‘Kasim! Kasim Ali! thou art not fit for this service; thou art weak—thy
cheek is pale. Go, youth!’ cried the Sultaun, ‘there are a hundred
others ready.’
‘Not so, Light of Islam!’ replied the young man. ‘I was the first—it is
my destiny—I claim the service; if it be written that I am to fall this
day, the shot would reach me even in thy palace. I am not weak, but
strong as ever I was; behold my arm.’ And he bared it to the elbow; the
muscles stood out in bold projections as he clenched his hand. ‘Behold I
am strong—I am full of power, therefore let it be so; Inshalla! your
slave will be fortunate; there is no fear.’
‘It is _my_ right,’ cried Rhyman Khan. The hollow tone of his voice as
it fell on the Sultaun’s ear caused even him to start. ‘I was before
him, bid me go instead; he is young and should be spared; the old
soldier is ripe for death.’
‘Prophet of Alla! what ails thee?’ said the Sultaun to him. ‘Why dost
thou stare so, and roll thine eyes, Rhyman Khan? art thou ill?’
‘I am well,’ he answered, ‘quite well. Ha! ha! quite well; but as I am
thy slave, and have eaten thy salt for years, could I hear thy words
unmoved? By Alla, no! therefore let me go, it is _my_ right, for I am
his elder.’
‘Go, both of ye,’ continued Tippoo; ‘you have been friends, nay more,
father and son; take whom ye will with ye. Go—may Alla shield ye both
from danger! Go—if ye fall, your places will be indeed vacant, but your
memories will dwell in the hearts of those who love brave deeds, and ye
will die as martyrs in the cause of the faith; and this is a death that
all covet; but we will pray for your success. Inshalla! victory awaits
you, and honour and my gratitude when ye return. Go! ye have my prayers,
and those of every true believer who will behold ye.’
Both saluted him profoundly, and then turning, their eyes met. ‘Come!’
said the Khan, ‘we delay.’ There was a burst of admiration from the
assembly—a shout which rose and spread abroad to those without. ‘Who
will follow Rhyman Khan?’ he cried aloud; ‘whoever will, let him meet me
at the southern gate in half-an-hour;’ and so saying, he hurried rapidly
in the direction of his home.
All was confusion there, for the lady Ameena, with Sozun and Meeran,
were missing; he ordered his best horse to be prepared for action, and,
without speaking, he passed into the apartments of Ameena and fastened
the door.
They were as she had left them—nothing had been disturbed: her larks
were singing cheerily; her looree, which knew him well, fluttered its
bright wings, and screaming tried to fly to him; her gazelle ran up with
a merry frisk, and rubbed its nose against his hand, and butted gently
with its forehead, gazing at him with its large soft eyes. Her flowers
were fresh and bright, and their odour was sweet in the cool morning
air. His eye wandered around: every well-remembered object was there;
but she whose joyous smile and sweet tones had made a heaven of the
place, where was she? dead and cold he thought, disfigured in death by
his own hand. He cast himself frantically on the bed, which remained in
disorder even as she had left it, and groaned aloud.
How long he lay there he knew not: he had no thought of present time,
only of the past, the blissful past, which floated before his mental
vision, a bitter mockery. Some one knocked; it recalled him to his
senses.
‘They wait,’ said Daood, ‘the Patél and a hundred others; he has sent
for thee.’
‘I come,’ cried the Khan, ‘I come: it was well he remembered me; he
seeks death as I do,’ he added mentally.
‘The lady Kummoo would speak to thee,’ said a slave, as he passed out.
‘Tell her I go to death!’ he replied sternly; ‘tell her I follow
Ameena—away!’ The girl stared at him as though the words had stunned
her, gazed after him as he passed on, saw him spring quickly into his
saddle, and dashing his heels into his noble charger, bound onwards at a
desperate speed.
‘’Tis well thou art come, Khan,’ said Kasim Ali, ‘we have waited for
thee.’
‘Hush! why seekest thou death? thou art not fitted to die, Kasim.’
‘More fit than thou, old man,’ was his reply. ‘Come, they wait—they
remark thee; when we are before the judgment thou wilt know all. Come!’
The Khan laughed scornfully, for he remembered the kiss. ‘Come, my
friends,’ he cried; ‘follow Rhyman Khan for the faith and for Islam:
Bismilla! open the gate.’
‘For the faith! for Islam!’ cried the devoted band as the heavy door
opened, and emerging from the shadow of the gate and wall, the sunlight
glanced upon their naked weapons, gay apparel, and excited horses, and
they dashed in a fearful race toward the camp.
