The Red Year Part 32

Not a garish tint or inharmonious line interfered with the chaste elegance of the white marble, and the whole apartment, which seemed to be the ante-room of the ladies' quarters, was lighted with Moorish lamps.

Malcolm took in some of these details in one amazed glance, but his thoughts were recalled sternly to the affairs of the moment by hearing the ring of spurred heels on the sharp-sounding pavement from behind a curtained arch. There was no time to retreat nor cross towards an alcove that promised some slight screen from the soft and penetrating light that filled the room. He saw that his guide was perturbed, but he asked no question. With the quick military tread came the frou-frou of silk and the footfall of slippered feet. Then the curtain was drawn aside and Akhab Khan entered, followed by the Princess Ros.h.i.+nara.

Malcolm had the advantage of a few seconds' warning. Even as Akhab Khan placed his hand on the curtain the Englishman sprang forward, and the astounded sowar, now a brigadier in the rebel forces, found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver.

"Do not move till I bid you, Akhab Khan," said Malcolm, in his self-contained way. "I am summoned hither, so I come, but it may be necessary to secure a hostage for my safe conduct outside the walls again."

"You! Malcolm-sahib!" was Akhab Khan's involuntary outburst.

"Yes, even I. Have you not heard, then, that I rode into the palace to-day?"

"There was a report that some Feringhis--some sahibs--were in the city as spies--"

"Malcolm-sahib is here because I sent for him," broke in Ros.h.i.+nara.

"You--_sent_ for him!"

Akhab Khan's swarthy features paled, and his eyes sparkled wrathfully.

Heedless of Malcolm's implied threat, or perhaps ignoring it, he wheeled round on the Princess, and his right hand crossed to his sword-hilt.

"If you so much as turn your head again or lift a hand without my order, I blow your brains out," said Malcolm in the same unemotional tone.

"Nay, let him attack a woman if it pleaseth him," cried Ros.h.i.+nara, who had not drawn back one inch from the place where she was standing when Malcolm confronted Akhab Khan and herself. "That is what our troops, officers and men alike, are best fitted for. They love to swagger in the bazaar, but their valor flies when they see the Ridge."

Again quite indifferent to the fact that Malcolm's finger was on the trigger, the rebel leader threw out his hands towards the Begum in a gesture of agonized protest.

"Do you not trust me, my heart?" he murmured. "If you knew of this Nazarene's presence why was I not told?"

"Because I wished to save you in spite of yourself. Because I would mourn you if you fell in battle as befits a warrior and the man whom I love, but I would not have you die on the scaffold, as most of the others will die ere another month be sped. What hope have we of success?

If forty thousand sepoys cannot overcome the three thousand English on the Ridge, how shall they prevail against the force that is now preparing to storm Delhi? I sent for Malcolm-sahib that I might obtain terms for my father and for thee, Akhab Khan. This man is now in our power. Let us bargain with him. If he goes free to-day, let him promise that we shall be spared when the gallows is busy in front of our palace."

Each word of this impa.s.sioned speech was a revelation to Malcolm. Here was the fiery beauty of the Mogul court pleading for the lives of her father and lover, pleading to him, a solitary Briton in the midst of thousands of mutineers, a prisoner in their stronghold, a spy whose life was forfeit by the laws of war. Hardly less bewildering than this turn of fortune's wheel was the whirligig that promoted a poor trooper of the Company to the position of accepted suitor for the hand of a royal maiden. Never could there be a more complete unveiling of the Eastern mind, with all its fatalism, its strange weaknesses, its uncontrollable pa.s.sions.

Akhab Khan stretched out his arms again.

"Forgive me, my soul, if I did doubt thee," he almost sobbed.

The girl was the first to recover her self-control.

"Put away your pistol," she said, fixing her fine eyes on Malcolm, with a softness in their limpid depths that he had never seen there before.

"If we can contrive, my plighted husband and I, you will not need it to-night. I was rejoiced to hear that you were within our gates. We are beaten. I know it. We have lost a kingdom, because wretches like Nana Dundhu Punt of Bithoor, have forgotten their oaths and preferred drunken revels to empire. Were they of my mind, were they as loyal and honorable as the man I hope to marry, we would have driven you and yours into the sea, Malcolm-sahib. But Allah willed otherwise and we can only bow to his decree. It is Kismet. I am content. Say, then, if you are sent in safety to your camp, do you in return guarantee the two lives I ask of you?"

Malcolm could not help looking at Akhab Khan before he answered. The handsome young soldier had folded his arms, and his eyes dwelt on Ros.h.i.+nara's animated face with a sad fixity that bespoke at once his love and his despair.

Then the Englishman placed the revolver in his belt and bowed low before the woman who reposed such confidence in him.

