CHAPTER I.
GOING! GOING! GONE!
"Going! Going! Gone!"
The Western phrase echoed over the Eastern scene without a trace ofdoubt in its calm assumption of finality. It was followed by a pause,during which, despite the crowd thronging the wide plain, the onlyrecognizable sound was the vexed yawning purr of a tiger impatient forits prey. It shuddered through the sunshine, strangely out of keepingwith the multitude of men gathered together in silent security; but onthat March evening of the year 1856, when the long shadows of thesurrounding trees had begun to invade the sunlit levels of grass bythe river, at Lucknow, the lately deposed King of Oude's menagerie wasbeing auctioned. It had followed all his other property to the hammer,and a perfect Noah's Ark of wild beasts was waiting doubtfully for achange of masters.
"Going! Going! Gone!"
Those three cabalistic words, shibboleth of a whole hemisphere's greedof gain, had just transferred the proprietary rights in an old tuskerelephant for the sum of eighteenpence. It is not a large price to payfor a leviathan, even if he be lame, as this one was. Yet the newowner looked at his purchase distastefully, and even the auctioneersought support in a gulp of brandy and water.
"Fetch up them pollies, Tom," he said in a dejected whisper to asoldier, who, with others of the fatigue party on duty, was trying tohustle refractory lots into position. "They'll be a change afterelephants--go off lighter like. Then there's some of them LaMartiniery boys comin' down again as ran up the fightin' rams thismornin'. Wonder wot the 'ead master said! But boys is allowed birds,and Lord knows we want to be a bit brisker than we 'ave bin with_guj-putti_. But there! it's slave-drivin' to screw bids for beasts aseats hunder-weights out of poor devils as 'aven't enough forthemselves, or a notion of business as business."
He shook his head resentfully yet compassionately over the impassivedark faces around. He spoke as an auctioneer; yet he gave expressionto a very common feeling which in the early fifties, when thecommercial instincts of the West met the uncommercial ones of the Eastin open market for the first time, sharpened the antagonism of raceimmensely; that inevitable antagonism when the creed of one people isthat Time is Money, of the other that Time is Naught.
From either standpoint, however, the auction going on down by theriver Goomtee was confusing; even to those who, knowing the causeswhich had led up to it--the unmentionable atrocities, the crassincapacity on the one hand, the unsanctioned treaties and craze forcivilization on the other--were conscious of a distinct flavor ofSodom and Gomorrah, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Deluge allcombined, as they watched the just and yet unjust retribution goingon. But such spectators were few, even in the outer fringe of Englishonlookers pausing in their evening drive or ride to gratify theircuriosity. The long reports and replies regarding the annexation ofOude which filled the office boxes of the elect were unknown to them,so they took the affair as they found it. The King, for some reasonsatisfactory to the authorities, had been exiled, majesty being thusvested in the representatives of the annexing race: that is, inthemselves. A position which comes naturally to most Englishmen.
To the silent crowds closing round the auctioneer's table the affairwas simple also. The King, for some unsatisfactory reason, had beenousted from his own. His goods and chattels were being sold. Thevaluable ones had been knocked down, for a mere song--just to keep upthe farce of sale--to the Huzoors. The rubbish--lame elephants andsuch like--was being sold to them; more or less against their will,since who could forbear bidding sixpence for a whole leviathan? Thatthis was in a measure inevitable, that these new-come sahibs werebound to supply their wants cheaply when a whole posse of carriagesand horses, cattle and furniture was thrown on an otherwise suppliedmarket, did not, of course, occur to those who watched the hammer fallto that strange new cry of the strange new master. When does suchphilosophy occur to crowds? So when the waning light closed each day'ssale and the people drifted back cityward over the boat-bridge theywere no longer silent. They had tales to tell of how much the baroucheand pair, or the Arab charger, had cost the King when he bought it.But then Wajeed Ali, with all his faults, had never been a bargainer.He had spent his revenues right royally, thus giving ease to many. Soone could tell of a purse of gold flung at a beggar, another a lifepension granted to a tailor for inventing a new way of sewing spanglesto a waistcoat; for there had been no lack of the insensatemunificence in which lies the Oriental test of royalty, about the Kingof Oude's reign.
