The Hosts of the Lord Part 29

But despite ready wit and sheer strength, one determined fellow would have made good his entrance, and so served as a bell-wether to that overwhelming flock, if a white hand and arm with silver b.u.t.tons on the cuff--holding a silver-mounted hunting-crop, clubbed savagely short--had not come down-glinting in the first sunray like a sword--clear on the bare head as it ducked under the barrier.

The intruder, a big burly devotee, dropped on his face like a stone; then, to the striker's relief, sat up, and apparently howled; apparently, because that rhythmic roar smothered all individual sound.

"_Hara! Hari! Hara! Hari!_"

Suddenly, as it had begun, it stopped; for that faint inrush of water had stopped also; stopped, hesitated, then sunk out of sight again with a sort of drowning gurgle that came as an accompaniment to the only other sound; the insistent throbbing of the old G.o.d-maker's drum in the distance.

"Not enough pressure!" murmured the police officer to himself, judging that an attempt had been made to fill the tank in some new way. Then he frowned. There would be pressure enough and to spare among the crowd soon, most likely. What could be done to prevent it?

"Halt! by your right--single file!"

The order came, far back, from the widest street, and it was full ten minutes ere Lance Carlyon, with a following of Sikh pioneers, armed with spades and picks, could edge through the crowd, though it still yielded room to authority without a murmur. He had been on his way with a fatigue party to finish clearing the camp, when the a.s.sistant superintendent of police had met him, in the bazaar, and told him he was wanted.

"Send four of your men to clear the mud from the crevices of the stones," said the police officer, seizing on a possible diversion gladly, "it will serve to keep the crowd amused till Dering brings his men down."

As the four stalwart pioneers stepped to their work of making miracles, a stir of expectation ran through those first rows who could see.

"Surely," they said to each other, "if the Masters took the job in hand, the G.o.ds must needs send the water."

"Of a surety!" said Shiv-deo, catching the comment. "Do not the G.o.ds always befriend the bold? Do not we, of Harriana, find the sacred river which the devils hid, though we have to dig three-hundred-feet wells to find it?"

This allusion to the extraordinarily deep wells dug by the peasantry in the almost rainless tract beneath which, so the legend goes, the river Saraswati still runs, pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth consolingly.

Yea, if devils hid water, men found it.

Why not these men? since nothing was impossible to a miracle.

The sun was shining broadly now, as if it had been up for hours, and showed, far as the eye could reach down every lane and street and alley, nothing but that sea of upturned faces converging to one centre; wonderfully still, wonderfully patient.

"I wish someone would stop that cursed drum," said Lance, suddenly, "it's enough to give anyone the fidgets. I feel myself--" he broke off, and his memory going back to his jesting remark to Erda, his young face clouded. Was it possible he should never see her again? Was it possible that the Reverend David was to claim his paradise? He felt savage at the very thought, impatient, full of an almost righteous anger at everything, especially the drum-banger for making such an infernal noise.

And now, far back as before, an English voice could be heard giving an order. It was to loosen scabbards this time, and the police officer looked up hastily. It meant that, for the first time, the crowd must be hesitating in its quick obedience to command; perhaps because most of the troopers were Mahomedans.

"I hope they'll get through without using them," said the man responsible for peace and order, "but, steady! please, in case of a rush. Remember that if we yield more foot-room, someone _must_ fall; then there will be the devil to pay. At present they are so tight packed they can't."

That, indeed, was the position. So long as authority could prevent those few yards of clear s.p.a.ce about the pool being encroached upon, there was safety. So the barrier of men waited anxiously.

But no rush came; the reason of this being made clear when the file of troopers appeared, led by old Pidar Narayan, who had joined the party at the crucial moment, and piloted them through the crowd, which gave way to his well-known figure with absolute alacrity. He turned at the entrance, to hold up his hand in priestly fashion.

"Patience, my children!" he said sternly. "Tarry ye the Lord's leisure!

Let Him do what seemeth Him good!"

