Transcriber's Notes:
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http://books.google.com/books?id=k6cOAAAAIAAJ
2. The letter "a" with macron is represented by [=a].
The Mercy of the Lord
The Mercy of the Lord
By
Flora Annie Steel
Author of
'On the Face of the Waters,' 'A Sovereign Remedy,' etc.
New York
George H. Doran Company
_Printed in England_
NEW YORK; GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, 1914.
CONTENTS
THE MERCY OF THE LORD.
SALT DUTY.
THE WISDOM OF OUR LORD GANESH.
THE SON OF A KING.
THE BIRTH OF FIRE.
THE GIFT OF BATTLE.
THE VALUE OF A VOTE.
SALT OF THE EARTH.
AN APPRECIATED RUPEE.
THE LAKE OF HIGH HOPE.
RETAINING FEES.
HIS CHANCE.
THE FLATTERER FOR GAIN.
A MAIDEN'S PRAYER.
SILVER SPEECH AND GOLDEN SILENCE.
THE FOOTSTEPS OF A DOG.
THE FINDING OF PRIVATE FLANIGAN.
REX ET IMP:
THERE AROSE A MAN.
DRY GOODS.
THE REGENERATION OF DAISY BELL.
A SONG WITHOUT WORDS.
SEGREGATION.
SLAVE OF THE COURT.
THE MERCY OF THE LORD
"God movesn--a--mystere'ras way
Iswon--derstuper--form."
Craddock was polishing the brass of his safety valve and singing the
while at high pressure between set teeth: his choice of a ditty
determined by one of his transitory lapses into conventional
righteousness. The cause of which in the present instance being an
equally transient admiration for a good little Eurasian girl fresh from
her convent.
As the sun--which shines equally on the just and the unjust--flamed on
his red face and glowed from his corn-coloured beard it seemed to
me--waiting in the comparative coolth of the pointsman's mud-oven
shelter till the one mail train of the day should appear and disappear,
leaving the ribbon of rail which spanned the desert world to its
horizon free for our passaging--that both he and his engine radiated
heat: that they gave out--as the burning bush or the flaming swords of
the paradise-protectors must have given out--a message of fiery warning
that suited the words he sang:
"Eplants 'isfootsteps--inthesea."
Craddock punctuated the rhythm with an appropriate stop of shrill steam
which ought to have startled me: but it did not, because my outward
senses had suddenly become slaves to my memory. The desert was a garden
full of cool fragrance which comes with the close of an Indian day, and
the only sound to be heard in it was a glad young voice repeating these
words:
"Oh! God of the Battle! Have mercy! Have mercy! Have mercy!"
"Bravo! young Bertram!" said someone--even those who scarcely
knew whether Bertram were his Christian or his surname called him
that--"Easy to see you're fresh from the Higher Standard."
Young Bertram smiled down on us from the plinth of the marble steps
leading up to the marble summer house which stood in the centre of this
Garden-of-Dead-Kings.
Posed there on his pedestal, holding orb-like in his raised right hand
the battered bronze cannon ball whose inscription--roughly lettered in
snaky spirals--he had just translated, young Bertram reminded me of the
young Apollo.
"You bet," he answered, gaily. "But what does it mean, here on this
blessed ball? Who knows the story?--for there is one, of course."
The company looked at me, partly because as a civilian such knowledge
was expected of me; mostly because I was responsible for the invasion
of this peaceful Eastern spot by a restless, curious horde of Westerns;
my only excuse for the desecration being, that as the most despicable
product of our Indian rule, a grass widower bound to entertain, I had
naturally clutched at the novelty of a picnic supper and dance some few
miles out of the station.
Perhaps, had I seen the garden first, I might have relented, but I took
it on trust from my orderly, who assured me it held all things
necessary for my salvation, including a marble floor on which a drugget
could be stretched.
It held much more. There was in it an atmosphere--not all orange
blossom and roses, though these drugged the senses--which to my mind
made a touch of tragedy lurk even in our laughter.
Though, in sooth, we brought part of the tragedy with us: for a
frontier war was on, and all the men and half the women present, knew
that the route might come any moment.
Some few--I, as chief district officer, the colonel and his
adjutant--were aware that it probably would come before morning:
but ours were not the sober faces. Our plans were laid; all things,
even the arrangements for the women and the children and the
unfit-for-service, were cut and dried: but the certainty that someone
must--as the phrase runs--take over documents, and the uncertainty as
to who the unlucky beggar would be, lent care to a young heart or two.
Not, however, to young Bertram. As he stood questioning me with his
frank blue eyes, even the white garments he had donned (because, he
said, "It might be a beastly time before he wore decent togs again")
told the same tale as his glad voice--the tale of that boundless hope
which holds ever the greatest tragedy of life.
"Who is that pretty boy?" said a low soft voice at my elbow.
I did not answer the spoken question of the voice, but as I replied to
the unspoken question of many eyes I was conscious that of all the many
incongruous elements I had imported into that Eastern garden this
Western woman who had appraised young Bertram's beauty was the most
incongruous. It was not the Paris frock and hat, purchased on the way
out--she had only rejoined her husband the day before--which made her
so. It was the woman inside them. I knew the type so well, and my soul
rose in revolt that she should soil his youth with her approval.
"I've no doubt there are stories," I replied; "but I don't happen to
know them. I'm as much a stranger here as you all are. So come! let us
look round till it's dark enough to dance."
