Her uncle had told her of the Princess Roshinara’s words to Malcolm on that memorable night of May 10, when he rode out from Meerut to help them. At the time, perhaps, a little pang of jealousy made its presence felt, for no woman can bear to hear of anotherwoman’s overtures to her lover. The meeting at Bithoor helped to dispel that half-formed illusion, and she had not troubled since to ask herself why the Princess Roshinara was so ready to help Malcolm to escape. She never dreamed that she herself was a pawn in the game that was intended to bring Nana Sahib to Delhi. But now, with this royal trinket glittering in her hands, she could hardly fail to connect it with the only Indian princess of whom she had any knowledge, and the torturing fact was seemingly undeniable that Malcolm had this priceless necklace in his possession without telling her of its existence. Certainly he had chosen a singular hiding-place, and never did man treat such a treasure with such apparent carelessness. But—there it was. The studied simplicity of its concealment had been effective. She had heard, long since, how he parted from Lawrence on the Chinhut road. Since that hour there was no possible means of communicating with Lucknow, even though he had reached Allahabad safely.
And he had never told her a word about it. It was that that rankled. Poor Winifred rose from her knees in a mood perilously akin to her hatred of the negro who dealt death or disablement to her friends of the garrison, but, this time, it was a woman, not a man, whom she regarded as the enemy.
Then, in a bitter temper, she stooped again to rescue the bit of discolored paper that had fallen with the pearls. Her anger was not lessened by finding that it was covered with Hindustani characters. They, ofcourse, offered her no clue to the solution of the mystery that was wringing her heartstrings. If anything, the illegible scrawl only added to her distress. The document was something unknown; therefore, it lent itself to distrust.
At any rate, the turban was destined not to be shredded into lint that day. She busied herself with tearing up the rest of the linen. When night came, and Mr. Mayne could leave his post, she showed him the paper and asked him to translate it.
He was a good Eastern scholar, but the dull rays of a small oil lamp were not helpful in a task always difficult to English eyes. He bent his brows over the script and began to decipher some of the words.
“‘Malcolm-sahib ... the Company’s 3d Regiment of Horse ... heaven-born Princess Roshinara Begum....’ Where in the world did you get this, Winifred, and how did it come into your possession?” he said.
“It was in Mr. Malcolm’s turban—the one you brought me to-day from his quarters.”
“In his turban? Do you mean that it was hidden there?”
“Yes, something of the kind.”
Mayne examined the paper again.
“That is odd,” he muttered after a pause.
“But what does the writing mean? You say it mentions his name and that of the Princess Roshinara? Surely it has some definite significance?”
The Commissioner was so taken up with the effortto give each spidery curve and series of distinguishing dots and vowel marks their proper bearing in the text that he did not catch the note of disdain in his niece’s voice.
“I have it now,” he said, peering at the document while he held it close to the lamp. “It is a sort of pass. It declares that Mr. Malcolm is a friend of the Begum and gives him safe conduct if he visits Delhi within three days of the date named here, but I cannot tell when that would be, until I consult a native calendar. It is signed by Bahadur Shah and is altogether a somewhat curious thing to be in Malcolm’s possession. Is that all you know of it—merely that it was stuck in a fold of his turban?”
“This accompanied it,” said Winifred, with a restraint that might have warned her hearer of the passion it strove to conceal. But Mayne was deaf to Winifred’s coldness. If he was startled before, he was positively amazed when she produced the necklace.
He took it, appraised its value silently, and scrutinized the workmanship in the gold links.
“Made in Delhi,” he half whispered. “A wonderful thing, probably worth two lakhs of rupees,[13]or even more. It is old, too. The craftsman who fashioned this clasp is not to be found nowadays. Why, it may have been worn by Nurmahal herself! Each of its fifty pearls could supply a chapter of a romance. And you found it, together with this safe-conduct, in Malcolm’s turban?”
“Yes, uncle. Do you think I would speak carelessly of such a precious object? When one has discovered a treasure it is a trait of human nature to note pretty closely the place where it came to light.”
Mayne was yet too much taken up with puzzling side-issues to pay heed to Winifred’s demeanor. He remembered the extraordinary proposal made by Roshinara to Malcolm ere she drove away to Delhi from her father’s hunting lodge. Could it be possible that his young friend had met the princess on other occasions than that which Malcolm laughingly described as the lunging of Nejdi and the plunging of his master? It occurred to him now, with a certain chilling misgiving, that he had himself broken in with a bewildered exclamation when Frank seemed to regard the Princess’s offer of employment in her service as worthy of serious thought. There were other aspects of the affair, aspects so sinister that he almost refused to harbor them. Rather to gain time than with any definite motive, he stooped over the pass again, meaning to read it word for word.
“Of course you have not forgotten, uncle, that Mr. Malcolm took us into his confidence so far as to tell us of the curious letter that reached him after the second battle outside Delhi?” said Winifred. “It saved him at Bithoor when the men from Cawnpore meant to hang him, and, seeing that he had the one article in his possession, it is passing strange that he should have omitted to mention the other—to me.”
Then the man knew what it all meant to the girl.He placed his arm around her neck and drew her towards him.
“My poor Winifred!” he murmured, “you might at least have been spared such a revelation at this moment.”
His sympathy broke down her pride. She sobbed as though her heart would yield beneath the strain. For a little while there was no sound in the room but Winifred’s plaints, while ever and anon the walls shook with the crash of the cannonade and the bursting of shells.
Ahmed Ullah, Moulvie of Fyzabad, had a quick ear for the arrival of the native officer of cavalry from Lucknow.
“Peace be with thee, brother!” said he, after a shrewd glance at the travel-worn and blood-stained man and horse. “Thou has ridden far and fast. What news hast thou of the Jehad,[14]and how fares it at Lucknow?”
“With thee be peace!” was the reply. “We fought the Nazarenes yesterday at a place called Chinhut, and sent hundreds of the infidel dogs to the fifth circle of Jehannum. The few who escaped our swords are penned up in the Residency, and its walls are now crumbling before our guns. By the tomb of Nizam-ud-din, the unbelievers must have fallen ere the present hour.”
The moulvie’s wicked eyes sparkled.
“Praise be to Allah and his Prophet forever!” he cried. “How came this thing to pass?”
“My regiment took the lead,” said the rissaldar, proudly. “We had long chafed under the commands of the huzoors. At last we rose and made short work of our officers. You see here—” and he touched a rent in his right side, “where one of them tried to stop the thrust that ended him. But I clave him to the chin, the swine-eater, and when Larrence-sahib attacked us at Chinhut we chased him over the Canal and through the streets.”
“Wao! wao! This is good hearing! Wast thou sent by some of the faithful to summon me, brother?”
