CHAPTER XI
THE TONGA
"Badshah Junction, Mr. Amber ... Badshah Junction ... We'll be there in'alf an hour ..."
Inexorably the voice droned on, repeating the admonition over and over.
Mutinous, Amber stirred and grumbled in his sleep; stirred and,grumbling, wakened to another day. Doggott stood over him, doggedlyinsistent.
"Not much time to dress, sir; we're due in less than 'alf an hour."
"Oh, _all_ right." Drowsy, stiff and sore in bone and muscle, Amber satup on the edge of the leather-padded bunk and stared out of the window,wondering. With thundering flanges the train fled from east to westacross a landscape that still slept wrapped in purple shadows. Far inthe north the higher peaks of a long, low range of treeless hills wereburning with a pale, cold light. A few stars glimmered in the cloudlessvault--glimmered wan, doomed to sudden, swift extinction. Beside therailroad a procession of telegraph poles marched with dipping loops ofwire between. There was nothing else to see. None the less the youngman, now fully alive to the business of the day, said "Thank God!" inall sincerity.
"Even a tonga will be a relief after three days of this, Doggott," heobserved, surrendering himself to the ministrations of the servant.
It was the third morning succeeding that on which he had risen from hisbed in the Great Eastern Hotel in Calcutta, possessed by a wild anxietyto find his way with the least possible delay to Darjeeling and SophiaFarrell--a journey which he was destined never to make. For while hebreakfasted a telegram had been brought to him.
"_Your train for Benares_," he read, "_leaves Howrah at nine-thirty.Imperative_." It was signed: "_Pink Satin_."
He acted upon it without thought of disobedience; he was in the handsof Labertouche, and Labertouche knew best. Between the lines he readthat the Englishman considered it unwise to attempt furthercommunication in Calcutta. Something had happened to eliminate the tripto Darjeeling. Labertouche would undoubtedly contrive to meet andenlighten him, either on the way or in Benares itself.
In the long, tiresome, eventless journey that followed his faith wassorely tried; nor was it justified until the train paused some timeafter midnight at Mogul Serai. There, before Amber and Doggott couldalight to change for Benares, their compartment was invaded by anunmistakable loafer, very drunk. Tall and burly; with red-rimmed eyesin a pasty pockmarked face, dirty and rusty with a week-old growth ofbeard; clothed with sublime contempt for the mode and exalted beyondreason with liquor--a typical loafer of the Indian railways--he flungthe door open and himself into Amber's arms, almost knocking the latterdown; and resented the accident at the top of his lungs.
"You miserable, misbegotten blighter of a wall-eyed American----" Atthis point he became unprintably profane, and Doggott fell upon himwith the laudable intention of throwing him out. In the struggle Ambercaught his eye, and it was bright with meaning. "Pink Satin!" hehissed. "He's gone ahead.... You're to keep on to Agra.... Change forBadshah Junction, Rajputana Route.... Then tonga to Kuttarpur....Farrell's there and his daughter.... That's right, my man, throw meout!..."
His downfall was spectacular. In his enthusiasm for the part he played,he had erred to the extent of delivering a blow in Doggott's face moreforcible, probably, than he had intended it to be. Promptly he landedsprawling on the station platform and, in the sight of a multitude ofnatives, but the moment gone by his shrieks roused from their sleep inorderly ranks upon the floor, was gathered into the arms of thestationmaster and had the seriousness of his mistake pointed out to himforthwith and without regard to the sensitiveness of human anatomy.
And the train continued on its appointed way, bearing both Amber andthe injured Doggott.
Thus they had come to the heart of Rajputana.
In the chill of dawn they were deposited at Badshah Junction. A scantylength of rude platform received them and their two small travellingbags.
On their left the Haiderabad express roared away, following the night,its course upon the parallel ribbons of shining steel marked by atowering pillar of dust. On their right, beyond the sharp-cut edge ofthe world, the sun had kindled a mighty conflagration in the skies. Onevery hand, behind and before them, the desert lay in ebbing shadows, arolling waste seared by arid nullahs--the bone-dry beds oflong-forgotten streams. Off in the north the hills cropped up and stolepurposelessly away over the horizon.
