The Sirdar's Oath: A Tale of the North-West Frontier

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

  HOW TARLETON YIELDED.

  "This is a land of surprises," Haslam had said, and indeed if ever wordshad been vividly, literally and luridly borne out, here was an instance.Within one short half hour of their utterance this camp, then the veryembodiment of peaceful repose and fancied security, had been overrun bysavage massacre and turned into a reeking human shambles. Corpses, manyof them horribly hacked, lay in every attitude of agonised contortion,and great smears of blood spattered the canvas of the tents, as also thedirty-white garments of the assailants. As for the hapless Europeans,though for the moment alive and uninjured, they were helpless captivesin the power of the most notoriously cruel and unsparing brigand of thewhole northern border. Of a truth this was a land of surprises.

  The first idea that occupied Haslam and Tarleton was to attend to theunfortunate lady, and this they did, as carefully as though it was anordinary fainting fit, and there were no barbarous enemies within athousand miles of them.

  "She'd better not come to again just yet," Tarleton said. "We'd betterget her into a tent, if they'll let us."

  Permission to do this was granted gruffly, but two of their captors wereordered to enter with them lest they should possess themselves ofweapons, nor was this precaution superfluous, for they had fixed uponHaslam's tent as being the nearest, and Haslam's revolver lay upon hischarpoy. At the sight he stifled a deep and muttered curse, as theGularzai pounced greedily upon it. He had reason to curse deeper stillas they ordered him to at once deliver up any arms and ammunition hemight have in his possession. Inwardly he groaned again as he saw hisbeautiful shot gun and Mannlicher rifle in the eager grip of the hookedclaws of these copper-hued brigands. Then he was ordered outside again.

  Murad Afzul had not dismounted from his fine camel, and from thealtitude of his seat--for he had ridden into the centre of the camp--wasdirecting operations. Several of his followers were ransacking thetents, trundling out their contents; and soon trunks and despatch boxes,bags and tins of provisions, articles of clothing and kitchen utensilswere piled together in promiscuous heaps. But what delighted thewarrior soul of the freebooter was the sight of four or five good,up-to-date rifles and a brace of revolvers. The shotguns, too, hecontemplated with satisfaction, but the rifles appealed to him most, andthese he caused to be handed up to him one after the other as he sat onhis camel, and each he would bring to his shoulder, sighting it at someobject far or near, away over the plain. The weapons of his followerswere good, but they were only Martinis. But these--magazine andrepeating guns, spick and span, and of first-rate workmanship! Ya,Mahomed, what a find!

  Now he beckoned Haslam to him. The Forest Officer, standing there underthis arch-brigand looking down upon him from the height of his toweringcamel, felt that humiliation was indeed his lot to-day.

  "So, jungle wallah," began Murad Afzul, speaking in Hindustani, andsneeringly withal, "so, jungle wallah, I told you I was not accustomedto ask the same question twice; yet this time I will give you yetanother chance, and ask it the third time. Where is Raynier?"

  "That I can't tell, for I don't know," answered Haslam, with perfecttruth.

  The chief bent over, and whispered instructions to some of his followerson the off-side of his camel. These came round, and laying a hand onHaslam's shoulder ordered him to go with them. Resistance wasabsolutely useless, and Haslam was marched away. They were taking himin the direction of the Levy Sowars' camp, he noticed, of course toexecute him there. His time had come, he concluded. Rapidly, as hewalked to his doom, his past life flashed through his recollection. Hehad been a careless sort of chap, he supposed, like others, no better--he would have shrunk from the imputation of making any other claim--but,he hoped, no worse. He had not troubled his head much about what laybeyond the grave, nor had he ever shrunk from death when duty ordangerous sport had brought him within gazing distance of it. Perhaps,if all that was taught of what came after it were true, or even aportion, why, he was surrendering his life rather than give informationwhich should place the lives of others in danger, and it might be takeninto consideration. But of mercy at the hands of yon ruthlessfreebooter he had no hope. At any rate, he would meet a swift death--they would shoot or behead him, and they might have done him to death byslow torture. He thought of his wife and young family away in England.Would they miss him much, and, more important still, would theGovernment do anything for them over and above the rather moderatepension which they would draw from the fund to which he had subscribedthroughout his term of service? It was not probable. Government wasseldom liberal. Then his thoughts were broken in upon. They hadreached the tents of the Levy Sowars, and into one of these he wasordered.

  Wonderingly he obeyed. What did it mean? Were they not going to puthim to death after all, for it occurred to him they would hardly havebrought him into a tent for such a purpose? But he was ordered to seathimself, and remain perfectly still--and informed that any movement hemight make, or sound that he should utter, would be his last. And then,immediately outside the canvas which screened him from the outer world,he heard the loud sharp, double report of a rifle.

  One other heard it too, and that one was Tarleton. To his mind itsuggested but one solution--possible rescue to wit--acting upon whichidea he did what a man of his bull-headed temperament would be expectedto do, but which, had his idea been correct, was the very worst possiblething he could have done. He came to the tent door, and looked eagerlyand anxiously out.

