The flame-gatherers

by Margaret Horton Potter

This causeway, a vast, stone bridge, supported on piers built up from the rocks below, balustraded to a height of five feet, and finished on each corner by watch-towers in which lookouts were always stationed, made the single approach to the otherwise impregnable plateau which formed in itself the entire principality of Mandu. Remarkable among Indian ruins to-day are those that crown the deserted height of this unique spot: temples, houses, and vast palaces of the most ancient times; and at the period of which we speak, the opening years of the thirteenth century, Mandu was in the heyday of its Indian glory, renowned throughout the West for its wealth, its power, and the righteousness of its rulers.

The rice harvest was just beginning, and the inhabitants of Mandu—Brahman, Vaisya, Sudra, and Pariah alike—were busily engaged in this toil of peace. The Kshatriyas, or warrior part of the population, were not in the minds of their fellows to-day; for at the end of the rains they had marched to the north on an expedition against an army of Mohammedans by whom their neighbors of Dhár were beset.

The great causeway was deserted save for its lookouts and a fakir who had chosen to light a harvest Ishti on the stones near the southwest tower. As the sun neared the horizon, however, the silence was broken by a sudden screaming of birds and monkeys in the wooded mountain gorge beyond the bridge. Two of the guards stretched themselves and looked out along the pass—looked, and were transfixed. Shrill trumpet-notes and the faint beating of hoofs along a rocky road became suddenly audible. The glint of spear-heads shone among the trees. Lastly came the tapping of the tiny saddle-drums. Two of the soldiers shouted together: “Avalu! They are coming!” and, leaping down to the bridge, started at breakneck pace toward the fields, crying as they ran: “The army! The soldiers! Lord Rajah! They are here! They have returned!”

The other two guards made no move to leave their advantageous posts. The Brahman, also, abandoning his invocation to Agni, mounted the nearest tower, to watch the arrival of his earthly ruler. He had scarcely taken up his position when the vanguard of returning warriors rode out upon the bridge, a glittering company, headed by the stateliest of figures, at whose approach the guards all but knelt in salute to their ruler, Rai-Khizar-Pál, Rajah of Mandu in the country of Malwa, a brave and noble king. Slightly behind him rode two other richly dressed men, mounted on beautiful horses, each of whom came in for some share of the acknowledgments of the guards,—Puran, captain of the troops, and Ragunáth, confidential adviser of the Rajah. Slowly, for the horses were fagged with long marching, the three passed over the bridge, followed by a lengthening train of officers and men, horse and foot, over whose robes of crimson and white and green played the last beams of the setting sun, sending off a dazzle of light from the rubies that fastened a long spray of white feathers to the turban of the Rajah.

By the time the first of the cavalcade had entered the broad road leading straight across the plateau to the palaces at its eastern end, throngs of field-workers and people of the town had begun to line the edges of the route; for the news of the army’s return had spread from one end of the plateau to the other, and men and women left their work and, stained and disordered with toil, rushed to the road to greet their ruler and their defenders. A well-built lot of people they were, by far the greater number of the men invested with the cord of the twice-born. And their king’s popularity was very evident from the welcome they were giving him. Men of the Brahman caste lifted their hands to him, Vaisyas fell upon their knees, and Sudras and Pariahs prostrated themselves upon the earth till he had passed. Then all stood gazing eagerly at the slow-moving file of troops. Jests, salutations, and words of welcome passed between the onlookers and the returning warriors; and the general spirit of joy was redoubled when it was found that the campaign, short as it had been, was also a victorious one. Evidences of victory presently became visible; for, at the end of the lines of foot-soldiers, came a long string of captives, many on foot, a few mounted upon mules, these last with their feet bound together by thongs passed round the animals, their arms tied behind them with ropes of hide, and the beasts themselves fastened together in a long chain. Beside this mounted company, who represented captives of station, rode a soldier armed with a triple-lashed whip, which he used with no great degree of compassion upon the backs of his charges.

These captives were greeted by the onlookers with shouts of triumph, but with no insults or even unfriendly remarks. The followers of the Prophet were still rather mythical enemies to these dwellers of the Dekhan. Mahmoud of Ghazni was a name they recognized; but Aybek, the great slave, who had just mounted the throne of Delhi, was as unreal to them as their own kings who had died three thousand years ago, in the first conquest of India. These captives now among them were tangible enough, but they presented too abject an appearance to give any idea of their force in battle. The chagrin of captivity, the many days of riding and walking, the intolerable suffering occasioned by their bonds, had broken the spirit of all save one, who rode at the head of the pitiable procession. He was young, this man, good to look on even in his unkempt state, and his clothes, through the stains of war and woe, showed their richness. He sat straight on his unsaddled mule, and his head was not bent down. He seemed to notice nothing of what passed around him, but kept his eyes fixed far ahead on the long, curving range of blackened mountains, lighted by the glow of the sunset sky that blazed behind them. His dignity and his unconsciousness made him a continual object of interest to the crowd, and the slave-master was under a running fire of questions which he was not slow to answer.

“He is a prince, a son of the enemy’s leader. He will bring a great ransom,” he repeated again and again, proudly.

Cheers never failed to follow the explanation; and, after some twenty minutes of this trial, the Arab’s head for the first time drooped, and a deep sigh broke from him.

“Let not my lord grieve,” whispered the person riding next behind him, a boy, scarcely more than fifteen years in age. “My lord will be ransomed.”

But the Mohammedan sighed again, making no answer; and the slave-master, overhearing the whisper, cut off the conversation with a quick stroke of his whip on the back of the boy, who bore it, as he bore all things for his Prince, without a sound.