“
We seem to be attracting a fair share of attention,” said Malcolm, as they crossed a bridge over the canal that bounded Lucknow on the south and east.
“We look rather odd, don’t we?” asked Winifred, cheerfully. “Three mounted men leading four horses, and a disheveled lady in a ramshackle vehicle like this, would draw the eyes of a mob anywhere. Thank goodness, though, the people appear to be quite peaceably inclined.”
“Y-yes.”
“Why do you agree so grudgingly?”
“Well, I have not been here before—are the streets usually so crowded at this hour?”
“Lucknow, like every other Indian city, is early astir. Perhaps they have heard of the fall of Cawnpore. It is one of the marvels of India how quickly news spreads. Isn’t that so, uncle?”
“No man knows how rumor travels here,” said Mr. Mayne. “It beats the telegraph at times. But the probability is that Lucknow has surprises in store for us. While we were bottled up in Bithoor things have been happening elsewhere.”
His guess was only too accurate. Not only had Nana Sahib long been in treaty with the disaffected Oudh taluqdars, but Lucknow itself was writhing in the first stages of rebellion. Although by popular reckoning the mutiny broke out at Meerut on May 10, there was trouble in Lucknow in April with the 48th Infantry, and again on May 3, when Lawrence’s firm measures alone prevented the 7th Oudh Irregulars from murdering their officers. There was little reason to hope that this, the third city in India, should not yield readily to sedition-mongers. The dethroned King of Oudh, with his courtiers and ministers, still maintained a sort of royal state in his residence at Calcutta, and his emissaries were active in the greased cartridge propaganda, telling Hindus that the paper wrappers were dipped in the fat of cows, while, for the benefit of Mohammedans, a variant of the story was supplied by the substitution of pig’s lard.
It is believed too, that the passing of a chupatty, or flat cake, from village to village in the Northwest Provinces early in January was set on foot by one of these agitators as a token that the Government was plotting to overthrow the religions of the people. The exact significance of that mysterious symbol has never been ascertained. Like the “snowball” petition of the West, once started, it soon lost its first meaning. Many natives regarded it merely as the fulfilment of a devotee’s vow, but in the majority of instances it had an unsettling effect on the simple folk who received it, and this was precisely what its originator desired.
Lucknow was not only the natural pivot of a rich agricultural district, but it hummed with prosperous trade. Every type of Indian humanity gathered in its narrow streets and lofty houses, and excitement rose to fever heat when the local trouble with the sepoys was given force to by the isolation of the Meerut white garrison, the seizure of Delhi and the sacking of many European stations in the Northwest. On May 30, the 71st Native Infantry had the impudence to fire on the 32d Foot, and were severely mauled for their pains. They ran off, but not until they had murdered Brigadier-General Handscombe and Lieutenant Grant, one of their own officers. The standard of the Prophet was raised in the bazaar and a fanatical mob rallied round it. They killed a Mr. Menpes, who lived in the city, and were then dispersed by the police.
Unfortunately the 7th Cavalry deserted when Lawrence marched to the race-course next day to punish the mutinous sepoys who had gathered there. But despite the lack of a mounted force, a number of prisoners were taken and hanged in batches on a gallows erected on the Muchee Bhowun, a fortress palace situated near the Residency.
Thus Lawrence had scotched the snake, but like Wheeler at Cawnpore and many another in India at that time, he refused to kill it by disarming the native regiments under his command. Nevertheless they feared him. They dared not show their fangs in Lucknow. They stole away in companies and squadrons,glutting their predatory instincts by slaughter and pillage elsewhere before they headed for Delhi or joined one of the numerous pretenders who sprang into being in emulation of Nana Sahib. It was one of these rebel detachments that passed the four fugitives from Cawnpore on the outskirts of Bunnee. Scattered throughout the province they proved as merciless and terrible to wealthy natives as to the Europeans whom they met in flight along the main roads.
The chaos into which the whole country fell with such extraordinary swiftness is demonstrated by the varying treatment meted out to different people. Winifred and her uncle, under Malcolm’s bold leadership, reached Lucknow with comparative ease. Poor little Sophy Christian, aged three, having lost her mother in the massacre of Sitapore, was taken off into the jungle by Sir Mountstuart Jackson, his sister Madeline, a young officer named Burnes, and Surgeon-Major Morton. They fell in with Captain and Mrs. Philip Orr and their child, refugees from Aurungabad, and the whole party experienced almost incredible sufferingsduring nine months. Mrs. Orr, her little girl and Miss Jackson did not escape from their final prison at Lucknow until the end of March, 1858. Sophy Christian, who was always asking pathetically “why mummie didn’t come,” died of the hardships she had to endure, while the men were shot in cold blood by the sepoys on November 16.
Yet in many instances the rebels either told theirofficers to go away or escorted them to the nearest European station, while the villagers, though usually hostile, sometimes treated the luckless sahib-log with genuine kindness and sympathy.
Mr. Mayne of course had his own house in the cantonment, which was situated north of the city, across the river Goomtee. Malcolm wished to see uncle and niece safely established in their bungalow before he reported himself at the Residency, but the older man thought they should all go straight to the Chief Commissioner and tell him what had happened at Cawnpore.
Threading the packed bazaar towards the Bailey Guard—that gate of the Residency which was destined to become for ever famous—they encountered Captain Gould Weston, the local Superintendent of Police, and his first words undeceived them as to the true position of affairs.
“You left Cawnpore last night!” he cried. “Then you were amazingly lucky. Wheeler has just telegraphed that he expects to be invested by the rebels to-day. Not that you will be much better off here in some respects, as we are all living in the Residency. I suppose you know your house has gone, Mayne?”
“Gone! Do you mean that it is destroyed?”
“Burnt to the ground. There is hardly a building left in the cantonment.”
“But what were the troops doing? At any rate, you are not besieged here yet.”
“We are on the verge of it. Unfortunately theChief won’t bring himself to disarm the sepoys, and the city is drifting into a worse condition daily. Half of the native corps have bolted, and the rest are ripe for trouble at the first opportunity. The fires are the work of incendiaries. We have caught and hanged a few, but they are swarming everywhere.”
“You say Wheeler has been in communication with you this morning,” said the perplexed civilian. “Are you sure? It is true we escaped in the first instance from Bithoor, but Cawnpore was in flames last night and the Magazine in possession of the mutineers.”
“Oh, yes. We know that. The one thing these black rascals don’t understand is the importance of cutting the telegraph wires. Wheeler has thrown up an entrenchment in the middle of amaidan. I am afraid he is in a tight place, as he is asking for help which we cannot send. Well, good-by! Hope to see you at tiffin. Miss Mayne must make herself as comfortable as she can in the women’s quarters, and pray, like the rest of us, that this storm may soon blow over.”