The idea, familiar to the least of them, brought instant a.s.sent and a sort of relieved sigh from those who heard it. Here was something they could understand. A man, set apart from others by his dress, his life, his invariable a.s.sumption of authority, his unquestioned claim to be mediator between the dim, inaccessible Creator and his creatures, to be interpreter of the hidden Mind.

But the police officer heaved _his_ sigh of relief over the appearance of more matter. His barrier could now be one of men, standing shoulder to shoulder.

And such a barrier would soon be needed, since this latest contingent brought discouraging news. The priests were helpless. The secret supply had somehow been tampered with, but where, not even they could tell without help. And though they had sent, long before dawn, to both Am-ma and Gu-gu--the only two men likely to know anything or be able to do anything--neither could be found.

"And won't be," interrupted Vincent, suddenly remembering, as he listened, what he had seen the night before. "They are most likely in the plot; one of them, at any rate, was going up the Hari in a dug-out late last night."

"Not Am-ma," put in Lance. "He started before that to go up the Hara and pilot down a raft for the forest officer. I met him as I came back to dinner."

"Well, he is not get-at-able anyhow, and that's all we have to consider," said the police officer. "Briefly, the miracle is off the bill. Now, how the deuce are we to get the audience to go away peacefully?"

"Perhaps if I, as a fellow-countryman, and a Brahmin, were to address them--" began Ramanund, who had come down with Pidar Narayan, feeling important at being summoned.

The latter turned to the man, whom he knew had long since rejected the faith of his fathers, and, so to speak, thrown the Almighty overboard to lighten his ship.

"You cannot argue with that, my son!" he said gently, pointing to the sea of patient, yet eager, faces. "No one of your sort ever has, in all the history of the world. _That_ does not reason. It feels. Show it another miracle, and it will worship. Give it a cause, and it will espouse it. Give it a lead, and it will follow; but words--never!"

"Well, I hope to G.o.d no one will supply it with the wrong lead!" put in the police officer. "For the rest, we must hold the fort, I suppose.

Inspector! when is the show--the miracle, I mean,--supposed to end?"

"Not till sunset, sir," said the man, _salaaming_.

"And it's now about six, I suppose. Eleven hours!" He took out his cigar-case and counted. "Yes! I'll last through. Inspector! Close your men in, and let them stand at ease. Captain Dering, if you can spare yours till then, I shall be obliged."

"Certainly. I left a troop with Roshan Khan, and orders to send word of any disturbance; and I wired to Dillon in case--"

Father Ninian shook his head. "There is no fear till this is settled."

He pointed to the Pool.

And he was right. All through the long hot hours the crowd waited.

Sometimes the cry, "_Hara! Hari!_" burst out, to be followed by a faint rush. Sometimes the great ma.s.s stood silent, listening to the insistent throbbing of the old G.o.d-maker's drum in the distance, but through it all the note was patience. And it was patience, also, in the square enclosure of authority. Sometimes a would-be intruder would be lifted like a puppy, and chucked back to his fellows. Once or twice an English arm would go up, and come down on some more wilful head; but that was all.

And far away at the Fort the gong chimed the hours regularly up to twelve, and begun at one again.

But there was no fuss, no noise. The crowd stood their ground, giving no inch, and authority stood its ground and yielded none, since in that lay safety for all.

So, with a horrible slowness, the day dragged on, until at last the red sun sank behind the levels beyond the gaol; and the strain was over!

"I'll take a biscuit in my pocket next time," said the police officer, cheerfully, as, bit by bit, the stones of the courtyard began to show between the golden-shod feet. "Inspector! send your men to quarters, and let them eat their food." Then he walked over and looked down into the deep empty tank.

"It might have been full up," he said. "We couldn't have stopped them for a moment if they had had any sort of a lead over. And from what you told the Commissioner, sir,"--he turned to Father Ninian--"I was afraid of one."

The old priest stood watching the crowd disperse for a moment in silence.

"So was I," he said, "but I was mistaken, so far. Still, there is danger in the air. I feel it. I hear it."

And as he spoke, above the hum of the crowd, silent no longer, rose that insistent throbbing of the old G.o.d-maker's drum.

CHAPTER XVIII

ADRIFT