Suckled were we in a school unkind
On suddenly snatched deduction
And ever ahead of you (never behind!)
Over the border our tracks you'll find,
Wherever some idiot feels inclined
To scatter the seeds of ruction.
For eyes we be, of Empire, we!
Skinned and Puckered and quick to see
And nobody guesses how wise we be.
Unwilling to advertise we be.
But, hot on the trail of ties, we be
The pullers of roots of ruction!
--Song of the Indian Secret Service
The men who govern India--more power to them and her!--are few. Those
who stand in their way and pretend to help them with a flood of words
are a host. And from the host goes up an endless cry that India is the
home of thugs, and of three hundred million hungry ones.
The men who know--and Athelstan King might claim to know a
little--answer that she is the original home of chivalry and the modern
mistress of as many decent, gallant, native gentlemen as ever graced a
page of history.
The charge has seen the light in print that India--well-spring of
plague and sudden death and money-lenders--has sold her soul to twenty
succeeding conquerors in turn.
Athelstan King and a hundred like him whom India has picked from British
stock and taught, can answer truly that she has won it back again from
each by very purity of purpose.
So when the world war broke the world was destined to be surprised on
India's account. The Red Sea, full of racing transports crowded with
dark-skinned gentlemen, whose one prayer was that the war might not be
over before they should have struck a blow for Britain, was the Indian
army's answer to the press.
The rest of India paid its taxes and contributed and muzzled itself and
set to work to make supplies. For they understand in India, almost as
nowhere else, the meaning of such old-fashioned words as gratitude and
honor; and of such platitudes as, “Give and it shall be given unto you.”
More than one nation was deeply shocked by India's answer to “practises”
that had extended over years. But there were men in India who learned to
love India long ago with that love that casts out fear, who knew exactly
what was going to happen and could therefore afford to wait for orders
instead of running round in rings.
Athelstan King, for instance, nothing yet but a captain unattached, sat
in meagerly furnished quarters with his heels on a table. He is not a
doctor, yet he read a book on surgery, and when he went over to the club
he carried the book under his arm and continued to read it there. He is
considered a rotten conversationalist, and he did nothing at the club to
improve his reputation.
“Man alive--get a move on!” gasped a wondering senior, accepting a
cigar. Nobody knows where he gets those long, strong, black cheroots,
and nobody ever refuses one.
“Thanks--got a book to read,” said King.
“You ass! Wake up and grab the best thing in sight, as a stepping stone
to something better! Wake up and worry!”
King grinned. You have to when you don't agree with a senior officer,
for the army is like a school in many more ways than one.
“Help yourself, sir! I'll take the job that's left when the scramble's
over. Something good's sure to be overlooked.”
“White feather? Laziness? Dark Horse?” the major wondered. Then he
hurried away to write telegrams, because a belief thrives in the early
days of any war that influence can make or break a man's chances. In
the other room where the telegraph blanks were littered in confusion
all about the floor, he ran into a crony whose chief sore point was
Athelstan King, loathing him as some men loathe pickles or sardines, for
no real reason whatever, except that they are what they are.
“Saw you talking to King,” he said.
“Yes. Can't make him out. Rum fellow!”
“Rum? Huh! Trouble is he's seventh of his family in succession to serve
in India. She has seeped into him and pickled his heritage. He's a
believer in Kismet crossed on to Opportunity. Not sure he doesn't pray
to Allah on the sly! Hopeless case.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite!”
So they all sent telegrams and forgot King who sat and smoked and read
about surgery; and before he had nearly finished one box of cheroots
a general at Peshawur wiped a bald red skull and sent him an urgent
telegram.
“Come at once!” it said simply.
King was at Lahore, but miles don't matter when the dogs of war are
loosed. The right man goes to the right place at the exact right time
then, and the fool goes to the wall. In that one respect war is better
than some kinds of peace.
In the train on the way to Peshawur he did not talk any more volubly,
and a fellow traveler, studying him from the opposite corner of the
stifling compartment, catalogued him as “quite an ordinary man.” But he
was of the Public Works Department, which is sorrowfully underpaid and
wears emotions on its sleeve for policy's sake, believing of course that
all the rest of the world should do the same.
“Don't you think we're bound in honor to go to Belgium's aid?” he asked.
“Can you see any way out of it?”
“Haven't looked for one,” said King.
“But don't you think--”
“No,” said King. “I hardly ever think. I'm in the army, don't you know,
and don't have to. What's the use of doing somebody else's work?”
“Rotter!” thought the P.W.D. man, almost aloud; but King was not
troubled by any further forced conversation. Consequently he reached
Peshawur comfortable, in spite of the heat. And his genial manner
of saluting the full-general who met him with a dog-cart at Peshawur
station was something scandalous.
