AT THE KING'S COURT
Without guns to breach the walls, even the heroic Nicholson was
powerless against a strongly fortified city.
The siege train was toiling slowly across the Punjab, but the setting in
of the monsoon rendered the transit of heavy cannon a laborious task.
On the 24th of August an officer rode in from the town of Baghput,
twenty-five miles to the north, to report that the train was parked
there for the night.
"What sort of escort accompanies it?" asked Nicholson, when the news
reached him.
"Almost exclusively natives and few in numbers at that," he was told.
An hour later a native spy from Delhi came to the camp.
"The mutineers are mustering for a big march," he said. "They are
providing guns, litters, and commissariat camels, and the story goes
that they mean to fight the Feringhis at Bahadurgarh."
The place named was a large village, ten miles northwest of the ridge,
and Nicholson guessed instantly that the sepoys had planned the daring
coup of cutting off the siege train. With him, to hear was to act. He
formed a column of two thousand men and a battery of field artillery and
left the camp at dawn on the 25th. If a forced march could accomplish
it, he meant not only to frustrate the enemy's design but inflict a
serious defeat on them.
Malcolm went with him and never had he taken part in a harder day's
work. The road was a bullock track, a swamp of mud amid the larger swamp
of the ploughed land and jungle. Horses and men floundered through it as
best they might. The guns often sank almost to the trunnions; many a
time the infantry had to help elephants and bullocks to haul them out.
In seven hours the column only marched nine miles, and then came the
disheartening news that the spy's information was wrong. The rebels had,
indeed, sent out a strong force, but they were at Nujufgarh, miles away
to the right.
Officers and men ate a slight meal, growled a bit, and swung off in the
new direction. At four o'clock in the afternoon they found the sepoy
army drawn up behind a canal, with its right protected by another canal,
and the center and left posted in fortified villages. Evidently, too,
a stout serai, or inn, a square building surrounding a quadrangle set
apart for the lodgment of camels and merchandise was regarded as a
stronghold. Here were placed six guns and the walls were loopholed for
musketry.
In a word, had the mutineers been equal in courage and _morale_ to the
British troops, the resultant attack must have ended in disastrous
failure.
But Nicholson was a leader who took the measure of his adversaries.
Above all, he did not shirk a battle because it was risky.
The 61st made a flank march, forded the branch canal under fire and were
ordered to lie down. Nicholson rode up to them, a commanding figure on a
seventeen-hands English hunter.
"Now, 61st," he said, "I want you to take that serai and the guns. You
all know what Sir Colin Campbell told you at Chillianwallah, and you
have heard that he said the same thing at the battle of the Alma. 'Hold
your fire until you see the whites of their eyes,' he said, 'and then,
my boys, we will make short work of it.' Come on! Let us follow his
advice here!"
Swinging his horse around, he rode straight at serai and battery.
Grape-shot and bullets sang the death-song of many a brave fellow, but
Nicholson was untouched. The 61st leaped to their feet with a yell,
rushed after him, and did not fire a shot until they were within twenty
yards of the enemy. A volley and the bayonet did the rest. They captured
the guns, carried the serai, and pelted the flying rebels with their own
artillery. The 1st Punjabis had a stiff fight before they killed every
man in the village of Nujufgarh on the left, but the battle was won,
practically in defiance of every tenet of military tactics, when the
61st forced their way into the serai.
Utterly exhausted, the soldiers slept on the soddened ground. That
night, smoking a cigar with his staff, Nicholson commented on the skill
shown in the enemy's disposition.
"I asked a wounded havildar who it was that led the column, and he told
me the commander was a new arrival, a subadar of the 8th Irregular
Cavalry, named Akhab Khan," he said.
Malcolm started. Akhab Khan was the young sowar whose life he had spared
at Cawnpore when Winifred and her uncle and himself were escaping from
Bithoor.
"I knew him well, sir," he could not help saying. "He was not a subadar,
but a lance-corporal. He was one of a small escort that accompanied me
from Agra to the south, but he is a smart soldier, and not at all of the
cut-throat type."
Nicholson looked at him fixedly. He seemed to be considering some point
suggested by Malcolm's words.
"If men like him are obtaining commands in Delhi they will prove
awkward," was his brief comment, and Frank did not realize what his
chief was revolving in his mind until, three days later, the Brigadier
asked him to don his disguise again, ride to the southward, and endeavor
to fall in with a batch of mutineers on the way to Delhi. Then he could
enter the city, note the dispositions for the defense, and escape by
joining an attacking party during one of the many raids on the ridge.
