CHAPTER III.
WITHIN DELHI.
Imperial Delhi contains nearly a quarter of a million of people, and the modern city is all of seven miles in circumference. There was a time when its population was tenfold greater. It was captured and plundered in 1011 by Mahmond; in 1398 by Tamerlane; in 1525 by Baber, who overthrew the Patan dynasty and inaugurated that of the Moguls; in 1739 it was pillaged by Nadir Shah, who sat in the mosque of Boshun ud Dowlah (near the Jumma Musjeed, the most magnificent place of Mussulman worship in India), and saw a hundred thousand of the inhabitants massacred.
Delhi is surrounded by an embattled wall with numerous bastions and intervening martello towers, faced along the entire extent with massive masonry, which many years ago was strengthened by the addition of a moat and glacis.
Within this city at the date of the sepoy mutiny dwelt Mohammed Suraj-oo-deen Shah Gezee, the Great Mogul of India. His claim to succeed his father was sustained by the East India Company against a conspiracy to place a younger brother on the throne, and he was in the receipt of nearly a million dollars annually from that colossal corporation. Yet he had no political power, and made no pretense to the least authority outside his palaces, whose bounds embraced twelve thousand subjects, while the royal family itself numbered about one eighth as many.
Beyond the limits of the narrow streets, where the bazars and native houses crowd together, yet close enough for easy access to the mission church, stood the home of the Hildreths. It was set back from a road in the middle of a garden or open space, which is so necessary to European life in this climate. A hedge partly hid the house, and there were several trees in the garden, kept alive by the persistent attentions of the malee, who drew water morning and evening from a well, and filled the trenches around the parched roots.
The home of the missionary showed the plainness that is a feature of the Anglo Indian architecture. It was made of sun dried bricks, plastered and whitewashed. Like the bungalow where Dr. Avery held his parting interview with Luchman, it was surrounded by wide verandas, shaded by grass tatties.
During the fiery heat of the day the structure was kept tightly closed against the hot wind which was like a furnace blast. Late in the afternoon, the family ventured to emerge from the interior to the veranda, where the tatties had been sprinkled with water, with a view of wooing something in the nature of coolness from the scorching air that stole through them.
This veranda, on the afternoon of May 10, 1857, therefore, contained the missionary, idly reclining on his long cane settee, with his daughter sitting more erect in a chair at his elbow, while the wife rested in her lounging chair at the other end of the veranda.
Marian held a book in her hand, which she was dreamily reading by the dim light that stole through the tattie, the enervating heat driving away all disposition to talk. The burning sun of India had added depth to the loveliness of the young lady, whose dark eyes and clear brunette complexion were softened by the climate so often fatal to foreigners. Bending over her volume, her figure showed a grace of outline and form, not surpassed even in Persia, the land of beauty.