For service truly rendered, and for duty dumbly done--For men who
neither tremble nor forget--There is due reward, my henchman. There is
honor to be won. There is watch and ward and sterner duty yet.
No sound came, from within the schoolhouse. The little building, coaxed
from a grudging Maharajah, seemed to strain for light and air between
two overlapping, high-walled brick warehouses. Before the door, in a
spot where the scorching sun-rays came but fitfully between a mesh of
fast-decaying thatch, the old hag who had followed Rosemary McClean lay
snoozing, muttering to herself, and blinking every now and then as a
street dog blinks at the passers-by. She took no notice of Mahommed
Gunga until he swore at her.
“Miss-sahib hai?” he growled; and the woman jumped up in a hurry and
went inside. A moment later Rosemary McClean stood framed in the doorway
still in her cotton riding-habit, very pale--evidently frightened at
the summons--but strangely, almost ethereally, beautiful. Her wealth of
chestnut hair was loosely coiled above her neck, as though she had been
caught in the act of dressing it. She looked like the wan, wasted spirit
of human pity--he like a great, grim war-god.
“Salaam, Miss Maklin-sahib!”
He dismounted as he spoke and stood at attention, then stared
truculently, too inherently chivalrous to deny her civility--he would
have cut his throat as soon as address her from horseback while she
stood--and too contemptuous of her father's calling to be more civil
than he deemed in keeping with his honor.
“Salaam, Mohammed Gunga!” She seemed very much relieved, although
doubtful yet. “Not letters again?”
“No, Miss-sahib. I am no mail-carrier! I brought those letters as a
favor to Franklin-sahib at Peshawur; I was coming hither, and he had
no man to send. I will take letters, since I am now going, if there are
letters ready; I ride to-night.”
“Thank you, Mahommed Gunga. I have letters for England. They are not yet
sealed. May I send them to you before you start?”
“I will send my man for them. Also, Miss Maklin-sahib” (heavens!
how much cleaner and better that sounded than the prince's ironical
“sahiba”!)
“If you wish it, I will escort you to Peshawur, or to any city between
here and there.”
“But--but why?”
“I saw Jaimihr. I know Jaimihr.”
“And--”
“And--this is no place for a padre, or for the daughter of a padre.”
What he said was true, but it was also insolent, said insolently.
“Mahommed Gunga-sahib, what are those ribbons on your breast?” she asked
him.
He glanced down at them, and his expression changed a trifle; it was
scarcely perceptible, but underneath his fierce mustache the muscles of
his mouth stiffened.
“They are medal ribbons--for campaigns,” he answered.
“Three-four-five! Then, you were a soldier a long time? Did you--did you
desert your post when there was danger?”
He flushed, and raised his hand as though about to speak.
“Or did people insult you when you chose to remain on duty?”
“Miss-sahib, I have not insulted you!” said Mahommed Gunga. “I came here
for another purpose.”
“You came, very kindly, to ask whether there were letters. Thank you,
Mahommed Gunga-sahib, for your courtesy. There are letters, and I will
give them to your man, if you will be good enough to send him for them.”
He still stood there, staring at her with eyes that did not blink. He
was too much of a soldier to admit himself at a loss what to say, yet
he had no intention of leaving Howrah without saying it, for that, too,
would have been unsoldierly.
“The reason why your countrymen have found men of this land before now
to fight for them--one reason, at least--” he said gruffly, “is that
hitherto they have not meddled with our religions. It is not safe! It
would be better to come away, Miss-sahib.”
“Would you like to say that to my father? He is--”
“Allah forbid that I should argue with him! I spoke to you, on your
account!”
“You forget, I think,” she answered him gently, “that we had permission
from the British Government to come here; it has not been withdrawn. We
are doing no harm here--trying only to do good. There is always danger
when--”
“I would speak of that,” he interrupted--“You will not come away?”
She shook her head.
“Your father could remain.”
She shook her head again. “I stay with him,” she answered.
“At present, Jaimihr is the danger, Miss-sahib; but I think that at
present he will dare do nothing. The Maharajah dare do nothing either,
yet. Should either of them make a move to interfere with you, it would
not be safe to appeal to the other one. You will not understand, but
it is so. In that event, there is a way to safety of which I would warn
you.”
“Thank you, Mahommed Gunga. What is it?”
“There are men more than a day's ride away from here who are to be
depended on--by you, at least--under all circumstances. Is that old
woman to be trusted?”
“How should I know?” she smiled. “I believe she is fond of me.”
“That should be enough. I would like, if the Miss-sahib will permit, to
speak with her.”
At a word from Miss McClean the old hag came out into the sun again and
blinked at the Rajput, very much afraid of him. Mahommed Gunga saluted
Miss McClean--swore at the old woman--pointed a wordless order with his
right arm--watched her shuffle half a hundred yards up-street--followed
her, and growled at her for about five minutes, while she nodded.
