move them. Why they wait so long who can tell? The people say in the
city that they are but five hundred now; that the colonels eat grain
like their horses; that three generals have killed themselves before
their troops for shame. But it cannot be true, sahib, for else why do
the sepoys always come back discomfited? No; Allah is great, and the
sahibs will yet come and punish the evil-doers, and then all will be
well."
"But it is so long! How long is it since you found me in the street, and
brought me here?"
"Two moons and more, sahib."
"Two months! And we have heard nothing all that time of Mary. I must go,
Kaluja. In this dress none would recognize me; I can pass as one of
their own hakims. You must help me to escape from the city."
"Nay, sahib; it is not safe. And besides, you are too weak--you would
fall in the street."
"No, I am strong enough now. See, I can walk quite well."
There was a brief silence; then Ahmed heard a groan.
"Did I not say so, sahib? It would be folly; it would kill you. You must
be patient."
"I could be patient if I were certain of Mary's safety. Did not your
messenger return? Are you sure he has not returned?"
"I have neither seen nor heard of him, sahib."
"It is this anxiety that is sapping my strength. My wounds were healed
long ago. Is there no one in this great city you can trust to go and
come again?"
And then Ahmed pushed the door wide open, and entered the room.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST
Master and Servant
Ahmed found himself in a small square chamber, dimly lit by an oil-lamp.
The air was close, and pervaded by an odour new to him: the pungent
odour that salutes one at the entrance of a chemist's shop. The room was
naturally lofty, but its height was artificially diminished now by a
large blanket spread from corner to corner.
Against the further wall stood a charpoy, and on it lay a tall
grey-bearded man clad in the customary garments of a respectable
Mohammedan. A table was at his side, with a tray holding a dish and a
phial or two. The khansaman was standing at the foot of the bed. At the
entrance of Ahmed he uttered a cry, and seized a knife from the table.
There was a silence, in the tenseness of which time seemed to be
abolished. The khansaman stared with eyes that spoke his fear. Then
Ahmed held up his hand and spoke: "Be at peace, good khansaman," he
said; "I have news of the sahib's daughter."
The man's overcharged feelings found relief in a sob, and the recumbent
figure started up.
"Is it true? You do not mock me?" he cried. "Who are you?"
"I am Ahmed Khan, of Lumsden Sahib's Guides, and I am sent into this
city by Hodson Sahib, to say that the hazur's daughter is safe at
Karnal."
The shock of this good news rendered the doctor speechless. He was
seized with a violent trembling, and the khansaman hastily poured a
little liquid into a glass and gave it to his master. When he had
recovered he asked Ahmed many questions: whether he had seen the missy
sahib, how she looked, whether she had received his note, why the
messenger had not returned. To these Ahmed replied as well as he could,
but he said nothing of the part he had himself played in the saving of
the girl.
Then he himself asked questions, and learnt from the khansaman the
simple story of the doctor's rescue. He had been left for dead by the
mutinous sepoys a few yards from his door, and had there been found by
Kaluja Dass, who had conveyed him by night to the secret underground
chamber. It was situated immediately below the fountain in the garden,
and was ventilated and dimly lit in the daytime through an ingenious
series of openings in the ornamental stonework at the base of the
fountain. What appeared to an observer in the garden as a delicate
pattern of tracery was really the ventilating system of the room below.
There he had remained ever since. The healing of his wounds had been
slow, and his anxieties and the deprivation of fresh air had retarded
the full recovery of his strength. No one but the khansaman knew of the
secret entrance through the surgery wall, and it had been a happy
thought of his to place the almirah against it, and to make the sliding
panel. The blanket was stretched across the ceiling so as to prevent a
stray beam of light from the oil-lamp from filtering through the
apertures to the garden.
The doctor was much gratified that Ahmed had been allowed to enter the
city to search for him. He inquired for his old friend General Barnard,
to learn with sorrow of his death. He asked eagerly what steps had been
taken to capture the city, and sighed heavily when he heard how the
little army on the Ridge was waiting until the reinforcements and the
siege-train which Sir John Lawrence was collecting in the Panjab should
arrive. Again he pleaded with the khansaman to take him from the city,
but Ahmed supported the good servant's contention that to attempt to
escape now would be to court innumerable perils, and that it was better
to remain in hiding until the city should be retaken. Ahmed promised to
acquaint General Wilson--who had succeeded General Reed in the
command--of the doctor's safety, and to send word to his daughter in
Karnal. The khansaman asked very anxiously how the information was to be
conveyed to the British lines. He was greatly disinclined to trust any
messenger whom he did not know.
