Shadow of the Moon (33 page)

He rose and moved away from the
peepul
tree, and after a moment Niaz followed him. They crouched down on either side of the tilted slab of stone and waited, listening to the faint sounds from below while the shrunken moon sank below the horizon and the sky darkened. A jackal howled mournfully from the plain beyond the jungle and a little breeze awoke and rustled through the surrounding scrub, whispering through the leaves of the
peepul
tree and filling the silent night with a hundred small stealthy sounds.

At last the light below was extinguished and presently feet groped on the stairs and a man's head lifted out of the black well of the stair shaft. Alex waited until his shoulders were clear of the shaft and then reached out and took him round the throat. The man uttered one choking gasp and then he was struggling frantically, his hands clawing the air. His bare feet beat a tattoo against the steep stone steps, and Alex lifted him clear with one savage heave as though he had been of no more weight than a sack of vegetables.

‘What is it? Hast thou fallen?' asked a voice from the darkness below, and a second head appeared above the pavement. Niaz's lean fingers closed about the fat throat and he jerked the man up and backward across the rim of the shaft and brought his head down upon the stone with a sharp sound like the cracking of an egg. It was enough.

‘This one at least will cut no more throats,' said Niaz. ‘Is thine sped?'

‘Yes,' said Alex breathlessly, and let the limp thing drop in a huddled heap at his feet. His hands were wet and sticky with the blood that had burst from the man's mouth and nostrils, and he stooped, panting, and wiped them on the priestly robes.

‘What now?' asked Niaz.

‘Throw them back. If any raise the stone to seek for them, they will find them waiting.'

They tumbled the bodies back into the shaft and lowered the stone above it. They could not see how the thing had been raised or on what principle the two dead priests would have lowered it into place, and they had no time to discover the trick of it. They put their shoulders to it and discovered that it took the last ounce of their combined strength to send it crashing into place. The noise of its fall broke the silence of the night as though it had been the crash of a cannon and awoke a hundred echoes from the ruined walls.

‘Quick,' gasped Niaz. ‘If there be any within earshot they may return.'

They ran together across the wide, ruined courtyard and plunged into the blackness of the nullah, and ten minutes later they had reached the edge of the grazing grounds and the grove of trees where Alex had tethered the horses.

‘Where now?' whispered Niaz, mounting a fidgeting horse with an ease that consorted ill with the character of Jatu the toy-seller. ‘We cannot ride together.'

‘Lunjore. I go by way of Pari.'

‘It were better to take a road south of Gunga,' said Niaz. ‘There be few Pathans to be met with in these parts, and it is not safe for thee to ride the roads of Oudh.'

‘No roads are safe now,' said Alex grimly.

‘True. Let us go swiftly, for in another hour it will be dawn. I would that I had my own mare between my knees in place of this bag of bones!'

By first light they were no more than a dozen miles from Khanwai, for the roads were rough and now that the moon had set the darkness made it necessary for them to keep the horses to a walk. As the dawn broke and the morning mists turned from silver-grey to rose and saffron, and the long low veils of smoke from the cow-dung fires of the villages stretched out across the plain, Niaz fell behind and Alex rode on alone through open country where peacocks screamed from the standing crops and the dew-diamonds on every blade and twig glittered in the first rays of the rising sun.

It was barely more than a hundred miles from Khanwai to Lunjore; less as the crow flies. He should be able to reach there some time during the night, but the horse would need rest. Alex had always been able to sleep in the saddle when necessary, but for the sake of the animal he rode he would be compelled to halt for some part of the day. The thought of any halt oppressed him, since his instinct was to keep going with all possible speed. He could not rid himself of the thought that at any hour the word might go out to look for Sheredil of the Usafzai who had stood in the full glare of the torchlight and shown Kishan Prasad's ring.

Alex looked down at the ring now, and dropping the reins wrenched the thing off in a sudden spasm of loathing, and flung it away into the rank grass by the roadside.

