peroration of a newly passed pleader, eager to air his eloquence.
"Words are idle when facts stare you in the face. 'Who knows is silent,
he who talks knows not,' as the proverb hath it. That is enough. We are
satisfied." "_Wâh Wâh_," assented Buktiyar Khân at once, acquiescent
and regretful. "Truly, pleader-jee! thou hast said that before. Why say
it again? If sugar kills, why try poison? We are satisfied, so that is
enough."
It was more than enough for the local Bar. They went in a body to Tim
O'Brien and complained that they were not treated as lawyers should be
treated.
As usual, _Brine sahib_ met them with sympathy; but it was the sympathy
of inaction.
"I sincerely regret, gentlemen," he said softly, "that sufficient toime
is not allowed you to get all the words you have at command off your
stomachs--I beg pardon, your minds. But, ye see, the judgments of the
Bench are unfortunately quite sound; they'd be watertight against the
full forensic flood of the whole High Court Bar. So I don't see what
the divvle is to be done--do you?"
They did not. In sober truth the sense of equity in the hereditary
enemies was too strong for the lawyers. The old men were honestly
fulfilled with the desire of punishing the evil doer and praising those
who did well. Such flimsy overlays as race and tribe and caste and
family and creed did not touch their agreement on all things necessary
to salvation.
The fact was rather a pain and grief to them. It did not make them
treat each other with less stately dignity or cause them to be one whit
more friendly out of court.
Sirdar Bikrama Singh went home to his womenfolk and railed as ever
against his neighbour, and Khân Buktiyar Khân, as he rolled his little
opium pill betwixt finger and thumb, would do the same thing. But in
their heart of hearts they knew that, since a judge must always be "an
ignorant man between two wise ones" (the plaintiff and defendant), it
must be some common ground in themselves which made their views
coincide.
Meanwhile the fame of the collective wisdom grew amongst the litigants,
and indignation at its brevity increased amongst the lawyers. Tim
O'Brien, however, when the timid little Commissioner showed him a
numerously signed petition from the local Bar protesting against the
"strictly non-regulation curtailment of eloquence," only smiled
suavely. "They get at the rights of a case by congenital intuition,
sir. The High Court have upheld their judgments in the few appeals the
pleaders have cared to make; so I don't see what the div---- I mean,
sir, I don't see what is to be done--do you?"
Once again there was no answer, and Tim O'Brien, as he dashed off here
and there to institute enquiries in obedience to the cipher telegrams
which came pouring in from Calcutta by day and by night, felt comfort
in knowing that one sub-division of his district at any rate was being
well administered.
For they were troublous days for officers in charge. Someone somewhere
had been unwise enough to take the thumb-marks of a peripatetic
preacher who was suspected of being an anarchist. He was proved to be
an apostle of unrest; he was also unfortunately a man not only of
thumb-mark, but of mark. A professor, briefly, in some far-away
college. So the official who had ordered the indignity in the interests
of public order was degraded; and thereinafter, naturally, began a
campaign of would-be terrorism amongst the schoolboys and students of
the province which shattered the nerves of government.
"By the Lord who made me," ejaculated Tim O'Brien angrily, as he flung
aside the last urgent _communiquée_ from headquarters, "one would think
from that bosh, we were in danger of losing India to-morrow. Can't they
see it's only schoolboy rot, sheer daredevil schoolboy mischief, like
throwing caps under a motor car and heads you win tails I lose, you're
over last. I'll tell you what it is, Smith,"--here he addressed his
assistant, a pale-faced boy not yet recovered from the strain of
examinations--"if I was worth my salt and had the courage of my
opinions, I'd have up those boys' masters and give 'em each thirty with
the cane for not keeping their pupils in order. That 'ud stop it.
Instead of that, I have to arrest a poor child of thirteen who threw a
badly made bomb, as harmless--it turned out--as a squib. However! my
pension stares me in the face. There isn't even a House of Lords left
to which I could appeal. So here goes for the innocent victim av'
education! Inspector! arrange the arrest, please!"
Naturally, of course, as Tim O'Brien had known, every other schoolboy
in the district marched about singing patriotic songs and doing wanton
mischief to their hearts' content; thus there was quite a crop of minor
arrests.
In fact, when the Bench of Hereditary Enemies held its next sitting it
was confronted with a lengthy police case against a gang of boys whose
ages varied from ten to thirteen.
