On the Face of the Waters Part 32

But the lance? The lance whose perilous nearness had made that shot Jim Douglas' only chance of keeping his promise? He was on his knees on the scorched gra.s.s choking down the curse as he saw a broken shaft among the frills and ribbons, a slow stream oozing in gushes to dye them crimson. There was another crimson spot, too, on the shoulder, showing where a bullet, after crashing through a man's temples, had found its spent resting place. But as the Englishman kicked away one body, and raised the other tenderly from the unhurt child, so as not to stir that broken shaft, he wished that if death had had to come, he might have dealt it. To his wild rage, his insane hatred, there seemed a desecration even in that cold touch of steel from a dark hand.

But Alice Gissing resented nothing. She lay propped by his arms with those wide blue eyes still wide, yet sightless, heedless of Kate's horrified whispers, or the poor old Mai's frantic whimper. Until suddenly a piteous little wail rose from the half-stunned child to mingle with that ceaseless iteration of grief. "_Oh! meri buchchi murgyia!_" (Oh, my girlie is dead!--dead!)

It seemed to bring her back, and a smile showed on the fast-paling face.

"Don't be a fool, Mai. It isn't a girl; it's a boy. Take care of him, do, and don't be stupid. I'm all right."

Her voice was strong enough, and Kate looked at Jim Douglas hopefully.

She had recognized him at once, despite his dress, with a faint, dead wonder as to why things were so strange to-day. But he could feel something oozing wet and warm over his supporting arm, he knew the meaning of that whitening face; so he shook his head hopelessly, his eyes on those wide unseeing ones. She was as still, he thought, as she had been when he held her before. Then suddenly the eyes narrowed into sight, and looked him in the face curiously, clearly.

"It's you, is it?" came the old inconsequent laugh. "Why don't you say 'Bravo!--Bravo!--Bra--'"

The crimson rush of blood from her still-smiling lips dyed his hands also, as he caught her up recklessly with a swift order to the others to follow, and ran for the house. But as he ran, clasping her close, close, to him, his whispered bravos a.s.sailed her dead ears pa.s.sionately, and when he laid her on her bed, he paused even in the mad tumult of his rage, his anxiety, his hope for others to kiss the palms of those brave hands ere he folded them decently on her breast, and was out to fetch his horse, and return to where Kate waited for him in the veranda, the child in her arms. Brave also; but the certainty that he had left the flood-level of sympathy and admiration behind him at the feet of a dead woman he had never known, was with him even in his hurry.

"I can't see anyone else about as yet," he said, as he reloaded hastily, "and but for that fiend--that devil of a bird hounding him on--what did it mean?--not that it matters now"--he threw his hand out in a gesture of impotent regret and turned to mount.

Kate shivered. What, indeed, did it mean? A vague recollection was adding to her horror. Had she driven away once from an uncomprehensible appeal in that relentless face? when the bird----

"Don't think, please," said Jim Douglas, pausing to give her a sharp glance. "You will need all your nerve. The troops mutinied at Meerut last night, and killed a lot of people. They have come on here, and I don't trust the native regiments. Go inside, and shut the door. I must reconnoiter a bit before we start."

"But my husband?" she cried, and her tone made him remember the strangeness of finding her in that house. She looked unreliable, to his keen eye; the bitter truth might make her rigid, callous, and in such callousness lay their only chance.

"All right. He asked me to look after--her."

He saw her waver, then pull herself together; but he saw also that her clasp on Sonny tightened convulsively, and he held out his arms.

"Hand the child to me for a moment," he said briefly, "and call that poor lady's ayah from her wailing."

The piteous whimperings from the darkened rooms within ceased reluctantly. The old woman came with lagging step into the veranda, but Jim Douglas called to her in the most matter-of-fact voice.

"Here, Mai! Take your mem's charge. She told you to take care of the boy, remember." The tear-dim doubtful eyes looked at him half-resentfully, but he went on coolly. "Now, Sonny, go to your ayah, and be a good boy. Hold out your arms to old ayah, who has had ever so many Sonnys--haven't you, ayah?"

The child, glad to escape from the prancing horse, the purposely rough arms, held out its little dimpled hands. They seemed to draw the hesitating old feet, step by step, till with a sudden fierce s.n.a.t.c.h, a wild embrace, the old arms closed round the child with a croon of content.

