“Do you wish to see the General? Whom shall I report?” he asked, eyeing the worn appearance and torn and blood-stained uniforms of Englishman and native.
“I am from Lucknow,” said Frank. “Will you kindly tell General Havelock that Captain Malcolmof the 3d Cavalry has brought him a message from Sir Henry Lawrence?”
It was the first time he had described himself by his new rank. It sent a pleasant tingle through his veins and made that injured arm of his ache again. Lawrence had given him to the 4th, and here he was in Allahabad on the very date of his Chief’s reckoning, after having gone through adventures that would have satiated Ulysses.
But the pardonable pride of a young and gallant soldier soon yielded an inexplicable sensation of humility when he was brought before a small, slender, erect man, gray-haired, eagle-nosed, with strangely bright and piercing eyes, and a mouth habitually set in a thin, straight line. This was Sir Henry Havelock, and Frank felt instantly that he was in the presence of one who lived in a world apart from his fellows. And, in truth, Havelock would have been better understood by Cromwell’s Ironsides than by his own generation. He was outside the ordinary run of mankind. Though aware of a natural timidity, he fought with and conquered it until his soldiers refused to believe that Havelock knew what fear was. Conscious of his own military genius he had borne without comment or complaint a constant supersession by inferiors, and in an age when levity of thought and manners among officers was often looked upon as the hall-mark of distinguished social position, he lost no opportunity of giving his men religious instruction, while every act of his life was governed by a stern sense of duty.
Such was the man who listened to Malcolm’s account of the proceedings which led up to the disastrous battle of Chinhut.
“You say you rode straight from the field on the evening of the 30th,” said he, when Frank had delivered his message of Lucknow’s plight. “How did you travel, and in what state did you find the country you traversed?”
Then Frank told him all that had taken place. More than once the young officer would have cut short the recital, but this Havelock would not permit. His son was present, that younger Havelock who lived for forty years to keep ever in the public memory a glorious name, and often the father would turn towards him and punctuate Malcolm’s tale with a nod, or a brief, “Do you hear that, Harry?”
At last, the stirring chronicle was ended.
“Do you wish to remain here and recuperate, or will you join my staff, with the rank of Major?” asked Havelock.
Malcolm was hardly able to stammer his acceptance of the appointment thus offered, but the General had no time for useless talk.
“About this servant of yours—he seems to have the making of a soldier in him—will he care to retain the rank he has assumed so creditably?” he went on.
Frank rather lost his breath at this suggestion, but he had the presence of mind to refer the decision to Chumru himself.
“Kubbi nahin, general-sahib,”[20]was the Mohammedan’s emphatic disclaimer of the honor proposed to be conferred on him. “I am a good bearer, huzoor, but I should prove a very bad rissaldar. I am not of a fighting caste. I am a man of peace.”
“I think you are mistaken,” said Havelock, quietly, “but by all means continue to serve your master. I am sure he is worthy of your devotion. And now, Major Malcolm, if you will report yourself to General Neill, he will provide you with quarters and plenty of work.”
That was what the rebels called the 78th,—“the men who wore skirts.”
Now, Highland regiments had fought in India for many a year before the Mutiny, and the kilt was no new thing in native eyes. The phrase, therefore, is significant. It crystallizes the legend that went round—that an army of savage English was marching from Allahabad, and that its most ferocious corps was dressed in skirts, the men having sworn never to assume male clothing until they had avenged their murdered women-folk.
There could be no better proof that the sepoys and their helpers were well aware that they had outraged all the laws of war and humanity by their excesses, and there was a further reason why the garb of old Gaul was more dreaded throughout India than any other British uniform during the autumn and cold weather of 1857. Not many Europeans knew it until long afterwards, but the natives knew, and told the story with bated breath, and one British officer knew, for he was with the Seaforth Highlanders in Cawnpore when they took dire vengeance for the Well.
It is a matter of history how Havelock marched his little army of twelve hundred men along the Grand Trunk Road from Allahabad. He led a thousand British soldiers, drawn from the 64th, 84th, and 78th Foot, and the 1st Madras Fusiliers. Captain Brasyer brought 130 loyal Sikhs to the column: there were six small guns, and eighteen volunteer cavalry.
These details should be appreciated before it is possible to understand the supra-miraculous campaign Havelock conducted. For five days the expedition tramped north in the rain and heat, through a land given over to dead men, vultures and carnivorous animals. Renaud and Spurgin had made no prisoners. They did not slay wantonly, but the slightest shadow of suspicion falling on any man meant the short shrift of a rope and the nearest tree.
At last, on the 12th of August, the main body overtook Renaud, whose patrols were stopped by a large force of rebels entrenched in a village four miles south of Fattehpore. The junction took place at one o’clock in the morning. At daybreak, Havelock sent Colonel Tytler, with the eighteen volunteer horse, to reconnoiter. The enemy’s cavalry, thinking they had only Renaud’s tiny detachment to deal with, charged across the plain, to find the whole twelve hundred drawn up to receive them. Struck with a sudden fear, the white-coated troopers reined in their horses. This was the first real check Nana Sahib had received. It was typical of the new order. The flood-tide of mutiny had met its barrier rock. Thenceforth, it ebbed,though it raged madly for a while in the effort to sweep away the obstruction.
Without giving the enemy’s cavalry time to recover from their surprise, Havelock threw forward his infantry, Captain Maude, of the Royal Artillery, rushed his six guns to a point-blank range, there was a short and sharp fight, and the rebels broke. They were chased through and out of the town of Fattehpore. All their guns and some valuable stores were captured, and, greatest marvel in a day of marvels, not one British soldier had fallen!
No wonder Havelock wrote to his wife: “One of the prayers oft repeated since my school-days has been answered, and I have lived to command in a successful action.... But away with vain glory! Thanks be to God who gave me the victory.”
That evening Malcolm witnessed the plundering of Fattehpore, which was permitted in retribution for its recent rebellion. The town lay on the main road, which, at this point, was removed from the river by many miles, else he would have ridden to the ghât and sent a message to Hossein Beg in order to make sure of the safety of the friendly ryot.
Owing to his knowledge of the vernacular, he managed to pick up a bit of useful information while questioning a native on this matter. On the battle-field he came across a state elephant which had been shot through the body by one of Maude’s nine-pounders. The manner of the beast’s death was remarkable—it is not often that an elephant is bowled over by a cannon-balllike a rabbit by a bullet from a small caliber rifle—and its trappings betokened that it had carried a person of importance.
