gun of god

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Creator caused flowers to bloom in the desert and buried jewels in the bosom of the earth. That is lest men should grow idle, wallowing in delights they have, instead of acquiring merit in the search for beauty that is out of reach. —Eastern Proverb

"Making one hundred exactly."

Technically, Yasmini was as much maharanee of Sialpore as she would ever be, the moment that the fourteen-gun salute boomed out across the river. For the English do not recognize a maharanee, except as courtesy title. The reigning prince is maharajah, and, being Hindu, can have one wife or as many as he pleases. Utirupa and Yasmini claimed to have married themselves by Gandharva rite, and, had she chosen, she could have gone to live with him that minute.

But that would not have paid her in the long run. The priests, for instance, whom she despised with all her character, would have been outraged into life-long enmity; and she knew their power.

"It is one thing," she told Tess, "to determine to be rid of cobras; but another to spurn them with your hand and foot. They bite!"

Then again, it would not have suited her to slip quietly into Utirupa's palace and assume the reins of hidden influence without the English knowing it. She proposed taking uttermost advantage of the purdah custom that protects women in India from observation and makes contact between them and the English almost impossible. But she intended, too, to force the Indian Government into some form of recognition of her.

"If they acknowledge me, they lock swords with every woman in the country. Let them deny me afterward, and all those swords will quiver at their throats! A woman's sword is subtler than a man's."

(That was the secret of her true strength in all the years that followed. It was never possible to bring her quite to bay, because the women pulled hidden strings for her in the sphere that is above and below the reach of governments.) So she moved back into her own palace, where she received only Tess of all the Anglo-Saxon women in India.

"Why don't you keep open house to English women, and start something?" Tess asked her. But Yasmini laughed.

"My power would be gone. Do you fight a tiger by going down on all-fours with him and using teeth and claws? Or do you keep your distance, and use a gun?"

"But the English women are not tigresses."

"If they were, I would laugh at them. Trapping tigers is a task the jungle coolies can attend to well! But if I admit the English women into my palace, they will come out of curiosity. And out of pity, or compassion or some such odious emotion they will invite me to their homes, making an exhibition of me to their friends. Should I be one of them? Never! Would they admit other Indian women with me? Certainly; any one I cared to recommend. They would encourage us to try to become their social equals, as they would call it, always backing away in front of us and beckoning, we striving, and they flattered. No! I will reverse that. I will have the English women striving to enter our society! They shall wake up one day to discover there is something worth having that is out of reach. Then see the commotion! Watch the alteration then! Today they say, when they trouble to think of us at all, 'Come and visit us; our ways are good; we will not hurt you; come along,' as the children call to a kitten in the street. Then they will say, 'We have this and that to offer. We desire your good society. Will you admit us if we bring our gifts?' That will be another story, but it will take time."

"More than time," Tess answered. "Genius."

"I have genius. That is why I know too much to declare war on the priests. I shall have a proper wedding, and priests shall officiate, I despising them and they aware of it. That will be their first defeat. They shall come to my marriage as dogs come to their mistress when she calls— and be whipped away again if they fawn too eagerly! They will not dare refuse to come, because then war would be joined, and I might prove to people how unnecessary priests are. But they are more difficult to deal with than the English. A fat hypocrite like Jinendra's high priest is like a carp to be caught with a worm, or an ass to be beaten with a stick; but there are others—true ascetics—lusting for influence more than a bellyful, caring nothing for the outside of the power if they hold the nut— nothing for the petals, if they hold the seed. Those men are not easy. For the present I shall seem to play into their hands, but they know that I despise them!"

So great preparations were made for a royal wedding. And when Samson heard that Yasmini was to be Utirupa's bride he was sufficiently disgusted, even to satisfy Yasmini, who was no admirer of his. Sita Ram's account of Samson's rage, as he explained the circumstance to Willoughby de Wing, was almost epic.

"Damn the woman! And damn him! She's known for a trouble-maker. Simla will be asking me why on earth I permitted it. They'll want to know why I didn't caution Utirupa and warn him against that princess in particular. She's going to parade through the streets under my very nose and in flat defiance of our government, just at the very time when I've gone on record as sponsor for Utirupa. I've assured them he wouldn't do an ill-advised thing, and I specifically undertook to see that he married wisely. But it was too early yet to speak to him about it. And here he springs this offense on me! It's too bad—too bad!"

"You'll be all right with Simla," said Willoughby de Wing. "Dig up the treasure and they'll recommend you for the K. C. B., with the pick of all the jobs going!"

"They don't give K. C. B.'s to men in my trade," Samson answered rather gloomily. "They reserve them for you professional butchers."

He was feeling jumpy about the treasure, and dreaming of it all night long in a way that did not make the waking fears more comfortable. A whole company of sappers bad been sent for; and because of the need of secrecy for the present, a special appropriation had had to be made to cover the cost of lumber for the tunnel that Dick began, and that the sappers finished. They had dug right up to the pipal trees, and half-killed them by tunneling under their roots along one side; but without discovering anything so far, except a few old coins. (The very ancient golden mohur in the glass case marked "Sialpore" in the Allahabad Museum is one of them.) Now they were going to tunnel down the other side and kill the ancient trees completely.

