"Alms, in the name of the Buddh!" An old man, shaking with palsy, held out a gourd to her, and Ruys gave to him and walked on. The beggar picked out the coin from the calabash and poised it lightly on his finger. The palsy had all gone now, and his hand was as firm as a rock.
"Three times," he muttered to himself--"three times has my hand been crossed with silver to-day. By G.o.d! I have him now. Thanks to the chattering tongue of that servant girl, I know her secret and his. I will strike _there_--_there!_"--and he pointed to the retreating figure--"and this will make him live with a heart wound. For a whole year have I waited and worked and planned, and now the time has come.
Oh, that this were the day! But I will not disregard a single omen.
Thrice crossed with silver, therefore the third day from this.
Courage, Bah Hmoay!"
Once more palsy stricken, his feeble steps tottered along the lane and led him toward the paG.o.da. There at the feet of one of the two great griffins that guarded the gate he crouched, swinging himself backward and forward, and ever and anon calling out, "Alms, in the name of the Buddh!" So he sat until about the hour of sunset, when the womanfolk of the place gathered to the temple, and then he saw one whose stately step and carriage were unmistakable. It was Ma Mie, and as she pa.s.sed by he called out her name softly, and she turned with a start. At a glance she recognised him. "_You_ here!" she said with a little gasp that choked the word "devil!" which she hissed under the breath.
"Yes, but not alone. Where can we speak?"
"Come to my house; my mother is there, and there is no harm in listening to the advice of a holy bonze."
"Ever ready with your tongue as usual," said the dacoit as he rose, flung his saffron robe loosely around him and followed her with feeble steps.
And as she led him toward the house Ma Mie was thirsting for revenge.
Here, here was the man who had led her into disaster, and he, above all others, with a price on his head, was walking beside her, going to her own house. The old fox was noosed at last, and it was with a beating heart that she led him into her house, where her mother, old, wrinkled, and hideous beyond measure, mumbled out a greeting.
"See, mother, this is a friend, a holy man, whom I have brought to rest here a while. I knew him in the old days, and he has something to say to me."
The hag chuckled out: "He is too old for a lover; let him speak, I will not be in hearing," and she went out of the door and sat hard by on a rude seat at the foot of a large palm tree.
"Now, what is it you want here?" said Ma Mie; "you with a price on your head!"
"You, at any rate, will not give me away."
"And why not?"
"First, because your brother is one of us, and lies sick in a place I know of; if I am lost, so is he--I have but to speak a word; and, secondly, because you want revenge, and I offer it to you."
Ma Mie dropped her eyes for a moment to hide the fierce light that came into them, and pretended to adjust the rich folds of her _tamein_.
"Yes," she said slowly, "I want revenge," and she looked at Bah Hmoay straight in the face.
"Then listen; I want your help. I am not alone, as I said. Away in the swamp lie twenty good men who would raze this place to the ground if anything were to happen to me. I, too, want revenge, and upon Jackson--he who ruined your husband, he who has hunted me until I live a beast of the field. I could kill him at any time, but that is not enough. I want him to live with a wound on his heart from which he will never recover. I will kill him afterward if it suits me, and now--stoop--see here," and the dacoit rapidly whispered to Ma Mie words that made her start back and say, "No! no!" "But I say yes--think of it--it is a vengeance worthy of a Burman. We will sack the place on the third night from this, and but one shall be spared. I shall take her to my swamp, and she shall live as my slave; but these white women are delicate, and I do not want her to die _yet_. I want your help, therefore--a woman needs a woman. Soh! You understand? You can name your price."
"Vengeance has no price," said Ma Mie, "and I agree."
"So be it," said the dacoit. "Then you will be ready?"
"Yes," she replied; "and now go."
"My blessing," and the dacoit rose and tottered out of the room.
"Ho, mother!" he said as he pa.s.sed the old Mah Kit, "the night air is chilly for old bones; you had better go in."
"Old bones," the hag mumbled--"old bones, but eyes young yet, young yet. There is devilment abroad. What is it, daughter?" she asked as she entered the room.
"It would have been death, mother, had he stayed another five minutes.
I would have put my dagger in his heart. But let me be; I will tell you all. I must think."
And she sat moodily slowly drawing the point of her stiletto in little crosses on the wood flooring. An hour or two pa.s.sed in this way, and then Ma Mie looked up.
"Mother," she said, "I am going on a journey. I shall be back on the third day from this. If _he_ comes, make some excuse. Listen, it will be worth a thousand to us."
