CHAPTER XVII
NEWS FROM MECCA
Mr. Charles Ralston, being a bachelor and of an economical mind even whenon leave in Calcutta, had taken up his quarters in a grass hut in thegarden of his Club. He awoke the next morning with an uncomfortablefeeling that there was work to be done. The feeling changed into sureknowledge as he reflected upon the conversation which he had had withColonel Dewes, and he accordingly arose and went about it. For ten dayshe went to and fro between the Club and Government House, where he heldlong and vigorous interviews with officials who did not wish to see him.Moreover, other people came to see him privately--people of no socialimportance for the most part, although there were one or two officers ofthe police service amongst them. With these he again held longinterviews, asking many inquisitive questions. Then he would go out byhimself into those parts of the city where the men of broken fortunes,the jockeys run to seed, and the prize-fighters chiefly preferred tocongregate. In the low quarters he sought his information of the waifsand strays who are cast up into the drinking-bars of any Oriental port,and he did not come back empty-handed.
For ten days he thus toiled for the good of the Indian Government,and, above all, of that part of it which had its headquarters atLahore. And on the morning of the eleventh day, as he was justpreparing to leave for Government House, where his persistence hadprevailed, a tall, black-bearded and very sunburnt man noiselesslyopened the door of the hut and as noiselessly stepped inside. Ralston,indeed, did not at once notice him, nor did the stranger call attentionto his presence. He waited, motionless and patient, until Ralstonhappened to turn and see him.
"Hatch!" cried Ralston with a smile of welcome stealing over his startledface, and making it very pleasant to look upon. "You?"
"Yes," answered the tall man; "I reached Calcutta last night. I went intothe Club for breakfast. They told me you were here."
Robert Hatch was of the same age as Ralston. But there was little elsewhich they had in common. The two men had met some fifteen years ago forthe first time, in Peshawur, and on that first meeting some subtle chordof sympathy had drawn them together; and so securely that even thoughthey met but seldom nowadays, their friendship had easily survived thelong intervals. The story of Hatch's life was a simple one. He hadmarried in his twenty-second year a wife a year younger than himself, andtogether the couple had settled down upon an estate which Hatch owned inDevonshire. Only a year after the marriage, however, Hatch's wife died,and he, disliking his home, had gone restlessly abroad. The restlessnesshad grown, a certain taste for Oriental literature and thought had beenfostered by his travels. He had become a wanderer upon the face of theearth--a man of many clubs in different quarters of the world, and ofmany friends, who had come to look upon his unexpected appearance and noless sudden departure as part of the ordinary tenour of their lives. Thusit was not the appearance of Hatch which had startled Ralston, but ratherthe silence of it.
"Why didn't you speak?" he asked. "Why did you stand waiting there for meto look your way?"
Hatch laughed as he sat down in a chair.
"I have got into the habit of waiting, I suppose," he said. "For the lastfive months I have been a servant in the train of the Sultan of theMaldive Islands."
Ralston was not as a rule to be surprised by any strange thing whichHatch might have chosen to do. He merely glanced at his companionand asked:
"What in the world were you doing in the Maldive Islands?"
"Nothing at all," replied Hatch. "I did not go to them. I joined theSultan at Suez."
This time Ralston, who had been moving about the room in search of somepapers which he had mislaid, came to a stop. His attention was arrested.He sat down in a chair and prepared to listen.
"Go on," he said.
"I wanted to go to Mecca," said Hatch, and Ralston nodded his head asthough he had expected just those words.
"I did not see how I was going to get there by myself," Hatch continued,"however carefully I managed my disguise."
"Yet you speak Arabic," said Ralston.
"Yes, the language wasn't the difficulty. Indeed, a great many of thepilgrims--the people from Central Asia, for instance--don't speak Arabicat all. But I felt sure that if I went down the Red Sea alone on apilgrim steamer, landed alone at Jeddah, and went up with a crowd ofothers to Mecca, living with them, sleeping with them, day after day,sooner or later I should make some fatal slip and never reach Mecca atall. If Burton made one mistake, how many should I? So I put the journeyoff year after year. But this autumn I heard that the Sultan of theMaldive Islands intended to make the pilgrimage. He was a friend of mine.I waited for him at Suez, and he reluctantly consented to take me."
"So you went to Mecca," exclaimed Ralston.
"Yes; I have just come from Mecca. As I told you, I only landed atCalcutta last night."
