"Gregory, remember thy swashing blow."
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act I, Sc. 1.
But there were matters of graver import afoot than the Countess's
fainting fit. Already the conspirators in the summer-house, alarmed by
the commotion, must be devising means to protect themselves, and the
Emperor, ensconced in a hiding-place after the fashion invented by
Dionysius of Syracuse, was probably doubting the wisdom of his
Haroun-al-Raschid escapade. For Roger, bursting through the hostile
cordons like an infuriated blue-bottle fly caught in the outer strands
of a spider's web, had applied a premature spark to a gunpowder train.
The silence of the night was jarred into fierce uproar. The imperial
troops, thinking the revolt had broken out before its appointed hour,
were hurriedly closing in around the rebels. The latter, strenuously
opposing Sainton's passage up the hill leading to the Garden of Heart's
Delight, communicated a panic for action, which is the next worst thing
to a flight, to those of their comrades who knew not what was happening.
In a word, the left bank of the Jumna was ablaze, and sharp encounters
occurred wherever the Emperor's men met those who fought for his
would-be supplanter, Khusrow. At the gate Devi Pershad and the Rajputs,
manfully aided by the house servants, were even then resisting the
efforts of the rebels previously hidden in the wood to break open the
door and go to the aid of their leaders within. Indeed, Roger had barely
ceased speaking, before a sowar, one of his own small escort, ran in and
breathlessly announced the desperate nature of the attack on the
gateway.
Sainton, of course, knew nothing of the real cause of all this riot. Nor
was there time to tell him. Mowbray grasped the excited soldier.
"Canst hoot like an owl?" he cried.
"Aye, sahib, that can I," was the reply, for the man guessed the portent
of the question.
"Come, then, Roger! Thou knowest the summer-house? Smite any man who
leaves it! Nur Mahal, bide you here till I return! Fra Pietro, bolt the
doors and open only to me or Roger!"
"One word, brother, ere thou goest," cried the friar in English. "A
chosen ruler, be he Christian or heathen, is the Lord's anointed. 'Curse
not the King, no, not in thy thought.'"
Walter, hurrying forth, darted a single glance at the speaker. Somehow,
the Franciscan's words gave ordered sequence to a project which flitted
vaguely through his mind as he listened to Nur Mahal's thrilling
recital. It seemed to him that this beautiful woman, "who offered
herself twice to no man," harbored a certain spite against Jahangir
because of the treatment he had meted out to her. Once she had vaguely
hinted at bygones as between Mowbray and herself; otherwise her
utterances were those of unsated and insatiable ambition, and the style
of her raiment alone showed that she had quitted the palace that night
prepared to fill the stage in whatsoever part fortune allotted her.
Now the two Englishmen were in the garden, running towards the
summer-house, which, it will be remembered, stood on an island in the
midst of a small lake, and was approached by four narrow causeways, each
at right angles with its neighbors. There never was a darker night. It
was barely possible to distinguish the tops of the trees against the
sky; beneath, they passed through a blackness so dense that they could
not see each other.
Under such conditions rapid progress was impossible. Mowbray called
a halt, and bade the Rajput use his skill in imitating owls. Thrice
the long-drawn ululu vibrated in the scent-laden atmosphere; at the
third screech came an answering hoot, lanterns twinkled of a sudden
at the farther end of the lawn, and Jai Singh, with his rabble of
swashbucklers, perched expectantly on the wall, tumbled pell-mell into
the garden.
"We come, sahib!" they heard his exultant cry. "Every man carries a
light and wears a black turban. Spare none other!"
"Ecod!" said Roger, "that is good talking. Jai Singh is thin in the
ribs, but he hath the liver of a bull. Yet there seemeth no urgence for
killing. What is toward, Walter? 'Smite,' say you. 'Spare not,' yelps
Jai Singh. Nur Mahal shoots lightning from her eyes. Even the good
friar points a moral with a text on cursing the king. Who hath cursed
him? Whose throat is to be cut? My soul, there's battle in the very
air!"
Sainton was appealing to unheeding ears. The _baraduri_, being a roofed
entablature supported on slight columns, became vaguely silhouetted
against the dim glow of the advancing lantern-bearers. Walter saw
several armed men rushing towards the house along the nearest
_chaussee_. It went against the grain to strike any man who came to him
trustingly, no matter what the ultimate intent, and among the foremost
he thought he recognized Raja Man Singh.
