Without guns to breach the walls, even the heroic Nicholson was powerless against a strongly fortified city.
The siege train was toiling slowly across the Punjab, but the setting in of the monsoon rendered the transit of heavy cannon a laborious task.
On the 24th of August an officer rode in from the town of Baghput, twenty-five miles to the north, to report that the train was parked there for the night.
“What sort of escort accompanies it?” asked Nicholson, when the news reached him.
“Almost exclusively natives and few in numbers at that,” he was told.
An hour later a native spy from Delhi came to the camp.
“The mutineers are mustering for a big march,” he said. “They are providing guns, litters, and commissariat camels, and the story goes that they mean to fight the Feringhis at Bahadurgarh.”
The place named was a large village, ten miles northwest of the ridge, and Nicholson guessed instantlythat the sepoys had planned the daring coup of cutting off the siege train. With him, to hear was to act. He formed a column of two thousand men and a battery of field artillery and left the camp at dawn on the 25th. If a forced march could accomplish it, he meant not only to frustrate the enemy’s design but inflict a serious defeat on them.
Malcolm went with him and never had he taken part in a harder day’s work. The road was a bullock track, a swamp of mud amid the larger swamp of the ploughed land and jungle. Horses and men floundered through it as best they might. The guns often sank almost to the trunnions; many a time the infantry had to help elephants and bullocks to haul them out.
In seven hours the column only marched nine miles, and then came the disheartening news that the spy’s information was wrong. The rebels had, indeed, sent out a strong force, but they were at Nujufgarh, miles away to the right.
Officers and men ate a slight meal, growled a bit, and swung off in the new direction. At four o’clock in the afternoon they found the sepoy army drawn up behind a canal, with its right protected by another canal, and the center and left posted in fortified villages. Evidently, too, a stout serai, or inn, a square building surrounding a quadrangle set apart for the lodgment of camels and merchandise was regarded as a stronghold. Here were placed six guns and the walls were loopholed for musketry.
In a word, had the mutineers been equal in courageandmoraleto the British troops, the resultant attack must have ended in disastrous failure.
But Nicholson was a leader who took the measure of his adversaries. Above all, he did not shirk a battle because it was risky.
The 61st made a flank march, forded the branch canal under fire and were ordered to lie down. Nicholson rode up to them, a commanding figure on a seventeen-hands English hunter.
“Now, 61st,” he said, “I want you to take that serai and the guns. You all know what Sir Colin Campbell told you at Chillianwallah, and you have heard that he said the same thing at the battle of the Alma. ‘Hold your fire until you see the whites of their eyes,’ he said, ‘and then, my boys, we will make short work of it.’ Come on! Let us follow his advice here!”
Swinging his horse around, he rode straight at serai and battery. Grape-shot and bullets sang the death-song of many a brave fellow, but Nicholson was untouched. The 61st leaped to their feet with a yell, rushed after him, and did not fire a shot until they were within twenty yards of the enemy. A volley and the bayonet did the rest. They captured the guns, carried the serai, and pelted the flying rebels with their own artillery. The 1st Punjabis had a stiff fight before they killed every man in the village of Nujufgarh on the left, but the battle was won, practically in defiance of every tenet of military tactics, when the 61st forced their way into the serai.
Utterly exhausted, the soldiers slept on the soddened ground. That night, smoking a cigar with his staff, Nicholson commented on the skill shown in the enemy’s disposition.
“I asked a wounded havildar who it was that led the column, and he told me the commander was a new arrival, a subadar of the 8th Irregular Cavalry, named Akhab Khan,” he said.
Malcolm started. Akhab Khan was the young sowar whose life he had spared at Cawnpore when Winifred and her uncle and himself were escaping from Bithoor.
“I knew him well, sir,” he could not help saying. “He was not a subadar, but a lance-corporal. He was one of a small escort that accompanied me from Agra to the south, but he is a smart soldier, and not at all of the cut-throat type.”
Nicholson looked at him fixedly. He seemed to be considering some point suggested by Malcolm’s words.
“If men like him are obtaining commands in Delhi they will prove awkward,” was his brief comment, and Frank did not realize what his chief was revolving in his mind until, three days later, the Brigadier asked him to don his disguise again, ride to the southward, and endeavor to fall in with a batch of mutineers on the way to Delhi. Then he could enter the city, note the dispositions for the defense, and escape by joining an attacking party during one of the many raids on the ridge.
“You will be rendering a national service by your deed,” said Nicholson, gazing into Frank’s troubledeyes with that magnetic power that bent all men to his will. “I know it is a distasteful business, but you are able to carry it through, and five hours of your observation will be worth five weeks of native reports. Will you do it?”
“Yes, sir,” said Malcolm, choking back the protest on his lips. He could not trust himself to say more. He refused even to allow his thoughts to dwell on such a repellent subject. A spy! What soldier likes the office? It stifles ambition. It robs war of its glamour. It may call for a display of the utmost bravery—that calm courage of facing an ignoble death alone, unheeded, forgotten, which is the finest test of chivalry, but it can never commend itself to a high-spirited youth.
Frank had already won distinction in the field; it was hard to be chosen now for such a doubtful enterprise.
His worst hour came when he sought Chumru’s aid in the matter of walnut-juice.
“What is toward, sahib?” asked the Mohammedan. “Have we not seen enough of India that we must set forth once more?”
“This time I go alone,” said Frank, sadly. “Perchance I shall not be long absent. You will remain here in charge of my baggage and of certain letters which I shall give you.”
“Why am I cast aside, sahib?”
“Nay. Say not so. ’Tis a matter that I must deal with myself, and not of my own wish, Chumru. I obey the general-sahib’s order.”
“Jan Nikkelsen-sahib Bahadur?”
“Yes. I would refuse any other. But haste thee, for time presses.”
Chumru went off. He returned in half an hour, to find his master sealing a letter addressed to “Miss Winifred Mayne, to be forwarded, if possible, with the Lucknow Relief Force.”
There were others to relatives in England, and Frank tied them in a small packet.
