dread was still with me, for I paused once more, this time to listen.
Not a sound without, or the whisper of a sound!
"But what was that?--the creak of a timber not louder than if a mouse
had stirred. And, directed by the faint sound, I saw the wooden bolt
that fastened the door on the inside heave, just once, as if by the
pressure of a lever cautiously at work on the other side. The hammer
slipped to the rug from my unnerved fingers.
"Lamp in hand, I stole to the door, on tiptoe, step by step, afraid to
awaken the echo of a footfall. I touched the wooden bolt with a finger
tip; I pressed my ear against the panel. And now, every fibre of my
being at tension, my senses quickened by the unseen but certain presence
of danger, I could hear at the other side of the thin boards the eager
breathing of the fanatic devil of a priest who had come to slay me,
miserably trapped like a panther in a pit. At this thought the very
blood froze in my veins. My hand relaxed its hold on the lamp, and in
its fall the light was extinguished.
"Alone in the dark with the Ganapati, and with the human tiger at the
other side of the door, I shrieked aloud.
"In prompt answer to my cry of pent-up agony came the sharp sound of
splintering timber, and before me, revealed by the flare of a torch held
aloft in one hand, appeared the dread visage of the Hindu priest,
contorted now by his mingled emotions of hate and triumph. For his eyes
had lighted on the idol, and it was with a shout of joyful recognition,
'Ganapati! Ganapati!' that the fanatic flung himself upon me, and
plunged a dagger into my throat. Then the curtain of black
forgetfulness descended and covered me with its folds.
"I know not what time elapsed, but I was awakened to the consciousness
that I was yet alive by a tongue of flame that leaped at my face, and,
scorching my skin, caused me to stir instinctively in self-preservation.
Raising my head from the pool of blood in which it had been weltering,
and moving my stiffened neck with difficulty because of the dagger
wound, the mark of which I carry to this day"--upraising his chin, the
fakir laid a finger on a tiny but palpable scar--"I struggled to a
sitting posture, and looked about in dazed bewilderment. But ere I could
realize what had happened, again the blistering heat of fire that ran
along the walls of the room caused me to stagger to my feet. Then as I
gazed around, through a haze of smoke illumined by fitful, flickering
gleams of ruddy radiance, all of a sudden came remembrance of the deadly
assault and comprehension of my present danger.
"One swift sweeping glance showed me that the Ganapati was gone, and
that my strong box, too, with its silver hoard had disappeared, together
with the package of gold coin and jewellery. My hands went instantly to
my waistband; it had been torn open, and the crystal casket that held
the blue diamonds abstracted.
"So the murderous priest had not only recovered his own, but had robbed
me of my all!
"There was no time, however, to reflect or to moralize, for the loud
crackling of fire amid the woodwork warned of my imminent peril.
Flinging the skirt of my robe across my face, I made one frantic dash
for safety through the splintered panels of the door, the only exit from
the room, regardless of the billows of mingled smoke and flame that were
now rolling along the corridor.
"Half suffocated, almost blinded by the pungent fumes, my flesh seared,
my garments aflame, I reeled into the courtyard of the women's quarters,
and threw myself into the fountain splashing in the middle of the marble
pavement. Then, drawing myself out of the water like a bedraggled rat, I
crawled on hands and knees to the apartment of my wife.
"God! God! It was to find her and our two little children dead--stabbed
to the heart on the sleeping mats where they lay."
A sobbing wail burst from the narrator's lips, and he covered his face
with his hands. After a time he recovered his self-possession, and
resumed, although still in broken tones and with shoulders heaving from
emotion.
"I need not dwell on the pitiable story. Gaining the open country, I
gazed upon the fierce flames now bursting in a dozen places from the
roof of my doomed home, the funeral pyre of the last ones dear to me on
earth.
"As I gazed I rent my garments, and raised my voice in loud
lamentations. Soon all was consumed, and there remained only the dull
glow of red embers. Then I wandered out into the night, stupefied and
broken-hearted by the crowning calamity that had overtaken me, afraid
even to face my neighbours of the village, naked, penniless, and alone.
