and eight or ten feet apart. At first Ahmed thought of creeping up to
the doorway and pushing aside the matting gently so as to get a view of
the occupants. There was some risk in this, however; he might be seen by
those inside the hut, or by some one passing outside, and then his
purpose would be defeated. So he crept round to the back, trying to find
a crack in the wall of the flimsily-built hut, such as were often caused
by the shrinking of the mud under the sun's heat. But in this he was
disappointed. The hut, being close against the wall of the fort, had
been defended from the sun's rays. Nothing daunted, he proceeded with
his knife to cut a hole, very gently, as his tribesmen were wont to do
when stealing horses. He was so dexterous in this that he soon scratched
away the dried mud until he had made a hole a little larger than his
eye. Then, as he expected, he came upon the straw network with which the
mud was held together. So far his movements had been almost soundless,
but there was a considerable risk of being heard if he cut the straw
which alone stood between him and the occupants of the hut. Every now
and then a gust of wind came, whistling as it swept between the hut and
the wall. Taking advantage of this slight noise, he inserted the point
of his knife and gently severed the straw until he was able to see
pretty clearly the interior of the hut, lit as it was by a small
saucer-lamp.
The occupants appeared to be three in number. Two of them were Panjabis,
whom, being infantrymen, he knew but slightly. In the third he did not
recognize, as he expected to do, the figure of Minghal Khan. It was a
fakir, with long matted grey hair and a straggling beard. Cold as the
weather was, the fakir was almost entirely unclothed; his body was
smeared with ashes.
And then Ahmed blessed the caution which had prevented him from creeping
up to the doorway of matting in front. Just behind it, so much in shadow
that Ahmed had not at first perceived him, stood a fourth man, who
peeped through now and again, as if to see that nobody approached
without warning. At the same time he lent an ear to the conversation
going on among his comrades, who were seated, cross-legged, on the
floor. There was something suspicious in the attitude of the man on
guard. Ahmed had once or twice lately noticed a certain restlessness
among some of the Musalman members of the corps. He felt quite sure that
the men were after no good, and removing his eye from the aperture, he
turned his ear towards it The meeting was evidently a secret one, and it
seemed to him important to know what was going on. The strange
resemblance of the voice of one of the men to that of his enemy Minghal
still disturbed him, and, as was perhaps natural in the circumstances,
he still had a suspicion that he was himself the subject of their
discussion; but as he listened, he soon found that they were talking
about matters far more weighty than the latest recruit of the Guides.
"The Feringhis are attacking our religion," were the first words he
heard. "Is it not a time when all good Musalmans should lay aside their
little personal quarrels and join hands against the common foe?"
It was evidently the fakir who was speaking, and Ahmed was again struck
by the likeness of his voice to Minghal's.
"The time is at hand when all the Feringhis shall be smitten," the voice
continued. "Why have the infidels enlisted so many followers of Islam in
their army? Why are they making this new cartridge? To turn the sons of
the Prophet from the true faith."
"Bah!" said one of the group. "The Feringhis' religion has nought to do
with the eating of pigs. They are men of the Book. They eat pigs, it is
true; but that concerns not their religion."
"Foolish one, dost thou not see? This cartridge is smeared with the fat
of pigs, and when a true believer bites off the top, as the need is,
does he not lose his caste and become a pariah? Will his father speak to
him? Will his brother eat with him? Nay, he loses father, brother, all
his kin; and then the Feringhi comes and says, 'Dog, thou art outcast.
Embrace my religion, or thou art friendless in this world as well as
damned in the next.'"
"That may be so, O holy one," said the second man; "but what does it
concern us? We have not the new cartridge of which you speak. Our sahibs
are honourable; they would do nothing in despite of our religion;
Lumsden Sahib told me when I became a Guide that he would not permit any
man to interfere with that."
"Hai! Remember the saying, 'What is the goat, what is its flavour?' The
goat can never become a camel, nor can its milk ever taste like the
buffalo's. Your sahibs are kafirs; they hold not the faith; they but
bide the time, and then assuredly you will be defiled."
"But didst thou not say that nothing can be done without the help of the
accursed Hindus? I for one will not join hands with the dogs."
"Nay, nay, in this matter Islam and Shiva are at one. The Hindu by
tasting the fat of the sacred cow, the Musalman by tasting the fat of
the loathed swine, become alike defiled. The Feringhis are powerful.