Jim Douglas breathed more freely. "Now, Mrs. Erlton," he said, "I can't make you promise to leave Sonny there; but he is safer with her than he could be with you. She must have friends in the city. You haven't _one_."

He was off as he spoke, leaving her to that knowledge. Not a friend!

No! not one. Still, he need not have told her so, she thought proudly, as she pa.s.sed in and closed the doors as she had been bidden to do.

But he had succeeded. A certain fierce, dull resistance had replaced her emotion. So while the ayah, still carrying Sonny, returned to her dead mistress, Kate remained in the drawing room, feeling stunned. Too stunned to think of anything save those last words. Not a friend! Not one, saving a few cringing shop-keepers, in all that wide city to whom she had ever spoken a word! Whose fault was that? Whose fault was it that she had not understood that appeal?

A rattle of musketry quite close at hand roused her from apathy into fear for the child, and she pa.s.sed rapidly into the next room. It was empty, save for that figure on the bed. The ayah with her charge had gone, closing the doors behind her; to her friends, no doubt. But she, Kate Erlton, had none. The renewed rattle of musketry sent her to peer through the jalousies; but she could see nothing. The sound seemed to come from the open s.p.a.ce by the church, but gardens lay between her and that, blocking the view. Still it was quite close; seemed closer than it had been. No doubt it would come closer and closer till it found her waiting there, without a friend. Well! Since she was not even capable of saving Sonny, she could at least do what she was told--she could at least die alone.

No! not quite alone! She turned back to the bed and looked down on the slender figure lying there as if asleep. For the ayah's vain hopes of lingering life had left the face unstained, and the folded hands hid the crimson below them. Asleep, not dead; for the face had no look of rest. It was the face of one who dreams still of the stress and strain of coming life.

So this was to be her companion in death; this woman who had done her the greatest wrong. What wrong? the question came dully. What wrong had she done to one who refused to admit the claims or rights of pa.s.sion? What had she stolen, this woman who had not cared at all?

Whose mind had been unsullied utterly. Only motherhood; and that was given to saint and sinner alike.

Given rightly here, for those little hands were brave mother-hands.

Kate put out hers softly and touched them. Still warm, still life-like, their companionship thrilled her through and through. With a faint sob, she sank on her knees beside the bed and laid her cheek on them. Let death come and find her there! Let the finish of the race, which was the win and the lose----

"Mrs. Erlton! quick, please!"

Jim Douglas' voice, calling to her from outside, roused her from a sort of apathy into sudden desire for life; she was out in the veranda in a second.

"The game's up," he said, scarcely able to speak from breathlessness; and his horse was in a white lather. "I had to see to the Seymours first, and now there's only one chance I can think of--desperate at that. Quick, your foot on mine--so--from the step---- Now your hand.

One! two! three! That's right." He had her on the saddle before him and was off through the gardens cityward at a gallop. "The 54th came down from the cantonments all right," he went on rapidly, "but shot their officers at the church--the city scoundrels are killing and looting all about, but the main-guard is closed and safe as yet. I got Mrs. Seymour there. I'll get you if I can. I'm going to ride through the thick of the devils now with you as my prisoner. Do you see--there at the turn. I'll hark back down the road--it's the only chance of getting through. Slip down a bit across the saddle bow. Don't be afraid. I'll hold as long as I can. Now scream--scream like the devil.

No! let your arms slack as if you'd fainted--people won't look so much--that's better--that's capital--now--ready!"