"Thus did it come about that I, a man of estate, feudatory of a prince,
within the period of a single moon lost wives and children, slaves and
retainers, land and crops and cattle, family jewels, stores of gold and
of silver, and also the blue diamonds of the idol for the retention of
which I had rashly but unknowingly ventured all that I had of happiness
in this world.
"And since that day of final disaster I have journeyed over the face of
the land trying to find, not the blue diamonds, not my stolen hoard, but
that fiend incarnate, the priest of Siva, who slew my wives and
children.
"I go about, now a Moslem fakir with the right of entry to the mosques
where I may worship the only true God and Mohammed his prophet, now
disguised as a Hindu yogi, crying 'Ram, Ram,' so that I may gain access
to the temples of the idolators, there to find the Ganapati with the
jewelled eyes, and by that token discover the man for whom I am ever
seeking. Every year I revisit Ferishtapur, whence the idol was
originally taken by my hand from the wrecked temple, but thither neither
the priest nor the Ganapati has ever returned. At other times I travel
from one city to another, searching for temples, mingling with the
devotees at the recurring festivals, the Holi, the Durgapuga, the feast
of lanterns, and watching the processions when the idols and their
custodians visit each other's shrines or go to the river for the
blessing of the waters. But wander where I may, priest or Ganapati have
I never seen again.
"Thus have passed fifty long years, during which I have lived for one
thing alone, and that----revenge!"
* * * * *
Pausing before the last word, then uttering it in a scream that pierced
the night air, the fakir sprang to his feet, and, swept by a sudden gust
of overmastering passion, raised his hands high to heaven--a weird and
eerie figure in the silver sheen of the moon.
"Deen! deen! deen!" he cried, dancing around as he shrilly voiced the
fanatic call to massacre--the dread call which through the centuries has
drenched with human blood a thousand shrines, both Moslem mosques and
Hindu temples.
"Subah!" shouted the Afghan general, half rising, his hand on his sword
hilt. "Stop that, you son of a dog, or I will make you meat for jackals.
Subah!" At the reiterated stern command the dancing figure became
instantly rigid. Then, just as suddenly as he had leaped from his
crouching attitude, the fakir sank to the ground in a huddled heap, his
face buried in the dust.
"You would be happier to-day, O man of many sorrows, had you followed
the philosophy of 'kooch perwani'--had you said to yourself: 'What is
done is done, and cannot be undone. Let it pass. Kooch perwani--no
matter.'"
It was the Rajput who was speaking, in rebuke yet in commiseration.
"Even when all seemed lost" continued the Hindu soldier, "you should
have forgotten the blue diamonds, the abiding greed for which was the
real cause of your undoing; you should have forgotten your lost wealth
and honourable position, your dear ones gone to the abode of bliss, the
enemies who had despitefully used you but who, as your own religion
teaches, were in truth only God's emissaries sent to punish you for your
sins. It is the philosophy of 'kooch perwani' that teaches us to forget
the dead past, do the work of the vital present, and by doing it aright
build for the future an edifice of happiness and contentment. Had you
followed that philosophy, O fakir, you might have been again to-day rich
in the good things of the world."
The mendicant raised his face from the dust. "To which I reply, O
prince,--kooch perwani. By the ordeals through which I have passed I
have come to learn that the treasures of this world are of no account.
Therefore is my philosophy to-day greater than your own. You wear costly
robes, I the loin cloth of the beggar. Kooch perwani; for when death
comes, we are equals. There is no pocket to a shroud."
VI. THE TIGER OF THE PATHANS
TOLD BY THE AFGHAN GENERAL
"In my case the philosophy of life is of the simplest," remarked the
Afghan general. "I neither crave the wealth of the prince, nor do I
inflict upon myself the mortifications of the ascetic. For the one rich
robes and the sceptre, for the other a loin cloth and a begging-bowl;
but for me the good sword that commands respect from my enemies,
confidence from my friends, and my due share of the good things of
existence. In this frame of mind I find the full measure of joy in each
day that passes."
He smiled the smile of the man contented with the world and with
himself, but there was the light of proud determination in his eyes that
belied the mere sybarite.
