CHAPTER IV.
NOON.
But if the schoolmaster of one school lay dead in the sunlight therewas another, well able to teach a useful lesson, left alive; and hisschool remains for all time as a place where men may learn what mencan do.
For about three hundred yards from the deserted College, about sixhundred from the main-guard of the Cashmere gate, stood the magazine,to which the two young Englishmen, followed by a burlier one, hadwalked back quietly after one of them had remarked that he could holdhis own. For there were gates to be barred, four walls to be seen to,and various other preparations to be made before the nine men whoformed the garrison could be certain of holding their own. And theirown meant much to others; for with the stores and the munitions of warsafe the city might rise, but it would be unarmed; but with them atthe mercy of the rabble every pitiful pillager could become a recruitto the disloyal regiments.
"The mine's about finished now, sir," said Conductor Buckley, salutinggravely as he looked critically down a line ending in the powdermagazine. "And, askin' your pardon, sir, mightn't it be as well tosettle a signal beforehand, sir; in case it's wanted? And, if you haveno objection, sir, here's Sergeant Scully here, sir, saying he wouldlook on it as a kind favor----"
A man with a spade glanced up a trifle anxiously for the answer as hewent on with his work.
"All right! Scully shall fire it. If you finish it there in the middleby that little lemon tree, we shan't forget the exact spot. Scullymust see to having the portfire ready for himself. I'll give the wordto you, as your gun will be near mine, and you can pass it on byraising your cap. That will do, I think."
"Nicely, sir," said Conductor Buckley, saluting again.
"I wish we had one more man," remarked the Head-of-the-nine, as hepaused in passing a gun to look to something in its gear with swiftprofessional eye. "I don't quite see how the nine of us are to workthe ten guns."
"Oh! we'll manage somehow," said his second in command, "the nativeestablishment--perhaps----"
George Willoughby; the Head-of-the-nine, looked at the sullen group ofdark faces lounging distrustfully within those barred doors, and hisown face grew stern. Well, if they would not work, they should atleast stay and look on--stay till the end. Then he took out his watch.
"Twelve! The Meerut troops will be in soon--if they started at dawn."There was the finest inflection of scorn in his voice.
"They must have started," began his companion. But the tall figurewith the grave young face was straining its eyes from the bastion theywere passing; it gave upon the bridge of boats and the lessening whitestreak of road. He was looking for a cloud of dust upon it; but therewas none.
"I hope so," he remarked as he went on. He gave a half-involuntaryglance back, however, to the stunted lemon-bush. There was a blackstreak by it, which might be relied upon to give aid at dawn, or dusk,or noon; high noon as it was now.
The chime of it echoed methodically as ever from the main-guard,making a cheerful young voice in the officer's room say, "Well! theenemy is passing, anyhow. The reliefs can't be long--if they startedat dawn."
"If they had started when they ought to have started, they would havebeen here hours ago," said an older man, almost petulantly, as he roseand wandered to the door, to stand looking out on the baking courtwhere his men--the two companies of the 54th, who had come down underhis charge after those under Colonel Riply had shot down theirofficers by the church--were lounging about sullenly. These men mighthave shot him also but for the timely arrival of the two guns; mighthave shot at him, even now, but for those loyal 74th over-awing them.He turned and looked at some of the latter with a sort of envy. Thesemen had come forward in a body when the regiment was called upon byits commandant to give honest volunteers to keep order in the city.What had they had, which his men had lacked? Nothing that he knew of.And then, inevitably, he thought of his six murdered friends andcomrades, officers apparently as popular as he, whose bodies werelying in the next room waiting for a cart to remove them to the Ridge.For even Major Paterson, saddened, depressed, looked forward to decentsepulture for his comrades by and by--by and by when the Meerut troopsshould arrive. And the half dozen or more of women upstairs werecomforting each other with the same hope, and crushing down the crythat it seemed an eternity, already, since they had waited for thatlittle cloud of dust upon the Meerut road. But for that hope theymight have gone Meerutward themselves; for the country was peaceful.
Even in Duryagunj, though by noon it was a charnel-house, the score orso of men who kept cowards at bay in a miserable storehouse comfortedthemselves with the same hope; and women with the long languid eyes ofone race, looked out of them with the temper and fire of the other,saying in soft staccato voices--"It will not be long now. They will behere soon, for they would start at dawn."