"Dark enough to sit out, he means," said someone to the Paris frock and
hat, whereat there was a laugh, but not so general and not half so
hearty as the one which greeted young Bertram's gravity as he replaced
the cannon ball on the plinth with the profound remark:
"Something about a woman, you bet."
"Do introduce me!" pleaded the Paris frock and hat as the lad came
down, bearing the brunt of chaff gallantly; but I pretended not to
hear, though I knew such diplomacy was vain with women of her
type--women whose refinement makes them shameless.
Yes! she was a strange anomaly in that garden, though, Heaven
knows, it appealed frankly enough to the senses. So frankly that it
absorbed even such meretricious Western additions as cosy corners
and iced champagne--on tables laid for two--without encroaching a
hair's--breadth on the inviolable spiritual kingdom of the ivory orange
blossom, the silver jasmine stars, even the red hearts of the roses.
They were lighting up the lines of the cressets about the dancing floor
when we began to reassemble, and as each star of light quivered into
being, the misty unreal radiance grew around the fretted marble of the
summer house until arch and pilaster seemed to lose solidity, and the
whole building, leaving its body behind in shining sleep, found freedom
ass a palace of dreams.
And there, as a foreground to its mystical beauty, was young Bertram
dangling his long legs from the pedestal and nursing the battered old
bronze ball on his lap as if it had been a baby.
"I've found out all about it," he said, cheerfully. "That chap"--he
pointed to a figure below him--"told me a splendid yarn, and if you
lite,"--he turned to me--"as they haven't done lighting up yet, and we
can't dance till they finish, he could tell it again. I could
translate, you know, for those who can't understand."
The innocent pride made me smile, until the Paris frock said, "_I_
shall be so grateful if you will, Mr. Bertram," in a tone of soft
friendliness which proclaimed her success and my failure. Both,
however, I recognised were inevitable when I remembered that she was
the wife of the lad's captain, a silent, bullet-headed Briton of whom
he chose to make a hero--as boys will of older men who are not worthy
to unlatch their shoes.
The figure rose and salaamed. It was that of a professional snake
charmer, who had evidently come in hopes of being allowed to exhibit
his skill: for his flat basket of snakes, slung to a bambu yoke, lay
beside him.
"And it _was_ about a woman, as I said," continued young Bertram, with
the same innocent pride. "She was of his tribe--the snaky tribe, and
so, of course, he knows about it all."
I had my doubts--the man looked a cunning scoundrel--but there was an
awkward five minutes to fill up, so chairs and cushions were
requisitioned, and on them and the marble steps we circled round to
listen: the Paris dress, I noticed, choosing the latter, close to the
translator.
He performed his task admirably, catching not only the meaning of the
words but the rhythm of the snake charmer's voice, and so quickly, too,
that the message for the East, and for the West, seemed one; yet it
seemed to come from neither of the speakers.
"'Oh, God of the Battle! have mercy, have mercy, have mercy!' Such was
her prayer to the Bright One, and this is the tale of it:
"Straight was her soul as the saraph who tempted Eve-mother, but
crooked her body as snakes that deal death in the darkness--crookt in
her childhood--crookt in the siege of the town by a spent shot which
struck her, asleep in her cradle (the ball that you nurse on your knee,
sahib--they found it beside her--her crushed limbs caressing the foe
that destroyed her).
"She grew in this garden, a cripple, but fair still of face, and twice
cursed in such gifts of beauty all barren and bitter--so bitter she
veiled it away, hiding loveliness, hatefulness, both, from the eyes of
the others: a soul stricken sore ere the battle began, yet insatiate of
life, insatiate of blessing and cursing, insatiate of power. And, look
you! she gained it! Most strangely, for fluttering through thickets
like birds that are wounded and dragging herself like a snake to the
blossoms, she threaded the jasmine to necklets and pressed out the
roses to perfume, so giving to women uncrippled love-lures for the
fathers of sons.
"Hid in the jasmine and screened by the trails of the roses, here, on
this spot stood her chamber of charm for the secret distilling of
_itr_, the silent repeating of ritual, the murmur of musical _mantras_.
"And none dare to enter since Death lurked unseen in the thickets, and
serpents, her kinsmen, slid swift to the threshold to guard it, and
watched with still eyes her command.
"'It was witchcraft,' they said, with a shudder, those fortunate women,
yet came in the dusk for her charms!
"But she gave them not always, for years brought her wisdom. She learnt
the love lore of the flowers, the close starry heart of the jasmine,
the open red heart of the rose, told their dream of fair death through
the ripening of seed, and her voice would grow bitter with scorn....
"'Go! find your own lures for your lovers--I work for the seed--for the
harvest of men.'
"High perched on the wall of the city the balcony women waxed wroth. It
was money to them till the cripple who fought them with flowers
prevailed in the battle for life to the world.
"And Narghiza, the chief of them all, felt her youth on the wane....
"So, one night in the darkness, ere dawning, men crept to the garden
where only the women might enter. Men, heated by wine and by lust,
inflamed by the balcony lies--yea! the witch who wrought evil to
all--who had killed Gulanâr in her prime by a wasting--whose frown was
a curse, must be reckoned with, killed, and her devilish chamber
destroyed.
"But the sound of the rustling leaves as the snakes slid soft in the
darkness made even the wine bibbers think, so that secret and soft as
the snakes in the thickets they crept back to safety; till there--in
the darkness, the fragrance of flowers, but one man remained, a man who
grew old! Beautiful, tired of the life he had squandered, and reckless,
yet angered because of the girl who had wasted to death--a girl he had
paid for.