"I will take it myself," replied Ahmed.
During the conversation Dr. Craddock kept his eyes fixed on Ahmed's
face, in the manner of a man seeking to recall something.
"Surely I have seen you before!" he said at length. "Have you been in
Delhi before?"
"Never, sahib."
"Perhaps it was in Lahore?"
"No, sahib; I have never been there."
"I must be mistaken, then, but it seemed to me that I knew your face."
And now he was eager to get away. He did not forget the double duty he
had to fulfil: news must be conveyed to the Ridge of the great assault
intended for the morrow. He would have been content to inform Fazl Hak
of this, and trust him to send it by one of his messengers; but the
discovery of the doctor was a matter so personal to him that he was
disinclined to entrust it to any one. Accordingly, he took leave of the
doctor, receiving from him an affectionate message for his daughter, and
then, accompanied by the khansaman, he returned by the narrow winding
stair to the upper room. The two crept silently through the passage to
the back staircase, and passed the servants' quarters, and came to the
door leading to the garden. The khansaman noiselessly drew the bolt, and
Ahmed stepped out. There was a sudden rush in the darkness. In a moment
he was overwhelmed and thrown to the ground. Struggle as he might, he
could not prevent the two men who had seized him from binding his arms,
and then he was dragged back into the house and up the stairs, being
finally deposited at the door of Minghal Khan's room.
The great man was very ill-tempered at being roused from sleep by the
loud calls of his darwan. He cried out to know why his sleep was thus
disturbed.
"Hazur, I have done a great deed!" cried the darwan; "even caught a dog
of a robber. Open, O Great One, and see what thy servant has
accomplished in his great zeal."
Minghal Khan came to the door and called for the khansaman to bring a
light. Several minutes passed, and the khansaman did not appear. Growing
impatient, Minghal dispatched the khitmutgar--the second of Ahmed's
captors--to fetch a lamp from the kitchen. Meanwhile the darwan
explained.
"Hazur, my eyes were heavy with sleep, but before seeking my charpoy I
went, as is my wont, to see that all was safe for the night. In that I
am not as other darwans, that eat and drink and take no thought for
their masters. And lo, beneath the portico, I found a lathi and a rope
with a hook at the end, and I wondered with a great wonderment. And I
called the khansaman, but he came not; peradventure he has gone out on
some evil work this night. And then I called Said the khitmutgar, and
together we talked of what this thing might be. And even as we talked we
heard the gentle drawing of the bolt, and we stood at the door, and when
this son of perdition came out we seized on him, and have even now
brought him before thee; surely no punishment can be too great for him."
The khitmutgar returned with a light. Minghal and the darwan recognized
at the same moment that the prisoner was no other than the deferential
trader whom they had seen in the morning. Of the two the darwan was the
more amazed.
"Dog, what is this?" cried Minghal. "Comest thou in the night to rob me?
What hast thou to say, rogue?"
Being a robber by profession himself, Minghal felt no moral indignation,
and no great personal rancour against this trader who had broken into
his house. It was his chief thought to turn the incident in some way to
account.
"Hazur," began Ahmed, "I am the most unworthy of thy servants. I did but
come to visit my good friend the darwan."
"Hazur, he has a lying tongue," interrupted the scandalized darwan. "A
friend! Allah slay me if I would ever speak two comfortable words to
such a dog."
"Chup!" cried Minghal. "Say on, banijara."
"The darwan has even eaten of my sweetmeats----"
"Perdition light on him!" cried the darwan. "Verily I should choke
if----"
"Chup, I say! Make thy story short, dog."
"And when I found him not at the door I made bold to enter. But
bethinking me then that the hazur, not knowing of my great friendship
with the darwan, might see me and conceive ill thoughts, I feared, and
was seeking to slip out when this pig, who has eaten my sweetmeats, set
upon me most vilely, as the hazur sees."
"Verily thou art a monstrous liar, banijara," said Minghal. "What of the
rope and the hook, and the lathi? What hast thou to say of them, dog?"
