This is one of poor Craddock's many stories which he told me when we
were in the wilderness together, engaged--like another Moses and
Aaron--in preparing a way for a Western people across the desert, and
dividing its sand waves by a pathway of red-brick ballast edged with
steel. In other words, in making the railway on which he afterwards
met his death in trying to prevent a survival of past ages from being
in the permanent way of civilisation.
We used to sit at the door of my little tent--two Englishmen adrift on
a sand sea--and I used to listen while he talked; for the life he had
led made him the best of company, and his combined ignorance and
knowledge of the East was a perpetual surprise. Some of his stories
were grossly, frankly impossible, but this one, despite its
strangeness, I believed unhesitatingly; as any one would have done who
had seen, as I saw, the indescribable world-tarnish which long years
of loose living brings to the kindliest face, leave it clear, bright,
and eager to a rejuvenescence of love, and pity, and pain.
The sun had dipped below the rising rim of the great sand-circle whose
centre we were, but the sky was still a cloudless expanse of yellow
radiance dazzling to the eyes from sheer excess of light. There was
nothing far or near to differentiate one part of earth or heaven from
another save the thin red line of ridiculous little flags we had been
planting out during the day; and I remember thinking that I could not
for the life of me tell the exact spot where, five minutes before, I
had seen the last curved glint of the sun disappear--for one bit of
horizon seemed to the full as bright as another.
"Looks like the yaller bottle in the chemist's shop; don't it, sir?"
remarked Craddock cheerfully--"leastways, as I used to think when I
was a boy. Lordy! Lordy! boys is--is boys, I do assure you. Old
Pargiter's shop to our village was over against the public, sir, next
the church, an' comin' 'ome o' evenin's from the catechism, sir, it
seemed Je-rewsalem the Golden. Expect it was the anathysts, an'
sapphiras, an' rubies, an' them sort o' stones did it, for boys--is
boys, you see, sir." He gave an apologetic smear to his corn-coloured
moustache as if to wipe away the flavour of his own sentiment--the
wrist-smear of those whose hands are habitually soiled.
"It _is_ like a topaz seen against the light," I replied, accepting
both confidence and excuse with the calm indifference which always
encouraged Craddock to further indulgence. "I don't think I ever saw
it quite so dazzlingly clear, did you?"
He paused awhile, and the blue eyes, bloodshot by exposure to
unspeakable lights and unspeakable darknesses of all sorts and kinds,
grew a trifle absent.
"I dunno but what I 'ave, sir; leastways it looks more light-like from
the bottom o' a well. As, savin' your presence, sir, is only nat'ral."
"From the bottom of a well?" I echoed. "When was that, Craddock? you
never told me that yarn."
He paused again. "No, sir. It ain't a pleasing interlood, for
'twas in the Mutiny time, sir, w'en we was all mad devils, black an'
white--white an' black----," and then suddenly, as I have said, some
past pity and passion and pain seemed to come back upon him with a
rush, so that he sat staring into that cloudless sky as if he saw a
vision, and his voice came at last half to himself, "By the Lord as
made me I dunno which was worse, black nor white, white nor black; yet
it was white as did for me, Nathaniel James Craddock, at the bottom o'
the King's Well." Then he was silent again, and I sat silent too, for
there never was any use in pumping Craddock. His fund of experiences
was too vast for you to be sure of bringing what you wanted to the
surface. So, after a time, he began again deviously:
"Not as wot it was, so to speak, a well at all, but what they calls,
in the lingo, a _bawly_--a thing, you know, sir, with flights o' steps
a-leadin' down to the bowels of the yerth--right down to the water as
maybe a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet below the surface, as the
sayin' is, sir. It was just a large, round, black spot o' ink, that
was wot the water was, an' standin' on the stone edge you could see
right up the stairs to a round yaller spot of Je-rewsalem the Golden.
Two spots there were, sir, owin' to there being two flights o' steps,
an' many a time as I lay like a rabbit in 'is burrow down by the water
I'd tell myself luck was in there bein' two--two whites to one black,
yet after all it was white as did the business for me, sir, at the
bottom o' the King's _bawly_."
