The Red Year Part 29

Chumru went off. He returned in half an hour, to find his master sealing a letter addressed to "Miss Winifred Mayne, to be forwarded, if possible, with the Lucknow Relief Force."

There were others to relatives in England, and Frank tied them in a small packet.

"If I do not come back within a week--" he began.

"Nay, sahib, give not instructions to me in the matter. I go with you."

"It is impossible."

"Huzoor, it is the order of Jan Nikkelsen-sahib Bahadur. He says I will be useful, and he hath promised me another jaghir."

The Mohammedan's statement was true enough. He had waylaid Nicholson and obtained permission to accompany his master. Like a faithful dog he was not to be shaken off, and, in his heart of hearts, Malcolm was glad of it.

Their preparations were made with the utmost secrecy. The same men who sold Bahadur Shah's cause to the British were also the professed spies of the rebels. They were utterly unreliable, yet their tale-bearing in Delhi might bring instant disaster to Malcolm and his native comrade.

Nejdi was in good condition again after the tremendous exertions undergone since he carried his master from Lucknow. Malcolm was in two minds whether to take him or not, but the chance that his life might depend on a reliable horse, and, perhaps, a touch of the gambler's belief in luck, swayed his judgment, and Nejdi was saddled. Chumru rode a spare charger which Malcolm had purchased at the sale of a dead officer's effects. Fully equipped in their character as rebel non-commissioned officers, the two rode forth, crossed the Jumna, reached the Meerut road unchallenged and turned their horses' heads toward the bridge of boats that debouched beneath the walls of the King's palace.

Provided they met some stragglers on the road they meant to enter the city with the dawn. By skilful expenditure of money on Malcolm's part and the exercise of Chumru's peculiar inventiveness in maintaining a flow of lurid language, they counted on keeping their new-found comrades in tow while they made the tour of the city. The curiosity of strangers would be quite natural, and Malcolm hoped they might be able to slip out again with some expedition planned for the night or the next morning.

Of course, having undertaken an unpleasant duty he intended to carry it through. If he did not learn the nature and extent of the enemy's batteries, the general dispositions for the defense and the state of feeling among the different sections that composed the rebel garrison, he must perforce remain longer. But that was in the lap of fate. At present he could only plan and contrive to the best of his ability.

Fortune favored the adventurers at first. They encountered a score of ruffians who had cut themselves adrift from the Gwalior contingent.

Among these strangers Chumru was quickly a hero. He beguiled the way with tales of derring-do in Oudh and the Doab, and discussed the future of all unbelievers with an amazing gusto. Malcolm, whose head was shrouded in a gigantic and blood-stained turban, listened with interest to his servant's account of the actions outside Cawnpore and on the road to Lucknow. It was excellent fooling to hear Chumru detailing the wholesale slaughter of the Nazarenes, while the victors, always the sepoys, found it advisable to fall back on a strategic position many miles in the rear after each desperate encounter.

In this hail-fellow-well-met manner the party crossed the bridge, were interrogated by a guard at the Water Gate and admitted to the fortress.

It chanced that a first-rate feud was in progress, and the officer, whose duty it was to question new arrivals, was taking part in it.

Money was short in the royal treasury. Many thousands of sepoys had neither been paid nor fed; there was a quarrel between Mohammedans and Hindoos, because the former insisted on slaughtering cattle; and the more respectable citizens were clamoring for protection from the rapacity, insolence and l.u.s.t of the swaggering soldiers.

That very day matters had reached a climax. Malcolm found a brawling mob in front of the Lah.o.r.e gate of the palace. He caught Chumru's eye and the latter appealed to a sepoy for information as to the cause of the racket.

"The King of Kings hath a quarrel with his son, Mirza Moghul, who is not over pleased with the recent division of the command," was the answer.

"What, then? Is there more than one chief?"

"To be sure. Is there not the Council of the Barah Topi? (Twelve Hats.) Are not Bakht Khan and Akhab Khan in charge of brigades? Where hast thou been, brother, that these things are not known to thee?"

"Be patient with me, I pray thee, friend. I and twenty more, whom thou seest here, have ridden in within the hour. We come to join the Jehad, and we are grieved to find a dispute toward when we expected to be led against the infidels."

The sepoy laughed scornfully.

"You will see as many fights here as outside the walls," he muttered, and moved off, for men were beginning to guard their tongues in Imperial Delhi.

A rowdy gang of full five hundred armed mutineers marched up and hustled the mob right and left as they forced a way to the gate. Their words and att.i.tude betokened trouble. The opportunity was too good to be lost.

Malcolm dismounted, gave the reins to Chumru, and told him to wait his return under some trees, somewhat removed from the road, for Akhab Khan had sharp eyes, and the Mohammedan's grotesque face was well known to him. Chumru made a fearsome grimace, but Malcolm's order was peremptory.

Summoning a fruit-seller, the bearer led the Gwalior men to the rendezvous named and distributed mangoes amongst them.

Frank joined the ruck of the demonstrators and pa.s.sed through the portals of the magnificent gate. A long, high-roofed arcade, s.p.a.cious as the nave of a cathedral, with raised marble platforms for merchants on each side, gave access to a quadrangle. In the center stood a fountain, and round about were gra.s.sy lawns and beds of flowers.

