As we were to leave the village the next morning, I thought I might as
well go and take leave of Mohun Lall, and accordingly went to his house
in the evening.
"So you could make nothing of that rascal who was hung up," said he,
when we were seated; "these thieves are hardened vagabonds, and though
I have hung several in this way, I have never been able to get anything
out of them."
"I could not," said I; "the fellow was, as he called it, faithful, and
died worthy of a better cause."
"It is no use of speaking of him," said Mohun Lall; "the fellow is
dead, and I would that all his brethren were hanging as high as he is;
but I have heard a strange piece of news since you left me, Meer Sahib,
which I do not care telling you, and you may perhaps be able to give me
some assistance."
"Command me," said I; "anything that I can do will be but a poor return
for your attention."
"The matter is this," said he; "a person by name Syud Mahomed Ali, who
is very respectably connected at Hyderabad, came from the city with
letters to the governor of Nirmul, two or three years ago, directing
him to be employed as a collector of any small district which might
become vacant. He lived some time with him, and when an opportunity
offered, was appointed by him his naib, or deputy, in a district
not far from Nirmul. Latterly, the governor has had a good deal of
difficulty in getting him to remit the revenue collections, and one or
two complaints which reached him privately made him suspicious. This
feeling was increased by hearing that he had sent off his baggage in a
clandestine manner,--whither, no one knew, and this morning both he and
his people have suddenly disappeared."
"It is most extraordinary," said I; "but as I never heard of this
person before, I do not see exactly how I am to be of any use to you or
your friend."
"It is only a chance that you may be so," said Mohun Lall; "and my
request is, that you keep a look out for him during your journey, and
should you meet him, that you will arrest him instantly, and send him
to me under an escort of your people, to whom I promise a handsome
reward for their delay and trouble. One thing I must tell you, that
on many occasions he has assumed the name of Kumal Khan,--the name I
believe of a relative of his who adopted him, and perhaps he may have
taken this name in travelling."
"I will not forget it," said I, "and you may depend upon my doing my
utmost to secure him, should I fall in with him; and could you give me
a paper relating his delinquencies, under your own seal, to serve me as
a kind of authority for arresting him?"
"Certainly," said Mohun Lall; "your thought is a good one: I will
forthwith write one myself." So saying he drew up the document, and
handed it to me.
"I am an indifferent scholar," said I, "but I dare say I can make it
out;" and taking the paper I read what he had written, which was in
substance what he had told me.
"And now I pray you to give me my dismissal, for I have business among
my people, and the day is nigh closed."
"I will not detain you," said Mohun Lall; "and if there is anything
you or your people want which my poor village can afford, you have
only to send for it. I shall write too to my friend to tell him of the
arrangement I have made, and the confidence I have in you."
"I thank you for your kindness," said I, "and should I want anything
more I will not scruple to send for it. Salam, Sahib!"
"Salam!" he returned; "I wish you a safe journey and a successful one."
"Thanks again to you, good Aumil, for your last words," said I to
myself as I went away: "Inshalla! it will be as successful as it has
hitherto been. Well indeed Mahomed Ali has met his deserts; and it
is better perhaps for him that he lies cold and dead as he is, than
that he should have lived to be haunted by an evil conscience, and to
fall into the hands of those he has cheated and deceived, who would
have tortured him to death, if they had not immured him in a miserable
prison to pine out the remainder of his days.
"Verily a good deal has been done, and my old father will laugh
heartily when he hears how I have behaved, and how I have baffled
suspicion by the commission I have brought with me, of which these
papers are good proof. I have got his true name too, and it is hard if
with this clue I do not get hold of the money for the bills of exchange
which my sagacious parent would have destroyed. Shabash! Ameer Ali,
do thou go on in this way, and whose dog is he who shall compete with
thee, either in cunning or in daring!"
As I thought he would, my father laughed heartily at the business I
had undertaken. "It would be a good joke," he said, "to send for Kumal
Khan's head, and put it at the gate of the village; they would then be
at rest about him, and Mohun Lall's friend would be obliged to disgorge
a little of the coin I have no doubt he has helped himself to out of
the revenue."
"By Alla," said I, "it is an excellent thought, and I will send a
couple of Lughaees to bring it."
"No, no," said my father; "I did but jest; it is now nearly evening,
and it would not do to risk them on that lonely road at nightfall;
besides, they could not well be back before we start."
"As you will," said I; but at the same time I made an inward
determination to mention it to one or two of them. When I reached my
tent, I sent for three Lughaees, enterprising fellows. "Now," said I,
"my lads, I have got an adventure for you, and here are five rupees
apiece if you will do it."
"Your commands are on our heads and eyes," said they; "you have only to
order us, and we will perform your wishes."
"Well then," said I, "what I want is the head of Kumal Khan: do you
know the place you put him in? and is the grave deep?"
