Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 66: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

60 “T will call for him on my return,” he said blandly, and accepting a handful of chupatties to break his fast with on the way stepped out into the cool, rustling darkness that precedes dawn. Thereafter King slept in snatches, and was entertained in snatches. His host never once let him be seen by the men who brought information. That seemed to be the first and most strictly observed rule of all, that each was entitled to full secrecy and only the ex-priest should meet any informant face to face. The Khalifate Committee aired their views rashly, considering that their servants were all forcible converts. Not even the General Staffs in France ever talked more incredibly loosely. Almost every argu- “ment and change*of opinion reached King’s ears within six hours of its expression, by an irritated member of the Committee. More and more their discussion raged around the subject of Mahommed Babar. Reports were so constantly and cleverly turned in that King even got to know what policy was favored by which committee- man, and who were the most consistent zealots of the nine. By midnight of the second night the news had become fixed in an alarming groove, as disturbing. to the ex-Hindus as to King himself. “Many villages, some a long way off, are offering allegiance to Mahommed Babar, and to all he makes the stipulation that the rules of war shall be observed. The Com- mittee desire outrages. They wish to force the British to make stern reprisals. - have sent their messengers in every direc- - tion, urging the contrary of what Mahom- med Babar teaches, and now they have a worse plan. ‘They desire to antagonize the British against Hindus and Moslems equally. Therefore they propose to torture and kill the two English prisoners—the Kadi and his memsahib—and to lay the blame to Hindu converts; the argument being that British soldiery will draw no distinction between Hindu or convert but will retaliate on all and sundry. Well handled, that would make a good story with which to goad the rest of India to rebellion.” “Tf that is their plan, why do they delay?” asked the ex-priest, shrewdly cross- examining. “Because they hope for more prisoners. They * Adventure They wish to perpetrate a thoroughgoing outrage that will madden the English to a pitch of frenzy.” King waited the whole of another day listening to the development of that plan, and then there came news that put an end to mere eavesdropping. It was time to move swiftly. The mullah had not re- turned, and there was no news of him; so King accepted the chupaities that were ever a symbol of action in the Hindu world, and set forth with a lean, half-naked boy, who knew the distant village where Mohammed Babar was. CHAPTER XV “That kind of talk is always true.” HE mullah, returning from Podanaram, avoided the temple where he had left King, reasoning that if, as was likely enough, the sirdar should escape, the ex- priest would be blamed for it. For himself, he had troubles enough without any added difficulty of making explanations to Ma- hommed Babar. He returned to his own village in doubt about Mahommed Babar. The Khalifate Committee had decided to throw their whole influence against him. Choosing the weaker of two sides was not the mullah’s guiding principle, and he would cheerfully have given the amount of a year’s stipend for sure, prophetic knowledge as to which of the rival influences would prevail. As a Moslem and a mullah, he could hard- ly disapprove a plan to murder a couple of foreign infidels, if the cause of Islam was to be the gainer by it. What did prisoners expect? They would be lucky not to be tortured as well as murdered. Nevertheless, the project scared him. In the long run the British always had been victorious hitherto. - It would be unpleasant to be hanged. Vastly safer to have an alibi. If Mahommed Babar were really strong enough to prevail against the Khalifate Committee, undoubt- edly the best plan would be to notify Mahommed Babar of the project. He could manage that without the Khalifate Com- mittee learning of his “discretion,” as he described it to himself, because he had promised them to return to his village and spy on Mahommed Babar. But he must have a witness, otherwise the double-play would be no use. He must be able to prove, in the contingency of British victory, that .OO CS GOmiue (EO)