CHAPTER III.
THE CHALLENGE.
"For Gawd's sake, sir! don't say I'm unfit for dooty, sir," pleaded alad, who, as he stood to attention, tried hard to keep the sharpshivers of coming ague from the doctor's keen eyes. "I'm all right,aint I, mates? It aint a bad sort o' fever at worst, as I oughterknow, havin' it constant. It's go ter hell, an' lick the blood up fustas I'm fit for with Jack Pandy. That's all the matter--you see if itaint, sir!"
He threw his fair curly head back, his blue eyes blazed with thecoming fever light, but the bearded man next to him murmured, "'Ee'sall right, sir. 'Ee'll 'old 'is musket straight, never fear," and theDoctor walked on with a nod.
"They killed his girl at Meerut," said his company officer in awhisper, and Herbert Erlton, standing by, set his teeth and glancedback, blue eye meeting blue eye with a sort of triumph.
For it was the 7th of June, and the blow was to be struck, thechallenge given at last.
Nearly a month, thought Herbert Erlton, since it had happened. He hadspent much of the time in bed, struck down with fever; for he hadregained Meerut with difficulty, wounded and exhausted. And then ithad been too late--too late for anything save to hang round hungrilyin the hopes of that challenge to come, with many another such as he.
But it had come at last. The camp was ringing with cheers for thefinal reinforcement, every soul who could stand was coming out ofhospital, and the air, new washed with rain, and cool, seemed to putfresh life, and with it a desire to kill, into the veins of every sonof the cold North.
And now the dusk was at hand. The men, half-mad with impatience,laughed and joked over each trivial preparation. Yet, when the ordercame with midnight, weapons were never gripped more firmly, moresternly, than by those three thousand Englishmen marching to theirlong-deferred chance of revenge. And some, not able to march, toiledbehind in hopes of one fair blow; and not a few, unable even for somuch, slipped desperately from hospital beds to see at least onemurderer meet with his reward.
For, to the three thousand marching upon Delhi that cool dewy night,sent--so they told themselves--for special solace and succor of theRight, there were but two things to be reckoned with in the wideworld: Themselves--Men. Those others--Murderers.
The fireflies, myriad-born from the rain, glimmered giddily in the lowmarshy land, the steady stars shone overhead, and Major Erlton lookedat both indifferently as he rode, long-limbed and heavy, through thenight whose soft silence was broken only by the jingle of spurs andthe squelching of light gun-wheels in water-logged ruts; savewhen--from a distance--the familiar tramp, tramp, of disciplined feetalong a road came wafted on the cool wind; for the column in which hewas doing duty moved along the canal bank so as to take the enemy, whoheld an intrenched position five miles from Alipore, in flank. ButHerbert Erlton was not thinking of stars or fireflies; was notthinking of anything. He was watching for other lights, the twinklingcresset lights which would tell where the Murderers waited for thatfirst blow. He did not even think of the cause of his desire; he wasabsorbed in the revenge itself, and a bitter curse rose to his lips,when just before dawn the roll of a gun and the startled flocks ofbirds flying westward told him that others were before him.
"Hurry up, men! For God's sake hurry up!" The entreaty passed alongthe line where the troopers of the 9th Lancers were setting shouldersto the gun-wheels, and everyone, men and officers alike, was listeningwith fierce regret to the continuous roll of cannon, the casual rattleof musketry, telling that the heavy guns were bearing the brunt of itso far.
"Hurry up, men! Hurry up. That's the bridge ahead! Then we can go forthem!"
Hark! A silence; if silence it could be called, now that the shouts,and yells, and confused murmur of battle could be heard. But the gunswere silent; and hark again. A ringing cheer! Bayonet work that, atlast, at last! And yonder, behind the fireflies in the bushes? Surelymen in flight! Hurrah! Hurrah!
When Major Erlton returned from that wild charge it was to find thatone splendid rush from the 75th Regiment had cleared the road toDelhi. The Murderers had been swept from their shelter, theirguns--some fighting desperately, others standing stupidly to meetdeath, and many with clasped hands and vain protestations of loyaltyon their lips paying the debt of their race. But one man had paid someother debt, Heaven knows what; and the Rifle Brigade cleared the roadto Delhi of an English deserter fighting against his old regiment.