Despite this talk, however, the talkers returned day after day towatch the auction; and on this, the last one, the grassy plain down bythe Goomtee was peaceful and silent as ever save for the occasionalcry of an affrighted hungry beast. The sun sent golden gleams over theshort turf worn to dustiness by crowding feet, and the long curves ofthe river, losing themselves on either side among green fields andmango trees, shone like a burnished shield. On the opposite bank, itsminarets showing fragile as cut paper against the sky, rose theChutter Munzil--the deposed King's favorite palace. Behind it, abovethe belt of trees dividing the high Residency gardens from the maze ofhouses and hovels still occupied by the hangers-on to the late Court,the English flag drooped lazily in the calm floods of yellow light.For the rest, were dense dark groves following the glistening curve ofthe river, and gardens gravely gay in pillars of white _chum-baeli_creeper and cypress, long prim lines of latticed walls, and hedges ofscarlet hibiscus. Here and there above the trees, the dome of a mosqueor the minaret of a mausoleum told that the town of Lucknow, scatteredyet coherent, lay among the groves. The most profligate town in Indiawhich by one stroke of an English pen had just been deprived of the_raison-d'etre_ of its profligacy, and been bidden to live as best itcould in cleanly, courtless poverty.
So, already, there were thousands of workmen in it, innocent enoughpanderers in the past to luxurious vice, who were feeling the pinch ofhunger from lack of employment; and there were those past employersalso, deprived now of pensions and offices, with a bankrupt futurebefore them. But Lucknow had a keener grievance than these in the newtax on opium, the drug which helps men to bear hunger and bankruptcy;so, as the auctioneer said, it was not a place in which to expectbrisk bidding for wild beasts with large appetites. But the parrotsroused a faint interest, and the crowd laughed suddenly at thefluttering screams of a red and blue macaw, as it was tossed from handto hand, on its way to the surprised and reluctant purchaser who hadbid a farthing for it out of sheer idleness.
"Another mouth to feed, Shumshu!" jeered a fellow butcher, as heliterally flung the bird at a neighbor's head. "Rather he than I,"laughed the recipient, continuing the fling. "_Ari!_ Shumshu, take thybaby. Well caught, brother! but what will thy house say?"
"That I have made a fat bargain," retorted the big, coarse ownercoolly, as he wrung the bird's neck, and twirled it, a quivering tuftof bright feathers and choking cries, above his head. "Thou'lt buy nomeat at a farthing a pound, even from my shop, I'll swear, and thisbird weighs two, and is delicate as chicken."
The laugh which answered the sally held a faint scream, not whollygenuine in its ring. It came from the edge of the crowd, where twoEnglish riders had paused to see what the fun was about.
"Cruel devils, aren't they, Allie?" said one, a tall, fair man whosegood looks were at once made and marred by heaviness of feature. "Why!you've turned pale despite the rouge!" His tone was full of notover-respectful raillery; his bold, bloodshot eyes met his companion'sinnocent looking ones with careless admiration.
"Don't be a fool, Erlton," she replied promptly; and the even,somewhat hard pitch of her voice did not match the extreme softness ofher small, childish face. "You know I don't rouge; or you ought to.And it was horrible, in its way."
"Only what your ladyship's cook does to your ladyship's fowls,"retorted Major Erlton. "You don't _see_ it done, that's all thedifference. It is a cruel world, Mrs. Gissing, the sex is the cruelestthing in it, and you, as I'm always telling you, are the cruelest ofyour sex."
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p; His manner was detestable, but little Mrs. Gissing laughed again. Shehad not a fine taste in such matters; perhaps because she had no tastefor them at all. So, in the middle of the laugh, her attention shiftedto the big white cockatoo which formed the next lot. It had a mostrumpled and dejected appearance as it tried to keep its balance on thering which the soldier assistant swung backward and forwardboisterously.
"Do look at that ridiculous bird!" she exclaimed, "Did you ever seeany creature look so foolish?"
