An echo of the dead man's last cry came from many a living one, as

muskets were gripped tighter in the resolve to be no whit behind. A

few more such heroes and the Golden Age would come again; the age of

the blessed Pandâva, who forgot the cause in the quarrel.

And so for one day more Jim Douglas strained his ears for that distant

thunder on the horizon, while the people of the town, becoming more

accustomed to it, went about their business, vaguely relieved at

anything which should keep the sepoys' hands from mischief.

The red sunset glow was on the mosque again when he returned to the

little slip of roof to find Kate working away at her grammars calmly.

The best thing she could do, since every word she learned was an

additional safeguard; and yet the man could not help a scornful smile.

"It is a rout this time, I am sure," he said; "and yet there is no

sign of pursuit. I cannot understand it; there seems a Fate about it!"

"Is that anything new?" she asked wearily, as she laid down her book,

and with the certain precision which marked all her actions, saw that

the water was really boiling before she made the tea. It was made in a

_lota_, and drunk out of handleless basins, yet for all that it was

Western-made tea, strong and unspiced, with cream to put to it also,

which she skimmed from a dish set in cold water in the coolest,

darkest place she could find. Dreamlike indeed, and Jim Douglas,

drinking his tea, felt, that with his eyes shut, he might have dreamed

himself in an English drawing room.

"Nothing new," he retorted, "but it seems incomprehensible. Hark!

That is a salute; for the victory, I suppose. Upon my soul I feel as

if--as if I were a dream myself--as if I should go mad! Don't look

startled--I shan't. The whole thing is a sham--I can see that. But why

has no one the pluck to give the House-of-Cards a push and bring it

about their ears? And what has become of the army at the Hindun? It

took three days to march there from Meerut, I hear--not more than

twenty-four miles. No! I cannot understand it. No wonder the people

say we are all dead. I begin to believe it myself."

He heard the saying often enough certainly to bring relief during the

1st and 2d of June, when there was no more distant thunder on the

horizon, and the whole town, steeped and saturated with sunshine, lay

half-asleep, the soldiers drowsing off the effect of their drugs.

Dead? Yea! the masters were dead, and those who had escaped were in

full retreat up the river; so at least said villagers coming in with

supplies. But someone else who had come in with supplies also, sat

crouched up like a grasshopper on a great pile of wool-betasseled

sacks in the corn market and laughed creakily. "Dead! not they.

As the _tanda_ passed Karnal four days agone the camping ground

was white as a poppy field with tents, and the soldiers like

the flies buzzing round them. And if folk want to hear more, I, Tiddu

Baharupa-Bunjârah, can tell tales beyond the Cashmere gate on the

river island where the bullocks graze."

The creaking voice rose unnecessarily loud, and a man in the dress of

an Afghan who had been listening, his back to the speaker, moved off

with a surprised smile. Tiddu had proved his vaunted superiority in

that instance; though by what arts he had penetrated the back of a

disguise, Jim Douglas could not imagine. Still here was news

indeed--news which explained some of the mystery, since the seeming

retreat up the river had been, no doubt, for the purpose of joining

forces. But it was something almost better than news--it was a chance

of giving them. He had not dared, for Kate's sake, to risk any

confederate as yet; but here was one ready to hand--a confederate,

too, who would do anything for money.

So that night he sat in tamarisk shadow on the river island talking in

whispers, while the monotonous clank of the bells hung on the

wandering bullocks sounded fitfully, the flicker of the watchfires

gleamed here and there on the half-dried pools of water, the fireflies

flashed among the bushes, and every now and again a rough, rude chant

rose on the still air.

"They have been there these ten days, Huzoor," came Tiddu's

indifferent voice. "They are waiting for the siege train. Nigh on

three thousand of them, and some black faces besides."

Jim Douglas gave an exclamation of sheer despair. To him, living in

the House-of-Cards, the Palace-of-Dreams, such caution seemed

unnecessary. Still, the past being irretrievable, the present remained

in which by hook or by crook to get the letter he had with him, ready

written, conveyed to the army at Kurnal. And Tiddu, with fifty rupees

stowed away in his waistband, being lavish of promise and confidence,

there was no more to be done save creep back to the city, feeling as

if the luck had turned at last.

But the next morning he found the Thunbi Bazaar in a turmoil of talk.

There were spies in the city. A letter had been found, written in the

Persian character, it is true but with the devilish knowledge of the

West in its details of likely spots for attack, the indecision of

certain quarters in the city, its general unpreparedness for anything

like resistance. Who had written it? As the day went on the camps were

in uproar, the Palace invaded, the dream disturbed by denouncings of

Ahsan-Oolah, the giver of composing draughts--Mahboob Ali, the checker

of the purse strings; even of Mirza Moghul, commander-in-chief

himself, who might well be eager to buy his recognition as heir by

treachery.

The net result of the letter being that, as Jim Douglas, with wrath in

his heart, crept out at dusk to the low levels by the Water Bastion,

intent on having it out with Tiddu, he could see gangs of sepoys still

at work by torchlight strengthening the bridge defense, and had to

dodge a measuring party of artillerymen busy range-finding. His

suggestions had been of use!

But the old Bunjârah took his fierce reproaches philosophically. "'Tis

the miscreant Bhungi," he assented mournfully. "He is not to be

trusted, but Jhungi having a tertian ague, I deemed a surer foot

advisable. Yet the Huzoor need not be afraid. Even the miscreant would

not betray his person; and for the rest, the Presence writes Persian

like any court moonshee."

The calm assumption that personal fear was at the bottom of his

reproaches, made Jim Douglas desire to throttle the old man, and only

the certainty that he dare not risk a row prevented him from going for

the ill-gotten rupees at any rate. His thought, however, seemed read

by the old rascal, for a lean protesting hand, holding a bag,

flourished out of the darkness, and the creaking voice said

magnificently:

"Before Murri-âm and the sacred neem, Huzoor, I have kept my bargain.

As for Jhungi or Bhungi, did I make them that I should know the evil

in them? But if the Huzoor suspects one who holds his tongue, let the

bargain between us end."

His hearer could not repress a smile at the consummate cunning of the

speech. "You can keep the money for the next job," he said briefly; "I

haven't done with you yet, you scoundrel."

A grim chuckle came out of the shadows as the hand went back into

them.

"The Huzoor need not fret himself, whatever happens. The end is nigh."

It seemed as if it must be with three thousand British soldiers within

sixty miles of Delhi; or less, since they might have marched during

those five days. They might be at Delhi any moment. Three thousand

men! Enough and to spare even though in the last few days a detachment

or two of fresh mutineers had arrived. Ah! if the blow had been struck

sooner. If--if----

Kate listened during those first days of June to many such wishes,

despairs, hopes, from one whose only solace lay in words; since with

relief staring him in the face, Jim Douglas crushed down his craving

for action. There was no real need for it, he told her; it must

involve risk, so they must wait--sleep and dream like the city!

For, lulled by the delay, stimulated to fresh fancy by the newcomers,

the townspeople went on their daily round monotonously; the sepoys

boasted and drank bhang. And in the Palace, the King, in new robes of

state sat on his new cushion and put the sign-manual to such trifles

as a concession to a home-born slave that he might "continue, as

heretofore, a-tinning the royal sauce-pans!" though Mahboob Ali's face

lengthened as he doled out something on account for faith and finery,

and suggested that the army might at least be employed in collecting

revenue somewhere. But the army grinned in the commander-in-chief's

face, scorned laborious days, and between the seductions of the Thunbi

Bazaar gave peaceful citizens what one petitioner against plunder

calls "a foretaste of the Day of Judgment."

But one soul in Delhi felt in every fiber of him that the Judgment had

come--that atonement must be made.

"Thou wilt kill thyself with prayers and fastings and seekings of

other folks' salvations, Moulvie-sahib," said Hâfzan almost petulantly

as, passing on her rounds, she saw Mohammed Ismail's anxious face,

seeking audience with everyone in authority, "Thou hast done thy best.

The rest is with God; and if these find death also, the blame will lie

elsewhere."

"But the blame of those, woman?" he asked fiercely, pointing with

trembling finger to the little cistern shaded by the peepul tree.

Hâfzan gave a shrill laugh as she passed on.

"Fear not that either, learned one! This world's atonement for that

will be sufficient for future pardon."

It might be so, Mohammed Ismail told himself as he hurried off

feverishly to another appeal. He had erred in ignorance there; but

what of the forty prisoners still at the Kotwâli--forty stubborn

Christians despite their dark skins? They were safe so far, but

if the city were assaulted?--if some of the fresh, fiery-faithed

newcomers---- The doubt left him no peace.

"If thou wilt swear, Moulvie-jee, on thine own eternal salvation that

they are Mohammedans, or stake thy soul on their conversion," jeered

those who held the keys. A heavy stake, that! A solemn oath with forty

stubborn Christians to deal with. No wonder Mohammed Ismail felt

judgment upon him already.

But the stake was staked, the oath spoken on the 6th of June. The

record of it is brief, but it stands as history in the evidence of one

of the forty. "We were released in consequence of a Moulvie of the

name of Mohammed Ismail giving evidence that we were all Mohammedan;

or that if any were Christian they would become Mohammedan."

And it was given none too soon. For on the 6th of June as the sun set,

a silhouette of a man on a horse stood clear against the red-gold in

the west, looking down from the Ridge on Delhi. Looking down on the

city bathed in the dreamy glamour of the slanting sunbeams; rose-red

and violet-shadowed, with the great white dome hovering above the

smoke wreaths, and a glitter of gold on the eastern wall, where,

backed by that arcaded view of the darkening Eastern plains, an old

man sat listening to sentiments of fidelity from a pile of little

brocaded bags.

It was Hodson of Hodson's Horse, reconnoitering ahead. So there was an

Englishman on the Ridge once more as the paper kites came down on the

6th of June. But the fire balloons did not go up; for the night set in

gusty and wet, giving no chance to new constellations.

Jim Douglas did not sleep at all that night, for Tiddu had brought

word that the English were at Alipore, ten miles out; and nothing but

the dread of needless risk kept him in Delhi. For any risk was

needless when to a certainty the English flag would be flying over the

city in a few hours.

And Hodson of Hodson's Horse back at Alipore slept late, for he

lingered, weary and wet after his long ride, to write to his wife ere

turning in, that "if he had had a hundred of the Guides he could have

gone right up to the city wall."

But Mohammed Ismail slept peacefully, his work being over, and dreamed

of Paradise.

CHAPTER III.

THE CHALLENGE.

"For Gawd's sake, sir! don't say I'm unfit for dooty, sir," pleaded a

lad, who, as he stood to attention, tried hard to keep the sharp

shivers of coming ague from the doctor's keen eyes. "I'm all right,

aint I, mates? It aint a bad sort o' fever at worst, as I oughter

know, havin' it constant. It's go ter hell, an' lick the blood up fust

as I'm fit for with Jack Pandy. That's all the matter--you see if it

aint, sir!"

He threw his fair curly head back, his blue eyes blazed with the

coming fever light, but the bearded man next to him murmured, "'Ee's

all right, sir. 'Ee'll 'old 'is musket straight, never fear," and the

Doctor walked on with a nod.

"They killed his girl at Meerut," said his company officer in a

whisper, and Herbert Erlton, standing by, set his teeth and glanced

back, blue eye meeting blue eye with a sort of triumph.

For it was the 7th of June, and the blow was to be struck, the

challenge given at last.

Nearly a month, thought Herbert Erlton, since it had happened. He had

spent much of the time in bed, struck down with fever; for he had

regained Meerut with difficulty, wounded and exhausted. And then it

had been too late--too late for anything save to hang round hungrily

in the hopes of that challenge to come, with many another such as he.

But it had come at last. The camp was ringing with cheers for the

final reinforcement, every soul who could stand was coming out of

hospital, and the air, new washed with rain, and cool, seemed to put

fresh life, and with it a desire to kill, into the veins of every son

of the cold North.

And now the dusk was at hand. The men, half-mad with impatience,

laughed and joked over each trivial preparation. Yet, when the order

came with midnight, weapons were never gripped more firmly, more

sternly, than by those three thousand Englishmen marching to their

long-deferred chance of revenge. And some, not able to march, toiled

behind in hopes of one fair blow; and not a few, unable even for so

much, slipped desperately from hospital beds to see at least one

murderer meet with his reward.

For, to the three thousand marching upon Delhi that cool dewy night,

sent--so they told themselves--for special solace and succor of the

Right, there were but two things to be reckoned with in the wide

world: Themselves--Men. Those others--Murderers.

The fireflies, myriad-born from the rain, glimmered giddily in the low

marshy land, the steady stars shone overhead, and Major Erlton looked

at both indifferently as he rode, long-limbed and heavy, through the

night whose soft silence was broken only by the jingle of spurs and

the squelching of light gun-wheels in water-logged ruts; save

when--from a distance--the familiar tramp, tramp, of disciplined feet

along a road came wafted on the cool wind; for the column in which he

was doing duty moved along the canal bank so as to take the enemy, who

held an intrenched position five miles from Alipore, in flank. But

Herbert Erlton was not thinking of stars or fireflies; was not

thinking of anything. He was watching for other lights, the twinkling

cresset lights which would tell where the Murderers waited for that

first blow. He did not even think of the cause of his desire; he was

absorbed in the revenge itself, and a bitter curse rose to his lips,

when just before dawn the roll of a gun and the startled flocks of

birds flying westward told him that others were before him.

