Rudyard Kipling's Tales of Horror and Fantasy (24 page)

‘After that, Peachey and Dravot raised such as was worthy – high priests and chiefs of far-off villages. Billy Fish was the first, and I can tell you we scared the soul out of him. It was not in any way according to Ritual, but it served our turn. We didn't raise more than ten of the biggest men, because we didn't want to make the degree common, And they was clamouring to be raised.

‘“In another six months,” says Dravot, “we'll hold another communication and see how you are working.” Then he asks them about their villages, and learns that they was always fighting one against the other and were fair sick and tired of it. And when they wasn't doing that they was fighting with the Mohammedans and Afghans. “You can fight those when theycame into our country,” says Dravot. “Tell off every tenth man of your tribes for a frontier guard, and send two hundred at a time to this valley to be drilled. Nobody is going to be shot or speared anymore so long as he does well, and I know that you won't cheat me because you're white people – sons of Alexander – and not like common black Mohammedans. You are
my
people and by God,” says he running off into English at the end – “I'll make a damned fine nation of you, or die in the making!”

‘I can't tell all we did for the next six months because Dravot did a lot I couldn't see the lean of, and he learned their lingo in a way I never could. My work, was to help the people plough, and now and again go out with some of the army and see what the other villages were doing, and make 'em throw rope-bridges across the ravines which cut up the country horrid. Dravot was very kind to me, but when he walked up and down in the pine wood pulling that bloody red beard of his with both fists I knew he was thinking plans which I could not advise him regarding, and I just waited for orders.

‘But Dravot never showed me disrespect before the people. They were afraid of me and the army, but they loved Dan. He was the best of friends with the priests and the chiefs; but any one could come across the hills with a complaint and Dravot would hear him out fair, and call four priests together and say what was to be done. He used to call in Billy Fish from Bashkai, and Picky Kergan from Shu, and an old chief we called Kafuzelum – it was like enough to his real name – and hold councils with 'em when there was any fighting needful in the small villages. That was his council of war, and the four priests of Bashkai, Shu, Khawak and Madora was his Privy Council. Between the lot of 'em they sent me, with forty men and twenty rifles, and sixty men carrying baskets of turquoises, into the Ghorbaud country to buy those hand-made Martini rifles, that come out of the Amir's workshops at Kabul, from one of the Amir's Herati regiments that would have sold the very teeth out of their mouths for turquoises.

‘I stayed in Ghorband a month, and gave the Governor there the pick of my baskets for hush money, and bribed theColonel of the regiment some more, and, between the two and the tribespeople, we got more than a hundred hand-made Martinis, a hundred good Kohat Jezails that'll throw to six hundred yards, and forty man-loads of very bad ammunition for the rifles. I came back with what I had and distributed 'em among the men that the chiefs sent in to me to drill. Dravot was too busy to attend to those things, but the old Army that we first made, helped me, and we turned out five hundred men that could drill, and two hundred that knew how to hold arms pretty straight. Even those cork-screwed, hand-made Martinis was a miracle to them. Dravot talked big about powder-shops and factories, walking up and down in the pine wood when the winter was coming on.

‘“I won't make a nation,” says he. “I'll make an Empire! These men aren't niggers: they're English! Look at their eyes – look at their mouths. Look at the way they stand up. They sit on chairs in their own houses. They're the Lost Tribes or something like it, and they've grown to be English. I'll take a census in the spring if the priests don't get frightened. There must be a fair two million of'em in these hills. The villages are full o' little children. Two million people – two hundred and fifty thousand fighting men – and all English! They only want rifles and a little drilling. Two hundred and fifty thousand men, ready to cut in on Russia's right flank when she tries for India! Peachey, man,” he says, chewing his beard in great hunks, “we shall be Emperors – Emperors of the Earth! Rajah Brooke will be a suckling to us. I'll treat with the Viceroy on equal terms. I'll ask him to send me twelve picked English – twelve that I know of – to help us govern a bit. There's Mackray, Sergeant-pensioner at Segowli – many's the good dinner he's given me, and his wife, a pair of trousers. There's Donkin, the Warder of Tounghoo Jail; there's hundreds that I could lay my hand on if I was in India. The Viceroy shall do it for me. I'll send a man through to India in the spring to ask for those men, and I'll write for a dispensation from the Grand Lodge for what I've done as Grand Master. That and all the Sniders that'll be thrown out when the native troops in India take up the Martini. They'll be wore smooth, but they'll do forfighting in these hills. Twelve English, a hundred thousand Sniders run through the Amir's country in driblets – I'd be content with twenty thousand in one year and we'd be an Empire. When everything was shipshape, I'd hand over the crown – this very crown I'm wearing now – to Queen Victoria on my knees, and she'd say: ‘Rise up, Sir Daniel Dravot'. Oh, it's big! It's big I tell you! But's there's so much to be done in every place – Bashkai, Khawak, Shu, and everywhere else.”

