"Then you recommend them both," said the mild little Commissioner, doubtfully; he was a vacillating man, by nature lawful prey to his superiors.

Tim O'Brien, C.I.E.--the uncoveted distinction had been, to his great disgust, bestowed on him after a recent famine, in which his sheer vitality had saved half a province, and earned him, rightfully, the highest honour of the empire--removed his long Burmah cheroot from his lips and smiled brilliantly. He was a thin brown man with a whimsical face.

"And what would I be doing with wan of them on the Bench and the other in the dock? For it would be that way ere a week was past. It is very kind of the L.G. to suggest putting either Sirdar Bikrama Singh or KhÂn Buktiyar KhÂn on the Honorary Magistracy, but he doesn't grasp that they are hereditary enemies and have been the same for eight hundred years. Ever since the Pathans temporarily conquered the Rajputs, in the year av' grace 1256! So you couldn't in conscience expect wan of them not to commit a crime if the other was to be preferred before him. Ye see, he'd just have to kill someone. But, if ye appoint them both, the dacencies of Court procedure and the hair-splittin' formalities of the local Bar will conduce to dignity--to say nothing of their own sense of justice, which, I'll go bail, is stronger than it is in most people ye could appoint. Equity's apt to go by the board if ye've too much legal knowledge; and they have none of that last. But I'll give them a good Clerk of the Court and guarantee they come to no harrm. Yes, sir, I recommend them both--to sit in banco."

When Tim O'Brien spoke, as he did in the last sentence, curtly and without a trace of his usual rollicking Irish accent, his superior officers invariably fell in with his views; it saved trouble.

So, in due course, what answers to a J.P.'s commission at home (with no small extra powers thrown in) was sent to Sirdar Bikrama Singh, Rajput at his castle of Nagadrug (the Snake's Hole), and also to KhÂn Buktiyar KhÂn at his fortress of Shakingarh (the Falcon's Nest).

Both buildings had been for some centuries in a hopeless state of dilapidation, as, from a worldly point of view, were their owners' fortunes. But, just as the crumbling walls still commanded the wide arid valley which lay between the rocky steeps of the sandhills on which they stood, so the position of the two most ancient families of Hindus and Mahomedans in the district still commanded the respect of the whole sub-division. Of course, they were antagonistic. Had they not been so always? But, in truth, the old story of how they came to be so was such a very old story, that none knew the rights of it: not even the two high-nosed, high-couraged old men, who, having in due time succeeded to the headship of their respective families, had done as their fathers had done; that is to say, glared at each other over their barren fields, formulated every possible complaint they could against their neighbour, and denied any good quality to him, his house, his wife, his oxen, or his ass.

Yet the two had one thing in common. They were both soldiers by race. Their sons were even now with the colours of Empire, and in their own youth both had served John Company, and afterwards, the Queen. This bond, however, was not one of union, but rather of discord. For the one had belonged to the crack Hindu and the other to the crack Mahomedan corps of the Indian army, and their respective sons naturally followed in their fathers' footsteps. Indeed, on occasions the pair of dear old pantaloons would appear in the uniforms of a past day, hopelessly out of date as regards buttons and tailoring, but still worn with the distinctive cock of the turban and swagger of high boots that had belonged of old days and still belonged to the "rigimint."

Bikrama Singh was seated on the flat roof which had sheltered him and his for centuries when he received the little slip of silk paper, so beautifully engrossed, which appointed him to the Honorary Magistracy. It was a barren honour, since he was not one of those--and there are many--who make a stipend out of an unpaid post; but his thin old fingers trembled a little and his eye lost the faintly blue film which age draws between the Real and the Unreal. Whether his mind reverted at once to his hereditary enemy--who was not mentioned in the paper--is doubtful, but he felt it to be an honour in these miserable days, when a moneylender had more chance of being elected to a district council than a gentleman of parts to be chosen by the Sirkar. It was a thousand times better than being "puffed by rabble votes to wisdom's chair."

"It is well," he said simply, but with a superior air, to his womenfolk--the wife and daughters and grand-daughters and daughters-in-law and their kind who filled up the wide old house. "I shall do my duty and punish the evil doer; notably those who do evil to my people and my land, since true justice begins at home." And he curled his thin grey moustache to meet his short grey whiskers and looked fierce as an old tiger.

Over in Shakingarh also the commission met with approval. "It is well!" said Buktiyar KhÂn, as he sate amongst his crowding womenfolk with a poultice of leaves on his short beard to dye it purple. "I shall do my duty and punish the evil doer; notably him who has done evil to my people and my land, since that is the beginning of justice." And his hawk's eye travelled almost unconsciously from his flat roof to that other one far over the valley.

