Benefit of Doubt/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
“Hostages.”
People live on the slopes of Vesuvius. They speak of the volcano's cruelty, its sudden anger, its destructive outbursts—of the names of its slain, of the square leagues of vanished orchards, and of the cities buried under lava. They continue to live on the slopes of Vesuvius. The profits while peace lasts are greater than on the crowded plains, and the human gambling instinct draws them to settle again among the smoking lava beds between eruptions.
Hindus live in Moplah country. They speak of the Moplahs' cruelty, their sudden anger, their destructive outbursts—of the names of the slain, of the square leagues of vanished cultivation, and of the cities buried in jungle that once hummed with Hindu life. Hindus continue, nevertheless, to live in Moplah country. The profits while peace lasts are greater than on the crowded plains. The gambling instinct draws them to resettle the smoking villages between outbursts of fanaticism.
The Hindus were there first, just as people were there before Vesuvius. Once in every fifty years or so since the Moplahs' first invasion, which is oftener than Vesuvius breaks loose, the Moplahs have readjusted the balance in their own favor, adding to themselves new wives, new cattle, new money, and new blood in the shape of compulsory converts. Estimates of the number of Hindus killed on those occasions vary from a score to a million, according to whether Hindu or Moslem makes the estimate and whether the inquirer is merely curious or a British Government official.
Undoubtedly there is more looting than murder, just as Vesuvius impoverishes more people than it slays. The Hindu can run and, moreover, has a merry little way of accepting the creed of Islam temporarily, together with its permanent brand, and reverting to Hinduism when the storm is over.
For the profits are prodigious. The Moslem is literal minded. The Koran forbids charging interest, so he never charges it, but he will pay it willingly. And whereas under the ancient Moslem law no man's land or house could be attached for debt, the British have changed all that; a mortgage has become the moneylender's chief security. And a Hindu would rather lend money than till fields, especially with the legal maximum at twenty-four per cent.
So once in a generation or so the balance really calls for readjustment, and it is only the Moplah's method that is reprehensible. Like Artemus Ward's kangaroo, he is an “amoosin' cus.'”' He redistributes the moneylender's surplus and converts the villager to Islam, but is careful to leave the moneylender unconverted, in order to have some one from whom to borrow by and by. And although he plunders the towns and villages and puts priests to the sword, he as often as not leaves the Hindu temples unharmed, in order to tempt the Hindu back again when recurrent peace sets in.
It was so at Podanaram, which the legends say was an enormous city before the Moplahs came. That may be true, for the Hindu temple that stands in the midst with little narrow streets crisscrossing around it in every direction is much too big and well-built for a town of the present size. Some of its stones are enormous. There are evidences of its being an ancient Buddhist temple made over by the Hindus, although the Hindu carving has suffered, too, where the iconoclastic Moslem has knocked off ears and noses.
The temple appears suddenly and sets you wondering, just as Podanaram appears unexpectedly amid the jungle at the end of a winding forest path. The jungle has invaded the ancient city in sections, gaining foothold where it may, and enormous trees make it impossible to gain any idea of the size of the present community, or even to see the temple from anywhere except in front. The temple's rear is plunged into impenetrable gloom, and from overhead the monkeys drop down on to its pagoda-like roof, which in places has been rubbed into grooves by the action of branches and wind.
Podanaram now was headquarters of the most radical Moplah puritan reformists. The Hindu temple was official G. H. Q. Just as Cromwell stabled horses in cathedrals the pupils of the Ali Brothers chose the most sacred Hindu shrine available for their designs against the Hindus, and the famous Alis being in jail elsewhere those who carried on the good work were much more thorough than their teachers might have been.
The Moplahs, being sons of their sires, were split into factions, of course, although not so badly as usual. The rabid, self-elected G. H. Q. at Podanaram was aiming at unity by force of a good example. So they seized a hundred Hindus, men and women, and made them clean that temple from cellar to roof, there being nothing under the blue sky filthier than a Hindu place of worship, nor anything cleaner than a Mohammedan mosque.
Having cleaned the temple thoroughly, the Hindus were marched in procession to distant villages, where a dozen or so in each place were publicly and painfully executed, to the greater glory of Allah, who is the Father of mercies and men, and never sleeps.
