Devil's Wind (17 page)

“You can't be proud if you are in bits,” said Ernest, with the dogmatism of early youth.

But Helen replied that it all depended upon how you were made.

“Now, my left stocking was quite horribly proud—that was its disposition—and jealous too. It wanted to be a right-foot stocking.”

“How did you know it wasn't one?” asked Lucy.

“I didn't. They got mixed when they were babies, and no one ever, ever knew the truth, and now they are in bits, and no one ever will know, but I don't believe even being in bits will keep the left-hand stocking from being proud.”

“Oh!” said both the children, and Ernest made a gentle correction:

“Left foot—not left hand.”

“Of course,” said Helen very gravely, “I meant left foot”; and she continued to talk nonsense whilst the children listened and were magicked out of three parts of their suffering.

The interminable day passed through an hour of strange sunset splendour into night, and then the little company crawled out of their trench, and lay down in the open, where the air stirred a little and sleep might visit them.

The day's allowance of food was about half a pint of split peas and flour, which was served to all alike, and could be made into a sort of gruel. The day's allowance of water cost more than one man's life in every day. Even the wounded and the children had to endure the extremest pangs of thirst for hours at a stretch, for the well was the enemy's most constant mark, and even at night they fired upon it continually.

Helen never drank her scanty portion without remembering King David and the water from the well of Bethlehem which is beside the gate, poured out before the Lord, because, he said, “Is not this the blood of men that went in jeopardy of their lives?”

One day Helen woke in the hour before the dawn. Every limb ached from the day's cramped confinement and the contact with the hard, sunbaked ground at night. She rose, stretching herself, and began to walk up and down.

Overhead the stars were still bright against the blue-black arch of the sky, but gradually they grew dim, and the blue turned slowly to a faint misty grey.

Helen walked to and fro, moving softly, so as to disturb no one who could sleep. She felt a new restlessness which she could not explain.

Fifteen days of siege were past, and how many more were to come? She wondered how long their scanty food would last. Yesterday a rumour had gone round that a relieving force was close at hand. Helen tried to realise what it would mean if this were true. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps to-morrow relief would come.

She stared at the eastern sky, and saw how the darkness thinned and a faint flesh-coloured tinge spread upwards, whilst all along the horizon, the grey sky turned to a pale, clear, lily green.

Perhaps relief would come to-day. Perhaps it would come before the hidden sun had reached its terrible noon. Helen turned away. The fierce continued courage of the last fortnight, would it outlive relief and a return to the ordinary conditions of life? She felt as if the natural terror of death had changed into a sharper terror of living.

Life was a hard matter. She saw hers stretch before her unendurably grey and desolate, and she had a moment's passionate envy of the dead who lay in the well beyond the unfinished barracks. Only yesterday she had heard an Irishwoman pray in an anguish against the pains of death, but they ceased and had an end. How long—how long were the pains of life?

A dizziness came upon her as she looked ahead along the unmeasured years.

Far away a jackal called, and farther still another answered him. Then they fell silent, and through the silence came a faint sound. Helen stopped in her walk and listened. She saw a little stir run along the wall, and the man nearest her reached for his loaded musket. Through the listening hush came the clatter of hoofs, very sharp and clear, on the hard, parched ground. The noise of them jarred the stillness of that hour of truce. They came with a headlong rush, and a smell of stirred-up dust rose in the heavy air. The dim light yielded the flying vision of a horse, spurred to his utmost speed by some half-seen rider.

An outcry ran along the wall. The man near Helen fired. Two other shots rang out.

Then out of the morning dusk came a changing shape that seemed to scatter the dust and the darkness as it came. An English voice shouted, and the horse rose at the wall, and came crashing down with a bullet in its shoulder, whilst the rider flung himself clear, with a laugh and a cry of:

“Don't shoot! Don't shoot!”

There was a clamour then, and a crowding. Helen was pressed up against the wall. She leaned there, both hands on her heart, shaking from head to foot.

That shout had first stopped her pulses, and then set them racing—racing. A spasm of incredulous joy held her. It was a moment before she could push her way through the questioning men. The dawn was coming fast. The sunrise flowered in palest rose and amber. All the grey was gone.

Helen looked and saw Richard Morton's face cut clear against the sky. It was very hard and thin and brown, but she could see the blue of his eyes. His black hair was covered by a native turban, and his black brows made a thin straight line.

“I'm Morton, Deputy Commissioner of Urzeepore,” he was saying, and a man took hold of his hand and wrung it.

“You, Dampier? Do you know if my wife—if Miss Wilmot—” said Richard's voice, a hard steady voice.

Something in Helen Wilmot answered to the steadiness in that voice. She took a grip of herself and moved a pace forward. The men who were between her and Richard Morton fell away, and she came through them, and rested her hand on Dick's arm. “Adela is quite safe,” she said, and so they stood for a moment and each looked the other in the face.