"Then for you the greatest good consists in the happiness you can snatch
from the passing hour," suggested the magistrate.
"That is so," concurred the soldier, "if to the word happiness you give
the right interpretation. To me the performance of one's present duty is
the only real thing that brings contentment. And duty need not always be
stern and forbidding; to laugh and play and be merry may, at the proper
time and in the proper circumstances, be a duty both to ourselves and
to others. When one lives philosophically for the present, he takes men
in all their moods and life in all its phases. The past is counted as
dead and to be forgotten, except for the experience gained to guide the
doing of the things that lie now to one's hand. The future is unseen,
but is none the less determined by our deeds, words, and thoughts of the
passing moment, each one of which, be it remembered, whether deed or
rash word, or unspoken thought, has consequences that are eternal."
"So for the man whose mind is thus attuned," again interposed the
magistrate, "the present becomes all supreme, shaped by the past,
shaping the future."
"Which means that destiny never degenerates into mere blind and helpless
fatalism," responded the Afghan. "To do the right now suffices to give
absolute trust in God for the hereafter. That is the key of destiny, and
each man holds it in his own keeping."
"A simple religion," smiled the Rajput.
"And therefore the best. It is the religion of Islam freed from all the
controversies of rival sects and over-learned mullahs. It is the
religion of my fathers and the religion of my youth, and in it I abide.
Let me tell you a story of the rough school in which I received my early
training and where such thoughts as these first began to sink deep into
my mind.
* * * * *
"Have you ever heard of Shir Jumla Khan? No? Well, that is doubtless
because he has been dead for a full score of years, and because he held
his sway in a land remote from these plains of Hindustan, up in the
rugged mountains, where brave tribesmen guard the valleys which their
ancestors tilled, and yield allegiance to no one but their own
hereditary chieftains. Such was my country and my people, for I am proud
that in my veins runs the blood of the man who for a hundred miles
around my boyhood home was known as The Tiger of the Pathans. Behold in
me a grandson of Shir Jumla Khan."
The narrator folded his arms across his breast, in an attitude of quiet
dignity. After just a moment's pause he continued:
"We were all born fighters, the members of my clan, for during hundreds
of years many a swarming host had swept past the gateways of our
territory, Persians, Arabs, Afghans, Moguls, Turkmans, hordes of
fighting men of every race and tongue, sometimes marching south bent on
conquest, at other times returning to their homes laden with rich
spoils, and yet at other times defeated and broken, with enemies
pressing at their heels. And it was the patrimonial right of our tribe
to take toll from all alike, from victors and vanquished, from pursuers
and pursued.
"Sometimes an army would pass through our mountains under safe conduct
from all the tribes, and the price paid in money, horses, camels, and
cattle, cloths and other goods, would be divided among the several
clans. But in this practice there had grown to be more danger for
ourselves than from forays or assaults on passing enemies, because over
the division of the spoils there would be quarrelling, followed by
fighting, among the tribes. Thus had originated many a blood feud
enduring through many generations.
"In the early days of Shir Jumla Khan it had come about that several
rich caravans had fallen exclusively into his hands. With the money thus
provided by the bountifulness of Allah, he had been enabled to build for
himself a citadel that for vastness and security surpassed those of all
his rivals among the tribal chiefs. Within its wide walls were wells and
water tanks, gardens for the growing of fruits and vegetables,
warehouses for goods, granaries stored with barley, wheat, and dal,
stables for a hundred horses, sheds for the housing of cattle, sheep,
and camels, and dwelling places for a goodly multitude of armed men,
their wives and their children. And all of these things endure until
this day, for the fortress town amid the mountains built by my
grandsire, The Tiger of the Pathans, has ever remained unconquered and
unconquerable.
"But as Shir Jumla Khan grew rich in possessions and in power--for
scores of fighting men from afar were attracted to his service--at the
same time did his position among the tribesmen become one of increasing
isolation. All feared him and envied him, and fear and envy have ever
been breeders of hate. Yet was he a just and a benevolent man, honoured
and beloved by every one within his domain, where his slightest word was
gladly accepted law, not because of the might he wielded but because of
his fairness to all men.
