Читать книгу In the Permanent Way - Flora Annie Webster Steel - Страница 6

"Oh! crow! Go crow!

Ripe plums are so many.

Baby wants to sleep, you know.

They're two pounds for a penny."

So over and over in a low croon, mechanically he chanted, till the child, losing its fear in the familiar darkness, fell asleep. And then? In a sort of dull way the question had been in Deen Mahomed's mind from the beginning without an answer, for he had gone so far along the road, simply by following close on the Finger of Fate; and now there was no possibility of turning back. For woe or weal he had taken the child's part, he had accepted the responsibility for its life, even to the length of death in others. Not that he cared much for the consequences of the swinging blow he had dealt to Rujjub--he was no true man.

What then? There was no chance of concealing the child. It slept now, but ere long it would waken again, and cry for "Nanna, Nanna." That must be prevented for a time at any rate. The chubby hands still clasped one of Rahmut's sweeties, and the old man stooped to break off a corner, crumble it up with something he took from an inner pocket, and then place it gently within the child's moist, parted lips, which closed upon it instinctively. He gave a sigh of relief. That was better; that would settle the cries for some hours, and before then he must have made over the child to other hands. Yes, that was it. He must somehow run the gauntlet of his comrades, and reach the entrenched position which the infidels--curse them!--had defended against odds such as no man had dreamed of before. It was seven miles to the north, that cantonment which would have been destroyed but for those renegades from the Faith who had stood by their masters, and that handful of British troops which had refused to accept defeat. Seven miles of jungle and open country alive with armed and reckless sepoys and sowars, to whom a man in mufti was fair game, no matter what the colour of his race, lay between him and that goal, and Deen Mahomed's grim face grew grimmer as he raised the sleeping child, pillows and all, wrapped them in a quilt, and slung the bundle on his back--slung it carefully so as to give air to the child and freedom to his arms. He might need it if they tried to stop him. He gave a questioning glance at the sky as he came out into the garden where the scent of the orange-blossoms drifted with the lingering spirals of smoke. Not more than an hour or two remained before the dawn would be upon them. He must risk detection, then, by the short cut through the bazaar; better that than the certainty of discovery later on in the daylight by those ready for renewed assault upon the entrenchment.

"Whok'umdar," challenged the sentry ceremoniously set, as in peaceful times, at the city gate.

"Allah akbar wa Mahomed rusool," replied the old man, without a quiver. That was true; he was for God and his Prophet when all was said and done. But this was little Rahmut's guest--this. He passed his hand over his forehead in a dazed sort of way.

"Ari, look at his loot," hiccoughed one of a group in the street; "before God he hath more than his share in the bundle. Stop, friend, and pay toll."

"What my sword hath won my sword keeps," retorted Deen Mahomed fiercely. "Better for thee in Paradise, Allah Buksh, if thou hadst smitten more and drunk less."

"Let be; let be!" interrupted another. "'Tis Deen Mahomed, the crazy watchman. I'll go bail, he hath no more than he deserves for this day's work. And he is a devil with that sword of his when he is angry. Lo! I saw him at the corner, mind you, where the sahibs----"

But Deen Mahomed had passed from earshot. Passed on and on, through dark streets and light ones, challenged jestingly, or in earnest; and through it all a growing doggedness, a growing determination came to him to do this thing, yet still remain, as ever, a guardian of the Faith. This for Rahmut's sake, the other for the sake of the Tomb, because he was the dust of the footsteps of the saints in light.

Out in the open now, with the paling light of dawn behind him and a drunken Hindu trooper riding at him with a cry of "Râm! Râm!" So they dared to give an idolatrous cry, those Hindu dogs whose aid had been sought to throw off the yoke--who would soon find it on their own shoulders. A step back, a mighty slash as the horse sped by, maddened by bit and spur, a stumble, a crash, and an old man, with a strange bundle at his back, was hacking insanely at his prostrate foe. No more, "Râm, Râm," for him; that last cry had served as the death-farewell of his race and creed.

On again, with a fiercer fire in the eyes, through the great tufts of tiger-grass isolating each poor square of God's earth from the next, and making it impossible to see one's way. On and on swiftly, forcing a path through the swaying stems, whose silvery tasselled spikes above began to glitter in the level beams of the rising sun.

Then suddenly, without a word of warning, came an open sandy space, a brief command.

"Halt!"

So soon! It was nearer by a mile than he had expected, and there was no chance of flight; not unless you made that burden on your back a target for pursuing bullets. A fair mark, in truth, for the half dozen or more of rifles ready in the hands of the cursed infidels.

"Who goes there?" came the challenge in the cursed foreign tongue. He gave one sharp glance towards the picket, and bitter hatred flared up within him; for there was not even a sahib there who might, perchance, understand. Yet there was no doubt, no doubt at all, even to his confused turmoil of feeling, as to "who came there." A foe! a foe to the death when this was over! So with a shout came his creed:

"Allah akbar wa Mahomed rusool."

Then in a sort of gurgle, as he fell forward on his face, it finished in "Deen! Deen! Deen!"

* * * * *

"Nicked 'im, by gum! Nicked the ole beast neat as a ninepin," said one of the picket.

"Wonder wot he come on for like that?" said another.

"B----y ole Ghazi, that's wot he was," put in a third. "They gets the drink aboard, an' don't care for nothing but religion--rummy start, ain't it? Hello! wot's that?--a babby, by the Lord!"

For the shock of Deen Mahomed's fall had awakened the child.

As they drew it from the blanket, the sun tipped over the tiger-grass, and fell on its golden curls.

Shub'rât was over.

"I wonder wot 'e were a-goin' to do with it?" remarked the inquirer, turning the dead body over with his foot, and looking thoughtfully at the face, fierce even in death. But no one hazarded a theory, and the Finger of Fate had left no mark on the high, narrow forehead. But the Night of Record was over for it also.