The next morning Bathurst found Isobel Hannay sitting in a shady court
that had been converted into a sort of general room for the ladies in
the fort.
“How are you, Miss Hannay? I am glad to see you down.”
“I might repeat your words, Mr. Bathurst, for you see we have changed
places. You are the invalid, and not I.”
“There is very little of the invalid about me,” he said. “I am glad to
see that your face is much better than it was.”
“Yes, it is healing fast. I am a dreadful figure still; and the Doctor
says that there will be red scars for months, and that probably my face
will be always marked.”
“The Doctor is a croaker, Miss Hannay; there is no occasion to trust
him too implicitly. I predict that there will not be any serious scars
left.”
He took a seat beside her. There were two or three others in the court,
but these were upon the other side, quite out of hearing.
“I congratulate you, Mr. Bathurst,” she said quietly, “on yesterday. The
Doctor has, of course, told me all about it. It can make no difference
to us who knew you, but I am heartily glad for your sake. I can
understand how great a difference it must make to you.”
“It has made all the difference in the world,” he replied. “No one can
tell the load it has lifted from my mind. I only wish it had taken place
earlier.”
“I know what you mean, Mr. Bathurst; the Doctor has told me about that
too. You may wish that you had remained in the boat, but it was well for
me that you did not. You would have lost your life without benefiting
me. I should be now in the well of Cawnpore, or worse, at Bithoor.”
“That may be,” he said gravely, “but it does not alter the fact.”
“I have no reason to know why you consider you should have stopped in
the boat, Mr. Bathurst,” she went on quietly, but with a slight flush
on her cheek. “I can perhaps guess by what you afterwards did for me, by
the risks you ran to save me; but I cannot go by guesses, I think I have
a right to know.”
“You are making me say what I did not mean to say,” he exclaimed
passionately, “at least not now; but you do more than guess, you
know--you know that I love you.”
“And what do you know?” she asked softly.
“I know that you ought not to love me.” he said. “No woman should love a
coward.”
“I quite agree with you, but then I know that you are not a coward.”
“Not when I jumped over and left you alone? It was the act of a cur.”
“It was an act for which you were not really responsible. Had you been
able to think, you would not have done so. I do not take the view the
Doctor does, and I agree with you that a man loving a woman should first
of all think of her and of her safety. So you thought when you could
think, but you were no more responsible for your action than a madman
for a murder committed when in a state of frenzy. It was an impulse
you could not control. Had you, after the impulse had passed, come down
here, believing, as you might well have believed, that it was absolutely
impossible to rescue me from my fate, it would have been different. But
the moment you came to yourself you deliberately took every risk
and showed how brave you were when master of yourself. I am speaking
plainly, perhaps more plainly than I ought to. But I should despise
myself had I not the courage to speak out now when so much is at stake,
and after all you have done for me.
“You love me?”
“You know that I love you.”
“And I love you,” the girl said; “more than that, I honor and esteem
you. I am proud of your love. I am jealous for your honor as for my own,
and I hold that honor to be spotless. Even now, even with my happiness
at stake, I could not speak so plainly had I not spoken so cruelly and
wrongly before. I did not know you then as I know you now, but having
said what I thought then, I am bound to say what I think now, if only as
a penance. Did I hesitate to do so, I should be less grateful than that
poor Indian girl who was ready as she said, to give her life for the
life you had saved.”
“Had you spoken so bravely but two days since,” Bathurst said, taking
her hand, “I would have said. ‘I love you too well, Isobel, to link
your fate to that of a disgraced man.’ but now I have it in my power to
retrieve myself, to wipe out the unhappy memory of my first failure,
and still more, to restore the self respect which I have lost during
the last month. But to do so I must stay here: I must bear part in the
terrible struggle there will be before this mutiny is put down, India
conquered, and Cawnpore revenged.”
“I will not try to prevent you,” Isobel said. “I feel it would be wrong
to do so. I could not honor you as I do, if for my sake you turned away
now. Even though I knew I should never see you again, I would that you
had died so, than lived with even the shadow of dishonor on your name.
I shall suffer, but there are hundreds of other women whose husbands,
lovers, or sons are in the fray, and I shall not flinch more than they
do from giving my dearest to the work of avenging our murdered friends
and winning back India.”