It had been Kishan Prasad whose voice he had heard in the vault protesting against the murder, and it had undoubtedly been the priests and the unknown man with the ruby earrings who had been responsible for that foulness. But Kishan Prasad, whether he had condoned it or not, had convened that unholy coven, and as the instigator of it he could be held to account for all that had happened there, and summarily hanged for his part in the night's work. Alex wondered yet again why he had not let the man die? He had had the chance, and some absurd, inexplicable quixotic streak born of background and upbringing had forced him into saving his life. And yet only a few hours ago he had killed another man, and the dried blood of that killing was still on his
hands, spotting his clothing and dark under his fingernails. Yet a hundred such men were less dangerous than one Kishan Prasad. Was rage then, and not justice or reason, the incentive for killing?

Alex scowled down at his stained hands. There must not be a rising! It must be prevented at all costs; for if such a thing were to occur, and the blood-lust that he had witnessed last night were to be let loose, the British, who would do little now for the sake of reason, would do much under the spur of blind rage, and the retribution that would follow an armed rising would be both harsh and horrible, engulfing innocent and guilty alike. His own behaviour was proof enough of that, for he, who had not been able to leave Kishan Prasad to die, had killed a man for rage and revenge - because he had seen that man murder a child. Yet if the fear and hatred that such men as Kishan Prasad were coaxing into flame were to flare out into rebellion, a thousand children would die worse deaths: ‘It must not happen,' thought Alex desperately. ‘If it does it will leave a legacy of hatred and suspicion that will go on into the future until one day—' The mare shied as a blackbuck bounded across the path, and the action brought his thoughts back from the problems of the future to those of the immediate present.

Shortly after mid-day, having watered his horse and tethered it some hundred yards within the borders of the surrounding jungle, he lay down and slept, and an hour later Niaz, jogging along in the hot dust with a party of armed men - the erstwhile retainers of an Oudh noble whose estates now lay under threat of confiscation by the Company's Government, and whose acquaintance he had made on the road - noted that the print of a misshapen horseshoe no longer appeared upon the dusty surface of the road, and nodded to himself, realizing that Alex must have turned aside to rest his horse. That meant night riding, and it was safer to ride by night.

18

The low sun was shining between the grass stems and the bamboo canes when Alex awoke, and a jungle cock was calling from a cane-brake above the stream. Alex rummaged among the folds of his garment and produced the remains of a chuppatti, which he ate hungrily. The stream would provide water to quench his thirst and he need not stop again for food or rest until he reached Lunjore.

As he ate he thought of the ritual making of the chuppatti that he had witnessed last night, and of stories that he had heard of food prepared in time of plague with special incantations being taken out and left beside the roadside in the belief that any passer-by who picked it up would carry away the infection from the house or village. Was that the meaning of the making of the chuppatti? The symbolic ridding of the community - of Oudh - of the misfortunes that had befallen it?

A flock of parrots fluttered up from the edge of the stream and screeched indignantly away between the trees as Alex emerged from the jungle and bent to scoop the water up in his cupped hands, and a line of egrets flapped overhead, chalk-white against the blue sky, making for the distant river. Alex dried his hands against the full Pathan trousers, and mounting, rode out of the jungle and into the warm evening light.

He made considerably better time over the next twenty miles or so, for the horse appeared to have benefited from its rest. The sun plunged below the horizon and a sharp sweet smell of wood-smoke stole across the plain, and presently a little chill wind arose, a precursor of the cold weather and a promise of cool nights. Alex wrapped a length of cotton cloth about his throat and shoulders, and as the swift dusk swallowed up jungle and plain, and the ghost of the wedge-shaped moon gathered strength in the darkening sky, he settled himself down to ride hard, using all the skill he possessed to coax the best speed from his shoddy mount.

It was late and the road was white in the moonlight as he neared the little town of Pari. He had covered over eighty miles since he had left Khanwai before dawn that day, and only a matter of some six or seven more separated him from the river that formed the border between Oudh and Lunjore. Once across the river, an hour's ride would bring him to the cantonments and Lunjore city that lay barely ten miles from the border.

