On the Face of the Waters Part 23

He gave a deaf ear, when he could, to the talk in the 20th; but that was not always, for its sepoys were a part of the Bengal army. That army which was not--as a European army is--a mere chance collection of men divided from each other in the beginning and end of life, a.s.sociated loosely with each other in its middle, and using military service as a make-shift; but, to a great extent, a guild, following the profession of arms by hereditary custom from the cradle to the grave.

Quick march! A woman, early astir, peered at the little procession through the c.h.i.n.k of a door, and whispered to an unseen companion behind. What was she saying? What, by implication, would other women, who peeped virtuously--women he knew--say of his present occupation?

That he was a coward to be guarding his comrades' fetters? No doubt; since others with less right would say it too. All the miserable, disreputable riff-raff, for instance, which had drifted in from the neighborhood to see the show. The bazaar had been full of it these three days past. Even the sweepers, pariahs, out-castes, would sn.i.g.g.e.r over the misfortunes of their betters--as those two ahead were doubtless sn.i.g.g.e.ring already as they drew aside from their slave's work of sweeping the roadway, to let the tumbrils pa.s.s. Drew aside with mock deference, leaving scantiest room for the twice-born following them. So scant, indeed, that the outermost tip of a reed broom, flourished in insolent salaam, touched the Rajput's sleeve. It was the veriest brush, no more than a fly's wing could have given; but the half-stifled cry from Soma's lips meant murder--nothing less. His disciplined feet wavered, he gave a furtive glance at his companions.

Had they seen the insult? Could they use it against him?

"Eyes front, there; forward!" came the order from behind, and he pulled himself together by instinct and went on.

"Only three weeks longer, brother!" said that voice beside him meaningly; and a dull rage rose in Soma's heart. So it had been seen.

It might be said of him, Soma, that he had tamely submitted to a defiling touch. He did not look round at his officers this time. They might hear if they chose, the future might hold what it chose. Mayhap they had seen the insult and were laughing at it. They were not his Huzoors; they belonged to the man at his side, who had the right to taunt him. As a matter of fact, they were discussing the chances of their ponies in next week's races; but Soma, lost in a great wrath, a great fear, made it, inevitably, the topic of the whole world.

Hark! The bugle for the Rifles to form; they were to come to the parade loaded with ball cartridge. And that rumble was the Artillery, loaded also, going to take up their position. By and by the Carabineers would sweep with a clatter and a dash to form the third side of the hollow square, whereof the fourth was to be a ma.s.s of helpless dark faces, with the eighty-five martyrs and tumbrils in the middle. Soma had seen it all in general orders, talked it over with his dearest friend, and called it tyranny. And now the tumbrils clanked past a little heap of smoldering ashes, that but the day before had been a guard-house. The lingering smoke from this last work of the incendiary drifted northward, after the fetters, making one of the officers cough. But he went on talking of his ponies. True type of the race which lives to make mistakes, dies to retrieve them. Quick march!

Streams of spectators bound for the show began to overtake them, ready with comments on what Soma guarded. And on the broad white Mall, dividing the native half of the cantonments and the town of Meerut from the European portion, more than one carriage with a listless, white-faced woman in it dashed by, on its way to see the show. The show!

Quick march! Whatever else might be possible in the futures that was all now, midway between the barracks of the Rifles and the Carabineers, with the church--mute symbol of the horror which, day by day, month by month, had been closing in round the people--blocking the way in front. So they pa.s.sed on to the wide northern parade ground, with that hollow square ready; three sides of it threatening weapons, the fourth of unarmed men, and in the center the eighty-five picked men of a picked regiment.

The knot of European spectators round the flag listened with yawns to the stout General's exordium. The eighty-five being hopelessly, helplessly in the wrong by military law, there seemed to be no need to insist on the fact. And the ma.s.s of dark faces standing within range of loaded guns and rifles, within reach of glistening sabers, did not listen at all. Not that it mattered, since the units in that crowd had lost the power of accepting facts. Even Soma, standing to attention beside the tumbrils, only felt a great sense of outrage, of wrong, of injustice somewhere. And there was one Englishman, at least, rigid to attention also before his disarmed, dismounted, yet loyal troop, who must have felt it also, unless he was more than human. And this was Captain Craigie, who, when his men appealed to him to save them, to delay this unnecessary musketry parade, had written in his haste to the Adjutant, "Go to Smyth at once! Go to Smyth!" and Smyth was his Colonel! Incredible lack of official etiquette. Repeated hardily, moreover. "Pray don't lose a moment, but go to Smyth and tell him."

