Explosions are among the few things—or the many things, whichever way you like to look at it!—that science can not undertake to harness or account for. When a gun blows up, or a powder-magazine, the shock kills whom it kills, as when a shell bursts in a dense-packed firing-line. You can not kill any man before his time comes, even if a thousand tons of solid masonry combine with you to whelm him, and go hurtling through the air with him to absolutely obvious destruction.
The fakir's time had come, and the prisoners' time had come. But Sergeant William Brown's had not.
They found him, blackened by powder, and with every stitch of clothing blown from him, clinging to a bunch of lotus-stems in a temple-pond. There was a piece of fakir in the water with him, and about a ton of broken granary, besides the remnants of a rifle and other proof that he had come belched out of a holocaust. The men who came on him had given their officer the slip, and were bent on a private looting-expedition of their own. But by the time that they had dragged him from the water, and he had looted them of wherewithal to clothe himself, their thoughts of plunder had departed from them. Brown had a way of quite monopolizing people's thoughts!
There were twenty of them, and he led them all that night, and all through the morning and the afternoon that followed. He held them together and worked them and wheeled them and coached and cheered and compelled them through the hell-tumult of the ghastliest thing there is beneath the dome of heaven—house-to-house fighting in an Eastern city. And at the end of it, when the bugles blew at last “Cease fire,” and many of the men were marched away by companies to put out the conflagrations that were blazing here and there, he led them outside the city-wall, stood them at ease in their own line and saluted their commanding-officer.
“Twenty men of yours, sir. Present and correct.”
“Which twenty?”
“Of Mr. Blair's half-company.”
“Where's Mr. Blair?”
“Dunno, sir!”
“Since when have you had charge of them?”
“Since they broke into the city yesterday, sir.”
“And you haven't lost a man?”
“Had lots of luck, sir!”
“Who are you, anyway?”
“I'm Sergeant Brown, sir.”
“Of the Rifles?”
“Of the Rifles, sir.”
“Were you the man who signaled to us from the magazine and blew it up and made the breach in the wall for us to enter by?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you alive, or dead? Man or ghost?”
“I'm pretty much alive, sir, thank you!”
“D'you realize that you made the taking of Jailpore possible? That but for you we'd have been trying still to storm the walls without artillery?”
“I had the chance, sir, and I only did what any other man would ha' done under like circumstances.”
“Go and tell that to the Horse Marines—or, rather, tell it to Colonel Kendrick! Go and report to him at once. Possibly he'll see it through your eyes!”
So Brown marched off to report himself, and he found Colonel Kendrick nursing a badly wounded arm before a torn and mud-stained tent.
“Who are you?” said the colonel, as Brown saluted him.
“I'm Sergeant Brown, sir.”
“Not Bill Brown of the Rifles?”
“Yes, sir!”
“You lie! He was blown up on the roof of the powder-magazine! I suppose every man who's gone mad from the heat will be saying that he's Brown!”
“I'm Brown, sir! I had written orders from General Baines to enter Jailpore and rescue three women and a child.”
“Where are your orders?”
“Lost 'em, sir, in the explosion.”
“For a madman, you're a circumstantial liar! What happened to the women?”
The colonel sat back, and smothered an exclamation of agony as the nerves in his injured arm tortured him afresh. He had asked a question which should settle once and for all this man's pretentions, and he waited for the answer with an air of certainty. It was on his lips to call the guard to take the lunatic away.
“Juggut Khan, the Rajput, took them, with nine of my men, and brought them in to your camp last night, sir. I naturally haven't seen them since.”
“Will the women know you?”
“One of them will, sir.”
“Which one?”
“Jane Emmett, sir.”
“Well, we'll see!”
The colonel called an orderly, and sent the orderly running for Jane Emmett. A minute later two strong arms were thrown round Bill Brown from behind, and he was all but carried off his feet.
“Oh, Bill—Bill—Bill! I knew you'd be all right! Turn round, Bill! Look at me!”
She was clinging to him in such a manner that he could not turn, but he managed to pry her hands loose, and to draw her round in front of him.
“I knew, Bill! I felt sure you'd come! And I recognized your voice the minute that the trapdoor opened and I heard it! I did, Bill! I knew you in a minute! I didn't worry then! I knew you wouldn't come and talk to me as long as there was any duty to be done. I just waited! They said you were killed in the explosion, but I knew you weren't! I knew it! I did! I knew it!”
“Face me, please!” said Colonel Kendrick. “Now, Jane Emmett, is that man Sergeant William Brown, of the Rifles?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is he the man who entered Jailpore with nine men and a Rajput, and came to your assistance?”
“Yes, sir! He's the same man who spoke in the powder-magazine;”
“Do you confirm that?” he asked Brown.
“Under favor, sir, my men must be somewhere, if they're not all killed. They'll recognize me. And there's the other lot I led all last night and all today. They'll tell you where they found me!”
