ground floor (alas!), I heaved a sigh and turned that way … and stopped dead as I recalled a word that my guide had used.
'Friend'? That wasn't political talk. 'Brother' or 'sister' was usual … and whoever had instructed her would have told her the exact words to say. Back to my mind came that other queer phrase in Broadfoot's mess-age: 'Say nothing to your orderly …' That hadn't been quite pukka, either. They were just two tiny things, but all of a sudden the dark seemed deeper and the night quieter. Coward's instinct, if you like, but if I'm still here and in good health, bar my creaky kidneys and a tendency to wind, it's because I shy at motes, never mind beams—and I don't walk straight in where I can scout first. So instead of going openly round the house as directed, I skulked round, behind the bushes, until I was past the angle and could squint through the foliage into that well-lit ground floor room with its open screens … and have a quiet apoplectic fit to myself, holding on to a branch for support.
There were half a dozen men in the room, armed and waiting, and they included, inter alia, General Maka Khan, his knife-toting sidekick Imam Shah, and that crazy Akali who'd denounced Jeendan at the durbar. Leading men of the Khalsa, sworn enemies of the Sirkar, waiting for old Flash to roll in … 'friends', bigod! And I was meant to believe that Broadfoot had directed me to them?
Well, I didn't, not for an instant—which was the time it took me to realise that something was hellishly, horribly wrong … that this was a trap, and my head was all but in its jaws, and nothing for it but instant flight. You don't stop to reason how or why at times like that—you grit your teeth to keep 'em from chattering, and back away slowly through the bushes with your innards dissolving, taking care not to rustle the leaves, until you're close by the gate, when you think you hear furtive movement out in the alley, and start violently, treading on a stick that snaps with a report like a bloody howitzer, and you squeal and leap three feet—and if you're lucky an angel of mercy in fringed trousers reappears on the porch overhead, hissing: 'Flashman sahib! This way, quickly!'
I was up that stair like a fox with an arseful of buckshot, tripping on the top step and falling headlong past the woman and slap into the arms of a burly old ruffian who was hobbling nimbly out of the inner doorway. I had a glimpse of huge white whiskers and glaring eyes under a black turban, but before I could exclaim I was in a bear's grip with a hand like a ham over my mouth.
'Chub'rao! Khabadar!'*(*'Be quiet! Careful!'.) growls he. 'A thousand hells—get your great infidel foot off my toe! Don't you English know what it is to have the gout, then?' And to the woman: 'Have they heard?'
She stood a moment on the porch, listening, and then slid in, closing the door softly. 'There are men in the alley, and sounds from the garden room!' Her voice was deep and husky, and in the dim light I could see her poonts bouncing with agitation.
'Shaitan take them!' snarls he. 'It's now or not at all, then! Down, chabeli,*(*Sweetheart.) by the secret stair—look for Donkal and the horses!' He was bundling me into the room. 'Haste, woman!'.
'He won't be there yet!' whispers the woman. 'With their look-outs in the streets he must even wait!' She shot me a swift look, moistening her full lips. 'Besides, I fear the dark. Do you go, while I wait here with him.'
'God, she would flirt on the edge of the Pit!' fumes the old buck. 'Have ye no sense of fitness, with the house crawling with foes and my foot like to burst? Away and look out from the street window, I say! You can ravish him another time!'
She glared but went, flitting across the shadowy chamber to a low door in the far wall, while he stood gripping my arm, the great white-whiskered head raised to listen, but the only sounds were my heart hammering and his own gusty breathing. He glanced at me, and spoke hoarse and low.
'Flashman the Afghan killer—aye, ye have the beastly look! They are down there—rats of the Khalsa, lying in wait for you —'
'I know—I saw them! How —'
'You were lured, with a false message. Subtle fellows, these.'
I stared, horror-stricken. 'But that's impossible! It … it can't be false! No one could —'
'Oho, so you're not here, and neither are they!' says he, grinning savagely. 'Wait till their flayers set about you, fool, and you'll change your mind! Are you armed?'
