FAIZULLAH.

He was beating his wife--an occupation which annihilates time,

dissolves the crust of culture, and reduces humanity in both

hemispheres to a state of original sin. It is therefore immaterial what

Faizullah and Haiyat Bibi did or said during the actual chastisement,

for they behaved themselves as any other couple in the same

circumstances would have done, that is to say, after the manner of two

animals--one injured in his feelings, the other in her body.

She screamed vociferously, but for all that took her punishment with

methodical endurance; indeed, there was a distinct air of duty on both

sides which went far towards disguising the actual violence. Finally he

let her drop, decisively but gently, in one of the dark corners of the

low windowless room, and laid aside the bamboo in another. From a third

crept an older woman, silent, but sympathetic, carrying a _lotah_ full

of water with which she administered comfort to the crushed victim.

Faizullah Khan watched the gradual subsidence of his wife's sobs with

evident satisfaction.

"Hast had enough for this time, O Haiyat?" he asked mildly. "Or shall I

catch thee peeping through the door at the men-folk again like a cat

after a mouse? True, 'tis the way thou caughtest me for a husband,

Light of mine Eyes; but I will have none of it with other men. Or

rather, thou shalt pay for the pleasure. Ay! every time, surely as the

farmer pays the usurer for having a good crop. And if there be more

than peeping, then I will kill thee. Think not to escape as a mere

noseless one; some may care to keep a maimed wife, secure that none

will seek her; but not I, Faizullah Khan, Belooch of Birokzai. Did I

not marry thee, O Haiyat, Marrow of my Bones, because of thy fair face?

Then what good wouldst thou be to me without a nose? Therefore be wise,

my heart, or I shall have to kill thee some day."

"The _sahibs_ will hang thee in pigskin if thou dost," whimpered the

woman vindictively. "Yea, I would die gladly to see thee swing like the

wild beast thou art!"

The sense of coercion was evidently passing away, nor were there

wanting signs that ere long tears would be dried at the flame of wrath

fast kindling in Haiyat's big black eyes. Faizullah, standing at the

open door, through which the yellow sunshine streamed in a broad bar of

light, looked across the mud roof of the lower story, past the sandy

stretches and broken rocky distance to where a low line of serrated

blue mountains blocked the horizon. They were the Takt-i-Suleiman, and

beyond their peaks and passes lay Beloochistan.

"There are no _sahibs_ yonder," he said, stretching his right hand

towards the hills; "no one to come between a man and his right of

faithful wife. God knows I am ready for my father's house again; 'tis

only thy beauty, Skin of my Soul! Core of my Heart! that keeps me

dawdling here a stranger in the house of mine ancient enemies. Why wilt

thou not come with me to the mountains, O Haiyat?"

"I am not a wild beast as thou art," she retorted, still with

speech checked by sobs. "I will stay here and get thee swung, for the

_sahib-logues_ worship a woman away over the black water and do her

bidding. They will fill thy mouth with dirt, and burn thy body, and

curse thy soul to the nether--"

"Nay! innermost Apple of mine Eye! do I not worship thee? And art thou

not a Belooch also by race, though thy people have dug the grave of

their courage with the plough, and tethered their freedom beside

their bullocks? They were not always dirt-eaters, mean-spirited,

big-bellied--"

"_Hai! Hai!_" That was the beginning of the storm. What followed drove

big Faizullah into the court below, where the voices of the two women

ceased to be articulate; for it is one thing to beat the wife of your

bosom in order to correct a trifling indiscretion, another to deny her

and her attendant the right of subsequent abuse. So he smoked his pipe

placidly, and amused himself with polishing his well-beloved sword

which he kept in defiance of the Arms Act.

The poorer women of the village nodded at each other as the shrill

clamour, floating over the high encircling wall, reached the well where

they came to draw water.

"The stranger hath big hands," chuckled one; "yet are they smaller than

Haiyat's eye. That comes of being a widow so long."

"There will be murder some day, mark my words!" muttered an old hag

with a toothless leer. "What else canst thou expect from a Belooch of

Birokzai? _Peace! Peace!_ that is what our men say nowadays. In my

time, if a man of his race had laid a finger on a woman of ours, there

would have been flames over the border, and blood enough to quench them

afterwards. But they are afraid of the _sahibs_ and the pigskin; not so

Faizullah; he is of the old sort, knowing how to keep his wife."

