The Sirdar's Oath: A Tale of the North-West Frontier

Mitford Bertram

The Sirdar's Oath: A Tale of the North-West Frontier

Chapter One

“The Stranger within thy Gates.”

“Yer – Kroojer! Kroojer. Go’n get yer whiskers shyved.”

“Ere, chaps. ’Ere’s old Kroojer!”

And the section of the crowd among whom originated these remarks closed up around the object thereof.

The latter, though clad in the frock-coat of European civilisation, was obviously an Oriental. He was a man of fine presence, tall and dignified, handsome in the aquiline-featured type, and wearing a full beard just turning grey. Hence it will be seen that his resemblance to the world-famed President was so striking as to commend itself at once to the understanding of his molesters.

It was night, and the flare of the street lamps, together with a few impromptu illuminations, lit up the surging, tossing, roaring multitude, which filled to packing point the whole space in front of the Mansion House, each unit of the same bent on shouting himself or herself hoarse; for the tidings of the relief of Mafeking had just been received, and the inauguration of the public delirium was already in full swing. Hats and caps flew in the air by showers, the wearers of silk hats not hesitating to hurl on high their normally cherished and protected headgear, those who did so hesitate being speedily relieved of all responsibility on that point by their obliging neighbours, to the accompaniment of such shouts as “Ooroar for B.P. Good old B.P.,” while the strains of “Soldiers of the Queen” rose in leathern-lunged rivalry with those of “The Absent-minded Beggar” – save when, in staccato volleyings of varied timelessness and tunelessness, those of “Rule Britannia” availed to swamp both. Thus the multitude rejoiced, characteristically, therefore, for the most part, roughly.

“Wot cher, myte?” drawled an evil rough, shouldering against the Oriental. “You ortn’t to be ’ere. You ort to be in the Trawnsvawl, you ort. Why you’re Kroojer, you are.”

“I sy, Bill!” shrilled a girl to her swain. “Let’s shyve ’is whiskers, shall we?”

The pair had exchanged hats, and while the speaker’s oily fringe was set-off by a bowler, wide and curly of brim, the ugly face of the other leered red and beery from beneath a vast structure of nodding ostrich plumes.

“Rawther. Come on, cheps. Let’s shyve old Kroojer’s whiskers!” And reaching over, as a preliminary to that process, he snatched the Oriental’s high, semi-conical black cap – the only article of un-European wear about him – from his head, and flung it high in the air, emitting a raucous yell.

At this assault, delivered from behind, the stranger turned, his eyes flashing with resentment and hate. As he did so a violent push, again from behind, sent him staggering, would have brought him to the ground indeed but that the crowd was too dense, and its only effect was to bring him right against the rough who had snatched off his cap. In a moment the long, brown sinewy fingers had shot out and closed round the bull throat of the cad, while with the snarl of a wild beast, the Oriental flashed forth something from his breast pocket. A roar of warning broke from the bystanders, likewise of rage, for these lovers of fair play were virtuously indignant that one well-nigh defenceless man, and a stranger, should protect himself as best he might when set upon by numbers. In a second the weapon was knocked from his hand, and he was violently wrenched back from the man whose throat he had gripped; and well indeed for the latter that such was the case. Then he was hustled and punched and kicked, his beard pulled out in wisps – the virago who had first instigated the assault, and who fortunately was separated from him by the crowd, struggling and screaming in the language of the slums to be allowed to get at him – only just once.

“Let him alone, cawn’t yer?” cried a voice, that of another woman. “He ain’t Kroojer! ’E’s a bloomin’ Ingin. Any fool could see that.”

“’E’s a blanked furriner – it’s all the syme. And didn’t ’e try to knife my Bill,” retorted the other, making renewed efforts to reach him – and the vocabulary of this young person earned the delighted appreciation of even the toughest of her audience. Then a diversion occurred.

“Myke wy? Oo are you tellin’ of to myke wy?” rose a voice, in angry and jeering expostulation, followed immediately by the sound of a scuffle. The attention of the crowd was diverted to this new quarter, which circumstance enabled the luckless Oriental to gain his feet, and he stood staggering, glaring about him in a frenzy of wrath and bewilderment. Then he was knocked flat again, this time by the pressure of those around.