“To summon thee and all true believers to the green standard. Yet had I one other object in riding to Rai Bareilly. A certain Nazarene, Malcolm by name, an officer of the 3d Cavalry, was bidden by Larrence to make for Allahabad and seek help. The story runs that the Nazarenes are mustering there for a last stand ere we drive them into the sea. This Malcolm-sahib—”
“Enough!” said the moulvie, fiercely, for his self-love was wounded at learning that the rebel messenger classed him with the mob. “We have him here. He is in safe keeping when he is in the hands of Ahmed Ullah!”
“What!” exclaimed the newcomer with a mighty oath. “Are you the saintly Moulvie of Fyzabad?”
“Whom else, then, did you expect to find?”
“You, indeed, O revered one. But not here. My orders were, once I had secured the Nazarene, to sendurgently to Fyzabad and bid you hurry to Lucknow with all speed.”
“Ha! Say’st thou, friend. Who gave thee this message?”
“One whom thou wilt surely listen to. Yet these things are not for every man to hear. We must speak of them apart.”
The moulvie was appeased. Nay, more, his ambition was fired.
“Come with me into the house. You are in need of food and rest. Come! We can talk while you eat.”
He drew nearer, but a woman’s voice was raised from behind a screen in one of the rooms.
“Tarry yet a minute, friend. I would learn more of events in Lucknow. Tell us more fully what has taken place there.”
“The Begum of Oudh must be obeyed,” said Ahmed Ullah with a warning glance at the other. He was met with a villainous and intriguing look that would have satisfied Machiavelli, but the officer bowed low before the screen.
“I am, indeed, honored to be the bearer of good tidings to royal ears,” said he. “Doubtless I should have been entrusted with letters for your highness were not the city in some confusion owing to the fighting.”
“Who commands our troops?” came the sharp demand.
“At present, your highness, the Nawab of Rampur represents the King of Oudh.”
“The Nawab of Rampur! That cannot be tolerated. Ahmed Ullah!”
“I am here,” growled the moulvie, smiling sourly.
“We must depart within the hour. Let my litter be prepared, and send men on horseback to provide relays of carriers every ten miles. Delay not. The matter presses.”
There could be no mistaking the agitation of the hidden speaker. That an admitted rival of her father’s dynasty should be even the nominal leader of the revolt was not to be endured. The mere suggestion of such a thing was gall and wormwood. None realized better than this arch-priestess of cabal that a predominating influence gained at the outset of a new régime might never be weakened by those who were shut out by circumstances from a share in the control of events. Even the fanatical moulvie gasped at this intelligence, though his shrewd wit taught him that the rissaldar had not exchanged glances with him without good reason.
“Come, then,” said he, “and eat. I have much occupation, and it will free thy hands if I see to the hanging of the Feringhi forthwith.”
“Nay, that cannot be,” was the cool reply, as the two entered the building. “I would not have ridden so hard through the night for the mere stringing up of one Nazarene. By the holy Kaaba, we gave dozens of them a speedier death yesterday.”
“What other errand hast thou? The matter touches only the Nazarene’s attempt to reach Allahabad, I suppose?”
“That is a small thing. Our brothers at Cawnpore may have secured Allahabad and other towns in the Doab long ere to-day. This Frank comes back with me to Lucknow. If I bring him alive I earn a jaghir,[15]if dead, only a few gold mohurs.”
“Thy words are strange, brother.”
“Not so strange as the need that this Feringhi should live till he reaches Lucknow. He hath in his keeping certain papers that concern the Roshinara Begum of Delhi, and he must be made to confess their whereabouts. So far as that goes, what is the difference between a tree in Rai Bareilly and a tree in Lucknow?”
“True, if the affair presses. Nevertheless, to those who follow me, I may have the bestowing of many jaghirs.”
“I will follow thee with all haste, O holy one,” was the answer, “but a field in a known village is larger than a township in an unknown kingdom. Let me secure this jaghir first, O worthy of honor, and I shall come quickly to thee for the others.”
“How came it that Nawab of Rampur assumed the leadership?” inquired Ahmed Ullah, his mind reverting to the graver topic of the rebellion.
The other scowled sarcastically.
“He is of no account,” he muttered. “Was I mistaken in thinking that thou didst not want all my budget opened for a woman? He who gave me a message for thee was the moullah who dwells near the Imambara. Dost thou not know him? Ghazi-ud-din.Hesent me. ‘Tell the Moulvie of Fyzabad that he is wanted—he will understand,’ said he. And now, when I have eaten, lead me to the Feringhi. Leave him to me. Within two days I shall have more news for thee.”
The name of Ghazi-ud-din, a firebrand of the front rank in Lucknow, proved to Ahmed Ullah that his opportunity had come. He gave orders that the wants of the cavalry officer and his horse were to be attended to, while he himself bustled off to prepare for an immediate journey.
When the Begum and the moulvie departed for Lucknow they were accompanied by nearly the whole of their retinue. Two men were left to assist the rissaldar in taking care of the prisoner, and these two vowed by the Prophet that they had never met such a swashbuckler as the stranger, for he used strange oaths that delighted them and told stories of the sacking of Lucknow that made them tingle with envy.
Oddly enough, he was very anxious that the Nazarene’s horse should be recovered, and was so pleased to hear that Nejdi was caught in a field on the outskirts of the town and brought in during the afternoon that he promised his assistants a handful of gold mohurs apiece—when they reached Lucknow.
Once, ere sunset, he visited the prisoner and cursed him with a fluency that caused all listeners to own that the warriors of the 7th Cavalry must, indeed, be fine fellows.
At last, when Frank was led forth and helped intothe saddle, his guardian’s flow of humorous invective reached heights that pleased the villagers immensely. The Nazarene’s hands were tied behind him, and the gallant rissaldar, holding the Arab’s reins, rode by his side. The moulvie’s men followed, and in this guise the quartette quitted Rai Bareilly for the north.
They were about a mile on their way and the sun was nearing the horizon, when the native officer bade his escort halt.
“Bones of Mahomet!” he cried, “what am I thinking of? My horse has done fifty miles in twenty-four hours, and the Feringhi’s probably more than that. Hath not the moulvie friends in Rai Bareilly who will lend us a spare pair?”
Ahmed Ullah’s retainers hazarded the opinion that their master’s presence might be necessary ere friendship stood such a strain.
“Then why not make the Nazarene pay for his journey?” said the rissaldar with grim humor.
He showed skill as a cut-purse in going straight to an inner pocket where Malcolm carried some small store of money. Taking ten gold mohurs, he told the men to hasten back to the village and purchase a couple of strong ponies.
