Studyportal

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“Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he

be found worthy.”

The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct

of life, and one not easy to follow. I

have been fellow to a beggar again and

again under circumstances which prevented

either of us finding out whether the other

was worthy. I have still to be brother to a

Prince, though I once came near to kinship

with what might have been a veritable King

and was promised the reversion of a Kingdom

—army, law-courts, revenue and policy

all complete. But, to-day, I greatly fear

that my King is dead, and if I want a crown

I must go and hunt it for myself.

The beginning of everything was in a railway

train upon the road to Mhow from

Ajmir. There had been a deficit in the

Budget, which necessitated travelling, not

Second-class, which is only half as dear as

First-class, but by Intermediate, which is

very awful indeed. There are no cushions

in the Intermediate class, and the population

are either Intermediate, which is Eurasian,

or native, which for a long night journey is

nasty; or Loafer, which is amusing though

intoxicated. Intermediates do not patronize

refreshment-rooms. They carry their food

in bundles and pots, and buy sweets from the

native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the roadside

water. That is why in the hot weather

Intermediates are taken out of the carriages

dead, and in all weathers are most properly

looked down upon.

My particular Intermediate happened to

be empty till I reached Nasirabad, when a

huge gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered,

and, following the custom of Intermediates,

passed the time of day. He was a wanderer

and a vagabond like myself, but with an

educated taste for whiskey. He told tales

of things he had seen and done, of out-of-the-way

corners of the Empire into which he

had penetrated, and of adventures in which

he risked his life for a few days’ food.

“If India was filled with men like you and

me, not knowing more than the crows where

they’d get their next day’s rations, it isn’t

seventy millions of revenue the land would

be paying—it’s seven hundred million,” said

he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I

was disposed to agree with him. We talked

politics—the politics of Loaferdom that sees

things from the underside where the lath

and plaster is not smoothed off—and we

talked postal arrangements because my

friend wanted to send a telegram back from

the next station to Ajmir, which is the

turning-off place from the Bombay to the

Mhow line as you travel westward. My

friend had no money beyond eight annas

which he wanted for dinner, and I had no

money at all, owing to the hitch in the

Budget before mentioned. Further, I was

going into a wilderness where, though I

should resume touch with the Treasury,

there were no telegraph offices. I was,

therefore, unable to help him in any way.

“We might threaten a Station-master,

and make him send a wire on tick,” said

my friend, “but that’d mean inquiries for

you and for me, and I’ve got my hands full

these days. Did you say you are travelling

back along this line within any days?”

“Within ten,” I said.

“Can’t you make it eight?” said he.

“Mine is rather urgent business.”

“I can send your telegram within ten

days if that will serve you,” I said.

“I couldn’t trust the wire to fetch him

now I think of it. It’s this way. He leaves

Delhi on the 23d for Bombay. That means

he’ll be running through Ajmir about the

night of the 23d.”

“But I’m going into the Indian Desert,”

I explained.

“Well and good,” said he. “You’ll be

changing at Marwar Junction to get into

Jodhpore territory—you must do that—and

he’ll be coming through Marwar Junction

in the early morning of the 24th by the

Bombay Mail. Can you be at Marwar

Junction on that time? ’Twon’t be inconveniencing

you because I know that there’s

precious few pickings to be got out of these

Central India States—even though you pretend

to be correspondent of the Backwoodsman.”

“Have you ever tried that trick?” I

asked.

“Again and again, but the Residents find

you out, and then you get escorted to the

Border before you’ve time to get your knife

into them. But about my friend here. I

must give him a word o’ mouth to tell him

what’s come to me or else he won’t know

where to go. I would take it more than

kind of you if you was to come out of Central

India in time to catch him at Marwar

Junction, and say to him:—‘He has gone

South for the week.’ He’ll know what that

means. He’s a big man with a red beard,

and a great swell he is. You’ll find him

sleeping like a gentleman with all his luggage

round him in a second-class compartment.

But don’t you be afraid. Slip down

the window, and say:—‘He has gone South

for the week,’ and he’ll tumble. It’s only

cutting your time of stay in those parts by

two days. I ask you as a stranger—going to

the West,” he said with emphasis.

“Where have you come from?” said I.

