Caste

by William Alexander Fraser

CHAPTER XVIII

Dewan Sewlal was in a shiver of apprehension over the killing of the two sepoys; there would be trouble over this if the Resident came to know of it.

But Hunsa had assured him that the soldiers and their saddles had been buried in the pit with the others, and that nobody but the decoits knew of their advent.

Then when he learned that Ajeet Singh had been to the Resident he was in a panic. But as that British official made no move, said nothing about the decoity, he fancied that perhaps Ajeet had not mentioned this, in fact he had no proof that he had made a confession at all. But Ajeet's complicity in the decoity where the merchant and his men had been killed, gave the Dewan just what he had planned for—the power of death over the Chief. As to his own complicity he had taken care to speak of the decoity to no one but Hunsa. The yogi had been inspired, of course, but the yogi would not appear as a witness against him, and Hunsa would not, because it would cost him his head.

So now, at a hint from Nana Sahib, the Dewan seized upon Ajeet, voicing a righteous indignation at his crime of decoity, and gave him the alternative of being strangled with a bow-string or forcing the Gulab to go to the camp of Amir Khan to betray him. Not only would Ajeet be killed, but Bootea would be thrust into the seraglio, and the other Bagrees put in prison—some might be killed. Ajeet was forced to yield to these threats. The very complicity of the Dewan made him the more hurried in this thing. Also he wanted to get the Bagrees away to the Pindari camp before the Resident made a move.

The mission to Amir Khan would be placed in the hands of Hunsa and Sookdee, Ajeet being retained as a pawn; also his wound had incapacitated him. He was nominally at liberty, though he knew well that if he sought to escape the Mahrattas would kill him.

The jewels that had been stolen from the merchant were largely retained by the Bagrees, though the Dewan found, one night, very mysteriously, a magnificent string of pearls on his pillow. He did not ask questions, and seemingly no one of his household knew anything about the pearls.

When the yogi asked Hunsa about the ruby, the Akbar Lamp, Hunsa, who had determined to keep it himself, as, perhaps, a ransom for his life in that troublous time, declared that in the turmoil of the coming of the soldiers he had not found it. Indeed this seemed reasonable, for he, having fled down the road to the Gulab, had not been there when they had opened the box and looted it.

So the Dewan sent for Ajeet, Hunsa and Sookdee, and declared that if the Bagree contingent of murder did not start at once for the Pindari camp he would have them taken up for the decoity.

It was Ajeet who answered the Dewan: "Dewan Sahib, we be men who undertake all things in the favour of Bhowanee, and we make prayer to that goddess. If the Dewan will give fifty rupees for our pooja, to-morrow we will make sacrifice to her, for without the feast and the sacrifice the signs that she would vouchsafe would be false. Then we will take the signs and the men will go at once."

"You shall have the money," the Dewan declared: "but do not delay."

That evening the Bagrees made their way to a mango grove for the feast, carrying cocoanuts, raw sugar, flour, butter, and a fragrant gum, goojul. A large hole was dug in the ground and filled with dry cow-dung chips which were set on fire. Sweet cakes were baked on the fire and then broken into small pieces, a portion of the fire raked to one side, and their priest sprinkled upon it the fragrant gum, calling in a loud voice: "Maha Kali, assist and guide us in our expedition. Keep calamity from us who worship Thee, and have made this feast in Thy honour. Give us the sign, that we may know if it is agreeable to Thee that we destroy the enemy of Maharaja Sindhia."

When the Bagrees had eaten much cooked rice and meat-balls, which were served on plantain leaves, they drank robustly of mhowa spirit, first spilling some of this liquor upon the ground in the name of the goddess.

The strong rank native liquor roused an enthusiasm for their approaching interview of the sacred one. Once Ajeet laid his hand upon the pitcher that Hunsa was holding to his coarse lips, and pressing it downward, admonished:

"Hunsa, whilst Bhowanee does not prohibit, it is an offence to approach her except in devout silence."

The surly one flared up at this; his ungovernable rage drew his hand to a knife in his belt, and his eyes blazed with the ferocity of a wounded tiger.

"Ajeet," he snarled, "you are now Chief, but you are not Raja to command slaves."

With a swift twist of his wrist Ajeet snatched the pitcher from the hand of Hunsa, saying: "Jamadar, it is the liquor that is in you, therefore you have had enough."

But Hunsa sprang to his feet and his knife gleamed like the spitting of fire in the slanting rays of the setting sun, as he drove viciously at the heart of his Chief. There was a crash as the blade struck and pierced the matka which Ajeet still held by its long neck.

There was a scream of terror from the throats of the women; a cry of horror from the Guru at this sacrilege—the spilling of liquor upon the earth in anger at the feast of Bhowanee.

Ajeet's strong fingers, slim bronzed lengths of steel, had gripped the wrist of his assailant as Bootea, darting forward, laid a hand upon the arm of Hunsa, crying, "Shame! shame! You are like sweepers of low caste—eaters of carrion, they who respect not Bhowanee. Shame! you are a dog—a tapper of liquor!"

At the touch of the Gulab on his arm, and the scorn in her eyes, Hunsa shivered and drew back, his head hanging in abasement, but his face devilish in its malignity.

Ajeet, taking a brass dish, poured water upon the hand that had gripped the wrist of Hunsa, saying, "Thus I will cleanse the defilement." Then he sat down upon his heels, adding: "Guru, holy one, repeat a prayer to appease Bhowanee, then we will go into the jungle and take the auspices."

