The words were called across the road in a woman's voice, making him turn to see a shadowy white figure outlined against the dark arches of a veranda close upon the road. He reined up his horse almost involuntarily, remembering as he did so that this was Mrs. Gissing's house.
"I beg your pardon----" he began.
"I beg yours," came the instant reply. "I mistook you for a friend. Good-night!"
"Good-night!"
As he paced his horse on, choosing the longer way to Duryagunj, by the narrow lanes clinging to the city wall, the remembrance of that frank good-night lingered with him. For a friend! What a name to call Herbert Erlton! Poor little soul! The thought, by its very intolerableness, drove him back to the other, roused by her first words:
"Delhi dur ust."
True! Even this Delhi lying before his very eyes was far from him. How would it take the news which by now, as he had said, must have filtered through the bazaar? He could imagine that. He knew, also, that the Palace folk must be all discussing the Resident's garden party, with a view to their own special aims and objects. But what did they think of the outlook on the future? Did they also say Delhi dur ust?
One of them was saying it on a roof close by. It was Abool-Bukr, who, on his way home, had given himself the promised pleasure of retailing his virtuous afternoon's experiences to Newâsi; for his two-months-wed bride had not broken him of his habit of coming to his kind one, though it had made her graver, more dignified. Still she broke in on his thick assertion--for he had drunk brandy in his efforts to be friendly with the sahibs--that he had seen an Englishwoman of her sort, with the quick query:
"Like me! How so?"
He laughed mischievously. "And thou art not jealous of my wife!--or sayest thou art not! She was but like thee in this, aunt, that she is of the sort who would have men better than God made them----"
"No worse, thou meanest," she replied.
He shook his head. "Women, Newâsi, are as the ague. A man is ever being made better or worse till he knows not if he be well or ill. And both ways God's work is marred, a man driven from his right fate----"
"But if a man mistakes his fate as thou dost, Abool," she persisted. "Sure, if Jewun Bukht with that evil woman, Zeenut----"
He started to his feet, thrusting out lissome hands wildly, as if to set aside some thought. "Have a care, Newâsi, have a care!" he cried. "Talk not of that arch plotter, arch dreamer. Nay! not arch dreamer! 'tis thou that dreamest most. Dreamest war without blood, men without passion, me without myself! Was there not blood on my hands ere ever I was born--I, Abool-Bukr, of the race of Timoor--kings, tyrants, by birth and trade? The blood of those who stood in my father's way and my father's fathers. I tell thee there is too much tinder yonder----" He pointed to where, across the flat chequers of moonlit roofs, inlaid by the shadows of the intersecting alleys the cupolas of the Palace gates rose upon the sky. "There is too much tinder here," he struck his own breast fiercely, "for such fiery thoughts. Why canst not leave me alone, woman?"
She drew back coldly. "Do I ask thee to come thither? Thy wife----"
He gave a half-maudlin laugh. "Nay, I mean not that! Sure thou art very woman, Newâsi! That is why I love mine aunt! That is why I come to see her--that----"
She interrupted him hastily; but her eyes grew soft, her voice trembled.
"And I do but goad thee for thine own good, Abool. These are strange times. Even the Mufti sahib----"
"Ah! defend me from his wise saws. I know the ring of them too well as 'tis. Even that I endure--for mine aunt's sake. Though, by the faith, if he and others of his kidney waylay me as they do much longer, I will have a rope ladder to thy roof and scandalize them all. I can stomach thy wisdom, dear; none else. So tell them that Abool-Bukr can quote saws as well as they. Tell them he lives for Pleasure, and Pleasure lives in the present. For the rest, Delhi dur ust! Delhi dur ust!"
His reckless, unrestrained voice rang out over the roofs, and into the alley below where Jim Douglas was telling himself, that with his finger on the very pulse of the city he had failed to count its heart beats.
He looked up quickly. "Delhi dur ust!" All the world seemed to be saying it that night; though the first blood had been shed in the quarrel.
The days passed to weeks, the weeks to a month, after that shedding of first blood, and no more was spilled, save that of the shedders. Two of them were hanged, the regiment ordered to be disbanded. For the rest, though causeless fires broke out in every cantonment, though a Sikh orderly divulged to his master some tale of a concerted rising, though the dread of the greased cartridge grew to a perfect panic, even Jim Douglas, with his eyes wide open, was forced to admit that, so far as any chance of action went, the reply might still be "Delhi dur ust." The sky was dark indeed, there were mutterings on the horizon; but he and others remembered how often in India, even when rain is due, the clouds creep up and up day by day, darker and more lowering, until the yellowing crops seem to grow greener in sheer hope of the purple pall above them. And then some unseen hand juggles those portentous rain-clouds into the daily darkness of night, and some dawn rises clear and dry to show, in its fierce blaze of sunlight, how the yellow has gained on the green.
So, day by day, the impression grew among the elect that the storm signals would pass; that the best policy was to tide over the next few months somehow. In pursuance of which a sepoy who ventured to draw attention to the state of feeling in one regiment was publicly told he need expect no promotion.
But there were dissentients to this policy, apparently. Anyhow, in the end of April, Colonel Carmichael Smyth, commanding the 3d Bengal Cavalry at Meerut, returned from leave one evening, and ordered fifteen men from each troop to be picked out to learn the use of the new cartridge next morning, and then went to bed comfortably. The men, through their native officers, appealed to their captain for delay. They were neither prepared to take nor refuse the cartridges, old or new. No answer was given them. They marched to the parade obediently at sunrise, and eighty-five of the ninety men picked from a picked regiment for smartness and intelligence refused to take the cartridges, even from their Colonel's or their Adjutant's hand. Their own troop officers were not present. They were at once tried by a court-martial of native officers, some of whom came from the regiments at Delhi; but thirty odd miles off along a broad, level driving road. They were sentenced to ten years' penal servitude, and a parade of all troops was ordered for sunrise on the 9th of May, to put the sentence into force.