They are in the saddle. If the Hindus will aid us in tearing them out of
the saddle, shall we despise their help? Have you not a saying,
'Buffalo! though we are not of one mountain, we belong to one thicket'?
We Musalmans have our horns in the thicket; shall not Hindus help to
disentangle them? When the Feringhis are smitten and sent to perdition,
then will be the time for us true believers to deal fitly with the Hindu
dogs. Will it not be then as it was in the days of the great Shah Nadir?
Once more the Afghans, men of your race and faithful sons of the
Prophet, will pour into the plains and set up a new and glorious
kingdom. Who reigns now in Delhi? Bahadur Shah, toothless, feeble-kneed,
a puppet in the hands of the Feringhis, doing nought from sunrise to
sunset but invent foolish verses. We will change that; we will restore
him to his dignities, or set up another in his room. As in the old days,
every soldier in our host shall become a zamindar. There will be no
goose-step to learn; no useless drill; none of the humiliation of
obeying the commands of the white-faced dogs."
Though the fakir spoke in low tones, there was an intensity in his
utterance that had its effect upon the listeners. This news of the
fat-smeared cartridge troubled them in spite of themselves. They had
heard nothing of it before; as a matter of fact, it had not yet been
issued from the factory at Dam-dam; and but for the insolence of a
Lascar, probably no suspicion of it would have arisen. The Lascar asked
a Hindu one day for a drink of water from his brass lotah, which the
Hindu indignantly refused, since he could not himself use the vessel
again without losing caste. Upon this the Lascar retorted that he would
soon have no caste to lose, since he would have to bite a cartridge
smeared with the fat of pigs and cows. The news spread like wild-fire
through the native army; and the terrible fear that the introduction of
the new cartridge was a cunning device to make them pariahs, acting on
superstitious minds which had other causes of disaffection, wrought the
sepoys to a dangerous state of unrest.
But the fakir, besides appealing to his hearers' religious feelings,
appealed also to their cupidity. He knew his men well. Like many of the
Guides, they were by nature and training robbers. The prospect of
unlimited plunder fired their imagination, and they received his last
speech with a grunt of approval. He was quick to seize his advantage.
"Listen, brothers," he said in a mysterious whisper which Ahmed could
barely catch. "'Tis nigh a hundred years since the Feringhi Clive, that
son of perdition, defeated the host of Siraj-uddaula at Plassey. A holy
man foretold that when the evil dominion of the Feringhis had endured
for a hundred years, it should fade and vanish as a dream. The time is
at hand, my brothers. Have I not lately received the sign from the hands
of the Maulavi himself, the saint who now goes to and fro to stir the
hearts of the faithful? Behold!"
Ahmed turned his eye quickly to the hole, and saw the fakir produce from
his loin-cloth a chapati--a flat cake of unleavened bread--which he
handed with a solemn gesture to one of the Guides. The man took it as
though it were a sacred object.
"That is the sign chosen by the holy Maulavi Ahmed Ullah of Faizabad.
Pass it to your comrades, brother, such of them as are true. I myself
may no longer stay: I have far to go. Work in silence and discreetly,
but with no loss of time. The hour is at hand; no man knoweth when the
Maulavi may give the word. The train is laid from Meerut to Calcutta.
The prize--wealth in this world and bliss in the world to come--is for
him who leads, not for him who follows, in the blessed work. I will
record your names, so that the Maulavi may have you in remembrance."
Ahmed had been so intently watching, that, being unable to hear and see
at the same time, he lost part of this address. When he put his ear
again to the hole, he could not catch the whispered words. With his
knife he slightly enlarged the opening, and was straining his ears when
he heard a light footfall behind him. Before he could turn, an arm was
flung round his neck, a hand was pressed over his mouth, and in spite of
his struggles to free himself he was held there until his captor, joined
by others, securely gagged and trussed him. The man nearest him in the
hut had heard the scratching of his knife, and crept out; his companions
had followed him; and Ahmed was a prisoner.
While one of the men was scouting to make sure that nobody approached,
the others dragged their captive round the hut and in at the doorway. As
he entered, the fakir rose to his feet, and a glare of triumph lit his
eyes.
"A spy!" he cried in a whisper. "Allah protects the faithful."
"Shall it be a knife, holy one?" asked one of the men.