  Murad Afzul still sat there on his great camel, his countenance as coldand impassive as the graceful folds of his snowy turban, while upon hisfollowers a strange hush had fallen. At sight of the Feringhi it wasbroken--broken by muttered curses and threats. But--where was Haslam?

  The chief beckoned him forward, and he had to obey. Yes, obey. Therewas no mincing the word. He was in the power--absolutely in the powerof this man, this "nigger," as he would have described him about half anhour ago.

  "You heard those shots," said the Gularzai, haughtily, from theloftiness of his tall steed. "Yes? Look around. Where is the junglewallah?"

  Tarleton did look around--with some alacrity, moreover. But no sign ofHaslam rewarded his glance. He began to see the grim drift of theinjunction.

  "You will see your friend no more," went on the chief. "I asked him aquestion--for the third time. He would not answer--so he was shot--overthere."

  He paused, with intent to let the full weight of his words sink deep inthe other's mind. Like most wild or semi-civilised people, the Gularzaifreebooter was a character reader, and knew his man. But, before theother had time to answer, an interruption occurred, as startling as itwas unforeseen.

  All were watching the result of the dialogue between the chief and theprisoner. Fierce eyes glared beneath shaggy brows, claw-like fingersfelt the edge of tulwars, foul and sticky with blood that had alreadybeen shed. Eagerly heads were bent forward, awaiting the word thatshould hand this Feringhi over to their scarcely-glutted blood lust andhate.

  "Hear me, O great Sirdar," cried a voice, pitched in loud, harsh tones."Hear me, I can give the information thou requirest, O Sword of theProphet."

  The Levy Sowars who had surrendered, to the number of about a dozen,were grouped on the outskirts of the freebooters. From one of these thevoice proceeded.

  "Let him come forward," said Murad Afzul.

  Way being made the speaker advanced. He was a youngish man, tall andwell built, with aquiline features and a short curling beard.

  "Who art thou?" said the chief, shortly.

  "Mahomed Afa, Waziri," answered the man.

  "Well, what dost thou know?"

  "This, O great Sirdar, Murad Afzul. This, this. That as thou didstslay my father Mahomed Jan, so now enter Jehanum by the hand of hisson."

  Quick as thought, while uttering these words he had snatched a riflefrom the loose, unguarded grasp of the man next to him, and withoutwaiting to raise it to his shoulder discharged the piece well-n
igh pointblank at the chief. But the ball hummed viciously past, just rufflingthe edge of Murad Afzul's voluminous turban. For the camel, whetheracting under the influence of the ineradicable cussedness which isinherent in its species, or irritated by the harsh vociferation right atits ear, had suddenly reached round its head with a resentful grunt,making a vicious snap at the would-be slayer, with the double effect ofsomewhat marring his aim and moving its rider by just the few inchesrequisite to the saving of his life. In a twinkling the man was seized.

  "Ya, Allah!" he mouthed, struggling furiously in the grasp of those whoheld him. "Avenge me of this robber-dog, this vulture-bred coward whoonly strikes those who are too weak to oppose his numbers. MahomedProphet! strike him down into the burning pit of Hawiyat, where hisgnawing vitals shall consume for ever and ever."

  The declamatory voice had risen to a wild scream. Murad Afzul, seatedon his camel, had not moved throughout the whole scene. Now he spoke.

  "So thou art the son of Mahomed Jan, that Waziri thief and enemy ofAllah?" he said, gazing down upon his would-be slayer. "Allah is greatand His Prophet has rendered thee as unskilful in the use of weapons asothers of thy kind. Well, ye twain, father and son, have been partedlong enough, so now thou shalt join thine in Jehanum, yet not at once,for I think I will show thee some foretaste of its fires here."

  He signed to those who held the frantic man--then something in theaspect of the latter caused him to change his intention. For herecognised that the Waziri's mind had given way, in short, that he hadbecome a frenzied maniac, and to harm him as such would be cleancontrary to all tribal tradition and sanction. Yet he had no intentionof letting him off scot free.

  "I will spare him the fire," he said, "for of that he will have plenty.So--shorten him by the head."

  Willing feet sprang to do his bidding. Willing hands seized themouthing, cursing maniac, who by dint of a camel halter was forced tostretch forth his neck. Then the flash of a keen tulwar in the air, andthe deluging, headless corpse was writhing and squirming right atTarleton's feet.

  Tarleton, surgeon though he was, turned sick at the horrid sight, themore so that in all probability it presaged his own fate. The voice ofMurad Afzul recalled him to this.

  "You have seen, Feringhi. Now, that is thy fate, if my question isunanswered. Where is Raynier?"

  Tarleton looked at the gushing, headless corpse, then at the stern,uncompromising countenance of the chief. He noted, too, the eager,cruel visages of those around, who seemed to hang upon his answer. Lifewas as good to him as to anybody else, nor did he feel the leastinclination to part with it at that moment. Besides, what would becomeof his wife, now lying unconscious in the tent behind him, if left aloneand at the mercy of these ruthless barbarians? Haslam was dead, andthus no one need ever know, for no one was left to witness against him,and if ever there was a case of "every man for himself" this was surelyit. So he replied,--

  "He has gone to visit Sarbaland Khan."