A LAND OF DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
After a night’s rest Ferrers prepared to pursue the inquiry on which
he had come, but he found that the blank walls of the city were only a
type of the passive opposition to be offered to his efforts. The mob
of the place was so fanatical and so threatening that, as he persisted
in maintaining his right to ride, he found it advisable to comply with
the request of the Khan’s advisers, and only show himself when he was
to be granted an audience at the palace or the house of one of the
ministers. Visitors he had none--none at least of the type that in
most oriental cities delights in calling upon a new-comer and spending
long hours in eliciting all manner of useless information. Gamara was
the scene of a perpetual reign of terror, exercised from above by the
Khan, and from below by the mob, reinforced by the hordes of
theological students, and between these two forces the mere moderate
man was crushed out of existence or frightened into silence. A whisper
against the orthodoxy of even a high official would send a raging
crowd to attack his house or to tear him limb from limb in the public
street, and the truth of the rumour would only be inquired into
afterwards, if at all. The Khan maintained his unquestioned ascendancy
by outdoing all his subjects in their zeal for orthodoxy, which had no
connection with morals, and by repressing that zeal with atrocious
severity when it clashed with his own wishes. Mob-law offered a very
useful means of getting rid of undesirable persons; but one or two
stern examples had been needed to teach the mob not to proceed to
extremities unless they were smiled upon by the palace. The presence
of a Christian in the sacred city was a standing defiance of its
inhabitants, and it was only the drawn scimitars of the Khan’s
bodyguard that protected Ferrers from certain death as he rode to and
from the palace in full uniform.
There was a community of Jews in the place, and it was from this that
his unofficial visitors were drawn--scared, furtive men, distinguished
from the true believers by their dress, who skulked along back-lanes,
and entered the house by a private door in terror of their lives, but
emboldened to the enterprise by the hope of turning a more or less
honest penny. They were anxious to be Ferrers’ agents in communicating
secretly with personages whom he could not directly approach, and, in
general, to do any dirty work that might be requisite. One of them,
more courageous than the rest, actually offered to disguise Ferrers
and take him about the city, but he felt compelled to refuse the
offer, much against his will. The man was only too probably a spy, and
what could be easier than to lead the stranger, ignorant of his
whereabouts, into the precincts of one of the mosques, and raise the
cry of “Kafir!” after which the Indian Government would have to lament
the loss of another envoy who had mysteriously disappeared. It was
very likely that the missing Whybrow had been trapped in some such
way, but Ferrers was beginning to doubt whether exact information as
to his fate would ever be obtained. The one indisputable fact was that
he had disappeared, and not he alone, but his servants, horses, arms,
and equipment, as completely as if they had never existed. The last of
his written reports which had reached Calcutta was dated half a day’s
march from the city, and in it he said that in view of his projected
entry thither he thought it well to send off beforehand the results of
his explorations up to this point. From inquiries made on the spot,
Ferrers was certain that he had left this camping-ground and gone
towards the city, but there his information stopped. No one could or
would testify to the lost man’s having passed the gates, though rumour
was rife on the subject of his doings and his fate. Ferrers’
emissaries brought him a different report every day. Whybrow had been
turned back at the gates and had returned to India; he had been
arrested on entering; he had been honourably received by the Khan and
provided with a house and escort; he had performed his business and
gone away in peace; he had been arrested during an audience at the
palace and straightway beheaded; he had been torn to pieces in the
streets; he had turned Mohammedan and been admitted to the Khan’s
bodyguard; a mutilated body alleged to be his had been subjected to
disgusting indignities at the place of execution,--all these mutually
contradictory reports were submitted, apparently in perfect good
faith, by the very same men, but they shed no certain light on the
fact of Whybrow’s disappearance.
Ferrers had recourse to bribery. Presents judiciously distributed, by
means of his Jewish agents, among the Khan’s chief officers, brought
him the honour of an audience of each of the gentlemen so favoured,
and various interesting confidences. Whybrow Sahib had never entered
the city; he had died in it from natural causes; he had left it and
started safely on his return journey to India,--it seemed a pity that
the worshipful hypocrites had not taken counsel together beforehand to
tell one story and stick to it. Ferrers gathered only one more grain
of fact after all his expenditure, namely, that Whybrow had actually
been in Gamara. If he had not, there would not have been such anxiety
to assert that he had left it in safety. But nothing of this sort was
officially acknowledged. At each successive audience the Khan inquired
blandly whether Firoz Sahib had yet been able to learn anything as to
his friend’s fate, and even condescended to remark further that it was
most extraordinary a stranger should be able to disappear so
completely just outside Gamara, and leave no trace.
