On the Face of the Waters Part 61

"Let them come too. Naught hinders it."

True. But the gold, the gold!

After he had left her, impatient of her hesitation, a sudden terror seized her, lest he might have sought the King, lest he might persuade him.

"My bearers--woman! Quick!" she called to Hafzan. "Quick, fool! my dhooli!"

But even dhooli bearers have to fly when vengeance shadows the horizon; and in that secluded corner none remained. Everyone was busy elsewhere; or from sheer terror cl.u.s.tered together where soldiers were to be found.

"The Ornament-of-Palaces can walk," said Hafzan, still with that faint malice in her face. "There is none to see, and it is not far."

So, for the last time, Zeenut Maihl left the summer-house whence she had watched the Meerut road. Left it on foot, as many a better woman as unused to walking as she was leaving Delhi with babies on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and little children toddling beside them. Past the faint outline of the Pearl Mosque, through the cool damp of the watered garden with the moon shining overhead, she stumbled laboriously. Up the steps of the Audience Hall toward a faint light by the Throne. The King sat on it, almost in the dark; for the oil cressets on a trefoil stand only seemed to make the shadows blacker. They lay thick upon the roof, blotting out that circling boast. Before him stood Bukht Khan, his hand still on his sword, broad, contemptuously bold. But on either side of the shrunken figure, half lost in the shadows also, were other counselors. Ahsan-Oolah, wily as ever, Elahi Buksh, the time-server, who saw the only hope of safety in prompt surrender.

"Let the Pillar-of-Faith claim time for thought," the latter was saying. "There is no hurry. If the soubadar-sahib is in one, let him go----"

Bukht Khan broke in with an ugly laugh, "Yea, Mirza-sahib, I can go, but if I go the army goes with me. Remember that. The King can keep the rabble. I have the soldiers."

Bahadur Shah looked from one to the other helplessly. Whether to go, risk all, endure a life of unknown discomfort at his age, or remain, alone, unprotected, he knew not.

"Yea! that is true. Still there is no need for hurry," put in the physician, with a glance at Elahi Buksh. "Let my master bid the soubadar and the army meet him at the Tomb of Humayon to-morrow morning. 'Twill be more seemly time to leave than now, like a thief in the night."

Bukht Khan gave a sharp look at the speaker, then laughed again. He saw the game. He scarcely cared to check it.

"So be it. But let it be before noon. I will wait no longer."

As he pa.s.sed out hastily he almost ran into a half-veiled figure, which, with another behind it, was hugging one of the pillars, peering forward, listening. He guessed it for the Queen, and paused instantly.

"'Tis thy last chance, Zeenut Maihl," he whispered in her ear. "Come if thou art wise."

The last. No! not that. The last for sovereignty perhaps, but not for hidden treasure. Half an hour afterward, a little procession of Royal dhoolies pa.s.sed out of the Palace on their way to Elahi Buksh's house beside the Delhi gate, and Ahsan-Oolah walked beside the Queen's. He had gold also to save, and he was wise; so she listened, and as she listened she told herself that it would be best to stay. Her life was safe, and her son was too young for the punishment of death. As for the King, he was too old for the future to hold anything else.

Hafzan watched her go, still with that half-jeering smile, then turned back into the empty Palace. Even in the outer court it was empty, indeed, save for a few fanatics muttering texts; and within the precincts, deserted utterly, silent as the grave. Until, suddenly, from the Pearl Mosque a voice came, giving the call to prayer; for it was not far from dawn.

She paused, recognizing it, and leaving the marble terrace where she had been standing, looking riverward, walked over to the bronze-studded door, and peered in among the white arches of the mosque for what she sought.

And there it was, a tall white figure looking westward, its back toward her, its arms spread skyward. A fanatic of fanatics.

"Thou art not wise to linger here, Moulvie sahib," she called. "Hast not heard? The Burn Bastion is taken. The King and Queen have fled.

The English will be here in an hour or so, and then----"

"And then there comes judgment," answered Mohammed Ismail, turning to look at her sternly. "Doth not it lie within these walls? I stay here, woman, as I have stayed."

"Nay, not here," she argued in conciliatory tones. "It lies yonder, in the outer court, by the trees shadowing the little tank. Thou canst see it from the window of my uncle's room. And he hath gone--like the others. 'Twere better to await it there."

