out came old guns, old swords sharpened to razor-like edges, great
pistols, clubs, skinning-knives, daggers. Then, up and up through the
dark jungle they thronged, hordes of them in the grip of a red and
silent frenzy. Chandra was in the forefront, but the leader was his
Honor the District Judge, a glassy-eyed, tight-lipped Mussulman in a
loincloth and a greasy turban.
The lights of the Collector's bungalow came in view, and the leader
thought of young Capper, and rushed on, frothing like a madman, waving
his sword above his head. Then he paused, and ran back to meet the
laggards of a yard or two.
"Only the men!" he shouted.
Chandra mocked at him as the press bore him onward again, with scarcely
an instant's halt.
"Only the men, my brother!" he echoed.
A few of the native police stood guard at the Collector's gates, but
they turned and fled before the overwhelming numbers of the attacking
force. Up the long drive the dark wave poured, and into the wide, bright
rooms. The bungalow was deserted. Some fleet-footed servant had brought
warning in time, and the British were well out of the town by the other
road, with young Capper and a score of his men guarding their rear.
The mob howled with disappointment. The next instant it was screaming
with triumph as it settled down to sack and burn and destroy.
The Judge went into the dining-room, and looked at the long table still
decked with silver, and glass, and flowers. He looked at the chair on
which he had sat, with Joan Malcolm at his side, and he picked it up and
dashed it with all his might into a great ivory-framed mirror, and
laughed aloud at the crash, and the ruin, and the rain of jagged
splinters.
"India must pass into the hands of the Indians!"
"Oh! _you_ think so--you think so--you think so...."
He overthrew a couple of standard lamps, and watched the liquid fire run
and eat up their silken shades, and run again and leap upon the snowy
curtains, and so, like lightning, spring to the ceiling, and lick the
dry rafters with a thousand darting tongues. Then, he was out in the
night again, the night of his life, the wonderful night that was calling
for blood, and would not be denied.
There was no lack of light now to make clear the path to vengeance. The
Collector's bungalow roared red to the very heavens, and flames shot up
in a dozen different parts of the town. The bazaar was looted, and
English-made goods were piled upon bonfires in the street. A greater mob
than had entered the town poured out of it, swift on the road to
Chinsurah where thousands of their brothers lay, lacking only courage
and leaders.
At the midway turn of the road where the giant trees rear themselves at
the side of the well, came a sudden check, and the mob fell back upon
itself, and grew dead silent. Those in the rear could only wait and
guess what had happened. The forefront saw that the road was barred. The
moon had risen, and well out in the white light, was Capper Sahib. Some
of his men were behind him. There were soldiers there, too, how many
could not be seen, for they were grouped in the velvety black shadows
which the trees flung across the road. There might have been only
fifty--or five hundred.
Young Capper came forward with his hands in his pockets, and stared at
them. They saw that he was not afraid. He spoke to them in Maharattee,
bluntly and earnestly, so that some of them wavered, and looked back. He
said they were fools, led by a few rotten schemers who had only personal
gain in view.
"Take good advice," he said, "go to your homes while ye may. Ignorant,
and greatly daring that ye are, the _bandar-log_, or such thievish scum
among ye, drive ye with idle words and chatterings even to the brink of
death. So far have ye come, but no farther----"
The Judge had snatched a villager's gun, and fired. Capper Sahib fell,
unspoken words upon his lips. His fair head draggled in the dust, and a
red stain showed suddenly upon the white linen over his breast.
A triumphant roar swept the mob from end to end. British rifles cracked
out the answer, and the bullets went home surely, into the rioting mass.
Amid shrill screams of pain and fury the leaders rallied their men, and
charged forward. A second volley stopped them, before young Capper's
prostrate body could be reached. Few had joined the attack, but now they
were fewer, and neither of the leaders stood among them.
That was the end. Bearing their dead and wounded, the rebels returned,
wailing as they went. Before daylight the townsmen were in their houses,
and the villagers had passed through the jungle, and regained their
homes. Arms were concealed with all haste. The dead were buried, the
wounded, for the most part, were hidden. Prisoners had been taken, but
only an inconsiderable number. Before daylight also, the headman of the
village, and a native surgeon came stealthily from the Judge's bungalow,
and went their ways. They had their order, and they went to spread it
abroad. The order was--_Silence!_ The headman had bowed himself to the
earth when it was given, for he understood all that it meant. Prisoners
would be brought before a brother, not only to-day, but to-morrow, and
for many morrows. So much had the night given them.
