Chapter II (1)

The church-gong was chiming again, and again it was _Shub'rat_. Not for the first time since Deen Mahomed had put little Rahmut's platter of sweets among the Feast of the Dead, for the years had passed since the child had sat in the sunlight planting gardens. How many the old man did not consider; in point of fact it did not matter to his patience. In the end God's club must fall on the unjust; so much was sure to the eye of faith. Something more also, if the signs of the times spoke true. When the bolt fell it would not be from the blue; the mutterings of the storm were loud enough, surely, to be heard even by those alien ears. And yet Deen Mahomed, fanatic and church-chimer, standing on that hot summer evening beneath the _sirus_ blossoms smiting the voice from the quavering disc of metal, knew no more than this--that the time was at hand. Whether it was always so, or whether the great Revolt was always pre-arranged, can scarcely at this distance of time be determined. Certain it is that many, like old Deen Mahomed, were simply waiting; waiting for the sign of God to slay and spare not.

_Clang!_

The mellow note went out into the darkening heat; for the sun was almost at its setting. St. John's-in-the-Wilderness showed all the whiter against the deepening shadows of the sky.

_Clang!_

Out into the stillness, the silence, as it had gone all these restless, waiting years.

_Clang!_

Yet again! How long, O Lord, how long?

* * * * *

God and his Prophet! what was that?

A clamour, and above it--familiar beyond mistake--one word, "_Deen! Deen!_" ("The Faith! The Faith!")

Deen? Yes, Deen Mahomed!--A hot breath of wind from the east rustled the dry pods and stirred the perfumed puff-blossoms--a scorching wind from the east whirled the clamour and the cry into the old man's ears--through his brain--through his heart.

"_Deen! Deen! Deen!_"

The disc of metal, unstruck, hung quivering; slower and slower, fainter and fainter, till, like the breath of one who dies in his sleep, the vibration ceased. But the note went alone into eternity, seeking judgment; for the harmonium was mute.

"_Deen! Deen! Deen!_"

The cruellest cry that men have made for themselves!

* * * * *

It had been long dark ere the old man returned; to what he scarcely knew. As he stumbled from sheer fatigue on the steps, and sat down to rest a space, he remembered nothing save that the call had come and that he had obeyed it. He had smitten more than metal, and had smitten remorselessly. A terrible figure this; his old hands trembling with their work; his fierce old eyes ablaze; his garments stained and bloody. Beyond the white pile of the tomb the red flare of burning roof trees told their tale, and every now and again an uproarious outburst of horrid menace, and still more horrid laughter, came to hint that the work was not all complete. Yet overhead the stars shone peacefully as ever; and, above the city, the pale radiance of the death-feasts showed serene.

The remembrance of the Festival and its duties came to the old man's mind in a great pulse of satisfied revenge. The tomb was his again; nay, not his, but the saints, of whose feet he was the dust; those saints who would visit the world that night.

He sat for an instant staring over the way towards his own hovel, then rose slowly, showing in every movement the fatigue of unusual exertion. Well, he had done his part; he had slain, and spared not at all. The others might linger for the sake of greed; as for him, his work was done.

With a fierce sigh of relief he turned and limped towards the church. It was darkness itself within the deep doorway; but the lamps were there, and he had flint and steel. So one by one the lights shone out, revealing the sacrilegious accessories of that past worship. And yet it was not light enough for _Shub'rat_, not even when he had lit the candles on the altar. Still, that was soon remedied. A journey or two backwards and forwards to his own hovel, and a ring of flickering oil cressets encircled the table where it was his turn, at last, to spread the feast of the dead. So large a feast that there was not room enough for all, and he had to set a square of lights round a white cloth laid upon the floor.

"This to my grandson, Rahmut, on whom be peace for ever and ever."

That, once more, was the last offering; and as the old man's voice merged into the sonorous Arabic formula of faith it trembled not at all, but echoed up into the dome in savage, almost insane triumph and satisfaction.

This was _Shub'rat_ indeed--a Night of Record. And there was room and to spare beneath those architraves, which displayed the Great Name again and again in every scrap of tracery, for all the saints in heaven to stand and judge between him and his forefathers for the sin that had been done, the blood that had been spilt--those forefathers who had ridden through the land with that cry of "_Deen! Deen!_" on their lips, and had conquered. As they, the descendants, would conquer now! Yea! let them judge; even Huzrut Isa[1] himself and the blessed Miriam his mother; for there were times when even motherhood must be forgotten. His trembling old hands, strained under the task which will not bear description, rested now on his bent knees; his head was thrown backward against the lectern on which the Bible lay open at the lesson for the day; his face, stern even in its satisfaction, gazed at the twinkling death-lights, among which little Rahmut's platter of sweets showed conspicuous. Yea! let them come and judge; let them write his fate upon his forehead.

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[Footnote 1: Jesus.]

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Fatigue, content, the very religious exaltation raising him above the actual reality of what was, and had been, all conspired to bring about a sort of trance, a paralysis, not of action deferred, as in the past, but of deeds accomplished. And so, after a time, with his head still against the lectern, he slept the sleep of exhaustion. Yet, even in his dreams the old familiar war cry fell more than once, like a sigh, from his lips,

"_Deen! Deen!_"

A horrible scene, look at it how you will; but, even in its horror, not altogether base.