It did, undoubtedly, with its wrinkled gray eyelids closed in agonizedeffort, its clattering gray beak bobbing rhythmically toward its scalygray legs. It roused the auctioneer from his depression into beginningin grand style. "Now, then, gentlemen! This is a real treat, indeed! Acockatoo, old as Methusalem and twice as wise. It speaks, I'll bebound. Says 'is prayers--look at 'im gemyflexing! and maybe he swearsa bit like the rest of us. Any gentleman bid a rupee!--a eightannas?--a four annas? Come, gentlemen!"
"One anna," called Mrs. Gissing, with a coquettish nod to the bigMajor, and a loud aside: "Cruel I may be to you, sir, but I'll givethat to save the poor brute from having its neck wrung."
"Two annas!" There was a stress of eagerness in the new voice whichmade many in the crowd look whence it came. The speaker was a lean oldman wearing a faded green turban, who had edged himself close to theauctioneer's table and stood with upturned eyes watching the birdanxiously. He had the face of an enthusiast, keen, remorseless,despite its look of ascetic patience.
"Three annas!" Alice Gissing's advance came with another nod at herbig admirer.
"Four annas!" The reply was quick as an echo.
A vexed surprise showed on the pretty babyish face. "What animpertinent wretch! Eight annas--do you hear?--eight annas!"
The auctioneer bowed effusively. "Eight annas bid for a cockatoo assays----" he paused cautiously, for the bidding was brisk enoughwithout exaggeration. "Eight annas once--twice--Going! going----"
"One rupee!"
Mrs. Gissing gave a petulant jag to her rein. "Oh! come away, Erlton,my charity doesn't run to rupees."
But her companion's face, never a very amiable one, had darkened withtemper. "D----n the impudent devil," he muttered savagely, beforeraising his voice to call: "Two rupees!"
"Five!" There was no hesitation still; only an almost clamorousanxiety in the worn old voice.
"Ten!" Major Erlton's had lost its first heat, and settled into a dulldecision which made the auctioneer turn to him, hammer in hand. Yetthe echo was not wanting.
"Fifteen!"
The Englishman's horse backed as if its master's hand lay heavy on thebit. There was a pause, during which that shuddering cough of thehungry tiger quavered through the calm flood of sunshine, in which thecrowd stood silently, patiently.
"Fifteen rupees," began the auctioneer reluctantly, his sympathiesoutraged, "Fifteen once, twice----"
Then Alice Gissing laughed. The woman's laugh of derision which isresponsible for so much.
"Fifty rupees," said Major Erlton at once.
The old man in the green turban turned swiftly; turned for the firsttime to look at his adversary, and in his face was intolerant hatredmingled with self-pity; the look of one who, knowing that he hasjustice on his side, knows also that he is defeated.
"Thank _you_, sir," caught up the auctioneer. "Fifty once, twice,thrice! Hand the bird over, Tom. Put it down, sir, I suppose, with theother things?"
Major Erlton nodded sulkily. He was already beginning to wonder why hehad bought the brute. Meanwhile Tom, still swinging the cockatooderisively, had jumped from the table into the crowd round it as ifthe sea of heads was non-existent; being justified of his rashness byits prompt yielding of foothold as he elbowed his way outward,shouting for room good-naturedly, and answered by swift smiles andswifter obedience. Yet both were curiously silent; so that Mrs.Gissing's voice, wondering what on earth Herbert was going to do withthe creature now that he had bought it, was distinctly audible.
"Give it to you, of course," he replied moodily. "You can wring itsneck if you choose, Allie. You are cruel enough for that, I dare say."The thought of the fifty rupees wasted was rankling fiercely; fiftyrupees! when he would be hard put to it for a penny if he didn't pulloff the next race. Fifty rupees! because a woman laughed!
But Mrs. Gissing was laughing again. "I shan't do anything of thekind. I shall give it to your wife, Major Erlton. I'm sure she must bedull all alone; and then she loves prayers!" the absolute effronteryof the speech was toned down by her indifferent expression. "Here,sergeant!" she went on, "hold the bird up a bit higher, please, I wantto see if it is worth all that money. Gracious! what a hideous brute!"
