THE SWING OF THE PENDULUM
Malcolm's first measured thought was an unpleasant one. It was his
intent to land one of the budgerow's crew at the earliest opportunity
with a written message, which the bearer would probably be unable to
read, addressed to Mohammed Rasul, bidding him go to the assistance of
the unlucky Hossein Beg. That plan was now impracticable. The crew had
bolted. He could neither send the ryot ashore nor trust to the help of
any neighboring village, since men were already galloping along the left
bank with obviously hostile designs.
As there was a favorable breeze and the current was swift and strong, he
wondered why these pursuers strove to keep the boat in sight. Then it
was borne in on him that they had a definite object. Could it be
possible that they knew of the presence of other craft, lower down the
river?--that he might be called on within the hour to make a last stand
against irresistible odds on the deck of the budgerow? Rather than meet
certain death in that way he would head boldly for the opposite shore,
and trust again to his tired horses for escape to the jungle and the
night. Yet, some plan must be devised to keep faith with that wretched
zemindar. The man would not die if left where he was for another
forty-eight hours, or even longer. But the word of a sahib was a sacred
thing. Whatever the difficulty of communicating with Mohammed Rasul, he
must overcome it somehow.
In his perplexity, his eyes fell on the two girls. Being ladies from
Fyzabad, they might be able to help him with some knowledge of the
locality. Summoning Chumru to take the helm he went forward and spoke to
them.
Now it is an enduring fact that a woman's regard for her personal
appearance will engross her mind when graver topics might well be to the
fore. No sooner did these sorrow-laden daughters of Eve realize that
they were in a position of comparative safety, and in the company of a
good-looking young man of their own race, than they attempted to effect
some change in their _toilette_. A handkerchief dipped in the river, a
few twists and coilings of refractory hair, a slight readjustment of
disordered bodices and crumpled skirts--above all, the gleam of the
magic lamp of hope that illumined an abyss of despair--and the amazing
result was that Malcolm found two pretty, shy, tremulous maidens
awaiting him, instead of the disheveled woe-begone women he had seen
pushed down the steps of the ghat.
He introduced himself with the well-mannered courtesy of the period, and
in response the elder of the pair raised her blue eyes to his and told
him that since the 16th of June until the previous day they had been
hiding in the hut of a native woman, mother of their ayah.
"My dear father was killed by Mr. Tucker's side," said she. "He was the
deputy commissioner of Fattehpore. Keene is our name--I am Harriet, this
is my sister Grace. We only came out from England last cold weather--"
A sudden recollection brought a cry of surprise from Frank.
"Why," he said, "you were fellow-passengers on the _Assaye_ with Miss
Winifred Mayne?"
"Yes, do you know her? What has become of her? We were told that
everyone at Meerut was killed."
"Thank Heaven, she was alive and well when I last saw her three days
ago."
"And her uncle? Is he living? She was very much attached to him. How did
she escape from Meerut?" broke in Grace, eagerly.
"I wish they had never left Meerut. The Mutiny at that station collapsed
in a couple of hours. Unfortunately they are now both penned up in the
Residency at Lucknow, which is surrounded by goodness only knows how
many thousands of rebels. But I must give you Winifred's recent
history at another time. I want you to tell me something about this
neighborhood. What is the nearest town on the river, and which bank
is it on?"
"Unfortunately, our acquaintance with this part of India is very
slight," said Miss Harriet Keene, sadly. "We remained at Calcutta four
months with our mother, who died there, without having seen our dear
father after a separation of five years. We came up country in March,
and were going to Naini Tal[19] when the Mutiny broke out. We only saw
the Ganges three or four times before our ayah brought us across on that
terrible night when father was murdered."
[Footnote 19: A hill station near Lucknow.]
Malcolm had heard many such tensely dramatic stories from fugitives who
had reached Lucknow during July. Phrases of pity or consolation were
powerless in face of these tragedies. But he could not forbear asking
one question:
"How did you come to fall into the hands of Hossein Beg?"
