NO NEWS
That was Lucy's last piece of excitement for some considerable time. When, having been carried back to the palace, she fell weeping into the arms of her friends, there began for her and the others a life of the most bewildering monotony. A part of the palace, consisting of a small pillared hall, and two or three sleeping apartments, with the shaded alley in which Chunder Singh and Lutfullah had met them first, and the rajah's summer-house were allotted to them. Day after day, with clock-like regularity, a liberal provision of meats and drinks, water to their hearts' desire, fresh garments, sweetmeats, and books were brought to them. They had everything, in fact, but that for which they craved the most—news.
Chunder Singh and Lutfullah went to see them occasionally, and sent morning and night to inquire after their health. Mr. Montgomery, the Resident, paid them periodical visits, but there was no word of the rajah.
Mysterious to the ladies, to Aglaia, to whom her deliverer was everything, this sudden disappearance was a shock as cruel as it was inexplicable. Where had her Daddy-Tom gone? she would ask piteously. Why hadn't he said good-bye to her? Couldn't he send her a letter if he liked? Questions which no one, not even the wise Chunder Singh, could answer. Had it not been for baby Dick, who was one of the most restless of little persons, she would have suffered even more severely. In the new healthy atmosphere that surrounded him, Dick had recovered his vigour. The wizened little face was filling up. Roses and dimples were asserting their rights. The long pent-up limbs were expanding luxuriously in all sorts of joyous activities, which Aglaia, who had begun by being his slave, was bound to share. Never was a merrier or a more irrepressible little man than Dick.
Sometimes, worn out by games and laughter, he would fall asleep, and then Aglaia would steal quietly to the lattice, and, the tears dropping from her eyes, would watch and watch. 'Oh! if he would only come—if he would only come!'
'Everyone goes away,' she said to Lucy one day. 'I wonder why?'
'I don't know, dear,' said Lucy, who was becoming more and more melancholy. 'I suppose they must.'
'He needn't,' said Aglaia proudly. 'He is the master of everyone here.'
'Your Daddy-Tom, as you call him, is like the Good Shepherd in the parable,' said Lucy. 'Do you remember?'
'Yes,' said Aglaia, in a low voice, her little face becoming strangely set. 'He left all the others.'
'And he went after the one that was lost,' filled in Lucy with a sigh. 'I always thought it was uninteresting to be one of the ninety-and-nine. I am sure of it now.'
'I don't understand,' said Aglaia wearily.
'Of course you don't, and I am a goose—an ungrateful goose, too,' said Lucy, her eyes filling with tears. 'If he only brings back Grace——'
'Is that her name?' said Aglaia.
'Yes; isn't it pretty? And it's just like herself. Dearest Grace! We should never be dull or miserable if she were here.'
'Tell me what she is like,' said Aglaia.
'What Grace is like? Ah! that's not so easy,' said Lucy enthusiastically. 'She is perfectly lovely to begin with, tall and very slender—oh! my darling'—breaking into tears and sobs—'if you are alive, you must be more than slender now. All these days and nights! I can't bear to think of it. She was so gentle, too. I never heard her complain once. And her temper was that of an angel. Everyone—even the servants—adored her. It was through Tikaram's love for her that we got away at all. As for the man who brought us here, he simply worshipped her. Don't you hope she may come back safely, Aglaia?'
'Yes,' answered the child, briefly and sadly.
'But you don't seem a bit sorry for her, you funny little thing.'
Aglaia lifted her limpid eyes and fixed them on Lucy's face. 'I'm not,' she said.
'Now why, you little barbarian?'
'Because——' began Aglaia, and then she turned away. 'I don't like to talk of it,' she said, and went off to Dick, leaving Lucy to wonder over her curious precocity.
