THE DARKEST HOUR.
“Sahib, there is a man under the wall on the east side.”
“How did he come there?” demanded Colonel Graham angrily. “What are
the sentries doing?”
“The night is so dark, sahib, that he crept up unnoticed. He is the
holy mullah Aziz-ud-Din, and desires speech with your honour.”
“The Amir’s mullah? You are sure of it?”
“I know his voice, sahib. He is holding his hands on high, to show
that he has no weapons.”
“I suppose we may as well see what he has to say,” said the Colonel to
Mr Burgrave, with whom he had been making final arrangements, and the
two men climbed the steps to the east rampart. Once there, and looking
over into the darkness, it was some little time before their eyes
could distinguish the dim figure at the foot of the wall.
“Peace!” said Colonel Graham.
“It is peace, sahib. I bear the words of the Amir Ashraf Ali Khan. He
says, ‘It is now out of my power to save the lives of the sahibs, and
I will not deceive them, knowing that a warrior’s death amid the ruins
of their fortress will please them better than to fall into the hands
of my thrice-accursed nephew, who has stolen the hearts of my soldiers
from me. But this I can do. The houses next to the canal on this side
of the fort are held by my own bodyguard, faithful men who have eaten
of my salt for many years, and I have there six swift camels hidden.
Let the Memsahibs be entrusted to me, especially those of the
household of my beloved friend Nāth Sahib, and I will send them at
once to Nalapur, where they shall be in sanctuary in my own palace,
and I will swear--I who kept my covenant with the Sarkar until the
Sarkar broke it--that death shall befall me before any harm touches
them.’”
“Why is this message sent to-night?” asked Colonel Graham.
“Because Bahram Khan is preparing a great destruction, sahib, and the
heart of Ashraf Ali Khan bleeds to think that the houses of his
friends Sinjāj Kīlin Sahib and Nāth Sahib should both be blotted
out in one day.”
“Carry my thanks and those of the Commissioner Sahib to Ashraf Ali
Khan, but tell him that the Memsahibs will remain with us. Their
presence would only place him in greater danger, and he would not be
able to protect them. But we can. They will not fall into the hands of
Bahram Khan.”
“It is well, sahib.” The faint blur which represented the messenger
melted into the surrounding blackness, and Colonel Graham turned to
his companion.
“It will be your business to see to that, if the enemy break in.
Haycraft comes with me. We must leave Flora in your charge. Don’t let
her fall into their hands, any more than Miss North.”
“I promise,” said Mr Burgrave, and their hands met in the darkness.
“Thanks. I think we have settled everything now. We don’t start for an
hour yet, and if you like to explain things to Miss North----”
“I should prefer to say nothing unless the necessity arises.”
“I never thought of your going into details, but she must know
something, surely? Flora will learn the state of affairs from
Haycraft; Mrs North will pick it up from the Hardys and her ayah, and
Miss North will probably expect---- But please yourself, of course.”
“I will go and talk to her for a little while. I have scarcely seen
her all day.”
Mr Burgrave’s tone was constrained. It seemed to him almost impossible
to meet Mabel at this crisis, and abstain from any allusion to the
terrible duty which had just been laid upon him. He was not an
imaginative man, and no forecast of the scene burned itself into his
brain, as would have been the case with some people, but the
oppression of anticipation was heavy upon him. For him the dull horror
in his mind overshadowed everything, and it was with a shock that he
found Mabel to be in one of her most vivacious and aggressive moods.
She was walking up and down the verandah outside her room as if for a
wager, turning at each end of the course with a swish of draperies
which sounded like an angry breeze, and she hailed his arrival with
something like enthusiasm, simply because he was some one to talk to.
“Flora is crying on Fred’s--I mean Mr Haycraft’s--shoulder somewhere,”
she said; “and Mrs Hardy and Georgia are having a prayer-meeting with
the native Christians. They wanted me to come too; but I don’t feel as
if I could be quiet, and I shouldn’t understand, either. What is going
to happen, really?”
