With them there fought who rides so free
With a sword and turban red,
The warrior-youth who earns his fee
At peril of his head.
'At peril of his head,' said Wali Dad in English to me. 'Thanks to
your Government, all our heads are protected, and with the educational
facilities at my command'--his eyes twinkled wickedly--'I might be a
distinguished member of the local administration. Perhaps, in time, I
might even be a member of a Legislative Council.'
'Don't speak English,' said Lalun, bending over her _sitar_ afresh. The
chorus went out from the City wall to the blackened wall of Fort Amara
which dominates the City. No man knows the precise extent of Fort Amara.
Three kings built it hundreds of years ago, and they say that there are
miles of underground rooms beneath its walls. It is peopled with many
ghosts, a detachment of Garrison Artillery and a Company of Infantry. In
its prime it held ten thousand men and filled its ditches with corpses.
'At peril of his head,' sang Lalun again and again.
A head moved on one of the Ramparts--the gray head of an old man--and a
voice, rough as shark-skin on a sword-hilt, sent back the last line of
the chorus and broke into a song that I could not understand, though
Lalun and Wali Dad listened intently.
'What is it?' I asked. 'Who is it?'
'A consistent man,' said Wali Dad. 'He fought you in '46, when he was
a warrior-youth; refought you in '57, and he tried to fight you in '71,
but you had learned the trick of blowing men from guns too well. Now he
is old; but he would still fight if he could.'
'Is he a Wahabi, then? Why should he answer to a Mahratta _laonee_ if he
be Wahabi--or Sikh?' said I.
'I do not know,' said Wali Dad. 'He has lost, perhaps, his religion.
Perhaps he wishes to be a King. Perhaps he is a King. I do not know his
name.'
'That is a lie, Wali Dad. If you know his career you must know his
name.'
'That is quite true. I belong to a nation of liars. I would rather not
tell you his name. Think for yourself.'
Lalun finished her song, pointed to the Fort, and said simply: 'Khem
Singh.'
'Hm,' said Wali Dad. 'If the Pearl chooses to tell you the Pearl is a
fool.'
I translated to Lalun, who laughed. 'I choose to tell what I choose to
tell. They kept Khem Singh in Burma,' said she. 'They kept him there for
many years until his mind was changed in him. So great was the kindness
of the Government. Finding this, they sent him back to his own country
that he might look upon it before he died. He is an old man, but when
he looks upon this country his memory will come. Moreover, there be many
who remember him.'
'He is an Interesting Survival,' said Wali Dad, pulling at the _huqa_.
'He returns to a country now full of educational and political reform,
but, as the Pearl says, there are many who remember him. He was once a
great man. There will never be any more great men in India. They will
all, when they are boys, go whoring after strange gods, and they will
become citizens--“fellow-citizens”--“illustrious fellow-citizens.” What
is it that the native papers call them?'
Wali Dad seemed to be in a very bad temper. Lalun looked out of the
window and smiled into the dust-haze. I went away thinking about Khem
Singh who had once made history with a thousand followers, and would
have been a princeling but for the power of the Supreme Government
aforesaid.
The Senior Captain Commanding Fort Amara was away on leave, but the
Subaltern, his Deputy, had drifted down to the Club, where I found him
and enquired of him whether it was really true that a political prisoner
had been added to the attractions of the Fort. The Sub-altern explained
at great length, for this was the first time that he had held Command of
the Fort, and his glory lay heavy upon him.
