CHAPTER XII
THE SWING OF THE PENDULUM
Malcolm's first measured thought was an unpleasant one. It was hisintent to land one of the budgerow's crew at the earliest opportunitywith a written message, which the bearer would probably be unable toread, addressed to Mohammed Rasul, bidding him go to the assistance ofthe unlucky Hossein Beg. That plan was now impracticable. The crew hadbolted. He could neither send the ryot ashore nor trust to the help ofany neighboring village, since men were already galloping along the leftbank with obviously hostile designs.
As there was a favorable breeze and the current was swift and strong, hewondered why these pursuers strove to keep the boat in sight. Then itwas borne in on him that they had a definite object. Could it bepossible that they knew of the presence of other craft, lower down theriver?--that he might be called on within the hour to make a last standagainst irresistible odds on the deck of the budgerow? Rather than meetcertain death in that way he would head boldly for the opposite shore,and trust again to his tired horses for escape to the jungle and thenight. Yet, some plan must be devised to keep faith with that wretchedzemindar. The man would not die if left where he was for anotherforty-eight hours, or even longer. But the word of a sahib was a sacredthing. Whatever the difficulty of communicating with Mohammed Rasul, hemust overcome it somehow.
In his perplexity, his eyes fell on the two girls. Being ladies fromFyzabad, they might be able to help him with some knowledge of thelocality. Summoning Chumru to take the helm he went forward and spoke tothem.
Now it is an enduring fact that a woman's regard for her personalappearance will engross her mind when graver topics might well be to thefore. No sooner did these sorrow-laden daughters of Eve realize thatthey were in a position of comparative safety, and in the company of agood-looking young man of their own race, than they attempted to effectsome change in their _toilette_. A handkerchief dipped in the river, afew twists and coilings of refractory hair, a slight readjustment ofdisordered bodices and crumpled skirts--above all, the gleam of themagic lamp of hope that illumined an abyss of despair--and the amazingresult was that Malcolm found two pretty, shy, tremulous maidensawaiting him, instead of the disheveled woe-begone women he had seenpushed down the steps of the ghat.
He introduced himself with the well-mannered courtesy of the period, andin response the elder of the pair raised her blue eyes to his and toldhim that since the 16th of June until the previous day they had beenhiding in the hut of a native woman, mother of their ayah.
"My dear father was killed by Mr. Tucker's side," said she. "He was thedeputy commissioner of Fattehpore. Keene is our name--I am Harriet, thisis my sister Grace. We only came out from England last cold weather--"
A sudden recollection brought a cry of surprise from Frank.
"Why," he said, "you were fellow-passengers on the _Assaye_ with MissWinifred Mayne?"
"Yes, do you know her? What has become of her? We were told thateveryone at Meerut was killed."
"Thank Heaven, she was alive and well when I last saw her three daysago."
"And her uncle? Is he living? She was very much attached to him. How didshe escape from Meerut?" broke in Grace, eagerly.
"I wish they had never left Meerut. The Mutiny at that station collapsedin a couple of hours. Unfortunately they are now both penned up in theResidency at Lucknow, which is surrounded by goodness only knows howmany thousands of rebels. But I must give you Winifred's recenthistory at another time. I want you to tell me something about thisneighborhood. What is the nearest town on the river, and which bankis it on?"
"Unfortunately, our acquaintance with this part of India is veryslight," said Miss Harriet Keene, sadly. "We remained at Calcutta fourmonths with our mother, who died there, without having seen our dearfather after a separation of five years. We came up country in March,and were going to Naini Tal[19] when the Mutiny broke out. We only sawthe Ganges three or four times before our ayah brought us across on thatterrible night when father was murdered."
[Footnote 19: A hill station near Lucknow.]
Malcolm had heard many such tensely dramatic stories from fugitives whohad reached Lucknow during July. Phrases of pity or consolation werepowerless in face of these tragedies. But he could not forbear askingone question:
"How did you come to fall into the hands of Hossein Beg?"
