"I thought you said slavers didn't come your way," I put in.
"They don't. But my Chief was smoking 'em out of the North all that season, and they were bolting into French territory any road they could find. My orders were to take no notice so long as they circulated, but open slave-dealing in the Fork, was too much. I couldn't go myself, so I told a couple of our Makalali police and Imam Din to make talk with the gentleman one time. It was rather risky, and it might have been expensive, but it turned up trumps. They were back in a few days with the slaver (he didn't show fight) and a whole crowd of witnesses, and we tried him in my bedroom, and fined him properly. Just to show you how demoralized the brute must have been (Arabs often go dotty after a defeat), he'd snapped up four or five utterly useless Sheshaheli, and was offering 'em to all and sundry along the road. Why, he offered 'em to you, didn't he, Imam Din?"
"I was witness that he offered man-eaters' for sale," said Imam Din.
"Luckily for my cotton-scheme, that landed, him both ways. You see, he had slaved and exposed slaves for sale in British territory. That meant the double fine if I could get it out of him."
"What was his defence?" said Strickland, late of the Punjab Police.
"As far as I remember--but I had a temperature of 104 degrees at the time--he'd mistaken the meridians of longitude. Thought he was in French territory. Said he'd never do it again, if we'd let him off with a fine. I could have shaken hands with the brute for that. He paid up cash like a motorist and went off one time."
"Did you see him?"
"Ye-es. Didn't I, Imam Din?"
"Assuredly the Sahib both saw and spoke to the slaver. And the Sahib also made a speech to the man-eaters when he freed them, and they swore to supply him with labour for all his cotton-play. The Sahib leaned on his own servant's shoulder the while."
"I remember something of that. I remember Bulaki Ram giving me the papers to sign, and I distinctly remember him locking up the money in the safe--two hundred and ten beautiful English sovereigns. You don't know what that meant to me! I believe it cured my fever; and as soon as I could, I staggered off with the Hajji to interview the Sheshaheli about labour. Then I found out why they had been so keen to work! It wasn't gratitude. Their big village had been hit by lightning and burned out a week or two before, and they lay flat in rows around me asking me for a job. I gave it 'em."
"And so you were very happy?" His mother had stolen up behind us. "You liked your cotton, dear?" She tidied the lump away.
"By Jove, I was happy!" Adam yawned. "Now if any one," he looked at the Infant, "cares to put a little money into the scheme, it'll be the making of my District. I can't give you figures, sir, but I assure--"
"You'll take your arsenic, and Imam Din'll take you up to bed, and I'll come and tuck you in."
Agnes leaned forward, her rounded elbows on his shoulders, hands joined across his dark hair, and "Isn't he a darling?" she said to us, with just the same heart-rending lift to the left eyebrow and the same break of her voice as sent Strickland mad among the horses in the year '84. We were quiet when they were gone. We waited till Imam Din returned to us from above and coughed at the door, as only dark-hearted Asia can.
"Now," said Strickland, "tell us what truly befell, son of my servant."
"All befell as our Sahib has said. Only--only there was an arrangement--a little arrangement on account of his cotton-play."
"Tell! Sit! I beg your pardon, Infant," said Strickland.
But the Infant had already made the sign, and we heard Imam Din hunker down on the floor: One gets little out of the East at attention.
"When the fever came on our Sahib in our roofed house at Dupe," he began, "the Hajji listened intently to his talk. He expected the names of women; though I had already told him that Our virtue was beyond belief or compare, and that Our sole desire was this cotton-play. Being at last convinced, the Hajji breathed on our Sahib's forehead, to sink into his brain news concerning a slave-dealer in his district who had made a mock of the law. Sahib," Imam Din turned to Strickland, "our Sahib answered to those false words as a horse of blood answers to the spur. He sat up. He issued orders for the apprehension of the slavedealer. Then he fell back. Then we left him."
"Alone--servant of my son, and son of my servant?" said his father.
"There was an old woman which belonged to the Hajji. She had come in with the Hajji's money-belt. The Hajji told her that if our Sahib died, she would die with him. And truly our Sahib had given me orders to depart."
"Being mad with fever--eh?"