“Never mind! I've decided I believe you! D'you realize that you're something of a marvel?”
“No, sir—except that I've had marvelous luck!”
“Well, I shall take great pleasure in mentioning your name in despatches. It will go direct, at first hand, to Her Majesty the Queen! There are few men, let me tell you, Sergeant Brown, who would dare what you dared in the first place. But, more than that, there are even fewer men who would leave a sweetheart in some one else's care while they blew up a powder-magazine with themselves on top of it, in order to make a breach for the army to come in by! My right hand's out of action unfortunately—you'll have to shake my left!”
The colonel rose, held his uninjured hand out and Brown shook it, since he was ordered to.
“I consider it an honor and a privilege to have shaken hands with you, Sergeant Brown!” said Colonel Kendrick.
“Thank you, sir!” said Brown, taking one step back, and then saluting. “May I join my regiment, sir?”
He joined his regiment, when he had helped to sort out the bleeding remnants of it from among the by-ways and back alleys of Jailpore. And the chaplain married him and Jane Emmett out of hand. He sent her off at once with her former mistress to the coast, and marched off with his regiment to Delphi. And at Delphi his name was once more mentioned in despatches.
When the Mutiny was over, and the country had settled down again to peace and reincarnation of a nation had begun, Brown found himself hoisted to a civil appointment that was greater and more highly paid than anything his modest soul had ever dreamed of.
He never understood the reason for it, although he did his fighting-best consistently to fill the job; and he never understood why Queen Victoria should have taken the trouble to write a letter to him in which she thanked him personally, nor why they should have singled out for praise and special notice a fellow who had merely done his duty.
Perhaps that was the reason why he was such a conspicuous success in civil life. They still talk of how Bill Brown, with Jane his wife and Juggut Khan the Rajput to advise him, was Resident Political Adviser to a Maharajah, and of how the Maharajah loathed him, and looked sidewise at him—but obeyed. That, though, is not a war-story. It is a story of the saving of a war, and shall go on record, some day, beneath a title of its own.
To the northward of Hanadra, blue in the sweltering heat-haze, lay Siroeh, walled in with sun-baked mud and listless. Through a wooden gate at one end of the village filed a string of women with their water-pots. Oxen, tethered underneath the thatched eaves or by the thirsty-looking trees, lay chewing the cud, almost too lazy to flick the flies away. Even the village goats seemed overcome with lassitude. Here and there a pariah dog sneaked in and out among the shadows or lay and licked his sores beside an offal-heap; but there seemed to be no energy in anything. The bone-dry, hot-weather wind had shriveled up verdure and ambition together.
But in the mud-walled cottages, where men were wont to doze through the long, hot days, there were murmurings and restless movement. Men lay on thong-strung beds, and talked instead of dreaming, and the women listened and said nothing—which is the reverse of custom. Hanadra was what it always had been, thatched, sun-baked lassitude; but underneath the thatch there thrummed a beehive atmosphere of tension.
In the center of the village, where the one main road that led from the main gate came to an abrupt end at a low mud wall, stood a house that was larger than the others and somewhat more neatly kept; there had been an effort made at sweeping the enclosure that surrounded it on all four sides, and there was even whitewash, peeling off in places but still comparatively white, smeared on the sun-cracked walls.
Here, besides murmurings and movement, there was evidence of real activity. Tethered against the wall on one side of the house stood a row of horses, saddled and bridled and bearing evidence of having traveled through the heat; through the open doorway the sunshine glinted on a sword-hilt and amid the sound of many voices rang the jingling of a spur as some one sat cornerwise on a wooden table and struck his toe restlessly against the leg.
Another string of women started for the water-hole, with their picturesque brass jars perched at varying angles on their heads; and as each one passed the doorway of this larger house she turned and scowled. A Rajput, lean and black-bearded and swaggering, came to the door and watched them, standing proudly with his arms folded across his breast. As the last woman showed her teeth at him, he laughed aloud.
“Nay!” said a voice inside. “Have done with that! Is noticing the Hindu women fit sport for a Rajput?”
The youngster turned and faced the old, black-bearded veteran who spoke.
“If I had my way,” he answered, “I would ride roughshod through this village, and fire the thatch. They fail to realize the honor that we pay them by a visit!”
“Aye, hothead! And burn thy brother's barn with what is in it! The Hindus here are many, and we are few, and there will be burnings and saberings a-plenty before a week is past, if I read the signs aright! Once before have I heard such murmurings. Once before I have seen chupatties sent from house to house at sunset—and that time blood ran red along the roadside for a month to follow! Keep thy sword sharp a while and wait the day!”
“But why,” growled another deep-throated Rajput voice, “does the Sirkar wait? Why not smite first and swiftly?”