CHAPTER XVII

HOW THE NANA SAHIB SWORE BY THE GANGES

The Rajput's word is a rock, but the false Mahratta's faith

Is the sand that shifts, and the dust that drifts, as the maker of Proverbs saith.

On the twenty-fifth of June, at sunset, the Nana Sahib held council. He had pitched a kingly camp under the trees of the Savada house, and the soft wavering shadows of their leafage lay slantwise across the white outer coverings of the many tents. Inside the Nana's tent, there was a riot of luxury. There were Persian carpets and wonderful embroidered silks. There was gold work from Delhi, and carving from Kashmir. A low wide native bed with silver legs was heaped with cushions of orange and vermilion. Amongst the cushions sat the Nana, cross-legged, with a string of pearls like hazel-nuts about his thick neck. They circled it three times, with the skin showing yellow between them, and then fell into his lap, and were lost amongst the folds of the white muslin which he wore.

The long tube of his hookah lay unheeded beside him, the ivory mouthpiece resting on a cracked china plate.

Every now and then he reached out his hand to a small silver tray at his elbow, and took up one of the little packets of leaf-enfolded betelnut which were piled upon it. His jaws worked with a slow, continuous motion, and the bright red juice stained his lips. Every now and then a drop ran out at the corner of his mouth, and dripped upon his fine white shirt, for in the past weeks he had taken much opium, and there was a haze about him.

He stared half sullenly through it. The west was reddening to the sun's descent. The air was hot and heavy. The Nana looked towards the sunset and frowned. There—yes, there had stood the hundred and seventeen Englishmen from Furruckabad. There they had stood. There they had died. He had had high words with Bala, his brother, about those Englishmen, but Bala had had his way. They had all died—some with a groan and some with a curse, some with a prayer and some quite silently. The dust covered their blood, and their wives and their little ones sat in slavery in the Savada house close by. Once in a while the Nana would send for one of them that she might sit for an hour or so and grind the corn for his horses' food. Such was the usage of conquerors; and was he not a conqueror and a king?

He fell to twisting the ring with the great ruby in it, which he always wore. The sunlight slanted across the mouth of the tent, and a faint breeze just stirred the looped-up curtains that hung there. They had the colour of spilled wine, and they were covered all over with an embroidery of silver stars and little golden fish.

Bala, the Nana's brother, sat by the right-hand curtain, with Tantia Topee beside him. Bala leaned on a crimson cushion. He had a long dagger across his knees, and his small, delicate fingers played with it all the time, following the fine gold tracery that was bitten into the steel. The sunlight followed it too, and shone on the ruby velvet scabbard, which lay on the carpet's edge.

Bala's look was alert. He sat well in view, and a man who was passing the tent salaamed to him, bending his whole body in abasement. And the Nana Sahib's heavy, sullen face grew heavier and more sullen still. The look of easy good-nature was gone from it, never to return.

Already the terror which haunts the Oriental despot had touched him with its finger. It was the sharpest terror of all, the terror of his own kin, and it watched beside him in the noon and in the midnight, and walked in all his ways from dawn to sunset. He looked at his brother Bala, and remembered that once already he had been forced to yield to him.

The Englishmen had been butchered, and the army—the army had applauded. Since then they had grown restive. Only two days ago they had been beaten back from the entrenchment with great loss. Now they murmured openly. They said they would attack no more. There was talk of going to Delhi. There were rumours of a mutiny within a mutiny. And Bala smiled, and sat with his dagger on his knees, whilst all men bowed themselves to the earth before him.

Dhundoo Punth made an abrupt movement with the hand that wore the ruby, and spoke in a thick voice:

“They are devils, these English. They will never surrender. Why do we sit here and wait?”

Azimullah stroked his beard. His keen glances had been going from one brother to the other. He noted now that Tantia Topee scarcely turned his head to listen to the Nana's words. Bala had some plan, he knew that, and he had begun to wonder whether the time had come to change masters. He was not sure, and until he was sure he would do nothing.

“Why do we sit and wait?” repeated Dhundoo Punth heavily.

“The army asks that,” said Tantia, and Jowala Pershad, the new commander of the forces, nodded, and echoed the words. He sat opposite to Tantia, and they looked at one another. The Nana seemed to rouse himself. He met Azimullah's eyes for a moment, and began to say his lesson as he had learned it.

“Why should we kill our men? Why should we sit here and wait any longer? Let us offer them terms. Let us say that we will give them boats, that they may go down to Allahabad. They will accept gladly, since there is no longer food enough for the half of them.”

“He whom we caught yesterday, Shepherd, the half-caste, he said there was food enough, and to spare,” said Bala.

“Yes, and he looked like a starved jackal,” returned Azimullah.

