On the Face of the Waters: A Tale of the Mutiny

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

The retreat!

Incredible! Impossible! Yes! Once, twice, thrice--the retreat! The masters were not going to fight at Meerut then, and he must try Delhi. So, turning swiftly, he cut into the road behind the cry.

"My God, Craigie! what's that? Not the retreat, surely!" came a boyish voice from the clatter and rattle of the faithful troop.

"Don't know! Hurry up all you can, Clark! There's more of the devils needing cold steel yonder, and I'd like to see to my wife's safety as soon as I can. Shâh bâsh bhaiâan Dân-ro. Mâro."

"Mâro--Mâ--ro--Mâ----roh!" echoed the howl. What was the retreat to them when their Captain's voice called to them as brothers? It is idle to ask the question, but one cannot help wondering if the Captain's pocket still held the official wigging. For the sake of picturesque effect it is to be hoped it did.

Nevertheless it was the retreat. A council of officers had suggested that since the mutineers were not in their lines, they might be looting the European cantonments. So the two thousand returned thither, after firing that one volley into a wood, and then finding all quiet to the north proceeded to bivouac on the parade ground for the night. Not a very peaceful spot, since it was within sight and sound of blazing roof-trees and plundering ruffians. The worst horrors of that night, we are told, can never be known. Perhaps some people beg to differ, holding that no horror can exceed the thought of women and children hiding like hares on that southern side, creeping for dear life from one friendly shadow to another, and finding help in dark hands where white ones failed them, within reach of that bivouac. But the faithful troop did good service, and many another band of independent braves also. Captain Craigie, finding leisure at last, found also--it is a relief to know--that some of his own men had sneaked away from duty to secure his wife's safety when they saw their Captain would not. And if anything can relieve the deadly depression which sinks upon the soul at the thought of that horrible lack of emotion in the north, it is to picture that very different scene on the south, when Captain Craigie, seeing his only hope of getting the ladies safely escorted to the European barracks lay in his troopers, brought the two Englishwomen out to them and said, simply, "Here are the mems! Save them."

And then the two score or so of rough men, swashbucklers by birth and training, flung themselves from their horses, cast themselves at those alien women's feet with tears and oaths. Oaths that were kept.

But, on the other side, people were more placid. One reads of Englishmen watching "their own sleeping children with gratitude in their hearts to God," with wonderings as "to the fate of their friends in the south," with anticipations of "what would befall their Christian brethren in Delhi on the coming morn, who, less happy than ourselves, had no faithful and friendly European battalions to shield them from the bloodthirsty rage of the sepoys."

What, indeed? considering that for two hours bands of armed men had clattered and marched down that dividing road crying "To Delhi, to Delhi!" But no warning of the coming danger had been sent thither; the confusion had been too great. And now, about midnight, the telegraph wires had been cut. Yet Delhi lay but thirty miles off along a broad white road, and there were horses galore and men ready to ride them. Men ready for more than that, like Captain Rosser of the Carabineers, who pleaded for a squadron, a field battery, a troop, a gun--anything with which to dash down the road and cut off that retreat to Delhi. But everything was refused. Lieutenant Mohler of the 11th offered to ride, and at least give warning; but that offer was also set aside. And many another brave man, no doubt, bound to obey orders, ate his heart out in inaction that night, possessing himself in some measure of patience with the thought that the dawn must see them on that Delhi road.

But there was one man who owed obedience to none; who was free to go if he chose. And he did choose. Ten minutes after it dawned upon Herbert Erlton that no warning had been given, that no succor would be sent, he had changed horses for the game little Arab which had once belonged to Jim Douglas, and was off, to reach Delhi as best he could; for a woman slept in the very city itself exposed to the first assault of ruffianism, whom he must save, if he could. So he set his teeth and rode straight. At first down the road, for the last of the fugitives had had a good hour's start of him, and he could count on four or five miles plain sailing. Then, since his object was to head the procession, and he did not dare to strike across country from his utter ignorance both of the way or how to ask it, he must give the road a half-mile berth or so, and, keeping it as a guide, make his way somehow. There were bridges he knew where he must hark back to the only path, but he must trust to luck for a quiet interval.