On the Face of the Waters

BOOK IV
CHAPTER II

PEACE? PEACE?

Three weeks had passed, and still the dream of sovereignty went on behind the closed gates, while all things shimmered and simmered in the fierce blaze of summer sunlight. The city lay—a rose-red glare dazzling to look at—beside the glittering curves of the river, and the deserted Ridge, more like a lizard than ever, sweltered and slept lazily, its tail in the cool blue water, its head upon the cool green groves of the Subz-mundi. And over all lay a liquid yellow heat-haze blurring every outline, till the whole seemed some vast mirage.

And still there were no tidings of the master, no cloud of dust upon the Meerut road. None.

Amazing, incredible fact! Men whispered of it on the steps of the Great Mosque when, the last Friday of the fast coming round, its commination service brought many from behind closed doors to realize that by such signs of kingship as beatings of drums, firing of salutes, and levying of loans, Bahâdur Shâh really had filched the throne of his ancestors from the finest fighters in the world. Filched it without a blow, without a struggle, without even a threat, a defiance.

So here they were in a new world without posts or telegraphs, laws or order. Time itself turned back hundreds of years and all power of progress vested absolutely in one old man, the Light of Religion, the Defender of the Faith, the Great Moghul. If that were not a miracle it came too perilously near to one for some folk's loyalty; and so they drifted palaceward when prayers were over to swell the growing crowd of courtiers about the Dream King. And even the learned and most loyal lingered on the steps to whisper, and call obscure prophecies and ingenious commentaries to mind, and admit that it was strange, wondrous strange, that the numerical values of the year should yield the anagram "Ungrez tubbah shood ba hur soorut," briefly "The British shall be annihilated." For the Oriental mind loves such trivialities.

And, to all intents and purposes, the English were annihilated, during that short month of peace between the 11th of May and the 8th of June, 1857; for Delhi knew nothing of the vain striving, the ceaseless efforts of the master to find tents and carriages, horses, ammunition, medicine, everything once more, save, thank Heaven! courage, and the determination to be master still.

Even Soma admitted the miracle grudgingly; for he had so far bolstered up his disloyalty by thoughts of a fair fight. He had not, after all, gone to Delhi direct, but had cut across country to his own village near Hansi, and had waited there, hoping to hear of a regular outbreak of hostilities before definitely choosing his side; and he was still waiting when, after a fortnight, his greatest chum in the regiment had turned up from Meerut. For Davee Singh had been one of the many sepoys of the 11th who had gone back to the colors after that one brief night of temptation was over. Soma had known this, and more than once as he waited, the knowledge had been as a magnet drawing him back to the old pole of thought; for that his chum should be led to victory and he be among the defeated was probable enough to make Soma hate himself in anticipation.

But here was Davee Singh, a deserter like he was, sulkily uncommunicative to the village gossips, but to his fellow admitting fiercely that the latter had been right. The Huzoors had forgotten how to fight. Meerut was quiet as the grave; but there was no word of Delhi, and folk said—what did they not say?

So these two, with a strange mixture of regret and relief in their hearts, set out for Delhi to see what was happening there; not knowing that many of their fellows were drifting from it, weary like themselves of inaction.

They had arrived there, two swaggering Rajpoots, in the midst of the thanksgivings and jollity of the Mohammedan Easter which followed on the last Friday of Fast; and they had fallen foul of it frankly. As frankly as the Mohammedans would have fallen foul of a Hindoo Saturnalia, or both Mohammedans and Hindoos would have fallen foul of the festivities in honor of the Queen's Birthday which, on this 25th of May, 1857, were going on in every cantonment in India as if there was no such thing as mutiny in the world. So, annoyed with what they saw and heard, they joined themselves to other Rajpoot malcontents promptly. They sneered at the old pantaloon's procession, which was in truth a poor one, though half the tailors in Delhi had been impressed to hurry up trappings and robes. Perhaps if Abool-Bukr had still been in charge of squibs and such like, it would have been better; but he was not. The order he had given to let the Princess Farkhoonda's dhoolie pass out, before the gates were closed on that day of the death-pledge, had been his last exercise of authority; for the next Court Journal contained the announcement that he was dismissed from his appointment. So he, hovering between the Thunbi Bazaar and the Mufti's quarter, had nothing to do with the procession at which the Rajpoots sneered, criticising Mirza Moghul, the Commander-in-Chief's seat on a horse, and talking boastfully of Vicra-maditya and Pertap as warlike Hindoos will. Until, about dusk, words came to blows amid a tinkling of anklets and a terrible smell of musk; for valor drifted as a matter of course to the wooden balconies of the Thunbi Bazaar during the month of miracle. So that the inmates, coining money, called down blessings on the new régime.