"Back, there!" he shouted. "We are for Jahangir! Back to your covert and
lay down your arms!"
There could be no mistaking his meaning. The conspirators, dumbfounded
by the discovery that he whom they reckoned an ally was a declared foe,
stopped, hesitated, and then broke, left and right.
"They must not escape!" said Mowbray to his companion. "After them, Jai
Singh!" he vociferated to the Rajput, and forthwith there was a scurry
in which several fell. Nevertheless, two, at least, got away through the
trees and scaled the wall. Raja Man Singh remained, gasping his life
out, but he of Bikanir and one other reached the reinforcements outside.
Hastily despatching Jai Singh and his followers to defend the main gate,
Mowbray retained only two men of his own little troop. Equipping them
with lanterns, he led Roger to the summer-house and cried in a loud
voice:--
"Come forth, Jahangir!"
There was no answer. The hollow roof, exquisitely painted with frescoes
representing forest life, echoed the command, and the slight scrutiny
rendered possible by the weak light of the lamps gave force to Roger's
query:--
"Dost think to find him, like Mahmoud's coffin, slung 'twixt heaven and
earth, Walter?"
But Nur Mahal was to be trusted beyond the credence of eyes alone.
Unless the Emperor had flown, or changed his mind at the latest moment,
he was surely there, for the doorkeeper said two strangers had passed by
the watchword "Safed-Kira." And the vital need of hurry made stern
measures necessary.
"Jahangir!" cried Mowbray again, "I know that thou art here, thou and
thy pimp, Ibrahim. Nur Mahal hath sent us to save thy life, and thy
throne if need be. Descend, therefore, else Sainton-sahib shall pull
thee down together with thy lurking-place."
A moment's pause brought only the racket of desultory firing in the
roadway, the thuds of a battering ram against the iron-studded door, and
the yells of assailants and defenders as the high boundary wall was
sought to be carried by escalade, for the Maharaja of Bikanir, now that
his desperate scheme was unmasked, urged his adherents ere they marched
to sack the palace to extirpate the brood of vipers in the Garden of
Heart's Delight.
"Roger," said Walter, calmly, resolved to be sure of his quarry, "try
thy strength on a pillar!"
The summer-house, an elegant hexagon, had a carved pillar at each angle.
Sainton placed his foot against one, gave a mighty push, and the stones
yielded. Some fell with a clatter onto the mosaic pavement, others
splashed in the water of the lake.
"Hold!" came a muffled cry, "I come!"
A fine creeper had entwined its stout tendrils round three of the
pillars. In one of these, cunningly hidden by the vine, were small
holdfasts, by which an active man might climb to the roof. Once there, a
section of the blue enameled tiles slid back and gave access to a small
apartment with a grille floor, the interstices being invisible from
beneath owing to the painted foliage.
Jahangir, followed by Ibrahim, made an undignified descent. Obviously,
he feared a sword thrust as he neared the ground. Yet he was no coward.
Disdaining to jump he came down slowly, and faced Mowbray without laying
hand on the pistol or jeweled tulwar he carried. If treachery were
intended he could not guard against it, and he was too proud to exhibit
his secret thought by useless action.
"Have I heard aright?" he asked, with well-feigned coolness. "Did you
say that Nur Mahal had sent you?"
"Yes. How else should I, a stranger, know of your retreat?"
"And neither you nor she are in league with my enemies?"
"Some of them lie in the garden. You hear the others without. Are you
man or king enough to help us in repelling them?"
Jahangir bowed his head.
"God is great," he said, as though in self-communion. "Never was mortal
more deceived than I have been."
Ibrahim, Chief Eunuch, somewhat restored from the rare fright of the
trembling roof, thought it high time to trim his sails to the new wind.
"I always told your Majesty," he began; but Jahangir, for answer, smote
him in the face with his clenched fist so heavily that he fell into the
lake and lay there insensible. He would have been drowned had not a
Rajput pulled him out and held him by the heels until a good deal of
water came from his mouth and a good many gold pieces from a tuck in his
cummerbund.
