"This is a land of surprises," Haslam had said, and indeed if ever words
had been vividly, literally and luridly borne out, here was an instance.
Within one short half hour of their utterance this camp, then the very
embodiment of peaceful repose and fancied security, had been overrun by
savage massacre and turned into a reeking human shambles. Corpses, many
of them horribly hacked, lay in every attitude of agonised contortion,
and great smears of blood spattered the canvas of the tents, as also the
dirty-white garments of the assailants. As for the hapless Europeans,
though for the moment alive and uninjured, they were helpless captives
in the power of the most notoriously cruel and unsparing brigand of the
whole northern border. Of a truth this was a land of surprises.
The first idea that occupied Haslam and Tarleton was to attend to the
unfortunate lady, and this they did, as carefully as though it was an
ordinary fainting fit, and there were no barbarous enemies within a
thousand miles of them.
"She'd better not come to again just yet," Tarleton said. "We'd better
get her into a tent, if they'll let us."
Permission to do this was granted gruffly, but two of their captors were
ordered to enter with them lest they should possess themselves of
weapons, nor was this precaution superfluous, for they had fixed upon
Haslam's tent as being the nearest, and Haslam's revolver lay upon his
charpoy. At the sight he stifled a deep and muttered curse, as the
Gularzai pounced greedily upon it. He had reason to curse deeper still
as they ordered him to at once deliver up any arms and ammunition he
might have in his possession. Inwardly he groaned again as he saw his
beautiful shot gun and Mannlicher rifle in the eager grip of the hooked
claws of these copper-hued brigands. Then he was ordered outside again.
Murad Afzul had not dismounted from his fine camel, and from the
altitude of his seat--for he had ridden into the centre of the camp--was
directing operations. Several of his followers were ransacking the
tents, trundling out their contents; and soon trunks and despatch boxes,
bags and tins of provisions, articles of clothing and kitchen utensils
were piled together in promiscuous heaps. But what delighted the
warrior soul of the freebooter was the sight of four or five good,
up-to-date rifles and a brace of revolvers. The shotguns, too, he
contemplated with satisfaction, but the rifles appealed to him most, and
these he caused to be handed up to him one after the other as he sat on
his camel, and each he would bring to his shoulder, sighting it at some
object far or near, away over the plain. The weapons of his followers
were good, but they were only Martinis. But these--magazine and
repeating guns, spick and span, and of first-rate workmanship! Ya,
Mahomed, what a find!
Now he beckoned Haslam to him. The Forest Officer, standing there under
this arch-brigand looking down upon him from the height of his towering
camel, felt that humiliation was indeed his lot to-day.
"So, jungle wallah," began Murad Afzul, speaking in Hindustani, and
sneeringly withal, "so, jungle wallah, I told you I was not accustomed
to ask the same question twice; yet this time I will give you yet
another chance, and ask it the third time. Where is Raynier?"
"That I can't tell, for I don't know," answered Haslam, with perfect
truth.
The chief bent over, and whispered instructions to some of his followers
on the off-side of his camel. These came round, and laying a hand on
Haslam's shoulder ordered him to go with them. Resistance was
absolutely useless, and Haslam was marched away. They were taking him
in the direction of the Levy Sowars' camp, he noticed, of course to
execute him there. His time had come, he concluded. Rapidly, as he
walked to his doom, his past life flashed through his recollection. He
had been a careless sort of chap, he supposed, like others, no better--
he would have shrunk from the imputation of making any other claim--but,
he hoped, no worse. He had not troubled his head much about what lay
beyond the grave, nor had he ever shrunk from death when duty or
dangerous sport had brought him within gazing distance of it. Perhaps,
if all that was taught of what came after it were true, or even a
portion, why, he was surrendering his life rather than give information
which should place the lives of others in danger, and it might be taken
into consideration. But of mercy at the hands of yon ruthless
freebooter he had no hope. At any rate, he would meet a swift death--
they would shoot or behead him, and they might have done him to death by
slow torture. He thought of his wife and young family away in England.
Would they miss him much, and, more important still, would the
Government do anything for them over and above the rather moderate
pension which they would draw from the fund to which he had subscribed
throughout his term of service? It was not probable. Government was
seldom liberal. Then his thoughts were broken in upon. They had
reached the tents of the Levy Sowars, and into one of these he was
ordered.
Wonderingly he obeyed. What did it mean? Were they not going to put
him to death after all, for it occurred to him they would hardly have
brought him into a tent for such a purpose? But he was ordered to seat
himself, and remain perfectly still--and informed that any movement he
might make, or sound that he should utter, would be his last. And then,
immediately outside the canvas which screened him from the outer world,
he heard the loud sharp, double report of a rifle.
One other heard it too, and that one was Tarleton. To his mind it
suggested but one solution--possible rescue to wit--acting upon which
idea he did what a man of his bull-headed temperament would be expected
to do, but which, had his idea been correct, was the very worst possible
thing he could have done. He came to the tent door, and looked eagerly
and anxiously out.
