Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 .. (25 page)

"Shabash, brothers, wealth is ours!" Baja and his friends ran into

the building. Ram, limping after them, arrived as someone shot the lock off a brass-bound chest, exposing deep-piled gold coins lying upon bars of the same metal. Other chests gave up silver, while yet others brimmed with gem-encrusted ornaments.

Madness seized the looters, Baja, waving a gold bar in each hand, capered around, screaming praises to Siva and Kali, Even Ram became infected and crammed his pockets with coins,

"God damn ye louse-ridden niggers, who gave ye right to fire my gun?" Jakes stood in the djorway.

"I did." Ram regained his sanity. "And have a care what ye call our comrades, even in English. Here's wealth for all."

"Gold, begod! Out of my way, Moors!" Jakes sprang forward, knocking men aside in his haste to bury his hands in a chest.

"Khare ruho!" Ram blared at the indignant gossein, who was about to bury his dagger in the seaman's back. "Out, Jakes, and take nothing with you. Your share will be more than you deserve."

"It had better be or I'll blow the whole poxed crew of ye to hell!" Jakes swaggered out.

Seeing Ram empty his pockets, Baja sheepishly put down the bars. "Arre, are we not honest people?" he demanded virtuously. "Faizal Din and you, Sher Shan, remain on guard. Brothers, let's visit the palace, before our other honest friends take all."

Reluctantly they trooped out, Jakes, standing with his gunners, watched them sourly, Chanda had just arrived, followed by a syce leading Battle, Upon seeing Ram limp, she jumped from the enclosed gharry and ran to him. "Lord, you are hurt!"

"A bruise," he reassured her. "Come within. All goes well."

They entered the great durbar—audience hall. On a dais at the farther end was a gilt throne, in which a gorgeously clad man shrank from the daggers of two dragoons. The body of an attendant sprawled at his feet; cries came from some inner apartment.

"They are in the zenana!" Chanda protested. " 'Twas forbidden."

"Since when are women not loot?" Baja asked maliciously. "Yet it is true, they mustn't be harmed. No, brothers, let us insure good order. Time is short."

"Lord, let me go there," Chanda begged, and hurried away.

Ram regarded the throne's occupant curiously. Rajah Pratap Mo-hite Bahadur, ruler of this invaded state, was clearly stunned. His

expressive eyes were glazed and his lips bloodless; yet there was a dignity about him that demanded respect. Briefly they stared at each other, the defeated prince and the European, and when Ram turned away, he almost regretted he was not fighting on Mohite's side against his scheming, fat-jowled neighbor.

Uzoor Singh returned, chewing a ripe pomegranate, its red juice dripping down his neatly rolled beard. Over one shoulder was a gold-embroidered sari and on his right arm were a dozen silver bracelets. "Ha, lord, when comes the brave Dadaji Rao Bahadur to enter into his kingdom?" He spat seeds at the throne.

"Rally your men but leave guards over the prisoners." Ram was curt. "We must capture the other fort before he'll dare come here."

The Sikh laughed, head flung back. "Wah, Ram Sahib, the great conqueror waits till indeed danger ends!" He shouted, bringing his men straggling back, all carrying loot. Baja and his friends followed, though few had booty.

"Who takes the warning?" Ram demanded.

"Suraya Rao," Baja indicated a man, who bowed and hurried out, just as Chanda reappeared from the zenana.

"The women?" Ram asked her anxiously.

"Unharmed, but in great fear. The Ranee was saved from insult by Bajaji. There are also three concubines and two small daughters."

"Stay with them, my heart." Ram stroked her hair. "One more attack and all will be over."

He led back to the south gate, where the party was rejoined by the men who had come forward from the east fort. Ram sent a man up the gateway tower, whence he reported that Suraya Rao was already halfway to the west fort, where he'd pose as a terrified citizen, bringing news of the town's capture and imploring help.

Jake's guns arrived, and Khafi Khan's diminished troop. The Pathan had left guards at the other gates to cow the townsmen, which left the force so reduced that Ram was uneasy. Yet, as he hobbled over to Jakes, he forced a smile to ease the tension between them.

"Hot work to come. Gunner. But case shot should do it."

"I know me job, Cap'n. But lookee, I want none handlin' the guns but me and me crews. Fair angered I was, you firin' that piece."

All Ram's training rebelled against such insolence, and automatically he took Dick's old tone. "Gunner, the harness of that lead

pair's badly fouled. See to it!" As he turned away, the man in the watchtower shouted that hundreds on horse and foot were pouring from the west fort and heading town ward. Tlie ruse had worked.

