Then, as she passed down a flight of steps, a hand stole out from a niche and drew her back into a dark shadow. The next minute, with a low whisper, "There is no fear! Sri Anunda hath said it. Go in peace!" she felt herself thrust through a door into darkness. But a feeble glimmer showed below her, and creeping down another flight of steps, she found herself outside Delhi, looking over the strip of low-lying land where in the winter the buffaloes had grazed beneath Alice Gissing's house, but which was now flooded into a still backwater by the rising of the river. And out of it the stunted kikar and tamarisks grew strangely, their feathery branches arching over it. But to the left, beyond the Water Bastion, rose a mass of darker foliage--the Koodsia Gardens. Once there she would be beyond floods, and Tara had said there was a boat. Kate found it, moored a little further toward the river--a flat-bottomed punt, with a pole. It proved easier to manage than she had expected; for the water was shallow, and the trunks and branches of the trees helped her to get along, so that after a time she decided on keeping to that method of progress as long as she could. It enabled her to skirt the river bank, where there were fewer lights telling of watch-fires. Besides, she knew the path by the river leading to Metcalfe House. It might be under water now; but if she crept into the park at the ravine--if she could take the boat so far--she might manage to reach Metcalfe House. There was an English picket there, she knew. So, as she mapped out her best way, a sudden recollection came to her of the last time she had seen that river path, when her husband and Alice Gissing were walking down it, and Captain Morecombe----
Ah! was it credible? Was it not all a dream? Could this be real--could it be the same world?
She asked herself the question with a dull indifference as she struggled on doggedly.
But not more than two hours afterward the conviction that the world had not changed came upon her with a strange pang as she stood once more on the terrace of Metcalfe House with English faces around her.
"By Heaven, it's Mrs. Erlton!" she heard a familiar voice say. It seemed to her hundreds of miles away in some far, far country to which she had been journeying for years. "Here! let me get hold of her--and fetch some water--wine--anything. How--how was it, Sergeant?"
"In a boat, sir, coming hand over hand down at the stables. She sang out quite calmly she was an English-woman, and----"
"Then--then they touched their caps to me," said Kate, making an effort, "and so I knew that I was safe. It was so strange; it--it rather upset me. But I am all right now, Captain Morecombe."
"We had better send up for Erlton," said another officer aside; but Kate caught the whisper.
"Please not. I can walk up to cantonments quite well. And--I would rather have no fuss--I--I couldn't stand it."
She had stood enough and to spare, agreed the little knot of men with a thrill at their hearts as they watched her set off in the moonlight with Captain Morecombe and an orderly. They were to go straight to the Major's tent; and if he was still at mess, which was more than likely, since it was only half-past nine, Captain Morecombe was to leave her there and go on with the news. There would be no fuss, of that she might be sure, said the latter, forbearing even to speak to her on the way, save to ask her if she felt all right.
"I feel as if I had just been born," she said slowly. In truth, she was wondering if that spinning of the Great Wheel toward Life again brought with it this forlornness, this familiarity.
No fuss indeed! Kate, as she sat in her husband's little tent waiting for him to come to her, felt that so far she might have arrived from a very ordinary journey. The bearer, it is true, who had been the Major's valet for years, had salaamed more profoundly than usual, had even put up a pious prayer, and expressed himself pleased; but he had immediately gone off to fetch hot water, and returning with it and clean towels, had suggested mildly that the mem might like to wash her face and hands. Kate, with a faint smile, felt there was no reason why she should not. She need not look worse than necessary. But she paused almost with a gasp at the familiar half-forgotten luxuries. Scented soap! a sponge--and there on the camp table a looking-glass! She glanced down with a start at the little round one in the ring she wore; then went over to the other. A toilet cover, brushes, and combs, her husband's razors, gold studs in a box; and there, her own photograph in a frame, a Bible, and a prayer book, the latter things bringing her no surprise, no emotion of any kind. For they had always been fixtures on Major Erlton's dressing-table, mute evidences to no sentiment on his part, but simply to the bearer's knowledge of the proprieties and the ways of real sahibs. But the other things she saw made her heart grow soft. The little camp bed, the simplicity and hardness of all in comparison with what her husband had been wont to demand of life; for he had always been a real prince, feeling the rose-leaf beneath the feather bed, and never stinting himself in comfort. Then the swords, and belts, and Heaven knows what panoply of war--not spick-and-span decorations as they used to be in the old days, but worn and used--gave her a pang. Well! he had always been a good soldier, they said.
And then, interrupting her thoughts, the old khânsaman had come in, having taken time to array himself gorgeously in livery. The Father of the fatherless and orphan, he said, whimperingly, alluding to the fact that he had lost both parents--which, considering he was past sixty, was only to be expected--had heard his prayer. The mem was spared to Freddy-baba. And would she please to order dinner. As the Major-sahib dined at mess, her slave was unprepared with a roast. Fish also would partake of tyranny; but he could open a tin of Europe soup, and with a chicken cutlet--Kate cut him short with a request for tea; by and by, when--when the Major-sahib should have come. And when she was alone again, she shivered and rested her head on her crossed arms upon the table beside which she sat, with a sort of sob. This--Yes!--this of all she had come through was the hardest to bear. This surge of pity, of tenderness, of unavailing regret for the past, the present, the future. What?--What could she say to him, or he to her, that would make remembrance easier, anticipation happier?
Hark! there was his step! His voice saying goodnight to Captain Morecombe.
"I hope she will be none the worse," came the reply. "Good-night, Erlton--I'm--I'm awfully glad, old fellow."
"Thanks!"
She stood up with a sickening throb at her heart. Oh! she was glad too! So glad to see him and tell him to----
How tall he was, she thought, with a swift recognition of his good looks, as he came in, stooping to pass under the low entrance. Very tall, and thin. Much thinner, and--and--different somehow.
"Kate!" He paused half a second, looking at her curiously--"Kate! I'm--I'm awfully glad." He was beside her now, his big hands holding hers; but she felt that she was further away from him than she had been in that brief pause when she had half-expected, half-wished him to take her in his arms and kiss her as if nothing had happened, as if life were to begin again. It would have been so much easier; they might have forgotten then, both of them. But now, what came, must come without that chrism of impulse; must come in remembrance and regret. Awfully glad! That was what Captain Morecombe had said. Was there no more between them than that? No more between her and this man, who was the father of her child. The sting of the thought made her draw him closer, and with a sob rest her head on his shoulder. Then he stooped and kissed her. "I--I didn't know. I wasn't sure if you'd like it," he said, "but I'm awfully glad, old girl, upon my life I am. You must have had a terrible time."
