The night was clear and silent.
The light-pulse of the stars as they wheeled with slow certainty to meet the dawn was the only visible movement in the whole expanse of shadowed earth and sky.
And the only sound audible was my own life breath as I sate beside the glowing embers of the camp fire.
Strictly speaking, however, there was no camp, for I, and the two coolies who carried my breakfast, had missed our way in our detour through the eternal sameness of faint curve and level in the wide uplands, and finally, in despair of rejoining our tents, had bivouacked as best we could on the shore of a small frozen lake; one of those obstinate, rock-bound pools which, even when spring has set seal of conquest on the world, refuse to melt, and so yield up their treasure of sweet water to its renewed thirst for Life.
My servants had forced this particular lakelet to philanthropy with rude blows; wantonly rude it had seemed to me, as I watched the swift shiver with which the stable unity of surface had split into forlorn fragments of ice, each adrift at the mercy of that which they had held prisoner for so long.
The other necessary element, fire, my men had also commandeered by a raid on the low juniper which crept like moss below the taller grasses of the plain.
The result had not been altogether satisfactory, for the pungent smoke of the aromatic wood had--at least, so the sufferers averred, though, at the time, I suspected a recourse for comfort to my whisky-flask--produced unmistakable symptoms of intoxication in the amateur cooks, who, after valiantly serving me up a réchauffé of breakfast had succumbed to sleep. The mattress of creeping juniper on which they lay like logs was springy enough to have hidden them from sight even if the shadowed earth had not been so dark; for it was dark, formless, void, as only an unbroken expanse of featureless plain can be when the very sky grows velvet black because of the infinitely distant brilliance of the stars. Indeed, the uniformity of indefinable shadow was almost oppressive, although I knew right well the scene that lay around me; for who that has once seen it can fail of seeing again with the mind's eye the marvellous mosaic as of white marble and precious jewels which covers the high upland stretches of the World's Roof, when the winter snow retreats reluctantly, as if loth to leave the carpeting of spring flowers which follow on its fleeing footsteps.
I even remembered as I watched the embers that just behind them, finding faint shelter from a solitary boulder, there grew a tiny azalea I had never seen before; a fragile, leafless thing set sparsely with sweet-scented flowers that were flecked rose on saffron like a sunset sky.
And the silence was oppressive also. I caught myself listening--listening almost breathlessly--for a sound--for some sound! But there was not even a whisper among the tall grasses.
In sudden impulse I threw a fresh juniper branch upon the embers, and the silence, the stillness ended as if by magic; for the green spines spat and sputtered as they shrivelled, and sent out a dense cloud of smoke to circle up endlessly into the darkness.
A pungent smoke indeed! Involuntarily I drew back from it and covered my eyes with my hand waiting until the smouldering should lighten into flame.
The waiting, however, prolonged itself strangely. No flicker of light reached me, and I began to wonder dreamily what had happened; so dreamily, indeed, that when at last I looked up, I did so reluctantly, and with a curious sense of confusion.
It was this, no doubt, which prevented surprise at finding that I was no longer the solitary watcher of those dull embers.
Opposite me, nearly hidden in the endless curlings of the juniper smoke was a man crouching towards the fire as if he felt the cold of the high uplands. Only his face, and the hands he held towards the heat, showed clearly; the rest was lost in billowy clouds which, drifting upwards behind him, obscured the very stars.
I sate silent for a while, disinclined even for curiosity, and then, rather to my own surprise, I spoke as I might have spoken to a familiar friend.
"You are cold, I'm afraid."
To this day, I do not know in what language he replied--if, indeed! he spoke at all. My only recollection is of the eloquence of liquid, lustrous eyes, the confident certainty of comprehension which is the child's ere it can speak articulately.
"I am a Star-gazer; so the Fire draws me."
"Why?"
"Why? Surely all know it is the Star Fire which fell when She first came to me--Hai-me! Hai-me! When She first came and laid her hand in mine."
The drifting billows parted, showing the stars above his head, then closed again, blotting them out; blotting out all things, it seemed to me, even my own self as I sate listening to the faint wail which rose vaguely, filling the wide shadows.
"Io! Io! Disturber of dreams, why didst thou come? Io! Io! Bringer of dreams, why didst go? Lo! the Star fire was not thine though thou earnest with the Fire of the Star."
Through the pungent aroma of the burning branches, a faint breath of perfume from the sunset-dyed azalea swept, mingling with it, and so passing with it into the endless circling.
The lustrous eyes drooped, losing their brilliance; but when they looked up again only serene confident comprehension was there.
"In forest days none of us were Star-gazers, for there was no Rim to the world on which the following Footsteps could be seen. But when we left the forest for the upland, with its milch kine and seed grains, we learnt to look; for there was the Rim. And all things went to stand on it and disappear among the Stars.