“The Colonel proposes to make a sortie and capture the two guns which
the enemy have brought up. There is, I trust, every prospect of his
succeeding.”
Mabel stamped her foot. “Why can’t you tell me the truth, instead of
trying to sugar things over?” she demanded. “It would be much more
interesting.”
“You must allow me to decide what is suitable for you to hear,” said
Mr Burgrave, his mind still so full of that final duty of his that he
spoke with a serene indifference which Mabel found most galling.
“I don’t allow you to do anything of the sort. I wish you wouldn’t
treat me as if I was a baby. It’s like telling me yesterday that all
the fresh milk in the place was to be reserved for us women and the
wounded, as if I wanted to be pilloried as a lazy, selfish creature,
doing nothing and demanding luxuries!”
“My dear little girl, I am sure there isn’t a man in the garrison who
would consent to your missing any comfort that the place can furnish.”
“That’s just it. I want to feel the pinch--to share the hardships. But
of course you don’t understand--you never do.” She stopped and looked
at him. “I don’t know how it is, Eustace, but you seem somehow to stir
up everything that is bad in my nature. I could die happy if I had
once shocked you thoroughly.”
He recoiled from her involuntarily. “Do you think it is a time to joke
about death when it may be close upon you?” he asked, with some
severity.
“That sounds as if you were a little shocked,” said Mabel
meditatively. “But you know, Eustace, whenever you tell me to do
anything--I mean when you express a wish that I should do anything--I
feel immediately the strongest possible impulse to do exactly the
opposite.”
“But the impulse has never yet been translated into action?” he asked,
with the indulgent smile which was reserved for Mabel when she talked
extravagantly.
“I’m ashamed to say it hasn’t.”
“Then I am quite satisfied. I can scarcely aspire to regulate your
thoughts just at present, can I? But so long as you respect my
wishes----”
“Oh, what a lot of trouble it would save if we were all comfortably
killed to-night!” cried Mabel, with a sudden change of mood. Mr
Burgrave was shocked, and showed it. “I’m in earnest, Eustace.”
“My dear child, you can hardly expect me to believe that you would
welcome the horrors which the storming of this place would entail?”
“Oh no; of course not. You are so horribly literal. Can’t you see that
my nerves are all on edge? I do wish you understood things. If you
won’t talk about what’s going to be done to-night, do go away, and
don’t stay here and be mysterious.”
“Dear child, do you think I shall judge you hardly for this feminine
weakness? You need not be afraid of hurting or shocking me. Say
anything you like; I shall put it down to the true cause. If your
varying moods have taught me nothing else, at least I have learnt
since our engagement to take your words at their proper valuation.”
“If you pile many more loads of obligation upon me, I shall expire!”
said Mabel sharply, only to receive a kind smile in return. Anything
more that she might have said, in the amiable design of shocking him
beyond forgiveness, was prevented by the appearance of Mrs Hardy.
“Is it true that you are going to arm all the civilians in the place,
Mr Burgrave?” she demanded of the Commissioner.
“It is thought well--merely as a precautionary measure.”
“Then I do beg and beseech you to give Mr Hardy a rifle that won’t go
off, or we shall all be shot.”
“We will get the Padri to go round and hand out fresh cartridges,
instead of giving him a gun,” said Mr Burgrave seriously, but Mabel
burst into a peal of hysterical laughter, which was effectual in
putting a stop to further conversation, and he returned to the outer
courtyard, where the men chosen for the forlorn hope were mustering in
readiness for the start. Fitz and Winlock and their small party had
left already, officers and men alike wearing the native grass sandals
instead of boots, as they had been accustomed to do in their hunting
expeditions, and it was known that they had scrambled along the wall
and round the base of the south-western tower in safety. The ferry had
by this time been successfully constructed by Runcorn and his
assistants, one of whom had undertaken the very unpleasant task of
swimming across the ice-cold canal to pass the first wire rope round
one of the posts which registered the height of the water on the
opposite bank. Ball ammunition in extra quantities was served out to
the whole force, for although Colonel Graham hoped to confine himself
entirely to cold steel, for the sake of quietness, he was determined
to be able to reply to the enemy’s fire, should their attention
unfortunately be aroused. The men were marched down in parties to the
water-gate, and ferried over as quickly as the confined space would
allow, and when all had crossed, the raft was drawn back to the
gateway, and the wire disconnected. It had been decided that this was
imperative, lest the enemy should take advantage of the ferry to cross
the canal while the attention of the garrison was occupied by an
attack in front. If the forlorn hope returned victorious, it would be
easy to reconstruct the ferry by throwing a rope to them from the
rampart, while if they were compelled to retreat, the raft was so
small that to employ it under fire would entail a useless sacrifice of
life, and the fugitives would do better to swim.
