"By Heaven, it's Mrs. Erlton!" she heard a familiar voice say. It

seemed to her hundreds of miles away in some far, far country to which

she had been journeying for years. "Here! let me get hold of her--and

fetch some water--wine--anything. How--how was it, Sergeant?"

"In a boat, sir, coming hand over hand down at the stables. She sang

out quite calmly she was an English-woman, and----"

"Then--then they touched their caps to me," said Kate, making an

effort, "and so I knew that I was safe. It was so strange; it--it

rather upset me. But I am all right now, Captain Morecombe."

"We had better send up for Erlton," said another officer aside; but

Kate caught the whisper.

"Please not. I can walk up to cantonments quite well. And--I would

rather have no fuss--I--I couldn't stand it."

She had stood enough and to spare, agreed the little knot of men with

a thrill at their hearts as they watched her set off in the moonlight

with Captain Morecombe and an orderly. They were to go straight to the

Major's tent; and if he was still at mess, which was more than likely,

since it was only half-past nine, Captain Morecombe was to leave her

there and go on with the news. There would be no fuss, of that she

might be sure, said the latter, forbearing even to speak to her on the

way, save to ask her if she felt all right.

"I feel as if I had just been born," she said slowly. In truth, she

was wondering if that spinning of the Great Wheel toward Life again

brought with it this forlornness, this familiarity.

CHAPTER IV.

AT LAST.

No fuss indeed! Kate, as she sat in her husband's little tent waiting

for him to come to her, felt that so far she might have arrived from a

very ordinary journey. The bearer, it is true, who had been the

Major's valet for years, had salaamed more profoundly than usual, had

even put up a pious prayer, and expressed himself pleased; but he had

immediately gone off to fetch hot water, and returning with it and

clean towels, had suggested mildly that the mem might like to wash her

face and hands. Kate, with a faint smile, felt there was no reason why

she should not. She need not look worse than necessary. But she paused

almost with a gasp at the familiar half-forgotten luxuries. Scented

soap! a sponge--and there on the camp table a looking-glass! She

glanced down with a start at the little round one in the ring she

wore; then went over to the other. A toilet cover, brushes, and combs,

her husband's razors, gold studs in a box; and there, her own

photograph in a frame, a Bible, and a prayer book, the latter things

bringing her no surprise, no emotion of any kind. For they had always

been fixtures on Major Erlton's dressing-table, mute evidences to no

sentiment on his part, but simply to the bearer's knowledge of the

proprieties and the ways of real sahibs. But the other things she saw

made her heart grow soft. The little camp bed, the simplicity and

hardness of all in comparison with what her husband had been wont to

demand of life; for he had always been a real prince, feeling the

rose-leaf beneath the feather bed, and never stinting himself in

comfort. Then the swords, and belts, and Heaven knows what panoply of

war--not spick-and-span decorations as they used to be in the old

days, but worn and used--gave her a pang. Well! he had always been a

good soldier, they said.

And then, interrupting her thoughts, the old khânsaman had come in,

having taken time to array himself gorgeously in livery. The Father of

the fatherless and orphan, he said, whimperingly, alluding to the fact

that he had lost both parents--which, considering he was past sixty,

was only to be expected--had heard his prayer. The mem was spared to

Freddy-baba. And would she please to order dinner. As the Major-sahib

dined at mess, her slave was unprepared with a roast. Fish also would

partake of tyranny; but he could open a tin of Europe soup, and with a

chicken cutlet--Kate cut him short with a request for tea; by and by,

when--when the Major-sahib should have come. And when she was alone

again, she shivered and rested her head on her crossed arms upon the

table beside which she sat, with a sort of sob. This--Yes!--this of

all she had come through was the hardest to bear. This surge of pity,

of tenderness, of unavailing regret for the past, the present, the

future. What?--What could she say to him, or he to her, that would

make remembrance easier, anticipation happier?

Hark! there was his step! His voice saying goodnight to Captain

Morecombe.

"I hope she will be none the worse," came the reply. "Good-night,

Erlton--I'm--I'm awfully glad, old fellow."

"Thanks!"

She stood up with a sickening throb at her heart. Oh! she was glad

too! So glad to see him and tell him to----

How tall he was, she thought, with a swift recognition of his good

looks, as he came in, stooping to pass under the low entrance. Very

tall, and thin. Much thinner, and--and--different somehow.

"Kate!" He paused half a second, looking at her curiously--"Kate!

I'm--I'm awfully glad." He was beside her now, his big hands holding

hers; but she felt that she was further away from him than she had

been in that brief pause when she had half-expected, half-wished him

to take her in his arms and kiss her as if nothing had happened, as if

life were to begin again. It would have been so much easier; they

might have forgotten then, both of them. But now, what came, must come

without that chrism of impulse; must come in remembrance and regret.

_Awfully glad!_ That was what Captain Morecombe had said. Was there no

more between them than that? No more between her and this man, who was

the father of her child. The sting of the thought made her draw him

closer, and with a sob rest her head on his shoulder. Then he stooped

and kissed her. "I--I didn't know. I wasn't sure if you'd like it," he

said, "but I'm awfully glad, old girl, upon my life I am. You must

have had a terrible time."

She looked up with a hopeless pain in her eyes. He was gone from her

again; gone utterly. "It was not so bad as you might think," she

answered, trying to smile. "Mr. Greyman did so much----"

"Greyman! You mean Douglas, I suppose?"

She stared for a second. "Douglas? I don't know. I mean----" Then she

paused. How could she say, "The man you rode against at Lucknow," when

she wanted to forget all that; forget everything? And then a sudden

fear made her add hastily, "He is here, surely--he came long ago."

Major Erlton nodded. "I know; but his real name is Douglas; at least

he says so. Do you mean to say you haven't seen him? That he didn't

help you to get out?"

"You mean that--that he has gone back?" asked Kate faintly.

Her husband gave a low whistle. "What a queer start; a sort of Box and

Cox. He went back to find you yesterday."

Kate's hand went up to her forehead almost wildly. Then Tara must have

known. But why had she not mentioned it? Still, in a way, it was best

as it was; since once he heard she, Kate, had gone, he would return.

For Tara would tell him, of course.

These thoughts claimed her for the moment, and when she looked up, she

found her husband watching her curiously.

"He must have done an awful lot for you, of course," he said shortly;

"but I'd rather it had been anyone else, and that's a fact. However,

it can't be helped. Hullo! here's the khânsaman with some tea.

Thoughtful of the old scoundrel, isn't it?"

"I--I ordered it," put in Kate, feeling glad of the diversion.

Major Erlton laughed kindly. "What, begun already? The old sinner's

had a precious easy time of it; but now----" He pulled himself up

awkwardly, and, as if to cover his hesitation, walked over to a box,

and after rummaging in it, brought out a packet of letters.

"Freddy's," he said cheerfully. "He's all right. Jolly as a sandboy. I

kept them--in--in case----"

A great gratitude made the past dim for a moment. He seemed nearer to

her again. "I can't look at them to-night, Herbert," she said softly,

laying her hand beside his upon them. "I'm--I'm too tired."

"No wonder. You must have your tea and go to bed," he replied. Then he

looked round the tent. "It isn't a bad little place, you'll find--I'm

on duty tonight--so--so you'll manage, I dare say."

"On duty?" she echoed, pouring herself out a cup of tea rather hastily.

"Where?"

"Oh! at the front. There is never anything worth going for now. We are

both waiting for the assault; that's the fact. But I shan't be back

till dawn, so----"

He was standing looking at her, tall, handsome, full of vitality; and

suddenly he lifted a fold of her tinsel-set veil and smiled.

"Jolly dress that for a fancy ball, and what a jolly scent it's got.

It is that flower, isn't it? You look awfully well in it, Kate! In

fact, you look wonderfully fit all round."

"So do you!" she said hurriedly, her hand going up to the henna

blossom. There was a sudden quiver in her voice, a sudden fierce pain

in her heart. "You--you look----"

"Oh! I," he replied carelessly, still with admiring eyes, "I'm as fit

as a fiddle. I say! where did you get all those jewels? What a lot you

have! They're awfully becoming."

"They are Mr. Greyman's," she said; "they belonged to his--to----"

then she paused. But the contemptuously comprehending smile on her

husband's face made her add quietly, "to a woman--a woman _he loved

very dearly_, Herbert."

There was a moment or two of silence, and then Major Erlton went to

the entrance, raised the curtain, and looked out. A flood of moonlight

streamed into the tent.

"It's about time I was off," he said after a bit, and there was a

queer constraint in his voice. Then he came over and stood by Kate

again.

"It isn't any use talking over--over things to-night, Kate," he said

quietly. "There's a lot to think of and I haven't thought of it at

all. I never knew, you see--if this would happen. But I dare say you

have; you were always a oner at thinking. So--so you had better do it

for both of us. I don't care, _now_. It will be what you wish, of

course."

"We will talk it over to-morrow," she said in a low voice. She would

not look in his face. She knew she would find it soft with the memory

held in that one word--now. Ah! how much easier it would have been if

she had never come back! And yet she shrank from the same thought on

his lips.

"There was always the chance of my getting potted," he said almost

apologetically. "But I'm not. So--well! let's leave it for

to-morrow."

"Yes," she replied steadily, "for to-morrow."

He gathered some of his things together, and then held out his hand.

"Good-night, Kate. I wouldn't lie awake thinking, if I were you.

What's the good if it? We will just have to make the best of it for

the boy. But I'd like you to know two things----"

"Yes----"

"That I couldn't forget, of course; and that----" he paused. "Well!

that doesn't matter; it's only about myself and it doesn't mean much

after all. So, good-night."

As she moved to the door also, forced into following him by the ache

in her heart for him, more than for herself, the jingle of her anklets

made him turn with an easy laugh.

"It doesn't sound respectable," he said; then, with a sudden

compunction, added: "But the dress is much prettier than those dancing

girls', and--by Heaven, Kate! you've always been miles too good for

me; and that's the fact. Well I--let us leave it for to-morrow."

Yes! for to-morrow, she told herself, with a determination not to

think as, dressed as she was, she nestled down into the strange

softness of the camp bed, too weary of the pain and pity of this

coming back even for tears. Yet she thought of one thing; not that she

was safe, not that she would see the boy again. Only of the thing he

had been going to tell her about himself. What was it? She wanted to

know; she wanted to know all--everything. "Herbert!" she whispered to

the pillow, "I wish you had told me--I want to know--I want to make it

easier for--for us all."

And so, not even grateful for her escape, she fell asleep dreamlessly.

It was dawn when she woke with the sound of someone talking outside.

He had come back. No! that was not his voice. She sat up listening.

"The servants say she is asleep. Someone had better go in and wake

her. The Doctor----"

"He's behind with the dhooli. Ah! there's Morecombe; he knows her."

But there was no need to call her. Kate was already at the door, her

eyes wide with the certainty of evil. There was no need even to tell

her what had happened; for in the first rays of the rising sun, seen

almost starlike behind a dip in the rocky ridge, she saw a little

procession making for the tent.

"He--he is dead," she said quietly. There was hardly a question in her

tone. She knew it must be so. Had he not begged her to leave it till

to-morrow? and this was to-morrow. Were not her eyes full of its

rising sun, and what its beams held in their bright clasp?

"It seems impossible," said someone in a low voice, breaking in on the

pitiful silence. "He always seemed to have a charmed life, and then,

in an instant, when nothing was going on, the chance bullet."

It did not seem impossible to her.

"Please don't make a fuss about me, Doctor," she pleaded in a tone

which went to his heart when he proposed the conventional solaces.

"Remember I have been through so--so much already. I can bear it. I

can, indeed, if I'm left alone with him--while it is possible. Yes! I

know there is another lady, but I only want to be alone, with him."

So they left her there beside the little camp-bed with its new burden.

There was no sign of strife upon him. Only that blue mark behind his

ear among his hair, and his face showed no pain. Kate covered it with

a little fine handkerchief she found folded away in a scented case she

had made for him before they were married. It had Alice Gissing's

monogram on it. It was better so, she told herself; he would have

liked it. She had no flowers except the faded henna blossom, but it

smelled sweet as she tucked it under the hand which she had left half

clasped upon his sword. She might at least tell him so, she thought

half bitterly, that the lesson was learned, that he might go in peace.

Then she sat down at the table and looked over their boy's letters

mechanically; for there was nothing to think of now. The morrow had

settled the problem. Captain Morecombe came in once or twice to say a

word or two, or bring in other men, who saluted briefly to her as they

passed to stand beside the dead man for a second, and then go out

again. She was glad they cared to come; had begged that any might come

who chose, as if she were not there. But at one visitor she looked

curiously, for he came in alone. A tall man--as tall as Herbert, she

thought--with a dark beard and keen, kindly eyes. She saw them, for he

turned to her with the air of one who has a right to speak, and she

stood up involuntarily.