"So, gazing, we saw that the Stars disappeared also; they, too, were following the Footsteps. But they never came back as they went, like other things. Their footsteps were faithful; so faithful that you could foretell by them the ripening of the seed grains, the coming of milk to the herds.
"So gazing, we wondered. Here by this pool I watched, taking no need of harvest or milk time; but I saw nothing but the following Footsteps and the footsteps of the Stars.
"Nothing, though I followed with mine eyes, wheeling as the Stars wheeled to meet the dawn while the shadows and my kind, and all other things, slept as they do now."
They slept, indeed! The very smoke had ceased to circle. It hung in motionless curves, soft, impenetrable, and I could see nothing now save the lustrous eyes, and the dull glow of the fire.
"So I gazed, until one night, as I stood following the footsteps of the faithful Stars with mine eyes, the knowledge came to me, that as I stood watching them, so Someone stood watching me and all things. Someone who did not move. And I was glad, though I was afraid.
"But that dawn, when I went down after our custom to gather the seed grains with my kind, they looked at me askance as if I were a stranger. Only Io, she of the beautiful young one that all cherished, paused as she suckled it to follow me with curious wondering eyes."
There was a pause, and through it came, soft as a sigh, that faint wail:
"Io! Io! Disturber of Dreams, why didst come? Io! Io! Bringer of Dreams, why didst thou go?"
"It was cold here, on the uplands, gazing; but the faithful Stars shone quite near me. It seemed as if I could reach up and clasp them. And I was faithful as they in the Footsteps; for I have driven a stake of wood into the ground firm as the ground itself, and night after night, as I watched the Stars wheel, I twirled the slender wand I held in my hands upon it, following their faithful Footsteps so that the Someone who watched might see me even as they were!
"And I was happy, though I was afraid.
"But one night, when the tall grasses were stiff and the low green things were white with the cold, my fingers could scarce twirl the wand, and the fear lest the Someone might grow angry with me came so strong that suddenly I lifted my head and cried to It to be kind.
"How the stars shone! My hands longed to leave the wand and reach them, and in me there rose a great new joy, as if I had found myself.
"But that Dawn, when I went after the custom to gather the grain with my kind, they fled from me as if I had been an enemy.
"Only Io, she of the beautiful young one, with her breasts full of milk, left the cherished one athirst to follow my footsteps and hold out a handful of the grain she had gathered for herself.
"But I feared her and she feared me, so she left it lying on the ground, and afterwards I went and ate it, for I was hungry. But the touch of her hand that was on the grain touched my lips so that I felt it even as I gazed.
"Io! Io! Disturber of Dreams, why didst come? Io! Io! Why didst thou go? The Star fire was not thine, though thou wast in the fire of the Star!"
Even the lustrous eyes were hidden from me now; I saw nothing but the fading glow of the embers as I sate listening amid the uttermost peace of all things to that soft almost voiceless wail.
"The nights grew hot, and the tall grasses crackled in the drought, and the low green things wilted to greyness. But I cared not, for I had found myself, and I knew there was a Beginning and an End. And even that touch on my lips did not disturb my dreams as, faithful as they, I followed the faithful footsteps of the Stars.
"Until one night--it was so hot that something in me seemed to out-beat the beating of the Stars--a great Darkness that was not Night came from the Rim and swallowed up all things.
"I had seen it come before and had hidden my face from it like the rest of my kin, but now my fear was too strong for hiding. Besides, who could hide when Someone watched always? And why should I hide if I were faithful--if I were as the Stars?
"Thus a great joy mingled with my fear, until something in me cried out with a great longing for something that was not in me, and something that I had not, seemed to come to me until my wand twirled faster, as if other hands were on it, and my lips, as I cried out that I was faithful, felt the touch of other lips upon them.
"So through the Darkness that hid the Stars while the hot wind howled about me and flung hot earth grains in my face, I shouted to the Stars to come down to me."
The very fire had gone now, and I strained my eyes into the shadows, seeing nothing but endless curves as of smoke.
"And lo! One came!
"Just where the wand whirled by my hot hasty hands touched the steady stake of wood I saw a tiny star.
"But, as I saw it, something came to me also, making me forget the Star!
"It was Io!
"She had left her cherished one; with her breasts full of milk, she had left the little drinker athirst; she had followed my footsteps through the darkness to find me and lay her hand in mine.
"Io! Io! Bringer of Dreams! Io! Io! Disturber of Dreams, thou didst come!
"And the touch of our hands and our lips together made us forget the starshine which had come with it.
"But the shine grew and grew, so that when we looked again it was not a Star at all, but something new and strange. Something that crept among the dry grasses and the wilted green things, something that leaped and laughed amid the darkness, something that sent hot arms towards us, till I caught her in mine and fled from it, leaving the wand and the steady stake behind.
"So we fled and fled, with the Fire which came from the Starshine behind us always. Fled in the faithful footsteps of the Stars.... Fled to find the Dawn!..."
* * * * *
There was silence; a long silence! And was that the Dawn, the gracious Dawn!
