THE SPIRIT OF KINGS AND SLAVES

Jerry Arbuthnot, in his smart little riding-suit, was seated on the top step of John Ellison's tomb, his pony, meanwhile, held by a syce, trying to snatch a bite of long grass growing close to the bottom one. Between the two, forming a pyramid of which the child's dainty little figure made the apex, were several other figures. First of all, bareheaded, eminently respectable in a clean suit of drill, was JÂn-Ali-shÂn, seated sideways a step below, his face towards Jerry. Below again--crouched up knees and elbows--was Budlu the caretaker, his eyes on JÂn-Ali-shÂn's; and beside him, resplendent in red coat and gold lace, the Mohammedan chuprassi told off to accompany his little master on his morning rides. For the dew still lay heavy on the grass, like hoar-frost, so that the hoopoes, hopping over it in the search for food, left greener trails behind them to lattice the grey glisten.

'Then,' came the child's clear, high voice, 'you are quite the most youngest hero of the lot--sir.'

He hesitated over the title; finally gave it, palpably, as a tribute to the heroism, perhaps to the name. JÂn-Ali-shÂn brushed a faint speck of dust from his white drill. 'That is so, sir. I was but a two month when I done the job, an' that don't leave much margin for honest competition. It runs to a mono-polly; that's what it do, sir, a regular mono-polly.' He tailed off into

which he carolled cheerfully, making the hoopoes cock their crests and hold their heads on one side to listen.

Jerry sate looking at them thoughtfully. 'I was afwaid you must be, 'cos, you see, it's such ages ago,' he said at last, argumentatively. 'Ages an' ages. I wasn't even near borned then. How much older'n me d'you s'ppose you are, sir?'

It was JÂn-Ali-shÂn's turn to look at Heaven's messenger-birds thoughtfully, and admire their golden crowns. Then he drew his white drill cuffs down over his tanned wrists, as if to hide as much of himself as was possible.

'Older?' he echoed. 'Why-six-an'-thirty year, I should say; six-an'-thirty year o' constant wickedness--that's about it, sir--o' constant wickedness, please God!' He hovered over a penitential response in a minor key, and then nodded at the child cheerfully. 'But don't you fret, sir. There ain't no call for it. You're all right--your time'll come; only you must grow a bit more, or you wouldn't never fill a grave like this--would 'e, Budlu?'

He laid his hand on the tombstone and smiled; so did Budlu and the chuprassi, uncomprehendingly; so, reluctantly, did Jerry.

'It's an orful time to wait,' he said regretfully, 'an' there's goin' to be a row quite soon. Dad doesn't say so, but he thinks it; for I heard 'em talking of what they'd have to do if there was one; but they hadn't settled when Miss Dwummond came for me. What do you think would be the best thing, Mr. Ellison?'

'Lick 'em, sir, for sure,' replied JÂn-Ali-shÂn succinctly.

Jerry's face flushed sharply, almost with vexation.

'Oh! of course, we'd lick 'em; but I meant what kind of things, just to show 'em, you know, that--that----' he paused, as he often did, bewildered by his own thoughts.

'Show 'em?' echoed John Ellison. 'Show 'em? Why! show 'em, that it's "as you was!" That there ain't no change. That it's still flags flyin' an'

"Gord save our gracious Queen."'

Jerry rose solemnly and took off his cap as the notes of the National Anthem floated out over the garden mound into the crisp morning air, in which even the nearer shadows showed blue as the distant ones.

'I thought that would be it myself,' he commented, heaving a sigh of relief, 'but I'm glad to be sure. Thanks, so much.'

The others, duteously following his lead, had risen also, and now JÂn-Ali-shÂn, who had reached for the helmet which had been lying on the steps beside him, stood looking into it with a half-prayerful expression before putting it on: for time was passing, and he was due at his work.

'You're welcome, sir, kindly welcome,' he said, after a pause. 'So jest you wait patient--say six-an'-thirty year. An' then, if you ain't got an 'ero's grave of your own as you can slip into when you fancies it--why, John Ellison--that's me, sir--'ll up an' give you 'is, an'--an'--chanst the constant wickedness! There, sir'--he spoke with conscious pride in the magnitude of his offer--' I can't say fairer nor that, so there's my 'and on it; for if ever there was a chip of the old block, it's you, sir--the chippiest of the chippiest.'

He reached out a big brown paw, and Jerry with great dignity laid his soft white one in it.

'Thanks orfully,' said the child, 'but I won't bovver you; I'll get one of my vewy own, please.'