She looked up with a hopeless pain in her eyes. He was gone from her again; gone utterly. "It was not so bad as you might think," she answered, trying to smile. "Mr. Greyman did so much----"
"Greyman! You mean Douglas, I suppose?"
She stared for a second. "Douglas? I don't know. I mean----" Then she paused. How could she say, "The man you rode against at Lucknow," when she wanted to forget all that; forget everything? And then a sudden fear made her add hastily, "He is here, surely--he came long ago."
Major Erlton nodded. "I know; but his real name is Douglas; at least he says so. Do you mean to say you haven't seen him? That he didn't help you to get out?"
"You mean that--that he has gone back?" asked Kate faintly.
Her husband gave a low whistle. "What a queer start; a sort of Box and Cox. He went back to find you yesterday."
Kate's hand went up to her forehead almost wildly. Then Tara must have known. But why had she not mentioned it? Still, in a way, it was best as it was; since once he heard she, Kate, had gone, he would return. For Tara would tell him, of course.
These thoughts claimed her for the moment, and when she looked up, she found her husband watching her curiously.
"He must have done an awful lot for you, of course," he said shortly; "but I'd rather it had been anyone else, and that's a fact. However, it can't be helped. Hullo! here's the khânsaman with some tea. Thoughtful of the old scoundrel, isn't it?"
"I--I ordered it," put in Kate, feeling glad of the diversion.
Major Erlton laughed kindly. "What, begun already? The old sinner's had a precious easy time of it; but now----" He pulled himself up awkwardly, and, as if to cover his hesitation, walked over to a box, and after rummaging in it, brought out a packet of letters. "Freddy's," he said cheerfully. "He's all right. Jolly as a sandboy. I kept them--in--in case----"
A great gratitude made the past dim for a moment. He seemed nearer to her again. "I can't look at them to-night, Herbert," she said softly, laying her hand beside his upon them. "I'm--I'm too tired."
"No wonder. You must have your tea and go to bed," he replied. Then he looked round the tent. "It isn't a bad little place, you'll find--I'm on duty tonight--so--so you'll manage, I dare say."
"On duty?" she echoed, pouring herself out a cup of tea rather hastily. "Where?"
"Oh! at the front. There is never anything worth going for now. We are both waiting for the assault; that's the fact. But I shan't be back till dawn, so----"
He was standing looking at her, tall, handsome, full of vitality; and suddenly he lifted a fold of her tinsel-set veil and smiled.
"Jolly dress that for a fancy ball, and what a jolly scent it's got. It is that flower, isn't it? You look awfully well in it, Kate! In fact, you look wonderfully fit all round."
"So do you!" she said hurriedly, her hand going up to the henna blossom. There was a sudden quiver in her voice, a sudden fierce pain in her heart. "You--you look----"
"Oh! I," he replied carelessly, still with admiring eyes, "I'm as fit as a fiddle. I say! where did you get all those jewels? What a lot you have! They're awfully becoming."
"They are Mr. Greyman's," she said; "they belonged to his--to----" then she paused. But the contemptuously comprehending smile on her husband's face made her add quietly, "to a woman--a woman he loved very dearly, Herbert."
There was a moment or two of silence, and then Major Erlton went to the entrance, raised the curtain, and looked out. A flood of moonlight streamed into the tent.
"It's about time I was off," he said after a bit, and there was a queer constraint in his voice. Then he came over and stood by Kate again.
"It isn't any use talking over--over things to-night, Kate," he said quietly. "There's a lot to think of and I haven't thought of it at all. I never knew, you see--if this would happen. But I dare say you have; you were always a oner at thinking. So--so you had better do it for both of us. I don't care, now. It will be what you wish, of course."
"We will talk it over to-morrow," she said in a low voice. She would not look in his face. She knew she would find it soft with the memory held in that one word--now. Ah! how much easier it would have been if she had never come back! And yet she shrank from the same thought on his lips.
"There was always the chance of my getting potted," he said almost apologetically. "But I'm not. So--well! let's leave it for to-morrow."
"Yes," she replied steadily, "for to-morrow."
He gathered some of his things together, and then held out his hand. "Good-night, Kate. I wouldn't lie awake thinking, if I were you. What's the good if it? We will just have to make the best of it for the boy. But I'd like you to know two things----"
"Yes----"
"That I couldn't forget, of course; and that----" he paused. "Well! that doesn't matter; it's only about myself and it doesn't mean much after all. So, good-night."
As she moved to the door also, forced into following him by the ache in her heart for him, more than for herself, the jingle of her anklets made him turn with an easy laugh.
"It doesn't sound respectable," he said; then, with a sudden compunction, added: "But the dress is much prettier than those dancing girls', and--by Heaven, Kate! you've always been miles too good for me; and that's the fact. Well I--let us leave it for to-morrow."
Yes! for to-morrow, she told herself, with a determination not to think as, dressed as she was, she nestled down into the strange softness of the camp bed, too weary of the pain and pity of this coming back even for tears. Yet she thought of one thing; not that she was safe, not that she would see the boy again. Only of the thing he had been going to tell her about himself. What was it? She wanted to know; she wanted to know all--everything. "Herbert!" she whispered to the pillow, "I wish you had told me--I want to know--I want to make it easier for--for us all."
And so, not even grateful for her escape, she fell asleep dreamlessly.
It was dawn when she woke with the sound of someone talking outside. He had come back. No! that was not his voice. She sat up listening.
"The servants say she is asleep. Someone had better go in and wake her. The Doctor----"
"He's behind with the dhooli. Ah! there's Morecombe; he knows her."
But there was no need to call her. Kate was already at the door, her eyes wide with the certainty of evil. There was no need even to tell her what had happened; for in the first rays of the rising sun, seen almost starlike behind a dip in the rocky ridge, she saw a little procession making for the tent.
"He--he is dead," she said quietly. There was hardly a question in her tone. She knew it must be so. Had he not begged her to leave it till to-morrow? and this was to-morrow. Were not her eyes full of its rising sun, and what its beams held in their bright clasp?
"It seems impossible," said someone in a low voice, breaking in on the pitiful silence. "He always seemed to have a charmed life, and then, in an instant, when nothing was going on, the chance bullet."
It did not seem impossible to her.
"Please don't make a fuss about me, Doctor," she pleaded in a tone which went to his heart when he proposed the conventional solaces. "Remember I have been through so--so much already. I can bear it. I can, indeed, if I'm left alone with him--while it is possible. Yes! I know there is another lady, but I only want to be alone, with him."
