The Great Mogul Part 23

With this magnanimous wish on his lips he quitted them. They were fated soon to recall his words in bitterness and despair. Jahangir, sunk in renewed orgy, and twitted by his evil a.s.sociates with the failure of the afternoon's device, was even then devoting himself, with an almost diabolical ingenuity, to a fresh plot for their undoing.

He limned the project fully, but declared with scorn that it needed a man of courage to carry it out, and there was not one such in his court.

Whereupon, Kutub-ud-din, his foster-brother, who was noted chiefly for the girth of his paunch, but who, nevertheless, had some reputation for personal bravery, sprang up from the cus.h.i.+ons on which he reposed and cried:--

"Give me the vice-royalty of Bengal and I swear, by the beard of the Prophet, to bring you news of Sher Afghan's death ere day dawns."

The Emperor paused. It was a high price, but the memory of Nur Mahal's beauty rushed on him like a flood, and he said:--

"Keep thy vow and I shall keep my bond."

The conspirators knew nothing of Roger's pact with the chamberlain, else their task were made more easy. But there is in India a poisonous herb called _dhatura_, the presence of which cannot be detected in food or drink. Taken in any considerable quant.i.ty, it conveys sure death, quick and painless as the venom of a cobra; in less degree it induces lethargy, followed by heavy sleep.

Now, Sher Afghan's doubts of the Emperor's wine were justified to this extent, that it had been slightly tinctured with _dhatura_, in the belief that Mowbray and Sainton would drink heavily during the midday meal, and thus be rendered slow of thought and sluggish in action when put to the test by the Persian's encounter with the tiger. Such drugs, thwarted by the unforeseen, oft have exactly the opposite effects to those intended. Their state of rude health, and the exciting scenes which took place before the Emperor played his ultimate card and failed, caused the poison to stimulate rather than r.e.t.a.r.d their faculties.

With night came reaction and weariness. Nevertheless, they did not retire to rest until nearly an hour after Sher Afghan left them. They drank a little more of the wine, discussed their doubtful position for the hundredth time, and thus unconsciously spun another strand in the spider's web of fate, for Jahangir, whom fortune so aided, might have spent his life in vain conjecture ere he guessed the circ.u.mstance which in part defeated his malice.

While the two talked the glorious moon of India, late risen, sailed slowly across the blue arc of the heavens, and garbed all things in silver and black. The air was chill, but these hardy Britons were warmly clad, and they preferred the cold majesty of nature's own lamp to the evil-smelling oil and smoky wicks which, at that period, were the only means of lighting Indian houses.

When, at last, they stretched themselves on the charpoys which, for greater safety, they placed side by side in a s.p.a.cious chamber of the suite they occupied, they did not undress, but threw off their heavy riding-boots, unfastened their coats, and arranged their swords so as to be ready to hand at a moment's notice. They knew that Sher Afghan's trusty retainers guarded the gate and slept in each veranda. There was little fear of being taken by surprise in the unlikely event of an armed attack being made during the night, yet they neglected no precautions.

"Sleep well, Roger, and may the Lord keep thee!" was Walter's parting word; and Sainton answered drowsily, for something more potent than the day's emotions had wearied him:--

"An He fail either of us, lad, naught else shall avail."

The bright moon circled in the sky. Her beams, low now on the horizon, penetrated to the recesses of the room and fell on the low trestle-beds on which they reposed in deep slumber. It was a small matter, this nightly course of the luminary, yet, perchance, in those still hours, the direction of a stray shaft of light made history in India.

About two o'clock, when the tall cypress trees of the Garden of Heart's Delight threw black shadows toward the house, a small, naked man, smeared with oil lest anyone should seize him, and covered again with dust to render him almost invisible, crawled along the dark pathway of the shadow and crossed the veranda outside the Englishmen's room. He moved with the deathly silence of a snake, pa.s.sing between two sleeping Rajputs, so quickly and noiselessly that one who saw him would most likely have rubbed his eyes and deemed the flitting vision a mere figment of the imagination.