'You bet!' remarked JÂn-Ali-shÂn briefly. 'That's the game to play. Same as 'im and me played forty years back. Same's you and some other chap'll play forty years on. Time's no hobject, only a comfortable 'ome. Well, good day to you, sir; an' if ever you wants John Ellison, you'll find me here, mornin's and evenin's, most days, on my way to work; for 'e and me's been pals a many years.'

As he walked off jauntily, his hands in his pockets, he paraphrased 'John Anderson my Jo' into Ellison, and put the expression stop full on at the last quatrain.

He paused here at the gate which ended the rising path, and waved a hand back at the group in the hollow, ere the snick of the latch started him again on the refrain,

'John Ellison, my chum.'

So he passed, with a curious mixture of swing and slouch, along the dusty roads towards the railway station, which lay on the outskirts of the town, about a quarter of a mile from the bridge. Like the latter, it was a semi-fortified structure, capable of some defence. The more so because the city wall, which it faced, was in itself an obstacle to attack from that quarter; since it was largely a retaining wall to the higher ground of the city within, and therefore solid, blank; until at the river end it jutted into a bastion, loopholed and embrasured. But even this would be of little use to a foe, for the brickwork was cracked from the parapet right down to the water's edge, and the whole building sloped outwards, as if even the firing of a cannon would send it toppling over into the river. Indeed, the advisability of so sending it safely under control of science, before chance interfered and sent it crashing into the railway bridge, had more than once been urged on the authorities. The bastion, however, happened to be part of a royal building which had been given for life to a very old pensioner; so it had been decided that destruction should await his death, unless matters became worse.

Therefore JehÂn, as head of the six hundred of his like in Nushapore, still found it the best place in the whole city whence to fly kites; for there was generally a breeze off the river, and daylight lingered long, reflected from the glistening water.

So, at all times of the day, and occasionally by the help of a full moon, the royal pensioners gathered strong on the bastion. Quite a little court of them--reminiscent, strangely, of that dead dispossessed court of old days--centred round JehÂn the Heir of all Things or Nothing. And they would pledge and pawn everything they possessed, except their pride, on the results of Lateefa's skill with paste and paper.

Half a dozen or more of these courtiers without a court or a king were lounging on the bastion waiting for JehÂn to fly a match with another princeling of royal blood, when JÂn-Ali-shÂn's trolly skimmed past on the line below it. They craned their yellow faces to look at him and the little knot of coolies who were pushing all they knew at the trolly; for Chris Davenant had bidden his overseer be at the drawbridge pier at eight o'clock to look over the machinery, and it was already five minutes past the hour. So JÂn-Ali-shÂn had first hustled his own subordinates with oaths and abuse, into the utmost haste, and was now preparing the half-confidential, half-apologetic look of an offender for his own face--since he could see his superior officer's figure leaning over the iron lattice of the bridge waiting for him. Hurried as he was, however, he looked up, waved his hand to the group on the bastion, and called, 'Ram-ram, gents, and Mohammed-russool!' a salutation (compounded from Hindoo and Mohammedan formulÆ) which, he would explain elaborately, prevented him from 'either 'inderin' weak brothers, or bowin' in any particklar 'ouse o' Rimming.' For his seven years in a 'surplus chore' had given him a curious knowledge of Scripture.

'We had better begin by seeing if the hydraulic tank is full up,' said Chris calmly, as the trolly stopped in prompt obedience to JÂn-Ali-shÂn's imperative, 'Woa! I say woa! Didn't I tell yer to tyro (stop) at the pyli (first) pier.'

'Ay, ay, sir!' he answered, his face expressing a certain disappointment; and as he obeyed orders by climbing up an iron ladder which the coolies brought from its hooks on the pier, and fixed to a reservoir on the roof of the arched gateway, he shook his head gravely.

'It don't give a chap a fair chanst,' he muttered to himself as he mounted higher and higher. 'It ain't bracin' enough, that's what it ain't. Now, if 'e'd a said, "D--n you, if you're late agin, I'll cut yer pay," it 'u'd 'ave given a fellow a straight tip up the narrer path.' Here he paused to measure with a foot-rule, and hummed the while,

'A banner with a strange device--Ex--cel--si--or.'

'An' it don't come 'ome to the 'eart if you says it yourself,' he added despondently, 'not even if you uses fancy swears.'

These had an excellent effect, however, on the coolies, to whom they came simply as forcible imperatives; so that in a very few minutes the iron girders on either side had reared themselves back on the central tower, and the little party stood isolated both from the bridge and the bank.

'It 's as right as a trivet, sir!' said John Ellison, 'barrin' bein' a bit stiff on the crank, but a drop o' hoil'll set that easy, for it ain't a ten-men job, as they made it, but a two--that's what it is--a two at most.'