Mowbray, whose judgment was cooler and truer in the frenzy of a fight
than when a woman's eyes assailed him, did not forget that where Jai
Singh had introduced his hirelings others might follow. Nevertheless,
with the inadequate force available, it was impossible to conduct an
effective defense of a square enclosure containing many acres. It was
above all else essential to resist the main assault. The Eastern
fighting man is moved to the madness of heroism by success, and driven
to despair by failure. The gateway must not be carried.
He detailed sentries, therefore, to report any hostile move from the
flanks or rear, in which case he would fall back on the house, which
occupied the exact center of the garden. Then he and the others
hastened to the gate.
They were not a moment too soon. A huge balk of timber, carried up from
the bridge and swung by fifty men against the sturdy door, smashed the
panels and dislodged the hinges. Through the gap poured a torrent of
assailants, all well armed, and the struggle must have resulted in
instant victory for the rebels had not Roger faced them.
There was light in plenty. Many carried torches, whilst masses of tow
soaked in oil had been placed on the ground to enable the archers and
matchlockmen to shoot. Luckily the onward rush prevented anything like a
volley being fired in that narrow space, or the Emperor and his English
supporters must certainly have been hit. As it was, the giant had a fair
field, steel against steel, and one man against a hundred.
When Roger was busy there was no standing-room for friends by his side
or foes in front. His tremendous strength was no less astounding than
his tigerish agility. His long sword whirled in lightning circles, he
sprang back, forth, and sideways with incredible ease, and such was the
area he covered, combined with a quick eye to discern and a supple wrist
to disconcert every adventurous cut or thrust aimed at him, that, whilst
those outside were yelling to the van to press forward, the unlucky
wights of the front rank were making a new rampart of their bodies.
Walter found a corner where Sainton's sickle did not reach, and
Jahangir, fired to emulation, joined him. The three practically held
the gate, because Jai Singh, with his horde of freebooters, did not
quickly regain his self-possession after the stupefying discovery that
the Emperor, whom he was actively fighting against, was laying on with a
will in behalf of the Englishman.
Others, too, learned the bewildering fact that here was Jahangir himself
in the very hatching ground of the conspiracy. The Maharaja of Bikanir
saw him, and having missed him twice with a pistol, adopted a new tactic
which might easily have involved the monarch and the Englishmen in
common ruin. Awaiting the rebel leader, to carry him to the fort, was a
war elephant, a huge brute, well protected by iron plates, thick knobs
of brass, and chain armor, penetrable by no missile short of a
cannon-ball. The animal was trained to charge any one or anything at the
bidding of its _mahout_, and the Maharaja, mounting the _howdah_ with
some of his officers, bade the driver launch the elephant at full speed
through the gate.
Among the many physical advantages Roger held over other men not the
least was his height. While dealing with the present danger he could see
that which threatened farther afield, and now, above the heads of the
combatants, he caught sight of the great moving mass of shining panoply.
Such a thunderbolt would rend its way through all opposition. Swords and
lances were powerless against it, but there lay on the ground, wrenched
from its sockets by the battering-ram, the heavy iron bar which the big
Yorkshireman had used so effectively on the night that Sher Afghan
carried off his unwilling bride.
None of the others knew of the approaching peril. Roger turned to Jai
Singh.
"Come on, Don Whiskerando!" he shouted. "I thought thou hadst better
stomach for a fray!"
Though he spoke English, his look was enough. The old Rajput awoke from
his trance and rushed forward manfully. His levies followed, the rebels
yielded a few feet, and Roger secured breathing space. He sheathed his
reeking sword, picked up the iron bar, and stood on the left of the
gateway, balancing the implement over his right shoulder and bracing his
feet, set wide apart, firmly against the ground.
A fiercer yell, a stampede of both parties, announced the oncoming of
the new danger. Mowbray and Jahangir thought that this was the end until
they saw Roger, not smiling now but frowning, whirl the bar lightly as a
preliminary to the greatest feat he ever performed. For the story lives
yet amidst the glorious ruins of the Mogul Empire how the Man-Elephant
killed the elephant. Trumpeting loudly, rushing through the swaying mass
of human beings as a whale cleaves water, the immense brute seemed to
enjoy the sensation it created. As it entered the gate, with trunk
uplifted, the bar crashed across its knees. The elephant stumbled and
fell. Again the iron flail whistled in the air, this time striking the
brass-studded boss on the beast's wide forehead. The thick metal disks
shivered into fragments, and the monster, with fractured skull, lurched
over heavily on its side, throwing the Maharaja of Bikanir and his
lieutenants to the ground, where they died quickly at the hands of those
nearest to them.
