THE MAJOR'S STORY CONCLUDED.
"My limbs were stiff and sore, for I was still bound to the cannon,
which was a nine-pounder fieldpiece.
"The chief, Ali Khan, whose whim it was to keep me prisoner instead
of cutting me to pieces, was an outlaw now; several regiments of
Gough's army, both infantry and cavalry were sent into the country of
the Mahrattas at the expense of the Gwalior Government, to enforce
peace and order; so he, with his followers, were compelled to lurk
among the mountains in the north-west of Scinde.
"There were times when I repined bitterly, and thought that but for
Riversdale's presence in front of the village, when he ought to have
been in the rear of the attacking column looking after the wounded, I
should not have made that desperate onslaught to rescue him, and so
been taken myself!
"Alas! you see that my story, unlike most others, begins with a happy
marriage instead of ending with it, as most novels do, and all
comedies at the fall of the curtain.
"Like most, if not nearly all the Mahratta troops, the followers of
Ali Khan were cavalry, hardy and ferocious fellows. Their only arms
were swords, spears, and matchlocks, like those used in the wars of
Cromwell; their only equipage, blankets and horse-cloths. With these
slight incumbrances they easily rode fifty miles a day, feeding their
horses on whatever they would eat; whether it was the ripe corn
growing in the fields or the dry thatched roofs of a village, was all
the same to the Mahrattas of Ali Khan, who was a stern and unyielding
warrior, vain of real or supposed descent from Sevajee, the founder
of the old Mahratta empire.
"_En route_ he carried off several children, and I now learned for
the first time that his people were fond of possessing slaves, and
hence their capture of me.
"Over miles upon miles of a flat country covered with wild bushes,
and many more of desert sand, they fled from Maharajpore, till we
entered upon a district studded by almost impervious thickets and
tamarisk shrubs which also entwine their branches; and beyond this
desolate region we reached the mountains that look down on Western
Scinde, where they halted, encamped, and lurked for several weeks to
rest and heal their wounds, subsisting the while by forays and the
plunder they carried off in their march. Sometimes All Khan made the
neighbourhood too hot to hold him; and then, by a swift movement, he
would favour other regions, perhaps in Beloochistan, with a short
residence; but he generally preferred to hover in the hills to the
north of Tattah, which are barren and totally uninhabited, so that we
were often compelled to plunder for food, almost to the gates of
Brahminabad, its ancient capital.
"Chained to that accursed gun, my sole sleeping-place being between
its wheels at night, exposed to the dews with only a horse-rug to
cover me (while the Mahrattas lived in tents), exposed to the risks
of being helplessly strangled by Thugs, devoured by tigers or
jackals, or being bitten by serpents such as the terrible Braminee
cobra, stung by insects all day, and having the disgusting green bugs
among my matted locks and beard by night--chained to the gun, I say,
like Ixion on his wheel in the Infernal Regions, I thought--oh, how
deeply and desperately--of her I loved, of my home, of free and
pleasant England, far, far away; of Stoketon Moat and Cheshire with
all its shady woods, its lakes and meres; its parks of emerald green,
its shady lanes and hedgerows; of the broad Mersey winding to the
sea; of budding spring and glorious summer, brown autumn, with its
golden harvest fields and crisp foliage, and jolly winter, with its
snow on hill and wold, its green bays and scarlet berries in
church-porch and in hall.
"Changes like these I had none!
"It was a period of horror, weariness, and despair--a despair that
was black and hopeless, and daily, with a sickened heart, I surveyed
the arid plains on one hand and the barren mountains of Tattah on the
other, hoping against hope for some rescue or relief, and in this
slavery more than a year passed away, without an event save an
occasional buffalo hunt, when hides were wanted for shields or
harness, (as the Mahrattas cared not for the beef), or an occasional
kutha, a popular amusement of the tribe, when recitations and songs
are given by professional musicians or story-tellers; and frequently
I heard them sing of the battle of Maharajpore, and how the great
Sahib-log, Ellenborough Bahadour, had been amid the thickest of the
conflict, mounted on a snow-white elephant, in the howdah of which I
had certainly seen his lordship freely exposing himself to the risks
of shot and shell.
"My sabre wound had been allowed to heal as Nature chose, and after
hemorrhage ceased it closed rapidly; but unluckily for myself, by the
skilful and tender manner in which I bound up a bayonet-stab received
by Ali Khan, the Mahrattas conceived that I was a doctor, and hence
kept me closely secured to the gun, to frustrate any attempt to
escape.