So they left her there beside the little camp-bed with its new burden. There was no sign of strife upon him. Only that blue mark behind his ear among his hair, and his face showed no pain. Kate covered it with a little fine handkerchief she found folded away in a scented case she had made for him before they were married. It had Alice Gissing's monogram on it. It was better so, she told herself; he would have liked it. She had no flowers except the faded henna blossom, but it smelled sweet as she tucked it under the hand which she had left half clasped upon his sword. She might at least tell him so, she thought half bitterly, that the lesson was learned, that he might go in peace.
Then she sat down at the table and looked over their boy's letters mechanically; for there was nothing to think of now. The morrow had settled the problem. Captain Morecombe came in once or twice to say a word or two, or bring in other men, who saluted briefly to her as they passed to stand beside the dead man for a second, and then go out again. She was glad they cared to come; had begged that any might come who chose, as if she were not there. But at one visitor she looked curiously, for he came in alone. A tall man--as tall as Herbert, she thought--with a dark beard and keen, kindly eyes. She saw them, for he turned to her with the air of one who has a right to speak, and she stood up involuntarily.
"His name was up for the Victoria Cross, madam," said a clear, resonant voice, "as you may know; but that is nothing. He was a fine soldier--a soldier such as I--I am John Nicholson, madam--can ill spare. For the rest--he leaves a good name to his son."
The sunlight streamed in for an instant on to the little bed and its burden as he passed out, and glittered on the sword and tassels. Kate knelt down beside it and kissed the dead hand.
"That was what you meant, wasn't it, Herbert?" she whispered. "I wish you had told it me yourself, dear."
She wished it often. Thinking over it all in the long days that followed, it came to be almost her only regret. If he had told her, if he had heard her say how glad she was, she felt that she would have asked no more. And so, as she went down every evening to lay the white rosebuds the gardener brought her on his grave she used to repeat, as if he could hear them, his own words: "It is the finish that is the win or the lose of a race."
That was what many a man was saying to himself upon the Ridge in the first week of September. For the siege train had come at last. The winning post lay close ahead, they must ride all they knew. But those in command said it anxiously; for day by day the hospitals became more crowded, and cholera, reappearing, helped to swell the rear-guard of graves, when the time had come for vanguards only.
But some men--among them Baird Smith and John Nicholson--took no heed of sickness or death. And these two, especially, looked into each other's eyes and said, "When you are ready I'm ready." Their seniors might say that an assault would be thrown on the hazard of a die. What of that; if men are prepared to throw sixes, as these two were? They had to be thrown, if India was to be kept, if this bubble of sovereignty was to be pricked, the gas let out.
In the city and the Palace also, men, feeling the struggle close, put hand and foot to whip and spur. But there was no one within the walls who had the seeing single eye, quick to seize the salient point of a position. Baird Smith saw it fast enough. Saw the thickets and walls of the Koodsia Gardens in front of him, the river guarding his left, a sinuous ravine--cleaving the hillside into cover creeping down from the Ridge on his right to within two hundred yards of the city wall. And that bit of the wall, between the Moree gate and the Water Bastion, was its weakest portion. The curtain walls long, mere parapets, only wide enough for defense by muskets. So said the spies, though it seemed almost incredible to English engineers that the defense had not been strengthened by pulling down the adjacent houses and building a rampart for guns.
In truth there was no one to suggest it, and if it had been suggested there was no one to carry it out, for even now, at the last, the Palace seethed with dissension and intrigue. Yet still the sham went on inconceivably. Jim Douglas, indeed, walking through the bazaars in his Afghan dress, very nearly met his fate through it. For he was seized incontinently and made to figure as one of the retinue of the Amir of Cabul's ambassador, who, about the beginning of September, was introduced to the private Hall of Audience as a sedative to doubtful dreamers, and a tonic to brocaded bags. Luckily for him, however, the men called upon to play the other part in the farce--chiefly cloth-merchants from Peshawur and elsewhere, whom Jim Douglas had dodged successfully so far--had been in such abject fear of being discovered themselves that they had no thought of discovering others. For Bahâdur Shâh had the dust and ashes of a Moghul in him still. Jim Douglas recognized the fact in the very obstinacy of delusion in the wax-like, haggard old face looking with glazed, tremulous-lidded eyes at the mock mission; and in the faded voice, accepting his vassal of Cabul's promise of help. It was an almost incredible scene, Jim Douglas thought. Given it, there was no limit to possibilities in this phantasmagoria of kingship. The white shadows of the marble arches with their tale of boundless power and wealth in the past, the wide plains beyond, the embroidered curtain of the sunlit garden, the curves of courtiers, most of them in the secret, no doubt; and below the throne these tag-rag and bob-tail of the bazaars, one of them at least a hell-doomed infidel, figuring away in borrowed finery! All this was as unreal as a magic lantern picture, and like it was followed hap-hazard, without rhyme or reason, by the next on the slide; for, as he passed out of the Presence he heard the question of appointing a Governor to Bombay brought up and discussed gravely; that province being reported to have sent in its allegiance en bloc to the Great Moghul. The slides, however, were not always so dignified, so decorous. One came, a day or two afterward, showing a miserable old pantaloon driven to despair because six hundred hungry sepoys would not behave according to strict etiquette, but, invading his privacy with threats, reduced him to taking his beautiful new cushion from the Peacock Throne and casting it among them.
"Take it," he cried passionately, "it is all I have left. Take it, and let me go in peace!"
But the lesson was not learned by him as yet; so he had to remain; for once more the sepoys sent out word that there was to be no skulking. To do the Royal family justice, however, they seem by this time to have given up the idea of flight. To be sure they had no place to which they could fly, since the dream required that background of rose-red wall and marble arches. So even Abool-Bukr, forsaking drunkenness as well as that kind, detaining hand, clung to his kinsfolk bravely, behaving in all ways as a newly married young prince should who looked toward filling the throne itself at some future time.[8]
The sepoys themselves had given up blustering, and many, like Soma, had taken to bhang instead; drugging themselves deliberately into indifference. The latter had recovered from the blow on the back of his head, which, however, as is so often the case, had for the time at any rate deprived him of all recollection of the events immediately preceding it. So, as Tara had restored his uniform before he was able to miss it, he treated her as if nothing had occurred; greatly to her relief. The fact had its disadvantages, however, by depriving her of all corroborative evidence of the mem having really left the city. Thus Jim Douglas, warned by past experience, and made doubtful by Tara's strange reticences, refused to believe it. Her whole story, indeed, marred, as it was, by the endless reserves and exaggerations, seemed incredible; the more so because Tiddu--who lied wildly as to his constant sojourn in Delhi--professed utter disbelief in it. So, after a few days' unavailing attempt to get at the truth, Jim Douglas sent the old man off with a letter of inquiry to the Ridge, and waited for the answer.
