On the Face of the Waters

BOOK V
CHAPTER V

THROUGH THE WALLS.

It was a full hour past dawn on the 14th of September ere that sudden silence fell once more upon the echoing rocks of the Ridge and the scented gardens. So, for a second, the twittering birds in the thickets behind them might have been heard by the men who, with fixed bayonets, were jostling the roses and the jasmines. But they were holding their breath—waiting, listening, for something very different; while in the ears of many, excluding all other sounds, lingered the cadence of the text read by the chaplain before dawn in the church lesson for the day.

"Woe to the bloody city—the sword shall cut thee off."

For to many the coming struggle meant neither justice nor revenge, but religion. It was Christ against Anti-Christ. So, whether for revenge or faith they waited. A thousand down by the river opposite the Water Bastion. A thousand in the Koodsia facing the main breach, with John Nicholson, first as ever, to lead it. A thousand more on the broad white road fronting the Cashmere Bastion, with an explosion party ahead to blow in the gate, and a reserve of fifteen hundred to the rear waiting for success. Briefly, four thousand five hundred men—more than half natives—for the assault, facing that half mile or so of northern wall; thus within touch of each other. Beyond, on the western trend, two thousand more—mostly untried troops from Jumoo and a general muster of casuals—to sweep through the suburbs and be ready to enter by the Cabul gate when it was opened to them.

Above, on the Ridge, six hundred sabers awaiting orders. Behind it three thousand sick in hospital, a weak defense, and that rear-guard of graves.

And in front of all stood that tall figure with the keen eyes. "Are you ready, Jones?" asked Nicholson, laying his hand on the last leader's shoulder. His voice and face were calm, almost cold.

"Ready, sir!"

Then, startling that momentary silence, came the bugle.

"Advance!"

With a cheer the rifles skirmished ahead joyfully. The engineers posted in the furthest cover long before dawn—who had waited for hours, knowing that each minute made their task harder—rose, waving their swords to guide the stormers toward the breach! Then, calmly, as if it had been dark, not daylight, crested the glacis at a swift walk, followed by the laddermen in line. Behind, with a steady tramp, the two columns bound for the breaches. But the third, upon the road, had to wait a while, as, like greyhounds from a leash, a little company slipped forward at the double.

Home of the Engineers first with two sergeants, a native havildar, and ten Punjab sappers, running lightly, despite the twenty-five pound powder bags they carried. Behind them, led by Salkeld, the firing party and a bugler. Running under the hail of bullets, faster as they fell faster, as men run to escape a storm; but these courted it, though the task had been set for night, and it was now broad daylight.

What then? They could see better. See the outer gateway open, the footway of the drawbridge destroyed, the inner door closed save for the wicket.

"Come on," shouted Home, and was across the bare beams like a boy, followed by the others.

Incredible daring! What did it mean? The doubt made the scared enemy close the wicket hastily. So against it, at the rebels' very feet, the powder bags were laid. True, one sergeant fell dead with his; but as it fell against the gates his task was done.

"Ready, Salkeld!—your turn," sang out young Home from the ditch, into which, the bags laid, the fuse set, he dropped unhurt. So across the scant foothold came the firing party, its leader holding the portfire. But the paralysis of amazement had passed; the enemy, realizing what the audacity meant, had set the wicket wide. It bristled now with muskets; so did the parapet.

"Burgess!—your turn," called Salkeld as he fell, and passed the portfire to the corporal behind him. Burgess, alias Grierson,—someone perchance retrieving a past under a new name,—took it, stooped, then with a half articulate cry either that it was "right" or "out," fell back into the ditch dead. Smith, of the powder party, lingering to see the deed done, thought the latter, and, matchbox in hand, sprang forward, cuddling the gate for safety as he struck a light. But it was not needed. As he stooped to use it, the port-fire of the fuse exploded in his face, and, half blinded, he turned to plunge headlong for escape into the ditch. A second after the gate was in fragments.

"Your turn, Hawthorne!" came that voice from the ditch. So the bugler, who had braved death to sound it, gave the advance. Once, twice, thrice, carefully lest the din from the breaches should drown it. Vain precaution, not needed either; for the sound of the explosion was enough. That thousand on the road was hungering to be no whit behind the others, and with a wild cheer the stormers made for the gate.

