Part 21

Feeling some curiosity as to what was really the matter, I withstood his prayer to be set down and allowed to make his way on foot. I was glad I did; for the first glimpse I had of the dispensary compound assured me that something very unusual was taking place. To begin with, a long low reed shed, such as is used in cholera epidemics, had been hastily run up on the opposite side of the road, and in it were to be seen patients lying in their beds or out of them. Posts, each carrying a yellow streamer, were set up every ten yards around the compound itself, and at each gate stood a village watchman complete with speared staff and bells.

As we drove up, the dresser--pallid of face, but full of a vast importance--rushed out from a small hut which had been erected inside.

"Many, many thanks to Supreme Almighty," he ejaculated; then added, with distinct complacency, "you will find all things necessarily in order, sir. Segregationalism is being much carried out. Patient having passed through p--neumonic deliriums is now comatic and in _articulo mortis_."

I followed the doctor, who looked, as well he might, completely bewildered.

The dispensary was cleared out: saucers of disinfectants positively littered the ground. White sheets saturated with the same hung at every door; the smell of them stank in the nostrils, and, as I followed, a dank disagreeable wet flap from one of them on my cheek made me shiver; but the sight which met my eyes in the central room set me literally shaking with laughter. It was so inexpressibly comic.

Propped high on pillows, his face placid, composed, lay Job Charnock, snoring contentedly, while an empty brandy bottle beside him on the bed showed one cause at least of his somnolence. There he lay, peaceful as a baby, while the doctor, frowning at my inopportune laughter, turned angrily to the dresser.

"You cursed fool! The man's drunk. What the deuce do you mean by being such an ass." Then the comic side of the situation took him also, and he joined me in my merriment.

"By Jove," he chortled, "Segregation has done it this time."

There was no use attempting to awaken him for the moment, so the doctor turned on the dresser again. How had it come about? How had he allowed himself to be so imposed upon?

It was quite simple, even when clothed in the babu's best "middel-fail" English.

Segregation had come, had seen, had conquered. He had declared himself sick of the plague, and defied the dresser to deny it. He had thereupon taken possession of the dispensary, ordered the erection of the temporary sheds by enforced labour, cleared out the patients, used up all the disinfectants, and had then, but not till then, taken to his bed and drunk all the brandy! So "cometic symptoms supervening, and supplies of brandy exhausting," the dresser had appealed "through authentic sources for aid of the Almighty."

"Anyway, by Jove!" said the doctor, as he noted all the arrangements, "I couldn't have done it better myself. He has even"--he pointed to a row of men, evidently of the semi-savage Sansiya race, who were squatting in front of the village accountant's house--"set them to killing rats!"

And, in truth, each of these hardy hunters, bore a bamboo on which were strung the dead bodies of many rodents, young and old. Undoubtedly Job Charnock had a genius for organisation; and, with a mournful prescience of what would be the answer, I asked the nearest Sansi what he was to get for his rats.

It was half the Government rate: but the broad grin on the man's face showed him satisfied. Yes! Job Charnock had the gift of the Empire-builder!

"Look here!" I said to the doctor, "that man hasn't committed an indictable offence. He diagnosed his complaint as plague--that is not indictable; he went to your Department for advice and got confirmation of his suspicions; that was not his fault; and all he's done since then, is what _ought_ to have been done under the circumstances."

"Except the brandy," expostulated the doctor. "Brandy is not in the dietary for plague, and he's drunk up the year's supply! That amounts to stealing."

"Pardon me! You can have the dresser up for misuse of supplies, if you like," I said stoutly, "but every drop of that brandy was drunk out of one of your blessed measuring glasses." I pointed to the inverted crystal cone with cabalistic signs on it which lay beside the bottle. "He couldn't have taken more than an ounce at a time, and that to a man of his habits is strictly a medicinal dose, and for that your dresser is responsible. No! send him in to me when he sobers. I'll settle him up."

