The Red Year Part 6

A woman came running from a neighbor's house. While giving him the charcoal she hastily closed the rude door. She pretended not to understand him when he sought an explanation of the armor, whereupon he seized her, and led her, shrieking, among his own men. The commotion brought other villagers on the scene, as he guessed it would. A few fierce threats, backed by a liberal display of naked steel, quickly evoked the curious fact that nearly all the able-bodied inhabitants "had gone to see the sahib-log[6] dance."

[Footnote 6: A generic term for Europeans.]

Even Malcolm's native troops were puzzled by this story, but a further string of terrifying words and more saber flouris.h.i.+ng led to a direct statement that the white people who were to "dance" had been captured near the village quite a week earlier and imprisoned in a ruined tomb about a mile from the road. It was risky work to leave the valuable convoy for an instant, but Malcolm felt that he must probe this mystery.

Taking half a dozen men with him, and compelling the woman to act as guide, he went to the tomb in the dark.

The building, a mosque-like structure of considerable size, was situated in the midst of a grove of mango trees. A clear s.p.a.ce in front of the tomb was lighted with oil lamps and bonfires. It was packed with uproarious natives, and Malcolm's astonished gaze rested on three European acrobats doing some feat of balancing. A clown was cracking jokes in French, some nuns were singing dolefully, and a trio of girls, wearing the conventional gauze and spangles of circus riders, were standing near a couple of piebald ponies.

He and his men dashed in among the audience and the Goojers ran for dear life when they caught sight of a sahib at the head of an armed party.

The performers and the nuns nearly died of fright, believing that their last hour had surely come. But they soon recovered from their fear only to collapse more completely from joy. A French circus, it appeared, had camped near a party of nuns in the village on the main road, and were captured there when the news came that the English were swept out of existence. Most fortunately for themselves the nuns were regarded as part of the show, and the villagers, after robbing all of them, penned them in the mosque and made them give a nightly performance. There were five men and three women in the circus troupe, and among the four nuns was the grave reverend mother of a convent.

Malcolm brought them to the village and caused it to be made known that unless every article of value and every rupee in money stolen from these unfortunate people, together with a heavy fine, were brought to him by daybreak, he would not only fire each hut and destroy the standing crops, but he would also hang every adult male belonging to the place he could lay hands on.

These hereditary thieves could appreciate a man who spoke like that.

They met him fairly and paid in full. When the convoy moved off, even that amazing suit of armor, which was used for the state entry of the circus into a town, was strapped on to the back of a trick pony.

The nuns, he ascertained, were coming from Fategarh to Umballa and they had met the great retinue of Nana Sahib below Aligarh. With him were two Europeans, a young lady and an elderly gentleman, but they were traveling so rapidly that it was impossible to learn who they were or whither they were going.

Here, then, was really good news. Like every other Englishman in India Malcolm believed that the Mutiny was confined to a very small area, of which his own station was the center. He thought that if Winifred and her uncle reached Cawnpore they would be quite safe.

He brightened up so thoroughly that he quite enjoyed a sharp fight next day when the budmashes of Bulandshahr regarded the straggling convoy as an easy prey.

There were three or four such affairs ere they reached Agra, and his Frenchmen proved themselves to be soldiers as well as acrobats. On the evening of the 2d of June he marched his cavalcade into the splendid fortress immortalized by its marble memorials of the great days of the Mogul empire.

The fact that a young subaltern had brought a convoy from Meerut was seized on by the weak and amiable John Colvin, Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Provinces, as a convincing proof of his theory that the bulk of the native army might be trusted, and that order would soon be restored. Each day he was sending serenely confident telegrams to Calcutta and receiving equally rea.s.suring ones from a fatuous Viceroy.

It was with the utmost difficulty that his wiser subordinates got him to disarm the sepoy regiments in Agra itself. He vehemently a.s.sured the Viceroy that the worst days of the outbreak were over and issued a proclamation offering forgiveness to all mutineers who gave up their arms, "except those who had instigated others to revolt, or taken part in the murder of Europeans."

Such a man was sure to regard Malcolm's bold journey from the wrong point of view. So delighted was he that he gave the sowars two months'

pay, lauded Malcolm in the _Gazette_, and forthwith despatched him on a special mission to General Sir Hugh Wheeler at Cawnpore, to whom he recommended Frank for promotion and appointment as aide-de-camp.

This curious sequence of events led to Malcolm's following Winifred Mayne along the road she had taken exactly three weeks earlier. The route to Cawnpore lay through Etawah, a place where revolt had already broken out, but which had been evacuated by the mutineers, who, like those at Aligarh, Bulandshahr, Mainpuri, Meerut, and a score of other towns, ran off to Delhi after butchering all the Europeans within range.

With a small escort of six troopers, his servant, and two pack-horses, he traveled fast. As night was falling on June 4th, he re-entered the Grand Trunk Road some three miles north of Bithoor, where, all unknown to him, Nana Sahib's splendid palace stood on the banks of the Ganges.

It was his prudent habit to halt in small villages only. Towns might be traversed quickly without much risk, as even the tiniest display of force insured safety, but it was wise not to permit the size of his escort to be noted at leisure, when a surprise attack might be made in the darkness.

Therefore, expecting to arrive at Cawnpore early next day, he elected not to push on to Bithoor, and proposed to pa.s.s the night under the branches of a great pipal tree. Chumru, his Mohammedan bearer, was a good cook, in addition to his many other acquirements. Having purchased, or made his master pay for, which is not always the same thing in India, a small kid (by which please understand a young goat) in the village, he lit a fire, slew the kid, to the accompaniment of an appropriate verse from the Koran, and compounded an excellent stew.