"I was yet a young man when a widely spread plot among the rival
tribesmen to destroy Shir Jumla Khan's power had come to a head, and had
resulted in a determined and prolonged attack upon his citadel. Numbers
had told, our outlying fields had been devastated, our flocks and herds
driven away, and crowded within the walls of the fortress were refugees
from all the surrounding countryside. We had been cooped up through the
summer, we had lost our annual crops, and without the usual
replenishment granaries and warehouses were beginning to wear an empty
look, with but sorry promise for the winter. But, calm and undismayed,
his proud look and serene smile ever the same, Shir Jumla Khan continued
to feed the hungry host within his gates and now absolutely dependent
upon his protection.
"The coming of winter would mean for us some relief, for the first snows
would scatter the beleaguering hosts, sending them back to their own
valleys, and giving us the chance, in the intervals of the season's
storms, to make a few forays on our own account on neighbouring
communities, which, taken one at a time, would be pretty well at our
mercy. But if we reasoned in this wise so did our enemies; for it was
now toward the close of the month of August and redoubled efforts were
being put forth to accomplish the breaching of our walls, so that The
Tiger of the Pathans might be slain before there was the chance of his
fangs and claws again becoming dangerous.
"The tribesmen, no doubt by capture and enforced service, had secured
the help of some engineers versed in the methods of sieges and assaults
on fortified places as practised in Hindustan. At that time I had never
before seen a sabat, but now from our fortifications I beheld the
gradual extension, day by day, of a broad covered way, with bull-hide
roof stretched across the trench being dug, and effectually protecting
the labourers below from our guns and muskets and catapults. We had made
several sallies with a view to try and stop this work, but these had
only resulted in losses on our side out of all proportion to the
harassment and delay inflicted on the besiegers. So we could but
impotently watch the subtle and inexorable approach of the skilled men
who would eventually reach our walls, drive mines beneath them, and blow
us to perdition.
"Our one chance lay in the question of time. If the winter began early
we should be saved, but if the snows held off till late in the year it
looked as if our doom must be sealed.
"But quite unexpectedly a ray of hope came from another quarter.
Dissension had broken out in the ranks of our foes!
"The first word was brought to us by a deserter from the besiegers'
camp, who one night had crept up to the gateway of the fort and whined
for admittance, declaring that he had important news to tell and hoped
for a reward.
"I was with my grandfather when, awakened from his sleep, he listened to
the man's story. It told of a fierce quarrel the preceding evening
between two of the leading chieftains. They had been conversing alone in
one of their tents, when suddenly those without had heard angry words.
Then it would seem that the owner of the tent had sent for one of the
slippers which his visitor had left at the doorway, and with this had
administered five or six strokes over the head, driving his guest forth
insulted and disgraced. Every one in the camp was on the alert for
fighting in the morning.
"With a grim smile Shir Jumla Khan listened to this narrative. But he
made no comment; he merely issued instructions for the informer to be
fed and for the present closely guarded.
"But if there had been any lingering doubt as to the truth of the story,
confirmation came ere the breaking of the dawn. For we were once again
disturbed from our rest, this time by the noise of a great tumult in the
camp of the besiegers, loud shouting followed by the discharge of
muskets, the sounds gradually dying away in the distance as if a fight
and a pursuit had taken place. When day broke such indeed proved to be
the case; we could descry in the camp a row of tents thrown down and
dismantled, also dead or wounded men being brought in from the country
beyond, while away on a distant ridge was a considerable body of
tribesmen retreating toward their homes.
"At this sight joyful huzzas resounded through the fortress, and we did
indeed all feel that Allah, by disrupting the forces of the enemy, was
fighting on our side. And as I spread my prayer carpet, and prostrated
myself toward Mecca, the pious thought in my heart was one that had many
times been inculcated by my noble grandsire himself: 'Let the wise man
reflect that he can in no way succeed without the help of God Most
High.'
"During the day we took counsel as to the advisability of an attack on
the somewhat attenuated host without the walls. But from our posts of
observation we could see that every one in the camp was under arms and
on the alert, no doubt foreseeing that such an attempt was likely on our
part. So we concluded to let events develop, and contented ourselves
with watching the progress of the sabat. Here there was no relaxation of
endeavour, for the protected trench made a considerable advance ere the
sun once again sank over the western hills.