She spoke as she would have spoken to a madman. And, indeed, she held him to be little else. Here was a man who had saved forty infidels, whose reward was sure. And who must needs imperil it by lingering where death was certain; must needs think of his battered soul instead of his body. Mohammed Ismail came and stood beside her, with a curious acquiescence in regard to detail's which is so often seen in men mastered by one idea.

"It may be better so, sister," he said dreamily. "'Tis as well to be prepared."

Hafzan's hard eyes melted a little, for she had a real pity for this man who had haunted the Palace persistently, and lost his reason over his conscience.

If she could once get him into her uncle's room, she would find some method of locking him in, of keeping him out of mischief. For herself, being a woman, the Huzoors were not to be feared.

"Yea! 'tis as well to be near," she said as she led the way.

And the time drew near also; for the dawn of the 20th of September had broken ere, with the key of the outer door in her bosom, she retired into an inner room, leaving the Moulvie saying his prayers in the other. Already the troops, recovered from their unsteadiness, had carried the Lah.o.r.e gate and were bearing down on the mosque. They found it almost undefended. The circling flight of purple pigeons, which at the first volley flew westward, the sun glistening on their iridescent plumage, was scarcely more swift than the flight of those who attempted a feeble resistance. And now the Palace lay close by.

With it captured, Delhi was taken. Its walls, it is true, rose unharmed, secure as ever, hemming in those few acres of G.o.d's earth from the march of time; but they were strangely silent. Only now and again a puff of white smoke and an unavailing roar told that someone, who cared not even for success, remained within.

So powder bags were brought. Home of the Engineers sent for, that he might light the fuse which gave entry to the last stronghold; for there was no hurry now. No racing now under hailstorms, and over tightropes. Calmly, quietly, the fuse was lit, the gate shivered to atoms, and the long red tunnel with the gleam of sunlight at its end lay before the men, who entered it with a cheer. Then, here and there rose guttural Arabic texts, ending in a groan. Here and there the clash of arms. But not enough to rouse Hafzan, who, long ere this, had fallen asleep after her wakeful night. It needed a touch on her shoulder for that, and the Moulvie's eager voice in her ear.

"The key, woman! The key--give it! I need the key."

Half-dazed by sleep, deceived by the silence, she put her hand mechanically to her bosom. His followed hers; he had what he sought, and was off. She sprang to her feet, recognizing some danger, and followed him.

"He is mad! He is mad!" she cried, as her halting steps lingered behind the tall white figure which made straight for a crowd of soldiers gathered round the little tank. There were other soldiers here, there, everywhere in the rose-red arcades around the sun-lit court. Soldiers with dark faces and white ones seeking victims, seeking plunder. But these in the center were all white men, and they were standing, as men stand to look at a holy shrine, upon the place where, as the spies had told them, English women and children had been murdered.

So toward them, while curses were in all hearts and on some lips, came the tall white figure with its arms outspread, its wild eyes aflame.

"O G.o.d of Might and Right! Give judgment now, give judgment now."

The cry rolled and echoed through the arcades to alien ears even as other cries.

"He is mad--he saved them--he is mad!" gasped the maimed woman behind; but her cry seemed no different to those unheeding ears.

The tall white figure lay on its face, half a dozen bayonets in its back, and half a dozen more were after Hafzan.

"Stick him! Stick him! A man in disguise. Remember the women and children. Stick the coward!"

She fled shrieking--shrill, feminine shrieks; but the men's blood was up. They could not hear, they would not hear; and yet the awkwardness of that flying figure made them laugh horribly.

"Don't 'ustle 'im! Give 'im time! There's plenty o' run in 'im yet, mates. Lord! 'e'd get first prize at Lillie Bridge 'e would."

Someone else, however, had got it at Harrow not a year before, and was after the reckless crew. Almost too late--not quite. Hafzan, run to earth against a red wall, felt something on her back, and gave a wild yell. But it was only a boy's hand.

"My G.o.d! sir, I've stuck you!" faltered a voice behind, as a man stood rigid, arrested in mid-thrust.

"You d----d fool!" said the boy. "Couldn't you hear it was a woman?

I'll--I'll have you shot. Oh, hang it all! Drag the creature away, someone. Get out, do!"

For Hafzan, as he stood stanching the blood from the slight wound, had fallen at his feet and was kissing them frantically.

But even that indignity was forgotten as the stained handkerchief answered the flutter of something which at that moment caught the breeze above him.

It was the English flag.

The men, forgetting everything else, cheered themselves hoa.r.s.e--cheered again when an orderly rode past waving a slip of paper sent back to the General with the laconic report:

"Blown open the gates! Got the Palace!"