Now he learned that Tantia Topi was the rider, and it was thus he discovered that Nana Sahib was directing the operations from Cawnpore, as Tantia Topi was his favorite lieutenant, whereas it was believed previously that the Brahmin usurper would lead his hosts to take part in the siege of Lucknow.
On the 15th a sharp fight gave the British possession of the village of Aong. The position was dearly won, for the gallant Renaud fell there, mortally wounded. The men were about to prepare their breakfast after the battle when news came that the enemy, strongly reinforced from Cawnpore, were preparing to blow up a bridge over the Pandoo Nuddee, an unfordable tributary of the Ganges, six miles ahead. Havelock called for a special effort, the troops responded without a murmur, and advanced through dense groves of mango trees until they came under fire. For the second time that day they hurled themselves on the rebels, drove them headlong out of a well-chosen position, and saved the bridge.
Cawnpore was now only twenty-three miles distant. With the fickleness of the rainy season the sky had cleared, and the sun beat down on the British force with a fury that had not been experienced before that year, though the hot weather of 1857 was noted for its exceedingly high temperatures. The elements seemed to have joined with man to try and stop the advance,but neither Indian sun nor Indian sepoy could restrain that terrible host. Dogged and uncomplaining, animated rather by the feelings of the infuriated tigress seeking reprisals for her slain cubs than by the sentiments of soldiers engaged in an ordinary campaign, they pressed on, until sixteen miles of that sun-scorched road were covered.
Then Havelock commanded a halt in a grove of trees, and two level-headed sepoys, deserters from Nana Sahib’s army, came in and told the British general that the Nana had brought five thousand men out of Cawnpore to do battle for his tottering dynasty. It was in vain. Though he displayed some tactical skill, placed his men well, and did not hesitate to come under fire in person, he was out-generaled by a flank march and sent flying to Bithoor, there to curse his fate, befuddle his wits with brandy, and threaten to drown himself in the Ganges.
But the battle was not won until one of those strange incidents happened that distinguish the Mutiny from all other wars. It must never be forgotten that the sepoys had received their training from British officers. Their words of command, methods of fighting, even their uniforms, were based on European models.
They had regimental bands, too, and the tunes in their repertoire were those in vogue in Britain, for native music does not lend itself to military purposes. The musicians, of course, were profoundly ignorant of the names or significance of the melodies they had been taught to play.
Hence, when Nana Sahib rallied his men in a village, Havelock called on the Highlanders and 64th to take it, and the two regiments entered into a gallant race for the position, while the Highland pipers struck up an inspiring pibroch. Not to be outdone, a sepoy band responded with “The Campbells are Coming!”
And this, of all airs, to the Mackenzies! It was chance, of course, but it added gall to the venom of the 78th.
This fourth and greatest victory was a costly one to the British, but it left their ardor undiminished, their reckless courage intensified. On the next day they flung themselves against the remnant of the Nana’s army that still tried to bar the way into the city. Vague rumors had reached the men of the dreadful tragedy enacted on the 15th. They refused to credit them. None but maniacs would murder helpless women and children in the belief that the crime would hinder the advance of their rescuers. So they crushed, tore, beat a path through the suburbs, until the leading company of Highlanders reached the Bibigarh, the House of the Woman.
Malcolm was with them, and he saw a sergeant enter the blood-stained dwelling, while the men lined up in front of the Well in an awed silence. The sergeant returned. His brick-red face had paled to an ashen tint. In his hand he carried the long, rich strands of a woman’s hair, strands that had been hacked off some unhappy Englishwoman’s head by Nana Sahib’s butchers.
He removed his bonnet with the solemnity of a man who is in the presence of God and death. Passing down the ranks he gave a lock of the hair to each soldier.
“One life for every hair before the sun sets,” he said quietly. And that was all, but there are old men yet alive in Cawnpore who remember how the Highlanders raged through the streets that evening like the wrath of Heaven.
General Neill, who came later and assumed the rôle of magistrate, showed neither pity nor mercy. Every man who fell into his hands, and who was connected in the slightest degree with the infamy of the Well, was hanged on a gallows erected in the compound, but not until he had cleaned with his tongue the allotted square of blood-stained cement that formed the floor of the house.
Cawnpore, on the 17th, was indeed a city of dreadful night. The fierce exultation of successful warfare was gone. The streets were empty save for prowling dogs, pigs, and venturesome wild beasts. No sound was heard in the British encampment except the melancholy plaint of the pipes mourning for the dead, during the interment of those who had fallen. Even the unconquerable Havelock said to his son, as they and the officers of the staff sat at dinner:
“If the worst comes to the worst we can but die with our swords in our hands.”
Next morning his splendid vitality reasserted itself. He advanced towards Bithoor and took up a strongposition in case Nana Sahib might attempt to recover the city. But that arch-fiend had been deserted by the majority of his followers, and he was babbling of suicide to his fellow Brahmins.
Meanwhile Neill brought a few more troops from Allahabad, and Havelock threw the greater portion of his army across the Ganges. Owing to the difficulty of obtaining boats and skilled boatmen, this was a slow and dangerous undertaking. It took five days to ferry nine hundred men to the Oudh side, but Lawrence had said that the Residency could only hold out fourteen days, and come what might the effort must be made to relieve him.
On the 20th while Malcolm was occupied with some details of transport, Chumru came to him. The bearer was no longer “Ali Khan,” the swashbuckler, but a white-robed domestic, though no change of attire could rob him of the truculent aspect that was the gift of nature.
Beside Chumru stood another Mohammedan, an elderly man, who straightened himself under the sahib’s eye and brought up his right hand in a smart military salute.
“Huzoor,” said Chumru, “this is Ungud, Kumpani pinsin (a pensioner of the Company), and he would have speech with the Presence.”
“Speak, then, and quickly, for I have occupation,” said Malcolm. But he listened carefully enough to Ungud’s words, for the man coolly proposed to work his way to Lucknow and carry any message to Lawrence that the General-sahib entrusted to him.
It was a desperate thing to suggest. The absence of native spies from either Cawnpore or Lucknow proved that the rebels killed, and probably tortured all who attempted to run the gauntlet of their investing lines. Yet Ungud was firm in his offer, so Malcolm brought him to Havelock and the general at once wrote and gave him a letter to Lawrence, the news of the great Commissioner’s death not having reached the relieving force.