Thus time went on, and Ferrers began to feel that he might remain in
Gamara for the rest of his days and get no further. Meanwhile, the
failure of his efforts and the restricted life he led were telling
upon his nerves and temper, and he began to say to himself that if
there was much more prevarication he would beard the Khan in his very
palace, and give him the lie to his face. When he had reached this
point, an excuse for the outburst was not long in offering itself. One
of his agents came to him one day with even more than the usual
secrecy, and produced from the inmost recesses of his garments
something small and heavy, wrapped up many times in a piece of cotton
cloth. It was a miniature Colt’s revolver--then a comparatively new
invention--beautifully finished and mounted in silver, and bearing on
a small silver plate the letters L. W., the initials of Leonard
Whybrow. Questioned fiercely as to where he had found it, the man
confessed by degrees that he had stolen it from the palace--“borrowed
it” was his way of expressing the fact. It had been in the charge of
the keeper of the Khan’s armoury, with whom he had some acquaintance,
and recognising from its make that it was a Bilati (European) pistol
of a new kind, he had secured it when the keeper’s back was turned,
intending to return it to its place at the earliest opportunity after
Ferrers had seen it. He further put in a claim for the repayment of a
sum of money which had been needed to induce the keeper to turn his
back at the right moment, and urged that the pistol should be given
back to him at once, or both the keeper and he would lose their heads,
since the Khan often amused himself by firing away the ammunition
which had come into his possession at the same time as the weapon. To
this, however, Ferrers refused to accede, paying the money with an
alacrity which made the agent wish he had asked double the sum, but
refusing to surrender the pistol. He was to have an audience of the
Khan on the morrow, and he would confront him with this proof of his
treachery.
The next day came, and Ferrers rode to the palace with his usual
escort. The audience proceeded on the ordinary lines; but when the
Khan asked the stereotyped question as to the envoy’s success in his
mission, he did not receive the usual answer. Ferrers took the
revolver from his sash, held it up to the light, pointed out the
significance of the letters, and threw it on the floor at the Khan’s
feet. Then, without another word, he went back to his place and sat
down, but not in the cramped position prescribed by Eastern etiquette,
for instead of sitting on his heels, he turned the soles of his feet
towards the Khan--thus offering him the worst insult that could be
devised--and waited calmly for the result. The court was in an uproar
immediately; but the Khan, pale with anger, contented himself with
announcing that the audience was at an end, and dismissed the
assembly. Perfectly satisfied with the result of his _coup_,
purposeless though it was, Ferrers rode home with much elation. The
news of his action had quickly spread from the palace into the town,
and his path was beset by an angry mob, who threw stones until they
were charged by the escort; but he felt an absolute pleasure in facing
them. The long succession of insults heaped upon him had been more
than revenged at last.
As he neared the house, it occurred to him for the first time that it
would have been prudent to be prepared to take his departure
immediately after defying the Khan. His servants should have been
warned to pack up as soon as he started for the palace, and to await
him with the laden horses at the gate nearest to the house. Even now
it was not too late. He might ride straight to the gate himself,
sending word to the servants to bring whatever they could snatch up
and follow him, or he might go to the house and fetch them. This was
the best plan, for he did not like the thought of abandoning all his
possessions, and he almost decided to adopt it. It was vexatious to
appear to run away, of course, but he could scarcely doubt there was
danger in remaining. He had just turned to the officer in command of
the escort, intending to request his company as far as the gate, when
a messenger from the palace clattered along the street and dashed up,
shouting his message as he came. In the most insulting terms Firoz
Sahib was bidden take his servants and depart from Gamara immediately.
The Khan’s safe-conduct would protect him to the gates, and no
farther. The effect on Ferrers was instantaneous. Submit to be ordered
out of the city--driven forth with insults--never!