“If I do not come back within a week—” he began.
“Nay, sahib, give not instructions to me in the matter. I go with you.”
“It is impossible.”
“Huzoor, it is the order of Jan Nikkelsen-sahib Bahadur. He says I will be useful, and he hath promised me another jaghir.”
The Mohammedan’s statement was true enough. He had waylaid Nicholson and obtained permission to accompany his master. Like a faithful dog he was not to be shaken off, and, in his heart of hearts, Malcolm was glad of it.
Their preparations were made with the utmost secrecy. The same men who sold Bahadur Shah’s cause to the British were also the professed spies of the rebels. They were utterly unreliable, yet their tale-bearing in Delhi might bring instant disaster to Malcolm and his native comrade.
Nejdi was in good condition again after the tremendous exertions undergone since he carried his master from Lucknow. Malcolm was in two minds whether to take him or not, but the chance that hislife might depend on a reliable horse, and, perhaps, a touch of the gambler’s belief in luck, swayed his judgment, and Nejdi was saddled. Chumru rode a spare charger which Malcolm had purchased at the sale of a dead officer’s effects. Fully equipped in their character as rebel non-commissioned officers, the two rode forth, crossed the Jumna, reached the Meerut road unchallenged and turned their horses’ heads toward the bridge of boats that debouched beneath the walls of the King’s palace.
Provided they met some stragglers on the road they meant to enter the city with the dawn. By skilful expenditure of money on Malcolm’s part and the exercise of Chumru’s peculiar inventiveness in maintaining a flow of lurid language, they counted on keeping their new-found comrades in tow while they made the tour of the city. The curiosity of strangers would be quite natural, and Malcolm hoped they might be able to slip out again with some expedition planned for the night or the next morning.
Of course, having undertaken an unpleasant duty he intended to carry it through. If he did not learn the nature and extent of the enemy’s batteries, the general dispositions for the defense and the state of feeling among the different sections that composed the rebel garrison, he must perforce remain longer. But that was in the lap of fate. At present he could only plan and contrive to the best of his ability.
Fortune favored the adventurers at first. They encountered a score of ruffians who had cut themselvesadrift from the Gwalior contingent. Among these strangers Chumru was quickly a hero. He beguiled the way with tales of derring-do in Oudh and the Doab, and discussed the future of all unbelievers with an amazing gusto. Malcolm, whose head was shrouded in a gigantic and blood-stained turban, listened with interest to his servant’s account of the actions outside Cawnpore and on the road to Lucknow. It was excellent fooling to hear Chumru detailing the wholesale slaughter of the Nazarenes, while the victors, always the sepoys, found it advisable to fall back on a strategic position many miles in the rear after each desperate encounter.
In this hail-fellow-well-met manner the party crossed the bridge, were interrogated by a guard at the Water Gate and admitted to the fortress. It chanced that a first-rate feud was in progress, and the officer, whose duty it was to question new arrivals, was taking part in it.
Money was short in the royal treasury. Many thousands of sepoys had neither been paid nor fed; there was a quarrel between Mohammedans and Hindoos, because the former insisted on slaughtering cattle; and the more respectable citizens were clamoring for protection from the rapacity, insolence and lust of the swaggering soldiers.
That very day matters had reached a climax. Malcolm found a brawling mob in front of the Lahore gate of the palace. He caught Chumru’s eye and the latter appealed to a sepoy for information as to the cause of the racket.
“The King of Kings hath a quarrel with his son, Mirza Moghul, who is not over pleased with the recent division of the command,” was the answer.
“What, then? Is there more than one chief?”
“To be sure. Is there not the Council of the Barah Topi? (Twelve Hats.) Are not Bakht Khan and Akhab Khan in charge of brigades? Where hast thou been, brother, that these things are not known to thee?”
“Be patient with me, I pray thee, friend. I and twenty more, whom thou seest here, have ridden in within the hour. We come to join the Jehad, and we are grieved to find a dispute toward when we expected to be led against the infidels.”
The sepoy laughed scornfully.
“You will see as many fights here as outside the walls,” he muttered, and moved off, for men were beginning to guard their tongues in Imperial Delhi.
A rowdy gang of full five hundred armed mutineers marched up and hustled the mob right and left as they forced a way to the gate. Their words and attitude betokened trouble. The opportunity was too good to be lost. Malcolm dismounted, gave the reins to Chumru, and told him to wait his return under some trees, somewhat removed from the road, for Akhab Khan had sharp eyes, and the Mohammedan’s grotesque face was well known to him. Chumru made a fearsome grimace, but Malcolm’s order was peremptory. Summoning a fruit-seller, the bearer led the Gwalior men to the rendezvous named and distributed mangoes amongst them.
Frank joined the ruck of the demonstrators and passed through the portals of the magnificent gate. A long, high-roofed arcade, spacious as the nave of a cathedral, with raised marble platforms for merchants on each side, gave access to a quadrangle. In the center stood a fountain, and round about were grassy lawns and beds of flowers.
The sepoys tramped on, heedless of the destruction they caused in the garden. They passed through the noble Nakar Khana, or music-room, and entered another and larger square, at the further end of which stood the Diwan-i-Am, or Hall of Public Audience.
Not even in Agra, and certainly not in gaudy Lucknow, had Malcolm seen any structure of such striking architectural effect. The elegant roof was supported on three rows of red sandstone pillars, adorned with chaste gilding and stucco-work. Open on three sides, the audience chamber was backed by a wall of white marble, from which a staircase led to a throne raised about ten feet from the ground and covered with a rarely beautiful marble canopy borne on four small pillars.
The throne was empty, but an attendant appeared through the door at the foot of the stairs, and announced that the Light of the World would receive his faithful soldiers in a few minutes.
The impatient warriors snorted their disapproval. They did not like to be kept waiting, but carried their resentment no further, and Malcolm, with alert eyes and ears, moved about among them, as by that means he hoped to avoid attracting attention.
