Barclay of the Guides Part 26

Now Rahmut Khan, though he had not the cunning and capacity for intrigue of his rival, the whilom chief of Mandan, was not at all lacking in mother wit. He knew the source of this suspicion of which Bakht Khan spoke, and was prepared to meet it.

"I am thy servant, Bakht Khan," he said. "No one is more ready than I to fight the Feringhis; have I not suffered at their hands? But, if the favour may with humility be asked, I would beg two boons."

"Say on. Thy humility is no less than thy valour."

"The first of these boons is this. As thou knowest, my band of men is of new growth: they are all valiant fighters, but men I have gathered here and there, as Allah gave me means. Wherefore they are not skilled in the warfare of the sepoys, and in their ignorance may fall into error unless they have the fellows.h.i.+p of some who know the discipline of the Feringhis. I ask, then, that trained men may be sent with me--such men, to wit, as are commanded by my countryman, Minghal Khan. He burns, I doubt not, as I myself, to strike a blow against the English; for, if report speak truly, fortune has given him few opportunities. .h.i.therto.

That is my boon."

Bakht Khan laughed heartily. The suggestion tickled his sense of humour.

He was in no doubt as to the intention underlying it, and was not disinclined to play off one Pathan against the other. He did not admire Minghal Khan, but he had found him useful in many ways, especially through his connection with the great Maulavi. As time went on, he had grown more and more impatient of the drones in Delhi. With half the courage and _esprit de corps_ that animated the English, his force could have carried the Ridge long ago. And among these drones Minghal Khan was one of the worst. He had always some ingenious way of s.h.i.+rking active service. Rahmut Khan's suggestion offered him a chance too good to be missed.

"Thou art great in wisdom," he said. "It shall be even as thou dost desire. And thy second boon--what is it?"

"It is simply, excellent one, that while I am absent fighting the English, thou wilt set a guard over the little serai where we dwell. Our goods are but scanty and of little worth; but they are our all, and it would be hard indeed if, when we return from our glorious service, we find them gone. Thou knowest well there are badmashes in the city."

Again the commander-in-chief laughed.

"Why, friend Asadullah," he said; "did I not hear that in that little serai of yours there is much treasure--gotten, moreover, from others besides the Feringhis? Surely I will set a guard over it: thou shalt not be robbed of the little thou hast. Better were it if thou had nothing; for is it not the empty traveller that dances before robbers?"

Rahmut went away well satisfied. Minghal was in a very different case when he too had had an interview with the commander-in-chief. Not a word was said by Bakht Khan to show that the duty he laid upon Minghal had been suggested by his enemy and rival; he rather hinted that his design was to learn from Minghal how the old chief comported himself in the fight. Minghal had, perforce, to acquiesce in the arrangement; his position was not so secure that he could afford to show open reluctance to meet the enemy. Their orders were to lead an attack on the breastwork before the Mori gate, and then, having succeeded in that task, to work round on two sides to the ruined mosque that stood a little nearer the Ridge, and slaughter all the enemy they found there.

The attack was to be made after nightfall. Rahmut knew nothing of the ground between the city walls and the breastwork, and in the afternoon he went out with one of his men to reconnoitre. Both were mounted, and since the ground was covered with gardens which would give them cover, they ventured to ride a good distance in the direction of the goal of the night's operations.

All at once Rahmut caught sight of a man a little ahead of them, dodging among the trees in a stealthy manner, that suggested a keen desire to avoid observation. Rahmut was a born scout, and, without appearing to see the man, he kept him well in view, until convinced that he was making for the British lines. Then he gave chase suddenly, and the man, though he ran hard, was soon overtaken. Hauling him to the shade of some trees, Rahmut questioned his trembling captive, and was not long in wresting from him a confession that he was indeed on his way to the Ridge to give warning of the night attack.

Rahmut had been rendered suspicious by his recent experiences in Delhi.

He was not satisfied with a general statement, but pressed the man for a precise account of his errand, and he was not greatly surprised when it came out that the informer had been sent by Minghal Khan himself, and that the important part of his message was the disclosure of the exact quarter on which Rahmut's attack was to be made. It was just what might have been expected of Minghal, as indeed of any other Pathan who happened to bear a grudge against a fellow-countryman.

Rahmut lost little time in arranging to counter this cunning move of his enemy. He took the messenger back into Delhi, the man believing that he would be handed over to the Kotwal for hanging. But Rahmut made the man take him to his own house, and he set a guard over it, and swore to the wretch that the house and all within it should be destroyed unless he did what was bidden him. And the bidding was, to go to the British lines and give the warning as Minghal had commanded, with one little change: the point of attack was to be, not that which had been a.s.signed to Rahmut, but that which had been a.s.signed to Minghal. Holding the informer's house and family as hostages, Rahmut had no doubt that the man would obey, and he went back to his serai satisfied with his afternoon's work.