He rode off, followed by an escort of mounted police. Malcolm, who had taken no part in the conversation, listened to Weston’s words with a sinking heart. He had failed doubly, then, in the mission entrusted to him by Colvin. Not only were his despatches lost, but he was mistaken in believing that the Cawnpore garrison was overpowered. He had turned back at a moment when he should have strained every nerve to reach his destination. That was intolerable. The memory of the hawk-nosed, steel-eyed officer whorode from Kurnaul to Meerut in twenty-four hours smote him like a whip. Would Hodson—the man who was prepared to cross the infernal regions if duty called—wouldhehave quitted Cawnpore without making sure that Sir Hugh Wheeler was dead or a prisoner?
The answer to that unspoken question brought such a look of pain to Frank’s face that Winifred, watching him from the carriage window, wondered what was wrong. She, too, had heard the policeman’s statement and was greatly relieved by it. Why should her lover be so perturbed, she wondered? Was it not good news that the English in Cawnpore were at least endeavoring to hold Nana Sahib at bay? It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what sudden cloud had fallen on him when the carriage swung through a gateway and she found herself inside the Residency. The breathless greetings exchanged between herself and many of her friends among the ladies of the garrison drove from her mind the misery she had seen in Frank’s stern-set features. But the thought recurred later and she spoke of it.
Now Malcolm had already visited Sir Henry Lawrence and told him the exact circumstances. The Chief Commissioner exonerated him from any blame and, as a temporary matter, appointed him an extra A.D.C. on his staff. But the sore rankled and it was destined in due time to affect the young officer’s fortunes in the most unexpected way.
Above all else he did not want Winifred to know thatsolicitude in her behalf had drawn him from the path of duty. So he fenced with her sympathetic inquiries, and she, womanlike, began to search for some shortcoming on her own part to account for her lover’s gloom. Thus, not a rift, but an absence of full and complete understanding, existed between them, and each was conscious of it, though Malcolm alone knew its cause.
But that little cloud only darkened their own small world. Around them was the clash of arms and the din of preparation for the “fortnight’s siege” which Lawrence thought the Residency might withstand if held resolutely! In truth, there never was a fortification, with the exception of that four-foot mud wall at Cawnpore, less calculated to repel the assault of a determined foe than the ill-planned defenses which provided the last English refuge in Oudh.
Winifred soon proved that she was of good metal. The alarms and excursions of the past three weeks were naturally trying to a girl born and bred in a quiet Devon village. But heredity, mostly blamed for the transmission of bad qualities, supplies good ones, too, whether in man or maid. Descended on her father’s side from a race of soldiers and diplomats, her mother was a Yorkshire Trenholme, and it is said on Hambledon Moor that there were Trenholmes in Yorkshire before there was a king in England. In spite of the terrific heat and the discomfort of her new surroundings she made light of difficulties, found solace herself by cheering others, and quickly attained a prominentplace in that small band of devoted women whose names will live until the story of Lucknow is forgotten.
She met Frank only occasionally and by chance, their days being full of work and striving. A smile, a few tender words, perhaps nothing more than a hurried wave of the hand in passing, constituted their love idyll, for Lawrence fell ill and his aides were kept busy, day and night, in passing to and fro between the bedside of the stricken leader and the many posts where his counsel was sought or the hasty provision of defense lagged for his orders.
The Chief was so worn out with anxiety and sleepless labor that on June 9 he delegated his authority to a provisional council. Then the impetuous and chivalric Martin Gubbins, Financial Commissioner of Oudh, saw a means of attaining by compromise that which he had vainly urged on Lawrence—he persuaded the commanding officers of the native regiments in Lucknow to tell their men to go home on furlough until November.
This was actually done, but Lawrence was so indignant when he heard of it that he dissolved the council on June 12 and sent Malcolm and other officers to recall the sepoys. Five hundred came back, vowing that they would stand by “Lar-rence-sahib Bahadur” till the last. They kept their word; they shared the danger and glory of the siege with the 32d and the British Artillery.
Gubbins, a born firebrand, then pressed his superior to attack a rebel force that had gathered at the villageof Chinhut, ten miles northeast of Lucknow. Unfortunately Lawrence yielded, marched out with seven hundred men, half of whom were Europeans, and was badly defeated, owing to the desertion of some native gunners at a critical moment.
A disastrous rout followed. Colonel Case of the 32d, trying vainly with his men to stop the native runaways, was shot dead. For three miles the enemy’s horse artillery pelted the helpless troops with grape, and the massacre of every man in the small column was prevented only by the bravery of a tiny squadron of volunteer cavalry, which held a bridge until the harassed infantry were able to cross.
Lawrence, when the day was lost, rode back to prepare the hapless Europeans in the city for the hazard that now threatened. The investment of the Residency could not be prevented. It was a question whether the mutineers would not surge over it in triumph within the hour.
From the windows of the lofty building which gave its name to the cluster of houses within the walls, the despairing women saw their exhausted fellow-countrymen fighting a dogged rear-guard action against twenty times as many rebels. Some poor creatures, straining their eyes to find in the ranks of the survivors the husband they would never see again, clasped their children to their breasts and shrieked in agony. Others, like Lady Inglis, knelt and read the Litany. A few, and among them was Winifred, ran out with vessels full of water and tended the wants of the almost chokingsoldiers who were staggering to the shelter of the veranda.
She had seen Lawrence gallop to his quarters, and his drawn, haggard face told her the worst. He was accompanied by two staff officers, but Malcolm was not with him. The pandemonium that reigned everywhere for many minutes made it impossible that she should obtain any news of her lover’s fate. While the soldiers were flocking through the narrow streets that flanked or enfiladed the walls, the native servants and coolies engaged on the defenses deserteden masse. The rebel artillery was beginning to batter the more exposed buildings; the British guns already in position took up the challenge; sepoys seized the adjoining houses and commenced a deadly musketry fire that was far more effective than the terrifying cannonade; and the men of the garrison who had not taken part in that fatal sortie rushed to their posts, determined to stem at all costs the imminent assault of the victorious mutineers.
An officer seeing Winifred carrying water to some men who were lying in a position that would soon be swept by two guns mounted near a bridge across the Goomtee, known as the Iron Bridge, ordered the soldiers to seek a safer refuge.
“And you, Miss Mayne, you must not remain here,” he went on. “You will only lose your life, and we want brave women like you to live.”
Winifred recognized him though his face was blackened with powder and grime. Her own wild imaginingsmade death seem preferable to the anguish of her belief that Frank had fallen.
“Oh, Captain Fulton,” she said, “can you tell me what has become of—of Mr. Malcolm?”
“Yes,” he said, summoning a gallant smile as an earnest of good news. “I heard the Chief tell him to make the best of his way to Allahabad. That is the only quarter from which help can be expected, and to-day’s disaster renders help imperative. Now, my dear child, don’t take it to heart in that way. Malcolm will win through, never fear! He is just the man for such a task, and each mile he covers means—” he paused; a round shot crashed against a gable and brought down a chimney with a loud rattle of falling bricks—“means so many minutes less of this sort of thing.”
