Short Stories Old and New - Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
"See here!" said Dravot, his thumb on the map. "Up to Jagdallak, Peachey
and me know the road. We was there with Roberts's Army. We'll have to
turn off to the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann territory. Then we
get among the hills--fourteen thousand feet--fifteen thousand--it will
be cold work there, but it don't look very far on the map."
I handed him Wood on the _Sources of the Oxus_. Carnehan was deep in the
_Encyclopaedia_.
"They're a mixed lot," said Dravot, reflectively; "and it won't help us
to know the names of their tribes. The more tribes the more they'll
fight, and the better for us. From Jagdallak to Ashang. H'mm!"
"But all the information about the country is as sketchy and inaccurate
as can be," I protested. "No one knows anything about it really. Here's
the file of the _United Services' Institute_. Read what Bellew says."
"Blow Bellew!" said Carnehan. "Dan, they're a stinkin' lot of heathens,
but this book here says they think they're related to us English."
I smoked while the men pored over _Raverty, Wood_, the maps, and the
_Encyclopaedia_.
"There is no use your waiting," said Dravot, politely. "It's about four
o'clock now. We'll go before six o'clock if you want to sleep, and we
won't steal any of the papers. Don't you sit up. We're two harmless
lunatics, and if you come to-morrow evening down to the Serai we'll say
good-bye to you."
"You _are_ two fools," I answered. "You'll be turned back at the
Frontier or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you want
any money or a recommendation down-country? I can help you to the chance
of work next week."
"Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves, thank you," said Dravot.
"It isn't so easy being a King as it looks. When we've got our Kingdom
in going order we'll let you know, and you can come up and help us to
govern it."
"Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that?" said Carnehan, with
subdued pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of notepaper on which was
written the following. I copied it, then and there, as a curiosity--
_This Contract between me and you persuing witnesseth in the name of
God--Amen and so forth.
(One) That me and you will settle this matter together; i.e., to be
Kings of Kafiristan.
(Two) That you and me will not, while this matter is being settled, look
at any Liquor, nor any Woman black, white, or brown, so as to get mixed
up with one or the other harmful.
(Three) That we conduct ourselves with Dignity and Discretion, and if
one of us gets into trouble the other will stay by him.
Signed by you and me this day.
Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan.
Daniel Dravot.
Both Gentlemen at Large_.
"There was no need for the last article," said Carnehan, blushing
modestly; "but it looks regular. Now you know the sort of men that
loafers are--we _are_ loafers, Dan, until we get out of India--and _do_
you think that we would sign a Contrack like that unless we was in
earnest? We have kept away from the two things that make life worth
having."
"You won't enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try this
idiotic adventure. Don't set the office on fire," I said, "and go away
before nine o'clock."
I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the back of
the "Contrack." "Be sure to come down to the Serai to-morrow," were
their parting words.
The Kumharsen Serai is the great four-square sink of humanity where the
strings of camels and horses from the North load and unload. All the
nationalities of Central Asia may be found there, and most of the folk
of India proper. Balkh and Bokhara there meet Bengal and Bombay, and try
to draw eye-teeth. You can buy ponies, turquoises, Persian pussy-cats,
saddle-bags, fat-tailed sheep, and musk in the Kumharsen Serai, and get
many strange things for nothing. In the afternoon I went down to see
whether my friends intended to keep their word or were lying there
drunk.
A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me,
gravely twisting a child's paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant
bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two were loading up
two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks
of laughter.
"The priest is mad," said a horse-dealer to me. "He is going up to Kabul
to sell toys to the Amir. He will either be raised to honor or have his
head cut off. He came in here this morning and has been behaving madly
ever since."
"The witless are under the protection of God," stammered a flat-cheeked
Usbeg in broken Hindi. "They foretell future events."
"Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been cut up
by the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass!" grunted the Eusufzai
agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been diverted into
the hands of other robbers just across the Border, and whose misfortunes
were the laughing-stock of the bazar. "Ohe, priest, whence come you and
whither do you go?"
"From Roum have I come," shouted the priest, waving his whirligig; "from
Roum, blown by the breath of a hundred devils across the sea! O thieves,
robbers, liars, the blessing of Pir Khan on pigs, dogs, and perjurers!
