impossibility of his words made me pass over major points to cavil at
minor ones.
"My tombstone!" I echoed. "I suppose you mean this King's cook was a
forbear of yours. You come of a servant family, I expect, ah! Prince of
Personalities."
I gave him the full title of the highest domestic office with intent.
It had a marvellous effect. His bowed back straightened itself; he
seemed to sit resplendent in gold-laced coat and badge-wound turban.
"The Huzoor speaks truth," he said, with perfectly blatant dignity.
"Since the beginning of time my people have served Kings--and Sahibs."
The last was a palpable concession to the alien, and I could not help
smiling. But the old man, despite his toothless, wrinkled, wagging
head, was no subject for smiles. He sate there transfigured, his face
shiny, an apotheosis of what folk nowadays call servility. You felt it
in the warm scented sunshine; an atmosphere of dutiful devotion that
brought a kindly interest to my heart.
"It hasn't been taken as a curry-stone," I said gravely: "it is quite
safe. I saw it yesterday in the Wonder House." And then I remembered
that my Crowned Head had paused over it to look and smile. "Yes! Prince
of Personalities," I went on, "there it is. A marble slab with an
inscription." So I went on to tell him what had occurred.
He sate and listened, gravely, reverently, and when I had finished he
rose--I knew he would--and salaamed down to the ground.
"This poor Preparer-of-Plates is proud still to serve Majesty. May the
Earth cherish the Wise King long! May Heaven nestle him when the time
comes for soul to separate from body."
As I looked into the blazing sunshine at the old, naked, bald-headed
figure, I swear it seemed to me clothed upon with all the liveries of
all those centuries of service.
"Lo!" he went on, "let the tombstone remain in the Wonder House where
it hath been honoured by the eye-glances of Kings. And as for the Noble
Huzoor who hath relieved this poor slave of the Court's mind concerning
curry-stones----" he paused, took up the remaining posy from his basket
and held it out to me between deferential palms. "It is all I have,
Huzoor, but it is sweet," he said simply, "and I have asked so many
before, and none could tell me."
In sudden impulse I took it. "I'll tell you what I'll do, Prince of
Personalities!" I said, half in jest, "I'll stop at the Wonder House on
my way home and put it on the tombstone. Will that satisfy you?"
Once again he salaamed to the ground. "The gratitude of this old slave
of the Court will go with the Huzoor all his days."
I left him salaaming still among the graves. As I drove back I
regretted not having lingered to pick his brains concerning those
centuries of his ancestors' service. Good stories must have been handed
down as heirlooms; one curious as I was of the past might have heard
much of interest.
But holiday was over. My Crowned Head had returned, making me
responsible. In addition, fate was unkind. My major-domo, on whose care
during those strenuous days when meals were oft-deferred. I was
entirely dependent, fell sick and had to go to hospital. Not, however,
before he had, in kindly Indian fashion, found me a substitute.
Everyone who has been in India knows the type of professional cook-room
substitute. They are to be seen sometimes in old dâk bungalows,
survivals still of the patronage of other days when such posts were the
recognised superannuation pensions for civilians' servants. And this
substitute of mine--I call them scapegoats as a rule, since all the
subsequent sins of omission or commission in the back purlieus are
invariably laid to their charge--differed in no way from the type. He
was rather more aggressive in starch than most. He had the biggest of
white turbans, and the forward bow of his arched back was a little more
accentuated than usual by folds on folds of white bandaging until he
looked as if he were wearing an extra sized, new whited motor tyre
round his waist. But his scanty beard was purple black, and his eyes
were brightened to youth with beautiful rims of antimony. Altogether he
looked his part to perfection; and for a wonder, performed it also.
My table servant admitted at once that he was a "master artificer," and
I, personally, confessed that never had I had such appetising dinners.
Most of these substitutes have old-world dishes at their fingers' ends;
dishes with strange names which philology can trace back to French and
Portuguese origin, but this old man might have come from a Parisian
restaurant.
"This slave belongs to a family of cooks," he said calmly, when I
questioned him as to where he had learnt to make "_Petits Timbales de
foie gras à la Belle Eugénie_." "Therefore the wisdom of all the ages
is at his disposal. When a slave's mind is set on serving his master,
nothing is impossible."
And nothing seemed to be. My Inspector-General was a gourmet. He
breakfasted with me in camp one morning, and after that it is
surprising how often his meal times tallied with mine. So, in the
course of a few days, the fame of my cook became noised abroad;
especially when the Crowned Head started on a shooting tour and had to
leave his French chef behind him; the latter not feeling equal to camp
fires.
Then the Substitute came to the fore, and once or twice when I had the
honour of dining at the Royal table, I noticed dishes which I could
have sworn my man had prepared. Knowing the curious bond of brotherhood
which exists in India between one cook-room and another, I knew this
was quite possible.
We had some hard marching, and at the end of a week, I noticed that my
substitute was palpably older. The _surma_ had worn off his eyes; there
was a fringe of grey beard above the purple black; yet still he looked
magnificently starched as he stood behind my chair on the frequent
occasions when the suite messed with royalty. Then we arrived at a Hill
Rajah-ship where there had been some trouble during a long minority
between Palace-Women and a Council of Regency; neither being
oversatisfied with the Resident. But our Royal visit was to inaugurate
a new regime under a new young Rajah, and great were to be the
rejoicings; amongst other things a State Dinner in the Palace.
