The Hosts of the Lord Part 21

The first--a m.u.f.fled hammering from the darkness which hid the Viceroy's camp--told of departure, letting the night know that another white-winged tent was flitting, and that the dawn must be prepared to find its place empty, the dream-city in ruins, the Hosts of the Lord-_sahib_ gone.

The second told of arrival. It was a strange cry, soft, almost musical:--

"_Hara--Hari--Hara--Hari!_"

Then every now and again in a sort of chant: "_Ram--Ram--Sita--Ram!_"

It was the pilgrims' cry, their call on the Creator, the Destroyer, their appeal to the G.o.dhead in man and woman; for the forerunners of the great host to come were already nearing Eshwara on their road to the "Cradle of the G.o.ds."

But there was a fourth sound, inaudible--by reason of that ceaseless noise of water through the c.h.i.n.k of the sluice--except to those close by it, like George Dillon, as he stood on the hand-bridge above the closed gates looking down idly into the darkness which prevented him from seeing the cause of the sound. He had been up all night. On his return,--later than he had intended, owing to his determination not to be defied by any woman,--he had found that in his absence cholera had been hard at its work. So he had buckled to his, expecting one of those awful nights which live, even in a doctor's memory, as a horror, as a warning to those best fitted to stem the stream of death, that they are but straws on its surface.

But he had been mistaken. True, for an hour or so, cases had come in quicker than they could be attended to; then, suddenly, they ceased to come in at all. That had been eight hours ago. Too short a respite for certainty, but Dr. Dillon, being no novice in such work, had his hopes; the more so because the disease, from the very outset, had become steadily less and less virulent. Even so, seven dead bodies lay awaiting the first glint of dawn; therefore, as ill-luck would have it, there would be seven columns of smoke on the river's edge for all to see!

It was inevitable, however, nor could he do more to prevent others coming. So he had been on his way back to his own house for a few hours' rest when the dreamy splash of the water made him pause to lean over the hand-rail and listen to it, as he finished his cigar in the open.

Then it was that he heard a faint tap, tapping, as of a ghostly hand on a door. What was it? It was quite distinct, though almost as low as the "_lip, lipping_" of the water, made restless by that gla.s.sy curve against the gates.

A curiosity to know seized on him. There was already a glimmer of dawn in the east; he might as well wait and see.

It was not long before a streak of something faintly white made him call himself a fool. The cause was a log of wood. He might have thought of that. Even that faint setting of a stream towards a new way must have drifted it here. The thought made him frown, for this fulfilment of the river-people's prophecy was annoying; the more so from its absolute unlikelihood. Years might pa.s.s without such a chance coming again; yet it had come the very first day! It was too bad. The stars in their courses were fighting against him. In a pet he threw the remains of his cigar from him, and was striding off, when a faint glimmer, as of a candle, made him turn sharply and look down whence it came.

The lighted end of his cigar had fallen on something dry, inflammable, which had blazed up. But it was only for a second; the next found darkness, save for that still, faint, glimmer of white. But the brief gleam had told him it was not a log which had drifted astray--

It was a corpse.

That _tap, tapping_ he had heard had been from the dead feet seeking vainly to pa.s.s through the c.h.i.n.k of the sluice, swerving with the side current, coming back, again and again. He stood, grasping the rail, staring down at the dim outline almost incredulously, and feeling, despite himself, a trifle s.h.i.+very.

Then the remembrance that this was a thing which must be seen by none, which somehow, and as quickly as possible, must be set on its right road again, made him hurry back to where he knew some coils of rope, which had been used for bunting at the ceremony, were lying. Seizing one--still gaily decorated--he tied a brick to one end, and hurried back to the bridge. By dropping this weighted rope over the dim white streak he was able to edge it gradually to one side, until it lay moored against the wall of the basin. Kneeling down for a closer look, he could see, in the fast-growing light, that it was the corpse of a woman. He could even guess the death she died, and if proof was needed, it could be found in the hands folded at full stretch down the body; the thumbs, pointing upward, linked by an iron ring. To this iron ring had been looped a little tuft of the tri-coloured hank of cotton which plays so large a part in marriage ceremonial. Dr. Dillon stood up and swore under his breath.

The fates were, indeed, inexorable in their spite. Of all things unlucky for the changing stream to claim, a corpse seeking union with Mother Ganges was the worst; and of all corpses, this--the cursed one, which had held two lives and could send one back to haunt men--was the worst.

He must get rid of it somehow, if he could.

Fastening the rope, so strangely out of keeping, all hung as it was with gay colours, to the iron ring which showed about the ankles, he proceeded to tow the body back along the basin, past the first gates, and so to the river itself. Thus far was simple. But how was he to get it afloat on a current strong enough to sweep it beyond danger of its returning to tap at the gates once more?