"We were betrayed by some children," was the simple answer. "They sawour ayah's mother baking chupatties, day by day, sufficient for fourpeople. My sister and I lived nearly three weeks in a cow-byre, neverdaring, of course, to approach even the door. The children made sometalk about the lavish food supply in the old woman's hut, and the storyreached the ears of their father. He, like all the other natives here,seems to hate Europeans as though they were his deadliest enemies. Hespied on us, discovered our whereabouts, and yesterday morning we weredragged forth, while the poor creatures to whom we owed our lives werebeaten to death with sticks before our very eyes."
The speaker was a fair English girl of twenty. Her sister was eighteen,and their previous experience of the storm and fret of existence wasdrawn from an uneventful childhood in India, four years in a Brightonschool, and a twelvemonth in a Brussels convent!
Malcolm choked back the hard words that rose to his lips, and soughtsuch local information as the ryot could give him. It was little. Thetiller of the Indian fields lives and dies in his village and has nointerests beyond the horizon. This man visited the Ganges once a year ona religious feast, and perhaps twice in the same period in connectionwith the shipping of grain on his brother's boat. To that extent, butno further, did his store of general knowledge pass beyond the narrowerlimits of those who dwelt far from a river highway.
Yet it was he who first espied a new and most active peril.
"Look, huzoor," he cried suddenly. "They have made signs to theFattehpore ghat. Two boats are following us."
And then Malcolm found that the real danger came from the oppositeshore. It was a case of falling on Scylla when trying to avoidCharybdis. He learnt afterwards that the rebels had organized a codeof signals from bank to bank, owing to the number of the craft withEuropeans on board that sought safety in flight down the river. Thatsome device must have drawn pursuit from the right bank was obvious. Acouple of roomy budgerows with sails set were racing after him, and thelong sweeps on board each boat were being propelled by willing arms.
It must be confessed that a feeling of bitter resentment against thislast stroke of ill-luck rose in Malcolm's breast for an instant. Heconquered it. He recalled Lawrence's bold advice, "Never Surrender,"and that inspiriting memory brought strength.
At that point the Ganges was about a mile and a quarter in width. Thebudgerow was some six hundred yards distant from the left bank. Threemiles ahead the river curved to the left round a steep promontory. Thefarther shore was marsh-land, so it might be assumed that a hiddenbarrier of rock flung off the deep current there, while the one chanceof escape that presented itself was to steer for that very spot andeffect a landing before the enemy could head off the budgerow and forceit under the fire of the horsemen. The Fattehpore boats were a mile inthe rear, but that advantage would be greatly lessened if Malcolmcrossed the stream, and perhaps altogether effaced by the powerfulsweeps at their command.
However, to cross was the only way, and the only way is ever the bestway. Having once made up his mind Frank coolly reviewed the situation.Food was the first essential. The boat itself, having been used forcarrying hay, contained sufficient sweepings to feed the horses, and heset the ryot to work on gathering the odds and ends of forage. A briefsearch brought to light a quantity of ghee, boiled rice and dried peas.He divided the store into five portions, and set a good example to theothers by compelling himself to eat his share of the cooked food atonce, while the peas went into his pockets to be crushed or chewed atleisure.
Chumru kept the budgerow steadily on her course, and ere many minuteselapsed it was plain to be seen that the rebels were alive to thetactics of their quarry. Fr
esh gangs manned the sweeps and the riders onthe eastern bank eased their pace to a walk. The space between pursuersand pursued began to decrease. At the outset Frank thought that this wasthe natural outcome of his plan, and gave no heed to it beyond theever-growing anxiety of the time problem. But at the end of the firstmile he was seriously concerned at finding that the mutineers weregaining on him in an incomprehensible manner. The boat was thenseemingly in mid-stream, while the enemy kept close to the shore, andthey were certainly traveling half as fast again, a difference in speedthat the use of the oars hardly accounted for.
