CHAPTER II.
DAWN.
The chill wind which comes with dawn swayed the tall grass beyond theriver, and ruffling the calm stretches below the Palace wall died awayagain as an oldish man stepped out of a reed hut, built on a sandbankbeside the boat-bridge, and looked eastward. He was a poojari, ormaster of ceremonial at the bathing-place where, with the first streakof light, the Hindoos came to perform their religious ablutions. So hehad to be up betimes, in order to prepare the little saucers ofvermilion and sandal and sacred gypsum needed in his profession; forhe earned his livelihood by inherited right of hallmarking hisfellow-creatures with their caste-signs when they came up out of thewater. Thus he looked out over those eastern plains for the dawn, dayafter day. He looks for it still; this account is from his lips. Andthis dawn there was a cloud of dust no bigger than a man's hand uponthe Meerut road. Someone was coming to Delhi.
But someone was already on the bridge, for it creaked and swayed,sending little shivers of ripples down the calm stretches. The poojariturned and looked to see the cause; then turned eastward again. It wasonly a man on a camel with a strange gait, bumping noiselessly even onthe resounding wood. That was all.
The city was still asleep; though here and there a widow was stealingout in her white shroud for that touch of the sacred river withoutwhich she would indeed be accursed. And in a little mosque hard by theroad from the boat-bridge a muezzin was about to give the very firstcall to prayer with pious self-complacency. But someone was ahead ofhim in devotion, for, upon the still air, came a continuous rolling ofchanted texts. The muezzin leaned over the parapet, disappointed, tosee who had thus forestalled him at heaven's gate; stared, thenmuttered a hasty charm. Were there visions about? The suggestionsoftened the disappointment, and he looked after the strange, wildfigure, half-seen in the shimmering, shadowy dawn-light, with growingand awed satisfaction. This was no mere mortal, this green-clad figureon a camel, chanting texts and waving a scimitar. A vision has beenvouchsafed to him for his diligence; a vision that would not lose inthe telling. So he stood up and gave the cry from full lungs.
"Prayer is more than sleep! than sleep! than sleep!"
The echo from the rose-red fortifications took it up first; then onechanting voice after another, monotonously insistent.
"Prayer is more than sleep! than sleep! than sleep!"
And the city woke to another day of fasting. Woke hurriedly, so as tofind time for food ere the sun rose, for it was Rumzan, and one-halfof the inhabitants would have no drop of water till the sun set, toassuage the terrible drought of every living, growing thing beneaththe fierce May sun. The backwaters lay like a steel mirror reflectingthe gray shadowy pile of the Palace, the poojari--waist-deep inthem--was a solitary figure flinging water to the sacred airts,absorbed in a thorough purification from sin.
Then from the serrated line of the Ridge came a bugle followed by theroll of a time gun. All the world was waking now. Waking to giveorders, to receive them; waking to mark itself apart with signs ofsalvation; waking to bow westward and pray for the discomfiture of theinfidel; waking to stand on parade and salute the royal standard of aruler, hell-doomed inevitably, according to both creeds.
A flock of purple pigeons, startled by the sound, rose like cloudflakes on the light gray sky above the glimmering dome of the bigmosque, then flew westward toward the green fields and groves on thefurther side of the town. For the roll of the gun was followed by areverberating roll, and groan, and creak, from the boat-bridge. Thelittle cloud on the Meerut road had grown into five troopers dashingover the bridge at a gallop recklessly. The poojari, busy now with hispigments, followed them with his eyes as they clattered straight forthe city gate. They were waking in the Palace now, for a slender handset a lattice wide. Perhaps from curiosity, perhaps simply to let inthe cool air of dawn. It was a lattice in the women's apartments.
The poojari went on rubbing up the colors that were to bring suchspiritual pride to the wearers, then turned to look again. Thetroopers, finding the city gate closed, were back again; clamoring foradmittance through the low arched doorway leading from Selimgarh tothe Palace. And as the yawning custodian fumbled for his keys, the mencursed and swore at the delay; for in truth they knew not what laybehind them. The two thousand from Meerut, or some of them, of course.But at what distance?