Even in that moment of deadly peril he could not help admiring the exquisite skill with which the great marble wall was decorated with mosaics and paintings of the fauna and flora of India. The mosaics were wholly composed of precious stones, and the paintings were executed in rich tints that told of a master hand. There was nothing bizarre or crude in their conception. They might have adorned some Athenian temple in the heyday of Greece, and were wholly free from the stiff drawing and flamboyant coloring usually seen in the East. He did not then know that a renegade Venetian artist, Austin de Bordeaux, had carried out this work for Shah Jehan, that great patron of the arts, and in any event, his appreciation of their excellence was spasmodic, for the broken words he heard from the excited soldiery warned him that a crisis was imminent in the fortunes of Delhi.
“Who is he, then, this havildar of gunners from Bareilly?” said one.
“And the other, Akhab Khan. They say he fought for the Nazarenes at Meerut. Mohammed Latif swears he defended the treasury there,” chimed in another.
“As for me, I care not who leads. I want my pay.”
“I, too. I have not eaten since sunrise yesterday.”
“We shall get neither food nor money till some one clears those accursed Feringhis off the hill,” growled a deep voice close behind Malcolm.
There was something familiar in the tone. Frank edged away and glanced at the speaker, whom he recognized instantly as a subadar in his own old regiment.
But now a craning of necks and a sudden hush of the animated talk showed that some development was toward. Servants entered with cushions, which they disposed round the foot of the throne and at the base of its canopy. A few nobles and court functionaries lounged in, two gorgeously appareled guards came through the doorway, and behind them tottered a feeble old man, robed in white, and wearing on his head an aigrette of Bird of Paradise plumes, fastened with a gold clasp in which sparkled an immense emerald.
Malcolm had seen Bahadur Shah only once before. He remembered how decorous and dignified was the Mogul court when Britain paid honor to an ancient dynasty. And now, what a change! The aged emperor had to lift a trembling hand to obtain a hearing, while, ever and anon, even during his short address, belated officers and troopers clattered in on horseback, and did not dismount within the precincts of the sacred Hall of Audience itself.
He began by explaining timorously that while affairs remained in their present unsettled condition he could not arrange matters as he would have wished. He knew that there were arrears of pay and that the food supply was irregular.
“But you do not help me,” he said, with some display of spirit. “Respectable citizens tell me that you plunder their houses and debauch their wives and daughters. I have issued repeated injunctions prohibiting robbery and oppression in the city, but to no avail.”
He was interrupted with loud murmurs.
“What matters it about the bazaar-folk, O King,” yelled a sepoy. “We want food, not a sermon.”
The Emperor seemed to fire up with indignation at the taunt, but he sank into the chair on the throne. He raised a hand twice to quiet the mob, and at last they allowed him to continue.
“I am weary and helpless,” he said faintly. “I have resolved to make a vow to pass the remainder of my life in service acceptable to Allah. I will relinquish my title and take the garb of a moullah. I am going to the shrine of Khwaja Sahib, and thence to Mecca, where I hope to end my sorrowful days.”
This was not the sort of consolation that the mob expected or wanted. A howl of execration burst forth, but it was stayed by the entrance of two people from the private portion of the palace.
There was no need that Malcolm should ask who the pale, haughty, beautiful woman was who came and stood by her father’s side. Roshinara Begum did not share the Emperor’s dejection. She faced the rebels now with the air of one who knew them for thecanaillethey were. But that was only for an instant. A consummate actress, she had a part to play, and she bent and whispered something to Bahadur Shah with a great show of pleased vivacity.
A man who accompanied her stepped to the front of the throne, and his words soon revealed to Malcolm that he was listening to the Shahzada, the heir apparent, Mirza Moghul.
“Why do you come hither to disturb the King’spious meditations?” he cried angrily. “You were better employed at the batteries, where your loyal comrades are now firing a salute of twenty-one guns to celebrate the capture of Agra by the Neemuch Brigade.”
He paused. His statement was news to all present, as, indeed, it well might be, seeing that it was a lie. But his half petulant, half boastful tone was convincing, and several voices were raised in a cry of “Shabash! Good hearing!”
“This is no time to create mischief and disunion,” he went on loudly. “Help is coming from all quarters. Gwalior, Jhansi, Neemuch and Lucknow are sending troops to aid us. In three or four days, if Allah be willing, the Ridge will be taken, and every one of the base unbelievers humbled and ruined and sent to the fifth circle of hell.”
The man had the actor’s trick of making his points. Waiting until an exultant roar of applause had died away, he delivered his most effective hit.
“At the very time you dared to burst in on the Emperor’s privacy he was arranging a loan with certain local bankers that will enable all arrears of pay to be made up. To-day there will be a free issue of cattle, grain and rice. Go, then! Tell these things to all men, and trust to the King of Kings and his faithful advisers, of whom I am at once the nearest and the most obedient, to lead you to victory against the Nazarenes.”
For the hour these brave words sufficed. The sepoys trooped out and Malcolm went with them. A backwardglance revealed the princess and her brother engaged in a conversation with Bahadur Shah and a courtier or two. Their gestures and manner of argument did not bear out the joyful tidings brought to the conclave by the Shahzada. Indeed, Frank guessed that they were soundly rating the miserable monarch for having allowed himself to speak so plainly to his beloved subjects.
Malcolm knew there was not a word of truth in Mirza Moghul’s brief speech. The Gwalior contingent had gone to Cawnpore. All the men Bareilly had to send had already arrived with Bakht Khan, the “havildar of artillery,” who was now the King’s right hand man. Jhansi, Neemuch and Lucknow had enough troubles of their own without helping Delhi, and, as for the bankers’ aid, it was easy to guess the nature of the “loan” that the Emperor hoped to extract from them.
Indeed, while Malcolm and Chumru and their new associates were wandering through the streets and making the circuit of the western wall, there was another incipient riot in the fort. Delay in issuing the promised rations enraged the hungry troops. A number hurried again to the Diwan-i-Am, clamored for the king’s presence, and told him roundly that he ought to imprison his sons, who, they said, had stolen their pay.