“From the East,” said he, “and I am

hoping that you will give him the message

on the Square—for the sake of my Mother

as well as your own.”

Englishmen are not usually softened by

appeals to the memory of their mothers, but

for certain reasons, which will be fully apparent, 

I saw fit to agree.

“It’s more than a little matter,” said he,

“and that’s why I ask you to do it—and

now I know that I can depend on you doing

it. A second-class carriage at Marwar Junction,

and a red-haired man asleep in it.

You’ll be sure to remember. I get out at

the next station, and I must hold on there

till he comes or sends me what I want.”

“I’ll give the message if I catch him,” I

said, “and for the sake of your Mother as

well as mine I’ll give you a word of advice.

Don’t try to run the Central India States

just now as the correspondent of the Backwoodsman.

There’s a real one knocking

about here, and it might lead to trouble.”

“Thank you,” said he simply, “and when

will the swine be gone? I can’t starve because

he’s ruining my work. I wanted to

get hold of the Degumber Rajah down here

about his father’s widow, and give him a

jump.”

“What did he do to his father’s widow,

then?”

“Filled her up with red pepper and slippered

her to death as she hung from a beam.

I found that out myself and I’m the only

man that would dare going into the State to

get hush-money for it. They’ll try to poison

me, same as they did in Chortumna

when I went on the loot there. But you’ll

give the man at Marwar Junction my message?”

He got out at a little roadside station, and

I reflected. I had heard, more than once, of

men personating correspondents of newspapers

and bleeding small Native States with

threats of exposure, but I had never met any

of the caste before. They lead a hard life,

and generally die with great suddenness.

The Native States have a wholesome horror

of English newspapers, which may throw

light on their peculiar methods of government,

and do their best to choke correspondents

with champagne, or drive them out of

their mind with four-in-hand barouches.

They do not understand that nobody cares a

straw for the internal administration of Native

States so long as oppression and crime

are kept within decent limits, and the ruler

is not drugged, drunk, or diseased from one

end of the year to the other. Native States

were created by Providence in order to supply

picturesque scenery, tigers and tall-writing.

They are the dark places of the earth,

full of unimaginable cruelty, touching the

Railway and the Telegraph on one side, and,

on the other, the days of Harun-al-Raschid.

When I left the train I did business with

divers Kings, and in eight days passed

through many changes of life. Sometimes I

wore dress-clothes and consorted with Princes

and Politicals, drinking from crystal and

eating from silver. Sometimes I lay out

upon the ground and devoured what I could

get, from a plate made of a flapjack, and

drank the running water, and slept under

the same rug as my servant. It was all in a

day’s work.

Then I headed for the Great Indian Desert

upon the proper date, as I had promised, and

the night Mail set me down at Marwar Junction,

where a funny little, happy-go-lucky,

native managed railway runs to Jodhpore.

The Bombay Mail from Delhi makes a short

halt at Marwar. She arrived as I got in,

and I had just time to hurry to her platform

and go down the carriages. There was only

one second-class on the train. I slipped the

window and looked down upon a flaming

red beard, half covered by a railway rug.

That was my man, fast asleep, and I dug him

gently in the ribs. He woke with a grunt

and I saw his face in the light of the lamps.

It was a great and shining face.

“Tickets again?” said he.

“No,” said I. “I am to tell you that he

is gone South for the week. He is gone

South for the week!”

The train had begun to move out. The

red man rubbed his eyes. “He has gone

South for the week,” he repeated. “Now

that’s just like his impudence. Did he say

that I was to give you anything?—’Cause I

won’t.”

“He didn’t,” I said and dropped away,

and watched the red lights die out in the

dark. It was horribly cold because the wind

was blowing off the sands. I climbed into

my own train—not an Intermediate Carriage

this time—and went to sleep.

If the man with the beard had given me a

rupee I should have kept it as a memento of

a rather curious affair. But the consciousness

of having done my duty was my only

reward.

Later on I reflected that two gentlemen

like my friends could not do any good if

they foregathered and personated correspondents

of newspapers, and might, if they

“stuck up” one of the little rat-trap states of

Central India or Southern Rajputana, get

themselves into serious difficulties. I therefore

took some trouble to describe them as

accurately as I could remember to people

who would be interested in deporting them;

and succeeded, so I was later informed, in

having them headed back from the Degumber

borders.

