IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE
A rambling, many-storied building, a jumbled mass of no particular design
or style of architecture, with blue-washed walls and close-latticed
windows, an insanitary rabbit-warren of intricate passages, unexpected
courtyards, hidden gardens, and crazy tenements kennelling a small army of
servants, retainers, and indefinable hangers-on--such was the palace of the
Rajah of Lalpuri. Here and there, by carved doors or iron-studded gates
half off their hinges, lounged purposeless sentries, barefooted, clad in
old and dirty red coatees, white cross-belts and ragged blue trousers. They
leant on rusty, muzzle-loading muskets purchased from "John Company" in
pre-Mutiny years, and their uniforms were modelled on those worn by the
Company's native troops before the days of Chillianwallah.
The outer courtyard swarmed with a mob of beggars, panders, traders,
servants, and idlers, through which occasionally a ramshackle carriage
drawn by galled ponies, their broken harness tied with rope, and conveying
some Palace official, made its way with difficulty. Sometimes the vehicle
was closely shuttered or shrouded with white cotton sheets and contained
some high-caste lady or brazen, jewel-decked wanton of the Court.
On one side were the tumble-down stables, near which a squealing white
stallion with long, red-dyed tail was tied to a _peepul_ tree. Its rider, a
blue-coated _sowar_, or cavalryman, with bare feet thrust into heelless
native slippers, sat on the ground near it smoking a hubble-bubble. A
chorus of neighing answered his screaming horse from the filthy stalls,
outside which stood foul-smelling manure-heaps, around which mangy pariah
dogs nosed. In the blazing sun a couple of hooded hunting-cheetahs lay
panting on the bullock-cart to which they were chained.
The Palace stood in the heart of the city of Lalpuri, a maze of narrow,
malodorous streets off which ran still narrower and fouler lanes. The
gaudily-painted houses, many stories high, with wooden balconies and
projecting windows, were interspersed with ruinous palm-thatched bamboo
huts and grotesquely decorated temples filled with fat priests and hideous,
ochre-daubed gods, and noisy with the incessant blare of conch shells and
the jangling of bells. Lalpuri was a byword throughout India and was known
to its contemptuous neighbours as the City of Harlots and Thieves. Poverty,
debauchery, and crime were rife. Justice was a mockery; corruption and
abuses flourished everywhere. A just magistrate or an honourable official
was as hard to find as an honest citizen or a virtuous woman.
Like people, like rulers. The State had been founded by a Mahratta
free-booter in the days when the Pindaris swept across Hindustan from
Poona almost to Calcutta. His successor at the time of the Mutiny was a
clever rascal, who refused to commit himself openly against the British
while secretly protesting his devotion to their enemies. He balanced
himself adroitly on the fence until it was evident which side would
prove victorious. When Delhi fell and the mutineers were scattered, he
offered a refuge in his palace to certain rebel princes and leaders
who were fleeing with their treasures and loot to Burmah. But the
treacherous scoundrel seized the money and valuables and handed the
owners over to the Government of India.
The present occupant of the _gadi_--which is the Hindustani equivalent of a
throne--was far from being an improvement on his predecessors. He exceeded
them in viciousness, though much their inferior in ability. As a rule the
Indian reigning princes of today--and especially those educated at the
splendid Rajkumar College, or Princes' School--are an honour to their high
lineage and the races from which they spring. In peace they devote
themselves to the welfare of their subjects, and in war many of them have
fought gallantly for the Empire and all have given their treasures or their
troops loyally and generously to their King-Emperor.
The Rajah of Lalpuri was an exception--and a bad one. Although not thirty
years of age he had plumbed the lowest depths of vice and debauchery.
Cruelty and treachery were his most marked characteristics, lust and liquor
his ruling passions.
Of Mahratta descent he was of course a Hindu. While in drunken moments
professing himself an atheist and blaspheming the gods, yet when
suffering from illness caused by his excesses he was a prey to
superstitious fears and as wax in the hands of his Brahmin priests.
Although his territory was small and unimportant, yet the ownership of
a Bengal coalfield and the judicious investment by his father of the
treasure stolen from the rebel princes in profitable Western enterprises
ensured him an income greater than that enjoyed by many far more
important maharajahs. But his revenue was never sufficient for his
needs, and he ground down his wretched subjects with oppressive taxes
to furnish him with still more money to waste in his vices. All men
marvelled that the Government of India allowed such a debauchee and
wastrel to remain on the _gadi_. But it is a long-suffering Government
and loth to interfere with the rulers of the native states. However,
matters were fast reaching a crisis when the Viceroy and his advisers
would be forced to consider whether they should allow this degenerate to
continue to misgovern his State. This the Rajah realised, and it filled
him with feelings of hostility and disloyalty to the Suzerain Power.
