On the Face of the Waters

BOOK II
CHAPTER VI

THE YELLOW FAKIR.

The days passed to weeks, the weeks to a month, after that shedding of first blood, and no more was spilled, save that of the shedders. Two of them were hanged, the regiment ordered to be disbanded. For the rest, though causeless fires broke out in every cantonment, though a Sikh orderly divulged to his master some tale of a concerted rising, though the dread of the greased cartridge grew to a perfect panic, even Jim Douglas, with his eyes wide open, was forced to admit that, so far as any chance of action went, the reply might still be "Delhi dur ust." The sky was dark indeed, there were mutterings on the horizon; but he and others remembered how often in India, even when rain is due, the clouds creep up and up day by day, darker and more lowering, until the yellowing crops seem to grow greener in sheer hope of the purple pall above them. And then some unseen hand juggles those portentous rain-clouds into the daily darkness of night, and some dawn rises clear and dry to show, in its fierce blaze of sunlight, how the yellow has gained on the green.

So, day by day, the impression grew among the elect that the storm signals would pass; that the best policy was to tide over the next few months somehow. In pursuance of which a sepoy who ventured to draw attention to the state of feeling in one regiment was publicly told he need expect no promotion.

But there were dissentients to this policy, apparently. Anyhow, in the end of April, Colonel Carmichael Smyth, commanding the 3d Bengal Cavalry at Meerut, returned from leave one evening, and ordered fifteen men from each troop to be picked out to learn the use of the new cartridge next morning, and then went to bed comfortably. The men, through their native officers, appealed to their captain for delay. They were neither prepared to take nor refuse the cartridges, old or new. No answer was given them. They marched to the parade obediently at sunrise, and eighty-five of the ninety men picked from a picked regiment for smartness and intelligence refused to take the cartridges, even from their Colonel's or their Adjutant's hand. Their own troop officers were not present. They were at once tried by a court-martial of native officers, some of whom came from the regiments at Delhi; but thirty odd miles off along a broad, level driving road. They were sentenced to ten years' penal servitude, and a parade of all troops was ordered for sunrise on the 9th of May, to put the sentence into force.

So the night of the 8th found Jim Douglas riding over from Delhi in the cool to see something which, if anything could, ought to turn mere talk into action. It had brought a new sound into the air already. The clang of cold iron upon hot, rising from the regimental smithy, where the fetters for the eighty-five were being forged. A cruel sound at best, proclaiming the indubitable advantage of coolness and hardness over glow and plasticity. Cruel indeed when the hardness and insistency goes to the forging of fetters for emotion and ignorance.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The sound rang out into the hot airless night, rang out into the gusty dawn; for it takes time to forge eighty-five pairs of shackles. Rang out to where a mixed guard of the 11th and 20th Regiments of Native Infantry were waiting round the tumbrils for the last fetter. The gray of dawn showed the rest piled on the tumbrils, showed two English officers on horseback talking to each other a little way off, showed the faces of the guard dark and lowering like the dawn itself.

"Loh! sergeant jee! there is the last," said the master-armorer cheerfully. His task was done, at any rate.

Soma took it from him silently, and flung it on the others almost fiercely; it settled among them with a clank. His regiment, the 11th, had but newly come to Meerut, and therefore had as yet no ties of personal comradeship with the eighty-five, but fetters for any sepoys were enough to make the pulse beat full and heavy.

"The last, thank Heaven!" said the Captain, giving his bridle rein a jag. "All right forward, Jones! Then fall in, men. Quick march! We are late enough as it is."

The disciplined feet fell in without a waver; the tumbrils moved on with a clank and a creak.

Quick march! Soma's mind, fair reflection of the minds of all about him, was full of doubt. Was that indeed the last fetter, or did Rumor say sooth when it told of others being secretly forged? Who could say in these days, when the Huzoors themselves had taken to telling lies. Not his Huzoors as yet; his Colonels and Captains and Majors, even the little sahib, who laughed over his own mistakes on parade, told the truth still. But the others lied. Lied about enlistment, about prize-money and leave, about those cartridges. At least, so the men in the 20th said; the sergeant marching next to him behind the tumbril most of all.