‘Show us the tent of the great commander!’ cried Kasim to a sentinel who
stared at them as they passed, evidently taking them to be a body of the
Nizam’s horse.
‘Yonder!’ said the man, pointing to one at some distance.
‘Follow Kasim Ali! Follow Rhyman Khan!’ were the cries of the leaders,
both urging their horses to full speed in reckless emulation. They had
been observed, however: a staff-officer had watched them from the first,
and suspected their intention; now he could not be mistaken; he flew to
a picquet of native soldiers, and drew them up across the very path of
the rapidly-advancing horsemen. Kasim marked the action, as the muskets
obeyed the word of command; he saw the bright sun glance on a line of
levelled barrels, and heard the sharp rattle which followed; his horse
stumbled; as it fell, he saw the Khan toss his arms wildly into the air
and reel in his seat, and the next moment his affrighted charger was
flying riderless through the camp! He saw no more, he felt stunned for
an instant, and his dead horse lay on his leg—causing exquisite pain; he
extricated himself and tried to rise—his leg failed him, and he fell
again to the ground—it was broken. Again he looked around, a number of
men and horses lay confusedly together. Some writhing in pain and crying
out for mercy, while the rest of the band were flying confusedly to the
Fort.
The Sepoys who had fired ran up, headed by an English officer. Kasim had
lost his sword; it lay at a little distance, and he could not recover
it. One of the men, seeing that he lived, raised his bayonet as he
approached to kill him. He shut his eyes, and repeated the Kulma.
‘Hold!’ cried a voice, ‘do not kill him—he is an officer; raise him up
and disarm him.’
‘Thou art a prisoner,’ said the officer to Kasim; ‘do not resist—art
thou wounded?’
‘My leg is broken,’ said Kasim; ‘kill me, I am not fit to live, I have
no desire for life.’
‘Poor fellow!’ said the officer, ‘he is in great pain. Lift him up, some
of ye, and take him to my tent; he is evidently an officer, by his
dress, and the rich caparisons of his horse.’
‘Yonder lies my leader!’ said Kasim, pointing to the Khan; ‘raise me,
and let me look upon him once more. We were friends in life until
yesterday—in death we should not have been divided.’
They were touched by his words, and obeyed him. The Khan lay on his
face, quite dead. They turned the body: Kasim looked upon the familiar
features—they were already sharp and livid; there was a small hole in
the forehead, from which a few drops of black blood had oozed; his death
had been instant as thought. Kasim heeded not the pain he suffered, he
felt as though his heart were bursting; and throwing himself beside the
body, wept passionately.
After a while he tried to rise, and they assisted him. ‘That was a
gallant soldier!’ he said to the officer; ‘let him be buried as one, by
men of my faith.’
‘I will answer for it,’ said a native officer, stepping forward; ‘thou
shalt hear this evening that the rites of our faith have been performed
over him. If he was an enemy, yet he was a brother in the faith of
Islam.’
‘Enough! I thank thee, friend,’ replied Kasim. ‘Now lead on—I care not
whether I live or die, since those I lived for are gone from the earth.’
But the officer’s curiosity had been excited by his words and his
appearance, which was eminently prepossessing. He was removed gently to
his tent, and a bedding laid on the ground. A surgeon, a friend of the
officer, was sent for; Kasim’s leg was examined; the thigh was badly
fractured above the knee, but the operation was skilfully performed, and
in a manner which surprised Kasim. It was bound up, and he was soon in
comparative ease. How little he had expected such kindness! And when he
contrasted it with what would have been an Englishman’s fate within the
Fort, his heart was softened from the bigotry it had previously
entertained.
The officer was Philip Dalton. He had long thought on the possibility of
saving some captive, that he might gain information of the English
prisoners, and he tended Kasim kindly. In a few days they were better
friends; the cold reserve of Kasim had worn off before the frank manner
of the Englishman, and they now conversed freely of the war, of their
own vicissitudes and adventures, and of the present chances of success.
Kasim soon perceived that all hope for the Sultaun was at an end, from
the vigour of the attack and the efficiency of the army, and he knew
that within the Fort existed dread and discontent. After a while Philip
asked him of the prisoners—at first warily, and only hinting at their
existence. But Kasim was faithful to his Sultaun, though he could have
told him of the fearful murders which had been openly mentioned among
the army, to avenge which they supposed the English thirsted. Yet he did
not reveal them, even though he knew from Philip’s own lips that the
English had been informed of them by the hundreds who had deserted on
the night of the first attack. Often Philip would ask him whether he had
ever known any of the prisoners; whether he had ever spoken with them
when on guard over them, or perchance escorting them from station to
station: for he knew that the captives were frequently removed, lest
they should attack those who attended them.