“Nay,” said he, when they made to ride off. “You must go afoot, else I may never again see you or the tats. I will abide here till you return. See that you lose no time, but if darkness falls speedily I will await you in the next village.”
Not daring to argue with this truculent-lookingbravo, the men obeyed. Already it was dusk and daylight would soon fail. No sooner had they disappeared round the first bend in the road than the rissaldar, unfastening Malcolm’s bonds the while, said with a strange humility:
“It was easier done than I expected, sahib, but I guessed that my story about the Nawab of Rampur would send Moulvie and Begum packing. Now we are free, and we have four horses. Whither shall we go? But, if it be north, south, east, or west, let us leave the main road, for messengers may meet the moulvie and that would make him suspicious.”
“Thy counsel is better than mine, good friend,” was Frank’s answer. “I am yet dazed with thy success, and my only word is—to Allahabad.”
Though his arm was stiff and painful, the rough bandaging it had received and the coarse food given him in sufficient quantity at Rai Bareilly, had partly restored Malcolm’s strength. Nevertheless he thought his mind was failing when, in the dim light of the inner room in which he was confined, he saw Chumru standing before him.
His servant’s warlike attire was sufficiently bewildering, and the sonorous objurgations with which he was greeted were not calculated to dispel the cloud over his wits, but a whispered sentence gave hope, and hope is a wonderful restorative.
“Pretend not to know me, sahib, and all will be well,” said his unexpected ally, and, from that instant until they stood together on the Lucknow road, Malcolm had guarded tongue and eye in the firm faith that Chumru would save him.
He was not mistaken. The adroit Mohammedan knew better than to trust his sahib and himself too long on the highway.
“They will surely make search for us, huzoor,” he said as they headed across country towards a distantridge, thickly coated with trees. “The Begum and Ahmed Ullah met here for a purpose, and their friends will not fail to tell them of the trouble in Lucknow. I have been shaking in my boots all day, for ’tis ill resting in the jungle when tigers are loose, but I knew you could not ride in the sun, and I saw no other way of getting rid of the moulvie’s men than that of sending them back in the dark.”
“It seems to me,” said Malcolm, with a weak laugh, “that you would not have scrupled to knock both of them on the head if necessary.”
“No, sahib, they are my kin. He who wore this uniform was a Brahmin, and that makes all the difference. Brother does not slay brother unless there be a woman in dispute.”
“When did you leave the Residency?”
“About nine o’clock last night, sahib.”
“Did you see the miss-sahib before you came away?”
“It was she who told me whither you had gone, sahib.”
“Ah, she knew, then? Did she say aught—send any message?”
“Only that you would be certain to need my help, sahib.”
That puzzled Frank. Winifred, of course, had said nothing of the kind, but Chumru assumed that she understood him, so his misrepresentation was quite honest.
A level path now enabled them to canter, and they reached the first belt of trees ten minutes after themoulvie’s men set out for Rai Bareilly. Luck, which was befriending Chumru that day, must have made possible that burst of speed at the right moment. They were discussing their plans in the gloom of a grove of giant pipals when the clatter of horses hard ridden came from the road they had just quitted.
There could be no doubting the errand that brought a cavalcade thus furiously from the direction of Lucknow. It was so near a thing that for a little while they could not be certain they had escaped unseen. But the riders whirled along towards Rai Bareilly, and in another quarter of an hour the night would be their best guardian.
“That settles it,” said Malcolm, in whose veins the blood was now coursing with its normal vitality, though, for the same reason, his right forearm ached abominably. “It would be folly to attempt the road again. Let us make for the river. We must find a boat there, and get men to take us to Allahabad, either by hire or force.”
“How far is it to the river, sahib?”
“About twenty-five miles.”
“Praise be to Allah! That is better than seventy, for my feet are weary of that accursed Brahmin’s boots.”
They stumbled on, leading the horses, until the first dark hour made progress impossible. Then, when the evening mists melted and the stars gave a faint light, they resumed the march, for every mile gained now was worth five at dawn if perchance their huntersthought of making a circular sweep of the country in the neighborhood of Rai Bareilly.
It was a glorious night. The rain of the preceding day had freshened the air, and towards midnight the moon sailed into the blue arc overhead, so they were able to mount again and travel at a faster pace. Twice they were warned by the barking of dogs of the proximity of small villages. They gave these places a wide berth, since there was no knowing what hap might bring a ryot who had seen them into communication with the moulvie’s followers.
Each hamlet marked the center of a cultivated area. They could distinguish the jungle from the arable land almost by the animals they disturbed. A gray wolf, skulking through the sparsely wooded waste, would be succeeded by a herd of timid deer. Then a sounder of pigs, headed by a ten-inch tusker, would scamper out of the border crop, while a pack of jackals, rending the calm night with their maniac yelping, would start every dog within a mile into a frenzy of hoarse barking. Sometimes a fox slunk across their path. Out of many a tuft they drove a startled hare. In the dense undergrowth hummed and rustled a hidden life of greater mystery.
Where water lodged after the rain there were countless millions of frogs, croaking in harsh chorus, and being ceaselessly hunted by the snakes which the monsoon had driven from their nooks and crannies in the rocks. On such a night all India seems to be dead as a land but tremendously alive as a storehouseof insects, animals, and reptiles. Even the air has its strange denizens in the guise of huge beetles and vampire-winged flying foxes. And that is why men call it the unchanging East. Civilization has made but few marks on its far-flung plains. Its peoples are either nomads or dwell in huts of mud and straw and scratch the earth to grow their crops as their forbears have done since the dawn of history.
When the amber and rose tints of dawn gave distance to the horizon the fugitives estimated that they had traversed some fifteen miles. Malcolm was ready to drop with fatigue. He was wounded; he had not slept during two nights; he had fought in a lost battle and ridden sixty-five miles, without counting his exertions before going to the field of Chinhut. Nejdi and the horse which brought Chumru from Lucknow were nearly exhausted. Even the hardy Mohammedan was haggard and spent, and his oblique eyes glowed like the red embers of a dying fire.
“Sahib,” he said, when they came upon a villager and his wife scraping opium from unripe poppy-heads in a field, “unless we rest and eat we shall find no boat on Ganga to-day.”
This was so undeniable that Malcolm did not hesitate to ask the ryot for milk and eggs. The man was civil. Indeed, he thought the Englishman was some important official and took Chumru for his native deputy. He threw down the scoop, handed to his wife an earthen vessel half full of the milky sap gathered from the plants, and led the “huzoors” at once to hisshieling. Here he produced some ghee and chupatties, and half a dozen raw eggs. The feast might not tempt an epicure, but its components were excellent and Frank was well aware that the ghee was exceedingly nutritious, though nauseating to European taste, being practically rancid butter made from buffalo milk.
