The old man looked at him almost wistfully: "I heard her grandmother sing it, nearly sixty years ago. I have never forgotten it."
"I do not wonder," said Vincent Dering, and his eyes, forgetful of others, followed the girl whose dress ought to have been creamy and soft, instead of white and starched.
CHAPTER III
DRIFTWOOD
The river Hara, after skirting the fort, the bathing-steps below the courtyard, the palace, and the palace garden, continued its course, still hemmed in to swift current by a high bank on the opposite side, and on the near one by a wall set with spiked temples sacred to Siva; for Hara is one of his many names. But, on reaching the apex of the triangle formed by the city, the banks fell away, the river spread itself out to greater rest, until, at the uttermost end of a long spit of sandbank and tamarisk, it met the waters of its twin river, the Hari, in the broad placid lagoon which lay between Eshwara and the south; that is the dry stretch of desert, against whose barrenness Western ingenuity--aided by Dr. Dillon"s horde of fifteen hundred ruffians--had been digging defiance for months. From the spit of sand you could see the result. A broad seam on the face of patient Mother Earth, a first wrinkle telling of millions to come from the ploughshares of men.
As yet, however, the ca.n.a.l was as dry as the desert around it; and was to remain so until the great Lord-_sahib_ came in state, on his way to the hills, to open the sluices. There was to be a big camp, a big function on the occasion, and even sleepy Eshwara felt a vague excitement regarding it. For the older men remembered the days when the Hosts of the Lord-_sahibs_ had regularly pa.s.sed through the city, and had tales to tell about them; a fact which prevented the coming event from being too strange even to be thought about! Then the opening of the ca.n.a.l was another disturber of primeval calm. True, the idea of it had been with Eshwara ever since the first sod had been turned two years before; but now the thing stared it in the face. Within a few days the waters of the sacred rivers would have to lie in a new bed.
Would they like it? Would the G.o.ds like it? Would men like it?
Those were the questions being asked from one end of Eshwara to another. Even outside it, on the long narrow spit of sand-bank set with spa.r.s.e tussocks of gra.s.s and tamarisk which reached beyond the city"s triangle into the rivers--and where, after a flood, the white gypsum silt lay like a robe of righteousness--they were being discussed; for the strange race who lived on it, shifting their wigwams of gra.s.s to the low-lying land opposite when the waters rose, lived by the river; by the fish in it, and the logs of wood which came floating down it.
So this question of the ca.n.a.l was in the mind of the naked man, attired in the complete suit of blue beads which marks an aboriginal race, who, in the dawn following, squatted on the highest curve of the spit. He was small, swart to positive inkiness, and his thin legs and arms shewed grey lights on their tense muscles, as if these were truly iron.
Behind him rose a wigwam of reeds, at the entrance to which a spear was stuck in the sand in order to display the head of a bottle-nosed alligator impaled on its point. At his right hand was a reed basket, a rude net of reed twine. In front of him lay one of those small shark-like scaleless fishes which the learned call Silurian, and tell us are relics of a creation older than ours.
So might the man have been. So might have been the background of sand and reed, spear and wigwam, the foreground of net and fish. Yet the fisher was not all uncivilized. This little survival of an aboriginal race, shifting about in the shifting river-bed, had always had an attraction for the Missionaries, who, as a rule, find the inferior races easiest to deal with. Gu-gu therefore--his name being as primitive as his appearance, since it is the first effort of infant tongues--belied his looks. He had at any rate a civilized eye to business, a civilized notion of the relations between supply and demand, for he shook his head at the customer opposite him.
"Not a cowrie less, Khan-jee. "Tis the only one in the market, see you; besides on this day the "_Missen_" miss comes to us folk, and she never haggles. She will pay the five annas gladly to be let read her book to my women."
The mumble-apparently a pious aspiration that the Most High would smite infidels hip and thigh--was the only recognizable point in the figure on the other side of the fish; for Akbar Khan, doorkeeper, messenger, a.s.sistant waiter, had not only discarded Saturn"s rings--the loss of which about his head made his baldness something of a shock--but also every article of clothing except his waist-cloth. The reason for this was, in a way, like many another thing about the old sinner, pathetic.
Briefly he liked to dissociate his inner self from occupations which he considered were beneath the dignity of the Akbar Khan of the past.
Therefore being, for the nonce, a bazaar coolie in search of fish for his master"s breakfast, he got up for the part; so finding it, at once, easier to forget, and to remember that past.
He mumbled of it as he strenuously opposed the price.
"Everything grows dearer, every day," yawned the aboriginal Gu-gu.
"Even women, as thou shouldst know."
Akbar Khan clucked a pious denial. "We spread no nets for that game in the palace nowadays. Those evil times are gone; we live sober and virtuous." The piety held a distinct flavour of regret.
"And as for fish," continued Gu-gu, "they will be dearer ere they are cheaper. When the deep water begins to run ca.n.a.lwards, the fish will run too. Then good-by to our trade, since the _Huzoors_ allow us nothing in their waters without payment."