“Is he a lunatic or a relative of royalty?” the P.W.D. man wondered.
Full-generals, particularly in the early days of war, do not drive
to the station to meet captains very often; yet King climbed into the
dog-cart unexcitedly, after keeping the general waiting while he checked
a trunk!
The general cracked his whip without any other comment than a smile.
A blood mare tore sparks out of the macadam, and a dusty military road
began to ribbon out between the wheels. Sentries in unexpected places
announced themselves with a ring of shaken steel as their rifles came to
the “present,” which courtesies the general noticed with a raised whip.
Then a fox-terrier resumed his chase of squirrels between the planted
shade-trees, and Peshawur became normal, shimmering in light and heat
reflected from the “Hills.”
(The P.W.D. man, who would have giggled if a general mentioned him by
name, walked because no conveyance could be hired. Judgment was in the
wind.)
On the dog-cart's high front seat, staring straight ahead of him between
the horse's ears, King listened. The general did nearly all the talking.
“The North's the danger.”
King grunted with the lids half-lowered over full dark eyes. He did not
look especially handsome in that attitude. Some men swear he looks like
a Roman, and others liken him to a gargoyle, all of them choosing to
ignore the smile that can transform his whole face instantly.
“We're denuding India of troops--not keeping back more than a mere
handful to hold the tribes in check.”
King nodded. There has never been peace along the northwest border. It
did not need vision to foresee trouble from that quarter. In fact it
must have been partly on the strength of some of King's reports that the
general was planning now.
“That was a very small handful of Sikhs you named as likely to give
trouble. Did you do that job thoroughly?”
King grunted.
“Well--Delhi's chock-full of spies, all listening to stories made in
Germany for them to take back to the 'Hills' with 'em. The tribes'll
know presently how many men we're sending oversea. There've been rumors
about Khinjan by the hundred lately. They're cooking something. Can you
imagine 'em keeping quiet now?”
“That depends, sir. Yes, I can imagine it.”
The general laughed. “That's why I sent for you. I need a man with
imagination! There's a woman you've got to work with on this occasion
who can imagine a shade or two too much. What's worse, she's ambitious.
So I chose you to work with her.”
King's lips stiffened under his mustache, and the corners of his eyes
wrinkled into crow's-feet to correspond. Eyes are never coal-black, of
course, but his looked it at that minute.
“You know we've sent men to Khinjan who are said to have entered the
Caves. Not one of 'em has ever returned.”
King frowned.
“She claims she can enter the Caves and come out again at pleasure. She
has offered to do it, and I have accepted.”
It would not have been polite to look incredulous, so King's expression
changed to one of intense interest a little overdone, as the general did
not fail to notice.
“If she hadn't given proof of devotion and ability, I'd have turned
her down. But she has. Only the other day she uncovered a plot in
Delhi--about a million dynamite bombs in a ruined temple in charge of a
German agent for use by mutineers supposed to be ready to rise against
us. Fact! Can you guess who she is?”
“Not Yasmini?” King hazarded, and the general nodded and flicked his
whip. The horse mistook it for a signal, and it was two minutes before
the speed was reduced to mere recklessness.
The helmet-strap mark, printed indelibly on King's jaw and cheek by the
Indian sun, tightened and grew whiter--as the general noted out of the
corner of his eye.
“Know her?”
“Know of her, of course, sir. Everybody does. Never met her to my
knowledge.”
“Um-m-m! Whose fault was that? Somebody ought to have seen to that. Go
to Delhi now and meet her. I'll send her a wire to say you're coming.
She knows I've chosen you. She tried to insist on full discretion, but
I overruled her. Between us two, she'll have discretion once she gets
beyond Jamrud. The 'Hills' are full of our spies, of course, but none
of 'em dare try Khinjan Caves any more and you'll be the only check we
shall have on her.”
King's tongue licked his lips, and his eyes wrinkled. The general's
voice became the least shade more authoritative.
“When you see her, get a pass from her that'll take you into Khinjan
Caves! Ask her for it! For the sake of appearances I'll gazette you
Seconded to the Khyber Rifles. For the sake of success, get a pass from
her!”
“Very well, sir.”
“You've a brother in the Khyber Rifles, haven't you? Was it you or your
brother who visited Khinjan once and sent in a report?”
“I did, sir.”
He spoke without pride. Even the brigade of British-Indian cavalry that
went to Khinjan on the strength of his report and leveled its defenses
with the ground, had not been able to find the famous Caves. Yet the
Caves themselves are a by-word.
“There's talk of a jihad (holy war). There's worse than that! When you
went to Khinjan, what was your chief object?”