Who will take the Protected of God to the North to sell charms that are
never still to the Amir? The camels shall not gall, the sons shall not
fall sick, and the wives shall remain faithful while they are away, of
the men who give me place in their caravan. Who will assist me to
slipper the King of the Roos with a golden slipper with a silver heel?
The protection of Pir Khan be upon his labors!" He spread out the skirts
of his gaberdine and pirouetted between the lines of tethered horses.
"There starts a caravan from Peshawar to Kabul in twenty days, _Huzrut_"
said the Eusufzai trader. "My camels go therewith. Do thou also go and
bring us good-luck."
"I will go even now!" shouted the priest. "I will depart upon my winged
camels, and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan," he yelled to
his servant, "drive out the camels, but let me first mount my own."
He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt, and, turning round to
me, cried: "Come thou also, Sahib, a little along the road, and I will
sell thee a charm--an amulet that shall make thee King of Kafiristan."
Then the light broke upon me, and I followed the two camels out of the
Serai till we reached open road and the priest halted.
"What d'you think o' that?" said he in English. "Carnehan can't talk
their patter, so I've made him my servant. He makes a handsome servant.
'T isn't for nothing that I've been knocking about the country for
fourteen years. Didn't I do that talk neat? We'll hitch on to a caravan
at Peshawar till we get to Jagdallak, and then we'll see if we can get
donkeys for our camels, and strike into Kafiristan. Whirligigs for the
Amir, O Lor! Put your hand under the camel-bags and tell me what you
feel."
I felt the butt of a Martini, and another and another.
"Twenty of 'em," said Dravot, placidly. "Twenty of 'em and ammunition to
correspond, under the whirligigs and the mud dolls."
"Heaven help you if you are caught with those things!" I said. "A
Martini is worth her weight in silver among the Pathans."
"Fifteen hundred rupees of capital--every rupee we could beg, borrow, or
steal--are invested on these two camels," said Dravot. "We won't get
caught. We're going through the Khaiber with a regular caravan. Who'd
touch a poor mad priest?"
"Have you got everything you want?" I asked, overcome with astonishment.
"Not yet, but we shall soon. Give us a memento of your kindness,
_Brother_. You did me a service, yesterday, and that time in Marwar.
Half my Kingdom shall you have, as the saying is." I slipped a small
charm compass from my watch chain and handed it up to the priest.
"Good-bye," said Dravot, giving me hand cautiously. "It's the last time
we'll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands with
him, Carnehan," he cried, as the second camel passed me.
Carnehan leaned down and shook hands. Then the camels passed away along
the dusty road, and I was left alone to wonder. My eye could detect no
failure in the disguises. The scene in the Serai proved that they were
complete to the native mind. There was just the chance, therefore, that
Carnehan and Dravot would be able to wander through Afghanistan without
detection. But, beyond, they would find death--certain and awful death.
Ten days later a native correspondent giving me the news of the day from
Peshawar, wound up his letter with: "There has been much laughter here
on account of a certain mad priest who is going in his estimation to
sell petty gauds and insignificant trinkets which he ascribes as great
charms to H.H. the Amir of Bokhara. He passed through Peshawar and
associated himself to the Second Summer caravan that goes to Kabul. The
merchants are pleased because through superstition they imagine that
such mad fellows bring good-fortune."
The two, then, were beyond the Border. I would have prayed for them,
but, that night, a real King died in Europe, and demanded an obituary
notice.
* * * * *
The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and again.
Summer passed and winter thereafter, and came and passed again. The
daily paper continued and I with it, and upon the third summer there
fell a hot night, a night-issue, and a strained waiting for something to
be telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as had happened
before. A few great men had died in the past two years, the machines
worked with more clatter, and some of the trees in the Office garden
were a few feet taller. But that was all the difference.
I passed over to the press-room, and went through just such a scene as I
have already described. The nervous tension was stronger than it had
been two years before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At three
o'clock I cried, "Print off," and turned to go, when there crept to my
chair what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was
sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other
like a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled--this
rag-wrapped, whining cripple who addressed me by name, crying that he
was come back. "Can you give me a drink?" he whimpered. "For the Lord's
sake, give me a drink!"