"Isabel's letter was found upon my person, and conceived to be some
great medical secret; the ink lines were carefully washed off the
paper, and the dilution swallowed on speculation by Ali Khan and his
favourite wife; but I had many cures to perform, many cuts and stabs
and bullet-holes to probe and patch and bind, with the terror of
death hanging over me if I failed, or a patient fevered or died; but
luckily for me the Mahrattas were all Hindus, extremely temperate in
what they ate or drank, so I was pretty successful in my practice,
and earned the goodwill of all, particularly that of the women of the
tribe, who were as hardy and as muscular as the men, and regularly
shared every labour with them save that of fighting; but it was long
before I succeeded in convincing them that I was not a doctor, and by
that time I was so weary of existence, as to care little whether they
shot me, to save further feeding or trouble.
"Released but at rare intervals, and even then always closely
watched, I had been five years chained to the gun, when it was
abandoned in a deep nullah as a useless incumbrance. I was then worn
to bone and brawn; but I had lost all heart and hope. Heaven knows
how I had been fed, for I had been treated often like a dog--a
creature of the lowest caste.
"Offers of ransom I had often made in vain; and chance of rescue I
had none. Neither had I any prospect of escape. I was without
horse, or arms, or money, or even a knowledge of where I was, so
devious had been our wanderings; and at times I could not say with
certainty whether we were on the confines of Beloochistan, or among
the mountains of Kelat.
"The Hindu religion admits of no proselytes, so I was never troubled
with any attempts to convert me; the institutes of Menou, compiled
1200 B.C., had quite settled all that, so that I was safer than if in
the hands of Mohammedans, who might have compelled me to choose
between the turban and the bowstring.
"And so a sixth year passed away!
"Was my Isabel living or dead? Had she perished of a broken heart?
I tried to remember of a widow that had done so, but failed. Was our
little child living now? If so he should be verging on seven years
old. Seven years old--oh my God! I would press my hands over my
eyes and strive to portray him, for I knew that the child must grow,
and change with his growth; but I could only picture him as I had
seen him last, nestling in his mother's bosom.
"Then I would think with a shudder, Alas! how long may he have been
in his little grave?
"Ever present were such thoughts as these; of Isabel and the baby in
'the woollen bootikins' which had been worked for it, as her last and
only letter told, by Katie--little Katie, whom I remembered with her
masses of golden hair; the rippling locks of which would neither keep
in knot or net, but hung like an aureole, a shining glory round her
smiling face.
"Kate would be four-and-twenty now, and most likely herself a mother.
"I knew that I must long, long since have been gazetted out of the
service; numbered with the lost, the missing, or the dead; that
another must have filled my rank and place in the regiment, where by
that time my very name must be forgotten!
"And so I grieved at the thought of these things, till my heart grew
sick with sorrow and grieving. Oh, how true it is, that 'the heart
knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its
joys.'
"Times there were when I longed for death, for, as Dryden says in his
'Don Sebastian,' I felt keenly but bitterly that 'Death is to man in
misery, _a sleep_;' but in that sleep, I should have no dreams of
Isabel or home.
"One day--I shall never, never forget it--these, and such sad and
bitter thoughts as these, were maddening me while I was grooming the
horses of Ali Khan, beautiful animals of the Candahar and Thibet
breeds, and when my task was over I sat down beside a tamarisk tree,
and actually gave way to tears. We were then encamped, as I knew,
not far from the Indus, in a place where a grove of peepul trees grew
round a little lake beside a Hindu temple of white marble, the bronze
idols in which the Mahratta women were wont to fan for hours, after
smearing them with ointments, butter, and ghee.
"'The Sahib-log (white gentleman) is always sad?' said a voice close
by me; and on looking up I saw Ali Khan, with his shield of buffalo
hide slung on his back, and leaning on his long Kelat spear, while
his dark gleaming eyes observed me with something of wonder and much
of contempt.
"'I have thoughts, O Khan, that make me sad,' said I, rising and
crossing my hands upon my breast.
"'Are you not kindly used among us?' he asked.
"'I have certainly eaten your salt and bread; but both have been
watered by the tears of misery.'
"'Why?'
"'I have a wife and child----'
"'I have several wives and children too; yet were I a captive, would
they cost me a tear? No. I am a man! Go--our lives are in the
hands of Bramah--our doom in the hands of Kali--even yours, a
creature without caste or future.'
"And turning away with stolidity and scorn, he mounted the horse I
had just saddled for him, and with his long tasselled spear in his
hand, rode off on a scouting expedition--for the appearance of some
Bombay cavalry in our vicinity had rendered him somewhat uneasy.
