On the Face of the Waters Part 1

On the Face of the Waters.

by Flora Annie Steel.

PREFACE.

A word of explanation is needed for this book, which, in attempting to be at once a story and a history, probably fails in either aim.

That, however, is for the reader to say. As the writer, I have only to point out where my history ends, my story begins, and clear the way for criticism. Briefly, then, I have not allowed fiction to interfere with fact in the slightest degree. The reader may rest a.s.sured that every incident bearing in the remotest degree on the Indian Mutiny, or on the part which real men took in it, is scrupulously exact, even to the date, the hour, the scene, the very weather. Nor have I allowed the actual actors in the great tragedy to say a word regarding it which is not to be found in the accounts of eye-witnesses, or in their own writings.

In like manner, the account of the sham court at Delhi--which I have drawn chiefly from the lips of those who saw it--is pure history; and the picturesque group of schemers and dupes--all of whom have pa.s.sed to their account--did not need a single touch of fancy in its presentment. Even the story of Abool-Bukr and Newasi is true; save that I have supplied a cause for an estrangement, which undoubtedly did come to a companionship of which none speak evil. So much for my facts.

Regarding my fiction: An Englishwoman _was_ concealed in Delhi, in the house of an Afghan, and succeeded in escaping to the Ridge just before the siege. I have imagined another; that is all. I mention this because it may possibly be said that the incident is incredible.

And now a word for my t.i.tle. I have chosen it because when you ask an uneducated native of India why the Great Rebellion came to pa.s.s, he will, in nine cases out of ten, reply, "G.o.d knows! He sent a Breath into the World." From this to a Spirit moving on the face of the Waters is not far. For the rest I have tried to give a photograph--that is, a picture in which the differentiation caused by color is left out--of a time which neither the fair race or the dark race is ever likely to quite forget or forgive.

That they may come nearer to the latter is the object with which this book has been written.

F. A. STEEL.

BOOK I.

THISTLEDOWN AND GOSSAMER.

CHAPTER I.

GOING! GOING! GONE!

"Going! Going! Gone!"

The Western phrase echoed over the Eastern scene without a trace of doubt in its calm a.s.sumption of finality. It was followed by a pause, during which, despite the crowd thronging the wide plain, the only recognizable sound was the vexed yawning purr of a tiger impatient for its prey. It shuddered through the sunshine, strangely out of keeping with the mult.i.tude of men gathered together in silent security; but on that March evening of the year 1856, when the long shadows of the surrounding trees had begun to invade the sunlit levels of gra.s.s by the river, at Lucknow, the lately deposed King of Oude's menagerie was being auctioned. It had followed all his other property to the hammer, and a perfect Noah's Ark of wild beasts was waiting doubtfully for a change of masters.

"Going! Going! Gone!"

Those three cabalistic words, shibboleth of a whole hemisphere's greed of gain, had just transferred the proprietary rights in an old tusker elephant for the sum of eighteenpence. It is not a large price to pay for a leviathan, even if he be lame, as this one was. Yet the new owner looked at his purchase distastefully, and even the auctioneer sought support in a gulp of brandy and water.

"Fetch up them pollies, Tom," he said in a dejected whisper to a soldier, who, with others of the fatigue party on duty, was trying to hustle refractory lots into position. "They'll be a change after elephants--go off lighter like. Then there's some of them La Martiniery boys comin' down again as ran up the fightin' rams this mornin'. Wonder wot the 'ead master said! But boys is allowed birds, and Lord knows we want to be a bit brisker than we 'ave bin with _guj-putti_. But there! it's slave-drivin' to screw bids for beasts as eats hunder-weights out of poor devils as 'aven't enough for themselves, or a notion of business as business."

He shook his head resentfully yet compa.s.sionately over the impa.s.sive dark faces around. He spoke as an auctioneer; yet he gave expression to a very common feeling which in the early fifties, when the commercial instincts of the West met the uncommercial ones of the East in open market for the first time, sharpened the antagonism of race immensely; that inevitable antagonism when the creed of one people is that Time is Money, of the other that Time is Naught.

