Chapter XXIV: The Dacoits Burn the Village

Moung Shway Poh retired to his virtuous sleeping-mat, and sought peaceful oblivion among his family. The other villagers also separated, each to his place, and the two English lads went to their hut.

"Do you think there is anything in what the grandfather says, Kirke?" asked Ralph anxiously.

"I have no doubt but what the dear old sinner's experience of his kind is exhaustive, and the ladies seem to echo his idea," replied Kirke. "But I should think that the beggars had got enough for to-night. They will want to pull themselves a little together before they make a fresh attack. We may sleep the sleep of the just for a few hours, my boy."

"It would be just as well to load the guns, and see that our other things are all to hand, though," said Ralph.

"Careful and provident youth! Perhaps you are right," quoth Kirke.

Accordingly they examined their weapons, prepared and laid them to hand, ate their suppers, and stretched themselves on their mats. Kirke was asleep in five minutes, but Ralph's wound began to throb and ache, and the distress from it kept him awake. He was feverish too, and twisted and turned on his bed, unable to find ease in any posture. Now he thought he heard stealthy movements around him; then he lost consciousness for a few moments, and awoke with a start, fancying that a snake was crawling over him, or that he was once again confronted by a leopard's glaring eyes.

He told himself over and over again that the sounds were but the soft rustling of bats' wings, the scramble of rats along the rafters of the hut, or the whirr of mosquitoes in the damp night air.

It was of no use, sleep forsook his eyes, although he was so tired that he longed for its balminess. Instead of finding its refreshment, he was haunted by all the stories of dacoits which he had heard at Moulmein and elsewhere.

He thought of one young lady who was said to have been gently lifted from her bed, the mattress removed from beneath her and appropriated, while she was replaced upon the framework without being awakened.

He remembered how a gentleman, fancying he heard sounds in the house, got up, and entangled his feet in garments belonging to his wife lying about on the floor.

"What is that untidy ayah of yours about, to leave your things scattered on the ground like this?" scolded he.

"She did not throw them down," said the lady; "I saw her lay that habit on the chest of drawers, ready for me to put on in the morning."

Her husband by this time had struck a light, and found the whole chest of drawers gone. The servants were called up, a search instituted, and the piece of furniture discovered in the compound, rifled of all its contents.

He laughed to himself, for the fiftieth time, over the remembrance of the doctor's wife, who awoke in the night to see a dusky figure stooping over a nice, carefully-locked mahogany box, in the act of lifting it to carry it away.

Being a brave woman, she sprang up into a sitting posture, clapping her hands with a sudden sharp sound. The robber dropped his booty, leapt over the verandah, swarmed down one of the posts which supported it, and vanished in a moment. By this act of presence of mind, she saved her husband's stomach-pump.

Other more gruesome anecdotes recurred to his memory in wearisome procession, and murdered sleep as effectually as Macbeth had ever done.

Hour passed after hour in this manner, but yet surely it could not be daylight already? The sun was given to springing rapidly up in these regions, but not with so sudden a glow as this, nor with so brilliantly red a colour. What was it?

Conviction flashed upon him at once, there was fire somewhere.

"Kirke! Kirke!" he cried. "Up, man, the dacoits are firing the village!"

Up sprang Kirke, and the two rushed out of their hut, to see half a dozen of the pretty slight houses around them blazing like torches, while demon figures leapt and howled around, flinging burning brands upon the inflammable roofs of palmy thekkee leaves, and in at the open doorways of the slender bamboo and matted walls.

The wretched villagers, caught like rats in so many traps, must either be burnt with their houses, or be chopped down by the dahs carried by the merciless robbers. Man, woman, and child,--all alike murdered in cold blood by their unsparing hands.

The assassins were but a gang of four, therefore, probably, was the same band as that which the villagers had beaten off in the evening, with the loss of one; for the dacoit generally works in parties of five.

It might well be supposed that a whole village, consisting perhaps of fifty men, with women and young people, could easily have repelled an attack from so small a party as that; but it must be understood that, to preserve the people from the floods in the wet season, and the fear of wild animals at all times, the houses were raised upon high piles; each, therefore, being isolated completely from its neighbour.

When the floods were out, one lady would take her boat even to borrow a cheroot from her nearest friend; the population lived in boats almost wholly; their houses were little more than shelters in which to eat and sleep. They contained no effects to induce a love for "home," in the Englishman's understanding of the word,--few appliances for occupation or pleasure. A chest or box for containing the best clothes and ornaments; a sufficiency of mats and rugs for beds; a "byat," or wooden dish, lacquered, from which they eat their rice; a few little bowls to hold small quantities of more tasty articles for flavouring the tasteless staple of their food; and half a dozen earthen pots or jars,--these form the sum total of a Burman's Lares and Penates; and there is nothing among them to create "house-pride" among the ladies, or a love for home-keeping in the gentlemen. All their amusements and pleasures are taken out of doors, in public.