Something, surely, all rose flecked on saffron and suffused with Light lay before my upturned eyes.
It was an azalea blossom. But, as I rose to my feet from the springy juniper where I had been lying, my head sheltered by the straggling branches of the leafless bush, the dawn had come, indeed, on the far rim of the wide plain.
And between it and me, rising from the retreating snow and the carpeting of spring flowers, was a white vapour which, lit by the rosy sun rays behind it, showed like smoke from a prairie fire.
But our fire was out. Only a heap of grey ashes remained, though the sleep which had come from the juniper branches still held the sleeping servants.
It needed a rough awakening, as rough as that which had left the prisoning ice at the mercy of the prisoned water, to rouse them and make them stand yawning, stretching in the dawn, avowing that haschish itself could not bring wilder dreams than those which had been theirs that night. But was it a dream? or does the man, hand-in-hand with the woman, still fly from the Fire which came from the Star-shine!
"Then you recommend them both," said the mild little Commissioner, doubtfully; he was a vacillating man, by nature lawful prey to his superiors.
Tim O'Brien, C.I.E.--the uncoveted distinction had been, to his great disgust, bestowed on him after a recent famine, in which his sheer vitality had saved half a province, and earned him, rightfully, the highest honour of the empire--removed his long Burmah cheroot from his lips and smiled brilliantly. He was a thin brown man with a whimsical face.
"And what would I be doing with wan of them on the Bench and the other in the dock? For it would be that way ere a week was past. It is very kind of the L.G. to suggest putting either Sirdar Bikrama Singh or Khân Buktiyar Khân on the Honorary Magistracy, but he doesn't grasp that they are hereditary enemies and have been the same for eight hundred years. Ever since the Pathans temporarily conquered the Rajputs, in the year av' grace 1256! So you couldn't in conscience expect wan of them not to commit a crime if the other was to be preferred before him. Ye see, he'd just have to kill someone. But, if ye appoint them both, the dacencies of Court procedure and the hair-splittin' formalities of the local Bar will conduce to dignity--to say nothing of their own sense of justice, which, I'll go bail, is stronger than it is in most people ye could appoint. Equity's apt to go by the board if ye've too much legal knowledge; and they have none of that last. But I'll give them a good Clerk of the Court and guarantee they come to no harrm. Yes, sir, I recommend them both--to sit in banco."
When Tim O'Brien spoke, as he did in the last sentence, curtly and without a trace of his usual rollicking Irish accent, his superior officers invariably fell in with his views; it saved trouble.
So, in due course, what answers to a J.P.'s commission at home (with no small extra powers thrown in) was sent to Sirdar Bikrama Singh, Rajput at his castle of Nagadrug (the Snake's Hole), and also to Khân Buktiyar Khân at his fortress of Shakingarh (the Falcon's Nest).
Both buildings had been for some centuries in a hopeless state of dilapidation, as, from a worldly point of view, were their owners' fortunes. But, just as the crumbling walls still commanded the wide arid valley which lay between the rocky steeps of the sandhills on which they stood, so the position of the two most ancient families of Hindus and Mahomedans in the district still commanded the respect of the whole sub-division. Of course, they were antagonistic. Had they not been so always? But, in truth, the old story of how they came to be so was such a very old story, that none knew the rights of it: not even the two high-nosed, high-couraged old men, who, having in due time succeeded to the headship of their respective families, had done as their fathers had done; that is to say, glared at each other over their barren fields, formulated every possible complaint they could against their neighbour, and denied any good quality to him, his house, his wife, his oxen, or his ass.
Yet the two had one thing in common. They were both soldiers by race. Their sons were even now with the colours of Empire, and in their own youth both had served John Company, and afterwards, the Queen. This bond, however, was not one of union, but rather of discord. For the one had belonged to the crack Hindu and the other to the crack Mahomedan corps of the Indian army, and their respective sons naturally followed in their fathers' footsteps. Indeed, on occasions the pair of dear old pantaloons would appear in the uniforms of a past day, hopelessly out of date as regards buttons and tailoring, but still worn with the distinctive cock of the turban and swagger of high boots that had belonged of old days and still belonged to the "rigimint."
Bikrama Singh was seated on the flat roof which had sheltered him and his for centuries when he received the little slip of silk paper, so beautifully engrossed, which appointed him to the Honorary Magistracy. It was a barren honour, since he was not one of those--and there are many--who make a stipend out of an unpaid post; but his thin old fingers trembled a little and his eye lost the faintly blue film which age draws between the Real and the Unreal. Whether his mind reverted at once to his hereditary enemy--who was not mentioned in the paper--is doubtful, but he felt it to be an honour in these miserable days, when a moneylender had more chance of being elected to a district council than a gentleman of parts to be chosen by the Sirkar. It was a thousand times better than being "puffed by rabble votes to wisdom's chair."
