The Man Who Would Be King (2 of 18)

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The Man Who Would be King (CONT'D)

“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.

“ItÂ's more than a little matter,” said he, “and thatÂ'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. YouÂ'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.”

“IÂ'll give the message if I catch him,” I said, “and for the sake of your Mother as well as mine IÂ'll give you a word of advice. DonÂ't try to run the Central India States just now as the correspondent of the Backwoodsman. ThereÂ'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 canÂ't starve because heÂ's ruining my work. I wanted to get hold of the Degumber Rajah down here about his fatherÂ's widow, and give him a jump.”

“What did he do to his fatherÂ'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 IÂ'm the only man that would dare going into the State to get hush-money for it. TheyÂ'll try to poison me, same as they did in Chortumna when I went on the loot there. But youÂ'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 dayÂ'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 thatÂ's just like his impudence. Did he say that I was to give you anything?—Â'Cause I wonÂ't.”

“He didnÂ'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.

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