But Winifred neither saw nor heard. Her eyes were blinded with tears, her brain dazed by the knowledge that her lover had undertaken alone a journey declared impossible from the more favorably situated station of Cawnpore many days earlier.
She managed somehow to find her uncle. Perhaps Fulton spared a moment to take her to him. She never knew. When next her ordered mind appreciated her environment that last day of June, 1857, was drawing to its close and the glare of rebel watch fires, heightened by the constant flashes of an unceasing bombardment, told her that the siege of Lucknow had begun.
Then she remembered that Mr. Mayne had takenher to one of the cellars in the Residency in which the women and children were secure from the leaden hail that was beating on the walls. She had a vague notion that he carried a gun and a cartridge belt, and a new panic seized her lest the Moloch of war had devoured her only relative, for her father had been killed at the battle of Alma, and her mother’s death, three years later, had led to her sailing for India to take charge of her uncle’s household.
The women near at hand were too sorrow-laden to give any real information. They only knew that every man within the Residency walls, even the one-armed, one-legged, decrepit pensioners who had lost limbs or health in the service of the Company, were mustered behind the frail defenses.
To a girl of her temperament inaction was the least endurable of evils. Now that the shock of Malcolm’s departure had passed she longed to seek oblivion in work, while existence in that stifling underground atmosphere, with its dense crowd of heart-broken women and complaining children, was almost intolerable.
In defiance of orders—of which, however, she was then ignorant—she went to the ground floor. Passing out into the darkness she crossed an open space to the hospital, and it chanced that the first person she encountered was Chumru, Malcolm’s bearer.
The man’s grim features changed their habitual scowl to a demoniac grin when he saw her.
“Ohé, miss-sahib,” he cried, “this meeting is mygood fortune, for surely you can tell me where my sahib is?”
Winifred was not yet well versed in Hindustani, but she caught some of the words, and the contortions of Chumru’s expressive countenance were familiar to her, as she had laughed many a time at Malcolm’s recitals of his ill-favored servant’s undeserved repute as a villain of parts.
“Your sahib is gone to Allahabad,” she managed to say before the thought came tardily that perhaps it was not wise to make known the Chief Commissioner’s behests in this manner.
“To Illah-hábàd! Shade of Mahomet, how can he go that far without me?” exclaimed Chumru. “Who will cook his food and brush his clothes? Who will see to it that he is not robbed on the road by every thief that ever reared a chicken or milked a cow? I feared that some evil thing had befallen him, but this is worse than aught that entered my head.”
All this was lost on Winifred. She imagined that the native was bewailing his master’s certain death in striving to carry out a desperate mission, whereas he was really thinking that the most disturbing element about the sahib’s journey was his own absence.
Seeing the distress in her face, Chumru was sure that she sympathized with his views.
“Never mind, miss-sahib,” said he confidentially, “I will slip away now, steal a horse and follow him.”
Without another word he hastened out of the building and left her wondering what he meant. Sherepeated the brief phrases, as well as she could recall them, to a Eurasian whom she found acting as a water-carrier.
This man translated Chumru’s parting statement quite accurately, and when Mr. Mayne came at last from the Bailey Guard where he had been stationed until relieved after nightfall, he horrified her by telling her the truth—that it was a hundred chances to one against the unfortunate bearer’s escape if he did really endeavor to break through the investing lines.
And indeed few men could have escaped from the entrenchment that night. Any one who climbed to the third story of the Residency—itself the highest building within the walls and standing on the most elevated site—would soon be dispossessed of the fantastic notion that any corner was left unguarded by the rebels. A few houses had been demolished by Lawrence’s orders, it is true, but his deep respect for native ideals had left untouched the swarm of mosques and temples that stood between the Residency and the river.
“Spare their holy places!” he said, yet Mohammedan and Hindu did not scruple now to mask guns in the sacred enclosures and loop-hole the hallowed walls for musketry. On the city side, narrow lanes, lofty houses and strongly-built palaces offered secure protection to the besiegers. The British position was girt with the thousand gleams of a lightning more harmful than that devised by nature, for each spurt of flame meant that field-piece or rifle was sending some messenger of death into the tiny area over whichfloated the flag of England. Within this outer circle of fire was a lesser one; the garrison made up for lack of numbers by a fixed resolve to hold each post until every man fell. To modern ideas, the distance between these opposing rings was absurdly small. As the siege progressed besiegers and besieged actually came to know each other by sight. Even from the first they were seldom separated by more than the width of an ordinary street, and conversation was always maintained, the threats of the mutineers being countered by the scornful defiance of the defenders.
Nevertheless Chumru prevailed on Captain Weston to allow him to drop to the ground outside the Bailey Guard. The Police Superintendent, a commander who was now fighting his own corps, accepted the bearer’s promise that if he were not killed or captured he would make the best of his way to Allahabad, and even if he did not find his master, tell the British officer in charge there of the plight of Lucknow.
Chumru, who had no knowledge of warfare beyond his recent experiences, was acquainted with the golden rule that the shorter the time spent as an involuntary target the less chance is there of being hit. As soon as he reached the earth from the top of the wall he took to his heels and ran like a hare in the direction of some houses that stood near the Clock Tower.
He was fired at, of course, but missed, and the sepoys soon ceased their efforts to put a bullet through him because they fancied he was a deserter.
As soon as they saw his face they had no doubtswhatever on that score. Indeed, were it his unhappy lot to fall in with the British patrols already beginning to feel their way north from Bengal along the Grand Trunk Road he would assuredly have been hanged at sight on his mere appearance.
Chumru’s answers to the questions showered on him were magnificently untrue. According to him the Residency was already a ruin and its precincts a shambles. The accursed Feringhis might hold out till the morning, but he doubted it. Allah smite them!—that was why he chanced being shot by his brethren rather than be slain by mistake next day when the men of Oudh took vengeance on their oppressors. He could not get away earlier because he was a prisoner, locked up by the huzoors, forsooth, for a trifling matter of a few rupees left behind by one of the white dogs who fell that day at Chinhut.
In brief, Chumru abused the English with such an air that he was regarded by the rebels as quite an acquisition. They had not learned, as yet, that it was better to shoot a dozen belated friends than permit one spy to win his way through their lines.
Watching his opportunity, he slipped off into the bazaar. Now he was quite safe, being one among two hundred thousand. But time was passing; he wanted a horse, and might expect to find the canal bridge closely guarded.
Having a true Eastern sense of humor behind that saturnine visage of his, he hit on a plan of surmounting both difficulties with ease.
Singling out the first well-mounted and half-intoxicated native officer he met—though, to his credit be it said, he chose a Brahmin subadar of cavalry—he hailed him boldly.
“Brother,” said he, “I would have speech with thee.”
Now, Chumru took his life in his hands in this matter. For one wearing the livery of servitude to address a high-caste Brahmin thus was incurring the risk of being sabered then and there. In fact the subadar was so amazed that he glared stupidly at the Mohammedan who greeted him as “brother,” and it may be that those fierce eyes looking at him from different angles had a mesmeric effect.
