or six British soldiers, joining arms, swept down the side-gullies, their
rifles on their backs, stamping, with shouting and song, upon the toes of
Hindu and Musalman. Never was religious enthusiasm more systematically
squashed; and never were poor breakers of the peace more utterly weary and
footsore. They were routed out of holes and corners, from behind
well-pillars and byres, and bidden to go to their houses. If they had no
houses to go to, so much the worse for their toes.
On returning to Lalun's door I stumbled over a man at the threshold. He
was sobbing hysterically and his arms flapped like the wings of a goose.
It was Wali Dad, Agnostic and Unbeliever, shoeless, turbanless, and
frothing at the mouth, the flesh on his chest bruised and bleeding from
the vehemence with which he had smitten himself. A broken torch-handle lay
by his side, and his quivering lips murmured, "Ya Hasan! Ya Hussain!" as I
stooped over him. I pushed him a few steps up the staircase, threw a
pebble at Lalun's City window and hurried home.
Most of the streets were very still, and the cold wind that comes before
the dawn whistled down them. In the centre of the Square of the Mosque a
man was bending over a corpse. The skull had been smashed in by gun-butt
or bamboo-stave.
"It is expedient that one man should die for the people," said Petitt,
grimly, raising the shapeless head. "These brutes were beginning to show
their teeth too much."
And from afar we could hear the soldiers singing "Two Lovely Black Eyes,"
as they drove the remnant of the rioters within doors.
*
*
*
*
*
Of course you can guess what happened? I was not so clever. When the news
went abroad that Khem Singh had escaped from the Fort, I did not, since I
was then living this story, not writing it, connect myself, or Lalun, or
the fat gentleman of the gold _pince-nez_, with his disappearance. Nor did
it strike me that Wali Dad was the man who should have convoyed him across
the City, or that Lalun's arms round my neck were put there to hide the
money that Nasiban gave to Kehm Singh, and that Lalun had used me and my
white face as even a better safeguard than Wali Dad who proved himself so
untrustworthy. All that I knew at the time was that, when Fort Amara was
taken up with the riots, Khem Singh profited by the confusion to get away,
and that his two Sikh guards also escaped.
But later on I received full enlightenment; and so did Khem Singh. He fled
to those who knew him in the old days, but many of them were dead and more
were changed, and all knew something of the Wrath of the Government. He
went to the young men, but the glamour of his name had passed away, and
they were entering native regiments of Government offices, and Khem Singh
could give them neither pension, decorations, nor influence--nothing but a
glorious death with their backs to the mouth of a gun. He wrote letters
and made promises, and the letters fell into bad hands, and a wholly
insignificant subordinate officer of Police tracked them down and gained
promotion thereby. Moreover, Khem Singh was old, and anise-seed brandy was
scarce, and he had left his silver cooking-pots in Fort Amara with his
nice warm bedding, and the gentleman with the gold _pince-nez_ was told by
those who had employed him that Khem Singh as a popular leader was not
worth the money paid.
"Great is the mercy of these fools of English!" said Khem Singh when the
situation was put before him. "I will go back to Fort Amara of my own free
will and gain honor. Give me good clothes to return in,"
So, at his own time, Khem Singh knocked at the wicket-gate of the Fort and
walked to the Captain and the Subaltern, who were nearly grey-headed on
account of correspondence that daily arrived from Simla marked "Private,"
"I have come back, Captain Sahib," said Khem Singh, "Put no more guards
over me. It is no good out yonder."
A week later I saw him for the first time to my knowledge, and he made as
though there were an understanding between us.
"It was well done, Sahib," said he, "and greatly I admired your astuteness
in thus boldly facing the troops when I, whom they would have doubtless
torn to pieces, was with you. Now there is a man in Fort Ooltagarh whom a
bold man could with ease help to escape. This is the position of the Fort
as I draw it on the sand"--
But I was thinking how I had become Lalun's Vizier after all.
