will stake my life on its reaching." He did not add that his chief
reason for saying so was that a similar letter, written by the King,
had been safely delivered by Rujjub Ali, the spy, whose house lay
conveniently near the physician's own, and from whom both the latter
and Elahi-Buksh heard authentic news from the Ridge. News which made
them both pity the poor old pantaloon who, as they knew well, had been
a mere puppet in stronger hands. And these two, laying their heads
together, in one of those kaleidoscope combinations of intrigue which
made Delhi politics a puzzle even at the time, advised the King to use
the _vox celeste_ as an antidote to the _vox humana_ of the city,
which was being so diligently fostered by the Queen and Bukht Khân.
Let him say he was too old for this world, let him profess himself
unable longer to cope with his coercers and claim to be allowed to
resign and become a fakir! But the dream still lingered in the old
man's brain. He loved the brocaded bags, he loved the new cushion of
the Peacock throne; and though the cockatoo's crest was once more
showing a yellow tinge through the green, the thought of jehâd
lingered sanctimoniously. But other folk in the Palace were beginning
to awake. Other people in Delhi besides Tiddu had heard that Nikalseyn
was on his way from the Punjâb and not even the rose-red walls had
been able to keep out his reputation. Folk talked of him in whispers.
The soldiers, unable to retreat, unwilling to fight, swore loudly that
they were betrayed; that there were too many spies in the city. Of
that there could be no doubt. Were not letters found concealed in
innocent looking cakes and such like? Had not one, vaguely suggesting
that some cursed infidels were still concealed in the city, been
brought in for reward by a Bunjârah who swore he had picked it up by
chance? The tales grew by the telling in the Thunbi Bazaar, making
Prince Abool-Bukr, who had returned to it incontinently after the
disastrous failure of faith on the 2d, hiccough magnificently that,
poor as he was, he would give ten golden mohurs to anyone who would
set him on the track of a hell-doomed. Yea! folk might laugh, but he
was good for ten still. Ay! and a rupee besides, to have the offer
cried through the bazaar; so there would be an end to scoffers!
"What is't?" asked the languid loungers in the wooden balconies, as
the drum came beating down the street.
"Only Abool offering ten mohurs for a Christian to kill," said one.
"And he swore he had not a rupee when I danced for him but yesterday,"
said another.
"He has to pay Newâsi, sister," yawned a third.
"Then let her dance for him--I do it no longer," retorted the
grumbler.
So the crier and his drums passed down the scoffing bazaar. "He will
find many at that price," quoth some, winking at their neighbors; for
the Prince was a butt when in his cups.
Thus at earliest dawn next morning, the 7th of August, Tiddu gave a
signal knock at the door of the roof, rousing Jim Douglas who, since
the child's arrival, had taken to sleeping across it once more.
"There is danger in the air, Huzoor," he said briefly; "they cried a
reward for the infidels in the bazaar yesterday. There is talk of some
letter."
"The child must go--go at once," replied his hearer, alert in an
instant; but Tiddu shook his head.
"Not till dark, Huzoor. The bullocks are to pass out with the moon,
and he must pass out with them. In a sack, Huzoor. Say nothing till
the last. Then, the Huzoor knows the cloth merchant's by the Delhi
gate?"
Jim Douglas nodded.
"There is a court at the back. The bullocks are there, for we are
taking cloth the Lâla wants to smuggle out. A length or two in each
empty sack; for he hath been looted beyond limits. So he will have no
eyes, not the caravan either, for secret work in dark corners. Bring
the boy drugged as he came here, the Rajpootni will carry the bundle
as a spinner, to the third door down the lane. 'Tis an empty yard; I
will have the bullock there with the half-load of raw cotton. We have
two or three more as foils to the empty bags. Come as a Bunjârah, then
the Huzoor can see the last of the child, and see old Tiddu's
loyalty."
The familiar whine came back to his voice; he could scarcely resist a
thrust forward of his open hand. But dignity or no dignity, Jim
Douglas knew that itching palm well, and said significantly:
"It will be worth a thousand rupees to you, Tiddu, if the child gets
safe."
A look of offended virtue came over the smooth face. "This slave is
not thinking of money. The child is as his own child."
"And the mem as your mother, remember," put in the other quickly.
Tiddu hesitated. "If his servant saves the baba, cannot the master
save the lady?" he said with the effrontery of a child trying how far
he might go; but Jim Douglas' revolver was out in a second, and Tiddu,
with an air of injured innocence, went on without a pause:
"The mem will be safe enough, Huzoor, when the child is gone, if the
Huzoor will himself remain day and night to answer for the screened,
sick woman within. His slave will be back by dawn; and if he smells
trouble, the mem must be moved in a dhoolie to another house, the
Rajpootni must go home, and I will be mother-in-law. I can play the
part, Huzoor."
He could indeed! If Kate were to be safe anywhere, it would be with
this old scoundrel with his thousand-faces, his undoubted gift for
influencing the eyes of men. Three days of passing from one place to
another, with him in some new character, and their traces must be
lost. A good plan certainly!
"And there is no danger to-day?" he asked finally. Tiddu paused again,
and his luminous eyes sought the sahib's. "Who can say that, Huzoor,
for a mem, in this city. But I think none. We can do no more, danger
or not. And I will watch. And see, here is the dream-giver. The
Rajpootni will know the dose for the child."
The dream-giver! All that day the little screw of paper Tiddu had
taken from his waistbelt lay in a fold of Jim Douglas' high-twined
pugri, and its contents seemed to make him dull. Not that it mattered,
since there was literally nothing to be done before dusk; for it would
be cruel to tell Kate and keep her on tenterhooks all day to no
purpose. But after a while she noticed his dullness, and came over to
where he sat, his head on his hand, in his favorite attitude.
"I believe you are going to have fever and ague again," she said
solicitously; "do take some aconite; if we could only get some
quinine, that would end the tiresome thing at once."
He took some to please her, and because her suggestion gave him a
reasonable excuse for being slack; but as he lounged about lazily,
watching her playing with the boy, seeing her put him to sleep as the
heat of the day came on, noting the cheerful content with which she
adapted herself to a simplicity of life unknown to her three months
before, the wonder of the circumstances which had led to it faded in
the regret that it should be coming to an end. It had been three
months of incredible peace and good-will; and to-day the peace and
goodwill seemed to strike him all the more keenly because he knew that
in an hour or so at most he must disturb it. It seemed hard.
But something else began the task for him. About sunset a sudden
flash dazzled his eyes, and ere he grasped its vividness the walls
were rocking silently, and a second after a roar as of a thousand
thunder-claps deafened his ears. Kate had Sonny in her arms ere he
could reach her, thrusting her away from the high parapet wall, which,
in one already cracked corner, looked as if it must come down; which
did indeed crumble outward, leaving a jagged gap halfway down its
height, the debris falling with a rattle on the roof of the next
house.
But ere the noise ended the vibration had passed, leaving him with
relief on his face looking at a great mushroom of smoke and steam
which had shot up into the sky.
"It's the powder factory!" he exclaimed, using Hindustani for Tara's
benefit as well, since she had rushed in from the outer court at the
first hint of danger to cling round his feet. "It is all over now, but
it's lucky we were no nearer."
As he spoke he was wondering if this would make any difference in
Tiddu's plans for the night, since the powder factory had stood
equa-distant between them and the Delhi gate. He wondered also what
had caused the explosion. Not a shell certainly. The factory had
purposely been placed at the furthest point from the Ridge. However,
there was a fine supply of powder gone, and, he hoped, a few
mutineers. But Kate's mind had reverted to that other explosion which
had been the prologue to the three months of peace and quiet. Was this
one to be the epilogue? A vague dread, a sudden premonition made her
ask quickly:
"Can it mean anything serious? Can anything be the matter, Mr.
Greyman? Is anything wrong?"
It was a trifle early, he thought. She might have had another half
hour or so. But this was a good beginning, or rather a fitting end.
"And you have known this all day?" she said reproachfully when he told
her the truth. "How unkind of you not to tell me!"
"Unkind!" he echoed. "What possible good----"
"I should have known it was the last day--I--I should have made
the--the most of it."
He felt glad of his own impatience of the sentimentality as he turned
away, for in truth the look on her face hit him hard. It sent him to
pace up and down the outer roof resting till the time for action came.
Then he had a whispered consultation with Tara regarding the dose of
raw opium safe for a child of Sonny's years.
"Are you sure that is not too much?" he asked anxiously.
Tara looked at the little black pellet she was rolling gravely. "It is
large, Huzoor, but it is for life or death; and if it was the Huzoor's
own son I would give no less."
Once more the remembrance of the still little morsel in Zora's tinsel
veil brought an odd compunction; the very possibility of this strange
child's death roused greater pain than that certainty had done. He
felt unnerved at the responsibility; but Kate, looking up as he
rejoined her, held out her hand without a tremor.
"Give it me, please," she said, and her voice was steady also; "he
will take it best from me. I have some sugar here."
The child, drowsy already with the near approach of bedtime, was in
her lap, and rested its head on her breast, as with her arms still
round him her hands disguised the drug.
"It is a very large dose," she said dully. "I knew it must be; that's
why I wanted to give it--myself. Sonny! Open your mouth, darling--it's
sweet--there--swallow it quick--that's a good Sonnikins."
"You are very brave," he said with a catch in his voice.
She glanced up at him for a second with a sort of scorn in her eyes.
"I knew he would take it from me," she replied, and then, shifting the
child to an easier position, began to sing in a half voice:
"There is a happy land----"
"Far--farze--away," echoed Sonny contentedly. It was his usual
lullaby, chosen because it resembled a native air, beloved of ayahs.
And as she sang and Sonny's eyelids drooped the man watched them both
with a tender awe in his heart; and the other woman, crouching in the
corner, watched all three with hungry, passionate eyes. Here, in this
group of man, woman, and child, without a personal claim on each
other, was something new, half incomprehensible, wholly sweet.
"He is asleep now," said Kate after a time. "You had better take him."
He stooped to obey, and she stooped also to leave a long, lingering
kiss on the boy's soft cheek. It sent a thrill through the man as he
recognized that in giving him the child she had given him more than
kisses.
The feeling that it was so made him linger a few minutes afterward at
the door with a new sense of his responsibilities toward her to say:
"I wish I had not to leave you alone."
"You will be back directly, and I shall be all right," she said,
pausing in her closing of the door, for Tara had already passed down
the stair with her bundle.
"Shall I lock it outside?" he began. Tara and he had been used to do
so in those first days when they left her.
She laid her hand lightly on his arm. "Don't," she said, "don't get
anxious about me again. What can happen in half an hour?"
He heard her slip the catch on the staple, however, before he ran
downstairs. He was to take a different road to the Delhi gate from the
quiet, more devious alleys which Tara would choose in her character of
poor spinner carrying her raw stuff home. She was to await his
arrival, to deposit the bundle somewhere close to the third door in
the back lane by the cloth merchant's shop, leaving it to him to take
inside, as if he were one of the caravan; this plan insuring two
things--immunity from notice in the streets, and also in the yard.
But, as Tara would be longer than he by a few minutes in reaching the
tryst, he purposely went through a bit of the Thunbi Bazaar to hear
what he could of the explosion. He was surprised--a trifle alarmed--at
the excitement. Crowds were gathered round many of the balconies,
talking of spies, swearing that half the court was in league with the
Ridge, and that, after all, Abool-Bukr might not have a wild-goose
chase.
"There will be naught but slops and slaps for him in _my_ information,
I'll swear," said one with a laugh. "I'll back old Mother Sobrai to
beat off a dozen princes."
"And blows and bludgeons in _mine_," chuckled another. "I chose the
house of Bahâdur, the single-stick player."
And as, having no more time to lose, he cut across gateward, he saw
down an alley a mob surging round Ahsan-Oolah, the physician's, house,
and heard a passerby say, "They have the traitor safe." It made him
vaguely uneasy, since he knew that when once the talk turns on hidden
things, people, not to be behindhand in gossip, rake up every trivial
doubt and wonder.
Still there was a file of bullocks waiting by the cloth merchant's as
arranged. And as he passed into the lane a dim figure, scarce seen in
the dark, slipped out of the further end. And there was the bundle. He
caught it up as if it belonged to him, and after knocking gently at
the third door, pushed it open, knowing that he must show no
hesitation. He found himself in a sort of outhouse or covered
entrance, pitch dark save for a faintly lighter square showing an
outlet, doubtless into the yard beyond. He moved toward it, and
stumbled over something unmistakably upon the floor. A man! He dropped
the bundle promptly to be ready in case the sleeper should be a
stranger. But there was no movement, and he kneeled down to feel if it
was Tiddu. A Bunjârah I--that was unmistakable at the first touch--but
the limpness was unmistakable too. The man was dead--still warm, but
dead! By all that was unlucky!--not Tiddu surely! With the flint and
steel in his waist-cloth, he lit a tuft of cotton from the bundle as a
torch.
It was Jhungi!--Jhungi, with a knife in his heart!