"'Tis but three weeks longer, comrade," said this man suddenly in a low whisper. They were treading the dim, deserted outskirts of the cantonment bazaar, and Soma looked round nervously at the officers behind. Had they heard? He frowned at the speaker and made no reply. He gave a deaf ear, when he could, to the talk in the 20th; but that was not always, for its sepoys were a part of the Bengal army. That army which was not—as a European army is—a mere chance collection of men divided from each other in the beginning and end of life, associated loosely with each other in its middle, and using military service as a make-shift; but, to a great extent, a guild, following the profession of arms by hereditary custom from the cradle to the grave.

Quick march! A woman, early astir, peered at the little procession through the chink of a door, and whispered to an unseen companion behind. What was she saying? What, by implication, would other women, who peeped virtuously—women he knew—say of his present occupation? That he was a coward to be guarding his comrades' fetters? No doubt; since others with less right would say it too. All the miserable, disreputable riff-raff, for instance, which had drifted in from the neighborhood to see the show. The bazaar had been full of it these three days past. Even the sweepers, pariahs, out-castes, would snigger over the misfortunes of their betters—as those two ahead were doubtless sniggering already as they drew aside from their slave's work of sweeping the roadway, to let the tumbrils pass. Drew aside with mock deference, leaving scantiest room for the twice-born following them. So scant, indeed, that the outermost tip of a reed broom, flourished in insolent salaam, touched the Rajput's sleeve. It was the veriest brush, no more than a fly's wing could have given; but the half-stifled cry from Soma's lips meant murder—nothing less. His disciplined feet wavered, he gave a furtive glance at his companions. Had they seen the insult? Could they use it against him?

"Eyes front, there; forward!" came the order from behind, and he pulled himself together by instinct and went on.

"Only three weeks longer, brother!" said that voice beside him meaningly; and a dull rage rose in Soma's heart. So it had been seen. It might be said of him, Soma, that he had tamely submitted to a defiling touch. He did not look round at his officers this time. They might hear if they chose, the future might hold what it chose. Mayhap they had seen the insult and were laughing at it. They were not his Huzoors; they belonged to the man at his side, who had the right to taunt him. As a matter of fact, they were discussing the chances of their ponies in next week's races; but Soma, lost in a great wrath, a great fear, made it, inevitably, the topic of the whole world.

Hark! The bugle for the Rifles to form; they were to come to the parade loaded with ball cartridge. And that rumble was the Artillery, loaded also, going to take up their position. By and by the Carabineers would sweep with a clatter and a dash to form the third side of the hollow square, whereof the fourth was to be a mass of helpless dark faces, with the eighty-five martyrs and tumbrils in the middle. Soma had seen it all in general orders, talked it over with his dearest friend, and called it tyranny. And now the tumbrils clanked past a little heap of smoldering ashes, that but the day before had been a guard-house. The lingering smoke from this last work of the incendiary drifted northward, after the fetters, making one of the officers cough. But he went on talking of his ponies. True type of the race which lives to make mistakes, dies to retrieve them. Quick march!

Streams of spectators bound for the show began to overtake them, ready with comments on what Soma guarded. And on the broad white Mall, dividing the native half of the cantonments and the town of Meerut from the European portion, more than one carriage with a listless, white-faced woman in it dashed by, on its way to see the show. The show!

Quick march! Whatever else might be possible in the futures that was all now, midway between the barracks of the Rifles and the Carabineers, with the church—mute symbol of the horror which, day by day, month by month, had been closing in round the people—blocking the way in front. So they passed on to the wide northern parade ground, with that hollow square ready; three sides of it threatening weapons, the fourth of unarmed men, and in the center the eighty-five picked men of a picked regiment.

The knot of European spectators round the flag listened with yawns to the stout General's exordium. The eighty-five being hopelessly, helplessly in the wrong by military law, there seemed to be no need to insist on the fact. And the mass of dark faces standing within range of loaded guns and rifles, within reach of glistening sabers, did not listen at all. Not that it mattered, since the units in that crowd had lost the power of accepting facts. Even Soma, standing to attention beside the tumbrils, only felt a great sense of outrage, of wrong, of injustice somewhere. And there was one Englishman, at least, rigid to attention also before his disarmed, dismounted, yet loyal troop, who must have felt it also, unless he was more than human. And this was Captain Craigie, who, when his men appealed to him to save them, to delay this unnecessary musketry parade, had written in his haste to the Adjutant, "Go to Smyth at once! Go to Smyth!" and Smyth was his Colonel! Incredible lack of official etiquette. Repeated hardily, moreover. "Pray don't lose a moment, but go to Smyth and tell him." What? Only "that this is a most serious matter, and we may have the whole regiment in open mutiny in half an hour if it is not attended to." Only that! So it is to be hoped that Captain Craigie had the official wigging for his unconventional appeal in his pocket as he shared his regiment's disgrace, to serve him as a warning—or a consolation.

