Part 8 (1/2)
Hunsa tipped his gorilla body forward from where it rested on his heels as he sat, and his lowering eyes were sullen with impatience:
”Chief Ajeet,” he snarled, ”think you that we can rob the _seth_ of his treasure without an outcry--and if there is an outcry, that he will not go back to those of his caste in Poona, and when trouble is made, think you that the Dewan will thank us for the bungling of this? And as to the matter of a thug or a decoit, half our men have been taught the art of the strangler. With these,”--and extending his ma.s.sive arms he closed his coa.r.s.e hands in a gnarled grip,--”with these I would, with one sharp in-turn on the _roomal_, crack the neck of the merchant and he would be dead in the taking of a breath. And, Ajeet, if this that is the manner of men causes you fear--”
”Hunsa,” and Ajeet's voice was constrained in its deadliness, ”that a.s.s's voice of yours will yet bring you to grief.”
But Sookdee interposed:
”Let us not quarrel,” he said. ”Ajeet no doubt has in his mind Bootea as I have Meena. And it would be well if the two were sent on the road in the cart, and when our work is completed we will follow. Indeed they may know nothing but that there is some jewel, such as women love, to be given them.”
”Look you,” cried Hunsa thrusting his coa.r.s.e hand out toward the road, ”even Bhowanee is in favour. See you not the jackal?”
Turning their eyes in the direction Hunsa indicated, a jackal was seen slinking across the road from right to left.
”Indeed it is an omen,” Sookdee corroborated; ”if on our journeys to commit a decoity that is always a good omen.”
”And there is the voice!” Hunsa exclaimed, as the tremulous lowing of a cow issued from the village.
He waved a beckoning hand to Guru Lal, for they had brought with them their tribal priest as an interpreter of omens chiefly. ”Is not the voice of the cow heard at sunset a good omen, Guru?” he demanded.
”Indeed it is,” the priest affirmed. ”If the voice of a cow is heard issuing at twilight from a village at which decoits are to profit, it is surely a promise from Bhowanee that a large store of silver will be obtained.”
”Take thee to thy prayers, Guru,” Ajeet commanded, ”for we have matters to settle.” He turned to Sookdee. ”Your omens will avail little if there is prosecution over the disappearance of the merchant. I am supposed to be in command, the leader, but I am the led. But I will not withdraw, and it is not the place of the chief to handle the _roomal_. We will eat our food, and after the evening prayers will sit about the fire and amuse this merchant with stories such as honest men and holy ones converse in, that he may be at peace in his mind. As Sookdee says, the women will be sent to the grove of trees we came through on the road.”
”We will gather about the fire of the merchant,” Sookdee declared, ”for it is in the mango grove and hidden from sight of the villagers. Also a guard will be placed between here and the village, and one upon the roadway.”
”And while we hold the merchant in amus.e.m.e.nt,” Hunsa added, ”men will dig the pits here, two of them, each within a tent so that they will not be seen at work.”
”Yes, Ajeet,” Sookdee said with a suspicion of a sneer, ”we will give the merchant the consideration of a decent burial, and not leave him to be eaten by jackals and hyenas as were the two soldiers you finished with your sword when we robbed the camel transport that carried the British gold in Oudh.”
”If it is to be, cease to chatter like jays,” Ajeet answered crossly.
In keeping with their a.s.sumed characters, the evening meal was ushered in with a peace-shattering clamour from the drums and a raucous blare from conch-sh.e.l.l horns. Then the devout murderers offered up prayers of fervency to the great G.o.d, beseeching their more immediate branch of the deity, Bhowanee, to protect them.
And at the same time, just within the mud walls of Sarorra, its people were placing flowers and cocoanuts and sweetmeats upon the shrine of the G.o.d of their village.
Just without the village gate the elephant-nosed Ganesh sat looking in whimsical good nature across his huge paunch toward the place of crime, the deep shadow that lay beneath the green-leafed mango trees.
In the hearts of the Bagrees there was unholy joy, an eager antic.i.p.ation, a gladsome feeling toward Bhowanee who had certainly guided this rapacious merchant with his iron box full of jewels to their camp.
Indeed they would sacrifice a buffalo at her temple of Kajuria, for that was the habit of their clan when the booty was great. The taking of life was but an incident. In Hindustan humans came up like flies, returning over and over to again enc.u.mber the crowded earth. In the vicissitudes of life before long the merchant would pa.s.s for a reincorporation of his soul, and probably, because of his sins as an oppressor of the poor, come back as a turtle or a jacka.s.s; certainly not as a revered cow--he was too unholy. In the gradation of humans he was but a merchant of the caste of the third dimension in the great quartette of castes. It would not be like killing a Brahmin, a sin in the sight of the great G.o.d.
This philosophy was as subtle as the perfume of a rose, unspoken, even at the moment a floaty thought. Like their small hands and their erect air of free-men, the Rajput atmosphere, it had grown into their created being, like the hunting instinct of a Rampore hound.
The merchant, smoking his _hookah_, having eaten, observed with keen satisfaction the evening devotions of the supposed mendicants. As it grew dark their guru was offering up a prayer to the Holy Cow, for she was to be wors.h.i.+pped at night. The merchant's appreciation was largely a worldly one, a business sense of insurance--safety for his jewels and nothing to pay for security--men so devout would have the G.o.ds in their mind and not robbery. When the jamadars, and some of the Bagrees who were good story tellers, and one a singer, did him the honour of coming to sit at his camp-fire he was pleased.
”Sit you here at my right,” he said to Hunsa, for he conceived him to be captain of the Raja's guard.
Sookdee and the others, without apparent motive, contrived it so that a Bagree or two sat between each of the merchant's men, engaging them in pleasant speech, tendering tobacco. And, as if in modesty, some of the Bagrees sat behind the retainers.
”This is indeed a courtesy,” the merchant a.s.sured Hunsa; ”a poor trader feels honoured by a visit from so brave a soldier as the captain of the Raja's guard.”