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

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

She had not the faintest idea why he made this last remark; but it did not puzzle her, for she was occupied with his previous one. Sacrificed too much! That was true. He carried the scars of the knife upon him clearly. And the man who had just left her presence, who, for all his courtesy, had treated her so cavalierly? She was rather vexed with herself for feeling it, but a sudden sense of being a poor creature came over her. It flashed upon her that she could imagine a world without women--she was in one, almost, at that very moment--but not a world without men. Yet that ceaseless roar filling the air had more to do with women than men; it went more as a challenge of revenge than a stern recall to duty.

It was true. The men, working night and day in the batteries, thought little of men's rights, only of women's wrongs. Even General Wilson in his order had appealed to those under him on that ground only, urging them to spend life and strength freely in vengeance on murderers.

And they did. Down in the scented Koodsia Gardens the men never seemed to tire, never to shrink, though the shot from the city--not two hundred and fifty yards away--flew pinging through the trees above them. But the high wall gave cover, and so those off duty slept peacefully in the cool shade, or sat smoking on the river-terrace.

Thus, while the first battery, pounding away from the right at the Moree and Cashmere bastions, diverted attention, and the enemy, deceived by the feint, lavished a dogged courage in trying to keep up some kind of reply, a second siege battery in two sections was traced and made in front of Ludlow Castle, five hundred yards from the Cashmere gate. By dawn on the 11th both sections were at work destroying the defenses of the gate, and pounding away to breach the curtain wall beside it. So the roar was doubled, and the vibrations of the air began to quiver on the wearied ear almost painfully. Yet they were soon trebled, quadrupled. Trebled by a party of wide-mouthed mortars in the garden itself. Quadrupled by a wicked, dare-devil, impertinent little company of six eighteen-pounders and twelve small mortars, which, with Medley of the Engineers as a guide, took advantage of a half ruined house to creep within a hundred and sixty yards of the doomed walls despite the shower of shell and bullets from it. For by this time the murderers in the city had found out that the men were at work at something in the scented thickets to the left. Not that the discovery hindered the work. The native pioneers, who bore the brunt of it, digging and piling for the wicked little intruder, were working with the master, working with volunteers--officers and men alike--from the 9th Lancers and the Carabineers. So, when one of their number toppled over, they looked to see if he were dead or alive in order to sort him out properly. And if he was dead they would weep a few tears as they laid him in the row beside the others of his kind, before they went on with their work quietly; for, having to decide whether a comrade belonged to the dead or the living thirty-nine times one night, they began to get expert at it. So by the 12th, fifty guns and mortars flashed and roared, and the rumble of falling stones became almost continuous. Sometimes a shell would just crest the parapet, burst, and bring away yards of it at a time.

Up on the Ridge behind the siege batteries, when the cool of the evening came on, every post was filled with sightseers watching the salvos, watching the game. And one, at least, going back to get ready for mess, wrote and told his wife at Meerut, that if she were at the top of Flagstaff Tower, she would remain there till the siege was over--it was so fascinating. But they were merry on the Ridge in these days, and the messes were so full that guests had to be limited at one, till they got a new leaf in the table! Yet on the other slope of the Ridge, men were tumbling over like the stones in the walls. Tumbling over one after another in the batteries, all through the night of the 12th, and the day of the 13th.

Then at ten o'clock in the evening, men, sitting in the mess-tents, looked at each other joyfully, yet with a thrill in their veins, as the firing ceased suddenly. For they knew what that meant; they knew that down under the very walls of the city, friends and comrades were creeping, sword in one hand, their lives in the other, through the starlight, to see if the breaches were practicable.

But the city knew them to be so; and already the last order sent by the Palace to Delhi was being proclaimed by beat of drum through the streets.

So, monotonously, the cry rang from alley to alley.

"Intelligence having just been brought that the infidels intend an assault to-night, it is incumbent on all, Hindoo and Mohammedan, from due regard to their faith, to assemble directly by the Cashmere gate, bringing iron picks and shovels with them. This order is imperative."

Newâsi Begum, among others, heard it as she sat reading. She stood up suddenly, overturning the book-rest and the Holy Word in her haste; for she felt that the crisis was at hand. She had never seen Abool-Bukr since the night, now a whole month past, when he had taunted her with being one more woman ready for kisses. Her pride had kept her from seeking him, and he had not returned. But now her resentment gave way before her fears. She must see him--since God only knew what might be going to happen!