Mahommed Khan moved restlessly and ran his fingers through his beard.
“I know not!” he answered. “In the days when I was Risaldar in the Rajput Horse, and Bellairs sahib was colonel, things were different! But we conquered, and after conquest came security. The English have grown overconfident; they think that Mussulman will always war with Hindu, the one betraying the other; they will not understand that this lies deeper than jealousy—they will not listen! Six months ago I rode to Jundhra and whispered to the general sahib what I thought; but he laughed back at me. He said 'Wolf! wolf!' to me and drew me inside his bungalow and bade me eat my fill.”
“Well—what matters it! This land has always been the playground of new conquerors!”
“There will be no new conquerors,” growled the old Risaldar, “so long as I and mine have swords to wield for the Raj!”
“But what have the English done for thee or us?”
“This, forgetful one! They have treated us with honor, as surely no other conquerors had done! At thy age, I too measured my happiness in cattle and coin and women, but then came Bellairs sahib, and raised the Rajput Horse, and I enlisted. What came of that was better than all the wealth of Ind!”
He spread his long legs like a pair of scissors and caught a child between them and lifted him.
“Thou ruffian, thou!” he chuckled. “See how he fights! A true Rajput! Nay, beat me not. Some day thou too shalt bear a sword for England, great-grandson mine. Ai-ee! But I grow old.”
“For England or the next one!”
“Nay! But for England!” said the Risaldar, setting the child down on his knee. “And thou too, hot-head. Before a week is past! Think you I called my sons and grandsons all together for the fun of it? Think you I rode here through the heat because I needed the exercise or to chatter like an ape or to stand in the doorway making faces at a Hindu woman or to watch thee do it? Here I am, and here I stay until yet more news comes!”
“Then are we to wait here? Are we to swelter in Siroeh, eating up our brother's hospitality, until thy messengers see fit to come and tell us that this scare of thine is past?”
“Nay!” said the Risaldar. “I said that I wait here! Return now to your own homes, each of you. But be in readiness. I am old, but I can ride still. I can round you up. Has any a better horse than mine? If he has, let him make exchange.”
“There will be horses for the looting if this revolt of thine breaks out!”
“True! There will be horses for the looting! Well, I wait here then and, when the trouble comes, I can count on thirteen of my blood to carry swords behind me?”
“Aye, when the trouble comes!”
There was a chorus of assent, and the Risaldar arose to let his sons and grandsons file past him. He, who had beggared himself to give each one of them a start in life, felt a little chagrined that they should now refuse to exchange horses with him; but his eye glistened none the less at the sight of their stalwart frames and at the thought of what a fighting unit he could bring to serve the Raj.
“All, then, for England!” he exclaimed.
“Nay, all for thee!” said his eldest-born. “We fight on whichever side thou sayest!”
“Disloyal one!” growled the Risaldar with a scowl. But he grinned into his beard.
“Well, to your homes, then—but be ready!”
The midnight jackals howled their discontent while heat-cracked India writhed in stuffy torment that was only one degree less than unendurable. Through the stillness and the blackness of the night came every now and then the high-pitched undulating wails of women, that no one answered-for, under that Tophet-lid of blackness, punctured by the low-hung, steel-white stars, men neither knew nor cared whose child had died. Life and hell-hot torture and indifference—all three were one.
There was no moon, nothing to make the inferno visible, except that here and there an oil lamp on some housetop glowed like a blood-spot against the blackness. It was a sensation, rather than sight or sound, that betrayed the neighborhood of thousands upon thousands of human beings, sprawling, writhing, twisting upon the roofs, in restless suffering.
There was no pity in the dry, black vault of heaven, nor in the bone-dry earth, nor in the hearts of men, during that hot weather of '57. Men waited for the threatened wrath to come and writhed and held their tongues. And while they waited in sullen Asiatic patience, through the restless silence and the smell—the suffocating, spice-fed, filth-begotten smell of India—there ran an undercurrent of even deeper mystery than India had ever known.
Priest-ridden Hanadra, that had seen the downfall of a hundred kings, watched through heat-wearied eyes for another whelming the blood-soaked, sudden flood that was to burst the dam of servitude and rid India of her latest horde of conquerors. But eight hundred yards from where her high brick walls lifted their age-scars in the stifling reek, gun-chains jingled in a courtyard, and, sharp-clicking on age-old flagstones, rose the ring of horses' feet.
Section Number One of a troop of Bengal Horse Artillery was waiting under arms. Sabered and grim and ready stood fifty of the finest men that England could produce, each man at his horse's head; and blacker even than the night loomed the long twelve-pounders, in tow behind their limbers. Sometimes a trace-chain jingled as a wheel-horse twitched his flank; and sometimes a man spoke in a low voice, or a horse stamped on the pavement; but they seemed like black graven images of war-gods, half-smothered in the reeking darkness. And above them, from a window that overlooked the courtyard, shone a solitary lamp that glistened here and there upon the sleek black guns and flickered on the saber-hilts, and deepened the already dead-black atmosphere of mystery.