From without came a faint recollection of the blood-red glare of fire in the sky, a faint echo of the drunken shouts and beast-like cries of those who had taken advantage of the times to return to their old evil doings. Within, there was nothing save the pale radiance of the twinkling lamps set round the Death-Feast, the old man asleep against the lectern, and silence.

Until, with a whispering, kissing sound, a child's bare feet fell upon the bare stones--a tiny child, still doubtful of its balance, with golden hair shining in the light. A scarlet flush of sleep showed on its cheeks, a stain of deeper scarlet showed on the little white night-gown it wore. Perhaps it had slept through the horrors of the night, perhaps slept on, even when snatched up by mother or nurse in the last wild flight for safety towards a sanctuary. Who knows? Who will ever know half the story of the great Mutiny? But there it was, sleep still lingering in the wide blue eyes attracted by the flickering lights. On and on, unsteadily, it came, past the old man dreaming of _Jehad_, past the lights themselves--happily unhurt--to stretch greedy little hands on Rahmut's sweeties. So, with a crow of delight, playing, sucking, playing, in high havoc upon the fair white cloth.

* * * * *

Was it the passing of the spirits coming to judgment which set the candle flames on the altar a-swaying towards the cressets below them, or was it only the rising breeze of midnight? Was it the Finger of Fate, or only the fluttering marker hanging from the Bible above which touched the old man's forehead?

Who knows? Who dares to hazard "Yea" or "Nay" before such a scene as this? Surely, with that blood-red flare in the sky, those blood-red stains on earth, the passion and the pity, the strain and stress of it all need a more impartial judgment than the living can give. So let the child and the old man remain among the lights flickering and flaring before the unseen wind heralding a new day, or the unseen Wisdom beginning a new Future.

* * * * *

Deen Mahomed woke suddenly, the beads of perspiration on his brow, and looked round him fearfully as men do when roused, by God knows what, from a strange dream. Then, to his bewilderment, came a child's laugh.

Saints in heaven and earth! Was that Rahmut? Had he come back for his own in that guise? Did the _padre-sahibs_ speak true when they said the angels had golden hair and pale faces? He crouched forward on his hands like a wild beast about to spring, his eyes fixed in a stupid stare. There, within the ring of holy lights, on the fair white cloth, was a child with outstretched hands full of Rahmut's sweets and a little gurgle of delight in the cry which echoed up into the dome.

"Nanna, _dekho!_ (see)--_dekho_, nanna."

It was calling to its nurse, not to the old man; yet, though he had begun to grasp the truth, his heart thrilled strangely to the once familiar sound.

_Nana!_[2] And it had chosen Rahmut's portion, had claimed the child's place--the child's own place!

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[Footnote 2: Grandfather.]

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What was that? A step behind him--a half-drunken laugh--a dull red flash of a sabre which had already done its work--Rujjub, with a savage yell of satisfaction, steering straight as his legs would carry him to a new victim. But he had reckoned without that unseen figure crouching in the shadow by the lectern; reckoned without the confused clashing and clamour of emotion vibrating in the old man's bosom beneath the stroke of a strange chance; reckoned, it may be, without the Fate written upon the high narrow forehead which held its beliefs fast prisoners.

There was no time for aught save impulse. The devilish face, full of the lust of blood, had passed already. Then came a cry, echoing up into the dome:

"_Deen! Deen! Allah-i-hukk!_"

The old watchman stood, still with that stupid stare, gazing down at the huddled figure on its face which lay before him, so close that the warm blood gurgling from it horridly already touched his bare feet.

What had he done? Why had he done it? To save the child who had claimed the child's place?--To be true?--Well, it was done! and those were voices outside--men coming to pillage the church, no doubt--there was silver in the chest, he knew--that, of course, had been Rujjub's errand, and his comrades would not be far behind--they would find the dying man, and then?--Yea! the die was cast, and, after all, it had been Rahmut's platter! With these thoughts clashing and echoing through heart and soul Deen Mahomed sprang forward, seized the child, stifling its cries with his hand, and disappeared into the darkness. None too soon, for the yell of rage greeting the discovery of the murdered comrade reached him ere he had gained the shelter of the trees. Whither now? Not to his house, for they would search there; search everywhere for those survivors whose work remained as witness to the existence of some foe. Alone he could have faced the pillagers, secure in his past; but with the child--the child struggling so madly? And the last time he had held one in his arms it had lain so still. Oh, Rahmut! Rahmut! mercy of the Most High! Rahmut! Rahmut!

The words fell from his lips in a hoarse whisper as he ran, clinging to the darkest places, conscious of nothing save the one fierce desire to get away to some spot where the child's cries would not be heard--where he would have time to think--some spot where the work had been done already--where nothing remained for lustful hands!

The thought made him double back into the cool watered gardens about the little group of houses beyond the church. The flames were almost out now, and in one roof, only a few sparks lingered on the remaining rafters. Here would be peace; besides, even if the cries were heard, they might be set down to some wounded thing dreeing its deadly debt of suffering. A minute afterwards he stood in a room, unroofed and reeking yet with the smell of fire, but scarcely disturbed otherwise in its peaceful, orderly arrangements--a room with pictures pasted to the walls and faintly visible by the glare, with toys upon the floor, and a swinging cot whence a child had been snatched. This child, perhaps--who knows? Anyhow it cuddled down from Deen Mahomed's arms into the pillows as if they were familiar.