“Thou?” he spluttered, reining in his horse, a hardy country-bred, good for fifty miles without bait.
“Even I,” said Chumru. “I have occupation, but I want help. One will suffice, though there is gold enough for many.”
“Gold, sayest thou?”
“Ay, gold in plenty. The dog of a Feringhi whom I served has had it hidden these two months in the thatch of his house near the Alumbagh. To-day he is safely bottled up there—” he jerked a thumb towards the sullen thunder of the bombardment. “I am a poor man, and I may be stopped if I try to leave the city. Take me up behind thee, brother, and give me safe passage to the bungalow, and behold, we will share treasure of a lakh or more!”
The Brahmin’s brain was bemused with drink, butit took in two obvious elements of the tale at once. Here was a fortune to be gained by merely cutting a throat at the right moment.
“That is good talking,” said he. “Mount, friend, and leave me to answer questions.”
Chumru saw that he had gaged his man rightly, and the evil glint in the subadar’s eyes told him the unspoken thought. He climbed up behind the high-peaked saddle and, after the horse had showed his resentment of a double burthen, was taken through the bazaar as rapidly as its thronged streets permitted. Sure enough, the canal bridge was watched.
“Whither go ye?” demanded the officer in charge.
“To bring in a Feringhi who is in hiding,” said the Brahmin.
“Shall I send a few men with you?”
“Nay, we two are plenty—” this with a laugh.
“Quite plenty,” put in Chumru. The officer glanced at him and was convinced. Being a Mohammedan, he took Chumru’s word without question, which showed the exceeding wisdom of Chumru in selecting a Brahmin for the sacrifice; thus was he prepared to deal with either party in an unholy alliance.
They jogged in silence past the Alumbagh. The Brahmin, on reflection, decided that he would stab Chumru before the hoard was disturbed and he could then devise another hiding-place at his leisure. Chumru had long ago decided to send the Brahmin to the place where all unbelievers go, at the first suitable opportunity. Hence the advantage lay with him,because he held a strategic position and could choose his own time.
Beyond the Alumbagh there were few houses, and these of mean description, and each moment the subadar’s mind was growing clearer under the prospect of great wealth to be won so easily.
“Where is this bungalow, friend?” said he at last, seeing nothing but a straight road in front.
“Patience, brother. ’Tis now quite near. It lies behind that tope of trees yonder.”
The other half turned to ascertain in which direction his guide was pointing.
“It is not on the main road, then?”
“No. A man who has gold worth the keeping loves not to dwell where all men pass.”
A little farther, and Chumru announced:
“We turn off here.”
It was dark. He thought he had hit upon a by-way, but no sooner did the horse quit the shadow of the trees by the roadside than he saw that he had been misled by the wheel-tracks of a ryot’s cart. The Brahmin sniffed suspiciously.
“Is there no better way than this?” he cried, when his charger nearly stumbled into a deep ditch.
“One only, but you may deem it too far,” was the quiet answer, and Chumru, placing his left hand on the Brahmin’s mouth, plunged a long, thin knife up to the hilt between his ribs.
It was not Lawrence’s order but Malcolm’s own suggestion that led to the desperate task entrusted to the young aide by the Chief. While those few heroic volunteer horsemen drove back the enemy’s cavalry and held the bridge over the Kokrail until the beaten army made good its retreat, Sir Henry halted by the roadside and watched the passing of his exhausted men. He had the aspect of one who hoped that some stray bullet would end the torment of life. In that grief-stricken hour his indomitable spirit seemed to falter. Ere night he was the Lawrence of old, but the magnitude of the calamity that had befallen him was crushing and he winced beneath it.
Out of three hundred and fifty white soldiers in the column he had lost one hundred and nineteen. Every gun served by natives was captured by the enemy. Worst of all, the moral effect of such a defeat outweighed a dozen victories. It not only brought about the instant beginnings of the siege, but its proportions were grossly exaggerated in the public eye. For the first time in many a year the white soldiers had fled before a strictly Indian force. They were outnumbered,which was nothing new in the history of the country, but it must be confessed they were out-generaled, too. Lawrence, never a believer in Gubbins’s forward policy, showed unwonted hesitancy even during the march to Chinhut: he halted, advanced and counter-marched the troops in a way that was foreign to a man of his decisive character. Where he was unaccountably timid the enemy were unusually bold, and the outcome was disaster.
Yet in this moment of bitterest adversity he displayed that sympathy for the sufferings of others that won him the esteem of all who came in contact with him.
By some extraordinary blunder of the commissariat the 32d had set forth that morning without breaking their fast. Now, after a weary march and a protracted fight in the burning sun, some of the men deliberately lay down to die.
“We can go no farther,” they said. “We may as well meet death here as a few yards away. And, when the sepoys overtake us, we shall at least have breath enough left to die fighting.”
Lawrence, when finally he turned his horse’s head toward Lucknow, came upon such a group. He shook his feet free of the stirrups.
“Now, my lads,” he said quietly, “you have no cause to despair. Catch hold of the leathers, two of you, and the horse will help you along. Mr. Malcolm, you can assist in the same way. Another mile will bring us to the city.”
One of the men, finding it in his heart to pity his haggard-faced general, thought to console him by saying:
“We’ll try, if it’s on’y to please you, your honor, but it’s all up with us, I’m afraid. If the end doesn’t come to-day it will surely be with us to-morrow.”
“Why do you think that?” asked Lawrence. “We must hold the Residency until the last man falls. What else can we do?”
“I know that, your honor, but we haven’t got the ghost of a chance. They’re a hundred to one, and as well armed as we are. It ’ud be a different thing if help could come, but it can’t. If what people are saying is true, sir, the nearest red-coats are at Allahabad, an’ p’raps they’re hard pressed, too.”
“That is not the way to look at a difficulty. In war it is the unexpected that happens. Keep your spirits up and you may live to tell your grandchildren how you fought the rebels at Lucknow. I want you and every man in the ranks to know that my motto is ‘No Surrender.’ You have heard what happened at Cawnpore. Here, in Lucknow, despite to-day’s disaster, we shall fight to a finish.”
An English battery came thundering down the road to take up a fresh position and assist in covering the retreat. The guns unlimbered near a well.
“There!” said Lawrence, “you see how my words have come true. A minute ago you were ready to fall before the first sowar who lifted his saber over your head. Go now and help by drawing water forthe gunners and yourselves. Then you can ride back on the carriages when they limber up.”
Malcolm, to whom the soldier’s words brought inspiration, spurred Nejdi alongside his Chief.
“Will you permit me to ride to Allahabad, sir, and tell General Neill how matters stand here?” he said.
Lawrence looked at him as though the request were so fantastic that he had not fully grasped its meaning.
“To Allahabad?” he repeated, turning in the saddle to watch the effect of the first shot fired by the battery.
