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

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

A great broad flash of white teeth lit up her face as she salaamed, remarking that the Huzoor's mother must have been as Kunti. And Jim Douglas understanding the complimentary allusion to the God-visited mother of the Lunar race, wished as he went downstairs, that he was like the Five Heroes in one respect, at least, and that was in having only a fifth part of a woman to look after, instead of two whole ones who talked of love! So he passed out to listen, and watch, and wait, while the fire-balloons went up into the velvety sky, replacing the kites. For May is the month of marriages also, and night after night these false stars floated out from the Dream-City to form new constellations on the horizon for a few minutes and then disappear with a flare into the darkness. Into the darkness whence the master did not come. Yet, as the month ended, villagers passing in with grain from Meerut averred that the masters were not all dead, or else God gave their ghosts a like power in cursing and smiting--which was all poor folk had to look for; since some had appeared and burned a village.

Not all dead? The news drifted from market to market, but if it penetrated through the Palace gates it did not filter through the new curtains and hangings of the private apartments where the King took perpetual cooling draughts and wrote perpetual appeals for more etiquette and decorum. For nothing likely to disturb the unities of dreams was allowed within the precincts, where every day the old King sat on a mock peacock throne with a new cushion to it, and listened for hours to the high-flown letters of congratulation which poured in, each with its own little covering bag of brocade, from the neighboring chiefs. And if any day there happened to be a paucity of real ones, Hussan Askuri could supply them, like other dreams, at so much a dozen; since nothing more costly than the brocade bag came with them. So that the Mahboob's face, as Treasurer, grew longer and longer over the dressmaker's and upholsterer's bills, and the Court Journal was driven into recording the fact that someone actually presented a bottle of Pandamus odoratissimus, whatever that may be. Some subtle essence, mayhap, favorable to dreaminess; since, in the month of peace, drugs were necessary to prevent awakening.

Especially when, on the 30th of May, a sound came over the distant horizon; the sound of artillery.

At last! At last! Jim Douglas, who, in sheer dread of his own growing despair, had taken to spending all the time he dared in moody silence on that peaceful roof, started as if he had been shot, and was down the stairs seeking news. The streets were full of a silent, restless crowd, almost empty of soldiers. They had gone out during the night, he learned, Meerutward; tidings of an army on the banks of the Hindu river, seven or eight miles out, having been brought in by scouts.

At last! At last! He wandered through the bazaars scarcely able to think, wondering only when the army could possibly arrive, feeling a mad joy in the anxious faces around him, lingering by the groups of men collected in every open space simply for the satisfaction of hearing the wonder and alarm in the words: "So the master lives."

He lived indeed! Listen! That was his voice over the eastern horizon! Kate, when he came back to the roof about noon, had never seen him in this mood before, and wondered at his fire, his gayety, his youth. But the recognition brought a dull pain with it, in the thought that this was natural to the man; that gloomy moodiness the result of her presence.

"You are not afraid, surely?" he said suddenly, breaking off in the recital of some future event which seemed to him certain.

"No. I am only glad," she replied slowly. "It could not have lasted much longer. It is a great relief."

"Relief," he echoed, "I wonder if you know the relief it is to me?" And then he looked at her remorsefully. "I have been an awful brute, Mrs. Erlton, but women can scarcely understand what inaction means to a man."

Could they not? she wondered bitterly as he hastened off again, leaving her to long weary hours of waiting; till the red flush of sunset on the bubble dome of the mosque brought him back with a new look on his face; a look of angry doubt.