"It is well," he said simply, but with a superior air, to his womenfolk--the wife and daughters and grand-daughters and daughters-in-law and their kind who filled up the wide old house. "I shall do my duty and punish the evil doer; notably those who do evil to my people and my land, since true justice begins at home." And he curled his thin grey moustache to meet his short grey whiskers and looked fierce as an old tiger.
Over in Shakingarh also the commission met with approval. "It is well!" said Buktiyar Khân, as he sate amongst his crowding womenfolk with a poultice of leaves on his short beard to dye it purple. "I shall do my duty and punish the evil doer; notably him who has done evil to my people and my land, since that is the beginning of justice." And his hawk's eye travelled almost unconsciously from his flat roof to that other one far over the valley.
Yet, when they met, a few days afterwards, duly attired in their uniforms on the threshold of Brine sahib's verandah, whither they had repaired full of courteous acknowledgments to one whom they recognised as being at the bottom of the appointment, a faint frown came to their old faces. But Brine sahib broke it to them gently, with the graceful tact which gained him so much confidence. Government, recognising their many and great excellencies, had found it impossible to do otherwise than elevate them both to the Bench, where they would doubtless remain, as they were now, the best representatives of Hindu and Mahomedan feeling in the district. And then Tim O'Brien made a few remarks about the King-Emperor and devoted service which sent both old hands out in swift stiff salute.
Doubtless it was a shock to find themselves equally honoured; but regarding the "in banco," they both admitted instantly to themselves that it was better to sit next a hereditary enemy than a stinking scrivener or a mean moneylender. So Bikrama Singh twirled his grey moustache and said, "It is well," and Buktiyar Khân twirled his purple one and said the same thing.
Thereinafter they began work. The women of both houses made the first court day a regular festival, and sent the two old men from home dressed and scented and decorated as if for a bridal. The purple of Buktiyar's beard was positively regal, while the points of Bikrama's thin trembling fingers were rosy as the dawn.
They were fearsomely stately with each other, of course, but that only added to the dignity of the Bench. An excellent Clerk of the Court had been provided for them, and their first cases had been carefully chosen by Tim O'Brien for their simplicity.
Thus there had seemed no possibility of friction; yet the two new judges returned to their womenkind vaguely dissatisfied, dimly uneasy.
"The Mahomedan is no fool," remarked Bikrama Singh thoughtfully, "he saw as quickly as I did that truth lay with the defendant, lies with the plaintiff."
"By God's truth," admitted Buktiyar Khân grudgingly, "the Hindu is not such a blockhead as I deemed him. He saw as quickly as I did that lies were with the plaintiff, truth with the defendant."
It was almost intolerable; but it was true. The hereditary enemies had agreed about something on God's earth. And as time went on this unanimity of opinion became the most salient feature of the newly-constituted court. They agreed about everything. Of different race, different religion, something deeper in them than these surface variations coincided. Their innate sense of justice, fostered by the fact that they had both been brought up in the India of the past, that they represented its laws, its morals, its maxims, made their judgments identical.
"We waste time, babu-jee," broke in old Bikrama Singh on the lengthy peroration of a newly passed pleader, eager to air his eloquence. "Words are idle when facts stare you in the face. 'Who knows is silent, he who talks knows not,' as the proverb hath it. That is enough. We are satisfied." "Wâh Wâh," assented Buktiyar Khân at once, acquiescent and regretful. "Truly, pleader-jee! thou hast said that before. Why say it again? If sugar kills, why try poison? We are satisfied, so that is enough."
It was more than enough for the local Bar. They went in a body to Tim O'Brien and complained that they were not treated as lawyers should be treated.
As usual, Brine sahib met them with sympathy; but it was the sympathy of inaction.
"I sincerely regret, gentlemen," he said softly, "that sufficient toime is not allowed you to get all the words you have at command off your stomachs--I beg pardon, your minds. But, ye see, the judgments of the Bench are unfortunately quite sound; they'd be watertight against the full forensic flood of the whole High Court Bar. So I don't see what the divvle is to be done--do you?"
They did not. In sober truth the sense of equity in the hereditary enemies was too strong for the lawyers. The old men were honestly fulfilled with the desire of punishing the evil doer and praising those who did well. Such flimsy overlays as race and tribe and caste and family and creed did not touch their agreement on all things necessary to salvation.
The fact was rather a pain and grief to them. It did not make them treat each other with less stately dignity or cause them to be one whit more friendly out of court.
Sirdar Bikrama Singh went home to his womenfolk and railed as ever against his neighbour, and Khân Buktiyar Khân, as he rolled his little opium pill betwixt finger and thumb, would do the same thing. But in their heart of hearts they knew that, since a judge must always be "an ignorant man between two wise ones" (the plaintiff and defendant), it must be some common ground in themselves which made their views coincide.
