THE STAR OF INDIA
EDWARD S. ELLIS, A.M.
CHICAGO:
M. A. DONOHUE & CO.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1888.
By Edward S. Ellis, A.M.
TO MY CHILDREN
LILLIAN, WILMOT, MIRIAM AND HELEN,
Each a "Star of India" to me,
THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED.
INDEX.
CHAPTER.
I. "A Man May Smile and Smile, and be a Villain Still."
II. Luchman
III. Within Delhi
IV. On the Threshold
V. The Opening Tragedy
VI. An Incident by the Way
VII. The Pursuit
VIII. In the Garden
IX. "The Inglese Loge!"
X. Ali Khan
XI. The Cashmere Gate
XII. Proclamation of the Mogul Empire
XIII. A Model Commune
XIV. Toward Kurnal
XV. The Star of India
XVI. "No, Sahib, Not I."
XVII. The Burra Bagh
XVIII. George Harkins
XIX. Carried Northward
XX. A Failure
XXI. One Incident of Many
XXII. The Ghoojurs
XXIII. The Ruined Temple
XXIV. Wana Affghar of Puneput
XXV. Buktar Sing
XXVI. A Couple of Shots
XXVII. A Grim Sentinel
XXVIII. "I Did Not Say That, Sahib."
XXIX. An Intruder
XXX. The Last Resort
XXXI. The Pledge
XXXII. The Ransom
XXXIII. Asiatic Honor
XXXIV. Too Late
XXXV. Eureka
XXXVI. From Darkness to Dawn
XXXVII. From Dawn to Daylight
XXXVIII. Salaam
THE STAR OF INDIA.
CHAPTER I.
"A MAN MAY SMILE AND SMILE, AND BE A VILLAIN STILL."
One morning in the month of April, 1857, Baird Avery, an assistant
surgeon in the employ of the Honorable East India Company, was on his
way to Delhi, the ancient capital of the Emperors of Hindostan, and
at that time the residence of the royal pauper known as the "Great
Mogul" of the Empire.
The distance which the young gentleman had to travel was near one
thousand miles, and he was fairly upon the frightful hot season,
during which the thermometer creeps up day after day to over one
hundred in the shade, and stands at one hundred and forty in the
flaming sun.
Avery left the metropolis of British India on the Hooghly nearly two
months before, and had traveled leisurely to the northwest since that
time. Most of his journey was made by the Ganges in a budgerow, a
craft of some fifty tons burden, one half of which consists of a
decked cabin, several small rooms and awning. The front of the
vessel was occupied the crew, including a manjee, or steersman, and
eight dandies or boatmen, whose duties were to work the sails, or row
or drag the vessel as necessity required.
Avery was now in the neighborhood of Cawnpore, and was journeying by
dawk or palanquin, a slow but pleasant means of conveyance, and one
that has been long peculiar to the country.
The box-like structure was borne on the shoulders of four men, with
the same number walking beside them, ready to serve their turn. The
palanquin was large enough to allow the occupant to stretch out at
full length on the well stuffed mattress, covered with morocco
leather, while a shelf and drawer contained books, a telescope,
writing material and a bottle of diluted brandy.
In the morning the heat became so intolerable that a halt was
generally made at the roadside in the shade of a friendly grove of
mangoes, or at some bungalow, where the traveler awaited the lesser
heat of evening before moving forward again. The greater part of the
trip, therefore, was performed at night, when a Mussalchee ran by the
side of the palanquin with a lighted torch to guide the bearers
through the jungles. Wild animals and serpents were kept away by the
flare of these torches and the shouting of the natives.
Avery had visited this section more than once before, and it was his
intention to repeat a call upon a Rajah, between whom and himself a
strong friendship existed. This Rajah had for some time attracted
attention by his pretensions to the title and possessions of his
adopted father Bajee Rao. Leaving his palanquin by the wayside, the
surgeon went forward, up a broad avenue, on the right of which was a
well preserved parterre. Reaching a house built for a former
Commissioner, he sat down and sent forward his favorite attendant,
Luchman, with his compliments to the Rajah, and a request to know at
what hour it would be agreeable to receive a call.
The response was overwhelming. Three of the most distinguished
attendants of the pretender, accompanied by an escort of native
sowars on prancing steeds and with drawn swords and brilliant
uniforms, came down the driveway, covered with cunka (a sort of
clayey marl), at a showy pace, and halted in front of the young
surgeon, who was waiting to receive them.
They were sent, as he was informed, in answer to his message, and the
Rajah, in the usual extravagant language of the Orient, begged the
favor of the gentlemen's company at the palace in the evening, when
the air would be cool.
Left to himself, Avery spent the hours in looking over the grounds,
while the palanquin bearers, having traveled all night, withdrew to
cook their food for the morning meal, after which they passed the
time in smoking their hookahs and in sleep. These fellows with their
scant clothing and bronzed skins could have withstood the fervor of
the Asiatic sun for hours when a European would have succumbed in a
few minutes.
Just as the sun was setting, a gaudily caparisoned elephant, crowned
with a towering howdah (the ordinary box-like saddle) swung down the
avenue to the Commissioner's house, and Avery climbed to the seat by
means of a small ladder. He was then borne through a score of bazars
and native streets to the house of the Rajah, who was seated upon a
charpoy or native bedstead made of wood, with feet highly gilded.