THE BROKEN-LINK HANDICAP
While the snaffle holds, or the long-neck slings,
While the big beam tilts, or the last bell rings,
While horses are horses to train and to race.
Then women and wine take a second place
For me--for me--
While a short "ten-three"
Has a field to squander or fence to face!
_--Song of the. G. R._
There are more ways of running a horse to suit your book than pulling his
head off in the straight. Some men forget this. Understand clearly that
all racing is rotten--as everything connected with losing money must be.
In India, in addition to its inherent rottenness, it has the merit of
being two-thirds sham; looking pretty on paper only. Every one knows every
one else far too well for business purposes. How on earth can you rack and
harry and post a man for his losings, when you are fond of his wife, and
live in the same Station with him? He says, "On the Monday following," "I
can't settle just yet." You say, "All right, old man," and think yourself
lucky if you pull off nine hundred out of a two-thousand-rupee debt. Any
way you look at it, Indian racing is immoral, and expensively immoral.
Which is much worse. If a man wants your money, he ought to ask for it, or
send round a subscription-list, instead of juggling about the country,
with an Australian larrikin; a "brumby," with as much breed as the boy; a
brace of _chumars_ in gold-laced caps; three or four _ekka_-ponies with
hogged manes, and a switch-tailed demirep of a mare called Arab because
she has a kink in her flag. Racing leads to the _shroff_ quicker than
anything else. But if you have no conscience and no sentiments, and good
hands, and some knowledge of pace, and ten years' experience of horses,
and several thousand rupees a month, I believe that you can occasionally
contrive to pay your shoeing-bills.
Did you ever know Shackles--b. w. g., 15. 1-3/8--coarse, loose, mule-like
ears--barrel as long as a gatepost--tough as a telegraph-wire--and the
queerest brute that ever looked through a bridle? He was of no brand,
being one of an ear-nicked mob taken into the _Bucephalus_ at Ј4:10s., a
head to make up freight, and sold raw and out of condition at Calcutta for
Rs.275. People who lost money on him called him a "brumby"; but if ever
any horse had Harpoon's shoulders and The Gin's temper, Shackles was that
horse. Two miles was his own particular distance. He trained himself, ran
himself, and rode himself; and, if his jockey insulted him by giving him
hints, he shut up at once and bucked the boy off. He objected to
dictation. Two or three of his owners did not understand this, and lost
money in consequence. At last he was bought by a man who discovered that,
if a race was to be won, Shackles, and Shackles only, would win it in his
own way, so long as his jockey sat still. This man had a riding-boy called
Brunt--a lad from Perth, West Australia--and he taught Brunt, with a
trainer's whip, the hardest thing a jock can learn--to sit still, to sit
still, and to keep on sitting still. When Brunt fairly grasped this truth,
Shackles devastated the country. No weight could stop him at his own
distance; and the fame of Shackles spread from Ajmir in the South, to
Chedputter in the North. There was no horse like Shackles, so long as he
was allowed to do his work in his own way. But he was beaten in the end;
and the story of his fall is enough to make angels weep.
At the lower end of the Chedputter racecourse, just before the turn into
the straight, the track passes close to a couple of old brick-mounds
enclosing a funnel-shaped hollow. The big end of the funnel is not six
feet from the railings on the off-side. The astounding peculiarity of the
course is that, if you stand at one particular place, about half a mile
away, inside the course, and speak at ordinary pitch, your voice just hits
the funnel of the brick-mounds and makes a curious whining echo there. A
man discovered this one morning by accident while out training with a
friend. He marked the place to stand and speak from with a couple of
bricks, and he kept his knowledge to himself. _Every_ peculiarity of a
course is worth remembering in a country where rats play the mischief with
the elephant-litter, and Stewards build jumps to suit their own stables.