What followed was worth seeing. Straight through the mass of roughs came upwards of a dozen and a half of another species, in strong and compact order, hitting out on either side of them, scrupulously observing the Donnybrook principle, “When you see a head hit it” – only in the present instance it was a face. Most of these were members of an athletic club, who had been dining generously and had caught the prevailing excitement. They had seen the predicament of the Oriental from afar, and promptly recognised that to effect his rescue would furnish them with just the fun and fight for which they were spoiling.

“Make way, you blackguards. Call yourselves Englishmen, all packing on to one man? What? You won’t? That’ll settle you.”

“That” being a “knock-out” neatly delivered, the recipient, he who had begun the assault. Still crowned with his female companion’s headgear the abominable rough sank to the ground, permanently disabled.

“Here – you, sir – get up. Hope you’re not much the worse,” cried the foremost, dragging the stranger to his feet.

“I thank you, gentlemen,” said the latter, in excellent English. “No, not much, I think.”

“That’s right,” cried the foremost of his rescuers, admiring his pluck. For undoubtedly the stranger was considerably the worse for what he had gone through. His cheek bones were swollen, and one eye was bunged up, and his now tattered beard was matted with blood flowing from a cut on the lip; and as he stood, with somewhat unsteady gait, the forced smile wherewith he had greeted his deliverers changed to a hideous snarl of hate, as his glance wandered to the repulsive and threatening countenances of his late assailants. Here, obviously, was no shrinking, effeminate representative of the East, rather a scion of one of its fine and warrior races, for there was a mingled look of wistfulness and aroused savagery in his eyes as instinctively he clenched and unclenched his defenceless fingers as though they ought to be grasping a weapon.

But the moral effect of the first decisive rush having worn off, the rough element of the crowd, roughest of all just here, began to rally. After all, though they had science, the number of these new arrivals constituted a mere mouthful, so puny was it. Yells, and hoots, and catcalls arose as the surging rabble pressed upon the gallant few, now standing literally at bay. Those in the forefront were pushed forward by the weight of numbers behind, and the pressure was so great that there was hardly room to make free play with those fine, swinging out-from-the-shoulder hits – yet they managed partially to clear a way – and for a few moments, fists, feet, sticks, everything, Teere going in the liveliest sort of free fight imaginable. The while, over the remainder of the packed space, shrill cheers and patriotic songs, and the firing off of squibs and crackers were bearing their own part in making night hideous, independently of the savage rout, here at the top of King William Street.

“Kroojer! Kroojer! ’Ere’s Kroojer!” yelled the mob, and, attracted by its vociferations, others turned their attention that way. And while his deliverers had their hands very full indeed, a villainous-looking rough reached forward and swung up what looked like a slender, harmless roll of brown paper above the Oriental’s head. Well was it for the latter that this move was seen by one man, and that just in time to interpose a thick malacca cane between his skull and the descending gas pipe filled with lead, which staff, travelling down to the wrist of him who wielded the deadly weapon, caused the murderous cad to drop the same, with a howl, and weird language.

“A good ‘Penang lawyer’ is tough enough for most things,” muttered the dealer of this deft stroke. “Here, brother, take this,” he went on, in an Eastern tongue, thrusting the stick into the stranger’s hand.

The effect was wondrous. The consciousness of grasping even this much of a weapon seemed to transform the Oriental completely. His tall form seemed to tower, his frame to dilate, as, whirling the tough stick aloft, he shrilled forth a wild, fierce Mohammedan war-cry, bounding, leaping, in a very demoniacal possession, charging those nearest to him as though the stick were a long-bladed, keen-edged tulwar. Whirling it in the air he brought it down with incredible swiftness, striking here and there on head and face, while looking around for more to smite. And then the rabble of assailants began to give way, or try to. “Cops” was the cry that now went up, and immediately thereupon a strong posse of the splendid men of the City Police had forced their way to the scene of disturbance – or very nearly.

Crushed, borne along by the swaying crowd, the man who had so effectually aided the distressed Oriental had become separated from his friends. For his foes he cared nothing, and, indeed, these had all they could think of to effect their own retreat, the motive being not so much fear of immediate consequences as the consciousness with many of them that they were desperately wanted by the police in connection with other matters, which would infallibly assert their claims once identity was established. At last, to his relief, he found himself in a side street and outside the crowd.