From either standpoint, however, the auction going on down by the river Goomtee was confusing; even to those who, knowing the causes which had led up to it--the unmentionable atrocities, the cra.s.s incapacity on the one hand, the unsanctioned treaties and craze for civilization on the other--were conscious of a distinct flavor of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Deluge all combined, as they watched the just and yet unjust retribution going on. But such spectators were few, even in the outer fringe of English onlookers pausing in their evening drive or ride to gratify their curiosity. The long reports and replies regarding the annexation of Oude which filled the office boxes of the elect were unknown to them, so they took the affair as they found it. The King, for some reason satisfactory to the authorities, had been exiled, majesty being thus vested in the representatives of the annexing race: that is, in themselves. A position which comes naturally to most Englishmen.

To the silent crowds closing round the auctioneer's table the affair was simple also. The King, for some unsatisfactory reason, had been ousted from his own. His goods and chattels were being sold. The valuable ones had been knocked down, for a mere song--just to keep up the farce of sale--to the Huzoors. The rubbish--lame elephants and such like--was being sold to them; more or less against their will, since who could forbear bidding sixpence for a whole leviathan? That this was in a measure inevitable, that these new-come sahibs were bound to supply their wants cheaply when a whole posse of carriages and horses, cattle and furniture was thrown on an otherwise supplied market, did not, of course, occur to those who watched the hammer fall to that strange new cry of the strange new master. When does such philosophy occur to crowds? So when the waning light closed each day's sale and the people drifted back cityward over the boat-bridge they were no longer silent. They had tales to tell of how much the barouche and pair, or the Arab charger, had cost the King when he bought it.

But then Wajeed Ali, with all his faults, had never been a bargainer.

He had spent his revenues right royally, thus giving ease to many. So one could tell of a purse of gold flung at a beggar, another a life pension granted to a tailor for inventing a new way of sewing spangles to a waistcoat; for there had been no lack of the insensate munificence in which lies the Oriental test of royalty, about the King of Oude's reign.

Despite this talk, however, the talkers returned day after day to watch the auction; and on this, the last one, the gra.s.sy plain down by the Goomtee was peaceful and silent as ever save for the occasional cry of an affrighted hungry beast. The sun sent golden gleams over the short turf worn to dustiness by crowding feet, and the long curves of the river, losing themselves on either side among green fields and mango trees, shone like a burnished shield. On the opposite bank, its minarets showing fragile as cut paper against the sky, rose the Chutter Munzil--the deposed King's favorite palace. Behind it, above the belt of trees dividing the high Residency gardens from the maze of houses and hovels still occupied by the hangers-on to the late Court, the English flag drooped lazily in the calm floods of yellow light.

For the rest, were dense dark groves following the glistening curve of the river, and gardens gravely gay in pillars of white _chum-baeli_ creeper and cypress, long prim lines of latticed walls, and hedges of scarlet hibiscus. Here and there above the trees, the dome of a mosque or the minaret of a mausoleum told that the town of Lucknow, scattered yet coherent, lay among the groves. The most profligate town in India which by one stroke of an English pen had just been deprived of the _raison-d'etre_ of its profligacy, and been bidden to live as best it could in cleanly, courtless poverty.

So, already, there were thousands of workmen in it, innocent enough panderers in the past to luxurious vice, who were feeling the pinch of hunger from lack of employment; and there were those past employers also, deprived now of pensions and offices, with a bankrupt future before them. But Lucknow had a keener grievance than these in the new tax on opium, the drug which helps men to bear hunger and bankruptcy; so, as the auctioneer said, it was not a place in which to expect brisk bidding for wild beasts with large appet.i.tes. But the parrots roused a faint interest, and the crowd laughed suddenly at the fluttering screams of a red and blue macaw, as it was tossed from hand to hand, on its way to the surprised and reluctant purchaser who had bid a farthing for it out of sheer idleness.