"We were betrayed by some children," was the simple answer. "They saw
our ayah's mother baking chupatties, day by day, sufficient for four
people. My sister and I lived nearly three weeks in a cow-byre, never
daring, of course, to approach even the door. The children made some
talk about the lavish food supply in the old woman's hut, and the story
reached the ears of their father. He, like all the other natives here,
seems to hate Europeans as though they were his deadliest enemies. He
spied on us, discovered our whereabouts, and yesterday morning we were
dragged forth, while the poor creatures to whom we owed our lives were
beaten to death with sticks before our very eyes."
The speaker was a fair English girl of twenty. Her sister was eighteen,
and their previous experience of the storm and fret of existence was
drawn from an uneventful childhood in India, four years in a Brighton
school, and a twelvemonth in a Brussels convent!
Malcolm choked back the hard words that rose to his lips, and sought
such local information as the ryot could give him. It was little. The
tiller of the Indian fields lives and dies in his village and has no
interests beyond the horizon. This man visited the Ganges once a year on
a religious feast, and perhaps twice in the same period in connection
with the shipping of grain on his brother's boat. To that extent, but
no further, did his store of general knowledge pass beyond the narrower
limits of those who dwelt far from a river highway.
Yet it was he who first espied a new and most active peril.
"Look, huzoor," he cried suddenly. "They have made signs to the
Fattehpore ghat. Two boats are following us."
And then Malcolm found that the real danger came from the opposite
shore. It was a case of falling on Scylla when trying to avoid
Charybdis. He learnt afterwards that the rebels had organized a code
of signals from bank to bank, owing to the number of the craft with
Europeans on board that sought safety in flight down the river. That
some device must have drawn pursuit from the right bank was obvious. A
couple of roomy budgerows with sails set were racing after him, and the
long sweeps on board each boat were being propelled by willing arms.
It must be confessed that a feeling of bitter resentment against this
last stroke of ill-luck rose in Malcolm's breast for an instant. He
conquered it. He recalled Lawrence's bold advice, "Never Surrender,"
and that inspiriting memory brought strength.
At that point the Ganges was about a mile and a quarter in width. The
budgerow was some six hundred yards distant from the left bank. Three
miles ahead the river curved to the left round a steep promontory. The
farther shore was marsh-land, so it might be assumed that a hidden
barrier of rock flung off the deep current there, while the one chance
of escape that presented itself was to steer for that very spot and
effect a landing before the enemy could head off the budgerow and force
it under the fire of the horsemen. The Fattehpore boats were a mile in
the rear, but that advantage would be greatly lessened if Malcolm
crossed the stream, and perhaps altogether effaced by the powerful
sweeps at their command.
However, to cross was the only way, and the only way is ever the best
way. Having once made up his mind Frank coolly reviewed the situation.
Food was the first essential. The boat itself, having been used for
carrying hay, contained sufficient sweepings to feed the horses, and he
set the ryot to work on gathering the odds and ends of forage. A brief
search brought to light a quantity of ghee, boiled rice and dried peas.
He divided the store into five portions, and set a good example to the
others by compelling himself to eat his share of the cooked food at
once, while the peas went into his pockets to be crushed or chewed at
leisure.
Chumru kept the budgerow steadily on her course, and ere many minutes
elapsed it was plain to be seen that the rebels were alive to the
tactics of their quarry. Fresh gangs manned the sweeps and the riders on
the eastern bank eased their pace to a walk. The space between pursuers
and pursued began to decrease. At the outset Frank thought that this was
the natural outcome of his plan, and gave no heed to it beyond the
ever-growing anxiety of the time problem. But at the end of the first
mile he was seriously concerned at finding that the mutineers were
gaining on him in an incomprehensible manner. The boat was then
seemingly in mid-stream, while the enemy kept close to the shore, and
they were certainly traveling half as fast again, a difference in speed
that the use of the oars hardly accounted for.
