On the Face of the Waters Part 37

But that still further down! Jim Douglas gave a quick cry, dropped Kate's hand, and was on his knees beside the tall young figure--coatless, its white shirt stiff with blood, which lay head downward on the last steps as if it had pitched forward in some mad pursuit. As he turned it over on its back gently, the young face showed in the moonlight stern, yet still exultant, and the sword, still clenched in the stiff right hand, rattled on the steps.

"Mainwaring! I don't understand," he said, looking up bewildered into Kate's face. The puzzle had gone from it; she seemed roused to life again.

"I understand now," she said softly, and as she spoke she stooped and raised the boy's head tenderly in her hands. "Don't let us leave him here," she went on eagerly, hastily. "Leave him there, beside--beside--_her_."

Jim Douglas made no reply. He understood also dimly, and he only signed to her to take the feet instead. So together they managed to place that dead weight within the threshold and close the door.

Then Jim Douglas held out his hand again, but there was a new friendliness in its grip. "Come!" he said, and there was a new ring in his voice, "the night is far spent, the day is at hand."

It was true. As they stepped from the now waning moonlight into the shadow of the trees, the birds, beginning to dream of dawn, shifted and twittered faintly among the branches. And once, startling them both, there was a louder rustling from a taller tree, a flutter of broad white wings to a perch nearer the city, a half-sleepy cry of:

"_Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed!_"

"If I had time," muttered Jim Douglas fiercely, "I would go and wring that cursed bird's neck! But for it----" Kate's tighter clasp on his hand seemed like an appeal, and he went on in silence.

So, as they slipped from the gardens into the silent streets, the muezzin's monotonous chant began from the shadowy minaret of the big mosque.

"Prayer is more than sleep!--than sleep!--than sleep!"

The night was far spent; the day was indeed at hand--and what would it bring forth? Jim Douglas, with a sinking at his heart, told himself he could at least be thankful that one day was done.

BOOK IV.

"SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE OF."

CHAPTER I.

THE DEATH PLEDGE.

The outer court of the Palace lay steeped in the sunshine of noon. Its hot rose-red walls and arcades seemed to shimmer in the glare, and the dazzle and glitter gave a strange air of unreality, of instability to all things. To the crowds of loungers taking their siesta in every arcade and every sc.r.a.p of shadow, to the horses stabled in rows in the glare and the blaze, to the eager groups of new arrivals which, from time to time, came in from the outer world by the cool, dark tunnel of the Lah.o.r.e gate to stand for a second, as if blinded by the shimmer and glitter, before becoming a part of that silent, drowsy stir of life.

From an arch close to the inner entry to the precincts rose a monotonous voice reading aloud. The reader was evidently the author also, for his frown of annoyance was unmistakable at a sudden diversion caused by the entry of a dozen or more armed men, shouting at the top of their voices: "_Padisath, Padisath, Padisath!_ We be fighters for The Faith. _Padisath!_ a blessing, a blessing!"

A malicious laugh came from one of the listeners in the arcade--a woman shrouded in a Pathan veil.

"'Tis as well his Majesty hath taken another cooling draught," came her voice shrilly. "What with writing letters for help to the Huzoors to please Ahsan-Oolah and Elahi-Buksh, and blessing faith to please the Queen, he hath enough to do in keeping his brain from getting dizzy with whirling this way and that. Mayhap faith will fail first, since it is not satisfied with blessings. They are windy diet, and I heard Mahb.o.o.b say an hour agone that there was too much faith for the Treasury. Lo! moonshee-jee, put that fact down among thy heroics--they need balance!"

"Sure, niece Hafzan," reproved the old editor of the Court Journal, "I see naught that needs it. Syyed Abdulla's periods fit the case as peas fit a pod; they hang together."

"As we shall when the Huzoors return," a.s.sented the voice from the veil.

"They will return no more, woman!" said another. It belonged to a man who leaned against a pilaster, looking dreamily out into the glare where, after a brief struggle, the band of fighters for the faith had pushed aside the timid door-keepers and forced their way to the inner garden. Through the open door they showed picturesquely, surging down the path, backed by green foliage and the white dome of the Pearl Mosque rising against the blue sky.

"The Faith! The Faith! We come to fight for the Faith!"

Their cry echoed over the drowsy, dreaming crowds, making men turn over in their sleep; that was all.

But the dreaminess grew in the face looking at the vista through the open door till its eyes became like those Botticelli gives to his Moses--the eyes of one who sees a promised land--and the dreamy voice went on:

"How can they return; seeing that He is Lord and Master? Changing the Day to Darkness, the Darkness into Day. Holding the unsupported skies, proving His existence by His existence, Omnipotent. High in Dignity, the Avenger of His Faithful people."