"You will be rendering a national service by your deed," said Nicholson,
gazing into Frank's troubled eyes with that magnetic power that bent
all men to his will. "I know it is a distasteful business, but you are
able to carry it through, and five hours of your observation will be
worth five weeks of native reports. Will you do it?"
"Yes, sir," said Malcolm, choking back the protest on his lips. He could
not trust himself to say more. He refused even to allow his thoughts to
dwell on such a repellent subject. A spy! What soldier likes the office?
It stifles ambition. It robs war of its glamour. It may call for a
display of the utmost bravery--that calm courage of facing an ignoble
death alone, unheeded, forgotten, which is the finest test of chivalry,
but it can never commend itself to a high-spirited youth.
Frank had already won distinction in the field; it was hard to be chosen
now for such a doubtful enterprise.
His worst hour came when he sought Chumru's aid in the matter of
walnut-juice.
"What is toward, sahib?" asked the Mohammedan. "Have we not seen enough
of India that we must set forth once more?"
"This time I go alone," said Frank, sadly. "Perchance I shall not be
long absent. You will remain here in charge of my baggage and of certain
letters which I shall give you."
"Why am I cast aside, sahib?"
"Nay. Say not so. 'Tis a matter that I must deal with myself, and not
of my own wish, Chumru. I obey the general-sahib's order."
"Jan Nikkelsen-sahib Bahadur?"
"Yes. I would refuse any other. But haste thee, for time presses."
Chumru went off. He returned in half an hour, to find his master sealing
a letter addressed to "Miss Winifred Mayne, to be forwarded, if
possible, with the Lucknow Relief Force."
There were others to relatives in England, and Frank tied them in a
small packet.
"If I do not come back within a week--" he began.
"Nay, sahib, give not instructions to me in the matter. I go with you."
"It is impossible."
"Huzoor, it is the order of Jan Nikkelsen-sahib Bahadur. He says I will
be useful, and he hath promised me another jaghir."
The Mohammedan's statement was true enough. He had waylaid Nicholson and
obtained permission to accompany his master. Like a faithful dog he was
not to be shaken off, and, in his heart of hearts, Malcolm was glad of
it.
Their preparations were made with the utmost secrecy. The same men who
sold Bahadur Shah's cause to the British were also the professed spies
of the rebels. They were utterly unreliable, yet their tale-bearing in
Delhi might bring instant disaster to Malcolm and his native comrade.
Nejdi was in good condition again after the tremendous exertions
undergone since he carried his master from Lucknow. Malcolm was in two
minds whether to take him or not, but the chance that his life might
depend on a reliable horse, and, perhaps, a touch of the gambler's
belief in luck, swayed his judgment, and Nejdi was saddled. Chumru rode
a spare charger which Malcolm had purchased at the sale of a dead
officer's effects. Fully equipped in their character as rebel
non-commissioned officers, the two rode forth, crossed the Jumna,
reached the Meerut road unchallenged and turned their horses' heads
toward the bridge of boats that debouched beneath the walls of the
King's palace.
Provided they met some stragglers on the road they meant to enter the
city with the dawn. By skilful expenditure of money on Malcolm's part
and the exercise of Chumru's peculiar inventiveness in maintaining a
flow of lurid language, they counted on keeping their new-found comrades
in tow while they made the tour of the city. The curiosity of strangers
would be quite natural, and Malcolm hoped they might be able to slip out
again with some expedition planned for the night or the next morning.
Of course, having undertaken an unpleasant duty he intended to carry it
through. If he did not learn the nature and extent of the enemy's
batteries, the general dispositions for the defense and the state of
feeling among the different sections that composed the rebel garrison,
he must perforce remain longer. But that was in the lap of fate. At
present he could only plan and contrive to the best of his ability.
Fortune favored the adventurers at first. They encountered a score of
ruffians who had cut themselves adrift from the Gwalior contingent.
Among these strangers Chumru was quickly a hero. He beguiled the way
with tales of derring-do in Oudh and the Doab, and discussed the future
of all unbelievers with an amazing gusto. Malcolm, whose head was
shrouded in a gigantic and blood-stained turban, listened with interest
to his servant's account of the actions outside Cawnpore and on the road
to Lucknow. It was excellent fooling to hear Chumru detailing the
wholesale slaughter of the Nazarenes, while the victors, always the
sepoys, found it advisable to fall back on a strategic position many
miles in the rear after each desperate encounter.