“Tell his Highness that I leave Gamara to-morrow, and at my own time,”
he said to the messenger, in tones quite audible to the crowd which
had collected. “Am I a beggar to be driven forth with words?”
The crowd listened with something like awe, and the messenger,
apparently impressed, made answer that he would return to the palace
and represent to the Khan that the envoy had had no time to make
preparation for the journey, and could not, therefore, start at once.
The officer of the escort, seeming to be satisfied that the plea would
be allowed, asked whether Firoz Sahib would like a guard left in the
house for the night, in case of an attack by the mob; but Ferrers
declined, with a shrewd idea that the danger might be as great from
the one as from the other. Remarking that he would be ready to start
on the following afternoon, he was about to enter the house, when an
elderly woman, not of the best character, with whom he had several
times exchanged a smile and a jest, looked out at her doorway on the
opposite side of the narrow street.
“When the wolf sees the trap closing upon him, he does not wait to
escape till it is down,” she cried, with a shrill burst of laughter,
and Ferrers recognised that a timely warning was intended. But he set
his teeth hard. Depart in obedience to the Khan’s insulting mandate he
would not, even though he had been prepared to start at once before
receiving it. It seemed to him, however, that it would not materially
compromise his dignity if he stole a march on the authorities, and
made a dash for the gate with his servants as soon as it was opened in
the morning. They would not expect him to start until the time he had
mentioned, and the mob would not have opportunity to collect in
sufficient numbers to bar the passage of several resolute, well-armed
men. He gave his orders accordingly; but the process of packing up was
interrupted by the servants belonging to the house, who collected in
an angry group, and demanded loudly to be given their wages and
allowed to depart. The house and all in it were marked for
destruction, they said, and why should they be sacrificed to the
madness of the Kafir?
“The rats desert the sinking ship,” said Ferrers grimly; but he paid
the men their wages, and allowed them to steal out separately by the
private door, each hoping to lose himself in the labyrinth of narrow
lanes, and so elude the vengeance of the authorities until he could
find refuge with his friends. One of the men Ferrers had brought from
India also petitioned to be allowed to take his chance in this way,
and lest his presence in the house should be an element of weakness,
he was suffered to depart. The rest obeyed in silence the orders they
received. They could not understand their master’s proceedings, but
they knew well that all Sahibs were mad, and that it was expedient to
humour them even at their maddest. Moreover, this particular Sahib had
brought them through so many dangers already, apparently by virtue of
his very madness, that they felt a kind of confidence in him, and
provisions were prepared and loads made ready for an early start on
the morrow--the morrow which, for all but one in the house, was never
to come.
The street was quiet when Ferrers went his rounds before going to bed,
but he posted a sentry at the door and another at the postern, lest an
attempt should be made to break in. He had little fear of an attack
while he was behind stone walls, however; it was the ride through the
city to the gate which he really dreaded. But in the night he was
roused by the clank of metal: some one had dropped a weapon of some
sort on a stone floor. Hastily catching up his sword, he seized his
revolver and rushed out into the courtyard, to descry dimly against
the starry sky a man climbing over the wall which separated his roof
from that of the next house, and dropping down. Before he had time to
wonder whether the man was alone or had been preceded by others, he
was borne down by a sudden rush from the dark corners of the
courtyard. The revolver was struck from his hand, his sword was
wrenched away, and though he fought valiantly with his fists, he was
tripped up by a cunning wrestler and thrown to the ground, and there
bound hand and foot with marvellous celerity. Without a moment’s pause
his assailants lifted him and carried him to the door, where they tied
him upon a horse which was waiting. Hitherto he had been absolutely
dazed. Not a word had been uttered, not a sound made since that first
clang which had awakened him; and while the men were evidently armed,
they had been careful not to wound him, though he had caught sight of
more than one dead body in the courtyard and the passage. The very
stillness roused him at last to coherent thought. There was not a soul
in the street, not a ray of light nor the creak of a cautiously opened
door from the blank houses on either side. He knew the truth now. As
Whybrow had disappeared, so he was to disappear, without a sound or
cry to attract the attention of the prudent dwellers in the
neighbourhood. The bodies of his servants and all traces of their fate
would be removed, his horses and possessions conveyed away before
daybreak, and only the empty house would be left, and the usual
sickening uncertainty as to one more envoy’s fate. And what would that
fate be? His blood ran cold at the thought, but it nerved him to one
supreme effort. This street, after many windings, ended at the city
wall; if he could once reach that point, he might scale the sloping
earthen rampart and succeed in escaping, destitute of everything and
in a country swarming with enemies, but with life and honour left him.