“You’re better ’ere, sir,” said a gruff voice, whose owner was contemplating him curiously.

“Yes, rather. I’ve been in a bit of a breeze yonder.”

“So I should say, sir,” answered the policeman, significantly. “Thank’ee, sir. Much obliged.”

“They were mobbing a stranger, and I and some others went to help him.”

“Was it a Hindian gent, sir, with a high black sort of ’at? I seen him go by here not long since.”

“Yes. That was the man. Well, I suppose he’s all right by now. Good-night, policeman.”

“Good-night, sir, and thank’ee, sir.”

An hour and a half later one corner of the supper-room in the Peculiar Club was in a state of unwonted liveliness, even for that by no means dull institution, where upwards of a dozen more or less damaged members were consuming devilled bones and champagne.

Damaged, in that bunged up eyes and swelled noses – and here and there a cut lip – were in evidence; but all were in the last stage of cheerfulness.

“Why isn’t Raynier here, I wonder?” was asked.

“He? Oh, I expect he went on taking care of that Indian Johnny. He likes those chaps, you know, has to do with them out there. He’ll turn up all right – never fear.”

“Don’t know. Don’t like losing sight of him,” said another.

“Oh, he’ll turn up all right. He knows jolly well how to take care of himself.”

But as the night became morning, and the frantic howling of patriotism gone mad rent the otherwise still hours, Raynier did not turn up. Then the revellers and quondam combatants became uneasy – such of them, that is, as were still capable of reflection in any form.

Chapter Two

The Day After

Raynier awoke in his club chambers the next morning, feeling, as he put it to himself, exceedingly cheap.

When we say awoke, rather are we expressing a recurring process which had continued throughout the few remaining night hours since, by force of circumstances and the swaying of the crowd, he had become separated from his companions, and had wisely found his way straight to bed instead of to the Peculiar Club. On this at any rate he congratulated himself; and yet hardly any sleep had come his way. The howling of patriotic roysterers had continued until morning light, and, moreover, his head was buzzing – not by reason of last night’s revelry, for in such he never got out of hand, but an ugly lump on one side of his forehead, and a swelled eye, reminded him that it is hard to rescue a maltreated stranger from the brutality of a London mob, and emerge unscathed oneself.

“Well, I do look a beauty,” he soliloquised as he stood before his glass, surveying the damage. “I shall have a bump the size and colour of a croquet ball for the next fortnight, and an eye to match. How a man of my age and temperament could have cut in with those young asses last night, I can’t think. Might have known what the upshot would be. And now I’ve got to go down to Worthingham to-day. Wonder what nice remark Cynthia will have to make. Perhaps she’ll give me the chuck. The fact of my being mixed up in a street row may prove too much for her exceeding sense of propriety.” And a faintly satirical droop curled down the corners of the thinker’s mouth.

Having fomented his bruises, and tubbed, and otherwise completed his toilet Raynier went down to breakfast, soon feeling immeasurably the better for the process. But in the middle a thought struck him; struck him indeed with some consternation. The malacca cane – the instrument with which he had almost certainly saved the life of the assailed Oriental, and which he had put into the hands of the latter as a weapon. It was gone, and – it was a gift from his fiancée.

Apart from such association he was fond of the stick, which was a handsome one and beautifully mounted. How on earth was he to recover it? His initials were engraved on the head; that, however, would furnish but faint clue. How should he find the man whom he had befriended – and even if he did, it was quite possible that the other had lost possession of the stick during the scrimmage. It might or might not find its way to Scotland Yard, but to ascertain this would take time. He could make inquiries at the police stations adjacent to the scene of last night’s émeute, or advertise, but that too would take time and he was urgently due at the abode of his fiancée that very day, for his furlough was rapidly drawing to a close, and his return to India a matter of days rather than of weeks.