This man ran a very fairish country-bred, a long, racking high mare with
the temper of a fiend, and the paces of an airy wandering seraph--a
drifty, glidy stretch. The mare was, as a delicate tribute to Mrs. Reiver,
called "The Lady Regula Baddun"--or for short, Regula Baddun.
Shackles' jockey, Brunt, was a quite well-behaved boy, but his nerve had
been shaken. He began his career by riding jump-races in Melbourne, where
a few Stewards want lynching, and was one of the jockeys who came through
the awful butchery--perhaps you will recollect it--of the Maribyrnong
Plate. The walls were colonial ramparts--logs of _jarrah_ spiked into
masonry--with wings as strong as Church buttresses. Once in his stride, a
horse had to jump or fall. He couldn't run out. In the Maribyrnong Plate,
twelve horses were jammed at the second wall. Red Hat, leading, fell this
side, and threw out The Gled, and the ruck came up behind and the space
between wing and wing was one struggling, screaming, kicking shambles.
Four jockeys were taken out dead; three were very badly hurt, and Brunt
was among the three. He told the story of the Maribyrnong Plate sometimes;
and when he described how Whalley on Red Hat, said, as the mare fell under
him--"God ha' mercy, I'm done for!" and how, next instant, Sithee There
and White Otter had crushed the life out of poor Whalley, and the dust hid
a small hell of men and horses, no one marveled that Brunt had dropped
jump-races and Australia together. Regula Baddun's owner knew that story
by heart. Brunt never varied it in the telling. He had no education.
Shackles came to the Chedputter Autumn races one year, and his owner
walked about insulting the sportsmen of Chedputter generally, till they
went to the Honorary Secretary in a body and said, "Appoint handicappers,
and arrange a race which shall break Shackles and humble the pride of his
owner." The Districts rose against Shackles and sent up of their best;
Ousel, who was supposed to be able to do his mile in 1-53; Petard, the
stud-bred, trained by a cavalry regiment who knew how to train; Gringalet,
the ewe-lamb of the 75th; Bobolink, the pride of Peshawar; and many
others.
They called that race The Broken-Link Handicap, because it was to smash
Shackles; and the Handicappers piled on the weights, and the Fund gave
eight hundred rupees, and the distance was "round the course for all
horses." Shackles' owner said, "You can arrange the race with regard to
Shackles only. So long as you don't bury him under weight-cloths, I don't
mind." Regula Baddun's owner said, "I throw in my mare to fret Ousel. Six
furlongs is Regula's distance, and she will then lie down and die. So also
will Ousel, for his jockey doesn't understand a waiting race." Now, this
was a lie, for Regula had been in work for two months at Dehra, and her
chances were good, always supposing that Shackles broke a blood-vessel--or
Brunt moved on him.
The plunging in the lotteries was fine. They filled eight thousand-rupee
lotteries on the Broken-Link Handicap, and the account in the _Pioneer_
said that "favoritism was divided." In plain English, the various
contingents were wild on their respective horses; for the Handicappers had
done their work well. The Honorary Secretary shouted himself hoarse
through the din; and the smoke of the cheroots was like the smoke, and the
rattling of the dice-boxes like the rattle of small-arm fire.
Ten horses started--very level--and Regula Baddun's owner cantered out on
his hack to a place inside the circle of the course, where two bricks had
been thrown. He faced toward the brick-mounds at the lower end of the
course and waited.
