Part 12

He scarcely argued the matter explicitly with himself: it was settled in Angria's presence by his instinctive repulsion. But it was not in a boy like Desmond, young, strong, high-spirited, tamely to fold his hands before adverse fate. He had three days: it would go hard with him if he did not make good use of them. He felt a glow of thankfulness that the first step, and that a difficult one, had been taken, providentially as it seemed, the very night before this crisis in his fate. His future plan had already outlined itself; it was necessary first to gain over his companions in captivity; that done, he hoped within the short period allowed him to break prison and turn his back for ever on this place of horror.

It seemed to his eager impatience that that day would never end. It was November, and the beginning of the cold season, and the work of the dockyard, being urgent, was carried on all day without the usual break during the hot middle hours, so that he found no opportunity of consulting his fellows. Further, the foremen of the yard were specially active. The Pirate had been for some time fearful lest the capture of Suvarndrug should prove to be the prelude to an assault upon his stronger fort and headquarters at Gheria, and to meet the danger he had had nine new vessels laid down. Three of them had been finished, but the work had been much interrupted by the rains, and the delay in the completion of the remaining six had irritated him. He had visited his displeasure upon the foremen. After his interview with Desmond he summoned them to his presence and threatened them with such dire punishment if the work was not more rapidly pushed or that they had used the lash more furiously and with even less discrimination than ever. Consequently when Desmond met his companions in the shed at night he found them all in desperate indignation and rage. He had seen nothing more of Diggle; he must strike while the iron was hot.

When they were locked in, and all was quiet outside, the prisoners gave vent, each in his own way, to their feelings. For a time Desmond listened, taking no part in their lamentation and cursing. But when the tide of impotent fury ebbed, and there was a lull, he said quietly:

"Are my brothers dogs that, suffering these things, they merely whine?"

The quiet level tones, so strangely contrasting with the tones of fierceness and hate that were still ringing in the ears of the unhappy prisoners, had an extraordinary effect. There was dead silence in the shed: it seemed that every man was afraid to speak. Then one of the Marathas said in a whisper:

"What do you mean, sahib?"

"What do I mean? Surely it must be clear to any man. Have we not sat long enough on the carpet of patience?"

Again the silence remained for a space unbroken.

"You, Gulam Mahomed," continued Desmond, addressing one of the Biluchis whom he considered the boldest--"have you never thought of escape?"

"Allah knows!" said the man in an undertone. "But he knows that I remember what happened a year ago. Fuzl Khan can tell the sahib something about that."

A fierce cry broke from the Gujarati, who had been moaning upon his charpoy in anguish from the lashings he had undergone that day. Desmond heard him spring up; but if he had meant to attack the Biluchi, the clashing of his fetters reminded him of his helplessness. He cursed the man, demanding what he meant.

"Nothing," returned Gulam Mahomed. "But you were the only man, Allah knows, who escaped the executioner."

"Pig, and son of a pig!" cried Fuzl Khan, "I knew nothing of the plot. If any man says I did he lies. They did it without me; some evil jin must have heard their whisperings. They failed. They were swine of Canarese."

"Do not let us quarrel," said Desmond. "We are all brothers in misfortune; we ought to be as close-knit as the strands of a rope. Here is our brother Fuzl Khan, the only man of his gang who did not try to escape, and see how he is treated! Could he be worse misused? Would not death be a boon? Is it not so, Fuzl Khan?"

The Gujarati assented with a passionate cry.

"As for the rest of us, it is only a matter of time. I am the youngest of you, and not the hardest worked, yet I feel that the strain of our toil is wearing me out. What must it be with you? You are dying slowly. If we make an attempt to escape and fail we shall die quickly, that is all the difference. What is to be is written, is it not so, Shaik Abdullah?"

"Even so, sahib," replied the second Biluchi, "it is written. Who can escape his fate?"

"And what do you say, Surendra Nath?"

"The key, sahib," whispered the Babu in English; "what of the key?"

"Speak in Urdu, Babu," said Desmond quickly. "Don't agree at once."

