“He promised he’d bring me a basket of posies,
A garland of lilies, a garland of roses,
A little straw hat to set off the blue ribbons
That tie up my bonnie brown hair.”
This was the song McDermot sang to himself as he walked up the great
court-yard of the Palace, past the lattice windows, behind which the
silent women of the late Dakoon’s household still sat, passive and
grief-stricken. How knew they what the new Dakoon would do--send them
off into the hills, or kill them? McDermot was in a famous humour, for
he had just come from Pango Dooni, the possessor of a great secret,
and he had been paid high honour. He looked round on the court-yard
complacently, and with an air of familiarity and possession which seemed
hardly justified by his position. He noted how the lattices stirred as
he passed through this inner court-yard where few strangers were ever
allowed to pass, and he cocked his head vaingloriously. He smiled at the
lizards hanging on the foundation stones, he paused to dip his finger
in the basin of a fountain, he eyed good-humouredly the beggars--old
pensioners of the late Dakoon--seated in the shade with outstretched
hands. One of them drew his attention, a slim, cadaverous-looking wretch
who still was superior to his fellows, and who sat apart from them,
evidently by their wish as much as by his own.
McDermot was still humming the song to himself as he neared the group;
but he stopped short, as he heard the isolated beggar repeat after him
in English:
“He promised he’d bring me a bunch of blue ribbons,
To tie up my bonnie brown hair.”
He was startled. At first he thought it might be an Englishman in
disguise, but the brown of the beggar’s face was real, and there was no
mistaking the high narrow forehead, the slim fingers, and the sloe-black
eyes. Yet he seemed not a native of Mandakan. McDermot was about to ask
him who he was, when there was a rattle of horse’s hoofs, and Cumner’s
Son galloped excitedly up the court-yard.
“Captain, captain,” said he, “the Red Plague is on the city!”
McDermot staggered back in consternation. “No, no,” cried he, “it is not
so, sir!”
“The man, the first, lies at the entrance of the Path by the Bazaar. No
one will pass near him, and all the city goes mad with fear. What’s to
be done? What’s to be done? Is there no help for it?” the lad cried in
despair. “I’m going to Pango Dooni. Where is he? In the Palace?”
McDermot shook his head mournfully, for he knew the history of this
plague, the horror of its ravages, the tribes it had destroyed.
The beggar leaned back against the cool wall and laughed. McDermot
turned on him in his fury, and would have kicked him, but Cumner’s Son,
struck by some astute intelligence in the man’s look, said:
“What do you know of the Red Plague?”
Again the beggar laughed. “Once I saved the city of Nangoon from the
plague, but they forgot me, and when I complained and in my anger went
mad at the door of the Palace, the Rajah drove me from the country. That
was in India, where I learned to speak English; and here am I at the
door of a Palace again!”
“Can you save the city from the plague?” asked Cumner’s Son, coming
closer and eagerly questioning. “Is the man dead?” asked the beggar.
“Not when I saw him--he had just been taken.”
“Good. The city may be saved if--” he looked at Cumner’s Son, “if thou
wilt save him with me. If he be healed there is no danger; it is the
odour of death from the Red Plague which carries death abroad.”
“Why do you ask this?” asked McDermot, nodding towards Cumner’s Son.
The beggar shrugged his shoulders. “That he may not do with me as did
the Rajah of Nangoon.”
“He is not Dakoon,” said McDermot.
“Will the young man promise me?”
“Promise what?” asked Cumner’s Son.
“A mat to pray on, a house, a servant, and a loaf of bread, a bowl of
goat’s milk, and a silver najil every day till I die.”
“I am not Dakoon,” said the lad, “but I promise for the Dakoon--he will
do this thing to save the city.”
“And if thou shouldst break thy promise?”
“I keep my promises,” said the lad stoutly.
“But if not, wilt thou give thy life to redeem it?”
“Yes.”
The beggar laughed again and rose. “Come,” said he.
“Don’t go--it’s absurd!” said McDermot, laying a hand on the young man’s
arm. “The plague cannot be cured.”
“Yes, I will go,” answered Cumner’s Son. “I believe he speaks the truth.
Go you to Pango Dooni and tell him all.”
He spurred his horse and trotted away, the beggar running beside him.
They passed out of the court-yard, and through the Gate by the Fountain
of Sweet Waters.
They had not gone far when they saw Cumner, the Governor, and six men of
the artillery riding towards them. The Governor stopped, and asked him
where he was going.
The young man told him all.
The Colonel turned pale. “You would do this thing!” said he dumfounded.
“Suppose this rascal,” nodding towards the beggar, “speaks the truth;
and suppose that, after all, the sick man should die and--”
“Then the lad and myself would be the first to follow him,” interrupted
the beggar, “and all the multitude would come after, from the babe on
the mat to the old man by the Palace gates. But if the sick man lives--”
The Governor looked at his son partly in admiration, partly in pain, and
maybe a little of anger.
“Is there no one else? I tell you I--”
“There is no one else; the lad or death for the city! I can believe the
young; the old have deceived me,” interposed the beggar again.
“Time passes,” said Cumner’s Son anxiously. “The man may die. You say
yes to my going, sir?” he asked his father.
The Governor frowned, and the skin of his cheeks tightened.
“Go-go, and good luck to you, boy.” He made as if to ride on, but
stopped short, flung out his hand, and grasped the hand of his son. “God
be with you, lad,” said he; then his jaws closed tightly, and he rode
on. It was easier for the lad than for him.
When he told the story to Pango Dooni the chief was silent for a moment;
then he said:
“Until we know whether it be death or life, whether Cumner’s Son save
the city or lose his life for its sake, we will not call the people
together in the Hall of the Heavenly Hours. I will send the heralds
abroad, if it be thy pleasure, Cumner.”