The story of the running is in the _Pioneer_. At the end of the first
mile, Shackles crept out of the ruck, well on the outside, ready to get
round the turn, lay hold of the bit and spin up the straight before the
others knew he had got away. Brunt was sitting still, perfectly happy,
listening to the "drum-drum-drum" of the hoofs behind, and knowing that,
in about twenty strides, Shackles would draw one deep breath and go up the
last half-mile like the "Flying Dutchman." As Shackles went short to take
the turn and came abreast of the brick-mound, Brunt heard, above the noise
of the wind in his ears, a whining, wailing voice on the offside,
saying--"God ha' mercy, I'm done for!" In one stride. Brunt saw the whole
seething smash of the Maribyrnong Plate before him, started in his saddle
and gave a yell of terror. The start brought the heels into Shackles'
side, and the scream hurt Shackles' feelings. He couldn't stop dead; but
he put out his feet and slid along for fifty yards, and then, very gravely
and judicially, bucked off Brunt--a shaking, terror-stricken lump, while
Regula Baddun made a neck-and-neck race with Bobolink up the straight, and
won by a short head--Petard a bad third. Shackles' owner, in the Stand,
tried to think that his field-glasses had gone wrong. Regula Baddun's
owner, waiting by the two bricks, gave one deep sigh of relief, and
cantered back to the Stand. He had won, in lotteries and bets, about
fifteen thousand.
It was a Broken-Link Handicap with a vengeance. It broke nearly all the
men concerned, and nearly broke the heart of Shackles' owner. He went down
to interview Brunt. The boy lay, livid and gasping with fright, where he
had tumbled off. The sin of losing the race never seemed to strike him.
All he knew was that Whalley had "called" him, that the "call" was a
warning; and, were he cut in two for it, he would never get up again. His
nerve had gone altogether, and he only asked his master to give him a good
thrashing, and let him go. He was fit for nothing, he said. He got his
dismissal, and crept up to the paddock, white as chalk, with blue lips,
his knees giving way under him. People said nasty things in the paddock;
but Brunt never heeded. He changed into tweeds, took his stick and went
down the road, still shaking with fright, and muttering over and over
again--"God ha' mercy, I'm done for!" To the best of my knowledge and
belief he spoke the truth.
So now you know how the Broken-Link Handicap was run and won. Of course
you don't believe it. You would credit anything about Russia's designs on
India, or the recommendations of the Currency Commission; but a little bit
of sober fact is more than you can stand.
ON GREENHOW HILL
To Love's low voice she lent a careless ear;
Her hand within his rosy fingers lay,
A chilling weight. She would not turn or hear;
But with averted face went on her way.
But when pale Death, all featureless and grim,
Lifted his bony hand, and beckoning
Held out his cypress-wreath, she followed him,
And Love was left forlorn and wondering,
That she who for his bidding would not stay,
At Death's first whisper rose and went away.
_Rivals,_
"_Ohй, Ahmed Din! Shafiz Ulla ahoo!_ Bahadur Khan, where are you? Come out
of the tents, as I have done, and fight against the English. Don't kill
your own kin! Come out to me!"
The deserter from a native corps was crawling round the outskirts of the
camp, firing at intervals, and shouting invitations to his old comrades.
Misled by the rain and the darkness, he came to the English wing of the
camp, and with his yelping and rifle-practice disturbed the men. They had
been making roads all day, and were tired.
Ortheris was sleeping at Learoyd's feet. "Wot's all that?" he said
thickly. Learoyd snored, and a Snider bullet ripped its way through the
tent wall. The men swore, "it's that bloomin' deserter from the
Aurangabadis," said Ortheris. "Git up, some one, an' tell 'im 'e's come to
the wrong shop,"
"Go to sleep, little man," said Mulvaney, who was steaming nearest the
door. "I can't arise and expaytiate with him. Tis rainin' entrenchin'
tools outside."
"'Tain't because you bloomin' can't. It's 'cause you bloomin' won't, ye
long, limp, lousy, lazy beggar, you. 'Ark to 'im 'owlin'!"
"Wot's the good of argifying? Put a bullet into the swine! 'E's keepin' us
awake!" said another voice.
A subaltern shouted angrily, and a dripping sentry whined from the
darkness--
"'Tain't no good, sir. I can't see 'im. 'E's 'idin' somewhere down 'ill."
Ortheris tumbled out of his blanket. "Shall I try to get 'im, sir?" said
he.
"No," was the answer. "Lie down. I won't have the whole camp shooting all
round the clock. Tell him to go and pot his friends."
