Voices in the Night Part 14

But others, though they pa.s.sed homewards in batches still full of discussion, still drunk with words, were pa.s.sing to environments which were, in a way, even more empty than his. So empty of the sentiments they had just been formulating, so much at variance with the ideals they had just professed, that the very imagination grows bewildered in the effort to reconcile the two.

Govind the editor, however, had less difficulty than most in accommodating his mental position to a stool stuck over the reeking gutter of a liquor shop, where he refreshed himself with a brandy-and-soda and an infamous cigar. He was in an evil temper, because the meeting, which he frequented chiefly because the speakers provided him with ideas wherewith to spice his own broadsheet, had been unusually discreet; so he would have to write his own sedition; unless he could pick up some scurrilous news instead.

'Nay, friend! I know naught to suit thy purpose,' replied the stout sergeant of police who frequented the same liquor shop, to whom he applied; 'save the finding of the Lady-_sahib's_ jewel-box.'

'And the pearls?' asked Govind, taking out a greasy stump of pencil.

'The pearls!' echoed the policeman scornfully, 'as if pearls were to be found by us! They can be hid in a body's very mouth, and then, if there be not another mouth with a tongue in it, there is silence! But the box is enough to keep the file of the case open, and the inspector content for a while.'

'How many are in the lock-up concerning it?' asked Govind, out of the fulness of his knowledge regarding police methods.

'Six,' yawned the sergeant. 'The coolie who found the box broken and empty, flung in the bushes by the Lat-_sahib's_ house; he was setting the fireworks for the big spectacle to-morrow. He sold it to a p.a.w.nbroker. That makes two for us. Then a woman bought the velvet lining from a rag-merchant. That makes four. She gave it to Has.h.i.+m, tailor, who works for the _Huzoors_, as a cap to her grandchild.

And he, having doubts, informed us. So he makes five. Then the firework-maker's people were turbulent, therefore we arrested one of them to show diligence.'

'And there was naught in the box when it was found?' asked Govind. He was writing now on one of the smoothed-out squares of white waste-paper which lay in a pile beside the liquor seller, who used them for wiping the rims of the tumblers, out of deference to the caste prejudices of his customers against a general cloth.

'G.o.d knows!' yawned the policeman piously. 'The man saith not; but there were letters besides the trinkets and the pearls, and we may find _them_, if not the others. Folk will not lose a _cowrie's_ worth of waste-paper these hard times.'

'Ay!' a.s.sented the liquor seller, eyeing Govind askance. 'Mine had to be paid for, though some seem to think not. And paid high too, since the firework-makers were in the market for their squibs and crackers for to-morrow.'

A man lounging outside in the gutter laughed suddenly, viciously. 'They will find enough for _them_ anyhow, even if they _have_ the police at their tails!' he said, moving off with a defiant _salaam_ to the fat policeman.

'I would I had handcuffed a pair of them,' remarked the latter mildly.

''Twould have been one trouble, and 'tis well to save oneself what one can these hard times.'

'Trouble!' echoed a pa.s.ser-by, shaking his head, 'there will be no saving of that in Nushapore. Jan-Ali-shan hath returned and brought the plague, so folk say.'

The liquor seller turned in quick interest to the sergeant of police.

'Dost know if he hath returned?' he asked; for the loafer was a customer who owed money, and must be got hold of while money was in his pockets.

For answer the policeman chucked away his cigar end, stumbled off the dais of the shop, and stood to attention, as a figure rounded the angle of the next crossway street, followed by a crowd of ragged half-naked urchins. It was Jan-Ali-shan himself, washed, shaved, spruce, in a second-hand suit of _khaki_ uniform and a white helmet which he had redeemed from a p.a.w.nshop on the credit of his new appointment as foreman of works. Jan-Ali-shan, who, from sheer habit, had, on finding himself in the city with money in his pocket, gone straight for his old haunt. From the new resolutions, however, which with him always began with new work, he called for a 'gingerade plain' in a voice of authority, which made a little circle gather round him admiringly, as after humming a stave of 'Drink to me only with thine eyes,' while he was opening the bottle, he proceeded to pour its fizzing contents down his throat.

The interest of the crowd seemed to amuse him, he sate down on the plinth and drew out a handful of _pice_ in lordly fas.h.i.+on.

'Two anna, over an' above,' he said, holding up the coins, 'and I don't want no change. So which of you n.o.ble earls,' here he turned to his following of lads, 'is goin' to fight for the balance? You understand?

_Lurro abhi, jut put_, an' be _burra burra pailwan_ for two pice a 'ed (fight now immediately and be great heroes).'