In this hail-fellow-well-met manner the party crossed the bridge, were
interrogated by a guard at the Water Gate and admitted to the fortress.
It chanced that a first-rate feud was in progress, and the officer,
whose duty it was to question new arrivals, was taking part in it.
Money was short in the royal treasury. Many thousands of sepoys had
neither been paid nor fed; there was a quarrel between Mohammedans and
Hindoos, because the former insisted on slaughtering cattle; and the
more respectable citizens were clamoring for protection from the
rapacity, insolence and lust of the swaggering soldiers.
That very day matters had reached a climax. Malcolm found a brawling mob
in front of the Lahore gate of the palace. He caught Chumru's eye and
the latter appealed to a sepoy for information as to the cause of the
racket.
"The King of Kings hath a quarrel with his son, Mirza Moghul, who is not
over pleased with the recent division of the command," was the answer.
"What, then? Is there more than one chief?"
"To be sure. Is there not the Council of the Barah Topi? (Twelve Hats.)
Are not Bakht Khan and Akhab Khan in charge of brigades? Where hast thou
been, brother, that these things are not known to thee?"
"Be patient with me, I pray thee, friend. I and twenty more, whom thou
seest here, have ridden in within the hour. We come to join the Jehad,
and we are grieved to find a dispute toward when we expected to be led
against the infidels."
The sepoy laughed scornfully.
"You will see as many fights here as outside the walls," he muttered,
and moved off, for men were beginning to guard their tongues in Imperial
Delhi.
A rowdy gang of full five hundred armed mutineers marched up and hustled
the mob right and left as they forced a way to the gate. Their words and
attitude betokened trouble. The opportunity was too good to be lost.
Malcolm dismounted, gave the reins to Chumru, and told him to wait his
return under some trees, somewhat removed from the road, for Akhab Khan
had sharp eyes, and the Mohammedan's grotesque face was well known to
him. Chumru made a fearsome grimace, but Malcolm's order was peremptory.
Summoning a fruit-seller, the bearer led the Gwalior men to the
rendezvous named and distributed mangoes amongst them.
Frank joined the ruck of the demonstrators and passed through the
portals of the magnificent gate. A long, high-roofed arcade, spacious as
the nave of a cathedral, with raised marble platforms for merchants on
each side, gave access to a quadrangle. In the center stood a fountain,
and round about were grassy lawns and beds of flowers.
The sepoys tramped on, heedless of the destruction they caused in the
garden. They passed through the noble Nakar Khana, or music-room, and
entered another and larger square, at the further end of which stood the
Diwan-i-Am, or Hall of Public Audience.
Not even in Agra, and certainly not in gaudy Lucknow, had Malcolm seen
any structure of such striking architectural effect. The elegant roof
was supported on three rows of red sandstone pillars, adorned with
chaste gilding and stucco-work. Open on three sides, the audience
chamber was backed by a wall of white marble, from which a staircase led
to a throne raised about ten feet from the ground and covered with a
rarely beautiful marble canopy borne on four small pillars.
The throne was empty, but an attendant appeared through the door at the
foot of the stairs, and announced that the Light of the World would
receive his faithful soldiers in a few minutes.
The impatient warriors snorted their disapproval. They did not like to
be kept waiting, but carried their resentment no further, and Malcolm,
with alert eyes and ears, moved about among them, as by that means he
hoped to avoid attracting attention.
Even in that moment of deadly peril he could not help admiring the
exquisite skill with which the great marble wall was decorated with
mosaics and paintings of the fauna and flora of India. The mosaics were
wholly composed of precious stones, and the paintings were executed in
rich tints that told of a master hand. There was nothing bizarre or
crude in their conception. They might have adorned some Athenian temple
in the heyday of Greece, and were wholly free from the stiff drawing and
flamboyant coloring usually seen in the East. He did not then know that
a renegade Venetian artist, Austin de Bordeaux, had carried out this
work for Shah Jehan, that great patron of the arts, and in any event,
his appreciation of their excellence was spasmodic, for the broken words
he heard from the excited soldiery warned him that a crisis was imminent
in the fortunes of Delhi.
"Who is he, then, this havildar of gunners from Bareilly?" said one.
"And the other, Akhab Khan. They say he fought for the Nazarenes at
Meerut. Mohammed Latif swears he defended the treasury there," chimed in
another.
"As for me, I care not who leads. I want my pay."
"I, too. I have not eaten since sunrise yesterday."