But Nicholson was already in Delhi, though ten minutes had gone in a fierce struggle to place a single ladder against an avalanche of shot and stone. But that one had been the signal for him to slip into the ditch, and, calling on the 1st Bengal Fusiliers to follow, escalade the bastion, first as ever.

Even so, others were before him. Down at the Water Bastion, though three-quarters of the laddermen had fallen and but a third of the storming party remained, those twenty-five men of the 8th had gained the breach, and, followed by the whole column, were clearing the ramparts toward the Cashmere gate. Hence, again, without a check, joined by the left half of Nicholson's column, they swept the enemy before them like frightened sheep to the Moree gate; though in the bastion itself the gunners stood to their guns and were bayoneted beside them. There, with a whoop, some of the wilder ones leaped to the parapet to wave their caps in exultation to the cavalry below, which, in obedience to orders, was now drawn up, ready to receive, guarding the flank of the assault, despite the murderous fire from the Cabul gate, and the Burn Bastion beyond it. Sitting in their saddles, motionless, doing nothing, a mark for the enemy, yet still a wall of defense. So, leaving them to that hardest task of all—the courage of inaction—the victorious rush swept on to take the Cabul gate, to sweep past it up to the Burn Bastion itself—the last bastion which commanded the position.

And then? Then the order came to retire and await orders at the Cabul gate. The fourth column, after clearing the suburbs, was to have been there ready for admittance, ready to support. It was not. And Nicholson was not there also, to dare and do all. He had had to pause at the Cashmere gate to arrange that the column which had entered through it should push on into the city, leaving the reserve to hold the points already won. And now, with the 1st Fusiliers behind him, he was fighting his way through the streets to the Cabul gate. So, fearing to lose touch with those behind, over-rating the danger, under-estimating the incalculable gain of unchecked advance with an eastern foe, the leader of that victorious sweeping of the ramparts was content to set the English flag flying on the Cabul gate and await orders. But the men had to do something. So they filled up the time plundering. And there were liquor shops about. Europe shops, full of wine and brandy.

The flag had been flying over an hour when Nicholson came up. But by that time the enemy—who had been flying too—flying as far as the boat bridge in sheer conviction that the day was lost—had recovered some courage and were back, crowding the bastion and some tall houses beside it. And in the lane, three hundred yards long, not ten feet wide, leading to it, two brass guns had been posted before bullet proof screens ready to mow down the intruders.

Yet once more John Nicholson saw but one thing—the Burn Bastion. Built by Englishmen, it was one of the strongest—the only remaining one, in fact, likely to give trouble. With it untaken a thorough hold on the city was impossible. Besides, with his vast knowledge of native character, he knew that the enemy had expected us to take it, and would construe caution into cowardice. Then he had the 1st Bengal Fusiliers behind him. He had led them in Delhi, they had fallen in his track in tens and fifties, and still they had come on—they would do this thing for him now.

"We will do what we can, sir," said their commandant, Major Jacob—but his face was grave.

"We will do what men can do, sir," said the commandant of that left half of the column; "but honestly, I don't think it can be done. We have tried it once." His face was graver still.

"Nor I," said Nicholson's Brigade-major.

Nicholson, as he stood by the houses around the Cabul gate, which had been occupied and plundered by the troops, looked down the straight lane again. It hugged the city wall on its right, its scanty width narrowed here and there by buttresses to some three feet. About a third of the way down was the first gun, placed beside a feathery kikar tree which sent a lace-like tracery of shadow upon the screen. As far behind was the second. Beyond, again, was the bastion jutting out, and so forcing the lane to bend between it and some tall houses. Both were crowded with the enemy—the screens held bayonets and marksmen. There was a gun close to the bastion in the wall, but to the left, cityward, in the low, flat-roofed mud houses there seemed no trace of flanking foes.

"I think it can be done," he said. He knew it must be done ere the Palace could be taken. So he gave the orders. Fusiliers forward; officers to the front!

And to the front they went, with a cheer and a rush, overwhelming the first gun, within ten yards of the other. And one man was closer still, for Lieutenant Butler, pinned against that second bullet-proof screen by two bayonets thrust through the loopholes at him, had to fire his revolver through them also, ere he could escape this two-pronged fork.