"We know the spot exactly," said one of them, a Hindoo, by name
Motee-ram; "what Lugha ever forgot a spot where he had buried any one!
the grave is not deep, and he is at the top of all. But what are we to
do with the head? and why is it wanted?"
I detailed to them what Mohun Lall had said, and repeated what a good
joke it would be to get the head and place it in some conspicuous
place. "Then," said Motee-ram, "if I may offer advice, I recommend its
being put under the tree whereon the thief was hung this morning: the
worthy Aumil will think Kumal Khan has fallen by the hands of some of
his gang."
"A capital idea," said I: "and therefore, if you find no one about when
you return, place it there, for I have no wish to look at it."
"It shall be done to your satisfaction," said all three; "and we will
start immediately." So they left me. Yet I was in dread all the time
they were absent lest anything should befall them, and I often wished I
had not sent them on such an errand; but it was too late, and I could
not recall them. Anxiously and sleeplessly did the hours pass till near
midnight; and poor Zora could not imagine what was the matter with me.
I excused myself to her, however, on the plea of having a headache and
feeling unwell, and suffered her and the old woman to put quicklime on
my temples, and use other remedies which she said were infallible in
such cases: and at last pretending I was going to sleep, she lay down
and was soon really so. It was about midnight that I was relieved from
my suspense, and gladly did I hear the voice of Motee-ram at my tent
door calling to me. I arose and went out. "Is all safe?" I eagerly
asked.
"All is safe," said he; "and we have brought the head and put it where
you told us. It was well we went, for we found a troop of jackals
busily scratching at the grave; and they would have got to the bodies
before morning, for they had made a large hole when we arrived; however
we scared them away, and put a quantity of dry thorns just under the
earth on the top: they will not try it again, and if they do it does
not matter, as no one will ever find that spot--it was too well chosen."
"You have done your work well and bravely," said I, "and you shall
have your money to-morrow morning." They left me, and the excitement
past, I lay down and slept soundly. The next morning we rose before
day: the omens were consulted, and proved favourable, and all prepared
for prosecuting our march. We were soon ready, and finding that Zora
was comfortable in her cart, and that she needed nothing, I could not
resist the temptation of going as far as the tree where the thief had
been hung, to see whether in reality the head of Kumal Khan had been
brought. Accordingly I separated from the party, and ran as fast as I
could to the spot, which was not far distant. I know not why, but an
involuntary shudder crept over me as I reached the tree, and looked
about for the object of my search.
The wind, which had been still all night, suddenly rose with the
breaking day, and its first sigh through the withered branches of the
neem almost seemed to have a voice in it--a deprecation of the deed we
had done the night before, and of which so foul an evidence as that
before me was present; for at that instant my eyes fell on the head,
which had been placed on a projecting knot of the trunk to protect it
from the jackals. I recoiled from it with loathing, for the eyes were
protruding from the sockets and the mouth open, and the expression of
the features was hideous in the extreme. I gazed at it for a moment.
"This must not be," said I; "those eyes will betray us:" so taking the
cold head down, I forced them into their sockets, and shut the eyelids,
which I was able to do, as the stillness of death was past. I then
placed the head on a large stone close to the tree, on which some rude
idol was sculptured, and quitting the place, ran as fast as I could to
a small puddle I had passed as I came, in which I cleansed my hands
from the blood which had adhered to them.
"Alla be praised they are pure again!" said I inwardly, as I washed
them eagerly with some earth and water. "Brave as I know myself to be,
and caring for nothing alive, I would not have gone with Motee-ram and
his people, have dug up that body and decollated it,--no, not for the
wealth of Delhi. Pah! the idea is horrible." And I arose, and ran again
at my utmost speed till I reached the party.
My absence had not been remarked, which was well; and having mounted
my horse, I stationed myself near Zora's cart, which was in front.
After we had reached the stage, and were resting ourselves for the day,
a horseman came from the Aumil with a letter, at which we were all
greatly amused. It related how the head had been found and recognized,
but at the same time implored me to keep the event secret, in order
that the Aumil's friend, the ruler of Nirmul, might gain time to meet
the demand caused by the defalcation of the man we had killed. This
exactly suited my purpose, as I had now no doubt that I should be able
to get the amount of the bills.
On the fifth morning after this we were to reach Hyderabad: it was
estimated as seven coss distant, so we did not start so soon as
usual; we wished to reach it when the day was well advanced, in order
to attract as little attention as possible, for our numbers were
considerable. We therefore divided into three parties, one under my
father, one under myself, and the other under Surfuraz Khan, a friend
of my father whom we had met on the road, and who with his men had been
admitted into our company; and we agreed to meet again in the karwan,
which was the usual resort of all travellers, and where we were told we
should find accommodation in the serais which were used by them. Mine
was the first division to move, and my father said he should remain
with the baggage, and bring it leisurely along, as he should have to
pay the usual duties upon the property we had secured, at the various
toll-houses. Accordingly at full daylight we set out. It was a lovely
morning, cold, yet not so cold as in our own country, where the frost
is often seen on the ground, and the grass feels crisp under the foot
of the traveller until the sun rises; still a good shawl was a welcome
addition to my usual clothing.
