CHAPTER XII.

"CUIDICH'N RHI!"

It was one morning in the November of this year, which was so eventful to Dove Gainswood, that a transport, H.M. steamship Indus, was slowly quitting the harbour of Suez, leaving astern the white houses of the town, (which is built upon a flat, with a ridgy eminence in its rear,) and running, partially under canvas, into the Red Sea, bound for Bombay, with troops, chiefly detachments of the 64th Regiment, 78th Highlanders, under Captain Roderick McAra, and the Royal Artillery, all of whom expected to see the beautiful shores of Western India in about fourteen days from that time.

They had already found, at Suez, a certain foretaste of the land towards which they were journeying (but which many of them were fated not to see), in the shape of Hindoo servants, Indian officers in pith helmets and kalkee uniforms returning homeward, and brown ayas clad in cotton and calico; and now, all the soldiers, or nearly so, on board the Indus were young men, little more than recruits, and they crowded in the waist, as the officers did upon the poop and bridge, watching the coast on each side, as hour by hour the great ship sped onward.

To starboard lay the plains of Lower Egypt, with the mountain ridge that looks down upon the Valley of the Nile. On the port side rose Pharaoh's Hill, and then Mount Horeb, where the Law was delivered unto man, and ere long the granite peaks of Mount Sinai, fifteen hundred feet above the sea, excited the admiration even of the most dull by the wonderful combination they presented in outline and colouring, for when evening came and the sun was setting beyond the Egyptian shore, the peaks rose against the deep blue of the sky like petrified fire, and the soldiers, but more especially the Scottish Highlanders, though silent and religious men, gazed with much of wonder, but more of interest and respect, on the land and that sea whose history is coeval with that of mankind.

A little apart from all, in the bow of the steamer, watching alternately the white foam curling up beneath him and the shores of classical and holy antiquity on each hand, was one, in whom now—with his setting-up, closely shorn brown hair, thickened moustache, already embrowned face, and saddened or thoughtful eyes, and who was clad, moreover, in a canvas ship-frock, and the green tartan kilt and gartered hose of the Highland Buffs—it might have taxed even the penetration of Dove to have recognised at once Gillian Lamond—but he it was.

From that night on which we last saw him turning his back, as he believed, for ever upon his home, he had been a soldier; and now he was fully trained, drilled, and en route for India, the land of his father's brilliant services, of his hard toil to acquire a competence, and where he had found a grave.

Like the ardent and imaginative youth he was, Gillian had, but for a little time only, his visions of realising a fortune as if by magic—of conquering fate and destiny, and of returning home to claim Dove Gainswood, vis-et-armis—again and again had he muttered, "I would do anything for riches—I would do anything for moderate wealth"; and now he was off to see the world, "with sixty rounds of ammunition at his back."

Love and sorrow remained with him; but all bitterness of heart had departed now, and alternately something of heedlessness as to what might happen, and of a dogged resolution to do his duty, to grapple with Fate, to excel and to win such honour and glory as might befall a poor private soldier, inspired him alone.

How home to his heart had come that rattling air, "The Girl I left behind me," when in the early dewy morning, and all the world of Southampton seemed abed, he had marched, amid the cheers of his comrades, to the place of embarkation, and felt himself in reality a soldier.

Many things had been sorely against "his grain" at first; the incessant saluting of his superiors, and starting to "attention" at their approach, the barrack "fatigue duties," the manners and language of those with whom he was now in daily contact, for more than once when on duty he had shared the same hard guard-bed with men who used coarse language, and were constantly quarrelling with their comrades, who bullied youngsters out of their money for beer, had been flogged for disgraceful conduct, tried for desertion, and whose names appeared scores of times in the "Defaulters' Book;" but he had borne the infliction of such presence patiently, and thanked Heaven that there were few or no such characters in the brave old Ross-shire Buffs; and he soon learned that the happiness or misery of a soldier depends upon himself, and that an honourable bearing, temperance, and strict obedience would ensure him the protection and regard of his superiors, though he felt that a mighty chasm, in some senses, yawned between himself and them now.

At the depôt, most of the officers and sergeants had noted Gillian; the former suspected that he was the victim of circumstance, though he strictly kept his own counsel as to his antecedents and who he was; and the latter often remarked that he was "a smart young fellow, didn't drink, didn't get into scrapes, and had never been 'up' since he enlisted."

He got used to his duties and position; he strove to fulfil the former, and to endure the latter without repining; but Dove was blotted out of the scheme of his future, yet he ever thought of her as he had last seen her on that night of mental anguish and farewell in the garden. Long ere that hour of calamity came, they had exchanged rings; but the one that she had given him from her beautiful little hand he could not show on his finger now; lest it should be said that thereby hung a tale ill suited to the atmosphere of a barrack-room or orlop deck, besides, apart from cleaning his rifle and accoutrements, he had often work to perform that ill befitted the diamond and pearl ring of Dove, so he wore it with a ribbon at his neck.

She had refused the son of a peer, with all that such an alliance led to—wealth, luxury, rank, London with its society and its drawing-rooms—refused it all, and for his sake!

"How long—how long would all this endure?" he would ask of himself, and was muttering even now, as the great ship sped onward, onward, onward, cleaving the blue waves that roll round the low promontory of Ras Mohammed.

"How would it all end?" Ambition, properly so-called and considered, he had none, and no Marshal's baton had yet been found in the knapsacks of the Ross-shire Buffs. He had shouldered a rifle as much for food as to flee from his own thoughts, and he resolved to do his duty, and die in doing so, if God willed it, but ever and anon came the aching thoughts of Dove!

On one hand, he saw rank and wealth offered her, backed up by assiduity, perseverance, and an undoubtedly prepossessing exterior in Lord Campsie; on the other, were his own absence, obscurity, and hopelessness. When he drew mentally this double picture, he became so desperate and heartless, that all desire to wrestle with hard fortune died within him; while Dove seemed as one who was dead—dead to him certainly. As a bitter sigh escaped him, he felt a hand clap his shoulder, and turning met the bright, cheerful face of his comrade, Colin MacKenzie.

"In the doldrums again, Lamond!" said the latter, half-reproachfully; "I have just got some fresh baccy from the steward—fill your pipe, and we'll blow a little cloud together."