Being a man of a certain courage, Samson had it in mind—perhaps— to send the map to an expert for an opinion on it. Only, he hated experts; they were so bent always on establishing their own pet theory. And it was late—a little late for expert opinions on the map. The wisest way was to keep silent and continue digging, even if the operation did kill ancient landmarks that one could see—from across the river, for instance.

And, of course, he could not refuse to recognize the wedding officially and put on record the name, ancestry and title of the maharajah's legal first wife. Nor could he keep away, because, with amazingly shrewd judgment, Yasmini had contrived the novelty of welding wedding and coronation ceremony and festival in one. Instead of two successive outbursts of squandering, there would be only one. It was economic progress. One could not withhold approval of it. He must go in person, smile, give a valuable present (paid for by the government, of course), and say the proper thing.

One modicum of consolation did ooze out of the rind of Samson's situation. It would have been no easier, be reflected, to say the right thing at the right time at the coronation ceremony, especially to the right people, if that treasure should already have been dug up and reposing in the coffers of the Indian Government. After a certain sort of bargain, one's tongue feels unpleasant in one's cheek.

Sialpore, however, was much more taken up with preparations for the colossal coronation-wedding feast than with Samson's digging. Yasmini went on her palace roof each day to see how the trees leaned this and that way, as the earth was mined from under them. And Tom Tripe, standing guard on the bastion of the fort to oversee the removal of certain stores and fittings before the English should march out finally and the maharajah's men march in, could see the destruction of the pipal trees too. So, for that matter, could Dick Blaine, on the day when he took some of the gang and blocked up the mouth of the mine on the hill with cemented masonry—to prevent theft; and cursed himself afterward for being such a fool as to brick up his luncheon basket inside the tunnel, to say nothing of all the men's water bottles and some of their food and tools. But nobody else in Sialpore took very much notice of Samson's excavation, and nobody cared about Dick's mine.

Every maharajah always tries to make his wedding and coronation ceremonies grander, and more extravagant and memorable than anybody's else have been since history began; and there are plenty whose interest it is to encourage him, and to help him do it; money-lenders, for instance. But Utirupa not only had two magnificent ceremonies to unite in one, but Yasmini to supply the genius. The preparations made the very priests gasp (and they were used to orgies of extravagance— taught and preached and profited by them in fact.)

Once or twice Tess remonstrated, but Yasmini turned a scornfully deaf ear.

"What would you have us do instead? Invest all the money at eight per cent., so that the rich traders may have more capital, and found an asylum where Bimbu, Umra and Pinga may live in idleness and be rebuked for mirth?"

"Bimbu, Umra and Pinga might be put to work," said Tess. "As for mirth, they laugh at such unseemly things. They could be taught what proper humor is."

"Have they not worked?" Yasmini asked. "Has one man got into your house, without you, or the guard set to watch you, knowing it? Could any one have done it better? Did it not have to be done? As for humor— have they not enjoyed the task? Has it not been a sweeter tale in their ears than the story-teller's at the corner, because they have told it to themselves and acted a part in it?"

"Well," said Tess, "you can't convince me! There are institutions that could be founded with all that money you and your husband are going to spend on ceremony, that would do good."

"Institutions?" Yasmini's eyes grew ablaze with blue indignant fire. "There were institutions in this land before the English came, which need attention before we worry ourselves over new ones. Play was one of them, and I will revive it first! The people used to dance under the trees by moonlight. Do they do it now? It is true they used to die of famine in the bad years, growing much too fat in good ones, and the English have changed that. But I will give them back the gladness, if I can, that has been squeezed out by too many 'institutions!' "

"You would rather see Bimbu, Umra and Pinga happy, than prosperous and well-clothed?"

"Which would you rather?" Yasmini asked her. "You shall see them well clothed in a little while. Just wait."

There were almost endless altercations with the priests. Utirupa himself was known to have profound Sikh tendencies—a form of liberalism in religion that produced almost as much persecution at one time as Protestantism did in Europe. To marry a woman openly who had no true claim to caste at all, as Yasmini, being the daughter of a foreigner, had not, was in the eyes of the priests almost as great an offense as Yasmini's father's, who crossed the kali pani (ocean) and married abroad in defiance of them. So the priests demanded the most elaborate ritual of purification that ingenuity could devise, together with staggering sums of money. Utirupa's eventual threat to lead a reform movement in Rajputana brought them to see reason, however, and they eventually compromised, with a stipulation that the public should not be told how much had been omitted.

There was feasting in the streets for a week before the great inauguration ceremony. Tables were set in every side-street, where whoever cared to might eat his fill of fabulous free rations. Each night the streets were illuminated with colored lights, and fireworks blazed and roared against the velvet sky at intervals, dowering the ancient trees and temple-tops with momentary splendor.