It had not taken an hour; and now, as the yellow sun peered over theeastern horizon, a little knot of staff officers consulted what to donext.
What to do? Herbert Erlton and many another wondered stupidly what thedeuce fellows could mean by asking the question when the jagged lineof the Ridge lay not three miles off, and Delhi lay behind that? Couldany sane person think that England had done its duty at sunrise, eventhough forty good men and true of the three thousand had dealt theirfirst and last blow?
But if some did, there were not many; so, after a pause, the marchbegan again. Westward, by a forking road, to the flat head of theLizard lying above the Subz-mundi, eastward toward the tail and theold cantonment. And this time the bayonets went with the jinglingspurs, and together they cleared the green groves merrily. Still, evenso, it was barely nine o'clock when they met the eastward column againat Hindoo Rao's house and shook hands over their bloodless victory.For the eastward force had lost one man, the westward seven, despitethe fact that the retreating Murderers had attempted a rally in theirold lines.
Nine o'clock! In seven hours the ten miles had been marched, thebattle of Budli-ke-serai won, and below them lay Delhi. Within twelvehundred yards rose the Moree Bastion, the extreme western point ofthat city face which, with the Cashmere gate jutting about its middleand the Water Bastion guarding its eastern end, must be the naturaltarget of their valor--a target three-quarters of a mile long bytwenty-four feet high.
Seven hours! And the Murderers had been driven into the city, whilethe men had gained "twenty-six guns and the finest possible base forthe conduct of future operations." For the Ridge, the old cantonmentswere once more echoing to the master's step, and the city folk, asthey looked eagerly from the walls, had the first notice of defeat inthe smoke and flames of the sepoy lines which the English soldiersfired in reckless revenge; reckless because the tents were not up, andthey might at least have been a shelter from the sun.
But the Delhi force, taken as a whole, was in no mood to think; and soperhaps those at the head of it felt bound to think the more. Therewas Delhi, undoubtedly, but the rose-red walls with their violetshadows looked formidable. And who could tell how many Murderers itharbored? A thousand of them or thereabouts would return to Delhi nomore; but, even so, if all the regiments known to have mutinied andcome to Delhi were at their full strength, the odds must still beclose on four to one. And then there was the rabble, armed no doubtfrom the larger magazine below the Flagstaff Tower, which, alas, hadfound no Willoughby for its destruction on the 11th of May. And thenthere was the May sun. And then--and then----
"What's up? When are we going on?" asked Major Erlton, sitting fairand square on his horse, in the shadow of the big trees by HindooRao's house, as an orderly officer rode past him.
"Aren't going on to-day. Chief thinks it safer not--these nativecities----"
He was gone, and Herbert Erlton without a word threw himself heavilyfrom his horse with a clatter and jingle of swords and scabbards andHeaven knows what of all the panoply of war; so with the bridle overhis arm stood looking out over the bloody city which lay quiet as thegrave. Only, every now and again, a white puff of smoke followed by adull roar came from a bastion like a salute of welcome to the living,or a parting honor to the dead.
Was it possible? His eyes followed the familiar outline mechanicallytill they rested half-unconsciously on some ruins beside the citywall. Then with a rush memory came back to him, and as he turnedhurriedly to loosen his horse's girths, the tears seemed to scald histired angry eyes. Yet it was not the memory of Alice Gissing
only,which sent these unwonted visitors to Herbert Erlton's eyes; it was awild desperate pity and despair for all women.
And as he stood there ignoring his own emotion, or at least hiding it,one of the women whom he pitied was looking up with a certainresentful eagerness at a man, who, from the corner turret of that roofin the Mufti's quarter, was straining his eyes Ridgeways.
"They must rest, surely," she said sharply; "you cannot expect them tobe made of iron----"; as you are, she was about to add, but withheldeven that suspicion of praise.
