The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [260]
‘Nothing,’ decided Ash angrily. ‘Nothing’…
Yet he knew that he could not leave until Biju Ram came. Or did not come. The conviction might be quixotic, but it was there and he could not free himself from it. The past was too strong for him. Hilary and Akbar Khan had, between them, sown better than they knew when they had impressed upon a small boy that the one unforgivable sin was injustice, and that he must at all costs be fair. And the very laws of England held that any accused person is presumed to be innocent until he is proven guilty.
‘Ad vitam aut culpam,’ thought Ash wryly, recalling one of Colonel Anderson's favourite tags, which the Colonel had chosen to translate as ‘until some misconduct is proved’; while the Commandant of the Guides, discoursing on the same subject (the proper administration of justice), had been fond of quoting the opinion of Dickens's judge that ‘what the soldier said was not evidence’. Yet the case against Biju Ram was founded on gossip and guess-work, strongly biased by a personal antipathy that dated back to the days of Ash's childhood, and he could not bring himself to condemn a man to death on suspicion alone.
To death… The words gave him an odd shock of surprise, for strangely enough it was the first time that he had consciously realized that he meant to kill Biju Ram. Yet here the influences of the Hawa Mahal and the Border tribes took over and Ash ceased to think as an Englishman…
Faced with a similar situation, ninety-nine out of a hundred British officers would have arrested Biju Ram and handed him over to be tried by the proper authorities, while the hundredth would probably have allowed Mulraj and the senior members of the Karidkote camp to deal with the matter. None would have dreamt of taking the law into their own hands, yet Ash saw nothing untoward in doing so.
If Biju Ram was guilty of murder and attempted murder, then there was nothing for it but to deal with him here and now – if he came. And if he did not? ‘But he will,’ thought Ash. ‘He must. He won't be able to resist coming on the off-chance of finding that pearl.’
The shadows had shortened as the moon travelled up the sky, and by now the light was so bright that small print could have been read by it. A hot-weather moon over the plains of India has little in common with the cool silver globe that floats above colder lands, and even the smallest beetle scurrying across the dusty spaces between the grass clumps was as clearly visible as though it had been daylight. The torn piece of cloth with which Ash had baited his trap now lay starkly exposed as a dark blotch on the white dust, and the silence of the night was no longer unbroken.
A faint clattering sound announced the arrival of a young porcupine that had been attracted by the smell of stale blood, but having nosed the cloth and found it inedible, it scuttled off with an indignant rattle of quills. Far away a jackal pack broke into a wailing, yelping chorus that echoed across the plain and died on a long mournful howl, and shortly afterwards there was a patter and a rustle as a hyena loped past, making for the camp where there would be rich pickings for scavengers. But there was still no sound that suggested the approach of a man, and Ash flexed his stiffening muscles and longed for a cigarette. The moonlight was bright enough to neutralize the momentary flare of a match and he could easily conceal the glowing tip in his hand. But he could not risk lighting one; the scent of tobacco smoke would carry too far on the windless night, and Biju Ram would smell it and be warned.
Ash yawned tiredly and closed his eyes; and he must have dozed for a few minutes, for when he opened them again a little vagrant breeze was stirring the grasses with a sound like far-away surf on a pebble beach. And Biju Ram was standing in a patch