"Oh, I think I"ll be all right," said Ralston, and he rode at a trot down from Government House into the road which leads past the gaol and the Fort to the gate of Peshawur. At the gate he reduced the trot to a walk, and so, with his two levies behind him, pa.s.sed up along the streets like a man utterly undisturbed. It was not bravado which had made him refuse an escort. On the contrary, it was policy. To a.s.sume that no one questioned his authority was in Ralston"s view the best way and the quickest to establish it. He pushed forward through the crowd right up to the walls of the temple, seemingly indifferent to every cry or threat which was uttered as he pa.s.sed. The throng closed in behind him, and he came to a halt in front of a low door set in the whitewashed wall which enclosed the temple and its precincts. Upon this door he beat with the b.u.t.t of his crop and a little wicket in the door was opened. At the bars of the wicket an old man"s face showed for a moment and then drew back in fear.
"Open!" cried Ralston peremptorily.
The face appeared again.
"Your Excellency, the G.o.ddess is meditating. Besides, this is holy ground. Your Excellency would not wish to set foot on it. Moreover, the courtyard is full of worshippers. It would not be safe."
Ralston broke in upon the old man"s fluttering protestations. "Open the door, or my men will break it in."
A murmur of indignation arose from the crowd which thronged about him.
Ralston paid no heed to it. He called to his two levies:
"Quick! Break that door in!"
As they advanced the door was opened. Ralston dismounted, and bade one of his men do likewise and follow him. To the second man he said,
"Hold the horses!"
He strode into the courtyard and stood still.
"It will be touch and go," he said to himself, as he looked about him.
The courtyard was as thronged as the open s.p.a.ce without, and four strong walls enclosed it. The worshippers were strangely silent. It seemed to Ralston that suspense had struck them dumb. They looked at the intruder with set faces and impa.s.sive eyes. At the far end of the courtyard there was a raised stone platform, and this part was roofed. At the back in the gloom he could see a great idol of the G.o.ddess, and in front, facing the courtyard, stood the lady from Gujerat. She was what Ralston expected to see--a dancing girl of Northern India, a girl with a good figure, small hands and feet, and a complexion of an olive tint. Her eyes were large and l.u.s.trous, with a line of black pencilled upon the edges of the eyelids, her eyebrows arched and regular, her face oval, her forehead high. The dress was richly embroidered with gold, and she had anklets with silver bells upon her feet.
Ralston pushed his way through the courtyard until he reached the wall of the platform.
"Come down and speak to me," he cried peremptorily to the lady, but she took no notice of his presence. She did not move so much as an eyelid.
She gazed over his head as one lost in meditation. From the side an old priest advanced to the edge of the platform.
"Go away," he cried insolently. "You have no place here. The G.o.ddess does not speak to any but her priests," and through the throng there ran a murmur of approval. There, was a movement, too--a movement towards Ralston. It was as yet a hesitating movement--those behind pushed, those in front and within Ralston"s vision held back. But at any moment the movement might become a rush.
Ralston spoke to the priest.
"Come down, you dog!" he said quite quietly.
The priest was silent. He hesitated. He looked for help to the crowd below, which in turn looked for leadership to him. "Come down," once more cried Ralston, and he moved towards the steps as though he would mount on to the platform and tear the fellow down.
"I come, I come," said the priest, and he went down and stood before Ralston.
Ralston turned to the Pathan who accompanied him. "Turn the fellow into the street."
Protests rose from the crowd; the protests became cries of anger; the throng swayed and jostled. But the Pathan led the priest to the door and thrust him out.
Again Ralston turned to the platform.
"Listen to me," he called out to the lady from Gujerat. "You must leave Peshawur. You are a trouble to the town. I will not let you stay."
But the lady paid no heed. Her mind floated above the earth, and with every moment the danger grew. Closer and closer the throng pressed in upon Ralston and his attendant. The clamour rose shrill and menacing.
Ralston cried out to his Pathan in a voice which rang clear and audible even above the clamour:
"Bring handcuffs!"
The words were heard and silence fell upon all that crowd, the sudden silence of stupefaction. That such an outrage, such a defilement of a holy place, could be contemplated came upon the worshippers with a shock.
But the Pathan levy was seen to be moving towards the door to obey the order, and as he went the cries and threats rose with redoubled ardour.