The vile admixture of tongues seemed quite comprehensible to those acquainted with Jan-Ali-shan's methods, for two urchins stepped forward at once, and the rest joined with the other loungers to form a ring.

John Ellison, loafer, leant back against the wall at his ease.

'Now then, _nap_,'[6] he began, 'back to back fair and square. None o'

yer _n.i.g.g.e.r blarney_,[7] you young devil! Fight _seeda_,[8] or it ain't worth fightin' at all. And I won't 'ave no b.u.t.tin' in the stummick.

You're _pailwans m'henda nahin_ (heroes, not fighting rams). _Sumjha?_'

The boys professed to understand, and, having divested themselves of their last rag, stood like slim bronze statues in the sunlight.

'Are you ready?' asked Jan-Ali-shan with superb gravity. 'Then _chul_ (go), an' may the Lord 'ave mercy on your souls.'

They were locked in each other's grip in a second in true Western fas.h.i.+on.

'_Shab-bas.h.!.+_' said the holder of the stakes with an approving nod 'That's wrestlin'. None o' yer slappin's an' b.u.t.tin's and boo-in's.

_Shab-bas.h.!.+_ boys. _Shab-bas.h.!.+_'

The crowd grinned widely at the praise, and, as the combatants struggled and swayed, discussed their family history and took sides, after the manner of crowds all over the world. Quite a breath of anxiety ran through it as a fall came, but came sideways. There was no dust on the back yet!--there would not be!--yes! there would.

Aha! aha! there _was_, surely!

There would have been, doubtless, for the uppermost boy's small brown hand had freed itself for a second from its grip and sought blindly on the ground for that recognised weapon in Indian wrestling, dust for the adversary's eyes, had not Jan-Ali-shan, seeing the action, sprung to his feet, stooped over the writhing figures, and seizing the top one by the scruff of its neck, held it up by one hand and shaken it as a terrier shakes a rat.

'None o' yer monkey tricks, none o' yer _n.i.g.g.ar blarneying_, you young sneak,' he said roughly, as he dropped his whimpering prisoner from mid air, 'or I'll make _mutti_[9] of you. _Bus!_ (enough). T'other Johnny's _jeetgia_ (won). Here, sonny! take your _do paisa_.'

The crowd, however, which had been betting freely on the event, hesitated; the supporters of the dust-thrower grumbled. They were headed by Govind, who began with great pomp--

'I would have you aware, sir, that use of dust is not non-regulation in our code; therefore the other boy is victor.

John Ellison looked at him condescendingly, and turned up the cuffs of his coat with unnecessary elaboration.

'Ain't it in your code, _baboo_?' he said, with equally elaborate civility, 'an' t'other chap 'as won, has he? I'm glad t'hear it. But this is my show, and, 'by the Lord 'oo made me! I'm goin' to run it myself. An' if any gentleman 'as a objection to make, let 'im make it now, or for ever after 'old 'is peace.'

The crowd made way for him hastily, as he drove a three-feet pa.s.sage through it with his elbows; but as he walked jauntily down the bazaar, the boys fell in behind him and kept step, as he did, to the 'Wedding March,' which he whistled in reminiscent continuation of his last words. For they knew Jan-Ali-shan of old as one who, drunk or sober, always had a reward for fair fighting.

'What did the _M'lechcha_[10] say?' asked a grumbler who did not know English.

'That 'twas nothing to him what was our custom. It was his, and that settled it. It is their word! Well! let them say it! We will see, brothers, if it is true, will we not?' replied Govind viciously.

A murmur of approval ran through the bystanders, but an old dodderer with a white beard, who, in Eastern fas.h.i.+on, was dozing through his days, waiting for death, crouched up comfortably on a string bed set in the sun, said dreamily--

'Didst say it was Jan-Ali-shan? Yea! it was his word. I have heard him say it; and he keeps it, my sons! he keeps it!'

Govind turned on the speaker scornfully. 'Those were other times, _baba_, and another Jan-Ali-shan. The times have changed and men too----'

A thin musical laugh interrupted him. It came from Lateefa, the kite-maker, who was pa.s.sing with his bundle of kites for sale.

'Lo! _baboo-jee_!' he said. 'I know naught of time but my poor portion of it, nor of man save my poor self! But I change not, and I am as others. We are like kites; the form changes not unless the maker chooses, and G.o.d, so say the Moulvies, changes not at all. He makes men on the old pattern ever; the rest is but dye and tinsel.'

So he pa.s.sed on, tossing his bundle, and chanting the street-seller's cry--

'Your eyes use, and choose!

Use your eyes and choose!'

CHAPTER VII

CRACKERS AND SQUIBS