I did so to the best of my ability, but there was no question that Job Charnock was, as the doctor had said, "a bit looney" at times, especially when he had any drink on board, though no one could have called him a habitual drunkard. Still, there was little use in getting him employment. He always drifted out of it again. Then, for a while, he would disappear, only to return after a few months with his usual, "I don't want to do no 'arm to anyone. I wants to be seggergated, for I've got the plague, so 'elp me Gawd I 'ave." He was always, then, at the last point of destitution; more than once even the "_hart banner_" for the _ticca ghari_ was not his, and he would come skulking into the office almost starving and barefoot. For he looked on me as a friend in need; and, indeed, I used sometimes to wonder if hunger were not as much responsible for the recurrence of his delusion as drink.

Then I was transferred to Rajputana, and apparently left Job Charnock behind me, until one hot weather morning when, in order to catch a train, I was galloping across a short cut of the wild Bar land which lay between the railway and the out-of-the-way-place where I was stationed. It is a strange desert, this Bar land, of wild caper bushes, stunted _jund_ trees, and hard resilient limestone soil, baked by the sun to whiteness. A horse's hoofs resounds over it for miles, but a man, if he left visible path, might, without the aid of the sun, lose his way in it almost any moment. Even I had to glance at the whereabouts of that luminary when a few moment's abstraction caused me to divert my eye from the faint traces of previous passages which was all there was of path.

As I did so, my eye was caught by something curious in the gnarled branches of a _jund_ tree some fifty yards further away. It looked like a red cross. Instinctively I rode towards it. It was a red cross. Two strips of red Turkey cotton had been carefully tied crosswise between the branches. What did it mean? And why had that shallow trench--a mere scraping on the hard soil--been traced between that tree and the next!

And--yes!--that was another red cross in its branches also! I rode on only to find that here again the trench trended at right angles towards a further tree where yet another red cross showed.

The grey, green, leafless triangle of caper bushes, all set with tiny coral bud-flowers, had so far prevented my seeing anything within the traced square; but now I came upon a definite opening. Across it, however, from bush to bush, stretched a pair of men's braces, and pinned to this was a bit of paper on which something was written in what looked suspiciously like blood.

I jumped off my horse and bent to look at it. Though written in large characters it was barely decipherable, and seemed to have been drawn with difficulty by a pointed stick. This much I could read:

"_Trespussers will be persecuted_

_No Thoroughfare_

_Case of Plague within s'elp me Gawd_."

Segregation! by all that was holy!

I tied my horse to the inarched root of a _jund_ tree, set aside the braces, and made my way through the bushes.

It was quite a comfortable secluded spot. The grey-green set-with-scarlet brocade of the caper bushes formed a curtain round it, the floor of it was hard and white as marble; but in the middle of the little open space there was, as one sees so often in this Bar land, a tiny hillock of sand that had been whirled thither and left by the wild dust storms which sweep over the Rajputana desert. And on this sand Job Charnock lay, his face turned up to the sky. He cannot have been dead long, for his body was untouched by wild birds or beasts, but he was quite dead. Perhaps though, the sleeves of his turkey-red shirt--the rest of it having evidently gone to the making of crosses--which were hung on sticks set in the sand at his head and his feet might, so far, have frightened away the animals. They might have been put there for the purpose; on the other hand they might have been meant as a last danger signal, not to prevent harm being done to him, but to prevent him from "'arming anybody." His bare body showed terribly emaciated; but his face was calm; it almost had a smile upon it.

Had he really died of the plague; or, in coming, it might be, to see me, had he lost his way, as a stranger might well do, in the pathless Bar, and fallen a victim to starvation? And had the recurrence of hunger brought on his curious hallucination once more?

Who could say? Plague was very prevalent. It might be one; it might be the other.

I stood looking at the peaceful face for a minute or two; then I made up my mind. He should have his wish; no one this time should interfere with his desire to "do no 'arm to nobody."

So, covering the body for the time with the doubled blanket I always use as a saddle cloth, I rode off to the nearest village, some six miles off, and returned with two men, pickaxes and shovels.

It took some time to dig a grave in that hard white soil; but when the coolies had done patting down the dry dust and limestone nodules into the long mound of earth which is the outward sign that a human body lies beneath, I lingered to peg one of the red crosses over it.