He swerved his horse with a dig of the spur and made for the crowd which lay between him and safety. The words describing the rape of the Sabine women, over the construing of which he remembered being birched at school, recurred to him, as such idle thoughts will at such times, as he hitched his hand tighter on Kate's dress and scattered the first group with a coa.r.s.e jest or two. Thank Heaven! She would not understand these, his only weapons; since cold steel could not be used, till it had to be used to _prevent_ her understanding. Thank Heaven, too! he could use both weapons fairly. So he dug in the spurs again and answered the crowd in its own kind, recklessly. A laugh, an oath, once or twice a blow with the flat of his sword. And Kate, with slack arms and closed eyes, lay and listened--listened to a sharper, angrier voice, a quick clash of steel, a shout of half-doubtful, half-pleased derision from those near, a jest provoking a roar of merriment for one who meant to hold his own in love and war. Then a sudden bound of the horse; a faint slackening of that iron grip on her waist-belt. The worst of the stream was past; another moment and they were in a quiet street, another, and they had turned at right-angles down a secluded alley where Jim Douglas paused to pa.s.s his right hand, still holding his sword, under Kate's head and bid her lean against him more comfortably. The rest was easy. He would take her out by the Moree gate--the alleys to it would be almost deserted--so, outside the walls, to the rear of the Cashmere gate. They were already twisting and turning through the narrow lanes as he told her this. Then, with a rush and a whoop, he made for the gate, and the next moment they had the open country, the world, before them. How still and peaceful it lay in the sunshine! But the main-guard was the nearest, safest shelter, so the galloping hoofs sped down the tree-set road along which Kate generally took her evening drive.

"And you?" she asked hurriedly as he set her down at the moat and bade her run for the wicket and knock, while he kept the drawbridge.

He shook his head. "The reliefs from Meerut must be in soon. If they started at dawn, in an hour. Besides, I'm off to the Palace to see what has really happened; information's everything."

She saw him turn with a wave of his sword for farewell as the wicket was opened cautiously, and make for the Moree gate once more. As he rode he told himself there should be no further cause for anxiety on her account. De Tessier's guns were in the main-guard now, and reinforcements of the loyal 74th. They could hold their own easily till the Meerut people smashed up the Palace. They could not be long now, and the city had not risen as yet. The bigger bazaars through which he cantered were almost deserted; everyone had gone home. But at the entrance to an alley a group of boys cl.u.s.tered, and one ran out to him crying, "Khan-sahib! What's the matter? Folk say people are being killed, but we want to go to school."

"Don't," said Jim Douglas as he pa.s.sed on. He had seen the schoolmaster, stripped naked, lying on his back in the broad daylight as he galloped along the College road with Kate over his saddle-bow.

"_Ari_, brothers," reported the spokesman. "He said '_don't_,' but he can know naught. He comes from the outside. And we shall lose places in cla.s.s if we stop, and others go."

So in the cheerful daylight the schoolboys discussed the problem, school or no school; the Great Revolt had got no further than that, as yet.

But there was no cloud of dust upon the Meerut road, though straining eyes thought they saw one more than once.

CHAPTER IV.

NOON.

But if the schoolmaster of one school lay dead in the sunlight there was another, well able to teach a useful lesson, left alive; and his school remains for all time as a place where men may learn what men can do.

For about three hundred yards from the deserted College, about six hundred from the main-guard of the Cashmere gate, stood the magazine, to which the two young Englishmen, followed by a burlier one, had walked back quietly after one of them had remarked that he could hold his own. For there were gates to be barred, four walls to be seen to, and various other preparations to be made before the nine men who formed the garrison could be certain of holding their own. And their own meant much to others; for with the stores and the munitions of war safe the city might rise, but it would be unarmed; but with them at the mercy of the rabble every pitiful pillager could become a recruit to the disloyal regiments.

"The mine's about finished now, sir," said Conductor Buckley, saluting gravely as he looked critically down a line ending in the powder magazine. "And, askin' your pardon, sir, mightn't it be as well to settle a signal beforehand, sir; in case it's wanted? And, if you have no objection, sir, here's Sergeant Scully here, sir, saying he would look on it as a kind favor----"

A man with a spade glanced up a trifle anxiously for the answer as he went on with his work.

"All right! Scully shall fire it. If you finish it there in the middle by that little lemon tree, we shan't forget the exact spot. Scully must see to having the portfire ready for himself. I'll give the word to you, as your gun will be near mine, and you can pa.s.s it on by raising your cap. That will do, I think."

"Nicely, sir," said Conductor Buckley, saluting again.

"I wish we had one more man," remarked the Head-of-the-nine, as he paused in pa.s.sing a gun to look to something in its gear with swift professional eye. "I don't quite see how the nine of us are to work the ten guns."

"Oh! we'll manage somehow," said his second in command, "the native establishment--perhaps----"

George Willoughby; the Head-of-the-nine, looked at the sullen group of dark faces lounging distrustfully within those barred doors, and his own face grew stern. Well, if they would not work, they should at least stay and look on--stay till the end. Then he took out his watch.