"Nanna! Nanna!" it sobbed pitifully, "_Hil'ao, hil'ao, neendhi argia_" (swing, swing, sleep has come).

"_So ja'o mera butchcha_" (sleep my child), replied the old man quietly, as his blood-stained hand began its task. The wonder of such task had passed utterly, and had any come to interrupt it he would have given his life calmly for its fulfilment. Why, he did not know. It was Fate. So the old voice, gasping still for breath, settled into a time-honoured lullaby, which has soothed the cradle of most bairns in India, no matter of what race or colour.

"Oh! crow! Go crow!
Ripe plums are so many.
Baby wants to sleep, you know.
They're two pounds for a penny."

So over and over in a low croon, mechanically he chanted, till the child, losing its fear in the familiar darkness, fell asleep. And then? In a sort of dull way the question had been in Deen Mahomed's mind from the beginning without an answer, for he had gone so far along the road, simply by following close on the Finger of Fate; and now there was no possibility of turning back. For woe or weal he had taken the child's part, he had accepted the responsibility for its life, even to the length of death in others. Not that he cared much for the consequences of the swinging blow he had dealt to Rujjub--he was no true man.

What then? There was no chance of concealing the child. It slept now, but ere long it would waken again, and cry for "Nanna, Nanna." That must be prevented for a time at any rate. The chubby hands still clasped one of Rahmut's sweeties, and the old man stooped to break off a corner, crumble it up with something he took from an inner pocket, and then place it gently within the child's moist, parted lips, which closed upon it instinctively. He gave a sigh of relief. That was better; that would settle the cries for some hours, and before then he must have made over the child to other hands. Yes, that was it. He must somehow run the gauntlet of his comrades, and reach the entrenched position which the infidels--curse them!--had defended against odds such as no man had dreamed of before. It was seven miles to the north, that cantonment which would have been destroyed but for those renegades from the Faith who had stood by their masters, and that handful of British troops which had refused to accept defeat. Seven miles of jungle and open country alive with armed and reckless sepoys and sowars, to whom a man in mufti was fair game, no matter what the colour of his race, lay between him and that goal, and Deen Mahomed's grim face grew grimmer as he raised the sleeping child, pillows and all, wrapped them in a quilt, and slung the bundle on his back--slung it carefully so as to give air to the child and freedom to his arms. He might need it if they tried to stop him. He gave a questioning glance at the sky as he came out into the garden where the scent of the orange-blossoms drifted with the lingering spirals of smoke. Not more than an hour or two remained before the dawn would be upon them. He must risk detection, then, by the short cut through the bazaar; better that than the certainty of discovery later on in the daylight by those ready for renewed assault upon the entrenchment.

"_Whok'umdar_," challenged the sentry ceremoniously set, as in peaceful times, at the city gate.

"_Allah akbar wa Mahomed rusool_," replied the old man, without a quiver. That was true; he was for God and his Prophet when all was said and done. But this was little Rahmut's guest--_this_. He passed his hand over his forehead in a dazed sort of way.

"_Ari_, look at his _loot_," hiccoughed one of a group in the street; "before God he hath more than his share in the bundle. Stop, friend, and pay toll."

"What my sword hath won my sword keeps," retorted Deen Mahomed fiercely. "Better for thee in Paradise, Allah Buksh, if thou hadst smitten more and drunk less."

"Let be; let be!" interrupted another. "'Tis Deen Mahomed, the crazy watchman. I'll go bail, he hath no more than he deserves for this day's work. And he is a devil with that sword of his when he is angry. Lo! I saw him at the corner, mind you, where the _sahibs_----"

But Deen Mahomed had passed from earshot. Passed on and on, through dark streets and light ones, challenged jestingly, or in earnest; and through it all a growing doggedness, a growing determination came to him to do this thing, yet still remain, as ever, a guardian of the Faith. This for Rahmut's sake, the other for the sake of the Tomb, because he was the dust of the footsteps of the saints in light.

Out in the open now, with the paling light of dawn behind him and a drunken Hindu trooper riding at him with a cry of "_Ram! Ram!_" So they dared to give an idolatrous cry, those Hindu dogs whose aid had been sought to throw off the yoke--who would soon find it on their own shoulders. A step back, a mighty slash as the horse sped by, maddened by bit and spur, a stumble, a crash, and an old man, with a strange bundle at his back, was hacking insanely at his prostrate foe. No more, "_Ram, Ram_," for him; that last cry had served as the death-farewell of his race and creed.

On again, with a fiercer fire in the eyes, through the great tufts of tiger-grass isolating each poor square of God's earth from the next, and making it impossible to see one's way. On and on swiftly, forcing a path through the swaying stems, whose silvery tasselled spikes above began to glitter in the level beams of the rising sun.

Then suddenly, without a word of warning, came an open sandy space, a brief command.

"Halt!"

So soon! It was nearer by a mile than he had expected, and there was no chance of flight; not unless you made that burden on your back a target for pursuing bullets. A fair mark, in truth, for the half dozen or more of rifles ready in the hands of the cursed infidels.