But the fire of every musket on the bastion and the tall houses was centered on that second gun. Grape, canister, raked the narrow lane—made narrower by fallen Fusiliers—and forced those who remained to fall back upon the first gun—beyond that even. Yet only for a moment. Reformed afresh, they carried it a second time, spiked it and pressed on. Officers still to the front!

Just beyond the gun the commandant fell wounded to death. "Go on, men, go on!" he shouted to those who would have paused to help him. "Forward, Fusiliers!"

And they went forward; though at dawn two hundred and fifty men had dashed for the breach, and now there were not a hundred and fifty left to obey orders. Less! For fifty men and seven officers lay in that lane itself. Surely it was time now for others to step in—and there were others!

Nicholson saw the waver, knew what it meant, and sprang forward sword in hand, calling on those others to follow. But he asked too much. Where the 1st Fusiliers had failed, none cared to try. That is the simple truth. The limit had been reached.

So for a minute or two he stood, a figure instinct with passion, energy, vitality, before men who, God knows with reason, had lost all three for the moment. A colossal figure beyond them, ahead of them, asking more than mere ordinary men could do. So a pitiful figure—a failure at the last!

"Come on, men! Come on, you fools—come on, you—you——"

What the word was, which that bullet full in the chest arrested between heart and lips, those who knew John Nicholson's wild temper, his indomitable will, his fierce resentment at everything which fell short of his ideals, can easily guess.

"Lay me under that tree," he gasped, as they raised him. "I will not leave till the lane is carried. My God! Don't mind me! Forward, men, forward! It can be done."

An hour or two afterward a subaltern coming out of the Cashmere gate saw a dhooli, deserted by its bearers. In it lay John Nicholson in dire agony; but he asked nothing of his fellows then save to be taken to hospital. He had learned his lesson. He had done what others had set him to do. He had entered Delhi. He had pricked the bubble, and the gas was leaking out. But he had failed in the task he had set himself. The Burn Bastion was still unwon, and the English force in Delhi, instead of holding its northern half up to the very walls of the Palace, secure from flanking foes, had to retire on the strip of open ground behind the assaulted wall—if, indeed, it had not to retire further still. Had one man had his way it would have retired to the Ridge. Late in the afternoon, when fighting was over for the day, General Wilson rode round the new-won position, and, map in hand, looked despairingly toward the network of narrow lanes and alleys beyond. And he looked at something close at hand with even greater forebodings; for he stood in the European quarter of the town among shops still holding vast stores of wine and spirits which had been left untouched by that other army of occupation.

But what of this one? This product of civilization, and culture, and Christianity; these men who could give points to those others in so many ways, but might barter their very birthright for a bottle of rum. Yet even so, the position must be held. So said Baird Smith at the chief's elbow, so wrote Neville Chamberlain, unable to leave his post on the Ridge. And another man in hospital, thinking of the Burn Bastion, thinking with a strange wonder of men who could refuse to follow, muttered under his breath, "Thank God! I have still strength left to shoot a coward."

And yet General Wilson in a way was right. Five days afterward Major Hodson wrote in his diary: "The troops are utterly demoralized by hard work and hard drink. For the first time in my life I have had to see English soldiers refuse repeatedly to follow their officers. Jacob, Nicholson, Greville, Speke were all sacrificed to this."

A terrible indictment indeed, against brave men.

Yet not worse than that underlying the chief's order of the 15th, directing the Provost-marshal to search for and smash every bottle and barrel to be found, and let the beer and wine, so urgently needed by the sick, run into the gutters; or his admission three days later that another attempt to take the Lahore gate had failed from "the refusal of the European soldiers to follow their officers. One rush and it could have been done easily—we are still, therefore, in the same position to-day as we were yesterday."

So much for drink.

But the enemy luckily was demoralized also. It was still full of defense; empty of attack.

For one thing, attack would have admitted a reverse; and over on that eastern wall of the Palace, in the fretted marble balcony overlooking the river, there was no mention, even now, of such a word. Reverse! Had not the fourth column been killed to a man? Had not Nikalseyn himself fallen a victim to valor? But Soma, and many a man of his sort, gave up the pretense with bitter curses at themselves. They had seen from their own posts that victorious escalade, that swift, unchecked herding of the frightened sheep. And they—intolerable thought!—were sheep also. They saw men with dark faces, no whit better than they—better!—the Rajpoot had at least a longer record than the Sikh!—led to victory while they were not led at all. So brought face to face once more with the old familiar glory and honor, the old familiar sight of the master first—uncompromisingly, indubitably first to snatch success from the grasp of Fate, and hand it back to them—they thought of the past three months with loathing.