"He had scarcely left me, when I heard some shrill cries from the
women of his followers who were dipping and bleaching their linen
dresses in the little lake beside the peepul grove. A child had
fallen into it from a rock where he had been gathering flowers; it
was the deepest part of the lake, and the little creature rose twice
and sank again before I stirred myself.
"'What is it to me?' thought I bitterly; 'would that every Mahratta
in the land were in the same perilous predicament.'
"A third time the boy rose and wildly threw up his little brown hands
and arms, while his half-shriek came over the water as he vanished
again. At that moment a thought of my own child flashed upon my
mind, and plunging in, I dived successfully, saved and brought the
little Mahratta cub to dry land; but barely in time, for some hours
elapsed before I succeeded in perfectly restoring him to life and
consciousness, and ere I became aware that it was Sevajee, the
favourite child of Ali Khan, I had rescued from a watery grave!
"With all his assumed stolidity and apparent sternness of heart, the
Mahratta chief was melted towards me now, and in a burst of gratitude
he gave me my liberty!
"'Go,' said he; 'here are a swift horse, good arms, my own, and a bag
of rupees. You are free to join your people. Thirty miles from
this, near a temple of Seva, on the left bank of the Indus, you will
find them. Go--and Brahma, Kali, and Vishnu be your guides, and may
their arms overshadow you, even as those of the blessed banian tree
overshadow the earth!'
"This was the best and holiest wish a Hindu could give me, as they
pay divine honours to this enormous tree.
"You may imagine that I was not long in availing myself of the
permission so suddenly given.
"Like one in a dream, one who had suddenly shaken off a long
nightmare that has been protracted to the verge of madness, I rode
all that afternoon at a breathless pace, not without fears that Ali
Khan might change his mind, or my horse, arms, and rupees should
excite the cupidity of some of his people who might follow me; and
ere nightfall I found myself in a little flying camp formed by a
battalion of the Queen's troops (the 'old Springers'), and a squadron
of the 1st Bombay Lancers, whose French grey uniforms, faced with
white, I hailed with a shout of joy as I rode towards their videttes.
"On that day I had been exactly six years and four months a prisoner!
"On hearing my story, the officers treated me with every kindness and
commiseration, and while the Lancers departed on a vain search for
Ali Khan and his people, no time was lost in having me transmitted to
Bombay.
"I had been returned among the killed at the battle of Maharajpore,
and so circumstantial were the details of my having been cut down and
dreadfully mangled by the Mahratta swordsmen, that I had some trouble
in proving my own identity.
"The years of my captivity had seen many changes, and thus I, who had
gone out by the _Rangoon_, Indiaman, round the Cape, and up the
Arabian Sea, came home by the overland route, which was just being
got into working order, but we crossed the desert with a caravan. So
eager was I, that the six weeks of the homeward journey, with its
ever-changing scenes, seemed interminable; and telegraph, or Indian
cable, there were none. I reached London well nigh destitute; but
burning with impatience for news of Isabel and home, having counted
more than ever the hours since I was a free man.
"I attended the Commander-in-Chief's levee at the Horse Guards, where
my weird and wild, or hunted aspect, excited considerable speculation
among the fashionably-dressed loungers in the ante-room. He promised
to look after me promptly; but 'the Liberals were in office,' as he
told me, with a peculiar and inexplicable smile: so my back pay was
refused on the plea that 'the country had lost my services for six
years and four months;' my progressive rank also was declined, so
that I, who had been well up among the subalterns of my own corps at
the battle of Maharajpore, was now, when gazetted anew, placed at the
foot of twenty-four lieutenants of the Royal Fusileers.
"My wife! They could tell me nothing about her. 'Why?' I asked
passionately.
"'Because my rank and services did not entitle her to a pension;' so
I turned on my heel with mutiny in my heart, and on my lips a bitter
malison on 'the Liberals' who were in office.
"On my aunt, Lady Singleton, depended all my hopes now; so I set out
for Stoketon by the first train from London.
"Already in the whirl of events my past period of love, and my
marriage with Isabel Vane, had begun to seem but a tiny patch in the
chequered web of my existence; but it was a spot so bright and fair,
so pure and happy, that I clung to the memory of it, as being well
worth ten times all my other years together.
"My heart and soul yearned for her, and as the train bounded along
the London and North-Western line my mind went back to the day when
we set out from Stoketon on our joyous wedding trip to Wales, and the
affectionate energy with which she insisted we were married 'for love
and for life!' Would that gush of affection fill our hearts again?
or was it one of those joys which have no renewal in this world of
change?
"As I approached Stoketon Moat, and saw the dear old house with its
clustered chimneys, its quaint oriels and deeply-mullioned windows
shining in the sun, and half-hidden by dark-green ivy, flowering
clematis, and fragrant jasmine, I lifted my hat, and inspired by the
memory of all the terrors and hardships I had undergone, exclaimed in
a low voice--
"'My God--I thank Thee for this day!'
