"_Risaldar-sahib_ You have the key of the padlock. Take out the tampion, and see who is inside."
As he spoke, his eyes were on the a.s.sistants, and something in their defiant a.s.surance warned him that he was on the wrong tack, and made him cover possible discomfiture with the words,--"If there is no one, then someone here has the art of throwing his voice where he will."
As if in a.s.sent, the m.u.f.fled blessing came, louder, this time, from the now un-tampioned gun, so that Roshan"s face showed somewhat scared, as, with a salute, he announced as the result of his inspection, "There is no one, sir, I can see clear down the metal, but--but the voice is there."
A sound of such fierce approval ran through the crowd who were within hearing, that Captain Dering saw instantly that it would not be wise to court another failure.
"Close up the gun again," he said loudly. "So long as my orders are not disobeyed, and people keep their bodies out of my gun, their voices are welcome to it! Come along, Carlyon," he added, in English, "it"s ventriloquism, of course, and I"d dearly like to catch the beast who does it, but we had better leave it alone for the present."
Lance, who, in sudden remembrance of the sound he had heard as he drifted past the bathing-steps in his canoe on the night of the dance, had been vainly overhauling the padlock and chain for signs of their having been tampered with, nodded his head, and let the chain swing back on its staple. The sudden jerk threw a new light on the matter.
For the staple came out, disclosing the fact that it had been neatly filed through at the shank, and then replaced by means of a drilled hole and a pin.
The proof of tampering was clear, but nothing else.
"I have it," said Lance suddenly coming up with a red but triumphant face from a prolonged inspection down the huge muzzle, "they"ve shoved in a false end, and there"s someone behind. Roshan! go back and fetch me my long gaff, and Roshan--my cleaning rod."
"And tell the guard to come out at once," added Captain Dering, heedful of the rising note of movement amongst the crowd, sign that it was growing restless.
"Stay! I"ve got a ripping idea!" cried Lance again, his face all abeam with delight--delight so catching that the crowd stilled as he turned to it. "Look here," he said confidentially, in Hindustani, "there"s a boy in this gun. It must be a boy, and rather a small one, for there isn"t room for anything big. Now isn"t there a boy anywhere about the same size who"d like to come and draw him? He will be heads this way, and you will be able to get a good grip of his hair, and he will get a grip of your"s, and--and it will be--be jolly!" The untranslatable word needed no translation. That something in the perfection of careless youth which touches the hearts of all mankind, put Lance and his audience in touch instantly.
A group of tall, grave-eyed Sikhs laughed uproariously, and nudged a lad beside them. "Go on, brotherling," they said, "thou art the best wrestler of the school. Go! show the _Huzoor_ how thou canst hold thine own."
It needed no more. "Yea! try thy luck, brotherling," said a dozen voices, "and if thou canst not we will find a champion!"
That settled it. Five minutes afterwards Lance Carlyon found himself arranging the conditions of the draw, surrounded by half a dozen lads, each backed by eager supporters. By this time Roshan had returned, and with the aid of the gaff and one of the smallest of the guard, Lance"s guess had been proved to be true. A neatly fitting disc of metal, cup-shaped to increase the resemblance to the end of the barrel had been withdrawn, leaving a head visible.
"It is beautifully tousled, and you"ll get a good grip," said Lance, regretfully, as he helped the Sikh champion into the gun, "but it is bigger than I thought for, and you"ll have your work cut out for you."
Then ensued the quaintest scene imaginable. The whole crowd, but five minutes before ready, almost, to fight for the truth of their miracle, were swaying breathless, excited, in sheer childish delight over the tussle to expose it.
"Lo! he comes--I see his toes--bravo, Gurdit! Nay, the other hath strength left! Sho! sonling, let not go for thy life! That is well done--Bravo! Bravo!"
So backwards and forwards, like a terrier and a badger, the draw wavered, Lance, watch in hand, calling time.
"Half a minute more! Go it, Gurdit!" he shouted. The encouragement had its effect. Gurdit"s toes, his ankles, his calves showed beyond the gun; only his knees remained, giving him grip still.
"Wait for his knees. Wait till he loses grip!" shouted Lance--"twenty seconds more--fifteen, ten--f--there you are! that"s it, fair!!"
Fair it was; the knees, pressing outwards steadily, every bronze muscle of them showing the strength of the drag, lost grip, and with a great yell of delight, half-a-dozen bearded Sikhs had hold of Gurdit"s feet with such a vigorous pull, that Lance had to shove his knee forward, in a hurry, to prevent the boy from falling on his face; since both his hands were locked desperately in the tangled hair of a disciple so big that he came out of the gun with a cloop like a cork!