"'Cowards!' he said with a smile, and crept on in the dark. A rustle,
but not of a snake! In the leaves a faint glimmer of white, and a
voice--such a beautiful voice!
"'In this garden of women what seek you, my lord?'
"'I seek _you_, for your death.' But as swift as his hand with the
dagger, around him there rose in a shimmering shelter the wide-hooded
curves of the serpents, their still, watchful eyes giving out a cold
gleaming that shone like a halo about her.
"'What harm have I done?' Such a beautiful voice! 'Come and see, if you
will.'
"On his head fell the spent leaves of roses, the frail stars of jasmine
were hers as she dragged herself on, and he followed through darkness
and fragrance and flowers. The serpents lay thick on the threshold; she
stayed them with this:
"'Wait, friends, till he touches me.'
"Opened the door and said scornfully:
"'There stands my charm.'
"The dim light of the cresset showed emptiness save for yon ball with
its legend ('tis scratched, as you see, in the shape of a snake,
sahib). She read it aloud, and then turned to him:
"'Yea! that is all! I appeal to the God of the Battle of Life, and I
call unto Him to have mercy, have mercy, have mercy--What mercy He
chooses----'
"Her voice sank to silence. The cresset's dim light showed the folds of
her veiling to him, and to her showed his beauty of face as he knelt to
her crippledom.
"'Mercy!'--his voice was a whisper--'have mercy--the charm lies
within--let me see it....'
"His hand sought the folds of her veil and, responsive, the shelter of
snakes rose about her.
"'Wait, friends, till he touches me!'
"Swift, with quick fear in it, came the stern warning, and then there
was silence.
"Oh! beautiful night with spent stars of the jasmine, spent leaves of
the roses, spent life nigh to death 'mid its darkness, its fragrance.
"Oh! beautiful face, free of veiling with spent stars of eyes and spent
rose leaves of lips.
"'My beloved!'
"Like a sigh came the whisper, and slowly as stars in the evening their
eyes grew to brightness, and closer and closer their lips grew to
kisses.
"'_Wait, friends, till he touches me_.'
"That was her order, and swift to the second, the snakes struck between
them.
"Oh, beautiful death by the kiss of a lover! Oh, merciful poison of
passion."
The sing-song ceased, and, as if to take its place, the first notes of
the _Liebestraum_ waltz sounded from the rose and jasmine thicket in
which the band had been concealed.
"That's a mercy of the Lord, anyhow," laughed some young Philistine. "I
thought they'd never stop, or the band begin!"
In a moment the listening circle had changed into an eager hurrying of
couples towards the dancing floor.
But young Bertram still sat on the pilaster nursing the old bronze
ball, his glad young face strangely sober.
"I think this is our dance," said the Paris frock, in a voice of icy
allurement which positively rasped my nerves.
Young Bertram sprang to the ground hastily.
"I beg your pardon! By George, what's that?"
He had upset one of the snake charmer's flat baskets, and there was a
general stampede as the occupants slid out.
"Don't be alarmed," I cried, "they always have their fangs drawn, and
he will get them back in a moment."
Even as I spoke the hollow quavering of the charmer's gourd flute
began, and three snakes stayed their flight to sit up on their tails
and sway drowsily to the rhythm.
"There was a fourth one, wasn't there?" said young Bertram. "It slipped
our way, didn't it?"
He spoke to the Paris frock, which had taken refuge on the opposite
pilaster, so that the whole expanse of the wide marble steps now lay
between them.
"Huzoor, no!" interrupted the owner of the snakes, hastily, "there were
but three--there could only have been three--for see! my serpents obey
me."
He was slipping the brutes back to prison again as he spoke, but I
noticed his eyes were restless.
"Are you quite sure?" I asked.
He gave me a furtive glance, then carelessly held up a loathsome
five-footer. "Cobras like these are very easily counted, Huzoor;
besides, as the Presence said, they are all fangless."
The one whose jaws he as carelessly prized open certainly was, and I
should have dismissed doubt had not young Bertram at that moment taken
up the flute gourd, and with the gay remark, "Let me have a shot at
it," commenced--out of fastidiousness as to the mouthpiece, no
doubt--to blow into it upside down.
I never saw fear better expressed in any face than on the snake
charmer's when he heard the indescribable sound which echoed out into
the garden. It grew green as without the least ceremony he snatched the
instrument away.
"The Presence must not do that--the snakes do not like strangers."
Young Bertram laughed, "Nor the noise, I expect! The beastly thing
makes a worse row wrong side up than right--doesn't it?"
What the Paris frock replied I do not know, as they were already
hurrying up to make the most of the remaining dance.
Not that there was any necessity for hurry to judge by the number of
times I saw his white raiment and her fancy frills floating round
together during the next hour or so.
The Adjutant--a man I particularly disliked (possibly because he seemed
to me the antithesis of young Bertram)--remarked on it also when he
found me out seeking solitude in one of the latticed minarets.
"Going it!" he said, cynically. "He won't be quite such a young fool
when he comes down from the hills."
I turned on him in absolute dismay. "The hills? but surely you're going
on service?"
The Adjutant shrugged his shoulders. "Someone has to take over, and
he'll soon console himself."
