On the Face of the Waters Part 25

The thought sent the head into the hands again; for Herbert Erlton was a healthy animal and loved his offspring by instinct. He had, in truth, a queer upside-down notion of his responsibilities toward them.

If the fates had permitted it he would have done his best by Freddy.

Shown him the ropes, given him useful tips, stood by his inexperience, paid his reasonable debts--always supposing he had the wherewithal.

Then how was he to tell Kate all the ugly story. He had left her in his thoughts so completely, she had been so far apart from him for so many years now, that he hesitated over telling her the bare facts, just as--being conventionally a perfectly well-bred man--he would have hesitated how to tell them to any innocent woman of his acquaintance.

Rather more so, for Kate--though she was sentimental enough, he told himself, for two--had never been sensible and looked things in the face. If she had, it might all have been different. Then with a rush came the remembrance that Allie did--that she knew him every inch and was yet willing to come with him. While he? He would stick through thick and thin to little Allie, who never made a man feel a fool or a beast. Something in the last a.s.sertion seemed to harden his heart; he took up his pen and began to write:

"My Dear Kate: I call you that because I can't think of any other beginning that doesn't seem foolish; but it means nothing, and I only want to tell you that circ.u.mstances over which we had no control (he felt rather proud of this circ.u.mlocution for a circ.u.mstance due entirely to his volition) make it necessary for me to leave you. It is the only course open to me as a gentleman. Besides I want to, for I love Alice Gissing dearly. I am going to marry her, D. V., as soon as I can. Mr. Gissing may make a fuss--it is a criminal offense, you see, in India--but we shall tide over that. Of course you could prevent me too, but you are not that sort. So I have sent in my papers. It is a pity, in a way, because I liked this work. But it is only a two-year appointment, and I should hate the regiment after it. For the rest, I am not such a fool as to think you will mind; except for the boy. It is a pity for him too, but it isn't as if he were a girl, and the other may be. It will do no good to say I'm sorry. Besides, I don't think it is all my fault, and I know you will be happier without me.

"Yours sincerely,

"Herbert Erlton.

"P. S.--It's no use crying over spilled milk. I believe you used to think I would get the regiment some day, but they would never have given it to me. I made a bit of a spurt lately, but it couldn't have lasted to the finish, and after all, that is the win or the lose in a race.

"H. E."

The postscript was added after rereading the rest with an uncomfortable remembrance that it was the last letter he meant to write to her. Then he threw it ready for the post beside the others, and lay down feeling that he had done his duty. And as he dozed off his own simile haunted him. From start to finish! How few men rode straight all the way; and the poor beggars who came to grief over the last fence weren't so far behind those who came in for the clapping.

It was the finish that did it; that was the win or the lose. But he would run straight with little Allie--straight as a die! So he lost consciousness in a glow of virtuous content with the future, and joined the whole of the northern half of Meerut in their noontide slumbers; for the future outlook, if not exactly satisfying, was not sufficiently dubious to keep it awake.

But in the southern half, humanity was still swarming in and out, waiting, listening. In one of the mud-huts, however, a company of men gathered within closed doors had been listening to some purpose.

Listening to an eloquent speaker, the accredited agent of a down-country organization. He had arrived in Meerut a day or two before, and had held one meeting after another in the lines, doing his utmost to prevent any premature action; for the fiat of the leaders was that there should be patience till the 31st of May. Then, not until then, a combined blow for India, for G.o.d, for themselves, might be struck with chance of success.

"Ameen!" a.s.sented one old man who had come with him. An old man in a huge faded green turban with dyed red hair and beard, and with a huge green waistband holding a curved scimitar. Briefly, a Ghazee or Mohammedan fanatic. "Patience, all ye faithful, till Sunday, the 31st of May. Then, while the h.e.l.l-doomed infidels are at their evening prayer, defenseless, fall on them and slay. G.o.d will show the right!

This is the Moulvie's word, sent by me his servant. Give the Great Cry, brothers, in the House of the Thief! Smite ye of Meerut, and we of Lucknow will smite also." His wild uncontrolled voice rolled on in broad Arabic vowels from one text to another.

"And we of Delhi will smite also," interrupted the wearer of a rakish Moghul cap impatiently. "We will smite for the Queen."

"The Queen?" echoed an older man in the same dress. "What hath the Sheeah woman to do with the race of Timoor?"