"Huzoor!" came the familiar creak, as Tiddu, attracted by the sudden
light, stole in from the yard beyond. "Quick! there is no time to
lose. Give me the bundle and go back."
"Go back!" echoed Jim Douglas amazed.
"Huzoor! take off the Bunjârah's dress. I have a green turban and
shawl here. The Huzoor must go back to the mem at once. There is
treachery."
Jim Douglas swore under his breath as he obeyed.
"I know not what, but the mem must not stay there. I heard him
boasting before, and just now I caught him prying."
"Who, Jhungi?"
Even at such a moment Tiddu demurred.
"The Huzoor mistakes. It is the miscreant Bhungi--Jhungi is
virtuous----"
"You killed him then?" interrupted the hearer, putting the last touch
to his disguise.
"What else could I do, Huzoor? I had only my knife. And it is not as
if it were--Jhungi----"
But Jim Douglas was already out of the door, running through the dark,
deserted lanes while he dared, since he must walk through the bazaar.
And as he ran he told himself that he was a fool to be so anxious.
What could go wrong in half an hour?
What indeed!
As he stood five minutes after, staring into the dark emptiness of the
roof, he asked himself again and again what could have happened? There
had been no answer to his knock; the door had been hasped on the
outside, yet the first glance as he entered made him realize that the
place was empty of life. And though he had lit the cresset, with a
fierce fear at what it might reveal, he could find no trace, even of a
struggle. Kate had disappeared! Had she gone out? Impossible. Had Tara
heard of the danger, returned, and taken her elsewhere? Possible, but
improbable. He passed rapidly down the stairs again. The story below
the roof, being reserved for the owner's use on his occasional visits
to Delhi, was empty; the occupants of the second floor, pious folk,
had fled from the city a day or two before; and when he paused to
inquire on the ground floor to know if there had been any disturbance
he found the door padlocked outside--sure sign that everyone was out.
Oh! why, he thought, had he not padlocked that other door upstairs? He
passed out into the street, beginning to realize that his task was
over just as he had ceased to gird at it. There was nothing unusual to
be seen. The godly folk about were beginning to close their gates for
the night, and some paused to listen with an outraged air to the
thrummings and drummings from the Princess Farkhoonda's roof. And that
was Abool Bukr's voice singing:
"Oh, mistress rare, divine!"
Then it could scarcely be he, and Kate might have found friends in
that quarter, where so many learned folk deemed the slaughter of women
unlawful. But there was no use in speculating. He must find Tara
first. He paused, however, to inquire from the cobbler at the corner.
"Disturbance?" echoed the man. Not much more than usual; the Prince,
who had passed in half an hour agone, being perhaps a bit wilder after
his wildgoose-chase. Had not the Agha-sahib heard? The wags of the
bazaar had taken up the offer made by the Prince, and his servants had
sworn they were glad to get him to the Princess', since they had been
whacked out of half a dozen houses. He was safe now, however, since
when he was of that humor Newâsi Begum never let him go till he was
too drunk for mischief.
Then, thought Jim Douglas, it was possible that Jhungi might have
given real information; still but one thing was certain--the roof was
empty; the dream had vanished into thin air.
He did not know as he passed through the dim streets that their dream
was over also, and that John Nicholson stood looking down from the
Ridge on the shadowy mass of the town. He had posted in a hundred and
twenty miles that day, arriving in time to hear the explosion of the
magazine. The city's salute of welcome, as it were, to the man who was
to take it.
He had been dining at the Headquarters mess, taciturn and grave, a wet
blanket on the jollity, and the Moselle cup, and the fresh cut of
cheese from the new Europe shop; and now, when others were calling
cheery goodnights as they passed to their tents, he was off to wander
alone round the walls, measuring them with his keen, kindly eyes. A
giant of a man, biting his lips beneath his heavy brown beard, making
his way over the rocks, sheltering in the shadow, doggedly, moodily,
lost in thought. He was parceling out his world for conquest? settling
already where to prick the bubble.
But, in a way, it was pricked already. For, as he prowled about
the Palace walls, a miserable old man, minus even the solace of
pulse-feeling and cooling draughts, was dictating a letter to Hâfzan,
the woman scribe. A miserable letter, to be sent duly the next day to
the Commanders-in-Chief, and forwarded by them to the volunteers of
Delhi. A disjointed rambling effusion worthy of the shrunken mind and
body which held but a rambling disjointed memory even of the advice
given it.
"Have I not done all in my power to please the soldiery?" it ran. "But
it is to be deplored that you have, notwithstanding, shown no concern
for my life, no consideration for my old age. The care of my health
was in the hands of Ahsan-Oolah, who kept himself constantly informed
of the changes it underwent. Now there is none to care for me but God,
while the changes in my health are such as may not be imagined;
therefore the soldiers and officers ought to gratify me and release
the physician, so that he may come whenever he thinks it necessary to
examine my pulse. Furthermore, the property plundered from his house
belonged to the King, therefore it should be traced and collected and
conveyed to our presence. If you are not disposed to comply, let me be
conveyed to the Kutb shrine and employ myself as a sweeper of the
Mosque. And if even this be not acceded I will still relinquish every
concern and jump up from my seat. Not having been killed by the
English I will be killed by you; for I shall swallow a diamond and go
to sleep. Moreover, in the plunder of the physician's house, a small
box containing our seal was carried away. No paper, therefore, of a
date subsequent to the 7th of August, 1857, bearing our seal, will be
valid."
A miserable letter indeed. The dream of sovereignty had come to an end
with that salute of welcome to John Nicholson.
BOOK V.
"THERE AROSE A MAN."
CHAPTER I.
FORWARD.
"Are you here on duty, sir?" asked a brief, imperious voice. Major
Erlton, startled from a half dream as he sat listlessly watching the
target practice from the Crow's Nest, rose and saluted. His height
almost matched the speaker's, but he looked small in comparison with
the indescribable air of dominant power and almost arrogant strength
in the other figure. It seemed to impress him, for he pulled himself
together smartly with a certain confidence, and looked, in truth,
every inch a soldier.
"No, sir," he replied as briefly, "on pleasure."
A distinct twinkle showed for a second in General Nicholson's deep-set
hazel eyes. "Then go to your bed, sir, and sleep. You look as if you
wanted some." He spoke almost rudely; but as he turned on his heel he
added in a louder voice than was necessary had he meant the remark for
his companion's ear only, "I shall want good fighting men before long,
I expect."
If he did, he might reckon on one. Herbert Erlton was not good at
formulating his feelings into definite thoughts, but as he went back
to the peaceful side of the Ridge he told himself vaguely that he was
glad Nicholson had come. He was the sort of a man a fellow would be
glad to follow, especially when he was dead-sick and weary of waiting
and doing nothing save get killed! Yes! he was a real good sort, and
as even the Chaplain had said at mess, they hadn't felt quite so
besieged on the Ridge these last two days since he came. And, by
George! he had hit the right nail on the head. A man wasn't much good
without sleep.
So, with a certain pride in following the advice, Major Erlton flung
himself on his cot and promptly dozed off. In truth he needed rest.
Sonny Seymour's safe arrival in camp two nights before, in charge
of a Bunjârah, from whom even Hodson had been unable to extract
anything--save that the Agha-sahib had forgotten a letter in his
hurry, and that the mem was safe, or had been safe--had sent Major
Erlton to watch those devilish walls more feverishly than ever. Not
that it really mattered whether Kate was alive or dead, he told
himself. No! he did not mean that, quite. He would be awfully
glad--God! how glad! to know her safe. But it wouldn't alter other
things, would not even alter them in regard to her. So, once more he
waited for the further news promised him, with a strange indifference,
save to the thought that, alive or dead, Kate was within the
walls--like another woman--like many women.
And now he was dreaming that he was inside them also, sword in hand.
There seemed some chance of it indeed, men were saying to each other,
as they looked after John Nicholson's tall figure as it wandered into
every post and picket; asking brief questions, pleased with brief
replies. Every now and again pausing, as it were, to come out of his
absorption and take a sudden, keen interest in something beyond the
great question. As when, passing the tents of the only lady in camp,
he saw Sonny, who had been made over to her till he could be sent back
to his mother, who had escaped to Meerut, during which brief time he
was the plaything of a parcel of subalterns who delighted in him,
tinsel cap, anklets, and all. Major Erlton had at first rather
monopolized the child, trying to find out something definite from him;
but as he insisted that "Miffis Erlton lived up in the 'ky wif a man
wif a gween face, and a white face, and a lot of fwowers, and a bit of
tring," and spoke familiarly of Tiddu, and Tara, and Soma, without
being able to say who they were, the Major had given it up as a bad
job, and gone back to the walls. So the subalterns had the child to
themselves, and were playing pranks with him as the General passed by.
"Fine little fellow!" he said suddenly. "I like to see children's legs
and arms. Up in Bunnoo the babies were just like that young monkey.
Real corn-color. I got quite smitten with them and sent for a lot of
toys from Lahore. Only I had to bar Lawrence from peg-tops, for I knew
I should have got peg-topping with the boys, and that would have been
fatal to my dignity as D. C. That is the worst of high estates. You
daren't make friends, and you have to make enemies."
The smile which had made him look years younger faded, and he was
back in the great problem of his life: how to keep pace with his
yoke-fellows, how to scorn consequences and steer straight to
independent action, without spoiling himself by setting his seniors
and superiors in arms against him. He had never solved it yet. His
career had been one long race with the curb on. A year before he had
thrown up the game in disgust, and begged to be transferred from the
Punjab while he could go with honor, and even his triumphant march
Delhi-ward--in which he found disaffection, disobedience, and doubt,
and left fear, trembling, and peace--had been marred by much rebuking.
So that once, nothing but the inner sense that pin-points ought not to
let out the heart's blood, kept him at his post; and but two days
before, on the very eve of that hundred-and-twenty mile rush to Delhi,
he had written claiming definitely the right of an officer in his
position to quarrel with anybody's opinion, and asserting his duty of
speaking out, no matter at what risk of giving offense.
And now, a man years younger than those in nominal command,--he was
but six-and-thirty,--and holding views diametrically opposed to
theirs, he had been sent here, virtually, to take Delhi because those
others could not. No wonder, then, that the question how to avoid
collision puzzled him. Not because he knew that his appointment was in
itself an offense, that some people affected to speak of him still as
Mr. Nicholson--that being his real rank; but because he knew in his
heart of hearts that at any moment he might do something appalling.
Move troops under someone else's command, without a reference, as he
had done before, during his career! Then, naturally, there must be
ructions. He had a smile for the thought himself. Still, for the
present, concord was assured; since until his column arrived, the
repose of the lion crouching for a spring was manifestly the only
policy; though it might be necessary to wag the tail a bit--to do more
than merely forbid sorties and buglings. The fools, for instance, who
harrassed the Metcalfe House picket might be shown their mistake and
made to understand that, if the Ridge called "time!" for a little
decent rest before the final round, it meant to have it. So he passed
on his errand to inculcate Headquarters with his decision, leaving
Sonny playing with the boys.
Meanwhile one of the garrison, at least, had found the benefit of his
keen judgment. Herbert Erlton had passed from dreams of conflict to
the real rest of unconscious sleep, oblivious of everything, even
those rose-red walls.
But within them another man, haggard and anxious as he had been, was
still allowing himself none in his search for Kate Erlton. Tara, as
much at a loss as he, helping him; for though at first she had been
relieved at the idea of the mem's disappearance, she had soon realized
that the master ran more risk than ever in his reckless determination
to find some trace of the missing woman. And Tiddu, who had returned,
helped also. The mem, he said, must have found friends; must be alive.
Such a piece of gossip as the discovery and death of an English woman
could not have been kept from the Thunbi Bazaar. Then those who had
passed from the roof had been calm enough to hasp the door behind
them; that did not look like violence. If the Huzoor would only be
patient and wait, something would turn up. There were other kindly
folk in the city besides himself! But, in the meantime, he would do
well to allow Soma to slip into the sulky indifference he seemed to
prefer, and take no notice of it. It only meant that he, and half the
good soldiers in Delhi, were mad with themselves for having chosen the
losing side. For with Nikalseyn on the Ridge, what chance had Delhi?
This was rather an exaggerated picture; still it was a fairly faithful
presentment of the inward thoughts of many, who, long before this, had
begun to ask themselves what the devil they were doing in that galley?
Yet there they were, and there they must fight. Soma, however, was
doubtful even of that. His heart positively ached as he listened to
the tales told in the very heart of Delhi of the man whom other men
worshiped--the man who took forts single-handed, and said that, given
the powers of a provost-marshal, he would control a disobedient army
in two days! The man who yoked bribe-taking tahseeldars into the
village well-wheel to draw water for the robbed ryots, and set women
of loose virtue, who came into his camp, to cool in muddy tanks. The
man who flung every law-book on his office table at his clerks' heads,
and then--with a kindly apologetic smile--paused while they replaced
them for future use. The man who gave toys to children, and
remorselessly hung two abettors of a vile murder, when he could not
lay hands on the principal. The man, finally, who flogged those who
worshiped him into promising adoration for the future to a very
ordinary mortal of his acquaintance! Briefly the hero, the demi-god,
who perhaps was neither, but, as Tiddu declared, had simply the
greatest gift of all--the gift of making men what he wished them to
be. Either way it was gall and wormwood to Soma--hero-worshiper by
birth--that his side should have no such colossal figure to follow.