Bikrama Singh listened gravely to the details and twirled his grey
moustache. Buktiyar Khan also listened gravely and stroked his purple
beard. They listened very patiently, yet a vague impatience came to
their old faces. Then they looked in each other's eyes, and at last the
wisdom of their hearts found speech.
"Where is the teacher of these children? Bring him hither that he may
show cause for himself."
To be brief. That night the head master of the sub-divisional school
could neither sit down nor stand up comfortably. But the streets were
quiet; the boys peacefully in their beds.
"Glory be to them," cried Tim O'Brien exultantly, when the news was
brought to him. "They've more spunk than I have--so now to get them out
of the scrape."
He did his best, and that was a good deal, but the law and lies were
against him. The schoolmaster happened to be somebody's nephew by
marriage, and though there was ample evidence to prove that he had
misused his position as a Government servant, the utmost favour Tim
O'Brien could screw out of the Powers was permission for the offenders
to retire instead of being dismissed from the Honorary Magistracy.
He broke this to the old men with his usual tact, applauding them
between the lines for their courage. To his surprise and relief they
accepted the position calmly. The better the subordinate, they said,
the less likely he was to be always in agreement with others. During
their three years' work, which, in truth, had been laborious, not one
of their decisions had been upset on appeal. How many judges could say
the same! And as for head master-_jee?_ Would _Brine sahib_, if he
could, remove those thirty stripes from the miscreant's back. "Ye have
me there, _sahiban_," Tim O'Brien replied, with conviction, "I would
not; an' that's God's truth."
So the old men sent in their resignations, not altogether regretfully.
For one thing, the unanimity of their opinions had been disturbing; the
old antagonism seemed more natural. And there the matter should have
ended. Unfortunately for all, it did not. To be brief. Tim O'Brien was
asked one day, as District Officer, to sign a warrant for the arrest of
Sirdar Bikrama Singh and Khân Buktiyar Khân on a charge of assault and
battery against the head master-_jee_, who turned out to be sib to half
the local Bar.
There is no reason to go into the legal points of the incident, or to
tell of the vain efforts of Tim O'Brien to save the whilom Bench from
this last affront. An epidemic of cases against magistrates had set in,
and late one evening the District Officer started to ride over and
break the news of the coming arrest to the Hereditary Enemies.
Nagadrug stood on the nearest scarp of sand, so he went there first. He
found the old Sirdar, looking rather frail, engaged as usual in glaring
out over the arid fields to Shakingarh.
But this time all Tim O'Brien's tact did not avail for calm.
Incredulous anger, half dazed indignation, took its place. It could not
be true. What! was he, Rajput of Rajput, to be dragged to court at the
bidding of a miserable hound whom he had whipped, and rightly whipped?
Had not _Brine sahib_ himself applauded the act? Had they not done
right?--the plural pronoun came out naturally. Was not a false _guree_
God's basest creature? Did not the law say so: "He who teaches false
teaching, who kills his own soul and another, let him die." Why had
they not given the vile reptile an hundred stripes and so got rid of
him altogether.
And now were they to have a degree (decree) against them! Shinjee! It
should never be, never! never! They would not have it! The old tongue
found no difficulty in thus claiming companionship in revolt, the old
heart knew it was certain of sympathy in the ancient enmity.
Utterly sickened at a tragedy he could not prevent, the District
Officer went, tactfully as ever, to Shakingarh; only to meet with even
deeper indignation. Innocent though he knew himself to be, the
Englishman positively writhed under the contemptuous unsparing scorn of
the old Pathan. What! was the Sirkar not strong enough to protect
itself? Then let it pack up its bundle and get out of Hindustan. Let it
leave India and its problems to _his_ people--those northern folk who
had harried Bengal in the past, who, God willing, would harry it again.
Had _Brine sahib_ not heard the saying: "He who uses his public office
to betray the State commits a crime against himself, his country, and
his God." And had not the base hound betrayed the State? A thousand
times, yes! it was a pity they had not flogged him to death.
The moon rose over the low sandhills before the District Officer,
bruised and broken by the verdict of past India on the present, rode
back to the sessions bungalow, where he meant to pass the night. For
with the dawn he would go up with the police officer and so soften the
arrest of the Hereditary Enemies so far as it could be softened.