"Thanks, Colin," replied Gillian, proceeding to fill his pipe, which, being a handsome meerschaum, was an object of some interest to his new friends; "I was thinking deeply, and it is not jolly work."

"No—life is a mistake, I have sometimes thought; but still I have contrived to rub on somehow."

"I have often wondered what star I was born under!" sighed Gillian.

"I never did—never had any doubt about mine."

"How?"

"I know deuced well—it was a falling one," replied MacKenzie, laughing heartily.

Colin, of whom we shall have more mention to make, was his chosen comrade and senior in years, as he was about five or six and twenty. His face was ruddy and fresh, he had a thick dark moustache, good regular features, dark grey eyes that, like those of many Scottish mountaineers, were keen as those of the hawk or eagle; he was handsome and stalwart in figure, with a cheerful aspect of perpetual content and jollity, and a frank and fearless bearing.

He was a Highlander from the original cradle of the regiment—Kintail, the land of black cattle, and these he had herded many a day and oft, by the great stones that cover Diarmid's grave, by the shores of Loch Alsh, and on the slopes of Tullochard, which is alike the war-cry and crest of his name, and of the Marquises of Seaforth, the lords of Kintail.

In his boyhood Colin had seen better days, ere misfortune had come upon his father, who was, what the Highlanders call, a "gentleman-drover," or cattle merchant; and so he became a soldier. As such, his companionship and advice had proved of vast service to Gillian in his new and humble phase of life, and each liked, respected, and clung to the other.

Though not exactly told off two and two, every soldier has a comrade, and these men rarely fail each other; each attends to the other's food and wants when on duty, and may clean his arms; accoutrements, or horse, when he comes off that duty. Tom keeps an eye on Dick when he is in hospital, and Dick will be sure to share his baccy, beer, and clearings with Tom at other times; and many a tale told round the guard-room fire turns on regimental traditions of generous, high-spirited, and humane camaraderie, combined with faith and truth; and of this, two are well known. One is of a soldier who, when his comrade, after Culloden, was sentenced to die for desertion, unless a substitute could be procured, according to the then practice, risked a throw of the dice with him on the drumhead and lost! another, of a soldier of the 13th, or 1st Somersetshire regiment, who, in 1800, took five hundred lashes at the triangles to save a comrade who was innocent, of a crime which he had himself committed.

MacKenzie's cheerful manner—for, when not whistling interminable pibrochs, he was always singing "The Woodland Laddie," and Highland boat songs, or telling droll stories—drove Gillian from his sorrows in spite of himself for a time; and something of hope—a hope, he knew not of what—would then dawn in his heart, for he was too young to be always desponding; and by the time the bugles blew "retreat," as the last red ray of sunset paled out on the peak of Mount Sinai, he found himself laughing at some of Colin's remarks; but after the bagpipers struck up "tattoo," and marched round the ship, and all were ordered below save the deck watch, of whom Gillian made one, and he was left as it were to himself, his thoughts fell into the old groove again.

"Am I myself or some one else?" he would mutter; "or am I acting over an incident I have read in a novel or seen in a play—a painful waking dream. Can it be that poor Colin is right, and that life is, after all, a mistake?"

Thus would Gillian ponder for hours, while his comrades of the watch trod to and fro in the waist of the ship, or nestled together to leeward, in their grey greatcoats and Glengarrys, while the sound of voices and laughter, and occasionally the notes of a piano, came from the lighted saloon, from that circle of society from which he was now excluded; and when the officers lingered after mess, and while the bright stars that came out overhead, like the sharp crescent moon then just rising above the isle of Jubal, were reflected in the silent waters of the Red Sea.

At such moments, he strove to forget his harsh, rough, and sometimes repellant surroundings, and some of the unpleasant duties he had to perform; yet when deck-washing in the keen breeze of the British Channel, and anon amid the burning winds of the Red Sea, he would smile bitterly, and think, "Could Dove but see me now!"

By day and night, as the Indus sped on, he had some compensation for his troubles in the wonderful effects of sunshine or moonlight in all parts of the Red Sea, when the wild mountains of its rugged coasts—the abode of the Arab and Bedouin, or when its many isles became visible; holy places of which he had so often heard his Uncle Gainswood cant and snivel; but at times the heat was something dreadful to endure, when the Indus was steaming with the breeze and not head to wind, when even the native stokers fainted in the stoke-hole, and when near the arid rocks that seemed to quiver in the sun, the Highlanders, gasping for breath, thought regretfully of the green mountains of their native home, of the deep and dark blue lochs that wash their bases, of the waving cornfields, of the shady woods, the vast wastes of purple heather, and the pure, balmy air, where the eagle and hawk were whirling aloft.

The poor privates—God help them!—had not much money among them, and Gillian was as yet ignorant or careless of how to spend judiciously his pittance of pay; hence in the days and nights when the air was like a furnace, he often got "a bottle of bitter," that greatest luxury in the East, from the "clearings" of poor Colin, who had been early trained in the "uses of adversity," and in such an atmosphere as that of the Red Sea, at that season, "bitter" was as the nectar of the gods.

At times Colin MacKenzie succeeded in inspiring him with that genuine esprit-du-corps, which exists in all regiments, but in none more than the Scottish, which, from their costume and names, have a double character to maintain, with regard to the historic honour of their country and their prestige as British soldiers; thus Colin was a genuine enthusiast in all that pertained to his clan, and to the regiment, which was raised out of it, and while still wearing its tartan has upon its appointments the caberfiedh of Seaforth, the same stag's head, which was given as a crest to Colin MacKenzie, high chief of Kintail, who shouted "Cuidich'n Rhi" (or Help the King!) and slew by an arrow a stag which was rushing at King Alexander III.* And as Scott sings,

"Who in the land of the Saxon or Gael,
Might match with MacKenzie,
                High Chief of Kintail?"

Alexander gave him other lands in Kintail, with "Cuidich'n Rhi" as a motto, and deergrass as a clan-badge.

* Regimental tradition has it, that MacKenzie slew the stag with his lance, and not with an arrow, as Douglas states in his Peerage, and also that the King had been unhorsed.