"You must have been very young in Mutiny time?" I remarked in casual
aid to his lagging confidence.
"One and twenty, sir--more by token I come to man's estate, as the
sayin' is, at the bottom o' that there well. Lordy! I can see it now!
A sort o' mist o' light from Je-rewsalem above a-fadin' away half down
the stairs, and leavin' the rest to get darker an' darker to the black
spot o' water; but it had a glint o' light on it too that come, God
knows how, when the sun was low." As he spoke I had noticed a curious
change in his voice; a sort of refining process, as if he were going
back to a self that was less rough, less common, and the change was
still more marked when, after a pause, he began again: "It was an
awful hot year, sir, just a white flame of heat--a burning fiery
furnace; but there wasn't none of us come through it praisin' an'
magnifyin'--leastways I didn't, but then I was a wild lot. Run away
from home, sir; that is how I came to be in the country, knowing a
good bit of the lingo for a youngster. Served my way out before the
mast, and then backed my luck. And won it too; for a Rajah fellow paid
me to wrestle with his men, and play monkey tricks. Lordy! I remember
the first time I got in grips with the champion, and he stood head
down expectin' me to go on buttin' like a goat. There wasn't one of
them could touch me, sir, but that wasn't no protection when the time
came. It's an odd sort of thing, I do assure you, for a man who knows
he could lick every one he sees, to be runnin' like a hare for dear
life, hidin' by day an' circumventin' the villages by night; but that
was how it was for three weeks before I come plumb--as the sayin'
is--on the King's Well. It was right in the worst country, and I was
footsore, and stumblin' like as if I were in liquor with the fever. A
queer sort o' place it was as I saw it first in the dawn which
come--as the dawns had a trick o' doin' in those times--a deal too
soon for Nathaniel James. It was right in the open in the middle o' a
lot o' broken bricks and little mounds o' mud--miles and miles of them
it had seemed to me, footsore an' stumblin'; for the place had been a
big city, so I'm told, sir, in the old times. And now it was nothin'
but a plain o' broken brick an' graves, except for a cluster of tall
old houses with the usual mud-huts a-crowdin' up round them. And I
knew from what I'd heard that the biggest murdering villains o' the
lot lived in them houses, poor _budmarsh_[32] Mohammedans, proud as
Lucifer, a-screwing the tails o' the ryots for a livin'--though why
ryots, sir, is hard to say, for a more peaceable lot o' able-bodied
men and women never was. Well, there I was in the worst place I could
have chosen, and the dawn comin' sudden all in a blaze. Then, right at
my feet I sees the _bawly_; just a hole o' broken masonry, an' the
steps leading down like a rabbit burrow. They didn't seem to be much
used that side furthest from the village among the graves, for the
drifted sand was a-lying thick on the topmost steps, and I didn't see
no footmarks to speak of, only a queer sort o' track that might 'ave
bin a man's and mightn't. Anyhow I thought I'd risk it, seeing as if
any one come down the one stair, I could hoof it up the other, an'
there's generally a lot o' little arched recesses at the bottom o'
_bawlies_ where I could lie low. So I chanced it. An' Lordy! wasn't it
cool as I hobbled down them vaulted steps. 'Twas a fine place, sir,
when all was said an' done. Half-a-dozen steps or so, and then a
landin', as the sayin' is, with a sort o' travellers' rest on either
side; but I went right down to the bottom, so as to see what sort o'
trap I'd got into. An' I found it none so bad, for there wasn't no
passage round as there is in most _bawlies_, but only a' arched room
on either side my stairs ending sheer in the drop o' ink which filled
up a round sort o' well that was vaulted over up in the dark
somewhere. So there wasn't no way of getting from one stair to the
other but by a leap such as there wasn't one but Nathaniel James in
the country side as could leap it; an' that would give me time. Still
I do assure you, sir, it takes the spunk out of a fellow to go
skulkin' round for three weeks with your life in your hand in baggy
silk trousers an' a dressin' gown--for I'd put on what they calls a
_killit_ as the Rajah give me for smashing up another Rajah's
champion--that's a dress o' state, sir, an' _killit_ or not, it nigh
killed me, for it was chock full o' embroidery an' that hot; but
beggars mustn't be choosers, and that night I run off from the Palace
it was all I could lay hands on. An' did its work too--just to give
what them surveyor chaps calls the proper contour, as the sayin' is.
