Rung Ho! | Page 7

seemed to lie, had impoverished them
afterward by passing and enforcing zemindary laws that lifted
nine-tenths of the burden from the necks of starving tenants. The new
law was just, as the Rajputs grudgingly admitted, but it pinched their
pockets sadly; like the old-time English squires, they would give their
best blood and their last rack-rent-wrung rupee for the cause that they
believed in, but they resented interference with the rack-rents!
Mahommed Gunga had had influence enough with these five landlord
relations of his to persuade them to come and meet him in Howrah City
to discuss matters; the mere fact that he had thought it worth his while

to leave his own little holding in the north had satisfied them that he
would be well worth listening to - for no man rode six hundred miles
on an empty errand. But they needed something more than words
before they pledged the word that no Rajput gentleman will ever break.
"Find us a Cunnigan - bring him to us - prove him to us - and if a blade
worth having from end to end of Rajputana is not at his service, I
myself will gut the Hindoo owner of it! That is my given word!" said
Alwa.
"He had a son," said Mahommed Gunga quietly.
"True. Are all sons like their fathers? Take Maharajah Howrah here; his
father was a man with whom any soldier might be proud to pick a
quarrel. The present man is afraid of his own shadow on the wall -
divided between love for the treasure-chests he dare not broach and fear
of a brother whom he dare not kill. He is priest-ridden, priest-taught,
and fit to be nothing but a priest. Who knows how young Cunnigan will
shape? Where is he? Overseas yet! He must prove himself, as his father
did, before he can hope to lead a free regiment of horse!"
"Then Cunnigan-bahadur's watch-word 'For the peace of India,' is
dead-died with him?" asked Mahommed Gunga. "We are each for our
own again?"
"I have spoken! " answered Alwa. As the biggest clan-chief left on all
that countryside, he had a right to speak before the others, and he knew
that what he said would carry weight when they had all ridden home
again, and the report had gone abroad in ever-widening rings. "If the
English can hold India, let them! I will not fight against them, for they
are honest men for all their madness. If they cannot, then I am for
Rajputana, not India - India may burn or rot or burst to pieces, so long
as Rajputana stands! But - " He paused a moment , and looked at each
man in turn, and tapped his sabre-hilt, " - if a Cunnigan-bahadur were
among us - a man whom I could trust to lead me and mine and every
man - I would lend him my sword for the sheer honor of helping him
hack truth out of corruption! I have nothing more to say!"

"One word more, cousin!" said Mahommed Gunga. "I was risaldar in
Cunnigan-bahadur's regiment of horse. There was more than mere
discipline between us. I ate his salt. Once - when he might have saved
himself the trouble without any daring to reproach him - he risked his
own life, and a troop, and his reputation to save a woman of my family
from capture, and something worse. There was never a Rajput or any
other native woman wronged while he was with us."
"Well?"
"I am no friend of Christian priests - of padres. But- "
"She who rode by just now? What, then?"
"I ride northward now, and then very likely South again. I can do
nothing in the matter, yet - were he in my shoes, and she a native
woman at the mercy of the troops - Cunnigan-bahadur would have
assigned a guard for her."
"Ho! So I am thy sepoy?" sneered Alwa, standing sideways - looking
sideways - and throwing out his chest. "I am to do thy bidding,
guarding stray padres" (he spoke the word as though it were a bad taste
he was spitting from his mouth), "and herding women without purdah,
while thou ridest on assignations Allah knows where? Since when?"
"I have yet to refuse to guard thy back, or thy good name, Alwa!"
Mahommed Gunga eyed him straight, and thrust his hilt out. "The
woman is nothing to me - the padre-sahib less. It is because of the debt
I owe to Cunnigan that I ask this favor."
"Oh. It is granted! Should she appeal to me, I will rip Howrah into rags
and burn this city to protect her if need be! She must first ask, though,
even as thou didst."
Mahommed Gunga saluted him, bolt-upright