"He will not keep her for all that, _mai_," sneered a strapping girl,

who by the handsome water-vessels she carried showed herself to be a

servant in one of the richer houses. "We shall get her back some day,

despite her father-in-law's wickedness in letting her marry a

good-for-nothing soldier, just because of keeping a hold on her

jewels."

"Hold on their honour, O thou false tongue!" shrilled another of the

group. "The daughter of thy house would have brought shame on ours. She

needed a fierce one to keep her straight."

"After the man--woman, thy house gave her first, O depraved tongue that

tasteth not the truth. Had thy people sent her back, our house would

have kept her safe enough."

"And her jewels doubtless--"

So the war of words, begun on the top story of Faizullah's house,

found its way into the narrow village street, and thence into many a

mud-walled courtyard where the women set down the pots of water and

rested themselves in wrangling. It even went further, for in not a few

of them, when the men came back from their day's work in the fields,

the subject of Haiyat Bibi's peeping eyes and covetous jewels gave rise

to slow, deliberate conversation over the evening pipe. Faizullah was

right to beat her, of course; on that point all were agreed. The rest

was open to argument, and had been so any time these last two years,

ever since the bold Belooch of Birokzai, on his way home from short

service in a frontier regiment, had halted in his retreat at the sight

of a pair of big black eyes behind the chink of a door. Long before

that, however, the question as to whether those jewels of Haiyat Bibi's

were to come back with her in search of a new bridegroom among her own

relations, or to remain with her in her late husband's family, had

greatly exercised the minds of this little village, which lay, as it

were, safely tucked away between the sheets of sand in the bed of the

Indus and the soft pillow-like curves of the rising ground. It was

given to be excited over trifles, this far-away, peaceful-looking

cluster of mud huts; for beneath the newly acquired placidity of the

peasant which its inhabitants presented on the surface, the lawlessness

of the border bravo remained ready for any emergency. On the whole,

however, it afforded a beautiful example of the civilising effects of

agriculture, and as such figured in many reports having as their object

the glorification of British rule. Consequently it was watched with

jealous eyes by the district and police officials, who felt their

sheet-anchor of reference would be gone did any serious crime occur to

throw discredit on the converted community. Despite this constant care,

the village might have been situated in the moon for all the

authorities knew of the pretty intrigues, the hopes and fears, which

formed the mainspring of its life. Even the ordinary human interests of

its inhabitants were all too low in tone and insignificant to secure

alien sympathy. So Haiyat Bibi's peeping eyes and her Delhi-made jewels

were disturbing elements unknown to those who signed the monthly

criminal reports with placid self-satisfaction at their own success in

securing virtue. Even when, egged on by the family, her best-looking

male cousin made bids for possession of both these charms in various

underhand ways, the consequent employment of Faizullah Khan's marital

discipline did not resound so far as the _hakm's_ ears.