Waited, like all Delhi, under the shadow of the lifted sword which hung above the city. A sword, held behind a simulacrum of many, by one arm, sent for that purpose; for John Lawrence, being wise, knew that the shadow of that arm meant more even than the sword it held to the wildest half of the province under his control, a province trembling in the balance between allegiance and revolt; a province ready to catch fire if the extinguisher were not put upon the beacon light. And all India waited too. Waited to see that sword fall.
But a hatchet fell first. Fell in the lemon thickets and pomegranates of the walled old gardens, so that men who worked at the batteries still remember the sweet smell that went up from the crushed leaves. A welcome change; for the Ridge, crowded now with eleven thousand troops, was not a pleasant abode. It was on Sunday, the 6th of September, that the final reinforcements came in, and on the 7th the men, reading General Wilson's order for the appointing of prize agents in each corps, and his assurance that all plunder would be divided fairly, felt as if they were already within the walls. The hospitals, too, were giving up their sick; those who could not be of use going to the rear, Meerut-ward, those fit for work to the front. And that night the first siege battery was traced and almost finished below the Sammy-House, while, under cover of this distraction on the right, the Koodsia Gardens and Ludlow Castle on the left were occupied by strong pickets.
But that first battery--only seven hundred yards from the Moree Bastion--had a struggle for dear life. The dawn showed but one gun in position against all the concentrated fire of the bastion which, during the night, had been lured into a useless duel with the old defense batteries above. Only one gun at dawn; but by noon--despite assault and battery--there were five, answering roar for roar. Then for the first time began that welcome echo: the sound of crumbling walls, the grumbling roll of falling stones and mortar. By sunset the gradually diminishing fire from the bastion had ceased, and the bastion itself was a heap of ruins. By this time the four guns in the left section of the battery were keeping down the fire from the Cashmere gate, and so protecting the real advance through the gardens. That was the first day of the siege, and Kate Erlton, sitting in her little tent, which had been moved into a quiet spot, as she had begged to be allowed to stay on the Ridge until some news came of the man to whom she owed so much, thought with a shudder she could not help, of what it must mean to many an innocent soul shut up within those walls. It was bad enough here, where the very tent seemed to shake. It must be terrible down there beside the heating guns, in the roar and the rattle, the grime and the ache and strain of muscle. But in the city--even in Sri Anunda's garden----!
So, naturally enough, she wondered once more what could have become of the man who had gone back to find her nearly ten days before.
"May I come in? John Nicholson."
She would have recognized the voice even without the name, for it was not one to be forgotten. Nor was the owner, as he stood before her, a letter in his hand.
"I have heard from Mr. Douglas, Mrs. Erlton," he said. "It is in the Persian character, so I presume it is no use showing it to you. But it concerns you chiefly. He wants to know if you are safe. I have to answer it immediately. Have you any message you would like to send?"
"Any message?" she echoed. "Only that he must come back at once, of course."
John Nicholson looked at her calmly.
"I shall say nothing of the kind," he replied. "It is best for a man to decide such matters for himself."
She flushed up hotly. "I had not the slightest intention of dictating to Mr.--Mr. Douglas, General Nicholson; but considering how much he has already sacrificed for my sake----"
"You had better let him do as he likes, my dear madam," interrupted the General, with a sudden kindly smile, which, however, faded as quickly as it came, leaving his face stern. "He, like many another man, has sacrificed too much for women, Mrs. Erlton; so if ever you can make up to him for some of the pain, do so--he is worth it. Good-by. I'll tell him that you are safe; but that in spite of that, he has my permission to go ahead and kill--the more the better."
She had not the faintest idea why he made this last remark; but it did not puzzle her, for she was occupied with his previous one. Sacrificed too much! That was true. He carried the scars of the knife upon him clearly. And the man who had just left her presence, who, for all his courtesy, had treated her so cavalierly? She was rather vexed with herself for feeling it, but a sudden sense of being a poor creature came over her. It flashed upon her that she could imagine a world without women--she was in one, almost, at that very moment--but not a world without men. Yet that ceaseless roar filling the air had more to do with women than men; it went more as a challenge of revenge than a stern recall to duty.
It was true. The men, working night and day in the batteries, thought little of men's rights, only of women's wrongs. Even General Wilson in his order had appealed to those under him on that ground only, urging them to spend life and strength freely in vengeance on murderers.
And they did. Down in the scented Koodsia Gardens the men never seemed to tire, never to shrink, though the shot from the city--not two hundred and fifty yards away--flew pinging through the trees above them. But the high wall gave cover, and so those off duty slept peacefully in the cool shade, or sat smoking on the river-terrace.
Thus, while the first battery, pounding away from the right at the Moree and Cashmere bastions, diverted attention, and the enemy, deceived by the feint, lavished a dogged courage in trying to keep up some kind of reply, a second siege battery in two sections was traced and made in front of Ludlow Castle, five hundred yards from the Cashmere gate. By dawn on the 11th both sections were at work destroying the defenses of the gate, and pounding away to breach the curtain wall beside it. So the roar was doubled, and the vibrations of the air began to quiver on the wearied ear almost painfully. Yet they were soon trebled, quadrupled. Trebled by a party of wide-mouthed mortars in the garden itself. Quadrupled by a wicked, dare-devil, impertinent little company of six eighteen-pounders and twelve small mortars, which, with Medley of the Engineers as a guide, took advantage of a half ruined house to creep within a hundred and sixty yards of the doomed walls despite the shower of shell and bullets from it. For by this time the murderers in the city had found out that the men were at work at something in the scented thickets to the left. Not that the discovery hindered the work. The native pioneers, who bore the brunt of it, digging and piling for the wicked little intruder, were working with the master, working with volunteers--officers and men alike--from the 9th Lancers and the Carabineers. So, when one of their number toppled over, they looked to see if he were dead or alive in order to sort him out properly. And if he was dead they would weep a few tears as they laid him in the row beside the others of his kind, before they went on with their work quietly; for, having to decide whether a comrade belonged to the dead or the living thirty-nine times one night, they began to get expert at it. So by the 12th, fifty guns and mortars flashed and roared, and the rumble of falling stones became almost continuous. Sometimes a shell would just crest the parapet, burst, and bring away yards of it at a time.
Up on the Ridge behind the siege batteries, when the cool of the evening came on, every post was filled with sightseers watching the salvos, watching the game. And one, at least, going back to get ready for mess, wrote and told his wife at Meerut, that if she were at the top of Flagstaff Tower, she would remain there till the siege was over--it was so fascinating. But they were merry on the Ridge in these days, and the messes were so full that guests had to be limited at one, till they got a new leaf in the table! Yet on the other slope of the Ridge, men were tumbling over like the stones in the walls. Tumbling over one after another in the batteries, all through the night of the 12th, and the day of the 13th.
