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

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

"The mem must wait here," whispered Tara at last, pausing behind one of the ungainly mausoleums in what had been the old Christian cemetery. "When she hears me singing Sonny-baba's song, she must follow to the Water-gate. It is behind the ruins, there."

Kate crouched down, setting her back, native fashion, against the tomb. And as she waited she wondered idly what mortal lay there; so, being strangely calm, she let her fingers stray to the recess she felt behind her. There should be a marble tablet there; and even in the dark she might trace the lettering. But the recess was empty, the marble having evidently been picked out. So it was a nameless grave. And the next? She moved over to it stealthily, then to the next. But the tablets had been taken out of all and carried off--for curry-stones most likely. So the graves were nameless; those beneath them mortals--nothing more. As she waited under the stars, her mind reverted to Sri Anunda and the Wheel of Life and Death. The immortality of mortality! Was that the lesson which was to let her go in peace?

She started from the thought as that native version of the "Happy Land" came, nasally, from behind the ruins. As she passed them, a group of men were squatted gossiping round a hookah, and more than one figure passed her. But a woman with her veil drawn, and a clank of anklets on her feet, did not even invite a curious eye; for it was still early enough for such folk to be going home.

Then, as she passed down a flight of steps, a hand stole out from a niche and drew her back into a dark shadow. The next minute, with a low whisper, "There is no fear! Sri Anunda hath said it. Go in peace!" she felt herself thrust through a door into darkness. But a feeble glimmer showed below her, and creeping down another flight of steps, she found herself outside Delhi, looking over the strip of low-lying land where in the winter the buffaloes had grazed beneath Alice Gissing's house, but which was now flooded into a still backwater by the rising of the river. And out of it the stunted kikar and tamarisks grew strangely, their feathery branches arching over it. But to the left, beyond the Water Bastion, rose a mass of darker foliage--the Koodsia Gardens. Once there she would be beyond floods, and Tara had said there was a boat. Kate found it, moored a little further toward the river--a flat-bottomed punt, with a pole. It proved easier to manage than she had expected; for the water was shallow, and the trunks and branches of the trees helped her to get along, so that after a time she decided on keeping to that method of progress as long as she could. It enabled her to skirt the river bank, where there were fewer lights telling of watch-fires. Besides, she knew the path by the river leading to Metcalfe House. It might be under water now; but if she crept into the park at the ravine--if she could take the boat so far--she might manage to reach Metcalfe House. There was an English picket there, she knew. So, as she mapped out her best way, a sudden recollection came to her of the last time she had seen that river path, when her husband and Alice Gissing were walking down it, and Captain Morecombe----

Ah! was it credible? Was it not all a dream? Could this be real--could it be the same world?

She asked herself the question with a dull indifference as she struggled on doggedly.

But not more than two hours afterward the conviction that the world had not changed came upon her with a strange pang as she stood once more on the terrace of Metcalfe House with English faces around her.

"By Heaven, it's Mrs. Erlton!" she heard a familiar voice say. It seemed to her hundreds of miles away in some far, far country to which she had been journeying for years. "Here! let me get hold of her--and fetch some water--wine--anything. How--how was it, Sergeant?"

"In a boat, sir, coming hand over hand down at the stables. She sang out quite calmly she was an English-woman, and----"

"Then--then they touched their caps to me," said Kate, making an effort, "and so I knew that I was safe. It was so strange; it--it rather upset me. But I am all right now, Captain Morecombe."