"Hussan and Husayn! What makes them be for ever fighting like young c.o.c.ks?"
There was an instant"s pause; then the voice from the roof came piously, "G.o.d knows!"
Probably He did, but Miriam herself might have been less modest as to her knowledge. For the case stood thus. It was a corner house between two sequestered alleys which intersected each other at right angles, and there had been a lingering lover, expectant of some recognition, in each alley. Now, if half-a-handful of golden corn be thrown as a guerdon over the parapet just at the angle, and if the lovers, hot-blooded young sparks, spring forward incontinently to pick up the precious grains and meet, then----
"Indeed, mother, they were very like c.o.c.ks," remarked Miriam gravely, as she stepped daintily down the narrow mud-stairs again to resume her spinning in the courtyard. Once more she spoke truth, but hardly the whole truth; since when featherless bipeds are picking up grains of corn out of a gutter, they can hardly avoid a resemblance to feathered ones.
So the whir of the wheel joined the hum of the quern, and both formed a background to her sudden girlish laugh at the recollection of what she had seen through the peep-hole in the parapet.
The whole thing was a play to this Osmanzai girl, who, for all her seclusion, knew perfectly well that she was the beauty of the village, and that many another spark besides Hussan and Husayn would be only too glad of half-a-handful of Indian corn to pick up out of the gutter. But these two being the most expert swimmers in that quaint bare colony of huts set on a loose shale slope with the wild wicked rush of the Indus at its foot, were, perhaps, the most interesting.
That is to say, if you excepted Khasia, the big soft shepherd who came down sometimes from the gra.s.sy, fir-crowned slopes higher up the gorge; the Maha-ban or Great Forest Hills, beyond which lay the Black Mountain.
A strange wild country, is this of the Indus gorge, just as the great river begins to think of the level plains in front of it. A strange wild people are those who live in that close-packed, flat-roofed village upon the shale slope, where a footfall sends the thin leaves of mica-schist slithering away into the rushing river. There is no stranger country, no wilder people. For this is Sitana, the place of refuge for every Mohammedan fanatic who finds the more civilised plains too hot even for his fiery faith; Sitana, the dwelling-place of the Syyuds who, since the days of their great leader Ahmad, have spent their lives in killing every h.e.l.l-doomed infidel they can get hold of in cold blood. And as the pigs of Hindus live on the other side of the rushing river, it follows that those who kill must also swim, since there is no bridge far or near. That was why Hussan and Husayn, and many another of their sort, with carefully oiled thews and sinews of bronze, would go down the shale slope on dark nights and slip softly into the ice-cold stream. Then, if there was a glint of moon, you could see them caught in the great upward curve of the mad current insh.o.r.e, the two skin-bladders that were slung under their armpits making it look as if six dark heads, not two, were drifting down and down; yet somehow drifting nearer and nearer to the other side where the pigs of Hindus were to be found. But even a glint of moon kept them, as a rule, talking of future nights--unless there was some cause to raise their recklessness to fever-height; for even that glint was enough to make the police watchers on the other, the English, side slip softly also into the stream, and give chase. A strange, wild chase indeed it was; down and down in the dark till the blockade was run, or the venture abandoned for another night. Or stranger, wilder still, two men with knives met on the crest of the current and fought a strange, bloodless fight, hacking at the bladders because they were larger than the head, and the loss of them meant equally certain disablement. For there was nothing to be done in that wild stream if they were p.r.i.c.ked but to cast them free and dive--to dive down and down past the current, to come up, please G.o.d! nearer home.