At noon His Honor came stiffly into the court-room, leaning upon the arm
of his native servant. The Collector, who was awaiting him there, feared
that he had been injured by the rioters on the previous night; but he
was quickly reassured. The Judge, it seemed, had sprained his knee
shortly after leaving the Malcolm's hospitable roof. It was nothing. A
mere trifle, though indisputably painful.
The Collector seated himself near the bench, and talked in a low voice.
The ladies were all safe. No Europeans had been killed, and few injured.
Capper had been shot by some cowardly dog while parleying with the
rioters, but there were good hopes of him.
The Judge was most truly concerned to hear of the calamity which had
befallen Mr. Capper--immensely thankful to know that things were no
worse with him.
His Honor had heard little or nothing of what had happened during the
riot, being laid by the leg, as it were, in his own room.
The first batch of prisoners was brought in. At first the Judge did not
look at them. Afterward his eyes sought their gaze, and held it, and
they knew him for their brother. They heard his soft voice speaking of
them compassionately, as wayward children whom mercy would win over,
though harshness might confirm them in their foolish resistance to
authority. The Collector seemed to protest, but with gentle courtesy
his objections were put aside. He leaned back in his chair, flushed and
angry, as one after another, the sullen-looking rebels were fined, and
having paid what was demanded, were set at liberty.
When the Judge looked up again, a single prisoner stood before him, a
wounded, hawk-faced native, whose eyes blazed hate and contempt. The
Collector drew his chair closer to the bench, and began to speak in
gruff undertones.
"A ring-leader. Man of some education, I understand--qualified as a
barrister, and has taken to journalism. Must make an example of
him--eh?"
The Judge, straining in agony of mind and body, was aware of sudden
relief from the pain of his wound. The bandage had slipped, and blood
was cooling the torturing fire. A deathly faintness was upon him, and
through it he spoke distinctly--again of mercy.
"They were all blind. The leaders were blind. The blind leading the
blind. Blind--blind----"
The Collector sprang up with a startled exclamation. A thin stream of
blood trickled from behind His Honor's desk, and went a twisting way
down to the well of the court. He caught the Judge in his arms as he
fell forward, and lowered him gently to the ground. Then it was seen
that the unconscious man's clothes were saturated with blood.
Instantly the court was cleared. A military surgeon cut away the
blood-stained clothing from the Judge's thigh, and laid bare the clean
wound made by a British bullet. A look passed between him and the
Collector, but never a word. Syed Mehta's life had ebbed with his blood,
and so he passed, unawakened, from swoon to death.
The English, as their way is, betrayed nothing. It was His Honor, the
District Judge of Golampore, who had died, and they gave him burial the
next day with due regard to the high position which he had held in the
service of H.M. the King and Emperor.
V
A FOG-HORN CONCLUSION
The Story of a Gramophone
By FOX RUSSELL
THE _Saucy Sally_ was a vessel of renown. No blustering liner, no fussy
tug, no squattering steamer, she; but a bluff-bowed, smartly painted,
trim-built sailing barge, plying chiefly from the lower reaches of the
Thames to ports west of Dover. She had no equal of her class, at any
point of sailing, and certainly her Master, Mr. Joseph Pigg, was not the
man to let her fair fame suffer for want of seamanship.
"Cap'n Pigg," as he insisted upon being called, was a great, hairy-faced
man, with brawny muscles and a blood-shot eye. And in these respects,
his mate, Bob Topper, greatly favored him--in fact, their physical
resemblance was rather marked; but their tastes were in no way similar;
'the Cap'n' was fond of his glass, whilst the mate was a blue-ribbon
man; Joseph Pigg couldn't bear music, in any form, whilst the total
abstainer had a weakness for the flute and would not infrequently burst
into song; the Skipper hated women, whereas the mate was, what he
himself called "a bit of a gay Lathero." But notwithstanding these
dissimilarities of tastes and disposition, they got along fairly well
together, and both met on the common ground of getting as much work out
of the two "hands" as was ordinarily possible. The Skipper didn't drink
alcoholic liquors before the mate, and the mate returned the compliment
by refraining from any musical outrage in the hearing of his superior
officer.
One hot summer afternoon, when the _Saucy Sally_ was taking in cargo and
the Skipper was ashore, Mr. Topper, seated on the coamings of the
hatchway, abandoned himself to the melancholy pleasures of Haydn's
"Surprise," the tune being wrung out of a tarnished German-silver flute.