"They will come soon," said a young telegraph clerk coolly, as hestood by his instrument hoping for a welcome _kling_; sending,finally, that bulletin northward which ended with the reluctantadmission, "we must shut up." Must indeed; seeing that some ruffiansrushed in and sabered him with his hands still on the levers.
"They will be here soon," agreed the compositors of the _DelhiGazette_ as they worked at the strangest piece of printing the worldis ever likely to see. That famous extra, wedged in between Englishelection news, which told in bald journalese of a crisis, which becamethe crisis of their own lives before the whole edition was sent out.
But down in the Palace Zeenut Maihl had been watching that whitestreak of road also, and as the hours passed, her wild impatiencewould let her watch it no longer. She paced up and down the Queen'sbastion like a caged tigress, leaving Hafzan to take her place at thelattice. No sign of an avenging army yet! Then the troopers' tale mustbe true! The hour of decisive action had come, it was slipping past,the King was in the hands of Ahsan-Oolah, and Elahi Buksh, whose facewas set both ways, like the physician's. And she, helpless, half indisgrace, caged, veiled, screened, unable to lay hands on anyone! Oh!why was she not a man! Why had she not a man to deal with! Herhenna-stained nails bit into her palms as she clenched her hands, thenin sheer childish passion tore off her hampering veil and, rolling itinto a ball, flung it at the head of a drowsy eunuch in the outsidearcade--the nearest thing to a man within her reach.
"No sign yet, Hafzan?" she asked fiercely.
"No sign, my Queen," replied Hafzan, with an odd derisive smile. Ifthey did not come now, thought this woman with her warped nature, theywould come later on; come and put a rope round the necks of men whohad laid violent hands on women.
"Then I stop here no longer!" cried Zeenut Maihl recklessly; "I mustsee somewhat of it or die. Quick, girls, my dhooli, I will go back tomy own rooms. 'Twill at least bear me through the crowd, and thejogging will keep the blood from tingling from very stillness."
So through the tawdry, dirty, musky curtains a woman's fierce eyewatched the crowd hungrily, as the dhooli swung through it. A fiercecrowd too in its way, but lacking cohesion. Like the world withoutthose four rose-red walls, it was waiting for a master. And the manwho should have been master was taking cooling draughts, and composingcouplets, so her spies brought word. No hope from him till she couldlure him back from his vexation and put some of her own energy intohim. Who next was there likely to do her bidding? Her eye, taking inall the strangeness of the scene, troopers stabling their horses inthe colonnades, sepoys bivouacking under the trees, courtiers hurryingup and down the private steps, found none in all that crowd ofplace-hunters, boasters, enthusiasts, whom she could trust. The King'seldest son Mirza Moghul was the fiercest tempered of them all, theonly one whom she feared in any way; perhaps if she could get hold ofhim----
As her dhooli swayed up the steps he was standing on them talking toMirza Khair Sultan. She could have put out her hand and touched him;but even she did not dare convention enough for that. Nevertheless,the sight of him determined her. If the King did not come back to herby noon, she must lure the Mirza to he
r side.
"Thou art a fool, Pir-jee," she said petulantly to Hussan Askuri who,as father confessor, had entrance to the womens' rooms and wasawaiting her. "Thou hast no grip on the King when I am absent. Canstnot even drive that slithering physician from his side?"
"Cooling draughts, seest thou, Pir-jee," put in Hafzan maliciously,"have tangible effects. Thy dreams----"
"Peace, woman!" interrupted the Queen sternly, "'tis no time forjesting. Where sits the King now?"
"In the river balcony, Ornament-of-palaces," replied Fatma glibly,"where he is not to be disturbed these two hours, so the physiciansays, lest the cooling draught----"
The Queen stamped her foot in sheer impotent rage. "I must seesomeone. And Jewan Bukht, my son? why hath he not answered mysummons?"
"His Highness," put in Hafzan gravely, "was, as I came by just now,quarreling in his cups with his nephew, the princely Abool-Bukr,regarding the Inspectorship-of-Cavalry; which office both desire--aweighty matter----"
"Peace! she-devil!" almost screamed the Queen. "Can I not see, can Inot hear for myself, that thy sharp wits must forever drag the rottenheart to light--thou wilt go too far, some day, Hafzan, and then----"
"The Queen will have to find another scribe," replied Hafzan meekly.