He whined, however, to the wrong quarter for sympathy, the old retainer"s views on preserving being absolutely those of a Shropshire squire who is also a J. P.
"Neither did we," he replied, indifferently. "Thy like, Gu-gu, would have had to bring thy fish to the palace and be satisfied with our leavings. Out on thee for an upstart! Take thy four annas, and be thankful--slave!"
Gu-gu"s ill-tempered face became aggressive. "Not I!--the Miss will give it; nay! six, mayhap, since the child is sick, and she will be wanting leave to dose it. So--hands off--eunuch!"
The t.i.tle, once dignified, was opprobrious now, and old Akbar rose in a perfect fury, his bald head wobbling, the flaming fringe of red hairs about his face giving him a ludicrous resemblance to a toothless old man-eating tiger, face to face with his lawful prey, yet unable to injure it.
"Oh! for the bastinado!" he stuttered, impotently. "Oh, for the cutting off of bodily members! Oh! even, for the tying up of heels, and roastings and duckings. But the _Huzoors_ have taken them from us, and gifted them to the police, who know not the proper methods. Yah!
Gu-gu, had I but had thee fifty years ago!" his anger lessened with sheer wistful regret. "Fifty years ago when the Nawab gifted me as body-servant to the new _Wazeer_ Bun-avatar[1]-_sahib_ because he brought him a bird that would sing of itself from Italy _wilayat_."
"But all birds do that," cavilled Gu-gu, feeling nevertheless a reverent curiosity about those legendary days.
Akbar gave a crackling, contemptuous laugh. "Not palace birds! they have to be wound up; and Bun-avatar-_sahib_ sent for this across the black water. So he kept favour with the Nawab. Birds that sing, and flowers that smell, and boxes that make music, and dolls that dance when you wind them. Lo! these, Gu-gu, are the pleasures of palaces; but how canst thou know, who hast not lived in them even, as I--"
The sense of his own superiority soothed him still more; he squatted down again, and hubble-bubbled for a s.p.a.ce at the _hookah_ which was an integral part of all his impersonations.
"Yea! those were times," he mumbled half to himself. "Even Pidar Narayan--may Heaven protect him--could not say "please G.o.d" to every mouthful, as he does now--as we all do now, and rightly, seeing that we have grown old." Once more the piety smacked of pity, and the old man, finding a listener, went on with a certain gusto. "Look you! he had to walk like the tongue among thirty-two teeth in those days, with Bun-avatar-_sahib_, my master, like two peas in one pod with the Nawah.
Except for women. Pidar Narayan took his way there--mostly!"
The interrupting gurgle of the _hookah_ gave time for an elaborate wink of a wicked old eye. Possibly this was due to the smoke, for the old voice went on as before almost dolorously.
"He had the money-bags, you see, and looked after the rents. But my master, Bun-avatar--lo! thou shouldst have seen him when he came first--the picture of a man!--they say he was a prince in his own country, but fell into trouble; so came to make his fortune here with Pidar Narayan--was called _Wazeer_. And let me tell thee, Gu-gu, it means something to be body-servant to a _Wazeer!_ Lo! to think I might have been it still but for that jade, Anari Begum!"
Despite the epithet, he smiled, and his pipe this time gave out quite a chuckling sound.
"As ill to keep within walls as a b.u.t.terfly!" he muttered. "Up and down the garden, in and out the balconies, and the Nawab in two minds to use force, or put her in a sack. For she flouted him. The prettiest ones play that game for power always, and she was Walidad, her brother"s, last hope of favour. Walidad, _Kanjara_, who had been king"s caterer for years before my master, Bun-avatar-_sahib_, came to make all the court cry sour b.u.t.termilk! Walidad, who had once stood so high, that, in a drunken bout, the Nawab promised him his half-sister to wife. And he got her too! She wept on her wedding day, but we in the lower storey heeded not tears in the upper. For, see you, mine uncle was chief eunuch--we kept the honour thus in the family from generation to generation--so I was in and out, seeing what went on. Until somehow (mine uncle with the bowstring round his neck--as was right, honest man--swore he knew not how) Bun-avatar-_sahib_ caught a sight of her!
Some say it was a plot, from beginning to end, of Walidad"s; others that _his_ enemies feared lest Anari should succeed. There be b.a.l.l.s within b.a.l.l.s, even in a plaything, if the workmen are cunning! Anyhow, he saw her.
"And I, his body-servant, was able to come and go where Pidar Narayan hath made his church nowadays. But there! what matters it? "Tis all one. Love and the Faith are in and out of men"s minds like a sh.e.l.ldrake in weedy water; a body cannot tell which way its head may be and which its tail! Nevertheless I felt a choke at my throat, Gu-gu, many a time, as I waited for him in the boat below the balcony; yet in the end, it was not my throat, but mine uncle"s. He died in the faith, Gu-gu, cursing women. _His head was that way at the last!_--"Tis mostly so--_he_--_he_--"
The chuckle of his pipe was fiendish, yet his wizened face was wistful.
