CHAPTER XV.
A LAND OF DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
AFTER a night’s rest Ferrers prepared to pursue the inquiry on which he had come, but he found that the blank walls of the city were only a type of the passive opposition to be offered to his efforts. The mob of the place was so fanatical and so threatening that, as he persisted in maintaining his right to ride, he found it advisable to comply with the request of the Khan’s advisers, and only show himself when he was to be granted an audience at the palace or the house of one of the ministers. Visitors he had none—none at least of the type that in most oriental cities delights in calling upon a new-comer and spending long hours in eliciting all manner of useless information. Gamara was the scene of a perpetual reign of terror, exercised from above by the Khan, and from below by the mob, reinforced by the hordes of theological students, and between these two forces the mere moderate man was crushed out of existence or frightened into silence. A whisper against the orthodoxy of even a high official would send a raging crowd to attack his house or to tear him limb from limb in the public street, and the truth of the rumour would only be inquired into afterwards, if at all. The Khan maintained his unquestioned ascendancy by outdoing all his subjects in their zeal for orthodoxy, which had no connection with morals, and by repressing that zeal with atrocious severity when it clashed with his own wishes. Mob-law offered a very useful means of getting rid of undesirable persons; but one or two stern examples had been needed to teach the mob not to proceed to extremities unless they were smiled upon by the palace. The presence of a Christian in the sacred city was a standing defiance of its inhabitants, and it was only the drawn scimitars of the Khan’s bodyguard that protected Ferrers from certain death as he rode to and from the palace in full uniform.
There was a community of Jews in the place, and it was from this that his unofficial visitors were drawn—scared, furtive men, distinguished from the true believers by their dress, who skulked along back-lanes, and entered the house by a private door in terror of their lives, but emboldened to the enterprise by the hope of turning a more or less honest penny. They were anxious to be Ferrers’ agents in communicating secretly with personages whom he could not directly approach, and, in general, to do any dirty work that might be requisite. One of them, more courageous than the rest, actually offered to disguise Ferrers and take him about the city, but he felt compelled to refuse the offer, much against his will. The man was only too probably a spy, and what could be easier than to lead the stranger, ignorant of his whereabouts, into the precincts of one of the mosques, and raise the cry of “Kafir!” after which the Indian Government would have to lament the loss of another envoy who had mysteriously disappeared. It was very likely that the missing Whybrow had been trapped in some such way, but Ferrers was beginning to doubt whether exact information as to his fate would ever be obtained. The one indisputable fact was that he had disappeared, and not he alone, but his servants, horses, arms, and equipment, as completely as if they had never existed. The last of his written reports which had reached Calcutta was dated half a day’s march from the city, and in it he said that in view of his projected entry thither he thought it well to send off beforehand the results of his explorations up to this point. From inquiries made on the spot, Ferrers was certain that he had left this camping-ground and gone towards the city, but there his information stopped. No one could or would testify to the lost man’s having passed the gates, though rumour was rife on the subject of his doings and his fate. Ferrers’ emissaries brought him a different report every day. Whybrow had been turned back at the gates and had returned to India; he had been arrested on entering; he had been honourably received by the Khan and provided with a house and escort; he had performed his business and gone away in peace; he had been arrested during an audience at the palace and straightway beheaded; he had been torn to pieces in the streets; he had turned Mohammedan and been admitted to the Khan’s bodyguard; a mutilated body alleged to be his had been subjected to disgusting indignities at the place of execution,—all these mutually contradictory reports were submitted, apparently in perfect good faith, by the very same men, but they shed no certain light on the fact of Whybrow’s disappearance.
Ferrers had recourse to bribery. Presents judiciously distributed, by means of his Jewish agents, among the Khan’s chief officers, brought him the honour of an audience of each of the gentlemen so favoured, and various interesting confidences. Whybrow Sahib had never entered the city; he had died in it from natural causes; he had left it and started safely on his return journey to India,—it seemed a pity that the worshipful hypocrites had not taken counsel together beforehand to tell one story and stick to it. Ferrers gathered only one more grain of fact after all his expenditure, namely, that Whybrow had actually been in Gamara. If he had not, there would not have been such anxiety to assert that he had left it in safety. But nothing of this sort was officially acknowledged. At each successive audience the Khan inquired blandly whether Firoz Sahib had yet been able to learn anything as to his friend’s fate, and even condescended to remark further that it was most extraordinary a stranger should be able to disappear so completely just outside Gamara, and leave no trace.
