A Soldier and a Gentleman/Chapter 8

EW natives of the North of India would find it difficult to change their appearance, so far as their heads are concerned. Under their turbans they wear long black hair, that can be twisted and tangled into knots or let fall disheveled. It took Dost Mohammed less than half a minute to make himself look like a devil, or a fakir—which is much the same thing—or anything he chose to call himself, except a soldier. He made the change, though, well out of eyesight of the Regiment, for his own pride’s sake.

A patch over one eye was easily arranged, and a cloth wrapped round his mouth prevented anyone from knowing whether or not his lips were horrible. But his clothing was a different matter. So was his horse.

Two things were certain. Gopi Lall had not taken with him, and could not have obtained, a charger such as Dost Mahommed’s; and Dost Mohammed would not think of starting on any kind of hunt without his horse.

The problem would have beaten any ordinary man. He did not dare, for instance, to borrow clothing from a villager, or to take it by main force, for news of such extraordinary conduct would have spread like wildfire, and if Gopi Lall should happen to be hiding anywhere within a radius of forty miles he would know within a day or less that an officer was after him disguised. Dost Mohammed had to find another way than that.

First, he let the troop ride out of sight of him. Then he picketed his horse in a hollow down among some trees, where he could not be overlooked. Nobody had troubled to ask him why he kept back a live goat from the tiny flock the Regiment had bought for sustenance, but now he proceeded to kill the beast, slicing off its head with one clean blow of his saber. Next he removed his stirrup irons and smeared them thoroughly with blood, and put more blood on the horse’s withers and on his mane. Then he smeared plenty of the blood about himself, and eyed the whole result.

It was good. Anyone might reasonably think that he had slain the horse’s rider and ridden off on him. He stripped off his uniform and cached it together with his scabbard; but the saber itself he kept, smearing it with blood and holding it naked in his hand.

After a cautious look around him, he mounted and spurred out of the hollow at a gallop, careering like a man possessed, and giving a good imitation of a rider frightened of his horse, or not at ease on him.

He drew the horse up on his haunches at the first hut he came to, left him standing, and sprang like a lunatic, bare legged and blood-smeared, to the hut door, which he proceeded to hammer with his saber hilt until the frightened owner came. The man was speechless from sheer amazement—Dost Mohammed speechless for reasons of his own. Instead of speaking, he began to tear the loin cloth from the man’s middle, hitting him a smart rap on the head with the saber hilt when he resisted. He had donned the loin cloth, leaped on his horse again, and ridden off before the man had time to more than realize that he had been attacked. Dost Mohammed left in the opposite direction to that his troop had taken, with the certainty in his mind that whether Gopi Lall were in the neighborhood or not the rumor of his being there would scatter broadcast within an hour.

He rode, now, to another hollow, and hid there until evening, with the double purpose of giving the rumor time to percolate, and the darkness a chance to hide what was probably a very poor resemblance to the robber. In the dark, with the story of his coming on ahead of him, he anticipated little or no risk of detection.

When the low moon rose above the tree tops and the jungle noises had begun to greet the night, he rode out again, but this time far more leisurely, taking little care to look about him, but keeping his ears open for the sound of forage parties from his own Regiment. Before he had ridden twenty minutes at a walk, a woman slipped out of the scrub beside him and brought him a cooked chicken, with the whispered information that the troopers were in camp for the night, many miles away.

He seized the chicken, broke off a leg, and devoured it hungrily.

“Where is she?” he demanded, taking care to growl surlily from behind his mouth cloth, and looking anywhere but at her.

“She waits at home.”

That was enough for the first try. This woman evidently knew Gopi Lall, and might possibly detect the disguise; but he had established one fact. There really was a particular one woman.

“So-ho!” thought Dost Mohammed. He drove his spurs in and decamped, cantering away without a word of thanks. He ran no risk in assuming that the real outlaw was a mighty ungrateful gentleman.

But “at home” was a vague direction, and soon he began almost to despair of ever getting nearer to the mark. No more women came to him surreptitiously, and the few shadowy forms he did see vanished the moment that he challenged them. He chased one man for nearly a quarter of a mile, only to lose him in the darkness—a piece of clumsiness for which he cursed himself soundly. Gopi Lall had a reputation for absolutely never missing anything or anybody, and, if he wanted to live on the outlaw’s record for a while, it seemed he would have to be less punctilious.

He had determined to ride down and run through the next man who failed to halt when challenged, instead of trying to capture him; but the next man seemed to guess his thougths, and threw up his hands, and went down on his knees, begging for mercy.

“Where is she I seek?” growled Dost Mohammed.

“Sahib—Heavenborn—Prince of dacoits—how should I know?”

“Answer, or—”

“Honorable one! Mercy! What have I done? What have I not done? I saw her but an hour ago, and she was yet there. But how do I know that she is there now?”

“Thou liest!”

“Nay, nay, Heavenborn! Tiger of the hills! How should I lie, who truly fear thee? I say I saw her—I say truth.”

“I say thou liest!”

“If I lie, oh Gopi Lall—”

It was well! The disguise had worked so far at all events, and the rumor had spread, and there really was a woman!

