On the Face of the Waters Part 64

I suppose it couldn't be helped."

She followed his thought unerringly; and a great pity for this man who had done nothing, where others had done so much, surged up in her and made her seek to show his fate no worse than others. Besides, this discouragement was fatal, for it pointed to a lack of that desire for life which is the best weapon against death. She might fail to rouse him, as those had failed who, but a day or two before, had sent a bit of red ribbon representing the Victoria Cross to the dying Salkeld--the hero of the Cashmere gate--and only gained in reply a faint smile and the words, "They will like it at home." Still she would try.

"Yes, it is over!" she echoed, "and it has cost so many lives uselessly. General Nicholson lost his trying to do the impossible--so people say."

Jim Douglas still lay staring at the fading glow. "Dead!" he murmured.

"That is a pity. But he took Delhi first. He said he would."

"And my husband----" she began.

He turned then, with curiously patient courtesy. "I know. Nicholson wrote that in his letter. And I have been glad--glad he had his chance, and--and--made so much of it."

Once more she followed his thought; knew that, though he was too proud to confess it, he was saying to himself that he had had his chance too and had done nothing. So she answered it as if he had spoken.

"And you had your chance of saving a woman," she said, with a break in her voice, "and you saved her. It isn't much, I suppose. It counts as nothing to you. Why should it? But to me----" She broke off, losing her purpose for him in her own bitter regret and vague resentment.

"Why didn't you let them kill me, and then go away?" she went on almost pa.s.sionately. "It would have been better than saving me to remember always that I stood in your way--better than giving me no chance of repaying you for all--ah! think how much! Better than leaving me alone to a new life--like--like all the others have done."

She buried her face on her arm as it rested on the pillow with a sob.

This, then, was the end, she thought, this bitter unavailing regret for both.

So for a s.p.a.ce there was silence while she sat with her face hidden, and he lay staring at that darkening dome. But suddenly she felt his hot hand find hers; so thin, so soft, so curiously strong still in its grip.

"Give me some more wine or something," came his voice consolingly.

"I'll try and stop--if I can."

She made an effort to smile back at him, but it was not very successful. His, as she fed him, was better; but it did not help Kate Erlton to cheerfulness, for it was accompanied by a murmur that the _chikken-brat_ was very different from Tara's stuff. So she seemed to see a poor ghost glowering at them from the shadows, asking her how she dared take all the thanks. And the ghost remained long after Jim Douglas had dozed off; remained to ask, so it seemed to Kate Erlton, every question that could be asked about the mystery of womanhood and manhood.

But Tara herself asked none when in the first gray glimmer of dawn she crept up the stairs again and stood beside the sleepers. For Kate, wearied out, had fallen asleep crouched up on the stool, her head resting on the pillow, her arm flung over the bed to keep that touch on his hand which seemed to bring him rest. Tara, once more in her widow's dress, looked down on them silently, then threw her bare arms upward. So for a second she stood, a white-shrouded appealing figure against that dark shadow of the dome which blocked the paling eastern sky. Then stooping, her long, lissome fingers busied themselves stealthily with the thin gold chain about the sick man's neck; for there was something in the locket attached to it which was hers by right now. Hers, if she could have nothing else; for she was suttee--suttee!

The unuttered cry was surging through her heart and brain, rousing a mad exultation in her, when half an hour afterward she re-entered the narrow lane leading to the arcaded courtyard with the black old shrine hiding under the tall peepul tree. And what was that hanging over the congeries of roofs and stairs, the rabbit warren of rooms and pa.s.sages where her pigeon-nest was perched? A canopy of smoke, and below it leaping flames. There were many wanton fires in Delhi during those first few days of license, and this was one of them; but already, in the dawn, English officers were at work giving orders, limiting the danger as much as possible.

"We can't save that top bit," said one at last, then turned to one of his fatigue party. "Have you cleared everybody out, sergeant, as I told you?"

"Yes, sir! it's quite empty."

It had been so five minutes before. It was not now; for that canopy of smoke, those licking tongues of flame, had given the last touch to Tara's unstable mind. She had crept up and up, blindly, and was now on her knees in that bare room set round with her one sc.r.a.p of culture, ransacking an old basket for something which had not seen the light for years, her scarlet tinsel-set wedding dress. Her hands were trembling, her wild eyes blazed like fires themselves.

