The Broken Road
CHAPTER XX
THE SOLDIER AND THE JEW
These two events took place at Peshawur, while Linforth was still uponthe waters of the Red Sea. To be quite exact, on that morning whenRalston was taking his long walk towards Jamrud with the zemindar FuttehAli Shah, Linforth was watching impatiently from his deck-chair the highmosque towers, the white domes and great houses of Mocha, as theyshimmered in the heat at the water's edge against a wide background ofyellow sand. It seemed to him that the long narrow city so small andclear across the great level of calm sea would never slide past thetaffrail. But it disappeared, and in due course the ship moved slowlythrough the narrows into Aden harbour. This was on a Thursday evening,and the steamer stopped in Aden for three hours to coal. The night cameon hot, windless and dark. Linforth leaned over the side, looking outupon the short curve of lights and the black mass of hill rising dimlyabove them. Three and a half more days and he would be standing on Indiansoil. A bright light flashed towards the ship across the water and alaunch came alongside, bearing the agent of the company.
He had the latest telegrams in his hand.
"Any trouble on the Frontier?" Linforth asked.
"None," the agent replied, and Linforth's fever of impatience wasassuaged. If trouble were threatening he would surely be in time--sincethere were only three and a half more days.
But he did not know why he had been brought out from England, and thethree and a half days made him by just three and a half days too late.For on this very night when the steamer stopped to coal in Aden harbourShere Ali made his choice.
He was present that evening at a prize-fight which took place in amusic-hall at Calcutta. The lightweight champion of Singapore and theEast, a Jew, was pitted against a young soldier who had secured hisdischarge and had just taken to boxing as a profession. The soldierbrought a great reputation as an amateur. This was his first appearanceas a professional, and his friends had gathered in numbers to encouragehim. The hall was crowded with soldiers from the barracks, sailors fromthe fleet, and patrons of the fancy in Calcutta. The heat wasoverpowering, the audience noisy, and overhead the electric fans, whichhung downwards from the ceiling, whirled above the spectators with soswift a rotation that those looking up saw only a vague blur in the air.The ring had been roped off upon the stage, and about three sides of thering chairs for the privileged had been placed. The fourth side was opento the spectators in the hall, and behind the ropes at the back there satin the centre of the row of chairs a fat red-faced man in evening-dresswho was greeted on all sides as Colonel Joe. "Colonel Joe" was thereferee, and a person on these occasions of great importance.
There were several preliminary contests and before each one Colonel Joecame to the front and introduced the combatants with a short history oftheir achievements. A Hindu boy was matched against a white one, a coupleof wrestlers came next, and then two English sailors, with more spiritthan skill, had a set-to which warmed the audience into enthusiasm andended amid shouts, whistles, shrill cat-calls, and thunders of applause.Meanwhile the heat grew more and more intense, the faces shinier, the airmore and more smoke-laden and heavy.
Shere Ali came on to the stage while the sailors were at work. Heexchanged a nod with "Colonel Joe," and took his seat in the front row ofchairs behind the ropes.
It was a rough gathering on the whole, though there were some men inevening-dress besides Colonel Joe, and of these two sat beside Shere Ali.They were talking together, and Shere Ali at the first paid no heed tothem. The trainers, the backers, the pugilists themselves were the menwho had become his associates in Calcutta. There were many of thempresent upon the stage, and in turn they approached Shere Ali and spoketo him with familiarity upon the chances of the fight. Yet in theirfamiliarity there was a kind of deference. They were speaking to apatron. Moreover, there was some flattery in the attention with whichthey waited to catch his eye and the eagerness with which they came atonce to his side.
"We are all glad to see you, sir," said a small man who had been a jockeyuntil he was warned off the turf.
"Yes," said Shere Ali with a smile, "I am among friends."
"Now who would you say was going to win this fight?" continued thejockey, cocking his head with an air of shrewdness, which said as plainlyas words, "You are the one to tell if you will only say."
Shere Ali expanded. Deference and flattery, however gross, so long asthey came from white people were balm to his wounded vanity. The weeks inCalcutta had worked more harm than Ralston had suspected. Shy of meetingthose who had once treated him as an equal, imagining when he did meetthem that now they only admitted him to their company on sufferance andheld him in their thoughts of no account, he had become avid forrecognition among the riff-raff of the town.