The road that had run for the past few miles in the shadow of over-arching trees ran out into an open plain dotted with tussocks of tall grass and the sparse shadows of thorn trees, on the far side of which a few warm pinpricks of light marked the outskirts of Pari. The plain lay milky in the moonlight,
patterned by the misshapen shadows of the grass clumps and an occasional outcrop of rock that loomed tall and sharp-edged against the night sky. Something moved in the black shadow of the rock and Alex reined in hard as Niaz rode out into the open.

Niaz did not speak, but catching the mare's bridle he turned her off the road. He was breathing quickly and the flanks of his own weary beast were white with foam and heaving as though it had been ridden to exhaustion.

‘Thou canst not go forward,' said Niaz, speaking in a whisper as though even in that wide plain he feared to be overheard. ‘The word has gone out against thee. There were men in Pari asking if any had seen a Pathan horse-dealer - one Sheredil, a man of the Usafzai. Some matter of a stolen horse - or so they said. I rode on through the town and circled back two
koss
through the crops and the grazing grounds, so that none should see me: but this horse is spent. If thine will still carry thee, turn back and ride for the village by the walled tank where the three tombs stand beside the road. There is another path to the southward from there, through the jungle. It is a long way and a rough one, but—'

He stopped suddenly and turned his head, listening. There was a faint rhythmic sound from somewhere far out on the plain. ‘ Horses!' whispered Niaz. He slipped from the saddle and the next instant Alex was beside him. They ran back to where the road crossed a gully, dragging the unwilling horses with them, and turned up it, stumbling among the stones and the water-worn boulders. The sides steepened as it curved back at a right angle, and they were hidden.

Alex whipped the cloth from about his shoulders and pulled a fold of it about his horse's head, and saw Niaz drag off his turban and use it to bandage the jaws of his own exhausted beast. The sound of its laboured breathing was intolerably loud in the silence, and Niaz wrenched the girths loose and thrust the reins into Alex's hands: ‘Keep them still. I would see who comes.'

He turned and crept back down the gully, and for a moment or two Alex heard the stones click and rattle and then there was a silence in which he could hear only the wheezing of the weary horse and, presently, the swift clop of hooves and a muffled jingle of bridles. The mare lifted her head and shivered and her bridle chinked. Alex threw an arm about her neck and held her head against him and she stood quietly. The sound of hoof-beats came nearer and then they were clattering among the dry stones of the gully, breasting the slope on the far side, and were past and fading once more into the silence.

After a moment or two he released the mare's head and unwound the cloth from about it, and she blew heavily through flaring nostrils and stamped uneasily among the water-worn pebbles. A stone clattered and a shadow moved on the wall of the gully, and Niaz was back: ‘We are too late,' he said quietly. ‘There is no going back.'

Alex had not yet spoken and he did not speak now. He drew out the small
pistol he carried slung about his neck, and moving out into the moonlight checked the loading and then tucked it into his wide leather belt where his hand could rest upon the slender butt. Niaz nodded approvingly as he rewound his turban.

‘I do not think there will be more upon the road,' he said. ‘They will look for thee to enter the town. We will ride on for half a
koss
and then turn away from the road and make a circle through the fields. It is on the far side that we shall find it difficult, for there is only one place where the river may be crossed - by the bridge of boats into Lunjore - and that will be watched.'

‘We will deal with that when we have the town behind us,' said Alex. ‘Can that beast bear thee?'

‘Needs must,' said Niaz with a laugh. They led the horses back onto the road and mounting again rode on into the moonlight towards the distant town.

Fifteen minutes later they turned off the road and went at a foot-pace, the horses picking their way wearily between rocks and tussocks of grass, and presently they were skirting the cultivated land to the south of Pari. A pariah dog barked at them as they crossed a shallow irrigation ditch where Niaz's horse stumbled and all but threw him, and a second dog and another and another took up the shrill challenge until the night rang to the yapping chorus. Niaz dug his heels savagely into his horse's flanks and urged it forward at a shambling trot down a dusty path that skirted a cactus hedge, and Alex could hear him cursing under his breath.

