THE BROKEN ROAD
BY A.E.W. MASON
AUTHOR OF "FOUR FEATHERS," "THE TRUANTS," "RUNNING WATER," ETC.
1907
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE BREAKING OF THE ROAD
II. INSIDE THE FORT
III. LINFORTH'S DEATH
IV. LUFFE LOOKS FORWARD
V. A MAGAZINE ARTICLE
VI. A LONG WALK
VII. IN THE DAUPHINÉ
VIII. A STRING OF PEARLS
IX. LUFFE IS REMEMBERED
X. AN UNANSWERED QUESTION
XI. AT THE GATE OF LAHORE
XII. ON THE POLO-GROUND
XIII. THE INVIDIOUS BAR
XIV. IN THE COURTYARD
XV. A QUESTION ANSWERED
XVI. SHERE ALI MEETS AN OLD FRIEND
XVII. NEWS FROM MECCA
XVIII. SYBIL LINFORTH'S LOYALTY
XIX. A GIFT MISUNDERSTOOD
XX. THE SOLDIER AND THE JEW
XXI. SHERE ALI IS CLAIMED BY CHILTISTAN
XXII. THE CASTING OF THE DIE
XXIII. SHERE ALI'S PILGRIMAGE
XXIV. NEWS FROM AJMERE
XXV. IN THE ROSE GARDEN
XXVI. THE BREAKING OF THE PITCHER
XXVII. AN ARRESTED CONFESSION
XXVIII. THE THIEF
XXIX. MRS. OLIVER RIDES THROUGH PESHAWUR
XXX. THE NEEDED IMPLEMENT
XXXI. AN OLD TOMB AND A NEW SHRINE
XXXII. SURPRISES FOR CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
XXXIII. IN THE RESIDENCY
XXXIV. ONE OF THE LITTLE WARS
XXXV. A LETTER FROM VIOLET
XXXVI. "THE LITTLE LESS--"
CHAPTER I
THE BREAKING OF THE ROAD
It was the Road which caused the trouble. It usually is the road. That
and a reigning prince who was declared by his uncle secretly to have sold
his country to the British, and a half-crazed priest from out beyond the
borders of Afghanistan, who sat on a slab of stone by the river-bank and
preached a _djehad_. But above all it was the road--Linforth's road. It
came winding down from the passes, over slopes of shale; it was built
with wooden galleries along the precipitous sides of cliffs; it snaked
treacherously further and further across the rich valley of Chiltistan
towards the Hindu Kush, until the people of that valley could endure it
no longer.
Then suddenly from Peshawur the wires began to flash their quiet and
ominous messages. The road had been cut behind Linforth and his coolies.
No news had come from him. No supplies could reach him. Luffe, who was in
the country to the east of Chiltistan, had been informed. He had gathered
together what troops he could lay his hands on and had already started
over the eastern passes to Linforth's relief. But it was believed that
the whole province of Chiltistan had risen. Moreover it was winter-time
and the passes were deep in snow. The news was telegraphed to England.
Comfortable gentlemen read it in their first-class carriages as they
travelled to the City and murmured to each other commonplaces about the
price of empire. And in a house at the foot of the Sussex Downs
Linforth's young wife leaned over the cot of her child with the tears
streaming from her eyes, and thought of the road with no less horror than
the people of Chiltistan. Meanwhile the great men in Calcutta began to
mobilise a field force at Nowshera, and all official India said uneasily,
"Thank Heaven, Luffe's on the spot."
Charles Luffe had long since abandoned the army for the political
service, and, indeed, he was fast approaching the time-limit of his
career. He was a man of breadth and height, but rather heavy and dull of
feature, with a worn face and a bald forehead. He had made enemies, and
still made them, for he had not the art of suffering fools gladly; and,
on the other hand, he made no friends. He had no sense of humour and no
general information. He was, therefore, of no assistance at a
dinner-party, but when there was trouble upon the Frontier, or beyond it,
he was usually found to be the chief agent in the settlement.
Luffe alone had foreseen and given warning of the danger. Even Linforth,
who was actually superintending the making of the road, had been kept in
ignorance. At times, indeed, some spokesman from among the merchants of
Kohara, the city of Chiltistan where year by year the caravans from
Central Asia met the caravans from Central India, would come to his tent
and expostulate.
"We are better without the road, your Excellency. Will you kindly stop
it!" the merchant would say; and Linforth would then proceed to
demonstrate how extremely valuable to the people of Chiltistan a better
road would be:
"Kohara is already a great mart. In your bazaars at summer-time you
see traders from Turkestan and Tibet and Siberia, mingling with the
Hindoo merchants from Delhi and Lahore. The road will bring you still
more trade."
