Rujub, the Juggler Part 54

"Does she hear you?"

"She hears me. She has clasped her hands, and is looking round bewildered."

"That will do. Now go outside into the yard; what do you see there?"

"I see eight men sitting round a fire. One gets up and walks to one of the grated windows, and looks in at the prisoners."

"Is the door locked?"

"It is locked."

"Where is the key?"

She was silent for some time.

"Where is the key?" he repeated.

"In the lock," she said.

"How many soldiers are there in the guardroom by the gate?"

"There are no soldiers there. There are an officer and four men outside, but none inside."

"That will do," and he pa.s.sed his hand lightly across her forehead.

"Is it all true?" Bathurst asked, as the juggler turned to him.

"a.s.suredly it is true, sahib. Had I had my daughter with me at Deennugghur, I could have sent you a message as easily; as it was, I had to trust only to the power of my mind upon yours. The information is of use, sahib."

"It is indeed. It is a great thing to know that the key is left in the lock, and also that at night there are the prison keepers only inside the building."

"Does she know what she has been doing?" he asked, as Rabda languidly rose from her chair.

"No, sahib, she knows nothing after she has recovered from these trances."

"I will watch tomorrow night," Bathurst said, "and see at what hour the sentries are relieved. It is evident that the Sepoys are not trusted to enter the prison, which is left entirely to the warders, the outside posts being furnished by some regiment in the lines. It is important to know the exact hour at which the changes are made, and perhaps you could find out tomorrow, Rujub, who these warders are; whether they are permanently on duty, or are relieved once a day."

"I will do that, sahib; if they are changed we may be able to get at some of them."

"I have no money," Bathurst said; "but--"

"I have money, sahib, and if they can be bribed, will do it; our caste is a rich one. We sometimes receive large presents, and we are everywhere made welcome. We have little need of money. I am wealthy, and practice my art more because I love it than for gain. There are few in the land that know the secrets that I do. Men die without having sons to pa.s.s down their knowledge; thus it is the number of those who possess the secrets of the ancient grows smaller every day. There are hundreds of jugglers, but very few who know, as I do, the secrets of nature, and can control the spirits of the air. Did I need greater wealth than I have, Rabda could discover for me all the hidden treasures of India; and I could obtain them, guarded though they may be by djins and evil spirits."

"Have you a son to come after you, Rujub?"

"Yes; he is traveling in Persia, to confer with one or two of the great ones there who still possess the knowledge of the ancient magicians."

"By the way, Rujub, I have not asked you how you got on with the Nana."

"It was easy enough," the juggler said. "He had lost all interest in the affairs of Deennugghur, and greeted me at first as if I had just returned from a journey. Then he remembered and asked me suddenly why I had disobeyed his orders and given my voice for terms being granted to the Feringhees. I said that I had obeyed his orders; I understood that what he princ.i.p.ally desired was to have the women here as prisoners, and that had the siege continued the Feringhees would have blown themselves into the air. Therefore the only plan was to make terms with them, which would, in fact, place them all in his power, as he would not be bound by the conditions granted by the Oude men. He was satisfied, and said no more about it, and I am restored to my position in his favor. Henceforth we shall not have to trust to the gossip of the bazaars, but I shall know what news is received and what is going to be done.

"Your people at Delhi have beaten back the Sepoys several times, and at Lucknow they resist stoutly. The Nana is very angry that the place has not been taken, but from what I hear the intrenchments there are much stronger than they were here, and even here they were not taken by the sword, but because the whites had no shelter from the guns, and could not go to the well without exposing themselves to the fire. At Lucknow they have some strong houses in the intrenchments, and no want of anything, so they can only be captured by fighting. Everyone says they cannot hold out many days longer, but that I do not know. It does not seem to me that there is any hope of rescue for them, for even if, as you think, the white troops should beat Nana Sahib's men, they never could force their way through the streets of Lucknow to the intrenchments there."

"We shall see, Rujub. Deennugghur was defended by a mere handful, and at Lucknow they have half a regiment of white soldiers. They may, for anything I know, have to yield to starvation, but I doubt whether the mutineers and Oude men, however numerous they may be, will carry the place by a.s.sault. Is there any news elsewhere?"

"None, sahib, save that the Feringhees are bringing down regiments from the Punjaub to aid those at Delhi."

"The tide is beginning to turn, Rujub; the mutineers have done their worst, and have failed to overthrow the English Raj. Now you will see that every day they will lose ground. Fresh troops will pour up the country, and step by step the mutiny will be crushed out; it is a question of time only. If you could call up a picture on smoke of what will be happening a year hence, you would see the British triumphant everywhere."

"I cannot do that, sahib; I do not know what would appear on the smoke, and were I to try, misfortune would surely come upon me. When a picture of the past is shown on the smoke, it is not a past I know of, but which one of those present knows. I cannot always say which among them may know it; it is always a scene that has made a strong impression on the mind, but more than that I do not know. As to those of the future, I know even less; it is the work of the power of the air, whose name I whisper to myself when I pour out the incense, and to whom I pray. It is seldom that I show these pictures; he gets angry if called upon too often. I never do it unless I feel that he is propitious."

