King--of the Khyber Rifles: A Romance of Adventure

  Chapter XI

  Long slept the Heart o' the Hills, oh, long! (Ye who have watched, ye know!) As sap sleeps in the deodars When winter shrieks and steely stars Blink over frozen snow. Ye haste? The sap stirs now, ye say? Ye feel the pulse of spring? But sap must rise ere buds may break, Or cubs fare forth, or bees awake, Or lean buck spurn the ling!

  "Kurram Khan!" the lashless mullah howled, like a lone wolf in themoonlight, and King stood up.

  It is one of the laws of Cocker, who wrote the S. S. Code, that a manis alive until he is proved dead, and where there is life there isopportunity. In that grim minute King felt heretical; but a man'sfeelings are his own affair provided he can prove it, and he managed toseem about as much at ease as a native hakim ought to feel at such aninitiation.

  "Come forward!" the mullah howled, and he obeyed, treading gingerlybetween men who were at no pains to let him by, and silently blessingthem, because he was not really in any hurry at all. Yasmini lookedlovely from a distance, and life was sweet.

  "Who are his witnesses?"

  "Witnesses?" the roof hissed.

  "I!" shouted Ismail, jumping up.

  "I!" cracked the roof. "I! I!" So that for a second King almost believedhe had a crowd of men to swear for him and did not hear Darya Khan atall, who rose from a place not very far behind where had sat.

  Ismail followed him in a hurry, like a man wading a river with looseclothes gathered in one arm and the other arm ready in case of falling.He took much less trouble than King not to tread on people, and oaths'marked his wake.

  Darya Khan did not go so fast. As he forced his way forward a man passedhim up the wooden box that King had used to stand on he seized it inboth hands with a grin and a jest and went to stand behind King andIsmail, in line with the lashless mullah, facing Yasmini. Yasmini smiledat them all as if they were actors in her comedy, and she well pleasedwith them.

  "Look ye!" howled the mullah. "Look ye and look well, for this is to beone of us!"

  King felt ten thousand eyes burn holes in his back, but the one pair ofeyes that mocked him from the bridge was more disconcerting.

  "Turn, Kurram Khan! Turn that all may see!"

  Feeling like a man on a spit, he revolved slowly. By the time he hadturned once completely around, besides knowing positively that one ofthe two bracelets on her right arm was the one he had worn, or else itsexact copy, he knew that he was not meant to die yet; for his eyes couldwork much more swiftly than the horn-rimmed spectacles made believe. Hedecided that Yasmini meant he should be frightened, but not much hurtjust yet.

  So he ceased altogether to feel frightened and took care to look morescared than ever.

  "Who paid the price of thy admission?" the mullah howled, and Kingcleared his throat, for he was not quite sure yet what that might mean.

  "Speak, Kurram Khan!" Yasmini purred, smiling her loveliest. "Tell themwhom you slew."

  King turned and faced the crowd, raising himself on the balls of hisfeet to shout, like a man facing thousands of troops on parade. Henearly gave himself away, for habit had him unawares. A native hakim,given the stoutest lungs in all India, would not have shouted in thatway.

  "Cappitin Attleystan King!" he roared. And he nearly jumped out ofhis skin when his own voice came rattling back at him from the roofoverhead.

  "Cappitin Attleystan King!" it answered.

  Yasmini chuckled as a little rill will sometimes chuckle among ferns. Itwas devilish. It seemed to say there were traps not far ahead.

  "Where was he slain?" asked the mullah.

  "In the Khyber Pass," said King.

  "In the Khyber Pass!" the roof whispered hoarsely, as if aghast at suchcold-bloodedness.

  "Now give proof!" said the mullah. "Words at the gate--proof in thecavern! Without good proof, there is only one way out of here!"

  "Proof!" the crowd thundered. "Proof!"

  "Proof! Proof! Proof!" the roof echoed.

  There was no need for Darya Khan to whisper. King's hands were behindhim, and he had seen what he had seen and guessed what he had guessedwhile he was turning to let the crowd look at him. His fingers closed onhuman hair.

