Benefit of Doubt/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
“Engage the enemy more closely.”
In every generation there are scores of men who can disguise themselves as natives of the East and get by undetected. The really rare men are those who can do it and regain their western heritage. It means something more than merely staining your whole skin black to act Othello. It is more like dying and being born again.
Athelstan King was dead to his own kind—to the past—to the world that knew him—possibly to the future. If he should die, they would say only this of him—that no man knew how he met his death, or why he courted it, and that few except Ommony had ever understood him. But that, too, is a most rare gift—the ability to go without praise and recognition. Ommony and King were both men who valued praise merely at its asset value. If it gave them command of more resources for the great game, good; if not, it bored them.
King limped a little, for the white man's feet grow soft in boots, however hard he uses them between-whiles. He looked so like Mohammed Babar from the rear that even in broad daylight the Northerner's relatives might easily have jumped to the wrong conclusion. But it was dark in the jungle, although still fairly light overhead, and he held the end of è khaki turban between his teeth, as the men of that land all do when in haste; from in front, when he strode into the luminous gloom of a clearing, you could not have told whether or not he was bearded, and Mahommed Babar might have thought himself face to face with his own shadow.
A jungli, who had never seen King clothed and in his right mind, and was too incurious to be suspicious was leading jungle-fashion at a dog-trot, not boldly down the middle of the lanes, as King went, but flitting from shadow to shadow, afraid of the dark and of devils, but much more afraid to disobey Ommony—who owned both devils and forest, as every jungli knew.
King ran heavily. The jungli made no sound that any but an animal could hear. King breathed heavily. The jungli, like a phantom, seemed to do without breath. At intervals the woods resounded with the crash of falling branches, and at every one of those sounds the jungli would leap almost out of his skin, springing like Puck from side to side of the fire-lane. Now and then there would come the clear cry of a hunted animal, and at every one of those sounds King would stiffen tensely, but the jungli took no notice.
They did not speak, for they had no word in common, Ommony being one of half-a-dozen men who have ever learned the jungli-bat,[1] and very few junglis knowing anything except their own and the animals' language. Ommon-ee had spoken. The jungli showed the way, and thereafter would say nothing because he knew nothing and did not care to know.
Mahommed Babar doubtless believed himself beyond pursuit. Like all Northerners, and highlanders especially, he had an unconvincible contempt for Southern, and above all lowland ways. As Ommony's steward of supplies he had seen the junglis at their work reporting every incident in the forest including the tigers' and the leopards' meals, but that had not persuaded him that such folk could ever outwit a campaigner like himself.
Was he not born in the northern mists? Had he not scouted unseen on Allah's slag-heap by Quetta, where men are trained to outview the kites? Had he not been guide to the Guides[2] themselves? When such as he decide to vanish and leave no trace, there is less trace than a light wind leaves! Gone on a gray horse—that was the last the curious would know until it should suit him to enlighten them!
Nevertheless—four hours after he left it was told to Ommony that a panther had slain the gray horse while Mahommed Babar rested under a tree. Hairs from the mane and tail of the horse were brought in proof, together with a bit of fly-decked meat to show that the leopard had one eyetooth missing.
An hour after that it was reported that Mahommed Babar stopped to pull a thorn out of his heel. It was even said from which heel and what kind of thorn it was. By that time King had used walnut stain so skilfully from head to foot that not even the mirror could expose his origin, and Ommony, Dutch-uncling, as he called it, from an armchair had done breaking up facts with a sledge-hammer.
Then King fared forth as the seventy did of old, with neither purse nor scrip, but—since the Good Book says nothing about pistols—with a perfect little Colt repeater nestling against his ribs and a great faith in his own high purpose. A jungli was whistled for and told to lead Sirdar Mahommed Akbar Khan on the trail of Mahommed Babar, and in the heat of the afternoon pursuit began.