"If the issue rested with me, Princess," he said, "you need have no fear for the future. I am only a poor officer and I have small influence. Yet I promise that such power as I possess shall be exerted in your behalf, and I would remind you that we English neither make war on woman nor treat honorable enemies as felons."

"My father is a feeble old man," she cried vehemently. "It was not by his command that your people were slain. And Akhab Khan has never drawn his sword save in fair fight."

"I can vouch for Akhab Khan's treatment of those who were at his mercy,"

said Malcolm, generously.

"Nay, sahib, you repaid me that night," said the other, not to be outdone in this exchange of compliments. "But if I have the happiness to find such favor with my lady that she plots to save me against my will I cannot forget that I lead some thousands of sepoys who have faith in me.

You have been examining our defenses all day. Sooner would I fall on my sword here and now than that I should connive at the giving of information to an enemy which should lead to the destruction of my men."

Malcolm had foreseen this pitfall in the smooth road that was seemingly opening before him.

"I would prefer to become the bearer of terms than of information," he said.

"Terms? What terms? How many hands in this city are free of innocent blood? Were I or any other to propose a surrender we should be torn limb from limb."

"Then I must tell you that I cannot accept your help at the price of silence. When I undertook this mission I knew its penalties. I am still prepared to abide by them. Let me remind you that it is I, not you, who can impose conditions within these four walls."

Akhab Khan paled again. His was the temperament that shows anger by the token which reveals cowardice in some men; it is well to beware of him who enters a fight with bloodless cheeks and gray lips. But Ros.h.i.+nara sprang between them with an eager cry:

"What folly is this that exhausts itself on a point of honor? Does not every spy who brings us details of each gun and picket on the Ridge tell the sahib-log all that they wish to know of our strength and our dissensions? Will not the man who warned us of the presence of an officer-sahib in our midst to-day go back and sell the news of a sepoy regiment's threat to murder the King? Have done with these idle words--let us to acts! Nawab-ji!"

"Heaven-born!" Malcolm's guide advanced with a deep salaam.

"See to it that my orders are carried out. Mayhap thine own head may rest easier on its shoulders if there is no mischance."

The nawab-ji bowed again, and a.s.sured the Presence that there would be no lapse on his part. Akhab Khan had turned away. His att.i.tude betokened utter dejection, but the Princess, not the first of her s.e.x to barter ambition for love, was radiant with hope.

"Go, Malcolm-sahib," she whispered, "and may Allah guard you on the way!"

"I have one favor to ask," he said. "My devoted servant, a man named Chumru--"

She smiled with the air of a woman who breathes freely once more after pa.s.sing through some grave peril.

"How, then, do you think I found out the ident.i.ty of the English officer who had dared to enter Delhi?" she asked. "Your man came to me, not without difficulty, and told me you were here. It was he who inspired me with the thought that your presence might be turned to good account. But go, and quickly. He is safe."

Frank hardly knew how to bid her farewell until he remembered that, if of royal birth, Princess Ros.h.i.+nara was also a beautiful woman. He took her hand and raised it to his lips, a most unusual proceeding in the East, but the tribute of respect seemed to please her.

Following the nawab he traversed many corridors and chambers and ultimately reached an apartment in which Chumru was seated. That excellent bearer was smoking a hookah, with a couple of palace servants, and doubtless exchanging spicy gossip with the freedom of Eastern manners and conversation.

"Shabas.h.!.+" he cried when his crooked gaze fell on Malcolm. "By the tomb of Nizam-ud-din, there are times when women are useful."

They were let down from a window on the river face of the palace and taken by a boat to the bank of the Jumna above Ludlow Castle, while the nawab undertook to deliver their horses next day at the camp. He carried out his promise to the letter, nor did he forget to put forth a plea in his own behalf against the hour when British bayonets would be probing the recesses of the fort and its occupants.

When Nicholson came out of the mess after supper he found Malcolm waiting for an audience. Chumru, still wearing the servant's livery in which the famous brigadier had last seen him, was squatting on the ground near his master. The general was not apt to waste time in talk, and he had a singular knack of reading men's thoughts by a look.

"Glad to see you back again, Major Malcolm," he cried. "I hope you were successful?"

"It is for you to decide, sir, when you have heard my story," and without further preamble Frank gave a clear narrative of his adventures since dawn. Not a word did he say about the very things he had been sent to report on, and Nicholson understood that a direct order alone would unlock his lips. When Frank ended the general frowned and was silent. In those days men did not hold honor lightly, and Nicholson was a fine type of soldier and gentleman.

"Confound it!" he growled, "this is awkward, very awkward," and Malcolm felt bitterly that the extraordinary turn taken by events in the palace was in a fair way towards depriving his superiors of the facts they were so anxious to learn. Suddenly the big man's deep eyes fell on Chumru.