He kept on grimly, however, never deviating from his perspective, whichwas the swampy ground on the outer curve of the bend. It was not untilnearly another mile was covered and the mutineers were almost abreastin the true line of the river, that he knew why they were making suchheart-breaking progress as compared with his own craft. The Ganges,after the vagrom fashion of all giant rivers, was cutting a new bedthrough the sunken reefs towards the low-lying marsh. At the wide elbowthere were really two channels and he was now sailing along thecomparatively motionless water between them!
Side by side with this terrifying discovery was the certain fact thathis awkwardly built craft would gain little by maneuvering. There was anew danger, too. At any instant she might run ashore on the shoal thatwas surely forming in the center of the river. At all costs that must beavoided.
With a smile and a few confident words to the girls, he went aft, tookthe helm from Chumru and bade him help the ryot in putting out the portsweep. The effect was quickly apparent. The budgerow ran into the secondchannel, but she allowed her dangerous rivals to approach so close thatthe natives opened fire with long range dropping shots.
It was now a matter of minutes ere the rebel marksmen would render thedeck uninhabitable. To beach the boat, land the horses, and get theyoung ladies ashore in safety, had become an absolute impossibility.Then it occurred to Frank that the Fattehpore men could not know forcertain that there were Englishwomen on board. They could see Chumru,the ryot, the horses, and of course, the steersman, but the girls wereseated in the well amidships, these river craft being only partly deckedfore and aft.
A modification of his scheme flashed through his brain, and he decidedto adopt it forthwith. First asking Miss Keene and her sister not toreveal their presence, no matter what happened, he told Chumru to standby the horses and help him to make them leap into the water when he gavethe order. With difficulty he induced the scared ryot to take the rudderwhile he explained the new project. It had that element of daring in itthat is worthy of success, being nothing less than an attempt to drawthe rebels' attention entirely to himself and Chumru by making a dashfor the shore, while the ryot was to allow the boat to continue hercourse down stream with, apparently, no other tenant than himself.
Malcolm's theory was that, if he and Chumru made good their landing,they would hug the river until the budgerow was sufficiently ahead ofpursuit to permit of her being run ashore. Though the plan savored ofdeserting the helpless girls, yet was he strong-minded enough to adoptit. It substituted a forlorn hope for imminent and unavoidable death orcapture, and it gave one last avenue of achievement to the mission onwhich he had come from Lucknow.
At the final moment he communicated it to the two sisters. They agreedto abide by his decision, and the elder one said with a calm serenitythat lent to her words the symbolism of a prayer:
"We are all in God's hands, Mr. Malcolm. Whether we live or die we areassured that you have done and will do all that lies in the power of aChristian gentleman to save us."
"I don't like leaving you," he murmured, "but our only weapons are asword and a brace of empty pistols. If we run on another half mile weshall be shot down where we stand without any means of defendingourselves. On the other hand--"
Then the budgerow struck a submerged rock with a violence that must havepitched him overboard were he not holding Nejdi's headstall at themoment. She careened so badly that the girls shrieked and Malcolmhimself thought she would turn turtle. But she swung clear, rightedherself, and lay broadside on to the current. Another crash, lessviolent but even more disastrous, tore away the rudder and wrenched thespar pulley out of the top of the mast. The heavy sail fell of course,but by some miracle left the occupants of the boat uninjured.
And now the maimed craft was carried along sluggishly, drifting backtowards the center of the river, while the men in the other boats set upa fiendish yell of delight at the catastrophe that had overtaken thedoomed Feringhis. Their skilled boatmen evidently knew of this reef.They stood away towards the shore, but the triumphant jeering that camefrom the crowded decks showed that they meant to pass their dismantledquarry and wait in safer waters until it lumbered down upon them.
Malcolm suddenly became aware of his wounded arm. With a curiousfatalism he began to dissect his emotions. He arrived at the conclusionthat the drop from the nervous tension of hope to the relaxation ofsheer despair had dulled his brain and weakened his physical powers.This, then, was the end. There could be no doubt about it. He quietedthe startled horses with a word or two and spoke to the girls again.