"Well! There goes the bugle to pitch tents, anyhow," retorted JimDouglas recklessly. "So I suppose we had better have our breakfasttoo--coffee and a rasher of bacon and a boiled egg or so. By God! itsincredible--it's----" He flung himself on a reed stool and covered hisface with his hands for a second; but he was up facing her the next."I've no right to say these things--no one knows better than I howworse than idle it is to press others to one's own tether--I learnedthat lesson early, Mrs. Erlton. But"--he gave a quick gesture ofimpotent impatience--"when the news first came in, the men who broughtit ran in at the Cashmere and Moree gates in hundreds, and out at theAjmere and Turkoman, calling that the masters had come back; andpeople were keeking round the doors hopefully. I tell you the veryboys as I came in here were talking of school again--of holiday tasks,perhaps--Heaven knows! People were running in the streets--they willbe walking now--in another hour they will be standing; and then! Well!I suppose the General funks the sun. So I'll be off. I only camebecause I thought I had better be here in case; you see the men wouldhave had their blood up rushing the city----"
"And your breakfast?" she asked coldly, almost sarcastically; for heseemed to her so hard, so grudging, while her sympathies, herenthusiasms were red-hot for the newcomers.
He laughed bitterly. "I've learned to live on parched grain like anative, if need be, and I take opium too; so I shall manage." He wasback again to the turret, however, before two o'clock, curtlyapologetic, calmer, yet still eager. The people, to be sure, he said,had given up keeking round their doors at every clatter, and the gateshad been closed on deserters by the Palace folk; but no one hadthought of bricking them up, and after going round everywhere hedoubted if there were more than seven or eight thousand real soldiersin Delhi. The 74th and the 11th regiments had been slipping away fordays, and numbers of men who had remained did not really mean tofight. Tiddu, who seemed to know everything, said that the mutineershad been very strongly in-trenched at Budli-serai, so the resistancecould not have been very dogged, or our troops could not have foughttheir way in before nine o'clock. Yes! since she pressed for ananswer, the General might have been wise in waiting for the cool. Onlyhe personally wished he had thought it possible, for then he would atany rate have tried to get a letter sent to the Ridge. Now it was toolate.
And then suddenly, as he spoke, a fierce elation flashed to his faceagain at the sound of bugles, the roll of a gun from the MoreeBastion; and he was up the stairs of the turret in a second, casting ahalf-humorous, wholly deprecating glance back at her.
"A hare and a tortoise once--I learned that at school--put it intoLatin!" he said lightly, as the walls round them quivered to thereverberating rolls, thundering from the city wall.
Kate walked up and down the roof restlessly, passing into the outerone so as to be further from that eager sentinel and his criticisms.Tara was spinning calmly, and Kate wondered if the woman could bealive. Did she not know that brave men on both sides were going totheir deaths? And Tara, from under her heavy eyelashes, watched Kate,and wondered how any woman who had brought Life into the world couldfear Death. Did not the Great Wheel spin unceasingly? Let brave men,then, die bravely--even Soma. For she knew by this time that herbrother was in Delhi, and by the master's orders had dodged hisdetection more than once. So the two women waited, each after theirnature; while like the pulse of time itself, the beat of artilleryshook the walls. It came so regularly that Kate, crouching in a cornerweary of restless pacing to and fro, grew almost drowsy and started ata step beside her.
"A false alarm," said Jim Douglas quietly; "a sortie, as far as Icould judge, from the Moree; easily driven back."
His tone roused her antagonism instantly. "Perhaps they are waitingfor night."
"There is a full moon--almost," he replied; "besides, there is faircover up to within four hundred yards of the Cabul gate. They couldrush that, and a bag or two of gunpowder would finish the business."
"They could do that as well to-morrow," she remarked hotly.
"I hope to God they won't be such fools as to try it!" he replied ashotly. "If they don't come in to-night they will have to batter downthe walls, and then the city will go against them. What city wouldn't?It will rouse memories we can't afford to rouse. Who could? And everywounded man who creeps in to-day will be a center of resistance byto-morrow. The women will hound others on to protect him. It is theirway. You have always to allow for humanity in war. Well! we must waitand see." He paused and rubbed his forehead vexedly. "If I had known,I might have got out with the sortie; but I suppose I couldn'treally----" He paused, shrugged his shoulders, and went out.