So quietly had they been talking that no thought of how momentous
their conversation had been had entered the minds of the ladies sitting
working but a few paces away. One, indeed, had remarked to another, “I
thought when Dr. Wade was telling us how Mr. Bathurst had rescued that
unfortunate girl with the disfigured face at Cawnpore, that there was
a romance in the case, but I don’t see any signs of it. They are goods
friends, of course, but there is nothing lover-like in their way of
talking.”
So thought Dr. Wade when he came in and saw them sitting there, and gave
vent to his feeling in a grunt of dissatisfaction.
“It is like driving two pigs to market,” he muttered; “they won’t go the
way I want them to, out of pure contrariness.”
“It is all settled, Doctor,” Bathurst said, rising. “Come, shake hands;
it is to you I owe my happiness chiefly.”
“Isobel, my dear, give me a kiss,” the Doctor exclaimed. “I am glad,
my dear, I am glad with all my heart. And what have you settled besides
that?”
“We have settled that I am to go home as soon as I can go down country,
and he is going up with you and the others to Cawnpore.”
“That is right,” the Doctor said heartily. “I told you that was what
he would decide upon; it is right that he should do so. No man ought
to turn his face to the coast till Lucknow is relieved and Delhi is
captured. I thank God it has all come right at last. I began to be
afraid that Bathurst’s wrong headedness was going to mar both your
lives.”
The news had already come down that Havelock had found that it would be
absolutely impossible with the small force at his command to fight his
way into Lucknow through the multitude of foes that surrounded it, and
that he must wait until reinforcements arrived. There was, therefore, no
urgent hurry, and it was not until ten days later that a second troop
of volunteer horse, composed of civilians unable to resume their duties,
and officers whose regiments had mutinied, started for Cawnpore.
Half an hour before they mounted, Isobel Hannay and Ralph Bathurst were
married by the chaplain in the fort. This was at Bathurst’s earnest
wish.
“I may not return, Isobel,” he had urged: “it is of no use to blink the
fact that we have desperate fighting before us, and I should go into
battle with my mind much more easy in the knowledge that, come what
might, you were provided for. The Doctor tells me that he considers you
his adopted daughter, and that he has already drawn up a will leaving
his savings to you; but I should like your future to come from me, dear,
even if I am not to share it with you. As you know, I have a fine estate
at home, and I should like to think of you as its mistress.”
And Isobel of course had given way, though not without protest.
“You don’t know what I may be like yet,” she said, half laughing, half
in earnest. “I may carry these red blotches to my grave.”
“They are honorable scars, dear, as honorable as any gained in battle. I
hope, for your sake, that they will get better in time, but it makes
no difference to me. I know what you were, and how you sacrificed your
beauty. I suppose if I came back short of an arm or leg you would not
make that an excuse for throwing me over?”
“You ought to be ashamed of even thinking of such a thing, Ralph.”
“Well, dear, I don’t know that I did think it, but I am only putting a
parallel case to your own. No, you must consent: it is in all ways best.
We will be married on the morning I start, so as just to give time for
our wedding breakfast before I mount.”
“It shall be as you wish,” she said softly. “You know the estate without
you would be nothing to me, but I should like to bear your name, and
should you never come back to me, Ralph, to mourn for you all my life
as my husband. But I believe you will return to me. I think I am getting
superstitious, and believe in all sorts of things since so many strange
events have happened. Those pictures on the smoke that came true, Rujub
sending you messages at Deennugghur, and Rabda making me hear her voice
and giving me hope in prison. I do not feel so miserable at the thought
of your going into danger as I should do, if I had not a sort of
conviction that we shall meet again. People believe in presentiments of
evil, why should they not believe in presentiments of good? At any rate,
it is a comfort to me that I do feel so, and I mean to go on believing
it.”
“Do so, Isobel. Of course there will be danger, but the danger will
be nothing to that we have passed through together. The Sepoys will
no doubt fight hard, but already they must have begun to doubt; their
confidence in victory must be shaken, and they begin to fear retribution
for their crimes. The fighting will, I think, be less severe as the
struggle goes on, and at any rate the danger to us, fighting as the
assailants, is as nothing to that run when we were little groups
surrounded by a country in arms.
“The news that has come through from Lucknow is that, for some time at
any rate, the garrison are confident they can hold out, while at
Delhi we know that our position is becoming stronger every day; the
reinforcements are beginning to arrive from England, and though the
work may be slow at first, our army will grow, while their strength will
diminish, until we sweep them before us. I need not stop until the
end, only till the peril is over, till Lucknow is relieved, and Delhi
captured.