So, sulky and sore, he held aloof from both sides, doing his bounden
duty to both, and no more. Keeping guards when his fellows took bribes
to fight, and agreeing with Tiddu, that since some other besides
themselves knew of the roof, it was safer for the master to lock it
up, and live for a time elsewhere.
So, all unwittingly, the only chance of finding Kate was lost. For
what had happened was briefly this: Five minutes after Jim Douglas had
left her, Prince Abool-Bukr, who had kept this _renseignement_--given
him by a Bunjârah, who had promised to be in waiting and was not--to
the last, because it was close to the haven where he would be, had
come roystering up the stairs followed by his unwilling retainers,
suggesting that the Most Illustrious had really better desist from
violating seclusion since they were all black and blue already. But,
from sheer devilry and desire to outrage the quarter, which by its
complaints had already brought him into trouble, the Prince had begun
battering at the door. Kate, running to bar it more securely, saw that
the hasp, carelessly hitched over the staple, was slipping--had
slipped; and had barely time to dash into the inner roof ere the
Prince, unexpectant of the sudden giving way, tumbled headlong into
the outer one. The fall gave her an instant more, but made him angry;
and the end would have been certain, if Kate, seeing the new-made gap
in the wall before her, had not availed herself of it. There was a
roof not far below she knew; the _débris_ would be on a slope
perhaps--the blue-eyed boy had escaped by the roofs. All this flashed
through her, as by the aid of a stool, which she kicked over in her
scramble, she gained the top of the gap and peered over. The next
instant she had dropped herself down some four feet, finding a
precarious foothold on a sliding slope of rubble, and still clinging
to the wall with her hands. If no one looked over, she thought
breathlessly, she was safe! And no one did. The general air of decent
privacy alarmed the retainers into remembering that two of their
number had found death their reward for their master's last escapade
in that quarter; so, after one glance round, they swore the place was
empty, and dragged him off, feebly protesting that it was his last
chance, and he had not bagged a single Christian.
Kate heard the door closed, heard the voices retreat downstairs, and
then set herself to get back over the gap. It did not seem a difficult
task. The slope on which she hung gave fair foothold, and by getting a
good grip on the brickwork, and perhaps displacing a brick or two in
the crack lower down, as a step, she ought to get up easily. It was
lucky the crack was there, she thought. In one way, not in another,
for, as in her effort she necessarily threw all her weight on the
wall, another bit of it gave way, she fell backward, and so, half
covered with bricks and mud, rolled to the roof below, which was
luckily not more than eight or nine feet down. It was far enough,
however, for the fall to have killed her; but, though she lay quite
unconscious, she was not dead, only stunned, shaken, confused, unable
absolutely to think. It was almost dawn, indeed, before she realized
that her only chance of getting up again was in calling for help, and
by that time the door of the roof above had been locked, and there was
no one to hear her. The few square yards of roof on to which she had
rolled belonged to one of those box-like buildings, half-turrets,
half-summer houses, which natives build here, there, and everywhere at
all sorts of elevations, until the view of a town from a topmost roof
resembles nothing so much as the piles of luggage awaiting the tidal
train at Victoria.
This particular square of roof belonged to a tiny outhouse, which
stood on a long narrow roof belonging in its turn to an arcaded slip
of summer-house standing on a square, set round by high parapet walls.
Quite a staircase of roofs. Her one had had a thatch set against the
wall, but it had fallen in with the weight of bricks and mortar. Still
she might be able to creep between it and the wall for shelter. And on
the slip of roof below, Indian corn was drying, during this break in
the rains. Rains which had filled a row of water-pots quite full.
Since she could not make those above her hear, she thought it might be
as well to secure herself from absolute starvation, before broad
daylight brought life to the wilderness of roofs around her. So she
scrambled down a rough ladder of bamboo tied with string, and, after a
brief look into the square below, came back with some parched grain
she had found in a basket, and a pot of water. She would not starve
for that day. By this time it was dawn, and she crept into her
shelter, listening all the while for a sound from above; every now and
again venturing on a call. But there was no answer, and by degrees it
came to her that she must rely on herself only for safety. She was not
likely to be disturbed that day where she was, unless people came to
repair the thatch. And under cover of night she might surely creep
from roof to roof down to some alley. What alley? True, her goal now
lay behind her, but these roofs, set at every angle, might lead her
far from it. And how was she to know her own stair, her own house,
from the outside? She had passed into it in darkness and never left it
again. Then what sort of people lived in these houses through which
she must creep like a thief? Murderers, perhaps. Still it was her only
chance; and all that burning, blistering day, as she crouched between
the thatch and the wall, she was bolstering up her courage for the
effort. She could see the Ridge clearly from her hiding place. Ah! if
she had only the wings of the doves--those purple pigeons which,
circling from the great dome of the mosque, came to feast unchecked on
the Indian corn. The people below, then, must be pious folk.
It was past midnight and the silence of sleep had settled over the
city before she nerved herself to the chance and crept down among the
corn. No difficulty in that; but to her surprise, a cresset was still
burning in the arcaded veranda below, sending three bars of light
across the square through which she must pass. It would be better to
wait a while; but an hour slipped by and still the light gleamed into
the silence. Perhaps it had been forgotten. The possibility made her
creep down the brick ladder, prepared to creep up again if the silence
proved deceptive. But what she saw made her pause, hesitating. It was
a woman reading from a large book held in a book-rest. The Koran, of
course. Kate recognized it at once, for just such another had been
part of the necessary furniture of her roof. And what a beautiful
face! Tender, refined, charming. Not the face of a murderess, surely?
Surely it might be trusted? Those three months behind the veil had
made Kate realize the emotionality of the East; its instinctive
sympathy with the dramatic element in life. She remembered her sudden
impulse in regard to the knife and its effect on Tiddu; she felt a
similar impulse toward confidence here. And then she knew that the
doors might be locked below, and that her best chance might be to
throw herself on the mercy of this woman.
The next moment she was standing full in the light close to the
student, who started to her feet with a faint cry, gazing almost
incredulously at the figure so like her own, save for the jewels
gleaming among the white draperies.
"Bibi," she faltered.
"I am no bibi," interrupted Kate hurriedly in Hindustani. "I am a
Christian--but a woman like yourself--a mother. For the sake of
yours--or the sake of your sons, if you are a mother too--for the sake
of what you love best--save me."
"A Christian! a mem!" In the pause of sheer astonishment the two women
stood facing each other, looking into each other's eyes. Prince
Abool-Bukr had been right when he said that Kate Erlton reminded him
of the Princess Farkhoonda da Zamâni. Standing so, they showed
strangely alike indeed, not in feature, but in type; in the soul which
looked out of the soft dark, and the clear gray eyes.
"Save you!" The faint echo was lost in a new sound, close at hand. A
careless voice humming a song; a step coming up the dark stair.
"O mistress rare, divine!"
God and His Prophet! Abool himself! Newâsi flung her hands up in sheer
horror. Abool! and this Christian here! The next instant with a fierce
"Keep still," she had thrust Kate into the deepest shadow and was out
to bar the brick ladder with her tall white grace. She had no time for
thought. One sentence beat on her brain--"for the sake of what you
love best, save me!" Yea! for his sake this strange woman must not be
seen--he must not, should not guess she was there!
"Stand back, kind one, and let me pass," came the gay voice
carelessly. It made Kate shudder back into further shadow, for she
knew now where she was; and but that she would have to pass those bars
of light would have essayed escape to the roofs again.
But Newâsi stood still as stone on the first step of the stairs.
"Pass!" she repeated clearly, coldly. "Art mad, Abool? that thou
comest hither with no excuse of drunkenness and alone, at this hour of
the night. For shame!"
Why, indeed, she asked herself wildly, had he come? He was not used to
do so. Could he have heard? Had he come on purpose? There was a sound
as if he retreated a step, and from the dark his voice came with a
wonder in it.
"What ails thee, Newâsi?"
"What ails me!" she echoed, "what I have lacked too long. Just anger
at thy thoughtless ways. Go----"
"But I have that to tell thee of serious import that none but thou
must hear. That which will please thee. That which needs thy kind wise
eyes upon it."
"Then let them see it by daylight, not now. I will not, Abool. Stand
back, or I will call for help."
The sound of retreat was louder this time, and a muttered curse came
with it; but the voice had a trace of anxiety in it now--anxiety and
anger.
"Thou dost not mean it, kind one; thou canst not! When have I done
that which would make thee need help? Newâsi! be not a fool. Remember
it is I, Abool; Abool-Bukr, who has a devil in him at times!"
Did she not know it by this time? Was not that the reason why he must
not find this Christian? Why she must refuse him hearing? Though it
was true that he had a right to be trusted; in all those long years,
when had he failed to treat her tenderly, respectfully? As she stood
barring his way, where he had never before been denied entrance, she
felt as if she herself could have killed that strange woman for being
there, for coming between them.
"Listen, Abool!" she said, stretching out her hands to find his in the
dark. "I mean naught, dear, that is unkind. How could it be so between
me and thee? But 'tis not wise." She paused, catching her breath in a
faint sob. He could not see her face, perhaps if he had, he would have
been less relentless.
"Wherefore? Canst not trust thy nephew, fair aunt?" The sarcasm bit
deep.
"Nephew! A truce, Abool, to this foolish tale," she began hotly, when
he interrupted her.
"Of a surety, if the Princess Farkhoonda desires it! Yet would Mirza
Abool-Bukr still like to know wherefore he is not received?"
His tone sent a thrill of terror through her, his use of the name he
hated warned her that his temper was rising--the devil awakening.
"Canst not see, dear," she pleaded, trying to keep the hands he would
have drawn from hers--"folk have evil minds."
He gave an ugly laugh. "Since when hast thou begun to think of thy
good name, like other women, Newâsi? But if it be so, if all my
virtue--and God knows 'tis ill-got--is to go for naught, let it end."
She heard him, felt him turn, and a wild despair surged up in her.
Which was worst? To let him go in anger beyond the reach of her
controlling hand mayhap--go to unknown evils--or chance this one?
Since--since at the worst death might be concealed. God and His
Prophet! What a thought! No! she would plead again--she would
stoop--she would keep him at any price.
"Listen!" she whispered passionately, leaning toward him in the dark,
"dost ask since when I have feared for my good name? Canst not
guess?--Abool! what--what does a woman, as I am, fear--save
herself--save her own love----"
There was an instant's silence, and then his reckless jeering laugh
jarred loud.
"So it has come at last! and there is another woman for kisses. That
is an end indeed! Did I not tell thee we should quarrel over it some
day? Well, be it so, Princess! I will take my virtue elsewhere."
She stood as if turned to stone, listening to his retreating steps,
listening to his nonchalant humming of the old refrain as he passed
through the courtyard into the alley. Then, without a word, but
quivering with passion, she turned to where Kate cowered, and dragged
her by main force to the stairs where, a minute before; she had
sacrificed everything for her. No! not for her, for him!
"Go," she said bitterly. "Go! and my curse go with you."
Kate fled before the anger she saw but did not understand. Yet as she
flew down the steep stairs she paused involuntarily to listen to the
sound--a sound which needed no interpreter as the liquid Persian had
done--of a woman sobbing as if her heart would break.
She had no time, however, even for wonder, and the next instant she
was out in the alley, turning to the right. For the knowledge that it
was the Princess Farkhoonda who had helped her, gave the clew to her
position. But the house, the stair? How could she know it? She must
try them one after another; since she would know the landing, the door
she had so often opened and shut. Still it was perilously near dawn
ere she found what she was sure was the right one; but it was
padlocked.
They must have gone; gone and left her alone!
For the first time, ghastly, unreasoning fear seized on her; she could
have beaten at the door and screamed her claim to be let in. And even
when, the rush of terror passed, she sat stupidly on the step, not
even wondering what to do next, till suddenly she remembered that she
had keys in her pocket. That of the inner padlock, certainly; perhaps
of the outer one, also, since Tara had given up using her duplicate
altogether.
She had; and five minutes after, having satisfied herself that the
roof remained as it was--that it was merely empty for a time--she
tried to feel grateful. But the loneliness, the dimness, were too much
for her fatigue, her excitement. So once more the sound which needs no
interpreter rose on the warm soft night.