Thus time went on, and Ferrers began to feel that he might remain in Gamara for the rest of his days and get no further. Meanwhile, the failure of his efforts and the restricted life he led were telling upon his nerves and temper, and he began to say to himself that if there was much more prevarication he would beard the Khan in his very palace, and give him the lie to his face. When he had reached this point, an excuse for the outburst was not long in offering itself. One of his agents came to him one day with even more than the usual secrecy, and produced from the inmost recesses of his garments something small and heavy, wrapped up many times in a piece of cotton cloth. It was a miniature Colt’s revolver—then a comparatively new invention—beautifully finished and mounted in silver, and bearing on a small silver plate the letters L. W., the initials of Leonard Whybrow. Questioned fiercely as to where he had found it, the man confessed by degrees that he had stolen it from the palace—“borrowed it” was his way of expressing the fact. It had been in the charge of the keeper of the Khan’s armoury, with whom he had some acquaintance, and recognising from its make that it was a Bilati (European) pistol of a new kind, he had secured it when the keeper’s back was turned, intending to return it to its place at the earliest opportunity after Ferrers had seen it. He further put in a claim for the repayment of a sum of money which had been needed to induce the keeper to turn his back at the right moment, and urged that the pistol should be given back to him at once, or both the keeper and he would lose their heads, since the Khan often amused himself by firing away the ammunition which had come into his possession at the same time as the weapon. To this, however, Ferrers refused to accede, paying the money with an alacrity which made the agent wish he had asked double the sum, but refusing to surrender the pistol. He was to have an audience of the Khan on the morrow, and he would confront him with this proof of his treachery.
The next day came, and Ferrers rode to the palace with his usual escort. The audience proceeded on the ordinary lines; but when the Khan asked the stereotyped question as to the envoy’s success in his mission, he did not receive the usual answer. Ferrers took the revolver from his sash, held it up to the light, pointed out the significance of the letters, and threw it on the floor at the Khan’s feet. Then, without another word, he went back to his place and sat down, but not in the cramped position prescribed by Eastern etiquette, for instead of sitting on his heels, he turned the soles of his feet towards the Khan—thus offering him the worst insult that could be devised—and waited calmly for the result. The court was in an uproar immediately; but the Khan, pale with anger, contented himself with announcing that the audience was at an end, and dismissed the assembly. Perfectly satisfied with the result of his coup, purposeless though it was, Ferrers rode home with much elation. The news of his action had quickly spread from the palace into the town, and his path was beset by an angry mob, who threw stones until they were charged by the escort; but he felt an absolute pleasure in facing them. The long succession of insults heaped upon him had been more than revenged at last.
As he neared the house, it occurred to him for the first time that it would have been prudent to be prepared to take his departure immediately after defying the Khan. His servants should have been warned to pack up as soon as he started for the palace, and to await him with the laden horses at the gate nearest to the house. Even now it was not too late. He might ride straight to the gate himself, sending word to the servants to bring whatever they could snatch up and follow him, or he might go to the house and fetch them. This was the best plan, for he did not like the thought of abandoning all his possessions, and he almost decided to adopt it. It was vexatious to appear to run away, of course, but he could scarcely doubt there was danger in remaining. He had just turned to the officer in command of the escort, intending to request his company as far as the gate, when a messenger from the palace clattered along the street and dashed up, shouting his message as he came. In the most insulting terms Firoz Sahib was bidden take his servants and depart from Gamara immediately. The Khan’s safe-conduct would protect him to the gates, and no farther. The effect on Ferrers was instantaneous. Submit to be ordered out of the city—driven forth with insults—never!
