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

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

The plan proved more difficult than he expected. More than once he found himself in danger from being too close to the disciplined tramp which he began to overtake about six miles out, and twice he lost himself from being too far away, by mistaking one belt of trees for another. Still there was plenty of time if the Arab held out with his weight. The night was hot and stifling, but if he took it coolly till the road was pretty clear again he could forge ahead in no time; for the Arab had the heels of every horse in Upper India. Major Erlton knew this, and bent over to pat its neck with the pride of certainty with which he had patted it before many a race which it had won for him since it had lost one for Jim Douglas.

So he saved it all he knew; but he rode fourteen stone, and that, over jumps, must tell. There was no other way, however, that he knew of, by which an Englishman could head that procession of shouting black devils.

One headed already, as it happened; though he was unaware of the supreme importance of the fact, ignorant of what lay behind him. Jim Douglas, who had left Meerut all unwitting of that rescue party on its way to the jail, was still about a mile from the halfway house where he expected to find his relay. He had had the greatest difficulty in getting the drugged mare to go at all at first, and more than once had regretted having refused old Tiddu's advice. She had pulled herself together a bit, but she was in a drip of sweat and still shaky on her feet. Not that it mattered, he being close now to Begum-a-bad, with plenty of time to reach Delhi by dawn.

He rather preferred to pace slowly, his feet out of the stirrups, his slight, easy figure dressed, as it always was when in English costume, with the utmost daintiness, sitting well back in the saddle. For the glamour of the moonlight, the stillness of the night, possessed him. Everything so soundless save when the jackals began; there were a number of them about. A good hunting country; the memory of many a run in his youthful days, with a bobbery pack, came to him. After all he had had the cream of life in a way. Few men had enjoyed theirs more, for even this idle pacing through the stillness was a pleasure. Pleasure? How many he had had! His mind, reverting from one to another, thought even of the owner of the golden curl without regret. She had taught him the religion of Love, the adoration of a spotless woman. And Zora, dear little Zora, had taught him the purity of passion. And then his mind went back suddenly to a scene of his boyhood. A boy of eighteen carrying a girl of sixteen who held a string of sea-trout midway in a wide, deep ford. And he heard, as if it had been yesterday, the faint splash of the fish as they slipped one by one into the water, and felt the fierce fighting of the girl to be set down, his own stolid resistance, their mutual abuse of each other's obstinacy and carelessness. Yes! he would like to see his sisters again, to know that pleasure again. Then his mind took another leap. Alice Gissing had not struggled in his hold, because she had been in unison with his ideal of conduct; but if she had not been, she would have fought as viciously, as unconsciously as any sister. Alice Gissing, who---- He settled his feet into the stirrups sternly, thinking of that telegram with its one word "Come," which ended so many chances.

Hark! What was that? A clatter of hoofs behind. And something more, surely. A jingle, a jangle, familiar to a soldier's ears. Cavalry at the gallop. He drew aside hastily into the shadow of the arcaded trees and waited.

Cavalry, no doubt. And the moon shone on their drawn sabers. By Heaven! Troopers of the 3d! Half a dozen or more!

"Shâh bâsh, brothers," cried one as they swept past, "we can breathe our beasts a bit at Begum-a-bad and let the others come up; no need to reach Delhi ere dawn. The Palace would be closed."

Delhi! The Palace! And who were the others? That, if they were coming behind, could soon be settled. He turned the Belooch and trotted her back in the shadow, straining eyes and ears down the tree-fringed road which lay so still, so white, so silent.

Something was on it now, but something silent, almost ghost-like,--an old man, muttering texts, on a lame camel which bumped along as even no earthly camel ought to bump. That could not be the "others."

No! Surely that was a thud, a jingle, a clatter once more. And once more the glitter of cold steel in the moonlight. Forty or fifty of the 3d this time, with stragglers calling to others still further behind, "To Delhi! To Delhi! To Victory or Death!"