Then at ten o'clock in the evening, men, sitting in the mess-tents, looked at each other joyfully, yet with a thrill in their veins, as the firing ceased suddenly. For they knew what that meant; they knew that down under the very walls of the city, friends and comrades were creeping, sword in one hand, their lives in the other, through the starlight, to see if the breaches were practicable.
But the city knew them to be so; and already the last order sent by the Palace to Delhi was being proclaimed by beat of drum through the streets.
So, monotonously, the cry rang from alley to alley.
"Intelligence having just been brought that the infidels intend an assault to-night, it is incumbent on all, Hindoo and Mohammedan, from due regard to their faith, to assemble directly by the Cashmere gate, bringing iron picks and shovels with them. This order is imperative."
Newâsi Begum, among others, heard it as she sat reading. She stood up suddenly, overturning the book-rest and the Holy Word in her haste; for she felt that the crisis was at hand. She had never seen Abool-Bukr since the night, now a whole month past, when he had taunted her with being one more woman ready for kisses. Her pride had kept her from seeking him, and he had not returned. But now her resentment gave way before her fears. She must see him--since God only knew what might be going to happen!
True in a way. But up on the Ridge one man felt certain of one thing. John Nicholson, with the order for an assault at dawn safe in his hand, knew that he would be in Delhi on the 14th of September--a day earlier than he had expected.
It was a full hour past dawn on the 14th of September ere that sudden silence fell once more upon the echoing rocks of the Ridge and the scented gardens. So, for a second, the twittering birds in the thickets behind them might have been heard by the men who, with fixed bayonets, were jostling the roses and the jasmines. But they were holding their breath--waiting, listening, for something very different; while in the ears of many, excluding all other sounds, lingered the cadence of the text read by the chaplain before dawn in the church lesson for the day.
"Woe to the bloody city--the sword shall cut thee off."
For to many the coming struggle meant neither justice nor revenge, but religion. It was Christ against Anti-Christ. So, whether for revenge or faith they waited. A thousand down by the river opposite the Water Bastion. A thousand in the Koodsia facing the main breach, with John Nicholson, first as ever, to lead it. A thousand more on the broad white road fronting the Cashmere Bastion, with an explosion party ahead to blow in the gate, and a reserve of fifteen hundred to the rear waiting for success. Briefly, four thousand five hundred men--more than half natives--for the assault, facing that half mile or so of northern wall; thus within touch of each other. Beyond, on the western trend, two thousand more--mostly untried troops from Jumoo and a general muster of casuals--to sweep through the suburbs and be ready to enter by the Cabul gate when it was opened to them.
Above, on the Ridge, six hundred sabers awaiting orders. Behind it three thousand sick in hospital, a weak defense, and that rear-guard of graves.
And in front of all stood that tall figure with the keen eyes. "Are you ready, Jones?" asked Nicholson, laying his hand on the last leader's shoulder. His voice and face were calm, almost cold.
"Ready, sir!"
Then, startling that momentary silence, came the bugle.
"Advance!"
With a cheer the rifles skirmished ahead joyfully. The engineers posted in the furthest cover long before dawn--who had waited for hours, knowing that each minute made their task harder--rose, waving their swords to guide the stormers toward the breach! Then, calmly, as if it had been dark, not daylight, crested the glacis at a swift walk, followed by the laddermen in line. Behind, with a steady tramp, the two columns bound for the breaches. But the third, upon the road, had to wait a while, as, like greyhounds from a leash, a little company slipped forward at the double.
Home of the Engineers first with two sergeants, a native havildar, and ten Punjab sappers, running lightly, despite the twenty-five pound powder bags they carried. Behind them, led by Salkeld, the firing party and a bugler. Running under the hail of bullets, faster as they fell faster, as men run to escape a storm; but these courted it, though the task had been set for night, and it was now broad daylight.
What then? They could see better. See the outer gateway open, the footway of the drawbridge destroyed, the inner door closed save for the wicket.
"Come on," shouted Home, and was across the bare beams like a boy, followed by the others.
Incredible daring! What did it mean? The doubt made the scared enemy close the wicket hastily. So against it, at the rebels' very feet, the powder bags were laid. True, one sergeant fell dead with his; but as it fell against the gates his task was done.
"Ready, Salkeld!--your turn," sang out young Home from the ditch, into which, the bags laid, the fuse set, he dropped unhurt. So across the scant foothold came the firing party, its leader holding the portfire. But the paralysis of amazement had passed; the enemy, realizing what the audacity meant, had set the wicket wide. It bristled now with muskets; so did the parapet.
"Burgess!--your turn," called Salkeld as he fell, and passed the portfire to the corporal behind him. Burgess, alias Grierson,--someone perchance retrieving a past under a new name,--took it, stooped, then with a half articulate cry either that it was "right" or "out," fell back into the ditch dead. Smith, of the powder party, lingering to see the deed done, thought the latter, and, matchbox in hand, sprang forward, cuddling the gate for safety as he struck a light. But it was not needed. As he stooped to use it, the port-fire of the fuse exploded in his face, and, half blinded, he turned to plunge headlong for escape into the ditch. A second after the gate was in fragments.
"Your turn, Hawthorne!" came that voice from the ditch. So the bugler, who had braved death to sound it, gave the advance. Once, twice, thrice, carefully lest the din from the breaches should drown it. Vain precaution, not needed either; for the sound of the explosion was enough. That thousand on the road was hungering to be no whit behind the others, and with a wild cheer the stormers made for the gate.
But Nicholson was already in Delhi, though ten minutes had gone in a fierce struggle to place a single ladder against an avalanche of shot and stone. But that one had been the signal for him to slip into the ditch, and, calling on the 1st Bengal Fusiliers to follow, escalade the bastion, first as ever.
Even so, others were before him. Down at the Water Bastion, though three-quarters of the laddermen had fallen and but a third of the storming party remained, those twenty-five men of the 8th had gained the breach, and, followed by the whole column, were clearing the ramparts toward the Cashmere gate. Hence, again, without a check, joined by the left half of Nicholson's column, they swept the enemy before them like frightened sheep to the Moree gate; though in the bastion itself the gunners stood to their guns and were bayoneted beside them. There, with a whoop, some of the wilder ones leaped to the parapet to wave their caps in exultation to the cavalry below, which, in obedience to orders, was now drawn up, ready to receive, guarding the flank of the assault, despite the murderous fire from the Cabul gate, and the Burn Bastion beyond it. Sitting in their saddles, motionless, doing nothing, a mark for the enemy, yet still a wall of defense. So, leaving them to that hardest task of all--the courage of inaction--the victorious rush swept on to take the Cabul gate, to sweep past it up to the Burn Bastion itself--the last bastion which commanded the position.