“As we agreed, I have already sent in my resignation in the service,
and shall fight as a volunteer only. If we have to fight our way into
Lucknow, cavalry will be useless, and I shall apply to be attached to
one of the infantry regiments; having served before, there will be no
difficulty about that. I think there are sure to be plenty of vacancies.
Six months will assuredly see the backbone of the rebellion altogether
broken. No doubt it will take much longer crushing it out altogether,
for they will break up into scattered bodies, and it may be a long work
before these are all hunted down; but when the strength of the rebellion
is broken, I can leave with honor.”
There were but few preparations to be made for the wedding. Great
interest was felt in the fort in the event, for Isobel’s rescue from
Bithoor and Cawnpore, when all others who had fallen into the power of
the Nana had perished, had been the one bright spot in the gloom; and
there would have been a general feeling of disappointment had not the
romance had the usual termination.
Isobel’s presents were numerous and of a most useful character, for they
took the form of articles of clothing, and her trousseau was a varied
and extensive one.
The Doctor said to her the evening before the event, “You ought to have
a certificate from the authorities, Isobel, saying how you came into
possession of your wardrobe, otherwise when you get back to England you
will very soon come to be looked upon as a most suspicious character.”
“How do you mean, Doctor?”
“Well, my dear, if the washerwoman to whom you send your assortment
at the end of the voyage is an honest woman, she will probably give
information to the police that you must be a receiver of stolen
property, as your garments are all marked with different names.”
“It will look suspicious, Doctor, but I must run the risk of that till
I can remark them again. I can do a good deal that way before I sail. It
is likely we shall be another fortnight at least before we can start
for Calcutta. I don’t mean to take the old names out, but shall mark my
initials over them and the word ‘from.’ Then they will always serve as
mementoes of the kindness of everyone here.”
Early on the morning of the wedding a native presented himself at the
gate of the fort, and on being allowed to enter with a letter for Miss
Hannay of which he was the bearer, handed her a parcel, which proved
to contain a very handsome and valuable set of jewelry, with a slip of
paper on which were the words, “From Rabda.”
The Doctor was in high spirits at the breakfast to which everybody sat
down directly after the wedding. In the first place, his greatest wish
was gratified; and, in the second, he was about to start to take part in
the work of retribution.
“One would think you were just starting on a pleasure party, Doctor,”
Isobel said.
“It is worth all the pleasure parties in the world, my dear. I have
always been a hunter, and this time it is human ‘tigers’ I am going in
pursuit of--besides which,” he said, in a quieter tone, “I hope I am
going to cure as well as kill. I shall only be a soldier when I am not
wanted as a doctor. A man who really loves his profession, as I do, is
always glad to exercise it, and I fear I shall have ample opportunities
that way; besides, dear there is nothing like being cheerful upon an
occasion of this kind. The longer we laugh, the less time there is for
tears.”
And so the party did not break up until it was nearly time for the
little troop to start. Then there was a brief passionate parting, and
the volunteer horse rode away to Cawnpore. Almost the first person they
met as they rode into the British lines was Wilson, who gave a shout of
joy at seeing the Doctor and Bathurst.
“My dear Bathurst!” he exclaimed. “Then you got safely down. Did you
rescue Miss Hannay?”
“I had that good fortune, Wilson.”
“I am glad. I am glad,” the young fellow said, shaking his hand
violently, while the tears stood in his eyes. “I know you were right
in sending me away, but I have regretted it ever since. I know I should
have been no good, but it seemed such a mean thing for me to go off by
myself. Well, Doctor, and so you got off too,” he went on, turning from
Bathurst and wringing the Doctor’s hand; “I never even hoped that you
escaped. I made sure that it was only we two. I have had an awful time
of it since we heard the news, on the way up, of the massacre of the
women. I had great faith in Bathurst, and knew that if anything could be
done he would do it, but when I saw the place they had been shut up in,
it did not seem really possible that he could have got anyone out of
such a hole. And where did you leave Miss Hannay?”
“We have not left her at all,” the Doctor said gravely; “there is no
longer a Miss Hannay. There, man, don’t look so shocked. She changed her
name on the morning we came away.”
“What!” Wilson exclaimed. “Is she Mrs. Bathurst? I am glad, Bathurst.
