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

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

So through the dew-hung fields the mysterious message sped west and south.

Sent by whom? And wherefore?

The question was being asked by the masters in desultory fashion as they sat round a bonfire, which blazed in the center of the Resident's camp, on the banks of the great jheel. It was a shooting camp, a standing camp, lavish in comfort. The white tents were ranged symmetrically on three sides of a square, and, in the moonlight, shone almost as brightly as the long levels of water stretching away on the fourth side to the sedgy brakes and isolated palms of the snipe marshes. Behind rose a heavy mass of burnished foliage, and in front of the big mess-tent the English flag drooped from its mast in the still night air. Nearer the jheel again the bonfire flashed and crackled, sending a column of smoke and sparks into the star-set sky. The ground about it was spread with carpets and Persian rugs, and here, in luxurious armchairs, the comfortably-tired sportsmen were lounging after dinner, some of them in mess uniform, some in civilian black, but all in decorous dress; for not only was the Brigadier present, but also a small sprinkling of ladies wrapped in fur cloaks above their evening fineries. Briefly, a company more suitable to the foyer of a theater than this barbaric bonfire. But the whole camp, with its endless luxury, stood out in keen contrast with the sordid savagery of a wretched hamlet which lay half-hidden behind the trees.

The contrast struck Jim Douglas, who for that evening only, happened to be the Resident's guest; for, having been on the jheel in a very different sort of camp when the Resident had invaded his solitude, the usual invitation to dine had followed as a matter of course; as it would have followed to any white face with pretensions to be considered a gentleman's. He had accepted it, because, every now and again, a desire "to chuck" as he expressed it, and go back to the ordinary life of his class came over him. This mood had been on him persistently ever since the Yama and Indra incident, so that, for the time being, he had dismissed his scoundrels and given up spying in disgust. He had, he told himself, wasted his time, and the military magnate was justified in politely dispensing with his further services. There was, in truth, no need for them so far as he could see. There was plenty of talk, plenty of discontent, but nothing more. And even that anyone could observe and gauge; for there was no mystery, no concealment. The whole affair was invertebrate utterly, except every now and again when you came upon the track of the Moulvie of Fyzabad. It was conceivable that the aspect might change, but for the present he was sick of the whole thing, ambition and all. Horse-dealing was better. So he had established himself in a small house in Duryagunj, started a stable, and then taken a holiday in a shooting pâl among the jheels and jungles, where in his younger days he had spent so much of his time.

Thus, after eating a first-class dinner, he was smoking a first-class cigar, and, being a stranger to everyone there, thinking his own thoughts, when the Resident's voice came from the other side of the fire which, with its dancing flame-light distorting every feature in myriad variation, disguised rather than revealed the faces seen by it.

"You have bagged one or two in your district, haven't you, Ford?"

"What, sir? Bustard?" inquired the Collector of the next district, who had come over his border for a day or two's shoot, and who had been engrossed in sporting talk with his neighbor. There was a laugh from the other side of the fire.

"No! these chupatties. The Brigadier was asking me if they were as numerous as they are further south, and Fraser, here, said none had come into the Delhi district as yet."

"One came to-day into the hamlet behind the tents," said Jim Douglas quietly. "I met the man bringing it. A watchman from over the border in Mr. Ford's district."

Half a dozen faces turned to the voice which spoke so confidently, and then asked in whispers who the man was? But there was nothing in the whispered replies to warrant that tone of imparting information to others, and a man in black clothes seemed to resent it, for he appealed to the Resident rather fulsomely.