Rung Ho! A Novel by Talbot Mundy (best black authors txt) 📕

a woman of its own race, or when a native—however powerful—would dare to do more than threaten.

Joanna disappeared, and that led to a chain of thought which was not creditable to any one concerned. They reasoned this way: Rosemary had seen Mahommed Gunga hold out a handful of gold coins for the old woman's eyes to glitter at, therefore it was fair to presume that he had promised her a reward for bringing word to the man whom, it was now known, he had left behind. She had brought word to him and had disappeared. What more obvious than to reason that the man had gladly paid her, and had just as gladly ridden off, rejoicing at the thought that he could escape doing service?

“So much,” they argued, “for native constancy! So much for Mahommed Gunga's boast that he knew of men who could be trusted! And so much for Joanna's gratitude!”

The old woman had been saved by Rosemary McClean from the long-drawn-out hell that is the life portion of most Indian widows, even of low caste; she had had little to do, ever, beyond snooze in the shade and eat, and run sometimes behind the pony—a task which came as easily to her as did the other less active parts of her employment. Her desertion, particularly at a crisis, made Rosemary McClean cry, and set her father to quoting Shakespeare's “King Lear.”

“Blow, blow, thou winter wind! Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude!”

All Scotsmen seem to have a natural proclivity for quoting the appropriate dirge when sorrow shows itself. The Book of Lamentations—Shakespeare's sadder lines—roll off their tongues majestically and seem to give them consolation—as it were to lay a sound, unjoyous basis for the proper enjoyment of the songs of Robbie Burns.

The poor old king of the poet's imagining, declaiming up above the cliffs of Dover, could have put no more pathos into those immortal lines than did Duncan McClean as he paced up and down between the hot wars of the darkened room. The dry air parched his throat, and his ambition seemed to shrivel in him as he saw the brave little woman who was all he had sobbing with her head between her hands.

He turned to the Bible, but he could find no precedent in any of its pages for abandoning a quest like his in the teeth of disaster or adversity. He read it for hour after crackling hour, moistening his throat from time to time with warm, unappetizing water from the improvised jar filter; but when the oven blast that makes the Indian summer day a hell on earth had waned and died away, he had found nothing but admonishment to stand firm. There had been women, too, whose deeds were worthy of record in that book, and he found no argument for deserting his post on his daughter's account either. In the Bible account, as he read it, it had always been the devil who fled when things got too uncomfortable for him, and he was conscious of a tight-lipped, stern contempt for the devil.

He had about made up his mind what line to take with his daughter, when she ceased her sobbing and looked up through swollen eyes to relieve him of the necessity for talking her over to his point view. What she said amazed him, but not be cause it came to him as a new idea. She said, in different words, exactly what was passing in his own mind, and it was as though her tears and his search of the Scriptures had brought them both to one clear-cut conclusion.

“Why are we here, father?” she asked him suddenly; and because she took him by surprise he did not answer her at once. “We are here to do good aren't we?” That was no question; it was beginning of a line of argument. Her father held his tongue, and laid his Bible down, and listened on. “How much good have we done yet?”

She paused, but the pause was rhetorical, and he knew it; he could see the light behind her eyes that was more than visionary; it was the light of practical Scots enthusiasm, unquenched and undiscouraged after a battle with fear itself. She began to be beautiful again as the spirit of unconquerable courage won its way.

“Have we won one convert? Is there one, of those you have taught who is with us still?”

The answer was self-evident. There was none. But there was no sting for him in what she asked. Rather her words came as a relief, for he could feel the strength behind them. He still said nothing.

“Have we stopped one single suttee? Have we once, in any least degree, lessened the sufferings of one of those poor widows?”

“Not once,” he answered her, without a trace of shame. He knew, and she knew, how hard the two of them had tried. There was nothing to apologize for.

“Have we undermined the power of the Hindoo priests? Have we removed one trace of superstition?”

“No,” he said quietly.

“Have we given up the fight?”

He looked hard at her. Gray eyes under gray brows met gray eyes that shone from under dark, wet lashes, and deep spoke unto deep. Scotsman recognized Scotswoman, and the bond between them tightened.

“It seems to me”—there was a new thrill in her voice—“that here is our opportunity! Either Jaimihr wants to frighten us away or he is in earnest with his impudent attentions to me. In either case let us make no attempt to go away. Let us refuse to go away. Let us stay here at all costs. If he wishes us to go away, then he must have a reason and will show it, or else try to force us. If he is really trying to make love to me, then let him try; if he has pluck enough, let him seize me. In either case we shall force his hand. I am willing to be the bait. The moment that he harms either you or me, the government will have to interfere. If he kills us so much the better, for that would mean swift vengeance and a British occupation. That would stop suttee for all time, and we would have given our lives for something worth while. As we are, we cannot communicate with our government, and Jaimihr thinks he has us in his grasp. Let him think it! Let him go ahead! Sooner or later the government must find out that we are missing Then—!” Her eyes blazed at the thought of what would happen then.

Her father looked at her for about a minute, sadness and pride in her fighting in him for the mastery. Then he rose and crossed the little space between them.

“Lassie!” he said. “Lassie!”

She took his hand—the one little touch of human sentiment lacking to disturb his emotional balance. The Scots will talk readily enough of sorrow, but at showing it they are a grudging race of men. Unless a Scotsman thinks he can gain something for his cause by showing what emotion racks him, he will swallow down the choking flood of grief, and keep a straight face to the world and his own as well. Duncan McClean turned from her—drew his hand away—and walked to open the slit shutters. A moment later he came back, once more master of himself.

“As things are, dear,” he said gently, “how would it be possible for us to get away?”

“'We canna