Then began a weary waiting-time for those in the fort. The night was
moonless, so that it was impossible to distinguish any movement,
whether on the part of friend or of foe. At last a rocket, rising from
the cliff which overhung the town on the north-west, and which Fitz
and Winlock had indicated as their goal, showed that they, at least,
had so far been successful. The rocket sent up from the fort in reply
was answered by another from the cliff, and this was immediately
followed by the distant sound of brisk firing, which seemed to cause
considerable perturbation in the parts of the town occupied by the
enemy. Lights moved about hurriedly from place to place, horns were
blown, and there was a confused noise of angry shouting. The garrison
did their best, by opening fire from the wall and towers, to increase
the effect of the surprise, but without much hope of hitting anything,
for the moving lights did not afford very satisfactory targets. In
reply, a dropping fire broke out from the houses opposite, which was
maintained for some time, but with little spirit, and slackened
gradually. Scarcely had Mr Burgrave given the order to cease fire,
however, when a heavy fusillade was heard on the west of the fort,
though not from the hill. The sound appeared to come from the point at
which the bridge, now in ruins, had crossed the canal, a point which
it had not hitherto been known that the enemy were occupying, and
which Colonel Graham had not intended to approach. His force should
have been far to the left of it by this time, and already mounting the
hill. The most probable explanation seemed to be that they had missed
their way in the darkness, and following the bank of the canal too
far, had fallen into an ambuscade posted at the ruins of the bridge to
guard against any attempt to cross for the purpose of capturing the
guns. The Commissioner and his garrison waited and listened in the
deepest anxiety, straining their eyes to try and perceive, from the
flashes of the rifles, which way the fight was tending. But the firing
ceased suddenly, as that on the farther side of the enemy’s position
had done some time before. There was nothing to do but wait.
Suddenly, after a long interval, a piteous wailing arose at the rear
of the fort, from the opposite bank of the canal. A native stood
there, one of the water-carriers who had accompanied the force,
abjectly entreating to be fetched over, since the enemy were at his
heels. To employ the ferry at such a moment was not to be thought of,
but a rope was thrown from the steps of the water-gate, and the
miserable wretch, plunging in, caught it, and was drawn across. He
told a terrible tale as he stood dripping and shivering in the passage
leading to the gate. Colonel Graham’s force had been attacked, shortly
after leaving the canal-bank, by overwhelming numbers of the enemy,
who had first poured in a withering fire, and then rushed forward to
complete the destruction with their knives and tulwars. The _bhisti_
himself was the only man who had escaped, and the enemy had pursued
him to the very edge of the canal. The sharpest-sighted men in the
fort, sent to the rampart to test the truth of this statement as far
as they could by starlight, were obliged to confirm it. There was
undoubtedly a large body of the enemy on the other side of the canal.
They were lying down behind the high bank, so as to be sheltered from
the fire of the garrison.
“To cut off fugitives, I suppose,” muttered Mr Burgrave, half to
himself and half to Ressaldar Ghulam Rasul. “That looks as though the
massacre were not quite so complete as--Hark! I thought I heard a
sound from the hill. Can our glorious fellows have made a last dash
for it after all--some few who escaped?”
The men on the rampart stood like statues to listen, but failed to
distinguish anything that might confirm the Commissioner’s surmise.