I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain, and I
turned up the lamp.
"Don't you know me?" he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he turned his
drawn face, surmounted by a shock of gray hair, to the light.
I looked at him intently. Once before had I seen eyebrows that met over
the nose in an inch-broad black band, but for the life of me I could not
tell where.
"I don't know you," I said, handing him the whiskey. "What can I do for
you?"
He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the
suffocating heat.
"I've come back," he repeated; "and I was the King of Kafiristan--me and
Dravot--crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it--you setting
there and giving us the books. I am Peachey--Peachey Taliaferro
Carnehan, and you've been setting here ever since--O Lord!"
I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelings
accordingly.
"It's true," said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, nursing his feet, which
were wrapped in rags. "True as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns upon
our heads--me and Dravot--poor Dan--oh, poor, poor Dan, that would never
take advice, not though I begged of him!"
"Take the whiskey," I said, "and take your own time. Tell me all you can
recollect of everything from beginning to end. You got across the border
on your camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his servant. Do
you remember that?"
"I ain't mad--yet, but I shall be that way soon. Of course I remember.
Keep looking at me, or maybe my words will go all to pieces. Keep
looking at me in my eyes and don't say anything."
I leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could. He
dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It was
twisted like a bird's claw, and upon the back was a ragged, red,
diamond-shaped scar.
"No, don't look there. Look at _me_" said Carnehan. "That comes
afterwards, but for the Lord's sake don't distrack me. We left with that
caravan, me and Dravot playing all sorts of antics to amuse the people
we were with. Dravot used to make us laugh in the evenings when all the
people was cooking their dinners--cooking their dinners, and--what did
they do then? They lit little fires with sparks that went into Dravot's
beard, and we all laughed--fit to die. Little red fires they was, going
into Dravot's big red beard--so funny." His eyes left mine and he smiled
foolishly.
"You went as far as Jagdallak with that caravan," I said at a venture,
"after you had lit those fires. To Jagdallak, where you turned off to
try to get into Kafiristan."
"No, we didn't neither. What are you talking about? We turned off before
Jagdallak, because we heard the roads was good. But they wasn't good
enough for our two camels--mine and Dravot's. When we left the caravan,
Dravot took off all his clothes and mine too, and said we would be
heathen, because the Kafirs didn't allow Mohammedans to talk to them. So
we dressed betwixt and between, and such a sight as Daniel Dravot I
never saw yet nor expect to see again. He burned half his beard, and
slung a sheep-skin over his shoulder, and shaved his head into patterns.
He shaved mine, too, and made me wear outrageous things to look like a
heathen. That was in a most mountaineous country, and our camels
couldn't go along any more because of the mountains. They were tall and
black, and coming home I saw them fight like wild goats--there are lots
of goats in Kafiristan. And these mountains, they never keep still, no
more than the goats. Always fighting they are, and don't let you sleep
at night."
"Take some more whiskey," I said, very slowly. "What did you and Daniel
Dravot do when the camels could go no further because of the rough roads
that led into Kafiristan?"
"What did which do? There was a party called Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan
that was with Dravot. Shall I tell you about him? He died out there in
the cold. Slap from the bridge fell old Peachey, turning and twisting in
the air like a penny whirligig that you can sell to the Amir.--No; they
was two for three ha'pence, those whirligigs, or I am much mistaken and
woeful sore.--And then these camels were no use, and Peachey said to
Dravot--'For the Lord's sake let's get out of this before our heads are
chopped off,' and with that they killed the camels all among the
mountains, not having anything in particular to eat, but first they took
off the boxes with the guns and the ammunition, till two men came along
driving four mules. Dravot up and dances in front of them,
singing--'Sell me four mules.' Says the first man--'If you are rich
enough to buy, you are rich enough to rob;' but before ever he could put
his hand to his knife, Dravot breaks his neck over his knee, and the
other party runs away. So Carnehan loaded the mules with the rifles that
was taken off the camels, and together we starts forward into those
bitter cold mountaineous parts, and never a road broader than the back
of your hand."