‘ “What is it?” I says. “There are no more men coming in to be drilled this autumn. Look at those fat, black clouds. They're bringing the snow.”

‘“It isn't that,” says Daniel putting his hand very hard on my shoulder; “and I don't wish to say anything that's against you, for no other living man would have followed me and made me what I am as you have done. You're a first-class Commander-in-Chief, and the people know you; but – it's a big country, and somehow you can't help me, Peachey, the way I want to be helped.”

‘ “Go to your blasted priests, then!” I said, and I was sorry when I made that remark, but it did hurt me sore to find Daniel talking so superior when I drilled all the men, and done all he told me.

‘“Don't let's quarrel, Peachey,” says Daniel without cursing. “You're a King too, and the half o' this Kingdom is yours; but can't you see, Peachey, we want cleverer men than us now – three or four of 'em, that we can scatter about for our deputies. It's a hugeous great state, and I can't always tell the right thing to do, and I haven't time for all I want to do, and here's the winter coming on and all.” He put half his beard into his mouth, and it was as red as the gold of his crown.

‘ “I'm sorry, Daniel,” says I. “I've done all I could. I've drilled the men and shown the people how to stack their oats better; and I've brought in those tinware rifles from Ghorband – but I know what you're driving at. I take it Kings always feel oppressed that way.”

‘“There's another thing too,” says Dravot, walking up and down. “The winter's coming and these people won't be givingmuch trouble, and if they do we can't move about. I want a wife.”

‘ “For God's sake leave the women alone!” I says. “We've both got all the work we can, though I
am
a fool. Remember our Contrack and keep clear o' women.”

‘“The Contrack only lasted till such time as we was Kings; and Kings we have been these months past,” says Dravot, weighing his crown in his hand. “You go get a wife too, Peachey – a nice, strappin', plump girl that'll keep you warm in the winter. They're prettier than English girls, and we can take the pick of 'em. Boil 'em once or twice in hot water, and they'll come as fair as chicken and ham.”

‘“Don't tempt me!” I says. “I will not have any dealings with a woman not till we are a dam' side more settled than we are now. I've been doing the work o' two men, and you've been doing the work o' three. Let's lie off a bit, and see if we can get some better tobacco from Afghan country and run in some good liquor; but no women.”

‘“Who's talking o'
women
?”says Dravot. “I said
wife –
a Queen to breed a King's son for the King. A Queen out of the strongest tribe, that'll make them your blood brothers, and that'll lie by your side and tell you all the people thinks about you and their own affairs. That's what I want.”

‘“Do you remember that Bengali woman I kept at Mogul Serai when I was a plate-layer?” says I. “A fat lot o' good she was to me. She taught me the lingo and one or two other things; but what happened? She ran away with the Station Master's
khitmatgar
and half my month's pay. Then she turned up at Dadur Junction in tow of a half-caste and had the impidence to say I was her husband – all among the drivers in the running-shed!”

‘“We've done with that,” says Dravot. “These women are whiter than you or me, and a Queen I will have for the winter months.”

‘“For the last time o' asking, Dan, do
not
,”I says. “It'll only bring us harm. The Bible says that Kings ain't to waste their strength on women, especially when they've got a new raw Kingdom to work over.”