It was, in truth; save for the large gold-circled eyes, like strangegems, which opened suddenly as the swinging ceased. They seemed tolook at the dainty little figure taking it in; and then, in aninstant, the dejected feathers were afluff, the wings outspread, theflame-colored crest, unseen before, raised like a fiery flag as thebird gave an ear-piercing scream.
"_Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed_." (For the Faith! For the Faith!Victory to Mohammed.)
The war cry of the fiercest of all faiths was unmistakable; the firsttwo syllables cutting the air, keen as a knife, the last with theblare as of a trumpet in them. And following close on their heels camean indescribable sound, like the answering vibration of a church tothe last deep organ-note. It was a faint murmur from the crowd tillthen so silent.
"D----n the bird! Hold it back, man! Loosen the curb, Allie, for God'ssake, or the brute will be over with you!"
Herbert Erlton's voice was sharp with anxiety as he reined his ownhorse savagely out of the way of his companion's, which, frightened atthe unexpected commotion, was rearing badly.
"All right," she called; there was a little more color on herchild-like face, a firmer set of her smiling mouth: that was all. Butthe hunting crop she carried fell in one savage cut after another onthe startled horse's quarters. It plunged madly, only to meet the bitand a dig of the spur. So, after two or three unavailing attempts tounseat her, it stood still with pricked ears and protesting snorts.
"Well sat, Allie! By George, you can ride! I do like to see pluck in awoman; especially in a pretty one." The Major's temper and his fearshad vanished alike in his admiration. Mrs. Gissing looked at himcuriously.
"Did you think I was a coward?" she asked lightly; and then shelaughed. "I'm not so bad as all that. But look! There is your wifecoming along in the new victoria--it's an awfully stylish turn-out,Herbert; I wish Gissing would give me one like it. I suppose she hasbeen to church. It's Lent or something, isn't it? Anyhow, she can takethat screaming beast home."
"You're not----" began the Major, but Mrs. Gissing had already riddenup to the carriage, making it impossible for the solitary occupant toavoid giving the order to stop. She was rather a pale woman, wholeaned listlessly among the cushions.
"Good evening, Mrs. Erlton," said the little lady, "been, as you see,for a ride. But we were thinking of you and hoping you would pray forus in church."
Kate Erlton's eyebrows went up, as they had a trick of doing when shewas scornful. "I am only on my way thither as yet," she replied; "sothat now I am aware of your wishes I can attend to them."
The obvious implication roused the aggressor to greater recklessness."Thanks! but we really deserve something, for we have been buying aparrot for you. Erlton paid a whole fifty rupees for it because itsaid its prayers and he thought you would like it!"
"That was very kind of Major Erlton,"--there was a fine irony in thetitle,--"but, as he knows, I'm not fond of things with gay feathersand loud voices."
The man, listening, moved his feet restlessly in his stirrups. It wastoo bad of Allie to provoke these sparring matches. Foolish, too,since Kate's tongue was sharp when she chose to rouse herself. Nonesharper, in his opinion.
"If you don't want the bird," he interrupted shortly, "tell the groomto wring its neck."
Mrs. Gissing looked at him, her reproachful blue eyes perfect
wells ofsimplicity. "Wring its neck! How can you, when you paid all that moneyto save it from being killed! That is the real story, Mrs. Erlton; itis indeed----"
He interrupted his wife's quick glance of interest impatiently. "Themain point being that I had, or shall have to pay fifty rupees--whichI must get. So I must be off to the racecourse if I don't want to beposted. I ought to have been there a quarter of an hour ago; shouldhave been but for that confounded bird. Are you coming, Mrs. Gissing,or not?"
"Now, Erlton!" she replied, "don't be stupid. As if he didn't know,Mrs. Erlton, that I am every bit as much interested as he is in thematch with that trainer man!--what's his name, Erlton? Greyman--isn'tit? I have endless gloves on it, sir, so of course I'm coming to seefair play."
Major Erlton shot a rapid glance at her, as if to see what she reallymeant; then muttered something angrily about chaff as, with a dig ofhis heels, he swung his horse round to the side of hers.