"Is it blasphemy--oh, I hope not--to say that I had little perhaps to
be thankful for in having escaped the perils of Maharajpore, and
survived my sufferings among the mountains of Tattah and Beloochistan?
"The house was occupied by strangers, who viewed me with coldness and
mistrusted my appearance of agitation.
"'Lady Singleton had died three years ago--Mr. Vane's people they
knew nothing about--had never even heard of them,' I was informed by
a sleek and well fed butler, who was about to close the door in my
face--the door of the house that was once my home.
"'Are any of Dr. Riversdale's family in the neighbourhood?' I
inquired anxiously.
"'Yes; the doctor has resided at his father's house since the old
gentleman died about a year ago.'
"'Thanks,' said I, and turned wearily away, and conscious that I was
a source of vulgar speculation to the menials of the strange family
now occupying what, as I have said, was once my home, I passed down
the old and well-known avenue to issue out upon the highway that led
to Warrington.
"Riversdale, I learned from the lodge-keeper, had retired upon
half-pay, and had now an extensive practice in the neighbourhood.
From him, then, I should perhaps learn all, and a few minutes' brisk
walking brought me to his villa, a handsome new house, embosomed
among some fine old trees.
"'Doctor Riversdale is always visiting his patients at this hour,'
the servant informed me; 'but Mrs. Riversdale is at home,' she added,
ushering me into a drawing-room, the splendour of which seemed
wondrous to me after my sojourn among the sordid tents of Ali Khan.
"'I have no card,' said I, having omitted to provide myself with such
a luxury, or forgotten all about such things, 'and the lady cannot
know me: but say an old brother officer of the doctor is anxious to
see her.'
"'Why did I become a soldier?' thought I, while surveying the
comforts of Riversdale's home, and seeing his children. I had no
doubt they were his; two boys and a girl, fair-haired little things,
gambolling on the lawn in the sunshine; and all the inclination for
what Jean Paul Richter calls 'cottage smoke and
sitting-still-comfort' came over me. Thus might mine have been merry
among the Stoketon woods! Oh, the years I have lost--years of love
and joy with Isabel!
"Escaping from her brothers, the little girl toddled through the
drawing-room window, which opened in the French fashion down to the
floor; and then impelled, I know not by what secret impulse, I drew
her towards me and kissed her so tenderly on the forehead, that she
shrank back abashed and eyed me dubiously, for I was tanned to almost
negro blackness, had a bushy beard, together with what must have
seemed to her the eyes of an ogre--the eyes of one who for fully
seven years, had been daily face to face with Death!
"Just as the poor child shrunk from me, the drawing-room door opened,
and there entered a lady who bowed with a well bred smile of inquiry
and paused, surveying me earnestly.
"Though more matronly in form, and a trifle rounder perhaps, her face
was still that of Isabel, the girl I had left behind me. Womanly and
thoughtful, her eyes were as sparkling and inquiring as of old, but
animated by wonder now and inexpressible tenderness (for my aspect
seemed so war-worn), till suddenly tears and terror filled them as
they gazed into mine. The mouth, so exquisitely cut, was full and
fine, till it quivered and blanched, while the skin of her delicate
face was smooth as the lining of a white and pink shell.
"'Isabel,' I exclaimed, and opened my arms; but shrinking back, she
uttered a wild cry of anguish and despair, and sank on a sofa, half
fainting, and holding up her hands, deprecatingly, between herself
and me. 'Touch me not,' was what her mute gesture seemed to say.
"I then perceived that she had two plain hoops upon her wedding
finger.
"_Two?_
"I dared not approach, but stood bewildered as if rooted to the
carpet, for now I saw it all--I saw it _all_; and that a great and
terrible grief was about to come upon me!
"She was the wife of Robert Riversdale!
"We stood apart, she shrinking and I doubting. Oh! was this the
meeting--this the moment--for which I had longed and yearned, and
thirsted, amid the protracted misery of the years that were past?
Gasping, she gazed at me, while she did so, clutching wildly the
cushions of the sofa; and there was an expression of unutterable
bewilderment, of keen intensity, in her eyes.
"'Oh, merciful Heaven! Conyers Singleton, can this be you?' she
exclaimed, in a low voice, like a wail.
"There was no embrace between us--no gladness, but only intolerable
fear in both our hearts; we did not even shake hands, and she was my
wife!