He was never wearied of telling Gillian how, after the Ross-shire Buffs were mustered in 1793 by Seaforth himself, at Fort George, the winter of the following year saw them in Holland with the Cameron and Gordon Highlanders and the Black Watch—all young soldiers, who wore the kilt when the cold was so intense that strong brandy froze in the bottles, yet never a Gael dropped by the wayside, while the track of other regiments was marked by the dead and the dying among the snow, as the Duke of York advanced towards Westphalia; of how bravely they fought on the plains of Assaye, brigaded with the MacLeods, and added the elephant to their other trophies; how they conquered at Maida and Java; and how at Argaum, they charged to the sound of their pipes and the war-cry of Cuidich'n Rhi! striking terror to the soul of Scindia, and winning the warmest praises of the future Duke of Wellington.

When Colin spoke of these stirring memories, his dark grey eyes would sparkle and his cheek flush, while his voice became almost tremulous, for his spirit was brave and ardent; but when he spoke of the pipes, and how the "gathering of the MacKenzies" had risen high among the ranks of the routed Albanian Horse and Foot, on the banks of the Nile, he could little foresee how, in the year subsequent to that in which our story opens, the same warlike air from the same wild instrument would strike joy to the hearts of our garrison in beleaguered Lucknow, when he had gone to a lowly grave, and could hear their notes no more.

In due time the Indus was off the sun-baked rocks of Aden—a bleak bare place of ashes and cinders, fabled as once the Rose Garden of Irene, where the wild Abdallees have long since ceased to regard a steamer passing their shore, which is simply a congeries of dark and sombre rocks; but where the little boy divers, for the amusement of the officers and ladies clustered on the poop, ply their trade for sixpences, with as much zest as the mudlarks do at Gravesend.

The steamer had barely dropped her anchor for the purpose of coaling, when a boat, containing a staff-officer, came off to her speedily, pulled by sepoys, with instructions for the officers commanding the troops and ship. These were, that instead of pursuing her voyage to Bombay, she was to proceed towards Bushire, and there join the expedition destined, under Generals Outram and Havelock, for the invasion of Persia, with the Shah of which we had suddenly come to blows. The regiments to which the detachments with the Indus belonged, all formed part of that expedition; and so, three hearty British cheers arose from her deck, when after passing through the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, or the Gate of Tears, so named by early navigators to mark their sense of the perils attendant on its navigation, the courses of the stately steam transport were let fall, her snow-white topsails hoisted and sheeted home, as she hauled up for the Gulf of Persia.

CHAPTER XIII.

IN THE GULF OF PERSIA.

The secret of his past life, or of the position he had lost, Gillian entrusted to none—not even to Colin, who, suspecting that he had some such secret, advised him to keep it from all non-commissioned officers especially, lest the jealousy of some might be roused, if he were noticed by their superiors or promoted before his time; but Gillian was never thrown off his guard, or nearly so, save once, by a lady-passenger, the wife of a staff-officer.

The evening was a lovely one; the Indus under easy steam was some miles distant from the isle of Socotora; the Highlanders on the main-deck had been dancing reels to the sound of the pipes, the player of which had perched himself on the after-capstan, and several officers, with one or two ladies, were clustered at the back of the poop to see them enjoying themselves, and looked on approvingly and applaudingly, as all Highlanders dance, and moreover dance well.

But from this amusement Gillian withdrew, as he became conscious that a young lady was closely observing him, and more than once drew the attention of others upon him especially. Apart from his handsome figure and attractive face, doubtless in his air and bearing she detected something that marked him out from the rest, and this was a distinction from which he then shrunk.

About an hour after this, while the pile of mountains which forms the isle of Socotora had risen higher from the sea, and the sun that was setting far away beyond the Arabian shore, was tipping as if with red fire the mighty granite peaks that are high as Ben Nevis or Ben More, the same young lady had betaken her to her sketch-book, and under the shelter of the break of the poop was busy with her pencil in transferring to paper the bold and striking outline of the hills, which, at the distance they were then, seemed to start abruptly from the sea, while an officer of the 64th lounged close by, and laughingly criticised her progress.

"Oh, I shall never get my sketch made in time—we shall be past it," she exclaimed, with a pretty air of impatience, "and I make all my sketches for the journal which I promised to send home to mamma."

"And the captain won't stop the engines even for you, I fear," said the officer who hovered near her, in his mess jacket and forage cap.

"Do put your cigar away, or don't stand on that side of me."

The officer threw his cigar overboard.

"I should so wish to achieve this drawing—the outlines are changing fast," she added, for already the flat plain from which the mountains start had risen from the sea, and her pretty white hand had to add it to the foreground; "could you assist me, Captain Jones?"

"Can't draw a line," replied the officer; "have drawn a bill, though—a deuced sight too often."

"A few corks too, I suppose?"

Here her eye fell on Gillian, who was loitering near the stair that led to the poop, and who, in truth, had been watching her with an interest that made her colour slightly. She belonged to that "set" in which he could move no more. The hoop on her finger showed that she was married—indeed Gillian knew that she was the wife of Captain Hartley, a staff-officer, though but a young girl, and she was more than merely beautiful.

"Do you draw?" she asked, suddenly.

"A little," said Gillian, colouring in turn, as he raised his hand in salute, "and if you will do me the honour of permitting me"——

"To finish the sketch?"

"If you please?"

"Oh, thanks very much!" she exclaimed, tendering her book and pencils with a bright smile.

"By Jove!" muttered Captain Jones, as by force of habit he proceeded to manipulate another cigar, while Gillian placing the book upon the gunnel rapidly filled in and shaded the drawing, boldly and freely.

"I saw you dancing with your comrades some time ago," said Mrs. Hartley; "it was very picturesque, and awfully jolly!—but those terrible pipes do pierce one's ears so!"

(But a few months after this the same fair girl at Lucknow was fated to hear that piercing sound ascending amid the musketry of the Secunderbagh, as the voice of a delivering angel!)

Gillian laughed at her remark, handed her the finished sketch, for the execution of which she thanked him very sweetly, and he was about to retire, for he felt conscious that the officer was eying him with cool scrutiny, when Mrs. Hartley said, with something of soft interest in her girlish face:

"How long have you been in the Highlanders?"

"Four months."