And when Kasim related to him his interference in behalf of an English
prisoner at Bangalore, and his attempt to protect him in the Sultaun’s
Durbar, risking his life for him ere yet he was himself in service,
Philip’s cheek glowed, and his heart throbbed, in a silent conviction
that it was Herbert himself.
‘Was he tall, and brown-haired? and had he very large blue eyes?’ he
asked anxiously.
Kasim recollected himself: it was a long time ago, and his memory
appeared to have been impaired by the late events; he had only seen him
in times of great excitement. But after a long reflection, he thought it
was the same; however, the prisoner’s features had made little
impression upon him.
‘Poor youth!’ added Kasim, ‘I saw him no more.’
‘How! what became of him?’
‘He was doomed to die. While I was held back by men—for I was excited—I
saw him dragged away. I heard the Sultaun give the fatal mandate to
Jaffar,—a man whose heart is blacker than that of Satan.’
‘He of whom thou hast told me so much of late?’
‘Ay, the same. I heard mention made of the fatal rock, and the young
Englishman was dragged forth, spat upon and insulted. Yet even then he
spoke to me, and said that my action would be remembered in the
judgment. Alas! I had no power to rescue him, and he must have died.’
‘Gallant fellow!’ cried Philip, ‘the pain of that thought I can save
thee; he died not there.’
‘How dost thou know? what was he to thee, Sahib?’
‘He was dear as a brother to me—he was my friend. I married his sister,
after years of absence from my native land. When we took Balapoor, I
went to the rock thou knowest of—it was in curiosity only. His name was
written there, and that renewed the hope which had never been dead
within our hearts: for one of the miserable victims had written that he
had been taken away ill; and by a chance, sent by Providence, we traced
him to a worthy Fakeer’s Tukea,—thou mayest remember it?’
‘I do; a cool shady place, where the wearied wayfarer is ever welcomed.’
‘The kind old man tended him, administered medicine to him. He
recovered, and we heard that he was taken away by that same Jaffar whom
thou hast mentioned—whither, he could not tell.’
‘Alas! then I fear there is no hope of his life. Jaffar is a devil, yet
in such a matter he dare not act without the Sultaun’s order. I
remember,’ he added after a pause, ‘a conversation between them about an
Englishman—it was before the siege; there was no one else present.
Tippoo spoke of one who was skilled in fortification, in the arts of war
and of gunnery, far above the French adventurers in his service, who
after all are but pretenders to science. Could this be thy brother?’
‘It is! it is!’ cried Philip, catching at the idea in desperation; ‘it
must be, he was eminently skilled in all. Your last words determine the
idea that it was he. By your soul, tell me if you know aught of him.’
‘Alas! no,’ said the young man. ‘Yet they concealed nothing: Jaffar said
it was useless; that he had sent trusty messengers to him to the fort,
through the jungles, at the peril of their lives, with offers of mercy,
pardon, wealth, if he would take service in the army. He had spurned
all; and then the Sultaun grew furious, and swore he might die there.’
‘Did he mention the fort, the place where it was, in what direction?’
asked Philip eagerly.
‘No, and I know not, Sahib; it is not in this district. If he be still
alive, he is in one of those lonely posts away to the west—in Coorg, or
on the frontiers of Malabar, a little spot on the top of some lonely
peak, piercing the sky, which is ever wrapped in clouds and mists, with
its base surrounded by jungles, to traverse which days and weeks are
required—garrisoned by the rude and barbarous infidels of the mountains,
whose speech and appearance are hardly human. It is a horrible fate to
think on, Sahib,’ he said, shuddering; ‘better that he should have died
long ago. But, after all, it may not be your friend.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Philip, sighing; ‘and yet I have hope; and when the
Fort is stormed, and yon proud Sultaun brought to the reckoning he
deserves, it will be hard if we gain not news of him we seek.’
‘May Alla grant it, Sahib! Thou hast bound me to thee by the kindness
thou hast shown a stranger and an enemy, and I will rejoice, even as
thou dost, that thy friend and brother should be saved. But, alas! I
have little hope. Yet when I recover, and this war is over, if I live I
will search for thee and rescue him.’