The dawn was hastening with great leaps of light that shot in broad bars from the darkest spot in all the dark horizon; the spot which would soon be the brightest, ablaze with the sun himself. Already the broad s.h.i.+eld of the river was changing its heraldry--the sable was turning to steel, sign that the world would side with the light.

What was to be done?

He looked over the wide waste of sand and water, with a perplexity which vanished suddenly in a smile, as he caught sight of a round shadow like a man's head dipping and dancing on the surface. He walked on to the last dry spot of land and shouted--

"Ai! fisherman! Ai! Gu-gu! Am-ma! anybody! Come and earn a gold _mohur!_"

It was Am-ma. Luckily, perhaps, since the idea of even towing a dead body such as this might have been too much for semi-civilized Gu-gu.

Am-ma, however, had not ever borrowed his neighbours' superst.i.tions. In fact, ever since he, the Miss-_sahiba_ and the _Dee-puk-rag_ had bested the devil between them, he had felt himself to be invulnerable. So, he a.s.sured Dr. Dillon affably, were the _Huzoors_; therefore he obeyed them. Consequently, less than five minutes after the call, with a vague wonder as to what sixteen rupees would feel like, all at once, in a man's palm, he was heading hard to the nearest stream capable of carrying the thing he had in tow back to the path of purification. This happened to be towards Eshwara, and beyond a sandy point set with tamarisks which jutted out above the ca.n.a.l head. There was, of course, a certain stream against him, and to save himself exertion and finish the job--as he had agreed to do--before dawn, he swam for the most part under water, only coming up, after his habit, for air.

Now it so happened, also, that Gu-gu had thought fit to set nets for wild-fowl, and was even now dozing, while he waited for the result, in the same tamarisk jungle. But the sound of something swis.h.i.+ng through the water against the stream roused him in a second, and even without the glimpse, which the coming dawn gave him, of a long streak parting the river with a curved ripple like the prow of a boat, his experience told him what it was sure to be. Briefly, someone of the river people,--Am-ma for choice, since who but Am-ma had the luck of such things--had happened on the chance of stealing a log from the piles about the ca.n.a.l workshops. He was now, after time-honoured precedent, towing it to the stream where, having set it adrift, he would recapture it, and, of course, claim his reward for so doing!

But two could play that game. When secrecy made it necessary for a thief to swim for the most part under water, it was easy to swim under water too, across the track of the robber, cut his prize adrift, and put your weight on the rope instead.

Then you could either choose revenge, and let an enemy tow you home--which was a side-splitting trick,--or you might wait till your adversary came up breathless, and dash after the prize yourself. Even if you could not secure the whole, half profits were generally possible.

Therefore, slipping noiselessly into the stream like an alligator, he was off across the track in a second; swimming, of course, under water.

He came, up once for air, and smiled to see how far he had come; so, fearing lest the holder of the unseen tow-rope might chance to come up at the same time, his black head went under once more.

When it came up again, it was within a few yards of the long white streak. He gave one look at it, let loose a yell of abject terror, and almost turning a somersault in his haste to escape, his head went down again, his feet went skywards, and though his lungs nearly burst in the effort, he came up no more till he felt certain he must have put a screen of tamarisk between him and the horror. He had; but his teeth chattered, his eyes were half out of his head when he scrambled, hands and knees, on to the bank, and lying face down on the dry sand, moaned and shuddered. What else could a man do who had seen a cursed corpse breasting the stream on its way back to Eshwara? To whose house? That, however, was quite a secondary consideration to a man who was already as good as dead; since what man had ever survived the sight of a _churail?_

The certainty of his own fate, after a while, made him absolutely, recklessly, calm. He gathered up his nets, wrung the necks of the few birds he had caught pitilessly, and went with them, as usual, to the bazaars. Not only for profit, however. Other men should taste of his fear. Other men should know that they too might have to die!

Am-ma, meanwhile, having seen nothing when he came up wondering what the sound was which had filtered to his ears through the water, had gone on his way unwitting, found the stream, cut the corpse adrift himself, and gone back to his fis.h.i.+ng.

It was not until he also went into the bazaar with his basket, that he found it ringing with the direful portent; yet for all that going its way buying and selling, squabbling over the uttermost part of a farthing; since portents are ever with an Indian bazaar. At first, when called upon to verify Gu-gu's story, Am-ma, remembering his promise of secrecy, gave it stout denial; but when the real truth of what had occurred dawned on his slow brain, the opportunity for piling agony on to his rival was too strong for him, and he burst into details, all of which made Gu-gu's chance of escape still more remote. The corpse had shot after him with a speed only equal to the fire-boats in which the _Huzoors_ came across the black water; it had sat up, and beckoned, and called "_Gu-gu! Gu-gu!_"

"But if thou hast seen all this, thou, too, must die!" remarked the syrup-seller round whose shop the talk was loudest.

