CHAPTER IX

Sunni had his own room in the palace, a little square place with a high white wall and a table and chair in it, which Dr. Roberts had given him. The table held his books, his pen and ink and paper.

There was a charpoy in one corner, and under the charpoy a locked box. There were no windows, and the narrow door opened into a pa.s.sage that ran abruptly into a wall, a few feet farther on.

So n.o.body saw Sunni when he carried his chirag, his little chimneyless, smoking tin lamp, into his room, and set it in a niche on the wall, took off his shoes, and threw himself down on his charpoy at eleven o'clock that night. For a long time he had been listening to the bul-buls, the nightingales, in the garden, and thinking of this moment. Now it had come, and Sunni quivered and throbbed all over with excitement. He lay very still, though, on the watch for footsteps, whispers, breathings in the pa.s.sage. Four years in the palace had taught Sunni what these things meant. He lay still for more than two hours.

At last, very quietly, Sunni lifted himself up by his elbows, put first one leg, and then the other, out of the charpoy, and got up.

More quietly still he drew the locked box from under the bed, took a key from his pocket, and opened it. The key squeaked in the wood, and Sunni paused again for a long time, listening. Then in the smoky, uncertain light of the chirag flaring in the niche, he took from the box three gold bangles, two broken armlets, enamelled in red and blue, and a necklace of pearls with green enamelled pendants. Last, he drew out a little sword with rubies set in the hilt. For an instant Sunni hesitated; the ornaments were nothing, but the sword was his chief possession and his pride. It would be so easy to carry away! He looked at it lovingly for a minute, and laid it with the rest. All these things were his very own, but something told him that he must not take them away. Then he took the long coa.r.s.e white turban cloth from his head, and wrapped everything skilfully in it. Nothing jangled, and when the parcel was made up it was flat and even. Then Sunni, with his English pen, printed in Urdu:

[Urdu text]

which in English letters would have been spelled 'Maharajah ka wasti,' and which meant simply, 'For the Maharajah,' upon one side of it. Upon the other he wrote in the large round hand that Dr.

Roberts had taught him--

'To your Honner, the Maharajah of Chita. Sunni will take your Honner in his hart to his oun country, but the gifs are too heavie.'

Sunni had certainly learned politeness at last among the Rajputs.

Then he put the parcel back into the box, softly locked it, and laid the key on the cover.

Still n.o.body came his way. Sunni took another turban cloth from its nail in the wall, a finely-woven turban cloth, with blue and gold stripes, nine yards long, for festivals. He twisted it carelessly round his neck, and blew out the chirag. Then he slipped softly into the pa.s.sage, and from that into the close, dark, high-walled corridors that led into the outer courts. He stepped quickly, but carefully; the corridors were full of sleeping servants. Twice he pa.s.sed a sentinel. The first was stupid with opium, and did not notice him. Mar Singh, the second, was very wide awake.

'Where go you, Sunni-ji?' he asked, inquisitively.

'I go to speak with Tooni about a matter which troubles me so that I cannot sleep,' answered Sunni; 'and afterwards I return to the little south balcony that overlooks the river; it will be cooler there if the wind blows.'

As Sunni went on, the thoughts of the sentinel became immediately fixed upon the necessity of being awake when the sahib's son should pa.s.s in again--the sahib's son had the ear of the Maharajah.

The ayah's hut was in the very farthest corner of the courtyard she had begged for, somewhat apart from the others. It was quite dark inside when Sunni pushed open the door, but the old woman, slumbering light, started up from her charpoy with a little cry.

'Choop!' said he in a low, quick tone; and Tooni, recognising his voice, was instantly silent.

Sunni made his way to the side of the bed, and took one of her hands.

'Listen, Tooni,' said he, in the same tone, 'I am come for what is mine. Give it to me.'

'Sonny Sahib!' quavered the old woman hoa.r.s.ely, 'what have I to give you? Dil kushi,[8] I have nothing.'

[8] 'Heart's delight.'

'What from fear you have never given up, nor burnt, nor thrown away,' said Sunni, firmly; 'what you said false words to ee-Wobbis about, when you told him it had been stolen from you. My little black book, with my G.o.d in it.'

'Hazur! I have it not.'

'Give it to me,' said Sunni.

The old woman raised herself in the bed. 'A sahib's promise is written in gold,' said she; 'promise that the Maharajah shall never know.'

'He shall never know,' said Sunni.

Tooni felt her way to the side of the hut; then her hand fumbled along the top of the wall; it seemed to Sunni for an interminable time. At a certain place she parted the thatch and put her hand into it with a little rustling that Sunni thought might be heard in the very heart of the palace. Then she drew out a small, tight sewn, oilskin bag, that had taken the shape of the book inside it, groped across the hut again, and gave it to Sunni. The boy's hand trembled as he took it, and without a word he slipped into the darkness outside.

Then he stopped short and went back. 'Great thanks to you, Tooni-ji,'

he said softly into the darkness of the hut. 'When I find my own country I will come back and take you there too. And while I am gone Moti will love you, Tooni-ji. Peace be to you!'