'Yes,' said he, 'a man was sent in to me about a week ago from down the
line--a thorough gentleman whoever he is. Of course I did all I could
for him. He had his two servants and some silver cooking-pots, and he
looked for all the world like a native officer. I called him Subadar
Sahib; just as well to be on the safe side, y'know. “Look here, Subadar
Sahib,” I said, “you're handed over to my authority, and I'm supposed
to guard you. Now I don't want to make your life hard, but you must make
things easy for me. All the Fort is at your disposal, from the flagstaff
to the dry ditch, and I shall be happy to entertain you in any way I
can, but you mustn't take advantage of it. Give me your word that you
won't try to escape, Subadar Sahib, and I'll give you my word that
you shall have no heavy guard put over you.” I thought the best way
of getting at him was by going at him straight, y'know; and it was,
by Jove! The old man gave me his word, and moved about the Fort as
contented as a sick crow. He's a rummy chap--always asking to be told
where he is and what the buildings about him are. I had to sign a slip
of blue paper when he turned up, acknowledging receipt of his body and
all that, and I'm responsible, y'know, that he doesn't get away. Queer
thing, though, looking after a Johnnie old enough to be your grandfather
isn't it? Come to the Fort one of these days and see him?'
For reasons which will appear, I never went to the Fort while Khem Singh
was then within its walls. I knew him only as a gray head seen from
Lalun's window--a gray head and a harsh voice. But natives told me that,
day by day, as he looked upon the fair lands round Amara, his memory
came back to him and, with it, the old hatred against the Government
that had been nearly effaced in far-off Burma. So he raged up and down
the West face of the Fort from morning till noon and from evening till
the night, devising vain things in his heart, and croaking war-songs
when Lalun sang on the City wall. As he grew more acquainted with the
Subaltern he unburdened his old heart of some of the passions that had
withered it. 'Sahib,' he used to say, tapping his stick against the
parapet, 'when I was a young man I was one of twenty thousand horsemen
who came out of the City and rode round the plain here. Sahib, I was
the leader of a hundred, then of a thousand, then of five thousand, and
now!'--he pointed to his two servants. 'But from the beginning to to-day
I would cut the throats of all the Sahibs in the land if I could. Hold
me fast, Sahib, lest I get away and return to those who would follow me.
I forgot them when I was in Burma, but now that I am in my own country
again, I remember everything.'
'Do you remember that you have given me your Honour not to make your
tendance a hard matter?' said the Subaltern.
'Yes, to you, only to you, Sahib,' said Khem Singh. 'To you because you
are of a pleasant countenance. If my turn comes again, Sahib, I will not
hang you nor cut your throat.'
'Thank you,' said the Subaltern gravely, as he looked along the line
of guns that could pound the City to powder in half an hour. 'Let us go
into our own quarters, Khem Singh. Come and talk with me after dinner.'
Khem Singh would sit on his own cushion at the Subaltern's feet,
drinking heavy, scented anise-seed brandy in great gulps, and telling
strange stories of Fort Amara, which had been a palace in the old days,
of Begums and Ranees tortured to death--aye, in the very vaulted chamber
that now served as a Mess-room; would tell stories of Sobraon that made
the Subaltern's cheeks flush and tingle with pride of race, and of the
Kuka rising from which so much was expected and the foreknowledge of
which was shared by a hundred thousand souls. But he never told tales of
'57 because, as he said, he was the Subaltern's guest, and '57 is a
year that no man, Black or White, cares to speak of. Once only, when
the anise-seed brandy had slightly affected his head, he said: 'Sahib,
speaking now of a matter which lay between Sobraon and the affair of the
Kukas, it was ever a wonder to us that you stayed your hand at all, and
that, having stayed it, you did not make the land one prison. Now I hear
from without that you do great honour to all men of our country and
by your own hands are destroying the Terror of your Name which is your
strong rock and defence. This is a foolish thing. Will oil and water
mix? Now in '57--'
'I was not born then, Subadar Sahib,' said the Subaltern, and Khem Singh
reeled to his quarters.
The Subaltern would tell me of these conversations at the Club, and
my desire to see Khem Singh increased. But Wali Dad, sitting in the
window-seat of the house on the City wall, said that it would be a
cruel thing to do, and Lalun pretended that I preferred the society of a
grizzled old Sikh to hers.
