CHAPTER XI
A DAY’S ADVENTURES
Though his arm was stiff and painful, the rough bandaging it had received and the coarse food given him in sufficient quantity at Rai Bareilly, had partly restored Malcolm’s strength. Nevertheless he thought his mind was failing when, in the dim light of the inner room in which he was confined, he saw Chumru standing before him.
His servant’s warlike attire was sufficiently bewildering, and the sonorous objurgations with which he was greeted were not calculated to dispel the cloud over his wits, but a whispered sentence gave hope, and hope is a wonderful restorative.
“Pretend not to know me, sahib, and all will be well,” said his unexpected ally, and, from that instant until they stood together on the Lucknow road, Malcolm had guarded tongue and eye in the firm faith that Chumru would save him.
He was not mistaken. The adroit Mohammedan knew better than to trust his sahib and himself too long on the highway.
“They will surely make search for us, huzoor,” he said as they headed across country towards a distant ridge, thickly coated with trees. “The Begum and Ahmed Ullah met here for a purpose, and their friends will not fail to tell them of the trouble in Lucknow. I have been shaking in my boots all day, for ’tis ill resting in the jungle when tigers are loose, but I knew you could not ride in the sun, and I saw no other way of getting rid of the moulvie’s men than that of sending them back in the dark.”
“It seems to me,” said Malcolm, with a weak laugh, “that you would not have scrupled to knock both of them on the head if necessary.”
“No, sahib, they are my kin. He who wore this uniform was a Brahmin, and that makes all the difference. Brother does not slay brother unless there be a woman in dispute.”
“When did you leave the Residency?”
“About nine o’clock last night, sahib.”
“Did you see the miss-sahib before you came away?”
“It was she who told me whither you had gone, sahib.”
“Ah, she knew, then? Did she say aught – send any message?”
“Only that you would be certain to need my help, sahib.”
That puzzled Frank. Winifred, of course, had said nothing of the kind, but Chumru assumed that she understood him, so his misrepresentation was quite honest.
A level path now enabled them to canter, and they reached the first belt of trees ten minutes after the moulvie’s men set out for Rai Bareilly. Luck, which was befriending Chumru that day, must have made possible that burst of speed at the right moment. They were discussing their plans in the gloom of a grove of giant pipals when the clatter of horses hard ridden came from the road they had just quitted.
There could be no doubting the errand that brought a cavalcade thus furiously from the direction of Lucknow. It was so near a thing that for a little while they could not be certain they had escaped unseen. But the riders whirled along towards Rai Bareilly, and in another quarter of an hour the night would be their best guardian.
“That settles it,” said Malcolm, in whose veins the blood was now coursing with its normal vitality, though, for the same reason, his right forearm ached abominably. “It would be folly to attempt the road again. Let us make for the river. We must find a boat there, and get men to take us to Allahabad, either by hire or force.”
“How far is it to the river, sahib?”
“About twenty-five miles.”
“Praise be to Allah! That is better than seventy, for my feet are weary of that accursed Brahmin’s boots.”
They stumbled on, leading the horses, until the first dark hour made progress impossible. Then, when the evening mists melted and the stars gave a faint light, they resumed the march, for every mile gained now was worth five at dawn if perchance their hunters thought of making a circular sweep of the country in the neighborhood of Rai Bareilly.
It was a glorious night. The rain of the preceding day had freshened the air, and towards midnight the moon sailed into the blue arc overhead, so they were able to mount again and travel at a faster pace. Twice they were warned by the barking of dogs of the proximity of small villages. They gave these places a wide berth, since there was no knowing what hap might bring a ryot who had seen them into communication with the moulvie’s followers.