“Tell his Highness that I leave Gamara to-morrow, and at my own time,” he said to the messenger, in tones quite audible to the crowd which had collected. “Am I a beggar to be driven forth with words?”
The crowd listened with something like awe, and the messenger, apparently impressed, made answer that he would return to the palace and represent to the Khan that the envoy had had no time to make preparation for the journey, and could not, therefore, start at once. The officer of the escort, seeming to be satisfied that the plea would be allowed, asked whether Firoz Sahib would like a guard left in the house for the night, in case of an attack by the mob; but Ferrers declined, with a shrewd idea that the danger might be as great from the one as from the other. Remarking that he would be ready to start on the following afternoon, he was about to enter the house, when an elderly woman, not of the best character, with whom he had several times exchanged a smile and a jest, looked out at her doorway on the opposite side of the narrow street.
“When the wolf sees the trap closing upon him, he does not wait to escape till it is down,” she cried, with a shrill burst of laughter, and Ferrers recognised that a timely warning was intended. But he set his teeth hard. Depart in obedience to the Khan’s insulting mandate he would not, even though he had been prepared to start at once before receiving it. It seemed to him, however, that it would not materially compromise his dignity if he stole a march on the authorities, and made a dash for the gate with his servants as soon as it was opened in the morning. They would not expect him to start until the time he had mentioned, and the mob would not have opportunity to collect in sufficient numbers to bar the passage of several resolute, well-armed men. He gave his orders accordingly; but the process of packing up was interrupted by the servants belonging to the house, who collected in an angry group, and demanded loudly to be given their wages and allowed to depart. The house and all in it were marked for destruction, they said, and why should they be sacrificed to the madness of the Kafir?
“The rats desert the sinking ship,” said Ferrers grimly; but he paid the men their wages, and allowed them to steal out separately by the private door, each hoping to lose himself in the labyrinth of narrow lanes, and so elude the vengeance of the authorities until he could find refuge with his friends. One of the men Ferrers had brought from India also petitioned to be allowed to take his chance in this way, and lest his presence in the house should be an element of weakness, he was suffered to depart. The rest obeyed in silence the orders they received. They could not understand their master’s proceedings, but they knew well that all Sahibs were mad, and that it was expedient to humour them even at their maddest. Moreover, this particular Sahib had brought them through so many dangers already, apparently by virtue of his very madness, that they felt a kind of confidence in him, and provisions were prepared and loads made ready for an early start on the morrow—the morrow which, for all but one in the house, was never to come.
The street was quiet when Ferrers went his rounds before going to bed, but he posted a sentry at the door and another at the postern, lest an attempt should be made to break in. He had little fear of an attack while he was behind stone walls, however; it was the ride through the city to the gate which he really dreaded. But in the night he was roused by the clank of metal: some one had dropped a weapon of some sort on a stone floor. Hastily catching up his sword, he seized his revolver and rushed out into the courtyard, to descry dimly against the starry sky a man climbing over the wall which separated his roof from that of the next house, and dropping down. Before he had time to wonder whether the man was alone or had been preceded by others, he was borne down by a sudden rush from the dark corners of the courtyard. The revolver was struck from his hand, his sword was wrenched away, and though he fought valiantly with his fists, he was tripped up by a cunning wrestler and thrown to the ground, and there bound hand and foot with marvellous celerity. Without a moment’s pause his assailants lifted him and carried him to the door, where they tied him upon a horse which was waiting. Hitherto he had been absolutely dazed. Not a word had been uttered, not a sound made since that first clang which had awakened him; and while the men were evidently armed, they had been careful not to wound him, though he had caught sight of more than one dead body in the courtyard and the passage. The very stillness roused him at last to coherent thought. There was not a soul in the street, not a ray of light nor the creak of a cautiously opened door from the blank houses on either side. He knew the truth now. As Whybrow had disappeared, so he was to disappear, without a sound or cry to attract the attention of the prudent dwellers in the neighbourhood. The bodies of his servants and all traces of their fate would be removed, his horses and possessions conveyed away before daybreak, and only the empty house would be left, and the usual sickening uncertainty as to one more envoy’s fate. And what would that fate be? His blood ran cold at the thought, but it nerved him to one supreme effort. This street, after many windings, ended at the city wall; if he could once reach that point, he might scale the sloping earthen rampart and succeed in escaping, destitute of everything and in a country swarming with enemies, but with life and honour left him. Gathering all his strength, he burst one of the cords that held him, and flung himself upon the men nearest him, fighting hopelessly with his bound hands. For a moment astonishment made the group give way; but before he could free himself further, one of them, grasping the situation, struck him on the head with a club, and he dropped senseless on the horse’s neck.
