"Thou wilt kill thyself with prayers and fastings and seekings of other folks' salvations, Moulvie-sahib," said Hâfzan almost petulantly as, passing on her rounds, she saw Mohammed Ismail's anxious face, seeking audience with everyone in authority, "Thou hast done thy best. The rest is with God; and if these find death also, the blame will lie elsewhere."
"But the blame of those, woman?" he asked fiercely, pointing with trembling finger to the little cistern shaded by the peepul tree.
Hâfzan gave a shrill laugh as she passed on.
"Fear not that either, learned one! This world's atonement for that will be sufficient for future pardon."
It might be so, Mohammed Ismail told himself as he hurried off feverishly to another appeal. He had erred in ignorance there; but what of the forty prisoners still at the Kotwâli--forty stubborn Christians despite their dark skins? They were safe so far, but if the city were assaulted?--if some of the fresh, fiery-faithed newcomers---- The doubt left him no peace.
"If thou wilt swear, Moulvie-jee, on thine own eternal salvation that they are Mohammedans, or stake thy soul on their conversion," jeered those who held the keys. A heavy stake, that! A solemn oath with forty stubborn Christians to deal with. No wonder Mohammed Ismail felt judgment upon him already.
But the stake was staked, the oath spoken on the 6th of June. The record of it is brief, but it stands as history in the evidence of one of the forty. "We were released in consequence of a Moulvie of the name of Mohammed Ismail giving evidence that we were all Mohammedan; or that if any were Christian they would become Mohammedan."
And it was given none too soon. For on the 6th of June as the sun set, a silhouette of a man on a horse stood clear against the red-gold in the west, looking down from the Ridge on Delhi. Looking down on the city bathed in the dreamy glamour of the slanting sunbeams; rose-red and violet-shadowed, with the great white dome hovering above the smoke wreaths, and a glitter of gold on the eastern wall, where, backed by that arcaded view of the darkening Eastern plains, an old man sat listening to sentiments of fidelity from a pile of little brocaded bags.
It was Hodson of Hodson's Horse, reconnoitering ahead. So there was an Englishman on the Ridge once more as the paper kites came down on the 6th of June. But the fire balloons did not go up; for the night set in gusty and wet, giving no chance to new constellations.
Jim Douglas did not sleep at all that night, for Tiddu had brought word that the English were at Alipore, ten miles out; and nothing but the dread of needless risk kept him in Delhi. For any risk was needless when to a certainty the English flag would be flying over the city in a few hours.