The air seemed full of sound--footfalls, a murmur from the town, a
stray shot or two from the same direction, and on the west a kind of
shuffling noise. The enemy were taking up their positions for the
attack. Mr Burgrave sent orders to the guard at the water-gate to let
the air out of the inflated skins which supported the raft, so as to
sink it to the level of the water, and this was at once done. When he
had posted a sentry in the passage and another on the rampart above
it, he was able to leave that side of the fort to defend itself, since
the enemy had no means of crossing to assail it. To occupy the whole
range of wall with the absurdly small force at his disposal was
obviously impossible, and he therefore placed ten men in each of the
larger towers, from which, with the usual amount of trouble and risk,
a flanking fire could be obtained, and twelve in the two gateway
turrets, retaining the Ressaldar and sixteen men as a reserve, ready
to make a dash for any point that might be specially threatened. If
the garrison should be driven from the walls, those who escaped were
to rush for the hospital, where the women and children would take
refuge, and the last stand was to be made. Having ordered his forces
to their stations, the Commissioner went the round of the towers to
encourage the men. His own Sikhs he could deal with well enough, but
he felt that it was the irony of fate which obliged him to urge the
sowars of the Khemistan Horse to show themselves worthy of their first
commander, General Keeling, and it seemed as if the same thought had
occurred to the men, for they scowled at him resentfully when they
heard the mighty name from his lips.
The bad news brought by the fugitive spread through the fort with
astonishing rapidity. The native women, whom Georgia had succeeded in
soothing into some sort of calmness before the departure of the
forlorn hope, filled the air with their wailings, until Ismail Bakhsh,
who was head of the civilian guard detailed for the defence of the
hospital, threatened to fire a volley among them if they were not
quiet. Flora Graham’s ayah was gossiping with a friend among these
women when the news arrived, and she rushed with it at once to her
mistress’s room. Poor Flora had shut herself up alone to pray for the
safety of her father and lover, and was following in thought every
step of their perilous march. She had just reached with them the
summit of the hill, and rushed upon the guard round the guns, when the
ayah burst in with the news that the worst had happened. The sudden
revulsion of feeling was too much for Flora. Her usual self-control
deserted her, and she ran wildly across the courtyard to Georgia’s
room. Georgia was lying down, talking softly in the dark to Mabel, who
sat beside her, and both sprang up at Flora’s entrance.
“What is it? Have they come back?” they demanded, with one voice.
“No, no; they are killed--all killed! Papa and Fred both--oh, Mrs
North, what can I do?” She dropped sobbing on the floor at Georgia’s
feet, and buried her face in her dress.
“Perhaps it isn’t true,” suggested Georgia faintly. She had sunk down
again on the bed.
“There’s no hope--one man has come back, the only survivor. Both of
them at once! and I was praying for them, and I felt so sure--and even
while I was praying they were being killed.”
“Is the whole force cut off?” asked Georgia, almost in a whisper.
“All but this one man.” Flora checked her sobs for a moment to answer.
“Fitz Anstruther too?” cried Mabel sharply.
“All, I tell you! It doesn’t signify to you, Mab; you have your
Eustace left, but I have lost everything. Oh, Mrs North, you know how
it feels. Help me to bear it.”
“Flora dear,” began Georgia, with difficulty. “I--I can’t breathe,”
she gasped, struggling to stand up. “Please ask Mrs Hardy to come. I
feel so faint. She will understand.”
Rahah, who had been crouched in the corner as usual, sprang up and ran
out, returning in a moment with Mrs Hardy, who fell upon both girls
immediately, and drove them out with bitter reproaches.
“You pair of selfish, thoughtless chatterboxes! I should have thought
you had more sense, Flora. Just be off, both of you. You can have my
rooms for the rest of the night; I shall stay here. Even if all our
poor fellows are killed, is that any reason for killing Mrs North
too?”
“Oh, please don’t, Mrs Hardy! I never thought--Mrs North is always so
kind, and I am so miserable,” sobbed Flora.