There was plenty of fodder for the horses, too, and they showed their good condition by eating freely. The ryot eyed Chumru doubtingly when Malcolm gave him five rupees. Under ordinary conditions, the sahib’s native assistant would demand the return of the money at the first convenient moment, and, indeed, Chumru himself was in the habit of exacting a stiff commission on his master’s disbursements. Frank smiled at the man’s embarrassed air.
“The money is thine, friend,” said he, quietly, “and there is more to be earned if thou art so minded.”
“I am but a poor man—” began the ryot.
“Just so. Not every day canst thou obtain good payment for a few hours’ work. Now, listen. How far is the Ganges from here?”
“Less than three hours, sahib.”
“What, for horses?”
“Not so, sahib. A horse can cover the distance in an hour—if he be not weary.”
The peasant could use his eyes, it seemed, but Malcolm passed the phrase without comment.
“We have lost our way,” he said. “We want to reach the river and take boat speedily to Allahabad. If one like thyself were willing to ride with us to thenearest village on the bank where boats can be obtained, we would give him ten rupees, and, moreover, let him keep the horse that carried him.”
The ryot was delighted with his good fortune.
“Blessed be Kali!” he cried. “I saw five female ghosts with goats’ heads in a tree last night, and my wife said it betokened a journey and wealth. Not only can I bring you by the shortest road, huzoor, but my brother has a budgerow moored at the ghât, meaning to carry my castor-oil seeds to Mirzapur. I am not ready for him yet for three weeks or more, and he will ask no better occupation than to drop down stream with you and your camp.”
“I have no camp,” said Malcolm, “but I pay the same rates for the boat.”
“The sahib means that his camp marches by road,” put in Chumru, severely. “Didst not hear him say that we have mislaid the track?”
The ryot apologized for his stupidity, and Frank recognized that his retainer disapproved very strongly of such strict adherence to the truth. On the plea that they must hasten if the midday heat were to be avoided, they cut short the halt to less than an hour. When they came to tighten the girths again they found that Chumru’s horse had fallen lame. As Nejdi, too, was showing signs of stiffness, Malcolm mounted one of the spare animals and led the Arab. Chumru and the ryot bestrode the third horse, and under the guidance of one who knew every path, they set out for the Ganges.
There are few features of the landscape so complex in their windings as the foot-paths of India. Owing to the immense distances between towns—the fertile and densely populated Doab offers no standard of comparison for the remainder of a vast continent—roads were scarce and far between in Mutiny days. The Grand Trunk Road and the rivers Ganges and Jumna were the main arteries of traffic. For the rest, men marched across country, and the narrow ribands of field tracks meandered through plowed land and jungle, traversed nullah and hill and wood, and intersected each other in a tangle that was wholly inextricable unless one traveled by the compass or by well-known landmarks, where such were visible.
The ryot, of course, familiar with each yard of the route, practically followed a straight line. After a steady jog of an hour and a half they saw the silver thread of the Ganges from the crest of a small ridge that ran north and south. The river was then about three miles distant, and they were hurrying down the descent when they came upon an ekka, a little native two-wheeled cart, without springs, and drawn by a diminutive pony. Alone among wheeled conveyances, the ekka can leave the main roads in fairly level country, and this one had evidently brought a zemindar from a river-side village.
The man himself, a portly, full-bearded Mohammedan, was examining a growing crop, and his behavior, no less than the furtive looks cast at the newcomers by his driver, warned Malcolm that here, for a certainty,the Mutiny was a known thing. The zemindar’s face assumed a bronze-green tint when he saw the European officer, and the sulky-looking native perched behind the shafts of the ekka growled something in the local patois that caused the ryot sitting behind Chumru to squirm uneasily.
The other glanced hastily around, as though he hoped to find assistance near, and Chumru muttered to his master:
“Have a care, sahib, else we may hop on to a limed twig.”
The boldest course was the best one. Malcolm rode up to the zemindar, who was separated some forty paces from the ekka.
“I come from Lucknow,” he said. “What news is there from Fattehpore and Allahabad?”
The man hesitated. He was so completely taken aback by the sight of an armed officer riding towards him in broad daylight—for Malcolm having lost his own sword had taken Chumru’s—that he was hardly prepared to meet the emergency.
“There is little news,” he said, at last, and it was not lost on his questioner that the customary phrases of respect were omitted, though he spoke civilly enough.
“Nevertheless, what is it?” demanded Frank. “Has the Mutiny spread thus far, or is it confined to Cawnpore?”
“I know not what you mean,” was the self-contained answer. “In this district we are peaceable people. We look after our crops, even as I am engagedat this moment, and have no concern with what goes on elsewhere.”
“A most worthy and honorable sentiment, and I trust it will avail you when we have hanged all these rebels and we come to inquire into the conduct of your village. I want you to accompany me now and place my orderly and myself on board a boat for Allahabad.”
“That is impossible—sahib—” and the words came reluctantly—“there are no boats on the river these days.”
“Why not?”
“They are all away, carrying grain and hay.”
“What then, are your crops so forward? This one will not be ready for harvesting ere another month.”
“You will not find a budgerow on this side. Perchance they will ferry you across at the village in a small boat, and you will have better accommodation at Fattehpore.”
“Are we opposite Fattehpore?”
“Yes—sahib.”
All the while the zemindar’s eyes were looking furtively from Frank to the lower ground. It was a puzzling situation. The man was not actively hostile, yet his manner betrayed an undercurrent of fear and dislike that could only be accounted for by the downfall of British power in the locality. Thinking Chumru could deal better with his fellow-countryman, Malcolm called him, breaking in on a lively conversation that was going on between his servant and the ekka-wallah.
Chumru, who had told the ryot to dismount, came at once.
“Our friend here says that things are quiet on the river, but there are no boats to be had,” explained Malcolm. Chumru grinned, and the zemindar regarded him with troubled eyes.
“Excellent,” he said. “We shall go to his house and wait while his servants look for a boat.”
This suggestion seemed to please the other man.
“I will go on in front in the ekka,” he agreed, “and lead you to my dwelling speedily.”
Chumru edged nearer his master while their new acquaintance walked towards the ekka.
“Jump down and tie both when I give the word, sahib,” he whispered. “There has been murder done here.”
Malcolm understood instantly that his native companion had found the ekka-wallah more communicative. In fact, Chumru had fooled the man by pretending a willingness to slay the Feringhi forthwith, and the sheep-like ryot was now livid with terror at the prospect of witnessing an immediate killing.
When the zemindar was close to the ekka, Chumru whipped out one of the Brahmin’s cavalry pistols.