Ralston was silent for a few moments.
"I think you may be able to help me," he said at length. "There's a manhere in Calcutta," and Ralston related what he knew of the history ofShere Ali, dwelling less upon the unhappiness and isolation of the Princethan upon the political consequences of his isolation.
"He has come to grief in Chiltistan," he continued. "He won'tmarry--there may be a reason for that. I don't know. English women arenot always wise in their attitude towards these boys. But it seems to mequite a natural result of his education and his life. He is suspected byhis people. When he goes back, he will probably be murdered. At presenthe is consorting with the lowest Europeans here, drinking with them,playing cards with them, and going to ruin as fast as he can. I am notsure that there's a chance for him at all. A few minutes ago I wouldcertainly have said that there was none. Now, however, I am wondering.You see, I don't know the lad well enough. I don't know how many of theold instincts and traditions of his race and his faith are still alive inhim, underneath all the Western ideas and the Western feelings to whichhe has been trained. But if they are dead, there is no chance for him. Ifthey are alive--well, couldn't they be evoked? That's the problem."
Hatch nodded his head.
"He might be turned again into a genuine Mohammedan," he said. "Iwonder too."
"At all events, it's worth trying," said Ralston. "For it's the onlychance left to try. If we could sweep away the effects of the last fewyears, if we could obliterate his years in England--oh, I know it'simprobable. But help me and let us see."
"How?" asked Hatch.
"Come and dine with me to-morrow night. I'll make Shere Ali come. I _can_make him. For I can threaten to send him back to Chiltistan. Then talk tohim of Mecca, talk to him of the city, and the shrine, and the pilgrims.Perhaps something of their devotion may strike a spark in him, perhaps hemay have some remnant of faith still dormant in him. Make Mecca a symbolto him, make it live for him as a place of pilgrimage. You could,perhaps, because you have seen with your own eyes, and you know."
"I can try, of course," said Hatch with a shrug of his shoulders. "Butisn't there a danger--if I succeed? I might try to kindle faith, I mightonly succeed in kindling fanaticism. Are the Mohammedans beyond thefrontier such a very quiet people that you are anxious to add another totheir number?"
Ralston was prepared for the objection. Already, indeed, Shere Alimight be seething with hatred against the English rule. It would be nomore than natural if he were. Ralston had pondered the question with anuncomfortable vision before his eyes, evoked by certain words ofColonel Dewes--a youth appealing for help, for the only help whichcould be of service to him, and then, as the appeal was rejected,composing his face to a complete and stolid inexpressiveness, no longershowing either his pain or his desire--reverting, as it were, from theEuropean to the Oriental.
"Yes, there is that danger," he admitted. "Seeking to restore a friend,we might kindle an enemy." And then he rose up and suddenly burst out:"But upon my word, were that to come to pass, we should deserve it. Forwe are to blame--we who took him from Chiltistan and sent him to bepetted by the fine people in England." And once more it was evident fromhis wo
rds that he was thinking not of Shere Ali--not of the human beingwho had just his one life to live, just his few years with theiropportunities of happiness, and their certain irrevocable periods ofdistress--but of the Prince of Chiltistan who might or might not be acause of great trouble to the Government of the Punjab.
"We must take the risk," he cried as one arguing almost against himself."It's the only chance. So we must take the risk. Besides, I have been atsome pains already to minimise it. Shere Ali has a friend in England. Weare asking for that friend. A telegram goes to-day. So come to-morrownight and do your best."
"Very well, I will," said Hatch, and, taking up his hat, he went away. Hehad no great hopes that any good would come of the dinner. But at theworst, he thought, it would leave matters where they were.
In that, however, he was wrong. For there were important moments in thehistory of the young Prince of Chiltistan of which both Hatch and Ralstonwere quite unaware. And because they were unaware the dinner which was tohelp in straightening out the tangle of Shere Ali's life became averitable catastrophe. Shere Ali was brought reluctantly to the table inthe corner of the great balcony upon the first floor. He had little tosay, and it was as evident to the two men who entertained him as it hadbeen to Colonel Dewes that the last few weeks had taken their toll ofhim. There were dark, heavy pouches beneath his eyes, his manner wasfeverish, and when he talked at all it was with a boisterous and asomewhat braggart voice.