From the room above, where the lamp shone behind gauze curtains came the sound of voices; and in the deepest, death-darkest shadow of the door below there stood a man on guard whose fingers clutched his sword-hilt and whose breath came heavily. He stood motionless, save for his heaving breast; between his fierce, black mustache and his up-brushed, two-pointed beard, his white teeth showed through parted lips. But he gave no other sign that he was not some Rajput princeling's image carved out of the night.
He was an old man, though, for all his straight back and military carriage. The night concealed his shabbiness; but it failed to hide the medals on his breast, one bronze, one silver, that told of campaigns already a generation gone. And his patience was another sign of age; a younger man of his blood and training would have been pacing to and fro instead of standing still.
He stood still even when footsteps resounded on the winding stair above and a saber-ferrule clanked from step to step. The gunners heard and stood squarely to their horses. There was a rustling and a sound of shifting feet, and, a “Whoa,—you!” to an irritated horse; but the Rajput stayed motionless until the footsteps reached the door. Then he took one step forward, faced about and saluted.
“Salaam, Bellairs sahib!” boomed his deep-throated voice, and Lieutenant Bellairs stepped back with a start into the doorway again—one hand on his sword-hilt. The Indian moved sidewise to where the lamplight from the room above could fall upon his face.
“Salaam, Bellairs sahib!” he boomed again.
Then the lieutenant recognized him.
“You, Mahommed Khan!” he exclaimed. “You old war-dog, what brought you here? Heavens, how you startled me! What good wind brought you?”
“Nay! It seems it was an ill wind, sahib!”
“What ill wind? I'm glad to see you!”
“The breath of rumor, sahib!”
“What rumor brought you?”
“Where a man's honor lies, there is he, in the hour of danger! Is all well with the Raj, sahib?”
“With the Raj? How d'you mean, Risaldar?”
Mahommed Khan pointed to the waiting guns and smiled.
“In my days, sahib,” he answered, “men seldom exercised the guns at night!”
“I received orders more than three hours ago to bring my section in to Jundhra immediately—immediately—and not a word of explanation!”
“Orders, sahib? And you wait?”
“They seem to have forgotten that I'm married, and by the same token, so do you! What else could I do but wait? My wife can't ride with the section; she isn't strong enough, for one thing; and besides, there's no knowing what this order means; there might be trouble to face of some kind. I've sent into Hanadra to try to drum up an escort for her and I'm waiting here until it comes.”
The Risaldar stroked at his beard reflectively.
“We of the service, sahib,” he answered, “obey orders at the gallop when they come. When orders come to ride, we ride!”'
Bellairs winced at the thrust.
“That's all very fine, Risaldar. But how about my wife? What's going to happen to her, if I leave her here alone and unprotected?”
“Or to me, sahib? Is my sword-arm withered? Is my saber rusted home?”
“You, old friend! D'you mean to tell me—”
The Risaldar saluted him again.
“Will you stay here and guard her?”
“Nay, sahib! Being not so young as thou art, I know better!”
“What in Tophet do you mean, Mahommed Khan?”
“I mean, sahib,”—the Indian's voice was level and deep, but it vibrated strangely, and his eyes glowed as though war-lights were being born again behind them—“that not for nothing am I come! I heard what thy orders were and—”
“How did you hear what my orders were?”
“My half-brother came hurrying with the news, sahib. I hastened! My horse lies dead one kos from Hanadra here!”
The lieutenant laughed.
“At last, Mahommed? That poor old screw of yours? So he's dead at last, eh? So his time had come at last!”
“We be not all rich men who serve the Raj!” said the Risaldar with dignity. “Ay, sahib, his time was come! And when our time comes may thou and I, sahib, die as he did, with our harness on! What said thy orders, sahib? Haste? Then yonder lies the road, through the archway!”
“But, tell me, Risaldar, what brought you here in such a hurry?”
“A poor old screw, sahib, whose time was come—even as thou hast said!”
“Mahommed Khan, I'm sorry—very sorry, if I insulted you! I—I'm worried—I didn't stop to think. I—old friend, I—”
“It is forgotten, sahib!”
“Tell me—what are these rumors you have heard?”
“But one rumor, sahib-war! Uprising—revolution—treachery—all India waits the word to rise, sahib!”
“You mean—?”
“Mutiny among the troops, and revolution north, south, east and west!”
“Here, too, in Hanadra?”
“Here, too, in Hanadra, sahib! Here they will be among the first to rise!”
“Oh, come! I can't believe that! How was it that my orders said nothing of it then?”