At noon--the hour when the people had been bidden to cry, “Live, Prince
of the Everlasting Glory!”--they were moving restlessly, fearfully
through the Bazaar and the highways, and watching from a distance a
little white house, with blue curtains, where lay the man who was sick
with the Red Plague, and where watched beside his bed Cumner’s Son and
the beggar of Nangoon. No one came near.
From the time the sick man had been brought into the house, the beggar
had worked with him, giving him tinctures which he boiled with sweetmeat
called the Flower of Bambaba, while Cumner’s Son rubbed an ointment into
his body. Now and again the young man went to the window and looked
out at the lines of people hundreds of yards away, and the empty spaces
where the only life that showed was a gay-plumaged bird that drifted
across the sunlight, or a monkey that sat in the dust eating a nut. All
at once the awe and danger of his position fell upon him. Imagination
grew high in him in a moment--that beginning of fear and sorrow
and heart-burning; yet, too, the beginning of hope and wisdom and
achievement. For the first time in his life that knowledge overcame him
which masters us all sometimes. He had a desire to fly the place; he
felt like running from the house, shrieking as he went. A sweat broke
out on his forehead, his lips clung to his teeth, his mouth was dry, his
breast seemed to contract, and breathing hurt him.
“What a fool I was! What a fool I was to come here!” he said.
He buried his head in his arms as he leaned against the wall, and his
legs trembled. From that moment he passed from headlong, daring, lovable
youth, to manhood; understanding, fearful, conscientious, and morally
strong. Just as abject as was his sudden fear, so triumphant was his
reassertion of himself.
“It was the only way,” he said to himself, suddenly wresting his head
from his protecting arms. “There’s a chance of life, anyhow, chance
for all of us.” He turned away to the sick man’s bed, to see the beggar
watching him with cold, passive eyes and a curious, half-sneering smile.
He braced himself and met the passive, scrutinising looks firmly. The
beggar said nothing, but motioned to him to lift the sick man upright,
while he poured some tincture down his throat, and bound the head and
neck about with saturated linen.
There came a knocking at the door. The beggar frowned, but Cumner’s Son
turned eagerly. He had only been in this room ten hours, but it seemed
like years in which he had lived alone-alone. But he met firmly the
passive, inquisitorial eyes of the healer of the plague, and he turned,
dropped another bar across the door, and bade the intruder to depart.
“It is I, Tang-a-Dahit. Open!” came a loud, anxious voice.
“You may not come in.”
“I am thy brother-in-blood, and my life is thine.”
“Then keep it safe for those who prize it. Go back to the Palace.”
“I am not needed there. My place is with thee.”
“Go, then, to the little house by the Aqueduct.” There was silence for a
moment, and then Tang-a-Dahit said:
“Wilt thou not let me enter?”
The sudden wailing of the stricken man drowned Tang-a-Dahit’s words,
and without a word Cumner’s Son turned again to the victim of the Red
Plague.
All day the people watched from afar, and all day long soldiers and
hillsmen drew a wide cordon of quarantine round the house. Terror seized
the people when the sun went down, and to the watchers the suspense
grew. Ceaseless, alert, silent, they had watched and waited, and at last
the beggar knelt with his eyes fixed on the sleeper, and did not stir. A
little way off from him stood Cumner’s Son-patient, pale, worn, older by
ten years than he was three days before.
In the city dismay and misery ruled. Boonda Broke and the dead Dakoon
were forgotten. The people were in the presence of a monster which could
sweep them from their homes as a hail-storm scatters the hanging nests
of wild bees. In a thousand homes little red lights of propitiation were
shining, and the sweet boolda wood was burning at a thousand shrines.
Midnight came, then the long lethargic hours after; then that moment
when all cattle of the field and beasts of the forest wake and stand
upon their feet, and lie down again, and the cocks crow, and the birds
flutter their wings, and all resign themselves to sleep once more. It
was in this hour that the sick man opened his eyes and raised his head,
as though the mysterious influence of primitive life were rousing him.
He said nothing and did nothing, but lay back and drew in a long, good
breath of air, and afterwards fell asleep.
The beggar got to his feet. “The man is safe,” said he.
“I will go and tell them,” said Cumner’s Son gladly, and he made as if
to open the door.
“Not till dawn,” commanded the beggar. “Let them suffer for their sins.
We hold the knowledge of life and death in our hands.”
“But my father, and Tang-a-Dahit, and Pango Dooni.”
“Are they without sin?” asked the beggar scornfully. “At dawn, only at
dawn!”
So they sat and waited till dawn. And when the sun was well risen, the
beggar threw wide open the door of the house, and called aloud to the
horsemen far off, and Cumner’s Son waved with his hand; and McDermot
came galloping to them. He jumped from his horse and wrung the boy’s
hand, then that of the beggar, then talked in broken sentences, which
were spattered by the tears in his throat. He told Cumner’s Son that his
face was as that of one who had lain in a grave, and he called aloud in
a blustering voice, and beckoned for troopers to come. The whole line
moved down on them, horsemen and soldiers and people.
The city was saved from the Red Plague, and the people, gone mad with
joy, would have carried Cumner’s Son to the Palace on their shoulders,
but he walked beside the beggar to his father’s house, hillsmen in front
and English soldiers behind; and wasted and ghostly, from riding and
fighting and watching, he threw himself upon the bed in his own room,
and passed, as an eyelid blinks, into a deep sleep.
But the beggar sat down on a mat with a loaf of bread, a bowl of goat’s
milk, and a long cigar which McDermot gave him, and he received idly all
who came, even to the sick man, who ere the day was done was brought
to the Residency, and, out of danger and in his right mind, lay in the
shade of a banyan tree, thinking of nothing save the joy of living.