“You shouldn’t be miserable unless you’re quite certain it’s
necessary. You wouldn’t believe a native who told you he was dead, as
they are always doing; so why should you when he says other people are
dead?” demanded Mrs Hardy, with a brilliancy of logic which somehow
failed to satisfy. “I haven’t a doubt that the _bhisti_ took to his
heels in a panic at the sound of the first shot, and if he hadn’t
fortunately been in the rear, the panic might have spread to all the
rest. There, go away, do, and don’t cry so. We’ll hope all will go
well.”
“Why have you left your post, doctor?” asked Mr Burgrave, meeting Dr
Tighe crossing the courtyard.
“The hospital will have to look after itself a good deal to-night, but
I have left the Padri and my Babu in charge there. Mrs North is taken
ill.”
“Good heavens! It only needed this to make the horror of the situation
complete.”
“From our point of view, it may be the best thing that could happen.
It will make the men fight like demons. Here, you girl, where are you
going?” He had caught the shoulder of a veiled woman who ran up and
tried to slip past him into the passage, but she let her _chadar_ fall
aside, and disclosed herself as Rahah.
“I have been telling the men of the regiment, sahib, and they have all
sworn great oaths that so long as one of them has a spark of life left
Sinjāj Kīlin’s daughter shall not be without a protector in her
need, and that the corpses of foes without and friends within shall be
piled as high as the ramparts before the enemy shall gain a footing on
the wall. I told also those in the hospital”--there was a hint of
malice in Rahah’s voice--“and every wounded man who can sit up in bed
is crying out for a gun. They will serve as hospital guard, they say,
and set Ismail Bakhsh and his men free to fight on the walls.”
“Good idea, that!” said Dr Tighe, turning to the Commissioner. “You
see how the men take it. Well, I shall keep Mrs North in her own
quarters if I can, but there is a passage through to the hospital
courtyard, and we must carry her over if it’s necessary. But I don’t
think it will be, now.”
Mr Burgrave nodded, and returned to his station on the west curtain.
Why the enemy did not advance to the attack was a mystery. In the
opinion of Ghulam Rasul and his most experienced subordinates, they
had moved out from their position in the town, and were occupying the
irrigated land on both sides of the canal in large numbers, sheltered
against any volley from the walls by the rows of trees which marked
the lines of the water-courses. They could not be seen, nor could it
precisely be said that they were heard, but as the old soldiers in the
garrison said, it could be felt that they were there. The situation
was eerie in the extreme, and Mr Burgrave was unable to find comfort
in a phenomenon which made his men cheerful in a moment. It was the
Ressaldar who called his attention to it as they stood straining their
ears in the attempt to distinguish some definite sound in the
murmuring silence, and at once he himself heard clearly the faint
tramp of a galloping horse far away to the north-east.
“He rides!” breathed Ghulam Rasul in an ecstasy, and “He rides!” cried
the sowar nearest him, catching up the words from his lips. “He
rides!” went from man to man, until the defenders of the towers looked
at one another with glistening eyes, and even the unsympathetic Sikhs,
who held themselves loftily aloof from the contemptible local
superstitions of their Khemi comrades, repeated, with something of
enthusiasm, “He rides!” “He rides; all is well,” said Ismail Bakhsh,
puffing out his chest with pride, in his temporary guardroom on the
clubhouse verandah. “Sinjāj Kīlin Sahib is watching over his house
and over his children. The power of the Sarkar stands firm.”
[image: images/img_198.jpg
caption: “HE RIDES”]
All unconscious of the moral reinforcement which was doubling the
strength of the garrison, Mabel and Flora sat disconsolately over the
charcoal brazier in Mrs Hardy’s room, listening for the sounds of the
attack, which they expected to hear each moment. Mrs Hardy’s vigorous
rebuke had nerved them both to put a brave face on matters, and for
some time they vied with one another in discovering reasons for
refusing to credit the report of the fugitive, and deciding that all
might yet be well. But as time went on, and there was no sign of the
triumphant return of Colonel Graham and his force, their valiant
efforts at cheerfulness flagged perceptibly. Mrs Hardy, running across
to say that Georgia was doing pretty well, advised them to lie down
and try to sleep, but they scouted the idea with indignation, and
still sat looking gloomily into the glowing embers and listening to
the night wind, which wailed round the crazy old buildings in a
peculiarly mournful manner.