"His name was up for the Victoria Cross, madam," said a clear,

resonant voice, "as you may know; but that is nothing. He was a fine

soldier--a soldier such as I--I am John Nicholson, madam--can ill

spare. For the rest--he leaves a good name to his son."

The sunlight streamed in for an instant on to the little bed and its

burden as he passed out, and glittered on the sword and tassels. Kate

knelt down beside it and kissed the dead hand.

"That was what you meant, wasn't it, Herbert?" she whispered. "I wish

you had told it me yourself, dear."

She wished it often. Thinking over it all in the long days that

followed, it came to be almost her only regret. If he had told her, if

he had heard her say how glad she was, she felt that she would have

asked no more. And so, as she went down every evening to lay the white

rosebuds the gardener brought her on his grave she used to repeat, as

if he could hear them, his own words: "It is the finish that is the

win or the lose of a race."

That was what many a man was saying to himself upon the Ridge in the

first week of September. For the siege train had come at last. The

winning post lay close ahead, they must ride all they knew. But those

in command said it anxiously; for day by day the hospitals became more

crowded, and cholera, reappearing, helped to swell the rear-guard of

graves, when the time had come for vanguards only.

But some men--among them Baird Smith and John Nicholson--took no heed

of sickness or death. And these two, especially, looked into each

other's eyes and said, "When you are ready I'm ready." Their seniors

might say that an assault would be thrown on the hazard of a die. What

of that; if men are prepared to throw sixes, as these two were? They

had to be thrown, if India was to be kept, if this bubble of

sovereignty was to be pricked, the gas let out.

In the city and the Palace also, men, feeling the struggle close, put

hand and foot to whip and spur. But there was no one within the walls

who had the seeing single eye, quick to seize the salient point of a

position. Baird Smith saw it fast enough. Saw the thickets and walls

of the Koodsia Gardens in front of him, the river guarding his left, a

sinuous ravine--cleaving the hillside into cover creeping down from

the Ridge on his right to within two hundred yards of the city wall.

And that bit of the wall, between the Moree gate and the Water

Bastion, was its weakest portion. The curtain walls long, mere

parapets, only wide enough for defense by muskets. So said the spies,

though it seemed almost incredible to English engineers that the

defense had not been strengthened by pulling down the adjacent houses

and building a rampart for guns.

In truth there was no one to suggest it, and if it had been suggested

there was no one to carry it out, for even now, at the last, the

Palace seethed with dissension and intrigue. Yet still the sham went

on inconceivably. Jim Douglas, indeed, walking through the bazaars in

his Afghan dress, very nearly met his fate through it. For he was

seized incontinently and made to figure as one of the retinue of the

Amir of Cabul's ambassador, who, about the beginning of September, was

introduced to the private Hall of Audience as a sedative to doubtful

dreamers, and a tonic to brocaded bags. Luckily for him, however,

the men called upon to play the other part in the farce--chiefly

cloth-merchants from Peshawur and elsewhere, whom Jim Douglas had

dodged successfully so far--had been in such abject fear of being

discovered themselves that they had no thought of discovering others.

For Bahâdur Shâh had the dust and ashes of a Moghul in him still. Jim

Douglas recognized the fact in the very obstinacy of delusion in the

wax-like, haggard old face looking with glazed, tremulous-lidded eyes

at the mock mission; and in the faded voice, accepting his vassal of

Cabul's promise of help. It was an almost incredible scene, Jim

Douglas thought. Given it, there was no limit to possibilities in this

phantasmagoria of kingship. The white shadows of the marble arches

with their tale of boundless power and wealth in the past, the wide

plains beyond, the embroidered curtain of the sunlit garden, the

curves of courtiers, most of them in the secret, no doubt; and below

the throne these tag-rag and bob-tail of the bazaars, one of them at

least a hell-doomed infidel, figuring away in borrowed finery! All

this was as unreal as a magic lantern picture, and like it was

followed hap-hazard, without rhyme or reason, by the next on the

slide; for, as he passed out of the Presence he heard the question of

appointing a Governor to Bombay brought up and discussed gravely; that

province being reported to have sent in its allegiance _en bloc_ to

the Great Moghul. The slides, however, were not always so dignified,

so decorous. One came, a day or two afterward, showing a miserable old

pantaloon driven to despair because six hundred hungry sepoys would

not behave according to strict etiquette, but, invading his privacy

with threats, reduced him to taking his beautiful new cushion from the

Peacock Throne and casting it among them.

"Take it," he cried passionately, "it is all I have left. Take it, and

let me go in peace!"

But the lesson was not learned by him as yet; so he had to remain; for

once more the sepoys sent out word that there was to be no skulking.

To do the Royal family justice, however, they seem by this time to

have given up the idea of flight. To be sure they had no place to

which they could fly, since the dream required that background of

rose-red wall and marble arches. So even Abool-Bukr, forsaking

drunkenness as well as that kind, detaining hand, clung to his

kinsfolk bravely, behaving in all ways as a newly married young prince

should who looked toward filling the throne itself at some future

time.[8]

The sepoys themselves had given up blustering, and many, like Soma,

had taken to bhang instead; drugging themselves deliberately into

indifference. The latter had recovered from the blow on the back of

his head, which, however, as is so often the case, had for the time at

any rate deprived him of all recollection of the events immediately

preceding it. So, as Tara had restored his uniform before he was able

to miss it, he treated her as if nothing had occurred; greatly to her

relief. The fact had its disadvantages, however, by depriving her of

all corroborative evidence of the mem having really left the city.

Thus Jim Douglas, warned by past experience, and made doubtful by

Tara's strange reticences, refused to believe it. Her whole story,

indeed, marred, as it was, by the endless reserves and exaggerations,

seemed incredible; the more so because Tiddu--who lied wildly as to

his constant sojourn in Delhi--professed utter disbelief in it. So,

after a few days' unavailing attempt to get at the truth, Jim Douglas

sent the old man off with a letter of inquiry to the Ridge, and waited

for the answer.

Waited, like all Delhi, under the shadow of the lifted sword which

hung above the city. A sword, held behind a simulacrum of many, by one

arm, sent for that purpose; for John Lawrence, being wise, knew that

the shadow of that arm meant more even than the sword it held to the

wildest half of the province under his control, a province trembling

in the balance between allegiance and revolt; a province ready to

catch fire if the extinguisher were not put upon the beacon light. And

all India waited too. Waited to see that sword fall.

But a hatchet fell first. Fell in the lemon thickets and pomegranates

of the walled old gardens, so that men who worked at the batteries

still remember the sweet smell that went up from the crushed leaves. A

welcome change; for the Ridge, crowded now with eleven thousand

troops, was not a pleasant abode. It was on Sunday, the 6th of

September, that the final reinforcements came in, and on the 7th the

men, reading General Wilson's order for the appointing of prize agents

in each corps, and his assurance that all plunder would be divided

fairly, felt as if they were already within the walls. The hospitals,

too, were giving up their sick; those who could not be of use going to

the rear, Meerut-ward, those fit for work to the front. And that night

the first siege battery was traced and almost finished below the

Sammy-House, while, under cover of this distraction on the right, the

Koodsia Gardens and Ludlow Castle on the left were occupied by strong

pickets.

But that first battery--only seven hundred yards from the Moree

Bastion--had a struggle for dear life. The dawn showed but one gun in

position against all the concentrated fire of the bastion which,

during the night, had been lured into a useless duel with the old

defense batteries above. Only one gun at dawn; but by noon--despite

assault and battery--there were five, answering roar for roar. Then

for the first time began that welcome echo: the sound of crumbling

walls, the grumbling roll of falling stones and mortar. By sunset the

gradually diminishing fire from the bastion had ceased, and the

bastion itself was a heap of ruins. By this time the four guns in the

left section of the battery were keeping down the fire from the

Cashmere gate, and so protecting the real advance through the gardens.

That was the first day of the siege, and Kate Erlton, sitting in her

little tent, which had been moved into a quiet spot, as she had begged

to be allowed to stay on the Ridge until some news came of the man to

whom she owed so much, thought with a shudder she could not help, of

what it must mean to many an innocent soul shut up within those walls.

It was bad enough here, where the very tent seemed to shake. It must

be terrible down there beside the heating guns, in the roar and the

rattle, the grime and the ache and strain of muscle. But in the

city--even in Sri Anunda's garden----!

So, naturally enough, she wondered once more what could have become of

the man who had gone back to find her nearly ten days before.

"May I come in? John Nicholson."

She would have recognized the voice even without the name, for it was

not one to be forgotten. Nor was the owner, as he stood before her, a

letter in his hand.

"I have heard from Mr. Douglas, Mrs. Erlton," he said. "It is in the

Persian character, so I presume it is no use showing it to you. But it

concerns you chiefly. He wants to know if you are safe. I have to

answer it immediately. Have you any message you would like to send?"

"Any message?" she echoed. "Only that he must come back at once, of

course."

John Nicholson looked at her calmly.

"I shall say nothing of the kind," he replied. "It is best for a man

to decide such matters for himself."

She flushed up hotly. "I had not the slightest intention of dictating

to Mr.--Mr. Douglas, General Nicholson; but considering how much he

has already sacrificed for my sake----"

"You had better let him do as he likes, my dear madam," interrupted

the General, with a sudden kindly smile, which, however, faded as

quickly as it came, leaving his face stern. "He, like many another

man, has sacrificed too much for women, Mrs. Erlton; so if ever you

can make up to him for some of the pain, do so--he is worth it.

Good-by. I'll tell him that you are safe; but that in spite of that,

he has my permission to go ahead and kill--the more the better."

She had not the faintest idea why he made this last remark; but it did

not puzzle her, for she was occupied with his previous one. Sacrificed

too much! That was true. He carried the scars of the knife upon him

clearly. And the man who had just left her presence, who, for all his

courtesy, had treated her so cavalierly? She was rather vexed with

herself for feeling it, but a sudden sense of being a poor creature

came over her. It flashed upon her that she could imagine a world

without women--she was in one, almost, at that very moment--but not a

world without men. Yet that ceaseless roar filling the air had more to

do with women than men; it went more as a challenge of revenge than a

stern recall to duty.

It was true. The men, working night and day in the batteries, thought

little of men's rights, only of women's wrongs. Even General Wilson in

his order had appealed to those under him on that ground only, urging

them to spend life and strength freely in vengeance on murderers.

And they did. Down in the scented Koodsia Gardens the men never seemed

to tire, never to shrink, though the shot from the city--not two

hundred and fifty yards away--flew pinging through the trees above

them. But the high wall gave cover, and so those off duty slept

peacefully in the cool shade, or sat smoking on the river-terrace.

Thus, while the first battery, pounding away from the right at the

Moree and Cashmere bastions, diverted attention, and the enemy,

deceived by the feint, lavished a dogged courage in trying to keep up

some kind of reply, a second siege battery in two sections was traced

and made in front of Ludlow Castle, five hundred yards from the

Cashmere gate. By dawn on the 11th both sections were at work

destroying the defenses of the gate, and pounding away to breach the

curtain wall beside it. So the roar was doubled, and the vibrations of

the air began to quiver on the wearied ear almost painfully. Yet they

were soon trebled, quadrupled. Trebled by a party of wide-mouthed

mortars in the garden itself. Quadrupled by a wicked, dare-devil,

impertinent little company of six eighteen-pounders and twelve small

mortars, which, with Medley of the Engineers as a guide, took

advantage of a half ruined house to creep within a hundred and sixty

yards of the doomed walls despite the shower of shell and bullets from

it. For by this time the murderers in the city had found out that the

men were at work at something in the scented thickets to the left. Not

that the discovery hindered the work. The native pioneers, who bore

the brunt of it, digging and piling for the wicked little intruder,

were working with the master, working with volunteers--officers and

men alike--from the 9th Lancers and the Carabineers. So, when one of

their number toppled over, they looked to see if he were dead or alive

in order to sort him out properly. And if he was dead they would weep

a few tears as they laid him in the row beside the others of his kind,

before they went on with their work quietly; for, having to decide

whether a comrade belonged to the dead or the living thirty-nine times

one night, they began to get expert at it. So by the 12th, fifty guns

and mortars flashed and roared, and the rumble of falling stones

became almost continuous. Sometimes a shell would just crest the

parapet, burst, and bring away yards of it at a time.

Up on the Ridge behind the siege batteries, when the cool of the

evening came on, every post was filled with sightseers watching the

salvos, watching the game. And one, at least, going back to get ready

for mess, wrote and told his wife at Meerut, that if she were at the

top of Flagstaff Tower, she would remain there till the siege was

over--it was so fascinating. But they were merry on the Ridge in these

days, and the messes were so full that guests had to be limited at

one, till they got a new leaf in the table! Yet on the other slope of

the Ridge, men were tumbling over like the stones in the walls.