"Kittiwake Jack," one of the crew, was seated as far as possible
for'ard, vainly trying to absorb his tea and stop his ears, at one and
the same time, whilst his fellow-sufferer, Bill Brown, having hastily
dived below, lay in his bunk, striving to deaden the weird, wailing
sounds that filled the ship. And just as Haydn's "Surprise" was half way
through, for the seventh time, the Skipper walked on board.
The flutist stopped short, and stared up at him.
"Didn't expect you back so soon, Cap'n," he said in confused tones.
"No. What's that 'owlin' row you're making?"
"I dunno about no 'owlin' row, but----"
"Well, I do. I s'pose, accordin' to you, I ain't got no musical h'ear,"
sneered Cap'n Pigg.
"This--this here tune----"
"Yes. This disgustin' noise--what is it?"
The mate looked sulky.
"This is Haydn's 'Surprise,'" he growled.
"So I should think. I dunno who the bloke was, but it must have given
Haydn quite a turn! Don't let's 'ave no more of it."
"Well, I don't see as there's no 'arm in music. And I didn't loose it
off when you was about. I know you don't like it, so I studied your
pecooliarities. Fact is, I studies yer too much," and the mate looked
mutinous.
Cap'n Pigg scowled.
"You shet yer 'ead," he grunted as he stamped off below. He went to a
small cupboard in the corner of the cabin, and mixed himself a stiff
"go" of gin and water, which he tossed off at one gulp, saying:
"Haydn's 'S'prise,' eh? Haydn's S'prise be d--dished! 'E don't come no
s'prises 'ere while I'm master of the _Saucy Sally_!"
After this slight breeze, things quickly settled down again on the old
lines between master and mate, and the voyage to Chichester Harbor was
entirely uneventful, the barge bringing up at a snug anchorage near
Emsworth.
The next day Mr. Topper had undressed and gone overboard for a swim.
After this, climbing up the bobstay, he regained the deck, and proceeded
to dry his hairy frame on an ancient flannel shirt. In the midst of this
occupation, temporarily forgetful of his superior officer's prejudices,
he broke into song.
Thirty seconds after he had let go the first howl, the Skipper's head
was thrust up the companion-way.
"Wodjer want to make all that row about? Anything disagreed with yer? If
so, why don't yer take something for it?"
"It's a funny thing yer carn't let a man alone, when all 'e's a doin' is
making a bit of 'armony on board," replied the mate, pausing in the act
of drying his shock head.
"'Armony be d--driven overboard!" cried Mr. Pigg, wrathfully. "Now, look
'ere, Bob Topper, I ain't a onreasonable man in my likes and dislikes,
but it ain't fair to sing at a feller creature with the voice nature
fitted you out with! I never done you no 'arm."
Next day the _Saucy Sally_ shipped some shingle ballast, got under weigh
on the first of the ebb tide, and safely threading her way past the
shallows and through the narrow channels of the harbor, emerged into the
open sea, and turned her bluff-bowed stem eastwards.
The following afternoon, as Bob Topper took his trick at the wheel, he
ruminated on the mutability of human affairs in general, and the
"contraryness" of skippers in particular.
"Won't 'ave no music, won't he? Well, I reckon it's like religion when
the missionaries is a shovin' of it into the African niggers--they just
jolly well got to 'ave it! An' so it'll be with the ole man. I'll jest
fix up a scheme as'll do 'im a treat."
He smiled broadly; and when Bob Topper smiled, the corners of his mouth
seemed to almost meet at the back of his head.
And as soon as the _Saucy Sally_ had pitched and tossed her way up
channel--for she was light as a cork in ballast--and dropped anchor a
little way off Gravesend, Bob Topper sculled himself ashore. Twenty
minutes after stepping out of the boat, he was seated in the back-parlor
of a friend, a musical-instrument maker.
When Mr. Topper went aboard again, he carried under his arm a large
brown paper package, which he smuggled below, without encountering the
Skipper, who was in his cabin at the time, communing with a bill of
lading and a glass of Hollands neat. And, soon after the mate had come
aboard, "the Cap'n" went ashore.
And then Mr. Topper laid himself out for some tranquil enjoyment, on
quite an unusual scale. He unfastened the package, produced a
gramophone, brought it on to the deck, and started "The Washington
Post."
"Kittiwake Jack" and Bill Brown immediately fled below.
The mate sat on the edge of the hatch and gazed lovingly at the new
instrument of torture, as he beat time to the inspiring strains, with a
belaying pin. When the "Washington Post," was finished, he laid on
"Jacksonville," with a chorus of human laughter, which sounded quite
eerie. And so intent was he on this occupation, that he never even
noticed the approach of Cap'n Pigg's boat until it was almost alongside.
