Part 16

Then it was marvellous to see the snow peaks flush red with sunrise while the shadow of night--the shadow of the earth itself!--still lay immovable in the valleys, and you had to bend close over the mosaic to distinguish one flower from another. Even the cock _minawul_, despite their dazzling metallic lustre, looked shadowy and dark as they rose; rose swiftly to flash out suddenly into copper and green, and silvery goldeny blue as they met the higher sunlight.

One morning, thinking I had hit a splendid specimen of these rocketting fireworks, and being anxious to secure such a perfectly plumaged bird, I followed one over keenly. The result being that I lost my way, and found myself under a blazing hot sun, still seeking for my particular valley. At long last I caught a glimpse of deodar trees below me and began to descend confidently; but half way down a certain strangeness of contour made me pull up and question my judgment.

No! it was not our valley. It was too narrow, too small; besides, there was no lakelet in it. Indeed, there seemed no way out of it; it lay like an extinct crater, absolutely shut in by the high hills, tucked away--right away--No! by Jove! there were people or things in it. I could see a steady white spot of something on the greensward, and a sort of dancing circle of black specks.

Were they men or animals? I was too short-sighted to distinguish; so I started downwards again, impelled by curiosity and a vague feeling that I knew what was coming, to find a point of vantage whence I could see clearly.

I don't think I was in the least surprised at what I _did_ see. I am sure my inner consciousness was aware of it before _I_ was.

The dazzling white speck was Private Flanigan. He was standing in a dignified attitude in the very middle of the field, naked as the day he was born, save for a waistcloth and the biggest pair of boots I ever saw. At his feet lay a football, and in his right hand was a glass of something to drink, which, between his sips, he used to beckon on his adversaries.

I crept further till I could hear his voice.

"Come on, sonnies! come on, boys!" it came persuasively. "_Idder 'h'ow!_ I won't 'urt much--not to spake of--_Kooch nay_--Come on, I says." Then, as his invitation was reluctantly accepted, he lunged out a wild kick, an awful howl followed, and yet another lanky Sikh retired rapidly, rubbing his shin. Whereat Private Flanigan laughed and took another sip triumphantly.

"_Bahoot utcha!_"--the rollicking tones were a trifle thick--"Now you're learning, I tell yer--yer 'ardening like a hegg in 'ot water. And you'll soon get useter it. You won't remember it when yer sees the leather a-sailing through the uprights. No, yer won't! No more nor a woman for joy as a man is born into the wurrld. Hello! ye divvle--ye would, would ye?"

This was to an enterprising youth who thought to take advantage of a prolonged drink to sniggle the ball.

I lay and laughed. I couldn't help it. Flanigan wasn't a big man, but he was brawny, and the Sikhs, twice his height, had such temptingly long shins!

I watched the lesson of how to defend the globe until, after several replenishings of the glass he held, Private Flanigan's dignity became portentous, and his lunge a little wide.

Evidently, however, he was not too far gone to recognise the fact, for suddenly he sat down, still guarding the ball with his wide-spread legs, and called for a pipe, a pillow, and a punkah.

All three were instantly forthcoming, and as I cautiously re-climbed the hill, I saw Private Flanigan enjoying his ease in the centre of an admiring circle of pupils.

As I made my way home, I puzzled over what I had best do. Of course, it was easy to report to my captain, but, by so doing, I should get a lot of men into trouble over what was, in reality, a huge joke. Anyhow, before I did so report, I determined to find out whether Private Flanigan had absconded _himself_, or had been stolen.

So the next evening, having carefully taken the bearings of our valley in miniature the day before, I went over after work hours. When I came on the level at the bottom, I found that quite a large wood slab shed had been erected at one end of the little bit of greensward. As I crossed towards it the familiar sound of really good clog dancing met my ears accompanying a rollicking baritone voice that was singing the refrain of a patter song:

"Kick an' 'ammer away at their shins, Silly old dribblers as cole' cream their skins, Barkin', lurkin', shirkin' Gher_kins_, Give 'em a crush and a rush for their sins, Yoicks! hey forward!!!--the Sicki wins."