So he found Segregation at last. There was no more fear of his doing any harm to anyone.

SLAVE OF THE COURT

I sate in the sunshine of Delhi as it blazed down upon the trellised tombs of a dead dynasty. I was very tired; as police officers are apt to be when Crowned Heads travel in India. But my particular Monarch was away from my jurisdiction laying foundation stones elsewhere, so I had an off four-and-twenty hours. Not knowing Delhi as it should be known, I utilised my holiday for slow, solitary, silent sight-seeing, in the course of which I had driven out to the Kutb-minar, had bidden the carriage return to await me by Humayon's Tomb, so, with lunch in my pocket, had set out systematically to reconstruct old India out of the crowding ruins.

It is a fascinating occupation; but one provocative of dreams, and, as I rested, idly smoking, in the shade of a gnarled _jhund_ tree, I was more than half asleep. Around me lay the graves of Kings who had once ruled in the flesh. I had been trying, as it were, to live their lives, to see with their eyes, and the conclusion had been forced in upon me that though the monarchy had changed (and my particular Crowned Head was certainly not to pattern of the Old Indian autocrat) the country and the people had altered but little.

For instance, the pageant through the city streets of a few days past, with the brazen sunlight setting silks and satins aflame with vivid colours, and painting every shadow dark with the purple gloom of night, was, as it were, of all time; the faces of the crowd through which it cleft its way, were in type, in character, permanent.

I closed my eyes to visualize how the dapper Viceroy would have looked had he been scattering golden pistachios, silver almonds and enamelled rose leaves amongst the lieges, instead of sitting his horse purposefully, like an ill-fitting statue and inwardly rehearsing the detail of up-to-date benefits he had to proclaim at the end of his ride? Were they, I wondered, more satisfactory than the older largesse?

When I opened my eyes, I saw a naked old man squatted forlornly among the latticed graves. He held a flat basket--a gardener's basket--between his knees; it contained only one compact posy of closely crushed flowers--the _gul_ this and _gul_ that--beloved of natives; but I saw that a similar bunch had been laid on several of the tombs.

The man, however, was palpably _not_ a gardener. No one of Indian experience who on real hot-weather evenings had wandered round his back premises could have hesitated as to vocation. Either as _chef_ or scullion, the figure belonged to the cook-room; there was that in its very nakedness (save for a tight-wound waist cloth), that in the very polish of the close-shaved head, which was quaintly reminiscent of full-starched raiment and high-piled turban.

Now, I always speak to a native when I get him alone--it is a useful habit for a police officer--so I said casually:

"On what tomb, friend, are you going to put that bunch?"

The old figure turned, profuse--of course!--in _salaam_; it showed a wrinkled toothless face, overlaid with the smiles and subtlety of centuries of service. But its reply was dazed, forlorn.

"This slave of the Court," it mumbled, "seeks for a tomb that was but is not. God send some miscreant hath not taken the marble slab thereof for his idolatrous curry-stone! Lo! I can find it nowhere, and the inscription thereof is lost--is lost!"

A world of angry apprehension crept into the tired blear old eyes; the tired old hand shook visibly.

"What inscription?" I asked idly.

"My inscription, Protector of the Poor!" came the tired old voice. "Yea! whatever this slave of the Court said, the writer Abd-un-Nubbi copied it."

I sate up more alert, vaguely reminiscent of something I had seen lately. "What was it about?" I queried; this time curiously.

"About the Heaven-Nestled Kings the slave of the Court served," came the reply, less wearily; and, as if some stored memory cylinder had been set going by keywords, the voice went on, gaining strength: "This old slave of the Court does not feel any shame in serving the Kings and the Nobles! This old slave of the Court, Mahmud, supplicates God that the name of the Heaven-Nestled Emperor Humayon and the Heaven-Nestled Emperor Akbar may be perpetuated for all time! Lo! may they have been given the robe of Paradise! This old slave of the Court honoured by the Earth-Cherished Emperor Jahangir was told, 'You have grown old. Serve in the tomb of the Heaven-Nestled One at Delhi.'