"Hurry up, men! For God's sake hurry up!" The entreaty passed along

the line where the troopers of the 9th Lancers were setting shoulders

to the gun-wheels, and everyone, men and officers alike, was listening

with fierce regret to the continuous roll of cannon, the casual rattle

of musketry, telling that the heavy guns were bearing the brunt of it

so far.

"Hurry up, men! Hurry up. That's the bridge ahead! Then we can go for

them!"

Hark! A silence; if silence it could be called, now that the shouts,

and yells, and confused murmur of battle could be heard. But the guns

were silent; and hark again. A ringing cheer! Bayonet work that, at

last, at last! And yonder, behind the fireflies in the bushes? Surely

men in flight! Hurrah! Hurrah!

When Major Erlton returned from that wild charge it was to find that

one splendid rush from the 75th Regiment had cleared the road to

Delhi. The Murderers had been swept from their shelter, their

guns--some fighting desperately, others standing stupidly to meet

death, and many with clasped hands and vain protestations of loyalty

on their lips paying the debt of their race. But one man had paid some

other debt, Heaven knows what; and the Rifle Brigade cleared the road

to Delhi of an English deserter fighting against his old regiment.

It had not taken an hour; and now, as the yellow sun peered over the

eastern horizon, a little knot of staff officers consulted what to do

next.

What to do? Herbert Erlton and many another wondered stupidly what the

deuce fellows could mean by asking the question when the jagged line

of the Ridge lay not three miles off, and Delhi lay behind that? Could

any sane person think that England had done its duty at sunrise, even

though forty good men and true of the three thousand had dealt their

first and last blow?

But if some did, there were not many; so, after a pause, the march

began again. Westward, by a forking road, to the flat head of the

Lizard lying above the Subz-mundi, eastward toward the tail and the

old cantonment. And this time the bayonets went with the jingling

spurs, and together they cleared the green groves merrily. Still, even

so, it was barely nine o'clock when they met the eastward column again

at Hindoo Rao's house and shook hands over their bloodless victory.

For the eastward force had lost one man, the westward seven, despite

the fact that the retreating Murderers had attempted a rally in their

old lines.

Nine o'clock! In seven hours the ten miles had been marched, the

battle of Budli-ke-serai won, and below them lay Delhi. Within twelve

hundred yards rose the Moree Bastion, the extreme western point of

that city face which, with the Cashmere gate jutting about its middle

and the Water Bastion guarding its eastern end, must be the natural

target of their valor--a target three-quarters of a mile long by

twenty-four feet high.

Seven hours! And the Murderers had been driven into the city, while

the men had gained "twenty-six guns and the finest possible base for

the conduct of future operations." For the Ridge, the old cantonments

were once more echoing to the master's step, and the city folk, as

they looked eagerly from the walls, had the first notice of defeat in

the smoke and flames of the sepoy lines which the English soldiers

fired in reckless revenge; reckless because the tents were not up, and

they might at least have been a shelter from the sun.

But the Delhi force, taken as a whole, was in no mood to think; and so

perhaps those at the head of it felt bound to think the more. There

was Delhi, undoubtedly, but the rose-red walls with their violet

shadows looked formidable. And who could tell how many Murderers it

harbored? A thousand of them or thereabouts would return to Delhi no

more; but, even so, if all the regiments known to have mutinied and

come to Delhi were at their full strength, the odds must still be

close on four to one. And then there was the rabble, armed no doubt

from the larger magazine below the Flagstaff Tower, which, alas, had

found no Willoughby for its destruction on the 11th of May. And then

there was the May sun. And then--and then----

"What's up? When are we going on?" asked Major Erlton, sitting fair

and square on his horse, in the shadow of the big trees by Hindoo

Rao's house, as an orderly officer rode past him.

"Aren't going on to-day. Chief thinks it safer not--these native

cities----"

He was gone, and Herbert Erlton without a word threw himself heavily

from his horse with a clatter and jingle of swords and scabbards and

Heaven knows what of all the panoply of war; so with the bridle over

his arm stood looking out over the bloody city which lay quiet as the

grave. Only, every now and again, a white puff of smoke followed by a

dull roar came from a bastion like a salute of welcome to the living,

or a parting honor to the dead.

Was it possible? His eyes followed the familiar outline mechanically

till they rested half-unconsciously on some ruins beside the city

wall. Then with a rush memory came back to him, and as he turned

hurriedly to loosen his horse's girths, the tears seemed to scald his

tired angry eyes. Yet it was not the memory of Alice Gissing only,

which sent these unwonted visitors to Herbert Erlton's eyes; it was a

wild desperate pity and despair for all women.

And as he stood there ignoring his own emotion, or at least hiding it,

one of the women whom he pitied was looking up with a certain

resentful eagerness at a man, who, from the corner turret of that roof

in the Mufti's quarter, was straining his eyes Ridgeways.

"They must rest, surely," she said sharply; "you cannot expect them to

be made of iron----"; as you are, she was about to add, but withheld

even that suspicion of praise.

"Well! There goes the bugle to pitch tents, anyhow," retorted Jim

Douglas recklessly. "So I suppose we had better have our breakfast

too--coffee and a rasher of bacon and a boiled egg or so. By God! its

incredible--it's----" He flung himself on a reed stool and covered his

face with his hands for a second; but he was up facing her the next.

"I've no right to say these things--no one knows better than I how

worse than idle it is to press others to one's own tether--I learned

that lesson early, Mrs. Erlton. But"--he gave a quick gesture of

impotent impatience--"when the news first came in, the men who brought

it ran in at the Cashmere and Moree gates in hundreds, and out at the

Ajmere and Turkoman, calling that the masters had come back; and

people were keeking round the doors hopefully. I tell you the very

boys as I came in here were talking of school again--of holiday tasks,

perhaps--Heaven knows! People were running in the streets--they will

be walking now--in another hour they will be standing; and then! Well!

I suppose the General funks the sun. So I'll be off. I only came

because I thought I had better be here in case; you see the men would

have had their blood up rushing the city----"

"And your breakfast?" she asked coldly, almost sarcastically; for he

seemed to her so hard, so grudging, while her sympathies, her

enthusiasms were red-hot for the newcomers.

He laughed bitterly. "I've learned to live on parched grain like a

native, if need be, and I take opium too; so I shall manage." He was

back again to the turret, however, before two o'clock, curtly

apologetic, calmer, yet still eager. The people, to be sure, he said,

had given up keeking round their doors at every clatter, and the gates

had been closed on deserters by the Palace folk; but no one had

thought of bricking them up, and after going round everywhere he

doubted if there were more than seven or eight thousand real soldiers

in Delhi. The 74th and the 11th regiments had been slipping away for

days, and numbers of men who had remained did not really mean to

fight. Tiddu, who seemed to know everything, said that the mutineers

had been very strongly in-trenched at Budli-serai, so the resistance

could not have been very dogged, or our troops could not have fought

their way in before nine o'clock. Yes! since she pressed for an

answer, the General might have been wise in waiting for the cool. Only

he personally wished he had thought it possible, for then he would at

any rate have tried to get a letter sent to the Ridge. Now it was too

late.

And then suddenly, as he spoke, a fierce elation flashed to his face

again at the sound of bugles, the roll of a gun from the Moree

Bastion; and he was up the stairs of the turret in a second, casting a

half-humorous, wholly deprecating glance back at her.

"A hare and a tortoise once--I learned that at school--put it into

Latin!" he said lightly, as the walls round them quivered to the

reverberating rolls, thundering from the city wall.

Kate walked up and down the roof restlessly, passing into the outer

one so as to be further from that eager sentinel and his criticisms.

Tara was spinning calmly, and Kate wondered if the woman could be

alive. Did she not know that brave men on both sides were going to

their deaths? And Tara, from under her heavy eyelashes, watched Kate,

and wondered how any woman who had brought Life into the world could

fear Death. Did not the Great Wheel spin unceasingly? Let brave men,

then, die bravely--even Soma. For she knew by this time that her

brother was in Delhi, and by the master's orders had dodged his

detection more than once. So the two women waited, each after their

nature; while like the pulse of time itself, the beat of artillery

shook the walls. It came so regularly that Kate, crouching in a corner

weary of restless pacing to and fro, grew almost drowsy and started at

a step beside her.

"A false alarm," said Jim Douglas quietly; "a sortie, as far as I

could judge, from the Moree; easily driven back."

His tone roused her antagonism instantly. "Perhaps they are waiting

for night."

"There is a full moon--almost," he replied; "besides, there is fair

cover up to within four hundred yards of the Cabul gate. They could

rush that, and a bag or two of gunpowder would finish the business."

"They could do that as well to-morrow," she remarked hotly.

"I hope to God they won't be such fools as to try it!" he replied as

hotly. "If they don't come in to-night they will have to batter down

the walls, and then the city will go against them. What city wouldn't?

It will rouse memories we can't afford to rouse. Who could? And every

wounded man who creeps in to-day will be a center of resistance by

to-morrow. The women will hound others on to protect him. It is their

way. You have always to allow for humanity in war. Well! we must wait

and see." He paused and rubbed his forehead vexedly. "If I had known,

I might have got out with the sortie; but I suppose I couldn't

really----" He paused, shrugged his shoulders, and went out.

And Kate, as she sat watching the red flush of sunset grow to the

dome, remembered his look at her with a half-angry pang. Why should

she be in this man's way always? So the day died away in soft silence,

and there on the housetop it seemed incredible that so much hung in

the balance, and that down in the streets the crowds must be drifting

to and fro restlessly. At least she supposed so. Yet, monotonous as

ever, there was the evening cry of the muezzin and the persistent

thrumming of toms-toms and saringis which evening brings to a native

city. It rose louder than usual from a roof hard by, where, so Tara

told her, a princess of the blood royal lived; a great friend of

Abool-Bukr's. The remembrance of little Sonny's hands all red with

blood, and the cruel face smiling over an apology, made her shiver,

and wonder as she often did with a desperate craving what the child's

fate had been. Why had she let the old ayah take him? Why was he not

here, safe; making life bearable? As she sat, the tears falling

quietly over her cheeks, Tara came and looked at her curiously. "The

mem should not cry," she said consolingly. "The Huzoor will save her

somehow."

For an instant Kate felt as if she would rather he did not. Then on

the distance and the darkening air came a familiar sound: the evening

bugle from the Ridge with its cheerful invitation:

"Come-and-set-a-picket-boys! come-and-keep-a-watch."

So someone else was within hail, ready to help! The knowledge brought

her a vast consolation, and for the first time in that environment she

slept through the night without wakening in deadly dreamy fear at the

least sound.

Even the uproarious devilry of Prince Abool in the alley below did not

rouse her, when about midnight he broke loose from the feverish

detaining hold which Newâsi had kept on him by every art of her power

during the day, lest the master returning should find the Prince in

mischief. But now he lurched away with a party of young bloods who had

come to fetch him, swearing that he must celebrate the victory

properly. But for a moment's weakness, fostered by a foolish, fearful

woman, he might have led the cavalry. He wept maudlin tears over the

thought, swearing he would yet show his mettle. He would not leave one

hell-doomed alive; and, suiting the action to the word, he began

incontinently to search for fugitives in some open cowyards close by,

till the strapping dairymaids, roused from slumber, declared in

revenge that they had seen a man slip down the culvert of the big

drain. Five minutes afterward Prince Abool, half-choked, half-drowned,

was dragged from the sewer by his comrades, protesting feebly that he

must have killed an infidel; else why did the blood smell so horribly?

But after that the city sank into the soundlessness, the stillness, of

the hour before dawn, save for a recurring call of the watch bugles on

wall and Ridge and the twinkling lights which burned all night in camp

and court. For those two had challenged each other, and the fight was

to the bitter end. What else could it be with a death-pledge between

them? The townspeople might sleep uncertain which side they would

espouse, but between the Men and the Murderers the issue was clear.

And it remained so, even though the month-of-miracle lingered, and no

assault came on the morrow, or the day after, or the day after that.

So that the old King himself set his back to the wall and for once

spoke as a King should. "If the army will not fight without pay,

punish it," he said to the Commander-in-chief. But it was only a flash

in the pan, and he retired once more to the latticed marble balcony

and set the sign-manual to a general fiat that "those who would be

satisfied with a trifle might be paid something." Whereat Mahboob Ali

shook his head, for there was not even a trifle in the privy purse.