"March!" Ram led back down the road, then swung west across millet fields to meet the oncoming foemen. Soon he halted, formed both troops in line, two deep, so that they hid the guns from sight of the enemy, one third of whom were lance men, the rest foot, carrying tulwaTS, shields and ancient matchlocks. Keep off those lances, he decided, and the rest are ours.

On their part, the rabble saw only a few score marauders who, having raided Ahmedpur, now invited suicide by coming into the open. Screaming taunts, they came on faster.

"Front rank, pick your marks!" Ram shouted. And, when the foremost lancers were only twenty paces off: "Give fire!"

The volley crashed and instantly each front-rank man pivoted his horse and withdrew rearward, where he dismounted and reloaded.

"Rear rank," Ram warned, peering through the smoke, "give fire!"

This volley delivered, the second rank withdrew behind the first, exposing the guns. Through the drifting pall came screams and the threshing of hoofs; but the sheer impetus of the onrush continued, though most of the lancers were down.

Jakes grinned thinly. "Here's Hell's welcome to the black bastards!" He put tow to the first gun's touchhole. As the gun fired, he ran to touch off its mate.

That was enough; the already wavering attack was shattered. Signaling for both troops to charge, Ram spurred Battle out ahead of Uzoor Singh's men. "Kill! Kill!" the Sikh kept chanting. "Let not one soor escape!"

Caught between both troops, the mass of footmen were helpless, and only Ram's constant intervention prevented a general massacre.

"Khan Sahib, cut off any trying to regain the fort!" he ordered. "Send men to occupy it until the rajah's followers relieve them!"

The Pathan started off, while the Sikh's excited men rounded up the prisoners. Again victory had been incredibly cheap; one trooper dead and two wounded.

Ram rode back slowly toward the road. In a few hours, with only loo men, his generalship had overrun a state, destroyed its army and captured its prince. He should be wildly excited; yet as elation drained, he was aware only that his leg ached damnably.

Across his front, moving townward, was a mass of men and beasts. Dadaji Rao was at last entering into his new domain.

"Bastardly coward!" Ram muttered and, somehow, felt better.

A welcoming party issued from the south gate. Ram gaped, for it was headed by Baja, a Baja he'd never before known. His turban sparkled with diamonds, his tunic was of silver cloth and his tight paejamas of crimson. He wore a jeweled sword and rode a fine stallion. And his scouts were no longer creatures of dirt and rags, but almost as dazzling as he. What amused Ram most was that Baja was wearing his glass eye. It was no twin to his real one and its unblinking stare was disconcerting; yet, somehow, it gave him a kind of dignity.

Ram saw him range alongside the rajah's great elephant, raise his sword in salute and call: "Arre, Highness, thy unworthy servants have exceeded beyond expectation. All Rakosawan is thine!"

The fat man in the gilt howdah nodded and bade his mahout increase the pace. "I yearn to come face to face with that stinking slave of a Mogul tyrant, may his white-colored blood erupt!"

With the guns rumbling behind him, Ram led the vanguard into Ahmedpur. Upon reaching the palace, Dadaji descended from his hathi and, followed by his dewan, personal bodyguard and the dragoons, entered the durbar, where his hapless enemy still huddled on the throne.

His thick lips protruding wetly, he waddled forward and put one foot on the dais, "O Trapped One, where is thy safety now?" he mocked. "I have waited long, but now all of thine is mine."

Something stirred in Pratap's eyes and he rose to tower above the taunter. "False friend, treacherous neighbor; many years have I protected you from aggressors, even to interceding for you with the Great Mogul himself. And now you will murder me!" His gaze swept upward. "O Siva the Destroyer, avenge me in thy good time and strike down Dadaji Rao here on this spot, as he has stricken me!" Then, very deliberately, he spat in the other's face.

"Take him!" Dadaji screamed, clawing at his jowls as if the spittle were burning into his flesh. "Chain him to Hathi Sahib, but do not let the Great One move till I give the word!" At once the captive was dragged away.

Ram, lightheaded from pain, had watched all as from a great distance, but now turned to Baja. "What's to be done with him?"

"Come." The Maratha hurried after Dadaji and his swarm. Ram followed, limping. Outside, the courtyard was jammed with humans, except in the center. There, Dadaji's elephant towered, its ears wide and flapping, its mahout's ankus poised. But it was the beast's off hind foot that riveted all eyes, for chained around it like a roll of leather was Pratap.