A perfect bellow of applause was following as I opened the slab door and walked in. There was a regular stage at the end of the shed, and on it stood Tim Flanigan, bowing his acknowledgments to an audience of squatting Sikhs with much dignity. A flimsy muslin overcoat partially hid his massive muscles and he was garlanded with flowers like a prize ox at a show. He did not notice me at first, and began a speech in true music hall style, his hand on his heart:

"My kyind patrons, an' you Gintlemen of the Press, it is with the hutmost diffidence that I roise to drink me own 'elth, you, gintlemen, bein' by birth and descent tay totallers, which is better by a long chalk than being answered for by godfathers an' godmothers at your baptism. Gintlemen, I have but a few wurrds to say, so I will not detain you. Since I come 'ere--I mean since the woise decrays of a koindly Providence brought me to the wilderness, I 'ave endeavoured to do my dooty by you, an' I done it. Gintlemen! you are a credit to me. There ain't a 'ole skin amongst the lot of your shins. Gintlemen! it is a thing to be proud of. It makes the tear come to my watery heyes an' sends the life blood to the tip of my nose. I tell you, gintlemen, that if any of thim officer chaps were to step in this moment----" Here his eye caught mine. The change was instantaneous, and he brought himself up to the salute smartly.

"Beg pardon, sir," he went on, without the least sign of embarrassment. "Havin' bin h'absent without leave, sir, this fortnight past through being kidnapped outrageous, I 'as to report myself."

I mustered up what gravity I could, for his attitude of respectful and disciplined attention was excruciatingly funny in contrast with his costume--or rather the lack of it.

"Private Flanigan," I said. "Have done with tomfoolery. How the devil do you come here?"

"I didn't come, sir," he replied volubly. "I was brought, s'help me Moses. I was kidnapped outrageous, as I said, by them Sickies, same as seethin' it in its mother's milk. I was, entirely, sir--sure the bla'gards won't deny it."

Here, _havildar_ Sunt Singh, who understood English, broke in rapidly in Hindustani. "He speaks truth, Huzoor. He did not come of himself. He was brought hither when he was without consciousness."

"From drink, I suppose?" I asked severely.

_Havildar_ Sunt Singh paused a moment. "Huzoor," he said at last, solemnly. "In a world of illusion it is difficult to reach truth; but one thing is certain, by the blessing of God he was extremely without consciousness. Was it not so, brothers?" he continued, appealing to two _naicks_ and another _havildar_ who were also standing to attention. Their corroborative "_Be-shakks_" rang out smartly, like a rifle shot.

"That is all very well," I continued, sternly addressing the culprit-in-chief. "If they kidnapped you, they'll have to answer for it; but that is no excuse for you stopping here. You can't pretend you're a prisoner, you know."

I glanced round as I spoke, and Flanigan's eyes followed mine. There was a bed in one corner, a chair, a washhandstand, an assortment of Europe tins, a box of cigars in a rough set of shelves, while on one side of the stage stood a table, elaborately laid for dinner, with a tablenapkin folded into the form of a peacock!

There was a pause. Then candour came to Private Flanigan's aid--almost pathetic candour.

"Well! it weren't exactly uncomfortable, you see, sir," he said, with a deprecating smile; and I had to admit the justice of his plea. It was more comfortable than being packed like a herring in a barrel in a bell tent. I had, moreover, thought the matter out, and had come to the conclusion that the less said about it the better. So I gave Private Flanigan the option of taking the pledge, and returning to duty, making the best excuse he could for his absence, or being sent for officially.

He chose the former, to the great delight of the Sikhs, who, as he had said, were teetotallers to a man, and who naturally did not want to get into trouble over the business.

Next morning Private Flanigan reported himself to my captain. He was bare-foot, travel-stained, weary, and he had the most cock-and-bull story I ever heard of how he had spent the last ten days.

"If there had been any liquor shop within two hundred miles I wouldn't believe him," said my captain in an injured tone, "but there isn't--and no man is such a fool as to stop out in this wild country for nothing."

So the tale passed muster. Had I known, however, of the richness of the culprit's imagination, I doubt whether I should have given him such a field for it; for the story of the "loss of Private Flanigan" became a recognised entertainment, even for the Gherkins, and night after night he gave a different version of it to delighted admirers. I ventured once to remonstrate with him, and hint that capture by cannibals was hardly correct; but his unconsciousness was supreme.