The spokesman went back to the broad street of Kohara seemingly well
content, and inch by inch the road crept nearer to the capital.
But Luffe was better acquainted with the Chiltis, a soft-spoken race of
men, with musical, smooth voices and polite and pretty ways. But
treachery was a point of honour with them and cold-blooded cruelty a
habit. There was one particular story which Luffe was accustomed to tell
as illustrative of the Chilti character.
"There was a young man who lived with his mother in a little hamlet close
to Kohara. His mother continually urged him to marry, but for a long
while he would not. He did not wish to marry. Finally, however, he fell
in love with a pretty girl, made her his wife, and brought her home, to
his mother's delight. But the mother's delight lasted for just five days.
She began to complain, she began to quarrel; the young wife replied, and
the din of their voices greatly distressed the young man, besides making
him an object of ridicule to his neighbours. One evening, in a fit of
passion, both women said they would stand it no longer. They ran out of
the house and up the hillside, but as there was only one path they ran
away together, quarrelling as they went. Then the young Chilti rose,
followed them, caught them up, tied them in turn hand and foot, laid them
side by side on a slab of stone, and quietly cut their throats.
"'Women talk too much,' he said, as he came back to a house unfamiliarly
quiet. 'One had really to put a stop to it.'"
Knowing this and many similar stories, Luffe had been for some while on
the alert. Whispers reached him of dangerous talk in the bazaars of
Kohara, Peshawur, and even of Benares in India proper. He heard of the
growing power of the old Mullah by the river-bank. He was aware of the
accusations against the ruling Khan. He knew that after night had fallen
Wafadar Nazim, the Khan's uncle, a restless, ambitious, disloyal man,
crept down to the river-bank and held converse with the priest. Thus he
was ready so far as he could be ready.
The news that the road was broken was flashed to him from the nearest
telegraph station, and within twenty-four hours he led out a small force
from his Agency--a battalion of Sikhs, a couple of companies of Gurkhas,
two guns of a mountain battery, and a troop of irregular levies--and
disappeared over the pass, now deep in snow.
"Would he be in time?"
Not only in India was the question asked. It was asked in England, too,
in the clubs of Pall Mall, but nowhere with so passionate an outcry as in
the house at the foot of the Sussex Downs.
To Sybil Linforth these days were a time of intolerable suspense. The
horror of the Road was upon her. She dreamed of it when she slept, so
that she came to dread sleep, and tried, as long as she might, to keep
her heavy eyelids from closing over her eyes. The nights to her were
terrible. Now it was she, with her child in her arms, who walked for
ever and ever along that road, toiling through snow or over shale and
finding no rest anywhere. Now it was her boy alone, who wandered along
one of the wooden galleries high up above the river torrent, until a
plank broke and he fell through with a piteous scream. Now it was her
husband, who could go neither forward nor backward, since in front and
behind a chasm gaped. But most often it was a man--a young Englishman,
who pursued a young Indian along that road into the mists. Somehow,
perhaps because it was inexplicable, perhaps because its details were so
clear, this dream terrified her more than all the rest. She could tell
the very dress of the Indian who fled--a young man--young as his
pursuer. A thick sheepskin coat swung aside as he ran and gave her a
glimpse of gay silk; soft leather boots protected his feet; and upon his
face there was a look of fury and wild fear. She never woke from this
dream but her heart was beating wildly. For a few moments after waking
peace would descend upon her.
"It is a dream--all a dream," she would whisper to herself with
contentment, and then the truth would break upon her dissociated from the
dream. Often she rose from her bed and, kneeling beside the boy's cot,
prayed with a passionate heart that the curse of the Road--that road
predicted by a Linforth years ago--might overpass this generation.
Meanwhile rumours came--rumours of disaster. Finally a messenger broke
through and brought sure tidings. Luffe had marched quickly, had come
within thirty miles of Kohara before he was stopped. In a strong fort at
a bend of the river the young Khan with his wife and a few adherents had
taken refuge. Luffe joined the Khan, sought to push through to Kohara and
rescue Linforth, but was driven back. He and his troops and the Khan were
now closely besieged by Wafadar Nazim.
The work of mobilisation was pressed on; a great force was gathered at
Nowshera; Brigadier Appleton was appointed to command it.
"Luffe will hold out," said official India, trying to be cheerful.
Perhaps the only man who distrusted Luffe's ability to hold out was
Brigadier Appleton, who had personal reasons for his views. Brigadier
Appleton was no fool, and yet Luffe had not suffered him gladly. All the
more, therefore, did he hurry on the preparations. The force marched out
on the new road to Chiltistan. But meanwhile the weeks were passing, and
up beyond the snow-encumbered hills the beleaguered troops stood
cheerfully at bay behind the thick fort-walls.