Lord Bhairava’s eyes were white in his black face and he appeared to be looking at Fleury with malice and amusement. One of his six arms held a trident, another a sword, another flourished a severed forearm, a fourth held a bowl, while a fifth held a handful of skulls by the hair: the faces of the skulls wore thin mustaches and, expressions of surprise. The sixth hand, empty, held up its three middle fingers. Peering closer, Fleury saw that people had left coins and food in the bowl he was holding and more food had been smeared around his chuckling lips, which were also daubed with crimson, as if with blood. Fleury turned away quickly, chilled by this unexpected encounter and anxious to leave this sinister garden without delay.
As they proceeded, one sweet suffocating perfume gave way to another so that, bemused with the heat and exertion, he had the impression of floundering through a new and sensuous element. Presently, another deserted bungalow came into sight, this one even more forlorn than the last, almost roofless, with giant thistles growing up out of the windows. An emaciated cow, horns painted green, was browsing on a few tufts of parched grass that had once been a lawn. Then they stepped over another mud wall into an equally barren but more orderly compound. As they approached Rayne’s bungalow the sound of voices and laughter could be heard in the stillness and heat of the late afternoon.
After the glare of the compound a midnight darkness seemed to prevail on the verandah. A figure advanced out of the gloom and shook Fleury’s hand, welcoming him in loud tones which he recognized as belonging to Rayne. Another figure loomed up, bowed and clicked his heels nearby: this was Burlton who looked after the Treasury. He seemed to be a sensitive young man, anxious to please, and laughing excessively at everything Rayne said. Inside, there was another man, as yet only dimly perceived, who made a motion of bowing from his chair as he was introduced; at the same time he laughed sardonically; his name was Ford, one of the railway engineers. “Always glad to meet a griff,” he drawled.
“We have Ford and his ilk but I’m hanged if the railway will ever reach Krishnapur,” jeered Rayne, who was evidently somewhat drunk. “Where’s that damned bearer? Ram, bring the Sahib a drink … Simkin! That means champagne, old man. We don’t drink tea in this house.”
Fleury groped his way to a chair and sat down. For a few moments Rayne lapsed into silence and the only sound was his rather heavy breathing. When the bearer returned with a glass of champagne for Fleury, Rayne said loudly: “We call this lad ‘Ram’. That’s not his real name. His real name is Akbar or Mohammed or something like that. We call him Ram because he looks like one. And this is Monkey,” he added as another bearer came in carrying a plate of biscuits. Monkey did not raise his eyes. He had very long arms, it was true, and a rather simian appearance.
“Where are the mems?” Ford wanted to know, but there was no answer.
“Soon it will be cool enough to go for a canter.”
“Why don’t we play cards till then?”
But nobody made any move. Fleury sipped his champagne which had an unpleasant, sour taste. He could hear Chloë moaning on the verandah where she had been tied up by one of the servants. Presently another servant came in bearing a box of cheroots; he was elderly and dignified, but exceedingly small, almost a midget.
“What d’you call this blighter?” asked Burlton.
“Ant,” said Rayne.
Burlton slapped his knee and abandoned himself to laughter.
“I’d like to know what Mr Fleury thinks of this Meerut business,” said Ford. “What? Can you beat that! I’m damned if he’s even heard of it! Where have you been all day?” And delighted, he set to work to give Fleury what seemed to be a largely imaginary account of some terrible uprising of sepoys, full of “plump young griffins, fellows about your age” being “hacked to pieces in their prime”. Fleury could see that he was being made fun of, but was alarmed all the same.
“Don’t worry,” said Burlton condescendingly; he had been in India almost a year and thus was less of a griffin than Fleury. “Jack Sepoy may be able to cut down defenceless people but he can’t stand up to real pluck.”
“When did all this happen?”
“What day is today? Tuesday. It happened on Sunday night.”
Ford had lost interest in Meerut by this time but Fleury managed to get some idea of what had happened from Burlton. Two native infantry regiments had shot down their officers and broken into open revolt; in due course they had been joined by the badmashes from the bazaar who had set to work plundering the British cantonment. The British troops had been on church parade when the trouble started. In the end they had managed to quell the outbreak but the mutineers had escaped with their firearms. The telegraph wires had been cut soon after the first word of the outbreak had come through, but all sorts of grim rumours were circulating. Krishnapur was almost five hundred miles from this trouble. All the same, news travelled fast in India even without the telegraph … one only had to think of the speed with which the chapatis had spread. What nobody knew was whether the sepoys at Captainganj would follow this example and attack the Krishnapur cantonment.
“Ant! Monkey! Bring simkin double quick!”
“Of course, they’re bound to know of it already,” said Burlton. “What beats me, Rayne, is how the blessed natives got to hear of it before I did. I overheard the babus chatting in the Magistrate’s office about Meerut this morning. They were saying that the mutinous sepoys had marched on Delhi and that soon the Mogul Empire would be revived.”
“A likely story. The people know when they’re well off. They wouldn’t stand for it.”
“Well, they seemed to think it could happen. They wanted to know who were the fifty-two rajahs who would assemble to place the Emperor on the throne.”
But Rayne and Ford were not interested in this fancy of Burlton’s and Ford said crushingly: “The first thing one learns in India, Burlton, is not to listen to the damned nonsense the natives are always talking.” And poor Burlton flushed with shame and avoided Fleury’s eye.
Fleury had by now grown accustomed to the gloom and could see that Ford was a heavy-featured man of about forty; in spite of his inferior social status as an engineer, he clearly dominated Rayne and Burlton. Ford said unpleasantly: “Perhaps Mr Fleury will tell us what he thinks about it, since he has so many bosom friends among the ‘big dogs’ at Fort William.”
“What I think is this,” began Fleury … but what he thought was never revealed for at this moment his interlocutors sprang to their feet. Startled, Fleury jumped up too; all this talk of mutiny had set his nerves on edge. But it was only the two ladies entering the room.
“What a disgusting creature!” exclaimed Mrs Rayne, smiling prettily.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I say, Burlton. Would you mind telling that little beggar to bring more simkin for the ladies?”
“Haven’t you heard, Mr Fleury, that there is an Englishwoman who has been behaving disgracefully at the dak bungalow? The Padre has been out to reason with her more than once, I hear.”
“Could they not send the wretched girl away?” Mrs Ross wanted to know. “She can’t live for ever in the dak bungalow. At the same time she has clearly forfeited the right to the company of virtuous women.”
“Is it true then, Sophie,” asked Ford teasingly,
Ford had pulled his chair closer to that of Mrs Ross and had abandoned his lethargic manner.
“How I wish Florence had a piano,” wailed Mrs Ross, changing the subject abruptly. “My fingers fairly ache to play. I fear that Mr Fleury will find but few of the comforts of civilization in Krishnapur, is that not so?” Opening her eyes very wide she gazed interrogatively at Fleury.