The Sirdar's Oath Part 21

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

OF THE SIRDAR'S OATH.

The unhappy prisoner, forced along by strong and ruthless hands, recognised that he was in the alley way upon which he had looked down from the parapet, what time the shrieks of the tortured man had forced him to stop his ears. Heaven help him! To what death of lingering torment were these barbarians going to put him? There was the very door, and through it he was now dragged.

The horrible greasy fumes which had sickened him before hung about the place, which, entering as he did from the light, seemed to lie in a semi-gloom, suggestive of all sorts of hideous imaginings. At the further end was something that looked like a long iron coffin, raised about eighteen inches from the floor. To this he was forced forward.

Raynier's blood curdled within him as the full horror of this awful object broke upon him. No coffin was it, but a bath--and the iron rings and chains let into its sides, two at each end, told their own tale. So too, did the ashes of a dead fire underneath. The upper end was padded.

The sufferer might not dash out his own brains; might not seek relief from his frightful torment that way.

Faint and sick, his senses in a whirl, he gazed stupidly at the horrid thing. Was his brain giving way? It seemed so. Hardly knowing how he got there he was outside in the air again.

"Our bathroom does not please thee, Feringhi," said a voice. Looking up, his eyes met the baleful sneering ones of Murad Afzul.

"I have been ill with fever of late. You forget," he answered, instinctively striving to disguise the despair and terror which the sight of the horrid place had stamped upon his countenance. Then he fainted.

When he came to himself again he was in semi-darkness. A man was bending over him, and seemed to be trying to revive him. He recognised the Hakim.

"Where am I? Oh!"

He had tried to rise, only to discover that he was chained by the ankles to an iron ring in the stone floor. His hands, however, were free. He saw further that he was in a damp and gloomy apartment akin to a dungeon, a grating above the door serving to let in air and light.

"Take away your remedies, Hakim Sahib," he said, bitterly. "I have no wish to be revived for the purpose of being tortured, and I suppose it was for that reason I was taken care of before?"

"It is the Nawab's orders," answered the other. "Ill would it fare with me did I not carry them out."

"Well, I will not help you, then."

"You will not be helping yourself in that case, Sahib," said the Hakim, "for then they would work their will on you at once. See--there is food. Bethink. Is there no object in gaining time?"

"If so, I know not what it can be," answered Raynier. And then an idea seized him. This man might help him to escape, of course, for a large reward. But when it was put to him the Hakim shook his head. It was impossible. Besides, what would be his own fate were it suspected he had even thought of such a thing! And as though terrified at the idea he went out, leaving the prisoner alone.

Raynier pondered over the Hakim's words. Was there significance in them? It might be so. But why should he renew his strength in order the longer to endure the tortures which Mus.h.i.+m Khan, whom he had thought his friend but now proved to be a most bitter and vindictive enemy, had in store for him? There was the food beside him, within his reach.

There, too, was wine, which struck him as a strange circ.u.mstance, remembering that he was in the midst of rigid Mahomedans. Clearly he was to be fatted up for the sacrifice, and yet--and yet--Nature was strong. He needed the stimulant badly, and--took it.

Immediately thereafter he fell asleep. Sleep, too, he needed badly. In spite of his constrained att.i.tude he slumbered hard and soundly. Once more he was with Hilda, and now it seemed that his whole being was bound up with hers. The horrors he had gone through, the privations and perils they had both gone through, were far behind. They knew each other now, and heart and mind were laid bare to each other as they stood, the world outside, they two, alone. The strong, sweet dream-wave rolled over his soul, and all was forgotten save that they two were together--together for all time.

The harsh creaking of the door, flung open, aroused him. The delusion sped in demoniacal mockery. The prison, the chains, the impending torture were realities.

Three persons had entered--Mus.h.i.+m Khan, his brother, and a third.

Raynier sat up to confront them with what dignity he was able. The Nawab spoke.

"I will not waste words on thee, Feringhi. Know, then, that as our brother, the Sirdar Allahyar Khan, was put to death by thy father at the time of the great rising, so must thy father's son suffer death at the hands of the brothers of Allahyar Khan, even ourselves, a life for a life, for thus is it written in the Holy Koran. Moreover, I have sworn it."

The words were uttered deliberately, almost with a judicial solemnity, but the savage hatred upon the face of the speaker seemed to be struggling with the solemnity of their utterance.

"What proof have ye of this, O Chief of the Gularzai, whom I had reckoned my friend?" answered Raynier, "for the Prophet likewise orders that none be condemned without proof."

"Here is proof." And the speaker handed him the parchment he had received from Hadji Haroun.

Raynier took it, studying it long and earnestly. He was conversant with Pushtu, and could write it almost as well as he could speak it: and the perusal of the doc.u.ment only served to convince him that its substance was, in all probability, correct; and that his father had, in his capacity of commanding officer, sanctioned the execution of the Gularzai sirdar as described. As to the circ.u.mstances of ignominy attendant upon the execution, well, he knew that such things had been done in the Mutiny. Moreover, his recollections of his father were such as to convince him that at such a time the latter was not likely to have erred on the side of leniency. Then an idea struck him.

