Driftwood Spars Part 28

"Fair cautions, ain't they, these bloomin' n.i.g.g.e.rs," observed Mr. Horace f.a.ggit, as the train rested and refreshed itself at a wayside station on its weary way to distant Gungapur.

Colonel Wilberforce Wriothesley, of the 99th Baluch Light Infantry, apparently did not feel called upon to notice the remark of Horace, whom he regarded as a Person.

"Makes you proud to think you are one of the Ruling Rice to look at the silly blighters, don't it?" he persisted.

"No authority on rice," murmured the Colonel, without looking up from his book.

Stuffy old beggar he seemed to the friendly and genial Horace, but Horace was too deeply interested in India and Horace to be affected by trifles.

For Mr. Horace f.a.ggit had only set foot in his Imperial Majesty the King Emperor's Indian Empire that month, and he was dazed with impressions, drunk with sensations, and uplifted with pride. Was he not one of the Conquerors, a member of the Superior Society, one of the Ruling Race, and, in short, a Somebody?

The train started again and Horace sank back upon the long couch of the unwonted first-cla.s.s carriage, and sighed with contentment and satisfaction.

How different from Peckham and from the offices of the fine old British Firm of Schneider, Schnitzel, Schnorrer & Schmidt! A Somebody at last--after being office-boy, clerk, strap-hanger, gallery-patron, cheap lodger, and paper-collar wearer. A Somebody, a Sahib, an English gent., one of the Ruling and Upper Cla.s.s after being a fourpenny luncher, a penny-'bus-and-twopenny--tuber, a waverer 'twixt Lockhart and Pearce-and-Plenty.

For him, now, the respectful salaam, precedence, the first-cla.s.s carriage, the salutes of police and railway officials, hotels, a servant (elderly and called a "Boy"), cabs (more elderly and called "gharries"), first-cla.s.s refreshment and waiting rooms, a funny but imposing sun-helmet, silk and cotton suits, evening clothes, deference, regard and prompt attention everywhere. Better than Peckham and the City, this!

My! What tales he'd have to tell Gwladwys Gwendoline when he had completed his circuit and returned.

For Mr. Horace f.a.ggit, plausible, observant, indefatigably cunning, and in business most capable ("No bloomin' flies on 'Orris F." as he would confidently and truthfully a.s.sure you) was the first tentative tentacle advanced to feel its way by the fine old British Firm of Schneider, Schnitzel, Schnorrer & Schmidt, in the mazy markets of the gorgeous Orient, and to introduce to the immemorial East their famous jewellery and wine of Birmingham and Whitechapel respectively; also to introduce certain exceeding-private doc.u.ments to various gentlemen of Teutonic sympathies and activities in various parts of India--doc.u.ments of the nature of which Horace was entirely ignorant.

And the narrow bosom of Horace swelled with pride, as he realized that, here at least, he was a Gentleman and a Sahib.

Well, he'd let 'em know it too. Those who did him well and pleased him should get tips, and those who didn't should learn what it was to earn the displeasure of the Sahib and to evoke his wrath. And he would endeavour to let all and sundry see the immeasurable distance and impa.s.sable gulf that lay between a Sahib and a n.i.g.g.e.r--of any degree whatsoever.

This was the country to play the gentleman in and no error! You _could_ fling your copper cash about in a land where a one-and-fourpenny piece was worth a hundred and ninety-two copper coins, where you could get a hundred good smokes to stick in your face for about a couple of bob, and where you could give a black cabby sixpence and done with it. Horace had been something of a Radical at home (and, indeed, when an office-boy, a convinced Socialist), especially when an old-age pension took his lazy, drunken old father off his hands, and handsomely rewarded the aged gentleman for an unswervingly regular and unbroken career of post-polis.h.i.+ng and pub-pillaring. But now he felt he had been mistaken.

Travel widens the horizon and cla.s.s-hatred is only sensible and satisfactory when you are no cla.s.s yourself. When you have got a position you must keep it up--and being one of the Ruling Race was a position undoubtedly. Horace f.a.ggit _would_ keep it up too, and let 'em see all about it.

The train entered another station and drew in from the heat and glare to the heat and comparative darkness.

Yes, he would keep up his position as a Sahib haughtily and with jealousy,--and he stared with terrible frown and supercilious hauteur at what he mentally termed a big, fat buck-n.i.g.g.e.r who dared and presumed to approach the carriage and look in. The man wore an enormous white turban, a khaki Norfolk jacket, white jodhpore riding-breeches that fitted the calf like skin, and red shoes with turned-up pointed toes.

His beard was curled, and his hair hung in ringlets from his turban to his shoulders in a way Horace considered absurd. Could the blighter be actually looking to see whether there might be room for him, and meditating entry? If so Horace would show him his mistake. Pretty thing if n.i.g.g.e.rs were to get into First-Cla.s.s carriages with Sahibs like Horace!

"'Ere! What's the gaime?" he inquired roughly. "Can't yer see this is Firs-Cla.s.s, and if you got a Firs-Cla.s.s ticket, can't yer see there's two Sahibs 'ere? Sling yer 'ook, _sour_.[59] Go on, _jao!_"[60]

[59] Pig.

[60] Go away.

The man gave no evidence of having understood Horace.

"Sahib!" said he softly, addressing Colonel Wilberforce Wriothesley.

The Colonel went on reading.

