_THE BLACK HOLE_
I have now to tell how we passed through that night, the memory of
which to this day moves me to tremble and sicken like a man in strong
fear.
At sunset the Moorish soldiers who had charge of the prisoners marched
us all together into a covered gallery or verandah that ran along one
side of the courtyard, from which it was screened off by a row of
arches. While we waited here a part of the soldiers ran to and fro,
as if looking for accommodation for us. Surajah Dowlah's promises,
reported to us by Mr. Holwell, had so far raised our spirits that some
of the prisoners made merry at the difficulty the guard seemed to be
in. One man asked if we were to pass the night in that gallery.
Another, who stood near me, observed in jest--
"They don't seem to know of the Black Hole."
"I'm afraid we shouldn't all go into that," replied another, laughing.
"What place do you mean?" I asked out of curiosity.
"It is the cell where they confine the soldiers of the garrison,"
explained the person next me. "It won't hold more than one or two
persons."
Hardly had he given me this information before the officer in charge
of our guard came hurrying up. He gave some directions to his men, who
commenced pushing and urging us along the gallery to a small door in
the wall at our back. This they threw open, and beckoned to the
prisoners to enter.
"By heaven, it is the Black Hole!" exclaimed some one in the throng.
There was a murmur of disbelief, followed by one of indignation, as
those who were in front looked in. The room was barely seven paces
across each way, and very low. The only openings it contained, beside
the doorway, were two small windows giving, not on to the open air,
but merely on to the covered passage in which we had been standing.
"But this is absurd!" cried Mr. Holwell, remonstrating with the
soldiers. "There is not even standing-room for a hundred and fifty
persons in there."
"They cannot intend that we are all to go in. We should be
suffocated," said another.
The soldiers beginning to show anger, some of the company walked in to
demonstrate how restricted the space was. Nevertheless the Moors
continued to press us towards the doorway, and seeing that they were
in earnest, I whispered to Marian to give me her arm, and went in with
the first. By this means I was just in time to secure Marian a place
at the corner of one of the windows, where she would have a chance
to breathe. I took up my position next to her, and we were quickly
surrounded and closely pressed on by those who followed. Before we had
well realised what was happening to us, the whole of the prisoners had
been thrust into the cell, and the door, which opened inwards, pulled
to with a slam and locked.
The moment this happened I found myself bursting out into a most
prodigious sweat--the water running out of my skin as though squeezed
from a sponge--by the mere press of people in that confined space; and
near as I stood to the window I soon began to experience a difficulty
in breathing, so foul did the air immediately become. The sufferings
of those further back in the apartment must of course have been much
worse. The door was no sooner closed than those next to it began to
make frantic efforts to open it again; but we were so closely packed
that, even if the door had not been locked, it would have been
scarcely possible to open it wide enough to allow of any persons going
through. Every mind seemed to become at once possessed with a sense of
our desperate situation, and the groans and cries for mercy became
heartrending.
Mr. Holwell, having been the first to enter, had been fortunate enough
to secure a place at the other window. He now exerted himself, as the
leader of the party, to calm the tumult.
"Gentlemen," he said earnestly, "let me urge you to keep still. The
only hope for us in this emergency is to behave quietly, and do what
we can to relieve each other's sufferings. I will use my endeavours
with the guard to procure our release, and in the meantime do you
refrain from giving way to despair."
It was now dark within the room, but outside some of the guards had
lit torches, by whose light I distinguished one old man, a Jemautdar,
who appeared a little touched with pity for our distress. To this man
Mr. Holwell appealed, through the window, offering him large rewards
if he would have us transferred to some more tolerable prison. At
first the old Moor merely shook his head, but finally, when Mr.
Holwell offered him a thousand rupees if he would remove even half the
prisoners to another room, he shrugged his shoulders, muttered that he
would see what could be done, and walked off.
During the few minutes which had already elapsed since our coming into
the cell, the heat had increased to that degree as to be no longer
tolerable. My skin and throat felt as though scorched by fire, and the
atmosphere was so noxious that it became painful to breathe. I looked
at Marian. She was very white, and stood moving her lips silently as
though praying. Being the only female among us, those immediately
round the window showed some desire to respect her weakness, but the
pressure from behind was such that they were driven against her, in
spite of themselves, and I had hard work to defend her from being
crushed against the wall.