As for the city people, their ears and tongues grew longer during

those three days, when the sepoys, returning from the sorties and

skirmishes, brought back tales of glorious victory, stupendous

slaughter. Her man had killed fifteen Huzoors himself, and there were

not five hundred left on the Ridge, said Futteh-deen's wife to

Pera-Khân's as they gossiped at the wall; and a good job too. When

they were gone there would be an end of these sword cuts and bullet

wounds. Not a wink of sleep had she had for nights, yawned Zainub,

what with thirsts and poultices! And on the steps of the mosque, too,

the learned lingered to discuss the newspapers. So Bukht Khân with

fifty thousand men was on his way to swear allegiance, and the Shah of

Persia had sacked Lahore, where Jan Larnce himself had been caught

trying to escape on an elephant and identified by wounds on his back.

And the London correspondent of the _Authentic News_ was no doubt

right in saying the Queen was dumfoundered, while the St. Petersburg

one was clearly correct in asserting that the Czar was about to put on

his crown at last. Why not, since his vow was at an end with the

passing of India from British supremacy?

So the dream went on; the little brocaded bags kept coming in; the

stupendous slaughter continued. Yet every night the Widow's Cruse of a

Ridge echoed to the picket bugles, and the court and the camp twinkled

at each other till dawn.

A sort of vexed despairing patience came to Jim Douglas, and more than

once he apologized to Kate for his moodiness, like a patient who

apologizes to his nurse when unfavorable symptoms set in. He gave her

what news he could glean, which was not much, for Tiddu had gone south

for another consignment of grain. But on the morning of the 12th he

turned up with a face clearer than it had been; and a friendlier look

in his eyes.

"The guides came in to camp yesterday. Splendid fellows. They were at

it hammer and tongs immediately, though that man Rujjub Ali I told you

of--it was he who said Hodson was with the force--declares they

marched from Murdin in twenty-one days. Over thirty miles a day! Well!

they looked like it. I saw them ride slap up to the Cabul gate.

And--and I saw someone else with them, Mrs. Erlton. I wasn't sure at

first if I had better tell you; but I think I had. I saw your

husband."

"My husband," she echoed faintly. In truth the past seemed to have

slipped from her. She seemed to have forgotten so much; and then

suddenly she remembered that the letter he had written must still be

in the pocket of the dress Tara had hidden away. How strange! She must

find it, and look at it again.

Jim Douglas watched her curiously with a quick recognition of his own

rough touch. Yet it could not be helped.

"Yes. He was looking splendid, doing splendidly. I couldn't help

wishing---- Well! I wish you could have seen him; you would have been

proud."

She interrupted him with swift, appealing hand. "Oh!--don't--please

don't--what have I to do with it? Can't you see--can't you understand

he was thinking of--of her--and doesn't she deserve it? while

I--I----"

It was the first breakdown he had seen during those long weeks of

strain, and he stood absolutely, wholly compassionate before it.

"My dear lady," he said gently, as he walked away to give her time,

"if you good women would only recognize the fact which worse ones do,

that most men think of many women in their lives, you would be happier.

But I doubt if Major Erlton was thinking of anyone in particular. He

was thinking of the dead, and you are among them, for _him_; remember

that. Come," he continued, crossing over to her again and holding out

his hand. "Cheer up! Aren't you always telling me it is bad for a man

to have one woman on the brain, and think, think how many there may be

to avenge by this time!"

His voice, sounding a whole gamut of emotion, a whole cadence of

consolation, seemed to find an echo in her heart, and she looked up at

him gratefully.

It would have found one also in most hearts upon the Ridge, where men

were beginning to think with a sort of mad fury of women and children

in a hundred places to which this unchecked conflagration of mutiny

was spreading swiftly. What would become of Lucknow, Cawnpore, Agra,

if something were not done at Delhi? if the challenge so well given

were not followed up? And men elsewhere telegraphed the same question,

until, half-heartedly, the General listened, and finally gave a

grudging assent to a plan of assault urged by four subalterns.

What the details were matters little. A bag of gunpowder somewhere,

with fixed bayonets to follow. A gamester's throw for sixes or

deuce-ace, so said even its supporters. But anything seemed better

than being a target for artillery practice five times better than

their own, while the mutiny spread around them.

The secret was well kept as such secrets must be. Still the afternoon

of the 12th saw a vague stir on the Ridge, and though even the

fighting men turned in to sleep, each man knew what the midnight order

meant which sent him fumbling hurriedly with belts and buckles.

"The city at last, mates! No more playin' ball," they said to each

other as they fell in, and stood waiting the next order under the

stars; waiting with growing impatience as the minutes slipped by.

"My God! where is Graves?" fumed Hodson. "We can't go on without him

and his three hundred. Ride, someone, and see. The explosion party is

ready, the Rifles safe within three hundred yards of the wall. The

dawn will be on us in no time--ride sharp!"

"Something has gone wrong," whispered a comrade. "There were lights in

the General's tent and two mounted officers--there! I thought so! It's

all up!"

All up indeed! For the bugle which rang out was the retreat. Some of

those who heard it remembered a moonlight night just a month before

when it had echoed over the Meerut parade ground; and if muttered

curses could have silenced it the bugle would have sounded in vain.

But they could not, and so the men went back sulkily, despondently to

bed. Back to inaction, back to target practice.

"Graves says he misunderstood the verbal orders, so I understand,"

palliated a staff-officer in a mess tent whither others drifted to

find solace from the chill of dis-appointment, the heat of anger. A

tall man with hawk's eyes and sparse red hair paused for a moment ere

passing out into the night again. "I dislike euphemisms," he said

curtly. "In these days I prefer to call a spade a spade. Then you can

tell what you have to trust to."

"Hodson's in a towering temper," said an artilleryman as he watched a

native servant thirstily; "I don't wonder. Well! here's to better luck

next time."

"I don't believe there will be a next time," echoed a lad gloomily.

And there was not, for him, the target practice settling that point

definitely next day.

"But why the devil couldn't--" began another vexed voice, then paused.

"Ah! here comes Erlton from the General. He'll know. I say, Major----"

he broke off aghast.

"Have a glass of something, Erlton?" put in a senior hastily, "you

look as if you had seen a ghost, man!"

The Major gave an odd hollow laugh. "The other way on--I mean--I--I

can't believe it--but my wife--she--she's alive--she's in Delhi." The

startled faces around seemed too much for him; he sat down hurriedly

and hid his face in his hands, only to look up in a second more

collectedly. "It has brought the whole d----d business home, somehow,

to have her there."

"But how?" the eager voices got so far--no further.

"I nearly shot him--should have if he had not ducked, for the get up

was perfect. Some of you may know the man--Douglas--Greyman--a trainer

chap, but my God! a well plucked one. He sneaked into my tent to tell.

But I don't understand it yet, and he said he would come back and

arrange. It was all so hurried, you see; I was due at the muster, and

he was off when he heard what was up to see Graves--whom he knows. Oh,

curse the whole lot of them! Here, khânsaman! brandy--anything!"

He gulped it down fiercely, for he had heard of more than life from

Jim Douglas.

The latter, meanwhile, was racing down a ravine as his shortest way

back to the city. His getting out had been the merest chance,

depending on his finding Soma as sentry at the sally port of the

ruined magazine. He had instantly risked the danger of another

confederate for the opportunity, and he was just telling himself with

a triumph of gladness that he had been right, when a curious sound

like the rustling of dry leaves at his very feet, made him spring into

the air and cross the flat shelf of rock he was passing at a bound;

for he knew what the noise meant. A true lover's knot of deadly viper,

angry at intrusion, lay there; the dry Ridge swarms with them. But, as

he came down lightly on his feet again, something slipped from under

one, and though he did not fall, he knew in a second that he was

crippled. Break or sprain, he knew instantly that he could not hope to

reach the sally-port before Soma's watch was up. Yet get back he must

to the city; for this--he had tried a step by this time with the aid

of a projecting rock--might make it impossible for him to return for

days if he did the easiest thing and crawled upward again hands and

knees. That, then, was not to be thought of. The Ajmere gate, however,

_might_ be open for traffic; the Delhi one certainly was, morning and

evening. The latter meant a round of nearly four miles, and endless

danger of discovery; but it must be done. So he set his face westward.

It was just twenty-four hours after this, that Tara, unable for longer

patience, told Kate that she must lock herself in, while she went out

to seek news of the master. Something must have happened. It was

thirty-six hours since they had seen him, and if he was gone, that was

an end.

Her face as she spoke was fierce, but Kate did not seem to care; she

had, in truth, almost ceased to care for her own safety except for the

sake of the man who had taken so much trouble about it. So she sat

down quietly, resolved to open the locked door no more. They might

break it in if they chose, or she could starve. What did it matter?

Tara meanwhile went, naturally, to seek Soma's aid, all other

considerations fading before the master's safety; and so of course

came instantly on the clew she sought. He had left the city, let out

by Soma's own hands; hands which had never meant to let him in again,

that being a different affair. And though he had said he would return,

why should he? asked Soma. Whereupon Tara, to prove her ground for

fear, told of the hidden mem. She would have told anything for the

sake of the master. And Soma looked at her fierce face apprehensively.

"That is for after!" she said curtly, impatiently. "Now we must make

sure he is not wounded. There was fighting to-day. Come, thou canst

give the password and we can search before dawn if we take a light.

That is the first thing."

But as, cresset in hand, Tara stooped over many a huddled heap or

long, still stretch of limb, Kate, with a beating heart, was listening

to the sound of someone on the stairs. The next moment she had flung

the door wide at the first hint of the first familiar knock.

"Where is Tara?" asked Jim Douglas peremptorily, still holding to the

door jamb for support.

"She went--to look for you--we thought--what has happened?--what is

the matter?" she faltered.

"Fool! as if that would do any good! Nothing's the matter, Mrs. Erlton.

I hurt my ankle, that's all." He tried to step over the threshold as

he spoke, but even that short pause, from sheer dogged effort, had

made its renewal an agony, and he put out his hand to her blindly. "I

shall have to ask you to help me," he began, then paused. Her arm was

round him in a second, but he stood still, looking up at her

curiously, "To--to help," he repeated. Then she had to drag him

forward by main force so that he might fall clear of the door and

enable her to close it swiftly. For who could tell what lay behind?

One thing was certain. That hand on her arm had almost scorched

her--the ankle he had spoken of must have been agony to move. Yet

there was nothing to be done save lay cold water to it, and to his

burning head, settle him as best she could on a pillow and quilt as he

lay, and then sit beside him waiting for Tara to return; for Tara

could bring what was wanted. But if Tara was never to return? Kate

sat, listening to the heavy breathing, broken by half-delirious moans,

and changing the cool cloths, while the stars dipped and the gray of

dawn grew to that dominant bubble of the mosque; and, as she sat, a

thousand wild schemes to help this man, who had helped her for so

long, passed through her brain, filling her with a certain gladness.

Until in the early dawn Tara's voice, calling on her, stole through

the door.

It was still so dark that Kate, opening it with the quick cry--"He is

here, Tara, he is here safe," did not see the tall figure standing

behind the woman's, did not see the menace of either face, did not see

Tara's quick thrust of a hand backward as if to check someone behind.

So she never knew that Jim Douglas, helpless, unconscious, had yet

stepped once more between her and death; for Tara was on her knees

beside the prostrate figure in a second, and Soma, closing the door

carefully, salaamed to Kate with a look of relief in his handsome

face. This settled the doubtful duty of denouncing the hidden

Mlechchas. How could that be done in a house where the master lay

sick?

And he lay sick for days and weeks, fighting against sun-fever and

inflammation, against the general strain of that month of inaction,

which, as Kate found with a pulse of soft pity, had sprinkled the hair

about his temples with gray.

"He would die for her," said Tara gloomily, grudgingly, "so she must

live, Soma----"

"Nay! 'twas not I----" began her brother, then held his peace,

doubtful if the disavowal was to his praise or blame; for duty was a

puzzle to most folk in those hot, lingering days of June, when the

Ridge and the City skirmished with each other and wondered mutually if

anything were gained by it. Yet both Men and Murderers were cheerful,

and Major Erlton going to see the hospital after that fifteen hours'

fight of the 23d of June, when the centenary of Plassey, a Hindoo

fast and a Mohammedan festival, made the sepoys come out to certain

victory in full parade uniform, with all their medals on, heard the

lad whose girl had been killed at Meerut say in an aggrieved tone,

"And the nigger as stuck me 'ad 'er Majesty's scarlet coatee on 'is

d----d carcass, and a 'eap of medals she give him a-blazin' on his

breast--dash 'is impudence."

So blue eye met blue eye again sympathetically, for that was no time

to see the pathos of the story.

CHAPTER IV.

BUGLES AND FIFES.

There was a blessed coolness in the air, for the rains had broken, the

molten heats of June had passed. And still that handful of obstinate

aliens clung like barnacles to the bare red rocks of the Ridge. Clung

all the closer because in one corner of it, beside the canal, they had

become part of the soil itself in rows on rows of new-made graves. A

strong rear-guard this, what with disease and exposure superadded to

skirmishes and target-practice. Yet, though not a gun in the city had

been silenced, not a battery advanced a yard, the living garrison day

after day dug these earthworks for the dead one, firm as it, in silent

resolve to yield no inch of foot-hold on those rocks till the Judgment

Day, when Men and Murderers should pass together to the great

settlement of this world's quarrels.

