THE SLAVE MART
Having decided upon the fate of Kathlyn, the natives set about
recapturing the wild elephant. It took the best part of the morning.
When this was accomplished the journey to Allaha was begun. But for
the days of peace and quiet of the wilderness and the consequent
hardness of her flesh, Kathlyn would have suffered greatly. Half the
time she was compelled to walk. There was no howdah, and it was a
difficult feat to sit back of the mahout. The rough skin of the
elephant had the same effect upon the calves of her legs that sandpaper
would have had. Sometimes she stumbled and fell, and was rudely jerked
to her feet. Only the day before they arrived was she relieved in any
way: she was given a litter, and in this manner she entered the hateful
city.
In giving her the litter the chief mahout had been inspired by no
expressions of pity; simply they desired her to appear fresh and
attractive when they carried her into the slave mart.
In fitful dreams all that had happened came back to her--the story her
father had told about saving the old king's life, and the grim,
ironical gratitude in making Colonel Hare his heir--as if such things
could be! And then her own journey to Allaha; the nightmarish durbar,
during which she had been crowned; the escape from the ordeals with
John Bruce; the terrors of the temple of the sun; the flight from there
. . . John Bruce! She could still see the fire in his eyes; she could
still feel the touch of his gentle yet tireless hand. Would she ever
see him again?
On the way to the mart they passed under the shadow of the grim prison
walls of the palace. The elephants veered off here into a side street,
toward the huge square where horses and cattle and elephants were
bought and sold. The litter, in charge of the chief mahout, proceeded
to the slave mart. Kathlyn glanced at the wall, wondering. Was her
father alive? Was he in some bleak cell behind that crumbling masonry?
Did he know that she was here? Or was he really dead? Ah, perhaps it
were better that death should have taken him--better that than having
his living heart wrung by the tale of his daughter's unspeakable
miseries.
Even as she sent a last lingering look at the prison the prisoner
within, his head buried in his thin wasted hands, beheld her in a
vision--but in a happy, joyous vision, busying about the living room of
the bungalow.
And far away a younger man beheld a vision as very tenderly he gazed at
Kathlyn's discarded robe and resumed his determined quest. Often,
standing beside his evening fires, he would ask the silence, "Kathlyn,
where are you?" Even then he was riding fast toward Allaha.
A slave mart is a rare thing these days, but at the time these scenes
were being enacted there existed many of them here and there across the
face of the globe. Men buy and sell men and women these
times--enlightened, so they say--but they do it by legal contract or
from vile hiding places.
Allaha had been a famous mart in its prime. It had drawn the agents of
princes from all over India. Persia, Beloochistan, Afghanistan, and
even southern Russia had been rifled of their beauties to adorn the
zenanas of the slothful Hindu princes.
The slave mart in the capital town of Allaha stood in the center of the
bazaars, a great square platform with a roof, but open on all four
sides. Here the slaves were exhibited, the poor things intended for
dalliance and those who were to struggle and sweat and die under the
overseer's lash.
Every fortnight a day was set aside for the business of the mart.
Owners and prospective buyers met, chewed betel-nut, smoked their
hookas, sipped coffee and tea, and exchanged the tattle of the hour.
It was as much an amusement as a business; indeed, it was the oriental
idea of a club, and much the same things were discussed. Thus, Appaji
bought a beautiful girl at the last barter and Roya found a male who
was a good juggler, and only night before last they had traded. The
bazaars were not what they used to be. Dewan Ali had sold his wife to
a Punjab opium merchant. Aunut Singh's daughter had run away with the
son of a bheestee. All white people ate pig. And no one read the
slokas, or moral, stanzas, any more. Yes, the English would come some
day, when there would be enough money to warrant it.
All about there were barkers, and fruit sellers, and bangle wallas (for
slave girls should have rings of rupee silver about their ankles and
wrists), and solemn Brahmins, and men who painted red and ocher caste
marks on one's forehead, and ash covered fakirs with withered hands,
Nautch girls, girls from the bazaars, peripatetic jewelers, kites, and
red-headed vultures--this being a proper place for them.