During the day the excitement in the city had risen to fever heat. News had come in that Nana Sahib, on the approach of the British to Cawnpore, had ma.s.sacred the two hundred women and children who had remained in his hands since that fatal day when their fathers and husbands had been shot down on the boats. The wiser residents of Delhi were aghast: they knew the dreadful story of that other tragedy, at Calcutta, a century before, when a hundred of the sahibs perished in the Black Hole. They knew what retribution had fallen on Siraj-uddaula then; what would happen now, after this far more horrible butchery of women and children? But the fanatics rejoiced in the tale of blood. The greater the excesses, the more impossible to draw back. The greater the vengeance to be feared, the more imperative to strain every nerve to crush these obstinate Feringhis on the Ridge. The protraction of the siege was already doing them harm. Risings were taking place in many scattered districts; and even in the Panjab, which Jan Larrens had hitherto kept quiet, there were ominous mutterings. If the English on the Ridge could but be routed, all Northern India would be ablaze.

And so the sepoys at sunset marched in their thousands from the gates.

Amid the blare of bugles, the thunder of artillery from the walls, the strident calls of the muezzins from the minarets of the mosques, proclaiming eternal glory for all who bled in the holy cause, the rebels flocked out, maddened with fanatical fury and with bang, aglow with the resolve to conquer or die.

But behind the breastworks waited British officers, cool, unemotional, with their men, British and native, seasoned warriors, disciplined, the best soldiers in the world. They watched the advancing horde as it came among the gardens, the moonbeams making a strange play of light and shade. On they came, and the great guns thundered, and the muskets crackled, and shouts and yells mingled with the brazen blare of bugles.

Time after time the dusky warriors hurled themselves against the low breastworks that defended the circuit of the Ridge, coming within a score paces of them. Hour after hour the din continued, the sky blazing with the constant discharge of artillery, a s.h.i.+fting wall of smoke making strange patterns in the moonlight. The moon sank, and still the firing did not cease; it was not until next day's sun was mounting the sky that the survivors of the night shambled back, a discomfited mob, to the rose-red walls of the city.

What had they gained by this tremendous fusillade and bombardment?

Nothing. Their ammunition had been expended by cart-loads; thousands upon thousands of rounds had been fired; but all the time they had never seen their enemy, who, behind their entrenchments, waited until they saw the whites of the rebels' eyes, and then sent them reeling back with withering volleys. Hundreds of forms lay motionless in the eye of the rising sun, some in red coats, some in white dhotis, some in the chogahs of hill-men, with turbans of many colours, amid muskets and swords and bugles, and everywhere the green flag of the Prophet. And on the Ridge there was great rejoicing; for this bitter lesson to the Pandies had cost their masters no more than a dozen men.

Nowhere did the fight rage more fiercely on that night than at the breastworks before the Flagstaff Tower. But though fierce, the fight was short, for Rahmut Khan was no fanatic; and when he found, after a brief trial, that he was opposed, not by warriors with whom his men could contend in equal fight, but by solid ramparts which burst into flame, though behind it no men were seen, he concluded that this was fighting he did not understand, and drew off his men. And Minghal Khan, approaching with his regiment the spot from which, as he fondly hoped, most of the Feringhis had been withdrawn to meet the attack against which he had warned them, was met by a cras.h.i.+ng volley so terrible that a third of his men were stricken down, and he himself barely escaped with his life. A bullet grazed his cheek, ploughing a red furrow through it, and carrying away the lobe of his ear; a spent bullet struck his brow, and he staggered half-unconscious to the ground. And when he regained the city, and learnt that his enemy, Rahmut, had come unscathed through the battle, and, moreover, that the men he had left to raid Rahmut's serai during his absence had been beaten off with great loss by a guard posted there, for some incomprehensible reason, by Bakht Khan himself, he boiled with insensate fury, heaping curses on the heads of those who had betrayed him.

Nor was his rage abated when he was summoned to the palace to answer the charge of instigating the attack on Rahmut's quarters. The king was seated in the hall of public audience, surrounded by a glittering company. The total failure of the night's operations had not yet been fully reported; Bakht Khan was not in attendance; and when the king recited the verses he had composed the day before, the courtiers acclaimed him as the Pearl of Poets and declared that nothing more was wanted to ensure success. But then the commander-in-chief came with his pitiful tale, and the king, with the petulance of dotage, flew into a rage and cried, "You will never take the Ridge; all my treasure is expended; the Royal Treasury is without a pice. And men tell me now that the soldiers are day by day departing to their homes. I have no hope of victory. My desire is that you all leave the city and make some other place the heart of the struggle. If you do not, then will I take such steps as may seem to me advisable."

And while the officers were trying to cheer the miserable old man, declaring that by Allah's help they would yet take the Ridge, Minghal Khan came in answer to the summons. Upon him the king poured out the vials of his wrath, demanding that he should instantly restore to the treasury the money he had been granted two days before, and ordering Bakht Khan once more to proclaim that heavy penalties should be inflicted on any who broke the peace of the city. And when Minghal began to protest, Mirza Akbar Sultan, the prince who was party to the scheme, plucked him by the sleeve and in a whisper bade him be silent. The king was beside himself with rage, he said, and it was not a propitious moment for appeals. The prince accompanied him home, and, over a bottle of spirits sent for in haste from one of the merchants, they laid their heads together, devising a plan by which they might still achieve their designs against Rahmut Khan.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD

Ordeal

The underground chamber in which Ahmed was confined was perfectly dark.

The floor was damp; the air stuffy. He leant for a while against the wall, ruminating on this sudden check in his fortunes. That Minghal Khan had not killed him at once showed that he was reserved for a worse fate.

And what had Minghal meant by the reference to Rahmut Khan? His words seemed to imply that he supposed father and son to have entered Delhi together, and to be engaged in some scheme against him. Ahmed was for a time at a loss to understand what had given rise to this belief. Was Minghal unaware that Rahmut was a prisoner of the English? But then he remembered the conversation he had overheard in the room above. This "old rogue," this Asadullah, of whom the officers had spoken--could it be that he was Rahmut Khan? He was a Pathan--so much all Delhi knew; was it possible that the old chief had been released, or had escaped from prison, and had come into the city to wreak vengeance on the sahibs?

This was a course he was very likely to follow: yet Ahmed hoped that it was not so; he did not like to think of his adoptive father and himself being on opposite sides.

Then he fell a-wondering how long he was to remain thus mewed up. And remembering the talk of a great onslaught to be made on the British lines on the morrow, he was dismayed. If Minghal Khan went out to fight he might remain absent for a whole day or more; he might, indeed, never come back; and then, unless a way could be found out of this dungeon, or some one came to release him, he might starve to death. The thought made his blood run cold, and in a sudden frenzy he began to strain at his bonds, trying to tear the staple from the wall and to snap the links of the chain. But from this he soon desisted; his struggles were useless; he only bruised himself. His exertions and the stuffiness of the room had made him hot; he was parched with thirst.

He sank down upon the floor, and squatted there, trying to calm himself.

There was perfect silence. By and by he fell into a doze, and woke with a start in confusion of mind, from which he was roused by the clank of his chain as he moved. How long had he been asleep? Was it night or day?

The profound stillness oppressed him; if he could but have heard some slight sound he would not have felt so utterly desolate. Schooling himself to patience, he tried to kill time by repeating aloud all the words of English he could remember, attempting to copy the accent of Hodson Sahib. He was surprised to find how many words came to his tongue with the effort. But speech was difficult to a dry throat. He lay down and slept again: maybe presently Minghal would relent so far as to bring him food.

Thus between sleeping and waking he pa.s.sed the long hours--he knew not how many; and was vividly conscious of his discomforts, when at last he heard the light shuffling of feet in the corridor outside the room. Then a light shone through the thin crack at the bottom of the door; the key turned in the lock, and three figures entered. The first was Minghal Khan; then came the darwan with a lamp; the other was a stranger. And even Minghal wore a different look. His eyes were haggard; a huge bandage swathed his head; one arm was in a sling.

"Thou art yet alive, thou son of a dog," said Minghal. "It is well."

He bade the darwan hold the light nearer to Ahmed.

"Now hearken to me, and do my bidding," said Minghal again. "I have here a muns.h.i.+, who will write the words thou sayest. Thou wilt send a message to Rahmut Khan, the rogue that calls himself thy father, and say to him that thou art in the hands of enemies. The bearer of thy letter is a man to be trusted, and if thy father will accompany him, he will bring him to the place where thou art, so that a plan of escape may be devised."

"And how shall my father know that this is a true letter from me, seeing that it will be written by a hand he knows not?" said Ahmed. It was well, he thought, that Minghal should still believe him to have come to the city with his father.

"Thou canst at least write thy name, or make some mark that he will know."

"I can do so much, it is true. And what if I do this thing?"

"I will set thee free before another sunrise."

"And dost thou think I do not see through thy wile, nor know the naughtiness of thy heart? Let thy muns.h.i.+ write; I will set no hand to it."

"Dog, dost thou deny me? Knowest thou not that I can slay thee where thou standest, or keep thee without bread to eat and water to drink until thou diest?"

"I know; but I have said."

"Thou fool! I will bring thee to a better mind; aye, or so serve thee that thy mind will utterly go from thee. Shall a whelp defy me? Go, darwan, bring bread and water."

The darwan set his lamp on the floor and went out. When he returned with the bread and water, Minghal bade him put them down just beyond Ahmed's reach with his chain at full length.

"See!" cried the furious man. "There is bread, but thou canst not eat it; water, but thou canst not drink it. Chew thy thoughts, for thou wilt have nought else to chew until thou dost bend thy stubborn neck and do even as I have commanded. I will come again in the morning; perchance thy rumination in the dark will give thee counsel."

And having struck Ahmed across the face, he went away with the two men, and locked the door after him.

For a time Ahmed was so much enraged at the indignity he had suffered that he could think of nothing else. But when calmness returned he reflected on what had happened. Minghal must be mad to suppose that he would lend himself to so transparent a trap. And yet could he endure? He strained towards the food, but stretching his full length on the floor he could not touch it; yes, the tips of his fingers just touched the jar of water. He scratched at it, hoping that it would turn and come a little nearer; but his movements had the opposite effect, and soon his longest finger could not even feel the vessel.