They stood, then, forlorn in a howling desolation. For signs of lifethey had the station, a flimsy shelter roofed with corrugated iron, abeaten track that wandered off northwards and disappeared over agrassless swell, a handful of mud huts at a distance, and theticket-agent. The latter a sleepy, surly Eurasian in pyjamas, surveyedthem listlessly from the threshold of the station, and without a signeither of interest or contempt turned and locked himself in.
Amber sat down on his upturned suit-case and laughed and lit acigarette. Doggott growled. The noise of the train died to silence inthe distance, and a hyena came out of nowhere, exhibited himself uponthe ridge of a dry desert swell, and mocked them sardonically. Then he,like the ticket-agent, went away, leaving an oppressive silence.
Presently the sun rose in glory and sent its burning level rays to casta shadow several rods long of an enraged American beating franticallywith clenched fists upon the door of an unresponsive railway station.
He hammered until he was a-weary, then deputised his task to Doggott,who resourcefully found him a stone of size and proceeded to make dentsin the door. This method elicited the Eurasian. He came out, listenedattentively to abuse and languidly to their demands for a tonga to bearthem to Kuttarpur, and observed that the mail tonga left once a day--atthree in the afternoon. Doggott caught him as he was on the point ofreturning to his interrupted repose and called his attention to theunwisdom of his ways.
Apparently convinced, this ticket-agent announced his intention ofendeavouring to find a tonga for the sahib. Besides, he was notunwilling to acquire rupees. He scowled thoughtfully at Amber,ferociously at Doggott, went back into the station, gossipped casuallywith the telegraph sounder for a quarter of an hour, and finallyreappearing, without a word or a nod left the platform for the road andwalked and walked and walked and walked. Within thirty yards his figurewas blurred by the dance of new-born heat devils. Within a hundred hedisappeared; the desert swallowed him up.
An hour passed as three. The heat became terrific; not a breath of windstirred. The face of the world lost its contours in wavering mirage.The travellers found lukewarm water in the station and breakfastedsparingly from their own stores of biscuit and tinned things. Then, inthe shadow of the station, they settled down to wait, bored toextinction. Lulled by the hushed chatter of the telegraph sounder,Doggott nodded and slept audibly; Amber nodded, felt himself going,roused with a struggle, and lapsed into a dreary mid-world ofsemi-stupor.
In the simple fulness of Asiatic time a tonga came from Heaven knewwhere and roused him by rattling up beside the platform. He got up andlooked it over with a just eye and a temper none the sweeter for hisexperience. It was a brute of a tonga, a patched and ramshackle wreckof what had once been a real tonga, with no top to protect thetravellers from the sun, and accommodation only for three, includingthe driver.
The Eurasian ticket-agent alighted and solicited rupees. He got themand with them Amber's unvarnished opinion of the tonga; something whichwas not received with civility by the driver.
He remained in his seat--a short, swart native with an evil countenanceand, across his knees, a sheathed tulwar--arguing with Amber in brokenEnglish and, abusing him scandalously in impurest Hindi, flinging athim in silken tones untranslatable scraps of bazaar Billingsgate. For,as he explained in an audible aside to the ticket-agent, this sahib wasan outlander and, being as ignorant as most sahibs, could notunderstand Hindi. At this the Eurasian turned away to hide a grin ofdelight and the driver winked deliberately at Amber the while hebroadly sketched for him his ancestry and the manner of his life athome and abroad.
Thunderstruck, Amber caught himself just as h
e was on the point ofattempting to drag the driver from his seat and beat him into a moreendurable frame of mind. He swallowed the hint and gave up the contest.
"Oh, very well," he conceded. "I presume you're trying to say thereisn't another tonga to be had and it can't be helped; but I don't likeyour tone. However, there doesn't seem to be anything to do but takeyou. How much for the two of us?"
"Your servant, sahib? He cannot ride in this tonga," asserted thedriver impassively.
"He can't! Why not?"
"You can see there is room for but two, and I have yet anotherpassenger."
"Where?"
"At the first dak-bungalow, Sahib, where the mail-tonga broke down lastnight. This tonga, which I say is an excellent tonga, an _aram_ tonga,a tonga for ease, is sent to take its place. More than this, I ambidden to go in haste; therefore there is little time for you to decidewhether or not you will go with me alone. As for your servant, he canfollow by this afternoon's mail tonga."
Upon this ultimatum he stood, immovable; neither threats nor briberyavailed. It was an order, he said: he had no choice other than to obey.Shabash! Would the sahib be pleased to make up his mind quickly?
