Rung Ho! | Page 6

instrument.
Din - glamour - stink - incessant movement - interblended poverty and
riches rubbing shoulders - noisy self-interest side by side with
introspective revery, where stray priests nodded in among the traders, -
many-peopled India surged in miniature between the four hot walls and
through the passage to the overflowing street; changeable and
unexplainable, in ever-moving flux, but more conservative in spite of it
than the very rocks she rests on - India who is sister to Aholibah and
mother of all fascination.
In that room with the long window, low-growled, the one thin thread of
clear-sighted unselfishness was reeling out to very slight approval.
Mahommed Gunga paced the floor and kicked his toes against the
walls, as he turned at either end, until his spurs jingled, and looked with
blazing dark-brown eyes from one man to the other.

"What good ever came of listening to priests? he asked." All priests are
alike - ours, and theirs, and padre-sahibs! They all preach peace and
goad the lust that breeds war and massacre! Does a priest serve any but
himself? Since when? There will come this rising that the priests speak
of - yes! Of a truth, there will, for the priests will see to it! There is a
padre-sahib here in Howrah now for the Hindoo priests to whet their
hate on. You saw the woman ride past here a half-hour gone? There is a
pile of tinder ready here, and any fool of a priest can make a spark!
There will be a rising, and a big one!"
"There will! Of a truth, there will!" Alwa, his cousin, crossed one leg
above the other with a clink of spurs and scabbard. He had no objection
to betraying interest, but declined for the present to betray his hand.
"There will be a blood-letting that will do no harm to us Rajputs!" said
another man, whose eyes gleamed from the darkest corner; he, too,
clanked his scabbard as though the sound were an obbligato to his
thoughts. "Sit still and say nothing is my advice; we will be all ready to
help ourselves when the hour comes!"
"It is this way," said Mahommed Gunga, standing straddle-legged to
face all five of them, with his back to the window. He stroked his black
beard upward with one hand and fingered with the other at his
sabre-hilt. "Without aid when the hour does come, the English will be
smashed - worn down - starved out - surrounded - stamped out -
annihilated - so!" He stamped with his heel descriptively on the hard
earth floor. "And then, what?"
"Then, the plunder!" said Alwa, showing a double row of wonderful
white teeth. The other four grinned like his reflections. "Ay, there will
be plunder - for the priests! And we Rajputs will have new masters over
us! Now, as things are, we have honorable men. They are fools, for any
man is a fool who will not see and understand the signs. But they are
honest. They ride straight! They look us straight between the eyes, and
speak truth, and fear nobody! Will the Hindoo priests, who will rule
India afterward, be thus? Nay! Here is one sword for the British when
the hour comes!"

"I have yet to see a Hindoo priest rule me or plunder me!" said Alwa
with a grin.
"You will live to see it!" said Mahommed Gunga. "Truly, you will live
to see it, unless you throw your weight into the other scale! What are
we Rajputs without a leader whom we all trust? What have we ever
been?" He swung on his heels suddenly - angrily - and began to pace
the floor again - then stopped.
"Divided, and again subdivided - one-fifth Mohammedan and
four-fifths Hindoo - clan within clan, and each against the other. Do we
own Rajputana? Nay! Do we rule it? Nay! What were we until
Cunnigan-bahadur came?"
"Ah!" All five men rose with a clank in honor to the memory of that
man. "Cunnigan-bahadur! Show us such another man as he was, and I
and mine ride at his back!" said Alwa. "Not all the English are like
Cunnigan! A Cunnigan could have five thousand men the minute that
he asked for them!"
"Am I a wizard? - Can I cast spells and bring dead men's spirits from
the dead again? I know of no man to take his place," said Mahommed
Gunga sadly.
He was the poorest of them, but they were all, comparatively speaking,
poor men; for the long peace had told its tale on a race of men who are
first gentlemen, then soldiers, and last - least of all - and only as a last
resource, landed proprietors. The British, for whom they had often
fought because that way honor