And now the pompous monotone being ended, the silence, coming after the clankings, and buglings, and trampings which had been going on since dawn, was almost oppressive. The three sides of steel, even the fourth of faces, however, showed no sign. They stood as stone while the eighty-five were stripped of their uniforms. But there was more to come. By the General's orders the leg-irons were to be riveted on one by one; and so, once more, the sound of iron upon iron recurred monotonously, making the silence of the intervals still more oppressive. For the prisoners at first seemed stunned by the isolation from even their as yet unfettered comrades. But suddenly from a single throat came that cry for justice, which has a claim to a hearing, at least, in the estimation of the people of India.

"Dohai! Dohai! Dohai!"

Soma gave a sort of sigh, and a faint quiver of expectation passed over the sea of dark faces.

Clang! Clang! The hammers, going on unchecked, were the only answer. Those three sides of stone had come to see a thing done, and it must be done; the sooner the better. But the riveting of eighty-five pairs of leg-irons is not to be done in a moment; so the cry grew clamorous. Dohai! Dohai! Had they not fought faithfully in the past? Had they not been deceived? Had they had a fair chance?

But the hammers went on as the sun climbed out of the dust-haze to gleam on the sloped sabers, glint on the loaded guns, and send glittering streaks of light along the rifles.

So the cry changed. Were their comrades cowards to stand by and see this tyranny and raise no finger of help? Oh! curses on them! 'Tis they who were degraded, dishonored. Curses on the Colonel who had forced them to this! Curses on every white face!—curses on every face which stood by!

One, close to the General's flag, broke suddenly into passionate resentment. Jim Douglas drew out his watch, looked at it, and gathered his reins together. "An hour and forty-five minutes already. I'm off, Ridgeway. I can't stand this d——d folly any more."

"My dear fellow, speak lower! If the General——"

"I don't care who hears me," retorted Jim Douglas recklessly as he steered through the crowd, followed by his friend, "I say it is d——d inconceivable folly and tyranny. Come on, and let's have a gallop, for God's sake, and get rid of that devilish sound."

The echo of their horses' resounding hoofs covered, obliterated it. The wind of their own swiftness seemed to blow the tension away. So after a spin due north for a mile or two they paused at the edge of a field where the oxen were circling placidly round on the threshing-floors and a group of women were taking advantage of the gustiness to winnow. Their bare, brown arms glistened above the falling showers of golden grain, their unabashed smiling faces showed against the clouds of golden chaff drifting behind them.

Jim Douglas looked at them for a moment, returned the salaam of the men driving the oxen and forking the straw, then turned his horse toward the cantonment again.

"It is nothing to them; that's one comfort," he said. "But they will have to suffer for it in the end, I expect. Who will believe when the time comes that this"—he gave a backward wave of his hand—"went on unwittingly of that?"

His companion, following his look ahead, to where, in the far distance, a faint cloud of dust, telling of many feet, hung on the horizon, said suddenly, as if the sight brought remembrance: "By George! Douglas, how steady the sepoys stood! I half expected a row."

"Steadier than I should," remarked the other grimly. "Well, I hope Smyth is satisfied. To return from leave and drive your regiment into mutiny in twelve hours is a record performance."

His hearer, who was a civilian, gave a deprecating cough. "That's a bit hard, surely. I happen to know that he heard while on leave some story about a concerted rising later on. He may have done it purposely, to force their hands."

Jim Douglas shrugged his shoulders. "Did he warn you what he was about to do? Did he allow time to prepare others for his private mutiny? My dear Ridgeway, it was put on official record two months ago that an organized scheme for resistance existed in every regiment between Calcutta and Peshawur; so Smyth might at least have consulted the colonels of the other two regiments at Meerut. As it is, the business has strained the loyalty of the most loyal to the uttermost; and we deserve to suffer, we do indeed."