“To find the source of the everlasting rumors about the so-called 'Heart
of the Hills,' sir.”
“Yes, yes. I remember. I read your report. You didn't find anything, did
you? Well. The story is now that the 'Heart of the Hills' has come to
life. So the spies say.”
King whistled softly.
“There's no guessing what it means,” said the general. “Go and find
out. Go and work with Yasmini. I shall have enough men here to attack
instantly and smash any small force as soon as it begins to gather
anywhere near the border. But Khinjan is another story. We can't prove
anything, but the spies keep bringing in rumors of ten thousand men in
Khinjan Caves, and of another large lashkar not far away from Khinjan.
There must be no jihad, King! India is all but defenseless! We can
tackle sporadic raids. We can even handle an ordinary raid in force. But
this story about a 'Heart of the Hills' coming to life may presage unity
of action and a holy war such as the world has not seen. Go up there and
stop it if you can. At least, let me know the facts.”
King grunted. To stop a holy war single-handed would be rather like
stopping the wind--possibly easy enough, if one knew the way. Yet
he knew no general would throw away a man like himself on a useless
venture. He began to look happy.
The general clucked to the mare and the big beast sank an inch between
the shafts. The sais behind set his feet against the drop-board and
clung with both hands to the seat. One wheel ceased to touch the gravel
as they whirled along a semicircular drive. Suddenly the mare drew up
on her haunches, under the porch of a pretentious residence. Sentries
saluted. The sais swung down. In less than sixty seconds King was
following the general through a wide entrance into a crowded hall. The
instant the general's fat figure darkened the doorway twenty men of
higher rank than King, native and English, rose from lined-up chairs and
pressed forward.
“Sorry--have to keep you all waiting--busy!” He waved them aside with a
little apologetic gesture. “Come in here, King.”
King followed him through a door that slammed tight behind them on
rubber jambs.
“Sit down!”
The general unlocked a steel drawer and began to rummage among the
papers in it. In a minute he produced a package, bound in rubber bands,
with a faded photograph face-upward on the top.
“That's the woman! How d'you like the look of her?”
King took the package and for a minute stared hard at the likeness of a
woman whose fame has traveled up and down India, until her witchery
has become a proverb. She was dressed as a dancing woman, yet very few
dancing women could afford to be dressed as she was.
King's service uses whom it may, and he had met and talked with many
dancing women in the course of duty; but as he stared at Yasmini's
likeness he did not think he had ever met one who so measured up to
rumor. The nautch he knew for a delusion. Yet--!
The general watched his face with eyes that missed nothing.
“Remember--I said work with her!”
King looked up and nodded.
“They say she's three parts Russian,” said the general. “To my own
knowledge she speaks Russian like a native, and about twenty other
tongues as well, including English. She speaks English as well as you or
I. She was the girl-widow of a rascally Hill-rajah. There's a story I've
heard, to the effect that Russia arranged her marriage in the day when
India was Russia's objective--and that's how long ago?--seems like
weeks, not years! I've heard she loved her rajah. And I've heard she
didn't! There's another story that she poisoned him. I know she got
away with his money--and that's proof enough of brains! Some say she's
a she-devil. I think that's an exaggeration, but bear in mind she's
dangerous!”
King grinned. A man who trusts Eastern women over readily does not rise
far in the Secret Service.
“If you've got nous enough to keep on her soft side and use her--not let
her use you--you can keep the 'Hills' quiet and the Khyber safe! If
you can contrive that--now--in this pinch--there's no limit for you!
Commander-in-chief shall be your job before you're sixty!”
King pocketed the photograph and papers. “I'm well enough content, sir,
as things are,” he said quietly.
“Well, remember she's ambitious, even if you're not! I'm not preaching
ambition, mind--I'm warning you! Ambition's bad! Study those papers on
your way down to Delhi and see that I get them back.”
The general paced once across the room and once back again, with hands
behind him. Then he stopped in front of King.
“No man in India has a stiffer task than you have now! It may encourage
you to know that I realize that! She's the key to the puzzle, and she
happens to be in Delhi. Go to Delhi, then. A jihad launched from the
'Hills' would mean anarchy in the plains. That would entail sending
back from France an army that can't be spared. There must be no jihad,
King!--There must--not--be--one! Keep that in your head!”
“What arrangements have been made with her, sir?”
“Practically none! She's watching the spies in Delhi, but they're likely
to break for the 'Hills' any minute. Then they'll be arrested. When that
happens the fate of India may be in your hands and hers! Get out of my
way now, until tiffin-time!”