And as for Nikalseyn's rebuff. Soma, hearing of it from a comrade, hot at heart as he, went to the place, and looked down the lane as John Nicholson had done. By all the Pandâvas! a place for heroes indeed! Ali! if he had been there, he would have stayed there somehow. He walked up and down it moodily, picturing the struggle to himself; thinking with a curious anger of those men on the housetops, in the bastion, taking potshots at the unsheltered men below. That was all there would be now. They might drive the masters back for a time, they might inveigle them into lanes and reduce their numbers by tens and fifties, they, men of his sort, might make a brave defense.

Defense! Soma wanted to attack. Attracted by the faint shade of the kikar tree he sat down beneath it, resting against the trunk, looking along the lane once more, just as, a day or two before, John Nicholson had rested for a space. And the iron of failure entered into this man's heart also, because there was none to lead. And with the master there had been none to follow.

Suddenly he rose, his mind made up. If that was so, let him go back to the plow. That also was a hereditary trade.

That night, without a word to anyone, leaving his uniform behind him, he started along the Rohtuck road for his ancestral village. But he had to make a detour round the suburbs, for, despite that annihilation spoken of in the Peace, they were now occupied by the English.

Yet but little headway had been made in securing a firmer hold within the city itself.

"You can't, till the Burn Bastion is taken and the Lahore gate secured," said Nicholson from his dying bed, whence, growing perceptibly weaker day by day, yet with mind clear and unclouded, he watched and warned. The single eye was not closed yet, was not even made dim by death. It saw still, what it had seen on the day of the assault; what it had coveted then and failed to reach.

But it was not for five days after this failure that even Baird Smith recognized the absolute accuracy of this judgment, and, against the Chief's will, obtained permission to sap through the shelter of the intervening houses till they could tackle the bastion at close and commanding quarters without asking the troops to face another lane. So on the morning of the 19th, after a night of storm and rain cooling the air incredibly, the pick-ax began what rifles and swords had failed to do. By nightfall a tall house was reached, whence the bastion could be raked fore and aft. Its occupants, recognizing this, took advantage of the growing darkness to evacuate it. Half an hour afterward the master-key of the position was in English hands.

Rather unsteady ones, for here again the troops—once more the 8th, the 75th, the Sikh Infantry, and that balance of the Fusiliers—had found more brandy.

"Poisoned, sir?" said one thirsty trooper, flourishing a bottle of Exshaw's Number One before the eyes of his Captain, who, as a last inducement to sobriety, was suggesting danger. "Not a bit of it. Capsules all right."

But this time England could afford a few drunk men. The bastion was gone, and by the Turkoman and Delhi gates half the town was going. And not only the town. Down in the Palace men and women, with fumbling hands and dazed eyes, like those new roused from dreams, were snatching at something to carry with them in their flight. Bukht Khân stood facing the Queen in her favorite summer-house, alone, save for Hâfzan, the scribe, who lingered, watching them with a certain malice in her eyes. She had been right. Vengeance had been coming. Now it had come.

"All is not lost, my Queen," said Bukht Khân, with hand on sword. "The open country lies before us, Lucknow is ours—come!"

"And the King, and my son," she faltered. The dull glitter of her tarnished jewelry seemed in keeping with the look on her face. There was something sordid in it. Sordid, indeed, for behind that mask of wifely solicitude and maternal care lay the thought of her hidden treasure.

"Let them come too. Naught hinders it."

True. But the gold, the gold!

After he had left her, impatient of her hesitation, a sudden terror seized her, lest he might have sought the King, lest he might persuade him.

"My bearers—woman! Quick!" she called to Hâfzan. "Quick, fool! my dhooli!"

But even dhooli bearers have to fly when vengeance shadows the horizon; and in that secluded corner none remained. Everyone was busy elsewhere; or from sheer terror clustered together where soldiers were to be found.

"The Ornament-of-Palaces can walk," said Hâfzan, still with that faint malice in her face. "There is none to see, and it is not far."