As a matter of fact only one Englishman was close enough to beconsidered a pursuer, and he was but a poor creature on foot, stilldazed by a fall, striking across country to reach the Raj-ghat ferrybelow the city. For when Jim Douglas had recovered consciousness ithad been to recognize that he was too late to be the first in Delhi,and that he could only hope to help in the struggle. And that tardily,for the Arab was dead lame.
So, removing its saddle and bridle to give it a better chance ofescaping notice, he had left it grazing peacefully in a field andstumbled on riverward, intending to cross it as best he could; and somake for his own house in Duryagunj for a fresh horse and a moresuitable kit. And as he plodded along doggedly he cursed the sheerill-luck which had made him late.
For he was late.
The five troopers were already galloping through the grape-gardentoward the women's apartments and the King's sleeping rooms.
Their shouts of "The King! The King! Help for the martyrs! Help forthe Holy War!" dumfoundered the court muezzin, who was going late tohis prayers in the Pearl Mosque; the reckless hoofs sent a squattingbronze image of a gardener, threading jasmine chaplets for his godspeacefully in the pathway, flying into a rose bush.
"The King! The King! Help! Help!"
The women woke with the cry, confused, alarmed, surprised; save one ortwo who, creeping to the Queen's room, found her awake, excited,calling to her maids. "Too soon!" she echoed contemptuously. "Can agood thing come too soon? Quick, woman--I must see the King atonce--nay, I will go as I am if it comes to that."
"The physician Ahsan-Oolah hath arrived as usual for the dawnpulse-feeling," protested the shocked tirewoman.
"All the more need for hurry," retorted Zeenut Maihl. "Quick! Slippersand a veil! Thine will do, Fatma; sure what makes thee decent----" Shegave a spiteful laugh as she snatched it from the woman's head andpassed to the door; but there she paused a second. "See if Hafzan bebelow. I bid her come early, so she should be. Tell her to write wordto Hussan Askuri to dream as he never dreamed before! And see," hervoice grew shriller, keener, "the rest of you have leave. Go! cozenevery man you know, every man you meet. I care not how. Make theirblood flow! I care not wherefore, so that it leaps and bounds, andwould spill other blood that checked it." She clenched her hands asshe passed on muttering to herself. "Ah! if _he_ were a man--if _his_blood were not chilled with age--if I had someone----"
She broke off into smiles; for in the anteroom she entered was, man orno man, the representative of the Great Moghul.
"Ah, Zeenut!" he cried in tones of relief. "I would have sought thee."The trembling, shrunken figure in its wadded silk dressing gown pausedand gave a backward glance at Ahsan-Oolah, whose shrewd face was fullof alarm.
"Believe nothing, my liege!" he protested eagerly. "These rioters areboasters. Are there not two thousand British soldiers in Meerut? Theirtale is not possible. They are cowards fled from defeat; liars, hopingto be saved at your expense. The thing is impossible."
The Queen turned on him passionately. "Are not all things possiblewith God, and is not His Majesty the defender of the faith!"
"But not defender of five runaway rioters," sneered the physician. "Myliege! Remember your pension."
Zeenut Maihl glared at his cunning; it was an argument needing all herart to combat.
"Five!" she echoed, passing to the lattice quickly. "Then miracles areabout--the five have grown to fifty. Look, my lord, look! Hark! Howthey call on the defender of the faith."
With reckless hand she set the lattice wide, so becomingvisible for an instant, and a shout of "The Queen! The Queen!"mingled with that other of "The
Faith! The Faith! Lead us, Oh!Ghazee-o-din-Bahadur-shah, to die for the faith."
Pale as he was with age, the cry stirred the blood in the King's veinsand sent it to his face.
"Stand back," he cried in sudden dignity, waving both counselors asidewith trembling, outstretched hands. "I will speak mine own words."
But the sight of him, rousing a fresh burst of enthusiasm, left him nopossibility of speech for a time. The Lord had been on their side,they cried. They had killed every hell-doomed infidel in Meerut! Theywould do so in Delhi if he would help! They were but an advance guardof an army coming from every cantonment in India to swear allegianceto the Padishah. Long live the King! and the Queen!