A great shout went up, a shout of terror and wonder. Men ran, throwing
away their arms and shrieking incoherent appeals, whether to Allah or
Khuda, for protection. It was recorded that some went mad, some died
from fright, and many dropped from exhaustion miles away from Dilkusha
and its magic. For never before had one man met a full-grown fighting
elephant face to face in single combat and killed it. Such deeds were
told of lions and tigers, of many-antlered deer and massive bulls, but
never of the elephant, which, in the plenitude of its majestic strength,
can drag four score men in triumph, let them tug their best at a rope.
"_Shabash, hathi!_" cried Jahangir. "By the soul of my father, Akbar, if
I am spared to-night those two strokes shall be writ in history and
recorded in stone!"
"'Twill please me better if they remain in your Majesty's memory," was
Sainton's gruff answer. Truth to tell, his mighty effort had shaken him.
In that last almost superhuman blow he had surpassed himself. His
muscles still twitched from the tension, and he experienced a curious
sympathy for the magnificent creature whose dying convulsions alone
betokened the abundant life with which it was endowed.
He leaned wearily on the long bar. The slaying of the elephant was the
culmination of a day's toil such as no other man in India could have
endured, for many a stout warrior had fallen under his sword ere he
carried the Countess di Cabota into the Garden of Heart's Delight.
But the Emperor, not to be rebuffed thus curtly, seized him by the arm.
"Harken, friend," said he, "one lie will poison a river of truth. They
told me 'twas thy intent to tumble my palace about my ears. Tomb of the
Prophet, what will not a man believe when he lends his wits to women and
wine? Never was king more beholden to stranger than I to thee and thy
friend; canst thou not credit my faith when I say that no recompense you
ask shall be too great for me to give?"
Sainton turned and clapped the Emperor on the shoulder.
"I have oft wondered," he cried, "how so good a soldier could be a bad
king. Now I see 'twas a passing fit, which, mayhap, like certain
distempers, leaves thee wholesomer."
And that was how Jahangir and Roger began a comradeship which was never
marred nor forgotten while either lived.
Mowbray, though delighted that Sainton's rough diplomacy had won the
Emperor so thoroughly, nevertheless kept a sharp lookout for any
recrudescence of the fight. But the back of the revolt was broken. He
who escaped with the Maharaja of Bikanir, riding post-haste for fresh
troops, was captured by the imperial forces, and a strong contingent of
mounted men arriving at Dilkusha relieved the little garrison of further
concern. Jahangir despatched several officers with instructions, the
exact significance of which Walter failed to grasp. He knew it was
hopeless to expect clemency for those who fomented the disorders. In the
East, and indeed elsewhere, rulers had a habit, not wholly lost to-day,
of repressing such outbreaks with merciless severity.
The Emperor quickly completed his arrangements. Then he drew Walter
aside.
"You spoke of Nur Mahal. She is here, I know. What was her errand?" he
asked.
"To warn me of the plot of which I was the unconscious figurehead," was
the ready answer.
"Her action is the chief surprise of a night of marvels," said Jahangir,
thoughtfully. "No matter how greatly I was misled by others, I vow she
was candid. Never did woman belittle a man as Nur Mahal belittled me.
She said much that was true, and a good deal that was false. But her
spleen was manifest. Had my head rolled at her feet she would have
kicked it. Why, then, should she risk her life to save me?"
"You must ask her that yourself, your Majesty."
There was no other way. It was out of the question that Walter should
dispel Jahangir's doubts by hinting a very different motive for Nur
Mahal's visit to Dilkusha. Come what might he had dissipated in her mind
the mirage of a dynastic struggle in which he would participate as her
husband. The mere fact that he had so completely thrown in his lot with
the Emperor would prove to her, if proof were needed, that the dream of
those memorable days which followed their flight from Agra might never
be renewed. What would she do? What manner of greeting would she give
Jahangir? Who could tell? Once before, when expected to marry the
Emperor, she reviled him. Not half an hour ago she said Jahangir must
die before dawn. He was not dead, but very much alive, and more firmly
seated on his throne than at any time since his accession. What would
she say? Mowbray was on thorns as he walked with the Emperor and Roger
to the house.