“That, sahib, I know not—not having written out thy orders! I heard that thy orders came. I knew, as I have known this year past, what storm was brewing. I knew, too, that the heavenborn, thy wife, is here. I am thy servant, sahib, as I was thy father's servant—we serve one Queen; thy honor is my honor. Entrust thy memsahib to my keeping!”
“You will guard her?”
“I will bring her in to Jundhra!”
“You alone?”
“Nay, sahib! I, and my sons, and my sons' sons—thirteen men all told!”
“That is good of you, Mahommed Khan. Where are your sons?”
“Leagues from here, sahib. I must bring them. I need a horse.”
“And while you are gone?”
“My half-brother, sahib—he is here for no other purpose—he will answer to me for her safety!”
“All right, Mahommed Khan, and thank you! Take my second charger, if you care to; he is a little saddle-sore, but your light weight—”
“Sahib—listen! Between here and Siroeh, where my eldest-born and his three sons live, lie seven leagues. And on from there to Lungra, where the others live, are three more leagues. I need a horse this night!”
“What need of thirteen men, Mahommed? You are sufficient by yourself, unless a rebellion breaks out. If it did, why, you and thirteen others would be swamped as surely as you alone!”
“Thy father and I, sahib, rode through the guns at Dera thirteen strong! Alone, I am an old man—not without honor, but of little use; with twelve young blades behind me, though, these Hindu rabble—”
“Do you really mean, Mahommed Khan, that you think Hanadra here will rise?”
“The moment you are gone, sahib!”
“Then, that settles it! The memsahib rides with me!”
“Nay, listen, sahib! Of a truth, thou art a hot-head as thy father was before thee! Thus will it be better. If the heavenborn, thy wife, stays behind, these rabble here will think that the section rides out to exercise, because of the great heat of the sun by day; they will watch for its return, and wait for the parking of the guns before they put torch to the mine that they have laid!”
“The mine? D'you mean they've—”
“Who knows, sahib? But I speak in metaphor. When the guns are parked again and the horses stabled and the men asleep, the rabble, being many, might dare anything!”
“You mean, you think that they—”
“I mean, sahib, that they will take no chances while they think the guns are likely to return!”
“But, if I take the memsahib with me?”
“They will know then, sahib, that the trap is open and the bird flown! Know you how fast news travels? Faster than the guns, Sahib! There will be an ambuscade, from which neither man, nor gun, nor horse, nor memsahib will escape!”
“But if you follow later, it will mean the same thing! When they see you ride off on a spent horse, with twelve swords and the memsahib—d'you mean that they won't ambuscade you?”
“They might, sahib—and again, they might not! Thirteen men and a woman ride faster than a section of artillery, and ride where the guns would jam hub-high against a tree-trunk! And thy orders, sahib—are thy orders nothing?”
“Orders! Yes, confound it! But they know I'm married. They know—”
“Sahib, listen! When the news came to me I was at Siroeh, dangling a great-grandson on my knee. There were no orders, but it seemed the Raj had need of me. I rode! Thou, sahib, hast orders. I am here to guard thy wife—my honor is thy honor—take thou the guns. Yonder lies the road!”
The grim old warrior's voice thrilled with the throb of loyalty, as he stood erect and pointed to the shadowy archway through which the road wound to the plain beyond.
“Sahib, I taught thy father how to use his sword! I nursed thee when thou wert little. Would I give three false counsel now? Ride, sahib—ride!”
Bellairs turned away and looked at his charger, a big, brown Khaubuli stallion, named for the devil and true in temper and courage to his name; two men were holding him, ten paces off.
“Such a horse I need this night, Sahib! Thy second charger can keep pace with the guns!”
Bellairs gave a sudden order, and the men led the brute back into his stable.
“Change the saddle to my second charger!” he ordered.
Then he turned to the Risaldar again, with hand outstretched.
“I'm ashamed of myself, Mahommed Khan!” he said, with a vain attempt to smile. “I should have gone an hour ago! Please take my horse Shaitan, and make such disposition for my wife's safety as you see fit. Follow as and when you can; I trust you, and I shall be grateful to you whatever happens!”
“Well spoken, Sahib! I knew thou wert a man! We who serve the Raj have neither sons, nor wives, nor sweethearts! Allah guard you, Sahib! The section waits—and the Service can not wait!”
“One moment while I tell my wife!”
“Halt, Sahib! Thou hast said good-by a thousand times! A woman's tears—are they heart-meat for a soldier when the bits are champing? Nay! See, sahib; they bring thy second charger! Mount! I will bring thy wife to Jundhra for thee! The Service waits!”
The lieutenant turned and mounted.
“Very well, Mahommed Khan!” he said. “I know you're right! Section! Prepare to mount!” he roared, and the stirrups rang in answer to him. “Mount! Good-by, Mahommed Khan! Good luck to you! Section, right! Trot, march!”