He paused for a moment, while I asked him if he could remember the
nature of the country through which he had journeyed.
"I am telling you as straight as I can, but my head isn't as good as it
might be. They drove nails through it to make me hear better how Dravot
died. The country was mountaineous and the mules were most contrary, and
the inhabitants was dispersed and solitary. They went up and up, and
down and down, and that other party, Carnehan, was imploring of Dravot
not to sing and whistle so loud, for fear of bringing down the tremenjus
avalanches. But Dravot says that if a King couldn't sing it wasn't worth
being King, and whacked the mules over the rump, and never took no heed
for ten cold days. We came to a big level valley all among the
mountains, and the mules were near dead, so we killed them, not having
anything in special for them or us to eat. We sat upon the boxes, and
played odd and even with the cartridges that was jolted out.
"Then ten men with bows and arrows ran down that valley, chasing twenty
men with bows and arrows, and the row was tremenjus. They was fair
men--fairer than you or me--with yellow hair and remarkable well built.
Says Dravot, unpacking the guns--'This is the beginning of the business.
We'll fight for the ten men,' and with that he fires two rifles at the
twenty men, and drops one of them at two hundred yards from the rock
where he was sitting. The other men began to run, but Carnehan and
Dravot sits on the boxes picking them off at all ranges, up and down the
valley. Then we goes up to the ten men that had run across the snow too,
and they fires a footy little arrow at us. Dravot he shoots above their
heads and they all falls down flat. Then he walks over them and kicks
them, and then he lifts them up and shakes hands all round to make them
friendly like. He calls them and gives them the boxes to carry, and
waves his hand for all the world as though he was King already. They
takes the boxes and him across the valley and up the hill into a pine
wood on the top, where there was half a dozen big stone idols. Dravot he
goes to the biggest--a fellow they call Imbra--and lays a rifle and a
cartridge at his feet, rubbing his nose respectful with his own nose,
patting him on the head, and saluting in front of it. He turns round to
the men and nods his head, and says--'That's all right. I'm in the know
too, and all these old jim-jams are my friends.' Then he opens his mouth
and points down it, and when the first man brings him food, he
says--'No;' and when the second man brings him food, he says--'No;' but
when one of the old priests and the boss of the village brings him food,
he says--'Yes,' very haughty, and eats it slow. That was how we came to
our first village, without any trouble, just as though we had tumbled
from the skies. But we tumbled from one of those damned rope-bridges,
you see, and--you couldn't expect a man to laugh much after that?"
"Take some more whiskey and go on," I said. "That was the first village
you came into. How did you get to be King?"
"I wasn't King," said Carnehan. "Dravot, he was the King, and a handsome
man he looked with the gold crown on his head and all. Him and the other
party stayed in that village, and every morning Dravot sat by the side
of old Imbra, and the people came and worshipped. That was Dravot's
order. Then a lot of men came into the valley, and Carnehan and Dravot
picks them off with the rifles before they knew where they was, and runs
down into the valley and up again the other side and finds another
village, same as the first one, and the people all falls down flat on
their faces, and Dravot says--'Now what is the trouble between you two
villages?' and the people points to a woman, as fair as you or me, that
was carried off, and Dravot takes her back to the first village and
counts up the dead--eight there was. For each dead man Dravot pours a
little milk on the ground and waves his arms like a whirligig and
'That's all right,' says he. Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of
each village by the arm and walks them down into the valley, and shows
them how to scratch a line with a spear right down the valley, and gives
each a sod of turf from both sides of the line. Then all the people
comes down and shouts like the devil and all, and Dravot says--'Go and
dig the land, and be fruitful and multiply,' which they did, though they
didn't understand. Then we asks the names of things in their
lingo--bread and water and fire and idols and such, and Dravot leads the
priest of each village up to the idol, and says he must sit there and
judge the people, and if anything goes wrong he is to be shot.