So the night of the 8th found Jim Douglas riding over from Delhi in the cool to see something which, if anything could, ought to turn mere talk into action. It had brought a new sound into the air already. The clang of cold iron upon hot, rising from the regimental smithy, where the fetters for the eighty-five were being forged. A cruel sound at best, proclaiming the indubitable advantage of coolness and hardness over glow and plasticity. Cruel indeed when the hardness and insistency goes to the forging of fetters for emotion and ignorance.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sound rang out into the hot airless night, rang out into the gusty dawn; for it takes time to forge eighty-five pairs of shackles. Rang out to where a mixed guard of the 11th and 20th Regiments of Native Infantry were waiting round the tumbrils for the last fetter. The gray of dawn showed the rest piled on the tumbrils, showed two English officers on horseback talking to each other a little way off, showed the faces of the guard dark and lowering like the dawn itself.
"Loh! sergeant jee! there is the last," said the master-armorer cheerfully. His task was done, at any rate.
Soma took it from him silently, and flung it on the others almost fiercely; it settled among them with a clank. His regiment, the 11th, had but newly come to Meerut, and therefore had as yet no ties of personal comradeship with the eighty-five, but fetters for any sepoys were enough to make the pulse beat full and heavy.
"The last, thank Heaven!" said the Captain, giving his bridle rein a jag. "All right forward, Jones! Then fall in, men. Quick march! We are late enough as it is."
The disciplined feet fell in without a waver; the tumbrils moved on with a clank and a creak.
Quick march! Soma's mind, fair reflection of the minds of all about him, was full of doubt. Was that indeed the last fetter, or did Rumor say sooth when it told of others being secretly forged? Who could say in these days, when the Huzoors themselves had taken to telling lies. Not his Huzoors as yet; his Colonels and Captains and Majors, even the little sahib, who laughed over his own mistakes on parade, told the truth still. But the others lied. Lied about enlistment, about prize-money and leave, about those cartridges. At least, so the men in the 20th said; the sergeant marching next to him behind the tumbril most of all.
"'Tis but three weeks longer, comrade," said this man suddenly in a low whisper. They were treading the dim, deserted outskirts of the cantonment bazaar, and Soma looked round nervously at the officers behind. Had they heard? He frowned at the speaker and made no reply. He gave a deaf ear, when he could, to the talk in the 20th; but that was not always, for its sepoys were a part of the Bengal army. That army which was not--as a European army is--a mere chance collection of men divided from each other in the beginning and end of life, associated loosely with each other in its middle, and using military service as a make-shift; but, to a great extent, a guild, following the profession of arms by hereditary custom from the cradle to the grave.
Quick march! A woman, early astir, peered at the little procession through the chink of a door, and whispered to an unseen companion behind. What was she saying? What, by implication, would other women, who peeped virtuously--women he knew--say of his present occupation? That he was a coward to be guarding his comrades' fetters? No doubt; since others with less right would say it too. All the miserable, disreputable riff-raff, for instance, which had drifted in from the neighborhood to see the show. The bazaar had been full of it these three days past. Even the sweepers, pariahs, out-castes, would snigger over the misfortunes of their betters--as those two ahead were doubtless sniggering already as they drew aside from their slave's work of sweeping the roadway, to let the tumbrils pass. Drew aside with mock deference, leaving scantiest room for the twice-born following them. So scant, indeed, that the outermost tip of a reed broom, flourished in insolent salaam, touched the Rajput's sleeve. It was the veriest brush, no more than a fly's wing could have given; but the half-stifled cry from Soma's lips meant murder--nothing less. His disciplined feet wavered, he gave a furtive glance at his companions. Had they seen the insult? Could they use it against him?
"Eyes front, there; forward!" came the order from behind, and he pulled himself together by instinct and went on.
"Only three weeks longer, brother!" said that voice beside him meaningly; and a dull rage rose in Soma's heart. So it had been seen. It might be said of him, Soma, that he had tamely submitted to a defiling touch. He did not look round at his officers this time. They might hear if they chose, the future might hold what it chose. Mayhap they had seen the insult and were laughing at it. They were not his Huzoors; they belonged to the man at his side, who had the right to taunt him. As a matter of fact, they were discussing the chances of their ponies in next week's races; but Soma, lost in a great wrath, a great fear, made it, inevitably, the topic of the whole world.
Hark! The bugle for the Rifles to form; they were to come to the parade loaded with ball cartridge. And that rumble was the Artillery, loaded also, going to take up their position. By and by the Carabineers would sweep with a clatter and a dash to form the third side of the hollow square, whereof the fourth was to be a mass of helpless dark faces, with the eighty-five martyrs and tumbrils in the middle. Soma had seen it all in general orders, talked it over with his dearest friend, and called it tyranny. And now the tumbrils clanked past a little heap of smoldering ashes, that but the day before had been a guard-house. The lingering smoke from this last work of the incendiary drifted northward, after the fetters, making one of the officers cough. But he went on talking of his ponies. True type of the race which lives to make mistakes, dies to retrieve them. Quick march!
Streams of spectators bound for the show began to overtake them, ready with comments on what Soma guarded. And on the broad white Mall, dividing the native half of the cantonments and the town of Meerut from the European portion, more than one carriage with a listless, white-faced woman in it dashed by, on its way to see the show. The show!
Quick march! Whatever else might be possible in the futures that was all now, midway between the barracks of the Rifles and the Carabineers, with the church--mute symbol of the horror which, day by day, month by month, had been closing in round the people--blocking the way in front. So they passed on to the wide northern parade ground, with that hollow square ready; three sides of it threatening weapons, the fourth of unarmed men, and in the center the eighty-five picked men of a picked regiment.
The knot of European spectators round the flag listened with yawns to the stout General's exordium. The eighty-five being hopelessly, helplessly in the wrong by military law, there seemed to be no need to insist on the fact. And the mass of dark faces standing within range of loaded guns and rifles, within reach of glistening sabers, did not listen at all. Not that it mattered, since the units in that crowd had lost the power of accepting facts. Even Soma, standing to attention beside the tumbrils, only felt a great sense of outrage, of wrong, of injustice somewhere. And there was one Englishman, at least, rigid to attention also before his disarmed, dismounted, yet loyal troop, who must have felt it also, unless he was more than human. And this was Captain Craigie, who, when his men appealed to him to save them, to delay this unnecessary musketry parade, had written in his haste to the Adjutant, "Go to Smyth at once! Go to Smyth!" and Smyth was his Colonel! Incredible lack of official etiquette. Repeated hardily, moreover. "Pray don't lose a moment, but go to Smyth and tell him." What? Only "that this is a most serious matter, and we may have the whole regiment in open mutiny in half an hour if it is not attended to." Only that! So it is to be hoped that Captain Craigie had the official wigging for his unconventional appeal in his pocket as he shared his regiment's disgrace, to serve him as a warning--or a consolation.