In the dim room behind, Zeenut Maihl and the physician listened to thewild, almost incredible, tale which drifted in with the scented airfrom the garden, and watched each other silently. Each found in itfresh cause for obstinacy. If this were true, what need to befoolhardy? time would show, the thing come of itself without risk. Ifthis were true, decisive action should be taken at once; and would betaken.
But the King, assailed, molested by that rude interrupting loyalty,above all by that cry of the Queen, felt the Turk stir in him also.Who were these intruders in the sacred precincts, infringing theseclusion of the Great Moghul's women? Trembling with impotentpassion, inherited from passions that had not been impotent, he turnedto Ahsan-Oolah, ignoring the Queen, who, he felt, was mostly to blamefor this outrage on her modesty. Why had she come there? Why had shedared to be seen?
"Your Majesty should send for the Captain of the Palace Guards and bidhim disperse the rioters, and force them into respect for your royalperson," suggested the physician, carefully avoiding all but theimmediate present, "and your Majesty should pass to the Hall ofAudience. The King can scarce receive the Captain-sahib here inpresence of the Consort." He did not add--"in her presentcostume"--but his tone implied it, and the King, with an angrymortified glance toward his favorite, took the physician's arm. Iflooks could kill, Ahsan-Oolah would not, he knew, have supported thosetottering steps far; but it was no time to stick at trifles.
When they had passed from the anteroom Zeenut Maihl still stood as ifhalf stupefied by the insult. Then she dashed to the open latticeagain, scornful and defiant; dignified into positive beauty for themoment by her recklessness.
"For the Faith!" she cried in her shrill woman's voice, "if ye aremen, as I would be, to be loved of woman, as I am, strike for theFaith!"
A sort of shiver ran through the clustering crowd of men below;the shiver of anticipation, of the marvelous, the unexpected.The Queen had spoken to them as men; of herself as woman.Inconceivable!--improper of course--yet exciting. Their bloodthrilled, the instinct of the man to fight for the woman rose at once.
"Quick, brothers! Rouse the guard! Close the gates! Close the gates!"
It was a cry to heal all strife within those rose-red walls, for thedearest wish of every faction was to close them against civilization;against those prying Western eyes and sniffing Western noses,detecting drains and sinks of iniquity. So the clamor grew, and faceswhich had frowned at each other yesterday sought support in eachother's ferocity to-day, and wild tales began to pass from mouth tomouth. Men, crowding recklessly over the flower-beds, trampling downthe roses, talked of visions, of signs and warnings, while thetroopers, dismounting for a pull at a pipe, became the center of eagercircles listening not to dreams, but deeds.
"Dost feel the rope about thy neck, Sir Martyr?" said a bitter jeeringvoice behind one of the speakers. And something gripped him round thethroat from behind, then as suddenly loosed its hold, as a shroudedwoman's figure hobbled on through the crowd. The trooper started upwith an oath, his own hand seeking his throat involuntarily.
"Heed her not!" said a bystander hastily, "'tis the Queen's scribe,Hafzan. She hath a craze against men. One made her what she is. Go on!Havildar-jee. So thou didst cut the _mem_ down, and fling thebabe----"
But the doer of the deed stood silent. He did in truth seem to feelthe rope about his neck. And he seemed to feel it till he died; whenit _was_ there.
But Hafzan had passed on, and there were no more with words ofwarning. So the clamor grew and grew, till the garden swarmed with menready for any deed.
Ahsan-Oolah saw this, and laid a detaining hand on the Captain of theGuard's arm, who, summoned in hot haste from his quarters over theLahore gate, came in by the private way, and proposed to go down andharangue the crowd.
"It is not safe, Huzoor," he cried. "My liege, detain him. These menby their own confession are murderers----"
The King looked from one to the other doubtfully. Someone must get ridof the rioters; yet the physician said truth.
"And if aught befall," added the latter craftily, "your Majesty willbe held responsible."