Anyhow, what with the stain, a deal more knowledge of the lingo than I
have now, sir, an' through my being considerable stronger than the
only two fellars as caught me napping, here I was in the King's
_bawly_ watching them two round spots o' Je-rewsalem like a man in his
grave a-waitin' the last trump; an' the first pair o' feet I saw on
the stairs opposite set me a-tremblin' like a ferreted rabbit, even
though I knew that wot with the stairs, an' the drop o' ink, I'd 'ave
a good five minutes' start. But then I heard the jingles on them, sir,
and knew it was only a woman from the village comin' down to fill her
water-pot. There was a lot o' them come chatterin' and laughin' during
the day, but always down the further stair. And Lordy! it was cool
after the fiery furnace! I had a mouthful or two o' corn I'd _looted_,
so when dusk came it seemed to me as if I couldn't move on--small
blame to me, sir, seein' how cool an' quiet it was, and I so close on
done. But just as I was a-callin' myself names for bein' lazy, come a
footfall on my stair. Now you know, sir, them _bawlies_ bein' arched
an' all that, is awful echo-ey places, an' I do assure you I made up
my mind a man was coming down, slow and deliberate-like. I looked out,
an' couldn't see nothing, but there was the footfall just like a
procession; an' then somethin' let loose a bellow, and I felt inclined
to cut. But then I thought I'd wait a bit seein' I was stronger nor
most, an' the drop o' ink was handy for a corpse. So I waited until
the bellow come again; an' this time--bein' close as it were, an' out
o' the echo--I knew my friend, for I do assure you, sir, it was
nothin' but the biggest bull toad you ever see, coming flop, flop down
the stair for his evenin' drink. A great green thing with a yaller
waistcoat as sat up on the last step looked at me quite proud-like.
Lordy! how I laughed! It was the first laugh I'd laughed for three
week, an' it done me good; that an' seeing the bull toad go douse into
the water like a man, for it set me a-longin' for a swim too, an' when
I come out o' that drop o' cold ink I was a new man. Slept like a
babby in its cradle and woke to see through the maze o' arches a woman
on the t'other side a-rinsin' out her brass pot quite calm-like. She
was a-takin' his breakfast to her man in the fields, I expect, for
there was a pile o' them flapjacks on a platter beside her. I dun'no,
sir, if it was the sleep, or the sight o' food and me ravenin' wolves,
or just sheer devilry--for I was a wild lot--but I out o' my rabbit
'utch an' let loose a yell. You may well call 'em _bawlies_, sir, for
I do assure you I felt kind o' queer myself havin' made all that
noise. She gave no look, but let loose another yell of her own as she
turned tail and ran up them stairs like a lamplighter. It seemed to me
as if she was callin' on 'the King--the King,' but I didn't stop to
think. Now was my time. I was over the drop o' ink clear on to the
second step in my hurry, before she was half-way up to Je-rewsalem,
an' I was back again to the 'utch with the flapjacks making ready to
run if need be for dear life, when I heard the silver tinkle again an'
women's voices. Every word, sir, I could hear through its bein' a
_bawly_, an' I heard her"--he paused sharply, waited a second, and
began again--"There was two on them now, disputin' an' half-laughin',
half-cryin'; one was pullin' the other an' tellin' her she was a fool;
there wasn't no King, more's the pity, and if there was she wasn't
afraid seein' he was her _bapdada_;--that's ancestors, sir--but the
t'other wouldn't hear of it, an' kept sayin' 'twas well enough for
some folk as pretended wisdom, but every one knew the King's footmark
on the stair an' had heard his voice after dusk. My friend the bull
toad, thinks I, feelin' considerable easier in my mind, for I knew
enough o' their ways you see, sir, to know as there wasn't much chance
o' any one else comin' down my stairs if a ghost lived there; so I
listened to the argufying quite interested-like. But it wasn't no
good--the half-laughin' voice hadn't a chance even when it grew sober,
and cried shame on bein' frightened at the spirit of the good King,
who every day come down to his _bawly_ all alone, so that any pore
soul as wanted justice might go down the other stair and tell him what
was amiss across the black water with no fear. 'If he was only there
now instead o' bein' where saints are,' I heard her say, 'I'd go down
this instant an' tell him to stop it all--but there's no one to listen
nowadays--no one.' An' with that she come tinkling down the steps
alone--a tall girl, sir--but, there--'tain't no good describin' her,
for I never see her but in half-light till---- Well! she just rinsed
out her pot like the rest o' them and filled it; but afore she went
she stood so with it on her head on the t'other side o' the black
water for a moment, an' said quite loud an' bold-like, '_Salaam
Mahardj_.[33]
---------------------
[Footnote 32: Bad living.]