His dress was of white muslin, consisting of two coats of that
material and a drapery of muslin with a fanciful border. His turban
was of the same light fabric, through which golden thread was
interwoven.
The instant the Rajah caught sight of his visitor, he extended his
hand. Avery made a graceful salaam, and felt a thrill of genuine
regard for the barbarian, whose coppery face seemed to glow with
delight because of his visit. Since the Rajah spoke only Hindustani
he was obliged to employ his moonshee.
"Rajah sahib salaam. Ap ka mizay kaisa hai?" (Peace to you,
honorable sir. How is your temper today?)
"I have hastened hither," was the response of the guest. "I have
come a long way to grasp your hand."
The Rajah smiled when Avery uttered the sentences I have given in
pure Hindustani, but since they included about all that the young
gentleman understood of that language, the services of the moonshee
were not cast aside.
"Will not my brother live with me always?" asked the host; "then the
tears shall never come to my eyes."
"Great would be my happiness could I do so," replied Avery, who felt
no compunctions in drawing the long bow; "but my Queen will not
permit me to accept your gracious hospitality."
"Your Queen is the greatest and best of earth; I love her and her
children, the Inglese. 'Twould be my heart's delight to be their
servant all my life."
"That could not be, for the Rajah is her brother."
The eyes of the Rajah sparkled when this remark was translated to
him, and there could be no doubt that it gave him much pleasure, for
it was a tacit recognition of his claim as a ruler, which the East
India Company would never admit.
The host was a little more than thirty years of age, with sallow
complexion, strong, coarse features, with head and face closely
shaven after the fashion with all Mahrattas, and he was quite fat,
his corpulence being the unhealthy bloat of the Eastern voluptuary.
In his distant home in Calcutta, Baird Avery had heard of the
mutterings in the Bengal Presidency, caused by the spread of the
report among the sepoys that the cartridges for their new Enfield
rifles, furnished them by the British government, had been prepared
with the grease of the hog, abominated by the Mussulmans, and that of
the cow, the sacred animal of the Hindoos. He sought to draw out his
host, who, he hoped, would speak the truth, since he had some grounds
for complaint because of the treatment he had received from the East
India Company.
"Is it true that among the sepoys and natives there is
dissatisfaction with the rule of the Inglese?"
"They never knew happiness until you came across the ocean and ruled
our country for us. We are happy and content."
This sounded like oriental exaggeration, but the speaker was the
picture of sincerity when he spoke the words, which he immediately
followed with the remark:
"Evil persons have spread reports among the sepoys which are all
falsehoods."
The Rajah, who had caused his hookah to be filled and lighted, bowed
his head several times by way of emphasizing his last remark.
"It gives me great happiness to hear the words of my beloved friend
Maharajah, and our blessed Queen will be pleased to receive such
assurances from her brother."
"We will stop the lies; we will not allow the best queen and the most
virtuous people in the world to be slandered; we are ready to lay
down our lives that we may but gain a smile from the illustrious
ruler. 'Tis my prayer night and day that the way may be opened for
me to prove my devotion to her and her people."
The conversation went on in this fashion for an hour, when Avery made
his salaam and withdrew, borne by the same gaudily caparisoned
elephant and attended by the same showy escort that had brought him
thither.
"I wonder whether there can be any foundation for the rumors that are
in the air of Calcutta, of an impending revolt of the sepoys. Can it
be that the whole country is on the verge of mutiny? Possibly such
is the fact, but if the tempest of fire and blood comes we are sure
of one friend, the Maharajah; nothing can swerve him from his loyalty
to the Queen."
Now, let it be known that the Rajah from whom Baird Avery had just
parted was Nana Dhoonda Pant, known in history as Nana Sahib, the
most perfidious wretch since the days of Judas Iscariot. And yet,
fiend as he proved himself to be by his massacre of the women and
children at Cawnpore, only a few weeks after this interview, the Nana
had his grounds for his fierce hatred of the British government.
Bajee Rao, the Peishwa of Poona, was the last ruler of one of those
Mahratta dynasties which for centuries had shared the sovereignty of
the Central Highlands and the plunder of all Hindostan. He was so
vicious that the East India Company dethroned him, confiscated his
territories, and forced him to take up his residence at Bithoor, a
small town up the river from Cawnpore. His allowance was four
hundred thousand dollars annually, enough to afford the old
voluptuary all the magnificence, ease, amusement and enjoyment for
which he yearned.
The Mahratta had one grief; he was without a son to inherit his
possessions and to apply the torch to his funeral pyre. He therefore
adopted a son, to whom, by the Hindoo law, belonged all the rights
and privileges of an heir born of the body. This son was the one
upon whom Baird Avery made his call in the month of April, 1857.
Bajee Rao died in 1851, and Nana demanded a continuance of the
pension which his adopted father had received from the Company, but
it was refused. Although Nana was possessed of great wealth, he
never forgave the Inglese for their treatment. But he dissembled
well, and no one suspected the treachery of the wretch, until he
plunged heart and soul into the sepoy mutiny and proved himself the
nearest approach to a fiend ever attained by a human being.