Zeenut Maihl glared at her, then rolled round into her cushions as ifshe were in actual physical pain. And hark! From the Lahore gate, asif nothing had happened, came the chime of noon. Noon! and nothingdone. She sat up suddenly and signed to Hafzan for pen and ink. Shewould wait no longer for the King; she would at least try the Mirza.
"'This, to the most illustrious the Mirza Moghul, Heir-Apparent byright to the throne of Timoor,'" she dictated firmly, and Hafzanlooked up startled. "Write on, fool," she continued; "hast neverwritten lies before? 'After salutation the Begum Zeenut Maihl,'"--thehumbler title came from her lips in a tone which boded ill for therecipient of the letter if he fell into the toils,--"'seeing that inthis hour of importance the King is sick, and by order of physiciansnot to be disturbed, would know if the Mirza, being by natural rightthe King's vice-regent, desires the private seal to any ordersnecessary for peace and protection. Such signet being in the hands ofthe Queen'--nay, not that, I was forgetting--'the Begum.'"
She gave an angry laugh as she lay back among her cushions and bidthem send the letter forthwith. That should make him nibble. Not thatshe had the signet--the King kept that on his own finger--but if theMirza came on pretense or rather in hopes of getting it? Why! then; ifthe proper order was given and if she could insure the aid of men tocarry out her schemes, the signet should be got at somehow. The Kingwas old and frail; the storm and stress might well kill him.
So her thoughts ranged from one plot to another as she waited for ananswer. If this lure succeeded, she would but use the Heir-Apparentfor a time. What use was there in plotting for him? He could die, asother heirs had died; and then the only person likely to put a spokein her wheel was Abool-Bukr. He was teaching his young uncle the firstpleasures of manhood, and might find it convenient to influence theboy against her. It would be well therefore to get hold of him also.That was not a hard task, and she sat up again without a moment'shesitation and signed once more to Hafzan.
"Thy best flourishes," she said with an evil sneer, "for it goes to arare scholar; to a fool for all that, who would have folk thinknephews visit their aunts from duty! 'This to Newasi loving andbeloved, greeting. Consequent on the disturbances, the princely nephewAbool-Bukr lieth senseless here in the Palace.' Stare not, fool!senseless drunk he is by this time, I warrant. 'Those who have seenhim think ill of him.'" Here she broke off into malicious enjoyment ofher own wit. "Ay! and those who have but heard of him also! 'Thecourse of events, however, being in the hands of Heaven, will be dulyreported.'"
She coiled herself up again on the cushions, an insignificant squarehomely figure draped in worn brocade and laden with tarnished jewelry;ill-matched strings of pearls, flawed emeralds, diamonds withoutsparkle. Yet not without a certain dignity, a certain symmetry ofpurpose, harmonizing with the arched and frescoed room in which shelay; a room beautiful in design and decoration, yet dirty,comfortless, almost squalid.
"Nay! not my signature," she yawned. "I am too old a foe of thescholars; but a smudge o' the thumb will do. If I know aught of auntsand nephews, she will be too much flustered by the news to look atseals. And have word sent to the Delhi gate that the PrincessFarkhoonda be admitted, but goes not forth again."
Her hard voice ceased; there was no sound in the room save thatstrange hum from the gardens outside, which at this hour of the daywere generally wrapped in sun-drugged slumbers.
But the world beyond, toward which the old King's lusterless eyeslooked as he lay on the river balcony, was sleepy, sun-drugged asever. Through the tracery-set archs showed yellow stretches of sandand curving river, with tussocks of tall tiger-grass hiding theslender stems of the palm-trees which shot up here and there into theblue sky; blue with the yellow glaze upon it which comes from sheersunlight. A row of _saringhi_ players squatted in the room behind thebalcony, thrumming softly, so as to hide that strange hum of lifewhich reached even here. For the King was writing a couplet and was indifficulties with a rhyme for _cartouche_ (cartridge); since he was astickler for form, holding that the keynote of the lines shouldjingle. And this couplet was to epitomize the situation on the otherside of the _saringhies_. _Cartouche? Cartouche?_ Suddenly he sat up."Quick! send for Hussan Askuri; or stay!" he hesitated for an instant.Hussan Askuri would be with the Queen, and no one ever admired hiscouplets as she did. How many hours was it since he had seen her? Andwhat was the use of making couplets, if you were denied their justmeed of praise? "Stay," he repeated, "I will go myself." It was arelief to feel himself on the way back to be led by the nose, and asthey helped him across the intervening courtyard he kept repeating histreasure, imagining her face when she heard it.
