Bertram Mitford - The Ruby Sword - A Romance of Baluchistan

“Rather. One of you fellows must come,” declared Upward, bent on keeping up the fun. “We might spare one of you, but not both. Three guns we must have, to cover the ground properly.”

“Then Fleming had better go,” said Bracebrydge. “I’m sleepy.”

“No fear, I’m going to remain in camp,” declared Fleming. “I’m sleepy, too.”

“Why don’t you toss for it?” suggested Upward. “Sudden death – the winner to do as he likes.”

The idea took on, and Fleming came out the winner.

“All right, Bracebrydge,” said the latter, jubilant. “I’ll have my snooze while you sacrifice yourself in the cause of others – and sport.”

The latter snarled, but even he drew the line at backing out of his pledge.

Meanwhile Campian, no longer able to restrain a roar, had hurried from the dining tent.

“What’s the joke, now?” called out Nesta, who, with Mrs Upward, was seated beneath the trees.

“Yes, it is a joke.”

“Well, we’re spoiling to hear it; go on.”

“Ssh – ssh! little girls shouldn’t be impatient. The joke is this – Wait. They’re coming,” with a look over his shoulder.

“No. They’re not. Quick quick. What is it?”

“Well, the spectacle of two fellows old enough to know better, who have come all the way up here on purpose to shoot, both keenly competing as to who shall have the privilege of remaining in camp, is comical – to say the least of it.”

“Ah, I don’t believe it – ” said Nesta.

“Not, eh? Well they have even gone so far as to toss for the privilege.”

“And who won?”

“Him they call Fleming. Where are you going to take him for his afternoon stroll, Nessita? I warn you we are going down the valley.”

“Then we will go up it,” laughed the girl. “Yes, I think he is the best fun of the two.”

“A pair of great sillies, both of them,” laughed Mrs Upward.

“Steady. Here comes Fleming. But you won’t see much of him. He is only remaining behind with the express object of having an afternoon snooze. Ta-ta – I’m off.”

Fleming, who was at that moment emerging from the dining tent came over to the two ladies, and throwing himself on the ground, lighted another cheroot and began to talk. He was still talking animatedly when the shooters started.

“I say, Fleming, when are you going to have your snooze?” called out Bracebrydge nastily. “You don’t look so sleepy now as you did – Ar – ha – ha!” The shooters proceeded on the plan laid down, except that Bracebrydge suggested they should leave the ponies much sooner than was at first intended. Then, being in a villainous temper, he shot badly, and wondered what the devil they had come to such an infernally rotten bit of shooting for, and cursed the attendant forest guard, and made a studiously offensive remark or two to Campian, who received the same with the silence of utter contempt. Before they had been at it an hour, he flung down his gun and burst out with:

“Look here Upward, I can’t shoot a damn to-day, and my boot is chafing most infernally. I shall be lame for a month if I walk any more. Couldn’t one of these fellows fetch my pony? I’ll go back to camp.”

“All right, old chap; do just as you like,” replied Upward, giving the necessary orders.

“Why not get on the gee, and ride on with us” – suggested Campian, innocently. “The scenery is rather good further down.”

“Oh, damn the scenery! Look here though. I don’t want to spoil you two fellows’ shoot. You go on. Don’t wait for me. The nigger will be here with the horse directly.”

“No. There’s no point in waiting,” assented Upward. “We’ll go on eh, Campian? So long, Bracebrydge.”

The two resumed their shoot, cutting down a bird here and a bird there, and soon came together again.

“That’s a real show specimen, that man Bracebrydge,” remarked Campian. “What made you freeze on to him, Upward?”

“Oh, I met him in the Shâlalai club. I never took to the man, but he was in with some others I rather liked. It was Fleming who brought him up here.”

“So? But, do you know, it’s a sorrowful spectacle to see a man of his age – already growing grey – making such an egregious ass of himself. Mind you, I’m not surprised at him being a little ‘gone’ – she’s a very taking little girl – but to give himself away as he does, that’s where the lunacy of the affair comes in.”

Upward chuckled.

“Bless your life, old chap, Bracebrydge isn’t really ‘gone’ there.”

“Not, eh? Then he’s a bigger idiot than even I took him for, letting himself go like that.”

“It’s his way. He does just the same with every woman he comes across, if she’s at all decent-looking, and what’s more is under the impression she must be wildly ‘gone’ on him; and by the way, some of them have been. Wait till we get back to Shâlalai; you may see some fun in that line.”

“They must be greater fools even than himself. I’m not a woman-hater, but really the sex can roll out some stupendous examples of defective intelligence – but then, to be fair, so can our own – as for instance Bracebrydge himself. What sort of place is this, Upward?” he broke off, as they came upon a low tumble-down wall surrounding a tree; the enclosure thus formed was strewn with loose horns, as of sheep and goats, and yet not quite like them.

“Why, it’s a sort of rustic shrine, rigged up to some Mohammedan saint. Isn’t it, Bhallu Khan?” translating the remark.

The forester reached over the wall, and picking up a markhôr horn, worn and weather-beaten, held it towards them.

“He says it’s where the people come to make offerings,” translated Upward. “When they want to have a successful stalk they vow a pair of markhôr horns at a place like this.”

“And then deposit it here, and then the noble Briton, if in want of such a thing to hang in his hall, incontinently bones it, and goes home and lies about it ever after,” cut in Campian. “Isn’t that how the case stands?”

“I don’t think so. The horns wouldn’t be good enough to make it worth while.”

“I suppose not,” examining the one tendered him by the forester. “I didn’t know the cultus of Saint Hubert obtained among Mohammedans. Do these people have legends and local ghosts, and all that kind of thing?”

“Rather. You just set old Bhallu Khan yarning – pity you can’t understand him though. Look. See that very tree over there?” pointing out a large juniper. “He has a yarn about a fakir who used to jump right over the top of it every day for a year.”

“So? What did he do that for? As a pious exercise?”

“Something of the kind. But the joke of it is, the thing happened a devil of a time ago. When I pointed out to him that any fool could have done the same, considering that the tree needn’t have been more than a yard high, even then he hardly sees it.”

“I should doubt that, Upward. My opinion is that our friend Bhallu Khan was endeavouring to pull his superior’s leg when he told that story.”

“They are very stupid in some ways, though sharp as the devil in others. And the odd part of it is that most of their local sacred yarns are of the most absurd kind – well, like the tree and fakir story.”

“They are rather a poor lot these Baluchis, aren’t they? They don’t go in for a lot of jewels, on their clothes and swords, like the Indian rajahs?”

“No. Some of the Afghan sirdars do, though – or at any rate used to.”

“So? And what became of them all?”

“They have them still – though wait – let me see. There are yarns that some are hidden away, so as not to fall into the hands of other tribes as loot. There was a fellow named Keogh in our service who made a good haul that way. A Pathân brought him an old battered sword belt, encrusted with rough looking stones, which he had dug up, and wanted ten rupees for it Keogh beat him down to five, and brought the thing as a curio. How much do you think he sold it for?”