So, because of those watchers on the other side, the Sitana swimmers could not start openly, nor from the same place. They went singly, silently, but the next morning ere the light came fully they would all be resting together on the steps of the little mosque; unless, indeed, some of them had not returned; were, in fact, to return no more. And the worshippers would be crowding round one or two, perhaps, while the others looked on enviously to hear how some traveller had been happened upon and done to death in the dark upon the undulating tract of low jungle on the other side. Then the worshippers going home would say casually in their houses: "Hussan killed his man last night; that makes him two ahead of Husayn. And Ahmad, the new one, hath another, so that brings him next to Husayn, who will need to work hard." And the women would gossip about it among themselves, and say that, of course, Miriam, the village-beauty, would choose the best swimmer when the time came for the curious choice which is allowed the Pathan girl among lovers whom she is supposed never to have seen. As yet, however, Miriam had only laughed, and thrown handfuls of yellow corn into the gutter, and said things to the aspirants" female relations which were sure to be repeated, and make the rivalry run fiercer than ever. She did all this partly because of the big shepherd, partly because it was good for the faith to stimulate the young men"s courage, but mostly because it amused her.
It was far, however, from having that effect on the Englishman who was responsible for the reputation of the district over the water. The more so because his name happened to be John Nicholson, and John Nicholson was not a man to allow any increase of crime within his borders without knowing the reason why, and meting out punishment for the offence.
"What the deuce does it mean?" he said to the trembling native official in charge of that particular portion of the country which lay over against Sitana. "There have been twenty murders this quarter against ten in the last. And I told you that for every man killed on our side there were to be two in Sitana. What on earth are your swimmers about? If they are not so good as theirs, get others. Get something! There must be some fault on your part, or they wouldn"t c.o.c.k their tails up in this way. Remedy it; that is what you have got to do, so don"t ask questions as to how it is to be done. I"ll back you up, never fear."
And then he took his telescope out, as he sat on his horse among the low bushes down by the rushing river, and prospected before he galloped off, neck or nothing, as his fashion was, to regain his camp thirty miles away, and write an urgent letter to Government detailing fully the measures which he intended to adopt for the repression of these scandalous crimes. But even a telescope did not show him Miriam"s face as she sat spinning in the courtyard. And the rest of the long, low, flat-roofed village clinging to the shaly slope seemed very much at its usual; that is to say, the commonplace nest of as uncommon a set of religious scoundrels as could be found north or south. So he told himself that they must have been strengthened lately by a new contingent of fanatics from the plains, or that the approaching Mohurrum-tide had raised their religious fervour to boiling-point. He allowed these reasons to himself, though he permitted none to his subordinate; but neither he nor the scared police inspector dreamed of that laughing girl"s face over the water which was the cause of Hussan and Husayn"s unusual activity.
Still as he gathered his reins into his left hand he paused to give a more kindly look from under his dark eyebrows at the inspector"s knock-knees.
"Why don"t you get some of their swimmers?" he asked curtly. "I could." Doubtless he could; he was a man who got most things which he set himself to get. Yet even he might have failed here but for that girl"s face, that handful of yellow Indian corn, and the fierce fight which followed for both between those two, Hussan and Husayn, who, as they were finally held back from each other by soothing, friendly hands, felt that the end was nigh if it had not already come. Brothers of the same belief,--fellow-workers in that stream of Death,--first and second alternately in the great race for men"s lives, they knew that the time had come when they must be at each other"s throat and settle which was to be best once and for all--which was to be best in Miriam"s eyes. And then to their blind wrath came an authoritative voice, the voice of the holiest man there, the Syyud Ahmad, whom to disobey was to be accursed. "There is too much of this brawling," came the fiat. ""Tis a disgrace. Lo! Hussan, Husayn, here among the elders, swear before the Lord to have done with it. Swear that neither will raise hand again against a hand that fights for the same cause. Swear, both of you." A chorus of approval came from the bystanders as those two, thus checked, stood glaring at each other. There were a few grains of the yellow Indian corn still in the gutter at their feet; and they looked at them as they swore never again to raise a hand against one fighting the good fight.
That same day, at dusk, Hussan and Husayn sat on the edge of the stream, their feet almost touching the water, their skin-bladders beside them, their sharp knives hung in a sheath round their necks.
Their bronze muscles shone even in the growing gloom; from head to foot they were lithe, strong, graceful in their very strength. They sat close to each other as they had often sat before, looking out over the tumbling rush of the wild current, to the other side of the river.
"Yea! Then I will go forth to-night as thou sayest, Hussan; and when I return equal, we will draw lots which is to take service on the other side."