But when I glanced back into the room the sights revealed by the
flickering torchlight convinced me that our sufferings were almost
light in comparison with those of others. I saw one man, a few paces
behind me, turn purple in the face, as if some one were strangling
him. Two or three others had already fainted from the heat, and I
heard some one whisper that they had fallen to the ground.
The Jemautdar presently returned, shaking his head, and said to Mr.
Holwell--
"I can do nothing. It is by the Nabob's orders that you are locked up,
and I dare not interfere."
"But we are dying, man!" cried Mr. Holwell. "The Nabob swore that he
would spare our lives. Listen! I will give you two thousand
rupees--anything--if you will procure us some relief!"
The old man went off once more, and hope revived for a moment. While
we were thus waiting some one at the back of the room suddenly said
aloud--
"Let us take off our clothes!"
Hardly were the words out of his mouth than in an instant, as it
seemed, nearly every one was stark naked. They tore their things off
furiously and cast them to the ground. I resisted the contagion as
long as I could, but when I saw even Mr. Holwell, though nearer the
air than myself, stripped to his shirt, I could not resist following
his example; and in our dreadful extremity my unhappy companion was
presently forced to do the same, hiding her face with her hands and
choking down great sobs.
When the Jemautdar returned for the second time he made it appear that
our case was hopeless.
"No one dares help you," he said, speaking with evident compunction.
"Surajah Dowlah is asleep, and it is as much as any man's life is
worth to awake him."
As soon as the meaning of these words was understood by the hundred
and fifty miserable wretches inside, a pitiful, low wail went up. Then
commenced that long, dreadful agony which so few were to survive, and
which I only remember in successive glimpses of horror spread over
hours that were like years.
One of the last things we did, before all self-control was lost, was
to try and make a current of air by all sitting down together, and
then suddenly rising; but unhappily by this time several had grown so
weak that, having once gone down, they proved unequal to the effort of
getting up again, and fell under the feet of their companions. Among
these unfortunates was Marian's father, Mr. Rising, who had come in
with us, and stood a little way off in the press. Although preserving
his dazed, unconscious air in the midst of these calamities, he had
exhibited many symptoms of physical distress. He now remained sitting
helpless on the floor, and while I was trying to contrive some means
of assisting him, I saw the next man behind him very coolly step over
his body, spurning it with his foot. Poor Mr. Rising fell on his back,
groaning, and was instantly trodden out of sight.
My first impulse was to spare Marian the knowledge of her father's
shocking fate. Turning round hastily, I whispered--
"Don't look behind you, for God's sake!"
The words came too late. She turned her head, saw what had happened,
and shrieked aloud.
That shriek was the signal for fifty others, like wild beasts
answering each other in a wood, as the manhood of that tortured mob
suddenly forsook it, to be succeeded by brute despair. Some began to
hurl themselves against the door, others broke into frantic prayers
and imprecations. The clamour died down, rose again, and finally
settled into a monotonous, incessant cry for water.
All this time I had preserved my self-control very well, but when this
cry for water was raised, either the excessive pain I endured, or else
the mere example of so many persons around me, so shook me that I
could no longer command my motions, and I found myself screaming the
words in Indostanee at the old Jemautdar as though I would have torn
him in pieces.
The old man seemed to be really moved by our sufferings. He sent two
or three of the soldiers to fetch water, and they presently came to
the windows bearing it in skins.
It was a fatal act of mercy. The mere sight of the water instantly
overthrew the reason of half the unhappy wretches behind us. A wild
howl went up, and a frantic struggle commenced to get to the windows.
Those who a few minutes before had been rational Christian beings were
now to be seen fighting and striking each other as they leaped and
plunged to climb over those in front. Marian, terror-stricken by the
outburst, put her hands before her eyes, and would have been swept
away from her place like a leaf if I had not set my back to hers and
fought furiously against the lunatics behind. I can see now the dark,
flushed face of one man, his parched tongue dropping out of his mouth,
and his eyes rolling horribly, quite mad, as he flung himself upon me
and tried to tear me down. To add to the horror, the Indian soldiers
brought their torches to the windows in order to gloat on this scene.
