Hunsa had come back to the palace in haste so that the murder of Amir
Khan might be discovered soon after Captain Barlow had left, and that
the crime might be fastened upon the Sahib. As he waited, chatting to
the guard, there was suddenly a frenzied deep-throated call of alarm
from the upper level of rooms that was answered by other voices here
and there crying out; there was the hurrying scuffling of feet on the
marble stairs, and Yacoub appeared, his eyes wide in fright, crying:
"The Chief has been stabbed! he's dead! he's murdered! Guard the
door--let no one out--let no one in!"
"Beat the _nakara_," the guard commanded; "raise the alarm!"
He seized his long-barrelled matchlock, blew on the fuse, and pointing
up toward the moonlit sky, fired. Just within, in a little court,
Yacoub, with heavy drum-stick, was pounding from the huge drum a
thunderous vibrant roar, and somebody at his command had seized a horn,
and from its copper throat a strident shriek of alarm split the air.
The narrow street was now one surging mass of excited Pindaris. With
their riding whips they slashed viciously at any one other than their
own soldier caste that ventured near, driving them out, crying: "This
is alone for the Pindaris!"
A powerful, whiskered jamadar pushed his way through the mob, throwing
men to the right and left with sweeps of his strong arm, and, reaching
the guard, was told that Amir Khan lay up in his room, murdered. Then
an _hazari_ (commander of five thousand) came running and pushed
through the throng that the full force of the tragedy held almost
silent.
The guard saluted, saying: "Commander Kassim, the Chief has been slain."
"How--who?"
"I know not, Commander."
"Who has passed the guard here?"
"But one, the Afghan, who was expected by the Chief. He went forth but
lately."
"A Patan!" Kassim roared. "Trust a woman and a snake but not a Patan."
He turned to the whiskered jamadar: "Quick, go you with men and bring
the Afghan." To another he said, "Command to enter from there"--his
hand swept the mob in front--"a dozen trusty _sowars_ and flood the
palace with them. Up, up; every room, every nook, every place of
hiding; under everything, and above everything, and through everything,
search. Not even let there be exemption of the seraglio--murder lurks
close to women at all times. Seize every servant that is within and
bind him; let none escape."
He swept a hand out toward the Pindaris in the street that were like a
pack of wolves: "Up the hill--surround the palace! and guard every
window and rat-run!"
The guard saluted, venturing: "Commander, none could have entered from
outside to do the foul deed."
"Liar! lazy sleeper!"--he smashed with his foot the _hookah_ that sat
on the marble floor, its long stem coiled like a snake--"While you
busied over such, and opium, one has slipped by."
He reached out a powerful hand and seized the shoulder of a Pindari and
jerked him to the step, commanding: "Stay here with this monkey of the
tall trees, and see that none pass. I go to the Chief. When the
Afghan comes have him brought up."
Hunsa had stood among the Pindaris, shoved hither and thither as they
surged back and forth. Once the flat of a _tulwar_ had smote him
across the back, but when he turned his face to the striker who
recognised him as a man of privilege, one of the amusers, he was
allowed to remain.
The startling cry, "The Chief has been murdered! the Sultan is dead!"
swept out over the desert sand that lay white in the moonlight, and the
night air droned with the hum of fifty thousand voices that was like
the song of a world full of bees. And the night palpitated with the
beat of horses' feet upon the hard sand and against the stony ford of
the parched river as the Pindari horsemen swept to Rajgar as if they
rode in the sack of a city.
Hoarse bull-throated cries calling the curse of Allah upon the murderer
were like a deep-voiced hymn of hate--it was continuous.
The _bunnias_, and the oilmen, and the keepers of cookshops hid their
wares and crept into dark places to hide. The flickering oil lamps
were blotted out; but some of the Pindaris had fastened torches to
their long spears, and the fluttering lights waved and circled like
shooting stars.
Rajgar was a Shoel; it was as if from the teak forests and the jungles
of wild mango had rushed its full holding of tigers, and leopards, and
elephants, and screaming monkeys.
Soon a wedge of cavalry, a dozen wild-eyed horsemen, pushed their way
through the struggling mob, at their head the jamadar bellowing: "Make
way--make the road clean of your bodies."
"They bring the Afghan!" somebody cried and pointed to where Barlow sat
strapped to the saddle of his Beluchi mare.
