Henty George Alfred
Rujub, the Juggler
“You recognized the first scene, I suppose, Doctor?” Bathurst asked.
“Perfectly. It took me back twenty-five years. It was a cottage near Sidmouth, and was correct in every minute detail. The figure was that of the young lady I married four years afterwards. Many a time have I seen her standing just like that, as I went along the road to meet her from the little inn at which I was stopping; the very pattern of her dress, which I need hardly say has never been in my mind all these years, was recalled to me.
“Had I been thinking of the scene at the time I could have accounted for it somehow, upon the theory that in some way or other the juggler was conscious of my thought and reflected it upon the smoke—how, I don’t at all mean to say; but undoubtedly there exists, to some extent, the power of thought reading. It is a mysterious subject, and one of which we know absolutely nothing at present, but maybe in upwards of a hundred years mankind will have discovered many secrets of nature in that direction. But I certainly was not thinking of that scene when I spoke and said the ‘past.’ I had no doubt that he would show me something of the past, but certainly no particular incident passed through my mind before that picture appeared on the smoke.”
“The other was almost as curious, Doctor,” Captain Doolan said, “for it was certainly you masquerading as a native. I believe the other was Bathurst; it struck me so; and he seemed to be running off with some native girl. What on earth could that all mean?”
“It is no use puzzling ourselves about it,” the Doctor said. “It may or may not come true. I have no inclination to go about dressed out as a native at present, but there is no saying what I may come to. There is quite enough for us to wonder at in the other things. The mango and basket tricks I have seen a dozen times, and am no nearer now than I was at first to understanding them. That ascension trick beats me altogether, and there was something horribly uncanny about the snake.”
“Do you think it was a real snake, Doctor?”
“That I cannot tell you, Richards. Every movement was perfectly natural. I could see the working of the ribs as it wound itself round the girl, and the quivering of its tongue as it raised its head above her. At any other time I should be ready to take my affidavit that it was a python of unusual size, but at the present moment I should not like to give a decided opinion about anything connected with the performance.”
“I suppose it is no use asking the juggler any questions, Hunter?” one of the other men said.
“Not in the least; they never do answer questions. The higher class of jugglers treat their art as a sort of religious mystery, and there is no instance known of their opening their lips, although large sums have frequently been offered them. In the present case you will certainly ask no questions, for the man and girl have both disappeared with the box and apparatus and everything connected with them. They must have slipped off directly the last trick was over, and before we had the lamp lighted. I sent after him at once, but the servant could find no signs of him. I am annoyed because I have not paid them.”
“I am not surprised at that,” Dr. Wade said. “It is quite in accordance with what I have heard of them. They live by exhibiting what you may call their ordinary tricks; but I have heard from natives that when they show any what I may call supernatural feats, they do not take money. It is done to oblige some powerful Rajah, and as I have said, it is only on a very few occasions that Europeans have ever seen them. Well, we may as well go in to the ladies. I don’t fancy any of them would be inclined to come out onto the veranda again this evening.”
No one was indeed inclined even for talk, and in a very short time the party broke up and returned home.
“Come and smoke a pipe with me, Bathurst, before you turn in,” the Doctor said, as they went out. “I don’t think either of us will be likely to go to sleep for some time. What is your impression of all this?”
“My impression, certainly, is that it is entirely unaccountable by any laws with which we are acquainted, Doctor.”
“That is just my idea, and always has been since I first saw any really good juggling out here. I don’t believe in the least in anything supernatural, but I can quite believe that there are many natural laws of which at present we are entirely ignorant. I believe the knowledge of them at one time existed, but has been entirely lost, at any rate among Western peoples. The belief in magic is as old as anything we have knowledge of. The magicians at the court of Pharaoh threw down their rods and turned them into serpents. The Witch of Endor called up the spirit of Samuel. The Greeks, by no means a nation of fools, believed implicitly in the Oracles. Coming down to comparatively later times, the workers of magic burnt their books before St. Paul. It doesn’t say, mind you, that those who pretended to work magic did so; but those who worked magic.