Yet, when they met, a few days afterwards, duly attired in their uniforms on the threshold of Brine sahib's verandah, whither they had repaired full of courteous acknowledgments to one whom they recognised as being at the bottom of the appointment, a faint frown came to their old faces. But Brine sahib broke it to them gently, with the graceful tact which gained him so much confidence. Government, recognising their many and great excellencies, had found it impossible to do otherwise than elevate them both to the Bench, where they would doubtless remain, as they were now, the best representatives of Hindu and Mahomedan feeling in the district. And then Tim O'Brien made a few remarks about the King-Emperor and devoted service which sent both old hands out in swift stiff salute.

Doubtless it was a shock to find themselves equally honoured; but regarding the "in banco," they both admitted instantly to themselves that it was better to sit next a hereditary enemy than a stinking scrivener or a mean moneylender. So Bikrama Singh twirled his grey moustache and said, "It is well," and Buktiyar KhÂn twirled his purple one and said the same thing.

Thereinafter they began work. The women of both houses made the first court day a regular festival, and sent the two old men from home dressed and scented and decorated as if for a bridal. The purple of Buktiyar's beard was positively regal, while the points of Bikrama's thin trembling fingers were rosy as the dawn.

They were fearsomely stately with each other, of course, but that only added to the dignity of the Bench. An excellent Clerk of the Court had been provided for them, and their first cases had been carefully chosen by Tim O'Brien for their simplicity.

Thus there had seemed no possibility of friction; yet the two new judges returned to their womenkind vaguely dissatisfied, dimly uneasy.

"The Mahomedan is no fool," remarked Bikrama Singh thoughtfully, "he saw as quickly as I did that truth lay with the defendant, lies with the plaintiff."

"By God's truth," admitted Buktiyar KhÂn grudgingly, "the Hindu is not such a blockhead as I deemed him. He saw as quickly as I did that lies were with the plaintiff, truth with the defendant."

It was almost intolerable; but it was true. The hereditary enemies had agreed about something on God's earth. And as time went on this unanimity of opinion became the most salient feature of the newly-constituted court. They agreed about everything. Of different race, different religion, something deeper in them than these surface variations coincided. Their innate sense of justice, fostered by the fact that they had both been brought up in the India of the past, that they represented its laws, its morals, its maxims, made their judgments identical.

"We waste time, babu-jee," broke in old Bikrama Singh on the lengthy peroration of a newly passed pleader, eager to air his eloquence. "Words are idle when facts stare you in the face. 'Who knows is silent, he who talks knows not,' as the proverb hath it. That is enough. We are satisfied." "WÂh WÂh," assented Buktiyar KhÂn at once, acquiescent and regretful. "Truly, pleader-jee! thou hast said that before. Why say it again? If sugar kills, why try poison? We are satisfied, so that is enough."

It was more than enough for the local Bar. They went in a body to Tim O'Brien and complained that they were not treated as lawyers should be treated.

As usual, Brine sahib met them with sympathy; but it was the sympathy of inaction.

"I sincerely regret, gentlemen," he said softly, "that sufficient toime is not allowed you to get all the words you have at command off your stomachs--I beg pardon, your minds. But, ye see, the judgments of the Bench are unfortunately quite sound; they'd be watertight against the full forensic flood of the whole High Court Bar. So I don't see what the divvle is to be done--do you?"

They did not. In sober truth the sense of equity in the hereditary enemies was too strong for the lawyers. The old men were honestly fulfilled with the desire of punishing the evil doer and praising those who did well. Such flimsy overlays as race and tribe and caste and family and creed did not touch their agreement on all things necessary to salvation.

The fact was rather a pain and grief to them. It did not make them treat each other with less stately dignity or cause them to be one whit more friendly out of court.

Sirdar Bikrama Singh went home to his womenfolk and railed as ever against his neighbour, and KhÂn Buktiyar KhÂn, as he rolled his little opium pill betwixt finger and thumb, would do the same thing. But in their heart of hearts they knew that, since a judge must always be "an ignorant man between two wise ones" (the plaintiff and defendant), it must be some common ground in themselves which made their views coincide.

Meanwhile the fame of the collective wisdom grew amongst the litigants, and indignation at its brevity increased amongst the lawyers. Tim O'Brien, however, when the timid little Commissioner showed him a numerously signed petition from the local Bar protesting against the "strictly non-regulation curtailment of eloquence," only smiled suavely. "They get at the rights of a case by congenital intuition, sir. The High Court have upheld their judgments in the few appeals the pleaders have cared to make; so I don't see what the div---- I mean, sir, I don't see what is to be done--do you?"

Once again there was no answer, and Tim O'Brien, as he dashed off here and there to institute enquiries in obedience to the cipher telegrams which came pouring in from Calcutta by day and by night, felt comfort in knowing that one sub-division of his district at any rate was being well administered.