Perforce, the sahib yielded. "It'll be Labertouche; he's arrangedthis," he told himself. "That loafer said he'd gone on ahead of us."And comforted he issued his orders to Doggott, who received and accededto them with all the ill-grace imaginable. He was to remain and followto Kuttarpur by the afternoon's tonga. He forthwith sulked--and Amber,looking round upon the little Tephet that was Badshah Junction, had notthe heart to reprove the man.
"It's all very well, sir," said Doggott. "I carn't s'y anything, Iknow. But, mark my words, sir--beggin' your pardon--there'll be troublecome of this. That driver's as ill-favoured a scoundrel as ever I see.And as for this 'ere ape, if 'e smiles at me just once more, I'll give'im what-for." And he scowled so blackly upon the Eurasian that thatindividual hastily sought the seclusion which the station granted.
Amber left him, then, with a travelling-bag and a revolver for company,and the ticket-agent and his bad temper to occupy his mind.
Climbing aboard, the Virginian settled himself against the endlessdiscomforts of the ride which he foresaw; the tonga was anything but"an _aram_ tonga--a tonga for ease," there was no shade and no breeze,and the face of the land crawled with heat-bred haze.
To a crisp crackling of the whip-lash over the backs of the two sturdy,shaggy, flea-bitten ponies, the tonga swept away from the station,swift as a hunted fox with a dusty plume. The station dropped out ofsight and the desert took them to its sterile heart.
On every hand the long swales rolled away, sunbaked, rocky, innocent ofany sign of life other than the trooping telegraph poles in the south,destitute of any sort of vegetation other than the inevitable ak andgos. Wherever the eye wandered the prospect was the same--limitlessexpanses of raw blistering ochres, salmon-pinks, and dry faded reds,under a sky of brass and fire.
Amber leaned forward, watching the driver's face. "Your name,tonga-wallah?" he enquired.
"Ram Nath, sahib." The man spoke without moving his head, attendingdiligently to the management of his ponies.
"And this other passenger, who awaits us at the dak-bungalow, RamNath--is he, perchance, one known both to you and to me?"
Ram Nath flicked the flagging ponies. "How should I know?" he returnedbrusquely.
"One," persisted Amber, "who might be known by such a name as, say,Pink Satin?"
"What manner of talk is this?" demanded Ram Nath. "I am no child to beamused by a riddle. I know naught of your 'Pink Satin.'" He bentforward, shortening his grasp upon the reins, as if to signify that theinterview was at an end.
Amber sat back, annoyed by the fellow's impudence yet sensitive to asuspicion that Ram Nath was playing his part better than his passenger,that the rebuke was merited by one who had ventured to speak of secretthings in a land whose very stones have ears. For all that he could saytheir every move was watched by invisible spies, of whom therock-strewn waste through which they sped might well harbour a hiddenlegion.... But perhaps, after all, Ram Nath had nothing whatever to dowith Labertouche. Undeniable as had been his wink, it might well havebeen nothing more than an impertinence. At the thought Amber's eyesdarkened and hardened and he swore bitterly beneath his breath. If thatwere so, he vowed, the tonga-wallah would pay dearly for theindiscretion. He set his wits to contrive a way to satisfy his doubts.
Meanwhile the tonga rocked and bounded fiendishly over an infamousparody of a road, turning and twisting between huge boulders and in andout of pebbly nullahs, Ram Nath tooling it along with the hand of amaster. But all his attention was of necessity centred upon the ponies,and presently his tulwar slipped from his knees and clattered upon thefloor of the tonga. Amber saw his chance and put his foot upon it.
"Ram Nath," he asked gently, "have you no other arms?"
"I were a fool had I not." The man did not deign to glance round. "Hehath need of weapons who doth traffick with the Chosen of the Voice,sahib."
"Ah, that Voice!" cried Amber in exasperation. "I grow weary of theword, am Nath."
"That may well be," returned the man, imperturbable. "None the less itwere well for you to have a care how you fondle the revolver in yourpocket, sahib. Should it by any chance go off and the bullet findlodgment in your tonga-wallah, you are like to hear more of that Voice,and from less friendly lips."
"I think you have eyes in the back of your head, Ram Nath." Amberwithdrew his hand from his coat pocket and laughed shortly as he spoke.
