“IF YOU SEE HER FACE.”
Daniel Gregson, Esq., B.S.C., political agent to the Rajah of Oonomore (a child of seven years of age), and Percy Goring, his junior assistant, were travelling from their own state to attend the great Delhi durbar. Mr. Gregson was a civilian of twenty-five years’ standing, short of neck, short of stature, and short of temper. His red face, pale prominent eyes, and fierce bushy brows had gained for him the nickname of “The Prawn;” but he was also known as a marvellously clever financier, ambitious, shrewd, and prompt in action; and by those who were under him, he was less loved than feared. Young Goring was just twenty-six, and much more eager to discuss good shooting, or a good dance, than the assessment of land, the opium trade, or even acting allowances!
The pair journeyed with due ceremony on the native state line, and in the little Rajah’s own gilt and royal carriage. He was laid up in the palace with chicken-pock, and had wept sorely because he had been unable to accompany his guide, philosopher, and friend to the grand “Tamasha,” to wear his new velvet coat, and all his jewels, and to hear the guns, that would thunder in his honour. Child as he was, he was already keenly sensitive respecting his salute!
Meanwhile the agent and his subordinate got on capitally without him, travelling at the leisurely rate of ten miles an hour, that fine November afternoon, surrounded with tiffin-baskets, cigarettes, ice-boxes, and other luxurious accompaniments. About four o’clock the train came to a sudden standstill—there was no station to account for this, merely a country road, a white gate, and a mud hut. The halt resolved itself into a full step; Mr. Gregson thrust his red face out of the window, and angrily inquired the reason of the delay.
“Beg your pardon, sir,” said the Eurasian guard, “there has been a break on the line—bridge gone—and we can’t get forward nohow.”
Mr. Gregson glanced out on the prospect—the dusty cactus hedge, the white telegraph posts, the expanse of brownish grass, black goats, and jungle.
“Any village, any dâk bungalow?” demanded the political agent, who might have known better than to ask.
“I’m afraid not, your honour. If your honour will wait here, we will send a messenger to the next station on foot, and tell them to telegraph for another train from the junction. This will arrive at the other side of the break, and take you on about twelve o’clock to-morrow.”
“And meanwhile we are to sit here!” cried Mr. Gregson, indignantly. “A pretty state of affairs! I’ll send a memo to the railway engineer that will astonish him,” he said, turning to Goring. “It’s four now, and we shall be here till twelve o’clock to-morrow, if we don’t mind. We shall be late for the durbar, and I shall have to wire, ‘unavoidably absent.’”
“I wonder if there is any sport to be had?” said Goring, descending from the carriage, and stretching his long legs. “Any shooting, any black buck?” looking at the guard interrogatively.
“Ah, that reminds me!” exclaimed Mr. Gregson. “The Rajah has a hunting box somewhere in these parts—Kori; we can go there for the night.”
“Yes, your honour,” assented a listener, with profound respect; “but it is four koss from here—a ‘Kutcha’ road—and a very poor part of the state.”
“I vote we stop here,” said Goring. “We can shoot a bit, and come back and dine, and sleep in the train. We shall be all right and jolly; twice as comfortable as in some tumble-down old summer-house.”
“I shall go to Kori, at any rate,” rejoined his superior officer, who resented opposition. “The place is kept up, and I’ve never seen it. This will be a capital opportunity to inspect it.”
“But it’s four koss away; and how are we to get our baggage, and bedding, and grub over?”
“Coolies,” was the laconic rejoinder. “Get them ready to start at once”—to his head servant, with an imperious wave of his hand.
“There is no way of transport for your majesty,” said his obsequious bearer with a deep salaam. “No ponies, not even an ekka—unless the ‘Protector of the Poor’ would stoop to a country cart?” (Which same is a long rude open basket, between two round wooden wheels, and drawn by a pair of bullocks.)
“I really think it is hardly worth while to move,” urged Goring, as he cast a greedy eye in the direction of a promising snipe jheel. “It will be an awful fag, and you know you hate walking!”
“You can please yourself, and stay here,” said Mr. Gregson, with immense dignity, who, if he hated walking, liked his own way.
As the whole suite (not to mention the commissariat) were bound to accompany him, Goring was compelled to submit; he dared not run counter to his arbitrary companion, who, rejecting with scorn the lowly vehicle that had been suggested, set out for Kori on foot, whither a long string of coolies had already preceded him. The sandy country road wound over a barren, melancholy-looking tract, diversified with scanty pasture and marshy patches (or jheels), pools of water, tall reeds, and brown grasses. It was dotted with droves of lean cattle, paddy-birds, milk-white herons, and cranes—especially the tall sirius family, who danced to one another in a stately, not to say solemn, fashion.
Truly a bleak, desolate-looking region, and, save one or two miserable huts and some thorn bushes, there was no sign of tree or human habitation. At last they came in sight of a wretched village—the once prosperous hanger-on of the now deserted hunting palace—that showed its delicate stone pinnacles behind a high wall; apparently it stood in an enclosure of vast extent, an enclosure that must have cost lakhs of rupees. Two sahibs were naturally an extraordinary sight in this out-of-the-way district; the fame and name of Mr. Gregson, a Burra-Burra sahib, had been spread before him by the coolies, therefore beggars and petitioners swarmed eagerly round this great and all-powerful personage.
Mr. Gregson liked to feel his own importance at a durbar, or an official dinner, but it was quite another matter to have it thrust upon him by a gang of clamouring paupers—the maimed, the halt, the blind—crying out against taxation, imploring alms, and mercy. He was a hard man, with a quick, impatient temper. An aged blind beldame got in his way, and he struck her savagely with his stick. She shrank back with a sharp cry, and Goring, who was ever known as “a sahib with a soft heart,” spoke to her and gave her a rupee—a real rupee; it was years since she had felt one!