Frank seized the opportunity to write a few lines to Winifred. He was charged with the care of Ungud as far as the nearest river ghât, and he scribbled the following as he rode thither:
British Field Force,Cawnpore, July 20th, 1857.My dearest Winifred:If this note is safely delivered, you will know that Sir Henry Havelock, at the head of a strong force, is on his way to relieve Lucknow. I am with him, as major on the staff.I reached Allahabad on the 4th, thanks wholly to your loving thought in sending Chumru after me, for I was a prisoner in the hands of a fanatical moulvie when Chumru came to my assistance. He saved my life there, and his quick-witted devotion was shown in many other instances during a most exciting journey. My thoughts are always with you, dear one, and I offer many a prayer to the Most High that you may retain your health and spirits amid the horrors that surround you. Be confident, dear heart, and bid your uncle tell his comrades of the garrison that we mean to cut our way to your rescue through all opposition.The bearer will endeavor to return with a reply to the general. Perhaps you may be able to send a line with him. In any event, I trust he will see you, and that will bring joy to my soul when I hear of it.Ever your devotedFrank.
British Field Force,Cawnpore, July 20th, 1857.
My dearest Winifred:
If this note is safely delivered, you will know that Sir Henry Havelock, at the head of a strong force, is on his way to relieve Lucknow. I am with him, as major on the staff.
I reached Allahabad on the 4th, thanks wholly to your loving thought in sending Chumru after me, for I was a prisoner in the hands of a fanatical moulvie when Chumru came to my assistance. He saved my life there, and his quick-witted devotion was shown in many other instances during a most exciting journey. My thoughts are always with you, dear one, and I offer many a prayer to the Most High that you may retain your health and spirits amid the horrors that surround you. Be confident, dear heart, and bid your uncle tell his comrades of the garrison that we mean to cut our way to your rescue through all opposition.
The bearer will endeavor to return with a reply to the general. Perhaps you may be able to send a line with him. In any event, I trust he will see you, and that will bring joy to my soul when I hear of it.
Ever your devotedFrank.
By Havelock’s order, a light, swift boat was placed at Ungud’s disposal, and Malcolm supplied him with plenty of money for horses and bribes on the road, while, in the event of success, he would be liberally rewarded afterwards.
Now it chanced that on the 20th, about the very hour Ungud set out on his daring mission, the Moulvie of Fyzabad managed to goad his co-religionists into a determined assault on the Residency.
At ten o’clock in the morning the bombardment suddenly ceased. The garrison sentries noted an unusual gathering of the enemy’s forces in the streets and open spaces that confronted the Bailey Guard and the other main posts on the city side.
They gave the alarm and every man rushed to the walls. Even the sick and wounded left their beds. Men with the fire of fever in their eyes, men with bandaged limbs and scarce able to crawl, asked for muskets and lined up alongside their yet unscathed comrades.
They waited in grim silence, those war-worn soldiers of the Queen. The signal for a furious struggle was given in dramatic fashion. A mine exploded, a large section of the defending wall crumbled into ruins, a hundred guns belched forth a perfect hail of round shot, sharpshooters stationed in the neighboring houses fired their muskets as rapidly as they could lift them from piles of loaded weapons at their command, and, under cover of this fusillade, some three thousand rebels advanced to the attack.
They came on with magnificent courage. They actually succeeded in planting scaling-ladders across the breach, and their leader, a fierce-looking cavalry rissaldar, leaped into the ditch and stood there, right in front of the Cawnpore battery, waving a green standard to encourage his followers.
He was shot by a man of the 32d, and his body formed the lowermost layer of a causeway of corpses that soon choked the ditch. But the concentrated fire of the defenders checked this most audacious of the many assaults delivered during four hours’ fighting. At two o’clock the attack slackened and died away. The rebels had lost some hundreds, while the British had only four men killed and twelve wounded.
There was much jubilation among the garrison at this outcome of the long-expected and dreaded attack. It added to their spirit of self-reliance, and it cast down the hopes of the mutineers to a corresponding degree; because their moral inferiority was proved beyond dispute. Like all Asiatics, they had not dared to press on in the face of death. With one whole-hearted rush those three thousand fighters could have swarmed into the Residency against all the efforts of the few Europeans and natives who resisted them. But that rush was never made by the assailants as a mass. Not once in the history of the Mutiny did the sepoys adopt the “do or die” method that characterized the British troops in nearly every action of the campaign.
When the moon rose on the night of the 21st a sharp-eyed sentry saw a man creeping across the brokenground in front of the Bailey Guard. He raised his rifle, but his orders were to challenge any one who approached thus secretly, lest, perchance, a messenger from some relieving force might be slain by error.
“Who goes there?” he cried.
“A friend,” was the answer, but the rest of the stranger’s words showed that he was a native.
The sentry was no linguist.
“Youbaito[21]where you are,” he commanded, bidding a comrade summon an officer, “or somebody who can talk the lingo.”
Within a minute the newcomer was admitted. It was Ungud, who had run the gauntlet of the enemy’s pickets and who now triumphantly produced Havelock’s letter to “Larrence-sahib Bahadur.” Alas, Henry Lawrence was dead, but Brigadier Inglis, who succeeded him in the command, now learnt that Havelock had defeated Nana Sahib, occupied Cawnpore, and was advancing to the relief of Lucknow.
How the great news buzzed through the Residency! How men grasped each other’s hands in glee and exultation and sought leave to take the joyful tidings to the hospital and the women’s quarters!
Mayne aroused Winifred to tell her.
“Perhaps Malcolm was able to get through to Allahabad,” he said. “When you come to think of the difficulties in the way of our troops—this man says they have fought three if not four pitched battlesbetween Fattehpore and Cawnpore—we have been unreasonable in looking for help so soon.”
“Mr. Malcolm would surely succeed if it were possible. He understands the native character so well and is so proficient in their language, that he was the best man who could be chosen for such a task.”
And that was all that Winifred would say about “Mr. Malcolm,” who would have been the most miserable and the most astonished person in India that night had he known how bitter was the girl’s heart against him.
Though Winifred was not to blame, for the necklace and the pass offered strong evidence of double-dealing on her lover’s part, her unjust suspicions were doomed to receive a severe shock.
In the morning she heard that Captain Fulton wished to see her. She left her quarters by a covered way and waited outside the Begum Kotee until a soldier found Fulton.
He came, bringing with him a native.
“This is the man who arrived from Cawnpore last night, Miss Mayne,” he said. “He has a letter for you, but he refuses to deliver it to any one but yourself. I fancy,” added the gallant engineer officer with a smile, “that the sender impressed on him the importance of its reaching the right hands.”