"Hazur, what should I know of them; is thy servant a camel-driver?"
Minghal laughed. The trader's explanation was too glib. He wondered what
the truth was. Had the man heard of his recent present of rupees and
come to rob him? or was there more in it? He looked keenly at Ahmed, and
suddenly noticed something strange about his beard. He stepped up to him
and, taking it in his hand, began to pull, not too gently. Ahmed
protested; it is an insult to a Mohammedan to pluck his beard; but
Minghal laughed again, and continued pulling. In the struggle at the
door a small portion of the false beard had become detached, and Minghal
scented a disguise. He pulled, the beard came away gradually, with no
little pain to Ahmed, for the adhesive was a strong one.
"Hold thy light nearer, khitmutgar," said Minghal.
The beard came off, and there was the banijara revealed as a
smooth-faced youth. The darwan uttered cries of amazement and reproach.
Minghal gave a chuckle of satisfaction.
"Wah! I know thee who thou art," he said. "Did not my heart kindle when
I beheld thee? As Asadullah that old dog Rahmut Khan comes to Delhi to
trouble me; as a mean banijara the puppy comes to spy upon me that he
may carry away the scent to the old dog. Verily it is a good day for
thee, darwan, and thou shalt have five rupees--no, that is too much--two
rupees, for bakshish. Go find that khansaman."
"I have sought for him, hazur, but found him not," said the khitmutgar.
"Go seek again."
The khitmutgar departed, and returned in a minute with Kaluja Dass,
grave and imperturbable as ever.
"Where hast thou been?" demanded Minghal.
"Hazur, where could I be but in my own little place, sleeping the sleep
of a just servant when his work is done?"
"Bring me the keys of the strong rooms below."
In these strong rooms the princes of Delhi, who had once owned the
house, had kept their valuables, and on occasion their prisoners. They
were now empty. The khansaman brought the keys. Ahmed was taken down by
a narrow staircase like that which led to Dr. Craddock's hiding-place. A
door was opened. He was pushed in, Minghal and the servants entered
after him. The room was stone-walled, stone-flagged, and bare. There was
no window, but a small grating high up in one of the walls; below it was
an iron staple.
"I know thy wiles," said Minghal. "Thou hast escaped me twice; thrice
thou shall not. Bring a chain," he added to the khansaman. "Verily Allah
is good," he continued, when the man was gone. "Thou art a Feringhi, and
when all the Feringhis are ground between the upper and the nether
mill-stone, there will be one among them whom they know not. But that
will be when I have had my profit of thee."
The chain was brought, and Ahmed was firmly fettered to the staple.
"Give me the key, khansaman; I will keep it," said Minghal. "And know,
all of you, that if this dog slips his leash, I will not only dismiss
you all that moment from my service, but I will even have you flogged
very thoroughly, so that you will groan for many days. That is my word;
take heed to it."
And then they all went out, Minghal turned the key in the door, and
Ahmed was left alone.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND
The Fight of Bakr-Id
It was Bakr-Id, the great day of Mohammedan sacrifice. Before dawn the
maulavis and mullahs were busy with their preparations for the
ceremonies of their religion. From early morning the streets were
thronged with the faithful; green turbans and green flags were
everywhere seen; long-bearded preachers, in the mosques and the bazars,
and at the corners of the streets, harangued the people, promising the
supreme joys of Paradise for all who should celebrate this great day by
wielding the sword against the infidel; and hundreds of fanatics ranged
the town, shrieking their battle-cry, "Din! Din!" Even the king's edict
that, in deference to the prejudices of the Brahmins and Rajputs who
formed a large proportion of the sepoy army, no bulls should be slain on
this day, but only goats--even this was but a trifling check upon the
enthusiasm; for the Feringhis would be utterly annihilated, and then
good Mohammedans could work their will on the Hindus, whom they hated
little less.
The king held his usual darbar, and then went in solemn procession with
his courtiers to the Idgah, where with his own hands he sacrificed a
goat. And having distributed new suits of clothing and strings of jewels
to the maulavis of the mosque, he returned to the palace, where he
employed himself in composing verses for the encouragement of Bakht
Khan:
"This day may all the foes of the Holy Faith be slain;
Cut the Feringhis down, as the woodman fells the tree:
Smite with the edge of the sword; spare not, nor refrain;
And celebrate this festal day with martial ecstasy."
