The Red Year Part 16

"Yes, but fear not; it will be suppressed. I am going to Allahabad. Is this the best road?"

"I have never been so far, sahib, but it lies that way."

"Is the bazaar quiet now?"

"I have seen none save our own people these two days, yet it was said in the bazaar last night that a Begum tarried at the rest-house."

"A Begum. What Begum?"

"I know not her name, huzoor, but she is one of the daughters of the King of Oudh."

Malcolm was relieved to hear this. The wild notion had seized him that the Princess Roshinara, a stormy petrel of political affairs just then, might have drifted to Rai Bareilly by some evil chance.

"You see this pony?" he said. "Take him. He is yours. I have no further use for him. Are you sure that there are none to dispute my pa.s.sage through the town?"

The old peasant was so taken aback by the gift that he could scarce speak intelligibly, but he a.s.sured the Presence that at such an hour none would interfere with him.

Malcolm decided to risk it. He mounted and rode forward at a sharp trot.

Of course he had not been able to adopt any kind of disguise. While doing duty at the Residency he had thrown aside the turban reft from Abdul Huq and he now wore the peaked shako, with white puggaree, affected by junior staff officers at that period. His long military cloak, steel scabbard, sabertache and Wellington boots, proclaimed his profession, while his blue riding-coat and cross-belts were visible in front, as he meant to have his arms free in case the necessity arose to use sword or pistol.

And he rode thus into Rai Bareilly, watchful, determined, ready for any emergency. So boldly did he advance that he darted past half a dozen men whose special duty it was to stop and question all travelers. They were stationed on the flat roofs of two houses, one on each side of the way, and a rope was stretched across the road in readiness to drop and hinder the progress of any one who did not halt when summoned. It was a simple device. It had not been seen by the man who drove the buffaloes, and by reason of Malcolm's choice of the turf by the side of the road as the best place for Nejdi, it chanced to dangle high enough to permit their pa.s.sing beneath.

The sentries, though caught napping, tried to make amends for their carelessness. In the growing light one of them saw Malcolm's accouterments and he yelled loudly:

"Ohe, bhai, look out for the Feringhi!"

Frank, unfortunately, had not noticed the rope. But he heard the cry and understood that the "brother" to whom it was addressed would probably be discovered at the end of the short street. He shook Nejdi into a canter, drew his sword, and looked keenly ahead for the first sign of those who would bar his path.

Dawn was peeping grayly over the horizon, and Ahmed Ullah, moulvie and interpreter of the Koran, standing in an open courtyard, was engaged in the third of the day's prayers, of which the first was intoned soon after sunset the previous evening. He was going through the Reka with military precision, and as luck would have it, the Kibleh, or direction of Mecca, brought his fierce gaze to the road along which Malcolm was galloping. Never did priest become warrior more speedily than Ahmed Ullah when that warning shout rang out, and he discovered that a British officer was riding at top speed through the quiet bazaar. a.s.suming that this unexpected apparition betokened the arrival of a punitive detachment, he uttered a loud cry, leaped to the gates of the courtyard and closed them.

Malcolm, of course, saw him and regarded his action as that of a frightened man, who would be only too glad when he could resume his devotions in peace. Ahmed Ullah, soon to become a claimant of sovereign power as "King of Hindustan," was not a likely person to let a prize slip through his fingers thus easily. Keeping up an ululating clamor of commands, he ran to the roof of the dwelling, s.n.a.t.c.hed up a musket and took steady aim. By this time Malcolm was beyond the gate and thought himself safe. Then he saw a rope drawn breast-high across the narrow street, and gesticulating natives, variously armed, leaning over the parapets on either hand. He had to decide in the twinkling of an eye whether to go on or turn back. Probably his retreat would be cut off by some similar device, so the bolder expedient of an advance offered the better chance. An incomparable horseman, mounted on an absolutely trustworthy horse, he lay well forward on Nejdi's neck, resolving to try and pick up the slack of the rope on his sword and lift it out of the way. To endeavor to cut through such an obstacle would undoubtedly have brought about a disaster. It would yield, and the keenest blade might fail to sever it completely, while any slackening of pace would enable the hostile guard to shoot him at point-blank range.