Fra Pietro unbolted the door at which they knocked. Roger, seeing the
Countess moving forward, and evidently quite recovered from her
faintness, was seized with a spasm of shyness.
"All is well, Matilda," he said, hanging back. "You had a boisterous
journey, but you are in quiet waters now. I go to remove some marks of
the jaunt."
He made to sheer off, but she ran after him, brushing the Emperor aside
in her eagerness.
"Nay, my good Roger!" she cried. "Fra Pietro hath told me all. I closed
my eyes, and my heart stopped beating when I witnessed that last array
of dreadful men. And thou didst carry me in thy arms as if I were a
child, bearing me hither in safety through a hostile army. Oh, Roger,
how can I wait to thank thee!"
"Calm thyself, sweet Matilda," they heard him growl. "I'll have no
kissing of hands, and I cannot kiss thy lips in my present condition.
Gad! I have more brains on my clothes than in my head. Well, if naught
else will content thee, there!"
In the center of the room stood Nur Mahal, her normally lily-white face
with its peachlike bloom wholly devoid of color, and her wondrous eyes
gazing fixedly at the tall figure of the Emperor, who hesitated an
instant when Mowbray motioned him to enter first. Walter's pulse
galloped somewhat during that pause. He did not know then that while men
were dying in hundreds around the gate and elsewhere, the Franciscan had
won a wordy victory behind the locked doors. No sooner were the
Countess's senses restored than Fra Pietro engaged the Persian Princess
in a discourse which quickly revealed that here were well-matched
dialecticians. Pride, keen intellect, consciousness of physical charm
and mental power, were confronted by gentle insistence on the eternal
verities which govern mankind, irrespective of race or climate.
Neither palliating nor excusing Jahangir's excesses, the friar did not
hesitate to hold a mirror to the girl's own faults. If she had loved
the prince why did she profess to hate the king? If the death of her
husband so rankled in her memory that the Emperor, who was indirectly
responsible for it, was not to be forgiven, why had she gone back to
Agra, instead of pursuing her peaceful voyage to Burdwan? Ah, yes,
he appreciated her belief that other eventualities might happen, but
life was constituted of shattered hopes, and the one eternal, wholly
satisfying ideal was to so order one's actions that when called to final
account one could truly say: "This I did and thus I spoke because it
seemed to me best for the happiness and well-being of my
fellow-creatures."
To and fro flew the shuttlecock of their argument, until Nur Mahal,
astonished and not a little humiliated by the singular knowledge of her
inmost feelings displayed by this mild-eyed man of low estate, paced the
long room like a caged gazelle, and the Countess di Cabota, half
distracted by the distant sounds of murderous conflict, nevertheless
found time to wonder what Fra Pietro was saying which made the beautiful
Persian so angry.
The sound of Mowbray's voice, the sight of Jahangir in his company
unattended, drove the passion from her face. Her red lips were slightly
opened in mute inquiry, her fingers were entwined irresolutely, her
whole attitude, so heedless was she of the restraint that cloaks the
secret thought, indicated a passive desire to let chance carry her which
way it willed.
But the glory of her loveliness was never more manifest than in this
feminine mood, and Jahangir, a man of impulse, was drawn to her as steel
to a magnet.
"You and I," said he, slowly, "have much to forget, but you alone have a
great deal to forgive. Nevertheless, on a night when I have won my
kingdom I may well be pardoned if I hope to win my queen."
With that, he unfastened the samite over-cloak he wore, and took from
his neck a string of priceless pearls. Nur Mahal bent her proud head,
and the Emperor, with a laugh of almost boyish glee, adjusted the
shimmering ornament around her throat.
She said something in a low tone, and it was a long time before she
looked up again. When her eyes first encountered Mowbray's they were
bright with repressed tears.