So, for the last time, Zeenut Maihl left the summer-house whence she had watched the Meerut road. Left it on foot, as many a better woman as unused to walking as she was leaving Delhi with babies on their breasts and little children toddling beside them. Past the faint outline of the Pearl Mosque, through the cool damp of the watered garden with the moon shining overhead, she stumbled laboriously. Up the steps of the Audience Hall toward a faint light by the Throne. The King sat on it, almost in the dark; for the oil cressets on a trefoil stand only seemed to make the shadows blacker. They lay thick upon the roof, blotting out that circling boast. Before him stood Bukht Khân, his hand still on his sword, broad, contemptuously bold. But on either side of the shrunken figure, half lost in the shadows also, were other counselors. Ahsan-Oolah, wily as ever, Elahi Buksh, the time-server, who saw the only hope of safety in prompt surrender.

"Let the Pillar-of-Faith claim time for thought," the latter was saying. "There is no hurry. If the soubadar-sahib is in one, let him go——"

Bukht Khân broke in with an ugly laugh, "Yea, Mirza-sahib, I can go, but if I go the army goes with me. Remember that. The King can keep the rabble. I have the soldiers."

Bahâdur Shâh looked from one to the other helplessly. Whether to go, risk all, endure a life of unknown discomfort at his age, or remain, alone, unprotected, he knew not.

"Yea! that is true. Still there is no need for hurry," put in the physician, with a glance at Elahi Buksh. "Let my master bid the soubadar and the army meet him at the Tomb of Humayon to-morrow morning. 'Twill be more seemly time to leave than now, like a thief in the night."

Bukht Khân gave a sharp look at the speaker, then laughed again. He saw the game. He scarcely cared to check it.

"So be it. But let it be before noon. I will wait no longer."

As he passed out hastily he almost ran into a half-veiled figure, which, with another behind it, was hugging one of the pillars, peering forward, listening. He guessed it for the Queen, and paused instantly.

"'Tis thy last chance, Zeenut Maihl," he whispered in her ear. "Come if thou art wise."

The last. No! not that. The last for sovereignty perhaps, but not for hidden treasure. Half an hour afterward, a little procession of Royal dhoolies passed out of the Palace on their way to Elahi Buksh's house beside the Delhi gate, and Ahsan-Oolah walked beside the Queen's. He had gold also to save, and he was wise; so she listened, and as she listened she told herself that it would be best to stay. Her life was safe, and her son was too young for the punishment of death. As for the King, he was too old for the future to hold anything else.

Hâfzan watched her go, still with that half-jeering smile, then turned back into the empty Palace. Even in the outer court it was empty, indeed, save for a few fanatics muttering texts; and within the precincts, deserted utterly, silent as the grave. Until, suddenly, from the Pearl Mosque a voice came, giving the call to prayer; for it was not far from dawn.

She paused, recognizing it, and leaving the marble terrace where she had been standing, looking riverward, walked over to the bronze-studded door, and peered in among the white arches of the mosque for what she sought.

And there it was, a tall white figure looking westward, its back toward her, its arms spread skyward. A fanatic of fanatics.

"Thou art not wise to linger here, Moulvie sahib," she called. "Hast not heard? The Burn Bastion is taken. The King and Queen have fled. The English will be here in an hour or so, and then——"

"And then there comes judgment," answered Mohammed Ismail, turning to look at her sternly. "Doth not it lie within these walls? I stay here, woman, as I have stayed."

"Nay, not here," she argued in conciliatory tones. "It lies yonder, in the outer court, by the trees shadowing the little tank. Thou canst see it from the window of my uncle's room. And he hath gone—like the others. 'Twere better to await it there."

She spoke as she would have spoken to a madman. And, indeed, she held him to be little else. Here was a man who had saved forty infidels, whose reward was sure. And who must needs imperil it by lingering where death was certain; must needs think of his battered soul instead of his body. Mohammed Ismail came and stood beside her, with a curious acquiescence in regard to detail's which is so often seen in men mastered by one idea.

"It may be better so, sister," he said dreamily. "'Tis as well to be prepared."

Hâfzan's hard eyes melted a little, for she had a real pity for this man who had haunted the Palace persistently, and lost his reason over his conscience.