[Footnote 33: Greeting or peace to the King.]
---------------------
"I was that wild sort, as I might have given a bellow just to frighten
her for the fun o' the thing, but I kept somehow a-thinkin' o' what
she had said of the old King a-trailin' down them steps in his royal
robes, and listenin' in that _bawly_ to all the pore folks' troubles,
an' a-promisin' never to forsake them but to bring justice with him
down the stairs to the end o' all things. Not that he was an old King,
sir, as I found out afterwards, but a young sort o' saint, as got
killed afore his time. You see I heard a lot o' talk from the women as
came down in companies, skeery, and just in a mortal hurry to fill
their jars and git home because of the girl as said she had heard the
King in the daytime. So that it came to me, sir, that I couldn't do
better nor lie hidden a day or two and get strong where I was, for
there wasn't no manner o' hurry. Like as not I'd get killed somehow
before I got to the river, and I couldn't help anyways, seein' as I
couldn't look to get into any o' the places where we was holdin' out
against the black devils. An' that evenin', when the old bull toad
come down for his swim, I just laughed again quite light-hearted, and
says as she said, '_Salaam Maharaj!_'
"Well, she was the only one as come alone after that, but come she
did, an' every time she come she would stand an' say loud-like, but a
bit wistful, '_Salaam Maharaj!_'
"She was a tall girl, but there--it ain't no use describing her.
"So what with the women coming all together I didn't have much chance
o' flapjacks, and what with the village bein' walled in an' full of
them murderin' nobility, I wasn't, so to say, successful in thievin',
an' at last I see it was time to move on. A bad time, too; for I heard
from the women's talk as there was crowds o' sepoys about a-screwin'
the pore folks' tails, an' I heard _her_ say to 'em once as it were
their fault. 'If they wasn't so frightened o' the King,' said she,
'maybe he'd come back and give 'em justice.' An' that evenin' when she
come down she stood so with her arms spread out lookin' up the stair
and said again, bowing down after their fashion, '_Salaam Maharaj!_,
your slave waits!'
"There was a pile o' flapjacks on the platter beside her water-pot,
an' maybe it was the sight o' them, and knowin' they would be worth
gold to me, or maybe because it was my last time o' askin', or maybe
the devil that was in me, but I just out o' my rabbit 'utch, in my
baggy silk trousers and dressing-gown--in the whole blessed _killit_,
sir--and stood quite still on the steps. It was most dark, you see,
sir, an' the contours was correc', so 'twas no wonder she give a
little cry, half-glad, half-afraid, as she come up from her salaam. I
guessed she'd run and leave me the flapjacks, but she wasn't that
sort. A tall girl--but there, it ain't no use describin'. Well afore I
could think what to do she was at it; such a tale o' wrong, sir, not
about herself, though she was one of those pore souls as is born
widows, but about Lord knows what of the people. An' I listened. Did
you ever listen, sir, to a woman's voice just chock full o' confidence
in your bein' a good sort? Well, I did; an' I dunno how 'twas, sir,
but the confidence was catchin'. I was a reckless, bold chap, you see,
an' I knew she had grit, so the next moment I was over that circle o'
black water and beside her. She give another little cry, but, my Lord!
she _had_ grit, for she drew back quick against the wall and thrust
out her hands to keep me off.