And yet those in command began to look at each other, and ask what the

end was to be, for though, despite the daily drain, the Widow's Cruse

grew in numbers as time went on, the city grew also, portentously.

Still the men were cheerful, the Ridge strangely unlike a war-camp in

some ways; for the country to the rear was peaceful, posts came every

day, and there was no lack even of luxuries. Grain merchants deserting

their city shops set up amid the surer payments of the cantonment

bazaar, and the greed for gain brought hawkers of fruit, milk, and

vegetables to run the gauntlet of the guns, while some poor folk

living on their wits, when there was not a rag or a patch or a bit of

wood left to be looted in the deserted bungalows, took to earning

pennies by tracking the big shot as they trundled in the ravines, and

bringing them to the masters, who needed them.

Between the rain-showers too, men, after the manner of Englishmen,

began to talk of football matches, sky races, and bewail the fact of

the racket court being within range of the walls. But some, like Major

Reid, who never left his post at Hindoo Rao's house for three months,

preferred to face the city always. To watch it as a cat watches a

mouse to which she means to deal death by and by. Herbert Erlton was

one of these, and so his old khânsaman, with whom Kate used to quarrel

over his terribly Oriental ideas of Irish stew and such like--would

bring him his lunch, sometimes his dinner, to the pickets. It was

quite a dignified procession, with a cook-boy carrying a brazier, so

that the Huzoor's food should be hot, and the bhisti carrying a porous

pot of water holding bottles, so that the Huzoor's drink might be

cool. The khânsaman, a wizened figure with many yards of waistband

swathed round his middle, leading the way with the mint sauce for the

lamb, or the mustard for the beefsteak. He used at first to mumble

charms and vows for safe passage as he crossed the valley of the

shadow; as a dip where round shot loved to dance was nicknamed by the

men. But so many others of his trade were bringing food to the master

that he soon grew callous to the danger, and grinned like the rest

when a wild caper to dodge a trundling, thundering ball made a

fair-haired laddie remark sardonically to the caperer, "It's well for

you, my boy, that you haven't spilled my dinner."

Perhaps it was, considering the temper of the times. Herbert Erlton,

eating his lunch, sheltered from the pelting rain behind the low scarp

which by this time scored the summit of the Ridge, smiled also. He was

all grimed and smirched with helping young Light--the gayest dancer in

Upper India--with his guns. He helped wherever he could in his spare

time, for a great restlessness came over him when out of sight of

those rose-red walls. They had a fascination for him since Jim

Douglas' failure to return had left him uncertain what they held. So,

when the day's work slackened, as it always did toward sunset, and the

rain clearing, he had drifted back to his tent for a bath and a

change, he drifted out again along the central road, where those off

duty were lounging, and the sick had their beds set out for the sake

of company and cooler air. It was a quieter company than usual, for

some two days before the General himself had joined the rear-guard by

the canal; struck down by cholera, and dying with the half-conscious,

wholly pathetic words on his lips, "strengthen the right."

And that very day the auctions of his and other dead comrades' effects

had been held; so that more than one usually thoughtless youngster

looked down, maybe, on a pair of shoes into which he had stepped over

a grave.

Still it was an eager company, as it discussed Lieutenant Hills'

exploit of the morning, and asked for the latest bulletin of that

reckless young fighter with fists against the swords.

"How was it?" asked the Major, "I only heard the row. The beggars must

have got clean into camp."

"Right up to the artillery lines. You see it was so beastly misty and

rainy, and they were dressed like the native vidette. So Hills,

thinking them friends, let them pass his two guns, until they began

charging the Carabineers; and then it was too late to stop 'em."

"Why?"

"Carabineers--didn't stand, somehow, except their officer. So Hills

charged instead. By George! I'd have given a fiver to see him do it.

You know what a little chap he is--a boy to look at. And then----"

"And then," interrupted the Doctor, who had been giving a glance at a

ticklish bandage as he passed the bed round which the speakers were

gathered, "I think I can tell you in his own words; for he was quite

cool and collected when they brought him in--said it was from bleeding

so much about the head----"

A ripple of mirth ran through the listeners, but Major Erlton did not

smile this time; the laugh was too tender.

"He said he thought if he charged it would be a diversion, and give

time to load up. So he rode--Yes! I should like to have seen it

too!--slap at the front rank, cut down the first fellow, slashed the

next over the face. Then the two following crashed into him, and down

he went at such a pace that he only got a slice to his jacket and

lay snug till the troop--a hundred and fifty or so--rode over him.

Then--ha--ha! he got up and looked for his sword! Had just found it

ten yards off, when three of them turned back for him. He dropped one

from his horse, dodged the other, who had a lance, and finally gashed

him over the head. Number three was on foot--the man he'd dropped, he

thinks, at first--and they had a regular set to. Then Hills' cloak,

soaked with rain, got round his throat and half choked him, and the

brute managed to disarm him. So he had to go for him with his fists,

and by punching merrily at his head managed all right till he tripped

over his cloak and fell----"

"And then," put in another voice eagerly, "Tombs, his Major, who had

been running from his tent through the thick of those charging devils

on foot to see what was up that the Carabineers should be retiring,

saw him lying on the ground, took a pot shot at thirty paces--and

dropped his man!"

"By George, what luck!" commented someone; "he must have been blown!"

"Accustomed to turnips, I should say," remarked another, with a

curiously even voice; the voice of one with a lump in his throat, and

a slight difficulty in keeping steady.

"Did they kill the lot?" asked Major Erlton quickly.

"Bungled it rather, but it was all right in the end. They were a

plucky set, though; charged to the very middle of the camp, shouting

to the black artillery to join them, to come back with them to Delhi."

"But they met with a pluckier lot!" interrupted the man who had

suggested turnips. "The black company wasn't ready for action. The

white one behind it was; unlimbered, loaded. And the blackies knew it.

So they called out to fire--fire at once--fire sharp--fire through

them--Well! d----n it all, black or white, I don't care, it's as

plucky a thing as has been done yet." He moved away, his hands in his

pockets, attempting a whistle; perhaps to hide his trembling lips.

"I agree," said the Doctor gravely, "though it wasn't necessary to

take them at their word. But somehow it makes that mistake afterward

all the worse."

"How many of the poor beggars were killed, Doctor," asked an uneasy

voice in the pause which followed.

"Twenty or so. Grass-cutters and such like. They were hiding in the

cemetery from the troopers, who were slashing at everyone, and our men

pursuing the party which escaped over the canal bridge--made--made a

mistake. And--I'm sorry to say there was a woman----"

"There have been too many mistakes of that sort," said an older voice,

breaking the silence. "I wish to God some of us would think a bit.

What would our lives be without our servants, who, let us remember,

outnumber us by ten to one? If they weren't faithful----"

"Not quite so many, Colonel," remarked the Doctor with a nod of

approval. "Twenty families came to the Brigade-major to-day with their

bundles, and told him they preferred the quiet of home to the

distraction of camp. I don't wonder."

"It is all their own fault," broke in an angry young voice, "why did

they----"

And so began one of the arguments, so common in camp, as to the right

of revenge pure and simple. Arguments fostered by the newspapers,

where, every day, letters appeared from "Spartacus," or "Fiat

Justitia," or some such _nom de plume_. Letters all alike in one

thing, that they quoted texts of Scripture. Notably one about a

daughter of Babylon and the blessedness of throwing children on

stones.

But Major Erlton did not stop to listen to it. The ethics of the

question did not interest him, and in truth mere revenge was lost in

him in the desire, not so much to kill, as to fight. To go on hacking

and hewing for ever and ever. As he drifted on smoking his cigar he

thought quite kindly of the poor devils of grass-cutters who really

worked uncommonly well; just, in fact, as if nothing had happened. So

did the old khânsaman, and the sweeper who had come back to him on his

return to the Ridge, saying that the Huzoor would find the tale of

chickens complete. And the garden of the ruined house near the

Flagstaff Tower whither his feet led him unconsciously, as they often

did of an evening, was kept tidy; the gardener--when he saw the tall

figure approaching--going over to a rose-bush, which, now that the

rain had fallen, was new budding with white buds, and picking him a

buttonhole. He sat down on the plinth of the veranda twiddling it idly

in his fingers as he looked out over the panorama of the eastern

plains, the curving river, and the city with the white dome of the

mosque hanging unsupported above the smoke and mist wreaths. For now,

at sunsetting, the sky was a mass of rose-red and violet cloud and a

white steam rose from the dripping trees and the moist ground. It was

a perfect picture. But he only saw the city. That, to him, was India.

That filled his eye. The wide plains east and west, north and south,

where the recent rain had driven every thought save one of a harvest

to come, from the minds of millions, where the master meant simply the

claimer of revenue, might have been non-existent so far as he, and his

like, were concerned.

Yet even for the city he had no definite conception. He merely looked

at it idly, then at the rosebud he held. And that reminding him of a

certain white marble cross with "Thy will be done" on it, he rose

suddenly, almost impatiently. But there was no resignation in _his_

face, as he wandered toward the batteries again with the white flower

of a blameless life stuck in his old flannel coat and a strange

conglomerate of pity and passion in his heart, while the city--as the

light faded--grew more and more like the clouds above it, rose-red and

purple; until, in the distance, it seemed a city of dreams.

In truth it was so still, despite the clangor of bugles and fifes

which Bukht Khân brought with him when, on the 1st of July, he

crossed the swollen river in boats with five thousand mutineers. A

square-shouldered man was Bukht Khân, with a broad face and massive

beard; a massive sonorous voice to match. A man of the Cromwell type,

of the church militant, disciplinarian to the back-bone, believing in

drill, yet with an eye to a Providence above platoon exercise. And

there was no lack of soldiers to drill in Delhi by this time. They

came in squads and battalions, to jostle each other in the streets and

overflow into the camp on the southern side of the city; that furthest

from the obstinate colony on the Ridge. But first they flung

themselves against it in all the ardor of new brooms, and failing to

sweep the barnacles away, subsided into the general state of

dreaminess and drugs. For the bugles and fifes could always be

disobeyed on the plea that they were not sounded by the right

Commander-in-Chief. There were three of them now. Bukht Khân the

Queen's nominee, Mirza Moghul, and another son of the King's, Khair

Sultân. So that Abool-Bukr's maudlin regrets for possible office

became acute, and Newâsi's despairing hold on his hand had to gain

strength from every influence she could bring to bear upon it. Even

drunkenness and debauchery were safer than intrigue, to that vision of

retribution which seemed to have left him, and taken to haunting her

day and night. So she held him fast, and when he was not there wept

and prayed, and listened hollow-eyed to a Moulvie who preached at the

neighboring mosque; a man who preached a judgment.

"Thou art losing thy looks, mine Aunt," said the Prince to her one

day. Not unkindly; on the contrary, almost tenderly. "Dost know,

Newâsi, thou art more woman than most, for thou dost brave all things,

even loss of good name--for I swear even these Mufti folk complain of

thee--for nothing. None other I know would do it, so I would not have

it--for something. Yet some day we shall quarrel over it; some day thy

patience will go; some day thou wilt be as others, thinking of

thyself; and then----"

"And then, nephew?" she asked coldly.

He laughed, mimicking her tone. "And then I shall grow tired and go

mine own way to mine own end."

In the meantime, however, the thrummings and drummings went on until

Kate Erlton, watching a sick bed hard by, felt as if she must send

round and beg for quiet. It seemed quite natural she should do so, for

she was completely absorbed over that patient of hers, who, without

being seriously ill, would not get better. Who passed from one relapse

of fever to another with a listless impatience, and now, nearly a

month after he had stumbled over the threshold, lay barely

convalescent. It had been a strange month. Stranger even than the

previous one, when she had dragged through the lonely days as best she

could, and he had wandered in and out restlessly, full of strain and

stress. If even that had been a curious linking of their fates, what

was this when she tended him day and night, when the weeks slipped by

securely, almost ignorantly? For though Soma came every day to inquire

after the master, standing at the door to salute to her, spick and

span in full uniform, he brought no disturbing news.

It seemed to her, now, that she had known Jim Douglas all his life.

And in truth she had learned something of the real man during the few

days of delirium consequent on the violent inflammation which set in

on the injured ankle. But for the most part he had muttered and moaned

in liquid Persian. He had always spoken it with Zora, who had been

taught it as part of her attractions, and no doubt it was the jingle

of the jewels as Kate tended him, which reminded him of that

particular part of his life.

By the time he came to himself, however, she had removed all the

fineries, finding them in the way; save the heavy gold bangle which

would not come off--at least not without help. He used to watch it

half confusedly at first as it slipped up and down her arm, and

wondered why she had not asked Tara to take it off for her; but he

grew rather to like the look of it; to fancy that she had kept it on

on purpose, to be glad that she had; though it was distinctly hard

when she raised him up on his pillows! For, after all, fate linked

them strangely, and he was grateful to her--very grateful.