Meanwhile the fame of the collective wisdom grew amongst the litigants, and indignation at its brevity increased amongst the lawyers. Tim O'Brien, however, when the timid little Commissioner showed him a numerously signed petition from the local Bar protesting against the "strictly non-regulation curtailment of eloquence," only smiled suavely. "They get at the rights of a case by congenital intuition, sir. The High Court have upheld their judgments in the few appeals the pleaders have cared to make; so I don't see what the div---- I mean, sir, I don't see what is to be done--do you?"
Once again there was no answer, and Tim O'Brien, as he dashed off here and there to institute enquiries in obedience to the cipher telegrams which came pouring in from Calcutta by day and by night, felt comfort in knowing that one sub-division of his district at any rate was being well administered.
For they were troublous days for officers in charge. Someone somewhere had been unwise enough to take the thumb-marks of a peripatetic preacher who was suspected of being an anarchist. He was proved to be an apostle of unrest; he was also unfortunately a man not only of thumb-mark, but of mark. A professor, briefly, in some far-away college. So the official who had ordered the indignity in the interests of public order was degraded; and thereinafter, naturally, began a campaign of would-be terrorism amongst the schoolboys and students of the province which shattered the nerves of government.
"By the Lord who made me," ejaculated Tim O'Brien angrily, as he flung aside the last urgent communiquée from headquarters, "one would think from that bosh, we were in danger of losing India to-morrow. Can't they see it's only schoolboy rot, sheer daredevil schoolboy mischief, like throwing caps under a motor car and heads you win tails I lose, you're over last. I'll tell you what it is, Smith,"--here he addressed his assistant, a pale-faced boy not yet recovered from the strain of examinations--"if I was worth my salt and had the courage of my opinions, I'd have up those boys' masters and give 'em each thirty with the cane for not keeping their pupils in order. That 'ud stop it. Instead of that, I have to arrest a poor child of thirteen who threw a badly made bomb, as harmless--it turned out--as a squib. However! my pension stares me in the face. There isn't even a House of Lords left to which I could appeal. So here goes for the innocent victim av' education! Inspector! arrange the arrest, please!"
Naturally, of course, as Tim O'Brien had known, every other schoolboy in the district marched about singing patriotic songs and doing wanton mischief to their hearts' content; thus there was quite a crop of minor arrests.
In fact, when the Bench of Hereditary Enemies held its next sitting it was confronted with a lengthy police case against a gang of boys whose ages varied from ten to thirteen.
Bikrama Singh listened gravely to the details and twirled his grey moustache. Buktiyar Khan also listened gravely and stroked his purple beard. They listened very patiently, yet a vague impatience came to their old faces. Then they looked in each other's eyes, and at last the wisdom of their hearts found speech.
"Where is the teacher of these children? Bring him hither that he may show cause for himself."
To be brief. That night the head master of the sub-divisional school could neither sit down nor stand up comfortably. But the streets were quiet; the boys peacefully in their beds.
"Glory be to them," cried Tim O'Brien exultantly, when the news was brought to him. "They've more spunk than I have--so now to get them out of the scrape."
He did his best, and that was a good deal, but the law and lies were against him. The schoolmaster happened to be somebody's nephew by marriage, and though there was ample evidence to prove that he had misused his position as a Government servant, the utmost favour Tim O'Brien could screw out of the Powers was permission for the offenders to retire instead of being dismissed from the Honorary Magistracy.
He broke this to the old men with his usual tact, applauding them between the lines for their courage. To his surprise and relief they accepted the position calmly. The better the subordinate, they said, the less likely he was to be always in agreement with others. During their three years' work, which, in truth, had been laborious, not one of their decisions had been upset on appeal. How many judges could say the same! And as for head master-jee? Would Brine sahib, if he could, remove those thirty stripes from the miscreant's back. "Ye have me there, sahiban," Tim O'Brien replied, with conviction, "I would not; an' that's God's truth."
So the old men sent in their resignations, not altogether regretfully. For one thing, the unanimity of their opinions had been disturbing; the old antagonism seemed more natural. And there the matter should have ended. Unfortunately for all, it did not. To be brief. Tim O'Brien was asked one day, as District Officer, to sign a warrant for the arrest of Sirdar Bikrama Singh and Khân Buktiyar Khân on a charge of assault and battery against the head master-jee, who turned out to be sib to half the local Bar.
There is no reason to go into the legal points of the incident, or to tell of the vain efforts of Tim O'Brien to save the whilom Bench from this last affront. An epidemic of cases against magistrates had set in, and late one evening the District Officer started to ride over and break the news of the coming arrest to the Hereditary Enemies.
Nagadrug stood on the nearest scarp of sand, so he went there first. He found the old Sirdar, looking rather frail, engaged as usual in glaring out over the arid fields to Shakingarh.