I felt I could have kicked him, and was glad that the "Roast Beef"
called me to my duties as host.
They had laid the supper table where we had listened to the snake
charmer's chant; somehow through all the laughter I seemed to hear that
refrain going on: "Oh! God of the Battle! have mercy! have mercy! have
mercy!"
What mercy would she show him? None. And what chance would he have in
an atmosphere like that of Semoorie? None. Even the husband, whom
rumour said was bullet-headed to some purpose, would be away.
We were very merry in spite, or perhaps because of, an insistent trend
of thought towards impending change, and I was just about to propose
the health of my guests with due discreet allusion to the still
doubtful future when it was settled by the appearance of a telegraph
peon.
In the instant hush which followed, I observed irrelevantly that our
brief feasting had made a horrid mess of what not half an hour before
had seemed food for the gods!
Then the Colonel looked up with a grim conscious smile which fitted ill
with the fragrant lantern-lit garden behind him.
"The route has come, gentlemen, we start to-morrow at noon."
He checked a quick start to their feet on the part of some of the
youngsters by addressing himself to me:
"But as everything has been cut and dry for some days we needn't spoil
sport yet awhile. There's time for a dance or two."
"In that case I'll go on," I replied, "and with greater will than
ever."
Somehow it never struck me what was likely to happen, seeing that young
Bertram was junior subaltern and in addition the pride of his fellows,
until I heard the calls for "our speaker" to return thanks. He had been
sitting, of course, next to the Paris frock, and beside him had been
the Adjutant, looking, I had noticed, as if he thought he ought to be
in young Bertram's place. I wish to God he had been.
They both rose at the same moment; the Adjutant to work, no
doubt--for, pushing his chair back, he left the table; young Bertram to
his task of responding.
I saw at once that he knew his fate. I think he had that instant been
told of it by the Adjutant: and perhaps in a way it was wiser and
kinder to tell him before--so to speak--he gave himself away.
He stood for an appreciable time as if dazed, then pulling himself
together, spoke steadily, if a trifle artificially.
"Mr. Commissioner, Ladies, and Gentlemen! I thought a minute ago that I
was the last person to return thanks for our host's regrets and good
wishes. I know now that I am really the only person in the regiment who
could do it honestly; because I am the only person who can sympathise
with him thoroughly--who can, like he does, regret the regiment's
departure, and--and at the same time give it God-speed, while I--I----"
He paused, and suddenly the strenuous effort after conventional
banalities left his young face free to show its grief--almost its
anger.
"It's no use my trying to talk bosh," he broke out, and swept away by
realities: "As you know, I'd give everything not to say God-speed, but
I suppose I must."
And then a sudden remembrance seemed to come to him, he turned in swift
impulse, his face alight, leapt to the pedestal behind him, and there
he was again with that blessed battered old ball in his raised right
hand.
"And I don't think I can do it better than this does it. This----" his
voice had the notes of life's divine tragedy of hope in it--"fits us
all--fits everything!--And so," his eyes sought mine, "we thank you,
sir, for all and everything, and wish that the God of the Battle may
have mercy all round."
For a second he stood there, almost triumphant, beautiful as a god,
below him the guttering candles and disorder of the supper table, above
him the stars of heaven: then, with a light laugh, he was calling for
the band to begin and heading the hurried return to the dancing floor.
As he passed me, gallant and gay, I heard the Paris frock quote in a
consoling whisper, "They also serve who only stand and wait."
The grateful admiration of his eyes told the delicacy of her art. I
realised this again when shortly after I had an opportunity for one
word of consolation also.
"She said that, too," he replied, his voice trembling a little. "She's
been awfully good to me, you know--but so you all are--and I daresay it
is all right."
I knew that to be impossible, but I resolved to do my level best to
protect him.
Then my duties claimed me. Despite the Colonel's coolness, the party
began to drift away to preparations, their measure of responsibility
shown by the order of their going, until only a dozen or so of
lighthearted youngsters were left for another and yet another waltz,
the prime instigator of delay being, of course, young Bertram.
I never saw the lad look better. An almost reckless vitality seemed to
radiate from and invade the still scented peace of the whole garden.
I found myself trying to evade it by wandering off to the furthest,
stillest corner, where I could smoke in peace till called on finally to
say good-night--or good-morning--to my guests.
I must have fallen asleep in one of the latticed minarets, and slept
long, for when I woke a grey radiance was in the sky that showed above
the scented orange trees. Dawn was breaking, the garden held no sound
save a faint rustle as of leaves. And not a sign remained of Western
intrusion. The swiftness of Indian service had taken away as it had
brought. As I made my way to where we had danced and supped, the
immediate past seemed a dream, and I strained my eyes into the starred
shadows of the jasmine thicket half expecting to see a white veil
creeping like a snake.
What was that? I had no time to find fancy or fact--my eyes had caught
sight of something unmistakable at the foot of the marble pedestal.
It was young Bertram.
He was lying as if asleep, his cheek caressing the battered bronze ball
that he had encircled with his arms.
His face turned up to the stars showed nothing but content.
* * * * *
He must have stayed on after the others had gone, probably to think
things out--the legend of appeal must have drawn him back to the very
spot where the snake charmer's basket had been upset--like it had to
me, the fragrant peace must have brought to his weariness sleep.
For the rest. Had there really been a fourth snake? Was it true that
serpents always revenged themselves for wrong charming? Or were those
two faint blood spots on the rose leaves of young Bertram's lips ....