Finally, he drew from the pocket of his crimson coat a small handful
of gold mohurs--fat, dignified coins that glittered--and held them out
toward her with an air as though they meant nothing to him--positively
nothing--Her eyes gleamed. He let her take a good look at the money
before replacing it, then tossed her a silver quarter-rupee piece,
saluted Miss McClean again--for she was watching the pantomime from the
doorway still--and mounted and rode off, his back looking like the back
of one who has neither care nor fear nor master.
At the caravansary his squire came running out to hold his stirrup.
“Picket the horse in the yard,” said Mahommed Gunga, “then find me
another servant and bring him to me in the room here!”
“Another servant? But, sahib--”
“I said another servant! Has deafness overcome thee?” He used a word in
the dialect which left no room for doubt as to his meaning; it was to
be a different servant--a substitute for the squire he had already. The
squire bowed his head in disciplined obedience and led the horse away.
An hour later--evening was drawing on--he came back, followed by a
somewhat ruffianly-looking half-breed Rajput-Punjaubi. The new man was
rather ragged and lacked one eye, but with the single eye he had he
looked straight at his prospective master. Mahommed Gunga glared at him,
but the man did not quail or shrink.
“This fellow wishes honorable service, sahib.” The squire spoke as
though he were calling his master's attention to a horse that was for
sale. “I have seen his family; I have inquired about him; and I have
explained to him that unless he serves at thee faithfully his wife and
his man child will die at my hands in his absence.”
“Can he groom a horse?”
“So he says, sahib, and so say others.”
“Can he fight?”
“He slew the man with his bare hands who pricked his eye out with a
sword.”
“Oh! What payment does he ask?”
“He leaves that matter to your honor's pleasure.”
“Good. Instruct him, then. Set him to cleaning my horse and then return
here.”
The squire was back again within five minutes and stood before Mahommed
Gunga in silent expectation.
“I shall miss thee,” said Mahommed Gunga after five minutes' reflection.
“It is well that I have other servants in the north.”
“In what have I offended, sahib?”
“In nothing. Therefore there is a trust imposed.”
The man salaamed. Mahommed Gunga produced his little handful of gold
mohurs and divided it into two equal portions; one he handed to the
squire.
“Stay here. Be always either in the caravansary or else at call. Should
the old woman who serves Miss Maklin-sahib, the padre-sahib's daughter
come and ask thy aid, then saddle swiftly the three horses I will leave
with thee, and bear Miss Maklin-sahib and her father to my cousin Alwa's
place. Present two of the gold mohurs to the hag, should that happen.”
“But sahib--two mohurs? I could buy ten such hags outright for the
price!”
“She has my word in the matter! It is best to have her eager to win
great reward. The hag will stay awake, but see to it that thou sleepest
not!”
“And for how long must I stay here, sahib?”
“One month--six months--a year--who knows? Until the hag summons thee,
or I, by writing or by word of mouth, relieve thee of thy trust.”
At sunset he sent the squire to Miss McClean for the letters he had
promised to deliver; and at one hour after sunset, when the heat of the
earth had begun to rise and throw back a hot blast to the darkened sky
and the little eddies of luke-warm surface wind made movement for horse
and man less like a fight with scorching death, he rode off, with his
new servant, on the two horses left to him of the five with which he
came.
A six-hundred-mile ride without spare horses, in the heat of northern
India, was an undertaking to have made any strong man flinch. The
stronger the man, and the more soldierly, the better able he would be to
realize the effort it would call for. But Mahommed Gunga rode as though
he were starting on a visit to a near-by friend; he was not given
to crossing bridges before he reached them, nor to letting prospects
influence his peace of mind. He was a soldier. He took precautions
first, when and where such were possible, then rode and looked fate in
the eye.
He appeared to take no more notice of the glowering looks that
followed him from stuffy balconies and dense-packed corners than of the
mosquitoes to and the heat. Without hurry he picked his way through
the thronged streets, where already men lay in thousands to escape the
breathlessness of walled interiors; the gutters seemed like trenches
where the dead of a devastated city had been laid; the murmur was like
the voice of storm-winds gathering, and the little lights along the
housetops were for the vent-holes on the lid of a tormented underworld.
But he rode on at his ease. Ahead of him lay that which he considered
duty. He could feel the long-kept peace of India disintegrating all
around him, and he knew--he was certain--as sometimes a brave man can
see what cleverer men all overlook--that the right touch by the right
man at the right moment, when the last taut-held thread should break,
would very likely swing the balance in favor of peace again, instead of
individual self seeking anarchy.
He knew what “Cunnigan-bahadur” would have done. He swore by
Cunnigan-bahadur. And the memory of that same dead, desperately honest
Cunningham he swore that no personal profit or convenience or safety
should be allowed to stand between him and what was honorable and right!
Mahommed Gunga had no secrets from himself; nor lack of imagination. He
knew that he was riding--not to preserve the peace of India, for that
was as good as gone--but to make possible the winning back of it. And he
rode with a smile on his thin lips, as the crusaders once rode on a less
self-advertising errand.