But the real ruler of Lalpuri State was the _Dewan_ or Prime Minister, a
clever, ambitious, and unscrupulous Bengali Brahmin, endowed with all the
talent for intrigue and chicanery of his race and caste as well as with
their hatred of the British. He had persuaded himself that the English
dominion in India was coming to an end and was ready to do all in his power
to hasten the event. For he secretly nourished the design of deposing the
Rajah and making himself the nominal as well as the virtual ruler of the
State, and he knew that the British would not permit this. His was the
brain that had conceived the project of uniting the disloyal elements of
Bengal with the foreign foes of the Government of India, and he was the
leader of the disaffected and the chief of the conspirators.
When Chunerbutty arrived in Lalpuri he rode with difficulty through the
crowded, narrow streets. His sun-helmet and European dress earned him
hostile glances and open insults, and more than one foul gibe was hurled at
him as he went along by some who imagined him from his dark face and
English clothes to be a half-caste. For the native, however humble, hates
and despises the man of mixed breed.
When he reached the Palace he made his way through the throng of beggars,
touts, and hangers-on in the outer courtyard, and, passing the sentries,
all of whom recognised him, entered the building. Through the maze of
passages and courts he penetrated to the room occupied by his father in
virtue of his appointment in the Rajah's service.
He found the old man sitting cross-legged on a mat in the dirty, almost
bare apartment. He was chewing betel-nut and spitting the red juice into a
pot. He looked up as his son entered.
Among the other out-of-date customs and silly superstitions that the
younger Chunerbutty boasted of having freed himself from, were the
respect and regard due to parents--usually deep-rooted in all races of
India, and indeed of the East generally. So without any salutation or
greeting he sat down on the one ricketty chair that the room contained,
and said ill-temperedly:
"Here I am, having ridden miles in the heat and endured discomfort for
some absurd whim of thine. Why didst thou send for me? I told thee never
to do so unless the matter were very important. I had to eat abuse from
that drunken Welshman to get permission to come. I had to swear that
thou wert on the point of death. Then he consented, but only because, as
he said, I might catch thy illness and die too. May jackals dig him from
his grave and devour his corpse!"
As the father and son sat confronting each other the contrast between them
was significant of the old Bengal and the new. The silly, light-minded
girls in England who had found the younger man's attractions irresistible
and raved over his dark skin and the fascinating suggestion of the Orient
in him, should have seen the pair now. The son, ultra-English in his
costume, from his sun-hat to his riding-breeches and gaiters, and the old
Bengali, ridiculously like him in features, despite his shaven crown with
one oiled scalp-lock, his bulbous nose and flabby cheeks, and teeth stained
red by betel-chewing. On his forehead were painted three white horizontal
strokes, the mark of the worshippers of Siva the Destroyer. His only
garment was a dirty old _dhoti_ tied round his fat, naked paunch.
He grinned at his son's ill-temper and replied briefly:
"The Rajah wishes to see thee, son."
"Why? Is there anything new?"
"I do not know. Thou art angry at being torn from the side of the English
girl. Art thou to marry her? Why not be satisfied to wed one of thine own
countrywomen?"
The younger man spat contemptuously.
"I would not be content with a fat Hindu cow after having known English
girls. Thou shouldest see those of London, old man. How they love us of
dark skin and believe our tales that we are Indian princes!"
The father leered unpleasantly.
"Thou hast often told me that these white women are shameless. Is it
needful to pay the price of marriage to possess this one?"
"I want her, if only to anger the white men among whom I live," replied his
son sullenly. "Like all the English out here they hate to see their women
marry us black men."
"There is a white man in the Palace who is not like that."
"A white man in the Palace?" echoed his son. "Who is he? What does he
here?"
"A Parliamentary-_wallah_, who is visiting India and will go back to tell
the English monkeys in his country what we are not. He comes here with
letters from the _Lat Sahib_."
"From the Viceroy?"
"Yes; thou knowest that any fool from their Parliament holds a whip over
the back of the _Lat Sahib_ and all the white men in this land. This one
hath no love for his own country."
"How knowest thou that?"
"Because the _Dewan Sahib_ loves him. Any foe of England is as welcome to
the _Dewan_ as the monsoon rain to the _ryot_ whose crops are dying of
drought. Thou wilt see this one, for he is ever with the _Dewan_, who has
ordered that thou goest to him before seeing the Rajah.