But this time all Tim O'Brien's tact did not avail for calm. Incredulous anger, half dazed indignation, took its place. It could not be true. What! was he, Rajput of Rajput, to be dragged to court at the bidding of a miserable hound whom he had whipped, and rightly whipped? Had not Brine sahib himself applauded the act? Had they not done right?--the plural pronoun came out naturally. Was not a false guree God's basest creature? Did not the law say so: "He who teaches false teaching, who kills his own soul and another, let him die." Why had they not given the vile reptile an hundred stripes and so got rid of him altogether.
And now were they to have a degree (decree) against them! Shinjee! It should never be, never! never! They would not have it! The old tongue found no difficulty in thus claiming companionship in revolt, the old heart knew it was certain of sympathy in the ancient enmity.
Utterly sickened at a tragedy he could not prevent, the District Officer went, tactfully as ever, to Shakingarh; only to meet with even deeper indignation. Innocent though he knew himself to be, the Englishman positively writhed under the contemptuous unsparing scorn of the old Pathan. What! was the Sirkar not strong enough to protect itself? Then let it pack up its bundle and get out of Hindustan. Let it leave India and its problems to his people--those northern folk who had harried Bengal in the past, who, God willing, would harry it again. Had Brine sahib not heard the saying: "He who uses his public office to betray the State commits a crime against himself, his country, and his God." And had not the base hound betrayed the State? A thousand times, yes! it was a pity they had not flogged him to death.
The moon rose over the low sandhills before the District Officer, bruised and broken by the verdict of past India on the present, rode back to the sessions bungalow, where he meant to pass the night. For with the dawn he would go up with the police officer and so soften the arrest of the Hereditary Enemies so far as it could be softened.
They would be let out on bail, of course, and, at the worst, a fine more or less heavy would see them through. It was not so bad--not so very bad.
The District Officer tried to comfort himself with such reflections; in his heart he knew they were futile; that nothing would soften the degradation to those two old warriors.
Nothing! unless it was the calm moonlight that lay over the arid valley and turned the round old fortresses to dim mysterious palaces of light.
Perhaps the peace of it sank into the wearied hot old eyes that looked out from the ancestral roofs with a new feeling of comradeship, each for each, dulling the hereditary hatred, yet bringing with it old memories, old tales of past enmity.
"Bring me my uniform, women!" said Bikrama Singh, suddenly. Half a dozen weeping daughters and daughters-in-law and an old wife too blind to see did as they were bid, and in a short time the old man stood arrayed as for a bridal, his sword buckled tight to his bowed back. "And the shield, women--the shield of my fathers that hangs in the entry. I shall need it, too!"
Over in Shakingarh, Buktiyar Khân, impelled likewise by those memories of the past, that hatred of the present, had donned his uniform likewise; and so the moonlight shone on cold steel and damascened gold as, silently obeying some inward community of thought, the two old men started silently alone, leaving all behind them, to seek for Peace in their own way.
Steadily over the arid fields, nearer and nearer to each other. The fields had been cut and carried; the harvest was over; it was nigh time to plough again for a fresh crop----
Of what?
"The Peace of the Unknown be upon you, oh, mine enemy," said Bikrama Singh, when at long last they stood face to face in the open.
"And the Peace of the Most Mighty be on you, my foe," answered Buktiyar Khân.
So for a moment there was silence. Then the Rajput spoke, his old voice full of fire, full of vibration.
"In the old days to which we belong, oh, Mahomedan! did brave men wait for Fate?"
"They did not wait, oh, Hindu," came the answer. "When brave men found sickness or dishonour before them: when there was no longer hope of victory: when that which lay ahead was hateful, and they left sons to carry on the race, did not the ancestors of my race claim of their enemies the glorious gift of battle?"
"They did so claim it, oh, Bikrama Singh! Dost claim it now!"
The reply, quick, vibrant, rang through the moonlight; a veritable challenge.
"Yea, Pathan--robber! thief! I claim it now! Jug-dân, Jug-dân--the Gift of Battle to the Death."
"Take it, pig of an idolator! Jug-dân, Jug-dân--the Gift of Battle!"
The still, hot air became full of faint chinkings, as buckles were settled straight, scabbards thrown aside. Then there was an instance silence as the two old warriors faced each other.
"Art ready ... friend?" The question came softly.
"Yea! I am ready ... friend!" The reply was almost a caress.
So, with a quick clash of sword on sword, youth and health and strength came back to the Hereditary Enemies.
* * * * *
It matters little if the combat ended in quarter of an hour, half an hour, or an hour; whether Bikrama Singh or Buktiyar Khân got in the first blow. The moon shone peacefully on the Gift of Battle. She still hung a white shield on the grey skies of dawn when Tim O'Brien and the police officer, coming to do their disagreeable duty, found the two old men lying stone dead within swords' thrust of each other on the stubble.
"They are really an incomprehensible lot," said the police officer, almost mournfully; "why the deuce should the two poor old buffers come out and kill each other, as presumably they have----"
Tim O'Brien smiled a grim smile. "You haven't heard, I suppose--why should ye--of what they call the Gift of Battle! Well! I have. It's an ould Rajput custom by which a man who feared he'd die in his bed or be put to it any way by any other stupid inept limitations, could claim a decent death from his nearest foe."