‘God bless thee!’ cried Philip; ‘I believe thee. Thou hast now known
that we are not the miscreants which the bigots of the faith would
represent us to be; and if thou canst bring me even news of his death,
it will be a melancholy satisfaction, and will still the restless hopes
which have so long gnawed at our hearts and excited us, only to be cast
down into utter despair.’
* * * * *
Days passed of constant success on the part of the English: their cannon
played night and day upon the breaches, till they were almost
practicable. Those in the Fort looked on in sullen despair, and
abandoned themselves to a blind reliance on their destiny. It was in
vain that Tippoo made the most passionate appeals to them to sally out
and cut the English army to pieces; it was in vain he read to them the
humiliating demands of the allies; in vain he raved, as he saw the
groves of his favourite and beautiful gardens levelled with the earth,
and transported to construct fascines and gabions for new parallels and
trenches. The sorties were weak, and driven back with loss, and with the
remembrance of the fatal issue of that led by Rhyman Khan and Kasim Ali,
no one dared to hazard a similar attempt, though rewards beyond thought
were offered by the frantic monarch. The murmurs within gradually
increased, as the breaches widened daily, and men looked to the issue of
the storm in fearful dread. Women shrieked in the streets, and men were
everywhere seen offering vain sacrifices of sheep and fowls to the
senseless idols of the temple, that the firing might cease.
At length it did; the Sultaun in despair yielding to terms of which he
could not then estimate the leniency. The firing ceased, and though the
maddened English could hardly be restrained from rushing into the Fort
and searching its most secret apartments and hiding-places for their
unhappy countrymen, they were kept back, and the negotiations proceeded.
The event is already matter of history, and we are not historians.
Although even his children had gone from him as hostages into the
British camp, in a paroxysm of passion the Sultaun desperately refused
the cession of Coorg to its rightful owner, whom he had dispossessed—one
of the terms of the treaty, but which he well knew, if yielded, would
open a road into the heart of his dominions at any time. The stern
resolution of the English commander—the presence of his victorious army,
the threats of which were openly stated to him by his officers—the
general discontent and dread which pervaded all, in spite of his appeals
to their pride, their bigotry, and their courage—the repair of the
breach while the English cannon ceased—all conspired to check their
spirit. He sullenly yielded to a destiny he could not avert, and
accepting the conditions, he delivered up those captives who were known
to be in the Fort and province.
With what agonising apprehension did Philip Dalton and Charles Hayward
fly from body to body of these men—some grown aged and careworn from
misery and long confinement, while others, having been forcibly
converted to the faith of Islam, now openly abjured its tenets, and
flung away their turbans and other emblems of their degraded condition.
Alas! Herbert Compton was not among them, nor could any one tell of his
fate, though his name was remembered vividly; and it was known among
them from Bolton, who was dead, that he had not perished at the rock of
Hyder.
Now therefore, for the Sultaun again and again protested that he had
given up all, and that Herbert had died soon after his escape from the
rock, Philip and young Hayward abandoned all hope. True, for a while
they thought that one of the strongholds of Coorg might contain their
poor friend; but there too they were disappointed; and there was no
longer a straw floating upon the waters of expectation at which they
could catch in desperation; and hope, which had been for years buoyant,
sank within them for ever.
The news of the victory reached England; the nation rejoiced at the
triumph, that their bitterest enemy in the East had been humbled and
despoiled of his fair provinces, and that the political horizon of their
already increasing possessions was once more clear. But there were two
families among the many who mourned for those who had met a soldier’s
death, which, though the bereavement was not a present one, yet felt it
as acutely as if it had been recent; nay more so, since their hopes had
been so long excited. They knew not that Amy had ever thought there was
hope of Herbert’s life; but long ere letters came, when it was known
that the army was in Mysore, they saw her look for every succeeding
dispatch with more and more impatience, and a feverish anxiety she could
not conceal. And when the end came, they knew, from her agonised burst
of bitter grief, that she too had lingered in hope even as they had.
But Amy’s was a strong mind, and one which her affliction, though deep
and heavy to bear, had never driven into repining. She looked with
earnest hope to the future; and in reliance on the Divine power and
wisdom, which she had early practised, and which never failed her in her
need, she drew from that pure source consolation, which those who loved
her most dearly could not impart; she had lived on a life of meek and
cheerful piety, almost adored by the neighbourhood, and in sweet
intercourse with those around her, whose constant care for her was amply
repaid by her devoted affection.
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