Murad Afzul still sat there on his great camel, his countenance as cold
and impassive as the graceful folds of his snowy turban, while upon his
followers a strange hush had fallen. At sight of the Feringhi it was
broken--broken by muttered curses and threats. But--where was Haslam?
The chief beckoned him forward, and he had to obey. Yes, obey. There
was no mincing the word. He was in the power--absolutely in the power
of this man, this "nigger," as he would have described him about half an
hour ago.
"You heard those shots," said the Gularzai, haughtily, from the
loftiness of his tall steed. "Yes? Look around. Where is the jungle
wallah?"
Tarleton did look around--with some alacrity, moreover. But no sign of
Haslam rewarded his glance. He began to see the grim drift of the
injunction.
"You will see your friend no more," went on the chief. "I asked him a
question--for the third time. He would not answer--so he was shot--over
there."
He paused, with intent to let the full weight of his words sink deep in
the other's mind. Like most wild or semi-civilised people, the Gularzai
freebooter was a character reader, and knew his man. But, before the
other had time to answer, an interruption occurred, as startling as it
was unforeseen.
All were watching the result of the dialogue between the chief and the
prisoner. Fierce eyes glared beneath shaggy brows, claw-like fingers
felt the edge of tulwars, foul and sticky with blood that had already
been shed. Eagerly heads were bent forward, awaiting the word that
should hand this Feringhi over to their scarcely-glutted blood lust and
hate.
"Hear me, O great Sirdar," cried a voice, pitched in loud, harsh tones.
"Hear me, I can give the information thou requirest, O Sword of the
Prophet."
The Levy Sowars who had surrendered, to the number of about a dozen,
were grouped on the outskirts of the freebooters. From one of these the
voice proceeded.
"Let him come forward," said Murad Afzul.
Way being made the speaker advanced. He was a youngish man, tall and
well built, with aquiline features and a short curling beard.
"Who art thou?" said the chief, shortly.
"Mahomed Afa, Waziri," answered the man.
"Well, what dost thou know?"
"This, O great Sirdar, Murad Afzul. This, this. That as thou didst
slay my father Mahomed Jan, so now enter Jehanum by the hand of his
son."
Quick as thought, while uttering these words he had snatched a rifle
from the loose, unguarded grasp of the man next to him, and without
waiting to raise it to his shoulder discharged the piece well-nigh point
blank at the chief. But the ball hummed viciously past, just ruffling
the edge of Murad Afzul's voluminous turban. For the camel, whether
acting under the influence of the ineradicable cussedness which is
inherent in its species, or irritated by the harsh vociferation right at
its ear, had suddenly reached round its head with a resentful grunt,
making a vicious snap at the would-be slayer, with the double effect of
somewhat marring his aim and moving its rider by just the few inches
requisite to the saving of his life. In a twinkling the man was seized.
"Ya, Allah!" he mouthed, struggling furiously in the grasp of those who
held him. "Avenge me of this robber-dog, this vulture-bred coward who
only strikes those who are too weak to oppose his numbers. Mahomed
Prophet! strike him down into the burning pit of Hawiyat, where his
gnawing vitals shall consume for ever and ever."
The declamatory voice had risen to a wild scream. Murad Afzul, seated
on his camel, had not moved throughout the whole scene. Now he spoke.
"So thou art the son of Mahomed Jan, that Waziri thief and enemy of
Allah?" he said, gazing down upon his would-be slayer. "Allah is great
and His Prophet has rendered thee as unskilful in the use of weapons as
others of thy kind. Well, ye twain, father and son, have been parted
long enough, so now thou shalt join thine in Jehanum, yet not at once,
for I think I will show thee some foretaste of its fires here."
He signed to those who held the frantic man--then something in the
aspect of the latter caused him to change his intention. For he
recognised that the Waziri's mind had given way, in short, that he had
become a frenzied maniac, and to harm him as such would be clean
contrary to all tribal tradition and sanction. Yet he had no intention
of letting him off scot free.
"I will spare him the fire," he said, "for of that he will have plenty.
So--shorten him by the head."
Willing feet sprang to do his bidding. Willing hands seized the
mouthing, cursing maniac, who by dint of a camel halter was forced to
stretch forth his neck. Then the flash of a keen tulwar in the air, and
the deluging, headless corpse was writhing and squirming right at
Tarleton's feet.
Tarleton, surgeon though he was, turned sick at the horrid sight, the
more so that in all probability it presaged his own fate. The voice of
Murad Afzul recalled him to this.
"You have seen, Feringhi. Now, that is thy fate, if my question is
unanswered. Where is Raynier?"
Tarleton looked at the gushing, headless corpse, then at the stern,
uncompromising countenance of the chief. He noted, too, the eager,
cruel visages of those around, who seemed to hang upon his answer. Life
was as good to him as to anybody else, nor did he feel the least
inclination to part with it at that moment. Besides, what would become
of his wife, now lying unconscious in the tent behind him, if left alone
and at the mercy of these ruthless barbarians? Haslam was dead, and
thus no one need ever know, for no one was left to witness against him,
and if ever there was a case of "every man for himself" this was surely
it. So he replied,--
"He has gone to visit Sarbaland Khan."