‘“For the last time of answering I will,” said Dravot, and he went away through the pine trees looking like a big red devil. The low sun hit his crown and beard on one side, and the two blazed like hot coals.

‘But getting a wife was not as easy as Dan thought. He put it before the Council, and there was no answer till Billy Fish said that he'd better ask the girls. Dravot damned them all round. “What's wrong with me?” he shouts, standing by the idol Imbra. “Am I a dog or am I not enough of a man for your wenches. Haven't I put the shadow of my hand over this country? Who stopped the last Afghan raid?” It was me really, but Dravot was too angry to remember. “Who bought your guns? Who repaired the bridges? Who's the Grand Master of the sign cut in the stone?” and he thumped his hand on the block that he used to sit on in Lodge and at Council which opened like Lodge always. Billy Fish said nothing and no more did the others.

‘“Keep your hair on, Dan,” said I; “and ask the girls. That's how it's done at home, and these people are quite English.”

‘“The marriage of the King is a matter of State,” says Dan, in a white-hot rage, for he could feel, I hope, that he was going against his better mind. He walked out of the Council-room, and the others sat still, looking at the ground.

‘“Billy Fish,” says I to the chief of Bashkai, “what's the difficulty here? A straight answer to a true friend.”

‘“You know,” says Billy Fish. “How should a man tell you who know everything? How can daughters of men marry Gods or Devils? It's not proper.”

‘I remembered something like that in the Bible; but if, after seeing us as long as they had, they still believed we were Gods, it wasn't for me to undeceive them.

‘“A God can do anything,” says I. “If the King is fond of a girl he'll not let her die.”“She'll have to,” said Billy Fish. “There are all sorts of Gods and Devils in these mountains, and now and again a girl marries one of them and isn't seen any more. Besides, you two know the Mark cut in the stone. Only the Gods know that. We thought you was men till you showed the sign of the Master.”

‘I wished then that we had explained about the loss of the genuine secrets of a master mason at the first go-off; but I said nothing. All that night there was a blowing of horns in a little dark temple halfway down the hill, and I heard a girl crying fit to die. One of the priests told us that she was being prepared to marry the King.

‘“I'll have no nonsense of that kind,” says Dan. “I don't want to interfere with your customs, but I'll take my own wife.”

‘“The girl's a bit afraid,” says the priest. “She thinks she's going to die, and they are a-heartening of her up down in the temple.”

‘ “Hearten her very tender, then,” says Dravot, “or I'll hearten you with the butt of a gun so that you'll never want to be heartened again.” He licked his lips, did Dan, and stayed up walking about more than half the night, thinking of the wife that he was going to get in the morning. I wasn't any means comfortable, for I knew that dealings with a woman in foreign parts, though you was a crowned King twenty times over, could not but be risky. I got up very early in the morning while Dravot was asleep, and I saw the priests talking together in whispers, and the chiefs talking together too, and they looked at me out of the corners of their eyes.

‘“What is up, Fish?” I says to the Bashkai man who was wrapped up in his furs and looking splendid to behold.

‘“I can't rightly say,” says he; “but if you can induce the King to drop all this nonsense about marriage, you'll be doing him and me and yourself a great service.”

‘“That I do believe,” says I. “But sure, you know, Billy, as well as me, having fought against and for us, that the King and me are nothing more than two of the finest men that God Almighty ever made. Nothing more, I do assure you.”

‘“That may be,” says Billy Fish, “and yet I should be sorry if it was.” He sinks his head upon his great fur cloak for a minute and thinks. “King,” says he. “Be you man or God or Devil, I'll stick by you to-day. I have twenty of my men with me, and they will follow me. We'll go to Bashkai until the storm blows over.”

‘A little snow had fallen in the night, and everything was white except the greasy fat clouds that blew down and down from the north. Dravot came out with his crown on his head, swinging his arms and stamping his feet, and looking more pleased than Punch.

‘“For the last time, drop it, Dan,” says I in a whisper. “Billy Fish here says that there will be a row.”