"You are laughing at me," she said one morning as she came up to his

bed, with a tray improvised out of a brass platter, and found him

smiling.

"I have been laughing at you all the morning, when I haven't been

grumbling," he replied, "at you and the chicken tea, and that little

fringed business, to do duty as a napkin, I suppose, and the

fly-paper--which isn't the least use, by the way, and I'm sure I could

make a better one--and the mosquito net to give additional protection

to my beauty when I fall asleep. Who could help laughing at it?"

She looked at him reproachfully. "But it makes you more comfortable,

surely?"

"Comfortable," he echoed, "my dear lady! It is a perfect convalescent

home!"

But in the silence which followed his right hand clenched itself over

a fold in the quilt unmistakably.

"If you will take your chicken tea," she replied cheer-fully, despite

a faint tremble in her voice, "you will soon get out of it. And

really, Mr. Greyman, you don't seem to have lost any chance. Soma is

not very communicative, but everything seems as it was. I never keep

back anything from you. But, indeed, the chief thing in the city seems

that there is no money to pay the soldiers. Do you know, I'm afraid

Soma must loot the shops like the others. He seems to get things for

nothing; though of course they are extraordinarily cheap. When I was a

mem I used to pay twice as much for eggs."

He interrupted her with a laugh that had a tinge of bitterness in it.

"Do you happen to know the story of the Jew who was eating ham during

a thunderstorm, Mrs. Erlton?"

She shook her head, smiling, being accustomed by this time to his

unsparing, rather reckless ridicule.

"He looked up and said, 'All this fuss about a little bit of pork.' So

all this fuss has taught you the price of eggs. Upon my word! it is

worse than the convalescent home!" He lay back upon his pillows with a

half-irritated weariness.

"I have learned more than that, surely----" she began.

"Learned!" he echoed sharply. "You've learned everything, my dear

lady, necessary to salvation. That's the worst of it! Your chatter to

Tara--I hear when you think I am asleep. You draw your veil over your

face when the water-carrier comes to fill the pots as if you had been

born on a housetop. You--Mrs. Erlton! If I were not a helpless idiot I

could pass you out of the city to-morrow, I believe. It isn't your

fault any longer. It's mine, and Heaven only knows how long. Oh!

confound that thrumming and drumming. It gets on my nerves--my

nerves!--pshaw!"

It was then that Kate declared that she would really send Tara----

"Mrs. Erlton presents her compliments to the Princess Farkhoonda

Zamâni, and will be obliged," jested Jim Douglas; then paused, in

truth more irritated than amused, despite the humor on his face. And

suddenly he appealed to her almost pitifully, "Mrs. Erlton! if anyone

had told you it would be like this--your chance and mine--when the

world outside us was alive--was struggling for life--would you--would

you have believed it?"

She bent to push the chicken tea to a securer position. "No," she said

softly; then to change the subject, added, "How white your hands are

getting again! I must put some more stain on them, I suppose." She

spoke regretfully, though she did not mind putting it on her own. But

he looked at the whiteness with distinct distaste.

"It is with doing nothing and lying like a log. Well! I suppose I

shall wake from the dream some day, and then the moment I can

walk----"

"There will be an end of peace," she interrupted, quite resolutely. "I

know it is very hard for you to lie still, but really you must see how

much safer and smoother life has been since you were forced to give in

to Fate."

"And Kate," he muttered crossly under his breath. But she heard it,

and bit her lip to prevent a tender smile as she went off to give an

order to Tara. For the vein of almost boyish mischief and lighthearted

recklessness which showed in him at times always made her think how

charming he must have been before the cloud shadowed his life.

"The master is much better to-day, Tara," she said cheerfully. "I

really think the fever has gone for good."

"Then he will soon be able to take the mem away," replied the woman

quickly.

"Are you in such a hurry to get rid of me?" asked Kate with a smile,

for she had grown fond of the tall, stately creature, with her solemn

airs of duty, and absolute disregard of anything which came in its

way. The intensity of the emotion which swept over the face, which was

usually calm as a bronze statue, startled Kate.

"Of a truth I shall be glad to go back. The Huzoors' life is not my

life, their death not my death."

It was as if the woman's whole nature had recoiled, as one might

recoil from a snake in the path, and a chill struck Kate Erlton's

heart, as she realized on how frail a foundation peace and security

rested. A look, a word, might bring death. It seemed to her incredible

that she should have forgotten this, but she had. She had almost

forgotten that they were living in a beleagured city, though the

reverberating roll of artillery, the rush and roar of shells, and the

crackle of musketry never ceased for more than a few hours at a time.

She was not alone, however, in her forgetfulness. Half Delhi had

become accustomed to cannon, to bugles and fifes, and went on its

daily round indifferently. But in the Palace the dream grew ominously

thin once or twice. For not a fraction remained in the Treasury, no

effort to collect revenue had been made anywhere, and fat Mahboob, the

only man who knew how to screw money out of a stone, lay dying of

dropsy. And as he lay, the mists of personal interest in the future

dispersing, he told his old master, the King, some home truths

privately, while Ahsan-Oolah, the physician, administering cooling

draughts as usual, added his wisdom to the eunuch's. There was no hope

where there was no money. Life was not worth living without a regular

pension. Let the King secure his and secure pardon while there was

yet time, by sending a letter to the General on the Ridge, and

offering to let the English in by Selimgarh and betray the city. When

all was said and done, others had betrayed _him_, had forced _his_

hand; so let him save himself if he could, quietly, without a word to

any but Ahsan-Oolah. Above all, not one word to Zeenut Maihl, Hussan

Askuri, and Bukht Khân--that Trinity of Dreams!

With which words of wisdom mayhap lightening his load of sins, the fat

eunuch left the court once and for all. So the old King, as he sat

listening to the quarrels of his Commander-in-Chief, had other

consolation besides couplets; and when he wrote

"No peace, no rest, since armies round me riot,

Life lingers yet, but ere long I shall die o't,"

he knew--though his yellow, wax-like mask hid the knowledge from

all--that a chance of escape remained.

The old King's letter reached the Ridge easily. There was no

difficulty in communication now. Spies were plentiful, and if Jim

Douglas had been able to get about, he could have set Major Erlton's

mind at rest without delay. But Soma positively refused to be a

go-between; to do anything, in short, save secure the master's safety.

And the offer of betrayal arrived when the man who held command of the

Ridge felt uncertain of the future; all the more so because of the

telegrams, the letters--almost the orders--which came pouring in to

take Delhi--to take it at once! Early in the month, the gamester's

throw of assault had been revived with the arrival of reinforcements,

only to be abandoned once more, within an hour of the appointed

time, in favor of the grip-of-death. But now, though the whisper had

gone no further than the General's tent, a third possibility was

allowed--retreat. The six thousand were dwindling day by day, the men

were half dead with picket duty, wearied out with needless skirmishes,

crushed by the tyranny of bugles and fifes.

If this then could be? There was no lack of desire to believe it

possible; but Greathed of the politicals, and Sir Theophilus Metcalfe

shook their heads doubtfully. Hodson, they said, had better be

consulted. So the tall man with the blue hawk's eyes, who had lost his

temper many times since that dawn of the 12th of June, when the first

assault had hung fire, was asked for his opinion.

"We had a chance at the beginning," he said. "We could have a chance

now, if there was someone--but that is beside the question. As for

this, it is not worth the paper it is written on. The King has no

power to fulfill his promise. He is virtually a prisoner himself. That

is the truth. But don't send an answer. Refer it, and keep him quiet."

"And retreat?"

"Retreat is impossible, sir. It would lose us India."

"Any news, Hodson?" asked Major Erlton, meeting the free-lance as he

rode back to his tent after his fashion, with loose rein and loose

seat, unkempt, undeviating, with an eye for any and every advantage.

"None."

"Any chance of--of anything?"

"None with our present chiefs. If we had Sir Henry Lawrence here it

would be different."

But Sir Henry Lawrence, having done his duty to the uttermost, already

lay dead in the residency at Lucknow, though the tidings had not

reached the Ridge. And yet more direful tidings were on their way to

bring July, that month of clouds and cholera, of flies and funerals,

of endless buglings and fifings, to a close.

It came to the city first. Came one afternoon when the King sat in the

private Hall of Audience, his back toward the arcaded view of the

eastern plains, ablaze with sunlight, his face toward the garden,

which, through the marble-mosaic traced arches, showed like an

embroidered curtain of green set with jeweled flowers. Above him, on

the roof, circled the boastful legend:

"If earth holds a haven of bliss

It is this--it is this--it is this!"

And all around him, in due order of precedence, according to the

latest army lists procurable in Delhi, were ranged the mutinous native

officers; for half the King's sovereignty showed itself in punctilious

etiquette. At his feet, below the peacock throne, stood a gilded cage

containing a cockatoo. For Hâfzan had been so far right in her

estimate of Hussan Askuri's wonders that poor little Sonny's pet, duly

caught, and with its crest dyed an orthodox green, had been used--like

the stuffed lizard--to play on the old man's love of the marvelous.

So, for the time being, the bird followed him in his brief journeyings

from Audience Hall to balcony, from balcony to bed.

The usual pile of brocaded bags lay below that again, upon the marble

floor, where a reader crouched, sampling the most loyal to be used as

a sedative. One would be needed ere long, for the Commanders-in-Chief

were at war; Bukht Khân, backed by Hussan Askuri, with his long black

robe, his white beard, and the wild eyes beneath his bushy brows, and

by all the puritans and fanatics of the city; Mirza Moghul by his

brother, Khair Sultân, and most of the Northern Indian rebels who

refused a mere ex-soubadar's right to be better than they.

"Let the Light-of-the-World choose between us," came the sonorous

voice almost indifferently; in truth those secret counsels of Bukht

Khân with the Queen, of which the Palace was big with gossip, held

small place, allowed small consideration for the puppet King.

"Yea! let the Pillar-of-State choose," bawled the shrill voice of the

Moghul, whose yellow, small-featured face was ablaze with passion.

"Choose between his son and heir and this low-born upstart, this

soubadar of artillery, this puritan by profession, this debaucher of

King's----"

He paused, for Bukht Khân's hand was on his sword, and there was an

ominous stir behind Hussan Askuri. Ahsan-Oolah, a discreet figure in

black standing by the side of the throne, craned his long neck

forward, and his crafty face wore an amused smile.

Bukht Khân laughed disdainfully at the Mirza's full stop. "What I am,

sire, matters little if I can lead armies to victory. The Mirza hath

not led his, _as yet_."

"Not led them?" interrupted an officious peace-bringer. "Lo! the

hell-doomed are reduced to five hundred; the colonels are eating their

horses' grain, the captains are starving, and our shells cause terror

as they cry, 'Coffin! Coffin! (_boccus! boccus!_)----'"

"The Mirza could do as well as thou," put in a partisan, heedless of

the tales to which the King, however, had been nodding his head, "if,

as thou hast, he had money to pay his troops. The Begum Zeenut Maihl's

hoards----"

The sword and the hand kept company again significantly. "I pay my men

by the hoard I took from the infidel, Meean-jee," retorted the loud,

indifferent voice. "And when it is done I can get more. The Palace is

not sucked dry yet, nor Delhi either."

The Meean, well known to have feathered his nest bravely, muttered

something inaudible, but a stout, white-robed gentleman bleated

hastily:

"There is no more money to be loaned in Delhi, be the interest ever so

high."

The broad face broadened with a sardonic smile. "I borrow, banker-jee,

according to the tenets of the faith, without interest! For the rest,

five minutes in thy house with a spade and a string bed to hang thee

on head down, and I pay every fighter for the faith in Delhi his

arrears."

"_Wâh! Wâh!_" A fierce murmur of approval ran round the audience, for

all liked that way of dealing with folk who kept their money to

themselves.

"But, Khân-jee! there is no such hurry," protested the keeper of

peace, the promoter of dreams. "The hell-doomed are at the last gasp.

Have not two Commanders-in-Chief had to commit suicide before their

troops? And was not the third allowed by special favor of the Queen to

go away and do it privately? This one will have to do it also, and

then----"

"And a letter has but this day come in," said a grave, clever-looking

man, interrupting the tale once more, "offering ten lakhs; but as the

writer makes stipulations, we are asking what treasury he means to

loot, or if it is hidden hoards."

Bukht Khân shrugged his shoulders. "The Meean's or the banker's hoards

are nearer," he said brutally, "and money we must have, if we are to

fight as soldiers. Otherwise----" He paused. There was a stir at the

entrance, where a news-runner had unceremoniously pushed his way in to

flourish a letter in a long envelope, and pant with vehement show of

breathlessness. "In haste! In haste! and buksheesh for the bringer."

The King, who had been listening wearily to the dispute, thinking

possibly that the paucity of commanders on the Ridge was preferable to

the plethora of them at court, looked up indifferently. They came so

often, these bearers of wonderful news. Not so often as the little

brocaded bags; but they had no more effect.

