as he was just preparing to leave for Government House, where his persistence had prevailed, a tall, black-bearded and very sunburnt man noiselessly opened the door of the hut and as noiselessly stepped inside. Ralston, indeed, did not at once notice him, nor did the stranger call attention to his presence. He waited, motionless and patient, until Ralston happened to turn and see him.