Hunsa tipped his gorilla body forward from where it rested on his heels as he sat, and his lowering eyes were sullen with impatience:
"Chief Ajeet," he snarled, "think you that we can rob the _seth_ of his treasure without an outcry--and if there is an outcry, that he will not go back to those of his caste in Poona, and when trouble is made, think you that the Dewan will thank us for the bungling of this? And as to the matter of a thug or a decoit, half our men have been taught the art of the strangler. With these,"--and extending his ma.s.sive arms he closed his coa.r.s.e hands in a gnarled grip,--"with these I would, with one sharp in-turn on the _roomal_, crack the neck of the merchant and he would be dead in the taking of a breath. And, Ajeet, if this that is the manner of men causes you fear--"
"Hunsa," and Ajeet"s voice was constrained in its deadliness, "that a.s.s"s voice of yours will yet bring you to grief."
But Sookdee interposed:
"Let us not quarrel," he said. "Ajeet no doubt has in his mind Bootea as I have Meena. And it would be well if the two were sent on the road in the cart, and when our work is completed we will follow. Indeed they may know nothing but that there is some jewel, such as women love, to be given them."
"Look you," cried Hunsa thrusting his coa.r.s.e hand out toward the road, "even Bhowanee is in favour. See you not the jackal?"
Turning their eyes in the direction Hunsa indicated, a jackal was seen slinking across the road from right to left.
"Indeed it is an omen," Sookdee corroborated; "if on our journeys to commit a decoity that is always a good omen."
"And there is the voice!" Hunsa exclaimed, as the tremulous lowing of a cow issued from the village.
He waved a beckoning hand to Guru Lal, for they had brought with them their tribal priest as an interpreter of omens chiefly. "Is not the voice of the cow heard at sunset a good omen, Guru?" he demanded.
"Indeed it is," the priest affirmed. "If the voice of a cow is heard issuing at twilight from a village at which decoits are to profit, it is surely a promise from Bhowanee that a large store of silver will be obtained."
"Take thee to thy prayers, Guru," Ajeet commanded, "for we have matters to settle." He turned to Sookdee. "Your omens will avail little if there is prosecution over the disappearance of the merchant. I am supposed to be in command, the leader, but I am the led. But I will not withdraw, and it is not the place of the chief to handle the _roomal_. We will eat our food, and after the evening prayers will sit about the fire and amuse this merchant with stories such as honest men and holy ones converse in, that he may be at peace in his mind. As Sookdee says, the women will be sent to the grove of trees we came through on the road."
"We will gather about the fire of the merchant," Sookdee declared, "for it is in the mango grove and hidden from sight of the villagers. Also a guard will be placed between here and the village, and one upon the roadway."
"And while we hold the merchant in amus.e.m.e.nt," Hunsa added, "men will dig the pits here, two of them, each within a tent so that they will not be seen at work."
"Yes, Ajeet," Sookdee said with a suspicion of a sneer, "we will give the merchant the consideration of a decent burial, and not leave him to be eaten by jackals and hyenas as were the two soldiers you finished with your sword when we robbed the camel transport that carried the British gold in Oudh."
"If it is to be, cease to chatter like jays," Ajeet answered crossly.
In keeping with their a.s.sumed characters, the evening meal was ushered in with a peace-shattering clamour from the drums and a raucous blare from conch-sh.e.l.l horns. Then the devout murderers offered up prayers of fervency to the great G.o.d, beseeching their more immediate branch of the deity, Bhowanee, to protect them.
And at the same time, just within the mud walls of Sarorra, its people were placing flowers and cocoanuts and sweetmeats upon the shrine of the G.o.d of their village.
Just without the village gate the elephant-nosed Ganesh sat looking in whimsical good nature across his huge paunch toward the place of crime, the deep shadow that lay beneath the green-leafed mango trees.
