Part 23 (2/2)
”Steadier than I should,” remarked the other grimly. ”Well, I hope Smyth is satisfied. To return from leave and drive your regiment into mutiny in twelve hours is a record performance.”
His hearer, who was a civilian, gave a deprecating cough. ”That's a bit hard, surely. I happen to know that he heard while on leave some story about a concerted rising later on. He may have done it purposely, to force their hands.”
Jim Douglas shrugged his shoulders. ”Did he warn you what he was about to do? Did he allow time to prepare others for his private mutiny? My dear Ridgeway, it was put on official record two months ago that an organized scheme for resistance existed in every regiment between Calcutta and Peshawur; so Smyth might at least have consulted the colonels of the other two regiments at Meerut. As it is, the business has strained the loyalty of the most loyal to the uttermost; and we deserve to suffer, we do indeed.”
”You don't mince matters, certainly,” said the civilian dryly.
”Why should anybody mince them? Why can't we admit boldly--the C.-in-C. did it on the sly the other day--that the cartridges are suspicious? that they leave the muzzle covered with a fat, like tallow? Why don't we admit it was tallow at first. Why not, at any rate, admit we are in a hole, instead of refusing to take the common precaution of having an ammunition wagon loaded up for fear it should be misconstrued into alarm? Is there no medium between bribing children with lollipops and torturing them--keeping them on the strain, under fire, as it were, for hours, watching their best friends punished unjustly?”
”Unjustly?”
”Yes. To their minds unjustly. And you know what forcible injustice means to children--and these are really children--simple, ignorant, obstinate.”
They had come back to cantonments again and were rapidly overtaking the now empty tumbrils going home, for the parade was over. Further down the road, raising a cloud of dust from their shackled feet, the eighty-five were being marched jailward under a native escort.
”Well,” said the civilian dryly, ”I would give a great deal to know what those simple babes really thought of us.”
”Hate us stock and block for the time. I should,” replied Jim Douglas.
They were pa.s.sing the tumbrils at the moment, and one of the guard, in sergeant's uniform, looked up in joyful recognition.
”Huzoor It is I, Soma.”
The civilian looked at his companion oddly when, after a minute or two spent in answering Soma's inquiries as to where and how the master was to be found, Jim Douglas rode alongside once more.
”Out a bit, eh?” he said dryly.
”Very much out; but they are a queer lot. Do you remember the story of the self-made American who was told his boast relieved the Almighty of a great responsibility? Well, he is only responsible for one-half of the twice-born. The other is due to humanity, to heredity, what you will! That is what makes these high-caste men so difficult to deal with. They are twice born. Yes! they are a queer lot.”
He repeated the remark with even greater fervor twelve hours later, when, about midnight, he started on his return ride to Delhi. For though he had spent the whole day in listening, he had scarcely heard a word of blame for the scene which had roused him to wrath that morning. The sepoys had gone about their duties as if nothing had happened; and despite the undoubted presence of a lot of loose characters in the bazaar, there had been no disturbance. He laughed cynically to himself at the waste of a day which would have been better spent in horse dealing. This, however, settled it. If this intolerable tyranny failed to rouse action there could be no immediate danger ahead. To a big cantonment like Meerut, the biggest in Northern India, with two thousand British troops in it, even the prospect of a rising was not serious; at Delhi, however, where there were only native troops, it might have been different. But now he felt that a handful of resolute men ought to be able to hold their own anywhere against such aimless invertebrate discontent. He felt a vague disappointment that it should be so, that the pleasant cool of night should be so quiet, so peaceful. They were a poor lot who could do nothing but talk!
As he rode through the station the mess-houses were still alight, and the gay voices of the guests who had been dining at a large bungalow, bowered in gardens, reached his ears distinctly.
”It's the Sabbath already,” said one. ”Ought to be in our beds!”
”Hooray! for a Europe morning,” came a more boyish one breaking into a carol, ”of all the days within the week I dearly love----”
”Shut up, Fitz!” put in a third, ”you'll wake the General!”
”What's the odds? He can sleep all day. I'm sure his buggy charger needs a rest.”
”Do shut up, Fitz! The Colonel will hear you.”
”I don't care. It's Scriptural. Thou and thy ox and thy a.s.s----”
”You promised to come to evening church, Mr. Fitzgerald,” interrupted a reproachful feminine voice; ”you said you would sing in the choir.”
”Did I? Then I'll come. It will wake me up for dinner; besides, I shall sit next you.”
The last words came nearer, softer. Mr. Fitzgerald was evidently riding home beside someone's carriage.
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