BEHARI'S MASTERPIECE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6467, 22 April 1899, Page 7

BEHARI'S MASTERPIECE.

(Pnll IM' 2tagaz>nc.) I had often heard of Behari; for the j reverent admiration accorded by the inconsiderate English schoolboy to Jack Shoppard was. and . is yet, accorded by young and old alike of ; the. district of .Rawal Pindi to Behari: the men of that land, as boys everywhere, r.re les? concerned with the morality of any given deed than with the skill and courage of itfe doinsr. and the profit accruing from it to the doer. Behari proved himself the most 1 skilful, daring and affluent burglar of northern India, since the beginning of the English rule ; and it is likely that he will enjoy a very veal fame there for at least tho life of a crow. ■

He was by caste a dbobi (washerman) ; and I first' chanced upon lain .pursuing thai; calling, and pursuing it very. well. I think he was the bsst washer I ever had ; and his bearing as a servant was obsequious to timidity. I exprsrsed my doubts of his being th* man by whom the exploits attributed to him had been perforated ; for ' lie had the knack of assuming an appearance of feeble pulpiness quite incompatible with the great strength, suppleness, and activity necessary to their performance. My scepticism in the matter would at times st : .r Grimes, the superintendent of police, to positive eloquence ; he assured me that the pulpiness was a inf?rc show ; that, be- , sides, Behari had an amazing power of i altering his facial expression ! and that, like the rest of his profession, ho helped his change of features by twisting . his i thick eyebrows and moustache, dyed red j with lime, or white with greasa paint, into fifty shapes. I remained incredulous, objecting that they had never caught him. I vp« even at the pa-infe to sesk. out his | abode, and found him reduced ' to living ! in a bare room, his few clothes in a wicker | basket in a corner, because, when he had j had a house, the police had made his. life j a burden to him by frequently searching it. That, at least, was what he told me, with many sad words about the oppression of the poor, and repetitions of the 1 Indian equivalent, of "Give a dog a bad name, and hang him." I began to think more than ever that Behari was a victim of an error, or of the spite of the police ; and it began to seem , to ire ridiculous to attribute a leading part in all the great robberies in the district for the last seven years, except the robbery of the Rajah ' of Nagapore, to so feeble and quiet a % creature. I was careful not to commit myself to an assertion of his innocence ; for, with a native, one never -knows. But I \ised my doubts to brighten the energies of those who supplied me with criminals to try. Tl)i>ii one morning Grimes came in triumphant : " We've got your friend, Beharl at last !" he cried. " Burkls was awakened last night, and found a man : at the chest in which he keeps the money I for the coolies' wages. He had his revol- ! ver, and told him to holu up his hands ; j but tl-e Mliw dashed at Mm, and Burkle \ dropped him first shot. It was Bebari, i and your feeble friend had bags of rupees j slung round his waist that must have ' weighed forty pounds. He's in the hospiJ tal, and I'm going down to look into the 1 matter." : " Ah !" I said indignantly, " Burkle ought to have a safe for that money! I'm always telling him so." This did not seem to be the comment on his news that Grimes had looked for, and he Avent away less triumphant than he had come. In the evening, after an easier day's work in Court than usual, I called at the ■ hospital to inquire after the wounded burglar. The doctors had /little hope of saving his life, though he wo\ild most likely linger on for days. I went to see him as he lay bandaged and very still in ] tli; cool ward, and his face brightened ! •with a faint pleasure at the sight of me. ; The- next day I called again, and talked • to him for a little while; then I fell into j tliß way of. looking in of evenings, and '• talking with him for an hour, if he were • not in too great pain. j I found him an interesting creature, not ' only for the stories he had to tell, but for ; his curious attitude to life, and above all j for his simple, .entirely honest pride in ( his villainous deeds: It seemed that he , had always scorned small burglaries, and i had been ready, even eager, to put the | police in the way of catching their perpetrators, partly on the principle that " Too many hunters spoil the sport," partly because, a succession of small bur- ' glaries awakens householders to a feverish watchfulness prejudicial to those committing big ones. He had, too, always worked sinnrle-handed ; had b<>en his own "fence," thereby securing higher prices for his plunder ; and at least a hundred hidiug-places held his considerable property and that of other people. He saw that his stories pleased me, and he would go on telling them till his voice gave out. Then, one day, after I had done inquiring how he did, and settled down to listen to him, ! he said, " The Sahib has heard of the ; Rajah of Nagapore, who lost his ward- , robe?" I pricked up my ears indeed. It was a big robbery about which the police had been utterly at a loss ; they had only been sure that Behari, whom they knew to have been on a sick-bed at the time, had no hand in it. " I have heard," I said quietly ; " but no man knows how it was done." " I know," said Behari ; and his eyes shone with great pride. " I did it — I alone. It was a fine deed. I shall have izzat from it even when 1 am dead." I said nothing ; and after chewing the 1 end of pleasant reflection for a while, he went on, with many pauses : " Your honor , will remember that it was at the time of the great Jalsa at Rawjtl Pindi, when many Maharajahs and Rajahs came to the Viceroy's Durbar, and each of them brought his treasure-chest and his wardrobe. And it seemed to me to be a time to do a fine deed, and get much spoil. But tho police gave great trouble: they caught all the Badmashes (bad characters), and shut them up, under remand, till the Jalsa should be over ; and they would have shut me up too, but ten days before it I fell sick, and my friends took me to Jbelum. A policeman came to look at me twicej even though I was sick; but my cousin^ the doctor at Jhelum, said, 'Behold, he is very sick,' and the policeman went away satisfied. For my cousin was once in the Army Medical Service, and the Sahibs knew him to be an honourable man, and to be trusted. , I paid him well, and he knew nothing- only [ ilmt I was very sick. Also that I was care- \ ful to bo sick all the time, even when no one i whs about. When the policeman had gone a second time, my brother, who is very .ike me, took my place, and lay on the'- bed, very sick. -And I went across the country aiui met the Rajah of Nagapore, journeying from • the Parbiya country to the Jalsa. It seemed j to me that this was the man I was looking .' for, and I paid one of the servants to let ' n:.e take his place, and I bought his clothe.;,-) paying him well. We came to Jheluin, and : wont into the train, so that I came to Rawal Pindi dressed as a down-country «waslibuckler, and no man knew me. Then I *e<v myself to be useful to the Rajah, and gain j his favour and confidence ; and it was easy, • for I knew the city, and the other servants ■■ did not know it. And I talked to the servants in the camps round our camp, and I learned many things useful to know about the arrangements. I found that the Rajah, i of Nagapore, though a small chief, was rich, j and had treasure of all kinds ; but I set ' my heart on two things — robes and money. For precious stones, look you, ar& hard to sell and easy to recognise, and English stones, you know, you cannot sell at ail. But no one can say, ' This was my rupee which was stolen ;' and robes are only :. pieces of embroidery sewn together — t«i> body part in two pieces, one in front and one behind, the collar is a piece, and a sleeve is a piece. Unstitch the' seams, and there are five pieces of embroidery, and no - mnn can say, ' This piece of embroidery was a sleeve of r.'iy robe.' , Are not many pieces of embroidery alike?'* I nodded my appreciation, of his reasoa- ;