In a way that some men never learn, King proceeded to efface himself
entirely among the crowd in the hall, contriving to say nothing of any
account to anybody until the great gong boomed and the general led
them all in to his long dining table. Yet he did not look furtive
or secretive. Nobody noticed him, and he noticed everybody. There is
nothing whatever secretive about that.
The fare was plain, and the meal a perfunctory affair. The general and
his guests were there for other reason than to eat food, and only the
man who happened to seat himself next to King--a major by the name of
Hyde--spoke to him at all.
“Why aren't you with your regiment?” he asked.
“Because the general asked me to lunch, sir!”
“I suppose you've been pestering him for an appointment!”
King, with his mouth full of curry did not answer, but his eyes smiled.
“It's astonishing to me,” said the major, “that a captain should leave
his company when war has begun! When I was captain I'd have been driven
out of the service if I'd asked for leave of absence at such a time!”
King made no comment, but his expression denoted belief.
“Are you bound for the front, sir?” he asked presently. But Hyde did not
answer. They finished the meal in silence.
After lunch he was closeted with the general again for twenty minutes.
Then one of the general's carriages took him to the station; and it did
not appear to trouble him at all that the other occupant of the carriage
was the self-same Major Hyde who had sat next him at lunch. In fact, he
smiled so pleasantly that Hyde grew exasperated. Neither of them spoke.
At the station Hyde lost his temper openly, and King left him abusing an
unhappy native servant.
The station was crammed to suffocation by a crowd that roared and
writhed and smelt to high heaven. At one end of the platform, in the
midst of a human eddy, a frenzied horse resisted with his teeth and all
four feet at once the efforts of six natives and a British sergeant to
force him into a loose-box. At the back of the same platform the little
dark-brown mules of a mountain battery twitched their flanks in line,
jingling chains and stamping when the flies bit home.
Flies buzzed everywhere. Fat native merchants vied with lean and timid
ones in noisy effort to secure accommodation on a train already crowded
to the limit. Twenty British officers hunted up and down for the places
supposed to have been reserved for them, and sweating servants hurried
after them with arms full of heterogeneous baggage, swearing at
the crowd that swore back ungrudgingly. But the general himself had
telephoned for King's reservation, so he took his time.
There were din and stink and dust beneath a savage sun, shaken into
reverberations by the scream of an engine's safety valve. It was India
in essence and awake!--India arising out of lethargy!--India as she is
more often nowadays--and it made King, for the time being of the Khyber
Rifles, happier than some other men can be in ballrooms.
Any one who watched him--and there was at least one man who did--must
have noticed his strange ability, almost like that of water, to reach
the point he aimed for, through, and not around, the crowd.
He neither shoved nor argued. Orders and blows would have been equally
useless, for had it tried the crowd could not have obeyed, and it was in
no mind to try. Without the least apparent effort he arrived--and
there is no other word that quite describes it--he arrived, through
the densest part of the sweating throng of humans, at the door of the
luggage office.
There, though a bunnia's sharp elbow nagged his ribs, and the bunnia's
servant dropped a heavy package on his foot, he smiled so genially that
he melted the wrath of the frantic luggage clerk. But not at once. Even
the sun needs seconds to melt ice.
“Am I God?” the babu wailed. “Can I do all the-e things in all the-e
world at once if not sooner?”
King's smile began to get its work in. The man ceased gesticulating to
wipe sweat from his stubbly jowl with the end of a Punjabi headdress. He
actually smiled back. Who was he, that he should suspect new outrage or
guess he was about to be used in a game he did not understand? He would
have stopped all work to beg for extra pay at the merest suggestion of
such a thing; but as it was he raised both fists and lapsed into his own
tongue to apostrophize the ruffian who dared jostle King. A Northerner
who did not seem to understand Punjabi almost cost King his balance as
he thrust broad shoulders between him and the bunnia.
The bunnia chattered like an outraged ape; but King, the person most
entitled to be angry, actually apologized! That being a miracle, the
babu forthwith wrought another one, and within a minute King's one trunk
was checked through to Delhi.
“Delhi is right, sahib?” he asked, to make doubly sure; for in India
where the milk of human kindness is not hawked in the market-place, men
will pay over-measure for a smile.
“Yes. Delhi is right. Thank you, babuji.”
He made more room for the Hillman, beaming amusement at the man's
impatience; but the Hillman had no luggage and turned away, making an
unexpected effort to hide his face with a turban end. He who had forced
his way to the front with so much violence and haste now burst back
again toward the train like a football forward tearing through the thick
of his opponents. He scattered a swath a yard wide, for he had shoulders
like a bull. King saw him leap into third-class carriage. He saw, too,
that he was not wanted in the carriage. There was a storm of protest
from tight-packed native passengers, but the fellow had his way.