Tumbling over one after another in the batteries, all through the

night of the 12th, and the day of the 13th.

Then at ten o'clock in the evening, men, sitting in the mess-tents,

looked at each other joyfully, yet with a thrill in their veins, as

the firing ceased suddenly. For they knew what that meant; they knew

that down under the very walls of the city, friends and comrades were

creeping, sword in one hand, their lives in the other, through the

starlight, to see if the breaches were practicable.

But the city knew them to be so; and already the last order sent by

the Palace to Delhi was being proclaimed by beat of drum through the

streets.

So, monotonously, the cry rang from alley to alley.

"Intelligence having just been brought that the infidels intend an

assault to-night, it is incumbent on all, Hindoo and Mohammedan, from

due regard to their faith, to assemble directly by the Cashmere gate,

bringing iron picks and shovels with them. This order is imperative."

Newâsi Begum, among others, heard it as she sat reading. She stood up

suddenly, overturning the book-rest and the Holy Word in her haste;

for she felt that the crisis was at hand. She had never seen

Abool-Bukr since the night, now a whole month past, when he had

taunted her with being one more woman ready for kisses. Her pride had

kept her from seeking him, and he had not returned. But now her

resentment gave way before her fears. She _must_ see him--since God

only knew what might be going to happen!

True in a way. But up on the Ridge one man felt certain of one thing.

John Nicholson, with the order for an assault at dawn safe in his

hand, knew that he would be in Delhi on the 14th of September--a day

earlier than he had expected.

CHAPTER V.

THROUGH THE WALLS.

It was a full hour past dawn on the 14th of September ere that sudden

silence fell once more upon the echoing rocks of the Ridge and the

scented gardens. So, for a second, the twittering birds in the

thickets behind them might have been heard by the men who, with fixed

bayonets, were jostling the roses and the jasmines. But they were

holding their breath--waiting, listening, for something very

different; while in the ears of many, excluding all other sounds,

lingered the cadence of the text read by the chaplain before dawn in

the church lesson for the day.

"Woe to the bloody city--the sword shall cut thee off."

For to many the coming struggle meant neither justice nor revenge, but

religion. It was Christ against Anti-Christ. So, whether for revenge

or faith they waited. A thousand down by the river opposite the Water

Bastion. A thousand in the Koodsia facing the main breach, with John

Nicholson, first as ever, to lead it. A thousand more on the broad

white road fronting the Cashmere Bastion, with an explosion party

ahead to blow in the gate, and a reserve of fifteen hundred to the

rear waiting for success. Briefly, four thousand five hundred

men--more than half natives--for the assault, facing that half mile or

so of northern wall; thus within touch of each other. Beyond, on the

western trend, two thousand more--mostly untried troops from Jumoo and

a general muster of casuals--to sweep through the suburbs and be ready

to enter by the Cabul gate when it was opened to them.

Above, on the Ridge, six hundred sabers awaiting orders. Behind it

three thousand sick in hospital, a weak defense, and that rear-guard

of graves.

And in front of all stood that tall figure with the keen eyes. "Are

you ready, Jones?" asked Nicholson, laying his hand on the last

leader's shoulder. His voice and face were calm, almost cold.

"Ready, sir!"

Then, startling that momentary silence, came the bugle.

"Advance!"

With a cheer the rifles skirmished ahead joyfully. The engineers

posted in the furthest cover long before dawn--who had waited for

hours, knowing that each minute made their task harder--rose, waving

their swords to guide the stormers toward the breach! Then, calmly, as

if it had been dark, not daylight, crested the glacis at a swift walk,

followed by the laddermen in line. Behind, with a steady tramp, the

two columns bound for the breaches. But the third, upon the road, had

to wait a while, as, like greyhounds from a leash, a little company

slipped forward at the double.

Home of the Engineers first with two sergeants, a native havildar, and

ten Punjab sappers, running lightly, despite the twenty-five pound

powder bags they carried. Behind them, led by Salkeld, the firing

party and a bugler. Running under the hail of bullets, faster as they

fell faster, as men run to escape a storm; but these courted it,

though the task had been set for night, and it was now broad daylight.

What then? They could see better. See the outer gateway open, the

footway of the drawbridge destroyed, the inner door closed save for

the wicket.

"Come on," shouted Home, and was across the bare beams like a boy,

followed by the others.

Incredible daring! What did it mean? The doubt made the scared enemy

close the wicket hastily. So against it, at the rebels' very feet, the

powder bags were laid. True, one sergeant fell dead with his; but as

it fell against the gates his task was done.

"Ready, Salkeld!--your turn," sang out young Home from the ditch, into

which, the bags laid, the fuse set, he dropped unhurt. So across the

scant foothold came the firing party, its leader holding the portfire.

But the paralysis of amazement had passed; the enemy, realizing what

the audacity meant, had set the wicket wide. It bristled now with

muskets; so did the parapet.

"Burgess!--your turn," called Salkeld as he fell, and passed the

portfire to the corporal behind him. Burgess, alias Grierson,--someone

perchance retrieving a past under a new name,--took it, stooped, then

with a half articulate cry either that it was "right" or "out," fell

back into the ditch dead. Smith, of the powder party, lingering to see

the deed done, thought the latter, and, matchbox in hand, sprang

forward, cuddling the gate for safety as he struck a light. But it was

not needed. As he stooped to use it, the port-fire of the fuse

exploded in his face, and, half blinded, he turned to plunge headlong

for escape into the ditch. A second after the gate was in fragments.

"Your turn, Hawthorne!" came that voice from the ditch. So the bugler,

who had braved death to sound it, gave the advance. Once, twice,

thrice, carefully lest the din from the breaches should drown it. Vain

precaution, not needed either; for the sound of the explosion was

enough. That thousand on the road was hungering to be no whit behind

the others, and with a wild cheer the stormers made for the gate.

But Nicholson was already in Delhi, though ten minutes had gone in a

fierce struggle to place a single ladder against an avalanche of shot

and stone. But that one had been the signal for him to slip into the

ditch, and, calling on the 1st Bengal Fusiliers to follow, escalade

the bastion, first as ever.

Even so, others were before him. Down at the Water Bastion, though

three-quarters of the laddermen had fallen and but a third of the

storming party remained, those twenty-five men of the 8th had gained

the breach, and, followed by the whole column, were clearing the

ramparts toward the Cashmere gate. Hence, again, without a check,

joined by the left half of Nicholson's column, they swept the enemy

before them like frightened sheep to the Moree gate; though in the

bastion itself the gunners stood to their guns and were bayoneted

beside them. There, with a whoop, some of the wilder ones leaped to

the parapet to wave their caps in exultation to the cavalry below,

which, in obedience to orders, was now drawn up, ready to receive,

guarding the flank of the assault, despite the murderous fire from the

Cabul gate, and the Burn Bastion beyond it. Sitting in their saddles,

motionless, doing nothing, a mark for the enemy, yet still a wall of

defense. So, leaving them to that hardest task of all--the courage of

inaction--the victorious rush swept on to take the Cabul gate, to

sweep past it up to the Burn Bastion itself--the last bastion which

commanded the position.

And then? Then the order came to retire and await orders at the Cabul

gate. The fourth column, after clearing the suburbs, was to have been

there ready for admittance, ready to support. It was not. And

Nicholson was not there also, to dare and do all. He had had to pause

at the Cashmere gate to arrange that the column which had entered

through it should push on into the city, leaving the reserve to hold

the points already won. And now, with the 1st Fusiliers behind him, he

was fighting his way through the streets to the Cabul gate. So,

fearing to lose touch with those behind, over-rating the danger,

under-estimating the incalculable gain of unchecked advance with an

eastern foe, the leader of that victorious sweeping of the ramparts

was content to set the English flag flying on the Cabul gate and await

orders. But the men had to do something. So they filled up the time

plundering. And there were liquor shops about. Europe shops, full of

wine and brandy.

The flag had been flying over an hour when Nicholson came up. But by

that time the enemy--who had been flying too--flying as far as the

boat bridge in sheer conviction that the day was lost--had recovered

some courage and were back, crowding the bastion and some tall houses

beside it. And in the lane, three hundred yards long, not ten feet

wide, leading to it, two brass guns had been posted before bullet

proof screens ready to mow down the intruders.

Yet once more John Nicholson saw but one thing--the Burn Bastion.

Built by Englishmen, it was one of the strongest--the only remaining

one, in fact, likely to give trouble. With it untaken a thorough hold

on the city was impossible. Besides, with his vast knowledge of native

character, he knew that the enemy had expected us to take it, and

would construe caution into cowardice. Then he had the 1st Bengal

Fusiliers behind him. He had led them in Delhi, they had fallen in his

track in tens and fifties, and still they had come on--they would do

this thing for him now.

"We will do what we can, sir," said their commandant, Major Jacob--but

his face was grave.

"We will do what men can do, sir," said the commandant of that left

half of the column; "but honestly, I don't think it can be done. We

have tried it once." His face was graver still.

"Nor I," said Nicholson's Brigade-major.

Nicholson, as he stood by the houses around the Cabul gate, which had

been occupied and plundered by the troops, looked down the straight

lane again. It hugged the city wall on its right, its scanty width

narrowed here and there by buttresses to some three feet. About a

third of the way down was the first gun, placed beside a feathery

kikar tree which sent a lace-like tracery of shadow upon the screen.

As far behind was the second. Beyond, again, was the bastion jutting

out, and so forcing the lane to bend between it and some tall houses.

Both were crowded with the enemy--the screens held bayonets and

marksmen. There was a gun close to the bastion in the wall, but to the

left, cityward, in the low, flat-roofed mud houses there seemed no

trace of flanking foes.

"I think it can be done," he said. He knew it must be done ere the

Palace could be taken. So he gave the orders. Fusiliers forward;

officers to the front!

And to the front they went, with a cheer and a rush, overwhelming the

first gun, within ten yards of the other. And one man was closer

still, for Lieutenant Butler, pinned against that second bullet-proof

screen by two bayonets thrust through the loopholes at him, had to

fire his revolver through them also, ere he could escape this

two-pronged fork.

But the fire of every musket on the bastion and the tall houses was

centered on that second gun. Grape, canister, raked the narrow

lane--made narrower by fallen Fusiliers--and forced those who remained

to fall back upon the first gun--beyond that even. Yet only for a

moment. Reformed afresh, they carried it a second time, spiked it and

pressed on. Officers still to the front!

Just beyond the gun the commandant fell wounded to death. "Go on, men,

go on!" he shouted to those who would have paused to help him.

"Forward, Fusiliers!"

And they went forward; though at dawn two hundred and fifty men had

dashed for the breach, and now there were not a hundred and fifty left

to obey orders. Less! For fifty men and seven officers lay in that

lane itself. Surely it was time now for others to step in--and there

were others!

Nicholson saw the waver, knew what it meant, and sprang forward sword

in hand, calling on those others to follow. But he asked too much.

Where the 1st Fusiliers had failed, none cared to try. That is the

simple truth. The limit had been reached.

So for a minute or two he stood, a figure instinct with passion,

energy, vitality, before men who, God knows with reason, had lost all

three for the moment. A colossal figure beyond them, ahead of them,

asking more than mere ordinary men could do. So a pitiful figure--a

failure at the last!

"Come on, men! Come on, you fools--come on, you--you----"

What the word was, which that bullet full in the chest arrested

between heart and lips, those who knew John Nicholson's wild temper,

his indomitable will, his fierce resentment at everything which fell

short of his ideals, can easily guess.

"Lay me under that tree," he gasped, as they raised him. "I will not

leave till the lane is carried. My God! Don't mind me! Forward, men,

forward! It _can_ be done."

An hour or two afterward a subaltern coming out of the Cashmere gate

saw a dhooli, deserted by its bearers. In it lay John Nicholson in

dire agony; but he asked nothing of his fellows then save to be taken

to hospital. He had learned his lesson. He had done what others had

set him to do. He had entered Delhi. He had pricked the bubble, and

the gas was leaking out. But he had failed in the task he had set

himself. The Burn Bastion was still unwon, and the English force in

Delhi, instead of holding its northern half up to the very walls of

the Palace, secure from flanking foes, had to retire on the strip of

open ground behind the assaulted wall--if, indeed, it had not to

retire further still. Had one man had his way it would have retired to

the Ridge. Late in the afternoon, when fighting was over for the day,

General Wilson rode round the new-won position, and, map in hand,

looked despairingly toward the network of narrow lanes and alleys

beyond. And he looked at something close at hand with even greater

forebodings; for he stood in the European quarter of the town among

shops still holding vast stores of wine and spirits which had been

left untouched by that other army of occupation.