"S'elp me Moses, sir," he said. "You don' know wot I bin through. They'd have eat me, sure enuff, if I 'adn't happen to 'ave my big boots on."

A fortnight afterwards we finished the work, but before we left our jolly little camp we had a football Saturday. The Sikhs came down in force, and licked the little Ghurkas all to smithereens.

"They must a 'ad some un to teach 'em 'ow to charge, sir," said Private Flanigan sorrowfully to the captain.

The captain looked at me, and I looked at the captain. But I said nothing, for Flanigan had been as sober as a judge since I found him.

REX ET IMP:

I

"Rex will get on all right," said Muriel Alexander pettishly, "you know quite well, Horace, that so long as he has old Bisvâs he wants nothing else. Look at him now! He is quite happy, and the old man would die rather than let any harm happen to the child."

Horace Alexander frowned slightly as he looked through the wide set door of his office room to the verandah beyond. It was a very neat, natty, office room, severely correct and Western in its pigeon-holes, its files, its elegant upholstered chair at the further side of the writing table ready for the confidential visitor. No guns defiled it; no tennis bats, no half-used box of cigars, no general litter of unofficial male humanity such as most Indian office rooms in the past have permitted, was to be seen within the precincts sacred to duty, for Horace Alexander was that curious product of modern times, a clever and advanced man, bent upon progress, who stickles for the commonplace conventional etiquette in all things. So he stirred uneasily at the sight he saw beyond his office doors, dropped his eye-glasses and put them on again petulantly.

Yet it was rather a pretty sight.

A red-haired, fuzzy-headed child of four or five, small, but strong and sturdy, seated with the utmost dignity oh a red velvet cushion, his broad freckled face wearing an expression of conscious majesty, part of which was doubtless due to the insecurity of a gilt paper band which was perched on his goldy-red curls.

Before him, in an attitude of prayerful adoration, squatted a very very old man. At his full height he must still have been tall, and the bent shoulders were broad; broad enough to show up the line of war-medals on the breast of his orderly's coat. They gave the new scarlet cloth a certain personal _cachet_ and toned down its official garishness.

"Come here, Rex!" called Horace Alexander, and the child rose at once. Though high-spirited and a bit of an imp, he was a reasonable, obedient, little chap enough; obedient because he was reasonable.

"What's that you've got on your head?" queried his father irritably.

"It's my c'wown," replied Rex cheerfully. "Bisvâs cut it out for me; and he's goin' to put b'wown paper to make it 'weal stiff--c'wowns onghter be stiff, 'weal stiff, oughtn't they? an' he's going to put things on it like the pictures in the papers, an' then I shall be a 'weal King, shan't I?"

"No, my boy!" said his father sharply. "Crowns don't make kings; remember that always. There was Charles the First----"; then he paused, recognising he was out of the child's depth; and the cult of the weaker brother was not often forgotten by Horace Alexander. It was the secret of his popularity; but how he managed to reconcile it with his passion for progress remained rather a mystery to some people.

"And what were you doing," he continued.

"I wasn't doin' nothin' except be king," replied the child; "but Bisvâs was doin' '_durshan_.' What is a '_durshan_,' daddy, 'weally?"

The childish forehead was all puckered beneath its crown, and Rex's father, for all he was entitled to linguistic letters after his name, hesitated.

"Sight," he began, "ur--appearance--ur--aspect----"

But Rex shook his head in disapproval. "Bisvâs says it's just for all the same as seein' God--didn't you, Bisvâs?"

The liquid Urdu to which the little fellow's voice turned, echoed through the sunshine to where the tall old trooper, risen to his full height, stood smiling.

"Huzoor! so it is, without doubt. The sight of a King is even as the sight of a God. It is a revelation of the Most High."

"Good Lord!" muttered Horace Alexander under his breath, yet with an amused smile. "The child will grow up a feudal serf combined with a feudal lord, if we don't take care, Muriel! He is too much with old Bisvâs--You'd better take him with you--or--or not go."

