Voices in the Night Part 42

'Not worth it! They're like the fifty thousand Irish patriots.'

'What patriots?' asked the chief snappishly. He hailed from across St.

George's Channel himself, and was a trifle touchy on the point of his countrymen's disloyalty.

'The fifty thousand Irish patriots whom the orator said were armed to the teeth ready to strike a blow for liberty. "Then why the devil don't they strike it?" asked one of the audience. "Bedad! the polis' won't let them."'

'Hm! the "polis" wouldn't, if I'd my way,' muttered the old soldier.

Sir George, meanwhile, had gone straight to his wife's sitting-room; for he was already due at his daily reception of native visitors, and he had something he wished to tell her.

Scrupulously particular as he was about the absolutely English ordering of his home-life, there was something fantastic--even to him--to-day in the sight of Grace in a low rocking-chair, reading Hans Andersen to Jerry, in a room as dainty and sweet with English flowers as any in an English country-house. What possible right had this to be here, cheek by jowl with the city! And between them nothing but Shark Lane!

'Well! George?' she asked almost nervously, for, despite the days that had pa.s.sed, her fear lest that unlucky letter should turn up to give the lie to her husband's protestations on the part of the Government, lingered with her.

'Only those two ladies, my dear,' he answered with a certain meritorious air to which he had a perfect right; for he was almost worked off his legs, and might very excusably have forgotten all about poor Khojee's appeal. 'Dawkins inquired. They belong to Jehan Aziz's pensioners. But there is a discrepancy. He says they are young and flighty girls, so he is obliged to keep them tight----'

'My dear George! she was as old as old----'

'She need not have been one of the real pet.i.tioners, my dear. In fact, seeing that they are strictly secluded, I doubt if she could be. It is quite easy to personate, when no one has any means of knowing----'

'And quite easy to say people are young and flighty, when they are not, _if they cant be seen_. How are we to find out?'

Sir George looked thoughtful. 'I'm afraid we must take the Nawab's word. Or, with his approval, we might appoint----'

'Some one who would agree with him,' interrupted Grace impatiently.

'I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go myself. His house is somewhere by the Garden Gate, isn't it? Surely, George, there can be no objection to that,' she added, noting his look.

He paused a moment; then said gravely: 'Only one; and that is, that we must have as little communication with the city as possible for some time to come, Grace. Yes,' he continued, as she looked at him startled.

'It is on us; but there is no need, of course, to worry for the next few days at any rate.'

She rose and stood looking out of the window thoughtfully. 'You never can tell,' she said. 'Father used always to say so to his young officers: "Remember that in India you cannot tell what the next day may bring forth."'

'Used he to say that to Mr. Raymond?'

If a bombsh.e.l.l had fallen between those two it could scarcely have startled them both more.

'George!' exclaimed Lady Arbuthnot reproachfully.

'I beg your pardon, my dear,' he said, going up to her with the quaintest look of elated affection, as if he were rather proud of himself; 'I don't know why the deuce I said that--except that--well!

that the best of us can't quite forget--I don't believe you do--we are all a bit fundamental. However, what I mean is that times have changed since your father's day.'

'And yet you say every one is fundamental,' she interrupted in a voice that held both tears and laughter, tenderness and a faint resentment.

'And that is so true--we go back and back.'

'Then I shall go back too,' he replied cheerfully. 'Only I must give the New Diplomacy a chance. Besides'--here an obstinate look crept over his face--'as a matter of fact I have to obey orders like every one else, and my orders are clear; thanks--I don't mean it nastily--to you and your father. In fact I'm very much obliged to you. It relieves me of a lot of responsibility. All the same, I can a.s.sure that there is not the very faintest chance of difficulty for the next week at any rate. There cannot be--for the simple reason that we are not going to offend any one's prejudices. For instance, no search for plague patients will be made for the present except by special request of the natives themselves. So I really cannot see----'

'Is it likely we could?' asked Grace quickly, 'when we cannot see if a woman is young or old?--when we have to trust interested people for information? George! I often wonder you men have the courage to rule India, when you know nothing of its women, except that there has been one at the bottom of every trouble you have ever had.'

Sir George smiled indulgently. 'Well, my dear, I hope they will keep their fingers out of this pie.'

It was rather a vain hope, considering that at that very moment Govind Ram's fingers were all black with lithographic ink, and that the first edition of his broadsheet was being hawked through the bazaars. There was quite a crowd round Dilaram's balcony where, in full dress, she sat, defiant yet sullen; now refusing to say a word, now letting herself loose in shrill abuse with disconcerting candour. She find recruits for such as Miss Leezie? Not she! Though, had she chosen, she might here had followed tales half-true, half false, that were listened to, not with eagerness or anger, but with the calm a.s.sent which is so much more dangerous, since it pa.s.ses on to tell the tale with additions in the next street.