While the doddering old king was wrestling with his metres, the
commander-in-chief, true to the compact made the previous night, was
having an interview with Rahmut Khan. He had summoned the old chief to
his presence, and found the conversation more amusing than he had
expected. He began by complimenting Rahmut on his well-known prowess,
and went on to say that in some quarters doubt had been thrown both upon
his military skill and his loyalty--doubt which, Bakht Khan was careful
to explain, he did not share. But since it was well to silence these
sceptics, and since, moreover, Rahmut Khan had not yet proved himself in
fight with the English, he was required to take part in the great
assault that was arranged for the coming night, and to lead his men
against the breastworks of the Ridge. The particular duty assigned to
him was to drive the English from a position they had newly taken up
less than half-a-mile from the Mori gate.
Now Rahmut Khan, though he had not the cunning and capacity for intrigue
of his rival, the whilom chief of Mandan, was not at all lacking in
mother wit. He knew the source of this suspicion of which Bakht Khan
spoke, and was prepared to meet it.
"I am thy servant, Bakht Khan," he said. "No one is more ready than I to
fight the Feringhis; have I not suffered at their hands? But, if the
favour may with humility be asked, I would beg two boons."
"Say on. Thy humility is no less than thy valour."
"The first of these boons is this. As thou knowest, my band of men is of
new growth: they are all valiant fighters, but men I have gathered here
and there, as Allah gave me means. Wherefore they are not skilled in the
warfare of the sepoys, and in their ignorance may fall into error unless
they have the fellowship of some who know the discipline of the
Feringhis. I ask, then, that trained men may be sent with me--such men,
to wit, as are commanded by my countryman, Minghal Khan. He burns, I
doubt not, as I myself, to strike a blow against the English; for, if
report speak truly, fortune has given him few opportunities hitherto.
That is my boon."
Bakht Khan laughed heartily. The suggestion tickled his sense of humour.
He was in no doubt as to the intention underlying it, and was not
disinclined to play off one Pathan against the other. He did not admire
Minghal Khan, but he had found him useful in many ways, especially
through his connection with the great Maulavi. As time went on, he had
grown more and more impatient of the drones in Delhi. With half the
courage and _esprit de corps_ that animated the English, his force could
have carried the Ridge long ago. And among these drones Minghal Khan was
one of the worst. He had always some ingenious way of shirking active
service. Rahmut Khan's suggestion offered him a chance too good to be
missed.
"Thou art great in wisdom," he said. "It shall be even as thou dost
desire. And thy second boon--what is it?"
"It is simply, excellent one, that while I am absent fighting the
English, thou wilt set a guard over the little serai where we dwell. Our
goods are but scanty and of little worth; but they are our all, and it
would be hard indeed if, when we return from our glorious service, we
find them gone. Thou knowest well there are badmashes in the city."
Again the commander-in-chief laughed.
"Why, friend Asadullah," he said; "did I not hear that in that little
serai of yours there is much treasure--gotten, moreover, from others
besides the Feringhis? Surely I will set a guard over it: thou shalt not
be robbed of the little thou hast. Better were it if thou had nothing;
for is it not the empty traveller that dances before robbers?"
Rahmut went away well satisfied. Minghal was in a very different case
when he too had had an interview with the commander-in-chief. Not a word
was said by Bakht Khan to show that the duty he laid upon Minghal had
been suggested by his enemy and rival; he rather hinted that his design
was to learn from Minghal how the old chief comported himself in the
fight. Minghal had, perforce, to acquiesce in the arrangement; his
position was not so secure that he could afford to show open reluctance
to meet the enemy. Their orders were to lead an attack on the breastwork
before the Mori gate, and then, having succeeded in that task, to work
round on two sides to the ruined mosque that stood a little nearer the
Ridge, and slaughter all the enemy they found there.
The attack was to be made after nightfall. Rahmut knew nothing of the
ground between the city walls and the breastwork, and in the afternoon
he went out with one of his men to reconnoitre. Both were mounted, and
since the ground was covered with gardens which would give them cover,
they ventured to ride a good distance in the direction of the goal of
the night's operations.