The old man's hand fell instantly on the Englishman's arm. "Nay, nay,sahib! go not. Go not, my friend! Speak to them from the balcony. Theywill not dare to violate it."
So, backed by the sanctity of the Audience Hall of a dead dynasty, theEnglishman stood and ordered the crowd to desist from profaningprivacy in the name of the old man behind him; whose power he, incommon with all his race, hoped and believed to be dead.
It was sufficient, however, to leave some respect for the royalperson, and make the crowd disperse. To little purpose so far as peaceand quiet went, since the only effect was to send a leaven of revoltto every corner of the Palace. And the Palace was so full ofmalcontents, docked of power, privilege, pensions; of all that makeslife in a Palace worth living.
So the cry "Close the gates" grew wider. The dazed old King clung tothe Englishman's arm imploring him to stay; but now a messenger camerunning to say that the Commissioner-sahib had called and left wordthat the Captain was to follow without delay to the Calcutta gate ofthe city. The courtiers, who had begun to assemble, looked at eachother curiously; the disturbance, then, had spread beyond the Palace.Could, then, this amazing tale be true? The very thought sent themcringing round the old man, who might ere long be King indeed.
Yet as the Captain dashed at a gallop past the sentries standingcalmly at the Lahore gate, there was no sign of trouble beyond, and hegave a quick glance of relief back at those cool quarters of his overthe arched tunnel where the chaplain, his daughter, and her friendwere staying as his guests. He felt less fear of leaving them when hesaw that the city was waking to life as always, buckling down quietlyto the burden and heat of a new day. It was now past seven o'clock,and the sunlight, still cool, was bright enough to cleave all thingsinto dark or light, shade or shine. Up on the Ridge, the brigade,after listening to the sentence on the Barrackpore mutineers, wasdispersing quietly; many of the men with that fiat of patience tillthe 31st in their minds, for the carriage-load of native officersreturning from the Meerut court-martial had come into cantonments latethe night before. On the roofs of the houses in the learned quarterwomen were giving the boys their breakfasts ere sending them off toschool. The milkwomen were trooping in cityward from the country, thefruit-sellers and hawkers trooping out Ridge-way as usual. The postmangoing his rounds had left letters, written in Meerut the day before,at two houses. And Kate Erlton returning from early church had foundhers and was reading it with a scared face. Alice Gissing, however,having had that laconic telegram, had taken hers coolly. The decisionhad had to be made, since nothing had happened; and Herbert had theright to make it. For her part, she could make him happy; she had theknack of making most men happy, and she herself was always contentwhen the people about her were jolly. So she was packing boxes in theback veranda of the little house on the city wall.
Thus she did not see the man who, between six and seven o'clock, ranbreathlessly past her house, as a shortcut to the Court House from thebridge, taking a message from the toll-keeper to the nearest Huzoor,the Collector, who was holding early office, that a party of armedtroopers had come down the Meerut road, that more could be seencoming, and would the Huzoor kindly issue orders. That first and finalsuggestion of the average native subor
dinate in any difficulty.
Armed men? That might mean much or nothing. Yet scarcely anythingreally serious, or warning would have been sent. The Commissioner,anyhow, must be told. So the Collector flung himself on his horse,which, in Indian fashion, was waiting under a tree outside the CourtHouse, and galloped toward Ludlow Castle. No need for that warning,however, for just by the Cashmere gate he met the man he soughtdriving furiously down with a mounted escort to close the city gates.He had already heard the news.[3]
Gathering graver apprehensions from this hasty meeting, the Collectorwas off again to warn the Resident, then still further to beg helpfrom cantonments. No delay here, no hesitation. Simply a man on ahorse doing his best for the future, leaving the present for those onthe spot.
Nor was there delay anywhere. The Commissioner, calling by the way forthe Captain of the Guard, the nearest man with men under him, was atthe gate, giving on the bridge of boats, by half-past seven. TheResident, calling on his way at the magazine for two guns to sweep thebridge, joined him there soon after. Too late. The enemy had crossed,and were in possession of the only ground commanding the bridge.Nothing remained but to close the gate and keep the city quiet tillthe columns of pursuit from Meerut should arrive; for that there wasone upon the road no one doubted. The very rebels clamoring at thegate were listening for the sound of those following footsteps. Thevery fanatics, longing for another blow or two at an infidel to gainParadise withal ere martyrdom was theirs, listened too; for duringthat moonlit night the certainty of failure had been as myrrh andhyssop deadening them to the sacrifice of life.