But what of this one? This product of civilization, and culture, and

Christianity; these men who could give points to those others in so

many ways, but might barter their very birthright for a bottle of rum.

Yet even so, the position must be held. So said Baird Smith at the

chief's elbow, so wrote Neville Chamberlain, unable to leave his post

on the Ridge. And another man in hospital, thinking of the Burn

Bastion, thinking with a strange wonder of men who could refuse to

follow, muttered under his breath, "Thank God! I have still strength

left to shoot a coward."

And yet General Wilson in a way was right. Five days afterward Major

Hodson wrote in his diary: "The troops are utterly demoralized by hard

work and hard drink. For the first time in my life I have had to see

English soldiers refuse repeatedly to follow their officers. Jacob,

Nicholson, Greville, Speke were all sacrificed to this."

A terrible indictment indeed, against brave men.

Yet not worse than that underlying the chief's order of the 15th,

directing the Provost-marshal to search for and smash every bottle and

barrel to be found, and let the beer and wine, so urgently needed by

the sick, run into the gutters; or his admission three days later that

another attempt to take the Lahore gate had failed from "the refusal

of the European soldiers to follow their officers. One rush and it

could have been done easily--we are still, therefore, in the same

position to-day as we were yesterday."

So much for drink.

But the enemy luckily was demoralized also. It was still full of

defense; empty of attack.

For one thing, attack would have admitted a reverse; and over on that

eastern wall of the Palace, in the fretted marble balcony overlooking

the river, there was no mention, even now, of such a word. Reverse!

Had not the fourth column been killed to a man? Had not Nikalseyn

himself fallen a victim to valor? But Soma, and many a man of his

sort, gave up the pretense with bitter curses at themselves. They had

seen from their own posts that victorious escalade, that swift,

unchecked herding of the frightened sheep. And they--intolerable

thought!--were sheep also. They saw men with dark faces, no whit

better than they--better!--the Rajpoot had at least a longer record

than the Sikh!--led to victory while they were not led at all. So

brought face to face once more with the old familiar glory and honor,

the old familiar sight of the master first--uncompromisingly,

indubitably first to snatch success from the grasp of Fate, and hand

it back to them--they thought of the past three months with loathing.

And as for Nikalseyn's rebuff. Soma, hearing of it from a comrade, hot

at heart as he, went to the place, and looked down the lane as John

Nicholson had done. By all the Pandâvas! a place for heroes indeed!

Ali! if he had been there, he would have stayed there somehow. He

walked up and down it moodily, picturing the struggle to himself;

thinking with a curious anger of those men on the housetops, in the

bastion, taking potshots at the unsheltered men below. That was all

there would be now. They might drive the masters back for a time, they

might inveigle them into lanes and reduce their numbers by tens and

fifties, they, men of his sort, might make a brave defense.

Defense! Soma wanted to attack. Attracted by the faint shade of the

kikar tree he sat down beneath it, resting against the trunk, looking

along the lane once more, just as, a day or two before, John Nicholson

had rested for a space. And the iron of failure entered into this

man's heart also, because there was none to lead. And with the master

there had been none to follow.

Suddenly he rose, his mind made up. If that was so, let him go back to

the plow. That also was a hereditary trade.

That night, without a word to anyone, leaving his uniform behind him,

he started along the Rohtuck road for his ancestral village. But he

had to make a detour round the suburbs, for, despite that annihilation

spoken of in the Peace, they were now occupied by the English.

Yet but little headway had been made in securing a firmer hold within

the city itself.

"You can't, till the Burn Bastion is taken and the Lahore gate

secured," said Nicholson from his dying bed, whence, growing

perceptibly weaker day by day, yet with mind clear and unclouded, he

watched and warned. The single eye was not closed yet, was not even

made dim by death. It saw still, what it had seen on the day of the

assault; what it had coveted then and failed to reach.

But it was not for five days after this failure that even Baird Smith

recognized the absolute accuracy of this judgment, and, against the

Chief's will, obtained permission to sap through the shelter of the

intervening houses till they could tackle the bastion at close and

commanding quarters without asking the troops to face another lane. So

on the morning of the 19th, after a night of storm and rain cooling

the air incredibly, the pick-ax began what rifles and swords had

failed to do. By nightfall a tall house was reached, whence the

bastion could be raked fore and aft. Its occupants, recognizing this,

took advantage of the growing darkness to evacuate it. Half an hour

afterward the master-key of the position was in English hands.

Rather unsteady ones, for here again the troops--once more the 8th,

the 75th, the Sikh Infantry, and that balance of the Fusiliers--had

found more brandy.

"_Poisoned, sir?_" said one thirsty trooper, flourishing a bottle of

Exshaw's Number One before the eyes of his Captain, who, as a last

inducement to sobriety, was suggesting danger. "Not a bit of it.

Capsules all right."

But this time England could afford a few drunk men. The bastion was

gone, and by the Turkoman and Delhi gates half the town was going. And

not only the town. Down in the Palace men and women, with fumbling

hands and dazed eyes, like those new roused from dreams, were

snatching at something to carry with them in their flight. Bukht Khân

stood facing the Queen in her favorite summer-house, alone, save for

Hâfzan, the scribe, who lingered, watching them with a certain malice

in her eyes. She had been right. Vengeance had been coming. Now it had

come.

"All is not lost, my Queen," said Bukht Khân, with hand on sword. "The

open country lies before us, Lucknow is ours--come!"

"And the King, and my son," she faltered. The dull glitter of her

tarnished jewelry seemed in keeping with the look on her face. There

was something sordid in it. Sordid, indeed, for behind that mask of

wifely solicitude and maternal care lay the thought of her hidden

treasure.

"Let them come too. Naught hinders it."

True. But the gold, the gold!

After he had left her, impatient of her hesitation, a sudden terror

seized her, lest he might have sought the King, lest he might persuade

him.

"My bearers--woman! Quick!" she called to Hâfzan. "Quick, fool! my

dhooli!"

But even dhooli bearers have to fly when vengeance shadows the

horizon; and in that secluded corner none remained. Everyone was busy

elsewhere; or from sheer terror clustered together where soldiers were

to be found.

"The Ornament-of-Palaces can walk," said Hâfzan, still with that faint

malice in her face. "There is none to see, and it is not far."

So, for the last time, Zeenut Maihl left the summer-house whence she

had watched the Meerut road. Left it on foot, as many a better woman

as unused to walking as she was leaving Delhi with babies on their

breasts and little children toddling beside them. Past the faint

outline of the Pearl Mosque, through the cool damp of the watered

garden with the moon shining overhead, she stumbled laboriously. Up

the steps of the Audience Hall toward a faint light by the Throne. The

King sat on it, almost in the dark; for the oil cressets on a trefoil

stand only seemed to make the shadows blacker. They lay thick upon the

roof, blotting out that circling boast. Before him stood Bukht Khân,

his hand still on his sword, broad, contemptuously bold. But on either

side of the shrunken figure, half lost in the shadows also, were other

counselors. Ahsan-Oolah, wily as ever, Elahi Buksh, the time-server,

who saw the only hope of safety in prompt surrender.

"Let the Pillar-of-Faith claim time for thought," the latter was

saying. "There is no hurry. If the soubadar-sahib is in one, let him

go----"

Bukht Khân broke in with an ugly laugh, "Yea, Mirza-sahib, I can go,

but if I go the army goes with me. Remember that. The King can keep

the rabble. I have the soldiers."

Bahâdur Shâh looked from one to the other helplessly. Whether to go,

risk all, endure a life of unknown discomfort at his age, or remain,

alone, unprotected, he knew not.

"Yea! that is true. Still there is no need for hurry," put in the

physician, with a glance at Elahi Buksh. "Let my master bid the

soubadar and the army meet him at the Tomb of Humayon to-morrow

morning. 'Twill be more seemly time to leave than now, like a thief

in the night."

Bukht Khân gave a sharp look at the speaker, then laughed again. He

saw the game. He scarcely cared to check it.

"So be it. But let it be before noon. I will wait no longer."

As he passed out hastily he almost ran into a half-veiled figure,

which, with another behind it, was hugging one of the pillars, peering

forward, listening. He guessed it for the Queen, and paused instantly.

"'Tis thy last chance, Zeenut Maihl," he whispered in her ear. "Come if

thou art wise."

The last. No! not that. The last for sovereignty perhaps, but not for

hidden treasure. Half an hour afterward, a little procession of Royal

dhoolies passed out of the Palace on their way to Elahi Buksh's house

beside the Delhi gate, and Ahsan-Oolah walked beside the Queen's. He

had gold also to save, and he was wise; so she listened, and as she

listened she told herself that it would be best to stay. Her life was

safe, and her son was too young for the punishment of death. As for

the King, he was too old for the future to hold anything else.

Hâfzan watched her go, still with that half-jeering smile, then turned

back into the empty Palace. Even in the outer court it was empty,

indeed, save for a few fanatics muttering texts; and within the

precincts, deserted utterly, silent as the grave. Until, suddenly,

from the Pearl Mosque a voice came, giving the call to prayer; for it

was not far from dawn.

She paused, recognizing it, and leaving the marble terrace

where she had been standing, looking riverward, walked over to the

bronze-studded door, and peered in among the white arches of the

mosque for what she sought.

And there it was, a tall white figure looking westward, its back

toward her, its arms spread skyward. A fanatic of fanatics.

"Thou art not wise to linger here, Moulvie sahib," she called. "Hast

not heard? The Burn Bastion is taken. The King and Queen have fled.

The English will be here in an hour or so, and then----"

"And then there comes judgment," answered Mohammed Ismail, turning to

look at her sternly. "Doth not it lie within these walls? I stay here,

woman, as I have stayed."

"Nay, not here," she argued in conciliatory tones. "It lies yonder, in

the outer court, by the trees shadowing the little tank. Thou canst

see it from the window of my uncle's room. And he hath gone--like the

others. 'Twere better to await it there."

She spoke as she would have spoken to a madman. And, indeed, she held

him to be little else. Here was a man who had saved forty infidels,

whose reward was sure. And who must needs imperil it by lingering

where death was certain; must needs think of his battered soul instead

of his body. Mohammed Ismail came and stood beside her, with a curious

acquiescence in regard to detail's which is so often seen in men

mastered by one idea.

"It may be better so, sister," he said dreamily. "'Tis as well to be

prepared."

Hâfzan's hard eyes melted a little, for she had a real pity for this

man who had haunted the Palace persistently, and lost his reason over

his conscience.

If she could once get him into her uncle's room, she would find some

method of locking him in, of keeping him out of mischief. For herself,

being a woman, the Huzoors were not to be feared.

"Yea! 'tis as well to be near," she said as she led the way.

And the time drew near also; for the dawn of the 20th of September had

broken ere, with the key of the outer door in her bosom, she retired

into an inner room, leaving the Moulvie saying his prayers in the

other. Already the troops, recovered from their unsteadiness, had

carried the Lahore gate and were bearing down on the mosque. They

found it almost undefended. The circling flight of purple pigeons,

which at the first volley flew westward, the sun glistening on their

iridescent plumage, was scarcely more swift than the flight of those

who attempted a feeble resistance. And now the Palace lay close by.

With it captured, Delhi was taken. Its walls, it is true, rose

unharmed, secure as ever, hemming in those few acres of God's earth

from the march of time; but they were strangely silent. Only now and

again a puff of white smoke and an unavailing roar told that someone,

who cared not even for success, remained within.

So powder bags were brought. Home of the Engineers sent for, that he

might light the fuse which gave entry to the last stronghold; for

there was no hurry now. No racing now under hailstorms, and over

tightropes. Calmly, quietly, the fuse was lit, the gate shivered to

atoms, and the long red tunnel with the gleam of sunlight at its end

lay before the men, who entered it with a cheer. Then, here and there

rose guttural Arabic texts, ending in a groan. Here and there the

clash of arms. But not enough to rouse Hâfzan, who, long ere this, had

fallen asleep after her wakeful night. It needed a touch on her

shoulder for that, and the Moulvie's eager voice in her ear.

"The key, woman! The key--give it! I need the key."

Half-dazed by sleep, deceived by the silence, she put her hand

mechanically to her bosom. His followed hers; he had what he sought,

and was off. She sprang to her feet, recognizing some danger, and

followed him.

"He is mad! He is mad!" she cried, as her halting steps lingered

behind the tall white figure which made straight for a crowd of

soldiers gathered round the little tank. There were other soldiers

here, there, everywhere in the rose-red arcades around the sun-lit

court. Soldiers with dark faces and white ones seeking victims,

seeking plunder. But these in the center were all white men, and they

were standing, as men stand to look at a holy shrine, upon the place

where, as the spies had told them, English women and children had been

murdered.