Each hamlet marked the center of a cultivated area. They could distinguish the jungle from the arable land almost by the animals they disturbed. A gray wolf, skulking through the sparsely wooded waste, would be succeeded by a herd of timid deer. Then a sounder of pigs, headed by a ten-inch tusker, would scamper out of the border crop, while a pack of jackals, rending the calm night with their maniac yelping, would start every dog within a mile into a frenzy of hoarse barking. Sometimes a fox slunk across their path. Out of many a tuft they drove a startled hare. In the dense undergrowth hummed and rustled a hidden life of greater mystery.
Where water lodged after the rain there were countless millions of frogs, croaking in harsh chorus, and being ceaselessly hunted by the snakes which the monsoon had driven from their nooks and crannies in the rocks. On such a night all India seems to be dead as a land but tremendously alive as a storehouse of insects, animals, and reptiles. Even the air has its strange denizens in the guise of huge beetles and vampire-winged flying foxes. And that is why men call it the unchanging East. Civilization has made but few marks on its far-flung plains. Its peoples are either nomads or dwell in huts of mud and straw and scratch the earth to grow their crops as their forbears have done since the dawn of history.
When the amber and rose tints of dawn gave distance to the horizon the fugitives estimated that they had traversed some fifteen miles. Malcolm was ready to drop with fatigue. He was wounded; he had not slept during two nights; he had fought in a lost battle and ridden sixty-five miles, without counting his exertions before going to the field of Chinhut. Nejdi and the horse which brought Chumru from Lucknow were nearly exhausted. Even the hardy Mohammedan was haggard and spent, and his oblique eyes glowed like the red embers of a dying fire.
“Sahib,” he said, when they came upon a villager and his wife scraping opium from unripe poppy-heads in a field, “unless we rest and eat we shall find no boat on Ganga to-day.”
This was so undeniable that Malcolm did not hesitate to ask the ryot for milk and eggs. The man was civil. Indeed, he thought the Englishman was some important official and took Chumru for his native deputy. He threw down the scoop, handed to his wife an earthen vessel half full of the milky sap gathered from the plants, and led the “huzoors” at once to his shieling. Here he produced some ghee and chupatties, and half a dozen raw eggs. The feast might not tempt an epicure, but its components were excellent and Frank was well aware that the ghee was exceedingly nutritious, though nauseating to European taste, being practically rancid butter made from buffalo milk.
There was plenty of fodder for the horses, too, and they showed their good condition by eating freely. The ryot eyed Chumru doubtingly when Malcolm gave him five rupees. Under ordinary conditions, the sahib’s native assistant would demand the return of the money at the first convenient moment, and, indeed, Chumru himself was in the habit of exacting a stiff commission on his master’s disbursements. Frank smiled at the man’s embarrassed air.
“The money is thine, friend,” said he, quietly, “and there is more to be earned if thou art so minded.”
“I am but a poor man – ” began the ryot.
“Just so. Not every day canst thou obtain good payment for a few hours’ work. Now, listen. How far is the Ganges from here?”
“Less than three hours, sahib.”
“What, for horses?”
“Not so, sahib. A horse can cover the distance in an hour – if he be not weary.”
The peasant could use his eyes, it seemed, but Malcolm passed the phrase without comment.
“We have lost our way,” he said. “We want to reach the river and take boat speedily to Allahabad. If one like thyself were willing to ride with us to the nearest village on the bank where boats can be obtained, we would give him ten rupees, and, moreover, let him keep the horse that carried him.”
The ryot was delighted with his good fortune.
“Blessed be Kali!” he cried. “I saw five female ghosts with goats’ heads in a tree last night, and my wife said it betokened a journey and wealth. Not only can I bring you by the shortest road, huzoor, but my brother has a budgerow moored at the ghât, meaning to carry my castor-oil seeds to Mirzapur. I am not ready for him yet for three weeks or more, and he will ask no better occupation than to drop down stream with you and your camp.”
“I have no camp,” said Malcolm, “but I pay the same rates for the boat.”
“The sahib means that his camp marches by road,” put in Chumru, severely. “Didst not hear him say that we have mislaid the track?”