When he recovered consciousness he was lying on a stone floor. His hands were free, but heavy fetters were round his ankles, and these were connected by a chain to which was attached a heavy weight. He could drag himself slowly about, but to move fast or far was impossible. He felt about his prison; it was all of stone, small and filthy, but dry, and from this, and the fact that a gleam of light came through an aperture near the top of one of the walls, he gathered that he was what might be considered a favoured prisoner. He was in the dungeons of Gamara, which were a name of terror throughout Asia, but not in one of the horrible underground cells. Not that this softened his feelings towards the gaolers. Escape was out of the question, but failing that, his mind fastened itself on the possibility of a speedy death, accompanied preferably by as much damage to his captors as he could succeed in effecting. What was needed was a weapon of some sort. He did not expect to find furniture in the dungeon, but he hunted about for some time in the hope of lighting upon a loose stone, or even a bone from some predecessor’s rations. Nothing of the kind offering itself, he felt about for a jagged edge in the wall, and at last found one, not too far from the floor. Crouching beside it, he lifted the chain attached to the weight, and began to use the rough stone as a file. He worked away with frenzied eagerness, though his hands were soon streaming with blood, and the cramped position caused him intense agony. His mind had no room for anything but the one idea, the obtaining of a weapon. At last his task was accomplished—the link gave way. He was free from the weight, though his feet were still fastened together by a chain only some eight inches long. He tried to work on this next, but in vain, as he could not get the chain into such a position as to reach his file with it. But he had his weapon, and he lifted it with difficulty and placed it where he thought it would be most useful. Then he took up a position behind the door and waited.
At last there were sounds outside, and the door creaked slowly open. A man’s head appeared, looking round in surprise and alarm for the prisoner. By a tremendous effort, Ferrers raised the weight as the gaoler advanced into the cell, and brought it down on his head. He fell with a crash, and an earthen vessel of water which he had been carrying was shivered on the floor. Ferrers had formed some vague plan of dressing himself in the gaoler’s clothes and taking possession of his keys, but this was now out of the question, for there was a sound of voices and a rush of steps towards his cell. He drew back into the shadow, intending to knock down the first man that entered as he had done the gaoler, but his temporary strength was gone. His arms refused to raise the weight more than an inch or two. With a cry of rage he dropped it, and charged furiously into the group of men who had been attracted by the noise, and were trying to screw up one another’s courage to enter the cell. One or two of them went down before his blows, others fled at the sight of the apparition, but there remained two who flung themselves upon Ferrers and grappled with him. Weakened by fasting and the blow he had received, he yet fought manfully, but they were slowly and surely forcing him back towards the cell, when one of them caught his foot in the chain. All three went down, Ferrers undermost, and once more he lost consciousness, the last thing he heard being a warning cry, “Do not kill him: it is his Highness’s order.”