"We shall get neither food nor money till some one clears those accursed
Feringhis off the hill," growled a deep voice close behind Malcolm.
There was something familiar in the tone. Frank edged away and glanced
at the speaker, whom he recognized instantly as a subadar in his own old
regiment.
But now a craning of necks and a sudden hush of the animated talk showed
that some development was toward. Servants entered with cushions, which
they disposed round the foot of the throne and at the base of its
canopy. A few nobles and court functionaries lounged in, two gorgeously
appareled guards came through the doorway, and behind them tottered a
feeble old man, robed in white, and wearing on his head an aigrette of
Bird of Paradise plumes, fastened with a gold clasp in which sparkled an
immense emerald.
Malcolm had seen Bahadur Shah only once before. He remembered how
decorous and dignified was the Mogul court when Britain paid honor to an
ancient dynasty. And now, what a change! The aged emperor had to lift a
trembling hand to obtain a hearing, while, ever and anon, even during
his short address, belated officers and troopers clattered in on
horseback, and did not dismount within the precincts of the sacred Hall
of Audience itself.
He began by explaining timorously that while affairs remained in their
present unsettled condition he could not arrange matters as he would
have wished. He knew that there were arrears of pay and that the food
supply was irregular.
"But you do not help me," he said, with some display of spirit.
"Respectable citizens tell me that you plunder their houses and debauch
their wives and daughters. I have issued repeated injunctions
prohibiting robbery and oppression in the city, but to no avail."
He was interrupted with loud murmurs.
"What matters it about the bazaar-folk, O King," yelled a sepoy. "We
want food, not a sermon."
The Emperor seemed to fire up with indignation at the taunt, but he sank
into the chair on the throne. He raised a hand twice to quiet the mob,
and at last they allowed him to continue.
"I am weary and helpless," he said faintly. "I have resolved to make a
vow to pass the remainder of my life in service acceptable to Allah. I
will relinquish my title and take the garb of a moullah. I am going to
the shrine of Khwaja Sahib, and thence to Mecca, where I hope to end my
sorrowful days."
This was not the sort of consolation that the mob expected or wanted. A
howl of execration burst forth, but it was stayed by the entrance of two
people from the private portion of the palace.
There was no need that Malcolm should ask who the pale, haughty,
beautiful woman was who came and stood by her father's side. Roshinara
Begum did not share the Emperor's dejection. She faced the rebels now
with the air of one who knew them for the _canaille_ they were. But that
was only for an instant. A consummate actress, she had a part to play,
and she bent and whispered something to Bahadur Shah with a great show
of pleased vivacity.
A man who accompanied her stepped to the front of the throne, and his
words soon revealed to Malcolm that he was listening to the Shahzada,
the heir apparent, Mirza Moghul.
"Why do you come hither to disturb the King's pious meditations?" he
cried angrily. "You were better employed at the batteries, where your
loyal comrades are now firing a salute of twenty-one guns to celebrate
the capture of Agra by the Neemuch Brigade."
He paused. His statement was news to all present, as, indeed, it well
might be, seeing that it was a lie. But his half petulant, half boastful
tone was convincing, and several voices were raised in a cry of
"Shabash! Good hearing!"
"This is no time to create mischief and disunion," he went on loudly.
"Help is coming from all quarters. Gwalior, Jhansi, Neemuch and Lucknow
are sending troops to aid us. In three or four days, if Allah be
willing, the Ridge will be taken, and every one of the base unbelievers
humbled and ruined and sent to the fifth circle of hell."
The man had the actor's trick of making his points. Waiting until an
exultant roar of applause had died away, he delivered his most effective
hit.
"At the very time you dared to burst in on the Emperor's privacy he was
arranging a loan with certain local bankers that will enable all arrears
of pay to be made up. To-day there will be a free issue of cattle, grain
and rice. Go, then! Tell these things to all men, and trust to the King
of Kings and his faithful advisers, of whom I am at once the nearest and
the most obedient, to lead you to victory against the Nazarenes."
For the hour these brave words sufficed. The sepoys trooped out and
Malcolm went with them. A backward glance revealed the princess and her
brother engaged in a conversation with Bahadur Shah and a courtier or
two. Their gestures and manner of argument did not bear out the joyful
tidings brought to the conclave by the Shahzada. Indeed, Frank guessed
that they were soundly rating the miserable monarch for having allowed
himself to speak so plainly to his beloved subjects.