But when the drop of oil had been applied, two men failed to start the hydraulic pressure, much to JÂn-Ali-shÂn's disgust. He set one couple after another of his men to tackle the job, without avail.

'Look 'ere, sir,' he said at last, persuasively, 'I'd take it a kindness if you'd jest lend me the sight o' your 'and for a moment. If I does it all myself, they'll begin to talk that ik-bally^[15] rot o' theirs, like as I was Sandow himself, but if they see your 'and in it too, it'll be 'uman beings--that's what it'll be.'

So Chris Davenant's thin nervous brown hand gripped the spindle, and JÂn-Ali-shÂn's great paw--fresh as it was from the clasp of Jerry's small one--gripped the spindle also. The two, side by side, feeling each other's touch, feeling, for all we know, that other touch of the child who would come to such man's work after long years. Why should it not make itself felt, in more ways than one, that strange force which bids the race continue, which gives the spirit of kings or the spirit of slaves?

Then, with a slow gurgle, the water filled the cylinder, and the massive iron girders came down once more, to bridge the gulf and make a permanent way between the east and the west banks of the wide river, which slid past silently, bringing no message from its birthplace, taking no message to its grave in the sea.

'Best 'ave 'er up an' down agin onst more, sir,' said JÂn-Ali-shÂn, 'then there'll be fair odds on a continooance of virtoo. There's nothin' like 'abit, sir.'

He heaved a regretful sigh, and this time the water gurgled out of the cylinder.

'Behaves beautiful, she do,' he commented when, the drawbridge having risen and descended again, he had set the coolies to work pumping a fresh supply of water into the cistern, and had gone himself to lean over the iron latticing at a decently respectful distance from his superior officer, who was doing the same thing. The parting stream--its perfect placidity lost by the obstruction of the wide pier--swept under the girders in little petulant wrinkles and furrows. But even through these sears and seams of current, the jutting spit of rock--which yielded firm foothold for this first span of the railway bridge, yet with equal impartiality gave firm foundation closer in-shore to the new temple of KÂli which challenged the old temple of Viseshwar--could be seen, clearly or dimly, as its broken contours dipped or rose beneath the water.

'Quite the lydy, she is,' went on JÂn-Ali-shÂn, continuing his approval of the drawbridge. 'Ain't got no games in 'er--'olds out 'er arms if she likes you, an' draws in 'er arms if she don't. That's the sort.'

And then some link of thought started him on a song which shared first favourite honours with

'Her golding 'air all 'anging down 'er back,'

in the estimation of his sing-song audiences, and the notes of

'Where'er you walk,'

echoed out over the river, and made the bathers on the temple steps, who had been watching the proceedings, look up once more towards the bridge.

The most passionate, yet the purest, praise a woman ever won from man, perfect in its self-forgetfulness, in its delight in the admiration of the whole world for what is praised, fell from John Ellison's lips in almost perfect style; for he had been taught the song in those early days of surpliced choirs.

And Chris Davenant, as he listened, staring out over the river, clinched his hands on the iron rail in a sudden passion of self-pity.

This is what he had found in the poets of the West! This was what he had sought in the prose of life! It was for this he had forsaken so much--this white-robed woman with the breezes cooling the hot blood, and the trees crowding to shade her from the fierce heat of noon!

And he had found--what?

Something worse?--yes!--for one brief second he admitted the truth that it was worse; that Naraini, despite her ignorance, would have given him something nearer to that ideal of all men who were worth calling men, than Viva with her cigarettes, her pink ruffles, her strange mixture of refinement and coarseness, of absolute contempt for passion and constant appeal to it. Why had he ever forsaken his people? Why had he ever forsaken her--Naraini?

'I am Brahmin, my hand is pure.'

The memory of her voice, her face, as she spoke the words returned to him, and, with an irresistible rush, all that had swept him from his moorings, swept him from the common current of the lives around him, all the sentimentality, all the intuitive bias towards things spiritual, swept him back again to that life--and to Naraini!

'It's a rippin' song, ain't it, sir?' remarked JÂn-Ali-shÂn, who had been warbling away at the runs and trills like any blackbird, as he watched Chris Davenant's listening face. 'Wraps itself round a feller somehow. Kep' me from a lot o' tommy rot, that song 'as in my time, an' sent me to the flowing bowl instead.'

As he walked over to see if the tank was full, he whistled,

with jaunty unconcern. He returned in a moment, the coolies behind him carrying the iron ladder back to its hooks on the pier.