"Another mouth to feed, Shumshu!" jeered a fellow butcher, as he literally flung the bird at a neighbor's head. "Rather he than I,"

laughed the recipient, continuing the fling. "_Ari!_ Shumshu, take thy baby. Well caught, brother! but what will thy house say?"

"That I have made a fat bargain," retorted the big, coa.r.s.e owner coolly, as he wrung the bird's neck, and twirled it, a quivering tuft of bright feathers and choking cries, above his head. "Thou'lt buy no meat at a farthing a pound, even from my shop, I'll swear, and this bird weighs two, and is delicate as chicken."

The laugh which answered the sally held a faint scream, not wholly genuine in its ring. It came from the edge of the crowd, where two English riders had paused to see what the fun was about.

"Cruel devils, aren't they, Allie?" said one, a tall, fair man whose good looks were at once made and marred by heaviness of feature. "Why!

you've turned pale despite the rouge!" His tone was full of not over-respectful raillery; his bold, bloodshot eyes met his companion's innocent looking ones with careless admiration.

"Don't be a fool, Erlton," she replied promptly; and the even, somewhat hard pitch of her voice did not match the extreme softness of her small, childish face. "You know I don't rouge; or you ought to.

And it was horrible, in its way."

"Only what your ladyship's cook does to your ladyship's fowls,"

retorted Major Erlton. "You don't _see_ it done, that's all the difference. It is a cruel world, Mrs. Gissing, the s.e.x is the cruelest thing in it, and you, as I'm always telling you, are the cruelest of your s.e.x."

His manner was detestable, but little Mrs. Gissing laughed again. She had not a fine taste in such matters; perhaps because she had no taste for them at all. So, in the middle of the laugh, her attention shifted to the big white c.o.c.katoo which formed the next lot. It had a most rumpled and dejected appearance as it tried to keep its balance on the ring which the soldier a.s.sistant swung backward and forward boisterously.

"Do look at that ridiculous bird!" she exclaimed, "Did you ever see any creature look so foolish?"

It did, undoubtedly, with its wrinkled gray eyelids closed in agonized effort, its clattering gray beak bobbing rhythmically toward its scaly gray legs. It roused the auctioneer from his depression into beginning in grand style. "Now, then, gentlemen! This is a real treat, indeed! A c.o.c.katoo, old as Methusalem and twice as wise. It speaks, I'll be bound. Says 'is prayers--look at 'im gemyflexing! and maybe he swears a bit like the rest of us. Any gentleman bid a rupee!--a eight annas?--a four annas? Come, gentlemen!"

"One anna," called Mrs. Gissing, with a coquettish nod to the big Major, and a loud aside: "Cruel I may be to you, sir, but I'll give that to save the poor brute from having its neck wrung."

"Two annas!" There was a stress of eagerness in the new voice which made many in the crowd look whence it came. The speaker was a lean old man wearing a faded green turban, who had edged himself close to the auctioneer's table and stood with upturned eyes watching the bird anxiously. He had the face of an enthusiast, keen, remorseless, despite its look of ascetic patience.

"Three annas!" Alice Gissing's advance came with another nod at her big admirer.

"Four annas!" The reply was quick as an echo.

A vexed surprise showed on the pretty babyish face. "What an impertinent wretch! Eight annas--do you hear?--eight annas!"

The auctioneer bowed effusively. "Eight annas bid for a c.o.c.katoo as says----" he paused cautiously, for the bidding was brisk enough without exaggeration. "Eight annas once--twice--Going! going----"

"One rupee!"

Mrs. Gissing gave a petulant jag to her rein. "Oh! come away, Erlton, my charity doesn't run to rupees."

But her companion's face, never a very amiable one, had darkened with temper. "D----n the impudent devil," he muttered savagely, before raising his voice to call: "Two rupees!"