These considerations pa.s.sed through his mind while Nejdi was covering some fifty yards. To disconcert the enemy, who were not sepoys and whose guns were mostly antiquated weapons of the match-lock type, he pulled out a revolver and fired twice. Then he leaned forward, with right arm thrown well in front and the point of his sword three feet beyond Nejdi's head. At that instant, when Frank was unconsciously offering a bad target, the moulvie fired. The bullet plowed through the Englishman's right forearm, struck the hilt of the sword and knocked the weapon out of his hand. Exactly what happened next he never knew. From the nature of his own bruises afterwards and the manner in which he was jerked backwards from the saddle, he believed that the rope missed Nejdi altogether, but caught him by the left shoulder. The height of a horse extended at the gallop is surprisingly low as compared with the height of the same animal standing or walking. There was even a remote possibility that the rope would strike the Arab's forehead and bound clear of his rider. But that was not to be. Here was Frank hurled to the roadway, and striving madly to resist the treble shock of his wound, of the blow dealt by the rope, and of the fall, while Nejdi was tearing away through Rai Bareilly as though all the djinns of his native desert were pursuing him.

Though Malcolm's torn arm was bleeding copiously, and he was stunned by being thrown so violently flat on his back, no bones were broken. His rage at the trick fate had played him, the overwhelming bitterness of another and most lamentable failure, enabled him to struggle to his feet and empty at his a.s.sailants the remaining chambers of the revolver which was still tightly clutched in his left hand. He missed, luckily, or they would have butchered him forthwith. In another minute he was standing before Moulvie Ahmed Ullah, and that earnest advocate of militant Islam was plying him with mocking questions.

"Whither so fast, Feringhi? Dost thou run from death, or ride to seek it? Mayhap thou comest from Lucknow. If so, what news? And where are the papers thou art carrying?"

Frank's strength was failing him. To the weakness resulting from loss of blood was added the knowledge that this time he was trapped without hope of escape. The magnificent display of self-command entailed by the effort to rise and face his foes in a last defiance could not endure much longer. He knew it was near the end when he had difficulty in finding the necessary words in Urdu. But he spoke, slowly and firmly, compelling his unwilling brain to form the sentences.

"I have no papers, and if I had, who are you that demand them?" he said.

"I am an officer of the Company, and I call on all honest and loyal men to help me in my duty. I promise--to those who a.s.sist me to reach Allahabad--that they will be--pardoned for any past offenses--and well rewarded...."

The room swam around him and the grim-visaged moullah became a grotesque being, with dragon's eyes and a turban like a cloud. Yet he kept on, hoping against imminent death itself that his words would reach some willing ear.

"Any man--who tells General Neill-sahib--at Allahabad--that help is wanted--at Lucknow--will be made rich.... Help--at Lucknow--immediately.... I, Malcolm-sahib--of the 3d Cavalry--say...."

He collapsed in the grasp of the men who were holding him.

"Thou has said enough, dog of a Nazarene. Take him without and hang him," growled Ahmed Ullah.

"Nay," cried a woman's voice from behind a straw portiere that closed the arched veranda of the house. "Thou art too ready with thy sentences, moulvie. Rather let us bind his wounds and give him food and drink. Then he will recover, and tell us what we want to know."

"He hath told us already, Princess," said the other, his harsh accents sounding more like the snarl of a wolf than a human voice. "He comes from Lucknow and he seeks succor from Allahabad. That means--"

"It means that he can be hanged as easily at eventide as at daybreak, and we shall surely learn the truth, as such men do not breathe lies."

"He will not speak, Princess."

"Leave that to me. If I fail, I hand him over to thee forthwith. Let him be brought within and tended, and let some ride after his horse, as there may be letters in the wallets. I have spoken, Ahmed Ullah. See that I am obeyed."

The moulvie said no word. He went back to his praying mat and bent again toward the west, where the Holy Kaaba enshrines the ruby sent down from heaven. But though his lips muttered the rubric of the Koran, his heart whispered other things, and chief among them was the vow that ere many days be pa.s.sed he would so contrive affairs that no woman's whim should thwart his judgment.

So the clouded day broke sullenly, with gusts of warm rain and red gleams of a sun striving to disperse the mists. And the earth soaked and steamed and threw off fever-laden vapors as she nursed the grain to life and bade the arid plain clothe itself in summer greenery. It was a bad day to lie wounded and ill and a prisoner, and despite the cooling showers, it was a hot day to ride far and fast.