'All right, sir,' he reported. 'Give 'er two men an' she'll 'old her own against a thousand.'

Chris, absorbed in his thoughts, made an effort to wrench himself from them by assenting.

'Yes. They'd find it difficult without guns, unless they could manage it by the river.'

JÂn-Ali-shÂn shook his head. 'Not if we'd a rifle or two aboard, sir, to nick 'em off in the boats.'

'Couldn't they get along the spit,' suggested Chris, absolutely at random.

'Might be done, mayhap,' admitted the other, after a reflective pause. 'Leastways, if you was a "Ram Rammer" an' 'ad a right o' way through the 'ouse o' Rimming--beg pardin, sir, though you 'ave chucked old 'Oneyman an' 'is lot--I mean, if you was a Hindoo an' they'd let you through the temple. But even then we could nick 'em in the water afore they could get ropes slung.'

'There's the ladder, suggested Chris once more. He was not thinking of what he said. He was asking himself what he had not 'chucked' away recklessly? 'It is only about six feet up; they could easily----'

'They could easily do a lot if they was let, sir,' interrupted JÂn-Ali-shÂn, as he turned to go, with a pitying look. 'But we don't let 'em. That's how it is. An we ain't such bally fools as to leave 'em ladders. No, sir? Two men--if they was men-'u'd keep that pier a Christian country for a tidy time.'

As the trolly buzzed back stationwards, the group of yellow faces above the faded brocades gave up watching the manoeuvres of the drawbridge, and returned to their kite-flying; and on the bathing-steps the men and women returned to the day's work. On the bastion there was a shade more listless doubt and dislike, on the steps a shade more uneasy wonder as to the signs of the times. That was all.

Only Burkut Ali, as he weighted his kite's tail with an extra grain or two of rice, nodded his head, and said with a sinister look--

'Two could play that game, and the first come would be master. "He who sits on the throne is king."'

'And he who sits not is none,' added JehÂn's antagonist with a wink. He had quarrelled two days before with the Rightful Heir's pretensions to authority in the matter of a dancing-girl, and so, for the time being, headed the dissentient party which, with ever-shifting numbers and combinations, made the royal house--to the great satisfaction of the authorities--one divided against itself. 'If the Sun of the Universe is ready,' he went on, with mock ceremony, 'his slave waits to begin the match.'

JehÂn's face sharpened with anger. He had come there in an evil temper, because, after having virtuously denied himself an over-night orgy for the sake of steadying his hand for the match, Lateefa--on whom he had relied for a superexcellent new kite--had neither turned up nor sent an excuse; consequently the chances of victory were small. And now this ill-conditioned hound was palpably insolent. The fact roused JehÂn's pretensions, and made him assert them.

'I fly no kite to-day,' he said haughtily, 'the match will be to-morrow.'

His opponent smiled. 'As my lord chooses!' he replied coolly, 'his slave is ready to give revenge at any time.'

'Revenge!' echoed JehÂn sharply, 'wherefore revenge? There is no defeat.'

'His Highness forgets,' said the other, with a pretence of humility scarcely hiding his malice, 'the Most Learned, being member of race-clubs, must know that "scratch" is victory to the antagonist. This day's match therefore is mine. Is not that the rule, meean?'

He appealed to the most sporting member of the court, but JehÂn, without waiting for his verdict, broke into fierce invective, and had passed from the rules to the rulers, when Burkut--who had been listening with that sinister look of his--touched him peremptorily on the arm, and said--

'Have a care, NawÂb-sahib, some one comes.'

JehÂn turned quickly, and saw behind him a sergeant of police.

He came with a summons for the NawÂb-sahib JehÂn Aziz to attend at once at the cantonment police-station.

Still confused by his anger, and scarcely master of himself, JehÂn stood looking at the paper put in his hand, and trying to disentangle from the smudge of the lithographed form the few written words which would give him a key to the rest.

The first he saw was 'Sobrai Begum,' the next 'Lateefa.'

They pulled his pride and his cunning together in quick self-defence. Though a fierce longing to have the jade's throat within the grip of his thin fingers surged up in him, the desire to put her away privily was stronger. He folded up the paper with a shrug of his shoulders, and turned on the curious faces around him.

''Tis only Lateefa in trouble with a woman,' he began.

'And they need his master's virtue to get him out of it!' sneered his opponent. ''Tis too bad; were I the NawÂb, I would keep mine for my own use----'

The Rightful Heir glared at the giber, and a vast resentment at his own impotence came to the descendant of kings. Why was he not able, as his fathers had been, to sweep such vermin from his path? Why had he to obey the orders of every jack-in-office? Then for Sobrai herself. Why could he not settle her in the good old fashion without any one's help?