"Clever girl! clever girl!" said the hag; "leave it to Ma Kit. I know now. Oh, yes, I know many things that n.o.body else knows. He! he! When are you going, child?"
"Now," said Ma Mie. "The little steamer touches here at ten to-night, and it now wants but a half hour to the time."
Her packing arrangements were of the simplest character, and an hour later she was leaning over the side of the small steamer that plied between Dagon and Pazobin, with burning revenge in her heart and a long cheroot in her mouth--bathos and tragedy hand in hand. The morning brought her to Pazobin, and she went straight to Jackson"s house. To her dismay, she found he was not there--he had gone to the district the night before, and Phipson with him. Then she bethought her of the native deputy magistrate; but he was a Burman, and she doubted him. Finally she thought of old Serferez Ali, and, seeking him out, poured the information into the old man"s ears. It was not the reward she wanted, it was revenge; but not revenge upon Jackson, but upon the fiend who had tempted and was now tempting again to drag her to the lowest deep. "Is all this true, girl?" said the inspector, and Ma Mie merely looked at him in reply. He was satisfied. "Go back at once," he said; "the dispatch boat leaves this afternoon; you will be there by the early morning; and stay--not a word of this to a soul.
You have money?"
Ma Mie laughed. "Yes," she said. "And see, I will add five hundred rupees to the government reward if you have him this time." She turned and was gone.
"Light of my eyes! thou art gone," said Serferez to himself. "Fool that I was not to recognise her! But, Allah! this is no time for words. Bullen! Bullen! thief from the Boab, saddle me the roan mare--and listen, on your head! Bear this telegram, and let it be despatched at once. I want the police steamer at Myo to-night; and you, sergeant, be ready with twenty picked men at the quay to-morrow morning at seven. Soh! Is the mare ready? On your heads, see that my orders are carried out to the letter." He swung himself into the saddle, and five minutes later was Debte riding at a breakneck pace to Jackson"s camp.
CHAPTER XIV.
PALLIDA MORS.
Ah! woe is me! They brought him home, My winsome knight of Dee: On lances four my knight they bore, Who died for love and me.
_Old Ballad_.
Three men ride through the shivering moonlight--ride with teeth set hard and eyes that looked straight before them. Neck and neck they race across the open, and then the man on the left mutters a curse as they come to a stretch of rice fields. The long rice stalks seem planted in plate gla.s.s, but it is only water. Under the water lies three feet of mud, and beyond, like a huge dismasted hulk, rises the solid outline of the forest. The fields are divided by narrow embankments, and, as it is impossible to gallop through the quagmire, they resign themselves to circ.u.mstances, and pick their way slowly in Indian file across the narrow ridges that separate the sloppy water-logged fields. Yet they speak no word. After a time, short in itself, but which seems endless to the leader, they reached the end of the rice ground, and then the foremost horseman spoke.
"Good G.o.d! must we crawl through this as well?"
"By your favour, sahib, the road is to the right. Let me lead."
There is a scatter of dead leaves, and Serferez, galloping forward, plunged into the dark archway of foliage. Through its deep gloom they race, and the hoofs of the horses fall with a dead sound on the damp bed of leaves below them.
Shurr-r-r-sh! A sound of wild boar plunges into the thickets, with much grunting and hubbub over the strange sight that flashes past them. The old boar peers after the hors.e.m.e.n with his bloodshot eyes, the white foam hissing round his tushes, then with a peculiar long-drawn moan of anger he turns and shambles slowly after his tribe.
Light at last!--the fires of a native hamlet and the indescribable odours that always hang around it. They dash past. There is a yell of rage from the napless yellow pariah dog, roused from his sleep in the middle of the road. He was nearly killed, and he protests vigorously against such reckless riding. A chorus of his fellows take up his complaint, and the riders push on amid a storm of howls.
"Don"t think this beast will hold out," said Phipson suddenly. The horse was almost staggering in its stride under him, and he knew by the ominous way in which the poor animal seized the bit between his teeth at intervals and flung forward his head that it could not keep up the pace for long.
No one answered, for at that time the loud, deep whistle of a steamer reached their ears, ringing through the woods with echo upon echo.
"Allah ho Akbar! "Tis the steamer!" shouted Serferez.
"Thank G.o.d!" came in deeper tones from the very hearts of the two Englishmen. The horses themselves seemed to know it. Brave hearts!
They had won a race for life, and ten minutes later kind hands were rubbing them down on the deck of the little Beeloo, and the old Panjabi was purring over the neck of his roan.