"Darkness had not long fallen when another bleating voice of a suppliant
for admittance was heard by the sentry at the gateway. Introduced to our
presence, the newcomer, a goatherd by his appearance, and with the signs
of travel on his garments, removed his head dress, untwisted the long
locks of hair bound according to custom around his head, and, producing
a small packet from the midst of his tresses, flung it on the floor. I
picked up the missive, and handed it to our chieftain.
"Shir Jumla Khan untied the packet, and produced therefrom a heavy gold
signet ring. While he was examining this, the seeming goatherd raised
his voice:
"'O prince of princes, protector of the poor and oppressed, by the token
in your hands know that I who wear this humble disguise am the son of
Mustafa Khan, thy brother chieftain, who craves a refuge within the
walls of this God-guarded citadel. I am empowered to propose terms which
will bring substantial reward for you and sure deliverance from the pack
of wolves yelping at your gates.'
"The youth soon convinced us that he was none other than he claimed to
be, an additional guarantee to the possession of the ring being afforded
by the full and detailed messages which he brought from his father. At
the council which followed I was privileged to be present. The son of
Mustafa Khan first recounted the story we already knew, of the deadly
insult inflicted on his father, and then told briefly the tale of the
morning flight and fight. His fleeing clansmen were now concealed in a
gorge not a mile away, some two hundred fighting men, and would be glad
to join their forces with those of Shir Jumla Khan, so that they might
wipe out the stain of the dishonour they had suffered. If the gates were
opened to them, they would come to the citadel that very night.
"But, watching my grandfather's face, I could see him smiling through
his beard.
"'I want no more mouths to feed, young man,' replied The Tiger of the
Pathans. 'But take this message to your sire. Let him come here, alone
and unattended, and thus serve as a hostage for his own good faith. Then
shall we two together concert a plan whereby an attack by his men from
the other side of the camp will be made at the same moment as a sortie
by my men on this side, so that together we shall crush our common enemy
as we would break a nut between two stones. I have spoken.'
"'But my mother,' faltered the youth, 'and my sister? They and two women
attendants are with my father, and he cannot leave them alone and
unprotected.'
"Shir Jumla Khan stroked his beard; the appeal was one that reached his
benignant heart.
"'How could they come here?' he asked, addressing the young man.
"'We have a camel with panniers. In that they escaped from the camp last
night. I myself could lead them hither.'
"'Then in the name of God let the women too come into this place of
refuge. You and your father, and the camel with the panniers, will be
admitted, if you can reach the gates before the breaking of the dawn.'
"'And a place of seclusion for the ladies?'
"'What need to ask that?' exclaimed my grandsire, abruptly and angrily.
'I will show the respect to Mustafa Khan's women which I should expect
him to show to mine. A house will be got ready ere you return.'
"And he waved the youth from his presence.
"I was at the gateway in the grey of the morrow's dawn when the
fugitives arrived--Mustafa Khan, a big burly figure wrapped in his camel
robe, the son still in the garments of a goatherd, and, led by him, a
camel from the back of which was slung panniers for women, one on each
side, enveloped in the usual coverings that safeguarded those within
from forbidden eyes.
"But although, both out of proper respect for women and in duty toward
our guests, I had not attempted to look at the camel or its burden,
having indeed inclined my head downward as the animal passed, yet as I
again raised my eyes did I involuntarily catch sight of a dainty white
hand and the gleam, through momentarily parted curtains, of a beautiful
face--that of a young girl, fair as a lily, sweet and innocent as the
half-opened blossom of a rose. And methought that, in her very childlike
innocence, as our eyes met for a single instant, she smiled into mine
ere she gathered together the curtain that hid the vision of loveliness
from my ravished gaze.
"My heart was hammering against my breast as I watched the father and
the brother, with the swaying camel, disappear under the archway of a
building sheltered by the encompassing wall of the fortress. This I knew
had been designated as the home of the refugees during their stay among
us, but never had I imagined that such a treasure was to be bestowed in
so rough a casket.