And below, men waited calmly for the flames to claim this, their last prize; for the turret stood separated from the next house.

"My G.o.d!" came an English voice, as something showed suddenly upon the roof. "I thought you said it was empty--and that's a woman!"

It was. A woman in a scarlet, tinsel-set dress, and all the poor ornaments she possessed upon her widespread arms. So, outlined against the first sun-ray she stood, her shrill chanting voice rising above the roar and rush of the flames.

"Oh! Guardians eight, of this world and the next. Sun, Moon, and Air, Earth, Ether, Water, and my own poor soul bear witness! Oh! Lord of death, bear witness that I come. Day, Night, and Twilight say I am suttee."

There was a louder roar, a sudden leaping of the flames, and the turret sank inwardly. But the chanting voice could be heard for a second in the increasing silence which followed.

"s.h.i.+ve-jee hath saved His own," said the crowd, looking toward the unharmed shrine.

And over on the other side of the city, Kate Erlton, roused by that same first ray of sunlight, was looking down with a smile upon Jim Douglas before waking him. The sky was clear as a topaz, the purple pigeons were cooing and sidling on the copings. And in the bright, fresh light she saw the gold locket lying open on the sleeper's breast. She had often wondered what it held, and now--thinking he might not care to find it at her mercy--stooped to close it.

But it was empty.

The snap, slight as it was, roused him. Not, however, to a knowledge of the cause, for he lay looking up at her in his turn.

"So it is all over," he said softly, but he said it with a smile.

Yes! It was all over. Down on the parade ground behind the Ridge the bugles were sounding, and the men who had clung to the red rocks for so long were preparing to leave them for a.s.sault elsewhere.

But one man was taking an eternal hold upon them; for John Nicholson was being laid in his grave. Not in the rear-guard, however, but in the van, on the outer-most spur of the Ridge ab.u.t.ting on the city wall, within touch almost of the Cashmere gate. Being laid in his grave--by his own request--without escort, without salute; for he knew that he had failed.

So he lies there facing the city he took. But his real grave was in that narrow lane within the walls where those who dream can see him still, alone, ahead, with yards of sheer sunlight between him and his fellow-men.

Yards of sheer sunlight between that face with its confident glance forward, that voice with its clear cry, "Come on, men! Come on!" and those--the ma.s.s of men--who with timorous look backward hear in that call to go forward nothing but the vain regret for things familiar that must be left behind. "Going! Going! Gone!"

So, in a way, John Nicholson stands symbol of the many lives lost uselessly in the vain attempt to go forward too fast.

Yet his voice echoed still to the dark faces and the light alike:

"Come on, men! Come on!"

BOOK VI.

APPENDIX A.

_From_ A. DASHE, _Collector and Magistrate of Kujabpore, to_ R. TAPE, _Esq., Commissioner and Superintendent of Kwababad_.

_Fol. No_. O.

Dated 11th May, 1858.

SIR: In reply to your No. 103 of the 20th April requesting me to report on the course of the Mutiny in my district, the measures taken to suppress it, and its effects, if any, on the judicial, executive, and financial work under my charge, I have the honor to inclose a brief statement, which for convenience' sake I have drafted under the usual headings of the annual report which I was unable to send in till last week. I regret the delay, but the pressure of work in the English office due to the revising of forfeiture and pension lists made it unavoidable.

I have the honor, etc., etc.,

A. DASHE, _Coll. and Magte_.

_Introductory Remarks_.[10]--So far as my district is concerned, the late disturbances have simply been a military mutiny. At no time could they be truthfully called a rebellion. In the outlying posts, indeed, the people knew little or nothing of what was going on around them, and even in the towns resistance was not thought of until the prospect of any immediate suppression of the mutiny disappeared.

The small force of soldiers in my district of course followed the example of their brethren. Nothing else could be expected from our position midway between two large cantonments; indeed the continuous stream of mutinous troops which pa.s.sed up and down the main road during the summer had a decidedly bad effect.