What? Only "that this is a most serious matter, and we may have the whole regiment in open mutiny in half an hour if it is not attended to." Only that! So it is to be hoped that Captain Craigie had the official wigging for his unconventional appeal in his pocket as he shared his regiment's disgrace, to serve him as a warning--or a consolation.

And now the pompous monotone being ended, the silence, coming after the clankings, and buglings, and trampings which had been going on since dawn, was almost oppressive. The three sides of steel, even the fourth of faces, however, showed no sign. They stood as stone while the eighty-five were stripped of their uniforms. But there was more to come. By the General's orders the leg-irons were to be riveted on one by one; and so, once more, the sound of iron upon iron recurred monotonously, making the silence of the intervals still more oppressive. For the prisoners at first seemed stunned by the isolation from even their as yet unfettered comrades. But suddenly from a single throat came that cry for justice, which has a claim to a hearing, at least, in the estimation of the people of India.

"_Dohai! Dohai! Dohai!_"

Soma gave a sort of sigh, and a faint quiver of expectation pa.s.sed over the sea of dark faces.

Clang! Clang! The hammers, going on unchecked, were the only answer.

Those three sides of stone had come to see a thing done, and it must be done; the sooner the better. But the riveting of eighty-five pairs of leg-irons is not to be done in a moment; so the cry grew clamorous.

Dohai! Dohai! Had they not fought faithfully in the past? Had they not been deceived? Had they had a fair chance?

But the hammers went on as the sun climbed out of the dust-haze to gleam on the sloped sabers, glint on the loaded guns, and send glittering streaks of light along the rifles.

So the cry changed. Were their comrades cowards to stand by and see this tyranny and raise no finger of help? Oh! curses on them! 'Tis they who were degraded, dishonored. Curses on the Colonel who had forced them to this! Curses on every white face!--curses on every face which stood by!

One, close to the General's flag, broke suddenly into pa.s.sionate resentment. Jim Douglas drew out his watch, looked at it, and gathered his reins together. "An hour and forty-five minutes already. I'm off, Ridgeway. I can't stand this d----d folly any more."

"My dear fellow, speak lower! If the General----"

"I don't care who hears me," retorted Jim Douglas recklessly as he steered through the crowd, followed by his friend, "I say it is d----d inconceivable folly and tyranny. Come on, and let's have a gallop, for G.o.d's sake, and get rid of that devilish sound."

The echo of their horses' resounding hoofs covered, obliterated it.

The wind of their own swiftness seemed to blow the tension away. So after a spin due north for a mile or two they paused at the edge of a field where the oxen were circling placidly round on the threshing-floors and a group of women were taking advantage of the gustiness to winnow. Their bare, brown arms glistened above the falling showers of golden grain, their unabashed smiling faces showed against the clouds of golden chaff drifting behind them.

Jim Douglas looked at them for a moment, returned the salaam of the men driving the oxen and forking the straw, then turned his horse toward the cantonment again.

"It is nothing to them; that's one comfort," he said. "But they will have to suffer for it in the end, I expect. Who will believe when the time comes that this"--he gave a backward wave of his hand--"went on unwittingly of that?"

His companion, following his look ahead, to where, in the far distance, a faint cloud of dust, telling of many feet, hung on the horizon, said suddenly, as if the sight brought remembrance: "By George! Douglas, how steady the sepoys stood! I half expected a row."

"Steadier than I should," remarked the other grimly. "Well, I hope Smyth is satisfied. To return from leave and drive your regiment into mutiny in twelve hours is a record performance."

His hearer, who was a civilian, gave a deprecating cough. "That's a bit hard, surely. I happen to know that he heard while on leave some story about a concerted rising later on. He may have done it purposely, to force their hands."