"Peace! peace! brothers," put in the agent with authority. "These times are not for petty squabbles. Let who be the heir, the King must reign."

A murmur of a.s.sent rose; but it was broken in upon by a dissentient voice from a group of troopers at the door.

"Then our comrades are to rot in jail till the 31st? That suits not the men of the 3d Cavalry."

"Then let the 3d Cavalry suit itself," retorted the agent fearlessly.

"We can stand without them. Can they stand without us? Answer me, men of the 20th; men of the 11th."

"There be not many of us here," muttered a voice from a dark corner; "and maybe we could hold our own against the lot of you." It was Soma's, and the man beside him frowned. But the agent who knew every petty jealousy, every private quarrel of regiment with regiment, went on remorselessly. "Let the 3d swagger if it choose. The Rajpoots and Brahmins know how to obey the stars. The 31st is the auspicious day.

That is the word. The word of the King, of the Brahmins, of India, of G.o.d!"

"The 31st! Then slay and spare not! It is _jehad! Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed!_" said the Ghazee.

The cry, though a mere whisper, electrified the Mohammedans, and an older man in the group of dissentients at the door muttered that he could hold his troop--if others who had risen to favor quicker than he--could hold theirs.

"I'll hold mine, Khan sahib, without thine aid," retorted a very young smart-looking native officer angrily. "That is if the women will hold their tongues. But, look you, my troop held the hardest hitters in the 3d. And Nargeeza's fancy is of those in jail. Now Nargeeza leads all the other town-women by the nose; and that means much to men who be not all saints like Ghazee-_jee_ yonder, who ties the two ends of life with a ragged green turban and a b.l.o.o.d.y banner!"

"And I see not why our comrades should stay yonder for three weeks, when there is but a native guard to hold them, and I and mine have made the _Sirkar_ what it is," put in a man with arrogance and insolence written on him from top to toe; a true type of the pampered Brahmin sepoy.

"Rescue them if thou wilt, Havildar-_jee_," sneered the agent. "But the man who risks our plot will be held traitor by the Council. And the men of the 11th," he added sharply, turning to the corner whence Soma's voice had come, "may remember that also. They have had the audacity to stipulate for their Colonel's life."

"For our officers lives, _baboo-jee_," came the voice again, bold as the agent's. "We of the 11th kill not men who have led us to victory.

And if this be not understood I, Soma, Yadubansi, go straight to the Colonel and tell him. We are not butchers in the 11th: Oh, priest of Kali!"

The agent turned a little pale. He did not care to have his calling known, and he saw at a glance that his challenger had the reckless fire of hemp in his eyes. He had indeed been drinking as a refuge from the memory of the sweeper's broom and from the taunts and threats which had been used to force him to join the malcontents. Such a man was not safe to quarrel with, nor was the audience fit for a discussion of that topic; there was already a stir in it, and mutterings that butchery was one thing, fighting another.

"Pay thy Colonel's journey home if thou likest, Rajpoot-_jee_," he said with a sneer. "Ay! and give him pension, too! All we want is to get rid of them. And there will be plenty of loot left when the pension is paid, for it is to be each man for himself when the time comes. Not share and share alike with every coward who will not risk his life in looting, as it is with the _Sirkar_."

It was a deft red-herring to these born mercenaries, and no more was said. But as the meeting dispersed by twos and threes to avoid notice, the agent stood at the door giving the word in a final whisper:

"Patience till the 31st."

"Willst take a seat in our carriage, Ghazee-_jee_," said a fat native officer as he pa.s.sed out. "'Tis at thy service since thou goest to Delhi and we must return to-night. G.o.d knows we have done enough to d.a.m.n us at Meerut over this court-martial! But what would you? If we had not given the verdict for the Huzoors there would have been more of us in jail. So we bide our time like the rest. And to-morrow there is the parade to hear the sentence on the martyrs at Barrackpore. Do the sahibs think us cowards that they drive us so? G.o.d smite their souls to h.e.l.l!"

"He will, brother, he will. The Cry shall yet be heard in the House of the Thief," said the Ghazee fiercely, his eyes growing dreamy with hope. He was thinking of a sunset near the Goomtee more than a year ago, when he had bid every penny he possessed for his own, in vain.

"Well, come if thou likest," continued the native officer. "That camel of thine yonder is lame, and we have room. 'Twas Erlton sahib's dak by rights, but he goes not; so we got it cheap instead of an _ekka_."