The ryot apologized for his stupidity, and Frank recognized that his retainer disapproved very strongly of such strict adherence to the truth. On the plea that they must hasten if the midday heat were to be avoided, they cut short the halt to less than an hour. When they came to tighten the girths again they found that Chumru’s horse had fallen lame. As Nejdi, too, was showing signs of stiffness, Malcolm mounted one of the spare animals and led the Arab. Chumru and the ryot bestrode the third horse, and under the guidance of one who knew every path, they set out for the Ganges.
There are few features of the landscape so complex in their windings as the foot-paths of India. Owing to the immense distances between towns – the fertile and densely populated Doab offers no standard of comparison for the remainder of a vast continent – roads were scarce and far between in Mutiny days. The Grand Trunk Road and the rivers Ganges and Jumna were the main arteries of traffic. For the rest, men marched across country, and the narrow ribands of field tracks meandered through plowed land and jungle, traversed nullah and hill and wood, and intersected each other in a tangle that was wholly inextricable unless one traveled by the compass or by well-known landmarks, where such were visible.
The ryot, of course, familiar with each yard of the route, practically followed a straight line. After a steady jog of an hour and a half they saw the silver thread of the Ganges from the crest of a small ridge that ran north and south. The river was then about three miles distant, and they were hurrying down the descent when they came upon an ekka, a little native two-wheeled cart, without springs, and drawn by a diminutive pony. Alone among wheeled conveyances, the ekka can leave the main roads in fairly level country, and this one had evidently brought a zemindar from a river-side village.
The man himself, a portly, full-bearded Mohammedan, was examining a growing crop, and his behavior, no less than the furtive looks cast at the newcomers by his driver, warned Malcolm that here, for a certainty, the Mutiny was a known thing. The zemindar’s face assumed a bronze-green tint when he saw the European officer, and the sulky-looking native perched behind the shafts of the ekka growled something in the local patois that caused the ryot sitting behind Chumru to squirm uneasily.
The other glanced hastily around, as though he hoped to find assistance near, and Chumru muttered to his master:
“Have a care, sahib, else we may hop on to a limed twig.”
The boldest course was the best one. Malcolm rode up to the zemindar, who was separated some forty paces from the ekka.
“I come from Lucknow,” he said. “What news is there from Fattehpore and Allahabad?”
The man hesitated. He was so completely taken aback by the sight of an armed officer riding towards him in broad daylight – for Malcolm having lost his own sword had taken Chumru’s – that he was hardly prepared to meet the emergency.
“There is little news,” he said, at last, and it was not lost on his questioner that the customary phrases of respect were omitted, though he spoke civilly enough.
“Nevertheless, what is it?” demanded Frank. “Has the Mutiny spread thus far, or is it confined to Cawnpore?”
“I know not what you mean,” was the self-contained answer. “In this district we are peaceable people. We look after our crops, even as I am engaged at this moment, and have no concern with what goes on elsewhere.”
“A most worthy and honorable sentiment, and I trust it will avail you when we have hanged all these rebels and we come to inquire into the conduct of your village. I want you to accompany me now and place my orderly and myself on board a boat for Allahabad.”
“That is impossible – sahib – ” and the words came reluctantly – “there are no boats on the river these days.”
“Why not?”
“They are all away, carrying grain and hay.”
“What then, are your crops so forward? This one will not be ready for harvesting ere another month.”
“You will not find a budgerow on this side. Perchance they will ferry you across at the village in a small boat, and you will have better accommodation at Fattehpore.”
“Are we opposite Fattehpore?”
“Yes – sahib.”
All the while the zemindar’s eyes were looking furtively from Frank to the lower ground. It was a puzzling situation. The man was not actively hostile, yet his manner betrayed an undercurrent of fear and dislike that could only be accounted for by the downfall of British power in the locality. Thinking Chumru could deal better with his fellow-countryman, Malcolm called him, breaking in on a lively conversation that was going on between his servant and the ekka-wallah.