"Who goes there?" came the challenge in the cursed foreign tongue. He gave one sharp glance towards the picket, and bitter hatred flared up within him; for there was not even a _sahib_ there who might, perchance, understand. Yet there was no doubt, no doubt at all, even to his confused turmoil of feeling, as to "who came there." A foe! a foe to the death when this was over! So with a shout came his creed:

"_Allah akbar wa Mahomed rusool_."

Then in a sort of gurgle, as he fell forward on his face, it finished in "_Deen! Deen! Deen!_"

* * * * *

"Nicked 'im, by gum! Nicked the ole beast neat as a ninepin," said one of the picket.

"Wonder wot he come on for like that?" said another.

"B----y ole Ghazi, that's wot he was," put in a third. "They gets the drink aboard, an' don't care for nothing but religion--rummy start, ain't it? Hello! wot's that?--a babby, by the Lord!"

For the shock of Deen Mahomed's fall had awakened the child.

As they drew it from the blanket, the sun tipped over the tiger-grass, and fell on its golden curls.

_Shub'rat_ was over.

"I wonder wot 'e were a-goin' to do with it?" remarked the inquirer, turning the dead body over with his foot, and looking thoughtfully at the face, fierce even in death. But no one hazarded a theory, and the Finger of Fate had left no mark on the high, narrow forehead. But the Night of Record was over for it also.

IN THE PERMANENT WAY

I heard this story in a rail-trolly on the Pind-Dadur line, so I always think of it with a running accompaniment; a rhythmic whir of wheels in which, despite its steadiness, you feel the propelling impulse of the unseen coolies behind, then the swift skimming as they set their feet on the trolly for the brief rest which merges at the first hint of lessened speed into the old racing measure. Whir and slide, racing and resting!--while the wheels spin like bobbins and the brick rubble in the permanent way slips under your feet giddily, until you could almost fancy yourself sitting on a stationary engine, engaged in winding up an endless red ribbon. A ribbon edged, as if with tinsel, by steel rails stretching away in ever narrowing lines to the level horizon. Stretching straight as a die across a sandy desert, rippled and waved by wrinkled sand hills into the semblance of a sandy sea.

And that, from its size, must be a seventh wave. I was just thinking this when the buzz of the brake jarred me through to the marrow of my bones.

"What's up? A train?" I asked of my companion who was giving me a lift across his section of the desert.

"No!" he replied laconically. "Now, then! hurry up, men."

Nothing in the wide world comes to pieces in the hand like a trolly. It was dismembered and off the line in a moment; only however, much to my surprise, to be replaced upon the rails some half a dozen yards further along them. I was opening my lips for one question when something I saw at my feet among the brick rubble made me change it for another.

"Hullo! what the dickens is that?"

To the carnal eye it was two small squares of smooth stucco, the one with an oval black stone set in it perpendicularly, the other with a round purplish one--curiously ringed with darker circles--set in it horizontally. On the stucco of one were a few dried _tulsi_[3] leaves and grains of rice; on the other suspicious-looking splashes of dark red.

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[Footnote 3: Marjoram.]

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"What's what?" echoed my friend, climbing up to his seat again.

"Why, man, that thing!--that thing in the permanent way!" I replied, nettled at his manner.

He gave an odd little laugh, just audible above the first whir of the wheels as we started again.

"That's about it. In the permanent way--considerably." He paused, and I thought he was going to relapse into the silence for which he was famous; but he suddenly seemed to change his mind.

"Look here," he said, "it's a fifteen mile run to the first curve, and no trains due, so if you like I'll tell you why we left the track."

And he did.

* * * * *

When they were aligning this section I was put on to it--preliminary survey work under an R.E. man who wore boiled shirts in the wilderness, and was great on "Departmental Discipline." He is in Simla now, of course. Well, we were driving a straight line through the whole solar system and planting it out with little red flags, when one afternoon, just behind that big wave of a sand hill, we came upon something in the way. It was a man. For further description I should say it was a thin man. There is nothing more to be said. He may have been old, he may have been young, he may have been tall, he may have been short, he may have been halt and maimed, he may have been blind, deaf, or dumb, or any or all of these. The only thing I know for _certain_ is that he was thin. The _kalassies_[4] said he was some kind of a Hindu saint, and they fell at his feet promptly. I shall never forget the R.E.'s face as he stood trying to classify the creature according to Wilson's _Hindu Sects_, or his indignation at the _kalassies'_ ignorant worship of a man who, for all they knew, might be a follower of Shiva, while they were bound to Vishnu, or _vice versa_. He was very learned over the _Vaishnavas_ and the _Saivas_; and all the time that bronze image with its hands on its knees squatted in the sand staring into space perfectly unmoved. Perhaps the man saw us, perhaps he didn't. I don't know; as I said before, he was thin.

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[Footnote 4: Tent pitchers, men employed in measuring land.]

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So after a time we stuck a little red flag in the ground close to the small of his back, and went on our way rejoicing until we came to our camp, a mile further on. It doesn't look like it, but there is a brackish well and a sort of a village away there to the right, and of course we always took advantage of water when we could.