* * * * *
"An 'E' willmakeit--plain."
Craddock's rolling baritone mingled with a shriek of steam welcoming a
swift speck on the horizon.
With a roar and a rush it was on us, past us.
"Ef that 'ymn 'ad bin wrote these times, sir," remarked Craddock
blandly, as he turned on steam, "the h'author might 'ave put in a
H'engin. There ain't anythin' more mysterious in its goin's on--except
per'aps wimmen. I'd ruther trust for grace to the mercy o' the Lord
than to them any day."
SALT DUTY
I
"Lo! nigh on fifty years have passed since that dark night; just such a
night as this, O! Children-of-the-Master! and yet remembering the
sudden yell of death which rose upon the still air--just such an air as
this, hot and still.... Nay! fear not, Children-of-the-Master! since I,
Imân (the faithful one so named and natured), watch, as I watched
then ... and yet, I say, the hair upon my head which then grew thick and
now is bald, the down upon my skin which then was bloom and now is
stubble, starts up even as I started to my feet at that dread cry, and
catching Sonny-_baba_ in my arms fled to the safer shadows of the
garden. And the child slept...."
The voice, declamatory yet monotonous, paused as if the speaker
listened.
"It is always so with the Master-Children," it went on, tentatively,
"they sleep...."
The second and longer pause which ensued allowed soft breathings to be
heard from the darkness, even, unmistakable, and when the voice
continued something of the vainglorious tone of the _raconteur_ had
been replaced by a note of resignation.
"And wherefore not, my friends, seeing that as masters they know no
fear?"
Wherefore, indeed?
Imân Khân, whilom major-domo to many sahibs of high degree, now in his
old age factotum to the Eurasian widow and children of a conservancy
overseer, asked himself the question boldly. Yet the heart which beat
beneath the coarse white muslin coatee starched to crackle-point in the
effort to conceal the poorness of its quality, felt a vague
dissatisfaction.
In God's truth the memory of the great Mutiny still sent his old blood
shivering through his veins, and some of the tribe of black-and-tan
boys who slept around him in the darkness were surely now old enough to
thrill, helplessly responsive, to the triumphal threnody of their race?
Yet it was not so. The tale, on the contrary, was a sure
sleep-compeller; indeed, he was never able to reach his own particular
contribution to the sum total of heroism before sleep came--except in
his own dreams! _There_ he remembered, as he remembered so many things.
How to decorate a ham, for instance--though it was an abomination to
the Lord!--how to ice champagne--though that also was damnable!--when
to say "Not at home," or dismiss a guest by announcing the carriage--
though these were foreign to him, soul and body.
Out there, beyond the skimp verandah, amid the native cots set in the
dusky darkness in hopes of a breath of fresher air, old Imân's
imagination ran riot in etiquette.
And yet the faint white glimmer of the Grand Trunk Road which showed
beyond the cots was not straighter, more unswerving than the
_khânsâman's_ creed as to the correct card to play in each and every
circumstance of domestic life.
His present mistress, a worthy soul of the most doubtful Portuguese
descent, knew this to her cost. It was a relief, in fact, for her to
get away at times from his determination, for instance, to have what he
called "sikkens" for dinner. But then she did not divide her world into
the sheep who always had a savoury second course in their menu, and the
goats who did not. To him it was the crux of social position.
So, an opportunity of escape having arisen in the mortal illness of a
distant relation, she had gone off for a weeks holiday full of tears
and determination, while away, to eat as much sweet stuff as she chose,
leaving Imân Khân in charge of the quaint little bastion of the
half-ruined caravanserai in which she was allowed free quarters in
addition to her pension.
He was relieved also. He had, in truth, a profound contempt for her;
but as this was palpably the wrong game, he covered his disapproval
with an inflexible respect which allowed no deviation from duty on
either side. Yet it was a hard task to keep the household straight.
Sometimes even Imân's solid belief in custom as all-sufficing wavered,
and he half regretted having refused the offers of easier services made
him by rich natives anxious to ape the manner of the alien. But it was
only for a moment. The claims of the white blood he had served all his
life, as his forbears had before him, were paramount, and whatever his
faults, the late _E-stink Sahib_, conservancy overseer, had been
white--or nearly so! Did not his name prove it? Had not _Warm E-stink
Sahib_ (Warren Hastings) left a reputation behind him in India for all
time? Yea! he had been a real master. The name was without equal in the
land--save, perhaps, that which came from the great conqueror,
_Jullunder_ (Alexander).
Undoubtedly, _E-stink Sahib_ had been white; so it was a pity the
children took so much after their mother; more and more so, indeed,
since the baby girl born after her father's death was the darkest of
the batch. It was as if the white blood had run out in consequence of
the constant calls upon it. For Elflida Norma, the eldest girl--they
all had fine names except the black baby, whom that incompetent widow
had called Lily--was....
Ah! what was not Elflida Norma? The old man, drowsing in the darkness
after a hard day of decorum, wandered off still more dreamily at the
thought of his darling. _She_ did not sleep out on the edge of the high
road. Her sixteen years demanded other things. Ah! so many things. Yet
the Incompetent one could perceive no difference between the claims of
the real Miss-_Sahiba_--that is, _E-stink Sahib's_ own daughter by a
previous wife--and those of the girl-brat she herself had brought to
him by a previous husband, and whom she had cheerfully married off to a
black man with a sahib's hat! For this was Imân Khân's contemptuous
classification of Xavier Castello, one of those unnecessarily dark
Eurasians who even in the middle of the night are never to be seen
without the huge pith hats, which they wear, apparently, as an effort
at race distinction.