So toward them, while curses were in all hearts and on some lips, came

the tall white figure with its arms outspread, its wild eyes aflame.

"O God of Might and Right! Give judgment now, give judgment now."

The cry rolled and echoed through the arcades to alien ears even as

other cries.

"He is mad--he saved them--he is mad!" gasped the maimed woman behind;

but her cry seemed no different to those unheeding ears.

The tall white figure lay on its face, half a dozen bayonets in its

back, and half a dozen more were after Hâfzan.

"Stick him! Stick him! A man in disguise. Remember the women and

children. Stick the coward!"

She fled shrieking--shrill, feminine shrieks; but the men's blood was

up. They could not hear, they would not hear; and yet the awkwardness

of that flying figure made them laugh horribly.

"Don't 'ustle 'im! Give 'im time! There's plenty o' run in 'im yet,

mates. Lord! 'e'd get first prize at Lillie Bridge 'e would."

Someone else, however, had got it at Harrow not a year before, and was

after the reckless crew. Almost too late--not quite. Hâfzan, run to

earth against a red wall, felt something on her back, and gave a wild

yell. But it was only a boy's hand.

"My God! sir, I've stuck you!" faltered a voice behind, as a man stood

rigid, arrested in mid-thrust.

"You d----d fool!" said the boy. "Couldn't you hear it was a woman?

I'll--I'll have you shot. Oh, hang it all! Drag the creature away,

someone. Get out, do!"

For Hâfzan, as he stood stanching the blood from the slight wound, had

fallen at his feet and was kissing them frantically.

But even that indignity was forgotten as the stained handkerchief

answered the flutter of something which at that moment caught the

breeze above him.

It was the English flag.

The men, forgetting everything else, cheered themselves

hoarse--cheered again when an orderly rode past waving a slip of paper

sent back to the General with the laconic report:

"Blown open the gates! Got the Palace!"

But Hâfzan, her veil up to prevent mistakes, limped over to where the

Moulvie lay, turned him gently on his back, straightened his limbs and

closed his eyes. She would have liked to tell the truth to someone,

but there was no one to listen. So she left him there before the

tribunal to which he had appealed.

CHAPTER VI.

REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS.

So the strain of months was over on the Ridge. Delhi was taken; the

Queen's health was being drunk night after night in the Palace of the

Moghuls. But there was one person to whom the passing days brought a

growing anxiety. This was Kate Erlton; for there were no tidings of

Jim Douglas. None.

At first she had comforted herself with the idea that he was still,

for some reason or another, keeping to the yet unconquered part of the

city; that he was obliged to do so being impossible, the long files of

women and children seeking safety and passing through the Ridge

fearlessly precluding that consolation. Still it was conceivable he

might be busy, though it seemed strange he should have sent no word.

So, like many another in India at that time, she waited, hoping

against hope, possessing her soul in patience. She had no lack of

occupation to distract her. How could there be for a woman, when close

on twelve hundred men had come back from the city dead or wounded?

But now the 21st of September was upon them. The city was occupied,

the work was over. Yet Captain Morecombe, coming back from it, shook

his head. He had spent time and trouble in the search, but had

failed--failed even, from Kate's limited ideas of their locality, to

find either Tara's lodging or the roof in the Mufti's quarter. She

could have found them herself, she said almost pathetically; but of

course that was impossible now, and would be so for some time to come.

"I'm afraid it is no use, Mrs. Erlton," said the Captain kindly.

"There is not a trace to be found, even by Hodson's spies. Unless he

is shut up somewhere, he--he must be dead. It is so likely that he

should be; you must see that. Possibly before the siege began. Let us

hope so."

"Why?" she asked quickly. "You mean that there have been horrible

things done of late?--things like that poor soldier who was found

chained outside the Cashmere gate as a target for his fellows? Have

there? I would so much rather know the worst,--I used always to tell

Mr. Douglas so,--it prevents one dreaming at night." She shivered as

she spoke, and the man watching her felt his heart go out toward her

with a throb of pity. How long, he wondered irrelevantly, would it

take her to forget the miserable tragedy, to be ready for consolation?

"Yes, there have been terrible things on both sides. There always are.

You can't help it when you sack cities," he replied, interrupting

himself hastily with a sort of shame. "The Ghoorkhas had the devil in

them when I was down in the Mufti's quarter. They shot dozens of

helpless learned people in the Chelon-ke-kucha--one who coached me up

for my exams. And about twelve women in the house of a 'Professor of

Arabic'--so he styled himself--jumped down the wall to escape--their

own fears chiefly. For the men wanted loot, nothing else. That is the

worst of it. The whole story from beginning to end seems so needless.

It is as if Fate----"

She interrupted him quietly, "It has been Fate. Fate from beginning to

end."

He sat for an instant with a grave face, then looked up with a smile.

"Perhaps. It's rather _apropos des bottes_, Mrs. Erlton, but I wanted

to ask you a question. Hadn't you a white cockatoo, once? When you

first came here. I seem to recollect the bird making a row in the

veranda when I used to drive up."

Her face grew suddenly pale, she sat staring at him with dread in her

eyes. "Yes!" she replied with a manifest effort, "I gave it to Sonny

Seymour because--because it loved him----" She broke off, then added

swiftly, eagerly, "What then?"

"Only that I found one in the Palace to-day. There is a jolly marble

latticed balcony overlooking the river. The King used to write his

poetry there, they say. Well! I saw a brass cage hanging high up on a

hook--there has been no loot in the precincts, you know, for the Staff

has annexed them; I thought the cage was empty till I took it down

from sheer curiosity, and there was a dead cockatoo."

"Dead!" echoed Kate, with a quick smile of relief. "Oh! how glad I am

it was dead."

Captain Morecombe stared at her. "Poor brute!" he said under his

breath. "It was skin and bone. Starved to death. I expect they forgot

all about it when they got really frightened. They are cruel devils,

Mrs. Erlton."

The Major had used the self-same words to Alice Gissing eighteen

months before, and in the same connection. But, perhaps fortunately

for Kate in her present state of nervous strain, that knowledge was

denied to her. Even so the coincidence of the bird itself absorbed

her.

"It had a yellow crest," she began.

"Oh! then it couldn't have been yours," interrupted Captain Morecombe,

rather relieved, for he saw that he had somehow touched on a hidden

wound. "This one was green; yellowish green. I dare say the King kept

pets like the Oude man----"

"It is dead anyhow," said Kate hurriedly.

And the knowledge gave her an unreasoning comfort. To begin with, it

seemed to her as if those fateful white wings, which had begun to

overshadow her world on that sunny evening down by the Goomtee river,

had ceased to hover over it. And then this rounding of the tale--for

that the bird was little Sonny's favorite she did not doubt--made her

feel that Fate would not leave that other portion of it unfinished.

The inevitable sequence would be worked out somehow. She would hear

something. So once more she waited like many another; waiting with

eyes strained past the last known deed of gallantry for the end which

surely must have been nobler still. When that knowledge came, she told

herself, she would be content.

Yet there was another thing which held her to hope even more than

this; it was the remembrance of John Nicholson's words, "If ever you

have a chance of making up." They seemed prophetic; for he who spoke

them was so often right. Men talking of him as he lingered, watching,

advising, warning, despite dire agony of pain and drowsiness of

morphia, said there was none like him for clear insight into the very

heart of things.

Yet he, as he lay without a complaint, was telling himself he had been

blind. He had sought more from his world than there was in it. And so,

though the news of the capture of the Burn Bastion brought a brief

rally, he sank steadily.

But Hodson, coming into his tent to tell him of the safe capture of

the King and Queen upon the 21st at Humayon's Tomb, found him eager to

hear all particulars. So eager, that when the Sirdars of the Mooltanee

Horse (a regiment he had practically raised), who sat outside in

dozens waiting for every breath of news about their fetish, would not

keep quiet, he emphasized his third order by a revolver bullet through

the wall of the tent. Greatly to their delight since, as they retired

further off, they agreed that Nikalseyn was Nikalseyn still; and

surely death dare not claim one so full of life?

Even Hodson smiled in the swift silence in which the laboring breath

of the dying man could be heard.

"Well, sir," he went on, "as I was saying, I got permission, thanks to

you, to utilize my information----"

"You mean Rujjub Ali's and that sneak Elahi Buksh's, I suppose," put

in Nicholson. "It was sharp work. The King only went to Humayon's Tomb

yesterday. They must have had it all cut and dried before, surely?"

"The Queen has been trying to surrender on terms some time back, sir,"

replied Hodson hastily. "She has a lot of treasure--eight lakhs, the

spies tell me--and is anxious to keep it. However, to go on. After

stopping with Elahi Buksh that night--no doubt, as you say, pressure

was put on them then--they went off, as agreed, to meet Bukht Khân,

but refused to go with him. Of course the promise of their lives----"

"Then you were negotiating already?"[9]

"Not exactly--but--but I couldn't have done without the promise unless

Wilson had agreed to send out troops, and he wouldn't. So I had to

give in, though personally I would a deal rather have brought the old

man in dead, than alive. Well, I set off this morning with fifty of my

horse and sent in the two messengers while I waited outside. It was

nearly two hours before they came back, for the old man was hard to

move. Zeenut Maihl was the screw, and when Bahâdur Shâh talked of his

ancestors and wept, told him he should have thought of that before he

let Bukht Khân and the army go. In fact she did the business for me;

but she stipulated for a promise of life from my own lips. So I rode

out alone to the causeway by the big gate--it is a splendid place,

sir; more like a mosque than a tomb, and drew up to attention. Zeenut

Maihl came out first, swinging along in her curtained dhooli, and

Rujjub, who was beside me, called out her name and titles decorously.

I couldn't help feeling it was a bit of a scene, you know; my being

there, alone, and all that. Then the King came in his palkee; so I

rode up, and demanded his sword. He asked if I were Hodson-sahib

bahâdur and if I would ratify the promise? So I had to choke over it,

for there were two or three thousand of a crowd by this time. Then we

came away. It was a long five miles at a footpace, with that crowd

following us until we neared the city. Then they funked. Besides I had

said openly I'd shoot the King like a dog despite the promise at the

first sign of rescue. And that's all, except that you should have seen

the officer's face at the Lahore gate when he asked me what I'd got in

tow, and I said calmly, 'Only the King of Delhi.' So that is done."

"And well done," said Nicholson briefly, reaching out a parched right

hand. "Well done, from the beginning to the end."

Hodson flushed up like a girl. "I'm glad to hear you say so, sir," he

replied as nonchalantly as he could, "but personally, of course, I

would rather have brought him in dead."

Even that slight action, however, had left Nicholson breathless, and

the only comment for a time came from his eyes; bright, questioning

eyes, seeking now with a sort of pathetic patience to grasp the world

they were leaving, and make allowances for all shortcomings.

"And now for the Princes," said Hodson. "Did you write to Wilson,

sir?"

Nicholson nodded, "I think he'll consent. Only--only don't make any

more promises, Hodson. Some of them must be hung; they deserve death."

His hearer gave rather an uneasy look at the clear eyes, and remarked

sharply: "You thought they deserved more than hanging once, sir."

The old imperious frown of quick displeasure at all challenge came to

John Nicholson's face, then faded into a half-smile. "I was not so

near death myself. It makes a difference. So good-by, Hodson. I mayn't

see you again." He paused, and his smile grew clearer, and strangely

soft. "No news, I suppose, of that poor fellow Douglas, who didn't

agree with us?"

"None, sir; I warned him it was useless and foolhardy to go back when

my information----"

"No doubt," interrupted the dying man gently. "Still, I'd have gone in

his place." He lay still for a moment, then murmured to himself. "So

he is on the way before me. Well! I don't think we can be unhappy

after death. And, as for that poor lady--when you see her, Hodson,

tell her I am sorry--sorry she hadn't her chance." The last words were

once more murmured to himself and ended in silence.

Kate Erlton, however, did not get the message which would, perhaps,

have ended her lingering hope. Major Hodson was too busy to deliver

it. Permission to capture the Princes was given him that very night,

and early the next morning he set off to Humayon's Tomb once more,

with his two spies, his second in command, and about a hundred

troopers. A small party indeed, to face the four or five thousand

Palace refugees who were known to be in hiding about the tomb, waiting

to see if the Princes could make terms like the King had done. But

Hodson's orders were strict. He was to bring in Mirza Moghul and Khair

Sultân, ex-Commanders-in-Chief, and Abool-Bukr, heir presumptive,

unconditionally, or not at all.