So the little knot of Englishmen, looking hopefully down the road,looked anxiously at each other, and closed the river gate; kept itclosed, too, even when the 20th claimed admittance from their friendsthe guard within. For the 38th regiment, whose turn it was for citywork, was also rotten to the core.
But they could not close that way through Selimgarh, though it, intruth, brought no trouble to the town. The men who chose it beingintriguers, fanatics, the better class of patriots more anxious tointrench themselves for the struggle within walls, than to swarm intoa town they could not hope to hold. But there were others of differentmettle, longing for loot and license. The 3d Cavalry had many friendsin Delhi, especially in the Thunbi Bazaar; so they made for it bybraving the shallow streams and shifting sandbanks below the easternwall, and so gaining the Raj-ghat gate. Here, after compact with vilefriends in that vile quarter, they found admittance and help. Forwhat?
Between the bazaar and the Palace lay Duryagunj, full of helplessChristian women and children; and so, "_Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed_,"the convenient Cry of Faith, was ready as, followed by the rabble andrefuse once more, the troopers raced through the peaceful gardens,pausing only to kill the infidels they met. But like a furious windgathering up all vile things in the street and carrying them along fora space, then dropping them again, the band left a legacy of licenseand sheer murder behind it, while it sped on to loot.
But now the cry of "Close the gates" rose once more, this time fromthe shopkeepers, the respectable quarters, the secluded alleys, andcourtyards. And many a door was closed on the confusion and neveropened again, except to pass in bare bread, for four long months.
"Close the gates! Close the gates! Close the gates!" The cry rose fromthe Palace, the city, the little knot of Englishmen looking down theMeerut road. Yet no one could compass that closing. Recruits swarmedin through Selimgarh to the Palace. Robbers swarmed in through theRaj-ghat gate to harry the bazaars. Only through the Cashmere gate,held by English officers and a guard of the 38th, no help came. TheCollector arriving therein, hot from his gallop to cantonments, foundmore wonder than alarm; for death was dealt in Delhi by noiseless coldsteel; and the main-guard having to be kept, in order to secureretreat and safety to the European houses around it, no one had beenable to leave it. And all around was still peaceful utterly; even theroar of growing tumult in the city had not reached it. Sonny Seymourwas playing with his parrot in the veranda, Alice Gissing packingboxes methodically. The Collector galloping past--as, scorning thesuggestion that it was needless risk to go further, he repliedbriefly, that he was the magistrate of the town, and struck spurs tohis horse--made some folk look up--that was all.
But he could scarcely make his way through the growing crowd, which,led by troopers, was beginning to close in behind the knot of waitingEnglishmen. And once more they looked down the Meerut road as theyheard that some time must elapse ere they could hope forreinforcement. The guns could not be got ready at a moment's notice;nor could the Cashmere gate guard leave the post. But the 54thregiment should be down in about---- In about what? No one asked; butthose waiting faces listened as for a verdict of life and death.
In about an hour.
An hour! And not a cloud of dust upon the Meerut road.
"They can't be long, though, now," said the eldest there hopefully."And Ripley will bring his men down at the double. If we go into theguard-house we can hold our own till then, surely."
"I can hold mine," replied a young fellow with a rough-hewn homelyface. He gave a curt nod as he spoke to a companion, and together theyturned back, skirting the wall, followed by an older, burlier man.They belonged to the magazine, and they were off to see the best wayof holding their own. And they found it--found it for all time.