"Humbly says Mahmud, old slave of the Court! He has come nigh to ninety years, he has come nigh his end. He has passed his life in luxury and ease through the kindness of Kings. Oh! Mahmud! no desire is left unfulfilled. Of giving and taking, buying and selling, bargainings in the bazaar, all is done with now!

"Lo! in this seat of Delhi, the rulers and the landholders, the elders and the neighbours should entrust this tomb and shrine (of which the total amount of expenses, including all necessary articles and allowances was 290,000 tankas) to those who are my heirs and who deserve to possess it, as it was built with my honestly-earned money." The long-drawn-out quaintly ungrammatical Persian phrases ceased in a melancholy refrain: "But it has gone, Huzoor! Someone has taken away my tombstone."

I knew now what he was talking about; knew why that faint message of memory had come to me. I had seen this inscription, or something like it, in the Delhi Museum, on a square slab of white marble which the catalogue said had been found amongst some ruins not far from where we were sitting.

I looked at the old man; though he himself was well on in years, the impossibility of his words made me pass over major points to cavil at minor ones.

"My tombstone!" I echoed. "I suppose you mean this King's cook was a forbear of yours. You come of a servant family, I expect, ah! Prince of Personalities."

I gave him the full title of the highest domestic office with intent. It had a marvellous effect. His bowed back straightened itself; he seemed to sit resplendent in gold-laced coat and badge-wound turban. "The Huzoor speaks truth," he said, with perfectly blatant dignity. "Since the beginning of time my people have served Kings--and Sahibs."

The last was a palpable concession to the alien, and I could not help smiling. But the old man, despite his toothless, wrinkled, wagging head, was no subject for smiles. He sate there transfigured, his face shiny, an apotheosis of what folk nowadays call servility. You felt it in the warm scented sunshine; an atmosphere of dutiful devotion that brought a kindly interest to my heart.

"It hasn't been taken as a curry-stone," I said gravely: "it is quite safe. I saw it yesterday in the Wonder House." And then I remembered that my Crowned Head had paused over it to look and smile. "Yes! Prince of Personalities," I went on, "there it is. A marble slab with an inscription." So I went on to tell him what had occurred.

He sate and listened, gravely, reverently, and when I had finished he rose--I knew he would--and salaamed down to the ground.

"This poor Preparer-of-Plates is proud still to serve Majesty. May the Earth cherish the Wise King long! May Heaven nestle him when the time comes for soul to separate from body."

As I looked into the blazing sunshine at the old, naked, bald-headed figure, I swear it seemed to me clothed upon with all the liveries of all those centuries of service.

"Lo!" he went on, "let the tombstone remain in the Wonder House where it hath been honoured by the eye-glances of Kings. And as for the Noble Huzoor who hath relieved this poor slave of the Court's mind concerning curry-stones----" he paused, took up the remaining posy from his basket and held it out to me between deferential palms. "It is all I have, Huzoor, but it is sweet," he said simply, "and I have asked so many before, and none could tell me."

In sudden impulse I took it. "I'll tell you what I'll do, Prince of Personalities!" I said, half in jest, "I'll stop at the Wonder House on my way home and put it on the tombstone. Will that satisfy you?"

Once again he salaamed to the ground. "The gratitude of this old slave of the Court will go with the Huzoor all his days."

I left him salaaming still among the graves. As I drove back I regretted not having lingered to pick his brains concerning those centuries of his ancestors' service. Good stories must have been handed down as heirlooms; one curious as I was of the past might have heard much of interest.

But holiday was over. My Crowned Head had returned, making me responsible. In addition, fate was unkind. My major-domo, on whose care during those strenuous days when meals were oft-deferred. I was entirely dependent, fell sick and had to go to hospital. Not, however, before he had, in kindly Indian fashion, found me a substitute. Everyone who has been in India knows the type of professional cook-room substitute. They are to be seen sometimes in old dâk bungalows, survivals still of the patronage of other days when such posts were the recognised superannuation pensions for civilians' servants. And this substitute of mine--I call them scapegoats as a rule, since all the subsequent sins of omission or commission in the back purlieus are invariably laid to their charge--differed in no way from the type. He was rather more aggressive in starch than most. He had the biggest of white turbans, and the forward bow of his arched back was a little more accentuated than usual by folds on folds of white bandaging until he looked as if he were wearing an extra sized, new whited motor tyre round his waist. But his scanty beard was purple black, and his eyes were brightened to youth with beautiful rims of antimony. Altogether he looked his part to perfection; and for a wonder, performed it also.