“Early travelers in Persia and India have reported things they saw far surpassing any we have witnessed this evening, and there is certainly a sect in India at present, or rather a body of men, and those, as far as I have been able to learn, of an exceptionally intelligent class, who believe that they possess an almost absolute mastery over the powers of nature. You see, fifty years back, if anyone had talked about traveling at fifty miles an hour, or sending a message five thousand miles in a minute, he would have been regarded as a madman. There may yet be other discoveries as startling to be made.
“When I was in England I heard something of a set of people in America who called themselves Spiritualists, some of whom—notably a young man named Home—claimed to have the power of raising themselves through the air. I am far from saying that such a power exists; it is of course contrary to what we know of the laws of nature, but should such a power exist it would account for the disappearance of the girl from the top of the pole. Highland second sight, carried somewhat farther, and united with the power of conveying the impressions to others, would account for the pictures on the smoke, that is, supposing them to be true, and personally I own that I expect they will prove to be true—unlikely as it may seem that you, I, and Miss Hannay will ever be going about in native attire.”
By this time they had reached the Doctor’s bungalow, and had comfortably seated themselves.
“There is one thing that flashed across me this evening,” Bathurst said. “I told you, that first evening I met Miss Hannay, that I had a distinct knowledge of her face. You laughed at me at the time, and it certainly seemed absurd, but I was convinced I was not wrong. Now I know how it was; I told you at dinner today about the feat of the girl going up and not coming down again; but I did not tell you—for you can understand it is a thing that I should not care to talk much about—that he showed me a picture like those we saw tonight.
“It was a house standing in a courtyard, with a high wall round it. I did not particularly observe the house. It was of the ordinary native type, and might, for anything I know, be the house in the middle of this station used as a courthouse by Hunter, and for keeping stores, and so on. I don’t say it was that; I did not notice it much. There was a breach in the outside wall, and round it there was a fierce fight going on. A party of officers and civilians were repelling the assault of a body of Sepoys. On the terraced roof of the house others were standing firing and looking on, and I think engaged in loading rifles were two or three women. One of them I particularly noticed; and, now I recall it, her face was that of Miss Hannay; of that I am absolutely certain.”
“It is curious, lad,” the Doctor said, after a pause; “and the picture, you see, has so far come true that you have made the acquaintance with one of the actors whom you did not previously know.”
“I did not believe in the truth of it, Doctor, and I do not believe in it now. There was one feature in the fight which was, as I regret to know, impossible.”
“And what was that, Bathurst?”
Bathurst was silent for a time.
“You are an old friend, Doctor, and you will understand my case, and make more allowances for it than most people would. When I first came out here I dare say you heard some sort of reports as to why I had left the army and had afterwards entered the Civil Service.”
“There were some stupid rumors,” the Doctor said, “that you had gone home on sick leave just after the battle of Chillianwalla, and had then sold out, because you had shown the white feather. I need not say that I did not give any credit to it; there is always gossip flying about as to the reasons a man leaves the army.”
“It was quite true, Doctor. It is a hideous thing to say, but constitutionally I am a coward.”
“I cannot believe it,” the Doctor said warmly. “Now that I know you, you are the last man of whom I would credit such a thing.”
“It is the bane of my life,” Bathurst went on. “It is my misfortune, for I will not allow it is my fault. In many things I am not a coward. I think I could face any danger if the danger were a silent one, but I cannot stand noise. The report of a gun makes me tremble all over, even when it is a blank cartridge that is fired. When I was born my father was in India. A short time before I came into the world my mother had a great fright. Her house in the country was broken into by burglars, who entered the room and threatened to blow out her brains if she moved; but the alarm was given, the men servants came down armed, there was a struggle in her room, pistol shots were fired, and the burglars were overpowered and captured. My mother fainted and was ill for weeks afterwards—in fact, until the time I was born; and she died a few days later, never having, the doctor said, recovered from the shock she had suffered that night.
“I grew up a weakly, timid boy—the sort of boy that is always bullied at school. My father, as you know, was a general officer, and did not return home until I was ten years old. He was naturally much disappointed in me, and I think that added to my timidity, for it grew upon me rather than otherwise. Morally, I was not a coward. At school I can say that I never told a lie to avoid punishment, and my readiness to speak the truth did not add to my popularity among the other boys, and I used to be called a sneak, which was even more hateful than being called a coward.