The chief mahout purchased for Kathlyn a beautiful saree, or veil,
which partially concealed her face and hair.
"Chalu!" he said, touching Kathlyn's shoulder, whenever she lagged, for
they had dispensed with the litter, "Go on!"
She understood. Outwardly she appeared passive enough, but her soul
was on fire and her eyes as brilliant as those of the circling,
whooping kites, watching that moment which was to offer some loophole.
On through the noisy bazaars, the object of many a curious remark,
sometimes insulted by the painted women at the windows, sometimes
jested at by the idlers around the merchants' booths. Vaguely she
wondered if some one of her ancestors had not been terribly wicked and
that she was paying the penalty.
It seemed to her, however, that a film of steel had grown over her
nerves; nothing startled her; she sensed only the watchfulness she had
often noted in the captives at the farm.
At length they came out into the busy mart. The old mahout
congratulated himself upon the docility of his find. It would stiffen
the bidding to announce that she was gentle. He even went so far as to
pat her on the shoulder. The steel film did not cover all her nerves,
so it would seem; the patted shoulder was vulnerable. She winced, for
she read clearly enough what was in the mind back of that touch.
She had made her plans. To the man who purchased her she would assume
a meekness of spirit in order to lull his watchfulness. To the man who
purchased her . . . Kathlyn Hare! She laughed. The old man behind
her nodded approvingly, hearing the sound but not sensing its import.
Ah, when the moment came, when the fool who bought her started to lead
her home, she would beguile him and at the first sign of carelessness
she would trust to her heels. She knew that she was going to run as
never a woman ran before; back to the beasts of the jungle, who at
least made no effort to molest her so long as she kept out of their way.
Wild and beautiful she was as the old mahout turned her over to a
professional seller.
"Circassian!"
"From the north!"
"A bride from the desert!"
"A yellow-hair!"
"A daughter of the north seas!"
The old mahout squatted close by and rubbed his hands. He would be a
rich man that night; bags of rupees; a well thatched house to cover his
gray hairs till that day they placed him on the pyre at the burning
ghat. The gods were good.
Durga Ram, known familiarly as Umballa, at this hour came forth into
the sunshine, brooding. He was not in a happy frame of mind. Many
things lay heavy upon his soul; but among these things there was not
one named remorse. To have brought about all these failures this
thought irked him most. Here was a crown almost within reach of his
greedy fingers, the water to Tantalus. To have underestimated this
yellow haired young woman, he who knew women so well--there lay the
bitter sting. He had been too impetuous; he should have waited till
all her fears had been allayed. That spawn of Siva, the military, was
insolent again, and rupees to cross their palms were scarce. Whither
had she blown? Was she dead? Was she alive?
The white hunter had not returned to his camp yet, but the sly Ahmed
was there. The perpetual gloom on the face of the latter was
reassuring to Umballa. Ahmed's master had not found her. To wring the
white man's heart was something. He dared not put him out of the way;
too many knew.
And the council was beginning to grow uneasy. How long could he hold
them in leash?
What a woman! As magnificent as the daughter of Firoz, shah of Delhi.
Fear she knew not. At one moment he loved her with his whole soul, at
another he hated her, longed to get her into his hands again, to wreak
his vengeance upon her for the humiliation she had by wit and courage
heaped upon him. "I am ready!" He could hear it yet. When they had
led her away to the ordeals--"I am ready!" A woman, and not afraid to
die!
Money! How to get it! He could not plunge his hand into the treasury;
there were too many about, too many tongues. But Colonel Hare knew
where the silver basket lay hidden, heaped with gold and precious
stones; and torture could not wring the hiding-place from him. May he
be damned to the nethermost hell! Let him, Durga Ram, but bury his
lean hands in that treasure, and Daraka swallow Allaha and all its
kings! Rubies and pearls and emeralds, and a far country to idle in,
to be feted in, to be fawned upon for his riches!
And Ramabai and his wife, Pundita, let them beware; let them remain
wisely in their house and meddle not with affairs of state.
"A thousand rupees!"