in Ef ; and I think he was in pain again, bar. j he had warmed to his story, and he went | on ; " The Rajah had brought all his fine f Durbar robes with him, locked up in many ! dre«-s-baskete, English, and lined with tin';'' and he kept them" in. the same tent as his . private guard. Also he had brought his favourite wife, and three chests of her robes ■ and jewellery ; and they were in the Zenana ' lorn. \vl>ich was pitched next "his own;- in- | 'ri I!.'1 !.' wall' of canvas. . jThere.i^wnß n- qua* J ipri In front of -the camp, and another by j hi'-.d it. nnd in either were six sepoys' of yho • Rajah's own army. Besides these, the Government had fippointed a police-guard, . a sr-rgennt av>.d four men, 'as was fitting, to honour him. I made friends with, tjiefe policemen— and it- was easy, for I knew all tl-e : r 'affairs ; rMv. 1 I learned the- nights: .'.on ' vmcb the ('.uTevent sergeants were on duty. Then I rondo' friends -with t!ie old .voimn j wl:o liar! charge of the Zenana.; and I be- - .sought her to procure for me an. interview :■ witl; -he? 1 - T ri?tress. Wlienerer did an old .wowan refuse n-nythihe to a -young" maa's soil? ta'k and rupees? Everything, weut smoothly, and. I waited. ; ;

" The nip-lit of the full moon was the last frre t function of the Durbar, and on. the nipht after the full moon was the levee., to winch, all the Rajahs were to go, and receive leave to depart. This was my night. It fn.'l to me to arrange the Rajah's going in the morning,, and I set seven bullock carts in ihe shadow of a garden wall near the camp, and told the lower servants to ue re?dy to carry -the baggage to them wbila" the. itnjnli was at the levee. The upper servants went with him ; but even before they went, I put datura into the hookahs of the sepoys in the guard tent bahind the camp— there were only three of them : the others, sons of pigs, had slipped away into the city — rind they were soon senseless. Then, as soon as the Rajah, had. gone, I toM those in the front tent that he did not need them that night, and had told the police to keep guard instead ; and they, too, ran off to the bazaar. Now there were only the police ; and I went to the sergeant,*taking a tent-peg, and .-told him that his woman was? entertaining his enemy, Mirza Beg, and Mirza Beg had boasted that -he could /now ruin him. And I kept moving away, and he erne after me listening and cursing, till I had drawn him into a dark corner; then I struck him suddenly, very hard, on tho sMe of the head with the tent-peg. He fell down silent, and I slipped off -his gannenw, bound him with the tent-ropes, gaggevi him, and covered him with the firewood.