"So be it, Husayn; I will wait for thee. And see, if thou couldst kill one of their swimmers, "twere better. Then will it be easier to get his place. Hit up, brother, from the water; "tis more deadly than the downward stroke."
And as they sat side by side, speaking quietly, almost indifferently, the evening call to prayer rang out over the wild wicked stream, and without another word they faced round from the river to the western hills. The parapet of Miriam"s house stood out higher than the rest of the village. Perhaps they made it the Kaaba of their prayers, though they were orthodox enough in their genuflexions.
"Hussan and Husayn have been made by the _Pir sahib_, to swear they will not fight any more," said a girl, who giggled as she spoke, to Miriam when they were coming back with their water-pots from the river.
"_Loh!_ there be plenty others who will," answered the round sweet voice that had not yet come to its full sweetness and roundness. "They are all like fighting-c.o.c.ks, except the shepherds. Belike "tis the sheep which make them peaceful, so they have time to laugh. Hussan and Husayn are ever breathless from some struggle. I would not be as they."
"Lazybones!" retorted the giggler. "Thy mother-in-law will need her tongue. Thy water-pot is but half-full even now."
"Still, it is heavy enough for my arms," replied the sweet voice indifferently, yet sharply, "and the river is far." Then it added inconsequently: "But there are streams up in the hills that folk can guide to their doors. And the gra.s.s grows soft too. Here is nothing but stones; I hate them, they are so hard."
"And the big shepherd"s mother is dead," put in another girl pertly; whereat the rest giggled louder than ever.
Was it Hussan or Husayn who, three days afterwards, appeared suddenly before the District-officer in camp with a nicely written pet.i.tion on a regulation sheet of English-made paper, requesting that he might be put on as a swimming patrol on the river opposite Sitana in place of one who was supposed to have been killed or drowned? There is no need to know. No need to know which it was who won the toss when Husayn came back with a smile to say that, so far, they were quits, and might begin a new game. Whichever it was, John Nicholson looked at the lean bronze thews and sinews approvingly, and then asked the one crucial question, "Can you?"
The man smiled, a quick, broad smile. "None better, _Huzoor_, on the Indus. There is one, over the water, who deems himself my match. G.o.d knows if he is."
John Nicholson, who had bent over his writing again, glanced up hastily. "So that is it. Here, _Moonshee_, write an order to the man at Khanpur to put this man on at once." He was back at his writing almost before the order was ended, and in the silence which followed under the white wings of the tent set wide to all the winds of heaven, the sound of two pens could be heard. One was the Englishman"s, writing a report to headquarters saying that the increase of crime must be checked by reprisals, the other the native"s, bidding the inspector put on the bearer as a Government swimmer.
"For signature, _Huzoor_," came a deferential voice, and the still-busy pen shifted itself to the shiny paper laid beside it, and the dark, keen, kindly eyes looked up once more for half a second.
"Well, good luck to you! I hope you"ll kill him, whoever he is."
"By the help of G.o.d, _Huzoor_, by the help of G.o.d!"
Which was it, Hussan or Husayn, who in the growing dusk walked up and down the shaly glacis below the long cl.u.s.ter of Sitana, watching the opposite bank with the eyes of a lynx for each stone of vantage, each shallow whence a few yards" start might be gained? Which was it, Husayn or Hussan, who in the same dusk paced up and down the low bank on the other side watching in his turn, with untiring eyes, for the quicker curve of the current where a bold swimmer might by one swift venture drift down faster to the calmer water, and so have a second or two in which to regain breath ere the fight began? What matters it whether the panther was on the western bank and the leopard on the eastern? They were two wild beasts pacing up and down, up and down, with their feet upon the water"s edge; up and down, up and down, even when the moon rose and their shadows showed more distinctly than they did themselves; for the oil upon their limbs caught the light keenly like the glistening shale and the glistening wet sand at their feet.
Up and down, up and down, they paced, in the stillness and the peace, with only the noise of the rushing river, slumberously, monotonously, insistent; up and down, up and down till the cry of the _muazzim_ at dawn came echoing over the water.