Winifred caught a glimpse of Frank’s handwriting. Her face grew scarlet. For one delightful instant she forgot the harsh thoughts she had harbored against him. Then the scourge of memory tortured her.Fulton’s kindly assumption that Malcolm was her fiancé must be dispelled and she bit her lower lip in vexation at the tell-tale rush of color that had mantled her cheeks when Ungud discharged his trust and gave her the letter.
“It is from Captain Malcolm,” she said coldly. “I suppose he wishes his personal belongings to be safeguarded. I am surprised he did not write to my uncle rather than to me.”
Fulton was surprised, but he laughed lightly.
“Every one to his taste,” he said; “but from what little I have seen of Malcolm I should wager that nine out of ten letters addressed to the Mayne family would be intended for you, Miss Winifred. By the way, a word in your ear. General Inglis hopes to persuade our friend here to try his luck on a return journey to-night. Perhaps you may have a note to send on your own account. No one else must know. This is a special favor, conferred because Malcolm himself procured Ungud’s services, but we cannot ask the man to act as general postman. Good-by.”
He hurried away. Winifred, after the manner of woman, fingered the unopened letter.
“Kuch joab hai, miss-sahib?” asked Ungud.
“There is no answer—yet. I will give you one later.”
The girl’s Hindustani went far enough to enable her to frame the reply intelligibly. Ungud salaamed and left her, probably contrasting in his own mind the lady’s frigidity with the fervid instructions given him by the officer-sahib.
Then Winifred went to her own room and opened her letter, and her woman’s heart gleaned the truth from its candor. Of course she cried. What girl wouldn’t? But she smiled through her tears and read the nice bits over and over again. Not for twenty necklaces and a whole file of hieroglyphic passes would she doubt Frank any more.
The reference to Chumru puzzled her and that was a gratifying thing in itself, for if Frank could be mistaken about her share in Chumru’s departure from Lucknow, why should not she be wrong in her interpretation of the mysterious presence of the necklace?
When her uncle came she wept again, being hysterical with the sheer joy of watching his face while he perused Frank’s note.
A man’s bewilderment finds different expression to a woman’s. A man trusts his brain, a woman her heart.
“If there is one thing absolutely clear in this letter it is that Frank knows nothing whatever about the pearls you produced from his turban,” said Mr. Mayne, with the frown of a judge who is dealing with a knotty point in equity.
“There are—several things—quite clear in it—to me,” fluttered Winifred.
“Ah, hum, yes. But I mean that it is ridiculous to suppose he would knowingly leave such a valuable article exposed to the chances and changes of barrack-room life in a siege. Whatever motive he may have had in concealing the necklace earlier he would surelyhave said something about it now, given some hint as to its value, asked you to take care of his baggage, or something of the sort.”
“In my heart of hearts I always felt that we were misjudging Frank,” said she.
Mayne’s eyebrows lifted a trifle, but he passed no comment.
“By the way,” he said, “where is the necklace?”
“Here,” she said, pulling a box out of a cupboard. The string of pearls was coiled up in the midst of the roll of soiled muslin and the badge was pinned to one of the folds.
“That is a very unsafe place,” said Mayne. “If I were you I would wear it beneath your bodice.”
“Would you really?”
“Yes. I can think of no other explanation of the mystery now than that Frank meant to surprise you with it. You may be sure he obtained it honorably, so you will only be meeting his wishes by wearing it. At any rate it will be safer in your possession than in that cupboard.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said she. And while she clasped the diamond-studded brooch in front of her white throat she glanced round the room for a mirror.
Her uncle smiled. He was glad that this little cloud had lifted off Winifred’s sky. The sufferings and positive dangers of the siege were bad enough already without being added to by a private grief.
He stooped to pick up the turban and his eye fell on the regimental device of the metal badge.
“This is not an officer’s head-dress,” he cried. “And Malcolm belongs to the 3d Cavalry, whereas this badge was worn by a trooper in the 2d.”
Winifred, who was turning her neck and shoulders this way and that to get different angles of light, stopped admiring herself and ran to his side.
“That is the turban Frank wore during our ride from Cawnpore,” she whispered breathlessly.
“It may be. But don’t you remember that he was bareheaded when we met him in Nana Sahib’s garden? I was knocked almost insensible during the fight for the boat so I am not sure what happened during the next few minutes. Nevertheless, I can recall that prior fact beyond cavil. If it were not for the safe-conduct you found at the same time as the pearls, I would incline strongly to the belief that Frank obtained this turban by accident, and is wholly ignorant of its extraordinary contents.”
“I must write at once and tell him how sorry I am that I misjudged him.”
“You dear little goose,” cried her uncle amusedly, “Frank will begin to wonder then what the judging was about. No. Wait until you meet. Write, by all means, but leave problems for settlement during your first tête-a-tête.”
So Ungud carried in his turban a loving and sympathetic note, which Winifred, with no small pride, addressed to “Major Frank Malcolm, Headquarters Staff, British Field Force, Cawnpore,” and she said inside, among other things, that she hoped this wouldprove to be the first letter he received with the inscription of his new rank.
Ungud also took confidential details from the Brigadier for Havelock’s information, and in three days, being as supple as an eel and cautious as a leopard, he was back again with a reply from the general to the effect that the relieving force would arrive in less than a week.
He brought another missive from Frank, cheery and optimistic in tone and still blithely oblivious of the existence of such baubles as hundred-thousand-dollar necklaces.
And that was all the news that either the garrison or Winifred received for more than a month, when the intrepid Ungud again entered the lines to bring Havelock’s ominous advice: “Do not negotiate, but rather perish sword in hand.”
This time there was no letter from Frank, and the alarmed, half-despairing girl could only learn that the major-sahib was not with the column, which had been compelled to fall back on Cawnpore after some heavy fighting in Oudh. Ungud did not think he was dead; but who could tell? There were so many sahibs who fell, for out of his twelve hundred Havelock had lost nearly half, and was now eating his heart out in a weary wait for re-enforcements that were toiling up the thousand miles of road and river from Calcutta.
So the blackness of disappointed hope fell on the Residency and its inmates. Those few natives who had hitherto proved faithful began to desert in scores.About a third of the European soldiers were dead. Smallpox and cholera added their ravages to the enemy’s unceasing fire and occasional fierce assaults. Famine and tainted water, and lack of hospital stores, and every evil device of malign fate that persecutes people in such straits, were there to harass the unhappy defenders. Officers and men swore that they would shoot their women-folk with their own hands rather than permit them to fall into the rebels’ clutches, and, at times, when the siege slackened a little in its continuous cannonade, the devoted community gave way to lethargy and despondency.