Am-ma laughed vaingloriously. "Not I! The devils are afraid of me. See you, I have taken the _Huzoors_ for my G.o.d; I am on the strong side."

"Hark to him!" jeered another of his own tribe who was also selling fish. "He cannot balance his basket on his head, he holds it so high since the wood-_sahib_ up the river hath bidden him guide their big raft,--as if he was a whit better than the rest of us!"

Am-ma smiled peacefully. "That is true, brother. I go for the raft this very day. But I leave a son in my house, if the luck goes against me.

That is the _Huzoors'_ doing. They have the _Dee-puk-rag_. They are the Light-bringers, the Birth-bringers!"

A tall man, in curiously crumpled clothing, who had just joined the group, gave a hollow laugh. "Birth-bringers!" he echoed. "Ay! and Death-bringers, too. They took seven in the gaol last night. I have it from a sure hand." That might well be, seeing that he was none other than the _gosain_ Gopi, who, scarcely an hour agone, had been given his ticket-of-leave and the clothes in which he had been convicted two years before. They had since then been rolled up, and ticketed with his name and number; hence the creases.

"The doctor cuts a hole in their heads," he went on calmly, "takes out their brains, and puts the bit back. Then 'tis cholera. That is why they burn them in their clothing and their _caps_, so that none may see. But they _say_, 'tis for the safety of the living; as if that did not lie with the G.o.ds!"

"Hark to him!" said approving voices. "Yea! hark to him, the pious one!"

The long bazaar lay flooded with suns.h.i.+ne and life. The quails were calling from their hooded cages, the sacred monkeys were chattering about the sweetmeat-sellers' shops, men and women were going about eager on their own affairs, and a group of schoolboys on their way to a mission school came along, their books under their arms,--a quaint collection, for the most part. A copy of the Gospels, Sa'adi's Gulistan, and the Hitopadesa, certainly; a treatise, in English, on the latest theories of mind and matter, equally so; selections from general literature, probably; with Burke's speeches and Addison's _Spectator_, possibly.

One or two of these boys paused in their school talk to listen, as a voice said fearfully:--

"'Twill be for '_momai_' they want them. Folks say they are running short of power."

Gopi shook his head. "That may be; but these are to grease the slots of the ca.n.a.l sluice; without it, water will not run. One brain--his, that they killed with the light--opened it but one inch; as all can see if they choose. And these seven will not go far. What matter? There be plenty more where they came from."

The gossipers looked at each other. "Yea! that is so. It opens but an inch, and there are many prisoners," they said, with that curious faculty for giving heart-whole a.s.sent to the truthful foundations of a lie which makes the latter go so far in India.

The boys went on. There was nothing about the dynamic and hydraulic power of a man's brain in their treatises; but, after all, the statement was scarcely so strange to ignorance as many another held in the books under their arms.

"The times are bad," remarked someone, chiefly to give a fresh fillip to the flagging horrors. "They say the 'Pool of Immortality,' will be dry to-morrow."

A trail of saffron-robed pilgrims who were pa.s.sing, under the charge of a priest, looked at their guide doubtfully. If this was to be so, what was the use of having given him a rupee each to be admitted thereto at the most auspicious moment?

"Lo! 'tis easy to father that falsehood!" cried the priest in charge, venomously eyeing a similar figure to his own, which was also followed patiently, trustfully, by a band of men and women and children, all in their saffron robes. "When folks have had their own miracle stopped, they would fain stop other folks' also. Have no fear, my children! The sacred water will rise as ever, and send your souls blameless to the 'Cradle of the G.o.ds.'"

It would have been easy enough for his rival to throw doubts on the genuineness of the pool miracle, had it been sound policy to do so; but before those patient, trustful faces, desirous only to save their souls alive at any cost, it was unwise to sap at the foundations of faith. So the reply contented itself with a.s.sertions that there was no fear either, for them. Tampion or no tampion, _jogi_ Gorakh-nath had promised to be inside the gun as ever. And that would be a newer, a better, miracle, than any other in Eshwara!

Here a fresh voice put in its word; for the syrup-seller's shop, being at one corner of the central square or _chowk_ of four bazaars, no one who had any errand of any sort in Eshwara could fail to pa.s.s it sooner or later. Therefore, Dya Ram and some other pleaders, on their way thus early in the morning to the tahsil court, were bound to overhear the priest's boast.