When he awoke next he was again in his cell, but now his hands were also fettered, and he was chained to a ring in the wall. The death he desired had eluded him, and he was worse off than before. He was stiff and sore all over after his fight, and his head gave him excruciating pain. At his side were a cake of rough bread and a very moderate allowance of water, and he seized upon them greedily, then lapsed into semi-consciousness. For an unknown length of time after this he lived in a kind of delirium, in which past, present, and future were inextricably mingled in his mind, and his only clear feeling was a vehement hatred of any one who came near him. When his brain became less confused he gave himself up to imagining means of gratifying this hatred, walking ceaselessly backwards and forwards in the semicircle of two or three paces’ radius, which was all that his chains would allow. His new gaoler never ventured within his reach, and put his food where he could only touch it by dint of strenuous efforts, and the difficulty was to induce him to come closer. But the words he had heard recurred to Ferrers’ half-maddened brain, and when the gaoler entered the cell one day, expecting to find the prisoner walking about and muttering to himself as usual, he saw only a confused heap by the wall. He called, but received no answer, and in terror lest the Khan should have been baulked of his revenge by the death of his captive, ventured near enough to touch him. The moment he came within reach Ferrers sprang up with a howl like that of a wild beast, and, joining his two fettered hands, smote him on the head with all his strength. The man fell; but the authorities had learnt wisdom from the fate of his predecessor, and Ferrers’ triumph was shortlived. Several men rushed in from the passage, dragged out the gaoler, and, turning upon the prisoner, beat him so cruelly with whips of hide that he sank on the ground bleeding and exhausted. When they left him at last, it was with a promise that he should taste the bastinado on the morrow, and, unhappily for him, his mind was now sufficiently clear to understand all that this implied.
All day he lay more dead than alive, and when the door of his cell opened gently, hours before the usual time, he had not strength to look up, even when a light was flashed in his eyes. It was not until a leathern bottle was held to his lips, and a voice said, “Drink this, sahib,” that he awoke from his lethargy, to see a well-known face bending over him.
“What, is it you, Mirza?” he asked feebly.
“Hush, sahib; I am come to save you,” was the whispered answer. “Only do what I tell you, or both our lives will pay for it.”
Ferrers drank obediently, and as he drank his strength seemed to return. He sat passive while the Mirza unlocked the fetters from his ankles, and filed through the chain which fastened him to the wall, but the thought in his mind was that now he would run through the prison and kill any one he met. He felt strong enough to face an army. But the Mirza’s hand was on his arm as he sprang up.
“Nay, sahib, we must go quietly. Put on the turban and garments I have here, and hide your hands in the sleeves, for it would take too long to file the fetters from your wrists now. Then follow me without a word. You are my disciple, and under a vow of silence. If we meet any one, I will speak for both.”
The authoritative tone had its effect in calming Ferrers, and he obeyed, putting on the clothes as best he could with his trembling, fettered hands, assisted by the Mirza, and pulling the loose sleeves down to hide his wrists. Then the Mirza took up his lantern and beckoned him to follow, fastening the door of the cell noiselessly as soon as they were both outside. They passed along a corridor with cell-doors on either side, and then through a kind of guardroom, where several men were lounging, either asleep or only half-awake. These saluted the Mirza, and looked with something like curiosity at his disciple, making no objection to their passing. Then came a courtyard which was evidently that of the common prison, for from a high-walled building on one side came shouts and groans and cries and wild laughter, making night more hideous even than day, and the ground was strewn thickly with bones and all kinds of filth. The Mirza did not turn towards the gateway, but to a corner near it, where he opened a small door and secured it carefully again when Ferrers had passed through. Then he led the way up a flight of stone steps and through various passages, and finally brought his guest into a room fairly furnished and—joy of joys!—clean.
“This house is yours, sahib,” he said, turning to him. “There are slaves at your orders, a bath, food, clothes. I myself will dress your wounds, since there might be danger in calling in a physician from the town, but here for the present you are safe.”
Ferrers looked round him like one in a dream. The thing was absolutely incredible after the squalor and brutality, the ineffectual struggles, of the days and nights since he had been captured. “I—I don’t understand,” he said feebly. “I thought you and I had quarrelled.”
“Am I one to forget the kindness of years in the hasty words of a night?” asked the Mirza reproachfully. “Nay, sahib; now the time is come for me to repay all I have ever received from you.”
“I don’t understand,” murmured Ferrers again, and reeled against the Mirza, who laid him on a divan, and called for the servants. Still half unconscious, the prisoner was stripped of the horrible rags he had worn in the prison, and clothed afresh in rich native garments. His wounds were dressed, food and cooling drinks were brought him, and he was left to rest in comfort and security.