His voice trembled, for now as the sunshine fell on her hair, it was the identical hue of Dove's, and she was about the stature and age, too, of Dove, and—it might be fancy—with the same sweet and tender form of mouth.

"A mere recruit," said Captain Jones, curtly, as he thought the time had come for the private to withdraw.

"What is this you have written in the corner of my sketch?" she asked.

"Dioscorades."

"Is that your name?" she asked, with surprise.

"No," replied Gillian, laughing quite merrily, "it is the classic name of the island, and was so called by Ptolemy, when it belonged to the Kings of the Incense Country."

"How did you learn all this?"

"By reading, madam."

"I know that even the humblest of your countrymen are usually well educated; but you must have studied—where?"

It was impossible to equivocate with such lovely eyes as hers bent upon him, so Gillian said, reluctantly—

"At the University of Edinburgh."

"Indeed!" and as she spoke her eyes wandered to the coarse white Highland jacket he wore.

"You are a musician, perhaps, as well as an artist," said Captain Jones, with something of a sneer.

"I have a taste, at least, for music, sir, and greatly was I gratified, when last night I heard Mrs. Hartley sing that song of Leonora's from Il Trovatore to your own accompaniment on the piano—she did it, indeed, divinely!"

He was forgetting the gulf between them.

"And you," she asked, "where were you?"

"On sentry at the poop door," replied Gillian, at once remembering himself, and with a salute, he was about to retire, when she said,—

"I beg your pardon, soldier—but you will lose that ring, and it seems a valuable one."

"What ring?"

"The one now dangling at the end of blue ribbon from the breast of your jacket."

It was Dove's engagement-ring, which he hastened to replace or conceal, and hurried forward to mingle with the crowd of soldiers, while the young girl looked after him with sympathy and interest.

"That is a lady's ring," said she, "and thereby hangs a tale! That poor lad has a history, which he keeps locked in his own breast."

"Very likely—most men have until they are under the influence of tobacco and brandy-pawnee, then out it comes hand-over-hand, as the sailors say; but as a rule, Scotsmen are always devilish close about their own affairs."

"Poor—poor fellow!"

"My dear Mrs. Hartley, he is no doubt some fast sprig of anatomy who has come to grief, so your sympathy is quite thrown away—but there goes the drum for mess."

Whether the Captain's remarks affected her, it is impossible to say; but the next time she saw Gillian, she affected to stare intently seaward; so he ventured in the vicinity of the poop no more.

"If not happy, I thought I had at least become content or reconciled to my lot, as poor La Vallière said in her convent," thought he; but despite this, the petty episode made him sigh as he thought of the past, and all that had vanished with it.

As the Indus, hugging the Arabian coast, bore on her way, it was impossible for those who had been a reader like Gillian, not to view with deep and growing interest the shore on which they were now looking for the first time, every foot of which was rendered famous by the records of religious and classical antiquity; and, as the headlands and islands came in sight, it seemed strange to him that he should actually be looking on Arabia; that yonder promontory should be Has al Hhad, where terminates the mighty desert that lies between Mecca and Oman; that these rocks should be the Sohar Isles, and that the coast which anon began to rise on the starboard bow was Beloochistan, and that those mighty peaks which are visible for more than a hundred miles at sea were western Kohistan, the home of the Kurds; that ere long the waters cleft by the steamer were those of the Gulf of Ormus, as her course was altered again, and she headed more directly north-westward for the Gulf of Persia, and left the high basaltic isles of Cape Mussunndom astern.

Some of these natural features were of great grandeur, vastness, and solemnity, but Gillian found, to his own great amusement, that his comrade, MacKenzie, always drew comparisons that were somewhat invidious, between the land of the Great Cyrus, of Darius, even of Ishmael, and Kintail-of-the-Cows; and declared the Gulf of Ormus was no more to be compared to Loch Alsh or Loch Duich, than sherbet was to a good dram of Farintosh.

But, anon, they began to fall in with other ships and transports forming part of the great expedition, and all bearing on to one point of rendezvous; and now it may not be unnecessary to inform the reader of the cause that brought a British army, of which our hero formed a unit, into this remote and remarkable part of the globe for the first time.

It had become apparent to our Government for two years before, that Nasser-ed-Deen, the Shah of Persia, son of the late Mahomet Shah and Queen Velliat, of the Kadjar tribe, was resolved on having a war with us; and to this end had despatched an army, under Prince Sultan Moorad Mirza, into north-western Afghanistan, to act against our interests at Herat. The Governor-General of India remonstrated with the Shah on this hostile demonstration, and, meanwhile, many gross insults were offered to British officials at the Persian capital, where our envoy, the Honourable Charles Murray, had ultimately to strike his flag and retire.

The fall of Kars had been circulated over all Asia, with the most exaggerated stories and rumours, during the Crimean war; while the Russians took especial care that the fall of Sebastopol should not be known in the same remote quarters till long after that event was accomplished. The secret agents of the ever-aggressive Czar had thus the most ample means for producing a double result or effect, the sequel of which was, that, impressed by some vague but pleasing ideas that Britain had been beaten, weakened, and humiliated, the effeminate Persians, like the Zemindars of Oude, that kingdom but recently annexed by the Marquis of Dalhousie, thought that now or never was the time to make war on us, and in defiance of all rights and treaties, to conquer and annex Herat. As every attempt to obtain redress from the Shah—though a prince well acquainted with history, and tolerably correct in his ideas of the relations in which he stood to us and other European powers—proved unavailing, an expedition sailed from Bombay early in January for the Gulf of Persia.

Major-General Sir James Outram, K.C.B., "the Bayard of India," to whom the command was assigned, hastening from London, found that the first division of "the army of Persia," had already sailed, under Major-General Stalker, on which he placed himself at the head of the second, which he reserved for his old Indian comrade, Brigadier Havelock, who arrived soon after.

On entering the Gulf of Persia, Outram received the rank of Lieutenant-General. Colonels Wilson and Houssen were the brigadiers of the first division; Colonels Hamilton (of the Ross-shire Buffs) and Hale were brigadiers of the second. Brigadiers Tapp and Stuart led the cavalry; Hill, the artillery; and there was a numerous staff.