With a crash and the clattering of iron shoes on stone the guns jingled off into the darkness, were swallowed by the gaping archway and rattled out on the plain.
The Risaldar stood grimly where he was until the last hoof-beat and bump of gun-wheel had died away into the distance; then he turned and climbed the winding stairway to the room where the lamp still shone through gauzy curtains.
On a dozen roof-tops, where men lay still and muttered, brown eyes followed the movements of the section and teeth that were betel-stained grinned hideously.
From a nearby temple, tight-packed between a hundred crowded houses, came a wailing, high-pitched solo sung to Siva—the Destroyer. And as it died down to a quavering finish it was followed by a ghoulish laugh that echoed and reechoed off the age-old city-wall.
Proud as a Royal Rajput—and there is nothing else on God's green earth that is even half as proud—true to his salt, and stout of heart even if he was trembling at the knees, Mahommed Khan, two-medal man and Risaldar, knocked twice on the door of Mrs. Lellairs' room, and entered.
And away in the distance rose the red reflection of a fire ten leagues away. The Mutiny of '57 had blazed out of sullen mystery already, the sepoys were burning their barracks half-way on the road to Jundhra!
And down below, to the shadow where the Risaldar had stood, crept a giant of a man who had no military bearing. He listened once, and sneaked into the deepest black within the doorway and crouched and waited.
Hanadra reeks of history, blood-soaked and mysterious. Temples piled on the site of olden temples; palaces where half-forgotten kings usurped the thrones of conquerors who came from God knows where to conquer older kings; roads built on the bones of conquered armies; houses and palaces and subterranean passages that no man living knows the end of and few even the beginning. Dark corridors and colonnades and hollow walls; roofs that have ears and peep-holes; floors that are undermined by secret stairs; trees that have swayed with the weight of rotting human skulls and have shimmered with the silken bannerets of emperors. Such is Hanadra, half-ruined, and surrounded by a wall that was age-old in the dawn of written history.
Even its environs are mysterious; outside the walls, there are carven, gloomy palaces that once re-echoed to the tinkle of stringed instruments and the love-songs of some sultan's favorite—now fallen into ruins, or rebuilt to stable horses or shelter guns and stores and men; but eloquent in all their new-smeared whitewash, or in crumbling decay, of long-since dead intrigue. No places, those, for strong men to live alone in, where night-breezes whisper through forgotten passages and dry teak planking recreaks to the memory of dead men's footsteps.
But strong men are not the only makings of an Empire, nor yet the only sufferers. Wherever the flag of England flies above a distant outpost or droops in the stagnant moisture of an Eastern swamp, there are the graves of England's women. The bones that quarreling jackals crunch among the tombstones—the peace along the clean-kept borderline—the pride of race and conquest and the cleaner pride of work well done, these are not man's only. Man does the work, but he is held to it and cheered on by the girl who loves him.
And so, above a stone-flagged courtyard, in a room that once had echoed to the laughter of a sultan's favorite, it happened that an English girl of twenty-one was pacing back and forth. Through the open curtained window she had seen her husband lead his command out through the echoing archway to the plain beyond; she had heard his boyish voice bark out the command and had listened to the rumble of the gun-wheels dying in the distance—for the last time possibly. She knew, as many an English girl has known, that she was alone, one white woman amid a swarm of sullen Aryans, and that she must follow along the road the guns had taken, served and protected by nothing more than low-caste natives.
And yet she was dry-eyed, and her chin was high; for they are a strange breed, these Anglo-Saxon women who follow the men they love to the lonely danger-zone. Ruth Bellairs could have felt no joy in her position; she had heard her husband growling his complaint at being forced to leave her, and she guessed what her danger was. Fear must have shrunk her heartbeats and loneliness have tried her courage. But there was an ayah in the room with her, a low-caste woman of the conquered race; and pride of country came to her assistance. She was firm-lipped and, to outward seeming, brave as she was beautiful.
Even when the door resounded twice to the sharp blow of a saber-hilt, and the ayah's pock-marked ebony took on a shade of gray, she stood like a queen with an army at her back and neither blanched nor trembled.
“Who is that, ayah?” she demanded.
The ayah shrank into herself and showed the whites of her eyes and grinned, as a pariah dog might show its teeth—afraid, but scenting carrion.
“Go and see!”
The ayah shuddered and collapsed, babbling incoherencies and calling on a horde of long-neglected gods to witness she was innocent. She clutched strangely at her breast and used only one hand to drag her shawl around her face. While she babbled she glanced wild-eyed around the long, low-ceilinged room. Ruth Bellairs looked down at her pityingly and went to the door herself and opened it.
“Salaam, memsahib!” boomed a deep voice from the darkness.
Ruth Bellairs started and the ayah screamed.
“Who are you? Enter—let me see you!”
A black beard and a turban and the figure of a man—and then white teeth and a saber-hilt and eyes that gleamed moved forward from the darkness.