"What could we do, Sahib? This cotton-play was his heart's desire. He talked of it in his fever. Therefore it was his heart's desire that the Hajji went to fetch. Doubtless the Hajji could have given him money enough out of hand for ten cottonplays; but in this respect also our Sahib's virtue was beyond belief or compare. Great Ones do not exchange moneys. Therefore the Hajji said--and I helped with my counsel--that we must make arrangements to get the money in all respects conformable with the English Law. It was great trouble to us, but--the Law is the Law. And the Hajji showed the old woman the knife by which she would die if our Sahib died. So I accompanied the Hajji."
"Knowing who he was?" said Strickland.
"No! Fearing the man. A virtue went out from him overbearing the virtue of lesser persons. The Hajji told Bulaki Ram the clerk to occupy the seat of government at Dupe till our return. Bulaki Ram feared the Hajji, because the Hajji had often gloatingly appraised his skill in figures at five thousand rupees upon any slave-block. The Hajji then said to me: 'Come, and we will make the man-eaters play the cotton-game for my delight's delight' The Hajji loved our Sahib with the love of a father for his son, of a saved for his saviour, of a Great One for a Great One. But I said: 'We cannot go to that Sheshaheli place without a hundred rifles. We have here five.' The Hajji said: 'I have untied as knot in my head-handkerchief which will be more to us than a thousand.' I saw that he had so loosed it that it lay flagwise on his shoulder. Then I knew that he was a Great One with virtue in him.
"We came to the highlands of the Sheshaheli on the dawn of the second day--about the time of the stirring of the cold wind. The Hajji walked delicately across the open place where their filth is, and scratched upon the gate which was shut. When it opened I saw the man-eaters lying on their cots under the eaves of the huts. They rolled off: they rose up, one behind the other the length of the street, and the fear on their faces was as leaves whitening to a breeze. The Hajji stood in the gate guarding his skirts from defilement. The Hajji said: 'I am here once again. Give me six and yoke up.' They zealously then pushed to us with poles six, and yoked them with a heavy tree. The Hajji then said: "Fetch fire from the morning hearth, and come to windward.' The wind is strong on those headlands at sunrise, so when each had emptied his crock of fire in front of that which was before him, the broadside of the town roared into flame, and all went. The Hajji then said: 'At the end of a time there will come here the white man ye once chased for sport. He will demand labour to plant such and such stuff. Ye are that labour, and your spawn after you.' They said, lifting their heads a very little from the edge of the ashes: ' We are that labour, and our spawn after us.' The Hajji said: 'What is also my name?' They said: 'Thy name is also The Merciful' The Hajji said: 'Praise then my mercy'; and while they did this, the Hajji walked away, I following."
The Infant made some noise in his throat, and reached for more Burgundy.
"About noon one of our six fell dead. Fright only frights Sahib! None had--none could--touch him. Since they were in pairs, and the other of the Fork was mad and sang foolishly, we waited for some heathen to do what was needful. There came at last Angari men with goats. The Hajji said: 'What do ye see? They said: 'Oh, our Lord, we neither see nor hear.' The Hajji said: 'But I command ye to see and to hear and to say.' They said: 'Oh, our Lord, it is to our commanded eyes as though slaves stood in a Fork.' The Hajji said: 'So testify before the officer who waits you in the town of Dupe.' They said: 'What shall come to us after?' The Hajji said: 'The just reward for the informer. But if ye do not testify, then a punishment which shall cause birds, to fall from the trees in terror and monkeys to scream for pity.' Hearing this, the Angari men hastened to Dupe. The Hajji then said to me: 'Are those things sufficient to establish our case, or must I drive in a village full?' I said that three witnesses amply established any case, but as yet, I said, the Hajji had not offered his slaves for sale. It is true, as our Sahib said just now, there is one fine for catching slaves, and yet another for making to sell them. And it was the double fine that we needed, Sahib, for our Sahib's cotton-play. We had fore-arranged all this with Bulaki Ram, who knows the English Law, and, I thought the Hajji remembered, but he grew angry, and cried out: 'O God, Refuge of the Afflicted, must I, who am what I am, peddle this' dog's meat by the roadside to gain his delight for my heart's delight?" None the less, he admitted it was the English Law, and so he offered me the six--five--in a small voice, with an averted head. The Sheshaheli do not smell of sour milk as heathen should. They smell like leopards, Sahib. This is because they eat men."