“Now, sahib!” he cried. Malcolm drew his sword and sprang down. The zemindar fell on his knees.
“Spare my life, huzoor, and I will tell thee everything,” he roared.
Were he not so worn with fatigue, and were not the issues depending on the man’s revelations so important,Malcolm could have laughed at this remarkable change of tone. The flabby, well-fed rascal squealed like a pig when the point of the sword touched his skin, and the Englishman was forced to scowl fiercely to hide a smile.
“Speak,sug,”[16]he said. “What of Fattehpore and Allahabad, and be sure thou has spent thy last hour if thou liest.”
“Sahib, God knoweth that I can tell thee naught of Allahabad, but the budmashes at Fattehpore have risen, and Tucker-sahib is dead. They killed him, I have heard, after a fight on the roof of the cutcherry.”
Malcolm guessed rightly that Mr. Tucker was the judge at that station, but he must not betray ignorance.
“And the others—they who fled? What of them?” he said, knowing that the scenes enacted elsewhere must have had their counterpart at Fattehpore.
“Wow!” The kneeling man flinched as the sword pricked him again. “There are two mems[17]in a house near the ghât. They alone remain of those who crossed. And I saved them, sahib. I swear it, by the Kaaba, I saved them.”
“They are young, doubtless, and good-looking?”
A new fear shone in the Mohammedan’s eyes, and he did not answer. Frank’s gorge rose with a deadly disgust, and it is hard to say that his sword would not have gone home in another instant had not Chumru interfered:
“Kill him not yet, sahib. He may be useful. Bind him and the other slave back to back. Then I shall help you to truss them properly.”
Chumru soon showed that he meant business. When he was free to replace the pistol in the holster, which he did all the more readily since he had never used a firearm in his life, he gagged master and man with skill, tied them to a tree, and then unfolded the plan which the ekka-driver’s story had suggested.
The fever of rebellion had spread along the whole of the left bank of the Ganges as far as Allahabad. A party of fugitives from Fattehpore who had taken to a boat were pursued, captured, and slain. Two girls who had managed to cross the river unseen were now lodged in a go-down, or warehouse, belonging to the very man whom chance had made Malcolm’s prisoner. He was keeping them to curry favor with a local rajah who headed the outbreak at Fattehpore. It was true that there were no boats left on this side of the river: they were all on the opposite bank, being loaded with loot, and the two Englishwomen were merely awaiting the return of the zemindar’s budgerow to be sent to a fate worse than death.
Chumru, a Mohammedan himself, was not greatly concerned about the misfortunes of a couple of women, but he saw plainly that Malcolm could no more hope to escape under the present conditions than the poor creatures whose whereabouts had just become known. This was precisely the blend of intrigue and adventure that appealed to his alert intelligence. In wriggling througha mesh of difficulties he was lithe as a snake, and the proposal he now made was certainly bold enough to commend itself to the most daring.
He drew Malcolm and the trembling ryot apart.
“Listen, friend,” said he to the latter. “Thou art, indeed, lost if that fat hog sees thee again. He will harry thee and thy wife and all thy family to death for having helped us, and it will be in vain to protest that thou hadst no mind in the matter, for behold, thou didst not lift a finger when I threatened him with the pistol.”
“Protector of the poor, what was one to do?” whined the ryot.
“I am not thy protector. ’Tis the sahib here to whom thou must look for counsel. Attend, now, and I will show thee a road to safety and riches. Art thou known to either of those men?”
“I have not seen them before, for I come this way but seldom.”
“’Tis well. The sahib shall sit in the ekka, with the curtains drawn, while I give it out that I go with my wife to take the miss-sahibs across the river, for which purpose the worthy zemindar will presently hand us a written order, as he hath ink, paper, and pen in the ekka. Thou shalt be driver and come with us on the boat, and when we are in mid-stream, and the sahib appears at my signal, see that thou hast a cudgel handy if it be needed. Then, when we reach Allahabad, God willing, the sahib will give thee many rupees and none will be the wiser. What say’st thou?”
“I am a poor man—”
“Ay, keep to that. ’Tis ever a safe answer. Do you like my notion, sahib? Otherwise, we must take our chance and wander in the jungle.”
The fact that Chumru’s scheme included the rescue of the unhappy girls imprisoned in the go-down caused Malcolm to approve it without reserve. The zemindar’s gag was removed and he was asked his name.
“Hossein Beg,” said he.
“Be assured, then,” said Malcolm, sternly, “that thy life depends on the fulfilment of the instructions I now require of thee. See to it, therefore, that they are written in such wise as to insure success, and I, for my part, promise to send thee succor ere night falls. Write on this tablet that the miss-sahibs are to be delivered to the charge of Rissaldar Ali Khan and his wife, for conveyance to Fattehpore, and bid thy servants help the rissaldar in every possible way. Believe me, if aught miscarries in this matter, thou shalt rot to death in thy bonds.”
“Let my servant go with your honor, so that all things may be done according to your honor’s wishes.”
“What then? Wouldst thou juggle with the favor I have shown thee?”
This time the sword impinged on the Adam’s apple in Hossein Beg’s throat, and he shrank as far as his bonds would permit.
“Say not so, Khudâwand,”[18]he gurgled. “I swear by my father’s bones I meant no ill.”
“Mayhap. Nevertheless, I shall take care thy intentis honest, Hossein Beg. Write now and pay heed to thy words, else jackals shall rend thee ere to-morrow’s dawn.”
By this time the man was reduced to a state of abject submission. Possibly his offer of the ekka-wallah’s services was made in good faith, but Malcolm liked the looks of the man as little as he liked the looks of his master, and he preferred to trust to Chumru’s nimble wits rather than the stupid contriving of a peasant, no matter how willing the latter might be.
The zemindar, having written, was gagged again, and the pair were left to that torture of silence and doubt they had not scrupled to inflict on those who had done them no wrong. They were tied to a tree-trunk in the heart of a clump, and a hundred men might pass in that lonely place without discovering them, whereas Hossein Beg and his subordinate could see easily enough through the leafy screen that enveloped their open-air prison.
Half an hour later, Hossein Beg’s ekka arrived on the open space that adjoined the village ghât. At one end was a mosque—at the other a temple. In the center, at a little distance from the bank, was a square modern building, evidently the warehouse in which the English ladies were pent.
With the ekka came a rissaldar of cavalry, riding one horse and leading two others. When he dismounted a scabbard clattered at his heels, for Malcolm now had the pistols between his knees as he sat behind the tightly drawn curtains of the vehicle.
“Mohammed Rasul!” shouted the rissaldar, loudly. “Where is Mohammed Rasul? I must discourse with him instantly.”