The swath through the crowd closed up like water in a ship's wake, but
it opened again for King. He smiled so humorously that the angry jostled
ones smiled too and were appeased, forgetting haste and bruises and
indignity merely because understanding looked at them through merry
eyes. All crowds are that way, but an Indian crowd more so than all.
Taking his time, and falling foul of nobody, King marked down a native
constable--hot and unhappy, leaning with his back against the train. He
touched him on the shoulder and the fellow jumped.
“Nay, sahib! I am only constabeel--I know nothing--I can do nothing! The
teerain goes when it goes, and then perhaps we will beat these people
from the platform and make room again! But there is no authority--no law
any more--they are all gone mad!”
King wrote on a pad, tore off a sheet, folded it and gave it to him.
“That is for the Superintendent of Police at the office. Carriage number
1181, eleven doors from here--the one with the shut door and a big
Hillman inside sitting three places from the door facing the engine.
Get the Hillman! No, there is only one Hillman in the carriage. No, the
others are not his friends; they will not help him. He will fight, but
he has no friends in that carriage.”
The “constabeel” obeyed, not very cheerfully. King stood to watch him
with a foot on the step of a first-class coach. Another constable passed
him, elbowing a snail's progress between the train and the crowd. He
seized the man's arm.
“Go and help that man!” he ordered. “Hurry!”
Then he climbed into the carriage and leaned from the window. He grinned
as he saw both constables pounce on a third-class carriage door and,
with the yell of good huntsmen who have viewed, seize the protesting
Northerner by the leg and begin to drag him forth. There was a fight,
that lasted three minutes, in the course of which a long knife flashed.
But there were plenty to help take the knife away, and the Hillman stood
handcuffed and sullen at last, while one of his captors bound a cut
forearm. Then they dragged him away; but not before he had seen King at
the window, and had lipped a silent threat.
“I believe you, my son!” King chuckled, half aloud. “I surely believe
you! I'll watch! Ham dekta hai!”
“Why was that man arrested?” asked an acid voice behind him; and without
troubling to turn his head, he knew that Major Hyde was to be
his carriage mate again. To be vindictive, on duty or off it, is
foolishness; but to let opportunity slip by one is a crime. He looked
glad, not sorry, as he faced about--pleased, not disappointed--like a
man on a desert island who has found a tool.
“Why was that man arrested?” the major asked again.
“I ordered it,” said King.
“So I imagined. I asked you why.”
King stared at him and then turned to watch the prisoner being dragged
away; he was fighting again, striking at his captors' heads with
handcuffed wrists.
“Does he look innocent?” asked King.
“Is that your answer?” asked the major. Balked ambition is an ugly horse
to ride. He had tried for a command but had been shelved.
“I have sufficient authority,” said King, unruffled. He spoke as if he
were thinking of something entirely different. His eyes were as if they
saw the major from a very long way off and rather approved of him on the
whole.
“Show me your authority, please!”
King dived into an inner pocket and produced a card that had about ten
words written on its face, above a general's signature. Hyde read it and
passed it back.
“So you're one of those, are you!” he said in a tone of voice that would
start a fight in some parts of the world and in some services. But
King nodded cheerfully, and that annoyed the major more than ever; he
snorted, closed his mouth with a snap and turned to rearrange the sheet
and pillow on his berth.
Then the train pulled out, amid a din of voices from the left-behind
that nearly drowned the panting of overloaded engine. There was a roar
of joy from the two coaches full of soldiers in the rear--a shriek from
a woman who had missed the train--a babel of farewells tossed back and
forth between the platform and the third-class carriages--and Peshawur
fell away behind.
King settled down on his side of the compartment, after a struggle with
the thermantidote that refused to work. There was heat enough below the
roof to have roasted meat, so that the physical atmosphere became as
turgid as the mental after a little while.
Hyde all but stripped himself and drew on striped pajamas. King was
content to lie in shirt-sleeves on the other berth, with knees raised,
so that Hyde could not overlook the general's papers. At his ease he
studied them one by one, memorizing a string of names, with details as
to their owners' antecedents and probable present whereabouts. There
were several photographs in the packet, and he studied them very
carefully indeed.
But much most carefully of all he examined Yasmini's portrait, returning
to it again and again. He reached the conclusion in the end that when it
was taken she had been cunningly disguised.
“This was intended for purpose of identification at a given time and
place,” he told himself.
“Were you muttering at me?” asked Hyde.
“No, sir.”
“It looked extremely like it!”
“My mistake, sir. Nothing of the sort intended.”
“H-rrrrr-ummmmmph!”