"'Oh, Isabel, and is it so? while I, after all those years that I
have been a prisoner of war, a hunted fugitive, a wretched Christian
slave, chained by the leg to a field-piece, among people whose faces
and voices were to me but as those of wild animals--is it thus we
meet and thus you greet me?' I said, mournfully. 'Isabel, what
weariness of the world is in my heart--speak, or I shall fall at your
feet!'
"Indeed, the room seemed to whirl round me, and I clung to the marble
mantelpiece for support.
"'You seem to have come back as it were from the grave to reproach
me; yet, oh, Conyers! I have nothing to reproach myself with,' she
replied, speaking with great difficulty, while she placed a hand upon
her heart as if to stay its wild beating, and a ghastly whiteness
blanched all her beautiful face. 'The misery of this meeting is
known only to--to God and me.'
"'And you have in my absence given to another your heart, your
affection, which I deemed my own--_for life_, you once said?'
"'Reproach me not; all the world told me you were dead. I read the
Gazette myself, and but too keenly remember, even at this hour, the
agony of that in which I saw your name as among the killed. My hand,
in time, was given to another.'
"'To Riversdale?'
"'To Riversdale; but my heart never--never. Oh, I shall go mad!'
She began to speak wildly and incoherently, and then added, 'In those
dear past days I loved you and you only--oh, yes, I loved you then so
dearly, so truly, Conyers!'
"'And now, Isabel!'
"'I love you still, dearest Conyers, but that love will turn my
brain. My little child--our little child, Conyers,' she added, with
moving pathos in her voice and eyes, 'was dead; Lyla and Katie were
about to be married. I had no one to love, and no tie seemed to bind
me to you, but sad, sad memory. Oh, what shall I say? how explain
myself? A mother--a wife, and yet no wife! Riversdale loved me
before I saw you, Conyers.'
"'Nay, not before your girlhood.'
"'Before your return from Ghuznee; but that pleads nothing, I am
aware, for I loved you then and you only.'
"'And since, Isabel--since?'
"'Alas! do not question me--and yet you must.'
"'Surely some little explanation is due to me?' said I, with the
forced calmness of settled despair. 'Oh that I had never returned
from Ghuznee or learned to love you; or would to God that He had
permitted me to perish at Maharajpore?'
"'I was lonely and helpless, Conyers--oh, so lonely and helpless in
my supposed widowhood,' said she, making a great effort to speak, for
voice and sense seemed alike to be failing her. 'I respected the
long-tried affection of Riversdale, which had survived even my
marriage with you. He told me that he owed his life on that fatal
field to you. Oh, how I mourned for you and how I loved your memory
are known only to myself and _One_ with whom there can be no secrets,
and who knows all things! Could I help myself? and now--_now_--NOW,'
she exclaimed, while casting her eyes despairingly to Heaven, and
striking her hands together, 'am I to be torn from my children--his
children, _his and mine_--even from the little helpless baby in its
berceaunette!'
"'Not by _me_, Isabel,' said I, while on my aching heart those
piercing words fell like drops of molten lead; 'not by me. I shall
go forth again to seek death more surely now, and cross your path no
more. One kiss--only one kiss--even _he_ could not refuse me that,
and then never again shall we meet on this side of the grave.'
"We both sobbed bitterly as I took one brief but passionate embrace.
I laid her gently on the sofa and rang the bell, because she had
fainted. Then I quitted the house of Riversdale never to enter it
again!
"To me it seemed that I must be in a dream from which I should surely
waken. The sun was shining in all the glory of a summer noontide on
the green woodlands and greener meadows, but I felt no warmth in its
rays, and my teeth chattered as I walked on, I knew not, cared not
whither. So ended this terrible meeting--this interview of agony.
"I felt as one who was enveloped in the horror of a great and sudden
darkness--one who had gone from the world itself, into the cold
shadow of death.
"I have but little more to tell you now. Believing that I was dead,
my aunt, Lady Singleton, on the death of my infant boy, bequeathed
all she possessed to charitable institutions; and I cared not to
dispute her will, for a few months after saw me again in India, and
face to face with the hard fighting Sikhs at Chillianwallah. I
strove hard to throw my life away; but it seemed to be charmed now.
I never received a scratch, nor has bullet or blade been near me
since the day of Maharajpore.
"A few weeks after our victory over the Sikhs, I read the death of
Isabel in the _Times_, and then I knew that my interview with her,
and the intolerable mental agony consequent to the falsehood of her
position, had destroyed her! My poor Isabel!
"We were then on the march for Goojerat, and none of my comrades knew
why in that battle, and for many a day long after it, the hilt of my
sword was covered with crape--the only mourning in which I dared
indulge, for the miserable fate of the girl I had left behind me."