Then I became respectable, and returned

to an Office where there were no Kings and

no incidents except the daily manufacture of

a newspaper. A newspaper office seems to

attract every conceivable sort of person, to

the prejudice of discipline. Zenana-mission

ladies arrive, and beg that the Editor will instantly

abandon all his duties to describe a

Christian prize-giving in a back-slum of a

perfectly inaccessible village; Colonels who

have been overpassed for commands sit

down and sketch the outline of a series of

ten, twelve, or twenty-four leading articles

on Seniority versus Selection; missionaries

wish to know why they have not been permitted

to escape from their regular vehicles

of abuse and swear at a brother-missionary

under special patronage of the editorial We;

stranded theatrical companies troop up to explain

that they cannot pay for their advertisements,

but on their return from New

Zealand or Tahiti will do so with interest;

inventors of patent punkah-pulling machines,

carriage couplings and unbreakable

swords and axle-trees call with specifications

in their pockets and hours at their disposal;

tea-companies enter and elaborate their prospectuses

with the office pens; secretaries of

ball-committees clamor to have the glories

of their last dance more fully expounded;

strange ladies rustle in and say:—“I want a

hundred lady’s cards printed at once, please,”

which is manifestly part of an Editor’s duty;

and every dissolute ruffian that ever tramped

the Grand Trunk Road makes it his business

to ask for employment as a proof-reader.

And, all the time, the telephone-bell is ringing

madly, and Kings are being killed on the

Continent, and Empires are saying, “You’re

another,” and Mister Gladstone is calling

down brimstone upon the British Dominions,

and the little black copy-boys are whining,

“kaa-pi chayha-yeh” (copy wanted) like

tired bees, and most of the paper is as blank

as Modred’s shield.

But that is the amusing part of the year.

There are other six months wherein none

ever come to call, and the thermometer

walks inch by inch up to the top of the glass,

and the office is darkened to just above reading

light, and the press machines are red-hot

of touch, and nobody writes anything but

accounts of amusements in the Hill-stations

or obituary notices. Then the telephone becomes

a tinkling terror, because it tells you

of the sudden deaths of men and women

that you knew intimately, and the prickly-heat

covers you as with a garment, and you

sit down and write:—“A slight increase of

sickness is reported from the Khuda Janta

Khan District. The outbreak is purely sporadic

in its nature, and, thanks to the energetic

efforts of the District authorities, is now

almost at an end. It is, however, with deep

regret we record the death, etc.”

Then the sickness really breaks out, and

the less recording and reporting the better

for the peace of the subscribers. But the

Empires and the Kings continue to divert

themselves as selfishly as before, and the

foreman thinks that a daily paper really

ought to come out once in twenty-four hours,

and all the people at the Hill-stations in the

middle of their amusements say:—“Good

gracious! Why can’t the paper be sparkling?

I’m sure there’s plenty going on up here.”

That is the dark half of the moon, and, as

the advertisements say, “must be experienced

to be appreciated.”

It was in that season, and a remarkably

evil season, that the paper began running

the last issue of the week
on Saturday night,

which is to say
Sunday morning, after the

custom of a London paper. This was a

great convenience, for immediately after the

paper was put to bed, the dawn would lower

the thermometer from 96° to almost 84° for

almost half an hour, and in that chill—you

have no idea how cold is 84° on the grass

until you begin to pray for it—a very tired

man could set off to sleep ere the heat

roused him.

One
Saturday night it was my pleasant

duty to put the paper to bed alone. A King

or courtier or a courtesan or a community

was going to die or get a new Constitution,

or do something that was important on the

other side of the world, and the paper was to

be held open till the latest possible minute

in order to catch the telegram. It was a

pitchy black night, as stifling as a June night

can be, and the loo, the red-hot wind from

the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry

trees and pretending that the rain

was on its heels. Now and again a spot of

almost boiling water would fall on the dust

with the flop of a frog, but all our weary

world knew that was only pretence. It was

a shade cooler in the press-room than the

office, so I sat there, while the type ticked

and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the

windows, and the all but naked compositors

wiped the sweat from their foreheads

and called for water. The thing that was

keeping us back, whatever it was, would not

come off, though the loo dropped and the

last type was set, and the whole round earth

stood still in the choking heat, with its finger

on its lip, to wait the event. I drowsed, and

wondered whether the telegraph was a blessing,

and whether this dying man, or struggling

people, was aware of the inconvenience

the delay was causing. There was no special

reason beyond the heat and worry to make

tension, but, as the clock-hands crept up to

three o’clock and the machines spun their

fly-wheels two and three times to see that all

was in order, before I said the word that

would set them off, I could have shrieked

aloud.