Hyde turned an indignant back on him, and King studied the back as if he
found it interesting. On the whole he looked sympathetic, so it was as
well that Hyde did not look around. Balked ambition as a rule loathes
sympathy.
After many prickly-hot, interminable, jolting hours the train drew up at
Rawal-Pindi station. Instantly King was on his feet with his tunic on,
and he was out on the blazing hot platform before the train's motion had
quite ceased.
He began to walk up and down, not elbowing but percolating through the
crowd, missing nothing worth noticing in all the hot kaleidoscope and
seeming to find new amusement at every turn. It was not in the least
astonishing that a well-dressed native should address him presently, for
he looked genial enough to be asked to hold a baby. King himself did not
seem surprised at all. Far from it; he looked pleased.
“Excuse me, sir,” said the man in glib babu English. “I am seeking
Captain King sahib, for whom my brother is veree anxious to be servant.
Can you kindlee tell me, sir, where I could find Captain King sahib?”
“Certainly,” King answered him. He looked glad to be of help. “Are you
traveling on this train?”
The question sounded like politeness welling from the lips of
unsuspicion.
“Yes, sir. I am traveling from this place where I have spent a few days,
to Bombay, where my business is.
“How did you know King sahib is on the train?” King asked him, smiling
so genially that even the police could not have charged him with more
than curiosity.
“By telegram, sir. My brother had the misfortune to miss Captain King
sahib at Peshawur and therefore sent a telegram to me asking me to do
what I can at an interview.”
“I see,” said King. “I see.” And judging by the sparkle in his eyes as
he looked away he could see a lot. But the native could not see his eyes
at that instant, although he tried to.
He looked back at the train, giving the man a good chance to study his
face in profile.
“Oh, thank you, sir!” said the native oilily. “You are most kind! I am
your humble servant, sir!”
King nodded good-by to him, his dark eyes in the shadow of the khaki
helmet seeming scarcely interested any longer.
“Couldn't you find another berth?” Hyde asked him angrily when he
stepped back into the compartment.
“What were you out there looking for?”
King smiled back at him blandly.
“I think there are railway thieves on the train,” he announced without
any effort at relevance. He might not have heard the question.
“What makes you think so?”
“Observation, sir.”
“Oh! Then if you've seen thieves, why didn't you have 'em arrested? You
were precious free with that authority of yours on Peshawur platform!”
“Perhaps you'd care to take the responsibility, sir? Let me point out
one of them.”
Full of grudging curiosity Hyde came to stand by him, and King stepped
back just as the train began to move.
“That man, sir--over there--no, beyond him--there!”
Hyde thrust head and shoulders through the window, and a well-dressed
native with one foot on the running-board at the back end of the train
took a long steady stare at him before jumping in and slamming the door
of a third-class carriage.
“Which one?” demanded Hyde impatiently.
“I don't see him now, sir!”
Hyde snorted and returned to his seat in the silence of unspeakable
scorn. But presently he opened a suitcase and drew out a repeating
pistol which he cocked carefully and stowed beneath his pillow; not at
all a contemptible move, because the Indian railway thief is the most
resourceful specialist in the world. But King took no overt precautions
of any kind.
After more interminable hours night shut down on them, red-hot,
black-dark, mesmerically subdivided into seconds by the thump of
carriage wheels and lit at intervals by showers of sparks from the
gasping engine. The din of Babel rode behind the first-class carriages,
for all the natives in the packed third-class talked all together.
(In India, when one has spent a fortune on a third-class ticket, one
proceeds to enjoy the ride.) The train was a Beast out of Revelation,
wallowing in noise.
But after other, hotter hours the talking ceased. Then King, strangely
without kicking off his shoes, drew a sheet up over his shoulders. On
the opposite berth Hyde covered his head, to keep dust out of his hair,
and presently King heard him begin to snore gently. Then, very carefully
he adjusted his own position so that his profile lay outlined in the dim
light from the gas lamp in the roof. He might almost have been waiting
to be shaved.
The stuffiness increased to a degree that is sometimes preached in
Christian churches as belonging to a sulphurous sphere beyond the grave.
Yet he did not move a muscle. It was long after midnight when his vigil
was rewarded by a slight sound at the door. From that instant his eyes
were on the watch, under dark of closed lashes; but his even breathing
was that of the seventh stage of sleep that knows no dreams.
A click of the door-latch heralded the appearance of a hand. With skill,
of the sort that only special training can develop, a man in native
dress insinuated himself into the carriage without making another sound
of any kind. King's ears are part of the equipment for his exacting
business, but he could not hear the door click shut again.
For about five minutes, while the train swayed head-long into Indian
darkness, the man stood listening and watching King's face. He stood
so near that King recognized him for the one who had accosted him on
Rawal-Pindi platform. And he could see the outline of the knife-hilt
that the man's fingers clutched underneath his shirt.