Surendra Nath was quick-witted; he perceived that Desmond did not wish the others to suspect that there had been any confidences between them.

"I am a coward, the sahib knows," he said in Urdu. "I could not give blows; I should die. It was told us to-day that the English are about to attack this fort. They will set us free; we need run no risks."

"Wah!" exclaimed one of the Mysoreans. "If the Firangi get into the fort we shall all be murdered."

"That is truth," said a Maratha. "The Rao would have our throats cut at once."

The Babu groaned.

"You see, Surendra Nath, it is useless to wait in the hope of help from my countrymen," said Desmond. "If there is fighting to be done, we can do all that is needed: is it not so, my brothers? As for you, Babu, if you would sooner die without--well, there is nothing to prevent you."

"If the sahib does not wish me to fight, it is well. But has the sahib a plan?"

"Yes, I have a plan."

He paused; there was a sound of hard breathing.

"Tell it us," said the Gujarati eagerly.

"You are one of us, Fuzl Khan?"

"The plan! the plan! Is not my back mangled? Have I not endured the tank? Is not freedom sweet to me as to another? The plan, sahib! I swear, I Fuzl Khan, to be true to you and all; only tell me the plan."

"You shall have the plan in good time. First, I have a thing to say. When a battle is to be fought, no soldier fights only for himself, doing that which seems good to him alone. He looks to his captain for orders. Otherwise mistakes would be made, and all effort would be wasted. We must have a captain: who is he to be?"

"Yourself, sahib," said the Gujarati at once. "You have spoken; you have the plan; we take you as leader."

"You hear what Fuzl Khan says. Do you all agree?"

The others assented eagerly. Then Desmond told his wondering hearers the secret of the key, and during several hours of that quiet night he discussed with them in whispers the details of the scheme which he had worked out. At intervals the sentry passed and flashed his light through the opening in the wall; but at these moments every man was lying motionless upon his charpoy, and not a sound was audible save a snore.

Next day when Desmond, having finished his mid-day meal of rice and mangoes, had returned to his workshop, Diggle sauntered in.

"Ah, my young friend," he said in his quiet voice and with his usual smile, "doubtless you have expected a visit from me. Night brings counsel. I did not visit you yesterday, thinking that after sleeping over the amiable and generous proposition made to you by my friend Angria you would view it in another light. I trust that during the nocturnal hours you have come to perceive the advantages of choosing the discreet part. Let us reason together."

There were several natives with them in the workshop, but none of them understood English, and the two Englishmen could talk at ease.

"Reason!" said Desmond in reply to Diggle's last sentence. "If you are going to talk of what your pirate friend spoke of yesterday, it is mere waste of time. I shall never agree."

"Words, my young friend, mere words! You will be one of us yet. You will never have such a chance again. Why, in a few years you will be able to return to England, if you will, a rich man, a very nawab.[#] My friend Angria has his faults; 'nemo est sine culpa': but he is at least generous. An instance! The man who took the chief part in the capture of the Dutchman two years ago--what is he now? A naib,[#] a man of wealth, of high repute at the Nizam's court. There is no reason why you should not follow so worthy an example; cut out an Indiaman or two, and Desmond Burke may, if he will, convey a shipload of precious things to the shores of Albion, and enjoy his leisured dignity on a landed estate of his own. He shall drive a coach while his oaf of a brother perspires behind a plough."

[#] Governor.

[#] Deputy-governor.

Desmond was silent. Diggle watched him keenly, and after a slight pause continued:

"This is no great thing that is asked of you. You sail on one of Angria's grabs; you are set upon the shore; you enter Bombay with a likely story of escape from the fortress of the Pirate; you are a hero, the boon fellow of the men, the pet of the ladies--for there are ladies in Bombay, 'forma praestante puellae.' In a week you know everything, all the purposes that Angria's spies have failed to discover. One day you disappear; the ladies wail and tear their hair, a tiger has eaten you! in a week you will be forgotten. But you are back in Angria's fortress, no longer a slave, down-trodden and despised; but a free man, a rich man, a potentate to be. Is it not worth thinking of, my young friend, especially when you remember the other side of the picture? It is a dark side; an unpleasant side; even, let me confess, horrible: I prefer to keep it to the wall."