“As I grew up I shook off my delicacy, and grew, as you see, into a strong man. I then fought several battles at school; I learnt to ride, and came to have confidence in myself, and though I had no particular fancy for the army my father’s heart was so set on it that I offered no objection. That the sound of a gun was abhorrent to me I knew, for the first time my father put a gun in my hand and I fired it, I fainted, and nothing would persuade me to try again. Still I thought that this was the result of nervousness as to firing it myself, and that I should get over it in time.
“A month or two after I was gazetted I went out to India with the regiment, and arrived just in time to get up by forced marches to take part in the battle of Chillianwalla. The consequence was that up to that time I literally had heard no musketry practice.
“Of the events of that battle I have no remembrance whatever; from the moment the first gun was fired to the end of the day I was as one paralyzed. I saw nothing, I heard nothing, I moved mechanically; but happily my will or my instinct kept me in my place in the regiment. When all was over, and silence followed the din, I fell to the ground insensible. Happily for me the doctors declared I was in a state of high fever, and I so remained for a fortnight. As soon as I got better I was sent down the country, and I at once sent in my papers and went home. No doubt the affair was talked of, and there were whispers as to the real cause of my illness. My father was terribly angry when I returned home and told him the truth of the matter. That his son should be a coward was naturally an awful blow to him. Home was too unhappy to be endured, and when an uncle of mine, who was a director on the Company’s Board, offered me a berth in the Civil Service, I thankfully accepted it, believing that in that capacity I need never hear a gun fired again.
“You will understand, then, the anxiety I am feeling owing to these rumors of disaffection among the Sepoys, and the possibility of anything like a general mutiny.
“It is not of being killed that I have any fear; upon the contrary, I have suffered so much in the last eight years from the consciousness that the reason why I left the army was widely known, that I should welcome death, if it came to me noiselessly; but the thought that if there is trouble I shall assuredly not be able to play my part like a man fills me with absolute horror, and now more than ever.
“So you will understand now why the picture I saw, in which I was fighting in the middle of the Sepoys, is to me not only improbable, but simply impossible. It is a horrible story to have to tell. This is the first time I have opened my lips on the subject since I spoke to my father, but I know that you, both as a friend and a doctor, will pity rather than blame me.”
CHAPTER X
As Bathurst brought his story to its conclusion the Doctor rose and placed his hand kindly on his shoulder.
“I certainly should not think of blaming you, Bathurst. What you tell me is indeed a terrible misfortune, situated as we may be soon, though I trust and believe that all this talk about the Sepoys is moonshine. I own that I am surprised at your story, for I should have said from my knowledge of you that though, as I could perceive, of a nervous temperament, you were likely to be cool and collected in danger. But certainly your failing is no fault of your own.”
“That is but a small consolation to me, Doctor. Men do not ask why and wherefore—they simply point the finger of scorn at a coward. The misfortune is that I am here. I might have lived a hundred lives in England and never once had occasion to face danger, and I thought that I should have been equally secure as an Indian civilian. Now this trouble is coming upon us.”
“Why don’t you take your leave, lad? You have been out seven years now without a day’s relaxation, except indeed, the three days you were over with me at Cawnpore. Why not apply for a year’s leave? You have a good excuse, too; you did not go home at the death of your father, two years ago, and could very well plead urgent family affairs requiring your presence in England.”
“No, I will not do that, Doctor; I will not run away from danger again. You understand me, I have not the least fear of the danger; I in no way hold to my life; I do not think I am afraid of physical pain. It seems to me that I could undertake any desperate service; I dread it simply because I know that when the din of battle begins my body will overmaster my mind, and that I shall be as I was at Chillianwalla, completely paralyzed. You wondered tonight why that juggler should have exhibited feats seldom, almost never, shown to Europeans? He did it to please me. I saved his daughter’s life—this is between ourselves, Doctor, and is not to go farther. But, riding in from Narkeet, I heard a cry, and, hurrying on, came upon that man eater you shot the other day, standing over the girl, with her father half beside himself, gesticulating in front of him. I jumped off and attacked the brute with my heavy hunting whip, and he was so completely astonished that he turned tail and bolted.”