He kept on grimly, however, never deviating from his perspective, which
was the swampy ground on the outer curve of the bend. It was not until
nearly another mile was covered and the mutineers were almost abreast
in the true line of the river, that he knew why they were making such
heart-breaking progress as compared with his own craft. The Ganges,
after the vagrom fashion of all giant rivers, was cutting a new bed
through the sunken reefs towards the low-lying marsh. At the wide elbow
there were really two channels and he was now sailing along the
comparatively motionless water between them!
Side by side with this terrifying discovery was the certain fact that
his awkwardly built craft would gain little by maneuvering. There was a
new danger, too. At any instant she might run ashore on the shoal that
was surely forming in the center of the river. At all costs that must be
avoided.
With a smile and a few confident words to the girls, he went aft, took
the helm from Chumru and bade him help the ryot in putting out the port
sweep. The effect was quickly apparent. The budgerow ran into the second
channel, but she allowed her dangerous rivals to approach so close that
the natives opened fire with long range dropping shots.
It was now a matter of minutes ere the rebel marksmen would render the
deck uninhabitable. To beach the boat, land the horses, and get the
young ladies ashore in safety, had become an absolute impossibility.
Then it occurred to Frank that the Fattehpore men could not know for
certain that there were Englishwomen on board. They could see Chumru,
the ryot, the horses, and of course, the steersman, but the girls were
seated in the well amidships, these river craft being only partly decked
fore and aft.
A modification of his scheme flashed through his brain, and he decided
to adopt it forthwith. First asking Miss Keene and her sister not to
reveal their presence, no matter what happened, he told Chumru to stand
by the horses and help him to make them leap into the water when he gave
the order. With difficulty he induced the scared ryot to take the rudder
while he explained the new project. It had that element of daring in it
that is worthy of success, being nothing less than an attempt to draw
the rebels' attention entirely to himself and Chumru by making a dash
for the shore, while the ryot was to allow the boat to continue her
course down stream with, apparently, no other tenant than himself.
Malcolm's theory was that, if he and Chumru made good their landing,
they would hug the river until the budgerow was sufficiently ahead of
pursuit to permit of her being run ashore. Though the plan savored of
deserting the helpless girls, yet was he strong-minded enough to adopt
it. It substituted a forlorn hope for imminent and unavoidable death or
capture, and it gave one last avenue of achievement to the mission on
which he had come from Lucknow.
At the final moment he communicated it to the two sisters. They agreed
to abide by his decision, and the elder one said with a calm serenity
that lent to her words the symbolism of a prayer:
"We are all in God's hands, Mr. Malcolm. Whether we live or die we are
assured that you have done and will do all that lies in the power of a
Christian gentleman to save us."
"I don't like leaving you," he murmured, "but our only weapons are a
sword and a brace of empty pistols. If we run on another half mile we
shall be shot down where we stand without any means of defending
ourselves. On the other hand--"
Then the budgerow struck a submerged rock with a violence that must have
pitched him overboard were he not holding Nejdi's headstall at the
moment. She careened so badly that the girls shrieked and Malcolm
himself thought she would turn turtle. But she swung clear, righted
herself, and lay broadside on to the current. Another crash, less
violent but even more disastrous, tore away the rudder and wrenched the
spar pulley out of the top of the mast. The heavy sail fell of course,
but by some miracle left the occupants of the boat uninjured.
And now the maimed craft was carried along sluggishly, drifting back
towards the center of the river, while the men in the other boats set up
a fiendish yell of delight at the catastrophe that had overtaken the
doomed Feringhis. Their skilled boatmen evidently knew of this reef.
They stood away towards the shore, but the triumphant jeering that came
from the crowded decks showed that they meant to pass their dismantled
quarry and wait in safer waters until it lumbered down upon them.
Malcolm suddenly became aware of his wounded arm. With a curious
fatalism he began to dissect his emotions. He arrived at the conclusion
that the drop from the nervous tension of hope to the relaxation of
sheer despair had dulled his brain and weakened his physical powers.