It was two days after this that Tiddu held a secret consultation with
Soma and Tara. The Agha-sahib, he said, was getting desperate. He was
losing his head, as the Huzoors did over women-folk, and he must be
got out of the city. It was not as if he did any good by staying in
it. The mem was either dead, or safely concealed. There was no
alternative, unless, indeed, she had already been passed out to the
Ridge. There was talk of that sort among Hodson's spies, and he was
going to utilize the fact and persuade the Huzoor to creep out to the
camp and see. Soma could pass him out, and would not pass him in
again; which was fortunate. Since folk in addition to protecting
masters had to make money, when every other corn-carrier in the place
was coining it by smuggling gold and silver out of the city for the
rich merchants. Tara, with a sudden fierce exultation in her somber
eyes, agreed. Let the Huzoor go back to his own life, she said; let
him go to safety, and leave her free. As for the mem, the master had
done enough for her. And Soma, sulky and lowering with the dull glow
of opium in his brain--for the drug was his only solace now--swore
that Tiddu was right. Delhi was no place for the master. And once out
of it, the fighting would keep him: he knew him of old. As for the
mem, he would not harm her, as Tara had once suggested he should. That
dream was over. The Huzoors were the true masters; they had men who
could lead men. Not Princes in Cashmere shawls who couldn't understand
a word of what you said, and mere _soubadars_ cocked up, but real
_Colonels_ and _Generâls_.
The result of this being that on the night of the 11th, between
midnight and dawn, Jim Douglas, with that elation which came to him
always at the prospect of action, prepared to slip out of the
sally-port by the Magazine, disguised as a sepoy. This was to please
Soma. To please Tiddu, however, he wore underneath this disguise the
old staff uniform from the theatrical properties. It reminded him of
Alice Gissing, making him whisper another "bravo" to the memory of the
woman whom he had buried under the orange-trees in the crimson-netted
shroud made of an officer's scarf.
But Tiddu's remark, that an English uniform would be the safest, once
he was beyond the city, sent sadness flying, in its frank admission
that the tide had turned.
Turned, indeed! The certainty came with a great throb of fierce joy
as, half an hour afterward, slipping past the gardens of Ludlow
Castle, he found himself in the thick of English bayonets, and felt
grateful for the foresight of the old staff uniform. They were on
their way to surprise and take the picket; not to defend but to
attack.
The opportunity was too good to be lost. There was no hurry. He had
arranged to remain three days on the Ridge--he might not have another
opportunity of a free fair fight.
He had forgotten every woman in the world, everything save the welcome
silence before him as he turned and stole through the trees also,
sword in hand.
By all that was lucky and well-planned! the picket must be asleep! Not
a sound save the faint crackle of stealthy feet almost lost in the
insistent quiver of the cicalas. No! there was a challenge at last
within a foot or two.
"Who--kum--dar?"
And swift as an echo a young voice beside him came jibingly:
"It's me, Pandy! Take that."
It's me! Just so; me with a vengeance. For the right attack and the
left were both well up. There was a short, sharp volley; then the
welcome familiar order. A cheer, a clatter, a rush and clashing with
the bayonets. It seemed but half a minute before Jim Douglas found
himself among the guns slashing at a dazed artilleryman who had a
port-fire in his hand. So the artillery on either side never had a
chance, and Major Erlton, riding up with the 9th Lancers as the
central attack, found that bit of the fighting over. The picket was
taken, the mutineers had fled cityward leaving four guns behind them.
And against one of these, as the Major rode close to gloat over it,
leaned a man whom he recognized at once.
"My God! Douglas," he said, "where--where's Kate?--where's my wife?"
It was rather an abrupt transition of thought, and Jim Douglas, who
was feeling rather queer from something, he scarcely knew what, looked
up at the speaker doubtfully.
"Oh, it is you, Major Erlton," he said slowly. "I thought--I mean I
hoped she was here--if she isn't--why, I suppose I'd better go back."
He took his arm off the gun and half-stumbled forward, when Major
Erlton flung himself from his horse and laid hold of him.
"You're hit, man--the blood's pouring from your sleeve. Here, off with
your coat, sharp!"
"I can't think why it bleeds so?" said Jim Douglas feebly, looking
down at a clean cut at the inside of the elbow from which the blood
was literally spouting. "It is nothing--nothing at all."
The Major gave a short laugh. "Take the go out of you a bit, though.
I'll get a tourniquet on sharp, and send you up in a dhooli."
"What an unlucky devil I am!" muttered Jim Douglas to himself, and the
Major did not deny it: he was in a hurry to be off again with the
party told to clear the Koodsia Gardens. Which they did successfully
before sunrise, when the expedition returned to camp cheering like
demons and dragging in the captured guns, on which some of the wounded
men sat triumphantly. It was their first real success since
Budli-ke-serai, two months before; and they were in wild spirits.
Even the Doctor, fresh from shaking his head over many a form lifted
helplessly from the dhoolis, was jubilant as he sorted Jim Douglas'
arm.
"Keep you here ten days or so I should say. There's always a chance of
its breaking out again till the wound is quite healed. Never mind! You
can go into Delhi with the rest of us, before then."
"Yoicks forward!" cried a wounded lad in the cot close by. The Doctor
turned sharply.
"If you don't keep quiet, Jones, I'll send you back to Meerut. And you
too, Maloney. I've told you to lie still a dozen times."
"Sure, Docther dear, ye couldn't be so cruel," said a big Irishman
sitting at the foot of his bed so as to get nearer to a new arrival
who was telling the tale of the fight. "And me able-bodied and
spoiling to be at me wurrk this three days."
"It's a curious fact," remarked the Doctor to Jim Douglas as he
finished bandaging him, "the hospital has been twice as insubordinate
since Nicholson came in. The men seem to think we are to assault Delhi
tomorrow. But we can't till the siege train comes, of course. So you
may be in at the death!"
Jim Douglas felt glad and sorry in a breath.
Finally he told himself he could let decision stand over for a day or
two. He must see Hodson first, and find out if the letter he had had
from his spies about an Englishwoman, concealed in Delhi, referred to
Kate Erlton.
CHAPTER II.
BITS, BRIDLES, SPURS.
The letter, however, did not refer to Kate; though, curiously enough,
the Englishwoman it concerned had been, and still was concealed in an
Afghan's house. Kate, then, had not been the only Englishwoman in
Delhi. There was a certain consolation in the thought, since what was
being done for one person by kindly natives might very well be done
for another. Besides, removed as he was now from the fret and strain
of actual search, Jim Douglas admitted frankly to Major Hodson that he
was right in saying that Mrs. Erlton must either have come to an end
of her troubles altogether, or have found friends better able,
perhaps, than he to protect her.
Regarding the first possibility also Major Hodson was skeptical. He
had hundreds of spies in the city. Such a piece of good luck as the
discovery of a Christian must have been noised abroad. They had not
mentioned it; he did not, therefore, believe it had occurred. He
would, however, inquire, and till the answer came it would be foolish
to go back to the city. Jim Douglas admitted this also; but as the
days passed, the desire to return increased; especially when Major
Erlton came to see him, which he did with dutiful regularity. Jim
Douglas could not help admiring him when he stood, stiff and square,
thanking him as Englishmen thank their fellows for what they know to
be beyond thanks.
"I am sure no one could have done more, and I know I couldn't have
done a quarter so much; and I'm grateful," he said awkwardly. Then
with the best intentions, born from a real pity for the haggard man
who sat on the edge of his cot looking as men do after a struggle of
weeks with malarial fever, he added, "And the luck has been a bit
against you all the time, hasn't it?"
"As yet, perhaps," replied Jim Douglas, feeling inclined then and
there to start cityward, "but the game isn't over. When I go back----"
"Hodson says you could do no good," continued the big man, still with
the best intentions.
"I don't agree with him," retorted the other sharply.
"Perhaps not--but--but I wouldn't, if I were you. Or--rather--_I_
should of course--only--you see it is different for me. She----" Major
Erlton paused, finding it difficult to explain himself. The memory of
that last letter he had written to Kate was always with him, making
him feel she was not, in a way, his wife. He had never regretted it.
He had scarcely thought what would happen if she came back from the
dead, as it were, to answer it; for he hated thought. Even now the
complexity of his emotions irritated him, and he broke through them
almost brutally. "She was my wife, you see. But you had nothing to do
with it; so you had better leave it alone. You've done enough already.
And as I said before, I'm grateful."
So he had stalked away, leaving his hearer frowning. It was true. The
luck had been against him. But what right had it to be so? Above all,
what right had that big brutal fellow to say so? There he was going
off to win more distinction, no doubt. He would end by getting the
Victoria Cross, and confound him! from what people said of him, he
would well deserve it.
While he? Even these two days had brought his failure home to him. And
yet he told himself, that if he had failed to save one Englishwoman,
others had failed to save hundreds. Fresh as he was to the facts, they
seemed to him almost incredible. As he wandered round the Ridge
inspecting that rear-guard of graves, or sat talking to some of the
thousand-and-odd sick and wounded in hospital, listening to endless
tales of courage, pluck, sheer dogged resistance, he realized at what
a terrible cost that armed force, varying from three to six thousand
men, had simply clung to the rocks and looked at the city. There
seemed enough heroism in it to have removed mountains; and coming upon
him, not in the monotonous sequence of day-to-day experience, but in a
single impression, the futility of it left him appalled. So did the
news of the world beyond Delhi, heard, reliably, for the first time.
Briefly, England was everywhere on her defense. It seemed to him as if
from that mad dream of conquest within the city he had passed to as
strange a dream of defeat. And why? The fire, unchecked at first, had
blazed up with fresh fuel in place after place and left?--Nothing. Not
a single attempt to wrest the government of the country from us; not
even an organized resistance, when once the order to advance had been
given. Had there been some mysterious influence abroad making men
blind to the truth?
It was about to pass away if there had been, he felt, when on the
14th, he watched John Nicholson re-enter the Ridge at the head of his
column. And many others felt the same, without in any way disparaging
those who for long months of defense had borne the burden and heat of
the day. They simply saw that Fate had sent a new factor into the
problem, that the old order was changing. The defense was to be
attack.
And why not, with that reinforcement of fine fighting men? Played in
by the band of the 8th, amid cheering and counter-cheering, which
almost drowned the music, it seemed fit--as the joke ran--if not to
face hell itself, at any rate to take _Pandymonium_. The 52d Regiment
looked like the mastiff to which its leader had likened it. The 2d
Sikhs were admittedly the biggest fellows ever seen. The wild
Mooltânee Horse sat their lean Beloochees with the loose security of
seat which tells of men born to the saddle.
Jim Douglas noted these things like his fellows; but what sent that
thrill of confidence through him was the look on many a face, as at
some pause or turn it caught a glimpse of the General's figure. It was
that heroic figure itself, seen for the first time, riding ahead of
all with no unconsciousness of the attention it attracted! but with a
self-reliant acceptance of the fact--as far from modesty as it was
from vanity--that here rode John Nicholson ready to do what John
Nicholson could do. But in the pale face, made paler by the darkness
of the beard, there was more than this. There was an almost languid
patience as if the owner knew that the men around him said of him, "If
ever there is a desperate deed to do in India, John Nicholson is the
man to do it," and was biding his time to fulfill their hopes.
The look haunted Jim Douglas all day, stimulating him strangely. Here
was a man, he felt, who was in the grip of Fate, but who gave back the
grip so firmly that his Fate could not escape him. Gave it back
frankly, freely, as one man might grip another's hand in friendship.
And then he smiled, thinking that John Nicholson's hand-clasp would go
a long way in giving anyone a help over a hard stile. If he had had a
lead-over like that after the smash came; if even now---- Idle
thoughts, he told himself; and all because the picturesqueness of a
man's outward appearance had taken his fancy, his imagination. For all
he knew, or was ever likely to know----
He had been sitting idly on the edge of his cot in the tiny tent Major
Erlton had lent him, having in truth nothing better to do, and now a
voice from the blaze and blare of the heat and light outside startled
him.
"May I come in--John Nicholson?"
He almost stammered in his surprise; but without waiting for more than
a word the General walked in, alone. He was still in full uniform; and
surely no man could become it more, thought Jim Douglas involuntarily.
"I have heard your story, Mr. Douglas," he began in a sonorous but
very pleasant voice. "It is a curious one. And I was curious to see
you. You must know so much." He paused, fixed his eyes in a perfectly
unembarassed stare on his host's face, then said suddenly, with a sort
of old-fashioned courtesy: "Sit you down again, please; there isn't a
chair, I see; but the cot will stand two of us. If it doesn't it will
be clearly my fault." He smiled kindly. "Wounded too--I didn't know
that."
"A scratch, sir," put in his hearer hastily, fighting shy even of that
commiseration. "I had a little fever in the city; that is all."
The bright hazel eyes, with a hint of sunlight in them, took rather an
absent look. "I should like to have done it myself. I've tried that
sort of thing; but they always find me out."
"I fancy you must be rather difficult to disguise," began Jim Douglas
with a smile, when John Nicholson plunged straight into the heart of
things.
"You must know a lot I want to know. Of course I've seen Hodson and
his letters; but this is different. First: Will the city fight?"
"As well as it knows how, and it knows better than it did."
"So I fancied. Hodson said not. By the way, he told me that you
declared his Intelligence Department was simply perfect. And his
accounts--I mean his information--wonderfully accurate."
"I did, indeed, sir," replied Jim Douglas, smiling again.