And now the pompous monotone being ended, the silence, coming after the clankings, and buglings, and trampings which had been going on since dawn, was almost oppressive. The three sides of steel, even the fourth of faces, however, showed no sign. They stood as stone while the eighty-five were stripped of their uniforms. But there was more to come. By the General's orders the leg-irons were to be riveted on one by one; and so, once more, the sound of iron upon iron recurred monotonously, making the silence of the intervals still more oppressive. For the prisoners at first seemed stunned by the isolation from even their as yet unfettered comrades. But suddenly from a single throat came that cry for justice, which has a claim to a hearing, at least, in the estimation of the people of India.
"Dohai! Dohai! Dohai!"
Soma gave a sort of sigh, and a faint quiver of expectation passed over the sea of dark faces.
Clang! Clang! The hammers, going on unchecked, were the only answer. Those three sides of stone had come to see a thing done, and it must be done; the sooner the better. But the riveting of eighty-five pairs of leg-irons is not to be done in a moment; so the cry grew clamorous. Dohai! Dohai! Had they not fought faithfully in the past? Had they not been deceived? Had they had a fair chance?
But the hammers went on as the sun climbed out of the dust-haze to gleam on the sloped sabers, glint on the loaded guns, and send glittering streaks of light along the rifles.
So the cry changed. Were their comrades cowards to stand by and see this tyranny and raise no finger of help? Oh! curses on them! 'Tis they who were degraded, dishonored. Curses on the Colonel who had forced them to this! Curses on every white face!--curses on every face which stood by!
One, close to the General's flag, broke suddenly into passionate resentment. Jim Douglas drew out his watch, looked at it, and gathered his reins together. "An hour and forty-five minutes already. I'm off, Ridgeway. I can't stand this d----d folly any more."
"My dear fellow, speak lower! If the General----"
"I don't care who hears me," retorted Jim Douglas recklessly as he steered through the crowd, followed by his friend, "I say it is d----d inconceivable folly and tyranny. Come on, and let's have a gallop, for God's sake, and get rid of that devilish sound."
The echo of their horses' resounding hoofs covered, obliterated it. The wind of their own swiftness seemed to blow the tension away. So after a spin due north for a mile or two they paused at the edge of a field where the oxen were circling placidly round on the threshing-floors and a group of women were taking advantage of the gustiness to winnow. Their bare, brown arms glistened above the falling showers of golden grain, their unabashed smiling faces showed against the clouds of golden chaff drifting behind them.
Jim Douglas looked at them for a moment, returned the salaam of the men driving the oxen and forking the straw, then turned his horse toward the cantonment again.
"It is nothing to them; that's one comfort," he said. "But they will have to suffer for it in the end, I expect. Who will believe when the time comes that this"--he gave a backward wave of his hand--"went on unwittingly of that?"
His companion, following his look ahead, to where, in the far distance, a faint cloud of dust, telling of many feet, hung on the horizon, said suddenly, as if the sight brought remembrance: "By George! Douglas, how steady the sepoys stood! I half expected a row."
"Steadier than I should," remarked the other grimly. "Well, I hope Smyth is satisfied. To return from leave and drive your regiment into mutiny in twelve hours is a record performance."
His hearer, who was a civilian, gave a deprecating cough. "That's a bit hard, surely. I happen to know that he heard while on leave some story about a concerted rising later on. He may have done it purposely, to force their hands."
Jim Douglas shrugged his shoulders. "Did he warn you what he was about to do? Did he allow time to prepare others for his private mutiny? My dear Ridgeway, it was put on official record two months ago that an organized scheme for resistance existed in every regiment between Calcutta and Peshawur; so Smyth might at least have consulted the colonels of the other two regiments at Meerut. As it is, the business has strained the loyalty of the most loyal to the uttermost; and we deserve to suffer, we do indeed."
"You don't mince matters, certainly," said the civilian dryly.
"Why should anybody mince them? Why can't we admit boldly--the C.-in-C. did it on the sly the other day--that the cartridges are suspicious? that they leave the muzzle covered with a fat, like tallow? Why don't we admit it was tallow at first. Why not, at any rate, admit we are in a hole, instead of refusing to take the common precaution of having an ammunition wagon loaded up for fear it should be misconstrued into alarm? Is there no medium between bribing children with lollipops and torturing them--keeping them on the strain, under fire, as it were, for hours, watching their best friends punished unjustly?"
"Unjustly?"
"Yes. To their minds unjustly. And you know what forcible injustice means to children--and these are really children--simple, ignorant, obstinate."
They had come back to cantonments again and were rapidly overtaking the now empty tumbrils going home, for the parade was over. Further down the road, raising a cloud of dust from their shackled feet, the eighty-five were being marched jailward under a native escort.
"Well," said the civilian dryly, "I would give a great deal to know what those simple babes really thought of us."
"Hate us stock and block for the time. I should," replied Jim Douglas. They were passing the tumbrils at the moment, and one of the guard, in sergeant's uniform, looked up in joyful recognition.
"Huzoor It is I, Soma."
The civilian looked at his companion oddly when, after a minute or two spent in answering Soma's inquiries as to where and how the master was to be found, Jim Douglas rode alongside once more.
"Out a bit, eh?" he said dryly.
"Very much out; but they are a queer lot. Do you remember the story of the self-made American who was told his boast relieved the Almighty of a great responsibility? Well, he is only responsible for one-half of the twice-born. The other is due to humanity, to heredity, what you will! That is what makes these high-caste men so difficult to deal with. They are twice born. Yes! they are a queer lot."