Soma, however, with a cut over one eye sorely in need of a stitch, swore loudly when he could find none to patch him up save a doddering old Hakeem, who proposed dosing him with paper pills inscribed with the name of Providence; an incredible remedy to one accustomed to all the appliances of hospitals and skilled surgery.

"Yea! no doubt he is a fool," assented the other sepoys in frank commiseration, "yet he is the best you will get. For see you, brother, the doctors belong to the Huzoors; so many a brave man must expect to die needlessly, since those cursed dressers are not safe. There was one took the bottles and things and swore he could use them as well as any. And luck went with him until he gave five heroes who had been drunk the night before somewhat to clear their heads. By all the gods in Indra's heaven they were clear even of life in half an hour. So we fell on the dresser and cleared him too. Yea! fool or no fool, paper pills are safer!"

Jim Douglas, who, profiting by the dusk and confusion, had lingered by the group after recognizing Soma's voice, turned away with a savage chuckle; not that the tale amused him, but that he was glad to think six of the devils had gone to their account. For those long days of peace and enforced inaction had sunk him lower and lower into sheer animal hatred of those he dare not rebuke. He knew it himself, he felt that his very courage was becoming ferocity, and the thought that others, biding their time as he was, must be sinking into it also, filled him with fierce joy at the thought of future revenge. And yet, so far as he personally was concerned, those long days had passed quietly, securely, peacefully, and he could at any time climb out of all sight and sound of turmoil to a slip of sunlit roof where a woman waited for him with confidence and welcome in her eyes. With something obtrusively English also for his refreshment, since tragedy, even the fear of death, cannot claim a whole life, and Kate took to amusing herself once more by making her corner of the East as much like the West as she dare. That was not much, but Jim Douglas' eye noted the indescribable difference which the position of a reed stool, the presence of a poor bunch of flowers, the little row of books in a niche, made in the familiar surroundings. For there were books and to spare in Delhi; for the price of a few pennies Jim Douglas might have brought her a cartload of such loot had he deemed it safe; but he did not, and so the library consisted of grammars and vocabularies from which Kate learned with a rapidity which surprised and interested her teacher. In truth she had nothing else to do. Yet when he came, as he often did, to find her absorbed in her work, her eyes dreamy with the puzzle of tense, he resented it inwardly, telling himself once more that women were trivial creatures, and life seemed trivial too, for in truth his nerves were all jangled and out of tune with the desire to get away from this strange shadow of a past idyll; to leave all womanhood behind and fall to fighting manfully. So that often as he sat beside her, patient outwardly, inwardly fretting to be gone even in the nightmare of the city, his eye would fall on the circlet of gold he had slipped, out of sheer arrogance and imperious temper, round that slender wrist, and feel that somehow he had fettered himself hopelessly when, more than a year past, he had given that promise. His chance and hers! Was this all? One woman's safety. And she, following his eyes to the bangle, would feel the thrill of its first touch once more, and think how strange it was that his chance and hers were so linked together. But, being a woman, her heart would soften instinctively to the man who sat beside her, and whose face grew sterner and more haggard day by day; while hers?—she could see enough of it in the little looking-glass on her thumb to recognize that she was positively getting fat! She tried to amuse him by telling him so, by telling him many of the little humorous touches which come even into tragic life, and he was quite ready to smile at them. But only to please her. So day by day a silence grew between them as they sat on the inner roof, while Tara spun outside, or watched them furtively from some corner. And the flare of the sunset, unseen behind the parapeted wall, would lie on the swelling dome and spiked minarets of the mosque and make the paper kites, flown in this month of May by half the town, look like drifting jewels; fit canopy for the City of Dreams and for this strangest of dreams upon the housetop.