Gathering all his strength, he burst one of the cords that held him,
and flung himself upon the men nearest him, fighting hopelessly with
his bound hands. For a moment astonishment made the group give way;
but before he could free himself further, one of them, grasping the
situation, struck him on the head with a club, and he dropped
senseless on the horse’s neck.
When he recovered consciousness he was lying on a stone floor. His
hands were free, but heavy fetters were round his ankles, and these
were connected by a chain to which was attached a heavy weight. He
could drag himself slowly about, but to move fast or far was
impossible. He felt about his prison; it was all of stone, small and
filthy, but dry, and from this, and the fact that a gleam of light
came through an aperture near the top of one of the walls, he gathered
that he was what might be considered a favoured prisoner. He was in
the dungeons of Gamara, which were a name of terror throughout Asia,
but not in one of the horrible underground cells. Not that this
softened his feelings towards the gaolers. Escape was out of the
question, but failing that, his mind fastened itself on the
possibility of a speedy death, accompanied preferably by as much
damage to his captors as he could succeed in effecting. What was
needed was a weapon of some sort. He did not expect to find furniture
in the dungeon, but he hunted about for some time in the hope of
lighting upon a loose stone, or even a bone from some predecessor’s
rations. Nothing of the kind offering itself, he felt about for a
jagged edge in the wall, and at last found one, not too far from the
floor. Crouching beside it, he lifted the chain attached to the
weight, and began to use the rough stone as a file. He worked away
with frenzied eagerness, though his hands were soon streaming with
blood, and the cramped position caused him intense agony. His mind had
no room for anything but the one idea, the obtaining of a weapon. At
last his task was accomplished--the link gave way. He was free from
the weight, though his feet were still fastened together by a chain
only some eight inches long. He tried to work on this next, but in
vain, as he could not get the chain into such a position as to reach
his file with it. But he had his weapon, and he lifted it with
difficulty and placed it where he thought it would be most useful.
Then he took up a position behind the door and waited.
At last there were sounds outside, and the door creaked slowly open. A
man’s head appeared, looking round in surprise and alarm for the
prisoner. By a tremendous effort, Ferrers raised the weight as the
gaoler advanced into the cell, and brought it down on his head. He
fell with a crash, and an earthen vessel of water which he had been
carrying was shivered on the floor. Ferrers had formed some vague plan
of dressing himself in the gaoler’s clothes and taking possession of
his keys, but this was now out of the question, for there was a sound
of voices and a rush of steps towards his cell. He drew back into the
shadow, intending to knock down the first man that entered as he had
done the gaoler, but his temporary strength was gone. His arms refused
to raise the weight more than an inch or two. With a cry of rage he
dropped it, and charged furiously into the group of men who had been
attracted by the noise, and were trying to screw up one another’s
courage to enter the cell. One or two of them went down before his
blows, others fled at the sight of the apparition, but there remained
two who flung themselves upon Ferrers and grappled with him. Weakened
by fasting and the blow he had received, he yet fought manfully, but
they were slowly and surely forcing him back towards the cell, when
one of them caught his foot in the chain. All three went down, Ferrers
undermost, and once more he lost consciousness, the last thing he
heard being a warning cry, “Do not kill him: it is his Highness’s
order.”
