Part 27 (2/2)
DELHI, August 15, 1890.
L 1,000.
Thirty days after sight of this first of exchange (second and third unpaid), pay to the order of Alan Hawke one thousand pounds sterling, value received.
HUGH FRASER JOHNSTONE.
To Messrs. Glyn, Carr and Glyn, London.
”What do you wish me to do, Sahib?” tremblingly faltered the old usurer, as he carefully noted the fifteen papers. A sinking at the heart told him that he was in the power of the one man in India whom he knew to be as merciless as himself, for a kindred spirit had fled when the drawer of the Bills of Exchange died alone in the dark, his bubbling shriek stopped by his heart's blood. The Major sternly said in an icy voice, as he fixed his eyes full on his victim:
”I wish you to indorse, every one of those papers. I wish you to make each one of them read five thousand pounds. You have done that trick very neatly before, and to put the additional Crown duty stamps upon them.” Ram Lal had started up, but he sank back appalled as he looked down the barrel of Hawke's revolver.
”Keep silence or I'll put a ball through your shoulder, and then drag you up to General Willoughby. He will hang you in chains if I say the word.” Alan Hawke was tiger-like now in his rapacity.
”I will leave the first set with you, and you will now give me your check on the Oriental Bank for five thousand pounds. The other drafts you will have all ready for me to-morrow and bring them to me at the Marble House.”
The jeweler groaned and swayed to and fro upon his seat in a mute agony.
”I cannot do it. I have not the money,” he babbled.
”You old lying wretch. You have screwed a quarter of a million pounds out of Christian, Hindu, and Mohammedan here,” mercilessly said the torturer.
”I will not! I cannot! I dare not!” cried Ram Lal, dropping on the floor and trying to bow his head at Hawke's feet.
”Get up! You old beast!” commanded Hawke. ”By G.o.d! I'll shoot and disable you now and then arrest you! Tell me! Do you know that dagger?”
With a quick motion, still covering the cowering wretch with his pistol, Hawke drew out the package from his bosom, clumsily tearing off a silk neck scarf-wrapper with his left hand. He laid down on the table the blood-incrusted dagger of Mirzah Shah. The golden haft, the jeweled fretwork and the broad blade were all covered with the life tide of the great man whom no one mourned in Delhi.
”Mercy! Mercy!” hoa.r.s.ely whispered Ram Lal, with his hands clasped, as in prayer.
”I know whose it is!” pitilessly continued the tormentor. ”You dropped it, you fool, when you ran against me in the garden in your mad haste to get away! One single rebellious word and I will march you to the nearest guard post! Now, will you do what I wish?”
”Anything, anything, Sahib!” begged the cowering wretch. ”Put it away, put it away!”
”Now, quick!” said the Major. ”First, give me the check! Then indorse all these drafts right here in my presence. I will negotiate the others myself. You can send on the first one through your bankers. Your name on all of them will make them go without question.” The alert adventurer watched Ram's trembling fingers achieve the work. ”Do not dare to leave your own inclosure till you come directly to me to-morrow, when you have altered all those drafts to read five thousand pounds each. I have charge of the estate of the man whom you butchered like a dog. I have a guard of two companies of soldiers, and you will be arrested as a murderer if you attempt to leave, save to come directly to me with these papers.”
Alan Hawke lit a cigar and then took a refres.h.i.+ng draught from a pocket flask.
”Now open your strong box and show me your jewels! I want some of them!”
The sobbing wretch at his feet demurred until the cold nozzle of the pistol was pressed against his forehead. ”I will make the English bankers pay the other four bills; but, you brute, did you think that I would let you off with a poor five thousand pounds? Harken! I go to England in a week! Then you are safe forever! Bring out all your jewels!
You got fifty thousand pounds from the old man! I know it!”
Begging and beseeching in vain, Ram Lal crawled to his great iron strong box studded over with huge k.n.o.bs, and, after a half an hour's critical selection, Alan Hawke had concealed on his person four little bags, in which he had made the s.h.i.+vering wretch place the choicest of his treasures.
”Call up your man now. Do not stir for an instant from my side! If the drafts are not with me before sundown to-morrow, you will be hung in chains, and the ravens will finish what the hangman leaves! Remember--my boy! The rail and telegraph will cut off any little tricks of yours!
And,” he laughed, ”you will not run away; you have too much here to leave. It would be a fat haul for the Crown authorities. I will keep my eye on you, near or far. I will be with you always. We have our own little secret, now!”
”I will obey--only save me! Save me, Hawke Sahib. I will do all upon my head, I will!” pleaded Ram Lal, whose vast fortune was indeed at the mercy of the law.
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