The strength of the whole force destined to invade and to humble the land of that Cyrus who was lord of Babylon, Media, and Persia, was singularly small; for, even when joined by the detachments on board the Indus, it only mustered as follows: 419 sabres, including the 3rd Bombay cavalry and Poonah horse; 4,653 bayonets, including H.M. 64th Foot; the Ross-shire Buffs, 2nd Bombay Europeans, a battalion of Beloochees, and three of native infantry, with thirty-two pieces of cannon, some European artillery, and 1,842 camp followers.

The 78th Highlanders, when joined by Captain Roderick MacAra's detachment, mustered only 739 bayonets.

The general rendezvous of the land and sea forces was at Ma'mer, on the Gulf of Persia, and towards that point all the transports and ships of war were speeding, under sail and steam, on the evening in the end of January.

CHAPTER XIV

A BIVOUAC AND AN "ALERTE" ON THE PLAIN OF SHIRAZ.

The landing-place was Bushire, a well-frequented town, with a harbour, on a long and sandy peninsula, one hundred and twenty miles westward of Shiraz, and in storms or high tides it is completely surrounded by water.

The vessels of the expedition came to anchor in the roads, under the protection of the isle of Karrack, as ships drawing above eighteen feet of water cannot enter the harbour. The town, which is triangular in form, is defended by a mud-wall on the land side, armed with cannon. Gillian, as, with Colin, he stood apart from the rest, comparing notes, could see that it occupied a slight eminence, shelving gently down on each side, and that though mean in reality, it presented rather a handsome appearance to the seaward.

Its streets were narrow; the principal mansions were flat-roofed and terraced, while the minor dwellings were merely unroofed enclosures formed of reeds; and not a dome or minaret rose to break the monotony of the view, which was terminated in the distance by the ever-snow-capped mountains of Ardshir.

The boats were hoisted out, and cavalry, infantry, and artillery, with all their baggage and stores, began the work of disembarkation together. As the troops were crowding towards the gangway and side ladder of the Indus, Gillian saw pretty Mrs. Hartley descending it among the first who went. On this occasion she nodded smilingly to him, and said, while her eyes shone with a peculiar brightness of expression, which was, indeed, her own,

"I shall send your sketch of the island to mamma, as a souvenir of our voyage together in the Indus."

He touched the sling of his rifle in salute, and the fair bright English face passed away from him for the time.

Gillian had now become completely accustomed to his knapsack and accoutrements, for MacAra had frequently held deck parades in heavy marching order. At first his shoulders had ached, and were black as if bruised, and his arms were so stiff that he had to ask his comrade to put off or on his plumed bonnet; now all these seemed as a part of himself, though on the first day's march he felt his heart thumping painfully at his ribs, over which the tight breast-strap was buckled.

In other ships alongside the Indus, the pipers of the regiment could be heard playing "Seaforth's Gathering," the same wild air that, in the warlike days of old, had many a time and oft summoned the MacKenzies to Tullochard, when the bale-fire of war smoked on its lofty summit.

In Bushire, MacAra "handed over" his detachment to the commanding officer, and Gillian with his comrade were pleased to find themselves placed together in company of the former.

Bushire was taken almost without opposition, the Persian troops in the place taking to flight ere the cavalry of the expedition could get their horses on shore; and on the 3rd of February the inland march began.

As the Highlanders moved off with the first division, the pipers, accompanied by all the brass drums, struck up "High Alisdair."

"That is the march of King Alexander, who gave to the MacKenzies the stag's head that is now on your sporran," said Colin; "the same Alexander who hunted in Kintail, and was killed at Kinghorn."

For, strange as it may sound to English ears, our Scottish regiments often muster, march and charge at times, to airs, perhaps, a thousand years old—the oldest and grandest of all being the march of Gillichroisd, or the "Follower of Christ."

Gillian was but a small unit in Outram's army—a nameless private—true! yet, when he thought that the soil he trod was Persia, the land of that Cyrus who conquered Lydia, turned the current of the mighty Euphrates, and slew Belshazzar; the land of the Selucidæ, and many other warlike dynasties, high and great thoughts rose within him; and when he heard the trumpets of cavalry, and the bands of the other regiments filling the morning air with martial music—the native infantry clad in silver grey, faced with white, the Bombay rifles in green, the picturesque battalion of Beloochees; and more than all, while he looked along the still more picturesque column of the 78th on the march, with the black waving plumes and graceful tartans, and thought of all the past and of the scenes in which those kilts and bonnets had so often led the way to death, but never to disaster or defeat, there swelled up in his heart a glow of passionate triumph, which, though difficult to describe, is second to none that Heaven implants in the human heart.

The chief, that pet phrase for the colonel, now common to all our line regiments, who have caught it up from the Highland corps, rode at the head of the column. He was a worthy cadet of "the princely House of Hamilton," as Scott has it, and was yet to win for himself a glorious name in the terrible wars of India.

"A braver or a better man is not in the British army," said Captain MacAra to Gillian, whose superior bearing he had frequently remarked; "if Hamilton has one fault, it is too great an eagerness for battle; and many a time, on our long and dusty marches in Central India, I have seen him marching on foot, while the knapsacks of the failing and the weary were slung on the back of his horse; so Lamond, you may well be proud to serve under him."

An open plain, some forty miles in extent, lies between the mud-wall of Bushire and the chain of snow-clad mountains separating it from Shiraz. On this plain nothing was visible but occasional clumps of palm-trees, though in the gardens, three miles distant from the town, pomegranates, oranges, and aloes grew in luxuriance together.

During the first two days' march our troops encountered some of those unpleasant incidents peculiar to a tropical climate. Tempests of wind swept across the advancing columns, bearing with them mighty clouds of fine white, whirling dust, which penetrated not only the ears, eyes, and nostrils of the soldiers, but seemed to force its way through the very pores of the skin.

"I'd give a month's pay for a good glass of beer," said Colin MacKenzie, as he looked ruefully at his feather-bonnet, and shook its black plumage which the dust had turned to white; and thirsty indeed were they all; for though the heat was moderate, the dust was stifling, all the more so, when kicked up by so many thousand marching feet. They were literally enveloped in it, as in a dense and blinding cloud, amid which, at times, the columns seemed like masses of shadowy spectres.