We were a bit late coming in from a shoot after black partridge, and I
had a good many preparations to make, as I was in police charge, so
that it was almost dark ere I returned to my tent to dress for dinner.
To my surprise I found the Substitute immaculate one inside. He was
immaculate as ever, but he looked old and frail and worn. Still it
needed one of those sudden enlargements of personality, which are so
puzzling, to make the shadows of the tent bring what the light of day
had denied to me--recognition of the old man I had met amongst the
latticed Tombs of Kings--the man who had lost his tombstone.
"You old scoundrel," I said. "Why didn't you tell me before who you
were."
He salaamed a trifle furtively as he replied, "It is nothing to the
master who his servant is, so that the servant be faithful, and I am
that. My gratitude is bound to the Huzoor for ever and ever. So I came
to ask what Tasters have been appointed for the Earth-Cherished-One
this evening."
"Tasters?" I echoed. "What the deuce do you mean? Tasters!" Then it
flashed upon me that he was alluding to the old "Tasters for Poison";
and I looked at him curiously. In the semi-darkness he seemed to have
shrunken, to be inconceivably old and frail, so I went on more kindly.
"There's no need for them nowadays, old man. They belong to the past.
The King--God bless him!--is safe from that sort of thing. Thank
Heaven."
I was throwing off my shooting togs vigorously, and the answer came out
of the corner of the tent, as it were, vaguely.
"So said Firdoos Makâni, the Sainted Babar in Paradise, yet he had to
live a full month on lily leaves, and the Heaven-Nestled One the
Emperor Humayon was also--"
"Look here! old chap!" I said, divided between haste and the desire to
tap these old stories. "You shall tell me all that to-morrow. At
present I must be off to the Palace to see all is right." Then I
laughed. "Other days other manners. Ah! descendant of Mahmud the King's
Cook! we have to look after bombs, not poisons, nowadays."
The answer came faintly to me, "The wickedness of men's hearts is ever
the same, Huzoor!"
I do not think I ever saw a prettier entertainment. The long-eyed
lazy-looking young Rajah must have had the blood of past sybarites in
his veins, for he had enhanced Oriental splendour with Western
refinement to perfection.
Having seen by a glance that all my detectives were in their places,
knowing also the infinite precautions which had been secretly taken on
all sides, and feeling fairly secure of the young ruler's personal
loyalty, I felt I might enjoy myself, and I did. The champagne was iced
to perfection, the illuminations glimmered softly away into the gloom
of the lake, a band of native musicians, beautifully trained,
discoursed plaintive love songs on native instruments deftly entuned to
almost Western modulations, the dinner was super-excellent, a
combination of Eastern and Western delicacies, and there was not one
single hitch in the arrangements, except for a slight _contretemps_,
due, apparently, to short-sightedness on the part of my venerable
Scapegoat. He collided with the State servant who was handing a special
tray of curried _koftahs_ to the Crowned Head, with the result that the
Crowned Head did not even get a taste of it. But the accident only
raised a moment's laugh. The debris was cleared away in a twinkling,
and I caught sight of the offender's scared protesting face as he was
hustled away from further mischief.
After dinner we had a really excellent pantomime in dumb show by native
actors, so it was past midnight ere I returned to my tent. I found my
Chief Inspector, a man I could really trust, a man whose wide
experience was of infinite use to me, standing outside.
"A report, Huzoor!" he said briefly, and I passed into the office. He
looked all round, carefully closed the screens, and then began in a low
voice:
"Huzoor! When your Honour's servant upset the State servant and
his dish, I was close by. There was a look on your Honour's
servant's face I did not understand. They scrambled instantly for the
_koftahs_--scrambled hastily--to pick them up. But I got _one_, Huzoor.
I gave it to a dog; and Huzoor! the dog is dead!"
I could scarcely speak. "Dead! ye Gods!" Then I remembered that the dog
would be needful evidence, and said at once, "Where is the body? Bring
it here."
But, if there had been a conspiracy to poison, the conspirators had
been too quick for us. The _corpus delicti_ was not where it had been
left. Neither was the Substitute to be found. The other servants
reported that, overcome with shame at his unpardonable offence in
depriving an Earth-Cherished-One of his victuals, he had retired into
the wilderness. Whence he never returned.
My Inspector-General used to bewail the _Petits Timbales de foie gras à
la Belle Eugénie_. But I have never ceased to wonder. And every time I
go to Delhi I go to the Wonder House and lay a posy on the tombstone of
Mahmud, the old Slave of the Court.
The gratitude was to be for ever and ever; so there is time for more
yet.
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1: Ganêsh is the Indian God of Wisdom. He is always portrayed
with the head of an elephant.]
[Footnote 2: Old woman.]
[Footnote 3: Pleasant smell.]
[Footnote 4: Hanooman.]
* * * * *
Jas. Truscott & Son, Ltd., London, E.C.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Mercy of the Lord, by Flora Annie Steel