"'The King! the King!' she said, 'I thought you was the King!'
"An' with that I caught her by the hands. 'I'm not the King,' says I,
'but don't you be afraid, I'm only a pore man as won't hurt you.'
"'I'm not afraid,' she says, tryin' to make believe. 'You come down
the King's stairs o' justice,' she said, 'an' that's enough.'
"Then somehow, I dunno how it was, sir, but all in a moment it come
home to me that I'd go my whole pile on her, an' I drop her hands an'
I says:
"'Yes! I come down the King's stairs, and I'll be a King to you for
justice if you'll be a Queen to me.'
"And by God! sir, she was.
"So there we were, lookin' into each other's eyes and sayin' nothin',
till she gave a queer little laugh.
"'Why,' she says, 'you're a white man!' and with that she lay her
finger quick and confident on my wrist; an' sure enough, what with the
swim and the dark it were white indeed--white an' shivery, too, with
the touch somehow, so that I couldn't but keep her hand so and say:
"'Yes, my dear, I'm white and you're black; I'm a man and you're a
woman, but it shan't make no odds. I'm King and you're Queen in this
here _bawly_, and there shan't be nothing but justice atween us, so
help me, God!'
"An' there wasn't, sir. No! though we went our whole pile on each
other, I do assure you, sir."
The assurance was needless; one look at his face was enough--that
world-worn face with its bloodshot eyes, fixed on the dazzling glory
of the sky as if they saw a vision.
"I used to see her first against Je-rewsalem," he went on in a lower
tone. "Then I could hear her come down the stairs ever so soft to
stand close to the water's edge and cry, '_Salaam Maharaj!_'--for she
called me that, just for fun, you see, sir. An' there weren't much
wistfulness in her voice, sir, mostly laughter, an' somethin' better
nor laughter, when I come leapin' across that drop o' ink to stand
beside her for a little, an' tell her--what folks say to each other
when they've set their whole pile on each other, you know, sir. For
she wouldn't never come down the King's stairs, sayin' it was unlucky
an' what not. Excuses, sir, but I understood 'em and I didn't want
her, for you see it was justice between us I'd sworn, and I was a wild
lot. She had told her father--a blind old Brahman, sir, awful holy,
and nigh bedridden too--and he sent word to say stop where I was. The
villagers wouldn't venture down the stairs either, and if they did
wouldn't harm me, being, as I say, sir, as peaceable a lot o'
able-bodied men as ever was. But the maraudin', murderin' crew in the
big _hawelis_--that's houses, sir--was harbouring those mutinous
devils of Jack Pandies, and playin' high old Tommy for miles round, so
I'd better lie low till justice came; as it'd sure to do at last,
seein' that the Lord was King. They talks a sight, sir, about the
heathen and their ignorance, but I do assure you she knew a deal
more nor me; what with being of a king's family an' havin' a
bedridden saint of a Brahman for a father. An' they mayn't know much
book-learnin' p'r'aps, but some of 'em knows how to make a man put his
whole pile on them. And she had grit, my Lord! she had grit!
"Yet there was a catch in her breath that evenin' when I was nigh mad
with fear, lest she had come to harm because it was so late, and
hearing her footfall on the stair I leapt over, and nearly fell back
into the ink-pot through seein' her in a man's dress.
"'I'd rather you didn't come if there's danger,' said I quite
sharp-like, when she told me the sepoys was setting watch because folk
said the white soldiers were a-coming. 'Don't! I can't stand it here
in the dark, idle, thinkin' o' you God knows how. I'll fend for myself
quite well.'
"An' with that she laughed low with the little catch in her breath
still, and come a bit closer so as I could slip my arm round her a
little; an' by that I knew 'twas more danger than she let on--for she
was not that sort.
