On the Face of the Waters

BOOK IV
CHAPTER I

THE DEATH PLEDGE.

The outer court of the Palace lay steeped in the sunshine of noon. Its hot rose-red walls and arcades seemed to shimmer in the glare, and the dazzle and glitter gave a strange air of unreality, of instability to all things. To the crowds of loungers taking their siesta in every arcade and every scrap of shadow, to the horses stabled in rows in the glare and the blaze, to the eager groups of new arrivals which, from time to time, came in from the outer world by the cool, dark tunnel of the Lahore gate to stand for a second, as if blinded by the shimmer and glitter, before becoming a part of that silent, drowsy stir of life.

From an arch close to the inner entry to the precincts rose a monotonous voice reading aloud. The reader was evidently the author also, for his frown of annoyance was unmistakable at a sudden diversion caused by the entry of a dozen or more armed men, shouting at the top of their voices: "Pâdisâth, Pâdisâth, Pâdisâth! We be fighters for The Faith. Pâdisâth! a blessing, a blessing!"

A malicious laugh came from one of the listeners in the arcade—a woman shrouded in a Pathan veil.

"'Tis as well his Majesty hath taken another cooling draught," came her voice shrilly. "What with writing letters for help to the Huzoors to please Ahsan-Oolah and Elahi-Buksh, and blessing faith to please the Queen, he hath enough to do in keeping his brain from getting dizzy with whirling this way and that. Mayhap faith will fail first, since it is not satisfied with blessings. They are windy diet, and I heard Mahboob say an hour agone that there was too much faith for the Treasury. Lo! moonshee-jee, put that fact down among thy heroics—they need balance!"

"Sure, niece Hâfzan," reproved the old editor of the Court Journal, "I see naught that needs it. Syyed Abdulla's periods fit the case as peas fit a pod; they hang together."

"As we shall when the Huzoors return," assented the voice from the veil.

"They will return no more, woman!" said another. It belonged to a man who leaned against a pilaster, looking dreamily out into the glare where, after a brief struggle, the band of fighters for the faith had pushed aside the timid door-keepers and forced their way to the inner garden. Through the open door they showed picturesquely, surging down the path, backed by green foliage and the white dome of the Pearl Mosque rising against the blue sky.

"The Faith! The Faith! We come to fight for the Faith!"

Their cry echoed over the drowsy, dreaming crowds, making men turn over in their sleep; that was all.

But the dreaminess grew in the face looking at the vista through the open door till its eyes became like those Botticelli gives to his Moses—the eyes of one who sees a promised land—and the dreamy voice went on:

"How can they return; seeing that He is Lord and Master? Changing the Day to Darkness, the Darkness into Day. Holding the unsupported skies, proving His existence by His existence, Omnipotent. High in Dignity, the Avenger of His Faithful people."

The old editor waggled his head with delighted approval; the author fidgeted over an eloquence not his own; but Hâfzan's high laugh rang cynically:

"That may be so, most learned divine; yet I, Hâfzan, the harem scribe, write no orders nowadays for King or Queen without the proviso of 'writ by a slave in pursuance of lawful order and under fear of death' in some quiet corner. For I have no fancy, see you, for hanging, even if it be in good company. But, go on with thy leading article, moonshee-jee, I will interrupt no more."

"Thus by a single revolution of time the state of affairs is completely reversed,^[4] and the great and memorable event which took place four days ago must be looked upon as a practical warning to the uninformed and careless, namely the British officers and those who never dreamed of the decline and fall of their government, but who have now convincing proof of what has been written in the Indelible Tablets by God. The following brief account, therefore, of the horrible and memorable events is given here solely for the sake of those still inclined to treat them as a dream. On Monday, the 16th of Rumzân, that holy month in which the Word of God came down to earth, and in which, for all time, lies the Great Night of Power, the courts being open early on account of the hot weather, the magistrate discharging his wonted duties, suddenly the bridge toll-keeper appeared, informing him that a few Toork troopers had first crossed the bridge——"

The dreamy-faced divine turned in sharp reproach. "Not so, Syyed-jee. The vision came first—the vision of the blessed Lord Ali seen by the muezzin. Wouldst make this time as other times, and deny the miracles by which it is attested as of God?"