Ralston turned the conversation on to the journey which Hatch had taken,and for a little while the dinner promised well. At the mere mention ofMecca, Shere Ali looked up with a swift interest. "Mecca!" he cried, "youhave been there! Tell me of Mecca. On my way up to Chiltistan I met threeof my own countrymen on the summit of the Lowari Pass. They had a fewrupees apiece--just enough, they told me, to carry them to Mecca. Iremember watching them as they went laughing and talking down the snow ontheir long journey. And I wondered--" He broke off abruptly and satlooking out from the balcony. The night was coming on. In front stretchedthe great grass plain of the Maidan with its big trees and the widecarriage-road bisecting it. The carriages had driven home; the road andthe plain were empty. Beyond them the high chimney-stacks of the steamerson the river could still be seen, some with a wisp of smoke curlingupwards into the still air; and at times the long, melancholy hoot of asteam-syren broke the stillness of the evening.
Shere Ali turned to Hatch again and said in a quiet voice which had somenote of rather pathetic appeal: "Will you tell me what you thought ofMecca? I should like to know."
The vision of the three men descending the Lowari Pass was present to himas he listened. And he listened, wondering what strange, real power thatsacred place possessed to draw men cheerfully on so long and hazardous apilgrimage. But the secret was not yet to be revealed to him. Hatchtalked well. He told Shere Ali of the journey down the Red Sea, and thecrowded deck at the last sunset before Jeddah was reached, when every oneof the pilgrims robed himself in spotless white and stood facing the eastand uttering his prayers in his own tongue. He described the journeyacross the desert, the great shrine of the Prophet in Mecca, the greatgathering for prayer upon the plain two miles away. Something of thefervour of the pilgrims he managed to make real by his words, but ShereAli listened with the picture of the three men in his thoughts, and witha deep envy of their contentment.
Then Hatch made his mistake. He turned suddenly towards Ralston and said:
"But something curious happened--something very strange andcurious--which I think you ought to know, for the matter can hardly beleft where it is."
Ralston leaned forward.
"Wait a moment," he said, and he called to the waiter. "Light a cigarbefore you begin, Hatch," he continued.
The cigars were brought, and Hatch lighted one.
"In what way am I concerned?" asked Ralston.
"My story has to do with India," Hatch replied, and in his turn he lookedout across the Maidan. Darkness had come and lights gleamed upon thecarriage-way; the funnels of the ships had disappeared, and above, in aclear, dark sky, glittered a great host of stars.
"With India, but not with the India of to-day," Hatch continued."Listen"; and over his coffee he told his story. "I was walking down anarrow street of Mecca towards the big tank, when to my amazement I sawwritten up on a signboard above a door the single word 'Lodgings.' It wasthe English word, written, too, in the English character. I could hardlybelieve my eyes when I saw it. I stood amazed. What was an Englishannouncement, that lodgings were to be had within, doing in a town whereno Englishman, were he known to be such, would live for a single hour? Ihad half a mind to knock at the door and ask. But I noticed opposite tothe door a little shop in which a man sat with an array of heavycountry-made bolts and locks hung upon the walls and spread about him ashe squatted on the floor. I crossed over to the booth, and sitting downupon the edge of the floor, which was raised a couple of feet or so fromthe ground, I made some small purchase. Then, looking across to the sign,I asked him what the writing on it meant. I suppose that I did not put myquestion carelessly enough, for the shopkeeper leaned forward and peeredclosely into my face.
"'Why do you ask?' he said, sharply.
"'Because I do not understand,' I replied.
"The man looked me over again. There was no mistake in my dress, and withmy black beard and eyes I could well pass for an Arab. It seemed that hewas content, for he continued: 'How should I know what the word means? Ihave heard a story, but whether it is true or not, who shall say?'"
Hatch paused for a moment and lighted his cigar again.
"Well, the account which he gave me was this. Among the pilgrims who comeup to Mecca, there are at times Hottentots from South Africa who speak nolanguage intelligible to anyone in Mecca; but they speak English, and itis for their benefit that the sign was hung up."
"What a strange thing!" said Shere Ali.
"The explanation," continued Hatch, "is not very important to my story,but what followed upon it is; for the very next day, as I was walkingalone, I heard a voice in my ear, whispering: 'The Englishwoman wouldlike to see you this evening at five.' I turned round in amazement, andthere stood the shopkeeper of whom I had made the inquiries. I thought,of course, that he was laying a trap for me. But he repeated hisstatement, and, telling me that he would wait for me on this spot at tenminutes to five, he walked away.
