DRIFTWOOD
The river Hara, after skirting the fort, the bathing-steps below the
courtyard, the palace, and the palace garden, continued its course,
still hemmed in to swift current by a high bank on the opposite side,
and on the near one by a wall set with spiked temples sacred to Siva;
for Hara is one of his many names. But, on reaching the apex of the
triangle formed by the city, the banks fell away, the river spread
itself out to greater rest, until, at the uttermost end of a long spit
of sandbank and tamarisk, it met the waters of its twin river, the
Hari, in the broad placid lagoon which lay between Eshwara and the
south; that is the dry stretch of desert, against whose barrenness
Western ingenuity--aided by Dr. Dillon's horde of fifteen hundred
ruffians--had been digging defiance for months. From the spit of sand
you could see the result. A broad seam on the face of patient Mother
Earth, a first wrinkle telling of millions to come from the
ploughshares of men.
As yet, however, the canal was as dry as the desert around it; and was
to remain so until the great Lord-_sahib_ came in state, on his way to
the hills, to open the sluices. There was to be a big camp, a big
function on the occasion, and even sleepy Eshwara felt a vague
excitement regarding it. For the older men remembered the days when the
Hosts of the Lord-_sahibs_ had regularly passed through the city, and
had tales to tell about them; a fact which prevented the coming event
from being too strange even to be thought about! Then the opening of
the canal was another disturber of primeval calm. True, the idea of it
had been with Eshwara ever since the first sod had been turned two
years before; but now the thing stared it in the face. Within a few
days the waters of the sacred rivers would have to lie in a new bed.
Would they like it? Would the gods like it? Would men like it?
Those were the questions being asked from one end of Eshwara to
another. Even outside it, on the long narrow spit of sand-bank set with
sparse tussocks of grass and tamarisk which reached beyond the city's
triangle into the rivers--and where, after a flood, the white gypsum
silt lay like a robe of righteousness--they were being discussed; for
the strange race who lived on it, shifting their wigwams of grass to
the low-lying land opposite when the waters rose, lived by the river;
by the fish in it, and the logs of wood which came floating down it.
So this question of the canal was in the mind of the naked man, attired
in the complete suit of blue beads which marks an aboriginal race, who,
in the dawn following, squatted on the highest curve of the spit. He
was small, swart to positive inkiness, and his thin legs and arms
shewed grey lights on their tense muscles, as if these were truly iron.
Behind him rose a wigwam of reeds, at the entrance to which a spear was
stuck in the sand in order to display the head of a bottle-nosed
alligator impaled on its point. At his right hand was a reed basket, a
rude net of reed twine. In front of him lay one of those small
shark-like scaleless fishes which the learned call Silurian, and tell
us are relics of a creation older than ours.
So might the man have been. So might have been the background of sand
and reed, spear and wigwam, the foreground of net and fish. Yet the
fisher was not all uncivilized. This little survival of an aboriginal
race, shifting about in the shifting river-bed, had always had an
attraction for the Missionaries, who, as a rule, find the inferior
races easiest to deal with. Gu-gu therefore--his name being as
primitive as his appearance, since it is the first effort of infant
tongues--belied his looks. He had at any rate a civilized eye to
business, a civilized notion of the relations between supply and
demand, for he shook his head at the customer opposite him.
"Not a cowrie less, Khan-jee. 'Tis the only one in the market, see you;
besides on this day the '_Missen_' miss comes to us folk, and she never
haggles. She will pay the five annas gladly to be let read her book to
my women."
The mumble-apparently a pious aspiration that the Most High would smite
infidels hip and thigh--was the only recognizable point in the figure
on the other side of the fish; for Akbar Khan, doorkeeper, messenger,
assistant waiter, had not only discarded Saturn's rings--the loss of
which about his head made his baldness something of a shock--but also
every article of clothing except his waist-cloth. The reason for this
was, in a way, like many another thing about the old sinner, pathetic.
Briefly he liked to dissociate his inner self from occupations which he
considered were beneath the dignity of the Akbar Khan of the past.
Therefore being, for the nonce, a bazaar coolie in search of fish for
his master's breakfast, he got up for the part; so finding it, at once,
easier to forget, and to remember that past.
He mumbled of it as he strenuously opposed the price.
"Everything grows dearer, every day," yawned the aboriginal Gu-gu.
"Even women, as thou shouldst know."
Akbar Khan clucked a pious denial. "We spread no nets for that game in
the palace nowadays. Those evil times are gone; we live sober and
virtuous." The piety held a distinct flavour of regret.
