For an instant or two Belle's horse, hemmed in by the advancing crowds, kept the peace by clearing a space between them with head and heels; then, choosing the least alarming procession, it charged the Hindus, breaking their ranks as, maddened by terror it plunged and bit. Only for a moment, however, for the packed mass of humanity closing in round it, held it harmless as in a vice.
"The charger of Pertâp!"[[4]] cried a huge rice-husker with ready wit, as he leapt to the saddle, and coming rather to grief over the crutches, raised a roar of derision from the other side. He scowled dangerously. "Come on, brothers!" he cried, digging his heels viciously into the trembling, snorting beast. "Down with the cursed slayers of kine. This is Durga-ji's road,--Dhurm! Dhurm!"
"Hussan,--Hussain!"
Then the dull thud of heavy blows seemed to dominate the war of words, and business began in earnest as a Mahomedan, caught behind the ear, fell in his tracks. It was not much of a fight as yet, for in that narrow street the vast majority of the crowd could do nothing but press forward and thus jam activity into still smaller space, until the useless sticks were thrown aside, and the combatants went at each other tooth and nail, but unarmed. So they might have fought out the wild-beast instinct of fighting, but for the fact that the Hindus, with commendable foresight, had headed their procession by athletes, the Mahomedans by enthusiast. So, inch by inch, surging and swaying, yelling, cursing, yet doing comparatively little harm, the combatants drifted towards the square until the wider outlet allowed a larger number of the Mahomedans to come into play, and thus reverse the order of affairs. Once more the tazzias, surrounded by their supporters, carried the lane, and swept back the red-splashed figure of Durga amidst yells of religious fury. So the battle raged more in words than blows. Belle, indeed, had begun to feel her bounding pulses steady with the recognition that, beyond a few black eyes and broken heads, no harm had been done, when a trivial incident changed the complexion of affairs in an instant.
The foremost tazzia, which had borne the brunt of conflict and come up smiling after many a repulse, lost balance, toppled over, and went to pieces, most likely from the inherent weakness of its architecture. The result was startling. A sudden wave of passion swept along the Mahomedan line, and as a young man sprang to the pilaster of the mosque steps and harangued the crowd, every face settled into a deadly desire for revenge.
"Kill! Kill! Kill the idolaters--Jehâd! Jehâd!"--the cry of religious warfare rang in an instant from lip to lip. And now from behind came a fresh burst of enthusiasm, as a body of men naked to the waist pushed their way towards the front with ominous glint of sunlight on steel as they fought fiercely for place.
"Room! Room for the butchers! Kill! Kill! Let them bleed! let them bleed!"
The shout overbore the high ringing voice of the preacher, but Belle, watching with held breath, saw him wave his hand towards the lane. Slowly, unwillingly at first, the crowd gave way; then more rapidly until a roar of assent rose up. "The butchers, the butchers! Kill! Kill!"
Belle gasped and held tight to the railing, seeing nothing more but the tide of strife beneath her very feet. Red knives, gleaming no longer, straining hands, and every now and again a gurgle and a human head disappearing to be trodden under foot. Heaven knows how weapons come in such scenes as these,--from the houses,--passed to the front by willing hands--snatched from unwilling foes who fall. In a second it was knife against knife, murder against murder. "Durga! Durga devi! Destroy! Destroy!" "Hussan! Hussain! Kill! Kill!" Then suddenly, a rattle of musketry at the far end of the square, where, cut off from the actual conflict by an impenetrable crowd, a strange scene had been going on unobserved. Two or three mounted Englishmen unarmed, but sitting cool and square on their horse sat the head of a company of Mahomedan and Hindu sepoys who stood cheek by jowl, calm, apparently indifferent, their carbines still smoking from the recent discharge. About them was a curious stillness, broken only by the sound of more disciplined feet coming along at the double. A glint of red coats appears behind, and then a police-officer, the sunlight gleaming on his silver buckles, gallops along the edge of the rapidly clearing space, laying about him with the flat of his sword, while yellow-trousered constables, emerging Heaven knows from what safe shelter, dive in among the people, whacking vigorously with the traditional truncheon of the West. A rapid order to the sepoys, an instant of marking time as the company forms, then quick march through an unresisting crowd. As they near the combatants a few brickbats are thrown: there is one free fight over the preacher: and then the great mass of mankind falls once more into atoms, each animated by the instinct of self-preservation. Five minutes more, and the processions have gone on their appointed ways with the loss of some chosen spirits, while the ghastly results are being hurried away by fatigue-parties recruited from the bystanders.
"Only one round of blank cartridge," remarked John Raby, as the Deputy Commissioner rode forward ruefully to inspect the damage. "Ten minutes more, and it wouldn't have been so easy, for the fighting would have reached the square, and once a man begins--Great God! what's that?"