"Reward him, Keeper-of-the-Purse," he said punctiliously, "and read,

slave. It is some victory to our troops, no doubt."

There was a pause, during which people waited indifferently,

wondering, some of them, if it was bogus news that was to come or not.

Then the court moonshee stood up with a doubtful face. "'Tis from

Cawnpore," he murmured, forgetting decorum and etiquette; forgetting

everything save the news that the Nâna of Bithoor had killed the two

hundred women and children he had pledged himself to save.

Bukht Khân's hand went to his sword once more, as he listened, and he

turned hastily to Hussan Askuri. "That settles it as _thou_ wouldst

have it," he whispered. "It is Holy War indeed, or defeat."

But Mirza Moghul shrank as a man shrinks from the scaffold.

The old King stood up quickly; stood up between the lights looking out

on the curtain of flowers. "Whatever happens," he said tremulously,

"happens by the will of God."

His sanctimoniousness never failed him.

So on the night of the 23d of August there was an unwonted stillness

in the city, and the coming of day did not break it. The rain, it is

true, fell in torrents, but many an attack had been made in rain

before. There was none now. The bugles and fifes had ended, and folk

were waiting for the drum ecclesiastic to begin. What they thought

meanwhile, who knows? Delhi held a hundred and fifty thousand souls,

swelled to nigh two hundred thousand by soldiers. Only this,

therefore, is certain, the thoughts must have been diverse.

But on the Ridge, when, after a few days, the tidings reached it with

certainty, there was but one. It found expression in a letter which

the General wrote on the last day of July. "It is my firm intention to

hold my present position and resist attack to the last. The enemy are

very numerous, and may possibly break through our intrenchments and

overwhelm us, but the force will die at its post."

No talk of retirement now! The millions of peasants plowing their land

peaceably in firm faith of a just master who would take no more than

his due, the thousands even in the bloody city itself waiting for this

tyranny to pass, were not to be deserted. The fight would go on. The

fight for law and order.

So the sanctimonious old King had said sooth, "Whatever happens,

happens by the will of God."

Those two hundred had not died in vain.

CHAPTER V.

THE DRUM ECCLESIASTIC.

The silence of the city had lasted for seven days. And now, on the 1st

of August, the dawn was at hand, and the rain which had been falling

all night had ceased, leaving pools of water about the city walls.

Still, smooth pools like plates of steel, dimly reflecting the gray

misty sky against which the minarets of the mosque showed as darker

streaks, its dome like a faint cloud.

And suddenly the silence ended. The first shuddering beat of a royal

salute vibrated through the heavy dewy air, the first chord of "God

save the Queen," played by every band in Delhi, floated Ridgeward.

The cheek of it!

That phrase--no other less trenchant, more refined--expressed purely

the feeling with which the roused six thousand listened from picket or

tent, comfortable bed or damp sentry-go, to this topsy-turveydom of

anthems! The cheek of it! The very walls ought to fall Jericho-wise

before such sacrilegious music.

But in the city it sent a thrill through hearts and brains. For it

roused many a dreamer wild had never felt the chill of a sword-hilt on

his palm to the knowledge that the time for gripping one had come.

Since this was Bukr-eed, the Great Day of Sacrifice. No common

Bukr-eed either, when the blood of a goat or a bull would worthily

commemorate Abraham's sacrifice of his best and dearest, but something

more akin to the old patriarch's devotion. Since on Bukr-eed, 1857,

the infidel was to be sacrificed by the faithful, and the faithful by

the infidel.

For the silence of seven days had been a silence only from bugles and

fifes; the drum ecclesiastic had taken their place. The mosques had

resounded day and night to the wild tirades of preachers, and even

Mohammed Ismail, feeling that in religious war lay the only chance of

forgiveness for past horrors, spent every hour in painting its

perfections, in deprecating any deviation from its rule. The sword or

the faith for men; the faith without the sword for those who could not

fight. But others were less scrupulous, their denunciations less

guarded, and as the processions passed through the narrow streets

flaunting the green banner, half the Mohammedan population felt that

the time had come to strike their blow for the faith. And Hussan

Askuri dreamed dreams; and the Bird-of-Heaven, with its crest new-dyed

for the occasion, gave the Great Cry viciously as it was paraded

through jostling crowds in the Thunbi Bazaar, where religion found

recruits by the score even among the women. While Abool-Bukr, vaguely

impressed by the stir, the color, the noise, took to the green and

swore to live cleanly. So that Newâsi's soft eyes shone as she

repeated Mohammed Ismail's theories. They were very true, the Prince

said; besides this could be nothing but honest fighting since there

were no women on the Ridge; whereupon she stitched away at his green

banner fearlessly.

But in the Palace it needed all Bukht Khân's determination and Hussan

Askuri's wily dreams to reconcile the old King to the breach of

etiquette which the sacrifice of a camel instead of a bull by the

royal hands involved. For the army--three-quarters Brahmin and Rajpoot

had been promised, as a reward for helping to drive out the infidel,

that no sacred kine should be killed in Hindustan.

And others besides the King objected to the restriction. Old Fâtma,

for instance, Shumsha-deen the seal-cutter's wife, as she swathed her

husband's white beard with pounded henna leaves to give it the

orthodox red dye.

"What matters it, woman?" he replied sternly, but with an odd quaver

in his voice. "There is a greater sacrifice than the blood of bulls

and goats, and that I may yet offer this blessed Eed."

"And mayhap, mother," suggested the widowed, childless

daughter-in-law, "a goat will serve our turn better than a stirk this

year: there will be enough for offering, and belike there may be no

feasting."

The old lady, high-featured, high-tempered, wept profusely between

her railings at the ill-omened suggestion; but the old Turk admitted

the possibility with a strained wondering look in the eyes which had

lost their keenness with graving texts. So, as the day passed the

women helped him faithfully in his bath of purification, and the

daughter-in-law, having the steadiest hand, put the antimony into the

old man's eyes as he squatted on a clean white cloth stretched in the

center of the odd little courtyard. She used the stylus she had

brought with her to the house as a bride, and it woke past memories in

the old brain, making the black-edged old eyes look at the wife of his

youth with a wistful tenderness. For it was years since a woman had

performed the kindly office; not since the finery and folly of life

had passed into the next generation's hands. But old Fâtma thought he

still looked as handsome as any as he finally stepped into the streets

in his baggy trousers with one green shawl twisted into a voluminous

waistband, another into a turban, his flaming red beard flowing over

his white tunic, and a curved scimitar--it was rather difficult to get

out of its scabbard by reason of rust--at his side.

"Lo here comes old Fâtma's Shumsha-deen," whispered other women,

peeping through other chinks. "He looks well for sure; better by far

than Murri-am's Faiz-Ahmud for all his new gold shoes!"

And those two, daughter and mother-in-law, huddled in unaccustomed

embrace to see the last of their martyr through the only convenient

crack, felt a glow of pitiful pride before they fell a-weeping and

a-praying the old pitiful prayer of quarrelers that God would be good

to His own.

There were thousands in Delhi about sunsetting on the 1st of August

praying that prayer, though there were hundreds who held aloof,

talking learnedly of the House of Protection as distinguished from the

House of the Enemy, as they listened to the evening call to prayer.

How could there be Holy War, when that had echoed freely during the

British rule? And Mohammed Ismail, listening to their arguments

feverishly, knew in his heart that they were right.

But the old Shumsha-deens did not split hairs. So as the sun set they

went forth in thousands and the gates were closed behind them; for

they were to conquer or die. They were to hurl themselves recklessly

on the low breastworks which now furrowed the long line of hill. Above

all, on that which had crept down its side to a ruined temple within

seven hundred yards of the Moree Bastion.

So, about the rising of the moon, two days from full, began such a

cannonading and fusillading as was not surpassed even on that final

day when the Ridge, taking similar heart of grace, was to fling itself

against the city.

Major Erlton, off duty but on pleasure in the Saming-House breastwork,

said to his neighbor that they must be mad, as a confused wild rush

burst from the Moree gate. Six thousand or so of soldiers and

Shumsha-deens with elephants, camels, field-pieces, distinct in the

moonlight. And behind them came a hail of shell and shot, with them a

rain of grape and musket-balls. But above all the din and rattle could

be heard two things: The cries of the muezzins from the minarets,

chanting to the four corners of Earth and Sky that "Glory is for all

and Heaven for those who bleed," and an incessant bugling.

"It's that man in front," remarked Major Erlton. "Do you think we

shall manage, Reid? There's an awful lot of them."

Major Reid looked round on his little garrison of dark faces; for

there was not an Englishman in the post; only a hundred quaint squat

Ghoorkas, and fifty tall fair Guides from the Western frontier.

"We'll do for just now, and I can send for the Rifles by and by.

There's to be no pursuit, you know. The order's out. Ought to have

been out long ago. Reserve your fire, men, till they come close up."

And come close they did, while Walidad Khân, fierce fanatic from

Peshawur, and Gorakh-nâth, fiercer Bhuddist from Nepâl, with fingers

on trigger, called on them jibingly to come closer still; though

twenty yards from a breastwork bristling with rifles was surely close

enough for anyone? But it was not for the bugler who led the van,

sounding assemblies, advances, doubles; anything which might stir the

hearts behind.

"He has got a magnificent pair of bellows," remarked an officer, who,

after a time, came down with a hundred and fifty of the Rifles to aid

that hundred and fifty natives in holding the post against six

thousand and more of their countrymen.

"Splendid! he has been at it this hour or more," said Major Erlton. "I

really think they are mad. They don't seem to aim or to care. There

they are again!"

It was darker now, and Walidad Khân from Peshawur and Gorakh-nâth from

Nepâl, and Bill Atkins from Lambeth had to listen for that tootling of

assemblies and advances to tell them when to fire blindly from the

embrazures into the smoke and the roar and the rattle. So they fell to

wondering among themselves if they had nicked him that time. Once or

twice the silence seemed to say they had; but after a bit the tootling

began again, and a disappointed pair of eyes peeping curiously,

recklessly, would see a dim figure running madly to the assault again.

"Plucky devil!" muttered Major Erlton as with the loan of a rifle he

had his try. There was a look of hope on dark faces and white alike as

they cuddled down to the rifle stocks and came up to listen. It was

like shooting into a herd of does for the one royal head; and some of

the sportsmen had tempers.

"_Shaitân-ke-butcha!_" (Child of the devil), muttered Walidad Khân,

whereat Gorakh-nâth grinned from ear to ear.

"Wot cher laughin' at?" asked Bill Atkins, who had been indulging in

language of his own. "A feller can't 'it ghosts. An' e's the piper as

played afore Moses; that's what 'ee is."

"Look sharp, men!" came the officer's warning. "There's a new lot

coming on. Wait and let them have it."

They did. The din was terrific. The incessant flashes lighting

up the city, showed its roofs crowded with the families of absent

Shumsha-deens. So High Heaven must have been assailed, indeed, that

night.

And even when dawn came it brought no Sabbath calm. Only a fresh batch

of martyrs. But they had no bugler; for with the dawn some fierce

frontiersman, jesting Cockney, or grinning Ghoorkha may have risked

his life for a fair shot in daylight at the piper who played before

Moses. Anyhow, he played no more. Perhaps the lack of him, perhaps the

torrents of rain which began to fall as the sun rose, quenched the

fires of faith. Anyhow, by nine o'clock the din was over, the drum

ecclesiastic ceased to beat, and the English going out to count the

dead found the bugler lying close to the breastwork, his bugle still

in his hand; a nameless hero save for that passing jest.

But someone in the city no doubt mourned the piper who played before

Moses, as they mourned other martyrs. More than a thousand of them.

Yet the Ridge, despite the faith, and fury, and fusillading, had only

to dig one grave; for fourteen hours of what the records call "unusual

intrepidity"--contemptuously cool equivalent for all that faith and

fury--had only killed one infidel.

Shumsha-deen's Fâtma, however, was as proud as if he had killed a

hundred; for he had bled profusely for the faith, having been at the

very outset of it all kicked by a camel and sent flying on to a rock

to dream confused dreams of valor till the bleeding from his nose

relieved the slight concussion of his brain, and enabled him to go

home, much shaken, but none the worse.

But many hundreds of women never saw their Shum-sha-deens again, or if

they saw them, only saw something to weep over and bind in white

swaddling clothes and gold thread.

So by dark on the 2d of August the sound of wailing women rose from

every alley, and the men, wandering restlessly about the bazaars,

listened to the sound of tattoo from the Ridge and looked at each

other almost startled.

"Go-to-bed-Tom! Go-to-bed-Tom! Drunk-or-sober-go-to-bed-Tom!"

The Day of Sacrifice was over, and Tom was going to bed quietly as if

nothing had happened! They did not know that three-quarters of the

Toms had been in bed the night before, undisturbed by the martyrs'

supreme effort. If they had, they might have wondered still more

persistently what Providence was about.

But in the big mosque, among the great white bars of moonlight

slanting beneath the dome, one man knew. He stood, a tall white figure

beneath a furled green banner, his arms outspread, his voice rising in

fierce denunciation.