"Nay, nay," said another, "a knife means blood on the floor. And how
could we carry him from the lines? Within a little the gun will signal
for 'lights out,' and the gates will be closed. We could not carry a
dead man without being seen by the sentry. 'Tis easier to carry a man
alive than dead."
"But we cannot keep him here," said the third. "'Tis Ahmed, the child
who puts his elders to shame at man's work, and licks the boots of the
sahibs. Search will be made for him; the braggart Sherdil, who shares
his hut, will raise a cry when he is missed. This is evil work: he will
betray us."
"Listen to me," said the fakir. "When the gun fires I go. But I will
remain without, at the foot of the wall. When the night is far spent, do
you lift him and throw him over the wall. Then will I take him and cast
him into the river, and none will know."
"But the sentry!" said one of the men.
"Bah! has he eyes all round? The night is dark; none will see. Brothers,
he is a kafir; he is a Feringhi who has come among you to learn your
secrets and betray you. He shall die. So may all perish that stand in
the way of the faithful."
And then Ahmed knew that the fakir was in very truth his enemy, Minghal.
The voice, the glance of hate, the knowledge that he was an
Englishman--all proved that his first suspicion was just. At the fakir's
words one of the men spat upon him; then he was cast to the floor behind
a charpoy that lay on one side of the entrance. Another charpoy was on
the opposite side. It was near this that the conspirators had been
squatting. The charpoy behind which he had been flung concealed him from
the view of any one who should enter the doorway, and one of the men now
placed the little lamp on the floor near the end of the charpoy, so that
a shadow was cast on the place where Ahmed lay.
His hands and feet being tied, and his mouth gagged, the men felt free
to listen to the fakir as he told them their prisoner's history. Ahmed
felt that that history would soon come to an end. Even if a friend
should enter the hut, he was so well concealed that he might escape
observation. He had no means of giving an alarm; he saw no way of
escape: and when the lights were out and the fort was in darkness, it
would be no difficult matter for the men to do as the fakir had
suggested. And should the sound of his fall from the wall attract the
notice of a sentry, and bring any one to the spot, he knew that Minghal
would certainly dispatch him even though he should himself be seized. A
knife-thrust would take but the fraction of a second; and Minghal was
such an adept in cunning that he might make good his escape.
And so he lay helpless while his captors planned how they would lower
him over the wall by a rope, so that no sound of falling should catch
the sentry's ear. They agreed that they ran a risk; but there was
greater risk in any other course. To dispose of him was imperative, or
they themselves were doomed. The safest time would be two hours after
"lights out," when the sentries had been changed; it would not be many
minutes before the signal gun was fired.
Ahmed tried again and again to think of some way of escaping the
impending doom. If only he could attract the attention of some of his
friends in the corps, all might be well. He longed that Sherdil, or
Dilawur, or Rasul, all good friends of his, might be brought by some
lucky chance into the hut. There was a possibility that he might then
raise himself above the charpoy and be seen. With all his heart he hoped
that the men would not extinguish the lamp before the signal was given,
and he felt that if no help should come while it still burned he was
lost indeed.
With the thought of the imminent extinction of the light a wild chance
suggested itself. On the charpoy, close to his feet, was a small bundle
of straw which had apparently been used as a pillow. It was almost
opposite to the lamp. Drawing up his feet slightly, he gently pushed the
bundle to the edge of the charpoy. He was careful to move it slowly, for
straw crackles, and he expected that the slight rustle he could not help
making would be heard by the men. But if they heard the sound at all,
they probably attributed it merely to his uneasy movements. He pushed
the bundle inch by inch until it came to a position where in a few
moments it must fall over the edge of the charpoy to the floor. Would it
fall on the lamp? If it did, would it extinguish the flame? If it did
not extinguish the flame, would it catch light quickly enough to prevent
the men from quenching the flame? To all these questions was added
another: Would the signal gun be fired before anything could be done?
Ahmed saw that the men were so near to the lamp that even if the bundle
caught fire they could stamp out the flames before they made such a
glare as would raise an alarm. By some means this must be prevented. The
very signal he had dreaded lent him aid. The gun was fired. The fakir
rose to go. In another moment the lamp would be put out. Ahmed gave the
little bundle the last tilt necessary to cause it to overbalance, and
next instant he drew his feet up, stuck them under the charpoy, and,
suddenly shooting them out, kicked it directly upon the three men, who
were still squatting on the floor, looking towards the fakir as they
bade him farewell. The three or four seconds thus gained achieved his
object. The straw was ignited, a huge flame shot up in an instant to the
roof. This, as in all Indian huts, was low. Being made of thatch it
caught fire readily. The hut was ablaze.