“If the Treasury does not find the money,” was the threat, “we will kill you and all your family, for we are masters.”
This later incident came to Malcolm’s ears while Chumru was persuading a grain-dealer to admit that he had some corn hidden away. The sight of money unlocked the man’s lips.
“Would there were more like you in the King’s service,” he whined. “I have not taken a rupee in the way of trade since the huzoors were driven forth.”
It was easy enough to interpret the unhappy tradesman’s real wishes. He was pining for the restoration of the British Raj. Every man in Delhi, who had anything to lose, mourned the day that saw the downfall of the Sirkar.[22]
“Affairs go badly, then,” Malcolm put in. “Speak freely, friend. We are strangers, and are minded to go back whence we came, for there is naught but misrule in the city so far as we can see.”
“What can you expect from an old man who writes verses when he should be punishing malefactors?” said the grain-dealer, bitterly anxious to vent his wrongs. “If you would act wisely, sirdar, leave this bewitched place. It is given over to devils. I am a Hindu, as you know, but I am worse treated by the Brahmins than by men of your faith.”
“Mayhap you have quarreled with some of the sepoys and have a sore feeling against them?”
“Think not so, sirdar. Who am I to make enemies of these lords? Every merchant in the bazaar is of my mind, and I have suffered less than many, for I am a poor man and have no family.”
In response to Chumru’s request the grain-dealer allowed the men to cook their food in an inner courtyard. While Malcolm extracted additional details as to the chaos that reigned in the city the newcomers from Gwalior consulted among themselves. They had seen enough to be convinced that there were parts of India much preferable to Delhi for residential purposes.
“Behold, sirdar!” said one of them after they had eaten, “you led us in, and now we pray you lead us out again. There are plenty here to fight the Feringhis, and we may be more useful at Lucknow.”
Malcolm could have laughed at the strangeness of his position, but he saw in this request the nucleus of a new method of winning his way beyond the walls.
“Bide here,” he said gruffly, “until Ali Khan and I return, which we will surely do ere night. Then we shall consider what steps to take. At present, I am of the same mind as you.”
He wanted to visit the Cashmere Gate and examine its defenses. Then, he believed, he would have obtained all the information that Nicholson required. He was certain that Delhi would fall if once the British secured a footing inside the fortifications. The city was seething with discontent. Even if left to its own devices it would speedily become disrupted by the warring elements within its bounds.
Chumru and he rode first to the Mori Gate. Thence, by a side road, they followed the wall to the Cashmere Gate. Traveling as rapidly as the crowded state of the thoroughfare permitted and thus wearing the semblanceof being engaged on some urgent duty, they counted the guns in each battery and noted their positions.
Arrived at the Cashmere Gate they loitered there a few minutes. This was the key of Delhi. Once it was won, a broad road led straight to the heart of the city, with the palace on one hand and the Chandni Chowk on the other.
Malcolm saw with a feeling of unutterable loathing that the mutineers had converted St. James’s Church into a stable. Not so had the founder, Colonel James Skinner, treated the religions of the people among whom he lived. The legend goes that the gallant soldier, a veteran of the Mahratta wars, had married three wives, an Englishwoman, a Mohammedan, and a Hindu. His own religious views were of the nebulous order, but, so says the story, being hard pressed once in a fight, he vowed to build a church to his wife’s memory if he escaped. His assailants were driven off and the vow remained. When he came to give effect to it he was puzzled to know which wife he should honor, so he built a church, a mosque and a temple, each at a corner of the triangular space just within the Cashmere Gate.
Whether the origin of the structures is correctly stated or not, they stand to this day where Skinner’s workmen placed them, and it was a dastardly act on the part of men who worshiped in mosque and temple to profane the hallowed shrine of another and far superior faith.
Malcolm was sitting motionless on Nejdi, looking at a squad of rebels erecting fascines in front of a new battery on the river side of the gate, when Chumru, whose twisted vision seemed to command all points of the compass, saw that the commander of a cavalry guard stationed there was regarding them curiously.
“Turn to the right, huzoor,” he muttered.
Malcolm obeyed instantly. The warning note in Chumru’s voice was not to be denied. It would be folly to wait and question him.
“Now let us canter,” said the other, as soon as the horses were fairly in the main road.
“You did well, sahib, to move quickly. There was one in the guard yonder whose eyes grew bigger each second that he looked at you.”
They heard some shouting at the gate. A bend in the road near the ruined offices of theDelhi Gazettegave them a chance of increasing the pace to a gallop. There was a long, straight stretch in front, leading past the Telegraph Office, the dismantled magazine, and a small cemetery. Then the road turned again, and by a sharp rise gained the elevated plateau on which stood the fort.
Glancing over his shoulder at this point, Malcolm caught sight of a dozen sowars riding furiously after them. To dissipate any hope that they might not be in pursuit, he saw the leader point in his direction and seemingly urge on his comrades. It was impossible to know for certain what had roused this nest of hornets, though the presence of a man of the 3d Cavalry inthe palace that morning was a sinister fact that led to only one conclusion. No matter what the motive, he felt that Chumru and he were trapped. There was no avenue of escape. Whether they went ahead or made a dash for the city, their pursuers could keep them well in sight, as their tired horses were incapable of a sustained effort at top speed after having been on the move nearly twenty hours.
He had to decide quickly, and his decision must be governed not by personal considerations but by the needs of his country. If he had been recognized, the enemy would follow him. Therefore, Chumru might outwit them were he given a chance.
“Listen, good friend,” he shouted as they clattered up the hill. “Thou seest the tope of trees in front.”
“Yes, sahib.”
“This, then, is my last order, and it must be obeyed. When we reach those trees we will bear off towards the palace. Pull up there and dismount. Give me the reins of your horse, and hide yourself quickly among the trees. I shall ride on, and you may be able to dodge into some ditch or nullah till it is dark. Rejoin those men from Gwalior if possible, and try to get away from the city. Tell the General-sahib what you have seen and that I sent you. Do you understand?”