"It was the most sporting draw I"ve seen for years," said Lance enthusiastically, when, after much laughter and congratulation, the crowd parted with smiles to let the Englishmen pa.s.s, "and I"m glad you let the beggar off, Dering. It wasn"t his fault, and he must have been beastly uncomfortable. Now, if you could have quodded the _jogi_--"
"I hope to do that by and by," replied Vincent significantly, "but it was just as well the crowd should laugh to-day. These religious gatherings are always a bit risky--and, as you know, Dillon is having trouble over at the gaol. "Pon my soul, I don"t know which is worst to manage--fifteen hundred scoundrels, or a hundred and fifty thousand saints."
"A hundred and fifty!" echoed Lance, "will there be as many as that?"
"Quite. So it is as well they should laugh; for even with the extra contingent of police we should find it a bit hard to manage them if they didn"t."
True; but unfortunately the laughter of the many involves the discomfiture of the few; and in this case, these were the most unscrupulous men in Eshwara.
CHAPTER XV
OH! DEM GOLDEN SLIPPERS!
"If I were a man--I would fight."
The words were spoken by Erda Shepherd as the two young men entered the drawing-room of the mission house.
"Let me fight for you!" said Captain Dering, in his most ornate style, as, in the pause following on the interruption of their arrival, he went forward to shake hands. "My sword is always at the service of the ladies."
Then a certain feeling, as of electricity in the air, a certain look on the faces round him--for most of the mission workers had already arrived--warned him that this was no jesting matter, and he continued in better taste, "I trust there is nothing wrong?"
"Wrong!" echoed Erda, who in a mechanical, absolutely indifferent manner was shaking hands with Lance; "Yes! grievously wrong!"--her voice was almost strident in its decision--"hideously wrong!"
Here Dr. James Campbell, who had been laying down the law to a group of other black coats, came up and put the telegram he was holding into Captain Dering"s hand.
"Perhaps you can explain this," he said severely, "we generally have to thank the military authorities for such interference."
"Not in this case, so far as I am concerned," replied Vincent, after a glance at the first sentence. Then he read on, everyone else in the room silent, expectant.
It was from the Commissioner, saying, that from private information given him, he regretted that, in the interests of peace, he must, as magistrate, forbid any street preaching or public profession of faith during the next two days. Feeling was running high in many ways, and it was necessary to be extremely cautious.
"I can a.s.sure you, sir," said Vincent, handing back the telegram, "I am not the informant. At the same time"--here he faced about to the room generally--"I think the Commissioner is right. Our government is neutral--"
"Neutral!" interrupted the Reverend David Campbell, whose blonde face was flushed with excitement. "If it were neutral we would not complain.
But does this prohibition extend to the priests of other religions? No!
a thousand times, no! It is only another instance of the fact, that we, who have the strongest claim on a Christian government--"
"Possibly," put in Captain Dering, "but I am only a soldier. I do not ask questions. I obey."
"And we are soldiers too," said Dr. Campbell, weightily, "and our orders are to be instant in season and out of season."
A little murmur of approval ran through the company. There was a militant look on every face, a militant ring in every voice, as they discussed what ought to be done. The women workers, with Erda at their head, went solid for defiance,--only Mrs. Campbell making the reservation "if James approved." So did some of the men, notably David Campbell, who pa.s.sed from one group to another, his pale blue eyes a-glisten with enthusiasm.
Erda"s followed him with such approval, that Lance crossed over pugnaciously to where she stood, with a pretty flush on her cheeks, listening.
"It is a pity you haven"t got Jean Ziska"s drum, Miss Shepherd," he said. "By Jove! how you would bang it! Then, right or wrong, there would be a high old row, and that would just suit me!"
"There can scarcely, Sir Lancelot,"--she paused on the t.i.tle with a strain after contempt which did not somehow come off,--"be a question as to right or wrong in this case."
He gave a kindly, almost indulgent laugh. "There never can be, really, of course. One is bound to be right, the other wrong. The mischief is to know t"other from which! Now I expect the sixty thousand n.o.bles, and the grand-master who were left dead on the field, and the two thousand poor devils who got drowned in the river besides, and all the others--you know about "em, of course, and you must admit he was a bloodthirsty chap at any rate!--had got a musical instrument of some sort, too. You can"t fight without a band, Miss Shepherd, specially drums and fifes. But Jean Ziska was blind; so he could only hear his own music."
"And I hear it, too," she said superbly, with all the more defiance, because his words touched her innate sense of justice, as they did so often.
As she spoke, the not unusual sound--considering that one side of the mission house gave on the city--of a native _tom-tom_ drifted in through the open window, causing Lancelot"s eyes to brim over with smiles.