I heard them laugh like devils as the red light flashed on the naked
heap of infuriated Englishmen writhing and fighting in that narrow
hell.
After ten minutes the struggles began to die down through sheer
exhaustion, and then those of us who stood next the windows were
allowed to drink from the skins; after which we filled hats with the
water and passed them into the back of the apartment. In this way
every one obtained some, but no good effect was wrought thereby. So
far as I was concerned, the heat and drought were so fearful that no
sooner had I swallowed my share of the fluid than my throat became as
dry as it had been before--the momentary relief served only to
aggravate my torments.
Then as the fever gained upon me, my thoughts broke bounds, and there
danced confusedly through my brain odd scraps of memories and pictures
of other scenes. For whole moments together I lost the knowledge of
where I was; those dark walls and haggard faces passed, and in their
stead came visions of the pleasant places I used to know, the ruffling
of the wind upon the Breydon Water and the dykes, the stir among the
reeds and rushes, and the cattle browsing in the Norfolk fields.
Instead of the swarthy Indian soldiers with their torches I saw the
friendly, homely figures of the carters as they rode their horses to
the pool at sundown after the day's work was over, and the familiar
groups of villagers, and the face of little Patience Thurstan as she
looked up at me, ready to weep, that time I said goodbye to her on my
last day at home; and there rose before me the likeness of the dear
old homestead, the gables and the crooked chimney, and the porch with
jasmine growing over one side and boys' love on the other; and I saw
my father and my mother where they sat and faced each other across the
hearthplace, and thought, maybe, of their son, so that there came over
me a great and miserable longing to return to them; and, like the
prodigal son when he ate husks among the swine, I repented of my
rebellion and running away, and in that hour I took a resolution that
if I ever outlived the night I would leave the wicked land of India
for ever, and go back to my own country, and ask my father to forgive
me, as I knew my mother had forgiven me long ago.
Such were the thoughts that, by fits and starts, passed through me
during the first hours of the death struggle; but the worst horror of
that awful night came presently. In the recesses of the chamber,
furthest from the windows, a harder evil than the heat was the
intolerable foulness of the air. Even where I was standing it had
become an excruciating pain to breathe, and my breast felt as though
laced about with iron bands. In the interior many had by this time
dropped down, not so much suffocated as poisoned by the fetid gas they
were compelled to inhale. And now at length I detected a new,
indescribably nauseous odour, added to the acrid smell of the place.
At first I tried to conceal even from my own mind what this was. But
not for long. In a very few minutes the secret was known to all there.
The unhappy man I had seen trodden down had been dead for about half
an hour, and his body was already corrupt.
Then that whole den of madmen broke loose, raving and cursing; some
imploring God to strike them dead, others casting the most foul and
savage insults at the guards without, if by that means they might
tempt them to fire in through the windows and put an end to what they
endured. They struck at one another, they clutched each other's hair,
surging and trampling one another down to gain an inch nearer the
miserable air-holes which afforded the only chance of life. The floor
was choked with corpses, among which the survivors were entangled in
one seething mass. As for me, I became light-headed, and had only one
blind instinct left, to strike down any man who attempted to thrust
Marian from her breathing ground. I was aware that she had lost her
senses and sunk down between me and the wall; yet I went on battling,
as in some dreadful nightmare, with the furious forms that rose up and
loomed out of the darkness. When I could no longer make out their
faces I still struck out blindly, and heard them go down heavily upon
the pile of bodies behind which I stood entrenched. Hour after hour
that ghastly combat raged, till the corpses were thrice and four times
more numerous than those who still breathed; and at last an awful
lethargy settled down over the scene, broken only when one of the
survivors roused himself for an expiring effort that sent a quiver
through the dead and dying heap.
After that I know no more, for when the morning broke, and the
officers came to release the handful left alive, the energy that had
held me up so long forsook me, and I sank down unconscious.