They would be let out on bail, of course, and, at the worst, a fine
more or less heavy would see them through. It was not so bad--not so
very bad.
The District Officer tried to comfort himself with such reflections; in
his heart he knew they were futile; that nothing would soften the
degradation to those two old warriors.
Nothing! unless it was the calm moonlight that lay over the arid valley
and turned the round old fortresses to dim mysterious palaces of light.
Perhaps the peace of it sank into the wearied hot old eyes that looked
out from the ancestral roofs with a new feeling of comradeship, each
for each, dulling the hereditary hatred, yet bringing with it old
memories, old tales of past enmity.
"Bring me my uniform, women!" said Bikrama Singh, suddenly. Half a
dozen weeping daughters and daughters-in-law and an old wife too blind
to see did as they were bid, and in a short time the old man stood
arrayed as for a bridal, his sword buckled tight to his bowed back.
"And the shield, women--the shield of my fathers that hangs in the
entry. I shall need it, too!"
Over in Shakingarh, Buktiyar Khân, impelled likewise by those memories
of the past, that hatred of the present, had donned his uniform
likewise; and so the moonlight shone on cold steel and damascened gold
as, silently obeying some inward community of thought, the two old men
started silently alone, leaving all behind them, to seek for Peace in
their own way.
Steadily over the arid fields, nearer and nearer to each other. The
fields had been cut and carried; the harvest was over; it was nigh time
to plough again for a fresh crop----
Of what?
"The Peace of the Unknown be upon you, oh, mine enemy," said Bikrama
Singh, when at long last they stood face to face in the open.
"And the Peace of the Most Mighty be on you, my foe," answered Buktiyar
Khân.
So for a moment there was silence. Then the Rajput spoke, his old voice
full of fire, full of vibration.
"In the old days to which we belong, oh, Mahomedan! did brave men wait
for Fate?"
"They did not wait, oh, Hindu," came the answer. "When brave men found
sickness or dishonour before them: when there was no longer hope of
victory: when that which lay ahead was hateful, and they left sons to
carry on the race, did not the ancestors of my race claim of their
enemies the glorious gift of battle?"
"They did so claim it, oh, Bikrama Singh! Dost claim it now!"
The reply, quick, vibrant, rang through the moonlight; a veritable
challenge.
"Yea, Pathan--robber! thief! I claim it now! _Jug-dân, Jug-dân_--the
Gift of Battle to the Death."
"Take it, pig of an idolator! Jug-dân, Jug-dân--the Gift of Battle!"
The still, hot air became full of faint chinkings, as buckles were
settled straight, scabbards thrown aside. Then there was an instance
silence as the two old warriors faced each other.
"Art ready ... friend?" The question came softly.
"Yea! I am ready ... friend!" The reply was almost a caress.
So, with a quick clash of sword on sword, youth and health and strength
came back to the Hereditary Enemies.
* * * * *
It matters little if the combat ended in quarter of an hour, half an
hour, or an hour; whether Bikrama Singh or Buktiyar Khân got in the
first blow. The moon shone peacefully on the Gift of Battle. She still
hung a white shield on the grey skies of dawn when Tim O'Brien and the
police officer, coming to do their disagreeable duty, found the two old
men lying stone dead within swords' thrust of each other on the
stubble.
"They are really an incomprehensible lot," said the police officer,
almost mournfully; "why the deuce should the two poor old buffers come
out and kill each other, as presumably they have----"
Tim O'Brien smiled a grim smile. "You haven't heard, I suppose--why
should ye--of what they call the Gift of Battle! Well! I have. It's an
ould Rajput custom by which a man who feared he'd die in his bed or be
put to it any way by any other stupid inept limitations, could claim a
decent death from his nearest foe."
"Well! they've done it. That's all, and small blame to them."
"By God who made me, it's a protest with a vengeance. But the worst of
it is, the Government won't see it and I can't explain it. Cipher
telegrams won't run to it So ... peace be with you, friends!"