"Has—has anything gone wrong?" she asked in desperation one day, when he had sat moodily silent for a longer time than usual. "I would rather you told me, Mr. Greyman."

He looked at her, vaguely surprised at the name; for he had almost forgotten it. Forgotten utterly that she could not know any other. And why should she? He had made the promise under that name; let them stick to it so long as Fate had linked their chances together.

"Nothing; not for us at least," he said, and then a sudden remorse at his own unfriendliness came over him. "There was another poor chap discovered to-day," he added in a softer tone. "I believe that you and I, Mrs. Erlton, must be the only two left now."

"I dare say," she echoed a little wearily, "they—they killed him I suppose."

He nodded. "I saw his body in the bazaar afterward. I used to know him a bit—a clever sort——"

"Yes——"

"Mixed blood, of course, or he could not have passed muster so long as a greengrocer's assistant."

"Well—I would rather hear if you don't mind."

His dark eyes met hers with a sudden eagerness, a sudden passion in them.

"What a little thing life is after all! He only said one word—only one. He was selling watermelons, and some brute tried to cheat him first, and then cheeked him. And he forgot a moment and said: Chup-raho,' (be silent)—only that!—'chup-raho'! They were bragging of it—the devils. We knew he couldn't be a coolie, they said, that is a master's word.' My God! What wouldn't I give to say it sometimes! I could have shouted to them then, Chup-raho, you fools! you cowards!' and some of them would have been silent enough——"

He broke off hurriedly, clenching his hands like a vise on each other, as if to curb the tempest of words.

"I beg your pardon," he said after a pause, rising to walk away; "I—I lose control——" He paused again and shook his head silently. Kate followed him and laid her hand on his arm; the loose gold fetter slipped to her wrist and touched him too.

"You think I don't understand," she said with a sudden sob in her voice, "but I do—you must go away—it isn't worth it—no woman is worth it."

He turned on her sharply. "Go? You know I can't. What is the use of suggesting it? Mrs. Erlton! Tara is faithful; but she is faithful to me—only to me—you must see that surely——"

"If you mean that she loves you—worships the very ground you tread on," interrupted Kate sharply, "that is evident enough."

"Is that my fault?" he began angrily; "I happened——"

"Thank you, I have no wish to hear the story."

The commonplace, second-rate, mock-dignified phrase came to her lips unsought, and she felt she could have cried in sheer vexation at having used it there; in the very face of Death as it were. But Jim Douglas laughed; laughed good-naturedly.

"I wonder how many years it is since I heard a woman say that? In another world surely," he said with quite a confidential tone. "But the fact remains that Tara protects you as my wife, and if I were to go——"

Kate looked at him with a quick resentment flaming up in her face beneath the stain.

"I think you are mistaken," she said slowly. "I believe Tara would be better pleased if—if she knew the truth."

"You mean if I were to tell her you are not my wife?" he replied quickly. "Why?"

"Because I should be less of a tie to you—because——" She paused, then added sharply, "Mr. Greyman, I must ask you to tell her the truth, please. I have a right to so much, surely. I have my reasons for it, and if you do not, I shall."

Jim Douglas shrugged his shoulders. "In that case I had better tell her myself; not that I think it matters much one way or another, so long as I am here. And the whole thing from beginning to end is chance, nothing but chance."

"Your chance and mine," she murmured half to herself. It was the first time she had alluded openly to the strange linking of their fates, and he looked at her almost impatiently.

"Yes! your chance and mine; and we must make the best of it. I'll tell her as I go out."

But Tara interrupted him at the beginning.