'Here is tobacco, here is talk, here are many friends and all the news
of the City, and, above all, here is myself. I will tell you stories
and sing you songs, and Wali Dad will talk his English nonsense in your
ears. Is that worse than watching the caged animal yonder? Go to-morrow,
then, if you must, but to-day such and such an one will be here, and he
will speak of wonderful things.'
It happened that To-morrow never came, and the warm heat of the latter
Rains gave place to the chill of early October almost before I was aware
of the flight of the year. The Captain commanding the Fort returned
from leave and took over charge of Khem Singh according to the laws
of seniority. The Captain was not a nice man. He called all natives
'niggers,' which, besides being extreme bad form, shows gross ignorance.
'What's the use of telling off two Tommies to watch that old nigger?'
said he.
'I fancy it soothes his vanity,' said the Subaltern. 'The men are
ordered to keep well out of his way, but he takes them as a tribute to
his importance, poor old wretch.'
'I won't have Line men taken off regular guards in this way. Put on a
couple of Native Infantry.'
'Sikhs?' said the Subaltern, lifting his eyebrows.
'Sikhs, Pathans, Dogras--they're all alike, these black vermin,' and the
Captain talked to Khem Singh in a manner which hurt that old gentleman's
feelings. Fifteen years before, when he had been caught for the second
time, every one looked upon him as a sort of tiger. He liked being
regarded in this light. But he forgot that the world goes forward in
fifteen years, and many Subalterns are promoted to Captaincies.
'The Captain-pig is in charge of the Fort?' said Khem Singh to his
native guard every morning. And the native guard said: 'Yes, Subadar
Sahib,' in deference to his age and his air of distinction; but they did
not know who he was.
In those days the gathering in Lalun's little white room was always
large and talked more than before.
'The Greeks,' said Wali Dad who had been borrowing my books, 'the
inhabitants of the city of Athens, where they were always hearing and
telling some new thing, rigorously secluded their women--who were fools.
Hence the glorious institution of the heterodox women--is it not?--who
were amusing and _not_ fools. All the Greek philosophers delighted in
their company. Tell me, my friend, how it goes now in Greece and the
other places upon the Continent of Europe. Are your women-folk also
fools?'
'Wali Dad,' I said, 'you never speak to us about your women-folk and we
never speak about ours to you. That is the bar between us.'
'Yes,' said Wali Dad, 'it is curious to think that our common
meeting-place should be here, in the house of a common--how do you call
_her_?' He pointed with the pipe-mouth to Lalun.
'Lalun is nothing but Lalun,' I said, and that was perfectly true. 'But
if you took your place in the world, Wali Dad, and gave up dreaming
dreams--'
'I might wear an English coat and trouser. I might be a leading
Muhammadan pleader. I might be received even at the Commissioner's
tennis-parties where the English stand on one side and the natives on
the other, in order to promote social intercourse throughout the Empire.
Heart's Heart,' said he to Lalun quickly, 'the Sahib says that I ought to
quit you.'
'The Sahib is always talking stupid talk,' returned Lalun with a laugh.
'In this house I am a Queen and thou art a King. The Sahib'--she put her
arms above her head and thought for a moment--'the Sahib shall be our
Vizier--thine and mine, Wali Dad--because he has said that thou shouldst
leave me.'
Wali Dad laughed immoderately, and I laughed too. 'Be it so,' said
he. 'My friend, are you willing to take this lucrative Government
appointment? Lalun, what shall his pay be?'
But Lalun began to sing, and for the rest of the time there was no hope
of getting a sensible answer from her or Wali Dad. When the one stopped,
the other began to quote Persian poetry with a triple pun in every other
line. Some of it was not strictly proper, but it was all very funny,
and it only came to an end when a fat person in black, with gold
_pince-nez_, sent up his name to Lalun, and Wali Dad dragged me into
the twinkling night to walk in a big rose-garden and talk heresies about
Religion and Governments and a man's career in life.