I showed him, and would you believe it, he fell into whispered admiration of my pepperbox? 'It turns so? Six shots, you say? A marvel! With one of these, who needs rent collectors? By God, at need we can cut our way out, you with shot and I with steel! Fiend take the woman, where is she? Ogling some prowler, like as not! Ah, my poor foot—they say drink inflames it, but I believe it comes of kneeling at prayer! Alas, why did I rise from my bed this day?'
All this in muttered whispers in the gloom, and me beside myself with fear, not knowing what the devil was up, except that the hosts of Midian were after me, but that I seemed to have found two eccentric friends, thank God—and whoever they might be, they weren't common folk. You don't take careful note at such times, but even in the grip of funk I was aware that while the lady might have a wanton eye, she talked like a sultana; the tiny room was opulent as a palace, with dim lamps shining on silk and silver; and my gouty old sportsman could only be some tremendous swell. Command was in every line of the stout, powerful figure, bold curved nose, and bristling beard, and he was dressed like a fighting raja—a great ruby in his turban, silver studs on the quilted leather jack, black silk pyjamys tucked into high boots, and a jewel-hilted broadsword on his hip. Who on earth was he? Keeping my voice down, I asked him, and he chuckled and answered in his growling whisper, his eye on the door.
'You cannot guess? So much for fame! Ah, but you know me well, Flashman sahib—and that sweet hussy whose tardiness perils our safety. Aye, ye've been busy about our affairs these two months!' He grinned at my bewilderment. 'Bibi Kalil is only her pet name—she is the widow of my brother, Soochet Singh, peace be on him. And I am Goolab Singh.'
If I stared, it wasn't in disbelief. He fitted the description in Broadfoot's packets, even to the gout. But Goolab Singh, once pretender to the throne, the rebel who'd made himself king in Kashmir in defiance of the durbar, should have been 'behind a rock up Jumoo way, with fifty thousand hillmen', as George had put it. He must be the most wanted man in Lahore this minute, for while there had been some in the Khalsa who'd nominated him for Wazir, Jeendan had since exposed him as a British ally—which was fine by me just then, but didn't explain his presence here.
'Let that explain it,' says he, as Bibi Kalil emerged from the low door. 'This is her house, and the pretty widow has admirers —' he pointed downwards—'men high in the Khalsa panches. She makes them welcome, they talk freely, and I, lying close to Lahore in these days of trouble, hear it all from her. So when they hatch a plot to take you—why, here am I, gout and all, to prove my loyalty to the
'What the hell do they want with me?'
'To talk with you—over a slow fire, I believe … well, little jujube, what of Donkal?'
'No sign of him—Goolab, there are men in the streets, and others in the garden!' Her voice shook, and her eyes were wide in alarm, but she wasn't one of your vapouring pieces. 'I heard Imam Shah call for the wench who brought you,' she adds to me.
'Aye, well, there's an end to waiting,' says Goolab cheerfully. 'She'll tell them you entered, they'll beat the bushes—then they'll bethink them of upstairs …' He cocked an ear as distant voices came from the garden below. 'Maka Khan grows impatient. Have your revolving gun ready, Englishman!'
Bibi Kalil gave a little gasp, and pressed close to me, trembling, but I was in no case to enjoy it; she put an arm round me, and I clasped her instinctively—for reassurance, not lust, I can tell you. The questions that had been racing pell-mell through my mind—how I'd come to be trapped in this gilded hell-hole, how those Khalsa swine had known I was coming, why Goolab and this palpitating armful were on hand to aid me—mattered nothing beside those terrible words 'slow fire', uttered almost idly by this crazy old bandit who, with fifty thousand hillmen at his call, had apparently brought only one who was farting about in the dark … and then my blood froze and I clutched the widow for support, as footsteps sounded on the outside stair.
She clung in return, Goolab's hand dropped to his hilt, and we waited there still as death, until a sharp knock fell on the door. A moment's pause, and then a man's voice:
'Lady? Are you there? My lady?'
She turned those fine eyes on me, helplessly, and then Goolab stepped close, his lips at her ear. 'Who is he? D'ye know him?'
Her reply was a faint perfumed breath. 'Sefreen Singh. Aide to Maka Khan.'
'An admirer?' The old devil was bright with mischief, even now, and it was a moment before she shrugged and whispered: 'From a distance.'