He waved his gloved hand deprecatingly, watching Desmond with the same intentness. The boy was dumb; he might also have been deaf. Diggle drew from his fob an elaborately chased snuff-box and took a pinch of fine rappee, Desmond mechanically noticing that the box bore ornamentation of Dutch design.

"If I were not your friend," continued Diggle, "I might say that your attitude is one of sheer obstinacy. Why not trust us? You see we trust you. I stand pledged for you with Angria; but I flatter myself I know a man when I see one: 'si fractus illabitur orbis'--you have already shown your mettle. Of course I understand your scruples; I was young myself once; I know the generous impulses that rule the hearts of youth. But this is a matter that must be decided, not by feeling, but by hard fact and cold reason. Who benefits by your scruples? A set of hard-living money-grubbers in Bombay who fatten on the oppression of the ryot, who tithe mint and anice and cummin, who hoard up treasure which they will take back with their jaundiced livers to England, there to become pests to society with their splenetic and domineering tempers. What's the Company to you, or you to the Company? Why, Governor Pitt was an interloper; and your own father: yes, he was an interloper, and an interloper of the best."

"But not a pirate," said Desmond hotly, his scornful silence yielding at last.

"True, true," said Diggle suavely; "but in the Indies, you see, we don't draw fine distinctions. We are all buccaneers in a sense; some with the sword, others the ledger. Throw in your lot frankly with me; I will stand your friend----"

"You are wasting your breath and your eloquence," interrupted Desmond firmly, "and even if I were tempted to agree, as I never could be, I should remember who is talking to me." Then he added with a whimsical smile, "Come, Mr. Diggle, you are fond of quotations; I am not; but there's one I remember--'I fear the Greeks, even----'"

"You young hound!" cried Diggle, his sallow face becoming purple. His anger, it seemed to Desmond afterwards reflecting on it, was out of proportion to the cause of offence. "You talk of my eloquence. By Heaven, when I see you again I will use it otherwise. You shall hear something of how Angria wreaks his vengeance; you shall have a foretaste of the sweets in store for an obstinate recalcitrant pigheaded fool!"

He strode away, leaving Desmond a prey to the gloomiest anticipations.

That evening, when the prisoners were squatting outside the shed for the usual hour of talk before being locked up for the night, a new feature was added to the entertainment. One of the Marathas had somehow possessed himself of a tom-tom, and proved himself an excellent performer on that weird instrument. While he tapped its sides, his fellow Maratha, in a strange hard tuneless voice, chanted a song, repeating its single stanza again and again without apparently wearying his hearers, and clapping his hands to mark the time. It was a song about a banya[#] with a beautiful young daughter-in-law, whom he appointed to deal out the daily handful of flour expected as alms by every beggar who passed his door. Her hands being much smaller than his own, he pleased himself with the idea that, without losing his reputation for charity, he would give away through her much less grain than if he himself performed the charitable office. But it turned out bad thrift, for so beautiful was she that she attracted to the door not only the genuine beggars, but also many, both young and old, who had disguised themselves in mendicant rags for the mere pleasure of beholding her and getting from her a smile and a gentle word. It was a popular song, and the warder himself was tempted to stay and listen until, the hour for locking up being past, he at last recollected his duty and bundled the prisoners into the shed.

[#] Hindu merchant.

"Sing inside if you must," he said, "but not too loud, lest the overseer come with the bamboo."

Inside the shed, reclining on their charpoys, the men continued their performance, changing their song, though not, as it seemed to Desmond, the tune. He, however, was perhaps not sufficiently attentive to the monotonous strains, for, as soon as the warder had left the yard, he had unlocked his fetters and begun to work in the darkness. Poised on one of the rafters, he held on with one hand to a joist, and with the other plied a small saw, well greased with ghi. The sound of the slow careful movements of the tool was completely drowned by the singing and the hollow rat-a-pan of the tom-tom. Beneath him stood the Babu, extending his dhoti like an apron, and catching in it the falling shower of sawdust.