And then? Then the order came to retire and await orders at the Cabul gate. The fourth column, after clearing the suburbs, was to have been there ready for admittance, ready to support. It was not. And Nicholson was not there also, to dare and do all. He had had to pause at the Cashmere gate to arrange that the column which had entered through it should push on into the city, leaving the reserve to hold the points already won. And now, with the 1st Fusiliers behind him, he was fighting his way through the streets to the Cabul gate. So, fearing to lose touch with those behind, over-rating the danger, under-estimating the incalculable gain of unchecked advance with an eastern foe, the leader of that victorious sweeping of the ramparts was content to set the English flag flying on the Cabul gate and await orders. But the men had to do something. So they filled up the time plundering. And there were liquor shops about. Europe shops, full of wine and brandy.
The flag had been flying over an hour when Nicholson came up. But by that time the enemy--who had been flying too--flying as far as the boat bridge in sheer conviction that the day was lost--had recovered some courage and were back, crowding the bastion and some tall houses beside it. And in the lane, three hundred yards long, not ten feet wide, leading to it, two brass guns had been posted before bullet proof screens ready to mow down the intruders.
Yet once more John Nicholson saw but one thing--the Burn Bastion. Built by Englishmen, it was one of the strongest--the only remaining one, in fact, likely to give trouble. With it untaken a thorough hold on the city was impossible. Besides, with his vast knowledge of native character, he knew that the enemy had expected us to take it, and would construe caution into cowardice. Then he had the 1st Bengal Fusiliers behind him. He had led them in Delhi, they had fallen in his track in tens and fifties, and still they had come on--they would do this thing for him now.
"We will do what we can, sir," said their commandant, Major Jacob--but his face was grave.
"We will do what men can do, sir," said the commandant of that left half of the column; "but honestly, I don't think it can be done. We have tried it once." His face was graver still.
"Nor I," said Nicholson's Brigade-major.
Nicholson, as he stood by the houses around the Cabul gate, which had been occupied and plundered by the troops, looked down the straight lane again. It hugged the city wall on its right, its scanty width narrowed here and there by buttresses to some three feet. About a third of the way down was the first gun, placed beside a feathery kikar tree which sent a lace-like tracery of shadow upon the screen. As far behind was the second. Beyond, again, was the bastion jutting out, and so forcing the lane to bend between it and some tall houses. Both were crowded with the enemy--the screens held bayonets and marksmen. There was a gun close to the bastion in the wall, but to the left, cityward, in the low, flat-roofed mud houses there seemed no trace of flanking foes.
"I think it can be done," he said. He knew it must be done ere the Palace could be taken. So he gave the orders. Fusiliers forward; officers to the front!
And to the front they went, with a cheer and a rush, overwhelming the first gun, within ten yards of the other. And one man was closer still, for Lieutenant Butler, pinned against that second bullet-proof screen by two bayonets thrust through the loopholes at him, had to fire his revolver through them also, ere he could escape this two-pronged fork.
But the fire of every musket on the bastion and the tall houses was centered on that second gun. Grape, canister, raked the narrow lane--made narrower by fallen Fusiliers--and forced those who remained to fall back upon the first gun--beyond that even. Yet only for a moment. Reformed afresh, they carried it a second time, spiked it and pressed on. Officers still to the front!
Just beyond the gun the commandant fell wounded to death. "Go on, men, go on!" he shouted to those who would have paused to help him. "Forward, Fusiliers!"
And they went forward; though at dawn two hundred and fifty men had dashed for the breach, and now there were not a hundred and fifty left to obey orders. Less! For fifty men and seven officers lay in that lane itself. Surely it was time now for others to step in--and there were others!
Nicholson saw the waver, knew what it meant, and sprang forward sword in hand, calling on those others to follow. But he asked too much. Where the 1st Fusiliers had failed, none cared to try. That is the simple truth. The limit had been reached.
So for a minute or two he stood, a figure instinct with passion, energy, vitality, before men who, God knows with reason, had lost all three for the moment. A colossal figure beyond them, ahead of them, asking more than mere ordinary men could do. So a pitiful figure--a failure at the last!
"Come on, men! Come on, you fools--come on, you--you----"
What the word was, which that bullet full in the chest arrested between heart and lips, those who knew John Nicholson's wild temper, his indomitable will, his fierce resentment at everything which fell short of his ideals, can easily guess.
"Lay me under that tree," he gasped, as they raised him. "I will not leave till the lane is carried. My God! Don't mind me! Forward, men, forward! It can be done."
An hour or two afterward a subaltern coming out of the Cashmere gate saw a dhooli, deserted by its bearers. In it lay John Nicholson in dire agony; but he asked nothing of his fellows then save to be taken to hospital. He had learned his lesson. He had done what others had set him to do. He had entered Delhi. He had pricked the bubble, and the gas was leaking out. But he had failed in the task he had set himself. The Burn Bastion was still unwon, and the English force in Delhi, instead of holding its northern half up to the very walls of the Palace, secure from flanking foes, had to retire on the strip of open ground behind the assaulted wall--if, indeed, it had not to retire further still. Had one man had his way it would have retired to the Ridge. Late in the afternoon, when fighting was over for the day, General Wilson rode round the new-won position, and, map in hand, looked despairingly toward the network of narrow lanes and alleys beyond. And he looked at something close at hand with even greater forebodings; for he stood in the European quarter of the town among shops still holding vast stores of wine and spirits which had been left untouched by that other army of occupation.
But what of this one? This product of civilization, and culture, and Christianity; these men who could give points to those others in so many ways, but might barter their very birthright for a bottle of rum. Yet even so, the position must be held. So said Baird Smith at the chief's elbow, so wrote Neville Chamberlain, unable to leave his post on the Ridge. And another man in hospital, thinking of the Burn Bastion, thinking with a strange wonder of men who could refuse to follow, muttered under his breath, "Thank God! I have still strength left to shoot a coward."
And yet General Wilson in a way was right. Five days afterward Major Hodson wrote in his diary: "The troops are utterly demoralized by hard work and hard drink. For the first time in my life I have had to see English soldiers refuse repeatedly to follow their officers. Jacob, Nicholson, Greville, Speke were all sacrificed to this."
A terrible indictment indeed, against brave men.
Yet not worse than that underlying the chief's order of the 15th, directing the Provost-marshal to search for and smash every bottle and barrel to be found, and let the beer and wine, so urgently needed by the sick, run into the gutters; or his admission three days later that another attempt to take the Lahore gate had failed from "the refusal of the European soldiers to follow their officers. One rush and it could have been done easily--we are still, therefore, in the same position to-day as we were yesterday."
