I didn't care for that, and neither did a burly cove in a cavalry coat. "Be decent, pig! She is the mother of thy king, who will sit on the throne in London Fort when we of the Khalsa have eaten the Sirkar's army!"
"Hear him!" scoffs the old comedian. "The Khalsa will march on the ocean then, to reach London?"
"What ocean, fool? London lies only a few cos*(*Cos = one and a half miles.) beyond Meerut."
"Is it so far?" says I, playing the yokel. "Have you been there?"
"Myself, no," admitted the Khalsa bird. "But my havildar was there as a camel-driver. It is a poor place, by all accounts, not so great as Lahore."
"Nay, now," cries the one with the poxy uncle. "The houses in London are faced with gold, and even the public privies have doors of silver. This I was told."
"That was before the war with the Afghans," says the Khalsa's prize liar, whose style I was beginning to admire. "It beggared the British, and now they are in debt to the Jews; even Wellesley sahib, who broke Tipoo and the Maharattas aforetime, can get no credit, and the young queen and her waiting-women sell themselves on the streets. So my havildar tells; he had one of them."
"Does he have his nose still?" cries another, and there was great merriment.
"Aye, laugh!" cries the ancient. "But if London is grown poor, where is all this loot on which we are to grow fat when you heroes of the Pure have brought it home?"
"Now God give him wit! Where else but in Calcutta, in the Hebrews' strong-boxes. We shall march on thither when we have taken London and Glash-ka where they grow tobacco and make the iron boats."
About as well-informed, you see, as our own public were about India. I lingered a little longer, until I was thinking in Punjabi, and then, with that well-known hollow feeling in my innards, set off on my reluctant way.
The Shah Boorj is at the south-western corner of Lahore city, less than a mile away as the crow flies, but nearer two when you must pick your way through the winding ways of the old town. Foul ways they were, too, running with filth past hovels tenanted by ugly beggar folk who glared from doorways or scavenged among the refuse with the rats and pi-dogs; the air was so poisonous that I had to wrap my puggaree over my mouth, as though to strain the pestilential vapours as I picked my way past pools of rotting filth. A few fires among the dung-heaps provided the only light, and everywhere there were bright, wicked eyes, human and animal, that shrank away as I approached, lengthening my stride to get through that hellish place, but always I could imagine horrid shapes pressing behind me, and blundered on like the chap in the poem who daren't look back because he knows there's a hideous goblin on his heels.
Presently the going was better, between high tenements and warehouses, and only a few night-lurkers hurrying by. Near the south wall the streets were wider, with decent houses set back behind high walls; a couple of palkis went by, swaying between their bearers, and there was even a chowkidar*(*Constable.) patrolling with his lantern and staff. But I still felt damnably alone, with the squalid, hostile warren between me and home—that was how I now thought of the Fort which I'd approached with such alarm a couple of months ago. Very adaptable, we funks are.
The French Soldiers' cabaret was close to the Buttee Gate, and if the Frog mercenaries whose crude portraits adorned its walls could have seen it, they'd have sought redress at law. They squinted out of their frames on a great, noisy, reek-filled chamber—Ventura, Allard, Court, and even my old chum Avitabile, looking like the Italian bandit he was with his tasselled cap and spiky moustachioes. I'd settle for you alongside this minute, thinks I, as I surveyed the company: villainous two-rupee bravos, painted harpies who should have been perched in trees, a seedy flute-and-tom-tom band accompanying a couple of gyrating nautches whom you wouldn't have touched with a long pole, and Sikh brandy fit to corrode a bucket. I'll never say a word against Boodle's again, says I to myself; at least there you don't have to sit with your back to the wall.
I found a stool between two beauties who'd evidently been sleeping in a camel stable, bought a glass of arrack that I took care not to drink, growled curtly when addressed, and sat like a good little political, using the signals—thumb between the first two fingers and scratching my right armpit from time to time. Half the clientele were clawing themselves in the same way, with good reason, which was disconcerting, but I sat grimly on, wishing I'd gone into Holy Orders and ignoring the blandishments of sundry viragos of the sort you can have for fourpence with a mutton pie and a pint of beer thrown in, but better not, for the pie meat's sure to be off. They sulked or snarled at me, according to taste, but the last one, a henna'd banshee with bad teeth, said I was choosy, wasn't I, and what had I expected in a place like this—Bibi Kalil?
There was so much noise that I doubted if anyone else had heard her, but I waited till she'd flounced off, and another ten minutes for luck. Then I rose and shouldered my way to the door, taking my time; sure enough, she was waiting in the shadow of the porch. Without a word she led on up the alley, and I followed close, my heart thumping and my hand on the pepperbox under my poshteen as I scanned the shadows ahead. We went by twisting ways until she stopped by a high wall with an open wicket. "Through the garden and round the house. Your friend is waiting," she whispered, and vanished into the dark.
I glanced about to mark lines of flight, and went cautiously in. A small bushy enclosure surrounded a tall well-kept house, and directly before me a steep outside stair led up to a little arched porch on the upper floor, with a dimly-lit doorway beyond. Round the angle of the house to my left light was spilling from a ground-floor room that I couldn't see—that was my way, then, but even as I set forward the light in the arch overhead shone brighter as the door beyond was fully opened, and a woman came out silently on to the little porch. She stood looking down into the garden, this way and that, but by then I was in the bushes, taking stock.
Peering up through the leaves I could see her clearly, and if this was Bibi Kalil I didn't mind a bit. She was tall, fine-featured as an Afghan, heavy of hip and bosom in her fringed trousers and jacket, a matronly welterweight and just my style. Then she moved back inside, and since my immediate business was round the corner on the ground floor (alas!), I heaved a sigh and turned that way … and stopped dead as I recalled a word that my guide had used.
"Friend"? That wasn't political talk. "Brother" or "sister" was usual … and whoever had instructed her would have told her the exact words to say. Back to my mind came that other queer phrase in Broadfoot's mess-age: "Say nothing to your orderly …" That hadn't been quite pukka, either. They were just two tiny things, but all of a sudden the dark seemed deeper and the night quieter. Coward's instinct, if you like, but if I'm still here and in good health, bar my creaky kidneys and a tendency to wind, it's because I shy at motes, never mind beams—and I don't walk straight in where I can scout first. So instead of going openly round the house as directed, I skulked round, behind the bushes, until I was past the angle and could squint through the foliage into that well-lit ground floor room with its open screens … and have a quiet apoplectic fit to myself, holding on to a branch for support.
There were half a dozen men in the room, armed and waiting, and they included, inter alia, General Maka Khan, his knife-toting sidekick Imam Shah, and that crazy Akali who'd denounced Jeendan at the durbar. Leading men of the Khalsa, sworn enemies of the Sirkar, waiting for old Flash to roll in … "friends", bigod! And I was meant to believe that Broadfoot had directed me to them?
Well, I didn't, not for an instant—which was the time it took me to realise that something was hellishly, horribly wrong … that this was a trap, and my head was all but in its jaws, and nothing for it but instant flight. You don't stop to reason how or why at times like that—you grit your teeth to keep 'em from chattering, and back away slowly through the bushes with your innards dissolving, taking care not to rustle the leaves, until you're close by the gate, when you think you hear furtive movement out in the alley, and start violently, treading on a stick that snaps with a report like a bloody howitzer, and you squeal and leap three feet—and if you're lucky an angel of mercy in fringed trousers reappears on the porch overhead, hissing: "Flashman sahib! This way, quickly!"