A STRUGGLE.
WHEN Alicia went into the fort in her quest after the black locket,
Robin, keeping the doli in sight, removed to a place at a short distance
where he would be less liable to observation. There, under a peepul tree
was a well to supply the inmates of the fort with water, and this water,
as is very commonly the case in India, was drawn up by means of a
Persian wheel. This contrivance, which is never seen in England, is
familiar to dwellers in the East. Two oxen, yoked to a shaft which is
attached to a large wheel, by going round and round the well make the
wheel revolve. Its circumference is completely encircled with a garland
of small earthen pots. As the big wheel turns round, its lower half in
the well, such of the pots as are lowest dip under the water, and thus
necessarily become filled. The revolution of the wheel raises these full
vessels higher and higher, till each in turn reaches a point where the
turn of the circle empties out all the water contained in the pot into a
wooden trough. By the water flowing through this channel, a tiny
streamlet is fed to irrigate the fields or supply the personal wants of
the people. To Robin this manner of raising water by a Persian wheel was
nothing new, but as he now stood waiting he had plenty of time to watch
the simple contrivance, and the revolving wheel, with its filling and
emptying jars, formed itself into a parable in his mind.
“These oxen go round and round on a wearisome course of work, perhaps
themselves suffering from thirst whilst raising water for others. They
are like our home societies, our secretaries and committees, labouring
in dear old England to turn the mission wheel. All these little jars are
emblems of the missionaries themselves; that one broken at the rim I’ll
take as a type of myself. Here you go down, down, little jar—there’s a
need of humility; keep aloft, and not a drop of water can reach you. You
must descend before you can mount. There! my jar has disappeared in the
well—it is, as it were, lost in its work; this is the filling time for
the little vessel. There! I see it again, dripping and glistening and
rising! Up it goes to empty itself of its treasure, to send fertility
into the fields, and comfort into the home, to make the dry furrows
laugh with a future harvest. The jar is but a poor, mean thing of clay,
yet it has its use in the world,—emblem of weak men and weaker women, of
whom God deigns to make use to carry to the thirsty heathen that water
of life—the knowledge of a Saviour.”
Robin, who of late had not only thought a good deal, but written a good
deal—his pen taking, as he said to himself, the place of a wife—was so
full of his little allegory, which he thought that he might turn into a
poem, that he did not take notice of the approach of a party of men,
till one of them suddenly addressed him. Turning his eyes from the
Persian wheel, Robin recognized in the handsomely-attired native near
him Thákar Dás, the chief who ruled in the fort. The Hindu did not give
the Englishman the salám which courtesy demands, and there was something
of insolence in the chief’s tone and manner as he abruptly said, “Where
is Kripá Dé?”
“Why do you ask me?” said Robin, perplexed by the sudden question.
“Because you are certain to know. You and your brother have misguided
the lad—you have bewitched him; have you baptized him too?”
“No,” was the curt reply.
“Have you made him break his caste? has he eaten with you?” demanded the
angry Hindu.
“What right have you to inquire?” asked Robin.
“Am I not his father?” cried Thákar Dás.
“Kripá Dé has no father, nor mother neither,” said Robin, “and he is of
an age to choose for himself.”
“He is under fourteen years of age!” cried the Hindu.
“Kripá Dé is full eighteen years old; no one knows that better than
yourself,” said the indignant Robin. “Happily his janam-patri
[horoscope] is with us.”
“You have seen it!” exclaimed Thákar Dás. “Then the boy is in hiding
with you?”
Robin was silent; he could not deny the fact.
The chief gave a signal both with voice and with uplifted arm to a body
of men whom he had stationed at some fifty yards distance on the road
which led to the mission bungalow. “Off—seize Kripá Dé!” shouted Thákar
Dás; and in an instant the band of Hindus were rushing in the direction
of Mr. Hartley’s house, to execute the command of their chief, and carry
off the disgraced and degraded Brahmin. Some of these Hindus were armed
with sticks and clubs; but had they borne swords and guns it would have
been all the same to Robin Hartley. He had but one thought—“Kripá Dé is
in danger; I must warn him. These Hindus have the start of me; but I’ll
be at the bungalow before them.” And off darted Robin at speed.
Alicia’s kahars, eager, like all natives of India, to see a tamasha
(which might be Anglicized “to be present at the fun”), deserted the
doli, and hurried off in the same direction.
The other Hindus ran fast; but “with heart of fire and foot of wind,”
the active Robin overtook them mid-way and passed them, narrowly missing
a heavy blow from a club. Victor in the race, panting and streaming with
perspiration, the English youth came near enough to the bungalow for his
shout to be heard by one within it. “Up to the roof, Kripá Dé!” He had
no breath to say more. It was too late for the convert to fly with any
hope of escaping; but if he could mount to the roof, Robin had resolved
to take his own stand on the steep narrow outside stair which led to it,
and make good its defence against the attacking force. “I think that I
can keep the wolves at bay, at least until the arrival of my father and
Harold shall reduce the odds against me,” muttered Robin Hartley.