And Kate, as she sat watching the red flush of sunset grow to thedome, remembered his look at her with a half-angry pang. Why shouldshe be in this man's way always? So the day died away in soft silence,and there on the housetop it seemed incredible that so much hung inthe balance, and that down in the streets the crowds must be driftingto and fro restlessly. At least she supposed so. Yet, monotonous asever, there was the evening cry of the muezzin and the persistentthrumming of toms-toms and saringis which evening brings to a nativecity. It rose louder than usual from a roof hard by, where, so Taratold her, a princess of the blood royal lived; a great friend ofAbool-Bukr's. The remembrance of little Sonny's hands all red withblood, and the cruel face smiling over an apology, made her shiver,and wonder as she often did with a desperate craving what the child'sfate had been. Why had she let the old ayah take him? Why was he nothere, safe; making life bearable? As she sat, the tears fallingquietly over her cheeks, Tara came and looked at her curiously. "Themem should not cry," she said consolingly. "The Huzoor will save hersomehow."
For an instant Kate felt as if she would rather he did not. Then onthe distance and the darkening air came a familiar sound: the eveningbugle from the Ridge with its cheerful invitation:
"Come-and-set-a-picket-boys! come-and-keep-a-watch."
So someone else was within hail, ready to help! The knowledge broughther a vast consolation, and for the first time in that environment sheslept through the night without wakening in deadly dreamy fear at theleast sound.
Even the uproarious devilry of Prince Abool in the alley below did notrouse her, when about midnight he broke loose from the feverishdetaining hold which Newasi had kept on him by every art of her powerduring the day, lest the master returning should find the Prince inmischief. But now he lurched away with a party of young bloods who hadcome to fetch him, swearing that he must celebrate the victoryproperly. But for a moment's weakness, fostered by a foolish, fearfulwoman, he might have led the cavalry. He wept maudlin tears over thethought, swearing he would yet show his mettle. He would not leave onehell-doomed alive; and, suiting the action to the word, he beganincontinently to search for fugitives in some open cowyards close by,till the strapping dairymaids, roused from slumber, declared inrevenge that they had seen a man slip down the culvert of the bigdrain. Five minutes afterward Prince Abool, half-choked, half-drowned,was dragged from the sewer by his comrades, protesting feebly that hemust have killed an infidel; else why did the blood smell so horribly?
But after that the city sank into the soundlessness, the stillness, ofthe hour before dawn, save for a recurring call of the watch bugles onwall and Ridge and the twinkling lights which burned all night in campand court. For those two had challenged each other, and the fight wasto the bitter end. What else could it be with a death-pledge betweenthem? The townspeople might sleep uncertain which side they wouldespouse, but between the Me
n and the Murderers the issue was clear.
And it remained so, even though the month-of-miracle lingered, and noassault came on the morrow, or the day after, or the day after that.So that the old King himself set his back to the wall and for oncespoke as a King should. "If the army will not fight without pay,punish it," he said to the Commander-in-chief. But it was only a flashin the pan, and he retired once more to the latticed marble balconyand set the sign-manual to a general fiat that "those who would besatisfied with a trifle might be paid something." Whereat Mahboob Alishook his head, for there was not even a trifle in the privy purse.
As for the city people, their ears and tongues grew longer duringthose three days, when the sepoys, returning from the sorties andskirmishes, brought back tales of glorious victory, stupendousslaughter. Her man had killed fifteen Huzoors himself, and there werenot five hundred left on the Ridge, said Futteh-deen's wife toPera-Khan's as they gossiped at the wall; and a good job too. Whenthey were gone there would be an end of these sword cuts and bulletwounds. Not a wink of sleep had she had for nights, yawned Zainub,what with thirsts and poultices! And on the steps of the mosque, too,the learned lingered to discuss the newspapers. So Bukht Khan withfifty thousand men was on his way to swear allegiance, and the Shah ofPersia had sacked Lahore, where Jan Larnce himself had been caughttrying to escape on an elephant and identified by wounds on his back.And the London correspondent of the _Authentic News_ was no doubtright in saying the Queen was dumfoundered, while the St. Petersburgone was clearly correct in asserting that the Czar was about to put onhis crown at last. Why not, since his vow was at an end with thepassing of India from British supremacy?