It must have been a week later, just as we came to the edge of the sand hills, and could see a landmark or two, that I noticed the R.E. come up from his prismatic compass looking rather pale. Then he fussed over to me at the plane table.

"We're out," he said, "there is a want of Departmental Discipline in this party, and we are out." I forget how many fractions he said, but some infinitesimal curve would have been required to bring us plumb on the next station, and as that would have ruined the R.E.'s professional reputation we harked back to rectify the error. We found the bronze image still sitting on the sand with its hands on its knees; but apparently it had shifted its position some three feet or so to the right, for the flag was fully that distance to the left of it. That night the R.E. came to my tent with his hands full of maps and his mind of suspicions.

"It seems incredible," he said, "but I am almost convinced that _byragi_ or _jogi_, or _gosain_ or _sunyasi_, whichever he may be, has had the unparalleled effrontery to move my flag. I can't be sure, but if I were, I would have him arrested on the spot."

I suggested he was that already; but it is sometimes difficult to make an R.E. see a Cooper's Hill joke, especially when he is your superior officer. So we did that bit over again. As it happened, my chief was laid up with sun fever when we came to the bronze image, and I had charge of the party. I don't know why, exactly, but it seemed to me rough on the thin man to stick a red flag at the small of his back, as a threat that we meant to annex the only atom of things earthly to which he still clung; time enough for that when the line was actually under construction. So I told the _kalassies_ to let him do duty as a survey mark; for, from what I had heard, I knew that once a man of that sort fixes on a place in which to gain immortality by penance, he sticks to it till the mortality, at any rate, comes to an end. And this one, I found out from the villagers, had been there for ten years. Of course they said he never ate, or drank, or moved, but that, equally of course, was absurd.

A year after this I came along again in charge of a construction party, with an overseer called Craddock, a big yellow-headed Saxon who couldn't keep off the drink, and who had in consequence been going down steadily in one department or another for years. As good a fellow as ever stepped when he was sober. Well, we came right on the thin one again, plump in the very middle of the permanent way. We dug round him and levelled up to him for some time, and then one day Craddock gave a nod at me and walked over to where that image squatted staring into space. I can see the two now, Craddock in his navvy's dress, his blue eyes keen yet kind in the red face shaded by the dirty pith hat, and the thin man without a rag of any sort to hide his bronze anatomy.

"Look here, sonny," said Craddock, stooping over the other, "you're in the way--in the permanent way."

Then he just lifted him right up, gently, as if he had been a child, and set him down about four feet to the left. It was to be a metre gauge, so that was enough for safety. There he sat after we had propped him up again with his _byraga_ or cleft stick under the left arm, as if he were quite satisfied with the change. But next day he was in the old place. It was no use arguing with him. The only thing to be done was to move him out of the way when we wanted it. Of course when the earthwork was finished there was the plate-laying and ballasting and what not to be done, so it came to be part of the big Saxon's regular business to say in his Oxfordshire drawl:

"Sonny, yo're in the waiy--in the permanent waiy."

Craddock, it must be mentioned, was in a peculiarly sober, virtuous mood, owing, no doubt, to the desolation of the desert; in which, by the way, I found him quite a godsend as a companion, for when he was on the talk the quaintness of his ideas was infinitely amusing, and his knowledge of the natives, picked up as a loafer in many a bazaar and _serai_, was surprisingly wide, if appallingly inaccurate.

"There is something, savin' yo'r presence, sir, blamed wrong in the whole blamed business," he said to me, with a mild remonstrance in his blue eyes, one evening after he had removed the obstruction to progress. "That pore fellar, sir, 'e's a meditatin' on the word _Hom-Hommipuddenhome_[5] it is, sir, I've bin told--an' doin' 'is little level to make the spiritooal man subdoo 'is fleshly hinstinckts. And I, Nathaniel James Craddock, so called in Holy Baptism, I do assure you, a-eatin' and a-drinkin' 'earty, catches 'im right up like a babby, and sets 'im on one side, as if I was born to it. And so I will--an' willin', too--so as to keep 'im from 'arm's way; for 'eathin or Christian, sir, 'e's an eggsample to the spiritooal part of me which, savin' your presence, sir, is most ways drink."

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[Footnote 5: _Om mi pudmi houm_. The Buddhist invocation.]

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Poor Craddock! He went on the spree hopelessly the day after we returned to civilisation, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I succeeded in getting him a trial as driver to the material train which commenced running up and down the section. The first time I went with it on business I had an inspection carriage tacked on behind the truck loads of coolies and ballast, so that I could not make out why on earth we let loose a danger whistle and slowed down to full stop in the very middle of the desert until I jumped down and ran forward. Even then I was only in time to see Craddock coming back to his engine with a redder face than ever.

"It's only old Meditations, sir," he said apologetically, as I climbed in beside him. "It don't take a minute; no longer nor a cow, and them's in the reg'lations. You see, sir, I wouldn't 'ave 'arm come to the pore soul afore 'is spiritooal nater 'ad the straight tip hoaem. Neither would none of us, sir, coolie nor driver, sir, on the section. We all likes old _Hommipuddenhome_, 'e sticks to it so stiddy, that's where it is."

"Do you mean to say that you always have to get out and lift him off the line?" I asked, wondering rather at the patience required for the task.