A man came running.
“Ohé, sirdar,” he cried. “Behold, I come!”
A note was thrust into the runner’s hands.
“Read, and quickly,” was the imperious order. “I have affairs at Fattehpore and cannot wait here long. Is there a boat to be hired?”
“A budgerow is even now approaching, leader of the faithful.”
“Good. There is some disposition to be made of two Feringhi women. Read that which Hossein Beg hath written, and make haste, I pray thee, brother.”
Perhaps Mohammed Rasul wondered why his employer wrote in such imploring strain that he was to obey the worshipful “Ali Khan’s” slightest word, and bestow him and his belongings, together with the two prisoners, on board a boat for Fattehpore with the utmost speed. However that may be, he lost no time. The budgerow was warped close to the ghât, her contents, mostly European furniture, as Malcolm could see through a fold in the curtain, were promptly unloaded, and preparations made for the return journey. First, the horses were led on board and secured. Then two pallid girls, only half clothed, their eyes red with weeping and their cheeks haggard with misery, were led from the go-down.
“Ali Khan” was about to guide the ekka along the rough gangway when Mohammed Rasul interfered.
“My master says naught concerning the ekka and pony,” said he. “He hath detained Gopi, and this driver is unknown to me. Who will bring them back when they have served your needs, sirdar?”
“I will attend to that,” replied Chumru, gruffly, and Hossein Beg’s factotum had perforce to be content with the undertaking.
But fate, which had certainly favored Malcolm and his native comrade thus far, played them what looked like a jade’s trick at the very moment when success was within their grasp. The ekka pony, frightened by the lap of the swift-flowing water against the steps beneath, shied, backed, and strove to reach the shore. Not all Chumru’s wiry strength, aided by the alarmed ryot, could prevent the brute from turning. A wheel slipped off the staging, the narrow vehicle toppled over, and the amazed spectators saw a booted and spurred British officer of cavalry sprawling on the ghât instead of the veiled Mohammedan woman who ought to have made her appearance in this undignified manner.
Malcolm was on his feet in a second.
“Come on, Chumru!” he cried, as he leaped on board the budgerow. He saw one of the crew take an extra turn of a rope round a cat-head, and fired at him. Hit or miss, the fellow tumbled overboard, and his mates followed. Chumru, assisted by the ryot, who elected at this twelfth hour to throw in his lot with that of the sahib, began to cast off the cables. Even the two dazed girls helped, once they knew that an Englishman was fighting in their behalf.
To add to the excitement on shore Malcolm fired the second pistol at the men nearest to the boat, which was already beginning to slip away with the current. Then he rushed to the helm, unlashed it, and turned the boat’s head toward the channel, while Chumru and the ryot, helped by the girls, hauled at the heavy mat sail.
Having lashed the helm again in order to keep the budgerow on the starboard tack, Malcolm was about to lend a hand, despite his wound, when a spurt of firing from the bank took him by surprise, because he had seen neither gun nor pistol in the hands of the loungers on the ghât, and the coolies were certainly unarmed.
Glancing back he saw a man whom he had last seen in the moulvie’s company at Rai Bareilly gesticulating fiercely as he directed the target practise of a number of men. A group of lathered horses behind them showed that they had ridden far and fast, so the accident, which nearly led to his undoing, had really helped to save him and his companions, else the fusillade to which they were now subjected must have taken place while the boat was still tied to the wharf.
“Lie flat on the deck,” he shouted in English, and repeated the words in Hindustani. He flung himself down by Chumru’s side.
“Haul away!” he gasped. “We will soon be out of range.”
Thus while the cumbrous sail creaked and groaned as it slowly climbed the mast, and bullets cut throughthe matting or were imbedded in the stout woodwork, the latest argosy of Malcolm’s fortunes thrust herself with ever-increasing speed into the ample breast of Mother Ganga. Soon the firing ceased. Malcolm raised his head. The excited mob on the shore was already a horde of Lilliputians, and the placid swish of the river around the roomy craft told him that he was actually free, and on the way to Allahabad once more.
Malcolm’s first measured thought was an unpleasant one. It was his intent to land one of the budgerow’s crew at the earliest opportunity with a written message, which the bearer would probably be unable to read, addressed to Mohammed Rasul, bidding him go to the assistance of the unlucky Hossein Beg. That plan was now impracticable. The crew had bolted. He could neither send the ryot ashore nor trust to the help of any neighboring village, since men were already galloping along the left bank with obviously hostile designs.
As there was a favorable breeze and the current was swift and strong, he wondered why these pursuers strove to keep the boat in sight. Then it was borne in on him that they had a definite object. Could it be possible that they knew of the presence of other craft, lower down the river?—that he might be called on within the hour to make a last stand against irresistible odds on the deck of the budgerow? Rather than meet certain death in that way he would head boldly for the opposite shore, and trust again to his tired horses for escape to the jungle and the night.Yet, some plan must be devised to keep faith with that wretched zemindar. The man would not die if left where he was for another forty-eight hours, or even longer. But the word of a sahib was a sacred thing. Whatever the difficulty of communicating with Mohammed Rasul, he must overcome it somehow.
In his perplexity, his eyes fell on the two girls. Being ladies from Fyzabad, they might be able to help him with some knowledge of the locality. Summoning Chumru to take the helm he went forward and spoke to them.
Now it is an enduring fact that a woman’s regard for her personal appearance will engross her mind when graver topics might well be to the fore. No sooner did these sorrow-laden daughters of Eve realize that they were in a position of comparative safety, and in the company of a good-looking young man of their own race, than they attempted to effect some change in theirtoilette. A handkerchief dipped in the river, a few twists and coilings of refractory hair, a slight readjustment of disordered bodices and crumpled skirts—above all, the gleam of the magic lamp of hope that illumined an abyss of despair—and the amazing result was that Malcolm found two pretty, shy, tremulous maidens awaiting him, instead of the disheveled woe-begone women he had seen pushed down the steps of the ghât.
He introduced himself with the well-mannered courtesy of the period, and in response the elder of the pair raised her blue eyes to his and told him thatsince the 16th of June until the previous day they had been hiding in the hut of a native woman, mother of their ayah.
“My dear father was killed by Mr. Tucker’s side,” said she. “He was the deputy commissioner of Fattehpore. Keene is our name—I am Harriet, this is my sister Grace. We only came out from England last cold weather—”
A sudden recollection brought a cry of surprise from Frank.
“Why,” he said, “you were fellow-passengers on theAssayewith Miss Winifred Mayne?”
“Yes, do you know her? What has become of her? We were told that everyone at Meerut was killed.”
“Thank Heaven, she was alive and well when I last saw her three days ago.”