_Prayer is more than sleep! Prayer is more than sleep!_
Ay! more even than sleeplessness with sheer murder in heart and brain.
So peace fell between those two while they turned towards Mecca and prayed; for what, G.o.d knows. Perhaps once more the real spiritual Kaaba was what they saw with the eyes of the flesh; that flat-roofed house just beginning to blush rosy in the earliest rays of the rising sun; more probably it was not, since they had pa.s.sed through love to hatred. And then, prayers over, murder was over also for the time, since they could not court detection by daylight.
"They are wondrous keen on the other side, despite the moon," said the elders of the village and the officials over the way, alike; "but there is no fear _our_ watchman will be taken at a disadvantage. He is there from dusk till dawn."
"Ay!" replied wiseacres on either side; "but when the moon wanes, what then?"
It came even before that, came with a great purple ma.s.s of thunder-clouds making the Black Mountain beyond the Mahaban deserve its name, and drawing two pair of eyes, one on either side of the stream, into giving hopeful glances at the slow majestic march of gloom across the sky. It was dusk an hour sooner, dawn an hour later than usual that night and day, so there was plenty of time for sheer murder before prayer-time. And as there was no storm, no thunder after all, but only the heavy clouds hanging like a curtain over the moon, a faint splash into the rushing river might have been heard some time in the night, followed by another. Then after a while a cry broke the brooding silence above the hurrying whisper below; the cry of faith, and fate, and fight.
_Allah-ho-Akhbar! Allah-ho-hukk!_
Perhaps it was the _muazzim_ again, proclaiming out of due time that "G.o.d is Might and Right"; or maybe it was those two swimmers in the river as they caught sight of each other in the whirling water. If so, Hussan struck upwards from the water, no doubt, and Husayn, mindful of advice, followed suit; and so the six black heads must have gone drifting down stream peacefully, save for the hatred in the two faces glaring at each other, since the river hid their blows decorously. But there was no trace of them on it far or near when the sun rose over the eastern hills, and the big shepherd, singing a guttural love-song, came leaping down the stony path towards Sitana with a bunch of red rhododendrons behind his ear.
Some days afterwards, however, the native official at the Police Station rode over to see his superior, and reported with a smirk that he had seen through the telescope a great weeping and wailing at Sitana. Two of their swimmers had apparently been killed in fair fight, for their bodies had been brought up for burial from the backwater further down the river; and as the new man, whom the _Huzoor_ had appointed, had either absconded or been killed also that just made the proportion what his Honour had laid down for future guidance, two to one.
"H"m!" said John Nicholson half to himself, "I wonder which of the two was really the better man."
THE FAKEER"S DRUM
"_O! most almighty wictoria, V.R., reg. britannicorum (V.I., Kaiser-i-Hind), please admit bearer to privileges of praising G.o.d on the little drum as occasion befitteth, and your pet.i.tioner will ever pray," etc_.
It was written on a sc.r.a.p of foreign paper duly stamped as a pet.i.tion, and it did not need the interpolation of imperial t.i.tles to prove that this was not by any means its first appearance in court. To be plain, it had an "ancient and a fishlike smell," suggestive of many years"
acquaintance with dirty humanity. I looked at the man who had presented it--a very ordinary _fakeer_, standing with hands folded humbly--and was struck by the wistful expectancy in his face. It was at once hopeful yet hopeless. Turning to the court-reader for explanation, I found a decorous smile flowing round the circle of squatting clerks. It was evidently an old-established joke.
"He is d.a.m.nably noiseful man, Sir," remarked my _sarishtidar_, cheerfully, "and his place of sitting close to Deputy-Commissioner"s bungalow. Thus European officers object; so it is always _na-munzoor_"
(refused).
The sound of the familiar formula drove the hope from the old man"s face; his thin shoulders seemed to droop, but he said nothing.
"How long has this been going on?" I asked.
"Fourteen years, Sir. Always on transference of officers, and it is always _na-munzoor_." He dipped his pen in the ink, gave it the premonitory flick.
"_Munzoor_" (granted), said I, in a sudden decision. "_Munzoor_ during the term of my office."