By evening it was all over the city that Dilaram and her like were to be put in gaol for refusing to kidnap girls for the _Sirkar_. And that the _Sirkar_ in consequence, being hard put to it, would be sure to make the plague--which the doctors had discovered that very day, though, G.o.d knows, folk had been dying that way for a week--an excuse to search respectable houses for recruits to Miss Leezie's profession.

Such a thing may seem impossible to those who have not lived in a native town, but those who have, know that nothing is incredible to its vast curiosity, its still more vast ignorance. In the dead darkness of that, as in the darkness of night, all voices are equal.

And so round the smouldering rubbish-heaps and within the closed doors of the courtyards where the women gathered, as in the bazaar, the tale was told; not with absolute a.s.surance, but tentatively. So folk said; and so, no doubt, it had been in the past. It remained to be seen if it would be so in the present, since _that_ was all poor folk had to consider. And as the tale was told, a sound of sudden wailing would rise far or near in the city to prove part of the tale was true.

The plague had come.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FREEDOM OF DEATH

Jehan Aziz had withdrawn his charge of theft against Lateefa by saying that the whole affair was a misunderstanding, and that the ring was in the possession of the Nawabin, to whom it really belonged. It had been returned to her without his knowledge; _etcetera, etcetera, etcetera!_

Now a monopoly in lies gives freedom, but when you have an accomplice whose fertility of imagination exceeds your own, there is tyranny in them. Jehan found this out when Lateefa, after one silent second of surprise, had grasped the position, and instantly claimed his right to lie also. For in India false accusation is a sort of personal duel in which the challenger, having chosen his weapon, cannot complain of his opponent's more skilful use of it.

So Lateefa had launched into corroborative evidence of the most startling description. Did not the Nawab-_sahib_ remember this, and that? And Jehan had remembered. What else could he do?

But he felt it was dangerous work, and was glad when Lateefa's audience was confined to the coachman who drove them back to the city, in the wagonette lined with red flannel and tied up with string! Yet, all the time that he was enlarging, Lateefa was wondering if there was any truth whatever in the story he had been confirming.

Had the ring really been found?

The fact that Burkut Ali was waiting to receive them in the little house next Dilaram's, inclined him to believe it was not, and that there was still some scheming afoot.

But, on the other hand, the ring might really be lost. The kite might have fluttered down in the next courtyard, or the next. It was a pure chance.

His first glance into the little backyard, however, showed him that the chance had been in his favour. He had the eyes of a hawk, and, even from a distance, could see, not only that those were the kites crumpled in one corner, but that the precious morsel of ballast was still in its place.

And this knowledge gave him, instantly, an enormous advantage over the two plotters, to whom it was, of course, inconceivable that he should, already, know for a certainty that the ring had not been found.

So when, in the most natural manner in the world, they congratulated each other on his being freed from a false accusation in time to allow of his making kites for the annual compet.i.tion amongst the immediate members of the Royal Family, for what was called the 'Sovereignty of Air,' he a.s.sented cheerfully and waited for them to go further. Which they did, by saying that as it was most important to have the best of kites, he had better go back to the old workshop, since the courtyard here was too narrow and sunless to dry the paste and paper quick enough. Indeed, the last kites he had made there had flown askew.

Here Lateefa crossed to the battered ones in the corner, and shook his head over them solemnly. It was true, he said, such kites would ill carry the honour of kings. Yet, since he had none too much leisure--if the trial was to be in two days' time--he would waste no good daylight in moving tools. That could be done at any hour, and leave him half-a-day's work here.

On which Jehan and Burkut winked at each other, thinking it evident that he was falling into the trap, and was man[oe]uvring for an opportunity of getting at his hiding-place. So they gave it to him, discreetly, by playing cards meanwhile on the string bed set this time _within_ the room across the doorway; thus combining complete isolation with comparative freedom. Whereat Lateefa smiled to himself.

It was quite a happy little family party, and Lateefa sang, as usual, of 'oughts' and 'naughts' as he worked; sang all the more cheerfully when those two began to yawn.

He kept them at the yawning, out of pure mischief, until it was almost dark; then he piled the kites he had made in the corner, tied his tools into a bundle, and asked the cardplayers politely to let him pa.s.s.

Whereupon, as he knew they would, they closed the door and stripped him. He did not expostulate. He seemed to think it quite right that they should thus prove the truth of their own words. He had not, he confessed, been sure, before, of the a.s.sertion that the ring was in the Nawabin's possession. He had thought that, perhaps, the Light-of-the-Universe had retained it himself. Now it was evident that he had not.