"That's so, sir," he replied slowly, in the same apologetic tones. "It don't take no time you see, sir, that's where it is. P'r'aps you may 'ave thought, like as I did first time, that 'e'd save 'is bacon when the engine come along. Lordy! the cold sweat broke out on me that time. I brought 'er up, sir, with the buffers at the back of 'is 'ed like them things the photographers jiminy you straight with. But 'e ain't that sort, ain't Meditations." Here Craddock asked leave to light his pipe, and in the interval I looked ahead along the narrowing red ribbon with its tinsel edge, thinking how odd it must have been to see it barred by that bronze image.

"No! that ain't his sort," continued Craddock meditatively, "though wot 'is sort may be, sir, is not my part to say. I've ar'st, and ar'st, and ar'st them pundits, but there ain't one of them can really tell, sir, 'cos he ain't got any marks about him. You see, sir, it's by their marks, like cattle, as you tell 'em. Some says he worships bloody _Shivers_[6]--'im 'oos wife you know, sir, they calls _Martha Davy_[7]--a Christian sort o' name, ain't it, sir, for a 'eathin idol?--and some says 'e worships _Wishnyou Lucksmi_[8] an' that lot, an' _Holy_[9] too, though, savin' your presence, sir, it ain't much holiness I see at them times, but mostly drink. It makes me feel quite 'omesick, I do assure you, sir, more as if they was humans like me, likewise."

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[Footnote 6: _Shiva_.]

[Footnote 7: _Mata devi_.]

[Footnote 8: _Vishnu Lukshmi_.]

[Footnote 9: _Holi_, the Indian Saturnalia.]

---------------------

"And which belief do you incline to?" I asked, for the sake of prolonging the conversation.

He drew his rough hand over his corn-coloured beard, and quite a grave look came to the blue eyes. "I inclines to _Shiver_," he said decisively, "and I'll tell you why, sir. Shiver's bloody; but 'e's dead on death. They calls 'im the Destroyer. 'E don't care a damn for the body; 'e's all for the spiritooal nater, like old Meditations there. Now _Wishnyou Lucksmi_ an' that lot is the Preservers. They eats an' drinks 'earty, like me. So it stands to reason, sir, don't it? that 'e's a _Shiver_, and I'm a _Wishnyou Lucksmi_." He stood up under pretence of giving a wipe round a valve with the oily rag he held, and looked out to the horizon where the sun was setting, like a huge red signal right on the narrowing line. "So," he went on after a pause, "that's why I wouldn't 'ave 'arm come to old Meditations. 'E's a _Shiver_, I'm a _Wishnyou Lucksmi_. That's what _I_ am."

His meaning was quite clear, and I am not ashamed to say that it touched me.

"Look here," I said, "take care you don't run over that old chap some day when you are drunk, that's all."

He bent over another valve, burnishing it. "I hope to God I don't," he said in a low voice. "That'd about finish me altogether, I expect."

We returned the next morning before daybreak; but I went on the engine, being determined to see how that bronze image looked on the permanent way when you were steaming up to it.

"You ketch sight of 'im clear this side," said Craddock, "a good two mile or more; ef you had a telescope ten for that matter. It ain't so easy t'other side with the sun a-shining bang inter the eyes. And there ain't no big wave as a signal over there. But Lordy! there ain't no fear of my missin' old Meditations."

Certainly, none that morning. He showed clear, first against the rosy flush of dawn, afterwards like a dark stain on the red ribbon.

"I'll run up close to him to-day, sir," said Craddock, "so as you shall see wot 'e's made of."

The whistle rang shrill over the desert of sand, which lay empty of all save that streak of red with the dark stain upon it; but the stain never moved, never stirred, though the snorting demon from the west came racing up to it full speed.

"Have a care, man! Have a care!" I shouted; but my words were almost lost in the jar of the brake put on to the utmost. Even then I could only crane round the cab with my eyes fixed on that bronze image straight ahead of us. Could we stop in time--would it move? Yes! no! yes! Slower and slower--how many turns of the flywheel to so many yards?--I felt as if I were working the sum frantically in my head, when, with a little backward shiver, the great circle of steel stopped dead, and Craddock's voice came in cheerful triumph.

"There! didn't I tell you, sir? Ain't 'e stiddy? Ain't 'e a-subdooin' of mortality beautiful?" The next instant he was out, and as he stooped to his task he flung me back a look.

"Now, sonny, you'll 'ave to move. You're in the way--the permanent way, my dear."

That was the last I saw of him for some time, for I fell sick and went home. When I returned to work I found, much to my surprise, that Craddock was in the same appointment; in fact, he had been promoted to drive the solitary passenger train which now ran daily across the desert. He had not been on the spree once, I was told; indeed, the R.E., who was of the Methodist division of that gallant regiment, took great pride in a reformation which, he informed me, was largely due to his religious teaching combined with Departmental Discipline.

"And how is Meditations?" I asked, when the great rough hand had shaken mine vehemently.

Craddock's face seemed to me to grow redder than ever. "'E's very well, sir, thanking you kindly. There's a native driver on the Goods now. 'E's a _Shiver-Martha Davy_ lot, so I pays 'im five rupee a month to nip out sharp with the stoker an' shovel 'is old saint to one side. I'm gettin' good pay now, you know, sir."