Hence it was long past noon when a servant announced to the Begum that the sahib--for thus the man described Malcolm until sharply admonished to learn the new order of speech--the Nazarene, then, was somewhat recovered from his faintness. And about the same hour, when a subadar of the 7th Cavalry clattered into Rai Bareilly and was told that a certain Feringhi whom he sought was safely laid by the heels there, so sultry was the atmosphere that he seemed to be quite glad of the news.

"Shabash!" he cried, as he dismounted. "May I never drink at the White Pond of the Prophet if that be not good hearing! So you have caught him, brethren! Wao, wao! you have done a great thing. He is not killed?--No?

That is well, for he is sorely wanted at Lucknow. Tie him tightly, though. He is a fox in guile, and might give me the slip again. May his bones bleach in an infidel's grave!--I have hunted him fifty miles, yet scarce a man I met had seen him!"

CHAPTER X

WHEREIN FATE PLAYS TRICKS WITH MALCOLM

If it is difficult for the present generation to understand the manners and ways of its immediate forbears, how much more difficult to ask it to appreciate the extraordinary features of the siege of Lucknow! Let the reader who knows London imagine some parish in the heart of the city barricading itself behind a mud wall against its neighbors: let him garrison this flimsy fortress with sixteen hundred and ninety-two combatants, of whom a large number were men of an inferior race and of doubtful loyalty to those for whom they were fighting, while scores of the Europeans were infirm pensioners: let him cram the rest of the available shelter with women and children: let him picture the network of narrow streets, tall houses and a few open s.p.a.ces--often separated from the enemy only by the width of a lane--as being subjected to interminable bombardment at point-blank range, and he will have a clear notion of some, at least, of the conditions which obtained in Lucknow when that gloomy July 1st carried on the murderous work begun on the previous evening.

The Residency itself was the only strong building in an enclosure seven hundred yards long and four hundred yards wide, though by no means so large in area as these figures suggest. The whole position was surrounded by an adobe wall and ditch, strengthened at intervals by a gate or a stouter embrasure for a gun. The other structures, such as the Banqueting Hall, which was converted into a hospital, the Treasury, the Brigade Mess, the Begum Kotee, the Barracks, and a few nondescript houses and offices, were utterly unsuited for defense against musketry alone. As to their capacity to resist artillery fire, that was a grim jest with the inmates, who dreaded the fallen masonry as much as the rebel sh.e.l.ls.

Even the Residency was forced to use its underground rooms for the protection of the greater part of the women and children, while the remaining buildings, except the Begum Kotee, which was comparatively sheltered on all sides, were so exposed to the enemy's guns that when some sort of clearance was made in October, four hundred and thirty-five cannon-b.a.l.l.s were taken out of the Brigade Mess alone.

Before the siege commenced the British also occupied a strong palace called the Muchee Bhowun, standing outside the entrenchment and commanding the stone bridge across the river Goomtee. A few hours'

experience revealed the deadly peril to which its small garrison was exposed, and Lawrence decided at all costs to abandon it. A rude semaph.o.r.e was erected on the roof of the Residency, and on the first morning of the siege, three officers signaled to the commandant of the outlying fort, Colonel Palmer, that he was to spike his guns, blow up the building and bring his men into the main position. The three did their signaling under a heavy fire, but they were understood. Happily, the prospect of loot in the city drew off thousands of the rebels after sunset, and Colonel Palmer marched out quietly at midnight. A few minutes later an appalling explosion shook every house in Lucknow. The Muchee Bhowun, with its immense stores, had been blown to the sky.

That same day Lawrence received what the Celtic soldiers among the garrison regarded as a warning of his approaching end. He was working in his room with his secretary when a sh.e.l.l crashed through the wall and burst at the feet of the two men. Neither was injured, but Captain Wilson, one of his staff-officers, begged the Chief to remove his office to a less exposed place.

"Nothing of the kind," said Sir Henry, cheerfully. "The sepoys don't possess an artilleryman good enough to throw a second sh.e.l.l into the same spot."

"It will please all of us if you give in on this point, sir," persisted Wilson.

"Oh, well, if you put it that way, I will turn out to-morrow," was the smiling answer.

Next morning at eight o'clock, after a round of inspection, the general, worn out by anxiety and want of sleep, threw himself on a bed in a corner of the room.

Wilson came in.