"And as for fish," continued Gu-gu, "they will be dearer ere they are
cheaper. When the deep water begins to run canalwards, the fish will
run too. Then good-by to our trade, since the _Huzoors_ allow us
nothing in their waters without payment."
He whined, however, to the wrong quarter for sympathy, the old
retainer's views on preserving being absolutely those of a Shropshire
squire who is also a J. P.
"Neither did we," he replied, indifferently. "Thy like, Gu-gu, would
have had to bring thy fish to the palace and be satisfied with our
leavings. Out on thee for an upstart! Take thy four annas, and be
thankful--slave!"
Gu-gu's ill-tempered face became aggressive. "Not I!--the Miss will
give it; nay! six, mayhap, since the child is sick, and she will be
wanting leave to dose it. So--hands off--eunuch!"
The title, once dignified, was opprobrious now, and old Akbar rose in a
perfect fury, his bald head wobbling, the flaming fringe of red hairs
about his face giving him a ludicrous resemblance to a toothless old
man-eating tiger, face to face with his lawful prey, yet unable to
injure it.
"Oh! for the bastinado!" he stuttered, impotently. "Oh, for the cutting
off of bodily members! Oh! even, for the tying up of heels, and
roastings and duckings. But the _Huzoors_ have taken them from us, and
gifted them to the police, who know not the proper methods. Yah!
Gu-gu, had I but had thee fifty years ago!" his anger lessened with
sheer wistful regret. "Fifty years ago when the Nawab gifted me as
body-servant to the new _Wazeer_ Bun-avatar[1]-_sahib_ because he
brought him a bird that would sing of itself from Italy _wilayat_."
"But all birds do that," cavilled Gu-gu, feeling nevertheless a
reverent curiosity about those legendary days.
Akbar gave a crackling, contemptuous laugh. "Not palace birds! they
have to be wound up; and Bun-avatar-_sahib_ sent for this across the
black water. So he kept favour with the Nawab. Birds that sing, and
flowers that smell, and boxes that make music, and dolls that dance
when you wind them. Lo! these, Gu-gu, are the pleasures of palaces; but
how canst thou know, who hast not lived in them even, as I--"
The sense of his own superiority soothed him still more; he squatted
down again, and hubble-bubbled for a space at the _hookah_ which was an
integral part of all his impersonations.
"Yea! those were times," he mumbled half to himself. "Even Pidar
Narayan--may Heaven protect him--could not say 'please God' to every
mouthful, as he does now--as we all do now, and rightly, seeing that we
have grown old." Once more the piety smacked of pity, and the old man,
finding a listener, went on with a certain gusto. "Look you! he had to
walk like the tongue among thirty-two teeth in those days, with
Bun-avatar-_sahib_, my master, like two peas in one pod with the Nawah.
Except for women. Pidar Narayan took his way there--mostly!"
The interrupting gurgle of the _hookah_ gave time for an elaborate wink
of a wicked old eye. Possibly this was due to the smoke, for the old
voice went on as before almost dolorously.
"He had the money-bags, you see, and looked after the rents. But my
master, Bun-avatar--lo! thou shouldst have seen him when he came
first--the picture of a man!--they say he was a prince in his own
country, but fell into trouble; so came to make his fortune here with
Pidar Narayan--was called _Wazeer_. And let me tell thee, Gu-gu, it
means something to be body-servant to a _Wazeer!_ Lo! to think I might
have been it still but for that jade, Anari Begum!"
Despite the epithet, he smiled, and his pipe this time gave out quite a
chuckling sound.
"As ill to keep within walls as a butterfly!" he muttered. "Up and down
the garden, in and out the balconies, and the Nawab in two minds to use
force, or put her in a sack. For she flouted him. The prettiest ones
play that game for power always, and she was Walidad, her brother's,
last hope of favour. Walidad, _Kanjara_, who had been king's caterer
for years before my master, Bun-avatar-_sahib_, came to make all the
court cry sour buttermilk! Walidad, who had once stood so high, that,
in a drunken bout, the Nawab promised him his half-sister to wife. And
he got her too! She wept on her wedding day, but we in the lower storey
heeded not tears in the upper. For, see you, mine uncle was chief
eunuch--we kept the honour thus in the family from generation to
generation--so I was in and out, seeing what went on. Until somehow
(mine uncle with the bowstring round his neck--as was right, honest
man--swore he knew not how) Bun-avatar-_sahib_ caught a sight of her!