But the family retires, at "sky shutting-in time," for sleep; and the dacoit who means mischief can take them practically one by one, burning the edifice, and destroying, or watching, the means of descent from the little platform upon which it is erected.

As Kirke and Ralph rushed out from their hut, they saw the ground at the foot of the next one strewn with the bleeding corpses of the father and three sons who dwelt there, while the aged grandmother crouched shuddering among the blazing rafters, and pretty little Miss Sunshine, the gay, merry child who had played a hundred tricks upon them, and laughed with them so often, clung to the kingpost, shrieking with terror, while the dacoits chopped and mangled the bodies of her nearest and dearest friends, and leapt up howling to reach her, and sweep her into the same holocaust.

"Oh, paya, paya, save me!" she implored, stretching her little hands towards them, the tears coursing down her painted cheeks.

"My God!" cried Kirke; "the bloodthirsty scoundrels!"

He caught up his gun and fired, but the dacoits were never still; they danced from place to place; they seemed to be ubiquitous, there was no taking aim at any one of them.

Well was it for the English lads that Ralph had loaded the guns, and laid their pistols to hand. The steady fire maintained by Kirke kept the dacoits at bay, they retired to a little distance; and Ralph descended from their verandah on the dark side, and put up a rough ladder for the girl and old woman to come down.

Sunshine sprang quickly to it, but the old woman was paralysed by fear and could not move.

"Escape, my pretty, into the jungle," whispered the boy hurriedly to his little playmate, who needed no second bidding to disappear into the darkness; while he ascended the ladder, protected by Kirke's gun, took the aged crone on his back, and essayed to return by the same means.

The charred bamboos crashed down as he seized the woman; the burning thekkee on the roof set her clothes on fire; she was a burden too heavy for his strength, he could not carry her. The dacoits came running and howling up once more,--once more did Kirke's gun roar out its protecting voice, and a robber fell.

His companions rushed forward, and drew him back,--he was hit in the thigh, and could not stand; the others raged at a safe distance.

All this took but a few minutes of time, and some of the villagers now hurried up, and formed a circle around the supports of Kirke's house; while one, another son of the old woman, rushed up the ladder, and helped Ralph to bring his mother down and seat her on the damp ground beneath the verandah.

Several other women were brought in there also, the ring of men encircling the place, prepared to fire or strike at the dacoits if they ventured within reach. The long dahs,--sharp-edged swords,--worn by the dacoits down their backs, and drawn by both hands over the right shoulders, proved to be deadly weapons, and the battle raged long, with horrid outcry, and many a gaping wound; but the enemy was beaten off at last, bleeding, baffled and exhausted, scorched, maimed, and yet howling with rage and pain.

A second man of their party had been killed.

Ralph had forgotten his wounded leg in the recent excitement; it was but a flesh wound, though a deep one. With care and rest it would have been quite healed in a few days, but the exertion which he had taken inflamed it much.

It might be that the weapon with which he received the hurt had rust, or some deleterious matter upon its blade; but, however that might be, the place assumed a very ugly appearance, and suppurated.

Kirke washed it well with warm water, applied fresh leaves and bandages--what else to do he did not know, but felt very uneasy, for in spite of the large quantity of blood which his friend had lost, he grew so feverish at night.

The villagers who had been burnt out were dispersed among the huts left standing. Kirke set a watch, and went round from time to time to see that the watchmen did not sleep at their posts. He had taken the command of the hamlet, all appearing willing to submit to the leader who had shown so much daring and courage; but his own heart was heavy within him. Except Denham, he had no trust in any one of his followers. The Burmese can be fierce by spasmodic fits, but their natural temper is easy, pleasure-loving, inert. There is in them none of the elements which constitute a good soldier. They would rather fly than fight at any time. If Denham were going to be seriously ill, he had no reliance upon anyone, no friend to back him up.

He believed that the dacoits would certainly return for vengeance, if not for the treasures. What would be the end of it all?

He went his rounds, having to awaken one or two of his watchers every time; he returned, to bathe Ralph's brow, change the healing leaves, give him drink, and observe him anxiously; then he went his rounds again. What a weary, weary day it was, he could not keep up the strain long; and, oh horror! suppose that Denham had been wounded by a _poisoned_ sword.

It was dark again; every hour full of danger. How could he meet it? how overcome it?

However, about dawn Ralph's fever lessened, his skin became cool and moist, and he fell asleep. That fear was off his mind for the time, but the peril in which they stood had by no means lessened.