“Doesn’t it seem absurdly incongruous,” said Mabel at last, in a low
voice, “that you and I--two _fin de siècle_ High School girls, who
have taken up all the modern fads just like other people--should be
sitting here, expecting every moment that a band of savages will break
in and kill us--with swords? It feels so unnatural--so horribly out of
drawing.”
“How can you talk such nonsense?” snapped Flora, upon whose nerves the
strain of suspense was telling severely. “I never heard that a High
School career protected people against a violent death. Do you think
it felt natural to the women in the Mutiny to be killed--or the French
Revolution, or any time like that?”
“I don’t know. It really seems as if they must have been more
accustomed to horrors in those days. Just imagine, Flora, the little
paragraph there will be in the _South Central Magazine_: ‘We regret to
record the death of Miss Mabel North, O.S.C., who was murdered in the
late rising on the Indian frontier. Miss Flora Graham, a distinguished
student of St Scipio’s College, St Margarets, N.B., is believed to
have perished on the same sad occasion.’ Your school paper will have
just the same sort of thing in it, and the two editors will send each
other complimentary copies, and acknowledge the courtesy in the next
number. It will all be about you and me--and we shall be dead.”
“Of course we shall; you said that before. But I don’t see what good
it does to die many times before our deaths.”
“How horrid of you to call me a coward!” said Mabel pensively.
“I don’t call you anything of the sort. I think you must be fearfully
brave to look at things in this detached, artistic kind of way, but
what’s the good of it? Death must come when it will come, but
naturally no one could be expected to look forward with pleasure to
the mere fact of dying. Unless, of course”--Flora’s blue eyes shone as
she turned suddenly from the general to the particular--“my dying
would save papa or Fred. Then I should be glad to die.”
“You really mean that you wouldn’t mind being killed if somehow it
would save either of their lives?”
“Of course I do, just as you would gladly die to save your Eustace.”
“But I wouldn’t!” cried Mabel involuntarily, then tried to minimise
the effect of her admission by turning it into a joke. “I think it’s
his privilege to do that for me.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say that sort of thing!” said Flora
reproachfully. “Happily there’s no one else to hear it, but if I
didn’t know you, I should think you were perfectly horrid.”
“No, Flora, really,” cried Mabel, in a burst of honesty; “I can’t say
confidently that there is one person in the world I would die for. I
feel as if I could die to save Georgia, but I don’t know whether I
could do it when the time came. I used to think that people--English
people, at any rate--became heroic just as a matter of course when
danger happened, but now I begin to believe that it depends a good
deal on what they have been like before.”
“You always try to make the worst of yourself.”
“No, I don’t. I’m trying to look at myself as I really am. I have
never in all my life done a thing I didn’t like if I could help it.
What sort of preparation is that for being heroic? Flora,” with a
sudden change of subject, “suppose the enemy had stormed the fort
before this evening, would you have asked your father or Fred to kill
you?”
“No,” was the unexpected reply. “It would have been so awfully hard on
them. I keep a revolver in this pocket of my coat. You just put it to
your eye--and it’s done.”
“Oh, I wish I was like you! I know I should be wondering and worrying
whether it was right, and all that sort of thing, until it was too
late to do it.”
“I don’t care whether it would be right or not,” said Flora doggedly.
“I should do it. Do you think I would make things worse for papa and
Fred, or let them have the blame of it if it was wrong?”
“I suppose Eustace would do it for me,” drearily. “He would if he
thought it was the proper thing. He always does the proper thing.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk in such a horrid voice. It makes me feel
creepy. And I don’t think it’s fair to say that sort of thing about
the Commissioner. He’s perfectly devoted to you, and you know it would
break his heart to have to--do what we were talking about. I don’t
believe you’re half as fond of him as he is of you.”
“Have you found that out now for the first time?”