Therefore it was an unpleasant surprise when, some six weeks after the

original homily against peeping, the significant red envelope which

proclaims the shedding of blood found its way into the Deputy

Commissioner's mail-bag, and brought the news of Haiyat Bibi's murder

by her husband, and his subsequent flight to the hills. Furthermore, it

was reported by the sergeant of police, whose very writing showed signs

of trepidation, that the whole village was in an uproar, and he himself

quite unable to cope with the situation. As luck would have it, some

eighty miles of desert and alluvial land lay between the excited

village and the fountains of law and order; for when the red envelope

arrived, the responsible officials were in camp at the other end of the

district. Nearly a week passed ere they could arrive on the scene, and

by that time the villagers had sworn to renew a blood-feud which in

past days had thriven bravely between their clan and that of the

murderer. They were, in fact, on the point of turning their

ploughshares into swords--an example which is dangerously contagious

among the border tribes. Owing, therefore, to the necessity of

persuading the people to trust the far-reaching arm of the law for

revenge, instead of seeking it for themselves, the actual murder itself

dropped into comparative insignificance. Indeed, the details of the

crime were meagre in the extreme, though the evidence of previous

jealousy on the husband's part, even to the point of grievous hurt, was

copious. Nor did the family of the murdered woman's late husband

hesitate to accuse her blood-relations of a deliberate attempt to

seduce her from the path of virtue, in order to bring about a poisoning

of the bold Faizullah, and a subsequent transference of her affection,

and her jewels, to a more suitable husband. Inquiry, indeed, opened up

such a vista of conflicting rascality, that the district-officer was

fain to draw a decent veil over it by accepting the result, namely,

that on a certain specified night, between certain specified hours,

Faizullah Khan, not content with having beaten his wife to the verge of

death during the day, had stealthily completed his devilish work,

dragged the corpse of his victim a mile or two from the village,

stripped it of ornament, and left it to be devoured by jackals and

hyenas. In support of which statements, gruesome remains, found, it was

said, some days after the woman's disappearance, were produced and

sworn to vociferously by all. Relics of this sort are apt to be

somewhat indefinite; this objection, however, was met by the subsequent

discovery of portions of Haiyat Bibi's clothing, and a golden ear-ring

which the murderer had evidently dropped in his flight. The latter

whetted the desire for revenge to a point, for, as the district-officer

sorrowfully admitted to himself, the old-fashioned wrath at injury to

their women, so conspicuous among these border clans, was now freely

intermixed with that greed of gold which civilisation brings in its

wake. Finally, since nothing else could be done, a reward of two

thousand rupees was put upon the capture of one Faizullah Khan, Belooch

of Birokzai, accused of murdering his wife and stealing her jewels,

value twelve hundred rupees. In addition, vague promises were made that

on the next punitive expedition into the mountains an eye would be kept

on the escaped criminal's particular village, and some indemnity

exacted. There the matter rested peacefully, and so, on the whole, did

the village, though the friction between the blood-relations of the

murdered woman and her connections by marriage remained a fruitful

source of petty disturbance.

"There is something odd about that case," remarked a new magistrate

when some fresh complaint of quarrel came in for settlement. "It is

always more satisfactory to have a real, _whole_ body; but when there

is neither corpse nor criminal it is useless depending on facts at

all." The police officer, however, declared, that having personally

conducted the inquiry no mistake in either facts or conclusions was

possible.

Eighteen months passed by and early spring was melting the snows on

that great rampart of hills which, properly guarded, would make the

rich plains of India impregnable to a western foe. The border land was

astir, its officials busy, for the long-talked-of punitive expedition

was about to thread its way through the peaks and passes, bearing the

rod which teaches respect, and perhaps fidelity. On the outermost

skirts of British territory the district-officer sat in front of his

tent writing a rose-coloured report on the progress of education. It

was long overdue owing to the pressure of martial preparations, so he

was in a hurry and superlatives came fast.

"A Belooch from beyond the border is seeking the Presence with

insistence," pleaded a deferential myrmidon.

"Let him come," was the prompt reply; and the pen, laid aside, rolled

over, blotting the last sentence. What matter? Reports have various

values, and the Belooch might bring information that would make force

more forcible.

An old soldier, by the look of him, tall and well set up, with merry

brown eyes and a determined face. He brought himself to the salute

gravely. "May the life of the Presence be prolonged and may his

gracious ears bear with a question. Is it true that the armies of the

Lord of the Universe march against the village of one Faizullah of

Birokzai?"

"The armies of the Kaiser-i-Hind march against all thieves and

murderers, no matter who they are."

"The words of the Presence are just altogether. Yet may the Protector

of the Poor bear with this dust-like one. Is it true that he who brings

Faizullah captive will receive two thousand rupees reward?"

"It is true."

"_Wah illah!_ The purse of the great Queen is big if the long tongue of

the Presence wags in it so freely. The sum is great."

"The crime is great. He murdered his wife; besides, he stole twelve

hundred rupees' worth of jewels."

The smile of contempt which had crept into the listener's face at the

first part of the sentence gave place to a frown at the sequel. "The

Presence says it; shall it not be true?" he remarked with deference

after a pause. "Nevertheless the sum exceeds the purchase. Does not the

price of the calf buy the cow also?[24] There is no wisdom in a bad

bargain."

The Deputy Commissioner looked at the new comer sharply. "Doubtless;

yet none have given the man up, though all know we will keep our threat

of burning the village next month."

The sudden clenching of the slender, nervous hands and quick inflation

of the nostrils convinced the Englishman that there was an envoy

prepared with concessions, but asking for some in return.