Once inside the house he crouched in the shade of a pillar, and waited until another ghoul joined him in the same manner. These two were Thugs, murderers by caste, who wors.h.i.+ped the pickaxes with which they buried their victims. Had Milton or Dante ever heard of such the abode of harpy-footed furies and the lowest circle of Inferno would alike have been rendered more horrific by a new demoniac imagery. No man was safe from them, none could withstand their devilish art. Sainton, whom not a score of Thugs could have pulled down in the open, was a mere babe in their clutch when he knew not of their presence.

For these fiends never failed. They were professional stranglers, with sufficient knowledge of anatomy to dislocate the neck of him whom they had marked down as their prey. Never a cry, scarce a movement, would betray a strong man's death. Of them it might indeed be truly said:--

Their fatal hands No second stroke intend.

Creeping stealthily, they reached the two charpoys, and each squatted at the back of his intended victim. Sainton slept nearer the veranda, and his wide-brimmed hat was lying on the floor. Throughout his wanderings he ever sported a plume of c.o.c.k's feathers and he still retained the curious ornament which served as a brooch. It was lit up now by a moonbeam, and the Thug, whose watchful eyes regarded all things, saw what he took to be a headless snake, coiled in glistening folds and surrounded by a ring of gold. The wretch, in whose dull brain glimmered some dim conception of a deity, drew back appalled. Here was one guarded by his tutelary G.o.d, the snake, a snake, too, of uncanny semblance, reposing in a precious shrine. He had never before encountered the like.

Weird legends, whispered at night in trackless forests, where he and his a.s.sociates had their lair, trooped in on him. He quaked, and shrank yet further away, a fierce savage tamed by a mere fossil.

The sibilant chirp of a gra.s.shopper brought his fellow Thug to his side.

Glaring eyes and chin thrown forward sufficed to indicate the cause of this danger signal. No words were needed. With one accord they retreated. Squirming across the veranda and along the path of the lengthening shadows they regained the shelter of the cypresses.

"Brother," whispered one, "they have a jadu!"[H]

[Footnote H: An amulet.]

"Who shall dare to strike where the jungle-G.o.d reposes!" was the rejoinder.

"A snake without a head, ringed and s.h.i.+ning! Saw one ever the like?"

"Let us escape, else we shall be slain."

The trees swallowed them, and, although sought vengefully, they were never seen again by those whose behests they had not fulfilled....

Minutes pa.s.sed, until the stout Kutub-ud-din, hiding near the gate with a horde of hirelings, grew impatient that his vice-regal throne in Bengal was not a.s.sured. So he growled an order and strode openly to the gate, where, in the Emperor's name, he demanded of a wakeful sentry audience of Sher Afghan.

"My master sleeps," was the answer. "The matter must wait."

"It cannot wait. It concerns thy master's safety. Here is Pir Muhammed Khan, Kotwal[I] of Agra, who says that two Thugs are within. We have come in all haste to warn Sher Afghan to search for the evil-doers."

[Footnote I: A functionary akin to a chief of police.]

Now, the mere name of the dreaded clan was enough to alarm his hearer, who well knew that none could guard against a Thug's deadly intent.

Warning his comrades he unbound the door, but showed discretion in sending messengers to arouse Sher Afghan. Kutub-ud-din, thinking the Persian and the Englishmen had been killed half an hour earlier, deceived the guard still further by his earnestness. Giving directions that some should watch the walls without, while others searched every inch of the gardens, he, followed by a strong posse, went rapidly towards the house. Almost the first person he encountered was Sher Afghan himself. The young n.o.bleman, awakened from sound sleep by strange tidings, no sooner recognized his visitor than his brow seamed with anger.

"What folly is this?" he cried. "Why hast thou dared to come hither with a rabble at such an hour, Kutub-ud-din?"