"Miracles!" echoed Hâfzan. "I see no miracle in an old man on a camel."

The divine frowned. "Nor in a strange white bird with a golden crown, which hovered over the city giving the sacred cry? Nor in the fulfillment of Hussan Askuri's dream?"

Hâfzan burst into shrill laughter. "Hussan Askuri! Lo! Moulvie Mohammed Ismail, didst thou know the arch dreamer as I, thou wouldst not credit his miracles. He dreams to the Queen's orders as a bear dances to the whip. And as thou knowest, my mistress hath the knack of jerking the puppet strings. She hath been busy these days, and even the Princess Farkhoonda——"

"What of the Princess?" asked the newswriter, eagerly, nibbling his pen in anticipation.

"Nay, not so!" retorted Hâfzan. "I give no news nowadays, since I cannot set 'spoken under fear of death' upon the words."

She rose as she spoke, yet lingered, to stand a second beside the divine and say in a softer tone, "Dreams are not safe, even to the pious, as thou, Moulvie-sahib. A bird is none the less a bird because it is strange to Delhi and hath been taught to speak. That it was seen all know; yet for all that, it may be one of Hussan Askuri's tricks."

"Let it be so, woman," retorted Mohammed Ismail almost fiercely, "is there not miracle enough and to spare without it? Did not the sun rise four days ago upon infidels in power? Where are they now? Were there not two thousand of them in Meerut? Did they strike a blow? Did they strike one here? Where is their strength? Gone! I tell thee—gone!"

Hâfzan laid a veiled clutch on his arm suddenly and her other hand, widening the folds of her shapeless form mysteriously, pointed into the blaze and shimmer of sunlight. "It lies there, Moulvie-sahib, it lies there," she said in a passionate whisper, "for God is on their side."

It was a pitiful little group to which she pointed. A woman, her mixed blood showing in her face, her Christianity in her dress, being driven along like a sheep to the shambles across the courtyard. She clasped a year-old baby to her breast and a handsome little fellow of three toddled at her skirts. She paused in a scrap of shade thrown by a tree which grew beside a small cistern or reservoir near the middle of the court, and shifted the heavy child in her arms, looking round, as she did so, with a sort of wild, fierce fear, like that of a hunted animal. The cluster of sepoys who had made their prisoner over to the Palace guard turned hastily from the sight; but the guard drove her on with coarse jibes.

"The rope dangles close, Moulvie-jee," came Hâfzan's voice again. "Ropes, said I? Gentle ropes? Nay! only as the wherewithal to tie writhing limbs as they roast. If thou hast a taste for visions, pious one, tell me what thou seest ahead for the murderers of such poor souls?"

"Murderers," echoed Mohammed Ismail swiftly; "there is no talk of murder. 'Tis against our religion. Have I not signed the edict against it? Have we not protested against the past iniquity of criminals, and ignorant beasts, and vile libertines like Prince Abool-Bukr, who take advantage——"

"He was too drunk for much evil, learned one!" sneered Hâfzan. "Godly men do worse than he in their own homes, as I know to my cost. As for thine edict! Take it to the Princess Farkhoonda. She is a simple soul, though she holds the vilest liver of Delhi in a leash. But the Queen—the Queen is of different mettle, as you edict-signers will find. There are nigh fifty such prisoners in the old cook-room now. Wherefore?"

"For safety. There are nigh forty in the city police station also."

Hâfzan gathered her folds closer, "Truly thou art a simple soul, pious divine. Dost not think there is a difference, still, between the Palace and the city? But God save all women, black or white, say I! Save them from men, and since we be all bound to hell together by virtue of our sex, then will it be a better place than Paradise by having fewer men in it."