He repeated the remark with even greater fervor twelve hours later, when, about midnight, he started on his return ride to Delhi. For though he had spent the whole day in listening, he had scarcely heard a word of blame for the scene which had roused him to wrath that morning. The sepoys had gone about their duties as if nothing had happened; and despite the undoubted presence of a lot of loose characters in the bazaar, there had been no disturbance. He laughed cynically to himself at the waste of a day which would have been better spent in horse dealing. This, however, settled it. If this intolerable tyranny failed to rouse action there could be no immediate danger ahead. To a big cantonment like Meerut, the biggest in Northern India, with two thousand British troops in it, even the prospect of a rising was not serious; at Delhi, however, where there were only native troops, it might have been different. But now he felt that a handful of resolute men ought to be able to hold their own anywhere against such aimless invertebrate discontent. He felt a vague disappointment that it should be so, that the pleasant cool of night should be so quiet, so peaceful. They were a poor lot who could do nothing but talk!
As he rode through the station the mess-houses were still alight, and the gay voices of the guests who had been dining at a large bungalow, bowered in gardens, reached his ears distinctly.
"It's the Sabbath already," said one. "Ought to be in our beds!"
"Hooray! for a Europe morning," came a more boyish one breaking into a carol, "of all the days within the week I dearly love----"
"Shut up, Fitz!" put in a third, "you'll wake the General!"
"What's the odds? He can sleep all day. I'm sure his buggy charger needs a rest."
"Do shut up, Fitz! The Colonel will hear you."
"I don't care. It's Scriptural. Thou and thy ox and thy ass----"
"You promised to come to evening church, Mr. Fitzgerald," interrupted a reproachful feminine voice; "you said you would sing in the choir."
"Did I? Then I'll come. It will wake me up for dinner; besides, I shall sit next you."
The last words came nearer, softer. Mr. Fitzgerald was evidently riding home beside someone's carriage.
Pleasant and peaceful indeed! that clank of a sentry, here and there, only giving a greater sense of security. Not that it was needed, for here, beyond cantonments, the houses of the clerks and civilians lay as peaceful, as secure. In the veranda of one of them, close to the road, a bearer was walking up and down crooning a patient lullaby to the restless fair-haired child in his arms.
No! truly there could be no fear. It was all talk! He set spurs to his horse and went on through the silent night at a hand-gallop, for he had another beast awaiting him halfway, and he wished to be in Delhi by dawn. There was a row of tall trees bordering the road on either side, making it dark, and through their swiftly passing boles the level country stretched to the paler horizon like a sea. And as he rode, he sat in judgment in his thoughts on those dead levels and the people who lived in them.
Stagnant, featureless! A dead sea! A mere waste of waters without form or void! Not even ready for a spirit to move over them; for if that morning's work left them apathetic, the Moulvie of Fyzabad himself need preach no voice of God. For this, surely--this sense of injustice to others, must be the strongest motive, the surest word to conjure with. That dull dead beat of iron upon the fetters of others,--which he still seemed to hear,--the surest call to battle.
He paused in his thought, wondering if what he fancied he heard was but an echo from memory or real sound! Real; undoubtedly. It was the distant clang of the iron bells upon oxen. That meant that he must be seven or eight miles out, halfway to the next stage, so meeting the usual stream of night traffic toward Meerut. He passed two or three strings of large, looming, half-seen wains without drawing bridle, then pulled up almost involuntarily to a trot at the curiously even tread of a drove of iron-shod oxen, and a low chanted song from behind it. Bunjârah folk! The rough voice, the familiar rhythm of the hoofs, reminded him of many a pleasant night-march in their company.
"A good journey, brothers!" he called in the dialect. The answer came unerringly, dark though it was.
"The Lord keep the Huzoor safe!"
It made him smile as he remembered that of course a lone man trotting a horse along a highroad at night was bound to be alien in a country where horses are ambled and travelers go in twos and threes. So the rough, broad faces would be smiling over the surprise of a sahib knowing the Bunjârah talk; unless, indeed, it happened to be---- The possibility of its being the tanda he knew had not occurred to him before. He pulled up and looked round. A breathless shadow was at his stirrup, and he fancied he saw a shadow or two further behind.
"The Huzoor has mistaken the road," came Tiddu's familiar creak. "Meerut lies to the north."
Breathless as he was, there was the pompous mystery in his voice which always prefaced an attempt to extort money. And Jim Douglas, having no further use for the old scoundrel, did not intend to give him any, so he simulated an utter lack of surprise.
"Hello, Tiddu!" he said. "I had an idea it might be you. So you recognized my voice?"
The old man laughed. "The Huzoor is mighty clever. He knows old Tiddu has eyes. They saw the Huzoor's horse--a bay Wazeerie with a white star none too small, and all the luck-marks--waiting at the fifteenth milestone, by Begum-a-bad. But the Huzoor, being so clever, is not going to ride the Wazeerie to-night. He is going to ride the Belooch he is on back to Meerut, though the star on her forehead is too small for safety; my thumb could cover it."
"It's a bit too late to teach me the luck-marks, Tiddu," said Jim Douglas coolly. "You want money, you ruffian; so I suppose you have something to sell. What is it? If it is worth anything, you can trust me to pay, surely."
Tiddu looked round furtively. The other shadow, Jhungi or Bhungi, or both, perhaps--the memory made Jim Douglas smile--had melted away into the darkness. He and Tiddu were alone. The old man, even so, reached up to whisper.
"'Tis the yellow fakir, Huzoor! He has come."
"The yellow fakir!" echoed his hearer; "who the devil is he? And why shouldn't he come, if he likes?"
Tiddu paused, as if in sheer amaze, for a second. "The Huzoor has not heard of the yellow fakir? The dumb fakir who brings the speech that brings more than speech. Wâh!"
"Speech that is more than speech," echoed Jim Douglas angrily, then paused in his turn; the phrase reminded him, vaguely, of his past thoughts.
Tiddu's hand went out to the Belooch's rein; his voice lost its creak and took a soft sing-song to which the mare seemed to come round of her own accord.
"Yea! Speech that is more than speech, though he is dumb. Whence he comes none know, not even I, the Many-Faced. But I can see him when he comes, Huzoor! The others, not unless he wills to be seen. I saw him to-night. He passed me on a white horse not half an hour agone, going Meerutward. Did not the Huzoor see him? That is because he has learned from old Tiddu to make others see, but not to see himself. But the old man will teach him this also if he is in Meerut by dawn. If he is there by dawn he will see the yellow fakir who brings the speech that brings more than speech."
The sing-song ceased; the Belooch was stepping briskly back toward Meerut.
"You infernal old humbug!" began Jim Douglas.