“The deuce he did,” the Doctor exclaimed; “and yet you talk of being a coward!”
“No, I do not say that I am a coward generally; as long as I have to confront danger without noise I believe I could do as well as most men.”
“But why didn’t you mention this business with the tiger, Bathurst?”
“Because, in the first place, it was the work of a mere passing impulse; and in the second, because I should have gained credit for being what I am not—a brave man. It will be bad enough when the truth becomes known, but it would be all the worse if I had been trading on a false reputation; therefore I particularly charged Rujub to say nothing about the affair to anyone.”
“Well, putting this for a time aside, Bathurst, what do you think of that curious scene, you and I and Miss Hannay disguised as natives?”
“Taking it with the one I saw of the attack of Sepoys upon a house, it looks to me, Doctor, as if there would be a mutiny, and that that mutiny would be attended with partial success, that a portion of the garrison, at any rate, will escape, and that Miss Hannay will be traveling down the country, perhaps to Cawnpore, in your charge, while I in some way shall be with you, perhaps acting as guide.”
“It may possibly be so,” the Doctor agreed. “It is at any rate very curious. I wonder whether Miss Hannay recognized herself in the disguise.”
“I should hope not, Doctor; if it all comes true there will be enough for her to bear without looking forward to that. I should be glad if the detachment were ordered back to Cawnpore.”
“Well, I should not have thought that, Bathurst.”
“I know what you mean, Doctor, but it is for that reason I wish they were gone. I believe now that you insisted on my coming down to spend those three days with you at Cawnpore specially that I might meet her.”
“That is so, Bathurst. I like her so much that I should be very sorry to see her throw herself away upon some empty headed fool. I like her greatly, and I was convinced that you were just the man to make her happy, and as I knew that you had good prospects in England, I thought it would be a capital match for her, although you are but a young civilian; and I own that of late I have thought things were going on very well.”
“Perhaps it might have been so, Doctor, had it not been for this coming trouble, which, if our fears are realized, will entirely put an end even to the possibility of what you are talking about. I shall be shown to be a coward, and I shall do my best to put myself in the way of being killed. I should not like to blow my brains out, but if the worst comes to the worst I will do that rather than go on living after I have again disgraced myself.”
“You look at it too seriously, Bathurst.”
“Not a bit of it, Doctor, and you know it.”
“But if the Sepoys rise, Bathurst, why should they harm their officers? They may be discontented, they may have a grievance against the Government, they may refuse to obey orders and may disband; but why on earth should they attack men who have always been kind to them, whom they have followed in battle, and against whom they have not as much as a shadow of complaint?”
“I hope it may be so most sincerely,” Bathurst said; “but one never can say. I can hardly bring myself to believe that they will attack the officers, much less injure women and children. Still, I have a most uneasy foreboding of evil.”
“You have heard nothing from the natives as to any coming trouble?”
“Nothing at all, Doctor, and I am convinced that nothing is known among them, or at any rate by the great bulk of them. Only one person has ever said a word to me that could indicate a knowledge of coming trouble, and that was this juggler we saw tonight. I thought nothing of his words at the time. That picture he showed me of the attack by Sepoys first gave me an idea that his words might mean something. Since then we have heard much more of this discontent, and I am convinced now that the words had a meaning. They were simple enough. It was merely his assurance, two or three times repeated, that he would be ready to repay the service I had rendered him with his life. It might have been a mere phrase, and so I thought at the time. But I think now he had before him the possibility of some event occurring in which he might be able to repay the service I had rendered him.”
“There may have been something in it and there may not,” the Doctor said; “but, at any rate, Bathurst, he ought to be a potent ally. There doesn’t seem any limit to his powers, and he might, for aught one knows, be able to convey you away as he did his daughter.”
The Doctor spoke lightly, and then added, “But seriously, the man might be of service. These jugglers go among people of all classes. They are like the troubadours of the Middle Ages, welcomed everywhere; and they no doubt have every opportunity of learning what is going on, and it may be that he will be able to give you timely warning should there be any trouble at hand.”