She flung her final taunts over her shoulder at her hearers as she went limping off.

"Heed her not, most pious!" said her uncle apologetically. "She hath been mad against men ever since hers, being old and near his end, took her, a child, and——"

But Moulvie Mohammed Ismail was striding across the courtyard to the long, low, half-ruinous shed in which the prisoners were kept.

"Have they proper food and water?" he asked sharply of the guard. "The King gave orders for it."

"It comes but now!" replied the sergeant glibly, pointing to a file of servants bearing dishes which were crossing the courtyard from the royal kitchens. The Moulvie gave a sigh of relief, for Hâfzan's hints had alarmed him. These same helpless prisoners lay on his conscience, since he and his like were mainly responsible for the diligent search for Christians which had been going on during the last few days; for it was not to be tolerated that the faithful should risk salvation by concealing them. The proper course was plain, unmistakable. They should be given up to the authorities and be made into good Mohammedans; by persuasion if possible, if not, by force. In truth the Moulvie dreamed already of ninety and odd willing converts, as a further manifestation of divine favor. Perhaps more; though most of these ill-advised attempts at concealment must have come to an end by now.

They had indeed; those four days of peace, of hourly increasing religious enthusiasm for a cause so evidently favored by High Heaven, had made it well nigh impossible to carry on a task attempted by so many, when it seemed likely to last for a few hours only.

Even Jim Douglas told himself he must fail unless he could get help. He had succeeded so far, simply because—by a mere chance—he had, not one but several, places of concealment ready to his hand without the necessity for taking anyone into his confidence. For he had found it convenient in his work to have cities of refuge, as it were, where he could escape from curiosity or change a disguise at leisure. The shilling or so a month required for the rent of a room in some tenement house being more than repaid by the sense of security the possession gave him. It was to one of these, therefore, that he took Kate on the dawn of the 12th, leaving her locked up in it alone; till night enabled him to take her on to another; so by constant change managing to escape suspicion. But as the days passed in miraculous peace, he recognized the hopelessness of continuing this life for long. To begin with, Kate's nerves could not stand it. She was brave enough, but she had an imagination, and what woman with that could stand being left alone in the dark for twelve hours at a time, never knowing if the slow starvation, which would be her fate if anything untoward happened to him, had not already begun? He could not expect her to stand it, when three days of something far less difficult had left him haggard, his nerves unstrung; left him with the possibility looming in the future of his losing his self-control some day, and going madly for the whole world as young Mainwaring had done. Not that he cared for Kate's safety so much, as that the mere thought of failure roused a beast-like ferocity in him. So, as he wandered restlessly about the city, waiting in a fever of impatience for some sign of the world without those rose-red walls—waiting day by day, with a growing tempest of rage, for the night to return and let him creep up some dark stairs and assure himself of a woman's safety, he was piecing together a plan in case—— Of what? In case the stories he heard in the bazaars were true? No! that was impossible. How could the English have been wiped out of India? Yet as he saw the deserted shops being reopened in solemn procession by an old pantaloon on an elephant calling himself the Emperor, when he saw Abool-Bukr letting off squibs in general rejoicing over the reestablishment of Mohammedan empire; above all when he saw the tide of life returning to the streets, his mad desire to strike a blow and smash the sham was tempered by an almost unbearable curiosity as to what had really happened. But he dared not try and find out. Useless though he knew it was, he hung round the quarter where Kate lay concealed for the day, feeling a certain consolation in knowing that he was as close to her as he dared to be. Such a life was manifestly impossible, and so, bit by bit, his plan grew. Yet, when it had grown, he almost shrank from it, so strange did it seem, in its linking of the past with the present. For Kate must pass as his wife—his sick wife, hidden, as Zora had been, on some terraced roof, with Tara as her servant; he, meanwhile, passing as an Afghan horse-dealer, kept from returning North, like others of his trade, by this illness in his house. The plan was perfectly feasible if Tara would consent. And Jim Douglas, though he ignored his own certainty, never really doubted that she would. He had not been born in the mist-covered mountains of the North for nothing. Their mysticism was part of his nature, and he felt that he had saved her for this; that for this, and this only, he had played that childish but successful cantrip with her hair. In a way, was not the pathetic idyl on the roof with little Zora but a rehearsal of a tragedy—a rehearsal without which he could not have played his part? Strange thread of fate, indeed, linking these women together! and though he shrank from admitting its very existence, it gave him confidence that the whole would hang together securely. So that when he sought Tara out, his only real doubt was whether it would be wiser to tell her the truth about Kate, or assert that she was his wife. He chose the latter as less risky, since, even if Tara refused aid, she would not overtly betray anyone belonging to him.