"It is the one who killed the Chief!" another yelped; and the cries
rippled along from mouth to mouth; _tulwars_ flashed in the light of
the lurid torches as they swept upward at the end of long arms
threateningly; but the jamadar roared: "Back, back! you're like jackals
snapping and snarling. Back! if the one is killed how shall we know
the truth?"
One, an old man, yelled triumphantly: "Allah be praised! a wisdom--a
wisdom! The torture; the horse-bucket and the hot ashes! The jamadar
will have the truth out of the Afghan. Allah be praised! it is a
wisdom!"
At the gate straps were loosed and Barlow was jerked to the marble
steps as if he had been a blanket stripped from the horse's back.
"It is _the_ one, Jamadar," the guard declared, thrusting his face into
Barlow's; "it is the Afghan. Beyond doubt there will be blood upon his
clothes--look to it, Jamadar."
"We found the Afghan in the _serai_, and he was attending to his horse
as if about to fly; beyond doubt he is the murderer of our Chief," one
who had ridden with the jamadar said.
"Bring the murderer face to face with his foul deed," the jamadar
commanded; and clasped by both arms, pinioned, Barlow was pushed
through the gate and into the dim-lighted hall. In the scuffle of the
passing Hunsa sought to slip through, impelled by a devilish
fascination to hear all that would be said in the death-chamber. If
the case against the Sahib were short and decisive--perhaps they might
slice him into ribbons with their swords--Hunsa would then have nothing
to fear, and need not attempt flight.
But the guard swept him back with the butt of his long smooth-bore,
crying: "Dog, where go you?" Then he saw that it was Hunsa, the
messenger of his Chiefs favourite--as he took the Gulab to be--and he
said: "You cannot enter, Hunsa. It is a matter for the jamadars alone."
At that instant the Gulab slipped through the struggling groups in the
street, the Pindaris gallantly making way for her. She had heard of
the murder of the Chief, and had seen the dragging in of the Afghan.
"Let me go up, guard," she pleaded.
"It is a matter for men," he objected. "The jamadar would be angry,
and my sword and gun would be taken away and I should be put to scrub
the legs of horses if I let you pass."
"The jamadar will not be angry," she pleaded, "for there is something
to be said which only I have knowledge of. It was spoken to me by the
Chief, he had fear of this Afghan, and, please, in the name of Allah,
let Hunsa by, for being alone I have need of him."
The soft dark eyes pleaded stronger than the girl's words, and the
guard yielded, half reluctantly. To the young Pindari he said, "Go you
with these two, and if the jamadar is for cutting off their heads, say
that those in the street pulled me from the door-way, and these slipped
through; I have no fancy for the compliment of a sword on my neck."
In the dim hallway two men stood guarding the door to the Chief's
chamber, and when the man who had taken the Gulab up explained her
mission, one of them said, "Wait you here. I will ask of Kassim his
pleasure." Presently he returned; "The Commander will see the woman
but if it is a matter of trifling let the penalty fall upon the guard
below. The mingling of women in an affair of men is an abomination in
the sight of Allah."
When Bootea entered the chamber she gave a gasping cry of horror. The
Chief lay upon the floor, face downward, just as he had dropped when
slain, for Kassim had said; "Amir Khan is dead, may Allah take him to
his bosom, and such things as we may learn of his death may help us to
avenge our Chief. Touch not the body."
Her entrance was not more than half observed, for Kassim at that moment
was questioning the Afghan, who stood, a man on either side of him, and
two behind.
He was just answering a question from the Commander and was saying: "I
left your Chief with the Peace of Allah upon both our heads, for he
gripped my hand in fellowship, and said that we were two men. Why
should I slay one such who was veritably a soldier, who was a follower
of Mahomet?"
The man who had brought Barlow up to Amir Khan when he came for the
audience, said: "Commander, I left this one, the Afghan, here with the
Chief and took with me his sword and the short gun; he had no weapons."
"Inshalla! it was but a pretence," the Commander declared; "a pretence
to gain the confidence of the Chief, for he was slain with his own
knife. It was a Patan trick."
The Commander turned to the Afghan: "Why hadst thou audience with the
Chief alone and at night here--what was the mission?"
Barlow hesitated, a slight hope that might save his own life would be
to declare himself as a Sahib, and his mission; but he felt sure that
the Chief had been murdered because of this very thing, that somebody,
an agent of Nana Sahib, had waited hidden, had killed the Chief and
taken the paper. To speak of it would be to start a rumour that would
run across India that the British had negotiated with the Pindaris, and
if the paper weren't found there--which it wouldn't be--he wouldn't be
believed. Better to accept the roll of the dice as they lay, that he
had lost, and die as an Afghan rather than as an Englishman, a spy who
had killed their Chief.