"You don't mince matters, certainly," said the civilian dryly.

"Why should anybody mince them? Why can't we admit boldly—the C.-in-C. did it on the sly the other day—that the cartridges are suspicious? that they leave the muzzle covered with a fat, like tallow? Why don't we admit it was tallow at first. Why not, at any rate, admit we are in a hole, instead of refusing to take the common precaution of having an ammunition wagon loaded up for fear it should be misconstrued into alarm? Is there no medium between bribing children with lollipops and torturing them—keeping them on the strain, under fire, as it were, for hours, watching their best friends punished unjustly?"

"Unjustly?"

"Yes. To their minds unjustly. And you know what forcible injustice means to children—and these are really children—simple, ignorant, obstinate."

They had come back to cantonments again and were rapidly overtaking the now empty tumbrils going home, for the parade was over. Further down the road, raising a cloud of dust from their shackled feet, the eighty-five were being marched jailward under a native escort.

"Well," said the civilian dryly, "I would give a great deal to know what those simple babes really thought of us."

"Hate us stock and block for the time. I should," replied Jim Douglas. They were passing the tumbrils at the moment, and one of the guard, in sergeant's uniform, looked up in joyful recognition.

"Huzoor It is I, Soma."

The civilian looked at his companion oddly when, after a minute or two spent in answering Soma's inquiries as to where and how the master was to be found, Jim Douglas rode alongside once more.

"Out a bit, eh?" he said dryly.

"Very much out; but they are a queer lot. Do you remember the story of the self-made American who was told his boast relieved the Almighty of a great responsibility? Well, he is only responsible for one-half of the twice-born. The other is due to humanity, to heredity, what you will! That is what makes these high-caste men so difficult to deal with. They are twice born. Yes! they are a queer lot."

He repeated the remark with even greater fervor twelve hours later, when, about midnight, he started on his return ride to Delhi. For though he had spent the whole day in listening, he had scarcely heard a word of blame for the scene which had roused him to wrath that morning. The sepoys had gone about their duties as if nothing had happened; and despite the undoubted presence of a lot of loose characters in the bazaar, there had been no disturbance. He laughed cynically to himself at the waste of a day which would have been better spent in horse dealing. This, however, settled it. If this intolerable tyranny failed to rouse action there could be no immediate danger ahead. To a big cantonment like Meerut, the biggest in Northern India, with two thousand British troops in it, even the prospect of a rising was not serious; at Delhi, however, where there were only native troops, it might have been different. But now he felt that a handful of resolute men ought to be able to hold their own anywhere against such aimless invertebrate discontent. He felt a vague disappointment that it should be so, that the pleasant cool of night should be so quiet, so peaceful. They were a poor lot who could do nothing but talk!

As he rode through the station the mess-houses were still alight, and the gay voices of the guests who had been dining at a large bungalow, bowered in gardens, reached his ears distinctly.

"It's the Sabbath already," said one. "Ought to be in our beds!"

"Hooray! for a Europe morning," came a more boyish one breaking into a carol, "of all the days within the week I dearly love——"

"Shut up, Fitz!" put in a third, "you'll wake the General!"

"What's the odds? He can sleep all day. I'm sure his buggy charger needs a rest."

"Do shut up, Fitz! The Colonel will hear you."

"I don't care. It's Scriptural. Thou and thy ox and thy ass——"

"You promised to come to evening church, Mr. Fitzgerald," interrupted a reproachful feminine voice; "you said you would sing in the choir."

"Did I? Then I'll come. It will wake me up for dinner; besides, I shall sit next you."

The last words came nearer, softer. Mr. Fitzgerald was evidently riding home beside someone's carriage.

Pleasant and peaceful indeed! that clank of a sentry, here and there, only giving a greater sense of security. Not that it was needed, for here, beyond cantonments, the houses of the clerks and civilians lay as peaceful, as secure. In the veranda of one of them, close to the road, a bearer was walking up and down crooning a patient lullaby to the restless fair-haired child in his arms.