“Huzoor!—”
“Silence! Wouldst thou have me fail in my duty? It is my parting wish, Chumru. There is no time for words. Do as I say, or we both die uselessly.”
There was no answer. The Mohammedan’s eyes blazed with the frenzy of a too complete comprehension of his master’s intent. But now they were behind the trees, and Malcolm was already checking Nejdi. Chumru flung himself from the saddle and ran. Cowering amid some shrubs of dense foliage, he watched Malcolm dashing along the road to the Lahore Gate of the palace. A minute later the rebels thundered past, and they did not seem to notice that one of the two horses disappearing in the curved cutting that led to the drawbridge and side entrance of the gate was riderless.
Chumru ought to have taken immediate measures to secure his own safety. But he did nothing of the kind. He lay there, watching the hard-riding horsemen, and striving most desperately to do them all the harm that the worst sort of malign imprecations could effect. They, in turn, vanished in the sunken approach to the fortress, and the unhappy bearer was imagining the horrible fate that had befallen the master, whom he loved more than kith or kin, when he saw the same men suddenly reappear and gallop towards the Delhi Gate, which was situated at a considerable distance.
Something had happened to disappoint and annoy them—that much he could gather from their gestures and impassioned speech. Whatever it was, Malcolm-sahib apparently was not dead yet, and while there is life there is hope.
Chumru proceeded to disrobe. He kicked off his boots, untied his putties, threw aside the frock-coatand breeches of a cavalry rissaldar, and stood up in the ordinary white clothing of a native servant.
“Shabash!” muttered he, as he unfastened the military badge in his turban. “There is nothing like a change of clothing to alter a man. Now I can follow my sahib and none be the wiser.”
With that he walked coolly into the roadway and stepped out leisurely towards the Lahore Gate. But he found the massive door closed and the drawbridge raised, and a gruff voice bade him begone, as the gate would not be opened until the King’s orders were received.
Malcolm was not one to throw his life away without an effort to save it. Once, during a visit to Delhi, Captain Douglas, the ill-fated commandant of the Palace Guards, had taken him to his quarters for tiffin. As it happened, the two entered by the Delhi Gate and walked through the gardens and corridors to Douglas’s rooms, which were situated over the Lahore Gate. Thus he possessed a vague knowledge of the topography of the citadel, and his visit that morning had refreshed his memory to a slight extent. On that slender reed he based some hope of escape. In any event he prayed that his ruse might better Chumru’s chances, and he promised himself a soldier’s death if brought to bay inside the palace.
Crossing the drawbridge at a fast gallop, he saw a number of guards looking at him wonderingly. It occurred to him that the exciting events of the early hours might have led to orders being given on the question of admitting sepoys in large numbers. If that were so, he might gain time by a bit of sheer audacity. At any rate, there was no harm in trying. As he clattered through the gateway he shouted excitedly:
“Close and bar the door! None must be admitted without the King’s special order!”
The spectacle of a well-mounted sepoy officer, blood-stained and travel-worn, who arrived in such desperate haste and was evidently pursued by a body of horse, so startled the attendants that they banged and bolted the great door without further ado.
Already the story was going the rounds that the precious life of Bahadur Shah had actually been threatened by the overbearing sepoys—what more likely than that this hard-riding officer was coming to apprise his majesty of a genuine plot, while the flying squadron in the rear was striving to cut him down before the fateful message was delivered?
Not to create too great a stir, Malcolm pulled up both horses at the entrance to the arcade.
He called a chaprassi and bade him hold Chumru’s steed. Then, learning from the uproar at the gate that the guards were obeying his instructions literally, he went on at an easier pace.
The palace was humming with excitement. Its numerous buildings housed a multitude of court nobles and other hangers-on to the court, and each of these had his special coterie of attendants who helped to advance their own fortunes by clinging to their master’s skirts. The jealousies and intrigues that surround a throne were never more in evidence than at Delhi during the last hours of the Great Mogul. Already men were preparing for the final catastrophe. While the ignorant mob was firm in its belief that the rule ofthe sahib had passed forever, those few clearer-headed persons who possessed any claim to the title of statesmen were convinced that the Mutiny had failed.
Nearly four months were sped since that fatal Sunday when the rebellion broke out at Meerut. And what had been achieved? Delhi, the pivot of Mohammedan hopes, was crowded with a licentious soldiery, who obeyed only those leaders that pandered to them, who fought only when some perfervid moullah aroused their worst passions by his eloquence, and who were terrible only to peaceful citizens. All public credit was destroyed. The rule of the King, nominal within the walls of his own palace, was laughed at in the city and ignored beyond its walls. The provincial satraps and feudatory princes who should be striving to help their sovereign were wholly devoted to the more congenial task of carving out kingdoms for themselves.
Nana Sahib, rehabilitated in Oudh, was opposing Havelock’s advance; Khan Bahadur Khan, an ex-pensioner of the Company, had set up a barbarous despotism at Bareilly; the Moulvie of Fyzabad, intent on the destruction of the Residency, meant to establish himself there as “King of Hindustan” if only that stubborn entrenchment could be carried; Mahudi Husain, Gaffur Beg, Kunwer Singh, the Ranee of Jhansi, and a host of other prominent rebels scattered throughout Oudh, Bengal, the Northwest Provinces and Central India, cared less for Delhi than for their own private affairs, and were consequently permitting the Britishto gather forces by which they could be destroyed piecemeal.
From Nepaul, the great border state, lying behind the pestilential jungle of the Terai, came an army of nine thousand Ghoorkahs to help the British. At Hyderabad, the most powerful Mohammedan principality in India, the Nizam and his famous minister, Sir Salar Jung, crushed a Jehad with cannon and grape-shot. In a word, the orgy had ended, and the day of reckoning was near.
Malcolm, therefore, was confronted with two separate and hostile sets of conditions. On the one hand, he was threading his way through a maze of conflicting interests, and this was a circumstance most favorable to his chances of escape; on the other, every man regarded his neighbor with distrust and a stranger with positive suspicion, while Malcolm’s distinguished appearance could not fail to draw many inquiring eyes.