"If the Huzoor means that he does not love the mem as he loved Zora, that requires no telling, and for the rest what does it matter to this slave?"

"And it matters nothing to me either," he retorted roughly, "but of this be sure. Who kills the mem kills me, unless I kill first; and by Krishnu, and Vishnu, and the lot, I'd as lief kill you, Tara, as anyone else, if you get in my way."

A great broad flash of white teeth lit up her face as she salaamed, remarking that the Huzoor's mother must have been as Kunti. And Jim Douglas understanding the complimentary allusion to the God-visited mother of the Lunar race, wished as he went downstairs, that he was like the Five Heroes in one respect, at least, and that was in having only a fifth part of a woman to look after, instead of two whole ones who talked of love! So he passed out to listen, and watch, and wait, while the fire-balloons went up into the velvety sky, replacing the kites. For May is the month of marriages also, and night after night these false stars floated out from the Dream-City to form new constellations on the horizon for a few minutes and then disappear with a flare into the darkness. Into the darkness whence the master did not come. Yet, as the month ended, villagers passing in with grain from Meerut averred that the masters were not all dead, or else God gave their ghosts a like power in cursing and smiting—which was all poor folk had to look for; since some had appeared and burned a village.

Not all dead? The news drifted from market to market, but if it penetrated through the Palace gates it did not filter through the new curtains and hangings of the private apartments where the King took perpetual cooling draughts and wrote perpetual appeals for more etiquette and decorum. For nothing likely to disturb the unities of dreams was allowed within the precincts, where every day the old King sat on a mock peacock throne with a new cushion to it, and listened for hours to the high-flown letters of congratulation which poured in, each with its own little covering bag of brocade, from the neighboring chiefs. And if any day there happened to be a paucity of real ones, Hussan Askuri could supply them, like other dreams, at so much a dozen; since nothing more costly than the brocade bag came with them. So that the Mahboob's face, as Treasurer, grew longer and longer over the dressmaker's and upholsterer's bills, and the Court Journal was driven into recording the fact that someone actually presented a bottle of Pandamus odoratissimus, whatever that may be. Some subtle essence, mayhap, favorable to dreaminess; since, in the month of peace, drugs were necessary to prevent awakening.

Especially when, on the 30th of May, a sound came over the distant horizon; the sound of artillery.

At last! At last! Jim Douglas, who, in sheer dread of his own growing despair, had taken to spending all the time he dared in moody silence on that peaceful roof, started as if he had been shot, and was down the stairs seeking news. The streets were full of a silent, restless crowd, almost empty of soldiers. They had gone out during the night, he learned, Meerutward; tidings of an army on the banks of the Hindu river, seven or eight miles out, having been brought in by scouts.

At last! At last! He wandered through the bazaars scarcely able to think, wondering only when the army could possibly arrive, feeling a mad joy in the anxious faces around him, lingering by the groups of men collected in every open space simply for the satisfaction of hearing the wonder and alarm in the words: "So the master lives."

He lived indeed! Listen! That was his voice over the eastern horizon! Kate, when he came back to the roof about noon, had never seen him in this mood before, and wondered at his fire, his gayety, his youth. But the recognition brought a dull pain with it, in the thought that this was natural to the man; that gloomy moodiness the result of her presence.

"You are not afraid, surely?" he said suddenly, breaking off in the recital of some future event which seemed to him certain.

"No. I am only glad," she replied slowly. "It could not have lasted much longer. It is a great relief."

"Relief," he echoed, "I wonder if you know the relief it is to me?" And then he looked at her remorsefully. "I have been an awful brute, Mrs. Erlton, but women can scarcely understand what inaction means to a man."

Could they not? she wondered bitterly as he hastened off again, leaving her to long weary hours of waiting; till the red flush of sunset on the bubble dome of the mosque brought him back with a new look on his face; a look of angry doubt.

"The sepoys are coming in again," he said; "they claim a victory—but that, of course, is impossible. Still I don't understand, and it is so difficult to get any reliable information."

