Rung Ho! Part 8

Now, the gist of the thing is--Be silent. Be calm.

Be awake. Be on hand on the day.

Be instant to heed the first note of alarm.

And--precisely--exactly--Obey.

AT Howrah, while Mahommed Gunga was employing each chance circ.u.mstance to test the pluck and decision and reliability of Cunningham at almost every resting-place along the Grand Trunk Road, the armed squire he had left behind with a little handful of gold mohurs and three horses was finding time heavy on his hands.

Like his master, Ali Partab was a man of action, to whom the purlieus of a caravansary were well enough on rare occasions. He could ruffle it with the best of them; like any of his race, he could lounge with dignity and listen to the tales that hum wherever many hors.e.m.e.n congregate; and he was no mean raconteur--he had a tale or two to tell himself, of women and the chase and of the laugh that he, too, had flung in the teeth of fear when opportunity arose.

But each new story of the paid taletellers, who squat and drone and reach a climax, and then pa.s.s the begging bowl before they finish it--each merrily related jest brought in by members of the constantly arriving trading parties--each neigh of his three chargers--every new phase of the kaleidoscopic life he watched stirred new ambition in him to be up, and away, and doing. Many a dozen times he had to remind himself that "there had been a trust imposed."

He exercised the horses daily, riding each in turn until he was as lean and lithe and hard beneath the skin as they were. They were Mahommed Gunga's horses--he Mahommed Gunga's man; therefore, his honor was involved. He reasoned, when he took the trouble to, along the good clean feudal line that lays down clearly what service is: there is no honor, says that argument, in serving any one who is content with half a service, and the honor is the only thing that counts.

As day succeeded ever sultrier, ever longer-drawn-out day--as each night came that saw him peg the horses out wherever what little breezes moved might fan them--as he sat among the courtyard groups and listened in the heavy heat, the fact grew more apparent to him that this trust of his was something after all which a man of worth might shoulder proudly.

There was danger in it.

The talk among the traders--darkly hinted, most of it, and couched in metaphor--was all of blood, and what would follow on the letting of it.

Now and then a loud-mouthed boaster would throw caution to the winds and speak openly of a grim day coming for the British; he would be checked instantly by wiser men, but not before Ali Partab had heard enough to add to his private store of information.

Priests came from a dozen cities to the eastward, all nominally after pilgrims for the sacred places, but all strangely indifferent to their quest. They preferred, it would seem, to sit in rings with chance-met ruffians--with believers and unbelievers alike--even with men of no caste at all--and talk of other things than pilgrimages.

"Next year, one hundred years ago the English conquered India. Remember ye the prophecy? One hundred years they had! This, then, is the last year. Whom the G.o.ds would whelm they first deprive of reason; mark ye this! The cartridges they serve out to the sepoys now are smeared with the blended fat of cows and pigs. Knowing that we Hindoos hold the cow a sacred beast, they do this sacrilege--and why? They would make us bite the cartridges and lose our caste. And why again? Because they would make us Christians! That is the truth! Else why are the Christian missionaries here in Howrah?"

The listeners would nod while the little red fires glowed and purred above the pipes, and others not included in the circle strained forward through the dark to listen.

"The G.o.ds get ready now! Are ye ready?"

Elsewhere, a hadji--green-turbaned from the pilgrimage to Mecca--would hold out to a throng of true believers.

"Ay! Pig's fat on the cartridges! The new drill is that the sepoy bites the cartridge first, to spill a little powder and make priming. Which true believer wishes to defile himself with pig's fat? Why do they this? Why are the Christian missionaries here? Ask both riddles with one breath, for both two are one!"

"Slay, then!"

"Up now, and slay!"

There would be an instant, eager restlessness, while Ali Partab would glance over to where the horses stood, and would wonder why the word that loosed him was so long in coming. The hadji would calm his listeners and tell them to get ready, but be still and await the sign.

"There were to be one hundred years, ran the prophecy; but ninety-nine and a portion have yet run. Wait for the hour!"