“It is I, Mahommed Khan!” boomed the voice again, and the Risaldar stepped out into the lamplight and closed the door behind him. Then, with a courtly, long-discarded sweep of his right arm, he saluted.
“At the heavenborn's service!”
“Mahommed Khan! Thank God!”
The old man's shabbiness was very obvious as he faced her, with his back against the iron-studded door; but he stood erect as a man of thirty, and his medals and his sword-hilt and his silver scabbard-tip were bright.
“Tell me, Mahommed Khan, you have seen my husband?”
He bowed.
“You have spoken to him?”
The old man bowed again.
“He left you in my keeping, heavenborn. I am to bring you safe to Jundhra!”
She held her hand out and he took it like a cavalier, bending until he could touch her fingers with his lips.
“What is the meaning of this hurrying of the guns to Jundhra, Risaldar?”
“Who knows, memsahib! The orders of the Sirkar come, and we of the service must obey. I am thy servant and the Sirkar's!”
“You, old friend—that were servant, as you choose to call it, to my husband's father! I am a proud woman to have such friends at call!” She pointed to the ayah, recovering sulkily and rearranging the shawl about her shoulders. “That I call service, Risaldar. She cowers when a knock comes at the door! I need you, and you answer a hardly spoken prayer; what is friendship, if yours is not?”
The Risaldar bowed low again.
“I would speak with that ayah, heavenborn!” he muttered, almost into his beard. She could hardly catch the words.
“I can't get her to speak to me at all tonight, Mahommed Khan. She's terrified almost out of her life at something. But perhaps you can do better. Try. Do you want to question her alone?”
“By the heavenborn's favor, yes.”
Ruth walked down the room toward the window, drew the curtain back and leaned her head out where whatever breeze there was might fan her cheek. The Risaldar strode over to where the ayah cowered by an inner doorway.
“She-Hindu-dog!” he growled at her. “Mother of whelps! Louse-ridden scavenger of sweepings! What part hast thou in all this treachery? Speak!”
The ayah shrank away from him and tried to scream, but he gripped her by the throat and shook her.
“Speak!” he growled again.
But his ten iron fingers held her in a vise-like grip and she could not have answered him if she had tried to.
“O Risaldar!” called Ruth suddenly, with her head still out of the window. He released the ayah and let her tumble as she pleased into a heap.
“Heavenborn?”
“What is that red glow on the skyline over yonder?”
“A burning, heavenborn!”
“A burning? What burning? Funeral pyres? It's very big for funeral pyres!”
“Nay, heavenborn!”
“What, then?”
She was still unfrightened, unsuspicious of the untoward. The Risaldar's arrival on the scene had quite restored her confidence and she felt content to ride with him to Jundhra on the morrow.
“Barracks, heavenborn!”
“Barracks? What barracks?”
“There is but one barracks between here and Jundhra.”
“Then—then—then—what has happened, Mahommed Khan?”
“The worst has happened, heavenborn!”
He stood between her and the ayah, so that she could not see the woman huddled on the floor.
“The worst? You mean then—my—my—husband—you don't mean that my husband—”
“I mean, heavenborn that there is insurrection! All India is ablaze from end to end. These dogs here in Hanadra wait to rise because they think the section will return here in an hour or two; then they propose to burn it, men, guns and horses, like snakes in the summer grass. It is well that the section will not return! We will ride out safely before morning!”
“And, my husband—he knew—all this—before he left me here?”
“Nay! That he did not! Had I told him, he had disobeyed his orders and shamed his service; he is young yet, and a hothead! He will be far along the road to Jundhra before he knows what burns. And then he will remember that he trusts me and obey orders and press on!”
“And you knew and did not tell him!”
“Of a truth I knew!”
She stood in silence for a moment, gazing at the red glow on the skyline, and then turned to read, if she could, what was on the grim, grizzled face of Mahommed Khan.
“The ayah!” he growled. “I have yet to ask questions of the ayah. Have I permission to take her to the other room?”
She was leaning through the window again and did not answer him.
“Who's that moving in the shadow down below?” she asked him suddenly.
He leaned out beside her and gazed into the shadow. Then he called softly in a tongue she did not know and some one rose up from the shadow and answered him.
“Are we spied on, Risaldar?”
“Nay. Guarded, heavenborn! That man is my half-brother. May I take the ayah through that doorway?”
“Why not question her in here?”
The mystery and sense of danger were getting the better of her; she was thoroughly afraid now—afraid to be left alone in the room for a minute even.
“There are things she would not answer in thy presence!”
“Very well. Only, please be quick!”