But Tara did not refuse. To begin with, she could have refused nothing in the first joy of finding him safe when she had believed him dead like all the other Huzoors. And then a vast confusion of love, and pride, and remorse, and fierce passionate denial of all three, led her into consent. If the Huzoor wanted her to help to save his wife why should she object? Though it was nothing to her if the mem was his mem or not. Jim Douglas, listening to the eager protest, wondered if he might not safely have saved himself an unnecessary complication; but then he wondered at many things Tara said and did. At her quick frown when he promised her both hair and locket as her reward. At the faint quiver amid the scorn with which she had replied that he would still want the latter for the mem's hair. At her slow smile when he opened the gold oval to show the black lock still in sole possession. She had turned aside to look at the hearth-cakes she had been toasting when he came in, and then gone into the necessary details of arrangement in the most matter-of-fact way. Naturally the Huzoor had sought help from his servant. From whom else could he seek it? As for her saintship, there was nothing new in that. She had been suttee always as the master very well knew. So nothing she did for him, or he for her, could make that suffer. Therefore she would arrange as she had arranged for Zora. The Huzoor must rent a roof—roofs were safest—and she would engage a half-blind, half-deaf old sweeper-woman she knew of. Perhaps another if need be. But the Huzoor need have no fear of such details if he gave her money. And this Jim Douglas had hidden in the garden of his deserted bungalow in Duryagunj; so that in truth it seemed as if the whole plan had been evolved for them by a kindly fate.

And yet Jim Douglas felt a keen pang of regret when, for the first time, he gave the familiar knock of those old Lucknow days at the door of a Delhi roof and Tara opened it to him, dressed in the old crimson drapery, the gold bangles restored to her beautiful brown arms. He had brought Kate round during the previous night to the lodging he had managed to secure in the Mufti's quarter, and, leaving her there alone, had taken the key to Tara; this being the safest plan, since everything could then be arranged in discreet woman's fashion before he put in an appearance.

And the task had been done well. The outside square or yard of parapeted roof which he entered lay conventional to the uttermost. A spinning-wheel here, a row of water-pots there, a mat, a reed stool or two, a cooking place in one corner, a ragged canvas screen at the inner doors. Nothing there to prepare him for finding an Englishwoman within; an Englishwoman with a faint color in her wan cheeks; a new peace in her gray eyes, busy—Heaven save the mark!—in sticking some disjointed jasmine buds into the shallow saucer of a water-pot.

"Tara brought them strung on a string," said Kate half apologetically after her first welcome, as she noted his look. "I suppose she meant me to wear them—with the other things," she paused to glance down with a smile at her dress, "but it seemed a pity. They were like a new world to me—like a promise—somehow."

He sat down on the edge of the string bed feeling a little dazed and looked at her and her surroundings critically. It was a pleasant sunshiny bit of roof, vaulted by the still cool morning sky. There was a little arcaded room at one end, the topmost branches of a neem tree showed over one side; on the other, the swelling dome of the big mosque looked like a great white cloud, and in one corner was a sort of square turret, from the roof of which, gained by a narrow brick ladder, the whole city was visible. For it was the highest house in the quarter, higher even than the roof beside it, over which the same neem tree cast a shadow.