“And her uncle? Is he living? She was very much attached to him. How did she escape from Meerut?” broke in Grace, eagerly.
“I wish they had never left Meerut. The Mutiny at that station collapsed in a couple of hours. Unfortunately they are now both penned up in the Residency at Lucknow, which is surrounded by goodness only knows how many thousands of rebels. But I must give you Winifred’s recent history at another time. I want you to tell me something about this neighborhood. What is the nearest town on the river, and which bank is it on?”
“Unfortunately, our acquaintance with this part of India is very slight,” said Miss Harriet Keene, sadly.“We remained at Calcutta four months with our mother, who died there, without having seen our dear father after a separation of five years. We came up country in March, and were going to Naini Tal[19]when the Mutiny broke out. We only saw the Ganges three or four times before our ayah brought us across on that terrible night when father was murdered.”
Malcolm had heard many such tensely dramatic stories from fugitives who had reached Lucknow during July. Phrases of pity or consolation were powerless in face of these tragedies. But he could not forbear asking one question:
“How did you come to fall into the hands of Hossein Beg?”
“We were betrayed by some children,” was the simple answer. “They saw our ayah’s mother baking chupatties, day by day, sufficient for four people. My sister and I lived nearly three weeks in a cow-byre, never daring, of course, to approach even the door. The children made some talk about the lavish food supply in the old woman’s hut, and the story reached the ears of their father. He, like all the other natives here, seems to hate Europeans as though they were his deadliest enemies. He spied on us, discovered our whereabouts, and yesterday morning we were dragged forth, while the poor creatures to whom we owed our lives were beaten to death with sticks before our very eyes.”
The speaker was a fair English girl of twenty. Hersister was eighteen, and their previous experience of the storm and fret of existence was drawn from an uneventful childhood in India, four years in a Brighton school, and a twelvemonth in a Brussels convent!
Malcolm choked back the hard words that rose to his lips, and sought such local information as the ryot could give him. It was little. The tiller of the Indian fields lives and dies in his village and has no interests beyond the horizon. This man visited the Ganges once a year on a religious feast, and perhaps twice in the same period in connection with the shipping of grain on his brother’s boat. To that extent, but no further, did his store of general knowledge pass beyond the narrower limits of those who dwelt far from a river highway.
Yet it was he who first espied a new and most active peril.
“Look, huzoor,” he cried suddenly. “They have made signs to the Fattehpore ghât. Two boats are following us.”
And then Malcolm found that the real danger came from the opposite shore. It was a case of falling on Scylla when trying to avoid Charybdis. He learnt afterwards that the rebels had organized a code of signals from bank to bank, owing to the number of the craft with Europeans on board that sought safety in flight down the river. That some device must have drawn pursuit from the right bank was obvious. A couple of roomy budgerows with sails set were racingafter him, and the long sweeps on board each boat were being propelled by willing arms.
It must be confessed that a feeling of bitter resentment against this last stroke of ill-luck rose in Malcolm’s breast for an instant. He conquered it. He recalled Lawrence’s bold advice, “Never Surrender,” and that inspiriting memory brought strength.
At that point the Ganges was about a mile and a quarter in width. The budgerow was some six hundred yards distant from the left bank. Three miles ahead the river curved to the left round a steep promontory. The farther shore was marsh-land, so it might be assumed that a hidden barrier of rock flung off the deep current there, while the one chance of escape that presented itself was to steer for that very spot and effect a landing before the enemy could head off the budgerow and force it under the fire of the horsemen. The Fattehpore boats were a mile in the rear, but that advantage would be greatly lessened if Malcolm crossed the stream, and perhaps altogether effaced by the powerful sweeps at their command.
However, to cross was the only way, and the only way is ever the best way. Having once made up his mind Frank coolly reviewed the situation. Food was the first essential. The boat itself, having been used for carrying hay, contained sufficient sweepings to feed the horses, and he set the ryot to work on gathering the odds and ends of forage. A brief search brought to light a quantity of ghee, boiled rice and dried peas.He divided the store into five portions, and set a good example to the others by compelling himself to eat his share of the cooked food at once, while the peas went into his pockets to be crushed or chewed at leisure.
Chumru kept the budgerow steadily on her course, and ere many minutes elapsed it was plain to be seen that the rebels were alive to the tactics of their quarry. Fresh gangs manned the sweeps and the riders on the eastern bank eased their pace to a walk. The space between pursuers and pursued began to decrease. At the outset Frank thought that this was the natural outcome of his plan, and gave no heed to it beyond the ever-growing anxiety of the time problem. But at the end of the first mile he was seriously concerned at finding that the mutineers were gaining on him in an incomprehensible manner. The boat was then seemingly in mid-stream, while the enemy kept close to the shore, and they were certainly traveling half as fast again, a difference in speed that the use of the oars hardly accounted for.
He kept on grimly, however, never deviating from his perspective, which was the swampy ground on the outer curve of the bend. It was not until nearly another mile was covered and the mutineers were almost abreast in the true line of the river, that he knew why they were making such heart-breaking progress as compared with his own craft. The Ganges, after the vagrom fashion of all giant rivers, was cutting a new bed through the sunken reefs towards the low-lying marsh. At the wide elbow there were really twochannels and he was now sailing along the comparatively motionless water between them!
Side by side with this terrifying discovery was the certain fact that his awkwardly built craft would gain little by maneuvering. There was a new danger, too. At any instant she might run ashore on the shoal that was surely forming in the center of the river. At all costs that must be avoided.
With a smile and a few confident words to the girls, he went aft, took the helm from Chumru and bade him help the ryot in putting out the port sweep. The effect was quickly apparent. The budgerow ran into the second channel, but she allowed her dangerous rivals to approach so close that the natives opened fire with long range dropping shots.
It was now a matter of minutes ere the rebel marksmen would render the deck uninhabitable. To beach the boat, land the horses, and get the young ladies ashore in safety, had become an absolute impossibility. Then it occurred to Frank that the Fattehpore men could not know for certain that there were Englishwomen on board. They could see Chumru, the ryot, the horses, and of course, the steersman, but the girls were seated in the well amidships, these river craft being only partly decked fore and aft.
A modification of his scheme flashed through his brain, and he decided to adopt it forthwith. First asking Miss Keene and her sister not to reveal their presence, no matter what happened, he told Chumruto stand by the horses and help him to make them leap into the water when he gave the order. With difficulty he induced the scared ryot to take the rudder while he explained the new project. It had that element of daring in it that is worthy of success, being nothing less than an attempt to draw the rebels’ attention entirely to himself and Chumru by making a dash for the shore, while the ryot was to allow the boat to continue her course down stream with, apparently, no other tenant than himself.