The Mohurrum, the great mourning-festival of the Muhammadans, was close
at hand, and the things that Wali Dad said about religious fanaticism
would have secured his expulsion from the loosest-thinking Muslim sect.
There were the rose-bushes round us, the stars above us, and from every
quarter of the City came the boom of the big Mohurrum drums. You must
know that the City is divided in fairly equal proportions between the
Hindus and the Musalmans, and where both creeds belong to the fighting
races, a big religious festival gives ample chance for trouble. When
they can--that is to say when the authorities are weak enough to allow
it--the Hindus do their best to arrange some minor feast-day of their
own in time to clash with the period of general mourning for the martyrs
Hasan and Hussain, the heroes of the Mohurrum. Gilt and painted paper
presentations of their tombs are borne with shouting and wailing, music,
torches, and yells, through the principal thoroughfares of the City,
which fakements are called _tazias_. Their passage is rigorously laid
down beforehand by the Police, and detachments of Police accompany each
_tazia_, lest the Hindus should throw bricks at it and the peace of
the Queen and the heads of Her loyal subjects should thereby be broken.
Mohurrum time in a 'fighting' town means anxiety to all the officials,
because, if a riot breaks out, the officials and not the rioters are
held responsible. The former must foresee everything, and while not
making their precautions ridiculously elaborate, must see that they are
at least adequate.
'Listen to the drums!' said Wali Dad. 'That is the heart of the
people--empty and making much noise. How, think you, will the Mohurrum
go this year? _I_ think that there will be trouble.'
He turned down a side-street and left me alone with the stars and a
sleepy Police patrol. Then I went to bed and dreamed that Wali Dad had
sacked the City and I was made Vizier, with Lalun's silver _huqa_ for
mark of office.
All day the Mohurrum drums beat in the City, and all day deputations of
tearful Hindu gentlemen besieged the Deputy Commissioner with assurances
that they would be murdered ere next dawning by the Muhammadans.
'Which,' said the Deputy Commissioner, in confidence to the Head of
Police, 'is a pretty fair indication that the Hindus are going to make
'emselves unpleasant. I think we can arrange a little surprise for them.
I have given the heads of both Creeds fair warning. If they choose to
disregard it, so much the worse for them.'
There was a large gathering in Lalun's house that night, but of men that
I had never seen before, if I except the fat gentleman in black with
the gold _pince-nez_. Wali Dad lay in the window-seat, more bitterly
scornful of his Faith and its manifestations than I had ever known him.
Lalun's maid was very busy cutting up and mixing tobacco for the guests.
We could hear the thunder of the drums as the processions accompanying
each _tazia_ marched to the central gathering-place in the plain outside
the City, preparatory to their triumphant re-entry and circuit within
the walls. All the streets seemed ablaze with torches, and only Fort
Amara was black and silent.
When the noise of the drums ceased, no one in the white room spoke for
a time. 'The first _tazia_ has moved off,' said Wali Dad, looking to the
plain.
'That is very early,' said the man with the _pince-nez_.
'It is only half-past eight.' The company rose and departed.
'Some of them were men from Ladakh,' said Lalun, when the last had gone.
'They brought me brick-tea such as the Russians sell, and a tea-urn from
Peshawur. Show me, now, how the English _Memsahibs_ make tea.'
The brick-tea was abominable. When it was finished Wali Dad suggested
going into the streets. 'I am nearly sure that there will be trouble
to-night,' he said. 'All the City thinks so, and _Vox Populi_ is
_Vox Dei_, as the Babus say. Now I tell you that at the corner of the
Padshahi Gate you will find my horse all this night if you want to go
about and to see things. It is a most disgraceful exhibition. Where is
the pleasure of saying “_Ya Hasan, Ya Hussain_,” twenty thousand times
in a night?'