“Although she is blind, sahib, beware of her,” said an officious youth, with his hair in a top-not. “She has the evil eye!”
“Peace, dog!” she screamed; then to Goring, “I am a lone old woman; my kindred are dead—I have lived too long. I remember the former days—rich days; but bad days. Sahib, if you would be wise, go not to the palace Khana.”
Goring was moving on when the hag hastily clutched him by the sleeve, and added in a rasping whisper—
“If you see her face—you die!”
“She is mad,” he said to himself, as he hastened to join Mr. Gregson, who had arrived at the great iron-studded gates in a state of crimson fury.
“You say we have land—true!” shouted a haggard, wild-eyed ryot; “but what is land without crops? What is a remission of five per cent. to wretches like us? It is but as a carraway seed in a camel’s mouth! The wild beasts take our cattle and destroy our grain, and yet we must work and pay you, and starve! Would that the Rajah was a man grown! Would that you were dead!”
Mr. Gregson hurried inside, and banged the great gate violently in the face of the importunate crowd.
“It is a very poor district, and much too heavily assessed,” said Goring to himself. “There is not even a pony in the place. The very Bunnia is in rags; the deer eat the crops, such as they are, since the deer are preserved, and there is no one now to shoot them. It is abominable!”
The palace was a pretty, light stone building, two stories in height, with a tower at either end, and a double verandah all the way round. In front of it a large space was paved with blocks of white marble, which ran the whole length of the building, and it was surrounded by the most exquisite gardens, kept up in perfect order—doubtless by the taxes wrung from the wretched creatures outside its gates—a garden that was never entered by its proprietor or enjoyed by any one from year’s end to year’s end, save the mallee’s children and the monkeys. The monkeys ate the fruit, the roses and lilies bloomed unseen, the fountains dripped unheeded; it was a paradise for the doves and squirrels, like a garden in a fairy tale.
The chokedar and head mallee (he was a rich man) received their great guest with every expression of humble delight. Dinner was prepared with much bustle in the hall of audience, whilst Mr. Gregson and his junior explored. There were long shady walks paved with white marble, immense bushes of heliotrope and myrtle, delicate palms, fine mango trees, peach trees, and orange trees. It was truly an oasis in the desert when one contrasted it with the bare, desolate, barren country that lay outside its walls.
“I shall bring the little chap here,” said Mr. Gregson, pompously. “We will have a camp here at Christmas.” And then he strolled back to the palace, and made an excellent dinner of roast turkey, and asparagus, and champagne.
After this repast he got out his despatch-box and his cigarette-case, and set about writing an official, whilst Goring took a chair, and adjourned to the marble pavement outside the palace.
It was an exquisite night; a low moon was peering over the wall—the air was heavy with the scent of syringa and orange blossoms; there was not a sound, not a voice to be heard, not a soul in sight, save Mr. Gregson, who, illuminated by two wax candles, bent eagerly over his pen, as he sat in the open hall of audience.
Goring, as he smoked, thought of many things; of the half-famished villagers; of the splendid shooting that was going to waste; of the grand bag he could make, and would make, at Christmas. Then he began sleepily to recall some stories—half-told stories—about this very place; tales of hideous atrocities, and crimes that had been done here, in the days of the Tiger Rajah, the present ruler’s grandfather. He was gradually dozing off, when he was aroused by the sounds of distant tom-toms, playing with extravagant spirit. The drumming came slowly nearer and nearer; it actually seemed to be in the garden—louder and louder—with a whispered murmuring and low applause, and as it were the footsteps of a great multitude. But there was nothing whatever to be seen, and it was as light as day. He moved uneasily in his chair, and gazed behind him; no! nothing to be seen but his senior steadily covering sheets of foolscap. He turned his head, and was aware of an unexpected sight—as startling as it was uncanny! Two twinkling little brown feet, dancing before him on the marble pavement! exquisite feet, that seemed scarcely to touch the ground, and that kept perfect time to the inspiriting sounds of the tom-toms; they were decked with massive golden anklets, which tinkled as they moved, and above them waved a few inches of the heavy yellow gold-embroidered skirt of the dancing-girl. No more was visible. Round and round the fairy feet flitted, in a very poetry of motion; faster and faster played the tom-toms. Such dancing, such nimble feet, it had never been young Goring’s lot to behold! Yes—but where was the rest of the body?
As he gazed in half-stupefied amazement, he suddenly recalled the old hag’s warning, with an unpleasant thrill—
“If you see her face—you die!”
At this instant there was a scraping sound, of the pushing back of a chair, of slow footsteps on the marble, of a loud cry, and a heavy fall.
Goring jumped up, and beheld Mr. Gregson lying prone on his face. He rushed to his assistance, and raised him with considerable difficulty. His eyes were fixed with an expression of unutterable horror. He gave one or two shuddering gasps, his head drooped forward on his breast, and he expired.
Goring looked round apprehensively. The feet had disappeared; the tom-toms had ceased.
He shouted for help, and immediately a vast crowd of dismayed retainers assembled around him, and Babel ensued.
“The Burra sahib dead! Well, well, it was ever an evil place. Ah, bah! Ah, bah! It was the nautch-girl, without doubt.”
They further informed Goring that the old Rajah had once tortured a dancing-girl on that very spot, and inhumanly disfigured her face. More than one had seen her since, and perished thus.
That morning, at sunrise, the dead body of Mr. Gregson was placed in a native cart, similar to the one he had so scornfully rejected, and taken by slow stages to the nearest station and back to the city, accompanied by Goring.
The doctors, European and native, declared with one consent that Mr. Gregson had died in a fit—an apoplectic seizure.
Goring—wise man—said nothing.