This, then, was the end. There could be no doubt about it. He quieted
the startled horses with a word or two and spoke to the girls again.
"You may as well come on deck now," he said. "It is all up with us. If a
friendly bullet puts us out of our misery, so much the better. Otherwise
my advice to you both is to leap into the river rather than be
recaptured."
Grace was sobbing hysterically, but Harriet, clasping her fondly in her
arms, looked up at him.
"No," she said, "we must not do that. Our lives are not our own. The
Lord gave and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!"
Frank winced in his anguish. To a puissant man there is nothing so
galling as helplessness; what a game of battledore and shuttlecock had
been played with him and those bound up with his fortunes since the
moulvie's man-trap brought him headlong to the earth in the main street
of Rai Bareilly!
"Huzoor!" yelled Chumru, excitedly. "Look! There below! A smoke ship!
And see! Those sons of pigs are making for the bank!"
Malcolm could scarce believe his eyes when they rested on a small
steamer with the British flag flying from the masthead, coming round the
bend. Yet there could be no mistake about it. British officers in white
uniforms were standing on her bridge, the muzzles of a couple of guns
showed black and business-like over her bows, while her forward deck was
packed with men in the uniform of the Madras Fusiliers. Her commander
seemed to take in the exact position of affairs at a glance, and,
indeed, the half-wrecked and almost empty boat in mid-stream, so eagerly
followed by two thickly crowded craft now close hauled and putting forth
desperate efforts to reach the bank, presented a riddle easy to read.
That twinge of pain quitted Frank's arm as speedily as it had made its
presence felt. He helped the girls to the raised deck, so that the
people on the steamer could see them. It was not necessary. An officer
waved a hand to them as the sturdy little vessel dashed past, raising a
mighty spume of white froth with her paddles, and soon her guns were
busy. There was no question of quarter. Captain Spurgin had been with
Neill at Allahabad. He knew the story of Massacre Ghat, of Delhi, of
Sitapore, Moradabad, Bareilly, and a score of other stations in Oudh and
the Northwest. His gunners pelted the unwieldy budgerows with round shot
until they began to sink. Then he used grape and rifle fire, until five
minutes after the _Warren Hastings_ came on the scene, there was nought
left of the Fattehpore navy save some shattered wreckage and a few
wretches who strove to swim amidst a hail of lead and in a river
infested with crocodiles.
When the steamer dropped down stream and picked up the fugitives,
Malcolm learnt that Spurgin was co-operating with Renaud. The one
cleared the river, the other was hanging men on nearly every tree that
lined the Grand Trunk Road. And Havelock, nobly aided by Neill, was
moving heaven and earth to equip a strong force at Allahabad to avenge
Cawnpore and raise the expected siege of Lucknow.
As Malcolm himself brought the earliest news of the investment, he and
Chumru were put ashore with a small escort, in order that they might
join Major Renaud's column, and hurry to Havelock with his thrilling
tidings. Spurgin promised to visit the village on the east bank, release
Hossein Beg, and make him a hostage for the ryot's welfare. As for
Harriet and Grace Keene, they would be sent south as soon as a carriage
could be procured.
The two girls bade Frank farewell with a gratitude which was
embarrassing, but Grace, more mercurial than Harriet, ventured to say:
"I suppose you are longing to see Winifred again, Mr. Malcolm?"
"Yes," he replied, well knowing the thought that lay behind the words.
"You are her friend, so there is no reason why I should not tell you
that she is my promised wife."
"Then you are both to be congratulated," put in the elder sister, "for
she is quite the most charming girl we know, and our opinion of you is
not likely to be a poor one after to-day's experiences."
"What? After an hour's acquaintance?"
"An hour! There are some hours that are half a lifetime. Good-by, may
Heaven guard and watch over you!"
Renaud despatched Lawrence's messenger to the south in a dak-gharry, or
post-carriage. Chumru would have taken the servant's usual perch beside
the driver, but Malcolm would not hear of it. His faithful attendant was
almost as worn with fatigue as he himself; master and man shared the
comfort of the roomy vehicle; and slept for many hours while it rumbled
along the road.