As he drove over to cantonments in the ramshackle wagonette this desire overbore the others, and his cunning centred round the possibility of getting the baggage back to the ruined old house, where screams could be so easily stifled.

The first step, of course, was to see Lateefa in private and hear his version of the story. That meant ten rupees to the constable in charge of the lock-up, but it was better to pay that, at first, than hundreds of rupees of hush-money afterwards if the police went against you.

So the silver key slipped into the sergeant's pocket, and the iron one came out which opened the barred door behind which Lateefa sat like a wild beast in a cage--Sobrai, meanwhile, being accommodated with free lodgings under the charge of an old hag in a discreetly private cell round the corner!

JehÂn's face grew more and more savage as he listened to what the kite-maker had to tell; and that was a good deal, for he had gossiped half the night with the sentry on duty!

Miss Leezie--Sobrai singing in the public bazaar to the soldiers--all this was so much gall and wormwood to the NawÂb's pride. It almost made him forget the theft of the pearls; the more so because the idea of the latter was not quite new to him. Mr. Lucanaster's assertion that there were five amissing, joined to the fact that poor Aunt KhÔjee, hoping thereby to smooth over the quarrel between him and Noormahal, had brought him one pearl which had been found in a rent in a cushion, had made him suspicious that Sobrai had the rest; that this, indeed, had been at the bottom of her flight. It was only, therefore, when Lateefa pointed out that it would be necessary to prove that these pearls of Sobrai's were not the Lady-sahib's pearls, before the girl--free from the suspicion of theft--could be handed over to her lawful guardians, that he realised it would not be enough to say that they were his, that he had given them to the girl, who--despite her evil doings--he was willing to receive back again into his virtuous house. For the possibility of denying her assertion that she belonged to it, had, he felt, vanished with her unfortunate recognition of Lateefa.

But now there must be proof, and the proof lay in Mr. Lucanaster's hands.

JehÂn felt hemmed in, harried on all sides, and he was the poorer by fifty rupees before he bribed his way to an informal interview with the cantonment magistrate, and was able to lay before that official a carefully-concocted admixture of truth and falsehood which should help to secure what he chiefly needed, secrecy and delay.

To this end, by Lateefa's advice, he made it appear that Sobrai had been enticed away by Miss Leezie, and pointed out that such a tale might give rise to trouble--complicated as it was by that fatal blow of No. 34 B Company's--if it became known, especially in these restless times. Much, therefore, as he felt the injury, the disgrace to himself and his house, he was willing to hold his tongue about it provided other people held theirs. As for the pearls, if, after private inquiries, it was necessary for him to prove his words, he would do so. And, in the meantime, it would only cause suspicion if Lateefa, who was known to be a member of his household, were detained.

The cantonment magistrate looked at him doubtfully; he was almost too suave, too sensible. Yet there could be no doubt that the case might be a troublesome one. As the NawÂb said, Miss Leezie might be fined for keeping her house disorderly, Sobrai detained pending inquiries, and Lateefa dismissed without in any way militating against the ordinary course of justice, should the NawÂb's version prove false; and if not, he was, in a way, entitled to consideration. Especially if he would keep the abduction quiet, in view of that possible murder case.

'You had better come up again in two or three days,' said the magistrate finally, 'by which time the police, who will have instructions to conduct their inquiries in strict confidence, will know if they require proofs, and you could produce the remaining pearls, of course. If they do not, the girl shall be handed over to you as her natural guardian, and that will end the matter, unless her evidence is required.'

'Huzoor!' said JehÂn, with profuse salaams, 'that would end the matter to my complete satisfaction and eternal gratitude.'

The look about his red betel-stained lips, as they wreathed themselves with obsequious smiles, was that of a carnivorous animal which scents its prey, and there was almost a triumph in his face as he drove back to the city with Lateefa. He felt himself powerful for once; for he knew that if once he could get Sobrai back, he could torture and kill the girl behind the purdah, which none would dare to invade; in which he was still king--as much a king as any of his ancestors.

If he could get her there!

The only difficulty in the way of that, JehÂn knew and faced instantly.

If proof were needed, Lucanaster would never give up the pearls, never forbear saying that in his opinion they were the Lady-sahib's and none other, unless he got the emerald in exchange. Well! he, JehÂn, must have the emerald ready in case it was wanted. Then the thought that he might have so had it, ready in his own possession, but for little Sa'adut, made him call himself a fool for yielding to the child's tears.

They would have been over and forgotten in a minute; for what could the child want with an emerald ring? A useless bauble, not even fit to be a toy!