"'Now don't you come,' says I, as I might be the King himself givin'
orders, 'I won't have it. If the soldiers is comin', they'll bring
justice, an' if not a little starvin' won't hurt me, for I'm gettin'
quite strong again.' An' so I was, sir, what with the rest and the
food an' the happiness. For I do assure you, sir, on my solemn oath,
that I was happy at the bottom o' that King's _bawly_. Happy? By the
Lord! sir, 'twas enough to make a man happy to see the look she gave
me, as much as to say I was strong enough and everything enough for
her; for though it was nigh dark I could see her face from its bein'
so close to mine--she bein' a tall girl--but there, it ain't no use
describin'. There don't seem much to say, sir, when it comes to
lookin' at each other that way, an' so we stood silent a bit, till
sudden I hear the old bull toad at his jinks again, and partly to ease
off the sort o' burstin' feelin' at my heart I cries with a laugh,
'There's the King!'
"But she just lays her head down, pugree an' all, on my shoulder and
says with a sob, 'No, here's the King. The King as I come to for
justice.'"
He paused for so long, that something of the excitement which had been
thrilling in his tones seemed to pass into my mind, and I felt almost
a shock when he went on quite calmly:
"Well, it was arranged that she wasn't to come back for three days
onless somethin' turned up. I would have it so, an' she give in at
last. It was mortal dull without her, and I made up my mind when I see
her again to tell her I'd back my luck once more, and fight my way
safe somehow. Then when it was over I'd come back for her; for it
didn't seem it could go against me as I sat down by the drop o' ink
a-lookin' up to Je-rewsalem over the way, and a-wonderin' when I
should see her on the top step a-comin' for justice to her King.
"Well, she come at last. It were the second day, I think, sir, and it
took me all of a sudden, for, owin' to its bein' a _bawly_ in the
bowels in the yerth you couldn't hear nothin' of what was goin' on up
top. I was sittin' lookin' over the way when I hear a noise behind an'
a voice, '_Maharaj! Maharaj!_'
"It was she, sir, down the King's steps in the man's dress, an' behind
her, my God! not black devils but white ones with red coats an' set
bayonets!--'_Maharaj! Maharaj! Justice! Justice!_'
"I was out, sir, tearing up to meet her in a second, shoutin' in
English to hold hard--that she was a woman; but them cursed _bawly_
echoes mixed it all up, an' the cursed baggy trousers and things,
didn't give me no chance of a-hearin' through its bein' half-dark----
"'_Maharaj! Maharaj!_'
"I heard it plain enough, God knows. I hear it now sometimes, sir, an'
I see her face as I saw it for the only time in the light afore I fell
over her dead body a-lying on the steps half-way down the stairs o'
justice.
"They told me after, as I had finished the cry for her many and many a
time whilst I lay in 'orspital--for they'd struck me playful-like
before they found out I was white, an' I took mortal bad; but there
wasn't much use in justice then for none o' us. An' I never could tell
quite how it happened, for when I went back the village was just
bricks, and the corpses lyin' about thick, unburied. They had had a
hard fight as they told me, had the Tommies, an' bein' fresh from
Cawnpore was keen--as was nat'ral--an' she was in man's clothes, you
see, when she come flyin' down the steps o' justice calling for the
King."
* * * * *
He sat silent, looking out to the now darkening sky where the light
had faded save in the widening rays spreading out from the grave of
the sun. And down one of them, as down a golden staircase, I seemed to
see a flying figure with outstretched arms pass to Jerusalem the
Golden with the cry "_Maharaj! Maharaj!_"
But Craddock was already clearing his throat suggestively for the
usual glass of whisky and water; yet ere he drank it his eyes wandered
absently, helplessly, to the horizon, and I heard him mutter to
himself:
"An' so 'twas white, not black, as did for Nathaniel James Craddock at
the bottom o' the King's Well."
And as I looked at him drink-sodden and reckless, I understood that
when the time came he too would have the right to pass down the King's
stair seeking justice--and finding it.