"Ordered? I am sick of his orders," replied the son, petulantly. "Am I his
dog that he should order me? I am not a Lalpuri now. I am a British
subject."
"Thy father eats the Rajah's salt. Thou forgettest that the _Dewan_ found
the money to send thee across the Black Water to learn thy trade."
The younger man frowned discontentedly.
"Well, I see not the colour of his money now. Why should I obey him? I will
not."
"Softly, softly, son. There be many knives in the bazaars of the city that
will seek out any man's heart at the _Dewan's_ bidding. Thou art a man of
Lalpuri still."
His son rose discontentedly from his chair.
"_Kali_ smite him with smallpox. I suppose it were better to see what he
wants. I shall go."
Admitted to the presence of the _Dewan_, Chunerbutty's defiant manner
dropped from him, for he had always held that official in awe. His swagger
vanished; he bent low and his hand went up to his head in a salaam. The
Premier of the State, a wrinkled old Brahmin, was seated on the ground
propped up by white bolsters, with a small table, a foot high, crowded with
papers in front of him. He was dressed simply and plainly in white cotton
garments, a small coloured _puggri_ covering his shaved head. Although
reputed the possessor of finer jewels than the Rajah he wore no ornaments.
Sprawling in an easy chair opposite him was a fat European in a tight white
linen suit buttoned up to the neck. He evidently felt the heat acutely, and
with a large coloured handkerchief he incessantly wiped his red face, down
which the sweat rolled in oily drops, and mopped his bald head.
When Chunerbutty entered the apartment the _Dewan_, without any greeting
indicated him, saying:
"This, Mr. Macgregor, is an example of what all we Indians shall be when
relieved of the tyranny of British officials and allowed to govern
ourselves."
His English was perfect.
The bearer of the historic Highland name, whose appearance suggested rather
a Hebrew patronymic, removed from his mouth the cigar that he was smoking
and asked in a guttural voice:
"Who is the young man?"
The _Dewan_ briefly explained, then, turning to Chunerbutty, he said:
"This is Mr. Donald Macgregor, M.P., a member of the Labour Party and a
true friend of India. You may speak freely before him. Sit down."
The engineer looked around in vain for another chair. The _Dewan_ said
sharply in Bengali, using the familiar, and in this case contemptuous,
"thou":
"Sit on the floor, as thy fathers before thee have done, as thou didst
thyself before thou began to think thyself an Englishman and despise thy
country and its ways."
Chunerbutty collapsed and sat down hastily on a mat. Then in English the
_Dewan_ continued:
"Have you any news?"
"No; I have forwarded as they came all letters and messengers from Bhutan.
The troops--" He stopped and looked at the Member of Parliament.
"Continue. There is no need of secrecy before Mr. Macgregor," said the
_Dewan_. "I have said that he is a friend of India."
"It's all right, my boy," added the Hebrew Highlander encouragingly. "I am
a Pacifist and a socialist. I don't hold with soldiers or with keeping
coloured races enslaved. 'England for English and India for the Indians' is
my motto."
"Well, I have already informed you that there is no truth in the reports
that troops were to be sent again to Buxa Duar," said Chunerbutty,
reassured. "On the frontier there are only the two hundred Military Police
at Ranga Duar. They are Punjaubi Mohammedans. I made the acquaintance of
the officer commanding them last night."
"Ah! What is he like?" enquired the _Dewan_, interested.
"Inquisitive, but a fool--like all these officers," replied the engineer
contemptuously. "He noticed Narain Dass on our garden and saw that he was a
Bengali. He learned that others of us were employed on our estate and was
surprised that Brahmins should do coolie work. But he suspected nothing."
"You are sure?" asked the _Dewan_.
"Quite certain."
The _Dewan_ shook his head doubtfully.
"These English officers are not always the fools they seem," he observed.
"We must keep an eye on this inquisitive person. Now, how goes the work
among the garden coolies? Are they ripe for revolt?"
"Not yet on all the estates. They are ignorant cattle, and to them the
Motherland means nothing. But on our garden our greatest helper is the
manager, a drunken bully. He ill-treats the coolies and nearly kicked one
to death the other day."
"That's how the Englishman always treats the native, isn't it?" asked the
Hebrew representative of an English constituency.
"Always and everywhere," replied the engineer unhesitatingly, wondering if
Macgregor were really fool enough to believe the libel, which one day's
experience in India should have shown him to be false. But this foreign Jew
turned Scotchman hated the country of his adoption, as only these gentry
do, and was ready to believe any lie against it and eager to do all in his
power to injure it.
The _Dewan_ said:
"Mr. Macgregor has been sent to tell us that his party pledges itself to
help us in Parliament."