He crossed the large garden beyond the arcade and was making for an arch that gave access to the long covered passage leading to the Delhi Gate, when he saw Akhab Khan standing there.
The rebel leader was deep in converse with a richly-attired personage whom Frank discovered afterwards to be the Vizier. Near Akhab Khan an escort of sowars stood by their horses, and Malcolm felt that the instant the former lance-corporal set eyes on either Nejdi or himself recognition would follow as surely as a vulture knows its prey.
He could neither dawdle nor hesitate. Wheeling Nejdi towards the nearest arch on the left, he found himself in an open space between the walls of the fortress and the outer line of buildings. Underneath the broad terrace, from which troops could defend the battlements, stood a row of storerooms and go-downs. At a little distance he could distinguish a line of stables, and the mere sight sent the blood dancing through his veins.
If only he could evade capture until nightfall he would no longer feel that each moment might find him making a last fight against impossible odds. Dismounting, he led Nejdi to an unoccupied stall. As there was nothing to be gained by half measures he removed saddle and bridle, hung them on a peg, put a halter on the Arab, adjusted the heel-ropes, and hunted the adjoining stalls for forage.
He came upon some gram in a sack and a quantity of hay. All provender was alike to Nejdi so long as it was toothsome. He was soon busily engaged, and Malcolm resolved to avoid observation by grooming him when any one passed whose gaze might be too inquisitive.
He took care that sword and revolvers were handy. It was hard to tell what hue and cry might be raised by the troopers against whom the guards had closed the Lahore Gate. Perhaps they were searching for two men and the finding of one horse in charge of a chaprassi might suggest that the rider of the other and his companion had dodged through the DelhiGate. Again, his pursuers might have galloped straight to the other exit and thus made certain that he was still in the palace. If that were so and they ferreted him out, as well die here as elsewhere. Meanwhile, he chewed philosophically at a few grains of the gram, and awaited the outcome of events that were now beyond his control.
A wild swirl of wind and rain seemed to favor him. There was not much traffic past his retreat, and that little ceased when a deluge lashed the dry earth and clouds of vapor rose as though the water were beating on an oven. Now and again a syce hurried past, with head and shoulders enveloped in a sack. Once a party of sepoys trudged through the mud, towards the water bastion of the palace, and the men whom they had relieved came back the same way a few minutes later.
Nejdi had seldom been groomed so vigorously as during the passing of these detachments, but no one gave the slightest heed to the cavalry officer who was engaged on such an unusual task. If they noticed him at all it was to wonder that he could be such a fool as to work when there were hundreds of loafers in the city who could be kicked to the job.
The rain storm changed into a steady drizzle and the increasing gloom promised complete darkness within half an hour. Malcolm was beginning to plan his movements when he became aware of a man wrapped in a heavy cloak who approached from the direction of the arcade and peered into every nook and cranny.
“Now,” thought Frank, “comes my first real difficulty. That man is searching for some one. Whether or not he seeks me he is sure to speak, and if my presence has been reported he will recognize both Nejdi and me instantly. If so, I must strangle him with as little ceremony as possible.”
The newcomer came on. In the half light it was easy to see that he was not a soldier but a court official. Indeed, before the searcher’s glance rested on the gray Arab, munching contentedly in his stall, or the tall sowar who stood in obscurity near his head, Frank felt almost sure that he was face to face with the trusted confidant who had carried out Roshinara Begum’s behests in the garden at Bithoor.
That fact saved the native’s life. The Englishman would have killed him without compunction were it not for the belief that the man was actually looking for him and for none other, and with friendly intent, too, else he would have brought a bodyguard.
Sure enough, the stranger’s first words were of good import. He could not see clearly into the dark stable and it was necessary to measure one’s utterances in Delhi just then.
“If you are one who rode into Delhi this morning I would have speech with you,” he muttered softly.
“Say on,” said Malcolm, gripping his sword.
“Nay, one does not give the Princess Roshinara’s instructions without knowing that they reach the ears they are meant for.”
The Englishman came out from the obscurity. Heapproached so quickly that the native started back, being far from prepared for Frank’s very convincing resemblance to a rissaldar of cavalry.
“I look for one—” he began, but Frank had no mind to lose time.
“For Malcolm-sahib?” he demanded.
“It might be some such name,” was the hesitating answer.
“I am he. I saw thee last at Bithoor, when I escaped with Mayne-sahib and the missy-baba.”[23]
“By Mohammed! I would not have known you, sahib, though now I remember your face. Come with me, and quickly. Each moment here means danger.”
“Ay, for thee. I am not one to be tricked so easily.”
“Huzoor, have I not sought you without arms or escort? I and another have searched the palace these two hours. Leave your horse. I will have him tended. Come, sahib, I pray you. The Begum awaits you, but there are so many who know of your presence that I shall not be able to save you if you fall into their hands.”
These were fair-seeming words with the ring of truth about them. At any rate Malcolm’s whereabouts were no longer a secret, and it would not be war but murder to offer violence to one who came with good intent on his lips if not in his heart.
“Lead on,” said Frank, sternly, “and remember that I shall not hesitate to strike at the first sign of treachery.”
“I shall not betray you, sahib, but you must converse with me as we walk and not draw too many eyes by holding a naked sword.”
This was so manifestly reasonable that Malcolm felt rather ashamed of his doubts. Yet, he thought it best not to appear to relax his precautions.
“I would not pass through the palace with a sword in my hand,” he said with a quiet laugh, “but I have a pistol in my belt, and that will suffice for six men.”
His guide set off at a rapid pace. When they were near the great arch leading into the garden they halted in front of a small door in a dimly-lighted building, and the native rapped twice with his knuckles on three separate panels. Some bolts were drawn and the two were admitted, the door being instantly barred behind them by an attendant. The darkness in the passage was impenetrable. Frank held himself tensely, but his companion’s voice reached him from a little distance in front, while he heard other bolts being drawn.