The sun set in dun and dusky-looking clouds when Sir James Outram ordered the troops to halt and bivouac, but in the order of march. It was in an open and comfortless place; but each battalion piled arms by companies, date-trees were hewn down, dry branches collected, and fires were lighted. Round these the officers and men sat or lay in groups, cloaked or great-coated, and strove to make themselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit. This was on the 4th of February, and all were full of hope that on the morrow they would thrash the Persians, who were said to be in position, and in some strength, about nine miles distant.

After supping on a single ration biscuit, and a draft of cold water from his canteen, Gillian reclined upon his knapsack, and, as usual, began to indulge in reverie. Far away from the singular scene around him, where the glare of the watch-fires produced a Rembrandtish effect of strong red light and deep shadow on the groups of soldiers, the kilted Highlanders, the dark sepoys in their blue great-coats, the wild Belochees in their scarlet turbans and Asiatic costume, the piles of glittering arms, with all their bright bayonets fixed, and the distant figures of the cavalry videttes thrown out in the direction of the enemy—far away from that Persian bivouac and the snowy hills of Shiraz, his mind sped home—home to Dove, back to that bright eve of sunshine when they first acknowledged their love for each other, and that bitter eve of gloom and sorrow when they parted, it would seem, for ever.

How wondrously changed were all his surroundings now! He should never, never see her more, even as the wife of another.

He strove to thrust aside such thoughts, and to listen to the heedless banter and the songs with which his comrades strove to while away the time; and merrily many of them sang, though, for all they could foresee, that night might be their last in the land of the living.

And now Colin struck up an old ditty—a reaper lassie's song—he had learned from his mother, and sung it to that air which is still used as the march of the 55th, or old Stirlingshire.

"To win my love in glances soft, the woodland laddie came;
He vowed he'd ever be sincere, when thus he told his flame:
'The moon is bright, my winsome lass, as bright as moon can be,
To the woodland come, my lassie dear—to the greenwood come wi' me.'

"My lad wi' love was sae distressed, I could na' say him nay,
My lip he pressed, my hand caressed, as we gaed owre the brae:
'My soldier-lad, thou'rt brave and braw, and blythe as blythe can be,
And I to yonder fair greenwood, will gang my lad wi' thee.'

"Our bridal day has come to pass; such joy was never seen,
For I am called the greenwood lass—the soldier-laddie's queen!
I bless the day, sae fresh and fair, I tauld my mind sae free—
And went to yonder gude green wood, my soldier lad wi' thee."

The last line of each verse was chorused, and in this homely ditty, which woke the echoes of the date groves of Shiraz, none joined more heartily than an old staff colonel, who had reined up his horse near the company of MacAra, and with kindly interest expressed in his war-worn, grey, but handsome face, was looking at the Highlanders.

"The general's orders are, that we march at daybreak," said he to Captain MacAra; "where can I find Colonel Hamilton?"

"At the head of the column," replied the captain.

"Come here, young man," said the Colonel to Gillian, as he dismounted; "hold my horse for a few minutes."

Gillian started to his feet mechanically, but the expression of his face was rendered fully apparent in the light of the fire that blazed close by them. On seeing the angry and haughty flush that suffused his features, the old field-officer glanced at him inquiringly and curiously; but ere Gillian could take the reins, MacKenzie started forward and said:

"Allow me, Lamond—I understand cattle better than you."

"Thanks," muttered Gillian, as he wearily resumed his place on the sod; "I thought I had got over all this sort of thing, and must school myself, in time, to do so."

In a few minutes the old Colonel returned, and sprang on his horse, and waving his hand, exclaimed, as he rode off:

"To-morrow we may be face to face with the Persians, so 'Clanna nan Gael anguillan achele!'"

From this cry—the favourite toast, meaning "Clansmen, shoulder to shoulder," they learned that he was a countryman of their own.

Weary with the long and dusty day's march, Gillian strove to sleep; but in addition to the strangeness of the place, and his general surroundings, there was the sensation of still being at sea, and on board the Indus; he had yet "the roll of the ship," thus the ground on which he lay seemed to heave beneath him, to rise, fall, and oscillate.

At last he dropped into a kind of dull waking doze, and not till rain began to fall was he aware that, in addition to his grey great-coat, he was covered by that of Colin Mackenzie, who had spread it over him.

"I cannot permit this," he exclaimed, starting up.

"You've not been used to this kind of work, Lamond," said the other; "many a night, when stalking deer or driving cattle, I have slept on the slopes of Tullochard with only my plaid about me."

"You are a good, kind fellow, Colin!"

"I have known misfortune, so have you—I can see that with half an eye."

And now the rain began to fall as surely it had never fallen since the flood. Long, long did our Persian army remember that dreadful thunderstorm in the plain of Shiraz; mingled with hail, the rain came down in blinding torrents, drenching to the skin officers and men, for all were alike tentless and shelterless, while from the snow-clad hills there came an icy wind that rendered their sufferings all the greater; but nothing could daunt the ardour of such troops, especially when led by such a general as Outram—"Old Jamie Outram," as they loved to call him.

The infantry drums beat, and the cavalry trumpets blew "boot and saddle," though the troopers were booted and the horses saddled (as they had been throughout that wretched night), when the grey dawn of the 5th of February stole into that wet and desolate bivouac, and the brigades stood to their arms. All loaded muskets were discharged in the air and reloaded, to preclude any missing fire when the march to the front was resumed, after each man had breakfasted on a pulpy biscuit, the rain having soaked everything in their haversacks.

Riding by her husband's side, among the staff of the 1st Division, Gillian saw the pretty Mrs. Hartley well-mounted, pass to the front, caracoling her horse, and laughing merrily, sitting square in her saddle, patting the neck of her horse as he arched it, in impatience of her tiny but restraining hand. Where or how she had passed the night he knew not; but her bright auburn hair was coiled smoothly under her smartly-veiled hat, and her well-fitting habit was as fresh as if she had only come out of "the Row." Despite Captain Hartley's wish, she would not remain with other ladies on board the Indus, but insisted on accompanying him into the field—an affectionate obstinacy which was yet to cost them both dear.