The morning was deliciously cool and crisp, full of that promise of

winter, which in its perfection of climate consoles the Punjabee for

six months of purgatory. The sun sent a yellow flood of light over the

endless ruins of ancient Delhi, which here extend for miles on miles.

A nasty country for skulking enemies; but Hodson's pluck and dash were

equal to anything, and he rode along with a heart joyous at his

chance; full of determination to avail himself of it and gain renown.

Someone else, however, was early astir on this the 22d of September,

so as to reach Humayon's Tomb in time to press on to the Kutb, if

needs be. This was the Princess Farkhoonda Zamâni. Ever since that

day, now more than a week past, when the last message to the city had

warned her that the supreme moment for the House of Timoor was at

hand, and she had started from her study of Holy Writ, telling herself

piteously that she must find Prince Abool-Bukr--must, at all sacrifice

to pride, seek him, since he would not seek her--must warn him and

keep his hand in hers again--she had been distracted by the

impossibility of carrying out her decision. For, expecting an

immediate sack of the town, the Mufti's people had barricaded the only

exit bazaar-ward, and when, after a day or two, she did succeed in

creeping out, it was to find the streets unsafe, the Palace itself

closed against all. But now, at least, there was a chance. Like all

the royal family, she knew of these two spies, Rujjub-Ali and Mirza

Elahi Buksh, who was saving his skin by turning Queen's evidence. She

knew of Hodson sahib's promise to the King and Queen. She knew that

Abool-Bukr was still in hiding with the arch-offenders, Mirza Moghul

and Khair Sultân, at Humayon's Tomb. Such an association was fatal;

but if she could persuade him to throw over his uncles, and go with

her, and if, afterward, she could open negotiations with the

Englishmen, and prove that Abool-Bukr had been dismissed from office

on the very day of the death challenge, had been in disgrace ever

since--had even been condemned to death by the King; surely she might

yet drag her dearest from the net into which Zeenut Maihl had lured

him--with what bait she scarcely trusted herself to think! The first

thing to be done, therefore, was to persuade Abool to come with her to

some safer hiding. She would risk all; her pride, her reputation, his

very opinion of her, for this. And surely a man of his nature was to

be tempted. So she put on her finest clothes, her discarded jewels,

and set off about noon in a ruth--a sort of curtain-dhoolie on wheels

drawn by oxen, gay with trappings, and set with jingling bells. They

let her pass at the Delhi gate, after a brief look through the

curtains, during which she cowered into a corner without covering her

face, lest they might think her a man, and stop her.

"By George! that was a pretty woman," said the English subaltern who

passed her, as he came back to the guard-room. "Never saw such eyes in

my life. They were as soft, as soft as--well! I don't know what. And

they looked, somehow, as if they have been crying for years, and--and

as if they saw--saw something, you know."

"They saw you--you sentimental idiot--that's enough to make any woman

cry," retorted his companion. And then the two, mere boys, wild with

success and high spirits, fell to horse-play over the insult.

Yet the first boy was right. Newâsi's eyes had seen something day and

night, night and day, ever since they had strained into the darkness

after Prince Abool-Bukr when he broke from the kind detaining hand and

disappeared from the Mufti's quarter. And that something was a flood

of sunlight holding a figure, as she had seen it more than once, in a

wild unreasoning paroxysm of sheer terror. It seemed to her as if she

could hear those white lips gasping once more over the cry which

brought the vision. "Why didst not let me live mine own life, die mine

own death? but to die--to die needlessly--to die in the sunlight

perhaps."

There was a flood of it now outside the ruth as it lumbered

along by the jail, not a quarter of a mile yet from the city gate.

Half-shivering she peeped through the gay patchwork curtains to assure

herself it held no horror.

God and his Holy Prophet! What was that crowd on the road ahead? No,

not ahead, she was in it, now, so that the oxen paused, unable to go

on. A crowd, a cluster of spear-points, and then, against the jail

wall, an open space round another ruth, an Englishman on foot, three

figures stripped. No; not three! only two, for one had fallen as the

crack of a carbine rang through the startled air. Two? But one, now,

and that, oh! saints have mercy! the vision! the vision! It was Abool,

dodging like a hare, begging for bare life; seeking it, at last, out

of the sunshine, under the shadow of the ruth wheels.

"Abool! Abool!" she screamed. "I am here. Come! I am here."

Did he hear the kind voice? He may have, for it echoed clear before

the third and final crack of the carbine. So clear that the driver,

terrified lest it should bring like punishment on him, drove his goad

into the oxen; and the next instant they were careering madly down a

side road, bumping over watercourses and ditches. But Newâsi felt no

more buffetings. She lay huddled up inside, as unconscious as that

other figure which, by Major Hodson's orders, was being dragged out

from under the wheels and placed upon it beside the two other corpses

for conveyance to the city. And none of all the crowd, ready--so the

tale runs--to rescue the Princes lest death should be their portion in

the future, raised voice or hand to avenge them now that it had come

so ruthlessly, so wantonly. Perhaps the English guard at the Delhi

gate cowed them, as it had cowed those who the day before had followed

the King so far, then slunk away.

So the little _cortège_ moved on peacefully; far more peacefully

than the other ruth, which, with _its_ unconscious burden, was racing

Kutb-ward as if it was afraid of the very sunshine. But the Princess

Farkhoonda, huddled up in all her jewels and fineries, had forgotten

even that; forgotten even that vision seen in it.

But Hodson as he rode at ease behind the dead Princes seemed to court

the light. He gloried in the deed, telling himself that "in less than

twenty-four hours he had disposed of the principal members of the

House of Timoor"; so fulfilling his own words written weeks before,

"If I get into the Palace, the House of Timoor will not be worth five

minutes' purchase, I ween." Telling himself also, that in shooting

down with his own hand men who had surrendered without stipulations to

his generosity and clemency, surrendered to a hundred troopers when

they had five thousand men behind them, he "had rid the earth of

ruffians." Telling himself that he was "glad to have had the

opportunity, and was game to face the moral risk of praise or blame."

He got the former unstintingly from most of his fellows as, in

triumphant procession, the bodies were taken to the chief police

station, there to be exposed, so say eye-witnesses, "In the very spot

where, four months before, Englishwomen had been outraged and

murdered, in the very place where their helpless victims had lain."

A strange perversion of the truth, responsible, perhaps, not only for

the praise, but for the very deed itself; so Mohammed Ismail's barter

of his truth and soul for the lives of the forty prisoners at the

Kolwâb counted for nothing in the judgment of this world.

But Hodson lacked either praise or blame from one man. John Nicholson

lay too near the judgment of another world to be disturbed by vexed

questions in this; and when the next morning came, men, meeting each

other, said sadly, "He is dead."

The news, brought to Kate Erlton by Captain Morecombe when he came

over to report another failure, took the heart out of even her hope.

"There is no use in my staying longer, I'm afraid," she said quietly.

"I'm only in the way. I will go back to Meerut; and then home--to the

boy."

"I think it would be best," he replied kindly. "I can arrange for you

to start to-morrow morning. You will be the better for a change; it

will help you to forget."

She smiled a little bitterly; but when he had gone she set to work,

packing up such of her husband's things as she wished the boy to have

with calm deliberation; and early in the afternoon went over to the

garden of her old house to get some fresh flowers for what would be

her last visit to that rear-guard of graves. To take, also, her last

look at the city, and watch it grow mysterious in the glamour of

sunset. Seen from afar it seemed unchanged. A mass of rosy light and

lilac shadow, with the great white dome of the mosque hanging airily

above the smoke wreaths.

Yet the end had come to its four months' dream as it had come to hers.

Rebellion would linger long, but its stronghold, its very _raison

d'être_, was gone. And Memory would last longer still; yet surely it

would not be all bitter. Hers was not. Then with a rush of real regret

she thought of the peaceful roof, of old Tiddu, of the Princess

Farkhoonda--Tara--Soma--of Sri Anunda in his garden. Was she to go

home to safe, snug England, live in a suburb, and forget? Forget all

but the tragedy! Yet even that held beautiful memories. Alice Gissing

under young Mainwaring's scarf, while he lay at her feet. Her husband

leaving a good name to his son. Did not these things help to make the

story perfect? No! not perfect. And with the remembrance her eyes

filled with sudden tears. There would always be a blank for her in the

record. The Spirit which had moved on the Face of the Waters, bringing

their chance of Healing and Atonement to so many, had left hers in the

shadow. She had learned her lesson. Ah! yes; she had learned it. But

the chance of using it?

As she sat on the plinth of the ruined veranda, watching the city

growing dim through the mist of her tears, John Nicholson's words came

back to her once more, "If ever you have the chance"; but it would

never come now--never!

She started up wildly at the clutch of a brown hand on her wrist--a

brown hand with a circlet of dead gold above it.

"Come!" said a voice behind her; "come quick! he needs you."

"Tara!" she gasped--"Tara! Is--is he alive then?"

"He would not need the mem if he were dead," came the swift reply.

Then with her wild eyes fixed on another gold circlet upon the wrist

she held, Tara laughed shrilly. "So the mem wears it still. She has

not forgotten. Women do not forget, white or black"--with a strange

stamp of her foot she interrupted herself fiercely--"come, I say,

come!"

If there had been doubts as to the Rajpootni's sanity at times in past

days, there was none now. A glance at her face was sufficient. It was

utterly distraught, the clutch on Kate's arm utterly uncontrolled; so

that, involuntarily, the latter shrank back.

"The mem is afraid," cried Tara exultantly. "So be it! I will go back

and tell the master. Tell him I was right and he wrong, for all the

English he chattered. I will tell him the mem is not suttee--how could

she be----"

The old taunt roused many memories, and made Kate ready to risk

anything. "I am coming, Tara--but where?" She stood facing the tall

figure in crimson, a tall figure also, in white, her hands full of the

roses she had gathered.

Tara looked at her with that old mingling of regret and approbation,

jealousy and pride. "Then she must come at once. He is dying--may be

dead ere we get back."

"Dead!" echoed Kate faintly. "Is he wounded then?"

A sort of somber sullenness dulled the excitement of Tara's face. "He

is ill," she replied laconically. Suddenly, however, she burst out

again: "The mem need not look so! I have done all--all she could have

done. It is his fault. He will not take things. The mem can do no

more; but I have come to her, so that none shall say, 'Tara killed the

master.' So come. Come quick!"

Five minutes after Kate was swinging cityward in a curtained dhooli

which Tara had left waiting on the road below, and trying to piece out

a consecutive story from the odd jumble of facts and fancies and

explanations which Tara poured into her ear between her swift abuse of

the bearers for not going faster, and her assertion that there was no

need to hurry. The mem need not hope to save the Huzoor, since

everything had been done. It seemed, however, that Tiddu had taken

back the letter telling of Kate's safety, and that in consequence of

this the master had arranged to leave the city in a day or two, and

Tiddu--born liar and gold grubber, so the Rajpootni styled him--had

gone off at once to make more money. But on the very eve of his going

back to the Ridge, Jim Douglas had been struck down with the Great

Sickness, and after two or three days, instead of getting better, had

fallen--as Tara put it--into the old way. So far Kate made out

clearly; but from this point it became difficult to understand the

reproaches, excuses, pathetic assertions of helplessness, and fierce

declarations that no one could have done more. But what was the use of

the Huzoor's talking English all night? she said; even a suttee could

not go out when everyone was being shot in the streets. Besides, it

was all obstinacy. The master could have got well if he had tried. And

who was to know where to find the mem? Indeed, if it had not been for

Sri Anunda's gardener, who knew all the gardener folk, of course, she

would not have found the mem even now; for she would never have known

which house to inquire at. Not that it would have mattered, since the

mem could do nothing--nothing--nothing----

Kate, looking down on the bunch of white flowers which she had

literally been too hurried to think of laying aside, felt her heart

shrink. They were rather a fateful gift to be in her hands now. Had

they come there of set purpose, and would the man who had done so much

for her be beyond all care save those pitiful offices of the dead?

Still, even that was better than that he should lie alone, untended.

So, urged by Tara's vehement upbraidings, the dhooli-bearers lurched

along, to stop at last. It seemed to Kate as if her heart stopped

also. She could not think of what might lie before her as she followed

Tara up the dark, strangely familiar stair. Surely, she thought, she

would have known it among a thousand. And there was the step on which

she had once crouched terror-stricken, because she was shut out from

shelter within. But now Tara's fingers were at the padlock, Tara's

hand set the door wide.

Kate paused on the threshold, feeling, in truth, dazed once more at

the strange familiarity of all things. It seemed to her as if she had

but just left that strip of roof aglow with the setting, sun, the

bubble dome of the mosque beginning to flush like a cloud upon the

sky. But Tara, watching her with resentful eyes, put a different

interpretation on the pause, and said quickly:

"He is within. The mem was away, and it was quieter. But the rest is

all the same--there is nothing forgotten--nothing."