Umballa looked up with a start. Unconsciously he had wandered into the
slave mart. He shrugged and would have passed on but for the strange,
unusual figure standing on the platform. A golden haired woman with
neck and arms like Chinese bronze and dressed in a skirt of grass! He
paused.
"Two thousand rupees!"
"What!" jeered the professional seller. "For an houri from paradise?
O ye of weak hearts, what is this I hear? Two thousand rupees?--for an
houri fit to dwell in the zenana of heaven!"
A keen-eyed Mohammedan edged closer to the platform. He stared and
sucked in his breath. He found himself pulled two ways. He had no
money, but he had knowledge.
"Who sells this maiden?" he asked.
"Mohammed Ghori."
"Which is he?"
"He squats there."
The Mohammedan stopped and touched the old mahout on the shoulder.
"Call off this sale, and my master will make you rich."
The old sinner gingerly felt of the speaker's cotton garb. "Ah! 'My
master' must be rich to dress thee in cotton. Where is your gold?
Bid," satirically.
"Two thousand rupees!" shouted the professional seller.
"I have no gold, but my master will give 10,000 rupees for yonder maid.
Quick! Old fool, be quick!"
"Begone, thou beggar!"
And the old man spat.
"Mem-sahib," the Mohammedan called out in English, "do not look toward
me, or all will be lost. I am Ali, Bruce Sahib's chief mahout; and we
have believed you dead! Take care! I go to inform Ahmed. Bruce Sahib
has not returned."
Kathlyn, when she heard that voice, shut her eyes.
Umballa had drawn closer. There was something about this half veiled
slave that stirred his recollection. Where had he seen that graceful
poise? The clearness of the skin, though dark; the roundness of the
throat and arms. . . .
"Three thousand rupees!"
The old mahout purred and smoothed his palms together. Three thousand
rupees, a rajah's ransom! He would own his elephant; his wife should
ride in a gilded palanquin, and his children should wear shoes. Three
thousand rupees! He folded his arms and walked gently to and fro.
"Five thousand rupees!" said Umballa, impelled by he knew not what to
make this bid.
A ripple of surprise ran over the crowd. The regent, the powerful
Durga Ram, was bidding in person for his zenana.
Kathlyn's nerves tingled with life again, and the sudden bounding of
her heart stifled her. Umballa! She was surely lost. Sooner or later
he would recognize her.
The mahout stood up, delighted. He was indeed fortunate. He salaamed.
"Huzoor, she is gentle," he said.
The high-caste who had bid 3,000 rupees salaamed also.
"Highness, she is yours," he said. "I can not bid against my regent."
It was the custom to mark a purchased slave with the caste of her
purchaser. Umballa, still not recognizing her, waved her aside toward
the Brahmin caste markers, one of whom daubed her forehead with a
yellow triangle. Her blue eyes pierced the curious brown ones.
"The sahib at the river," she whispered in broken Hindustani. "Many
rupees. Bring him to the house of Durga Ram." This in case Ali failed.
The Brahmin's eyes twinkled. Her Hindustani was execrable, but "sahib"
and "river" were plain to his understanding. There was but one sahib
by the river, and he was the white hunter who had rescued the vanished
queen from the ordeals. He nodded almost imperceptibly. Inwardly he
smiled. He was not above giving the haughty upstart a Thuggee's twist.
He spoke to his neighbor quietly, assigned to him his bowls and
brushes, rose, and made off.
"Follow me," said Umballa to the happy mahout. Presently he would have
his bags of silver, bright and twinkling.
Fate overtook Ali, who in his mad race to Hare's camp fell and badly
sprained his ankle. Moaning, less from the pain than from the
attendant helplessness, he was carried into the hut of a kindly ryot
and there ministered to.
The Brahmin, however, filled with greed and a sly humor, reached his
destination in safety. Naturally cunning, double tongued, sly,
ingratiating, after the manner of all Brahmins, who will sink to any
base level in order to attain their equivocal ends his actions were
unhampered by any sense of treachery toward Umballa. A Thuggee's twist
to the schemes of the street rat Umballa, who wore the Brahmin string,
to which he had no right! The Brahmin chuckled as he paused at the
edge of Bruce's camp. A fat purse lay yonder. He approached, his
outward demeanor a mixture of pride and humility.