"I have backed the man from Singapore," he replied, "I know him. Thesoldier is a stranger to me"; and gradually as he talked the voices ofhis two neighbours forced themselves upon his consciousness. It was notwhat they said which caught his attention. But their accents and thepitch of their voices arrested him, and swept him back to his days atEton and at Oxford. He turned his head and looked carelessly towardsthem. They were both young; both a year ago might have been his intimatesand friends. As it was, he imagined bitterly, they probably resented hissitting even in the next chair to them.
The stage was now clear; the two sailors had departed, the audience satwaiting for the heroes of the evening and calling for them with impatientoutbursts of applause. Shere Ali waited too. But there was no impatienceon his part, as there was no enthusiasm. He was just getting through theevening; and this hot and crowded den, with its glitter of lights,promised a thrill of excitement which would for a moment lift him fromthe torture of his thoughts.
But the antagonists still lingered in their dressing-rooms while theirtrainers put the final touch to their preparations. And while theantagonists lingered, the two young men next to him began again to talk,and this time the words fell on Shere Ali's ears.
"I think it ought to be stopped," said one. "It can't be good for us. Ofcourse the fellow who runs the circus doesn't care, although he is anEnglishman, and although he must have understood what was being shouted."
"He is out for money, of course," replied the other.
"Yes. But not half a mile away, just across the Maidan there, isGovernment House. Surely it ought to be stopped."
The speaker was evidently serious. He spoke, indeed, with some heat.Shere Ali wondered indifferently what it was that went on in the circusin the Maidan half a mile from the Government House. Something whichought to be stopped, something which could not be "good for us." ShereAli clenched his hands in a gust of passion. How well he knew thephrase! Good for us, good for the magic of British prestige! How oftenhe had used the words himself in the days when he had been fool enoughto believe that he belonged to the white people. He had used it in thecompany of just such youths as those who sat next to him now, and hewrithed in his seat as he imagined how they must have laughed at him intheir hearts. What was it that was not "good for us" in the circus onthe Maidan?
As he wondered there was a burst of applause, and on the opposite side ofthe ring the soldier, stripped to the waist, entered with his twoassistants. Shere Ali was sitting close to the lower corner of the ringon the right-hand side of the stage; the soldier took his seat in theupper corner on the other side. He was a big, heavily-built man, butyoung, active, and upon his open face he had a look of confidence. Itseemed to Shere Ali that he had been trained to the very perfection ofhis strength, and when he moved the muscles upon his shoulders and backworked under his skin as though they lived. Shouts greeted him, shouts inwhich his surname and his Christian name and his nicknames were mingled,and he smiled pleasantly back at his friends. Shere Ali looked at him.From his cheery, honest face to the firm set of his feet upon the floor,he was typical of his class and race.
"Oh, I hope he'll be beaten!"
Shere Ali found himself repeating the words in a whisper. The wish hadsuddenly sprung up within him, but it
grew in intensity; it became agreat longing. He looked anxiously for the appearance of the Jew fromSingapore. He was glad that, knowing little of either man, he had laidhis money against the soldier.
Meanwhile the two youths beside him resumed their talk, and Shere Alilearned what it was that was not "good for us"!
"There were four girls," said the youth who had been most indignant."Four English girls dancing a _pas de quatre_ on the sand of the circus.The dance was all right, the dresses were all right. In an Englishtheatre no one would have had a word to say. It was the audience that waswrong. The cheaper parts at the back of the tent were crowded withnatives, tier above tier--and I tell you--I don't know much Hindustani,but the things they shouted made my blood boil. After all, if you aregoing to be the governing race it's not a good thing to let your women beinsulted, eh?"
Shere Ali laughed quietly. He could picture to himself the whole scene,the floor of the circus, the tiers of grinning faces rising up againstthe back walls of the tent.
"Did the girls themselves mind?" asked the other of the youths.
"They didn't understand." And again the angry utterance followed. "Itought to be stopped! It ought to be stopped!"
Shere Ali turned suddenly upon the speaker.
"Why?" he asked fiercely, and he thrust a savage face towards him.
The young man was taken by surprise; for a second it warmed Shere Ali tothink that he was afraid. And, indeed, there was very little of thecivilised man in Shere Ali's look at this moment. His own people wereclaiming him. It was one of the keen grim tribesmen of the hills whochallenged the young Englishman. The Englishman, however, was not afraid.He was merely disconcerted by the unexpected attack. He recovered hiscomposure the next moment.
"I don't think that I was speaking to you," he said quietly, and thenturned away.
Shere Ali half rose in his seat. But he was not yet quite emancipatedfrom the traditions of his upbringing. To create a disturbance in apublic place, to draw all eyes upon himself, to look a fool, eventuallyto be turned ignominiously into the street--all this he was within anace of doing and suffering, but he refrained. He sat down againquickly, feeling hot and cold with shame, just as he remembered he hadbeen wont to feel when he had committed some gaucherie in his earlydays in England.