All the processions--there were two and twenty of them--were now well
within the City walls. The drums were beating afresh, the crowd were
howling '_Ya Hasan! Ya Hussain!_' and beating their breasts, the brass
bands were playing their loudest, and at every corner where space
allowed, Muhammadan preachers were telling the lamentable story of the
death of the Martyrs. It was impossible to move except with the crowd,
for the streets were not more than twenty feet wide. In the Hindu
quarters the shutters of all the shops were up and cross-barred. As the
first _tazia_, a gorgeous erection ten feet high, was borne aloft on the
shoulders of a score of stout men into the semi-darkness of the Gully of
the Horsemen, a brickbat crashed through its talc and tinsel sides.
'Into thy hands, O Lord?' murmured Wali Dad profanely, as a yell went up
from behind, and a native officer of Police jammed his horse through the
crowd. Another brickbat followed, and the _tazia_ staggered and swayed
where it had stopped.
'Go on! In the name of the _Sirkar_, go forward!' shouted the Policeman;
but there was an ugly cracking and splintering of shutters, and the
crowd halted, with oaths and growlings, before the house whence the
brickbat had been thrown.
Then, without any warning, broke the storm--not only in the Gully of
the Horsemen, but in half a dozen other places. The _tazias_ rocked like
ships at sea, the long pole-torches dipped and rose round them while the
men shouted: 'The Hindus are dishonouring the _tazias!_ Strike! Strike!
Into their temples for the faith!' The six or eight Policemen with each
_tazia_ drew their batons, and struck as long as they could in the
hope of forcing the mob forward, but they were overpowered, and as
contingents of Hindus poured into the streets, the fight became general.
Half a mile away where the _tazias_ were yet untouched the drums and the
shrieks of '_Ya Hasanl Ya Hussain!_' continued, but not for long.
The priests at the corners of the streets knocked the legs from the
bedsteads that supported their pulpits and smote for the Faith, while
stones fell from the silent houses upon friend and foe, and the packed
streets bellowed: '_Din! Din! Din!_' A _tazia_ caught fire, and was
dropped for a flaming barrier between Hindu and Musalman at the corner
of the Gully. Then the crowd surged forward, and Wali Dad drew me close
to the stone pillar of a well.
'It was intended from the beginning!' he shouted in my ear, with more
heat than blank unbelief should be guilty of. 'The bricks were carried
up to the houses beforehand. These swine of Hindus! We shall be gutting
kine in their temples to-night!'
_Tazia_ after _tazia_, some burning, others torn to pieces, hurried past
us and the mob with them, howling, shrieking, and striking at the house
doors in their flight. At last we saw the reason of the rush. Hugonin,
the Assistant District Superintendent of Police, a boy of twenty, had
got together thirty constables and was forcing the crowd through the
streets. His old gray Police-horse showed no sign of uneasiness as it
was spurred breast-on into the crowd, and the long dog-whip with which
he had armed himself was never still.
'They know we haven't enough Police to hold 'em,' he cried as he passed
me, mopping a cut on his face. 'They _know_ we haven't! Aren't any of
the men from the Club coming down to help? Get on, you sons of burnt
fathers!' The dog-whip cracked across the writhing backs, and the
constables smote afresh with baton and gun-butt. With these passed the
lights and the shouting, and Wali Dad began to swear under his breath.
From Fort Amara shot up a single rocket; then two side by side. It was
the signal for troops.
Petitt, the Deputy Commissioner, covered with dust and sweat, but calm
and gently smiling, cantered up the clean-swept street in rear of the
main body of the rioters. 'No one killed yet,' he shouted. 'I'll keep
'em on the run till dawn! Don't let 'em halt, Hugonin! Trot 'em about
till the troops come.'
The science of the defence lay solely in keeping the mob on the move. If
they had breathing-space they would halt and fire a house, and then the
work of restoring order would be more difficult, to say the least of it.
Flames have the same effect on a crowd as blood has on a wild beast.
Word had reached the Club and men in evening-dress were beginning to
show themselves and lend a hand in heading off and breaking up the
shouting masses with stirrup-leathers, whips, or chance-found staves.
