Barclay of the Guides Part 22

In the drizzling rain a party of cavalry was seen approaching a battery near the churchyard. One of the gunners had a portfire lighted in readiness for firing his gun, but Lieutenant Hills ordered him to refrain, judging from the hors.e.m.e.n's movements that they were a picket of the 9th Irregular Native Cavalry. All at once, however, it struck him that the picket was unusually large, and being now a little suspicious, he ordered his men to unlimber and open upon the hors.e.m.e.n. Before this could be done some fifteen or twenty of the enemy dashed over the ca.n.a.l bridge into the camp and rode straight for the guns.

Lieutenant Hills--he was a second lieutenant and a little fellow--saw that time must be gained for his men if the guns were to be saved.

Without a moment's hesitation he charged the rebels single-handed, cut down the first man he met, and had just flung his pistol at a second when two sowars dashed upon him. Their horses collided with his in a terrific shock; the horse was rolled over, and Hills sent flying to the ground, thus escaping the swords of the enemy, one of which, however, sh.o.r.e a slice off his jacket. Half stunned, he lay still, and the rebel sowars left him for dead.

But Hills was not dead; in a minute or two he rose to his feet and looked about for his sword. There it was, on the ground about ten yards away. No sooner was it in his hand than three of the enemy returned--two on horseback, the third on foot. One of the hors.e.m.e.n charged him, but he leapt aside and dealt the man a blow that toppled him wounded from the saddle. The second man made full at him with his lance. Hills parried the thrust with a quick movement, and wounded the sowar in the head.

Then up came the third man--a young, limber fellow. Hills was panting for breath after the violence of his exertions. In his fierce and rapid movements his cloak had in some way wound itself about his throat, so that he was almost suffocated. But after dealing with the horseman he stood to meet the last of his opponents, and as he came within reach aimed a shrewd blow at him with his sword. The new-comer was fresh and unwearied. He turned the stroke, seized Hills' sword by the hilt and wrenched it from his grasp. Thus left weaponless, a man might not be blamed if he took to flight. Not so Hills. He had neither sword nor pistol, but he had his fists, and he set upon the rebel with ardour, punching his head and face with such swift and vigorous blows that the man was quite unable to use his sword, and gave back. Unluckily, Hills slipped over his cloak on the sodden ground and fell flat. The rebel had just lifted his sword to cleave the fallen man's skull, when up galloped Major Tombs, his troop-captain, who had heard of the rebels' attack from a trooper of the Irregular Cavalry. In an instant he saw Hills' danger.

He was still some thirty paces away, and before he could reach the spot the fatal blow would have been struck. Checking his horse, he rested his revolver on his left arm and took aim at the mutineer, shooting him through the body.

Major Tombs and the Lieutenant returned to their men, who had chased the rebels some little distance past the guns. Coming back by and by to secure the unlimbered gun, they saw another mutineer coolly walking off with the pistol which Hills had hurled at a rebel's head early in the fight. Hills closed with him: the man was a clever swordsman, and for a time it was a fencing-match between them. Then Hills rushed in with a thrust; the rebel jumped aside and dealt Hills a cut on the head that stretched him on the ground. Once more Major Tombs came to the rescue, and ended the matter with his sword.

This incident was the talk of the camp, and Ahmed, who had seen it all, learnt by and by that the officers were to be recommended for the Victoria Cross. He had never heard of this, and inquired what it was.

"Oh," said the bhisti to whom he put the question, "'tis a little brown cross that the great Memsahib over the black water pins to the dhoti of a soldier who is very brave."

"And is it given only to the sahibs, or to us folks of the country as well?"

"That I know not. I never heard of any one but a Feringhi getting it.

But why dost ask! Dost think that thou, who art but a banijara, art brave enough to please the great Memsahib?"

"What I think matters nothing, O bhisti. But there are brave men everywhere, even among bhistis."

And Ahmed had now a new goal at which to aim.

CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH

Asadullah

Bahadur Shah, King of Delhi, was holding darbar in his private hall of audience--the Diwan-i-khas. It was an imposing scene: the pure white marble of the walls, ornamented with delicate inlaid work; the rich decorations and gorgeous colour of the ceiling; the arches with mosaic traceries, giving views of beautiful gardens: all this would have made a fit setting for a mighty monarch's court. The old king, tremulous with age and anxieties, sat in the centre on a dais of white marble, and no doubt deplored at times the cupidity of his predecessor Nadir Shah, who had turned into money, a hundred years before, the wondrous peac.o.c.k throne, in which the spread tails of the birds were encrusted with sapphires and rubies and diamonds and other precious stones, cunningly arranged in imitation of the natural colours. But his monarchy was sadly diminished in wealth and dignity. Successive invaders had all taken something for themselves; and though he was in courtesy styled king, and received royal salutes from the guards at his doors, his territory had been confined, since the British imposed their rule upon him, to his palace; and instead of the untold wealth that had once been his, he had been granted the mere pittance of 120,000 a year. And now it seemed that he would lose even this, for the British still held the Ridge; his generals and their forty thousand men had as yet made good none of their confident boasts of sweeping the handful of Feringhis away, and the old king wished with all his heart that the mutineers had let well alone. He was depressed, wretched; what a mockery seemed that gilt scroll of Persian on the arches above his head--

"If on earth is a bower of bliss, It is this, it is this, it is this."

The hall was thronged. There was Bakht Khan, the commander-in-chief, the square blunt soldier, who was yet said by some to hide under his bluffness a character of cunning and duplicity. To him the querulous old king turned a cold shoulder; for he had been for several weeks in the city, and yet no success had attended his arms save the burning of Alipur--a trumpery feat. There was Mirza Mogul, daily growing more jealous of his supplanter. Bakht Khan's men had received six months' pay in advance ('tis true it was the product of their own plundering), while Mirza Mogul had the greatest difficulty in squeezing a few thousand rupees out of the treasury to satisfy his clamorous troops. There was Ahsanullah, the king's physician, a thin fox-faced man in black; and Mirza Nosha, the poet, with verses in his pocket composed to celebrate the victory when it was won; and near him Ha.s.san Askari, who had in his pocket Bakht Khan's order for the construction of five hundred ladders, so that the sepoys might escape over the walls if the English took the city. All the notabilities of Delhi were there, and for hours the old king sat, receiving pet.i.tions, hearing demands for redress from merchants who had been plundered, listening to the Kotwal's reports of the misdeeds of the young prince Abu Bakr, who was constantly intoxicated and engaged in riotous disorder. Saligram, the banker, complained that all his papers and chests had been rifled, and he was a ruined man. A messenger came in and reported that the English were constructing a new battery within half-a-mile of the walls. A poor old man, who said he was the king's cousin, made an offering of two rupees in aid of the holy cause. Another messenger entered with news that a detachment of the Nimuch brigade had gone out to fight the English, who had all run away. The king called him a liar; he had heard such news before. And then, just as the darbar was closing, there entered one of the king's attendants, and asked if the Lord of the World would graciously condescend to receive a chief from the hill country, who had entered the city at the head of three hundred well-mounted men.

"Who is he?" asked the king.

"Hazur, his true name no one knows; but his hors.e.m.e.n call him Asadullah, and in truth he is a very lion in wrath and courage. He has done great things among the Feringhis at Agra and Gwalior, and being at one time a prisoner of the English he hates them with a bitter hatred. And now he comes with three hundred brave men whom he has gathered, and craves leave to present a na.s.sar to the Pillar of State, and to offer his services in the cause."

"We desire not to receive him," said the king. "Have we not soldiers enough in Delhi to pay, without adding more? If the English cannot be beaten with the forty thousand we now have, how shall three hundred help us?"

This was mere querulousness, as every one in the hall knew. The king dared not offend anybody at this critical moment in his affairs, certainly not a chief who could command a body of troops. After bidding the man wait, and keeping him waiting for a long time while he went through the form of consulting his advisers, the king announced that he would see this warrior whom men named the Lion of G.o.d. The official retired. In a few minutes there entered the hall a stately figure with flowing white beard and red turban. He made obeisance to the king, handed him a na.s.sar of a hundred rupees, and declared in a strong, resonant voice that he was ready to fight the English, he and his three hundred men.

There was a group of officers at the end of the hall from which entrance was had to the Akab baths. They were so much preoccupied with a matter they were discussing, that the proceedings in the centre of the hall had for some time escaped their notice. Now, however, at the sound of that ringing voice, one of them, Minghal Khan, started, and immediately afterwards changed his position in such a way that he was partially hidden by one of the columns supporting the arcade. And there he remained until the rising of the king signified that the audience was at an end. Then he made towards the door among the throng, keeping close to the wall, and moving in the manner of one who avoids observation.