Malcolm knew there was not a word of truth in Mirza Moghul's brief
speech. The Gwalior contingent had gone to Cawnpore. All the men
Bareilly had to send had already arrived with Bakht Khan, the "havildar
of artillery," who was now the King's right hand man. Jhansi, Neemuch
and Lucknow had enough troubles of their own without helping Delhi, and,
as for the bankers' aid, it was easy to guess the nature of the "loan"
that the Emperor hoped to extract from them.
Indeed, while Malcolm and Chumru and their new associates were wandering
through the streets and making the circuit of the western wall, there
was another incipient riot in the fort. Delay in issuing the promised
rations enraged the hungry troops. A number hurried again to the
Diwan-i-Am, clamored for the king's presence, and told him roundly that
he ought to imprison his sons, who, they said, had stolen their pay.
"If the Treasury does not find the money," was the threat, "we will kill
you and all your family, for we are masters."
This later incident came to Malcolm's ears while Chumru was persuading a
grain-dealer to admit that he had some corn hidden away. The sight of
money unlocked the man's lips.
"Would there were more like you in the King's service," he whined. "I
have not taken a rupee in the way of trade since the huzoors were driven
forth."
It was easy enough to interpret the unhappy tradesman's real wishes. He
was pining for the restoration of the British Raj. Every man in Delhi,
who had anything to lose, mourned the day that saw the downfall of the
Sirkar.[22]
[Footnote 22: The Government.]
"Affairs go badly, then," Malcolm put in. "Speak freely, friend. We are
strangers, and are minded to go back whence we came, for there is naught
but misrule in the city so far as we can see."
"What can you expect from an old man who writes verses when he should be
punishing malefactors?" said the grain-dealer, bitterly anxious to vent
his wrongs. "If you would act wisely, sirdar, leave this bewitched
place. It is given over to devils. I am a Hindu, as you know, but I am
worse treated by the Brahmins than by men of your faith."
"Mayhap you have quarreled with some of the sepoys and have a sore
feeling against them?"
"Think not so, sirdar. Who am I to make enemies of these lords? Every
merchant in the bazaar is of my mind, and I have suffered less than
many, for I am a poor man and have no family."
In response to Chumru's request the grain-dealer allowed the men to cook
their food in an inner courtyard. While Malcolm extracted additional
details as to the chaos that reigned in the city the newcomers from
Gwalior consulted among themselves. They had seen enough to be convinced
that there were parts of India much preferable to Delhi for residential
purposes.
"Behold, sirdar!" said one of them after they had eaten, "you led us in,
and now we pray you lead us out again. There are plenty here to fight
the Feringhis, and we may be more useful at Lucknow."
Malcolm could have laughed at the strangeness of his position, but he
saw in this request the nucleus of a new method of winning his way
beyond the walls.
"Bide here," he said gruffly, "until Ali Khan and I return, which we
will surely do ere night. Then we shall consider what steps to take. At
present, I am of the same mind as you."
He wanted to visit the Cashmere Gate and examine its defenses. Then, he
believed, he would have obtained all the information that Nicholson
required. He was certain that Delhi would fall if once the British
secured a footing inside the fortifications. The city was seething with
discontent. Even if left to its own devices it would speedily become
disrupted by the warring elements within its bounds.
Chumru and he rode first to the Mori Gate. Thence, by a side road, they
followed the wall to the Cashmere Gate. Traveling as rapidly as the
crowded state of the thoroughfare permitted and thus wearing the
semblance of being engaged on some urgent duty, they counted the guns
in each battery and noted their positions.
Arrived at the Cashmere Gate they loitered there a few minutes. This was
the key of Delhi. Once it was won, a broad road led straight to the
heart of the city, with the palace on one hand and the Chandni Chowk on
the other.
Malcolm saw with a feeling of unutterable loathing that the mutineers
had converted St. James's Church into a stable. Not so had the founder,
Colonel James Skinner, treated the religions of the people among whom he
lived. The legend goes that the gallant soldier, a veteran of the
Mahratta wars, had married three wives, an Englishwoman, a Mohammedan,
and a Hindu. His own religious views were of the nebulous order, but, so
says the story, being hard pressed once in a fight, he vowed to build a
church to his wife's memory if he escaped. His assailants were driven
off and the vow remained. When he came to give effect to it he was
puzzled to know which wife he should honor, so he built a church, a
mosque and a temple, each at a corner of the triangular space just
within the Cashmere Gate.