The sepoys tramped on, heedless of the destruction they caused in the garden. They pa.s.sed through the n.o.ble Nakar Khana, or music-room, and entered another and larger square, at the further end of which stood the Diwan-i-Am, or Hall of Public Audience.

Not even in Agra, and certainly not in gaudy Lucknow, had Malcolm seen any structure of such striking architectural effect. The elegant roof was supported on three rows of red sandstone pillars, adorned with chaste gilding and stucco-work. Open on three sides, the audience chamber was backed by a wall of white marble, from which a staircase led to a throne raised about ten feet from the ground and covered with a rarely beautiful marble canopy borne on four small pillars.

The throne was empty, but an attendant appeared through the door at the foot of the stairs, and announced that the Light of the World would receive his faithful soldiers in a few minutes.

The impatient warriors snorted their disapproval. They did not like to be kept waiting, but carried their resentment no further, and Malcolm, with alert eyes and ears, moved about among them, as by that means he hoped to avoid attracting attention.

Even in that moment of deadly peril he could not help admiring the exquisite skill with which the great marble wall was decorated with mosaics and paintings of the fauna and flora of India. The mosaics were wholly composed of precious stones, and the paintings were executed in rich tints that told of a master hand. There was nothing bizarre or crude in their conception. They might have adorned some Athenian temple in the heyday of Greece, and were wholly free from the stiff drawing and flamboyant coloring usually seen in the East. He did not then know that a renegade Venetian artist, Austin de Bordeaux, had carried out this work for Shah Jehan, that great patron of the arts, and in any event, his appreciation of their excellence was spasmodic, for the broken words he heard from the excited soldiery warned him that a crisis was imminent in the fortunes of Delhi.

"Who is he, then, this havildar of gunners from Bareilly?" said one.

"And the other, Akhab Khan. They say he fought for the Nazarenes at Meerut. Mohammed Latif swears he defended the treasury there," chimed in another.

"As for me, I care not who leads. I want my pay."

"I, too. I have not eaten since sunrise yesterday."

"We shall get neither food nor money till some one clears those accursed Feringhis off the hill," growled a deep voice close behind Malcolm.

There was something familiar in the tone. Frank edged away and glanced at the speaker, whom he recognized instantly as a subadar in his own old regiment.

But now a craning of necks and a sudden hush of the animated talk showed that some development was toward. Servants entered with cus.h.i.+ons, which they disposed round the foot of the throne and at the base of its canopy. A few n.o.bles and court functionaries lounged in, two gorgeously appareled guards came through the doorway, and behind them tottered a feeble old man, robed in white, and wearing on his head an aigrette of Bird of Paradise plumes, fastened with a gold clasp in which sparkled an immense emerald.

Malcolm had seen Bahadur Shah only once before. He remembered how decorous and dignified was the Mogul court when Britain paid honor to an ancient dynasty. And now, what a change! The aged emperor had to lift a trembling hand to obtain a hearing, while, ever and anon, even during his short address, belated officers and troopers clattered in on horseback, and did not dismount within the precincts of the sacred Hall of Audience itself.

He began by explaining timorously that while affairs remained in their present unsettled condition he could not arrange matters as he would have wished. He knew that there were arrears of pay and that the food supply was irregular.

"But you do not help me," he said, with some display of spirit.

"Respectable citizens tell me that you plunder their houses and debauch their wives and daughters. I have issued repeated injunctions prohibiting robbery and oppression in the city, but to no avail."

He was interrupted with loud murmurs.

"What matters it about the bazaar-folk, O King," yelled a sepoy. "We want food, not a sermon."

The Emperor seemed to fire up with indignation at the taunt, but he sank into the chair on the throne. He raised a hand twice to quiet the mob, and at last they allowed him to continue.

"I am weary and helpless," he said faintly. "I have resolved to make a vow to pa.s.s the remainder of my life in service acceptable to Allah. I will relinquish my t.i.tle and take the garb of a moullah. I am going to the shrine of Khwaja Sahib, and thence to Mecca, where I hope to end my sorrowful days."

This was not the sort of consolation that the mob expected or wanted. A howl of execration burst forth, but it was stayed by the entrance of two people from the private portion of the palace.

There was no need that Malcolm should ask who the pale, haughty, beautiful woman was who came and stood by her father's side. Ros.h.i.+nara Begum did not share the Emperor's dejection. She faced the rebels now with the air of one who knew them for the _canaille_ they were. But that was only for an instant. A consummate actress, she had a part to play, and she bent and whispered something to Bahadur Shah with a great show of pleased vivacity.

A man who accompanied her stepped to the front of the throne, and his words soon revealed to Malcolm that he was listening to the Shahzada, the heir apparent, Mirza Moghul.

"Why do you come hither to disturb the King's pious meditations?" he cried angrily. "You were better employed at the batteries, where your loyal comrades are now firing a salute of twenty-one guns to celebrate the capture of Agra by the Neemuch Brigade."

He paused. His statement was news to all present, as, indeed, it well might be, seeing that it was a lie. But his half petulant, half boastful tone was convincing, and several voices were raised in a cry of "Shabas.h.!.+ Good hearing!"