Malcolm’s theory was that, if he and Chumru made good their landing, they would hug the river until the budgerow was sufficiently ahead of pursuit to permit of her being run ashore. Though the plan savored of deserting the helpless girls, yet was he strong-minded enough to adopt it. It substituted a forlorn hope for imminent and unavoidable death or capture, and it gave one last avenue of achievement to the mission on which he had come from Lucknow.
At the final moment he communicated it to the two sisters. They agreed to abide by his decision, and the elder one said with a calm serenity that lent to her words the symbolism of a prayer:
“We are all in God’s hands, Mr. Malcolm. Whether we live or die we are assured that you have done and will do all that lies in the power of a Christian gentleman to save us.”
“I don’t like leaving you,” he murmured, “but our only weapons are a sword and a brace of empty pistols. If we run on another half mile we shall be shot downwhere we stand without any means of defending ourselves. On the other hand—”
Then the budgerow struck a submerged rock with a violence that must have pitched him overboard were he not holding Nejdi’s headstall at the moment. She careened so badly that the girls shrieked and Malcolm himself thought she would turn turtle. But she swung clear, righted herself, and lay broadside on to the current. Another crash, less violent but even more disastrous, tore away the rudder and wrenched the spar pulley out of the top of the mast. The heavy sail fell of course, but by some miracle left the occupants of the boat uninjured.
And now the maimed craft was carried along sluggishly, drifting back towards the center of the river, while the men in the other boats set up a fiendish yell of delight at the catastrophe that had overtaken the doomed Feringhis. Their skilled boatmen evidently knew of this reef. They stood away towards the shore, but the triumphant jeering that came from the crowded decks showed that they meant to pass their dismantled quarry and wait in safer waters until it lumbered down upon them.
Malcolm suddenly became aware of his wounded arm. With a curious fatalism he began to dissect his emotions. He arrived at the conclusion that the drop from the nervous tension of hope to the relaxation of sheer despair had dulled his brain and weakened his physical powers. This, then, was the end. There could be no doubt about it. He quieted the startledhorses with a word or two and spoke to the girls again.
“You may as well come on deck now,” he said. “It is all up with us. If a friendly bullet puts us out of our misery, so much the better. Otherwise my advice to you both is to leap into the river rather than be recaptured.”
Grace was sobbing hysterically, but Harriet, clasping her fondly in her arms, looked up at him.
“No,” she said, “we must not do that. Our lives are not our own. The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!”
Frank winced in his anguish. To a puissant man there is nothing so galling as helplessness; what a game of battledore and shuttlecock had been played with him and those bound up with his fortunes since the moulvie’s man-trap brought him headlong to the earth in the main street of Rai Bareilly!
“Huzoor!” yelled Chumru, excitedly. “Look! There below! A smoke ship! And see! Those sons of pigs are making for the bank!”
Malcolm could scarce believe his eyes when they rested on a small steamer with the British flag flying from the masthead, coming round the bend. Yet there could be no mistake about it. British officers in white uniforms were standing on her bridge, the muzzles of a couple of guns showed black and business-like over her bows, while her forward deck was packed with men in the uniform of the Madras Fusiliers. Her commander seemed to take in the exact position ofaffairs at a glance, and, indeed, the half-wrecked and almost empty boat in mid-stream, so eagerly followed by two thickly crowded craft now close hauled and putting forth desperate efforts to reach the bank, presented a riddle easy to read.
That twinge of pain quitted Frank’s arm as speedily as it had made its presence felt. He helped the girls to the raised deck, so that the people on the steamer could see them. It was not necessary. An officer waved a hand to them as the sturdy little vessel dashed past, raising a mighty spume of white froth with her paddles, and soon her guns were busy. There was no question of quarter. Captain Spurgin had been with Neill at Allahabad. He knew the story of Massacre Ghât, of Delhi, of Sitapore, Moradabad, Bareilly, and a score of other stations in Oudh and the Northwest. His gunners pelted the unwieldy budgerows with round shot until they began to sink. Then he used grape and rifle fire, until five minutes after theWarren Hastingscame on the scene, there was nought left of the Fattehpore navy save some shattered wreckage and a few wretches who strove to swim amidst a hail of lead and in a river infested with crocodiles.
When the steamer dropped down stream and picked up the fugitives, Malcolm learnt that Spurgin was co-operating with Renaud. The one cleared the river, the other was hanging men on nearly every tree that lined the Grand Trunk Road. And Havelock, nobly aided by Neill, was moving heaven and earth to equip a strong force at Allahabad toavenge Cawnpore and raise the expected siege of Lucknow.
As Malcolm himself brought the earliest news of the investment, he and Chumru were put ashore with a small escort, in order that they might join Major Renaud’s column, and hurry to Havelock with his thrilling tidings. Spurgin promised to visit the village on the east bank, release Hossein Beg, and make him a hostage for the ryot’s welfare. As for Harriet and Grace Keene, they would be sent south as soon as a carriage could be procured.
The two girls bade Frank farewell with a gratitude which was embarrassing, but Grace, more mercurial than Harriet, ventured to say:
“I suppose you are longing to see Winifred again, Mr. Malcolm?”
“Yes,” he replied, well knowing the thought that lay behind the words. “You are her friend, so there is no reason why I should not tell you that she is my promised wife.”
“Then you are both to be congratulated,” put in the elder sister, “for she is quite the most charming girl we know, and our opinion of you is not likely to be a poor one after to-day’s experiences.”
“What? After an hour’s acquaintance?”
“An hour! There are some hours that are half a lifetime. Good-by, may Heaven guard and watch over you!”
Renaud despatched Lawrence’s messenger to the south in a dâk-gharry, or post-carriage. Chumruwould have taken the servant’s usual perch beside the driver, but Malcolm would not hear of it. His faithful attendant was almost as worn with fatigue as he himself; master and man shared the comfort of the roomy vehicle; and slept for many hours while it rumbled along the road.
At dawn on the 4th of July they entered Allahabad. But the driver had his orders and did not stop in the city. They passed through a sullen bazaar, and were gazed at by a mob that wore the aspect of a cageful of tigers in which order has just been induced by the liberal use of red-hot irons. The travelers were nodding asleep again when the sharp summons of a British sentry gladdened Malcolm’s ears.
“Who goes there?”
How alert it sounded! How reminiscent of the old days! How full of promise of the days that were to come!
He leaned out and smiled as he told a stolid private of the 64th that he was “a friend.” His uniform acted as a passport, the dâk-gharry crossed the drawbridge and crept through a narrow tunnel, and he found himself standing in the great inner parade-ground of the fort. A young officer approached.