Then the roar and rattle of the wheels

shivered the quiet into little bits. I rose to

go away, but two men in white clothes stood

in front of me. The first one said:—“It’s

him!” The second said —“So it is!” And

they both laughed almost as loudly as the

machinery roared, and mopped their foreheads.

“We see there was a light burning

across the road and we were sleeping in

that ditch there for coolness, and I said to

my friend here, the office is open. Let’s

come along and speak to him as turned us

back from the Degumber State,” said the

smaller of the two. He was the man I had

met in the Mhow train, and his fellow was

the red-bearded man of Marwar Junction.

There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the

one or the beard of the other.

I was not pleased, because I wished to go

to sleep, not to squabble with loafers.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Half an hour’s talk with you cool and

comfortable, in the office,” said the red-bearded

man. “We’d like some drink—the

Contrack doesn’t begin yet, Peachey, so you

needn’t look—but what we really want is

advice. We don’t want money. We ask

you as a favor, because you did us a bad

turn about Degumber.”

I led from the press-room to the stifling

office with the maps on the walls, and the

red-haired man rubbed his hands. “That’s

something like,” said he. “This was the

proper shop to come to. Now, Sir, let me

introduce to you Brother Peachey Carnehan,

that’s him, and Brother Daniel Dravot, that

is me, and the less said about our professions

the better, for we have been most things in

our time. Soldier, sailor, compositor, photographer,

proof-reader, street-preacher, and

correspondents of the Backwoodsman when

we thought the paper wanted one. Carnehan

is sober, and so am I. Look at us first

and see that’s sure. It will save you cutting

into my talk. We’ll take one of your cigars

apiece, and you shall see us light.”

I watched the test. The men were absolutely

sober, so I gave them each a tepid

peg.

“Well and good,” said Carnehan of the

eyebrows, wiping the froth from his mustache.

“Let me talk now, Dan. We have

been all over India, mostly on foot. We

have been boiler-fitters, engine-drivers, petty

contractors, and all that, and we have decided

that India isn’t big enough for such

as us.”

They certainly were too big for the office.

Dravot’s beard seemed to fill half the room

and Carnehan’s shoulders the other half, as

they sat on the big table. Carnehan continued:

—“The country isn’t half worked

out because they that governs it won’t let

you touch it. They spend all their blessed

time in governing it, and you can’t lift a

spade, nor chip a rock, nor look for oil, nor

anything like that without all the Government

saying—‘Leave it alone and let us

govern.’ Therefore, such as it is, we will let

it alone, and go away to some other place

where a man isn’t crowded and can come to

his own. We are not little men, and there

is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink,

and we have signed a Contrack on that.

Therefore, we are going away to be Kings.”

“Kings in our own right,” muttered

Dravot.

“Yes, of course,” I said. “You’ve been

tramping in the sun, and it’s a very warm

night, and hadn’t you better sleep over the

notion? Come to-morrow.”

“Neither drunk nor sunstruck,” said

Dravot. “We have slept over the notion

half a year, and require to see Books and

Atlases, and we have decided that there is

only one place now in the world that two

strong men can Sar-a-whack. They call it

Kafiristan. By my reckoning its the top

right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more

than three hundred miles from Peshawar.

They have two and thirty heathen idols there,

and we’ll be the thirty-third. It’s a mountainous

country, and the women of those

parts are very beautiful.”

“But that is provided against in the Contrack,”

said Carnehan. “Neither Women

nor Liquor, Daniel.”