About midday the bugles of the advanced guard sounded a halt, and then every eye brightened, and every heart beat high with expectation, as a murmur ran along the columns that "the enemy were in front;" and ere long the Persians, in grey-looking masses, were seen in possession of a strongly-intrenched position, where ever and anon the steel of their bayonets and swords flashed out as the occasional gleams of a watery sun fell on them.

"The brigades will deploy from column into line," was now the order of Outram, whose firm dark face, with lip compressed, and thick grizzled moustache, seemed to glow with ardour, as his staff galloped hither and thither to the leaders of brigades and regiments; but barely was the order of battle complete, when, to the intense annoyance of all, the Persian masses seemed to break, and then, by the wavering and uncertain gleaming of their arms, it was evident that they were in full retreat, and without firing a shot!

"Forward, the cavalry!" was then Outram's order.

Cheerily the trumpets rang out, and unsheathing their swords as they galloped off, the Horse of Brigadier Housen swept forward in hot pursuit. He narrowly escaped a ball which pierced his saddle; but many of the Persians were cut down on every hand, and the military Governor of Bras-joon, a dark and fierce-looking man, wearing a dark fur cap and plume, a blue frock and large epaulettes, was made prisoner.

On the 7th of February the march was resumed, yet the Persians still avoided all collision with our troops, who could see them, but at a vast distance, still continuing their retreat into the dark defiles and woody fastnesses of the snow-capped mountains that overlook the plain of Shiraz.

In that open spot—open save where a few scattered date-palms grew, the army again halted and bivouacked for the night. Arms were piled, fires lighted, and the out-pickets posted in the direction of the mountains.

Gillian was on duty as an advanced sentinel, and as the darkness was closing, he stood, as in duty bound, with arms "ordered," and his eyes fixed on the distance, where a range of red sparkling dots along the mountain slopes indicated the watch-fires of the Persians. Weary with the toil of the past day's march he would gladly have slept; but now he had to keep himself most keenly awake and alive to all about him for the single hour he was posted, such being the period when sentinels are in front of an enemy. The sound of horses' hoofs made him spring to attention and challenge, and he found himself face to face with the old staff-colonel, whom he had often observed hanging about the flanks of the Highlanders when on the march.

"You are a young soldier for this sort of work," said the veteran, checking his horse, and looking kindly at Gillian's pale face; "but you know your duty, I presume?"

"Yes, sir; to observe the enemy closely, to communicate by signal with the picquet, and with the sentinels on my right and left."

"Exactly. You seem a good style of young man—a smart fellow, too! I should like much to have you for my permanent orderly."

Gillian was silent, but he coloured deeply.

"This would remove you from much of the discomfort, and even the perils of the service," urged the other.

"For those very reasons, permit me to decline, sir."

"My lad," said the Colonel, after a little pause, "you seem to have belonged to another sphere than the ranks?"

"I did, sir."

"Your family——"

"Are all in their graves, in India."

"Your father," continued the old man, kindly.

"Was a soldier, like myself."

"His rank—you may tell me that?"

"A colonel in the Bengal army; he was killed in action. Please say nothing of this to any one, and let us cease the subject. It is not what we choose that we do in this world; but what Fate chooses for us."

"Most true, my lad, your secret is your own, keep it. Good night."

"Good night, sir," replied Gillian, as the old officer, with something of hauteur in his bearing, rode off.

"Orderly!" said Gillian, with great irritation, when his post was "relieved;" "that d—d old fellow seems to have an inclination to insult me, Colin!"

"Nay, you misjudge him; how can you think so?" replied MacKenzie; "he looks like a kind old man; but, of course, he views you only as—as—"

"What?"

"A private soldier, like myself."

"True; and now for a snooze on mother earth."

The night was one of intense darkness; not a star was visible overhead; it was very still, too, and no sound broke the silence save the occasional neigh of a charger, or the voice of a distant sentinel challenging a passer near his post, and Gillian soon dropped into a sound sleep—yet not so sound as to prevent him dreaming, and for the first time, these many months, of Dove Gainswood.

A strange but vivid sense of the reality of her presence was impressed upon him. Her face, with all its sweetness of expression, its pale and delicate beauty, seemed bending close to his, and as she whispered to him there was tender quivering in her cherry lips that was peculiarly her own. Her voice came distinctly to his ear as she sang the last lines of "Wild Joanna,"

"When half asleep, I'm reading,
    Some amorous lyric rare,
Lean softly down and kiss me,
    From the bosom of the air!

"Thus come, my wild Joanna!
    For well I know 'twill be,
If ever soul come back again,
    Thy soul will come to me!"

Her lips seemed about to touch his, when he started and awoke, to be haunted, bewildered, and half-terrified by the dream and its import, as there flashed upon his memory her farewell words in the garden: "If I die, Gillian, I will come to you like the wild Joanna of my song"; but he had little more time to think of it, for, at that moment, the whole bivouacked army was startled by a volley of musketry flashing redly out of the gloom, together with the roar of two pieces of cannon in its rear.

Many men fell killed and wounded; bullets struck and overturned the piles of arms to which the soldiers mechanically rushed; thousands of voices rang clamourously on the night air; chargers plunged; drums were beaten, trumpets, bugles, and bagpipes blown; and for more than half an hour the whole force became involved in a most singular and utterly indescribable skirmishing fire with an unseen foe, for the night, we have said, was so gloomy that the darkness seemed opaque.

Vociferously yelling and blowing their trumpets, the Persian cavalry galloped about, cutting down stragglers, and MacKenzie caught by the throat a Persian bugler who was actually mingling in the ranks of the Highlanders, and blowing with might and main our British bugle calls, "incline to the right," "incline to the left," and "cease firing," to increase the general confusion and "the fighting devil which lurks in the heart of every man."

The shrill yelling, the hoarse shouting and bugling ceased after a time, and satisfied with the alerte they had given us, the Persians withdrew into the gloom and mist, leaving the British under arms, their hearts throbbing wildly with rage and excitement, and the bivouac strewed with killed and wounded, officers, soldiers, camp-followers, and baggage animals.

Dawn spread over the plain and on Outram's now marshalled host, and with it spread the startling intelligence that Mrs. Hartley—the pretty little woman who was daily seen riding by her husband's side among the staff—had been carried off by the Persian cavalry, and the grief and terror of the unfortunate captain were pitiable to behold.