All at once Rahmut caught sight of a man a little ahead of them, dodging
among the trees in a stealthy manner, that suggested a keen desire to
avoid observation. Rahmut was a born scout, and, without appearing to
see the man, he kept him well in view, until convinced that he was
making for the British lines. Then he gave chase suddenly, and the man,
though he ran hard, was soon overtaken. Hauling him to the shade of some
trees, Rahmut questioned his trembling captive, and was not long in
wresting from him a confession that he was indeed on his way to the
Ridge to give warning of the night attack.
Rahmut had been rendered suspicious by his recent experiences in Delhi.
He was not satisfied with a general statement, but pressed the man for a
precise account of his errand, and he was not greatly surprised when it
came out that the informer had been sent by Minghal Khan himself, and
that the important part of his message was the disclosure of the exact
quarter on which Rahmut's attack was to be made. It was just what might
have been expected of Minghal, as indeed of any other Pathan who
happened to bear a grudge against a fellow-countryman.
Rahmut lost little time in arranging to counter this cunning move of his
enemy. He took the messenger back into Delhi, the man believing that he
would be handed over to the Kotwal for hanging. But Rahmut made the man
take him to his own house, and he set a guard over it, and swore to the
wretch that the house and all within it should be destroyed unless he
did what was bidden him. And the bidding was, to go to the British lines
and give the warning as Minghal had commanded, with one little change:
the point of attack was to be, not that which had been assigned to
Rahmut, but that which had been assigned to Minghal. Holding the
informer's house and family as hostages, Rahmut had no doubt that the
man would obey, and he went back to his serai satisfied with his
afternoon's work.
During the day the excitement in the city had risen to fever heat. News
had come in that Nana Sahib, on the approach of the British to Cawnpore,
had massacred the two hundred women and children who had remained in his
hands since that fatal day when their fathers and husbands had been shot
down on the boats. The wiser residents of Delhi were aghast: they knew
the dreadful story of that other tragedy, at Calcutta, a century before,
when a hundred of the sahibs perished in the Black Hole. They knew what
retribution had fallen on Siraj-uddaula then; what would happen now,
after this far more horrible butchery of women and children? But the
fanatics rejoiced in the tale of blood. The greater the excesses, the
more impossible to draw back. The greater the vengeance to be feared,
the more imperative to strain every nerve to crush these obstinate
Feringhis on the Ridge. The protraction of the siege was already doing
them harm. Risings were taking place in many scattered districts; and
even in the Panjab, which Jan Larrens had hitherto kept quiet, there
were ominous mutterings. If the English on the Ridge could but be
routed, all Northern India would be ablaze.
And so the sepoys at sunset marched in their thousands from the gates.
Amid the blare of bugles, the thunder of artillery from the walls, the
strident calls of the muezzins from the minarets of the mosques,
proclaiming eternal glory for all who bled in the holy cause, the rebels
flocked out, maddened with fanatical fury and with bang, aglow with the
resolve to conquer or die.
But behind the breastworks waited British officers, cool, unemotional,
with their men, British and native, seasoned warriors, disciplined, the
best soldiers in the world. They watched the advancing horde as it came
among the gardens, the moonbeams making a strange play of light and
shade. On they came, and the great guns thundered, and the muskets
crackled, and shouts and yells mingled with the brazen blare of bugles.
Time after time the dusky warriors hurled themselves against the low
breastworks that defended the circuit of the Ridge, coming within a
score paces of them. Hour after hour the din continued, the sky blazing
with the constant discharge of artillery, a shifting wall of smoke
making strange patterns in the moonlight. The moon sank, and still the
firing did not cease; it was not until next day's sun was mounting the
sky that the survivors of the night shambled back, a discomfited mob, to
the rose-red walls of the city.
What had they gained by this tremendous fusillade and bombardment?
Nothing. Their ammunition had been expended by cart-loads; thousands
upon thousands of rounds had been fired; but all the time they had never
seen their enemy, who, behind their entrenchments, waited until they saw
the whites of the rebels' eyes, and then sent them reeling back with
withering volleys. Hundreds of forms lay motionless in the eye of the
rising sun, some in red coats, some in white dhotis, some in the chogahs
of hill-men, with turbans of many colours, amid muskets and swords and
bugles, and everywhere the green flag of the Prophet. And on the Ridge
there was great rejoicing; for this bitter lesson to the Pandies had
cost their masters no more than a dozen men.