When the moon rose, the three conspirators bound up the body and carried it down to one of the fields, there they carefully uprooted each stalk, each distinct plant, growing over the surface of what was to form the future grave, which was next excavated, and Johar, the son of Turroo, was dropped into the hole, his whistle flung contemptuously after him, and both were presently covered up with earth—and wheat.
The burying-party returned to the hut, where Naim Sing inflicted a small wound on his leg with a cut of his tulwar, in order to support the statement he proposed making to the authorities, that Johar had attacked him with murderous intent, and, having failed in his effort, fled. Next morning Naim Sing called on the Tehel-seldhar and made his report, and the Tehel-seldhar despatched a tokdar (responsible official for a cluster of villages) to take steps for the capture of Johar, the son of Turroo. But Johar was not to be found, or even heard of, and his own family became seriously alarmed, and suspected foul play. If he had fled and departed on a long journey, wherefore had he left his boots, clothes, and money behind? The connections of Naim Sing were powerful, their pirohet, or family priest, his personal friend—rumour and suspicion were strangled—but there were grave whispers round the fires in the huts, all over the hills: what had befallen Johar, the son of Turroo?
However, a murder was a common event. Blood-feuds were acknowledged, and soon the circumstance was allowed to fade into oblivion by all but Rateeban, a lame man, Johar’s twin brother, who took a solemn oath at Gutkoo temple to avenge him. He suspected Durali; he watched her and her house by stealth. Why was one small corner of the wheat-field uncut? He made her overtures of friendship, he flattered, he fawned; by dint of judicious questions, and even more judicious information, Rateeban gained his end. Oh, false love! Oh, treachery! Oh, woman! it was the beautiful Durali who led Rateeban to his brother’s grave, who showed him the blood splashes on the cowshed walls, who told him the truth. Yes, jealousy is doubtless as cruel as the grave. Durali had capitulated and given her long-beleaguered heart wholly to Naim Sing—his eloquence, good looks, prowess,—ay, and presents,—had carried the citadel, and lo! the dead man’s words were verified. Naim Sing had already a wife at Huldwani, a bold dark woman of the plains, to whom he was secretly wed by strictest and securest ceremonial.
To the amazement and indignation of himself and his kinsmen, Naim Sing was arrested and carried to Almora jail, there to await his trial; his friends and connections (who were many and powerful) made a desperate attempt to secure his release; bribes, and even threats, were used; but what could avail against the evidence of the treacherous Durali?—and the evidence of the dead body? Yes, Naim Sing, the champion wrestler, the leading youth in his district, handsome, popular, rich, in the full zenith of his days and vigour, was bound to be despatched to the dark muggy shores of the Salween river, and end his existence ingloriously in Moulmein jail. Never again would he take part in a wrestling-match, or breast his native mountains and chase the ibex and makor; his beloved hills, and his ancestral home, would know him no more. Rateeban, Johar’s lame brother, would have preferred the blood of his enemy, but was fain to be contented with his sentence, “Transportation for life.” He exulted savagely in his revenge, and actually accompanied the gang of wretched prisoners the whole march of ninety miles to the railroad—on foot—in order that he might enjoy the ecstasy of gloating over his foe in chains! Each day at sundown, when the party halted, Rateeban came and stood opposite to Naim Sing, and, leaning on his stick, mocked him. It was rumoured that Rateeban was not the sole voluntary escort, but that a woman, veiled, and riding a stout grey pony, stealthily followed the party afar off! It was Durali, who, when it was too late, was distracted with penitence and anguish. Her remorse was eating away her very heart—but to what avail now?
Huldwani is a large, populous native town on the edge of the Terai, a few miles from the foot of the hills, and here a frantic creature awaited the prisoners, or rather the prisoner Naim Sing. She tore her hair, she beat her head upon the ground, and Naim Sing was not unmoved—no. Then she lifted up her hands and her voice, and cursed with hideous screaming curses “that woman who had wrought this great shame and wickedness—that other woman on the hills!” And the other woman, having heard with her ears and seen with her eyes, turned back and retraced those weary ninety miles, now more in anger than in sorrow,—for such is human nature.
In less than twelve months, the news came to the hills that Naim Sing had died in Moulmein prison, the death certificate said of atrophia, but his father and brethren called it a broken heart. “He was ever too wild a bird for a cage,” proclaimed his kinsmen and friends; and within a short time he was as completely forgotten as Johar, whom he had slain, and Durali, whom he had deceived, and who had disappeared.
After a lapse of twenty years, two men belonging to the village where Rateeban lived, returned from a pilgrimage, and announced that at the great fair at Hardwar, on the Ganges, they had seen Naim Sing—who had saluted them as Brahmins. He had with him three horses, and a woman—his wife—and looked in good health, and prosperous. Rateeban, at first angrily incredulous, finally determined to investigate this matter in person, and once more travelled the wearisome ninety miles which lay between his home and the railway. Though every step was painful, he heeded it not, such is the power of hate! With inexhaustible patience, he followed clue after clue; he searched for nearly three months, and was at last rewarded by success. Back up to the hills, to a distant village in Gurwalh, among the spectators at a great wrestling-match, he tracked and found Naim Sing!—Naim Sing, surprisingly little changed. Where were the signs of convict labour, the marks of irons, and of that life that burns into a man’s soul? He looked somewhat older, his temples were bald, but his figure was as upright, his foot as firm, his eye as keen as ever. Rateeban swore to him, with fervour, as an escaped convict, and had him instantly arrested. There was no doubt of his identity; there was the self-inflicted scar on his leg, the bone in his arm which had been broken by wrestling. The criminal was brought back to Almora, in order to be arraigned for unlawful return from transportation, and tried under section 226 of the Indian Penal Code.
The tidings of the resurrection and return of Naim Sing was passed by word of mouth from village to village. His father and brethren, his friends and relations, and those of Johar and Rateeban, and, in short, everybody’s friends, flocked into Almora to attend the trial. The case was heard in the court-house, which stands within the old fort; and not only was the court itself crammed to suffocation, but the crowds overflowed the surrounding enclosure, even down the narrow stone steps, and away into the streets. Thousands and thousands were assembled, and as the days went on the interest quickened, and the case became a matter of furious contention between two factions—for and against: the party who declared the culprit was indeed the real, true, and only Naim Sing, and the party who swore that he was not. Fierce feuds were engendered, torrents of abuse and angry blows were exchanged,—blood was freely shed.
All Kumaon and Gurwalh had encompassed Almora like an invading army, and Kumaon, Gurwalh, and the respectable Goorka station itself, were in an uproar, and seething like a witches’ cauldron.