"Erlton sahib's!" echoed the fanatic, clutching at his sword. "Ay!

Ay!" he went on half to himself. "I knew he was at Delhi, and the mem who laughed, and the other mem who would not listen. Nay!

Soubadar-_jee!_ I travel in no carriage of Erlton sahib's. My camel will serve me."

"'Tis the vehicle of saints," sneered the owner of the rakish Moghul cap. "Verily, when I saw thee mounted on it, Ghazee-_jee_, I deemed thee the Lord Ali."

"Peace! scoffer," interrupted the fanatic, "lest I mistake thee for an infidel."

The Moghul ducked hastily from a wild swing of the curved sword, and moved off swearing such firebrands should be locked up; they might set light to the train ere wise men had it ready.

"No fear!" said the smart young troop-sergeant of the 3d. "Who listens to such as he save those whose blood has cooled, and those whose blood was never hot? The fighters listen to women who can make their flame."

Soma, who was drifting with them toward the drug-shops of the city, scowled fiercely. "That may suit thee, Mussulman-_jee_, who art casteless, and can sup shares with sweeper women in the bazaar; but the Rajpoot needs no harlot to teach him courage. The mothers of his race have enough and to spare."

"_Loh!_ hark to him!" jibed the corporal of the 20th, who was sticking to his prey like a leech. "Ask him, Havildar-_jee_, if he prefers a sweeper's broom to a sweeper's lips."

There was a roar of laughter from the group.

Soma gave a beast-like cry, looked as though he were about to spring, then--recognizing his own helplessness--flung himself away from all companionship and walked home moodily. They had driven him too far; he would not stand it. If that tale was spread abroad, he would side with the Huzoors who did not believe such things--with the Colonel who understood, like the Colonel before him who had gone home on pension; for the 11th had a cult of their officers. And these fools, his countrymen, thought to make him a butcher by threats; sought to make him take revenge for what deserved revenge. For it was the _Sirkar's_ fault--it was the _Sirkar's_ fault.

In truth a strange conflict was going on in this man's mind, as it was in many another such as his, between inherited traditions, making alike for loyalty and disloyalty. There was the knowledge of his forbears' pride in their victories, in their sahibs who had led them to victory, and the knowledge of their pride in the veriest jot or t.i.ttle of ceremonial law. A dull, painful amaze filled him that these two broad facts should be in conflict; that those, whom in a way he felt to be part of his life, should be in league against him. All the more reason, that, for showing them who were the better men; for standing up fairly to a fair fight. By all the delights of Swargal he would like to stand up fair, even to the master--the man who, in his presence, had shot three tigers on foot in half an hour--the demi-G.o.d of his hunting yarns for years.

And then, suddenly, he remembered that this hero of his might be shot like a dog on the 31st at Delhi--would be shot, since he was certain to be in the front of anything. Soma's heat-fevered, hemp-drugged brain seized on the thought fiercely, confusedly. That must not be!

The master, at any rate, must be warned. He would go down when the sun set, and see if he were still where he had been the day before; and if not?--Why! then it must be two days leave to Delhi! He was not going to butcher the master for all the sweepers' brooms in the world.

Fools! those others, to think to drive him, Soma, Chundrabansi! So he flung himself on his string bed to sleep till the sunset came, and the tyranny of heat be overpast.

But there was one, close by in the cantonment bazaar, who waited for sunset with no desire for it to bring coolness. She meant it to bring heat instead. And this was Nargeeza the courtesan. She was past the prime of everything save vice, a woman who, once all-powerful, could not hope for many more lovers; and hers, a man rich beyond most soldiers, lay in jail for ten years. No wonder, then, that as she lay half-torpid among a heap of tawdry finery in the biggest house of the lane set apart by regulation for such as she, there was all the venom of a snake in her drowsy brain. The air of the low room was deadly with a scent of musk and roses and orange-blossom-oil. The half-dozen girls and women who lounged in it, or in the balcony, were half undressed, their bare brown arms flung carelessly upon dirty mats and torn quilts. Their harvest time was not yet; that would come later when sunsetting brought the men from the lines. This, then, was the time for sleep. But Nargeeza, recognized head of the recognized regimental women, sat up suddenly and said sharply:

"Thou didst not tell me, Nasiban, what Gulabi said. Is she of us?"