The Guru strode over to Hunsa, and holding out his thin skinny palm commanded, "Jamadar, from you a rupee; and to-morrow I will put upon the shrine of Kali cocoanuts and sweet-meats and marigolds as peace offerings."

Hunsa took from his loin cloth a silver coin and dropped it surlily in the outstretched hand, sneering: "To Bhowanee you will give four annas, and you will feast to the value of twelve annas, for that is the way of your craft. The vultures always finish the bait when the tiger has been slain."

Soon the feathery lace work of bamboos beneath which they sat were whispering to the night-wind that had roused at the dropping of the huge ball of fire in the west, and the soft radiance of a gentle moon was gilding with silver the gaunt black arms of a babool. Then the priest said: "Come, jamadars, we now will go deeper into the silent places and listen for the voice of Bhowanee."

He untangled from the posture of sitting his parchment-covered matter of bones, and carrying in one hand a brocaded bag of black velvet and in the other a staff, with bowed head and mutterings started deeper into the jungle of cactus and slim whispering bamboo, followed by Ajeet, Sookdee and Hunsa. Presently he stopped, saying, "Sit you in a line, brave chiefs, facing the great temple of Siva, which is in the mountains of the East, so that the voice of Bhowanee coming out of the silent places and from the mouth of the jackal or the jackass, shall be known to be from the right or the left, for thus will be the interpretation."

The priest took his place in front of the jamadars, sitting with his back to them, and placed upon the ground, first a white cloth of cotton, and then the velvet bag, upon which rested a silver pickaxe.

When Ajeet saw the pickaxe he said angrily: "That is the emblem of thugs; we be decoits, not stranglers, Guru."

"They are equal in honour with Bhowanee," the Guru replied: "they slay for profit, even as you do, and among you are those who are thugs, for I minister to both."

Then the Guru buried his shrivelled skull in his thin hands and drooped forward in silent listening. Ajeet objected no more, and in the new silence they could hear the shrill rasping of cicadae in the foliage of a gigantic elephant-creeper, that, like a huge python, crawled its way from branch to branch, sprawling across a dozen stately trees. From somewhere beyond was a steady "tonk! tonk! tonk!"—like the beat of wood against a hollow pipe—of the little green-plumaged coppersmith bird. A honey-badger came timorously creeping, his feet shuffling the fallen leaves, peered at the strange figures of the men, and, at the move of an arm, fled scurrying through the stillness with the noise of some great creature.

Suddenly the jungle was stilled, even from the voice of the rasping cicadae; the leaves had ceased to whisper, for the wind had hushed. The devotees could hear the beating of their hearts in the strain of waiting for a manifestation from the dread goddess. The white-robed figure of the Guru was like a shrivelled statue of alabaster where the faint moon picked it out in blotches as the light filtered through leaves above.

Sookdee gasped in terror as just above them a tiny tree owl called, "Whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo!" as if he jeered. But Ajeet knew that that, in their belief, was a sign of encouragement, meaning not overmuch, but not an evil omen. From far off floated up on the dead night air the belling note of a startled cheetal, and almost at once the harsh, grating, angry roar of a leopard, as though he had struck for the throat of the stag and missed. These were but jungle voices, not in the curriculum of their pantheistic belief, so the Guru and the Bagrees sat in silence, and no one spoke.

Then, the night carried the faint trembling moan of a jackal, as the
Guru knew, a female jackal, coming from a distance on the left.

"Oo-oo-oo-oo-oo! Aye-aye! yi-yi-yi-yi!" the jackal wailed, the note rising to a fiendish crescendo; and then suddenly it hushed and there was only a ghastly silence in the jungle depths.

The white-clothed, ghost-like priest sprang to his feet, and with his lean left arm stretched high in suppliance, said: "Bhowanee, thou hast vouchsafed to thy devotees the pilsao. We will strew thy shrine with flowers and sweetmeats."

He turned to the jamadars who had risen, saying, "Bhowanee is pleased; the suspicies are favourable; had the call of the jackal been from the right it would have been the tibao and we should have had to wait until the sweet goddess gave us another sign. Now we may go back, and perhaps she will confirm this omen as we go."

Hunsa, always possessed of a mean disposition, and still sulky over the encounter with Ajeet, was in an evil mood as they trudged through the jungle to their camp. When Ajeet spoke of the priest's success in his appeal, he snarled: "The hangman always advises the one who is to have his neck stretched that he is better off dead."

"What do you mean by that?" Ajeet queried.

"Just that you are not going on this mission, Ajeet;" then he laughed disagreeably.

"If you are afraid to go Sookdee will be well without you," Ajeet retorted.

Before more could be said in this way, and as they approached the camp, the lowing of a cow was heard.

"Dost hear that, Guru?" Hunsa queried. "In a decoity is not the lowing of a cow in a village held to be an evil omen?"

"Not so, Hunsa," the Priest declared. "It is an evil omen if the decoity is to be made on the village in which the cow raises her voice, but we are going to our own camp in peace, and it is a voice of approval."

"As to that," Ajeet commented, "if Hunsa is right, it is written in our code of omens that hearing a cow call thus simply means that one of the party making the decoity will be killed; perhaps as he was the one to notice it, the evil will fall upon him."

"You'd like that," Hunsa growled.

"Not being given to lies, it would not displease me, for, as the hangman said, you would be better dead."

But they were now at their camp, and the jamadars, standing together for a little, settled it that the omens being favourable, and the wrath of the Dewan feared, they would take the way to the Pindari camp next day.