The old editor waggled his head with delighted approval; the author fidgeted over an eloquence not his own; but Hafzan's high laugh rang cynically:

"That may be so, most learned divine; yet I, Hafzan, the harem scribe, write no orders nowadays for King or Queen without the proviso of 'writ by a slave in pursuance of lawful order and under fear of death'

in some quiet corner. For I have no fancy, see you, for hanging, even if it be in good company. But, go on with thy leading article, moonshee-jee, I will interrupt no more."

"Thus by a single revolution of time the state of affairs is completely reversed,[4] and the great and memorable event which took place four days ago must be looked upon as a practical warning to the uninformed and careless, namely the British officers and those who never dreamed of the decline and fall of their government, but who have now convincing proof of what has been written in the Indelible Tablets by G.o.d. The following brief account, therefore, of the horrible and memorable events is given here solely for the sake of those still inclined to treat them as a dream. On Monday, the 16th of Rumzan, that holy month in which the Word of G.o.d came down to earth, and in which, for all time, lies the Great Night of Power, the courts being open early on account of the hot weather, the magistrate discharging his wonted duties, suddenly the bridge toll-keeper appeared, informing him that a few Toork troopers had first crossed the bridge----"

The dreamy-faced divine turned in sharp reproach. "Not so, Syyed-jee.

The vision came first--the vision of the blessed Lord Ali seen by the muezzin. Wouldst make this time as other times, and deny the miracles by which it is attested as of G.o.d?"

"Miracles!" echoed Hafzan. "I see no miracle in an old man on a camel."

The divine frowned. "Nor in a strange white bird with a golden crown, which hovered over the city giving the sacred cry? Nor in the fulfillment of Hussan Askuri's dream?"

Hafzan burst into shrill laughter. "Hussan Askuri! Lo! Moulvie Mohammed Ismail, didst thou know the arch dreamer as I, thou wouldst not credit his miracles. He dreams to the Queen's orders as a bear dances to the whip. And as thou knowest, my mistress hath the knack of jerking the puppet strings. She hath been busy these days, and even the Princess Farkhoonda----"

"What of the Princess?" asked the newswriter, eagerly, nibbling his pen in antic.i.p.ation.

"Nay, not so!" retorted Hafzan. "I give no news nowadays, since I cannot set 'spoken under fear of death' upon the words."

She rose as she spoke, yet lingered, to stand a second beside the divine and say in a softer tone, "Dreams are not safe, even to the pious, as thou, Moulvie-sahib. A bird is none the less a bird because it is strange to Delhi and hath been taught to speak. That it was seen all know; yet for all that, it may be one of Hussan Askuri's tricks."

"Let it be so, woman," retorted Mohammed Ismail almost fiercely, "is there not miracle enough and to spare without it? Did not the sun rise four days ago upon infidels in power? Where are they now? Were there not two thousand of them in Meerut? Did they strike a blow? Did they strike one here? Where is their strength? Gone! I tell thee--gone!"

Hafzan laid a veiled clutch on his arm suddenly and her other hand, widening the folds of her shapeless form mysteriously, pointed into the blaze and shimmer of sunlight. "It lies there, Moulvie-sahib, it lies there," she said in a pa.s.sionate whisper, "for G.o.d is on their side."

It was a pitiful little group to which she pointed. A woman, her mixed blood showing in her face, her Christianity in her dress, being driven along like a sheep to the shambles across the courtyard. She clasped a year-old baby to her breast and a handsome little fellow of three toddled at her skirts. She paused in a sc.r.a.p of shade thrown by a tree which grew beside a small cistern or reservoir near the middle of the court, and shifted the heavy child in her arms, looking round, as she did so, with a sort of wild, fierce fear, like that of a hunted animal. The cl.u.s.ter of sepoys who had made their prisoner over to the Palace guard turned hastily from the sight; but the guard drove her on with coa.r.s.e jibes.

"The rope dangles close, Moulvie-jee," came Hafzan's voice again.

"Ropes, said I? Gentle ropes? Nay! only as the wherewithal to tie writhing limbs as they roast. If thou hast a taste for visions, pious one, tell me what thou seest ahead for the murderers of such poor souls?"

"Murderers," echoed Mohammed Ismail swiftly; "there is no talk of murder. 'Tis against our religion. Have I not signed the edict against it? Have we not protested against the past iniquity of criminals, and ignorant beasts, and vile libertines like Prince Abool-Bukr, who take advantage----"

"He was too drunk for much evil, learned one!" sneered Hafzan. "G.o.dly men do worse than he in their own homes, as I know to my cost. As for thine edict! Take it to the Princess Farkhoonda. She is a simple soul, though she holds the vilest liver of Delhi in a leash. But the Queen--the Queen is of different mettle, as you edict-signers will find. There are nigh fifty such prisoners in the old cook-room now.

Wherefore?"

"For safety. There are nigh forty in the city police station also."

Hafzan gathered her folds closer, "Truly thou art a simple soul, pious divine. Dost not think there is a difference, still, between the Palace and the city? But G.o.d save all women, black or white, say I!