The Skipper clambered aboard, looking black as thunder. This new outrage
was not to be borne. Just as his foot touched the deck the instrument
gave forth its unholy cachinnation of "Ha! Ha! Ha!" in the high nasal
tones peculiar to its kind.
Cap'n Pigg was not easily disconcerted, but this ghostly "Ha! Ha! Ha!"
was a distinct trial to his nerves; he thrust his hands deep into his
coat pockets, glared at the mate, and then growled:
"Wodjer got there? More 'armony?"
"Grammarphone," was the mate's brief reply. He was getting sulky.
"Grammar be blowed! Worst grammar I ever 'eard," returned Pigg. "Turn
the bloomin' thing off--and turn it off at the main. Enough to give any
respectable, law-abidin' sailor-man the 'ump!"
He proceeded two steps down the companion; then hurled this parting shot
at the offending mate:
"You oughter be 'ead of a laundry where the 'andle of the mangle turns a
pianer-horgan as well--work and play!" he concluded scornfully, as he
disappeared from the musician's sight below.
The mate whistled softly; then he stopped the offending instrument and
conveyed it below.
"P'raps the old man'll be glad of it, one o' these days," he muttered
mysteriously.
The next trip of the _Saucy Sally_ was a more eventful one. She left
Tilbury in a light haze, which first thickened into a pale-colored fog,
and then, aided by the smoke from the tall chimneys, to a regular
"pea-souper." The mate, taking advantage of the Captain's spell below,
brought up a long yard of tin, which looked remarkably like the _Saucy
Sally's_ fog-horn, and quietly slipped it overboard.
As they got lower and lower down the river, the fog increased, and both
Cap'n Pigg and Topper experienced a certain amount of anxiety as, first
another barge, then a tramp steamer, and finally, a huge liner, all
sounding their fog-horns loudly, passed them considerably too close for
comfort. The Skipper himself was at the wheel and, coughing the raw,
damp fog out of his throat, he shouted hoarsely to Topper:
"Better get our fog-horn goin', mate."
"Aye, aye, Skipper. It's in your cabin, ain't it?"
"Yes, in the first locker."
The mate descended the companion-steps, with a mysterious smile on his
face, and his dexter optic closed. The casual observer might have
thought that Mr. Topper was actually indulging in a wink.
After a time, he reappeared on deck, walked aft, and said:
"Fog-horn don't seem nowheres about, Skipper. Thought you always kept
her in your charge."
Cap'n Pigg whisked the wheel round just in time to escape a tug, fussing
up-stream, and feeling her way through the fog at half-speed, and then
he grunted sourly:
"So I do. What the d--delay in findin' it is, I can't understand. 'Ere,
ketch 'old o' the spokes, and I'll go; always got to do everything
myself on this old tank, seems to me."
And thus grumbling, Cap'n Pigg went below--not altogether unwillingly,
as, being a man who understood the importance of economizing time, he
combined his search for the fog-horn with the quenching of a highly
useful thirst. But when he came on deck again, wiping his mouth with the
back of his hand, he was unaccompanied by the fog-horn.
"Where the blamed thing's got to, I dunno, more'n the dead. I see it
there, myself, not two days ago, but it ain't nowheres to be found now."
"Rather orkard, Skipper, ain't it, in all this maze o' shippin'?"
returned Mr. Topper with a half turn at the wheel.
"Yes, I don't more'n 'arf like it," returned the Cap'n uneasily. "My
nerves arn't quite what they was. An' a fog's a thing as I never could
abide."
On glided the _Saucy Sally_, almost the only one on the great water way
which spoke not, in the midst of a babel of confusing sounds. Syrens
whooped, steam whistles shrieked hoarsely; the raucous voices of
fog-horns proclaimed the whereabouts of scores of craft, passing up and
down the river; but the trim-built barge slid noiselessly along,
ghost-like, in the dun-colored "smother," giving no intimation of her
proximity.
Then it was that Mr. Bob Topper's moment for action arrived. In casual
tones, he observed to the Skipper:
"Pity, we ain't got something as'll make a sound o' some kind, so's to
let people know as we 're a-comin'."
Cap'n Pigg said nothing: but the anxiety deepened perceptibly in his
face.
"Where the blank blank are yer comin' to?" roared the voice of another
bargeman, as, tooting loudly on a fog-horn, one of the "Medway flyers,"
shaved past them.
"Near thing, that," observed the mate, calmly.
Cap'n Pigg went a shade paler beneath the tan on his weather-beaten
face.