And as he looked, he thought idly that no dress in the world was more graceful than the Delhi dress with its billowy train and loose, soft, filmy veil. And Kate looked well in white—all in white. He pulled himself up sharply; but indeed memory was playing him tricks, and the stress and strain of reality seemed far from that slip of sun-saturated roof where a graceful woman in white was sticking jasmine buds into water. And suddenly the thought came that Zora would have worn the chaplets heedlessly; there would have been no sentimentality over withered flowers on her part.

"A promise," he echoed half-bitterly. "Well! one must hope so. And even if the worst comes, it will come easier here."

She looked up at him reproachfully. "Don't remind me of that, please," she said hurriedly; "I seem to have forgotten—here under the blue sky. I dare say it's very trivial of me, but I can't help it. Everything amuses me, interests me. It is so quaint, so new. Even this dress; it is hardly credible, but I wished so much for a looking-glass just now, to see how I looked in it."

Her eyes met his almost gayly, and he felt an odd resentment in recognizing that Zora would have said the words as frankly.

"I have one here—in a ring," he replied somewhat stiffly, with a vague feeling he had done all this before, as he untied the knot of a small bundle he had brought with him. "It is not much use—for that sort of thing—I'm afraid," he went on, "but I think you had better have these: it is a great point—even for your own sake—to dress as well as play the part."

Kate, with a sudden gravity, looked at the pile of native ornaments he emptied out on to the bed. Bracelets in gold and silver, anklets, odd little jeweled tassels for the hair, quaint silk-strung necklets and talismans.

"Here is the looking-glass," he said, choosing out a tiny round one set in filigree gold; "you must wear it on your thumb—but it will barely go on my little finger," he spoke half to himself, and Kate, fitting on the ring, looked at him and set her lips.

"It is too small for me also," she said, laying it down with a faint air of distaste. "They are very pretty, Mr. Greyman," she added quickly, "but I would rather not—unless it is really necessary—unless you think——"

He rose half-wearily, half-impatiently. "I should prefer it; but you can do as you like. The jewels belonged to a woman I loved very dearly, Mrs. Erlton. She was not my wife—but she was a good woman for all that. You need not be afraid."

Kate felt the blood tingle to her face as she laid violent hands on the first ornament she touched. It happened to be a solid gold bangle. "It is too small too," she said petulantly, trying to squeeze her hand through it. "Really it would be better——"

"Excuse me," he replied coolly, "if you will let me." He drew the great carved knobs apart deftly, slipped her wrist sideways through the opening, and had them closed again in a second.

"You can't take it off at night, that is all," he went on, "but I will tell Tara to show you how to wear the rest. I must be off now and settle a thousand things."

As he passed into the outer roof once more, Kate felt that flush, half of resentment, half of shame, still on her face. In such surroundings how trivial it was, and yet he had guessed her thought truly. Had he guessed also the odd thrill which the touch of that gold fetter gave her? Half-mechanically she tried to loosen it, to remove it, and then with an impatient frown desisted and began to put on the other bracelets. What did it matter, one way or the other? And then, becoming interested despite herself, she set to work to puzzle out uses and places for the pile.

Meanwhile Jim Douglas was dinning instructions into Tara's ear; but she also, he told himself angrily, was trivial to the last degree. And when finally he urged an immediate darkening of Kate's hair and a faint staining of the face to suit the only part possible with her gray eyes—that of a fair Afghan—he flung away in despair from the irrelevant remark:

"But the mem will never be so pretty as Zora; and besides she has such big feet."

Big feet! He swore under his breath that all women were alike in this, that they saw the whole world through the medium of their sex; and that was at the bottom of all the mischief. Delhi had been lost to save women; the trouble had begun to please them. Even now, as far as he could see, resistance would collapse but for one woman's ambition; though despite the Queen and her plots, a hundred brave men or so might still be masters of Delhi if they chose. Since it was still each for himself, and the devil take the hindmost with the mutineers. The certainty of this had made these long days of inaction almost beyond bearing to him; and as Jim Douglas passed out into the street he thought bitterly that here again a woman stood in the way; since but for Kate he could surely have forced Meerut into making reprisals by reporting the true state of affairs.