Surprise, disappointment, envious rage, combined to choke the would-be viceroy, but he answered, boldly enough:--

"You should not requite with hasty words one who thought to do thee a service."

"I am better without any service thou canst render. Be off, dog, and tell thy tales to some old woman who fears them."

Beside himself with anger and humiliation, Kutub-ud-din raised his sword threateningly. It was enough. Sher Afghan, seeing naught but some new palace treachery in this untimely visit, drew a dagger and sprang at his unwieldy opponent with the tiger-like ferocity for which he was famous.

Kutub-ud-din endeavored to strike, but, ere his blow fell, he was ripped so terribly that his bowels gushed forth. Here was no vice-royalty for him, only the barren kingdom of the grave.

"Avenge me!" he yelled, as he fell in agony, for your would-be slayer is ever resentful of his own weapons being turned against him.

Pir Muhammed Khan, an astute Kashmiri, seeing his own advancement made all the more certain by reason of the failure of the Emperor's foster-brother--thinking, too, that Sher Afghan might be taken at a disadvantage whilst he looked down on his prostrate foe--leaped forward and dealt the Persian a heavy stroke on the head with a scimitar. Sher Afghan turned and killed him on the spot.

It chanced, unhappily, that among those in the immediate vicinity of this sudden quarrel the Kotwal's retainers far outnumbered the followers of Sher Afghan, many of whose men were yet asleep, while others were scouring the gardens. The native of India may always be trusted to avenge his master's death, so a certain dog-like fidelity impelled a score or more to attack the Persian simultaneously. Realizing his danger he possessed himself of the fallen Kotwal's sword and fought furiously, crying loudly for help. Oh, for a few lightning sweeps of the good straight blades reposing peacefully in their scabbards by the beds of his English allies! How they would have equalized the odds in that supreme moment! How Roger would have shorn the heads and Walter slit the yelling throats of the jackals who yelped around the undaunted but over-powered Persian!

For the blood from the Kotwal's blow poured into his eyes, and he struck blindly if fiercely. Closer pressed the gang, and, at last, he fell to his knees, struck down by a matchlock bullet. He must have felt that his last hour had come. Struggling round in order to face towards Mecca, he used his waning strength to pick up some dust from the garden path. He poured it over his head by way of ablution, strove to rise and renew the unequal fight, and sank back feebly. A spear thrust brought the end, and the man who had dared to rival a prince's love died in the garden to which the presence of Nur Mahal had lent romance and pa.s.sion.

Roger, whom the clash of steel might have roused from the tomb, stirred uneasily in his sleep when the first sounds of the fight smote his unconscious ears. The shot waked him, though not to thorough comprehension, so utterly possessed was he with drowsiness.

Then a light flashed in the room, and he saw a beautiful woman standing in an inner doorway, a woman whose exquisite face was white and tense as she held aloft a lamp and cried:--

"Why do ye tarry here when my husband is fighting for his life and for yours?"

Now he was wide awake. It was Nur Mahal, unveiled and robed all in white, who stood there and spoke so vehemently.

Up he sprang, and roused Mowbray with his mighty grip. The new conflict raging over Sher Afghan's body was music in his ears, for several Rajputs had come, too late, to their master's a.s.sistance.

"G.o.d in heaven, lad!" he roared, "here's a fray in full blast and we snoring. Have at them, Walter! The pack is on us!"

His words, no less than a vigorous shaking, awoke his companion.

"Oh, come speedily!" wailed Nur Mahal again. "I know not what is happening, but I heard my husband's voice calling for aid."

They needed no further bidding, though their eyes were strangely heavy and their bodies relaxed. Once they were out in the night air and running toward the din of voices the stupor pa.s.sed. Yet, when they reached the main alley, where Sher Afghan lay dead, they knew not whom to strike nor whom to spare, so intermixed were the combatants and so confused the riot of ringing simitars, of hoa.r.s.e shouts, of agonized appeals for mercy.