Chumru, who had told the ryot to dismount, came at once.
“Our friend here says that things are quiet on the river, but there are no boats to be had,” explained Malcolm. Chumru grinned, and the zemindar regarded him with troubled eyes.
“Excellent,” he said. “We shall go to his house and wait while his servants look for a boat.”
This suggestion seemed to please the other man.
“I will go on in front in the ekka,” he agreed, “and lead you to my dwelling speedily.”
Chumru edged nearer his master while their new acquaintance walked towards the ekka.
“Jump down and tie both when I give the word, sahib,” he whispered. “There has been murder done here.”
Malcolm understood instantly that his native companion had found the ekka-wallah more communicative. In fact, Chumru had fooled the man by pretending a willingness to slay the Feringhi forthwith, and the sheep-like ryot was now livid with terror at the prospect of witnessing an immediate killing.
When the zemindar was close to the ekka, Chumru whipped out one of the Brahmin’s cavalry pistols.
“Now, sahib!” he cried. Malcolm drew his sword and sprang down. The zemindar fell on his knees.
“Spare my life, huzoor, and I will tell thee everything,” he roared.
Were he not so worn with fatigue, and were not the issues depending on the man’s revelations so important, Malcolm could have laughed at this remarkable change of tone. The flabby, well-fed rascal squealed like a pig when the point of the sword touched his skin, and the Englishman was forced to scowl fiercely to hide a smile.
“Speak, sug,”16 he said. “What of Fattehpore and Allahabad, and be sure thou has spent thy last hour if thou liest.”
“Sahib, God knoweth that I can tell thee naught of Allahabad, but the budmashes at Fattehpore have risen, and Tucker-sahib is dead. They killed him, I have heard, after a fight on the roof of the cutcherry.”
Malcolm guessed rightly that Mr. Tucker was the judge at that station, but he must not betray ignorance.
“And the others – they who fled? What of them?” he said, knowing that the scenes enacted elsewhere must have had their counterpart at Fattehpore.
“Wow!” The kneeling man flinched as the sword pricked him again. “There are two mems17 in a house near the ghât. They alone remain of those who crossed. And I saved them, sahib. I swear it, by the Kaaba, I saved them.”
“They are young, doubtless, and good-looking?”
A new fear shone in the Mohammedan’s eyes, and he did not answer. Frank’s gorge rose with a deadly disgust, and it is hard to say that his sword would not have gone home in another instant had not Chumru interfered:
“Kill him not yet, sahib. He may be useful. Bind him and the other slave back to back. Then I shall help you to truss them properly.”
Chumru soon showed that he meant business. When he was free to replace the pistol in the holster, which he did all the more readily since he had never used a firearm in his life, he gagged master and man with skill, tied them to a tree, and then unfolded the plan which the ekka-driver’s story had suggested.
The fever of rebellion had spread along the whole of the left bank of the Ganges as far as Allahabad. A party of fugitives from Fattehpore who had taken to a boat were pursued, captured, and slain. Two girls who had managed to cross the river unseen were now lodged in a go-down, or warehouse, belonging to the very man whom chance had made Malcolm’s prisoner. He was keeping them to curry favor with a local rajah who headed the outbreak at Fattehpore. It was true that there were no boats left on this side of the river: they were all on the opposite bank, being loaded with loot, and the two Englishwomen were merely awaiting the return of the zemindar’s budgerow to be sent to a fate worse than death.
Chumru, a Mohammedan himself, was not greatly concerned about the misfortunes of a couple of women, but he saw plainly that Malcolm could no more hope to escape under the present conditions than the poor creatures whose whereabouts had just become known. This was precisely the blend of intrigue and adventure that appealed to his alert intelligence. In wriggling through a mesh of difficulties he was lithe as a snake, and the proposal he now made was certainly bold enough to commend itself to the most daring.
He drew Malcolm and the trembling ryot apart.