Ortheris considered for a moment. Then, putting his head under the tent
wall, he called, as a 'bus conductor calls in a block, "'Igher up, there!
'Igher up!"
The men laughed, and the laughter was carried down wind to the deserter,
who, hearing that he had made a mistake, went off to worry his own
regiment half a mile away. He was received with shots; the Aurangabadis
were very angry with him for disgracing their colors.
"An' that's all right," said Ortheris, withdrawing his head as he heard
the hiccough of the Sniders in the distance. "S'elp me Gawd, tho', that
man's not fit to live--messin' with my beauty-sleep this way."
"Go out and shoot him in the morning, then," said the subaltern
incautiously. "Silence in the tents now. Get your rest, men."
Ortheris lay down with a happy little sigh, and in two minutes there was
no sound except the rain on the canvas and the all-embracing and elemental
snoring of Learoyd.
The camp lay on a bare ridge of the Himalayas, and for a week had been
waiting for a flying column to make connection. The nightly rounds of the
deserter and his friends had become a nuisance.
In the morning the men dried themselves in hot sunshine and cleaned their
grimy accoutrements. The native regiment was to take its turn of
road-making that day while the Old Regiment loafed.
"I'm goin' to lay for a shot at that man," said Ortheris, when he had
finished washing out his rifle, "'E comes up the watercourse every evenin'
about five o'clock. If we go and lie out on the north 'ill a bit this
afternoon we'll get 'im."
"You're a bloodthirsty little mosquito," said Mulvaney, blowing blue
clouds into the air. "But I suppose I will have to come wid you. Pwhere's
Jock?"
"Gone out with the Mixed Pickles, 'cause 'e thinks 'isself a bloomin'
marksman," said Ortheris, with scorn,
The "Mixed Pickles" were a detachment of picked shots, generally employed
in clearing spurs of hills when the enemy were too impertinent. This
taught the young officers how to handle men, and did not do the enemy much
harm. Mulvaney and Ortheris strolled out of camp, and passed the
Aurangabadis going to their road-making,
"You've got to sweat to-day," said Ortheris, genially. "We're going to get
your man. You didn't knock 'im out last night by any chance, any of you?"
"No. The pig went away mocking us. I had one shot at him," said a private,
"He's my cousin, and _I_ ought to have cleared our dishonor. But good luck
to you."
They went cautiously to the north hill, Ortheris leading, because, as he
explained, "this is a long-range show, an' I've got to do it." His was an
almost passionate devotion to his rifle, which, by barrack-room report, he
was supposed to kiss every night before turning in. Charges and scuffles
he held in contempt, and, when they were inevitable, slipped between
Mulvaney and Learoyd, bidding them to fight for his skin as well as their
own. They never failed him. He trotted along, questing like a hound on a
broken trail, through the wood of the north hill. At last he was
satisfied, and threw himself down on the soft pine-needle slope that
commanded a clear view of the watercourse and a brown, bare hillside
beyond it. The trees made a scented darkness in which an army corps could
have hidden from the sun-glare without.
"'Ere's the tail o' the wood," said Ortheris. "'E's got to come up the
watercourse, 'cause it gives 'im cover. We'll lay 'ere. 'Tain't not arf so
bloomin' dusty neither."
He buried his nose in a clump of scentless white violets. No one had come
to tell the flowers that the season of their strength was long past, and
they had bloomed merrily in the twilight of the pines.
"This is something like," he said, luxuriously. "Wot a 'evinly clear drop
for a bullet acrost! How much d'you make it, Mulvaney?"
"Seven hunder. Maybe a trifle less, bekaze the air's so thin."
_Wop! Wop! Wop!_ went a volley of musketry on the rear face of the north
hill.
"Curse them Mixed Pickles firin' at nothin'! They'll scare arf the
country."