"You should go out yourself—I believe it would be best for us both," replied Kate, "Tara——"

He shook his head impatiently. "Not now. What is the use of risking all at the last. We can only have to wait till to-morrow. But I don't understand it, all the same. The sepoys say they surprised the camp—that the buglers were still calling to arms when their artillery opened fire. But so far as I can make out they have lost five guns, and from the amount of bhang they are drinking, I believe it was a rout. However, if you don't mind, I'll be off again—and—and don't be alarmed if I stay out."

"I'm not in the least alarmed," she replied. "As I have told you before, I don't think it is necessary you should come here at all."

He paused at the door to glance back at her half-resentfully. To be sure she did not know that he had slept on its threshold as a rule; but anyhow, after eating your heart out over one woman's safety for three weeks, it was hard to be told that you were not wanted. But, thank Heaven! the end was at hand. And yet as he lingered round the watch-fires he heard nothing but boasting, and in more than one of the mosques thanksgivings were being offered up; while outside the walls volunteers to complete the task so well begun were assembling to go forth with the dawn and kill the few remaining infidels. Some drunk with bhang, more intoxicated by the lust of blood which comes to fighting races like the Rajpoot with the first blow. It had come to Soma, as, with fierce face seamed with tears, he told the tale again and again of his chum's gallant death. How Davee Singh, brother in arms, his boyhood's playmate, seeing some cowards of artillerymen abandoning a tumbril full of ammunition to the cursed Mlechchas, had leaped to it like a black-buck, and with a cry to Kali, Mother of Death, had fired his musket into it; so sending a dozen or more of the hell-doomed to their place, and one more brave Rajpoot to Swarga.

"Jai! Jai! Kâli ma ki jai!"

An echo of the dead man's last cry came from many a living one, as muskets were gripped tighter in the resolve to be no whit behind. A few more such heroes and the Golden Age would come again; the age of the blessed Pandâva, who forgot the cause in the quarrel.

And so for one day more Jim Douglas strained his ears for that distant thunder on the horizon, while the people of the town, becoming more accustomed to it, went about their business, vaguely relieved at anything which should keep the sepoys' hands from mischief.

The red sunset glow was on the mosque again when he returned to the little slip of roof to find Kate working away at her grammars calmly. The best thing she could do, since every word she learned was an additional safeguard; and yet the man could not help a scornful smile.

"It is a rout this time, I am sure," he said; "and yet there is no sign of pursuit. I cannot understand it; there seems a Fate about it!"

"Is that anything new?" she asked wearily, as she laid down her book, and with the certain precision which marked all her actions, saw that the water was really boiling before she made the tea. It was made in a lota, and drunk out of handleless basins, yet for all that it was Western-made tea, strong and unspiced, with cream to put to it also, which she skimmed from a dish set in cold water in the coolest, darkest place she could find. Dreamlike indeed, and Jim Douglas, drinking his tea, felt, that with his eyes shut, he might have dreamed himself in an English drawing room.

"Nothing new," he retorted, "but it seems incomprehensible. Hark! That is a salute; for the victory, I suppose. Upon my soul I feel as if—as if I were a dream myself—as if I should go mad! Don't look startled—I shan't. The whole thing is a sham—I can see that. But why has no one the pluck to give the House-of-Cards a push and bring it about their ears? And what has become of the army at the Hindun? It took three days to march there from Meerut, I hear—not more than twenty-four miles. No! I cannot understand it. No wonder the people say we are all dead. I begin to believe it myself."

He heard the saying often enough certainly to bring relief during the 1st and 2d of June, when there was no more distant thunder on the horizon, and the whole town, steeped and saturated with sunshine, lay half-asleep, the soldiers drowsing off the effect of their drugs.

Dead? Yea! the masters were dead, and those who had escaped were in full retreat up the river; so at least said villagers coming in with supplies. But someone else who had come in with supplies also, sat crouched up like a grasshopper on a great pile of wool-betasseled sacks in the corn market and laughed creakily. "Dead! not they. As the tanda passed Karnal four days agone the camping ground was white as a poppy field with tents, and the soldiers like the flies buzzing round them. And if folk want to hear more, I, Tiddu Baharupa-Bunjârah, can tell tales beyond the Cashmere gate on the river island where the bullocks graze."