Yet every hour made these reprisals more difficult. Indeed, as he left the Mufti's quarters on that morning of the 16th of May, something was going on in the Palace which ended indecision for many a man and left no chance of retreat. For Zeenut Maihl saw facts as clearly as Jim Douglas, and knew that the first tramp of disciplined feet would be the signal for scuttle; if a chance of escape remained.

And so this something was going on. By someone's orders of course; by whose is one of the unanswered questions of the Indian Mutiny.

The Queen herself was sitting with the King, amicably, innocently, applauding his latest couplet; which was in sober truth, one of his best:

He was beginning to feel the latter on the old head, which was so diligently stuffed with dreams; but the Queen knew in her heart of hearts that the fight for sovereignty had only just begun. So her mind was chiefly occupied in a spiteful exultation at the thought of some folk's useless terror when—this thing being done—they would find their hands irrevocably on the plow. Ahsan-Oolah and Elahi-Buksh, for instance; their elaborate bridges would be useless; and Abool-Bukr with his squibs and processions, Farkhoonda with her patter of virtue and religion. If only for the sake of immeshing this last victim Zeenut Maihl would not have shrunk; since those three or four days of cozening had left the Queen with a still more vigorous hate for the Princess Farkhoonda, who had fallen into the trap so easily, and who already began to give herself airs and discuss the future on a plane of equality. Pretty, conceited fool! who even now, so the spies said, was waiting to receive the Prince, her nephew, for the first time since she came to the Palace. The very fact that it was the first time seemed an aggravation in the Queen's angry eyes, proving as it did a certain reality in Farkhoonda's pretensions to decorum.

In truth they were very real to the Princess herself; had been gaining reality ever since that first deft suggestion of a possibility had set her heart beating. The possibility, briefly, of the King choosing to set aside that early marriage so tragically interrupted; choosing to declare it no marriage and give his consent to another. Newâsi had indignantly scouted the suggestion, had stopped her ears, her heart; but the remembrance of it lingered, enervating her mind, and as she waited for the interview with the Prince she felt vaguely that it was a very different matter receiving him in these bride-like garments, in these dim, heavily scented rooms, to what it had been under the clear sky in her scholar's dress. Yet as she stooped from mere habit, aroused by the finery itself, to arrange her long brocaded train into better folds, she gave something between a sigh and a laugh at the certainty of his admiration. And after all, why should she not have it if the King——

The sound of a distant shot made her start and pause, listening for another. So she stood a slim figure ablaze with color and jewels, a figure with studied seductiveness in every detail of its dress; and she knew that it was so. Why not? If—if he liked it so, and if the King——

Newâsi clasped her hands nervously and walked up and down the dim room. Abool was late, and he had no right to be late on this his first visit of ceremony to his aunt. The Mirza-sahib was no doubt late, admitted her attendants, but the door-keeper had reported a disturbance of some kind in the outer court which might be the cause of delay.

A disturbance! Newâsi, a born coward, shrank from the very thought, though she felt that it could be nothing—nothing but one of the many brawls, the constant quarrels.

God and his prophet! who—what was that? She recoiled with a scream of terror from the wild figure which burst in on her unceremoniously, which followed her retreat into the far corner, flung itself at her knees, clasping them, burying its face among her scented draperies. But by that time her terror was gone, and she stooped, trying to free herself from those clinging arms, from the disgrace, from the outrage; from the drunken——

"Abool!" she cried fiercely, then turning to the curious tittering women, stamped her foot at them and bade them begone. And when they had obeyed, she beat her little hands against those clinging ones again with wild upbraidings, till suddenly they fell as if paralyzed before the awful horror and dread in the face which rose from her fineries.

