But Kate had remembered it too, and she also had turned to Jim Douglas passionately, almost accusingly. "It was you! You were Fate--you---- Ah! I understand now!"
"Do you?" he answered with a frown. "Then it's more than I do." He walked away moodily toward the knife Kate had flung away, and stooped to pick it up. "But you were right in what you did. It was an inspiration. Look there!"
He pointed to the old Baharupa, who was playing antics to amuse Sonny, who lisped, "Thâ bâth!" (bravo!) solemnly at each fresh effort. But Kate shivered. "I did nothing. I thought I did; but it was Fate."
"My dear lady," he retorted with a kindly smile, "it is all in the nature of dreams. The convalescent home is turned into a crèche. But we must transfigure the street urchin into the darling of his parents' hearts----" He paused and looked at Kate queerly. "I'll tell Tara to rig him out properly; and you must take off half the stain, you know, and leave some color on his cheeks; for he must play the part as well as----" He laughed suddenly. "It is really more dream-like than ever!" he added. And Kate thought so too.
[CHAPTER VI.]
VOX HUMANA.
The five days following on the 2d of August were a time of festivity for the Camp, a time of funerals for the City. There was a break in the rains, and on the Ridge the sunshine fell in floods upon the fresh green grass, and the air, bright and cool, set men's minds toward making the best of Nature's kindness; for she had been kind, indeed, to the faithful little colony, and few even of the seniors could remember a season so favorable in every way. And so the messes talked of games, of races; and men, fresh from seeing their fellows killed by balls on one side of the Ridge, joined those who, on the other side, were crying "Well bowled!" as wickets went down before other balls.
But in the city the unswept alleys fermented and festered in the vapors and odors which rose from the great mass of humanity pent within the rose-red walls. For the gates had been closed strictly save for those with permits to come and go. This was Bukht Khân's policy. Delhi was to stand or fall as one man. There was to be no sneaking away while yet there was time. So hundreds of sepoys protesting illness, hunger, urgent private affairs--every possible excuse for getting leave--were told that if they would not fight they could sulk. Starve they might, stay they should. The other Commanders-in-Chief, it is true, spent money in bribing mercenaries for one week's more fighting; but Bukht Khân only smiled sardonically. He had tried bugles and fifes, he had tried the drum-ecclesiastic; he was now trying his last stop. The vox humana of self-preservation.
In the city itself, however, the preservation of life took for the present another form, and never within the memory of man had there been such a pounding of pestles and mortars over leaf-poultices. The sound of it rose up at dawn and eve like the sound of the querns, mingling with the vox humana of grief as the eastern and southern gates were set wide to let the dead pass out, and allow the stores for the living to pass in.
It formed a background to the gossip at the wells where the women met to draw water.