Dawn broke and the roofs of old Hanadra became resplendent with the
varied colors of turbans and pugrees and shawls. As though the rising
sun had loosed the spell, a myriad tongues, of women chiefly, rose in
a babel of clamor, and the few men who had been left in. Hanadra by
the night's armed exodus came all together and growled prophetically in
undertones. Now was the day of days, when that part of India, at least,
should cast off the English yoke.
To the temple! The cry went up before the sun was fifteen minutes high.
There are a hundred temples in Hanadra, age-old all of them and carved
on the outside with strange images of heathen gods in high relief, like
molds turned inside out. But there is but one temple that that cry could
mean--Kharvani's; and there could be but one meaning for the cry. Man,
woman and child would pray Kharvani, Bride of Siva the Destroyer, to
intercede with Siva and cause him to rise and smite the English. On the
skyline, glinting like flashed signals in the early sun, bright English
bayonets had appeared; and between them and Hanadra was a dense black
mass, the whole of old Hanadra's able-bodied manhood, lined up to
defend the city. Now was the time to pray. Fifty to one are by no means
despicable odds, but the aid of the gods as well is better!
So the huge dome of Kharvani's temple began to echo to the sound of
slippered feet and awe-struck whisperings, and the big, dim auditorium
soon filled to overflowing. No light came in from the outer world.
There was nothing to illuminate the mysteries except the chain-hung
grease-lamps swinging here and there from beams, and they served only
to make the darkness visible. Bats flicked in and out between them
and disappeared in the echoing gloom above. Censers belched out
sweet-smelling, pungent clouds of sandalwood to drown the stench of hot
humanity; and the huge graven image of Kharvani--serene and smiling and
indifferent--stared round-eyed from the darkness.
Then a priest's voice boomed out in a solemn incantation and the
whispering hushed. He chanted age-old verses, whose very meaning was
forgotten in the womb of time--forgotten as the artist who had painted
the picture of idealized Kharvani on the wall. Ten priests, five on
either side of the tremendous idol, emerged chanting from the gloom
behind, and then a gong rang, sweetly, clearly, suddenly, and the
chanting ceased. Out stepped the High Priest from a niche below the
image, and his voice rose in a wailing, sing-song cadence that reechoed
from the dome and sent a thrill through every one who heard.
His chant had scarcely ceased when the temple door burst open and a man
rushed in.
“They have begun!” he shouted. “The battle has begun!”
As though in ready confirmation of his words, the distant reverberating
boom of cannon filtered through the doorway from the world of grim
realities outside.
“They have twenty cannon with them! They have more guns than we have!”
wailed he who brought the news. Again began the chanting that sought the
aid of Siva the Destroyer. Only, there were fewer who listened to this
second chant. Those who were near the doorway slipped outside and joined
the watching hundreds on the roofs.
For an hour the prayers continued in the stifling gloom, priest
relieving priest and chant following on chant, until the temple was half
emptied of its audience. One by one, and then by twos and threes, the
worshipers succumbed to human curiosity and crept stealthily outside to
watch.
Another messenger ran in and shouted: “They have charged! Their cavalry
have charged! They are beaten back! Their dead lie twisted on the
plain!”
At the words there was a stampede from the doorway, and half of those
who had remained rushed out. There were hundreds still there, though,
for that great gloomy pile of Kharvani's could hold an almost countless
crowd.
Within another hour the same man rushed to the door again and shouted:
“Help comes! Horsemen are coming from the north! Rajputs, riding like
leaves before the wind! Even the Mussulmans are for us!”
But the chanting never ceased. No one stopped to doubt the friendship
of arrivals from the north, for to that side there were no English, and
England's friends would surely follow byroads to her aid. The city gates
were wide open to admit wounded or messengers or friends--with a view,
even, to a possible retreat--and whoever cared could ride through them
unchallenged and unchecked.
Even when the crash of horses' hoofs rattled on the stone paving outside
the temple there was no suspicion. No move was made to find out who
it was who rode. But when the temple door reechoed to the thunder of a
sword-hilt and a voice roared “Open!” there was something like a panic.
The chanting stopped and the priests and the High Priest listened to the
stamping on the stone pavement at the temple front.
“Open!” roared a voice again, and the thundering on the panels
recommenced. Then some one drew the bolt and a horse's head--a huge
Khaubuli stallion's--appeared, snorting and panting and wild-eyed.
“Farward!” roared the Risaldar Mahommed Khan, kneeling on young
Bellairs' winded charger.
“Farm twos! Farward!”
Straight into the temple, two by two, behind the Risaldar, rode two
fierce lines of Rajputs, overturning men and women--their drawn swords
pointing this way and that--their dark eyes gleaming. Without a word
to any one they rode up to the image, where the priests stood in an
astonished herd.
“Fron-tt farm! Rear rank--'bout-face!” barked the Risaldar, and there
was another clattering and stamping on the stone floor as the panting
chargers pranced into the fresh formation, back to back.
“The memsahib!” growled Mahommed Khan. “Where is she?”
“My son!” said the High Priest. “Bring me my son!”
“A life for a life! Thy heavenborn first!”
“Nay! Show me my son first!”
The Risaldar leaped from his horse and tossed his reins to the man
behind him. In a second his sword was at the High Priest's throat.