So much for drink.
But the enemy luckily was demoralized also. It was still full of defense; empty of attack.
For one thing, attack would have admitted a reverse; and over on that eastern wall of the Palace, in the fretted marble balcony overlooking the river, there was no mention, even now, of such a word. Reverse! Had not the fourth column been killed to a man? Had not Nikalseyn himself fallen a victim to valor? But Soma, and many a man of his sort, gave up the pretense with bitter curses at themselves. They had seen from their own posts that victorious escalade, that swift, unchecked herding of the frightened sheep. And they--intolerable thought!--were sheep also. They saw men with dark faces, no whit better than they--better!--the Rajpoot had at least a longer record than the Sikh!--led to victory while they were not led at all. So brought face to face once more with the old familiar glory and honor, the old familiar sight of the master first--uncompromisingly, indubitably first to snatch success from the grasp of Fate, and hand it back to them--they thought of the past three months with loathing.
And as for Nikalseyn's rebuff. Soma, hearing of it from a comrade, hot at heart as he, went to the place, and looked down the lane as John Nicholson had done. By all the Pandâvas! a place for heroes indeed! Ali! if he had been there, he would have stayed there somehow. He walked up and down it moodily, picturing the struggle to himself; thinking with a curious anger of those men on the housetops, in the bastion, taking potshots at the unsheltered men below. That was all there would be now. They might drive the masters back for a time, they might inveigle them into lanes and reduce their numbers by tens and fifties, they, men of his sort, might make a brave defense.
Defense! Soma wanted to attack. Attracted by the faint shade of the kikar tree he sat down beneath it, resting against the trunk, looking along the lane once more, just as, a day or two before, John Nicholson had rested for a space. And the iron of failure entered into this man's heart also, because there was none to lead. And with the master there had been none to follow.
Suddenly he rose, his mind made up. If that was so, let him go back to the plow. That also was a hereditary trade.
That night, without a word to anyone, leaving his uniform behind him, he started along the Rohtuck road for his ancestral village. But he had to make a detour round the suburbs, for, despite that annihilation spoken of in the Peace, they were now occupied by the English.
Yet but little headway had been made in securing a firmer hold within the city itself.
"You can't, till the Burn Bastion is taken and the Lahore gate secured," said Nicholson from his dying bed, whence, growing perceptibly weaker day by day, yet with mind clear and unclouded, he watched and warned. The single eye was not closed yet, was not even made dim by death. It saw still, what it had seen on the day of the assault; what it had coveted then and failed to reach.
But it was not for five days after this failure that even Baird Smith recognized the absolute accuracy of this judgment, and, against the Chief's will, obtained permission to sap through the shelter of the intervening houses till they could tackle the bastion at close and commanding quarters without asking the troops to face another lane. So on the morning of the 19th, after a night of storm and rain cooling the air incredibly, the pick-ax began what rifles and swords had failed to do. By nightfall a tall house was reached, whence the bastion could be raked fore and aft. Its occupants, recognizing this, took advantage of the growing darkness to evacuate it. Half an hour afterward the master-key of the position was in English hands.
Rather unsteady ones, for here again the troops--once more the 8th, the 75th, the Sikh Infantry, and that balance of the Fusiliers--had found more brandy.
"Poisoned, sir?" said one thirsty trooper, flourishing a bottle of Exshaw's Number One before the eyes of his Captain, who, as a last inducement to sobriety, was suggesting danger. "Not a bit of it. Capsules all right."
But this time England could afford a few drunk men. The bastion was gone, and by the Turkoman and Delhi gates half the town was going. And not only the town. Down in the Palace men and women, with fumbling hands and dazed eyes, like those new roused from dreams, were snatching at something to carry with them in their flight. Bukht Khân stood facing the Queen in her favorite summer-house, alone, save for Hâfzan, the scribe, who lingered, watching them with a certain malice in her eyes. She had been right. Vengeance had been coming. Now it had come.
"All is not lost, my Queen," said Bukht Khân, with hand on sword. "The open country lies before us, Lucknow is ours--come!"
"And the King, and my son," she faltered. The dull glitter of her tarnished jewelry seemed in keeping with the look on her face. There was something sordid in it. Sordid, indeed, for behind that mask of wifely solicitude and maternal care lay the thought of her hidden treasure.
"Let them come too. Naught hinders it."
True. But the gold, the gold!
After he had left her, impatient of her hesitation, a sudden terror seized her, lest he might have sought the King, lest he might persuade him.
"My bearers--woman! Quick!" she called to Hâfzan. "Quick, fool! my dhooli!"
But even dhooli bearers have to fly when vengeance shadows the horizon; and in that secluded corner none remained. Everyone was busy elsewhere; or from sheer terror clustered together where soldiers were to be found.
"The Ornament-of-Palaces can walk," said Hâfzan, still with that faint malice in her face. "There is none to see, and it is not far."
So, for the last time, Zeenut Maihl left the summer-house whence she had watched the Meerut road. Left it on foot, as many a better woman as unused to walking as she was leaving Delhi with babies on their breasts and little children toddling beside them. Past the faint outline of the Pearl Mosque, through the cool damp of the watered garden with the moon shining overhead, she stumbled laboriously. Up the steps of the Audience Hall toward a faint light by the Throne. The King sat on it, almost in the dark; for the oil cressets on a trefoil stand only seemed to make the shadows blacker. They lay thick upon the roof, blotting out that circling boast. Before him stood Bukht Khân, his hand still on his sword, broad, contemptuously bold. But on either side of the shrunken figure, half lost in the shadows also, were other counselors. Ahsan-Oolah, wily as ever, Elahi Buksh, the time-server, who saw the only hope of safety in prompt surrender.
"Let the Pillar-of-Faith claim time for thought," the latter was saying. "There is no hurry. If the soubadar-sahib is in one, let him go----"
Bukht Khân broke in with an ugly laugh, "Yea, Mirza-sahib, I can go, but if I go the army goes with me. Remember that. The King can keep the rabble. I have the soldiers."
Bahâdur Shâh looked from one to the other helplessly. Whether to go, risk all, endure a life of unknown discomfort at his age, or remain, alone, unprotected, he knew not.
"Yea! that is true. Still there is no need for hurry," put in the physician, with a glance at Elahi Buksh. "Let my master bid the soubadar and the army meet him at the Tomb of Humayon to-morrow morning. 'Twill be more seemly time to leave than now, like a thief in the night."
Bukht Khân gave a sharp look at the speaker, then laughed again. He saw the game. He scarcely cared to check it.
"So be it. But let it be before noon. I will wait no longer."
