On the Face of the Waters Part 40

"Thank you, I have no wish to hear the story."

The commonplace, second-rate, mock-dignified phrase came to her lips unsought, and she felt she could have cried in sheer vexation at having used it there; in the very face of Death as it were. But Jim Douglas laughed; laughed good-naturedly.

"I wonder how many years it is since I heard a woman say that? In another world surely," he said with quite a confidential tone. "But the fact remains that Tara protects you as my wife, and if I were to go----"

Kate looked at him with a quick resentment flaming up in her face beneath the stain.

"I think you are mistaken," she said slowly. "I believe Tara would be better pleased if--if she knew the truth."

"You mean if I were to tell her you are not my wife?" he replied quickly. "Why?"

"Because I should be less of a tie to you--because----" She paused, then added sharply, "Mr. Greyman, I must ask you to tell her the truth, please. I have a right to so much, surely. I have my reasons for it, and if you do not, I shall."

Jim Douglas shrugged his shoulders. "In that case I had better tell her myself; not that I think it matters much one way or another, so long as I am here. And the whole thing from beginning to end is chance, nothing but chance."

"Your chance and mine," she murmured half to herself. It was the first time she had alluded openly to the strange linking of their fates, and he looked at her almost impatiently.

"Yes! your chance and mine; and we must make the best of it. I'll tell her as I go out."

But Tara interrupted him at the beginning.

"If the Huzoor means that he does not love the mem as he loved Zora, that requires no telling, and for the rest what does it matter to this slave?"

"And it matters nothing to me either," he retorted roughly, "but of this be sure. Who kills the mem kills me, unless I kill first; and by Krishnu, and Vishnu, and the lot, I'd as lief kill you, Tara, as anyone else, if you get in my way."

A great broad flash of white teeth lit up her face as she salaamed, remarking that the Huzoor's mother must have been as Kunti. And Jim Douglas understanding the complimentary allusion to the G.o.d-visited mother of the Lunar race, wished as he went downstairs, that he was like the Five Heroes in one respect, at least, and that was in having only a fifth part of a woman to look after, instead of two whole ones who talked of love! So he pa.s.sed out to listen, and watch, and wait, while the fire-balloons went up into the velvety sky, replacing the kites. For May is the month of marriages also, and night after night these false stars floated out from the Dream-City to form new constellations on the horizon for a few minutes and then disappear with a flare into the darkness. Into the darkness whence the master did not come. Yet, as the month ended, villagers pa.s.sing in with grain from Meerut averred that the masters were not all dead, or else G.o.d gave their ghosts a like power in cursing and smiting--which was all poor folk had to look for; since some had appeared and burned a village.

Not all dead? The news drifted from market to market, but if it penetrated through the Palace gates it did not filter through the new curtains and hangings of the private apartments where the King took perpetual cooling draughts and wrote perpetual appeals for more etiquette and decorum. For nothing likely to disturb the unities of dreams was allowed within the precincts, where every day the old King sat on a mock peac.o.c.k throne with a new cushion to it, and listened for hours to the high-flown letters of congratulation which poured in, each with its own little covering bag of brocade, from the neighboring chiefs. And if any day there happened to be a paucity of real ones, Hussan Askuri could supply them, like other dreams, at so much a dozen; since nothing more costly than the brocade bag came with them.

So that the Mahb.o.o.b's face, as Treasurer, grew longer and longer over the dressmaker's and upholsterer's bills, and the Court Journal was driven into recording the fact that someone actually presented a bottle of _Pandamus odoratissimus_, whatever that may be. Some subtle essence, mayhap, favorable to dreaminess; since, in the month of peace, drugs were necessary to prevent awakening.

Especially when, on the 30th of May, a sound came over the distant horizon; the sound of artillery.

At last! At last! Jim Douglas, who, in sheer dread of his own growing despair, had taken to spending all the time he dared in moody silence on that peaceful roof, started as if he had been shot, and was down the stairs seeking news. The streets were full of a silent, restless crowd, almost empty of soldiers. They had gone out during the night, he learned, Meerutward; tidings of an army on the banks of the Hindu river, seven or eight miles out, having been brought in by scouts.

At last! At last! He wandered through the bazaars scarcely able to think, wondering only when the army could possibly arrive, feeling a mad joy in the anxious faces around him, lingering by the groups of men collected in every open s.p.a.ce simply for the satisfaction of hearing the wonder and alarm in the words: "So the master lives."

