CHAPTER XIX.
A BRUSH ON THE FRONTIER.
Tell me not, love, I am unkind, That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly.
The reign of peace and pleasure was not destined to last through thesummer undisturbed. Conflicts, more serious than those which wereagitating poor Boldero's breast, broke in upon the tranquil season andcaused a hurried dispersion of many of the holiday-makers.
For weeks past the news from the frontier had not been reassuring. Blunthad gone off on his mission to the Rumble Chunder District, dragging themiserable Whisp, who could not ride and hated leaving head-quarters, inhis train. He had mastered the whole matter, as he considered, fromfirst to last and was resolved to bring his knowledge to bear with goodeffect upon the entanglements which his predecessors' ignorance andindistinctness had produced. He saw his way quite clearly and wasresolved to have it. Other people had faltered and hesitated; but Bluntwas resolved to strike, and to strike hard, and to finish the matter andhave done with it once for all. He arrived, accordingly, in no mood tobe trifled with, as Mahomed Khan, the first of the Zamindars who had aninterview with him, discovered in about two minutes. Now, Mahomed Khan,a wily old gentleman, with a great turn for diplomacy, was deeplyinterested in the Rumble Chunder question, and had, at different times,interviewed a long succession of 'Sahibs' with reference to it. He hadinvariably found them long-suffering, conciliatory, anxious to learn andnot difficult to puzzle. He had talked to them at ease in his ownlanguage and was accustomed to the elaborate courtesy due to the leaderof a powerful and not over-loyal clan. His antecedents entitled him torespect. When Sutton was getting his troop together in the Mutiny a wordfrom Mahomed Khan would have put the whole district in a blaze andrendered it impossible to recruit a man. The liking, however, which onegood soldier feels for another had carried the day. The old fellow hadridden with fifty followers into Sutton's camp, unstrapped his sword,and, placing it in Sutton's hands, had sworn that he and his wouldfollow him wherever he pleased to lead them. Well had the oath beenkept; when some months later the fighting closed, Mahomed Khan's namewas recorded as amongst the most deserving of Her Majesty's lieges, andhis well-timed loyalty had resulted in a fine grant of fat acres, aconspicuous seat in the Durbar, and, not least in the estimation of menkeenly sensitive to honour, a vast deal of complimentary writing andtalking on the part of every British official with whom he had to deal.All this flattery had, perhaps, turned the old soldier's head, or, atany rate, had given him no small idea of his importance to the British'Raj' and of his claims to the gratitude of British administrators. Hisrights in the Salt matter had been left in convenient obscurity, andmight, not without reason, be considered as tacitly conceded by thePower with whom he was on such affectionate terms.
This, however, was not at all the light in which Blunt saw the matter;he was annoyed at the man's bluster, pomposity and pretence. He was notin the least impressed by a well-worn packet of letters which hisvisitor produced, in which successive Generals and Commissioners hadtestified to his deserts; what he wanted was business, and this wasessentially unbusinesslike. If Sutton had written, 'You have provedyourself a brave and loyal soldier, and I will ever be your friend,'this was no reason why Mahomed Khan should not pay his salt-dues likeother folk, or should object to have his title-deeds rigidly overhauled.'If it was just, why had Sir John Larrens Sahib never done it?' the oldman objected; but Blunt did not care what Sir John Lawrence had done orhad not done; what he wanted was his bond, and nothing else wouldsatisfy him.
This was Blunt's first nettle, and he was grasping it firmly, with nodoubts as to the propriety of the course. Then, at last, he got tired ofthe interview, and--fatal blunder for an Eastern diplomat--became abruptand rude, and began to show his hand. Thereupon Mahomed Khan began toshow his teeth and went away in a surly mood with the news, which spreadlike wildfire among the clansmen, that the Sirkar was going to rule themwith a heavy hand; that all old rights were to be cancelled; a grievousland-tax to be imposed, and that a terrible 'Sahib,' of fierce aspect,had arrived to see this objectionable policy carried out.
Then Blunt found the investigation by no means the simple matter he hadhoped. Statements, which looked so neat and clean when submitted to theBoard and neatly minuted on by Whisp, assumed an aspect of hopelessinexplicability when Blunt had them face to face; and the more hequestioned the less he understood. He was armed with powers to examinewitnesses, but not a word of truth could be got out of any one. Fineold countrymen, whose noble bearing, well-chiselled features and longflowing beards would have made a fortune in a Roman studio, came beforehim and told him the most unblushing lies with a volubility andearnestness that fairly staggered Blunt's bewildered comprehension.
To say one thing to-day, the precise opposite to-morrow, and to explainwith easy grace that it was a mistake, or that the evidence had beenwrongly taken down, seemed to every man whom Blunt interrogated thecorrect and natural procedure for a person who was being pressed forinformation which it was inconvenient to produce. Some men rememberedeverything; others professed the most absolute obliviousness; eachcontradicted all the rest, except when Government interests wereconcerned, and then all swore together like a band of conspirators. Tomake confusion worse confounded, the accounts were kept on a systemwhich none of the Salt Board people understood and which no one elsecould be induced to explain.