"You may as well come on deck now," he said. "It is all up with us. If afriendly bullet puts us out of our misery, so much the better. Otherwisemy advice to you both is to leap into the river rather than berecaptured."
Grace was sobbing hysterically, but Harriet, clasping her fondly in herarms, looked up at him.
"No," she said, "we must not do that. Our lives are not our own. TheLord gave and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!"
Frank winced in his anguish. To a puissant man there is nothing sogalling as helplessness; what a game of battledore and shuttlecock hadbeen played with him and those bound up with his fortunes since themoulvie's man-trap brought him headlong to the earth in the main streetof Rai Bareilly!
"Huzoor!" yelled Chumru, excitedly. "Look! There below! A smoke ship!And see! Those sons of pigs are making for the bank!"
Malcolm could scarce believe his eyes when they rested on a smallsteamer with the British flag flying from the masthead, coming round thebend. Yet there could be no mistake about it. British officers in whiteuniforms were standing on her bridge, the muzzles of a couple of gunsshowed black and business-like over her bows, while her forward deck waspacked with men in the uniform of the Madras Fusiliers. Her commanderseemed to take in the exact position of affairs at a glance, and,indeed, the half-wrecked and almost empty boat in mid-stream, so eagerlyfollowed by two thickly crowded craft now close hauled and putting forthdesperate efforts to reach the bank, presented a riddle easy to read.
That twinge of pain quitted Frank's arm as speedily as it had made itspresence felt. He helped the girls to the raised deck, so that thepeople on the steamer could see them. It was not necessary. An officerwaved a hand to them as the sturdy little vessel dashed past, raising amighty spume of white froth with her paddles, and soon her guns werebusy. There was no question of quarter. Captain Spurgin had been withNeill at Allahabad. He knew the story of Massacre Ghat, of Delhi, ofSitapore, Moradabad, Bareilly, and a score of other stations in Oudh andthe Northwest. His gunners pelted the unwieldy budgerows with round shotuntil they began to sink. Then he used grape and rifle fire, until fiveminutes after the _Warren Hastings_ came on the scene, there was noughtleft of the Fattehpore navy save some shattered wreckage and a fewwretches who strove to swim amidst a hail of lead and in a riverinfested with crocodiles.
When the steamer dropped down stream and picked up the fugitives,Malcolm learnt that Spurgin was co-operating with Renaud. The onecleared the river, the other was hanging men on nearly every tree thatlined the Grand Trunk Road. And Havelock, nobly aided by Neill, wasmoving heaven and earth to equip a strong force at Allahabad to avengeCawnpore and raise the expected siege of Lucknow.
As Malcolm himself brought the earliest news of the investment, he andChumru were put ashore with a small escort, in order that they mightjoin Major Renaud's column, and hurry to Havelock with his th
rillingtidings. Spurgin promised to visit the village on the east bank, releaseHossein Beg, and make him a hostage for the ryot's welfare. As forHarriet and Grace Keene, they would be sent south as soon as a carriagecould be procured.
The two girls bade Frank farewell with a gratitude which wasembarrassing, but Grace, more mercurial than Harriet, ventured to say:
"I suppose you are longing to see Winifred again, Mr. Malcolm?"
"Yes," he replied, well knowing the thought that lay behind the words."You are her friend, so there is no reason why I should not tell youthat she is my promised wife."
"Then you are both to be congratulated," put in the elder sister, "forshe is quite the most charming girl we know, and our opinion of you isnot likely to be a poor one after to-day's experiences."
"What? After an hour's acquaintance?"
"An hour! There are some hours that are half a lifetime. Good-by, mayHeaven guard and watch over you!"
Renaud despatched Lawrence's messenger to the south in a dak-gharry, orpost-carriage. Chumru would have taken the servant's usual perch besidethe driver, but Malcolm would not hear of it. His faithful attendant wasalmost as worn with fatigue as he himself; master and man shared thecomfort of the roomy vehicle; and slept for many hours while it rumbledalong the road.