So the dream went on; the little brocaded bags kept coming in; thestupendous slaughter continued. Yet every night the Widow's Cruse of aRidge echoed to the picket bugles, and the court and the camp twinkledat each other till dawn.
A sort of vexed despairing patience came to Jim Douglas, and more thanonce he apologized to Kate for his moodiness, like a patient whoapologizes to his nurse when unfavorable symptoms set in. He gave herwhat news he could glean, which was not much, for Tiddu had gone southfor another consignment of grain. But on the morning of the 12th heturned up with a face clearer than it had been; and a friendlier lookin his eyes.
"The guides came in to camp yesterday. Splendid fellows. They were atit hammer and tongs immediately, though that man Rujjub Ali I told youof--it was he who said Hodson was with the force--declares theymarched from Murdin in twenty-one days. Over thirty miles a day! Well!they looked like it. I saw them ride slap up to the Cabul gate.And--and I saw someone else with them, Mrs. Erlton. I wasn't sure atfirst if I had better tell you; but I think I had. I saw yourhusband."
"My husband," she echoed faintly. In truth the past seemed to haveslipped from her. She seemed to have forgotten so much; and thensuddenly she remembered that the letter he had written must still bein the pocket of the dress Tara had hidden away. How strange! She mustfind it, and look at it again.
Jim Douglas watched her curiously with a quick recognition of his ownrough touch. Yet it could not be helped.
"Yes. He was looking splendid, doing splendidly. I couldn't helpwishing---- Well! I wish you could have seen him; you would have beenproud."
She interrupted him with swift, appealing hand. "Oh!--don't--pleasedon't--what have I to do with it? Can't you see--can't you understandhe was thinking of--of her--and doesn't she deserve it? whileI--I----"
It was the first breakdown he had seen during those long weeks ofstrain, and he stood absolutely, wholly compassionate before it.
"My dear lady," he said gently, as he walked away to give her time,"if you good women would only recognize the fact which worse ones do,that most men think of many women in their lives, you would be happier.But I doubt if Major Erlton was thinking of anyone in particular. Hewas thinking of the dead, and you are among them, for _him_; rememberthat. Come," he continued, crossing over to her again and holding outhis hand. "Cheer up! Aren't you always telling me it is bad for a manto have one woman on the brain, and think, think how many there may beto avenge by this time!"
His voice, sounding a whole gamut of emotion, a whole cadence ofconsolation, seemed to find an echo in her heart, and she looked up athim gratefully.
It would have found one also in most hearts upon the Ridge, where menwere beginning to think with a sort of mad fury of women and childrenin a hundred places to which this unchecked conflagration of mutinywas spreading swiftly. What would become of Lucknow, Cawnpore, Agra,if something were not done at Delhi? if the challenge so well givenwere not followed up? And men elsewhere telegraphed the same question,until, half-heartedly, the General listened, and finally gave agrudging assent to a plan of assault urged by four subalterns.
What the details were matters little. A bag of gunpowder somewhere,with fixed bayonets to follow. A gamester's throw for sixes ordeuce-ace, so said even its supporters. But anything seemed betterthan being a target for artillery practice five times better thantheir own, while the mutiny spread around them.
The secret was well kept as such secrets must be. Still the afternoonof the 12th saw a vague stir on the Ridge, and though even thefighting men turned in to sleep, each man knew what the midnight ordermeant which sent him fumbling hurriedly with belts and buckles.
"The city at last, mates! No more playin' ball," they said to eachother as they fell in, and stood waiting the next order under thestars; waiting with growing impatience as the minutes slipped by.