All day long there were performances by acrobats, and songs, and story-telling whenever there was room for a crowd to gather. Faquirs as gruesome and fantastic as the side-shows at a Western fair flocked in to pose and be gaped at, receiving, besides free rations and tribute of small coin, gratification to their vanity in return for the edifying spectacle.

There were little processions, too, of princes arriving from a distance to be present on the great day, their elephants of state loaded with extravagant gifts and their retainers vying with peacocks in efforts to look splendid, and be arrogant, and claim importance for their masters. Never a day but three or four or half-a-dozen noble guests arrived; and nobody worked except those who had to make things easy for the rest; and they worked overtime.

One accustomed spectacle, however, was omitted. Utirupa would have none of the fights between wild animals in the arena that had formed such a large part of Gungadhura's public amusement. But there was ram-fighting, and wrestling between men such as Sialpore had never seen, all the best wrestlers from distant parts being there to strive for prizes. Hired dancers added to the gaiety at night, and each incoming nobleman brought nautch girls, or acrobats, or trained animals, or all three to add to the revelry. And there was cock-fighting, and quail-fighting, of course, all day long and every day, with gambling in proportion.

When the day of days at last arrived the city seemed full of elephants. Every compound and available walled space had been requisitioned to accommodate the brutes, and there were sufficient argumentative mahouts, all insisting that their elephants had not enough to eat, and all selling at least half of the pr-vided ration, to have formed a good-sized regiment. The elephants' daily bath in the river was a sight worth crossing India to see. There was always the chance, besides, that somebody's horses would take fright and add excitement to the spectacle.

Up in the great palace Utirupa feasted and entertained his equals all day long, and most of the night. There was horse-racing that brought the crowd out in its thousands, and a certain amount of tent-pegging and polo, but most of the royal gala-making was hidden from public view. (Patali, for instance, reckless of Gungadhura's fall and looking for new fields to conquer, provided a nautch by herself and her own trained galaxy of girls that would not have done at all in public.)

Yasmini kept close in her own palace. She, too, had her hands full with entertaining, for there were about a dozen of the wives of distant princes who had made the journey in state to attend the ceremony and watch it from behind the durbar grille—to say nothing of the wives of local magnates. But she herself kept within doors, until the night before the night of full moon, the day before the ceremony.

That night she dressed as a rangar once more, and rode in company with Tess and Dick, with Ismail the Afridi running like a dog in the shadows behind them, to the fort on the hill that the English had promised to evacuate that night. They never changed the garrison in any case except by night, because of the heat and the long march for the men; and as near the full moon as possible was the customary date.

As they neared the fort they could see Tom Tripe, with his huge dog silhouetted on the bastion beside him, standing like Napoleon on the seashore keeping vigil. From that height he could oversee the blocked-up mouth of Dick's mine, and in the bright moonlight it would have been difficult for any one to approach either mine or fort without detection; for there was only one road, and Dick's track making a detour from it— both in full view.

He caught sight of them, and Dick whistled, the dog answering with a cavernous howl of recognition. Tom disappeared from the bastion, and after about ten minutes turned up in the shadow where they waited.

"Come to watch the old march out and the new march in?" he asked. "I'll stand here with you, if I may. They're due."

"Is everything ready?" asked Yasmini.

"Yes, Your Ladyship. They've been ready for an hour, and fretful. There's a story gone the rounds that the fort is haunted, and if ever a garrison was glad to quit it's this one! Let's hope the incoming garrison don't get wind of it. A Sepoy with the creeps ain't dependable. Hullo, here they come!"

There came a sound of steady tramping up-hill, and a bugle somewhere up in the darkness announced that the out-going garrison had heard it and were standing to arms. Presently Utirupa rode into view accompanied by half a dozen of his guests, and followed by a company from his own army, officered by Rajputs. If he knew that Yasmini was watching from the shadow he made no sign, but rode straight on up-hill. The heavy breathing of his men sounded through the darkness like the whispering of giants, and their steady tramp was like a giant's footfall; for Tom Tripe had drilled them thoroughly, even if their weapons were nearly as old-fashioned as the fort to which they marched.

After an interminable interval there came another bugle-blast above them, and the departing garrison tramped within ear-shot.

"Now count them!" Yasmini whispered, and Tess wondered why.

They were marching down-hill as fast as they could swing—a detachment of Punjabi infantry under the command of a native subahdar, with two ammunition mules and a cartful of their kits and personal belongings— all talking and laughing as if regret were the last thing in their minds.

"Ninety-seven," said Tess, when the last had passed down-hill.

"Did you count the man beside the driver on the cart?"

"Yes."

"There was one sick man in a dhoolie. Did you count him?"

"NO."

"Ninety-eight, them Tom!"

"Your Ladyship?"

"Weren't there some English officers?"

"Two. A captain and a subaltern. They left late this afternoon."

"Making?" said Yasmini.

"Exactly a hundred," answered Tess.

"Let us go now," said Yasmini. "We must be up at dawn for the great day. I shall expect you very early, remember. Tom! You may ride back with us. His highness will mount the guard in person. You're to come to my palace. I've a present waiting for you."