… Stole her from the cremation fire… they were seen here together recently, near the Ambaji temple… you're of our caste, you understand…
Kya áfat – what a calamity! It was the kotwal speaking now: What do you want me to do? I'll do anything I can… tauba, tauba…
… Bhyro Singh will pay generously for any help you can offer him… as you can understand, the family's honour won't be restored till they're dead…
I'll put the word out, the kotwal promised. If they're here, you can be sure we'll catch them.
There was no need to wait any longer: Deeti hurried into the sandbanks, where Kalua was waiting. When they were a safe distance away, they found a place to sit and she told him what she had learnt – that her dead husband's family was determined to hunt them down, and had somehow come to know of their presence in Chhapra. It would not be safe to remain there one more day.
Kalua listened thoughtfully but said little. They lay beside each other on the sand, under a crescent moon, and neither of them spoke. They lay awake until the hooting of the owls ceased and the call of a hoopoe signalled the approach of day. Then Kalua said, quietly: The girmitiyas will leave at daybreak…
Do you know where their boat is moored?
It's just outside the town, to the east.
Come. Let's go.
Keeping away from the waterfront, they circled through the centre of the town, drawing howls from the packs of dogs that roamed the lanes at night. On reaching the town's eastern boundary, they were intercepted by a chowkidar, who took Deeti for a prostitute and was seized by a desire to take her into his chokey. Instead of arguing, she told him that she had been working all night and was too soiled to go with him without first taking a bath in the river. He let them go after making her promise to return, but by the time they got away from him, the sun had already risen. They reached the river just in time to see the migrants' boat pushing off from its moorings: the duffadar was on deck, supervising the boatmen as they hoisted the sails.
Ramsaran-ji! They ran down a sandy slope shouting his name. Ramsaran-ji! Wait…
The duffadar looked over his shoulder and recognized Kalua. It was too late to bring the pulwar back to the shore, so he made a beckoning motion with his hands: Come! Come through the water; it's not too deep…
Just as they were about to step into the river, Kalua said to Deeti: There's no turning back after this. Are you sure about going on?
Is it even something to ask? she snapped impatiently. Is this the time to stand there like a tree? Come! Let's go – chal, na…
Kalua had no other questions, for his own doubts had been resolved a while before, in his heart. It was without any hesitation now that he swept Deeti into his arms and strode through the water, towards the pulwar.
Jodu was on deck when Captain Chillingworth and Mr Crowle came to inspect the Ibis, so he was one of the few to see the whole tamasha from the start. The timing could not have been worse: they came the day before the Ibis was due to be towed to the dry docks, when things were a little out of sneer anyway. Worse still, they arrived shortly after the midday meal, when every crewman's head was slowed by the heat and their bodies were sluggish and replete. For once, Serang Ali had allowed the watch to go below for a siesta. He had stayed on deck himself to keep an eye on Jodu, whose turn it was to wash the utensils – but the heat was such as to wilt anyone's vigilance, and soon enough he too was stretched out under a strip of shade beneath the binnacle.
With the passage of the sun, the shadows of the masts had dwindled into small circles of shade, and Jodu was sitting in one of these, clothed in nothing but a chequered langot, scouring metal khwanchas and earthen chatties. The only other man on deck was Steward Pinto, who was on his way back to the galley, tray in hand, after having taken Zachary's midday meal to the cuddy. It was the steward who first spotted Mr Crowle and it was his expression of alarm – Burra Malum áyá! – that alerted Jodu: pushing the pots and pans aside, he took refuge in the shadows of the bulwark and thought himself lucky when the Burra Malum's gaze passed over him without pause.
The Burra Malum had the look of a man who expected nothing but trouble from the world; although tall and broad-chested, he walked with his shoulders hunched and his neck braced, as if in readiness to run head-on into all impediments and obstructions. He was neatly, even carefully, dressed in a dark, broadcloth jacket, narrow pantaloons and wide-brimmed hat, but on the sides of his narrow face there was a coarse, reddish stubble that gave him a look of indefinable slovenliness. Jodu observed him carefully as he went by, and noticed that his mouth had an odd twitch, which laid bare the tips of a few cracked and wolfish teeth. Elsewhere, he might well have been a nondescript, unremarkable kind of man, but here, as a sahib amongst a shipload of lascars, he knew himself to be a figure of command, and it was clear, from the start, that he was looking to establish his authority: his blue eyes were darting here and there, as if in search for things to take issue with. And it wasn't long before they chanced upon one such: for there, stretched out beneath the binnacle, was Serang Ali in a tattered banyan and lungi, stupefied by the heat, his chequered bandhna covering his face as he snored.
The sight of the sleeping lascar seemed to light some kind of wick in the malum's head and he began to swear: '… drunk as a fiddler's bitch… at midday too.' The Burra Malum pulled back a foot and was about to unloose a kick, when Steward Pinto bethought himself of a ruse and dropped his tray: the clatter of the metal did what it was meant to, and the serang jumped to his feet.
Cheated of his kick, the Burra Malum swore even louder, telling the serang he was an over-shrubbed sniplouse, and what did he think he was doing lying incog on deck at this time of day? Serang Ali was slow to answer, for he had stuffed, as was his custom, a large wad of paan into his cheek after his midday meaclass="underline" his mouth was now so full that his tongue could not move. He turned his head, to spit over the rails, but for once his aim failed him and he spewed the macerated red remains over the bulwarks and the deck.
At this, the Burra Malum snatched a bitt-stopper off the bulwark and ordered the serang to get down on his knees and clean up the mess. He had been swearing all the while, of course, but now he used an oath that everyone understood: Soor-ka-batcha.
Son of a pig? Serang Ali? By this time, several other members of the crew had emerged from the fana to see what was happening, and Muslim or not, there was not one among them who did not bridle at this curse. Despite his oddities, Serang Ali was a figure of unquestioned respect and authority, occasionally harsh but usually fair, and always supremely competent in his seamanship: to insult him in this way was to piss on the whole fana. Some of the men bunched their fists and took a step or two in the Burra Malum's direction, but it was the serang himself who signalled to them to stay back. To defuse the situation he got down on his knees and began to swab the deck with his bandhna.
All this had happened so quickly that Zikri Malum had yet to emerge from the cuddy. Now, running up on deck, he found the serang on his hands and knees: 'Hey, what's going on here? What's all this bellerin?' Then he caught sight of the first mate and cut himself short.
For a minute the two officers eyed each other from a distance, and then a heated argument began. To look at the Burra Malum, you'd think a flying gob-line had hit him on the nose: that a sahib should speak up for a lascar, and that too, in front of so many others, was more than he could stand. Brandishing the bitt-stopper, he stepped towards Zikri Malum in a distinctly threatening way: he was by far the bigger man, and much older too, but Zikri Malum didn't give any ground, standing toe to toe with him, and keeping himself under control in a way that won him a lot of respect among the fanawale. Many of the lascars thought he might even get the better of it in a fight, and they would have been none too sorry to see the malums come to blows – whatever happened, it would have made a rare spectacle to see two officers beating each other up, and they'd have had a tale to tell for years to come.