Shake hands again; I felt sure that if you did rescue her that was what
would come of it. I was almost certain by her way when I talked to
her about you one day that she liked you. I was awfully spoony on her
myself, you know, but I knew it was no use, and I would rather by a lot
that she married you than anyone else I know. But come along into my
tent; you know your troop and ours are going to be joined. We have
lost pretty near half our fellows, either in the fights coming up or by
sunstroke or fever since we came here. I got hold of some fizz in the
bazaar yesterday, and I am sure you must be thirsty. This is a splendid
business; I don’t know that I ever felt so glad of anything in my life,”
and he dragged them away to his tent.
Bathurst found, to his disappointment, that intense as was the desire to
push forward to Lucknow, the general opinion was that the General would
not venture to risk his little force in an operation that, with the
means at his disposal, seemed well nigh impossible. Cholera had made
considerable ravages, and he had but fifteen hundred bayonets at his
disposal. All that could be done pending the arrival of reinforcements
was to prepare the way for an advance, and show so bold a front that the
enemy would be forced to draw a large force from Lucknow to oppose his
advance.
A bridge of boats was thrown across the Ganges, and the force crossed
the river and advanced to Onao, eight miles on the road to Lucknow. Here
the enemy, strongly posted, barred the way; but they were attacked,
and, after hard fighting, defeated, with a loss of three hundred men and
fifteen guns.
In this fight the volunteer horse, who had been formed into a single
troop, did good service. One of their two officers was killed; and as
the party last up from Allahabad were all full of Bathurst’s rescue
of Miss Hannay from Cawnpore, and Wilson and the Doctor influenced the
others, he was chosen to fill the vacancy.
There were two other fierce fights out at Busserutgunge, and then
Bathurst had the satisfaction of advancing with the column against
Bithoor. Here again the enemy fought sturdily, but were defeated with
great slaughter, and the Nana’s palace was destroyed.
When, after the arrival of Outram with reinforcements, the column set
out for Lucknow, the volunteers did not accompany them, as they would
have been useless in street fighting, and were, therefore, detailed
to form part of the little force left at Cawnpore to hold the city and
check the rebels, parties of whom were swarming round it.
The officer in command of the troop died of cholera a few days after
Havelock’s column started up, and Bathurst succeeded him. The work was
very arduous, the men being almost constantly in their saddles,
and having frequent encounters with the enemy. They were again much
disappointed at being left behind when Sir Colin Campbell advanced to
the relief of Havelock and the garrison, but did more than their share
of fighting in the desperate struggle when the mutineers of the Gwallior
contingent attacked the force at Cawnpore during the absence of the
relieving column. Here they were almost annihilated in a desperate
charge which saved the 64th from being cut to pieces at the most
critical moment of the fight.
Wilson came out of the struggle with the loss of his left arm, and two
or three serious wounds. He had been cut off, and surrounded, and was
falling from his horse when Bathurst cut his way to his rescue, and,
lifting him into his saddle before him, succeeded after desperate
fighting in carrying him off, himself receiving several wounds, none of
which, however, were severe. The action had been noticed, and Bathurst’s
name was sent in for the Victoria Cross. As the troop had dwindled to a
dozen sabers, he applied to Sir Colin Campbell, whose column had arrived
in time to save the force at Cawnpore and to defeat the enemy, to be
attached to a regiment as a volunteer. The General, however, at once
offered him a post as an extra aide de camp to himself, as his perfect
knowledge of the language would render him of great use; and he gladly
accepted the offer.
With the column returning from Lucknow was the Doctor.
“By the way, Bathurst,” he said on the evening of his return, “I met an
old acquaintance in Lucknow; you would never guess who it was--Forster.”
“You don’t say so; Doctor.”
“Yes; it seems he was hotly pursued, but managed to shake the sowars
off. At that time the garrison was not so closely besieged as it
afterwards was. He knew the country well, and made his way across
it until within sight of Lucknow. At night he rode right through the
rebels, swam the river, and gained the Residency. He distinguished
himself greatly through the siege, but had been desperately wounded the
day before we marched in. He was in a ward that was handed over to me
directly I got there, and I at once saw that his case was a hopeless
one. The poor fellow was heartily glad to see me. Of course he knew
nothing of what had taken place at Deennugghur after he had left, and
was very much cut up when he heard the fate of almost all the garrison.
He listened quietly when I told how you had rescued Isobel and of your
marriage. He was silent, and then said, ‘I am glad to hear it, Doctor.
I can’t say how pleased I am she escaped. Bathurst has fairly won her.