They were not very often attacked, for the rioters had sense enough to
know that the death of a European would not mean one hanging but many,
and possibly the appearance of the thrice-dreaded Artillery. The clamour
in the City redoubled. The Hindus had descended into the streets in real
earnest and ere long the mob returned. It was a strange sight. There
were no _tazias_--only their riven platforms--and there were no Police.
Here and there a City dignitary, Hindu or Muhammadan, was
vainly imploring his co-religionists to keep quiet and behave
themselves--advice for which his white beard was pulled. Then a native
officer of Police, unhorsed but still using his spurs with effect, would
be borne along, warning all the crowd of the danger of insulting the
Government. Everywhere men struck aimlessly with sticks, grasping each
other by the throat, howling and foaming with rage, or beat with their
bare hands on the doors of the houses.
'It is a lucky thing that they are fighting with natural weapons,' I
said to Wali Dad, 'else we should have half the City killed.'
I turned as I spoke and looked at his face. His nostrils were distended,
his eyes were fixed, and he was smiting himself softly on the breast.
The crowd poured by with renewed riot--a gang of Musalmans hard-pressed
by some hundred Hindu fanatics. Wali Dad left my side with an oath, and
shouting: '_Ya Hasan! Ya Hussain!_' plunged into the thick of the fight
where I lost sight of him.
I fled by a side alley to the Padshahi Gate where I found Wali Dad's
house, and thence rode to the Fort. Once outside the City wall,
the tumult sank to a dull roar, very impressive under the stars and
reflecting great credit on the fifty thousand angry able-bodied men who
were making it. The troops who, at the Deputy Commissioner's instance,
had been ordered to rendezvous quietly near the fort, showed no signs of
being impressed. Two companies of Native Infantry, a squadron of Native
Cavalry and a company of British Infantry were kicking their heels in
the shadow of the East face, waiting for orders to march in. I am sorry
to say that they were all pleased, unholily pleased, at the chance
of what they called 'a little fun.' The senior officers, to be sure,
grumbled at having been kept out of bed, and the English troops
pretended to be sulky, but there was joy in the hearts of all
the subalterns, and whispers ran up and down the line: 'No
ball-cartridge--what a beastly shame!' 'D'you think the beggars will
really stand up to us?' ''Hope I shall meet my money-lender there. I
owe him more than I can afford.' 'Oh, they won't let us even unsheathe
swords.' 'Hurrah! Up goes the fourth rocket. Fall in, there!'
The Garrison Artillery, who to the last cherished a wild hope that they
might be allowed to bombard the City at a hundred yards' range, lined
the parapet above the East gateway and cheered themselves hoarse as the
British Infantry doubled along the road to the Main Gate of the City.
The Cavalry cantered on to the Padshahi Gate, and the Native Infantry
marched slowly to the Gate of the Butchers. The surprise was intended to
be of a distinctly unpleasant nature, and to come on top of the defeat
of the Police who had been just able to keep the Muhammadans from firing
the houses of a few leading Hindus. The bulk of the riot lay in the
north and north-west wards. The east and south-east were by this time
dark and silent, and I rode hastily to Lalun's house for I wished
to tell her to send some one in search of Wali Dad. The house was
unlighted, but the door was open, and I climbed upstairs in the
darkness. One small lamp in the white room showed Lalun and her maid
leaning half out of the window, breathing heavily and evidently pulling
at something that refused to come.
'Thou art late--very late,' gasped Lalun without turning her head. 'Help
us now, O Fool, if thou hast not spent thy strength howling among the
_tazias_. Pull! Nasiban and I can do no more! O Sahib, is it you? The
Hindus have been hunting an old Muhammadan round the Ditch with clubs.
If they find him again they will kill him. Help us to pull him up.'
I put my hands to the long red silk waist-cloth that was hanging out of
the window, and we three pulled and pulled with all the strength at our
command. There was something very heavy at the end, and it swore in an
unknown tongue as it kicked against the City wall.