Kate Erlton watched their figures disappear behind the trees, thenturned indifferently to the groom who was waiting for orders with thecockatoo. But she started visibly in finding herself face to face witha semi-circle of spectators which had gathered about the figure of anold man in a faded green turban who stood close beside the groom, andwho, seeing her turn, salaamed, and with clasped hands began an appealof some sort. So much she gathered from his bright eyes, his tone; butno more, and all unconsciously she drew back to the furthest corner ofthe carriage, as if to escape from what she did not understand, andtherefore did not like. That, indeed, was her attitude toward allthings native. Yet at times, as now, she felt a dim regret at her ownignorance. What did he want? What were they thinking of, those dark,incomprehensible faces closing closer and closer round her? What couldthey be thinking of, uncivilized, heathen, as they were? tied tohateful, horrible beliefs and customs, unmentionable thoughts; so theinnate repulsion of the alien overpowered her dim desire to be kind.
"Drive on!" she called in her clear, soft voice, "drive on to thechurch."
The grooms, new taken from royal employ,--for the victoria had beenone of the spoils of the auction,--began their arrogant shouting tothe crowd; the coachman, treating it also in royal fashion, cut at hishorses regardless of their plunging. So after an instant's scurry andflurry, a space was cleared, and the carriage rolled off. The old man,left standing alone, looked after it silently for a moment, then flunghis arms skyward.
"O God, reward them! reward them to the uttermost!" The appeal,however, seemed too indefinite for solace, and he turned for closersympathy to the crowd. "The bird is mine, brothers! I lent it to theKing, to teach his the Cry-of-Faith that I had taught it. But theHuzoors would not listen, or they would not understand. It was alittle thing to them! So I brought all I had, thinking to buy mine ownagain. But yonder hell-doomed infidel hath it for nothing--for he paidnothing; and here--here is _my_ money!" He drew a little bag from hisbreast and held it up with shaking hand.
"For nothing!" echoed the crowd, seizing on what interested it most."For sure he paid nothing."
The murmur, spreading from man to man in doubt, wonder, assertion, wasinterrupted by a voice with the resonance and calm in it of oneaccustomed to listeners. "Nay! not for nothing. Have patience. Thebird may yet give the Great Cry in the house of the thief. I,Ahmed-oolah, the dust of the feet of the Most High, say it. Havepatience. God settles the accounts of men."
"It is the Moulvie," whispered some, as the gaunt, hollow-eyed speakermoved out of the crowd, a good head and shoulders taller than mostthere. "The Moulvie from Fyzabad. He preaches in the big Mosqueto-night, and half the city goes to hear him." The whispering voicesformed a background to the recurring cry of the auctioneer, "Going!Going! Gone!" as lot after lot fell to the hammer, while the crowdlistened to both, or drifted cityward with the memory of themlingering insistently.
"Going! Going! Gone!" What was going? Everything, if tales were true;and there were so many tales nowadays. Of news flashed faster by wiresthan any, even the gods themselves, could flash it; of carriages,fire-fed, bringing God knows what grain from God knows where! Could abody eat of it and not be polluted? Could the children read the schoolbooks and not be apostate? Burning questions these, not to be answeredlightly. And as the people, drifting homeward in the sunset, askedthem, other sounds assailed their ears. The long-drawn chant of thecall to prayer from the Mohammedan mosques, the clashing of gongs fromthe Hindoo temples, the solitary clang of the Christian church bell.Diverse, yet similar in this, that each called Life to face Death, notas an end, but as a beginning; called with more insistence than usualin the church, where a special missionary service was being held, atwhich a well-known worker in the vineyard was to give an address onthe duty of a faithful soldier of Christ in a heathen land. Withgreater authority in the mosque also, where the Moulvie was to laydown the law for each soldier of the faith in an age of unbelief andchange. Only in the Hindoo temples the circling lights flickered asever, and there was neither waxing nor waning of worship as mortalitydrifted in, and drifted out, hiding the rude stone symbol ofregeneration with their chaplets of flowers; the symbol ofLife-in-Death, of Death-in-Life. The cult of the Inevitable.