Very ingenious, that. There was not a village in a radius of twenty miles thereafter that could claim no Hindus had been butchered in its midst. All being equally guilty, all must unite in repudiating foreign rule, repelling British troops and raking the coals of Jehannum. Nothing like blood-guiltiness to stir fanaticism, which was stirred accordingly.
Meanwhile, in a clean-swept G. H. Q. the puritan reformers began their bid for power, as such gentry always did and do. Loot, rapine, reformation, destruction of idolatry—those were the wages of the blind-obedient. Power was the reward of brainwork, and the key of all contentment. They chose, and would take nothing less. Control. The Key of Everything.
There were the individuals who had been taught by the cleverest agitators in the East. That their teachers were in jail only keened their appetite for vengeance and rebellion. Supplied with funds from the common Hindu-Moslem purse, they urged the butchery of Hindus, not because they cared but because that was sure to be obeyed and obedience is the very bones of power.
Schooled by shrewd demagogues, they knew that the outcome must be defeat. Therefore they planned for such disaster as should make the Moplahs turn toward themselves more desperately. For such outrage as should force the British hand and oblige retaliation. Then for such advertisement of British ruthlessness as should set alight the whole fire of Moslem India. By that light they expected to see their way to power indeed.
But little by little! First Moplah-land. Power first over the factious villages, never forgetting for a moment the obligation to provide for their own individual safety in any event. Better jail than death, for a man may use his brains between four walls. Knowing defeat was inevitable they could plan for the days beyond defeat, and did.
And the first consideration of G. H. Q. must be intelligence. Village by village they arranged for spies, mullahs mostly, who kept them informed of every development. In the beginning, when a village sent its men-folk on a raid, G. H. Q. invariably sent a messenger in pursuit, who ordered just that raid in the name of G. H. Q. emphatically—only they called themselves the Khalifate Committee, which sounded more orthodox. So the suggestion of obedience was imposed and grew. None seemed to know exactly who the Khalifate Committee were, which helped immensely, and almost from the start men who would have defied their own headmen to their teeth obeyed the Khalifate Committee without murmur.
There are principles for winning the control of men, just as there are for training dogs. There are men who teach them; other men who study them as keenly as bankers investigate the laws of money. You take away a bone from a puppy, and presently give it back perhaps, to demonstrate your absolute authority and by and by the puppy lets you do it with an air of resignation, almost reverence. You must do the same thing to a crowd if you hope ever to exercise unquestioned sway.
There came along a fire lane through the forest a crowd of a hundred and fifty men carrying the plunder of a mixed train, dragging an elderly white man with them, who had warts and a butler's face, and carrying the prisoner's unconscious wife on an improvised litter. There were other prisoners, but those were the important ones. Incidentally they were also the greatest nuisance, since it took four men to bear the litter and four more to drag and shove the judge along.
He had said he was a judge, which was why they had spared his life from the start, and there was no precedent in living memory for killing or mishandling a white woman, so they had brought his wife along too.
The loot was very good indeed, including rifles. Most of the other prisoners were young women from a Hindu village down along the railway line—entirely satisfactory. The judge and his wife were a speculative quantity—perhaps profitable, perhaps not; certainly a cause for pride, but as inconvenient as a pair of European boots and quite likely dangerous, if one only knew.
They had sent word by runner concerning the judge and his wife, partly in spirit of boastfulness, but also to see what the reply would be—not to the Khalifate Committee in Podanaram, for that would have conceded too much, but to a village whose mullah they well knew would forward the news to the Khalifate Committee. Thus they could obtain a professional opinion without confessing themselves in need of it.
The professional opinion met them in the form of a stern command delivered to them in a forest clearing by a sub-committee headed by an ex-Brahman who had been forcibly converted twenty years before and wisely had made the best of the situation. A Brahman is constitutionally bent on self-assertion and inclined to reach the top, like scum on water. Nearly always an adept, too, at establishing his claim over ignorant men.
He told them to give up their white prisoners—to surrender them to the Khalifate Committee, who would take charge of them and be responsible. The men who carried the litter, and who shoved and dragged the judge, complied without demur; so the headmen were presented with a fait accompli, which like possession is nine points of almost any argument. The ex-Brahman ordered his own party to take the prisoners away, and himself stood guarding the retreat exactly in the middle of a narrow jungle path, like a swag-bellied Cerberus.