Kate, however, heard only the first words, and was already across the

outer roof to gain the inner one. Tara, still beyond the threshold,

watched her disappear, then stood listening for a minute, with a face

tragic in its intensity. Suddenly a faint voice broke the silence, and

her hands, which had been tightly clenched, relaxed. She closed the

door silently, and went downstairs.

Meanwhile Kate, on the inner roof, had paused beside the low string

bed set in its middle, scarcely daring to look at its burden, and so

put hope and fear to the touchstone of truth. But as she stood

hesitating, a voice, querulous in its extreme weakness, said in

Hindustani:

"It is too soon, Tara; I don't want anything; and--and you needn't

wait--thank you."

He lay with his face turned from her, so she could stand, wondering

how best to break her presence to him, noting with a failing heart the

curious slackness, the lack of contour even on that hard string bed.

He seemed lost, sunk in it; and she had seen that sign so often of

late that she knew what it meant. One thing was certain, he must have

food--stimulants if possible--before she startled him. So she stole

back to the outer roof, expecting to find Tara there, and Tara's help.

But the roof lay empty, and a sudden fear lest, after all, she had

only come to see him die, while she was powerless to fight that death

from sheer exhaustion, which seemed so perilously near, made her put

down the bunch of flowers she held with an impatient gesture. What a

fool she had been not to think of other things!

But as she glanced round, her eye fell on a familiar earthenware

basin kept warm in a pan of water over the ashes. It was full of

_chikken-brât_, and excellent of its kind, too. Then in a niche stood

milk and eggs--a bottle of brandy, arrow-root---everything a nurse

could wish for. And in another, evidently in case the brew should be

condemned, was a fresh chicken ready for use. Strange sights these to

bring tears of pity to a woman's eyes; but they did. For Kate, reading

between the lines of poor Tara's confusion, began to understand the

tragedy underlying those words she had just heard:

"I don't want anything, Tara. And you needn't wait, thank you." She

seemed to see, with a flash, the long, long days which had passed,

with that patient, polite negative coming to chill the half distraught

devotion.

He must take something now, for all that. So, armed with a cup and

spoon, she went back, going round the bed so that he could see her.

"It is time for your food, Mr. Greyman," she said quietly; "when you

have taken some, I'll tell you everything. Only you must take this

first." As she slipped her hand under him, pillow and all, to raise

his head slightly, she could see the pained, puzzled expression narrow

his eyes as he swallowed a spoonful. Then with a frown he turned his

head from her impatiently.

"You must take three," she insisted; "you must, indeed, Mr. Greyman.

Then I will tell you--everything."

His face came back to hers with the faintest shadow of his old

mutinous sarcasm upon it, and he lay looking at her deliberately for a

second or two. "I thought you were a ghost," he said feebly at last;

"only they don't bully. Well let's get it over."

The memory of many such a bantering reply to her insistence in the

past sent a lump to her throat and kept her silent. The little low

stool on which she had been wont to sit beside him was in its old

place, and half-mechanically she drew it closer, and, resting her

elbow on the bed as she used to do, looked round her, feeling as if

the last six weeks were a dream. Tara had told truth. Everything was

in its place. There were flowers in a glass, a spotless fringed cloth

on the brass platter. The pity held in these trivial signs brought a

fresh pang to her heart for that other woman.

But Jim Douglas, lying almost in the arms of death, was not thinking

of such things.

"Then Delhi must have fallen," he said suddenly in a stronger voice.

"Did Nicholson take it?"

"Yes," she replied quietly, thinking it best to be concise and give

him, as it were, a fresh grip on facts. "It has fallen. The King is a

prisoner, the Princes have been shot, and most of the troops move on

to-morrow toward Agra."

It epitomized the situation beyond the possibility of doubt, and he

gave a faint sigh. "Then it is all over. I'm glad to hear it. Tara

never knew anything; and it seemed so long."

Had she known and refused to tell, Kate wondered? or in her insane

absorption had she really thought of nothing but the chance Fate had

thrown in her way of saving this man's life? Yes! it must have been

very long. Kate realized this as she watched the spent and weary face

before her, its bright, hollow eyes fixed on the glow which was now

fast fading from the dome. "All over!" he murmured to himself. "Well!

I suppose it couldn't be helped."

She followed his thought unerringly; and a great pity for this man who

had done nothing, where others had done so much, surged up in her and

made her seek to show his fate no worse than others. Besides, this

discouragement was fatal, for it pointed to a lack of that desire for

life which is the best weapon against death. She might fail to rouse

him, as those had failed who, but a day or two before, had sent

a bit of red ribbon representing the Victoria Cross to the dying

Salkeld--the hero of the Cashmere gate--and only gained in reply a

faint smile and the words, "They will like it at home." Still she

would try.

"Yes, it is over!" she echoed, "and it has cost so many lives

uselessly. General Nicholson lost his trying to do the impossible--so

people say."

Jim Douglas still lay staring at the fading glow. "Dead!" he murmured.

"That is a pity. But he took Delhi first. He said he would."

"And my husband----" she began.

He turned then, with curiously patient courtesy. "I know. Nicholson

wrote that in his letter. And I have been glad--glad he had his

chance, and--and--made so much of it."

Once more she followed his thought; knew that, though he was too proud

to confess it, he was saying to himself that he had had his chance too

and had done nothing. So she answered it as if he had spoken.

"And you had your chance of saving a woman," she said, with a break in

her voice, "and you saved her. It isn't much, I suppose. It counts as

nothing to you. Why should it? But to me----" She broke off, losing

her purpose for him in her own bitter regret and vague resentment.

"Why didn't you let them kill me, and then go away?" she went on

almost passionately. "It would have been better than saving me to

remember always that I stood in your way--better than giving me no

chance of repaying you for all--ah! think how much! Better than

leaving me alone to a new life--like--like all the others have done."

She buried her face on her arm as it rested on the pillow with a sob.

This, then, was the end, she thought, this bitter unavailing regret

for both.

So for a space there was silence while she sat with her face hidden,

and he lay staring at that darkening dome. But suddenly she felt his

hot hand find hers; so thin, so soft, so curiously strong still in its

grip.

"Give me some more wine or something," came his voice consolingly.

"I'll try and stop--if I can."

She made an effort to smile back at him, but it was not very

successful. His, as she fed him, was better; but it did not help Kate

Erlton to cheerfulness, for it was accompanied by a murmur that the

_chikken-brât_ was very different from Tara's stuff. So she seemed to

see a poor ghost glowering at them from the shadows, asking her how

she dared take all the thanks. And the ghost remained long after Jim

Douglas had dozed off; remained to ask, so it seemed to Kate Erlton,

every question that could be asked about the mystery of womanhood and

manhood.

But Tara herself asked none when in the first gray glimmer of dawn she

crept up the stairs again and stood beside the sleepers. For Kate,

wearied out, had fallen asleep crouched up on the stool, her head

resting on the pillow, her arm flung over the bed to keep that touch

on his hand which seemed to bring him rest. Tara, once more in her

widow's dress, looked down on them silently, then threw her bare arms

upward. So for a second she stood, a white-shrouded appealing figure

against that dark shadow of the dome which blocked the paling eastern

sky. Then stooping, her long, lissome fingers busied themselves

stealthily with the thin gold chain about the sick man's neck; for

there was something in the locket attached to it which was hers by

right now. Hers, if she could have nothing else; for she was

suttee--suttee!

The unuttered cry was surging through her heart and brain, rousing a

mad exultation in her, when half an hour afterward she re-entered the

narrow lane leading to the arcaded courtyard with the black old shrine

hiding under the tall peepul tree. And what was that hanging over the

congeries of roofs and stairs, the rabbit warren of rooms and passages

where her pigeon-nest was perched? A canopy of smoke, and below it

leaping flames. There were many wanton fires in Delhi during those

first few days of license, and this was one of them; but already, in

the dawn, English officers were at work giving orders, limiting the

danger as much as possible.

"We can't save that top bit," said one at last, then turned to one of

his fatigue party. "Have you cleared everybody out, sergeant, as I

told you?"

"Yes, sir! it's quite empty."

It had been so five minutes before. It was not now; for that canopy of

smoke, those licking tongues of flame, had given the last touch to

Tara's unstable mind. She had crept up and up, blindly, and was now on

her knees in that bare room set round with her one scrap of culture,

ransacking an old basket for something which had not seen the light

for years, her scarlet tinsel-set wedding dress. Her hands were

trembling, her wild eyes blazed like fires themselves.

And below, men waited calmly for the flames to claim this, their last

prize; for the turret stood separated from the next house.

"My God!" came an English voice, as something showed suddenly upon the

roof. "I thought you said it was empty--and that's a woman!"

It was. A woman in a scarlet, tinsel-set dress, and all the poor

ornaments she possessed upon her widespread arms. So, outlined against

the first sun-ray she stood, her shrill chanting voice rising above

the roar and rush of the flames.

"Oh! Guardians eight, of this world and the next. Sun, Moon, and Air,

Earth, Ether, Water, and my own poor soul bear witness! Oh! Lord of

death, bear witness that I come. Day, Night, and Twilight say I am

suttee."

There was a louder roar, a sudden leaping of the flames, and the

turret sank inwardly. But the chanting voice could be heard for a

second in the increasing silence which followed.

"Shive-jee hath saved His own," said the crowd, looking toward the

unharmed shrine.

And over on the other side of the city, Kate Erlton, roused by that

same first ray of sunlight, was looking down with a smile upon Jim

Douglas before waking him. The sky was clear as a topaz, the purple

pigeons were cooing and sidling on the copings. And in the bright,

fresh light she saw the gold locket lying open on the sleeper's

breast. She had often wondered what it held, and now--thinking he

might not care to find it at her mercy--stooped to close it.

But it was empty.

The snap, slight as it was, roused him. Not, however, to a knowledge

of the cause, for he lay looking up at her in his turn.

"So it is all over," he said softly, but he said it with a smile.

Yes! It was all over. Down on the parade ground behind the Ridge the

bugles were sounding, and the men who had clung to the red rocks for

so long were preparing to leave them for assault elsewhere.

But one man was taking an eternal hold upon them; for John Nicholson

was being laid in his grave. Not in the rear-guard, however, but in

the van, on the outer-most spur of the Ridge abutting on the city

wall, within touch almost of the Cashmere gate. Being laid in his

grave--by his own request--without escort, without salute; for he knew

that he had failed.

So he lies there facing the city he took. But his real grave was in

that narrow lane within the walls where those who dream can see him

still, alone, ahead, with yards of sheer sunlight between him and his

fellow-men.

Yards of sheer sunlight between that face with its confident glance

forward, that voice with its clear cry, "Come on, men! Come on!" and

those--the mass of men--who with timorous look backward hear in that

call to go forward nothing but the vain regret for things familiar

that must be left behind. "Going! Going! Gone!"

So, in a way, John Nicholson stands symbol of the many lives lost

uselessly in the vain attempt to go forward too fast.

Yet his voice echoed still to the dark faces and the light alike:

"Come on, men! Come on!"

BOOK VI.

APPENDIX A.

_From_ A. DASHE, _Collector and Magistrate of Kujabpore, to_ R. TAPE,

_Esq., Commissioner and Superintendent of Kwâbabad_.

_Fol. No_. O.

Dated 11th May, 1858.

SIR: In reply to your No. 103 of the 20th April requesting me to

report on the course of the Mutiny in my district, the measures taken

to suppress it, and its effects, if any, on the judicial, executive,

and financial work under my charge, I have the honor to inclose a

brief statement, which for convenience' sake I have drafted under the

usual headings of the annual report which I was unable to send in till

last week. I regret the delay, but the pressure of work in the English

office due to the revising of forfeiture and pension lists made it

unavoidable.

I have the honor, etc., etc.,

A. DASHE, _Coll. and Magte_.

_Introductory Remarks_.[10]--So far as my district is concerned, the

late disturbances have simply been a military mutiny. At no time could

they be truthfully called a rebellion. In the outlying posts, indeed,

the people knew little or nothing of what was going on around them,

and even in the towns resistance was not thought of until the prospect

of any immediate suppression of the mutiny disappeared.

The small force of soldiers in my district of course followed the

example of their brethren. Nothing else could be expected from our

position midway between two large cantonments; indeed the continuous

stream of mutinous troops which passed up and down the main road

during the summer had a decidedly bad effect.

I commenced to disperse the disturbers of the public peace on the 21st

May. These were largely escaped felons from the Meerut jail; and the

fact that they were quite indiscriminate in their lawlessness enabled

me to rally most of the well-doing people on my side. I hanged a few

of the offenders, and having enlisted a small corps with the aid of

some native gentlemen (whose names I append for reference), sent it

out under charge of my assistant (I myself being forced throughout the

whole business to remain at headquarters and keep a grip on things) to

put down some Goojurs and other predatory tribes who took occasion to

resort to their ancestral habits of life.