At dawn on the 4th of July they entered Allahabad. But the driver had
his orders and did not stop in the city. They passed through a sullen
bazaar, and were gazed at by a mob that wore the aspect of a cageful of
tigers in which order has just been induced by the liberal use of
red-hot irons. The travelers were nodding asleep again when the sharp
summons of a British sentry gladdened Malcolm's ears.
"Who goes there?"
How alert it sounded! How reminiscent of the old days! How full of
promise of the days that were to come!
He leaned out and smiled as he told a stolid private of the 64th that he
was "a friend." His uniform acted as a passport, the dak-gharry crossed
the drawbridge and crept through a narrow tunnel, and he found himself
standing in the great inner parade-ground of the fort. A young officer
approached.
"Do you wish to see the General? Whom shall I report?" he asked, eyeing
the worn appearance and torn and blood-stained uniforms of Englishman
and native.
"I am from Lucknow," said Frank. "Will you kindly tell General Havelock
that Captain Malcolm of the 3d Cavalry has brought him a message from
Sir Henry Lawrence?"
It was the first time he had described himself by his new rank. It sent
a pleasant tingle through his veins and made that injured arm of his
ache again. Lawrence had given him to the 4th, and here he was in
Allahabad on the very date of his Chief's reckoning, after having gone
through adventures that would have satiated Ulysses.
But the pardonable pride of a young and gallant soldier soon yielded an
inexplicable sensation of humility when he was brought before a small,
slender, erect man, gray-haired, eagle-nosed, with strangely bright and
piercing eyes, and a mouth habitually set in a thin, straight line. This
was Sir Henry Havelock, and Frank felt instantly that he was in the
presence of one who lived in a world apart from his fellows. And, in
truth, Havelock would have been better understood by Cromwell's
Ironsides than by his own generation. He was outside the ordinary run of
mankind. Though aware of a natural timidity, he fought with and
conquered it until his soldiers refused to believe that Havelock knew
what fear was. Conscious of his own military genius he had borne without
comment or complaint a constant supersession by inferiors, and in an age
when levity of thought and manners among officers was often looked upon
as the hall-mark of distinguished social position, he lost no
opportunity of giving his men religious instruction, while every act of
his life was governed by a stern sense of duty.
Such was the man who listened to Malcolm's account of the proceedings
which led up to the disastrous battle of Chinhut.
"You say you rode straight from the field on the evening of the 30th,"
said he, when Frank had delivered his message of Lucknow's plight. "How
did you travel, and in what state did you find the country you
traversed?"
Then Frank told him all that had taken place. More than once the young
officer would have cut short the recital, but this Havelock would not
permit. His son was present, that younger Havelock who lived for forty
years to keep ever in the public memory a glorious name, and often the
father would turn towards him and punctuate Malcolm's tale with a nod,
or a brief, "Do you hear that, Harry?"
At last, the stirring chronicle was ended.
"Do you wish to remain here and recuperate, or will you join my staff,
with the rank of Major?" asked Havelock.
Malcolm was hardly able to stammer his acceptance of the appointment
thus offered, but the General had no time for useless talk.
"About this servant of yours--he seems to have the making of a soldier
in him--will he care to retain the rank he has assumed so creditably?"
he went on.
Frank rather lost his breath at this suggestion, but he had the presence
of mind to refer the decision to Chumru himself.
"Kubbi nahin, general-sahib,"[20] was the Mohammedan's emphatic
disclaimer of the honor proposed to be conferred on him. "I am a good
bearer, huzoor, but I should prove a very bad rissaldar. I am not of a
fighting caste. I am a man of peace."
[Footnote 20: Literally: "Never no general!"]
"I think you are mistaken," said Havelock, quietly, "but by all means
continue to serve your master. I am sure he is worthy of your devotion.
And now, Major Malcolm, if you will report yourself to General Neill, he
will provide you with quarters and plenty of work."