No! truly there could be no fear. It was all talk! He set spurs to his horse and went on through the silent night at a hand-gallop, for he had another beast awaiting him halfway, and he wished to be in Delhi by dawn. There was a row of tall trees bordering the road on either side, making it dark, and through their swiftly passing boles the level country stretched to the paler horizon like a sea. And as he rode, he sat in judgment in his thoughts on those dead levels and the people who lived in them.

Stagnant, featureless! A dead sea! A mere waste of waters without form or void! Not even ready for a spirit to move over them; for if that morning's work left them apathetic, the Moulvie of Fyzabad himself need preach no voice of God. For this, surely—this sense of injustice to others, must be the strongest motive, the surest word to conjure with. That dull dead beat of iron upon the fetters of others,—which he still seemed to hear,—the surest call to battle.

He paused in his thought, wondering if what he fancied he heard was but an echo from memory or real sound! Real; undoubtedly. It was the distant clang of the iron bells upon oxen. That meant that he must be seven or eight miles out, halfway to the next stage, so meeting the usual stream of night traffic toward Meerut. He passed two or three strings of large, looming, half-seen wains without drawing bridle, then pulled up almost involuntarily to a trot at the curiously even tread of a drove of iron-shod oxen, and a low chanted song from behind it. Bunjârah folk! The rough voice, the familiar rhythm of the hoofs, reminded him of many a pleasant night-march in their company.

"A good journey, brothers!" he called in the dialect. The answer came unerringly, dark though it was.

"The Lord keep the Huzoor safe!"

It made him smile as he remembered that of course a lone man trotting a horse along a highroad at night was bound to be alien in a country where horses are ambled and travelers go in twos and threes. So the rough, broad faces would be smiling over the surprise of a sahib knowing the Bunjârah talk; unless, indeed, it happened to be—— The possibility of its being the tanda he knew had not occurred to him before. He pulled up and looked round. A breathless shadow was at his stirrup, and he fancied he saw a shadow or two further behind.

"The Huzoor has mistaken the road," came Tiddu's familiar creak. "Meerut lies to the north."

Breathless as he was, there was the pompous mystery in his voice which always prefaced an attempt to extort money. And Jim Douglas, having no further use for the old scoundrel, did not intend to give him any, so he simulated an utter lack of surprise.

"Hello, Tiddu!" he said. "I had an idea it might be you. So you recognized my voice?"

The old man laughed. "The Huzoor is mighty clever. He knows old Tiddu has eyes. They saw the Huzoor's horse—a bay Wazeerie with a white star none too small, and all the luck-marks—waiting at the fifteenth milestone, by Begum-a-bad. But the Huzoor, being so clever, is not going to ride the Wazeerie to-night. He is going to ride the Belooch he is on back to Meerut, though the star on her forehead is too small for safety; my thumb could cover it."

"It's a bit too late to teach me the luck-marks, Tiddu," said Jim Douglas coolly. "You want money, you ruffian; so I suppose you have something to sell. What is it? If it is worth anything, you can trust me to pay, surely."

Tiddu looked round furtively. The other shadow, Jhungi or Bhungi, or both, perhaps—the memory made Jim Douglas smile—had melted away into the darkness. He and Tiddu were alone. The old man, even so, reached up to whisper.

"'Tis the yellow fakir, Huzoor! He has come."

"The yellow fakir!" echoed his hearer; "who the devil is he? And why shouldn't he come, if he likes?"

Tiddu paused, as if in sheer amaze, for a second. "The Huzoor has not heard of the yellow fakir? The dumb fakir who brings the speech that brings more than speech. Wâh!"

"Speech that is more than speech," echoed Jim Douglas angrily, then paused in his turn; the phrase reminded him, vaguely, of his past thoughts.

Tiddu's hand went out to the Belooch's rein; his voice lost its creak and took a soft sing-song to which the mare seemed to come round of her own accord.

"Yea! Speech that is more than speech, though he is dumb. Whence he comes none know, not even I, the Many-Faced. But I can see him when he comes, Huzoor! The others, not unless he wills to be seen. I saw him to-night. He passed me on a white horse not half an hour agone, going Meerutward. Did not the Huzoor see him? That is because he has learned from old Tiddu to make others see, but not to see himself. But the old man will teach him this also if he is in Meerut by dawn. If he is there by dawn he will see the yellow fakir who brings the speech that brings more than speech."

