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

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

The cheek of it!

That phrase--no other less trenchant, more refined--expressed purely the feeling with which the roused six thousand listened from picket or tent, comfortable bed or damp sentry-go, to this topsy-turveydom of anthems! The cheek of it! The very walls ought to fall Jericho-wise before such sacrilegious music.

But in the city it sent a thrill through hearts and brains. For it roused many a dreamer wild had never felt the chill of a sword-hilt on his palm to the knowledge that the time for gripping one had come.

Since this was Bukr-eed, the Great Day of Sacrifice. No common Bukr-eed either, when the blood of a goat or a bull would worthily commemorate Abraham's sacrifice of his best and dearest, but something more akin to the old patriarch's devotion. Since on Bukr-eed, 1857, the infidel was to be sacrificed by the faithful, and the faithful by the infidel.

For the silence of seven days had been a silence only from bugles and fifes; the drum ecclesiastic had taken their place. The mosques had resounded day and night to the wild tirades of preachers, and even Mohammed Ismail, feeling that in religious war lay the only chance of forgiveness for past horrors, spent every hour in painting its perfections, in deprecating any deviation from its rule. The sword or the faith for men; the faith without the sword for those who could not fight. But others were less scrupulous, their denunciations less guarded, and as the processions passed through the narrow streets flaunting the green banner, half the Mohammedan population felt that the time had come to strike their blow for the faith. And Hussan Askuri dreamed dreams; and the Bird-of-Heaven, with its crest new-dyed for the occasion, gave the Great Cry viciously as it was paraded through jostling crowds in the Thunbi Bazaar, where religion found recruits by the score even among the women. While Abool-Bukr, vaguely impressed by the stir, the color, the noise, took to the green and swore to live cleanly. So that Newâsi's soft eyes shone as she repeated Mohammed Ismail's theories. They were very true, the Prince said; besides this could be nothing but honest fighting since there were no women on the Ridge; whereupon she stitched away at his green banner fearlessly.

But in the Palace it needed all Bukht Khân's determination and Hussan Askuri's wily dreams to reconcile the old King to the breach of etiquette which the sacrifice of a camel instead of a bull by the royal hands involved. For the army--three-quarters Brahmin and Rajpoot had been promised, as a reward for helping to drive out the infidel, that no sacred kine should be killed in Hindustan.

And others besides the King objected to the restriction. Old Fâtma, for instance, Shumsha-deen the seal-cutter's wife, as she swathed her husband's white beard with pounded henna leaves to give it the orthodox red dye.

"What matters it, woman?" he replied sternly, but with an odd quaver in his voice. "There is a greater sacrifice than the blood of bulls and goats, and that I may yet offer this blessed Eed."

"And mayhap, mother," suggested the widowed, childless daughter-in-law, "a goat will serve our turn better than a stirk this year: there will be enough for offering, and belike there may be no feasting."

The old lady, high-featured, high-tempered, wept profusely between her railings at the ill-omened suggestion; but the old Turk admitted the possibility with a strained wondering look in the eyes which had lost their keenness with graving texts. So, as the day passed the women helped him faithfully in his bath of purification, and the daughter-in-law, having the steadiest hand, put the antimony into the old man's eyes as he squatted on a clean white cloth stretched in the center of the odd little courtyard. She used the stylus she had brought with her to the house as a bride, and it woke past memories in the old brain, making the black-edged old eyes look at the wife of his youth with a wistful tenderness. For it was years since a woman had performed the kindly office; not since the finery and folly of life had passed into the next generation's hands. But old Fâtma thought he still looked as handsome as any as he finally stepped into the streets in his baggy trousers with one green shawl twisted into a voluminous waistband, another into a turban, his flaming red beard flowing over his white tunic, and a curved scimitar--it was rather difficult to get out of its scabbard by reason of rust--at his side.