"The Huzoor does not believe, of course," remarked Tiddu, in the most matter-of-fact creak. "But Meerut is only eight miles off. His other horse can wait; and if he does not see the yellow fakir there is no need to open the purse-strings."
The Englishman looked at his half-seen companion admiringly. He was the most consummate scoundrel! His blending of mystery and purely commercial commonplace was perfect--almost irresistible. There was no reason why he should go on; the groom, halfway, had his usual orders to stay till his master came. For the rest, it would be pleasant to renew the old pleasant memory--pleasant even to renew his acquaintance with Tiddu's guile, which struck him afresh each time he came across it.
He slipped from his horse without a word, and was about to pull the reins over her head so as to lead her, when Tiddu stopped short.
"Jhungi will take her to the rest-house, Huzoor, or Bhungi. It will be safer so. I have a clean cotton quilt in the bundle, and the Huzoor can have my shoes and rub his legs in the dust. That will do till dawn."
He gave a jackal's cry, which was echoed from the darkness.
"Leave her so, Huzoor! She is safe," said Tiddu; and Jim Douglas, as he obeyed, heard the mare whinny softly, as if to a foal, as a shadow came out of the bushes. Junghi or Bhungi, no doubt.
Five minutes after, with a certain unaccountable pleasure, he found himself walking beside a laden bullock, one arm resting on its broad back, his feet keeping step with the remittent clang of its bell. A strange dreamy companionship, as he knew of old. And once more the stars seemed, after a time, to twinkle in unison with the bell, he seemed to forget thought, to forget everything save the peaceful stillness around, and his own unresting peace.
So, he and the laden beast went on as one living, breathing mortal, till the little shiver of wind came, which comes with the first paling of the sky. It was one of those yellow dawns, serene, cloudless, save for a puff or two of thin gray vapor low down on the horizon, looking as if it were smoke from an unseen censer swinging before the chariot of the Sun which heads the procession of the hours. He was so absorbed in watching the yellow light grow to those clouds no bigger than a man's hand; so lost in the strange companionship with the laden beast bound to the wheel of Life and Death as he was, yet asking no question of the future, that Tiddu's hand and voice startled him.
"Huzoor!" he said. "The yellow fakir!"
They were close on the city of Meerut. The road, dipping down to cross a depression, left a bank of yellow dust on either side. And on the eastern one, outlined against the yellow sunrise, sat a motionless figure. It was naked, and painted from head to foot a bright yellow color. The closed eyes were daubed over so as to hide them utterly, and on the forehead, as it is in the image of Siva, was painted perpendicularly a gigantic eye, wide, set, stony. Before it in the dust lay the beggar's bowl for alms.
"The roads part here, Huzoor," said Tiddu. "This to the city; that to the cantonments."
As he spoke, a handsome young fellow came swaggering down the latter, on his way evidently to riotous living in the bazaar. Suddenly he paused, his hand went up to his eyes as if the rising sun were in them. Then he stepped across the road and dropped a coin into the beggar's bowl. Tiddu nodded his head gravely.
"That man is wanted, Huzoor. That is why he saw. Mayhap he is to give the word."
"The word?" echoed Jim Douglas. "You said he was dumb?"
"I meant the trooper, Huzoor. The fakir wanted him. To give the word, mayhap. Someone must always give it."
Jim Douglas felt an odd thrill. He had never thought of that before. Someone, of course, must always give the word, the speech which brought more than speech. What would it be? Something soul-stirring, no doubt; for Humanity had a theory that an angel must trouble the waters and so give it a righteous cause for stepping in to heal the evil.
But what a strange knack the old man had of stirring the imagination with ridiculous mystery! He felt vexed with himself for his own thrill, his own thoughts. "He is a very ordinary yogi, I should say," he remarked, looking toward the yellow sunrise, but the figure was gone. He turned to Tiddu again, with real annoyance. "Well! Whoever he is, he cannot want me. And I certainly saw him."
"I willed the Huzoor to see!" replied Tiddu with calm effrontery.
Jim Douglas laughed. The man was certainly a consummate liar; there was never any possibility of catching him out.
The Procession of the Hours had a weary march of it between the yellow sunrise and the yellow sunset of the 10th of May, 1857; for the heavens were as brass, the air one flame of white heat. The mud huts of the sepoy lines at Meerut looked and felt like bricks baking in a kiln; yet the torpor which the remorseless glare of noon brings even to native humanity was exchanged for a strange restlessness. The doors stood open for the most part, and men wandered in and out aimlessly, like swarming bees before the queen appears. In the bazaar, in the city too, crowds drifted hither and thither, thirstily, as if it were not the fast month of Rumzân, when the Mohammedans are denied the solace of even a drop of water till sundown. Drifted hither and thither, pausing to gather closer at a hint of novelty, melting away again, restless as ever.
Mayhap it was but the inevitable reaction after the stun and stupefaction of Saturday, the sudden awakening to the result--namely, that eighty-five of the best, smartest soldiers in Meerut had been set to toil for ten years in shackles because they refused to be defiled, to become apostate. On the other hand, the old Baharupa may have been right about the yellow fakir: the silent, motionless figure might have set folk listening and waiting for the word. It was to be seen by all now sitting outside the city; at least Jim Douglas saw it several times. Saw, also, that the beggar's bowl was fuller and fuller; but the impossibility of asserting that all the passers-by saw it, as he did, haunted him, once the idea presented itself to his mind. It was always so with Tiddu's mysteries; they were no more susceptible to disproof than they were to proof. You could waste time, of course, in this case by waiting and watching, but in the natural course of events half the passers-by would go on as if they saw nothing, and only one in a hundred or so would give an alms. So what would be the good?
No one else, however, among the masters troubled himself to find a cause for the restlessness; no one even knew of it. To begin with, it was a Sunday, so that even the bond of a common labor was slackened between the dark faces and the light. Then a mile or more of waste deserted land and dry watercourse lay on either side of the broad white road which split the cantonment into halves. So that the North knew nothing of what was going on in the South, and while men were swarming like bees in the sun on one side, on the other they were shut up in barracks and bungalows gasping with the heat, longing for the sun to set, and thanking their stars when the chaplain's memo came round to say that the evening service had been postponed for half an hour to allow the seething, glowing air to cool a little.