"The Presence hath said it, shall it not be true?" came the urbane

reply. "Yet we Beloochees do not give up our friends readily. Still

Faizullah is no friend of mine, so for twelve hundred rupees I will

bring him to the Presence, _dead or alive_, if his honour pleases."

The Deputy Commissioner stared. "But the reward is two thousand; why do

you ask less?"

"The price of the calf is the price of the cow, _Huzoor!_ I lack but

one thing, and the sum is enough for the purchase. Am I a pig of

_baniah_ to fill my stomach with rupees I cannot digest? Nevertheless

the task is hard, and those who go near violence may suffer violence.

What good then would the money be to me if I were dead?"

Like many of his race, he had a curiously round mellow voice that

seemed to linger over the slow, stately periods as he went on

deliberately. "Surely God will reward the Presence for his patience!

But a man's son is as himself. And I have a son, _Huzoor_, a babe in

his mother's arms--may the Lord bring him safe to man's estate! If the

great Purveyor of Justice would cause a writing to be made, setting

forth that my son is as myself, and my earnings as his earnings--nay,

surely the Presence will have the best bliss of Paradise reserved for

it specially! And if the munificent Keeper of the Purse of Kings would

cause the twelve hundred rupees to be set apart from this day in the

hands of some notable banker--not that this slave doubts, but the

Presence knows the guile of all women, and that all men are born of

women, and therefore guileful. It knows also that without the hope of

money naught but the stars in heaven will move; and if I say, 'Lo, I

will give, when I have it,' who will listen? But if I say, 'Lo! there

it is safe, do my bidding and take it,' 'tis a different matter. If,

therefore, the Presence will do this, his slave will bring Faizullah,

Belooch of Birokzai, to him _alive or dead_, and there will be no need

to burn the village."

"And the jewels?"

Once more the frown came quick. "If I bring Faizullah to the Halls of

Justice alive, surely the mightiness of the Presence will make him

speak. If I bring him dead, can this slave follow him and find speech

in the silence of the grave? Say! is it a bargain? Yes or no?"

The anxious brevity of the last question showed the sincerity of the

man more than all his measured words, and after some further parley,

the conditions were arranged. That is to say, the sum of twelve hundred

rupees was forthwith to be paid into the hands of a responsible third

party, and the informer was to bring Faizullah to the Deputy

Commissioner dead or alive, before reprisals had been taken on the

village, when, even if he lost his life in the capture, the reward was

to be paid to his heirs and assigns. He positively refused to give

either name or designation, asserting with the measure of sound common

sense which characterised all his utterances, firstly, that no one

would know if he gave a false one; secondly, that if he failed to keep

his promise he would prefer to remain in oblivion; thirdly, that if he

did succeed in bringing Faizullah to book, the Presence would be sure

to recognise his servant and slave. Thus he departed as he came, a

nameless stranger.

Three days after an excited crowd rode pell-mell into the magistrate's

compound. "_Huzoor!_ we have found him! we have found him!" rose a

dozen voices, as the more influential men of the party crushed into the

office room.

"Who?"

"Faizullah the Belooch! Faizullah the murderer! The reward is ours,

praise be to God and to your honour's opulence. _Wah_, the glad day!

_Wah_, the great day!"

"_Salaam alaikoum_, Friend of the Poor Man!" came an urbane voice from

their midst. "The dust-like slave of the Presence hath kept his word.

Behold! I bring to you Faizullah Khan, Belooch of Birokzai, alive, not

dead."

A sudden hush fell on the jostling crew as the prisoner raised his

fettered hands in grave obeisance, and then solemnly, vigorously, spat

to right and left ere he began: "Snakes gorged to impotence by their

own greed! Bullocks with but one set of eyes to seven stomachs! Listen!

whilst I recount the tale of your infamies to the ear of this wise

judge. _Huzoor!_ I am Faizullah, husband of the virtuous Haiyat, mother

of my son, dwelling content in the house of my father. Yea! it is true.

