Chapter 12

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I've a sergeant who can take command. He's a first-class man and perfectly dependable.”

“You could do no good, even if you did ride on,” said the colonel, not unkindly.

“I'm thinking, sir, that Mahommed Khan--”

“Risaldar Mahommed Khan?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Of the Rajput Horse?”

“Yes, sir. My father's Risaldar.”

“You left your wife in his charge, didn't you?”

“Yes, sir, but I'm thinking that--that perhaps the Risaldar--I mean--there seem to be Mohammedans at the bottom of this business, as well as Hindus. Perhaps--”

“Bellairs! Now hear me once and for all. You thank your God that the Risaldar turned up to guard her! Thank God that your father was man enough for Mahommed Khan to love and that you are your father's son! And listen! Don't let me hear you, ever, under any circumstances, breathe a word of doubt as to that man's loyalty! D'you understand me, sir? You, a mere subaltern, a puppy just out of his 'teens, an insignificant jackanapes with two twelve-pounders in your charge, daring to impute disloyalty to Mahommed Khan!--your impudence! Remember this! That old Risaldar is the man who rode with your father through the guns at Dera! He's a pauper without a pension, for all his loyalty, but he went down the length of India to meet you, at his own expense, when you landed raw-green from England! And what d'you know of war, I'd like to know, that you didn't learn from him? Thank your God, sir, that there's some one there who'll kill your wife before she falls into the Hindus' hands!”

“But he was going to ride away, sir, to bring an escort!”

“Not before he'd made absolutely certain of her safety!” swore the colonel with conviction. “Join your section, sir!”

So Harry Bellairs joined his section and trudged along sore-footed at its side--sore-hearted, too. He wondered whether any one would ever say as much for him as Colonel Carter had chosen to say for Mahommed Khan, or whether any one would have the right to say it! He was ashamed of having left his wife behind and tortured with anxiety--and smarting from the snub--a medley of sensations that were more likely to make a man of him, if he had known it, than the whole experience of a year's campaign! But in the dust and darkness, with the blisters on his heels, and fifty men, who had overheard the colonel, looking sidewise at him, his plight was pitiable.

They trudged until the dawn began to rise, bright yellow below the drooping banian trees; only Colonel Carter and the advance-guard riding. Then, when they stopped at a stream to water horses and let them graze a bit and give the men a sorely needed rest, one of the ring of outposts loosed off his rifle and shouted an alarm. They had formed square in an instant, with the guns on one side and the men on three, and the colonel and the wounded in the middle. A thousand or more of the mutineers leaned on their rifles on the shoulder of a hill and looked them over, a thousand yards away.

“Send them an invitation!” commanded Colonel Carter, and the left-hand gun barked out an overture, killing one sepoy. The rest made off in the direction of Hanadra.

“We're likely to have a hot reception when we reach there!” said Colonel Carter cheerily. “Well, we'll rest here for thirty minutes and give them a chance to get ready for us. I'm sorry there's no breakfast, men, but the sepoys will have dinner ready by the time we get there--we'll eat theirs!”

The chorus of ready laughter had scarcely died away when a horse's hoof-beats clattered in the distance from the direction of Doonha and a native cavalryman galloped into view, low-bent above his horse's neck. The foam from his horse was spattered over him and his lance swung pointing upward from the sling. On his left side the polished scabbard rose and fell in time to his horse's movement. He was urging his weary horse to put out every ounce he had in him. He drew rein, though, when he reached a turning in the road and saw the resting division in front of him, and walked his horse forward, patting his sweat-wet neck and easing him. But as he leaned to finger with the girths an ambushed sepoy fired at him, and he rammed in his spurs again and rode like a man possessed.

“This'll be another untrustworthy Mohammedan!” said Colonel Carter in a pointed undertone, and Bellairs blushed crimson underneath the tan. “He's ridden through from Jundhra, with torture waiting for him if he happened to get caught, and no possible reward beyond his pay. Look out he doesn't spike your guns!”

The trooper rode straight up to Colonel Carter and saluted. He removed a tiny package from his cheek, where he had carried it so that he might swallow it at once in case of accident, tore the oil-silk cover from it and handed it to him without a word, saluting again and leading his horse away. Colonel Carter unfolded the half-sheet of foreign notepaper and read:

Dear Colonel Carter: Your letter just received in which you say that you have blown up the magazine at Doonha and are marching to Hanadra with a view to the rescue of Mrs. Bellairs. This is in no sense intended as a criticism of your action or of your plan, but circumstances have made it seem advisable for me to transfer my own headquarters to Hanadra and I am just starting. I must ask you, please, to wait for me--at a spot as near to where this overtakes you as can be managed. If Mrs. Bellairs, or anybody else of ours, is in Hanadra, she--or they--are either dead by now or else prisoners. And if they are to be rescued by force, the larger the force employed the better. If you were to attack with your two companies before I reached you, you probably would be repulsed, and would, I think, endanger the lives of any prisoners that the enemy may hold. I am coming with my whole command as fast as possible. Your Obedient Servant, A. E. Turner Genl. Officer Commanding

“Men!” said Colonel Carter, in a ringing voice that gave not the slightest indication of his feelings, “we're to wait here for a while until the whole division overtakes us. The general has vacated Jundhra. Lie down and get all the rest you can!”

The murmur from the ranks was as difficult to read as Colonel Carter's voice had been. It might have meant pleasure at the thought of rest, or anger, or contempt, or almost anything. It was undefined and indefinable.

But there was no doubt at all as to how young Bellairs felt. He was sitting on a trunnion, sobbing, with his head bent low between his hands.

IX.

“Come, then!” said the High Priest.

Mahommed Khan threw open the outer door and bowed sardonically. “Precedence for priests!” he sneered, tapping at his sword-hilt. “Thou goest first! Next come I, and last Suliman with the memsahib! Thus can I reach thee with my sword, O priest, and also protect her if need be!”

“Thou art trusting as a little child!” exclaimed the priest, passing out ahead of him.

“A priest and a liar and a thief--all three are one!” hummed the Risaldar. “Bear her gently, Suliman! Have a care, now, as you turn on the winding stairs!”

“Ha, sahib!” said the half-brother, carrying Ruth as easily as though she had been a little child.

At the foot of the stairway, in the blackness that seemed alive with phantom shadows, the High Priest paused and listened, stretching out his left hand against the wall to keep the other two behind him. From somewhere beyond the courtyard came the din of hurrying sandaled feet, scudding over cobblestones in one direction. The noise was incessant and not unlike the murmur of a rapid stream. Occasionally a voice was raised in some command or other, but the stream of sound continued, hurrying, hurrying, shuffling along to the southward.

“This way and watch a while,” whispered the priest.

“I have heard rats run that way!” growled the Risaldar.

They climbed up a narrow stairway leading to a sort of battlement and peered over the top, Suliman laying Ruth Bellairs down in the darkest shadow he could find. She was beginning to recover consciousness, and apparently Mahommed Khan judged it best to take no notice of her.

Down below them they could see the city gate, wide open, with a blazing torch on either side of it, and through the gate, swarming like ants before the rains, there poured an endless stream of humans that marched--and marched--and marched; four, ten, fifteen abreast; all heights and sizes, jumbled in and out among one another, anyhow, without formation, but armed, every one of them, and all intent on marching to the southward, where Jundhra and Doonha lay. Some muttered to one another and some laughed, but the greater number marched in silence.

“That for thy English!” grinned the priest. “Can the English troops overcome that horde?”

“Hey-ee! For a troop or two of Rajputs!” sighed the Risaldar. “Or English Lancers! They would ride through that as an ax does through the brush-wood!”

“Bah!” said the priest. “All soldiers boast! There will be a houghing shortly after dawn. The days of thy English are now numbered.”

“By those--there?”

“Ay, by those, there! Come!”

They climbed down the steps again, the Rajput humming to himself and smiling grimly into his mustache.

“Ay! There will be a houghing shortly after dawn!” he muttered. “Would only that I were there to see!... Where are the sepoys?” he demanded.

“I know not. How should I know, who have been thy guest these hours past? This march is none of my ordering.”

The priest pressed hard on a stone knob that seemed to be part of the carving on a wall, then he leaned his weight against the wall and a huge stone swung inward, while a fetid breath of air wafted outward in their faces.

“None know this road but I!” exclaimed the priest.

“None need to!” said the Risaldar. “Pass on, snake, into thy hole. We follow.”

“Steps!” said the priest, and began descending.

“Curses!” said the Risaldar, stumbling and falling down on top of him. “Have a care, Suliman! The stone is wet and slippery.”

Down, down they climbed, one behind the other, Suliman grunting beneath his burden and the Risaldar keeping up a running fire of oaths. Each time that he slipped, and that was often, he cursed the priest and cautioned Suliman. But the priest only laughed, and apparently Suliman was sure-footed, for he never stumbled once. They seemed to be diving down into the bowels of the earth. They were in pitch-black darkness, for the stone had swung to behind them of its own accord. The wall on either side of them was wet with slime and the stink of decaying ages rose and almost stifled them. But the priest kept on descending, so fast that the other two had trouble to keep up with him, and he hummed to himself as though he knew the road and liked it.

“The bottom!” he called back suddenly. “From now the going is easy, until we rise again. We pass now under the city-wall.”

But they could see nothing and hear nothing except their own footfalls swishing in the ooze beneath them. Even the priest's words seemed to be lost at once, as though he spoke into a blanket, for the air they breathed was thicker than a mist and just as damp. They walked on, along a level, wet, stone passage for at least five minutes, feeling their way with one band on the wall.

“Steps, now!” said the priest. “Have a care, now, for the lower ones are slippery.”

Ruth was regaining consciousness. She began to move and tried once or twice to speak.

“Here, thou!” growled the Risaldar. “Thou art a younger man than I--come back here. Help with the memsahib.”

The priest came back a step or two, but Suliman declined his aid, snarling vile insults at him.

“I can manage!” he growled. “Get thou behind me, Mahommed Khan, in case I slip!”

So Mahommed Khan came last, and they slipped and grunted upward, round and round a spiral staircase that was hewn out of solid rock. No light came through from anywhere to help them, but the priest climbed on, as though he were accustomed to the stair and knew the way from constant use. After five minutes of steady climbing the stone grew gradually dry. The steps became smaller, too, and deeper, and not so hard to climb. Suddenly the priest reached out his arm and pulled at something or other that hung down in the darkness. A stone in the wall rolled open. A flood of light burst in and nearly blinded them.

“We are below Kharvani's temple!” announced the priest. He led them through the opening into a four-square room hewn from the rock below the foundations of the temple some time in the dawn of history. The light that had blinded them when they first emerged proved to be nothing but the flicker of two small oil lamps that hung suspended by brass chains from the painted ceiling. The only furniture was mats spread on the cut-stone floor.

“By which way did we come?” asked the Risaldar, staring in amazement round the walls. There was not a door nor crack, nor any sign of one, except that a wooden ladder in one corner led to a trapdoor overhead, and they had certainly not entered by the ladder.

“Nay! That is a secret!” grinned the priest. “He who can may find the opening! Here can the woman and her servant stay until we need them.”

“Here in this place?”

“Where else? No man but I knows of this crypt! The ladder there leads to another room, where there is yet another ladder, and that one leads out through a secret door I know of, straight into the temple. Art ready? There is need for haste!”

“Wait!” said the Risaldar.

“These soldiers!” sneered the priest. “It is wait--wait--wait with them, always!”

“Hast thou a son.”

“Ay! But what of it?”

“I said 'hast,' not 'hadst'!”

“Ay. I have a son.

“Where?”

“In one of the temple-chambers overhead.”

“Nay, priest! Thy son lies gagged and bound and trussed in a place I know of, and which thou dost not know!”

“Since when?”

“Since by my orders he was laid there.”

“Thou art the devil! Thou liest, Rajput!”

“So? Go seek thy son!”

The priest's face had blanched beneath the olive of his skin, and he stared at Mahommed Khan through distended eyes.

“My son!” he muttered.

“Aye! Thy priestling! He stays where he is, as hostage, until my return! Also the heavenborn stays here! If, on my return, I find the heavenborn safe and sound, I will exchange her for thy son--and if not, I will tear thy son into little pieces before thy eyes, priest! Dost thou understand?”

“Thou liest! My son is overhead in the temple here!”

“Go seek him, then!”

The priest turned and scampered up the ladder with an agility that was astonishing in a man of his build and paunch.

“Hanuman should have been thy master!” jeered the Risaldar. “So run the bandar-log, the monkey-folk!”

But the priest had no time to answer him. He was half frantic with the sickening fear of a father for his only son. He returned ten minutes later, panting, and more scared than ever.

“Go, take thy white woman,” he exclaimed, “and give me my son back!”

“Nay, priest! Shall I ride with her alone through that horde that are marching through the gate? I go now for an escort; in eight--ten--twelve--I know not how many hours, I will return for her, and then--thy son will be exchanged for her, or he dies thus in many pieces!”

He turned to Suliman. “Is she awake yet?” he demanded.

“Barely, but she recovers.”

“Then tell her, when consciousness returns, that I have gone and will return for her. And stay here, thou, and guard her until I come.”

“Ha, sahib!”

“Now, show the way!”

“But--” said the priest, “our bargain? The price that we agreed on--one lakh, was it not?”

“One lakh of devils take thee and tear thee into little pieces! Wouldst bribe a Rajput, a Risaldar? For that insult I will repay thee one day with interest, O priest! Now, show the way!”

“But how shall I be sure about my son?”

“Be sure that the priestling will starve to death or die of thirst or choke, unless I hurry! He is none too easy where he lies!”

“Go! Hurry, then!” swore the priest. “May all the gods there are, and thy Allah with them, afflict thee with all their curses--thee and thine! Up with you! Up that ladder! Run! But, if the gods will, I will meet thee again when the storm is over!”

“Inshallah!” growled Mahommed Khan.

Ten minutes later a crash and a clatter and a shower of sparks broke out in the sweltering courtyard where the guns had stood and waited. It was Shaitan, young Bellairs' Khaubuli charger, with his haunches under him, plunging across the flagstones, through the black-dark archway, out on the plain beyond--in answer to the long, sharp-roweled spurs of the Risaldar Mahommed Khan.

X.

Dawn broke and the roofs of old Hanadra became resplendent with the varied colors of turbans and pugrees and shawls. As though the rising sun had loosed the spell, a myriad tongues, of women chiefly, rose in a babel of clamor, and the few men who had been left in. Hanadra by the night's armed exodus came all together and growled prophetically in undertones. Now was the day of days, when that part of India, at least, should cast off the English yoke.

To the temple! The cry went up before the sun was fifteen minutes high. There are a hundred temples in Hanadra, age-old all of them and carved on the outside with strange images of heathen gods in high relief, like molds turned inside out. But there is but one temple that that cry could mean--Kharvani's; and there could be but one meaning for the cry. Man, woman and child would pray Kharvani, Bride of Siva the Destroyer, to intercede with Siva and cause him to rise and smite the English. On the skyline, glinting like flashed signals in the early sun, bright English bayonets had appeared; and between them and Hanadra was a dense black mass, the whole of old Hanadra's able-bodied manhood, lined up to defend the city. Now was the time to pray. Fifty to one are by no means despicable odds, but the aid of the gods as well is better!

So the huge dome of Kharvani's temple began to echo to the sound of slippered feet and awe-struck whisperings, and the big, dim auditorium soon filled to overflowing. No light came in from the outer world. There was nothing to illuminate the mysteries except the chain-hung grease-lamps swinging here and there from beams, and they served only to make the darkness visible. Bats flicked in and out between them and disappeared in the echoing gloom above. Censers belched out sweet-smelling, pungent clouds of sandalwood to drown the stench of hot humanity; and the huge graven image of Kharvani--serene and smiling and indifferent--stared round-eyed from the darkness.

Then a priest's voice boomed out in a solemn incantation and the whispering hushed. He chanted age-old verses, whose very meaning was forgotten in the womb of time--forgotten as the artist who had painted the picture of idealized Kharvani on the wall. Ten priests, five on either side of the tremendous idol, emerged chanting from the gloom behind, and then a gong rang, sweetly, clearly, suddenly, and the chanting ceased. Out stepped the High Priest from a niche below the image, and his voice rose in a wailing, sing-song cadence that reechoed from the dome and sent a thrill through every one who heard.

His chant had scarcely ceased when the temple door burst open and a man rushed in.

“They have begun!” he shouted. “The battle has begun!”

As though in ready confirmation of his words, the distant reverberating boom of cannon filtered through the doorway from the world of grim realities outside.

“They have twenty cannon with them! They have more guns than we have!” wailed he who brought the news. Again began the chanting that sought the aid of Siva the Destroyer. Only, there were fewer who listened to this second chant. Those who were near the doorway slipped outside and joined the watching hundreds on the roofs.

For an hour the prayers continued in the stifling gloom, priest relieving priest and chant following on chant, until the temple was half emptied of its audience. One by one, and then by twos and threes, the worshipers succumbed to human curiosity and crept stealthily outside to watch.

Another messenger ran in and shouted: “They have charged! Their cavalry have charged! They are beaten back! Their dead lie twisted on the plain!”

At the words there was a stampede from the doorway, and half of those who had remained rushed out. There were hundreds still there, though, for that great gloomy pile of Kharvani's could hold an almost countless crowd.

Within another hour the same man rushed to the door again and shouted:

“Help comes! Horsemen are coming from the north! Rajputs, riding like leaves before the wind! Even the Mussulmans are for us!”

But the chanting never ceased. No one stopped to doubt the friendship of arrivals from the north, for to that side there were no English, and England's friends would surely follow byroads to her aid. The city gates were wide open to admit wounded or messengers or friends--with a view, even, to a possible retreat--and whoever cared could ride through them unchallenged and unchecked.

Even when the crash of horses' hoofs rattled on the stone paving outside the temple there was no suspicion. No move was made to find out who it was who rode. But when the temple door reechoed to the thunder of a sword-hilt and a voice roared “Open!” there was something like a panic. The chanting stopped and the priests and the High Priest listened to the stamping on the stone pavement at the temple front.

“Open!” roared a voice again, and the thundering on the panels recommenced. Then some one drew the bolt and a horse's head--a huge Khaubuli stallion's--appeared, snorting and panting and wild-eyed.

“Farward!” roared the Risaldar Mahommed Khan, kneeling on young Bellairs' winded charger.

“Farm twos! Farward!”

Straight into the temple, two by two, behind the Risaldar, rode two fierce lines of Rajputs, overturning men and women--their drawn swords pointing this way and that--their dark eyes gleaming. Without a word to any one they rode up to the image, where the priests stood in an astonished herd.

“Fron-tt farm! Rear rank--'bout-face!” barked the Risaldar, and there was another clattering and stamping on the stone floor as the panting chargers pranced into the fresh formation, back to back.

“The memsahib!” growled Mahommed Khan. “Where is she?”

“My son!” said the High Priest. “Bring me my son!”

“A life for a life! Thy heavenborn first!”

“Nay! Show me my son first!”

The Risaldar leaped from his horse and tossed his reins to the man behind him. In a second his sword was at the High Priest's throat.

“Where is that secret stair?” he growled. “Lead on!”

The swordpoint pricked him. Two priests tried to interfere, but wilted and collapsed with fright as four fierce, black-bearded Rajputs spurred their horses forward. The swordpoint pricked still deeper.

“My son!” said the High Priest.

“A life for a life! Lead on!”

The High Priest surrendered, with a dark and cunning look, though, that hinted at something or other in reserve. He pulled at a piece of carving on the wail behind and pointed to a stair that showed behind the outswung door. Then he plucked another priest by the sleeve and whispered.

The priest passed on the whisper. A third priest turned and ran.

“That way!” said the High Priest, pointing.

“I? Nay! I go not down!” He raised his voice into an ululating howl. “O Suliman!” he bellowed. “Suliman! O!--Suliman! Bring up the heaven-born!”

A growl like the distant rumble from a bear-pit answered him. Then Ruth Bellairs' voice was heard calling up the stairway.

“Is that you, Mahommed Khan?”

“Ay, memsahib!”

“Good! I'm coming!”

She had recovered far enough to climb the ladder and the steep stone stair above it, and Suliman climbed up behind her, grumbling dreadful prophecies of what would happen to the priests now that Mohammed Khan had come.