But the crowd was thick, and its departure slow, so that when the chief, whom his men had named Asadullah, left the side of the king--who had kept him in talk, having apparently taken a fancy to him--it chanced that as his eyes ranged round the hall, they fell upon the face of Minghal Khan, who at that very moment had turned a little aside to look at the new-comer. Their glances crossed; a light flashed in the eyes of each; and Asadullah, whom Minghal had known as Rahmut Khan, took a step forward as though to hasten after his enemy. But he checked himself. The king's palace was no place for the settlement of a personal quarrel: no doubt there would be opportunities. Each of the chiefs knew, as he caught the look in the other's eyes, that the fact that they were engaged in a common cause would not weigh for a moment if they came within reach of one another. The many discordant elements in Delhi were held together for the time by their common hatred of the English; if that bond were relaxed, they would fly apart with shattering force.

Minghal Khan got out of the palace before Rahmut Khan, and hastened immediately to his house. He then dispatched his khitmutgar to bid the attendance of one of the jamadars of his regiment.

"Salaam, Azim Ali," he said in response to the officer's greeting. "I have but now returned from the palace. The old king grows more feeble, and his authority less and less. There was much talk among us of the arrears of pay; but it is indeed true that the treasury is all but empty, and it will never be full while Wallidad Khan is collector of the revenue, and such pitiful na.s.sars are brought to the king as were brought to-day. Imagine, Azim Ali, a bent old dodderer who claimed kinship with the Lord of the World, and offered him two rupees!"

"It is indeed pitiful," said the jamadar. "What is to be said to the sowars? They will a.s.suredly plunder the shops if they get no pay, and the general has said that all plunderers shall be hanged."

"What, indeed? Is it not hard that our men, who have been enduring the heat and burden, throwing away their lives in fighting the English, should be worse off than such brigands as the men whom this Asadullah has brought into the city? The general forbids plunder: well, he is a friend of mine, and must be obeyed. But these new-comers, have they not plundered? What have they done but load themselves with the loot of villages, and snapped up ill-defended convoys--enterprises of little difficulty and less danger? There is great talk of this old freebooter as a man of high courage: hai! it is false. Do I not know of him? They call him lion; a more fitting name would be pariah dog. He is not a man to risk his skin. And yet, forsooth, he comes into Delhi at the head of these three hundred, and the king s...o...b..rs over him, and without doubt he will squeeze from the treasury what rupees he can, and then, when the word comes to fight, he will shelter himself behind us who know what fighting is, and expect his full share of plunder when the English are beaten. Hai! it is a shame and a scandal."

"True, most n.o.ble subahdar; it is enough to make our men rise up and claim that all who enter thus with full hands should share what they have among us."

"And what they could not keep but for us; for are there not princes in the city who, were these men left undefended, would swoop down like hawks upon them and strip them of all they have? Without us, trained soldiers, would not the English a.s.suredly catch them and hang them up?

Is this thing to be endured? Here are we, lodged within a shout's distance of them, and we starve while they live on the fat of the land."

Minghal knew the man he was talking to. He was a simple ruffian, who grew more and more indignant as his superior artfully stimulated his discontent.

"It would not be a matter of surprise to me," Minghal continued, "were the men to rise in their wrath and secure for themselves what is their just due. As a servant of our lord the king, and a loyal lieutenant of Bakht Khan, our commander-in-chief, I could not countenance such a transgression of his strict command; but I am a man like them: I know what hunger is: am I not myself often at my wit's end for the wherewithal to buy a meal, with many months' pay due to me? And as a man I could a.s.suredly not blame any action that our sowars might take."

The simple jamadar gulped at the bait. Minghal had no need to say more.

That same night, a Pathan trader who had entered the city by the Ajmir gate at sundown, just before all the gates were closed, witnessed a scene not unfamiliar in Delhi at this time of unrest and relaxed authority. In the s.p.a.ce before a serai near the Jama Masjid, a great crowd of men was engaged in desperate rioting. He thought at first that it was one of those little affairs in which the princes of the blood, notably Abu Bakr, sometimes disported themselves: a raid upon a banker, or a silversmith, or some merchant who was suspected of having feathered his nest. But inquiring of an onlooker who stood out of harm's way watching the conflict, he learnt that the regiment of Minghal Khan--that bold warrior, and friend of the commander-in-chief--was attacking the quarters of a troop of three hundred Irregulars, men of all castes and no country, who had arrived in the city that day and been granted quarters in this serai by the king.

"And thou art a Pathan, too, by thy speech, O banijara," said the man.