Jim Douglas shrugged his shoulders. "Did he warn you what he was about to do? Did he allow time to prepare others for his private mutiny? My dear Ridgeway, it was put on official record two months ago that an organized scheme for resistance existed in every regiment between Calcutta and Peshawur; so Smyth might at least have consulted the colonels of the other two regiments at Meerut. As it is, the business has strained the loyalty of the most loyal to the uttermost; and we deserve to suffer, we do indeed."

"You don't mince matters, certainly," said the civilian dryly.

"Why should anybody mince them? Why can't we admit boldly--the C.-in-C. did it on the sly the other day--that the cartridges are suspicious? that they leave the muzzle covered with a fat, like tallow? Why don't we admit it was tallow at first. Why not, at any rate, admit we are in a hole, instead of refusing to take the common precaution of having an ammunition wagon loaded up for fear it should be misconstrued into alarm? Is there no medium between bribing children with lollipops and torturing them--keeping them on the strain, under fire, as it were, for hours, watching their best friends punished unjustly?"

"Unjustly?"

"Yes. To their minds unjustly. And you know what forcible injustice means to children--and these are really children--simple, ignorant, obstinate."

They had come back to cantonments again and were rapidly overtaking the now empty tumbrils going home, for the parade was over. Further down the road, raising a cloud of dust from their shackled feet, the eighty-five were being marched jailward under a native escort.

"Well," said the civilian dryly, "I would give a great deal to know what those simple babes really thought of us."

"Hate us stock and block for the time. I should," replied Jim Douglas.

They were pa.s.sing the tumbrils at the moment, and one of the guard, in sergeant's uniform, looked up in joyful recognition.

"Huzoor It is I, Soma."

The civilian looked at his companion oddly when, after a minute or two spent in answering Soma's inquiries as to where and how the master was to be found, Jim Douglas rode alongside once more.

"Out a bit, eh?" he said dryly.

"Very much out; but they are a queer lot. Do you remember the story of the self-made American who was told his boast relieved the Almighty of a great responsibility? Well, he is only responsible for one-half of the twice-born. The other is due to humanity, to heredity, what you will! That is what makes these high-caste men so difficult to deal with. They are twice born. Yes! they are a queer lot."

He repeated the remark with even greater fervor twelve hours later, when, about midnight, he started on his return ride to Delhi. For though he had spent the whole day in listening, he had scarcely heard a word of blame for the scene which had roused him to wrath that morning. The sepoys had gone about their duties as if nothing had happened; and despite the undoubted presence of a lot of loose characters in the bazaar, there had been no disturbance. He laughed cynically to himself at the waste of a day which would have been better spent in horse dealing. This, however, settled it. If this intolerable tyranny failed to rouse action there could be no immediate danger ahead. To a big cantonment like Meerut, the biggest in Northern India, with two thousand British troops in it, even the prospect of a rising was not serious; at Delhi, however, where there were only native troops, it might have been different. But now he felt that a handful of resolute men ought to be able to hold their own anywhere against such aimless invertebrate discontent. He felt a vague disappointment that it should be so, that the pleasant cool of night should be so quiet, so peaceful. They were a poor lot who could do nothing but talk!

As he rode through the station the mess-houses were still alight, and the gay voices of the guests who had been dining at a large bungalow, bowered in gardens, reached his ears distinctly.

"It's the Sabbath already," said one. "Ought to be in our beds!"

"Hooray! for a Europe morning," came a more boyish one breaking into a carol, "of all the days within the week I dearly love----"

"Shut up, Fitz!" put in a third, "you'll wake the General!"

"What's the odds? He can sleep all day. I'm sure his buggy charger needs a rest."

"Do shut up, Fitz! The Colonel will hear you."

"I don't care. It's Scriptural. Thou and thy ox and thy a.s.s----"

"You promised to come to evening church, Mr. Fitzgerald," interrupted a reproachful feminine voice; "you said you would sing in the choir."

"Did I? Then I'll come. It will wake me up for dinner; besides, I shall sit next you."

The last words came nearer, softer. Mr. Fitzgerald was evidently riding home beside someone's carriage.