But let the enemy muster for an attack, these veteran soldiers faced them with the dogged steadfastness that made them gods among the Asiatic scum. The Brigadier, too, never allowed his splendid spirit to flag. Though for three months he had not slept without being fully dressed, though he worked harder than any other man in the garrison, he was the life and soul of every outpost that he visited during the day or night.
Captain Fulton was another human dynamo in their midst. Finding plenty of miners among the Cornishmen of the 32d, he sunk a countermine for each mine burrowed by the enemy. His favorite amusement was to sit alone for hours in a shaft, wait patiently until the rebels bored a way up to him, and then shoot the foremost workers.
And in such fashion the siege went on, with houses collapsing, because they were so riddled with cannon-ballsthat the walls gave way, and ever-nearing sapping of the fortifications, and intolerable breaks in the monsoon, when the heat became so overpowering that even the natives yielded to the strain—and the days passed, and the weeks, and the months, until, on September 16, Ungud, tempted by a bribe of five thousand rupees, crept away for the last time with despatches for Havelock.
It was the saddest hour in Havelock’s life when he decided that his Invincibles must retreat. Yet, after another week’s fighting, that course was forced on him.
On July 25 he plunged fearlessly into Oudh, leaving a wide and rapid river in his rear, with other rivers, canals, and fortified towns and villages in front, on three sides swarms of determined enemies gathered under the standards of Nana Sahib and the Oudh Taluqdars, and everywhere a hostile if not actually mutinous peasantry.
With his usual daring, trusting to the unsurpassed élan of his troops, he fought battles at Onao and Busseerutgunge. Then when the thunder of the fighting was faintly heard by listeners in the Residency, Havelock took thought and regretted that he had ventured to leave Cawnpore.
His force numbered about half the men who marched out of Allahabad on the 7th. Cholera had broken out; stores were scanty; there was not a single litter for another wounded man; and, worst of all, ammunition was failing. To advance farther meant the total destruction of his little army, the sure and instant fallof the Residency, and the disappearance of the British flag from an enormous territory.
Yet he hesitated before he gave the final order. He fell back a couple of marches and wrote to Neill on the 31st that he could “do nothing for the relief of Lucknow,” until he received a re-enforcement of a thousand men and a new battery.
Neill, who was holding Cawnpore with three hundred rifles, returned the most amazing reply that ever a subordinate officer addressed to his chief.
“The natives don’t believe you have won any real victories,” he wrote, in effect. “Your retreat has destroyed the prestige of England. While you are waiting for re-enforcements that cannot arrive Lucknow will be lost. You must advance again and not halt until you have rescued the garrison. Then return here sharp, as there is much to be done between this and Agra and Delhi.”
Neill’s zeal outran his discretion. Havelock told him in plain language his opinion of this curious epistle.
“Your letter is the most extraordinary I have ever perused,” he said.... “Consideration of the obstruction which would arise in the public service alone prevents me from placing you under immediate arrest. You now stand warned. Attempt no further dictation.”
Yet Neill’s advice rankled and there were men on Havelock’s staff who agreed with the outspoken Irishman. Neill, however, coolly bottled his wrath and sent on a company of the 84th and three guns.
They brought despatches from Sir Patrick Grant,Commander-in-Chief at Calcutta, telling Havelock that the troops sent from the capital had been turned aside to deal with mutineers in Behar.
The gallant Crimean veteran therefore hardened his heart, set out once more for Lucknow and fought another most successful battle at Busseerutgunge. There could be no questioning either the victory or its cost. Another such success and his column would not number a half battalion.
That night he watched the weary soldiers digging graves for their fallen comrades, and, while his brain was torn with conflicting problems, a spy brought news that the powerful Gwalior Contingent was marching to seize Cawnpore. He hesitated no longer. As a general he had no right to be swayed by emotion. He must protect Cawnpore as a base and trust to the fortune of war that Lucknow might keep the flag flying.
Malcolm was with him when he formed this resolution. Outwardly cold, Sir Henry seemed to his youthful observer, who now knew him better, to resemble a volcano coated with ice.
“Major,” he said, “the column will retreat at daybreak. But I will get my other aides to make arrangements. Are you quite recovered from your wound? Are you capable of undergoing somewhat severe exertion, I mean?”
Frank answered modestly that he thought he had never been better in health or strength, though he wondered inwardly what sort of exertion could bemore “severe” than his experiences of the preceding three weeks.
But Havelock knew what he was talking about, as shall be seen.
“I want you to make the best of your way to Delhi,” he said in his unbending way. “I leave details to you, except that I would like you to start to-night if possible. Of course any kind of escort that is available would be fatal to your success, but, if I remember his record rightly, that servant of yours may be useful. I do not propose to give you any despatches. If you get through tell the Commander-in-Chief in the Punjab exactly how we are situated here. Tell him Lucknow will not be relieved for nearly two months, but that I will hold Cawnpore till the last man falls. I hope and trust you may be spared to make the journey in safety. If you succeed you will receive a gratuity and a step in rank. Good-by!”
He held out his hand, and his calm eyes kindled for a moment. Then Frank found himself walking to his tent and reviewing all that this meant to Winifred and himself. He was none the less a brave man if his lips trembled somewhat and there came a tightening of the throat that suspiciously resembled a sob.
Two months! Could a delicate girl live so long in another such Inferno at Lucknow as he had seen in Wheeler’s abandoned entrenchment at Cawnpore?
“God help us both!” he murmured bitterly, passing a hand involuntarily over his misty eyes. With the action he brushed away doubt and fears. He was asoldier again, one to whom hearing and obedience were identical.
“Chumru,” he said, when he found his domestic scratching mud off a coat with his nails for lack of a clothes-brush, “we set out for Delhi to-night, you and I.”
“All right, sahib,” was the unexpected parry to this astounding thrust, and Chumru kept on with his task.
“It is a true thing,” said Malcolm, who knew full well that the Mohammedan understood the extraordinary difficulty of such a mission. “It is the General-sahib’s order, and he wishes you to go with me. Will you come?”
“Huzoor, have you ever gone anywhere without me since you came to my hut that night when I was stricken with smallpox—”
“Only once, you rascal, and then you came after me to my great good fortune. Very well, then; that is settled. Stop raising dust and listen. We ride to-night. Let us discuss the manner of our traveling, for ’tis a long road and full of mischief.”