Suddenly the figure on the rafter gave a low whistle. Through the window he had seen the dim form of the sentry outside approach the space lighted by the rays from the lantern, which he had laid down at a corner of the shed. Before the soldier had time to lift it and throw a beam into the shed (which he did as much from curiosity to see the untiring performers as in the exercise of his duty) Desmond had swung down from his perch and stretched himself upon the nearest charpoy. The Babu meanwhile had darted with his folded dhoti to the darkest corner. When the sentry peered in, the two performing Marathas were sitting up; the rest were lying prone, to all appearance soothed to sleep.

"Verily thou wilt rap a hole in the tom-tom," said the sentry with a grin. "Better save a little of it for to-morrow."

"Sleep is far from my eyes," replied the man. "My comrades are all at rest; if it does not offend thee----"

"No. Tap till it burst, for me. But without sleep the work will be hard in the morning."

He went away. Instantly the two figures were again upon their feet, and the sawing recommenced. For three hours the work continued, interrupted at intervals by the visits of the sentry. Midnight was past before Desmond, with cramped limbs and aching head, gave the word for the song and accompaniment to cease, and the shed was in silence.

CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH

*In which Mr. Diggle illustrates his argument; and there are strange doings in Gheria harbour.*

The morning of the third day dawned--the last of the three allowed Desmond for making up his mind. When the other prisoners were loosed from their fetters and marched off under guard to their usual work, he alone was left. Evidently he was to be kept in confinement with a view to quickening his resolution. Some hours passed. About midday he heard footsteps approaching the shed. The door was opened, and in the entrance Diggle appeared.

"You will excuse me," he said with a sniff, "if I remain on the threshold of your apartment. It is, I fear, but imperfectly aired."

He pulled a charpoy to the door, and sat down upon it, as much outside as within. Taking out his snuff-box, he tapped it, took a pinch, savoured it, and added:

"You will find the apartment prepared for you in my friend Angria's palace somewhat sweeter than this your present abode--somewhat more commodious also."

Desmond, reclining at a distance, looked his enemy calmly and steadily in the face.

"If you have come, Mr. Diggle," he said, "merely to repeat what you said yesterday, let me say at once that it is waste of breath. I have not changed my mind."

"No, not to repeat, my young friend. 'Crambe repetita'--you know the phrase? Yesterday I appealed, in what I had to say, to your reason; either my appeal, or your reason, was at fault. To-day I have another purpose. 'Tis pity to come down to a lower plane; to appeal to the more ignoble part of man; but since you have not yet cut your wisdom teeth I must e'en accommodate myself. Angria is my friend; but there are moments, look you, when the bonds of our friendship are put to a heavy strain. At those moments Angria is perhaps most himself, and I, perhaps, am most myself; which might prove to a philosopher that there is a radical antagonism between the Oriental and the Occidental character. Since my picture of the brighter side has failed to impress you, I propose to show you the other side--such is the sincerity of my desire for your welfare. And 'tis no empty picture--'inanis imago,' as Ovid might say--no, 'tis sheer reality, speaking, terrible."

He turned and beckoned. In a moment Desmond heard the clank of chains, and by and by, at the entrance of the shed, stood a figure at sight of whom his blood ran cold. It was the bent, lean, broken figure of a Hindu, his thin bare legs weighted with heavy irons. Ears, nose, upper lip were gone; his eyes were lit with the glare of madness; the parched skin of his hollow cheeks was drawn back, disclosing a grinning mouth and yellow teeth. His arms and legs were like sticks; both hands had lost their thumbs; his feet were twisted; straggling wisps of grey hair escaped from his turban. Standing there beside Diggle, he began to mop and mow, uttering incomprehensible gibberish.

Diggle waved him away.

"That, my dear boy, illustrates the darker side of Angria's character--the side which forbids me to call Angria unreservedly my friend. A year ago that man was as straight as you; he had all his organs and dimensions; he was rich, and of importance in his little world. To-day--but you have seen him: it boots not to attempt in words to say what the living image has already said. And within twenty-four hours, unless you come to a better mind, even as that man is, so will you be."