“The Khalifate Committee takes charge of all white prisoners,” he announced. “Whoever conceals or neglects to hand over a white prisoner will be punished. You are allowed to keep all other loot,” he added, as if that were a concession granted by incontrovertible authority.
It was cleverly done. The moment was accurately chosen. The raiders wanted to go home and eat, brag, sleep. They decidedly did not want to go to Podanaram and argue with men who were almost certain to have the best of any argument except possibly force. The headmen could have accomplished nothing by going without their following, who would almost certainly have refused to go, and all who were in favor of not carrying litters or pully-hauling corpulent kadis[1] said, “Aye.” The “Ayes” had it. The raiders sought their own villages, one of which was that in which King lay nursing a bruised head and Mahommed Babar was establishing himself.
And so it happened that after many hot hours and much imprecation the judge and his wife were presented like captured animals before the door of a temple that would have stirred the judge's archeological lees on any other occasion.
Mrs. Wilmshurst had recovered consciousness. In fact she had done that some hours ago, but had played 'possum for fear of being made to walk again in high-heeled shoes. The litter lay on the stones of the temple forecourt and she sat on it, staring and being stared at by a row of Moslems, who varied all the way from cardinal-like sanctity to perfect ruffianism.
They broke no rules. As ever in such cases, they were nearly all foreigners—mostly from places as far removed as New York is from Mexico. The sprinkling of native-born Moplahs among them was enough, but no more than enough to lend a skimpy patriotic flavor to the whole, as if a Moplah or two had felt obliged to import advisers. Enough Moplahs, in fact, were there to take full blame for the whole committee's actions, and being ignorant savages they were swamped meanwhile—bewildered—almost ignored—but kept in a suitable state of amenity by dint of flattery and bribes.
Their day of disillusionment was coming, when the time should come to surrender and send in those responsible for outrages. For the present the Moplahs stood long-haired, open-mouthed, marvelling at fortune that had sent them British prisoners.
The men from Calcutta, Bombay, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Aden, Peshawar and the far North saw fit to be more polite to the judge and his wife than the Moplahs might have been if left to themsleves. More polite and less agreeable. The Moplahs would have grinned and gloated, but would have fed them and let them wash.
There was a table, looted from where only Allah knew, but a good, teak, Christian table, set under the temple portico on the thousand-year-old flagstones just within the limit of the shade so as to have the advantage of whatever breeze was moving. Around that were chairs—one each for the Committee, some of whom, Moplahs especially, had never sat on chairs until fate pitchforked them into such prominence. They took their places, with an oily-haired Moplah at the table head for sake of the advertisement, nearly all cross-legged but some enduring the European posture as, for instance, Mrs. Wilmshurst endured her shoes, and the judge and his wife were requested to stand at the end of the table opposite the chairman.
The language elected was English, probably because the choice implied a patronizing air toward the judge.
The chairman had nothing to say. He stuck his tongue in his cheek, displayed his magnificent teeth, and lolled with his elbows on the table, making an occasional scrawl on paper with a quill pen, perhaps to disguise the fact that he could neither read nor write. He was a very obvious figurehead and none too beautiful.
The man who opened on the judge was an undersized dapper little Delhi Moslem, seated on the chairman's right, who looked and spoke as if he might have been a practising lawyer. His mild brown eyes were only mild at the first impression. They were unflinching really—bold—calculating—afraid of nothing—and a lot too shrewd to take his share of the risks. That dark shade of brown that grows harder and darker as you look at it.
He recognized the judge instantly, but gave no sign. The judge was not sure. There was something about the man's deliberate impudence that seemed familiar, but of course he had seen hundreds of the same type from the bench and he did not care to run the risk of appearing to curry favor by recognizing some one whom he was not sure he knew. He stood with his hand on his wife's shoulder helping to support her and glanced from face to face, but always back again at the brown eyes of the undersized man from Delhi.
“You realize you are a prisoner?” asked the Delhi man. “You need not be afraid. We do not beat our prisoners.”
“I am not the least afraid,” the judge answered, “but I would appreciate your providing a chair for my wife.”
One or two of the committee had the grace to look uncomfortable, but the man from Delhi grinned meanly. The judge began to be very nearly sure he recognized him, and was glad he had not made overtures.
“She shall have a chair, certainly. Many an Indian has been made to stand at her whim, but we are not vindictive!”