It was not the heat, however, which prevented Major Erlton from taking his usual siesta. It was thought. He had come over from Delhi on inspection duty a few days before and had intended returning that evening; but the morning's post had brought him a letter which upset all his plans. Alice Gissing's husband had come out a fortnight earlier than they had expected, and was already on his way up-country. The crisis had come, the decision must be made. It was not any hesitation, however, which sent the heavy handsome face to rest in the big strong hands as he rested his elbows on a sheet of blank paper. He had made up his mind on the very day when Alice Gissing had first told him why she could not go back to her husband. The letter forwarding his papers for resignation was already sealed on the table beside him; and the surprise was rather a gain than otherwise. Alice could join him at Meerut now, and they could slip away together to Cashmere or any out of the way place where there was shooting. That would save a lot of fuss; and the fear of fuss was the only one which troubled the Major, personally. He hated to know that even his friends would wonder--for the matter of that those who knew him best would wonder most--why he was chucking everything for a woman he had been mixed up with for years. Yet he had found no difficulty in writing that official request; none in telling little Allie to join him as soon as she could. It was this third letter which could not be written. He took up the pen more than once, only to lay it down again. He began, "My dear Kate," once, only to tear the sheet to pieces. How could he call her his when he was going to tell her that she was his no longer; that the best thing she could do was to divorce him and marry some other chap to be a father to the boy.
The thought sent the head into the hands again; for Herbert Erlton was a healthy animal and loved his offspring by instinct. He had, in truth, a queer upside-down notion of his responsibilities toward them. If the fates had permitted it he would have done his best by Freddy. Shown him the ropes, given him useful tips, stood by his inexperience, paid his reasonable debts--always supposing he had the wherewithal.
Then how was he to tell Kate all the ugly story. He had left her in his thoughts so completely, she had been so far apart from him for so many years now, that he hesitated over telling her the bare facts, just as--being conventionally a perfectly well-bred man--he would have hesitated how to tell them to any innocent woman of his acquaintance. Rather more so, for Kate--though she was sentimental enough, he told himself, for two--had never been sensible and looked things in the face. If she had, it might all have been different. Then with a rush came the remembrance that Allie did--that she knew him every inch and was yet willing to come with him. While he? He would stick through thick and thin to little Allie, who never made a man feel a fool or a beast. Something in the last assertion seemed to harden his heart; he took up his pen and began to write:
"My Dear Kate: I call you that because I can't think of any other beginning that doesn't seem foolish; but it means nothing, and I only want to tell you that circumstances over which we had no control (he felt rather proud of this circumlocution for a circumstance due entirely to his volition) make it necessary for me to leave you. It is the only course open to me as a gentleman. Besides I want to, for I love Alice Gissing dearly. I am going to marry her, D. V., as soon as I can. Mr. Gissing may make a fuss--it is a criminal offense, you see, in India--but we shall tide over that. Of course you could prevent me too, but you are not that sort. So I have sent in my papers. It is a pity, in a way, because I liked this work. But it is only a two-year appointment, and I should hate the regiment after it. For the rest, I am not such a fool as to think you will mind; except for the boy. It is a pity for him too, but it isn't as if he were a girl, and the other may be. It will do no good to say I'm sorry. Besides, I don't think it is all my fault, and I know you will be happier without me.
"Yours sincerely,
"Herbert Erlton.
"P. S.--It's no use crying over spilled milk. I believe you used to think I would get the regiment some day, but they would never have given it to me. I made a bit of a spurt lately, but it couldn't have lasted to the finish, and after all, that is the win or the lose in a race.
"H. E."
The postscript was added after rereading the rest with an uncomfortable remembrance that it was the last letter he meant to write to her. Then he threw it ready for the post beside the others, and lay down feeling that he had done his duty. And as he dozed off his own simile haunted him. From start to finish! How few men rode straight all the way; and the poor beggars who came to grief over the last fence weren't so far behind those who came in for the clapping. It was the finish that did it; that was the win or the lose. But he would run straight with little Allie--straight as a die! So he lost consciousness in a glow of virtuous content with the future, and joined the whole of the northern half of Meerut in their noontide slumbers; for the future outlook, if not exactly satisfying, was not sufficiently dubious to keep it awake.
But in the southern half, humanity was still swarming in and out, waiting, listening. In one of the mud-huts, however, a company of men gathered within closed doors had been listening to some purpose. Listening to an eloquent speaker, the accredited agent of a down-country organization. He had arrived in Meerut a day or two before, and had held one meeting after another in the lines, doing his utmost to prevent any premature action; for the fiat of the leaders was that there should be patience till the 31st of May. Then, not until then, a combined blow for India, for God, for themselves, might be struck with chance of success.
"Ameen!" assented one old man who had come with him. An old man in a huge faded green turban with dyed red hair and beard, and with a huge green waistband holding a curved scimitar. Briefly, a Ghâzee or Mohammedan fanatic. "Patience, all ye faithful, till Sunday, the 31st of May. Then, while the hell-doomed infidels are at their evening prayer, defenseless, fall on them and slay. God will show the right! This is the Moulvie's word, sent by me his servant. Give the Great Cry, brothers, in the House of the Thief! Smite ye of Meerut, and we of Lucknow will smite also." His wild uncontrolled voice rolled on in broad Arabic vowels from one text to another.
"And we of Delhi will smite also," interrupted the wearer of a rakish Moghul cap impatiently. "We will smite for the Queen."
"The Queen?" echoed an older man in the same dress. "What hath the Sheeah woman to do with the race of Timoor?"
"Peace! peace! brothers," put in the agent with authority. "These times are not for petty squabbles. Let who be the heir, the King must reign."
A murmur of assent rose; but it was broken in upon by a dissentient voice from a group of troopers at the door.
"Then our comrades are to rot in jail till the 31st? That suits not the men of the 3d Cavalry."
"Then let the 3d Cavalry suit itself," retorted the agent fearlessly. "We can stand without them. Can they stand without us? Answer me, men of the 20th; men of the 11th."
"There be not many of us here," muttered a voice from a dark corner; "and maybe we could hold our own against the lot of you." It was Soma's, and the man beside him frowned. But the agent who knew every petty jealousy, every private quarrel of regiment with regiment, went on remorselessly. "Let the 3d swagger if it choose. The Rajpoots and Brahmins know how to obey the stars. The 31st is the auspicious day. That is the word. The word of the King, of the Brahmins, of India, of God!"