“That is true,” said Jowala Pershad. “Also, the women servants who were taken three days before, they said that there was no food and no water, and that the women and the children died like the flies die when the cold comes. It was on that account that they tried to escape. Their words were true. If they had not been very much afraid, they would not have dared to come out of the entrenchment. Only a very great fear will cause a woman to forget a lesser fear.”

“And, therefore,” said the Nana, “therefore I say they will all come out gladly if we say that we will send them to Allahabad.”

Baba Bhut looked up in his heavy way. He had grown stouter, and his hands, which were folded before him, rested on roll upon roll of flesh.

“Ai, brother,” he said, “will you then let them go? What profit is there in letting them go?”

Bala flashed him a glance of contempt, but Azimullah said politely:

“I do not think that the lord's meaning is such.”

Tantia Topee moved impatiently.

“We will let them go,” he broke in. “Oh, yes, we will let them go to hell.”

A laugh went round. Baba Bhut looked stupidly from one to the other. Then he took up the mouthpiece of his hookah, and began to smoke, swaying a little as he did so, with half-closed eyes. Bala shifted his position, turning towards his brother. The movement brought his head and shoulders into strong relief against the glare of the sunset.

“They will not come out,” he said.

“And why do you say that, lord?” asked Azimullah.

Dhundoo Punth leaned forward, spat a mouthful of the red betel juice into a golden spittoon, and said loudly:

“Why should they not come out? Do they wish to die? Do they wish to stay until they can count all their ribs, until even the vultures and the jackals will refuse them? I say they starve, and if they were not devils, they would have surrendered long ago. Did we not say to the army that the entrenchment should be theirs in three days? Have not twenty days gone by? Will the men go to the assault again?”

He looked at Jowala Pershad, who cast down his eyes.

“If the army will not go in and take them, then I say, I will bring them out, and deliver them to the army. We will order boats. And we will promise them food and a safe-conduct to Allahabad. They will come out gladly. Then, when they are come to the boats, we will kill the men and save the women and children alive. These are good words.”

Bala smiled sneeringly.

“What is this that you say? If any are killed, then all should be killed; where there is a woman, there are sharp eyes and a long tongue. Let them all be killed. Then we shall have peace.”

“That is true,” observed Tantia, and Azimullah nodded, and quoted the poet Sa'adi:

“‘It is not wise to put out the fire and keep alive one spark, or to crush the serpent and to feed the serpent's young.'”

The Nana's eyes flashed.

“Who is the master?” he exclaimed angrily. “If I say I will save the women, then I will save them. If I give the men into your hands, have I not done more than the whole army could accomplish?”

“They will not come out. They will not believe,” said Bala, playing with his unsheathed dagger.

Dhundoo Punth spat again, and waved his hands. Bala had killed a hundred, he would kill a thousand men. Then the army would see who was their lord. Then he would, go to Bithoor in triumph, and take his seat upon the throne of the Peishwas. Then the Brahmins would affix the sacred tilka to his forehead, and the army, drunk with slaughter, enriched with silver coins and golden armlets, would acclaim him as their king.

“They will believe,” he said. “I will swear to them upon the Ganges. Upon the burning oil I will swear that they shall go down to Allahabad in safety.”

Baba Bhut withdrew the mouthpiece of his hookah and stared into his brother's face.

Jowala Pershad stood up, salaaming.

“Maharaja, would you break the oath upon the Ganges?” he said, and Azimullah covered his mouth with his hand, as he too looked at the Nana and waited for his reply.

The Nana threw out his hands as if pushing something tangible away.

“What is an oath to an enemy!” he exclaimed.

Jowala Pershad salaamed again.

“Maharaja, if the troopers hear that you have sworn by the Ganges and afterwards that oath is broken, their minds will be troubled. They will expect some great misfortune—and when an army expects misfortune, misfortune will surely come.”

The Nana's manner became suave.

The smile that had caused generals and commissioners to trust him parted his stained lips.

“You will tell those whom it may concern that this is a sacred cause,” he said softly. “To annihilate an enemy, any means are lawful. That is the creed. At such a time as this, a hundred artifices may be employed and any oath may be taken. Is it not to save the lives of Brahmins? This is a lawful expedient. These are true words. Also, when it is finished, and these insolent English are blotted out, I will give presents. To every man a rupee and a golden bangle. Tell them that this is my order. Ask them also what kind of face they will show to God, if they are guilty of any neglect in this matter. Do they wish to wait idly until the English send more regiments from England? Do they desire to be made Christians of? Tell them all these words.”

He gave a sweep of his hand, and said:

“You have my leave to depart.”

Then as Jowala Pershad and Tantia Topee went out, he took another of the little green folded packets of betel-nut and crushed it between his strong and even teeth. The red juice ran out and dripped upon his hand.

In the dim and failing light which came all red from the crimson west, the stains upon hand and dress showed prophetic, like the stains of half-dried blood.