"It is beyond me altogether, Rujub; I can understand your power of sending messages, and of your daughter seeing at a distance. I have heard of such things at home; they are called mesmerism and clairvoyance. It is an obscure art; but that some men do possess the power of influencing others at a distance seems to be undoubted, still it is certainly never carried to such perfection as I see it in your case."

"It could not be," Rujub said; "white men eat too much, and it needs long fasting and mortification to fit a man to become a mystic; the spirit gains power as the body weakens. The Feringhees can make arms that shoot long distances, and carriages that travel faster than the fastest horse, and great ships and machines. They can do many great and useful things, but they cannot do the things that have been done for thousands of years in the East. They are tied too fast to the earth to have aught to do with the spirits that dwell in the air. A learned Brahmin, who had studied your holy books, told me that your Great Teacher said that if you had faith you could move mountains. We could well nigh do that if it were of use to mankind; but were we to do so merely to show our power, we should be struck dead. It is wrong even to tell you these things; I must say no more."

Four days pa.s.sed. Rujub went every day for some hours to Bithoor, and told Bathurst that he heard that the British force, of about fourteen hundred whites and five hundred Sikhs, was pushing forward rapidly, making double marches each day.

"The first fight will be near Futtehpore," he said; "there are fifteen hundred Sepoys, as many Oude tribesmen, and five hundred cavalry with twelve guns, and they are in a very strong position, which the British can only reach by pa.s.sing along the road through a swamp. It is a position that the officers say a thousand men could hold against ten thousand."

"You will see that it will not delay our troops an hour," Bathurst said.

"Do they imagine they are going to beat us, when the numbers are but two to one in their favor? If so, they will soon learn that they are mistaken."

The next afternoon, when Rujub returned, he said, "You were right, sahib; your people took Futtehpore after only half an hour's fighting.

The accounts say that the Feringhees came on like demons, and that they did not seem to mind our firing in the slightest. The Nana is furious, but they still feel confident that they will succeed in stopping the Feringhees at Dong. They lost their twelve guns at Futtehpore, but they have two heavy ones at the Pandoo Bridge, which sweep the straight road leading to it for a mile; and the bridge has been mined, and will be blown up if the Feringhees reach it. But, nevertheless, the Nana swears that he will be revenged on the captives. If you are to rescue the lady it must be done tonight, for tomorrow it may be too late."

"You surely do not think he will give orders for the murder of the women and children?"

"I fear he will do so," Rujub answered gloomily.

Each day Bathurst had learned in the same manner as before what was doing in the prison. Isobel was no longer being nursed; she was a.s.sisting to nurse Mary Hunter, who had, the day after Isobel was transferred to the prison, been attacked by fever, and was the next day delirious. Rabda's report of the next two days left little doubt in Bathurst's mind that she was rapidly sinking. All the prisoners suffered greatly from the close confinement; many had died, and the girl's description of the scenes she witnessed was often interrupted by her sobs and tears.

CHAPTER XXI.

While Bathurst was busying himself completing his preparations for the attempt, Rabda came in with her father.

"My lord," she said, "I tremble at the thought of your venturing your life. My life is of no importance, and it belongs to you. What I would propose is this. My father will go to Bithoor, and will obtain an order from one of the Nana's officers for a lady of the zenana to visit the prisoners. I will go in veiled, as I was on the day I went there. I will change garments with the lady, and she can come out veiled, and meet you outside."

"I would not dream of such a thing, Rabda. You would be killed to a certainty when they discovered the trick. Even if I would consent to the sacrifice, Miss Hannay would not do so. I am deeply grateful to you for proposing it, but it is impossible. You will see that, with the aid of your father, I shall succeed."

"I told her that would be your answer, sahib," Rujub said, "but she insisted on making the offer."

It was arranged that they were to start at nine o'clock, as it was safer to make the attempt before everything became quiet. Before starting, Rabda was again placed in a trance. In reply to her father's questions she said that Mary Hunter was dead, and that Isobel was lying down. She was told to tell her that in an hour she was to be at the window next to the door.

Rujub had found that the men inside the prison were those who had been employed as warders at the jail before the troubles began, and he had procured for Bathurst a dress similar to that which they wore, which was a sort of uniform. He had offered, if the attempt was successful, to conceal Isobel in his house until the troops reached Cawnpore, but Bathurst preferred to take her down the country, upon the ground that every house might be searched, and that possibly before the British entered the town there might be a general sack of the place by the mob, and even if this did not take place there might be desperate house to house fighting when the troops arrived. Rujub acknowledged the danger, and said that he and his daughter would accompany them on their way down country, as it would greatly lessen their risk if two of the party were really natives. Bathurst gratefully accepted the offer, as it would make the journey far more tolerable for Isobel if she had Rabda with her.

She was to wait a short distance from the prison while Bathurst made the attempt, and was left in a clump of bushes two or three hundred yards away from the prison. Rujub accompanied Bathurst. They went along quietly until within fifty yards of the sentry in the rear of the house, and then stopped. The man was walking briskly up and down.