I told him there was no reason to apologise for the fact, and that I hoped it might long continue; whereat he gave a sheepish kind of laugh, and said he hoped so too.

Christmas came and went uneventfully without an outbreak, and I could not refrain from congratulating Craddock on one temptation safely over.

He smiled broadly.

"Lor' bless you, sir," he said, "you didn't never think, did you, that Nathaniel James Craddock, which his name was given to 'im in Holy Baptism, I do assure you, was going to knuckle down that way to old _Hommipuddenhome?_ 'Twouldn't be fair on Christmas noways, sir, and though I don't set the store 'e does on 'is spiritooal nater, I was born and bred in a Christyan country, I do assure you."

I congratulated him warmly on his sentiments, and hoped again that they would last; to which he replied as before that he hoped so too.

And then _Holi_ time came round, and, as luck would have it, the place was full of riff-raff low whites going on to look for work in a further section. I had to drive through the bazaar on my way to the railway station and it beat anything I had ever seen in various vice. East and West were outbidding each other in iniquity, and to make matters worse an electrical dust-storm was blowing hard. You never saw such a scene; it was pandemonium, background and all. I thought I caught a glimpse of a corn-coloured beard and a pair of blue eyes in a wooden balcony among tinkling _sutaras_ and jasmine chaplets, but I wasn't sure. However, as I was stepping into the inspection carriage which, as usual, was the last in the train, I saw Craddock crossing the platform to his engine. His white coat was all splashed with the red dye they had been throwing at each other, _Holi_ fashion, in the bazaar; his walk, to my eyes, had a lilt in it, and finally, the neck of a black bottle showed from one pocket.

Obedient to one of those sudden impulses which come, heaven knows why, I took my foot off the step and followed him to the engine.

"Comin' aboard, sir," he said quite collectedly. "You'd be better be'ind to-night, for it's blowin' grit fit to make me a walkin' sandpaper inside and out." And before I could stop him the black bottle was at his mouth. This decided me. Perhaps my face showed my thoughts, for as I climbed into the cab he gave an uneasy laugh. "Don't be afraid, sir: it's black as pitch, but I knows where old Meditation comes by instinck, I do assure you. One hour an' seventeen minutes from the distance signal with pressure as it oughter be. Hillo! there's the whistle and the baboo a-waving. Off we goes!"

As we flashed past a red light I looked at my watch.

"Don't you be afraid, sir," he said, again looking at his. "It's ten to ten now, and in one hour an' seventeen minutes on goes the brake. That's the ticket for _Shivers_ and _Martha Davy_; though I am a _Wishnyou Lucksmi_." He paused a moment, and as he stood put his hand on a stanchion to steady himself.

"Very much of a _Wishnyou Lucksmi_," he went on with a shake of the head. "I've 'ad a drop too much and I know it; but it ain't fair on a fellar like me, 'aving so many names to them, when they're all the same--a eatin' an' drinkin' lot like me. There's Christen[10]--you'd 'ave thought he'd 'ave been a decent chap by 'is name, but 'e went on orful with them _Gopis_--that's Hindu for milkmaids, sir. And Harry[11]--well, he wasn't no better than some other Harrys I've heard on. And Canyer,[12] I expect he could just about. To say nothin' of _Gopi-naughty_;[13] and naughty he were, as no doubt you've heard tell, sir. There's too many on them for a pore fellar who don't set store by 'is spiritooal nater; especially when they mixes themselves up with _Angcore_[14] whisky, an' ginger ale."

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[Footnote 10: _Kristna_.]

[Footnote 11: _Hari_.]

[Footnote 12: _Kaniya_.]

[Footnote 13: _Gopi-nath_. These are all names of Vishnu in his various Avatars.]

[Footnote 14: _Encore_.]

---------------------

His blue eyes had a far-away look in them, and his words were fast losing independence, but I understood what he meant perfectly. In that brief glimpse of the big bazaar I had seen the rows of Western bottles standing cheek by jowl with the bowls of _dolee_ dye, the sour curds and sweetmeats of _Holi_-tide.

"You had better sit down, Craddock," I said severely, for I saw that the fresh air was having its usual effect. "Perhaps if you sleep a bit you'll be more fit for work. I'll look out and wake you when you're wanted."

He gave a silly laugh, let go the stanchion, and drew out his watch.

"Don't you be afraid, sir! One hour and seventeen minutes from the distance signal. I'll keep 'im out o' 'arm's way, an' willing to the end of the chapter."

He gave a lurch forward to the seat, stumbled, and the watch dropped from his hand. For a moment I thought he might go overboard, and I clutched at him frantically; but with another lurch and an indistinct admonition to me not to be afraid, he sank into the corner of the bench and was asleep in a second. Then I stooped to pick up the watch, and, rather to my surprise, found it uninjured and still going.