He clapped his hands and a boy brought a broken chair from inside the temple. The judge, who was weary almost to endurance, was left standing. Mrs. Wilmshurst sat down, speechless almost for the first time in her life.
“If you are not afraid, your case is different from that of the unfortunates who so frequently stand before you for sentence—unfortunates whom you punish drastically for breaking laws they had no voice in making,” said the man from Delhi; and at last Wilmshurst did recognize him. But he contrived to keep the recognition from his eyes.
“What do you propose to do with us?” the judge asked.
“Why should we propose at all?” the other retorted. “You are a prisoner. You should ask mercy.”
He evidently meant to inflict as much verbal torture as possible, for he was settling himself comfortably, cross-legged. Nevertheless, he did not enjoy the paramountcy that he hoped for. There was sturdy opposition from a gray-beard facing him, who wore the white headdress of an educated man and was big enough to have made about three of him from Delhi.
“They are hostages,” he said in English. “Make no error about that. I will agree to nothing else. They are hostages.”
The man from Delhi smiled with lean lips, accepting the suggestion, but obviously reserving venom for later on.
“Do you realize what it means to be a hostage?” he asked the judge. “For every outrage perpetrated by the British troops against us you are liable to be made to suffer in your own body!”
Wilmshurst smiled, rather wryly—because his feet were in agonies—but genuinely nonetheless. He was not such a fool as to suppose that men of the type before him would. torture valuable prisoners. The suggestion was too absurd for him to answer with the obvious threat of what the British troops might accomplish in return. The point was not worth arguing.
Graybeard in opposition opened fire again, laying his fist on the table manfully and forestalling the Delhi man's next remark.
“You will write a letter,” he said. “You will say in it that your wife and you are prisoners. You will say you have been well treated”
“That will depend on the facts,” Wilmshurst interrupted. “My wife has been disgracefully illtreated, and so have I. We have had no food—no rest. If I write a letter I shall say in it what I consider true.”
“Say what you like!” the graybeard answered. “You will write the letter. Your friends will know you are a prisoner, and that is what we want.”
“I shall read the letter, of course, before you seal it up,” said the man from Delhi.
“I am willing to write,” said the judge after a moment's reflection. His legal mind could see no possible objection to communicating with British Headquarters, wherever that might be. He rather suspected a trick, because the man from Delhi was connected with it, but for the life of him he could not see through the trick, so he supposed that none existed.
The man from Delhi, watching Wilmshurst with a quizzical expression that seemed to hint at ultimate consequences foreseen as yet only by himself, pushed paper, pen and ink toward the judge, who ignored them.
The Moplah at the head of the table said something in his own tongue and there was a moment's discussion in which the man from Delhi did not join.
“You are promised good treatment and anything you want in reason that is in our power to do until we shall have formulated our final demands. That is not yet. We will discuss them. When our final demands go to the British, your treatment after that will depend on the British reply. Now write,” said the man who sat between the chairman and the graybeard.
He had obviously had legal training, and seemed more than usually proud of his command of English, for he smirked self-complacently when he had done his speech.
The judge wrote:
To whom it may concern: My wife and I are prisoners in the hands of Moplahs, who have notified us that we are hostages, but have promised us good treatment for the present. Hitherto the treatment has not been good.
“Cross that out!” commanded the Delhi man, coming round to look over the judge's elbow.
“Certainly not,” Wilmshurst answered, and signed his name. “Send that or nothing!”
They were in a quandary whether or not to use that letter, and some of them did not care to argue the point in the prisoners' presence; so two of the Committee—Moplahs, who knew no English—were told off to take them to the quarters assigned to them inside the temple.
They were led through the gloomy interior past enormous stone images to a door at the rear that opened into a good-sized priests' room fairly well lighted by high barred windows that looked out among the trees. There were basins, great quantities of water, some soap, two towels, and two string-beds with cotton-stuffed mattresses and clean white sheets.
“Oh well, this might be worse!” said his wife, growing almost cheerful as the Moplahs locked them in.
“Might be worse? Yes. Might be better,” said the judge. “That fellow from Delhi who did the talking is a man whom I once sentenced to twenty years for forgery and arson. He escaped from prison. His name was Aurung Ali in those days, but he has probably changed it.
- ↑ Judge.