Mar Singh was still awake when Sunni re-entered the palace. The wind had come, he said. Sleep would rest upon the eyelids of Sunni-ji in the south balcony.

It was a curious little place, the south balcony, really not a balcony at all, but a round-pillared pavilion with a roof that jutted out above the city wall. It hung over a garden too, rather a cramped garden, the wall and the river came so close, and one that had been left a good deal to take care of itself. Some fine pipal-trees grew in it though, one of them towered within three feet of the balcony, while the lower branches overspread the city wall. All day long the green parrakeets flashed in and out of the pipal-trees, screaming and chattering, while the river wound blue among the yellow sands outside the wall; but to-night the only sound in them was the whispering of the leaves as the south wind pa.s.sed, and both the river and the sands lay silver gray in the starlight. Sunni, lying full length upon the balcony, listened with all his might. From the courtyard, away round to the right where the stables were, came a pony's neigh, and Sunni, as he heard it once--twice--thrice--felt his eyes fill with tears. It was the voice of his pony, of his 'Dhooplal,' his 'red sunlight,' and, he would never ride Dhooplal again. The south breeze brought no other sound, the palace stretched on either side of him dark and still, a sweet heavy fragrance from a frangipanni-tree in the garden floated up, and that was all. Sunni looked across the river, and saw that a group of palms on the other side was beginning to stand distinctly against the sky. Then he remembered that he must make haste.

The first thing he did was to unwind his long turban from his neck, and cut it in two. Two-thirds he twisted round his waist, the other he made fast to one of the little red stone pillars of the balcony. It hung straight and black down into the shadows of the pipal-tree. Then, very gradually and cautiously, Sunni slipped over the balcony's edge and let himself down, down, till he reached a branch thick enough to cling to. The turban was none too long, the branches at the top were so slender. Just as he grasped a thick one, clutching it with both arms and legs, and swaying desperately in the dark, he felt a rush of wings across his face, and a great white owl flew out hooting in her panic. The boy almost missed his catch with fear, and the Maharajah, wakeful in his apartments, lost another good hour's sleep through hearing the owl's cry. It was the worst of omens, the Maharajah believed, and sometimes he believed it with less reason.

As quickly as he dared, Sunni let himself down branch by branch till he reached the level of the wall. Presently he stood upon it in the subsiding rustle of the leaves, breathless and trembling..

He seemed to have disturbed every living thing within a hundred yards. A score of bats flew up from the wall crevices, a flying fox struck him on the shoulder, at his feet something black and slender twisted away into a darker place. Sunni stood absolutely still, gradually letting go his hold upon the pipal twigs.

Presently everything was as it had been before, except for the little dark motionless figure on the wall; and the south wind was bringing across the long, shrill, mournful howls of the jackals that plundered the refuse of the British camp half a mile away.

Then Sunni lay down flat on the top of the wall, and began to work himself with his hands and feet towards the nearest embrasure. An old cannon stood in this, and threatened with its wide black mouth any foe that should be foolish enough to think of attacking the fort from the river. This venerable piece of ammunition had not been fired for ten years, and would burst to a certainty if it were fired now; but as n.o.body had ever dreamed of attacking Lalpore from the river that didn't particularly matter. When Sunni reached it, he crouched down in its shadow--the grayness behind the palms was spreading--and took the rest of his turban cloth from his waist.

Then he took off his coat, and began to unwind a rope from his body--a rope made up of all sorts of ends, thick and thin, long and short, and pieced out with leather thongs. Sunni was considerably more comfortable when he had divested himself of it. He tied the rope and the turban cloth together, and fastened the rope end to the old gun's wheel. He looked over for a second--no longer--but it was too dark to tell how far down the face of the thirty-foot wall his ragged contrivance hung. It was too dark as well to see whether the water rippled against the wall or not; but Sunni knew that the river was low. As a matter of fact he had only about five feet to drop, and he went very comfortably into a thick bed of wet sand. Nor was anything known of his going in Lalpore until daybreak, when one of the palace sweepers found the end of a blue and gold turban flapping about the south balcony; and Moti, who often went early to tell his dreams to Sunni, brought the Maharajah a parcel.

CHAPTER X

'What's this?' said Colonel Starr, looking up from his camp table, where he was writing a final message for translation to the Maharajah. The sun was on the point of rising, the air was crisp, and the sky was splendid. Lalpore, on her b.u.t.tressed slope, sat as proud and as silent as ever; but something like a blue ribbon floated from the south wall over the river.

'What's this?' said Colonel Starr, with the deepest possible astonishment.

'Pris'ner, sir,' answered Thomas Jones, saluting.

'WHAT?' said the Colonel. 'Nonsense! Where did you get him?'

'Beg pardon, sir. Peters were on duty, sir, at the second outpost, sir. It were about two hours ago as far as I could judge, sir, not 'avin' the time by me. Peters seed pris'ner a-comin' strite fer the camp across the sands from the river, sir. Peters sings out "Oo goes?" H'AND there been no notiss took, pints, sir.'

'Yes,' interposed Sunni, composedly, in his best English, 'he did.

But he did not fire. And that was well, for he might have hit me.

I am not broken.'