The sing-song ceased; the Belooch was stepping briskly back toward Meerut.

"You infernal old humbug!" began Jim Douglas.

"The Huzoor does not believe, of course," remarked Tiddu, in the most matter-of-fact creak. "But Meerut is only eight miles off. His other horse can wait; and if he does not see the yellow fakir there is no need to open the purse-strings."

The Englishman looked at his half-seen companion admiringly. He was the most consummate scoundrel! His blending of mystery and purely commercial commonplace was perfect—almost irresistible. There was no reason why he should go on; the groom, halfway, had his usual orders to stay till his master came. For the rest, it would be pleasant to renew the old pleasant memory—pleasant even to renew his acquaintance with Tiddu's guile, which struck him afresh each time he came across it.

He slipped from his horse without a word, and was about to pull the reins over her head so as to lead her, when Tiddu stopped short.

"Jhungi will take her to the rest-house, Huzoor, or Bhungi. It will be safer so. I have a clean cotton quilt in the bundle, and the Huzoor can have my shoes and rub his legs in the dust. That will do till dawn."

He gave a jackal's cry, which was echoed from the darkness.

"Leave her so, Huzoor! She is safe," said Tiddu; and Jim Douglas, as he obeyed, heard the mare whinny softly, as if to a foal, as a shadow came out of the bushes. Junghi or Bhungi, no doubt.

Five minutes after, with a certain unaccountable pleasure, he found himself walking beside a laden bullock, one arm resting on its broad back, his feet keeping step with the remittent clang of its bell. A strange dreamy companionship, as he knew of old. And once more the stars seemed, after a time, to twinkle in unison with the bell, he seemed to forget thought, to forget everything save the peaceful stillness around, and his own unresting peace.

So, he and the laden beast went on as one living, breathing mortal, till the little shiver of wind came, which comes with the first paling of the sky. It was one of those yellow dawns, serene, cloudless, save for a puff or two of thin gray vapor low down on the horizon, looking as if it were smoke from an unseen censer swinging before the chariot of the Sun which heads the procession of the hours. He was so absorbed in watching the yellow light grow to those clouds no bigger than a man's hand; so lost in the strange companionship with the laden beast bound to the wheel of Life and Death as he was, yet asking no question of the future, that Tiddu's hand and voice startled him.

"Huzoor!" he said. "The yellow fakir!"

They were close on the city of Meerut. The road, dipping down to cross a depression, left a bank of yellow dust on either side. And on the eastern one, outlined against the yellow sunrise, sat a motionless figure. It was naked, and painted from head to foot a bright yellow color. The closed eyes were daubed over so as to hide them utterly, and on the forehead, as it is in the image of Siva, was painted perpendicularly a gigantic eye, wide, set, stony. Before it in the dust lay the beggar's bowl for alms.

"The roads part here, Huzoor," said Tiddu. "This to the city; that to the cantonments."

As he spoke, a handsome young fellow came swaggering down the latter, on his way evidently to riotous living in the bazaar. Suddenly he paused, his hand went up to his eyes as if the rising sun were in them. Then he stepped across the road and dropped a coin into the beggar's bowl. Tiddu nodded his head gravely.

"That man is wanted, Huzoor. That is why he saw. Mayhap he is to give the word."

"The word?" echoed Jim Douglas. "You said he was dumb?"

"I meant the trooper, Huzoor. The fakir wanted him. To give the word, mayhap. Someone must always give it."

Jim Douglas felt an odd thrill. He had never thought of that before. Someone, of course, must always give the word, the speech which brought more than speech. What would it be? Something soul-stirring, no doubt; for Humanity had a theory that an angel must trouble the waters and so give it a righteous cause for stepping in to heal the evil.

But what a strange knack the old man had of stirring the imagination with ridiculous mystery! He felt vexed with himself for his own thrill, his own thoughts. "He is a very ordinary yogi, I should say," he remarked, looking toward the yellow sunrise, but the figure was gone. He turned to Tiddu again, with real annoyance. "Well! Whoever he is, he cannot want me. And I certainly saw him."

"I willed the Huzoor to see!" replied Tiddu with calm effrontery.

Jim Douglas laughed. The man was certainly a consummate liar; there was never any possibility of catching him out.

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