Gillian was deeply concerned by the intelligence, for, though far removed from him, he had somehow learned to look upon her as a friend.

CHAPTER XV

THE BATTLE OF KHOOSH-AB.

"I say, Gillian, old fellow," said Colin MacKenzie, with a waggish expression in his eyes, as the troops began their forward march again; "who is Dove—Dove, yes, that is the name?"

"Dove Gainswood!" said Gillian, in a breathless voice, the tossing plumes of his bonnet failing to hide or shade the flush that crossed his face.

"You mention that name now with surprise; when last you muttered it, it was lingeringly done, as if sweet to your memory."

"When?"

"Last night, as you lay near me asleep on the turf, ere that confounded shindy began."

"Ask me not about her," said Gillian, sadly and petulantly.

"Why? She is some girl you have loved and lost, I suppose."

"Yes—loved and lost," muttered Gillian, through his firmly set teeth.

"Well—I have had my turn of that, too—so we shall say no more about it; we've other things to think of now."

That the Persians should have a knowledge of our bugle-calls surprised the troops, very few of whom, if any perhaps, were aware that European discipline had first been introduced into the Persian army by two Scottish soldiers of fortune—Major Christie and Lieutenant Lindesay—while a third Scot—Doctor Campbell—organised their medical staff, such as it was, under Prince Abbas Mirza, when his army was encamped on the plain of Yam.

As our troops advanced early on the morning of the 8th of February, the mist that had overhung the plain drew up skyward like a mighty curtain, and then the Persian army, about 7,000 strong, led by Shooja-ool-Moolk, were seen in position with eighteen pieces of cannon, some of which were of very heavy calibre.

Among these troops, the flower of the Persian serlaz, or infantry, were the Shah's own guards, the regiments of Shiraz, Tabriz, and Kaskai, with the Eilkhanee cavalry. All were uniformly clad in dark blue, with white cross-belts and conical caps of black lambs-wool. Their ridgy lines of bayonets and their crooked sabres shone brightly in the sun, and at the usual intervals were seen their colours, with the Persian Lion, floating in the wind.

Their right flank rested on a village, Khoosh-ab, which gave its name to the battle that ensued. Along their front were several dry water-courses, which were lined with skirmishers in a very orthodox manner; and, as our troops deployed and advanced in line against the position, a cannonade from the flanks of each army preluded the closer strife; but the resolute Outram advanced with such steady rapidity, that our losses, as yet, were small.

"One steady volley, Sir James," said Colonel Hamilton; "and then we shall get at them with the bayonet—we can face the world—do everything with the bayonet!"

"Except sit upon it, as old Nap said," replied Outram, laughing. But next moment a cry escaped him. Struck by a Persian ball, his horse fell under him, and he was stunned, as he tells us in his despatch, "at the commencement of the contest, recovering only in time to resume my place at the head of the army shortly before the close of the action."

Of the latter, Gillian, now for the second time under fire, could see little but what occurred in his own immediate vicinity. The first thrill at facing death or mutilation, the first long-drawn breath and sensation of tightness about the chest as the balls whizzed past—one tearing away a plume of his bonnet and another grazing his hand, a third killing the man on his left—passed away, and he heard the voice of Captain MacAra above the fast-gathering and deepening roar of the musketry.

"Old Roderick," as the soldiers called him, was a grim and sun-burnt warrior, who had served in the Afghan campaign, and with the army in Kohistan; he had lost an ear in the Pisheen Valley, his left hand in the Khyber Pass; he led the stormers at Ghuznee, and, covered with wounds, had been carried away for dead at Candahar.

"We are now in action," he cried, brandishing his claymore; "men, be steady—none must fall out to look after the wounded; they must lie with the dead, and remember, lads, it is as natural to die as to be born!"

"The very words of Jeremy Taylor," said Colin MacKenzie; "but who'd have thought, Gillian, of hearing them here in Persia, and from the lips of old Roderick MacAra!"

Another moment, and the gallant MacAra was lying prone on his face with a bullet in his heart; but coolly, as if upon parade, the lieutenant assumed the command of the company as the lines went on.

The attack was, in reality, made by our artillery and cavalry, supported by two lines of infantry. The cavalry, like the rush of a mighty wind, charged twice with splendid success and gallantry, the Poonah Horse burst into a square of the Kaskai regiment as if it had been but a field of wheat, and captured its colours, while the 3rd Light Cavalry, by sheer dint of the sword, nearly annihilated the entire battalion; but Captain Forbes, their leader, fell wounded, and Lieutenant Frankland, of the 2nd Europeans, acting as Brigade Major, was killed. In this charge, Lieutenant A. Moor won the Victoria Cross. "He was the first man within the square of infantry. His horse was shot under him and he was on the point of being bayoneted, when Lieutenant John Grant Malcomson, of the same regiment, rode to his assistance, cut down the Persians on the right and left, and, by dragging him out of the enemy's square, also won the much-prized Order of Valour."

Our first line of infantry rushed on; the foe were soon so close that Gillian could see the dark faces, the darker gleaming eyes of the fur-capped Persians, and the flashing of their muzzles seemed terribly near, when, with a dreadful crash, the bayonets were brought to the charge, and their whole line gave way about ten in the morning.

They fell back in a state of utter disorder, and seemed to bear away with them some of MacAra's company, who had got mingled with them in the wild mêlée, and among these was Colin MacKenzie.

As the regiment halted for a minute to re-form and close in, out of the hurley-burley and the smoke that whirled and eddied in front, where the Persians were crowding together in yelling herds and casting away their arms, there came the stately figure of a Highland soldier.

It was MacKenzie, who came staggering back towards the British line; save one, all the black feathers of his bonnet were shred away, his white belts were spotted with blood, one bare knee was all bloody too, like his hands and his bayonet, which was now bent and twisted. He had a fierce, dazed aspect, as if yet hand-to-hand with the Persians; his tartans were torn and his red jacket was rent under the arms. His keen eyes were dilated and his teeth were set; but a cry of "Cuidich'n Rhi!" ending in a low wail of agony escaped him, as he fell on his face dying.