"Still, G.o.d knows, one could scarce look on at such a wooing, and not beat the drum in time, as musicians to a dancer. And it runs in our blood, see you, to watch, and beat the drum. That is our profession; and, by mine ancestors! I deemed it enough for mortal man. But Bun-avatar-_sahib_, see you, was not of our race. He was of Italy _wilayat_ and a prince. So, one day, my liver dissolved hearing that the b.u.t.terfly was over the walls! But, as I said, it was mine uncle"s neck, not mine. Yet the game ended for me when Bun-avatar-_sahib_ died."
"They poisoned him, folk say; is"t true?" asked Gu-gu. It was a point in the oft-told tale which was still discussed by Eshwara gossips.
"That is other folks" news, not mine," replied Akbar, discreetly. "May be, may be not. The _Huzoors_, anyhow, sent the Nawab to die in Calcutta on a _pinson_[2] for it; but they have ever an excuse to take land! Pidar Narayan had a hard fight to keep Bun-avatar-_sahib"s_ grants--the Nawab was ever generous to his favourites, look you--for Anari Begum"s baby; ay! though he showed a writing of marriage, and had made the infant Christian after their habit. Still he got them, land and palace and all. So I stayed on serving my master"s child, and when she died, her child, the Miss-_baba_, even to the haggling for fish.
Lo! slave! it grows late. Give it to me and have done with it--Thou wilt not. Oh! for the devil that was in her grandmother Anar to be in this Miss-_baba_, and for her to come to Bun-avatar-_sahib"s_ rights as _Wazeer_--then would there be loppings and--"
"Or if Roshan Khan should come to his," sneered Gu-gu. "The ca.n.a.l _sahib"s_ ayah was telling me thou didst prostrate thyself in the dust as if he were indeed Nawab! Have a care! eunuch-_jee_, the police are agog nowadays to find disloyalty even in newspapers."
"May her gossiping tongue be slit!" stuttered the old retainer. "Can a body not do obeisance to his masters? For look you, Roshan is true grand-nephew to the Nawab through his grandmother, Walidad"s wife--ay!
and for that matter, cousin to the Miss, through Anari Begum, Walidad"s sister! I did but welcome him; I did but my duty--I did but show my manners--I did but what we have done from generation to generation." He moved away muttering, full of virtuous resentment that a suspicion of anything save sheer servility should have been imputed to him. After a lifetime of trucklings and bootblackings, to be credited with higher motives was too bad. To prove his innocence he would that very evening, he told himself, seek out Roshan, not at the Fort,--that might be misunderstood,--but at his grandmother"s. His grandmother, who, though she had been upstart Walidad"s wife, was still the late Nawab"s half-sister! His sister!! What could be nearer than that!!!
And he would prostrate himself again, and a.s.sure the family of his services. _That_ was his birthright.
Meanwhile Gu-gu looked after him, and laughed. He was a clever fellow, was Gu-gu, and in a previous generation of scholars had been pet pupil in a little school started by another Miss from another _Missen_. He had got pennies for attending it, which had come in useful before he was big enough to face the river.
But now he was the best man on either the Hara or the Hari, save one.
And he?
Gu-gu"s beady black eyes, watching the curve of the current mechanically, gave a sudden flash. He was on his feet in a second.
There was something dipping, diving, sidling, drifting, out yonder which might be secured for his wigwam before anyone else saw it! But as, silently, like a seal"s, his black head came up from his first forge under water which was to give him a fair start from the sh.o.r.e without even a splash to attract notice, another black head showed to the right of him, a yard or two behind.
But it was _his_ head! Am-ma"s head! Am-ma, the frog-like, Am-ma, whose wide hands and feet looked as if webbed in the water. Am-ma, the only man who could touch him. He set his teeth, gave up silence, and surged ahead with an overhand stroke, his hand seeming to clutch and hold the water. It was a faster stroke than Am-ma"s; for a time the swifter.
Then with a backward glance he drew a quick breath, knowing it would be a race indeed, for the black head had gone, and only a faint wale on the smooth water told where his rival, avoiding the slight resistance of the air, swam like a fish. Dangerous tactics for most men, ending often in a sudden collapse, bleedings from nose and ears, or, at least, time lost in coming to the surface. But Am-ma was not as other men.
Half-witted, except in river lore, uncouth, misshapen, he was practically amphibious.
Gu-gu ground his teeth impotently as the faint wale crept up and up.
The man must have air in his stomach like a fish! Ah! if the river had been in flood, if this had been a race with air bladders, indeed,--one black head of inflated skin under each arm, and your own in the middle--the issue would have been certain; for no one, in the whole tribe, knew the backward rip of a knife from below which would leave a rival helpless, lopsided, bound to seek safety on sh.o.r.e, so well as Gu-gu! But it was not flood time, so he must risk all. Like a porpoise at play the curve of his dark back disappeared, and now there were two wales upon the water side by side.