Now a man on foot can run down anything that lives. He can walk down anything that lives, and within a day or two. With a five-hour start on a well-fed horse, and given the information that he is followed, another man, of course, can hold his lead provided he has legs and knows enough to abandon the horse at the end of the first forced march. But a man who has counted on a horse and lost it in the first few hours, and who thinks he has baffled pursuit, so that he has ignorance as well as disappointment against him, is in no shape to leave a determined huntsman behind for long. The outcome is simply a question of mathematics and the huntsman's wind. King's wind was good.
Moreover, although King had the white man's natural fear of the beasts who hunt jungle-lanes, Mahommed Babar was even more afraid of them, because unused. In his land men hunt men, which is another matter altogether. He was afraid to set his foot down where a snake might be hiding. He feared, as the evening closed on him, that the down-hanging tendrils were pythons in wait for the passer-by and a strangled meal. He had the Northborn sense of direction, but no guide to show him practicable cuts. And although he had to perfection the swinging, almost tireless Hillman's stride, the end that he had in view was not so sure as the rock-strewn landscape he was used to marching down. There was a sort of jaw-set half-determination, at war with itself, that led to dalliance and reduced speed.
Whereas King's alert guide knew every short cut—every forest voice. He was afraid of devils, but believed that King could protect him from them, since Ommon-ee had said so, and whatever else Ommon-ee did he never lied. King was afraid of tigers, leopards, wolves, pythons, what not else, but knew that the jungli would give him ample warning, being always aware but never afraid of any of them. And the end King had in view was absolutely sure. He knew that because he was following first principles there was nothing whatever to argue about and the outcome was, as Moslems say, on Allah's knees.
When it grew dark and the fire-lane lay like the mould of loneliness in front of him Mahommed Babar felt inspired to climb out of harm's reach and wait for the dawn. He would not admit to himself that he was superstitious and that the indrawn sigh of the tree-tops put him in mind of all the spirit-tales that haunt the Northern villages. He was a man and unafraid, he told himself, but a soldier likewise, who would travel better by daylight and could sleep well in a tree.
“Moreover, a leopard slew my horse, and I am easier to slay. I have no fire-arms. Shall I fight bagheela in the dark with a knife and my bare hands? Let us hope there are no pythons in this tree.”
He chose an enormous, wholesome one that spread impenetrable shade above ten thousand feet of ground, and clambering with the sureness of a mountaineer discovered a dry branch near the top that had not been long enough dead to be dangerous. Climbing that he found himself again in the short, clear Indian twilight and bracing himself like a man at the mast-head he surveyed the undulating sea of green that reached every way to the horizon—overlooking one fact. He was silhouetted against the crimson glare that the retreating sun had scorched on a tired sky.
King stopped by a stream, laughed curtly and sat down. Having satisfied himself that the jungli also had seen Mahommed Babar he got into the stream, cold water working on the Anglo-saxon like magic; when he emerged and ate sandwiches he was fit to march all night if need be.
The jungli grunted and King looked up. Darkness comes very swiftly in those latitudes and he was only just in time to see Mahommed Babar clamber down again and disappear into the opaque foliage. Another minute and the dead branch blended with the others in a blur against the night.
So King and the jungli went forward again, and were in time to hear Mahommed Babar drop from a low branch and resume his original direction. He had seen something; that much was obvious. Something friendly. Not too far away. King began to wish poignantly that he knew a language intelligible to the jungli—knew the general lay of the land—knew anything. The trouble was that the jungli had orders from Ommony to show the way taken by Mahommed Babar, and would therefore do that and do nothing else. Pantomime was no good; the jungli merely laughed at it.
The only possible remedy was to see what Mohammed Babar had seen—if there should still be light enough. King chose the same tree, since that was proven climbable, and bent all his faculties to the task of reaching the top before the last faint glimmer of light should die. He had signed to the jungli to stay below, but that had no effect; the jungli climbed too, and suddenly the merit of his stupidly literal obedience became apparent. He was showing the way still—step by step the only way that Mahommed Babar could have climbed the tree! Swinging overhead like an ape he pointed, first with one toe, then with the other, to the branches King should mount by, with the result that King reached the fork of the dead branch while a baleful lemon-yellow glare still flickered low in the West. It was freakish, like summer-lightning.