'Pull, oh, pull!' said Lalun at the last. A pair of brown hands grasped
the window-sill and a venerable Muhammadan tumbled upon the floor, very
much out of breath. His jaws were tied up, his turban had fallen over
one eye, and he was dusty and angry.
Lalun hid her face in her hands for an instant and said something about
Wali Dad that I could not catch.
Then, to my extreme gratification, she threw her arms round my neck
and murmured pretty things. I was in no haste to stop her; and Nasiban,
being a handmaiden of tact, turned to the big jewel-chest that stands
in the corner of the white room and rummaged among the contents. The
Muhammadan sat on the floor and glared.
'One service more, Sahib, since thou hast come so opportunely,' said
Lalun. 'Wilt thou'--it is very nice to be thou-ed by Lalun--'take this
old man across the City--the troops are everywhere, and they might hurt
him for he is old--to the Kumharsen Gate? There I think he may find
a carriage to take him to his house. He is a friend of mine, and thou
art--more than a friend--therefore I ask this.'
Nasiban bent over the old man, tucked something into his belt, and I
raised him up, and led him into the streets.
In crossing from the east to the west of the City there was no chance
of avoiding the troops and the crowd. Long before I reached the Gully
of the Horsemen I heard the shouts of the British Infantry crying
cheeringly: 'Hutt, ye beggars! Hutt, ye devils! Get along! Go forward,
there!' Then followed the ringing of rifle-butts and shrieks of
pain. The troops were banging the bare toes of the mob with their
gun-butts--for not a bayonet had been fixed. My companion mumbled and
jabbered as we walked on until we were carried back by the crowd and
had to force our way to the troops. I caught him by the wrist and felt a
bangle there--the iron bangle of the Sikhs--but I had no suspicions, for
Lalun had only ten minutes before put her arms round me. Thrice we were
carried back by the crowd, and when we made our way past the British
Infantry it was to meet the Sikh Cavalry driving another mob before them
with the butts of their lances.
'What are these dogs?' said the old man.
'Sikhs of the Cavalry, Father,' I said, and we edged our way up the
line of horses two abreast and found the Deputy Commissioner, his helmet
smashed on his head, surrounded by a knot of men who had come down from
the Club as amateur constables and had helped the Police mightily.
'We'll keep 'em on the run till dawn,' said Petitt. 'Who's your
villainous friend?'
I had only time to say:' The Protection of the _Sirkar!_' when a fresh
crowd flying before the Native Infantry carried us a hundred yards
nearer to the Kumharsen Gate, and Petitt was swept away like a shadow.
'I do not know--I cannot see--this is all new to me!' moaned my
companion. 'How many troops are there in the City?'
'Perhaps five hundred,' I said.
'A lakh of men beaten by five hundred--and Sikhs among them! Surely,
surely, I am an old man, but--the Kumharsen Gate is new. Who pulled down
the stone lions? Where is the conduit? Sahib, I am a very old man, and,
alas, I--I cannot stand.' He dropped in the shadow of the Kumharsen Gate
where there was no disturbance. A fat gentleman wearing gold _pince-nez_
came out of the darkness.
'You are most kind to my old friend,' he said suavely. 'He is a
landholder of Akala. He should not be in a big City when there is
religious excitement. But I have a carriage here. You are quite truly
kind. Will you help me to put him into the carriage? It is very late.'
We bundled the old man into a hired victoria that stood close to the
gate, and I turned back to the house on the City wall. The troops
were driving the people to and fro, while the Police shouted, 'To your
houses! Get to your houses!' and the dog-whip of the Assistant District
Superintendent cracked remorselessly. Terror-stricken _bunnias_ clung
to the stirrups of the cavalry, crying that their houses had been
robbed (which was a lie), and the burly Sikh horsemen patted them on the
shoulder, and bade them return to those houses lest a worse thing should
happen. Parties of five or six British soldiers, joining arms, swept
down the side-gullies, their rifles on their backs, stamping, with
shouting and song, upon the toes of Hindu and Musalman. Never was
religious enthusiasm more systematically squashed; and never were poor
breakers of the peace more utterly weary and footsore. They were routed
out of holes and corners, from behind well-pillars and byres, and bidden
to go to their houses. If they had no houses to go to, so much the worse
for their toes.