“Listen, friend,” said he to the latter. “Thou art, indeed, lost if that fat hog sees thee again. He will harry thee and thy wife and all thy family to death for having helped us, and it will be in vain to protest that thou hadst no mind in the matter, for behold, thou didst not lift a finger when I threatened him with the pistol.”
“Protector of the poor, what was one to do?” whined the ryot.
“I am not thy protector. ’Tis the sahib here to whom thou must look for counsel. Attend, now, and I will show thee a road to safety and riches. Art thou known to either of those men?”
“I have not seen them before, for I come this way but seldom.”
“’Tis well. The sahib shall sit in the ekka, with the curtains drawn, while I give it out that I go with my wife to take the miss-sahibs across the river, for which purpose the worthy zemindar will presently hand us a written order, as he hath ink, paper, and pen in the ekka. Thou shalt be driver and come with us on the boat, and when we are in mid-stream, and the sahib appears at my signal, see that thou hast a cudgel handy if it be needed. Then, when we reach Allahabad, God willing, the sahib will give thee many rupees and none will be the wiser. What say’st thou?”
“I am a poor man – ”
“Ay, keep to that. ’Tis ever a safe answer. Do you like my notion, sahib? Otherwise, we must take our chance and wander in the jungle.”
The fact that Chumru’s scheme included the rescue of the unhappy girls imprisoned in the go-down caused Malcolm to approve it without reserve. The zemindar’s gag was removed and he was asked his name.
“Hossein Beg,” said he.
“Be assured, then,” said Malcolm, sternly, “that thy life depends on the fulfilment of the instructions I now require of thee. See to it, therefore, that they are written in such wise as to insure success, and I, for my part, promise to send thee succor ere night falls. Write on this tablet that the miss-sahibs are to be delivered to the charge of Rissaldar Ali Khan and his wife, for conveyance to Fattehpore, and bid thy servants help the rissaldar in every possible way. Believe me, if aught miscarries in this matter, thou shalt rot to death in thy bonds.”
“Let my servant go with your honor, so that all things may be done according to your honor’s wishes.”
“What then? Wouldst thou juggle with the favor I have shown thee?”
This time the sword impinged on the Adam’s apple in Hossein Beg’s throat, and he shrank as far as his bonds would permit.
“Say not so, Khudâwand,”18 he gurgled. “I swear by my father’s bones I meant no ill.”
“Mayhap. Nevertheless, I shall take care thy intent is honest, Hossein Beg. Write now and pay heed to thy words, else jackals shall rend thee ere to-morrow’s dawn.”
By this time the man was reduced to a state of abject submission. Possibly his offer of the ekka-wallah’s services was made in good faith, but Malcolm liked the looks of the man as little as he liked the looks of his master, and he preferred to trust to Chumru’s nimble wits rather than the stupid contriving of a peasant, no matter how willing the latter might be.
The zemindar, having written, was gagged again, and the pair were left to that torture of silence and doubt they had not scrupled to inflict on those who had done them no wrong. They were tied to a tree-trunk in the heart of a clump, and a hundred men might pass in that lonely place without discovering them, whereas Hossein Beg and his subordinate could see easily enough through the leafy screen that enveloped their open-air prison.
Half an hour later, Hossein Beg’s ekka arrived on the open space that adjoined the village ghât. At one end was a mosque – at the other a temple. In the center, at a little distance from the bank, was a square modern building, evidently the warehouse in which the English ladies were pent.
With the ekka came a rissaldar of cavalry, riding one horse and leading two others. When he dismounted a scabbard clattered at his heels, for Malcolm now had the pistols between his knees as he sat behind the tightly drawn curtains of the vehicle.
“Mohammed Rasul!” shouted the rissaldar, loudly. “Where is Mohammed Rasul? I must discourse with him instantly.”
A man came running.
“Ohé, sirdar,” he cried. “Behold, I come!”
A note was thrust into the runner’s hands.