For they were troublous days for officers in charge. Someone somewhere had been unwise enough to take the thumb-marks of a peripatetic preacher who was suspected of being an anarchist. He was proved to be an apostle of unrest; he was also unfortunately a man not only of thumb-mark, but of mark. A professor, briefly, in some far-away college. So the official who had ordered the indignity in the interests of public order was degraded; and thereinafter, naturally, began a campaign of would-be terrorism amongst the schoolboys and students of the province which shattered the nerves of government.

"By the Lord who made me," ejaculated Tim O'Brien angrily, as he flung aside the last urgent communiquÉe from headquarters, "one would think from that bosh, we were in danger of losing India to-morrow. Can't they see it's only schoolboy rot, sheer daredevil schoolboy mischief, like throwing caps under a motor car and heads you win tails I lose, you're over last. I'll tell you what it is, Smith,"--here he addressed his assistant, a pale-faced boy not yet recovered from the strain of examinations--"if I was worth my salt and had the courage of my opinions, I'd have up those boys' masters and give 'em each thirty with the cane for not keeping their pupils in order. That 'ud stop it. Instead of that, I have to arrest a poor child of thirteen who threw a badly made bomb, as harmless--it turned out--as a squib. However! my pension stares me in the face. There isn't even a House of Lords left to which I could appeal. So here goes for the innocent victim av' education! Inspector! arrange the arrest, please!"

Naturally, of course, as Tim O'Brien had known, every other schoolboy in the district marched about singing patriotic songs and doing wanton mischief to their hearts' content; thus there was quite a crop of minor arrests.

In fact, when the Bench of Hereditary Enemies held its next sitting it was confronted with a lengthy police case against a gang of boys whose ages varied from ten to thirteen.

Bikrama Singh listened gravely to the details and twirled his grey moustache. Buktiyar Khan also listened gravely and stroked his purple beard. They listened very patiently, yet a vague impatience came to their old faces. Then they looked in each other's eyes, and at last the wisdom of their hearts found speech.

"Where is the teacher of these children? Bring him hither that he may show cause for himself."

To be brief. That night the head master of the sub-divisional school could neither sit down nor stand up comfortably. But the streets were quiet; the boys peacefully in their beds.

"Glory be to them," cried Tim O'Brien exultantly, when the news was brought to him. "They've more spunk than I have--so now to get them out of the scrape."

He did his best, and that was a good deal, but the law and lies were against him. The schoolmaster happened to be somebody's nephew by marriage, and though there was ample evidence to prove that he had misused his position as a Government servant, the utmost favour Tim O'Brien could screw out of the Powers was permission for the offenders to retire instead of being dismissed from the Honorary Magistracy.

He broke this to the old men with his usual tact, applauding them between the lines for their courage. To his surprise and relief they accepted the position calmly. The better the subordinate, they said, the less likely he was to be always in agreement with others. During their three years' work, which, in truth, had been laborious, not one of their decisions had been upset on appeal. How many judges could say the same! And as for head master-jee? Would Brine sahib, if he could, remove those thirty stripes from the miscreant's back. "Ye have me there, sahiban," Tim O'Brien replied, with conviction, "I would not; an' that's God's truth."

So the old men sent in their resignations, not altogether regretfully. For one thing, the unanimity of their opinions had been disturbing; the old antagonism seemed more natural. And there the matter should have ended. Unfortunately for all, it did not. To be brief. Tim O'Brien was asked one day, as District Officer, to sign a warrant for the arrest of Sirdar Bikrama Singh and KhÂn Buktiyar KhÂn on a charge of assault and battery against the head master-jee, who turned out to be sib to half the local Bar.

There is no reason to go into the legal points of the incident, or to tell of the vain efforts of Tim O'Brien to save the whilom Bench from this last affront. An epidemic of cases against magistrates had set in, and late one evening the District Officer started to ride over and break the news of the coming arrest to the Hereditary Enemies.

Nagadrug stood on the nearest scarp of sand, so he went there first. He found the old Sirdar, looking rather frail, engaged as usual in glaring out over the arid fields to Shakingarh.

But this time all Tim O'Brien's tact did not avail for calm. Incredulous anger, half dazed indignation, took its place. It could not be true. What! was he, Rajput of Rajput, to be dragged to court at the bidding of a miserable hound whom he had whipped, and rightly whipped? Had not Brine sahib himself applauded the act? Had they not done right?--the plural pronoun came out naturally. Was not a false guree God's basest creature? Did not the law say so: "He who teaches false teaching, who kills his own soul and another, let him die." Why had they not given the vile reptile an hundred stripes and so got rid of him altogether.

And now were they to have a degree (decree) against them! Shinjee! It should never be, never! never! They would not have it! The old tongue found no difficulty in thus claiming companionship in revolt, the old heart knew it was certain of sympathy in the ancient enmity.