At dawn on the 4th of July they entered Allahabad. But the driver hadhis orders and did not stop in the city. They passed through a sullenbazaar, and were gazed at by a mob that wore the aspect of a cageful oftigers in which order has just been induced by the liberal use ofred-hot irons. The travelers were nodding asleep again when the sharpsummons of a British sentry gladdened Malcolm's ears.
"Who goes there?"
How alert it sounded! How reminiscent of the old days! How full ofpromise of the days that were to come!
He leaned out and smiled as he told a stolid private of the 64th that hewas "a friend." His uniform acted as a passport, the dak-gharry crossedthe drawbridge and crept through a narrow tunnel, and he found himselfstanding in the great inner parade-ground of the fort. A young officerapproached.
"Do you wish to see the General? Whom shall I report?" he asked, eyeingthe worn appearance and torn and blood-stained uniforms of Englishmanand native.
"I am from Lucknow," said Frank. "Will you kindly tell General Havelockthat Captain Malcolm of the 3d Cavalry has brought him a message fromSir Henry Lawrence?"
It was the first time he had described himself by his new rank. It senta pleasant tingle through his veins and made that injured arm of hisache again. Lawrence had given him to the 4th, and here he was inAllahabad on the very date of his Chief's reckoning, after having gonethrough adventures that would have satiated Ulysses.
But the pardonable pride of a young and gallant soldier soon yielded aninexplicable sensation of humility when he was brought before a small,slender, erect man, gray-haired, eagle-nosed, with strangely bright andpiercing eyes, and a mouth habitually set in a thin, straight line. Thiswas Sir Henry Havelock, and Frank felt instantly that he was in thepresence of one who lived in a world apart from his fellows. And, intruth, Havelock would have been better understood by Cromwell'sIronsides than by his own generation. He was outside the ordinary run ofmankind. Though aware of a natural timidity, he fought with andconquered it until his soldiers refused to believe that Havelock knewwhat fear was. Conscious of his own military genius he had borne withoutcomment or complaint a constant supersession by inferiors, and in an agewhen levity of thought and manners among officers was often looked uponas the hall-mark of distinguished social position, he lost noopportunity of giving his men religious instruction, while every act ofhis life was governed by a stern sense of duty.
Such was the man who listened to Malcolm's account of the proceedingswhich led up to the disastrous battle of Chinhut.
"You say you rode straight from the field on the evening of the 30th,"said he, when Frank had delivered his message of Lucknow's plight. "Howdid you travel, and in what state did you find the country youtraversed?"
Then Frank told him all that had taken place. More than once the youngofficer would have cut short the recital, but this Havelock would notpermit. His son was present, that younger Havelock who lived for fortyyears to keep ever in the public memory a glorious name, and often thefather would turn towards him and punctuate Malcolm's tale with a nod,or a brief, "Do you hear that, Harry?"
At last, the stirring chronicle was ended.
"Do you wish to remain here and recuperate, or will you join my staff,with the rank of Major?" asked Havelock.
Malcolm was hardly able to stammer his acceptance of the appointmentthus offered, but the General had no time for useless talk.
"About this servant of yours--he seems to have the making of a soldierin him--will he care to retain the rank he has assumed so creditably?"he went on.
Frank rather lost his breath at this suggestion, but he had the presenceof mind to refer the decision to Chumru himself.
"Kubbi nahin, general-sahib,"[20] was the Mohammedan's emphaticdisclaimer of the honor proposed to be conferred on him. "I am a goodbearer, huzoor, but I should prove a very bad rissaldar. I am not of afighting caste. I am a man of peace."
[Footnote 20: Literally: "Never no general!"]
"I think you are mistaken," said Havelock, quietly, "but by all meanscontinue to serve your master. I am sure he is worthy of your devotion.And now, Major Malcolm, if you will report yourself to General Neill, hewill provide you with quarters and plenty of work."