Flora Annie Webster Steel

“ A look, a word, might bring death. It seemed to her incredible that she should have forgotten this, but she had. She had almost forgotten that they were living in a beleagured city, though the reverberating roll of artillery, the rush and roar of shells, and the crackle of musketry never ceased for more than a few hours at a time.
She was not alone, however, in her forgetfulness. Half Delhi had become accustomed to cannon, to bugles and fifes, and went on its daily round indifferently. But in the Palace the dream grew ominously thin once or twice. ”

“ The vision came first--the vision of the blessed Lord Ali seen by the muezzin. Wouldst make this time as other times, and deny the miracles by which it is attested as of God?"
"Miracles!" echoed Hâfzan. "I see no miracle in an old man on a camel."
The divine frowned. "Nor in a strange white bird with a golden crown, which hovered over the city giving the sacred cry? Nor in the fulfillment of Hussan Askuri's dream?"
Hâfzan burst into shrill laughter. "Hussan Askuri! Lo! Moulvie Mohammed Ismail, didst thou know the arch dreamer as I, thou wouldst not credit his miracles. ”

“ Kate rose also, as if to come nearer to her adversary, and so the two women stood looking boldly enough into each other's eyes. But the keenness, the passion, the pity of the scene had somehow gone out of it for Kate Erlton. Her tongue seemed tied by the tameness; she felt that they might have been discussing a trivial detail in some trivial future. Yet she fought against the feeling.
"I think there is a great deal to say; that is why I have come to say it," she replied, after a pause. "But I can say it quickly. You don't love my husband, Alice Gissing, let him go. Don't ruin his life." ”

“ He slipped from his horse without a word, and was about to pull the reins over her head so as to lead her, when Tiddu stopped short.
"Jhungi will take her to the rest-house, Huzoor, or Bhungi. It will be safer so. I have a clean cotton quilt in the bundle, and the Huzoor can have my shoes and rub his legs in the dust. That will do till dawn."
He gave a jackal's cry, which was echoed from the darkness.
"Leave her so, Huzoor! She is safe," said Tiddu; and Jim Douglas, as he obeyed, heard the mare whinny softly, as if to a foal, as a shadow came out of the bushes. Junghi or Bhungi, no doubt. ”

“ Newâsi's eyes had seen something day and night, night and day, ever since they had strained into the darkness after Prince Abool-Bukr when he broke from the kind detaining hand and disappeared from the Mufti's quarter. And that something was a flood of sunlight holding a figure, as she had seen it more than once, in a wild unreasoning paroxysm of sheer terror. It seemed to her as if she could hear those white lips gasping once more over the cry which brought the vision. "Why didst not let me live mine own life, die mine own death? but to die--to die needlessly--to die in the sunlight perhaps." ”

“ She knelt looking after him regretfully as, without a pause, he passed on his way. So that was a Swâmi! She went back to her corner--for already early visitors were drifting in for Sri Anunda's blessing--and with the bunch of henna-blossom on the ground before her sat thinking.
What an extraordinary face it was! So young, so old. So wise, so strangely innocent. Tara was right. It was not a man's face. Yet it could not be called angelic, for it was the face of a mortal. Yes! that was it, a mortal face immortal through its mortality; through the circling wheel of life and death. ”

“ It is a quaint, fanciful spot, this Delhi Ridge, even without the history of heroism crystallized into its very dust. A red dust which might almost have been stained by blood. A dust which matches that history, since it is formed of isolated atoms of rock, glittering, perfect in themselves, like the isolated deeds which went to make up the finest record of pluck and perseverance the world is ever likely to see. Perseverance and pluck which sent more Englishmen to die cheerfully in that red dust than in the defenses and reliefs of Lucknow, Cawnpore, and the subsequent campaigns all combined. ”

“ He loved the brocaded bags, he loved the new cushion of the Peacock throne; and though the cockatoo's crest was once more showing a yellow tinge through the green, the thought of jehâd lingered sanctimoniously. But other folk in the Palace were beginning to awake. Other people in Delhi besides Tiddu had heard that Nikalseyn was on his way from the Punjâb and not even the rose-red walls had been able to keep out his reputation. Folk talked of him in whispers. The soldiers, unable to retreat, unwilling to fight, swore loudly that they were betrayed; that there were too many spies in the city. ”

“ Such a life was manifestly impossible, and so, bit by bit, his plan grew. Yet, when it had grown, he almost shrank from it, so strange did it seem, in its linking of the past with the present. For Kate must pass as his wife--his sick wife, hidden, as Zora had been, on some terraced roof, with Tara as her servant; he, meanwhile, passing as an Afghan horse-dealer, kept from returning North, like others of his trade, by this illness in his house. The plan was perfectly feasible if Tara would consent. And Jim Douglas, though he ignored his own certainty, never really doubted that she would. ”

“ No native child was ever so ear-piercing, so wildly indignant. Kate, beside herself, tried soothings and force distractedly, in the midst of which an imperative voice called fiercely:
"Open the door quick, for God's sake! Anything's better than that."
For the moment, doubtless, Sonny's yells ending with victory; but another cry came sharp and short, as--the door giving under Kate's hasty fingers--two men tumbled over the threshold. Jim Douglas uppermost, his hands gripping the other's throat. ”

“ Mrs. Gissing interrupted her again; this time petulantly. "I told him it was a pity--I offered to go away anywhere. I did, indeed! And I couldn't do more, could I? But when a man gets a notion of honor into his head----"
"Honor!" interrupted Kate in her turn, "the less said about honor the better, surely, between you and me!"
The wide blue eyes looked at her doubtfully.
"I never can understand women like you," said their owner. "You pretend not to care, and then you make so much fuss over so little."
"So little!" retorted Kate, her temper rising. ”