Then, by some fatality, the white ants had always eaten the precisedocuments of which Blunt stood in need, and the trembling officialsproduced a tattered mass of dirt and rags and assured him that this wasthe record which he called for, or rather all that could be found of itsremains. Blunt became, day by day, more profoundly convinced that allmen--all the Rumble Chunder men, at any rate--were liars, and let hisconviction appear in short speeches and abrupt procedure. The oldZamindars, outraged by discourtesy in the presence of their retainers,came away from his presence quivering with rage and ripe for the firstchance of mischief which offered. Blunt found the nettle stinging himsorely, and, like a rough, resolute man, grasped it with all the moreunflinching hand. When at last he succeeded in making out a case hedealt out the sternest justice, not, perhaps, without a gratifiedvindictiveness against the people who had so long baffled and annoyedhim. One Uzuf Ali, a large grantee, had been called upon to verify hisclaims; and this he proceeded to do with the utmost alacrity. He and hisforefathers, he protested, had been in possession for centuries--look atthe Revenue records, the files of the Courts, the orders of Government.Here, too, was a Sunnud from the Emperor Akbar confirming them in theirrights. Twenty witnesses, all disinterested, honourable, unimpeachable,the entire village indeed, would attest the fact of continuous, open,rightful enjoyment from a period as far as memory could go. So thetwenty witnesses did; but then appeared a gentleman, one Hosain Khan, onthe other side, and blew the pretty story into the air. Uzuf Ali was anaudacious impostor, everybody in the country knew that his father hadcome from Delhi not thirty years ago; he had no more right to an ounceof salt than the 'Commissioner Sahib' himself; the ground over which heclaimed his rights was notoriously in the possession of another man: asfor the Sunnud of Akbar, it was an obvious forgery, as the CommissionerSahib might see for himself by merely looking.
Hosain Khan having had his innings, Uzuf Ali returned to the wickets andbegan to make great play. 'Ask Hosain Khan,' he said, 'if his uncle didnot carry off my sister and if some of our people did not kill him forit?'
'Yes,' says Hosain Khan, 'you stabbed him yourself, like a coward as youare, when he lay asleep by his bullocks.'
'And if I did,' cries his opponent, 'did not your father knock out mycousin's brains with a lathee[2] and get sent over the Kala Panee[3] forhis pains?'
The controversy waxed ardent; the combatants' voices rose shrill andhigh; they tossed their black locks and waved their arms, and poured outlong streams of passionate family history, long-cherished feuds--deep,never-to-be-forgotten wrongs--interminable complications as to lands andwel
ls, women and bullocks; and Blunt, who understood nothing but thatthey had travelled a long way from the Rumble Chunder Grant, sat by inmute and wrathful despair, and began to perceive that the administrationof justice to folks so excitable and unveracious as these was no sucheasy matter as he had once imagined.
Amid all the chaff, however, Blunt had, he thought, got hold of onepiece of solid fact: either the Sunnud was a forgery or it was not; andif a forgery, then he resolved to make an example, prosecute Uzuf Alifor his fraud, and turn him summarily out of his pretended rights. Aforgery no doubt it was, for the paper bore the British watermark, andyou could see the places where the gunpowder had been smeared in hopesof giving it an antiquated look. And so the question was decided, andthe order made out, and poor Uzuf Ali, in vain protesting that it was adevice of the enemy, left the Commissioner's presence a ruined man.
Ruined men, however, are dangerous things at all times, and especiallywith an excitable and easily frightened people, who see in theirneighbours' fall only an anticipation of their own. The Bazaar waspresently in a tumult: angry clusters of talkers gathered in circlesround the grain-shops or at the village well, or under the greatbanyan-tree which spread a wide shade over one end of the street, anddiscussed past grievances and future disaster. Meanwhile Blunt, notwith so light a heart or seeing his way as clearly as usual, had movedhis head-quarters a dozen miles away, and begun a new series ofinvestigations with a new set of Hosain Khans and Uzuf Alis, and withprecisely similar success.
Before the month was over Fotheringam's words had come true. The EusufKhayls, a turbulent tribe of frontier freebooters, were up. A policeoutpost had been attacked in force one night, and its occupants had madea bad retreat, leaving two of their number on the field. The maraudershad ridden through twenty miles of British territory, burning villages,destroying crops, driving away bullocks to their fastnesses in thehills. Blunt, as he came, escorted by a strong detachment, intoDustypore, met the Horse Artillery rattling out towards the disturbedregion; and a telegram despatched to Elysium informed Sutton that he wasto head a flying column into the enemies' country and that he must bewith his regiment without an instant's delay.