"I did not know what to do. One moment I feared treachery and proposed tostay away, the next I was curious and proposed to go. How in the worldcould there be an Englishwoman in Mecca--above all, an Englishwoman whowas in a position to ask me to tea? Curiosity conquered in the end. Itucked a loaded revolver into my waist underneath my jellaba and kept theappointment."
"Go on," said Shere Ali, who was leaning forward with a great perplexityupon his face.
"The shopkeeper was already there. 'Follow me,' he said, 'but not tooclosely.' We passed in that way through two or three streets, and then myguide turned into a dead alley closed in at the end by a house. In thewall of the house there was a door. My guide looked cautiously round, butthere was no one to oversee us. He rapped gently with his knuckles on thedoor, and immediately the door was opened. He beckoned to me, and wentquickly in. I followed him no less quickly. At once the door was shutbehind me, and I found myself in darkness. For a moment I was sure that Ihad fallen into a trap, but my guide laid a hand upon my arm and led meforward. I was brought into a small, bare room, where a woman sat uponcushions. She was dressed in white like a Mohammedan woman of the East,and over her face she wore a veil. But a sort of shrivelled aspect whichshe had told me that she was very old. She dismissed the guide who hadbrought me to her, and as soon as we were alone she said:
"'You are English.'
"And she spoke in English, though with a certain rustiness of speech, asthough that language had been long unfamiliar to her tongue.
"'No,' I replied, and I expressed my contempt of that infidel race insuitable words.
"The old woman only laughed and remov
ed her veil. She showed me an oldwizened face in which there was not a remnant of good looks--a face wornand wrinkled with hard living and great sorrows.
"'You are English,' she said, 'and since I am English too, I thought thatI would like to speak once more with one of my own countrymen.'
"I no longer doubted. I took the hand she held out to me and--
"'But what are you doing here in Mecca?' I asked.
"'I live in Mecca,' she replied quietly. 'I have lived here fortwenty years.'
"I looked round that bare and sordid little room with horror. Whatstrange fate had cast her up there? I asked her, and she told me herstory. Guess what it was!"
Ralston shook his head.
"I can't imagine."
Hatch turned to Shere Ali.
"Can you?" he asked, and even as he asked he saw that a change had comeover the young Prince's mood. He was no longer oppressed with envy anddiscontent. He was leaning forward with parted lips and a look in hiseyes which Hatch had not seen that evening--a look as if hope had somehowdared to lift its head within him. And there was more than a look ofhope; there was savagery too.
"No. I want to hear," replied Shere Ali. "Go on, please! How did theEnglishwoman come to Mecca?"
"She was a governess in the family of an officer at Cawnpore when theMutiny broke out, more than forty years ago," said Hatch.
Ralston leaned back in his chair with an exclamation of horror. Shere Alisaid nothing. His eyes rested intently and brightly upon Hatch's face.Under the table, and out of sight, his fingers worked convulsively.
"She was in that room," continued Hatch, "in that dark room with theother Englishwomen and children who were murdered. But she was spared.She was very pretty, she told me, in her youth, and she was only eighteenwhen the massacre took place. She was carried up to the hills and forcedto become a Mohammedan. The man who had spared her married her. He died,and a small chieftain in the hills took her and married her, and finallybrought her out with him when he made the pilgrimage to Mecca. While hewas at Mecca, however, he fell ill, and in his turn he died. She was leftalone. She had a little money, and she stayed. Indeed, she could not getaway. A strange story, eh?"
And Hatch leaned back in his chair, and once more lighted his cigar whichfor a second time had gone out.
"You didn't bring her back?" exclaimed Ralston.
"She wouldn't come," replied Hatch. "I offered to smuggle her out ofMecca, but she refused. She felt that she wouldn't and couldn't face herown people again. She should have died at Cawnpore, and she did not die.Besides, she was old; she had long since grown accustomed to her life,and in England she had long since been given up for dead. She would noteven tell me her real name. Perhaps she ought to be fetched away. Idon't know."
Ralston and Hatch fell to debating that point with great earnestness.Neither of them paid heed to Shere Ali, and when he rose they easily lethim go. Nor did their thoughts follow him upon his way. But he wasthinking deeply as he went, and a queer and not very pleasant smileplayed about his lips.