  "Nay, it is short!" hissed Darya Khan. "Take the two ears, or hold it bythe jawbone! Hold it high in both hands!"

  King obeyed, without looking at the thing, and Ismail, turning to facethe crowd, rose on tiptoe and filled his lungs for the effort of hislife.

  "The head of Cappitin Attleystan King--infidel kaffir--Britisharrficer!" he howled.

  "Good!" the crowd bellowed. "Good! Throw it!"

  The crowd's roar and the roof's echoes combined until pandemonium.

  "Throw it to them, Kurram Khan!" Yasmini purred from the bridge end,speaking as softly and as sweetly, as if she coaxed a child. Yet hervoice carried.

  He lowered the head, but instead of looking at it he looked up at her.He thought she was enjoying herself and his predicament as he had neverseen any one enjoy anything.

  "Throw it to them, Kurram Khan!" she purred. "It is the custom!"

  "Throw it! Throw it!" the crowd thundered.

  He turned the ghastly thing until it lay face-upward in his hands, andso at last he saw it. He caught his breath, and only the horn-rimmedspectacles, that he had cursed twice that night, saved him fromself-betrayal. The cavern seemed to sway, but he recovered and his witsworked swiftly. If Yasmini detected his nervousness she gave no sign.

  "Throw it! Throw it! Throw it!"

  The crowd was growing impatient. Many men were standing, waving theirarms to draw attention to themselves, and he wondered what the ultimateend of the head would be, if he obeyed and threw it to them. WatchingYasmini's eyes, he knew it had not entered her head that he mightdisobey.

  He looked past her toward the river. There were no guards near enough toprevent what he intended; but he had to bear in mind that the guardshad rifles, and if he acted too suddenly one of them might shoot at himunbidden. They were wondrous free with their cartridges, those guards,in a land where ammunition is worth its weight in silver coin.

  Holding the head before him with both hands, he began to walk toward theriver, edging all the while a little toward the crowd as if meaning toget nearer before he threw.

  He was much more than half-way to the river's edge before Yasmini oranybody else divined his true intention. The mullah grew suspicionsfirst and yelled. Then King hurried, for he did not believe Yasminiwould need many seconds in which to regain command of any situation. Butshe saw fit to stand still and watch.

  He reached the river and stood there. Now he was in no hurry at all, forit stood to reason that unless Yasmini very much desired him to be keptalive he would have been shot dead already. For a moment the crowd wasso interested that it forgot to bark and snarl.

  His next move was as deliberate as he could make it, although he wascareful to avoid the least suggestion of mummery (for then the crowdwould have suspected disloyalty to Islam, and the "Hills" are very, verypious, and very suspicious of all foreign ritual).

  He did a thoughtful simple thing that made every savage who watched himgasp because of its very unexpectedness. He held the head in bothhands, threw it far out into the river and stood to watch it sink. Then,without visible emotion of any kind, he walked back stolidly to faceYasmini at the bridge end, with shoulders a little more stubborn nowthan they ought to be, and chin a shade too high, for there never was aman who could act quite perfectly.

  "Thou fool!" Yasmini whispered through lips that did not move.

  She betrayed a flash of temper like a trapped she-tiger's, but followedit instantly with her loveliest smile. Like to like, however, the crowdsaw the flash of temper and took its cue from that.

  "Slay him!" yelled a lone voice, that was greeted an approving murmur.

  "Slay him!" advised the roof in a whisper, in one of its phonetictricks.

  "This is a darbar!" Yasmini announced in a rising, ringing voice. "Mydarbar, for I summoned it! Did I invite any man to spe
ak?"

  There was silence, as a whipped unwilling pack is silent.

  "Speak, thou, Kurram Khan!" she said. "Knowing the custom--having heardthe order to throw that trophy to them--why act otherwise? Explain!"