There was no light in these dark shrines, save the circling cresset;none, save the dim reflection of dusk from white marble, in the mosquewhere the Moulvie's sonorous voice sent the broad Arabic vowelsrebounding from dome to dome. But in the church there was a blaze oflamps, and the soldierly figure at the reading desk showed clear tothe men and women listening leisurely in the cushioned pews. Yet thewords were stirring enough; there was no lack of directness in them.Kate Erlton, resting her chin on her hand, kept her eyes on thespeaker closely as his voice rose in a final confession of the faiththat was in him.
"I conceive it is ever the hope and aim of a true Christian that hisLord should make him the happy instrument of rescuing his neighborfrom eternal damnation. In this belief I find it my duty to be instantin season and out of season, speaking to all, sepoys as well ascivilians, making no distinction of persons or place, since with theLord there are no such distinctions. In the temporal matters I actunder the orders of my earthly superior, but in spiritual matters Iown no allegiance save to Christ. So, in trying to convert my sepoys,I act as a Christian soldier under Christ, and thus, by keeping thetemporal and spiritual capacities in which I have to act clearly undertheir respective heads, I render unto Caesar the things that areCaesar's, to God the things that are God's."[1]
There was a little rustle of satisfaction and relief from the pews,the hymn closing the service went with a swing, and the congregation,trooping out into the scented evening air, fell to admiring theaddress.
"And he looked so handsome and soldierly, didn't he?" said one voicewith a cadence of sheer comfortableness in it as the owner nestledback in the barouche.
"Quite charming!" assented another. "And to think of a man like that,brave as a lion, submitting to be hustled off his own parade groundbecause his sepoys objected to his preaching. It is an example to usall!"
"I wouldn't give much for the discipline of his regiment," began KateErlton impulsively, then paused, certain of her hearers, uncertain ofherself; for she was of those women who use religion chiefly as ananodyne for the heartache, leaving her intellect to take care ofitself. With the result that it revenged itself, as now, by suddenflashes of reason which left her helpless before her own common sense.
"My dear Mrs. Erlton!" came a shocked coo, "discipline or nodiscipline, we are surely bound to fight the good---- Graciousheavens! what _is_ that?"
It was the cockatoo. Roused from a doze by the movement of Kate'scarriage toward the church-door, it had dashed at once into thewar-cry--"_Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed!_"
The appositeness of the interruption, however, was quite lost on theladies, who were too ignorant to recognize it; so their alarm ended ina laugh, and the suggestion that the bird would be a noisy pet.
Thus, with worldly gossip coming to fill the widening spaces in theircomplacent piety, they drove homeward toget
her where the curving rivershimmered faintly in the dark, or through scented gardens where theorange-blossom showed as faintly among the leaves, like star-dust on adark sky.
But Kate Erlton drove alone, as she generally did. She was one ofthose women whose refinement stands in their way; who are _gourmets_of life, failing to see that the very fastidiousness of their palateargues a keener delight in its pleasures than that of those who takethem more simply, perhaps more coarsely. And as she drove, her minddiverted listlessly to the semicircle of dark faces she had leftunanswered. What had they wanted? Nothing worth hearing, no doubt!Nothing was worth much in this weary land of exile where theheart-hunger for one little face and voice gnawed at your vitality dayand night. For Kate Erlton set down all her discontent to the factthat she was separated from her boy. Yet she had sent him home of herown free will to keep him from growing up in the least like hisfather. And she had stayed with that father simply to keep him withinthe pale of respectability for the boy's sake. That was what she toldherself. She allowed nothing for her own disappointment; nothing forthe keen craving for sentiment which lay behind her refinement. Allshe asked from fate was that the future might be no worse than thepast; so that she could keep up the fiction to the end.
And as she drove, a sudden sound made her start, for--soldier's wifethough she was--the report of a rifle always set her heart a-beating.Then from the darkness came a long-drawn howl; for over on the otherside of the river they were beginning to shoot down the hungry beastswhich all through the long sunny day had found no master.
The barter of _their_ lives was complete. The last "Going! Going!Gone!" had come, and they had passed to settle the account elsewhere.So, amid this dropping fire of kindly meant destruction, the nightfell soft and warm over the shimmering river and the scented gardenswith the town hidden in their midst.