Some say it was a plot, from beginning to end, of Walidad's; others
that _his_ enemies feared lest Anari should succeed. There be balls
within balls, even in a plaything, if the workmen are cunning! Anyhow,
he saw her.
"And I, his body-servant, was able to come and go where Pidar Narayan
hath made his church nowadays. But there! what matters it? 'Tis all
one. Love and the Faith are in and out of men's minds like a shelldrake
in weedy water; a body cannot tell which way its head may be and which
its tail! Nevertheless I felt a choke at my throat, Gu-gu, many a time,
as I waited for him in the boat below the balcony; yet in the end, it
was not my throat, but mine uncle's. He died in the faith, Gu-gu,
cursing women. _His head was that way at the last!_--'Tis mostly
so--_he_--_he_--"
The chuckle of his pipe was fiendish, yet his wizened face was wistful.
"Still, God knows, one could scarce look on at such a wooing, and not
beat the drum in time, as musicians to a dancer. And it runs in our
blood, see you, to watch, and beat the drum. That is our profession;
and, by mine ancestors! I deemed it enough for mortal man. But
Bun-avatar-_sahib_, see you, was not of our race. He was of Italy
_wilayat_ and a prince. So, one day, my liver dissolved hearing that
the butterfly was over the walls! But, as I said, it was mine uncle's
neck, not mine. Yet the game ended for me when Bun-avatar-_sahib_
died."
"They poisoned him, folk say; is't true?" asked Gu-gu. It was a point
in the oft-told tale which was still discussed by Eshwara gossips.
"That is other folks' news, not mine," replied Akbar, discreetly. "May
be, may be not. The _Huzoors_, anyhow, sent the Nawab to die in
Calcutta on a _pinson_[2] for it; but they have ever an excuse to take
land! Pidar Narayan had a hard fight to keep Bun-avatar-_sahib's_
grants--the Nawab was ever generous to his favourites, look you--for
Anari Begum's baby; ay! though he showed a writing of marriage, and had
made the infant Christian after their habit. Still he got them, land
and palace and all. So I stayed on serving my master's child, and when
she died, her child, the Miss-_baba_, even to the haggling for fish.
Lo! slave! it grows late. Give it to me and have done with it--Thou
wilt not. Oh! for the devil that was in her grandmother Anar to be in
this Miss-_baba_, and for her to come to Bun-avatar-_sahib's_ rights as
_Wazeer_--then would there be loppings and--"
"Or if Roshan Khan should come to his," sneered Gu-gu. "The canal
_sahib's_ ayah was telling me thou didst prostrate thyself in the dust
as if he were indeed Nawab! Have a care! eunuch-_jee_, the police are
agog nowadays to find disloyalty even in newspapers."
"May her gossiping tongue be slit!" stuttered the old retainer. "Can a
body not do obeisance to his masters? For look you, Roshan is true
grand-nephew to the Nawab through his grandmother, Walidad's wife--ay!
and for that matter, cousin to the Miss, through Anari Begum, Walidad's
sister! I did but welcome him; I did but my duty--I did but show my
manners--I did but what we have done from generation to generation." He
moved away muttering, full of virtuous resentment that a suspicion of
anything save sheer servility should have been imputed to him. After a
lifetime of trucklings and bootblackings, to be credited with higher
motives was too bad. To prove his innocence he would that very evening,
he told himself, seek out Roshan, not at the Fort,--that might be
misunderstood,--but at his grandmother's. His grandmother, who, though
she had been upstart Walidad's wife, was still the late Nawab's
half-sister! His sister!! What could be nearer than that!!!
And he would prostrate himself again, and assure the family of his
services. _That_ was his birthright.
Meanwhile Gu-gu looked after him, and laughed. He was a clever fellow,
was Gu-gu, and in a previous generation of scholars had been pet pupil
in a little school started by another Miss from another _Missen_. He
had got pennies for attending it, which had come in useful before he
was big enough to face the river.
But now he was the best man on either the Hara or the Hari, save one.
And he?
Gu-gu's beady black eyes, watching the curve of the current
mechanically, gave a sudden flash. He was on his feet in a second.
There was something dipping, diving, sidling, drifting, out yonder
which might be secured for his wigwam before anyone else saw it! But
as, silently, like a seal's, his black head came up from his first
forge under water which was to give him a fair start from the shore
without even a splash to attract notice, another black head showed to
the right of him, a yard or two behind.