Nicholson gave him a sharp look. "And he is a wonderfully fine soldier
too, sir; one of the finest we have. Wilson is sending him out this
afternoon to punish those Ringhars at Rohtuck. I don't know why I
should present you with this information, Mr. Douglas?"
"Don't you, sir?" was the cool reply; "I think I do. Major Hodson may
have his faults, sir, but the Ridge couldn't do without him. And I'm
glad to hear he is going out. It is time we punished those chaps; time
we got some grip on the country again."
The General's face cleared. "Hm," he said, "you don't mince matters;
but I don't think we lost much grip in the Punjâb. And as for
punishments! Do you know over two thousand have been executed
already?"
"I don't, sir; though I knew Sir John's hand was out. But if you'll
excuse me, we don't want the hangings now--they can come by-and-by. We
want to lick them--show them we are not really in a blind funk."
"You use strong language too, sir--very strong language."
"I did not say we _were_ in one----" began Jim Douglas eagerly, when a
voice asking if General Nicholson were within interrupted him.
"He is," replied the sonorous voice calmly. "Come in, Hodson, and I
hope you are prepared to fight." The bright hazel eyes met Jim
Douglas' with a distinct twinkle in them; but Major Hodson
entering--a perfect blaze of scarlet and fawn and gold, loose, lank,
lavish--gave the speech a different turn.
"I hope you'll excuse the intrusion, sir," he said saluting, as it
were, loudly, "but being certain I owed this piece of luck to your
kind offices, I ventured to follow you. And as for the fighting, sir,
trust Hodson's Horse to give a good account of itself."
"I do, Major, I do," replied Nicholson gravely, despite the twinkle,
"but at present I want you to fight Mr. Douglas for me. He suggests we
are all in a blind funk."
With anyone else Jim Douglas might have refused this cool demand, for
it was little else, that he should defend his statement against a man
who in himself was a refutation of it, who was a type of the most
reckless, dare-devil courage and dash; but the thought of that umpire,
ready to give an overwhelming thrust at any time, roused his temper
and pugnacity.
"I'm not conscious of being in one myself," said the Major, turning
with a swing and a brief "How do, Douglas." He was the most martial of
figures in the last-developed uniform of the Flamingoes, or the
Ring-tailed Roarers, or the _Aloo Bokhâra's_, as Hodson's levies were
called indiscriminately during their lengthy process of dress
evolution. "And what is more, I don't understand what you mean, sir!"
"General Nicholson does, I think," replied the other. "But I will go
further than I did, sir," he added, facing the General boldly: "I only
said that the natives thought we were in a blind funk. I now assert
that they had a right to say so. We never stirred hand or foot for a
whole month."
"Oh! I give you in Meerut," interrupted Hodson hastily. "It was
pitiable. Our leaders lost their heads."
"Not only our leaders. We all lost them. From that moment to this it
seems to me we have never been calm."
"Calm!" echoed Hodson disdainfully. "Who wants to be calm? Who would
be calm with those massacred women and children to avenge."
"Exactly so. The horrors of those ghastly murders got on our nerves,
and no wonder. We exaggerated the position from the first; we
exaggerate the dangers of it now."
"Of taking Delhi, you mean?" interrupted Nicholson dryly.
Jim Douglas smiled. "No, sir! Even you will find that difficult. I
meant the ultimate danger to our rule----"
"There you mistake utterly," put in Hodson magnificently. "We mean to
win--we admit no danger. There isn't an Englishman, or, thank Heaven,
an Englishwoman----"
"Is the crisis so desperate that we need levy the ladies?" asked his
adversary sarcastically. "Personally I want to leave them out of the
question as much as I can. It is their intrusion into it which has
done the mischief. I don't want to minimize these horrors; but if we
could forget those massacres----"
"Forget them! I hope to God every Englishman will remember them when
the time comes to avenge them! Ay! and make the murderers remember
them, too."
"If I had them in my power to-day," put in the sonorous voice, "and
knew I was to die to-morrow, I would inflict the most excruciating
tortures I could think of on them with an easy conscience."
"Bravo! sir," cried Hodson, "and I'd do executioner gladly."
John Nicholson's face flinched slightly. "There is generally a common
hangman, I believe," he said; then turned on Jim Douglas with bent
brows: "And you, sir?"
"I would kill them, sir; as I would kill a mad dog in the quickest way
handy; as I'd kill every man found with arms in his hands. Treason is
a worse crime than murder to us now; and by God! if I tortured anyone
it would be the men who betrayed the garrison at Cawnpore. Yet even
there, in our only real collapse, what has happened? It is reoccupied
already--the road to it is hung with dead bodies. Havelock's march is
one long procession of success. Yet we count ourselves beleaguered.
Why? I can't understand it! Where has an order to charge, to advance
boldly, met with a reverse? It seems to me that but for these
massacres, this fear for women and children, we could hold our own
gayly. Look at Lucknow----"
"Yes, Lucknow," assented Hodson savagely. "Sir Henry, the bravest,
gentlest, dead! Women and children pent up--by Heaven! it's sickening
to think what may have happened."
John Nicholson shot a quick glance at Jim Douglas.
"It proves my contention," said the latter. "Think of it! Fifteen
hundred, English and natives, in a weak position with not even a
palisade in some places between them and five times their number of
trained soldiers backed by the wildest, wickedest, wantonest town
rabble in India! What does it mean? Make every one of the fifteen
hundred a paladin, and, by Heaven! they are heroes. Still, what does
it mean?"
He spoke to the General, but he was silent.
"Mean?" echoed Hodson. "Palpably that the foe is contemptible. So he
is. Pandy can't fight----"
"He fought well enough for us in the past. I know my regiment----" Jim
Douglas caught himself up hard. "I believe they will fight for us
again. The truth is that half, even of the army, does not want to
fight, and the country does not mean fight at all."
"Delhi?" came the dry voice again.
"Delhi is exceptional. Besides, it can do nothing else now. Remember
we condemned it, unheard, on the 8th of June."
"I told you that before, sir; didn't I?" put in Hodson quickly. "If we
had gone in on the 11th, as I suggested."
"You wouldn't have succeeded," replied Jim Douglas coolly. Nicholson
rose with a smile.
"Well, we are going to succeed now. So, good-luck in the meantime,
Hodson. Put bit and bridle on the Rânghars. Show them we can't have
'em disturbing the public peace, and kicking up futile rows. Eh--Mr.
Douglas?"
"No fear, sir!" said Hodson effusively. "The Ring-tailed Roarers are
not in a blind funk. I only wish that I was as sure that the
politicals will keep order when we've made it. I had to do it twice
over at Bhâgput. And it is hard, sir, when one has fagged horses and
men to death, to be told one has exceeded orders----"
"If you served under me, Major Hodson," said the General with a sudden
freeze of formality, "that would be impossible. My instructions are
always to do everything that can be done."
Jim Douglas felt that he could well believe it, as with a regret that
the interview was over, he held the flap of the tent aside for the
imperial figure to pass out. But it lingered in the blaze of sunshine
after Major Hodson had jingled off.
"You are right in some things, Mr. Douglas," said the sonorous voice
suddenly: "I'd ask no finer soldiers than some of those against us. By
and by, unless I'm wrong, men of their stock will be our best war
weapons; for, mind you, war is a primitive art and needs a primitive
people. And the country isn't against us. If it were, we shouldn't be
standing here. It is too busy plowing, Mr. Douglas; this rain is
points in our favor. As for the women and children--poor souls"--his
voice softened infinitely--"they have been in our way terribly;
but--we shall fight all the better for that, by and by. Meanwhile we
have got to smash Delhi. The odds are bigger than they were first. But
Baird Smith will sap us in somehow, and then----" He paused, looking
kindly at Jim Douglas, and said, "You had better stop and go in
with--with the rest of us."
"I think not, sir----"
"Why? Because of that poor lady? Woman again--eh?"
"In a way; besides, I really have nothing else to do."
John Nicholson looked at him for a moment from head to foot; then said
sharply:
"I didn't know, sir. I give my personal staff plenty of work."
For an instant the offer took his hearer's breath away, and he stood
silent.
"I'm afraid not, sir," he said at last, though from the first he had
known what his answer would be. "I--I can't, that's the fact. I was
cashiered from the army fifteen years ago."
General Nicholson stepped back, with sheer anger in his face. "Then
what do you mean, sir, by wearing Her Majesty's uniform?"
Jim Douglas looked down hastily on old Tiddu's staff properties, which
he had quite forgotten. They had passed muster in the darkness of the
tent, but here, in the sunlight, looked inconceivably worn, and
shabby, and unreal. He smiled rather bitterly; then held out his
sleeve to show the braiding.
"It's a general's coat, sir," he said defiantly. "God knows what old
duffer it belonged to; but I might have worn it first- instead of
second-hand, if I hadn't been a d----d young fool."
The splendid figure drew itself together formally, but the other's
pride was up too, and so for a minute the two men faced each other
honestly, Nicholson's eyes narrowing under their bent brows.
"What was it? A woman, I expect."
"Perhaps. I don't see that it matters."
A faint smile of approval rather took from the sternness of the
military salute. "Not at all. That ends it, of course."
"Of course."
Not quite; for ere Jim Douglas could drop the curtain between himself
and that brilliant, successful figure, it had turned sharply and laid
a hand on his shoulder. A curiously characteristic hand--large, thin,
smooth, and white as a woman's, with a grip in it beyond most men's.
"You have a vile habit of telling the truth to superior officers, Mr.
Douglas. So have I. Shake hands on it."
With that hand on his shoulder, that clasp on his, Jim Douglas felt as
if he were in the grip of Fate itself, and following John Nicholson's
example, gave it back frankly, freely. So, suddenly the whole face
before him melted into perfect friendliness. "Stick to it, man--stick
to it! Save that poor lady--or--or kill somebody. It's what we are all
doing. As for the rest"--the smile was almost boyish--"I may get the
sack myself before the general's coat. I'm insubordinate enough, they
tell me--but I shall have taken Delhi first. So--so good-luck to you!"
As he walked away, he seemed to the eyes watching him bigger, more
king-like, more heroic than ever; perhaps because they were dim with
tears. But as Jim Douglas went off with a new cheerfulness to see
Hodson's Horse jingle out on their lesson of peace, he told himself
that the old scoundrel, Tiddu, had once more been right. Nikalseyn had
the Great Gift. He could take a man's heart out and look at it, and
put it back sounder than it had been for years. He could put his own
heart into a whole camp and make it believe it was its own.
Such a clattering of hoofs and clinking of bits and bridles had been
heard often before, but never with such gay light-heartedness. Only
two days before a lesson had been given to the city. There had been no
more harrassing of pickets at night. Now the arm of the law was going
coolly to reach out forty miles. It was a change indeed. And more than
Jim Douglas watched the sun set red on the city wall that evening with
a certain content in their hearts. As for him, he seemed still to feel
that grip, and hear the voice saying, "Stick to it, man, stick to it!
Save that poor lady or kill somebody. It's what we are all doing."
He sat dreaming over the whole strange dream with a curious sense of
comradeship and sympathy through it all, until the glow faded and left
the city dark and stern beneath the storm-clouds which had been
gathering all day.
Then he rose and went back to his tent cheerfully. He would run no
needless risks; he would not lose his head; but as soon as the doctors
said it was safe, he would find and save Kate, or--_kill somebody_.
That was the whole duty of man.
Kate, however, had already been found, or rather she had never been
lost; and when Tara, a few hours after Jim Douglas slipped out of the
city, had gone to the roof to fetch away her spinning wheel, and
finding the door padlocked on the inside, had in sheer bewilderment
tried the effect of a signal knock, Kate had let her in as if, so poor
Tara told herself, it was all to begin over again.
All over again, even though she had spent those few hours of freedom
in a perfect passion of purification, so that she might return to her
saintship once more.
The gold circlets were gone already, her head was shaven, the coarse
white shroud had replaced the crimson scarf. Yet here was the mem
asking for the Huzoor, and setting her blood on fire with vague
jealousies.
She squatted down almost helplessly on the floor, answering all Kate's
eager questions, until suddenly in the midst of it all she started to
her feet, and flung up her arms in the old wild cry for righteousness,
"I am suttee! before God! I am suttee!"
Then she had said with a gloomy calm, "I will bring the mem more food
and drink. But I must think. Tiddu is away; Soma will not help. I am
alone; but I am suttee."
Kate, frightened at her wild eyes, felt relieved when she was left
alone, and inclined not to open the door to her again. She could
manage, she told herself, as she had managed, for a few days, and by
that time Mr. Greyman would have come back. But as the long hours
dragged by, giving her endless opportunity of thought, she began to
ask herself why he should come back at all. She had not realized at
first that he had escaped, that he was safe; that he was, as it were,
quit of her. But he was, and he must remain so. A new decision, almost
a content, came to her with the suggestion. She was busy in a moment
over details. To begin with, no news must be sent. Then, in case he
were to return, she must leave the roof. Tara might do so much for
her, especially if it was made clear that it was for the master's
benefit. But Tara might never return. There had been that in her
manner which hinted at such a possibility, and the stores she had
brought in had been unduly lavish. In that case, Kate told herself,
she would creep out some night, go back to the Princess Farkhoonda,
and see if she could not help. If not, there was always the
alternative of ending everything by going into the streets boldly and
declaring herself a Christian. But she would appeal to these two women
first.