Chumru laid aside the garment and tickled his wiry hair underneath his turban.
“By the Kaaba,” he growled, “such roads lead to Jehannum more easily than to Delhi. Do you go to the Princess Roshinara, sahib?”
Malcolm’s overwrought feelings found vent in a hearty laugh.
“What fiend tempted thee to think of her, owl?” he cried.
“Nay, sahib, no fiend other than a woman. What else would bring your honor to Delhi? Is there not occupation here in plenty?”
“I tell thee, image, that the General-sahib hath ordered it. And I am making for the British camp on the Ridge, not for the city.”
Chumru dismissed the point. He was a fatalist and he probably reserved his opinion. Malcolm had beguiled the long night after they left Rai Bareilly with the story of his strange meetings with the King’s daughter. To the Eastern mind there was Kismet in such happenings.
“I would you had not lost Bahadur Shah’s pass, huzoor,” he said. “That would be worth a bagful of gold mohurs on the north road now. But, as matters stand, we must fall back on walnut juice. You have blue eyes and fair hair, alack, yet must we—”
“What! Wouldst thou make me a brother of thine?” demanded Malcolm, understanding that the walnut juice was intended to darken his skin.
“There is no other way, huzoor. This is no ride of a night. We shall be seven days, let us go at the best, and meeting budmashes at every mile. If you did not talk Urdu like one of us, sahib, I should bid you die here in peace rather than fall in the first village. Still, we may have luck, and you can bandage your hair and forehead and swear that those cursed Feringhis nearly cut your scalp off. But you must be rubbed all over, sahib, until you are the color of brown leather, for we can have no patches of whiteskin showing where, perchance, your garments are rent.”
Malcolm saw the wisdom of the suggestion and fell in with it. While Chumru went to compound walnut juice in the nearest bazaar, he, in pursuance of the plan they had concocted together, got a native writer to compile a letter which purported to emanate from Nana Sahib, and was addressed to Bahadur Shah. It was a very convincing document. Malcolm contributed a garbled history of recent events, and one of the Brahmin’s seals, which came into Havelock’s possession when Cawnpore was occupied, lent verisimilitude to the script.
Then the Englishman covered himself with an oily compound that Chumru assured him would darken his skin effectually before morning, though the present effect was more obvious to the nose than to the eye. Chumru donned his rissaldar Brahmin’s uniform and Malcolm secured a similar outfit from a native officer on the staff. Well-armed and well-mounted the pair crossed the Ganges north of Bithoor, gained the Grand Trunk Road and were far from the British column when they drew rein for their first halt of more than an hour’s duration.
They had adventures galore on the road to Delhi, but Chumru’s repertory of oaths anent the Nazarenes, and Malcolm’s dignified hauteur as a messenger of the man who ranked higher in the native world than the octogenarian king, carried them through without grave risk. True, they had a close shave or two.
Once a suspicious sepoy who knew every native officer in the 7th Cavalry, to which corps “Rissaldar Ali Khan” was supposed to belong, had to be quietly choked to death within earshot of a score of his own comrades who were marching to the Mogul capital. On another occasion, a moulvie, or Mohammedan priest, was nearly the cause of their undoing. Malcolm was not sufficiently expert in the ritual of the Rêka and this shortcoming aroused the devotee’s ire, but he was calmed by Chumru’s assurance that his excellent friend, Laiq Ahmed, was still suffering from the wound inflicted by the condemned Giaours, and the storm blew over.
These incidents simply served to enliven a tedious journey. Its main features were climatic discomfort and positive starvation. Rain storms, hot winds, sweltering intervals of intolerable heat—these were vagaries of nature and might be endured. But the absence of food was a more serious matter. The passage to and fro of rebel detachments had converted the Grand Trunk Road into a wilderness. The sepoys paid for nothing and looted Mohammedans and Hindus alike. After two months of constant pilfering the unhappy ryots had little left. For the most part they deserted their hovels, gathered such few valuables as had escaped the human locusts who devoured their substance, and either retreated to remote villages or boldly sought a living in some other province. Indeed, it may be said in all candor that the Mutiny caused far more misery to the great mass of the peoplethan to the foreign rulers against whom it was supposed to be directed. The sufferings of the English residents in India were terrible and the treatment meted out to them was unspeakably vile, but for one English life sacrificed during the country’s red year there were five hundred natives killed by the very men who professed to defend their interests.
Malcolm and Chumru were given proof in plenty of this fact as they rode along. Generations of local feuds had taught the villagers to construct their rude shanties in such wise that any place of fairly large population formed a strong fort. Where the ryots were collected in sufficient numbers to render such a proceeding possible, they armed themselves not only against the British but against all the world.
Many times the travelers were fired at by men who took them for sepoys, and they often found active hostilities in progress between a party of desperate rebels who wanted food and a horde of sturdy villagers who refused to treat with men in any sort of uniform.
Still, they managed to live. In the fields they found ripening grain and an abundance of that small millet or pulse-pea known as gram, which is the staple food of horses in India. Occasionally Malcolm shot a peacock, but shooting birds with a revolver is a difficult sport and wasteful of ammunition. Where hares were plentiful Chumru seldom failed to snare one during the night. These were feast days. At other times they chewed millet and were thankful for small mercies.
The journey occupied nearly twice the time of their original estimate. Nejdi, good horse as he was, wanted a rest; Chumru’s steed was liable to break down any hour; and it was a sheer impossibility to obtain a remount in that wasted tract.
All things considered it was a wonderful achievement when, on the evening of the eleventh day, they began their last march.
They planned matters so that the Jumna lay between them and their goal. When they left the tope of trees in which they had slept away the hot hours their ostensible aim was the bridge of boats which carried the Meerut road across the river into the imperial city.
That was their story if they fell in with company. In reality they meant to leave the dangerous locality with the best speed their horses were capable of. There could be no doubt that Delhi was the stronghold of the mutineers. Even discounting by ninety per cent the grandiloquent stories they heard, it was evident that the British still held the ridge, but were rather besieged than besiegers. For the rest, the natives were assured that the foreign rule had passed forever. Their version of the position was that “great fighting took place daily and the Nazarenes were being slaughtered in hundreds.”
The one statement nullified the other. Malcolm reasoned, correctly as it happened, that the British force was able to hold its own, but not strong enough to take the city; that the Punjab was quiet and that the general in command on the ridge was biding histime until re-enforcements arrived. Therefore if Chumru and he could strike the left bank of the Jumna, a few miles above Delhi, there should be no difficulty in crossing the stream and reaching the British camp.