No real opposition, however, was ever met with; but in June (after our

failure to take Delhi by a _coup de main_ became known) there was an

organized attempt to seize the Treasury. Fortunately I had some twenty

or thirty of my new levy in headquarters at the time, so that the

attempt failed, and I was able to bring one or two of the ringleaders

(one, I regret to say, a man of considerable importance in my

district) to justice.

I subsequently made several applications to the nearest cantonment for

a few European soldiers to escort my treasure--some two lakhs--to

safer quarters. But this, unfortunately, could not be granted to me,

so I had to keep a strong guard of men over the money who might have

been more useful elsewhere.

Until the fall of Delhi matters remained much the same. Isolated bands

of marauders ravaged portions of my district, often, I regret to say,

escaping before punishment could be meted out to them. The general

feeling was one of disquiet and alarm to both Europeans and natives.

My table attendant, for instance, absented himself from dinner one

day, sending a substitute to do his work, under the belief that I had

given orders for a general slaughter of Mohammedans that evening. I

had done nothing of the kind.

After the fall of Delhi, as you are aware, the mutinous fugitives,

some fifty or sixty thousand strong, marched southward in a compact

body and caused much alarm. But after camping on the outskirts of my

district for a few days, they suddenly disappeared. I am told they

dispersed during one night, each to his own home. Anyhow they

literally melted away, and the public mind seemed to become aware that

the contest was over, and that the struggle to subvert British rule

had ignominiously failed. Matters therefore assumed a normal aspect,

but I believe that there is more shame, sorrow, and regret in the

hearts of many than we shall probably ever have full cognizance of,

and that it will take years for the one race to regain its confidence,

the other its self-respect.

_Civil Judicature_.--The courts were temporarily suspended for a week

or two; after that original work went on much as usual, but the

appellate work suffered. There was an indisposition both to institute

and hear appeals, possibly due to the total eclipse of the higher

appellate courts. I myself had little leisure for civil cases.

_Criminal Justice_.--There has been far less crime than usual during

the past year. Possibly because much of it had necessarily to be

treated summarily and so did not come on the record. I am inclined to

believe, however, that petty offenses really are fewer when serious

crime is being properly dealt with.

_Police_.--The less said about the behavior of the police the better.

The force simply melted away; but as it was always inefficient its

absence had little effect, save, perhaps, in a failure to bring up

those trivial offenses mentioned in the last para.

_Jails_.--The jail was happily preserved throughout; for the addition

of four or five hundred felons to the bad characters of my district

might have complicated matters. I was peculiarly fortunate in this,

since I learn that only nine out of the forty-three jails in the

Province were so held.

_Revenue_ (_Sub-head, Land_).--The arrears under this head are less

than usual, and there seems no reason to apprehend serious loss to

Government.

(_Opium_).--There has, I regret to say, been considerable detriment to

our revenue under this head, due to the fact that the smuggling of the

drug is extremely easy, owing to its small bulk, and that the demand

was greater than usual.

(_Stamps_).--The revenue here shows an increase of Rs. 72,000. I am

unable to account for this, unless the prevailing uncertainty made the

public mind incline toward what security it could compass in the

matter of bonds, agreements, etc.

(_Salt and Customs_).--This department shows a very creditable record.

My subordinates, with the help of a few volunteers, were able to

maintain the Customs line throughout the whole disturbances. Its value

as a preventative of roving lawlessness cannot be over-estimated. Four

hundred and eighty-two smugglers were punished, and the Customs

brought in Rs. 33,770 more than in '56. But the work done by this

handful of isolated European patrols, with only a few natives under

them, to the cause of law and order, cannot be estimated in money.

_Education_.--The higher education went on as usual. Primary

instruction suffered. Female schools disappeared altogether.

_Public Works_.--Many things combined to stop anything like a vigorous

prosecution of new public works, and those in hand were greatly

retarded.

_Post-Office_.--The work in this department suffered occasional lapses

owing to the murder of solitary runners by lawless ruffians, but the

service continued fairly efficient. An attempt was made, by the

confiscation of sepoys' letters, to discover if any organized plan of

attack or resistance was in circulation, but nothing incriminatory was

found, the correspondence consisting chiefly of love-letters.

_Financial_.--At one time the necessary cash for the pay of

establishments ran short, but this was met by bills upon native

bankers, who have since been repaid.

_Hospitals_.--The dispensaries were in full working order throughout

the year, and the number of cases treated--especially for wounds and

hurts, many of them grievous--above the average.

_Health and Population_.--Both were normal, and the supply of food

grains ample. Markets strong, and well supplied throughout. Some grain

stores were burned, some plundered; but, as a rule, if A robbed B, B

in his turn robbed C. So the matter adjusted itself. In many cases

also, the booty was restored amicably when it became evident that

Government could hold its own.

_Agriculture_.--Notwithstanding the violence of contest, the many

instances of plundered and burned villages, the necessary impressment

of labor and cattle, and the license of mutineers consorting with

felons, agricultural interests did not suffer. Plowing and sowing went

on steadily, and the land was well covered with a full winter crop.

_General Remarks_.--Beyond these plundered and burned villages, which

are still somewhat of an eyesore, though they are recovering

themselves rapidly, the only result of the Mutiny to be observed in my

district is that money seems scarcer, and so the cultivators have to

pay a higher rate of interest on loans.

There are, of course, some empty chairs in the district durbar. I

append a list of their late occupants also, and suggest that the

vacancies might be filled from the other list, as some of those

gentlemen who helped to raise the levy have not yet got chairs.

In regard to future punishments, however, I venture to suggest that

orders should be issued limiting the period during which mutineers can

be brought to justice. If some such check on malicious accusation be

not laid down we shall have a fine crop of false cases, perjuries,

etc., since the late disturbances have, naturally, caused a good many

family differences. In view of this also, I believe it would be

safest, in the event of such accusations in the future, to punish the

whole village to which the alleged mutineer belongs by a heavy fine,

rather than to single out individuals as examples. In a case like the

present it is extremely difficult to measure the exact proportion of

guilt attachable to each member of the community, and, even with the

very greatest care, I find it is not always possible to hang the right

man. And this is a difficulty which will increase as time goes on.

APPENDIX B.

DELHI, Christmas Day, 1858.

DEAR MRS. ERLTON: I can scarcely believe that two whole years have

passed since I helped you to decorate a Christmas-tree in the

Government college here. Those long months before the walls, and those

others of wild chase after vanishing mutineers over half India seem to

belong to someone else's existence now that I--and the world around

me--are back in the commonplaces of life. I was down to-day helping

the chaplain's wife with another tree--she has a very pretty sister,

by the way, just out from England--and I almost fancied as I looked

into the dim screened veranda where we are going to have an

entertainment, that I could see you sitting there with little Sonny

Seymour on your lap as I found you that afternoon half asleep--that

interminable play about the Lord of Life and Death (wasn't it?) had

been too much for you.

Well, I can only hope that Mr. Douglas' health and the pleasures of

that Scotch home, of which you wrote me such a delightful description,

will allow of your returning to India sometime and giving me a sight

of you again.

Meanwhile I am reminded that I sent you off a small parcel by last

mail which I trust may arrive before the wedding, as this should do,

and convey to you the kindly remembrances of friends many thousand

miles away. Not that you will need to be reminded. I fancy that few

who went through the Indian Mutiny will ever need to have the faces

and places they saw there recalled to their memory. Terrible as it was

at the time, I myself feel that I would not willingly forget a single

detail. So, being certain that it holds your interest, your

imagination also, I am inclosing something for you to read. Can you

not imagine the Silent and Diffident Dashe writing it? I can, and the

careful way in which he would order the gallows to be removed and lay

down his sword in favor of his pen at the earliest opportunity. You

see he favors clemency Canning. So do most of us out here except

those who have not yet recovered their nerves. I remember hearing

Hodson--sad, wasn't it? his death over a needless piece of

dare-devilry--very angry over something Mr. Douglas said about our all

being in a blind funk. I am afraid it was true of a good many. Not

Dashe, however, he kept his district together by sheer absence of

fear, and so did many another. This report, then, will carry you on in

the story, as it were, since you left us. For the rest, there is not

much to tell. You remember our old mess khânsaman Numgal Khân? He

turned up, with his bill, and out of pure delight insisted on feasting

us so lavishly that we had to make him moderate his transports. Even

with _batta_ and prize money we should all have been bankrupt, like

the royal family. I can't help pitying it. Of course we have pensioned

the lot, but I expect precious little hard cash gets to some of those

wretched women. One of them, no less a person than the Princess

Farkhoonda Zamâni, that beast Abool-bukr's ally, has set up a girls'

school in the city. If she had only befriended you instead of turning

you out to find your own fate, she would have done better for herself.

Talking of friends and foes, it is rather amusing to find the villages

full of men busy at their plows with a suspiciously military set about

the shoulders, who, according to their own showing, never wore

uniform, or doffed it before the Mutiny began. I was much struck with

one of these defaulters the other day; a big Rajpoot, who, but for his

name, might have stood for the Laodicean sepoy you told me about. But

names can be changed, so can faces; and that reminds me that I had a

petition from that old scoundrel Tiddu the other day--you know I have

been put on to civil work lately, and shall end, I suppose, by being a

Commissioner as well as a Colonel. He has had a grant of land given

him for life, and he now wants the tenure extended in favor of one

Jhungi, who, he declares, helped you in your marvelous escape. It

seems there was another brother, one Bhungi, who--but I own to being a

little confused in the matter. Perhaps you can set me straight.

Meanwhile, I have pigeon-holed the Jhungi-Bhungi claim until I hear

from you. The old man was well, and asked fervently after Sonny, who,

by the way, goes home from Lucknow in the spring. I expect the

Seymours are about the only family in India which came out of the

business unscathed; yet they were in the thick of it. Truly the whole

thing was a mystery from beginning to end. I asked a native yesterday

if he could explain it, but he only shook his head and said the Lord

had sent a "breath into the land." But the most remarkable thing to my

mind about the whole affair is the rapidity with which it proved the

stuff a man was made of. You can see that by looking into the

cemeteries. India is a dead level for the present; all the heads that

towered above their fellows laid low. Think of them all! Havelock,

Lawrence, Outram. The names crowd to one's lips; but they seem to

begin and end with one--Nicholson!

Well, good-by! I have not wished you luck--that goes without saying;

but tell Douglas I'm glad he had his chance.

Ever yours truly,

CHARLES MORECOMBE.

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 1: From Colonel W. Wheler's defense.]

[Footnote 2: This question is one which must be asked as we look back

through the years on this pitiful spectacle of the loyal regiment,

unarmed, facing the disloyal one shooting down its officers. Briefly,

on whom would the seventy men of the 11th, who never left the colors,

the hundred and twenty men who returned to them after the short night

of tumult was over, have fired if a company of English troops had come

up to turn the balance in favor of loyalty?]

[Footnote 3: (How? His house lay a mile at least further off, and the

Collector's office was on the only route a messenger could take. No

record explains this. But the best ones mention casually that a

telegram of warning came to Delhi in the early morning of the 11th.

Whence? the wires to Meerut were cut. Lahore, Umballa, Agra, did not

know the news themselves. Can the story--improbable in any other

history, but in this record of fatal mistakes gaining a pathetic

probability--which the old folk in Delhi tell be true? The story of a

telegram sent _unofficially_ from Meerut the night before, received

while the Commissioner was at dinner, put unopened into his pocket,

and _forgotten_.

Not susceptible of proof or disproof, it certainly explains three

things:

1. Whence the warning telegram came.

2. Why the Commissioner received information before a man a good mile

nearer the source.

3. Why the Collector _at once_ sought for military aid.)]

[Footnote 4: From the account in the native papers.]

[Footnote 5: From a contemporaneous account.]

[Footnote 6: Chicken broth.]

[Footnote 7: 61st, 1st Fusiliers, 2d Punjabees.]

[Footnote 8: His widow died last year, having spent thirty-eight years

of her fifty-four in cherishing the memory of a saint upon earth.]

[Footnote 9: (Hodson in his diary says that the promise was virtually

given _two_ days before the capture. This was the 21st. It must

therefore have been given on the 19th. _Most likely_ in Elahi Buksh's

house. If so, on Hodson's own authority. Query. Was he there in

person?)]

[Footnote 10: Every statement in this supposed report has been gleaned

from a real one, or from official papers published at the time. I am

responsible for nothing but occasionally the wording.]

End of Project Gutenberg's On the Face of the Waters, by Flora Annie Steel