"The 31st! Then slay and spare not! It is jehad! Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed!" said the Ghâzee.
The cry, though a mere whisper, electrified the Mohammedans, and an older man in the group of dissentients at the door muttered that he could hold his troop--if others who had risen to favor quicker than he--could hold theirs.
"I'll hold mine, Khân sahib, without thine aid," retorted a very young smart-looking native officer angrily. "That is if the women will hold their tongues. But, look you, my troop held the hardest hitters in the 3d. And Nargeeza's fancy is of those in jail. Now Nargeeza leads all the other town-women by the nose; and that means much to men who be not all saints like Ghâzee-jee yonder, who ties the two ends of life with a ragged green turban and a bloody banner!"
"And I see not why our comrades should stay yonder for three weeks, when there is but a native guard to hold them, and I and mine have made the Sirkar what it is," put in a man with arrogance and insolence written on him from top to toe; a true type of the pampered Brahmin sepoy.
"Rescue them if thou wilt, Havildar-jee," sneered the agent. "But the man who risks our plot will be held traitor by the Council. And the men of the 11th," he added sharply, turning to the corner whence Soma's voice had come, "may remember that also. They have had the audacity to stipulate for their Colonel's life."
"For our officers lives, baboo-jee," came the voice again, bold as the agent's. "We of the 11th kill not men who have led us to victory. And if this be not understood I, Soma, Yadubansi, go straight to the Colonel and tell him. We are not butchers in the 11th: Oh, priest of Kâli!"
The agent turned a little pale. He did not care to have his calling known, and he saw at a glance that his challenger had the reckless fire of hemp in his eyes. He had indeed been drinking as a refuge from the memory of the sweeper's broom and from the taunts and threats which had been used to force him to join the malcontents. Such a man was not safe to quarrel with, nor was the audience fit for a discussion of that topic; there was already a stir in it, and mutterings that butchery was one thing, fighting another.
"Pay thy Colonel's journey home if thou likest, Rajpoot-jee," he said with a sneer. "Ay! and give him pension, too! All we want is to get rid of them. And there will be plenty of loot left when the pension is paid, for it is to be each man for himself when the time comes. Not share and share alike with every coward who will not risk his life in looting, as it is with the Sirkar."
It was a deft red-herring to these born mercenaries, and no more was said. But as the meeting dispersed by twos and threes to avoid notice, the agent stood at the door giving the word in a final whisper:
"Patience till the 31st."
"Willst take a seat in our carriage, Ghâzee-jee," said a fat native officer as he passed out. "'Tis at thy service since thou goest to Delhi and we must return to-night. God knows we have done enough to damn us at Meerut over this court-martial! But what would you? If we had not given the verdict for the Huzoors there would have been more of us in jail. So we bide our time like the rest. And to-morrow there is the parade to hear the sentence on the martyrs at Barrackpore. Do the sahibs think us cowards that they drive us so? God smite their souls to hell!"
"He will, brother, he will. The Cry shall yet be heard in the House of the Thief," said the Ghâzee fiercely, his eyes growing dreamy with hope. He was thinking of a sunset near the Goomtee more than a year ago, when he had bid every penny he possessed for his own, in vain.
"Well, come if thou likest," continued the native officer. "That camel of thine yonder is lame, and we have room. 'Twas Erlton sahib's dâk by rights, but he goes not; so we got it cheap instead of an ekka."
"Erlton sahib's!" echoed the fanatic, clutching at his sword. "Ay! Ay!" he went on half to himself. "I knew he was at Delhi, and the mem who laughed, and the other mem who would not listen. Nay! Soubadar-jee! I travel in no carriage of Erlton sahib's. My camel will serve me."
"'Tis the vehicle of saints," sneered the owner of the rakish Moghul cap. "Verily, when I saw thee mounted on it, Ghâzee-jee, I deemed thee the Lord Ali."
"Peace! scoffer," interrupted the fanatic, "lest I mistake thee for an infidel."
The Moghul ducked hastily from a wild swing of the curved sword, and moved off swearing such firebrands should be locked up; they might set light to the train ere wise men had it ready.
"No fear!" said the smart young troop-sergeant of the 3d. "Who listens to such as he save those whose blood has cooled, and those whose blood was never hot? The fighters listen to women who can make their flame."
Soma, who was drifting with them toward the drug-shops of the city, scowled fiercely. "That may suit thee, Mussulman-jee, who art casteless, and can sup shares with sweeper women in the bazaar; but the Rajpoot needs no harlot to teach him courage. The mothers of his race have enough and to spare."
"Loh! hark to him!" jibed the corporal of the 20th, who was sticking to his prey like a leech. "Ask him, Havildar-jee, if he prefers a sweeper's broom to a sweeper's lips."
There was a roar of laughter from the group.
Soma gave a beast-like cry, looked as though he were about to spring, then--recognizing his own helplessness--flung himself away from all companionship and walked home moodily. They had driven him too far; he would not stand it. If that tale was spread abroad, he would side with the Huzoors who did not believe such things--with the Colonel who understood, like the Colonel before him who had gone home on pension; for the 11th had a cult of their officers. And these fools, his countrymen, thought to make him a butcher by threats; sought to make him take revenge for what deserved revenge. For it was the Sirkar's fault--it was the Sirkar's fault.
In truth a strange conflict was going on in this man's mind, as it was in many another such as his, between inherited traditions, making alike for loyalty and disloyalty. There was the knowledge of his forbears' pride in their victories, in their sahibs who had led them to victory, and the knowledge of their pride in the veriest jot or tittle of ceremonial law. A dull, painful amaze filled him that these two broad facts should be in conflict; that those, whom in a way he felt to be part of his life, should be in league against him. All the more reason, that, for showing them who were the better men; for standing up fairly to a fair fight. By all the delights of Swargal he would like to stand up fair, even to the master--the man who, in his presence, had shot three tigers on foot in half an hour--the demi-god of his hunting yarns for years.