“Yes, sir,” cried Malcolm, eagerly. “I know the odds are against me, but Hodson rode as far through the enemy’s country only six weeks ago, and I did something of the kind, though not so successfully, when I went from Meerut to Agra and from Agra to Cawnpore.”
“You had an escort, and I can spare not a man.”
“I will go alone, sir.”
“I would gladly avail myself of your offer, but the Residency will be invested in less than an hour.”
“Let me go now, sir. I am well mounted. In the confusion I may be able to reach the open country without being noticed.”
“Go, then, in God’s name, and may your errand prosper, for you have many precious lives in your keeping.”
Lawrence held out his hand, and Malcolm clasped it.
“Tell Neill,” said the Chief Commissioner in a low tone of intense significance, “that we can hold out a fortnight, a month perhaps, or even a few days longerif buoyed up with hope. That is all. If you succeed, I shall not forget your services. The Viceroy has given me plenary powers, and I shall place your name in orders to-night, Captain Malcolm.”
He kept his promise. When Lucknow was evacuated after the Second Relief, the official gazettes recorded that Lieutenant Frank Malcolm of the 3d Cavalry had been promoted to a captaincy, supernumerary on the staff, for gallantry on the field on June 30, while a special minute provided that he should attain the rank of major if he reached Allahabad on or before July 4.
From the point on the road to Chinhut where Malcolm bade his Chief farewell, he could see the tower of the Residency, gray among the white domes and minarets that lined the south bank of the Goomtee. He had no illusions now as to the course the mutineers would follow. Native rumors had brought the news of the massacre at Cawnpore, though the ghastly tragedy of the Well was yet to come. He knew that this elegant city, resplendent and glorious in the sheen of the setting sun, would soon be a living hell. A fearsome struggle would surge around that tower where the British flag was flying. A few hundreds of Europeans would strive to keep at bay tens of thousands of eager rebels. Would they succeed? Pray Heaven for that while Winifred lived!
And in all human probability their fate rested with him. If he were able to stir the British authorities in the south to almost superhuman efforts, a relievingforce might arrive before the end of July. It was a great undertaking he had set himself. Yet he would have attempted it for Winifred’s sake alone, and the thought of her anguish, when she should hear that he was gone, gave him a pang that was not solaced by the dearest honor a soldier can attain—promotion on the field.
It was out of the question that he should return to the Residency before he began his self-imposed mission. Already the enemy’s cavalry were swooping along both flanks of the routed troops. In a few minutes the only available road, which crossed the Goomtee by a bridge of boats and led through the suburbs by way of the Dilkusha, would be closed. As it was he had to press Nejdi into a fast gallop before he could clear the left wing of the advancing army. Then, easing the pace a little, he swung off into a by-way, and ere long was cantering down the quiet road that led to Rai Bareilly and thence to Allahabad.
At seven o’clock he was ten miles from Lucknow, at eight, nearly twenty. The quick-falling shadows warned him that if he would procure food for Nejdi and himself he must seize the next opportunity that presented itself, while a rest of some sort was absolutely necessary if he meant to spare his gallant Arab for the trial of endurance that still lay ahead.
Though he had never before traveled that road he was acquainted with its main features. Thirty miles from his present position was the small town of Rai Bareilly. Fifty miles to the southeast was Partabgarh.Fifty miles due south of Partabgarh lay Allahabad. The scheme roughly outlined in his mind was, in the first place, to buy, borrow, or steal a native pony which would carry him to the outskirts of Rai Bareilly before dawn. Then remounting Nejdi he would either ride rapidly through the town, or make a détour, whichever method seemed preferable after inquiry from such peaceful natives as he met on the road. Four hours beyond Rai Bareilly he would leave the main road, strike due south for the Ganges, and follow the left bank of the river until he was opposite Allahabad. He refused to ask himself what he would do if Allahabad were in the hands of the rebels.
“I shall tackle that difficulty about this hour to-morrow,” he communed, with a laugh at his own expense. “Just now, when a hundred miles of unknown territory face me, I have enough to contend with. So, steady is the word! good horse!Cæsarem invehis et fortunas ejus!”
Thus far the wayfarers encountered during his journey had treated him civilly. The ryots, peasant proprietors of the soil, drew their rough carts aside and salaamed as he passed. These men knew little or nothing, as yet, of the great events that were taking place on the south and west of the Ganges. A few educated bunniahs and zemindars,[11]who doubtless had heard of wild doings in the cities, glanced at him curiously, and would have asked for news if he had not invariably ridden by at a rapid pace.
As it happened, the route he followed was far removed from the track of murder and rapine that marked the early progress of the Mutiny, and the mere sight of a British Officer, moving on with such speed and confidence, must have set these worthy folk a-wondering. Between Rai Bareilly and the Grand Trunk Road stood the wide barrier of the sacred river, while the town itself must not be confused with Bareilly—situated nearly a hundred miles north of Lucknow—which became notorious as the headquarters of Khan Bahadur Khan, a pensioner of the British Government, and a ruffian second only to Nana Sahib in merciless cruelty.
All unknown to Malcolm, and indeed little recognized as yet in India save by a few district officials, there was a man in Rai Bareilly that night who was destined to test the chivalry of Britain on many a hard-fought field. Ahmed Ullah, famous in history as the Moulvie of Fyzabad, had crossed the young officer’s path once already. When Malcolm took his untrained charger for the first wild gallop out of Meerut—the ride that ended ignominiously in the moat of the Kings’ of Delhi hunting lodge—he nearly rode over a Mohammedan priest, as he tore along the Grand Trunk Road some five miles south of the station.
It would have been well for India if Nejdi’s hoofs had then and there struck the breath out of that ascetic frame. Of all the firebrands raised by the Mutiny, the Moulvie of Fyzabad was the fiercest and most dangerous. Early in the year he was imprisoned forpreaching sedition. Unhappily he was liberated too soon, and, his fanaticism only inflamed the more by punishment, he went to the Punjab and sowed disaffection far and wide by his burning zeal for the spread of Islam. By chance he returned to Fyzabad before the outbreak at Meerut. The feeble loyalty of the native regiments at Lucknow sufficed to keep all the borderland of Nepaul quiet for nearly two months. But the reports brought by his disciples warned the moulvie that the true believer’s day of triumph was approaching. Moreover, the Begum of Oudh, one of three women who were worth as many army corps to the mutineers, was waiting for him at Rai Bareilly, a placid eddy in the backwash of the torrents sweeping through Upper India, and Ahmed Ullah had left Fyzabad on the evening of the 29th to keep his tryst.