“He'll either strike first, so as to kill us both and do the looting
afterward--and in that case I think it will be easier to break his neck
than his arm--yes, decidedly his neck; it's long and thin;--or--”
His eyes feigned sleep so successfully that the native turned away at
last.
“Thought so!” He dared open his eyes a mite wider. “He's pukka--true to
type! Rob first and then kill! Rule number one with his sort, run when
you've stabbed! Not a bad rule either, from their point of view!”
As he watched, the thief drew the sheet back from Hyde's face, with
trained fingers that could have taken spectacles from the victims' nose
without his knowledge. Then as fish glide in and out among the reeds
without touching them, swift and soft and unseen, his fingers searched
Hyde's body. They found nothing. So they dived under the pillow and
brought out the pistol and a gold watch.
After that he began to search the clothes that hung on a hook beside
Hyde's berth. He brought forth papers and a pocketbook--then money.
Money went into one bag--papers and pocketbook into another. And that
was evidence enough as well as risk enough. The knife would be due in a
minute.
King moved in his sleep, rather noisily, and the movement knocked a book
to the floor from the foot of his berth. The noise of that awoke Hyde,
and King pretended to begin to wake, yawning and rolling on his back
(that being much the safest position an unarmed man can take and much
the most awkward for his enemy).
“Thieves!” Hyde yelled at the top of his lungs, groping wildly for his
pistol and not finding it.
King sat up and rubbed his eyes. The native drew the knife,
and--believing himself in command of the situation--hesitated for one
priceless second. He saw his error and darted for the door too late.
With a movement unbelievably swift King was there ahead of him; and with
another movement not so swift, but much more disconcerting, he threw his
sheet as the retiarius used to throw a net in ancient Rome. It wrapped
round the native's head and arms, and the two went together to the floor
in a twisted stranglehold.
In another half-minute the native was groaning, for King had his
knife-wrist in two hands and was bending it backward while he pressed
the man's stomach with his knees.
“Get his loot!” he panted between efforts.
The knife fell to the floor, and the thief made a gallant effort
to recover it, but King was too strong for him. He seized the knife
himself, slipped it in his own bosom and resumed his hold before the
native guessed what he was after. Then he kept a tight grip while
Hyde knelt to grope for his missing property. The major found both the
thief's bags, and held them up.
“I expect that's all,” said King, loosening his grip very gradually.
The native noticed--as Hyde did not--that King had begun to seem almost
absent-minded; the thief lay quite still, looking up, trying to divine
his next intention. Suddenly the brakes went on, but King's grip did not
tighten. The train began to scream itself to a standstill at a wayside
station, and King (the absent-minded)--very nearly grinned.
“If I weren't in such an infernal hurry to reach Bombay--” Hyde
grumbled; and King nearly laughed aloud then, for the thief knew
English, and was listening with all his ears, “--may I be damned if I
wouldn't get off at this station and wait to see that scoundrel brought
to justice!”
The train jerked itself to a standstill, and a man with a lantern began
to chant the station's name.
“Damn it!--I'm going to Bombay to act censor. I can't wait--they want me
there.”
The instant the train's motion altogether ceased the heat shut in on
them as if the lid of Tophet had been slammed. The prickly heat burst
out all over Hyde's skin and King's too.
“Almighty God!” gasped Hyde, beginning to fan himself.
There was plenty of excuse for relaxing hold still further, and King
made full use of it. A second later he gave a very good pretense of pain
in his finger-ends as the thief burst free. The native made a dive
at his bosom for the knife, but he frustrated that. Then he made a
prodigious effort, just too late, to clutch the man again, and he did
succeed in tearing loose a piece of shirt; but the fleeing robber must
have wondered, as he bolted into the blacker shadows of the station
building, why such an iron-fingered, wide-awake sahib should have made
such a truly feeble showing at the end.
“Damn it!--couldn't you hold him? Were you afraid of him, or what?”
demanded Hyde, beginning to dress himself. Instead of answering, King
leaned out into the lamp-lit gloom, and in a minute he caught sight of a
sergeant of native infantry passing down the train. He made a sign that
brought the man to him on the run.
“Did you see that runaway?” he asked.
“Ha, sahib. I saw one running. Shall I follow?”
“No. This piece of his shirt will identify him. Take it. Hide it! When
a man with a torn shirt, into which that piece fits, makes for the
telegraph office after this train has gone on, see that he is allowed to
send any telegrams he wants to! Only, have copies of every one of them
wired to Captain King, care of the station-master, Delhi. Have you
understood?”