"My God! where is Graves?" fumed Hodson. "We can't go on without himand his three hundred. Ride, someone, and see. The explosion party isready, the Rifles safe within three hundred yards of the wall. Thedawn will be on us in no time--ride sharp!"
"Something has gone wrong," whispered a comrade. "There were lights inthe General's tent and two mounted officers--there! I thought so! It'sall up!"
All up indeed! For the bugle which rang out was the retreat. Some ofthose who heard it remembered a moonlight night just a month beforewhen it had echoed over the Meerut parade ground; and if mutteredcurses could have silenced it the bugle would have sounded in vain.But they could not, and so the men went back sulkily, despondently tobed. Back to inaction, back to target practice.
"Graves says he misunderstood the verbal orders, so I understand,"palliated a staff-officer in a mess tent whither others drifted tofind solace from the chill of dis-appointment, the heat of anger. Atall man with hawk's eyes and sparse red hair paused for a moment erepassing out into the night again. "I dislike euphemisms," he saidcurtly. "In these days I prefer to call a spade a spade. Then you cantell what you have to trust to."
"Hodson's in a towering temper," said an artilleryman as he watched anative servant thirstily; "I don't wonder. Well! here's to better lucknext time."
"I don't believe there will be a next time," echoed a lad gloomily.And there was not, for him, the target practice settling that pointdefinitely next day.
"But why the devil couldn't--" began another vexed voice, then paused."Ah! here comes Erlton from the General. He'll know. I say, Major----"he broke off aghast.
"Have a glass of something, Erlton?" put in a senior hastily, "youlook as if you had seen a ghost, man!"
The Major gave an odd hollow laugh. "The other way on--I mean--I--Ican't believe it--but my wife--she--she's alive--she's in Delhi." Thestartled faces around seemed too much for him; he sat down hurriedlyand hid his face in his hands, only to look up in a second morecollectedly. "It has brought the whole d----d business home, somehow,to have her there."
"But how?" the eager voices got so far--no further.
"I nearly shot him--should have if he had not ducked, for the get upwas perfect. Some of you may know the man--Douglas--Greyman--a trainerchap, but my God! a well plucked one. He sneaked into my tent to tell.But I don't understand it yet, and he said he would come back andarrange. It was all so hurried, you see; I was due at the muster, andhe was off when he heard what was up to see Graves--whom he knows. Oh,curse the whole
lot of them! Here, khansaman! brandy--anything!"
He gulped it down fiercely, for he had heard of more than life fromJim Douglas.
The latter, meanwhile, was racing down a ravine as his shortest wayback to the city. His getting out had been the merest chance,depending on his finding Soma as sentry at the sally port of theruined magazine. He had instantly risked the danger of anotherconfederate for the opportunity, and he was just telling himself witha triumph of gladness that he had been right, when a curious soundlike the rustling of dry leaves at his very feet, made him spring intothe air and cross the flat shelf of rock he was passing at a bound;for he knew what the noise meant. A true lover's knot of deadly viper,angry at intrusion, lay there; the dry Ridge swarms with them. But, ashe came down lightly on his feet again, something slipped from underone, and though he did not fall, he knew in a second that he wascrippled. Break or sprain, he knew instantly that he could not hope toreach the sally-port before Soma's watch was up. Yet get back he mustto the city; for this--he had tried a step by this time with the aidof a projecting rock--might make it impossible for him to return fordays if he did the easiest thing and crawled upward again hands andknees. That, then, was not to be thought of. The Ajmere gate, however,_might_ be open for traffic; the Delhi one certainly was, morning andevening. The latter meant a round of nearly four miles, and endlessdanger of discovery; but it must be done. So he set his face westward.
It was just twenty-four hours after this, that Tara, unable for longerpatience, told Kate that she must lock herself in, while she went outto seek news of the master. Something must have happened. It wasthirty-six hours since they had seen him, and if he was gone, that wasan end.
Her face as she spoke was fierce, but Kate did not seem to care; shehad, in truth, almost ceased to care for her own safety except for thesake of the man who had taken so much trouble about it. So she satdown quietly, resolved to open the locked door no more. They mightbreak it in if they chose, or she could starve. What did it matter?