It was, therefore, a lively brood of scorpions that Malcolm proposed to disturb when he dismounted from a wretched tat he had purchased at his first halt, and fed and watered Nejdi again, just as a glimmer of dawn appeared in the east. According to his calculations he was about a mile from Rai Bareilly. The hour was the quietest and coolest of the hot Indian night. Some pattering drops of rain and the appearance of heavy clouds in the southwest gave premonitions of a fresh outburst of the monsoon. He was glad of it. Rain would freshen himself and his horse. It made the ground soft and would retard his speed once he quitted the high road, but these drawbacks were more than balanced by the absence of the terrificheat of the previous day. He unstrapped his cloak and flung it loosely over his shoulders. Then he waited, until the growing light brought forth the untiring tillers of the fields, and he was able to glean some sort of information as to the position of affairs in the town. If the place were occupied by a prowling gang of rebels he might secure a guide by payment and avoid its narrow streets altogether. At any rate, it would be a foolish thing to dash through blindly and trust to luck. The issues at stake were too important for that sort of imprudent valor. His object was to reach Allahabad that night—not to hew his way through opposing hordes and risk being cut down in the process.
The lowing of cattle and the soft stumbling tread of many unshod feet told him that some one was approaching. A herd of buffaloes loomed out of the half light. Their driver, an old man, was quite willing to talk.
“There are no sahib-log in the town,” he said, for Malcolm deemed it advisable to begin by a question on that score. “The collector-sahib had a camp here three weeks ago, but he went away, and that was a misfortune, because the budmashes from Fyzabad came, and honest people were sore pressed.”
“From Fyzabad, say’st thou? They must be cleared out. Where are they?”
“You are too late, huzoor. They went to Cawnpore, I have heard. Men talk of much dacoity in that district. Is that true, sahib?”
“Yes, but fear not; it will be suppressed. I am going to Allahabad. Is this the best road?”
“I have never been so far, sahib, but it lies that way.”
“Is the bazaar quiet now?”
“I have seen none save our own people these two days, yet it was said in the bazaar last night that a Begum tarried at the rest-house.”
“A Begum. What Begum?”
“I know not her name, huzoor, but she is one of the daughters of the King of Oudh.”
Malcolm was relieved to hear this. The wild notion had seized him that the Princess Roshinara, a stormy petrel of political affairs just then, might have drifted to Rai Bareilly by some evil chance.
“You see this pony?” he said. “Take him. He is yours. I have no further use for him. Are you sure that there are none to dispute my passage through the town?”
The old peasant was so taken aback by the gift that he could scarce speak intelligibly, but he assured the Presence that at such an hour none would interfere with him.
Malcolm decided to risk it. He mounted and rode forward at a sharp trot. Of course he had not been able to adopt any kind of disguise. While doing duty at the Residency he had thrown aside the turban reft from Abdul Huq and he now wore the peaked shako, with white puggaree, affected by junior staff officers at that period. His long military cloak, steel scabbard,sabertache and Wellington boots, proclaimed his profession, while his blue riding-coat and cross-belts were visible in front, as he meant to have his arms free in case the necessity arose to use sword or pistol.
And he rode thus into Rai Bareilly, watchful, determined, ready for any emergency. So boldly did he advance that he darted past half a dozen men whose special duty it was to stop and question all travelers. They were stationed on the flat roofs of two houses, one on each side of the way, and a rope was stretched across the road in readiness to drop and hinder the progress of any one who did not halt when summoned. It was a simple device. It had not been seen by the man who drove the buffaloes, and by reason of Malcolm’s choice of the turf by the side of the road as the best place for Nejdi, it chanced to dangle high enough to permit their passing beneath.
The sentries, though caught napping, tried to make amends for their carelessness. In the growing light one of them saw Malcolm’s accouterments and he yelled loudly:
“Ohé, bhai, look out for the Feringhi!”
Frank, unfortunately, had not noticed the rope. But he heard the cry and understood that the “brother” to whom it was addressed would probably be discovered at the end of the short street. He shook Nejdi into a canter, drew his sword, and looked keenly ahead for the first sign of those who would bar his path.
Dawn was peeping grayly over the horizon, and Ahmed Ullah, moulvie and interpreter of the Koran,standing in an open courtyard, was engaged in the third of the day’s prayers, of which the first was intoned soon after sunset the previous evening. He was going through the Rêka with military precision, and as luck would have it, the Kibleh, or direction of Mecca, brought his fierce gaze to the road along which Malcolm was galloping. Never did priest become warrior more speedily than Ahmed Ullah when that warning shout rang out, and he discovered that a British officer was riding at top speed through the quiet bazaar. Assuming that this unexpected apparition betokened the arrival of a punitive detachment, he uttered a loud cry, leaped to the gates of the courtyard and closed them.
Malcolm, of course, saw him and regarded his action as that of a frightened man, who would be only too glad when he could resume his devotions in peace. Ahmed Ullah, soon to become a claimant of sovereign power as “King of Hindustan,” was not a likely person to let a prize slip through his fingers thus easily. Keeping up an ululating clamor of commands, he ran to the roof of the dwelling, snatched up a musket and took steady aim. By this time Malcolm was beyond the gate and thought himself safe. Then he saw a rope drawn breast-high across the narrow street, and gesticulating natives, variously armed, leaning over the parapets on either hand. He had to decide in the twinkling of an eye whether to go on or turn back. Probably his retreat would be cut off by some similar device, so the bolder expedient of an advance offeredthe better chance. An incomparable horseman, mounted on an absolutely trustworthy horse, he lay well forward on Nejdi’s neck, resolving to try and pick up the slack of the rope on his sword and lift it out of the way. To endeavor to cut through such an obstacle would undoubtedly have brought about a disaster. It would yield, and the keenest blade might fail to sever it completely, while any slackening of pace would enable the hostile guard to shoot him at point-blank range.
These considerations passed through his mind while Nejdi was covering some fifty yards. To disconcert the enemy, who were not sepoys and whose guns were mostly antiquated weapons of the match-lock type, he pulled out a revolver and fired twice. Then he leaned forward, with right arm thrown well in front and the point of his sword three feet beyond Nejdi’s head. At that instant, when Frank was unconsciously offering a bad target, the moulvie fired. The bullet plowed through the Englishman’s right forearm, struck the hilt of the sword and knocked the weapon out of his hand. Exactly what happened next he never knew. From the nature of his own bruises afterwards and the manner in which he was jerked backwards from the saddle, he believed that the rope missed Nejdi altogether, but caught him by the left shoulder. The height of a horse extended at the gallop is surprisingly low as compared with the height of the same animal standing or walking. There was even a remote possibility that the rope would strike the Arab’s foreheadand bound clear of his rider. But that was not to be. Here was Frank hurled to the roadway, and striving madly to resist the treble shock of his wound, of the blow dealt by the rope, and of the fall, while Nejdi was tearing away through Rai Bareilly as though all the djinns of his native desert were pursuing him.
Though Malcolm’s torn arm was bleeding copiously, and he was stunned by being thrown so violently flat on his back, no bones were broken. His rage at the trick fate had played him, the overwhelming bitterness of another and most lamentable failure, enabled him to struggle to his feet and empty at his assailants the remaining chambers of the revolver which was still tightly clutched in his left hand. He missed, luckily, or they would have butchered him forthwith. In another minute he was standing before Moulvie Ahmed Ullah, and that earnest advocate of militant Islam was plying him with mocking questions.
