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قراءة كتاب The Sirdar's Oath: A Tale of the North-West Frontier
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The Sirdar's Oath: A Tale of the North-West Frontier
managed partially to clear a way—and for a few moments, fists, feet, sticks, everything, Teere going in the liveliest sort of free fight imaginable. The while, over the remainder of the packed space, shrill cheers and patriotic songs, and the firing off of squibs and crackers were bearing their own part in making night hideous, independently of the savage rout, here at the top of King William Street.
“Kroojer! Kroojer! ’Ere’s Kroojer!” yelled the mob, and, attracted by its vociferations, others turned their attention that way. And while his deliverers had their hands very full indeed, a villainous-looking rough reached forward and swung up what looked like a slender, harmless roll of brown paper above the Oriental’s head. Well was it for the latter that this move was seen by one man, and that just in time to interpose a thick malacca cane between his skull and the descending gas pipe filled with lead, which staff, travelling down to the wrist of him who wielded the deadly weapon, caused the murderous cad to drop the same, with a howl, and weird language.
“A good ‘Penang lawyer’ is tough enough for most things,” muttered the dealer of this deft stroke. “Here, brother, take this,” he went on, in an Eastern tongue, thrusting the stick into the stranger’s hand.
The effect was wondrous. The consciousness of grasping even this much of a weapon seemed to transform the Oriental completely. His tall form seemed to tower, his frame to dilate, as, whirling the tough stick aloft, he shrilled forth a wild, fierce Mohammedan war-cry, bounding, leaping, in a very demoniacal possession, charging those nearest to him as though the stick were a long-bladed, keen-edged tulwar. Whirling it in the air he brought it down with incredible swiftness, striking here and there on head and face, while looking around for more to smite. And then the rabble of assailants began to give way, or try to. “Cops” was the cry that now went up, and immediately thereupon a strong posse of the splendid men of the City Police had forced their way to the scene of disturbance—or very nearly.
Crushed, borne along by the swaying crowd, the man who had so effectually aided the distressed Oriental had become separated from his friends. For his foes he cared nothing, and, indeed, these had all they could think of to effect their own retreat, the motive being not so much fear of immediate consequences as the consciousness with many of them that they were desperately wanted by the police in connection with other matters, which would infallibly assert their claims once identity was established. At last, to his relief, he found himself in a side street and outside the crowd.
“You’re better ’ere, sir,” said a gruff voice, whose owner was contemplating him curiously.
“Yes, rather. I’ve been in a bit of a breeze yonder.”
“So I should say, sir,” answered the policeman, significantly. “Thank’ee, sir. Much obliged.”
“They were mobbing a stranger, and I and some others went to help him.”
“Was it a Hindian gent, sir, with a high black sort of ’at? I seen him go by here not long since.”
“Yes. That was the man. Well, I suppose he’s all right by now. Good-night, policeman.”
“Good-night, sir, and thank’ee, sir.”
An hour and a half later one corner of the supper-room in the Peculiar Club was in a state of unwonted liveliness, even for that by no means dull institution, where upwards of a dozen more or less damaged members were consuming devilled bones and champagne.
Damaged, in that bunged up eyes and swelled noses—and here and there a cut lip—were in evidence; but all were in the last stage of cheerfulness.
“Why isn’t Raynier here, I wonder?” was asked.
“He? Oh, I expect he went on taking care of that Indian Johnny. He likes those chaps, you know, has to do with them out there. He’ll turn up all right—never fear.”
“Don’t know. Don’t like losing sight of him,” said another.
“Oh, he’ll turn up all right. He knows jolly well how to take care of himself.”
But as the night became morning, and the frantic howling of patriotism gone mad rent the otherwise still hours, Raynier did not turn up. Then the revellers and quondam combatants became uneasy—such of them, that is, as were still capable of reflection in any form.
Chapter Two.
The Day After.
Raynier awoke in his club chambers the next morning, feeling, as he put it to himself, exceedingly cheap.
When we say awoke, rather are we expressing a recurring process which had continued throughout the few remaining night hours since, by force of circumstances and the swaying of the crowd, he had become separated from his companions, and had wisely found his way straight to bed instead of to the Peculiar Club. On this at any rate he congratulated himself; and yet hardly any sleep had come his way. The howling of patriotic roysterers had continued until morning light, and, moreover, his head was buzzing—not by reason of last night’s revelry, for in such he never got out of hand, but an ugly lump on one side of his forehead, and a swelled eye, reminded him that it is hard to rescue a maltreated stranger from the brutality of a London mob, and emerge unscathed oneself.
“Well, I do look a beauty,” he soliloquised as he stood before his glass, surveying the damage. “I shall have a bump the size and colour of a croquet ball for the next fortnight, and an eye to match. How a man of my age and temperament could have cut in with those young asses last night, I can’t think. Might have known what the upshot would be. And now I’ve got to go down to Worthingham to-day. Wonder what nice remark Cynthia will have to make. Perhaps she’ll give me the chuck. The fact of my being mixed up in a street row may prove too much for her exceeding sense of propriety.” And a faintly satirical droop curled down the corners of the thinker’s mouth.
Having fomented his bruises, and tubbed, and otherwise completed his toilet Raynier went down to breakfast, soon feeling immeasurably the better for the process. But in the middle a thought struck him; struck him indeed with some consternation. The malacca cane—the instrument with which he had almost certainly saved the life of the assailed Oriental, and which he had put into the hands of the latter as a weapon. It was gone, and—it was a gift from his fiancée.
Apart from such association he was fond of the stick, which was a handsome one and beautifully mounted. How on earth was he to recover it? His initials were engraved on the head; that, however, would furnish but faint clue. How should he find the man whom he had befriended—and even if he did, it was quite possible that the other had lost possession of the stick during the scrimmage. It might or might not find its way to Scotland Yard, but to ascertain this would take time. He could make inquiries at the police stations adjacent to the scene of last night’s émeute, or advertise, but that too would take time and he was urgently due at the abode of his fiancée that very day, for his furlough was rapidly drawing to a close, and his return to India a matter of days rather than of weeks.
Herbert Raynier served his country in the capacity of an Indian civilian, but most of his time of service had been passed in hot Plains stations, engendering an amount of