Bruce had returned but half an hour before, mind weary, bone tired. He
sat with his head in his hands, his elbows propped upon his knees. His
young heart was heavy. He had searched the bewildering jungle as one
might search a plot of grass before one's door, blade by blade. A
hundred times he had found traces of her; a hundred times he had called
out her name, only to be mocked and gibbered at by apes. She had
vanished like a perfume, like a cloud shadow in the wind.
His soul was bitter; for he had built many dreams, and always this fair
haired girl had ridden upon them. So straight she stood, so calm in
the eyes, mannered with that gentleness, known of the brave. . . .
Gone, and skilled as he was in jungle lore, he could not find her.
"Sahib, a Brahmin desires audience."
"Ask him what he wants."
"It is for the sahib's ear alone."
"Ah! Bring him to me quickly."
The Brahmin approached, salaamed.
"What do you wish?" Bruce asked curtly.
"A thousand rupees, Huzoor!" blandly.
"And what have you that is worth that many rupees?" irritably.
The Brahmin salaamed again. "Huzoor, a slave this day was purchased by
Durga Ram, Umballa, so-called. She has skin the color of old tusks,
and eyes like turquoise, and lips like the flame of the jungle, and
hair like the sands of Ganges, mother of rivers."
Bruce was upon his feet, alive, eager. He caught the Brahmin by the
arm.
"Is this woman white?" harshly.
"Huzoor, the women of Allaha are always dark of hair."
"And was sold as a slave?"
"To Durga Ram, the king without a crown, Huzoor. It is worth a
thousand rupees," smiling.
"Tell me," said Bruce, stilling the tremor in his voice, "tell me, did
she follow him without a struggle?"
"Yes. But would a struggle have done any good?"
Bruce took out his wallet and counted out a thousand rupees in Bank of
India notes. "Now, listen. Umballa must not know that I know. On
your head, remember."
"Huzzor, the word of a Brahmin."
"Ah, yes; but I have lived long here. Where is Ali?" cried Bruce,
turning to one of his men.
"He went into the city this morning, Sahib, and has not returned."
"Come," said Bruce to the waiting Brahmin, "We'll return together." He
now felt no excitement at all; it was as if he had been immersed in ice
water. It was Kathlyn, not the least doubt of it, bought and sold in
the slave mart. Misery, degradation . . . then he smiled. He knew
Kathlyn Hare. If he did not come to her aid quickly she would be dead.
Now, when Umballa took her into his house, Kathlyn was determined to
reveal her identity. She had passed through the ordeals; she was, in
law, a queen, with life and death in her hands.
"Do not touch me!" she cried slowly in English.
Umballa stepped back.
"I am Kathlyn Hare, and if all the world is not made up of lies and
wickedness, I am the queen you yourself made. I can speak a few words,
enough to make myself known to the populace. I will make a bargain
with you. I will give you five times five thousand rupees if you will
deliver me safely in Peshawer. On my part, I promise to say nothing,
nothing."
Umballa raised both his hands in astonishment. He knew now why that
form had stirred his recollection.
"You!" He laughed and clapped his hands to summon his servants.
Kathlyn, realizing that it was useless to attempt to move this man,
turned and started to run, but he intercepted her. "My queen, my bride
that was to be, the golden houri! Five times five thousand rupees
would not purchase a hair of your head."
"I am your queen!" But she said it without heart.
"What! Do you believe that? Having passed the ordeals you nullified
the effect by running away. You will be whatever I choose! Oh, it
will be legally done. You shall go with me to the council, and the
four of us shall decide. Ah, you would not be my wife!"
"You shall die, Durga Ram," she replied, "and it will be the death of a
pariah dog."
"Ah! Still that spirit which I loved. Why, did I not buy you without
knowing who you were? Are you not mine? At this very moment I could
place you in my zenana and who would ever know? And soon you would not
want any one to know."
"Are you without mercy?"