"Cursed[5] be they who did the deed, who killed jehad! Lo! I told you

in my dream in the past and ye would not believe. I tell it again that

ye may know. It was dawn. And the Lord Christ and the Lord Mohammed

sat over the World striving each for His own according to the Will of

the Most High who sets men's quarrels before the Saints in Heaven with

a commander to each. And I saw the Lord Christ weep, knowing that

justice was on our side. So the fiat for victory went forth, and I

slept. But I dreamed again and lo! it was eve with a blood-red

sunsetting westward. And the Lord Christ wept still, but the Lord

Mohammed's voice rang loud and stern. 'Reverse the fiat. Give the

victory to the women and the children.' So I woke. And it is true! is

true! Cursed be they who killed jehad!"

The voice died away among the arches where, in delicate tracery, the

attributes of the Great Creator were cut into changeless marble.

Truth, Justice, Mercy, all the virtues from which all religions make

their God.

"He is mad," said some; but for the most part men were silent as they

drifted down the great Flights-of-Steps to the city, leaving Mohammed

Ismail alone under the dome.

"Didst expect otherwise, my Queen?" said Bukht Khân hardily. "So did

not I! But the end is gained. Delhi was not ours in heart and soul

before. It is now. When the assault comes those who fought for faith

will fight for their skins. And at the worst there is Lucknow for good

Sheeahs like the Queen and her slave. We have no tie here among these

Sunnies who think only of their hoards."

Zeenut Maihl shrank from him with her first touch of fear, for she had

eight or nine lakhs of rupees hidden in that very house. This man whom

she had summoned to her aid bid fair to make flight necessary even for

a woman. Had she ventured too much? Was there yet time to throw him

over, throw everyone over and make her peace? She turned instinctively

in her thoughts to one who loved money also, who also had hoards to

save. And so, within half an hour of Bukht Khân's departure,

Ahsan-Oolah was closeted with the Queen, who after the excitement of

the day needed a cooling draught.

Most people in the Palace needed one that night, for by this time

almost all the possible permutations of confederacy had come about,

with the result that--each combination's intrigue being known to the

next--a general distrust had fallen upon all. In addition, there was

now a fourth Commander-in-Chief; one Ghaus Khân, from Neemuch, who

declared the rest were fools.

In truth the Dream was wearing thin indeed within the Palace.

But on that peaceful little housetop in the Mufti's quarter it seemed

more profound than ever; it seemed as if Fate was determined to leave

nothing wanting to the strange unreal life that was being lived in the

very heart of the city. Jim Douglas was almost himself again. A little

lame, a little uncertain still of his own strength; and so,

remembering a piece of advice given him by the old Baharupa never to

attempt using the Gift when he was not strong enough for it to be

strong, he had been patient beyond Kate's hopes. But on this 2d of

August, after lying awake all night listening to the roar and the din,

he had insisted on going out when Soma did not turn up as usual to

bring the news. He would not be long, he said, not more than an hour

or two, and the attempt must be made some time. At no better one than

now, perchance, since folk would be occupied in their own affairs.

"Besides," he added with a smile, "I'm ready to allow the convalescent

home its due. While I've been kept quiet the very thought of concealed

Europeans has died out."

"I don't know!" she interrupted quickly. "It isn't long since Prince

Abool-Bukr chased that blue-eyed boy of the Mufti's over the roofs

thinking he was one--don't you remember I was so afraid he might climb

up here?"

"That's the advantage of being up-top," he replied lightly. "Now, if

anything were to happen, you could scramble down. But the Prince was

drunk, and I won't go near his haunts--there isn't any danger--really

there isn't!"

"I shall have to get accustomed to it even if there is," she replied

in the same tone.

Jim Douglas paused at the door irresolutely. "Shall I wait till Tara

returns?"

"No, please don't. She is not coming back till late. She grows

restless if she does not go--and I am all right."

In truth Tara had been growing restless of late. Kate, looking up from

the game of chess--at which her convalescent gave her half the pieces

on the board and then beat her easily--used to find those dark eyes

watching them furtively. Zora Begum had never played shatrïnj

with the master, had never read with him from books, had never

treated him as an equal. And, strangely enough, the familiar

companionship--inevitable under the circumstances--roused her jealousy

more than the love-making on that other terraced roof had done. _That_

she understood. _That_ she could crush with her cry of suttee. But

_this_--this which to her real devotion seemed so utterly desirable;

what did it mean? So she crept away, when she could, to take up the

saintly role as the only certain solace she knew for the ache in her

heart.

Therefore Kate sat alone, darning Jim Douglas' white socks--which as a

better-class Afghan he was bound to wear--and thinking as she did so

how incredibly domestic a task it was! Still socks had to be darned,

and with Tara at hand to buy odds and ends, and Soma with his

knowledge of the Huzoor's life ready to bring chessboards, and soap,

and even a book or two, it seemed as if the roof would soon be a very

fair imitation of home. So she sat peacefully till, about dusk,

hearing a footfall on the stairs halting with long pauses between the

steps; her vexation at her patient's evident fatigue overcame her

usual caution; and without waiting for his signal knock she set the

door wide and stepped out on to the stairs to give him a hand if need

be. And then out of the shadow of the narrow brick ladder came a

strange voice panting breathlessly:

"Salaam! mem-sahib." She started back, but not in time to prevent a

bent figure with a bundle on its back from stumbling past her on to

the roof; where, as if exhausted, it leaned against the wall before

slipping the bundle to the floor. It was an ordinary brown blanket

bundle full of uncarded cotton, and the old woman who carried it was

ragged and feeble. Emaciated too beyond belief, as if cotton-spinning

had not been able to keep soul and body comfortably together. Not a

very formidable foe this--if foe it was. Why! surely she knew the

face.

"I have brought Sonny back, Huzoor," came the breathless voice.

Sonny! Kate Erlton gave a little cry. She recollected now. "Oh, ayah!"

she began recklessly, "what? where is he?"

The old woman stumbled to the door, closed the catch, and then leaned

exhausted upon the lintel, sinking down slowly to a squatting

position, her hand upon her heart. There was more in this than the

fatigue of the stairs, Kate recognized.

"He is in the bundle, Huzoor. The mem did not know me. She will know

the baba."

Know him! As her almost incredulous fingers fumbled at the knots, her

mind was busy with an adorable vision of white embroideries, golden

curls, and kissable, dimpled milk and roses. So it was no wonder that

she recoiled from the ragged shift and dark skin, the black

close-cropped hair shaved horribly into a wide gangway from nape to

forehead.

"Oh, ayah!" she cried reproachfully, "what have you done to Sonny

baba!" for Sonny it was unmistakably in the guise of a street urchin.

A foolish remark to make, doubtless, but the old Mai, most of whose

life had been passed in the curling of golden curls, the prinking of

mother's darlings, did not think it strange. She looked wistfully at

her charge, then at Kate apologetically.

"It was safer, Huzoor. And at least he is fat and fresh. I gave him

milk and _chikken-brât_.[6] And it was but a tiny morsel of opium just

to make him quiet in the bundle."

Something in the quavering old voice made Kate cross quickly to the

old woman and kneel beside her.

"You have done splendidly, ayah, no one could have done better!"

But the interest had died from the haggard face. "They said folk

would be damned for it," she muttered half to herself, "but what could

I do? The mem, my mem, said 'Take care of the boy.' So I gave him

_chikken-brât_ and milk." She paused, then looked up at Kate slowly.

"But I can grind and spin no more, Huzoor. My life is done. So I have

brought him here--and----" she paused again for breath.

"How did you find me out?" asked Kate, longing to give the old woman

some restorative, yet not daring to offer it, for she was a

Mussulmâni.

The old Mai reached out a skeleton of a hand, half-mechanically, to

flick away a fluff of cotton wool from the still sleeping child's

face. "It was the _chikken-brât_, Huzoor. The Huzoor will remember the

old mess khânsaman? He did the _pagul khanas_ [picnics] and nautches

for the sahib logue. A big man with gold lace who made the cake at

Christmas for the babas and set fire to plum-puddeens as no other

khânsaman did. And made _estârfit_ turkeys and _sassets_ [stuffed

turkey and sausages]--and----" She seemed afloat on a Bagh-o-bahâr

list of comestibles, a dream of days when, as ayah, she had watched

many a big dinner go from the cook room.

"But about the _chikken-brât_, ayah?" asked Kate with a lump in her

throat; for the wasted figure babbling of old days was evidently close

on death.

"Huzoor! Mungul Khân keeps life in him, these hard times, with the

selling of eggs and fowls. So he, knowing me, said there was more

_chikken-brât_ than mine being made in the quarter. The Huzoor need

have no fear. Mungul weeps every day and prays the sahibs may return,

because his last month's account was not paid. A sweeper woman, he

said, bought 'halflings' for an Afghan's bibi. As if an Afghani would

use three halflings in one day! No one but a mem making _chikken-brât_

would do that. So I watched and made sure, against this day; for I was

old, and I had not spun or ground for long."

"You should have come before," said Kate gently. "You have worn

yourself out."

The old woman stumbled to her feet. "My life was worn before, Huzoor.

I am very old. I have put many boy-babies into the mem's arms to make

them forget their pain, and taken them from them to put the flowers

round them when they were dead. He was safer with me speaking our

language; with you he may remember. But I shall be dead, so I can do

no more."

"Wait, do wait till the sahib returns," pleaded Kate.

The Mai paused, her hand on the latch. "What have I to do with the

sahibs, Huzoor? Mine were not much count. They made my mems cry, or

laugh; cry first, then laugh. It is bad for mems. But my mem did

not care, she only cared for the babies and so there was always a

flower for the grave. Matadeen, the gardener, made it and the big

Huzoor--Erlton sahib----"

She ceased suddenly and went mumbling down the stairs leaving Kate to

close the door again and drop on her knees beside the sleeping child.

Was he sleeping or had the opium----? She gave a sigh of relief

as--her hair tickling his cheek as she bent to listen--up came a

chubby unconscious hand to brush the tickle away.

Sonny! It seemed incredible. The house would be a home indeed with his

sweet "Mifis Erlton" echoing through it. Not what the old Mai had said

was true. There would be danger in English prattle. She must not tell

him who she was. He must be kept as safe as that other child over

across the seas whose empty place this one had partly filled; that

other child who in all these storms and stress was, thank Heaven! so

safe. She must deny herself that pleasure, and be content with this

terribly disguised Sonny. Then she wondered if the dye came off as

hers did; so with wet finger began trying the experiment on the

child's cheek. A little; but perhaps soap and warm water might--She

gathered Sonny in her arms and went over to the cooking-place. And

there, to her unreasoning delight, after a space, was a square inch or

so of milk and roses. It was trivial, of course; Mr. Greyman would say

womanish, but she should like to see the real Sonny just once! She

could dye him again. So, with the sleeping child on her lap, she began

soft dabbings and wipings on the forehead and cheeks. It was a

fascinating task and she forgot everything else; till, as she began

work on the nose, what with the tickling and the tepid bathings

dispelling the opium drowsiness, Sonny woke, and finding himself in

strange arms began to scream horribly. And there she was forgetful of

caution among other things, kissing and cuddling the frightened child,

asking him if he didn't know her and telling him he was a good little

Sonnikins whom nobody in the world would hurt! At which juncture, with

brain started in a new-old groove, he said amid lingering sobs:

"Oh, Mifis Erlton! What _has_ a-come of my polly?"

She recognized her slip in a second; but it was too late. And hark!

Steps on the stair, and Sonny prattling on in his high, clear lisp!

Not one step, but two; and voices. A visitor no doubt. Sometimes, to

avoid suspicion, it was necessary to bring them in. She knew the

routine. The modest claim for seclusion to her supposed husband in

Persian, the leaving of the door on the latch, the swift retreat into

the inner roof during the interval decorously allowed for such escape.

All this was easy without Sonny. The only chance now was to stop his

prattle even by force, give the excuse that other women were within,

and trust to a man's quickness outside.

Vain hope! Sonny wriggled like an eel, and, just as the expected knock

came, evaded her silencing hand, so that the roof rang with outraged

yells:

"Oh! 'oo's hurtin' me! Oo's hurtin' me!"

Without the words even, the sound was unmistakable. No native child

was ever so ear-piercing, so wildly indignant. Kate, beside herself,

tried soothings and force distractedly, in the midst of which an

imperative voice called fiercely:

"Open the door quick, for God's sake! Anything's better than that."

For the moment, doubtless, Sonny's yells ending with victory; but

another cry came sharp and short, as--the door giving under Kate's

hasty fingers--two men tumbled over the threshold. Jim Douglas

uppermost, his hands gripping the other's throat.

"Shut the door!" he gasped. "Lock it. Then my revolver--no--a knife--

no noise--quick. I can't hold--the brute long."

Kate turned and ran mechanically, and the steel in her hand gleamed as

she flew back. Jim Douglas, digging his knees into the ribs below

them, loosened one hand cautiously from the throat and held it out,

trembling, eager.

