'You talked of that too?' said Strickland.
'Rather. We discussed it for hours. You don't know what it meant to me. A wonderful man. Imam Din, was not our Hajji marvellous?'
'Most marvellous! It was all through the Hajji that we found the money for our cotton-play.' Imam Din had moved, I fancy, behind Strickland's chair.
'Yes. It must have been dead against his convictions too. He brought me news when I was down with fever at Dupe that one of Ibn Makarrah's men was parading through my District with a bunch of slaves--in the Fork!'
'What's the matter with the Fork, that you can't abide it?' said Stalky. Adam's voice had risen at the last word.
'Local etiquette, sir,' he replied, too earnest to notice Stalky's atrocious pun. 'If a slaver runs slaves through British territory he ought to pretend that they're his servants. Hawkin' 'em about in the Fork--the forked stick that you put round their necks, you know--is insolence--same as not backing your topsails in the old days. Besides, it unsettles the District.'
'I thought you said slavers didn't come your way,' I put in.
'They don't. But my Chief was smoking 'em out of the North all that season, and they were bolting into French territory any road they could find. My orders were to take no notice so long as they circulated, but open slave- dealing in the Fork, was too much. I couldn't go myself, so I told a couple of our Makalali police and Imam Din to make talk with the gentleman one time. It was rather risky, and it might have been expensive, but it turned up trumps. They were back in a few days with the slaver (he didn't show fight) and a whole crowd of witnesses, and we tried him in my bedroom, and fined him properly. Just to show you how demoralized the brute must have been (Arabs often go dotty after a defeat), he'd snapped up four or five utterly useless Sheshaheli, and was offering 'em to all and sundry along the road. Why, he offered 'em to you, didn't he, Imam Din?'
'I was witness that he offered man-eaters' for sale,' said Imam Din.
'Luckily for my cotton-scheme, that landed, him both ways. You see, he had slaved and exposed slaves for sale in British territory. That meant the double fine if I could get it out of him.'
'What was his defence?' said Strickland, late of the Punjab Police.
'As far as I remember--but I had a temperature of 104 degrees at the time--he'd mistaken the meridians of longitude. Thought he was in French territory. Said he'd never do it again, if we'd let him off with a fine. I could have shaken hands with the brute for that. He paid up cash like a motorist and went off one time.'
'Did you see him?'
'Ye-es. Didn't I, Imam Din?'
'Assuredly the Sahib both saw and spoke to the slaver. And the Sahib also made a speech to the man-eaters when he freed them, and they swore to supply him with labour for all his cotton-play. The Sahib leaned on his own servant's shoulder the while.'
'I remember something of that. I remember Bulaki Ram giving me the papers to sign, and I distinctly remember him locking up the money in the safe--two hundred and ten beautiful English sovereigns. You don't know what that meant to me! I believe it cured my fever; and as soon as I could, I staggered off with the Hajji to interview the Sheshaheli about labour. Then I found out why they had been so keen to work! It wasn't gratitude. Their big village had been hit by lightning and burned out a week or two before, and they lay flat in rows around me asking me for a job. I gave it 'em.'
'And so you were very happy?' His mother had stolen up behind us. 'You liked your cotton, dear?' She tidied the lump away.
'By Jove, I was happy!' Adam yawned. 'Now if any one,' he looked at the Infant, 'cares to put a little money into the scheme, it'll be the making of my District. I can't give you figures, sir, but I assure--'
'You'll take your arsenic, and Imam Din'll take you up to bed, and I'll come and tuck you in.'
Agnes leaned forward, her rounded elbows on his shoulders, hands joined across his dark hair, and 'Isn't he a darling?' she said to us, with just the same heart-rending lift to the left eyebrow and the same break of her voice as sent Strickland mad among the horses in the year '84. We were quiet when they were gone. We waited till Imam Din returned to us from above and coughed at the door, as only dark-hearted Asia can.
'Now,' said Strickland, 'tell us what truly befell, son of my servant.'
'All befell as our Sahib has said. Only--only there was an arrangement--a little arrangement on account of his cotton-play.'
'Tell! Sit! I beg your pardon, Infant,' said Strickland.
But the Infant had already made the sign, and we heard Imam Din hunker down on the floor: One gets little out of the East at attention.
'When the fever came on our Sahib in our roofed house at Dupe,' he began, 'the Hajji listened intently to his talk. He expected the names of women; though I had already told him that Our virtue was beyond belief or compare, and that Our sole desire was this cotton-play. Being at last convinced, the Hajji breathed on our Sahib's forehead, to sink into his brain news concerning a slave-dealer in his district who had made a mock of the law. Sahib,' Imam Din turned to Strickland, 'our Sahib answered to those false words as a horse of blood answers to the spur. He sat up. He issued orders for the apprehension of the slavedealer. Then he fell back. Then we left him.'
'Alone--servant of my son, and son of my servant?' said his father.
'There was an old woman which belonged to the Hajji. She had come in with the Hajji's money-belt. The Hajji told her that if our Sahib died, she would die with him. And truly our Sahib had given me orders to depart.'
'Being mad with fever--eh?'
'What could we do, Sahib? This cotton-play was his heart's desire. He talked of it in his fever. Therefore it was his heart's desire that the Hajji went to fetch. Doubtless the Hajji could have given him money enough out of hand for ten cottonplays; but in this respect also our Sahib's virtue was beyond belief or compare. Great Ones do not exchange moneys. Therefore the Hajji said--and I helped with my counsel--that we must make arrangements to get the money in all respects conformable with the English Law. It was great trouble to us, but--the Law is the Law.