For a moment it seemed to Ralston that the day would go against him, so fierce were the faces which shouted in his ears, so turbulent the movement of the crowd. It needed just one hand to be laid upon the Pathan"s shoulder as he forced his way towards the door, just one blow to be struck, and the ugly rush would come. But the hand was not stretched out, nor the blow struck; and the Pathan was seen actually at the threshold of the door. Then the G.o.ddess Devi came down to earth and spoke to another of her priests quickly and urgently. The priest went swiftly down the steps.
"The G.o.ddess will leave Peshawur, since your Excellency so wills it," he said to Ralston. "She will shake the dust of this city from her feet. She will not bring trouble upon its people." So far he had got when the G.o.ddess became violently agitated. She beckoned to the priest and when he came to her side she spoke quickly to him in an undertone. For the last second or two the G.o.ddess had grown quite human and even feminine. She was rating the priest well and she did it spitefully. It was a crestfallen priest who returned to Ralston.
"The G.o.ddess, however, makes a condition," said he. "If she goes there must be a procession."
The G.o.ddess nodded her head emphatically. She was clearly adamant upon that point.
Ralston smiled.
"By all means. The lady shall have a show, since she wants one," said he, and turning towards the door, he signalled to the Pathan to stop.
"But it must be this afternoon," said he. "For she must go this afternoon."
And he made his way out of the courtyard into the street. The lady from Gujerat left Peshawur three hours later. The streets were lined with levies, although the Mohammedans a.s.sured his Excellency that there was no need for troops.
"We ourselves will keep order," they urged. Ralston smiled, and ordered up a company of Regulars. He himself rode out from Government House, and at the bend of the road he met the procession, with the lady from Gujerat at its head in a litter with drawn curtains of tawdry gold.
As the procession came abreast of him a little brown hand was thrust out from the curtains, and the bearers and the rabble behind came to a halt. A man in a rough brown homespun cloak, with a beggar"s bowl attached to his girdle, came to the side of the litter, and thence went across to Ralston.
"Your Highness, the G.o.ddess Devi has a word for your ear alone."
Ralston, with a shrug of his shoulders, walked his horse up to the side of the litter and bent down his head. The lady spoke through the curtains in a whisper.
"Your Excellency has been very kind to me, and allowed me to leave Peshawur with a procession, guarding the streets so that I might pa.s.s in safety and with great honour. Therefore I make a return. There is a matter which troubles your Excellency. You ask yourself the why and the wherefore, and there is no answer. But the danger grows."
Ralston"s thoughts flew out towards Chiltistan. Was it of that country she was speaking?
"Well?" he asked. "Why does the danger grow?"
"Because bags of grain and melons were sent," she replied, "and the message was understood."
She waved her hand again, and the bearers of the litter stepped forward on their march through the cantonment. Ralston rode up the hill to his home, wondering what in the world was the meaning of her oracular words. It might be that she had no meaning--that was certainly a possibility. She might merely be keeping up her pose as a divinity. On the other hand, she had been so careful to speak in a low whisper, lest any should overhear.
"Some melons and bags of grain," he said to himself. "What message could they convey? And who sent them? And to whom?"
He wrote that night to the Resident at Kohara, on the chance that he might be able to throw some light upon the problem.
"Have you heard anything of a melon and a bag of grain?" he wrote. "It seems an absurd question, but please make inquiries. Find out what it all means."
The messenger carried the letter over the Malakand Pa.s.s and up the road by Dir, and in due time an answer was returned. Ralston received the answer late one afternoon, when the light was failing, and, taking it over to the window, read it through. Its contents fairly startled him.
"I have made inquiries," wrote Captain Phillips, the Resident, "as you wished, and I have found out that some melons and bags of grain were sent by Shere Ali"s orders a few weeks ago as a present to one of the chief Mullahs in the town."
Ralston was brought to a stop. So it was Shere Ali, after all, who was at the bottom of the trouble. It was Shere Ali who had sent the present, and had sent it to one of the Mullahs. Ralston looked back upon the little dinner party, whereby he had brought Hatch and Shere Ali together. Had that party been too successful, he wondered? Had it achieved more than he had wished to bring about? He turned in doubt to the letter which he held.