"Next week they was all turning up the land in the valley as quiet as
bees and much prettier, and the priests heard all the complaints and
told Dravot in dumb show what it was about. 'That's just the beginning,'
says Dravot. 'They think we're Gods.' He and Carnehan picks out twenty
good men and shows them how to click off a rifle, and form fours, and
advance in line, and they was very pleased to do so, and clever to see
the hang of it. Then he takes out his pipe and his baccy-pouch and
leaves one at one village, and one at the other, and off we two goes to
see what was to be done in the next valley. That was all rock, and there
was a little village there, and Carnehan says--'Send 'em to the old
valley to plant,' and takes 'em there and gives 'em some land that
wasn't took before. They were a poor lot, and we blooded 'em with a kid
before letting 'em into the new Kingdom. That was to impress the people,
and then they settled down quiet, and Carnehan went back to Dravot who
had got into another valley, all snow and ice and most mountaineous.
There was no people there and the Army got afraid, so Dravot shoots one
of them, and goes on till he finds some people in a village, and the
Army explains that unless the people wants to be killed they had better
not shoot their little matchlocks; for they had matchlocks. We makes
friends with the priest and I stays there alone with two of the Army,
teaching the men how to drill, and a thundering big Chief comes across
the snow with kettle-drums and horns twanging, because he heard there
was a new God kicking about. Carnehan sights for the brown of the men
half a mile across the snow and wings one of them. Then he sends a
message to the Chief that, unless he wished to be killed, he must come
and shake hands with me and leave his arms behind. The Chief comes alone
first, and Carnehan shakes hands with him and whirls his arms about,
same as Dravot used, and very much surprised that Chief was, and strokes
my eyebrows. Then Carnehan goes alone to the Chief, and asks him in dumb
show if he had an enemy he hated. 'I have,' says the Chief. So Carnehan
weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them
drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as
Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top
of a mountain, and the Chief's men rushes into a village and takes it;
we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy. So we took that
village too, and I gives the Chief a rag from my coat and says, 'Occupy
till I come;' which was scriptural. By way of a reminder, when me and
the Army was eighteen hundred yards away, I drops a bullet near him
standing on the snow, and all the people falls flat on their faces. Then
I sends a letter to Dravot wherever he be by land or by sea."
At the risk of throwing the creature out of train I interrupted--"How
could you write a letter up yonder?"
"The letter?--Oh!--The letter! Keep looking at me between the eyes,
please. It was a string-talk letter, that we'd learned the way of it
from a blind beggar in the Punjab."
I remember that there had once come to the office a blind man with a
knotted twig and a piece of string which he wound round the twig
according to some cipher of his own. He could, after the lapse of days
or hours, repeat the sentence which he had reeled up. He had reduced the
alphabet to eleven primitive sounds; and tried to teach me his method,
but I could not understand.
"I sent that letter to Dravot," said Carnehan; "and told him to come
back because this Kingdom was growing too big for me to handle, and then
I struck for the first valley, to see how the priests were working. They
called the village we took along with the Chief, Bashkai, and the first
village we took, Er-Heb. The priests at Er-Heb was doing all right, but
they had a lot of pending cases about land to show me, and some men from
another village had been firing arrows at night. I went out and looked
for that village, and fired four rounds at it from a thousand yards.
That used all the cartridges I cared to spend, and I waited for Dravot,
who had been away two or three months, and I kept my people quiet.
"One morning I heard the devil's own noise of drums and horns, and Dan
Dravot marches down the hill with his Army and a tail of hundreds of
men, and, which was the most amazing, a great gold crown on his head.
'My Gord, Carnehan,' says Daniel, 'this is a tremenjus business, and
we've got the whole country as far as it's worth having. I am the son of
Alexander by Queen Semiramis, and you're my younger brother and a God
too! It's the biggest thing we've ever seen. I've been marching and
fighting for six weeks with the Army, and every footy little village for
fifty miles has come in rejoiceful; and more than that, I've got the key
of the whole show, as you'll see, and I've got a crown for you! I told
'em to make two of 'em at a place called Shu, where the gold lies in the
rock like suet in mutton. Gold I've seen, and turquoise I've kicked out
of the cliffs, and there's garnets in the sands of the river, and here's
a chunk of amber that a man brought me. Call up all the priests and,
here, take your crown.'