If she could once get him into her uncle's room, she would find some method of locking him in, of keeping him out of mischief. For herself, being a woman, the Huzoors were not to be feared.

"Yea! 'tis as well to be near," she said as she led the way.

And the time drew near also; for the dawn of the 20th of September had broken ere, with the key of the outer door in her bosom, she retired into an inner room, leaving the Moulvie saying his prayers in the other. Already the troops, recovered from their unsteadiness, had carried the Lahore gate and were bearing down on the mosque. They found it almost undefended. The circling flight of purple pigeons, which at the first volley flew westward, the sun glistening on their iridescent plumage, was scarcely more swift than the flight of those who attempted a feeble resistance. And now the Palace lay close by. With it captured, Delhi was taken. Its walls, it is true, rose unharmed, secure as ever, hemming in those few acres of God's earth from the march of time; but they were strangely silent. Only now and again a puff of white smoke and an unavailing roar told that someone, who cared not even for success, remained within.

So powder bags were brought. Home of the Engineers sent for, that he might light the fuse which gave entry to the last stronghold; for there was no hurry now. No racing now under hailstorms, and over tightropes. Calmly, quietly, the fuse was lit, the gate shivered to atoms, and the long red tunnel with the gleam of sunlight at its end lay before the men, who entered it with a cheer. Then, here and there rose guttural Arabic texts, ending in a groan. Here and there the clash of arms. But not enough to rouse Hâfzan, who, long ere this, had fallen asleep after her wakeful night. It needed a touch on her shoulder for that, and the Moulvie's eager voice in her ear.

"The key, woman! The key—give it! I need the key."

Half-dazed by sleep, deceived by the silence, she put her hand mechanically to her bosom. His followed hers; he had what he sought, and was off. She sprang to her feet, recognizing some danger, and followed him.

"He is mad! He is mad!" she cried, as her halting steps lingered behind the tall white figure which made straight for a crowd of soldiers gathered round the little tank. There were other soldiers here, there, everywhere in the rose-red arcades around the sun-lit court. Soldiers with dark faces and white ones seeking victims, seeking plunder. But these in the center were all white men, and they were standing, as men stand to look at a holy shrine, upon the place where, as the spies had told them, English women and children had been murdered.

So toward them, while curses were in all hearts and on some lips, came the tall white figure with its arms outspread, its wild eyes aflame.

"O God of Might and Right! Give judgment now, give judgment now."

The cry rolled and echoed through the arcades to alien ears even as other cries.

"He is mad—he saved them—he is mad!" gasped the maimed woman behind; but her cry seemed no different to those unheeding ears.

The tall white figure lay on its face, half a dozen bayonets in its back, and half a dozen more were after Hâfzan.

"Stick him! Stick him! A man in disguise. Remember the women and children. Stick the coward!"

She fled shrieking—shrill, feminine shrieks; but the men's blood was up. They could not hear, they would not hear; and yet the awkwardness of that flying figure made them laugh horribly.

"Don't 'ustle 'im! Give 'im time! There's plenty o' run in 'im yet, mates. Lord! 'e'd get first prize at Lillie Bridge 'e would."

Someone else, however, had got it at Harrow not a year before, and was after the reckless crew. Almost too late—not quite. Hâfzan, run to earth against a red wall, felt something on her back, and gave a wild yell. But it was only a boy's hand.

"My God! sir, I've stuck you!" faltered a voice behind, as a man stood rigid, arrested in mid-thrust.

"You d——d fool!" said the boy. "Couldn't you hear it was a woman? I'll—I'll have you shot. Oh, hang it all! Drag the creature away, someone. Get out, do!"

For Hâfzan, as he stood stanching the blood from the slight wound, had fallen at his feet and was kissing them frantically.

But even that indignity was forgotten as the stained handkerchief answered the flutter of something which at that moment caught the breeze above him.

It was the English flag.

The men, forgetting everything else, cheered themselves hoarse—cheered again when an orderly rode past waving a slip of paper sent back to the General with the laconic report:

"Blown open the gates! Got the Palace!"

But Hâfzan, her veil up to prevent mistakes, limped over to where the Moulvie lay, turned him gently on his back, straightened his limbs and closed his eyes. She would have liked to tell the truth to someone, but there was no one to listen. So she left him there before the tribunal to which he had appealed.

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