  Nothing in the wide world could be fairer! She left him to extricatehimself from a mess of his own making! It was more than fair, for shewent out of her way to offer him an opening to jump through. And shepaid him the compliment of suggesting be must be clever enough to takeit, for she seemed to expect a satisfying answer.

  "Tell them why!" she said, smiling. No man could have guessed by thetone of her voice whether she was for him or against him, and the crowd,beginning again to whisper, watched to see which way the cat would jump.

  He bowed low to her three times--very low indeed and very slowly, for hehad to think. Then he turned his back and repeated the obeisance to thecrowd. Still he could think of no excuse, except Cocker's Rule No. I forTight Places, and all the world knows that because Solomon said much thesame thing first:

  "A soft answer is better than a sword!"

  But Cocker adds, "Never excuse. Explain! And blame no man."

  "My brothers," he said, and paused, since a man must make a beginning,even when he can not see the end. And as he spoke the answer came tohim. He stood upright, and his voice became that of a man whose advicehas been asked, and who gives it freely. "These be stirring times! Yeneed take care, my brothers! Ye saw this night how one man entered hereon the strength of an oath and a promise. All he lacked was proof. And Ihad proof. Ye saw! Who am I that I should deny you a custom? Yet--thinkye, my brothers!--how easy would it not have been, had I thrown thathead to you, for a traitor to catch it and hide it in his clothes,and make away with it! He could have used it to admit to thesecaves--why--even an Englishman, my brothers! If that had happened, yewould have blamed me!"

  Yasmini smiled. Taking its cue from her, the crowd murmured, scarcelyassent, but rather recognition of the hakim's adroitness. The gamewas not won there lacked a touch to tip the scales in his favor, andYasmini supplied it with ready genius.

  "The hakim speaks truth!" she laughed.

  King turned about instantly to face her, but he salaamed so low that shecould not have seen his expression had she tried.

  "If Ye wish it, I will order him tossed into Earth's Drink after thoseother three."

  Muhammed Anim rose stroking his beard and rocking where he stood.

  "It is the law!" he growled, and King shuddered.

  "It is the law," Yasmini answered in a voice that rang with pride andinsolence, "that none interrupt me while I speak! For such ill-manneredones Earth's Drink hungers! Will you test my authority, Muhammad Anim?"

  The mullah sat down, and hundreds of men laughed at him, but not all ofthe men by any means.

  "It is the law that none goes out of Khinjan Cave alive who breaks thelaw of the Caves. But he broke no very big law. And he spoke truth.Think Ye! If that head had only fallen into Muhammad Anim's lap, themullah might have smuggled in another man with it!"

  A roar of laughter greeted that thrust. Many men who had not laughed atthe mullah's first discomfiture, joined in now. Muhammad Anim sat andfidgeted, meeting nobody's eye and answering nothing.

  "So it seems to me good," Yasmini said, in a voice that did not echo anymore but rang very clear and true (she seemed to know the trick of theroof, and to use the echo or not as she chose), "to let this hakim live!He shall meditate in his cave a while, and perhaps he shall be beaten,lest he dare offend again. He can no more escape from Khinjan Caves thanthe women who are prisoners here. He may therefore live!"

  There was utter silence. Men looked at one another and at her, and herblazing eyes searched the crowd swiftly. It was plain enough that therewere at least two parties there, and that none dared oppose Yasmini'swill for fear of the others.

  "To thy seat, Kurram Khan!" she ordered, when she had waited a fullminute and no man spoke.

  He wasted no time. He hurried out of the arena as fast as he could walk,with Ismail and Darya Khan close at his heels. It was like a run out ofdanger in a dream. He stumbled over the legs of the front-rank men inhis hurry to get back to his place, and Ismail overtook him, seized himby the shoulders, hugged him, and dragged him to the empty seat next tothe Orakzai Pathan. There he hugged him until his ribs cracked.