“Read, and quickly,” was the imperious order. “I have affairs at Fattehpore and cannot wait here long. Is there a boat to be hired?”
“A budgerow is even now approaching, leader of the faithful.”
“Good. There is some disposition to be made of two Feringhi women. Read that which Hossein Beg hath written, and make haste, I pray thee, brother.”
Perhaps Mohammed Rasul wondered why his employer wrote in such imploring strain that he was to obey the worshipful “Ali Khan’s” slightest word, and bestow him and his belongings, together with the two prisoners, on board a boat for Fattehpore with the utmost speed. However that may be, he lost no time. The budgerow was warped close to the ghât, her contents, mostly European furniture, as Malcolm could see through a fold in the curtain, were promptly unloaded, and preparations made for the return journey. First, the horses were led on board and secured. Then two pallid girls, only half clothed, their eyes red with weeping and their cheeks haggard with misery, were led from the go-down.
“Ali Khan” was about to guide the ekka along the rough gangway when Mohammed Rasul interfered.
“My master says naught concerning the ekka and pony,” said he. “He hath detained Gopi, and this driver is unknown to me. Who will bring them back when they have served your needs, sirdar?”
“I will attend to that,” replied Chumru, gruffly, and Hossein Beg’s factotum had perforce to be content with the undertaking.
But fate, which had certainly favored Malcolm and his native comrade thus far, played them what looked like a jade’s trick at the very moment when success was within their grasp. The ekka pony, frightened by the lap of the swift-flowing water against the steps beneath, shied, backed, and strove to reach the shore. Not all Chumru’s wiry strength, aided by the alarmed ryot, could prevent the brute from turning. A wheel slipped off the staging, the narrow vehicle toppled over, and the amazed spectators saw a booted and spurred British officer of cavalry sprawling on the ghât instead of the veiled Mohammedan woman who ought to have made her appearance in this undignified manner.
Malcolm was on his feet in a second.
“Come on, Chumru!” he cried, as he leaped on board the budgerow. He saw one of the crew take an extra turn of a rope round a cat-head, and fired at him. Hit or miss, the fellow tumbled overboard, and his mates followed. Chumru, assisted by the ryot, who elected at this twelfth hour to throw in his lot with that of the sahib, began to cast off the cables. Even the two dazed girls helped, once they knew that an Englishman was fighting in their behalf.
To add to the excitement on shore Malcolm fired the second pistol at the men nearest to the boat, which was already beginning to slip away with the current. Then he rushed to the helm, unlashed it, and turned the boat’s head toward the channel, while Chumru and the ryot, helped by the girls, hauled at the heavy mat sail.
Having lashed the helm again in order to keep the budgerow on the starboard tack, Malcolm was about to lend a hand, despite his wound, when a spurt of firing from the bank took him by surprise, because he had seen neither gun nor pistol in the hands of the loungers on the ghât, and the coolies were certainly unarmed.
Glancing back he saw a man whom he had last seen in the moulvie’s company at Rai Bareilly gesticulating fiercely as he directed the target practise of a number of men. A group of lathered horses behind them showed that they had ridden far and fast, so the accident, which nearly led to his undoing, had really helped to save him and his companions, else the fusillade to which they were now subjected must have taken place while the boat was still tied to the wharf.
“Lie flat on the deck,” he shouted in English, and repeated the words in Hindustani. He flung himself down by Chumru’s side.
“Haul away!” he gasped. “We will soon be out of range.”
Thus while the cumbrous sail creaked and groaned as it slowly climbed the mast, and bullets cut through the matting or were imbedded in the stout woodwork, the latest argosy of Malcolm’s fortunes thrust herself with ever-increasing speed into the ample breast of Mother Ganga. Soon the firing ceased. Malcolm raised his head. The excited mob on the shore was already a horde of Lilliputians, and the placid swish of the river around the roomy craft told him that he was actually free, and on the way to Allahabad once more.