As he passed out hastily he almost ran into a half-veiled figure, which, with another behind it, was hugging one of the pillars, peering forward, listening. He guessed it for the Queen, and paused instantly.
"'Tis thy last chance, Zeenut Maihl," he whispered in her ear. "Come if thou art wise."
The last. No! not that. The last for sovereignty perhaps, but not for hidden treasure. Half an hour afterward, a little procession of Royal dhoolies passed out of the Palace on their way to Elahi Buksh's house beside the Delhi gate, and Ahsan-Oolah walked beside the Queen's. He had gold also to save, and he was wise; so she listened, and as she listened she told herself that it would be best to stay. Her life was safe, and her son was too young for the punishment of death. As for the King, he was too old for the future to hold anything else.
Hâfzan watched her go, still with that half-jeering smile, then turned back into the empty Palace. Even in the outer court it was empty, indeed, save for a few fanatics muttering texts; and within the precincts, deserted utterly, silent as the grave. Until, suddenly, from the Pearl Mosque a voice came, giving the call to prayer; for it was not far from dawn.
She paused, recognizing it, and leaving the marble terrace where she had been standing, looking riverward, walked over to the bronze-studded door, and peered in among the white arches of the mosque for what she sought.
And there it was, a tall white figure looking westward, its back toward her, its arms spread skyward. A fanatic of fanatics.
"Thou art not wise to linger here, Moulvie sahib," she called. "Hast not heard? The Burn Bastion is taken. The King and Queen have fled. The English will be here in an hour or so, and then----"
"And then there comes judgment," answered Mohammed Ismail, turning to look at her sternly. "Doth not it lie within these walls? I stay here, woman, as I have stayed."
"Nay, not here," she argued in conciliatory tones. "It lies yonder, in the outer court, by the trees shadowing the little tank. Thou canst see it from the window of my uncle's room. And he hath gone--like the others. 'Twere better to await it there."
She spoke as she would have spoken to a madman. And, indeed, she held him to be little else. Here was a man who had saved forty infidels, whose reward was sure. And who must needs imperil it by lingering where death was certain; must needs think of his battered soul instead of his body. Mohammed Ismail came and stood beside her, with a curious acquiescence in regard to detail's which is so often seen in men mastered by one idea.
"It may be better so, sister," he said dreamily. "'Tis as well to be prepared."
Hâfzan's hard eyes melted a little, for she had a real pity for this man who had haunted the Palace persistently, and lost his reason over his conscience.
If she could once get him into her uncle's room, she would find some method of locking him in, of keeping him out of mischief. For herself, being a woman, the Huzoors were not to be feared.
"Yea! 'tis as well to be near," she said as she led the way.
And the time drew near also; for the dawn of the 20th of September had broken ere, with the key of the outer door in her bosom, she retired into an inner room, leaving the Moulvie saying his prayers in the other. Already the troops, recovered from their unsteadiness, had carried the Lahore gate and were bearing down on the mosque. They found it almost undefended. The circling flight of purple pigeons, which at the first volley flew westward, the sun glistening on their iridescent plumage, was scarcely more swift than the flight of those who attempted a feeble resistance. And now the Palace lay close by. With it captured, Delhi was taken. Its walls, it is true, rose unharmed, secure as ever, hemming in those few acres of God's earth from the march of time; but they were strangely silent. Only now and again a puff of white smoke and an unavailing roar told that someone, who cared not even for success, remained within.
So powder bags were brought. Home of the Engineers sent for, that he might light the fuse which gave entry to the last stronghold; for there was no hurry now. No racing now under hailstorms, and over tightropes. Calmly, quietly, the fuse was lit, the gate shivered to atoms, and the long red tunnel with the gleam of sunlight at its end lay before the men, who entered it with a cheer. Then, here and there rose guttural Arabic texts, ending in a groan. Here and there the clash of arms. But not enough to rouse Hâfzan, who, long ere this, had fallen asleep after her wakeful night. It needed a touch on her shoulder for that, and the Moulvie's eager voice in her ear.
"The key, woman! The key--give it! I need the key."
Half-dazed by sleep, deceived by the silence, she put her hand mechanically to her bosom. His followed hers; he had what he sought, and was off. She sprang to her feet, recognizing some danger, and followed him.
"He is mad! He is mad!" she cried, as her halting steps lingered behind the tall white figure which made straight for a crowd of soldiers gathered round the little tank. There were other soldiers here, there, everywhere in the rose-red arcades around the sun-lit court. Soldiers with dark faces and white ones seeking victims, seeking plunder. But these in the center were all white men, and they were standing, as men stand to look at a holy shrine, upon the place where, as the spies had told them, English women and children had been murdered.
So toward them, while curses were in all hearts and on some lips, came the tall white figure with its arms outspread, its wild eyes aflame.
"O God of Might and Right! Give judgment now, give judgment now."
The cry rolled and echoed through the arcades to alien ears even as other cries.
"He is mad--he saved them--he is mad!" gasped the maimed woman behind; but her cry seemed no different to those unheeding ears.
The tall white figure lay on its face, half a dozen bayonets in its back, and half a dozen more were after Hâfzan.
"Stick him! Stick him! A man in disguise. Remember the women and children. Stick the coward!"
She fled shrieking--shrill, feminine shrieks; but the men's blood was up. They could not hear, they would not hear; and yet the awkwardness of that flying figure made them laugh horribly.
"Don't 'ustle 'im! Give 'im time! There's plenty o' run in 'im yet, mates. Lord! 'e'd get first prize at Lillie Bridge 'e would."
Someone else, however, had got it at Harrow not a year before, and was after the reckless crew. Almost too late--not quite. Hâfzan, run to earth against a red wall, felt something on her back, and gave a wild yell. But it was only a boy's hand.
"My God! sir, I've stuck you!" faltered a voice behind, as a man stood rigid, arrested in mid-thrust.
"You d----d fool!" said the boy. "Couldn't you hear it was a woman? I'll--I'll have you shot. Oh, hang it all! Drag the creature away, someone. Get out, do!"
For Hâfzan, as he stood stanching the blood from the slight wound, had fallen at his feet and was kissing them frantically.
But even that indignity was forgotten as the stained handkerchief answered the flutter of something which at that moment caught the breeze above him.
It was the English flag.
The men, forgetting everything else, cheered themselves hoarse--cheered again when an orderly rode past waving a slip of paper sent back to the General with the laconic report:
"Blown open the gates! Got the Palace!"
But Hâfzan, her veil up to prevent mistakes, limped over to where the Moulvie lay, turned him gently on his back, straightened his limbs and closed his eyes. She would have liked to tell the truth to someone, but there was no one to listen. So she left him there before the tribunal to which he had appealed.