"Speak, Patan," Kassim commanded; "thou dwellest overlong upon some
lie."
"There was a mission," Barlow answered; "it was from my own people, the
people of Sind."
"Of Sindhia?"
"No; from the land of Sind, Afghanistan. We ride not with the
Mahrattas; they are infidels, while we be followers of the true
Prophet."
"Thou art a fair speaker, Afghan. And was there a sealed message?"
"There was, Commander Sahib."
"Where is it now?"
"I know not. It was left with Amir Khan."
There was a hush of three seconds. Then Kassim, whose eye had searched
the room, saw the iron box. "This has a bearing upon matters," he
declared; "this affair of a written message. Open the box and see if
it is within," he commanded a Pindari.
"How now, woman," for the Gulab had stepped forward; "what dost thou
here--ah! there was talk of a message from the Chief. It might be, it
might be, because,"--his leonine face, full whiskered, the face of a
wild rider, a warrior, softened as he looked at the slight
figure,--"our noble Chief had spoken soft words of thee, and passed the
order that thou wert Begum, that whatsoever thou desired was to be."
"Commander," Bootea said, and her voice was like her eyes, trembling,
vibrant, "let me look upon the face of Amir Khan; then there are things
to be said that will avenge his death in the sight of Allah."
Kassim hesitated. Then he said; "It matters not--we have the killer."
And reverently, with his own hands, he turned the Chief on his back,
saying, softly, "In the name of Allah, thou restest better thus."
The Gulab, kneeling, pushed back the black beard with her hand, and
they thought that she was making oath upon the beard of the slain man.
Then she rose to her feet, and said: "There is one without, Hunsa,
bring him here, and see that there is no weapon upon him."
Kassim passed an order and Hunsa was brought, his evil eyes turning
from face to face with the restless query of a caged leopard.
"There is no paper, Commander Sahib," the jamadar said, returning from
his search of the iron-box.
"There was none such," Kassim growled; "it was but a Patan lie; the
message is yonder," and he pointed to the smear of blood upon the
marble floor.
Then he turned to Bootea: "Now, woman, speak what is in thy mind, for
this is an affair of action."
"Commander Sahib," Bootea began, "yonder man,"--and she pointed a slim
hand toward Barlow--"is not an Afghan, he is a Sahib."
This startling announcement filled the room with cries of astonishment
and anger; _tulwars_ flashed. Barlow shivered; not because of the
impending danger, for he had accepted the roll of the dice, but at the
thought that Bootea was betraying him, that all she had said and done
before was nothing--a lie, that she was an accomplice in this murder of
the Chief, and was now giving the Pindaris the final convincing proof,
the reason.
To deny the revelation was useless; they would torture him, and he was
to die anyway; better to die claiming to be a _messenger_ from the
British rather than as one sent to murder the Chief.
Kassim bellowed an order subduing the tumult; then he asked: "What art
thou, a Patan, or as the woman says, an Englay?"
"I am a Sahib," Barlow answered; "a Captain in the British service, and
came to your Chief with a written message of friendship."
Kassim pointed to the blood on the floor: "Thou wert a good messenger,
infidel; thou hast slain a follower of the Prophet."
But Bootea raised a slim hand, and, her voice trembling with intensity,
cried: "Commander, Amir Khan was not slain with the dagger, he was
killed by the _towel_. Look you at his throat and you will see the
mark."
"Bismillah!" came in a cry of astonishment from the Commander's throat,
and the marble walls of the _Surya-Mahal_ (room of audience) echoed
gasps and curses. Kassim himself had knelt by the dead Chief, and now
rising, said: "By Allah! it is true. That dog--" his finger was
thrusting like a dagger at Barlow.
But Bootea's clear voice hushed the rising clamour: "No, Commander, the
sahibs know not the thug trick of the _roomal_, and few thugs could
have overcome the Chief."
"Who then killed him--speak quick, and with the truth," Kassim
commanded.
He was interrupted by one of Hunsa's guards, crying: "Here, where go
you--you had not leave!" And Hunsa, who had turned to slip away, was
jerked back to where he had stood.
"It is that one," Bootea declared, sweeping a hand toward Hunsa.