"Well! they've done it. That's all, and small blame to them."
"By God who made me, it's a protest with a vengeance. But the worst of it is, the Government won't see it and I can't explain it. Cipher telegrams won't run to it So ... peace be with you, friends!"
He was an old man; a very old man. A Syyed--that is, a Mahomedan who claims direct descent from the prophet--by trade a Yunani hakeem, or physician according to the Grecian system, introduced to India, doubtless, by Alexander the Great. He had a little sort of shop, close to the principal gate of the city, where he was in touch with all those who, with its ship the camel, went out, or came back from the desert beyond, and with all strangers and sojourners in the land. So all day and every day you might see wearied travellers resting on the hard wooden platform set in a dark archway, of which his shop consisted, drinking out of green glass tumblers some restorative sherbet of things hot or things cold, things dry or things wet, while he showed dimly in the background, a visionary outline of long grey beard and high white turban. In this way he heard a good deal of what was going on both inside and outside the city, and as he was of the old school of the absolutely loyal outspoken Mahomedan, who, while he holds our rule to be inferior to that of his own faith, emphatically believes it to be superior to all others, I used often to pause in riding into or out of the city for a chat with the old man; seldom without benefit to myself. One morning--I remember it so well!--the gram fields outside the city were literally drenched with dew, making the fine tufts look like diamond plumes, amongst which the wealth of tiny purple blue pea blossom showed like a sowing of sapphires--I found him sitting with a troubled look on his high, wrinkled forehead, peering through his horn spectacles at a blue printed paper.
A patient was snoring contentedly on the boards, with, tucked into the hollow of his neck, a hard roly-poly bolster which made me ache to look at. Nothing brings home to one the impossibility of any Western judging what is, or is not pleasant or convenient to an Eastern more than the ordinary rolling pin, two feet by six inches, stuffed hard with cotton wool, which the latter habitually uses as a pillow. The sight of it makes a Western neck feel stiff.
I recognised the paper at once. We were then in the throes of "Local Self Government," and a violent effort was being made to induce this little far-away town, inhabited for the most part by Pathans (exiled these centuries back from northern wilds to the Indian plain) to elect a Municipal Committee.
I had spent the better part of the day before in explaining to various Rais'es or honourable gentlemen of the city, that no insult was intended by asking them to put themselves up to auction as it were by the votes of their fellow citizens, instead of being discreetly and as ever nominated to the office of Councillor by the "hated alien." A few had gravely and dutifully given in to this new and quite incomprehensible fad of the constituted authorities, others had hesitated, but one, a fiery old Khân Bahadur, who was a retired risseldar from one of our crack native cavalry regiments, had sworn with many oaths that never would he take office from, amongst others, the perjured vote of Gunpat-Lal, pleader, who belonged to his ward, and whose evil, eloquent tongue had deliberately diddled him out of ancestral rights in a poppy field in the Huzoor's own court. No! He had served the Sirkar with distinction, he had, with his own hands, nearly killed an agitator he had found in the lines; nay, more! he had absolutely sent his daughter to school to please the sahib logue; but this was too much. It had been all I could do to prevent the hot-tempered old soldier from giving up the sword of honour with which he had been presented on retirement, as a signal of final rupture with the Government.
So, as I say, I recognised the blue paper at once as one of many voting papers which had been sent out for marking and return; for in these out of the way places in those days, the secret ballot-box was not the best blessing of the world, as it is now. And my old friend the hakeem was, I knew, on the Aga Khân's ward.
"What have you got to do with it?" I echoed, in reply to an anxious question. "Why, put a mark against the Aga Khân's name and give it back whence it came."
He salaamed profoundly. "Huzoor! that was the settled determination of this slave, thus combining new duties with old--which is the philosophy of faithful life; but, being called in last night to an indigestion in his house, which I combatted with burnt almonds, he told me that if I so much as went near his honourable name with my stylus, I should cease to be physician-in-ordinary to his household. And, father and son, we have been physicians to the Aga Khân ever since our fathers followed his fathers from Ghazni in that capacity with the Great Mahomed--on whom be peace."
"Then mark one of the other names--which you choose, and send it in," I replied, taking no notice of the scandalous attempt at coercion on the old Aga Khân's part.
A still more profound salaam was the answer. "That also would have occurred to me," came the suave old voice, "but that the Aga Khân said, with oaths, that if I so much as made a chance blot on this cursed paper against any of the names thereon, I should be cast for life from his honourable company."
I felt quite nettled. Her Majesty's lieges must not be intimidated in this fashion. "Well! you must think of the person whom you consider most fitted to fulfil all the many duties which will devolve on him, and put down his name," I said, for in these days when we really wished to get at the wishes of the people, we were not so strict about nominations and proposings and secondings as we are now, "and I will speak again to the Khân Bahadur and see if I cannot induce him to stand." (I meant to do so by threats of exposure for using force to Her Majesty's lieges!)