“ For on the 6th of June as the sun set, a silhouette of a man on a horse stood clear against the red-gold in the west, looking down from the Ridge on Delhi. Looking down on the city bathed in the dreamy glamour of the slanting sunbeams; rose-red and violet-shadowed, with the great white dome hovering above the smoke wreaths, and a glitter of gold on the eastern wall, where, backed by that arcaded view of the darkening Eastern plains, an old man sat listening to sentiments of fidelity from a pile of little brocaded bags. ”

“ It had seemed brutal to dream of all this sometimes, while little Zora still lay in his arms smiling contentedly; but it was inevitable. And so, while he waited, watching with the dread growing at his heart for the flutter of the tinsel veil, the half-heard whisper "Khush amud-eed" (welcome) , it was inevitable also that the remembrance of his promise to Kate Erlton should invade, and as it were desecrate, his real regret for the silence that seemed to grow deeper every second. It had come too late--too late! There could be no solace in freedom now. ”

“ Newâsi looked at him disdainfully. "Can I not read, nephew, and are there many in Delhi as heedless as thou? Why, even the Mufti's people discuss such things."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Ay! they will talk. Gossip hath a double tongue and wings too, nowadays. In old time the first tellers of a tale had half forgot it, ere the last hearer heard it; now the whole world is agog in half an hour. But it means naught. Even his heirship. Who cares in Delhi? None!--out of the palace, none! Not even I. Yet mischief may come of it; so have naught to do with dreamings, Newâsi, if only for my sake. ”

“ It was a curious fatality which made Zeenut Maihl choose it, since all her arts, all her cunning, could scarcely have told her that it would ere long be a watch-tower, whence the chance of success or failure could be counted. For the white road beyond the bridge of boats, and trending eastward to the packed population of Oude, to Lucknow, to all that remained of the vitality in the Mohammedan dream, was to be ere long like a living, growing branch to which she, the spider, hung by an invisible thread, spinning her cobwebs, seemingly in mid-air. ”

“ For, as Jim Douglas paced slowly down the Mall toward Delhi, and Soma, his buckles gleaming, his belts pipe-clayed to dazzling whiteness, was swaggering through the bazaar on his way to the rest-house with his word of warning--the word which would have given Jim Douglas the power for which he had longed--another word was being spoken in that lane of lust, where the time had come for which Nargeeza had waited all day. But she did not say it. It was only a big trollop of a girl hung with jasmine garlands, painted, giggling.
"We of the bazaar kiss no cowards," she said derisively. ”

“ Jim Douglas, swerving his bullock to give them room, wondered if Tara were among them. What if she were? That lock of hair went with him. So, with a smile, he swerved the bullock back again. There was a hint of a gleaming river-curve through the lessening trees now, and that big black mass to his left must be the Bailey-guard gate. He could see a faint white streak like a sentry beside it; so it must be close on gunfire. Even as the thought came, a sudden rolling boom filled the silence, and seemed to vibrate against the archway. And hark! ”

“ 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. ”

“ A regiment steady as a rock, drawn up as for parade, absolutely in hand despite that strange new sound in the air. The sound which above all others gets into men's brains like new wine. The sound of a file upon fetters--the sound of escape, of freedom, of license! It had been rising unchecked for half an hour from the lines of the 3d, whither the martyrs had been brought in triumph. It was rising now from the bazaar, the city, from every quiet corner where a prisoner might pause to hack and hammer at his leg-irons with the first tool he could find. ”

“ Kate walked up and down the roof restlessly, passing into the outer one so as to be further from that eager sentinel and his criticisms. Tara was spinning calmly, and Kate wondered if the woman could be alive. Did she not know that brave men on both sides were going to their deaths? And Tara, from under her heavy eyelashes, watched Kate, and wondered how any woman who had brought Life into the world could fear Death. Did not the Great Wheel spin unceasingly? Let brave men, then, die bravely--even Soma. ”

“ Why had she not a man to deal with! Her henna-stained nails bit into her palms as she clenched her hands, then in sheer childish passion tore off her hampering veil and, rolling it into a ball, flung it at the head of a drowsy eunuch in the outside arcade--the nearest thing to a man within her reach.
"No sign yet, Hâfzan?" she asked fiercely.
"No sign, my Queen," replied Hâfzan, with an odd derisive smile. If they did not come now, thought this woman with her warped nature, they would come later on; come and put a rope round the necks of men who had laid violent hands on women. ”

“ Surely men in flight! Hurrah! Hurrah!
When Major Erlton returned from that wild charge it was to find that one splendid rush from the 75th Regiment had cleared the road to Delhi. The Murderers had been swept from their shelter, their guns--some fighting desperately, others standing stupidly to meet death, and many with clasped hands and vain protestations of loyalty on their lips paying the debt of their race. But one man had paid some other debt, Heaven knows what; and the Rifle Brigade cleared the road to Delhi of an English deserter fighting against his old regiment. ”

“ The gleam of the water-pot matched the dead gold circlets on the brown wrists and ankles; for Tara wore her savings thus, though she had no right to do so, being a widow. But she had been eight years in James Greyman's service; more than eight bound to him by the strangest of ties. He had been the means of saving her from her husband's funeral pyre; in other words of preventing her from being a saint, of making her outcaste utterly. Since none, not even other widows, would eat or drink with a woman rejected by the very gods on the threshold of Paradise. ”