In the hearts of the Bagrees there was unholy joy, an eager antic.i.p.ation, a gladsome feeling toward Bhowanee who had certainly guided this rapacious merchant with his iron box full of jewels to their camp.
Indeed they would sacrifice a buffalo at her temple of Kajuria, for that was the habit of their clan when the booty was great. The taking of life was but an incident. In Hindustan humans came up like flies, returning over and over to again enc.u.mber the crowded earth. In the vicissitudes of life before long the merchant would pa.s.s for a reincorporation of his soul, and probably, because of his sins as an oppressor of the poor, come back as a turtle or a jacka.s.s; certainly not as a revered cow--he was too unholy. In the gradation of humans he was but a merchant of the caste of the third dimension in the great quartette of castes. It would not be like killing a Brahmin, a sin in the sight of the great G.o.d.
This philosophy was as subtle as the perfume of a rose, unspoken, even at the moment a floaty thought. Like their small hands and their erect air of free-men, the Rajput atmosphere, it had grown into their created being, like the hunting instinct of a Rampore hound.
The merchant, smoking his _hookah_, having eaten, observed with keen satisfaction the evening devotions of the supposed mendicants. As it grew dark their guru was offering up a prayer to the Holy Cow, for she was to be worshipped at night. The merchant"s appreciation was largely a worldly one, a business sense of insurance--safety for his jewels and nothing to pay for security--men so devout would have the G.o.ds in their mind and not robbery. When the jamadars, and some of the Bagrees who were good story tellers, and one a singer, did him the honour of coming to sit at his camp-fire he was pleased.
"Sit you here at my right," he said to Hunsa, for he conceived him to be captain of the Raja"s guard.
Sookdee and the others, without apparent motive, contrived it so that a Bagree or two sat between each of the merchant"s men, engaging them in pleasant speech, tendering tobacco. And, as if in modesty, some of the Bagrees sat behind the retainers.
"This is indeed a courtesy," the merchant a.s.sured Hunsa; "a poor trader feels honoured by a visit from so brave a soldier as the captain of the Raja"s guard."
He noticed, too, with inward satisfaction, that the jamadars had left their weapons behind, which they had done in a way of not arousing their victim"s fears.
"Would not it be deemed a courtesy," the merchant asked, "if one like myself, who is a poor trader, should go to pay his respects to the Raja ere he retires, for of course it would be beneath his dignity to come to his servant?"
"No, indeed," declared Hunsa quickly, thinking of the graves that were even then being dug; "he is a man of a haughty temper, and when he is in the society of the beautiful dancing girl who is with him, he cares not to be disturbed. Even now he is about to escort her in the cart down the road to where there is a shrine that women of that caste make offering to."
It had been arranged that Ajeet would escort Bootea, with two Bagrees as attendants, to the grove of trees half a mile down the road. He had insisted on this in the way of a negative support to the murder. As there would be no fighting this did not reflect on his courage as a leader. And as to complicity, Hunsa knew that as the leader of the party, Ajeet would be held the chief culprit. It was always the leader of a gang of decoits who was beheaded when captured, the others perhaps escaping with years of jail. And Hunsa himself, even Sookdee, would be safe, for they were in league with the Dewan.
There was an hour of social talk; many times Hunsa fingered the _roomal_ that was about his waist; the yellow-and-white strangling cloth with which Bhowanee had commanded her disciples, the thugs, to kill their victims. In one corner of it was tied a silver rupee for luck. The natural ferocity of his mind threw him into an eager antic.i.p.ation: he took pride in his proficiency as a strangler; his coa.r.s.e heavy hands, like those of a Punjabi wrestler, were suited to the task. Grasping the cloth at the base of a victim"s skull, tight to the throat, a side-twist inward and the trick was done, the spine snapped like a pipe-stem. And he had been somewhat out of practice--he had regretted that; he was fearful of losing the art, the knack.
