The experiment was perfectly successful; for when, preceding Trixy, the strange figure of the priest appeared suddenly in the compartment of the tent where the girls were at breakfast, they flew away with stifled cries, and Trixy had some little difficulty in persuading them that he was a friend in disguise.
When they were all certain of one another it was decided that neither of their invalids should hear of the dangerous experiment until it was over.
To Trixy fell the joyful task of taking in the precious letter to her parents. She found them better. Lady Elton had forgotten her painful dream of the night before, and the General was returning slowly to consciousness. In the midst of the deep depression that weighed him down, as the reality of what had for so many days seemed like a vision forced itself upon his heart, this news of Grace came like a single ray of sunshine.
'If I bring you all safe out of it,' he said to his wife, 'I shall perhaps be able to forgive myself.'
Through the melancholy days which followed Bertie's departure, this was the burden of his cry—could he forgive himself? His wife and the girls reasoned with him. He had not, they said, been more deceived than others. That these Indians were inscrutable beings the curious inconsistency of their actions showed. One and another came in from outside to sit with him, and they spoke in a similar strain; but his answer was always the same: 'If I didn't know, I should have known. I am not fit for my post. I will lay it down.' Still more pitiful were his outbursts of wrath against himself for what he called his light-hearted folly, in taking his wife and five daughters from their quiet home, and exposing them to the danger and horror of this terrible time. 'I am a fool, an idiot,' he said to one of his friends one day. 'Think of it! Those six innocent creatures—so innocent and helpless, that they don't know the full horror of their situation—suffering for me, because I was a blind, credulous fool. God in heaven! It is almost more than a man can bear!'
This from the stern, self-contained man who, only a few weeks before, had ridden boldly through a hostile country, commanding the respect of the fiercest enemies of his race, by his magnificent audacity, was infinitely pitiful.
And meanwhile Trixy's brave little heart fell, for there came no news from Bertie. During the latter days of June they heard little news of any kind at Meerut. The surrounding country had fallen back into the state of anarchy from which the strong hand of the British Government had redeemed it. In all the towns where there had been risings, the gates of the gaols had been thrown open, and convicts, released from their fetters, joined themselves to men of their caste—robber tribes, who had of late years been compelled to earn their bread by honest toil, but who had never lost their longing for the dear old days of rapine. These roamed through the country, committing deeds of violence everywhere. Turbulent spirits—dispossessed landowners in many cases and adopted sons of dead rajahs—went, with their followers, from village to village, raising forced contributions for the Holy War. With them came men of professed sanctity, Indian faquirs and Mohammedan moulvies, who carried firmans from the emperor, enthroned, as they asserted, in Delhi, and distributed, in his name, high-sounding titles and robes of honour. There were, indeed, moments of uneasiness amongst them. The battle of Ghazee-ood-deen-Nugger, between Delhi and Meerut, on the 31st of May, and the still more notable victory at Budlee-Ka-Serai, only five miles from the Imperial city, showed them that the race they were defying had life in it still. But what they lacked in audacity they gained in numbers. The English victories, moreover, decisive as they were for the moment, had little permanent effect. The army was like a swimmer in a stormy sea. As, with force and skill, they clove one wave of humanity, others surged up behind them innumerable, and not the wisest could say whereto this thing would reach. The people were encouraged to think that it would have no end; that from north to south, and from east to west, the whole of the land would rise in insurrection.
It is difficult, however, to make any adequate picture of what the state of India actually was in that disastrous year. We who were in the midst of it have forgotten, our impressions have grown dim. Those who were not lack the sense which would enable them to grasp it. For security is the watchword of our modern life. To be robbed of this—to live consciously, day and night, on the brink of an abyss—to see the earth open, and the subversive forces which are for ever underlying it, break upwards in ravage and desolating fury—to have all our softnesses and superiorities swept away, and, in their place, terror, nakedness and an aching sense of our own insignificance—who of us all can fitly image it? I cannot, I know, although I took part in it all long ago. Yet sometimes, even now, a nightmare vision will flash it all back again. I will hide, breathless, in the jungle; I will listen to the shouts of infuriated mobs that seem to be always at my heels; I will plunge into a river, and strike out for dear life; I will crawl on shore at dead of night to rest my aching limbs, and measure sadly the distance that divides me from my friends; I will listen to tales that make the hair of my flesh stand up with horror, and try feebly to understand that they were our very own—the dear women and fair children that made the rapture of our lives—who have been hacked and hewn, and torn limb from limb, by fiends in human form. I will feel the blood in my body like fire, and the strength of a hundred will rush into my limbs, and I will grasp my weapon and slay—slay—till my heart is sick and my head faint; and still there will be the same awful, insatiable thirst that nothing can slake. And then, trembling, I will awake, and fall down on my knees and thank the Father of Mercies that the terror is over, and that the greater number of those who took part in it—Indians as well as English—are at rest.