"About his waist is even now the yellow-and-white _roomal_ that is the
weapon of Bhowanee. With that he killed Amir Khan. Take it from him,
and see if there be not black hairs from the beard of the Chief in its
soft mesh."
"By the grace of Allah it is a truth!" the Commander ejaculated when
the cloth passed to him had been examined. "It is a revelation such as
came to Mahomet, and out of the mouth of a woman. Great is Allah!"
"Will the Commander have Hunsa searched for the paper the Sahib has
spoken of?" Bootea asked.
"In his turban--" Kassim commanded--"in his turban, the nest of a
thief's loot or the hiding-place of the knife of a murderer. Look ye
in his turban!"
As the turban was stripped from the head of Hunsa the Pindari gave it a
whirling twist that sent its many yards of blue muslin streaming out
like a ribbon and the parchment message fell to the floor.
"Ah-ha!" and a man, stooping, thrust it into the hands of the Commander.
The Pindari who held the turban, threw it almost at the feet of Bootea,
saying, "Methinks the slayer will need this no more."
Bootea picked up the blue cloth and rolled it into a ball, saying, "If
it is permitted I will take this to those who entrusted Hunsa with this
foul mission to show them that he is dead."
"A clever woman thou art--it is a wise thought; take it by all means,
for indeed that dog's head will need little when they have finished
with him," the soldier agreed.
Kassim had taken the written paper closer to the light. At sight of
the thumb blood-stain upon the document, he gave a bellow of rage.
"Look you all!" he cried holding it spread out in the light of the
lamp; "here is our Chief's message to us given after he was dead; he
sealed it with his thumb in his own blood, after he was dead. A
miracle, calling for vengeance. Hunsa, dog, thou shalt die for
hours--thou shalt die by inches, for it was thee."
Kassim held the paper at arm's length toward Barlow, asking: "Is this
the message thou brought?"
"It is, Commander."
Kassim whirled on Hunsa, "Where didst thou get it, dog of an infidel?"
"Without the gate of the palace, my Lord. I found it lying there where
the Sahib had dropped it in his flight."
"Allah! thou art a liar of brazenness." He spoke to a Jamadar: "Have
brought the leather nosebag of a horse and hot ashes so that we may
come by the truth."
Then Kassim held the parchment close to the lamp and scanned it. He
rubbed a hand across his wrinkled brow and pondered. "Beside the seal
here is the name, Rana Bhim," and he turned his fierce eyes on Barlow.
"Yes, Commander; the Rana has put his seal upon it that he will join
his Rajputs with the British and the Pindaris to drive from Mewar
Sindhia--the one whose Dewan sent Hunsa to slay your Chief."
"Thou sayest so, but how know I that Hunsa is not in thy hand, and that
thou didst not prepare the way for the killing? Here beside the name
of the Rana is drawn a lance; that suggests an order to kill, a secret
order." He turned to a sepoy, "Bring the Rajput, Zalim."
While they waited Bootea said: "It was Nana Sahib who sent Hunsa and
the decoits to slay Amir Khan, because he feared an alliance between
the Chief and the British."
"And thou wert one of them?"
"I came to warn Amir Khan, and--"
"And what, woman--the decoits were your own people?"
"Yonder Sahib had saved my life--saved me from the harem of Nana Sahib,
and I came to save his life and your Chief's."
Now there was an eruption into the chamber; men carrying a great pot of
hot ashes, and one swinging from his hand the nosebag of a horse; and
with them the Rajput.
"Here," Kassim said, addressing the Hindu, "what means this spear upon
this document? Is it a hint to drive it home?"
The Rajput put his fingers reverently upon the Rana's signature.
"That, Commander, is the seal, the sign. I am a Chondawat, and belong
to the highest of the thirty-six tribes of Mewar, and that sign of the
lance was put upon state documents by Chonda; it has been since that
time--it is but a seal. Even as that,"--and Zalim proudly swung a long
arm toward the wall where a huge yellow sun embossed on gypsum
rested--"even that is an emblem of the Children of the Sun, the
Sesodias of Mewar, the Rana."
"It is well," Kassim declared; "as to this that is in the message,
to-morrow, with the aid of a mullah, we will consider it. And now as
to Hunsa, we would have from him the truth."
He turned to the Gulab; "Go thou in peace, woman, for our dead Chief
had high regard for thee; and Captain Sahib, even thou may go to thy
abode, not thinking to leave there, however, without coming to pay
salaams. Thou wouldst not get far."