My table servant admitted at once that he was a "master artificer," and I, personally, confessed that never had I had such appetising dinners. Most of these substitutes have old-world dishes at their fingers' ends; dishes with strange names which philology can trace back to French and Portuguese origin, but this old man might have come from a Parisian restaurant.

"This slave belongs to a family of cooks," he said calmly, when I questioned him as to where he had learnt to make "_Petits Timbales de foie gras à la Belle Eugénie_." "Therefore the wisdom of all the ages is at his disposal. When a slave's mind is set on serving his master, nothing is impossible."

And nothing seemed to be. My Inspector-General was a gourmet. He breakfasted with me in camp one morning, and after that it is surprising how often his meal times tallied with mine. So, in the course of a few days, the fame of my cook became noised abroad; especially when the Crowned Head started on a shooting tour and had to leave his French chef behind him; the latter not feeling equal to camp fires.

Then the Substitute came to the fore, and once or twice when I had the honour of dining at the Royal table, I noticed dishes which I could have sworn my man had prepared. Knowing the curious bond of brotherhood which exists in India between one cook-room and another, I knew this was quite possible.

We had some hard marching, and at the end of a week, I noticed that my substitute was palpably older. The _surma_ had worn off his eyes; there was a fringe of grey beard above the purple black; yet still he looked magnificently starched as he stood behind my chair on the frequent occasions when the suite messed with royalty. Then we arrived at a Hill Rajah-ship where there had been some trouble during a long minority between Palace-Women and a Council of Regency; neither being oversatisfied with the Resident. But our Royal visit was to inaugurate a new regime under a new young Rajah, and great were to be the rejoicings; amongst other things a State Dinner in the Palace.

We were a bit late coming in from a shoot after black partridge, and I had a good many preparations to make, as I was in police charge, so that it was almost dark ere I returned to my tent to dress for dinner. To my surprise I found the Substitute immaculate one inside. He was immaculate as ever, but he looked old and frail and worn. Still it needed one of those sudden enlargements of personality, which are so puzzling, to make the shadows of the tent bring what the light of day had denied to me--recognition of the old man I had met amongst the latticed Tombs of Kings--the man who had lost his tombstone.

"You old scoundrel," I said. "Why didn't you tell me before who you were."

He salaamed a trifle furtively as he replied, "It is nothing to the master who his servant is, so that the servant be faithful, and I am that. My gratitude is bound to the Huzoor for ever and ever. So I came to ask what Tasters have been appointed for the Earth-Cherished-One this evening."

"Tasters?" I echoed. "What the deuce do you mean? Tasters!" Then it flashed upon me that he was alluding to the old "Tasters for Poison"; and I looked at him curiously. In the semi-darkness he seemed to have shrunken, to be inconceivably old and frail, so I went on more kindly. "There's no need for them nowadays, old man. They belong to the past. The King--God bless him!--is safe from that sort of thing. Thank Heaven."

I was throwing off my shooting togs vigorously, and the answer came out of the corner of the tent, as it were, vaguely.

"So said Firdoos Makâni, the Sainted Babar in Paradise, yet he had to live a full month on lily leaves, and the Heaven-Nestled One the Emperor Humayon was also--"

"Look here! old chap!" I said, divided between haste and the desire to tap these old stories. "You shall tell me all that to-morrow. At present I must be off to the Palace to see all is right." Then I laughed. "Other days other manners. Ah! descendant of Mahmud the King's Cook! we have to look after bombs, not poisons, nowadays."

The answer came faintly to me, "The wickedness of men's hearts is ever the same, Huzoor!"