"It may be as you say, Chief of the Gularzai. It is long ago, and who can say for certain what happened then? If it be so, I deplore it. But you have cited the Koran. Hear now the words of the sacred revelation: 'O true believers, the law of retaliation is ordained for the slain: the free shall die for the free, and the servant for the servant, and a woman for a woman: but he whom his brother shall forgive may be obliged to make satisfaction for what is just, and a fine shall be set on him, with humanity. This is indulgence from your Lord, and mercy.' Will ye not, therefore, forgive me, my brothers?"

There was nothing abject in his tone, no suspicion of cringing. For a few moments his listeners stood as though thunderstruck. This unbeliever quoted glibly from the holy volume. Then the third of the trio, who had kept somewhat in the background and of whom Raynier had not taken much notice, spoke.

"Feringhi, thou hast evidently studied the revelations of Mahomed--the blessed of Allah. Wilt thou not now make profession of the faith?"

Here was a loophole. Raynier thought of what he had undergone, of how completely he was in the power of this unsparing and vengeful people; of the horrors he had witnessed, and of what might be in store for himself.

He thought of Hilda Clive, and how life might hold out for him a long vista of its fairest and brightest, and the temptation was great. But he thought, too, on the opinions he had more than once expressed when discussing such "conversions," and how they were dishonouring to the British name. He was not an ostentatiously religious man, but when it came to forswearing Christianity, the line had to be drawn. So he answered,--

"I could not do that, for it would be to forswear myself. I honour your religion, but were I to profess it I should be speaking a lie."

Now, while he said this, Raynier's eye had rested on something-- something that was in the hand of the man who had spoken last. _It was a malacca cane_.

The blood rushed wildly through his being. He stared at the thing.

There it was, a stout, silver-topped malacca cane--a very unwonted article in the hand of a white-clad, turbaned Gularzai. Heavens! what did it mean? He stared at the man who carried it--a tall, handsome, commanding-looking representative of his race--and then his mind rushed back from the stronghold of the Chief of the Gularzai, to the shouting, roaring, riotous mob in the heart of the city of London. And this was the man he had rescued from its uproarious violence.

"Do you not remember me, brother?" he said, in English, his heart seeming to burst in the revulsion of returning hope. "That is the stick I armed you with when you were beset by numbers. Look! In the middle of it is the dent made by the falling iron which would otherwise have crushed your head in."

He stopped short. No flash of recognition lit up the features of the Gularzai, not the faintest sign even of having understood. He paused.

Then he said, in Pushtu,--"Who is yon sirdar, Nawab Sahib?"

"Shere Dil Khan. He is my son." The answer was curt and cold. Raynier went on,--

"If my father put thy brother to death, Nawab Sahib, I saved the life of thy son, Shere Dil Khan. The dent in that stick was made by the iron which would have crushed his head. Upon the k.n.o.b are the letters of my name. May I handle it for a moment? It is not a weapon--and, am I not chained?"

The man who held it stepped forward and placed it in his hand. As he did so, with his face close to the prisoner, Raynier recognised him completely. It was the man he had rescued in the midst of the rough and exasperated crowd. But for all the recognition on the face of the other it might have been a mask.

Raynier took the stick. One glance at it was sufficient. There, on the ma.s.sive silver head, were intertwined the letters H.R.--his initials.

Somehow, hope died again within him. It might be that Shere Dil Khan had forgotten his English, or he might be under some vow not to use it-- and, acting on this idea, Raynier told the whole story in their own tongue. Still no sign of recognition, of corroboration lit up that impa.s.sive countenance. He could see that the story was aiding him not in the smallest degree, even if it were believed at all.

"Well," he concluded, realising this, "there is no grat.i.tude in the world. If you save a man's life, he is the one to seek out your own."

"Thou hast appealed to our mercy, Feringhi," said Mus.h.i.+m Khan, "and not in vain. Thou hast been shown some small glimpse of the torments we had designed for thee, but Allah is merciful and shall we be less so?

Wherefore, these we remit and thou shalt only suffer death--death by the sword, at the rising of to-morrow's sun, in the presence of the warriors of the Gularzai a.s.sembled here. For it has been sworn, and who may break an oath?"

And the three chiefs went forth, leaving the prisoner alone. This, then, was how he next saw the silver-mounted stick which had saved the life of a man--and that man the son of his executioner. Was there such a thing as grat.i.tude in the world?

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

ON THE GRAVE'S DARK BRINK.

When, immediately on leaving his prisoner, Mus.h.i.+m Khan was informed that a believer had been brought in, escorting a woman, veiled, who had come far to communicate with him upon a matter of importance, the Nawab betrayed no surprise, nor did the statement that the woman, although dressed as one of their own women, was a Feringhi, elicit any, either.

He coldly directed that they should be conducted to his durbar hall, and, accompanied by his son and Kuhandil Khan, he proceeded thither.