He lived indeed! Listen! That was his voice over the eastern horizon!

Kate, when he came back to the roof about noon, had never seen him in this mood before, and wondered at his fire, his gayety, his youth. But the recognition brought a dull pain with it, in the thought that this was natural to the man; that gloomy moodiness the result of her presence.

"You are not afraid, surely?" he said suddenly, breaking off in the recital of some future event which seemed to him certain.

"No. I am only glad," she replied slowly. "It could not have lasted much longer. It is a great relief."

"Relief," he echoed, "I wonder if you know the relief it is to me?"

And then he looked at her remorsefully. "I have been an awful brute, Mrs. Erlton, but women can scarcely understand what inaction means to a man."

Could they not? she wondered bitterly as he hastened off again, leaving her to long weary hours of waiting; till the red flush of sunset on the bubble dome of the mosque brought him back with a new look on his face; a look of angry doubt.

"The sepoys are coming in again," he said; "they claim a victory--but that, of course, is impossible. Still I don't understand, and it is so difficult to get any reliable information."

"You should go out yourself--I believe it would be best for us both,"

replied Kate, "Tara----"

He shook his head impatiently. "Not now. What is the use of risking all at the last. We can only have to wait till to-morrow. But I don't understand it, all the same. The sepoys say they surprised the camp--that the buglers were still calling to arms when their artillery opened fire. But so far as I can make out they have lost five guns, and from the amount of bhang they are drinking, I believe it was a rout. However, if you don't mind, I'll be off again--and--and don't be alarmed if I stay out."

"I'm not in the least alarmed," she replied. "As I have told you before, I don't think it is necessary you should come here at all."

He paused at the door to glance back at her half-resentfully. To be sure she did not know that he had slept on its threshold as a rule; but anyhow, after eating your heart out over one woman's safety for three weeks, it was hard to be told that you were not wanted. But, thank Heaven! the end was at hand. And yet as he lingered round the watch-fires he heard nothing but boasting, and in more than one of the mosques thanksgivings were being offered up; while outside the walls volunteers to complete the task so well begun were a.s.sembling to go forth with the dawn and kill the few remaining infidels. Some drunk with bhang, more intoxicated by the l.u.s.t of blood which comes to fighting races like the Rajpoot with the first blow. It had come to Soma, as, with fierce face seamed with tears, he told the tale again and again of his chum's gallant death. How Davee Singh, brother in arms, his boyhood's playmate, seeing some cowards of artillerymen abandoning a tumbril full of ammunition to the cursed Mlechchas, had leaped to it like a black-buck, and with a cry to Kali, Mother of Death, had fired his musket into it; so sending a dozen or more of the h.e.l.l-doomed to their place, and one more brave Rajpoot to Swarga.

"_Jai! Jai! Kali ma ki jai!_"

An echo of the dead man's last cry came from many a living one, as muskets were gripped tighter in the resolve to be no whit behind. A few more such heroes and the Golden Age would come again; the age of the blessed Pandava, who forgot the cause in the quarrel.

And so for one day more Jim Douglas strained his ears for that distant thunder on the horizon, while the people of the town, becoming more accustomed to it, went about their business, vaguely relieved at anything which should keep the sepoys' hands from mischief.

The red sunset glow was on the mosque again when he returned to the little slip of roof to find Kate working away at her grammars calmly.

The best thing she could do, since every word she learned was an additional safeguard; and yet the man could not help a scornful smile.

"It is a rout this time, I am sure," he said; "and yet there is no sign of pursuit. I cannot understand it; there seems a Fate about it!"

"Is that anything new?" she asked wearily, as she laid down her book, and with the certain precision which marked all her actions, saw that the water was really boiling before she made the tea. It was made in a _lota_, and drunk out of handleless basins, yet for all that it was Western-made tea, strong and unspiced, with cream to put to it also, which she skimmed from a dish set in cold water in the coolest, darkest place she could find. Dreamlike indeed, and Jim Douglas, drinking his tea, felt, that with his eyes shut, he might have dreamed himself in an English drawing room.

"Nothing new," he retorted, "but it seems incomprehensible. Hark!