As I rode off, my horse picking its way through the piles of melons, the bags of corn, the jars of milk, the nets of pottery and all the olla podrida of trivial daily merchandise which finds pause for a few minutes about an active gate at dawn time, the patient sat up straight from his backboard and yawned, then asked for another violet drink. But the hakeem was absorbed in the problem of voting.
I happened that day to have business in the city in the evening also, but I entered by another gate, so that the sun was nigh setting when, on my homeward way, I saw my old friend the Yunani hakeem sitting with his pile of little medicine bottles and tiny earthenware goglets of pills and ointments beside him.
He was pounding away at something in a minute jade mortar and looked no longer disturbed, but weary utterly.
"Have you settled that knotty point, hakeem sahib?" I asked.
He gave a sigh of relief, but pounded away faster than ever. "I give God thanks I have been led into the way of wisdom," he replied, "else would I be harried, indeed! Never, within the memory of man, have so many gentlemen of rank been sick as during this day. I am but now compounding the 'Thirty-six-ingredient-drug' for one honourable house, and have but just finished the 'Four-great-things' for another. 'Tis anxiety about the elections, methinks, for they talk of nothing else. Hardly had your Honour left this morning, than Gunpat-Lal sent to say he had a belly-ache which his idolatrous miracle-monger could not touch. I had it away in half an hour with cucumber and lemon juice. Cold things to cold. And Lala-ji full of compliments and regrets that the Aga Sahib would not be elected." A faintly worried air crept over the high old face.
"Did he ask you to give him your vote?" I enquired, with a sinking at my heart.
"Yea!" replied the Yunani hakeem cheerfully, "and offered me five rupees for it."
Ye Gods above! How soon political corruption seizes on the innocent, I thought.
"But others have offered more," continued the old man, with a certain self-satisfaction. Then his face clouded. "Yonder pasty-faced knock-kneed student, who calls himself 'Hedditerlile--jackdaw'" (Editor Loyal Objector) "told me it was his by right, since he and his like were Hindustan. But I told the lad God had ordained otherwise--for look you, Huzoor, we Mussalmans came from the north many long years before the sahib-logue came from the west. So I let him talk, having, by God's mercy, come to a decision."
"What is that, hakeem-ji?" I asked, curious to know what had influenced the old man.
He salaamed quite simply. "The Huzoor bade me think who could best do the work, so I decided to vote for him. He is noble, and he knows what has to be done. He knows santation and inspekshon-conservance. Also new-tense, and karl-ra-pre-kar-sons, and"--he added, with the most beautiful supplementary salaam of pure flattery--"all other noble arts and philosophies." It quite gave me a pang to tell him that this scheme of his would not work. That I was ex officio president of the Municipal Committee, and thus beyond the reach of voters.
His face was illumined by a vast relief even amidst his perplexities.
"That is as it should be," he said simply. "The Sirkar then, has not, as they say, quite lost its head; the Huzoor retains it still. But what am I to do?"
I left him looking the picture of woe, absolutely unheeding of two patient travellers who had been awaiting my departure with that calm stolid disregard of the passing hour which brings with it to the Western such a sense of personal grievance; whereas to the Eastern it only emphasises his trust in Providence by proving the omnipotence of Fate.
Next morning, however, the whole aspect of affairs had been changed. Hakeem-ji was alert, spry, surrounded by quite a congregation of would-be patients, to whom he was giving out his dicta with quite a lordly air.
There was no need to ask him if he had settled his vexed question. That was apparent. I simply asked him what he had done about the paper.
"Huzoor," he said again, with that lucid candour which--was so marked a feature of the man himself, "the Lord mercifully directed me. Therefore I ate it, and it hath done me much good."
"Ate it?" I echoed. "You don't mean to say----"
"Huzoor!" he interrupted cheerfully, "this is how it was. After your Honour left, it was the time of evening prayer. So I went, after my usual custom, to the House of God, to await the cry of the Muazzim and prepare myself for the presence of the Most High by the necessary ablutions. And as I sat squatted on the edge of the Pool of Purification, my hands in the cool water, I felt as if naught could cleanse me from that accursed paper that lay folded in my breast. So I cried in my heart to the prophet that he should show me a way, and then in one moment I saw where the error lay. I was arrogating to myself decisions that should be left to the Almighty. So I did what I do ever when life and death are at issue; when even the mighty skill of medicine has to stand on one side and do nothing.
"I took my stylus, and I wrote all over that paper the attributes of the Most High--His mercy, His truth, His wisdom, His great loving-kindness. And then, Huzoor, I crushed it into the form of a bolus, covered it with silver foil, and swallowed it as a pill.
"It hath done me much good. I am now free from anxiety. The decision of all things rests with the Most Mighty."