And then, suddenly, he remembered that this hero of his might be shot like a dog on the 31st at Delhi--would be shot, since he was certain to be in the front of anything. Soma's heat-fevered, hemp-drugged brain seized on the thought fiercely, confusedly. That must not be! The master, at any rate, must be warned. He would go down when the sun set, and see if he were still where he had been the day before; and if not?--Why! then it must be two days leave to Delhi! He was not going to butcher the master for all the sweepers' brooms in the world. Fools! those others, to think to drive him, Soma, Chundrabansi! So he flung himself on his string bed to sleep till the sunset came, and the tyranny of heat be overpast.
But there was one, close by in the cantonment bazaar, who waited for sunset with no desire for it to bring coolness. She meant it to bring heat instead. And this was Nargeeza the courtesan. She was past the prime of everything save vice, a woman who, once all-powerful, could not hope for many more lovers; and hers, a man rich beyond most soldiers, lay in jail for ten years. No wonder, then, that as she lay half-torpid among a heap of tawdry finery in the biggest house of the lane set apart by regulation for such as she, there was all the venom of a snake in her drowsy brain. The air of the low room was deadly with a scent of musk and roses and orange-blossom-oil. The half-dozen girls and women who lounged in it, or in the balcony, were half undressed, their bare brown arms flung carelessly upon dirty mats and torn quilts. Their harvest time was not yet; that would come later when sunsetting brought the men from the lines. This, then, was the time for sleep. But Nargeeza, recognized head of the recognized regimental women, sat up suddenly and said sharply:
"Thou didst not tell me, Nasiban, what Gulâbi said. Is she of us?"
A drowsy lump of a girl stirred, yawned, and answered sullenly, "Yea! Yea! she is of us. She claims our right to kiss no cowards--no cowards."
The voice tailed off into sleep again, and Nargeeza lay back with a smile of content to wait also. So, after a time, folk began to stir in the bungalows. First in the rest-house, where, oddly enough, Jim Douglas occupied one end of the long low barrack of a place, and Herbert Erlton the other. The former having come back from the city in an evil temper to get something to eat before starting for Delhi, had found his horse, the Belooch, unaccountably indisposed; Jhungi, who had brought her there safely, professing entire ignorance of the cause, or, on pressure, suggesting the nefarious Bhungi. Tiddu asserting--with a calm assumption of superior knowledge, for which Jim Douglas could have kicked him--that the mare had been drugged. As if anybody could not tell that? And that the drug had been opium. To which the old scoundrel had replied affably that in that case the effects would pass off during the night, and the mare be none the worse; no one be any the worse, since the Huzoor was quite comfortable in Meerut, and could easily stay another day. It was a nicer place than Delhi; there were more sahibs in it, and the presence of the "ghora logue" (i. e., English soldiers) kept everyone virtuous.
His hearer looked at him sharply. Here was some other trick, no doubt, to cozen him out of another five rupees; for something, maybe, as useless as the yellow fakir. And there was really no reason for delay; it was only a case of walking the mare quietly. For the matter of that, the exercise would do her good, and help her to work off the effects of the drug. So he would start sooner, that was all. Nevertheless he gave an envious look at the Major's little Arab in the next stall. It would most likely be marching back to Delhi that night, and he would have given something to ride it again. But as he was returning from the stables, he learned by chance that the Major's plans had been altered. An orderly was coming from his room with letters and a telegram, and knowing the man, Jim Douglas asked him to take one for him also, and so save trouble. It did not take long to write, for it only contained one word, "No." It was in reply to one he had received a few hours before from the military magnate, asking him to do some more work. And as the orderly stowed away the accompanying rupee carefully, Jim Douglas--waiting to make over the paper--saw quite involuntarily that the Major's telegram also consisted of one word, "Come." And he saw the name also; big, black, bold, in the Major's handwriting. "Gissing, Delhi."
He gave a shrug of his shoulders as he turned away to get ready for his start. So that was it; and even Kate Erlton had not benefited by his sacrifice. No one had benefited. There had been no chance for any of them. "Come!" That ended Kate Erlton's hope of concealment, the Major's career. "No!" That ended his own vague ambitions. Still, it was a strange chance in itself that those two laconic renunciations should go the same day by the same hand. No stranger telegrams, he thought, could have left Meerut, or were likely to leave it that night.
He was wrong, however. An hour or two later, the strangest telegram that ever came as sole warning to an Empire that its very foundation was attacked, left Meerut for Agra; sent by the postmaster's niece.
"The Cavalry," it ran, "have risen, setting fire to their own houses besides having killed and wounded all European officers and soldiers they could find near the lines. If Aunt intends starting to-morrow, please detain her, as the van has been prevented from leaving the station."
For, as Jim Douglas paced slowly down the Mall toward Delhi, and Soma, his buckles gleaming, his belts pipe-clayed to dazzling whiteness, was swaggering through the bazaar on his way to the rest-house with his word of warning--the word which would have given Jim Douglas the power for which he had longed--another word was being spoken in that lane of lust, where the time had come for which Nargeeza had waited all day. But she did not say it. It was only a big trollop of a girl hung with jasmine garlands, painted, giggling.
"We of the bazaar kiss no cowards," she said derisively. "Where are your comrades?"
The man to whom she said it, a young dissolute-faced trooper, dressed in the loose rakish muslins beloved of his class--the very man, perchance, who had gone cityward that morning, and dropped an alms into the yellow fakir's bowl--stood for a second in the stifling, maddening atmosphere of musk and rose and orange-blossom; stood before all those insolent allurements, balked in his passion, checked in his desires. Then, with an oath, he dashed from her insulting charms; dashed into the street with a cry:
"To horse! To horse, brothers! To the jail! to our comrades!"
The word had been spoken. The speech which brings more than speech, had come from the painted lips of a harlot.
The first clang of the church bell--which the chaplain had forgotten to postpone--came faintly audible across the dusty plain, making other men pause and look at each other. Why not? It was the hour of prayer--the appointed time. Their comrades could be easily rescued--there was but a native guard at the jail. And hark! from another pair of painted derisive lips came the same retort, flung from a balcony.
"Trra! We of the bazaar kiss no cowards!"
"To horse! To horse! Let the comrades be rescued first; and then----"
The word had been spoken. Nothing so very soul-stirring after all. No consideration of caste or religion, patriotism or ambition. Only a taunt from a pair of painted lips.