But Kate saw his face. It might have been the Gorgon's, for she stood

as if turned to stone.

"Don't be a fool!" he panted--"give it me! It's the only----" A

sudden twist beneath him sent his hand back to the throat. "It's--it's

death anyway----"

Death! What did that matter? she asked herself. Let it come, rather

than murder!

"No!" she said suddenly, "you shall not. It is not worth it." The

knife, flung backward, fell with a clang, but the eyes which--though

that choking grip on the throat made all things dim--had been fixed on

its gleam, turned swiftly to those above them and the writhing body

lay still as a corpse. None too soon, for Jim Douglas was almost

spent.

"A rope," he muttered briefly, "or stay, your veil will do."

But Kate, trembling with the great passion and pity of her decision,

had scarce removed it ere Jim Douglas, changing his mind, rose to his

feet, leaving his antagonist free to do so likewise.

"Get up, Tiddu," he said breathlessly, "and thank the mem for saving

your life. But the door's locked, and if you don't swear----"

"The Huzoor need not threaten," retorted Tiddu, far more calmly as he

retwisted his rag of a turban. "The Many-Faced know gratitude. They do

not fall on those who find them helpless and protect them."

The thrust was keen, for in truth the old Baharupa had, not half an

hour before, by sheer chance found his pupil in difficulties and

insisted on seeing him safe home, and on his promising not to go out

again till he was stronger; to both of which coercions Jim Douglas, in

order to evade suspicion, had consented. Yet, but for Kate, he would

have knifed the old man remorselessly. Even now he felt doubtful.

Tiddu, however, saved him further anxiety by stepping close to Kate

and salaaming theatrically.

"By Murri-âm and the neem, the mem is as my mother, the child as my

child."

So, for the first time, both he and Jim Douglas looked toward Sonny,

who, with wide-planted legs and wondering eyes, had been watching

Tiddu solemnly; the quaintest little figure with his red and white

cheeks and black muzzle.

The old mime burst into a guffaw. "_Wâh!_ what a monkeyling! _Wâh!_

what a _tamâsha_" (spectacle), he cried, squatting down on his heels

to look closer. In truth Sonny was like a hill baboon, especially when

he smiled too; broadly, expectantly, at the familiar word.

"_Tamathâ-wallah!_" he said superbly, "_bunao ramâtha, juldi

bunao!_" (Make an amusement; make it quick.)

Tiddu, a child himself like all his race in his delight in children, a

child also in his capacity of sudden serenity, caught up Kate's fallen

veil, and in an instant dashed into the hackneyed part of the

daughter-in-law, while Kate and Jim Douglas stared; left behind, as it

were, by this strange irresponsible pair--the mimic of life, and the

child ignorant of what was mimicked. Tragedy a minute ago! Now Farce!

They looked at each other, startled, for sympathy.

"Make a funny man now," came Sonny's confident voice, "a funny man

behind a curtain--a funny man wif a gween face an' a white face, an' a

lot of fwowers an' a bit o' tring."

Tiddu looked round quickly at Jim Douglas. "_Wâh!_" he said, "the

little Huzoor has a good memory. He remembers the Lord of Life and

Death."

But Kate had remembered it too, and she also had turned to

Jim Douglas passionately, almost accusingly. "It was you! You were

Fate--you---- Ah! I understand now!"

"Do you?" he answered with a frown. "Then it's more than I do." He

walked away moodily toward the knife Kate had flung away, and stooped

to pick it up. "But you were right in what you did. It was an

inspiration. Look there!"

He pointed to the old Baharupa, who was playing antics to amuse Sonny,

who lisped, "_Thâ bâth!_" (bravo!) solemnly at each fresh effort. But

Kate shivered. "I did nothing. I thought I did; but it was Fate."

"My dear lady," he retorted with a kindly smile, "it is all in the

nature of dreams. The convalescent home is turned into a _crèche_. But

we must transfigure the street urchin into the darling of his parents'

hearts----" He paused and looked at Kate queerly. "I'll tell Tara to

rig him out properly; and you must take off half the stain, you know,

and leave some color on his cheeks; for he must play the part as well

as----" He laughed suddenly. "It is really more dream-like than ever!"

he added. And Kate thought so too.

CHAPTER VI.

VOX HUMANA.

The five days following on the 2d of August were a time of festivity

for the Camp, a time of funerals for the City. There was a break in

the rains, and on the Ridge the sunshine fell in floods upon the fresh

green grass, and the air, bright and cool, set men's minds toward

making the best of Nature's kindness; for she had been kind, indeed,

to the faithful little colony, and few even of the seniors could

remember a season so favorable in every way. And so the messes talked

of games, of races; and men, fresh from seeing their fellows killed by

balls on one side of the Ridge, joined those who, on the other side,

were crying "Well bowled!" as wickets went down before other balls.

But in the city the unswept alleys fermented and festered in the

vapors and odors which rose from the great mass of humanity pent

within the rose-red walls. For the gates had been closed strictly save

for those with permits to come and go. This was Bukht Khân's policy.

Delhi was to stand or fall as one man. There was to be no sneaking

away while yet there was time. So hundreds of sepoys protesting

illness, hunger, urgent private affairs--every possible excuse for

getting leave--were told that if they would not fight they could sulk.

Starve they might, stay they should. The other Commanders-in-Chief, it

is true, spent money in bribing mercenaries for one week's more

fighting; but Bukht Khân only smiled sardonically. He had tried bugles

and fifes, he had tried the drum-ecclesiastic; he was now trying his

last stop. The _vox humana_ of self-preservation.

In the city itself, however, the preservation of life took for the

present another form, and never within the memory of man had there

been such a pounding of pestles and mortars over leaf-poultices. The

sound of it rose up at dawn and eve like the sound of the querns,

mingling with the _vox humana_ of grief as the eastern and southern

gates were set wide to let the dead pass out, and allow the stores for

the living to pass in.

It formed a background to the gossip at the wells where the women met

to draw water.

"Faiz-Ahmed found freedom at dawn," said one between her yawns. "He

was long in the throes. The bibis made a great wailing, so I could not

even sleep since then. There are no sons, see you, and no money now

the old man's annuity is gone."

"Loh, sister!" retorted another, "thou speakest as if death were a

morsel of news to let dissolve on the tongue. There be plenty such

soppets in Delhi, and if I know aught of wounds there will be another

at nightfall. My mistress wastes time in the pounding of simples, and

I waste time in waiting for them till my turn comes at the shop; for

if it be not gangrened, I have no eyes." The speaker jerked her pot to

her shoulder deftly and passed down the alley.

"Juntu is wise in such matters," said a worn-looking woman with sad

eyes; "I must get her to glance at my man's cut. 'Tis right to my

mind--he will put naught but water to it, after some foreign

fashion--but who can tell these times?"

"Save that none pass their day, sister. Death will come of the Great

Sickness, or the wound, as it chooses," put in a half-starved soul who

had to carry a baby besides her pot. "The cholera rages in our alley.

'Tis the smell. None sweep the streets or flush the gutters now."

"Ari, Fukra!" cried a fierce virago, "thou art a traitor at heart! She

bewails the pig-eating infidels who gave her man five rupees a month

to bring water to the drains. Ai teri! If they saved one life from

good cholera, have they not reft a hundred in exchange from widows and

orphans? Oo-ai-ie-ee!"

Her howling wail, like a jackal's, was caught up whimperingly by the

others; and so they passed on with their water pots, to spread through

the city the tale of Faiz-Ahmed's freedom, Juntu's suspicions of

gangrene, and Kartina the butcher's big wife's retort. And, in the

evening, folk gathered at the gates, and talked over it all again as

the funerals passed out; old Faiz-Ahmed, in his new gold shoes,

looking better as a corpse, tied up in tinsel, than as a martyr, so

the spectators agreed. Whereat _his_ family had their glow of pride

also.

Then, when the show was over, the crowd dispersed to pay visits of

condolence, and raise the wailing _vox humana_ in every alley.

Greatly to Jim Douglas' relief, for there was another voice difficult

to keep quiet when the cool evenings came, and all Kate's replies in

Hindustani would not beguile Sonny's tongue from English. He was the

quaintest mother's darling now, in a little tinsel cap fringed with

brown silk tassels hiding that dreadful gangway, anklets, and

bracelets on his bare corn-colored limbs, the ruddy color showing

through the dye on his cheeks, his palms all henna-stained, his eyes

blackened with kohl, and a variety of little tinsel and brocaded

cootees ending far above his dimpled knees. There were little muslin

and net ones too, cunningly streaked with silver and gold, for Tara

was reckless over the boy. She insisted, too, on a great black smudge

on his forehead to keep away the evil eye; and Soma, coming now with

the greatest regularity, brought odd little coral and grass necklets

such as Rajpoot bairns ought to wear; while Tiddu, the child's great

favorite, had a new toy every day for the little Huzoor. Paper

whirligigs, cotton-wool bears on a stick, mud parrots, and such like,

whereat Sonny would lisp, "_Thâ bath_, Tiddu." Though sometimes he

would go over to Kate and ask appealingly, "Miffis Erlton! What has

a-come of my polly?"

Then she, startled into realities by the words, would catch him up in

her arms, and look around as if for protection to Jim Douglas, who,

having overdone himself in the struggle with Tiddu, had felt it wiser

to defer further action for a day or two. The more so because Tiddu

had promised to help him to the uttermost if he would only be

reasonable and leave times and seasons to one who had ten times the

choice that he had.

So he would smile back at Kate and say, "It's all right, Mrs. Erlton.

At least as right as it can be. The lot of them are devoted to the

child."

Yet in his heart he knew that there was danger in so many

confederates. He felt that this incredibly peaceful home on the

housetop could not last. Here he was looking at a woman who was not

his wife, a child who was not his child, and feeling vaguely that they

were as much a part of his life as if they were. As if, had they been

so, he would have been quite contented. More contented than he had

been on that other roof. He was, even now, more contented than he had

been there. As he sat, his head on his hand, watching the pretty

picture which Kate, in Zora's jewels, made with the be-tinseled,

be-scented, bedecked child, he thought of his relief when years before

he had looked at a still little morsel lying in Zora's veil. Had it

been brutal of him? Would that dead baby have grown into a Sonny? Or

was it because Sonny's skin was really white beneath the stain that he

thought of him as something to be proud of possessing; of a boy who

would go to school and be fagged and flogged and inherit familiar

virtues and vices instead of strange ones?

"What are you thinking of, Mr. Greyman? Do you want anything?" came

Kate's kind voice.

"Nothing," he replied in the half-bantering tone he so often used

toward her; "I have more than my fair share of things already, surely!

I was only meditating on the word 'Om'--the final mystery of all

things."

So, in a way, he was. On the mystery of fatherhood and motherhood,

which had nothing to do with that pure idyl of romantic passion on the

terraced roof at Lucknow, yet which seemed to touch him here, where

there was not even love. Yet it was a better thing. The passion of

protection, of absolute self-forgetfulness, seeking no reward, which

the sight of those two raised in him, was a better thing than that

absorption in another self. The thought made him cross over to where

Kate sat with the child in her lap, and say gravely:

"The _crèche_ is more interesting than the convalescent home, at least

to me, Mrs. Erlton! I shall be quite sorry when it ends."

"When it ends?" she echoed quickly. "There is nothing wrong, is there?

Sonny has been so good, and that time when he was naughty the

sweeper-woman seemed quite satisfied when Tara said he was speaking

Pushtoo."

"But it cannot last for all that," he replied. "It is dangerous. I

feel it is. This is the 5th, and I am nearly all right. I must get

Tiddu to arrange for Sonny first. Then for you."

"And you?" she asked.

"I'll follow. It will be safer, and there is no fear for me. I can't

understand why I've had no answer from your husband. The letter went

two days ago, and I am convinced we ought."

The frown was back on his face, the restlessness in his brain; and

both grew when in private talk with Tiddu the latter hinted at

suspicions in the caravan which had made it necessary for him to be

very cautious. The letter, therefore, had certainly been delayed,

might never have reached. If no answer came by the morrow, he himself

would take the opportunity of a portion of the caravan having a permit

to pass out, and so insure the news reaching the Ridge; trusting to

get into the city again without delay, though the gates were very

strictly kept. Nevertheless, in his opinion, the Huzoor would be wiser

with patience. There was no immediate danger in continuing as they

were, and the end could not be long if it were true that the great

Nikalseyn was with the Punjâb reinforcements. Since all the world knew

that Nikalseyn was the prince of sahibs, having the gift, not only of

being all things to all people, but of making all people be all things

to him, which was more than the Baharupas could do.

In truth, the news that John Nicholson was coming to Delhi made even

Jim Douglas hesitate at risking anything unnecessarily, so long as

things went smoothly. As for the letter to Major Erlton, it was no

doubt true that the number of spies sending information to the Ridge

had made it difficult of late to send any, since the guards were on

the alert.

It was, indeed, even for the Queen herself, who had a missive she was

peculiarly anxious should not fall into strange hands.