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

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

And still there were no tidings of the master, no cloud of dust upon the Meerut road. None.

Amazing, incredible fact! Men whispered of it on the steps of the Great Mosque when, the last Friday of the fast coming round, its commination service brought many from behind closed doors to realize that by such signs of kingship as beatings of drums, firing of salutes, and levying of loans, Bahâdur Shâh really had filched the throne of his ancestors from the finest fighters in the world. Filched it without a blow, without a struggle, without even a threat, a defiance.

So here they were in a new world without posts or telegraphs, laws or order. Time itself turned back hundreds of years and all power of progress vested absolutely in one old man, the Light of Religion, the Defender of the Faith, the Great Moghul. If that were not a miracle it came too perilously near to one for some folk's loyalty; and so they drifted palaceward when prayers were over to swell the growing crowd of courtiers about the Dream King. And even the learned and most loyal lingered on the steps to whisper, and call obscure prophecies and ingenious commentaries to mind, and admit that it was strange, wondrous strange, that the numerical values of the year should yield the anagram "Ungrez tubbah shood ba hur soorut," briefly "The British shall be annihilated." For the Oriental mind loves such trivialities.

And, to all intents and purposes, the English were annihilated, during that short month of peace between the 11th of May and the 8th of June, 1857; for Delhi knew nothing of the vain striving, the ceaseless efforts of the master to find tents and carriages, horses, ammunition, medicine, everything once more, save, thank Heaven! courage, and the determination to be master still.

Even Soma admitted the miracle grudgingly; for he had so far bolstered up his disloyalty by thoughts of a fair fight. He had not, after all, gone to Delhi direct, but had cut across country to his own village near Hansi, and had waited there, hoping to hear of a regular outbreak of hostilities before definitely choosing his side; and he was still waiting when, after a fortnight, his greatest chum in the regiment had turned up from Meerut. For Davee Singh had been one of the many sepoys of the 11th who had gone back to the colors after that one brief night of temptation was over. Soma had known this, and more than once as he waited, the knowledge had been as a magnet drawing him back to the old pole of thought; for that his chum should be led to victory and he be among the defeated was probable enough to make Soma hate himself in anticipation.

But here was Davee Singh, a deserter like he was, sulkily uncommunicative to the village gossips, but to his fellow admitting fiercely that the latter had been right. The Huzoors had forgotten how to fight. Meerut was quiet as the grave; but there was no word of Delhi, and folk said--what did they not say?

So these two, with a strange mixture of regret and relief in their hearts, set out for Delhi to see what was happening there; not knowing that many of their fellows were drifting from it, weary like themselves of inaction.

They had arrived there, two swaggering Rajpoots, in the midst of the thanksgivings and jollity of the Mohammedan Easter which followed on the last Friday of Fast; and they had fallen foul of it frankly. As frankly as the Mohammedans would have fallen foul of a Hindoo Saturnalia, or both Mohammedans and Hindoos would have fallen foul of the festivities in honor of the Queen's Birthday which, on this 25th of May, 1857, were going on in every cantonment in India as if there was no such thing as mutiny in the world. So, annoyed with what they saw and heard, they joined themselves to other Rajpoot malcontents promptly. They sneered at the old pantaloon's procession, which was in truth a poor one, though half the tailors in Delhi had been impressed to hurry up trappings and robes. Perhaps if Abool-Bukr had still been in charge of squibs and such like, it would have been better; but he was not. The order he had given to let the Princess Farkhoonda's dhoolie pass out, before the gates were closed on that day of the death-pledge, had been his last exercise of authority; for the next Court Journal contained the announcement that he was dismissed from his appointment. So he, hovering between the Thunbi Bazaar and the Mufti's quarter, had nothing to do with the procession at which the Rajpoots sneered, criticising Mirza Moghul, the Commander-in-Chief's seat on a horse, and talking boastfully of Vicra-maditya and Pertap as warlike Hindoos will. Until, about dusk, words came to blows amid a tinkling of anklets and a terrible smell of musk; for valor drifted as a matter of course to the wooden balconies of the Thunbi Bazaar during the month of miracle. So that the inmates, coining money, called down blessings on the new régime.

Soma, however, with a cut over one eye sorely in need of a stitch, swore loudly when he could find none to patch him up save a doddering old Hakeem, who proposed dosing him with paper pills inscribed with the name of Providence; an incredible remedy to one accustomed to all the appliances of hospitals and skilled surgery.

"Yea! no doubt he is a fool," assented the other sepoys in frank commiseration, "yet he is the best you will get. For see you, brother, the doctors belong to the Huzoors; so many a brave man must expect to die needlessly, since those cursed dressers are not safe. There was one took the bottles and things and swore he could use them as well as any. And luck went with him until he gave five heroes who had been drunk the night before somewhat to clear their heads. By all the gods in Indra's heaven they were clear even of life in half an hour. So we fell on the dresser and cleared him too. Yea! fool or no fool, paper pills are safer!"