For once, a well-laid scheme did not reveal unforeseen pitfalls. He had the good fortune to fall in with a corps of irregular horse scouting for a half-expected flank attack by the rebels, in the gray dawn of the morning of August 11. Chumru and he were nearly shot by mistake, but that is ever the risk of those who wear an enemy’s uniform, and by this time, John Company’s livery was quite discredited in the land which he, in his corporate capacity, had opened up to Europeans.
Moreover, between dirt and walnut-stain Malcolm was like an animated bronze statue, and it was good to see the incredulous expression on a brother officer’s face when he rode up with the cheery cry:
“By Jove, old fellow, I am glad to see you. I am Malcolm of the 3d Cavalry, and I have brought news from General Havelock.”
The leader of the scouting party, a stalwart subaltern of dragoons, thought that it was a piece of impudence on the part of this “dark” stranger to address him so familiarly.
“I happen to be acquainted with Mr. Malcolm—” he began.
“Not so well as I know him, Saumarez,” said Frank, laughing. He had not counted on his disguise being so complete. But the laugh proved his identity, forthere is more distinctive character in a man’s mirth than in any other inflection of the voice.
Saumarez testified to an amazed recognition in the approved manner of a dragoon.
“Either you are Malcolm or I am bewitched,” he cried. Then he looked at Chumru.
“This gentleman, no doubt, is at least a brigadier,” he went on. “But, joking apart, have you really ridden from Allahabad?”
The question showed the lack of information of events farther south that obtained in the Punjab. By this time the sepoys had torn down the telegraph posts and cut the wires in all directions. Even between Cawnpore and Calcutta, whenever they crossed the Grand Trunk Road they destroyed the telegraph. As one of them said, looking up at a damaged pole which was about to serve as his gallows:
“Ah, you are able to hang me now because that cursed wire strangled all of us in our sleep.”
His metaphor was correct enough. There is no telling what might have been the course of history in India if the sepoys had stopped telegraphic communication from the North to Calcutta early in May.
Malcolm gave Saumarez a summary of affairs in the Northwest Provinces as they rode on ahead of the troop.
“And now,” he said, “how do matters stand here?”
“You have used the right word,” said the other. “Stand! That is just what we are doing. We’ve had three commander-in-chiefs and each one is moretimid than his predecessor. Thank goodness Nicholson arrived four days ago. Things will begin to move now.”
“Is that the Peshawar Nicholson?” asked Frank, remembering that Hodson had spoken of a man of that name, a man who would “horse-whip into the saddle” a general who feared to assume responsibility.
“Yes. Haven’t you seen him? By gad, he’s a wonder. A giant of a fellow with an eye like a hawk and a big black beard that seems, somehow, to suggest a blacksmith. He turned up at our mess on the first evening he was in camp. Everybody was laughing and joking as usual and he never said a word. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I noticed that Nicholson just glowered at each man who told a funny story, and, by degrees, we were all sitting like mutes at a funeral. Then he said, in a deep voice that made us jump: ‘When some of you gentlemen can spare me a moment I shall be glad to hear what you have been doing here during the last ten weeks.’ There was no sneer in his words. We have had fighting enough, Heaven knows, but we felt that by ‘doing’ he meant ‘attacking,’ not ‘defending.’ Sure as death, he will create a stir. Indeed, the leaven is working already. He sent me out here this morning, as he has gone to meet the movable column from Lahore, and there was a rumor of a sortie from Delhi to cut it off.”
Malcolm fresh from association with Havelock realized that a grave and serious-minded soldier couldill brook the jests and idle talk that dominated the average military mess of the period.
“Nicholson sounds like the right man in the right place,” he commented.
The dragoon vouched for it emphatically.
“He has put an end to pony-racing and quoits,” said he, “and there is to be no more fighting in our shirt sleeves. Bear in mind, we have had a deuce of a time. I’ve been in twenty-one fights myself, and that is not all. The sepoys usually swarm out hell-for-leather and we rush to meet them. There is a scrimmage for an hour or so, we shove ’em back, Hodson gets in a bit of saber-work, we pick up the wounded, tell off a burial party, and start a cricket match or a gymkhana. Of course the fighting is stiff while it lasts and my regiment has lost its two best bowlers, a really sound bat and a crack rider in the pony heats. Still if we don’t lose any ground we gain none, and I can’t help agreeing with Nicholson that war isn’t a picnic.”
Frank managed not to smile at the naïveté of his companion. Though Saumarez was nearly his own age he felt that their difference in rank was not nearly so great as the divergence in their conception of the magnitude of the task before Britain in India. Nevertheless Saumarez saw that Nicholson was a force, and that was something.
“Is the Hodson you mention the same man who rode from Kurnaul to Meerut before the affair of Ghazi-ud-din-Nuggur?” he asked.
“Yes, same chap. A regular firebrand and no mistake. He has gathered a crowd of dare-devils known as Hodson’s Horse, and they go into action with a dash that I thought was only to be found in regular cavalry. But here we are at our ghât. That is a weedy-looking Arab you are riding—plenty of bone, though. Will he go aboard a budgerow without any fuss?”
“Oh, yes. He will do most things,” was the quiet reply.
Malcolm dismounted and fondled Nejdi’s black muzzle. How little the light-hearted dragoon guessed what those two had endured together! Nejdi as a weed was a new rôle. For an instant Frank thought of making a match with his friend’s best charger after Nejdi had had a week’s rest.
It was altogether a changed audience that Havelock’s messenger secured that evening when Nicholson rode to the ridge with the troops sent from the north by Sir John Lawrence, Edwardes, and Montgomery, while the generosity of Bartle Frere in sending from Scinde regiments he could ill spare should be mentioned in the same breath.
Saumarez’s “giant of a fellow” was there, and Archdale Wilson, the commander-in-chief, and Neville Chamberlain, and Baird-Smith, and Hervey Greathed. Inspired by the presence of such men Malcolm entered upon a full account of occurrences at Lucknow, Cawnpore and elsewhere during the preceding month. His hearers were aware of Henry Lawrence’s death and thebeginning of the siege of Lucknow. They had heard of Massacre Ghât, the Well, and Havelock’s advance, but they were dependent on native rumor and an occasional spy for their information, and Frank’s epic narrative was the first complete and true history that had been given them.
He was seldom interrupted. Occasionally when he was tempted to slur over some of the dangers he had overcome personally, a question from one or other of the five would force him to be more explicit.