Herbert Raynier served his country in the capacity of an Indian civilian, but most of his time of service had been passed in hot Plains stations, engendering an amount of constitutional wear and tear which caused him to look rather more than his actual age, such being in fact nearly through the thirties, but the sallowness of his naturally dark complexion had given way to a healthier bronze since he had come home on furlough five months back. By temperament he was a quiet man, and somewhat reserved, and this together with the fact that his countenance was not characterised by that square-jawed aggressiveness which is often associated in the popular estimation with parts, led people to suppose, on first acquaintance, that there was not much in him. Wherein they were wrong, although at the present moment there were chances of such latent abilities as he possessed being allowed to stagnate under sheer, easy-going routine: a potentiality which he himself recognised, and that with some concern. Physically he stood about five foot ten in his boots, and was well set up in proportion. He was fond of sport, though not aspiring to anything beyond the average in its achievement, and was not lacking in ideas nor in some originality in the expression of the same.

As he sat finishing his after-breakfast cheroot in the club smoking-room there entered two of his brethren-in-arms of the night before.

“There you are, Raynier, old chap. That’s all right. Why didn’t you roll up at the Peculiar after the fun? We were all there – Steele and Waring were doosid uneasy about you – thought you’d come to grief, that’s why we thought we’d look in early and make sure you hadn’t.”

“Early?”

“Why, yes. It’s only eleven. But I say, you jolly old cuckoo. You have got a damaged figurehead.”

“Yes, it’s a bore,” pronounced Raynier, pushing the bell, to order “pegs.” “And the worst of it is I’ve got to go down to the country this afternoon – to an eminently respectable vicarage, too.”

“Remedy’s easy. Don’t go.”

“That’s no remedy at all. I must.”

“Stick a patch over the eye, then.”

“But he can’t stick a patch over his head as well,” said the other.

“You two chaps have come off with hardly a scratch,” said Raynier – “and yet you were just as much in the thick of it as I was.”

“So we were. But I say, Raynier, I believe it’s a judgment on a staid old buffer like you for ‘mafeking’ around with a lot of lively sparks like us. Ha – ha – that wasn’t bad, I say, don’t-cher-know. ‘Mafeking!’ See it? Ah – ha – ha!”

“Oh, go away. It’s an outrage. At how many people’s hands have you courted destruction by firing that on them this morning?”

“Not many. But it’s awfully good, eh, old sportsman? Why I invented it.”

“Then you deserve death,” returned Raynier. “Oh, Grice, take him away, and drown him, will you; but stay – let him have his ‘peg’ first – since here it comes.”

“Anyone know what became of that interesting stranger?” went on Raynier, after the necessary pause.

“The Indian Johnny? Not much. We all got mixed up in the mob, and what with all the ‘bokos’ that were hit, and the claret flying, and then the bobbies rushing the lot, none of us knew what had happened to anyone else until we all found ourselves snug and jolly at the Peculiar.” And then followed an animated account of wounds and casualties received and doughty deeds effected.

“We thought you were taking care of the Indian Johnny, Raynier,” concluded Grice, “and that was why you didn’t turn up.”

“I wish I knew where to lay finger on the said Indian Johnny,” was the rejoinder.

“Why? Was he some big bug?”

“I don’t know. But he’s got my stick – or had it.”

“Rather. And didn’t he just lay about with it too. Looked as if he was quite accustomed to that sort of thing.”

“The worst of it is I rather value it,” went on Raynier. “In fact I’d give a trifle to recover it. Given me, you understand.”

“Oh – ah – yes, I understand,” said the other, with a would-be knowing wink.

“Why not try the police stations?” suggested the self-styled creator of the above vile pun. “The darkey may have been run in with a lot more for creating a disturbance.”

“Or the pawnbrokers,” said Grice – “for if it was captured by the enemy, why that honest fellow-countryman would lose no time in taking a bee-line for the nearest pawnshop with it. All that yelling must have been dry work.”

“But, I say, old chappie. What a juggins you were to give it him,” supplemented the other, sapiently.

“Oh, he didn’t know how to use his fists, and the poor devil was absolutely defenceless. And a good ‘Penang lawyer’ in a row of that kind is a precious deal better than nothing at all.”

“The darkey seemed to find it so,” said he named Grice. “Why it might have been a sword the way he laid about with it. I bet that chap’s good at single-stick. Wonder who he is. Some big Rajah perhaps. I say Raynier, old chap. You’ll have some of his following finding you out directly, with no end of lakhs of rupees, as a slight mark of gratitude, and all that sort of thing. Eh?”