  "Ready o' wit!" he crowed. "Ready o' tongue! Light o' life! Man aftermine own heart! Hey, I love thee! Readily I would be thy man, but forbeing hers! Would I had a son like thee! Fool--fool--fool not to throwthe head to them! Squeamish one! Man like a child! What is the headbut earth when the life has left it? What would thy head be without thenimble wit? Fool--fool--fool! And clever! Turned the joke on MuhammadAnim! Turned it on Bull-with-a-beard in a twinkling--in the bat of aneye--in a breath! Turned it against her enemy and raised a laugh againsthim from his own men! Ready o' wit! Shameless one! Lucky one! Allah wassurely good to thee!"

  Still exulting, he let go, but none too soon for comfort. King's ribswere sore from his hugging for days.

  "What is it?" he asked. For King seemed to be shaping words with hislips. He bent a great hairy ear to listen.

  "Have they taken Ali Masjid Fort?" King whispered.

  "How should I know? Why?"

  "Tell me, man, if you love me! Have they taken it?"

  "Nay, how should I know? Ask her! She knows more than any man knows!"

  King turned to ask the same question of his friend the Orakzai Pathan;but the Pathan would have none of his questions, he was busy listeningfor whispers from the crowd, watching with both eyes, and he shoved Kingaside.

  The crowd was very far from being satisfied. An angry murmur had begunto fill the cavern as a hive is filled with the song of bees at swarmingtime. But even so, surmise what one might, it was not easy to persuadethe eye that Yasmini's careless smile and easy poise were assumed.If she recognized indignation and feared it, she disguised her fearamazingly.

  King saw her whisper to a guard. The fellow nodded and passed his shieldto another man. He began to make his way in no great hurry toward theedge of the arena. She whispered again and standing forward with theirtrumpets seven of the guards blew a blast that split across the cavernlike the trump of doom; and as its hundred thousand echoes died in theroof, the hum of voices died, too, and the very sound of breathing. Thegurgling of water became as if the river flowed in solitude.

  Leisurely then, languidly, she raised both arms until she looked like anangel poised for flight. The little jewels stitched to her gauzy dresstwinkled like fire-flies as she moved. The crowd gasped sharply. She hadit by the heart-strings.

  She called, and four guards got under one shield, bowing their heads andresting the great rim on their shoulders. They carried it beneath herand stood still. With a low delicious laugh, sweet and true, she sprangon it, and the shield scarcely trembled; she seemed lighter than thesilk her dress was woven from!

  They carried her so, looking as if she and the shield were carved of apiece, and by a master such as has not often been. And in the midst ofthe arena before they had ceased moving she began to sing, with her headthrown back and bosom swelling like a bird's.

  The East would ever rather draw its own conclusions from a hint let fallthan be puzzled by what the West believes are facts. And parables arenot good evidence in courts of law, which is always a consideration. Soher song took the form of a parable.

  And to say that she took hold of them and played rhapsodies of her ownmaking on their heart-strings would be to undervalue what she did. Theywere dumb while she sang, but they rose at her. Not a force in theworld could have kept them down, for she was deftly touching cords thatstirred other forces--subtle, mysterious, mesmeric, which the old Eastunderstands--which Muhammad the Prophet understood when he harnessedevil in the shafts with men and wrote rules for their driving in a book.They rose in silence and stood tense.

  While she sang, the guard to whom she had whispered forced a way throughthe ranks of the standing crowd, and came behind Ismai
l. He tweakedthe Afridi's ear to draw attention, for like all the others--like King,too--Ismail was listening with dropped jaw and watching with burningeyes. For a minute they whispered, so low that King did not hear whatthey said; and then the guard forced his way back by the shortest routeto the arena, knocking down half a dozen men and gaining safety beyondthe lamps before his victims could draw knife and follow him.

  Yasmini's song went on, verse after verse, telling never one fact, yethinting unutterable things in a language that was made for hint andmetaphor and parable and innuendo. What tongue did not hint at wasconveyed by subtle gesture and a smile and flashing eyes. It wasperfectly evident that she knew more than King--more than the general atPeshawur--more than the viceroy at Simla--probably more than the Britishgovernment--concerning what was about to happen in Islam. The othersmight guess. She knew. It was just as evident that she would not tell.The whole of her song, and it took her twenty minutes by the count ofKing's pulse, to sing it, was a warning to wait and a promise of amazingthings to come.