He need not have hurried. What Mahommed Babar had seen became much more visible as darkness deepened. A series of fires placed roughly in the shape of the letter M flickered and gained brilliancy in the woods about five miles away, illuminating a wide clearing, and he could see dark shapes of men dancing around in circles and ducking. Pure Arab that. Nothing Indian about it. Brother Moplah was reverting true to type, as all men do when their primitive passions are aroused. You can recognize the pigeon-movement of Arabs dancing from as far away as you can detect any movement at all, but the man does not live who can explain the significance of just that bobbing of the heads toward the center all together.
There was rising ground capped by a high rock on King's left front, about two hundred yards away. Because of the trees you could not see it until up in the tree-tops; Mahommed Babar had seen it and evidently decided it was better than the tree, for he was up there now, where he in turn, had been seen by a Moplah scout. By a flash of sheet-lightning King saw Mahommed Babar step out and stand silhouetted on the summit of the rock. The next flash showed two men talking furiously.
King climbed down again followed by the jungli. There was nothing to be gained by guessing; much to be gained by the fact that Mahommed Babar did not suspect pursuit. For a man entitled to the benefit of the doubt and no more the Northerner was taking reckless chances, but not greater than King proceeded to take; for King, having no password or sign, risked being seen by Moplah scouts, who are as alert as they are bloodthirsty. For the life of him he could not make the jungli understand that he wanted to creep close and listen without being seen. The jungli understood that he should follow and overtake Mahommed Babar, and when you understand a thing you understand it, naked or otherwise. King tried to send him back to Ommony, but he would not go, not having accomplished his task yet, so finally King put a cord around his throat and held him in leash by that, as you would a too eager hunting dog. So they crept closer, each mistrustful of the other's smell, as the way is of humans as well as animals.
The arrangement did not last long. Restraint was intolerable and the jungli slipped out of the noose. Down there under the trees the range of vision ceased at about a hand's breadth from the eyes unless you had animal sight. The jungli vanished with the incredible speed of a shadow, and King thought he heard him break a twig about fifty paces ahead some seconds later, so he crept forward, groping with fingers on the ground. The great thing was to make no noise. Doubtless the jungli had made that little noise in order to guide him. Wonderful fellows junglis. Pity they could not talk intelligibly.
One thing was quite unnecessary—to be on guard against animals. The fires five miles away and the outthrown ring of scouts would have driven every jungle denizen bigger than a hare to other hunting grounds. Nothing to do but keep out of sight and go close—close—close—that is where secrets are learned and thoughtful little games prevented—close! Engage the enemy more closely—England's watch-word, or it ought to be. It went through King's head like a refrain, like those snatches you repeat in time to the thump of train wheels.
“Closer! Closer! Nothing to be gained by hanging back!”
Then some one struck a light—touched off a fire of leaves and twigs on top of the pinnacle rock—and he saw Mahommed Babar seated facing the other man, talking with him earnestly. There were four men now, not two, and he recognized Mahommed Babar by the shape of his turban, which was unmistakable. They heaped fuel on the fire as if they wanted to be seen by all the countryside. But of course the fire made it seem even darker down below, just as staring at it produced spots of light in front of the eyes that made the dark more difficult to penetrate than ever.
So King took his eyes off the fire and crawled forward again. He was sure he heard the jungli. Another twig broke, which is a way those people have of signaling. Ommony could have read the signal accurately, but all King could do was to follow the sound. Now he could hear the men talking on the high rock. He glanced up again and saw six, the last two standing. At any rate he hoped they were the last two.
He hardly felt the blow as two other men landed on his neck. Being perfectly unconscious instantly it did not trouble him that his face was pressed into the mould, or that his hands and feet were lashed with raw-hide until the blood in them ceased circulating. He had engaged the enemy more closely, and the incurious jungli trotted homeward to report the news to Ommony.