And as she sat resolving this, the two women were cursing her in their
inmost hearts. For there had been no bangings of drums or thrumming of
sutâras on Newâsi's roof these three days. Abool-Bukr had broken away
from her kind, detaining hand, and gone back to the intrigues of the
Palace. So the Mufti's quarter benefited in decent quiet, during which
the poor Princess began that process of weeping her eyes out, which
left her blind at last. But not blind yet. And so she sat swaying
gracefully before the book-rest, on which lay the Word of her God, her
voice quavering sometimes over the monotonous chant, as she tried to
distill comfort to her own heart from the proposition that "He is
Might and Right."
And far away in another quarter of the town Tara, crouched up before a
mere block of stone, half hidden in flowers, was telling her beads
feverishly. "_Râm-Râm-Sita-Râm!_" That was the form she used for a
whole tragedy of appeal and aspiration, remorse, despair, and hope.
And as she muttered on, looking dully at the little row of platters
she had presented to the shrine that morning--going far beyond
necessity in her determination to be heard--the groups of women coming
in to lay a fresh chaplet among the withered ones and give a "jow" to
the deep-toned bell hung in the archway in order to attract the god's
attention to their offering, paused to whisper among themselves of her
piety. While more than once a widow crept close to kiss the edge of
her veil humbly.
It was balm indeed! It was peace. The mem might starve, she told
herself fiercely, but she would be suttee. After all the strain, and
the pain, and the wondering ache at her heart, she had come back to
her own life. This she understood. Let the Huzoors keep to their own.
This was hers.
The sun danced in motes through the branches of the peepul tree above
the little shrine, the squirrels chirruped among them, the parrots
chattered, sending a rain of soft little figs to fall with a faint
sound on the hard stones, and still Tara counted her beads feverishly.
"_Râm-Râm-Sita-Râm! Râm-Râm-Sita-Râm!_"
"Ari! sisters! she is a saint indeed. She was here at dawn and she
prays still," said the women, coming in the lengthening shadows with
odd little bits of feastings. A handful of cocoa-nut chips, a platter
of flour, a dish of curds, or a dab of butter.
"_Râm-Râm-Sita-Râm!_"
And all the while poor Tara was thinking of the Huzoor's face, if he
ever found out that she had left the mem to starve. It was almost dark
when she stood up, abandoning the useless struggle, so she waited to
see the sacred Circling of the Lights and get her little sip of holy
water before she went back to her perch among the pigeons, to put on
the crimson scarf and the gold circlets again. Since it was hopeless
trying to be a saint till she had done what she had promised the
Huzoor she would do. She must go back to the mem first.
But Kate, opening the door to her with eyes a-glitter and a whole
cut-and-dried plan for the future, almost took her breath away, and
reduced her into looking at the Englishwoman with a sort of fear.
"The mem will he suttee too," she said stupidly, after listening a
while. "The mem will shave her head and put away her jewels! The mem
will wear a widow's shroud and sweep the floor, saying she comes from
Bengal to serve the saint?"
"I do not care, Tara, how it is done. Perhaps you may have a better
plan. But we must prevent the master from finding me again. He has
done too much for me as it is; you know he has," replied Kate, her
eyes shining like stars with determination. "I only want you to save
him; that is all. You may take me away and kill me if you like; and if
you won't help me to hide, I'll go out into the streets and let them
kill me there. I will not have him risk his life for me again."
"_Râm-Râm-Sita-Râm!_" said Tara under her breath. That settled it, and
at dawn the next day Tara stood in her odd little perch above the
shrine among the pigeons, looking down curiously at the mem who,
wearied out by her long midnight walk through the city and all the
excitement of the day, had dozed off on a bare mat in the corner, her
head resting on her arm. Three months ago Kate could not have slept
without a pillow; now, as she lay on the hard ground, her face looked
soft and peaceful in sheer honest dreamless sleep. But Tara had not
slept; that was to be told from the anxious strain of her eyes. She
had sat out since she had returned home, on her two square yards of
balcony in the waning moonlight, looking down on the unseen shrine,
hidden by the tall peepul tree whose branches she could almost touch.
Would the mem really be suttee? she had asked herself again and again.
Would she do so much for the master? Would she--would she really shave
her head? A grim smile of incredulity came to Tara's face, then a
quick, sharp frown of pain. If she did, she must care very much for
the Huzoor. Besides, she had no right to do it! The mems were never
suttee. They married again many times. And then this mem was married
to someone else. No! she would never shave her head for a strange man.
She might take off her jewels, she might even sweep the floor. But
shave her head? Never!
But supposing she did?
The oddest jumble of jealousy and approbation filled Tara's heart. So,
as the yellow dawn broke, she bent over Kate.
"Wake, mem sahib!" she said, "wake. It is time to prepare for the day.
It is time to get ready."
Kate started up, rubbing her eyes, wondering where she was; as in
truth she well might, for she had never been in such a place before.
The long, low slip of a room was absolutely empty save for a reed mat
or two; but every inch of it, floor, walls, ceiling, was freshly
plastered with mud. That on the floor was still wet, for Tara
had been at work on it already. Over each doorway hung a faded
chaplet, on each lintel was printed the mark of a bloody hand, and
round and about, in broad finger-marks of red and white, ran the
eternal _Râm-Râm-Sita-Râm!_ in Sanskrit letterings. In truth, Tara's
knowledge of secular and religious learning was strictly confined to
this sentence. There was a faint smell of incense in the room, rising
from a tiny brazier sending up a blue spiral flame of smoke before a
two-inch high brass idol with an elephant's head which sat on a niche
in the wall. It represented Eternal Wisdom. But Kate did not know
this. Nor in a way did Tara. She only knew it was Gunesh-jee. And
outside was the yellow dawn, the purple pigeons beginning to coo and
sidle, the quivering hearts of the peepul leaves.
"I have everything ready for the mem," began Tara hurriedly, "if she
will take off her jewels."
"You must pull this one open for me, Tara," said Kate, holding out her
arm with the gold bangle on it. "The master put it on for me, and I
have never had it off since."
Tara knew that as well as she. Knew that the master must have put it
on, since _she_ had not. Had, in fact, watched it with jealous eyes
over and over again. And there was the mem without it, smiling over
the scantiness and the intricacies of a coarse cotton shroud.
"There is the hair yet," said Tara with quite a catch in her voice;
"if the mem will undo the plaits, I will go round to the old poojârnis
and get the loan of her razor--she only lives up the next stair."
"We shall have to snip it off first," said Kate quite eagerly, for, in
truth, she was becoming interested in her own adventures, now that she
had, as it were, the control over them. "It is so long." She held up a
tress as she spoke. It was beautiful hair; soft, wavy, even, and the
dye--unrenewed for days--had almost gone, leaving the coppery sheen
distinct.
"She would never cut it off!" said Tara to herself as she went for the
razor. No woman would ever shave her head willingly. Why! when she had
had it done for the first time, she had screamed and fought. Her
mother-in-law had held her hands, and----
She paused at the door as she re-entered, paralyzed by what she saw.
Kate had found the knife Tara used for her limited cooking, and,
seated on the ground cheerfully, was already surrounded by rippling
hair which she had cut off by clubbing it in her hand and sawing away
as a groom does at a horse's tail.
Tara's cry made her pause. The next moment the Rajpootni had snatched
the knife from her and flung it one way, the razor another, and stood
before her with blazing eyes and heaving breast.
"It is foolishness!" she said fiercely. "The mems cannot be suttee. I
will not have it."
Kate stared at her. "But I must----" she began.
"There is no must at all," interrupted Tara superbly; "I will find
some other way." And then she bent over quickly, and Kate felt her
hands upon her hair. "There is plenty left," she said with a sigh of
relief. "I will plait it up so that no one will see the difference."
And she did. She put the gold bangle on again also, and by dawn the
next day Kate found herself once more installed as a screened woman;
but this time as a Hindoo lady under a vow of silence and solitude in
the hopes of securing a son for her lord through the intercession of
old Anunda, the Swâmi.
"I have told Sri Anunda," said Tara with a new respect in her manner.
"I had to trust someone. And he is as God. He would not hurt a fly."
She paused, then went on with a tone of satisfaction, "But he says the
mem could not have been suttee, so that foolishness is well over."
"But what is to be done next, Tara?" asked Kate, looking in
astonishment round the wide old garden, arched over by tall forest
trees, and set round with high walls, in which she found herself. In
the faint dawn she could just see glimmering straight paths parceling
it out into squares; and she could hear the faint tinkle of the water
runnels. "I can't surely stop here."
"The mem will only have to keep still all day in the darkest corner
with her face to the wall," said Tara. "Sri Anunda will do the rest.
And when Soma returns he must take the mem away before the thirty
regiments come and the trouble begins."
"Thirty regiments!" echoed Kate, startled.
"He and others have gone out to see if it is true. They say so in the
Palace; but it is full of lies," said Tara indifferently.
It was indeed. More than ever. But they began to need confirmation,
and so there was big talk of action, and jingling of bits and bridles
and spurs in the city as well as in the camp. They were to intercept
the siege train from Firozpur; they were to get round to the rear of
the Ridge and overwhelm it. They were to do everything save attack it
in face.
And, meanwhile, other people besides Soma and such-like Sadducean
sepoys had gone out to find the thirty regiments, and secret scouts
from the Palace were hunting about for someone to whom they might
deliver a letter addressed
"To the Officers, Subadars, Chiefs, and others of the whole military
force coming from the Bombay Presidency:
"To the effect that the statement of the defeat of the Royal troops at
Delhi is a false and lying fabrication contrived by contemptible
infidels--the English. The true story is that nearly eighty or ninety
thousand organized Military Troops, and nearly ten or fifteen thousand
regular and other Cavalry, are now here in Delhi. The troops are
constantly engaged, night and day, in attacks on the infidels, and
have driven back their batteries from the Ridge. In three or four
days, please God, the whole Ridge will be taken, when every one of the
base unbelievers will be sent to hell. You are, therefore, on seeing
this order, to use all endeavors to reach the Royal Presence, so,
joining the Faithful, give proofs of zeal, and establish your renown.
Consider this imperative."
But though they hunted high and low, east, north, south, and west, the
Royal scouts found no one to receive the order. So it came back to
Delhi, damp and pulpy; for the rains had begun again, turning great
tracts of country into marsh and bog, and generally wetting the
blankets in which the sepoys kept guard sulkily.
CHAPTER III.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
They drenched Kate Erlton also, despite the arcaded trees above her
corner as she sat with her face to the wall in the wide old garden. At
first her heart beat at each step on the walk behind her, but she soon
realized that she was hidden by her vow, happed about from the
possibility of intrusion by her penance. But not many steps came by
her; they kept chiefly to the other end of the garden where Sri Anunda
was to be found. It was a curious experience. There was a yard of two
of thatch, screened by matting and supported by bamboos, leaning not
far off against the wall; and into this she crept at night to find the
indulgence of a dry blanket. At first she felt inclined to seek its
shelter when the rain poured loudly on the leaves above her and fell
thence in big blobs, making a noise like the little ripe figs when the
squirrels shook them down; but the remembrance that such women as Tara
performed like vows cheerfully kept her steady. And after a day or two
she often started to find it was already noon or dusk, the day half
gone or done. Time slipped by with incredible swiftness in watching
the squirrels and the birds, in counting the raindrops fall from a
peepul leaf. And what a strange peace and contentment the life
brought! As she sat after dark in the thatch, eating the rice and milk
and fruit which Tara brought her stealthily, she felt, at times, a
terrified amaze at herself. If she ever came through the long struggle
for life, this surely would be the strangest part of the dream. Tara,
indeed, used to remark with a satisfied smile that though the mem
could not of course be suttee, still she did very well as a devoted
and repentant wife. Sri Anunda could never have had a better penitent.
And then, in reply to Kate's curious questions, she would say that Sri
Anunda was a Swâmi. If the mem once saw and spoke to him she would
know what that meant. He had lived in the garden for fifteen years.
Not as a penance. A Swâmi needed no penance as men and women did; for
he was not a man. Oh, dear no! not a man at all.
So Kate, going on this hint of inhumanity, and guided by her
conventional ideas of Hindoo ascetics, imagined a monstrosity, and
felt rather glad than otherwise that Sri Anunda kept out of her way.
She was eager also to know how long she might have to stay in his
garden. The vow, Tara said, lasted for fifteen days. Till then no one
would question her right to sit and look at the wall; and by that time
Soma would have returned, and a plan for getting the mem away to the
Ridge settled. For the master was evidently not going to return to the
city; perhaps he had forgotten the mem? Kate smiled at this, drearily,
thinking that indeed he might; for he might be dead. But even this
uncertainty about all things, save that she sat and watched the
squirrels and the birds, had ceased to disturb her peace.