"Yes, you need have no fear. We'll see that justice is done you," began the
politician in his best tub-thumping manner. "We Socialists and Communists
are determined to put an end to tyranny and oppression, whether of the
downtrodden slaves of Capitalism at home or our coloured brothers abroad.
The British working-man wants no colonies, no India. He is determined to
change everything in England and do away with all above him--kings, lords,
aristocrats, and the _bourgeoisie_. He demands Revolution, and we'll give
it him."
"Pardon me, Mr. Macgregor," remarked the engineer. "I've lived among
British working-men, when I was in the shops, but I never found that they
wanted revolution."
The Member of Parliament looked at him steadily for a moment and grinned.
"You're no fool, Mr. Chunerbutty. You're a lad after my own heart. You know
a thing or two. Perhaps you're right. But the British working-man lets us
represent him, and we know what's good for him, if he don't. We Socialists
run the Labour Party, and I promise you we'll back you up in Parliament if
you rebel and drive the English out of India."
"We shall do it, Mr. Macgregor," said the _Dewan_, confidently, "We are
co-ordinating all the organisations in the Punjaub, Bombay, and Bengal,
and we shall strike simultaneously. Afghan help has been promised, and
the Pathan tribesmen will follow the Amir's regiments into India. As I
told you, the Chinese and Bhutanese invasion is certain, and there are
neither troops nor fortifications along this frontier to stop it."
"That's right. You'll do it," said Macgregor. "The General Election
comes off in a few months, and our party is sure of victory. I am
authorised to assure you that our first act will be to give India
absolute independence. So you can do what you like. But don't kill the
white women and children--at least, not openly. They might not like it
in England, though personally I don't care if you massacre every damned
Britisher in the country. From what I've seen of 'em it's only what
they deserve. The insolence I've met with from those whipper-snapper
officers! And the civil officials would be as bad, if they dared.
Then their women--I wouldn't like to say what I think of _them_."
The _Dewan_ turned to Chunerbutty.
"Go now; you have my leave. His Highness wishes to see you. I have sent him
word that you are here."
The engineer rose and salaamed respectfully. Then, with a nod to Macgregor,
he withdrew full of thought. He had not known before that the conspiracy to
expel the British was so widespread and promising. He had not regarded it
very seriously hitherto. But he had faith in the _Dewan_, and the pledge of
the great political party in England was reassuring.
Admitted to the presence of the Rajah, Chunerbutty found him reclining
languidly on a pile of soft cushions on the floor of a tawdrily-decorated
room. The walls were crowded with highly-coloured chromos of Hindu gods and
badly-painted indecent pictures. A cut-glass chandelier hung from the
ceiling, and expensive but ill-assorted European furniture stood about the
apartment. French mechanical toys under glass shades crowded the tables.
The Rajah was a fat and sensual-looking young man, with bloated face and
bloodshot that eyes spoke eloquently of his excesses. On his forehead was
painted a small semicircular line above the eyebrows with a round patch in
the middle, which was the sect-mark of the _Sáktas_. His white linen
garments were creased and dirty, but round his neck he wore a rope of
enormous pearls. His feet were bare. On a gold tray beside him were two
liqueur bottles, one empty, the other only half full, and two or three
glasses.
He looked up vacantly as Chunerbutty entered, then, recognising him, said
petulantly:
"Where have you been? Why did you not come before?"
The engineer salaamed and seated himself on the carpet near him without
invitation. He held the Rajah far less in awe than the Prime Minister, for
he had been the former's boon-companion in his debauches too often to have
much respect for him.
He answered the prince carelessly.
"The _Dewan_ sent for me to see him before I came to you, _Maharaj Sahib_."
"Why? What for? That man thinks that he is the ruler of Lalpuri, not I,"
grumbled the Rajah. "I gave orders that you were to be sent to me as soon
as you arrived. I want news of the girl. Is she still there?"
"Yes; she is still there."
"Listen to me," the Rajah leant forward and tapped him on the knee. "I must
have that girl. Ever since I saw her at the _durbar_ at Jalpaiguri I have
wanted her."
"Your Highness knows that it is difficult to get hold of an Englishwoman in
India."
"I know. But I do not care. I must have her. I _will_ have her." He filled
a tumbler with liqueur and sipped it. "I have sent for you to find a way.
You are clever. You know the customs of these English. You have often told
me how you did as you wished with the white women in England."
"That is very different. It is easy there," and Chunerbutty smiled at
pleasant memories. "There the women are shameless, and they prefer us to
their own colour. And the men are not jealous. They are proud that their
daughters and sisters should know us."