But fate had denied to those other brave men the nameless somethingwhich makes men succeed together, or die together. Within half an hourthey were scattered helplessly. The Resident, after seeking supportfrom the city police for one whose name had been a terror to Delhi forfifty years, and finding insult instead, was flying for dear lifethrough the Ajmere gate to the open county; The Commissioner, who,after seizing a musket from a wavering guard beside him and--with thefirst shot fired in Delhi--shooting the foremost trooper dead, seemsto have lost hope, with mutiny around and treason beside him, jumpedinto his buggy alone and drove off to those cool quarters above thePalace gate, as his nearest refuge. Their owner, the Captain soughtlike refuge by flinging himself into the cover of the dry moat, andcreeping--despite injuries from the fall--along it till some of hismen, faithful so far, seeing him unable for more, carried him to hisown room.
The Collector! Strangely enough there is no record of what theMagistrate of the city did, thus left alone. He had been wounded bythe crowd at first, and was no doubt weary after his wild gallopings.Still he, holding his own so far, managed to gain the same refuge,somehow. What else could he do alone? One thing we know he could notdo. That is, mount the broad, curving flight of shallow stone stairsleading to the cool upper rooms. So the chaplain helped him; thechaplain who had "from an early hour been watching the advance of theMeerut mutineers through a telescope and feeling there was mischief inthe wind."
Mischief indeed! and danger; most of all in those rose-red wallswithin which refuge had been sought. For the King was back in thewomen's apartments listening to the Queen's cozenings and HussanAskuri's visions, when that urgent appeal to send dhoolies to conveythe English ladies at the gate to the security of the harem reachedhim; reached him in Ahsan-Oolah's warning voice of wisdom. And helistened to both the wheedling ambition and the crafty policy with ahalf-hearing for something beyond it of pity, honor, good faith; whileHafzan, pen in hand, sat with her large profoundly sad eyes fixed onthe old man's face, waiting--waiting.
"If they come here--outcaste! infidel! I go," said Zeenut Maihl.
"Thou shalt go with a bowstring about thy neck, woman, if I choose,"said the old King fiercely. "Write! girl--the Queen's dhoolies to theLahore gate at once."
So, through the swarms of pensioners quarreling already over newtitles and perquisites, through the groups of excited fanaticspreparing for martyrdom about the Mosque, past Abool-Bukr, three partsdrunk, boasting to ruffling blades of the European mistresses he meantto keep, the Queen's dhoolies went swaying out of the precincts; allyielding place to them. And beyond, in the denser, more dangerouscrowd without, they passed easily; for those tinsel-decked, tawdrycanop
ies, screened with sodden musk and dirt-scented curtains, weresacred.
Sacred even to the refuse and rabble of the city, the dissoluteeunuchs, the mob of retainers, palace guards, and blood-drunksoldierly surging through that long arched tunnel by the Lahore gate,and hustling to get round that wide arch, and so, a few steps further,see the Commissioner standing at bay upon that wide curving red-stonestair that led upward. Standing and thinking of the women above; ofone woman mostly. Standing, facing the wild sea of faces, waiting tosee if that last appeal for help had been heard.
"Room! Room! for the Queen's dhoolies!"
The cry echoed above the roar of the crowd.
At last! He turned, to pass on the welcome news, perchance; but it wasenough--that one waver of that stern face! There was a rush, a cry, aclang of steel on stone, a fall! And then up those wide curvingstairs, like fiends incarnate, jostled a mad crew, elbowing eachother, cursing each other, in their eagerness for that blow whichwould win Paradise.
Four crowns of glory in the first room, where the chaplain, theCaptain, and the two English girls fell side by side. One in the next,where the Collector and Magistrate, weary and wounded, still layalone.
"Way! Way! for the Queen's dhoolies!"
But they had come too late, as all things seemed to come too late onthat fatal 11th of May.
Too late! Too late! The words dinned themselves into a horseman'sbrain, as he dashed out of the compound of a small house in Duryagunjand headed straight through the bazaar for the little house on thecity wall by the Cashmere gate. And as he rode he shouted: "_Deen!Deen!_"
It was a convenient cry, and suited the trooper's dress he wore. Hehad had to shoot a man to get it, but he hoped to shoot many more whenhe had seen Alice Gissing in safety, and the Meerut column had comein. It could not be long now.