The creaking voice rose unnecessarily loud, and a man in the dress of an Afghan who had been listening, his back to the speaker, moved off with a surprised smile. Tiddu had proved his vaunted superiority in that instance; though by what arts he had penetrated the back of a disguise, Jim Douglas could not imagine. Still here was news indeed—news which explained some of the mystery, since the seeming retreat up the river had been, no doubt, for the purpose of joining forces. But it was something almost better than news—it was a chance of giving them. He had not dared, for Kate's sake, to risk any confederate as yet; but here was one ready to hand—a confederate, too, who would do anything for money.

So that night he sat in tamarisk shadow on the river island talking in whispers, while the monotonous clank of the bells hung on the wandering bullocks sounded fitfully, the flicker of the watchfires gleamed here and there on the half-dried pools of water, the fireflies flashed among the bushes, and every now and again a rough, rude chant rose on the still air.

"They have been there these ten days, Huzoor," came Tiddu's indifferent voice. "They are waiting for the siege train. Nigh on three thousand of them, and some black faces besides."

Jim Douglas gave an exclamation of sheer despair. To him, living in the House-of-Cards, the Palace-of-Dreams, such caution seemed unnecessary. Still, the past being irretrievable, the present remained in which by hook or by crook to get the letter he had with him, ready written, conveyed to the army at Kurnal. And Tiddu, with fifty rupees stowed away in his waistband, being lavish of promise and confidence, there was no more to be done save creep back to the city, feeling as if the luck had turned at last.

But the next morning he found the Thunbi Bazaar in a turmoil of talk. There were spies in the city. A letter had been found, written in the Persian character, it is true but with the devilish knowledge of the West in its details of likely spots for attack, the indecision of certain quarters in the city, its general unpreparedness for anything like resistance. Who had written it? As the day went on the camps were in uproar, the Palace invaded, the dream disturbed by denouncings of Ahsan-Oolah, the giver of composing draughts—Mahboob Ali, the checker of the purse strings; even of Mirza Moghul, commander-in-chief himself, who might well be eager to buy his recognition as heir by treachery.

The net result of the letter being that, as Jim Douglas, with wrath in his heart, crept out at dusk to the low levels by the Water Bastion, intent on having it out with Tiddu, he could see gangs of sepoys still at work by torchlight strengthening the bridge defense, and had to dodge a measuring party of artillerymen busy range-finding. His suggestions had been of use!

But the old Bunjârah took his fierce reproaches philosophically. "'Tis the miscreant Bhungi," he assented mournfully. "He is not to be trusted, but Jhungi having a tertian ague, I deemed a surer foot advisable. Yet the Huzoor need not be afraid. Even the miscreant would not betray his person; and for the rest, the Presence writes Persian like any court moonshee."

The calm assumption that personal fear was at the bottom of his reproaches, made Jim Douglas desire to throttle the old man, and only the certainty that he dare not risk a row prevented him from going for the ill-gotten rupees at any rate. His thought, however, seemed read by the old rascal, for a lean protesting hand, holding a bag, flourished out of the darkness, and the creaking voice said magnificently:

"Before Murri-âm and the sacred neem, Huzoor, I have kept my bargain. As for Jhungi or Bhungi, did I make them that I should know the evil in them? But if the Huzoor suspects one who holds his tongue, let the bargain between us end."

His hearer could not repress a smile at the consummate cunning of the speech. "You can keep the money for the next job," he said briefly; "I haven't done with you yet, you scoundrel."

A grim chuckle came out of the shadows as the hand went back into them.

"The Huzoor need not fret himself, whatever happens. The end is nigh."