About the fat paunch of the merchant was a silver-studded belt. Hunsa eyed this speculatively. Beyond doubt in its neighbourhood would be the key to the iron box; and when its owner lay on his back, his bulbous eyes glaring upward to where the moon trickled through the thick foliage of the mango tree beneath which they sat, he would seize the keys and be first to dabble his grimy fingers in the glittering gems.
Beyond, the village had hushed--the strident call of voices had ceased.
Somewhere a woman was pounding grain in a wooden mortar--a dull monotonous "thud, thud, swish, thud" carrying on the dead air.
Night-jars were circling above the trees, their plaintive call, "chy-eece, chy-e-ece!" filtering downward like the weird cry of spirits. Once the deep sonorous bugling note of a _saurus_, like the ba.s.s pipe of an organ, smote the stillness as the giant crane winged his way up the river that lay beyond, a mighty ribbon of silver in the moonlight. A jackal from the far side of the village, in the fields, raised a tremulous moan.
Sookdee looked into the eyes of Hunsa and he understood. It was the _tibao_, the happiest augury of success, for it came over the right shoulder of the victim.
Hunsa, feeling that the moment to strike had come, rose carelessly, saying: "Give me tobacco."
That was a universal signal amongst thugs, the command to strike.
Even as he uttered the words Hunsa had slipped behind the merchant and his towel was about the victim"s neck. Each man who had been a.s.signed as a strangler, had pounced upon his individual victim; while Sookdee stood erect, a knife in his hand, ready to plunge it into the heart of any one who was likely to overcome his a.s.sailant.
Hunsa had thrown the helpless merchant upon his face, and with one knee between his shoulder-blades had broken the neck; no sound beyond a gurgling breath of strangulation had pa.s.sed the Hindu"s lips. There had been no clamour, no outcry; nothing but a few smothered words, gasps, the scuffle of feet upon the earth; it was like a horrible nightmare, a fantastic orgy of murderous fiends. The flame of the campfire flickered sneers, drawn torture, red and green shadows in the staring faces of the men who lay upon the ground, and the figures of the stranglers glowed red in its light, like devils who danced in h.e.l.l.
Hunsa had turned the merchant upon his back and his evil gorilla face was thrust into the face of his victim. No breath pa.s.sed the thick protruding lips upon which was a froth of death.
As the Jamadar tore the keys from the waist-band, snapping a silver chain that was about the body, he said: "Sookdee, be quick. Have the bodies carried to the pits. Do not forget to drive a spear through each belly lest they swell up and burst open the earth."
"You have the keys to the chest, Hunsa?" Sookdee said, with suspicion in his voice.
"Yes, Jamadar; I will open it. We will empty it, and place the iron box on top of the bodies in a pit, for it is too heavy to carry, and if we are stopped it might be observed."
"Take the dead," Sookdee commanded the Bagrees; "lay them out; take down the tents that are over the pits, and by that time I will be there to count these dead things in the way of surety that not one has escaped with the tale.
"Come," he said to Hunsa, "together we will go to the iron box and open it; then there can be no suspicion that the men of Alwar have been defrauded."
Hunsa turned malignant eyes upon Sookdee, but, keys in hand, strode toward the tent.
Sookdee, thrusting in the fire a torch made from the feathery bark of the _kujoor_ tree, followed.
Hunsa kneeling before the iron box was fitting the keys into the double locks. Then he drew the lids backward, and the two gasped at a glitter of precious stones that lay beneath a black velvet cloth Hunsa stripped from the gems.
Sookdee cried out in wonderment; and Hunsa, s...o...b..ring gutturals of avarice, patted the gems with his gorilla paws. He lifted a large square emerald entwined in a tracery of gold, delicate as the criss-cross of a spider"s web, and held it to his thick lips.
"A bribe for a princess!" he gloated. "Take you this, Sookdee, and hide it as you would your life, for a gift to the son of the Peshwa, who, methinks, is behind the Dewan in this, we will be men of honour.