The Incompetent one was quite capable of carrying through a similar
marriage for the Miss-_Sahiba_. Horrible thought to Imân; all the more
horrible because he was powerless to provide a proper husband. He could
insist on savouries for dinner; he could say "the door is shut" to
undesirable young men; he could go so far in weddings as to provide a
_suffer_ (supper) and a wedding cake (here his wrinkles set into a
smile), but only God could produce the husband, especially here in this
mere black-man's town where sahibs lived not. Where sahibs did not even
seek a meal or a night's rest in these evil days when they were whisked
hither and thither by rail trains instead of going decently by road.
Through the darkness his dim eyes sought the opposite bastion of the
serai. In the olden days any moment might have brought someone....
But those days were past. It would need a miracle now to bring a sahib
out of a post carriage to claim accommodation there. Yea! a real
heaven-sent car must come.
Still, God was powerful. If he chose to send one, there might be a real
wedding--such a wedding as--there had been--when--he....
So, tired out, Imân was once more in his dreams decorating hams, icing
champagne, and giving himself away in the intricacies of sugar-piping.
When he woke, it was with a sense that he had somehow neglected his
duty. But no! In the hot dry darkness there was silence and sleep. Even
Lily-_baba_ had her due share of Horatio Menelaus' bed. He rose, and
crept with noiseless bare feet to peep in through the screens of
Elflida Norma's tiny scrap of a room that was tacked on to the one
decent-sized circular apartment in the bastion, like a barnacle to a
limpet. One glance, even by the dim light of the cotton wick set in a
scum of oil floating on a tumbler of water, showed him that she was no
longer where an hour or two before he had left her safe.
Without a pause he crept on across the room and looked through the door
at its opposite end, which gave on the arcaded square of the serai.
All was still. Here and there among the ruined arches a twinkling light
told of some wayfarer late come, and from the shadows a mixed bubbling
of hookahs and camels could be heard drowsily.
She was not there, however, as he had found her sometimes, listening to
a bard or wandering juggler; for she was not as the others, tame as
cows, but rather as the birds, wild and flighty. So he passed on, out
through the massive doorway, built by dead kings, and stood once more
on the white gleam of the road, listening. From far down it, nearer the
town, came the unmelodious hee-haw of a concertina played regardless of
its keys.
"Hee, hee, haw! Haw, hee, hee!"
His old ear knew the rhythm. That was the dance in which the
sahib-logue kicked and stamped and laughed. This was Julia Castello's
doing. There was a "nautch" among the black people with the sahib's
hats, and the Miss-_Sahiba_--his Miss-_Sahiba_--had been lured to it!
Once more, without a pause, the instinct as to the right thing to do
coming to him with certainty, he turned aside to his cook-room, and,
lighting a hurricane lantern, began to rummage in a battered tin box,
which, bespattered still with such labels as "Wanted on the Voyage,"
proclaimed itself a perquisite from some past services.
So, ten minutes afterwards, a starched simulacrum of what had once been
a Chief Commissioner's butler (even to a tarnished silver badge in the
orthodox headgear shaped like a big pith quoit) appeared in the
verandah of Mrs. Castello's house, and, pointing with dignity to the
glimmer of a hurricane lantern in the dusty darkness by the gate, said,
as he produced a moth-eaten cashmere opera-cloak trimmed with moulting
swansdown:
"As per previous order, the Miss-Sahiba's ayah hath appeared for her
mistress, with this slave as escort."
Elflida Norma, a dancing incarnation of pure mischief, looked round
angrily on the burst of noisy laughter which followed, and the pausing
stamp of her foot was not warranted by the polka.
"Why you laugh?" she cried, passionately. "He is my servant--he belongs
to our place."
Then, turning to the deferential figure, her tone changed, and she drew
herself up to the full of her small height.
"Nikul jao!" she said, superbly; which, being interpreted, is the
opprobrious form of "get you gone."
The old man's instinct had told him aright. There, amid that company,
the girl in the white muslin she had surreptitiously pinned into the
semblance of a ball dress, her big blue eyes matching the tight string
of big blue beads about her slender throat, showed herself apart
absolutely, despite her dark hair and 'almost sallow complexion.
"The Huzoor has forgotten the time," said Imân, imperturbably;
"it is just twelve o'clock, and _Sin-an-hella_ dances of this
description"--here he looked round at the squalid preparations for
supper with superlative scorn--"always close at midnight."
There was something so almost appalling in the answering certainty of
his tone regarding Cinderellas, that even Mrs. Castello hesitated,
looking round helplessly at her guests.
"In addition," added the old man, following up the impression,
"is not the night Saturday? and even in the great _Lat-Sahib's_ house,
where I have served, was there no nautch on Saturdays--excepting
_Sin-an-hellas_."
He yielded the last point graciously, but the concession was even more
confounding to Mrs. Castello than his previous claim. Besides, old
Imân's darkling allusion to service with a Governor-General was a
well-known danger-signal to the whole Hastings family, including
Elflida Norma, who now hesitated palpably.
"I t'ought you more wise," insinuated her partner, who had actually
laid aside his hat for the polka, "than to have such a worn-out poor
fellow to your place. Pay no heed to him, Miss 'Astin', and polk again
once more."