"Thry a sightin' shot in the middle of the row," said Mulvaney, the man of
many wiles. "There's a red rock yonder he'll be sure to pass. Quick!"
Ortheris ran his sight up to six hundred yards and fired. The bullet threw
up a feather of dust by a clump of gentians at the base of the rock.
"Good enough!" said Ortheris, snapping the scale down. "You snick your
sights to mine or a little lower. You're always firin' high. But remember,
first shot to me, O Lordy! but it's a lovely afternoon."
The noise of the firing grew louder, and there was a tramping of men in
the wood. The two lay very quiet, for they knew that the British soldier
is desperately prone to fire at anything that moves or calls. Then Learoyd
appeared, his tunic ripped across the breast by a bullet, looking ashamed
of himself. He flung down on the pine-needles, breathing in snorts.
"One o' them damned gardeners o' th' Pickles," said he, fingering the
rent. "Firin' to th' right flank, when he knowed I was there. If I knew
who he was I'd 'a' rippen the hide offan him. Look at ma tunic!"
"That's the spishil trustability av a marksman. Train him to hit a fly wid
a stiddy rest at seven hunder, an' he loose on anythin' he sees or hears
up to th' mile. You're well out av that fancy-firin' gang, Jock. Stay
here."
"Bin firin' at the bloomin' wind in the bloomin' treetops," said Ortheris,
with a chuckle. "I'll show you some firin' later on."
They wallowed in the pine-needles, and the sun warmed them where they lay.
The Mixed Pickles ceased firing, and returned to camp, and left the wood
to a few scared apes. The watercourse lifted up its voice in the silence,
and talked foolishly to the rocks. Now and again the dull thump of a
blasting charge three miles away told that the Aurangabadis were in
difficulties with their road-making. The men smiled as they listened and
lay still, soaking in the warm leisure. Presently Learoyd, between the
whiffs of his pipe--
"Seems queer--about 'im yonder--desertin' at all."
"'E'll be a bloomin' side queerer when I've done with 'im," said Ortheris.
They were talking in whispers, for the stillness of the wood and the
desire of slaughter lay heavy upon them.
"I make no doubt he had his reasons for desertin'; but, my faith! I make
less doubt ivry man has good reason for killin' him," said Mulvaney.
"Happen there was a lass tewed up wi'it. Men do more than more for th'
sake of a lass."
"They make most av us 'list. They've no manner av right to make us
desert."
"Ah; they make us 'list, or their fathers do," said Learoyd, softly, his
helmet over his eyes.
Ortheris's brows contracted savagely. He was watching the valley, "If it's
a girl I'll shoot the beggar twice over, an' second time for bein' a fool.
You're blasted sentimental all of a sudden, Thinkin' o' your last near
shave?"
"Nay, lad; ah was but thinkin' o' what had happened,"
"An' fwhat has happened, ye lumberin' child av calamity, that you're
lowing like a cow-calf at the back av the pasture, an' suggestin'
invidious excuses for the man Stanley's goin' to kill. Ye'll have to wait
another hour yet, little man. Spit it out, Jock, an' bellow melojus to the
moon. It takes an earthquake or a bullet graze to fetch aught out av you.
Discourse, Don Juan! The a-moors av Lotharius Learoyd! Stanley, kape a
rowlin' rig'mental eye on the valley."
"It's along o' yon hill there," said Learoyd, watching the bare
sub-Himalayan spur that reminded him of his Yorkshire moors. He was
speaking more to himself than his fellows.
"Ay," said he, "Rumbolds Moor stands up ower Skipton town, an' Greenhow
Hill stands up ower Pately Brig. I reckon you've never heeard tell o'
Greenhow Hill, but yon bit o' bare stuff if there was nobbut a white road
windin' is like ut; strangely like. Moors an' moors an' moors, wi' never a
tree for shelter, an' grey houses wi' flagstone rooves, and pewits cryin',
an' a windhover goin' to and fro just like these kites. And cold! A wind
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