Craddock's words, "ten minutes to ten," recurred to me. Then it would be twenty-seven minutes past eleven before he was wanted. I sat down to wait, bidding the native stoker keep up the fire as usual. The wind was simply shrieking round us, and the sand drifted thick on Craddock's still, upturned face. More than once I wiped it off, feeling he might suffocate. It was the noisiest, and at the same time the most silent, journey I ever undertook. Pandemonium, with seventy times seven of its devils let loose outside the cab; inside Craddock asleep, or dead--he might have been the latter from his stillness. It became oppressive after a time, as I remembered that other still figure, miles down the track, which was so strangely bound to this one beside me. The minutes seemed hours, and I felt a distinct relief when the watch, which I had held in my hand most of the time, told me it was seventeen minutes past eleven. Only ten minutes before the brake should be put on; and Craddock would require all that time to get his senses about him.

I might as well have tried to awaken a corpse, and it was three minutes to the twenty-seven when I gave up the idea as hopeless. Not that it mattered, since I could drive an engine as well as he; still the sense of responsibility weighed heavily upon me. My hand on the brake valve trembled visibly as I stood watching the minute hand of the watch. Thirty seconds before the time I put the brake on hard, determining to be on the safe side. And then when I had taken this precaution a perfectly unreasoning anxiety seized on me. I stepped on to the footboard and craned forward into the darkness which, even without the wind and the driving dust, was blinding. The lights in front shot slantways, showing an angle of red ballast, barred by gleaming steel; beyond that a formless void of sand. But the centre of the permanent way, where that figure would be sitting, was dark as death itself. What a fool I was, when the great circle of the fly-wheel was slackening, slackening, every second! And yet the fear grew lest I should have been too late, lest I should have made some mistake. To appease my own folly I drew out my watch in confirmation of the time. Great God! a difference of two minutes!--two whole minutes!--yet the watches had been the same at the distance signal?--the fall, of course! the fall!!

I seemed unable to do anything but watch that slackening wheel, even though I became conscious of a hand on my shoulder, of some one standing beside me on the footboard. No! not standing, swaying, lurching----

"Don't!" I cried. "Don't! it's madness!" But that some one was out in the darkness. Then I saw a big white figure dash across the angle of light with outspread arms.

"Now then, sonny! yo're in the way--the permanent way."

* * * * *

The inspector paused, and I seemed to come back to the sliding whir of the trolly wheels. In the distance a semaphore was dropping its red arm and a pointsman, like a speck on the ribbon, was at work shunting us into a siding.

"Well?" I asked.

"There isn't anything more. When a whole train goes over two men who are locked in each other's arms it is hard--hard to tell--well, which is _Shivers Martha Davy_, and which is _Wishnyou Lucksmi_. It was right out in the desert in the hot weather, no parsons or people to object; so I buried them there in the permanent way."

"And those are tombstones, I suppose?"

He laughed. "No; altars. The native _employes_ put them up to their saint. The oval black upright stone is Shiva, the Destroyer's _lingam_; those splashes are blood. The flat one, decorated with flowers, is the _salagrama_[15] sacred to Vishnu the Preserver. You see nobody really knew whether old Meditations was a _Saiva_ or a _Vaishnava_; so I suggested this arrangement as the men were making a sectarian quarrel out of the question." He paused again and added:

---------------------

[Footnote 15: A fossil ammonite.]

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"You see it does for both of them."

The jar of the points prevented me from replying.

ON THE SECOND STORY

It was a three-storied house in reality, though time had given it the semblance of a fourth in the mud platform which led up to its only entrance. For the passing feet of generations had worn down the levels of the alley outside, and the toiling hands of generations had added to the level of the rooms within, until those who wished to pass from one to the other had to climb the connecting steps ere they could reach the door.

The door itself was broad as it was high, and had a strangely deformed look; since nearly half of its two carven stone jambs were, of necessity, hidden behind the platform. These stone jambs, square-hewn, roughly-carven, were the only sign of antiquity visible in the house from the alley; the rest being the usual straight-up-and-down almost windowless wall built of small purplish bricks set in a mortar of mud. It stood, however, a little further back in the alley than its neighbours, so giving room for the mud platform; but that was its only distinction.

The alley in its turn differed in no way from the generality of such alleys in the walled towns where the houses--like trees in a crowded plantation--shoot up shoulder to shoulder, as if trying to escape skywards from the yearly increasing pressure of humanity. It was, briefly, a deep, dark, irregular drain of a place, shadowful utterly save for the one brief half hour or so during which the sun showed in the notched ribbon of the sky which was visible between the uneven turretings of the roof.

Yet the very sunlessness and airlessness had its advantages. In hot weather it brought relief from the scorching glare, and in the cold, such air as there was remained warm even beneath a frosty sky. So that the mud platform, with its possibilities of unhustled rest, was a favourite gossiping place of the neighbourhood. All the more so because, between it and the next house, diving down through the _debris_ of countless generations and green with the slime of countless ages, lay one of those wells to which the natives cling so fondly in defiance of modern sanitation and water-works. But there was a third reason why the platform was so much frequented; on the second story of the house to which it belonged stood the oldest Hindu shrine in the city. How it came to be there no one could say clearly. The Brahmins who tended it from the lower story told tales of a plinthed temple built in the heroic age of Prithi Raj; but only this much was certain, that it was very old, and that the steep stone ladder of a stair which led up to the arched alcoves of the ante-shrine was of very different date to the ordinary brick one which led thence to the third story; where, among other lodgers, Ramanund, B.A., lived with his widowed mother.