“Ha, sahib.”
“Grab him, and lock him up tight afterward--but not until he has sent
his telegrams!'
“Atcha, sahib.”
“Make yourself scarce, then!”
Major Hyde was dressed, having performed that military evolution in
something less than record time.
“Who was that you were talking to?” he demanded. But King continued to
look out the door.
Hyde came and tapped on his shoulder impatiently, but King did not seem
to understand until the native sergeant had quite vanished into the
shadows.
“Let me pass, will you!” Hyde demanded. “I'll have that thief caught if
the train has to wait a week while they do it!”
He pushed past, but he was scarcely on the step when the station-master
blew his whistle, and his colored minion waved a lantern back and forth.
The engine shrieked forthwith of death and torment; carriage doors
slammed shut in staccato series; the heat relaxed as the engine
moved--loosened--let go--lifted at last, and a trainload of hot
passengers sighed thanks to an unresponsive sky as the train gained
speed and wind crept in through the thermantidotes.
Only through the broken thermantidote in King's compartment no wet
air came. Hyde knelt on King's berth and wrestled with it like a caged
animal, but with no result except that the sweat poured out all over him
and he was more uncomfortable than before.
“What are you looking at?” he demanded at last, sitting on King's berth.
His head swam. He had to wait a few seconds before he could step across
to his own side.
“Only a knife,” said King. He was standing under the dim gas lamp that
helped make the darkness more unbearable.
“Not that robber's knife? Did he drop it?”
“It's my knife,” said King.
“Strange time to stand staring at it, if it's yours! Didn't you ever see
it before?”
King stowed the knife away in his bosom, and the major crossed to his
own side.
“I'm thinking I'll know it again, at all events!” King answered, sitting
down. “Good night, sir.”
“Good night.”
Within ten minutes Hyde was asleep, snoring prodigiously. Then King
pulled out the knife again and studied it for half an hour. The blade
was of bronze, with an edge hammered to the keenness of a razor. The
hilt was of nearly pure gold, in the form of a woman dancing.
The whole thing was so exquisitely wrought that age had only softened
the lines, without in the least impairing them. It looked like one of
those Grecian toys with which Roman women of Nero's day stabbed their
lovers. But that was not why he began to whistle very softly to himself.
Presently he drew out the general's package of papers, with the
photograph on the top. He stood up, to hold both knife and papers close
to the light in the roof.
It needed no great stretch of imagination to suggest a likeness between
the woman of the photograph and the other, of the golden knife-hilt.
And nobody, looking at him then, would have dared suggest he lacked
imagination.
If the knife had not been so ancient they might have been portraits of
the same woman, in the same disguise, taken at the same time.
“She knew I had been chosen to work with her. The general sent her word
that I am coming,” he muttered to himself. “Man number one had a try for
me, but I had him pinched too soon. There must have been a spy watching
at Peshawur, who wired to Rawal-Pindi for this man to jump the train and
go on with the job. She must have had him planted at Rawal-Pindi in case
of accidents. She seems thorough! Why should she give the man a knife
with her own portrait on it? Is she queen of a secret society? Well--we
shall see!”
He sat down on his berth again and sighed, not discontentedly. Then
he lit one of his great black cigars and blew rings for five or six
minutes. Then he lay back with his head on the pillow, and before five
minutes more had gone he was asleep, with the cold cigar still clutched
between his fingers.
He looked as interesting in his sleep as when awake. His mobile face in
repose looked Roman, for the sun had tanned his skin and his nose was
aquiline. In museums, where sculptured heads of Roman generals and
emperors stand around the wall on pedestals, it would not be difficult
to pick several that bore more than a faint resemblance to him. He had
breadth and depth of forehead and a jowl that lent itself to smiles as
well as sternness, and a throat that expressed manly determination in
every molded line.
He slept like a boy until dawn; and he and Hyde had scarcely exchanged
another dozen words when the train screamed next day into Delhi station.
Then he saluted stiffly and was gone.
“Young jackanapes!” Hyde muttered after him. “Lazy young devil! He ought
to be with his regiment, marching and setting a good example to his men!
We'll have our work cut out to win this war, if there are many of his
stamp! And I'm afraid there are--I'm afraid so--far too many of 'em!
Pity! Such a pity! If the right men were at the top the youngsters
at the foot of the ladder would mind their P's and Q's. As it is, I'm
afraid we shall get beaten in this show. Dear, oh, dear!”
Being what he was, and consistent before all things, Major Hyde drew
out his writing materials there and then and wrote a report against
Athelstan King, which he signed, addressed to headquarters and mailed at
the first opportunity. There some future historian may find it and draw
from it unkind deductions on the morale of the British army.