Whether the origin of the structures is correctly stated or not, they
stand to this day where Skinner's workmen placed them, and it was a
dastardly act on the part of men who worshiped in mosque and temple to
profane the hallowed shrine of another and far superior faith.
Malcolm was sitting motionless on Nejdi, looking at a squad of rebels
erecting fascines in front of a new battery on the river side of the
gate, when Chumru, whose twisted vision seemed to command all points of
the compass, saw that the commander of a cavalry guard stationed there
was regarding them curiously.
"Turn to the right, huzoor," he muttered.
Malcolm obeyed instantly. The warning note in Chumru's voice was not to
be denied. It would be folly to wait and question him.
"Now let us canter," said the other, as soon as the horses were fairly
in the main road.
"You did well, sahib, to move quickly. There was one in the guard yonder
whose eyes grew bigger each second that he looked at you."
They heard some shouting at the gate. A bend in the road near the ruined
offices of the _Delhi Gazette_ gave them a chance of increasing the pace
to a gallop. There was a long, straight stretch in front, leading past
the Telegraph Office, the dismantled magazine, and a small cemetery.
Then the road turned again, and by a sharp rise gained the elevated
plateau on which stood the fort.
Glancing over his shoulder at this point, Malcolm caught sight of a
dozen sowars riding furiously after them. To dissipate any hope that
they might not be in pursuit, he saw the leader point in his direction
and seemingly urge on his comrades. It was impossible to know for
certain what had roused this nest of hornets, though the presence of a
man of the 3d Cavalry in the palace that morning was a sinister fact
that led to only one conclusion. No matter what the motive, he felt that
Chumru and he were trapped. There was no avenue of escape. Whether they
went ahead or made a dash for the city, their pursuers could keep them
well in sight, as their tired horses were incapable of a sustained
effort at top speed after having been on the move nearly twenty hours.
He had to decide quickly, and his decision must be governed not by
personal considerations but by the needs of his country. If he had been
recognized, the enemy would follow him. Therefore, Chumru might outwit
them were he given a chance.
"Listen, good friend," he shouted as they clattered up the hill. "Thou
seest the tope of trees in front."
"Yes, sahib."
"This, then, is my last order, and it must be obeyed. When we reach
those trees we will bear off towards the palace. Pull up there and
dismount. Give me the reins of your horse, and hide yourself quickly
among the trees. I shall ride on, and you may be able to dodge into some
ditch or nullah till it is dark. Rejoin those men from Gwalior if
possible, and try to get away from the city. Tell the General-sahib what
you have seen and that I sent you. Do you understand?"
"Huzoor!--"
"Silence! Wouldst thou have me fail in my duty? It is my parting wish,
Chumru. There is no time for words. Do as I say, or we both die
uselessly."
There was no answer. The Mohammedan's eyes blazed with the frenzy of a
too complete comprehension of his master's intent. But now they were
behind the trees, and Malcolm was already checking Nejdi. Chumru flung
himself from the saddle and ran. Cowering amid some shrubs of dense
foliage, he watched Malcolm dashing along the road to the Lahore Gate of
the palace. A minute later the rebels thundered past, and they did not
seem to notice that one of the two horses disappearing in the curved
cutting that led to the drawbridge and side entrance of the gate was
riderless.
Chumru ought to have taken immediate measures to secure his own safety.
But he did nothing of the kind. He lay there, watching the hard-riding
horsemen, and striving most desperately to do them all the harm that the
worst sort of malign imprecations could effect. They, in turn, vanished
in the sunken approach to the fortress, and the unhappy bearer was
imagining the horrible fate that had befallen the master, whom he loved
more than kith or kin, when he saw the same men suddenly reappear and
gallop towards the Delhi Gate, which was situated at a considerable
distance.
Something had happened to disappoint and annoy them--that much he could
gather from their gestures and impassioned speech. Whatever it was,
Malcolm-sahib apparently was not dead yet, and while there is life there
is hope.
Chumru proceeded to disrobe. He kicked off his boots, untied his
putties, threw aside the frock-coat and breeches of a cavalry
rissaldar, and stood up in the ordinary white clothing of a native
servant.
"Shabash!" muttered he, as he unfastened the military badge in his
turban. "There is nothing like a change of clothing to alter a man. Now
I can follow my sahib and none be the wiser."
With that he walked coolly into the roadway and stepped out leisurely
towards the Lahore Gate. But he found the massive door closed and the
drawbridge raised, and a gruff voice bade him begone, as the gate would
not be opened until the King's orders were received.