"Come, Newâsi!" stammered the white trembling lips, "come from this hangman's den. Did I not warn thee? But thou hast put the rope round my neck—I who only wanted to live my own life, die my own death. Come! Come!"

He stumbled to his feet, but seemed unable to stir. So he stood looking at his hands stupidly.

Farkhoonda looked too, her face growing gray.

"What is't, Abool?" she faltered; "what is't, dear?"

But she knew; it was blood, new shed, still wet.

He stood silent, gazing at the stains stupidly. "I did not strike," he muttered to himself, "but I called; or did I strike? I—I——" He threw up his head and his words rushed recklessly in a high shrill voice, "I warned thee! I told thee it was not safe! They were herded like sheep in the sunshine by the cistern, and the smell of blood rose up. It was in my very nostrils, for, look you, that first shot missed them and killed one of my men. I saw it. A round red spot oozing over the white—and they herded like sheep——"

"Who?" she asked faintly.

"I told thee; the prisoners, with the cry to kill above the cries of the children, the flash of blood-dulled swords above women's heads—and I—— Nay! I warned thee, Newâsi, there was butcher here"—his blood-stained hands left their mark on his gay clothes.

"Abool!" she cried, "thou didst not——"

"Did I?" he almost screamed. "God! will it ever leave my sight? I gave the call, I ran in, I drew my sword. It spurted over my hands from a child's throat as I would have struck—or—or—did I strike? Newâsi!" his voice had sunk again almost to a whisper, "it was in its mother's arms,—she did not cry,—she looked and I—I——" he buried his face in his hands—"I came to thee."

She stood looking at him for a moment, her hands clenched, her beautiful soft eyes ablaze; then recklessly she tore the jewels from her arms, her neck, her hair.

"So she has dared! Yea! Come! thou art right, Abool!" The words mixed themselves with the tinkle of bracelets as, flung from her in wild passion, they rolled into the corners of the room, with the chink of necklaces as they fell, with the rustle of brocade and tinsel as she tore them from her. "She has killed them—the helpless fugitives, guests who have eaten the King's salt! She thinks to beguile us all—to beguile thee. But she shall not. It is not too late. Come! Come! Abool—thou shalt have all from me—yea! all, sooner than she should beguile thee thus—Come!"

She had snatched an old white veil from its peg and wrapped it round her, as she passed rapidly to the door; but he did not move. So she passed back again as swiftly to take his hand, stained as it was, and lay her cheek to it caressingly.

"Thou didst not strike, dear, thou didst not! Come, dear, that she-devil shall not have thee—I will hold thee fast."

Five minutes after a plain curtained dhoolie left the precincts and swayed past the Great Hall of Audience with its toothed red arches, looking as if they yawned for victims. The courtyard beyond lay strangely silent, despite the shifting crowd, which gathered and melted and gathered again round the little tree-shaded cistern where but the day before Hâfzan and the Moulvie had watched a mother pause to clasp her baby to softer, securer rest.

The woman and the child were at the cistern now, and the Rest had come. Softer, securer than all other rest, and the mother shared it; shared it with other women, other children.

But as the Princess Farkhoonda, fearful of what she might see, peeped through the dhoolie curtains, there was nothing to be seen save the shifting, curious crowd, while the impartial sunshine streamed down on it, and those on whom it gazed.

So let the shifting, crowding years with their relentless questioning eyes shut out all thought of what lay by the cistern, save that of rest and the impartial sunshine streaming upon it.

For as the beautiful soft eyes drew back relieved, a bugle rang through the arcades, echoed from the wall, floated out into the city. The bugle to set watch and ward, to close the gates; since the irrevocable step had been taken, the death-pledge made.

So the dream of sovereignty began in earnest behind closed gates. But if women had lost Delhi, those who lay murdered about the little cistern had regained it. For Hâfzan had spoken truth; the strength of the Huzoors lay there.

The strength of the real Master.

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