A watchman, perched in a ramshackle
machan
in a mulberry tree to scare the deer and wild pig from the crops, shouted hoarsely and discharged an ancient fowling piece. The pellets rattled through the leaves and something like a red-hot knife sliced into Alex's arm and he felt the warm blood pour down it and wet the fingers of his left hand. Then water glimmered in the moonlight and they found themselves on a narrow track bordering the marshy margin of a jheel that stretched away and to the left.

The frenzied barking of the pariah dogs died away behind them as the track curved north again under the shadow of a steep bank topped by a towering hedge of cactus, and presently came to what appeared to be a dead end, for the bank and the cactus hedge bent sharply at a right angle, barring their path and continuing on in an unbroken line towards the glimmering stretches of the jheel. Niaz drew rein in the shadows and slid to the ground. ‘There is a lane ahead,' he whispered. ‘Thou canst not see, for it runs—' He stopped suddenly. ‘Art thou hit?'

‘It is only a flesh wound,' said Alex, and dismounted awkwardly.

Niaz rolled back the sodden sleeve. A raw-edged fragment of the scrap-iron with which the watchman's gun had been loaded had ploughed through the fleshy part of the arm midway between shoulder and elbow, making an ugly jagged tear that bled freely. Niaz ripped two strips of cloth from Alex's turban and making a pad of the first bound the wound skilfully. ‘And the lane?' said Alex.

‘It runs back to the right; there, by the turn of the bank. It was not watched when I came by this way, but it may be that there are watchers now. Wait here while I go forward to see.'

He vanished silently into the shadows and Alex waited, listening to the many night noises and calculating the chances of survival. A breath of wind rattled a dead and dried cactus leaf, jackal packs bayed the moon, and from the edges of the jheel frogs croaked in noisy and monotonous chorus while an occasional clucking proclaimed the presence of water-birds feeding further out from the shore.

Niaz returned as noiselessly as he had gone, his shod feet making no sound on the soft carpet of the dust: ‘The path is shut' - his voice was barely a breath of sound. ‘They have run a cart across the far end and there are two men there. Perhaps three.'

Alex said: ‘And the jheel?'

‘It would take us until morning to cross it, if we were not drowned among the weeds. Moreover, we could not swim the horses.'

‘That may be no loss! There will be a watch kept for a mounted man and the horses may well be recognized. Though it is true that without them—' He was silent for a moment or two, his eyes ranging along the banks and the cactus hedges above them. But the banks were steep and the cactus hedge impenetrable to anything larger than a mongoose. He thrust the reins at Niaz and said: ‘Wait while I see.'

He walked soft-footed in the shadow of the bank and found, as Niaz had said, that the bank that apparently took a sharp-angled turn to the left was not the same bank as that which they had followed, but another that cut across it. The two banks turned back towards the town and ran parallel for about thirty yards, forming a narrow steep-sided lane. A country cart had been backed into the mouth of the lane at the far end, and Alex could hear a murmur of voices and see a gleam of firelight. He crept forward to within a dozen feet of the cart and observed with satisfaction that it carried a bale of fodder slung beneath it between the clumsy wheels, and that a blanket hung down between the shafts to provide a rough screen for a small fire of dung-cakes that smouldered on the ground in front of the cart and warmed the feet of the watchers. Two men squatted beside it and were apparently playing cards by its glow, and a third man leant against a wheel and appeared to be asleep. There was just room for a man to pass between the cart and the left-hand bank, but not for a horse. Alex wriggled backwards with infinite caution and presently rejoined Niaz.

‘It is easy.'

He outlined a plan in a few terse sentences and Niaz nodded: ‘We will try it. If it comes to the worst they are only three to our two, and out of three there is always one who runs away.'

‘We cannot allow even one to run away, or the alarm is given. Give me five minutes.' Alex turned and crept back the way he had come.