“Where is that secret stair?” he growled. “Lead on!”
The swordpoint pricked him. Two priests tried to interfere, but wilted
and collapsed with fright as four fierce, black-bearded Rajputs spurred
their horses forward. The swordpoint pricked still deeper.
“My son!” said the High Priest.
“A life for a life! Lead on!”
The High Priest surrendered, with a dark and cunning look, though, that
hinted at something or other in reserve. He pulled at a piece of
carving on the wail behind and pointed to a stair that showed behind
the outswung door. Then he plucked another priest by the sleeve and
whispered.
The priest passed on the whisper. A third priest turned and ran.
“That way!” said the High Priest, pointing.
“I? Nay! I go not down!” He raised his voice into an ululating howl. “O
Suliman!” he bellowed. “Suliman! O!--Suliman! Bring up the heaven-born!”
A growl like the distant rumble from a bear-pit answered him. Then Ruth
Bellairs' voice was heard calling up the stairway.
“Is that you, Mahommed Khan?”
“Ay, memsahib!”
“Good! I'm coming!”
She had recovered far enough to climb the ladder and the steep stone
stair above it, and Suliman climbed up behind her, grumbling dreadful
prophecies of what would happen to the priests now that Mohammed Khan
had come.
“Is all well, Risaldar?” she asked him.
“Nay, heavenborn! All is not well yet! The general sahib from Jundhra
and your husband's guns and others, making one division, are engaged
with rebels eight or nine miles from here. We saw part of the battle as
we rode!”
“Who wins?”
“It is doubtful, heavenborn! How could we tell from this distance?”
“Have you a horse for me?”
“Ay, heavenborn! Here! Bring up that horse, thou, and Suliman's! Ride
him cross-saddle, heavenborn--there were no side-saddles in Siroeh! Nay,
he is just a little frightened. He will stand--he will not throw thee!
I did better than I thought, heavenborn. I come with four-and-twenty,
making twenty-six with me and Suliman. An escort for a queen! So--sit
him quietly. Leave the reins free. Suliman will lead him! Ho! Fronnnt!
Rank--'bout-face!”
“My son!” wailed the High Priest. “Where is my son?”
“Tell him, Suliman!”
“Where I caught thee, thou idol-briber!” snarled the Risaldar's
half-brother.
“Where? In that den of stinks. Gagged and bound all this while?”
“Ha! Gagged and bound and out of mischief where all priests and
priests' sons ought to be!” laughed Mahommed Khan. “Farward! Farm twos
Ter-r-r-ott!”
In went the spur, and the snorting, rattling, clanking cavalcade sidled
and pranced out of the temple into the sunshine, with Ruth and Suliman
in the midst of them.
“Gallop!” roared the Risaldar, the moment that the last horse was clear
of the temple-doors. And in that instant he saw what the High Priest's
whispering had meant.
Coming up the street toward them was a horde of silent, hurrying Hindus,
armed with swords and spears, wearing all of them the caste-marks of
the Brahman--well-fed, indignant relations of the priests, intent on
avenging the defilement of Kharvani's temple.
“Canter! Fronnnt--farm--Gallop! Charge!”
Ruth found herself in the midst of a whirlwind of flashing sabers,
astride of a lean-flanked Katiawari gelding that could streak like
an antelope, knee to knee with a pair of bearded Rajputs, one of whom
gripped her bridle-rein--thundering down a city street straight for a
hundred swords that blocked her path. She set her eyes on the middle of
Mahommed Khan's straight back, gripped the saddle with both hands, set
her teeth and waited for the shock. Mahommed Khan's right arm rose and
his sword flashed in the sunlight as he stood up in his stirrups. She
shut her eyes. But there was no shock! There was the swish of whirling
steel, the thunder of hoofs, the sound of bodies falling. There was a
scream or two as well and a coarse-mouthed Rajput oath. But when she
dared to open her eyes once more they were thundering still, headlong
down the city street and Mahommed Khan was whirling his sword in mid-air
to shake the blood from it.
Ahead lay the city gate and she could see another swarm of Hindus
rushing from either side to close it. But “Charge!” yelled Mahommed Khan
again, and they swept through the crowd, through the half-shut gate, out
on the plain beyond, as a wind sweeps through the forest, leaving fallen
tree-trunks in its wake.
“Halt!” roared the Risaldar, when they were safely out of range. “Are
any hurt? No? Good for us that their rifles are all in the firing-line
yonder!”
He sat for a minute peering underneath his hand at the distant, dark,
serried mass of men and the steel-tipped lines beyond it, watching the
belching cannon and the spurting flames of the close-range rifle-fire.
“See, heavenborn!” he said, pointing. “Those will be your husband's
guns! See, over on the left, there. See! They fire! Those two! We can
reach them if we make a circuit on the flank here!”
“But can we get through, Risaldar? Won't they see us and cut us off?”
“Heavenborn!” he answered, “men who dare ride into a city temple and
snatch thee from the arms of priests dare and can do anything! Take
this, heavenborn--take it as a keepsake, in case aught happens!”
He drew off the priest's ring, gave it to her and then, before she could
reply:
“Canter!” he roared. The horses sprang forward in answer to the spurs
and there was nothing for Ruth to do but watch the distant battle and
listen to the deep breathing of the Rajputs on either hand.