For her jewels' sake, her father-in-law bound me by promises, when he

found me caught in the meshes. So for her sake I stayed in a strange

land, and the fields and the jewels were as his. Then the old man

yonder, her uncle, wroth at the marriage, set his son to beguile her;

so I beat her till she had no heart to be beguiled. For all that they

would not cease from evil ways. Therefore said I to her father-in-law:

'Let me go, for surely if I stay thy daughter-in-law will have to die

some day, and then her blood-kin will claim all. Let me go in peace

with the Core of my Heart; but keep thou the jewels, for I have no need

of them.' So in the night, he consenting, I crept away with her in my

arms, for she had eaten her full of the bamboo that day, and could not

walk. The Presence knows what came next--how they called me murderer

and thief, her blood-kin claiming the land, her father-in-law denying

that he had the jewels--and I nursing her to health in the mountains!

_Huzoor!_ the _sahib-logues_ are like eagles. They look at the Sun of

Justice and see not the maggots it breeds in carrion like these men.

Yet what cared I, away in the hills, what men called me here, save that

my house wept for her jewels, and I knew not how to get them; for the

reward was heavy and oaths are cheap in your land. Then came word that

the armies of the Lord of the Universe were to march on this slave's

village, and I said, 'What is life to me? I will try and speak them

fair.' The Presence knows what came next. When the paper concerning the

twelve hundred rupees had been writ, I knew that my house would have

her rights anyhow, even if the eyes of the Just Judge were blinded by

false oaths, or that I came dead into the Presence. So I said by

message to the carrion: 'Dispute no longer among yourselves. Let me buy

the jewels at the price ye have put on them. Let one take the money and

the other the land, or half-and-half. Only give me the jewels, and say

in the Court of Justice,--"Lo! we were mistaken! Faizullah hath not

killed his wife. He nursed her back to life, and she hath a right to

the jewels and her son after her. But the land is ours by agreement."'

And to this they said 'Yea' guilefully. But when I went to the village,

trusting them not at all, they seized me and brought me hither for the

reward, not knowing that the Presence had deigned to cast his gracious

eye on this poor man before, and that the reward was for me, or my son.

It is spoken. Let the Presence decide!"

Nothing is more surprising than the rapidity with which a got-up case

breaks down when once the judge is seen to have an inkling of the

truth. _Suave qui peut_ is then the motto; especially when nothing more

is to be gained from consistency. Haiyat's relations professed

themselves both astonished and overjoyed at her return to life, and

before the inquiry was over had arranged for the discovery of the

jewels, which were found carefully hidden away in the house of Haiyat

Bibi's female attendant, who had died of cholera the year before, an

ingenious incident productive of injured innocence to all the living.

"It has not emptied the purse of the great Queen after all," said

Faizullah with a broad smile, as he stood beside the Deputy

Commissioner on the crest of a hill, and pointed to a terraced village

on the opposite side of the valley. "Nor hath the house of the poor

suffered; for the dwelling of this slave will not burn."

The jewels were in a bundle under his arm, and he was taking leave of

the expedition he had accompanied so far. He turned to go, then

suddenly saluted in military fashion. "If this dust-like one might give

freedom to his tongue for a space, the wisdom of experience might reach

the ear of those above it. Yea, of a surety the patience of the

Presence is beyond praise! _Huzoor!_ if the reward writ in the police

stations had been for me, alive or dead, peace would have been beyond

my fate, for the great mind of the Protector of the Poor will perceive

that a man hath no power against false oaths when once his own tongue

is stilled by death; and that even the justice of kings avails little

when the case has been decided already. Let this memory remain with the

_sahibs_, 'Peace bringeth Plenty, and Plenty bringeth Power.' So it

comes that false oaths are easy under the rule of the Presence."

That was his farewell.

The snow still lay low, but the orchards were ablaze with blossom as,

next morning, the little force led by white faces straggled peacefully

along the cobbled ledges of the steep village lane. On either side

strips of garden ground, where the heart-shaped leaves of the sweet yam

pushed from the brown soil, led up to the low houses, backed by peach

and almond trees and festooned by withered gourds. On the steps leading

to a high-perched dwelling overhanging the lane, stood Faizullah Khan

with a sturdy youngster in his arms. The Deputy Commissioner happening

to come last and alone, stopped to look at the child with kindly eyes.

As he did so a door above was set ajar, and through the chink he caught

a glimpse of a singularly beautiful pair of black eyes, and a flash of

jewels.

"It is my house, _Huzoor_," said Faizullah with rather a sheepish grin.

"I gave her leave to peep this time."