It seemed as if it must be with three thousand British soldiers within sixty miles of Delhi; or less, since they might have marched during those five days. They might be at Delhi any moment. Three thousand men! Enough and to spare even though in the last few days a detachment or two of fresh mutineers had arrived. Ah! if the blow had been struck sooner. If—if——

Kate listened during those first days of June to many such wishes, despairs, hopes, from one whose only solace lay in words; since with relief staring him in the face, Jim Douglas crushed down his craving for action. There was no real need for it, he told her; it must involve risk, so they must wait—sleep and dream like the city!

For, lulled by the delay, stimulated to fresh fancy by the newcomers, the townspeople went on their daily round monotonously; the sepoys boasted and drank bhang. And in the Palace, the King, in new robes of state sat on his new cushion and put the sign-manual to such trifles as a concession to a home-born slave that he might "continue, as heretofore, a-tinning the royal sauce-pans!" though Mahboob Ali's face lengthened as he doled out something on account for faith and finery, and suggested that the army might at least be employed in collecting revenue somewhere. But the army grinned in the commander-in-chief's face, scorned laborious days, and between the seductions of the Thunbi Bazaar gave peaceful citizens what one petitioner against plunder calls "a foretaste of the Day of Judgment."

But one soul in Delhi felt in every fiber of him that the Judgment had come—that atonement must be made.

"Thou wilt kill thyself with prayers and fastings and seekings of other folks' salvations, Moulvie-sahib," said Hâfzan almost petulantly as, passing on her rounds, she saw Mohammed Ismail's anxious face, seeking audience with everyone in authority, "Thou hast done thy best. The rest is with God; and if these find death also, the blame will lie elsewhere."

"But the blame of those, woman?" he asked fiercely, pointing with trembling finger to the little cistern shaded by the peepul tree.

Hâfzan gave a shrill laugh as she passed on.

"Fear not that either, learned one! This world's atonement for that will be sufficient for future pardon."

It might be so, Mohammed Ismail told himself as he hurried off feverishly to another appeal. He had erred in ignorance there; but what of the forty prisoners still at the Kotwâli—forty stubborn Christians despite their dark skins? They were safe so far, but if the city were assaulted?—if some of the fresh, fiery-faithed newcomers—— The doubt left him no peace.

"If thou wilt swear, Moulvie-jee, on thine own eternal salvation that they are Mohammedans, or stake thy soul on their conversion," jeered those who held the keys. A heavy stake, that! A solemn oath with forty stubborn Christians to deal with. No wonder Mohammed Ismail felt judgment upon him already.

But the stake was staked, the oath spoken on the 6th of June. The record of it is brief, but it stands as history in the evidence of one of the forty. "We were released in consequence of a Moulvie of the name of Mohammed Ismail giving evidence that we were all Mohammedan; or that if any were Christian they would become Mohammedan."

And it was given none too soon. For on the 6th of June as the sun set, a silhouette of a man on a horse stood clear against the red-gold in the west, looking down from the Ridge on Delhi. Looking down on the city bathed in the dreamy glamour of the slanting sunbeams; rose-red and violet-shadowed, with the great white dome hovering above the smoke wreaths, and a glitter of gold on the eastern wall, where, backed by that arcaded view of the darkening Eastern plains, an old man sat listening to sentiments of fidelity from a pile of little brocaded bags.

It was Hodson of Hodson's Horse, reconnoitering ahead. So there was an Englishman on the Ridge once more as the paper kites came down on the 6th of June. But the fire balloons did not go up; for the night set in gusty and wet, giving no chance to new constellations.

Jim Douglas did not sleep at all that night, for Tiddu had brought word that the English were at Alipore, ten miles out; and nothing but the dread of needless risk kept him in Delhi. For any risk was needless when to a certainty the English flag would be flying over the city in a few hours.

And Hodson of Hodson's Horse back at Alipore slept late, for he lingered, weary and wet after his long ride, to write to his wife ere turning in, that "if he had had a hundred of the Guides he could have gone right up to the city wall."

But Mohammed Ismail slept peacefully, his work being over, and dreamed of Paradise.

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