But it was _his_ head! Am-ma's head! Am-ma, the frog-like, Am-ma, whose
wide hands and feet looked as if webbed in the water. Am-ma, the only
man who could touch him. He set his teeth, gave up silence, and surged
ahead with an overhand stroke, his hand seeming to clutch and hold the
water. It was a faster stroke than Am-ma's; for a time the swifter.
Then with a backward glance he drew a quick breath, knowing it would be
a race indeed, for the black head had gone, and only a faint wale on
the smooth water told where his rival, avoiding the slight resistance
of the air, swam like a fish. Dangerous tactics for most men, ending
often in a sudden collapse, bleedings from nose and ears, or, at least,
time lost in coming to the surface. But Am-ma was not as other men.
Half-witted, except in river lore, uncouth, misshapen, he was
practically amphibious.
Gu-gu ground his teeth impotently as the faint wale crept up and up.
The man must have air in his stomach like a fish! Ah! if the river had
been in flood, if this had been a race with air bladders, indeed,--one
black head of inflated skin under each arm, and your own in the
middle--the issue would have been certain; for no one, in the whole
tribe, knew the backward rip of a knife from below which would leave a
rival helpless, lopsided, bound to seek safety on shore, so well as
Gu-gu! But it was not flood time, so he must risk all. Like a porpoise
at play the curve of his dark back disappeared, and now there were two
wales upon the water side by side.
And ahead, sidling, dipping, diving to the current was a deodar log
with the broad arrow of government on it, now visible, now out of
sight.
It was a question of steering; steering without eyes, steering by
instinct, steering by sheer experience of logs and their ways, of the
meeting currents of the two rivers and their ways.
And over against them, to the right across the broad lagoon, were low
brick buildings, and a horde of fifteen hundred ruffians with fascines
and earth-baskets finishing a dam that was to alter the currents, and
protect the canal! They looked like swarming ants in the sunshine.
The wales were neck and neck now, side by side, straight as a die on
the log. Then suddenly, the right-hand one swerved outward. Only a yard
or two; a yard or two nearer to the ants in the sunshine.
A second after the log swerved also--swerved to the right. The next,
two black heads rose silently; but one of them was two yards to the
left of that dancing, dipping prize!
Gu-gu, breathless as he was, gave an inarticulate cry of rage, and
shook his fist at the swarming ants. Already their work was altering
the currents he had known for so long. That it was possible to allow
for this, as Am-ma had done, did not comfort him. He swam back sulkily,
his wrath increased by the knowledge one glance had given him, that the
log on which his rival was paddling to shore triumphantly bore its
broad arrow so lightly, and so near its end, that a little dexterous
manipulation would have left the runaway unmarked, and so given its
captor the right, not merely of ransom, but of sale!
Truly, it was an ill world for the poor!
But Lance Carlyon laughed, as he lounged over his early tea and watched
the river through his field-glass, in a balcony of the fort, dressed in
a gorgeous ring-streaked sleeping suit which he could only wear when on
outpost duty, as the regiment had tabooed it. In truth it made him not
unlike Tom Sawyer's "Royal Nonsuch."
"The little 'un's got it! I say! Dering, I believe I shall like
Eshwara. It's--it's--new--don't you know." His eyes rested, as he
spoke, on the low, bastioned building, all hemmed in by temple spires,
at the very point of the city's triangle, which Erda Shepherd had told
him was the mission house. Truly, he thought, she was in the thick of
it!
"New!" echoed Vincent Dering captiously, "I should have called it old.
I thought that sort of thing had died with the pagoda tree."
"What sort of thing?"
Vincent nodded towards the palace with an odd, cynical laugh. "That;
it's ghostly. Doesn't belong to the nineteenth century!"
Lance turned curiously. "I said that to--to Pidar Narayan--I can't call
him anything else, somehow--when he was showing me over yesterday.
And--you know that inscrutable smile of his--he just pointed up to the
telegraph wires--they go right across the garden you know--and said,
'There is half the news of half the world over our heads, anyhow.' It
knocked me over, I tell you, to think of it; and by Jove! Dering, next
week when the Lord-_sahib_ comes--"
Vincent Dering laughed boisterously. "There'll be the millennium, of
course. Come along, Lance! It's time we were off to prepare his way.
Dashwood wants it done A1. They are going to lay on electric light, and
all that. By the way, Mrs. Smith told me to tell you she expected you
to breakfast."
Ten minutes afterwards they were riding over the boat bridge to
superintend the laying out of the Vice-regal camp against the coming of
the Lord-_sahib_ and his hosts.