“Harken! It is not my view to let men lie to me unpunished. Lead on! In case she be not there, pray to thy gods on the way thither, Jungli!”

“But, Heavenborn, I was going home—but a little way from here—my children wait—my little ones—my—”

“Lead on!”

“But, Prince of plunderers, let me go just one little minute to my home. I would warn my children; then I will go with thee willingly.”

The saber whistled round the wretch’s head, close enough to have shaved him had his beard been two days older. No Gopi Lall, nor any other expert, could have performed that feat better. The man’s complaints came to a sudden end. He turned and settled down to run in front of the horse.

Under the cloth that hid his mouth, Dost Mohammed chuckled to himself; but he rode carefully, with his saber pointing downward to the peasant’s back and with his ears and eyes on the alert. Three times they passed other men walking homeward, and because he did not challenge them, they made profound obeisance instead of running. One man even lay face downward on the path and beat the earth with flattened hands.

“The Colonel sahib was right,” swore Dost Mohammed. “Too much honor is not good! As a soldier and a man of honor no man ever treated me to this.”

For the best part of an hour they moved into the darkness as fast as the frightened peasant could run, Dost Mohammed noting his bearing carefully with the aid of the compass that every true fighting man should carry in his head. They were moving in a direction at right angles to that the extended troops had taken; before long, he calculated, he would cross a line between the Tail- Twisters and their quarters at Rajahbatkhowa.

They reached a clearing in the jungle, and there Dost Mahommed chose to stop and feed his horse.

“But, Heavenborn, why do this here? With but a quarter of a coss to go, and safety there, why wait?”

“An excellent reason!” thought Dost Mohammed. “Allah knows what will happen when I get there! Chup!” he growled aloud.

“The Heavenborn knows best.”

“Chup! I ordered. Black earthworm!”

Twenty minutes later they went on again, and in less than five minutes after that they emerged into another clearing where a hut loomed darkly in the misty moonlight.

“There, Prince of plunderers! Said I not so? She waits!”

“Then go thy way and thank thy jungle gods!”

The man was gone more quickly than a frightened jackal; he turned, tucked his head down, and was gone. Dost Mohammed, with the cloth about his face drawn even higher yet, rode on.

“Oh, Gopi Lall?” It was not a soft voice.

“Quietly!” growled the Rajput.

He dismounted by a low fence, and stood waiting on the near side of his horse, fumbling with the stirrup.

“There are none here who listen. Thou mayest trust me! The troops—may Allah whelm them—are miles away. Oh, Gopi Lall, thou greatest fool of fools! You trust that woman, who is naught but a tigress and an enemy, while I, who truly love thee, wait alone. Come—eat, beloved.”

“How knowest thou where I have been?” He answered huskily, and stood behind the horse where the moonlight could not fall on him.

“They have harmed thee? What is that? Thy throat? My Prince of—”

“Silence! The hurt is nothing. I asked, how knowest thou where I have been?”

“How! Hear him! Who sent thee all those messages? Who waits for thee always? Who but Yasmini? Sahib—Heavenborn—my lord! Trust not that tigress instead of me! She will slay thee in the dark, or hand thee over. She is thine enemy—naught else!”

Dost Mohammed, wondering what the real outlaw would have done if given such advice, took a chance and laughed. It seemed he had guessed right, for the woman behaved as if she quite expected it.

“Aye, laugh! Laugh on! Did she laugh, think you, when you slew her lover? Think you she forgot? Think you she came here from the distant North to sing you love songs? Bah! Thou art a madman, Gopi Lall! Thy head is turned by flattery. When did I ever flatter thee? Therefore, I who love thee wait alone, while she, who lies and lies and lies again, gets thee ever tighter in her clutches! Thou fool of fools!”

But Dost Mohammed knew enough. His thoughts came quick as lightning. The Regiment was twenty miles away, and in the wrong direction. To Rajahbatkhowa was roughly forty miles, and his charger was fresh enough to make the distance; for all his height the Rajput was a lightweight, and he could ride as only a born horseman of the North can. He was mounted and away, and thanking God that he had fed his horse, before the woman knew that he was starting; and a minute later he was down tight in the saddle, headed straight for the mess tent where his Colonel ought to be.

Ten minutes after he had gone, a dozen troopers burst in from the jungle and made the woman prisoner. They had with them the trembling peasant who had served as guide for Dost Mohammed.

“Where is thy man, Gopi Lall?” they demanded. But they might as well have asked the dead. Now the woman understood why he had galloped off without a word, and more than ever she idolized her robber lord, who could hear and see with his one eye so infinitely better than the eagles! She only prayed that he had not ridden off to Yasmini.

They questioned and cross questioned her for fifteen minutes, and threatened her with coarse military-Rajput oaths; but all her answers were denials.

“Good for thee,” said a Rissaldar at last, turning to the trembling guide, “that we found thee on our way to camp, and not twenty miles from here! We would have hanged thee else. Go!”

And with that they booted him and spurred him and lance-pummeled him and chased him to the roadway.