The British flag flew half-mast from the Palace dome, and two others
flew behind it; one the black and yellow banner of the hillsmen, the
other the red and white pennant of the dead Dakoon. In the Palace yard
a thousand men stood at attention, and at their head was Cushnan Di with
fifty hillsmen. At the Residency another thousand men encamped, with a
hundred hillsmen and eighty English, under the command of Tang-a-Dahit
and McDermot. By the Fountain of the Sweet Waters, which is over against
the Tomb where the Dakoon should sleep, another thousand men were
patrolled, with a hundred hillsmen, commanded by a kinsman of Pango
Dooni. Hovering near were gloomy, wistful crowds of people, who drew
close to the mystery of the House of Death, as though the soul of a
Dakoon were of more moment than those of the thousand men who had fallen
that day. Along the line of the Bazaar ranged another thousand men,
armed only with krises, under the command of the heir of the late
Dakoon, and with these were a hundred and fifty mounted hillsmen,
watchful and deliberate. These were also under the command of a kinsman
of Pango Dooni.
It was at this very point that the danger lay, for the nephew of the
Dakoon, Gis-yo-Bahim, was a weak but treacherous man, ill-fitted to
rule; a coward, yet ambitious; distrusted by the people, yet the heir to
the throne. Cumner and Pango Dooni had placed him at this point for
no other reason than to give him his chance for a blow, if he dared
to strike it, at the most advantageous place in the city. The furtive
hangers-on, cut-throats, mendicants, followers of Boonda Broke, and
haters of the English, lurked in the Bazaars, and Gis-yo-Bahim should
be tempted for the first and the last time. Crushed now, he could never
rise again. Pango Dooni had carefully picked the hillsmen whom he had
sent to the Bazaar, and their captain was the most fearless and the
wariest fighter from the Neck of Baroob, save Pango Dooni himself.
Boonda Broke was abroad still. He had escaped from the slaughter before
the Residency and was hidden somewhere in the city. There were yet in
Mandakan ten thousand men who would follow him that would promise the
most, and Boonda Broke would promise the doors of Heaven as a gift to
the city, and the treasures of Solomon to the people, if it might serve
his purposes. But all was quiet save where the mourners followed their
dead to the great funeral pyres, which were set on three little hills
just outside the city. These wailed as they passed by. The smoke of the
burnt powder had been carried away by a gentle wind, and in its place
was the pervasive perfume of the peach and cherry trees, and the aroma
of the gugan wood which was like cut sandal in the sun after a rain. In
the homes of a few rich folk there was feasting also, for it mattered
little to them whether Boonda Broke or Pango Dooni ruled in Mandakan,
so that their wealth was left to them. But hundreds of tinkling little
bells broke the stillness. These were carried by brown bare-footed boys,
who ran lightly up and down the streets, calling softly: “Corn and tears
and wine for the dead!” It was the custom for mourners to place in the
hands of the dead a bottle of tears and wine, and a seed of corn, as it
is written in the Proverbs of Dol:
“When thou journeyest into the Shadows, take not sweetmeats with thee,
but a seed of corn and a bottle of tears and wine; that thou mayest have
a garden in the land whither thou goest.”
It was yet hardly night when the pyres were lighted on the little
hills and a warm glow was thrown over all the city, made warmer by
roseate-hued homes and the ruddy stones and velvety dust of the streets.
At midnight the Dakoon was to be brought to the Tomb with the Blue
Dome. Now in the Palace yard his body lay under a canopy, the flags of
Mandakan and England over his breast, twenty of his own naked body-guard
stood round, and four of his high chiefs stood at his head and four at
his feet, and little lads ran softly past, crying: “Corn and tears and
wine for the dead!” And behind all these again were placed the dark
battalions and the hillsmen. It went abroad through the city that Pango
Dooni and Cumner paid great homage to the dead Dakoon, and the dread of
the hillsmen grew less.
But in one house there had been no fear, for there, by the Aqueduct of
the Failing Fountain, lived Cushnan Di, a fallen chief, and his
daughter with the body like a trailing vine; for one knew the sorrow of
dispossession and defeat and the arm of a leader of men, and the other
knew Tang-a-Dahit and the soul that was in him.
This night, while yet there was an hour before the body of the dead
Dakoon should go to the Tomb with the Blue Dome, the daughter of Cushnan
Di lay watching for her door to open; for she knew what had happened in
the city, and there was one whom her spirit longed for. An old woman sat
beside her with hands clasped about her knees.
“Dost thou hear nothing?” said a voice from the bed. “Nothing but the
stir of the mandrake trees, beloved.”
“Nay, but dost thou not hear a step?”
“Naught, child of the heaven-flowers, but a dog’s foot in the moss.”
“Thou art sure that my father is safe?”
“The Prince is safe, angel of the high clouds. He led the hillsmen by
the secret way into the Palace yard.” There was silence for a moment,
and then the girl’s voice said again: “Hush! but there was a footstep--I
heard a breaking twig.”
Her face lighted, and the head slightly turned towards the door. But the
body did not stir. It lay moveless, save where the bosom rose and fell
softly, quivering under the white robe. A great wolf-dog raised its head
at the foot of the bed and pointed its ears, looking towards the door.
The face of the girl was beautiful. A noble peace was upon it, and the
eyes were like lamps of dusky fire, as though they held all the strength
of the nerveless body. The love burning in them was not the love of a
maid for a man, but that which comes after, through pain and trouble and
wisdom. It was the look that lasts after death, the look shot forward
from the Hereafter upon a living face which has looked into the great
mystery, but has not passed behind the curtains.