For the moment the conspirators were thrown so completely off their
balance that they knew not how to act. But it soon dawned on them that
the fire must bring the whole camp down on them; already there were
cries from without. The discovery of Ahmed bound, dead or alive, would
be fatal to them. They could not get rid of him. Safety lay in flight
alone. Barely five seconds after the sudden outbreak of flame they
dashed out of the hut, rushed among the men who were flocking up, and in
the confusion made for the gate and disappeared.
But the fakir was not with them. On the point of departing when the
straw caught fire, he too had been dazed for a moment by the sudden
glare, and took a step forward to flee. But then he turned, whipped out
his knife, and ran to where Ahmed lay. Ahmed saw him coming, saw the
knife in his hand, knew his fell purpose. Quick as thought he wriggled
against the wall and drew up his knees. Minghal came swiftly towards
him, intent only on his murderous design. Suddenly out shot the
prisoner's bound feet; they caught the stooping fakir square on the
knees. He reeled back against the loose matting of the doorway, and
stumbled against one of the crowd whom the fire had summoned.
The man hurled him aside. He fell and was trampled by the feet of
others. There were cries all around; some were shouting for water,
others were beating at the burning roof with their swords; no one paid
heed to the man on the ground. Bruised with kicks he wriggled through
the press until he came near the gate; then, in full sight of the
sentry, he raised his hands and piously besought the aid of Allah to
save the dwellings of the faithful.
Meanwhile the British officers had run up to the scene of the
conflagration. First of them was Lieutenant Hawes, the adjutant. The men
fell back from him as he pushed his way towards the blazing hut.
"Where are the men?" he cried. "Is any one inside?"
"That we know not, sahib," replied a Gurkha.
"We cannot see through the smoke, sahib," added a tall Afridi; "we are
beating out the flames."
"Idiots!" cried the lieutenant. "Out of the way!"
He rushed through the entrance. The hut was so full of smoke that for a
moment he could see nothing. Then he caught sight of a figure against
the wall: a trooper with his arms crossed on his face to defend it from
the shreds of burning thatch that were falling. His legs were drawn up
to avoid the flames from a charpoy already half consumed. Thinking he
was unconscious, Lieutenant Hawes seized him by the feet and hauled him
by main force into the open air.
"Who is it?" asked Lumsden, standing there with Dr. Bellew.
The prostrate trooper moved his arms.
"Ahmed!" cried the adjutant. "You had no business in the hut. Get up!"
Ahmed wriggled, but could neither stand nor speak.
"Let me see," said the doctor, stooping. "Why, God bless me, he is
gagged and tied up!"
He slit the cords and removed the gag, and Ahmed got up on his feet. He
was half suffocated, and his eyes were red, and watering with the smoke.
"There's some devilry here," cried Lumsden. "Bellew, take him to my
quarters. Hawes, see that nobody leaves the fort. Some of you men put
out the fire and then go quietly to your beds."
The gates were by this time shut. When Lieutenant Hawes asked the sentry
whether he had noticed any suspicious characters leaving the fort, he
replied--
"No, sahib. The last to go before I shut the gate was a holy fakir, who
besought Allah that we might be saved from the fire."
CHAPTER THE TENTH
The Delhi Road
"Just overhaul him, doctor," said Lumsden, when he reached his quarters
with Ahmed. "He has had a narrow squeak."
"Hair singed, eyes a trifle inflamed; nothing else wrong," said the
doctor, after a rapid examination. "Who tied you up, youngster?"
"Let us begin at the beginning," Lumsden interposed. "What were you
doing in that hut?"
Ahmed told his story in as few words as possible. The officers did not
interrupt him until he began to relate what he had heard the pretended
fakir say about the Maulavi. Then Lumsden brought his fist down heavily
on the table before him and said--
"That's the rascal I saw at Lahore a few months ago, without a doubt--a
tall, lean, lantern-jawed fellow with a beak like the old Duke's. They
told me he seemed to be very busy, though no one knew what his business
was. Now, Ahmed, could you judge by what you heard whether this fakir
had spoken to any other men in the corps?"
