Rujub, the Juggler

When they got into the open the latter could see that his companion was dressed in an altogether different garb to that in which he had before seen him, being attired as a person of some rank and importance. He stopped presently for Bathurst to come up with him.

“I have done what I could to prepare the way for you,” he said. “Openly I could for certain reasons do nothing, but I have said enough to make him feel uncomfortable about the future, and to render him anxious to find a way of escape for himself if your people should ever again get the mastery.”

“How are things going, Rujub? We have heard nothing for three weeks. How is it at Cawnpore?”

“Cawnpore has been taken by the Nana. They surrendered on his solemn oath that all should be allowed to depart in safety. He broke his oath, and there are not ten of its defenders alive. The women are all in captivity.”

Bathurst groaned. He had hardly hoped that the handful of defenders could have maintained themselves against such overpowering numbers, but the certainty as to their fate was a heavy blow.

“And Lucknow?” he asked.

“The Residency holds out at present, but men say that it must soon fall.”

“And what do you say?”

“I say nothing,” the man said; “we cannot use our art in matters which concern ourselves.”

“And Delhi?”

“There is a little force of whites in front of Delhi; there are tens of thousands of Sepoys in the town, but as yet the whites have maintained themselves. The chiefs of the Punjaub have proved faithless to their country, and there the British rule is maintained.”

“Thank God for that!” Bathurst exclaimed; “as long as the Punjaub holds out the tables may be turned. And the other Presidencies?”

“Nothing as yet,” Rujub said, in a tone of discontent.

“Then you are against us, Rujub?”

The man stopped.

“Sahib, I know not what I wish now. I have been brought up to hate the whites. Two of my father’s brothers were hung as Thugs, and my father taught me to hate the men who did it. For years I have worked quietly against you, as have most of those of my craft. We have reason to hate you. In the old times we were honored in the land—honored and feared; for even the great ones knew that we had powers such as no other men have. But the whites treat us as if we were mere buffoons, who play for their amusement; they make no distinction between the wandering conjurer, with his tricks of dexterity, and the masters, who have powers that have been handed down from father to son for thousands of years, who can communicate with each other though separated by the length of India; who can, as you have seen, make men invisible; who can read the past and the future. They see these things, and though they cannot explain them, they persist in treating us all as if we were mere jugglers.

“They prefer to deny the evidence of their own senses rather than admit that we have powers such as they have not; and so, even in the eyes of our own countrymen, we have lost our old standing and position, while the whites would bribe us with money to divulge the secrets in which they profess to disbelieve. No wonder that we hate you, and that we long for the return of the old days, when even princes were glad to ask favors at our hands. It is seldom that we show our powers now. Those who aid us, and whose servants we are, are not to be insulted by the powers they bestow upon us being used for the amusement of men who believe in nothing.

“The Europeans who first came to India have left records of the strange things they saw at the courts of the native princes. But such things are no longer done for the amusement of our white masters. Thus, then, for years I have worked against you; and just as I saw that our work was successful, just as all was prepared for the blow that was to sweep the white men out of India, you saved my daughter; then my work seemed to come to an end. Would any of my countrymen, armed only with a whip, have thrown themselves in the way of a tiger to save a woman—a stranger—one altogether beneath him in rank—one, as it were, dust beneath his feet? That I should be ready to give my life for yours was a matter of course; I should have been an ungrateful wretch otherwise. But this was not enough. At one blow the work I had devoted myself to for years was brought to nothing. Everything seemed to me new; and as I sat by my daughter’s bedside, when she lay sick with the fever, I had to think it all out again. Then I saw things in another light. I saw that, though the white men were masterful and often hard, though they had little regard for our customs, and viewed our beliefs as superstitious, and scoffed at the notion of there being powers of which they had no knowledge, yet that they were a great people. Other conquerors, many of them, India has had, but none who have made it their first object to care for the welfare of the people at large. The Feringhees have wrung nothing from the poor to be spent in pomp and display; they permit no tyranny or ill doing; under them the poorest peasant tills his fields in peace.

“I have been obliged to see all this, and I feel now that their destruction would be a frightful misfortune. We should be ruled by our native lords; but as soon as the white man was gone the old quarrels would break out, and the country would be red with blood. I did not see this before, because I had only looked at it with the eyes of my own caste; now I see it with the eyes of one whose daughter has been saved from a tiger by a white man. I cannot love those I have been taught to hate, but I can see the benefit their rule has given to India.

“But what can I do now? I am in the stream, and I must go with it. I know not what I wish or what I would do. Six months ago I felt certain. Now I doubt. It seemed to me that in a day the English Raj would be swept away. How could it be otherwise when the whole army that had conquered India for them were against them? I knew they were brave, but we have never lacked bravery. How could I tell that they would fight one against a hundred?

“But come, let us go on. Por Sing is expecting you. I told him that I knew that one from the garrison would come out to treat with him privately tonight, and he is expecting you, though he does not know who may come.”

Ten minutes walking, and they approached a large tent surrounded by several smaller ones. A sentry challenged when they approached, but on Rujub giving his name, he at once resumed his walk up and down, and Rujub, followed by Bathurst, advanced and entered the tent. The Zemindar was seated on a divan smoking a hookah. Rujub bowed, but not with the deep reverence of one approaching his superior.

“He is here,” he said.

“Then you were not mistaken, Rujub?”

“How could I be when I knew?” Rujub said. “I have done what I said, and have brought him straight to you. That was all I had to do with it; the rest is for your highness.”

“I would rather that you should be present,” Por Sing said, as Rujub turned to withdraw.

“No,” the latter replied; “in this matter it is for you to decide. I know not the Nana’s wishes, and your highness must take the responsibility. I have brought him to you rather than to the commander of the Sepoys, because your authority should be the greater; it is you and the other Oude chiefs who have borne the weight of this siege, and it is only right that it is you who should decide the conditions of surrender. The Sepoys are not our masters, and it is well they are not so; the Nana and the Oude chiefs have not taken up arms to free themselves from the English Raj to be ruled over by the men who have been the servants of the English.”

“That is so,” the Zemindar said, stroking his beard; “well, I will talk with this person.”

Rujub left the tent. “You do not know me, Por Sing?” Bathurst said, stepping forward from the entrance where he had hitherto stood; “I am the Sahib Bathurst.”

“Is it so?” the Zemindar said, laying aside his pipe and rising to his feet; “none could come to me whom I would rather see. You have always proved yourself a just officer, and I have no complaint against you. We have often broken bread together, and it has grieved me to know that you were in yonder house. Do you come to me on your own account, or from the sahib who commands?”

“I come on my own account,” Bathurst said; “when I come as a messenger from him, I must come openly. I. know you to be an honorable man, and that I could say what I have to say to you and depart in safety. I regard you as one who has been misled, and regret for your sake that you should have been induced to take part with these mutineers against us. Believe me, chief, you have been terribly misled. You have been told that it needed but an effort to overthrow the British Raj. Those who told you so lied. It might have seemed easy to destroy the handful of Europeans scattered throughout India, but you have not succeeded in doing it. Even had you done so, you would not have so much as begun the work. There are but few white soldiers here. Why? Because England trusted in the fidelity of her native troops, and thought it necessary to keep only a handful of soldiers in India, but if need be, for every soldier now here she could send a hundred, and she will send a hundred if required to reconquer India. Already you may be sure that ships are on the sea laden with troops; and if you find it so hard to overcome the few soldiers now here, what would you do against the great armies that will pour in ere long? Why, all the efforts of the Sepoys gathered at Delhi are insufficient to defeat the four or five thousand British troops who hold their posts outside the town, waiting only till the succor arrives from England to take a terrible vengeance. Woe be then to those who have taken part against us; still more to those whose hands are stained with British blood.”

“It is too late now,” the native said gloomily, “the die is cast; but since I have seen how a score of men could defend that shattered house against thousands, do you think I have not seen that I have been wrong? Who would have thought that men could do such a thing? But it is too late now.”

“It is not too late,” Bathurst said; “it is too late, indeed, to undo the mischief that has been done, but not too late for you to secure yourself against some of the consequences. The English are just; and when they shall have stamped out this mutiny, as assuredly they will do, they will draw a distinction between mutinous soldiers who were false to their salt, and native chiefs who fought, as they believed, for the independence of their country. But one thing they will not forgive, whether in Sepoy or in prince, the murder of man, woman, or child in cold blood: for that there will be no pardon.

“But it is not upon that ground that I came to appeal to you, but as a noble of Oude—a man who is a brave enemy, but who could never be a butcher. We have fought against each other fairly and evenly; the time has come when we can fight no longer, and I demand of you, confidently, that, if we surrender, the lives of all within those walls shall be respected, and a safe conduct be granted them down the country. I know that such conditions were granted to the garrison at Cawnpore, and that they were shamelessly violated; for that act Nana Sahib will never be forgiven. He will be hunted down like a dog and hung when he is caught, just as if he had been the poorest peasant. But I have not so bad an opinion of the people of India as to believe them base enough to follow such an example, and I am confident that if you grant us those terms, you will see that the conditions are observed.”

“I have received orders from Nana Sahib to send all prisoners down to him,” Por Sing said, in a hesitating voice.

“You will never send down prisoners from here,” Bathurst replied firmly. “You may attack us again, and after the loss of the lives of scores more of your followers you may be successful, but you will take no prisoners, for at the last moment we will blow the house and all in it into the air. Besides, who made Nana Sahib your master? He is not the lord of Oude; and though doubtless he dreams of sovereignty, it is a rope, not a throne, that awaits him. Why should you nobles of Oude obey the orders of this peasant boy, though he was adopted by the Peishwa? The Peishwa himself was never your lord, and why should you obey this traitor, this butcher, this disgrace to India, when he orders you to hand over to him the prisoners your sword has made?”

“That is true,” Por Sing said gloomily; “but the Sepoys will not agree to the terms.”

“The Sepoys are not your masters,” Bathurst said; “we do not surrender to them, but to you. We place no confidence in their word, but we have every faith in the honor of the nobles of Oude. If you and your friends grant us the terms we ask, the Sepoys may clamor, but they will not venture to do more. Neither they nor Nana Sahib dare at this moment affront the people of Oude.

“There are Sepoys round Lucknow, but it is the men of Oude who are really pressing the siege. If you are firm, they will not dare to break with you on such a question as the lives of a score of Europeans. If you will give me your word and your honor that all shall be spared, I will come out in the morning with a flag of truce to treat with you. If not, we will defend ourselves to the last, and then blow ourselves into the air.”

“And you think,” Por Sing said doubtfully, “that if I agreed to this, it would be taken into consideration should the British Raj be restored.”

“I can promise you that it will,” Bathurst said. “It will be properly represented that it is to you that the defenders of Deennugghur, and the women and children with them, owe their lives, and you may be sure that this will go a very long way towards wiping out the part you have taken in the attack on the station. When the day of reckoning comes, the British Government will know as well how to reward those who rendered them service in these days, as to punish those who have been our foes.”

“I will do it,” Por Sing said firmly. “Do not come out until the afternoon. In the morning I will talk with the other Zemindars, and bring them over to agree that there shall be no more bloodshed. There is not one of us but is heartily sick of this business, and eager to put an end to it. Rujub may report what he likes to the Nana, I will do what is right.”

After a hearty expression of thanks, Bathurst left the tent. Rujub was awaiting him outside.

“You have succeeded?” he asked.

“Yes; he will guarantee the lives of all the garrison, but he seemed to be afraid of what you might report to Nana Sahib.”

“I am the Nana’s agent here,” Rujub said; “I have been working with him for months. I would I could undo it all now. I was away when they surrendered at Cawnpore. Had I not been, that massacre would never have taken place, for I am one of the few who have influence with him. He is fully cognizant of my power, and fears it.”

They made their way back without interruption to the clump of bushes near the house.

“When shall I see you again?” Bathurst asked.

“I do not know,” replied Rujub, “but be sure that I shall be at hand to aid you if possible should danger arise.”