"There is a saying in this country, sahib, that even the stones in thedesert have ears to hear and eyes to see and tongues withal to tellwhat they have seen and heard."
"Ah-h!... That is a wise saying, Ram Nath."
"There be those I could name who would do well to lay that saying toheart, sahib."
"You are right, indeed.... Now if there be aught of truth in thatsaying, and if one were unwisely to speak a certain name, evenhere----"
"The echo of that name might be heard beyond the threshold of a certainGateway, sahib."
Amber grunted and said no more, contented now with the assurance thathe was in truth in touch with Labertouche, that this Ram Nath was anemployee of the I.S.S. The wink was now explained away with all therest of the tonga-wallah's churlishness. Since there was a purposebehind it all, the Virginian was satisfied to contain his curiosity.Nevertheless he could not help thinking that there must be somefantastic exaggeration in the excessive degree of caution that was thustacitly imposed upon him.
He looked round him, narrowing his eyes against the sun-glare; and thedesert showed itself to his eyes a desert waste and nothing more. Theday lay stark upon its lifeless face and it seemed as if, within thewide rim of the horizon, no thing moved save the tonga. They were thenpassing rapidly over higher ground and seemed to have drawn a shadenearer to the raw red northern hills. Amber would have said that theycould never have found a solitude more absolute.
The thought was still in his mind when the tonga dipped unexpectedlyover another ridge, began to descend another long grade of dead,parched earth, and discovered some distance ahead of them on thewagontrack a cloud of dust like a tinted veil, so dense, opaque, andwide and high that its cause was altogether concealed in its reddish,glittering convolutions. But the Virginian knew the land well enough torecognise the phenomenon and surmise its cause, even before his earsbegan to be assailed by the hideous rasping screech of wheels of solidwood revolving reluctantly on rough-hewn axles guiltless of grease. Andas the tonga swiftly lessened the distance, his gaze, penetrating thethinning folds, discerned the contours of a cotton-wain drawn by twinstunted bullocks, patient noses to the ground, tails a-switch. Besidehis cattle the driver plodded, goad in hand, a naked sword upon hiship. Within his reach, between the rude bales of the loaded cart, thebutt of a brass-bound musket protruded significantly.... All men wentarmed in that wild land: to do as much is one of the boons attendantupon citizenship in an unprogressive, independent nativ
e State.
Deliberately enough the carter swerved his beasts aside to make way forthe tonga, lest by undue haste he should make himself seem other thanwhat he was--a free man and a Rajput. But when his fierce, hawk-likeeyes encountered those of the dak traveller, his attitude changedcuriously and completely. Recognition and reverence fought withsurprise in his expression, and as Ram Nath swung the tonga past theman salaamed profoundly. His voice, as he rose, came after them,resonant and clear:
"_Hail, thou Chosen of the Gateway! Hail_!"
Amber neither turned to look nor replied. But his frown deepened. Theincident passed into his history, marked only by the terse comment iteduced from Ram Nath--words which were flung curtly over thetonga-wallah's shoulder: "Eyes to see and ears to hear and a tonguewithal ... sahib!"
The Virginian said nothing. But it was in his mind that he had indeedthrust his head into the lion's mouth by thus adventuring into theterritory which every instinct of caution and common-sense proclaimedtaboo to him--the erstwhile kingdom of the Maharana Har Dyal Rutton. Itwas, in a word, foolhardy--nothing less. But for his pledged word ithad been so easy to order Ram Nath to convey him back to BadshahJunction to order and to enforce obedience at the pistol's point, ifneeds be! Honour held him helpless, bound upon the Wheel of hisDestiny: he must and would go on....
He sat in silent gloom while sixty minutes were drummed out by theflying hoofs. The hills folded in about the way, diverting it hitherand yon with raw, seamed spurs, whose flanks flung back harsh and heavyechoes of the tonga's flight through riven gulch and scrub-grownvalley. And then it was that Ram Nath proved his mettle. Hardenedhimself, he showed no mercy to his passenger, and never once drew rein,though the tonga danced from rock to ridge and ridge to rut and backagain, like a tin can on the tail of an astonished dog. As for Amber,he wedged his feet and held on with both hands, grimly, groaning inspirit when he did not in the flesh, foreseeing as he did nine hoursmore of this heroic torture punctuated only by brief respites at theend of each stage.