" Behold, everything was open to me. I went to tlie Zunaaia tent, and the old womau Avas awaiting me ; she let me. in through, the optnina; in the fomais (tent walls), and when slio turned to show me the way, I Icndcked Lev down. I did not bind her : she was quite senseless. Afterwards I heard that she died. In- the outer tewt I found the attendant women sleeping, and very quietly I knocked them senseless, too ; I tied each of them up in a sheer, and gagged her. Then.l went ir to their niistress. At the sight of me she pretended to faint, as is the custom when a lady sees her lover : and with my tenfc-pe:; I made her faint indeed. Her, too, I gagged and bound ; and tben I rested and took breath, for I had been very quick.

"When my breath had come, I set to work, tying up the robes from the chests, and the garments, and the embroidered coverlets in the common sleeping-sheets ; and I put the women's jewellery in' a small bundle in the middle. Then I carried the ] bundles one by one to the Rajah's tent, and set them by the door. Next I tied up the hangings and coverlet and robes of the Rajah himself in like bundles. After they were set ready, I came back into the Zenana tent, to see that nothing was left ; arid I took all the women and laid them in a circle, their heads in the middle, and tied them together by the hair." " Now, why on earth did you waste your time doing that?" said I. . "It pleased me," said Behari, simply. And I recognised the artist, and knew that that curious craving for the grotesque, to our Western taste the bane of the artists of the East, had come upon him.

I said no more ; and presently he went on, for all his enthusiasm, in fainter tones : "Then I dropped the purdahs of the inner doorways and came out. I went first to uhe police tent, and found the four policemen sleeping soundly, like the sons of pigs they were : the sergeant would bear all the blame. I called the servants, arid bade them cany the bundles from the Rajah's tent to the ux-carts quietly ; and taking the police sergront's clothes, went to the nearest cart mjself, awoke the driver, and bade him yoke his oxen. The servants put the bundles iv the cart ; and I sent them for the dress baskets that held robes from the guard tent. While they were gone, I slipped into uhe garden, whitened my moustache, and dressed quickly in the police sergeant's clothes. Then I came back ; and as soon as the cart was loaded, I bade the servants begone, speaking th» Punjabi tongue, and speaking very roughly, like a policeman ; and they ran off gladly, for they had waited a long while. And I stood by the driver awhile, cursing my sepoys for not coming. Presently I on the cart, and told the driver to drive on, over the Sohan Bridge. He was glad, indoed, to start so soon ; for I had engaged him to go as far as Rewat, and unload at the railway station ; and now he Would get most of the journey done bsfore the beat of the day. Besides, how should he know that the police sergeant was the same as the swashbuckler of Oudh? Are not drivers as stupid as the oxen they drive?

" We came through the city, and over the bridge ; and the policemen who saw the cart and the dress backets, saw me too, and knew that all was well. But when we were over the bridge and on the high road, the pig of v, driver got down to shift the yoke, md I put datura into his hookah.

" Five pulls he took at it when, he' bad climbed back, and then he lay on the baskets. I rolled him off into the road. Then I drove myself, and -when I came to a. country track I turned off along it to a good hidingplace. I emptied some of the baskets into it; and drove on to another hiding-place, and emptied more. Almost till the dawn I drove from hiding-place to hiding-place ; then, just before it, I drove the cart on to the high road again ; and it was full of empty baskets. And I took off the police sergeant's clothes, and set them on top of the baskets : and I put a big stone on tiiein to hold them there, and under the stone a piece of paper I had with me ; and on it was written ' Bchari.' For the police, look you, would believe I had done this great deed j but when they found the paper they would not be sure. Two bundles were left, aud those I carried to a hiding-place the other side of the road. Then I began to run ; and I ran a very long way, over the country, till I came to the station below the 'jiiarrios. And the train came very soon ; and I came on the train to Jbelum, looking like a coolie from the quarries. I fonnd my brother on my bed, very sick ; and I took his place, and was veiy sick instead of him. And in the evening the police came. They- had sought for mo everywhere else first; for who would look for the doer of a great deed on a sick-bed ? Besides, the police sergeant and his sepoys a.ud the Rajah's servants said that 'they' had been conquered by a gang of loose wallas ' ; and the Rajah's servants had beaten and ' bruised one another with sticks, that they might be believed, and not tortured. But the drivers of the ox - carts said that they had heard"no fight ; and my driver had only seen one man. The police knew net whut to believe. And when they came to me, the doctor, my cousin, and an honourable nian, said that I had been very sick on my bed all the time, and that I was going to die."

He lay silent ; and presently I said, "The Rajah never reported the robbery of the Zenana, only the loss of his wardrobe." " Would ho uncover his nakedness or tell of the shame that had befallen him?" said Behari. " Very true," I said, and I wondered what ' happened to his women and Ms sepoys ■when he got them home. Something probably ' with red pepper in it. ... .' , "Where is all that plunder, Beßaii?" I -said. ■ . ! "It is two years ; it is sold— rail but a little. My son will be a rich man, and honourable. It was a great deed, Sahib/ Gaid Behari sleepily. .