"Mercy? I know not the word. But I have an ambition which surpasses
all other things. My wife you shall be, or worse. But legally, always
legally!" He laughed again and swiftly caught her in his arms. She
struggled like a tigress, but without avail. He covered her face and
neck with kisses, then thrust her aside. "Poor little fool! If you
had whined and whimpered I should have let you go long since. But
there burns within you a spirit I must conquer, and conquer I will!"
Kathlyn stood panting against a pillar. Had she held a weapon in her
hand she would have killed him without compunction, as one crushes a
poisonous viper.
"Legally! Why, all the crimes in Hind are done under that word. It is
the shibboleth of the British Raj. Legally! Come!"
"I will not stir!"
"Then be carried," he replied, beckoning his servants.
"No, no!"
"Ah! Well, then, we'll ride together in the palanquin."
To struggle would reward her with nothing but shame and humiliation; so
she bent her head to the inevitable. A passionate longing to be
revenged upon this man began to consume her. She wanted the feel of
his brown throat in her fingers; wanted to beat him down to his knees,
to twist and crush him. But she was a woman and she had not the
strength of a man.
"Behold!" cried Umballa later, as he entered the presence of the
council, "behold a slave of mine!" He pushed Kathlyn forward. "This
day I bought her for five thousand rupees."
The council stirred nervously.
"Do you not recognize her?" exultantly.
The council whispered to one another.
"Legally she is mine, though she has been a queen. But by running away
she has forfeited her rights to the law of the ordeals. Am I not
right?"
The council nodded gravely. They had not yet wholly recovered from
their bewilderment.
"On the other hand, her identity must remain a secret till I have
developed my plans," continued Umballa.
"You are all courting a terrible reprisal," said Kathlyn. "I beg of
you to kill me at once; do not prolong my torture, my misery. I have
harmed none of you, but you have grievously harmed me. One even now
seeks aid of the British Raj; and there are many soldiers."
The threat was ill timed.
The head of the council said to Umballa: "It would be wise to lock her
up for the present. We all face a great complication."
"A very wise counsel," agreed Umballa, knowing that he had but to say
the word to destroy them all. "And she shall have company. I would
not have her lonely. Come, majesty; deign to follow your humble
servant." Umballa salaamed.
Kathlyn was led to a cell in the palace prison, whose walls she had but
a little while ago viewed in passing, and thrust inside. A single
window admitted a faint light. Umballa remained by the door, chuckling
softly. Presently, her eyes becoming accustomed to the dark, Kathlyn
discovered a man chained to a pillar. The man suddenly leaned forward.
"Kit, my Kit!"
"Father!"
She caught him to her breast in her strong young arms, crooned to him,
and kissed his matted head. And they stood that way for a long time.
At this very moment there appeared before the council a wild eyed,
disheveled young man. How he had passed the palace guard none of them
knew.
"A white woman was brought into this room forcibly a few minutes ago.
I demand her! And by the God of my father I will cut out the heart of
every one of you if you deny me! She is white; she is of my race!"
"There is no white woman here, Bruce Sahib."
"You lie!" thundered the young man.
Two guards came in quickly.
"I say you lie! She was seen to enter here!"
"This man is mad! Besides, it is sacrilege for him to enter our
presence in this manner," cried one of the council. "Seize him!"
A fierce struggle between the guards and Bruce followed; but his race
to the city and the attendant excitement had weakened him. He was
carried away, still fighting manfully.
In the meantime Umballa concluded that the reunion had lasted long
enough. He caught Kathlyn roughly by the shoulder and pulled her away.
"Behold, Colonel Sahib! Mine! I bought her this day in the slave
mart. Legally mine! Now will you tell me where that silver basket
lies hidden, with its gold and game?"
"Father, do not tell him!" warned Kathlyn. "So long as we do not tell
him he does not put us out of the way!"
"Kit!"
"Dad, poor dad!"
"Little fool!" said Umballa.
Kathlyn struggled to reach her father again, but could not. Umballa
folded his arms tightly about her and attempted to kiss her. This time
her strength was superhuman. She freed her hands and beat him in the
face, tore his garments, dragged off his turban. The struggle brought
them within the radius of the colonel's reach. The prisoner caught his
enemy by the throat, laughing insanely.
"Now, you black dog, die!"