At that moment the light-weight champion from Singapore came out from hisdressing-room and entered the ring. He was of a slighter build than hisopponent, but very quick upon his feet. He was shorter, too. Colonel Joeintroduced the antagonists to the audience, standing before thefootlights as he did so. And it was at once evident who was thefavourite. The shouts were nearly all for the soldier.
The Jew took his seat in a chair down in the corner where Shere Aliwas sitting, and Shere Ali leaned over the ropes and whispered tohim fiercely,
"Win! Win! I'll double the stake if you do!"
The Jew turned and smiled at the young Prince.
"I'll do my best."
Shere Ali leaned back in his chair and the fight began. He followed itwith an excitement and a suspense which were astonishing even to him.When the soldier brought his fist home upon the prominent nose of theSingapore champion and plaudits resounded through the house, his heartsank with bitter disappointment. When the Jew replied with a dullbody-blow, his hopes rebounded. He soon began to understand that in thearts of prize-fighting the soldier was a child compared with the man fromSingapore. The Champion of the East knew his trade. He was as hard asiron. The sounding blows upon his forehead and nose did no more thanflush his face for a few moments. Meanwhile he struck for the body.Moreover, he had certain tricks which lured his antagonist to animprudent confidence. For instance, he breathed heavily from thebeginning of the second round, as though he were clean out of condition.But each round found him strong and quick to press an advantage. Afterone blow, which toppled his opponent through the ropes, Shere Ali clappedhis hands.
"Bravo!" he cried; and one of the youths at his side said to hiscompanion:
"This fellow's a Jew, too. Look at his face."
For twelve rounds the combatants seemed still to be upon equal terms,though those in the audience who had knowledge began to shake their headsover the chances of the soldier. Shere Ali, however, was still racked bysuspense. The fight had become a symbol, almost a message to him, even ashis gift to the Mullah had become a message to the people of Chiltistan.All that he had once loved, and now furiously raged against, wasrepresented by the soldier, the confident, big, heavily built soldier,while, on the other hand, by the victory of the Jew all the subjectpeoples would be vindicated. More and more as the fight fluctuated fromround to round the people and the country of Chiltistan claimed its own.The soldier represented even those youths at his side, whose women muston no account be insulted.
"Why should they be respected?" he cried to himself.
For at the bottom of his heart lay the thought that he had been set asideas impossible by Violet Oliver. There was the real cause of hisbitterness against the white people. He still longed for Violet Oliver,still greatly coveted her. But his own people and his own country wereclaiming him; and he longed for her in a different way. Chivalry--thechivalry of the young man who wants to guard and cherish--respect, thedesire that the loved one should share ambitions, life work, all--whatfollies and illusions these things were!
"I know," said Shere Ali to himself. "I know. I am myself the victim ofthem," and he lowered his head and clasped his hands tightly togetherbetween his knees. He forgot the prize-fight, the very sound of thepugilists' feet upon the bare boards of the stage ceased to be audible tohis ears. He ached like a man bruised and beaten; he was possessed with asense of loneliness, poignant as pain. "If I had only taken the easierway, bought and never cared!" he cried despairingly. "But at all eventsthere's no need for respect. Why should one respect those who take and donot give?"
As he asked himself the question, there came a roar from the audience. Helooked up. The soldier was standing, but he was stooping and the fingersof one hand touched the boards. Over against the soldier the man fromSingapore stood waiting with steady eyes, and behind the ropes ColonelJoe was counting in a loud voice:
"One, two, three, four."
Shere Ali's eyes lit up. Would the soldier rise? Would he take the tipsof those fingers from the floor, stand up again and face his man? Or washe beaten?
"Five, six, seven, eight"--the referee counted, his voice rising abovethe clamour of voices. The audience had risen, men stood upon theirbenches, cries of expostulation were shouted to the soldier.
"Nine, ten," counted the referee, and the fight was over. The soldier hadbeen counted out.
Shere Ali was upon his feet like the rest of the enthusiasts.
"Well done!" he cried. "Well done!" and as the Jew came back to hiscorner Shere Ali shook him excitedly by the hand. The sign had beengiven; the subject race had beaten the soldier. Shere Ali was livid withexcitement. Perhaps, indeed, the young Englishmen had been right, andsome dim racial sympathy stirred Shere Ali to his great enthusiasm.