Even in darkness lime and sand
Will blend to make up mortar.
Two by two would equal four
Under a bucket of water.
NOW it may seem unimaginable that two Europeans could be cooped in
Howrah, not under physical restraint, and yet not able to communicate
with any one who could render them assistance. It was the case, though,
and not by any means an isolated case. The policy of the British
Government, once established in India, was and always has been not to
occupy an inch of extra territory until compelled by circumstances.
The native states, then, while forbidden to contract alliances with
one another or the world outside, and obliged by the letter of written
treaties to observe certain fundamental laws imposed on them by the
Anglo-Indian Government, were left at liberty to govern themselves. And
it was largely the fact that they could and did keep secret what was
going on within their borders that enabled the so-called Sepoy Rebellion
to get such a smouldering foothold before it burst into a blaze. The
sepoys were the tools of the men behind the movement; and the men behind
were priests and others who were feeling nothing but their own ambition.
No man knows even now how long the fire rebellion had been burning
underground before showed through the surface; but it is quite obvious
that, in spite of the heroism shown by British and loyal native alike
when the crash did come, the rebels must have won--and have won easily
sheer weight of numbers--had they only used the amazing system solely
for the broad, comprehensive purpose for which it was devised.
But the sense of power that its ramifications and extent gave birth to
also whetted the desires individuals. Each man of any influence at all
began to scheme to use the system for the furtherance of his individual
ambition. Instead of bending all their energy and craft to the one
great object of hurling an unloved conqueror back whence he came, each
reigning prince strove to scheme himself head and shoulders above the
rest; and each man who wanted to be prince began to plot harder than
ever to be one.
So in Howrah the Maharajah's brother, Jaimihr, with a large following
and organization of his own, began to use the secret system of which he
by right formed an integral part and to set wheels working within the
wheels which in course of time should spew him up on the ledge which his
brother now occupied. Long before the rebellion was ready he had all
his preparations made and waited only for the general conflagration to
strike for his own hand. And was so certain of success that he dared
make plans as well for Rosemary McClean's fate.
There is a blindness, too, quite unexplainable that comes over whole
nations sometimes. It is almost like a plague in its mysterious arrival
and departure. As before the French Revolution there were almost none of
the ruling classes who could read the writing on the wall, so it was in
India in the spring of '57. Men saw the signs and could not read their
meaning. As in France, so in India, there were a few who understood, but
they were scoffed at; the rest--the vast majority who held the reins of
power--were blind.
Rosemary McClean discovered that her pony had gone lame, and was angry
with the groom. The groom ran away, and she put that down to native
senselessness. Duncan McClean sent one after another of the little
native children to find him a man who would take a letter to Mount Abu.
The children went and did not come back again, and he put that down to
the devil, who would seem to have reclaimed them.
Both of them saw the watchers, posted at every vantage-point, insolently
wakeful; both of them knew that Jaimihr had placed them there. But
neither of them looked one inch deeper than the surface, nor supposed
that their presence betokened anything but the prince's unreachable
ambition. Neither of them thought for an instant that the day could
possibly have come when Britain would be unable to protect a woman of
its own race, or when a native--however powerful--would dare to do more
than threaten.
Joanna disappeared, and that led to a chain of thought which was not
creditable to any one concerned. They reasoned this way: Rosemary had
seen Mahommed Gunga hold out a handful of gold coins for the old
woman's eyes to glitter at, therefore it was fair to presume that he
had promised her a reward for bringing word to the man whom, it was
now known, he had left behind. She had brought word to him and had
disappeared. What more obvious than to reason that the man had gladly
paid her, and had just as gladly ridden off, rejoicing at the thought
that he could escape doing service?
“So much,” they argued, “for native constancy! So much for Mahommed
Gunga's boast that he knew of men who could be trusted! And so much for
Joanna's gratitude!”
The old woman had been saved by Rosemary McClean from the long-drawn-out
hell that is the life portion of most Indian widows, even of low caste;
she had had little to do, ever, beyond snooze in the shade and eat, and
run sometimes behind the pony--a task which came as easily to her as
did the other less active parts of her employment. Her desertion,
particularly at a crisis, made Rosemary McClean cry, and set her father
to quoting Shakespeare's “King Lear.”
“Blow, blow, thou winter wind!
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude!”
All Scotsmen seem to have a natural proclivity for quoting
the appropriate dirge when sorrow shows itself. The Book of
Lamentations--Shakespeare's sadder lines--roll off their tongues
majestically and seem to give them consolation--as it were to lay a
sound, unjoyous basis for the proper enjoyment of the songs of Robbie
Burns.
The poor old king of the poet's imagining, declaiming up above the
cliffs of Dover, could have put no more pathos into those immortal lines
than did Duncan McClean as he paced up and down between the hot wars
of the darkened room. The dry air parched his throat, and his ambition
seemed to shrivel in him as he saw the brave little woman who was all he
had sobbing with her head between her hands.