But although the ladies heard nothing of what went on in the city, there was considerable uneasiness and excitement abroad. When the elders in the State found out as a certain fact that their young rajah had given them the slip they tried to keep the uncomfortable knowledge to themselves. In his room they found a slip of paper, written in his hand, and addressed to Chunder Singh. It was his hope, he said, that his friends would not discover his absence until his return, when he would give them every explanation; but, in case of delay or obstruction, he begged that the elders of Gumilcund would carry on the business of the State as they had been accustomed to do. He did not himself anticipate any inconvenience from his own enforced absence. When he had accomplished the purpose upon which, as Chunder Singh knew, his heart was set, he would return, and then it would rest with them whether they would again accept him as their rajah, or choose rather to be governed by one of themselves. In the meantime he begged to assure them of his faithfulness to the principles which had been laid down by his predecessors for his guidance.
This, to the elders of Gumilcund, while reassuring from one point of view, was disappointing in another. Most, if not all, had given full credence to the assurance of their late rajah that, in the person of the successor he had chosen, he would himself return to them. To us of the West such a belief may appear childish. But we must remember the difference between our standpoint and that of the Asiatic. The doctrine of the transmigration of souls from body to body, which to us seems unreal and fantastic, has, from the earliest ages, formed a part of the Eastern creeds. And, this granted, there could not surely be anything extraordinarily unlikely in one of high spiritual rank being permitted, if not to choose, at least to foresee, his next incarnation. In any case this was their belief, a belief which the singular likeness between their late rajah and his successor, with rumours which had come to one and another of mysterious voices holding communion with him, had served to confirm. But his departure at this critical moment, an action at variance with what they knew would have been the will of their late ruler, and his apparent readiness to sacrifice his State so long as he could save a single English captive, somewhat shook them in this view. Nevertheless they tried their hardest to hide the rajah's flight from the people. Do what they would, however, it leaked out, and with it came other distressing and alarming news. The surrender of the Cawnpore entrenchments, and the awful massacres that followed: the general rebellion in Oude, followed swiftly by the siege of the Lucknow Residency, and the death of Sir Henry Lawrence: uneasy rumours from the Punjaub, where the disaffected Poorbeahs were being held at bay like savage animals, and the delay at Delhi—these and many other rumours came pouring in as the month of July ran its course. It says much for the loyalty and strength of Chunder Singh, who was now the ruling spirit in the councils of the Gumilcund elders, that the terror and despair which were beginning to be felt amongst the populace never once touched them.
And yet there was much cause for uneasiness. Chunder Singh, indeed, who had visited England twice, the first time with Byrajee Pirtha Raj, his late master, and the second in obedience to his dying wish to further the interests of his successor, believed profoundly in the power of England; but he knew also how apt she is to try the effect of small measures, little outbursts which, to the uninitiated, seem nothing more than ebullitions of temper, before, armed with her full strength, she stands out wrathfully to assert her will. Such delay practised now would mean, if not the total subversion of the English power in India, at least the temporary ruin of those who had accepted her as the Paramount Power. It did not need the threatening letters which, in spite of all their efforts, were continually poured into Gumilcund to advertise them of what their fate would be if the English forces—coming down from the Punjaub and up from Calcutta and Bombay—met with any serious defeat. Chunder Singh and his friends knew very well what assault and sack meant when a baffled Asiatic army were inside the gates of a wealthy city. But with all this no thought of compromise ever entered their minds. To the terror-stricken people, merchants and handicraftsmen, who came flocking to them for advice they had always the same answer: 'We have gone too far to retreat now. If the worst comes to the worst we must defend our city to the last.'
The inquiries about the rajah were more difficult to answer. His absence had considerably increased the alarm of the people. For the belief held by the men of education and culture in Gumilcund, as it filtered down to the lower strata of the populace, had lost its vagueness, and had gained in strength. The curiously dramatic entry of the young rajah into his city, and the effectiveness of his various appearances, gave colour to the general superstition. He seemed to many of them not a man at all, but a divine being whose presence was a guarantee of the city's continuance in safety and prosperity. That this God-given ruler should leave them at such a crisis as the present was inexplicable save in one way—that the spiritual beings, who were said to direct him, had warned him of the coming evil and helped him to escape—a theory confirmed by the circumstance that no one could tell them how their prince went. In spite of all Chunder Singh and Lutfullah and Vishnugupta could say, the hearts of the people were heavy within them, and their minds presaged evil.