“That is possible enough,” Bathurst agreed. “Well, Doctor, I shall be on horseback at six, so it is time for me to turn in,” and taking his hat, walked across to his own bungalow.
The Doctor sat for some time smoking before he turned into bed. He had as he had said, heard rumors, when Bathurst first came out, that he had shown the white feather, but he had paid little attention to it at the time. They had been together at the first station to which Bathurst was appointed when he came out, and he had come to like him greatly; but his evident disinclination to join in any society, his absorption in his work, and a certain air of gravity unnatural in a young man of twenty, had puzzled him. He had at the time come to the conclusion that he must have had some unfortunate love affair, or have got into some very serious trouble at home. In time that impression had worn off. A young man speedily recovers from such a blow, however heavy, but no change had taken place in Bathurst, and the Doctor had in time become so accustomed to his manner that he had ceased to wonder over it. Now it was all explained. He sat thinking over it deeply for an hour, and then laid down his pipe.
“It is a terrible pity he came out here,” he said. “Of course it is not his fault in the slightest degree. One might as well blame a man for being born a hunchback; but if there should be a row out here it will be terrible for him. I can quite understand his feeling about it. If I were placed as he is, and were called upon to fight, I should take a dose of prussic acid at once. Men talk: about their civilization, but we are little better than savages in our instincts. Courage is an almost useless virtue in a civilized community, but if it is called for, we despise a man in whom it is wanting, just as heartily as our tattooed ancestors did. Of course, in him it is a purely constitutional failing, and I have no doubt he would be as brave as a lion in any other circumstances—in fact, the incident of his attacking the tiger with that dog whip of his shows that he is so; and yet, if he should fail when the lives of women are at stake it would be a kindness to give him that dose of prussic acid, especially as Isobel Hannay will be here. That is the hardest part of it to him, I can see.”
Three days later the force at Deennugghur was increased by the arrival of a troop of native cavalry, under a Captain Forster, who had just returned from leave in England.
“Do you know Captain Forster, Doctor?” Isobel Hannay asked, on the afternoon of his arrival. “Uncle tells me he is coming to dinner.”
“Then you must look after your heart, my dear. He is one of the best looking fellows out here, a dashing soldier, and a devoted servant of the fair sex.”
“You don’t like him, Doctor,” Isobel said quietly.
“I have not said so, my dear—far from it. I think I said a good deal for him.”
“Yes, but you don’t like him, Doctor. Why is that?”
“I suppose because he is not my sort of man,” the Doctor said. “I have not seen him since his regiment and ours were at Delhi together, and we did not see much of each other then. Our tastes did not lie in the same direction.”
“Well, I know what your tastes are, Doctor; what are his?”
“I will leave you to find out, my dear. He is all I told you—a very handsome man, with, as is perhaps natural, a very good opinion of himself, and he distinguished himself more than once in the Punjaub by acts of personal gallantry. I have no doubt he thinks it an awful nuisance coming to a quiet little station like this, and he will probably try to while away his time by making himself very agreeable to you. But I don’t think you need quite believe all that he says.”
“I have long ago got over the weakness of believing people’s flattery, Doctor. However, now you have forewarned me I am forearmed.”
The Doctor hesitated, and then said gravely, “It is not my habit to speak ill of people, my dear. You do me the justice to believe that?”
“I am sure it is not, Doctor.”
“Well, child, in a station like this you must see a good deal of this man. He is a man who has won many hearts, and thrown them away. Don’t let him win yours. He is not a good man; he has been mixed up in several grave scandals; he has been the ruin of more than one young man at cards and billiards; he is in all respects a dangerous man. Anatomically I suppose he has a heart, morally he has not a vestige of one. Whatever you do, child, don’t let him make you like him.”
“I don’t think there is much fear of that, Doctor, after what you have said,” she replied, with a quiet smile; “and I am obliged to you indeed for warning me.”
“I know I am an old fool for meddling, but you know, my dear, I feel a sort of personal relationship to you, after your having been in my charge for six months. I don’t know a single man in all India whom I would not rather see you fall in love with than with Captain Forster.”