He turned to the Bible, but he could find no precedent in any of its
pages for abandoning a quest like his in the teeth of disaster or
adversity. He read it for hour after crackling hour, moistening
his throat from time to time with warm, unappetizing water from the
improvised jar filter; but when the oven blast that makes the Indian
summer day a hell on earth had waned and died away, he had found nothing
but admonishment to stand firm. There had been women, too, whose
deeds were worthy of record in that book, and he found no argument
for deserting his post on his daughter's account either. In the Bible
account, as he read it, it had always been the devil who fled when
things got too uncomfortable for him, and he was conscious of a
tight-lipped, stern contempt for the devil.
He had about made up his mind what line to take with his daughter, when
she ceased her sobbing and looked up through swollen eyes to relieve him
of the necessity for talking her over to his point view. What she said
amazed him, but not be cause it came to him as a new idea. She said, in
different words, exactly what was passing in his own mind, and it was as
though her tears and his search of the Scriptures had brought them both
to one clear-cut conclusion.
“Why are we here, father?” she asked him suddenly; and because she took
him by surprise he did not answer her at once. “We are here to do
good aren't we?” That was no question; it was beginning of a line of
argument. Her father held his tongue, and laid his Bible down, and
listened on. “How much good have we done yet?”
She paused, but the pause was rhetorical, and he knew it; he could see
the light behind her eyes that was more than visionary; it was the light
of practical Scots enthusiasm, unquenched and undiscouraged after a
battle with fear itself. She began to be beautiful again as the spirit
of unconquerable courage won its way.
“Have we won one convert? Is there one, of those you have taught who is
with us still?”
The answer was self-evident. There was none. But there was no sting for
him in what she asked. Rather her words came as a relief, for he could
feel the strength behind them. He still said nothing.
“Have we stopped one single suttee? Have we once, in any least degree,
lessened the sufferings of one of those poor widows?”
“Not once,” he answered her, without a trace of shame. He knew, and she
knew, how hard the two of them had tried. There was nothing to apologize
for.
“Have we undermined the power of the Hindoo priests? Have we removed one
trace of superstition?”
“No,” he said quietly.
“Have we given up the fight?”
He looked hard at her. Gray eyes under gray brows met gray eyes that
shone from under dark, wet lashes, and deep spoke unto deep. Scotsman
recognized Scotswoman, and the bond between them tightened.
“It seems to me”--there was a new thrill in her voice--“that here is
our opportunity! Either Jaimihr wants to frighten us away or he is in
earnest with his impudent attentions to me. In either case let us make
no attempt to go away. Let us refuse to go away. Let us stay here at all
costs. If he wishes us to go away, then he must have a reason and will
show it, or else try to force us. If he is really trying to make love
to me, then let him try; if he has pluck enough, let him seize me. In
either case we shall force his hand. I am willing to be the bait. The
moment that he harms either you or me, the government will have to
interfere. If he kills us so much the better, for that would mean swift
vengeance and a British occupation. That would stop suttee for all time,
and we would have given our lives for something worth while. As we are,
we cannot communicate with our government, and Jaimihr thinks he has us
in his grasp. Let him think it! Let him go ahead! Sooner or later the
government must find out that we are missing Then--!” Her eyes blazed at
the thought of what would happen then.
Her father looked at her for about a minute, sadness and pride in her
fighting in him for the mastery. Then he rose and crossed the little
space between them.
“Lassie!” he said. “Lassie!”
She took his hand--the one little touch of human sentiment lacking to
disturb his emotional balance. The Scots will talk readily enough of
sorrow, but at showing it they are a grudging race of men. Unless a
Scotsman thinks he can gain something for his cause by showing what
emotion racks him, he will swallow down the choking flood of grief, and
keep a straight face to the world and his own as well. Duncan McClean
turned from her--drew his hand away--and walked to open the slit
shutters. A moment later he came back, once more master of himself.
“As things are, dear,” he said gently, “how would it be possible for us
to get away?”
“'We canna gang awa'!” she quoted, with a smile.
“NO, lassie. We must stay here and be brave. This matter is not in our
hands. We must wait, and watch, and see. If opportunity should come
to us to make our escape, we will seize it. Should it not come--should
Jaimihr, or some other of them, make occasion to molest us--it may
be--it might be that--surely the day of martyrs is not past--it might
be that--well, well, in either case we will eventually win. Should they
kill us, the government must send here to avenge us; should we get away,
surely our report will be listened to. A month or two--perhaps only a
week or two--even a day or two, who knows?--and the last suttee will
have been performed!”
He stood and stroked her head--then stooped and kissed it--an unusual
betrayal of emotion from him.
“Ye're a brave lassie,” he said, leaving the room hurriedly, to escape
the shame of letting her see tears welling from his eyes--salt tears
that scalded as they broke their hot-wind-wearied bounds.
Five minutes later she arose, dry-eyed, and went to stand in the
doorway, where an eddy or two of lukewarm evening breeze might possibly
be stirring. But a dirtily clad Hindoo, lounging on a raised, railless
store veranda opposite, leered at her impudently, and she came inside
again--to pass the evening and the sultry, black, breathless night out
of sight, at least, of the brutes who shut her off from even exercise.