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

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

They drenched Kate Erlton also, despite the arcaded trees above her corner as she sat with her face to the wall in the wide old garden. At first her heart beat at each step on the walk behind her, but she soon realized that she was hidden by her vow, happed about from the possibility of intrusion by her penance. But not many steps came by her; they kept chiefly to the other end of the garden where Sri Anunda was to be found. It was a curious experience. There was a yard of two of thatch, screened by matting and supported by bamboos, leaning not far off against the wall; and into this she crept at night to find the indulgence of a dry blanket. At first she felt inclined to seek its shelter when the rain poured loudly on the leaves above her and fell thence in big blobs, making a noise like the little ripe figs when the squirrels shook them down; but the remembrance that such women as Tara performed like vows cheerfully kept her steady. And after a day or two she often started to find it was already noon or dusk, the day half gone or done. Time slipped by with incredible swiftness in watching the squirrels and the birds, in counting the raindrops fall from a peepul leaf. And what a strange peace and contentment the life brought! As she sat after dark in the thatch, eating the rice and milk and fruit which Tara brought her stealthily, she felt, at times, a terrified amaze at herself. If she ever came through the long struggle for life, this surely would be the strangest part of the dream. Tara, indeed, used to remark with a satisfied smile that though the mem could not of course be suttee, still she did very well as a devoted and repentant wife. Sri Anunda could never have had a better penitent. And then, in reply to Kate's curious questions, she would say that Sri Anunda was a Swâmi. If the mem once saw and spoke to him she would know what that meant. He had lived in the garden for fifteen years. Not as a penance. A Swâmi needed no penance as men and women did; for he was not a man. Oh, dear no! not a man at all.

So Kate, going on this hint of inhumanity, and guided by her conventional ideas of Hindoo ascetics, imagined a monstrosity, and felt rather glad than otherwise that Sri Anunda kept out of her way.

She was eager also to know how long she might have to stay in his garden. The vow, Tara said, lasted for fifteen days. Till then no one would question her right to sit and look at the wall; and by that time Soma would have returned, and a plan for getting the mem away to the Ridge settled. For the master was evidently not going to return to the city; perhaps he had forgotten the mem? Kate smiled at this, drearily, thinking that indeed he might; for he might be dead. But even this uncertainty about all things, save that she sat and watched the squirrels and the birds, had ceased to disturb her peace.

As a matter of fact, however, he was thinking of her more than ever, and with a sense of proprietorship that was new to him. Here, by God's grace, was the one woman for him to save; the somebody to kill, should he fail, needing no selection. There were enough enemies and to spare within the walls still, even though they had been melting away of late. But a new one had come to the Ridge itself, which, though it killed few, sapped steadily at the vigor of the garrison. This was the autumnal fever, bad at Delhi in all years, worse than usual in this wet season, counterbalancing the benefit of the coolness and sending half a regiment to hospital one day and letting them out of it the next, sensibly less fit for arduous work. It claimed Jim Douglas, already weakened by it, and made his wound slow of healing.

"You haven't good luck certainly," said Major Erlton, finding him with chattering teeth taking quinine dismally. "I don't know how it is, but though I'm a lot thinner, this life seems to suit me. I haven't felt so fit for ages."

He had not been so fit, in truth. It was a healthier, simpler life than he had led for many a long year; and ever since John Nicholson had bidden him go back to his tent and sleep, even the haggardness had left his face; the restlessness having been replaced by an eager certainty of success. He was coming steadily to the front, too, so the Ridge said, since Nicholson had taken him up. And he had well deserved this, since there was not a better soldier; cool, stubborn, certain to carry out orders. The very man, in short, whom men like the General wanted; and if he stayed to the finish he would have a distinguished career before him.

But Herbert Erlton himself never thought of this; he hated thought instinctively, and of late had even given up thinking of the city. He never sat and watched the rose-red walls now. Perhaps because he was too busy. So he left that to Jim Douglas, who had nothing else to do, while he went about joyously preparing to accompany Nicholson in his next lesson of law and order.

For in the city it was becoming more and more difficult every day to make the lies pass muster, even in the Palace; and so, in despair, the four Commanders-in-Chief for once had laid their heads together and concocted a plan for intercepting the siege train from Ferozpur. So it was necessary that they should be taught the futility of such attempts. Not that even the Palace people really believed them possible. How could they? when almost every day, now, letters came to the Ridge from some member or another of the Royal family asking effusively how he could serve the English cause. Only the old King, revising his lists of precedence, listening still to brocaded bags, taking cooling draughts, making couplets, being cozened by the Queen, and breathed upon by Hussan Askuri, hovered between the policy of being the great Moghul and a poor prisoner in the hands of fate. But the delights of the former were too much for him as a rule, and he would sit and finger the single gold coin which had come as a present from Oude as if he were to have the chance of minting millions with a similar inscription.

"Bahâdur Shâh Ghâzee has struck upon gold the coin of Victory."

Even in its solitary grandeur it had, in truth, a surpassing dignity of its own in the phrase--"struck upon gold the coin of Victory." So, looking at it, he forgot that it was a mere sample, sent, as the accompanying brocaded bag said, with a promise to pay more when more victory brought more gold. But Zeenut Maihl, as she looked at it, thought with a sort of fury of certain gold within reach, hidden in her house. What was to become of these coins with John Company's mark on them? For she still lingered in the Palace. Other women had fled, but she was wiser than they. She knew that, come what might, her life was safe with the English as victors; so there was nothing but the gold to think of. The gold, and Jewun Bukht, her son. The royal signet was in her possession altogether now, and sometimes the orders, especially when they were for payment of money, had to go without it, because "the Queen of the World was asleep." But she did not dream. That was over; though in a way she clung fiercely to hope. So Ghaus Khân with the Neemuch Brigade, and Bukht Khân with the Bareilly Brigade, and Khair Sultân with the scrapings and leavings of the regiments, who, owning no leader of their own, did what was right in their own eyes, set out to intercept the big guns; and Nicholson set out on the dawn of the 25th to intercept them.