Kripá Dé, as commanded, fled to the roof; Robin shouted to him to lie
down flat, so as not to offer a mark to the shower of bricks with which
the pursuers were likely to assail him. Robin himself caught up a
hatchet which had been left on a heap of rough timber which a servant
had been chopping up for firewood. This was a formidable weapon wielded
by a strong, vigorous English arm. Robin mounted the steep stair, took
his stand on one of the upper steps, and in an attitude of defiance
awaited the expected rush of men from below.
The Hindus looked up, but did not attempt to come within reach of the
swing of the hatchet. No one chose to be the first to encounter the
fearless boy. A brief consultation appeared to be held below. Robin
could not hear the words spoken, but he was soon to see their effect.
About half the number of Hindus moved off. Young Hartley knew that there
was no inner staircase to the bungalow, and therefore considered that
the only way of reaching the convert on the roof was by passing over his
own body. But Robin had forgotten that Alicia’s “paradise” had a
separate outer staircase, and that the dwellings were so close to each
other that they virtually formed but one. Young Hartley was reminded of
his oversight by seeing dark figures running over the flat roof of his
brother’s house. Robin could not guard two staircases at once, so
springing upon his own roof with intent to defend Kripá Dé to the last,
he saw the poor young convert struggling in the grasp of a dozen dark
hands. Robin beheld no more, for he was himself struck down by a
bludgeon which laid him senseless on the flat roof. There he lay,
bleeding and unconscious of all that was passing around him. When the
poor youth recovered his senses, he found the place deserted; the
convert had evidently been carried off, and all that he had himself
gained from the brief struggle to save Kripá Dé was an aching head, from
which blood flowed freely over his face and dress. Robin raised himself,
first to a sitting posture, then to his feet, looked around, and then,
though feeling sick, dizzy, and faint, made his way to the stair. He
descended the steps much more slowly than he had mounted them, and just
as he reached the platform below his father and the rest of the party
arrived. Alicia gave a cry of horror when she saw the state of her poor
young brother.
“My boy! what has happened?” exclaimed Mr. Hartley in alarm.
“Kripá Dé has been carried off,” was the reply. Robin had no thought for
anything else.
“And you?”
“Oh! never mind me. What a blockhead I was to forget the second stair!”
“Your hurt must be dressed at once,” cried Alicia.
“It’s nothing—a mere knock; the thing to be done is to rescue poor Kripá
Dé!”
Robin was in such an impatient mood that he would hardly submit to have
his wound washed, dressed, and bound up. Harold played the surgeon, and
Alicia the nurse, wrapping round her brother’s head a delicate white
scarf which had formed part of her own apparel.
“O Alicia, your satin is stained with blood; it will never be worth
anything again!” cried Robin.
“My satin has done its work,” was Alicia’s reply: “I have through it
secured the black locket.”
“Secured the black locket!” exclaimed Robin, springing from his seat,
and clapping his hands for joy like a child.
“I will now at once write to Mr. Thole a full account of this cruel,
cowardly attack on my son,” said Mr. Hartley, “and of the carrying away
by violence one of her Majesty’s subjects.”
“And you will add that the proof of Premi’s identity with Miranda
Macfinnis, my wife’s cousin, is in our hands,” observed Harold; “that
Alicia has secured the black locket, which is exactly similar to the one
in her own possession.”
“And tell of the fragment of a child’s sock,” added Alicia, “and that it
has the initials ‘M. M.’ marked upon it.”
“Oh, show me these things!” exclaimed Robin.
“Sit down, sit down,” said Harold: “we must not have the end of the
scarf hanging down like a streamer, instead of binding up your poor
broken head. If you will be quiet, like a sensible fellow, Alicia will
show us her trophies of war.”
With very great interest were the black locket and piece of old sock
examined and handed around. Both had suffered from time and rough usage,
but on the locket the inscription in minute letters, “E. T., 1856,” was
legible still, as well as the mark on the sock. Mr. Hartley, after
examining these relics, sat down to his desk and wrote as concise and
forcible an account as possible of the attack on Kripá Dé, the injury
received by Robin, and the manner in which the proofs of Miss Miranda
Macfinnis’s identity had come into the missionaries’ possession.
“Doubtless due investigation will bring out other and yet more
convincing evidence,” Mr. Hartley wrote in conclusion. He then sent off
his letter at once.
“Alicia, you have managed your part of the affair much better than I
have done mine,” said poor Robin, whose head was aching sorely under its
improvised picturesque turban.
“It was you who put me in the way of doing anything,” was Alicia’s
reply. “I am a coward, and should never to-day have ventured into the
fort at all had you not given me courage, and helped by your counsels
and prayers.”
“Our exotic has climbed bravely,” said Robin, glancing at his father.
“Did I not foretell that it would soon smile down on us all?”
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