As a matter of fact, however, he was thinking of her more than ever,
and with a sense of proprietorship that was new to him. Here, by God's
grace, was the one woman for him to save; the somebody to kill, should
he fail, needing no selection. There were enough enemies and to spare
within the walls still, even though they had been melting away of
late. But a new one had come to the Ridge itself, which, though it
killed few, sapped steadily at the vigor of the garrison. This was the
autumnal fever, bad at Delhi in all years, worse than usual in this
wet season, counterbalancing the benefit of the coolness and sending
half a regiment to hospital one day and letting them out of it the
next, sensibly less fit for arduous work. It claimed Jim Douglas,
already weakened by it, and made his wound slow of healing.
"You haven't good luck certainly," said Major Erlton, finding him with
chattering teeth taking quinine dismally. "I don't know how it is, but
though I'm a lot thinner, this life seems to suit me. I haven't felt
so fit for ages."
He had not been so fit, in truth. It was a healthier, simpler life
than he had led for many a long year; and ever since John Nicholson
had bidden him go back to his tent and sleep, even the haggardness had
left his face; the restlessness having been replaced by an eager
certainty of success. He was coming steadily to the front, too, so the
Ridge said, since Nicholson had taken him up. And he had well deserved
this, since there was not a better soldier; cool, stubborn, certain to
carry out orders. The very man, in short, whom men like the General
wanted; and if he stayed to the finish he would have a distinguished
career before him.
But Herbert Erlton himself never thought of this; he hated thought
instinctively, and of late had even given up thinking of the city. He
never sat and watched the rose-red walls now. Perhaps because he was
too busy. So he left that to Jim Douglas, who had nothing else to do,
while he went about joyously preparing to accompany Nicholson in his
next lesson of law and order.
For in the city it was becoming more and more difficult every day to
make the lies pass muster, even in the Palace; and so, in despair, the
four Commanders-in-Chief for once had laid their heads together and
concocted a plan for intercepting the siege train from Ferozpur. So it
was necessary that they should be taught the futility of such
attempts. Not that even the Palace people really believed them
possible. How could they? when almost every day, now, letters came to
the Ridge from some member or another of the Royal family asking
effusively how he could serve the English cause. Only the old King,
revising his lists of precedence, listening still to brocaded bags,
taking cooling draughts, making couplets, being cozened by the Queen,
and breathed upon by Hussan Askuri, hovered between the policy of
being the great Moghul and a poor prisoner in the hands of fate. But
the delights of the former were too much for him as a rule, and he
would sit and finger the single gold coin which had come as a present
from Oude as if he were to have the chance of minting millions with a
similar inscription.
"Bahâdur Shâh Ghâzee has struck upon gold the coin of Victory."
Even in its solitary grandeur it had, in truth, a surpassing dignity
of its own in the phrase--"struck upon gold the coin of Victory." So,
looking at it, he forgot that it was a mere sample, sent, as the
accompanying brocaded bag said, with a promise to pay more when more
victory brought more gold. But Zeenut Maihl, as she looked at it,
thought with a sort of fury of certain gold within reach, hidden in
her house. What was to become of these coins with John Company's mark
on them? For she still lingered in the Palace. Other women had fled,
but she was wiser than they. She knew that, come what might, her life
was safe with the English as victors; so there was nothing but the
gold to think of. The gold, and Jewun Bukht, her son. The royal signet
was in her possession altogether now, and sometimes the orders,
especially when they were for payment of money, had to go without it,
because "the Queen of the World was asleep." But she did not dream.
That was over; though in a way she clung fiercely to hope. So Ghaus
Khân with the Neemuch Brigade, and Bukht Khân with the Bareilly
Brigade, and Khair Sultân with the scrapings and leavings of the
regiments, who, owning no leader of their own, did what was right in
their own eyes, set out to intercept the big guns; and Nicholson set
out on the dawn of the 25th to intercept them.
The rain poured down in torrents, the guns sank to their axles in mud,
the infantry slipped and slithered, the cavalry were blinded by the
mire from the floundering horses. So from daybreak till sunset the
little force, two thousand in all--more than one-half of whom were
natives--labored eighteen miles through swamps. At noon, it is true,
they called a halt nine miles out at a village where the women
clustered on the housetops in wild alarm, remembering a day--months
back--when they had clustered round an unleavened cake, and the
head-man's wife had bidden them listen to the master's gun over the
far horizon.
They were to listen to it again that day. For the enemy was ten miles
further over the marshes; and it was but noon. The force, no doubt,
had been afoot since four; but General Nicholson was emphatically not
an eight-hour man. So the shovings and slitherings of guns and mortals
began again cheerfully.
Still it was nigh on sundown when, across a deep stream flowing from
the big marshes to the west, these contract-workers came on the job
they were eager to finish ere nightfall. Six thousand rebels of all
arms, holding three villages, a bastioned old serai, and a town. It
was a strong position, in the right angle formed by the stream and the
flooded canal into which it flowed. Water, impassable save by an
unknown ford in the stream, by a bridge held in force over the canal,
on two sides of it. On the others dismal swamps. A desperately strong
position to attack at sundown after eighteen miles slithering and
shoving in the pouring rain; especially with unknown odds against you.
Not less, anyhow, than three to one. But John Nicholson had, a single
eye; that is, an eye which sees one salient point. Here, it was that
bridge to the left, leading back to safe shelter within the walls of
Delhi. A cowardly foe must have no chance of using that bridge during
silent night watches. So, without a pause, fifteen hundred of the two
thousand waded breast-high across the stream to attack the six
thousand, Nicholson himself riding ahead for a hasty reconnoissance,
since the growing dusk left scant leisure for anything save action.
Yet once more a glance was sufficient; and, ere the men, exposed to a
heavy fire of grape in crossing the ford, were ready to advance, the
orders were given.
There was a hint of cover in some rising ground before the old
serai--the strongest point of the defense. He would utilize this, rush
the position, change front, and sweep down on the bridge. That must
not remain as a chance for cowards an instant longer than he could
help; for Nicholson in everything he did seems never to have
contemplated defeat.
So flanked by the guns, supported by squadrons of the 9th Lancers and
the Guides cavalry, the three regiments[7] marched steadily toward the
rising ground, following that colossal figure riding, as ever, ahead.
Till suddenly, as his charger's feet touched the highest ground,
Nicholson wheeled and held up his hand to those below him.
"Lie down, men!" came his clear strong voice as he rode slowly along
the line; "lie down and listen to what I've got to say. It's only a
few words."
So, sheltered from the fire, they lay and listened. "You of the 61st
know what Sir Colin Campbell said to you at Chillianwallah. He said
the same thing to others at the Alma. I say it to you all now. 'Hold
your fire till within twenty or thirty yards of that battery, and
then, my boys! we will make short work of it!'"
Men cannot cheer lying on their stomachs, but the unmelodious
grunt--"We will, sir, by God, we will!"--was as good as one.
Nicholson faced round on the serai again, and gave the order to the
artillery. So, in sharp thuds widening into a roar, the flanking guns
began work. Half a dozen rounds or so, and then the rider--motionless
as a statue in the center--looked back quickly, waved his sword, and
went on. The men were up, after him, over the hillock, into the morass
beyond, silently.
"Steady, men! steady with it. On with you! Steady!"
They listened to the clear sonorous voice once more, though there was
no shelter now from the grape and canister, and musket balls; or
rather only the shelter of that one tall figure ahead riding at a
foot's-pace.
"Steady! Hold your fire! I'll give the word, never fear! Come on! Come
on!"
So through a perfect bog they stumbled on doggedly. Here and there a
man fell; but men will fall sometimes. "Now then! Let them have it."
They were within the limit. Twenty yards off lay the guns. There was
one furious volley; above it one word answered by a cheer.
So at the point of the bayonet the serai was carried. Then without a
pause the troops changed front with a swiftness unforeseen and swept
on to the left.
"To Delhi, brothers! To Delhi!" The old cry, begun at Meerut, rose now
with a new meaning as the panic-stricken guns limbered up and made for
the bridge. Too late! Captain Blunt's were after them, chasing them.
The wheel of the foremost, driven wildly, jammed; those following
couldn't pull up. So, helter skelter, they were in a jumble, out of
which Englishmen helped the whole thirteen! The day, or rather the
night, was won; for Nature's dark flag of truce hung even between the
assailants and the few desperate defenders of the third village, who,
with escape cut off, were selling their lives at a cost to the
attackers of seventeen out of that total death-roll of twenty-five.
But Nicholson knew his position sure, so he left night to finish the
rout, and, with his men, bivouacked without food or cover among the
marshes; for it was too dark to get the baggage over the ford. Yet the
troops were ready to start at daybreak for an eighteen miles tramp
back to the Ridge again. There was no talk of exhaustion now, as at
Budli-ke-serai; so just thirty-six hours after they started, that is,
just one hour for every mile of morass and none for the fight, they
startled the Ridge by marching in again and clamoring for food! But
Nicholson was in a towering temper. He had found that another brigade
had been lurking behind the canal, and that if he had had decent
information he might have smashed it also, on his way home.
"He hadn't even a guide that he didn't pick up himself," commented
Major Erlton angrily. "By George! how those niggers cave in to him!
And his political information was all rot. If the General had obeyed
instructions he would have been kicking his heels at Bahâdagurh
still."
"We heard you at it about two o'clock," said a new listener. "I
suppose it was a night attack--risky business rather."
Herbert Erlton burst into a laugh; but the elation on his face had a
pathetic tenderness in it. "That was the bridge, I expect. _He_ blew
it up before starting. _He_ sat on it till then. Besides there were
the wagons and tumbrils and things. _He_ told Tombs to blow them up,
too, for of course _he_ had to bring the guns back, and _he_ couldn't
shove the lot."
As he passed on some of his listeners smiled.
"It's a case of possession," said one to his neighbor.
"Pardon me," said another, who had known the Major for years. "It's a
case of casting out. I wonder----" The speaker paused and shrugged his
shoulders.
"Did you hear his name had gone up for the V. C.?" began his
companion.
"Gone up! My dear fellow! It might have gone up fifty times over. But
it isn't his pluck that I wonder at; it is his steadiness. He never
shirks the little things. It is almost as if he had found a
conscience."
Perhaps he had. He was cheerful enough to have had the testimony of a
good one, as, in passing, he looked in on Jim Douglas and met his
congratulations.
"Bad shilling!" replied the Major, beautifully unconscious. "So you've
heard--and--hello! what's up?" For Jim Douglas was busy getting into
disguise.
"That old scoundrel Tiddu came into camp with the news an hour ago,"
said the latter, whose face was by no means cheerful. "He was out
carrying grain--saw the fugitives, and came in here, hoping for
backsheesh, I believe. But"--Jim Douglas looked round rapidly at the
Major--"I'm awfully afraid, Erlton, that he has not been in Delhi, to
speak of, since I left. And I was relying on him for news----"
"There isn't any--is there?" broke in Major Erlton with a queer hush
in his voice.
"None. But there may be. So I'm off at once. I couldn't have a better
chance. The villain says the sepoys are slipping in on the sly in
hundreds; for the Palace folk, or at least the King, thinks the troops
are still engaged, and is sending out reinforcements. So I shall have
no trouble in getting through the gates."
Major Erlton, radiant, splashed from head to foot, covered at once
with mud and glory, looked at the man opposite him with a curious
deliberation.
"I don't see why you should go at all," he said slowly. "I wouldn't,
if I--I mean I would rather you didn't."
"Why?" The question came sharply.
"Do you want the truth?" asked Herbert Erlton with a sudden frown.
"Certainly."
"Then I'll tell it, Mr. Greyman--I mean Douglas--I--I'm grateful,
but--d----n me, sir, if--if I want to be more so! I--I gave you my
chance once--like a fool; for I might have saved her----"
The hard handsome face was all broken up with passionate regret, and
the pity of it kept Jim Douglas silent for a moment. For he understood
it.
"You might," he said at last. "But I don't interfere with you here.
You can't save her--your wife, I mean--and if I fail you can
always----"
"There is no need to tell me what to do then," interrupted Major
Erlton grimly. "I'll do it without your help."
He turned on his heel, then paused. "It isn't that I'm ungrateful," he
repeated, almost with an appeal in his voice. "And I don't mean to be
offensive; only you and I can't----"
His own mental position seemed beyond him, and he stood for a moment
irresolute. Then he held out his hand.
"Well, good-by. I suppose you mean to stick to it?"
"I mean to stick to it. Good-by."
"And I must be off to my bed. Haven't slept a wink for two nights, and
I shall be on duty to-morrow. Well! I believe I've as good a chance of
seeing Kate here as you have of finding her there; but I can't prevent
your going, of course."
So he went off to his bed, and Jim Douglas, following Tiddu, who was
waiting for him in the Koodsia Gardens, carried out his intention of
sticking to it; while John Nicholson in his tent, forgetful of his
advice to both of them, was jotting down notes for his dispatch. One
of them was: "The enemy was driven from the serai with scarcely any
loss to us, and made little resistance as we advanced." The other was:
"Query? How many men in buckram? Most say seven or eight thousand. I
think between three and four."