Then, for perhaps the hundredth time, Ali Partab would pretend that movement alone could save one or other of his horses from heat apoplexy.

He would mount, and ride at a walking pace through the streets that seemed like a night view of a stricken battle-field, turn down by the palace wall, and then canter to the schoolhouse, where the hag--wiser than her mistress--would be sleeping in the open.

"Thou! Mother of a murrain! Toothless one! Is there no word yet?"

The hag would leer up through the heavy darkness--make certain that he had no lance with him with which to prod her in the ribs--scratch herself a time or two like a stray dog half awakened--and then leer knowingly.

"Hast thou the gold mohurs?" she would demand.

"Am I a sieve?"

"Let my old eyes see them, sahib."

He would take out two gold coins and hold them out in such a way that she could look at them without the opportunity to s.n.a.t.c.h.

"There is no word yet," she would answer, when her eyes had feasted on them as long as his patience would allow.

"Have they no fear then?"

"None. Only madness!"

"See that they bite thee not! Keep thy wits with thee, and be ready to bring me word in time, else--"

"Patience, sahib! Show me the coins again--one little look--again once!"

But Ali Partab would wheel and ride away, leaving her to mumble and gibber in the road and curl again on to her blanket in the blackest corner by the door.

Once, on an expedition of that kind, he encountered Duncan McClean himself. The lean, tall Scotsman, gray-headed from the cares he had taken on himself, a little bowed from heat and hopelessness, but showing no least symptom of surrender in the kind, strong lines of a rugged face, stood, eyes upward, in the moonlight. The moon, at least, looked cool. It was at the full, like a disk of silver, and he seemed to drink in the beams that bathed him.

"Does he wors.h.i.+p it?" wondered Ali Partab, reining from an amble to a walk and watching half-reverently. The followers of Mohammed are most superst.i.tious about the moon. The feeling that he had for this man of peace who could so gaze up at it was something very like respect, and, with the twenty-second sense that soldiers have, he knew, without a word spoken or a deed seen done, that this would be a wielder of cold steel to be reckoned should he ever slough the robes of peace and take it into his silvered head to fight. The Rajput, that respects decision above all other virtues, perhaps because it is the one that he most lacks, could sense firm, unshakable, quick-seized determination on the instant.

Duncan McClean acknowledged the fierce-seeming stare with a salute, and Ali Partab dismounted instantly. He who holds a trust from such as Mahommed Gunga is polite in recognition of the trust. He leaned, then, against the horse's withers, wondering how far he ought to let politeness go and whether his honor bade him show contempt for the Christian's creed.

"Is there any way, I wonder," asked the Scotsman, the clean-clipped suspicion of Scots dialect betraying itself even through the Hindustanee that he used, "of getting letters through to some small station?"

"I know not," said the Rajput.

"You are a Mohammedan?" The Scotsman peered at him, adjusting his viewpoint to the moon's rays. "I see you are. A Rajput, too, I think."

"Ha, sahib."

"There was a Rangar here not very long ago." This man evidently knew the proper t.i.tle to give a he true believer of the proudest race there is.

Ali Partab's heart began to go out to him--"an officer, I think, once of the Rajput Horse, who very kindly carried letters for me. Perhaps you know of some other gentleman of your race about to travel northward? He could earn, at least, grat.i.tude."

"So-ho!" thought Ali Partab to himself. "I have known men of his race who would have offered money, to be spat on!--Not now, sahib," he answered aloud.

"Mahommed Gunga was the officer's name. Do you know him, or know of him, by any chance?"

"Ha, sahib, I know him well. It is an honor."

The Scotsman smiled. "He must be very far away by this time. How many are there, I wonder, in India who have such things said of them when their backs are turned?"

"More than a few, sahib! I would draw steel for the good name of more than a hundred men whom I know, and there be many others!"

"Men of your own race?"

"And yours, sahib."

There was no bombast in the man's voice; it was said good-naturedly, as a man might say, "There are some friends to whom I would lend money."

No man with any insight could mistake the truth that underlay the boast.

The Scotsman bowed.