That is a salute; for the victory, I suppose. Upon my soul I feel as if--as if I were a dream myself--as if I should go mad! Don't look startled--I shan't. The whole thing is a sham--I can see that. But why has no one the pluck to give the House-of-Cards a push and bring it about their ears? And what has become of the army at the Hindun? It took three days to march there from Meerut, I hear--not more than twenty-four miles. No! I cannot understand it. No wonder the people say we are all dead. I begin to believe it myself."

He heard the saying often enough certainly to bring relief during the 1st and 2d of June, when there was no more distant thunder on the horizon, and the whole town, steeped and saturated with sunshine, lay half-asleep, the soldiers drowsing off the effect of their drugs.

Dead? Yea! the masters were dead, and those who had escaped were in full retreat up the river; so at least said villagers coming in with supplies. But someone else who had come in with supplies also, sat crouched up like a gra.s.shopper on a great pile of wool-beta.s.seled sacks in the corn market and laughed creakily. "Dead! not they.

As the _tanda_ pa.s.sed Karnal four days agone the camping ground was white as a poppy field with tents, and the soldiers like the flies buzzing round them. And if folk want to hear more, I, Tiddu Baharupa-Bunjarah, can tell tales beyond the Cashmere gate on the river island where the bullocks graze."

The creaking voice rose unnecessarily loud, and a man in the dress of an Afghan who had been listening, his back to the speaker, moved off with a surprised smile. Tiddu had proved his vaunted superiority in that instance; though by what arts he had penetrated the back of a disguise, Jim Douglas could not imagine. Still here was news indeed--news which explained some of the mystery, since the seeming retreat up the river had been, no doubt, for the purpose of joining forces. But it was something almost better than news--it was a chance of giving them. He had not dared, for Kate's sake, to risk any confederate as yet; but here was one ready to hand--a confederate, too, who would do anything for money.

So that night he sat in tamarisk shadow on the river island talking in whispers, while the monotonous clank of the bells hung on the wandering bullocks sounded fitfully, the flicker of the watchfires gleamed here and there on the half-dried pools of water, the fireflies flashed among the bushes, and every now and again a rough, rude chant rose on the still air.

"They have been there these ten days, Huzoor," came Tiddu's indifferent voice. "They are waiting for the siege train. Nigh on three thousand of them, and some black faces besides."

Jim Douglas gave an exclamation of sheer despair. To him, living in the House-of-Cards, the Palace-of-Dreams, such caution seemed unnecessary. Still, the past being irretrievable, the present remained in which by hook or by crook to get the letter he had with him, ready written, conveyed to the army at Kurnal. And Tiddu, with fifty rupees stowed away in his waistband, being lavish of promise and confidence, there was no more to be done save creep back to the city, feeling as if the luck had turned at last.

But the next morning he found the Thunbi Bazaar in a turmoil of talk.

There were spies in the city. A letter had been found, written in the Persian character, it is true but with the devilish knowledge of the West in its details of likely spots for attack, the indecision of certain quarters in the city, its general unpreparedness for anything like resistance. Who had written it? As the day went on the camps were in uproar, the Palace invaded, the dream disturbed by denouncings of Ahsan-Oolah, the giver of composing draughts--Mahb.o.o.b Ali, the checker of the purse strings; even of Mirza Moghul, commander-in-chief himself, who might well be eager to buy his recognition as heir by treachery.

The net result of the letter being that, as Jim Douglas, with wrath in his heart, crept out at dusk to the low levels by the Water Bastion, intent on having it out with Tiddu, he could see gangs of sepoys still at work by torchlight strengthening the bridge defense, and had to dodge a measuring party of artillerymen busy range-finding. His suggestions had been of use!

But the old Bunjarah took his fierce reproaches philosophically. "'Tis the miscreant Bhungi," he a.s.sented mournfully. "He is not to be trusted, but Jhungi having a tertian ague, I deemed a surer foot advisable. Yet the Huzoor need not be afraid. Even the miscreant would not betray his person; and for the rest, the Presence writes Persian like any court moonshee."

The calm a.s.sumption that personal fear was at the bottom of his reproaches, made Jim Douglas desire to throttle the old man, and only the certainty that he dare not risk a row prevented him from going for the ill-gotten rupees at any rate. His thought, however, seemed read by the old rascal, for a lean protesting hand, holding a bag, flourished out of the darkness, and the creaking voice said magnificently:

"Before Murri-am and the sacred neem, Huzoor, I have kept my bargain.