"Cuss 'im! careless 'ound!" he muttered. "Might a' sunk us."
"'Ad no proper lookout, I expect," returned Mr. Topper, "even if 'e 'ad,
'e couldn't see anything, and we got no fog-'orn to show 'em where we
was, yer see."
"No. An' p'raps we shall go to the bottom, all along o' our 'aving lost
our ole bit o' tin. It's a orful thing to think of, ain't it?" said
Cap'n Pigg solemnly.
The mate appeared to be in a brown study. Then, as though he had
suddenly been inspired, he exclaimed:
"What about the grammarphone, Skipper?"
Even in the midst of his perturbation, Cap'n Pigg looked askance at
mention of the hated instrument. But it was a case of 'any port in a
storm,' and, with a grim nod, he relieved the mate at the wheel, and
said:
"Fetch the bloomin' consarn up."
Mr. Topper obeyed, with alacrity in his step, and a wink in his eye. The
'consarn' was quickly brought on deck, and the 'Washington Post' let
loose on the astonished ears of fog-smothered mariners, right and left
of them.
One old shell-back, coming up river on a Gravesend shrimper, listened in
blank astonishment for a minute, and then confided huskily to his mate
that he thought their time had come.
"'Eavenly, strains! It's wot they calls 'the music o' the spears,'" he
said mysteriously, "Hangels' music wot comes just before a bloke's
time's up. We better prepare for the wust."
His mate, less superstitious and with more common sense, rejoined:
"Garn! 'Music o' the spears' be blowed! It's more like a pianer-horgan
or a 'urdy-gurdy."
The shrimper glided on, and a tramp steamer, going dead slow, just
shaved past the musical barge. Its master roared derisively from the
bridge:
"'Ullo, barge, ahoy! Wot yer got there? Punch and Judy show aboard?"
Which cost Cap'n Pigg a nasty twinge. He had always prided himself on
his seaman-like ways, and to proceed thus, down the great river, like a
mountebank, or a Cockney out on a Bank Holiday, hurt his feelings more
than he could say.
Yet another insult was to be hurled at the _Saucy Sally_, for
"Jacksonville," with its weird human chorus, having been turned on--when
the "Ha! Ha! Ha!" rang out on the ears of a passing tug's captain, that
outraged gentleman, thinking he was being personally derided, shouted,
as the tide swept them out of sight:
"Yah! 'Oo yer larfin' at? Set o' bloomin' monkeys!"
But the gramophone was certainly playing a useful part in warning others
off the _Saucy Sally_, down that fog-laden river. And, when, at the end
of their day's slow journey, they let go their anchor, the "Washington
Post" was again nasally shrieking out its march-time glories.
The mate stopped the machine and carried it tenderly below, then,
returning to the deck, he observed.
"Good job as we 'ad the grammarphone aboard, Cap'n."
Cap'n Pigg swallowed a lump in his throat, and looked like a child
confronted with a dose of nauseous medicine, as he gruffly replied:
"It's better n' nothin' when yer wants a row made."
A pause ensued, and then the Skipper went on:
"In future, I don't object--not very much--to the
dammarphone--grammarphone, I mean--If you can stand music, well, so can
I. But you can't contrarst the beauty o' the two instruments, and I'm
goin' ashore, straight away, to buy myself a good, old-fashioned
fog-'orn. The tone of that is altogether more 'armonious and more
soothin' to the hear, than that there beastly grammarphone ever could
be!"
The mate heaved a deep sigh and sorrowfully went below. In the effort to
ram music into his superior officer he had to admit himself defeated.
VI
MARY JANE'S DIVERSION
A Western Tale
By CHARLES ALDEN SELTZER
TEXAS RANKIN stood in the street in front of the High Card Saloon, his
lank body trembling with surprise, indecision, and indignation; his face
alight with the fire of outraged dignity. Three long paces from him
stood Sheriff Webster, indifferently fondling an ivory-handled .45.
The sheriff was nonchalantly deliberative in his actions, betraying only
a negative interest in Rankin's movements--for Rankin's holster yawned
with eloquent emptiness. With his empty holster dragging on his desires,
it seemed to Rankin that to await the sheriff's pleasure was his most
logical course.
And so he waited.
The sheriff had come upon him, when, in an incautious moment, he had
emerged from the High Card Saloon, having forgotten the very important
fact that the sheriff was looking for him. This forgetfulness had been
the cause of his undoing, for at the instant he had turned to go down
the street the sheriff had reached for his gun. The empty holster was
evidence of his success.