His wife did not even frown: her position was too assured in the household for her to be even alarmed. "Of course I must go. I must wear my new frocks. Besides, you forget I'm President of the Veiled-Women's-Guild, and they are going to present a casket. And there isn't room in the Hotel for Rex--I was lucky to get _one_ for myself this morning--besides, it would be bad for him. Of course, when you were going with tents and all that it was different; but now that you've been told to stop--Really, Horace, it is most annoying! What can it mean? There is nothing wrong in the district, is there?"

Horace Alexander's eyeglass dropped again. It generally did when he was asked for a personal opinion; not from any lack of decision in the man himself, but from that habit of relying on collective as against individual thought which distinguishes so many clever men nowadays; as if the mediocre mass could ever outvalue superior sense.

"I cannot conceive that anything serious can be wrong," he began, then paused almost pathetically before the certainty that his district was admittedly the best managed in the province. "However," he continued, virtuously remembering that the communication which stopped his going to the Big Durbar was strictly confidential, "that is neither here nor there. I have my orders, so that ends it, and----" he glanced out to the verandah where the "_durshan_" had re-commenced--"I suppose Rex had better remain, if you think it safe. I shall be very busy----"

His wife laughed, and stooping over his chair, kissed the top of his head; it was a trifle bald.

"You dear old stupid," she said kindly. "You've nothing to do with it. I wouldn't leave him if it wasn't for old Bisvâs! You and I, Horace, have grown out of--what shall I call it--feudal relations--but we can understand them. You don't suppose I leave the boy in your charge, do you? No! My dear man! you're not up to it. But Bisvâs! Bisvâs was your grandfather's servant when he was a boy, and he swears Rex is the living image of '_Jullunder Jullunder baba_,' whom, I verily believe, he mixes up with Alexander the Great! It doesn't do the child any harm, though it makes him a bit autocratic now. He'll grow out of being King at school. And really it is a pretty sight to see him with his bodyguard of those marvellous old dodderers Bisvâs rakes up from the bazaar----"

"I've seen them," replied her husband gloomily. "I'd have sent them about their business if they hadn't been old pensioners--and in uniform----"

Muriel laughed again. "Such uniforms! But they are magnificent to the child and he's magnificent to them. It's all right, Horace. He is as pleased as Punch, because I've allowed him, as he can't go to Delhi, to have a sham coronation here."

"My dear!" protested her husband; but at that moment an old-fashioned buggy, with a flea-bitten Arab in the shafts, drew up, and Mrs. Alexander discreetly withdrew before an official visitor.

Ere five minutes were over the new comer rose from the upholstered chair, went to the four doors of the office room, looked round for possible eavesdroppers, closed them, then sate down again; for John Carruthers, the Superintendent of Police, was of the old school. He suspected everybody. In his heart of hearts Horace Alexander loathed him: or rather, his methods; but he had to admit that he was an excellent police officer. Short and stout, he looked as if he had a trace of native blood in him, anyhow, none understood the ways of Indian wickednesses better than he.

"This is serious," he said briefly. "I always told you, sir, you would have to face it some time." Then he paused. "I wonder if anyone realises the relief it will be to our force when the whole show goes off well--as it will do! But there's always that off chance--and here is one----"

"I don't believe it," said Horace Alexander stubbornly; "it is unthinkable, inconceivable----"

John Carruthers raised his shaggy eyebrows. "Nothing, sir, is inconceivable in India. There's a lot of lees in four thousand years of civilisation. So long as it's stagnant, well and good; but if you stir 'em up--However! you don't agree. And _this_----" he touched the confidential communication--"has got to be seen to."

"Yes! it has got to be seen to--wrong or right," echoed the younger man firmly. Outside, the sunshine shone in sultry drowsy peace; but within the closed office room, the air seemed vibrant, as the two, mutually responsible for so much in their world, looked into each other's eyes in perfect unanimity. So it is often in India nowadays; something has to be done and old and new must combine to the doing of it.

"Hullo! what's up?" asked the Superintendent of Police when, having offered to drive his official superior down to the city, they stepped into the verandah; and then he smiled. "The youngster seems to be enjoying himself, eh!"