“Whither so fast, Feringhi? Dost thou run from death, or ride to seek it? Mayhap thou comest from Lucknow. If so, what news? And where are the papers thou art carrying?”
Frank’s strength was failing him. To the weakness resulting from loss of blood was added the knowledge that this time he was trapped without hope of escape. The magnificent display of self-command entailed by the effort to rise and face his foes in a last defiance could not endure much longer. He knew it was near the end when he had difficulty in finding the necessary words in Urdu. But he spoke, slowlyand firmly, compelling his unwilling brain to form the sentences.
“I have no papers, and if I had, who are you that demand them?” he said. “I am an officer of the Company, and I call on all honest and loyal men to help me in my duty. I promise—to those who assist me to reach Allahabad—that they will be—pardoned for any past offenses—and well rewarded....”
The room swam around him and the grim-visaged moullah became a grotesque being, with dragon’s eyes and a turban like a cloud. Yet he kept on, hoping against imminent death itself that his words would reach some willing ear.
“Any man—who tells General Neill-sahib—at Allahabad—that help is wanted—at Lucknow—will be made rich.... Help—at Lucknow—immediately.... I, Malcolm-sahib—of the 3d Cavalry—say....”
He collapsed in the grasp of the men who were holding him.
“Thou has said enough, dog of a Nazarene. Take him without and hang him,” growled Ahmed Ullah.
“Nay,” cried a woman’s voice from behind a straw portière that closed the arched veranda of the house. “Thou art too ready with thy sentences, moulvie. Rather let us bind his wounds and give him food and drink. Then he will recover, and tell us what we want to know.”
“He hath told us already, Princess,” said the other, his harsh accents sounding more like the snarl of awolf than a human voice. “He comes from Lucknow and he seeks succor from Allahabad. That means—”
“It means that he can be hanged as easily at eventide as at daybreak, and we shall surely learn the truth, as such men do not breathe lies.”
“He will not speak, Princess.”
“Leave that to me. If I fail, I hand him over to thee forthwith. Let him be brought within and tended, and let some ride after his horse, as there may be letters in the wallets. I have spoken, Ahmed Ullah. See that I am obeyed.”
The moulvie said no word. He went back to his praying mat and bent again toward the west, where the Holy Kaaba enshrines the ruby sent down from heaven. But though his lips muttered the rubric of the Koran, his heart whispered other things, and chief among them was the vow that ere many days be passed he would so contrive affairs that no woman’s whim should thwart his judgment.
So the clouded day broke sullenly, with gusts of warm rain and red gleams of a sun striving to disperse the mists. And the earth soaked and steamed and threw off fever-laden vapors as she nursed the grain to life and bade the arid plain clothe itself in summer greenery. It was a bad day to lie wounded and ill and a prisoner, and despite the cooling showers, it was a hot day to ride far and fast.
Hence it was long past noon when a servant announced to the Begum that the sahib—for thus the man described Malcolm until sharply admonished tolearn the new order of speech—the Nazarene, then, was somewhat recovered from his faintness. And about the same hour, when a subadar of the 7th Cavalry clattered into Rai Bareilly and was told that a certain Feringhi whom he sought was safely laid by the heels there, so sultry was the atmosphere that he seemed to be quite glad of the news.
“Shabash!” he cried, as he dismounted. “May I never drink at the White Pond of the Prophet if that be not good hearing! So you have caught him, brethren! Wao, wao! you have done a great thing. He is not killed?—No? That is well, for he is sorely wanted at Lucknow. Tie him tightly, though. He is a fox in guile, and might give me the slip again. May his bones bleach in an infidel’s grave!—I have hunted him fifty miles, yet scarce a man I met had seen him!”
If it is difficult for the present generation to understand the manners and ways of its immediate forbears, how much more difficult to ask it to appreciate the extraordinary features of the siege of Lucknow! Let the reader who knows London imagine some parish in the heart of the city barricading itself behind a mud wall against its neighbors: let him garrison this flimsy fortress with sixteen hundred and ninety-two combatants, of whom a large number were men of an inferior race and of doubtful loyalty to those for whom they were fighting, while scores of the Europeans were infirm pensioners: let him cram the rest of the available shelter with women and children: let him picture the network of narrow streets, tall houses and a few open spaces—often separated from the enemy only by the width of a lane—as being subjected to interminable bombardment at point-blank range, and he will have a clear notion of some, at least, of the conditions which obtained in Lucknow when that gloomy July 1st carried on the murderous work begun on the previous evening.
The Residency itself was the only strong building in an enclosure seven hundred yards long and four hundredyards wide, though by no means so large in area as these figures suggest. The whole position was surrounded by an adobe wall and ditch, strengthened at intervals by a gate or a stouter embrasure for a gun. The other structures, such as the Banqueting Hall, which was converted into a hospital, the Treasury, the Brigade Mess, the Begum Kotee, the Barracks, and a few nondescript houses and offices, were utterly unsuited for defense against musketry alone. As to their capacity to resist artillery fire, that was a grim jest with the inmates, who dreaded the fallen masonry as much as the rebel shells.
Even the Residency was forced to use its underground rooms for the protection of the greater part of the women and children, while the remaining buildings, except the Begum Kotee, which was comparatively sheltered on all sides, were so exposed to the enemy’s guns that when some sort of clearance was made in October, four hundred and thirty-five cannon-balls were taken out of the Brigade Mess alone.
Before the siege commenced the British also occupied a strong palace called the Muchee Bhowun, standing outside the entrenchment and commanding the stone bridge across the river Goomtee. A few hours’ experience revealed the deadly peril to which its small garrison was exposed, and Lawrence decided at all costs to abandon it. A rude semaphore was erected on the roof of the Residency, and on the first morning of the siege, three officers signaled to the commandant of the outlying fort, Colonel Palmer,that he was to spike his guns, blow up the building and bring his men into the main position. The three did their signaling under a heavy fire, but they were understood. Happily, the prospect of loot in the city drew off thousands of the rebels after sunset, and Colonel Palmer marched out quietly at midnight. A few minutes later an appalling explosion shook every house in Lucknow. The Muchee Bhowun, with its immense stores, had been blown to the sky.
That same day Lawrence received what the Celtic soldiers among the garrison regarded as a warning of his approaching end. He was working in his room with his secretary when a shell crashed through the wall and burst at the feet of the two men. Neither was injured, but Captain Wilson, one of his staff-officers, begged the Chief to remove his office to a less exposed place.
“Nothing of the kind,” said Sir Henry, cheerfully. “The sepoys don’t possess an artilleryman good enough to throw a second shell into the same spot.”
“It will please all of us if you give in on this point, sir,” persisted Wilson.
“Oh, well, if you put it that way, I will turn out to-morrow,” was the smiling answer.