He helped himself to the liqueur.
"Why do you not go to England?" he continued. "There every woman would
throw herself at your feet. They make much of the Hindu students, the sons
of fat _bunniahs_ and shopkeepers in Calcutta, because they think them all
Indian princes. For you who really are one they would do anything."
The Rajah sat up furious and dashed his glass down on the tray so violently
that it shivered to atoms.
"Go to England? Have I not tried to?" he cried. "But every time I ask, the
Viceroy refuses me permission. I, a rajah, the son of rajahs, must beg
leave like a servant from a man whose grandfather was a nobody--and be
refused. May his womenkind be dishonoured! May his grave be defiled!"
He filled another glass and emptied it before continuing.
"But, I tell you, I want this girl. I must have her. You must get her for
me. Can you not carry her off and bring her here? You can have all the
money you want to bribe any one. You said there are only two white men on
the garden. I will send you a hundred soldiers."
Chunerbutty looked alarmed. He had no wish to be dragged into such a mad
proceeding as to attempt to carry off an Englishwoman by force, and in a
place where he was well known. For the girl in question was Noreen Daleham.
The Rajah had seen her a few months before at a _durbar_ or reception of
native notables held by the Lieutenant Governor of Eastern Bengal, and been
fired with an insane and unholy passion for her.
"Your Highness, it is impossible. Quite impossible. Do you not see that all
the power of the _Sirkar_ (the Government) would be put forth to punish us?
You would be deposed, and I--I would be sent to the convict settlement in
the Andaman Islands, if I were not hanged."
The Rajah abused the hated English, root and branch. But he was forced to
admit that Chunerbutty was right. Open violence would ruin them.
He sank back on the cushions, exhausted by his fit of anger. Draining his
glass he filled it up again. Then he clapped his hands. A servant entered
noiselessly on bare feet, bringing two full bottles of liqueur and fresh
tumblers. There was little difficulty in anticipating His Highness's
requirements. The _khitmagar_ removed the empty bottles and the broken
glass and left the apartment.
The Rajah drank again. The strong liqueur seemed to have no effect on him.
Then he said:
"Well, find a plan yourself. But I must get the girl."
Chunerbutty pretended to think. Then he began to expose tentatively, as if
it were an idea just come to him, a plan that he had conceived weeks
before.
"_Maharaj Sahib_, if I could make the girl my wife--"
The Rajah half rose up and spluttered out furiously:
"You dog, wouldst thou dare to rival me, to interfere between me and my
desires?"
The engineer hastened to pacify the angry man.
"No, no, Your Highness. You misunderstand me. Surely you know that you can
trust me. What I mean is that, if I married her, she would have to obey me,
and--" he smiled insinuatingly and significantly--"I am a loyal subject of
Your Highness."
The fat debauchee stared at him uncomprehendingly for a few moments. Then
understanding dawned, and his bloated face creased into a lascivious smile.
"I see. I see. Then marry her," he said, sinking back on the cushions.
"Your Highness forgets that the salary they pay a tea-garden engineer is
not enough to tempt a girl to marry him nor support them if she did."
"That is true," replied the Rajah thoughtfully. He was silent for a little,
and then he said:
"I will give you an appointment here in the Palace with a salary of a
_lakh_ of rupees a year."
Chunerbutty's eyes glistened. A _lakh_ is a hundred thousand, and at par
fifteen rupees went to an English sovereign.
"Thank you, Your Highness," he said eagerly.
The Rajah held up a fat forefinger warningly.
"But not until you have married her," he said.
Chunerbutty smiled confidently. Much as he had seen of Noreen Daleham he
yet knew her so little as to believe that the prospect of such an income,
joined to the favour in which he believed she held him, would make it an
easy matter to win her consent.
He imagined himself to be in love with the girl, but it was in the
Oriental's way--that is, it was merely a matter of sensual desire. Although
as jealous as Eastern men are in sex questions, the prospect of the money
quite reconciled him to the idea of sharing his wife with another. His
fancy flew ahead to the time, which he knew to be inevitable, when
possession would have killed passion and the money would bring new, and so
more welcome, women to his arms. The Rajah would only too readily permit,
nay encourage him to go to Europe--alone. And he gloated over the thought
of being again in London, but this time with much money at his command.
What was any one woman compared with fifty, with a hundred, others ready to
replace her?
So he calmly discussed with the Rajah the manner of carrying out their
nefarious scheme; and His Highness, to show his appreciation, invited him
to share his orgies that night. And in the smiles and embraces of a
Kashmiri wanton, Chunerbutty forgot the English girl.