Under the _sirus_ trees on the opposite side of the drive were drawn up five old men, headed by Bisvâs, who stood next something that was more like a monkey than a man; for Bhim Singh, even when he had been the most swaggering _havildar_ in a Ghurka regiment, had never been tall, and was now almost incredibly shrunken and old. But his eyes still looked out sharp and bright from his wizened face and his military salute shot out smartly at the sight of the masters.

"It is all old Bisvâs' fault," excused Rex's father, giving a disturbed look at his son and heir, who--with the gilt paper circlet still on his fuzzy head--was apparently drilling the ancient warriors, "I've told my wife that it's a mistake, but you see, Bisvâs looked after my grandfather when they were kids together, and so----"

"And so," interrupted John Carruthers with a chuckle, "you have the most valuable asset in the world! If I were you I would encourage it! Good Lord! man!----" he forgot etiquette for the moment--"that sort of thing is the safety of--of everything."

So the two men drove off to the office, to confer secretly with other good men and true, and the child, with the gold circlet on his fuzzy hair, stood in the half shade, half shine of the _sirus_ trees, and dressed his army autocratically. And the old warriors--there was Bisvâs who had fought at Sobraon, and Bhim Singh who had fought everywhere indiscriminately for sheer love of fighting, and old Imân, the hair of whose body still stood on end as he told tales of how he had waged war for the Sirkar against his own brothers in Mutiny time, and Pir Khan, Yusufzai, who still talked of _Nikalseyn sahib_ as if he were not dead, and last but not least, most ancient of all, a nameless fossil of humanity called by the others "_Baba_" (father), who bewailed the fact that he had not been at both sieges of Bhurtpore--these all obeyed the child's orders, and nodded and winked and swore that he was the living spit and image of "_Gineral Jullunder Jullunder Sahib Bahadur_," who had led them to victory again and again. The smallest cavalry officer in _Jân Kampâni's_ army; but the bravest and the best loved!

II

Three days had passed, and once again the two men sate facing each other in the tidy, conventional office room. The confidential box was open and papers littered the table; but the hint of possible trouble remained still a mere hint.

"And yet," said John Carruthers thoughtfully, "I don't like it. I told you about that temple incident? Quite a trivial affair, but in my experience--and that is pretty wide, sir--that sort of thing always means something. But the fact is, I haven't time----" his bright eyes grew restless--"to unearth anything."

Horace Alexander smiled. "Because, my dear fellow, there is nothing to unearth. I told you so from the beginning. I am pretty well up in my own district, Carruthers----"

"That you may be, sir; but pure anarchism isn't a thing of districts: it's--what do they call it!--a _zeit geist_! How many fools do you suppose are in your towns and villages, sir? Well! everyone of them is a danger if there is a good agitator within hearing. Anyhow, I am so far dissatisfied, that I am going to propose to you a plan----" He got up as he had done before, closed every door after a good look round for eavesdroppers, and finally paused before little Rex, who was sitting in a corner of the room, playing with a pen and paper and some red and black ink which his father had given him. His mother having gone off to the Big Show, which was to take place next day, the little fellow had been tearful and needed consolation. Now, however, he appeared quite absorbed in his occupation.

"What are you doing, Rex?" asked John Carruthers.

The child held up a round of white paper with cabalistic signs on it.

"I'm makin' a medal to give to my army," he said with importance. "And 'Wex' is to be in 'wed and so's 'Imp.' Then 'et' will be black, don't you see?"

The men laughed, and settled themselves over the railway map which John Carruthers spread out on the table.

"You see," said the police officer in a low voice, "the Royal train focusses anxiety according to these hints----" he pointed to the confidential papers--"and I can't help a feeling that they are right. I've got a sort of second-sight in these ways--perhaps because I was born and brought up in the country--and I believe there is something in it. I'd ferret it out if I'd time; but I haven't. So why run risks? The Royal train is timed to run the sixty odd miles through your district on the _direct_ line between three and five a.m. to-morrow morning-- just before dawn. Now why should it? Why shouldn't it do the eighty odd miles of the loop line?"

"But that would bring it right here--right in the very heart----" interrupted Horace Alexander.