There was a knock upon the door, and, in response to a summons,
Tang-a-Dahit stepped inside. A beautiful smile settled upon the girl’s
face, and her eyes brooded tenderly upon the young hillsman.
“I am here, Mami,” said he.
“Friend of my heart,” she answered. “It is so long!”
Then he told her how, through Cumner’s Son, he had been turned from his
visit two days before, and of the journey down, and of the fighting, and
of all that had chanced.
She smiled, and assented with her eyes--her father had told her. “My
father knows that thou dost come to me, and he is not angry,” she said.
Then she asked him what was to be the end of all, and he shook his head.
“The young are not taken into counsel,” he answered, “neither I nor
Cumner’s Son.”
All at once her eyes brightened as though a current of light had been
suddenly sent through them. “Cumner’s Son,” said she--“Cumner’s Son, and
thou--the future of Mandakan is all with ye; neither with Cumner, nor
with Pango Dooni, nor with Cushnan Di. To the old is given counsel, and
device, and wisdom, and holding; but to the young is given hope, and
vision, and action, and building, and peace.”
“Cumner’s Son is without,” said he. “May I fetch him to thee?”
She looked grave, and shrank a little, then answered yes.
“So strong, so brave, so young!” she said, almost under her breath, as
the young man entered. Cumner’s Son stood abashed at first to see this
angelic head, so full of light and life, like nothing he had ever seen,
and the nerveless, moveless body, like a flower with no roots.
“Thou art brave,” said she, “and thy heart is without fear, for thou
hast no evil in thee. Great things shall come to thee, and to thee,” she
added, turning to Tang-a-Dahit, “but by different ways.”
Tang-a-Dahit looked at her as one would look at the face of a saint; and
his fingers, tired yet with the swinging of the sword, stroked the white
coverlet of her couch gently and abstractedly. Once or twice Cumner’s
Son tried to speak, but failed; and at last all he could say was: “Thou
art good--thou art good!” and then he turned and stole quietly from the
room.
At midnight they carried the Dakoon to the resting-place of his fathers.
A thousand torches gleamed from the Palace gates through the Street of
Divers Pities, and along the Path by the Bazaar to the Tomb with the
Blue Dome. A hundred hillsmen rode before, and a hundred behind, and
between were two thousand soldiers of Mandakan on foot and fifty of
the late Dakoon’s body-guard mounted and brilliant in scarlet and gold.
Behind the gun-carriage, which bore the body, walked the nephew of the
great Dakoon, then came a clear space, and then Pango Dooni, and
Cumner, and behind these twenty men of the artillery, at whose head rode
McDermot and Cumner’s Son.
As they passed the Path by the Bazaar every eye among the hillsmen and
among the handful of British was alert. Suddenly a savage murmuring
among the natives in the Bazaar broke into a loud snarl, and it seemed
as if a storm was about to break; but as suddenly, at a call from
Cumner, the hillsmen, the British, and a thousand native soldiers, faced
the Bazaar in perfect silence, their lances, swords, and rifles in a
pose of menace. The whole procession stood still for a moment. In the
pause the crowds in the Bazaar drew back, then came a loud voice calling
on them to rescue the dead Dakoon from murderers and infidels; and
a wave of dark bodies moved forward, but suddenly cowered before the
malicious stillness of the hillsmen and the British, and the wave
retreated.
Cumner’s Son had recognised the voice, and his eye followed its
direction with a perfect certainty. Even as he saw the figure of Boonda
Broke disguised as a native soldier the half-breed’s arm was raised, and
a kris flew from his hands, aimed at the heart of Pango Dooni. But as
the kris flew the youth spurred his horse out of the ranks and down upon
the murderer, who sprang back into the Bazaar. The lad fearlessly rode
straight into the Bazaar, and galloped down upon the fugitive, who
suddenly swung round to meet him with naked kris; but, as he did so,
a dog ran across his path, tripped him up, and he half fell. Before he
could recover himself a pistol was at his head. “March!” said the lad;
and even as ten men of the artillery rode through the crowd to rescue
their Colonel’s son, he marched the murderer on. But a sudden frenzy
possessed Boonda Broke. He turned like lightning on the lad, and raised
his kris to throw; but a bullet was quicker, and he leaped into the air
and fell dead without a cry, the kris dropping from his hand.
As Cumner’s Son came forth into the path the hills men and artillery
cheered him, the native troops took it up, and it was answered by the
people in all the thoroughfare.
Pango Dooni had also seen the kris thrown at himself, but he could not
escape it, though he half swung round. It struck him in the shoulder,
and quivered where it struck, but he drew it out and threw it down. A
hillsman bound up the wound, and he rode on to the Tomb.
The Dakoon was placed in his gorgeous house of death, and every man
cried: “Sleep, lord of the earth!” Then Cumner stood up in his saddle,
and cried aloud:
“To-morrow, when the sun stands over the gold dome of the Palace, ye
shall come to hear your Dakoon speak in the hall of the Heavenly Hours.”
No man knew from Cumner’s speech who was to be Dakoon, yet every man in
Mandakan said in the quiet of his home that night:
“To-morrow Pango Dooni will be Dakoon. We will be as the stubble of the
field before him. But Pango Dooni is a strong man.”