"Kuchch Chil-i-Room nahin kya, ya Shah-i-Roos, nahin Jo Kuchch kya na sara se, so cartouche ne."
A couplet, which, lingering still in the mouths of the people,warrants the old poetaster's conceit of it, and--dog-anglicized--runsthus:
"Nor Czar nor Sultan made the conquest easy, The only weapon was a cartridge greasy."
"The Queen? Where is the Queen?" fumed the old man, when he found anempty room instead of instant flattery; for he was, after all, theGreat Moghul.
"She prays for the King's recovery," said Fatma readily. "I willinform her that her prayer is granted." But as she passed on hererrand, she winked at a companion, who hid her giggle in her veil; forGrand Turk or not, the women hold all the trump cards in seclusion. Sohow was the old man to know that the one who came in radiant withexaggerated delight at his return, had been interviewing his eldestson behind decorous screens, and that she was thanking Heaven piouslyfor having sent him back to her apron-string in the very nick of time.Sent him, and Hussan Askuri, and pen and ink within reach of her quickwit.
"That is the best couplet my lord has done," she said superbly. "Thatmust be signed and sealed."
So must a paper be, which lay concealed in her bosom. And as she spokeshe drew the signet ring lovingly, playfully from the King's fingerand walked over to where the scribe sat crouched on the floor.
"Ink it well, Pir-jee," she said, keeping her back to the King; "theimpression must be as immortal as the verse."
Despite the warning, a very keen ear might have detected a doublesound, as if the seal had needed a second pressure. That was all.
So it came about that, half an hour or so afterward, theHead-of-the-nine at the magazine was looking contemptuously at a paperbrought by the Palace Guards, and passed under the door, ordering itsinstant opening. George Willoughby laughed; but some of the eightdashed people's impudence and cursed their cheek! Yet, after thelaugh, the Head-of-the-nine walked over, yet another time, to thatriver bastion to look down at that white streak of road. How manytimes he had looked already, Heaven knows; but his grave face hadgrown graver, though it bri
ghtened again after a glance at the lemonbush. The black streak there would not fail them.
"In the King's name open!" The demand came from Mirza Moghul himselfthis time, for the Palace was without arms, without ammunition; and ifthey were to defend it, according to the Queen's idea, against allcorners, till there was time for other regiments to rebel, this matterof the magazine was important. Abool-Bukr was with him, half-drunk,wholly incapable, but full of valor; for a scout sent by the Queen hadreturned with the news that no English soldier was within ten miles ofDelhi, and within the last half hour an ominous word had begun to passfrom lip to lip in the city.
Helpless!
The masters were helpless. Past two o'clock and not a blow in revenge.Helpless! The word made cowards brave, and brave folk cowards. Andmany who had spent the long hours in peeping from their closed doorsat each fresh clatter in the street, hoping it was the master, lookedat each other with startled eyes.
Helpless! Helpless!
The echo of the thought reached the main-guard, still in touch withthe outside world, whence, as the day dragged by, fresh tidings ofdanger drifted down from the Ridge, where men, women, and children layhuddled helplessly in the Flagstaff Tower, watching the white streakof road. It seems like a bad dream, that hopeless, paralyzing strainof the eyes for a cloud of dust.
But the echo won no way into the magazine, for the simple reason thatit knew it was not hopeless. It could hold its own.
"Shoot that man Kureem Buksh, please, Forrest, if he comes botheringround the gate again. He is really very annoying. I have told himseveral times to keep back; so it is no use his trying to giveinformation to the people outside."
For the Head-of-the-nine was very courteous. "Scaling ladders?" heechoed, when a native superintendent told him that the princes,finding him obdurate, had gone to send some down from the Palace. "Oh!by all means let them scale if they like."