“You will see your way more clearly now,” was the reassuring message, and when the second door was opened the rays of a lamp lit the stone walls and floor. They went on, through lofty corridors, across sequestered gardens and by way of many a stately chamber until another narrow passage terminated in a barred door, guarded by an armed native. The man’s shrill voice betokened his calling, and Frank knew that he was standing at the entrance to the zenana.
“There is one other within,” said the guard, leering at them.
“Who is it, slave?” asked Frank’s guide scornfully, for he was annoyed by the eunuch’s familiar tone.
“Nay, I obey orders,” was the tart response. “Enter, then, and may Allah prosper you.”
There was a hint of danger in the otherwise excellent wish, but the man unlocked the door, and they passed within.
Frank’s wondering eyes rested on a scene of fairy-like beauty, so exquisite in its colorings and so unexpected withal, that not even his desperate predicament could repress for an instant the feeling of astonishment that overwhelmed him. He was standing in a white marble chamber, pillared and roofed in the Byzantine style, while every shaft and arch was chiseled into graceful lines and adorned with traceries or carved festoons of fruit and flowers. The walls were brightened with mosaics wrought in precious stones. Texts from the Koran in the flowing Persi-Arabic script, ran above the arches. In the floor, composed of colored tiles, was set apachisi[24]board, as the wide entrance hall to a European house might have a chess-board incorporated with the design of the tiled floor.
Not a garish tint or inharmonious line interfered with the chaste elegance of the white marble, and the whole apartment, which seemed to be the ante-room of the ladies’ quarters, was lighted with Moorish lamps.
Malcolm took in some of these details in one amazed glance, but his thoughts were recalled sternly to the affairs of the moment by hearing the ring of spurred heels on the sharp-sounding pavement from behind a curtained arch. There was no time to retreat nor cross towards an alcove that promised some slight screen from the soft and penetrating light that filled the room. He saw that his guide was perturbed, but he asked no question. With the quick military tread came the frou-frou of silk and the footfall of slippered feet. Then the curtain was drawn aside and Akhab Khan entered, followed by the Princess Roshinara.
Malcolm had the advantage of a few seconds’ warning. Even as Akhab Khan placed his hand on the curtain the Englishman sprang forward, and the astounded sowar, now a brigadier in the rebel forces, found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver.
“Do not move till I bid you, Akhab Khan,” said Malcolm, in his self-contained way. “I am summoned hither, so I come, but it may be necessary to secure a hostage for my safe conduct outside the walls again.”
“You! Malcolm-sahib!” was Akhab Khan’s involuntary outburst.
“Yes, even I. Have you not heard, then, that I rode into the palace to-day?”
“There was a report that some Feringhis—some sahibs—were in the city as spies—”
“Malcolm-sahib is here because I sent for him,” broke in Roshinara.
“You—sentfor him!”
Akhab Khan’s swarthy features paled, and his eyes sparkled wrathfully. Heedless of Malcolm’s implied threat, or perhaps ignoring it, he wheeled round on the Princess, and his right hand crossed to his sword-hilt.
“If you so much as turn your head again or lift a hand without my order, I blow your brains out,” said Malcolm in the same unemotional tone.
“Nay, let him attack a woman if it pleaseth him,” cried Roshinara, who had not drawn back one inch from the place where she was standing when Malcolm confronted Akhab Khan and herself. “That is what our troops, officers and men alike, are best fitted for. They love to swagger in the bazaar, but their valor flies when they see the Ridge.”
Again quite indifferent to the fact that Malcolm’s finger was on the trigger, the rebel leader threw out his hands towards the Begum in a gesture of agonized protest.
“Do you not trust me, my heart?” he murmured. “If you knew of this Nazarene’s presence why was I not told?”
“Because I wished to save you in spite of yourself. Because I would mourn you if you fell in battle as befits a warrior and the man whom I love, but I would not have you die on the scaffold, as most of the others will die ere another month be sped. What hope have we of success? If forty thousand sepoys cannot overcome the three thousand English on the Ridge, how shall they prevail against the force that is now preparingto storm Delhi? I sent for Malcolm-sahib that I might obtain terms for my father and for thee, Akhab Khan. This man is now in our power. Let us bargain with him. If he goes free to-day, let him promise that we shall be spared when the gallows is busy in front of our palace.”
Each word of this impassioned speech was a revelation to Malcolm. Here was the fiery beauty of the Mogul court pleading for the lives of her father and lover, pleading to him, a solitary Briton in the midst of thousands of mutineers, a prisoner in their stronghold, a spy whose life was forfeit by the laws of war. Hardly less bewildering than this turn of fortune’s wheel was the whirligig that promoted a poor trooper of the Company to the position of accepted suitor for the hand of a royal maiden. Never could there be a more complete unveiling of the Eastern mind, with all its fatalism, its strange weaknesses, its uncontrollable passions.
Akhab Khan stretched out his arms again.
“Forgive me, my soul, if I did doubt thee,” he almost sobbed.
The girl was the first to recover her self-control.
“Put away your pistol,” she said, fixing her fine eyes on Malcolm, with a softness in their limpid depths that he had never seen there before. “If we can contrive, my plighted husband and I, you will not need it to-night. I was rejoiced to hear that you were within our gates. We are beaten. I know it. We have lost a kingdom, because wretches like NanaDundhu Punt of Bithoor, have forgotten their oaths and preferred drunken revels to empire. Were they of my mind, were they as loyal and honorable as the man I hope to marry, we would have driven you and yours into the sea, Malcolm-sahib. But Allah willed otherwise and we can only bow to his decree. It is Kismet. I am content. Say, then, if you are sent in safety to your camp, do you in return guarantee the two lives I ask of you?”
Malcolm could not help looking at Akhab Khan before he answered. The handsome young soldier had folded his arms, and his eyes dwelt on Roshinara’s animated face with a sad fixity that bespoke at once his love and his despair.
Then the Englishman placed the revolver in his belt and bowed low before the woman who reposed such confidence in him.