"Pathans are ever unruly--I mean no offence to thee, who art a man of peace. The n.o.ble subahdar, Minghal Khan, is a Pathan, and the leader of the new-comers is a Pathan also."

"What is his name, O bariya?" asked the trader, judging by his informant's attire that he was a swordsmith.

"Men call him Asadullah, and say he is a very great warrior. Bah! There is too much talk of very great warriors, and too little fighting. I am a good Musalman, and no man can say I am not a faithful subject of the king--may Allah be his peace!--but it is nevertheless the truth, O banijara, that I was more prosperous under the English raj than I am this day."

"There will be work for thee to-morrow, O grinder of swords, for many edges will be blunted. Hai! What a din they make! I can hardly hear myself speak. Why are they using no firearms?"

"That is easy to understand. I speak to a friend--thou and I are men of peace. Well, without doubt, this is not a quarrel that suddenly arises from a chance hot word. Not so--it was purposed from the beginning. Some of these new men are out in the streets, beholding the many fine sights of this city, and that seemed a good occasion to the men of Minghal Khan; for in truth these new men are said to have good store of plunder they have taken from the English as they came hither; and, as all men know, the soldiers of Minghal Khan, and of many another officer, are yearning for their pay. And so they came and fell upon the men of Asadullah at their quarters yonder, and brought no firearms, since they make a great noise; and the new men being taken wholly by surprise, had not time so much as to fetch their muskets. As thou seest, there is great fighting at the gate, and some are even now scaling the wall. Wah!

Unless the Kotwal or Bakht Khan come with a great force, methinks in a little those men of Asadullah will be in a sad case, for the others are much greater in number. It is a good fight; as thou sayest, it will give me work to-morrow, my shop is hard by; and therefore I say, let them fight on."

The two stood side by side watching the fray. There was a great noise of clashing arms, and fierce yells, but such uproar was too common to have brought as yet any of the authorities to the spot. The defenders of the serai were hard pressed. Some had already been driven within the gate; more and more of the attackers had mounted the wall and leapt into the enclosure; and it seemed that the swordsmith's forecast of the end would be justified. But suddenly a group of eight or ten men rounded the corner of the street, remote from where the two watchers stood. They halted for a moment, as though they did not at once comprehend the meaning of the scene before them. The night was dark, but the light of the stars revealed those new arrivals as stalwart, turbaned men. Their pause was very brief. Then, drawing their talwars, they swept upon the rear of the hundred or more sepoys thronging in front of them. "Wah, wah!" they shouted, and their fierce war-cry fell upon the ears of the sepoys at the same time as their terrible weapons smote their limbs. The Pandies were taken utterly by surprise, and began to scatter in a panic.

The diversion came in the nick of time. The defenders took heart from the arrival of their comrades; the attackers were divided in mind whether to stay or to flee; and in a very few moments the whole throng had melted away; those who were on the wall saw themselves unsupported and dropped to the street, and the new-comers followed in hot chase, being joined by others from within the gates.

"Wah! That was Asadullah himself," said the swordsmith. "Of a truth, he is a great warrior. Didst thou see him?"

"I saw a big man, and he seemed older than I had supposed, but it was too dark to see him clearly. I am a Pathan, as thou didst say, and were I a man of war, I would fain have had a part with them. But being a man of peace, far be it from me to endanger my skin in broils of this kind."

"Well, it is over now, and 'twere best for us to get ourselves home.

Verily I shall have work in the morning, and it befits to be up early.

The night is damp and chill, and now I look at thee, art thou not a-cold in that thin raiment of thine? Hill-men like thee are not wont to go so thinly clad."

"True, good bariya, and 'tis by evil chance I am as thou seest. I left my chogah in a certain place, and lo! within a little it was no longer there. I doubt not it is now among the belongings of some vile Hindu."

"Hai! Vile, indeed! When is this truce to be ended? The king has commanded that no cows be killed until the English are beaten, and we good Musalmans must forsooth abstain from that good meat for the sake of these Hindus. Wah! The time will come. Let but the English be destroyed, and then we will see what the Hindus have to say. Get thee a warmer covering, friend, and Allah be with thee."

He turned the corner of the street and was gone. The other went on his way, and coming to a shop in the nearest bazar, and finding it closed for the night, he battered on the door until it was opened with much grumbling by the owner--a man of hooked nose and venerable appearance.

After nearly an hour's bargaining, the customer departed, wearing his purchase, a well-lined Afghan chogah. Then he proceeded quickly to a small serai on the other side of the Chandni Chauk.