He bowed. Swinging the door open, he pushed the ayah through it to the room beyond. Ruth was left alone, to watch the red glow on the skyline and try to see the outline of the watcher in the gloom below. No sound came through the heavy teak door that the Risaldar had slammed behind him, and no sound came from him who watched; but from the silence of the night outside and from dark corners of the room that she was in and from the roof and walls and floor here came little eerie noises that made her flesh creep, as though she were being stared at by eyes she could not see. She felt that she must scream, or die, unless she moved; and she was too afraid to move, and by far too proud to scream! At last she tore herself away from the window and ran to a low divan and lay on it, smothering her face among the cushions. It seemed an hour before the Risaldar came out again, and then he took her by surprise.
“Heavenborn!” he said. She looked up with a start, to find him standing close beside her.
“Mahommed Khan! You're panting! What ails you?”
“The heat, heavenborn—and I am old.”
His left hand was on his saber-hilt, thrusting it toward her respectfully; she noticed that it trembled.
“Have I the heavenborn's leave to lock the ayah in that inner room?”
“Why, Risaldar?”
“The fiend had this in her possession!” He showed her a thin-bladed dagger with an ivory handle; his own hand shook as he held it out to her, and she saw that there were beads of perspiration on his wrist. “She would have killed thee!”
“Oh, nonsense! Why, she wouldn't dare!”
“She confessed before she—she confessed! Have I the heavenborn's leave?”
“If you wish it.”
“And to keep the key?”
“I suppose so, if you think it wise.”
He strode to the inner door and locked it and hid the key in an inside pocket of his tunic.
“And now, heavenborn,” he said, “I crave your leave to bring my half-brother to the presence!”
He scarcely waited for an answer, but walked to the window, leaned out of it and whistled. A minute later he was answered by the sound of fingernails scrabbling on the outer door. He turned the key and opened it.
“Enter!” he ordered.
Barefooted and ragged, but as clean as a soldier on parade and with huge knots of muscles bulging underneath his copper skin, a Rajput entered, bowing his six feet of splendid manhood almost to the floor.
“This, heavenborn, is my half-brother, son of a low-born border-woman, whom my father chose to honor thus far! The dog is loyal!”
“Salaam!” said Ruth, with little interest.
“Salaam, memsahib!” muttered the shabby Rajput. “Does any watch?” demanded the Risaldar in Hindustanee. “Aye, one.”
“And he?”
“Is he of whom I spoke.”
“Where watches he?”
“There is a hidden passage leading from the archway; he peeps out through a crack, having rolled back so far the stone that seals it.” He held his horny fingers about an inch apart to show the distance.
“Couldst thou approach unseen?”
The Rajput nodded.
“And there are no others there?”
“No others.”
“Has thy strength left thee, or thy cunning?”
“Nay!”
“Then bring him!”
Without a word in answer the giant turned and went, and the Risaldar made fast the door behind him. Ruth sat with her face between her hands, trying not to cry or shudder, but obsessed and overpowered by a sense of terror. The mystery that surrounded her was bad enough; but this mysterious ordering and coming to and fro among her friends was worse than horrible. She knew, though, that it would be useless to question Mahommed Khan before he chose to speak. They waited there in the dimly lighted room for what seemed tike an age again; she, pale and tortured by weird imaginings; he, grim and bolt-upright like a statue of a warrior. Then sounds came from the stairs again and the Risaldar hurried to the door and opened it.
In burst the Risaldar's half-brother, breathing heavily and bearing a load nearly as big as he was.
“The pig caught my wrist within the opening!” he growled, tossing his gagged and pinioned burden on the floor. “See where he all but broke it!”
“What is thy wrist to the service of the Raj? Is he the right one?”
“Aye!” He stooped and tore a twisted loin-cloth from his victim's face, and the Risaldar walked to the lamp and brought it, to hold it above the prostrate form. Ruth left the divan and stood between the men, terrified by she knew not what fear, but drawn into the lamplight by insuperable curiosity.
“This, heavenborn,” said the Risaldar, prodding at the man with his scabbard-point, “is none other than the High Priest of Kharvani's temple here, the arch-ringleader in all the treachery afoot—now hostage for thy safety!”
He turned to his half-brother. “Unbind the thing he lies with!” he commanded, and the giant unwrapped a twisted piece of linen from the High Priest's mouth.
“So the big fox peeped through the trapdoor, because he feared to trust the other foxes; and the big fox fell into the trap!” grinned the Risaldar. “Bring me that table over yonder, thou!”
The half-brother did as he was told.
“Lay it here, legs upward, on the floor.
“Now, bind him to it—an arm to a leg and a leg to a leg.
“Remove his shoes.
“Put charcoal in yon brazier. Light it. Bring it hither!”
He seized a brass tongs, chose a glowing coal and held it six inches from the High Priest's naked foot.
Ruth screamed.
“Courage, heavenborn! Have courage! This is naught to what he would have done to thee!... Now, speak, thou priest of infidels! What plans are laid and who will rise and when?”