“I thought uncle did not seem particularly pleased: when he came in to tiffin, and said there was a new arrival.”
“I should think not,” the Doctor said; “the man in notoriously a dangerous fellow; and yet, as he has never actually outstepped what are considered the bounds which constitute an officer and a gentleman, he has retained his commission, but it has been a pretty close shave once or twice. Your uncle must know all about him, everyone does; but I don’t suppose the Major will open his mouth to you on the subject—he is one of those chivalrous sort of men who never thinks evil of anyone unless he is absolutely obliged to; but in a case like this I think he is wrong. At any rate, I have done what I consider to be my duty in the matter. Now I leave it in your hands. I am glad to see that you are looking quite yourself again, and have got over your fainting fit of the other night. I quite expected to be sent for professionally the next morning.”
“Oh, yes, I have quite got over it, Doctor; I can’t make out how I was so silly as to faint. I never did such a thing before, but it was so strange and mysterious that I felt quite bewildered, and the picture quite frightened me, but I don’t know why. This is the first chance I have had since of speaking to you alone. What do you think of it, and why should you be dressed up as a native? and why should?” She stopped with a heightened color on her cheeks.
“You and Bathurst be dressed up, too? So you noticed your own likeness; nobody else but Bathurst and myself recognized the two figures that came out of the wood.”
“Oh, you saw it too, Doctor. I thought I might have been mistaken, for, besides being stained, the face was all obscured somehow. Neither uncle, nor Mrs. Hunter, nor the girls, nor anyone else I have spoken to seem to have had an idea it was me, though they all recognized you.. What could it mean?”
“I. have not the slightest idea in the world,” the Doctor said; “very likely it meant nothing. I certainly should not think any more about it. These jugglers’ tricks are curious and unaccountable; but it is no use our worrying ourselves about them. Maybe we are all going to get up private theatricals some day, and perform an Indian drama. I have never taken any part in tomfooleries of that sort so far, but there is no saying what I may come to.”
“Are you going to dine here, Doctor?”
“No, my dear; the Major asked me to come in, but I declined. I told him frankly that I did not like Forster, and that the less I saw of him the better I should be pleased.”
The other guests turned out to be Captain and Mrs. Doolan and Mr. Congreave, one of the civilians at the station. The Doolans arrived first.
“You have not seen Captain Forster yet, Isobel,” Mrs. Doolan said, as they sat down for a chat together. “I met him at Delhi soon after I came out. He is quite my beau ideal of a soldier in appearance, but I don’t think he is nice, Isobel. I have heard all sorts of stories about him.”
“Is that meant as a warning for me, Mrs. Doolan?” Isobel asked, smiling.
“Well, yes, I think it is, if you don’t mind my giving you one. There are some men one can flirt with as much as one likes, and there are some men one can’t; he is one of that sort. Privately, my dear, I don’t mind telling you that at one time I did flirt with him—I had been accustomed to flirt in Ireland; we all flirt there, and mean nothing by it; but I had to give it up very suddenly. It wouldn’t do, my dear, at all; his ideas of flirtation differed utterly from mine. I found I was playing with fire, and was fortunate in getting off without singeing my wings, which is more than a good many others would have done.”
“He must be a horrid sort of man,” Isobel said indignantly.
Mrs. Doolan laughed. “I don’t think you will find him so; certainly that is not the general opinion of women. However, you will see him for yourself in a very few minutes.”
Isobel looked up with some curiosity when Captain Forster was announced, and at once admitted to herself that the Doctor’s report as to his personal appearance was fully justified. He stood over six feet high, with a powerful frame, and an easy careless bearing; his hair was cut rather close, he wore a long tawny mustache, his eyes were dark, his teeth very white and perfect. A momentary look of surprise came across his face as his eyes fell on Isobel.
“I had hardly expected,” he said, as the Major introduced him to her, “to find no less than three unmarried ladies at Deennugghur. I had the pleasure of being introduced to the Miss Hunters this afternoon. How do you do, Mrs. Doolan? I think it is four years since I had the pleasure of knowing you in Delhi.”