“Then it’s a shame!” cried Flora. “Why do you let him think you care
for him? He worships you, and you pretend----”
“I don’t pretend. He took it into his head that I cared for him, and
wouldn’t let me say I didn’t. And he doesn’t worship me. He thinks
that I shall make a nice adoring sort of worshipper for him when he
has got me well in hand.”
“Well, I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” said Flora
crushingly.
“You needn’t be horrid. I’m sure I have quite enough to bear as it is.
What with thinking every morning when I wake that I shall have to be
pleasant to him whenever he chooses to come and talk to me all day,
when I should like to be at the other end of the world----”
“What do you mean to do when you are married?”
Mabel shivered. “I don’t know,” she said. “I rather hope we shall be
killed instead.”
“You needn’t expect to get out of difficulties in that way. If you
want to be killed, you are quite sure not to be. And to go on living a
lie----”
“_Don’t!_” entreated Mabel. “Whichever way you look at it, it’s
dreadful. I don’t know what to do. What’s that? I’m sure I heard a
step.”
It must have been Mr Burgrave’s evil genius which prompted him to
present himself at that particular time. The enemy had made no
movement, and the Commissioner thought he might safely leave the wall
for a moment, in order to obtain a sight of Mabel, and inquire after
Georgia. He entered the room with a creditable assumption of
cheerfulness, which the girls did not even observe.
“How are we getting on?” asked Mabel hastily.
“Oh, well, we must hope for the best,” was the unsatisfying answer. In
his own mind Mr Burgrave had no doubt that the enemy were only waiting
for dawn to make their attack, and would advance on the fort at the
same moment that their guns opened fire from the hill.
“No news yet of the forlorn hope?” asked Flora.
“No news,” he answered, then hesitated with his hand on the door, and
looked at Mabel. She rose, as if in response to his glance, and went
out on the verandah with him.
“Poor little girl!” he said, putting his arm round her. “This
waiting-time is very hard upon you, isn’t it? God knows I would give
you comfort if I could, but I dare not raise false hopes.”
Mabel freed herself from his clasp. In the dim light cast by the
brazier through the small window, he could see that she was very pale,
and that her eyes looked unnaturally large and dark in the whiteness
of her face. “I want you to take this back, please,” she said, holding
out her engagement ring. “I can’t die with a lie upon my soul.”
“A lie!” he exclaimed, in bewilderment.
“I don’t love you. Sometimes I think I almost hate you,” she replied,
in a low, monotonous voice.
His natural impulse was to take her in his arms and crush this latest
attempt at rebellion by sheer weight of mingled authority and
affection, as he had done more than once before; but the words died
upon his lips as he looked into her face, and he stood irresolute.
This was not coquetry, not the wild talk for which he had smiled at
her that very evening, but desperate earnest.
“Am I to take this as your own unbiassed wish, Mabel?” he asked
slowly, seeing his world fall in ruins around him as he spoke.
“Absolutely,” she answered.
He took the ring from her hand. “It is the kind of encouragement that
is calculated to nerve a man for the fight, isn’t it?” he asked. “But
perhaps some bullet will be more merciful than you are.”
He slipped the ring on his little finger, and taking up his crutch,
left her without another word. When he returned to the rampart it
struck him, preoccupied though he was, that the night was not quite so
dark as before. Dawn was approaching, and there was a perceptible
unrest in the direction of the plane trees behind which the enemy were
posted. As he stood looking round, Ghulam Rasul approached him from
the north curtain.
“There is a large body of the enemy advancing towards the gate,
sahib,” he said. “They come out of the town, and are marching in
perfect silence.”
“Then they mean to attack us on two sides at once,” said the
Commissioner. “Tell the men in the turrets to reserve their fire until
they are close up, Ressaldar. We can’t afford to throw away a shot.
Are the reserve all under arms?”
“All ready, sahib. Your honour can now hear the enemy’s approach.”
They stood waiting and listening. And in that hour of awful
expectancy, when armed men were advancing on all sides upon the sorely
pressed fort, Georgia’s boy was born.