I never dreamt that she cared for him. Well, it seems he wasn’t a
coward after all. And you say he has resigned and come up as a volunteer
instead of going home with her? That is plucky, anyhow. Well, I am
pleased. I should not have been so if I hadn’t been like this, Doctor,
but now I am out of the running for good, it makes no odds to me either
way. If ever you see him again, you tell him I said I was glad. I expect
he will make her a deucedly better husband than I should have done. I
never liked Bathurst, but I expect it was because he was a better fellow
than most of us--that was at school, you know--and of course I did not
take to him at Deennugghur. No one could have taken to a man there who
could not stand fire. But you say he has got over that, so that is all
right. Anyhow, I have no doubt he will make her happy. Tell her I am
glad, Doctor. I thought at one time--but that is no odds now. I am glad
you are out of it, too.’
“And then he rambled on about shooting Sepoys, and did not say anything
more coherently until late that night. I was sitting by him; he had been
unconscious for some time, and he opened his eyes suddenly and said,
‘Tell them both I am glad,’ and those were the last words he spoke.”
“He was a brave soldier, a fine fellow in many ways,” Bathurst said; “if
he had been brought up differently he would, with all his gifts, have
been a grand fellow, but I fancy he never got any home training. Well,
I am glad he didn’t die as we supposed, without a friend beside him, on
his way to Lucknow, and that he fell after doing his duty to the women
and children there.”
Wilson refused to go home after the loss of his arm, and as soon as he
recovered was appointed to one of the Sikh regiments, and took part in
the final conquest of Lucknow two months after the fight at Cawnpore.
A fortnight after the conclusion of that terrible struggle Sir Colin
Campbell announced to Bathurst that amongst the dispatches that he
had received from home that morning was a Gazette, in which his name
appeared among those to whom the Victoria Cross had been granted.
“I congratulate you heartily, Mr. Bathurst,” the old officer said: “I
have had the pleasure of speaking in the highest terms of the bravery
you displayed in carrying my message through heavy fire a score of times
during the late operations.”
Great as the honor of the Victoria Cross always is, to Bathurst it was
much more than to other men. It was his rehabilitation. He need never
fear now that his courage would be questioned, and the report that he
had before left the army because he lacked courage would be forever
silenced now that he could write V. C. after his name. The pleasure
of Dr. Wade and Wilson was scarcely less than his own. The latter’s
regiment had suffered very heavily in the struggle at Lucknow, and he
came out of it a captain, having escaped without a wound.
A week later Bathurst resigned his appointment. There was still much to
be done, and months of marching and fighting before the rebellion was
quite stamped out; but there had now arrived a force ample to overcome
all opposition, and there was no longer a necessity for the service of
civilians. As he had already left the service of the Company, he was his
own master, and therefore started at once for Calcutta..
“I shall not be long before I follow you,” the Doctor said, as they
spent their last evening together. “I shall wait and see this out, and
then retire. I should have liked to have gone home with you, but it is
out of the question. Our hands are full, and likely to be so for some
time, so I must stop.”
Bathurst stopped for a day at Patna to see Rujub and his daughter. He
was received as an expected guest, and after spending a few hours with
them he continued his journey. At Calcutta he found a letter awaiting
him from Isobel, saying that she had arrived safely in England, and
should stay with her mother until his arrival, and there he found her.
“I expected you today,” she said, after the first rapturous greeting
was over. “Six weeks ago I woke in the middle of the night, and heard
Rabda’s voice distinctly say: ‘He has been with us today: he is safe and
well; he is on his way to you.’ As I knew how long you would take
going down from Patna, I went the next day to the office and found what
steamer you would catch, and when she would arrive. My mother and sister
both regarded me as a little out of my mind when I said you would be
back this week. They have not the slightest belief in what I told them
about Rujub, and insist that it was all a sort of hallucination brought
on by my sufferings. Perhaps they will believe now.”
“Your face is wonderfully better,” he said presently. “The marks seem
dying out, and you look almost your old self.”
“Yes,” she said; “I have been to one of the great doctors, and he says
he thinks the scars will quite disappear in time.”
Isobel Bathurst has never again received any distinct message from
Rabda, but from time to time she has the consciousness, when sitting
quietly alone, that the girl is with her in thought. Every year letters
and presents are exchanged, and to the end of their lives she and her
husband will feel that their happiness is chiefly due to her and her
father--Rujub, the Juggler.
THE END.