He had, indeed, a vile habit of telling the truth, even in dispatches.
So ended the day of Nujjufghar.
The next morning, the 27th, broke fine and clear. Kate Erlton waking
with the birds, found the sky full of light already, clear as a pale
topaz beyond the overarching trees.
She stood after leaving her thatch, looking into the garden, lost in a
sort of still content. It seemed impossible she should be in the heart
of a big city. There was no sound but the faint rustling of the wet
leaves drying themselves in the soft breeze, and the twitterings of
squirrels and birds. There was nothing to be seen but the trees, and
the broad paths rising above the flooding water from the canal-cut
which ran at the further side.
And Sri Anunda had lived here for fifteen years; while she? How long
had she been there? She smiled to herself, for, in truth, she had lost
count of days altogether, almost of Time itself. She was losing hold
of life. She told herself this, with that vague amaze at finding it
so. Yes she was losing her grip on this world without gaining, without
even desiring, a hold on the next. She was learning a strange new
fellowship with the dream of which she was a part, because it would
soon be past; because the trees, the flowers, the birds, the beasts,
were mortal as herself. A squirrel, its tail a-fluff, was coming down
the trunk of the next tree in fitful half-defiant jerks, its bright
eyes watching her. The corner of her veil was full of the leavings of
her simple morning meal, which she always took with her to scatter
under the trees; and now, in sudden impulse, she sank down to her
knees and held a morsel of plantain out tenderly.
Dear little mortal, she thought, with a new tenderness, watching it as
it paused uncertain; until the consciousness that she was being
watched in her turn made her look up; then pause, as she was,
astonished, yet not alarmed, at the figure before her. It was neither
tall nor short, dark nor fair, and it was wrapped from knee to
shoulder in a dazzling white cloth draped like a Greek chiton, which
showed the thin yet not emaciated curves of the limbs, and left the
poise of the long throat bare. The head was clean shaven, smooth as
the cheek, and the face, destitute even of eyebrows, was softly seamed
with lines and wrinkles which seemed to leave it younger, and
brighter, as if in an eternity of smile-provoking content. But the
eyes! Kate felt a strange shock, as they brought back to her the
innocent dignity Raphael gave to his San-Sistine Bambino. For this was
Sri Anunda; could be no one else. In his hand he held a bunch of
henna-blossom, the camphire of Scripture, the cypress of the Greeks;
yellowish green, insignificant, incomparably sweet. He held it out to
her, smiling, then laid it on her outstretched hand.
"The lesson is learned, sister," he said softly. "Go in peace, and
have no fear."
The voice, musical exceedingly, thrilled her through and through. She
knelt looking after him regretfully as, without a pause, he passed on
his way. So that was a Swâmi! She went back to her corner--for already
early visitors were drifting in for Sri Anunda's blessing--and with
the bunch of henna-blossom on the ground before her sat thinking.
What an extraordinary face it was! So young, so old. So wise, so
strangely innocent. Tara was right. It was not a man's face. Yet it
could not be called angelic, for it was the face of a mortal. Yes!
that was it, a mortal face immortal through its mortality; through the
circling wheel of life and death. The strong perfume of the flowers
reaching her, set her a-thinking of them. Did he always give a bunch
when the penance was over and say the lesson was learned? It was a
significant choice, these flowers of life and death. For bridal hands
had been stained with henna, and corpses embalmed with it for ages,
and ages, and ages. Or was that "peace go with you," that "have no
fear" meant as an encouragement in something new? Had they been making
plans? had anything happened? She scarcely seemed to care. So, as the
cloudless day passed on, she sat looking at the henna-blossom and
thinking of Sri Anunda's face.
But something _had_ happened. Jim Douglas had come back to the city
and Tara knew it. She had barely escaped his seeing her, and she felt
she could not escape it long. And then, it seemed to her, the old life
would begin again; for she would never be able to keep the truth from
him. The mem might talk of deceit glibly; but if it came to telling
lies to the master she would fail.
There was only one chance. If she could get the mem safely out of the
city at once; then she could tell the truth without fear. The
necessity for immediate action came upon her by surprise. She had
ceased to expect the master's return, she had not cared personally for
Kate's safety, and so had been content to let the future take care of
itself. But now everything was changed. If Kate were not got rid of,
sent out of the city, one of two things must happen: The master must
be left to get her out as best he could, at the risk of his life; or
she, Tara, must return to the old allegiance; return and sit by, while
the mem in a language she did not understand, told the Huzoor how she
had been willing to be suttee for him!
So while Kate sat looking at the henna-blossom, Tara sat telling
herself that at all costs, all risks, she must be got out of the city
that night. She, and her jewels. They were at present tied up in a
bundle in Tara's room, but the Huzoor might think her a thief if the
mem went without them. And another thing she decided. She would not
tell the mem the reason of this sudden action. True, Kate had
professed herself determined that the master should not risk his life
for her again; but women were not--not always--to be trusted. For the
rest, Soma must help.
She waited till dusk, however, before appealing to him, knowing that
her only chance lay in taking him by storm, in leaving him no time for
reflection. So, just as the lights were beginning to twinkle in the
bazaars, she made her way, full of purpose, to the half ruined sort of
cell in the thickness of the wall not far from the sally-port, in
which of late--since he had taken morosely to drugs--he was generally
to be found at this time, waking drowsily to his evening meal before
going out.
She found him thus, sure enough, and began at once on her task. He
must help. He could easily pass out the mem. That was all she asked of
him. But his handsome face settled into sheer obstinacy at once. He
was not going to help anyone, he said, or harm anyone, till they
struck the first blow, and then they had better defend themselves.
That was the end. And so it seemed; for after ten minutes of entreaty,
he stood up with something of a lurch ere he found his feet, and bid
her go. She only wasted her time and his, since he must eat his food
ere he went to relieve the sentry at the sally-port.
She caught him up reproachfully, almost indignantly.
"Then thou art there, on guard! and it needs but the opening of a
door, a thrusting of a woman out--to--_die_, perchance, Soma. Remember
that!"
She spoke with a feverish eagerness, as if the suggestion had its
weight with her, but he treated it contemptuously.
"Loh!" he said in scorn. "What a woman's word! Thank the Gods I was
not born one."
The taunt bit deep, and Tara drew herself up angrily. So the brother
and sister stood face to face, strangely alike.
"Wast not?" she retorted bitterly. "The Gods know. Is there not woman
in man, and man in woman, among those born at a birth? Soma! for the
sake of that--do this for me----" It was her last appeal; she had kept
it for the last, and now her somber eyes were ablaze with passionate
entreaty. "See, brother! I claim it of you as a right. Thou didst take
my sainthood from me once. Count this as giving it back again."
"Back again?" echoed Soma thickly. "What fool's talk is this?"
"Let it be fool's talk, brother," she interrupted, with a strange
intensity in her voice. "I care not--thou dost not know; I cannot tell
thee. But--but _this_ will be counted to thee in restitution. Soma!
think of it as my sainthood! Sure thou dost owe me it! Somal for the
sake of the hand which lay in thine."
In her excitement she moved a step forward, and he shrank back
instinctively. True, she was a saint in another way if those scars
were true; but--at the moment, being angry with her, he chose to
doubt, to remember. "Stand back!" he cried roughly, unsteadily. "What
do I owe thee? What claim hast thou?"
The question, the gesture outraged her utterly. The memory of a whole
life of vain struggling after self-respect surged to her brain,
bringing that almost insane light to her eyes. "What?" she echoed
fiercely--"this!" Ere he could prevent it, her hand was in his,
gripping it like a vice.
"So in the beginning--so in the end!" she gasped, as he struggled with
her madly. "Tara and Soma hand in hand. Nay! I am strong as thou."
She spoke truth, for his nerve and muscle were slack with opium; yet
he fought wildly, striking at her with his left hand, until in a
supreme effort she lost her footing, they both staggered, and he--as
she loosed her hold--fell backward, striking his head against a
projecting brick in the ruined wall.
"Soma!" she whispered to his prostrate figure, "art hurt, brother?
Speak to me!"
But he lay still, and, with a cry, she flung herself on her knees
beside him, feeling his heart, listening to his breathing, searching
for the injury. It was a big cut on the crown of the head; but it did
not seem a bad one, and she began to take his unconsciousness more
calmly. She had seen folk like that before from a sudden fall, and
they came to themselves, none the worse, after a while. But scarcely,
here, in time to relieve guard.
She stood up suddenly and looked round her. Soma's uniform hung on a
peg, his musket stood in a corner.
Half an hour after this, Kate, waiting in the thatch for Tara to come
as usual, gave a cry, more of surprise than alarm, as a tall figure,
in uniform, stepped into the flickering light of the cresset.
"Soma!" she cried, "what is it?"
A gratified smile came to the curled mustachios. "Soma or Tara, it
matters not," replied a familiar voice. "They were one in the
beginning. Quick, mem-sahib. On with the jewels. I have a dark veil
too for the gate."
Kate stood up, her heart throbbing. "Am I to go, then? Is that what
Sri Anunda meant?"
"Sri Anunda! hath he been here?" Tara paused, sniffed, and once more
those dark eyes met the light ones with a fierce jealousy. "He hath
given thee henna-blossom. I smell it; and he gives it to none but
those who---- So the Swâmi's lesson is learned--and the disciple can
go in peace----" She broke off with a petulant laugh. "Well! so be it.
It ends my part. The mem will sleep among her own to-night; Sri Anunda
hath said it. Come----"
"But how? I must know how," protested Kate.
The laugh rose again. "Wherefore? The mem is Sri Anunda's disciple.
For the rest, I will let the mem out through the little river-gate.
There is a boat, and she can go in peace."
There was something so wild, so almost menacing in Tara's face, that
Kate felt her only hope was to obey. And, in good sooth, the scent of
the henna-blossom she carried with her, tucked into her bosom, gave
her, somehow, an irrational hope that all would go well as she
followed her guide swiftly through the alleys and bazaars.
"The mem must wait here," whispered Tara at last, pausing behind one
of the ungainly mausoleums in what had been the old Christian
cemetery. "When she hears me singing Sonny-baba's song, she must
follow to the Water-gate. It is behind the ruins, there."
Kate crouched down, setting her back, native fashion, against the
tomb. And as she waited she wondered idly what mortal lay there; so,
being strangely calm, she let her fingers stray to the recess she felt
behind her. There should be a marble tablet there; and even in the
dark she might trace the lettering. But the recess was empty, the
marble having evidently been picked out. So it was a nameless grave.
And the next? She moved over to it stealthily, then to the next.
But the tablets had been taken out of all and carried off--for
curry-stones most likely. So the graves were nameless; those beneath
them mortals--nothing more. As she waited under the stars, her mind
reverted to Sri Anunda and the Wheel of Life and Death. The
immortality of mortality! Was that the lesson which was to let her go
in peace?
She started from the thought as that native version of the "Happy
Land" came, nasally, from behind the ruins. As she passed them, a
group of men were squatted gossiping round a hookah, and more than one
figure passed her. But a woman with her veil drawn, and a clank of
anklets on her feet, did not even invite a curious eye; for it was
still early enough for such folk to be going home.
Then, as she passed down a flight of steps, a hand stole out from a
niche and drew her back into a dark shadow. The next minute, with a
low whisper, "There is no fear! Sri Anunda hath said it. Go in peace!"
she felt herself thrust through a door into darkness. But a feeble
glimmer showed below her, and creeping down another flight of steps,
she found herself outside Delhi, looking over the strip of low-lying
land where in the winter the buffaloes had grazed beneath Alice
Gissing's house, but which was now flooded into a still backwater by
the rising of the river. And out of it the stunted kikar and tamarisks
grew strangely, their feathery branches arching over it. But to the
left, beyond the Water Bastion, rose a mass of darker foliage--the
Koodsia Gardens. Once there she would be beyond floods, and Tara had
said there was a boat. Kate found it, moored a little further toward
the river--a flat-bottomed punt, with a pole. It proved easier to
manage than she had expected; for the water was shallow, and the
trunks and branches of the trees helped her to get along, so that
after a time she decided on keeping to that method of progress as long
as she could. It enabled her to skirt the river bank, where there were
fewer lights telling of watch-fires. Besides, she knew the path by the
river leading to Metcalfe House. It might be under water now; but if
she crept into the park at the ravine--if she could take the boat so
far--she might manage to reach Metcalfe House. There was an English
picket there, she knew. So, as she mapped out her best way, a sudden
recollection came to her of the last time she had seen that river
path, when her husband and Alice Gissing were walking down it, and
Captain Morecombe----
Ah! was it credible? Was it not all a dream? Could this be real--could
it be the same world?
She asked herself the question with a dull indifference as she
struggled on doggedly.
But not more than two hours afterward the conviction that the world
had not changed came upon her with a strange pang as she stood once
more on the terrace of Metcalfe House with English faces around her.