Wreaths of mist spread themselves over some hills to the left of the
road, and concealed from our view an immense tank which lay at their
foot; while, as a gentle breeze arose, the mists were set in motion,
revealing one by one piles of the most stupendous rocks I had ever
seen, and which appeared as though they had been heaped on each other
by human agency; I had been struck by these extraordinary rocks on our
first entering Telingana, and remarked them now to Bhudrinath; he gave
a ready solution to my conjectures as to their origin, "You perhaps
have heard of one of our sacred books called the Mahabharut," said he;
"in it are related the wars of the gods. The origin of one of them was
the forcible carrying off of Sita, the wife of Ram. She was taken to
the island of Lanka (Ceylon), and there detained by the rakshas or evil
spirits of the place, assisted by the king with powerful armies: they
defied Ram, and he was in utter despair at the loss of his beautiful
wife, nor could he find any trace of whither she had been carried. You
know that Hunooman, our monkey-god, was a wise and astonishing being;
in the monkeys of the present day his form only is perpetuated; the
intelligence is gone, and cunning alone is left to them. But it is
also a sad fact that, like them, mankind has also degenerated, and we
are no more like the beings of those days than the present monkeys
are like Hunooman. Well, as I was saying, Ram in his perplexity was
visited by Hunooman, who pitying his state proposed to go in search of
the lost fair one, and accordingly departed. Long did he wander, and
at last discovered her in Lanka, in a state of as great distress as he
had left her lord in. Quickly he returned with the intelligence, and
an army was assembled for the conquest of the island. But a difficulty
arose when it reached the end of the land; before them certainly lay
Lanka, but a wide and rough sea ran between them, the roaring waves
of which appalled the stoutest hearts--nor did even the glorious Ram
himself escape the general fear. Boats were not to be procured, and if
they had, what would have been their use to transport an army which
consisted of millions of god-like beings, each of whom was ten cubits
in height! Ram gave himself up to despair; but Hunooman at one bound
clearing the channel, quickly returned with assurances that a bridge
could soon be constructed, and that he and his companions would labour
night and day till it was completed.
"Quick as thought, legions of monkeys departed to the Himalayas. Huge
mountains and rocks were torn from their foundations, and transported
by relays of these indefatigable beings to the shores of the ocean.
One by one they were dropped into it from above, and the splashing
of these huge masses is described as terrific, the water ascending
to the heavens and extinguishing the stars! At last the bridge was
completed, the vast armies marched over it, the country was conquered,
and the beauteous Sita restored to the arms of her devoted lord. Now
these rocks are part of those brought from the Himalayas, and have
remained piled upon each other just as they were set down by the
monkeys; for this country being half-way, it was here that the relay
was established, and when the bridge was completed, these remained,
not being required. To prove the truth of what I have said, (and may
Bhugwan grant that no one doubt it!) I must tell you that remains of
the bridge are visible to this day. Many pilgrims with whom I have
conversed, who had been to Ramisseram, declared that they had gone
in boats along the side of the bridge, and traced it by the points
of rocks appearing above the water, almost in a direct line from
one land to the other, with here and there a small island where the
waves have not been able to make an impression: that further, heaps
of rocks similar to these are met with in various parts between here
and Ramisseram, which no doubt were not required; and you will remark
that in no other part of the country north of this do any similar ones
appear. There cannot therefore be a stronger proof of the truth of our
ancient religion than these hardened witnesses, which will last to the
end of the world, to the confusion of all unbelievers and sceptics."
"Mashalla!" said I; "it is a wonderful story, and true enough, for I
have heard of the bridge myself. We Moslims have it, that Baba Adam,
who was placed by Alla in the paradise of Serendeeb, which is Lanka,
got tired one day of his confinement to so small an island; and seeing
the main-land at a distance, made the bridge by throwing mountains
into the sea, each at seven coss distance, to get there. When it was
completed, he easily stepped from one to the other, and so gained the
land; but this action displeased Alla, who soon afterwards ejected him
from the paradise, and man has been a wanderer ever since."
"Yes," said Bhudrinath: "but is not my story the most probable,
especially when you see all these rocks piled up in so extraordinary a
manner as if in loads? Why, if a man wanted to carry a heap of stones,
he would pile them up in the same way; and see, these are in separate
heaps, just as they were laid down, some large, some small, according
no doubt to the strength of the parties who bore them."
"Alla ke Qoodrut," exclaimed I,--"it is the power of God. Mashalla!
they were great monkeys; it is well we have none of them nowadays, or
they would pelt us out of the land."