Some of the Eight, hearing the reply, smiled grimly. By all means letthe flies walk into the parlor; for if that straight streak of roadwas really going to remain empty, the fuller the four square wallsround the lemon bush could be, the better.
"That's them, sir," said one of the Eight cheerfully, as a gratingnoise rose above the hum outside. "That's the grapnels." And as heturned to his particular gun of the ten, he told himself that he wouldnick the first head or two with his rifle and keep the grape for thebunches. So he smiled at his own little joke and waited. All the Ninewaited, each to a gun, and of course there was one gun over, but, asthe head of them had said, that could not be helped. And so therifle-triggers clicked, and the stocks came up to the shoulders; andthen?--then there was a sort of laugh, and someone said under hisbreath, "Well, I'm blowed!" And his mind went back to the streets ofLondon, and he wondered how many years it was since he had seen alamplighter. For up ropes and poles, on roofs and outhouses, somehow,clinging like limpets, running like squirrels along the top of thewall, upsetting the besiegers, monopolizing the ladders, was a rush,not of attack but of escape! Let what fool who liked scale the walland come into the parlor of the Nine, those who knew the secretof the lemon-bush were off. No safety there beside the Nine! Nolife-insurance possible while that lay ready to their hand!
Would he ever see a lamplighter again? The trivial thought was withthe bearded man who stood by his gun, the real self in him, hiddenbehind the reserve of courage, asking other questions too, as hewaited for the upward rush of fugitives to change into a downward rushof foes worthy of good powder and shot.
It came at last--and the grape came too, mowing the intruders down inbunches. And these were no mere rabble of the city. They were the pickof the trained mutineers swarming over the wall to stand on theouthouse roofs and fire at the Nine; and so, pressed in gradually frombehind, coming nearer and nearer, dropping to the ground in solidranks, firing in platoons; so by degrees hemming in the Nine, hemmingin the lemon-bush.
But the Nine were busy with the guns. They had to be served quickly,and that left no time for thought. Then the smoke, and the flashes,and the yells, and the curses, filled up the rest of the world for thepresent.
"This is the last round, I'm afraid, sir; we shan't have time foranother," said a warning voice from the Nine, and the Head of themlooked round quietly. Not more than forty yards now from the guns;barely time, certainly, unless they had had that other man! So henodded. And the last round pealed out as recklessly, as defiantly, asif there had been a hundred to follow--and a hundred thousand--ahundred million. But one of the gunners threw down his fuse ere hisgun recoiled, and ran in lightly toward the lemon-tree, so as to beready for the favor he had begged.
"We're about full up, sir," came the warning voice again, as the restof the Nine fell back amid a desultory rattle of small arms. Thetinkle of the last church bell, as it were, warning folk to hurryup--a last invitation to walk into the parlor of the Nine.
"We're about full up, sir," came that one voice.
"Wait half a second," came another, and the Head-of-the-nine ranlightly to that river bastion for a last look down the white streakfor that cloud of dust.
How sunny it was! How clear! How still! that world beyond the smoke,beyond the flashes, beyond the deafening yells and curses. He gave onelook at it, one short look--only one--then turned to face his ownworld, the world he had to keep. Full up indeed! No pyrotechnist couldhope for better audience in so small a place.
"Now, if you please!"
Someone in the thick of the smoke and the flashes heard the yells andcurses and raised his cap--a last salute, as it were, to the schooland schoolmaster. A final dismissal to the scholars--a thousand ofthem or so--about to finish their lesson of what men can do to holdtheir own. And someone else, standing beside the lemon-bush, bent overthat faithful black streak, then ran for dear life from the hissing ofthat snake of fire flashing to the powder magazine.
A faint sob, a whispering gasp of horror, came from the thousand andodd; but above it came a roar, a rush, a rending. A little puff ofwhite smoke went skyward first, and then slowly, majestically, a greatcloud of rose-red dust grew above the ruins, to hang--a coronaglittering in the slant sunbeams--over the school, the schoolmasters,and the scholars.
It hung there for hours. To those who know the story it seems to hangthere still--a bloody pall for the many; for the Nine, a crown indeed.