A native woman brought some chupatties and milk, and Malcolm, being sharp set with hunger, ate as a man can only eat when he is young, and in splendid health, and has ridden hard all day.

He had a cigar left, too, and he was searching his pockets for a piece of paper to light it when he brought forth that Persi-Arabic letter which reached him at the close of the second battle of Ghazi-ud-din Nuggur.

He was on the point of rolling it into a spill, but some subtle influence stopped him. He rose, walked to Chumru's fire, and lit the cigar with a burning stick. Then summoning a smart young jemadar with whom he had talked a good deal during the journey, he asked him to read the chit. The woman who supplied the chupatties fetched a tiny lamp. She held it while the trooper bent over the strange scrawl, and ran his eyes along it to learn the context.

And this is what he read:

"To all whom it may concern--Be it known that Malcolm-sahib, late of the Company's 3d Regiment of Horse, is a friend of the heaven-born princess Ros.h.i.+nara Begum, and, provided he comes to the palace at Delhi within three days from the date hereof, he is to be given safe conduct by all who owe allegiance to the Light of the World, the renowned King of Kings and lord of all India, Bahadur Shah, Fuzl-Ilahi, Panah-i-din."

The trooper scowled. Those concluding words--"By the grace of G.o.d, Defender of the Faith"--perhaps touched a sore place, for he, too, was a true believer.

"You are a long way from Delhi, sahib, and the chit is a week old. I suppose you did not pay the expected visit to her Highness the Begum?"

he said.

"If you are talking of the Begum Ros.h.i.+nara, daughter of the King of Delhi," put in the woman, who was ready enough to indulge in a gossip with these good-looking soldiers, "she pa.s.sed through this place to-day."

"Surely you are telling some idle tale of the bazaar," said Malcolm.

"No, sahib. My brother is a gra.s.s-cutter in the Nana's stables. While I was at the well this morning a carriage came down the road. It was a rajah's carriage, and there were men riding before and behind. I asked my brother if he had seen it, and he said that it brought the Begum to Bithoor, where she is to wed the Nana."

"What! A Mohammedan princess marry a Brahmin!"

"It may be so, sahib. They say these great people do not consider such things when there is aught to be gained."

"But what good purpose can this marriage serve?"

The woman looked up at Malcolm under her long eyelashes.

"Where have you been, sahib, that you have not heard that the sepoys have proclaimed the Nana as King?" she asked timidly.

"King! Is he going to fight the Begum's father?"

"I know not, sahib, but Delhi is far off, and Cawnpore is near.

Perchance they may both be kings."

A man's voice called from the darkness, and the woman hurried away.

Malcolm, of course, was in a position to appraise the accuracy of her story. He knew that the Nana, a native dignitary with a grievance against the Government, was a guest of Bahadur Shah a month before the Mutiny broke out, and was at the Meerut hunting lodge on the very night of its inception. Judging by Princess Ros.h.i.+nara's words, her relations with the Brahmin leader were far from lover-like. What, then, did this sudden journey to Cawnpore portend? Was Sir Hugh Wheeler aware of the proposed marriage, with all the terrible consequences that it heralded?

At any rate, his line of action was clear.

"Get the men together, Akhab Khan," he said to the jemadar. "We march at once."

Within five minutes they were on the road. There was no moon, and the trees bordering both sides of the way made the darkness intense. The still atmosphere, too, was almost overpowering. The dry earth, sun-baked to a depth of many feet, was giving off its store of heat acc.u.mulated during the day. The air seemed to be quivering as though it were laden with the fumes of a furnace. It was a night when men might die or go mad under the mere strain of existence. Its very languor was intoxicating.

Nature seemed to brood over some wild revel. A fearsome thunderstorm or howling tornado of dust might reveal her fickleness of mood at any moment.

It was man, not the elements, that was destined to war that night. The small party of hors.e.m.e.n were riding through the scattered houses of Bithoor, and had pa.s.sed a brilliantly lighted palace which Malcolm took to be the residence of Nana Sahib, when they were suddenly ordered to halt. Some native soldiers, not wearing the Company's uniform, formed a line across the road. Malcolm, drawing his sword, advanced towards them.

"Whose troops are you?" he shouted.

There was no direct answer, but a score of men, armed with muskets and bayonets, and carrying a number of lanterns, came nearer. It must be remembered that Malcolm, a subaltern of the 3d Cavalry, wore a turban and sash. He spoke Urdu exceedingly well, and it was difficult in the gloom to recognize him as a European.

"We have orders to stop and examine all wayfarers--" began some man in authority; but a lifted lantern revealed Frank's white face; instantly several guns were pointed at him.

"Follow me!" he cried to his escort.

A touch of the spurs sent Nejdi with a mighty bound into the midst of the rabble who held the road. Malcolm bent low in the saddle and a scattered volley revealed the tree-shrouded houses in a series of bright flashes. Fortunately, under such conditions, there is more room to miss than to hit. None of the bullets harmed horse or man, and the sowars were not quite near enough to be in the line of fire. After a quick sweep or two with his sword, Malcolm saw that his men were laying about them heartily. A pack-horse, however, had stumbled, bringing down the animal ridden by Chumru, the bearer. To save his faithful servant Frank wheeled Nejdi, and cut down a native who was lunging at Chumru with a bayonet.

More shots were fired and a sowar was wounded. He fell, shouting to his comrades for help. A general melee ensued. The troopers slashed at the men on foot and the sepoys fired indiscriminately at any one on horseback. The uproar was so great and the fighting so strenuous that Malcolm did not hear the approach of a body of cavalry until a loud voice bawled:

"Why should brothers slay brothers? Cease your quarreling, in the name of the faith! Are there not plenty of accursed Feringhis on whom to try your blades?"