The Winds of the World Part 14

"I beg you to tell me where he is," he said stiffly, and she clapped her hands and laughed with such delight that he blushed to his ears again.

"I have had a prince on his knees to me, and many a priest," she chuckled, "aye, and many a soldier-but never yet a British colonel sahib. Kneel and beg!"

"Why-what-what d'ye mean?" demanded Kirby.

"Is his honor not your honor? I have heard it said. Then beg, Colonel sahib, on your knees-on those stiff British knees-beg for the honor of Ranjoor Singh!"

"D'you mean-d'you mean-?"

"Beg for his honor, and beg for his life, on your knees, Colonel sahib!"

"I could look the other way, sir," whispered Warrington, for the regiment's need was very real.

"Nay, both of you! Ye shall both beg!" said Yasmini, "or Ranjoor Singh shall taste a hillman's mercy. He shall die so dishonored that the regiment shall hang its head in shame."

"Impossible!" said Kirby. "His honor is as good as mine!'

"Then beg for his and thine-on your knees, Colonel sahib!"

Then it seemed to Colonel Kirby that the room began to swim, for what with the heat and what with an unconquerable dread of snakes, he was not in shape to play his will against this woman's.

"What if I kneel?" he asked.

"I will promise you Ranjoor Singh, alive and clean!"

"When?"

"In time!"

"In time for what?"

"Against the regiment's need!"

"No use. I want him at once!" said Colonel Kirby.

"Then go, sahib! Put out the fire with the sweat that streams from thee! Nay, go, both of you-ye have my leave to go! And what is a Sikh risaldar more or less? Nay, go, and let the Jat die!"

It is not to be written lightly that the British colonel of Outram's Own and his adjutant both knelt to a native woman-if she is a native-in a top back-room of a Delhi bazaar. But it has to be recorded that for the sake of Ranjoor Singh they did.

They knelt and placed their foreheads where she bade them, against the divan at her feet, and she poured enough musk in their hair, for the love of mischief, to remind them of what they had done until in the course of slowly moving nature the smell should die away. And then in a second the lights went out, each blown by a fan from behind the silken hangings.

They heard her silvery laugh, and they heard her spring to the floor. In cold, creeping sweat they listened to footsteps, and a little voice whispered in Hindustani:

"This way, sahibs!"

They followed, since there was nothing else to do and their pride was all gone, to be pushed and pulled by unseen hands and chuckling girls down stairs that were cut out of sheer blackness. And at the foot of the dark a voice that Warrington recognized shed new interest but no light on the mystery.

"Salaam, sahibs," said a fat babu, backing through a door in front of them and showing himself silhouetted against the lesser outer darkness. "Seeing regimental risaldar on the box seat, I took liberty. The risaldar-major is sending this by as yet unrewarded messenger, and word to the effect that back way out of burning house was easier than front way in. He sends salaam. I am unrewarded messenger."

He slipped something into Colonel Kirby's hands, and Kirby struck a match to examine it. It was Ranjoor Singh's ring that had the regimental crest engraved on it.

"Not yet rewarded!" said the babu.

Let the strong take the wall of the weak, (And there's plenty of room in the dust!) Let the bully be brave, but the meek No more in the way than he must.

Be crimson and ermine and gold, Good lying and living and mirth, (Oh, laugh and be fat!) the reward of the bold, But-(sotto voce)-the meek shall inherit the earth!

CHAPTER VII

"That's the man whose face was in the mirror!" said Warrington suddenly, reaching out to seize the babu's collar. "He's the man who wanted to be regimental clerk! He's the man who was offering to eat a German a day!... No-stand still, and I won't hurt you!"

"Bring him out into the fresh air!" ordered Kirby.

The illimitable sky did not seem big enough just then; four walls could not hold him. Kirby, colonel of light cavalry, and considered by many the soundest man in his profession, was in revolt against himself; and his collar was a beastly mess.

"Hurry out of this hole, for heaven's sake!" he exclaimed.

So Warrington applied a little science to the babu, and that gentleman went out through a narrow door backward at a speed and at an angle that were new to him-so new that he could not express his sensations in the form of speech. The door shut behind them with a slam, and when they looked for it they could see no more than a mark in the wall about fifty yards from the bigger door by which they had originally entered.

"There's the carriage waiting, sir!" said Warrington, and with a glance toward it to rea.s.sure himself, Kirby opened his mouth wide and filled his lungs three times with the fresh, rain-sweetened air.

There were splashes of rain falling, and he stood with bared head, face upward, as if the rain would wash Yasmini's musk from him. It was nearly pitch-dark, but Warrington could just see that the risaldar on the box seat raised his whip to them in token of recognition.

"Now then! Speak, my friend! What were you doing in there?" demanded Warrington.

"No, not here!" said Kirby. "We might be recognized. Bring him into the shay."

The babu uttered no complaint, but allowed himself to be pushed along at a trot ahead of the adjutant, and bundled head-foremost through the carriage door.

"Drive slowly!" ordered Kirby, clambering in last; and the risaldar sent the horses forward at a steady trot.

"Now!" said Warrington.

"H-r-r-ump!" said Kirby.

"My G.o.d, gentlemen!" said the babu. "Sahibs, I am innocent of all complicitee in this or any other eventualitee. I am married man, having family responsibilitee and other handicaps. Therefore-"

"Where did you get this ring?" demanded Kirby.

"That? Oh, that!" said the babu. "That is veree simplee told. That is simple little matter. There is nothing untoward in that connection. Risaldar-Major Ranjoor Singh, who is legal owner of ring, same being his property, gave it into my hand."

"When?"

Both men demanded to know that in one voice.

"Sahibs, having no means of telling time, how can I guess?"

"How long ago? About how long ago?"