Elflida drew herself away from his encircling arm haughtily.
"No, thanks," she drawled, her small head, with its short curls in air.
"I am tired of polking--and he is a more better servant than your
people have in your place, anyhow."
"But Elfie!" protested Mrs. Castello.
The girl interrupted her step-sister with an odd expression in her big
blue eyes.
"It will be Sunday, as he says, Julia; besides, the princess always
goes home first from a Cinderella, you know, because----"
"Because why?" inquired Mrs. Castello, fretfully; "that will be some
bob-dash from the silly books she adores so much, Mr. Rosario."
Elflida stood for a moment smiling sweetly, as it were appraising all
things she saw, from the greasy tablecloth on the supper table to old
Imân's starched purity; from the cocoanut oil on the head of one
admirer, to the tarnished silver sign of service on the head of the
other.
"Because she was a princess, of course," she replied, demurely; and
straightway stooped her white shoulders for the yoke of cashmere and
swansdown with a dignity which froze even Mr. Rosario's remonstrance.
"Thank you," she said, loftily in the verandah, when he suggested
escort; "but my ayah and my bearer are sufficient. Good-night."
So down the pathway, inches deep in dust, she walked sedately towards
the glimmer of the lantern by the gate, followed deferentially by Imân.
But only so far; for once within the spider's web halo round the barred
light, she sprang forward with a laugh. The next instant all was dark.
Cimmerian darkness indeed to the old man as he struggled with the
moulting swansdown and moth-eaten cashmere she had flung over his head.
"Miss-_Sahiba!_ Miss-_baba_! _norty_, _norty_ girl!" he cried after
her, desperately, in his double capacity of escort and ayah. Then he
consoled himself with the reflection that it was but a bare quarter of
a mile to the serai along a straight deserted high road. Even a real
Miss-Sahiba might go so far alone, unhurt; so, after pausing a moment
from force of habit to re-light the lantern, he ambled after his charge
as fast as his old legs could carry him. Suddenly he heard a noise such
as he had never heard before close behind him. A horrid, panting noise,
and then something between a bellow and a whistle. He turned, saw a red
eye glaring at him, and the next instant the infernal monster darted
past him, whirring, snorting. In pursuit, of course, of Elflida Norma!
What tyranny was here! What defiance of custom! Saw anyone ever the
like?--on a decent metalled road--and only the ayah--God forgive him
the lie!--wanting to make all things in order?
These confused, helpless thoughts ran swifter in the old man's mind
that his legs carried his body, as he followed in pursuit of the
monster. The lantern, swinging wildly, hindered such light as there
might have been without it, but he knew the Thing was ahead of him, by
the truly infernal smell it left behind it.
And then from the darkness ahead came a curiously familiar cry, "Hut,
hut! (get out of the way). Oh, damn!"
A crash followed; then silence. A few seconds afterwards he was gazing,
helplessly bewildered, at two figures who were looking at each other
wrathfully across the white streak of road.
One he knew. It was Elflida Norma, her impromptu ball dress
metamorphosed by her race into loose white draperies out of which the
small dark head and slim throat, with its circlet of big blue beads,
rose as from clouds. The other, unknown, was that of a tall, fair young
man.
"If you had only stood still," the latter was saying angrily, "I could
have managed, but you dodged about like--like----" His eyes had taken
her in by this time, and he paused in his simile. But hers had wandered
to the monster prone in the dust; and she stepped closer to it
curiously.
"I suppose it is named a motor bicycle," she said, coolly. "I have not
seen one in our place before, only in picture books. I am glad."
There were no regrets or apologies. And even Imân Khân, when he
recovered his breath, made no inquiries as to whether the young man had
hurt himself in getting out of the Miss-Sahiba's way He simply looked
at the wheels of the bicycle and then at its stalwart young rider.
God had been kind and sent a husband in a miraculous car!
II
Imân Khân sate in the early dawn, putting such polish as never before
was put on a pair of rather large size Oxford shoes. So far all had
gone well. His own vast experience, aided by the stranger's complete
ignorance of Indian ways, had sufficed for much; and Alexander
Alexander Sahib (all the twelve Imâns be praised for such a name!) was
now comfortably asleep in the bastion opposite the widow's quarters,
under the impression that the hastily produced whisky and soda, with a
"sand beef" (sandwich) in case hunger had come on the road, the simple
but clean bedding, and briefly, all the luxuries of a night's sleep
after a somewhat severe shaking, were due to the commercial instincts
of a good old chap in charge of the usual rest-house: that being
exactly what Imân had desired as a beginning.
The sequel required thought, and, as he polished, his brain was full of
plans for the immediate future. One thing was certain, however, quite
certain. The husband God had sent in a car must not be allowed to ride
away on it before seeing more of the Miss-_Sahiba_. Arrangements must
be made, as they always had to be made in the best families. Generally
it began with a tennis party--but this, of course, was out of the
question--and perhaps the accident on the road might be taken as
an equivalent for that introduction. Then there were dances, and
"fools-food" (picnics). The one might be considered as taken also, the
others were out of season in the heats of May. There remained drives
and dinners. Both possible, but both required time; therefore time must
be had. The _chota-sahib_ must not ride away after breakfast, as he had
settled on doing, should he and the monster be found fit for the road.
Now the _chota-sahib_ seemed none the worse for his fall, as Imân, in
his capacity of valet, had had opportunities of judging. The inference,
therefore, was obvious. It must be the monster who was incapable.