He rose slowly to his feet, bending upon Desmond a look of mournful interest and compassion. Desmond had stood all but transfixed with horror. But as Diggle now prepared to leave him, the boy flushed hot; his fists clenched; his eyes flashed with indignation.

"You fiend!" was all he said.

Diggle smiled, and sauntered carelessly away.

That night, when the prisoners were brought as usual to the shed, and warder and sentries were out of earshot, Desmond told them what he had seen.

"It must be to-night, my brothers," he said in conclusion. "We have no longer time. Before sunrise to-morrow we must be out of this evil place. We must work, work, for life and liberty."

This night again the singer sang untiringly, the tom-tom accompanying him with its weird hollow notes. And in the blackness, Desmond worked as he had never worked before, plying his saw hour after hour, never forgetting his caution, running no risks when he had warning of the sentry's approach. And hour after hour the shower of sawdust fell noiselessly into the Babu's outspread dhoti. Then suddenly the beating of the tom-tom ceased, the singer's voice died away on a lingering wail, and the silence of the night was unbroken save by the melancholy howl of a distant jackal, and the call of sentry to sentry as at intervals they went their rounds.

At midnight the guard was relieved. The new-comer--a tall, thin, lanky Maratha--arriving at Desmond's shed, put his head in at the little window-space, and flashed his lantern from left to right more carefully than the man whom he had just replaced. The nine forms lay flat or curled up on their charpoys--all was well.

Coming back an hour later, he fancied he heard a slight sound within the shed. He went to the window and peered in, flashing his lantern as before from left to right. But as he did so, he felt upon his throat a grip as of steel. He struggled to free himself; his cry was stifled ere it was uttered; his matchlock fell with a clatter to the ground. He was like a child in the hands of his captor, and when the Gujarati in a fierce low whisper said to him: "Yield, hound, or I choke you!" his struggles ceased and he stood trembling in sweat.

But now came the sentries' call, passed from man to man around the circuit of the fort.

"Answer the call!" whispered the Gujarati, with a significant squeeze of the man's windpipe.

When his turn arrived, the sentry took up the word, but it was a thin quavering call that barely reached the next man a hundred yards away.

While this brief struggle had been going on, a light figure within the shed had mounted to the rafters and, gently feeling for and twisting round a couple of wooden pins, handed down to his companions below a section of the roof some two feet square, which had been kept in its place only by these temporary supports. The wood was placed silently on the floor. Then the figure above crawled out upon the roof, and let himself down by the aid of a rope held by the two Biluchis within. It was a pitch-dark night; nothing broke the blackness save the scattered points of light from the sentries' lanterns. Stepping to the side of the half-garrotted Maratha, who was leaning passively against the shed, the sinewy hand of the Gujarati still pressed upon his windpipe, Desmond thrust a gag into his mouth and with quick deft movements bound his hands. Now he had cause to thank the destiny that had made him Bulger's shipmate; he had learnt from Bulger how to tie a sailor's knot.

Scarcely had he bound the sentry's hands when he was joined by one of his fellow-prisoners, and soon seven of them stood with him in the shadow of the shed. The last man, the Gujarati, had held the rope while the Babu descended. There was no one left to hold the rope for him, but he swung himself up to the roof and climbed down on the shoulders of one of the Biluchis. Meanwhile the sentry, whose lantern had been extinguished and from the folds of whose garments his flint and tinder-box had been taken, had now been completely trussed up, and lay helpless and perforce silent against the wall of the shed. From the time when the hapless man first felt the grip of the Gujarati upon his throat scarcely five minutes had elapsed.

Now the party of nine moved in single file, swiftly and silently on their bare feet, under the wall of the fort towards the north-east bastion, gliding like phantoms in the gloom. Each man bore his burden: the Babu carried the dark lantern; one of the Marathas the coil of rope; the other the sentry's matchlock and ammunition; several had small bundles containing food, secreted during the past three days from their rations.