When he awoke next he was again in his cell, but now his hands were
also fettered, and he was chained to a ring in the wall. The death he
desired had eluded him, and he was worse off than before. He was stiff
and sore all over after his fight, and his head gave him excruciating
pain. At his side were a cake of rough bread and a very moderate
allowance of water, and he seized upon them greedily, then lapsed into
semi-consciousness. For an unknown length of time after this he lived
in a kind of delirium, in which past, present, and future were
inextricably mingled in his mind, and his only clear feeling was a
vehement hatred of any one who came near him. When his brain became
less confused he gave himself up to imagining means of gratifying this
hatred, walking ceaselessly backwards and forwards in the semicircle
of two or three paces’ radius, which was all that his chains would
allow. His new gaoler never ventured within his reach, and put his
food where he could only touch it by dint of strenuous efforts, and
the difficulty was to induce him to come closer. But the words he had
heard recurred to Ferrers’ half-maddened brain, and when the gaoler
entered the cell one day, expecting to find the prisoner walking about
and muttering to himself as usual, he saw only a confused heap by the
wall. He called, but received no answer, and in terror lest the Khan
should have been baulked of his revenge by the death of his captive,
ventured near enough to touch him. The moment he came within reach
Ferrers sprang up with a howl like that of a wild beast, and, joining
his two fettered hands, smote him on the head with all his strength.
The man fell; but the authorities had learnt wisdom from the fate of
his predecessor, and Ferrers’ triumph was shortlived. Several men
rushed in from the passage, dragged out the gaoler, and, turning upon
the prisoner, beat him so cruelly with whips of hide that he sank on
the ground bleeding and exhausted. When they left him at last, it was
with a promise that he should taste the bastinado on the morrow, and,
unhappily for him, his mind was now sufficiently clear to understand
all that this implied.
All day he lay more dead than alive, and when the door of his cell
opened gently, hours before the usual time, he had not strength to
look up, even when a light was flashed in his eyes. It was not until a
leathern bottle was held to his lips, and a voice said, “Drink this,
sahib,” that he awoke from his lethargy, to see a well-known face
bending over him.
“What, is it you, Mirza?” he asked feebly.
“Hush, sahib; I am come to save you,” was the whispered answer. “Only
do what I tell you, or both our lives will pay for it.”
Ferrers drank obediently, and as he drank his strength seemed to
return. He sat passive while the Mirza unlocked the fetters from his
ankles, and filed through the chain which fastened him to the wall,
but the thought in his mind was that now he would run through the
prison and kill any one he met. He felt strong enough to face an army.
But the Mirza’s hand was on his arm as he sprang up.
“Nay, sahib, we must go quietly. Put on the turban and garments I have
here, and hide your hands in the sleeves, for it would take too long
to file the fetters from your wrists now. Then follow me without a
word. You are my disciple, and under a vow of silence. If we meet any
one, I will speak for both.”
The authoritative tone had its effect in calming Ferrers, and he
obeyed, putting on the clothes as best he could with his trembling,
fettered hands, assisted by the Mirza, and pulling the loose sleeves
down to hide his wrists. Then the Mirza took up his lantern and
beckoned him to follow, fastening the door of the cell noiselessly as
soon as they were both outside. They passed along a corridor with
cell-doors on either side, and then through a kind of guardroom, where
several men were lounging, either asleep or only half-awake. These
saluted the Mirza, and looked with something like curiosity at his
disciple, making no objection to their passing. Then came a courtyard
which was evidently that of the common prison, for from a high-walled
building on one side came shouts and groans and cries and wild
laughter, making night more hideous even than day, and the ground was
strewn thickly with bones and all kinds of filth. The Mirza did not
turn towards the gateway, but to a corner near it, where he opened a
small door and secured it carefully again when Ferrers had passed
through. Then he led the way up a flight of stone steps and through
various passages, and finally brought his guest into a room fairly
furnished and--joy of joys!--clean.
“This house is yours, sahib,” he said, turning to him. “There are
slaves at your orders, a bath, food, clothes. I myself will dress your
wounds, since there might be danger in calling in a physician from the
town, but here for the present you are safe.”
Ferrers looked round him like one in a dream. The thing was absolutely
incredible after the squalor and brutality, the ineffectual struggles,
of the days and nights since he had been captured. “I--I don’t
understand,” he said feebly. “I thought you and I had quarrelled.”
“Am I one to forget the kindness of years in the hasty words of a
night?” asked the Mirza reproachfully. “Nay, sahib; now the time is
come for me to repay all I have ever received from you.”
“I don’t understand,” murmured Ferrers again, and reeled against the
Mirza, who laid him on a divan, and called for the servants. Still
half unconscious, the prisoner was stripped of the horrible rags he
had worn in the prison, and clothed afresh in rich native garments.
His wounds were dressed, food and cooling drinks were brought him, and
he was left to rest in comfort and security.