"God, no—it's fiendish!" Understanding now. Ram fumbled for a pistol. At least a merciful ball!

"Are you crazed?" Baja's fingers clamped on his wrist. "It is the right of the victor to kill as he pleases."

Numbly, Ram nodded and looked again at the elephant's human fetter.

"O mahout, drive deep the ankus!" Dadaji screeched, and the driver stabbed the iron goad behind the hathi's right ear.

Trumpeting protest, the beast swayed back and forward without, however, moving its feet; well aware that to do so would stamp out the life of a human. The mahout sank in the ankus again and again, but the animal, trumpeting its pain, still refused to move.

"The curse of Siva on you!" Pratap's muffled cry was defiant.

"Spears! Wound the Stupid One with them!" Dadaji yelled. A dozen henchmen rushed to obey.

Tortured beyond endurance, the beast lurched forward; its off hind rose, went down, rose, went down, dragging and stamping its victim. Terrible red footprints appeared in its wake as, raging, it charged into the dense crowd, knocking people down in swathes in its efforts to shake off the pulpy mass that had once been a man.

How the mahout regained control, or how many the hathi killed, Ram never knew, since, for the first time in his life, he had fainted.

"Lord, he is a burra bagh," Havildar Nur Mohammed said. "As I was relieving myself outside, I heard him close and had to run for my hfe."

Ram checked Chota. Phew, it was blistering! Thank God Chirawali was just ahead. Half-irritably, he asked the sergeant: "Why didn't you use your men and the villagers to hunt him down?"

"Lord, who am I to risk your servants' lives without orders?" the young Moslem smiled, "Also, the miserable village men believe the spirit of an old hermit inhabits this tiger and exacts vengeance be-

cause they didn't take food to his cave. These Hindus! Men of my faith have no such superstitions."

Ram laughed. He hked Nur Mohammed, who had done well at the capture of Ahmedpur. "Could you and I kill this man-eater?"

"We could, lord," the sergeant agreed, "but not our own Hindus, who'd rather be eaten than slay the Holy One who inhabits the animal." He reined in. "Aie, sahib, alight and rest."

A dragoon hurried from the bungalow to lead Chota away. Ram followed the havildar into the cool interior, where he rested.

Dadaji, he had to admit, had fully kept his bargain: He had shared the treasure equally—which Baja in turn had divided according to rank—and had given a jaghir of six villages to feed and quarter the men until after the rains. Therefore, Baja and his cronies were ranging far to offer the squadron's services to the highest bidder among several warring rajahs. So, with many of the men gone to their homes with their loot, Ram had but to visit each village and maintain discipline among those who remained.

Soon he ordered the havildar to fall in with his six men, then he inspected them, the whole village watching. Afterward Nur Mohammed brought the headman forward.

Graying Pershad Patel salaamed: "Lord, the worthy havildar has told you of the terrible bagh who preys on us because, in our selfishness, we failed to feed the holy gossein who lived in yonder hills. Three—a woman and two babes—has he eaten in a month."

"What would you have me do, worthy patel? I see many stouthearted men among you who could track him down and kill him."

"Raj," the patel said hopefully, "his curse could not fall on you, a foreigner. Should you or any other who is not a Hindu kill the tiger, no harm would come to you."

So, if a Christian or a Moslem got killed in the hunting, it wouldn't count! Ram stared at the surrounding jungle. If the villagers wouldn't help, it might take weeks to track down the brute. Of course, he could bring in Moslems from his dragoons elsewhere.

"Who among you will seek out the Evil One for me?" he demanded.

The crowd drew back uneasily, but one elderly man called: "Lord, I am a shikari who has killed many a tiger. No mere bagh has terror for me, but this one carries the spirit of revenge, and him I dare not

hunt. Yet, noble stranger, I will lend my skill to track him for your killing. I, Rowati Shikari, swear it."

A young farmer called: "Lord, I offer a goat to bait the trap!"

Hope had won over superstition!

Two nights later, Ram and Nur Mohammed were perched on a tree platform above a jungle clearing, praying the Evil One might condescend to the scrawny goat staked out twenty yards away. For Rowati had found a trail running from the rock ridge westward to a spring in the lower foothills. So this trap was sited midway. But would His Majesty eat goat after having feasted so long on humans? Rowati believed so, for he would scent the hunters in the tree-machan.