“If so the plunder ought to be divided,” cut in the other gilded youth. “We all helped to pull him through, you know.”

“All right, so it shall,” said Raynier, “when it comes. As to which doesn’t it occur to you fellows that ‘some big Rajah’ is hardly likely to be found frisking around in the thick of an especially tough London crowd all by his little alones? But if he’d find me out only to return my stick it would be a ‘mark of gratitude’ quite sufficient for present purposes.”

“Why don’t you buy another exactly like it, old chap?” said Grice, who knew enough about his friend to guess at the real reason of the latter’s solicitude on account of the lost article. “Nobody would know the difference.”

Here was something of an idea, thought Raynier. But then the mounting and the engraving – that would take time, even if he could get it done exactly like the other, which he doubted. It was not alone on the score of an unpleasant moment with the donor that his mind misgave him. She would be excusably hurt, he reflected, remembering that the thing must have been somewhat costly, and under the circumstances represented a certain amount of self-denial. Decidedly he was in a quandary.

“Well, ta-ta, old chap,” said Grice, as the two got up to go. “We’ll try and find out something about the Rajah – in fact it’s our interest to do so, having an eye to those lakhs of rupees.”

“Yes – and let me know when you’ve made an end of Barker, here, as you’re bound to do if he fires off that ‘Mafeking’ outrage much more.”

“Raynier’s jealous,” said that wag. “I say, don’t go firing it off as your own down in the country, Raynier.”

“No show for me, because about one hundred thousand people scattered over the British Isles have awoke this morning to invent the same insanity.”

Speeding along in the afternoon sunshine, looking out upon the country whirling by, pleasant and green in its rich dress of early summer, Raynier was conscious of a feeling of relief in that he was leaving behind him the heat and dust of London, likewise the racket and uproar of a city gone temporarily mad; albeit a more or less profuse display of bunting in every station the express slid through, notified that the delirium was already spreading throughout the length and breadth of the land. He had the compartment to himself, which was more favourable to the vein of thought upon which he had embarked. When he had arrived home five months previously he had no more notion of returning an engaged man than he had of building a balloon and starting upon a voyage of discovery to Saturn. Yet here he was, and how had it come about? He supposed he ought to feel enraptured – most men of his acquaintance were – or pretended to be – under the circumstances. Yet he was not. How on earth had he and Cynthia Daintree ever imagined that they were suited to go through life together, the fact being that there was no one point upon which they agreed? But now they were under such compact, hard and fast; yet – how had it come about? Her father, the Vicar of Worthingham, had been a sort of trustee of his, long ago, and on his arrival in England had invited him to spend as much of his furlough at that exceedingly pretty country village as he felt inclined. And he had felt inclined, for he knew but few people in England, and the quiet beauty of English rural scenery appealed to his temperament, wherefore, Worthingham Vicarage knew how to account for a good deal of his time, and so did the Vicar’s eldest daughter. Here, then, was the answer to his own retrospective question – not put for the first time by any means. Propinquity, opportunity, circumstances and surroundings favourable to the growth and development of such – idiocy – he was nearly saying. All of which points to a fairly inauspicious frame of mind on the part of a man who in half an hour or so more would meet his fiancée.

Chapter Three

“Above Rubies.”

“What’s the matter, Cynthia?” said the Vicar, looking up from his after-breakfast newspaper, spread out in crumpled irregularity of surface, upon the table in front of him.

“Nothing, father, unless – well, I do wish people would learn to be a little more regular. The world would be so much more comfortable a place to live in.”

The Vicar had his doubts upon that subject. However, he only said, —

“Well, it’s only once in a way, and won’t hurt anybody. And you can’t ask a man to stay with you, and then tie him down to rigid hours like a schoolboy.”

The time was nine o’clock on the second morning after Herbert Raynier’s arrival. It need hardly be said that he was the offender against punctuality.

Cynthia frowned, rattling the crockery upon the tea-tray somewhat viciously.

“Why not? I hate irregularity,” she answered. “I should have thought regular habits would have been the first essential in Herbert’s department – towards getting on in it, that is.”

“Well, he has got on in it, regular habits or not. You can’t deny that, my dear, at any rate.”