"_Jao_, I tell yer," repeated Horace, rather proud of his grasp of the vernacular. "Slope, _barnshoot_."[61]

[61] An insulting epithet.

"Sahib!" said the man again.

The Colonel looked up and then sprang to his feet with outstretched hand.

"_Bahut salaam_,[62] Subedar Major Saheb," he cried, and wrung the hand of the "big fat buck-n.i.g.g.e.r" (who possessed the same medal-ribbons that he himself did) as he poured forth a torrent of mingled Pushtu, Urdu, and English while the Native Officer alternately saluted and pressed the Colonel's hand to his forehead in transports of pure and wholly disinterested joy.

[62] Hearty greeting.

"They told me the Colonel Sahib would be pa.s.sing through this week," he said, "and I have met all the trains that I might look upon his face. I am weary of my furlough and would rejoin but for my law-suit. Praise be to Allah that I have met my Colonel Sahib," and the man who had five war decorations was utterly unashamed of the tear that trickled.

"How does my son, Sahib?" he asked in Urdu.

"Well, Subedar Major Saheb, well. Worthily of his father--whose place in the _pultan_ may he come to occupy."

"Praise be to G.o.d, Sahib! Let him no more seek his father's house nor look upon his father's face again, if he please thee not in all things.

And is there good news of Malet-Marsac Sahib, O Colonel Sahib?" Then, with a glance at Horace, he asked: "Why does this low-born one dare to enter the carriage of the Colonel Sahib and sit? Truly the _relwey terain_ is a great caste-breaker! Clearly he belongs to the cla.s.s of the _ghora-log_, the common soldiers." ...

"'Oo was that,--a Rajah?" inquired the astounded Horace, as the train moved on.

"One of the people who keep India safe for you bagmen," replied the Colonel, who was a trifle indignant on behalf of the insulted Subedar Major Mir Daoud Khan Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan of the 99th Baluch Light Infantry.

"No doubt he thought I was another officer," reflected Horace. "They think you're a gent, if you chivvy 'em."

At Umbalpur Colonel Wilberforce Wriothesley left the train and Mr.

f.a.ggit had the carriage to himself--for a time.

And it was only through his own firmness and proper pride that he had it to himself for so long, for at the very next station a beastly little brute of a black man actually tried to get in--in with _him_, Mr. Horace f.a.ggit of the fine old British Firm of Schneider, Schnitzel, Schnorrer & Schmidt, manufacturers of best quality Birmingham jewellery and "importers" of a fine Whitechapel wine.

But Horace settled _him_ all right and taught him to respect Sahibs. It happened thus. Horace lay idly gazing at the ever-s.h.i.+fting scene of the platform in lordly detachment and splendid isolation, when, just as the train was starting, a little fat man, dressed in a little red turban like a cotton bowler, a white coat with a white sash over the shoulder, a white ap.r.o.n tucked up behind, pink silk socks, and patent leather shoes, told his servant to open the door. Ere the stupefied Horace could arise from his seat the man was climbing in! The door opened inwards however, and Horace was in time to give it a sharp thrust with his foot and send the little man, a mere Judge of the High Court, staggering backwards on to the platform where he sprawled at full length, while his turban, which Horace thought most ridiculous for a grown man, rolled in the dust. Slamming the door the "Sahib" leant out and jeered, while the insolent presumptuous "n.i.g.g.e.r" wiped the blood from his nose with a corner of the _dhoti_ or ap.r.o.n-like garment (which Horace considered idiotic if not improper)....

But Homer nodded, and--Horace went to sleep.

When he awoke he saw by the dim light of the screened roof-lamp that he was not alone, and that on the opposite couch a _native_ had actually made up a bed with sheets, blankets and pillow, undressed himself, put on pyjamas and gone to bed! Gord streuth, he had! He'd attend to him in the morning--though it would serve the brute right if Horace threw him out at the next station--without his kit. But he looked rather large, and Mercy is notoriously a kingly attribute.

In the morning Mir Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed of Mekran Kot, Gungapur, and the world in general, awoke, yawned, stretched himself and arose.

He arose to some six feet and three inches of stature, and his thin pyjamasuit was seen to cover a remarkably fine and robustious figure--provided with large contours where contours are desirable, and level tracts where such are good. As he lay flat back again, Horace noted that his chest rose higher than his head and the more southerly portion of his anatomy, while the action of clasping his hands behind his neck brought into prominence a pair of biceps that strained their sleeves almost to bursting. He was nearly as fair as London-bred Horace, but there were his turbanned conical hat, his curly toed shoes, his long silk coat, his embroidered velvet waistcoat and other wholly Oriental articles of attire. Besides, his vest was of patterned muslin and he had something on a coloured string round his neck.

"What are you doing 'ere?" demanded Horace truculently, as this bold abandoned "native" caught his eye and said "Good-morning".

"At present I am doing nothing," was the reply, "unless pa.s.sive reclining may count as being something. I trust I do not intrude or annoy?"

"You do intrude and likewise you do annoy also. I ain't accustomed to travel with blacks, and I ain't agoing to have you spitting about 'ere.

You got in when I was asleep."

"You were certainly snoring when I got in, and I was careful not to awaken you--but not on account of any great sensation of guilt or fear.

I a.s.sure you I have no intention of spitting or being in any way rude, unmannerly, or offensive. And since you object to travelling with 'blacks' I suggest--that you leave the carriage."

Did Horace's ears deceive him? Did he sleep, did he dream, and were visions about? _Leave the carriage_?