The Man Who Would Be King | Page 2

within any days?”
“Within ten,” I said.
“Can’t you make it eight?” said he. “Mine is rather urgent business.”
“I can send your telegram within ten days if that will serve you,” I said.
“I couldn’t trust the wire to fetch him now I think of it. It’s this way.
He leaves Delhi on the 23d for Bombay. That means he’ll be running
through Ajmir about the night of the 23d.”
“But I’m going into the Indian Desert,” I explained.
“Well and good,” said he. “You’ll be changing at Marwar Junction to
get into Jodhpore territory—you must do that—and he’ll be coming
through Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the
Bombay Mail. Can you be at Marwar Junction on that time? ’Twon’t
be inconveniencing you because I know that there’s precious few
pickings to be got out of these Central India States—even though you
pretend to be correspondent of the Backwoodsman.”
“Have you ever tried that trick?” I asked.
“Again and again, but the Residents find you out, and then you get
escorted to the Border before you’ve time to get your knife into them.
But about my friend here. I must give him a word o’ mouth to tell him
what’s come to me or else he won’t know where to go. I would take it
more than kind of you if you was to come out of Central India in time
to catch him at Marwar Junction, and say to him:—‘He has gone South
for the week.’ He’ll know what that means. He’s a big man with a red
beard, and a great swell he is. You’ll find him sleeping like a
gentleman with all his luggage round him in a second-class
compartment. But don’t you be afraid. Slip down the window, and
say:—‘He has gone South for the week,’ and he’ll tumble. It’s only
cutting your time of stay in those parts by two days. I ask you as a
stranger—going to the West,” he said with emphasis.

“Where have you come from?” said I.
“From the East,” said he, “and I am hoping that you will give him the
message on the Square—for the sake of my Mother as well as your
own.”
Englishmen are not usually softened by appeals to the memory of their
mothers, but for certain reasons, which will be fully apparent, I saw fit
to agree.
“It’s more than a little matter,” said he, “and that’s why I ask you to do
it—and now I know that I can depend on you doing it. A second-class
carriage at Marwar Junction, and a red-haired man asleep in it. You’ll
be sure to remember. I get out at the next station, and I must hold on
there till he comes or sends me what I want.”
“I’ll give the message if I catch him,” I said, “and for the sake of your
Mother as well as mine I’ll give you a word of advice. Don’t try to run
the Central India States just now as the correspondent of the
Backwoodsman. There’s a real one knocking about here, and it might
lead to trouble.”
“Thank you,” said he simply, “and when will the swine be gone? I can’t
starve because he’s ruining my work. I wanted to get hold of the
Degumber Rajah down here about his father’s widow, and give him a
jump.”
“What did he do to his father’s widow, then?”
“Filled her up with red pepper and slippered her to death as she hung
from a beam. I found that out myself and I’m the only man that would
dare going into the State to get hush-money for it. They’ll try to poison
me, same as they did in Chortumna when I went on the loot there. But
you’ll give the man at Marwar Junction my message?”
He got out at a little roadside station, and I reflected. I had heard, more
than once, of men personating correspondents of newspapers and
bleeding small Native States with threats of exposure, but I had never

met any of the caste before. They lead a hard life, and generally die
with great suddenness. The Native States have a wholesome horror of
English newspapers, which may throw light on their peculiar methods
of government, and do their best to choke correspondents with
champagne, or drive them out of their mind with four-in-hand
barouches. They do not understand that nobody cares a straw for the
internal administration of Native States so long as oppression and crime
are kept within decent limits, and the ruler is not drugged, drunk, or
diseased from one end of the year to the other. Native States were
created by Providence in order to supply picturesque scenery, tigers and
tall-writing. They are the dark places of the earth, full of unimaginable