Part 14 (1/2)

But others, though they pa.s.sed homewards in batches still full of discussion, still drunk with words, were pa.s.sing to environments which were, in a way, even more empty than his. So empty of the sentiments they had just been formulating, so much at variance with the ideals they had just professed, that the very imagination grows bewildered in the effort to reconcile the two.

Govind the editor, however, had less difficulty than most in accommodating his mental position to a stool stuck over the reeking gutter of a liquor shop, where he refreshed himself with a brandy-and-soda and an infamous cigar. He was in an evil temper, because the meeting, which he frequented chiefly because the speakers provided him with ideas wherewith to spice his own broadsheet, had been unusually discreet; so he would have to write his own sedition; unless he could pick up some scurrilous news instead.

'Nay, friend! I know naught to suit thy purpose,' replied the stout sergeant of police who frequented the same liquor shop, to whom he applied; 'save the finding of the Lady-_sahib's_ jewel-box.'

'And the pearls?' asked Govind, taking out a greasy stump of pencil.

'The pearls!' echoed the policeman scornfully, 'as if pearls were to be found by us! They can be hid in a body's very mouth, and then, if there be not another mouth with a tongue in it, there is silence! But the box is enough to keep the file of the case open, and the inspector content for a while.'

'How many are in the lock-up concerning it?' asked Govind, out of the fulness of his knowledge regarding police methods.

'Six,' yawned the sergeant. 'The coolie who found the box broken and empty, flung in the bushes by the Lat-_sahib's_ house; he was setting the fireworks for the big spectacle to-morrow. He sold it to a p.a.w.nbroker. That makes two for us. Then a woman bought the velvet lining from a rag-merchant. That makes four. She gave it to Has.h.i.+m, tailor, who works for the _Huzoors_, as a cap to her grandchild.

And he, having doubts, informed us. So he makes five. Then the firework-maker's people were turbulent, therefore we arrested one of them to show diligence.'

'And there was naught in the box when it was found?' asked Govind. He was writing now on one of the smoothed-out squares of white waste-paper which lay in a pile beside the liquor seller, who used them for wiping the rims of the tumblers, out of deference to the caste prejudices of his customers against a general cloth.

'G.o.d knows!' yawned the policeman piously. 'The man saith not; but there were letters besides the trinkets and the pearls, and we may find _them_, if not the others. Folk will not lose a _cowrie's_ worth of waste-paper these hard times.'

'Ay!' a.s.sented the liquor seller, eyeing Govind askance. 'Mine had to be paid for, though some seem to think not. And paid high too, since the firework-makers were in the market for their squibs and crackers for to-morrow.'

A man lounging outside in the gutter laughed suddenly, viciously. 'They will find enough for _them_ anyhow, even if they _have_ the police at their tails!' he said, moving off with a defiant _salaam_ to the fat policeman.

'I would I had handcuffed a pair of them,' remarked the latter mildly.

''Twould have been one trouble, and 'tis well to save oneself what one can these hard times.'

'Trouble!' echoed a pa.s.ser-by, shaking his head, 'there will be no saving of that in Nushapore. Jan-Ali-shan hath returned and brought the plague, so folk say.'

The liquor seller turned in quick interest to the sergeant of police.

'Dost know if he hath returned?' he asked; for the loafer was a customer who owed money, and must be got hold of while money was in his pockets.

For answer the policeman chucked away his cigar end, stumbled off the dais of the shop, and stood to attention, as a figure rounded the angle of the next crossway street, followed by a crowd of ragged half-naked urchins. It was Jan-Ali-shan himself, washed, shaved, spruce, in a second-hand suit of _khaki_ uniform and a white helmet which he had redeemed from a p.a.w.nshop on the credit of his new appointment as foreman of works. Jan-Ali-shan, who, from sheer habit, had, on finding himself in the city with money in his pocket, gone straight for his old haunt. From the new resolutions, however, which with him always began with new work, he called for a 'gingerade plain' in a voice of authority, which made a little circle gather round him admiringly, as after humming a stave of 'Drink to me only with thine eyes,' while he was opening the bottle, he proceeded to pour its fizzing contents down his throat.

The interest of the crowd seemed to amuse him, he sate down on the plinth and drew out a handful of _pice_ in lordly fas.h.i.+on.

'Two anna, over an' above,' he said, holding up the coins, 'and I don't want no change. So which of you n.o.ble earls,' here he turned to his following of lads, 'is goin' to fight for the balance? You understand?

_Lurro abhi, jut put_, an' be _burra burra pailwan_ for two pice a 'ed (fight now immediately and be great heroes).'

The vile admixture of tongues seemed quite comprehensible to those acquainted with Jan-Ali-shan's methods, for two urchins stepped forward at once, and the rest joined with the other loungers to form a ring.

John Ellison, loafer, leant back against the wall at his ease.

'Now then, _nap_,'[6] he began, 'back to back fair and square. None o'

yer _n.i.g.g.e.r blarney_,[7] you young devil! Fight _seeda_,[8] or it ain't worth fightin' at all. And I won't 'ave no b.u.t.tin' in the stummick.

You're _pailwans m'henda nahin_ (heroes, not fighting rams). _Sumjha?_'

The boys professed to understand, and, having divested themselves of their last rag, stood like slim bronze statues in the sunlight.