Tara meanwhile went, naturally, to seek Soma's aid, all otherconsiderations fading before the master's safety; and so of coursecame instantly on the clew she sought. He had left the city, let outby Soma's own hands; hands which had never meant to let him in again,that being a different affair. And though he had said he would return,why should he? asked Soma. Whereupon Tara, to prove her ground forfear, told of the hidden mem. She would have told anything for thesake of the master. And Soma looked at her fierce face apprehensively.
"That is for after!" she said curtly, impatiently. "Now we must makesure he is not wounded. There was fighting to-day. Come, thou canstgive the password and we can search before dawn if we take a light.That is the first thing."
But as, cresset in hand, Tara stooped over many a huddled heap orlong, still stretch of limb, Kate, with a beating heart, was listeningto the sound of someone on the stairs. The next moment she had flungthe door wide at the first hint of the first familiar knock.
"Where is Tara?" asked Jim Douglas peremptorily, still holding to thedoor jamb for support.
"She went--to look for you--we thought--what has happened?--what isthe matter?" she faltered.
"Fool! as if that would do any good! Nothing's the matter, Mrs. Erlton.I hurt my ankle, that's all." He tried to step over the threshold ashe spoke, but even that short pause, from sheer dogged effort, hadmade its renewal an agony, and he put out his hand to her blindly. "Ishall have to ask you to help me," he began, then paused. Her arm wasround him in a second, but he stood still, looking up at hercuriously, "To--to help," he repeated. Then she had to drag himforward by main force so that he might fall clear of the door andenable her to close it swiftly. For who could tell what lay behind?
One thing was certain. That hand on her arm had almost scorchedher--the ankle he had spoken of must have been agony to move. Yetthere was nothing to be done save lay cold water to it, and to hisburning head, settle him as best she could on a pillow and quilt as helay, and then sit beside him waiting for Tara to return; for Taracould bring what was wanted. But if Tara was never to return? Katesat, listening to the heavy breathing, broken by half-delirious moans,and changing the cool cloths, while the stars dipped and the gray ofdawn grew to that dominant bubble of the mosque; and, as she sat, athousand wild schemes to help this man, who had helped her for solong, passed through her brain, filling her with a certain gladness.
Until in the early dawn Tara's voice, calling on her, stole throughthe door.
It was still so dark that Kate, opening it with the quick cry--"He ishere, Tara, he is here safe," did not see the tall figure standingbehind the woman's, did not see the menace of either face, did not seeTara's quick thrust of a hand backward as if to check someone behind.
So she never knew that Jim Douglas, helpless, unconscious, had yetstepped once more between her and death; for Tara was on her kneesbeside the prostrate figure in a second, and Soma, closing the doorcarefully, salaamed to Kate with a look of relief in his handsomeface. This settled the doubtful duty of denouncing the hiddenMlechchas. How could that be done in a house where the master laysick?
And he lay sick for days and weeks, fighting against sun-fever andinflammation, against the general strain of that month of inaction,which, as Kate found with a pulse of soft pity, had sprinkled the hairabout his temples with gray.
"He would die for her," said Tara gloomily, grudgingly, "so she mustlive, Soma----"
"Nay! 'twas not I----" began her brother, then held his peace,doubtful if the disavowal was to his praise or blame; for duty was apuzzle to most folk in those hot, lingering days of June, when theRidge and the City skirmished with each other and wondered mutually ifanything were gained by it. Yet both Men and Murderers were cheerful,and Major Erlton going to see the hospital after that fifteen hours'fight of the 23d of June, when the centenary of Plassey, a Hindoofast and a Mohammedan festival, made the sepoys come out to certainvictory in full parade uniform, with all their medals on, heard thelad whose girl had been killed at Meerut say in an aggrieved tone,"And the nigger as stuck me 'ad 'er Majesty's scarlet coatee on 'isd----d carcass, and a 'eap of medals she give him a-blazin' on hisbreast--dash 'is impudence."
So blue eye met blue eye again sympathetically, for that was no timeto see the pathos of the story.