“And that’s all we know, except that no

one has gone there, and they fight, and in

any place where they fight a man who

knows how to drill men can always be a

King. We shall go to those parts and say

to any King we find—‘D’ you want to vanquish

your foes?’ and we will show him

how to drill men; for that we know better

than anything else. Then we will subvert

that King and seize his Throne and establish

a Dy-nasty.”

“You’ll be cut to pieces before you’re

fifty miles across the Border,” I said.

“You have to travel through Afghanistan

to get to that country. It’s one mass of

mountains and peaks and glaciers, and no

Englishman has been through it. The people

are utter brutes, and even if you reached

them you couldn’t do anything.”

“That’s more like,” said Carnehan. “If

you could think us a little more mad we

would be more pleased. We have come to

you to know about this country, to read a

book about it, and to be shown maps. We

want you to tell us that we are fools and to

show us your books.” He turned to the

book-cases.

“Are you at all in earnest?” I said.

“A little,” said Dravot, sweetly. “As big

a map as you have got, even if it’s all blank

where Kafiristan is, and any books you’ve

got. We can read, though we aren’t very

educated.”

I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch

map of India, and two smaller Frontier

maps, hauled down volume INF-KAN of

the Encyclopædia Britannica, and the men

consulted them.

“See here!” said Dravot, his thumb on

the map. “Up to Jagdallak, Peachey and

me know the road. We was there with

Roberts’s Army. We’ll have to turn off to

the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann

territory. Then we get among the hills—

fourteen thousand feet—fifteen thousand—

it will be cold work there, but it don’t look

very far on the map.”

I handed him Wood on the Sources of

the Oxus. Carnehan was deep in the Encyclopædia.

“They’re a mixed lot,” said Dravot, reflectively;

“and it won’t help us to know

the names of their tribes. The more tribes

the more they’ll fight, and the better for us.

From Jagdallak to Ashang. H’mm!”

“But all the information about the country

is as sketchy and inaccurate as can be,”

I protested. “No one knows anything

about it really. Here’s the file of the

United Services’ Institute. Read what Bellew

says.”

“Blow Bellew!” said Carnehan. “Dan,

they’re an all-fired lot of heathens, but this

book here says they think they’re related to

us English.”

I smoked while the men pored over

Raverty, Wood, the maps and the Encyclopædia.

“There is no use your waiting,” said

Dravot, politely. “It’s about
four o’clock

now. We’ll go before
six o’clock if you

want to sleep, and we won’t steal any of

the papers. Don’t you sit up. We’re two

harmless lunatics, and if you come, to-morrow

evening, down to the Serai we’ll say

good-by to you.”

“You are two fools,” I answered. “You’ll

be turned back at the Frontier or cut up the

minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do

you want any money or a recommendation

down-country? I can help you to the

chance of work next week.”

“Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves,

thank you,” said Dravot. “It isn’t

so easy being a King as it looks. When

we’ve got our Kingdom in going order we’ll

let you know, and you can come up and help

us to govern it.”

“Would two lunatics make a Contrack

like that!” said Carnehan, with subdued

pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of note-paper

on which was written the following.

I copied it, then and there, as a curiosity:—

This Contract between me and you persuing witnesseth

in the name of God—Amen and so forth.

  (One) That me and you will settle this matter together:

          i.e., to be Kings of Kafiristan.

  (Two) That you and me will not while this matter is

          being settled, look at any Liquor, nor any

          Woman black, white or brown, so as to get

          mixed up with one or the other harmful.

  (Three) That we conduct ourselves with Dignity and

          Discretion, and if one of us gets into trouble

          the other will stay by him.

  Signed by you and me this day.

          Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan.

          Daniel Dravot.

          Both Gentlemen at Large.

“There was no need for the last article,”

said Carnehan, blushing modestly; “but it

looks regular. Now you know the sort of

men that loafers are—we are loafers, Dan,

until we get out of India—and do you think

that we could sign a Contrack like that

unless we was in earnest? We have kept

away from the two things that make life

worth having.”

“You won’t enjoy your lives much longer

if you are going to try this idiotic adventure.

Don’t set the office on fire,” I said, “and go

away before
nine o’clock.”

I left them still poring over the maps and

making notes on the back of the “Contrack.”

“Be sure to come down to the Serai to-morrow,”

were their parting words.