Naturally, he spoke freely of the magnificent exploits of Havelock’s column and he saw Nicholson ticking off each engagement, each tremendous march, each fine display of strategic genius on the part of the general, with an approving nod and shake of his great beard.
“You have done well, young man,” said General Wilson when Frank’s long recital came to an end. “What rank did you hold on General Havelock’s staff?”
“That of major, sir.”
“You are confirmed in the same rank here. I have no doubt your services will be further recognized at the close of the campaign.”
“If Havelock had the second thousand men he asked for he would now be marching here,” growled Nicholson.
No one spoke for a little while. The under meaning of the giant’s words was plain. Havelock had moved while they stood still. The criticism was a trifle unjust,perhaps, but men with Napoleonic ideas are impatient of the limitations that afflict their less powerful brethren. If India were governed exclusively by Nicholsons, Lawrences, Havelocks, Hodsons, and Neills, there would never have been a mutiny. It was Britain’s rare good fortune that they existed at all and came to the front when the fiery breath of war had scorched and shriveled the nonentities who held power and place at the outbreak of hostilities.
Then some one passed a remark on Frank’s appearance. He was bareheaded. The fair hair and blue eyes that had perplexed Chumru looked strangely out of keeping with his brown skin.
“How in the world did you manage to escape detection during your ride north?” he was asked.
He explained Chumru’s device, and they laughed. Like Havelock, Baird-Smith thought the Mohammedan would make a good soldier.
“With all his pluck, sir, he is absolutely afraid of using a pistol,” said Frank. “He was offered the highest rank as a native officer, but he refused it.”
“Then, by gad, we must make him a zemindar. Tell him I said so and that we all agree on that point.”
When Frank gave the message to Chumru it was received with a demoniac grin.
“By the Holy Kaaba,” came the gleeful cry, “I told the Moulvie of Fyzabad that I was in the way of earning a jaghir, and behold, it is promised to me!”
Next day Malcolm, somewhat lighter in tint after a hot bath, made himself acquainted with the camp.Seldom has war brought together such a motley assemblage of races as gathered on the Ridge during the siege of Delhi. The far-off isles of the sea were represented by men from every shire, and Britain’s mixed heritage in the East sent a bewildering variety of types. Small, compactly built Ghoorkahs hobnobbed with stalwart Highlanders; lively Irishmen made friends of gaunt, saturnine Pathans; bearded Sikhs extended grave courtesies to pert-nosed Cockneys; “gallant little Wales” might be seen tending the needs of wounded Mohammedans from the Punjab. The language bar proved no obstacle to the men of the rank and file. A British private would sit and smoke in solemn and friendly silence with a hook-nosed Afghan, and the two would rise cheerfully after an hour passed in that fashion with nothing in common between them save the memory of some deadly thrust averted when they fought one day in the hollow below Hindu Rao’s house, or a draught of water tendered when one or other lay gasping and almost done to death in a struggle for the village of Subsee Mundee.
The British soldier, who has fought and bled in so many lands, showed his remarkable adaptability to circumstances by the way in which he made himself at home on the reverse slope of the Ridge. A compact town had sprung up there with its orderly lines of huts and tents, its long rows of picketed horses, commissariat bullocks and elephants, its churches, hospitals, playgrounds, race-course and cemetery.
Malcolm took in the general scheme of things whilehe walked along the Ridge towards the most advanced picket at Hindu Rao’s House. On the left front lay Delhi, beautiful as a dream in the brilliant sunshine. The intervening valley was scarred and riven with water-courses, strewn with rocks, covered with ruined mosques, temples, tombs, and houses, and smothered in an overgrowth of trees, shrubs, and long grasses. Roads were few, but tortuous paths ran everywhere, and it was easy to see how the rebels could steal out unobserved during the night and creep close up to the pickets before they revealed their whereabouts by a burst of musketry. Happily they never learnt to reserve their fire. Every man would blaze away at the first alarm, and then, of course, in those days of muzzle-loaders, the more resolute British troops could get to close quarters without serious loss. Still the men who held the Ridge had many casualties, and until Nicholson came the rebel artillery was infinitely more powerful than the British. Behind his movable column, however, marched a strong siege train. When that arrived the gunners could make their presence felt. Thus far not one of the enemy’s guns had been dismounted.
Frank had ocular proof of their strength in this arm before he reached Hindu Rao’s house. The Guides, picturesque in their loose, gray-colored shirts and big turbans, sent one of their cavalry squadrons over the Ridge on some errand. They moved at a sharp canter, but the Delhi gunners had got the range and were ready, and half a dozen eighteen-pound balls crashedinto the trees and rocks almost in the exact line of advance. A couple of guns on the British right took up the challenge, and the duel went on long after the Guides were swallowed up in the green depths of the valley.
At last Malcolm stood in the shelter-trench of the picket and gazed at the city which was the hub of the Mutiny. Beyond the high, red-brick walls he saw the graceful dome and minarets of the Jumma Musjid, while to the left towered the frowning battlements of the King’s palace. To the left again, and nearer, was the small dome of St. James’s Church with its lead roof riddled then, as it remains to this day, with the bullets fired by the rebels in the effort to dislodge the ball and cross which surmounted it. For the rest his eyes wandered over a noble array of mosques and temples, flat-roofed houses of nobles of the court and residences of the wealthy merchants who dwelt in the imperial city.
The far-flung panorama behind the walls had a curiously peaceful aspect. Even the puffs of white smoke from the guns, curling upwards like tiny clouds in the lazy air, had no tremors until a heavy shot hurtled overhead or struck a resounding blow at the already ruined walls of the big house near the post.
The 61st were on picket that day and one of the men, speaking with a strong Gloucestershire accent, said to Malcolm:
“Well, zur, they zay we’ll be a-lootin’ there zoon.”
“I hope so,” was the reply, but the phrase set him a-thinking.
Within that shining palace most probably was a woman to whom he owed his life. In another palace, many a hundred miles away, was another woman for whom he would willingly risk that life if only he could save her from the fate that the private of the 61st was gloating over in anticipation.
What a mad jumble of opposites was this useless and horrible war! At any rate why could not women be kept out of it and let men adjust their quarrel with the stern arbitrament of sword and gun!
Then he recalled Chumru’s words anent the Princess Roshinara, and the fancy seized him that if he were destined to enter Delhi with the besiegers he would surely strive to repay the service she had rendered Winifred and Mayne and himself at Bithoor.
That is the way man proposes and that is why the gods smile when they dispose of man’s affairs.