Imân gave a finishing glisten to the shoes and placed them decorously
side by side, ready to be taken in when the appointed hour came for
shaving water. Then he went over and looked at the motor bicycle, which
was accommodated in the verandah. It did not pant or smell now as if it
were alive, but for all that it looked horribly healthy and strong. It
was evidently not a thing to be broken inadvertently by a casual push.
Then a thought struck him, and he ambled off to the old blacksmith, who
still lived in the serai arcade and boasted of his past trade of
mending springs, shoeing horses, and selling to travellers his own
manufactures in the way of wonderful soft iron pocket-knives with
endless blades and corkscrews warranted to draw themselves instead of
the corks!
"Ari Bhai," said Imân mildly to this worthy, "thou art a prince of
workmen, truly; but come and see something beyond thy art in iron.
Bâpri bâp! I warrant thou couldst not even guess at its inner parts."
Could he not? Tezoo, the smith, thought otherwise, and being clever as
well as voluble, hit with fair correctness on pivots, cog-wheels, and
such-like inevitables of all machinery, the result of the interview
being that Imân, armed with his kitchen chopper and a bundle of
skewers, had a subsequent _tête-à-tête_ with the monster, in which the
latter came off second best; so that when its owner, fortified by a
most magnificent breakfast (served in the verandah by reason of the
central room of that bastion having an absolutely unsafe roof), went to
overhaul his metal steed, he was fairly surprised.
"It is a verra remarkable occurrence," he said softly to himself as his
deft hands busied themselves with nuts and screws (for he was a Scotch
engineer on his way to take up an appointment as superintendent in a
canal workshop), "most remarkable. And would be a fine example to the
old ministers thesis that accident is not chance. There's just a method
in it that is absolutely uncanny."
In short, even with the smithy on the premises, of which the good old
chap in charge spoke consolingly, it was clear he could not start
before evening, if then. Not that it mattered so much, since he had
plenty of time in which to join his billet.
Thus, as he smoked his pipe, the question came at last for which the
old matchmaker had been longing.
"And who would the young lady be who smashed me up last night?"
In his reply Imân dragged in _Warm E-stink Sahib Bahadur_ and a vast
amount of extraneous matter out of his own past experiences. Regarding
the present, however, he was distinctly selective without being
actually untruthful. The late _E-stink Sahib's_ widow and children, for
instance, being also at rest in the serai, were equally under his
charge. And this being so, since there was but one public room in which
dinner could possibly be served as it should be served--here Imân made
a digression regarding the rights of the sahib-logue at large and
_E-stink Sahib's_ family in particular--it was possible that the Huzoor
might meet his fellow-lodgers and the Miss-_Sahiba_ again.
In fact, he--Imân--would find it more convenient if the meal were eaten
together and at the same time, and the mem--her absence being one of
the eliminated truths--would, he knew, fall in with any suggestion of
his; which statement again was absolutely true.
Alec Alexander, lost in the intricacies of a piston-rod, acquiesced
mechanically, though in truth the likelihood of seeing such a
remarkably pretty face again was not without its usual unconscious
charm to a young man.
This charm, however, became conscious half an hour afterwards, when
hard at work in the smithy, his coat off, his sleeves rolled up,
showing milk-white arms above his tanned wrists, he looked up from the
bit of glowing iron on the anvil and saw a large pair of blue eyes and
a large string of blue beads about an almost childish throat.
It struck him that both were as blue as the sky inarching the wide
inarched square of the old serai. It struck him also that the eyes,
anyhow, had more in common with the sky than with the house made with
hands in which he stood, even though dead kings had built it. Yes! the
whole figure did not belong somehow to its environment; to the litter
of wasted forage, the ashes of dead fires, to the desertion and neglect
of a place which, having served its purpose of a night's lodging, has
been left behind on the road. It seemed worth more than that.
"I gave you a nice toss, didn't I?" said Elflida Norma, breaking in on
his quasi-sentimental thought with a certain complacency. "If you had
got out of my way it would have been more better."
"You mean if you hadn't got in mine," he replied, grimly. "But don't
let us quarrel about that now. The mischief's done so far as I am
concerned."
The blue eyes narrowed in eager interest.
"Have you broken things inside, too?" she asked, sympathy absent, pure
curiosity present in her tone.
"No! I didn't," he said, shortly. "I'm not of the kind that breaks
easily."
She considered him calmly from head to foot. "No-o-o," she admitted,
sparingly. "I suppose not--but your arms look veree brittle, like
china--I suppose that is from being so--being so chicken-white."
"Perhaps," he said, still more shortly, and was relieved when Imân
(having from the cook-room, where he was feverishly feathering fowls in
preparation for the night's feast, detected Elflida's flagrant breach
of etiquette in having anything whatever to do with a coatless sahib)
hurried across to beguile his charge back to the paths of propriety by
reporting that Lily-_baba_ (to whom the girl was devoted) evinced a
determination to eat melons with her brothers, which he, Imân, was far
too busy to frustrate.
"You need not make such pother about big dinner to-night," she said,
viciously, when, with the absolutely accommodating Lily in her arms,
she stood watching the far less interesting process of pounding
forcemeat on a curry stone; "for I heard him tell the smith that he
would go this evening if--well, if somebody kept his temper in boiling
oil. Such a queer idea--as if anybody could!"