THE VALUE OF A VOTE
A SKETCH FROM LIFE
He was an old man; a very old man. A Syyed--that is, a Mahomedan who
claims direct descent from the prophet--by trade a Yunani hakeem, or
physician according to the Grecian system, introduced to India,
doubtless, by Alexander the Great. He had a little sort of shop, close
to the principal gate of the city, where he was in touch with all those
who, with its ship the camel, went out, or came back from the desert
beyond, and with all strangers and sojourners in the land. So all day
and every day you might see wearied travellers resting on the hard
wooden platform set in a dark archway, of which his shop consisted,
drinking out of green glass tumblers some restorative sherbet of things
hot or things cold, things dry or things wet, while he showed dimly in
the background, a visionary outline of long grey beard and high white
turban. In this way he heard a good deal of what was going on both
inside and outside the city, and as he was of the old school of the
absolutely loyal outspoken Mahomedan, who, while he holds our rule to
be inferior to that of his own faith, emphatically believes it to be
superior to all others, I used often to pause in riding into or out of
the city for a chat with the old man; seldom without benefit to myself.
One morning--I remember it so well!--the _gram_ fields outside the city
were literally drenched with dew, making the fine tufts look like
diamond plumes, amongst which the wealth of tiny purple blue pea
blossom showed like a sowing of sapphires--I found him sitting with a
troubled look on his high, wrinkled forehead, peering through his horn
spectacles at a blue printed paper.
A patient was snoring contentedly on the boards, with, tucked into the
hollow of his neck, a hard roly-poly bolster which made me ache to look
at. Nothing brings home to one the impossibility of any Western judging
what is, or is not pleasant or convenient to an Eastern more than the
ordinary rolling pin, two feet by six inches, stuffed hard with cotton
wool, which the latter habitually uses as a pillow. The sight of it
makes a Western neck feel stiff.
I recognised the paper at once. We were then in the throes of "Local
Self Government," and a violent effort was being made to induce this
little far-away town, inhabited for the most part by Pathans (exiled
these centuries back from northern wilds to the Indian plain) to elect
a Municipal Committee.
I had spent the better part of the day before in explaining to various
Rais'es or honourable gentlemen of the city, that no insult was
intended by asking them to put themselves up to auction as it were by
the votes of their fellow citizens, instead of being discreetly and as
ever nominated to the office of Councillor by the "hated alien." A few
had gravely and dutifully given in to this new and quite
incomprehensible fad of the constituted authorities, others had
hesitated, but one, a fiery old Khân Bahadur, who was a retired
risseldar from one of our crack native cavalry regiments, had sworn
with many oaths that never would he take office from, amongst others,
the perjured vote of Gunpat-Lal, pleader, who belonged to his ward, and
whose evil, eloquent tongue had deliberately diddled him out of
ancestral rights in a poppy field in the Huzoor's own court. No! He had
served the Sirkar with distinction, he had, with his own hands, nearly
killed an agitator he had found in the lines; nay, more! he had
absolutely sent his daughter to school to please the _sahib logue_; but
_this_ was too much. It had been all I could do to prevent the
hot-tempered old soldier from giving up the sword of honour with which
he had been presented on retirement, as a signal of final rupture with
the Government.
So, as I say, I recognised the blue paper at once as one of many voting
papers which had been sent out for marking and return; for in these out
of the way places in those days, the secret ballot-box was not the best
blessing of the world, as it is now. And my old friend the hakeem was,
I knew, on the Aga Khân's ward.
"What have you got to do with it?" I echoed, in reply to an anxious
question. "Why, put a mark against the Aga Khân's name and give it back
whence it came."
He salaamed profoundly. "Huzoor! that was the settled determination of
this slave, thus combining new duties with old--which is the philosophy
of faithful life; but, being called in last night to an indigestion in
his house, which I combatted with burnt almonds, he told me that if I
so much as went near his honourable name with my stylus, I should cease
to be physician-in-ordinary to his household. And, father and son, we
have been physicians to the Aga Khân ever since our fathers followed
his fathers from Ghazni in that capacity with the Great Mahomed--on
whom be peace."
"Then mark one of the other names--which you choose, and send it in," I
replied, taking no notice of the scandalous attempt at coercion on the
old Aga Khân's part.
A still more profound salaam was the answer. "That also would have
occurred to me," came the suave old voice, "but that the Aga Khân said,
with oaths, that if I so much as made a chance blot on this cursed
paper against any of the names thereon, I should be cast for life from
his honourable company."