Notwithstanding these tender passages, and some amusingly one-sided
episodes in the garden between Roger and the Countess, for the lady made
him kneel down whilst she washed his face, there was little time for
love-making. Jahangir, having joyously informed the nearest members of
his entourage that Nur Mahal was to be treated as the Empress which she
would be created next day in durbar, began to question Mowbray as to the
events of the night. Walter's task was rendered more simple by the
projected marriage of one whom he suspected to be the real instigator of
the whole affair. He must perforce twist the narrative to show the
prospective Sultana in the best light, and herein, as it happened, a
casual reference to Dom Geronimo was helpful.
"I mistrusted that man from the first," said Jahangir. "Why should he, a
European, conspire against his fellows? No beast of prey, unless it be
indeed hard pressed, eats its own kind. Howbeit, he will trouble the
world no longer."
"What means your Majesty? I was told he was active in his machinations
this very day."
"Yes," was the cool reply. "I made use of him until my patience
vanished. When you and Sainton-sahib proved him a liar, I sent orders
that a cow was to be slain instantly and the black robe sewn in the
skin."
"Sewn in the skin!" repeated Walter, incredulously.
"Yes. He will be dead by the fourth watch. Hussain Beg, a traitorous
villain from Lahore, whom I caused to be sealed in an ass's skin, took a
day and a night to die, but the hide of a cow dries more speedily."
Horrified by the fate which had overtaken the arch enemy of his race,
Mowbray told Fra Pietro what the Emperor had said. The Franciscan at
once appealed for mercy in the Jesuit's behalf.
"Forgive him," he pleaded, "as Christ forgave his enemies. You can save
him. Your request will be granted. God, who knoweth all hearts, can look
into his and turn its stone into the water of repentance."
It was not yet one o'clock when Walter and Roger, the latter glad of the
errand which freed him from Matilda's embarrassing attentions, rode with
a numerous guard to the fort, bearing Jahangir's reprieve for Dom
Geronimo.
There had been no delay in the execution of the sentence. They found the
unhappy priest already imprisoned in his terrible environment, and
almost insane with the knowledge that the stiffening hide was slowly but
surely squeezing him to death.
With Sher Afghan's dagger Mowbray cut the stitches of sheep-sinews, and,
after drinking some wine and water, the Jesuit fanatic became aware of
the identity of the man to whom he owed his life.
"'Tis surely time," said Walter, sternly, "that you and I discharged our
reckoning. I could have pardoned my father's death, foul murder though
it was, on the score of your youth and zeal. But it is unbearable that
you, who preach the gospel of Christianity, should pursue with rancor
the son of the man you killed with a coward's blow. Now, after the lapse
of twenty-four years, I have requited both his untimely loss and your
continued malice by saving your wretched life. What sayest thou,
Geronimo? Does the feud end?"
"On my soul, Walter!" cried Sainton, "I think he is minded to spring at
thee now."
But the glazed eyes of the unfortunate bigot were lifted to his rescuer
with the non-comprehending glare of stupor rather than unconquerable
hatred. He murmured some reference to the miraculous statue of San Jose,
to which, lying at the bottom of the bay of Biscay amidst the rotting
timbers of a ship bearing the saint's name, he evidently attributed his
escape. So they left him, with instructions as to his tendance, and rode
back to the Garden of Heart's Delight.
All fighting had ceased. Some few Samaritans were tending the wounded;
ghouls were robbing the dead; a mild rain, come after weeks of drought,
was refreshing the thirsty earth and washing away the signs of conflict.
"What kept thee so long on the road?" asked Walter, when Roger confessed
that the shower was the next most grateful thing to a flagon of wine he
did not fail to call for and empty at the palace.
"Gad! I was forced to wring Fateh Mohammed's stiff neck," was the
unexpected answer. "Having received Jahangir's orders, he held by them
as if they were verses of the Koran. The fat knave was backed by too
many arquebusiers to assault him by daylight, so I played fox, and rode
off in seeming temper. I and the six troopers hid in a nullah until
night fell. Then we spurred straight to Matilda's tent, but Fateh
Mohammed, to his own undoing, was grossly annoying her, in that very
hour, by professing his great admiration for her manifold attractions.
He was not worth a sword thrust, so what more was there to do than to
treat him as my mother treats a fowl which she wants for the spit?"
"What, indeed?" said Walter.