Utterly sickened at a tragedy he could not prevent, the District Officer went, tactfully as ever, to Shakingarh; only to meet with even deeper indignation. Innocent though he knew himself to be, the Englishman positively writhed under the contemptuous unsparing scorn of the old Pathan. What! was the Sirkar not strong enough to protect itself? Then let it pack up its bundle and get out of Hindustan. Let it leave India and its problems to his people--those northern folk who had harried Bengal in the past, who, God willing, would harry it again. Had Brine sahib not heard the saying: "He who uses his public office to betray the State commits a crime against himself, his country, and his God." And had not the base hound betrayed the State? A thousand times, yes! it was a pity they had not flogged him to death.

The moon rose over the low sandhills before the District Officer, bruised and broken by the verdict of past India on the present, rode back to the sessions bungalow, where he meant to pass the night. For with the dawn he would go up with the police officer and so soften the arrest of the Hereditary Enemies so far as it could be softened.

They would be let out on bail, of course, and, at the worst, a fine more or less heavy would see them through. It was not so bad--not so very bad.

The District Officer tried to comfort himself with such reflections; in his heart he knew they were futile; that nothing would soften the degradation to those two old warriors.

Nothing! unless it was the calm moonlight that lay over the arid valley and turned the round old fortresses to dim mysterious palaces of light.

Perhaps the peace of it sank into the wearied hot old eyes that looked out from the ancestral roofs with a new feeling of comradeship, each for each, dulling the hereditary hatred, yet bringing with it old memories, old tales of past enmity.

"Bring me my uniform, women!" said Bikrama Singh, suddenly. Half a dozen weeping daughters and daughters-in-law and an old wife too blind to see did as they were bid, and in a short time the old man stood arrayed as for a bridal, his sword buckled tight to his bowed back. "And the shield, women--the shield of my fathers that hangs in the entry. I shall need it, too!"

Over in Shakingarh, Buktiyar KhÂn, impelled likewise by those memories of the past, that hatred of the present, had donned his uniform likewise; and so the moonlight shone on cold steel and damascened gold as, silently obeying some inward community of thought, the two old men started silently alone, leaving all behind them, to seek for Peace in their own way.

Steadily over the arid fields, nearer and nearer to each other. The fields had been cut and carried; the harvest was over; it was nigh time to plough again for a fresh crop----

Of what?

"The Peace of the Unknown be upon you, oh, mine enemy," said Bikrama Singh, when at long last they stood face to face in the open.

"And the Peace of the Most Mighty be on you, my foe," answered Buktiyar KhÂn.

So for a moment there was silence. Then the Rajput spoke, his old voice full of fire, full of vibration.

"In the old days to which we belong, oh, Mahomedan! did brave men wait for Fate?"

"They did not wait, oh, Hindu," came the answer. "When brave men found sickness or dishonour before them: when there was no longer hope of victory: when that which lay ahead was hateful, and they left sons to carry on the race, did not the ancestors of my race claim of their enemies the glorious gift of battle?"

"They did so claim it, oh, Bikrama Singh! Dost claim it now!"

The reply, quick, vibrant, rang through the moonlight; a veritable challenge.

"Yea, Pathan--robber! thief! I claim it now! Jug-dÂn, Jug-dÂn--the Gift of Battle to the Death."

"Take it, pig of an idolator! Jug-dÂn, Jug-dÂn--the Gift of Battle!"

The still, hot air became full of faint chinkings, as buckles were settled straight, scabbards thrown aside. Then there was an instance silence as the two old warriors faced each other.

"Art ready ... friend?" The question came softly.

"Yea! I am ready ... friend!" The reply was almost a caress.

So, with a quick clash of sword on sword, youth and health and strength came back to the Hereditary Enemies.

* * * * *

It matters little if the combat ended in quarter of an hour, half an hour, or an hour; whether Bikrama Singh or Buktiyar KhÂn got in the first blow. The moon shone peacefully on the Gift of Battle. She still hung a white shield on the grey skies of dawn when Tim O'Brien and the police officer, coming to do their disagreeable duty, found the two old men lying stone dead within swords' thrust of each other on the stubble.

"They are really an incomprehensible lot," said the police officer, almost mournfully; "why the deuce should the two poor old buffers come out and kill each other, as presumably they have----"

Tim O'Brien smiled a grim smile. "You haven't heard, I suppose--why should ye--of what they call the Gift of Battle! Well! I have. It's an ould Rajput custom by which a man who feared he'd die in his bed or be put to it any way by any other stupid inept limitations, could claim a decent death from his nearest foe."

"Well! they've done it. That's all, and small blame to them."

"By God who made me, it's a protest with a vengeance. But the worst of it is, the Government won't see it and I can't explain it. Cipher telegrams won't run to it So ... peace be with you, friends!"