I felt quite nettled. Her Majesty's lieges must not be intimidated in
this fashion. "Well! you must think of the person whom you consider
most fitted to fulfil all the many duties which will devolve on him,
and put down his name," I said, for in these days when we really wished
to get at the wishes of the people, we were not so strict about
nominations and proposings and secondings as we are now, "and I will
speak again to the Khân Bahadur and see if I cannot induce him to
stand." (I meant to do so by threats of exposure for using force to Her
Majesty's lieges!)
As I rode off, my horse picking its way through the piles of melons,
the bags of corn, the jars of milk, the nets of pottery and all the
_olla podrida_ of trivial daily merchandise which finds pause for a few
minutes about an active gate at dawn time, the patient sat up straight
from his backboard and yawned, then asked for another violet drink. But
the hakeem was absorbed in the problem of voting.
I happened that day to have business in the city in the evening also,
but I entered by another gate, so that the sun was nigh setting when,
on my homeward way, I saw my old friend the Yunani hakeem sitting with
his pile of little medicine bottles and tiny earthenware goglets of
pills and ointments beside him.
He was pounding away at something in a minute jade mortar and looked no
longer disturbed, but weary utterly.
"Have you settled that knotty point, hakeem sahib?" I asked.
He gave a sigh of relief, but pounded away faster than ever. "I give
God thanks I have been led into the way of wisdom," he replied, "else
would I be harried, indeed! Never, within the memory of man, have so
many gentlemen of rank been sick as during this day. I am but now
compounding the 'Thirty-six-ingredient-drug' for one honourable house,
and have but just finished the 'Four-great-things' for another. 'Tis
anxiety about the elections, methinks, for they talk of nothing else.
Hardly had your Honour left this morning, than Gunpat-Lal sent to say
he had a belly-ache which his idolatrous miracle-monger could not
touch. I had it away in half an hour with cucumber and lemon juice.
Cold things to cold. And Lala-ji full of compliments and regrets that
the Aga Sahib would not be elected." A faintly worried air crept over
the high old face.
"Did he ask you to give him your vote?" I enquired, with a sinking at
my heart.
"Yea!" replied the Yunani hakeem cheerfully, "and offered me five
rupees for it."
Ye Gods above! How soon political corruption seizes on the innocent, I
thought.
"But others have offered more," continued the old man, with a certain
self-satisfaction. Then his face clouded. "Yonder pasty-faced
knock-kneed student, who calls himself 'Hedditerlile--jackdaw'" (Editor
Loyal Objector) "told me it was his by right, since he and his like were
Hindustan. But I told the lad God had ordained otherwise--for look you,
Huzoor, we Mussalmans came from the north many long years before the
_sahib-logue_ came from the west. So I let him talk, having, by God's
mercy, come to a decision."
"What is that, hakeem-ji?" I asked, curious to know what had influenced
the old man.
He salaamed quite simply. "The Huzoor bade me think who could best do
the work, so I decided to vote for him. He is noble, and he knows what
has to be done. He knows _santation_ and _inspekshon-conservance_. Also
_new-tense_, and _karl-ra-pre-kar-sons_, and"--he added, with the most
beautiful supplementary salaam of pure flattery--"all other noble arts
and philosophies." It quite gave me a pang to tell him that this scheme
of his would not work. That I was _ex officio_ president of the
Municipal Committee, and thus beyond the reach of voters.
His face was illumined by a vast relief even amidst his perplexities.
"That is as it should be," he said simply. "The Sirkar then, has not,
as they say, quite lost its head; the Huzoor retains it still. But what
am I to do?"
I left him looking the picture of woe, absolutely unheeding of two
patient travellers who had been awaiting my departure with that calm
stolid disregard of the passing hour which brings with it to the
Western such a sense of personal grievance; whereas to the Eastern it
only emphasises his trust in Providence by proving the omnipotence of
Fate.
Next morning, however, the whole aspect of affairs had been changed.
Hakeem-ji was alert, spry, surrounded by quite a congregation of
would-be patients, to whom he was giving out his _dicta_ with quite a
lordly air.
There was no need to ask him if he had settled his vexed question. That
was apparent. I simply asked him what he had done about the paper.
"Huzoor," he said again, with that lucid candour which--was so marked a
feature of the man himself, "the Lord mercifully directed me. Therefore
I ate it, and it hath done me much good."
"Ate it?" I echoed. "You don't mean to say----"