Next morning at eight o’clock, after a round of inspection, the general, worn out by anxiety and want of sleep, threw himself on a bed in a corner of the room.
Wilson came in.
“Don’t forget your promise, sir,” he said.
“I have not forgotten, but I am too tired to move now. Give me another hour or two.”
Lawrence went on to explain some orders to his aide. While they were talking another shell entered the small apartment, exploded, and filled the air with dust and stifling fumes. Wilson’s ears were stunned by the noise, but he cried out twice:
“Sir Henry, are you hurt?”
Lawrence murmured something, and Wilson rushed to his side. The coverlet of the bed was crimson with blood. Some men of the 32d ran in and carried their beloved leader to another room. Then a surgeon came and pronounced the wound to be mortal. On the morning of the 4th Lawrence died. He was conscious to the last, and passed his final hours planning and contriving and making arrangements for the continuance of the defense.
“Never surrender!” was his dying injunction. Shot and shell battered unceasingly against the walls of Dr. Fayrer’s house in which he lay dying, but their terrors never shook that stout heart, and he died as he lived, a splendid example of an officer and a gentleman, a type of all that is best and noblest in the British character.
And Death, who did not spare the Chief, sought lowlier victims. During the first week of the siege the average number killed daily was twenty. Even when the troops learnt to avoid the exposed places, and began to practise the little tricks and artifices that tempt an enemy to reveal his whereabouts to his ownundoing, the daily death-roll was ten for more than a month.
There was no real safety anywhere. Even in the Begum Kotee, where Winifred and the other ladies of the garrison were lodged, some of them were hit. Twice ere the end of July Winifred awoke in the morning to find bullets on the floor and the mortar of the wall broken within a few inches of her head. That she slept soundly under such conditions is a remarkable tribute to human nature’s knack of adapting itself to circumstances. After a few days of excessive nervousness the most timorous among the women were heard to complain of the monotony of existence!
And two amazing facts stand out from the record of guard-mounting, cartridge-making, cooking, cleaning, and the rest of the every-day doings inseparable from life even in a siege. Although the rebels now numbered at least twenty thousand men, including six thousand trained soldiers, they were long in hardening their hearts to attempt that escalade which, if undertaken on the last day of June, could scarcely have failed to be successful. They were not cowards. They gave proof in plenty of their courage and fighting stamina. Yet they cringed before men whom they had learnt to regard as the dominant race. The other equally surprising element in the situation was the readiness of the garrison, doomed by all the laws of war to early extinction, to extract humor out of its forlorn predicament.
The most dangerous post in the entrenchment wasthe Cawnpore Battery. It was commanded by a building known as Johannes’ House, whence an African negro, christened “Bob the Nailer” by the wits of the 32d, picked off dozens of the defenders during the opening days of the siege. What quarrel this stranger in a strange land had with the English no one knows, but the defenders were well aware of his identity, and annoyed him by exhibiting a most unflattering effigy. Needless to say, the whites of his eyes and his woolly hair were reproduced with marked effect, and “Bob the Nailer” gave added testimony of his skill with a rifle by shooting out both eyes in the dummy figure.
Winifred had heard of this man. Once she actually saw him while she was peeping through a forbidden casement. Knowing the wholesale destruction of her fellow-countrymen with which he was credited, she had it in her heart to wish that she held a gun at that moment, and she would surely have done her best to kill him.
He disappeared and she turned away with a sigh, to meet her uncle hastening towards her.
“Ah, Winifred,” he cried, “what were you doing there? Looking out, I am certain. Have you forgotten the punishment inflicted on Lot’s wife when she would not obey orders?”
“I have just had a glimpse of that dreadful negro in Johannes’ House,” she said.
Mr. Mayne threw down a bundle of clothes he was carrying. He unslung his rifle. His face, tanned byexposure to sun and rain, lost some of its brick-red color.
“Are you sure?” he whispered, as if their voices might betray them. Like every other man in the garrison he longed to check the career of “Bob the Nailer.”
“It is too late,” said the girl. “He was visible only for an instant. Look! I saw him at that window.”
She partly opened the wooden shutter again and pointed to an upper story of the opposite building. Almost instantly a bullet imbedded itself in the solid planks. Some watcher had noted the opportunity and taken it. Winifred coolly closed the casement and adjusted its cross-bar.
“Perhaps it is just as well you missed the chance,” she said. “You might have been shot yourself while you were taking aim.”
“And what about you, my lady?”
“I sha’n’t offend again, uncle, dear. I really could not tell you why I looked out just now. Things were quiet, I suppose. And I forgot that the opening of a window would attract attention. But why in the world are you bringing me portions of Mr. Malcolm’s uniform? That is what you have in the bundle, is it not?”
“Yes. The three men who shared his room are dead, and the place is wanted as an extra ward. I happened to hear of it, so I have rescued his belongings.”
“Do you—do you think he will ever claim them, or that we shall live to safeguard them?”
“My dear one, that is as Providence directs. It is something to be thankful for that we are alive and uninjured. And that reminds me. They need a lot of bandages in the hospital. Will you tear Malcolm’s linen into strips? I will come for them after the last post.”[12]
He hurried away, leaving the odd collection of garments with her. The clothes were her lover’s parade uniform, which Malcolm had carried from Meerut in a valise strapped behind the saddle. The other articles were purchased in Lucknow and had never been worn. In comparison with the smart full-dress kit of a cavalry officer and the spotless linen, a soiled and mud-spattered turban looked singularly out of place. It was as though some tatterdemalion had thrust himself into a gathering of dandies.
Being a woman, Winifred gave no heed to the fact that the metal badge on the crossed folds was not that worn by an officer, nor did she observe that it carried the crest of the 2d Cavalry, whereas Malcolm’s regiment was the 3d. But, being also a very thrifty and industrious little person, she decided to untie the turban, wash it, and use its many yards of fine muslin for the manufacture of lint.
The folds of a turban are usually kept in position by pins, but when she came to examine this one she discovered that it was tied with whip-cord. Herknowledge of native headgear was not extensive, so this measure of extra security did not surprise her. A pair of scissors soon overcame the difficulty; she shook out the neat folds, and a pearl necklace and a piece of paper fell to the floor.
She was alone in her room at the moment. No one heard her cry of surprise, almost of terror. One glance at the glistening pearls told her that they were of exceeding value. They ranged from the size of a small pea to that of a large marble; their white sheen and velvet purity bespoke rareness and skilled selection. The setting alone would vouch for their quality. Each pearl was secured to its neighbor by clasps and links of gold, while a brooch-like fastening in front was studded with fine diamonds. Winifred sank to her knees. She picked up this remarkable ornament as gingerly as if she were handling a dead snake. In the vivid light the pearls shimmered with wonderful and ever-changing tints. They seemed to whisper of love, and hate—of all the passions that stir heart and brain into frenzy—and through a mist of fear and awed questioning came a doubt, a suspicion, a searching of her soul as she recalled certain things which the thrilling events of her recent life had dulled almost to extinction.