  She sang of a wolf-pack gathering from the valleys in the winter snow--avery hungry wolf-pack. Then of a stalled ox, grown very fat from beingcared for. Of the "Heart of the Hills" that awoke in the womb of the"Hills," and that listened and watched.

  "Now, is she the 'Heart of the Hills'?" King wondered. The rumors menhad heard and told again in India, about the "Heart of the Hills" inKhinjan seemed to have foundation.

  He thought of the strange knife, wrapped in a handkerchief under hisshirt, with its bronze blade and gold hilt in the shape of a womandancing. The woman dancing was astonishingly like Yasmini, standing onthe shield!

  She sang about the owners of the stalled ox, who were busy at bay,defending themselves and their ox from another wolf-pack in anotherdirection "far beyond."

  She urged them to wait a little while. The ox was big enough and fatenough to nourish all the wolves in the world for many seasons. Letthem wait, then, until another, greater wolf-pack joined them, that theymight go hunting all together, overwhelm its present owners and devourthe ox! So urged the "Heart of the Hills," speaking to the mountainwolves, according to Yasmini's song.

  "The little cubs in the burrows know. Are ye grown wolves, who hurry so?"

  She paused, for effect; but they gave tongue then because they could nothelp it, and the cavern shook to their terrific worship.

  "Allah! Allah!"

  They summoned God to come and see the height and depth and weight oftheir allegiance to her! And because for their thunder there was no morechance of being heard, she dropped from the shield like a blossom. Nosound of falling could have been heard in all that din, but one couldsee she made no sound. The shield-bearers ran back to the bridge andstood below it, eyes agape.

  Rewa Gunga spoke truth in Delhi when he assured King he should some daywonder at Yasmini's dancing.

  She became joy and bravery and youth! She danced a story for them of thethings they knew. She was the dawn light, touching the distant peaks.She was the wind that follows it, sweeping among the junipers andkissing each as she came. She was laughter, as the little childrenlaugh when the cattle are loosed from the byres at last to feed in thevalleys. She was the scent of spring uprising. She was blossom. She wasfruit! Very daughter of the sparkle of warm sun on snow, she was the"Heart of the Hills" herself!

  Never was such dancing! Never such an audience! Never such mad applause!She danced until the great rough guards had to run round the arena withclubbed butts and beat back trespassers who would have mobbed her. Andevery movement--every gracious wonder-curve and step with which shetold her tale was as purely Greek as the handle on King's knife and thefigures on the lamp-bowls and as the bracelets on her arm. Greek!

  And she half-modern-Russian, ex-girl-wife of a semi-civilizedHill-rajah! Who taught her? There is nothing new, even in Khinjan, in the"Hills"!

  And when the crowd defeated the arena guards at last and burst throughthe swinging butts to seize and fling her high and worship her withmad barbaric rite, she ran toward the shield. The four men raised itshoulder-high again. She went to it like a leaf in the wind--sprang onit as if wings had lifted her, scarce touching it with naked toes--andleapt to the bridge with a laugh.

  She went over the bridge on tiptoes, like nothing else under heaven butYasmini at her bewitchingest. And without pausing on the far side shedanced up the hewn stone stairs, dived into the dark hole and was gone!

  "Come!" yelled Ismail in King's ear. He could have heard nothing less,for the cavern was like to burst apart from the tumult.

  "Whither?" the Afridi shouted in disgust. "Does the wind ask whither?Come like the wind and see! They will remember next that they have abone to pick with thee! Come away!"

  That seemed good enough advice. He followed as fast as Ismail couldshoulder a way out between the frantic Hillmen, deafened, stupefied,numbed, almost cowed by the ovation they were giving their "Heart oftheir Hills."

  Chapter XII