“If the issue rested with me, Princess,” he said, “you need have no fear for the future. I am only a poor officer and I have small influence. Yet I promise that such power as I possess shall be exerted in your behalf, and I would remind you that we English neither make war on woman nor treat honorable enemies as felons.”
“My father is a feeble old man,” she cried vehemently. “It was not by his command that your people were slain. And Akhab Khan has never drawn his sword save in fair fight.”
“I can vouch for Akhab Khan’s treatment of those who were at his mercy,” said Malcolm, generously.
“Nay, sahib, you repaid me that night,” said the other, not to be outdone in this exchange of compliments. “But if I have the happiness to find such favor with my lady that she plots to save me against my will I cannot forget that I lead some thousands of sepoys who have faith in me. You have been examining our defenses all day. Sooner would I fall on my sword here and now than that I should connive at the giving of information to an enemy which should lead to the destruction of my men.”
Malcolm had foreseen this pitfall in the smooth road that was seemingly opening before him.
“I would prefer to become the bearer of terms than of information,” he said.
“Terms? What terms? How many hands in this city are free of innocent blood? Were I or any other to propose a surrender we should be torn limb from limb.”
“Then I must tell you that I cannot accept your help at the price of silence. When I undertook this mission I knew its penalties. I am still prepared to abide by them. Let me remind you that it is I, not you, who can impose conditions within these four walls.”
Akhab Khan paled again. His was the temperament that shows anger by the token which reveals cowardice in some men; it is well to beware of him who enters a fight with bloodless cheeks and gray lips. But Roshinara sprang between them with an eager cry:
“What folly is this that exhausts itself on a point of honor? Does not every spy who brings us details of each gun and picket on the Ridge tell the sahib-log allthat they wish to know of our strength and our dissensions? Will not the man who warned us of the presence of an officer-sahib in our midst to-day go back and sell the news of a sepoy regiment’s threat to murder the King? Have done with these idle words—let us to acts! Nawab-ji!”
“Heaven-born!” Malcolm’s guide advanced with a deep salaam.
“See to it that my orders are carried out. Mayhap thine own head may rest easier on its shoulders if there is no mischance.”
The nawab-ji bowed again, and assured the Presence that there would be no lapse on his part. Akhab Khan had turned away. His attitude betokened utter dejection, but the Princess, not the first of her sex to barter ambition for love, was radiant with hope.
“Go, Malcolm-sahib,” she whispered, “and may Allah guard you on the way!”
“I have one favor to ask,” he said. “My devoted servant, a man named Chumru—”
She smiled with the air of a woman who breathes freely once more after passing through some grave peril.
“How, then, do you think I found out the identity of the English officer who had dared to enter Delhi?” she asked. “Your man came to me, not without difficulty, and told me you were here. It was he who inspired me with the thought that your presence might be turned to good account. But go, and quickly. He is safe.”
Frank hardly knew how to bid her farewell until he remembered that, if of royal birth, Princess Roshinarawas also a beautiful woman. He took her hand and raised it to his lips, a most unusual proceeding in the East, but the tribute of respect seemed to please her.
Following the nawab he traversed many corridors and chambers and ultimately reached an apartment in which Chumru was seated. That excellent bearer was smoking a hookah, with a couple of palace servants, and doubtless exchanging spicy gossip with the freedom of Eastern manners and conversation.
“Shabash!” he cried when his crooked gaze fell on Malcolm. “By the tomb of Nizam-ud-din, there are times when women are useful.”
They were let down from a window on the river face of the palace and taken by a boat to the bank of the Jumna above Ludlow Castle, while the nawab undertook to deliver their horses next day at the camp. He carried out his promise to the letter, nor did he forget to put forth a plea in his own behalf against the hour when British bayonets would be probing the recesses of the fort and its occupants.
When Nicholson came out of the mess after supper he found Malcolm waiting for an audience. Chumru, still wearing the servant’s livery in which the famous brigadier had last seen him, was squatting on the ground near his master. The general was not apt to waste time in talk, and he had a singular knack of reading men’s thoughts by a look.
“Glad to see you back again, Major Malcolm,” he cried. “I hope you were successful?”
“It is for you to decide, sir, when you have heardmy story,” and without further preamble Frank gave a clear narrative of his adventures since dawn. Not a word did he say about the very things he had been sent to report on, and Nicholson understood that a direct order alone would unlock his lips. When Frank ended the general frowned and was silent. In those days men did not hold honor lightly, and Nicholson was a fine type of soldier and gentleman.
“Confound it!” he growled, “this is awkward, very awkward,” and Malcolm felt bitterly that the extraordinary turn taken by events in the palace was in a fair way towards depriving his superiors of the facts they were so anxious to learn. Suddenly the big man’s deep eyes fell on Chumru.
“Here, you,” he growled, “was aught said to thee whereby thou hast a scruple to tell me how many guns defend the Cashmere Gate?”
“Huzoor,” said Chumru, “there are but two things that concern me, my master’s safety and the size of that jaghir your honor promised me.”
Nicholson laughed with an almost boyish mirth.
“By gad,” he cried, “you are fortunate in your friends, Malcolm.” Then he turned to Chumru again. “The jaghir is of no mean size,” he said, “but I shall see to it that a field is added for every useful fact you make known.”
Frank listened to his servant’s enumeration of the guns and troops at the Lahore, Mori, and Cashmere Gates, and he was surprised at the accuracy of Chumru’s mental note-taking.
“I need not have gone at all, sir,” he could not help commenting when the bearer had answered Nicholson’s final question. “I seem to have a Napoleon for a valet.”
The brigadier laid a kindly hand on Frank’s shoulder.
“You forget that you have brought me the most important news of all,” he said. “The enemy is defeated before the first ladder is planted against their walls. They know it, and, thanks to you, now we know it. My only remaining difficulty is not to take Delhi, but to screw up our Chief to make the effort.”
Then his voice sank to a deep growl.
“But I’ll bring him to reason, I will, by Heaven, even if I risk being cashiered for insubordination!”