On returning to Lalun's door I stumbled over a man at the threshold. He
was sobbing hysterically and his arms flapped like the wings of a goose.
It was Wali Dad, Agnostic and Unbeliever, shoeless, turbanless, and
frothing at the mouth, the flesh on his chest bruised and bleeding from
the vehemence with which he had smitten himself. A broken torch-handle
lay by his side, and his quivering lips murmured, '_Ya Hasan! Ya
Hussain!_' as I stooped over him. I pushed him a few steps up the
staircase, threw a pebble at Lalun's City window and hurried home.
Most of the streets were very still, and the cold wind that comes before
the dawn whistled down them. In the centre of the Square of the Mosque a
man was bending over a corpse. The skull had been smashed in by gun-butt
or bamboo-stave.
'It is expedient that one man should die for the people,' said Petitt
grimly, raising the shapeless head. 'These brutes were beginning to show
their teeth too much.'
And from afar we could hear the soldiers singing 'Two Lovely Black
Eyes,' as they drove the remnant of the rioters within doors.
Of course you can guess what happened? I was not so clever. When the
news went abroad that Khem Singh had escaped from the Fort, I did not,
since I was then living this story, not writing it, connect myself,
or Lalun, or the fat gentleman with the gold _pince-nez_, with his
disappearance. Nor did it strike me that Wali Dad was the man who should
have convoyed him across the City, or that Lalun's arms round my neck
were put there to hide the money that Nasiban gave to Khem Singh, and
that Lalun had used me and my white face as even a better safeguard than
Wali Dad who proved himself so untrustworthy. All that I knew at the
time was that, when Fort Amara was taken up with the riots, Khem Singh
profited by the confusion to get away, and that his two Sikh guards also
escaped.
But later on I received full enlightenment; and so did Khem Singh. He
fled to those who knew him in the old days, but many of them were
dead and more were changed, and all knew something of the Wrath of the
Government. He went to the young men, but the glamour of his name had
passed away, and they were entering native regiments of Government
offices, and Khem Singh could give them neither pension, decorations,
nor influence--nothing but a glorious death with their backs to the
mouth of a gun. He wrote letters and made promises, and the letters fell
into bad hands, and a wholly insignificant subordinate officer of Police
tracked them down and gained promotion thereby. Moreover, Khem Singh
was old, and anise-seed brandy was scarce, and he had left his silver
cooking-pots in Fort Amara with his nice warm bedding, and the gentleman
with the gold _pince-nez_ was told by those who had employed him that
Khem Singh as a popular leader was not worth the money paid.
'Great is the mercy of these fools of English!' said Khem Singh when the
situation was put before him. 'I will go back to Fort Amara of my own
free will and gain honour. Give me good clothes to return in.'
So, at his own time, Khem Singh knocked at the wicket-gate of the Fort
and walked to the Captain and the Subaltern, who were nearly gray-headed
on account of correspondence that daily arrived from Simla marked
'Private.'
'I have come back, Captain Sahib,' said Khem Singh.
'Put no more guards over me. It is no good out yonder.'
A week later I saw him for the first time to my knowledge, and he made
as though there were an understanding between us.
'It was well done, Sahib,' said he, 'and greatly I admired your
astuteness in thus boldly facing the troops when I, whom they would
have doubtless torn to pieces, was with you. Now there is a man in Fort
Ooltagarh whom a bold man could with ease help to escape. This is the
position of the Fort as I draw it on the sand--'
But I was thinking how I had become Lalun's Vizier after all.