"I do not think he had, sahib. He was persuading these men to speak to
the others."
"Very well. Go on with your story."
Ahmed repeated, as nearly as he could remember them, the actual words
used by the fakir, and then described how he had been seized and
carried, bound, into the tent, and lay gagged while his captors
discussed how they should dispose of him. When he had related the manner
in which he had set the hut on fire, Lumsden looked pleased.
"It was a good thought, and cleverly done, my lad. That's the kind of
thing I like to see in my Guides--quickness, decision, willingness to
take risks. I shall keep my eye on you. But now, you fellows," he added
in English, the other officers having entered the room, "what are we to
do about an explanation? The men will be desperately excited, you may be
sure; those three scoundrels must be marked off as deserters, and Ahmed
must have some tale for the rest of the men."
"Say they were in a funk at burning down the hut," suggested Lieutenant
Battye.
"Won't wash, Quintin. The punishment would only be stopping of leave or
something of that kind: none of the men would run away from that."
"Ask the youngster," said the adjutant. "These Pathans are good at fairy
tales."
The question was put to Ahmed.
"It might be done thus, sahib," said the boy. "The fakir was not a true
fakir. He is one Minghal, once chief of Mandan, and we blew up his tower
and captured his village."
"I remember. Sherdil told me of that little piece of trickery--a box of
porcelain from Delhi, eh? Well?"
"He is my enemy, sahib. We could say that he came to kill me, and indeed
he tried to stick his knife into me just before Hawes Sahib came, but I
kicked him down. The rest might be told even as it happened, except for
what the fakir said."
"Very good. An excellent notion: you others agree? You shall tell them
that. Now get to your hut: you have done very well."
Ahmed saluted and went away. He found Sherdil awaiting him in great
excitement. The story he told seemed perfectly convincing. The conduct
of Minghal was just what might have been expected of him, and the three
Guides who abetted him clearly had no other course than to take flight.
And the explanation spread through the whole corps next day, and was
accepted with equal belief.
When Ahmed had gone, the officers sat up far into the night discussing
the incident. It indicated the possibility of grave disorders arising.
They were all aware of an undercurrent of disaffection in many regiments
of the native army. Apart from the fears aroused by the threatened
introduction of the new cartridge, there were other causes of discontent
and suspicion, both among the sepoys and the native population
generally. The native officers did not take kindly to the system of
promotion by seniority instead of by merit. Slight instances of
insubordination had been too leniently dealt with by the officers, and
the men had begun to regard themselves as of vast importance. Tales had
been spread of the difficulties of the British army in the Crimea; many
of the sepoys believed that it had been almost entirely destroyed, and
the British prestige had fallen in consequence. They had a grievance,
too, in the matter of foreign service. When they were enlisted they were
expressly guaranteed against service over sea. But the Government, with
reprehensible disregard of this engagement, ordered some native
regiments to sail across the dreaded kala pani, and when they refused,
neither enforced the order nor punished the refusal as mutiny. Since
then a law had been passed withdrawing the reservation in the case of
new recruits, and the older men believed that the guarantee was to be no
longer observed in their case.
Attempts to graft Western ideas and customs on an Oriental people had
embittered the populace generally. Changes in the land system which had
prevailed from time immemorial had exasperated the zamindars.
Interference with the native customs in regard to succession had enraged
the princes, and the recent annexation of the province of Oudh had
alienated an immense population from which the native regiments were
largely recruited.
These and other matters bred a spirit of unrest and distrust, and made
the minds of the sepoys fit soil for the seeds of disaffection which
religious fanatics were beginning to sow among them.
The possibility of a general rising caused grave disquiet to a few of
the more thoughtful of the British authorities--those who knew the
natives best, and were aware of the lengths to which superstition might
drive them. But the great majority were blind to what was passing under
their eyes, and disregarded the warnings of the keener-sighted. Even
when, on February 27, the 19th Native Infantry at Barhampur rose in
mutiny, impelled by a panic fear that the greased cartridges were to be
forced on them at the muzzles of our guns, the incident was regarded as
an isolated eruption instead of a symptom of general uneasiness, and a
strange lack of firmness was shown in dealing with it. "A little fire is
quickly trodden out which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench."