Chapter 9
And so, above a stone-flagged courtyard, in a room that once had echoed to the laughter of a sultan's favorite, it happened that an English girl of twenty-one was pacing back and forth. Through the open curtained window she had seen her husband lead his command out through the echoing archway to the plain beyond; she had heard his boyish voice bark out the command and had listened to the rumble of the gun-wheels dying in the distance--for the last time possibly. She knew, as many an English girl has known, that she was alone, one white woman amid a swarm of sullen Aryans, and that she must follow along the road the guns had taken, served and protected by nothing more than low-caste natives.
And yet she was dry-eyed, and her chin was high; for they are a strange breed, these Anglo-Saxon women who follow the men they love to the lonely danger-zone. Ruth Bellairs could have felt no joy in her position; she had heard her husband growling his complaint at being forced to leave her, and she guessed what her danger was. Fear must have shrunk her heartbeats and loneliness have tried her courage. But there was an ayah in the room with her, a low-caste woman of the conquered race; and pride of country came to her assistance. She was firm-lipped and, to outward seeming, brave as she was beautiful.
Even when the door resounded twice to the sharp blow of a saber-hilt, and the ayah's pock-marked ebony took on a shade of gray, she stood like a queen with an army at her back and neither blanched nor trembled.
“Who is that, ayah?” she demanded.
The ayah shrank into herself and showed the whites of her eyes and grinned, as a pariah dog might show its teeth--afraid, but scenting carrion.
“Go and see!”
The ayah shuddered and collapsed, babbling incoherencies and calling on a horde of long-neglected gods to witness she was innocent. She clutched strangely at her breast and used only one hand to drag her shawl around her face. While she babbled she glanced wild-eyed around the long, low-ceilinged room. Ruth Bellairs looked down at her pityingly and went to the door herself and opened it.
“Salaam, memsahib!” boomed a deep voice from the darkness.
Ruth Bellairs started and the ayah screamed.
“Who are you? Enter--let me see you!”
A black beard and a turban and the figure of a man--and then white teeth and a saber-hilt and eyes that gleamed moved forward from the darkness.
“It is I, Mahommed Khan!” boomed the voice again, and the Risaldar stepped out into the lamplight and closed the door behind him. Then, with a courtly, long-discarded sweep of his right arm, he saluted.
“At the heavenborn's service!”
“Mahommed Khan! Thank God!”
The old man's shabbiness was very obvious as he faced her, with his back against the iron-studded door; but he stood erect as a man of thirty, and his medals and his sword-hilt and his silver scabbard-tip were bright.
“Tell me, Mahommed Khan, you have seen my husband?”
He bowed.
“You have spoken to him?”
The old man bowed again.
“He left you in my keeping, heavenborn. I am to bring you safe to Jundhra!”
She held her hand out and he took it like a cavalier, bending until he could touch her fingers with his lips.
“What is the meaning of this hurrying of the guns to Jundhra, Risaldar?”
“Who knows, memsahib! The orders of the Sirkar come, and we of the service must obey. I am thy servant and the Sirkar's!”
“You, old friend--that were servant, as you choose to call it, to my husband's father! I am a proud woman to have such friends at call!” She pointed to the ayah, recovering sulkily and rearranging the shawl about her shoulders. “That I call service, Risaldar. She cowers when a knock comes at the door! I need you, and you answer a hardly spoken prayer; what is friendship, if yours is not?”
The Risaldar bowed low again.
“I would speak with that ayah, heavenborn!” he muttered, almost into his beard. She could hardly catch the words.
“I can't get her to speak to me at all tonight, Mahommed Khan. She's terrified almost out of her life at something. But perhaps you can do better. Try. Do you want to question her alone?”
“By the heavenborn's favor, yes.”
Ruth walked down the room toward the window, drew the curtain back and leaned her head out where whatever breeze there was might fan her cheek. The Risaldar strode over to where the ayah cowered by an inner doorway.
“She-Hindu-dog!” he growled at her. “Mother of whelps! Louse-ridden scavenger of sweepings! What part hast thou in all this treachery? Speak!”
The ayah shrank away from him and tried to scream, but he gripped her by the throat and shook her.
“Speak!” he growled again.
But his ten iron fingers held her in a vise-like grip and she could not have answered him if she had tried to.
“O Risaldar!” called Ruth suddenly, with her head still out of the window. He released the ayah and let her tumble as she pleased into a heap.
“Heavenborn?”
“What is that red glow on the skyline over yonder?”
“A burning, heavenborn!”
“A burning? What burning? Funeral pyres? It's very big for funeral pyres!”
“Nay, heavenborn!”
“What, then?”
She was still unfrightened, unsuspicious of the untoward. The Risaldar's arrival on the scene had quite restored her confidence and she felt content to ride with him to Jundhra on the morrow.
“Barracks, heavenborn!”
“Barracks? What barracks?”
“There is but one barracks between here and Jundhra.”
“Then--then--then--what has happened, Mahommed Khan?”
“The worst has happened, heavenborn!”
He stood between her and the ayah, so that she could not see the woman huddled on the floor.
“The worst? You mean then--my--my--husband--you don't mean that my husband--”
“I mean, heavenborn that there is insurrection! All India is ablaze from end to end. These dogs here in Hanadra wait to rise because they think the section will return here in an hour or two; then they propose to burn it, men, guns and horses, like snakes in the summer grass. It is well that the section will not return! We will ride out safely before morning!”
“And, my husband--he knew--all this--before he left me here?”
“Nay! That he did not! Had I told him, he had disobeyed his orders and shamed his service; he is young yet, and a hothead! He will be far along the road to Jundhra before he knows what burns. And then he will remember that he trusts me and obey orders and press on!”
“And you knew and did not tell him!”
“Of a truth I knew!”
She stood in silence for a moment, gazing at the red glow on the skyline, and then turned to read, if she could, what was on the grim, grizzled face of Mahommed Khan.
“The ayah!” he growled. “I have yet to ask questions of the ayah. Have I permission to take her to the other room?”
She was leaning through the window again and did not answer him.
“Who's that moving in the shadow down below?” she asked him suddenly.
He leaned out beside her and gazed into the shadow. Then he called softly in a tongue she did not know and some one rose up from the shadow and answered him.
“Are we spied on, Risaldar?”
“Nay. Guarded, heavenborn! That man is my half-brother. May I take the ayah through that doorway?”
“Why not question her in here?”
The mystery and sense of danger were getting the better of her; she was thoroughly afraid now--afraid to be left alone in the room for a minute even.
“There are things she would not answer in thy presence!”
“Very well. Only, please be quick!”
He bowed. Swinging the door open, he pushed the ayah through it to the room beyond. Ruth was left alone, to watch the red glow on the skyline and try to see the outline of the watcher in the gloom below. No sound came through the heavy teak door that the Risaldar had slammed behind him, and no sound came from him who watched; but from the silence of the night outside and from dark corners of the room that she was in and from the roof and walls and floor here came little eerie noises that made her flesh creep, as though she were being stared at by eyes she could not see. She felt that she must scream, or die, unless she moved; and she was too afraid to move, and by far too proud to scream! At last she tore herself away from the window and ran to a low divan and lay on it, smothering her face among the cushions. It seemed an hour before the Risaldar came out again, and then he took her by surprise.
“Heavenborn!” he said. She looked up with a start, to find him standing close beside her.
“Mahommed Khan! You're panting! What ails you?”
“The heat, heavenborn--and I am old.”
His left hand was on his saber-hilt, thrusting it toward her respectfully; she noticed that it trembled.
“Have I the heavenborn's leave to lock the ayah in that inner room?”
“Why, Risaldar?”
“The fiend had this in her possession!” He showed her a thin-bladed dagger with an ivory handle; his own hand shook as he held it out to her, and she saw that there were beads of perspiration on his wrist. “She would have killed thee!”
“Oh, nonsense! Why, she wouldn't dare!”
“She confessed before she--she confessed! Have I the heavenborn's leave?”
“If you wish it.”
“And to keep the key?”
“I suppose so, if you think it wise.”
He strode to the inner door and locked it and hid the key in an inside pocket of his tunic.
“And now, heavenborn,” he said, “I crave your leave to bring my half-brother to the presence!”
He scarcely waited for an answer, but walked to the window, leaned out of it and whistled. A minute later he was answered by the sound of fingernails scrabbling on the outer door. He turned the key and opened it.
“Enter!” he ordered.
Barefooted and ragged, but as clean as a soldier on parade and with huge knots of muscles bulging underneath his copper skin, a Rajput entered, bowing his six feet of splendid manhood almost to the floor.
“This, heavenborn, is my half-brother, son of a low-born border-woman, whom my father chose to honor thus far! The dog is loyal!”
“Salaam!” said Ruth, with little interest.
“Salaam, memsahib!” muttered the shabby Rajput. “Does any watch?” demanded the Risaldar in Hindustanee. “Aye, one.”
“And he?”
“Is he of whom I spoke.”
“Where watches he?”
“There is a hidden passage leading from the archway; he peeps out through a crack, having rolled back so far the stone that seals it.” He held his horny fingers about an inch apart to show the distance.
“Couldst thou approach unseen?”
The Rajput nodded.
“And there are no others there?”
“No others.”
“Has thy strength left thee, or thy cunning?”
“Nay!”
“Then bring him!”
Without a word in answer the giant turned and went, and the Risaldar made fast the door behind him. Ruth sat with her face between her hands, trying not to cry or shudder, but obsessed and overpowered by a sense of terror. The mystery that surrounded her was bad enough; but this mysterious ordering and coming to and fro among her friends was worse than horrible. She knew, though, that it would be useless to question Mahommed Khan before he chose to speak. They waited there in the dimly lighted room for what seemed tike an age again; she, pale and tortured by weird imaginings; he, grim and bolt-upright like a statue of a warrior. Then sounds came from the stairs again and the Risaldar hurried to the door and opened it.
In burst the Risaldar's half-brother, breathing heavily and bearing a load nearly as big as he was.
“The pig caught my wrist within the opening!” he growled, tossing his gagged and pinioned burden on the floor. “See where he all but broke it!”
“What is thy wrist to the service of the Raj? Is he the right one?”
“Aye!” He stooped and tore a twisted loin-cloth from his victim's face, and the Risaldar walked to the lamp and brought it, to hold it above the prostrate form. Ruth left the divan and stood between the men, terrified by she knew not what fear, but drawn into the lamplight by insuperable curiosity.
“This, heavenborn,” said the Risaldar, prodding at the man with his scabbard-point, “is none other than the High Priest of Kharvani's temple here, the arch-ringleader in all the treachery afoot--now hostage for thy safety!”
He turned to his half-brother. “Unbind the thing he lies with!” he commanded, and the giant unwrapped a twisted piece of linen from the High Priest's mouth.
“So the big fox peeped through the trapdoor, because he feared to trust the other foxes; and the big fox fell into the trap!” grinned the Risaldar. “Bring me that table over yonder, thou!”
The half-brother did as he was told.
“Lay it here, legs upward, on the floor.
“Now, bind him to it--an arm to a leg and a leg to a leg.
“Remove his shoes.
“Put charcoal in yon brazier. Light it. Bring it hither!”
He seized a brass tongs, chose a glowing coal and held it six inches from the High Priest's naked foot.
Ruth screamed.
“Courage, heavenborn! Have courage! This is naught to what he would have done to thee!... Now, speak, thou priest of infidels! What plans are laid and who will rise and when?”
III.
“Sergeant!”
“Sir!”
The close-cropped, pipe-clayed non-commissioned officer spurred his horse into a canter until his scabbard clattered at young Bellairs' boot. Nothing but the rattling and the jolting of the guns and ammunition-wagon was audible, except just on ahead of them the click-clack, click-click-clack of the advance-guard. To the right and left of them the shadowy forms of giant banian-trees loomed and slid past them as they had done for the past four hours, and for ten paces ahead they could see the faintly outlined shape of the trunk road that they followed. The rest was silence and a pall of blackness obscuring everything. They had ridden along a valley, but they had emerged on rising ground and there was one spot of color in the pall now, or else a hole in it.
“What d'you suppose that is burning over there?”
“I couldn't say, sir.”
“How far away is it?”
“Very hard to tell on a night like this, sir. It might be ten miles away and might be twenty. By my reckoning it's on our road, though, and somewhere between here and Jundhra.”
“So it seems to me; our road swings round to the right presently, doesn't it? That'll lead us right to it. That would make it Doonha more or less. D'you suppose it's at Doonha?”
“I was thinking it might be, sir. If it's Doonha, it means that the sepoy barracks and all the stores are burning--there's nothing else there that would make all that flame!”
“There are two companies of the Thirty-third there, too.”
“Yes, sir, but they're under canvas; tents would blaze up, but they'd die down again in a minute. That fire's steady and growing bigger!”
“It's the sepoy barracks, then!”
“Seems so to me, sir!”
“Halt!” roared Bellairs. The advance-guard kicked up a little shower of sparks, trace-chains slacked with a jingle and the jolting ceased. Bellairs rode up to the advance-guard.
“Now, Sergeant,” he ordered, “it looks as though that were the Doonha barracks burning over yonder. There's no knowing, though, what it is. Send four men on, two hundred yards ahead of you, and you and the rest keep a good two hundred yards ahead of the guns. See that the men keep on the alert, and mind that they spare their horses as much as possible. If there's going to be trouble, we may just as well be ready for it!”
“Very good, sir!”
“Go ahead, then!”
At a word from the sergeant, four men clattered off and were swallowed in the darkness. A minute later the advance-guard followed them and then, after another minute's pause, young Bellairs' voice was raised into a ringing shout again.
“Section, advance! Trot, march!”
The trace-chains tightened, and the clattering, bumping, jingling procession began again, its rear brought up by the six-horse ammunition-wagon. They rode speechless for the best part of an hour, each man's eyes on the distant conflagration that had begun now to light up the whole of the sky ahead of them. They still rode in darkness, but they seemed to be approaching the red rim of the Pit. Huge, billowing clouds of smoke, red-lit on the under side, belched upward to the blackness overhead, and a something that was scarcely sound--for it was yet too distant--warned them that it was no illusion they were riding into. The conflagration grew. It seemed to be nearly white-hot down below.
Bellairs wet his finger and held it extended upward.
“There's no wind that I can feel!” he muttered. “And yet, if that were a grass-fire, there'd be game and rats and birds and things--some of 'em would bolt this way. That's the Doonha barracks burning or I'm a black man, which the Lord forbid!”
A minute later, every man in the section pricked up his ears. There was no order given; but a sensation ran the whole length of it and a movement from easy riding to tense rigidity that could be felt by some sixth sense. Every man was listening, feeling, groping with his senses for something he could neither hear as yet nor see, but that he knew was there. And then, far-distant yet--not above, but under the jolting of the gun-wheels and the rattle of the scabbards--they could hear the clickety-clickety-clickety-click of a horse hard-ridden.
They had scarcely caught that sound, they had barely tightened up their bridle-reins, when another sound, one just as unmistakable, burst out in front of them. A ragged, ill-timed volley ripped out from somewhere near the conflagration and was answered instantly by one that was close-ripped like the fire of heavy ordnance. And then one of the advance-guard wheeled his horse and drove his spurs home rowel-deep. He came thundering back along the road with his scabbard out in the wind behind him and reined up suddenly when his horse's forefeet were abreast of the lieutenant.
“There's some one coming, sir, hard as he can gallop! He's one of our men by the sound of him. His horse is shod--and I thought I saw steel when the fire-light fell on him a minute ago!”
“Are you sure there's only one?”
“Sure, sir! You can hear him now!”
“All right! Fall in behind me!”
Bellairs felt his sword-hilt and cocked a pistol stealthily, but he gave no orders to the section. This might be a native soldier run amuck, and it might be a messenger; but in either case, friend or foe, if there was only one man he could deal with him alone.
“Halt!” roared the advance-guard suddenly. But the horse's hoof-beats never checked for a single instant.
“Halt, you! Who comes there?”
“Friend!” came the answer, in an accent that was unmistakable.
“What friend? Where are you going?”
One of the advance-guard reined his horse across the road. The others followed suit and blocked the way effectually. “Halt!” they roared in unison.
The main body of the advance came up with them.
“Who is he?” shouted the sergeant.
“We'll soon see! Here he comes!”
“Out of my way!” yelled a voice, as a foamed-flecked horse burst out of the darkness like an apparition and bore straight down on them--his head bored a little to one side, the red rims of his nostrils wide distended and his whole sense and energy, and strength concentrated on pleasing the speed-hungry Irishman who rode him. He flashed into them head-on, like a devil from the outer darkness. His head touched a man's knee--and he rose and tried to jump him! His breast crashed full into the obstruction and horse and gunner crashed down to the road.
A dozen arms reached out--twelve horses surged in a clattering melee--two hands gripped the reins and four arms seized the rider, and in a second the panting charger was brought up all-standing. The sergeant thrust his grim face closer and peered at their capture.
“Good--, if it ain't an officer!” he exclaimed. “I beg your pardon, sir!”
And at that instant the section rattled, up behind them, with Bellairs in the lead.
“Halt!” roared Bellairs. “What's this?”
“Bloody murder, arson, high treason, mutiny and death! Blood and onions, man! Don't your men know an officer when they see one? Who are you? Are you Bellairs? Then why in God's name didn't you say so sooner? What have you waited for?
“How many hours is it since you got the message through from Jundhra? Couldn't you see the barracks burning? Who am I--I'm Captain O'Rourke, of the Thirty-third, sent to see what you're doing on the road, that's who I am! A full-fledged; able-bodied captain wasted in a crisis, just because you didn't choose to hurry! Poison take your confounded gunners, sir! Have they nothing better to engage them than holding up officers on the Queen's trunk road?”
“Supposing you tell me what's the matter?” suggested young Bellairs, prompt as are most of his breed to appear casual the moment there was cause to feel excited.
“Your gunners have taken all my breath, sir. I can't speak!”
“You shouldn't take chances with a section of artillery! They're not like infantry--they don't sleep all the time--you can't ride through them as a rule!”
“Don't sleep, don't they! Then what have you been doing on the road? And what are you standing here for? Ride, man, ride! You're wanted!”
“Get out of the way, then!” suggested Bellairs, and Captain O'Rourke legged his panting charger over to the roadside.
“Advance-guard, forward, trot!” commanded the lieutenant.
“Have you brought your wife with you?” demanded O'Rourke, peering into the jingling blackness.
“No. Of course not. Why?”
“'Of course not! Why?' says the man! Hell and hot porridge! Why, the whole of India's ablaze from end to end--the sepoys have mutinied to a man, and the rest have joined them! There's bloody murder doing--they've shot their officers--Hammond's dead and Carstairs and Welfleet and heaven knows who else. They've burned their barracks and the stores and they're trying to seize the magazine. If they get that, God help every one. They're short of ammunition as it is, but two companies of the Thirty-third can't hold out for long against that horde. You'll be in the nick of time! Hurry, man! For the love of anything you like to name, get a move on!”
IV.
“Trot, march!
“Canter!”
Bellairs was thinking of his wife, alone in Hanadra, unprotected except by a sixty-year-old Risaldar and a half-brother who was a civilian and an unknown quantity. There were cold chills running down his spine and a sickening sensation in his stomach. He rode ahead of the guns, with O'Rourke keeping pace beside him. He felt that he hated O'Rourke, hated everything, hated the Service, and the country--and the guns, that could put him into such a fiendish predicament.
O'Rourke broke silence first.
“Who is with your wife?” he demanded suddenly.
“Heaven knows! I left her under the protection of Risaldar Mahommed Khan, but he was to ride off for an escort for her.”
“Not your father's old Risaldar?” asked O'Rourke.
“The same.”
“Then thank God! I'd sooner trust him than I would a regiment. He'll bring her in alive or slit the throats of half Asia--maybe 'he'll do both! Come, that's off our minds! She's safer with him than she would be here. Have you lots of ammunition?”
“I brought all I had with me at Hanadra.”
“Good! What you'll need tonight is grape!”
“I've lots of it. It's nearly all grape.”
“Hurrah! Then we'll treat those dirty mutineers to a dose or two of pills they won't fancy! Come on, man--set the pace a little faster!”
“Why didn't my orders say anything about a mutiny or bringing in my wife?”
“Dunno! I didn't write 'em. I can guess, though. There'd be something like nine reasons. For one thing, they'd credit you with sense enough to bring her in without being told. For another, the messenger who took the note might have got captured on the way--they wouldn't want to tell the sepoys more than they could help. Then there'd be something like a hurry. They're attacked there too--can't even send us assistance. Told us to waylay you and make use of you. Maybe they forgot your wife--maybe they didn't. It's a devil of a business anyhow!”