Howrah City bows the knee
(More or less) to masters three,
King, and Prince, and Siva.
Howrah City comes and goes--
Buys and sells--and never knows
Which is friend, and which are foes--
King, or Prince, or Siva.
THAT that followed Alwa's breakaway was all but the tensest hour in
Howrah City's history. The inevitable--the foiled rage of the priests
and Jaimihr's impudent insistence that the missionaries should be handed
over to him--the Maharajah's answer--all combined to set the murmurings
afoot. Men said that the threatened rebellion against the rule of
Britain had broken loose at last, and a dozen other quite as false and
equally probable things.
Jaimihr, finding that his palace was intact, and that only the prisoner
and three horses from his stable were missing, placed the whole guard
under arrest--stormed futilely, while his hurrying swarm flocked to him
through the dinning streets--and then, mad-angry and made reckless by
his rage, rode with a hundred at his back to Howrah's palace, scattering
the bee-swarm of inquisitive but so far peaceful citizens right and
left.
With little ceremony, he sent in word to Howrah that he wanted Alwa and
the missionaries; he stated that his private honor was at stake, and
that he would stop at nothing to wreak vengeance. He wanted the man who
had dared invade his palace--the man whom he had released--and the
two who were the prime cause of the outrage. And with just as little
ceremony word came out that the Maharajah would please himself as to
what he did with prisoners.
That message was followed almost instantly by the high priest of Siva
in person, angry as a turkey-gobbler and blasphemously vindictive. He
it was who told Jaimihr of the unexpected departure through the
palace-grounds.
“Ride, Jaimihr-sahib! Ride!” he advised him.
“How many have you? A hundred? Plenty! Ride and cut him off! There is
but one road to Alwa's place; he must pass by the northern ford through
Howrah River. Ride and cut him off!”
So, loose-reined, foam-flecked, breathing vengeance, Jaimihr and his
hundred thundered through the dark hot night, making a bee-line for the
point where Alwa's band must pass in order to take the shortest route to
safety.
It was his word to the Jew that saved Alwa's neck. He and his men were
riding borrowed horses, and he had promised to return them and reclaim
his own. They had moved at a walk through winding, dark palace-alleys,
led by a palace attendant, and debouched through a narrow door that gave
barely horse-room into the road where Jaimihr had once killed a Maharati
trader who molested Rosemary McClean. The missionary and his daughter
were mounted on the horses seized in Jaimihr's stable; Joanna, moaning
about “three gold mohurs, sahib--three, where are they?” was up behind
Ali Partab, tossed like a pea on a drum-skin by the lunging movements of
the wonder of a horse.
Instead of heading straight for home, in which case--although he did not
know it--he would have been surely overhauled and brought to bay, he led
at a stiff hand gallop to the Jew's, changed horses, crossed the ford by
the burning ghats, and swooped in a wide half-circle for the sandy trail
that would take him homeward. He made the home road miles beyond the
point where Jaimihr waited for him--drew rein into the long-striding
amble that desert-taught horses love--and led on, laughing.
“Ho!” He laughed. “Ho-ho! Here, then, is the end of Mahommed Gunga's
scheming! Now, when he comes with arguments to make me fight on the
British side, what a tale I have for him! Ho! What a swearing there will
be! I will give him his missionary people, and say, 'There, Mahommed
Gunga, cousin mine, there is my word redeemed--there is thy man into the
bargain--there are three horses for thee--and I--I am at Howrah's beck
and call!' Allah! What a swearing there will be!”
There was swearing, viler and more blasphemous than any of which
Mahommed Gunga might be capable, where Jaimihr waited in the dark. He
waited until the yellow dawn broke up the first dim streaks of violet
before he realized that Alwa had given him the slip; and he cursed even
the high priest of Siva when that worthy accosted him and asked what
tidings.
“Another trick!” swore Jaimihr. “So, thou and thy temple rats saw fit to
send me packing for the night! What devils' tricks have been hatched out
in my absence?”
The high priest started to protest, but Jaimihr silenced him with
coarse-mouthed threats.
“I, too, can play double when occasion calls for it!” he swore. And with
that hint at coming trouble he clattered on home to his palace.
To begin with, when he reached home, he had the guard beaten all but
unconscious for having dared let raiders in during the night before;
then he sent them, waterless and thirsty, back to the dungeon. He felt
better then, and called for ink and paper.
For hours he thought and wrote alternately, tearing up letter after
letter. Then, at last, he read over a composition that satisfied him and
set his seal at the foot. He placed the whole in a silver tube, poured
wax into the joint, and called for the fat man who had been responsible
for Ali Partab's capture.
“Dog!” he snarled. “Interfering fool! All this was thy doing! Didst thou
see the guard beaten awhile ago?”
“I did. It was a lordly beating. The men are all but dead but will live
for such another one.”
“Wouldst thou be so beaten?”
“How can I prevent, if your highness wishes?”
“Take this. It is intended for Peshawur but may be given to any British
officer above the rank of major. It calls for a receipt. Do not dare
come back, or be caught in Howrah City, without a receipt for that tube
and its contents intact!”
“If Alwa and Mahommed Gunga are in league with my brother,” muttered
Jaimihr to himself when the fat Hindoo had gone, “then the sooner the
British quarrel with both of them the better. Howrah alone I can dispose
of easily enough, and there is yet time before rebellion starts for the
British to spike the guns of the other two. By the time that is done, I
will be Maharajah!”
It was less than three days later when the word came mysteriously
through the undiscoverable “underground” route of India for all men to
be ready.
“By the next full moon,” went the message, from the priests alone knew
where, “all India will be waiting. When the full moon rises then the
hour is come!”
“And when that full moon rises,” thought Jaimihr to himself, “my
brother's funeral rites will be past history!”
For the present, though, he made believe to regret his recent rage, and
was courteous to priest and Maharajah alike--even sending to his brother
to apologize.